Feels like it's been a while, eh? I think my counter is at five weeks. Sorry for the long delay.
I don't own pokémon.
Dr. Tortican
With any experiment, there are bound to be some errors… Unfortunately, this one is no exception. Subject 192 has regained far too many memories. The outside forces affecting this seem to be a number of factors. First, a pokémon by the name of "Meg" gave him a clue by giving him back his name… Meg seems to be a rather old mismagius who has been watching the subject long before the surgery. Whether this action of presenting the subject with his name was actually a trigger to Subject 192's memories is unknown. Generally, I'd like to take care of those who harm my experiments but her importance goes beyond the bounds of this experiment as she is directly opposing Giovanni.
Secondly, the pokémon Subject 192 hosts, a darkrai, seems to have sped up the rate at which the medically induced amnesia is wearing off. We planned to have half a year, but at this rate we might not get another month. The dreams produced apparently are vivid memories… One of my researchers rented a room in the subject's tavern and recorded subject 192's sleep talking. With mentions of Red, Yellow, Latias and many other pokémon and people Subject 192 has not been exposed to yet, we are fairly certain these dreams are direct links to his past.
Most concerning, George Gambino has shown up. He has too many answers and a great deal of power… realistically, more power than I possess. His interest in the subject is clear due to their background and I cannot allow him to stay in contact with the subject. Subject 192's amnesia is not good enough to withstand multiple triggers. We must interrupt the experiment to reapply the amnesia. Unfortunate, but a minor setback.
Subject 192 has made progress, though. An observer saw the tangible progress yesterday at a training session the subject had been attending. Subject 192 was able to make use of his pokémon's moves, releasing a Dark Pulse. Unfortunately, this will probably be depleted when we apply the amnesia again. With this progress, though, we have moved forward to start the production of more of these "super soldiers". While we could've used more experiment time to look for defects and issues, Giovanni's war is going so flawlessly for him that we have less time than expected. We planned on intervening in the height of the war, but so far Giovanni has not allowed any room for anything resembling a war.
However, Giovanni's dominance was not outside of our calculations. The pokémon mafia, while not known well, is big enough to be recognized as an organization by the other human criminal organizations. With Rocket's enterprise of another large asset, the criminal syndicates of Aqua, Magma and Plasma simply cannot sit still. They themselves have already moved to take action and may delay the war a bit longer, but they've suffered the wears of time far harder than Rocket. That is why I must push forward and complete my super soldiers, for the event of a battle between Rocket and the other criminal syndicates.
~From Charon's Personal Journal, Entry 750 of the 192 Experiment
Gray
It seemed to be more and more common that I found myself tracking through some narrow path in a forest. This time, Latias, Sarin, Gustav and Shedinja all accompanied me outside their pokéball. The reasoning was two-fold; the realizing mechanism of a pokéball made a distinctive "pop", and this was Latias' way of punishing me for hurting Sarin's feelings. While I wasn't particularly happy with the second reason, I wasn't about to mess with a legendary dragon.
Before setting out, I had quickly talked to Latias about the specific weathers I might encounter. Apparently, I could expect the pokémon to summon incredibly harsh sunlight, rain, snow or sand. I wasn't quite sure how a sandstorm classified as weather, but it was one of the three possibilities. I had decided to tackle the sun setter for various reasons. Water and snow would make traveling silently difficult, as mud and snow both made distinctive sounds. This might also affect mobility when it was finally time to capture the opponent. Rain was a bit ambiguous… It could be a light sprinkle or a flat out thunderstorm. Lastly, summoning a sandstorm meant that I'd be facing strong winds as well as perhaps enough sand to require specific gear. So we had set out to find the sun setter. As Sal had stated, it wasn't hard to find…
Soon enough, we came upon a large circular clearing, easily 300 meters around, scorched with such intense sunlight that the grass was wilted and smoking. The heat was so intense that in some small patches of the dried grass had even caught fire. We were separated from this clearing by only some thick hedges, but even from behind the hedges, we could feel an intense heat rolling over the area. Beyond those hedges sat a white stone pedestal with a pokéball placed at the top. Guarding it sat my target, a large flying fire-breathing lizard. Latias had made it painfully clear this was a flying lizard and not simply a dragon, however I failed to see the difference. The lizard was mostly orange with two huge wings, a long, thin neck and a muscular tail that ended with in an open flame. Throughout its body sat occasional flight fins, one on each arm, a few on its tail and even the creature's head seemed to have aerodynamic horns. It seemed to match my description of a dragon perfectly: powerful, fearsome and guarding a treasure. Currently, it was resting on the ground, spouting occasional flames.
"THAT'S a Charizard?" I asked, trying hard to keep my voice down. Concern was probably very evident in my voice, but most reasonable people could understand why. The giant pokémon far outclassed any of the pokémon accompanying me, and even if I considered numbers, I was at a large disadvantage.
"Technically, no… That's a Mega pokémon; a pokémon who has connected to the trainer at such a level, it is able to unleash a stronger form… I mean, I figured it'd just be a ninetales… they're much easier to handle. We should probably look for a different target," Latias explained. Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if this was just another problem that could be solved by simple avoidance.
"No, no… My strategy was based around the sunlight, not the pokémon… We're not actually attacking it," I stated slowly. In a game where winning meant avoiding attacks, the strength of an attack was largely irrelevant. In theory, I could avoid the issue of that charizard's power if I simply didn't get hit. "The sun is stronger than expected, but that isn't too damning… Anyways, if everything goes well, we'll never have to deal with him."
"Your call, just don't screw up!" Latias smiled. She turned to leave, going to observe from farther away. She had also made it clear that I was to win this by myself… I didn't quite understand; I didn't think I did that bad last time around. Was she still mad at me for hurting Sarin's feelings? If she was, this was starting to get excessive.
Shaking my head, I focused back to my mission. The concept of Sal's game was simple, essentially a spinoff of capture the flag. Not getting tagged required either incredible speed or good stealth. Both were a bit hard when the opponent was basically on top of the objective. Most people would be attempted to attack with one pokémon to distract while the other went after the pokéball, but that relied on the first not getting hit. What I wanted to do was different. I wanted to confuse my target not by attacking it, but by taking away the environment it stood in.
"Gustav, Sarin. Let's start with the plan. Remember, summon the rain first, then use the blizzard low to the ground," I whispered, probably for the fiftieth time. What we were going to do was make a special type of fog, radiation fog. With the ground baking in such a hot sun, any rain would instantly cause steam. However, when the air was reinforced with a cold air current AND heavy amounts of precipitation, the heat from the ground would radiate upwards and create a thick fog. Sarin and Gustav both had the necessary components: Sarin's summoned move 'blizzard' and Gustav's 'rain dance'. While Sarin's blizzard was little more than a very cold wind, Gustav's rain was technically all that was needed. The additional cold air would just reinforce and expedite the production of fog.
As I moved away from the two, I could already see the beginnings of their assault. Rain clouds formed high above the meadow, large cumulonimbus clouds blocked out the sun. The clouds started to produce a heavy downpour almost immediately, steaming the ground. There was even a bit of thunder to be heard which could only benefit the stealthy assault. Contrary to what Gustav had showed me earlier, he was capable of some very powerful attacks. He had been cryptic about the extent of his rain, but had assured me it was enough. Seeing how many dark clouds he summoned, I had to agree with him.
The charizard was largely confused by this development, as he just roared at the rain clouds as if to curse his bad luck. As the rain started to pour, I could see the steam beginning to rise, forming a very thin fog but quickly gaining density. This was probably due to Sarin's own attack. Within two minutes from the start, these huge clouds had darkened the entire area and the fog had reduced visibility to roughly twenty meters.
"Shedinja, sorry for calling on you so often… Just tag that pokéball, please. Shadow sneak through the fog and win this for us," I said, looking at my reliable partner. He didn't even respond, simply backed into the mist and disappeared from sight.
I predicted that once the fog fell, the Charizard would soon attempt to clear the skies. It took Gustav nearly two minutes to summon such a large rainstorm, so I had predicted at least a full minute would be required for Charizard to summon back the strong sunlight. However, what actually happened was a far beyond my expectations. The Charizard lifted off into the sky and started to summon a mighty wind. The rain was casting sideways and the fog was quickly dissipating. I had to brace myself against a tree to prevent myself from being blown back… If Shedinja had been caught in this blast, there was no way he'd have been able to hold his ground.
It didn't take long for me to find Shedinja. He came pelting by in the strong wind, apparently unable to even resist it. The fog was nearly cleared and rain still pelting down, providing me with a very difficult task. The eventual mud would cause anyone but Shedinja to make a lot of noise when approaching the pokéball. The charizard finally started to go back to standing on the ground, but seemed to be summoning back the sun. Now, even the rain would only last a minute more. It wasn't too late to cut my losses, I knew. I simply had to collect my three partners in crime…
Except, for whatever reason, Sarin was creeping into the open field. The charizard had yet to notice, but such a simple tactic could not possibly win this! At this moment, she was barely forty meters out of the hedges and in plain view of anyone looking her way. Luckily, the charizard was preoccupied summoning the sun and was facing the opposite direction.
As I was cursing her stupidity, Gustav came running over to me, a worried look on his generally upbeat face. "She wanted to win this so badly, she took off!" He breathlessly exclaimed. "Figured you'd be needing me to bail her out, I did!"
We were probably 150 meters from the charizard, close to 190 from Sarin. That distance to Sarin would probably take me about twenty seconds to cover in a sprint. "Gustav, how close do you need to be to use psyshock?" I asked hurriedly, trying to take in all my options.
"Hmm…" Gustav started at an agonizingly slow pace. "Just a bit closer. The closer I am, the more dangerous psyshock becomes… " Gustav answered. His estimation was far too imprecise for my likings, but I was working on a plan too quickly to insist on a longer explanation. Shedinja chose that moment to return, wordlessly moving next to me.
I looked back towards Sarin, only to see a horrible situation. Sarin barely covered another forty meters before she stopped suddenly. I couldn't see the issue, but the charizard, who had been looking in the other direction started to turn around. I looked closer at Sarin… who seemed to have stepped into a puddle. The charizard must've had insane hearing! I guess it made sense… flying pokémon would need better hearing to counteract all the noise from wind. Unfortunately, Sarin seemed paralyzed by the presence of the large lizard and she was unable to even move backwards a bit.
But now the charizard was about to see Sarin. Cursing her stupidity, Latias for not helping, and myself, I started the only rescue plan that came to mind.
"Gustav, scatter quickly," I muttered. He bounced away as I said that, probably not sure on what to do. Raising my voice, I stepped through the clearing and shouted, "Shedinja, tag his pokéball now!"
The reaction was immediate; the charizard turned towards the pokéball to look for the assailant as Shedinja shot off from my right side. In the next instant, the charizard's attention swung back to me. I had already started running towards Sarin, moving from left to right from his perspective. The charizard lifted off quickly to pivot easier and get a better angle to attack me from. He opened his maw and spat flames towards me. Luckily, I had anticipated this before starting. Had I been caught off guard, I probably would've been killed. I jumped to the left and continued charging towards Sarin. We were only four seconds in to the assault. I had barely covered thirty meters, but Shedinja had covered almost double that.
Thanks to Shedinja's quick progress, the charizard had to respect Shedinja's position. The charizard had quickly turned back to face Shedinja, but my dodging to his right caused this pivot to take extra time. Shedinja had already replicated due to double team, but the charizard released another powerful wind gust and knocked back all the clones. The real one had tried to sneak underneath charizard, but this was a futile attempt. As the charizard started to unleash another burst of flames at the approaching Shedinja, a red light engulfed the small bug. I had simply recalled Shedinja while running. Even if I felt like redeploying him to distract the charizard, I'd probably just end up recalling him within another few seconds. Failing that, I'd have a fried shedinja and most certainly lose this battle completely. Luckily, the charizard suffered another small bout of confusion from this disappearing bug. Instead of looking for me, he checked the pokéball again. We were probably fourteen seconds in and I was just a little bit away from Sarin. She had finally snapped out of her paralysis and was moving running towards me, helping me catch up to her right as the charizard came to face us. I reached down and scooped her up, carefully trying to maintain my balance without slowing. However, she was a little heavier than I expected, causing me to lean forward a bit more and fall over.
"Oh my, we're very much dead…" I breathlessly exclaimed, looking to my right. Sarin and I were defenseless and hopelessly exposed. Even at a distance of 50 meters, it'd be hard for the charizard to miss. There was no way I could get up before the charizard attacked, so I started to crawl forward. As the charizard prepared to release a volley of flames, I noticed his eyes rolled back a bit. In that brief moment, I recognized my hope for salvation. If the charizard would aim for where I was before, I might be able to get up and run before he could attack again. I had no time to think any farther as the flames flew out towards me. Luckily, the flames torched the ground just behind me. I had moved forward just enough to dodge the first shot, and had even begun to stand up by time the flames made impact. However, even though the flames hit the ground behind me, the fire spewed up and rained hot dirt and flames on my legs. I didn't feel the pain to it's fullest due to adrenaline, but it still hurt enough that I recoiled, causing me to fall down again.
The charizard's second shot had almost no time gap from the first. At this point, I was trying to push Sarin away to get her out of the blast zone, as the charizard had been completely focused on me. However, as the charizard was about to release another flamethrower, he suddenly shot his head to his left and released all the gathered flames, searing empty ground. Before I had any time to be confused, the charizard disappeared in a red light. On the pedestal sat Latias, the charizard's pokéball in her hand. Gustav stood in the open, grinning wildly.
"Oh my!" Latias exclaimed. Her smile was playful but I could tell I was about to be the subject of her gloating. "I think I just won this game by myself!"
Five minutes later, Latias and I were sitting in a small clearing, trees admitting just enough light to be comfortable but enough concealment for Latias to feel comfortable in her natural form. I had temporarily put Sarin and Gustav away in my bag just to allow Latias to drop her illusion.
"Even though you really got beat up, you should be thankful for your pokémon-like cells," Latias laughed, looking at my right leg. She was just hovering above me as I fumbled around in my backpack for any sort of burn ointment. Meg had packed all sorts of medicines, so I figured a burn ointment might be among the numerous containers.
My left leg had managed to escape most of the flames, but there were some pretty evident burns on my right leg. The first layer of skin had completely burned away, leaving a raw light red mark running halfway up to my knees. They didn't hurt terribly badly, but I could definitely feel the heat coming off of them compared to the much cooler surrounding air. They could've been much, much worse, I knew. Latias had figured they were merely a second degree at worse… Lucky, considering most people facing a flamethrower would suffer fourth degree burns if they got hit. The jeans I had worn had also been burned badly, and I had eventually torn them off just below me knees to prevent them from burning up completely.
"Would you stop? You could've prevented all of that by just helping out earlier," I growled. Finding no ointment, I took out a container of water instead and started to slowly poor it over the burns. Treatment would probably involve cooling, cleaning and covering, all which I could manage with little to no help.
"Not that easy," Latias insisted. "Sal wasn't being truthful about how he was monitoring our progress." I frowned, gesturing for Latias to continue. "Well, think about it! That lizard was about to mercilessly attack Sarin. Had that been Sal's 'mon, don't you think it would've been a little less dangerous? Especially knowing Sarin isn't a threat to it taking one of the top six spots? What it was attempting was overkill on every level," Latias explained.
"So how does that explain anything? Couldn't the charizard just be rude and not care for the others?" I asked. I had encountered a lot of pokémon who didn't seem to give the time of day to anyone else.
"Sure, but two issues here. Sal is an educator, so the pokémon he used have to be deemed 'friendly' by an education board. Second, remember how I said that was a mega pokémon? Mega pokémon can only reach that level if the trainer is near," Latias continued.
"…So the trainer was the observer…" I said, piecing the puzzle together. Latias grinned, nodding. "So, where was the trainer, then? We almost got killed, it'd be nice if he tried to step in."
"Sleeping," Latias answered easily. Her eyes told me that this was definitely her fault. "I couldn't help you while he was watching, so I put him to sleep," She explained. "It just took me a little while to find him."
"And I almost died in that time… You do realize that Gustav was the one that stopped me from getting killed, right?" I asked pointedly. I had finished cleaning out the burns and was looking for anything to wrap my lower leg with. I ended up just using an undershirt I had, ripping the whole shirt in half. I ripped two thin slices of the shirt before wrapping up the burns, using the smaller slices to tie the shirt in place.
"I wouldn't say it was all him. I could've done it had I needed, but he was right in the open already," Latias responded, although it was fairly unconvincing. "Anyways, should we head back?"
I shook my head in amazement. It was only now I really realized how close I had been to getting annihilated. "Damn," I sighed, letting myself fall back into the grass. "I wasn't even close to winning that one…"
"Well…" Latias began slowly before pausing. She looked like she wasn't going to say anything more but continued a moment later. "Gray, I honestly didn't expect you to win… Let me explain!" She exclaimed, recoiling under my stare. "I liked your strategy and all, but beating a mega was simply unrealistic… If it makes you feel any better, you did better than I expected," Latias finished weakly. I laughed in spite of myself. How disgustingly stupid, to expect I could've succeeded. I had completely underestimated the circumstances and it could've cost me my life.
"Well… let's head back then," I said, shaking my head. I had to imagine Sal was getting impatient waiting for us as we were probably the last two out.
"And Gray… please don't be too harsh on Sarin… She just really wanted to prove that she's worth something and any criticism right now would probably cause her a lot of stress… I know it was probably her fault that you got injured, but please try not to be too harsh," Latias finished. She recreated her illusion before reaching a hand down to help me up. It felt surprisingly human, I noticed. When I gave her a questioning look, she just smiled. "Illusions can fool more than one sense, you know," She laughed, taking off towards the school.
"Ah, back a bit late again! I see we had a bit of an issue with safety!" Sal exclaimed as we walked into the meadow. It was late afternoon by time we got back to the starting area and per usual, Sal was the only one waiting.
"Yeah, Gray learned he'd be a terrible pyromaniac," Latias smiled. She produced the charizard's pokéball and handed it to Sal. "He obviously got tagged but the grumpig and I managed," Latias finished. She spoke easily and avoided using Gustav's name, probably due to years of practice with concealment.
"Well! You two are full of surprises! Then again, Lawrence managed to capture one of the pokémon himself… I didn't quite expect to lose two eggs, no! But it's always entertaining to see youngsters excel! So, two eggs left, which one do ya want?" Sal asked, opening up a large duffle bag and producing the two eggs. One egg was sky blue and white, the pattern resembling a cloud-covered sky. The other egg was light brown and green with just a few speckled red dots.
"Hmm, I'll take this one," Latias said, patting the green and brown egg lightly. Sal nodded and placed the blue egg back in the duffle bag.
"Now, do you know how to raise a pokemon and how to hatch an egg? This one has been an egg for about seven months, so it probably will hatch soon," Sal explained.
"Of course!" Latias exclaimed. "My parents have raised many pokémon eggs so I'll be fine!"
"Well… just to be sure," Sal started. He began questioning Latias on everything to do with pokémon eggs to which Latias seemed to answer all his inquiries correctly. Not surprising, I guess… The whole questioning process took about five minutes before Sal seemed satisfied.
"Well then! Good job to both of you, I imagine you both played an important role! Tomorrow will be a more lesson-oriented class; we'll meet in the school itself. I'll be going over multi-battles… we'll eventually use field testing, but not all of you have multiple pokémon… Well, obviously I have some to spare," Sal finished. With that reminded, I handed Sal Sarin's pokéball and Latias did the same for Gustav.
"Ah! Gray, if you want, the school has a fantastic library! One of my associates said you were reading a really outdated encyclopedia. We have much better reference material here, and the school is open for students twenty-four seven. Of course, you should probably check out that shish kabo… I mean, leg," Sal laughed. Latias laughed at Sal's obvious underhanded insult and I just shook my head. It was probably Sal's unique way of telling me that my performance wasn't good enough that time around.
"Yeah, I'll probably make use of that," I answered, forcing a smile. I don't think he meant to rub salt in the figurative wound but his innocent joking just served to remind me of what a disaster that had been.
I really appreciate your continued support. The next chapter is already being edited. Expect it to be posted before October.