Chapter 11: Shari
A hush fell over the crowd. Their eyes turned towards the mountain above that hissed, spewing forth smoke and ash. A careful eye could see that lava had yet to begin flowing and that the worst of it was yet to come, but time was short. The mountain was alive and was ready to wipe out the village below.
"There's nothing we can do?" Cutiefly asked with a trembling voice. "We're just done for?"
"A volcano of that size won't just wipe out this village," Arcanine said, "It's going to take out the entire local area. We could try running for it, but we wouldn't be able to get far enough to matter. Once lava makes contact with the trees, a wildfire is going to start and take out anywhere we could run to. That's assuming we don't get taken out by ash on our way out."
"It's the end!" a voice cried from the crowd. "We're done for!"
The crowd erupted into panicked shouts of dismay and doom. Dustin, Poochyena, Shari, and Cutiefly watched as any semblance of hope vanished from the eyes of the Pokemon that surrounded them. It felt as if the world was closing in around them. No matter what they did, they couldn't seem to form a plan of any kind. Dustin glanced at Poochyena before hanging and shaking his head.
"No!" Poochyena shouted, hopping to the middle of the ring of Pokemon. "I refuse to let this be the end of anyone here! We already saved the trapped miners when everyone else thought it couldn't be done. I'm not going to stand here and listen to everyone give up before trying anything."
"Poochyena…" Dustin said in a quiet voice.
"No! I'm not gonna give up. Natural disasters have been stopped before. Even when a star was falling from the sky, everyone got together and made a plan. We just….we just need a plan!"
"Let's hear a plan then, pooch," Arcanine said with a furrowed brow. "It's easy to say lots of optimistic things, but it's another to put it to action. You kids did good saving people from the mines, but this is another thing entirely. How do you stop a raging volcano?"
"I...I don't know!" Poochyena huffed. "But I'll find a way! I'll….I'll go back to that weird cave and look around again!"
"Weird cave?" Shari asked.
"Yeah! Weird cave, full of weird stuff and Pokemon. It's up the river."
Mentions of the cave reminded Dustin of the secret he was keeping from the others. Time for hesitation was gone. It wasn't worth keeping things secret anymore, so he finally told the others what he knew.
"Subject 2341," he said, looking to Shari.
"Huh?" she responded, confused.
"There was a tube there that read 'Subject 2341: Shari' on it. Cutiefly said you came from the river, and that tube dropped back into the river. It's yours, isn't it? You were Subject 2341, whatever that means."
Shari furrowed her brow in confusion for a moment before grabbing her head and doubling over. She grunted in pain as she tried to say something. Cutiefly rushed to her side and began wafting a sweet aroma over her. After a moment Shari's body relaxed, and she fell into a seated position. She hugged her legs and peered up at Dustin.
"I...I remember. A little bit. That place...that's a human laboratory."
Gasps and murmurs of disbelief rose from the gathered crowd. Dustin ignored them, motioning for Shari to continue.
"I was an experiment. I don't remember what they were doing with me….but…" she looked up directly into Dustin's eyes, "They were using the volcano. I remember hearing something once about 'convection energy'. I never got what that meant, but I do know they said it had something to do with the volcano. They also said that if anything went wrong with the lab, it would trigger the volcano to erupt."
"What?! Why would they do that?!" Poochyena shouted.
"I don't know. The volcano erupting...that means something happened to the lab, right?"
"I hit my head on something in there. Some big switch that made it bright in there," Dustin said.
"Wait, I think I know what happened then!" Shari said, rising to her feet. "You turned the lab back on, and when you did that you made it realize something was wrong somehow!"
A look of melancholy fell on her face and she went quiet, if only for a moment.
"No one said anything about it, but it's been a long time since I was asleep, hasn't it?" Shari looked to the gathered Pokemon with watery eyes. "I haven't seen any humans, and I know this place didn't exist before. I didn't remember enough to really think about it before, but everyone's gone, aren't they?"
Dustin and Poochyena exchanged a nervous look.
"Let's just show you the 'lab' place we found," Dustin said. "Maybe that will help you remember more, and we can try to find a way to shut down whatever this thing that set off the volcano is."
"Be quick about it," Arcanine barked, "We don't have much time. I can feel the magma moving beneath us...I think we have until morning. I'll try to find high ground and start evacuating everyone as best as I can. Like I said before, I don't think it will do much good, but it's worth trying. You all get up there and stop this thing."
Dustin's team nodded. Arcanine responded in kind and shouted for the town to round up everyone not present and follow him out. Dustin, in turn, led his team back up into the cave and through the passage back into the lab. When Shari stepped back on the tiled floor, her eyes went wide. The decay and disrepair she saw was overwhelming, and she could feel a sense of loss welling up inside of her. With shaky legs she turned towards the door that led back towards the room with the tubes. It took a level of force to finally get the door unlocked and opened once more, but the group managed to break back in.
Shari walked to the tube that once kept her contained and rubbed her paw over the nameplate. She rose back to her feet and turned towards the others.
"These were my friends," she said, looking to the other Pokemon. "We would play together. We were all experiments here, but were the only family and friends we knew. The longer time went on, though, the more people started going away. We thought that the humans were done with whatever they needed them for. We thought they went back home, wherever home was. One day it was my turn," Shari turned back to her tube, placing a paw on the glass. "I don't remember why or when it happened. A doctor held me tight and rocked me to sleep, and when I woke up I was in Cutiefly's house."
Shari turned towards the others, tears in her eyes.
"Did I do something wrong? Why would they put us in these things?"
"They put you there to save this town someday!" Poochyena said, wagging her tail. "They knew that someday this town would need someone to save it, so they made sure that you would be there to do it!"
Shari froze in place for a moment as a tear fell down her cheek. Then she laughed, a light, happy laugh that filled the room. More tears fell, but this time not due to sadness. She wiped them away and smiled at Poochyena.
"Thanks, Poochyena," she finally said, "I needed that. I think I remember what we need to do, too." She pointed to the door at the other end of the room. "Somewhere over there on the other side of the lab should be the thing that set this off. I don't really know how to stop it exactly, but if we can find it we can at least investigate it. I remember the humans said stuff like 'manual shutdown' a lot over there, so maybe we can find a manual to shut it down!"
"Sounds good to me!" Cutiefly said with a smile.
Shari led the group off into the next area of the lab, a catwalk that passed over the river below and into another section of the cave. The tight passage was illuminated by flickering fluorescent lights that cast a sterile glow over the group. Shari shuddered as she walked down the hall, slowly recovering her memories of the place. Looking off into the various rooms of this hall, she remembered the Pokemon that once lived here and the stories they would tell her of the testing they underwent. It was different with each species. Some merely got injections that would make them tired while others would come back with a new arm. She used to think those were the lucky Pokemon. She wanted another arm! She could be like a Machamp, big and strong!
Her testing wasn't like that. She paused, looking into the room that her testing had taken place in. She had always thought her simple testing was punishment from the humans for something she didn't understand. All they ever had her do was exercises like punching a bag or running on a machine. She always did her very best, but the humans looked at her as if they expected more from her. No matter what Shari gave them, they never seemed pleased with her.
Shari shook the doubt off and continued leading her friends down the hall. Now wasn't the time for regrets or apprehension. Now was the time to act. She led the team into a large, heated chamber and down a set of stairs to a machine that sat before a massive lake of magma. The machine had a single panel on it that was flashing and shouting in a panic.
"This is the thing!" Shari yelled over the machine. "This is the thing that needs the manual to shut it down!"
"Where's the manual, then?" Poochyena yelled back.
"I don't know," Shari responded, shrugging. "We need to start looking though, we're running out of time!"
As if in response, the ground gave a massive heave and a bellow of smoke rose from the lake of magma.
"Uh...guys?!" Cutiefly shouted, urgency in her voice. "Problem! Big problem!"
Everyone turned around to see a massive...thing lumbering towards them. It was a beast of metal and wires, hunched over and walking like a Slaking. On what should have been a head was a single, red light. It was truly massive, larger than any Pokemon any of them had seen before. Something about it sent a feeling of familiar dread down Shari's spine. Then she remembered.
"That's the Punishment Machine!" she shouted. "The humans would use that to make bad Pokemon listen!"
"Well what does it want with us?!" Cutiefly asked, hiding behind Shari. "We've been good! We haven't broken anything!"
"I think it knows I set this whole thing off," Dustin said as the machine focused its 'eye' on him. "I think I'm the one it wants to punish."
"We don't have time to fight that thing AND find the manual to shut this down!" Poochyena yelped.
"I'll find the manual!" Cutiefly said. "I'm small and fast, I'll try to avoid catching its attention. You all keep it busy!"
Cutiefly quickly darted off and began searching the area, leaving the rest to deal with the machine. It let loose a metallic roar before attempting to slam one of its massive arms down on Dustin. Shari tackled him out of the way and tumbled to safety as Poochyena attempted to bite at the tubing that connected the arm to the rest of the machine. It continued to move its arm with ease, as if the mutt wasn't even there, and turned towards Shari and Dustin once more. It began to lumber towards them, the vibrations of its movements causing Poochyena to fall off and tumble to the ground.
"I can't do anything to it! That part looked weak but it didn't even flinch!" Poochyena shouted as Dustin and Shari dodged another fist.
"They were designed to take even a Tyranitar's attacks!" Shari shouted, clanging her fists fruitlessly against the machine's armored arms. "It isn't going to even respond to anything we throw at it!"
"There has to be a weak point of some kind!" Dustin said. "It can't be completely invincible!"
"I'm trying to think, but I can't remember any Pokemon winning a fight against it!" Shari said, sidestepping a swipe from the machine. "Not even the ones who had the most experiments done on them!"
"What if we don't win by fighting it, then?" Poochyena asked, darting between the machine's legs to reach the others.
"Not fighting it how? We don't really have a lot of options!" Dustin said, directing attention away from Poochyena before the machine could stomp her flat.
"I mean, what if we find a way to force it to stop fighting?"
"Wait!" Shari exclaimed. "Poochyena may be onto something. We can't win by fighting it like a Pokemon, but it isn't a living thing. We could fight it by doing stuff we wouldn't do to a Pokemon!"
"I feel like you two are reaching an understanding that I'm not!" Dustin shouted.
"What I mean is, what if we found a way to shove it into the magma lake?" Shari said, bounding behind the machine and forcibly shoving it with her palm. The machine stumbled forward slightly before self correcting and grabbing her, throwing her into a wall.
"Shari! You ok?!" Poochyena shouted towards Shari as she rose to her feet.
"I'm fine, but I'll need more than just me to get this thing moving. Dustin, it's got its eye on you, try baiting it closer to the magma. Poochyena, get over here and get ready to shove!"
The two nodded and took their positions. Dustin chucked his club at the machine's face, hitting it with a resounding clang. The machine's focus was once again entirely on Dustin, and it began stomping its way towards the Cubone. Dustin grabbed his club and ran towards the magma lake as the ground began trembling once more. At the edge of the lake, the tremors became so powerful that he was knocked off his feet and sent stumbling towards the ground.
"NOW!" Shari shouted as she and Poochyena threw their combined might against the machine. Dustin covered his face as it went tumbling forward, prepared for the machine to fall onto him. Luckily for him, it tumbled over him and splashed into the lake of magma. Poochyena and Shari cheered, exchanging their best approximation of a high five as Dustin rose to his feet. The machine sputtered out a metallic roar as it fizzled away into the lake of magma.
With the immediate threat out of the way, all eyes were on Cutiefly who was fiddling with the control panel for the self destruct machine. The quaking of the earth below was only growing more and more powerful, and nothing she seemed to be doing was helping.
"Wait...I remember! Manual shutdown didn't mean a book...it meant manually! Like with our hands!" Shari exclaimed, looking from her paws to the machine. Her eyes fell on a large lever on its side. With the ground shaking below her, she rushed forward and grabbed the lever, forcing it down with all her might! The lever fell into place, and with a loud clanging of metal the quaking ceased. Shari fell to the ground, sighing with relief.
"We...did it," she said in a barely audible whisper. "We really did it…"
"WE DID IT!" Poochyena howled at the sky. "WE SAVED THE DAY!"
"I found a bunch of papers, but I didn't find any manual," Cutiefly said, "So I just started smacking things hoping it would do something. I'm glad you figured it all out because honestly I was completely lost."
"Everyone did great," Dustin said, rising to his feet. "Everyone should be really proud of what we accomplished. Especially you, Shari."
"Really? Me?"
"Yeah," Dustin nodded, "Whatever the humans thought of you doesn't matter now. You were able to find the problem and solve it. The rest of us just followed your lead."
Shari looked around the group as everyone nodded in agreement. She felt tears welling up in her eyes once again. She smiled, and ran to wrap everyone into a massive hug.
This lab had been Shari's home once. Sure there had been happy memories, but almost everything she had managed to remember about it had been painful reminders of some inadequacy she couldn't understand. Something about her had always disappointed the humans that worked here, but now it didn't matter. Now her insecurities were replaced with a sense of contentment.
She couldn't change the past, but she had managed to save the future.