Chapter
8 - The Omega Factor
Delilah and Ash were walking
through the Main Street of Pallet Town, coming back from a Pokémon
show that they had seen. They laughed, when suddenly a group of
bright spotlights blinded them. A series of fire, ice and
electric attacks struck Delilah. She tried to use a Recover,
while she searched desperately for her son in the blinding sea of
light.
"Mom!" she heard Ash
scream. He was being dragged onto a helicopter by two men. Before
she could do anything, the combined attacks of several electric-
and ice-type Pokémon left her completely stunned. To get rid of
her attackers, she morphed into a Clustanode and used an
Explosion attack. But before she could put herself back together
to pursue the helicopter, it disappeared
in mid-air. It had been teleported.
She tried, but she was unable
to sense where her son had been taken. Then despair took over
Delilah Ketchum. She cried.
She had lost Ash...
In Delilah's
mind, everything blurred as if time were a tape being fast
forward...
Five years after, Team Rocket
had a champion of the darkness, a being that was an irresistible
force, and perhaps even indestructible
one.
On the TV, she saw Vermilion
City in flames, destroyed by a figure in a uniform that
all-too-familiar to her: A blue uniform with a rich scarlet Greek
letter omega on the chest of the tunic. Whoever it was who had
clamed her old mantle, he or she could destroy all the forces at
Vermilion City's UN Defence Forces Base in just a few minutes.
A figure that didn't have a
face, just a featureless silver mask...
Fast forward...
Delilah walked through the
ruins of Pallet Town as if she was in a nightmare. The place that
she had chosen as a home, the place where had everything that she
loved or that she had loved was had been destroyed.
She ran all the way to Samuel
Oak's laboratory, with a thread of hope and despair in her heart.
"Sam! Sam!" she
called.
"Here..." a voice
murmured from under the bushes. Delilah began to clear the bushes
from over her only friend. Samuel Oak had lost a lot of blood:
Someone had seemingly driven an iron lance through his chest.
"Sam, don't move,"
Delilah said quietly. "I will go for help!"
"There is... no
time..." he murmured. "Delilah... They say that you
need set a thief to catch a thief... or a polymorph to kill a
polymorph..." Then, the light of life disappeared from
Samuel Oak's eyes.
Gently and lovingly, Delilah
closed her friend's eyes. She lifted her head. A table of
polished metal had fallen nearby, reflecting the image of the
redheaded woman as if it were a mirror.
"They say that you need
set a thief to catch a thief... or a polymorph to kill a
polymorph..." Those words repeated endlessly in her mind.
Sam was right, she decided. She had a responsibility that she
could not escape. Almost without any conscious thought on her
part, she saw her clothes morph into a form she had not used for
decades: a blue uniform with the emblem of the Greek letter Omega
on her chest...
Fast forward...
In downtown Viridian, there
was the building of Kanto Region Governing Council, the place
where the representatives of the United Nations Organization
gathered to decide the destiny of Indigo, Orange and Johto. But
now, the building was the new headquarters of Team Rocket, the
new absolute rulers of the Kanto Region.
Quietly, a flying being
approached the building, carrying a spray paint can. The flying
woman wrote in big letters on the side of the building: 'I will be waiting for you in the Steelheart
Steelworks Plant, in Vermilion City. Omega.'
Fast forward...
Delilah was padding quietly
along a gantry in some kind of factory. Occasionally, clouds of
steam or some noxious chemical would cloud her vision. A human
would probably be dead from the toxic gasses hanging around by
now, but she was not human anymore, at least not entirely.
However, she was more human
than the figure that stepped out of a cloud of steam directly in
front of her. It was him: The dark one who was holding the entire
continent in terror, the one they said was unkillable. Delilah
looked at the tall, masked figure. She noted the blue uniform,
the anonymous curving mirrored silver mask of a face and the
royal scarlet Greek letter Omega on his chest. "Greetings
Omega," the figure said in a dark, evil tone of voice.
"You don't know how long I have waited for this day."
"Omega is dead,"
Delilah snapped in reply. "You will be too, soon
enough."
The one known as Omega-Two
balled his right hand into a fist and suddenly waved his left
hand at her as if he were throwing something. Delilah's enhanced
senses detected the glowing energy of a psychic attack flashing
across the space between her and her adversary. Delilah dived
under the attack, morphing into an Umbreon as she did so. In her
new form she ran across the space separating her from her
opponent and lunged forward, intending to rip his throat out with
her powerful jaws.
There was a massive
golden-white flash and Delilah found herself lying on the ground.
Her opponent had used a Thunder-shock attack. A combination of
proximity and the vulnerability of dark-types to electric attacks
had increased its effect. Delilah softened her body and rose up
in her default shape. "It is time to end this
distraction," her opponent said dismissively. He raised his
arms and his forearms turned into tangled masses of vine whips
which lashed out towards her.
Reacting instinctively,
Delilah 'morphed her arms into the bladed arms of a Scyther and
whirled them before her like chitinous fan blades. She severed
every one of the vine whips, which made her opponent bellow in
pain. The severed vines 'morphed into rivulets of blue gel-like
fluid and flowed back to Omega-Two. His body re-absorbed them on
contact.
Delilah wasn't watching this,
however. She was pressing her advantage. She opened her mouth and
delivered a Supersonic attack that blew her opponent off his
feet. She lunged forward, intending to finish this...
Fast forward...
In another part of the
factory, Delilah and her opponent were sparring, using their
morphing powers and unarmed combat abilities to the full.
"You are good, Omega," the dark one sneered. "But
you are an obsolete model compared to me. Surrender and make it
easy on yourself."
"Oh please," Delilah
responded dismissively. She was wielding a metal bar she had
pulled from a safety railing like it was a Bo staff. She lashed
out and sliced deep into her opponent from right shoulder to
chest. Her opponent's body morphed closed around the bar and he
kicked Delilah in the face, knocking her back. He then pulled the
bar out of his body sideways and lunged towards her.
Delilah kicked her opponent in
the face with both feet as he came close. She somersaulted onto
her feet and, before he could react, leapt over his head and
landed behind him. The new Omega turned to face his predecessor
just in time to receive a roundhouse kick to the face...
Fast forward...
Omega-Two knocked the
Delilah's hands from his throat and lashed out at her,
electrically charging his hands to massively increase the power
of his punches. Delilah reeled back, stunned for a second. Her
opponent grabbed her by the arm and slammed her into an
electrical switching box. He then seized a handful of her hair
and smashed her face into the box again, then again, then a
fourth time.
Delilah tired of this, so she
morphed herself around, reversing her position by morphing her
front through her back. This sudden and unprecedented move
shocked her opponent. Delilah knocked his hands off her and
stepped forward. Omega-Two snarled and lashed out with a fist
suddenly morphed into a spike-covered steel mace. Delilah was
ready for this. She softened her head and let the punch smash
right through her liquid-based structure. She extruded a new head
to one side and turned the old one into a pair of hands and arms.
Delilah's opponent reacted in
surprise at his arm suddenly being in her firm grip. Delilah
twisted his arm behind his back and, before he could respond,
hauled him over her head and over the safety railing to the
factory floor.
Without a moment's hesitation,
Delilah flung herself over the railing after her opponent...
Fast forward...
As her opponent tore through
the walls, Delilah snared him with her vine whips and threw him
across the tight space against a hard steel wall opposite her.
Omega-Two responded to this attack by calling on the powers of a
Magmar. He made his body burst into flame. Delilah had already
withdrawn her vine whips and was ready for this counter-move.
Experience was proving more than a match for this newcomer's
greater raw power. She used a Hydro-Pump attack to drench her
opponent, putting out his flames. Then she unleashed a Thunder
Wave attack. Boosted by the water covering his body, the attack
tore through Omega-Two's body and made him scream in agony.
Delilah watched pitilessly as
her opponent tumbled onto his face. She stepped to one side and
watched him drag himself away, trying to find somewhere to hide
and regenerate. She would not give him the opportunity. With an
idle touch of a toe, she flipped him onto his back.
Transforming her right forearm
into a spike, she drove it into his chest. Then she began to
attack, using first electricity, then ice, then earth energy and
then fire. She kept switching the type of attack randomly, not
giving her opponent's body time to adapt and respond.
Omega-Two began to scream and
thrash wildly, but Delilah continued to attack pitilessly until
her opponent's struggles began to weaken and finally ceased.
Delilah withdrew her spike and, feeling utterly drained by her
exertions, she stepped back from her vanquished foe.
As she watched, Omega-Two
began to morph back into his fluidic blue 'default' form, which
quickly dried out and crumbled into brown-grey dust. In the last
moment, the reflective silver masked face of the monster flowed
into human features. A friendly, kind face with a button nose
like Delilah's and untidy hair. A face Delilah knew as intimately
as her own face.
Ash.
Delilah felt like something
deep inside her simply snapped. She fell on her knees and
screamed like a condemned soul.
"NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
== == == == ==
Tracey Sketchitt didn't need to
look at the EKG display to know that Delilah Ketchum was having a
nightmare. It was enough to see the way that she thrashed inside
of the special regeneration chamber. She seemed to be murmuring
something, that Tracey bet was Ash's name.
Tracey has just called Professor
Oak when Delilah woke up with a despairing scream that froze the
Pokémon Watcher's blood in his veins. In a single motion, she
smashed out of the glass tube and launched herself towards him.
Before Tracey could even think, let alone react, his best
friend's mother attacked him, smashing him backwards over a table
and several metres across the laboratory's floor with a single
backhanded blow. Her glowing green reptilian eyes wild and
unseeing, Delilah began to pull all the medical sensors from her
body. At that moment, Samuel Oak strode into the laboratory.
Powered by fear and adrenaline,
and with her understanding of reality confused with the memories
of her hallucination (or would be premonition?), Delilah
turned on the researcher and closed her left hand around his
throat in a vice-like grip.
"WHERE IS ASH!?!" she
screamed, her eyes filled by an insane, murderous light. The
researcher tried to say something, anything, but he
couldn't get the words past Delilah's hand. He knew that, even
without use of her powers, Delilah was strong enough to kill him
with her bare hands. "ANSWER ME!" Delilah screamed and
lifted Oak off of the ground with one hand, tightening her
stranglehold even further.
The cavalry arrived in the form of
a jet of cold gas. Tracey was using a fire extinguisher to blow a
jet of a very special gas into Delilah's face. The expression on
Delilah's face began to soften. She released Professor Oak and
dropped in the ground, almost unconscious. No matter how much he
understood her reaction, Professor Oak was more than happy that
the mutant woman had asked him to develop that knock-out gas, only
for precaution...
Tracey, whose face was bruised by
Omega's display of strength, found it hard to believe that the
being that now slept peacefully on the floor of the laboratory
was the same one that had attacked him.
"Professor..." he began.
"Later, Tracey,"
Professor Oak said, leaning over to lift Delilah by her arms.
"Help me get her out of here and up to a bed."
== == == == ==
Meanwhile, in Cerulean City's
Cascade Gym, Ash Ketchum, who was more exhausted than he had ever
known before, was trying to recover consciousness. As he hovered
in the netherworld between unconsciousness and wakefulness, he
heard three familiar voices talking:
"But, Misty... Like, I only
want to understand! Before we left, you were completely
terrified of Ash, and when we returned we found you both in the
Arena, with clothes drenched with blood but not a
scratch on you...!"
"Daisy, please, trust me,
all right?!"
"Uh like, does this you
mean that you are Ash's friend again?"
"No, Lilly. I mean that I am
not afraid of him. And now, leave! He is waking up."
"Misty, like, we won't leave
you alone with..."
"GO!"
That woke up Ash at once.
Misty has just closed her bedroom door. A Misty without a broken
bone or even a single scratch. That sight was all the motivation
the young trainer from Pallet Town needed. He leapt from Misty's
bed (where she had lain him to rest) and embraced her hard,
enfolding her in his arms.
Misty was so amazed that she
didn't respond at first, but moments later she hugged him back.
Somehow, she could "feel" the relief in him when he saw
that she was okay. If he wanted to hurt her, he would not have
saved her... but how did he do that?!
"Misty! Oh thank God!"
he exclaimed, his voice filled with excitement. "I'm... I'm
so glad that you're okay!"
"Me too," Misty replied
with a slightly silly grin.
The two of them were silent for a
while. Then Ash looked at in her eyes. "Misty," he
began, "I I understand that you don't want to see me
anymore..."
"But, Ash...!" Misty
said, looking shocked.
"Please, let me finish!"
Ash took a deep breath before continuing. "I only ask that
you listen what I have to say. Then you don't need to see me ever
again, if you prefer it that way. For now I just ask that you
listen to me now, please!"
Somehow, Misty felt that
Ash was telling her the truth. She felt his despair, his fear
about what she might say.
"Okay, Ash. I am
listening," she said kindly.
With a sigh of relief, Ash began
to explain his mother's situation to Misty.
== == == == ==
While Misty and Ash talked with
each other, Daisy and Lilly Williams were at the Gym Security
System panel. They tried access the video recordings.
"I found it!" Lilly
exclaimed and they began to watch the video.
"MISTY! NOOOO!"
They saw Ash scream at the moment that he saw Misty fall,
seemingly to her death. The horror that the sisters felt at
seeing their sister's horrible injuries transformed into total
astonishment when they saw the electric blue glow appear around
the two young trainers.
What that they didn't know was
that in the at the same moment that the file was played, somebody
outside of the gym began to copy the same file's content...
== == == == ==
Misty had heard the whole story.
She was completely astonished, but she knew that Ash was
telling the truth. She felt that. Because of that, there was only
one answer she could give to his request. "All right, Ash. I
won't tell to anyone about your mother."
"Thank you, Misty."
Misty blushed from embarrassment.
She felt so very silly now. "Ash, I'm sorry for...
you know."
"That's okay, Misty. I can't
blame you for using your head." He gave her an ironic and
embarrassed smile, which made Misty blush even more.
"Ash, there's something I
need to know," Misty said. "When I... When I fell, you cured
me. You brought me back! How did you do that?"
The 13 year-old boy swallowed
dryly. That was a little detail he would like to know
himself. "Misty, as soon as I know that myself, I will tell
you."
Some minutes later Ash left the
Cascade Gym, not before seeing Daisy and Lilly's astonished gaze.
The two sisters looked at him as if he was a being from another
planet. They seemed half-prepared to see him suddenly glow with
an unearthly light or simply levitate off the ground like
Superman or something... Sighing, he turned away from the Gym and
started on his way to Pallet Town.
He didn't notice that somebody was
following him at a discreet distance.
== == == == ==
"When I fell, you cured
me. You brought me back! How did you do that?"
Misty's question repeated itself
constantly inside of the young trainer's head. He was desperately
trying to think of an answer.
Ash had asked Pidgeot to land
beside a river, in the forest between Viridian City and Pewter
City and close to the Viridian Highway. He had already contacted
Professor Oak, told him that he had solved the situation with
Misty and that he was coming back home. However, he had not
mentioned about his "healing power". He was just not
prepared to discuss that just yet.
Ash felt like the answer to
everything that was happening to him was within his reach, but he
couldn't see it clearly. Tired, Ash looked up and he saw that
Pikachu and Chikorita were very close to the river.
"Pikachu! Chikorita! Get away from there! Come back
here..." Then, Ash fell silent as the last piece of the
jigsaw neatly slotted itself into its place...
"My God! It can't be
true! But... it is the only way!" Ash would
have continued to stand there, staring in shock if it wasn't that
he suddenly smelt a man somewhere near him and could hear the
gentle in-and-out sighs of the person's breathing. Ash jumped to
his feet, realising that the world had coloured itself with
smells, sounds and the vibration of motions. Although Ash's
conscious mind was paralysed by self-discovery and these amazing
new sensations, his subconscious and instincts were operating
normally. The electric and the plant-type Pokémon were already
beside their Trainer, having realised something was wrong. Ash
fastened his eyes in a point in the middle of the forest.
Whatever it was, was behind those bushes
Ash grabbed one of the Pokéballs
on his belt and called: "Totodile, I choose you!" The
small and cheerful Water-type Pokémon materialised beside his
Trainer. "Totodile, fire a Water Gun attack in that
direction!" Ash pointed at the hidden man.
Executing the order, the Pokémon
attacked and the water jet struck the person in the bushes. The
man was bowled over by the impact. He staggered to his feet and
began to run in the opposite direction to Ash and his friends.
Before Ash and his Pokémon could reach it, the person that fled
summoned an Abra and teleported away from the scene.
Ash stood there for a long moment.
Then he recalled Totodile and Chikorita, gathered his things as
fast as he could, leapt onto Pidgeot's and, with Pikachu hanging
onto his jacket, urged his flying type to take him home as
quickly as he could.
Perhaps it just was a thief,
Ash thought hopefully. Ash was sure of one thing, however: his
mother owed him a very good explanation!
== == == == ==
Meanwhile, Jessie Gibson was
looking at Mondo in complete amazement. Meowth and James Morgan
were looking at their assistant in the same way.
"What did you say?!?!"
Jessie screamed at the top of her voice.
Mondo was thankful that they were
in the most distant part of the Base's underground vehicle bays.
Because if not, half of Kanto would have heard the red-haired
agent's shout.
"I said that somebody
telephoned me and said that they knew what had happened to your
mother, Jessie!"
Jessie seized the young
brown-haired man by the shoulders. "What did they
say?!" she demanded, shaking him hard. "Come on,
talk!"
"Calm down, Jessie!"
James interrupted on Mondo's behalf.
"Well, I couldn't recognise
the voice, Miss Jessie," Mondo said quickly. "It was
some kind of digitally sampled voice. I don't even know if the
person was a man or a woman. But the message was this: 'If you
want your friend Gibson to know what had happened to her mother,
Miyamoto, then she should look for the connection between a Team
Rocket agent named Darkholme and a special project called
"Omega." That is, if she isn't afraid to have the same
end that her mother did!' Then the guy hung up."
"Listen, Mondo, if you are
joking..." Jessie threatened.
The very suggestion offended
Mondo. "Miss Jessie, please! Do you think I would joke about
that?! I know how important your mother was to you!"
"But do youse think dat it
was serious?" Meowth asked. "Maybe it was Butch and
Cassidy! Meowth! Dey are capable of pulling a prank like
dat!"
"No," James said with
conviction. "They don't understand others' feelings well
enough to create a practical joke like that."
The four members of Team White
Beta were in silence for some time.
Inside Jessie's soul, a terrible
storm was raging. For all her life, the only family that she had
known had been her mother. However, Jessie lost her when she was
only four years old, and she never found out how it had happened.
But now, she had a chance of at least learn the truth about her
mother! Jessie Gibson decided. Really, she never had any other
choice. "Okay!! Then we will discover who is this
'Darkholme' and what this 'Omega' project was!"
James, Mondo and Meowth noticed
that Jessie hadn't asked their opinion on this
== == == ==
Samuel Oak breathed in relief when
he saw Ash enter in his laboratory. However, his smile
disappeared the moment in that saw the seriousness in the
expression on the boy's face. Tracey noted a hardness in his
friend's eyes, the same hardness he saw when Ash had decided to
help Lugia save the world.
"Professor," Ash said in
a toneless voice. "How is my mother?"
"She is fine, Ash,"
Professor Oak said reassuringly. He noticed the way Ash was
looking at Tracey's bruised face, the shattered wreckage of the
regeneration apparatus and the bruises flaring around the
Professor's throat. "We ah had one or two minor technical
problems and I thought it best to transfer you mother to one of
the beds in my apartments upstairs. I would have preferred to
keep her immersed in the regenerative enzyme for longer, but she
had spent enough time in there to cure her immediate
problems." Professor Oak didn't think it necessary to tell
Ash that, with his mother's totally unique biology, there was no
way to be certain what was enough and what was not. With a
life-form based on a synthetic polymer chain rather than organic
proteins, all bets were off.
Ash accepted the explanation.
"I understand," he said. "Can I see her?"
"She is sleeping now,
Ash," Oak replied gently.
Ash breathed in deeply. Well,
he told himself, now is as good a time as any.
"Pikachu, could you go upstairs and sit with my mother,
please?" Ash asked. "I have to talk to Professor Oak
about something private."
After the electric-type Pokémon
had left, Ash began what he felt might be the most important
conversation he had ever been part of. "Professor, I imagine
that when I was born, my mother asked for you to examine my
genetic code for abnormalities."
"Yes, Ash, she did," Oak
confirmed.
Ash nodded. "Am I right in
saying that, as far as you know, I am a completely normal and
typical human being?"
"Of course!" Oak said
firmly. The researcher shifted uncomfortably, not liking the
direction this conversation was taking one bit.
"I would be grateful if you
could explain this, then," Ash said. Ash calmly
pulled off his jacket, exposing his forearms. Without changing
his expression once, he pulled out his penknife, inserted the
blade into his Brachial Vein at his left wrist and slashed the
vein open as far as his elbow with one swift move. Blood jetted
out of the wound and poured off onto the floor.
There was an instantaneous panic.
"Ash! My God, no!" Tracey screamed.
"Ash! No! Why?" Oak
reached forward desperately trying to think of some way to stem
the loss of blood from such a long incision. Tracey leapt
forwards and seized Ash's wrist, trying to find the pressure
point that would let him cut off the blood flow into the vein.
"Calm down, guys," Ash
said in a quiet and icily-calm tone. "Could I have something
to wipe my arm off, please?"
Professor Oak couldn't believe how
calm Ash was. The boy was looking at his bleeding arm with an
almost rueful expression. Oak blinked and cocked his
head in confusion. Was it his old eyes playing tricks, or had the
flow of blood suddenly slowed down and stopped? It would take far
longer, as much as three minutes, for Ash to bleed out enough of
his blood volume for the bleeding rate to decrease like that. As
if he was in a dream, Oak grabbed a towel from beside the
laboratory's sink, poured some water onto it and passed it to
Ash. Ash wiped his arm and both the researcher and his
assistant's eyes bulged nearly from their sockets.
There was no new bleeding and no
hideous long cut in Ash's forearm. Tracey leaned closer, unable
to believe what he was seeing. There was a long red mark along
Ash's arm where the cut had been, like a very, very old scar. As
he looked on, what seemed to be little arcs of electricity played
along the mark and it vanished. In moments, it was as if Ash
hadn't even scratched himself.
Tracey swallowed and looked up at
Ash's face with a haunted expression.
Professor Oak could not believe
what his eyes were showing him. But this is impossible!
the researcher thought, astounded and horrified. I verified
Ash's genes after his birth myself! They were perfectly human!
Ash just can't heal so fast!
Ash smiled humourlessly.
"That concludes Act One," he announced. "Don't
leave your seats, folks, because Act Two is still to come. I will
need a volunteer from the audience."
Ash reached out and seized
Tracey's arm. Tracey yelped in surprise and tried to shake his
friend off of him. "Just relax, Tracey," Ash said
easily. Tracey felt a curious electric sensation and the lights
in the room began to shine just a little more brightly. As
Professor Oak looked on, the bruises on Tracey's forehead and
left cheek quickly faded away and reappeared on Ash's
face! The bruises vanished from the young Pokémon Trainer's
face just as quickly as they appeared.
There was a long, long, silence.
Tracey pulled up his shirt and looked himself over as best as he
could. All the bruises on his body had disappeared as had
the scar of the appendectomy operation he had when he was only
eight years old. With a sudden sinking sensation, Tracey wondered
if he might now have an appendix again
Sam Oak's jaw fell open and Tracey
was so surprised at what had happened that he didn't even think
to sketch his mentor's reaction.
The three people stood in silence
for a long moment before Ash spoke in the same, quiet tone of
voice he had been using since his arrival. "I think you have
an analysis to do, Professor, because..." at this point,
Ash's eyes became totally determined, "I want an answer
about this."
The old man could only nod in
agreement.
== == == ==
One hour later, after Professor
Oak had taken samples of Ash's blood, urine, and even a small
sample of bone marrow for analysis, Ash climbed up to the
residential level of the research centre, to see his mother. Ash
almost had a heart attack when he saw Gary walk out of his
mother's room carrying a tray.
"Hi Ash!" His rival
seemed... concerned?
"Hello Gary."
"Look, man, I really feel
badly about what happened to your mom," Gary said in an
honest tone. "I hope the burns are not as serious as the
bandages they make to seem."
"I hope so too," Ash
replied, not understanding what was happening. Why hadn't Gary
been scared of the sight of his mother? And why was he talking
about burns? Gary turned began to go downstairs. He wasn't
surprised by Ash's reaction: if his mother, Sarah, or his sister,
May, got badly hurt because someone want steal his Pokémon while
he had been away, Gary will have the same reaction...
"And Ash, if you need
anything, just say ok?"
"Uh okay," Ash
replied with a weak wave at his rival.
Ash and Pikachu looked at each
other. Gary being nice to them?! Oh, well... you live
and learn
The young League champion and his
best Pokémon entered Delilah's room. As soon as he entered, Ash
understood why Gary wasn't scared and why he had talked about
burns. Delilah's head, arms and hands were bandaged, making it
look like she had suffered terrible burns. The moment that she
saw Ash, Delilah gasped gladly leapt from the bed to hug her son.
When she touched him, however, her polymorphic abilities mapped
both his genetic code and his bio-electric field. Delilah
instantly realised that her son had changed profoundly
since the last time she had touched him, just two days ago.
"Ash what has happened
to you?" Delilah asked fearfully.
Well, it's now or never!
he thought. "I think that you can answer that...
Mom," Ash replied.
Delilah swallowed dryly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well... I think you... left
out some things when you told me about your mutation. You
told me that was something natural and that I had normal genes.
If that is so... how is it possible that my body heals
any injury almost instantly? How can I heal any injury
in anyone I touch? How is it that my senses have become so acute
that I can sense a man hiding behind a bush fifty metres away
from me? And, most importantly, why did Cassidy talk about you to
"going back" to Team Rocket?" Delilah
opened her mouth to speak, but Ash interrupted her. "Sure, I
can believe that Team Rocket might have kidnapped you and done
experiments on you in the past," he said, "but in that
case, how do you know how to use your powers so well in
a fight? How can you know how to use any number of different Pokémon
attacks and use them to your best advantage? Pure instinct?
I'm sorry, Mom, but I can't believe that." Ash breathed
deeply and waited for his mother to reply.
She looked at her son's face and
saw an anger and a pitiless harshness that made her think of the
inquisitors in Team Rocket. When she didn't speak, Ash continued.
"Mom, were you a member of Team Rocket?" he
asked, quietly and firmly.
Delilah Ketchum felt her legs
weaken. She sat down on the bedroom floor and she lifted her eyes
to Ash, that was in front of her with his arms crossed, waiting
for her answer. She knew that she didn't have choice.
"Ash, ask Mimey to bring me a
small black box from the secret panel in my bedroom, and
then..." she sighed. "Then, I will tell you
everything."
Her son just shook his head once
and then left the room, his steps rigid with anger and fear.
When she was alone in the room,
Delilah heard the cold and sadistic inner voice of Omega to
murmur, in a happy tone: "That's it. You can't escape
anymore. He won't just hate you, he will give you up to the
authorities."
"Shut up!" Delilah
thought, her green snake-like eyes shining. She hugged her knees
to her chest and stayed there in that position until Ash
returned...
== == == == ==
In a maximum security building in
the downtown Viridian, a black-haired man watched a video file
that had been captured by one of his agents. The file had been
"acquired" from Cerulean City's Cascade Gym.
"Interesting." he
murmured, when he saw that the young trainer from Pallet Town
absorbed his orange-haired friend's wounds. He knew the girl.
Verifying the data that he had,
everything fit in the places. The dates, the names, the data that
his informer had supplied. The man pressed a button in his desk.
"Stacy, arrange a meeting as
soon as possible with the Security Council. Security Level
Ultraviolet."
"Yes, General." A
woman's voice answered.
The man smiled. He needed to
formulate a strategy, of course, but all being well, soon the
United Nations Defense Forces would be able to call upon the most
powerful biological weapon ever made by man...
== == == == ==
Delilah opened and closed the box,
without knowing where to she should begin. She had removed all
her bandages, thinking that, as she was about to make a
confession to her son, she should be able to look him in
his eyes. But suddenly she wondered where she would get the
courage to do so.
She seems... lost, Ash
thought. He had never seen his mother like this, in that way.
He felt badly for placing her in this situation. However,
something inside told him that if he didn't force her to tell the
truth now, he would never have courage to ask her
again...
Delilah looked at Ash, and took
the control necklace and the photo of her with her sister out of
the box. "In answer to your question, Ash... I... I think
this picture will say everything that needs to be said."
Ash looked at the photograph and
then closed his eyes for one moment. Well, that's it.
There was the evidence that his mother had been part of Team
Rocket. There was her, smiling, wearing a white Rocket uniform,
similar to Jessie's, except for the fact she didn't have the
ridiculous mid-waist cut out from her black bodysuit. Then, Ash
noticed the smiling young woman in the hospital bed, holding a
baby.
"Who is she?"
"That is Diane Miyamoto, my
younger sister."
"Sister?! You have a
sister?" Ash asked, his eyes bulging out. "I I
have an aunt?"
"I had a
sister." The mutant woman closed her eyes for a long moment
before continuing. Then she suddenly looked at Ash. "How old
do you think I am?" she asked.
"Huh? Well, you were 37 years
old at your last birthday weren't you?"
Delilah smiled humourlessly.
"Wrong," she said. "I'm actually 51 years
old." Delilah smiled slightly as she observed her son's
astonishment at hearing that 'minor detail.' "If she were
alive, my sister would be 42." Delilah fell silent for a
moment before continuing. "Well, perhaps I should start at
the beginning. My name was not Delilah Ketchum until I 'left'
Team Rocket. Until that moment, my name was Delia Hanako
Darkholme."
She lied even about her name,
Ash thought, feeling betrayed for no reason he could fix in his
mind.
"Miya and I were what they
called "Team Rocket's Blood and Soul." Our parents were
also members of the organization. Indeed, the Darkholme family
has been part of Team Rocket as long as the Carpenters, who
founded the organization. Well, my sister and I continued the
family tradition. In time, she and I became the best infiltration
and acquisition team that they had."
"Infiltration and
acquisition? Do you mean robbery?"
Delilah looked downwards in shame.
She couldn't face the expression of accusation and censure in her
son's eyes. She just couldn't.
"Yes. You are right. If you
check the newspapers from twenty to twenty-five years ago, you
will find news articles about a series of assaults at Pokémon
Centers all over Indigo Island. We were the ones who executed
them."
"Did you... did you ever kill
anybody?" Ash swallowed dryly when he asked that question.
Pikachu, feeling his Trainer's fear, hid behind Ash's legs.
"No." The green
serpent-like eyes looked into Ash's for a moment, burning with a
desperation and honesty that convinced Ash, but he knew there was
something unsaid. "Well," Delilah continued after a
moment, "not until... until I was transformed into this!"
She lowered her head again. She couldn't escape from the truth,
and she owed it to her son not to even try.
Ash was sat in silence while he
slowly assimilated all the implications of his mother's words,
especially the part about her being transformed.
"Mom," he asked, "what happened that made you
become... what are you now?"
Now, the tone of Delilah's voice
was completely cold. Ash could feel the anger that she felt very
well. "Well, four years after that picture that you are
holding was taken, my sister disappeared in a mission to capture
the Legendary Pokémon Mew, that people thought that live in the
Ice Mountains. A few days after receiving the official notice of
her death, I discovered that my niece was missing and no-one
either knew or was willing to tell me her whereabouts."
She means the baby in the
photo, Ash thought. I have a cousin I wonder what
she is like, if she is still alive?
"I tried to discover what
happened with them," Delilah continued, "and it seems
that my inquiries were not very well received by the High Inner
Council of Team Rocket." She laughed sarcastically. "To
cut a long story short, I discovered, with a little help from a
Red Rocket that I knew," she didn't mention the fact that
they were dating, "what had really happened: My sister had
discovered, purely by accident, that Team Rocket was trying to
create a hybrid being, half-human, half-Pokémon. Madam Boss, the
leader of Team Rocket in my time, called it "The Greek
Alphabet Program." She ordered my sister go to the Ice
Mountains where..." Delilah had to force herself to speak,
when she arrived in that point. Anger and a pain she had never
forgotten were boiling up inside her heart. "They were
waiting for her Ash. They killed her with a shot in the back of
the head. As a 'routine security precaution!' How do I know about
that, you ask? Well, when I learnt about what my sister had
discovered, I went to face Madam Boss and she admitted it. She
told me, and she laughed in my face!" Tears of
sadness and rage ran down the gel-like face of the former Rocket
agent. "She said that if I didn't want anything to happen to
my niece, I would be a good girl and keep in line."
Delilah took a moment to try to
compose herself, but it was hard. "Well, it didn't take me
too long to find out that the organization wasn't
holding my niece, indeed that she had disappeared the same day as
Miya had. Of course, it was pretty clear what they had done with
her. I decided then and there that Team Rocket had become too
sick to cure. I decided to put an end to it. With my high
security clearance, it was child's play to collect enough
information about the organisation to ensure that the Security
Police could destroy them. I had lost everything, Ash,
and as sure as hell didn't care anymore about what the
consequences might be. I didn't care what might happen
to me. After all, the worst they could do would only be to kill
me, right? But, they discovered what I was doing and I found that
I was wrong about that."
She sighed. "In a surprising
moment of humour, Madam Boss decided a traitor like me should
compensate for my mistakes by serving as a guinea pig for the
Greek Alphabet Program. I was designated as worthy of being a
test subject for the very apex of the Program, Project Omega. It
was there that they transformed me in this... monster that you
see now."
Delilah risked a quick look at her
son. His expression in his face was unreadable. "I became
Omega, the most powerful agent that they ever had; a living
weapon. My powers were due to their grafting several genetic
codes of Pokémon onto my own DNA. Actually, my DNA was rewritten
to accept Ditto genes, from where I get my polymorphic abilities.
Those genes were augmented with the genes of several other Pokémon:
Charmander, Squirtle, Gyarados, Kangashan, Alakazam, Umbreon and
others. Hell, they even figured out how to code the
bio-electronic patterns of the Voltorb and Magnemite into my
genes. And then, of course, they had to reconstruct my
body."
"Reconstruct your body?"
Ash asked confused.
"Ash, you cannot put Pokémon
genes in an adult human being and to hope his or her body could
survive. The first dozen or so 'test subjects' died of cancer
before they left the operating table. To overcome that problem,
they reconstructed each cell of my body, molecule-by-molecule
with a synthetic adaptive protein, similar the one that composes
the body of a Ditto, with the help of nanotechnology."
Ash swallowed dryly, trying to
imagine to have each and every cell in his body physically
rebuilt at the molecular level. He could not. "Wait a
moment, Mom, I know how powerful you are. Why you didn't escape
Team Rocket as soon as they finished the process?"
"They are not stupid, Ash.
They knew what were creating, so they took measures
to... to avoid any unwanted behaviour, if you allow me
put in this way. The first measure was the development of the
Serum, a medicine that I am forced to take at regular intervals.
If I don't I lose control about my morphing power and I develop
what they called "independent evolution," when the
genes that they placed to allow my body to mutate so quickly go
out of control and start to develop on their own. Before I
started taking the Serum, there were times when I woke up with
eyes of a Bulbasaur or the wings of a Golbat. The Serum also had
the function of leaving my nervous system open to the
bio-electric commands from the Control Necklace. That was the
second control measure, by the way." Delilah picked up the
necklace with the electronic circuits printed onto its' surface.
Ash knew all about that damned
thing: He knew that Team Rocket used a similar device to make Pokémon
do things that no one wanted to imagine...
"When that thing
was attached to me, I became a slave... in every sense of the
word," Delilah continued, starting to cry, her voice broken
with sobs. "I had no control over my actions, my mind and my
body. I couldn't control what I did I couldn't even control
my own thoughts. I did as I was commanded. I did anything
I was commanded." Delilah trembled and Ash didn't want to
ask what she meant with her last comment. He was sure that would
not want to hear the answer. Delilah only could be grateful for
Ash's silence: This way she didn't need tell him about what Madam
Boss and the scientist responsible for the Project referred to as
"The Pleasure Shift"
"What did you did while you
were Omega?"
Delilah's eyes had the hollow look
of a person condemned to death. The woman refused to look her son
in the eye. "I did enough to have my own part of Hell
reserved for me. Enough that I know that I am a monster.
I am a monster in body and soul."
It was clear to Ash that his
mother feared her past and that she felt shame for what she had
done. But why did she feel so responsible? After all,
she had told him how that diabolical control necklace had made
her little more than a remote control robot. Ash shook his head
and returned to his mother's story. "Mom, how did escape
from Team Rocket?" he asked in a whisper.
She sighed again. "In one of
the special missions, a shot damaged the Necklace's main
processor chip. From that moment, I began to become aware
of myself and of what I was doing." She bit her lower lip.
"I hope you never experience anything like that Ash. I was
could see and hear everything. I could observe as I committed the
most horrible crimes and I couldn't do a single thing to stop
myself. My awareness was too weak to override the Necklace's
control and I was like a passenger in my own body, until"
"Until what?"
Delilah lowered her green eyes and
murmured her reply. "Until I became pregnant with you."
== == == == ==
Professor Oak and Tracey worked
feverishly to discover how Ash was capable to perform
the miracles that they had witnessed. While Tracey operated the
analysis instruments, Sam Oak operated the computer. He compared
Ash's DNA from the moment of the birth, his current DNA and
Delilah's DNA. Then, he saw what had ignored thirteen years ago
because he didn't realise its' significance. "My God, I'm an
idiot!" he exclaimed, slapping himself on the forehead.
"Professor?"
"Here Tracey. Do you see that
sequence that repeats in Ash's DNA and Delilah's DNA? Here, in
chromosome X?"
"Yes."
"Well, that is the gene that
permits primate DNA to mutate. It is the essential basis of human
biological evolution. In it, there are several inserts from Pokémon
DNA; Ditto DNA, to be specific. It is what allowed Ash to acquire
his 'healing factor.'"
"How come?" Poor Tracey
couldn't keep up with his mentor's deductive leaps.
"In the case of Delilah, her
polymorphic abilities are primarily in the form of her
shape-shifting abilities. In Ash's case, the Ditto DNA has
concentrated on its' regenerative properties. Simply put, when he
is injured, his body automatically morphs itself to repair the
injury." Tracey was astonished, but Oak had still further
revelations. "Great portions of Delilah's genetic code are
pure Pokémon genes, and these are easily identifiable. However,
in Ash's genetic code, the hybridisation is more subtle, more
'evolved' if you will excuse the term. If you look at chromosomes
7, 12, and 17, you will see that there are short sections of Pokémon
genetic code there too. Those chromosomes control the operation
of the immunological system and the cicatrization process. These
mutations kind of "turbo-charged" those processes.
These three mutations combined allowed the effects that we
saw."
And we felt. Tracey
thought. "But Professor Oak, how does this explain how Ash
heals others?"
Oak raised a finger. "That is
something that I think we can attribute to the Ditto DNA that
seems to appear in several parts of Ash's genetic code. When a
Ditto uses its Duplicate attack, it maps and copies its'
subject's genetic code and bio-electric field. Ash's body does
the same thing, but instead of copying the subject, his body
identifies and absorbs anomalies: bruises, cuts, fractures,
possibly even disease organisms, and by doing so, it restores the
subject's body to its' 'optimum' state as defined by their DNA.
His body then deals with the absorbed anomalies like it would any
other injury."
"That's incredible!"
Tracey blurted. "But Professor, why are there differences
between the two readings of his DNA?"
"Here I can only
speculate," the Professor admitted. "The medical
samples that we took indicate that Ash has experienced a great
deal of emotional stress recently, which is hardly news when you
consider what he must have gone through when he found out about
his mother. Now, towards the end of the last century, there was a
geneticist named Professor Charles Xavier who suggested, and this
was highly controversial at the time, that moments of
high stress could trigger recessive genes and force the body to
generate completely new biological traits. This could be
anything; enhanced senses, massively boosted strength and
endurance, psychic powers, even the ability to generate and
manipulate energy fields. I believe that the mutation factor
Delilah passed to Ash, let us call it Omega Factor for the sake
of argument, was, as Xavier predicted, activated by strong
emotional stress. The larger the stress, faster the process
happens. Ash has naturally been under a higher-than-usual level
of stress over the last few months, what with winning the Global
League on top of going into puberty shortly before his thirteenth
birthday. And then he learnt the truth about his mother The
Omega Factor responded by forcing a total restructuring of the
underlying DNA that acts as its' host, activating all the Pokémon
genetic sequences that had remained dormant and hidden until
then." Samuel Oak remembered that Ash seemed sick before
going to Cerulean City. He had not understood why the boy seemed
ill at the time but, in retrospect, he realised it was his immune
system's last desperate attempts to stop the massive mutation
process that was rewriting the boy's entire genetic code.
"We are living witnesses to the most incredible discovery in
the history of human biology, Tracey. Ash has been changing,
slowly, for at least the last six months, but after learning
about his mother, the process was raised to another level
entirely. For the very first time, a human has evolved
just like a Pokémon..."
"One moment!" Something
that the Professor said had alarmed the Pokémon Watcher.
"Do you mean... that isn't the end? That if Ash was put
under enough stress he might evolve again?"
The researcher shook his head.
"That I don't know, Tracey. The highly unstable nature of
Ditto DNA makes everything uncertain. I sincerely don't
know..."
== == == == ==
Ash Ketchum was completely
shocked. "Huh?!?! What do you mean by that?!"
"Ash, please..."
"I'm sorry, Mom, but now that
you've started, you will have to finish it!"
Delilah sucked in a deep breath.
Ash was right, of course. "Team Rocket was thinking of
creating another Omega, one that might even be more powerful than
me, the original. Well, to create another Omega using the same
process used on me would be a lot of work. At that time, Team
Rocket didn't dominate the field of cloning the way they do now,
although there were rumours of something called 'Project Mewtwo'
that was offering encouraging results. Then, they had a
brainwave: Why not use the original Omega to reproduce herself?
Of course, there was the question of whether I could have
children. I told you the truth when I said I was totally sterile;
the reconstruction process completely destroyed my reproductive
system, but I am a polymorph. In time, they were able to
induce my body to produce an ovum. They fertilised the ovum in
vitro with the sperm of some anonymous member of the organization.
Then they implanted the zygote into my body, which responded
automatically by producing a uterus and nurturing the growing
child."
"Then, am I nothing but a
laboratory experiment? Just a test?" Ash asked in such a low
tone that even Delilah had difficulty hearing it. She didn't have
courage to answer. What answer could she give anyway? Ash looked
up at his mother. "And then?" he asked.
"For two months, the
pregnancy continued without any complications. I remained
completely functional and combat-capable. The baby was developing
normally. The scientists were sure now that I could have children
without any problems. However, when they examined your genetic
code, they found that you were essentially human, Ash. You were
going to be normal, not a new Omega. That meant your usefulness
to Team Rocket had ended and they discussed aborting you. They
wanted to murder you, Ash! I... I could not let that happen,
you... you were my son!" Now she cried for two
reasons: she was already certain that she had lost Ash's love
forever, and she was also having to make him suffer by telling
him the truth of how he came into the world. "That
finally gave me the strength I needed to break free of their
control over my mind. I broke out of the laboratory and fled the
Team Rocket base. I I killed a Rocket in the process."
"Well, I think I can cut the
story short now. Using some contacts that I know in the
underworld, and some of what I 'learned' through Team Rocket, I
got a new identity, that of Delilah Ketchum, and I came to live
here in Pallet Town. For a while I survived as a cat burglar and
spent every other waking moment carefully hiding what I really was.
I only wanted to forget my past and to try to create the best son
that I could. But, one day, the pain from not taking the Serum
became too much and I knew that I needed help. The only person I
could think of who might be able to help me was Samuel Oak, the
town's resident Pokémon researcher. I broke into his
laboratories, ready to force him to help me on the pain
of death, but then I lost control and he saw me transform into my
'default' form, just as you did not to long ago." Delilah
sucked in a breath. "Sam was able to figure out my body's
requirements fairly quickly, I'm broadly similar to a Ditto in
the strictest biological terms. He was able to synthesise a
substitute for the Serum, which I have been taking ever since.
Along the way, I told him everything and he helped me settle down
by getting me a job as a translator working for a publishing
company in Viridian City. Four months after that you were
born and the rest you know, of course."
Ash was sitting very still, his
face lowered into his cupped hands, hidden. Even so, Delilah
could see the tears running from between his fingers.
"Ash, I know that lied to
you, that I deceived you... but I... I was afraid of what you
would do... of what you would think of me... I love you, Ash... I
know that you can't believe me after all the lies I've told, and
I would be a fool if I thought otherwise but I... I"
Delilah fell silent, feeling utterly defeated. How could she
explain how, after she reached the mainland, she had suddenly
become fully aware of who and what she was, and that the only
thing that stopped her from throwing herself into a volcano or a
vat of acid to end the living nightmare of her existence was the
fact she was carrying a son? How was she supposed to explain that
for every minute of every day since that moment it was Ash that
had kept her alive and sane? How could she explain that he was
the only thing that kept her anchored to her humanity? How could
she explain that he was the most important thing in her
existence?
Ash didn't say anything for a long
time. Delilah lowered the head. "You hate me," she
murmured. She accepted that. It was the perfect retribution for
her many crimes.
Ash rose from his chair and walked
over to Delilah, his face lowered and his fists tightly clenched.
Delilah could not see his eyes. He knelt before her, raised her
face to his and then, suddenly, launched himself forward and
hugged her tightly.
"Ash...!" Delilah said,
tears beginning to flow.
"Mom, I am upset for
you for not telling me the truth before, but I think that my rage
proves that you were right in not do it in first
place." Ash lifted his brown eyes and looked into his
mother's alien green eyes. Delilah didn't see hate, nor rage. She
saw love and forgiveness. He had felt her honesty, the shame that
she felt about herself, and... the love that she felt for him.
"I still have a difficult time accepting that the person you
admitted that you were and that the person that
I know that you are is one and the same, but
I don't hate you, after all..." suddenly, Ash smiled, and
that smile filled his mother's heart with a warmth she feared she
would never feel again. "After all, I know that you were and
are telling the truth when you say that you love
me."
Pikachu watched the two humans
hugging each other No, not human, and not
Pokémon either, but something new and special
As Ash hugged his mother, stroking her hair and comforting her as
she cried, the little electric-type reflected that together, they
were stronger than they ever would be apart.
What do you think? Read and
Review!
To be continued...
