Secrets Exposed
Part 7 : Nyarthashi's Past
By Freakachu
The Rocket group tromped through another forest, this time miraculously they weren't lost. This forest led them to Aqua city, and they knew exactly where they were going. Well, Cletus and Zeke did, since they'd gone through before, so the others were following them.
"This forest is scary!" James whined, and clung onto the nearest person, which happened to be Cletus.
Cletus slapped him away. "Ahh quit yer whinin'! T'ere ain't nothin' wrong wit' this here woods!"
"Yeah," Sergio cut in, "Except maybe for those webs and cocoons and stuff." Everyone looked to where he was pointing.
The women froze. "Eeep!" Cassidy squealed.
Zeke walked over to a rather large cocoon. "Wha's this?" He poked it with a stick, and a bone fell out. "EW!" Scraping at the cocoon with the stick soon revealed rotting clothing.
"Is that what I think it is?!" Vera yelled, waking up all the pokemon in the forest. A decaying body wore the dark ripped clothing, clothing that had a big red R on the shirt. Or what was left of the shirt.
Everyone looked wide-eyed at the corpse. "The missing Rocket member?" Jessie asked, her voice wavering.
Vera, Cletus, Sergio and Zeke all nodded, and Vera started to scream. Cassidy turned around and ran, soon followed by Jessie, then Vera. James also took off after them.
"I don' see wha's so bad about this thin'." Cletus kicked it. "It ain't that scary!"
Zeke looked sick. "Don' touch it! Tha's just gross!" He turned and walked away, leaving Cletus to wonder over the poor Rocket who had obviously ran into a large Ariados.
Ash grinned halfheartedly as he admired his badge. Without knowing it, he was one step behind Lilja, or rather, not even one town behind her. He had also beaten Sita, five days after Lilja had.
Now he was on his way to Azure City. He hoped desperately to run into Lilja somewhere along the way, but so far he hadn't. He began to wonder if he ever would.
Nyarthashi stretched and looked up at the barn ceiling. The old man had let her stay for a while and they had talked. He used to be a Rocket member himself until he retired years ago. He was way before Giovanni, back when Giovanni's father ran TRHQ. He said she could sleep in the barn and stay as long as she wanted. And also to be careful, Team Rocket members were looking for her. How he knew this stuff, he never did say. Nyarthy figured she didn't have to be careful. It was Lilja who needed to be careful. She just hoped that the Rockets didn't find her before she did.
"Damnit!" Lilja muttered. She ws battling the Azure City gym leader who was no more than 9 years old. She had a bunch of bird pokemon that Lilja hadn't seen before. A Tigerio (black bird with orange tiger stripes), Icyfer (a fluffy ice bird) , Lavec (a fire type bird) , Technofla (a steel covered bird) , and a Phantover (a purple ghost bird). She also had a Zapdos, which her mother had found injured as a baby. Since the match was only a two on two, she used her Tigerio and Phantover. Both of them had beat out her Freakachu and Quilava, leaving her with no badge, and having to give up 5 bucks. The girl was pretty tough for her age. Lilja had thought she owned the gym and ran it herself, but her father sat on a chair and watched the battle. He was obviously the gym owner, even if he let his daughter play the leader. It had taken Lilja practically two whole weeks to get to Azure City from Aqua City, after being lost once again, for the thousandth time. She had her 12th birthday along the way there.
Skye, the gym leader came over to her after the match to get her money. "Sorry about that, but I try not to be easy to beat." Her dark blue hair swung by her waist. "But the person before you, beat me."
Lilja nodded. Of course, a small girl like that wasn't unbeatable. She left the gym, and started toward the next town which was quite another ways away.
After being on the road for about four days, and traveling along a dirt path which was mostly surrounded by trees, a rustling in the bushes stopped her. It was the middle of the night, and the only light was from the moon, and the three Freakachu tails. Lilja stepped back from a shrub that was doing a tremendous amount of wiggling. Her three Freakachu clung to each other.
A bunch of people with black Team Rocket suits jumped out. Two of them went for the Freakachu, and the other dozen went after her.
"We finally got you! Back to TRHQ you go with us!" One guy sneered, covering her mouth with a gloved hand to silence her, as some others tied her hands behind her back.
Lilja kicked and squirmed, trying to get away from them, but there were too many, and they were too strong. Soon they were practically dragging her back the way she came from. She tried to bite the guy who held her mouth so she could scream, but the mans gloves were too thick. Yet, he released her mouth, and promptly slapped her across the face for trying to bite. The three Freakachu were all 'chuuuing' inside a fireproof bag with rubber on the outside. It was a thick bag, so they couldn't break out.
Pulling her a little farther, Lilja could see they were heading for a limo. Inside that limo were at least 5 more Rockets. The sides of the road were still cluttered by forest on each side. One of the guys walking along with them laughed at Lilja and put a blindfold on her, along with a gag.
The man who put the blindfold on her obviously couldn't tie very well. The thing slipped down over her nose, so she could see.
A man stepped out of the limo. He was a big guy, with a dark suit on. He grinned evilly. This was Giovanni, no doubt about it, Lilja knew.
"Ahhh.. so you're the kid who owns the Freakachu. Pleased to meet you. Hmmm not much for words I see!" He pointed to her gag and broke out in a cackling laugh.
Something masked by darkness swooped out of a nearby tree, knocking the laughing Giovanni to the ground. Immediatly the Rockets were ganging up on the thing, dropping Lilja, and the bag of Freakachu to the ground. Where she sat, her hands still behind her back, bound by the wrists. The black thing didn't seem much bigger than her. Maybe a year or two older.
Whatever that was in black was getting the better of a dozen and a half Rocket members. If any came near, they were immediately down. The thing turned to finish Giovanni, but the bugger had jumped back in his limo, with the three remaining Rockets, and sped away into the night. Farther away, another vehicle could be heard revving away as well.
The figure walked over to Lilja and helped her up, untieing the rope for her so she could pull the gag off.
"Thanks! Thanks a lot!" She exclaimed.
Person in black dusted themself off. "I'm glad I got here in time. Giovanni wanted to take you and the Freakachu to lab and use them for experiments, Lilja."
Lilja almost fell over backwards again. "How do you know my name, and about the Freakachu?"
The dark stranger pulled off the hooded cape it wore. Alas, the person was no stranger.
"Nyarthashi?! I'm so glad to see you! But what are you doing here?"
Nyarthashi shrugged. "I knew you were in trouble."
Looking even more confused, Lilja pulled the Freakachu out of the bag they were in and put them inside their pokeballs so something like what had happened wouldn't happen again. "How are you the same age as me? You were three years younger when I found you the first time."
"I'll explain when we get to Ebony City pokemon center."
"But I was heading to Mauve Town!"
"Ebony City is closer. After that, there's a shortcut from Ebony to Mauve. Just trust me."
Lilja nodded, and the two of them began walking again. This time in the direction of Ebony City.
The night after the Rockets attacked Lilja, Ash had battled Skye, the Azure City gym leader. Near the end of the match, both of them had only one pokemon left in a three on three battle. Ash had won with a lucky hit. A very lucky hit, or Skye would have beat him too.
Misty was complaining about how much her feet hurt after walking for a couple of measly days.
"I can't go another step!" She whined. "Ash, can we stop somewhere please?"
Ash shook his head. "We're going to Ebony City. We'll be there soon, I think. And no one said you had to come. You could have stayed back in Aqua City with Sita. You seemed to like being there so much."
"It reminded me of home! Besides, Sita had some really nice water pokemon, didn't she?" Misty practically drooled.
"Uhhh... yeah." Ash rolled his eyes. He continued walking, Misty sitting on the ground in the middle of the dirt road.
Misty jumped up. "Hey! Wait for me!" She hollered.
"Wha' the hell d' ya want?!" Zeke snapped into Vera's cellphone. The group had three phones among eight people. Vera's, Jessie's, and Cassidy's. They were all sitting in a fancy restaurant, waiting for their orders. Everyone was restless and agitated when they had first recieved a call from a fellow Rocket with a higher rank than them saying that they'd located the girl with theFreakachu and were going after her that night. It turned out that they were nowhere near where she was, so it was useless having them get her. Instead, they were to just gather pokemon for the boss. This had annoyed all of them to no end. All their hard work of looking for the brat didn't even pay off. One of the others had spotted her. She was hard to miss, with three rainbow rats following her.
"So, wha' are we supposed ta do about tha'?" Zeke continued talking on the phone, while the others listened intently to his side of the conversation. "Yeah, well okay. G'bye." He hung up the phone. Their meals arrived and they all started eating, with their eyes still fixed on Zeke.
"Wha'd he want?! Wha'd he want?!" Cletus shook Zeke.
Zeke was starting to look sick. Cletus released him, sat back in his seat and poked at his food with his fork.
"It was one of th' other Rockets. She was jus' sayin' how th' kid escaped. Got help from that girl that was part meowth or somethin'. 'Member her? She broke loose from tha' lab in Viridian a few months ago. Anyway, th' meowth kid killed almos' all th' rockets that was sent to get tha other girl."
Cassidy stopped chewing with her fork halfway to her mouth, and Butch dropped his drink in his lap. Vera started choking, and Jessie dropped her fork and knife back onto her plate. Sergio's eyes widened in amazement, and James lost half of his dinner on the floor when his hand slipped and pushed the plate off the table. Cletus just gaped, his mouth hung open, revealing his food.
"Sh-she killed them all?!" Jessie stammered, while James proceeded to pick his food off the expensive carpet.
Zeke shook his head. "All but three. There was 18 of 'em, an' 15 was killed. Wit' 'er bare hands. No weaponry at all!"
Sergio pointed to James and let out a sound of surprise. "Is that why your parents kicked you out of the house? Kept throwing food on the floor?" He quipped.
"Ha ha. Very funny!" James replied sarcastically. "No."
Cassidy handed Butch a napkin to sop up his lap. "I guess they'll have to call out the military to deal with that cat-brat."
Stretching out on a couch type bench in the Ebony City Pokemon center, Lilja muttered, "So, you were going to explain stuff to me, Nyarthashi."
They had arrived in Ebony City during the night, and slept in the center. From what Lilja could tell, the whole city seemed so dark. Sure, there had been lights on like streetlights, and cars headlights, and lights on in windows, but still something seemed strange.
"Oh, right. But I don't need to explain anything. And besides, I can't." Nyarthashi replied, with her head hung down.
Lilja was getting impatient. "What do you mean you don't need to, and you can't? You have to know why you are the way you are, don't you?"
Nyarthashi pulled a disk from her pocket, and handed it to Lilja. "Even I don't know where I came from, or what I was before all this happened. I don't know if I was first a Meowth, or if I was first a human. I haven't had time to read what's on the disk. I swiped information of myself from one of the lab computers. We can read it now though."
They walked over to one of the PC's near the front desk and turned it on. The computer asked for a trainers licence number which Lilja promtly punched in. A menu came up. Lilja selected "Read from disk." A box opened showing the contents of the disk. There was only one file, and it was titled "Nyarthashi."
They skimmed through the large file, re-reading things, and reciting some things aloud. The document was like a diary, each entry dated. The beginning mentioned Prussian Labs, and how their pokemon gene splicing was partaly sucessful until the lab exploded. Giovanni, hearing of this, sent some of his men to Cinnabar to take over the lab secretly and begin the splicing process. He wanted them to create someone who would be fast, and deadly.
"...unfortunatly, only a female child at the age of two could be obtained for the experiment..."
"...the Pokemon chosen to be spliced with the child was a stray meowth that came to the labs back door to dig for food in the trash. Although an older person would have been more ideal, a genetic formula of hormones will be injected into the subject, causing the aging process to excellerate..."
"...is doing extremely well, the pokemon signs are becoming apparent. It is clear now that the girl is indeed meowth. She has been named Nyarthashi..."
"...put in a tank to speed splicing process. The procedure is going smoothly..."
Nyarthashi didn't seem very surprised at much of this, and also uninterested.
"...child has disappeard. The whole lab has been searched and she is not here at all. She couldn't have gone far, after all, she's only three..."
Lilja noted the date and grinned. She pointed it out to Nyarthashi who looked to be pouting.
"Hey! Look, this is where I came in!" Lilja rambled excitedly. "Hey, you looked alot older than three then." Then she continued reading. The next entry was a whole year and a half after the previous one.
"...two of Giovanni's faithful team members has brought Nyarthashi to Viridian Lab, along with a rainbow mouse pokemon now known as Freakachu. Injections for Nyarthashi will begin today..."
Well no wonder Nyarthashi looked just as old as her now. When she was three, she looked five. Right now, Nyarthashi was only about five and a half, maybe six and looked to be 12. The age difference wasn't that great when she was younger, but every year that passes, she looks more and more older than her actual age. If that kept up, she'd be 20 and look 70.
Lilja read a bit farther and learned that when Nyarthashi is about the stature of a 18-20 year old, her body slows the aging process. In a year, she would only age as if it were a month. In twelve years, she would only look one year older. This stuff was interesting. Lilja went back to reading again.
"...rainbow rodent has escaped. Possibly back to it's trainer..."
"...been realized that the trainer of the Freakachu has six more of them. If they could be obtained from her, splicing could be done to create the ultimate..."
She looked up from the screen. No wonder they had gone after her. But why did they wait so long? Maybe they lost track of her until now. Lilja didn't have the original seven Freakachu anymore. She had her two Taichu, and a total of four remaining Freakachu. One had died while she was on her first pokemon jouney, another she had given to Arti as a gift, and the other she had let Bill keep.
The rest of the document was very uninteresting and useless information. Nyarthashi had stopped reading long ago, and had gone back to sulk on the couch.
"What's wrong Nyarthy? Are you sick?" Lilja asked, turning around to her friend.
Nyarthy shook her head. "The information I wanted to know most, doesn't seem like it's going to be in there."
"What information? What did you want to know?"
"I just wanted to know who my family was."
Lilja nodded. She wished she knew her family too. Aside from her Uncle Blaine, she had none. Lilja scrolled to the bottom of the file, and was about to click it off, when something caught her eye.
"Nyarthy! Come quick! Right here, at the bottom of it all, it says who your father is!"