End of A Reality
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana
A/N: Yay...this for once, will NOT be a general chapter. ^^; I just realized something else. oO Semi-human cat..errr...S-010 was not modeled on Lynx. In fact, he looks nothing like Lynx. :Phew.:: On another note, I finally got to read H.G. Wells' The Island of
Doctor Moreau. Brilliant. Brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant. Truly horrific and------wow. That's what I call sci-fi. It explores the theme in excruciating detail. YOU_MUST_READ_IT. This fic is NOT based on that unbelievably amazing literary masterpiece. Nor are its ideas derived from it. ::Phew:: Erin, thanks for suggesting it. ^^
*~*~*
God knows how long they've been digging that pit. They got some balls to dig right where they knocked down the HQ. I saw them rig the building...it fell hard. They say it's symbolism. They say we're gonna fall hard too. Every civiliation falls, they say. It's our turn.
They bulldoze the wreck. Bulldozing the competition. Digging starts before you know it. You shoulda seen them---gadgets that our tech department can't dream of building and with Team Rocket's funds right now---forget it.
They're still digging. It's machines doing all the work so they don't give if some dumbass falls in the green pit. No one's gonna be able to find em, anyway. The green stuff that's leaking out of the ground in some places eats em alive. The robots keep going.
They just got a little more to go with rocks that're in the way. They've got armed masks in the roads and I ain't about to sneak my squad by em. You're on your own for this one. But you're gonna crush em. No corporation's gonna wipe us out. There's no way we're down. Eat that, Shin-Ra!
~Unsigned letter from a Rocket, intercepted and siezed by Shin-Ra authorities for security measures. Written at the same time Team Rocket central HQ was destroyed. Archived by the Mahogany Town police department.
*~*~*
Chapter 24: Insubordination
*~*~*
A groaning bellow lifted from the sideways mountain of black earth that rocked with abating weakness. It slowly turned upright, Black Rain mixed with liquid dirt poured off its battered hide in cataracts, revealing if only partially, the hideous monstrosity.
It threw its titanic skull skyward, the liquid that obstructed any sight draining off its blazing eyes and across its fangs that showed through slightly opened jaws at the eternal midnight that enveloped all. Everything was covered by a dark substance, not unlike the blood that coursed inside him..that had earlier been ripped out by a thing with far greater strength than he, splitting open his hide and snapping straight through his horn that didn't re-materialize and nearly slashing his head in two and his midsection in four, charring hurting flesh with torpid inferno...
What..the..devil? he queried, returning strength overshadowed by an animalistic fear of suddenly being thrust into a different environment, one differing in ways that at this moment, Giovanni could not fathom. He tolerated the change that would otherwise unnerve him...for it steeped him in absolute darkness, the nocturnal surroundings that Ivy programmed him to thrive in, to keep him far from the sun that warmed the Earth and its lifeforms, to isolate him from that Earth and make him dependent on a world void of that golden star.
The darkness was not night..as the lizard was nocturnal, he would have desired food regardless if he had eaten beforehand. No..it was artificial darkness, caused by the falling liquid. It smelled of a metallic odor. His nostrils dilated. The bestial senses absorbed the heavy odor of....blood? he questioned, straining his eyes at the liquid clotting on his hide...growling aggravated at the difficulty of discerning between what pulsed through his blood vessels and what poured from the sky: it all seemed the same.
Gemin----He corrected himself for a learned fear of a diced muzzle-----Brock. The rush of the liquid. What is this?.! he growled in dismay and shock, basking in the safety of the total darkness but at the same time wondering...why was it raining---his tongue wormed between his drooping fangs and caught at the liquid. Memory recent and long past knew the taste instantaneously.- --black blood. But...how could this be possile? Unless...the canisters..that is what they contained... ..his memory had been hazy...Evidently, they had left Pallet Town...he recalled the painless white light.....then nil.
The vengeful demon soon revealed all.
Funny you should ask...Zero-X lost a tentative grip and his girth connected with the ground again, flipped back-first from the inertia..and the broiling but controlled hate of the boy..driving the attack. The lizard snarled in a rapid bite of pain as Brock drove the nail-sharp spikes on his shoulders into his nemesis' upper arm, conviently gouging a new mark into the brand. A toxic accusation dripped from his unrelenting growl. You should KNOW. He thrusted his shoulder upward, jerking the huge mass of hide that groaned with the crunch of pain. You KNEW what was in those drums, didn't you? Another jerk. The liquid flowed and ran into itself. Spikes still lodged in the arm, he wrenched the massive head and melted the fires of Giovanni's eyes with white-hot crimson. You KNEW that it would make Misty like this-----like us.
An asserting growl from the neuter creature that once had been a young girl.
Where did you derive THAT notion, boy? came the challenging hiss. What did it matter if his ego and his pride cracked and lay in broken fragments. He was still Giovanni...he WOULD command the same respect he had as a human...he had had enough of the youth's anger... this time it was unrighteous--- he did not deserve his mental allegations this time--he was not guilty.
I did not know...THIS---He pointed his snout at the sky, still locked with Gemini's double grip--- would come of it. What makes you believe that I would know the outcome?.! A growl, a crushing snap of teeth that missed its mark. Laughably fell short of the demon's head whose hatred exploded.
Not MUCH...he growled, ramming his shoulder farther into the brand, ripping slowly through the layers and layers of what was designed to be impregnable hide that had so recently been healed, and was now getting torn apart again.
Maybe it's because THEY work for YOU.. A surprised growl that suggested uninvolvement. He looked the other directly in his malformed visage with a glint of what looked like---honesty? Couldn't be.
They never spoke of----
A strangled roar from the raging mass of grey threw Giovanni's rebounding thoughts into turmoil as his eyes filled with an explosive beam of light and heat that drilled into the corneas and knocked his skull sideways, shuddering from the fierce impact.
Tell ME that. Coarse breathing could be heard through the driving rain, along with a feminine voice....the..girl's? But...no mere girl any longer...that much was apparent as he felt the superheat of a Hyper Beam blast razing his arm that had not started to heal before it was battered again.
I...DID NOT KNOW, he snarled with wide-eyed panic, the, to the others, a weak excuse that came out of self-preservation and a lifetime of lies. They came at him at once: Gemini and the Gyarados had evidently double-teamed. Alone, if he had full control of his brain, Brock was insufficient to kill him. But with another one of sizable power....He began to retreat his unwieldy girth, the will to survive overtaking waning pride and ego. His fangs held locked, using the broken tool of intimidation, the display of agression only serving as a magnet to the true aggressors.
Butch and Cassidy, report-----what is the meaning of this treachery..?..!! The hostile growls and the threat of an encroaching agony reigned the air. Their breathing invoked death. His hide wasn't healing fast enough. They could easily reach the soft innards, the ribs, the black heart... From fighting the winged shadow, his fire was spent, a chunk of his side was gone down the shadow's throat..and he was slow. They were quick..He could flee, but they would catch him, take him down, unless...
A hostile croak with a terse matter-of-factness blunted the blade of concentrated hatred.
It ain't treachery, boss.
The mutant frog sprang foward from its short crawl and hurled a blast of acid at the Gyarados, that burned into the rain-swamped ground as it sensed an onrushing projectile and dove. She made an imprint in the mud that changed its hideous shape as it lifted itself to two legs, latching on the ground clumsily and without dexterity, getting herself upright in time to see an airborne monster descend on the demon.
What name would you give it?
Revenge, was the curt answer. The air shot up to a boil. Brock gave a margled hiss as a fireball burned into his lower arm, threatening to exit the other side. The retaliation was nearly instantaneous. A third Hyper Beam blasted through the black air, blazing past Cassidy's flattened ears and renting the ground, mud flying and joining the rain. The mud fall sprayed across their heads and blinded the attacker long enough for the bat/fox to ascend out of range. We're returning the favor to them.
The bastard was right after all.....Gemini growled, wiping the mud out of his glaring eyes, showing no remorse for accusing an "innocent".. I'm still taking you down for killing my family, for letting this happen to Misty..He shook his head in a removed despair churning inside a shell of rage and balled his inhuman fists. You're not doing us a favor by getting revenge on them. We're--dangerous, don't you get it?! He raised an incriminating claw at the lizard, hatred gnawing at the other's guilty soul. Especially YOU, you have so much power and that's all you're after. He dropped his pointing claws and turned away from his nemeses, his eyes narrowed to slits and letting the rain drip down his stiffened lips. But you don't care, right? All you care about is revenge because now YOU'RE freaks.
A hot screech in defense answered the hasty assumption. Yes, they were selfish. Yes, it drove them more to take revenge once they mutated themselves, but that sight on Valencia Island.....
Don't jump to any conclusions, brat, Cassidy growled, folding her wings around her body that dropped silently. She could tell she was right in front of the kid...the smell of hate bore into her nostrils. You and the runt didn't see what Butch saw or hear what we heard in that room we busted. She took flight once more and glided towards the odor of fear and uncertainty. Maybe...guilt, too. Whatever. She would find out the truth now. Those weren't the only batch.
The steady, frequent beat of Cassidy's wings closed the distance they had started, flapping rapidly directly above the lizard's head, in deadly proximity to the horn. Giovanni suddenly felt that he was being interrogated by her. The question was, why? It did not seem likely that she would suspect...unless...
Before he could piece together a protest, Cassidy started circling, a vulture to scavenge the meat of the truth.
There were more...a lot more...at Ivy's lab. Guts hanging out, lying in their own crap. They got lucky and died.
Dread manifested in the perspiration of blood, though no one could tell. It might have been the rain that bashed the ground heavily and unceasingly..
The brown and grey creature lowered herself until the spot where her eyes would have been was level with her boss'. And somehow that empty brown-and-grey patch of fur was far more intimidating than the most monstrous of eyeballs.
Someone had it in for the no-talents. If they couldn't make it in Team Rocket they would make it as labrats.
Her wing beats wrote the rythym of a guilty heart. Butch started to crawl, drawn by the odor of treachery. He could smell it, too. Guilt releases its stench of terror when it's been discovered.
The only one who has power to strip rank is the boss. What I want to know is...
Did you know about it?
An uncomfortable silence. From it the Rockets knew the answer but a band of liars could trust nothing as decietful as them, the silence. In the deepest quietude lurked a masked danger.
He formed half a single word before another noise arrested all thought. Another shape sounded nearly noiseless on the mud, but the figure's failed attempt at secrecy directed the hostility towards its trigger. If the Black Rain could affect a normal, everday human---then there must be more-- a lot more. Now nothing was normal. The five waited with caged animosity for it to move.
Its voice spurred anger's hasty release and encompassed all but the Gyarados with a tempetuous rage. The Black Rain's darkness shrouded its features, that perhaps were less monstrous and deformed than its true, "human" form.
He neglected no detail...precisely the same instinctual tendencies....a...A weakened clawing of mud and a labored breath hampered by a growling hiss. ...including its vampiric nature.....
Brock recognized that voice. It was coming from him but it wasn't his. The dog he drained dry that took his form..a flawless physical disguise but the way it talked.... quiet, dangerous, slippery as if greased in oil...a cruel tone removed from the misery of those who were unlucky enough to fall into his hands, a tone that had slipped into a gratifying weakness, a vulnerability that didn't bate the edge of the demon's hate.
"YOURRGH." The forked tongue rattled between bared fangs, growling at an identical forked tongue bared between identical white fangs thirsting to be bathed red.
Possibly...I feel that I do not know myself anymore... ha.....heh.....the scientist forced a feeble laugh, tasting the saturated air, searching for the thing that would satisfy this aggravating lust.......it collapsed from weakness, shaking on its scaled palms, red eyes slowly emptying of his fragmented sanity, while the others were on their guard, fully expecting it to strike.
He took notice of the original owner of his current DNA, regaining the detatched, condescending attitude that marked him as Hojo. ...ah...I am surprised you have not exploited your psychokinetic abilities...they are..quite..useful...for both targeting a specific location and teleportation to that exact point.....A ragged gasp stifled his altered lungs. The compulsion was far stronger than he first anticipated...he could not ignore it: it would be ridiculous to lose consciousness where his former specimens would rip him apart...
He wrenched himself out of the mud, the other creatures lurching at what they interpreted as a hostile movement. Strange..how it would be to humans, they would see it as animals protecting their territory from an interloper, but in truth--it was far more complex. The fear of getting caught, the fear of observation and experimentation.
All save for the Gyarados, anyway. Confusion plagued her mind rather than fear. The shape doubled-over on the ground with the red eyes and white fangs---it looked exactly like Brock, except it had hair and Brock didn't. Or......was that one Brock, the one plowing his claws through the mud, struggling to heave himself upright, the one breathing hard--for a moment, she couldn't tell the difference.
But the difference was soon known.
The difficulty of teleporting did not lay in the act itself, but in the barrier of the Dark type-----it was true that Gemini had entered experimentation as a Dark type. Its psychic abilities..they were artificial..manufactured to make the Pokémon completely immune to itself. However, it backfired miserably. In nature, the dark type was completely immune to psychic energy. Conversely, the dark type was quite effective against a psychic. But this artificial introduction had negated dark's immunity entirely, weakening it in the presence of psychic energy. It was an embarassing failure, and he repeated the experiment countless times on the subject, never comprehending that this failure caused the youth a hell of pain.
Well......now he was about to taste it.
The scarlet energy dripped from his brain, forming waves that emanated with increasing labor of trying to combat its natural element, squeezing, tearing, crushing....he felt like his brian was leaking out of holes in his skull, becoming physical projectiles that dealt as much pain to the body as it did to the mind...but it was simply the sensation..heightened drastically by the immensity of the power... that gradually engulfed the downed form, rolling across the ground to escape the force.....
The red light swallowed the figure and stole it away.
Cassidy's supsersonic rippled through the air. No trace of him. The teleportation had succeeded.... but to where he had gone was anyone's guess. And wherever that was, she didn't care. It didn't have anything to do with Team Rocket.
Misty, on the other hand, felt a shrouded dread creep up her spine. She lumbered in Brock's direction, growling a question that emanated the same dread.
Who was that?
A nightmare that won't go away, Brock answered with a hateful hiss. Now he wants blood. .Brock gouged through the mud in unveiled frustration, knowing that it would probably be populated town..or a city, lots of blood to satisfy his thirst..he should KNOW, right, dependent, made dependent on other people's blood.
He couldn't let it happen. Pewter was gone, Viridian was wasted.. No..he would save them..no matter how much he loathed and feared them..he would save them.
Brock began to search the sprawling expanse of land before him..... bringing all focus onto the presence of psychic energy. His head began to hurt..the energy...it wasn't dark energy, used to using it, but the psychic energy..like it wasn't supposed to be there, like it clashed with the dark energy...it wasn't natural..it wasn't right... The red light seeped from his head, wracked by a pain that doubled him over on the mud, both claws curving into his temples that throbbed, sore and swollen with the pressure.
And then.....
The shuddering light stilled. A panicked roar of a crawling despair enveloped Misty with doubled dread. Brock dropped to his knees from the monumental effort and let the pain of thought subside. He shut his eyes and stood, his demonic tail dragging half-buried in the whirling mud.
Ce...Cerulean. Misty, he's going for your hometown.
The dread exploded into full-blown terror. There were no more words needed to say what had to be done. The psychic energy slowly engulfed both shapes, one convulsing from the crushing force, the other emitting panicked roars in the taunting knowledge that they may already be too late to save them.
Two burning bursts of crimson removed the threat of their vengeance but did not remove their hatred. But another hatred.. the kind that causes the downfall of empires, within the body, a deadly conflict that would snap the foundations of the frame and send the entire thing crumbling. The distraction was louder than the rumble of the earth.
Cass..he bailed out.
Butch called from a good twenty feet away. Cassidy unfurled her bare wings, sweeping low over the mud layers and emitting a sharp growl menacing in its implications.
He knew. She lowered her long muzzle, embarassed that for her quick mind, didn't figure it out before, didn't even suspect that their human supremacist boss apparently deemed totally human Grunts worthy of becoming subhuman....
Covert operations.....Cover-ups...bloody secrets that he didn't tell them, elites for Christ's sakes... hadn't they been his loyal agents? This was their repay?
Did you expect something different?
This is Team Rocket. Lying is the way of life.
The half-discernable cross between a halting laugh and a growl was grim. So, this is how it ends, hm? Her pointed teeth curled into a dangerous grin, partly concealed by the skin of her wings that flapped through the muggy air. He thinks he has something to fear. A raking screech sounded through the dark, heavy and unyielding. Come on...we're not going to disappoint him.
*~*~*
The Black Rain thinned and waned for the first time since the angel unleashed it. The obtrusive darkness of the sky, slate grey forming in the few clouds that had emptied all precipitation now visible when there had been only rain. The hot globe that had banished itself from sight now returned incompletely, casting a single ray through the shroud of greying clouds.
In the city northeast of Pewter's remains, the abating rainfall made the frame of the entire city more or less visible: from a handful of Vermillion's liberated citizens crowding into the alleys that were beginning to get cramped to the outlines of the buildings that trapped them on three sides..why, even the hollow corpse that slumped downward on the concrete wall whose body whitened from both terror and the drainage was wholly discernable.
The stolen blood splotched red on his rumpled clothes, staining it with his own death. Some of the hungrier citizens fed on the still-warm body while it's murderer caught the concrete wall, crawled over the bickering beasts, and dropped on the pavement adjacent to them, its red fangs greedy for more O negative, of which, there was already a limited supply.
Not nearly enough..Hojo growled, blood dripping onto his claws. The temptation to drain one of his feeding neighbors was great, but he perished the inclination. I cannot sustain myself on altered blood...Pity I cannot analyze the blood type...determine which is least detrimental to this body...He moved farther away from the chaotic alleyway, drifting towards the city's lit gym, growling in evident frustration at the unfeasibility of the process.......Doing so would require the use of delicate equipment that I at the present moment am incapable of manipulating. No...the only solution is to drink until Gemini's.....he stole away through the rain's thinning cloak, the craving for blood only partially satisfied.....the more he attempted to ignore it.....the more it clamored...the more it yearned.... for blood....that coated the inside of his throat. Blood that wasn't his..that had been taken from others to preserve Gemini's-----now HIS---life---at least, for the time being. Until he assumed some other shape..
Which at this point, could be roughly a thousand opportunities to rid himself of the craving, of this degrading want..but the desire was..... impossible...to escape.....trapped in this nightmare that he created himself...
A bestial lamentation chorused through Cerulean's streets...a condition that Hojo had succeeded in immersing himself during his adult life......the millions of test subjects whose pleas he ignored, in some cases, took notice and revelled in their torment, while some cried vengeance against what really was a lowly thief that had robbed them of everything. A bandit wearing a labcoat that at this moment he was currently lacking---that youth--what was his name, most likely stripped him. Hm..how odd it felt, to be unidentifiable, to become lost in a swamp of others in a similar position--though their status was fixed---they could not change into another form, they had lost their human identities and gained another, permanent identity. His was temporary, forever changing, making it simpler to forget his own, human body...that didn't crave for blood, maybe the numbing effects of Mako, but not blood...
The craving made him stagger, drawing sweat, forcing him to lean on a fire hydrant, sniffing it in crazed fervor, entertaining the possibility of the red fluid..the situation was growing more dire. He shifted his dropping head towards the mutant crowd. Blood everywhere, but not the type he and his colleagues had designed Gemini to drink.. an inhibiting trait that forced it to prey on beings without a constructed defense. "Innocents"...how much more is one hated and despised if it takes an innocent's life than if it takes the life of one whose hands are equally sullied?
Infected with the disease of these ponderings that served to deepen this frustration, he drifted from the hydrant and stumbled towards the created race, pouring from the shadows, some hungry, some lost, in varied mannerims of varied impulses, some with command of speech and some deprived of it, some that had the true essence of a monster and others that appeared more human, some with their intelligence eliminated and others that still had some brain, but all blurring the human line. It was difficult to tell humans that had become Pokémon from Pokémon that had become human. The boundary had been crossed many times over.
Then there were the Pokémon that had remained Pokémon...still their blood was red. They were unaffected. That was his target. Oxygenated blood...yes... Perhaps the craving would leave after this one's blood.....what was it again?
A growl rose from flurries of orange and white that stamped across the wet pavement behind him, trampling over the puddles of Black Rain. Several policemen followd them, barking orders hardly audible over the barking Growlithe. There was a whish of air, flashes of metal spheres pelting the beasts around him---drowning the cries of Vermillion citizens that found themselves again imprisoned.
The pointed ears twitched in reocgnition of the device. Clearly they were on a capturing spree...perhaps to protect the humans that carried the recessive blood type, without mindlessly destroying them. Gradually, hindered by this induced weakness, he became aware of his predicament.
It would not do for him to be caught...his captors would not know of his....specialized nutritional needs. He would most likely die of thirst. All of that effort and to perish anyways.....that was life's crass sense of humor. Ha...but with the proximity of the prey, it seemed as if it wouldn't play its joke.
The head of the Growlithe pack stopped short at the crouching shape that arrested its run with a deft swipe of its claw. In a rapid grab it clutched the puppy by the throat, sinking its scarlet fangs into the skin, the protruding spikes guarding its prey from the alarmed Growlithe that bunched in a jumble of chaos, their disarrayed howling alerting the cops that were throwing PokéBalls like mad.
"Jesus--it's got Growlithe--" one of them exclaimed, flinging out his gun from the holster and lowering it at the squatting thing that stared curiously into the barrel, hissed, and went back to its blood, lapping it with a wild fervor that disgusted and horrified the spectating humans. The gun would've fired then and there if the other cop didn't stay him.
"Hold up..you heard what she said---"
"Screw her! There's no way we can catch every_single one of these freaks!! That woman's off her rocker!" the other growled, letting off a shot that wrenched a yelp from the canine shield. "What the--?! I hit-----"
The blood on the bullet wounds sparked mad light in the glowing eyes, and it licked at the blood hungrily, the forked tongue passing over the liquid with cruel speed. All the while, the cop could only squeeze the trigger and get nothing but the empty click. He re-holstered it and fumbled for a PokéBall, a bit remorseful at his impulses.
"Yeah, you did. Now lets do this RIGHT," the other one urged, supressing a whole slew of berating he wanted to inflict on the green boy. He stepped foward, triggering ripples in the black puddle, unlatching an Ultra Ball from his beltloop. He hurled it in the same motion, the sphere connecting with the devil's tail and catching the dark shape in its vacuum-like beam. No sooner than he picked it up he yelled to the other cop, "Get Growlithe back to headquarters-----" He faced the approaching onslaught of hunters, their collective cries playing a baneful tune. God, this was cray. Nuts. In all his years on the force, he never had to deal with anything like this.
He had about six PokéBalls and sixty Pokémon coming at him, none of them searching for a master.
It was then it dawned on him that they WERE going to need help.
He had his hand on his radio but hesitated to switch it on. If the Shin-Ra were going to cause a bigger mess, then why do it?
Yeah...they could take this alone. That was their job, right? In the end, it was to keep the town safe, and right now it was anything but that.
He leaned foward and threw the Ball into the shapeless mass of mutants that scattered, their individual outlines becoming clear and more hideous as each vile feature was far more pronounced. He threw three at once in a panic, the random projectiles spurring an equine to break free of the tangle of mutants.
It sprinted in erratic strides, lost, mad, saddened, as it neared in a blurring gallop, he thought maybe it was a Rapidash-- but the way its eyes were, a bloody red, masked with serpentine scales, the way it bore its teeth made for slicing and tearing rather than chewing and grinding, its hooves made for gouging instead of crushing, and the churn of its horn..... as if perpetually on Horn Drill---it couldn't be.
The dark shape flew by him, the frozen wind that blew on his skin forcing the hair on hs neck's back to stand. The drill's whir rapidly abated, but he froze as if it didn't miss, and ran him through. The temporary paralysis gripped his brain as well, blanking his mind, making him forget that there was the Ultra Ball rocking in his pocket, its prisoner vying for liberty, pounding, clawing, doing all in its waning power to escape.
In this case, it was mind over matter. The Ball slid, rolled, and practically jumped from the cop's pocket, hurtling towards the asphalt and making the black puddle jump with its force. The impact triggered the two halves to break open and release its demonic contents, spilling them on the hard asphalt. Those few seconds in the Ball drove it wild with lust, and the human completely failed to see, his attention directed on the mutant crowd, flinging several more PokéBalls at the onrushing crowd, capturing one or two that did not deter the others. So focused on this, but disregarding the black shape crouched in front of him.
He finally switched the radio on and talked in fragments, no longer caring if he was aiming and where he was aiming. "-----Situation's getting out of control--" He wavered again. Once he made the call, the deal was sealed: headquarters'd get reinforcements from the army, and the army'd get Shin-Ra involved, them directly linked.
What else was there to do? He eventually charged blindly ahead and half-buried any regret under the knowledge these monsters wouldn't overrun the island.
"----About sixty of 'em, need backup at--" All of a sudden the tenor of his voice blew into wild panic. The dark shape stared at his neck and licked the red off its lips. It lunged. There was a yell of unbridled terror that mangled the incompleted word, a splash and clatter as the radio fell from a hand that whitened, unclenched, and finally dangled at his side, emptied of its life force. The body fell with a thud. Its killer walked from the corpse, convinced it had been enough.....but the lust had become stronger, more manifested.....
The excess blood out of the reach of his tongue dripped down his chin, leaving its mark in the black puddles. Desperate for more blood, he dunked his face in the Black Rain, searching for the red liquid but finding it evenly mixed. He had not the time nor the means to chemically separate them..... With a dismal growl he darted across the puddles towards the building not thirty feet away.
In the building there was a light. Light brought the promise of human blood. And in order to obtain it...he would have to pass through it... Painful, but if it would enable him to survive, the blood would be worth stumbling blindly with eyes that roasted in the light.
With that resolve, he approached the next target.
*~*~*
Brock and Misty re-materialized in the midst of the mutant fray, the former falling on his knees from the over-exertion, staring at the wet asphalt that returned the bleary glance. But there was no time to linger. Not here.
Misty shoved through the primal crowd, seeming to forget that she was a Gyarados, unmindful of the fact that the lesser animals scurried out of the way of its tramping claws. But she didn't think that. She was a human searching for survivors of her kind, as well as their Pokémon. But these horrifying monsters that now swamped her hometown---they weren't Pokémon. They_couldn't be.
There was one of the monsters following them. She could hear its galloping tread. Must be a horse. But no time to look back. Keep looking foward. That's where the people were. The ones they were trying to save. People she knew. This was her home. She was going to defend it no matter what.
The horse continued to tail them, a constant drilling noise driving them towards the lit gym. With a hopeful cry she threw herself down the broad street, running as fast as the form permit her. She was painfully aware of how difficult it was--- her leg muscles didn't move the way they used to---they were stiffer-----like iron or steel or some other metal...everything felt heavier.. She didn't go as fast as she ran as a human..... Something told her that maybe she wasn't meant to run at all. Gyarados crawl, don't they? They weren't supposed to have arms and legs. What was she supposed to do with arms and legs if she wasn't supposed to have them?
Run. Run like hell. Adrenaline demanded her to--dread hastened her delayed movemnts. Though unconscious of it, her body pushed her to adapt and ordered her to succumb to gravity.
The laws of nature intoned in distinct voices that conveyed an unmistakable meaning in the form of signals through the nervous system. Soon only her subconscious knew that she was running on all fours, nearing closer to the light that seeped out of the glass doors covered in black beads that left transluscent trails of grey when they rolled off the vertical surface and left lumps of rain at the door's foot.
The grey sea monster stopped at the door, becoming two-legged again with frustrating effort as she used the door for balance that normally she would've taken for granted. She wasn't graceful or anything, but clumsy? No way.
But as a Gyarados...fat chance! She wasn't a Gyarados. As far as she was concerned, she was a human trapped in a Pokémon's body---she wasn't about to go bust down the door of what formerly was HER gym--- though that was the easiest way to do it-- She would enter it as normal---as possible---so what if her claws slipped and left three obvious etchings in the door? She wasn't breaking it down like an enraged Pokémon! Because she wasn't one, she was a person, she was Misty.
A steady drip of Black Rain brought the chemical from the outside into the gym, spreading its wavy trail as the two creatures ran through the front hall, the scuffle of their clawed feet on the undifferentiated floor tiles signalling to any human their unwanted presence...
If there were any humans to be wary of them... The droplets of blood that flecked the base of the wall, the front desk, the portrait of a Dewgong, a spectator lying face-down at the junction---that made the fear real, tangible. It wasn't just in her mind. The killer wanted blood. And as her eyes ran up the wall past the Dewgong portrait and to a flyer:
Marine Showcase starring the Sensational Cerulean Sisters! One Day Only! Buy your tickets today!
Lily....
Daisy...
Violet..
Misty broke for the gym. It would be packed, a full house, standing room only---God, they'd all be dead--
She could imagine the wild cheers transform into wild shrieks.
They both bolted, both wary of the galloping tread that didn't let up behind them, the hooves that drove into the floor, breaking pieces of the tile every time it touched ground, and the horn, still whirring, like someone coming at them with a drill. It gave them all the more reason to run until their lungs burst.
And when she reached the stadium, the dread enveloped her throat, suddenly raw and parched.
A deliberate rip in the ceiling poured with cascades of rain. The pool in the center of the gym was flooded in the dark liquid, bloodless bodies decorated the bleachers with festive death, wholly drained, their skin as pale as the white moon gradually revealing itself above, sending beams of the sun's reflected light towards the dark shape in the center of the pool on one of the floating blocks. The shape...it was the thing that looked like Brock. It fiddled with her mind..she knew which was which, who was who, but now in the light--it was entirely visible....if she didn't know that Brock was behind her, with fanged mouth partially agape, his knuckles greying while the fists clenched and unclenched---she would have though that Brock murdered the entire city.
Whatever lingering doubt she had, the dangerous voice confirmed that whatever did this wasn't Brock.
I believe the craving is fulfilled...Drops of red blood dripped from the tips of its fangs, their drop against the black liquid inaudible amidst the drilling noise that, though producing a greater din, fell on deaf ears. The creature clutching the floating block gestured with claws that bore his guilt to the bleachers filled with pierced corpses, a scowl of disgust distorting his face. What a waste of life..they would have served as excellent specimens---
Misty's skin paled to a lighter grey as she stood there, gazing at the bodies-out for a good time-----that's all it was.....The shocked flashes of teal lowered from the bleachers, across the tiles littered in----Dewgong and Seel, their skin pierced at the neck----they were in the pool, too, droplets of the remnant of the downpour trickling on their face-down bodies.
To think the last time she was here, everything was alright...her sisters were teasing her about being the youngest, annoying her to no end though they were kin anyway------
For a split-second she could've sworn her heart stopped beating. The dark shape had another body entrapped in his scaled arms. Tall, lanky----but who it was--she didn't know until it twisted its malformed body around, bringing a white form to light. It withdrew one of its arms to clamp the surface, causing its head to droop over the dark water, its neck baring two holes, its long hair hanging down in waves, disappearing beneath the flowing surface, and its white visage.....
Misty's heart fell into her stomach churning with a turbulent nausea.
*~*~*
The Shin-Ra conference room did not lose its air of luxury when it changed location. If anything, it grew more grandiose. The frail architect was paid handsomely to not only design the chamber in accordance with the original, but enact modifications that drove the expenses to ridiculous heights. This expenditure wasn't entirely for visual appeasement, but a sort of snob treatment to any Vermillionite or Saffronian that was granted an audience with them for potential business deals. A parade of power, if anything, that kept them in their place. A carry-over from the old administration that Rufus had no intention of altering. Despite his lengthy speeches about the ideal method of rule: by fear, he didn't mind indulging the company, or himself, for that matter.
In that way, he was not unlike his old man. However, the late President Shin-Ra didn't insist on arming the building that heavily, since the youth had no qualms about spoiling elegance to ensure his dominance, to make sure they knew who was in charge. For most of the time, it worked. No sane individual dared to question its policies, blinded by ignorance or inhibited by fear---the former tactic more utilized by the elder Shin-Ra, though Rufus wasn't above steeping the public in partial ignorance, for that held the key to power as well.
Power...control...claiming superiority over others---what was that kind of power compared to a realized strength that rivalled a lesser physical power that hid behind a shield of control---but where was that control, now? Shin-Ra controlled the city, but did they control the jungle, field, lake, river, and mountain?
Perhaps. With contracts, deeds, documents of the sort-----but could they claim to be above the life that now clambered across them, searching for an answer to their plight, or satisfaction for their hunger?
Whether it was correct ethically, they did. They claimed power over their lives, judgement over their existences. For now, Shin-Ra and everything else diverged from the other even more so, Shin-Ra rising in its own eyes infinitely higher.
It had always been, hadn't it? Above all, through careful manipulation of a too-trusting system, bribing, bending the regulations a bit, and the company was untouchable. Specifically the higher-ups. They could afford to live in mental security, because the company would cover up for them, as long as it was no inside plot. They knew they were safe hiding behind Shin-Ra's shield.
But now...uncertainty spread itself thick as the lazy smoke from the discarded cigar in the gold-plated ashtray rolled upward in a vaporous column, partially obscuring the rotund face of Heidegger, flushed red with cheap wine, his dark brown whiskers hiding whatever expression he had from his less rotund, but stumpier fellow executive, downing a mug of strong coffee that, for whatever reason, didn't work for him this time. You could say he wanted to lose himself, get so wired he forgot where he was, and forget himself entirely. Being naturally hyperactive, that shouldn't be so hard to do, but the silent suspicions in the air, expressed now and then by an impatient banging on the table by Heidegger and his own twitchiness. Tension didn't disperse with the hanging smoke. Crisis reared beneath the shadows.
Exactly what it was, he had no idea. He'd come here, springing with giddy step towards the building, completely unmindful of the lurking beasts in the dark, cheerfully waddling to the board room. It was now six hours or so later. Heidegger had walked in behind him, with the pompous air of someone who had just beat someone----Nothing surprising about that. A violent death that left the body mangled, a quick and hurried reanimation that didn't hide the scars, landing him in a worse mood, and well..... Most of Heidegger's subordinates knew what was coming when the president criticized him.
But now the president wasn't here. Now that it came to him, the attendance was low to the point of ridiculousness. His puny eyes buried in pounds and pounds of fat ran over the empty executive seats, resting particularly on the one at the table's head, unfilled by the presence that in a way, dominated all of them. It wasn't such a big deal personally to Palmer: with the way the president had been acting, he would've liked to avoid him---he scared easily and wanted to avoid trouble as much as possible---- but in all practicality, the president surely had to be at the meeting--he wasn't just the presider, but the one who decided every motion---and in a crisis as terrible as this, whatever it was, he really should be here...It WAS an emergency meeting after all, after Scarlet had declared it as such, amid a fit of hysteria...it was a sight, that's for sure----she stormed in and out raving about a "disgusting freak", "AVALANCHE at it again", and something about a "no-wit boy scout". She hadn't come back since. So much for her.
Endowed with the fire of spontaneity, the tiny eyes moved rather randomly from the president's seat to the other vacant positions---which would've been occupied by----that mousy fellow, Reeve, and the ancient scientist. In a darting hunch, he wondered if they'd fallen victim to whatever was happening---who could tell, maybe even-----the president himself got wrapped up in all this? At that musing Palmer laughed at himself. He was much too good for that.....in his mind, problems of the ordinary world just didn't affect someone like Rufus Shin-Ra. Maybe the other two---maybe that's why they were missing, but Rufus? He didn't think so.
A shrill snarl that showed no effort to be contained sounded behind the polished oaken door that rattled with an audible thud, stirring Palmer from his roundabout musings.
The heavy door flung open, revealing a livid Scarlet that crossed towards the executive table, the clack of her high heels muffled in the luxurious carpet. She sidled towards her vacant chair, her plucked eyebrows slanted over slightly reddened eyes that bore the irritation of expecting a three-week vacation and finding yourself facing a problem that would keep you up for days. With a tight exhale of breath she took her seat, massaged her temples with her fifth finger, took the other hand and reached for a cigarette, lit up, and added to the dispersing hills of smoke with a new eruption. She spoke between lightly clenched teeth that rubbed against each other, producing a squeak that could be heard across the room that overlapped into her irritated tone.
"Okay, gentlemen. I just talked to the so-called lieutenant of the Kanto army---it took some prying to find out what the deal is-" she added, before tossing the cigarette in the tray with a flick of her hand-----"He first didn't want to spill, but we forced it out of him. He has a lot of balls, trying to stand up to Shin-Ra like that. We're the ones that supply him his men, for crying out loud!" she screamed in a mixture of aggravation and triumph, her shrill voice swelling to a piercing shriek. She indulged in her familiar laugh as she expanded quickly, "---but he has all balls, no brains. Just one threat to his 'Raichu' and we had him talking." She gave a belittling smirk of haughty superiority. "Sentimental bumpkins." The executive rose from her seat and glided to the front wall, an evident gravity marking more cautious movements. "But their information's worth it. He said there was a crisis. Big one."
"Crisis?" Heidegger bellowed, fury reddening his bulging face, the hairs of his generous beard bristling with rage. "After Meteor, nothing's a crisis! And if he thinks he's getting more SOLDIERs to save a few worthless lives when they're supposed to be stationed at Lavender, he's asking the wrong man!!" he roared with surpising sobriety across the table. Besides---" His weighty fist shook its carved legs as he pounded the top, consumed with hilarity at the absurdity ---as far as Shin-Ra was concerned, the Kanto army was a complete joke. The navy....forget it, and the air force...practically non-existent. "Don't tell me he's getting all worked up about that incident----"
"The fire in Viridian," Scarlet finished, veiling her private disgust towards the Turks' boss. Thick as mud. Though it's not like both of them were jumping at the disaster. She would've overlooked it too, had she not read the report. It wasn't any ordinary fire, but caused by a freak of nature like the one she saw in the sink while touching up her mascara----It came right out of the DRAIN, squealing, clawing on the faucet-----She smothered the memory and brought down a screen with a set of controls on the wall. "That wasn't just a fire, Heidegger. Why'd you think Surge asked the President for men instead of leaving it to the fire department and riot police? Because there was a MONSTER on the loose, that's why!" A small beep, the screen lowered with a quiet whir, and burst into light. "And these-----" She searched for a word to describe it., mouthing every sort of abomination that came to her head, before deciding that they COULDN'T be described------" aren't anything like that egg Tseng bounced out."
Heidegger took another drag of the shortened cigar, his massive belly shaking in the fit of roaring laughter, the braying and bleating and whinnying he was famed throughout Shin-Ra for.. Scarlet returned glee with a glare, tuning the device to one of the airborne security cameras that prowled the city. Her voice morphed into a caustic growl. "See for yourself and see if you're still laughing afterward."
The screen burst into a grating din that filled the room's four corners, the smoke not heavy nor thick enough to block their view of the grim image set forth..
A climax of a warped nightmare. That's all it could be. Everything SEEMED normal enough--- no colossal earthquake had tipped the buildings----- No flood had drowned the city---no fire had scorched all to the rocks---yes, it was raining hard---the sidewalks below were nearly indiscernable from the streets, there were a few garbage cans afloat---- And most noticeable, they couldn't see through the rain. It hailed night, the sky plumetting in drops of unhesitant liquid which only partially obscured the creatures scaling up and down the walls of buildings, monstrous railing matching the wretched 'cries of the Planet' that were so often talked of by the canyon folk but hardly taken seriously by urbanites such as themselves...
At any rate, a grim spectacle. The three executives beheld, pale, combatting fear-stricken nerves, these solid spectres, more hideous than the roaming monsters on Gaia, making ears scream and bleed with their unearthly commotion, a plea from another world, wholly separate, wholly apart, an Otherworld that consumed what they knew as reality.
While her peers gaped and sweated, Scarlet gave a light smirk at the plan of action that she managed to wrangle out of Surge. Second-hand information from a Cerulean cop.
She made no effort to contain herself: then and there she burst into cruel laughter at their childish attempts... Really, they were kids with lots of vision and no pragmatism.. To think that the local police intended to stop this on their own---the beat cops that toted low-caliber pistols and revolvers,and, of all things, PUPPIES. Not even dogs. Puppies. And with a force consisting about 20 per each city, they marched out to catch 'em all to keep the freaks intact and massacre themselves. Uh-huh. Right.
No-brained hicks, she thought derisively, muting the TV that still flashed the images of the city-turned-zoo, the evil forms of the animal shapes crossing through this absolute night The other executives were transfixed by the images, neither making a comment, unable to do little more than offer a blank stare.Heidegger had stopped laughing, perspiration clinging to the hairs on his beard. The WEAPON incident, that was a bit more than routine. He and Scarlet were confident that Meteor would die along with Sephiroth. This rattled him, his confidence, and dented it with a ferocious blow.
The deafening clamor ceased.
"What do you propose we do about this?" the woman asked with shifting eyes, turning into an acid glare as Palmer's lower jaw descended, about to open his mouth. He didn't even have to talk for her to know what he was going to say. It was the same thing every meeting, every chance he got to whine about his obsolete department. "Shut it, Palmer," came the piercing command. His jaw wavered, answered by a hostile rebuke. "The Space Program is DEAD, okay? Let the Weapons Department handle this."
Palmer half-slouched, half-reclined in his seat again, dry lips forming a sulking pout in his flabby visage that sort of receded into the background, as if it wasn't even there. He really didn't expect any different...he'd been useless for years. Shin-Ra 026's launch marked the Space Program's definite end.
Why Rufus allowed him to stay on his staff was a mystery even to him. Virtually, the number of executives had shrunk down to two. The extra one holding his coffee mug upside-down over his tongue was a do-nothing to even everything out, to make it balanced, add symmetry. Let Heidegger and Scarlet have their dual monarchy. He was there to sit and look pretty.
Dual monarchy? That's what they expected. Already having the taste of power and relishing it, not even Heidegger, seemingly servile in Rufus' shadow, questioned where he was at the moment. At this point, he didn't give a damn. The President was gone, he must be dead again, now it was their turn to rule, though both posessing monstrous egos, they believed they ruled it individually, the masters of their own world, each one a worthy sucessor to the Shin-Ra throne..
But the youth was unwilling to relinquish his power...
A sleepless tail half-covered in the replacement trenchcoat deposited hair from the elevator's entrance to where it wound in a repeating coil, leaving its individual bits of orange and brown a visible trail. Unconscious of everything else but the conversation radiating from the conference room-----ignoring the conspicuous whir of a vacuum, a custodian's scream, his panicked flight, and other voices more indistinct. The fur continued to mark its embarassing path. But...less aware of the humiliating fact that he shedded than he was of his subordinates' conversation, the majority of which he caught with readied ears.
"..Ditch that---cannon.... backfired on---President------smash all...another Proud Clod!"
"...Don't forget---Shin-Ra army. -----whole thing----- over----- tomorrow."
"---hit them----everything."
"Agreed---huh?" Scarlet discarded the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray and poked her pointed chin upwards. There was a click from the doorknob...apparently whoever was less than fashionably late finally decided to get in here. She began to drum her fingers on the table's smooth surface in aggravated rythym, preparing a biting insult to hurl at the late board member. After what seemed like an extended and prolonged hour, the doors swung open with unusual momentum, ramming the walls before returning halfway to their closed position, failing to conceal the monstrosity that commanded the doorway.
A brown and orange creature in the President's shoes, slacks, turtleneck, and white trenchcoat marched confidently inside, its narrow eyes gleaming with a disapproving frown. Needless to say, none of them saw the expression as its human meaning..it could easily have been a predator readying to strike.. At once Scarlet paled, her voice suddenly wavering and the clear commands lapsing into stutters. "S-someone c-call security and get rid of that THING!!!"
The aforementioned "thing" scowled with expected disgust, closed the door with its paw as gingerly as a beast as large as him could manage, and answered Scarlet's demand with a feline growl that stayed anyone who even DARED to carry it out.
May I remind you that this 'thing' can make or break you.
The mental speech that reverberated through the chamber identified it as a thing apart form an ordinary animal. Though none of the executives were certain about the voice's source--how it could be talking without moving its lips was beyond their understanding, they were certain that their president was among them----the tone fringed by icicles embedded in sheets of solid ice---it was unmistakably Rufus.
In the likeness of a cat?
Heidegger began to open his mouth, but whatever readied in it fell short as the freak of nature began to stalk towards him. You will take much care in respecting my authority-----in this form, I am no longer bound by the niceties of man. A feral snarl that killed all thought of rebellion, returning Heidegger at once to his subservient attitude, leading Rufus to mentally nod at this change of heart, satisfied with his clumsy stammering and his unsightly salute.
"Y--yes, o-of course, Mr. P-President!!"
That's why animals of prey became so efficient in their gory tasks, yes? The power of threat, though it may be false, conjures fear. Rufus knew this and used it.
The giant cat walked confidently to the head of the table and seated himself, placing his front paws----though they smelled clean from the bath, to the executives, dirty and foul. Somehow, Rufus sensed this..... it couldn't be that they STILL thought him as low as his condition...! Hadn't he THREATENED
them with a brutal death that overstepped his own tendency to save face? Did his position mean nothing now that he was what he was? No..that couldn't be... That WOULDN'T be. He would FORCE them to respect the fact that he was their EMPLOYER. Infuriated at the unwanted challenge, the claws suddenly contracted. and the president bore the sharp-edged canines as he "spoke" in a tenor quite less heated than it had been earlier.
I believe you were about to come to a decision about how to deal with the population explosion of---
"Circus freaks," Palmer whimpered, slumping behind his chair, sinking to half his normal height for fear of gazing upon the wrathful cat. Accordingly, Rufus shot him an ablaze glare that would freeze a wildfire in its scorching path.
Which just as quickly calmed. Yes..I do not mind you expending the Shin-Ra army's maximum resources...The sooner this matter is settled, the better....He blinked his eyes slowly, the hidden globes of an unshackled fury not mollifying the hideousness of the thing that claimed to be their president.
He locked his canines together, his mouth a forest of razor-edged teeth. .However, I DO mind that you did not wait for my approval OR affirm what can be exterminated and what must be undamaged---He paused momentarily, confirming that the three humans in the room had heeded him and showed no signs of rebelling. It seemed as if they took his meaning. Intimidation was a useful skill. .....the four that escaped from the laboratory: they are to be captured, not destroyed. Everything else, kill as you will. He shifted in his chair, the damned tail squeezing behind his back---otherwise, no loss of dignity...he was certain he conducted himself with every ounce of etiquette and politeness he was reared with. There was simply no possible way that they could deny his superiority. And if they did, he knew the other method of persuasion, one not so proper, but fit his intentions..... and the propensities of his current form.
So reliant on this fantasy was he that he was stunned by Scarlet's snap of sarcasm that cut deep into his soaring pride.
"Is there anything else you want done, Your Majesty?" she sneered with the light of revolt burning in her face.
The small taste of absolute reign was all she needed to lust for it indefinitely.
.Yes, believe it or not, came the angered reply, the fury so great that it nearly drove him to claw through the table. But the seemingly invincible will restrained him, an invisible leash that he was impatient to shake off.
The cat's eyes, gleaming globes with a slit pupil that divided the frozen iris, rendered ferocious by the whites of the eye that were consumed in the hue of orange: burning ice burning in a burning blaze. This ferocity roved in a vertical line until it was parallel with Scarlet's, as if daring her to walk a step further on thin ice ready to crack. I want Hojo and Reeve arrested on charges of treason, and your insubordination left at home. Do I make myself clear? The cat's entire form stabbed through his executive's eyes, a warning growl making her nerves shake beneath a snide exterior.
Rufus stood from his chair, glaring into the emptiness of his authority.
Meeting adjourned, came the aggravated growl, shooting to a roar when they showed evident hesitation. But this would change. He WOULD be obeyed..if not, he would turn this beauracracy into a monarchy. It was that simple.
The executives filed out of the board room, two of them secretly pining over their lost chance for absolute control. The hairy obstacle had abruptly presented itself, a well-groomed, pleasant-smelling hulk of fur and teeth..a beast claiming to be Shin-Ra's president. How preposterous..it was unheard of! A cat, giving them orders, threatening their lives---it was bearable when he was human, IF he was human, but now he was an animal. An animal, that couldn't even SPEAK, wielding higher authority than they, who were HUMAN BEINGS.
IT.... would be better off being the object of marvel at a circus, not the chief executive of an electric company.
The whole thing was ridiculous. What was on their agenda that a CAT laid out for them as if he owned them? Orders to the SOLDIERs, orders to the mechanics, and a trip to the pet store for a milkbowl, collar, and a basket. A personalized tag. Maybe a litterbox. A yarn ball---
Who am I kidding? Scarlet asked herself with her pallid fists clenched at her broad hips that swayed with defiant resolution. Those items are for HOUSECATS. That thing is NOT a housecat, more of a lion missing its mane. Without it, acting as if he were a king. With it, who would he think he was? A god, maybe? Leave the god thing to Sephiroth, but the conceited bastard would think himself pretty close to it.
The elevator halted with its usual "ding" on the--what was it? Thirty-seventh floor? Ugh.. The smell of burned metal and formaldehyde ignored the doors and passed right through it.
Lions...It crossed her conniving brain suddenly. Where do you keep lions?
It dawned on her a brilliant golden sunrise over Mt. Corel.
This was the floor with the labs....of course..why not? Easy......it tempted her---She exited the doors. They stayed open behind her, thinking and deciding. Maybe Rufus' final grand departure wasn't too far off. They'd believe her. This was routine for them. They'd want a new study, some stupid slab of meat they could run their tests..why not the only obstacle to absolute control?
The heightened odor irritated her nostrils and her walk quickened to catch less of the overwhelming stink, coming from the ugly pile of burnt wreckage that was left of the lab, guarded by broken yellow tape that several assistants ignored, passing in and out of the dark lab. Scarlet followed them into the musty blackness, a uniform void made irregular by the outlines of jagged heaps of ruined equipment.
The unbearable smell quickly enhanced with unbearable noise. Some cautious-looking asistants entered from the lab's north side, wheeling empty cages past the yellow tape and into the unpiercable darkness, dodging the mounds of burnt equipment that heaped mounds and hills in the once impressive-looking facility. Her temptation driving her, Scarlet peered into the dark lab from the lighted area-the fire shorted out the lights in the lab only, and not its entryway. Everything beyond that showered in obscurity. But the lack of light didn't mute voices. She could hear one giving orders to the others-----the older one must have been a peer that was insane enough to still work with that old prune---
There was her chance. She could inform him of the situation, the lion would promptly be caged, Rufus' disappearance could be covered up by some make-believe story, and it would all be done and over with. There. One crisis down. Then she and Heidegger could wipe them all out the only way they knew how: with brute force.
It was a seething fear that prevented her from squealing. Fear of the beast's retaliation. Though it was a cat, it was intelligent---it WAS Rufus, after all. He was a cunning man. It must have been a cunning cat.But...her plan had no holes. It had to work. Shin-Ra wouldn't find out. The lab boys would make sure of that. She'd heard stories about the labs..the most affluent men that were influential enough to combat Shin-Ra's policies, political prisoners, P.O.Ws during the Shin-Ra-Wutai War, dangerous criminals---public enemies--they were never heard of again.
The plot unravelled in its simplistic elegance. The science department would jump at the chance, she was sure of it. Laughter broke from her cruel lips. Let Heidegger think that facing its fury wasn't worth it. Do what you're told until the time is right. She'd take the chance.
Besides, someone had to carry out Rufus' orders in the meantime, eliminating those other freaks out there...to lessen damage costs, prevent an all-out rebellion, and make sure Shin-Ra was still in the peoples'--- and more importantly, the lousy excuse for a 'government's'---favor.
With a lightness in her step, Scarlet approached the stocky outline of the assistant, his hard, wrinkled features suddenly visible as a glowing flame sparked from an emerald stone embedded in a device in his rather broad hand, illuminated by the fire as well as something else, a faint trickle of energy that flared about his form, the presence of which filled her with a vague apprehension. Something told her that she would regret dealing with this man. In some inexplainable way, he reeked of the devil.
TO BE CONTINUED......
*~*~*
A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 25, where another city bites the dust, the mysterious Pokémon that was following Misty and Brock reveals itself, Cid gets a rude awakening, and he clashes with Red and Vincent once again, and---things die. ^^
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana
A/N: Yay...this for once, will NOT be a general chapter. ^^; I just realized something else. oO Semi-human cat..errr...S-010 was not modeled on Lynx. In fact, he looks nothing like Lynx. :Phew.:: On another note, I finally got to read H.G. Wells' The Island of
Doctor Moreau. Brilliant. Brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant. Truly horrific and------wow. That's what I call sci-fi. It explores the theme in excruciating detail. YOU_MUST_READ_IT. This fic is NOT based on that unbelievably amazing literary masterpiece. Nor are its ideas derived from it. ::Phew:: Erin, thanks for suggesting it. ^^
*~*~*
God knows how long they've been digging that pit. They got some balls to dig right where they knocked down the HQ. I saw them rig the building...it fell hard. They say it's symbolism. They say we're gonna fall hard too. Every civiliation falls, they say. It's our turn.
They bulldoze the wreck. Bulldozing the competition. Digging starts before you know it. You shoulda seen them---gadgets that our tech department can't dream of building and with Team Rocket's funds right now---forget it.
They're still digging. It's machines doing all the work so they don't give if some dumbass falls in the green pit. No one's gonna be able to find em, anyway. The green stuff that's leaking out of the ground in some places eats em alive. The robots keep going.
They just got a little more to go with rocks that're in the way. They've got armed masks in the roads and I ain't about to sneak my squad by em. You're on your own for this one. But you're gonna crush em. No corporation's gonna wipe us out. There's no way we're down. Eat that, Shin-Ra!
~Unsigned letter from a Rocket, intercepted and siezed by Shin-Ra authorities for security measures. Written at the same time Team Rocket central HQ was destroyed. Archived by the Mahogany Town police department.
*~*~*
Chapter 24: Insubordination
*~*~*
A groaning bellow lifted from the sideways mountain of black earth that rocked with abating weakness. It slowly turned upright, Black Rain mixed with liquid dirt poured off its battered hide in cataracts, revealing if only partially, the hideous monstrosity.
It threw its titanic skull skyward, the liquid that obstructed any sight draining off its blazing eyes and across its fangs that showed through slightly opened jaws at the eternal midnight that enveloped all. Everything was covered by a dark substance, not unlike the blood that coursed inside him..that had earlier been ripped out by a thing with far greater strength than he, splitting open his hide and snapping straight through his horn that didn't re-materialize and nearly slashing his head in two and his midsection in four, charring hurting flesh with torpid inferno...
What..the..devil? he queried, returning strength overshadowed by an animalistic fear of suddenly being thrust into a different environment, one differing in ways that at this moment, Giovanni could not fathom. He tolerated the change that would otherwise unnerve him...for it steeped him in absolute darkness, the nocturnal surroundings that Ivy programmed him to thrive in, to keep him far from the sun that warmed the Earth and its lifeforms, to isolate him from that Earth and make him dependent on a world void of that golden star.
The darkness was not night..as the lizard was nocturnal, he would have desired food regardless if he had eaten beforehand. No..it was artificial darkness, caused by the falling liquid. It smelled of a metallic odor. His nostrils dilated. The bestial senses absorbed the heavy odor of....blood? he questioned, straining his eyes at the liquid clotting on his hide...growling aggravated at the difficulty of discerning between what pulsed through his blood vessels and what poured from the sky: it all seemed the same.
Gemin----He corrected himself for a learned fear of a diced muzzle-----Brock. The rush of the liquid. What is this?.! he growled in dismay and shock, basking in the safety of the total darkness but at the same time wondering...why was it raining---his tongue wormed between his drooping fangs and caught at the liquid. Memory recent and long past knew the taste instantaneously.- --black blood. But...how could this be possile? Unless...the canisters..that is what they contained... ..his memory had been hazy...Evidently, they had left Pallet Town...he recalled the painless white light.....then nil.
The vengeful demon soon revealed all.
Funny you should ask...Zero-X lost a tentative grip and his girth connected with the ground again, flipped back-first from the inertia..and the broiling but controlled hate of the boy..driving the attack. The lizard snarled in a rapid bite of pain as Brock drove the nail-sharp spikes on his shoulders into his nemesis' upper arm, conviently gouging a new mark into the brand. A toxic accusation dripped from his unrelenting growl. You should KNOW. He thrusted his shoulder upward, jerking the huge mass of hide that groaned with the crunch of pain. You KNEW what was in those drums, didn't you? Another jerk. The liquid flowed and ran into itself. Spikes still lodged in the arm, he wrenched the massive head and melted the fires of Giovanni's eyes with white-hot crimson. You KNEW that it would make Misty like this-----like us.
An asserting growl from the neuter creature that once had been a young girl.
Where did you derive THAT notion, boy? came the challenging hiss. What did it matter if his ego and his pride cracked and lay in broken fragments. He was still Giovanni...he WOULD command the same respect he had as a human...he had had enough of the youth's anger... this time it was unrighteous--- he did not deserve his mental allegations this time--he was not guilty.
I did not know...THIS---He pointed his snout at the sky, still locked with Gemini's double grip--- would come of it. What makes you believe that I would know the outcome?.! A growl, a crushing snap of teeth that missed its mark. Laughably fell short of the demon's head whose hatred exploded.
Not MUCH...he growled, ramming his shoulder farther into the brand, ripping slowly through the layers and layers of what was designed to be impregnable hide that had so recently been healed, and was now getting torn apart again.
Maybe it's because THEY work for YOU.. A surprised growl that suggested uninvolvement. He looked the other directly in his malformed visage with a glint of what looked like---honesty? Couldn't be.
They never spoke of----
A strangled roar from the raging mass of grey threw Giovanni's rebounding thoughts into turmoil as his eyes filled with an explosive beam of light and heat that drilled into the corneas and knocked his skull sideways, shuddering from the fierce impact.
Tell ME that. Coarse breathing could be heard through the driving rain, along with a feminine voice....the..girl's? But...no mere girl any longer...that much was apparent as he felt the superheat of a Hyper Beam blast razing his arm that had not started to heal before it was battered again.
I...DID NOT KNOW, he snarled with wide-eyed panic, the, to the others, a weak excuse that came out of self-preservation and a lifetime of lies. They came at him at once: Gemini and the Gyarados had evidently double-teamed. Alone, if he had full control of his brain, Brock was insufficient to kill him. But with another one of sizable power....He began to retreat his unwieldy girth, the will to survive overtaking waning pride and ego. His fangs held locked, using the broken tool of intimidation, the display of agression only serving as a magnet to the true aggressors.
Butch and Cassidy, report-----what is the meaning of this treachery..?..!! The hostile growls and the threat of an encroaching agony reigned the air. Their breathing invoked death. His hide wasn't healing fast enough. They could easily reach the soft innards, the ribs, the black heart... From fighting the winged shadow, his fire was spent, a chunk of his side was gone down the shadow's throat..and he was slow. They were quick..He could flee, but they would catch him, take him down, unless...
A hostile croak with a terse matter-of-factness blunted the blade of concentrated hatred.
It ain't treachery, boss.
The mutant frog sprang foward from its short crawl and hurled a blast of acid at the Gyarados, that burned into the rain-swamped ground as it sensed an onrushing projectile and dove. She made an imprint in the mud that changed its hideous shape as it lifted itself to two legs, latching on the ground clumsily and without dexterity, getting herself upright in time to see an airborne monster descend on the demon.
What name would you give it?
Revenge, was the curt answer. The air shot up to a boil. Brock gave a margled hiss as a fireball burned into his lower arm, threatening to exit the other side. The retaliation was nearly instantaneous. A third Hyper Beam blasted through the black air, blazing past Cassidy's flattened ears and renting the ground, mud flying and joining the rain. The mud fall sprayed across their heads and blinded the attacker long enough for the bat/fox to ascend out of range. We're returning the favor to them.
The bastard was right after all.....Gemini growled, wiping the mud out of his glaring eyes, showing no remorse for accusing an "innocent".. I'm still taking you down for killing my family, for letting this happen to Misty..He shook his head in a removed despair churning inside a shell of rage and balled his inhuman fists. You're not doing us a favor by getting revenge on them. We're--dangerous, don't you get it?! He raised an incriminating claw at the lizard, hatred gnawing at the other's guilty soul. Especially YOU, you have so much power and that's all you're after. He dropped his pointing claws and turned away from his nemeses, his eyes narrowed to slits and letting the rain drip down his stiffened lips. But you don't care, right? All you care about is revenge because now YOU'RE freaks.
A hot screech in defense answered the hasty assumption. Yes, they were selfish. Yes, it drove them more to take revenge once they mutated themselves, but that sight on Valencia Island.....
Don't jump to any conclusions, brat, Cassidy growled, folding her wings around her body that dropped silently. She could tell she was right in front of the kid...the smell of hate bore into her nostrils. You and the runt didn't see what Butch saw or hear what we heard in that room we busted. She took flight once more and glided towards the odor of fear and uncertainty. Maybe...guilt, too. Whatever. She would find out the truth now. Those weren't the only batch.
The steady, frequent beat of Cassidy's wings closed the distance they had started, flapping rapidly directly above the lizard's head, in deadly proximity to the horn. Giovanni suddenly felt that he was being interrogated by her. The question was, why? It did not seem likely that she would suspect...unless...
Before he could piece together a protest, Cassidy started circling, a vulture to scavenge the meat of the truth.
There were more...a lot more...at Ivy's lab. Guts hanging out, lying in their own crap. They got lucky and died.
Dread manifested in the perspiration of blood, though no one could tell. It might have been the rain that bashed the ground heavily and unceasingly..
The brown and grey creature lowered herself until the spot where her eyes would have been was level with her boss'. And somehow that empty brown-and-grey patch of fur was far more intimidating than the most monstrous of eyeballs.
Someone had it in for the no-talents. If they couldn't make it in Team Rocket they would make it as labrats.
Her wing beats wrote the rythym of a guilty heart. Butch started to crawl, drawn by the odor of treachery. He could smell it, too. Guilt releases its stench of terror when it's been discovered.
The only one who has power to strip rank is the boss. What I want to know is...
Did you know about it?
An uncomfortable silence. From it the Rockets knew the answer but a band of liars could trust nothing as decietful as them, the silence. In the deepest quietude lurked a masked danger.
He formed half a single word before another noise arrested all thought. Another shape sounded nearly noiseless on the mud, but the figure's failed attempt at secrecy directed the hostility towards its trigger. If the Black Rain could affect a normal, everday human---then there must be more-- a lot more. Now nothing was normal. The five waited with caged animosity for it to move.
Its voice spurred anger's hasty release and encompassed all but the Gyarados with a tempetuous rage. The Black Rain's darkness shrouded its features, that perhaps were less monstrous and deformed than its true, "human" form.
He neglected no detail...precisely the same instinctual tendencies....a...A weakened clawing of mud and a labored breath hampered by a growling hiss. ...including its vampiric nature.....
Brock recognized that voice. It was coming from him but it wasn't his. The dog he drained dry that took his form..a flawless physical disguise but the way it talked.... quiet, dangerous, slippery as if greased in oil...a cruel tone removed from the misery of those who were unlucky enough to fall into his hands, a tone that had slipped into a gratifying weakness, a vulnerability that didn't bate the edge of the demon's hate.
"YOURRGH." The forked tongue rattled between bared fangs, growling at an identical forked tongue bared between identical white fangs thirsting to be bathed red.
Possibly...I feel that I do not know myself anymore... ha.....heh.....the scientist forced a feeble laugh, tasting the saturated air, searching for the thing that would satisfy this aggravating lust.......it collapsed from weakness, shaking on its scaled palms, red eyes slowly emptying of his fragmented sanity, while the others were on their guard, fully expecting it to strike.
He took notice of the original owner of his current DNA, regaining the detatched, condescending attitude that marked him as Hojo. ...ah...I am surprised you have not exploited your psychokinetic abilities...they are..quite..useful...for both targeting a specific location and teleportation to that exact point.....A ragged gasp stifled his altered lungs. The compulsion was far stronger than he first anticipated...he could not ignore it: it would be ridiculous to lose consciousness where his former specimens would rip him apart...
He wrenched himself out of the mud, the other creatures lurching at what they interpreted as a hostile movement. Strange..how it would be to humans, they would see it as animals protecting their territory from an interloper, but in truth--it was far more complex. The fear of getting caught, the fear of observation and experimentation.
All save for the Gyarados, anyway. Confusion plagued her mind rather than fear. The shape doubled-over on the ground with the red eyes and white fangs---it looked exactly like Brock, except it had hair and Brock didn't. Or......was that one Brock, the one plowing his claws through the mud, struggling to heave himself upright, the one breathing hard--for a moment, she couldn't tell the difference.
But the difference was soon known.
The difficulty of teleporting did not lay in the act itself, but in the barrier of the Dark type-----it was true that Gemini had entered experimentation as a Dark type. Its psychic abilities..they were artificial..manufactured to make the Pokémon completely immune to itself. However, it backfired miserably. In nature, the dark type was completely immune to psychic energy. Conversely, the dark type was quite effective against a psychic. But this artificial introduction had negated dark's immunity entirely, weakening it in the presence of psychic energy. It was an embarassing failure, and he repeated the experiment countless times on the subject, never comprehending that this failure caused the youth a hell of pain.
Well......now he was about to taste it.
The scarlet energy dripped from his brain, forming waves that emanated with increasing labor of trying to combat its natural element, squeezing, tearing, crushing....he felt like his brian was leaking out of holes in his skull, becoming physical projectiles that dealt as much pain to the body as it did to the mind...but it was simply the sensation..heightened drastically by the immensity of the power... that gradually engulfed the downed form, rolling across the ground to escape the force.....
The red light swallowed the figure and stole it away.
Cassidy's supsersonic rippled through the air. No trace of him. The teleportation had succeeded.... but to where he had gone was anyone's guess. And wherever that was, she didn't care. It didn't have anything to do with Team Rocket.
Misty, on the other hand, felt a shrouded dread creep up her spine. She lumbered in Brock's direction, growling a question that emanated the same dread.
Who was that?
A nightmare that won't go away, Brock answered with a hateful hiss. Now he wants blood. .Brock gouged through the mud in unveiled frustration, knowing that it would probably be populated town..or a city, lots of blood to satisfy his thirst..he should KNOW, right, dependent, made dependent on other people's blood.
He couldn't let it happen. Pewter was gone, Viridian was wasted.. No..he would save them..no matter how much he loathed and feared them..he would save them.
Brock began to search the sprawling expanse of land before him..... bringing all focus onto the presence of psychic energy. His head began to hurt..the energy...it wasn't dark energy, used to using it, but the psychic energy..like it wasn't supposed to be there, like it clashed with the dark energy...it wasn't natural..it wasn't right... The red light seeped from his head, wracked by a pain that doubled him over on the mud, both claws curving into his temples that throbbed, sore and swollen with the pressure.
And then.....
The shuddering light stilled. A panicked roar of a crawling despair enveloped Misty with doubled dread. Brock dropped to his knees from the monumental effort and let the pain of thought subside. He shut his eyes and stood, his demonic tail dragging half-buried in the whirling mud.
Ce...Cerulean. Misty, he's going for your hometown.
The dread exploded into full-blown terror. There were no more words needed to say what had to be done. The psychic energy slowly engulfed both shapes, one convulsing from the crushing force, the other emitting panicked roars in the taunting knowledge that they may already be too late to save them.
Two burning bursts of crimson removed the threat of their vengeance but did not remove their hatred. But another hatred.. the kind that causes the downfall of empires, within the body, a deadly conflict that would snap the foundations of the frame and send the entire thing crumbling. The distraction was louder than the rumble of the earth.
Cass..he bailed out.
Butch called from a good twenty feet away. Cassidy unfurled her bare wings, sweeping low over the mud layers and emitting a sharp growl menacing in its implications.
He knew. She lowered her long muzzle, embarassed that for her quick mind, didn't figure it out before, didn't even suspect that their human supremacist boss apparently deemed totally human Grunts worthy of becoming subhuman....
Covert operations.....Cover-ups...bloody secrets that he didn't tell them, elites for Christ's sakes... hadn't they been his loyal agents? This was their repay?
Did you expect something different?
This is Team Rocket. Lying is the way of life.
The half-discernable cross between a halting laugh and a growl was grim. So, this is how it ends, hm? Her pointed teeth curled into a dangerous grin, partly concealed by the skin of her wings that flapped through the muggy air. He thinks he has something to fear. A raking screech sounded through the dark, heavy and unyielding. Come on...we're not going to disappoint him.
*~*~*
The Black Rain thinned and waned for the first time since the angel unleashed it. The obtrusive darkness of the sky, slate grey forming in the few clouds that had emptied all precipitation now visible when there had been only rain. The hot globe that had banished itself from sight now returned incompletely, casting a single ray through the shroud of greying clouds.
In the city northeast of Pewter's remains, the abating rainfall made the frame of the entire city more or less visible: from a handful of Vermillion's liberated citizens crowding into the alleys that were beginning to get cramped to the outlines of the buildings that trapped them on three sides..why, even the hollow corpse that slumped downward on the concrete wall whose body whitened from both terror and the drainage was wholly discernable.
The stolen blood splotched red on his rumpled clothes, staining it with his own death. Some of the hungrier citizens fed on the still-warm body while it's murderer caught the concrete wall, crawled over the bickering beasts, and dropped on the pavement adjacent to them, its red fangs greedy for more O negative, of which, there was already a limited supply.
Not nearly enough..Hojo growled, blood dripping onto his claws. The temptation to drain one of his feeding neighbors was great, but he perished the inclination. I cannot sustain myself on altered blood...Pity I cannot analyze the blood type...determine which is least detrimental to this body...He moved farther away from the chaotic alleyway, drifting towards the city's lit gym, growling in evident frustration at the unfeasibility of the process.......Doing so would require the use of delicate equipment that I at the present moment am incapable of manipulating. No...the only solution is to drink until Gemini's.....he stole away through the rain's thinning cloak, the craving for blood only partially satisfied.....the more he attempted to ignore it.....the more it clamored...the more it yearned.... for blood....that coated the inside of his throat. Blood that wasn't his..that had been taken from others to preserve Gemini's-----now HIS---life---at least, for the time being. Until he assumed some other shape..
Which at this point, could be roughly a thousand opportunities to rid himself of the craving, of this degrading want..but the desire was..... impossible...to escape.....trapped in this nightmare that he created himself...
A bestial lamentation chorused through Cerulean's streets...a condition that Hojo had succeeded in immersing himself during his adult life......the millions of test subjects whose pleas he ignored, in some cases, took notice and revelled in their torment, while some cried vengeance against what really was a lowly thief that had robbed them of everything. A bandit wearing a labcoat that at this moment he was currently lacking---that youth--what was his name, most likely stripped him. Hm..how odd it felt, to be unidentifiable, to become lost in a swamp of others in a similar position--though their status was fixed---they could not change into another form, they had lost their human identities and gained another, permanent identity. His was temporary, forever changing, making it simpler to forget his own, human body...that didn't crave for blood, maybe the numbing effects of Mako, but not blood...
The craving made him stagger, drawing sweat, forcing him to lean on a fire hydrant, sniffing it in crazed fervor, entertaining the possibility of the red fluid..the situation was growing more dire. He shifted his dropping head towards the mutant crowd. Blood everywhere, but not the type he and his colleagues had designed Gemini to drink.. an inhibiting trait that forced it to prey on beings without a constructed defense. "Innocents"...how much more is one hated and despised if it takes an innocent's life than if it takes the life of one whose hands are equally sullied?
Infected with the disease of these ponderings that served to deepen this frustration, he drifted from the hydrant and stumbled towards the created race, pouring from the shadows, some hungry, some lost, in varied mannerims of varied impulses, some with command of speech and some deprived of it, some that had the true essence of a monster and others that appeared more human, some with their intelligence eliminated and others that still had some brain, but all blurring the human line. It was difficult to tell humans that had become Pokémon from Pokémon that had become human. The boundary had been crossed many times over.
Then there were the Pokémon that had remained Pokémon...still their blood was red. They were unaffected. That was his target. Oxygenated blood...yes... Perhaps the craving would leave after this one's blood.....what was it again?
A growl rose from flurries of orange and white that stamped across the wet pavement behind him, trampling over the puddles of Black Rain. Several policemen followd them, barking orders hardly audible over the barking Growlithe. There was a whish of air, flashes of metal spheres pelting the beasts around him---drowning the cries of Vermillion citizens that found themselves again imprisoned.
The pointed ears twitched in reocgnition of the device. Clearly they were on a capturing spree...perhaps to protect the humans that carried the recessive blood type, without mindlessly destroying them. Gradually, hindered by this induced weakness, he became aware of his predicament.
It would not do for him to be caught...his captors would not know of his....specialized nutritional needs. He would most likely die of thirst. All of that effort and to perish anyways.....that was life's crass sense of humor. Ha...but with the proximity of the prey, it seemed as if it wouldn't play its joke.
The head of the Growlithe pack stopped short at the crouching shape that arrested its run with a deft swipe of its claw. In a rapid grab it clutched the puppy by the throat, sinking its scarlet fangs into the skin, the protruding spikes guarding its prey from the alarmed Growlithe that bunched in a jumble of chaos, their disarrayed howling alerting the cops that were throwing PokéBalls like mad.
"Jesus--it's got Growlithe--" one of them exclaimed, flinging out his gun from the holster and lowering it at the squatting thing that stared curiously into the barrel, hissed, and went back to its blood, lapping it with a wild fervor that disgusted and horrified the spectating humans. The gun would've fired then and there if the other cop didn't stay him.
"Hold up..you heard what she said---"
"Screw her! There's no way we can catch every_single one of these freaks!! That woman's off her rocker!" the other growled, letting off a shot that wrenched a yelp from the canine shield. "What the--?! I hit-----"
The blood on the bullet wounds sparked mad light in the glowing eyes, and it licked at the blood hungrily, the forked tongue passing over the liquid with cruel speed. All the while, the cop could only squeeze the trigger and get nothing but the empty click. He re-holstered it and fumbled for a PokéBall, a bit remorseful at his impulses.
"Yeah, you did. Now lets do this RIGHT," the other one urged, supressing a whole slew of berating he wanted to inflict on the green boy. He stepped foward, triggering ripples in the black puddle, unlatching an Ultra Ball from his beltloop. He hurled it in the same motion, the sphere connecting with the devil's tail and catching the dark shape in its vacuum-like beam. No sooner than he picked it up he yelled to the other cop, "Get Growlithe back to headquarters-----" He faced the approaching onslaught of hunters, their collective cries playing a baneful tune. God, this was cray. Nuts. In all his years on the force, he never had to deal with anything like this.
He had about six PokéBalls and sixty Pokémon coming at him, none of them searching for a master.
It was then it dawned on him that they WERE going to need help.
He had his hand on his radio but hesitated to switch it on. If the Shin-Ra were going to cause a bigger mess, then why do it?
Yeah...they could take this alone. That was their job, right? In the end, it was to keep the town safe, and right now it was anything but that.
He leaned foward and threw the Ball into the shapeless mass of mutants that scattered, their individual outlines becoming clear and more hideous as each vile feature was far more pronounced. He threw three at once in a panic, the random projectiles spurring an equine to break free of the tangle of mutants.
It sprinted in erratic strides, lost, mad, saddened, as it neared in a blurring gallop, he thought maybe it was a Rapidash-- but the way its eyes were, a bloody red, masked with serpentine scales, the way it bore its teeth made for slicing and tearing rather than chewing and grinding, its hooves made for gouging instead of crushing, and the churn of its horn..... as if perpetually on Horn Drill---it couldn't be.
The dark shape flew by him, the frozen wind that blew on his skin forcing the hair on hs neck's back to stand. The drill's whir rapidly abated, but he froze as if it didn't miss, and ran him through. The temporary paralysis gripped his brain as well, blanking his mind, making him forget that there was the Ultra Ball rocking in his pocket, its prisoner vying for liberty, pounding, clawing, doing all in its waning power to escape.
In this case, it was mind over matter. The Ball slid, rolled, and practically jumped from the cop's pocket, hurtling towards the asphalt and making the black puddle jump with its force. The impact triggered the two halves to break open and release its demonic contents, spilling them on the hard asphalt. Those few seconds in the Ball drove it wild with lust, and the human completely failed to see, his attention directed on the mutant crowd, flinging several more PokéBalls at the onrushing crowd, capturing one or two that did not deter the others. So focused on this, but disregarding the black shape crouched in front of him.
He finally switched the radio on and talked in fragments, no longer caring if he was aiming and where he was aiming. "-----Situation's getting out of control--" He wavered again. Once he made the call, the deal was sealed: headquarters'd get reinforcements from the army, and the army'd get Shin-Ra involved, them directly linked.
What else was there to do? He eventually charged blindly ahead and half-buried any regret under the knowledge these monsters wouldn't overrun the island.
"----About sixty of 'em, need backup at--" All of a sudden the tenor of his voice blew into wild panic. The dark shape stared at his neck and licked the red off its lips. It lunged. There was a yell of unbridled terror that mangled the incompleted word, a splash and clatter as the radio fell from a hand that whitened, unclenched, and finally dangled at his side, emptied of its life force. The body fell with a thud. Its killer walked from the corpse, convinced it had been enough.....but the lust had become stronger, more manifested.....
The excess blood out of the reach of his tongue dripped down his chin, leaving its mark in the black puddles. Desperate for more blood, he dunked his face in the Black Rain, searching for the red liquid but finding it evenly mixed. He had not the time nor the means to chemically separate them..... With a dismal growl he darted across the puddles towards the building not thirty feet away.
In the building there was a light. Light brought the promise of human blood. And in order to obtain it...he would have to pass through it... Painful, but if it would enable him to survive, the blood would be worth stumbling blindly with eyes that roasted in the light.
With that resolve, he approached the next target.
*~*~*
Brock and Misty re-materialized in the midst of the mutant fray, the former falling on his knees from the over-exertion, staring at the wet asphalt that returned the bleary glance. But there was no time to linger. Not here.
Misty shoved through the primal crowd, seeming to forget that she was a Gyarados, unmindful of the fact that the lesser animals scurried out of the way of its tramping claws. But she didn't think that. She was a human searching for survivors of her kind, as well as their Pokémon. But these horrifying monsters that now swamped her hometown---they weren't Pokémon. They_couldn't be.
There was one of the monsters following them. She could hear its galloping tread. Must be a horse. But no time to look back. Keep looking foward. That's where the people were. The ones they were trying to save. People she knew. This was her home. She was going to defend it no matter what.
The horse continued to tail them, a constant drilling noise driving them towards the lit gym. With a hopeful cry she threw herself down the broad street, running as fast as the form permit her. She was painfully aware of how difficult it was--- her leg muscles didn't move the way they used to---they were stiffer-----like iron or steel or some other metal...everything felt heavier.. She didn't go as fast as she ran as a human..... Something told her that maybe she wasn't meant to run at all. Gyarados crawl, don't they? They weren't supposed to have arms and legs. What was she supposed to do with arms and legs if she wasn't supposed to have them?
Run. Run like hell. Adrenaline demanded her to--dread hastened her delayed movemnts. Though unconscious of it, her body pushed her to adapt and ordered her to succumb to gravity.
The laws of nature intoned in distinct voices that conveyed an unmistakable meaning in the form of signals through the nervous system. Soon only her subconscious knew that she was running on all fours, nearing closer to the light that seeped out of the glass doors covered in black beads that left transluscent trails of grey when they rolled off the vertical surface and left lumps of rain at the door's foot.
The grey sea monster stopped at the door, becoming two-legged again with frustrating effort as she used the door for balance that normally she would've taken for granted. She wasn't graceful or anything, but clumsy? No way.
But as a Gyarados...fat chance! She wasn't a Gyarados. As far as she was concerned, she was a human trapped in a Pokémon's body---she wasn't about to go bust down the door of what formerly was HER gym--- though that was the easiest way to do it-- She would enter it as normal---as possible---so what if her claws slipped and left three obvious etchings in the door? She wasn't breaking it down like an enraged Pokémon! Because she wasn't one, she was a person, she was Misty.
A steady drip of Black Rain brought the chemical from the outside into the gym, spreading its wavy trail as the two creatures ran through the front hall, the scuffle of their clawed feet on the undifferentiated floor tiles signalling to any human their unwanted presence...
If there were any humans to be wary of them... The droplets of blood that flecked the base of the wall, the front desk, the portrait of a Dewgong, a spectator lying face-down at the junction---that made the fear real, tangible. It wasn't just in her mind. The killer wanted blood. And as her eyes ran up the wall past the Dewgong portrait and to a flyer:
Marine Showcase starring the Sensational Cerulean Sisters! One Day Only! Buy your tickets today!
Lily....
Daisy...
Violet..
Misty broke for the gym. It would be packed, a full house, standing room only---God, they'd all be dead--
She could imagine the wild cheers transform into wild shrieks.
They both bolted, both wary of the galloping tread that didn't let up behind them, the hooves that drove into the floor, breaking pieces of the tile every time it touched ground, and the horn, still whirring, like someone coming at them with a drill. It gave them all the more reason to run until their lungs burst.
And when she reached the stadium, the dread enveloped her throat, suddenly raw and parched.
A deliberate rip in the ceiling poured with cascades of rain. The pool in the center of the gym was flooded in the dark liquid, bloodless bodies decorated the bleachers with festive death, wholly drained, their skin as pale as the white moon gradually revealing itself above, sending beams of the sun's reflected light towards the dark shape in the center of the pool on one of the floating blocks. The shape...it was the thing that looked like Brock. It fiddled with her mind..she knew which was which, who was who, but now in the light--it was entirely visible....if she didn't know that Brock was behind her, with fanged mouth partially agape, his knuckles greying while the fists clenched and unclenched---she would have though that Brock murdered the entire city.
Whatever lingering doubt she had, the dangerous voice confirmed that whatever did this wasn't Brock.
I believe the craving is fulfilled...Drops of red blood dripped from the tips of its fangs, their drop against the black liquid inaudible amidst the drilling noise that, though producing a greater din, fell on deaf ears. The creature clutching the floating block gestured with claws that bore his guilt to the bleachers filled with pierced corpses, a scowl of disgust distorting his face. What a waste of life..they would have served as excellent specimens---
Misty's skin paled to a lighter grey as she stood there, gazing at the bodies-out for a good time-----that's all it was.....The shocked flashes of teal lowered from the bleachers, across the tiles littered in----Dewgong and Seel, their skin pierced at the neck----they were in the pool, too, droplets of the remnant of the downpour trickling on their face-down bodies.
To think the last time she was here, everything was alright...her sisters were teasing her about being the youngest, annoying her to no end though they were kin anyway------
For a split-second she could've sworn her heart stopped beating. The dark shape had another body entrapped in his scaled arms. Tall, lanky----but who it was--she didn't know until it twisted its malformed body around, bringing a white form to light. It withdrew one of its arms to clamp the surface, causing its head to droop over the dark water, its neck baring two holes, its long hair hanging down in waves, disappearing beneath the flowing surface, and its white visage.....
Misty's heart fell into her stomach churning with a turbulent nausea.
*~*~*
The Shin-Ra conference room did not lose its air of luxury when it changed location. If anything, it grew more grandiose. The frail architect was paid handsomely to not only design the chamber in accordance with the original, but enact modifications that drove the expenses to ridiculous heights. This expenditure wasn't entirely for visual appeasement, but a sort of snob treatment to any Vermillionite or Saffronian that was granted an audience with them for potential business deals. A parade of power, if anything, that kept them in their place. A carry-over from the old administration that Rufus had no intention of altering. Despite his lengthy speeches about the ideal method of rule: by fear, he didn't mind indulging the company, or himself, for that matter.
In that way, he was not unlike his old man. However, the late President Shin-Ra didn't insist on arming the building that heavily, since the youth had no qualms about spoiling elegance to ensure his dominance, to make sure they knew who was in charge. For most of the time, it worked. No sane individual dared to question its policies, blinded by ignorance or inhibited by fear---the former tactic more utilized by the elder Shin-Ra, though Rufus wasn't above steeping the public in partial ignorance, for that held the key to power as well.
Power...control...claiming superiority over others---what was that kind of power compared to a realized strength that rivalled a lesser physical power that hid behind a shield of control---but where was that control, now? Shin-Ra controlled the city, but did they control the jungle, field, lake, river, and mountain?
Perhaps. With contracts, deeds, documents of the sort-----but could they claim to be above the life that now clambered across them, searching for an answer to their plight, or satisfaction for their hunger?
Whether it was correct ethically, they did. They claimed power over their lives, judgement over their existences. For now, Shin-Ra and everything else diverged from the other even more so, Shin-Ra rising in its own eyes infinitely higher.
It had always been, hadn't it? Above all, through careful manipulation of a too-trusting system, bribing, bending the regulations a bit, and the company was untouchable. Specifically the higher-ups. They could afford to live in mental security, because the company would cover up for them, as long as it was no inside plot. They knew they were safe hiding behind Shin-Ra's shield.
But now...uncertainty spread itself thick as the lazy smoke from the discarded cigar in the gold-plated ashtray rolled upward in a vaporous column, partially obscuring the rotund face of Heidegger, flushed red with cheap wine, his dark brown whiskers hiding whatever expression he had from his less rotund, but stumpier fellow executive, downing a mug of strong coffee that, for whatever reason, didn't work for him this time. You could say he wanted to lose himself, get so wired he forgot where he was, and forget himself entirely. Being naturally hyperactive, that shouldn't be so hard to do, but the silent suspicions in the air, expressed now and then by an impatient banging on the table by Heidegger and his own twitchiness. Tension didn't disperse with the hanging smoke. Crisis reared beneath the shadows.
Exactly what it was, he had no idea. He'd come here, springing with giddy step towards the building, completely unmindful of the lurking beasts in the dark, cheerfully waddling to the board room. It was now six hours or so later. Heidegger had walked in behind him, with the pompous air of someone who had just beat someone----Nothing surprising about that. A violent death that left the body mangled, a quick and hurried reanimation that didn't hide the scars, landing him in a worse mood, and well..... Most of Heidegger's subordinates knew what was coming when the president criticized him.
But now the president wasn't here. Now that it came to him, the attendance was low to the point of ridiculousness. His puny eyes buried in pounds and pounds of fat ran over the empty executive seats, resting particularly on the one at the table's head, unfilled by the presence that in a way, dominated all of them. It wasn't such a big deal personally to Palmer: with the way the president had been acting, he would've liked to avoid him---he scared easily and wanted to avoid trouble as much as possible---- but in all practicality, the president surely had to be at the meeting--he wasn't just the presider, but the one who decided every motion---and in a crisis as terrible as this, whatever it was, he really should be here...It WAS an emergency meeting after all, after Scarlet had declared it as such, amid a fit of hysteria...it was a sight, that's for sure----she stormed in and out raving about a "disgusting freak", "AVALANCHE at it again", and something about a "no-wit boy scout". She hadn't come back since. So much for her.
Endowed with the fire of spontaneity, the tiny eyes moved rather randomly from the president's seat to the other vacant positions---which would've been occupied by----that mousy fellow, Reeve, and the ancient scientist. In a darting hunch, he wondered if they'd fallen victim to whatever was happening---who could tell, maybe even-----the president himself got wrapped up in all this? At that musing Palmer laughed at himself. He was much too good for that.....in his mind, problems of the ordinary world just didn't affect someone like Rufus Shin-Ra. Maybe the other two---maybe that's why they were missing, but Rufus? He didn't think so.
A shrill snarl that showed no effort to be contained sounded behind the polished oaken door that rattled with an audible thud, stirring Palmer from his roundabout musings.
The heavy door flung open, revealing a livid Scarlet that crossed towards the executive table, the clack of her high heels muffled in the luxurious carpet. She sidled towards her vacant chair, her plucked eyebrows slanted over slightly reddened eyes that bore the irritation of expecting a three-week vacation and finding yourself facing a problem that would keep you up for days. With a tight exhale of breath she took her seat, massaged her temples with her fifth finger, took the other hand and reached for a cigarette, lit up, and added to the dispersing hills of smoke with a new eruption. She spoke between lightly clenched teeth that rubbed against each other, producing a squeak that could be heard across the room that overlapped into her irritated tone.
"Okay, gentlemen. I just talked to the so-called lieutenant of the Kanto army---it took some prying to find out what the deal is-" she added, before tossing the cigarette in the tray with a flick of her hand-----"He first didn't want to spill, but we forced it out of him. He has a lot of balls, trying to stand up to Shin-Ra like that. We're the ones that supply him his men, for crying out loud!" she screamed in a mixture of aggravation and triumph, her shrill voice swelling to a piercing shriek. She indulged in her familiar laugh as she expanded quickly, "---but he has all balls, no brains. Just one threat to his 'Raichu' and we had him talking." She gave a belittling smirk of haughty superiority. "Sentimental bumpkins." The executive rose from her seat and glided to the front wall, an evident gravity marking more cautious movements. "But their information's worth it. He said there was a crisis. Big one."
"Crisis?" Heidegger bellowed, fury reddening his bulging face, the hairs of his generous beard bristling with rage. "After Meteor, nothing's a crisis! And if he thinks he's getting more SOLDIERs to save a few worthless lives when they're supposed to be stationed at Lavender, he's asking the wrong man!!" he roared with surpising sobriety across the table. Besides---" His weighty fist shook its carved legs as he pounded the top, consumed with hilarity at the absurdity ---as far as Shin-Ra was concerned, the Kanto army was a complete joke. The navy....forget it, and the air force...practically non-existent. "Don't tell me he's getting all worked up about that incident----"
"The fire in Viridian," Scarlet finished, veiling her private disgust towards the Turks' boss. Thick as mud. Though it's not like both of them were jumping at the disaster. She would've overlooked it too, had she not read the report. It wasn't any ordinary fire, but caused by a freak of nature like the one she saw in the sink while touching up her mascara----It came right out of the DRAIN, squealing, clawing on the faucet-----She smothered the memory and brought down a screen with a set of controls on the wall. "That wasn't just a fire, Heidegger. Why'd you think Surge asked the President for men instead of leaving it to the fire department and riot police? Because there was a MONSTER on the loose, that's why!" A small beep, the screen lowered with a quiet whir, and burst into light. "And these-----" She searched for a word to describe it., mouthing every sort of abomination that came to her head, before deciding that they COULDN'T be described------" aren't anything like that egg Tseng bounced out."
Heidegger took another drag of the shortened cigar, his massive belly shaking in the fit of roaring laughter, the braying and bleating and whinnying he was famed throughout Shin-Ra for.. Scarlet returned glee with a glare, tuning the device to one of the airborne security cameras that prowled the city. Her voice morphed into a caustic growl. "See for yourself and see if you're still laughing afterward."
The screen burst into a grating din that filled the room's four corners, the smoke not heavy nor thick enough to block their view of the grim image set forth..
A climax of a warped nightmare. That's all it could be. Everything SEEMED normal enough--- no colossal earthquake had tipped the buildings----- No flood had drowned the city---no fire had scorched all to the rocks---yes, it was raining hard---the sidewalks below were nearly indiscernable from the streets, there were a few garbage cans afloat---- And most noticeable, they couldn't see through the rain. It hailed night, the sky plumetting in drops of unhesitant liquid which only partially obscured the creatures scaling up and down the walls of buildings, monstrous railing matching the wretched 'cries of the Planet' that were so often talked of by the canyon folk but hardly taken seriously by urbanites such as themselves...
At any rate, a grim spectacle. The three executives beheld, pale, combatting fear-stricken nerves, these solid spectres, more hideous than the roaming monsters on Gaia, making ears scream and bleed with their unearthly commotion, a plea from another world, wholly separate, wholly apart, an Otherworld that consumed what they knew as reality.
While her peers gaped and sweated, Scarlet gave a light smirk at the plan of action that she managed to wrangle out of Surge. Second-hand information from a Cerulean cop.
She made no effort to contain herself: then and there she burst into cruel laughter at their childish attempts... Really, they were kids with lots of vision and no pragmatism.. To think that the local police intended to stop this on their own---the beat cops that toted low-caliber pistols and revolvers,and, of all things, PUPPIES. Not even dogs. Puppies. And with a force consisting about 20 per each city, they marched out to catch 'em all to keep the freaks intact and massacre themselves. Uh-huh. Right.
No-brained hicks, she thought derisively, muting the TV that still flashed the images of the city-turned-zoo, the evil forms of the animal shapes crossing through this absolute night The other executives were transfixed by the images, neither making a comment, unable to do little more than offer a blank stare.Heidegger had stopped laughing, perspiration clinging to the hairs on his beard. The WEAPON incident, that was a bit more than routine. He and Scarlet were confident that Meteor would die along with Sephiroth. This rattled him, his confidence, and dented it with a ferocious blow.
The deafening clamor ceased.
"What do you propose we do about this?" the woman asked with shifting eyes, turning into an acid glare as Palmer's lower jaw descended, about to open his mouth. He didn't even have to talk for her to know what he was going to say. It was the same thing every meeting, every chance he got to whine about his obsolete department. "Shut it, Palmer," came the piercing command. His jaw wavered, answered by a hostile rebuke. "The Space Program is DEAD, okay? Let the Weapons Department handle this."
Palmer half-slouched, half-reclined in his seat again, dry lips forming a sulking pout in his flabby visage that sort of receded into the background, as if it wasn't even there. He really didn't expect any different...he'd been useless for years. Shin-Ra 026's launch marked the Space Program's definite end.
Why Rufus allowed him to stay on his staff was a mystery even to him. Virtually, the number of executives had shrunk down to two. The extra one holding his coffee mug upside-down over his tongue was a do-nothing to even everything out, to make it balanced, add symmetry. Let Heidegger and Scarlet have their dual monarchy. He was there to sit and look pretty.
Dual monarchy? That's what they expected. Already having the taste of power and relishing it, not even Heidegger, seemingly servile in Rufus' shadow, questioned where he was at the moment. At this point, he didn't give a damn. The President was gone, he must be dead again, now it was their turn to rule, though both posessing monstrous egos, they believed they ruled it individually, the masters of their own world, each one a worthy sucessor to the Shin-Ra throne..
But the youth was unwilling to relinquish his power...
A sleepless tail half-covered in the replacement trenchcoat deposited hair from the elevator's entrance to where it wound in a repeating coil, leaving its individual bits of orange and brown a visible trail. Unconscious of everything else but the conversation radiating from the conference room-----ignoring the conspicuous whir of a vacuum, a custodian's scream, his panicked flight, and other voices more indistinct. The fur continued to mark its embarassing path. But...less aware of the humiliating fact that he shedded than he was of his subordinates' conversation, the majority of which he caught with readied ears.
"..Ditch that---cannon.... backfired on---President------smash all...another Proud Clod!"
"...Don't forget---Shin-Ra army. -----whole thing----- over----- tomorrow."
"---hit them----everything."
"Agreed---huh?" Scarlet discarded the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray and poked her pointed chin upwards. There was a click from the doorknob...apparently whoever was less than fashionably late finally decided to get in here. She began to drum her fingers on the table's smooth surface in aggravated rythym, preparing a biting insult to hurl at the late board member. After what seemed like an extended and prolonged hour, the doors swung open with unusual momentum, ramming the walls before returning halfway to their closed position, failing to conceal the monstrosity that commanded the doorway.
A brown and orange creature in the President's shoes, slacks, turtleneck, and white trenchcoat marched confidently inside, its narrow eyes gleaming with a disapproving frown. Needless to say, none of them saw the expression as its human meaning..it could easily have been a predator readying to strike.. At once Scarlet paled, her voice suddenly wavering and the clear commands lapsing into stutters. "S-someone c-call security and get rid of that THING!!!"
The aforementioned "thing" scowled with expected disgust, closed the door with its paw as gingerly as a beast as large as him could manage, and answered Scarlet's demand with a feline growl that stayed anyone who even DARED to carry it out.
May I remind you that this 'thing' can make or break you.
The mental speech that reverberated through the chamber identified it as a thing apart form an ordinary animal. Though none of the executives were certain about the voice's source--how it could be talking without moving its lips was beyond their understanding, they were certain that their president was among them----the tone fringed by icicles embedded in sheets of solid ice---it was unmistakably Rufus.
In the likeness of a cat?
Heidegger began to open his mouth, but whatever readied in it fell short as the freak of nature began to stalk towards him. You will take much care in respecting my authority-----in this form, I am no longer bound by the niceties of man. A feral snarl that killed all thought of rebellion, returning Heidegger at once to his subservient attitude, leading Rufus to mentally nod at this change of heart, satisfied with his clumsy stammering and his unsightly salute.
"Y--yes, o-of course, Mr. P-President!!"
That's why animals of prey became so efficient in their gory tasks, yes? The power of threat, though it may be false, conjures fear. Rufus knew this and used it.
The giant cat walked confidently to the head of the table and seated himself, placing his front paws----though they smelled clean from the bath, to the executives, dirty and foul. Somehow, Rufus sensed this..... it couldn't be that they STILL thought him as low as his condition...! Hadn't he THREATENED
them with a brutal death that overstepped his own tendency to save face? Did his position mean nothing now that he was what he was? No..that couldn't be... That WOULDN'T be. He would FORCE them to respect the fact that he was their EMPLOYER. Infuriated at the unwanted challenge, the claws suddenly contracted. and the president bore the sharp-edged canines as he "spoke" in a tenor quite less heated than it had been earlier.
I believe you were about to come to a decision about how to deal with the population explosion of---
"Circus freaks," Palmer whimpered, slumping behind his chair, sinking to half his normal height for fear of gazing upon the wrathful cat. Accordingly, Rufus shot him an ablaze glare that would freeze a wildfire in its scorching path.
Which just as quickly calmed. Yes..I do not mind you expending the Shin-Ra army's maximum resources...The sooner this matter is settled, the better....He blinked his eyes slowly, the hidden globes of an unshackled fury not mollifying the hideousness of the thing that claimed to be their president.
He locked his canines together, his mouth a forest of razor-edged teeth. .However, I DO mind that you did not wait for my approval OR affirm what can be exterminated and what must be undamaged---He paused momentarily, confirming that the three humans in the room had heeded him and showed no signs of rebelling. It seemed as if they took his meaning. Intimidation was a useful skill. .....the four that escaped from the laboratory: they are to be captured, not destroyed. Everything else, kill as you will. He shifted in his chair, the damned tail squeezing behind his back---otherwise, no loss of dignity...he was certain he conducted himself with every ounce of etiquette and politeness he was reared with. There was simply no possible way that they could deny his superiority. And if they did, he knew the other method of persuasion, one not so proper, but fit his intentions..... and the propensities of his current form.
So reliant on this fantasy was he that he was stunned by Scarlet's snap of sarcasm that cut deep into his soaring pride.
"Is there anything else you want done, Your Majesty?" she sneered with the light of revolt burning in her face.
The small taste of absolute reign was all she needed to lust for it indefinitely.
.Yes, believe it or not, came the angered reply, the fury so great that it nearly drove him to claw through the table. But the seemingly invincible will restrained him, an invisible leash that he was impatient to shake off.
The cat's eyes, gleaming globes with a slit pupil that divided the frozen iris, rendered ferocious by the whites of the eye that were consumed in the hue of orange: burning ice burning in a burning blaze. This ferocity roved in a vertical line until it was parallel with Scarlet's, as if daring her to walk a step further on thin ice ready to crack. I want Hojo and Reeve arrested on charges of treason, and your insubordination left at home. Do I make myself clear? The cat's entire form stabbed through his executive's eyes, a warning growl making her nerves shake beneath a snide exterior.
Rufus stood from his chair, glaring into the emptiness of his authority.
Meeting adjourned, came the aggravated growl, shooting to a roar when they showed evident hesitation. But this would change. He WOULD be obeyed..if not, he would turn this beauracracy into a monarchy. It was that simple.
The executives filed out of the board room, two of them secretly pining over their lost chance for absolute control. The hairy obstacle had abruptly presented itself, a well-groomed, pleasant-smelling hulk of fur and teeth..a beast claiming to be Shin-Ra's president. How preposterous..it was unheard of! A cat, giving them orders, threatening their lives---it was bearable when he was human, IF he was human, but now he was an animal. An animal, that couldn't even SPEAK, wielding higher authority than they, who were HUMAN BEINGS.
IT.... would be better off being the object of marvel at a circus, not the chief executive of an electric company.
The whole thing was ridiculous. What was on their agenda that a CAT laid out for them as if he owned them? Orders to the SOLDIERs, orders to the mechanics, and a trip to the pet store for a milkbowl, collar, and a basket. A personalized tag. Maybe a litterbox. A yarn ball---
Who am I kidding? Scarlet asked herself with her pallid fists clenched at her broad hips that swayed with defiant resolution. Those items are for HOUSECATS. That thing is NOT a housecat, more of a lion missing its mane. Without it, acting as if he were a king. With it, who would he think he was? A god, maybe? Leave the god thing to Sephiroth, but the conceited bastard would think himself pretty close to it.
The elevator halted with its usual "ding" on the--what was it? Thirty-seventh floor? Ugh.. The smell of burned metal and formaldehyde ignored the doors and passed right through it.
Lions...It crossed her conniving brain suddenly. Where do you keep lions?
It dawned on her a brilliant golden sunrise over Mt. Corel.
This was the floor with the labs....of course..why not? Easy......it tempted her---She exited the doors. They stayed open behind her, thinking and deciding. Maybe Rufus' final grand departure wasn't too far off. They'd believe her. This was routine for them. They'd want a new study, some stupid slab of meat they could run their tests..why not the only obstacle to absolute control?
The heightened odor irritated her nostrils and her walk quickened to catch less of the overwhelming stink, coming from the ugly pile of burnt wreckage that was left of the lab, guarded by broken yellow tape that several assistants ignored, passing in and out of the dark lab. Scarlet followed them into the musty blackness, a uniform void made irregular by the outlines of jagged heaps of ruined equipment.
The unbearable smell quickly enhanced with unbearable noise. Some cautious-looking asistants entered from the lab's north side, wheeling empty cages past the yellow tape and into the unpiercable darkness, dodging the mounds of burnt equipment that heaped mounds and hills in the once impressive-looking facility. Her temptation driving her, Scarlet peered into the dark lab from the lighted area-the fire shorted out the lights in the lab only, and not its entryway. Everything beyond that showered in obscurity. But the lack of light didn't mute voices. She could hear one giving orders to the others-----the older one must have been a peer that was insane enough to still work with that old prune---
There was her chance. She could inform him of the situation, the lion would promptly be caged, Rufus' disappearance could be covered up by some make-believe story, and it would all be done and over with. There. One crisis down. Then she and Heidegger could wipe them all out the only way they knew how: with brute force.
It was a seething fear that prevented her from squealing. Fear of the beast's retaliation. Though it was a cat, it was intelligent---it WAS Rufus, after all. He was a cunning man. It must have been a cunning cat.But...her plan had no holes. It had to work. Shin-Ra wouldn't find out. The lab boys would make sure of that. She'd heard stories about the labs..the most affluent men that were influential enough to combat Shin-Ra's policies, political prisoners, P.O.Ws during the Shin-Ra-Wutai War, dangerous criminals---public enemies--they were never heard of again.
The plot unravelled in its simplistic elegance. The science department would jump at the chance, she was sure of it. Laughter broke from her cruel lips. Let Heidegger think that facing its fury wasn't worth it. Do what you're told until the time is right. She'd take the chance.
Besides, someone had to carry out Rufus' orders in the meantime, eliminating those other freaks out there...to lessen damage costs, prevent an all-out rebellion, and make sure Shin-Ra was still in the peoples'--- and more importantly, the lousy excuse for a 'government's'---favor.
With a lightness in her step, Scarlet approached the stocky outline of the assistant, his hard, wrinkled features suddenly visible as a glowing flame sparked from an emerald stone embedded in a device in his rather broad hand, illuminated by the fire as well as something else, a faint trickle of energy that flared about his form, the presence of which filled her with a vague apprehension. Something told her that she would regret dealing with this man. In some inexplainable way, he reeked of the devil.
TO BE CONTINUED......
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A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 25, where another city bites the dust, the mysterious Pokémon that was following Misty and Brock reveals itself, Cid gets a rude awakening, and he clashes with Red and Vincent once again, and---things die. ^^