Author's Note:
Pokemon is copyrighted by Nintendo. Mutate is a concept by pokenutter on deviantART (see link on profile).
Daryl is pokenutter's character; the other named characters are mine.
This story is a collaboration between pokenutter and myself.
Since Fall had begun to come to a close, life had started throwing curveballs.
So thought Evan Varion as he slipped towards his backyard. An extended curfew, entry into his sophomore year at high school, and the Sandshrew living in his backyard shed were at the forefront of his mind. He approached said shed, and knocked on the door.
"Hey, Daryl. I brought you some food."
Silence for a few seconds, and then, the door opened a crack. A shiny, blue-black eye peered out.
"Not ham again, I hope."
"Nope. Leftover cheeseburger. Thought you might have gotten tired of Thanksgiving leftovers."
Mark, Evan's eight-year-old brother, sighed from the window. "Right," he said to himself. "It was your idea."
A dry-looking, almost scaled hand poked out of the shed. It reached for the bag, and pulled it back inside. Daryl was heard almost immediately tearing into it, eating as fast as he could. When he finished, he turned to Evan. "Thanks. I mean it, thank you."
Evan nodded. "Mhm." He then poked his head inside, nodding at the pile of leaves that had blown in. On rare occasion, someone else would find the shed, and those leaves covered the door to Daryl's safe room. Also blocking the way to it was a concrete slab that Daryl says his claws could cut through. Evan didn't question it; a Sandshrew did have sharp claws. Other than the pile of leaves being kept in there, the shed did look normal for a mostly-abandoned shed.
Mark, who had walked away from the window while Daryl ate, ran back to it. "Someone's coming!"
A snapping of a twig some twenty yards away confirmed this sentence. Daryl began to try to squeeze himself into the corner with the highest amount of darkness. Noting after a few minutes that he was making more noise than he had been before, he simply stopped moving, frozen in place.
Silence fell for another few seconds, followed by perhaps one of the loudest and most unusual sounds any of them had ever heard. A purple flash, coupled with a cry of pain, punctuated this sudden interruption. For whatever reason, this particular part caused Evan to flinch. He knew that voice- it sounded a lot like a friend of his, Nick.
A blast of wind, and a brief moment of quiet. Then, the lights in the neighborhood started to flicker on.
"Evan? You okay?" asked Mark. "You're-"
"I gotta go," Evan said suddenly. "Daryl, stay hidden. Mark, bed."
"But-"
"NOW!"
Daryl poked his head out of the door. "Wait, where are you going?"
Too late. Evan was already darting towards the source of the sound. Daryl sighed, and began to follow, quietly enough so that Evan might not hear him, but quickly enough so that he wouldn't lose sight of him.
Evan suddenly stopped as he turned the corner, gasping and wincing from the slight pain he felt somehow.
In front of him was a boy about his age, bright red hair marking his face-hair that was quickly turning pink. Evan recognized him as Nick, a close friend of his. As the spreading color change reached his hairline, it appeared to stop for a moment- before extending the hairline. Before too long, the boy's entire head was coated in what could at this point only be described as fur. Before the fur began to spread down his neck, however, Nick began to cry out, as if in pain- and no wonder! With a tremendous cracking sound, his skull visibly reshaped itself, his face transmogrified into what looked like a snout.
The hair continued across most of his body. Small spasms coupled with an occasional grunt indicated that this was not a painless process. A finger on each hand atrophied and dropped off, followed by a shout as his hips dislocated. Evan winced again, the pain through the link getting stronger as psychic abilities strengthened Nick's link with him. The pain only seemed to increase as a tail broke its way out of Nick's lower back. The final change, however, seemed to be at least a bit less painful, but still unnatural enough that it still sent chills through both witnesses- Nick's ankles shifted, pulling his feet towards a digitigrade position. Evan shuddered, feeling it clearly as the link reached its peak.
Once Evan was sure it was finished, he cautiously reached towards him, but thought better of it; some Mutates had lost their minds after transforming, if he remembered correctly from that notice.
"Nick?" he said lightly. The Mutate in question looked dully at Evan.
Don't call me that, a voice suddenly sounded in Evan's head. Please.
"Huh?"
A "mutate". It makes me seem… inhuman.
"Sorry…"
Daryl watched Evan, and raised an eyebrow. "Um, Evan? Who are you talking to?"
"I'm talking to-" Evan began, only to be cut off by Nick.
"Sorry… I must have been using telepathy without realizing it…" He said that as though it was perfectly normal, a sentence to which Evan just chuckled.
Can you hear this? Evan asked curiously. Nick nodded.
"So it goes both ways," they said at the same time.
"What will you do now?" Daryl asked.
"It's probably risky," Nick said, "but I'm going to try going back to my family…"
"If they don't accept you…" Evan began, but Nick knew what he was going to suggest and interrupted him.
"No, it's okay Evan, you don't need to do that." Nick sighed. "Honestly, I'm not sure what I'd do… I don't want to inconvenience you like that…"
Evan was about to protest but nodded when he heard the real reason. "I see… You're probably right, Nick."
"See ya around, pal. Tell Mark I said hi."
"Will do!"
With that, the area around Nick began to glow a purplish tint. A blast of wind, coupled with the same weird sound as before announced his abrupt departure.
Daryl turned to Evan, and nodded. "Well, he seems to be adapting well. Then again, he didn't have his skin flayed off in the process..."
Evan nodded, remembering what Daryl's mutation had looked like. It was not pretty. He shuddered at the thought. Then he thought of something else.
"Why are you out here?" he asked. "What if someone sees you?"
"Hey, relax. I wasn't about to let you run off chasing... whatever you thought that Mew was. Besides, it's night out. What are the odds of that happening?"
"If you have to ask, pretty high," Evan said, taking a cautious look around. "Let's just go back."
Daryl took a second to make sure that nobody was watching, and slipped back to the shed as quietly as he could. He was almost the whole way back to the shed, when suddenly, he heard a car door slam. Quickly, he ducked below the fence, and listened as hard as he could.
The sound of the front door opening was followed by a murmured conversation which he could barely hear. Evan, meanwhile, had kneeled down next to him, listening just as hard.
"Hello."
"Ma'am... Mutate sighting... purple... investigate..."
"Well... none... my family..."
The next sentence came through quite clearly.
"Ma'am, we have a warrant."
The four words Evan was dreading. He knew just as well as Daryl did what they were looking for: A purple 'mutate'. Nick.
It was worse, though, because, if they weren't careful these guys would find Daryl.
Evan growled-and the growl sounded quite animalistic, but nobody seemed to notice-and signaled for Daryl to hide. They'd gone over this many times before, at least once a week. In fact, the intense practice had paid off once already. They had come looking for Daryl, and he was nowhere to be found. Now it was time for that practice to pay off again.
Daryl began to crawl as slowly and stealthily as he could towards the shed. He got around halfway across the yard before he suddenly turned.
"Wait! This is too convenient. That Mew was here just a few seconds ago. They shouldn't have gotten here so fast."
"What are you saying?"
"There's a chance that they may have been waiting for an opportunity like this."
"But then why would they have a warrant?"
"To investigate the property. They've been informed of a Mutate in the area. They don't know what manner of Mutate is hiding here, but they've heard rumors. They haven't found me before, but-"
He quickly rolled to the side, seeing someone come close to the back door. He turned back to Evan.
"-your friend's transformation and teleportation have left them with no doubts. They're sure now that..."
He trailed off, and raised an eyebrow.
"Are you alright? You look a bit pale."
Evan, who was scratching his itching arm, was about to answer when he heard a scream from within the house. He ran faster than Daryl had ever seen him run, and the Sandshrew could have sworn he saw a flash of yellow in Evan's hair. He made it to Mark's room first and gagged at what he saw.
Mark was rolled up in a ball on the ground, sobbing slightly as he watched brown fur crawl down his chest.
"No... stop..."
"Mark!" Evan yelped. First his closest friend, and now his brother?
But there was nothing he could do. He could only watch as his younger brother's skull reworked itself into a distinctly canine shape, followed by the arrival of a tail. The young boy's cries reached a crescendo as his ankles shifted- followed by absolute silence as he fell unconscious.
He looked sadly at the now-knocked-out Eevee morph on the floor in front of him. He was certain that it was an Eevee. The cream mane contrasting his brown face fur and his black-nosed muzzle made him sure.
He growled, determining that the government would not get a hold of Mark if stopping them was the last thing Evan did.
Daryl, meanwhile, had slipped away. Evan was his friend, and he couldn't endanger him here any longer. He just had to get off the property, and find a nice forested area somewhere, where he could hide for a while. All he had to do was-
Aw, crap. He had rounded a corner, and walked straight into a large group of people. It seemed that whoever had come with a warrant had brought reinforcements. Armed reinforcements.
There was no way to fight this number of people, even if they were unarmed. He held his hands up in surrender.
"My name is Daryl Smith. I surrender."
Okay, fate, he thought to himself. You've made your point.
Evan noticed this. I hope they leave us alone, he thought. I'm sorry, Daryl...
Evan looked down at Mike and lifted him onto his bed, tucking him in under the covers. "Good night, Mark..."
From the front door, he heard the sound of conversation. Being closer to the source than he had been before, he could make out conversation a lot more clearly now.
"-found this one on your driveway. Are you trying to tell us that you had no idea he was there?"
"Yes! In this house, we don't harbor Mutates!"
"And yet, here he is. Just around the time we started looking for them. We came here looking for a different Mutate, but we found this one. I wonder, are you hiding more than just him?"
"We don't know-"
Evan's father was cut off by the sounds of heavy boots beginning to spread through the house.
Evan suddenly gasped and ran into the house. Mark! He still didn't realize he was using his increased speed, and made it to the room first- past a couple guards.
As he ran past, he noticed that the guards seemed to slow down. Suddenly, one of them grabbed his walky-talky.
"I've got one here. Looks to be mutating as we speak. Everyone, get to the second floor, back corner. Be ready for a fight, this one looks like an electric-type."
Um, what?
No time to worry about whatever delusions they were suffering. He had to protect his brother!
The first thing he did upon entry was to close the door. It wouldn't help in the long run, but it would give him two extra seconds or so to prepare...