End of a Reality

by Blue9Tiger and DarkMutatedBrock

[ Ed.: (Only up to the middle of Chapter 13 and the beginning of Chapter 14; Now, the credits have changed to...)

by Blue9Tiger and edited by DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana

(Blargness. XD;;;)]

*~*~*

Editor's Longass Note (DMB): .....HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT.

That's all I have to say.

Blue, you did a fantabulous job. :D Here's a cookie. XD

Especially with teh Brockness... Aw, that first bit with him in this chapter almost made me cry. ;~;

Okay, notes...? Notes, notes.... Well, everyone who has been following this fic and reviewing (THX 2 ALL OFF U I LUV U ALLL OMG)... um, right, anyway, you guys probably all hate me for burdening Blue with the task of finishing the epic quest of writing this fic all by her lonesome.

Not to say that you don't have a good reason to, but....

Well, the reason why I left the writing process is because I was getting behind on my homework... well, no, fine, the real reason is because I've seriously lost interest in Pokémon, and I found that when we RPed, I only wanted to skip to the FFVII bits....

Anyway, this whole fic began to feel like obligatory work instead of fun, so after a big fight with Blue and a long talk afterwards, we agreed that Blue could do the major writing bits, and I could come in afterwards and edit/proofread/format/HTMLize stuff. ^^ Plus, I get to inject my writing style in some parts and modify/lengthen/shorten stuff, me being the evil person that I am. D That's fun too... I HAV TEH POWWWEEERRRR, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.

So, bottom line, the rest of this entire fic is mostly the property of Blue9Tiger, save for the meager skeleton of a plot, and some minor adjustments by yours truly.

There, you can still hate me if you want. ;~; (Blue says I'm too hard on myself, but I really don't think so. O_o I swear, Blue, YOO HAV TEH INZAAAYYN STAMEENAH TO FINISH ALL OF ZEES SHEEEEET.)

Oh, right, I wasn't able to proofread this as thoroughly as I would have liked, but I promised Blue that I wouldn't stall on it and that I would upload it tonight, so here it is. ^_^ I'll probably come back later and adjust some small bits.... But anyway, enjoy!!!!! ^______^

*~*~*

Static fades to fuzzy picture. Five Rockets are standing in front of a video-phone. A Pokémon is flying around the room.
Picture is too blurry to identify any of the individuals..

Rocket 1:This is squad leader 27 reporting to central HQ. Heist was a success, we hid the goods under the
Pokémon Center. Awaiting further------

Pokémon: Zuuuuu!!!

Gunshots, yelling.

Rocket 2: Shit-----It's the cops...

Rocket 1: ...Attack!

Gunshots, Glass breaking, yelling, dogs barking. Four dogs and eight SOLDIERs come on-screen. They are armed with machine guns.

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 1: Stay where you are, all of you!

Rocket 3: Zubat, Supersonic!

More gunshots, Rocket is hit, high-pitched noise from flying Pokémon, screaming, dogs barking. Flying Pokémon can now be
identified as a Zubat..

Rocket 1: Jesus Christ-----

Dogs charge leader. Static, picture comes back, Rocket 1 is dead...

Rocket 4: Zubat-----

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 1: Surround them!

SOLDIERs, 3rd class, form a ring around Rockets. Gunshots, Rocket 2, 3, 4, and 5 are hit, Zubat is hit, high-pitched noise stops..

Rocket 6: Damnit...

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3: Stop!

Rocket 6 runs to video-phone.

Rocket 6: Squad 27 to HQ----need assistance----

Dogs move in from two sides of the room...

Rocket 6: C'mon, someone pick up!!!

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3 cocks machine gun.

Rocket 6: For the love of Christ, PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE!!

SOLDIER, 3rd class, 3 fires, static, tape turns off...

--SOLDIER raid of a Rocket agent's basement recorded with video camera on the corner of Azumao St. and Marumine Ave. in Vermillion City a day after the Pewter and Viridian City incident. Witness unidentified. No prints were found on video camera. No Shin-Ra investigation followed. Investigation conducted by Vermillion City Police Department.

*~*~*

Chapter 14: Down the Rabbit Hole

*~*~*

A smug smile adorned Cid's dirtied face as he stood up straight, crossing his arms over each other with a screwdriver in one of his gloved hands.

He turned towards Tifa, grinning. "Told ya it wasn't a match for me."

Her slumber, made light with years of necessity for alertness, ended quickly with Cid's gruff voice. With a yawn and short stretch, she was up and leaned over to stare at the pilot's handiwork.

"It sure wasn't." A pain as the no-mannered pilot was, in cases like these he was indispensable. She blinked several times and then leaned back. "I guess it should work now...."

Cid's grin suddenly turned into a scowl. "What? No 'thank yous'?" He turned around towards the piece of machinery again, grumbling something about his ship before he cleared his throat and put his thumb on a switch that was so carefully hidden behind one of the "tree's" branches. "Well, yeah, I should hope it'd work... And..." He flipped the switch upwards and grinned once more as a faint, crackling energy began to flit into sight between the tree and the one spaced a few feet away from it. "Voila!"

He backed away from it, putting the screwdriver away in one of his jacket pockets, pausing as the light from the so-called "portal" began to flicker, staring at it rather dubiously as he scratched at the back of his neck. Gradually, the feeble light revealed its true state as it shrank and swelled like the yawning jaws of a some threatening creature, causing Cid to say the fateful words:

"Now what?"

"We're going in," Tifa turned towards Cid and nodded decisively. "Barret and Red can't be too far...." They were now back to square one, except that Cid wasn't going to knock her down this time. The very aura of the portal radiated a whispered warning for them to stay back, but unheeding, she ran towards the glowing gap in the immediate air before them.

And then.....

"What're you DOIN', Tifa?!" Cid pulled her back like he had before, glowering over her. "We don't have a clue what could be on the other side of that thing, damnit!!!" He took a drag on his cigarette, and then widened his eyes as the faint light of the damaged portal began to flicker and die.

"What the....?" He turned towards a smug Tifa and then back towards the ominous light, grating his teeth against each other as he spit his cigarette out of his mouth. "Well... I guess we can just go through the damn thing..."

It flickered again, becoming fainter with each pulse of energy.

Cid narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, hell with it...."

He picked up his spear, and stormed bravely into the light.

The pilot vanished almost immediately, thickly veiled by the foreboding crackle of divergent energy flickering across the white hole. Determination flashing in her brown eyes, Tifa followed, bound for ithe unknown...

.....And smacked face-first into an invisible wall of energy that sent her flying to the ground.

Stunned, she lay on her back, blinking for a few moments before she dragged herself into a sitting position and was able to stare as the portal jerked outwards, then inwards, fluxuating dangerously for a second before it vanished into thin air. She wasn't a stupid girl; it didn't take her long to realize that there was no getting to wherever Barret, Red XIII, and now a hesitant Cid had been swept off to. With an exasperated sigh, she groped for her PHS that lay in her shorts pocket and pulled it out, staring down dully as she punched in the numbers "999", possibly one of the easiest-to-remember emergency lines on the planet. Whipping the device up to her mouth, she listened for an answer on the other end and shooting a bewildered glare at the sealed portal, she answered the vapid voice on the other side.

"Yeah, this is Tifa.... Yes, I know a few crewmembers have 'mysteriously disappeared'.... Uh-huh.... Okay, well, that's great, but tell Cloud he's not gonna find anyone else but me..."

After a few more toneless words, Tifa growled into the receiver. "YES, I know you couldn't find a note! ......Yes, Cid got it...... No, he's not here. .....No, I don't know where he is.... Why? Well, him and the other two missing members pretty much disappeared off the face of the-----YES, Vincent, we DO have a problem...."

*~*~*

"Butch? Why're you shivering?!? Only chickens shiver!"

Smack.

Automatically Butch's hand slid up to his cheek and he rubbed it gingerly. If his pride was hurt as well as his face, he didn't show it. But... DAMN, she was acting...well, pretty bitchy recently.

He narrowed his eyes in exasperation. "Hey, it's cold up heah. I'm no chicken."

"UP 'heah'?!" Cassidy mimicked Butch's scratchy voice rather cruelly and accurately at the same time, whirling around on her heel and glaring murder at him as she put the backs of her wrists to her shapely hips. "We're down in a BASEMENT, Sherlock! And it's not cold at all! Just.... brisk!" She turned away, storming down the hallway. "And speaking of brisk, that's just the way we should be walking! So stop stumbling and muttering and be USEFUL for a change!!!!"

For all his weak attempts at asserting virile authority, Butch ascquiesced and quickened his pace, the basement draft making him shiver all the more. Only Cassidy's caustic remark and the fact that they had a job to do kept his mind off the cold long enough to keep up with his sharp-tongued partner. Even sharper than usual, in fact, with the sudden chaos. It didn't bother him, really, though she had never pulled a Jessie on him, before. Why was she yelling at him, anyway? Why'd she suddenly find him the bane of the team?

"So....." Cassidy growled out the side of her mouth, oblivious to Butch's pondering. "Where do you suppose we should start looking?"

Butch's hands wandered into his pockets and he thought. Thinking was the thing that kept him on the Rocket payroll. Better put it to use.

"Whehe it's least obvious. This chick's smaht, so thehe's prob'ly a code or a switch... that'd keep anybody from taking it," he answered, scanning the narrow corridor for anything out of place.

"Well, then, if she's so smart, wouldn't she expect us to look in the most unexpected place?" Cassidy turned and walked towards a large, ajar door down the hall. "Therefore, wouldn't she want to put everything in the most obvious place, where we probably wouldn't look?"

Butch cocked a teal eyebrow and replied amdist a reddening complexion,

"Yeah." Man, why didn't he think of that before? He'd swear, Cassidy was the living proof that blondes weren't dumb.... or maybe she was nervous and was just trying to contradict whatever he said...? She did that sometimes... Oh, hell, he didn't know...

Cassidy lifted her chin haughtily, slamming the door open, blocking Butch's view of the contents of the next room with it as she marched inside, her hands on her hips.

"I swear, you're never any help! It's so aggravating that---"

There was a long pause. A very, very long pause as Butch watched Cassidy slowly back out of the doorway, her pupils pinpricks in her widened eyes.

"Hey, Cass, what's the matt--" Butch's eyes were soon in the same state as his partners as he neared her and looked up into the room ahead.

Cassidy's next words reflected what they were both feeling.

"Oh my....... OH MY GOD."

They stiffened to statues as they met with a horror that would make the things they did to Pokémon look like tender love and care. Everywhere in the room there stood rows of cages, stacked on top of each other, all occupied by mutilated bodies, their tormented forms dangling lifelessly out between the bars..... a lucky few were recognizable as Pokémon, or at least, what used to be, and the others...?

Cassidy stared in utter shock, frozen to the bone as goosebumps rose on her pale, cold skin. The gruesome spectacle was indescribable--like some lurid nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

And suddenly....

She realized....

They looked almost....

"B-Butch," Cassidy stammered, struggling to keep her shaking legs planted on the floor. "Is it just me or do they look.... kind of...... hu..... man.....?

"Human?" Butch forced a halfhearted laugh as he answered his partner with a bit more control than she had at the moment. "That's a joke. These things ahe definitely Pokémon.... Kinda human-lookin', but... nah, they could nevuh be..... "

His blood ran cold as realization struck him hard.

The boss...

Not him, nor Cassidy, or the wimp, nor that dominatrix recognized him at first. Yet, he was human. No reason these poor shits couldn't be, too.

He felt cold...Not colder than the stiffs were, but close enough. With marked hesitation in his usual sangfroid, the Rocket approached the unsettling cages, peering past the bars at the repulsive corpses, mangled beyond description. Fear crawled over his face and left a chilled mark upon it, starkly contrasting with his words delivered with aplomb and composure.

"They've been dead awhile." He indicated the slanted tally marks that some of them had made in the wall with their claws..... racking up the days, months, weeks, YEARS..... Butch did a quick computation from the number of marks and affirmed with an inward shudder, " Couple yeahs, maybe." The odor of an old batch of formaldehyde mixed with the stench of excrement permeated the death-heavy air of the room. "Presuhved good, too. They didn't rot. Smells like crap, though." He looked at Cassidy. There was a prolonged silence, neither wanting to voice their thought on this. An inevitable thought, that would ascribe these acts to the very person they were trying to aid.

Finally, he spoke.

"Cass... did... he.... did he know about it....?"

A grim conflict gripped the Rocket. Had they no pride for who they were anymore? Butch and Cassidy? The most merciless male-and-female pair in Team Rocket? Living for man's vices: power, money, and fame? They who regret nothing, no matter how heinous it might be? These were POKéMON, for crying out loud! They were like tools, only worth how long they lasted. If they were broken, throw them away. If you could get a better one, replace them. Who gave a damn if a hundred out of the thousands and millions died like this...imprisoned in cages--that's what they were there for, right? Cages were more effective PokéBalls.....if anything, it was a MERCY to keep them in cages rather than PokéBalls... you could see them, and they could see you. And there was more room in cages.

And yet, she remained dubious, though her demeanor reflected a complete shift of mindset.

"They're only...Pokémon," she said unconvincingly. Removing one of her hands from her waist, she pointed at the whole lot, assuming
a contemptuous air. "Not EVEN..." She crossed her arms and upturned her nose, closing her eyes to the macabre room and its occupants'
tragedy. "Only HALF..." She opened her eyes and looked steadily at her partner, unflinching under her acidic words. "Half-breeds are half the
deal, Butch. They aren't WHOLE, so what should we care if the boss DID know about it-----maybe PLANNED it, himself?"

Butch fell quiet. In his mind, he knew that appearances could be decieving. Cassidy knew it too, probably, she was just too proud to 'fess up. For all they knew, those could be.....

He froze, stiffer than ever. Cassidy arched an eyebrow and leaned into his face. "What's wrong with you, NOW? Are you still
SCARED of a few dead half-Pokémon?!"

The other Rocket remained quiet, and ventured cautiously but casually, towards one of the---what looked like a gored Charmander... at least its head and torso. The rest of the body was severely altered. God only knew what the poor creature's head would've looked like had the mutation completed itself. As it was, though, it had died before it could be fully consumed by the transformation. Maybe it was lucky.
Maybe they were ALL lucky.... maybe.

Cringing slightly, Butch reached between the grimy bars of the cages---judging from the dirth and filth his arm picked up as he groped
for whatever was inside...these hellholes weren't cleaned. Pulling his arm back he brought the squalid corpse against the vertical bars. Reaching in his other arm, he placed two thumbs on the Char-mutant's eye, and began to pry it open. His partner raised both eyebrows this time and leaned foward with a peevish frown on her face. "What do you think you're doing?!?"

"Call it gut instinct," he shrugged, straining to expose that eyeball, that he felt, somehow, would tell all. "Coulda swohn they'he---" He continued to open this long-shut muscle, as bizarre as it sounded, might confirm what he... no, what they were BOTH thinking all along. And then, he succeeded in opening the muscle, bathed in terror... and he gazed upon a completely... human eye . "Holy... shit," he rasped,
pulling his soiled gloves away from the human eye. "That one's...... was... human."

"You're.....NOT serious," Cassidy protested brusquely, though her own suspicions had already been confirmed. Hands on her hips again, she peered into the foul cage and saw the same thing. Her skin paled several shades lighter, and she stared at the rest.....these half-breeds.once her fellow human beings? Not that she gave a damn about her fellow man, but still...how could a Team Rocket operation cross this line... going as far to reduce a human to this state? No big deal if it was a Pokémon, but a human.....

She clenched her teeth and after a while, straightened. "Come on, Butch... lets keep going. We're here for that antidote." Her conscience pestered her, almost imploring her to look more closely at that once-human... but she didn't look back, almost afraid of who she might see.

The pair walked on through the rows of cages, both with lead doubts and suspicions in their minds. They kept foward, not letting their eyes wander, lest they see someone they knew. And yet, they could've been enemy trainers, maybe even police..... people that the whole of Team Rocket would love to see dead and buried. But in their minds, the terrified screams of the humans called out from beyond, grasping the bars of their prisons, wailing, crying, begging for some hint of relent.

This room of cages, of someone else's nightmare terminated with an untidy desk with a number of its drawers half-open and papers jutting out of it. The surface was crowded with all manner of writing utensils and penholders and a conspicuous stack of papers. It wasn't even paper-clipped or stapled. What looked like some of its contents lay cluttered around the desk in random places.

"Looks like someone was in an awful huhhy to get outta heah," Butch remarked, running his eyes over the slovenly-kept desk.

"Are you going to STARE at it all day? This might tell us what we want to know!" the blonde woman growled as she grabbed the stack and began thumbing through it. Butch followed her lead and rummaged through the drawers, tossing the papers around after he read them. As he cleared out the drawer, his still-soiled arm kept bumping against something heavier than paper, that clattered and rolled along the bottom whenever he moved the drawer. Slowly, the helter-skelter mass of papers diminished, and he exposed what lay underneath. Syringes. No surprise there. That whole time Cassidy stayed frozen, her eyes locked on the papers she was holding.

"Butch..... get over here."

The hoarse Rocket stood up and walked towards his partner, a little spooked at what he had just seen in that drawer, but otherwise
unshakable. He stopped next to Cassidy and scanned the stack of paper against her chest. "Look at this..it's a register of all the---" She paused to summon the word. "---Pokémon here." Her finger traced a crooked, quavering line across the first sheet. Butch leaned his head over the paper, reading the words, these words, unlike the human eye, PROVED every last one of their fears thoroughly.

[Ed.: I'm sorry... couldn't get this chart to format correctly... apologies.... ._.;;]

Specimen| Status | % Pokémon | % Transformed before expiration | Preliminary
RKTGRNT 001 Demoted 0.0 50 Yes
RKTGRNT 002 Demoted 0.0 50 No
RKTGRNT 003 Demoted 2.0 52 Yes
RKTGRNT 004 Demoted 0.0 50 Yes
RKTGRNT 005 Demoted 4.0 54 Yes
RKTGRNT 006 Demoted 10.0 60 No
RKTGRNT 007 Demoted 20.0 70 No
RKTGRNT 008 Demoted 30.0 80 No
RKTGRNT 009 Demoted 40.0 90 No

"Christ... they'he everyone that got demoted... Hahvey and Jack and Marie..."

The two Rockets exchanged narrowed looks. Regaining some of her composure but not her color, Cassidy set down the stack of papers---there must have been over one-hundred, each with the same, impartial, indiscriminate, inhumane list, climbing up into the double and triple digits, and not one of them being more than forty-nine percent Pokémon. She pursed her lips and lowered her voice to a dangerous tone... It was cold, icy, less hospitable than it had ever been.

"We'd better hurry up and find that antidote. The sooner the boss is back to normal..." She clenched her fist and uplifted her face, her eyes of stone locking with one of the mutant's that had died with its eyes open. A fellow Rocket. Turning around on her heel, she bit back the escalating rage until a sphere of blood formed on her lip, which she angrily wiped away with the back of her sleeve. "...The sooner we'll find out if we've been serving a traitor!".

Butch nodded and knelt back on the floor, pinching the objects at the bottom of the drawer and tossing them aside. They broke on contact with the floor, pricking Cassidy's ears up and setting off an alarm within her brain. A puddle of liquid gathered on the floor where the glass shattered. "Don't you know what those ARE?!" she demanded, promptly backhanding him. "We don't have a clue what will happen if we touch that stuff! Be careful with it!"

She picked them up gingerly and examined them, the eerie-colored liquids contained in the syringes making her recoil in fear. What if these were used on the---she gazed at the roomful of cages---Grunts? Slamming the drawer closed, she got up and refused to think about it anymore. They still had their mission to complete.

The plain-looking door that led out of the nightmare led upwards, and they mounted the stairs with an increasingly careful step. Clearly, the basement was deserted, but as professional thieves and swindlers, they could never be too sure. Their own shadow seemed threatening, when on any other mission it would be taken for granted that there was a shadow there. Now it seemed as if those shadows were of another, more threatening presence..one whose unmatched stealth would have them, the great Butch and Cassidy, overpowered.

They had already searched the first floor, which was Ivy's laboratory, but they adhered to the old caveat: "Leave no stone unturned." They ransacked the empty test tubes and their racks and blocks, checking under beakers, flasks, and of course, the syringes. But, nothing came up. No antidote, anyway...Which was then Butch uncovered a book on the counter.

"Cass, I think I found somethin'."

"Hm?"

"I think it's---a--jouhnal." He flipped through the pages of the notebook, the released cloud of dust dispersing throughout the room. The sheets were scrawled over in nearly illegible handwriting, boasting random information, no dates, as if Ivy was conducting several different experiments at one time and recorded her results one after another just as she was doing them, making for an inscrutable jumble of paragraphs. But there was one section of the notebook..a large chunk of it, under the heading of GEMINI/DITTWO, that dealt with entirely one subject. Her curiosity sparked, the other Rocket took the journal from Butch and began reading it aloud in her smooth alto.

"'My extensive research has led me to conclude that only 'humans' born with 50-100% can survive the process and turn out whole. Pokémon have a natural immunity to this lethal strain, and survive after it mutates. Dittwo and Gemini are immune to further mutations, and I can use them in future research, but they escaped and I can't locate them. I do know that Gemini has assumed the identity of a human, now called Brock---'" Cassidy's eyes widened as she broke the paragraph. "The kid....." she exclaimed in a hushed voice. "'When I determine his location, I'll make sure he finds his way to my lab..(and then the real fun will begin)..As for Dittwo, she was lost in the Andes Mountains-----'" Cassidy blinked a couple of times and laid the journal down. "You don't think that could be------?" Before Butch could answer she cut herself off and waived the idea. "No...it must be another sap." She continued where she left off. "'---but there's a chance I'll encounter her daughter. Alas, she is 100% human. The exception to this hypothesis are those who recieved preliminary treatments at an early age, (an experiment once completed will seal my vengeance), which makes it possible to change a human from 1-40 % Pokémon to 50-100 % Pokémon, and theoretically, hybrids. Because the Pokémon phenotype is recessive, they appear human in every way, but it only takes a syringe-full of the altering chemical
to set the change in motion, but they must have 1-40 % Pokémon in them. 0 % fails every time. Hybrid Pokémon, like any other trait, requires one of the parents to have this genotype and show it as a phenotype. In other words, one of the parents must be a Pokémon. In theory, hybrids don't need preliminary injections administered. There is no proof they actually exist. Not one was found in a 400 person sample----'?!?!?!!'" Cassidy set down the notebook overwhelmed and disgusted. "Unbelievable.." she gasped, grabbing the table between her fingers in order to steady herself. It was through uneven breaths that she read the last line, staring at it as if she was reading someone's confession to a murder, which was too close to the truth to believe. "'All results show that whether or not they were injected with the strain before, ALL 100% HUMANS DIE when the strain is introduced into their system.'"

Ivy had preached her sadistic ways through the words she wrote in such stark truth that it was as if she had never died, as if she was in that very room, speaking to them in her velvet monotone, explaining every despicable detail.. Cassidy found herself after a while, and regaining her breath, and her normal heart rate, she declared in distressed tones, "We've hit something big, Butch. This could mean people we know...people we work with..are Pokémon and we don't know it..."

"Yeah...but didn't she say those'he not real?"

"Theoretical, she said," the woman responded, the dead Grunts still imprinted on her mind. "Always a chance." She clapped the heel of her palm on her head in a brief turmoil of thought. They didn't survive, according to that psycho, because they were human. A fleeting question invaded her mind. She didn't know who her parents were, neither did Butch. They both felt they'd crawled out from under rocks and were
determined to paint the world crimson and ebony, without knowing or caring where the hell they came from. Could they be......?

It's all bullshit, she mentally concluded, leaving the table and walking towards the window, standing in the mockery of bright afternoon sunlight. Butch followed her, his hands jittering in his pockets, looking about nervously. He couldn't help thinking that the lab, with this many secrets that no one in his or her right mind would let snooping interlopers escape with, was guarded somehow...Yet, was this Ivy character in her right mind? He didn't hear any alarm, or see any Pokémon drop out from squares in the ceiling, but except for Professor Nanba, he didn't trust scientists...Pulling his hand from from his pocket, he tapped his partner on the shoulder.

"Cass?"

"What?---Don't touch me---you're filthy!!!" She recoiled from the glove that radiated the foul stench of something she'd rather not know the identity of. Butch shrugged it off, and pointed upwards with the same finger..

"Don't ya think the secuhity would've gone off by now?"

She blinked. It hadn't occured to her that a laboratory would be burglar-proofed. But THIS one, with its classified information scattered everywhere for the naked eye to see, there HAD to be a catch... Normally she'd never forget a detail like that.
Every move of their schemes was planned out....why not every action? But for some reason, she had completely overlooked this. With the flat look of someone who let something get by and knew it, she stated, bringing a palm to her mouth as a yawn
escaped her,

"Come to think of it....." Her eyelids grew heavier, this sopoforic element prodding her to sleep. Unseen, unheard, unsmelled, it crept over them, a weighty blanket of sleep. Butch slumped over on the hardwood floor in the path of the sunbeam, knocked out immediately. Cassidy joined him on the floor seconds later, mumbling as she connected with the floor, "Sleeping gas..."

*~*~*

Cid regretted that first step.

"God.... Why the hell am I doin' this....?"

The pilot found himself clutching his spear amidst a vortex of white beams of light, blinding in its fierce intensity. He had to shield his eyes to go further, and even then, it burned...it was like the sun was all around him except without
the scorching heat. In fact, it felt cold. Damn cold. He pushed on, the heavy trod of his combat boots soundless in whatever the hell he was walking through. What WAS he walking on, anyway? There wasn't any GROUND to speak of..... like he was walking on air. Moments later black immersed white, and the pilot felt solid ground very quickly. The fall was stopped abruptly by the ground, and his spear went flying out of his gloved hand and clattering several away from him.

"Aw, fuck.... stupid Shin-Ras.... picking a crap spot like this to dump people..." Cid remarked in his gruff voice. Rather light for his build, he rolled over and back, caught an equilibrium between his body ad the ground and snatched up the spear. He whirled around just in time to see the white hole vanish into nothing and leave a few
bolts of light as residue before nothing else remained of the portal. "Looks like I'm stuck here..." He swayed around, catching sight of a number of tall buildings, none of which were as giant as Midgar's, but still showing the mark of a large
city. ".....wherever the hell 'HERE' is." Across the street a whistle blasted through the air, and a puny, aqua turtle-like thing dashed across the sidewalk screaming something like "squeer-tal" in a high-pitched voice. Seconds later the whistle sounded again and a team of officers sped after it in hot pursuit.

"Shit," Cid said in passive bewilderment, and was swallowed by a sudden impulse. He grabbed his cigarette and lit up, then remembered that two of his party members were missing. "Better go dig up Wallace and Red Rover. Coulda gotten in major shit by now." Picking up his pace, he started a slow jog down the street past several small buildings and light traffic. As he headed deeper into the city that changed: the buildings were skyscrapers and rose haughty and immense above the ground. Stranger than that, some of them had a familiar-looking logo that he couldn't place the identity of...

Then he saw it.

Back from the dead.

A little smaller, but made the other buidlings look like toy blocks.

With that damn logo, modified slightly, but still radiating that same aura of arrogance and power.

"Shin-Ra-Silph Electric Company, Merging a way to a brighter future!"

"Fuckin' HELL?!" Cid shouted aloud, his cigarette dropping limply from his lips. Eyes wild with utter disbelief, he staggered back, rubbing his eyes to make sure it wasn't a mirage or a bad dream or..... SOMETHING aside from being real. But the damn image didn't go away. "Meteor wiped its sorry ass off the fuckin' planet!!!" he shouted, backing away some more. Then he heard a familiar voice, connected with a familiar body.

Blue feathers, manly pigtails, one eye, big fat Roman 13... yep, that was Lassie. "Dog-breath, what the fuck is goin' on here?! Few minutes ago, everythin's fine and dandy, I go through some light, then BOOM, there's crazy animals runnin' around with Shin-Ra in the middle of it!!"

The one-eyed lupine/leonine listened, waited, lowered his head and his voice, and whispered to the loud pilot,

"I think we should talk where we can't be heard." He dodged a Houndour that dashed into the middle of the street, taking off around the corner at high speeds. "Over here in this alley," he pointed with one of his forepaws, leading Cid into a dark recess between two of the less-imposing buildings. The glint of a gun struck Cid's eyes. Barret. Good, he found both of them. Now maybe he could find out exactly what the hell was going on.

*~*~*

When Butch and Cassidy awoke, the sunlight was gone. The wan rays of the moon filtered in through the smudged glass window instead. Cassidy shook herself awake, bringing one knee up and the other, rising to full height. Looking down she saw that Butch was still asleep, snoring loudly. Not feeling the least bit guilty about disturbing his rest, she planted the toe of her boot into her partner's ribs, waking him in mid-snore.

"Wake up! I hope you're not expecting a kiss or something, sleeping beauty!"

"Ugh..." Butch groaned, rubbing his side gingerly with two fingers. He blinked drearily, running his mud-colored eyes around the now-darkened laboratory. He gazed up and saw the imposing glare of Cassidy, whose hands were firmly and impatienly on her hips. "How long've we been heah?"

"Long enough," she growled irritably. She was only beginning to notice it now, herself, but she did feel a little more joyless than usual. Looking ahead down the darkened hallway that invited them with its solid shadow, she stated plainly, "We still haven't found that antidote."

Butch offered a yawn and followed hia partner through the connecting hall. On either side were closed doors. The door they hadn't looked in was no different than the others, except that it was locked. Cassidy had suggested they skip over that one to not waste time and come back to it later when they had searched the entire area.
She tried the door again, hearing that frustrated "click" as it refused to give way. Frustration growing, she planted her foot on the door and yanked at the doorknob, but the result was the same. She was glad that Jessie wasn't there to see her acting so unprofessional and incompetent..it might give her ideas that the elder was losing her touch. Hah.....fat chance.

Her teeth grit, she loosed a PokéBall from her belt, and whipped it aagainst the door. The metallic surface resounded against the finished wood as she called it out, the brown rodent materializing, bathed in white light. "Raticate, Hyper Fang that doorknob!!"

The brown rodent flung itself onto the doorknob, clipping its long incisors together, which dismantled the lock. Blinking, the woman wondered why she hadn't tried that sooner, but the main point was, that they could go in. Cassidy recalled Raticate more confidently, turned the knob, and the two Rockets dared a step in.

"Nothing heah," Butch affirmed. The room was sparse and bare, with no decoration of any type to speak of. A rather uninteresting room. Even if Ivy did decide to hide the antitdote in a conspicuous place, she might have picked another room. But, this one was locked, so it wouldn't hurt for a thorough search. They reached the middle
of the room, scanning for something, finding nothing. And then... that was when Butch saw a man standing behind several other men. They were cerulean-clad men armed with machine guns, and looked ready to use them at a moment's notice, except the one in white, who was peculiarly pushing up the lenses in his glasses. A rather unpleasant-looking person he was. Not to mention strangely menacing.
One of those people that didn't look like a threat at first, but wished you hadn't messed with. Not haivng seen him before, the Rocket exclaimed,"What the-? Who ahe you?"

The man behind the armed men slowly brought his piercing gaze level with the Rockets as he stared slightly upwards with an amused smile on his face. Butch got suspicious when there was something funny and he didn't know what it was.....usually
he didn't like the joke.

"How intriguing the human race is, isn't it? It, in fact, can be compared to this room. It enters the room expecting to find answers, and instead it finds..." He walked foward slowly, menacingly. "Questions. I myself travelled here from my lab in search of Belina, but I'm afraid she isn't here." He stopped walking, and swivelled his greasy head left and right in a quizzical manner. "You don't happen to know where she is, do you?"

Who did he think he was, creepy old fart? Blabbing about people in verbose gibberish? She knew some people could talk about nothing, but in so serious and strange a tone? They didn't have time for riddles.
Cassidy's face twisting into a snarl, she reached over and grabbed Hojo by his collar. The other didn't flinch once, not under the furious glare of Cassidy, and not under her commanding voice.

"Listen up, we're not answering any of your questions until you tell us where that bitch keeps the antidote!!"

In fact, he was irritatingly calm. Had someone come to him screaming that the world would be hit by a giant Meteor, he probably wouldn't even NOTICE...

"My.....the human race IS forceful.....is it because---" He placidly wormed his way out of Cassidy's grip, returning his spidery hands behind his back, hunching over. "--they think themselves superior? Ah, that must be the answer. Of course..."

"What'he you mumblin' foh?"

No answer, more "mumbling".

"But...what a DISAPPOINTMENT humans are when it comes to survival...they do believe they have been created to be masters of the globe, that this nonsense called God made them owners of creation...when in fact, a mere quarter-dosage of this-----" His left hand snaked into his labcoat pocket and he produced a syringe full of a liquid of dark rainbow. He held the thin tube horizontally between his thumb and index finger, rolling it carefully in between those two fingers.The colors moved about in a sort of portentous dance, a waltz of unforseen chaos, a tango of impending disaster.

Without warning, he plunged it into one of the blue-clad man's already ezposed arm, the one that was closest to him, and drained the syringe dry of the liquid and filled the man with it.. Butch and Cassidy's mouths fell agape as the victim's flesh began to twist and bulge, as his hands fell clamped on his head, that lost its hair, growing into fur, bright yellow fur, and the man himself shrinking, down, down...and as the entire process unfolded before the Rockets' eyes, Hojo smiled. His point was proven. And in what better way than visual, live proof? The transformation didn't cease there. The Pikachu shaded a pale green, before sprouting fangs and taking on a different hue of eyes. The rest of the mutation completed itself, and with
a scream that was more of a mangled "PIKA" than an intelligble word, the former SOLDIER fell dead. "As you can see, the result is self-explanatory."

Butch and Cassidy were too terror-struck to retort. Combined with the sheer...nonchalance of the man through that grusome spectacle terrified them even more. Any normal human being would show SOME type of emotion at the sudden
mutation and death of another human. He was completely unaffected. Unemotional.. Impassive. Detatched. Dispassioned. Dead.

Hojo was now half a foot away from the Rocket pair. He removed one of his hands from its clamped position to push up his glasses again. "So you see, humans in the evolutionary race, are the weakest contenders." He walked even closer, eerie viridian eyes practically glowing. "The present question is..." His other hand snaked to the corresponding pocket and he slid out a small gun-like mechanism. With deliberate slowness he raised the weapon in the air and levelled it at the paler of the two targets. He posed the fatal question."Are YOU worthy of participating?"

In the split second Cassidy stared down the barrel, she reacted.

"Butch, RUN."

And run they did. The two Rockets bolted out of the way of the swift projectile, which narrowly missed their backs and embedded into the floor. They cleared the doorway, another deadly syringe grazing a hair on Butch's head. Mad with terror, they sprinted down the hallway, the old, deranged man starting off after them, firing round after round of the demonic needles, with a slug's pace, step so light and unthreatening and yet radiating an impenidng demise.

Team Rocket exited the lab in a very different manner than they had entered it. They ran as if they were hunted, which wasn't far from the truth. They could almost hear the steady "chk" as the needles landed nearer and nearer to their targets. There was only so far one could run before their stamina gave out. But...if they made it to the edge of Valencia, they would meet----

A spark of electric determination jumped in Cassidy's eyes. There was one option open. If they pulled it off, they would survive. And if not.....The different outcomes weren't difficult to affirm. It was win all or lose all. Filled with a new determination, she ordered over the crunching and snapping branches:

"Butch, head for the sub!"

"Right."

They hurtled over the branches and roots, every shadow they saw the madman laughing in sick hysteria before he shot them down... and dead. They broke through the trees, the lower branches not merely a nuisance, but a barrier that would make the difference between hit and miss, the uneveness of the terrain not simply inconvenient
but deadly, the darkness of the night a double-edged sword, a cloak of stealth but bathing the path in obscurity.

Having Pokémon DNA doesn't sound so terrible now, does it? Cassidy asked herself ruefully as she and her partner crashed through the forest. Running blind... Like rats in a maze. The Rocket thought bitterly, snagging her leg on an obnoxious root and slamming into the ground. The leaves underneath her crunched crispier now that they had a psycho after them with a year's supply of hypodermic needles. Damnit all.

They had to escape. They HAD to. She pulled herself free from the entanglement and leaped ahead in front of Butch. As circumstance would have it, it was the end of Butterfree migrating season. A late bloomer dove through the trees in a circuitious path inland, and it flitted past Butch. The quick blur of motion jarred him out of control, and he slammed side-first into a gloating tree. Cassidy didn't hear. The Butterfree
switched direction, smashing directly into Cassidy's back, sending her flying a good five feet downhill and embedding her imprint into a rock wall. She lost consciousness on impact.

The presence of the late bloomer wasn't entirely accidental. Butch and Cassidy had good reason for being wary of the Valencian Pokémon. But it was too late to use more caution. Far too late.

*~*~*

Bleak described the skies above Team Rocket headquarters. They were in accordance with the mood of its members. They, as a whole, had never been this lackidasical. Sad for a day, unwilling for a time, but they had a resilience that were the most sedulous people in the Pokémon world. They never gave up until death forced them to. They were always full of energy, ready to make mayhem, ready to cause disaster...not today. With the core of the organization destroyed, what was the point of making mayhem? With the boss gone who was there to
cause disaster for? For most, Team Rocket was the only thing they had. Take that away and they'd come to
ruin.

For the other side of the spectrum, these younger trainers had seen destruction before, but not at this magninitude, never at this level. People and Pokémon burning, bleeding, dying...a hellish nightmare that replayed over and over and over. Cities falling and crashing and smoking in its scorched desolation...They'd seen all this...and they had a bad feeling that this wasn't the end of it.

*~*~*

Butch rubbed his bruised head. The forest was still pitch black, though he could see slivers of the moon rays weaving through the twisted canopy. Ah... the moon... he'd watched the sun, now the moon. He felt like a different person watching one and the other. Pointless thought. Why the hell would he feel different----? Calm while gazing at the sun, unusually aggressive when staring at the moon. WAIT A DAMN MINUTE... psycho was still after them. He had to get of there now. But he didn't even get the chance to get up. A high-energy beam shone on him, taking his sight momentarily and paralyzing him with shock.....and fear.

"I must say I'm quite impressed that you've eluded me long enough to reduce my ammunition to one.." Hojo fired the syringe into his arm, puncturing the cloth of his black uniform before sticking the flesh. The Rocket's eyes bulged in a brisk pain, his agonized _expression masked by the darkness. Replacing the device back in his pocket, the scientist finished with a smile on his lips, "...But one is only required to determine your place."

Patches of dark energy punched through the quilt of light, crackling over the struggling Rocket and striking his innards, causing reactions in them that weren't supposed to happen, that couldn't be happening, that.... WERE happening. Cassidy peered over the ledge she had fallen off of in time to see it happen.... she'd seen before... and after... and partial during...but, this was somehow different. This was someone she knew, someone she hadn't cared for recently, but deep in her soul, gave a damn about. Right before her eyes, every sick detail played out in its most hideous fashion. Her own partner's flesh collapsing over itself, bones breaking through the flesh only to shrink and reshape, skin darkening, changing colors, changing texture, thick warts growing all over the hideous ball of reforming mass that screamed in absolute pain. Even the voice, not the same, raspy, yes, but margled, genuinely resembling more and more thoroughly a frog's croak than a man's voice. The eyes, globes of earthy brown melting, literally dissolving into pools of menacing yellow. And as she gazed into that screaming mouth, the teeth vanished and regrew, two lengthening down to his chest. She stood there, her arms stiff on the ledge, her eyes locked on the gruesome parody of Mother Nature's sculpting hand. And when She was finished..... Butch was a mutant Politoed.

A mutant Politoed that was very much alive.

The crucial moment had arrived and gone. So the question was answered. And Cassidy couldn't believe it.

"Intriguing...it appears that our little friend is a hybrid," muttered Hojo, stroking his chin between his fingers, and looked up at the remaining SOLDIERS. "You two, locate and capture that girl. It seems that she is a bit reluctant to have the honors of advancing scientific knowledge."

Damn right I am, Cassidy thought. She dared not flee: any noise this close and they get her right
away. At least her partner was alright. But... that would mean..... if he survived that process... Her violet eyes widened in disbelief and shock. Butch... her partner... her.... friend..... was a... half-Pokémon? Her next breath caught somewhere in her throat; she didn't even hear the SOLDIERs tromp past her or their flashlight beam nick a strand of her blonde hair.

So, this is one of the "survivors"...if your physical characteristics denote anything of your behavioral patterns, I expect to see some resistance."

Cassidy felt sick: the familiar whish of a PokéBall cutting through the air, heading towards its unassuming, helpless target. But suddenly, as if those slivers of moon had some unspeakable hold on the mutant amphibian, the air split with a resounding croak, and a blast of yellow acid erupted from the frog's mouth. It splattered across Hojo's left arm, eating straight through the sleeve of his labcoat and the arm under it, almost immediately eating through flesh and bone alike.

Cassidy wasn't sure, but she could have sworn that the man was CHUCKLING. "My
inference was correct," the man stated calmly, simply taking another PokéBall with his right hand and tossing it at the mutant. This time it was caught unawares, and as it sprang upwards with a vicious croak, the orb bounced of its bumpy flesh, swallowing it in a beam of red light and confining it within its circular walls.

"Butch..... what the HELL!!!!!" She couldn't take it anymore. With fire in her violet eyes, she climbed the ledge and charged towards the despicable man that had her partner locked up in that portable prison. Hojo upturned his gaze thoughtfully at her and re-adjusted his glasses with his---well, remaining hand.

"Ah..... how touching... the princess in search for her frog prince.." An insane glint lit upon his eyes, maddening to both him and her. Calmly he bent down to pick up the PokéBall, minimized it in his hand, and latched it..... latched Butch... to his belt. Cassidy flared; in an explosion of hate, she lashed out viciously, grabbing Hojo by the throat with both hands and ordering in a voice that would melt steel, "GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT NOW, YOU SON OF A BITCH."

His reply was quiet, not forceful, but the meaning behind it was anything but.

"But my dear... why should I return him to you if he belongs to me?"

"What do you MEAN, belongs to YOU?! He's MY PARTNER!!!" Cassidy roared, gripping the throat tighter. To be this physical wasn't her thing, but the line was crossed. Normally she'd use Raticate to fight, but there was something... strangely..... gratifying at doing the dirty work herself. But who said this was dirty? Her adversary had---in essence, destroyed Butch. It was no different than if that gun was filled with bullets and not needles... Cassidy's orderly flow of thoughts spiralled into chaos, the result maddening.

What the hell did he do to anyone to deserve it? Nothing.... well, other than a few heists and illegal imports and exports and.... oh, hell, it doesn't matter.... and I was a total bitch to him too..... He's not a Pokémon in a PokéBall... He's HUMAN... You put a human in a PokéBall... You're making a mistake... Butch is my damn PARTNER----!!!

The rebuke was scathing. He might as well have taken a knife and trace a portrait of Butch across her visage.

"Ah..... yes..your 'partner'. It is quite intriguing how you don't value him as something more. But I should think, now, that you're aware that he is currently.." His green eyes flashed the cruelty of his purple-haired associate. "...one-hundred percent Pokémon, that you would..... hm... PRIZE him as potential monetary profit."

"Y..you RAT-BASTARD!!" Cassidy squeezed the flimsy neck so hard she heard the bones crunch. She was happy to hear them crack. She wanted vengeance, there and right now, and was too over the edge of madness to return to the plateau of even-tempereredness. The Rocket continued to strangle. So focused was she on throttling the old man that she didn't notice the faint glow clouding the left socket, radiating a
glowing light, an eerie, alien color. Nor did she notice the thin bone reforming, the stringy muscles stretching themselves over and under the bone, blood vessels re-materializing, and the flesh re-covering it, the arm reappearing whole as if it had never
gone, showing no sign that there had been acid on it. And that newly reformed arm slinked into one of the pockets, pulled out a different syringe, and quicker than she could dodge it, emptied the liquid into the woman's vein. Her grip on his throat loosened, and she collapsed unconscious at the scientist's feet. Re-clasping his hands behind his back, he bent over to stare at his belligerent catch.

"Pity you fail at flattery. Hm.... Let us return to the lab and see what else you may fail at."

He began to laugh, twitching as he did so. Celine in her fragments frowned at him from above, while a flock of Butterfree fluttered past her, darkening the ground for a brief time. Branches crunched softly as Hojo walked through the black forest with delight frozen on his thin face.

All was quiet in the forest.

*~*~*

Persian was finally awake. Not that it had eyes to open, but it was moving. It licked its paws and dirty fur and yowled, then flumped down on the grass, exhausted. Meowth was beside him, mushroom sighs floating out of his mouth, when he heard the familiar meow that he had grown to not hate in less than the space of a night.

"Persian! Ya awake!" shouted Meowth in jubilation. "I 'taught ya was a gonah!" He ran up to the bandaged cat. It meowed weakly, unimposing and far from menacing. But Meowth detected no meaning from it. It was as if the maimed feline was summoning something..strength, perhaps? With another weak meow, Persian rose on its stiff paws, its legs quivering from weakness, a weakness it was too naive to see that it had.

"Hey, pal, ya not ready tah get up yet! Lay down dere and Meowth'll take good care a yah!" Meowth ordered in a half-angry, half-gentle tone, pointing at the larger cat with one of his claws. Stubborn as its master in ways, Persian shook its battered head with a soft snarl, and strained to put one paw foward. It strained every muscle in its body to accomplish that task, but slowly it moved the paw foward, leaning heavily to one side. It didn't take long for Meowth to add two and two together. "Whoawhoawhoa! Where da ya tink yah goin'?! Ya in no position tah walk!"

Persian moved another step foward, its curled tail lashing jerkily. It turned its head in the direction Meowth wasn't in and hissed.

I'm going to look for the Master.

"Yah 'gonna look fah ya masdah....." Meowth repeated, looking up with a thoughtful glow on his furred face. "Dat's great, I'll come wid' yah------" His eyes then bulged to the size of his oval head and he clamped his paws on his cheeks in realization that Persian was on its way to committing suicide. "Waidaminute, pal! Yah can't--yah 'gonna get KILLED-!!!"

Persian whirled around and hissed at a rock.

I'm going to look for the Master. It staggered onward. Meowth stood there dumbfounded, one eye half-open and the other bulging wide. An hour seemed to roll by. By then Persian was still visible, but quite a distance away. There, Persian, pampered all its life, used to fine and soft beds, the indoors.....it wouldn't last a minute on its own. With firm resolve, Meowth ran after it. "Ya ain't leavin widout MEOWTH!!!"

James, though he he was faced down pushing his fingers together, the ivory-colored cat appeared in the corner of his emerald eyes.

"Hm...Meowth?" The cat was speeding off after a blurrier shape. It suddenly hit him. With a frightened squeal, he was up. "MEOWTH, WAIT FOR UUUUUUSSSS!" the blue-haired Rocket wailed, taking off after him. Jessie was less inclined to follow, but after one last look at the ruins and the lost paycheck, she sighed, whirled around, and shot off after them, leaving Ash unconscious on the ground.

*~*~*

Zero-X woke from a fitful sleep plagued with dreams and memories equalling out to one ongoing nightmare. He woke from that nightmare only to find the real one. At least it was pitch black in the laboratory. Except for his eyes. The crimson slits cut through the murky liquid, and opened slowly, growing into triangular headlights. Growling, he licked his scaled chops, tasting the foul liquid that bubbled through his tube. He felt uneasy..... as if someone was watching him... He reared up on his hindclaws, slamming two sets of foreclaws into the glass. The wires had loosened again, the rush of chemicals was less concentrated, and the death glare in his eyes screamed for reparation. And who should he see but a human, with gleaming blue eyes of ice that flared into his red ones of fire.

Something about him reminded him of himself... before he... changed.... the way the human carried himself, erect, proud, with a grave air and...rather conscious about his appearance. He didn't seem like the one to be afraid to step into the daylight, however, whereas he was. The white-garbed man approached the tube with confident stride. He drew up his fair hand and swept his hair back. As he did so, his hand grazed his chin, and he again felt that layer of hair that refused to be shaved. He again ignored it, but it was rapidly becoming another source of irritation. First the headache, then the fit of rage towards the wine, then the milk and fish, then the stubble..... the cycle of which repeated that day. The pattern was becoming too obvious too ignore, but there were other matters of a pleasing nature at hand. Taking his hand away and recomposing himself, Rufus strode towards the monster, his expensive brown leather shoes generating the only noise in the laboratory. He stopped midway and looked up, placid in the presence of this reptile that had burned Viridian and Pewter.

"So...this is what I invested twenty-five hundred-thousand gil in. Pennies compared to the profits. But, the profit will be cut by half without the other Pokémon." His ice eyes shifted. Where could it be? On another note, where was Ivy? She had constantly contacted him or Hojo up until a certain point. Peculiar... her last call came in when she reported that the task had been carried out. No more after that. He looked up at the hideous creature. Maybe the Pokémon turned on..... but surely Ivy would take precautions to guard against a freak accident. He opened his mouth to TALK to the creature, then held imself back. The headache strengthened. What was he doing, trying to communicate with a mindless monster? What was... WRONG with him?

Rubbing his temple again he backpedalled slowly, bumping into the side of the speaker. The feedback squealed, Rufus jumped and stared into the blackness. Scowling at his clumsiness and more so at the absence of intelligent life he could obtain answers from, he regained his balance and began to walk towards the tube again, the only source of light in the darkened lab.

Zero-X had his reptillian face pressed against the tube. He stared at Rufus with intent gaze, then turned his head towards the cube. The question was stated in controlled rage... a rage that could escalate to an erupting volcano. For now it was tempered...... subdued... not only chemically but mentally.

"GROAAARGH....." Heh. A new devilry, I suppose... Another tormentor of the boy and I, perhaps....

The thought-voice rumbled with the amplification of the speaker. At first Rufus thought that someone else had entered the lab unnoticed, but...he could hear no human footfalls. He faced the monster again, half-expecting its mouth to move in sync with the words emanating from the speaker. A foolish thing to think, but...

No one had time to prepare for what came next: an artificial sun flooded the laboratory. Rufus clamped his hands over his eyes, reeled back, and uncharacteristically yelled out loud, the flood breaking through the darkness and consuming it with light. Zero-X unleashed a pained roar that shook his tube, and startled the SOLDIERs behind the man whose finger rested on the light switch... Rufus' face twisted into a growl at the unexpected transition and he glared death at Hojo. "If you do not terribly MIND, Hojo," His eyes were two hailstorms in their sockets.. "AT LEAST give me a warning that you're there!"

The hunched man shuffled into the laboratory with measured stride, the blue-clad SOLDIERs, minus one since they left Shin-Ra HQ, marching behind him carrying a heavy load. The head scientist bobbed his head up and down, and pushed up his glasses that seemed to be sliding off his nose.

His low-volume voice caused Zero-X to roar louder, and frowning, the man switched off the speaker phone, silencing the monstrosity. He then shifted to face Rufus and answered rather sardonically, "Why yes, Mr. President. I will bear that in mind the next time you enter my laboratory unsupervised and, might I say, uninvited?"

That insolent... sack of bones... The hailstorms froze to icestorms. Icicles seemed to grow in the dangerous pupils. No one had DARED to show insubordination to him before or AFTER Diamond WEAPON..... at least, not that he was aware of. But still, HOW DARE HE?

That ungrateful old man's SALARY isn't enough to keep him fat and happy? No..... wait... not fat.. The man's skin and bones.

Still, he has no RIGHT...!

"Hojo, might I remind you that I am the chief executive of this company, and that YOU are working for ME...?" His voice was laced with aggravation. There was that damned headache again. There was a lapse between his sentences as he clenched his teeth and turned away from the scrutiny of the old scientist; obviously he wouldn't want anyone to see him in such a state of mind. The pain subsided enough for him to finish uninterrupted, and he concluded through masked fury. "I suggest you select your word choice more carefully the next time you speak to me, or I will arrange your removal."

"Ah..... I understand perfectly, Mr. President," Hojo answered with mock pleasantness in his gesture.

"I shall be returning to my office," Rufus announced, swivelling on his heel and heading for the exit. Hojo didn't turn to watch him go, rather he stayed stationary near the door of the lab and stated:

"It is a shame you weren't able to finish your tour, Mr. President. But I can assure you, that you will be able to tour the lab at a later date." He snickered to himself, and revelled quietly in this knowledge of some buried mystery. The conversation coming to a close, he switched on the speaker, tremendous sound flooding the laboratory as Zero-X continued to roar. Hojo was oblivious..or perhaps pretending to be. Whatever it was, he didn't answer the trapped reptile." Did you take the opportunity to observe my specimens? I have acquired another, two more perhaps."

Rufus stopped with one foot out of the doorway. There were two: he had stated it himself. Anxious at this new development, he levelled his cold gaze at the scientist's glowing green one, straightening his collar as he did so. "Where is the other one?"

"I see you didn't take the liberty to operate the controls," Hojo remarked as he paced towards the central panel. He pulled a lever and pushed a switch, fiddling with the buttons and knobs, and he and Rufus watched the soundproof barrier fold, emitting a heavy clang, half of the mechanism sinking and the other rising, revealing the cube and the horror inside it. He turned a dial on the speaker to maximum. "I suppose that nutrition was ample enough for you, Gemini?"

The demon sat there, sobbing faintly, the girl, white and shrivelled, in his hideous arms. The base of the cube was wet with a lurid mix of tears and blood... HER blood.... blood that dribbled down his underlip tauntingly. Gemini had its claws tangled in her
green hair, trying desperately to disentangle them, those bloodstained claws, that didn't have a right to TOUCH her, they were so stained with evil... EVIL... yes, that had to be it. He, Brock, Gemini, was evil. He was bloodthirsty because he was evil. He had drank Suzy's blood because he was evil. But...as the cube opened, ending his isolation and increasing his torment, Brock saw those cruel orbs of green staring at him, placid, guiltless... oh, no... not guiltless. If he alone was guilty for Suzy being..drained, that goddamn scientist was responsible for leaving him there with her, starving him... until he couldn't take it anymore. Until he... pierced her neck... lapped up the blood... the river of death... the drink of vampires.

..........FUCKING..... BASTARD......

The resounding voice echoed throughout the lab, rendering it everywhere though it was coming from a limited area, doubled, tripled, quadrupled in volume because of the monster's anguish. It gouged clawmarks into the cube, the screech grating on Rufus' ears. He could only... stare... THIS was the other Pokémon that was... more hideous than the first, blood dripping down its lip, blotching the cube's floor with red. It was chillingly calming to him. This embodiment of devastation in such a low, savage form... was actually speaking.

"They both can communicate?" Rufus inquired, rather shocked at the fact. Hojo turned to answer Gemini, and replied to Rufus still facing in the same direction.

"Why yes... even the least-developed organisms have a method of communication. " His pale lips curled into a sadistic smile. "No need to harbor such violent feelings, Gemini. After all, given the nature of the organism you are, sentimental emotions should disperse in---"

Gemini cut him off with an agonized roar.

OH, NO... You proved I'm an ugly-as-hell monster and a vampire to boot, but you can't take my emotions... my feelings..... you can take EVERY single goddamn thing away from me, but I still... love her!!!

Still gripping the dead girl, Gemini released a feral snarl, the anger and rage contained in the words behind it pronounced, the persistence in the assertions tireless. He believed...... no..... KNEW they were true, though everyone he'd known shot it down. EVERYONE had rejected him... except for Misty. If Suzy had been... a-alive, maybe she'd understand, too. IF she were alive. Her murderer stood outside the cube, remorseless.

"Hah... love... how can you insist you have....." He imperceptibly twitched at the very word. "AFFECTION for an OBJECT that has undeniably become your... heh... shall we say.... 'big mac'...?"

Truth hurt. Truth hurt like hell.

Because... because... I JUST DO, that's WHY!!!!!

Hojo was geating up for another acerbic retort when Rufus cut in. The irritation on his face was now much more evident. The scowl was deeper, more teeth were showing, and he was uncharacteristically opening and closing his fists. Nervousness.

"Hojo, you mentioned another one, two more Pokémon you captured. Why don't you you show them to me instead of carrying on an argument with this....." He stared at the growling monster. "THING?"

"Yes........ of course.... that is a high priority on my agenda." Finally turning to the SOLDIERs outside the laboratory, he raised his voice to make himself heard, but it still didn't qualify for a shout. He gave the fatal order. "Bring in the specimens."

The SOLDIERs marched into the laboratory. One of them had a PokéBall on his belt, and they were both carrying a cage. A shocked roar erupted from Zero-X as the SOLDIERs moved away from the cage and captive was revealed.

It was Cassidy in hysterics. She had been yelling and screaming the entire time. Her face was red with anger, she was out of breath from trying to escape, and her face was wet from... tears? Hojo stole a glance at the reptile and smirked, before staring down at the woman in the cage. "Your police file tells a great deal about you, my dear, including your methods of capturing adversaries." He motioned for the SOLDIERs to move foward, and he shuffled towards the panel. With envenomed diction he remarked, "You seem to prefer the use of cages as to more, shall we say, HUMANE methods, hm?"

"What do YOU care?! That's none of your business!" With the ferocity of a rabid Houndour, she rammed at the bars with her head, her skull rattling from the shock. She clasped both hands around it to stop the shaking, but was back at it again when Rufus entered her burning view.

"Is this the Pokémon-in-question you've been raving about?" he asked, pointing at her like... she WAS a rabid Houndour. If she obviously wasn't a human, he wouldn't have assumed otherwise.Her demeanor alone was enough to prove that she wasn't human.

"Mm... yes... I have not ascertained if she is a hybrid. If she is not..." He started to enter a different set of commands, warming up the study cell adjacent to Zero-X's. He began to roar again, his red eyes fixated on Cassidy. One of his best agents... about to be sent to Hell. Through it all, Hojo was detatched. "I suppose it wouldn't be terribly tragic. I would have a fresh cadaver for dissection."

Cassidy's eyes bulged in terror, and they were consumed by violet fire. What did this crackpot think it was, open season on Team Rocket?! Sure, the kid was trapped in that intolerable hell, but so was the..... boss... and, soon..... Butch and... her. She
took a glance at the tube. A good, long, look. It was built...for a monster. Refusing to accept it, she lashed out at the closest object there through the bars, smacking the back of her hand on one of the machines sitting giant and imposing in the lab. Recoiling it in pain and humiliation, what sounded like a... GROWL came rushing from her throat, and she defiantly screamed,

"I'm NOT a Pokémon, I'M A HUMAN BEING, DAMNIT!!!!!"

A low hum radiated from the nightmarish tube that was waiting for the Rocket. Biting back tears, she searched frantically for Butch's PokéBall. Knowing the... frog... was there left her with a tinge of hope... That she wouldn't be blasting off alone. No reassurance there. Only the cold voice of her captor.

"Hm..... we shall see. You will either speak with your leader shortly or serve as an excellent replacement for my... used cadaver. Am I not right, Gemini?"

The aforementioned writhed at the very mention of Suzy, and held her white corpse more tightly, tears staining his monstrous face. He hung his hairless head, the world that he knew entirely crumbled. Gazing into her face with his inhuman eyes he wasn't comforted, only tormented.

S...... Suzy......The liquid in the other study cells rippled as his jaws widened and he roared. YOU.... YOU... Gemini clenched and opened his fists, each time, sending black rivulets flow from his palms onto his wrists. He stood up shakily on his clawed feet, the devil-like tail whipping behind him. There he was, surrounded by his family's murderer and his associates, and his tormentor, with his friend dead and the only one who didn't reject him for what he was miles away. Brock, in every imaginable way, was broken.

Wake up, Cassidy..... WAKE UP..... this is some damn stupid nightmare...that's all it is. The SOLDIERs roughly unlocked the top of the cage and hoisted the thrashing woman out of it, transferring her to the study cell in the manner that one would transport unbreakable cargo. Cassidy slammed against the back of the tube hard, stars flitting back and forth in front of her eyes. She heard the door of the tube close.
What felt like her last moments she could see everything from the tube: the kid, the boss, the blue-eyed guy, the damned SOLDIER that had Butch, and the scientist.....

Hojo lifted his wiry hands and nimbly entered commands and instructions on the panel. Every once and a while he looked up from the panel to see the specimen, but he only saw her, the value, the POTENTIAL... not the fear and terror that marked her face as clear as the substance that formed the tube. Perhaps that was how these researches could pretend that they didn't commit these atrocities..simply by refusing to SEE.....

"Let me out of here, bastards!!!" Cassidy banged on the glass desperately, kicked at it, rammed into it full-body again and again until it hurt, but nothing... NOTHING would get her out of there now.

From out of the tube's ceiling erupted a myriad of syringes, all filled with a glowing liquid. They shot down all at once like a pack of serpents, puncturing the target everywhere at once, striking her with pain she had never before felt, pain to equal her rival's at her failed attempts at thievery. Every shock, every burn, every moment of her rival's pain surged through her in that instant the needles pierced her body and the liquid drained into her. They retracted to the ceiling when their dastardly purpose was finished.

As she felt doom in whatever form t would come in creep up on her, she growled caustically, "You finally beat me at something, Jessie... AGHHHHH!!!!!"

Dark energy cascaded over her as the transformation commenced, escalating the pain to unbearable heights. The Rocket fell to her knees, clasping her face as the shock shot through her bones, muscles, everything that made her well, human.... Then it began to change. Her hair lengthened, thickened, became coarse, slowly changing hues from blonde to grey mixed with dark patches of brown. The internal change happened simultaneously, bones twisting and bending to accomodate for components that hadn't been there before, lungs and liver, kidney and heart, and the damn blood.... the bright crimson darkening to the chilly grey of a misty dawn. Ears sharpened and escalated to the top of her head, a head with no hair, but fur, and throughout it all, she could not only FEEL the change, but SEE it...she could SEE her own hands, the bones inside them, transforming into paws, and the nails into claws, bursting through her gloves.

Her uniform ripped as a pitch-black Houndoom-like tail sprouted out of her flank and her body changed shape, the black cloth falling to the floor of the tube. She fell to her forepaws, her scream jumping several octaves into a high-pitched shriek, like the Supersonic of a..... Zubat... The remnants of her clothes fell as she suddenly reared on her hind paws, two grey wings growing from behind where her arms were, attatching the aforementioned to the leather-like appendages. Fangs protruded from the gums, blackening as the night, and her eyes, cold violet globes of hate and constant disdain for her rival's team, melted, and were consumed by the rest of the brown-grey fur. She ceased to see.

It was over. Silence. Blackness. The void.....? Was she human? Was she..... dead?

B---Butch?

The familiar sound of a PokéBall opening. Liquid moving. As if something had been immersed in jelly.

She spoke, he answered.

Yeah....

She felt her face. A wing followed and brushed against fur. She scratched it with her... claws..... it felt wet... blood.

It's true, huh? I'm a..... Her tail swished, the sharp end of it scraping her back leg. ....A---hah... hah... hahaha....

She couldn't bring herself to say it. Say that because she had survived the transformation, she was.... one of.... them..... And one that couldn't SEE, on top of it all.

What were they trying to STEAL all these years? Themselves? Could they even believe it based on the word of one mental case? They had seen a non-Pokémon die in front of their eyes. It must have been a fluke, a mistake, an accident. But... the half-mutated... ...Grunts....they all died and they had both... survived... along with the kid and their boss. And that display screen of DNA that Butch saw... he knew COULDN'T lie.

She heard a listless roar.

Welcome, Butch... Cassidy. I must say, I'm impressed with your loyalty. You've followed your boss all the way to Hell.

Another roar, different in tone. She felt her ears flex.

A one-way trip on Satan Airlines.... Aloha.

The two white-garbed men stood listening and watching the spectacle from outside,
Rufus in awe... and perhaps a tad disturbed... by the transformation he had just witnessed.

This could save a lot of face for Shin-Ra Inc. Hand the prisoners Heidegger didn't want to Hojo. It eliminated any and all trace of the identity... and since most of the victims the scientist obtained were the scourge of the Pokémon world, no one would come inquiring into their whereabouts, and if on some chance they did.... Well..... they could easily meet the same fate.

Smiling inwardly, the president of Shin-Ra looked down at Hojo.

"Impressive, Hojo," Rufus commented in a calm voice, hiding the respect he had newly acquired for the old man. He ran his sharp eyes over the four Pokémon, two still in shock, one softly growling in distress, and the other still crying over the girl's body. "This could prove to be extremely beneficial to the corporation.... Yes...." He turned his head towards Hojo who was still facing away, arching an eyebrow in no more than faint curiosity. "How many of these creatures do you plan to obtain?"

The scientist kept his eyes riveted on the panel, activating the chemical-pumping hooks and burying the mechanisms in Butch and Cassidy's skin. He was not at all irked by the resulting croak and screech of pain, or the eerie silence that soon followed. Switching off the controls, he re-adjusted his spectacles and slowly turned towards Rufus.

"Well, Mr. President," Hojo's eyes burned green with fires that could only be quenched by water from the River of Styx itself. He bowed his head and narrowed those same orbs of light. "To coin a phrase...."

He smiled.

"Gotta catch 'em all....."

*~*~*

TO BE CONTINUED.........

Author's Notes (B9T): Hi! ^^ Yes, I used the evil catch phrase. But it was tempting. [Ed.: No, it was just breeleeyant, duh. :P] ^^; Yes, I know that bats aren't blind. Again, tempting cliché. As you might have noticed, Hojo is especially evil in this series. It's for a reason. ^^; Stay tuned for Chapter 15! ^^