Notes: Well, this looks familiar. I've once again returned to what drew me to fanfiction in the first place – pokemon. But don't be fooled! This is no Ash+Misty=Mush - this is violent, vibrant, and full of expletives. This is the side of Pokemon you rarely see. And it's based upon a very famous and well-loved pokemon – MewTwo. Or, rather, upon the genetic cousins of said pocket monster. The names of some of my main characters were ripped from Velvet Goldmine, but I've tweaked the personalities somewhat. In any case… I hope you enjoy it.
Pain. Pain. Everywhere, everywhere the little creature looked there was pain, rocketing through her veins like acrid venom. Never before had she felt this agony – even the bone-breaking pain of evolution could compare, nor could the rending tears of labor. No, this was soul-deep pain – physical talons dug into her chest like razors, but more horrific were the dagger-claws of her assailant's psychic probes. He gouged viciously at her memories and her very being until she could fight back no more, until she lay in a sweating, weeping heap, shackled and paralyzed in terror.
"Back, boy!"
Suddenly the pain was gone – most of it anyway – and her sight, restored. The raichu sat bolt upright and scrambled back to her trainer's feet, mewling in a cracked voice as her attacker took a disgruntled step back. She felt so violated, so filthy that she wanted to claw off her own fur until self-induced pain replaced that murky feeling of self-loathing. He had touched her soul… he had attacked her soul. It was unlike anything she'd ever faced, within the battle ring or without. She longed for the safe confinement of her pokeball prison.
"What did you do to her?" the trainer demanded aggressively as he scooped her up in his arms. "That was no ordinary psychic attack!"
The opposing trainer smirked and touched the bill of his baseball cap. "Ask the registry," he sneered. "I hired this one legally. 'S not my fault you're too poor to buy yourself a worthwhile fighter."
The raichu's owner scowled with wounded pride. "Not too poor," he spat. "I'm a real trainer. I don't hire my fighters – I train them."
"Then maybe you should train 'em a bit harder!"
The raichu shivered in shame and lingering terror as she buried her face in her master's shoulder. The boy snorted and turned on his heel, leaving the battle ring and forfeiting any winnings he might have gained. The opponent grinned and punched the air, then turned to his fighter. "That was amazing, pal," he said, holding his palm out for a high-five.
The fighter turned a cold blue gaze on the human, flicking his crimson tail dismissively. "Am I free to go, trainer?" he asked, spitting the last word like something foul. His voice was cold, hard, hostile, efficient – no trace of victory came from his throat. "I have errands to run."
The trainer seemed a little thrown off by the creature's anger. This was the first time he'd hired a Two, and for all his boastful strutting, he was inwardly afraid of them. Everyone was. "Yeah, uh… I guess," he said with a shuffle of his feet, small in his too-large tennis shoes.
"Good doing business with you," the Two growled as he turned to leave. The words were spoken without meaning, just another ritual he had to abide by so that society would let him live.
Curt Fyre had never liked working for the humans. They were crude, self-important, and completely disrespectful towards the greater powers of the earth. They used and abused the tools given to them by mother nature, including the gift of partner pokemon. To Curt, rumors of compassionate trainers was an unsubstantiated myth. There was no such thing as a good human. The only reason he dealt with them was the universal need for cash – the human trainers were to greedy, they would pay willingly for the Two's power. Curt charged a high price, for his skills were renown… and not just for fighting. Curt could get you anything if you asked politely enough and offered him plenty of incentive.
As Twos went (for they called them all 'two', no matter how little they looked like their volatile cousin MewTwo) he wasn't particularly spectacular. He stood a good six feet, five inches from eartip to toe-claw, and his crimson tail was a little more than half of that. His hide was a charcoal grey that looked dirty in bright lights and ebony in darkness. The only flecks of color came from the lighting-shaped scars covering his left arm, face, and upper-right thigh. Those on his arms and face he'd dyed a deep marigold, and those on his leg were as crimson as his tail. Nobody knew where he'd gotten the scars from, and nobody had the courage to ask him – he was a surly fellow and prone to fits of inexplicable rage. When he was angry his green-blue eyes would shift to a stormy grey, and all sane sentient beings would flee before him.
Perhaps this was why people shuffled to the other side of the street when he appeared on the sidewalk, or perhaps this mass shift came from the new public fear of Twos. The creatures were useful – or so the Kanto government said – but the populace at large still hated them with racist malice. Curt didn't care about any of this. All he cared about was the full coin purse tied around his ankle, and his waiting dealer crouching in a gutter a few streets down.
Curt would never say he was addicted. After all, these drugs were legal for human trainers to buy for their caged pokemon, so why shouldn't Twos be allowed to buy them? The humans were afraid of how the drug could enhance a psychic's strength, so they set up a sanction against Two use of performance enhancers like the popular PokeStim and X-Series drugs. And that was why Curt had to skulk into this feces-smelling alleyway to get the substances his body so eagerly craved.
"Oho, finished with work early, eh?" cackled the aged and decrepit old meowth as Curt approached him. "I didn't 'spect you 'till sundown."
"You'd better have my goods," Curt growled as he sank to his haunches before the wizened feline.
The meowth nodded vigorously and pulled a black plastic bag from deep within a soaked cardboard box beside him. "Oh, I got 'em," he said as he clutched the bag to his chest. "You got the money?"
"Of course I do." Curt pulled a wad of bills from the pouch bound to his ankle and offered them to the meowth. The cat took them, glanced them over, and stuffed them back into the same waterlogged box he'd produced the black bag from.
"Enjoy 'em," he cackled as he handed over the drugs. "That should last you… oh, maybe two days?"
"Your sarcasm kills me," Curt muttered dryly as he checked the bag's contents. When he was certain everything was in order, he stuffed the bag into the thick fur of his tail and held the appendage at an angle that concealed the black plastic while making his tail look broken. He then stood, shook the meowth's filthy paw, and returned to the sunlit sidewalk. Enormous clawed feet hit the ground with an even cadence as he began to leap, shooting by the buildings with enough speed to knock the hats off passers-by. Pidgies squawked in raucous terror and flew before him, and human trainers stopped in awe of the great bundle of black fur and steely sinews that would never be theirs to tame. Curt let them watch. It would not harm him any, and it would serve to remind them that mankind had created its own worst nightmare.
All he wanted was to curl up on the floor at home in his dingy little apartment, close by the heartbeat of his lover, so full of chemicals that he could no longer feel the shame and pain imposed upon him by the human race. Tomorrow would be a new day, a new fight, but until the sun rose on the morrow, Curt Fyre the hated ebony Two didn't want to think at all.