Knock

Suddenly a knock woke the young man from his trance state, glancing at the door, through the corner of his eye, for a short moment before returning his attention to the task at hand.

Kain: Yes?

Brrr

The door creaked loudly, due to how broken down and crooked it was, with Maria stepping inside and closed the door, causing the same horrible sound.

Maria: Dinner is ready.

Kain: Alright.

Maria: ….

Kain: ….

Silence filled the room as neither of them said anything, with Kain continued focusing on the knife, he was sharpening, while Maria being curious started to approach his back slowly.

Looking at what he was doing together with the things spread neatly through the room, it almost seemed that he was going on a quest to kill someone or something. Knives, rope, supplies of all kinds.

Maria: What are you--

Kain: What do you want?

Maria: Huh?

Kain interrupted her swiftly without taking his eyes from the knife he was sharpening, Maria was a little bit taken back from the seriousness in his voice.

Maria: I wanted to ask you something, but it seems that now isn't the right time. Can you tell me what is causing you to be so serious, and what is all of this for?

Kain: Nothing that you need to concern yourself it.... for now. If you want, you can take me to school.

Maria: Now? Isn't it a bit late?

Confusion was clear in her face as she asked the question. For someone to not go to school during the day, and suddenly want to go at night. Was there some night school classes that she didn't know about?

Kain: Not now.

Maria: Oh, then tomorr--

Kain: Around eleven pm should be enough.

Maria: ….

Kain: ….

Maria said nothing as she couldn't see through the young man, that continued focused on his tasks.

Maria: Sure. Don't forget that dinner is ready.

Walking to the door, she was about to close the door behind her, when the voice of Kain travelled to her ears.

Kain: You shouldn't focus on getting them to college.

Maria: Huh?

Kain: I can guess what you wanted to ask of me. In my opinion you should just put that aside and be with them. Time is more limited than you think, than you all think. Of course, this is just my opinion and nothing else.

Maria: ….

Kain: I for one wouldn't like for my last moments and words to be that of a discussion or fight.

Maria stayed silent through the entire time while looking at his back. The serious tone of him caused her to think things over while she closed the door and moved to the kitchen.

Maria: "What was he talking about?"

Reaching the hallway, in the ground floor, she made her way to the living room/kitchen area, where Sarah and Laura were sitting at the dinning table.

A sorry sight laid before her, since Laura was the only one to have not touch her plate and seemed to be waiting.

Laura: Mom, where is Kain?

Maria: He said that he would take a minute. "First, he offers to help me and he does, now he is telling me to forget about it. He is.... crazy."

[23:00 PM]

Maria and Kain were in her car going towards the high-school of the city. Gazing to the side, she couldn't make a guess about his choice of clothing. A pair of black sport sneakers, that looked pretty battered and used; a pair of blue jeans, that one was able to deduce it had a couple of years; a black shirt or t-shirt, she didn't know what it was precisely since it was concealed under a black jacket with multiple pockets, that seemed to be full with stuff.

Neither of them spoke during the whole car ride, until they reached the deserted education building.

Kain: I am going. In the case I don't return in 15 minutes, you should just forget and go home.

Maria: Huh? What are you talking about?

Kain didn't give an answer to her question. Picking his backpack, that was between his legs, he stepped out of the car, leaving behind a curious Maria.

Before Maria could go after him, he quickly made his way past the metal gate leaving the frozen Maria behind.

Maria: …. he is joking with me.

Although Maria said such, she, herself, didn't believe it. From the serious in his tone and expression, she felt that he wasn't lying or trying to trick her. She didn't know what to think of the current situation, was she supposed to follow him? Then what? Considering how crazy of a madman he was, he could very well just beat her up on the spot, although she would be just trying to help him.

Meanwhile, Kain was already inside the school building, slowly rotating his arms around. He had just broken in by smashing the lock of a window with a hammer.

Kain: Huh? The school isn't empty?

Just as he was making his way towards the principal's office, sounds were coming from there, like a conversation.

Kain: …. mmmm.... I didn't expect for someone to still be here....

Muttering lowly, he changed directions to the school cafeteria before smashing the glass counter, of the bar, with his hammer.

Crash

The sound of glass breaking was heard through the entire school building, reaching even the anxious Maria outside, that became even more worried at the sudden sound coming from the school building.

Kain didn't remain idle after breaking the glass counter, he moved quickly making his way out of there.

Standing behind a pillar, of the south-west hall. He heard two others, besides him, in the school.

One of the voices, he recognized it to be the principal himself as for the other one... he felt that it was a bit familiar but couldn't, accurately, tell who it belonged to.

Peeking from the corner of the pillar, he saw two shadowy figures making their way to the cafeteria. Quickly picking up his pace, he went to the open principal office. Reaching there, he looked intensely at the scorching golden question mark.

Kain: "There are so many things that could go wrong.... this could just transfer my spirit and leave my body behind for those two.... they could find Maria outside..."

Shaking his head to disperse his useless thoughts, he touched the golden question mark. It wasn't like thinking about it now and wasting precious time would help him in any way, instead it would waste the little time he had got before the two shadowy figures return and catch him red-handed.

0000000000

Hidden Locations – Dungeon

The beginning

Do you want to enter? (3/3)

Yes/No

0000000000

Kain: yes.

A white glow enveloped Kain before receding into the golden question mark, leaving the office barren and silent.

[The Beginning]

Opening his eyes and looking around in confusion, Kain saw that he was at the entrance of the school.

Kain: There is something wrong.

Looking up he found the sky to be completely black and... twisting? It brought an eerie feeling to him, especially the fact of how a certain illumination could be noticed in the surroundings. The source? He had no idea.

Reaching into his backpack he retrieved two small knives while crouching down.

Kain: ... it's based on the school building. "How should I do this?"

Stepping inside the school building, he found that it was completely dark. He couldn't see anything past 3~5 meters of distance. Breathing a little to calm his nerves down, he moved towards the south-west hall, while keeping his movements small and as less noisy as possible.

cr

Suddenly hearing a sound, he quickly rushed to the pillar, pushing his back against the pillar while crouching down and holding tightly on the small knives, as he tried listening attentively to see if he could discern where the sound was coming from.

creak

Kain: "That sounds like its coming.... from the cafeteria...."

creak

Just when he was going to check what was making that sound, he heard multiple similar sounds coming from where he had just come from, and from the opposite side as well. In other words, he was trapped like a rat.

Without hesitation, he quickly rushed into the cafeteria. He didn't want to try and bet on going unnoticed by whatever was approaching.

He would rather try and deal with the one in the cafeteria and hold his ground there. It was a far better choice, considering it was in a closed space. Cutting off the possibility of, whatever it was, having the chance to surround him.

After all, it was far easier to use a shield to block one direction, than having to constantly paying attention to one' surroundings and attempt to use that shield to defend from all sides.

Reaching the cafeteria, he was slightly taken back by the sight before him. It wasn't that the fact of the creature glaring at him was horrendous or terrifying.... it was just a little bit familiar to him, a memory he had from his childhood.

Kain: A rattata?

Standing just a few meters from him, devouring the whole stock of food in the bar, was a small, quadrupedal rodent creature. It had purple fur with a cream-colored face and paws. Its narrowed eyes, containing white sclera and red irises, rounded ears, with cream-colored insides, and a single whisker on each cheek. It's tail slightly curled at the end, and its most noticeable feature being the large teeth.

CREA---

Just as Kain noticed the rodent, it also noticed him. It immediately jumped to the top glass counter, of the bar, and started to screech loudly. Although it's show was cut short by two knives striking it off, the counter, and collapsing in the ground.

Kain didn't waste time, he quickly made his way to the counter, of the bar, and retrieved the two knives from the corpse of the rattata, while picking up several other ones from the ground.

He knew better than anyone else how 'good' his throwing skills were, so he compensated quality with quantity. If he couldn't hit them with one, then he would throw two, three, four....

Just as he was about to step out from behind the glass counter, a group of three rattata made their way into the cafeteria.

whoosh

Without any the delay, he immediately threw every knife he was holding onto at the emerging group. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to take out any of them and just managed to injure two of them.

whoosh

Breathing out, he reached into two pockets of his jacket, unbuttoned them, and retrieved another couple of small knives before throwing them while sliding backwards.

The, only, uninjured one quickly bypassed the flying small knives with incredible agility, barely losing any momentum. As for the other two, they couldn't escape the incoming attack with their injuries, that caused their reactions to slow down and be hit by the torrent of incoming knives.

This time around, Kain didn't get more small knives, since the rattata was already close enough of him.

Removing his backpack, he hurled it at the approaching rattata, that immediately avoid the incoming object by jumping to the side.

puff

Unfortunately for the purple rodent, Kain was waiting for it already swinging down a large knife, severing the rattata into two halves.

Kain: pfff..... no time to waste.

Breathing to regain his strength and calm his nerves, he dragged the corpses of the rattatas to the backside of the counter, while picking up his small knives, with several chipped at the edge or even broken. His muscles ached in pain with each movement he took, especially the ones of his arms. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth, to bare through the pain, and continue to complete his tasks.

Without pain and effort, he wouldn't be able to live his new life.

Kain: "I have to be careful of any move. If I remember correctly the most basic move should be Tackle."

Sitting on the floor, beside the corpse pile, of purple rodents, he leaned on the wall, while clenching his thirst with a water bottle, that he had brought in his backpack.

Just then he noticed something from the corner of his eye.

Kain: ….

The corpse pile was gone, with only a single rattata remaining that was glowing in a weak white light, that covered its entire body, as it changed into the shape of a ball.

Kain: Huh? No way... hahaha

Not being able to control himself from laughter, Kain grasped the object, in the shape of a ball. It was a perfect ball, separated in the middle with a black stripe and a white button, with the top half of the ball red and the bottom half white.

It was a Poke ball. One of the most common and brilliant items introduced in the Pokémon series and games.

Observing it, while rotating it in his hand, a smirk surfaced in his face as he grasped it tightly.

Kain: This just became a lot interesting.

Putting the poke ball in his backpack, he walked towards the exit of the cafeteria.

Kain: mmmm.... I should set up some traps in the staircases, before beginning to clear the first floor.

Making his mind about what to do, he began to walk towards the staircase, in the south-west corner of the school. It was a strange layout the school building had overall, but he attributed it to the giant size of the school. Not to mention that it wasn't the weirdest fact of the school.

This school building, besides being next to the building that was a fusion of Kindergarten and Primary-School, was also a kind of fusion of Middle-School and High-School, implying that the size of the school needed to be bigger.

This were things he attributed to it being in an isolated island. It was to the point of not existing an university in the island and for the younglings to continue pursuing higher education they would have to travel by boat out of the island to the nearest continent.

Even though this would be quite a challenge to do and accomplish, Maria, for example, was ready to risk it all for her daughters obtain a college degree.

Taking all of this into account, and the fact of the school building being a new one, the school had a total of six staircases, with five of them in the first floor and one in the second floor, that led to the roof.

On his way, to the south-west staircase, he encountered another group of rattatas, this time four of them. He made quick work of them, by simply luring them to narrow spaces, so that they wouldn't surround them and reducing the space they could have to dodge.

There was something that he found odd in all of his fights till now, and that was the fact that despite the creatures being similar to pokémon, they wouldn't use any moves. Could it be that they were just similar, in appearance, to the pokémon he knew as rattata, but weren't the same.

Kain: pfff

Swiping the sweat, of his forehead, with his arm, he took a small break by sitting down on the cold floor, while taking the time to search his backpack for rations and a water bottle.

Kain: Fuck. I would have brought a sandwich if I knew this was going to be this scenario.

The taste of the rations was terrible, to the point that he, almost, couldn't bring himself to chug it down.

He had brought rations instead of sandwiches or cookies, since he didn't know what kind of scenario he would fall into. Rations were the most rational and best choice to make in situations of survival, but the taste wouldn't be as great, which was obvious.

When he was earlier at the cafeteria, after killing the rattatas, he hesitated for a short moment in bringing the food from there. In the end, he chose not to, since there was no indication that it wouldn't be poisonous.

Pushing down the rations, he drank a mouthful of water before standing up and proceeding to block all staircases on the corners of the school, leaving only the main staircases, that were located at the center of school building.

While doing so, he encountered a new kind of creature.

It was a small feline with cream-colored fur that turned brown at the tips of its hind paws and tail. Its ovoid head featured four prominent whiskers, wide eyes with slit pupils, two pointed teeth in the upper jaw, and a golden coin embedded in its forehead, which he tried to take to make some money outside but unfortunately it disappeared like the other corpses that he killed.

It was tougher than the rattatas but it still went down to his strategy. A bigger body meant a bigger target to hit after all.

Kain: Nothing else dropped besides this one poke ball.

Sitting down in front of the largest staircase, at the center of the school ground floor, he was observing his one and only poke ball.

Kain: I didn't throw it by now.... although I should.... the difficult should only increase in the next floor.... then the roof... fuck it. I should catch a rattata in the end. I need something to help me survive this.

Making up his mind, he turned around, finding a wounded rattata struggling to get out of its rope bind.

Kain: I am sorry little guy, but its either this or decapitation.