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Whatever this ‘Halloween’ thing was about, the two young Zorua pups couldn’t care less. All they knew is that they got to run around looking however and like whoever they wanted without anyone making a fuss about it. Better yet, the adult humans seemed to be giving out treats to all of the young ones running around in their various costumes. Plum had even managed to trick some of the humans into giving her multiple treats by pretending to be different kids, and now her pillowcase was nearly full to bursting with treats. Pumpkin was less inclined to sneak off and cause mischief, but that was ok, since Plum was more than willing to split her spoils with her new brother.
The pup's four guardians lingered nearby, trying to keep an eye on the two as they talked amongst themselves. The two humans, Ingo and Emmet, were dressed as a pair of vampire twins, their disguises not too unlike their work uniforms to be honest. Of the two older Zoroarks, Sugar took a half human, half Zoroark form while Spice took on a surprisingly more human appearance than he normally did, although he was covered in his ghostly wisps so he looked far from his ‘professional’ look. After a while of talking and drinking coffee, the adults called the pups over to prepare to head home, who quickly shuffled through their bags to find the tastiest looking treat to munch on as they all headed back.
“No nonono no sweetie, don’t eat that!” Ingo said, suddenly snatching the half to the Kit-Kat bar out of Plum’s hand that Pumpkin had tried to share with her. Pumpkin had already taken a bite from his piece and looked up, startled. Ingo paused for a moment before giving the boy a soft smile and fluffing his hair with his free hand. “You’re ok Pumpkin, but Plum can’t have any.”
“Why not! Why does he get to eat his candy but I don’t?” Plum asked indignantly, stomping the ground with her tiny paws. “That’s not fair, you guys said we could both eat some on the way home!”
“I know Plum, but this is chocolate. It’s very bad for you.” Ingo explained, showing her the wrapper and the word she guessed was ‘chocolate’. “You can eat something else if you want, just not anything with chocolate.”
“Then why does Pumpkin get to eat it if it’s bad for us?” Plum pouted, finding this whole thing to be unfair. “That ‘chocolate’ smelled really yummy and you’re letting him eat it!”
“Uh well… That’s because…” Ingo stammered, trying to find the words.
“That’s because this Chocolate stuff can’t kill me or my son, Small Stuff, because we’re already dead!” Spice chuckled as he leaned over her from behind, spooking the poor pup and almost making her drop her bag. He laughed at her pout and snatched the bag from her hands, swiping the Kit-Kat bar from Ingo with his other.
“Hey! Give that back!” Plum squeaked as she tried to grab her candy back, only for Spice to hold the bag higher in the air and out of her reach. “Sister!”
Spice let out a yelp as a heavy paw not so gently swiped at the back of his head. In an instant Sugar had Plum’s bag of candy back, though she did not hand it to her sister. As Ingo managed to pull Spice away with the Zoroark ranting about them not being able to take a joke, Sugar dug through her sister’s candy, sniffed a piece and handed her a Cowtail.
“Should be safe. We’ll go through the candy at home, take out the bad stuff.” Sugar promised, patting her sister on the head to calm her down. Plum ripped the wrapper off and shoved the whole thing in her mouth in one go, glaring at Spice the whole walk home.
Pumpkin remained silent the rest of the walk, feeling guilty about the whole debacle. He sniffed at his remaining Kit-kat before swallowing it down, then reached into his candy bag and handed Plum another piece of candy that didn’t smell anything like it. Plum gave him a soft smile and patted his head as she took it, as if sensing his sullen mood.
In no time at all, the family had made it back to their Brownstone apartment and Ingo and Emmet left to their rooms to take off their costumes. While Plum and Sugar went through her candy in the living room, Pumpkin followed his father into the kitchen where Spice was making himself another cup of coffee.
“Hey dad?” Pumpkin asked carefully, not sure how to ask about this seemingly sensitive topic but trusting his dad to have the answers. “How come Plum can’t eat chocolate, but I can? That doesn’t seem fair…”
“Oh that?” Spice chuckled, an evil grin spreading across his face. He reached out and grabbed his pup’s bag of candy and pulled out a Snickers. Unwrapping and popping it into his mouth, he stood up straight and spoke in a too loud voice as if wanting the whole house to hear. “It’s because you and I are already dead! The humans say that chocolate is like poison to some pokemon, but that stuff can’t hurt us unlike those weakling Zoruas in there!”
“Shut it!” Sugar barked, shooting him an annoyed glare. Beside her, Plum let out an angry huff and threw the biggest piece of candy she had right at Spice’s head, which just so happened to be a King sized Hershey’s bar. Spice caught it out of the air effortlessly.
“Careful pup, before you break something. Then Ingo might not let you eat ANY of your candy.” Spice chuckled, slipping the bar under his arm as he grabbed his coffee and headed towards his room. “Might be for the best. Imagine being so weak and pathetic that you die from eating sweets. Couldn’t be me.”
Plum could only glare after him as he turned down the hall and closed his door behind him. Pumpkin joined them in the living room and offered her a small smile in apology for his dad, and handed Sugar his bag of candy as well.
“Don’t worry, I can trade you all of my candy instead, and I can take all of the chocolate.” Pumpkin whispered to her. “Then we can hide it under my bed so that big meanie can’t have anymore to tease you with.”
~~~
A few hours later, after the pups had been put to bed and the adults had retired to their rooms, Plum found herself waking up with a soft yawn and a sudden urge to use the little fox’s room. As she climbed out of bed and made her way to the door, her foot caught on the loose end of a heavy piece of cloth sticking out from under the puppies shared bed. Looking down through the sleep in her eyes, she recognized it to be one of their candy bags. It was late, but having one more piece of candy before going back to sleep wouldn’t hurt her right? There were a lot of different kinds she hadn’t got to try yet, so she grabbed the bag and dragged it along behind her. It would be easier to use the bathroom light to look through it, so she didn’t risk waking up Pumpkin or any of the adults.
She left the bag outside the bathroom door to do her business, and after washing her paws she left the door open just a crack so she could have light as she sat in the hallway and opened the bag to look through her goodies. She was still a bit groggy with sleep, so it took her a minute to realize that she didn’t recognize any of the names on her candy wrappers. Instead of Smarties, Oxtails, and Laffy Taffy, there were things like Tootsie Rolls, Milky Ways, and Reese’s. She realized with a start that some of these names were the same as the ones on the chocolate she had seen Pumpkin and Spice eating earlier, and that she must have somehow grabbed Pumpkin’s bag by mistake.
Plum pouted to herself at the idea of having to drag the bag back to the room and she wondered if she’d be able to grab her own bag and drag it back into the hall without waking anyone up. If she were caught, the adults might just take her candy away and put it up somewhere, since they didn’t like the pups sneaking around to eat snacks so late at night. She leaned against the wall and let out a small huff as she wondered what to do, and her stomach couldn’t help but grumble as the smell of the candy from the bag tempted her. Opening the bag up once again, she eyed the candy hungrily.
Will I really get sick if I eat this? Everyone was making such a big deal about it like it’s poison, but Pumpkin said it tasted fine to him. Plum mused, sniffing a King-Sized bar of Hersey’s Extra Dark chocolate. It smelled a bit similar to the coffee that adults drank, but milder and different in its own way. Plum opened the wrapper slightly and saw that the chocolate inside was a deep, dark brown, and segmented into tiny rectangles that broke apart easily when she wiggled it around. She broke off a piece and sniffed it, her mouth watering and her stomach growling in anticipation.
Well, here it goes! Plum thought, closing her eyes and popping the piece into her mouth. She fully expected it to taste revolting, since the adults said it was poison, but it tasted nothing like that icky piece of garbage that fell off of Garbordor that she licked one day out of curiosity. It was slightly bitter but still sweet, and as she held it on her tongue it began to melt and she found herself swallowing it little by little as she mused over the flavor. It wasn’t bad, so she couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Spice had made it seem like eating this kind of stuff was something only ‘strong’ pokemon like him and Pumpkin could handle. As she thought back to the old fox’s word’s, Plum frowned and popped a few more pieces into her mouth. That liar, thinking he’s soooooo tough!
Plum sat and ate about 2 rows of the dark chocolate, before deciding that it was too big to finish and wrapping it back up to look through the bag again. There were plenty of much smaller pieces of chocolate, all labeled ‘Bite-sized’ so she tried a few of those out as well. Some had gooey caramel, while others had nuts and other crunchy bits in them. Soon, Plum had a small pile of candy wrappers at her feet, and right as she was about to reach into the bag for more she heard a creak from down the hall from one of the adult’s rooms. Not wanting to get caught, she quickly scooped up the wrappers and tossed them into the bathroom trash before grabbing the bag and heading back to her room.
~~~
“DADDY!!!”
Pumpkin’s terrified yelp tore through the otherwise quiet night, instantly rousing Spice from his sleep and to his feet out of pure instinct. Rushing out into the hallway, Spice spotted his kit standing in the bathroom door with the light on, a look of worry on the kit’s face. As he ran up to see what was wrong he barely paid attention to the sound of the doors to the twins room opening behind him. When he reached the door to look inside, he saw Plum hunched over the toilet seat, puking her guts out and whining in pain.
“Wha- SERIOUSLY?” Spice growled, facepalming in annoyance as he glared at the two kits. “You guys woke me up for this? I thought someone had died!”
“But Dad! Plum threw up in the bed and woke me up!” Pumpkin explained, making Spice cringe at the thought of having to clean that up. “Something’s wrong, she’s really sick!”
“Ugh, the only thing that’s wrong is that this little Tepig ate too much!” Spice said, rolling his eyes as he entered the bathroom and roughly picked up the mess-covered pup by her scruff. “Hey, Dumdum, how much candy did you eat?”
Besides a yelp at being handled so roughly, the shiny zorua gave him no response, clinging to her belly and shivering slightly as her illusion dropped. Spice was about to berate her some more when he stopped, noticing the state of the young pup now that he could see her more clearly. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she whimpered in pain, and the way the pup twitched hard in his grasp with every seemingly rapid heartbeat had him on edge. And the smell on her…
His thoughts were cut short when he was smacked hard from behind, dropping the pup who was caught in her sister’s quick arms.
“ASSHOLE!” Sugar growled at him viciously, clutching her sister tightly as she turned and ran for the door. “Emmet! Ingo! We need to take her to the Pokemon Center right now!”
Spice growled as he rubbed at the back of his head, watching the trio rush out of the door leaving them behind. He wondered if he really deserved that treatment when suddenly that same smell from before caught his nose. Looking around he caught sight of the bathroom trash bin, which seemed to be filled with candy wrappers.
CHOCOLATE candy wrappers.
“Pumpkin, please tell me you ate these and not Plum…” Spice asked, a chill of dread crawling up his spine as he picked through the trash. When his pup shook his head giving him a wide eyed look of stunned silence, Spice felt a mixture of terror and shame bubble up inside of him.
“Well shit…”
~~~
“Nurse Joy! I am Emmet and we have a pokemon here in need of immediate medical assistance!”
Nurse Joy and her attending Audinos immediately sprang up at the arrival of the three(?) Subway bosses into the Pokemon Center at such a late hour. One of the Ingos rushed forward, gingerly holding out a small shiny Zorua pup for her to take.
“My sister! Was puking, in pain! Please, help her!” The Ingo urged in broken sentences, immediately causing Nurse Joy to realize that this was Emmet’s Zoroark, Sugar.
“Don’t worry Miss Sugar, we’ll do the best we can to help her” The nurse said, taking the kit and placing her on the mini stretcher that her Audinos brought out to her. As they pushed the kit off to the exam room, she turned back to the Subway Bosses and the Zoroark. “What exactly happened? Did she eat something that she shouldn’t have?”
“We… aren’t exactly sure…” The other Ingo, the REAL Ingo began. He looked to his brother and then to miss Sugar, continuing when they looked just as lost as he was. “Our other Zorua pup alerted us to the situation, and we found her in the bathroom covered in her own sick. My own Zoroark was being a bit rough with her because he thought he had gotten woken up just because she ate too much candy and got sick.”
Before Nurse Joy could ask him to elaborate further, another Emmet followed by a small child burst through the door, a small garbage bin tucked under his arm. From his poorly disguised ears and tail, she could only assume this was the other Zoroark Ingo had mentioned.
“Spice! What are you doing here?” Ingo asked while Sugar gave the other Zoroark a nasty glare. Spice ignored them and walked straight up to Nurse Joy with an apprehensive look on his face.
“Are you the Healer Lady?” Spice asked bluntly, though his voice was laced with worry. When she nodded, the Zoroark held out the small bin to her, urging her to look inside. “I think she ate this. All of it. It’s chocolate right? That’s bad isn’t it?”
“Oh no. Oh no no no” Nurse Joy murmured softly, trying and failing a bit to keep up a calm demeanor as she picked out wrapper after wrapper of chocolate from the trash. “How long ago did she eat all of this?”
“I don’t know. Is it really bad?” Spice asked, on the verge of panic now.
“I- We’ll do the best we can to help her.” Nurse Joy said firmly, giving her best professional answer in order to calm down the situation. She was already running the numbers in her head with the types of chocolate and the amount, along with the average body mass of a Zorua. “Cases like this are surprisingly common this time of year. While there are a lot, these mostly seem to be the bite sized milk chocolate variety. We’ll do what we can, but we’re lucky she didn’t eat anything stronger.”
It was then that she felt a tug at her apron, and looking down she saw the child, who seemed to be another disguised Zorua kit. He held up a large half eaten candy bar to her, and the nurse’s heart skipped a beat when she caught the words ‘Dark Chocolate’ on the folded wrapper.
“Um, I think she might have eaten this too. I found it in my candy bag…” The pup squeaked out timidly.
Nurse Joy turned white, then turned and ran into the exam room after her patient.
~~~
It had nearly been an hour since Nurse Joy fled into the back rooms to look after Plum, and the Subway Bosses and their pokemon were practically beside themselves with worry. The brother’s knew that the situation must have been bad for the nurse to lose her composure like that, so they set about trying to distract themselves and their pokemon to keep from worrying too much. Sugar was pacing circles around the waiting room, disguise abandoned, until Emmet couldn’t bear to see her suffer with worry any longer. He sat her down with her head draped over his lap while he ran his fingers through her mane and cooed softly as she whined. Pumpkin was crying into Ingo’s shoulder as the man rocked him up and down, promising that everything would be okay. Spice sat in a corner alone, staring dead into the small waste bin still full of candy wrappers.
How could this have happened? She was FINE a few hours ago! Spice thought to himself, fiddling with his claws nervously. He kept going through the night over and over in his head. Going over everything that the twins and Sugar had said about chocolate being poison to the Unovan sisters. How he thought it was all bullshit, since he could eat it just fine. He was sure that things that were poisonous were supposed to taste bad, right? Even if he was a ghost type, poisonous things still tasted bad to him.
Then he started to think about everything he said to the poor pup that night. How he called her a Tepig and pulled her roughly off the ground for disturbing his sleep. How he was more annoyed than concerned about the pups health and scolded her for eating too much. How he teased her about chocolate before they went to bed, calling her and her sister weak for not being able to eat something that tasted so good. How he stole her chocolate and ate it right in front of her.
I did this…
I did this to her!
Spice began to hyperventilate as the thought tumbled over and over in his head. He had driven the pup to do this. He teased her so much that she ate the chocolate out of spite, just to prove him wrong. Because he had called her weak.
A-and now she’s… s-she’s dy-
Spice grew rigid at the thought, the truth that Plum might die and that it would all be his fault freezing his very soul. Sure, back in Hisui pups died all the time. There was no helping it, it just happened out in the frozen wastes. But Plum was special. She was a pup, but whenever she would cuddle up with him he was always surprised when he could feel her heartbeat under her fur, her body warm and breathing soft. And now Plum’s beautiful soft black fur might fade to white, just like every other Zorua kit he knew…
Wait.
Spice looked around at the others seeing that they were still preoccupied with comforting each other. Turning to the front desk of the Pokemon Center, he saw an Audino come out, grab something and then rush back in. Without a second thought, Spice got up quickly and followed it, throwing up a convincing illusion to disguise himself as another Audino.
He followed the Audino until he reached a room full of cages and tables and wires, with a few Nurse Joys and Audino milling about. However most of them seemed to be rushing around one table in particular, where he recognized Plum's telltale black and purple fur.
“...there’s not much more we can do, I'm afraid girls.” Nurse Joy said looking over a few forms and various machines. “We’ve emptied her stomach and her bladder, fed her activated charcoal, and have given her anything else that can help but… We can only pray to the Dragons that it was enough. If only she hadn’t eaten so much, or she had gotten here sooner…”
Nurse Joy looked solemnly at the kit before rubbing her hands through her fur. Plum still seemed to be spasming with each quick beat of her heart, a machine letting out a rapid beat in time with her own. The nurse wiped at the tears threatening to spill from her eyes and took a moment to collect herself, her Audino giving her soft cries of reassurance. When she had finally composed herself, she turned and looked straight at Spice with a look of determination, nearly causing the Zoroark to flinch and run away.
“Nurse Tabunne, would you mind moving the patient to one of the rest cages? I have to go inform her trainers of the situation and the possible outcomes.” She asked calmly. Surprised, Spice just nodded, going up to Plum’s side while the nurse and the other Audino quietly made their way away from the table to attend to other tasks.
Spice gently lifted Plum off of the table and walked over to the cages in the far corner, dropping his illusion once he was sure he could not easily be seen by anyone passing by. Looking over the small pup, he saw what a sorry state she was in. Patches of fur shaved away, needles and tubing extending from her forelegs and other areas. Her heart thumped heavily against his paws, breathing heavily as if the pup had just outrun an alpha. Plum’s eyes were open, but it was clear that she was swimming on the brink of unconsciousness and could barely register that Spice was there.
His heart and mind raced, trying to figure out how he was going to do this. It was clear that the pup’s heart could give out at any moment, especially if it had been racing like this since they found her. However doubt creeped into his heart that he could do anything to save her if that happened. After all, while it was true Zorua born back in Hisui had black fur like Plum before the cold took their lives, as far as he could tell Zorua didn’t come back to life here in Unova. It seemed like the generational trauma his kind suffered through didn’t exist in the Zoroark of the modern day.
So how the heck was he supposed to save her if she died?
Unfortunately, Spice did have long to think before the machines connected to Plum started flashing in warning and a long drawn out beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep echoed through the room.
~~~
It wasn’t the news either Subway master wanted to hear. It wasn’t the news Sugar wanted to hear. Her sister was dying, and there was nothing Nurse Joy could do about it. The only reason the nurse wasn’t back there doing everything she could to save Plum was to fetch them so they could say goodbye to her one last time. It was all Sugar could do to not break down crying right there, her disguise dropping once again as she fell to her knees.
Emmet was saying something to her, but she could barely hear him over her own panicked breathing. It was only when an arm snaked its way under her shoulder to support her as she was pulled up to her feet that she turned to see the tearstained face of her trainer.
“Come on Sugar, she’s waiting for us…” Emmet choked out, a strained smile on his face that tried and failed to be reassuring. Ingo came around to her other side and placed a hand on her shoulder, a similar sad look on his face as the three started walking down the hall.
“Wait, where is Spice?” Ingo asked, looking around when he noticed his own Zoroark was nowhere to be seen.
It was then that the sound of terrified Audino shouting down the hall caught everyone’s attention. Looking ahead, several of the nurse pokemon came running towards them from the operating room, a thick, dark, ghostly aura erupting from the door behind them with enough force to rattle the center and send loose things flying. With a start, everyone realized that that was the room Plum was in and the group pushed their way past the nurses to the room in a panic. When they got to the door and looked inside, all they could see was a thick black and purple haze that chilled them to the bone and seemed to lash out at everything in the room in a tangible fit of sorrow and malice.
Warning Nurse Joy to stay back, the twins and Sugar tried to enter the room, only to be pushed back by a strong wave of ghostly anguish. It seemed to affect Ingo and Emmet more strongly than her, so Sugar pushed her way through the ghostly storm despite her trainer’s cries of protest. She couldn’t stop, not when her baby sister was stuck in there with whatever was creating this ghostly aura. Shielding her eyes with a forearm as she trudged deeper into the room, she soon found the source of the maelstrom.
There sitting on the floor in front of several thankfully empty cages was a familiar Zoroark, disguise dropped and white mane whipping furiously as he sat hunched over, clutching something to his chest. The ghostly aura he was giving off tore at everything around him, including himself as several gashes ripped across his fur, staining it further red. He seemed to be crying, face buried into a bundle of black fur.
“Spice! What are you…” Sugar could barely get the words out against the torrent of emotion coming from the other fox, but her words died in her mouth when she noticed a flash of purple fur on the black bundle in Spice’s arms. “PLUM?!!!”
Sugar’s scream seemed to have finally caught Spice’s attention, as his head whipped up and his eyes locked with hers. The gale of emotions seemed to die down for a second, but then seemed to intensify as the large white alpha moved to shuffle back away from her in a frenzied panic.
“I-I’m so-s-s-sorry! She’s g-g-gone… She’s d-dead… because of me!” Spice breathed out, hyperventilating to the point of near hysterics. He clutched Plum’s body closer to his chest, ghostly energy ripping tears into her as well as Spice.
Sugar could hardly believe her eyes. Her sister was right there, in his arms, but despite the noise and the storm of ghostly energy, she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing. She didn’t even flinch as the energy from Spice tore another gash across her legs.
Her sister was dead.
Sugar couldn’t take it. Tears began to run down her muzzle as dark energy gathered around her claws, and with a wail she released a ball of shadows at the floor between her and Spice. It exploded on contact, sending out a powerful shockwave that sent everything nearby flying, Spice included. The Alpha was thrown full force into a wall, dropping Plum on impact. The super effective attack left Spice barely able to lift himself from the ground, and as Sugar approached, he braced himself for another attack, not even able to look her in the eye.
This is what I deserve… He thought to himself silently, praying for a quick end.
The attack never came however, and at the sound of Sugar’s pitiful whine he looked up to see the other Zoroark gently lifting the body of her sister into her arms. Even tho Sugar’s Night Daze had dissipated his own Bitter Malice, the room was still heavy with the feelings of grief and sorrow as Sugar cradled her dead sister in her arms, tears soaking into her sister’s blood stained fur. Spice could only sit in silence as Sugar grieved, their humans slowly making their way into the room to survey the damage.
Seeing the scene before them, the twins were at a loss for words. Emmet knelt down and pulled Sugar into his arms, tears streaming down his face, and after petting her head softly, Ingo walked over to help Spice up off of the floor. Spice was hesitant to move any closer to Sugar though. He had already done enough damage.
It was only then that Spice took notice of the wounds he had inflicted upon himself with his Bitter Malice. While he didn’t bleed like other living pokemon, the wounds still stung and were already forming into more angry red welts. Looking over at Plum, he was ashamed to see that his ghostly power had torn into the pup as well. He could feel the faint traces of ghostly energy emanating from those wounds even from where he stood, and he turned his head in shame.
Wait… that wasn’t right. Spice thought to himself, confused. Sugar’s Night daze should have blown all of his loose energy off of Plum. Had he really scarred the pup so deeply that his energy lingered even now?
Looking back up at Plum, he could see the wounds were no longer bleeding and even seemed to be scarring into white lines. The pup’s fur was slowly starting to lighten into a dull grey color as the ghostly energy moved from the wounds and across her entire body. Her toes were turning black and parts of her fur began to bleach white and turn wispy, the purple tips starting to flow in a nonexistent breeze.
“Uh, guys…” Spice began to tap Ingo’s shoulder furiously, bringing his and everyone’s attention to Plum as they followed his gaze. Sugar’s choked sobs quieted in an instant and everyone held their breath as they watched Plum slowly transform before their eyes.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment, before the pup finally took a breath.