The Misadventures of Mike and Mew!
Chapter 1: Secret of Poké-N.I.M.H and the Rise of the Raticate King!
And here we are! Finally somewhere where it makes sense to use a Mew with a trollface as an avatar and not need to use a bookcover so as to avoid seeming ridiculous! Of course, this fic is perfect for ridiculous given the subject matter at hand.
... though this first chapter is actually pretty dark...
But anyway, this kind of tale ends only when I run out of ideas! So while this first arc will update rather consistantly (next chapter will be ready soon), after that is free-range. All kinds of things could happen here, from Masks of Ice to Raticate Kings to backpacks with pocket dimensions in which battles of legendary proportions take place!
So enjoy!
Axis Island. A humble little rock, not as famous as Cinnabar for its Gym (or it's violent eruption), but significant due to the fact that it is just a stone's throw away from the border between the Kanto and Johto regions.
Though a relatively normal-looking island city at first glance- it is worth noting a certain quad of inhabitants that both make this place special and draw bizarre happenings.
Speaking of those…
The Distant Woods of the Axis Islands is an interesting place. It is named because it always seems far away till you're at the entrance, and when you are within its boundaries, the outside seems just as far.
There are plenty of fascinating points of interest as well: it is one of the Kanto-Johto area's biggest points of Pokémon migrations from across the world, it is where the poem "Hypno's Lullaby" was based in (a Creepypasta reference- not usually my thing but I found it interesting), and home to a mystical power whose true nature is unknown to all but few.
What is most important about this woods (for now), is that it the location of a secret laboratory where experimentation is done on Pokémon for the evolution of mankind…
…or that's the cover story, anyway. The truth was that it was once owned and operated by Team Rocket before its final collapse. This facility was geared towards modifying the minds of the fantastical creatures we know and love in order to find a way to unlock the unused portions of the human brain.
Yet even after the evil team's defeat, it still continued to operate on the funds it had remaining.
A small man with dirty brown hair who wore a white lab coat came into one particular room, filled to the brim with cages amongst its walls. What was particularly odd was that there was only one type of Pokémon- Rattata.
These poor rodents looked at him with pleading expressions on their faces, only wanting out of their prisons or for at least a little food. Their little bodies were looking unhealthily thin and scrawny, and their purple and tan fur filthy and unkempt. In about half of these cages, the Rattata within them were already dead and rotting.
But the man didn't seem to care in the slightest, and only gave them looks of complete and total indifference to their suffering. When he noticed the dead Pokémon, he sighed in annoyance, "They just keep dropping, don't they?"
He went over to the control panel and pressed several of the numbered red buttons on it. With each button he pressed, a piece of the wall that each cage was bolted into moved back, taking the cage attached to it with it. Then, the floor of each cage opened up and dropped its deceased occupants into a furnace where they would cease to be an eyesore.
With those casualties taken care, of, the man went off to check the status of the others. Deaths were common since the procedures, injections, etc. tended to make most of them either perish in minutes, hours, or a few days. The exceptions that survived the week-long wait were kept to endure more experiments with the same quality of care.
Team Rocket never gave much thought for the wellbeing of the Pokémon they used for battle so long as they were strong for those fights. Naturally, those used as lab rats (literally) were even worse off. The reason Rattata were used, besides being ridiculously common, was because they were both the easiest to catch and the only specimens they could reliably test on. Those subjects that evolved into Raticate were put into the organization's 'generic grunt Pokémon' listings.
He then pulled took off his coat to reveal several syringes filled with an ominous black liquid. His face was still nearly emotionless as he pulled one of them out, ready to inject the first test subject of the day. He walked down across the dismal, metallic hallway- the Rattata he passed by cowering in fear at the back of their cages.
But these Rattata were not the ones he was aiming for first- no... he preferred getting the hard ones out of the way first so that he still had the energy to fend off the weaker ones if they tried to fight back.
The first subject he planned to tackle was easily the toughest of them all. As he finally approached this one's cage located near the back of the room, you could easily see the unbridled hatred in its eyes. Of the fifteen hundred (well, a thousand now, but there were) Rattata in Rocket captivity, he was No. 626.
It wanted the man to burn. It wanted all of humankind to burn. It wanted everything it didn't care about to burn. All of the years of abuse the poor thing had to deal with had already driven No. 626 insane long ago as the one of the sole survivors of the original test subjects…
Perhaps that was how the following madness was able to come into being.
The beady-eyed man grabbed the rodent by the neck and injected the substance into its main artery. The Rattata was stunned by the injection, but quickly moved to Bite the man's hand, making him let go. It soon scampered off and fled the room.
The scientist was fuming, "How DARE you, you little piece of SHIT! You should know you're place by now!" He let out a Magneton, "Paralyze it as usual!" The Magnetic Pokémon obeyed and followed it.
Meanwhile, No. 626 had soon gotten lost through its escape and had run into a dead end. It squeaked fearfully as it saw the metallic being close in, its three eyes firing targeting lasers to lock on to the pest. The little creature curled up in pain as the Magneton fired a wave of blue electricity at it and left No. 626 helpless.
But suddenly, just as it (or rather, he) was going to captured, unusual changes began to occur.
First, with a flash of light, No. 626 evolved into a Raticate. Second, his hind-legs suddenly turned bipedal as they lengthened, along with the front legs that became arms. Then finally, the rest of his body began to grow taller and thicker. When it was over, the Magneton was faced with a foe that looked like a 6 ft tall Raticate version of Ratigan from Disney's The Great Mouse Detective.
The newly transformed rodent grabbed his opponent and viciously tore the left and right Magnemites it was composed of off the main body, knocking them out and devolving the Magneton into three 'Mites.
"What going on here?!" The Super Raticate heard his former captor approaching. When he came down the corner and saw his test subject, he came down to his knees, gasping in awe, "Incredible… we have created an all new evolution of Raticate…"
Said Raticate gave a psychotic grin and spoke in a voice reminiscent of Vincent Price, "Indeed you have…" He walked up to the man with an unsettling smile on his face and pat his back- was made the scientist chill with a sudden dread, "And now that I've ascended to this new existence... humankind has no meaning to their existence. Goodbye!"
Before the scientist could even react to No. 626's new ability to speak, his former test subject ran up to him and ruthlessly bit his head off. He kneeled in front of the cruel man's corpse and whispered in a mocking tone, "But don't worry. You'll find that our branch shall be far more capable than you wretched humans ever were."
He then grabbed the man's lab coat and went off to the containment room, intent on 'evolving' his brothers and sisters too.
No, really. His actual brothers and sisters. First, anyway. He had seven of them: four girls, three boys.
No. 626 smiled fondly as he approached their cages. He pet one of his sisters, No. 624, by his claws and whispered, "Don't worry sis, soon you too will enjoy this gift." He pulled out the syringe.
The female Rattata froze at first when she saw it, but relaxed after reassuring herself that her brother would never do anything that would harm her. She allowed No. 626 to perform the injection and soon began changing too.
However, the result wasn't as extraordinary as it was before. Her fur changed to brown, her teeth grew, and her size expanded….but the end result seemed to be a normal Raticate.
No.626 gasped at his sister in shock and disillusionment, stuttering, "W-w-what… w-why di-didn't it w-w-work…"
While his sister took in her surroundings anew, the mutant began trembling in fear, "Could I merely be the exception? Could I be destined to live with no one to call my equal?"
At this thought, he broke down crying, unable to except this fate, "WHY! WHY! WHY! WWWWHHYYYY!?" He whined as he pounded his claws/fists on the floor more like a spoilled child than a being doomed to eternal solitude.
Upon seeing her brother's despair, No. 624 finally spoke, "…Brother, is that you?"
His sorrow instantly evaporated and No.626 hugged his sister in mad joy, "SISTER! You DID transform!" He paused, "Maybe not as fully as myself… but STILL!"
"What are we going to do?"
The insane rodent scratched his chin, "First, we finish injecting everyone. Then…" He stretched his arms widely for dramatic effect, "WE TAKE OVER THE WORLD! MAKE ALL HUMANS SUFFER! ENSLAVE EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT/WAS NOT RATTATA! And I shall rule as king!"
He started laughing manically as he said that. No.624 just stared at him.
"…" He sighed and looked his sister in the eyes, "What is it?"
"If we're going to do that, shouldn't we have names?"
"…Brilliant! Why did I not think of that?"
The Raticate did a motion like a shrug, "I don't know- you're the one who's the smart guy among us."
"Ah, right…" A minute went by, before he came up with a name, "I HAVE GOT IT! For now on, I will be known as RATTY!"
"Doesn't sound like much of a king name."
"You have a point…" He snapped his fingers, "How about this: for now on, I will be known as… Ratsco!"
"Try again."
"Rittles?"
"No."
"Ratag?"
"Stinko."
"Why is this so HARD?!" The Super Raticate screamed as he threw a major fit, bashing his claws on the ground again. No.624 rolled her eyes.
When his rage finally subsided, however, inspiration struck him, "I think I really have it this time! For now on, I will be known as…KING RATIGAN!"
"That's better!" the female Raticate cheered, "…Maybe not the most original, but it works!"
"Yes, yes- I know I am great." He bragged snobbishly, before turning back to the rest of the cages, "Now let us finish the job…"
And so Ratigan and his less-mutated sister (soon (self) named Ratilina) went forth up injected each of their kinsmen one by one.
The injections of the rest of his siblings went well as well as Ratilina's, though like her, none of them evolved into Super Raticate, much to his chagrin. Still, they would make fine generals.
Then came evolving everyone else, and here the results became interesting. Of the one thousand test subjects (again, Rattata are very common), 750 of them were successful and 300 evolved into Raticate. The other 500 though went through… interesting changes.
"Next up, No. 642!" The king announced, calling up the subject numbers like a waiting list. After 200 successful injections, none of the other rodents had any concerns and were impatient to transcend their own existences.
No. 642 came in with curious eyes, closing his eyes as the injection did its magic…
Suddenly, everything went wrong. The specimen started foaming from the mouth, evolving into a Raticate... but then convulsing as his muscles grew much larger, his body longer, and his appearance overall more wicked as the transformation concluded; the rodent now a monstrous behemoth version of itself. Unlike those before it, this one seemed mindless and violent.
The beast charged at Ratigan, fangs barred. But the Super Raticate merely jumped over it and grabbed him by the tail. He forcefully popped a part of the wretch's spinal cord, causing the former No.642 to collapse on the floor motionless.
"Do not panic!" The self-proclaimed Raticate King yelled, drowning out the screams of fear from the other ex-test subjects, "He will only be out cold- not permanently paralyzed." He explained... though he didn't seem to care that much either way- something only his sister noted.
Ratigan pointed towards a group of four Rattata, "You there! Go cage this one up. As much as I would protest confining one of my kin in such a manner again, he is simply too much of a menace to let free on his own."
As they took the monster rodent away, Ratilina looked at her brother questioningly, "What are we going to do with him?"
The newly-made despot scratched his chin in thought, "We shall tame the poor wretch and make him subservient to the rest of us. Same goes for any others who experience that defect. Now let us keep going…"
It took all night, but by the end of the day, a new threat to the world was ready to act… and a fic began...
As I said, next chapter will be up before too long, so stay tuned! Be sure to review; criticism is appreciated so long as it is constructive.