"What the Hades do you want?" The young woman with red hair glared at him with burning green eyes.

The tall dark morph smiled awkwardly. "I am sorry to disturb you," he said formally, "but I have need of assistance."

"Well, why waste your time coming to us then?" Kataryna asked. "You tried to kill me last time you paid me a visit!"

"I promise I shall not attempt that this time."

"Yes, because you’re leaving now, or I’ll have my Pokemon escort you out!"

"Please!" Azrael’s tone verged on despairing, something he would have avoided at all costs before. "I need help. I need you to look after someone for me." He reached out, grasping Mystik by the hand. Currently she was staring at a small Eevee. The Eevee was staring back at her. Both were locked, until Azrael dragged her away. He directed her to stand in front of him.

"This," he said, "is Mystik, now she has said that something bad is going to happen to the Island Haven. I wish to investigate. However, it is a little hard for me to investigate with a child tagging along. So I’d like to leave her with you." He paused, "please?"

"He’s genuine," came a voice from behind Kataryna, and the young man appeared. On their previous meeting he had seen through the assassin’s façade easily, and so his opinion was obviously trust-worthy.

Kataryna frowned. "Well, if you say so," she replied, still sounding doubtful. "You may leave the child with us. But you may not enter. And if you raise a hand against me again, I shall destroy you shamelessly."

Azrael rose his hands in surrender. "So be it," he replied, "I require only your assistance, not your friendship." He pushed Mystik towards them. "Her name is Mystik. She rarely talks and doesn’t seem too in touch with reality either. I’ll be back in a few days, if I’m not, I’m dead and you will have to look after her yourself."

He bowed his head. "Anyway, fare well, look after her," he turned and walked away.

"Wait!" Came a voice from the side, and another man stepped around the corner. A familiar man. The Eevee immediately bounded towards him, rubbing around his feet like a cat.

Azrael turned. "What?"

"I’ll come with you," the blue haired man stated.

"Eevee?" The Eevee asked.

"Why?" Azrael asked flatly. He remembered he had slewn this man once – or had thought himself responsible for his death. "I work better alone."

James shrugged. "Because if what you say is true, the Island Haven is at risk, and if it is destroyed, everything we have striven for is lost, pointless. I must help. Even though the thought of doing so reviles me."

Azrael stared at him, his violet eyes glistening with well disguised gratitude. "I shall allow you to accompany me," he replied, "but I do some things better by myself. I am, after all, trained in the arts of silence and stealth."

"We must travel to the Team Rocket centre of activity," James said with a gulp, "and spy. Such a thing is frightening, but must be done."

The assassin nodded. "We must leave today."

*

The dark assassin and the blue-haired man crouched on the hilltop, staring at the great building that rested amongst the hills like some great slumbering beast. Azrael could not help but notice that James seemed to continuously be watching him, as though waiting for any sign of betrayal. Indeed, the assassin suspected that the only reason he had accompanied himself in the first place was because he did not trust the Burakki to leave by himself, and not linger around, seeking harm on his friends. James crouched down, resting one hand on the head of the little Eevee.

Azrael sighed. He could understand why James had come, but not why the man had brought his pet along as well. All that could happen to the Eevee would be that it would die horribly, or worse, be captured and then Changed. It would at the least, be a risk and cause distraction to the both of them. Something they could ill afford.

"Allow me to do the subterfuge," Azrael prompted, "as I am surely better skilled at such things then you."

"So," James pondered, "you know all about alarm systems and how to override them then, do you?"

Azrael gave him a long look, with scorn on his face. "Of course I do," he replied, a touch of bitterness in his voice, "what do you think I am? An amateur?"

James actually looked embarrassed. "Sorry," he muttered, "but you don’t look like a alarm system expert."

"I’m not," Azrael replied haughtily, "I use a different technique. You shall see!"

"Very well, do you wish me to accompany you?"

Azrael nodded. "Two pairs of eyes are better then one," he replied, "and I trust you know your way around and can move with some semblance of stealth?"

James nodded and scowled at him. "What do you take me for?"

"A human," Azrael glanced away.

The two of them made their way down the hill towards the high fence, adorned as it was with coils of razorwire. A sign hung from it, proclaiming it to be electrified.

"Now what?" James asked, putting his hands on his hips and looking at Azrael, waiting for the assassin to prove himself, Azrael suspected.

He smiled. "Well, we could climb it, but I would think that it just a little bit dangerous. So we wait. Follow me."

Wrapping his black cloak about himself, Azrael stalked along the fence line. There was nothing on the other side but a few shrubs and the stark white walls of the laboratory. Nothing stirred. James hastily walked behind, but the Burakki ignored him.

After a short while, they came into sight of a gate, and a guard booth. The gate was, naturally, shut and the guard at the booth was glancing about himself attentively.

Azrael snarled as James dragged him out of sight behind a shrub.

"Now what?" He queried.

"Now we wait," Azrael replied enigmatically, crouching down. Puzzled, the human followed his move.

And they waited.

The assassin was used to remaining in the same position for lengthy periods of time, and his legs made no protest, but after about ten minutes, he saw that James was ailing. The man was obviously not used to crouching and would likely move. Azrael had timed everything right, so that he could make his move – they had been watching the Laboratory for the last three days. Suddenly he heard an engine with his sensitive ears. He turned and nodded to James. The blue-haired man slipped out from beneath the shrub and straightened himself up as the car came up to them. It was a sports type car. Instantly, James stepped out partway into the road, putting his thumb up as if hitch-hiking. The car, naturally, did not stop, but it had to slow down to get around him, and suddenly Azrael sprang out from his cover and onto the bonnet, his long fingers grasping the edge of the bonnet. They were conveniently hidden from the guard booth by a winding road and a small plot of trees. The man slammed on his brakes, startled, but Azrael’s grip was firm. His eyes blazed red for a moment as he used the powers of Darkness to bring the car into a halt halfway into the ditch. James hastened afterwards, clambering over the roof of the car to get to driver’s side. The front window of the car suddenly shattered as the driver drew a gun and shot at Azrael. Almost at that instant, the Burakki morphed so that as a target, he was somewhat smaller. Using the twilight to his advantage, he leapt from his tangled heap of clothing and vanished, reappearing in the man’s lap, where he changed form again. Needless to say, it rather surprised the driver to have a naked Burakki appear in his lap, and he hesitated for a moment, it was just the moment the assassin needed. One hand snapped out, twisting the man’s wrist so that his hand spasmed and the gun tumbled to the floor, where it detonated, driving a hole through into the engine. At the same instant, he took a concentration of dark energy and pushed it into the man’s head, bringing forth his feelings of despair and anguish. Already terrified, the man’s eyes rolled to show the whites and he began gibbering in fear.

"Don’tkillme, pleaseddon’tkillme! I’llhelpyou… whatdoyouwant? Money? Drugs?"

Azrael smiled slyly.

"Information."

The side door opened as James reached the two of them. The man, so paralyzed was he by fear, almost slid out the door. He was an older man, in his mid fifties, with grey hair, and a retreating hairline.

"Please don’t hurt me," he was almost whispering now, "I have children and a wife, please no!"

Azrael shuddered. As part of the attack, he had received a brief flash of the man’s fears, and they had torn into his soul. This man had imagined coming home and finding his children murdered and his wife bound to the bed, her throat slit. It had been only a brief second for the both of them, but even the assassin had to blink to clear the image from his head. It had definitely unnerved him. He could not remember that happening before – perhaps he was slipping now he was engaging in his given occupation less.

Luckily James had not received a dark psychic backlash and he grabbed the man and dragged him from the car.

"Now," he said, "we just require some knowledge – what is Giovanni scheming?"

The man stared at him, his face clearly showing a lack of comprehension. "Who?"

"Your boss!" Azrael snarled. "He has asked you to increase your work on the morphs, right? Why?" His eyes blazed with fire. "You don’t want to think of your family, do you?"

"Um…" James asked quietly, "is this entirely necessary?"

"Of course!" Azrael snapped back, knowing that he was too snappy, too quick for it to be anything but a denial. "Tell me!"

The man was biting his lip now, blood trickled down the side of his chin. He whimpered. "I don’t know…"

Despair washed over Azrael. Perhaps this man did know nothing, perhaps he would have to enter the complex all by himself. It was a place he did not really desire returning to. It had been several months since he had shown his face to his past employer and he was a little nervous about showing his face there again.

And that was the understatement of the century. He tightened his grip on the man’s shoulders.

"Okay, okay!" The man sounded horrendously flustered, and Azrael could not be surprised. "I’ll tell you what I do know, but it isn’t a lot! We’ve been making lots of creatures like you," he nodded at Azrael, "only, really powerful ones such as Gyrados, Charizard and those sorts." He shuddered. "I think," he paused for a moment, "I think there’s going to be an army."

Azrael gulped. This boded most poorly indeed. "Why?"

"I dunno, I just… please, let me go, my wife, my children!"

James looked at Azrael pleadingly.

Azrael nodded. "In a moment, please, can you tell me when?"

The man’s eyes were very white now, his face draining of colour. "Soon, a week…" He whispered. "Or that, that’s what I heard! Please…"

It was more than the assassin could cope with – he was an assassin, not a torturer, not a fiend. He scrambled backwards, thus releasing the man.

"You are free to go," he replied, "but speak of this to noone, or your dreams will be tormented."

The man nodded, and scrambled to his feet, James stepped aside to let him past and he sprinted off, towards the laboratories. Azrael sighed. He had been bluffing – unless he followed the man, he could not influence his dreams.

"Well, I hope you got what you wanted to know," James scowled. His green eyes said it all – he ill approved of the assassin’s method.

Azrael shrugged. He had hoped for more, but the entire event had shaken him. He was not about to tell the human that though. "All I’m going to get," he replied, "come on, let us return home."

"It’s not your home," James muttered, thinking the assassin could not hear him.

But, with his sharp hearing, the assassin heard it easily and it too, sent a chill inside him. He had no home, no anything. He was nothing now. He had to redeem himself, and he would do anything in his power to do so.