A/N: Many fanfictions are based around the concept of pokemon-human hybrids, but few have explored the nature of their revelation to the world. This is merely a single interpretation of that event, one which is intended to be a prologue for future tales set in this universe. I hope you enjoy the characters and the stories they have to tell—as well as the stories that are to come.
Feedback is much appreciated, both on the story itself and on my writing.
The Ambassadors
-o-O-O-o-
When Rowley signed up for the Orre Police Academy, he certainly hadn't anticipated this.
Crouching under a cold metal desk, he listened to the constant thuds and crashes in the rooms above him. When the officers had come into the lounge this morning and announced that they were storming the Cipher laboratories, the young man half-expected it to be a joke. Months of petty crimes and civil disputes, and suddenly they expected this sorry band of trainees to take down Cipher in a day?
It was madness. He was going to file a complaint tomorrow.
Groaning, he eyed his surroundings again. All the lights had been disconnected by some wayward pokemon attack, and papers were scattered everywhere from when the Cipher scientists had first rushed out to defend their fortress. Rowley was likely the first of the force to explore this area; he had fled the upper level after the battles started to spiral out of control.
Peeking around the desk, he could see no sign of struggle beyond the door he had locked. Slowly, he pulled his gangly body out from under the cramped space, straining his ears for the sound of approaching footsteps. This lab was straight out of a movie, complete with futuristic computer displays and sleek desk chairs at every terminal. Why couldn't they decorate the Academy like this?
Clicking on his flashlight, Rowley scanned some of the documents on the floor. Scientific garble. He flicked his wrist up to the other door, the one he hadn't entered through. The light reflected off of a pressed metal plate, illuminating the two most interesting words Rowley had ever seen in conjunction.
SPLICE LAB
Glancing back one more time at the door to the upper level, the young man took a few strides forward and tried the door. It unlocked with a click. His light revealed a stairway downwards… and a dull light glowing from the hallway beyond, likely generator-run. Sucking in his breath, Rowley hesitated. He should wait for reinforcements, or at least a partner… but no, he couldn't. He had to know. Clicking off his light—and turning off his radio—he began his descent.
Right before his foot touched the last step, a sudden rattling made him leap back, collapsing on the stairs behind him. His heart was pounding in his chest. Were there scientists still down here, waiting to capture him as soon as he walked through? He waited. There wasn't another sound. Slowly, cautiously, he picked himself up, grimacing at every scrape and tap he made. He gently walked forward, into the dull light cast by the overhead lamps, and realized where the noise had come from: the walls were lined with cages and cages of pokemon.
Most were fairly still, apparently asleep or else uninterested, but some moved around a little, shuffling about in the cramped space. There were many Rattata, a few Sentret, and what looked to be a small collection of Hoothoot. Near the bottom were a few cages with Poochyena in them. Rowley bend over to examine them, curious—then almost immediately leapt back with a shout of horror.
They had tiny human hands.
The man's stomach slowly sank into a twisted knot of illness. His brain was screaming that it wasn't possible, that he couldn't be seeing this… and yet there they were, petite, fleshy fingers, gripping and flexing against the metal bars. The Poochyena seemed troubled; they constantly licked at them, whimpering, jumping a bit every time one of the digits moved. Rowley, controlled by the inexplicable force of revulsion, slowly looked back up at the other caged pokemon.
Some of the Rattata had patches of human skin, which they had chewed into a bloody mess. The Sentret appeared in the early stages of developing human ears, and they constantly shook their heads as if to rid themselves of the strange growths. The Hoothoot seemed normal, aside from looking extremely forlorn; he imagined they would soon be joining the others in their transformation.
Shaking, he pulled himself up, unable to tear himself away from the abominations in front of him. His eyes drifted from one cage to the next, taking in each image as if it were a fresh punch in the gut. The room was small, and it wasn't long before he reached the end of the cages and caught the door at the end of the hallway. It too had a metal plate, neatly screwed in, with a line of raised text adorning it.
SPLICE LAB 2
Rowley needed to turn back. He felt sick, weak, and wasn't sure if he could take any more of what he had just witnessed… what he was still witnessing. He should report this to a superior and be on his way home. Unfortunately, just as a man can't tear himself away from watching a train crash, the young officer couldn't stop himself from closing the distance between him and the cold metal doorknob. Like the other door, it opened with a click; it had been locked from the side Rowley was on.
Holding his breath, he quietly let it swing open. The room was dark, just like the one above, and appeared to be in a state of complete chaos. Papers littered the floor, torn and trampled, chairs had been overturned, desks were on their sides, and more cages were tossed like pebbles over the whole area. It looked like a Rhyhorn had thrashed the entire space.
Creeping along, he moved as stealthily as possible, watching for any movement, squinting his eyes against the darkness he was still adjusting to. His right hand reached for the pokeballs at his belt, just in case.
It was as if he had tripped a hidden mine.
A hand shot out from the darkness and grabbed onto his wrist, painfully tight. Before he could react with anything more than a scream, another hand covered his mouth, and with some force, he was thrown against the nearest wall. His head bounced off the hard surface, and for a moment, he only saw lights. His unrestrained arm scrambled to find some part of his attacker to grab, but the hand covering his mouth was quickly used to subdue his attempts.
When he vision cleared, he found himself staring directly into his own face.
It was enough to make him freeze in terror. Just as if someone had held up a mirror, Rowley was looking at a face identical to his own. The messy black hair, the wide eyes, the hint of a few unshaven days around his chin—everything matched. But this… not-Rowley, this doppelganger, was obviously not a reflection. His clothes weren't the Academy uniform, and his arms were undeniably connected to the hands currently holding the real Rowley against the wall. Suddenly, he spoke up, in a voice that was uncannily similar to the officer's own.
"Please don't be scared." It was a strange thing to tell someone who had just witnessed the results of horrific experimentation, let alone someone being held against the wall by his identical twin. He fell silent after that, simply staring back, almost… pleading? Fearful himself?
Rowley wasn't quite sure how to reply (or how to deal with the situation at all, really), so his brain opted for the most stupid of responses. "Why… are you… me?"
Not-Rowley's reaction was surprising; rather than laughing manically or exploding into a demonic monster, as Rowley half-expected, the man seemed… almost embarrassed.
"Uh, sorry. That happens sometimes," He loosened his grip on Rowley's arms, but before the officer could react, not-Rowley's face was already in the process of melting.
At this point, he wasn't even surprised anymore; he just stood numbly and watched as his twin's features became less and less like his own. Brown hair turned sand-colored, as if each strand was being dipped individually into paint, and previously blue eyes were darkening almost into black. Freckles popped up like raindrops on a shifting ocean of skin tones, and within a few seconds, an entirely different person was standing before him.
"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" Rowley dared to hope. "I got knocked out and now I'm in bed, back at the Academy, and I'm dreaming all of this."
The other man—who appeared to be a teen boy now—smiled sadly. "Betcha wish so, huh? But you ain't. But hey. Don't be scared. I won't hurt ya. None of us will hurt ya. Please mister, we need your help." He had a sense of urgency in his young voice, and already his hand had found Rowley's sleeve and was pulling it toward the open door in the back of the room.
Rowley, still entirely uncertain of how he should react, allowed the boy to drag him along for a short distance, before his brain began to function again and he sharply planted his feet.
"Wait… wait!" He yanked his arm out of the teen's grasp, "What… how… how did you… who… wuh…"
"Please don't be scared," the boy repeated, seemingly frightened by the man's response. "I'm just like you, see? I'm not weird or anything. But some of us are—I mean, some of us look weird, but I promise, we're not—um, it's just that we can't control it, mister, we got into this and we couldn't get out—"
"What are you talking about!" Rowley demanded, desperate for some kind of explanation. "I don't know what the hell you're going on about, but I want answers! Who are you? How did you manage to pull off that whole—"
"I'm Brian," he answered, his tone earnest . "I got spliced."
He let it sink in for Rowley. The man stared at Brian, at his sandy hair and young freckled face, and that plummeting illness in his stomach began to return. Cipher hadn't stopped at the pokemon. They hadn't ceased their research once they discovered pokemon genes were compatible with humans. No… those things in the cages… those were the first step. Standing here, right in front of him, was the true subject. For the first time, he observed what he was wearing. His shirt was filthy, covered in dirt and far too big for his lanky frame. His jeans were ripped to shreds, loose threads fraying out at every edge and corner. It was apparent he had been wearing them for a long, long time.
"What…" Rowley didn't even know what to say. "What, uh… pokemon…?"
"Ditto," Brian offered him another sad smile, "I have it easy compared to some of 'em. Do you understand now, mister? You saw those pokemon in the cages. We're kinda like 'em. But you gotta understand. We—"
"There's more of you?" Rowley didn't want the real answer.
"Oh, yeah," the boy looked puzzled at such a question. "Bunch more. But they didn't wanna come out all at once, y'know. We heard you guys come in, and the scientists got real scared. It was our only chance… so we kinda revolted. Tore the place up. We knew somebody would come down here eventually. But we knew they'd see the cages first, and we didn't wanna scare 'em. Some of us are in pretty bad shape. So that's why I met ya."
Again, Rowley was at a loss for words. His arms had dropped from their defensive position and were now dangling uselessly at his sides. Inside him, the most unpleasant mix of emotions was stirring. He was the first person outside of Cipher to witness this. None of the officers upstairs would have any clue that this was happening; their mission was to disable the Shadow technology, not explore the hidden corridors of a dangerous laboratory.
For the first time in his career, Rowley was wielding an unbelievable amount of power over someone else's life. It would be so easy to grab one of his pokeballs right now, fend off this mutant and seal the doors behind him. Yet… he knew he couldn't do that. Maybe it was some nagging tinge of guilt, or just the daze he was in from the sudden turn of events, but he was finding it harder and harder to hold on to his feeling of disgust. This boy standing before him, shaking in fear and excitement, probably hadn't seen a friendly face in months… or years. The vivid images of the patchwork creatures he witnessed moments earlier were fading into the dimness of memory, and all he could see now was an army of frightened, shivering kids, crammed into tiny cages, looking out with fearfully hopeful eyes.
"Mister?" Brian touched his arm cautiously, "Are you okay?"
"Uh—yeah. Hey, where are the others?" He tried to straighten up, putting on his authority persona.
Brian risked a hopeful grin. "They're back here, mister, back in the cells. We couldn't get 'em all out—we don't have time. But some of us did, I'll let ya meet 'em. We're the ambassadors."
He again took hold of the officer's arm, much more casually, and led him toward the battered doorway in the back.
"Ambassadors?" Rowley didn't know why, but the label amused him. "Ambassadors of what?"
"Of the pokemorphs," Brian's voice was thoughtful, "'Least, that's what the Ciphers called us. Like 'metamorphosis', see? We're changing. But some of us changed pretty nicely, like me—ain't got any weird parts, or else they ain't that bad. So we got together and said we'd be the ambassadors for when people finally came and helped us. Gotta have a good image, y'know? Otherwise people'd just kill us all off, like they will for those poor things out there in the cages."
Rowley felt colder and colder the more the boy talked. This was his life. He had been down here for an unimaginable amount of time, a lab rat to the Cipher scientists, finding companionship only in fellow prisoners. Yet he dared to dream; he dared to keep hoping that someday, someone would find them… help them… save them. It hit the officer hard. He swallowed and looked at the ground, trying to keep himself calm.
"Hey, mister. This is Grimsy." Brian's voice lowered, "She ain't too pretty to look at, but she's good at talking."
Rowley looked up, brought back into reality, and his stomach lurched. He had tried to prepare himself for his first real glimpse at… what had he called them, pokemorphs? Unfortunately, it didn't stop him from instinctively stepping back when he locked eyes with the girl sitting in front of him.
She appeared to be only a little older than Brian. Her form was mostly humanoid, which amplified her alien features all the more. The little skin that showed through her layers of ragged clothing was unmistakably violet in color, and shone like plastic in the dim light. Her collarbone—or some growth derived from it—encircled her neck like a bony garland of armor. What looked to be claws were crossed in her lap, and two-toed feet delicately scraped the ground. Huge, pointed ears engulfed her otherwise feminine head, covered with a mess of dark, unkempt hair.
All of these, however, were mere distractions from the one feature Rowley could not stop staring at: her eyes. Her yellow, predatory, completely inhuman eyes.
After she apparently decided the officer had gawked long enough, the girl rose from the beaten cage she had been sitting on and walked quietly towards him. Leathery wings, previously shadowed, now rustled as she moved. She held out a hand to Rowley, her bright, slanted eyes boring into him. She never smiled.
"It is a pleasure to meet you," Her voice was about as grim as her appearance, and it was more out of pressure than pleasantries that Rowley gripped her hand in a hesitant shake. Her skin had a waxy quality to it, and he realized now that only her middle finger was immobile under the claw-like casing, like the spine of a turtle; the rest of her digits remained mostly human. She shook once, then dropped the strange appendage quickly.
"Are you the only one?" She inquired, again meeting his eyes with her fierce gaze.
"There's, uh… more, uh, upstairs. But I'm the only one who's been… down here." Rowley shifted uncomfortably. He felt like a Rattata under the piercing eyes of a hungry bird pokemon.
"Grimsy, it don't matter," Brian was bouncing impatiently. "Go get Abby. We gotta catch 'em before they blow the whole place up or something."
Grimsy seemed irritated at the interruption, but nonetheless, she turned around and into the doorway from which she came, disappearing into a hallway behind the wall. As she left, Rowley caught sight of his final missed observation: a segmented, weaving tail, tipped with what looked like dangerous pincers. It made him shudder.
"What… is she?" He asked Brian, as soon as her footsteps had faded distantly enough. "I've never even seen a pokemon like that before."
"Gliscor. Ever seen Gligar? That's what they evolve into. I guess they're kinda rare. She was a special project. Shipped the DNA all the way from Sinnoh. She ain't braggin', though," He snickered. "Uptight, ain't she?"
Rowley merely nodded in response, stomach still troubled by the scarring image of her mangled anatomy, then an awkward period of silence pervaded. He tried to peer at the hall which Grimsy has disappeared into, but it ran perpendicular to the doorway and he was too scared to step in for a better look. He could make out faint noises that could have been conversation.
Suddenly, Brian was pulling earnestly at his sleeve again, and Rowley met the boy's surprisingly intense gaze. "Is Lance still the champion of the Johto League?"
The question caught him off guard. "Uh… of Johto? I think some kid beat him a while back. I just saw the headline, though."
Brian stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded silently, his face taking on a look of thinly-masked forlorn. "That's pretty… cool. Bet he was a strong trainer." Another uncomfortable silence. "Heh. Always kinda… thought I'd be the first to beat him. Once I got outta here, you know. Guess time kinda got away from me."
Rowley opened his mouth to say something, then shut it before anything stupid could come out. Soon, however, he risked a fairly neutral question.
"You're from Johto, then?"
"Yeah," Brian nodded again, his eyes and mind distant. "Gonna go back once this all goes down. I miss it."
"Don't know if you'd want to go back, now," Rowley laughed, but it sounded strange, so he stopped. "Team Rocket's been really active there lately."
He knew immediately he had made a mistake. Brian's expression darkened into an acidic scowl, something that frightened the officer to see on the face of such a previously hopeful youth.
"They're the ones that got me here in the first place. Almost ended up in their labs, but them and Cipher have some body trade goin' on. We're like livestock to them." A bitter smile lingered on his face as he pulled up the sleeve on his left arm. There, adorning his scrawny bicep, was a neatly-inked red 'R'. "Branded n' everything, see? Guess somebody over here wanted me more. Not sure whether I'm better or worse off because of it."
The officer found himself at a loss for words once again. So, Rocket was in on it, too… and apparently in collaboration with Cipher. Luckily, a distraction arrived before he had the time to dwell on the implications of that relationship, as well as the sad history of the boy beside him. Rowley watched as Brian's face immediately perked up, and following his gaze, the man again found himself staring into Grimsy's slanted yellow eyes. This time, however, there was something more interesting to look at. Something nestled in the alien woman's arms.
The girl couldn't have been older than seven or eight. It was fairly easy to discern what pokemon she had been spliced with; Eevee's features were well-known around the world. At first, his stomach had knotted itself up again at the realization that they had experimented on a child. After a moment, however, a sense of morbid fascination had tricked into his dread. Her features were smoother than Grimsy's, less patchwork. There was a natural form to her that, had Rowley not been well-acquainted with the two creatures within her, would have made her seem like a perfectly normal being. Was he getting used to them already? Was he accepting these monsters too easily?
"Hey Abby," Brian ruffled her hair—and ears—with a renewed grin on his face. "We're gonna get outta here now, okay? We're goin' to a better place."
The girl regarded him with drowsy eyes, apparently caring less about their freedom and more about having been roused from her recent slumber. Grimsy held her awkwardly, trying to find a soft spot on her bony body for the girl to relax against.
"Are we ready?" Grimsy asked, and Brian nodded, his grin spreading. It was almost contagious; Rowley felt his own lips twitching as the teen fearlessly led the way back to the first Splice Lab.
Grimsy was silent through their journey up the network of staircases in the labs, observing the aftermath of the battles Rowley had been avoiding in the first place. Abby faded in and out of sleep, her waif-like body limp against the older woman's mutated frame. Brian, on the other hand, seemed only to grow in excitement as they came closer and closer to the surface base. He talked endlessly to Rowley about all manner of things—about pokemon, about Johto, about pokemorphs, about girls. He grilled Rowley for information about the world outside, and the officer did his best to fill the boy in. After a while they were able to estimate that Brian had been there for about two years, placing him somewhere around fifteen years of age.
"And I mean, when she first started changing, I thought the ears were pretty cute," The boy described his crush on one of the other captives, who was eventually spliced with Meowth DNA. "But once her face got all squished up I kinda lost interest."
Rowley laughed at his narrative, the weight of the entire situation temporarily lifted. The only reminder of the somber truth was the violet, scowling woman that silently walked behind them. That is, until the distant sound of voices made the whole group stop in their tracks. They were at the bottom of one of the last stairways, in the Shadow Tech wing. The conversation that drifted down seemed to be calm, but Rowley couldn't understand any of the words. Thankfully, one of them could.
"They are officers," Grimsy confirmed. "They cleared the Shadow labs and are discussing the names of those they captured."
Rowley looked at her, surprised, then reddened slightly. She had probably heard everything he and Brian had discussed about her earlier.
"Right," Brian took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Just like we planned, right Grimsy?"
"I assumed as much."
The boy turned to Rowley. He was shaking excitedly again. "Mister, will you stay here with them? I'm afraid if someone normal ain't here, they'll get shot or something."
"Uh… well, yes, I suppose I could." The officer was confused. "Are they not going with you? I thought you were all ambassadors."
"They are, yeah, but we gotta play it safe. I'll go meet 'em first. They'll pity me." He offered a toothy grin. "They haven't seen the pokemon in the cages yet, I don't think, so they might not take as well to those two as you did. I'll be fast, mister. Just keep 'em safe."
He began to take off for the stairs, but Grimsy suddenly grabbed him with her free hand. Brian turned around, apparently as confused as Rowley was. The expression on her face was so intense that the officer could barely stand to look at her.
"If you get the chance," Her voice was calm, but it had a slight waver to it, "Ask if Victor Capri was captured."
Brian's face grew suddenly serious, and he nodded a silent agreement. She released his arm and he ascended the stairs with quick bounds, leaving Rowley more perplexed than ever.
For a long time, he and Grimsy stood together in silence. The murmur of voices soon picked up, and Rowley assumed it was because Brian had confronted them. Glancing warily to the side, he saw that the woman was staring intently into the wall, likely listening in on the conversation upstairs. In her arms, the small hybrid child—Abby?—stirred. Her eyes blinked open, great and brown, with irises so big they almost crowded out the little white around them. When she yawned, her large canines flashed, and a shake of her head ruffled the short fur all over her body. Her tiny hands, with delicate little claws on each finger, clutched at Grimsy's worn shirt as she stretched out in the woman's arms.
"Interesting, is it not?" Grimsy turned her golden eyes to Rowley, making him jump. "She is a marvel in genetic engineering."
"Oh, uh… yeah," The officer shifted his weight uncomfortably. It was the first time Grimsy had made any attempts at conversing with him. "She's, uh… I mean, if you didn't know she wasn't supposed to be that way, you wouldn't even look twice."
"She is supposed to be that way, though; that is the marvel of it." The girl had begun to wriggle and whine in Grimsy's arms, and after a moment of struggling she was simply set on the ground and left to romp. She moved with a beautifully natural skip, bounding around the room, switching effortlessly from bipedal shuffling to a quadruped dash. "As far as I know, Abigail is the only living hybrid that was created through combining human and pokemon gametes."
"From combining…?" Rowley hadn't taken Biology in a long, long time.
"It means she was born that way." Grimsy's voice was slightly condescending. "That is why everything she does is so natural. She was not forced into this against her will, like the rest of us."
Something about the way she spoke struck Rowley as odd. It was like everything was read from a textbook, or a formal speech. It seemed unusual, given her savage appearance.
"You seem to know a lot about the, uh… 'pokemorphs'," Rowley tried to seem relaxed, but her predatory gaze kept him on edge.
For a while, it didn't seem like she would answer him. She followed little Abby's adventures through the small room, strange claw-hands crossed behind her back. Finally, she responded without looking back up. "I was a… special project. I spent a lot of time with the inner circle of scientists."
Rowley felt like she was avoiding the question, but he certainly wasn't going to press the issue. Surprisingly, she continued to talk.
"Brian makes it out that I was chosen as an ambassador because of my diction. He is just being nice. They wanted me here in case his charm backfired and they came to exterminate us. I have information. They will keep me—and, if I request it, us—alive, so long as I can tell them what they need to know. Names of scientists. Passwords to terminals. Information about the program…" She paused for a moment, and seemed on the verge of speaking further, but she suddenly found her torn pants being tugged violently by Abby. The little girl whined and groaned, a look of utmost boredom on her face.
"Use your words, Abby," Grimsy didn't spare any patience for the child.
"I'm tired! Where's Brian? When are we gonna leave? You said we were leaving!" Her voice was high, childish, and certain words were accented strangely, likely some inheritance from her pokemon side. She held her arms up, her little ragged dress bouncing as she waited impatiently for Grimsy to lift her. To Rowley's surprise, the woman walked towards him after she did so, strange two-toed feet scraping against the concrete floor.
"Brian is coming down soon," Her voice had lowered, and her stare was intense. "They are humoring him and following, but I do not think they believe him. Take Abby. I am staying out of sight for now. If they have to see their first true hybrid, let it be a sympathetic child."
She held out Abby to the officer, and the girl reluctantly let him take her. She squirmed in Rowley's awkward grip as he fumbled to find some comfortable position in which to hold the furry mass. She was heaver that he expected, and he had never much cared for children in the first place, so by the time he had finally made her comfortable enough to sit still, Grimsy had disappeared through a nearby doorway. He figured she was likely just out of sight, waiting for the first signs of trouble. The thought of the monster having to apply her deadly anatomy made him shudder.
"You're not good at holding," Abby informed him pointedly. "And you need to shave. Sometimes Brian doesn't shave. It feels funny."
She smashed a furry hand into his face unexpectedly, giggling at his shocked reaction. Her fingers were surprisingly rough on the inside, like the paw of a Poochyena.
"Hey, uh… stop," Rowley gently removed her hand from his stubble, and she slumped against him with a bored huff. "You're an ambassador. Shouldn't you behave?"
"I don't even know what that word means!" She moaned, with the overflowing exasperation that only a child could muster. "They just kept saying, 'oh, Abby, you gotta be real nice, when we leave, you gotta show them how we really are'. They can see how we are just by looking at us. I don't know why I gotta tell them too."
Everything she said was accented by wild hand movements, and when she mimicked the adults, her voice dropped as deep as she could make it. On the outside, she may have been a crossbreed, but it was fairly apparent that her brain belonged to a normal kid.
Rowley's attention suddenly snapped to the staircase as he heard the scraping of footsteps. First down was Brian, grinning ear-to-ear, practically jumping off the final few stairs. Following him were a group of three officers, all superiors, all apparently not in the best of moods. They had come to take down a criminal organization, not deal with mentally unstable prisoners. That was the shrink's job.
"Rowley," The first officer nodded to him, "We've received a, uh… report of illegal activity besides Shadow technology. Human trafficking, as this young man claims to be a victim of. He has also indicated his belief that Cipher has… injected him with pokemon DNA. In order to transform him into some type of militant hybrid."
The other two officers, standing behind Brian, could barely keep their faces straight. One coughed harshly to cover up a slipped chuckle. For some reason, it enraged Rowley. What right did they have to doubt this kid? Had they seen any evidence to suggest he was lying?
"So, Rowley, can you report on any… suspicious activities that you've witnessed in this section?" The superior officer was holding back a grin himself, and everything he said had a hint of sarcasm in it. "I suppose that pokemon in your arms may have been the one they extracted th—AGGHH!"
The man stumbled backwards, his face a portrait of horror. What he had thought was a rescued pokemon had been staring back at him with a decidedly unhappy expression on her humanoid face. Rowley watched as his wide eyes slowly scanned the child's image, coming to terms with what he was witnessing, and the younger officer couldn't help but wonder if he had looked the same when first experiencing the cages downstairs.
The two officers who had been idle in the back had come forward abruptly at the first man's shout, both with hands on their guns. They too froze in terror, one hissing a curse as he locked eyes with the bizarre creature before him. Brian nearly cackled at the initial reaction, but a quick glance at the officers' hands wiped the smile from his face.
"Hey, we don't gotta pull out weapons on kids," He looked at the leading man, attempting to hide his nervousness. "She's harmless. We're all harmless. Do you believe me now, mister? We need your help."
The officer seemed to ignore him. He was staring directly at Rowley. "…Where did you find it?"
"I found her," He made the point very clear, "In a dedicated lab downstairs. All the scientists are gone, as far as I know. He's right, though, they're all harmless. Just scared."
The other man seemed distant for a while, then nodded firmly. "Right. We'll take care of that pretty quick. Can you lead us?"
"What do you mean, 'take care of it'?" Rowley questioned nervously.
"Put 'em out of their sorry misery," The officer nodded towards the Eevee girl, "If she could talk, do you think she'd want to live like that?"
"I can talk," Abby spoke up, pouting indignantly.
The officer jumped as she spoke, and the two behind him tightened their grips on their weapons. The first waved his hand to calm them, though, once he had regained his own composure.
"Well… that might change things." He had scrunched up his eyebrows, apparently in pained inner turmoil. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her because of her intelligence, or hate her all the more? "Can they all talk?"
"Most of us," Brian chimed in, "There's some they made starting with pokemon, and they ain't any better than the ones you find out in the grass, s'far as I know. But all the ones they made with people, like me or Abby here, we can all account for ourselves."
The officer merely glanced at him, annoyed. The fact he had no physical evidence of transformation still branded him as unstable. He looked back at Rowley, lingering on his nervous face for a second, and he took a hesitant step forward. Reluctantly, he locked eyes with Abby again.
"Sweetheart," The word was forced, "Can you tell us who did this to you?"
"Doctor Capri says he did," She replied casually, "But I've always been like this."
"Capri…" He turned to one of the officers behind him. Rowley followed his gaze, curious. Was that the man Grimsy had mentioned earlier?
"He was listed as one of the head scientists in a program called 'Pokemorphs', sir. None of the captured Ciphers have identified themselves by that name."
"Of course…" The officer sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Jim, go up and run an alias check. See if anyone's fessed up. He may have assumed a name."
One of the officers behind him nodded, and disappeared back up through the stairwell. The remaining man spoke up hesitantly.
"Sir… ah… people have been known to train pokemon to talk. Could this not be a similar situation?"
The older officer seemed to consider this, staring hard at the furry child. "I'm no scientist, Randy, I don't know how this thing works up in the head. Maybe if we took a couple to the labs for testing—"
"That is enough of that." Grimsy said impatiently, suddenly leaning cross-armed in the doorway.
The younger officer—Randy—gave a cry of shock, and instinctively drew his gun against the monster before him. That was the only cue Brian needed; just as he had catapulted into action against Rowley, he threw himself into the man, grabbing his wrists and slamming him into the wall. His gun clattered to the floor, and Rowley wondered if he was the only one who caught the liquidity that shimmered up Brian's arms before he regained enough composure to reverse the spreading change.
In the brief seconds that the confrontation took place, the superior officer had swung his own arm to his belt, and Rowley felt a jolt of fear as he realized how deadly the situation was about to become. The officer indeed seemed to consider drawing his weapon against Brian, but after a hasty consideration of the situation—likely heavily influenced by the opposing figure that was swiftly moving in from his side—he reluctantly lifted his hand from the gun. Randy too regained his balance and easily threw off the young teen, but not before he had managed to kick his weapon across the room.
"You are not entitled to donate a child's life to the morbid fascination of scientists any more than Cipher was entitled to rob her of humanity in the first place." Grismy spoke as if nothing had happened, calming stepping closer and closer to the small group. "Moreover, she is correct; her life began as a halfbreed, and it will end as a halfbreed. Can you not pity her in the slightest for that? In the fact that she was never able to enjoy a second of a normal human life?"
Her gaze burned holes through the head officer, but he seemed to be at a loss for words, either by her curt speech or freakish appearance—or perhaps a bit of both. After he refused to respond to her, she glanced at Randy, but he too was apparently shocked into silence. Sighing petulantly, she continued her apparent monologue.
"I am different. I was entirely human until roughly one year ago. Brian is in a similar situation, although you do not believe him. I can tell you in an hour what your scientists would take months to figure out, and without wasting lives on dissections and irradiated scans." She suddenly turned her yellow eyes to Randy again. "Do you think I have been trained to talk?"
Randy shook his head quickly, eyes wide, his body pressing slightly closer to the wall.
"Good," It was apparently the correct answer.
"Hey, hey," Brian interjected again, the unease apparent in his voice, "Grimsy's scary, but she's just tryin' to help. She can—"
"Did you just say 'Grimsy'?" The head officer turned to Brian suddenly, finally giving him some kind of thought. "Do you mean 'Graemsay'?"
"Yeah, that's her name, but it's weird. We just call—"
"You're Graemsay?" This time it was Randy who cut him off, his wide eyes on the imposing woman before him.
"Yes…" She seemed to almost dread answering, something which surprised Rowley.
"As in 'Graemsay Capri'?" The look on his face was a mix between incredulity and horror.
"Yes." Her eyes narrowed; she dared him to take the final step. He did.
"You're… Doctor Capri's daughter."
"Yes." Rowley had never heard anyone reply with such hatred and acidity as she managed to pack into that single word.
Silence fell over the group as it sank in for everyone; even Abby seemed to sense the seriousness of the situation. Rowley, especially, found his stomach churning again, as he realized the reason behind everything Grimsy had said earlier. Victor Capri was the man who headed the project… the one who had directed the horrific experiments that took place in Cipher's basement… and the one who had donated his own daughter for the scientists to use like a lab pokemon. He had thought it impossible, but some small hint of pity was beginning to form in his heart for the monster.
It was Grimsy who reignited the conversation, her voice again calm, but wavering with suppressed emotion. "I assume you found my name in the membership files. I could tell you a lot about most of the people on those lists. I could also tell you many things about the 'Pokemorph' project. Brian and this officer are both correct in what they have told you: the subjects will not intentionally harm you. Most of them were runaway teenagers or homeless adults."
"How long has this been going on?" It was the lead officer that spoke up, his face creasing with stress and exhaustion. What had begun as a flush of a criminal base had become a discovery that was going to change the society of every region in the world. It was not something that anyone expected to deal with.
"Years. There are likely logs in the computer system that date back to the first experiments. I would be able to provide you with the passwords." The trade-off was unspoken, but very well understood.
"Right… well then," The officer exhaled deeply. "Randy, with you go find Jim? The two of you are to get a police van here, the biggest you can find…" He looked at Brian. "Hey, uh… how many of you are there?"
"'Least a couple dozen. Some of 'em… ain't gonna last much longer, though." The teen was bouncing again, nervous and excited, trying to remain serious while another smile was tugging at his lips.
"Gotta be kidding me…" The officer ran his hand through his hair again. "Alright, Randy, get two vans if you can. Pull them up right to the entrance. The world's gonna have to see 'em eventually, but we'll clean 'em up first. You are not to mention this to anyone else."
Randy nodded, and ascended the stairs by twos, his hurried footsteps quickly disappearing into the room above. The weary officer turned back to look at Rowley and the three pokemorphs.
"Rowley… what've you gotten us into?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "Bring you here to train your field skills, and you go and dig up the biggest can of worms you can."
"We have to help them, sir," Rowley replied. "They haven't got anyone else."
"Yes, yes," The officer sighed heavily again. "Well then… let's go have a look."
-o-O-O-o-
It was late night when Rowley finally arrived back at the Academy, riding in the chief's car with Grimsy and Brian. Abby was asleep again, curled up in some bizarre mimicry of a dozing pokemon in Brian's arms. They sat in silence, staring out at the clear desert sky, all lost in their respective exhausted minds. Rowley went through a continuous mental movie of everything that had happened that day. Over and over again, the vivid imagery played out in his mind's eye, the chaotic shifted to the fearful, the fearful to the horrific, the horrific to the hopeful… everything spiraled back down into the current moment.
The car pulled up to the building, and the group exited. There was no one around this late, only those that resided there. They walked together towards the glass doors at the front, gravel crunching under shoes and feet. Rowley reached out and took the handle, pulling it open for the other three to enter. As soon as the door swung out, an explosion of noise hit them. As they entered, sticking close together, it only got louder, and the scene before them accounted for the constant racket.
The Academy was in a state of chaos. What was usually a well-kept lounge was crowded with people… and half-people. They sat limply on chairs brought in from the classrooms and offices, shivering in emotion, staring wide-eyed at a setting that they thought they would never see. There were at least two dozen pokemorphs there. Most were common pokemon, like Poochyena or Sentret, but a few unique mixtures stood out—such as the Meowth that Brian had spoken of earlier. Some seemed to be in shock, while others seemed hardly aware of their surroundings at all. A few were laid out on the lounge couches, with nurses borrowed from the local Pokemon Center huddled over them. Napkins littered the floor from some earlier bonanza of food that must have caused quite the stir.
"Look at 'em," Brian laughed quietly, "They don't even know what to do with themselves. Spent so long underground that they forgot how to live normally."
"Well… they won't ever live normally, will they?" Rowley met his eyes. "You don't expect the world to just accept you guys, do you?"
"Nah, nah," Brian shook his head. "Ain't nobody that's gonna put up with us without a fight. Shit, those guys we first met woulda been happy to blow our brains out."
"They were just reacting instinctively."
"Yeah, figured that would happen," Brian nodded absently, then grinned again. "But it don't matter what it took to get it, because now we're here. These people that're running around, helping feed us and heal us up… they don't gotta think about the big issues. They just gotta follow orders, and their orders are to accept us. That's what we needed. That's what being an ambassador was about in the first place."
There was a silence amongst them in which they absently observed the busy area, watching as tiny events unfolded and became parts of the moving picture around them. Then, Brian looked at Rowley, an expression of sincere admiration on his face.
"You didn't have it as easy as them. No one told ya to look for us. No one told ya whether you should help us or not. It was just you and me at first, and ya coulda just... punched me in the face or somethin'. But ya didn't. You stuck around and even helped us convince the other people. You're a good person for that, mister. A real good person."
Rowley met his gaze, surprised, then smiled awkwardly. "Uh… well, thanks. I don't think I'd have been as open if I weren't in such a shock, though. You got me pretty good with that tackle of yours." He rubbed the bump on his head from where the teen had thrown him against the wall, wincing as his fingers brushed it.
"Hah!" Brian cackled, young face stretched into a joyous smirk. "Whatever it took, mister."
"What will you do now?" Rowley asked, genuinely curious.
"Well, supposin' that we ain't gonna be round up and shot once the world hears about this, I think I'd like to go back to Johto. If I can get a grip on my abilities, no one will even know that I'm a 'morph. I'll try to be a trainer. Kinda late, huh?" He shrugged. "Heh, maybe I'll beat whatever kid's the reigning champion now. Or maybe I'll take down Team Rocket! That'd be cool."
Rowley laughed at his optimism, but inside, he was wishing the kid all the luck in the world. He deserved that much after what he had been through. "What about Abigail?"
Brian frowned. "Dunno. She ain't got no parents, her mom killed herself after she was born. Somebody will want her. She's a sweet kid, she just looks different on the outside. There's gotta be a family out there who'll love her."
The officer gazed at the child, who was miraculously sleeping through all the clamor around her. She would be the only pokemorph to grow up in a world where everyone knows of her kind. Would that be good or bad? There was no way to tell.
"What about you, Grimsy?" The man cautiously gave her a nervous smile. She looked up at him and held his gaze for a long time, until he had begun to stir nervously under her bright eyes. In time, she seemed to decide on an answer.
"I will look for my father," She said with finality, "They never found him in the Cipher labs, which means he is likely underground or abroad. Perhaps both."
"Is he dangerous?"
"He places no value on human lives." She again spoke with venom. "Only after he has ruined them do they become interesting."
Rowley decided that the issue shouldn't be pressed, and simply nodded his acceptance of her answer. Suddenly, a new burst of excitement swept through the crowd of monsters that filled the room; someone had apparently brought another assortment of food for them to devour. Brian joined the fray with little hesitation, carrying along poor Abby for the ride, and after some consideration, Grimsy silently stalked towards the swarm of pokemorphs as well.
Rowley watched from afar, following his… well, his friends, as they weaved their way through the bustling mass of misshapen bodies. It had been the longest, most terrifying, and most satisfying day of his life. He was still confused, and when he let his mind wander back to the dark passages of the Cipher labs, he was still disgusted, too. Tomorrow, the news reporters would be beating down the doors for coverage of the raid. What they had no way of knowing, however, was that behind those very same doors was possibly the biggest news item that the global world was ever going to see. Pokemon-human hybrids. Whispered about, laughed about, never dreamed possible!
He tried to imagine how the world was going to react, but it was simply unfeasible. Rowley was sure of one thing, however: these creatures were not going to disappear. This was no mystery that could be debunked, no blurry pictures or videos that would leave room for doubt. Pokemorphs were here to stay… and if no one else, there was one man in the world who was going to support them.