Of Illness and Wellness
Pear was up late that night working on her latest laboratory project, a breakthrough DNA-RNA chip for Pokemon. She had already finished testing a similar invention on humans, however Pokemon had sufficiently more complex genetic structures, and were proving to be a greater challenge for the young genius and her assistants. She was staring at a bit of computer coding when a high-pitched alarm pierced the quiet, mechanical sounds of the lab. Pear was surprised at the thought that someone had breached her temporary security system. The location of the lab, as well as the inventions being developed and tested there, were kept confidential. Perhaps someone had been careless and triggered the alarm by mistake, but Pear wasn't the type of girl that ignored a possible intrusion. She switched the central monitor from the chip's configuration to security camera footage. She narrowed her eyes at the empty hallways. Too empty. A tall young woman with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes fell through the ceiling of the hastily assembled facility. She had just enough hair on her head for a few streaks to hang right over her eyes, and veil their striking intensity. She brushed ceiling insulation off of her jacket, and muttered something under her breath.
"Ah, thought as much..." Pear couldn't hear her, but she continued, making her way quickly through the halls now, "Never trust a map that's been leaked."
Far from reacting with anger or fright, as some of the older lab executives had done in the past, Pear grinned, leaning back against the swivel-chair, watching the security screen. This was exciting! The first time in her career as head researcher that lab security had been compromised. She sized up her opponent carefully—the Ranger looked to be in her late teens or early 20s, at least some six years older than Pear. She was quickly closing in on the control room.
"Should we barricade the entrance?" Asked Pear's second in command, Avery, who looked like he was the kind of person who stepped on butterflies for a laugh.
"No," Pear twirled her hair, "... open the entrance. I want to talk to our mysterious interloper. Pear cracked her knuckles under her white gloves. She gave her assistants a vicious smile, but her intentions were not malicious. She was far too curious for that. "Well, don't just stand there, do it at once!" she demanded.
Just as the windowless steel doors buzzed and glided open, the face of the Ranger turned the corner into the adjacent hall. She slowed from her sprint when she saw the open door, and the staff waiting there, silent and calculating. They were more intimidating like this than she had imagined. She took cautious steps into the large control room, peering from one researcher to the next, preparing for some sort of reaction.
A girl, barely a teenager, with two purple poofs of hair sticking up from her neatly parted scalp, stepped out from behind a row of terminals toward her, grinning. Surely, Mandy thought, she must have made some mistake coming here. This could not be the Team Rocket facility. And yet...
"Nobody ever finds my labs," Pear said, picking up a pencil from a nearby table and sucking on it, never taking her eyes from Mandy. "You must be a real smarty!" laughed the child.
Mandy was quite confused now, but refused to let her guard down. She was more suspicious now, more unnerved than she had been when she entered the facility. Peering at the girl, Mandy had a sinking realization. She had heard of a ruthless Team Rocket agent, a special operative, that fit this child's description. Small frame, purple pigtails, and an uncanny ability to strike her opponents with fear and doubt. This facility was not one of many Team Rocket contract labs, this was an interior operation, hiding some of the group's most valued secrets.
Pear was inching closer, pausing mere feet from the Ranger. She didn't look like a ruthless Pokemon abuser, but looks could be deceiving.
"So tell me," Pear looked up, wearing no expression but the curious gleam in her eyes, "Why did you break in to our lab? What knowledge here did you intend to steal?"
"Steal—that's rich, coming from one of you!" Mandy scoffed. "In your pointless pursuit of power, you've not only risked, but intentionally damaged the lives of countless Pokemon and people. I came here for something that you have no right to—the antidote."
Pear blinked at her, "Oh dear, a moral lecture. I repent from my erroneous ways," she moaned, dramatically draping the back of her fingers over her forehead, and leaning over the chair.
Mandy didn't know whether to laugh, or shout at her, so she stood stiff and still, hands clenched into fists.
"Let's say for a moment," Pear began, "That I wanted to humor you, crazy lady. You'd have to be a lot more specific about this antidote. This is not a research facility for diseases, so I have no idea why you think you can come here and get that sort of thing."
"I know what this place is," Mandy said in a low, dangerous whisper. "This is where you develop mind control and torture devices to coerce Pokemon into following Giovanni's evil agenda! You mutate your test subjects into warped creatures, after you steal them from honest trainers." Mandy was shaking now, unable to control her anger. Team Rocket had wronged her. It had wronged many people... but did this child deserve the rage Mandy longed to release upon this evil organization?
"Uhhhhhh-huh..." Pear arched an eyebrow, teetering against a chair, "I would venture to say that your sources of information regarding Team Rocket have been spoiled by an unhealthy amount of bias. I have read some of the reports that the Rangers write. They're spiteful, but can't deny the great strides that we have made. Our advances in Pokemon technology have exceeded other organizations because of our willingness to do whatever it takes to get results. It may not be cream and peaches, red, but it's effectual. In the end, we all reap the rewards. Even you."
"You're a liar and a little monster! I know you have that antidote, and I'll make you pay if you don't hand it over!"
Avery reaches for one of the Pokeballs on his belt, but Pear holds up her tiny gloved hand, and he flexes his fingers.
Pear scratched her chin, grinning wide now, "You really think I have this antidote thing, don't you? What sort of a disease is it you want cured, and for whom? You don't look sick to me. Is it someone in your family? Is it a boy you like?" The little scientist watched for facial signals as she asked, noting the welling anger that the ranger could barely contain, knowing that with just a little push, she might spill it all out. "If you hand any brains in your head, miss Ranger, you'd never have come here. But please, scrape together the few cells you have up there and listen. I don't expect you to think I'm honest, but if you don't believe me, you have two options. Take on all of us yourself, which would make you sorely more stupid than I originally suspected, or accept that you're outmatched and march those stubby Ranger legs of yours out of my lab. What do you propose?"
"Neither," Mandy pressed a button on her belt, and a steel cord shot from it, binding Pear to her tightly. A crash came from above as the roof caved in, and Mandy nimbly navigated over the rubble and out of the top of the underground lab.
Pear's mouth dropped open as she tried to sqirm out of the tight coils. She tore her gloves against the cord that pressed her in close to Mandy.
"Stop kicking, little Rocket brat, you're just the distraction!"
"The distraction? …. oh no!" Pear looked at the lab with wide eyes. "My research! My cute tiny little life's work! You wouldn't..."
"Tell me about the antidote, and I won't," Mandy snapped, breaking into a heavy-footed run.
Pear put on her best pout and squeezed out a few crocodile tears, "I don't know! Please, you have the wrong people!"
There came a loud crashing sound, and smoke filled the air around the outside of the complex.
Pear managed to break a hand free, and held it out toward the facility, sobbing, "No... my pretty computers! All the shiny technology! You … killed them."
"I may vomit, miss Rocket," Ranger Mandy rolled her eyes. "Do you think I don't know Team Rocket's data backup policy?"
"Darn it," Pear smirked, "And I was having so much fun deceiving you. You really should learn more compassion for poor little girls like me. We're just so fragile and-" Pear's rant was interrupted by a jab to her shoulder with the Ranger's elbow, "Ow! You hurt me!" Pear shrieked, and slapped Mandy repeatedly in the ribs. "You. Should. Never. Hit. A. Poor. Defenseless. Little. Girl!"
By the time that Ranger Mandy got Pear to the holding cell in the back of her truck, the right side of her ribcage was raw and bruised. "Quiet down back there, you'll be taken to Officer Jenny soon enough. We just need to run a little errand first." Mandy sped off from the edge of the forest, through the suburb, into the heart of the city. She pulled through an alley into the garage of a run-down old warehouse.
"Recognize this, kid?" the Ranger asked, tying Pear's hand down, and leading her out of the cage. "It's a mostly unused Team Rocket facility... lucky for us, the mainframe is still connected. All I need is an administrative login, and something tells me you've got one."
"You will regret meddling in the affairs of Team Rocket, Ranger," Pear said calmly, looking at the old computer terminal in front of her. "We are not only the most powerful and deadly group in operation, but we are the true future of people and Pokemon everywhere. You can't escape from Team Rocket and our plans to change the world. Fighting us is useless."
"Yeah, keep flapping your jaws all you like. Just access the database," Mandy ordered, untying her hands once she had firmly tied her ankles together. "You scum'll get exactly what you deserve, whether it's me or someone else who serves it to you. I know from experience … that Team Rocket has no heart."