Secured, Contained, and "Protected"

It's been a while since it happened. His claws were healed, but the pain is still fresh in his mind. His body was different than it used to be, but he's pressed against the back of the cell that contains him in attempt to be as small as he can. He doesn't understand what happened...and neither did they. He was cooperative once he was snapped out of whatever rage he was sent into. He did not fight them when they apprehended them. He told them what he knew. He gave them the stone.

He didn't want to give them the stone, but he knew that he should. They would have taken it otherwise, but in the moment he wanted nothing to do with it. He no longer remembers why he gave them the stone. He no longer remembers why he wants the stone. He just knows that he needs it...but he does knows that he should stay here.

The story of the devastation he caused had to be relayed to him multiple times before it stuck in his head. He was dangerous, they said. He agreed.

Two guards stood outside the cell. A kabutops and a carracosta-hard counters for his type that could take him out in the blink of an eye if he grew violent again. It was alright though, he understood. He wanted to be here just as much as he wanted that stone. His thoughts conflicted with one another, which left him in a sort of daze at the back of the cell. He was in his own little section of the prison, seeing as the sickness that affected him was entirely contagious. There were more cells, but all were empty.

His wings folded over him as he kept himself nice and warm despite the cold. He had no idea how long he would be here for, but part of him hoped it would be for eternity.

"Is-is this the right way?" a young voice called from down the hall, audibly intimidated and confused. "It's... yeah, okay, thank you!"

It was clearly in conversation with someone further down the way, or maybe in the main office of the police station. A moment later, and a little dratini rounded the corner, eyes wide and body language significantly apprehensive. Adorning his head was a slightly oversized red headband, and he dragged a satchel behind him, strapped to his neck. The novelty of being inside Grassveil's police station wore off pretty quick once he got to the part where they kept criminals—and wasn't that term a kick in the tail?—and the reality of the situation set in.

"Um... I'm Osiris," he introduced himself as soon as he saw the two pokemon standing guard outside the cell. "I'm here to visit?" the dragon-type said with a tremulous, almost questioning tilt, as if he was making sure that this was okay with the two much larger pokemon. He tried hard not to look past them at the pokemon inside the cell, because if he did and they said he couldn't hang out for a bit after all... well, that'd just be really sad.

The guards looked down upon the little worm that decided to approach. They both donned the badges of police, but both seemed to be confused as to why a child was here. The Kabutops was the one to speak up to the dratini, "What's your relation?" the tip of the pokemon's claw pointed towards the Dratini. it wasn't meant to be threatening, but the sharp tip of the blade might end up giving the wrong idea.

Within the cell, the charizard could hear the voice of the small pokemon. His attention was caught, but his interest piqued upon hearing what it had to say. "Osiris"...where had he heard that before? That damned fog did its best to bury his thoughts, but it couldn't shake the feeling that arose when he thought of the name. He repeated it over and over in his head, but he couldn't quite get it.

He was curious."A friend..." he spoke up in response to the kabutops for the little dragon. He did not actually know if the dratini was one or not...but he assumed so.

The kabutops looked back to him briefly, a look of suspicion on his expression before he looked back to the dragon type. He sighed before he would nod. "Kids these days..." he grumbled. He walked out into the hall a bit more before he pointed at the Dratini again. "You." He pointed at the floor in the midst of the hallway, "Stand here. Don't go any closer, no touching, and we will stop this as soon as we see anything suspicious."

Iris would be lying if he didn't utter a terrified 'eep' when a giant claw was pointed at him, but when a mostly familiar voice spoke up for him, he beamed in delight. Zircon did remember him! The revelation made him happy enough that even when the guard ordered him to stand in the middle of the hallway, he merely complied with a doofy smile on his face.

"Yessir," he said, a little subdued but undeniably chipper.

There was a lot he wanted to say right off the bat, but he had to settle for just one question to start.

"Are you okay, Zircon?" Osiris asked. "Or, well, uh, Garnet? My mom told me that was your actual name, she talked with that blissey when you came to my house, remember? Yeah, she said your name was Garnet Zircon, but I kind of think Zircon's cooler. Um, are you okay though? I mean, you look okay. You look great!" he babbled, unable to stop his own inane stream of dialogue.

Iris' mouth shut with an audible click, and he felt sort of like a total idiot while he waited for the pokemon behind bars to say something.

The little serpent wouldn't shut up. It annoyed a part of him. He wanted the little pest to shut it already. Fortunately for him, Osiris realized his mistake before he felt the need to do anything about it. He could not quite piece together what it was about this dratini, but something clicked an ticked in the back of his mind.

He went to the lizard's house. His name was Garnet Zircon. A blissey also came to the serpent's house. What did a blissey look like and why did that give him such a horrific feeling in his gut? He moved from his position at the back of the cell. His wings flared out as much as they could for a stretch before he approached the bars of the cell. The guards tensed as he did so, ready to make a move should he try anything.

He was chained, so even if he attempted to escape it would be difficult. The charizard looked down at the little tyke as he struggled to remember what the dratini spoke to him about. He felt a vague sense of familiarity, but that was about it.

"No. I am not okay." He responded honestly, "I do not remember much, but what you say sounds familiar." It was much easier to for him to piece together sentences now than when he was a charmeleon. He watched the dratini closely, curious as to what it wanted with him.

"Woooah," Osiris exclaimed, eyes wide as he watched Zircon show off his wingspan. For a moment, he cursed himself for being a dratini. Even fully evolved, a dragonite's wings were pretty pitifully sized, to the point where he wondered how they were functional. But man, talk about majestic. Charizards weren't dragon-types, really (unless that old dusty book of his was to be believed, and even then it was temporary), but the similarities tickled Iris' fascination with his own type.

Zircon's next words took a lot of wind out of sails, though. He tried to tell himself that it was to be expected, but a part of him selfishly wanted the now-charizard to remember the day he spent with Osiris. For it to be important enough that he held on to it, but even Iris could recognize that was kind of silly. "Well, um. Do you remember me? You knew I was a friend, at least. I was going to, uh, visit you in the hospital. Before... things happened."

More like he was going to try busting the fire-type out of the hospital, but the presence of the guards listening in on him made him stumble around that one. He was stumbling left and right, really, equal parts intimidated by their surroundings and astonished by the new form of the pokemon he was talking to.

Memories always seemed to be tricky with him...at least that he could remember. The child seemed almost disappointed in the fact that he could not remember. He frowned as the words struggled to come out of his so-called "friend" in the hall. He paused as his mind almost seemed to buffer. His blank expression practically plastered a loading bar over his form.

W a i t-"You...showed me the stone..." he commented. His memories were vague, but the stone. He could remember the stone. The dratini was near him when he remembered the stone. He almost seemed to perk up a little at this, though the guards seemed a little interested in what the two had to say.

"I...found it," he informed the dratini, "Bad idea."

"Yeeeeeaah~," Osiris drawled out, as understanding as he could sound. "I heard about that. Heard you got into a fight. Which, by the way, sounds awesome." The dratini started off mostly downcast and sympathetic, but as he reminded himself of what happened with Garnet, his expression morphed into excitement. "Like, seriously, I heard you went toe-to-toe with a bunch of pokemon from the guild, and let me just say; Normally I'm the first to geek out over those guys when the stories make it around, but you went up against like four whole teams, I heard! And almost won!!

"I went to go check it out the next day and see how big of an explosion you did, and you can obviously see where it happened on the ground. Totally massive. I knew you were powerful as all get-out when I first saw you, Zircon, I just knew it." Osiris gushed gleefully, a healthy dose of hero-worship infecting his tone. He sighed at the end of his little rant, and it was obvious from the way he looked and sounded that he was likely imagining the battle in his head at that moment.

A little bit of the excitement seeped out from him when that came to an end, however. "It just... sucks that you're in here now. I guess they got you on property damage or something, huh?" he asked mostly rhetorically.

"...uhh...kid..." The turtle cut in before Garnet had an opportunity to respond, "Do you understand what actually happened at all? He nearly killed a bunch of pokemon." The guard was completely baffled by the sudden shift into admiration of the convict. The kabutops merely folded its arms in disapproval with an irritated huff.

Garnet felt as if he should have frowned in disapproval of the excitement. What he experienced instead, was that same giddiness he felt when they plotted to find the stone that made him into such a monster. Part of him shunned himself, but the excitement would reign.

"Was it? I don't remember. I can't remember anything from it but it felt like it was-" he caught himself. A frown developed as the carracosta looked at him in utter bewilderment at his sudden change of tone. "...No...no-no. Don't be...excited," he instructed himself more so than the kid. It was difficult. "It wasn't a good thing. I did...bad things."

"Bad things?" the kabutops snorted, "You assaulted an innocent bystander, destroyed the entirety of a street, and just about killed nearly everyone there!"

Garnet's eyes fell to the floor as he was reminded of his crime. He didn't understand what was going on. It all felt so...confusing. The haze made it difficult to concentrate. He couldn't remember what they were going to do with him in this cell, but he highly doubted he would be allowed any sort of freedom anytime soon.

"What?" Osiris blurted, actually swiveling to look at the carracosta in confusion.

He knew Zircon had gotten into a fight, but... nobody died, right? And it was just the people who started the debacle that he fought... right? When the charizard himself cut in and gently rebuked Osiris for, well, cheering for him, the dratini completely deflated. All this time he figured that this was just the deal with the hospital all over again - Zircon in a bad situation because of his amnesia.

And maybe it was, but the charizard seemed to be owning up to "doing bad things." It sucked to hear.

"It couldn't have been that simple," he protested weakly. "You're not a bad person. He wouldn't just attack a bunch of people for no reason, that doesn't even make sense. You guys know he's sick, right?" Iris directed that last bit at the kabutops, more than a bit defiant.

He's...sick? Garnet's brow furrowed at the declaration. He didn't know that...but then again the guards could have told him countless times and he would forget it in the next ten minutes. In the moment, he struggled to piece things together. What did he have? What illnesses did he even know of? Why did this dratini like him so much? The charizard's wings folded behind him as he seated himself down on the cold floor, he needed to think about this...but if only he could keep a solid train of thought for longer than a minute.

The turtle pokemon looked almost sympathetic towards the dratini, while the kabutops continued to just be plain annoyed. The carracosta spoke up as soon as he realized the kabutops would remain silent, "Yes...we do...but we can't just let him off the hook for the damage he's done-especially since we don't know how to 'help' what's wrong with him. Until we can, he'll have to stay here or under a close watch."

"Unless he's faking it..." the kabutops grumbled.

"He's not faking it," Osiris muttered half-to-himself, petulant and upset at how unfair this all seemed to be. "It's really bad amnesia, that's when you forget things a lot. That's what it is, Zircon. And he's had it for as long as I've known him." the dratini finished with a tone of finality, speaking to the kabutops toward the end once more. He left out the fact that he'd only known Zircon for a few days at best, probably a collective time of a little bit over an hour.

Still, it rankled him that the charizard had to be locked in a cage and guarded like he was some kind of wild animal. The carracosta at least seemed okay, but one of his guards was a total meanie, too.

Iris realized that this probably wasn't the most relaxing or fun visit to Garnet—not that any jail visit truly could be—so he exhaled in a sign of frustration and directed his attention back to the charizard, away from the jerk kabutops. "Is there anything you wanna know, at least? While I'm here? I know you'll probably forget, but you'll have it in your head for a little bit." he offered, fishing for any opportunity to be helpful. "If there's something outside you wanna check on, like maybe I can talk to the people and make sure they're okay for you, or something else you can think of..."

"It's...not just any ol' case of amnesia kid." The carrocosta responded as he folded one flipper over another, "And you're thinking of short-term memory loss, not amnesia. What he has is something a lot different...something that uh...we don't quite understand yet. So until we do, we gotta keep him in quarantine...which is why you can't go near him."

"It's bad enough that they even let you in here," the kabutops added on the sly.

The charizard paused as the little dratini asked if he had any requests for him. Garnet took a moment to think about what he could possibly do or say. It took a moment, but finally he spoke up, "Could...you tell the people that got hurt I'm sorry?" The truth of the matter was that he had already done so to at least one, but he was incapable of remembering. It was important to him that they knew though. He didn't want to be like this. This was the kind of monster he left home to avoid becoming.

"And the vaporeon, tell her she's really strong...and that I'd like to spar with her again if I get better."

"He wouldn't hurt me." Osiris said peevishly, saying it just for the sake of saying it.

The guard's explanation of amnesia sort of went right over his head, because honestly, Iris barely knew what it meant when his own mouth was blabbing about it. The crux of the matter was that something was wrong with the charizard and nobody knew how to fix it. Iris intended to help him as much as he could, and if Zircon ran out of errands for him to run, maybe asking around about amnesia was the next step.

"I can do those things," Osiris nodded along at the charizard. "Shouldn't be hard to track anyone down. If I find one of them, they should lead me to the rest, too. I'll come back soon to tell you how it went, I promise."

He shot a prim look at the kabutops after that comment. If the big ugly rock guy didn't like him in here, that was just more reason for him to show up. Who knows what kind of rotten stuff they were saying to Zircon while no one was around? "How are they, uh, feeding you in here? Do you want me to bring you somethin' to eat, maybe? Like the poffins you ate at my house that one time? That's allowed, right?" Iris steered that last shot at the carracosta, as he was by far the nicer and more agreeable of the two guards.

"He wouldn't hurt me."

The words seemed so confident. Even though Garnet already forgot how Osiris even entered this place, it pained him to know just how wrong those words were. Given enough time or even the right amount of provocation, he knew that he would have made a dinner out of the dratini. His heart was weighed down with this knowledge, but at the very least it assured him to know it wouldn't happen. He was behind these bars. He was being kept away from the others.

"Okay." Was all he could manage to say in response to the dratini at first. "I uh-eat I guess." The charizard could not recall what he ate and when he last ate, but he definitely did not feel hungry. So...?

"Can't be done anyways," the kabutops chimed in, "We'd have to give it a good search and by the time we do there'll hardly be anything edible left."

"Yeaaah we can't exactly have anyone sneak any weapons in and we can't really make any exceptions..." The Carracosta added.