YMMV / Experimenting Fear

• Fridge Horror: How much Fridge Horror can a one-shot story have? A lot.
  • The entire ordeal with Nando's kidnapping, torture and mutilation happens on the same day he was meant to go get his starter and begin his Pokémon journey...which also means it happened on his tenth birthday. Worst birthday ever.
  • Even if Nando had waited for his parents to go with him to Professor Rowan's lab to get his first Pokémon, it's possible that the scientist would have simply waited for an opportunity to catch him alone in the wilderness and then kidnapped him. He was spying on the boy for long enough that he learned about Nando's fear of his grandmother and of having to listen to his parents fighting.
    • If Nando encountered the scientist in the wild, it's unlikely that whatever Pokémon he had would be strong enough to fend the scientist off. As a completely new Trainer, he'd only have his starter Pokémon and maybe a Com Mon or two. Assuming the scientist managed to kidnap the boy, what would he then do with Nando's Pokémon? Abandon them in the wild? Kill them? Experiment on them as well?
  • Considering how horribly Nando's grandmother treats him, it's possible she also abused his mother Alice while raising her. As to why Alice lets her stay in the house after Nando was born, it is common for people with abusive parents to not realize how badly they were treated until someone else spells it out to them. They may believe they did something to deserve it or that everyone experiences something similar. They may also still feel obligated to help their abusive family members because of the cultural attitude that "they're your family and you have to love and help them no matter what."
  • Nando's grandmother (his mother's mother) is said to torment both him and his father Ronaldo but apparently not his mother Alice, leaving her oblivious to her own mother's cruelty and driving the couple to the brink of divorce. It is possible that her cruelty stems from possessiveness over her daughter and not having wanted her to get married and have a child. Her goal may have been to manipulate Alice into divorcing her husband, then hope that Ronaldo would get fed up with both of them, take custody of Nando and leave so that she could be the only person in Alice's life. Not to mention how badly it would probably traumatize Nando to witness his once happily married parents getting a divorce and fighting over custody of him.
  • If Nando had been killed by the scientist, it would probably be the final push that drove his parents to get a divorce. Alice would live the remainder of her adult life under the thumb of her abusive mother, who would get away with everything she had done to Nando as there was no longer anyone alive who knew about it.
  • Even after a ten-year-long Time Skip, the scientist still hasn't been caught by the police. If he is still alive, he is probably still out there torturing innocent people ... and if he wanted to, he could track down Nando and finish what he started years ago. He might even be motivated to do so by the possibility that Nando could provide evidence against him in a police investigation. (Slightly mitigated by the fact that he might not find it as easy this time, now that Nando isn't a little boy anymore, but a grown adult with Pokémon who can fight for him.)
• The Woobie: This story puts Nando through the wringer. The boy is abused by his grandmother, has to witness the breakdown of his parents' marriage, gets kidnapped and brutally tortured by a sadistic scientist who forces him to face his worst fear, and is almost crippled for life and has to give up his dream of becoming a Pokémon trainer. And all this happens to him when he's only ten!