Wes and Maddi went to Professor Decker to see what's wrong with Maddi! And the professor has quite a story to tell. So what's the big deal with Maddi's headaches and eye troubles? What can be done about it? Is she in danger? Or will the professor be able to help? What happened in Maddi's past that could have done this, what did Professor Decker do?

The Elimination Round of the Pokemon Academy Best Girl Contest 3 has started! Make sure to get those votes in, we've only got a couple of people who have voted so far! Please, make sure to get those votes in! You can vote for up to 5 girls, so make sure your favorites have a chance to shine!

Nominated: Ange, Ayame, Caelia, Chloe, Cynthia, Donoma, Elaina, Kate, Maddi, Marion, Misato, Ryoko, Sango, Satsuki, Sylvia, Vic

KedharS: Yes, it certainly is.

Snooze fest: Somehow, I doubt that you read the whole story in ten minutes.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 970

Maddi needed a second to let what the professor said sink in.

Then that second passed. And a few more followed. No, it still wasn't making any sense to her.

"What… what are you talking about? My parents?" She demanded. She tried to sound indignant, but with how shocked she was her voice just came off as worried and confused.

Fortunately Wes was there, and he had her back. "I'd also like to know what that's supposed to mean," he agreed, scowling at the professor. "What sort of procedure would you do to alter that girl's DNA? The man I knew wasn't the sort of person who would do something like that."

Professor Decker let out a long, tired sigh. "Wes… you and I have known each other for a very long time," he replied. "Over 25 years. And the man who I was back then… well, he was a man over 25 years younger. With far more ideals than I."

Wes's fingers slowly curled into a fist. "I don't like the sound of that, professor," he warned.

Professor Decker shook his head. "I understand that you might be… disillusioned with me. But I assure you, everything I've done, it's only ever been to help both people and pokemon. And that includes operating on young miss Whitmore over there."

Maddi was still struggling to keep up. "You… knew my parents?" She asked.

"We were colleagues who worked on many of the same projects," Professor Decker nodded. "They were some of the brightest minds in Pokemon Genealogy. We worked together on developing… a new breed of pokemon."

"What does that have to do with my eye, though?" Maddi asked.

"A new breed of pokemon?" Wes demanded, narrowing his eyes into a glare. Those were the kinds of things he'd heard about from people in Cipher. "Professor… you can't be serious. If you're telling me that you began working on Shadow Pokemon…"

A look of fury crossed the professor's face. "Absolutely not!" He exclaimed, red with anger. "Such horrid things… it's because of the Shadow Pokemon that I collaborated on Project ADAM in the first place, don't you see?!"

Wes didn't even know what that was.

The professor regained his composure, nursing his forehead. "When I saw the danger that Shadow Pokemon posed, I realized that regular pokemon were simply not enough to keep people safe," he explained. "But, if we could create pokemon, strong pokemon capable of fighting against those Shadow Pokemon, that would be a step in the right direction."

"My parents… talked about an Adam before…" Maddi said quietly, staring down at the floor. The more she heard the professor talk, the more memories of her past slowly returned to her. "Were they… did they…?"

"Your parents were in the top of their field," Professor Decker repeated. "They were part of the team that worked on Project ADAM, creating the pokemon Mewtwo from the DNA of Mew. A whole new breed of pokemon life, do you see?"

Wes could see. And he didn't like what he saw at all. "Unbelievable," he snorted, shaking his head with disbelief. "Insane. You're completely insane."

Professor Decker glared at him. "Insane? For creating a new breed of life? Wes, have you even read my work? This is the goal. Unlocking the secrets of pokemon, and even creating life anew. Think of the possibilities, think of-"

"What about Mewtwo?" Wes demanded. "The pokemon you created. Did you succeed? Is it around here, somewhere, in your little lab?"

Professor Decker turned pale. "That is… there was an… incident. But I assure you, I learned my lesson! Growing a pokemon as just an experiment, treating it as a tool without providing love, those are awful things! I've devoted myself to researching pokemon evolution now, I assure you!"

Wes didn't exactly trust the professor at his word at this point. He had made a serious mistake, bringing Maddi here.

"I think we should go now," Wes said.

Professor Decker shook his head. "No, wait, please. Don't you want me to help with Madison?" He begged.

"I have a pretty good idea what you did," Wes snarled. "Genetic augmentation, right? Altering her DNA to make her some sort of human-pokemon hybrid, another step in your plan to creating a brand-new pokemon, right?"

Professor Decker shook his head. "No, no! It wasn't something so deranged, I swear! Everything we did… we did with Madison's best interests in mind!"

"Yeah, that's what they all say." Wes pulled up a chair and sat down, crossing his arms in front of his chest. The glare he gave Professor Decker was one he reserved for the evilest of men, like those of Cipher. "So let's hear it. What did you do, professor?"

Professor Decker took a deep breath and then let out a long, loud sigh.

"When I first met the doctors Whitmore, your mother, Madison, she was already pregnant with you. It was a very long time ago. I was there the day you were born, in fact." A nostalgic look crossed the professor's face, but he didn't seem happy.

Maddi felt uncomfortable. "What… what happened?" She asked.

"You were born with… a birth defect," he quietly answered her. "The left side of your face was twisted and sunken-in, and you were blind in your left eye."

A chill went down Maddi's spine at the sound of that.

Professor Decker sank back into an armchair. It was a very long story he intended to tell.

"I said before, that I'm not a medical doctor. But that wasn't always the case. On top of my genetic research, I was once a very accomplished surgeon, as well. That was why, after you were born, your parents came to me. They had the money for surgeries, lots of them, to improve the quality of your life. Luckily, nothing you were afflicted with was irreparable. So I performed a series of treatments on you, including an eye transplant," the professor explained. "It was necessary, you see, to help you grow normally. We were lucky enough to even match the color. At the time, we found an eye as red as the one you were born with. At the time, that is…"

Maddi reached up and clutched at her left eye instinctively. The sky blue color had always been strange, staring back at her in the mirror, but she'd never questioned it until now. She'd never questioned anything. The professor's technique was flawless.

"You were fine, for a few years," Professor Decker continued. "No one could tell that you were anything other than a normal girl. Then the problems started."

"What problems?" Maddi demanded.

"Problems like what you're suffering from now," he said. "You see, the donor for your eye… they were not quite a… normal person. Are you aware of the ability known as 'harmonia'?" He asked. "It afflicts a segment of the population."

Maddi froze. Wes's face darkened.

"My… my eye, are you saying…"

"The person whose eye that is was someone who possessed this ability," Professor Decker confirmed with a nod, glancing at Wes. "I'm sure you know, Wes, what that means."

Wes nodded. "I have a guess…"

"I didn't think it would be a concern. I doubted that any abilities would carry over through a transplanted organ, of all things," the professor said, frantically trying to justify his actions. "But unfortunately I was wrong. You began getting terrible headaches and high fevers, your eye would even start to bleed. Your parents took you to the hospital, and the doctors there said that your body was rejecting the organ transplant. But by the time they got help, it was too late to operate. It wasn't like an ordinary transplant rejection, you see, your body was practically tearing itself apart over this strange ability that had afflicted you, almost like it felt harmonia was a disease."

Maddi couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I… I have harmonia?" She asked. She'd suspected something like that, but had never accepted it. It both made sense and it didn't, but what the professor was saying… that filled in the missing pieces.

"It wasn't that simple," Professor Decker said, shaking his head. "With nowhere else to turn, your parents came to me, frantic, pleading with me to do something to help. But unfortunately, surgery wasn't the answer. So I had to turn to… other measures."

The professor rose from his seat and walked over to a cabinet, returning with a syringe filled with a strange pink fluid.

"This is… the µ Gene," he said solemnly.

"What's that?" Wes demanded.

"It is a special, experimental genetic compound," Professor Decker answered. "I derived it by extracting and modifying the DNA of the pokemon Mew. It was a critical component in Project ADAM, and it was what saved your life."

"My… my life?" Maddi whispered.

"The µ Gene, when implanted in a host tissue, leads to a mutation on the genetic level," the professor explained. "It could cause transformations, it could prove fatal, or the host could be completely and totally fine. It's impossible to know unless you inject it. And that… that is what I did to you. I'm very sorry, Madison."

"You're saying… I have some weird genetic compound inside of me?" Maddi asked. She felt like she was going to be sick. "And that's the reason I've been having these headaches? That's why my eye hurts so much?"

"It was the only way to save you!" The professor insisted. "Your eye… it was going to kill you. Your parents and I agreed, that if it was the only way they could keep you alive, then we should try treating you with the µ Gene, in the hopes that it would stabilize your DNA and save you. So that's what we did, and it worked."

"Really?" Maddi growled, her eye throbbing with pain. She couldn't believe the BS the professor was spouting. "Because it doesn't feel like it worked."

Professor Decker glanced down, his face filled with shame. "…Yes, well… you see… while we were able to save your life… the results were far from perfect. There was so little we knew about the µ Gene at the time, you see, and it ended up becoming unstable. That's why your eye turned blue, just like the pokemon Mew's eyes."

"So you're saying that Madison… she has the DNA of Mew inside of her? She's part pokemon?" Wes asked. It sounded absurd, but he'd seen a lot of absurd things over the years.

"What, am I going to be growing fur or something, then? Or shoot fire from my hands?" Maddi didn't like hearing that she was part pokemon. It terrified her. "Professor, what's wrong with me? Am I a freak, is that it?"

The professor was quick to comfort her. "No, nothing like that. Certainly, there were concerns, but because of the nature of the treatment, it's not like you fully became a pokemon or anything like that. You just have a little… extra. To stabilize the connection between your eye and your body. You won't develop any abilities beyond that, I assure you."

Maddi didn't feel assured of anything.

Professor Decker could feel the odd tension in the room. He cleared his throat. "Yes, well, back to the matter at hand. Your headaches. Because the treatment was unstable, it required a stabilizer," he continued. "I would inject you with a compound every few months. To keep the mutations under control."

Suddenly, Maddi remembered back to when she was a little girl. All the trips to the doctor's office she used to take with her parents, all the trips to the Silph Co. building, all the times she'd gotten a shot by her eye. That all made sense now.

She reached up and rubbed her fingers against her eyelid. "So that's why… I'm like this, now? Because you haven't been giving me my shots?"

"When Silph Co. collapsed and your parents died, I tried to find you," Professor Decker said softly, his voice filled with remorse. "But I thought you had perished in the blast. That was why I didn't recognize you when you came to my classroom. I didn't realize it until now, if I had, then maybe…" he shook his head. "No, never mind…"

"So you need to keep giving her shots, is that it?" Wes asked. "And if you don't, then the headaches will keep getting worse, until…"

"Until she passes away, yes," Professor Decker nodded. "Those powers, your harmonia, it must have been dormant in you for some time, Madison, and then when it was brought to the surface, your body tried to reject it, and the µ Gene wasn't stable enough to fight it."

"So what, I have to keep getting shots every month now? Or I die?" Maddi demanded. She didn't like the sound of that.

Professor Decker smiled. "Back when I first treated you, that would have been necessary. After all, the µ Gene was unstable. But now, that is no longer the case."

"What do you mean?" Wes asked.

"Not long ago, another girl needed my help," Professor Decker explained. "Her family needed a treatment that only I could provide. Just like your parents, Madison, they came to me for the µ Gene. And I gave it to them. It was a gamble of course, I didn't seriously believe it could be of any help. However… it worked. The girl bonded with the µ Gene like nothing I'd ever seen before."

Wes shook his head in disgust. "More human experiments. I can't believe this…"

But the professor didn't care about his disapproval. "I took a sample of her DNA, after the µ Gene bonded with her, and I realized… it was perfect. A perfect stabilizer. It will keep the augmentations of the µ Gene under control."

He turned to Maddi, looking her in the eyes. She could see his sincerity.

"That's all it is," he said. "One shot. Just one. It will stabilize your DNA and keep the headaches from worsening. Well, you'll still get them, of course, because that's part of harmonia. But the point is, you won't die from them. Would that be alright?"

Wes glanced over at Maddi. He could see how conflicted she was. And why not? What the professor was offering her sounded good, sure, but this was genetic augmentation. It was incredibly dangerous and risky, not to mention probably illegal. If it was up to him, he might have told the professor where he could shove it.

But this was Maddi's life they were talking about. And it was her decision.

"…I'll do it," Maddi decided. "I'll take the treatment. It's just one shot, right? That's all?"

"That's all," Professor Decker assured her.

"And I'm not going to, like, grow a tail or anything, right?" She confirmed.

He actually laughed at that. "No, no, you see, the µ Gene has already done its work on you. I wouldn't inject more. I only have one injection of the stabilized µ Gene left at the moment, and I'm not about to waste it on you. I'll just be giving you the stabilizer I synthesized."

He put the pink syringe away, and returned with a smaller one, containing a clearish-white fluid. Maddi winced when she saw it, but put on a brave face.

Wes knew this was wrong, but he also knew that it was necessary.

Professor Decker held the syringe up to Maddi's eye, and swabbed that part of her face with a cotton swab to numb it.

Needles. More needles. Maddi was hardly a fan.

But in the end, it was barely a prick. He injected the compound and removed the syringe, and Maddi rubbed at her eye in spite of herself. It was still sore, and her head still hurt, and… oh.

Oh, that was…

The pain seemed to fade away. It was like going to sleep in with a canker sore on your lip, and waking up to find that it had mended itself. Maddi's eye didn't hurt anymore, and for the first time she could remember her head wasn't pounding a rock solo.

"There, you see?" The professor smiled. "You're fine now. No more of those painful migraines. I'll have to take another sample of your blood to be sure, but I can be confident when I tell you that the µ Gene is stable now."

Maddi didn't want his confidence. She held out her arm, glaring insistently at him.

He shrugged, and retrieved another syringe. Maddi winced again. That was three shots in ten minutes, not exactly what constituted a good time.

Professor Decker took her blood to the machine, and took a look at the sample. While he was doing that, Wes walked over to check on Maddi.

"How are you doing, kid?" He asked. He didn't have the best bedside manner.

Maddi shrugged. It was the only answer she had to give, because honestly, she didn't KNOW how she was doing. Today had been a big day. She hadn't expected her headaches to be some simple thing to solve. Maybe she was having seizures or something.

But that was a LONG way from expecting something like THIS.

Her parents had genetically augmented her when she was a little girl. It had been to save her life, sure, but that was still a terrifying revelation. And the fallout from that had nearly killed her, and would have eventually, if Wes hadn't happened to find the ONE person who knew what was going on and how to treat her. Not to mention, she'd learned that she had harmonia, a power that she'd never developed or worked on at all, and didn't know the first thing about. She didn't even know how to handle THAT bit of information.

Honestly, she was just glad that she was alive.

"Excellent! Just as I'd hoped!" Professor Decker looked up from his machine with a smile stretching his beard. "Madison, your DNA has totally stabilized. You won't have to worry."

A weight had been lifted off Maddi's shoulders. She sighed in relief, and relaxed. Everything was going to be okay.

Then an explosion from above made the whole lab shake, and she was thrown from her seat. What the hell?!

Indeed. What the hell is going on here?