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It wasn't the first time Zev had been stabbed. They'd always been shallow cuts, even if they'd looked ugly. And they'd caused him incredible pain, of course. He was human, after all.[break][break]

It was, however, the first time the stabber had been his own little brother.[break][break]

The world around Zev grew dark and fuzzy. It took most of his effort to keep his eyes open, to stay conscious despite the sweet relief that closing them promised. The rest of his strength went into pressing his hand against the wound in his side.[break][break]

When Caleb's knife first entered Zev's body, the latter knew immediately it wasn't fatal. The blade hadn't sunk in deep enough. Caleb was a trained fighter; he knew exactly what a killing blow required. The fact that he hadn't dealt one spoke volumes.[break][break]

"That little shit," Zev muttered, surprising himself. The words slipped out without warning. He was normally better at keeping his thoughts to himself.[break][break]

Sudden footsteps, growing louder as they approached, barely registered in Zev's mind. Despite his mental struggle, however, his instincts still worked; as a shadow fell over him, Zev tensed, head jerking up to see who might bring death.[break][break]

But it was only Isaac and Zev's Hatterene, who approached her master to cast another HEAL PULSE on him. The pain ebbed away, ever so slightly. Zev felt his senses sharpen against the lull of unconsciousness — ever so slightly.[break][break]

"Caleb," he rasped in explanation.

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Caleb Harcourt.[break][break]

The name sank in Isaac's throat like a lead weight. His voice failed to come out, even as his lips made the motions.[break][break]

"That doesn't - he wouldn't - I thought -" When he finally spoke, his words were distant and scattered, as if he was trying to piece together fragments of thoughts that never came. "Didn't you guys have an agreement?"[break][break]

Stay away from each other, because they're brothers. That was what Zev had established way back when, calling Rocket off of Caleb's trail. It was what Caleb reciprocated in Slateport, when he could have ended his reign but elected to say nothing. Theirs would be a cold war at most, and yet today it heated up.[break][break]

Briefly, Isaac remembered Sootopolis. He remembered Caleb telling Isaac that he couldn't fear Zev forever. He remembered how Caleb promised to protect him, if worst came to worst.[break][break]

Isaac recoiled under the sickening thought that he may have caused this.[break][break]

If he did put the thought in Caleb's head, he'd certainly proved he could back it up. Isaac had never seen Zev so wounded before. Had he fallen in battle against Zev, his last lash ensuring a spiteful double kill? Or had the younger brother toppled his elder and left him to die with all the brutality that the name Harcourt granted?[break][break]

"Your wound." Heal Pulse would stimulate the body's natural healing, but that'd be good for nothing if he healed wrong in the first place. "Show me. Please."

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Even losing blood on the floor of another dimension, Zev's nature to manipulate and lie kicked into gear. He took a deep, ragged breath. "I didn't want to fight him," he replied, each word tense with agony. "I told him."[break][break]

Around the men, pink mist swirled, languid, dreamlike. Parts of it, however, dripped with a bright crimson hue, the same color as Zev's fresh blood.[break][break]

The next time Isaac blinked, a second Zev appeared next to the first one. A child this time, he wore a worn T-shirt and scuffed up jeans, and looked no older than thirteen.[break][break]

"I told him he was being stupid," the child Zev said to Isaac in a voice so cold, it was unsettling the way it came from a kid's mouth. "I wasn't going to hurt him. Caleb knows better."[break][break]

The adult Zev did not seem to notice his boyish counterpart. Instead, he gingerly pulled back his hand and lifted the hem of his shirt, revealing a long gash that split his flesh.

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Pain was not an emotion that Zev felt freely.[break][break]

Zev was never the type to show weakness. He was never the type to admit defeat. For him to just show this side of him, without any attempt at saving face . . .[break][break]

One way or another, Isaac had uncovered a new layer. Perhaps Zev was genuinely hurt by his brother's betrayal, to the point where he couldn't even turn to his usual defense methods. Alternatively, there was no low he wouldn't stoop to in order to secure an advantage, and everything Isaac thought he knew about Zev was just a convenient enough excuse to keep around.[break][break]

Both possibilities were horrifying in their own way.[break][break]

Neither possibility was as horrifying as the fact that Zev just reproduced via binary fission.[break][break]

Perhaps Isaac should have been less tunnel visioned on Zev's bloodied abs and more focused on their surroundings. The Ultra Deep Sea was gone, replaced entirely by a swirling nexus of pink and red. Between this phenomenon, and the Zevlet now coldly regarding his brother, it was clear Isaac wasn't in Kansas anymore.[break][break]

So what did all of this mean?[break][break]

"So how was Caleb being stupid?" Isaac asked, not even realizing he had answered the wrong Zev. Be was far too busy guiding Echo through the healing process, the Ralts' Life Dew as potent of a disinfectant as ever. Once he'd washed the wound in this fashion, he could start properly dressing it.

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"Needs stitches," Zev said tersely as the LIFE DEW washed over the wound. His Hatterene trilled, using her tentacle to support her master as he slumped against her.[break][break]

"Caleb always wants what he can't have," the young Zev said, glaring at Isaac.[break][break]

Except he wasn't glaring at Isaac but at the woman who stood next to him. She wore a plain dress and a flour-dusted apron, but her face was all wrong. A dozen knives jutted out from her ragged features, moving horrifically as she spoke.[break][break]

"You're supposed to protect your brother, Zev," she said in a voice so tired it sounded like she was half-asleep. "He doesn't know any better."[break][break]

All around them, the mist bled. Streams of blood fell to the ground in sheets, dousing the corpses of gutted Caterpies that had suddenly blinked into existence around them.

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[attr="class","skullbody"]You know what didn't help with a complicated suturing procedure? Psychological horror![break][break]

As Isaac turned away to root around in his first aid kit, all hell broke lose. Young Zev's glare seared itself into his brain, once more backing up Zev's avoidance of the question with blunt, direct truth. Was this, literally, Zev as a child? Or was it a representation of the id that drove him onward, the "inner child" that steered him onward?[break][break]

Before he could ask about the statement, an exhausted voice cut him off. Slowly but surely, Isaac turned around. From what she said, Isaac had an idea who she was supposed to be.[break][break]

From the mass of knives embedded in her face, Isaac had an idea what had happened to her.[break][break]

Isaac retched, averting his face so he didn't end up heaving onto a fresh-bleeding wound. Luckily, all he managed to get out were a few dry wheezes and gasps. The woman's statement seemed to play on repeat as Isaac turned to peek over his shoulder. Her voice was completely unflinching, yet her facial features distorted grotesquely around the knives with each word. Occasionally, two scraped against each other, the sound leaving Isaac recoiling.[break][break]

He'd killed his own mother, and that was far from all. A cascade of blood rained from the sky, calling attention to corpse upon corpse of Caterpies. The closest had been systematically dissected, every facet of its flayed anatomy visible for Isaac to see. Those by the end of the pile were gracelessly smashed up, as if killing them had become a routine matter.[break][break]

How ironic. Now both of them were doing some surgery. Isaac slid a hand towel between Zev's teeth, something for him to bite down on as he began suturing the wound with a freshly-disinfected needle.[break][break]

Isaac had always wondered if Zev had been failed growing up. He always wondered if, set on a different trajectory in life, he could've been more than he was. Instead, he was in Rocket, an organization that didn't just encourage his worse impulses but relished in exploiting them.[break][break]

Clearly he was more right than he ever expected, yet at the same time couldn't be more wrong. From an early age Zev had developed his fascination, and when his parents finally tried to steer him in a different direction they paid a fatal price. Had it been too late for them? Had it been too late for him? Was there ever a time where it hadn't been?[break][break]

And then there was Caleb, his brother's keeper. It was an oh so familiar situation for Isaac. However, at least his sibling had been a delight. Zev was a handful that unfolded into a monster, and he was tossed right onto his younger brother's shoulders. It was no wonder that, until now, Caleb had such lingering fealty to Zev. The pressure from a parent to serve the more "important" sibling was immense, and even in later years the impulse never faded.[break][break]

"What did Caleb want?" Isaac asked, even as he figured he knew the answer.

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The apparition of young Zev and the mother he'd wanted to kill vanished suddenly, along with the Caterpies. The alien landscape of Ultra Deep Sea went dark around the real Zev, Isaac, and their Pokémon, though the mist continued to seep from unseen rifts. It unfurled around their legs, invasive, uninhibited.[break][break]

Zev grunted and winced as Isaac's needle slid into his skin again and again. With the world so dark, he wondered if he was fading into unconsciousness. With all his strength, he bit down hard on the towel, hoping the exertion would keep him awake.[break][break]

"I've been thinking lately," echoed a familiar voice. Caleb's voice. A younger version of him — perhaps five or six years younger than how he looked now — stared down at Zev's sprawling form. "I want to look for a new job."[break][break]

"What?" Zev tried to say around the towel. Without thinking, he reached up to rip it out of his mouth, only to hiss sharply at the sensation of the suturing needle.[break][break]

The mist flickered, and an apartment took shape. It was modest and simple, reflecting the way two bachelors in their twenties might live.[break][break]

The ghost of Caleb looked away, annoyance coloring his features. "You heard me. I know what I do is good money, and it keeps us going, but I'm bored. I want to do something more fun, more exciting. I'm tired of this boring ass life with you."

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"Hang in there, damnit," Isaac muttered. It was like a cruel joke. He went out of his way to tend to Zev, all while the Ultra Deep Sea warped itself into a grotesque slideshow of his monstrosity. It was as if the universe itself was trying to warn him of a fact he damn well knew.[break][break]

Despite this, Isaac was still here. Maybe it was because his big, squishy heart wouldn't let him walk away from a friend in need. Maybe it was because he owed so much to Zev; his strength, his opportunities, his career, his stability, even his talents. Maybe it was because to let a Beast die was tantamount to desertion, the final nail in the coffin of his rebellious streak.[break][break]

Or maybe it was the simple fact that, despite everything, Isaac still cared for Zev. He saw him at his most confident. He saw him at his most vulnerable. He saw the mask he wore as he strode through the crowds of Slateport. He saw the mask he wore as he reduced those same crowds to a pile of twitching bodies. His approval filled Isaac with equal parts shame and pride. His disdain filled Isaac with equal parts relief and a desire to prove himself. He was objectively a terrible person, and yet he was always so good to him.[break][break]

He could also see the dreams, too. The fact that he hadn't flinched in the sight of them was a testament to either his self control or his delirium.[break][break]

"Settle down," Isaac chided, as if he was the one here for a change. "This place is . . . real fucked up. But I'm not moving you until you're stable."[break][break]

The most fucked up part wasn't that Zev had slaughtered Pokemon like the sociopath he was, or that he had grotesquely murdered his own mother, or that either of those things could've been exaggeration, even outright fabrication. He was dealing with the leaking subconscious of a compulsive liar, one so talented that he believed his own hype. There were even more layers than a usual Zev conversation, and that was saying something.[break][break]

Yet this layer wasn't something Isaac could ignore. If what he saw was right, Caleb Harcourt had been the one to suggest joining Team Rocket in the first place. Kanto Rocket, the worst of the worst. Not to make a difference, not to find a purpose, not even to protect himself. He did it because he was bored, and in the process dragged Zev into the heart of darkness.[break][break]

"It . . . it was his idea? You're kidding, right?"

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With some reluctance, Zev returned the towel between his teeth and settled against the rock, a vein in his neck bulging as he bit down hard. Between the blood loss and the acute pain of the suturing, he was delirious. He thought he saw the real Caleb in front of him again, the brother who'd stabbed, then abandoned him.[break][break]

"Isaac," Zev warned, speaking around the towel.[break][break]

Caleb's hands were bright red, dripping with blood. His features had twisted grotesquely into a hateful sneer.[break][break]

"They laugh and call you names behind your back, you know," he said, though his voice was higher pitched, as if a boy was speaking. "Pathetic. Creep. They even say you do weird shit with dead people. Do you know how many times I've stuck up for you? Why can't you be normal? It's so embarrassing."[break][break]

The child version of Zev reappeared, sitting next to the real one. Bruises and cuts covered his body, and his eyes were red and swollen from crying. But even so, the hatred in them cut to the core.[break][break]

"Fuck you," young Zev hissed.[break][break]

"Language, Zev," said the woman, who stood beside Caleb in her flour-dusted apron. The knives in her face had vanished. Instead, she looked like a doll, her cheeks made of cracked porcelain, her blue eyes vacant and glazed. "Be nice to your brother."

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Zev didn't answer. Neither did the Zevlet.[break][break]

Something far more important demanded their attention.[break][break]

The dream mist had warped Caleb Harcourt into something between a boy, a man, and a monster. He loomed over Isaac and Zev, as if his mere presence was enough to cast them in shadow. His bloodstained talons left fresh red swirls through the cloud of pink mist whenever they moved. His sneer distorted his face to the point where Isaac could swore it cracked through facial bones.[break][break]

All the while, he spoke like a childhood bully, voice high-pitched and laced with venom. It was enough to shatter glass and send a chill down Isaac's spine.[break][break]

Yet beneath his distorted voice, Isaac could make out a seed of something familiar. Was this a merciless bullying from a man who hated his brother? Or was it the pent-up resentment of a scapegoat, lashing out at the golden child whose life they were chained to?[break][break]

Isaac had been there before. He never took it out on El Sunderland, but his resentment burned bright in the shadow of a man he refused to call father. Sometimes, he wondered where he'd be if that resentment hadn't clouded his life. Would he have even ended up squatting in a cave, being blasted by an endless stream of a wounded man's nightmares on behalf of a literal terrorist organization?[break][break]

He wondered if Caleb's resentment had escalated to the point where he beat his brother bloody. However, the more he peered through the veil, the more he found himself questioning that. The words of Zev's mother, who had gone from grotesquely gouged to disturbingly doll-like, didn't seem to add up. She'd been the one encouraging Caleb to protect Zev. What if this wasn't the climax but instead the aftermath, an adrenaline rushing Caleb screaming his frustrations at the brother who required his intervention?[break][break]

Zev's blood . . . the blood of some phantom bullies . . . Caleb's own blood . . .[break][break]

The fucked up thing about blood was, when you didn't see who threw the first punch, it all just looked like blood.[break][break]

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The scene vanished, plunging Zev, Isaac, and their Pokémon into darkness save for a soft, pale glow emanating from the mist around them. The hitman looked down at Isaac's work but couldn't see the progress. Slowly, he removed the towel from between his teeth.[break][break]

"Are you done?" Zev asked, his voice low and tired.[break][break]

And then his voice continued in a stronger, exasperated tone, even though he did not move his lips: "I need you to want to get better, Caleb."[break][break]

Another young Zev stood next to the rock the real Zev slumped against, but he was no longer a child. A fully grown adult, he seemed almost ten years younger than the real Zev. The lines of his face were hard and unforgiving, carrying a note of frustration in them. Isaac would recognize this expression, though not the Kantonian army uniform that adorned him.[break][break]

Opposite this younger Zev, a younger Caleb sat on a chair in the dim light. He looked sick, his skin sallow, his hair unwashed and unkempt. "For the hundredth time, I don't want your help," he replied, annoyed. "I didn't want you back in my life at all."[break][break]

Yet the younger Zev persisted, taking a step toward his brother. "We're family. I'm in your life whether you like it or not. And I'm not going to lose my only brother to addiction."[break][break]

The real Zev seized Isaac's wrist with only a fraction of his strength in the grip. "Isaac," he said, an urgency in his tone that hadn't been there before.[break][break]

Sensing her master's fading consciousness, Hatterene uttered a low trill and cast another HEAL PULSE on him.

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"Almost . . ." The last cross of the needle slid across the wound. Isaac began to gently ease the suture closed. It was almost strange, seeing a man's insides return to being his insides, but he was just glad none of the dream miasma was having a detrimental effect on the healing process.[break][break]

Only their brains were being poisoned, it seemed.[break][break]

The same went for Caleb Harcourt's, way back when. He'd fallen on hard times. Drugs had taken a toll, the perpetually clean and handsome man instead looking like something the Purrloin had dragged in. The life that he had decided on had backfired, and now he was left paying the price. Zev stepped in, because of course he would.[break][break]

Because Zev Harcourt was never the type to let a perfectly good tool destroy itself.[break][break]

Because deep down, a part of him loved and cared for his younger brother.[break][break]

Because to lose a member of the Harcourt family to a defeat like addiction insulted his pride.[break][break]

Because in either case, there was still work to be done.[break][break]

There was urgency in Zev's voice. He was fading. Isaac slid a pillow from the emergency kit behind Zev's head in case he fell back against the rocks. Between that effort, and the Hatterene's extra shot of adrenaline, he should hang in there for a little while. Isaac was glad they could use this instead of needing to resort to morphine.[break][break]

"Zev? What's wrong?" Isaac asked, having Echo pass another cloud of Life Dew over the wound to help promote its healing. Cleaning? Check. Disinfecting? Check. Suturing? Check. Extra pain relief and treatment? Check. They were almost done here, but Isaac had to make sure everything was okay before they could get moving.[break][break]

He could only hope he wasn't too late. Each and every one of the visions Zev had conjured up swam through Isaac's mind, getting closer and closer. Their presence was starting to suffocate . . .[break][break]

He had to finish up here before it was too late.

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The combination of HEAL PULSE and LIFE DEW was enough to yank Zev back from the brink of consciousness. He felt more of his strength return, adrenaline surging through him thanks to the boost of healing.[break][break]

"The mist," Zev said as the visions of the two Harcourt brothers melted away and the bachelors' apartment from earlier returned. Instead of a normal scene, however, everything was colored red, like a filter had been placed over a camera's lens.[break][break]

The apartment was not empty. Bodies littered the floor and slumped against furniture, each one mutilated in horrible ways from what looked like torture. Another Zev stood in the center of it all, breathing heavily. Neither the real Zev nor Isaac would be able to see his face, for he stood with his back to them.[break][break]

He clutched a long knife for skinning game in a bloody fist.[break][break]

In his moment of adrenaline-filled clarity, Zev understood this scene, even though it wasn't what had really happened. He knew the image of himself was younger by four years, and the corpses surrounding him were the people he'd tortured for information on Caleb's whereabouts.[break][break]

"You're supposed to protect your brother, Zev," the apron-clad woman said again, placing her hand on the false Zev's shoulder. Her face was turned away, too. "Can you go make sure he's all right?"[break][break]

Bracing himself against Isaac's arm, the real Zev rose shakily to his feet. The mist swirled around them. "We need to disperse it," he said, opening a Pokéball with his free hand.[break][break]

His shiny Corviknight appeared in a flash of light. Looking around the bizarre scene, she uttered a confused and apprehensive caw. Ignoring her, Zev let go of Isaac and pressed the key stone embedded into his wristwatch. She immediately began to glow with a brilliant light, transforming in mere seconds into her mega evolved form.[break][break]

"Corviknight, use G-MAX WIND RAGE," Zev instructed tersely. The great bird spread her wings, the air around her humming with a buildup of energy. Then she flapped her wings once, blasting forth a hurricane of incredible winds. The scene broke, vanishing as the mist receded and revealed the Ultra Deep Sea once more.[break][break]

Zev sagged against the rock that had been propping him up, but he managed to remain standing. Closing his eyes, he gingerly touched his freshly stitched wound through his shirt and took a deep, shaky breath. When he opened them again, the steeliness had returned to his face. He pushed off the rock and stood up straight.[break][break]

And when he spoke, his voice carried the same cold tone it always bore, though edged with roughness from pain. "Thanks for your help, Isaac."

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