The Omega Mutation
by Joshua Falken

Thanks to BenRG for beta read this chapter :-D

Chapter 14 - The Return of the Agent

Some minutes after the attack at the train station, two youths had got a room in Goldenrod City's Pokémon Center. According their Pokdex, they were David Witwer and Demi Wyman, from Vermilion City.

The first thing that David Witwer (alias Ash Ketchum) did was call Professor Samuel Oak on the videophone. Ash knew that he was taking a risk: the phone line could be bugged, or by Team Rocket or by the UNDF (and he wasn't sure which was worse).

"Come on, Tracey! Answer it!" he hissed at the dark screen. Behind him, Misty looked him apprehensively. Ash had always been a little impatient, but now he was aggressive...

A dark-haired young man with a lab coat appeared in the screen and he answered formally.

"Pallet Town Pokémon Research Center, Researcher-Assistant Tracey Sketchitt speaking," he said, tired.

"Tracey, it's me!"

The Pokémon Watcher was very tired, what explained why he not recognised the blond boy with a Pikachu on his shoulder.

"Who are you?" he asked confused.

"It's me! Ash!"

"A...ASH?"

"ASH?!" an older voice exclaimed. In the following instant, the image on the screen was changed to that of a grey-haired and incredulous face of Professor Samuel Oak. "MISTY? Where are you? What happened? Where is Delilah?"

Due to the borderline-toxic amount of adrenaline still running in his bloodstream, Ash needed all his willpower to not yell at the man that had helped his mother for all these years to shut up. "Professor, Misty and I are fine, but we needed you to send us Charizard and Dragonair to Goldenrod's Pokémon Centre." The Pokémon Researcher felt a cold shiver race down his the spine as he gazed into the young Trainer's eyes. His usually gentle and friendly eyes now had had a cold and aggressive shine. In many ways, it was similar to the cold, emotionless gaze of Omega... He left his nightmarish daydreams, when Ash told him: "... but you will have to disguise the user's IDs so they are recorded as the Pokémon of David Witwer and Demi Wyman."

"Who are they?"

Ash just pointed to himself and Misty.

"Oh! I understand!" Oak murmured to himself (although, truth told he didn't). "I'll need the ID code of your Pokédex if I am to disguise the Pokéballs' ID codes."

Ash slotted his false Pokédex in the data reader.

"But Ash... what happened?"

"Team Rocket captured my mother," he said, the direct simplicity of his words carrying none of the horror that he felt at this turn of events.

"My God!" Sam Oak knew that that was the worst thing than could have happened: Team Rocket not just had their perfect weapon back, as Oak was sure that Delilah would lose her sanity, coming back to be the Agent Omega... An electronic tone rang out.

"Well, I have received the data, Ash. I should send your Pokémon within the hour."

"One hour?!"

"I need that time to reconfigure the registry of the Pokéballs."

"Very well," Ash hung up without any other parting words.

When he put the phone on the hook, Samuel Oak noticed that his hands are shaking.

== == ==

Meanwhile, a military HMVVR jeep stopped with screech of tires, in front of the United Nations Defence Forces Headquarters for the Kanto region. From it jumped a black-haired man in the uniform of a General. A black-haired woman, Captain Katherine Pryde, and two men, Major Thomas Quaid and Lieutenant Robert Logan quickly followed General Kent Williams out of the vehicle. They were the military officers who Williams trusted the most. And trust was something necessary for this mission.

In front of the building, Generals Mercedes Heisenberg and Kenshin Mitsuragi awaited Williams' arrival. The oriental man noticed immediately that his comrade-in-arms was in a deadly serious mood. "What's going on, Kent?"

Williams didn't bother to answer. He just asked: "Is Straker there?"

"Yes, he is finishing his report to the General Secretary and the Security Council."

Williams and his group swept past them without anyone saying anything else. After a moment of confusion, the commanding officers of the Orange Islands and Johto region UNDF followed them. They caught up just as they boarded an elevator.

"Kent, what the hell is going on?!" General Heisenberg exclaimed, when she saw the group of soldiers pulling out their weapons and ensuring that they were ready for use.

"What is happening, Mercedes, is that I am going to arrest Straker."

Mitsuragi immediately pressed the emergency button that stopped the elevator. "Williams, have you gone mad?"

"No, Kenshin. I am perfectly sane," The general decided that he owed the other man an explanation of some sort. Even his own people, Williams noticed, wanted more details. "Before everything, I have to warn you to keep what I am about to say secret." Everybody agreed with a nod. Williams knew that could trust them. "Mercedes, do you remember that you told us that being that attacked you said that its son was in our power?"

Mercedes Heisenberg nodded mutely. She had those moments in the Hall of Fame of the Orange League seared forever in her memory.

"Well, that was true."

"HUH??"

Kent Williams told them what he believed to be the truth, based on what Misty had told him, on his 'chat' with Delilah/Omega and in what he had discovered in the files of the Military Intelligence service in Kanto.

"Good. This is what I think that happened: Team Rocket kidnapped an inhabitant of Kanto and submitted this person to a treatment that transformed it into what they called 'Omega', the being, as you all know, that destroyed several facilities of UNDF recently. Cross-checking the files I have discovered that she probably also was the perpetrator of a series of attacks claimed by Team Rocket about fifteen or sixteen years ago. Well, I now suspect that those attacks stopped because Omega escaped from Team Rocket's control and fled for an unknown part of Indigo Island, where she lived under a false identity for all this time. During this time she somehow became mother to a son. Straker somehow discovered her identity and, as the imbecile could not let the opportunity to have the perfect weapon in his hands pass him by, he tried to use its only weak point: the love that she felt for her offspring. Straker kidnapped him, thinking that Omega would surrender, but instead of that, she went onto the offensive, destroying each base of UNDF that she found in her way. Finally, she found her son in the last base that she attacked, Clearview Valley base, Straker's base."

Captain Kitty Pryde looked at Williams with doubt. "But, General, how you can be sure..."

"How can I be sure that what I am saying is true? Good question. Because my main source was the girlfriend of Omega's son, kidnapped by Straker and freed by Omega. And if you are wondering if her information it is reliable, well, I can personally guarantee the veracity of her statements."

The officials absorbed this in silence. Lieutenant Logan commented: "Do you know, sir, that what will you do now can be considered a sort of small-scale mutiny?"

"I'm aware of that, Robert, but I believe that that is the only possible action. After all, several lives were lost because of Straker's foolhardy attempt to enslaving somebody that only wants to remain undisturbed to live her life in some quite corner of the region."

"Do you want help?" General Mitsuragi asked, after a long pause.

For the first time since his arrival at the base, Williams smiled. "I would become very upset if you didn't help me."

The emergency button was pressed again and the elevator began to rise. On the 26th floor, the doors opened up and Williams's group went in the direction of the satellite conference room. As soon as Jeffrey Straker walked out of the room, someone grabbed him by the left arm. He was quickly handcuffed and, when he looked up, it was down the barrel of his greatest rival's customised 50-calibre Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol. "Major General Jeffrey Straker, under section 24, paragraph 15 of the UN Global Code of Justice, you are under arrest for the kidnapping and illegal imprisonment of Misty Elizabeth Williams and Ash Ethan Ketchum. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney at law present at your questioning. Should you give up your right to silence, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law."

"Did you gone mad, Williams?" was all Straker could splutter.

"My dear Straker..." Misty's father commented, in a tone as cold as liquid helium, "You do not have the first idea what I am like when I get mad. Be very careful, or you might find out."

At that moment, a lieutenant ran into the room and stopped, petrified and confused by the scene that he found. "What do you want, Rollins?" Williams snapped, his gun not moving a millimetre from its' place pointing at Straker's right eyeball.

"There is something you should see on INN, sir," the young officer said urgently.

Captain Pryde turned a portable TV at the receptionist's desk and she heard Michelle Crossridge's voice. "INN is able to bring you this exclusive footage of a Team Rocket attack on the Goldenrod City magnet train station, where their forces were attacked by an incredible being, seemingly part human and part Pokémon!"

== == ==

Ash received the Pokéballs containing his Charizard and Misty's Dragonair at the very moment that INN began to play their exclusive footage. The boy's eyes narrowed as he looked at the image of his mother fighting against Team Rocket.

"Professor, we are on the way," Ash said slowly, before hanging up the phone again.

Within minutes, Ash and Misty were releasing their Pokémon outside the Pokémon Center.

"Charizard, fly to Pallet Town like you never flew in your life before!"

Two sonic booms echoed through Goldenrod City.

== == ==

Another person that saw the special bulletin was the leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni Carpenter. Giovanni watched with interest. 'So, the world now knows about Omega,' he thought, looking at the now-darkened monitor screen. He briefly considered if this altered his plan. In the end, he decided that it did not. For now, he would continue with his strategy as he had originally planned. He began to caress his Persian. "Selina, would you like to see your old friend?" Selina the Persian gave her Trainer an odd look.

Some minutes later, the leader of Team Rocket was in the Main Laboratory of Project Omega. Domino and Prof. Ivy were there too. In the center of the room was the containment chamber, where Omega floated with her eyes closed.

"Congratulations on your fine performance, Domino," Giovanni said. The young blonde woman visibly preened herself. Giovanni shot her a sour look. "You will be glad to know that I have, therefore, decided to let you live. You are dismissed."

"Thank you, Boss," She replied, thankful that her employer didn't seem angry with her anymore. After her exit, Giovanni ordered that Ivy explain the control panel that governed the level of self-awareness and motor control that Omega possessed. After ensuring that he understood, Giovanni ordered the scientist to leave the laboratory.

"Giovanni," Ivy said nervously, "do you think that is wise? There has been a neurochemical drift in Omega's central nervous system and."

Giovanni's expression did not alter one micron. "Madeleine, go," he said levelly. Despite the lack of tone, Ivy realised that her employer wasn't interested in her opinion.

Professor Madeleine Ivy left the laboratory, feeling sick. She had caught the subtle glance that Giovanni had given to Omega. "He still likes her," the geneticist thought, wanting to be sick. "In spite of her to having tried to betray Team Rocket, despite the fact that she is little more than a biological robot, he still thinks in her as 'Delia'... And he still wants her."

After ensuring that there was nobody in the laboratory, he adjusted the controls carefully. Omega opened her serpent-like eyes. Although the woman's body remained as rigid as steel, there was suddenly awareness in those alien eyes. Now she was suddenly a talking head with a doll body.

Giovanni and Delilah looked each other in the eyes. "It is a pleasure see you again, Delia."

The mutant woman was confused. She didn't recognise the man with the slicked-back black-haired.

"Who are you?"

'I should have expected this. She hasn't seen me for a long time,' he thought. "Perhaps this helps," he said aloud, messing up his hair a little (the gelled hair look was one that he had only recently adopted).

"G-Giovanni?" Delia Darkholme's eyes bulged out in surprise. Honestly, he was the last person that she thought to see...

"Yes, Delia," Giovanni replied with smug smoothness. "It is good to know that you still recognise me after all these long years. I had feared that you might have forgotten me. Of course, I still remember you... very well."

"Well, you have changed a lot," Delia commented, trying to keep calm as she tried to process the presence of her erstwhile lover. Trying to cover her confusion, she looked around. "Where are your mother, Madam Boss? I would have thought that she would have been here to gloat, the bitch."

Giovanni thought that he should be angry at this description of his mother. Such a shame that he entirely agreed with Delia. "She died two years after your escape, Delia. Stroke."

"I'd offer my condolences, but I was always a lousy liar," Delia commented tartly. "If I could move, I'd be dancing a jig. As things stand, I'll just have to content myself with happy dreams." Much to Delia's disappointment, Giovanni didn't reply, except to widen that damninable, insufferable smirk of his. "And you? What are you doing here?"

"I just came to see you before your mission," Giovanni replied.

"Mission? It surprises me that you of all the people think that I would work for Team Rocket ever again!"

"I don't remember to have said that you had choice..." Giovanni replied, patting the control console.

Omega growled. "You were always the "company man" type!" Giovanni just shrugged. It was important to him that Delia think that he didn't care about her fate. "How did you find me in Goldenrod?"

The leader of Team Rocket laughed. "Delia, if you want to hide away from someone who you yourself introduced to the joys of J. R. R. Tolkein, then you should chose a different name than 'Arwen Elessar' for your assumed identity!"

Omega closed her eyes, realising her mistake. When she opened them, they had icy shine. Giovanni shifted nervously, suddenly remembering Ivy's reservations about this exercise. "What you did with Ash?" Delia said, her voice suddenly icy cold and deliberate, holding promises of unthinkable torment to come if she did not like the answer.

"Nothing," Giovanni replied, puzzled. Why should she believe that he had done anything to her spawn? "To my best knowledge, he is still in Goldenrod."

She didn't believe in him. "Giovanni, if you did some thing with him, I swear that..."

"Delia, why I would be interested in your son?" He interrupted her. "You are the asset that Team Rocket needs to continue towards its' objective."

Suddenly tiring of the conversation, and tiring of the ambiguous emotions that it provoked, Giovanni Carpenter pressed a button and the mind of Omega returned to that of a precise, emotionless, living weapon. He arranged the hair and left accompanied by his Persian.

In the silent and empty room, only Omega's sightless eyes saw the warning that appeared on the control console's monitor.

'SYSTEM ERROR 005 - CONTROL INTERFACE DISRUPTION
'Control sequence error due to neurological pathway incompatibility. Control efficiency 98.5% +/- 1%
'Press 'A' key to recalibrate control interface.
'Recalibration not selected! WARNING! If recalibration does not begin in fifteen seconds, system will reset and assume current efficiency as 100%.
'SYSTEM MESSAGE - CONTROL INTERFACE RESET - Control efficiency now reporting 100%, option to recalibrate no longer available.'

== == ==

In Pewter City, unaware of the events transpiring around the region, Brock Harrison was feeding his Pokémon with a special food supplement that he was developing, when he heard an voice calling him: "Brock! Come and see this!"

"What's up, dad?"

Flint Harrison pulled his older son into the sitting room of the Gym Leader's residence by the sleeve of the T-shirt. "Team Rocket have captured a mutant Pokmon! It is being reported in a special bulletin!"

When he entered in the living room, Brock found his siblings watching the well-known new anchorwoman Michelle Crossridge: "... the authorities still do not have information regarding the mystery being that was captured by Team Rocket..."

INN repeated some clips from the battle in the train station. Just for a moment, the face of Omega was clearly visible. It was enough. Brock's mouth went dry, his eyes bugged out (probably for the very first time in his life) and his legs became weak.

Brock turned to his father and spoke in a tone that allowed for no discussion. "Dad, keep the gym closed until I return. Keep Steel, Ruby and the other ones inside of house and always keep your Pokémon nearby."

Then Brock released his Stellix and jumped on top of it.

"But Brock... where are you going?"

"To Pallet Town!" the Gym Leader shouted out before leaving at full speed.

== == ==

Tracey watched while Professor Oak walked to and fro through the lab, running his hands through his hair in a demonstration of excess nervous energy.

"This can't happen, Tracey! It can't! Now, even if Delilah somehow manages to escape from Team Rocket, and I don't see how that will be possible, she won't ever have peace! And Ash neither! I mean... eventually somebody is going recognise her and." the researcher stopped his pacing and sighed.

Tracey was not particularly skilled in interpreting human emotional states. Even so he was certain about one thing: it was not just because of compassion for Delilah Ketchum that his mentor was concerned - there was something more...

"Professor, do you like her?"

"What?" Oak was distracted, and he was not sure if he had heard correctly.

"Do you love Mrs. Ketchum, don't you?"

A shocked Samuel Oak had to think hard to answer that question - especially because that this was been a question that he had never allowed himself to ask regarding the mutant woman. Suddenly, gas began to seep from the ventilation ducts. Before they could react, they were all sleeping...

Professor Oak awoke when someone threw a bucket of water into his face. Blinking he looked around him, trying to figure out what was going on. He and Tracey had been tied up and put on the couch in his office. In front of him stood a man with lavender-blue hair, a woman with long, bright red hair and a younger man with brown hair. A Meowth, unusually standing on its' hind legs, stood on his desk. The humans were all wearing white uniforms with a familiar blood red 'R' sigil. The woman and the lavender-blue-haired man were arguing. "James, that was your idea to wake up them?" the woman screeched loudly, looking close to apoplexy.

"Hey, it worked! Didn't it work?" the man replied in a whining tone of voice. "They are awake!"

"Meowth! Stop dis arguing and talk to dem!" the Meowth said as loudly as it could.

"Team Rocket!" Tracey and Samuel Oak exclaimed at the same time.

"What are you doing here? If you think that we are going help you, forget it!" Tracey declared.

Jessie put the bucket over the Pokémon Watcher's head. "No one talked to you, you Pokémon Voyeur!"

Tracey fumed angrily under the bucket. There was not a more offensive insult for a Pokémon watcher than to be called a "voyeur"...

Jessie went back to the white-haired man and she asked in a low voice. "Well, Professor Oak, where is Mrs. Ketchum?"

"Now, that... You know very well that your organisation has captured her!"

"Oh no...!" Jessie murmured, placing her face in her hands. "They caught her, James..."

"Don't worry, Jessie." He tried to console her. "Perhaps we can free your aunt and..."

"AUNT?" Oak and Tracey shouted in unison. They didn't believe what they heard.

Jessie Darkholme was turned for them and spoke with an ironic formality. "Yes, my aunt. My name is Jessie Darkholme. Pleased to meet you."

== == ==

Giovanni looked at golden pocket clock that was on top of the desk his office. The time was almost 9:30pm. On the monitor on top of his table, he saw Omega. She was inside of the chamber, waiting his order. He activated the intercom. "Domino, begin the operation."

"Yes, Boss!" his agent's voice replied. The girl sounded eager. For reasons that Giovanni didn't want to think of, this made him angry.

In the monitor, Giovanni saw Omega exit the Chamber. The green black-slitted eyes had an inorganic shine. The gait was totally regular like that of a model... or of a robot. She looked at upward, at the same time that a door in the roof opened up. When she was completely illuminated for the moonshine, a pair of transparent blue wings left her back.

As she left for her mission in many years, Omega had really returned to being a robot without a will of her own... An agent of Team Rocket...

In his office, Giovanni swept the ornate golden carriage clock, a gift from his late mother, from his desk to the floor. The mechanism shattered and cogwheels and gears sprayed out in every direction. Giovanni looked at the mess in shock. "Now why.?" he said to no one in particular. "Why did I do that?"

== == ==

Jessie and James showed their hostages the files regarding Project Omega in an attempt to prove that they were telling them the truth. What they didn't know it was that someone, who possessed super-enhanced vision, was watching them from at distance.

"Damn, Team Rocket also caught Professor Oak and Tracey!" Ash hissed to the girl standing beside him. He was even angrier that the special security glass in the laboratory's windows stopped him from hearing what the villains were saying to their hostages.

Misty looked at Ash nervously. Since Goldenrod City, Ash's behaviour had changed subtly. He had become deliberate, cold and aggressive. It was almost as if part of the personality of Omega (and not of Delilah Ketchum - Misty still didn't think of the two as being really the same person) was activated when her boyfriend was nervous...

Misty spoke, trying to keep her voice level and calming, the way she would talk to her sisters' Gyarados when he got nervous. "Ash, go easy with them," she pleaded.

Ash blinked and turned to look at Misty, his eyes reflecting his anger and disbelief.

"Please!" She implored.

Ash looked at Misty, Pikachu and Chikorita. All of them looked scared. 'Are they afraid of me?' He wondered with some surprise. It was only then that he noticed that he was not acting like himself. "Okay, Misty."

Minutes later, Pikachu approached slowly behind Jessie and James, ready to distract them with a Thundershock. Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice cried out. "Jessie! James! Behind you!" It was Mondo.

The pair of thieves turned on time to see Pikachu and managed to dodge his attack. Jessie and James released Arbok and Weezing. Mondo released his new Flareon. With the odds at three against one, the things could have been got difficult for the electric mouse. At that point, the glass skylight exploded inwards and Ash's Charizard used Sky Attack on it. Ash and Misty dropped from the giant dragon-type Pokémon and released Chikorita and Staryu.

However, as the battle progressed, it became terrifyingly clear that the genetic imperatives of Agent Omega dwelt also within her son. "Everyone, duck!" Ash shouted. Pikachu, Staryu and Chikorita ducked as ordered as a titanic white-blue blast of energy shot over their heads. The Hyper Beam blew Arbok, Weezing and Flareon in opposite directions and knocked them out. Before the three Rockets could react, a Spider Web attack spat from Ash's hand and tangled them up.

Jessie swallowed dryly as she watched the Twerp... no, she couldn't rightly call him that anymore... walk in her direction, his eyes completely emotionless. A strange light seemed to glow in his eyes, and the white-blue nimbus of earth-type power sparkled around his hands. Ash knelt beside Jessie. When he spoke, it was in a curiously friendly manner that reminded Jessie of some of the nastier psychopaths that populated the ranks of the elite 'Red' Rockets. "Where is my mother?" Ash asked.

Professor Oak feared the worst. Misty had just freed his arms and legs, so he leapt forwards before Ash lost his temper and did something drastic. "Ash, don't hurt her!" he called out. "She is your cousin!"

Shocked at this revelation, the Champion of the Global League turned for his mentor. Then everything went dark.

== == ==

What happened in the Burning Desert Solar Power Farm, one of the main power plants of Kanto Region Power & Light, responsible for a third of the electricity of Indigo, was only understood a long time after the event.

At 9:45pm, a winged form landed in a hill close to the plain where the 'farm' of solar arrays and transformers were arrayed. Using her super-enhanced senses, Omega scanned the entire area. Unsurprisingly (the area was a strategic target, after all), there was a substantial UNDF presence in the building. The mutant woman immediately began to plan her strategy.

Seconds later a Diglett popped out of the ground inside the perimeter fence and ran over into the shadow of one of the power plant's outbuildings. A man wearing the uniform of a KRP&L engineer walked past. The man turned when he heard a quiet, liquid sounding rustling behind him. To his shock and lasting horror, a patch of the road was rising up and becoming a blue, translucent liquid that quickly took on a human form... His form! He was now looking into an exact mirror image of his own face!

An icy smile crossed Omega's lips as she grabbed the terrified engineer by the throat, morphed her right hand into a likeness of one of a Kabutops' sabre-like forearms and raised it to impale him through the heart. "Please, God no!" the man was babbling. "I've got a wife... kids...!"

Omega really did hesitate at that moment, when she heard the man speak of his family. When she replied, she deliberately used her own voice. "No..." she said quietly. "You haven't done anything wrong." Suddenly, she jerked the man forwards and head-butted him hard, knocking him out.

Omega hid her victim in the shadows and strode past the door security into the main control building. She looked up, noting the catwalk that led to the main control center. As she did so, the plant director walked up, completely fooled by her disguise.

"You returned fast, Andrew." 'Andrew' simply smiled in a way that completely failed to look human. "Andrew?" the man asked, concerned.

Omega transformed into her 'default' form and allowed a few seconds to pass as panic spread through the workers at the sight of the inhuman monster standing in their midst. Ever the show-woman, she grabbed the director and looked right into his eyes, her eyes shining green with malice. "Run away," she said. She didn't have to tell him twice. Within thirty-eight-point-two-five-five seconds (according to her perfect internal clock), the control area was completely empty of secondary targets. Her orders were to kill any person that stood in her way, but something was holding her back. It wasn't in Omega's nature to engage in introspection, so she just ignored the anomaly, filing it away for her debriefing. She turned back to her mission. Raising her hands, she unleashed a Thunder attack that shorted out all the controls in the area and cut off the supply of electricity from the plant.

The sudden loss of supply from the plant caused a domino effect, as the island's other plants were suddenly facing an overload as they tried to compensate for the loss. Automatic circuit breakers cut the plants out of the power grid before the overload could damage their generators. The whole island was blacked out.

Breaking the glass of the window with a Mega Punch, Omega jumped out of the control booth, and then 'surfed' down an ice ramp to the lower level. Several UNDF soldiers ran into the chamber. All were armed with powerful weapons. The mutant woman reformed her wings and waited for a few seconds to make it clear that the weapons were not affecting her. Then, calling on the electromagnetic powers of the Magnemite evolutionary chain, she tore the huge transformers from their concrete foundations and threw them at the soldiers. She then turned to continue her mission, neither knowing nor caring if the hapless troops had survived.

An infernal scream sounded. Her Sonic Boom attack blew out the wall of the building. Now, she saw the several square kilometres of solar arrays. Suddenly a fireball surrounded her. The kinetic power of the impact stunned her for a second before she realised that the UNDF were firing wire-guided missiles of some kind at her. Probably Dragon ATGW missiles.

Like a demonic Phoenix, Omega exploded out of the flames, completely unharmed. Quickly identifying the appropriate spot, she reached forwards and generated an Earthquake attack, which made the damaged buildings shudder and begin to collapse. Omega had no time to admire her work. She had to finish what she had begun. She transformed into an Onix and used Rock Slide to rip the solar arrays into useless bits of metal and plastic.

The soldiers only could watch the destruction, while they tried to save their lives.

After some time, Omega transformed back to her humanoid form and soared into the air on gelatinous blue wings. She fired off several Fire Blast attacks to finish the destruction of the power plant and then searched for survivors. Finding one, she swooped down.

Captain Taylor Young was trying to free himself from under a fallen concrete column, when he noticed that the terrorist mutant had landed and was walking in his direction. He was paralysed with fright.

Omega just let a DVD-ROM fall in front of him, offered the man an ironic salute and took to the skies again. As she flew back towards her home base, she noted another malfunction for her debriefing. For some reason, her eyes were producing... tears.

== == ==

While the Kanto region was blacked out, Ash, sitting in a pool of warm golden light provided by Pikachu's Flash attack, was trying to stop his head spinning. The files, on a laptop that Jessie, James, Mondo and Meowth had brought with them, had convinced Misty, Tracey and the Professor that what they were saying was the truth. He knew that it was important that he believed too, but it was so difficult. Jessie? His cousin? Part of his mind still didn't accept that.

Professor Oak had activated an auxiliary generator (powered by a group of tame Pikachu), when someone started hammering on the door to the laboratory. "Ash? It's me, Brock! Open the door!"

"Brock?" Ash exclaimed. What he was doing here?

"I'll get it," James offered. After nearly being killed by the Pokémon/monster Mark 2 that Ash seemed to have become, he was only too glad to get as far away from the intense boy as he could.

"James? What do you doing here?" Brock exclaimed when seeing who had opened the door. The Pewter City Gym Leader immediately reached for a Pokéball.

"Calm down, Brock! They didn't come to harm us!" Misty explained quickly.

"But..."

"Trust me," she said in a threatening tone. When Misty got impatient, mallets tended to appear in her hand, and Brock didn't want to spend time unconscious today.

"All right," Brock walked over to Ash looked directly at his friend. "Ash," he said, "the being that Team Rocket captured in Goldenrod City was your mother, Delilah, wasn't it?"

Ash jumped to his feet. "But, how...?"

"I recognised her in the video that INN were showing!"

Ash sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. The day was bringing too many shocks for his peace of mind. "Yes, Brock. It was my mother," he confirmed. He didn't see how he could deny that...

What the Boulder Gym Leader said next left everybody in silence. "I understand. And I think that I know who transformed her into.." he sighed. "what she is now..."

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To be continued...