warning: mild disturbing elements, including some gore/violence

:empress:

because demons never die
and the dead cannot cry
so the living must avenge
what should not have been done

She stands in the third room of the Kanto League Building, rocking gently in an old, peeling chair and tapping an absent rhythm on the ground with her gnarled cane as she waits for the next challenger to arrive. Row upon row of gravestones dot the ground on which she sits, a stark reminder of the aspect she embodies and exudes: death.

A gentle breeze stirs her iron-grey hair, and without turning she knows exactly which member of her team it is. Her Haunter materializes directly behind her head, disembodied hands playfully enclosing around her throat as it cackles and vanishes again. Then, it reappears overhead, face contorted into a giggling mask. She pays it no heed and sips from a cup of tea now gone cold. Haunter, bored, drifts into the thick shadows and waits with her.

The doors open and in walks a tall, proud man adorned in silks and colors of rich chartreuse, gold, and lavender. She smiles at him and it looks more like a scowl amidst the rivets and wrinkles on her battle-worn face.

"You have come to face me, I suppose?" she inquires, setting her teacup aside. Despite the fact that there is no table, it does not fall to the floor and shatter. Instead, it floats in midair, held aloft by some phantom power.

If the man is unnerved by this casual yet bizarre display, he does not show it. Rather, he beams with a mouth full of pearly-white teeth (predatory teeth) and responds, "Indeed, mistress of the night."

"You need not bother with such fanciful titles," she rasps, standing up. Her back is ramrod straight, and with her posture, the cane appears not to be a support but rather some mundane accessory. She raps sharply with it and Haunter manifests, chuckling wickedly.

The man appears truly disturbed by the ghost's manifestation. Drawing his lips back into an ugly snarl, he growls, "I've come this far. I shall not lose to you, old woman."

"We shall see," is her response.

Haunter surges forth just as a Mistermime bursts from a Pokeball, and-

She is standing in a burnt field of blackened grass. Flowers that once bloomed with every shade of brightness imaginable now lie dead and withered on the earth. There is blood on her dress, on her face, on her skin. She cannot scrub it out.

A star, drawn in soot and ash and bone, from which countless demons pour out. Broken seals that were meant to hold them back, twisted and without any meaning. Limp, cold bodies that are so very, very wrong.

She wrings her hands, but she cannot scrub out the blood, cannot scrub it out-

-the humanoid falls with a distorted cry, wisps of ghostly energy streaming from its ragdoll-like body as it goes tumbling end over end through the air, landing in an ungainly heap at the feet of its master. The man hisses and withdraws another sphere, tosses it, and releases an Alakazam.

She merely grins and sends out her Gengar, the entity making its presence known in a plume of black smoke that erupts from a nearby marker, startling the trainer and his Pokemon. Cheshire Cat-like teeth emerge first, followed by bloodred eyes full of hate, and then claws that could tear any man's throat asunder-

-because one of them, a Ghost, is binding her wrists together. A Haunter. She screams and roars and rages against it, but she cannot find the will to resist. A seeping numbness spreads from her head down to her legs, and she cannot breathe, cannot move, cannot feel anything at all. Floating heads with jagged teeth laugh at her misery, and leering specters stroke her bloodied cheeks and chortle in horrible mirth.

A beckoning feeling. A request.

"Do you wish to live?"

Yes.

"So do we."

-and they do, lacerating his Girafarig with insidious intent clear in mind. Gengar howls with laughter and its eyes gleam with darkness bubbling just under the surface. A pulse of malevolence shoots from its torso and crash into the dual-Type, slamming it into the wall and knocking it out instantly. And maybe worse than that.

A steady trickle of blood from its neck. Eyes that are vacant. Limbs that twitch spasmodically and then are still.

Its trainer is sweating like a pig in those fancy clothes. With shaking hands, it recalls its felled defender and chooses another one. A final one.

"I would suggest backing out now, dear," she calls to him across the war-torn battlefield. "There is still a chance for you to escape with your life intact. Or more importantly, your soul."

"Witch," he seethes. "I will never forgive you!"

"I did not ask for your forgiveness."

Giving a strangled cry, he unleashes his final creature-a rarity, an exotic beast of renown even in Kanto. Metagross lands and emits a reverberating screech. Gengar sneers.

She frowns, lips wrinkling with distaste-

-and horror as a searing, blinding pain consumes her entire being, sending shivers of anguish through her throbbing veins. The demon does not stop, does not relent for even a second. A bond is being forged, a contract that connects them spirit-to-spirit until she dies.

Fire burns, a woman shrieks, and legions of the damned cackle.

A terrifying crescendo, the fire burns and blazes higher-

-dissolves and fades-

-dissipates-

-and a heart made not from flesh but something else is born.

-but her annoyance is short lived. The behemoth crumples under the finishing blow as Gengar rains down a deluge of Shadow Balls, the crackling orbs shattering and bending the metal as they hit. Metagross goes down as its joints twist and crumble.

The trainer stares at his fallen creature with something like awe.

"The rumors are true," he whispers.

"And you would have done well to heed them." She raps once, twice, and Haunter appears, hands locking firmly around the man's arms. He screams like a child. She chuckles.

"By ice, Lorelei tested you. By strength, Bruno challenged you. And by death, I shall deliver you."

"No, no, NO-"

A rip, a tear-

-and the hooded cultist is writhing in pain, both of his arms ripped free of their sockets. Blood streams from the wounds, and tears pour from his eys. The same bitterness she experienced years ago is now felt by him. This man who cannot be called a man.

This worm, this maggot.

Revenge has never felt so good.

She leans over him, and she whispers, "This is for my family, you disgusting piece of filth. For all those you and your dark ambitions killed. For Lavender Town, my home."

She smiles. "After so long, you're finally going to die by the hands of the very monsters you summoned."

Getting up, she says, "He's yours for the taking."

From where they have been hovering, Gengar and Haunter howl in delighted affirmation and surge forward, teeth bared and claws upraised. The man gives a final, horrified screech before they tear into him-

-like they did to her when she was still young. When they bound her, irrevocably, to their cause.

A field of gravestones to mark those she lost. A field of gravestones to mark those she avenged. A field of gravestones to mark those she killed.

She feels no remorse, not even as an old, wizened woman should feel at this point in her life. The weight of their deaths does not press onto her shoulders. Instead, she feels...

Release.

She has set things right. Reconciled the murders of her brothers and sisters, of the town that she loved. That she no longer loves.

A hand rocks her chair. Haunter smirks before fading.

Soon.

She once thought it would be soon. She once thought she would be reunited with her loved ones when she passed on.

Still, she sits, old beyond her years and living when she should have already died.

She is bound to death.

She is death. An empress of the undead; once she fancied herself a master, but she now realizes that she has been nothing more than a slave to her loyal ghosts.

Revenge was merely bait.

Not that she ever had a choice in the matter, anyway.

Agatha laughs as the floating cup falls and shatters, white porcelain spilling all over like fragments of a broken skull. It is almost amusing, how easily she was lured and deceived. Almost amusing.

The man she killed just hours ago was her last. He hangs in tattered strips across the floor, gray hair splattered with crimson droplets. It is over. The cycle has ended for her.

But not for her servants. Because she is bound, so utterly and undeniably that she will be forced to wait out the rest of her years in this self-imposed pandemonium, defeating challenger after challenger and losing only when they deem it proper. Because she has no more say in the matter. She is old, and frail, and senile, as everyone thinks. What does it matter to them?

Because Agatha can no more rip free of the chains they cursed her with on that fateful day than she can bring back the dead. Because they want her, need her, so they can live.

Because the dead desire and hunger more than any human will.

She is an empress, leading a court of advisors who will turn against her eventually.

On her wooden throne, Agatha Harkness sits, waits, fights, and lives.

veni vidi vici

a/n: yeah, that was all sorts of screwed up. but what did you think?