End of a Reality

by Blue9Tiger (Sadly Erin wasn't able to get to it, but she tried! ^^ Her absence explains why this chapter sucks.^^)

A/N: Big mistake. Suzy in chapter 13 is Suzie, from Celadon City. The one with the Vulpix. Yep. NOT Brock's sis. From now on I'll respect the difference. ^^; Correction in chapter 11: the one with the lolipop is CINDY, not Suzie. A little typo, there. ^^; It's been confirmed on the name of the other parent of one of the characters in the anime, but, we can dream.^^; Also, please excuse the bad formatting. ; ; It erases all italics and bold when I upload. ; ;

*~*~* A mild-looking man in his mid-20s to late-30s walks through the door. The light is on: prior footage shows that it has been on the previous night and the whole morning. Too preoccupied to turn it off, perhaps? He walks towards his desk and sits in front of a video-phone. Messages are displayed on the screen. He pushes his chair closer to the video-phone until his face is almost touching the monitor, blocking the camera's view of the face of his correspondant. He plays the message..

Vid-phone answering machine: I didn't think you'd be mentally available... Even Demoni knows you're about as alert as... Her laugh is slightly condescending. an anesthetized Slowpoke, so I made this repeatable in case it doesn't sink in the first time. I'll be arriving Wednesday, 4:00 sharp for the prototype. click, beep Oh...if you get any ideas about accelerating the cerebral decay on crackle, blip, the meek-looking man pounds his hand on the monitor in mild panic.. --don't. I need bzzzzz for my own projects. zzzzzt--ssential for psshhhhh...

Man 1: Why won't this work? shakes the monitor, picture comes back on after three seconds..

Vid-phone answering machine: --sides, aren't you interested in seeing a wildcat someplace else other than the zoo? Or a.....A pause...real-life dragon? click

Man 1: hesitant Why, yes..but-----

The door opens.

Woman 1: I thought so. She slinks in while the man stares at the video- phone. Do you have it ready? Bring it to me.

Man 1: ---But, Professor, I don't know where to contact you-----

Woman 1: Turn around, idiot.

Man 1: He turns around to find the woman scowling behind him. Oh..ah..Professor Ivy! I didn't see you there---

Ivy: sighs exasperatedly, stalks towards him with one hand clutched around something. You see NEXT to NOTHING, Elm. It's a wonder YOU became a scientist..She shifts weight to one hip and narrows her eyes at Elm, then turns to look at the black box-shaped device sitting on a table at the other side of the lab. A smile, venemous with delight, quickly drops into a frown. I see you were careful in protecting it. She glares at Elm dead in the face. You weren't planning to keep the prototype for yourself?

Elm: N-no.....of course not...!

Ivy: Getting greedy, Elm? She smirks..

Elm: I thought it might be s-safe if I enabled a security lock---you can never be too careful, with burgulars and thief type Pokémon---

Ivy: You know, Elm, you shouldn't tell so many lies.....you would look awful with a long nose..

She slides out the object she was holding. It is too small to see clearly. She holds it in front of him in a threatening manner.

Elm: W-wait, Professor I-Ivy--you don't want to do that---only I can break that lock-----y-you..need me!

Ivy: What-a-shame...I was sure what I'd do with that spare cell, too....but- --Her eyes narrow....do I have to remind you that we work for them? She strikes, holding a container of some sort over the man's mouth.. You look pale, Elm....She unscrews the cap and dumps the contents in, the man struggling futilely while she holds his mouth open with her other hand, that has a python's grip on the roof of his mouth.. I think you're overdue for your medication...

The tape runs out of film as his entire visage is immersed in a sharp cruelty and total sadism identical to the demonic professor herself...

Events involving two Planetouched members, recorded by security camera 0234. .Tape archived by the Valencia Island Police Department and the PRPL (Pokémon Rights Protection League)..

*~*~*

Chapter 15: At Hell's Unlatched Gates

She woke up with a crushing ache in her gut. Her body still crackled with the residue of white energy, and blood caked the place where the blow struck her. She grabbed her chest; it burned with a white fire, invisible, but just as painful...

Pain? When was the last time she felt pain? Not just the nip of a paper cut or scrape, but a genuine, full-blown pain? The kind of pain that comes from the injury that draws blood. Come to think of it, she'd never seen her own blood before.....Grandpa said it was red because of the oxygen--that was a bluish purple when it flowed away from the heart---that it carried the nutrients through your body--he never said anything about it being THIS painful when it dripped from the breaks in the skin--

May groaned and doubled over, falling at the feet---and the mercy of, the demonic angel.

He watched her with a serene gaze as she hit the floor with her face and the rest of her body following.with a hard smack.

"I await that day. When the clouds part after the storm....." He cast a silk eye on May. "It draws nigh." He stared into the heavens thorugh the window, and away from the girl's view, curled his lip in disgust at the clear sky, the action failing to mar the perfection in this portrait of feigned purity. "The heavens guard a lowly land...where." He almost snarled the word, "humans are the sovereign...be watchful." A white glow encompassed the white veins in his eyeballs, strangely restless in their sockets. "Be watchful, especially you, girl..."

"What--what're you talking about?" gasped May, raising her face from the floor, her normally kind and genial eyes globes of a meshed clash of anger and confusion.

"You will know in time." She wasn't sure, but May thought she saw the white- robed man fade into air, ghostlike and ethereal. "It's been a pleasant conversation, non-believer, but I must divert my kind here to hasten the coming of dawn." He turned around and formed an invisible trail of steps, fading out of sight before her very eyes as he walked through the window and vanished. Yet, his voice still remained, as disturbingly warm and nonthreatening as ever. "After all, don't we all wait for the end of the world?"

"Wait--where..come back here...what're you saying...?!! Why'd you attack me- -?! " She strained her neck to look up at the space where the white-robed man was. "Did Gary---provoke you or something?-- !" The room was as it was. There was no trace of anything the least unnatural. As far as she was concerned, it might has well have been a vivid nightmare that had distorted her perception of fantasy and reality...

The residual energy began to die, leaving only the gnawing wound. She grated her teeth and came up on one knee and then the other. With the quickness of a Lickitung caught in molasses, she stumbled out the door.

*~*~*

Not even she'd gotten spared.

You can't put innocent and victim into the same sentence. More than half the time the "victim" victimized some other victim. And that victim did the same to another one. And so it went until you could stretch the chain all the way to the Moon.

Misty was a wreck. Her face was sooty from the smoke and hot from the blaze, exhausted from running all that way and her mind in chaos, her hair tossed and her body shaking with fear and confusion, still without her Pokémon and alone on the edge of the torched city. But all that paled when she saw the blood..four claw marks carved across her arm that spoke of a world of hate..BROCK had made those...without explanation, exploding in rage, unwarranted, unfounded---The drip of blood wouldn't have been as painful to look at if those bastards at Team Rocket made it, but-----a friend---not just a friend, her BEST friend----

"Brock...!" she called stiffly, every jerk causing that wound to sting, as if he wanted to pass on some of his pain to her. She brushed it aside and jumped upwards, her right arm hanging useless at her side. "Brock...!" she called again, the aftermath of the catastrophe registering in her mind: Pewter City was gone. She swivelled her head to gaze upon the rubble, the laughter of children and the determined shouts of challengers: it took some time for her to absorb that these signs of life and activity would never be heard again because it was destroyed. And if it was destroyed, then... "He'd look for the one who did it-----" she reasoned, taking a step foward away from the scorched ruins. "But where could he--?"

The answer came in a shadow. It passed over her in an unguided pattern without any sense of direction, shooting across the sky like a black comet. The trail it left was invisible, but emanated such negative waves that Misty could almost see them..the guilt, grief, pain, balled into one wretched sphere, cosmic egg of half the world's hatred. It made no sound, silent as the spectre barred from speech, burdening its yoke alone. But...it was a winged shadow...could that be him? "Brock??!!" Misty shouted, holding her dead arm and following the black body, her feet flying into a frenzy as she closed some of the distance between her and what might be her friend. As she gained speed, the shape swept lower, its wings...and the shape, came into Misty's view. Leather-like, scaled wings, huge clawed feet, a slender, yet musular neck, characteristics that would mark a traditional dragon...Misty slowed down immediately. That wasn't Brock. She wanted it to be, but.... She didn't turn back. Instead, she walked discouraged after the black dragon, in tenuous hopes that she'd find her friend. Hadn't lost people found their way home by following birds? Maybe she could find Brock...by following the dragon.

She had to try.

*~*~*

"So what yer sayin' is..." Cid began, leaning against his spear propped up against the cemented bricks. He lurched foward, puffs of grey smoke ascending through the black sky. "..Them Shin- Ra lived through Diamond and all that shit, they got together with a company from "Po-kee-man" world AND they're 'gonna screw with it same's they did with our planet?!"

"Goddamn right 'dey're 'gonna screw it!" Barret interjected, pumping his arms in heated hatred. His glared at the pompous tower that rose grand above them. Grand his ass. They'd wipe the streets clean with the Shin-Ra. "But dat ain't 'gonna happen 'cuz-- -" He threw his gun-arm into the air, ready to loose a shot at the building that very moment. But he wasn't about to risk notice this early on. Not until they were inside the building. He lowered the gun and turned to his companions, taking in a breath of the Vermillion night air in through his barrel chest. "---we 'gonna shuddem down befo' 'dey get 'da chance!" He moved foward, stopping within an inch of a sweeping flashlight as cops covered the street. Their dutious footfalls disappeared around the corner, and Red felt it clear to speak.

"Careful," he warned, bringing up hind leg and scratching his scarlet muzzle with the short claws. The lupine/leonine shook his red coat and passed his tongue over his chops in ponderance. He joined Barret at the fore and sniffed the ground. "We're dealing with a new enemy. "

"Keep yer hair on, Balto," Cid coughed, hoisting up his spear and grasping the handle, its butt smacking into the brick wall behind him. "Ya think we'll barge in without thinkin'?" He shook his head gravely. "I ain't in the mood to get rabies from them mutts." He took one hand off the spear and jabbed it at the distinct shapes of black and blue rooted in front of the entrance, coupled with the growls and snarls of leashed Houndoom clawing the street in front of the entrance. They looked just as vicious as Shin-Ra dogs, :one of them was sliding while trying to keep the leash firmly in his grip. The hellhound on the end of it barked ferociously, its narrowed eyes consumed with utter rage and its very breath, passing through clamped fangs, cooking the air around it.

Cid closed his eyes, folding his arms across his chest while gripping his spear. "Now, maybe if Tifa hadn't screwed the Highwind over.... maybe then we could have flown her over to that damn portal-thing and brought stuff over in here... Maybe then we'd have a frikkin' chance to get to the bottom of this shit...."

"Yo, we don' need no Highwind to do nothin'!" Barret interjected adamantly, hurling a wad of spit onto the pavement in complete defiance, stopping Cid's furious protest in mid-curse, "We busted up da Shin-Ra on da Planet, and we 'gonna smash em fo' good dis time!"

Cid would have argued this to the bitter end, but he wasn't an idiot. They had a job to do, and after they sorted this out--- well, he'd have plenty of time to chew Barret out for downplaying the importance of his girl. That fat bastard.....he'd teach him a thing or two when they got back to Gaia...

The AVALANCHE members crossed the dark street, coming within a few feet of the savage Houndoom. Their presence set off a fearsome howling. All three stood stoild in the face of this: they'd seen much worse before. Surprisingly, the SOLDIERs didn't make a move, pulling the howling dogs out of their way. Outwardly showing no surprise at this lack of security, AVALANCHE entered the light-flooded building.

The accusations of "terrorist" never came. The only sounds heard was the typing of something or other at a desk, some people admiring the Silph/Shin-Ra banner on the wall, others oggling at the gold-framed photograph of Rufus and the aging Slph President shaking hands in the city square of Saffron. Some SOLDIERs, but they walked by AVALANCHE as if they weren't there. Barret especially was unnerved...as the founder, he'd come to expect it. In every building he walked into on top of the Plate, that was the first thing he heard. Cid collectively voiced their concerns,

"Thought the welcoming ceremony was 'gonna have more fireworks," he muttered. Red snapped his wolfish muzzle towards him and warned,

"Don't expect it. It might be more than we can handle."

"More?" Cid blinked, stopped walking, and started to laugh. "After handlin' the one-winged pain in the ass, we're ready for anythin'," he affirmed confidently. Red hadn't livened, and the pilot heaved an exasperated sigh. "Ya ain't convinced."

"We didn't get equipped. We can't fight back as easily if we're attacked."

"Fuckin' hell--?!" He grumbled under his breath, "How'd paranoid Spot get stuck on this joyride?"

"Yo, cut da shit! Da elevator's busted." Barret's huge foot connected with the elevator door, hitting it with a thud. It stubbornly kept closed. Cid drew his hand up to his bristly chin in the classic "thinking" manner, moved his hands along the handle of his spear to get a good grip on it, wedged the point into the elevator, and wrenched it back and forth, trying to get the damn thing to open. After several minutes of sweat and toil, the elevator hadn't opened and the spear was bending out of proportion.

"Fuck," Cid swore under his breath. "The thing's gettin' warped." With a grunt of exertion he had his weapon out and examined it, rubbing his thumb on the smooth metal that had twisted in one place. He then looked at Barret, and flashed an...almost malicious grin, coupled with the elated sparkle in his blue eyes. Barret was 'gonna pay for insulting his pride and joy. .Pay through the nose. Or the feet. Whatever, as long as he'd pay.

"We don't have the Highwind, so....We're 'gonna need to take the stairs."

While Red and Cid dashed off towards the looming stairway, Barret stood rooted to the spot, that six-letter word spelling doom in his immediate future, and he said the first appropriate word that came to his mind..

"..Shit!"

*~*~*

As the elite, they'd been blind and deaf.

The least you could do is turn on the lights!

Those animal sounds, though they couldn't understand, had words to accompany them.

The lights're on.

And the words meant something. They had never listened.

You picked the worst possible time for a joke, Butch. Come on...this isn't April Fool's!

Until now. They were forced to listen. Listen and respond.

Cass, face it, you're blind.

Why must one learn the hard way?

Ha..HA...HA...that's VERY funny, Butch. ...Turn.....on...the.....god....damn....lights..

"SKRYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

"Whoa.....stop screamin'......shutup!"

Indeed, everyone had shut up. They had fallen to dead silence. The dropping of a swan's feather would have been thunderous and quaking. Butch blinked through the murky liquid he was suspended in, indecently, nonetheless. But no one was around to see him...only the Pokéfreaks. He stared at the inhuman faces, that were staring....two in shock, one in jealousy, their pupil-less eyes fixated with blazing intent on him. His own pupils dilated in supressed horror. "Buzz off...don't get closuh, freaks......"

The sound escalated, the roars, screeches, hisses heightening to intolerable volume. Butch tried to clamp his hands over his ears, but found the wires..the cords...wrapped around his arms, rendeirng alleviating the ear-splitting bedlam all but impossible. And the monsters...though they were likewise prisoners in the tubes, their distorted faces seemed to grow closer, and they were, growing closer, but the one closest to him, frantic, wild, clawing with its paws, attatched to wings, beating the glass with the leather-like appendages, and its cheek splotched with grey blood...its tail whipping violently, and its jaws..ocnstantly snapping shut and flinging open, as if trying to say something...in mangled screeches, strangled squeals, but something...he couldn't understand.....what was it, damnit?

He pressed his palms against the glass, now face-to-face with the bat-fox. Its nose twitched, catching his scent, its eyeless visage moved up and down the barrier, mouth opening to emit that piercing screech. It was a hostile scream, but there was meaning..somewhere...sure, they were freaks...but maybe they used to be human, just like him...

"Wha?" Butch turned his neck towards the sound of a quiet footstep. The psycho that was chasing him and Cassidy...His brown eyes narrowed, and he balled one hand into a fist. "Hey you, what'd you do with Cass?!"

Hojo was hunched in his usual position, staring down or straight ahead, his hands hidden behind his curved back. Those instruments of control, manipulation, concealed as one may hide a knife on their person.

The distracted answer came nearly a minute after the hoarse inquiry.

"Cass? Mm? Oh, yes...the girl...if you can tolerate the thought, she is..." He nodded towards the tube, his grease-covered bangs sliding over his viridian eyes. "There."

Butch shook his head as he stared at the brown and grey creature. "Quit..screwin' with my mind. That ain't Cass..." he mumbled. She was at least midly pretty, though her caustic tongue and recent bitchiness sort of sullied that image. And her voice..... Rarrely showing fear, scathing to her enemies, likewise to what friends she had, vain and haughty: it wasn't like this cry of desperation that pounded his ears.

"SKRYEEEEE!!! SKRYEEEEEE!!!!"

"How amusing...I believe she is trying to tell you somethig..." His pupils flicked to the other side of his narrowed eyes behind his miniscule lenses. Butch followed him with his eyes, reaching the switched-off speaker. "Hm..tempting...." His head moved towards the tube. The Zubat/Ninetales beat the glass of the maddening prison with its wings, frenzied, frantic. "Yes...if you are both tractable, I think that not having the luxury of.." He began to pace towards the screen mounted on the control panel, away from the speaker. "..understanding one another...will be sufficient to acclimate you to the change."

"What'he ya talkin' about?!" he cried, glancing panicked at both inhuman monsters, the one in the flesh and the other in the soul. "Cass isn't a---" Another screech, less harsh. He squeezed his eyes closed, and opened them, staring into the eyeless face of the monster. There was nothing...nothing about that Pokémon that resembled his partner in the least.."You'he lyin, creep. We ahen't Pokémon."

"Ah...definite loss of memory...is it..." He pulled up his labcoat sleeve, checking the digital watch on his right wrist. "Five thirty A.M exactly......hm...sunrise." He smiled. "I suppose time will tell if you are indeed lycanthropic."

Ignoring whatever protests Butch had, the old scientist shuffled towards the control panel, picked up the headphones, dangling them there in Butch's sight in subtle taunting emphasis. He then placed them over his ears, turned the speaker on, and listened to the voices of torment while Butch screamed himself near mute at his isolation.

*~*~*

The alarm rang obnoxiously on the twenty-fifth floor. AVALANCHE's tread thudded continuously on the steps. Security came pounding after them, the armed wave clattering up the stairs.

I swear if I ever find out who tripped that wire I'll fuckin' kill him.

"I told you," muttered Red in a snide manner, bounding up the steps. Cid ground his teeth together and grumbled,

"Shut yer trap, Clifford." He could hear the SOLDIERs and those hellhounds tromping up the stairs, calling "halt" and "freeze" and all that other shit. Ha...like he'd really do that. He bent at the knees and sprang up, covering a whole flight and caught up to Red, Barret soon closing the distance between the other two. "Just friggin' run."

They cleared another floor and found themselves cut off at the fore and rear. Apparently SOLDIERs had gotten hint that they were coming and assembled to trap them. Not that it would do them any good...3rd class SOLDIERs were cake to them by now.

They drew their weapons and struck on either side. The opposition lashed in full force, their Houndoom, snapping their heated jaws together, the savage teeth locking together and clipping Red's coat. With a feral howl he leapt and clawed the Houndoom, that tumbled down the stairs whining in agony. No sooner than that one fell, unarmed workers swamped the north exit while other Houndoom advanced. Cid snapped his head towards his scarlet comarde. "Ya hold yer pals off..I'll clean out the rest," Cid resolved. He brought up his spear and grasped it one-handed, balling the other one into a fist. "All right, ya motherfuckers."

The Silph/Shin-Ra employees were fazed by the mere sight of the spear, but they had a weaponry that the enemy didn't have. They detatched red-and-white spheres from their belts or took them out of their pockets, and threw them on the steps. They bounced once and burst open, unleashing a plethora of bright light, and he teetered on the step as he closed his eyes to shield them. The workers saw their chance and ordered together,

"Rattata, Pidgey---Attack!!!"

Before the pilot knew what was happening, a scad of rat and tiny bird Pokémon lunged at him, throwing him off the steps onto the floor, bare hairs away from a flame shot from a Houndoom. Red tackled it and raked his deadly hairdress onto its muzzle, twisting so it caught its foreleg and chest. A wild yelp but a fearsome counterattack, as the dark dog trapped Red's paw in its teeth, trying to get to the throat which he was blocking. Busy at the front Red had no time to react to the back, and a whirling stream of fire connected with his flank. Barret shot into the mass with his weapon, but the SOLDIERs returned fire, and he backed up on the stairs into the herd of Rattata and Pidgey.

"Shit..." Cid lifted his rattling head, sweeping his gloved hand across the back of it and bringing blood with it. His perilous view of the carnage cleared from a muddy blur. Holy fuck, it looked like one of those mutts was jumping at him. He stood up and regained his footing and his spear, and drove it into the pouncing Houndoom, canine yelps filling the stairway and Pokémon blood staining the floor.

"Awright, dese shits're goin' down," resolved Barret, the Rattata and Pidgey gnawing and pecking at him, holding their grip fast though he shook them off. This fight was getting messy. Red couldn't hold off all of the dogs, Cid was unwittingly moving into the crossfire by standing at the base of the stairs, and he was running out of ammunition. It looked like they'd be bringing in the heavy armed guards, too.

It was time to end this. He raised his gun-arm over his barrel chest, the glowing Materia lodged in it flashing green. From it hurled a burning cold ice. The last Houndoom charged and spouted a flame towards the human. The ice blast connected with the flame and melted into liquid form, cascading onto the remaining Houndoom. It howled in pain and smacked into the floor. The Shin-Ra SOLDIERs opened fire again, Cid jerking around wildly to dodge them. The shells pock-marked the wall, bloody with Houndoom laying with their cranium smashed against it. AVALANCHE retreated farther up the stairs, finally breaking through the mass of Silph/Shin-Ra workers.

"Yo, up dis way," directed Barret. He charged through the door, letting off one last round before Red and Cid charged through the doorway, slammed the adjacent keypad, and shut the partition. Red clamped his upper jaw around a Materia and flipped the solid Mako onto his headdress. He worked quickly, activating the Materia and closing Cid's widening head wound, sweeping his tongue over his muzzle as the Cure took affect.

"Guess I owe ya one," he remarked, hauling his spear to his side. He and Barret looked around this silent room...it looked like storage, judging from the crates piled on the floor. They advanced, and noticed the oddly-patterned floor. Red sniffed at it and whined. There was something awfully wrong about this. The hair on his back tensed and straightened. He informed his comrades after a tense intake of breath,

"We'd better watch our step from now on---"

The collective suspicion was confirmed when the four squrares that were forming the pattern, scattered methodically about the room, flickered with white light. Simultaneously, at first, then alternatingly, in a slow pattern that gradually quickened. All three readied for the oncoming threat, in attack position, every nerve alert and wary. And then the flickering light materialized into the four navy- garbed elite enforcers of Shin-Ra.

"Sonovabitch..." Barret exhaled.

"No...the Turks," Reno replied with a smirk. Cid gaped wide-mouthed and he had trouble keeping a firm hold on his weapon, as if the handle was coated in grease. It slipped from his hands several times, and he finally planted it at his side, while he stared wide-eyed at them.

"Didn't wanna believe ya..." he started, pursing his lips and gritting his teeth. He looked the suited enemies up and down..yep, they were the Turks, alright...that dead shit, on top of it all....he wasn't there when it happened, but so his comrades told them it wasn't a pretty sight. "So...whaddya want?"

Brief and direct as usual, acting on the nature of his orders rather than his own designs, a severe man that obeyed his orders without question but would often question them in private, the Turk leader took a step off the flickering square and his eyes, that had a strange.....dead look to them, glared past AVALANCHE's cool front and into their guilty consciences.

"Explain your.." His voice was controlled and showed no hint of anger at the deed. "recent handiwork."

"We ain't the ones that friggin' attacked first," Cid growled under his breath, keeping his spear pointed at the navy-suited enemies. Tseng was cool under the visible threat, and offered a peaceful recourse.

"We want minimal bloodshed."

But AVALANCHE had enough run-ins with the Turks to trust them. The reassurance that the Turks' intention wasn't deadly fell flat on their ears. Barret levelled his gun-arm and crossed the other arm under it. His dark brown visage was one of fury. He and Cid knew all too well about Shin-Ra's broken promises.

"'Minimal bloodshed', my ass! Dem's fancy words ain't gonna fool me none!"

He stepped foward, unholstering his gun. At the same time his other hand moved under his jacket and onto his belt, unhooking an object from it. Red's eye followed it; the other Turks were doing the same, enlargening in their palm. Whatever reluctance that harbored itself in the man was veiled by the collectively bellicose nature of the Turks...and their orders.

"If that's how you want it..."

Elena and Reno kicked the crates, and they burst open, revealing the rocks with arms...only that the other two didn't have only arms, but they had legs, and the third one had teeth. AVALANCHE made the first move, but the live rocks rolled away, wedging themselves between in the doorways. Cid took a glance back, swore, and looked at his comrades. Red leaned back then foward, flexing his leg muscles; it didn't look good from where they were standing. Barret was rooted to the floor in attack position. "You don't leave us with a choice."

The Turks drew their own weapons as well as threw the red-and-white balls, Cid growing sick to his stomach in very recent memory of the previous brawl. He brought his other hand to grip his spear, eyes fixating on the white light that emerged from the spheres as they landed.

"What're yo' so edgy 'bout, man?" asked Barret, noticing Cid's reaction. The other didn't turn around, for fear that the Turks would stab if his back was turned.

"That's where them friggin mice and birdies're comin' from...aw, shit---"

In one menacing chorus, the white light formed into four monsters. The one by Elena looked harmless enough, except when it turned around, a menacing flame shot from its back, Reno's monster sparking myriads of electric currents from its unwieldy-looking body, a brown creature armed with red boxing gloves by Rude with determination to kill in its eyes, and an oversized mouse with a pair of dagger-like claws and stiff brown fur raised like spikes stood in front of Tseng. Red cloesd his one eye thoughtfully and looked up at Cid, who was biting his lip so hard a drop of blood flowed from it.

"So...what were you saying about we were ready to deal with anything?"

Both the Turks and their monsters charged.

*~*~*

Zero-X could feel it. That squeezing in his stomach, aggravating pangs of hunger refusing to leave. At least half of the heads, the organs and tissue and cartilage and bone...had been digested. And now...he again vied for sustenance.

A light heightened in his blazing eyes and he growled. The weak, subdued note in it had disappeared, for the time being, the wires loosened, the chemical stream lessening, until he was numb to its effects. Gemini was sensing a change, and he sniffed, his nostrils dilating. Still holding the corpse, covered with his tears, to his muscled chest, he stood up and hissed. Something wasn't right. He smelled it in the air..bloodlust. What he had so recently felt himself...he could feel the stab of guilt in his heart, and he shut his inhuman eyes, feeling the self-loathing. build up again. Through tears of remorse he placed one clawed hand on the glass, his eyes glowing in pure hatred.

The reptile turned his massive head towards the demon. He gave no answer, and instead fixated his blood-red eyes at the human..man..trapped in the tube, unaware of the lethal intention, floating, lost, in his jumbled, disjointed thoughts, isolated though surrounded by Pokémon, isolated by the language barrier.

Zero-X growled, the distressed note in it having drastically changed, to a different, deadlier tone.

Hojo picked this up, and turned one of the knobs. His black eyebrows knitted in thought, and his face twisted into a reflection of perplexity.

"There seems to be no brain signals whatsoever...." He re-adjusted the headphones and his glasses, looking from the controls to the growling reptile. "Perhaps its brain underwent a full bombardment of the chemical flow..." He held his narrow chin between his thumb and index finger, pale as the moon. "Or did Belina 'program' the subject in ths manner...? Hm..." Hojo leaned foward, resting one elbow on the steel panel. Zero-X grew increasingly agitated, scratching at the walls, shoving the weight of its skull against it, attempting to serrate it with its fangs....."The Negative Impulse Generator has seemed to lost its initial mental effect..." Hojo stated with no inflection or hint of emotion. He was about to depress that button that would plunge him into the nightmare again, but then he heard a blast of crackling flame, a brisk "zap" of electricity, and a hissing whine. "Tsktsktsktsk.....It doesn't learn..." But contrary to Hojo's predicitons, instead of entering again into a state of submission, the flame blast appeared again, and grew larger, its source almost---oblivious to the massive electric shocks triggered by the severed wires, roaring through the lab. Hojo stood up slowly, and the glowing orbs that were his eyes narrowed. "I strongly caution you, Zero-X.....if you're planning on escaping, you'll find your aspirations quickly eliminated." He unplugged the headphones and turned off the speaker. Apparently the creature lacked the intellect to know that it was futile.

Calmly, unhurriedly, the scientist got up and walked towards another part of the room. He stopped midway, and stared at the demon in the opposite corner,who was filled with hateful disgust. He chuckled to himself and continued towards his destination.

The wires continued to snap and the current surged through the monster's bones, buts its raging desire for human flesh burned inside it. Its roar penetrated the soundproof walls of the lab, rendered so to conceal its wretched purpose. Gemini watched this thing unfold, and growled..he didn't like direction this was taking. He smelled it. Bloodlust. He knew what the killer was capable of...Still gripping Suzie in his inhuman claws, he roared a taunt that sprang from his loathing heart, black from the blood that coursed within his own arteries.

So, who're you going to choose, huh? You'll probably kill BOTH, knowing YOU...One whole CITY..my FAMILY...

isn't enough for you, is it? You're just going to keep coming back for more, until EVERYONE'S dead. Then YOU'LL die of overreating. I'd LOVE to be there to see it. Ha...if I don't rip my own fucking throat out before then.

Those damn tears came again, and he hissed,

I hope you choke on it.

There was a shattering of glass, a final explosion of electricity, before the outpouring smoke dispersed, and the weakened Pokémon stood there, crackling with electricity, dripping with the bluish liquid and its black blood, about to be mixed with red. It raised its head, blazing scarlet eyes shutting to keep out the infernal lab light, and released another roar, but not of triumph, but of...hunger. It lifted one clawed foot up and brought it down, the sound resounding throughout the entire lab. The Pokémon nearest to the demolished tube smelled the air. For some reason, the boss was coming over there...and then it realized what was happening, when the terrified scream of Butch reached her ears.

Zero-X had reached the tube and was clawing at its base, ramming its horn into it, attempting to uproot it, break it, smash it in the floor...to get to the warm meat inside. Butch's currently red blood stopped flowing. He himself lost whatever color he had to begin with. He had never been so desperate in his life.... not for anything or anyone. But now, he wanted to say something to Cassidy, if that really was Cassidy.. even...for the bare reassurance that the last time he was going to see her was in that damn forest in Valencia.

The giant Pokémon rammed its horn once more into the tube's base, dislodging the glass from its foundation, roaring each time it did so, the terrified human writhed uselessly around amongst the wires, as the creature clawed at the the glass in front of his face, knowing that it soon would be his face. He involuntarily groaned: the mental images snaking through his mind, of sliding down the throat of his own..boss..

Meanwhile, the creature that was Cassidy couldn't see what was going on, but she could hear it... God, she could hear it...She raked her short claws across the glass, yapping and screeching in terror...what was the boss doing to Butch?! Why couldn't she..help...him?!?! Why?!?!

On the opposite side of the lab, hunched over a different set of keys, the scientist, blind to this...murder that was about to be commited, typed feverishly, alternating gaze between the monitor and the buttons, not bothering to check on his specimens. But he could hear them well enough.

"It is sometimes astounding how an unfortunate circumstance can become a favorable one," he remarked, removing his glasses and cleaning them on his labcoat. "I am infintely curious as to what Gemini and Zero-X's abilities are...."The cracking of glass. The monster had almost broken through. Butch went mute in that instant. "By simulating Belina's brain signals--" He tapped another set of keys. "--- each command I give... will be fulfilled without question. The possible lycanthrope will be salvaged, Gemini will be able to vent its emotions that would result in a nervous breakdown if kept contained, and when this experiment is concluded--" He entered a final command, as Zero-X halted, Cassidy's desperate screech hanging in the air, and Butch gaping into the very jaws of Hell. "--the intractable specimen will be subjugated."

Hojo watched in sadistic satisfaction as the walls of the cube opened, the dark creature trapped inside it gazing into nothingness in a mesmerized state, the same way it and its adversary acted around..Ivy.

Hojo held a controller-type device in his hands, and he stood, shuffling towards the two Pokémon, still as marble statues, whose stationary position hid the burning passions in Gemini's soul. They awaited their mistress' orders.

But there was only the master.

Butch could only watch relieved and horrfied. He had a bad feeling that the scientist wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice one of them. But he wasn't sure which side he should take... his boss almost eaten him, for Christ's sakes...so he could eat him...as if he had enough fat to make a good meal. And yet...he couldn't make that distinction between employee and dinner?

It was too damn close...he thought, his mind clearing from the shock. The bat-fox also had calmed down...proving this was really Cass. He looked at her top to bottom, ugly brown and grey form in the liquid, that was calm for the moment...almost graceful in this inhumanity---wait--- what the hell was he thinking?! Cassidy truly was a Pokémon, and if psycho was telling the truth about that, then he also was one...

Hojo slid the knob to its rightmost position, triggering a spark in both specimens' brains, and they moved to face each other, on opposite ends, controlled by the commands that the scientist entered into the device. Once they were far enough from the lab equipment or the study cells, he turned and walked back to the central panel. He leaned over to punch more buttons while his right hand gripped the device, and an electric field converged from opposite ends and encased them in a hollow dome of electricity, drawing the boundary lines for a battle arena. He put the headphones back on, looking foward to this..what he expected to be a hate-filled conversation. With a cruel, calculative grin, Hojo severed the link between the "mistress" and her slaves. The effect was immediate: Gemini lunged for the throat with vengeance blazing in those two pairs of Hell.

"HUUUOOARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!" DIE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!

The slow-moving reptile barely blocked the vital artery, and Gemini satisfactorily tore a chunk of hide with a swift slash. The ebony blood flowed thickly, blotching the lab floor with the midnight fluid. Zero-X had no time to retaliate before Gemini was upon it again, in Diablo's fury, burying its claws into the rough hide and gouging through it, the hand of Revenge drenching itself in the killer's black blood. But the tables turned...Zero-X swung his massive tail, the giant limb connecting with Gemini's chest and sending it hurtling into the electric field. He came charging back, aiming for the open wound, his forked tongue rattling, Satan himself about to strike the fatal blow. The reptile reared up to its full height, and batted with its clawed hand, loosing a roar of pain from Gemini as three claw marks were carved into its bleeding chest. It landed flat on its back, convulsing from the shock of having its skull slammed into the floor.

"GRRRRRRRRRRRROARRGH....." I do not wish to kill you, boy. I am no longer the enemy.

It sensed self-preservation alone. There was no remorse. No remorse...for this terrible a crime...a crime against Pewter City, a crime against his family, a crime against himself.. Fangs grit, Gemini lifted its head off of the floor, chest heaving. The old blood from its face rolled down. It failed to mask the lethal hate in that hellish visage. The beast came back down on all fours, creating ripples beneath the weight. With a nimble spin it hurled its fore and hind claws into the creature's huge chest, slashing like mad, hurling chunks of the hide away until he had almost reached his heart, and it crashed onto the floor, back-first. The deathblow position. The black heart beat below a river of blood, and a shredded layer of scaled hide. All the fight was ripped from him, and he lay vulnerable for the final blow of Justice.

Giovanni felt the end was near. He felt his cold blood flow below him, his vision getting hazy, each breath coming with more labor than the previous...but..Gemini then stood there, letting its hate-filled eyes bore into the guilty soul of the murderer.

BULL_SHIT...you'd kill me as soon as I turned around...just like...EVERYONE that was important to me..It flexed its claws towards and away its scale-covered palms, shaking from the torment churning within its shattered soul. And you'd kill me. Then what's going to happen to everyone else? People..humans who didn't do anything wrong ending up as YOUR dinner? The mental words tore at the shreds of what remained of the Rocket boss' pride. Brock began to circle his enemy, the whip-like tail lashing behind him. Then he stopped. A vermillion aura began to emanate from his inhuman forehead. He clamped his claws on his head, facing downwards, a horrible snarl leaping from his throat. He fell hard on the bloodstained ground, causing some of the blood to jump with the impact. The crimson aura sprouted outward from its head to encompass the whole writhing figure, and he screamed in agony. What's...HAPPENING..in my HEAD?!

Butch stared at everything: the battle, the Pokémon, and the man behind it. His spidery fingers were turning a knob, corresponding with the violent glow radiating from the kid. Damn..he almost felt sorry for the freak.

"Ah......so this is the rumored...psychokinetic ability that Belina particularly maximized in Gemini..." Hojo remarked amidst the subject's strangled screams. "It appears that it has been unaware of this ability prior to this...it seems to be undergoing a gratuitous amount of....." Butch thought he saw the scientist smile at the word, " pain to achieve the full level of effectiveness..."

There was a flash the hue of sunset. As Hojo watched the Pokémon execute the attack and the black hulk quake from the gigantic force, he turned the knob to its original position. Gemini's body shuddered and collapsed, drained completely, with a thud on the black floor. The silence was absolute. Butch murmured something or other, and plastered his face to the tube. Were they both dead?

The low hum in the room abruptly vanished as Hojo removed the "arena", nonchalantly unclasped two PokéBalls from his belt, and dropped them on the near-dead Pokémon. The bloody monsters vanished into the devices in a muted red light, and he made his way, holding them in his thin hands, to a machine at the rear of the lab. He made no remark as Butch's distrusting eyes followed him from one side of the lab to another, or Cassidy's hostile cry as she picked up his scent. He placed both PokéBalls into the machine, a rainbow-hued glow shimmering around the Ball and penetrating the metal to whatever lay inside it. He then removed the Balls from the machine and walked back across the lab, stopping at the cube. Without a word, he set the lighter of the PokéBalls onto the stand and it disappeared, shooting down and straight through a connecting tube, depositing the healed..and now scarred, Gemini in his cube by the corpse. Seeing that his specimen was back in place, Hojo took the other Ball, attatched it to his belt, and shuffled out of sight.

*~*~*

AVALANCHE had never fought anything like this before. They were finding the fight impossible.. trying to counter the monsters' attacks while the Turks hit them with a Turk Light or Grand Spark that would stream through the ground and hit not only the targets, but the patterned squares, sending more debris hailing on them. They didn't want to admit it, but this time, they were outnumbered and somehow, overpowered.

"Aren't we way in over our heads?" inquired Red. He rolled over in time to dodge the electrically-charged paw of Ampharos that sent a left jab into the floor, charging it with negatively-charged particles. Cid looked over at Red, getting sandwhiched between Rude and Hitmonchan in the process. He vigorously shook his head, and cracked the butt-end of his spear straight up into Hitmonchan's lower jaw. The Fighting type fell up then down, goraning as bones started to crunch as Barret backed up on its chest. Quilava attacked long-range with a whirling ring of hot flame, grazing the AVALANCHE leader's shoulder. He came crashing down and landed on Hitmonchan, which was unconscious, if not dead already.

If it was, Rude showed no feeling. Then again, when did he? He and Reno double-teamed Red, the elder going for the head and the younger swinging his rod at the tail. Cid came running and vaulted with his spear, smashing it over Reno's head. The red-haired Turk fell unconscious, and Cid took a breather.

"One down-----shit!!" Quilava expelled a sheet of smoke. It was transient but impermeable, and it put Cid in the dark long enough for Elena to hit him with a Firebomb.

"Two to go." She smirked as the super-heated explosion brought the pilot down covered in burns. She turned her attention to Red and Barret, the former's eye flicking back and forth between his unconscious comrade and the approaching enemy and the latter up after the fall. Barret yelled to the lean mass of red fur,

"Take dat side!"

Red nodded and turned tail. Quilava, Ampharos, and Elena aimed for the rear, Tseng, at a distance, returned Barret's fire, with Sandslash dormant, but ready to strike at any given moment. Tseng seemed withdrawn: his mind wasn't on the battle, as if he was afraid of going back...

He felt his hands move. They were still cold....

The point of the Masamune drove into his chest, sending a stab of cold ice through his entire body. For a split second he could see his murderer's face..full of unconcern, as if he had just swatted a fly. He felt the sword slid out from his chest, cleanly, coated thinly in blood. He dropped to his knees and then flat on the temple floor, where beads of blood dropped. Night fell.

Tseng's eyes hardened and he pulled his focus away from the memory.

Not now. You've got a job to do.

He twirled the gun and spent his last bullet. But it counted. It grazed Red's side as he sunk his teeth into Ampharos chest, loosing a yelp of pain from both of them and a thud as they crashed to the floor beside the pilot. Red had barely regained footing on his paws when Sandslash decked him from behind with a full body slam. One to go.

*~*~*

Hojo was faced away from Giovanni, who was strapped with heavy restraints on an operating table, covered in white scars that spelled out Gemini's incomplete vengeance.. He held a rod in his right hand, operating a Bunsen-Burner type device with his left. The flame rose high, heating the lightweight rod. At intervals the other would growl, clawing at the table. So predictable, these subjects were. They would whine, cry, struggle to avoid the pain..doing everything within their power to avert it away from them. Unfortunate that they didn't realized that such pain was unavoidable. It was part of their existence, and perhaps their purpose. The scientist pulled out the rod and tested it on a stone slab.

"Hm....the termperature is too low..." Thrusting the rod into the flame again, he turned up the gas, and the flame's hiss jumped into a roar. The orange light was now visible to the creature, and it growled uneasily. Something was about to happen...smething that could not be good, but.....

When the rod was red-hot, he withdrew it, and looked upon the black mass of flesh, muscle, and bone. He waited for a reaction, and the dull red eyes broadened, and he threw back his head, unleashing a roar that bled the scientist's ears. Zero-X finally put two and two together, the burning rod, the way the human held it like a dagger, the way he was strapped to the table, it all pieced itself together into a twisted, ruthless fact:

He was going to BRAND him.

"Rather ironic, Zero-X, isn't it?" he chuckled. The roars in the room grew increasingly more desperate. "That you believe so strongly in the concept of..ah, what's the word?" He rested a finger on his chin. "Yes...ownership.." His tail and head thrashing now, crashing through the air in all directions, the rest of his body held immobile by those GODDAMN straps. "Well, my friend, what do you make of being owned, hm? Carrying the name of your superior on your--" He scanned the creature's body to locate a suitable "canvas". He zeroed-in on the left upper arm, below the shoulder. Demeanor exuding a lack of expression so complete it was maniacal glee, he raised the burning rod over his head like a sword, and plunged it down onto the victim's hide. The stench of burning flesh and a roar of raw pain that unravelled into a scream permeated the room, and through the black smoke the narrowed green eyes floated, two lanterns suspended in Hell.

*~*~*

Beads of perspiration exploded over Barret's body. He'd been crammed into close situations before, but this one frazzled his nerves. The goddamn monsters were at their peak of fighting and didn't let up. If he was a bit slower than he was, they would nail him for sure. And of all places to get stuck in that situation was the corner of the room..He jerked his head to avoid a burst of flame that connected with the wall. He got a glimpse of his comrades behind the three monsters and the remaining Turks assaulting form behind and next to. Shit, if he didn't heal those wounds soon, they'd die. But he was surrounded, and the Turks showed no sign of letting up, and he was running out of ammo. Options were running out. Time was running out. Escape came into his head.. If he could get out of there and then cure them...

The AVALANCHE leader charged up the firepower in his gun, a huge energy ball expanding to mind-blowing proportions, the very heat singeing the Turks and the monsters and warding Elena away. The ball shot from the barrel, smashing into the wall. Shards of concrete and metal shot from the point of impact, blinding the Turks with a sheet of smoke to rival a Smokescreen. Elena coughed, waving her arms to clear the view. Red fireballs stabbed the smoke sheet as Quilava tried to hit something, and did...Sandslash's harsh cry pierced the smoke-choked air as the mouse tumbled to the floor.

When the smoke cleared, AVALANCHE was gone. Tseng narrowed his eyes at the crude rip in the wall. He holstered his gun and set his jaw. Reno and Rude lay in the confused mess, wounded and still. The still-conscious Quilava growled tiredly, half- scanning the room for signs of AVALANCHE. A few seconds gone, Elena gaped at the telltale hole and asked with a hint of confusion in her voice,

"Aren't we going after them?!"

"No. The President's orders."

An exhausted Quilava and the rest unconscious disappeared into the Turks' PokéBalls, and Tseng looked down at the unconscious Reno and Rude and shook his head in slight dismay. He couldn't help thinking that the Turks were losing their usefulness to the company.....the very concern that his associates mentioned out loud. This had been the most noteworthy mission they had this month, but the President himself put no high priority on it. Much less Heidegger, but the slob was getting more negligent every day, sending the SOLDIERs where the Turks were needed, and if it jeapordized potential profit, didn't do anything about it. And the President, young and callow, still let these kind of things happen. Turning his focus back to his wounded associates, he crammed the thought into the back of his prioritized mind.

*~*~*

Jealousy had been a relatively unknown feeling in Brock's sea of emotions. Maybe sadness or frustration over losing a betrothed woman to a man that had been in the picture a long time before he showed up, maybe....MAYBE... A faint spark of jealousy. Never this burning rage at seeing Butch catch a lucky break and be human...

And he just HAS to be a Rocket. He reminded himself acridly. He answers to HIM.

Gemini raised a shaking fist then let it fall. He dropped to his knees and let his demonic tail sink behind his clawed feet and cupped his shaved head in his claws. What's WRONG with me? I don't HATE people because they're in Team Rocket..I'm not LIKE that..I CARE...He slowly looked up, shutting his eyes and opening them as the lab light penetrated the cube. His lip quivered, his shoulders shook. Desperate for a reassurance, he grasped Suzie's corpse and asked it, I CARE...don't I?

The white corpse made no reply.

Cassidy had been listening---how couldn't she? Her ears were now her eyes. And though the only one who she could communicate with was the kid, it was better "talking" to him than being completely isolated. Now knowing what the boss was capable of...Butch's screams echoing throughout her mind, she wasn't sure if she could be at ease communicating with the boss. But, he wasn't there, either. The psychotic scientist had taken him...inwardly, she wondered, if he would come back in one piece....or alive, for that matter.

She took her snout away from the glass, hearing Butch's even breathing and not much else from him, preoccupied with the same thoughts, as he also was isolated from her, and faced the direction of the tortured being without seeing him, having no eyes to see with.

You're not going to get much of an aswer out of a stiff, kid.

Gemini was startled at hearing the cold, often mocking voice of the blonde Team Rocket member echo through his head. He brushed Suzie's green bangs gently away from her face and glared at the blind bat/fox, opened mouth and show of teeth manfiesting renewed rage.

Why don't you just go and rub it in AGAIN, bitch?

Cassidy pulled back, a little miffed, and tried..without success, to place her on her hip as she was accustomed to, but the bone didn't bend that way. Nothing..it seemed to work the way she had known it to. But this persistent frustration didn't stop her from retaliating in full force in the way she was known to do so: with cruelty.

Look, I've got my own problems to deal with, so do us all a favor and stop talking to your dead girlfriend!

She waited for the demon roar in torment. Ha...that hit hard.

PROBLEMS?! You think you've got PROBLEMS?! That's easy for you to say. You got off easily. Science guy didn't RIP OFF YOUR DAMN CLOTHES and take all that nice orange hair. You didn't get REJECTED by your own TOWN, or "serve" a "master", or watch your sister DIE IN FRONT OF

YOUR EYES. And.Bud's a NORMAL PERSON and he isn't DEAD.

First of all, it's Butch, she shot back icily. We can't talk to each other because he's a damn human! Hmph...The kid wasn't getting the hint that, as much as she hated to think it, they were in Hell together. They were there for the same reasons, the same purpose...for now, there weren't any differences between them. They had went through more or less the same pain..what was this kid raving about, anyway? And most of all, they as Pokémon, were barred by their vocal cords to coomunicate with the other kind. It broke every rule of her proud vanity, but...you learned to accept the truth after awhile.

But he's human..he's NORMAL...he's not a freak...came the sorrowful, even pitiable protest. The demonic hatred and jealousy had melted into the almost timid voice of a desperate young man. But the growls weren't any less inhuman.

"Ah......"

Both heads snapped up and greeted the word with hostility. At this moment, their common antagonist was clear, and both focused their hatred onto that one human. He tilted his jaw up, gazing at one Pokémon and then the other, lifting a finger under his his lenses that made the lab light reflect in such a way thta masked his cold gaze. He bent his head downward, pondering the meaning of their conversation. He took off the headphones and laid them in plain sight, partly for Butch to see and squirm at. "How strange you have such acrimony against your current state." The human Rocket suddenly banged on the glass, his eyes fixated on the speaker. Why wouldn't he turn it on? He felt he was going crazy...he, Butch, the level-headed one most of the time. Cass was right there and he couldn't hear what she was saying...completely isolated from his partner.. And that freak was enjoying the fact he was cut off.

The "freak" was concentrated on other matters.

"Fortunately, I am prepared to begin a new experiment," he stated with very little joy at that, as if it was a matter of fact, an everyday occurence, something to be taken for granted . The reaction was simply the opposite from the mutants. A murderous harmony of Pokémon cries flooded the laboratory. "...Not to worry.." His voice lowered a few notches in volume. "This involves quite a different set of chemicals...I presume you two---" The green spheres were rooted on Butch and Cassidy. "---were seeking the antidote. Ah, but of course you were... You would have no business there, otherwise." He raised his head with his chin between his fingers and let his gaze fall upon the Rockets with his mouth partially opened in a thoughtful smile. "Had you known where the antidote was, you might have never come under my observation."

Cassidy and Butch froze. Could that mean, then...that they wouldn't have found the antidote even if Hojo hadn't stopped them? That they would have failed either way? Cassidy felt her claws curl into her brown paws. In a fleeting fit of fury she rammed her snout onto the glass, and then calmed. They didn't know. They wouldn't have known. Maybe.....it was inevitable?

"Fortunately, that was not the case, and I have a sizable sample. Ah...yes...you will all have the pleasure of reversion, with the exception of the homo sapien." No reply. Their reduced mental capacities coupled with the strain on the mind failed to grasp the meaning. He removed a PokéBall from his belt and it enlarged in his hand, his wrist bent slightly downward from its weight. "But first..." He heard Gemini's savage growling, growling like a territorial dog faced with another breed.

The first tube destroyed, he would have to use the fourth one. Indeed, he had been reserving it for two specimens he hoped to acquire soon, but for the time being, it would house the one in this Ball. He moved towards the stand and placed the heavy sphere onto the device, and it was again sucked into the new tube. The monstrous shape of Zero-X appeared. Gemini stopped growling, began to roar, then stopped midway, and a feral laugh came from the cube. He was standing, the devil-like tail slicing the air behind him. His arms were crossed, the protruding spikes jutting from his shoulders failing to block his gleaming, almost----almost mirthful eyes. A sardonic, caustic laugh, filled with vengeful satisfaction at the glaring red brand emblazoned on Giovanni's pitch-black hide.

There on the reptile's black arm were printed four letters, the third under the first, the fourth under the second, the last wisps of smoke still trickling out of the conspicuous brand. Zero-X stared at it overwhelmed with shame, and the shocked remarks of his human subordinate, which at this time, he was feeling below, and his hoarse questions barely registered in his mind. All he could think about was this rediscovered shame..this..this brand..sinking him down to the sublevels of inhumanity. He gazed at this new source of torment that had been literally carved into his arm with that iron rod. It was still burning...it would be for a while, and still physically agonizing. He passed his tongue over the brand, burning it for all of his trouble. He grasped it with his claws, as if that would soothe the burn. His clumsy, undexterous grip made it worse. And then there was the boy. If he couldn't exact physical vengeance, he could at least kill his pride.

H O J O, Gemini spelled out with some difficulty, and he put a claw on the crown of his head, the effort of reading sending sharp aches through it. What was that? He didn't try and think about it further, for the pain was diluted from this gratifying sight, and he soothed his own swelling ball of pain by salting this wound.

That's a long way to fall, Gio.

I have fallen from high enough already, boy. For the time being, I do not believe I can sink any lower.

Don't be so sure. With freak in charge there, he can do a lot more. His growl had a cynical note, and his red eyes slid towards the man bent over the panel, again, activating something or other..but he was enjoying this too much to identify the approaching danger. It looks good on you, though. Better than that ugly orange suit. There was no audible reaction. So, did it HURT? A defeated growl that barely escalated in volume when the wretched hooks came upon his massive body again. Except now, the purpose was different. Huh, Gio? Did it? His vampiric teeth showed as he grinned: one of the hooks buried into the fresh brand, a tremendous roar of pain imminent. Deep in the fragments of Brock's soul something told him that this was wrong, but the want of vengeance in even the most ineffectual form engulfed and posessed him. Though, his dagger-like question was anything but. Now who's "inferior?"

The upturned grin flipped as Butch shot him a warning.

"Hey kid, watch youh back." He had his brown eyes fixated on the man and the controls, and though the liquid hindered his sight, he could see the outline of a PokéBall steadily making its way through one of the connective tubes that strung the ceiling towards the cube. But it was too late.

Wha?

The PokéBall dropped in a predetermined direction, and the unsuspecting mutant seemed to dissolve as it was pulled back into the hated red-and-white orb. The metallic sphere disappeared from the cube, forced through the tubes towards the fifth cell. He found himself in yet another prison, in the study cell that stood alongside his nemesis'. He gazed into the shame-clouded face of the fallen Devil. But the hate-laden glare faded into one of frantic desperation as the wires descended upon him, striking at him like cobras woken in their nest, and he dodging, fighting, struggling against the inevitable, until the hooks penetrated his body, and the demon was suspended in the transparent liqiud like the rest.

The tone of Hojo's statement was falsely apologetic through an unchanging expression and feigned empathy.

"It is a shame to take you away from your solitude, Gemini, but the design of that study cell is not conducive to the procedure." The desperate demon darted this way and that, yanked and pulled by the twisting constrictions, his eyes tearing up again at the forced absence of Suzie. Why couldn't he hold her corpse for Christ's sakes?! It was useless and her dead face was maddening, but it was loads more comfort than being next to HIM. He roared almost insanely, red eyes glowing with want, desire, for the least that anyone could do for him. "Hm.....I imagine you are disturbed... but why---ah..." He cast a glance at the tube and summoned the...Brock squinted through the liquid gloom....the crane. If there was still logic left in him, it told him that if the crane brought her out of the freezer, that........

NO............

"Pity you can't keep your acquaintance; those chemicals act as a catalyst for decomposition."

SUZIE.....No...don't TAKE HER AWAY!!!

Brock exploded into a flood of tears, clamping his claws over his red eyes, made more so with the tears, that flowed into the liquid. Because of his need for vengeance, he let his guard down....he could have stayed with her a bit longer.....but no..she was being taken again from him, back into that cold freezer. At that moment he knew that he would never see her again. This time, he had no one else to blame but his own self.

"Let us begin, shall we?" Hojo bowed his head, his eyes moving fast over the buttons and knobs and switches and levers, the boggling assortment of machinery that dictated the mutants' destiny in fatalistic tone. He took the blood-red antidote, failing to note Butch's gaping shock, so preoccupied he was, distant from everything in the lab except these chemicals, totally and completely absorbed in them as if the mixture was God. He took a measurement, recorded it, and finally returned his attentions to the controls. He poured the liquid into a receptacle adjoining the controls, the liquid racing through the connective tubes in pulsating streams that entered the study cells, displacing the bluish liquid, changing it to the hue of human blood.

Butch watched from inside the tube, both palms pressing on the glass wall. He grunted in distrust of the whole thing. You didn't get nothing for nothing.

"Both processes are simple," he explained to no one in particular. "Whether it is injection or immersion, as you are experiencing currently--" He nodded to all but the human, who stared apprehensive at thie promise of humanity. Stare in absolute horror at what was happening to Cass, the boss, and even..the kid.. "---the end result is the same. A complete reversion...or in many cases, transformation. Of course it varies from subject to subject. It depends how how..." He stressed the word. ".....different...the Pokémon is from the human."

The transformations that followed barely perturbed the scientist. They were a far cry from such changes that involved a simple shrinking or growing or losing appendages, or for that matter, Pokémon evolution, but formed a grotesque mutation. The hideous transformation from human to Pokémon only aggrandized with the opposite.

Hojo strayed away from the controls, the hideous process carrying itself out. He unclasped his hands and put one finger under his chin and asked the writhing figures,

."Isn't it amazing how antidotes were developed to alleviate pain, but......this doubles, perhaps triples it....?"

Internally, it was chaos. Skulls caved in to protect a smaller brain, and cracked down the middle to accomodate a larger one. The blood in their veins and arteries and capillaries changed its hue from black, and in the bat/fox's case, grey, back to the oxygen-rich scarlet, squeezing through shrunk blood vessels, in a mad panic to reach the vital red heart. Muscles shrank, bones remolded like clay, causing the muscles to collapse. The nerves might as well have been fried: this was pushing the body's--human or Pokémon-- too far.

Butch wasn't a genius, but he wasn't brainless. He shouted over the screams, the unearthly pleas for mercy,

"Cut it out, freak, you'he 'gonna kill 'em! They'll be dead befohe they'he human!!!"

"Hm.....there is a possibility..." he answered.

"WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YA?" he rasped with livid brown flames in his eyes, losing his cool-headedness as the witness to this.... The brown globes blazed with growing fear...they rolled across his eyes feverishly, the molding dark forms burning forever in his memory. "They'he gonna die------"

"Perhaps you didn't hear me the first time..." His eyes narrowed and cloesd in annoyance. "I will let nature take its course. If in fact the procedure is defective, there are corrective methods."

"Cass..." Butch stared to his left with the vaguest tear brimming in his left eye. The only time he cried in his whole underhanded career as an elite Rocket...not for a bungled heist or a lost opportunity at making money or grabbing a rare Pokémon, but for his partner?

The antidote was doing what it was made for....He could see hands in the place of paws, nails instead of claws, canines instead of fangs, ears on the side of her head instead of at the top, and slowly, agonizingly so, eyes were appearing, those violet eyes so full of devious cunning and the cruel demeanor of the femme fatale that she was. But now that demeanor was in pain...pure, raw, pain...a pain that could become lethal at any point during this merciless process from monster to human....and he couldn't do a thing about it..not one damn thing.

Same with the others.

"Ninety percent complete...all subjects seem to be stable..."

What would happen would happen. He crossed his quivering fingers and waited.

The screams now, were almost unfamiliar...the abnormailty.....seemed normal. He shook his head and blinked. They looked almost completely human, now, except for a few tufts of fur or a scale here or there, but within minutes those were gone as well.....and...if he didn't know the truth, the awful, sick truth, he wouldn't know that they were Pokémon.

It was the flawless mask that the demons hide behind to conceal their identity. But as it was, it was only a partial facade, The...humans' mentality hadn't returned. Brock caught himself growling... until he found he could talk.

"Is it a dream?" he asked himself, looking at his palms and turning them over, normal, olive skin greeting his normal, squinted eyes. The fact that it was covered in scars didn't bother him for the moment. It was his own, human flesh. He was still.....bald, but the head wasn't scaled. He felt all over his body, touching nothing but smooth, though hardy flesh, the kind that wouldn't scare the living crap out of people...people..he was a person... he was human..."I'm...I'm me...I'm Brock. I'm not Gemini!" he shouted out loud in unimaginable joy, unshadowed by the suspicious frown Butch wore, but that, too, was eliminated when he saw Cassidy. And Cassidy saw him.

"B---Butch!!!" she cried, pressing her pale, soft face against the walls of the prison that seemed so insignificant.

Giovanni seemed to be the only one not rejoicing. In fact, he was perturbed. He looked over his left arm. The brand had carried over from his Pokémon state, which he had a sickening feeling it would. But more than that, Gemini..Brock had read it. It must have consisted of letters, but these letters wern't registering...was it possible that he couldn't--? No.....the liquid must be blurring his vision...that must be the reason.

For the rest of the subjects, the moment was short lived. Without touching the controls, Brock felt that abominable..headache. He groaned, his head falling foward clasped by his hands.

"No....not now!!!!" He glowered at Hojo, who wasn't at the control panel."Huh? Why're we changing back?!" the tan boy yelled, feeling the pain of the transformation creeping up his spine like serpents of ice.

"Fortunately......" He told the "humans" floating in the tube, already experiencing the first pains of a reversal of the process, in their minds, knowing their humanity was about to slip away before any physical changes happened, that first horror so ingrained into their memory. "Because the chemicals that began your transformation in the first place were introduced into your system, the human state is very....unstable."

The mutation was more rapid, but no less painful. As the pain shot through Gemini's human system, and did the same to the others, the universal protest rang clear in his tortured cry:

"No.....NO........I'm not going back!!! GRIHM NOTRGH GROHHGINGRR BAARGHK!!!!!"

Then......

The door and a good section of the lab wall exploded into metal shards. Fresh from Barret's Restore Materia, the three AVALANCHE members burst into the laboratory, their weapons drawn. They were expecting a head-on assault from the Shin-Ra, but found something contrary to what they expected. Upon seeing the madman, Cid gaped ahead perplexed with his cigarette half-falling out of his mouth..

"How the fuck did psycho-ward get here?!" the pilot yelled to his comrades. Red tensed again and trained his yellow eye on the man, wary of his presence. They hadn't discovered how dangerous he was until they were almost dead from the poison in his----- he didn't want to think about it right now. The point was, they'd better be the attacking party in this confrontation.

"I don't know, but we need to be careful."

"Shit, fag's DEAD! Did I fucking miss sometthing here?!"

Hojo spoke, his back showing, still turned towards his specimens. AVALANCHE was standing at such an angle that the mutants were barred from their sight. Might as well be...he didn't want these ones to escape like Red XIII. Though he had been aware then that that method of breeding wouldn't be able to work.

"My...such vulgar words..." The trained eye saw him lick his lips. "...Especially for Dr---"

"Shuddup! We're takin' yo' down an' out!"

The scientist was stopped in mid-sentence, Red unimpulsively once again pouncing onto him with identical ferocity. Cid and Barret spread out, attacking the machinery with everything they had. Come hell or high water, they couldn't let Shin-Ra have its way with another whole planet..Explosions shook the lab, fire and shrapnel bursting into all directions. Through the chaos, Hojo crawled out from under Red's inexplicably ineffectual mauling, and slowly stood up, barely fazed. "I warn you, this will prove to be counterproductive to your cause..."

Barret used the last energies of his Fire Materia and engulfed the lab entrance in flames. The chaos became pandemonium as the minor electrical fires were swallowed by the Materia-induced flames, fanning and fueling them, augmenting them until they grew and expanded, broadening their concentration from small pockets of the lab into the entire front wall.

"I think we're getting more than we bargained for," Red remarked. "If we don't think of something fast....."

"Yeah, Beethoven I get the friggin' picture," the gruff pilot answered. This was going to hurt much more than Elena's Firebomb...aw, forget dancing around words: they were gonna get fried. Cid and Red stormed ahead, searching everywhere for a way to put out the fire. But everywhere, there were flames and no water, no ground, nothing they could snuff it out with. Their plan had backfired. Badly. "Shit." Cid gazed up and saw nothing but a solid sheet of flame. Perspiration drenched thorugh his clothes as he and the wolf/dog went where the flames were not and ran like hell. It was there, where Cid stopped and Red kept on going towards the wall.

Holy fucking Christ......

Cid found himself staring at three stampeding freaks and one crazy in his birthday suit heading towards the white wall.. They rushed at him, terrified as he, and he dove out of the way in time to avoid getting flattened and gored at the same time. Cid blinked after them in absolute bewilderment, while Barret jogged out from a thinning gap in the flames and began running, the scorching fire snapping at his broad back. He yelled something about the white wall, and then his sapphire eyes widened in realization: the portal had appeared. Wherever it led to, it was better to brave the unknown than brave death. Cid jumped up, his spear in both gloved hands, and followed at the rear, growing closer to the white portal, where his comrades and the weird freaks had disappeared into....

A dart hit his back. He shook, stunned by the blow, and fell on the floor, his spear clattering to the floor. The steady footfalls of the predator approached his prey, and the hunched shadow loomed over the unconscious pilot. Strange.....he hadn't bothered to extinguish the fire before it escalated. Did he even notice?

He saw the white portal vanish in a dim crackle of light like a small-scale lightning storm, arched an eyebrow, and stopped. Something oddly familiar about that light--- but now was not the time. Staring down into the ashen face of the unconscious pilot, face frozen in pain at the sting of the dart, Hojo greeted with growing relish in his forceless voice,

"Welcome back, Draconis Rex."

He let his stabbing eyes wander around. All of his machines...his lesser specimens..the entire lab had been incinerated by the fire. Well, no matter. He had this one.

A crude, tedious method of transportation would have to be utilized. Grasping the unconscious pilot by his jacket with two hands, he dragged the limp and, to him, heavy body, slowly backing up to an oddly-patterened square in the corner. The fire grew closer, the heat causing him to perspire but not notice, forever oblivious to the obvious crisis, the chaos, so greatly his ambition posessed his mind.

The heel of his shoe touched the square, activating the mechanism inside it, and within seconds of the flames devouring the square, the two men vanished.

*~*~*

A/N: Is there really more to Cid than we think? Will we find out what's with the overly-prophetic Kuja ripoff? ^^;; Is there a reason why Hojo is acting so evil? Where will the portal lead? Will Brock ever grow his hair back? Yes, I know I'm humorless. Sue me. ^^; Stay tuned for chapter 16!