Slaves and Soldiers
Chapter 10: Ave Machina (Hail the Machine)
Typhlosion still continued to stand in awe and horror of the monstrosity depicted on the wall. He was still trying to take it all in.
"No. No, that can't be me. It can't. But… how many other cyborg Typhlosions are there? Or cyborg Pokémon, period…"
The… beast of the murals looked strikingly similar to Ty. The beast of the murals had the cybernetic headgear, the pack on the end, his metal claw… heck, they got the details of that claw right down to the circuits.
Looking at the skull he was holding in the mural as well as the flaming stone, he failed to find any significance to it. For the moment, at least.
But… that Infernape's face inside that high-tech helmet… the helmet he held in his right hand… it was horrifying. The Infernape in the mural bared an unfortunate resemblance to Victor, Ty's best friend. What was it supposed to mean? Was this an event that yet to come? An event that the beast in the mural was prophesied to do?
Ty could never do that to his best friend. Could he? Would he? Will he?
He looked at his claw. Again, it was the same as the one shown in the hieroglyphics. It was unnatural. Tears started to form in his eyes again, before he rapidly blinked out.
"Can't cry." he said to himself. "I've done enough of that to float the Ark."
He turned his attention back to the mural. Still, the resemblance was uncanny. He began to think that this wasn't just a coincidence. He used his claw to scratch out the frail stone depicting him and Victor. The stone was soft and easy to dig into, so he got it out fairly easily.
He now looked at the stone in his hands.
"Nevertheless…" he muttered. "I suppose this could be useful for later."
He stored the stone slab in his pack and turned back around the way he came.
Initially, it had seemed that my path would lead to nothing. However, at the end, I found a red large door. Being a fancy one, it was decorated up with various pieces of gemstones and jewels. The gems were still bright and gleaming scattered around the old door. It definitely indicated that someone had been here at least somewhat recently.
I was curious as to what was on the other side of the door and I wanted to explore. However, I got that sense of fear when you know that you have to be careful, lest you end up dead or something like that. Heh, for once, I actually listened to my own concerns.
Deciding to hear out the side of caution, I pressed my ear against the door to try to distinguish any movement on the other side. Silence. Deathly silence. It was almost too silent, as if someone knew I was coming.
My curiosity now overruling my sense of hesitancy, I decided to enter cautiously into the room.
The room was extraordinarily large, probably about the size of your average high school auditorium. On the walls of the room were red vertically-hanging banners, with… a striking symbol on them. It wasn't an inverted cross, or an upside-down Jewish star, so this cult possibly wasn't explicitly Satanic, as I first assumed. However, a cult that deals with assimilation technology to brainwash Pokémon is without a doubt, evil. EVIL EVIL EVIL.
Back onto the symbol, it wasn't anything of those things. It was like an O, except imagine it broken at one place. Then imagine the edges turned outwards, looking like a horseshoe. What was it? A new Unown symbol? Hebrew? Greek? Yiddish? I'm not knowledgeable on this kind of thing. No matter what language it was, it still held an ominous presence to it.
What was very interesting was in the center of the room. I walked up to it and examined it carefully.
It was a table. A very large perfectly circular marble table, much like something you might see in the Middle Ages. 16 chairs were set equally spaced from each other on the edge of the table.
"16 chairs… 16 members?"
Near one of the chairs on the edge of the table was… some strange helmet, to say the least of 'strange'. I picked it up. It was blue, with Tron lines much like Typhlosion's cybernetics. I looked inside the helmet to see some circuitry… I began to get an uneasy feeling in my stomach about the strange device. On the table were other chunks of metal, similar in color and design to the helmet. It looked like it could be body armor, but definitely not built for the human physique. What was all this stuff for? I knew well that curiosity could kill the Purrloin here, so I decided it would be for the best that I left it alone. I continued to hold the helmet in one of my paws as I examined the room further.
As I continued to hunt the room for anything else of interest, I couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that the helmet and chunks of metal were part of this assimilation technology.
And another… sense, I should say, tugged at my brain… was someone watching me?
Nah, I thought I was just being paranoid.
Finding a large drawer on the right side of the room, I walked over to it and looked inside. The top and middle drawers held nothing of interest aside from robes with that insignia I mentioned earlier on them. The bottom drawer, on the other hand held something VERY fascinating. A blue paper. I stuck my head closer to the open drawer to get a better look at it, leaving myself vulnerable.
The paper was a blueprint. It depicted technology that was similar to the helmet and chunks of metal I had found. The question remained, was this the-
CONK!
"Ohh…"
Then I was knocked unconscious… again.
Typhlosion came back to the center of the 4-way split. Neither Raikou nor Victor had come back yet.
"Hello?" he called out. "Anyone there? Victor? Raikou? You find anything?"
Silence.
"You guys there? Can you hear me?"
More silence.
"Huh. Guess not."
He looked down the two paths the others had taken.
"Raikou's path or Victor's path… which should I take?" he asked himself. "Or should I just wait here for them? Hmm. Maybe…"
Then he heard a loud crash.
"That came from the path Victor took…" he realized. He ran down the pathway as fast as a Typhlosion could.
Victor found himself in a difficult situation. He found himself staring at the face of an assimilated Reshiram. How? How could this cult… much less a single individual, harness the power of the magnificent Legendary Vast White Dragon Reshiram? He stood very little chance against a Legendary as powerful as she. But he still had to try. Fire was ineffective against another Fire-Type, so Reshiram began charging up a Dragon Pulse, with blue energy gathering at the center of her mouth.
Victor had to think quickly.
"What works against a Dragon / Fire type? Water? No, an Infernape can't learn water moves plus she isn't weak to it. …Got it!"
Victor lifted his fists, and then pounded them into the ground, causing the floor to violently shake. The earth rumbled and knocked Reshiram off of her feet. The cloaked man continued to watch the battle unravel. Behind his back, he held a remote which controlled the assimilated Reshiram. He turned a 'PAIN' setting to 'Moderate', in an effort to get Reshiram going.
The shock caused to Reshiram's brain was painful, but motivated her to push further to make the pain stop. She could spare no mercy.
With regret, she launched a different move at Victor. It was the most powerful move in her arsenal, Blue Flare. One of the most intense Fire-type moves, you would still think that it'd be ineffective against another Fire-type, right? Wrong.
The intense, yet beautiful Blue Flare engulfed Victor. Normally, a Fire-type Pokémon isn't hurt very much by another Fire-type move, but Blue Flare was an exception, subduing him to painful, scorching burns.
The cloaked man turned the 'PAIN' setting back to 'Off', his will done.
Victor screamed.
Typhlosion ran faster and faster down Victor's path, having heard his cries of torture. His vision was blurring and the door seemed to be too far, but it gradually grew closer and closer and closer until…
POW!
"Victor!" Typhlosion screamed. He saw Victor surrounded by a single, large blue flame, rolling around on the floor desperately trying to remove the painful flame.
"Wait… Prophesized One? The Legendary One spoken of in our legends?" the cloaked man uttered.
Typhlosion didn't hear that. He only heard the tortured screams of his friend. He ran over quickly to him, swiftly trying to put out the fire.
There was a little problem with that.
He had NO water moves.
Now frantic, he dashed over to the table, hunting madly for ANY liquid that could douse the fire. Nothing… nothing… nothing… NOTHING! The screams of Victor became even louder. Growing even more frantic, he grabbed the nearest cloth he saw and covered it over Victor, quickly rolling him around in it. With Blue Flare becoming oxygen-starved, it died down, much to the relief of Typhlosion and Victor.
Victor breathed heavily, trying to recover from the searing pain of the flare. His breathing began to slow down to a normal pace, to a regular level where Victor could a word out of his mouth.
"C-Cyber? T-Typhlosion?"
"Oh, thank God. You're OK." Typhlosion sighed. He unwrapped Victor from the red cloth he had hastily grabbed and let him out. Victor had several burns on him, around second-degree. Fortunately, being a Fire-type makes burns slightly less painful. But only slightly. Still, it didn't require an immediate trip to the Pokémon Center.
"Once we get back to headquarters, we'll apply a Burn Heal."
"OK… thanks Ty. You really saved my ass. But… what about…" Victor stuttered.
Ty looked behind him. Behind him was… a bald white man lacking his robe… and anything else… embarrassingly covering his privates.
"Oh dear Lord, he's naked." he muttered as he turned back around.
"Umm… Prophesized One? M-May I have my robe back?"
"Take it. Take it." he told him as he tossed the burnt robe back to the bald man.
"Bless you, Prophesized One." he told Ty as he ran off with the robe, presumably to get changed. He also quickly recalled Reshiram.
"Uhh… I'm out of the loop." Victor stated. "Are you supposed to be a… Chosen One or something like that?"
"Unfortunately, I think I am…"
"So… new neophyte, have you truly found the Prophesized One spoke of in our Legends?"
"Yes, Lord Xaphan. You will be very pleased." the black-haired newcomer nodded.
"We'll see."
The man came back in just a few minutes with his freshly roasted robe on, this time having some other members in non-charred red robes with him. Typhlosion and Victor turned to face them, still on the ground. One of the members, having a robe that was a shade of maroon instead of red took off his hood, revealing a head of no hair. What lay in front of his eyes was a cybernetic Typhlosion. His mouth was open in awe.
"The cyborg Typhlosion spoken of in our legends… the one who will deliver us the world… the Cyber Creator. He has come."
The maroon-clothed man walked up to Typhlosion, plunged himself to the ground on his knees and bowed.
"Why is he bowing before you?" Victor asked.
"I think I have an idea…" Typhlosion muttered.
The rest of the group followed the black-haired man and also proceeded to bow before him.
"Well… this is weird." Ty stated.
"You know you could use this to your advantage." Victor informed him.
"But I don't want these people… crazy people, but people… thinking that I'm supposed to be their Messiah."
"But you are." said one of the red cloaked men.
"Hush." the leader whispered. "The Cyber Creator did not give you permission to speak."
Typhlosion sighed. "Come on, you people. Get up. Please stop bowing. Please."
The group of cultists then stood back up. "Does thou have any other wishes?"
Typhlosion did have a question that he wanted an answer to.
"Why am I, the 'Chosen One', so important to you?"
"Do you not know? Well, allow me to explain the prophecy to you. Our legends have foretold for many years here in the Ruins of Alph that we would someday, have our Messiah, the Cyber Creator come in the form of a Typhlosion of great power and help turn the world into his obedient cyborgs. You are he."
Victor's eyes widened nervously on hearing that. To clear a point, he mentioned, "Uhh, just for the record, that prophecy doesn't include ME, does it?"
Xaphan spoke up. "Legend also holds that he will have his own second-in-command loyal to him, in the form of an Infernape."
Victor and Typhlosion seemed notably alarmed; however, Victor later shrugged it off thinking that they probably had the wrong guys. 'Ty would never do that.' he thought.
On the other hand, Typhlosion had his own set of doubts. "Turn the world into obedient cyborgs?" He knew the emotional conflicts of being one, and turning the entire Pokémon World into his obedient slaves was certainly not something he had on his agenda for the day…
"So… what now?" Ty asked.
"Let us treat you to a formal dinner."
"Dinner? What time is it anyways?"
Typhlosion pressed a button on his pack and let a visor emerge and covered his eyes, giving him a detailed computer screen. The cultists awed in wonder while Victor rolled his eyes at their easily impressionable nature.
"Wow. 6:30 already. My, how time flies." He then took his visor off by hand and stored it back into his backpack.
The cultists were still in awe as Typhlosion stared at them blankly.
"…What?"
The cultists applauded (much to Ty's confusion and Victor's annoyance) and proceeded to walk him and Victor to the main conference room, also where the cultists dined at night. They all began to walk down the hallway Victor had come down.
The question still remained for Typhlosion, though… Was he or was he not the 'Chosen One' of whatever strange religion these cultists belonged to? He was honestly hoping he wasn't… He didn't want to be the Messiah of a cult that uses assimilation technology to brainwash Pokémon. The stone slab he had cut off earlier remained in his pack and while Typhlosion did not know it, the events on that stone would try to come to fruition, though it would not start with Victor…
"*groan* My head… I feel like someone DoubleSlapped me over and over. Where am I? Why is it so dark? And… why can't I move?"
I couldn't move. My four feet were restrained onto a surface of some sort. Two of my front feet felt to be at about the position where human arms would be on a chair, with my two back feet clamped to a cold object. Guessing from the way my body was positioned, I deduced that I was in a chair of sorts. A cold FREEZING chair. But I still had no clue where the heck I was…
A light came on. The white light was harsh and unexpected, so it blinded me briefly. Finally, my eyes adjusted to the light level and I could see where I was. It was a large, cold, sterile room with various machines spread about. My suspicions were that this was a laboratory of sorts. Looking down, I saw wearing a red suit with that strange symbol on it, and I indeed strapped to a chair. They… wouldn't actually try to be stupid enough to use the electric chair on an Electric-type, are they? 'Cause that would be funny.
"So, you're conscious." came a voice.
"Huh?" I asked, looking around. "Who's there?"
Across from where I was, there was a hallway entrance. A man in a red robe walked in.
"My name is Simon and I'm so glad you could join me, Raikou."
"All right, whatever you're up to, it isn't funny! Now let me out of here!"
"But that would mess with my master's plans. This was his direct orders when I found you."
"His direct orders?" I hesitated to ask further, but I did. "Those orders would be…"
Simon smirked. "You see, Raikou…" he began. "This is a very special cult."
"If by special, you mean completely screwed up…" I grumbled under my breath.
"This cult serves one purpose and one purpose only. To serve our Messiah, the Cyber Creator. The one who will hand us the world and make everyone our obedient cyborgs."
I was speechless. I wasn't sure to say. "Dude…" I began. "You are completely messed up in the head. I think you should seek professional help."
"Oh, I won't be the one needing help…" the cultist grinned sadistically. "YOU will."
"…"
"…"
"… So, what are you going to do?"
"Argh! I'm brainwashing you, you idiot!"
"Oh, that's not good." I realized.
Simon walked over to a control panel next to me. "Starting today, and for the rest of your life, you will be a slave to the Cyber Creator!"
On the control panel, I couldn't see what he was inputting. But I do know that once he stepped away from the control panel, and walked outside… bad things began to happen.
Something… a helmet, slowly descended onto my head. As I saw the circuitry inside, I realized that this was the same helmet I saw earlier in that conference room. I felt pieces of something… I couldn't see what, attach to my body. I think it was that armor I saw earlier. A tube through the helmet ran up to my mouth and wormed its' way inside. Gases came out and my nervous system began to slow down, so I couldn't fight back. I gulped, really beginning to get scared. I couldn't see anything else through the helmet except a glass panel. I heard a voice come through… speakers on my helmet.
"Hello Raikou. How are you today?" came the sound of a gentle male voice. "Welcome to the Cult of the Machine. Rewriting memory…"
"No... NO!" I screamed frantically in sheer horror, realizing the gravity of the situation. "Stop! No! Please! Uhh... AAAAAAHHHHHH!"
The cultists, as well as Typhlosion and Victor all arrived in the main room relatively quickly and 14 of the 16 cultists sat themselves in their pre-designated chairs. The leader, Lord Xaphan, instead offered his much grander chair to Typhlosion.
"W-Well thanks, but I mean, you don't real-"
"It is an honor to vacate my throne in honor of you, Cyber Creator."
"Umm… OK then. I'll go along." Typhlosion found himself surprisingly comfortable in the marble chair, not expecting marble to feel so nice. Lord Xaphan sat down in the empty seat to the right of Typhlosion.
"And me?" asked Victor.
"You get to stand up."
"You don't have any more chairs?"
"Wal-Mart's refused to sell us anything after the flaming birthday cake incident." Xaphan grumbled.
"The flaming birth-"
"I don't really want to know." interrupted Typhlosion.
"And let's keep it that way. Monkey, you are standing."
"And all of this coming from the man who tried to burn me alive…"
"No, that was Mike. The one in the charred robe."
Victor looked across the table to see a man, bald and with a black charred robe. Mike waved.
"Oh yeah… thanks a lot for almost killing me, you moron!"
In not much longer than 10 minutes, various kinds of foods make their way to the circular marble table. Beef, prime rib, steak, every fruit imaginable, pasta, fancy salads, spinach, celery, asparagus, peas, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and even brussel sprouts.
Victor eyed the brussel sprouts oddly. "Brussel sprouts? Who even LIKES brussel sprouts?"
Xaphan pointed to the guy left of Typhlosion.
"…Dave."
Dave simply smiled and waved back.
"Well… good for Dave." Typhlosion muttered. "Anyway, let's dig in."
"Yes, Chosen One." all of the cultists spoke in unison.
"I'm never going to get used to that…" Typhlosion sighed.
What Typhlosion and Victor never seemed to notice was the absence of one the cult's members…
"Assimilation 55% complete…"
I screamed, though my voice was muffled through the gases began injected in my mouth. I felt the immense pain of having cyber armor screwed into my body and I had to endure the mental pain of my memory being rewritten.
"No... no... please, make it stop..."
I… I didn't want to belong to this cult. I didn't want to obey the Cyber Creator. I-I… I wanted to go home. Be with Entei and Suicune. I began to tear… I-I love you guys so much…
Victor quickly indulged himself in the prime rib, not having a care in the world. Typhlosion tried to eat something, but he couldn't. Something seemed… wrong.
"Hey, uh… Xaphan."
"Yes, Chosen One?" Xaphan turned towards him.
"Umm… th-the reason I'm here… well… I need that assimilation technology…" Typhlosion slowly muttered. Silently, he added in the back of his head, "Though, I don't really WANT it…"
"That is no problem." Xaphan nodded. Xaphan excused himself from the table and walked over to a large drawer on the right side of the room. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a sheet of blueprints. He handed it to Typhlosion.
"Umm, thanks."
Xaphan excused himself again to walk to another door in the corner of this grand conference room. He pulled out several pieces of armor and a helmet, setting it on Typhlosion's lap.
"Thank you. I didn't expect this to be so easy. Now we can get going. Victor?"
"But this is prime rib!"
"…"
"…Fine."
"Wait." Typhlosion said. "Where's Raikou?"
"Assimilation 80% complete…"
It was hopeless at this point, to fight back, to try… to do anything. The memories of Entei and Suicune were fading away from my consciousness. I slowly muttered to myself in a twisted robotic voice,
"MuSt… ObEy… tHe MaChiNe…"
"Raikou?" Xaphan said. "You're looking for him?"
"Yes, have you seen him?"
"He is in the Assimilation Room going under conversion for you, Cyber Creator."
"Thanks, I'll just… wait… WHAT?"
"Soon, he will be your slave. No need to thank us, it is our pleas-"
CRASH!
Xaphan turned to see a destroyed wall next to him. Typhlosion and Victor were both gone.
"Well, they could have just taken the door…" Xaphan muttered.
"Assimilation 90% complete…"
Raikou had lost all sense of his self-being at this point. All memories of Entei and Suicune had been erased. All traces of individuality were gone. His mind was no longer his own...
"My MaSTeR... iS tHe CyBeR CreAToR... I wIlL ObEy MaSteR..."
"These people are CRAZY!" Typhlosion yelled in anger to his friend while running quickly through the hallways. "We need to find Raikou, ASAP!"
"The Ruins of Alph are HUGE. How are we going to find Raikou?"
The duo briefly remained quiet and a sound could be heard in the distance. It sounded like robotic screams of torture.
"We'd better get to him, quick."
"Assimilation 95% complete…"
"Uhh..." Finally, Raikou slipped into unconsciousness from the violent brainwashing.
The duo closed in on Raikou. They made their way through the halls and after countless zigzagging through the maze-like Ruins, they found where Raikou was.
"Assimilation 99% complete…"
"Get that thing off!" Typhlosion grabbed the machine and cuffs restraining Raikou and crushed it, freeing him. Quickly, they hauled Raikou's unconscious body onto the ground of the laboratory. Victor checked his pulse.
"He's still alive. Can you get the armor off?"
Typhlosion tried to use his metal claw to rip off the armor, but to no avail.
"It's screwed into his flesh and already burnt into his skin." he said. "I can't rip it off."
"Oh no…" muttered Victor.
"We… We need to get out of this hell-hole." Typhlosion gulped.
"You… still have the blueprints?"
"Yes." Typhlosion nodded. "That should be enough to satisfy Team Rocket."
"…Then let's go."
Pokémon © Nintendo / Game Freak
OK… absolutely darkest chapter I've done so far. Just sayin'.
A/N: Starting with next chapter, I'm stopping Raikou's First-Person POV. It's getting too hard to maintain that and Third-Person, and I find myself in a difficult position. The rest of the story will only be told in Third-Person. The previous chapters (and this one) will remain unaffected, though.
Oh, and don't forget to review!