The Omega
Mutation
by Joshua Falken
Thanks to BenRG for beta read this chapter and for his patience with this writer :-D
Chapter 12 - Mother and Son
"Huh?!" Delilah exclaimed, jumping to her feet. For an instant, she imagined that she did it: that she had finally committed enough crimes for God to punish her in this life, sending her insane. She was hearing voices?
I said that I can be of some help for you, my sister. And no, you are not insane. The voice said gently.
Delilah swallowed dryly and forced herself to be calm. She noticed now that the voice had an external origin: it was a telepathic communication. "All Right! Who are you? Because, for your information, I have... I had a sister, and have never had a brother!" She immediately felt like an idiot for making a statement like that, but she couldn't come up with any better a response.
Whoever it was, she felt laughter in its' voice. It is true that the being that you once were had a sister, Delia Darkholme. However, in your new incarnation, you have a brother. We are brother and sister; fellow experiments.
'Fellow experiment?' She thought in amazement. She remembered that there was another Team Rocket project underway at the same time as the project that created her. What was it called? Oh yes; Project Mewtwo.
The amusement was still present in the telepathic voice. I must apologise for contacting you without a proper introduction, the voice said in a sarcastic tone. However, I was under the impression that you were interested in the whereabouts of your son.
Hearing that cleared all the confusion and fear from Delilah Ketchum's mind. "WHERE IS HE?" she screamed at the considerable top of her voice. "TELL ME NOW!"
I will do far better than that... sister. the voice said, suddenly vaguely menacing. Suddenly reality melted away from around the mutant woman and she was suddenly... elsewhere...
It was a very cold room, full of medical equipment. A middle-aged blond man, with a doctor's coat entered the room and walked over to the table in the center of the room. On the table, a black-haired boy was lying, trembling with fever and coughing wretchedly.
Dr. Thomas Sanders was about to pick up a sample of Ash Ketchum's blood, preparing a syringe. He didn't notice when his 'patient' opened his glazed eyes.
The boy moved more quickly than a thunderbolt. Long sessions of torture and repeated sedation had completely overloaded the conscious mind of Ash Ketchum, leaving the same lethal hard-wired survival instincts that existed within Agent Omega. He tore the IV out of his arm and wrapped it around the doctor's throat and then yanked on the end of the line attached to its stand, lifting the surprised man off the ground. The doctor gagged and scrabbled at the plastic tube that was quickly choking the life out of his body.
Ash dropped the suffocating man and exploded forwards, his limbs a barely visible blur of motion. He was moving so fast that the young UNDF sentry walking down the corridor didn't even have time to realize that the boy was in the corridor. Two fists travelling at nearly sixty miles an hour slammed into his abdomen, knocking him unconscious and nearly exploding his entrails out of his back.
Ash continued to sprint down the corridor blindly, his flight-or-fight instincts driving him to find some escape route. Far behind him, Dr. Sanders finally dragged himself to his feet and found an intercom panel. "C... Command and Control." he gasped hoarsely, still trying to clear his airway. "Unit Omega Two has... *cough* escaped!"
The alarms began to scream throughout the base. "Security Condition Red! Main base security seal penetrated! All personnel to defense stations!"
Ash covered his ears. He didn't want to hear the continual warnings and alarm bells. With a furious growl, he tore open the door of an electrical switching panel and physically ripped the main power cable out of the side of the fuse box. The entire security wing of the Sector Athena base was suddenly in darkness. The alarms died with almost deafening suddenness. A few moments later, emergency lights snapped on, but the dim twilight illumination was more of a hindrance than a help to the scrambling soldiers.
Ash's suddenly hyper-keen senses gave him several minutes warning of the troop of soldiers descending a nearby stairwell. He flattened himself against the wall and waited until they ran past, heading for the torture chamber that they had held him in for too long. Then he ran up the stairs, ascending several levels in world-record time, his muscles operating so super-efficiently that he didn't even break a sweat.
On the top level, Ash's nose twitched as he smelt fresh air, the unmistakable scent of freedom. Without any visible hesitation, he began to run towards the source of the smell. In his current condition, he heard the soldier's breathing and heartbeats long before he reached their position.
The soldiers raised their pneumatic tranquilliser rifles as the escapee ran into view. "Stop right now, Ketchum!" the leader ordered.
Inexplicably, the boy joined the two hands and it extended the arms in the soldiers' direction. An energy, the like of which he had never felt before, entered through his feet, rose through the legs and he felt concentrating on his chest. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" he roared, and began running again in their direction. This took the soldiers quite by surprised. They were ready for the boy to duck away from them and try to lose them in the maze of corridors. They were ready for bluster and defiance, but they were not ready for a head-on assault. Before any of them could clear their wits enough to react, a bright white beam of light shot from the boy's arms and slammed into the floor in between them. There was an immense explosion as the hyper beam attack flash-vaporised the concrete and sent all five soldiers tumbling through the air, quite unconscious... or worse.
Ash physically tore the last door from its' hinges and charged out across the grass and through the sunlight that symbolised freedom. One last barrier awaited, a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Driven by the most basic animal instincts, the boy accelerated even further, fully willing to jump the fence with a single bound.
He didn't notice the sniper on top of the building behind him until the tranquilliser dart hit him on the back of his neck.
As Ash lay on the grass, his consciousness fast fleeing, he saw the emblem on the shoulders of the black-uniformed soldiers who came to bind him and carry him back to imprisonment. He also saw twin mountains, Mounts Satoshi and Shigeru.
Then everything went black.
Delilah returned to the reality immediately. Her fluid-like legs weakened. Ash discharging a Hyper-beam? Impossible! For that, he should be capable to gather and use Earth Energy, like a Clefairy or a Tauros... Unless...
The mutant woman shook her head. She could think of the ramifications later. Firstly, she had to free her son!
Delilah's mind raced for a few minutes, as she remembered the identification patches on the soldier's uniforms in her vision. A different symbol had replaced the polar world map of the United Nations between the laurel garlands on the logo. It had been a stylised Greek statue. That was the symbol of Sector Athena, the UNDF's elite anti-terrorist wing. Rumour in Team Rocket had it that Sector Athena was often willing to use methods that the UN Security Council might not normally approve. That was the answer then! They were the ones who had kidnapped Misty... and Ash.
She finally knew who was responsible. Now, she had to figure out where Ash was.
Delilah pulled open a drawer and pulled out a large-scale map of the Kanto region. The only clue she had was the unmistakable sight of Mounts Satoshi and Shigeru that Ash had seen before he lost consciousness. Mount Shigeru presented a nearly vertical face to Ash's eyes. If she remembered her long-ago schoolgirl geography lessons, that put him to the east of the twin mountains, in the foothills of the Tyranitar mountain range, near Blackthorn City in Johto. There was only one UNDF base anywhere near that location, and its' isolation and strategic unimportance made it the logical place to put the base of a counter-insurgency force. The officially mothballed Clearview Valley Air Force Base.
======
Two pairs of eyes watched as Delilah Ketchum, now again in her winged fighting form, rose from her hideaway and flew off to the north-east, effortlessly breaking the sound barrier as she did so. The first watcher's eyes had been created in a geneticist's laboratory. The second watcher's eyes had been old when the Earth was still young.
Well, Mewtwo told his 'mother', I suspect that this concludes our involvement in this matter.
Mew watched with senses unknown to most life forms for as long as she could until even she could no longer see the unnatural spawn of man and Pokmon as she raced to liberate her offspring. She was not as confident of the outcome of this matter as her genetically engineered 'child'. The prophecy was quite clear child, she replied. I am still not convinced that it was correct for us to interfere in any way.
Mewtwo snorted good-naturedly. He had always preferred action to the endless observation and non-interference advocated by the older legendary Pokémon. The prophecy says that no one may interfere in the battle between light and darkness, mother, he said with a confident grin. However, it didn't mention not helping her recover her child from the human filth that stole him from her.
Mew watched Mewtwo teleport away and recalled the terms of the ancient prophecy again. A part of the Prophecy of the Chosen One that even faithful Slowking was unaware existed.
After Three
Cycles around the Sun
A battle will come when the Dark Bright wakes
Her first strike, an soul twisted and enslaved
Her second attack, lost and desperate
by the thought of the loss of the One
who keeps the Light in her heart,
The Chosen One, who will need all his courage
to alone stop her third Shadow of Darkness,
to alone brake the Ring of Pain,
when the Final Lightning seals their fate
Its' bright killing the Shadow in her heart
And bring the Dark Guardian to the path of Light..."
The ancient god of the Pokémon shook her head and then vanished.
======
Meanwhile, in a cabin hidden in the middle of the Viridian Forest, Jessie Gibson breathed deeply, trying calm herself. She stared blankly through the window, while she waited for James and Mondo to open the locks of the boxes. "Jessie! Meowth! We opened the boxes!" James called out in an excited tone of voice.
Moments later, she was standing before several boxes full of DVD-ROMs, photos, documents and even a Pokébelt with six black and red Pokéballs - a special design exclusive to high ranking Team Rocket agents. 'This 'Darkholme' woman must have been quite a big shot in the organisation,' Jessie thought, much impressed.
Soon after, she found a personnel record. It name on the file was "Delia Hanako Darkholme". Jessie swallowed dryly and her eyes bugged out. She couldn't believe in what she was seeing.
"What's going on, Jessie?" James asked, concerned.
Jessie wordlessly stuck the file under James' nose. The file photo, although old, was of someone that they knew very well. Delilah Ketchum.
"Meowth!! Den... dat Pokémon-woman... da twerp's mother... and that dis 'Darkholme' dame were the same person?!" James's reaction was no different from that of the stunned normal-type.
"Pokémon-woman?" Mondo asked. Were they finally going to explain what had happened at Ash Ketchum's house weeks ago?
"Forget that, Mondo!" The boy shrank into a corner in reaction to Jessie's obvious anger. Jessie continued to read, while James searched the pictures. Then, she exclaimed: "It is not possible!"
"What?" then the clear blue-haired young man saw. Under the heading, 'Family', there was a name: 'Diane Miyamoto Darkholme - Sister'. Jessie didn't want to believe what that so clearly implied. It was a coincidence, nothing more.
However, James was quickly able to find more information that only confirmed what Jessie feared. It was a photograph of Miyamoto, Jessie's mother, in a hospital bed holding a tiny baby. Standing next to her, grinning and shooting a 'V-for-victory' gesture at the camera was Delia Darkholme/Delilah Ketchum. "That must be some kind of mistake!" Jessie exclaimed, beginning to shake. "She. she cannot be related to my mother!" Jessie exclaimed.
"I... I'm afraid that it must be true, Jessie," James said in his usual mournful tone of voice. "Everything we've seen confirms it."
Jessie was silent when she saw the photo. The woman in the bed really was her mother: Amongst the little that she remembered of her early life, that face was always clear. She could not escape the truth any longer. Jessie dropped the photograph, turned and fled blindly from the cabin. She didn't stop moving until she reached a small stream that ran through the woods near the cabin.
James pursued his partner and caught up with her as she fell to her knees before the water. "Jessie," he said quietly. He reached out to touch her shoulder. Jessie whirled and tried to lash out at him, but James knew her well enough to seize her wrists and expertly immobilise her.
James held Jessie tightly until her muscles relaxed and he could feel dampness on his chest. She was crying. "It can't be true, James," she moaned. "Don't you see what this means? If this is true, that means that the... monster that nearly killed me is my aunt! It... it means that I might be a monster too! I don't want to be a monster!"
James smiled kindly and lifted Jessie's chin so he could look into her eyes. "Jessie, I don't know what is happening... but I think the answer is in those files. If we don't try to find them there, then we will never know for sure what this means, for you and for us."
Drying a tear that obstinately ran of her green eyes, the red-haired woman nodded. Slowly, they returned to the cabin with James hugging her tightly. Jessie was holding James too, as if she were afraid to let him go.
======
On that exact moment, a black shadow watched from the summit of a hill near the Clearview Valley base. A shadow that had glowing green eyes with slitted serpentine pupils.
A red car had just left the base. The shadow saw whom it was that drove the car and the glowing eyes narrowed, their light growing brighter and more demonic. There was a liquid blue ripple and a blur of motion before a harmless-looking Zubat fluttered off in pursuit of the car.
======
Major Sandra Stormer of the UNDF's elite Sector Athena anti-terrorist force was feeling a certain satisfaction as she drove along Highway 8. The day had been most productive. They had, at last, found the weakness of the mutant weapon known as Omega. Although she wasn't exactly in the 'need to know' loop, she understood from a few friends in the Command & Control rooms that several litres of a chemical similar to the AO-X toxin would arrive at the base in the morning. The ambitious soldier was already imagining the awards and medals that she would receive for her part in acquiring the world's most dangerous weapon for use by the UNDF. She was aware that it would mean the slavery of a woman and her son, and the permanent internment of the boy's girlfriend (for the General could not allow anyone who knew who Omega really was their liberty), well that didn't weigh heavily on her conscience. Like many career-oriented people in the military, she considered 'collateral damage' unfortunate, but necessary in the greater scheme of things.
It was probably the fact that she was daydreaming of her Lieutenant Colonel's eagles on her uniform that she didn't see the shape of a woman, seemingly carved out of shining metal, that stood in the middle of the road. The impact was violent enough to cause the car's engine compartment to collapse in on itself in a deadly concertina of metal. Stormer had, foolishly, not being wearing her seatbelt, so the force of inertia catapulted her through the car's windscreen and several yards down the road.
When the major finally stopped, the woman slowly turned and walked in direction of her victim. Sandra Stormer turned in time of seeing it transforming from silver metal to a kind of translucent blue fluid. In a sudden epiphany of terror, Stormer understood who was her attacker. Omega.
The young officer tried to move, but she felt invisible psychic hands holding her limbs rigid. She couldn't even speak. Omega stood over the bleeding woman for a long moment looking down at her impassively. "Hmm," Omega mused aloud. Her green eyes shone with a lethal light. Now it was quite obvious what had happened. With a little make-up here and there, the right clothes and by mimicking Misty's unique hairstyle, the woman would be a close enough facsimile of the girl from Cerulean City to fool Ash for long enough to capture him. "Truly a remarkable resemblance to young Miss Williams. So, you are the one who deceived my son to enable your cowardly organisation to capture him. Tell me, dear. Do you like to kidnap and abuse children?" In a sudden excess of fury, Omega threw Stormer against the one of the trees that lined the highway. Omega walked slowly over to the fallen soldier, who was groaning in pain.
Strong, icy-cold hands suddenly lifted Stormer from the ground. A cool, oily hand wrapped around her mouth and she could feel the alien chill of Omega's flesh as the mutant whispered gently into her ear. "Enjoy the ride, darling." Delilah ran a Thunderwave attack directly through her body into Stormer's body. Her hand stopped anyone from hearing the woman's agonised scream. As soon as the soldier was totally paralysed, Delilah extended her wings and launched herself towards a spot she had picked within the forest around the base. She wanted a little privacy for what was to come next. They landed several kilometres away. Delilah... no, she was totally Omega now... turned the paralysed woman around and looked into her eyes. "If you have any last thoughts, now is the time," she said emotionlessly. "I am afraid that when I am done with you, there is a better-than-evens chance that you will never have another thought ever again in your life."
Five minutes later, Omega finally released Sandra Stormer from her psychic grip. The woman, who had long since fallen into a deep coma, crumpled to the ground in a pool of her own body wastes. Delilah had read the woman's mind so thoroughly that she strongly suspected that she knew Stormer better than the woman knew herself, and it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. However, she now knew where Sector Athena were keeping Ash and Misty, and what security surrounded them.
Delilah was about to leave when she realised that she had forgotten something. If Major Stormer recovered, her superiors might chose to try to use her to deceive Ash again. As a conscientious mother, she could not allow such a threat to continue to exist. She rolled the comatose woman over and raised her right hand. Her fingertips extended and lengthened until they were three-inch-long razor-sharp blades. Then, with the calm deliberation of a surgeon, she extended those deadly blades towards Stormer's face.
======
The lights in Misty Williams' cell suddenly snapped to full brightness, giving the girl from Cerulean City one of her all time most unpleasant awakenings. She looked up in a daze to see Major Sandra Stormer (AKA 'The Evil Twin' in Misty's thoughts) standing in the door with an armed guard. The young trainer was about to stick her tongue out at her doppelganger in an act of defiance when the woman turned to the guard accompanying her. "Thank you Sargent, that will be all," she said. There was a blur of motion so fast that Misty could not follow it. The guard struck the wall opposite Misty's cell with an unpleasantly final-sounding 'crunch' and collapsed lifelessly to the floor.
Misty was too shocked to move as Stormer scowled at the lock on the cell door. "I expected a mechanical lock, but this one is electronic. Stand back." Misty obeyed. She saw the major's hand change into a violet, gelatinous substance, somewhat like the body of a Muk. When she touched the lock, there was an acrid smell and the lock (as well as the door) began to melt away. Suddenly, a loud alarm began to shriek.
"Damn! The door must have had a secondary alarm circuit!" The woman cocked her fist, which began to glow a bright red-gold colour, and punched the door off of its' hinges. "Okay, Misty, it's time to get out of here!"
Misty's befuddled brain finally responded as Delilah took on her 'fighting' shape (neglecting her helm for Misty's sake). She recognised her saviour at once, although it was nearly impossible for her to believe what she was seeing the gentle woman do. "Mrs. Ketchum?!" she blurted stupidly.
Delilah smiled. Misty had not notice the devastating guilt that the mutant woman felt. "Yes, it's me. Now, we can go?" She looked up and down corridor urgently. "Before the bellboys of this hotel arrive perhaps?"
Misty nodded and took the woman's hand. Then she was not so much running, more like flying through the air like an acrobat's streamer as Ash's mother dragged her down the corridors of the military base that had come to be her prison.
======
General Jeffrey Straker lifted the head. The sudden alarm had awoken him from a deep sleep, and it took him a few moments to realise what was happening. When he did gather his wits, however, he ran for the Command & Control room. He was still buttoning his uniform shirt as he ran into the room. "Security alert in the low-security detention wing, General," one technician reported professionally.
Straker knew what that meant. Someone was stealing that idiot Kent Williams' daughter out from underneath his nose! He looked at the security monitors in time to see Omega herself calmly cutting down a group of guards with lethally accurate Swift attacks. He could guess what her next objective would be.
"Squad Bravo to intercept the intruder!" Straker ordered. "Squad Epsilon to surround the maximum-security detention area! We cannot let her take Omega-two! Enact tactic 34 immediately!"
======
The room was kept at a very low temperature in an attempt to keep its' special occupant quiescent. Although Ash's body was filled with sufficient sedatives to kill a normal boy of his age, he was conscious. He was shaking with fever as his enhanced immune system continued to purge his body of toxins and his breaths formed little clouds above his lips.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open as his subconscious mind reacted to a familiar summons. "Mom," he whispered.
======
Omega went from a world-record-pace sprint to a dead stop so suddenly that Misty (who was hanging onto her hand desperately) slammed into her. Had she just heard Ash's voice?
Suddenly, a group of soldiers boiled out into the corridor. Delilah didn't so much as blink before she snatched their weapons out of their hands with a series of String Shot attacks. She raised her hand and fired a Thunderbolt at the men, knocking them aside, staggering and twitching. The mutant woman blurred forwards and with a series of fast martial arts moves, knocked those still able to move unconscious.
Misty had been impressed, and more than a little afraid. She had never seen anything move so fast. Nothing human, rather...
The mis-matched pair tore through the corridors of the base, sweeping aside any and all opposition that was luckless enough to find them. Or rather, to be more precise, Omega knocked them aside. Misty could only shrink back in growing terror. She had never ever seen anything capable of such clinical violence as the woman before her. Finally, they reached an armoured door. Somehow, Misty knew that what they sought awaited them within. About thirty soldiers stood in three ranks, aiming powerful weapons their way. "Stay here," Delilah intoned. "I'll be back." Misty looked up into the alien eyes of Ash's mother and felt cold. There was no doubt that she was enjoying this.
"Stand aside if you want to live," Omega announced to the soldiers. The guards shifted uncomfortably. They were veterans of nightmare conflicts against religious fanatics of the worst kind. Most of them had never expected to feel fear ever again. However, Omega was something utterly unlike anything they had encountered before. She was, for a start, far, far more dangerous.
Omega raised a hand and casually projected a Zap Cannon attack at the soldiers. The impact of the attack blew armed men and women in every direction. From her hiding place, Misty swore that she saw one or two arms or legs that were no longer attached to their bodies.
After the smoke cleared, Delia used a Mega Kick to open the door. The room beyond was empty. With a dangerous scowl, she picked up one of the soldiers, seemingly at random. She looked in his eyes and announced, in a remarkably controlled tone of voice. "Your life will be noticeably freer of pain if you tell me where the prisoner who had been kept here is right now."
"Where is the prisoner that was here?"
The soldier pressed his lips together defiantly. Omega's face took on a more demonic quality as she began to squeeze his throat and apply a little electric current through her body. "Where is he?" she asked again.
"Mrs. Ketchum!" Misty gasped, horrified. The man was going blue! Mrs. Ketchum was about to kill him with her bare hands!
"Misty," she replied in a level tone of voice. "Please do not interfere. In time you will understand, although I pray to the gods that you never have to do something like this yourself." The level, inhuman menace of those words was enough to turn the blood in Misty's veins into icy water. It took all of her self-control not to lose control of her bladder.
Delilah turned back to her prisoner and casually morphed her free hand into a Scizor's claw. The razor-sharp steel pincers lifted up to the terrified man's eyes. "Trooper, I am growing tired of repeating myself, so I will only ask one more time. Where is he?"
"In the... ambulance." the soldier squeaked in terror. The mutant woman nodded. "Thank you for your help," she said calmly. Then she banged the man's head against the wall with bone-cracking force and then dropped him to the ground, dismissing him from her attention.
Delilah seemed to be still for a moment before looking at Misty. "Do you want to leave now?" she asked, her voice so normal that it startled the girl.
"Y... yes," Misty replied, her voice high-pitched with terror. There was a clear unspoken addition of 'Please don't kill me!' in the girl's voice.
"Then, go back up the corridor, take the first right, continue on to the second door and continue along that corridor until you reach the fire exit there. Please wait for me underneath the patio roof over the door. I strongly suspect that you will not meet any relevant resistance. Omega's eyes had returned to their default, shining reptilian form. They seemed razor sharp as they glared at Misty. "Did you understand?"
Misty nodded spasmodically. Before her eyes, a chitinous black helmet covered Delilah's head. Powerful wings, like those of a Dragonite spread from her back. The woman raised her hands over her head and unleashed a powerful Aeroblast attack. There roof of the building, and the three intervening floors, were all blown away and Agent Omega launched herself into the skies.
Below her, a trembling Misty ran for the exit in the directions that she had been given by Mrs. Ketchum... No... she didn't think that was who had given her those directions at all.
======
Ash was being taking away from the base in a military ambulance. A nurse was fighting a losing battle with the boy's immune system while trying to keep him sedated. Suddenly, the ambulance lurched to a halt, throwing the woman to the front of the compartment.
"What the...?" the driver began to ask, when he saw the being illuminated by the headlamps. What looked like a cross between a dragon-type, a bug-type and a fighting-type Pokémon had dropped out of the sky and had stopped the ambulance with one hand pressed to the grille.
Omega blurred forwards and punched through the windscreen. She grabbed the driver and the soldier riding shotgun by the front of their shirts, pulled them through the window (shattering the remains in the process) and then tossed them into some nearby trees.
Omega climbed onto the roof of the driving compartment and then peeled open the roof of the main compartment of the ambulance as if it were a sardine can. Mother and son looked at each other.
What have they done to him? Delilah thought in horror, terrified by what she could see of her child's state. The nurse had staggered to her feet and looked up uncertainly at the demon perched on the roof of the ambulance. "Run away," Omega advised, her voice colder than liquid nitrogen. The nurse didn't need to be told twice.
Omega tore the IV lines from her son's body and ripped of the rip-proof webbing straps from his body. Hugging her son as gently as she could, Delilah rose into the skies. From the height in that she was, she could see the entire Clearview Valley Base. Her first impulse was to eradicate that damned place from the face of the Earth. She don't even want to think in what they had done to force the new mutation of Ash's genetic code... For him to use earth-type powers in his escape attempt...
Then she looked at for her son. She didn't have time to take revenge. Her obligation now was to care for Ash. "I will be back, gentleman." She hissed.
======
Misty stood with her arms folded around her in a desperate attempt to keep warm. Her swimming costume (her captors had seen no need to give her a change of clothing) offered her no protection from the icy mountain wind that blew across the patio.
There was a rustle of leathery wings and Omega dropped to the ground before her, holding Ash. Misty gasped in horror when she saw the condition of her boyfriend. He was battered and bruised. He was trembling as if he had a fever and his eyes were glazed with pain and delirium.
Delilah Ketchum extended her hand to Misty, who cowered back with a childish sob of terror. Her first instinct was to say something like: 'Come with me, if you want to live,' but something told her that this would be very counter-productive. "Come on," she said at last, putting as much kindness into her voice as she could.
Misty shrank further back in instinctive fear. Delilah couldn't blame her. Hell, she was frightened of herself most days, so why shouldn't this innocent child be afraid of her? "Please come with me, Misty. I swear that I will not harm you in any way."
Uncertainly, Misty reached out and let Delilah take her hand. The winged woman tucked her under her right arm (Ash was under her left) and, suddenly, her feet were not touching the ground.
Slightly more slowly than usual (because of her passengers), Delilah rose into the sky. There was a sparkle of a Teleport, and then all three were gone.
======
Jessie looked through the window of their cabin, trying to find some order in her chaotic thoughts.
She, James, Mondo and Meowth had already looked at most of Project Omega files. She already knew what had happened.
Like or not, she had to admit the fact: Delilah Ketchum was her aunt, Delia Darkholme, a former Rocket agent of some renown. It also confirmed something that Jessie always suspected: Gibson was not her surname - her real name was... Jessica Darkholme.
Her mother, Diane Miyamoto, had been murdered by the order of Leader of Team Rocket at that time, the mysterious and sadistic Madame Boss. Her aunt had discovered and tried avenge her little sister; Her scheme was uncovered, and, as result, she was transformed into the living nightmare that was Agent Omega... a puppet monster in Madame Boss hands.
Team Rocket had destroyed her family.
"Jessie?" She turned. James was looking at her in his usual innocent puppy-dog way. "Are you okay?" He asked. 'That is the most stupid and imbecile question than I did in my life,' he thought.
"No, I am not." Jessie said in matter-of-factly tone, at same time that hugged herself.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked mournfully. For James, it was obvious that she would abandon Team Rocket. He had already decided that he would go with her and to hell with the consequences.
"Well, before anything else, I have a family gathering to attend."
"Huh?" That answer he didn't expected.
"I have to meet the Tw..." She stopped and smiled. "I have to meet Ash... my cousin." She sighed. "That is, if he and my aunt believe that I am their kin..."
Her partner just hugged her. He didn't see her eyes narrow in that familiar dangerous way. 'Team Rocket will pay for this,' she promised herself.
======
Two hours after departing the base of Sector Athena, a former Team Rocket agent and her two Pokémon Trainer companions were at the house in the suburbs of Goldenrod City. Delilah, who still maintained her armour and her familiar "human" face, was putting cold compresses on Ash's forehead. He still shook with fever.
"What is wrong with Ash, Mrs. Ketchum?" Misty finally had the courage to ask. She just couldn't understand this woman. One moment, she was the kind, maternal figure that Misty had known for four years, taking every step to keep her son safe. Then, without warning, like she were Ms. Hyde to a Dr. Jekyll, she became a living weapon, able and eager to destroy absolutely everything that stood before her and her goals.
"Ash is suffering from withdrawal syndrome, Misty," Delilah reported, before giving Ash another gentle dose of Soft-boiled.
"How come?" For all that Misty knew, abstinence syndrome was something that alcoholics suffer when they try stop of drinking all of sudden...
"During his stay at Sector Athena, Ash was kept under near-continual sedation," Delilah said with a sigh. "They probably didn't intend it, but they needed to use such high dosages of the drugs to overcome his immune system that he became addicted to them. Now his body is trying to deal with the sudden absence of those chemicals in his system." The mutant woman sighed when she noticed Misty's confusion. "To stop his healing factor, they filled him with imunosupressor drugs, like those used on people having organ transplants. At the same time, they injected essentially toxic amounts of hallucinogenic drugs. As Ash's body could not fight against the drugs, his body adapted to them. Then to continue the confusing effect, they increased the amount of hallucinogens, creating a declining spiral of dependency. Now, without those drugs, Ash's immune system is trying to reverse the adaptation." Delilah kindly removed a fringe of black hair that had fallen over her son's eyes.
Ash opened his glazed eyes. "Mom..." he whispered.
"Shhh, Ash. You have to rest."
"Forgive me. I'm sorry..."
'For what, for God's sake?' Delilah thought. "Ash, don't worry. Rest."
Ash couldn't restrain his feelings of guilt. "But.. mom... I betrayed you. I told them about the AO-X..."
"Ash..."
"But they would hurt Misty... They said that would rape her..."
The orange-haired Trainer was horrified. Delilah understood everything on the spot. That damned General of the Sector Athena had attacked her son's most vulnerable part, his heart, through his strongest feeling, his love for Misty. Ash didn't have a chance of resisting such methods.
"Misty, could you leave us alone for a moment? Please?" The mutant woman asked.
Misty didn't make a habit of refusing a request from a woman who could kill her with a small gesture. "Sure," she said.
Delilah looked in the eyes of her only child. "Ash... everything is ok."
"But... Mom ... I..."
She gently put a finger in his lips. "It was not your fault, Ash. Don't blame yourself for that. Please." She pleaded. He seemed lost. He didn't know what to do. "Ash, you can cry."
"What?"
"I said that you can cry." Delilah explained.
For a minute, he hesitated in confusion. Then, he hugged his mother hard, leaning his head on her shoulder, and cried. Delilah hugged her son kindly, rocking him gently. From her back, two wings, like those of a Pidgeot, appeared, covering the young Trainer, as if protecting him.
From the door, Misty thought that the impression given was of an angel comforting a beloved, innocent soul. Moreover, in a certain way, that was what was happening.
What do you think? Read and Review!
To be continued...