Chapter 29
Ray managed to gather all the Dixierats and move them to a safe distance. The Team Rocket grunts muttered to themselves, they weren't expecting an ugly fuck like Ray to show up. Nonetheless, they were more interested in Ash's pikachu. The look on the boy's face was filled with determination, he must've dealt with this situation before. Well, so have I. I've been the poacher and the poached, I knew what both lives felt like.
I cannot fathom the shitty intro these grunts did. This Jessie and James, and that meowth of theirs, wasted valuable time like this was a movie. They came for Pikachu, so why not grab him and get out of dodge? They would've been out of Pallet Town by now had they not did their intro. I think that was what set me off, their lack of professionalism. I had caught Ash's pikachu before without fucking around, and these idiots were a laughing joke.
Ash had gathered his Unova team, I hadn't seen them since Soho. They hadn't changed much, and they looked like they were ready to go for one last battle. Before Ash could give orders, I came around. His team just stood there, staring at me. They knew what I was capable of, they seen what horrors I could do. Pikachu was dangling in the trio's robotic claw, being thrashed around by the arm's unstable hydraulics. The trio looked at me with curiosity. Their faces told me they have no idea who I was, looks like my reputation in the criminal organization was forgotten. Until today.
"Now who's this pikachu?" Jessie asked.
I said, "Your worst nightmare."
Before they could send their pokémon against me, I took a deep breath and charged the air around me. The air became ionized, and within a flash an electromagnetic pulse blanketed the property for a fraction of a millisecond. The hot-air balloon's engine died. No explosions, no raging fire. Nothing dramatic. The ugly meowth balloon dropped like a stone. The claw released Ash's pikachu, Volta came running up and managed to catch him before he hit the ground. The trio wasn't so fortunate. The basket clipped the building, spilling out its contents on the ground. The balloon itself deflated and rest on the roof of the pokémon lab, the meowth figure flat as a pancake.
While the two grunts were disoriented, the meowth was ready for a fight. "Hey!" the scratch cat pokémon cried in human speech. "You destroyed our balloon, you're going to get it now!"
He tried to come at me with a hand full of claws, I simply walked up and grabbed the offending hand by the wrist. The cat screamed when I used all my strength to break his wrist, then forced it back to amplify the pain. It was a grizzly sight, he won't be using that hand for a few months. Before he could slash me with the other hand, I grabbed his neck with my other hand and clamped down his airway and major blood vessels. The meowth quickly turned blue as I lifted him up in the air. My friends didn't call out to give him mercy, not even my relatives. I would've backed off if they gave me the word, but I was no ordinary pikachu.
I felt the meowth went limp, I held onto him for a full second before throwing him against the outside wall of the pokémon lab. I turned my attention to the grunts, they tried to get up and make a run for it but I raised my hand. "On your knees!"
I electrified the ground, both Jessie and James's joints locked and they hit the ground. I forced them onto their faces. For the first time in a while, I had control of someone's peripheral nervous system. It was a moment I loved to see, mankind bowing to my will. Such power would drive anyone mad.
But I wasn't mad, I was angry.
James looked up to me and asked. "Who are you?! What are you?"
I said, "Tesla Westinghouse, the Master of Electricity."
Without warning, Andy came up and whipped out a revolver out of his coat. A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. Andy, like all Faradians, were always armed. Their time in the National Guard Reserve during their childhood instilled the habit, and the lax gun laws in Faraday Island made it easy for anyone to buy a gun. I didn't ask him why he kept a revolver in his lab coat, because that was the Faradian thing to do.
"Hands where I can see them!" he ordered, pulling the hammer back.
I heard someone come running around the corner. I turned around, and to my surprise I saw Mark and Henry come running in with AK-47s. Smugleaf and Wotter were right behind him, both were armed with easy to hold .22-caliber Ruger handguns. Both assault rifles were illegal as fuck in most parts of the world except Kanto and Faraday Island. The .22 handguns were common, but nobody expected a pokémon would be armed with one. I held my disbelief, Mark always pick a shitty time to show up.
"Looks like we're just in time for the party!" Mark cried.
"Mark?!" Ash cried.
"Hey, bud. Step aside, we got it from here!"
I walked up to James and grabbed him by the collar. "What are you doing, and how long are doing it?!"
"We're trying to catch Ash's pikachu and take him to our boss," he cried. "We've been trying for a while!"
"A while? Months? Years?"
"Yes!"
I let go and stepped back. "I had been poached by Team Rocket before, and look how I turned out. Now the tables are turned, ironically at the very placed where I was processed and shipped."
Mark asked, "You wanna kill them now? It can be arranged."
Andy raised his gun, he was in favor with Mark's idea.
I said, "Kill them, are you fucking mad? These are just petty thieves, they're not worth biting a bullet. Besides, these people have families to worry about." I turned back to Team Rocket. "Tell me, are you being well paid?"
Jessie and James shook their heads.
"Looks like you need to rethink your career choice. Empty your pockets."
"What?" Jessie asked.
"Pull out all your pokémon you have on you but don't call them out." I nodded toward the meowth. "If they come out of their poké balls, I will do much worse than what I did to your meowth here."
They fished their hands into their pockets and pulled out all the pokémon they had on them.
"What's the address to Team Rocket HQ?"
They told me.
"Okay, now get out of here. If you look back, these reserve soldiers will start doing target practice. They were trained to deal with people like you."
They stared at me for a moment. Andy raised his revolver in the air and fired. The gun sounded like a cannon, shattering the tranquil atmosphere of the region. "Move, assholes!" he barked.
And so Jessie and James ran for the hills, literally. They ran toward the edge of the property, hopped the wooden fence, and were gone within minutes. This would've been funny, had guns were not pulled.
I said, "Well, that's that."
I turned to Mark to thank him for the help, but the moment I faced him he had his AK aimed at me. He squeezed off a round, shooting me in the stomach. The military round brought me to the ground in an instant. I let out a cry, then checked for blood. Mark wasn't using real ammunition, instead he had fired a rubber bullet. He had no intention of even killing anyone. It was for intimidation, he wasn't here to cause death today. I expected Andy to come to my aid, but he backed off. At first I was confused, but then I realized he and Mark were in bed together. For a moment, I felt betrayed. My moment of glory was taken away, replaced with a knife to the back.
Whatever anger I had was gone, replaced with fear. Mark came walking up to me, his gun still glued to my head. Under Faradian gun laws and military training, you should not point a gun at anyone unless you're intending to kill them. Not inflict harm, inflict death. But Mark was using non-lethal rounds. I knew the boy was a stickler when it comes to Faraday law. After all, he was the son of a police officer. But this was different. I wanted to beg for mercy.
Mark stood over me, his gun trained to my heart. He looked at me for a split second, then raised his foot and stomped on my groin.
Do I have to explain how much that hurt?
I heard Ash scream. "Mark, stop!"
Mark said, "Easy, Ash. I'm not here to put him down."
As I laid there moaning in pain, he pulled the bolt back, ejecting the casing. He flipped the safety on and holstered the weapon on his back, then he bent down and picked me up by the arm. "After sixteen years of trying, I finally caught you. Even though the bounty was already cashed in, it's still good to finish the actual hunt."
"What?" I asked.
Mark cradled me in my arms. "I went over newspapers and online articles and forums to keep track of where you were during your outlaw years. Of course, my grandfather would not approve. But he doesn't influence your path anymore. His job is done, and now it's up to me to take over."
"So why did you shoot me?"
"You are a stubborn pikachu, I have to break you to get you to consider this."
He stroked the back of my head. "You sure have recovered from Soho, I don't even see any scars. The rubber bullets weren't necessary, but still, I don't turn against my own word."
I shot a look at Andy. "Did you know any of this?"
Andy holstered his revolver. "We had a lot of time in Faraday Island just to chat. He said, 'When I finally get where I want him, I'm gonna shoot him with non-lethals and stomp on his nuts.' I asked him why, and he said, "He rather be caught by someone he knows and trusts rather than a complete stranger.'"
I blinked. First of all I didn't even trust him, and then it hit me. We survived the shootout together back in the Soho Pokémon Center, I was forced to trust him and he was quite protective of me. He had every reason to say I trusted him because I did trust him, but why take things this extreme?
I asked, "Now what are you going to do?"
He smiled, "I'm going to take you and deliver you to someone whom you belong."
Mark turned around and asked, "Carley, bring her out now."
Mark's girlfriend came walking around. Mark's emolga, pikachu, and cheering pokémon were right behind her. Henry's raichu was by her side, seemingly pleased about himself. I wondered what was going on until I saw what Carley was holding.
In her arms was an old female pikachu. Much of her fur had fallen off, revealing exposed skin. Her ears were drooping by the ides of her head, but her eyes were very youthful.
I knew those eyes by heart, and it had been more than fifty years since I last seen them.
Carley sat her down on the grass, Mark sat me down and I ran up to her. I scanned her from head to toe. I reached out and touched her shoulders, arms, and cheeks. She reached out and touched mine, her eyes were filling with joy.
"Tesla, is it really you?!"
I sobbed, "Polly!"
. . .
There were few moments in my life where I was super happy, most of whom occurred in my childhood. I think this moment was the only moment where I was that happy. Polly, my one and only mate, was found. She just so happened to miss me as much as I missed her. We both didn't wanna let each other go, so Andy had to step in and carry both of us. I asked him to take us back to Ash's house. Before we left, I thanked Professor Oak for his assistance. I promised him I would stay in touch, he seems okay with that despite the fact that I had a hot-air balloon crashed on his property. We left Professor Oak to tend to his business, I even waved at Ash's Unova team. They waved back, but I could tell in their eyes that they had mixed feelings about me.
Back at Ash's house, everyone gathered in the living room as usual. Delia was surprised at the three minutemen walking into her home, prompting her to ask Ash how deeply associated he was with Mark and his buddies. "I got him into this mess," said Mark. "It was my fault that I had him meet Tesla in the first place."
Andy took Polly and I upstairs into Ash's room and sat us on the bed, leaving us there to get us some much needed quality time. Polly proceed to lick my fur as I groomed hers. There wasn't much fur to groom, she had aged so much since I last seen her that I almost had trouble believing it was her. "I hope it's really you," I said. "I hope it's really you, Polly."
"Hard to recognize me outside of our little box?" she asked.
"No, it's not that." I traced my hands around the curvature of Polly's body. It feel's different, she was thinner than I had remembered her to be. But I recognize her general outline, but barely. "It's just that it's been so long, I don't know if I would even know it's really you anymore."
Polly said, "You sure? Here, try this. For old time's sake."
Polly turned around and assumed her receiving position. Now here I can say is that when I got into my position to go cave exploring, I could tell right off the bat that it was Polly alright. Her glory hole was rusty, not as smooth as I had remembered. I have to keep in mind that Polly is barren now, she's done making babies but she's never done receiving . . . Fuck, I'm so horrible.
"Well," she asked. "What do you think?"
I nodded. "It's really you, but it feels like I'm scraping against sandpaper."
She sighed, "I was afraid of that."
"I'll get some sort of lubricant in the near future. Say, you wanna be on top this time?"
Polly's ears lit up, something I have never seen her done before. "I always wanted to be on top."
"How come you didn't ask?"
"I was afraid of falling off."
"You just have to master balance. Here, let me show you."
. . .
Yes, I know what you're thinking. Our first time of having sex in almost half a century was terrible. We were rusty and I had lost my touch. But I can tell you this, despite our misfortune she loved being on top. Whether or not she got pleasure out of it, I had no idea, but she was enjoying the act more than the reward. To tell you the truth, I had been sexually abstinent since the breeding contract expired. I never had intercourse or even masturbated, my sex life was over. So when I had my first orgasm in years, it felt like a vacuum cleaner had drained my gonads out.
I know that females can have multiple orgasms, I couldn't tell how many Polly could have in one sitting. I think she was done by the time I had mine. She was propped over me, her arms spread out, a big open smile stretching across her face. Polly nearly flopped over when she received my seed, I had to hold her hands to make sure she stayed on balance.
Eventually she flopped on top of me and we laid there for several minutes, catching our breaths. She still has steam, I'll give her that. This is what the scientists breed her for. I asked, "Where did you go after Faraday Island?"
"I don't know, I was flown to another lab where they did some testing. Not sure what it was, but they started weaning me off of Valium and other drugs. The thought that I would never see you again hadn't set in until I went through withdraw. This went on for a few days until my handler decided to put me back on Valium, and I was on it until your Mark friend came by to free me."
"How were you sure he knew me? I never exactly trusted him for a multitude of reasons."
"I caught a whiff of your scent on him, I never forgot what you smell like. And he had our great granddaughter with him, I think that's what he called her."
I nodded. "He saved her life from a poaching trap, she isn't bright but she's very loving."
"I knew right away we were related, she had your eyes."
"And she has your charm."
Polly smiled, "I wasn't willing to stay locked up in a lab any longer, so I went with him. It isn't that I was abused or anything. I was well treated, they even let me out to get some leg time. I wouldn't leave the lab environment on my own, it's all I knew. But I was willing to leave because you are all I had left."
"What was it like seeing the sun for the first time?"
"It hurts, it scares me. I nearly went blind. Mark had to blindfold me to protect my eyes, and I wasn't used to being hot. I had been in a controlled environment for all my life, the great outdoors scares me. To make things worse, I wasn't used to being moved around in cars when blindfolded. I was always drugged when being moved from one place to another, he didn't have any Dramamine and I puked all over the floor of his rental."
I wrapped my arms around my mate. I have to admit, that was funny. I could imagine the look on Mark's face when he was forced to pull over to clean out the vomit. "You made it here alright?"
"We came by plane, then we got a rental. I was more used to riding planes, but I still felt nauseous without any drugs."
I heard someone brush up against the door, the sound of squeaking wheels told me it was Wheels. Somehow our boy managed to climb up those stairs just to see us. Good thing Andy closed the door, we weren't exactly ready for him. Polly and I were still attached, and I wasn't willing to pull myself free because I risk spilling seed on Ash's comforter, and if that happens Delia will have a field day and Ash would be drowning in a tub of embarrassment. Fuck, I hadn't thought this through at all.
I held my breath and waited. I could see Wheels trying to peak through the gap below the door. He wasn't having much luck. After a moment of trying, he walked away. I had no idea where he went, there isn't anything worth looking up here. I breathed a sigh of relief, and then Polly clasped her mouth over mine. For a moment, I forgot about Wheels and returned the favor.
. . .
A knock on the door woke us up from our nap. Polly was stirring, I managed to detach from her without leaving a mess. I found a tissue box on the nearby desk, I walked up to it, grabbed a few and began cleaning myself. "Tes," said Ray. "It's urgent!"
I tossed the tissues in the nearby trash can and walked up to the door. "It's unlocked."
Ray opened the door, his face filled with worry. Wheels was just emerging from another room, his eyes filled with sleep. He stopped and snap into attention when he saw Ray and I. "What's going on?" I asked Ray.
"We can't find Volta anywhere, and Ash's pikachu is gone!"
I stood there for a moment, letting that thought sink in. I heard a thump behind me and Polly was by my side. "What's wrong?"
Volta was always fond of Ash's pikachu ever since she met him. She still wore the pink handkerchief he picked out for here and always wanted to play with him. I could tell she sees something more in him. Hours before I saw her catching Ash's pikachu, and then they disappeared…
I burst out laughing, and I laughed hard. It then clicked in Ray and he started laughing too. Wheels crawled up and asked, "Is something wrong?"
"I tell you later," I said. "Volta had disappeared with Ash's pikachu, I'm sure you could put two-to-two together."
He blinked, and then he chuckled. "Ohhh."
Wheels turned his attention to Polly, he crawled up to her and gave her a hug. "Mama!"
Polly remembered what her first-born son looks like, and after seventy years they were reunited. "My baby," she cried as she cradled Wheel's head. "Oh look how much you've grown."
I walked up and hugged both of them. Polly and I had a few dozen children, we couldn't be with most of them. But for Wheels, we made sure we were both there for him. From that moment on, I felt I had a family again, a real family. I couldn't help but cry.
Wheels said, "Dad, what's wrong?"
I told him. "I hadn't had an immediate family unit of my own kind for almost a hundred years, but now we're together again."
Ray, being Ray, killed the mood by scooping up all of us with his good arm and hugging us. "But it's just one part of a much bigger family. Now you and Polly are back together, you both might have an easier time leading your descendants on Faraday Island!"
"Ray," I said. "We're not stress toys!"
"Oops," Ray lowered us and released is grip. "Sorry."
Polly walked up to him and rubbed her head. "Ooh," she said. "He's so big and soft."
"Polly," I said. "This is Rayovac, he's our grandson."
"But what is he? I haven't seen any chu like him before."
Ray said, "I'm a rikachu, it's from an unnatural forth evolution. I'm not an official evolution, but it's for our own family pack. My handlers were trying to breed another pikachu with Tesla's powers. Instead they wore our genes thin and created me. I hadn't changed until after I was freed from captivity, so the scientists had no idea that their experiment were a success."
I said, "More like close enough, but I guess I have to agree."
Polly asked, "Who's Volta?"
"Our great-great granddaughter, she's a recent member of the family. She's actually a few weeks old. I have to feel sorry for her because she's a youngling surrounded by ancients. Right now she's with Ash's pikachu, and I have my money on what she's doing with him."
I turned toward the stairs and peaked down. "Wheels, how long did it take you to get up here?"
"A few minutes, why?"
"I'm wondering how you got up here, with your condition in all."
"I sit down and slide up, so I went up ass first."
"Very funny."
I turned to Ray. "Can you pick Polly and Wheels up? These stairs are made of wood and they can't afford to slip and fall."
Ray nodded, "Sure, I'll pick them up."
The mutant mouse pokémon crouched down and let Polly and Wheels climb up on his back. Just as we head downstairs, we heard Mark having a conversation with the others. I held up a hand to stop Ray, then we listened.
"Before I came here I went to Unova to go see my birth mother," he told Ash and his mom as he sat on the couch, his useless emolga sleeping on his lap, "my parents divorced when I was very young and I grew up with only a father. I never knew my mother, I had to look her up on the police database to get an idea who she is."
"What did you find?" Ash asked.
"I found where she lived, I had my friends sit in the car while I go up to the door alone. From what I found, she had remarried and had two kids, so I was more than eager to see this extended family. When I knocked on the door, low and behold she came to the door and answered. All I said to her was, 'Hi, Mom.' And then she slammed the door in my face."
Delia asked, "You weren't expecting that?"
"On the contrary, I was, because I looked more like my father than her. So I went back to the car and we planned our next move. I decided to sit there for the rest of the day, and wait.
"My patience was soon rewarded when I saw one of my half-brothers come walking down the road. His name was Gerald Shultz, age sixteen. I got out of the car, walked up to him and introduced myself. I told him who I was and why I was here. He wasn't as aggressive as our shared mother, but he was quite interested. He asked for some proof and I showed him a photocopy of my mother and father's wedding anniversary, a copy of my birth certificate, and a photo of her and his immediate family. He asked how I got a hold of that last photo, I told him I was granted access by the Faradian government to retrieve that information since I was related to her. Honestly, that was half-true, I had illegal access to the database because I knew my dad's password, and I had other tools at my disposal.
"I persuaded Gerald to let me into his house so I can clear things up with our mother. I can tell you that the moment I stepped into that house, I unleashed a can of worms. I thought having my own pikachu out would act as some sort of white flag, since she's related to Tesla in all. But that didn't work. I wasn't sure why she was so aggressive, especially to someone she brought to the world. I know for a fact that Tesla's bounty in Faraday Island was the last straw, as my dad was appointed in tracking him down. But the riffs in their failed marriage had been around for a while. We argued for a while. I asked her what she was looking for in my dad and what persuaded her to divorce him. She told me it wasn't about him at all, in fact she told me what my dad told me. Faraday Island was too controlling for its citizens.
"Do you know that every soul born on that Island is automatically drafted into the National Guard? That was my childhood, the army. My dad played almost no role due to his job in law enforcement. I had to learn to fend for myself without the need for parents."
"So what happened between you and your mom?" asked Ash.
"She kicked me out, but not before I promised her I would be back with Tesla. She said she would call the police the next time I come back. I was tempted to bluff her by telling her I paid off the cops, but that would be taking things too far. I left, and that was that."
"So what did you learn that day?" the reporter asked.
Mark said, "One, I could've destroyed her second marriage because she never told her husband about this. And two, I realized that I never needed her in the first place."
Ray touched my shoulder. "Tes, are you alright?"
An old memory was unearthed, I walked down the rest of the stairs and confronted Mark. "I was there."
"What?" Mark asked.
"When your parents broke up, I was there, at your house in the middle of the night. I went over to your house to go fetch my box of eye-goggles. I had to tear through a hole in your house to get in, since it had dry rot at the time and your windows are bulletproof. I managed to squeeze into your house and was just about to go retrieve that box when your dad pulled up on the driveway. I hid in the kitchen cabinet as your mom confronted your father. First she asked him where was he, of course he was at work. And then they got into a heated argument. I peeked out to see how bad it was and she was hiding a gun behind her back."
"Bullshit."
I said, "It was a .38 revolver, your dad normally keeps it under his bed for personal home protection. I have no doubt you're nosy enough to find it."
"Absolute horseshit."
"I'm not bullshitting you, Mark. She pulled a gun on your father, threatening to shoot. But your dad talked her out of it, she stood there for some time and then went upstairs. She came back down and just left, and after your dad went to sleep . . . I went to check to see you were alright."
Mark said, "Dad said the box was kept downstairs in the utility closet. You came up just to check to see if I was alright, even though you didn't know me at the time?"
I said, "I may be a legendary pikachu that can turn electronics on and off at will and turn people to dust in a blink of an eye, but I was raised with a loving family. Seeing a family being broken apart is my weakness. I was just as upset when Irvin's mom disowned him and I was just as upset when your mom almost committed murder. I'm still have morals, damn it. Has anyone forgotten that?"
I felt a sharp pain in my right temple. A migraine, fuck. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to dull the pain, but it didn't do any good. Ash got up and kneeled before me. At first he was hesitant to pick me up, but I looked up at him with glistening marble eyes. "When I'm around you, Ash. I feel like a real pokémon again, and not a human being stuffed inside a malfunctioning pikachu body."
Ash picked me up and sat down at the couch, he stroke my ears for a moment, then asked. "Is that why you came here, just to see me?"
"Yes, no matter the trouble. It was a stab in the dark, if you weren't here then it would've taken me longer. But I found you, I guess I should've stayed with you throughout the rest of Unova and not waste time elsewhere."
"You can come with me to Kalos if you want."
I shook my head. "Faraday Island is under a revolution and the Dixierats have hijacked it, I've gotta get back as soon as possible. But there's a few things I need to get done. One, finding your pikachu. When did you realize he was missing?"
"Just when I saw Wheels going up the stairs, it didn't really occur to me because of all the pikachus in the house."
"Yeah, happened to me before." I stepped off of Ash's lab and stood up on the couch. "Team Rocket didn't take them, we've scared them off. So it was Volta who taken him."
"Why?"
"Simple, she loves him. She's always fond with your pikachu ever since she was a pichu. When pikachu was released from the claw when Team Rocket's balloon was disabled, she took the opportunity to snatch him and take him to a quiet spot. I'm guessing she's afraid that she won't see him again, on that notion she would have to be really hidden to squeeze out all the available time she could get."
I turned to Bruiser and Andy, both were sitting on the couch, sleeping. I whistled, both the doctor and the raichu stirred. "Guys, get up. We gotta go find Volta."
"Now?" Bruiser asked.
"Yes, now."
Ash asked, "How are you going to find her?"
"Same way she found me, by scent."
TO BE CONTINUED. . .
