Credits to EagleTsubasa for her work as beta-reader. She was a big help to hone my grammar skills and consistency all throughout.

Credits to AngelTheSeventh for his work as beta-reader.

NOTE: Story updates will now be on my profile, so you can check there if you are interested.

Chapter 1

I was pacing back and forth inside my bedroom. I could not stand still; every ounce of my body was tense, and I needed every one of my thoughts to focus solely on relaxing and discharging my muscles if I wanted to keep the tears from flowing. My legs were doing double time, though again and again, they were cut short by the walls—the room was tiny and I was forced to turn around every three steps or so. This only served to increase my sense of claustrophobia, as did the unnerving creaks caused by my heavy steps on the floor's wooden planks. Likely, I was on the verge of a panic attack.

I had received a letter from the Federation that day. It read the following:

The United Federation of the Pure Human Race salutes you, comrade!

Rejoice, soldier! For the glory of your soul and the greater good, you are hereby assigned the following mission.

MISSION: Capture

WHEN: First week of November 2109

COMMANDER: Sgt. Clutcher

PLATOON SIZE: 50 (fifty)

SPECIFICATIONS: The target is a fully grown, Psychic-type monster. You are granted a Poké Ball—attached to this letter—to execute the mission.

Keep in mind that THIS IS CLASSIFIED MILITARY INFORMATION, and as such, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISTRIBUTE THIS CONTENT IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, NEITHER PARTIALLY, NOR IN ITS ENTIRETY.

May the blessing of our Heavenly Savior enlighten you.

The mind is weak, but the flesh is strong:

Work, Wage War, Win!

And in a very small font, at the bottom of the page:

*Please take note that any type of digitalized, written, printed, composed, recorded, formulated, painted, chiseled, or scribbled piece of information has been rightfully censored, and may also be subject to limitations of visibility according to the rank of the recipient.

That was all. The full declaration of my death sentence was many times shorter than the tragic poems of the Victorious Scriptures, the holy book of the Federation. I could not avert my eyes from a few key words, aghast by how concise and cold they were to spell my demise: Monster. Fully grown. Psychic-type. Capture.

"Never get into a Capture Mission!" echoed inside my guilty head. I repeated the predicament several times, both in my head and aloud. Many times I had heard those words, spoken by my father or hushed by acquaintances or passersby I had never met before, and from whom I had not heard another word. It was no law—nothing was but the words of the Heavenly Savior—but it was still an implicit rule of society, which I knew I had broken.

At large, missions were the blood of the nation under the Federation. The term was a broad synonym for "job", ranging from daily and recurring activities like excavation in the mines, field work, or soldier duty, to specific, time-strict missions like scavenging or hunting in a specified area. In exchange for the service, the Federation would give you food, a bed, and kept you alive. Since missions dictated one's daily schedules and work times, and since missions were not all equal—scientific research and bureaucratic missions gave plenty of liberty and spare time, in comparison to the others—they effectively divided society into casts of privileged and commoners. Thus, a mission letter like the one I was holding in my hand was always a life-changer, for better or for worse.

Mine was just the worst possible one, among all.

No one wished a Capture Mission on their worst enemy. Even when I did clear my mind from the horrors that awaited me and reasoned around the situation in the most cool-headed fashion I could manage, my future looked grim: brought and left in the wild, unable to get back to any city of the Federation until the targeted creature was caught, my choices would have been either to be attacked and slain by a random monster in the wild, or to be killed in a desperate attempt against the monster I was supposed to catch. All recounts of Capture Missions told this same story: in short, I was going to die in a week.

My head spun in a vortex of terrifying images: myths of giant beasts smashing dozens with a single fist, trees trapping people with their roots and slowly sucking their life out, poisons inhaled through a single gasp of air or injected with a single touch, or creatures which would torture their victims for weeks before finishing them; stories of fairies that tricked and preyed on unfortunate humans, specters who caused never-ending nightmares and fueled on them; entities of pure fire, ice and electricity with enormous force, or monsters capable of generating eruptions, thunderstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, and all of nature's disasters, and who tormented humanity through the darkest powers of the Evil God!

It was not like one could shrug off or refuse an official mission from the Federation, either. The Federation was the last, united government of humanity, and its villages were the only place safe enough to survive. Outside of them, there was nothing but a wilderness of overpowered, hellish, deformed monsters who had put a quick end to and replaced all animals on Earth, and reduced the advanced and blooming human population of billions to a few hundred thousand individuals who bore a constant fear inside their hearts and lived in bare-bone strongholds and hamlets that could barely communicate with each other.

My only consolation was that I was not alone for the mission, because the letter stated that I was to go with a group of forty-nine other people. It was a meager comfort, though, since none of us would have been given any equipment against the beast except a single Poké Ball. How were we supposed to capture a Psychic-type—one of the strongest types of monsters—whether we were fifty or fifty thousand? Without firearms, without armor, not a knife, or a damned crust of bread for nourishment, nothing!

"To assure the target creature is not injured nor killed," was the official explanation offered by the Federation. Nowhere did they elaborate on the actual reason for the lack of equipment: they wanted us dead. What better way than to let traitors of the Federation be slaughtered the enemies of the Federation, the monsters themselves? After all, an execution takes time and effort, and it's not very cheap, is it? Of course, a Capture Mission did not technically make you a criminal, and sending people into the wild was considered a necessary sacrifice.

At least there was the Poké Ball. It was true that it was a rare item, and that possessing one was considered a privilege and a symbol of wealth when it was gifted by the Federation as reward for heroic efforts—you had the chance to capture and control one of the monsters! Any one of them!

However, possessing a Poké Ball meant a Capture Mission which, unless you were wealthy enough to have access to proper equipment, was not the chance of your lifetime; rather, it was the last chance for your life. That was why the Federation also gave Poké Balls to all people they thought were dangerous, or straight-up criminals: to send them to their deaths, while keeping the faint hope that one of them may eventually catch the creature assigned and return alive, thus being of some use to the Federation's objectives. One captured monster was worth hundreds of human lives.

Of course, one Pokè Ball was sitting on my desk, as well. As if a light switch had been turned on inside my brain, I nervously scrambled to the ball, which I had completely ignored up to that point, and I took a good look at it under the pale gray light that came through the thin window of my room. The object was made up of two shells, connected by a black strip that extended around the diameter, though it left space for a white, circular button in the middle of its track.

All in all, it looked like a toy: it was lightweight and made of plastic—a cheap and widely-used material for everyday necessities, not because it was easy to craft, but because there was plenty lying around pretty much everywhere near the cities, unused and abandoned. A part of me thought that its design was a joke made by the Federation: such a blatant contrast between the joy the item pretended to convey with its radiant colors and its curves against their poor holders, their patched-up clothing and their handmade, rough commodities!

However, something about that shiny sphere was truly terrifying: my skin jittered at its abnormal smoothness and lack of asperities, and my eyes were needled by its flamboyant colors. Time and time again, I ran my fingers around its smooth surface in silence, slowly, with my mouth slightly open and my mind dazed.

A Poké Ball. A Poké Ball, I chanted inside my head, as if my amazement and incredulity could make the item disappear from reality. Being so close to it left me feeling alienated, as if it was too unreal, too perfect of an object to belong to me, one which only the highest of hierarchies could approach, and at the same time, as if it contained a tremendous power that was bound to change my life. Maybe it did look like a toy, but the piece of technology trembled, both in my grasp, and in my thoughts.

A few seconds later, I ran for the door and darted out of my home into the cold afternoon of an October Tuesday. I needed fresh air, and a good walk outside.

/

I only have a vague memory of most things that happened around me in the days before my departure from my home town—the bitter goodbyes, the disdain of my superiors, the insurmountable pile of bureaucratic documents to sift through—but I remember vividly that the weather did not change a bit on any of these days. The gusts were always brisk, the clouds were the same thick layer of gray mucus, the air was hollow, all the same as the day I had received the letter. It matched my mental state quite well: clouded, numb, and exhausted because of all the constant fruitless conjectures of my mind as I tried to find an escape from my conviction.

A single event woke me up from my torpor, during that week.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was wandering about the dull buildings of my hometown. I spent most of the days of the week doing little else since I had quit my previous mission and, as such, I had nothing else to do for the time being. It was easy to lose oneself in that monochrome scenery of abandoned streets and walls old as the World itself; the occasional passersby all wore the same expression and held the same downwards posture—I bet I was no different—and even light was on a gray-scale. It took a bunch of teenagers running and bumping into me to make me aware of my surroundings again.

"Over there!"

"Come on, hurry up!"

"Move it, guys, we really need to see this!"

They turned left at a crossing a few meters away. It was only a secondary road, yet several people seemed to be headed in that general direction; others were looking at each other, some confused, some troubled, mumbling or checking the time, only to start walking in the same manner.

It was time for the public execution. On a Sunday morning, the sheep would gather together to partake in the holy function, the church's bells merrily clanging to invite everybody to enter the parish. Similarly, the loud, crackling speakers on top of poles all around the city were announcing that it was time, and that, indeed, citizens were required to be bestowed a bloody blessing.

I had always despised the practice—of course I did—but, in order to assure my survival, I would have never dared to defy any duty imposed by the Federation. Why, then, did I began walking just like everyone else if it did not matter whether I was partaking in the event or not, since my death had already been planned?

I didn't know, but I still did. Soon enough, the narrow road was replaced by a very crowded square, and as more people arrived and blocked the entrances to the square, I lost the option to turn back.

In the center of the square there was a wide wooden altar, on top of which a black metal frame with an angled, sharp blade, anxiously waiting to fall. It was much wider and taller than what would be used for a human body, which made it all the more unsettling.

People everywhere were moving and talking: a single convicted. A big one. A drake. Five meters high. No, eight. Ten, maybe. Can't be more. No, definitely not human-like—this brought a general sigh of relief, several expressions reassured, yet there were a few disappointed, or even upset ones. I felt comforted: at the very least, this time it was going to be easier than it usually was.

Or so I thought…

A dozen soldiers lined up in the middle of the wooden platform; immediately after, they raised their weapons and stood still. Then, a lump of medals of honor shaped in the form of a man marched up there, at which they saluted. Stocky, short, but with a well-defined muscular tone, Commander Clutcher was more sparkling gold from medals than military green from his uniform, and less of visible skin than that. He would have almost been a comical figure, if only he wasn't greeted with such a disarming silence by the audience. Behind him, a gigantic metal box, as tall as the frame and barely wide enough for it, was being dragged to the altar by a few soldiers. Growls could be heard from it, but no one paid enough care, mesmerized by the voice of the commander.

"People of humanity, I know we have to face a perilous life, day after day," he began shouting, completely ignoring the microphone next to him, "but fear not! We are the superior species of the entire universe, and so… We! Shall! Not! Fall!" For each of those last words he pounded his chest.

"We shall reclaim what belongs to us: this planet is ours to use, and so are its pitiful creatures! A lush world awaits its conquerors! We will make a slave of every single one of its beings!" He stretched his arms wide and looked at the crowd, left to right.

Then he toned down his voice, following the customary of rhetoric talk. "God will avenge our children, and our men's deaths."

And then up again, like a roller coaster. "They say God betrayed us, but I tell you, He did not! Such a statement is heresy! God's doing is right, and we are on His side! Pray, and have Faith: God will give us everything we want, if we are obedient."

"But, we also need to do our work: God does not punish the filth of this world by himself. Instead, God sends us, the Federation, to execute His word of justice. Now, we will see His justice!" "Justice" was spit out, more than spoken.

A flawless execution of a speech I had already heard dozens upon dozens of times. A few among the crowd had been whispering the words as they were spoken by the Commander, much like a credo.

The soldiers put their weapons back with a swift two-step movement and tapped their feet in perfect synchrony. One after another, starting with the furthest from the commander, they walked down the altar and reached the box while readying their tasers.

Finally, the container was opened. I was amazed: inside was a far more magnificent creature than any other I had ever seen, and its sight was a cold shower which dissipated the sloth inside my head and made me reason with clarity and wonder.

It was crimson, with spots of orange on its head and tail and a lighter tone for its belly. It was as tall as a house, as large as a ship, and had the shape of a fierce drake who could stand on its two beefy legs. Its long shiny claws compensated for the short length of its arms, while the horn on its head could easily drill into one's body, and so could its pronounced teeth, which seemed to be made of steel. Its tail was literally burning, and so did its mouth as its roar made the ground itself tremble. It would fiercely gaze with those dark blue eyes, bigger than one's hand! Far from being a show of pure raw force, its wingspan must have covered half of the entire square, and would allow it to fly high and fast. What a fearsome creature...!

...Electrocuted, a single thunderous zap, and brought head-down to the ground. The chains on its legs, arms and wings weren't allowing it any form of rebellion, and it looked severely exhausted already: scars and cuts were easily seen everywhere on its body, and its eyes seemed to not be able to focus—who knows what they had done to it beforehand.

A pained growl was all it could muster as they chained its neck and dragged it to the frame. Its gigantic body moved slowly and mechanically, almost thoughtlessly.

It was just the latest of the many enemies the Federation had brought to the altar and of which I had seen the execution, yet something clasped and crunched my heart at its sight, much more than usual. Perhaps it was a different sensibility, given my peculiar situation, but something pained me, maybe in its lost eyes like that of a dog, or maybe in its shaky movements, anomalous of such a majestic body. Maybe something about its heavy breathing, something about its beaten stance, or its lowered head... Truly, without the force to resist, the powerful being was no more than a scared, lonely puppy.

I could not stand the sight, yet I had no way to stop the execution, and I was too much of a coward anyway to attempt to do so. The dragon was eventually put under the shining blade, held by a single rope, and a single, fatal knot.

The crowd was silent, waiting more than ever.

Commander Clutcher gave one final look at the scene before nodding at himself in self-content. As he raised his hand, the bond was loosened by one of the soldiers...

...And the blade fell.

To this day, the thought of the following moments brings back images at full force. I see myself back at the scene of the execution—me, my terrified little eyes and my young mind. I see the blade falling, falling, falling-falling-falling hundreds of times, gaining more and more momentum as it dives towards the dragon's neck with tremendous force...

…but unfortunately, the hit did not kill the beast.

"GYAAAAAARGHH!" it screamed in a deafening roar, its mouth wide open: the blade had gone only halfway through. The nerves and vessels of the dragon were gushing out along with a stream of blood and pieces of the tongue where it had bitten itself. Everything was pouring out everywhere, a flood of liquid down on the crowd—the blessing had been given—and that mess of flesh, it could have been the work of the most brutal and insane butcher. The beast was bawling and bellowing, insane.

The chaos, the horror, the shrieks, the tears, the vomit on the ground, the cheers, everything! I tried to look for a focal point—someone who would act and stop the madness—but no one did. They left the fierce beast like that, even those few troubled by regret. Me included, of course.

Still, it continued, but, slowly, less and less. Panting, wheezing. Breathing, barely. Noiselessly, and finally, soulless.

A dragon closed its eyes that day; it was the end of its misery.

May it rest in peace.