The Omega Mutation
by Joshua Falken

Thanks to BenRG for beta read this chapter :-D

Chapter 15 - The Dark Lady of Valencia Island

Omega returned to the laboratory where she had been created. After the sliding roof folded closed, she turned in the direction of her containment chamber. At that moment, a screen lit up. "You executed your mission perfectly, Omega. Congratulations." The leader of Team Rocket said in neutral tone.

The mutant woman turned her head sharply and replied mechanically. "I am glad that my performance met your expectations."

Giovanni looked into her lifeless, green serpent-like black-slitted eyes for one moment, before dismissed her. He had seen a strange shine... would be tears? In his dark office, he scratched his chin, thoughtfully.

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"What did you say, Brock?" Ash Ketchum asked horrified, after a shocked silence.

"I said that know who transformed your mother in what she is now." The leader of the Pewter City Gym repeated, careful not to use the word "monster". Ash would be furious with that - he knew his friend well enough to know that.

The two girls in the group immediately grabbed Brock by the throat and started hurling demands at the startled man: "Who was that transformed my aunt into Omega?"

"Come on Brock, tell us!"

"Huh... Aunt?" Brock exclaimed, gaping at the red-haired Rocket in shock.

"Um... Brock, meet my cousin Jessie." That was something that Ash had never thought that he would ever say... "I'll explain later, okay? Now, please Brock. Tell us what you know about what happened to my mother."

The Boulder Gym Leader nodded and sat down in a chair. What he held inside of him had been hidden for two years... now he could tell what had discovered on that day in the Orange Islands... He placed his face in the hands and began to speak:

"Ash, you remember that while you were competing the Orange League, I was working with Professor Ivy, don't you?"

"Brock, what does that have to do with Ash's mother?" Misty asked in an irritated tone of voice. She had no idea why Brock had decided to talk about the famous Pokémon researcher who dumped him, much to his hilarious long-term trauma.

"I'm getting there, Misty." Brock replied with a deep sigh. "Well then, you know what a total mess her labs and offices were. Well, after I put the laboratory in order, I began to help her with her research. Soon after that incident involving the strange behaviour of Pokémon in connection with the abrupt changes of the weather, she asked me to store the data we collected in the computer. When I finished the service, for accident, I accessed an old file called GreekProg.pdf..." Closing his eyes, Brock Harrison remembered that perfectly day...

======

In the private office of the Director of the Orange Islands Pokémon Research Laboratory, Brock Harrison began to read the file and feeling sick, revolted. He didn't believe in what he was reading... if that was true, then...

"Have you finished yet, Brock?" a feminine voice asked.

The former Gym Leader looked up and saw his employer standing in the door of the office. He had enough presence of mind to close the file before she noticed he was reading it.

"Yes, Madeleine," he said (Professor Ivy insisted that he called her by her given name). He needed all his theatrical talent to answer her as casually as possible.

"Great. Shut down the computer and that will be all for today." Ivy slid inside of the office and walked behind his chair, placing her long hands on his shoulders. "Maybe we can take advantage of this early finish and spend a little time together?" she whispered sensually into his ear.

Brock resisted the sudden urge to throw the woman off of his back. Her touch, which previously excited him, now froze his blood. However, he was no fool and he knew that he had to continue to act naturally. "I'm sorry, Madeleine..." he said shaking his head. "Today has been very busy and..."

"All right," Ivy replied with a little disappointment in her tone. She patted Brock on the shoulders before walking away. "Maybe tomorrow?"

Brock turned off the computer and both had left the office.

That night, Brock paced back and forwards in his bedroom. His mind swirled like a hurricane. With his new knowledge, the memories of the intimate moments that he had passed with the Pokémon geneticist made him feel violently ill - Just thinking of her made him sick. But had he really seen what he thought that he had seen? He had to be sure.

Quietly, he left his bedroom and walked through the gloomy corridors to Professor Ivy's private office. The door was locked. Remembering an old political movie, he pulled out his Kanto Pokémon Breeders Association ID card and pushed it through the door to open the lock. Once inside the room, he turned the computer on. He typed Professor Ivy's personal password ("genome_queen" - that innocent expression had changed to have an entirely new and sinister meaning) and he located the file. He breathed deeply before opening the file.

Madeleine Beryl Ivy, geneticist trained at Celadon City Technical University, had co-ordinated for Team Rocket, under direct orders of the boss of the organisation, the Greek Alphabet Program. The project proposed to use genetic manipulation to create a half-human/half-Pokémon being combining the powers and endurance of the Pokémon with the intelligence and flexibility of a human. The result was a living weapon under the control of the terrorist organisation. The file explained each stage, each experiment upon human and Pokémon, experiments that the doctors working in the Nazi concentration camps would have performed if they knew the secrets of the double helix of DNA.

According to Ivy's notes all the "guinea pigs" died, sooner or later... Except one: Omega Unit 1A025, a female initially genetically altered solely with the polymorphic powers of a Ditto. According to the woman's attached biography, she had been an elite agent of Team Rocket who had gone rogue - no name given. The file continued showing the development of Omega's powers, describing the 'subject's growing list of lethal abilities in the way someone else would write a shopping list... "My God, something so powerful in Team Rocket hands?" Brock thought, terrified. According to the records, the Program was shut down when Omega died during a mission.

Brock tried to control his sense of panic.

Everything was there in black and white.

One of the most respected geneticists in the scientific community of the Pokémon Islands had performed experiments on human beings for Team Rocket. Madeleine Ivy played god to create the perfect biological weapon... for Team Rocket.

He only had a choice: he had to tell to the world the truth about her.

Brock inserted a DVD-r in the drive and began to copy the file.

"Well, well!" a cold voice said. "Look who has decided to play 'Boy Detective'."

Brock looked up to see taser stun-gun fire two electrodes on microfilament cables that stabbed into his chest. Before the kilovolts of electricity rendered him unconscious, Brock saw Professor Ivy's coldly sarcastic smile.

Brock woke up when his face was slapped. He noticed that he was at the beach behind the Laboratory, tied up and leaning against a wall. Before him, there was a violet-haired woman wearing only her lab-coat. In her surgical glove-covered hands, Professor Ivy held a pistol with silencer. The weapon was pointed unwaveringly at him.

"So, Brock!" Ivy said in an airy tone of voice. "It seems that you have found out about my time working for Team Rocket, haven't you?"

"How could you...?" He said weakly. He felt dizzy... Had she drugged him while he was unconscious?

"How could I work for them?" Ivy rolled her eyes in exasperation at Brock's naivete. "Money, of course... Not to mention the never-to-be-repeated opportunity to manipulate the human and Pokémon genomes without the idiotic interference of moral discussions and ethical committees." She smiled, and Brock saw how she actually was: an amoral, cold, manipulative and selfish person. The memories of the moments that had passed together now pained his soul, as a cancer destroyed the body.

Ivy interpreted his silence incorrectly. "Don't worry," she said, "I'm not going to kill you." She showed Brock her gun. "This is for self-defence only - in case you become... unreasonable." Brock swallowed dryly. Ivy's cold eyes showed that she was serious. She leaned over, moving close to his face. "After all, what evidence do you have? Nothing! I destroyed the disc and erased the file. Nobody will believe you if you tell them this absurd story."

Brock didn't believe that. Ivy knew she was in trouble and was trying to cover that with bluster. The Security Police would verify his claim. The League, reluctantly or not, would investigate that. Certainly, Professor Oak at least would check... "My word is worth as much as yours..." he murmured.

Ivy laughed, and she bent over in front of him. "I don't think so, dear." The scientist used the barrel of her pistol to move some of the hair out of Brock's eyes. "Who do you think the authorities will believe? The respectable and brilliant genetic engineer that won the Nobel Prize in 2057 or the simple local former gym leader who has always been known for his... shall we say 'emotional instability'?" Her smile gleamed like a knife in the darkness of the night. "It would be enough to say that I dumped you, that you couldn't accept that, and that you now want to take revenge. They would believe me because they would see that you are a total loser, worthy of pity."

Brock bit his lip to restrain a reply that would communicate his exact estimation of Professor Ivy, both as a person and as a scientist.

The gloved hand held his chin and Ivy looked straight into Brock's eyes. The woman's dark eyes seemed to lack any life or humanity. It was like looking into holes in her head. "However, if you do want to take the risk," she said quietly, "I would still advise against it. Think of your brothers and sisters."

"Don't dare touch them!" Brock shouted.

Ivy laughed scornfully. "Dare? Lover, what makes you think I have anything to lose? All I would have to do is make one or two phone-calls and... poof! They will disappear! Records will be altered and witnesses bribed. No one would bother to look for them. Perhaps, they might even be the test subjects for our. 'research projects'." Ivy's smile disappeared, substituted with a look of pure menace. "I put enough money in your pocket for an one-way passage to Kanto. If you are really intelligent, you will forget what you saw. Assuming that you really care about the fate of your family, of course."

The woman in the lab coat stood and, in a gesture of pure cruel bullying spite, kicked Brock's stomach, before yanking the knots on his ropes to untie him and walking away from him. When she was at twenty metres of him, she turned back and called out. "I'm sorry that our relationship finishes like this, dear Brock. But, well... That's life isn't it? You've got to take the good with the bad."

A humiliated Brock watched the woman walk away as he tried to get his breath back from the blow to his stomach.

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Brock opened his eyes and saw himself again in Professor Oak's Lab. His listeners didn't say anything. Not even Pikachu and Chikorita made a noise. He continued his story.

"Well, I was disturbed... confused. I went back to Kanto and I ended up in Pallet Town. I was just beginning to despair, Ash, when your mother found me. I never told her my story. Instead, I stayed here until that you came back from the Orange League."

Ash Ketchum finally broke the long silence that greeted the conclusion of Brock's story.

"So, it was Professor Ivy..." Ash murmured, in an indecipherable tone. Misty felt a chill. Just for a moment, she had heard Omega in her boyfriend's voice.

"I can't believe it...! Madeleine Ivy... doing something like that." Samuel Oak shook his head in shock. She had been one of his best students in the doctorate course. He had noticed that she was ambitious, of course, but to do something like that in pursuit of wealth and knowledge?

Ash Ketchum sighed. "Sorry, Professor, but at this stage of the game, I don't doubt it for a second."

"But, I still don't understand why you didn't denounce her anyway!" Misty blurted out.

"Because I didn't have any evidence, Misty! Without that, nobody would believe in me!" Brock lowered his head, ashamed of himself, trying to excuse what he knew to be inexcusable... "And I was sure that if I denounced her, she would carry out her threat to my family... Besides, Omega was presumed dead..." he didn't complete the sentence.

"When you were actually, although not knowing it, living under the same roof with Omega itself." James' voice was calm, as if the lavender-haired man was discussing the weather.

Ash turned and walked away from his friends.

"Where are you going, Ash?" Tracey asked, confused at his reaction.

Without looking at his friends, he answered, before walking up the stairs. "After the flood of revelations that I have heard in the last two hours, I am going to lock myself in a room... until my head is clear enough for me to decide what to do next."

Jessie noticed the concern in Misty's expression. She was feeling the same thing that herself.

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In that very instant, an emergency meeting was taking place at the headquarters of the United Nations Defence Forces. In the Maximum Security Room, the three Generals who commanded the Kanto Region's defence forces. On the other side, on the screen, the fifteen representatives of UN Security Council member countries and the General Secretary, Alexandra Faraday.

General Kenshin Mitsuragi thought that the virtual presence technology that allowed that kind of meeting was a good thing... because or else somebody here would be dead, with certainty. The representative of one of the fixed members of the Council said:

"... and, besides leaving this mutant terrorist free, General Williams still decided to arrest the leader of Sector Athena, our antiterrorist arm, on an absurd accusation of kidnap..."

"Mr. Robertson, I want to make one thing abundantly clear!" Williams's temper had flared. "General Straker kidnapped two adolescents, submitted both to illegal interrogation techniques and..."

"And he discovered the only weakness of that monster... Who has since returned to Team Rocket and destroyed one of the main power plants on Indigo Island." The diplomat looked at Misty's father arrogantly. "I believe that you are letting your personal feelings distort your priorities, General."

While Kent Williams fought to control himself, a man with a lieutenant uniform entered the room. "What is it?"

"General, Team Rocket left a message during its' attack on the Power Farm!"

"Play it!" The General Secretary herself ordered.

The lieutenant placed the DVD-ROM that Omega had delivered in a player. On the screen appeared the image of a man sitting in an elegant chair, with his face hidden in the shadows and the voice distorted by computer, while he stroked a Persian. It was the leader of Team Rocket.

"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen responsible for the security of the Kanto Region." The image in the screen greeted them, with an ironic tone. "I believe that you noticed the power of our new weapon, Omega, when she kindly turned off the lights of Indigo Island. I believe that, in the 'light' of this demonstration, you will be sensible enough to consider my proposal very carefully. If in a forty eight hours period, you not cede the control of the whole Kanto Region to Team Rocket, Omega will destroy each city in Kanto, beginning with Viridian City." The mystery man paused, as if he was aware of the horrified reaction in the room to his ultimatum. "To facilitate your decision-making process, Omega will give some demonstrations of its' power during this period. Remember: you have forty-eight hours." The screen went dark.

The General Secretary immediately assumed the control of the situation. "General Williams, Heisenberg and Mitsuragi, you are authorised to declare State of Emergency for the entire region. Make everything that is possible to protect the civil population and the strategic points against..." she sought the right word. "Against that monster. Meanwhile, you should also stand by for more instructions from the Security Council."

"Yes, Madame General secretary!"

The connection with New York was cut.

The three generals immediately began to carry out their orders. A knot of fear appeared inside of Kent Williams - how he could keep Misty and her boyfriend out of this crossfire between Team Rocket and the Security Council?

General Mercedes Heisenberg had another concern: "I only hope that the Security Council knows what they will do..."

======

Two hours later, the discussion continued in the UN Security Council Room. The reason was Mr. Robertson's proposal.

"... Mrs. General Secretary, we have to be realistic - the previous attacks of Omega against the UNDF bases showed that the conventional methods are ineffective against it!" He said emphatically. "Our only option is to use the ultimate force against her..."

"You scare me, Mr. Robertson." Robert Sugihara, representative of Kanto Region, interrupted. "You intend to bombard an essentially civilian area with quantum weapons!"

The other representatives observed the discussion in silence: their main fear was that, after conquering Kanto, Team Rocket would use Omega against their nations...

"We don't have any other choice. I am sure that the only way to respond to the threat of force is with the use of even greater force. The attack submarine UNNS Kraken is on patrol near Kanto. She is carrying eight Counterpunch-NR cruise missiles, each equipped a 250-megatonne matter/antimatter annihilation warhead."

"You are insane!" an Asian-descended woman declared. "Even detonating one of those nightmares might render most of the region uninhabitable! The fallout would certainly destroy everything that Project Eden2 is trying to achieve!"

"Not exactly." Robertson said with a thin-lipped smile. "Outside of specific targets assigned by its' masters, Omega will only attack what seems to be a menace to it. We can attract it away from the population centres and then destroy it with one hammer-blow. Project Eden2 won't be affected in a serious way. Unlike what it will happen if we didn't destroy Omega now."

The discussion continued.

======

Williams turned to Heisenberg and asked: "And the Andromeda-Wildfire Medical Research Center?"

"It is already in Total Alert." It was in that institute that the United Nations performed its researches on Level-Five biological agents. Any attack against that complex and the worst diseases in the history of Mankind might escape and... Well, no one was going to think to closely about that!

"Goldenrod City Nuclear Fusion Power Plant is also under Total Alert." Mitsuragi informed.

"Great!" Williams has just talked with Jennifer Bristow, the chief of the Security Police, who was now was placing the civil population of the entire region in the State of Emergency. Over the top of his shoulder, he looked at to see if his colleagues were looking at him. Seeing that they were busy with other subjects, he dialled his daughter's cell-phone.

"Hi there! Ha! Fooled you, you're talking to a machine," Misty's cheerful recorded voice announced. "But don't hang up, machines need love too. If you want to leave me, that's Misty, a message, please do so after the bleep. I'll pick it up and get back to you. maybe." Maybe the battery was flat, or Misty hadn't turned it on today... Or maybe...

On that moment, the main screen ignited.

"General Williams!"

"Yes, General Secretary!"

Alexandra Faraday seemed to have aged twenty years. The woman breathed deeply before giving her order, emphasising carefully each word. "According to the unanimous decision of the Security Council, the Defence Forces in Kanto are authorised to use any force necessary against Omega. If all other means fail, you are authorised to use the ultimate sanction of nuclear or..." Faraday paused before continuing, "...or quantum weapons. The submarine UNNS Kraken is already in course for Indigo's East Coast." She sighed. "General Williams, it was resolved that you will have the final authority as to if and when the Kraken launches her missiles."

Williams' mouth dropped open. "M-me?"

"Yes, General, you. One of the representatives of the Council is going there, to aid you in that decision. You must not permit Omega to attack Viridian City or any other population center!"

"I understand, Madame General Secretary."

The communication ended. Williams could only close his tormented eyes.

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Just some minutes later, Kanto officially entered a State of Emergency. The movements caused by this change were immediately communicated to the leader of Team Rocket. In his office, Giovanni allowed a small smile of satisfaction to grace his face.

"So, the Security Council decided to assume direct control of the region? Very well." He reclined in his chair. If they had declared the State of Emergency now, it meant that they had received his message at least 3 to 4 hours ago... Giovanni pressed a button, activating the screen of his computer. Accessing the system of the Project Omega's laboratories, he reviewed the missions already programmed in the mind of the mutant woman. Furthermore his agents had intercepted the load of AO-X originally destined for Sector Athena. This left the UNDF defenceless against Omega.

And, according to the reports of his spies, the offspring of Omega, Ash Ketchum was still at the Pallet Town Pokémon Research Center.

Everything was proceeding as he had foreseen. Giovanni smiled.

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In Pallet Town, James has just turned the TV on to know more of the causes of the blackout - and also to do some thing while Ash thought alone. Suddenly the TV screen changed to a sky-blue test pattern with the UN seal in the center. Simultaneously, the speakers blasted out the most terrifying scream that anyone had ever heard, bringing everyone running over.

As the others joined James, the shocked young man had just absorbed the meaning of the words underneath the UN seal: EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM.

A grey-haired woman with a Security Police uniform with a notable likeness to Official Jenny appeared on the screen. The legend in the screen identified her as Jennifer Bristow, Supreme Commander of the Security Police. Something that no one had ever seen before graced the screen, a red triangle in the upper-left hand corner. It was the symbol for a Red Alert - a warning of an imminent or ongoing terrorist attack. The woman looked at some notes before addressing the camera. "With immediate effect, the UN Governing Council has declared a state of emergency for the entire Kanto region," Chief Jenny announced in a tired tone of voice. "Due to an imminent terrorist threat to the civilian population of Kanto, the Security Police have hereby declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew."

"It seems like Team Rocket has already made the first move," a voice behind them said quietly. Everyone turned and they saw the source of the voice: Ash.

Tracey noticed the calm expression of decision on both Ash and Pikachu's faces. "Where are you going, Ash?" he asked.

"To Valencia Island."

"What for?"

"I will free my mother from Team Rocket. As I imagine that neither Jessie, James or Mondo have any idea from where they are keeping her prisoner, I think my best chance of discovering that is to ask Professor Ivy."

The silence reigned for an instant.

"So? When are we going?" Jessie asked. From the surprised glances directed her way, Jessie felt the need to explain. "Hey, she is my aunt too! And even she wasn't, I won't let Team Rocket have their way with her after they have killed my mother!"

"When are we going, Jessie?" Ash asked with a cold smile. "Right now, of course."

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To be continued...