WARNING: FLASHING/GLITCHING IMAGE UNDER THE CUT.

This also contains descriptions of gore and body horror.

[ @pkmn-monochrome - Previously… ]

Red narrows his eyes as he stares down at Cody, shutting up and listening as they explain. The corners of his lips twitch as they finish, the shadow cast over his eyes falling ever so slightly heavier.

“… So, that’s how it is, hm?”

“Barely… any different…”

“… Exactly what I…”

“…”

“I’ve gotta say, you’ve really got a way with words! You’re so articulate when you’re scared, Cody.”

He snickers to himself, hopping off the grave and pacing around, looking between the other and the Ghosts.

“Observant, too~! You’re right, I really couldn’t be bothered to care what you think of me. I’m not exactly here to make friends. I’m sure that’d the last thing you’d want, anyways! See, I’m just here to satiate some curiosity.”

He leans in front of Blastoise, tilting his head.

“I would like to formally apologize to the oversized Sobble-in-a-shell for my language. I’m not exactly used to being around others… Twenty-six years of imprisonment wouldn’t really teach a guy to have a filter, heh.”

He waves a hand nonchalantly, completing the circle.

“And as for your marketable figurine of a rat, well… I’m not interested in being a snotty kid forever. Unfortunately, I don’t need any hacking done to screw up my game badly enough to change some things around.

But, hey… I’m not here to make chit-chat with a couple of one-note monsters. It’s all about you, the most REAL one in this room. Cody, Cody, Cody, star of the show~! Let’s get back to the point. I know you don’t exactly think highly of… things like me. What was it you told that one poor girl- ‘You’ve had more than a decade to get over yourself,’ right?”

He throws his head back, cackling as if the old remark is the funniest thing he’s heard in his life.

“I meant it when I said that I don’t CARE. But I AM nosy, and your vitriol towards REDs in particular is just so interesting… Even seein’ the face clearly strikes a nerve. So honestly, I’d LOVE to hear EXACTLY what you’re thinking…”

“If only you were willing to spit out any fighting words, that is! But you’ve been so much more polite than I expected, after all the reading I’ve done…”

He passes by in front of the other, looking off into the distance.

In that moment- a moment of passing footsteps, of the blink of an eye, of a lack of care… something heavy fills the air.

A damning presence looks down on Cody with a dozen eyes, countless mouths, gnashing teeth and twitching claws, two hundred and fifty-five whispering voices. It’s a disgusting and shambling creature, a sick and unholy patchwork of amalgamated hearts and yellowed blood, wrapped up in tattered flesh and backwards fur, mismatched feathers and scales and blubber and skin. Writhing, wheezing, bleeding, rotting, every misplaced piece existing out of sync.

Something impossible. Unknowable. Invalid.

The feeling it imposes upon them is suffocating. Like not breathing for years, like something vile filling their lungs, a sickness that is rising, thrashing, tearing, desperate for a taste of “fresh meat” if one could even call a dead trainer that anymore.

“It almost seems like there’s something you’re worried about,” the voices from within it hiss, layered countless times under the casual and teasing tone of Red’s own that is lost under the madness…

… Yet the instant the words spill from his lips, that awful sensation is gone as quickly as it arrived. Everything is as it should be. Despite how intense it was… It was little more than two seconds of some sick kind of illusion.

Was it even real? Was that pain all false? Red hasn’t lifted a finger, no less even looked Cody’s way.

It’s as if nothing even happened.

“I wonder, I wonder, what it could be~?” the man babbles on as he walks away, feigning ignorance- because he must be, he must be screwing around with them at this point, right? How could he NOT be?

And now he’s laughing- giggling to himself under his breath, like this whole ordeal is some joke that only he’s in on.

“After all, I’m just some harmless little video game character. I’m not even real, right?” he chides, “Certainly nothing like one of your big bad players who could crush your shoddy little cartridge cause you decided to be a little bi…”

He trails off, managing to catch himself.

“… Decided to misbehave. What, you don’t think I hold any real power over this place, do you~? I can’t cause…”

“… Permanent damage.”

He slows to a stop several paces away from the monochromatic trainer, spinning on his heel to look at them with a smile that could be described as warm, but…

From heart, to flesh, to grin- there’s not a single warm thing about this man in this moment. Only proven further by a final remark, laced with a threatening kind of curiosity.

“So would you like to stop trying to play nice and tell me what you really think of me… Or are you gonna let me get bored?”