Zero
Exposition
It was many years ago, before anyone of this generation was born, that the Biological Revolution began. Scientist had long been experimenting with the Pokémon genome, attempting to play God through fusion techniques and 'Type Enhancers', procedures that granted the 'gift' of a second or even third type upon any of your favorite standard Pokémon. Water types began breathing fire, and Ghost types were landing hits on Normal Pokémon. The news traveled across each of the four regions (who before had all kept intense treatises of isolation, save between Johto and Kanto), and the breakthrough caused the previously remote island nations to finally open their borders. Hoenn hybrids fought with Sinnoh trainers, those who had conquered both Kanto and Johto went on to complete their badge collection, and soon enough the sectional islands became a collective region known as Issho. Owing to their success in the field of Pokémon biology, the scientists responsible for the treatment were able to found their own commercial enterprise, naming it the Pokémon Enhancement Clinic Association (people found the acronym ironic and decided to pronounce the E as ee, resembling the sound a pure-Pikachu made). These procedures were delicate and as such, expensive, viable only to the trainers of the highest status and deepest pockets. Battling with what were now considered obsolete 'Puremon' was near impossible against the hybrid types, which were deemed perfectly legal by the Pokémon League (even the Elite Fours of each region taking part in the augmentations). Pokémon training became a sport for the rich, an upper-class affair for not only trainers but also serving as entertainment at fancy dinner parties or a back-alley gamble. PECA even went so far as to replace almost all labor with Pokémon; issuing Pokémon that could not only move furniture and deliver mail, but they also managed to teach certain types to speak in intelligible tongues. Pokémon, like the Gardevior, became even teachers and news broadcasters, all of them instilling with message of PECA, that this New World was a better world. And the people listened, believe it or not. Becoming a trainer was no longer an attainable dream for the average growing boy or girl, leaving them with little idea of what to do in a world were Pokémon were once their lackeys. Some rebel groups occasionally rose up, but were quickly dispatched and disbanded by mass Pokémon armies under PECA. A hierarchy ensued, with PECA at the top and the Pokémon-less at the bottom, left to serve menial jobs to the higher ups in a world once rife with Pokémon life.
Until PECA took it further. Seeing the disillusioned lower-class citizens, they pounced upon their weakness for further biological study. In exchange for the promise of a hefty compensation, PECA persuaded the poor into offering themselves as test subjects, saying that, if they succeeded, those who joined would be 'at the very helm of the New World'. Many offered up their services and signed their life away on a single waiver in an effort to make ends meet. These many never returned. No one can conceive the experiments preformed on those desperate souls, and the only thing sent back to the families was a curt letter apologizing for loss of their family member and a check for $250,000. Nothing could be done for them. PECA was law.
Desperation drove many to still offer themselves to the labs even after many did not return home, and eventually people did start coming back. With them, awe-inspiring power. There were those who could breathe underwater, eat fire, or turn their skin to rock. The news became public; PECA had attained the unattainable: In their own hubris they believed they could alter the genetic codes of even humans by inserting within them the genes of Pokémon. They were right.
Once public, the demand for the clinics skyrocketed, gaining sponsorship of every major corporation and scientific field under the scarlet sun and awarding the lab international fame. They even managed to make the modification available to all social classes through harvesting the few Puremon left in the world for their genomes, rumor saying that mass expeditions were sent out to capture even the legendries.
Battling became popular once again to the fight hungry masses. PECA imposed a new system of training; calling it the Enhanced Logistical Insider-Tracker Enumeration system (ELITE rank, for short). During the genome procedure (and eventually, when one was born), they would wire a chip onto the spinal-nervous system that kept up with all of one's stats, from hit points and moves, wins and losses, and most importantly, your rank as a trainer, all connected directly to the brain and wirelessly recorded within the PECA database. ELITE ranks became the standard of every trainer; a win moving you up in the polls, and a loss moving you down. The ELITE Four became the handpicked subordinates of PECA, the leaders of the National Pokémon League of Issho at ranks 4, 3, 2, and 1. To even attempt fighting them required an ELITE rank in the top 100, displayed upon the National Pokémon League Tower. Even now, no one has dethroned the Champion, ELITE rank Zero, and those who have witnessed he or she have been held to a code of silence. Those who did spread rumors… were said to have gone missing.
Playing God came at a price. Harvesting Pokémon meant removing and then copying the genome to their database, a process that assuredly killed the Pokémon. In their pride, PECA deemed Pokémon useless after they had acquired their genome, and considered them merely a waste of space, as humans were the newer, better Pokémon. Due to the demand, they even began harvesting the remaining working class and all the hybrids (some of the last true trainers 'donating' their prized Pokémon in exchange for the procedure). This opened the labor market wide and those at the bottom were thrilled to be able to once again fill in those positions. Everything seeming to go back to normal. The only problem lying in the fact that, due to a failure to put in place any protective measures, PECA propaganda, and general greed, Pokémon were an endangered species. They had faded from the minds of people as having ever been their friends, and soon, became wholly extinct...
It may be thought there would have been a massive out-cry, or even an undercover terrorist group bent on protecting the remaining Pokémon, but Pokémon themselves were not as respected as they once were. Humons became the standard and Normals, those humans without any Pokémon genes or types, were the minority. It was easy to think that this was how it was supposed to be. PECA managed to keep the people totally unaware of the procedure beyond how they intertwined the Pokémon DNA with that of a human without causing gross mutation, usually leaving out the part of the Pokémon's impending death. Being that their very genes were rewritten, the traits were passed onto their children in just the same manner as Pokémon eggs, and after a number of generations, this became standard. This was the New World. PECA was God.
Until PECA took it further…
"Ah, you have awakened, Mr. Cyprus."
The hazy voice sounds like this is something to be excited about. A groan (I assume from myself) is the only thing he earns in response.
"You've made a magnificent recovery, sir."
I finally muster the energy to squint open my eyes and am immediately blinded by the excessively white room, throwing up a hand to protect my corneas. "Re-recovery?", my mouth testing out whole words now.
"Why, yes, the procedure was a rousing success!", the overly-cheerful voice continues, obviously a young guy, almost studious.
"What are you even talking about?", I manage, sitting up in what seems to be my very own starchy hospital bed, complete with uncomfortably obtuse angle.
"Temporary amnesia is quite common among our recuperating patients. You should make a full recovery of your Temporal Lobe within at most thirty minutes." This piece of news comes from the man standing beside my bed, tablet in hand and a pair of cliché black-rimmed glasses riding low on his nose, a falsely cordial smile plastered on just below that like it's a default setting.
"Couldn't you at least tell me where I am?"
"You are currently located within the PECA Lab Complex J5, Rehabilitation Floor 3, room 27."
Pausing to gauge how serious this guy is, I can't help but ask, "Are you a robot?"
"The only staff allowed to work on the rehabilitation floor is of species Homo-sapiens!"
"Riiiiight." It feels like one of those situations where it's best to just nod repeatedly and agree with the guy, to avoid you yourself going insane. I brush the hair out of my face and stand up out of the bed, my apparent care-taker trailing me as I mosey about the supremely uninteresting room. Located adjacent to the bed is a window overlooking what I presume to be a forest, though the fact it's late at night makes it much more difficult to tell, even with all the fluorescent light given off by the massive complex curving around to form a sort of crescent shaped fortress. Completing the rest of the room is a great mass of empty space, a door on the side wall and a second on the farthest end, an unassuming painting of some boring hills sprucing up the remaining wall, and a little (I assume plastic) potted plant taking up residence in the farthest shady corner of the room. All in all, a spectacularly dull place to be, with not even a piece of modern technology in sight.
"How do you feel? Are you fatigued? Do you recognize any soreness? Illness? Nausea?", my stalker implores repeatedly.
"Look, leave me alone. I gotta use the bathroom." Seeming as if the one refuge I have from this freak, I lock myself in and his constant inquiry out.
What a joke.
The bathroom is just as dismal as the rest of the place, all shiny and clean.
God, why can't I remember anything?
I splash some water on my face to calm my nerves.
Dark. Smelly. The water is cold and gross, but it's all we have.
A memory surfaces, something as simple as cleaning my face causing a vision of a crummy bathroom in my head. To my disgust, that bathroom feels like… home.
This sucks. I think and look up.
Nothing.
Well, not really nothing. I can see the rest of the bathroom, the trash bin and toilet directly behind me included. Wait, behind me?
Nowhere within the mirror is my reflection. Touching the pane, it's cold and equally as life less, but none-the-less real. It's a highly eerie sight, but I refuse to let this get to me. Something else must be wrong.
I open the door and of course my predictable companion is still smiling at me. "Hey, doc, I think something's wrong with your stuff."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean your mirror doesn't work or something."
"Mr. Cyprus, every product within the confines of PECA Lab-"
"Just get in here", I say to him and roughly take him by the sleeve
Now this is awkward. Two grown men in a one person bathroom together. I shove the thought out of my mind; I have a point to prove. "See, doesn't reflect jack" , I tell him as I wave at the mirror.
But looking back at me, reflected just fine, is the excited Doctor Whoever, his smile about to break his face. "Oh my! What an exciting fruition!", he chirps and feverishly types onto the tablet he's cradling.
"Wait, What!?"
"An interesting effect of the mutation, something so simple but in observation quite thrilling. Here, could you hold this?", I find myself dumbly clutching a pen for him as he pecks away at the tablet. "Fascinating! Subject himself remains invisible while interacting with foreign objects!"
"Excuse me? SUBJECT?",I roar at him, tossing away his stupid pen.
"Please don't take that in a derogatory manner, sir. You see, you are the product of a prodigious scientific achievement!", Interpreting my silence as validation to continue speaking, he does. "You have been selected to participate in the pioneering of a modern bio-technological apex!"
It finally clicks in my head what he said. PECA Labs...
No.
"Excuse me? Sir?"
"No."
"No what, sir?"
"I'm not your damn lab rat", I growl at him.
"That is absolutely correct sir, for you are of species homo-sapiens, and-"
"Shut the hell up."
"Pardon?"
"I'm not going to be your anything", I say as I stalk past him, heading for the door.
"Sir, we merely endeavor to aid you in finding your true potential! Do not you wish to help in the forward progress of science?"
I stop at the frame.
"What did you do to me?" It comes out as barely a whisper.
"What do you say, sir?"
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?" It's a scream now, coming off like the cry of dying animal. Mr. Fancy-Science-Pants takes a step back.
"You-you're obviously still not feeling well, Mr. Cyprus", he stammers, attempting to diffuse some emotional mine he's found himself on. "How about we go obtain some nourishment, over which I can exp-"
"I was Normal, before." The words cut him off, but of course he continues.
"Yes, it's in your records."
"Did you ever think, for just a goddamn second, that maybe I wanted to stay that way?" Knives, more than they are words, coming from my mouth now.
"Wh-why would you want that, sir? W-we live in an age where we can be anything we want. The age-"
"Would you shut up for just one second and think maybe you should have , I don't know, ASKED?"
"Well… sir…", he acts like he's caught in some elaborate snare, maybe one he built himself. "It… honestly… wasn't our choice."
"What'd you mean by our? Because it certainly was your fucking choice", I spit at him, not even all the way turned around to face him.
"N-not mine precisely, sir. In all truth, Cyprus, sir, it was not of your choice whether the procedure be executed or not."
"What?", This is when I turn to face him. This is when I turn to look down at the trembling coward of a man, shielding himself in a bathroom. This is when I see the person telling me that I am now only partially human.
"Could we, perhaps, discuss this later?", he stutters pathetically.
"No." I survey him calmly, sizing him up. Before he can blink again, I push him into the wall and hold him there, his tears rolling down my knuckles.
"Pl-pl-please, Mister Cyprus, do not do anything you will regret", he cries out, an utter mess now.
"I won't. Now tell me WHY AM I HERE?"
"You-you're parents… gave you to us" he chokes out through sobs, "They... you were all so… poor… they needed… the money."
They gave me away?
Nothing came through my head. Not a single image. I couldn't remember them. Who were my parents? How long have I been here? When did it happen? A month ago? A week? Yesterday?
For money?
"WHEN?" I don't mean to yell at him, but I do.
"I-I-I don't know! It wasn't in-in the records! I'm just the overseer is-is all! That's all I am!"
Attempting the remain calm, I get across one more question. "What then? What am I?"
"The-they kept th-that classified. All that is said is that you're the first Gh-gh-ghost type… to live."
Isn't that special.
"Listen, Mister. I don't care about your research, or science, or anything regarding PECA whatsoever. All I want is to leave. Now, I can see two ways of doing that, and only one of them includes you alive."
Judging by my apprehension to even choke the guy, I doubt I've ever killed someone before, and I don't plan on starting now. It proves too much for the guy though, as he passes out right under me.
"Shit, he's more useless than I thought", I mutter, and bend down to review what he's got on him. Nothing. Literally nothing but the clothes on his back. His tablet lies beside him; maybe I should take that. Seeing as this place appears to be at the 'modern bio-technological apex' (what a pretentious fuck), it's possible everything can simply be transmitted through that thing. There's no time for me to start playing around on the thing, so I take it in hand and then look to see where on my person I can put it- and find myself in a pearly white jumpsuit. Argh, just great. Searching under the bed produces a small cubby with what I can only guess to be the same pair of clothes I came in with; a plain black-T and some dark jeans. How stylish I must've been I crack at myself and change before taking up the tablet again. It was about a foot wide and half as long, a totally unhelpful shape. I'll just carry the damn thing.
What if there are guards though? I need a weapon other than my fist. A reloot of Mr. John Doe brings up nothing, so I stand and look at the mirror. It's like it's mocking me in its reflectionless glass. I never wanted to be like this. I didn't ask for it. Even in this world, like it is, where being some sub-human freak is normal, is desired, I can only feel in my heart, even without memories, I didn't want this. I hate it. I hate this mirror. I HATE IT.
SMASH
Glass clinks to the ground. A speck of blood follows the shards down. I look into the broken mirror. I look down at the broken glass…
"He's leaving Ward A. Subject appears to be in possession of an overseers KeyPad. He has access to the minimum security Blocks and Transporters. What should we do?"
"Move the girl."
"Wha-where?"
"You know what, I'll just do it myself."
"Then what about the Subject, sir?"
"Get some guards stationed on the other Floors. Cover the Transporter doors with them."
"Shouldn't we just move in?"
"Though the subject has failed to go through any training, he should still be considered highly dangerous post-operation. Evacuate the floor he is on. Guerrilla tactics are our best option."
"Yes-"
"Remember, above everything else, no matter what the cost, he must be kept alive"
"Yes sir, Doctor Vincenzo."
"Entering Ward C, Mr. Smith."
That was apparently the guy's name. Just as equally boring as he was himself.
Turns out I was at least right about the tablet thing being the key to, well, everything it seemed. Some sort of wireless signal I'd assume, just like every other thing here. I haven't touched another door since I got out of that room.
Man, this place it eerie. It was ridiculous to complain about there being no one else on the floor in my situation, but that didn't change my feelings about how creepy it was to walk in the world's most powerful laboratory and it be completely empty. I mean it was obvious there had been many many people here at one time or another, judging by the sheer number of rooms identical to mine there were, hallway after hallway, but it was closer to a ghost town than a lab ward.
Let's just find the elevator and get out of here.
Maybe it really was empty and I could just walk out. Or at least blend in until I put some distance between me and this god-forsaken place.
Am I just going to waltz out? It was so weird. There was nothing right about this.
I would have missed it if I hadn't stopped zoning out; a set of double doors right down the hall. An elevator. The doors open the moment I come within five feet of it and let me in. (More drab white. Man, who was the interior designer for this place?)
"Entering Transporter 14, Mr. Smith. Which floor would you like depart on?" Even the A.I. is formal here. "Uhhh, lobby, I guess", barely able to imagine there being something as hospitable as a lobby here. "One."
"Descending to floor one", the room itself speaks to me and then goes silent. I can't even tell if I'm moving, it's so light. How strangely comforting. Just maybe-
"Freeze!"
The doors slide open, and two gun sights make eyes at my chest as I try to exit the elevator. Shit.
"We have been ordered to take you in alive, S-level being Cyprus. We have been authorized to use force. Step outside of the Transporter with your hands up", The taller, broader of the two men enunciates for the both of them. I need time to think. I need to stall.
"S-level, huh? What's that stand for, anyway? Supreme? Super? Sexy?", I leer at them from the safety of the elevator.
"We do not have time for games here, Scum", My verbal opponent smiles at his own pun, backed up by the grunt of his partner. A round of verbal jousting begins.
"Oh, so you're like the janitors here then, am I right?"
"Maybe if you weren't so filthy."
Grunt
"Isn't there some handbook you guys have to follow that says to treat patients with courtesy or something?"
"What'd you want, a cup of tea? I never heard of serving no dirty lab rat."
Grunt
This is bad. I'm losing hard and I still haven't thought of anything…
"It seems you have not departed, Mr. Smith. Would you like to travel to a different floor?", the room chimes in at just the right moment, freezing the two in place.
"Yes!" I cry out "Top floor!"
"You only have access to-"
"JUST GO!", I shout, and the doors begin to quickly slide together. Broad Shoulders dives forward with a hand to stop the doors, and I break the tablet over his fingers, causing him to release his grip and it slides to a close. So much for that I think, but am just happy to have somehow managed to avoid that catastrophe. Seeing as my pseudo-skeleton key was now in shambles, the screen shattered and obviously non-operational, it seemed like this would be my last stop.
There's only going to be more. I think and sigh. Here goes nothing.
"Freeze!"
A whooshing sound accompanies the doors coming apart, the accompaniment to that being silence and the total darkness of the elevator. No light streamed from its recesses. One guard glances at the other; obviously two rookies whose bad luck seems to be have them detaining what they were told was a 'monster of unspeakable power'. They were also told it was sixteen. Though the two bits of information didn't seem to match up, they still had to hold in from wetting their pants as they entered the seemingly empty, obviously dark elevator. It had smashed out the light. What if the monster's power was invisibility? How were they supposed to defend against that? Why didn't they have a flashlight?
At least, that's what was on their faces as one entered the darkness, followed by the other. "Entering Transport 14, Mr. Park and Mr. Clark. What floor would you like to depart on?"
"Wha-?"
"Floor one!"
Both men more than likely felt a breeze as I dived past them off the elevator, and watching their dumb-struck faces as it slid shut was enough to make me feel good about myself again. Those things are stupidly spacious.
Back to business. I kept my glass shard in one hand and the tablet in the other, and though I held it with purpose, I really didn't want to have to resort to using the makeshift shank; I couldn't imagine taking on more than one guy at a time besides that anyway. For some reason I kept the tablet, maybe because whatever Mr. Smith had put on it was technically still there, and that felt demeaning in itself, so there was no way I'd just hand it back to them that easily. Trophy of war.
That didn't change the fact I was now God knows where with no knowledge of whether there even was a way back down besides the 'Transporters'. This-
"Stop right there!"
On the move again. All I could perceive as I ran was the endless blur of white hallway and thundering footsteps behind me, never getting closer nor farther, and I tried to lose them, turn corners, but then there'd be more, four, five, six guards now tailing me as a breathed and heaved and my feet hit the ground with a slap each time that echoed and pounded in my ears and then-
A girl.
Around the corner.
I almost run into her.
I stared deep into her eyes.
Got lost in them.
She stared at me.
Opened her mouth.
"Cy…"
"STOP RIGHT THERE!
Reality check brings me back into gear, and thoughts started piling in. I did a double take of the girl, and then of the nearing guards, and then of the girl again.
This sucks.
With one fluid motion I grab the girl and clutch her body to mine and bring the mirror shard to her throat.
"Stop right there!", I yell back at them, holding the girl hostage. I can't see anything about her but the green hair cut short around her neck to which I press the glass against flawless smooth white skin. She begins to tremble and then burst into tears to which I steel myself.
Is this really necessary? But looking back at the many faces staring down at my through gun cross-hairs, I give myself no choice. This is my final bluff.
"Drop your weapons!", I yell at them.
They don't move. More guards come from the left and right hallways now, cornering me on three sides, my back against the wall. There must be twenty of them.
"I SAID DROP THEM!", and I roughly pull the girl harder against me. Her crying becomes howls as she blabbers nonsense, and one of her tears falls onto the glass, reflected against it. The guards look at each other and slowly set down their handguns. Their weapons are like nothing I've seen before; intricate black barrels with glowing patterns across them that are illuminated in neon purple, reaching toward a dial on the hilt. I can't really trust my memories though if these are some new weapons tech or another part of my amnesia.
My musing is cut short by my hostage's pleas, now forming words.
"P-p-p-plea-please st-st-stop this!"
She can't be any older than I am. What if she's another one like me? What if they're experimenting on her too? And now, someone like her, someone who is supposed to be on her side, is holding a blade to her throat. Waves of regret overtake me. I can't do this.
"D-d-don't fight…"
She doesn't even sound like she's pleading for herself. It's like she's pleading for all of us…
I have to end this myself.
I-
"Well played, Cyprus."
The group of guards in front of my immediately spins around and stands at attention, parting around a single man who walks between them as if he repels- no, merely exudes a different aura that others feel obligated to give more space to. He is a tall; abnormally tall; man, in a long white lab coat accentuated by red seams and outline. His pants are an odd forest green, and his shoes black and shiny, as if he polished them right before he walked up to me, though he gives the impression he'd always be one to have someone else to polish them for him. Navy blue hair was spiked on his head like an electric shock had also happened upon him recently, but it suited him as it hid none of his stony complexion that gave the impression of wisdom and age without any traces of fragility that usually accompanied such traits. In all, he was built like a stone wall, but was obviously smarter than one.
Something told me, call it fate or intuition, that he was my true enemy.
"Truly, I am impressed you made it this far, Cyprus. I knew you would be talented, but honestly most don't escape within their first day. I should rephrase that; honestly, no one escapes." He stepped nonchalantly closer, and I found myself hitting the wall without even realizing it. My grip tightened, but the girl wasn't even crying anymore, instead totally transfixed on this beast of a man.
"Don't come closer", I growled, surprising even myself.
"Fine, but can I do this?", he asks, raising one of those guns to my face, glowing white. I can feel my blood stop pumping.
"Here's something else I can tell you honestly. I really don't care what you do with that girl there. So don't act like that's going to change anything." His finger grips the trigger, just to prove he isn't here to play word games.
"Doctor Vincenzo-"
"SHUT UP!" He roars at the outspoken guard, never looking away from us.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
"You had a lot of promise, Cyprus. You could have been my favorite, honestly. And I'll tell you something else; I've done a lot of work here. Seen a lot of patients. So that's saying something." Doctor Vincenzo, his name would seem to be, says that like we've always known each other, been here, all our lives.
"It's just too bad you had to go and screw it all up."
Maybe he's just toying with me. Maybe he sees the fear in my eyes. Maybe –
He shoots
The wall behind me explodes and
I fall
So concludes the first chapter of ZERO!
Honestly, tell me what you guys think! Did I over explain? Under explain? Truest apologies for all the exposition that'll have to be a thing for the first few chaps, but thats sort of a thing when creating an entire new area and time to base yourself off of. More will be revealed in the future (along with the identities of the main characters, spirit Pokemon wise, at which point I'll update the characters included in the description OTHER THAN OC), but constructive criticism is always appreciated. Even anyone uber familiar with the Pokemon universe gens 1-4 to be a Beta reader would be totally welcome!
Cya ~ BRP