Ingrained

Chapter 1: New World

Earth. It seems like there's always some war or plague ravaging its surface.

On this world exist creatures with marvelous power, Pokémon.

They come in all shapes and sizes. Round, tall, short, light, heavy. It seems like there are more types of Pokémon out there than people. Humans use these creatures for nearly everything, and over the years have made a sort of friendship with them. We've learned much about them, but it seems like some of them are still purposefully hiding secrets from us…

This new world has a clean, energy efficient, power source. In a few fissures located around the world lie special flowers called Terra Vitae. This plant can be processed into many different forms and the energy that can be extracted from its stems is used to power everything, from small buildings to huge coliseums. People now rely solely on the power that this plant gives off.

A girl with shoulder length blonde hair looked upon a computer monitor inside a room with all sorts of flashing buttons and gadgets lining the metallic walls around her. She looked inquisitively at the screen as a small green gauge began scaling upwards, turning from green to red. The girl looked to the Misdreavous to her left, who had the same tense expression, and back to the computer, squinting to make sure that her eyes weren't deceiving her.

She looked too young to be the operator of this complex machine but, due to the three people strewn around the room in beaten heaps, it was safe to assume that she had broken in forcefully.

"No, I don't get it, why is this happening?"

It would just another day for Codo. He sighed as he walked out of his apartment; hand awkwardly in his pocket as he slowly stepped out into the cold. Pressing his black hair down, he looked at the sun, which was still low in the horizon. The ground was frozen with frost and, to shield himself from the cold, he zipped up his jacket. How he hated Paternica Town. Those people just had to send him up to the mountains of Sinnoh to start his internship at the clinic, didn't they?

Whatever, he sighed and continued on his way, almost instinctually checking his pocket for his belongings. Pokéball? Check. Money? Check. I.D card? Extra double check. He'd be damned if he left his I.D card behind again. Last time he left it, he had to walk all the way back home to retrieve it, only to be told that, because he was late, they had called someone in to take his place for the day.

In his grumbling, he failed to realize that he had already reached the hospital. He pulled out his I.D card and scanned it through a vertical slot. Walking past the security droid without a problem, he stepped into the changing room, only to leave seconds later wearing a doctor's coat and stethoscope around his neck.

"Hey Donna, how's it go?" He grabbed a clipboard from the counter. The woman in question looked up and smiled.

"About time you showed up." She talked in a rather sassy tone, and Codo liked that, it reminded him of home. "We're a little backed up at the moment, you mind taking care of a patient on your own?"

He looked at the secretary with wide eyes. "Uh, yeah. But, are you sure, I've only been here for a month."

"Don't worry sweetie, I'm sure you'll do fine." Without looking up from her computer screen she reached towards a stack of papers to her left and picked up the top sheet, handing it to Codo without another word.

With a slightly exasperated moan he went on his way to the patient's room. Knowing his luck, he'd probably get some guy with the most random sickness, and him failing to help someone would only fuel the tempers of those older doctors who had constantly referred to him as 'that college kid.'

He ended his thoughts once he reached Room 5A, where his patient was. With one more outward sigh, he opened the door, to see a man with dripping wet clothes lying face down against the floor. Not a second passed before Codo rushed to help the man into a nearby chair. "Sir, are you okay," he asked, vigorously patting the man on his shoulder.

The man grumbled, his head turned to the floor. "The factory… the factory…"

He was talking about the facility just a few blocks away where they processed the Terra Vitae plant to make it useable for energy conversion. Codo had seen the building a few times, nothing seemed too strange or unsafe about it, and the building was surrounded by a large steel gate that was always guarded by armed men, so it wasn't like some madman with a gun could've easily gotten inside.

"Sir, what happened? Is anyone else hurt?" Codo took the man's pulse. His heart was beating irregularly fast. He took the man's temperature next and impatiently waited for the little machine to beep.

50 degrees Fahrenheit? That couldn't have been right.

He popped the medical instrument back into the man's mouth and waited once more. The thermometer read 49 degrees this time.

"Can you see anything?" He gently nudged the man's head up, only to fall back in surprise once he caught a glimpse of the man's eyes. They were dark blue, even what would be the whites of his eyes were stained as blue as the ocean.

Codo didn't know what to do. He had never even heard of anything like this, much less read it in his book. The next thing he knew, he ran out of the room, calling for help from someone –anyone- who could help. The older doctors, who had been darting around between their other rooms all passed him annoyed glances before going to the room that housed the man. He didn't stop running, he charged outside, into the chilly early morning air.

And the next thing Codo knew, he was standing in front of the gate of the factory, which was left unguarded, for whatever reason. He looked around, to make sure that there weren't any guards around and, with cautious steps, walked into the building.

The lobby was bright and, like the entrance, eerily quiet. Codo yelled to see if anyone was around, though the only answer he got was his own echo. He quietly walked over to the desk in the center of the room. A flowerpot lay smashed on the floor, and what looked like a puddle of coffee was spilled over a stack of papers. The computer screen was still on, which gave Codo the impression that whoever had been previously working here had been forced out. He took another look around and decided to continue on, curious to find out exactly what had happened.

He moved on to the next door, which automatically slid open for him. He found himself in a long hallway, brightly lit by the little glass squares scattered on the floor. His steps resonated throughout the hall as he walked, and Codo suddenly got a chill up his spine. He knew that factories like this one were never left unoccupied. Something must've happened to the people here, the question, of course, was what.

"Are we almost done with the cleanup?" A voice asked from behind a door.

"Yeah," another voice replied. "But I've been hearing that there's some kid running around here, screwing everything up. Boss says we can't leave 'til we get rid of 'em."

Codo could hear the two voices shuffling to the door, and the next thing he knew, they were both standing in front of him. They both wore gray suits with black, visor-like, sunglasses perched upon their heads.

"Speaking of the devil." The man on the left reached for his sunglasses, pulling them over his eyes. "We were just talking about you." The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small sphere that fit into the palm of his hand. He pressed a button on the center and the ball quickly grew to about the size of a baseball. With a casual throwing motion, the ball opened up, revealing, after the quick burst of light, a poochyena, the small hyena pokemon.

Codo did the same, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his Pokéball. He gulped, it'd been a while since he last battled, and he had no idea how strong his opponents were. "Buizel!" He threw his ball as well. This time, an orange, mammalian creature emerged from the light. The buizel stood on her hind feet, her two front paws crossed. The Pokémon had a rather indifferent expression on her face as she looked at the small hyena before her. When she looked back at her trainer, she scowled, growling in disgust.

"Yeah, um…" Codo scratched his head as he thought about what to say to the otter. "Sorry, about not bringing you out yesterday… And the day before, too, I guess. But, we need to beat these guys, okay?"

The Pokémon nodded, almost bitterly disappointed in her trainer, and turned back towards her opponents.

"Poochyena," the man started. "Use Bite!"

Immediately, the black hyena charged forward, but before its small jaws could clamp onto the buizel, she materialized a thick coating of ice on her left paw and landed a left hook on her opponent, who was sent flying to the wall.

"Golbat, take care of it!" The other man sent his Pokéball flying, this time a Golbat emerged. "Crunch,"

"Buizel," Codo shouted. "Use Ice Punch again!"

The Pokémon looked back at her trainer and scowled again. Instead of using her commanded move, Buizel stood still, her two tails beginning to glow a bright white. With two flicks, white shockwaves were sent flying and collided with the bat, which fell to the ground, defeated.

"Damn it," the man reached into a holster he had strapped on his belt and pulled out a gun. The other man did the same. One gun was pointed at the buizel, who stood impatiently, and the other at Codo, who was frozen in shock. "You're done."

Codo could see both men getting ready to squeeze their triggers, and, in fear, Codo closed his eyes.

"Misdreavus, Psybeam."

A wave of multi-colored light shot from further down the hallway, crashing into the two men who dropped their guns and fell onto the ground in pain. Codo opened his eyes again to see his savior. She looked to be about his age, with blonde hair. The small, purple Ghost type, Misdreavous, floated delicately beside her, mouth agape.

"You don't look familiar," the girl spoke. "Who do you work for?"

Codo rose an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He pointed his Pokéball towards the buizel, who disappeared in a flash of red light.

"Don't play dumb," she said, condescendingly. "Who assigned you here?"

This girl was weird, Codo thought. He didn't appreciate her smarmy attitude either, and why was she interrogating him all of a sudden? "No one," he finally answered. "One of my patients at the hospital said he worked here, and he had some weird illness, so I thought I'd check the place out."

He could see the girl smile, almost as if she didn't believe what he had said. "Yeah, okay." Sarcasm coated her words. "You can play dumb all you want; but I hope you know, you're sloppy. I mean, if you're going to do your job, do it without getting caught."

What the hell was she talking about? She was definitely strange, Codo caught that immediately, and her accent, she definitely wasn't from around here.

"Look, you're here to find out what happened, right?" She crossed her arms.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Good." Her eyes flickered for a moment. "Then I guess you should come with me."

With that, she turned around and headed further down the hallway. Codo, ignoring the slight swivel of her hips stood still before speaking again. "You know…" He smirked. "Before I go gallivanting off with a smooth woman in black, I think I deserve a name."

The girl stopped and looked back with a grin. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She continued on her way, her Pokémon trailing behind.

Codo sighed, she was strange; there was definitely something weird about her, and just why had she been here too?

"Maran,"

Codo looked back up to see that she had stopped again.

"What," he asked.

"My name, it's Maran."

"Oh," he said. "I'm Codo."

Codo had no way of knowing that, by going with the girl, he'd be starting an adventure that would rock the foundation of everything he knew.