chapter 5: Stryke now

The dessicated stalker lay on the table, or rather, his head did. The rest of his body was being examined. The once-born, once they had discovered that he was unwilling to tell them what they wanted had sliced him up, examining each individiul component of the complex machinery within him, why they did this, Shrike could not tell.

"Scyther!" the Mantis Pokemon cried as it narrowly dodged the houndoom's flamethrower, who snarled in irritation.

He smirked. He hadn't had much practice in fighting recently and as far as he was concerned, this was ideal oppurtunity to hone his already expert skills.

Scyther ducked under yet another flamethrower attack and charged forward with a sky uppercut, almost dissapearing in a blur of green and knocking back the Houndoom a few feet, howling in pain as it did so. Scyther grinned: this was turning out to be an easy kill, maybe he was improving? The grin dissapeared as fast as a pile of oran berries confronted by a hungry snorlax as even more houndoom appeared from behind the bushes…

"How is the progess on the stalker building going Professor Nana?" Prof Namba heard a voice ask as he worked on the corpse of a scyther in front of him.

"All I need to do is fit on this chest plate." Namba replied nervously, his annoyance at being called 'Nana' instantly vanishing as he saw who had asked him: it was the boss.

"I would like to see this new stalker activate. Is that possible?"

"I was just about to activate it, of course, it might not work…"

"Do not disappoint me, Nana, you know what happens to people who fail me."

Namba gulped in terror as he fitted on the chest plate, admiring his handy work as he did so. He had worked long and hard on this machine, fitting on new wings, replacing the heart with strange machines that he was not entirely certain about…

As he finished fitting on the chest plate he prayed that this would work…

The failed warrior sighed in dismay as the flamethrower engulfed him, charring his internal organs and melting them from the inside…

As he headed for the light he could not help feeling a slight twinge of disappointment.


The body began to stir, its feet and fingers making restless movements. A green light flared in its eyes. Giovanni and Namba drew back, watching.

With a terrible wordless wail the new-stalker thrashed about on the table, it's scythes knocking over important looking equipment in the process. After a few moments the stalker fell silent and lay back down on the table.

Prof Namba sighed in relief and told Giovanni "It worked! Our last subject had to be destroyed, I'm glad that this didn't happen to this Scyther here."

But the thing on the table was not a scyther any longer. It was a stalker in team rocket, and all it remembered, as it lay there waiting for its masters to give him an order, was that it wanted to destroy the enemies of team rocket. It didn't even know its name yet, which was hand painted on its chest plate. It had been given a strange name, in honour of what it had been based on. It was called Stryke.

sorry, no Ash in this chapter

trivia

this chapter was originally called 'the scyther sighed'

'Stryke' was the original English name for the pokemon scyther before they changed it

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