Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, or the lyrics to the song "From a Shell" by Lisa Germano.
Author's Note:Hello, everyone. It's been roughly nine months since I updated this fic, and for those eagerly awaiting a chapter all of this time, I apologize for the long wait. However, I hope this entry will adequately reward your patience, as it includes the addition of some new characters and a shift in tone that I find rather pleasing. For quite some time we have only focused on the romance between the two main characters; for obvious reasons, that focus must shift, and this time you will see the dynamics of the world ofAngelic Shadowson a much broader scale. Mind you, the story is still largely about the characters...but it's time to start getting to thepointof the conflict. For those of you who may read this and think, "I preferred the first arc," I will accept that viewpoint, as there are integral differences between 000–014 and 015-022 (if you want to be real technical about it, there are actually three arcs...but I don't feel like getting into that). You are always, of course, free to speak your mind and leave if you so desire; after all of this time, I would not know the difference between you having abandoned this fic as a lost cause, or abandoning it out of protest. Yet I hope you find it refreshing as I have...despite how very lengthy it is (sweat-drop).
After this, I may take another break from writing in general for the sake of my mental health. Suffice to say that September, with entering college and an array of personal issues cropping up (such as my father falling ill – thankfully, he has made a recovery), has brought a great deal of stress into my life. This may, however, have begun to calm down, so we will see how things go from here. To Aeris, by the way, please consider this an early birthday present; let's continue the tradition, shall we?
At any rate, I hope you all enjoy "015: In the Snow," which has been named after a fanart piece done by sxueki (it depicts a scene from this chapter – go check it out, it's beautiful!). More sketches for this fic (by me) have been uploaded, and as for the song quoted in this chapter...what can I say, somehow it fits. I would recommend listening to it while you read!
Anyhow, enough of my rambling. On with the chapter!
Previously:After escaping from Giovanni and his organization, Mewtwo and Cassandra fled to the forested mountains north of Mt. Moon. As a blizzard raged, they took shelter in an abandoned ranger cabin, resting and ultimately renewing the bond between them in the hours preceding the dawn. Yet when the morning arrived, Cassandra betrayed her lover and rendered him incapable of following her while she leaves, presumably to destroy Giovanni and herself, to give the clone a chance to live in peace. However, her plan backfires; Team Rocket arrived at the site and torched it, turning to ash the one she was attempting to save. Cassandra succumbed to despair, and, for a moment, contemplated allowing her murder to take place as well...but instead she decided to run, and so preserve her life. Meanwhile, miles away, Mew finds a wounded being and takes him away to heal...and the Legendary curses the victim, who is yet unaware of the crime against nature he committed in the night...
CHAPTER 16: IN THE SNOW
"And the Earth spins round
While the people fall down
And the world stands still
Not a sound, not a sound
There is love, there is love
To be found
In the worst way, in the worst way
In the worst way…"
Upon calendars throughout Kanto, all days preceding February the twenty-first had been crossed out. However, despite that a week had passed since Valentine's Day, Doctor Aurora Joy, the head of Saffron City's Pokémon Center, was still struggling to eradicate pink hearts from her clinic. Although she had been warring a crusade against them for the past seven days, remnants of their pastel force still clung stubbornly to the glass doors and windows of the facility, hung from the ceiling far above her head, and had retreated from the walls to hide beneath the front counter, the tables in the cafeteria, and the benches in the hallways. In her opinion, the war against these obnoxious decorations was worse than her encounters with their Christmas and New Year's Eve counterparts – for the holidays of those decorations, at the very least, held meaning for her. Yet as she had been, sadly, born into an extended family with strong resemblances in the female line, she was typically forced to suffer through the enduring stereotype that she, like some of her more renowned cousins, had chosen the life of a nun. As such, the males who crossed her path had an annoying tendency to dismiss her as a potential match, even though she had more going for her than many of the other females whose skirts they might chase: with a double degree of medicine and biology, she had a title far above that of simple nurse, and with an extensive circle of friends among the leaders in her community (which gave her a say in the Saffron City council), she would have been quite a catch…yet as far as romance was concerned, Aurora had no luck finding a match.
Not that acquiring a partner was her main priority – in fact, a part of her rather savored being single and emotionally independent. She could live her life however she wanted, without the interference of any lover. As such, given her pride in being a bachelorette, the process of ridding her Center of the sappy decorations - which silently inferred that one was to be pitied if he or she wasn't sickening in love - was an act she positively loathed…especially when her assistants, who had riddled the building with the paper and sticker hearts in the first place, had all disappeared, leaving her to clean up their mess. With another sigh, Aurora pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and put her long, red hair up into a ponytail. As the adhesive on the backs of some of the decorations was now akin to superglue, impossible for her to pry off with her nails, she readied a bucket of warm, soapy water and abrasive sponges. Releasing her Kangaskhan, Joey, as well as Primrose, her Chansey, she directed them to take up the spots beside her and begin scrubbing. Soon suds, carrying shreds of stickers, began to slide down the surface of the window which looked into the recuperation room. Within its darkened hold, pokémon of all sorts rested and healed, the fatigue from recent battles having overcome them as soon as they snuggled into their cots. Their trainers, participants in the current Indigo League Competition, would be sleeping in the Center's dormitory at this hour. In fact, Aurora noted, it was nearly time to lock up the entrance doors for the night…however, as she had yet to turn in herself, she would not close the building quite yet. After all, some stragglers might still be approaching on the Routes, with emergencies to attend to when they arrived, or an old friend might drop by to chat for awhile….
"Need any help, Aurora?"
Jumping with surprise, the ginger-haired doctor spun around and fired her squirt-bottle into the face of the speaker. However, instead of sputtering with shock or cursing with annoyance, the man merely said, "Thanks, needed that," and wiped his peach-toned skin dry with his sleeve. Although now slightly dampened, his short umber hair nonetheless remained unmanageable across his scalp, as if he had just woken from fitful sleep. Lending credit to this theory, his cobalt blue eyes were unfocused and bloodshot, as if he had been slumbering in a smoke-filled room. Fine stubble grew across his face, and his clothes, consisting of a golden-orange sweatshirt, plus dark pants and a jacket of the same hue, were rather creased and wrinkled. At his waist she noted, with exasperation, that he was carrying his firearm, a Saffron-crafted glock, while in his breast pocket was the unofficial license he held to own the weapon: his S.P.D. badge. Either her favorite detective had yet another relationship go sour, or he had, yet again, been spending far too much time poring over case files. Either way, he revealed the source of the affinity between them, which nourished the friendship they shared: he, like her, commonly placed his work before his pleasures, to the point where some had labeled him as obsessed with his occupation…but she supposed the situation could be far worse. At least he savored his job – that was more than most could declare.
After apologizing for spraying him, she smiled and said, "Would you mind helping out, Michael? I need all the help I can get!"
With a yawn, he nodded and grabbed a sponge, soon doing his share of soaping up the window and scratching at the stickers. After a few minutes, she glanced at him, noting his distracted, still unfocused gaze. "Asriel's doing well," she informed him, referring to the officer's partner Houndour. "He should be ready to go back to work in the morning."
He grinned. "Glad to hear it!" With that, a yawn erupted from his throat - it wasn't even 10PM.
Knowing well what he must be spending most of his energy on, she commented, "I take it you've been hitting the Rocket files hard lately?"
"Yeah…itiswhat I'm assigned to, and considering the organization's movements these last few months, my superiors are placing pressure on me to figure out what's going on. Team Rocket's presence in Kanto keeps increasing, and their activities are escalating. Change is coming, but without knowing the catalyst which set them in motion, it's difficult to predict where they might be heading. Yet if I can find what started this, then maybe…."
As he trailed off, she nodded, understanding the cause of the deep furrows which now creased his face. Kanto's most notorious criminal gang, which had previously "officially" contented itself with theft and the organization of drug and prostitution rings, was beginning to step up into more malicious fields. Rumors circulated of illicit wares being smuggled from Cinnabar Island, which was the Indigo Nation's main trading port with the territory of Orre - and Orre, a country largely destroyed in the last great war, was nonetheless one of the world's largest producers of man-made weaponry, including elaborate guns and explosives specifically designed to take down elite pokémon teams from other, more prosperous lands. Even the Pokémon Masters of Kanto were wary of dealing with the denizens of the wastelands, and that Team Rocket was doing on so on an immense scale, as well as taking pointers from their shadowy brethren in arranging their personnel into a militarized core, suggested that they were preparing for a mass assault – possibly war.
Of the dark agents which law enforcement had apprehended, a majority had remained tight-lipped, and those who had talked had only confirmed what the informants and undercover officers had disclosed: there had been an upheaval in the ranks back in November. Now, over three months later, the shock-waves had settled, and the resolve and determination of Team Rocket had strengthened. Among its ranks an army was stirring, its intent obscured, and distracting the investigators from this growing threat was the decoy front of the gang, which had moved their activities into the open. Already Cerulean and Celadon were occupied by this force, with thugs terrorizing the civilians under threat of abuse or murder if they refused to cooperate with the gang. Although the government had responded by declaring the cities under martial law and flooding them with their own forces, the threat of the organization continued to swell. Worse, in their hurry to aid the people of Cerulean and Celadon, the government had channeled officers from law enforcement departments around the country into the overrun metropolises, depleting the strength in the other towns. Both Aurora and Michael now harbored potent dread that the attention of Team Rocket would soon be directed towards Saffron as well – cradled between the two cities, it was the most probable next target. Unless the law found a way to drive the organization back underground, the coming months grew ever darker with each passing day…and the duo knew instinctively that if the gang was not dismantled soon, they would have more than mere riots to worry about. After all, beyond the firearms, the resources that Team Rocket gained from Cinnabar remained largely unidentified, and that whispered of a campaign they still remained blind to. Yet whatever it was, it involved pokémon, for the theft and illegal capture of the elemental creatures had tripled in recent months, and none had been recovered from the gang….
By February, although life continued on, fear had saturated the atmosphere of Kanto, seeping through the nation like a malignant mist, making the winter seem longer, colder, and darker than in years before, and even the information that trickled in from their sources brought no reprieve: it only revealed that the situation was even grimmer than once suspected, and so decimated the already low morale of those on the side of light. And the longer they remained on unsteady footing, they knew, the greater the likelihood was that when Team Rocket made its intentions clear, they would be unable to battle its corruption effectively and successfully….
Dearly did the doctor and the detective miss the days when the organization had merely ruled the black market - at least in those times, matters were simple and straightforward, and the threat of terrorism and war far from possibility….
With that dreary contemplation in mind, Aurora turned her head to glance at Michael in concern. Although he was only twenty-eight, several years her junior, he already appeared older than her, which creases etched into his face and hints of white in the bristles of his beard. During the past two years, he had gone from a fresh graduate into the force to an investigator mired in the cesspool that was Team Rocket. After a chance encounter with one of the organization's Elite near a crime scene, he had self-inflicted a sentence of intense research into the gang's activities and membership, hoping to track down that Elite agent and let justice ensnare her in its coils. For the masked soldier had cremated a family by torching their home around them, sparing only the couple's infant daughter, which she had ordered for Michael to take; otherwise, the child would meet the same fate as her parents and brother, consumed within the blaze. Keeping his priorities straight, the fresh officer had saved the baby rather than pursued the murderer, and had watched, seething, as the woman had fled into the night. She had eluded the backup he'd called to apprehend her, and had ultimately become the source of his obsession, his motivation for annihilating Team Rocket. For the sake of his "godchild," renamed Sarah and adopted by one of Saffron's patrons, he would strip the fringes of the organization away until he uncovered the destroyer of her family, who he intended to destroy in turn, but not before askingwhy….
Yet the agent he searched for was a ghost, and rumor persisted that she was now dead. For her sake, Michael hoped that was the case….
Then from the hush of the murky, winter world beyond the duo, the haunting howls of wolves lifted in the night air, as if to summon a lost soul back to Earth from the ghostly plain. Peering out into the dark woods of the Routes through the front windows, Michael and Aurora frowned as the calls grew louder – this was unprecedented, for wild canines always skirted Saffron City, shunning the metropolis' chaotic lights and sounds in preference for the untouched mountain range to the north. Straying to the glass doors, Aurora reached out a hand to their locks and turned them over, barring the denizens of the moon from her facility...and afterwards, as she scanned the edge of the trees, her stomach jolted as the brambles nearest to her quivered and erupted, and a dark form burst from the briars and began to race towards her! In the instant she had to analyze what she was seeing, she realized that the runner was human in form, and upon stepping into the entranceway light and finding the doors locked, the person, a woman, looked through the glass at the stunned Aurora and in a desperate, frightened shriek, implored:
"Let me in! Please,let me in!"
Like a blade slitting her down her spine, the woman's terror sliced into Aurora, and the doctor scrambled to turn the locks back over and allow the girl sanctuary from the creatures which were surely hunting her. When she glanced up after fumbling over the last one, she saw more figures emerge from the trees, several of which began to race towards them on boots and claws, while winged shapes swooped closer from above the forest. Swinging open the door, the doctor tugged the girl inside and shoved her towards Michael, who she promptly told to call for his fellow cops! As she slammed the doorway shut and turned the locks over, she glanced up to see an Arcanine leap from the gloom and throw itself into the glass! Before her the barrier shattered, glittering shards fell around her like razors; the weight of the bear-dog impacted her and brought her to the floor. Breath was knocked from her lungs, her body lay stunned, she felt claws prickle into her shoulders and moist breath on her face, which smelled of rancid meat – then a gunshot resounded through the room, and the dog of flame yelped and leapt from her. Freed, she rolled to the side and attempted to rise to her feet; after a couple stumbles, she managed to stand and saw the beast whirl towards her friend and stalk towards him. Yet its eyes, she noticed, were not fixed upon the man who had shot it…no, it glared at its true prey solely, who Michael was attempting to guard. Yet this situation held no horror in comparison to what was occurring at the entranceway: as Aurora ran for cover, the shards of glass crinkled as they were crushed beneath the feet of the new invaders, which included an array of highly evolved pokémon and their masters, who wore clothes of ebony with a crimson "R" emblazoned upon their chests. They shouted for the "whore" to be captured alive – all others could be consumed by the beasts. Ducking behind the registration counter, Aurora released her own pokémon, ordering Primrose to wake the pokémon in the resting chamber, so they might help fend off the invaders, and commanded Joey to barrel into the hounds prowling in the entranceway.
As the Kangaskhan leapt over the counter and into the midst of the unsuspecting Arcanine, he bellowed out a battle-cry and began to swing his thick, armored limbs into the dogs. Flames erupted from their yawning jaws and they sprung back and began to circle, in intervals darting forward to snap at the goliath – but their fangs barely scratched his thick hide. Two of the pack were soon struck down by heavy punches, while another made the fatal mistake of leaping onto the giant's back and aiming for the neck. The Kangaskhan, feeling the insect, fell backwards and smashed the canine beneath him. Bone cracked, blood billowed from its jaws, and it twitched and then lay lifeless on the now charred and sullied tiles. As its comrades fell, the final dog snarled and launched itself at the warrior's throat, seeking to take vengeance for his pack members…but Joey smacked it down as one might an irking fly, and then turned to roar triumphantly at the hounds' trainers, who had taken cover behind the lobby furniture to avoid the bullets fired from Michael's glock. He and the woman had taken shelter behind the counter adjacent to hers, and as he reloaded his weapon, reinforcements from their camp arrived: the Indigo League trainers, many decked in pajamas, began to spill from the hallways which led to the dorms, having detected the sounds of battle and choosing to answer the bloody call. Spying the newcomers, the Team Rocket agents – for their uniforms exposed their allegiance – unleashed the rest of their teams to match those released by the vagabonds. Chaos erupted in the lobby as elemental attacks filled the air, as fangs and claws and talons flashed, as howls of the arena drowned out all other sounds. Wounds were swiftly inflicted on both sides; blood ran in rivulets in the creases between the floor tiles; and beyond the building, in the once pristine night skies, the fight waged in equal fury. Sirens, barely audible over the mayhem, signaled the arrival of Michael's brethren, and soon gunfire erupted around them. As she watched, a trainer near her took a hit in the stomach, and so, obeying her own calling, she recklessly darted forward to drag the boy to safety. Once she had tugged him around the counter, she began to attend to his injury as best as she could, and noted vaguely that as she did so, the din of battle seemed to be dying. Individual sounds rung out, and one, clear over the bedlam, was a shout from one of the leader Rockets, evidently intended for the one who had brought this destruction upon the Center:
"You have nowhere left to go, you treacherous little slut! We'll drag you back-!"
"Leave me alone!"
And for now, they would do just as she demanded, for they were not blind: they saw how the Indigo League vagabonds and the police were beginning to surround them. If they did not retreat now, there would be no escape for them...and so, firing off a final slew of bullets and elemental assaults, the dark agents and their teams receded into the woods, melting into the dark and the briars. Although her own allies raced to pursue them, Aurora doubted they would manage to apprehend their adversaries and bring them to justice. However, as she looked at the destruction and carnage the battle had spawned, she was determined that she would have more success than they. Keeping firm pressure to the stomach wound of the boy she had dragged to safety, she shouted out for the remaining trainers to call for the hospital ambulances and retrieve the medical supplies from the storerooms. Given that more than one of their number had known injuries in their journeys, knowledge of basic first aid was widespread, and cleaning and patching up minor wounds was completed swiftly enough for the head doctor's tastes. Of those whose blood was pooling over the crumbling tiles, however, little could be done then place thick tourniquets on their wounds and hope that the paramedics would arrive with time to spare – for Aurora was just one woman, and could not properly attend to the dozen of causalities, both human and pokémon alike, surrounding her on all sides. When the tell-tale sirens and flashing red lights swept through the demolished entranceway, and the wounded began to be carried out on stretchers (including the boy she had been tending to), the doctor stood and rested her gaze on the catalyst to this perdition. Dirtied with street grime and blood, the young woman, edging warily away from her protector - who was recounting the invasion to his fellow officers – jumped as the older female gently, but firmly, took her arm. Glancing over the girl's frame, seeing it trembling like that of a frightened lamb, Aurora mused that, in addition to bearing numerous, still-bleeding cuts, the creature was probably going into shock. Catching Michael's attention, she leaned towards him and murmured, "I'm going to take this girl to one of the medical wards to patch her up. That won't be a problem for you, will it?"
He shook his head minutely, and then whispered back, "Just make sure you put her somewhere where the trainers won't find her. I've been having enough trouble trying to get a word out of her, and I don't need her to clam up entirely because a bunch of angry kids decide to harass her. Now if you, with your wily ways, manage to pry something from her, do let me know – quite frankly, I rather want to know what thehellshe did to piss Team Rocket off so badly!"
As she peered at the girl again, making notes of all the tiny, yet telling markers the creature gave away, the doctor's eyes grew thoughtful. "...I think I may already have an idea about that...and if I'm right, you'll be the first to know."
With a nod, the detective gestured for them to depart. Steering the young woman down the hall, the doctor brought the vagrant into her office and locked the door behind them. Once more she swept her gaze over the young woman, analyzing her physical features: her skin, wasted and pale from malnutrition, was coated with grime and blood, while her dark, tangled hair carried debris and hung in oily threads. Her frame, thinned and frail, was nearly drowned in the clothes she wore: a long coat, which hung over the inner layers of a jacket and tattered jeans, as well as worn boots and gloves which seemed to have more holes in them than fabric. Yet most telling of all were the eyes: dark blotches had spread beneath them from prolonged fatigue, and the gaze itself was distant, haunted, and most evidently of all, feral. Yet that wild fury was not directed upon the doctor; instead it seemed focused on the enemy beyond these walls, and so when Aurora offered the stray a fresh towel, a set of clothes, and some basic bathing supplies, the girl accepted them willingly enough. She even followed the doctor's command that she strip off her rags and shower in the adjoining bathroom – for only after she was clean would her scrapes and cuts be bandaged and her stomach filled with dinner. Once the water was going and the female within the spray, Aurora announced that she would be taking the creature's sullied clothes and burning them. Through the shower curtain, the girl hurriedly cried out:
"N-not the jacket! Leave it!"
As she sorted through the foul-smelling garbs, Aurora ran her hands over the article of clothing in question, noting that its pockets were heavy with unknowns items...but she would not expose any private possession the girl might have to the light just now. Gathering the remaining garments into her arms, she rose and, for a few moments, lingered in the doorway, peering at the shadow of the female behind the curtain: her hands swept over her skin with the bar of soap, at times lingering before swiftly moving on. Turning away, Aurora sighed silently, now certain that her forming suspicion was valid, and with that thought in mind she closed the bathroom door, leaving the girl to her privacy. After disposing of the soiled clothes, she found Michael sitting in one of the chairs near the office door, and spying the faraway expression on his face, invited him in. As he sat down in one of the chairs by her desk, he leaned his head back, shut his eyes for a minute or so, and then said to her, "...I've been assigned to guard that girl. My superiors figure it would be best if she remains with the officer who protected her, rather than passed around like a baseball. They seem to believe she'll be more inclined to trust me than anyone else on the force..."
She frowned ever so slightly, seeing the logic to such a notion, but wondering if the situation would indeed work out that way. "...Do you think she'll stay here long enough to be protected?"
Rubbing calloused fingertips to his eyelids, he sighed wearily. "I don't know. Personally, I think it would be foolish of her to run, but...they called her 'treacherous,' and that implies that they once considered her their ally. If that is the case, then I can't imagine the notion of staying with a police officer is anything less than terrifying to her. She'll probably flee rather than risk staying around and be charged with something."
Clucking her tongue once in disagreement, Aurora said, "I wouldn't be so certain about that - sometimes fear has the opposite effect of what you predict." And disregarding her friend's confusion, she pulled up a chair and asked him, in a low voice, "Regardless, tell me, Michael: how many casualties did we have...?"
"…It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the buzz
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
I wish I was
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the most fuzz…"
Beyond them, the woman blinked in the lukewarm spray of the shower, carefully scrubbing her flesh and hair clean of impurities. She highly suspected that her attempt to cleanse the latter was a futile effort, and when finding her suspicion correct, she stepped from the shower, her skin crawling with a shiver, and rummaged through the cupboards of the sink, searching for the razor she was sure would be there. Finding one, she removed a blade and, rinsing it off, began to take it to her hair, hacking off the strands until they merely hugged her scalp like shaggy fur. Having long since ceased being concerned with her appearance, she instead nodded with satisfaction its practicality, and scrubbed with renewed vigor and shampoo to remove the surplus oils. Upon occasion she grimaced at the stinging as the suds met her superficial injuries, and then, merely for the sake of feeling human again, she swiped the blade over areas of her skin, ridding herself of the finer hairs she had grown over the last three months. As she neared the end of her preening, she felt the animal husk she had maintained this winter begin to peel away – she had used it to survive, but here, in this hospitable place, she dared to become "civilized" again. Turning off the shower, she dried herself and slid on the clean cotton clothes the doctor had given her. They were thin, yet so deliciously soft in comparison to the second skin her own garments had become, which she had shed with as much relish as a serpent might its outgrown hide. True, the fresh clothes were a bit short on her, but they were comfortable, and that was all that mattered. Perhaps tonight, with the promise of safe harbor until dawn, she might even sleep for more than five hours. Glancing at herself in the mirror, as if to see if the miracle of this twilight might extend to revive her sickly body, she nodded with resignation upon finding herself still appearing for all the world like a walking corpse. However, no longer was she an unclean tramp, and musing that that was all she could have hoped for, she opened the door and stepped out into medical ward.
Immediately her gaze darted to the familiar police officer in the room, and with some amusement she noted how his eyes widened as he saw the change a shower and clean clothes had wrought on her. Seeing that hint of a smile, he mused that perhaps if her parlor had not been so deathly, she might have been pretty; it was understandable to him why she had been deemed fitting in the role of a prostitute. As she stared at him, she tilted her head as if in uncertainty, and then gave him a nod of gratitude for what he had done for her earlier. Beyond that, she could not spare concern for him; he was a cop, and while she suspected that her years of conditioning to avoid his kind was the source of her wariness of him, she still found herself harboring and obeying the instinct to avoid his scrutiny. As such, when he tried once again to question her, she ignored his inquiries, and said nothing as he departed soon after, wishing the doctor, Aurora, a good night as he left. After he relieved them of his company, the woman motioned for her to sit down on the medical table. As she did so, the thin paper over it crinkled, and in the following minutes Aurora located and placed bandages on her cuts. When the redhead raised an eyebrow at the cross and the choker the vagrant wore, the female turned her face away, silently declining to answer why she continued to wear the hideous collar along with such a necklace...
After another half an hour they had moved into Aurora's actual quarters, and as the woman laid dinner out an the table before them – leftover stir-fry from her refrigerator - along with hot tea, she watched with satisfaction as the girl immediately began to feast ravenously with barely concealed glee. As she settled down to eat her own food, she asked the vagrant, "Would you mind telling me your name, young lady?"
With her chopsticks lifted halfway, the other female blinked and pondered whether or not she should answer. Deciding it would do no harm to tell the truth, she replied, "It's Cassandra…Cassandra Bracken." This was the first time she had gone by her birth name in years...and somehow, doing so felt good, felt right...
Aurora nodded, her eyes gleaming with pleasure at having managed to acquire that important bit of information about the vagrant. Bringing a clump of sauce-saturated rice to her mouth, she munched on it shortly, swallowed, and then said, "Well, Cassandra, since you declined answering my friend's questions, you force me to ask some of my own. Primarily, why is Team Rocket hunting you? Considering that they destroyed a wing of my facility in their drive to pursue you, I believe I deserve to know that much."
The young woman gave her a grim look, and remarked, "Didn't you hear what they called me? In their eyes, I am a traitor and a-."
The doctor shook her head sharply, and her right hand tightened around her teacup as she stated, "Team Rocket has many traitors. What concerns me is that you brought down the wrath of what looked like their special operations unit, considering the addition insignia on their uniforms besides the red 'R.' Typically, simple thugs are sent after turncoats, but you…no,youhave the higher agents on your heels. Why is that?"
The young woman did not respond, instead lowering her eyes, huddling into herself, and seeming to lose her appetite. Spying this, Aurora reached over the table and pushed her bowl and cup towards her, wordlessly urging Cassandra to eat and drink; the female needed the sustenance. Resuming her own meal, she said between her bites, "It can't be that you possess information they want to keep quiet...they wouldn't bother to take you alive if that was the case. I suppose retrieving information from you is a possibility, but somehow I doubt that, as they seemed more interested in your person than in your mind. Now it could be that you're carrying something valuable on you that they want...but you would think they would have merely had a stealthy pokémon take it from you rather than launch an all-out assault. It simply doesn't make sense - why are they so intent on dragging you back to the heart of their organization...? Are they intending to exact some form of capital punishment? Somehow, I can't seem them putting so much effort into punishing one lowly prosti-."
Cassandra, feeling threatened by this line of reasoning, interrupted with a snarl. "Be quiet - you don't know what you're talking about, so be quiet!"
Aurora, noting her tone, backed off with a shrug, and said, "Fine. If you don't want to talk about it, I won't insist on prying. Just do us all a favor and eat up, would you? I want these leftovers to be finished off."
'Us,' not 'me'...? Dismissing the woman's word chose, Cassandra nevertheless did as instructed and consumed the rest of her meal in silence, all the while purposefully ignoring the unnerving way in which Aurora was peering at her. When she was done, she pushed her empty dishes forward, the chopsticks placed on top of the bowl, thanked her companion for the meal, and as she rose to her feet, asked where she might spend the remainder of the night. The older woman motioned to the door which opened to the guest room, saying that she was welcome to use it during her stay. And then, just as the young woman's hand fell on the doorknob, Aurora shocked her by calling out and asking in a soft, gentle voice, "...How far along are you, Cassandra?"
For a moment, the vagrant froze in shock and panic, before she managed to regain her composure. "Ex-excuse me?"
"You're pregnant." And seeing the girl's horror at having those two words spoken aloud, Aurora surmised the cause of her fear and continued on, saying, "Don't worry, you're not showing enough to make it obvious to anyone without a medical background. I can merely tell from how you arrange your arms and hands, always near your belly, and how you walk: your pelvis is widening to accommodate the baby and make childbirth easier, and that alters how you move. I would guess that you are maybe three months along at most, since your abdomen is still relatively flat. Am I right?"
"I…yes." Cassandra had wanted to deny it, to laugh in the woman's face and tell her she was delusion - but what was the point...? As she confessed the truth, her heart hammered in her ribcage and her free hand fell to her belly, which was firm and only marginally curved. Shivering, she remembered when another confrontation of this sort had occurred, the morning when Team Rocket had revealed that they knew about the life she had been trying so desperately to keep secret, and so keep safe, within her womb. As the doctor approached, she again shivered visibly and shied away, as if fearful for what the medic might do at such close proximity.
Aurora tried to keep the worry and pity stirring in her soul from her face. "They want that child, don't they?" she whispered...and in response, the young woman jerked away, as if to hide from the deplorable notion.
This motion, along with the reluctant nod the mother-to-be gave, confirmed the suspicion that had been forming in Aurora's mind. Then, in a raspy, almost choked voice, Cassandra said, "Not just a child – children. I'm carrying twins, a boy and a girl."
"How can you possibly know-?" Aurora's brow furrowed in confusion. It was far too early for this girl to know the sex of her offspring, and considering that she had probably had no prenatal care…!
Bitterness entered the other female's voice as she replied, "You live in a city where the one of the most powerful human psychics in the world reside. Given that, it bewilders me that you would even ask how I can know what genders my children are."
Ah...now Aurora began to grasp why Team Rocket had valued this girl as more than a conduit for carnal pleasure. She, like Sabrina of the Marshes, possessed some psychic inclinations, specifically empathy from the sound of it. From what she knew of the skill, it was as much of a curse as a blessing, a metaphysical double-edged sword. Considering its effect on its user – feeling what others feel – it had the potential to enhance any shared experience, whether it be one of pleasure or anguish. Sympathy filling her heart at how this might have plagued the girl before her. How old could this creature be, anyhow...? Was she eighteen, twenty…? Either way, she seemed far too young to have endured a life within that heinous gang, and far too young to be enduring a pregnancy, and eventual motherhood, all alone...
"Are they…." Realizing that was the wrong way to begin that question, Aurora rephrased her inquiry. "Those men called you a slut - why? Do your children also belong to someone important in that organization, someone who hurt you…?" She had, when she was checking the girl over, seen numerous scars...
The young woman bristled visibly at the inference. "No," she growled. "No, my children donotbelong to any of thosebastards.They are mine and my M-."
Yet she choked on the name she had been about to utter, and abruptly some of the defiant spirit stirring within her seemed to evaporate. She bowed her head, closing her eyes and turning her face again, and as she did so, she wrapped a protective arm around her belly and trembled again...but this time not with fear. Instead, the atmosphere around the young woman seemed to grow heavy with grief, which made it clear to Aurora that the father was no longer capable of standing beside his partner. In fact, if the venom in Cassandra's voice was any indication, it seemed highly probable that the woman's lover had been killed by the ones she was trying so desperately to escape. In that moment, Aurora wanted to hold the other female, to murmur to her that no one here would allow Team Rocket to succeed in taking her children from her...but the woman before her did not seem the type to tolerate such an embrace or fragile promises. Indeed, as the mother-to-be lifted her head, the fire in her eyes had returned, blazing through the tears she struggled to fully blink away. In a low, rough voice, she growled, "I won't let them touch my children...I can't...!"
And as she turned more fully towards the door to the guest room and began to open it, Aurora asked her quickly, "Are you planning on leaving this Center at dawn, Cassandra?"
The young woman paused, and then said, "They know I'm here...I can't stay."
Aurora placed a hand on her shoulder, and tried to meet those wild eyes as she said, "But where will you go...? Even if you somehow manage to acquire enough food, water, and the proper shelter to sustain your children and yourself, in a few months you'll be too heavy to travel. You can flee as you wish right now; your condition isn't yet encumbering you. However, that will change shortly, and when you are forced to slow down, Team Rocket will snatch you up – that would be game over for all of you. And even if you did somehow do evade them until the nine months are up, what then? Where will you give birth? In a hotel room, in the woods...? You won't be able to defend them easily when you are weakened afterwards, nor will you after you've recovered; after all, they will no longer be held securely inside of you. Besides, you all need medical care! You have been running for three months, and from the looks of you, you are faring poorly, and your children are no doubt also suffering from the lifestyle you're leading! If you refuse to stay here for yourself, at the very least stay for them...if you don't, there will be nothing for Team Rocket to covet in the end. Your children will die if you keep this up."
As she watched, the young woman's hand shook around the knob, and her eyes widened with dread at the concept being suggested. Desperation filled her face as she tried to decipher what was the greater risk between the two paths before her, and gulping down her uncertainly, she murmured, "I'll-I'll think about it."
With that, she left the room, and Aurora hoped, even prayed that the mother-to-be would not be gone come morning….
Two Months and Two Weeks Earlier….
"…From a little shell
At the bottom of the sea
Was the Earth and the Moon
And the Sun above me
But the world fell down
With some people still around
There is love, there is love
To be found…"
Snowflakes fell into the sea, melting into nothingness within the foamy surges pummeling the cliff whose edge she stood upon. In a manner, Cassandra grieved for these vanishing specks of ice: they were like the lives of all those breathing: unique, destroyed, and ultimately forgotten by the world. As the frigid wind from the watery expanse battered her face, she closed her eyes and so closed out the sight of the cobalt waves melding with the grey, overcast sky. While her flesh was numb from the cold, all the fibers of her muscles ached, especially those of her back and chest; the soreness and the knots spread from her neck, down over her ribs, seeping all the way to her waist. Invoking the aid of her previously neglected wings to escape from the mountains had sorely taxed her body, yet she had, after fourteen days, managed to travel out of the Mt. Moon Range without being detected by ones hunting her. Her empathic abilities had aided her in eluding them, and indeed, she had not seen another living being for over a week now. As such, when she now stretched out her pinions in an attempt to loosen the tension within them, she allowed herself a shriek of pain at how they blazed when she did so. She had pushed herself too hard for too far, and now would pay for her self-abuse. Yet what other choice had she possessed...? If she had not left those peaks sooner, she would not have survived...
Now hugging the eastern seaboard, she vaguely noted that by followed the rocky beaches south, she would make her way to Cerulean City. Undoubtedly, she should make an attempt to go through cavern path that would lead to Lavender Town, given that the smaller settlement was far less likely to be swarming with her enemies than the Water Capital. Yet the practical part of her mind reminded her that she would not be able to endure the winter much longer without proper supplies; she needed food, warmer clothing, and quite possibly weapons if she wanted to make it to spring. Water would not be an obstacle in her travels – it lay frozen in white dunes surrounding her, threatening to swallow her. That thought in mind, she crouched and scooped up a handful of snow in a quivering hand, allowing it to melt somewhat before tipping it into her mouth. The icy liquid tickled as it ran down her wind-burned throat, and when she coughed, needle-like pains shot through her lungs. This in turn led to more coughing, and hunching over her ribs she hacked into her arm. Mucus was flung from her wet lungs, seeped from her nostrils and eyes. Exposure to the elements and gnawing hunger, she knew, were beginning to take their toll on her, and she suspected she had the beginning stages of frostbite in her toes, as she had long since stopped being able to feel sensation in them. Hypothermia was her foremost concern, however. Through constant movement and makeshift shelters, she had managed to make it this far...but she needed a reprieve soon, or she would no doubt succumb to a lethal, frozen demise.
Not that she altogether cared whether she lived or died - but if she must die, then she at least wanted to die fighting them. The notion of revenge was the only thought that gave her solace in a bitter world: she would battle to avenge her mate and, to some extent, herself, and by shedding the blood of the organization which had been their undoing, she would make the most of her status as a traitor. Yet at the moment, she was in no condition to wage war; she needed to regain her health, as well as acquire resources. Otherwise, she would deteriorate before she gained the chance to launch a counterattack...
Months from this point, she would not remember how she had made it through the Routes and into town. Whether she saw anyone or anyone saw her on the roads would be unknown to her, for this period in her life would a grey fog, intermitted with glimpses of color and clarity. Despair, which shadowed her steps, was likely the culprit who countered her short-term memory, but the instances were the gloom lifted, Cassandra recalled breaking into a retail store and snatched up a thick, winter trench-coat, waterproof boots which she would fill with newspapers, and mittens to protect her pale, thin hands. Ever article was a dull, brown hue which allowed her to melt into the crowd, and with her wings concealed and her skin acquiring layers of grime, she became no more remarkable than any other homeless individual who wandered the streets. Like the other strays, she drifted towards no destination, and like them she stole food from whatever source she could find, as well as slept in public buildings whenever possible. Yet unlike them, she fought with the criminals she had once considered her family, for in the depths of the Water Capital they often attempted to corner her. When they did so, she lashed out with the fury of any threatened predator, and then turned tail when those who had trapped her were either dead or incapable of pursing her from their serious injuries. Early on she ran out of the bullets for her own gun, and promptly replaced it with those belonging to her stalkers. In another life, they would have forfeited them to her willingly, would have obeyed her order that they leave her be…but this was not that life anymore, and so she remained the feral animal they sought to drag to the pound and pummel into submission.
Fortunately for Cassandra, she had been trained well, and so knew which methods to employ to avoid their clutches...and every time she eluded the gang, her gratitude for the late Mewtwo was renewed, for he had removed the tracking chip from her choker, and so made her escapes possible. Over the next two weeks she continued to run through the metropolis of Cerulean, knowing that she soon must depart. They knew she was lingering in this city, and as such, it was past time to move on.
However, the notion of returning to the Routes filled her with dread. Rather than improving her health, this stay in the Water Capital had caused the opposite: her cough had worsened, her fatigued body was gripped with fever, her menstrual cycle had halted, and whatever she managed to eat was promptly regurgitated. Essential nutrients were not being gained, and ever time she attempted to pinpoint the cause, it receded from possibility. Influenza, the most likely culprit, was highly improbable; it would have only lasted a week at most, and by now she had been plagued with the ailment for roughly a month. Perhaps some other viral disease was slowly killing her; after all, the cold, the lack of sleep, the constant stress, and the lack of hygiene would make her an easy target to be nailed with some fatal sickness. Yet if it this were an illness, it would have to be a recent acquisition, as she had never shown symptoms of it while under Giovanni's command. Her bill of health in Team Rocket had been near immaculate according to her doctors - they would have told her if she had something like-threatening creeping in her system. So this had to be something else, something new...perhaps something transmitted when she had been at her most exposed to another...
Her steps halted in their progress as she considered the notion. Had Mewtwo given her something malignant when they'd mated...? It seemed unlikely, as his own health had been clear throughout his stay with Team Rocket, and he had undoubtedly taken good care of himself afterwards. Yet still, she wondered and worried...and also found her heart heavy as she contemplated her mate again. Doing so hurt terribly, and she had often avoided thinking about her deceased lover if she could help it – for not only did it make her ache, but it also muddled her ability to concentrate and note her surroundings clearly. Yet as she crossed over to and sat upon a vacant, frosted bench in one of the children's parks, watching the little ones play in the snow, make snowmen and snow-angels, toss snowballs and sled down a nearby slope, with their parents observing them, a sparkling memory surfaced from the mists of her mind…:
Mewtwo had never felt the snow before.
He has seen it in his dreams, clinging to the mountaintops of the Andes, and knew well what it was and what weather phenomenon birthed it. However, he had never experienced it for himself, and Cassandra, as his unofficial guide and friend now that their rivalry had died down, thought she should know it. Throwing on the layers of her winter clothes, she bundled her hands and face beneath a crème-colored scarf and equally milky gloves, and tossed the replica an oversized cloak to throw over his lithe frame. Although it would not do much to keep him warm, it would defang the bite of the freezing air outside. Of the pair, Cassandra was the first to wander into the iced gardens of the base, and glanced back at the uncertain clone, who seemed a tentative child as he regarded the world before him. As she watched, his pupils narrowed into slits at the blinding light reflected off the white snow and shining icicles, and he bared his teeth as he stepped upon salt crystals and into slush. Chiding him for being a coward, she urged him forward, and when he still hesitated, she gathered up a snowball and threw it at him. As to be expected from someone with grenade training, her aim was flawless: the sphere burst as it struck him square between the eyes, and with a snarl he attempted to repay her in kind. However, the snow crumbled in his grip, as his awkwardly shaped paws would not mold it as he desired. His agitation spiking, he resorted to using his telekinesis, shoveling up a full pile and hurling it towards her. She rolled beneath the barrage, much to his annoyance, and when she continued to bait him, he soon forfeited and strode into the light. There he watched as Cassandra, in a rare display of her true age, began to play in the snow dunes...for although her soul was as mature as most adults', she was still only sixteen, and at this time continued to possess a hint of innocence. Falling backwards into the snow, she waved her arms and legs back and forth, impressing an image into the white bank. When she requested it of him, he helped her up, and then peered at the image, trying to understand what she had created. Spying his confusion, she told him, "It's a snow angel, Mewtwo. The lower part made by the legs is the dress, while the upper part made by the arms are the wings."
The clone's brow furrowed with puzzlement. (I do not understand...what is the point of it?) he asked. (Also, could you not simply extend your own wings in the snow to gain a superior visual effect?)
Cassandra, still holding his paw, merely sighed. "It…well, it doesn't really have a point, Mewtwo...it's just for fun. Making snow angels is like making snowmen or snow forts or having snowball fights: there is no point to any of those things other than for entertainment."
(But are those activities not for small children, Cassandra?) he inquired, certain that he was correct.
She sparred him an amused look. "Yes, but you're not even two, Mewtwo, and I'm not eighteen, so technically, technically, we both can still be considered children. Now come on - you should try it!"
Although reluctant to do so, she eventually persuaded him to try creating a snow angel. Shivering, he settled himself into the snow, lay back, and attempted to mimic her motions. However, his legs would not spread in the same manner as hers could, his arms soon became entangled in the cloak, and his tail and second neck made the process distinctly uncomfortable. After watching him thrash in the dune for about a minute, Cassandra laughed and helped him up, and together they regarded his work: his snow angel was very slender, with a train to her dress, and had crooked wings and a small head. The actual, warm-blooded angel smirked with mirth, while the demon glared down at the creation, contrasting it to the female's proper one. In comparison his looked monstrous, while hers was full and graceful. His body trembled, and he cursed it for far more than being chilled beneath his pelt; it could not do so many tasks, including the seemingly simple creation of snowballs and snow angels. Again it reminded him that although his person was humanoid, he was not a human as she was. Eventually, the female of his contemplations noted his distress, and turned to stand before him, asking him what was wrong. He bared his teeth again and told her it was nothing...but Cassandra was an intuitive being, and in her training sessions with Mewtwo, she had learned how to read him empathically, at least when his guard was down, as it was now.
"Liar...you know, your pupils narrow whenever you say things that aren't true. Are you upset over the snow angel? It's not like I was expecting you to make a perfect one-."
His eyes flashed sapphire at that. (So you expected me to fail, and encouraged me to attempt the task anyway so you might laugh at me, is that it?)
Her eyes widened, and then narrowed as she snapped. "No, that's not it! I just wanted you to try it and have some fun, that's all!"
His lips curled over his fangs in an angered sneer. (Yes, because it is lovely to be reminded of your shortcomings and of your unnatural form when nimble manipulations cannot be done with your hands and body.)
For a moment, she stared at him in confusion…and then realization dawned on her face. "Oh," she murmured, the sting of his insinuation fading. With a sigh, she noted, "It really bothers you, doesn't it? The thought that you're different from other beings."
His gaze seemed slightly disheartened as he regarded her. (Does it not bother you? You, who by appearances seems a mix of man and beast, just as I am?)
In response, she smiled a small, sad grin. "Sometimes it does - but then I remind myself that I'm not so different from everyone else. I remind myself that I have more in common with them than not."
His curiosity was perked at this and, unable to resist, he queried, (Such as...?)
Undoing the zipper of her jacket, she led his chilled paw between her breasts, pressing his palm flat against her sweater and the skin beneath. As his fingers warmed, he felt the steady beating of her heart through bone, flesh, and fabric, and when she took his other paw and placed it to his own chest, he felt his heart pounding at nearly the same pace. Shivering, perhaps from more than the cold air which now flowed into her coat, Cassandra murmured, "We both have two eyes, ears, arms, legs, hands, and feet. We both have one nose and mouth on a single face. We both think, feel, and breathe…and we both have hearts which beat in the same rhythm. In the end, what's so different between us? Is it the shape of our bodies or our abilities? In the long run, those are hardly relevant; after all, I do not have the same build and coloring as Domino, nor do I have Giovanni's skills with politics and scheming, do I?"
Seeing the surprise registering on his face at her assertion, she chuckled and said, "Don't dwell on it so much...ultimately, we are more alike than not, Mewtwo."
Letting his paws fall, she stepped back, zipped her jacket back up, and winked, saying, "Now how about we go sledding? I'm sure even you can manage that!"
And so he would…and after they exhausted themselves racing up and down the hills for hours, he admitted to her, albeit grudgingly, that perhaps winter was not such a terrible season after all...
Interrupting her reminiscence, a wave of nausea clenched her stomach, and as she began to heave, she ran to the nearest trash bin and vomited her breakfast into it. Several more heaves overwhelmed her, squeezing from her yellow bile, and when they began to subside, she sank to her knees on the ice-cold cement, gasping. Fluid ran from her nostrils and eyes, a her shoulder quivered with repressed sobs, which were as much of a response to her mounting frustration as to the unwelcome queasiness. Why was her body rejecting the few meals she managed to consume...? Didn't itwantthe nourishment, and through that the energy necessary for her survival? Why was this happening,why...? Suppressing futile, dismayed tears, the vagrant weakly rose to her feet and sluggishly staggered from the park, her torso aching from insult of regurgitation. As she wandered around the city, she eventually made her way back to the restaurant district where she had spent her morning. Surely here she could manage to find the sustenance to replace what her stomach had voided. Her eyes dull, she trekked to one of the diners, where a few brave souls were enjoying their brunch at one of the picnic tables outside. After a few more minutes they departed, leaving their trash behind for one of the diner workers to pick up, and picking through the Styrofoam containers, she found some deep-fried foods within. Despite the fact that she would typically have never touched the greasy, sodium-rich meal, she also knew that battered-covered fish and chips were loaded with calories, and so not something she could afford to turn her nose up at. Yet just as she reached for the container, what she had been dreading would happen for weeks occurred: a pair of heavy hands suddenly grasped her shoulders, and when she stiffened and spun, she found an unfamiliar man standing behind her. Lashing out immediately at the potential threat, she uttered feral noises as she thrashed in his hold, thrusting her fists against him...and so for a moment did not hear the hushing, soothing sounds he was making in an attempt to calm her. Yet whether he was malignant or benign, her frail body was no match against his meaty bulk, and so against her wishes she was forced into the diner. Dread pooled in her stomach - what did this man want with her? What did he…?
"Vicki, could you fetch some soup for this poor girl?" he called into the kitchen while steering her to the stairs. As Cassandra peered at them, she noted that they likely led up to an apartment, where he must live….
"Is she the one we've seen taking the leftovers of our customers?"
Were they going to call the police on her over a few fries...? Conditioning from nearly a decade spent in the ranks of Team Rocket urged her to flee. She would be trapped here, unable to escape the authorities, if she did not move...!
"Yeah, she is, and she looks even worse for wear than the last time we spotted her."
With that, the man tugged her upstairs and gestured for her to sit on one of the couches in the living room. After draping several blankets over her shoulders, he offering her water, which she guzzled down wordlessly, trusting from his interaction with the woman that he meant well. He seemed relieved at her acceptance, and began to ask her what she considered the typical questions someone would pose to a runaway. What is your name? How old are you? Where are you staying? Do you have family we could call? Is there any way we can help you? He was too kind-hearted for his own good, Cassandra thought to herself, and by remaining silent she declined answering his inquires. It was far too dangerous for him to know anything about her identity or her previous life, and for his partner's and his safety, she mused that it would be for the best if she left immediately. However, when she attempted to rise for departure, the man set his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back into her seat. From the way he was speaking to her, he evidently believed her to be simple, traumatized, or simply too feral to treat as a normal human being. His words came slowly and were soothing in tone, and he continued to attempt to converse with her until his wife – for Cassandra had now noticed the wedding rings adorning their fingers – arrived and placed a steaming bowl of soup before her. As starved as she was, Cassandra accepted this gift gratefully, and delighted in the filling, buttered bread that came with it. After she had savored all that had been presented to her, she stared at the grains of the wooden table before her, waiting for the waves of nausea to come that she felt were inescapable. For the next ten minutes she remained like that, oblivious to the inquiries of the couple, having gathered her knees to her chest and having wrapped her arms around them. Then just as she was beginning to hope that sickness would not overwhelm her this time, the surges came. She bolted up as the first wave hit, and asked in a raspy voice where the bathroom was, trying to suppress the urge to vomit as she opened her mouth. When the surprised woman pointed out the door, Cassandra ran and promptly regurgitated the semi-digested meal into the toilet bowl. Fingers again wrapped around her shoulders, and once the nausea faded, she was led back to the living room, where she curled up into a ball on the couch. She buried her face into one of the cushions, despairing anew at the emptiness within her stomach...
"…Girl? Girl, how long have you been getting sick like that?"
...Better yet, how long had she been running? What month was this, what day...? She peered around the house in wonder, suddenly noticing the Christmas tree tucked into the corner of this room, decorated with glass ornaments, strands of tinsel and colored lights. Wrapped presents were huddled beneath its lowest boughs, and near it was a ceramic set of the manger of the Baby Jesus Christ, complete with the boy's animal companions and human parents. Sprigs of holly and mistletoe were arranged on mantel of the hearth, scattered upon the tables, and hung from the ceiling, while seasonal cards were taped to a nearby wall. She could faintly smell the aromas of roasted chestnuts and gingerbread filtering in from the dining room, where cookies and sweets had been left out for the grown children who would likely be visiting soon. When she at last found a calendar, her brow wrinkled: the date was December twentieth.No wonderthese people were being so hospitable; they must be drenched in the holiday spirit with less than a week to go until Christmas. Wearily she lowered her eyes...she had been running for a little over a month, but somehow, it felt so much shorter. Perhaps that was the effect depression had on her: it made time slip away because she could not be bothered to remember what happened within it, being too consumed in her personal grief to care about the external world. Hers was no longer a world of lights and colors as theirs was - it was the deep, cobalt grey of melancholy, only beautiful to the emotional masochists submerged in it….
From the distance, the question arose again. "...Miss, how long how you been sick like this?"
For the second time, she addressed them. "Two weeks - why?"
They seemed to ponder her response, and after a moment the wife whispered for her husband to leave the room. Trusting his spouse, he nodded and did as instructed, and once he was beyond hearing range, his spouse knelt by the young woman and said, "You can ignore my conjectures if you want, but am I correct in guessing that up until fairly recently, you haven't been homeless?"
Cassandra blinked at her in confusion. "How could you possibly be able to tell-?"
The older woman, smelling of spiced bread, replied, "I once had an ambition to be a nurse before I decided to run this diner with my sweetheart. Now, even though my path in life changed, I remember my lessons and apply them whenever I volunteer at the local shelter. Compared to the others I've worked with, you don't seem like you've been a vagrant for very long. Your clothes are too new, and your body, despite how sickly you appear right now, is too shapely and clear of sores and rashes, which is indicative of a good upbringing. Furthermore, your mannerisms and your posture are too proper – the usual street brats are ratty wisps with dirty mouths. As such, it seems evident to me that you haven't been like this for long. Am I right?"
Cassandra glanced away from the woman and confessed, "It's only been about a month."
"And before that...?"
The vagrant's eyes narrowed at the thought of the past, and she hissed, "That is none of your concern."
Leaning back, the older woman gazed at her with shrewd eyes, and then inquired, "Were you evolved in something illicit? Beneath that grime, I can tell you're a pretty one, so…?"
Cassandra wanted to spit at the woman; why was everyone under the impression that she was a whore? She had only ever been with two males in her life, and one of them had not had her as a willing partner. Hell, this married broad had probably proven more promiscuous than she during her youth, and yet she was the one being labeled as a prostitute...! Considering that she exposed minimal skin, that she was not voluptuous or coy, she could not understand it! Gritting her teeth, she ignored the woman's offensive inquiry, and unfortunately, the other female took her silence as confirmation. Pressing on, she asked, "When was the last time you had sex?"
Although Cassandra was sorely tempted to respond with something along the lines of, "What, are you offering?" she clamped her jaw shut and glowered at the inferences the would-be nurse was making. She supposed with the limited knowledge the woman had of her situation, the connections she was drawing were sensible: it had been about a month since she had left "home," she was throwing up her food from what was evidently not a virus when taking the lengthy timeframe into consideration, and she had been involved in illegal activities, quite possibly prostitution. As far as the woman was concerned, the vagrant was pregnant – perhaps the condition was even why Cassandra had fled in the first place. However, the wanderer knew that this theory was impossible: Mewtwo and she were of two different species, and so not compatible enough to conceive a child. Her voice gaining a hard edge, she snapped, "I'm not pregnant!"
The older woman raised an eyebrow, as much at the tone as the claim. "How would you know? Have you taken a test?"
Cassandra merely hissed, "It's impossible. I could not have conceived a child with the last person I was with, and before him I was on something of a…a dry spell." That was one way of putting it...
"Prove it to me, then. Afterwards we will take you to a real doctor to figure out what the problem is. Does that sound alright to you?"
Cassandra's lips curled with wry amusement as she looked the woman up and down; at her age, she must be post-menopausal. "Oh? You just so happen to have pregnancy test stashed away, do you?"
"I can send my husband on a quick errand - he won't take long."
An hour later, the couple gave Cassandra a paper box containing a pregnancy test and left her alone in their bathroom. After reviewing and following the instructions, she lay out a clump of toilet paper on the counter and set the test on top of it, and then sat down on the tiled floor, leaning her back against the sink as she waited for the five minutes to pass until the result was in. From past experience in taking this test, she knew it was a pointless act; after all, Mewtwo and she had never used contraceptives when they had been mates in their youth, and the continuation of her cycles during that time, although irregular, had proven that her body rejected his seed. Among the numerous gifts they had been denied in their relationship, the loss of children was the one she had most regretted, for Mewtwo had been a perfectly healthy male, and most likely quite capable of siring offspring in another pokémon if he had wished. That, after all, would have been advantageous to the geneticists: having the clone's offspring, who would fill the void made by the father's death, would allow them to continue their research indefinitely. Furthermore, such progeny could be just as easily turned over to Giovanni, to be shaped into an elite, private army of super-pokémon...
Not to mention that children were the ideal collateral to use to keep their parents in line – even Mewtwo would have submitted rather than risk the lives of his kits. Somehow, she knew he would have been protective of his litter, had he the chance to sire one...
However, because Mewtwo had decided to take a human as his mate, the prospect of him having a family was denied. As for herself, Cassandra had considered being a mother only three times in her life. The first time she discussed the possibility had been with her own mother; the second time had been with Amber when they had contemplated their futures; and the third time occured when her period had been late during her short-lived romance with Mewtwo. This last incident had led her to take this test the first time – and it had made it quite evident that she could not be impregnated by the clone. Yet beyond those trio of times, Cassandra had never considered herself for the maternal role. With the occupation she had possessed, she had not expected to live long enough to bear children and watch them grow. Furthermore, her personality type was not conducive to motherhood; although she was too gentle-hearted for the role of an assassin, she had no inclination to or knowledge of how to manage children. No, she was far more suited to devote herself to a lover rather than a child. As soon as she checked the test, there would be the final proof of that. All the test would amount to would be a free trip to the doctor to discover what was truly plaguing her, and nothing more...
That belief firmly in mind, Cassandra stiffly rose from her seat on the floor with a sigh, and turned around to face the test, the number of lines of which would reveal whether she was expecting or not. Her eyes fell upon it, fully anticipating the single dash she was certain it would show...but when she noted the result, she stared at it and her brow furrowed in confusion. Picking up the clean end of the stick, she reread the instructions on the box it had come from. However, the text she read only further bewildered her, and setting it aside, she peered at the test, not quite comprehending what it was attempting to convey to her. This could not be a valid result...yet she reminded herself that she was, theoretically, well past the stage where false positives were possible and, since she had followed the instructions to a tee, there was no way she could have botched the test. It was almost 100 percent accurate, equivalent to what a doctor could confirm through blood analysis...
And in that moment, the realization began to seep in. Her entire frame quivered, and leaning heavily against the sink, Cassandra shook her head in denial. It could not be right...no matter what it said, she couldn't be…there was no possible way she could be…! God, she couldn't eventhinkthe word...! Yet even though her mind yearned to reject it, the result remained glaring at her, insisting that she surrender to reality. As truth began to overtake her, her legs buckled beneath her at its force, and another wave of nausea, this time born from her shock, swept through her. She leaned over the toilet and heaved up sour bile, and then withdrew from the ceramic, curling over her navel with her arms tightly wound around herself. Her shoulders trembled, and tears stung in her eyes as panic began to flood her. Her thoughts cascaded in her mind, all reflecting her fear:I...I can't be…I don't want to be...! I DON'T WANT THIS...!
Yet there was no denying what the test, having fallen to the floor beside her, declared...and in response, she asked a phantom one desperate question:
Oh god, Mewtwo…what have we done...?
For the result was two parallel lines: positive.
Cassandra was pregnant with Mewtwo's offspring.
"…With the gods all gone
And the souls making sounds
In the worst way, in the worst way
In the worst way…"
Despite the protests of the couple, she left their home immediately after discovering her condition. Suddenly the buffeting cold of December seemed sharper and her surroundings turned crystalline – in the shock of learning of her pregnancy, awareness reclaimed her mind, having dispelled the grey mists around her like a howling wind. Numerous times as she drifted aimlessly in the streets, she jerked to a halt, frozen in fear and uncertainty as questions overtook her thoughts: What was she going to do? What was the reasonable thing to do in this situation? A voice, recognizable as her Winters persona from her crisp, rational speech, posed a single word as a solution: abortion.
To a strictly logical mind, such a course made perfect sense: she did not want to have a child, nor had she any means with which to care for it. Difficult enough was it to keep herself fed and clothed, let alone provide such necessities to an infant, and given that she was sleeping in laundry mats or in the stairwells of apartment buildings, and had no access to the medical care that would ensure a successful pregnancy and delivery, going through with having this babe was foolhardy at best. Furthermore, taking its cross-species heritage into consideration, she could not insure that it would even survive a month after its birth. Hybrids, after all, often possessed genetic defects from their unlikely gene combinations, and fatal mutations or frailties were commonplace. In fact, the child could easily perish in the womb or before it had lived a single year, and if itdidmanage to cling to life for that long, it might be plagued with illness or anguish as its body turned against it...and no creature deserved to suffer through such misery, especially not an innocent infant...
And in the staggeringly unlikely chance that it was somehow born intact, keeping flawless balance between its human and pokémon sides, what then? Its mother was a fugitive, struggling to evade an organization whose members would enjoy riddling her body with bullets, and she could hardly counter their attacks while also cradling a newborn to her. Worse, if her enemies were successful in taking her life, the child would fall into Giovanni's grasp, and that monster would undoubtedly attempt to manipulate it and take pleasure from its pain. Gruesome experimentation, potential vivisection, and general abuse by his followers would likely be the child's punishment for being what it was: the "unnatural" offspring of two traitors. Or, perhaps even worse, that man might attempt to mold the child into what its parents had ultimately failed to become: a weapon with the power to cremate the world.
Even if she somehow found a haven where she could conceal and attempt to raise the child free of such evil, the outcome would still be hopeless. If the babe was born displaying traits which revealed its hybridized nature, it would be shunned by humans and pokémon alike. Or if it merely took after one of its parents, it would have to live with the uncertainty of the consequences of its genetic heritage: would it be no better than a mule, incapable of having children of its own, or, if it was fertile, ever fearful of how its genetics would affect its offspring? Would it someday sicken and perish from some underlying internal disease, or go mad as its body warred against itself? In all, the risk of forcing her son or daughter endure a life of hell was far too high for her to consider it a viable option; she could not condemn it to such a horrible fate! Far more merciful, far kinder would be to extinguish its life before it was aware of its existence, and so could fear losing it. Right now, at one month, it was merely a parasitic bundle of cells, incapable of consciousness or feeling pain; it would be for the best if she destroyed it now rather than wait.
Besides...how could she bring a child into a world where it would never know its father...? The thought crushed her heart, just as the heavy truth which accompanied it did: for she did not even know if she could provide it with the motherly love that could temper the torment of its existence...
Hence, resolving herself to the course she had chosen, she wandered through the streets, searching for a clinic. When she finally found one, she ducked into its bathroom and cleaned herself up the best she could, and then made her way to the front desk. She knew well that appointments were supposed to be scheduled in advance, and knew well that the cost of the impromptu service she needed would be high. However, she would not risk a self-inflicted abortion; such an operation could go wrong in countless nasty ways. Filling in a false profile in the paperwork the secretary handed her, she jotted down one of the Team Rocket bank account numbers which belonged to another of the Elite Children – her tab would cover the charge. Cassandra, aware that every minute would count after the finances of the agent were tapped, coiled with tension as she sat down in the waiting area. Her operation would take place in a couple of hours. With any luck, the organization would not notice the tap and track her down before she left….
As she waited, she glanced at the other people sitting on the benches and chairs around the room. A businesswoman, her hair cropped short in an almost masculine style and her lithe frame adorned in a dark suit, was reading a marketing magazine, occasionally checking her watch impatiently. It was clear from her professional mannerism that she gave little more consideration to the creature growing within her than she would an aching tooth – perhaps less so, as a sore tooth would threaten to wreck her ability to smirk. More lively was the pair of teenagers, both younger than Cassandra, who were chatting about the upcoming events planned by their school. They, like the businesswoman, seemed to regard their appointment as a footnote in their lives, as a momentary annoyance they would be better off without. Finally, a wife and her husband sat towards the back, leaning against one another. The man bore a saddened, yet resigned look upon his face, and he murmured reassurances to the woman he was holding, who looked ill at the prospect ahead of them. From what she gathered from their whispers, the fetus was fatally ill, and continuing the pregnancy would only cause pain to both the child and its mother, as well as threaten the mother's health. Abortion was their alternative to this prospect, and unlike the girls and the cougar, they turned to it for mercy rather than convenience. Yet all of them had their reasons for being here: to spare someone from suffering, to move on with their lives unhindered, to not prematurely ruin a career worked so hard to build. Of them, she most understood the couple; though doing this, she would spare her child from a waking nightmare. This was for the best for all of them...
Right...?
She stared at her knees grimly. If this child had been conceived through rape, be it through her sensei's or Zachariah's advances, she would not have given a thought to its extermination. She would have demanded it be removed from her womb immediately, because all it would have been to her was a reminder of how she had suffered, the memory of her violation made into flesh. Yet this fetus had not been conceived in such a way. After all, her late "husband" had never entered her body, nor had he peaked while attempting to force her into submission. Consequently, there was no chance that his seed could have been introduced into her body. With her lover, however, the opposite had been the case: they had spent a full night making love, not realizing that their passion and pleasure would result in the creation of new life. In retrospect, she regarded the memories from that twilight with wry humor; it proved strange for her to understand that, in the hours after they had fallen asleep, one of her gametes was being penetrated by one of his. Perhaps the fertilized egg had even implanted itself into the lining in her womb by the following morning…perhaps even as she had kissed Mewtwo goodbye, his child had been growing within her….
And that last thought made her pause, for although she was aware of its parentage, she had never considered it in such terms:hischild was growing steadily within her now, entirely dependent on her for its continued life. The notion made her stomach and her heart turn somewhat, in the way it does when a person unexpectedly trips down a stair. As she contemplated the thought, she brought her knees to her chest and rested her chin upon them: within her core was all that remained of Mewtwo in this world. If she remembered the passages in her biology texts correctly, by this point the infant's organs and its nervous system were beginning to form, and its limbs were merely tiny stubs jutting from the sides of its crescent-shaped body. Its heart, on the other hand, had already been pumping blood through its miniscule form for weeks. If given the chance to survive, it would soon begin to develop its sex organs, its bones, and its muscles…but she would not allow it the chance. A part of her felt saddened by that, even though she maintained that she did not want to have a child, for this would still be a loss to her. Never again would she be in this condition…and in that understanding, her curiosity began to stir. She wondered distantly what the infant's aural signature would feel like, and to find the answer, she extended her empathic senses not outwards, but inwards - for while the creature was not fully developed, it was alive. Would it be a blank light, she thought as she shut her eyes, without any of the characteristic hues of a unique soul? No matter if it was or not, she found herself craving to know that light, if only for a few moments….
Yet it was difficult to disentangle her own thoughts and emotions from what her empathy detected; to be successful in searchingherselffor a beingwho was not her, she had to mentally thrash to direct her psychical skill into her core. Even then, her own life force threatened to drown out the smaller one within her, and for an indeterminable time she searched futilely, as if searching for a sapphire at the bottom of the sea. Eventually she found her way beneath the surging currents of her own aura, and sinking into the still waters, blessed, murky quiet encompassed her. Somewhere in this darkness was the other life force, and as she mentally traced the lining of her womb, her brow furrowed as she failed to encounter the faint thread which would lead to a tiny being. Then, quite abruptly, she "stumbled" upon it: a small light, a small warmth, an ember cradled in one's metaphorical palm. It curled within her core, possessing no thoughts, no emotions, nor recognition as her soul brushed its wisp of spiritual energy. Yet as she extended her senses into the ghostly, lavender glow, sensations arose from its budding mind: peace, comfort, security. Guilt stabbed at her at the knowledge that its instinctual trust was unfounded, for soon she would be welcoming its execution for the mere sin of existing, although it had not chosen to commit such a wrong. Reaching out, she "touched" it gently, repressing a whimper in her throat at she did so. Maybe if Mewtwo was still by her side, maybe if she was not being hunted, maybe then she could have kept it and cared for it as well as she was able. But she couldn't…she couldn't do this….
Then, nearly shocking her from her skin, she felt another fragile consciousness brush hers - it reached out, curious about the newcomer's presence.
In her surprise, her concentration broke, and she surfaced to the external world like a balloon whose weight is severed. Her heart pounded hard as the question began to form: was there…? Desperate to confirm that she was mistaken, she plunged back into her spiritual core, the route easier to navigate this time, and began to probe again. She found the lavender aura almost immediately and marked its place, and then began to peer around the black wildly, searching frantically for the potential glow of that other consciousness. Minutes passed in this manner, until there seemed no more places for the consciousness to "hide"…but then, just as before, she ended up stumbling upon what she was dreading would be there: another light, of a teal hue, floated before her, possessing neural tracks which were currently a tad more developed than its sibling's. Yet what was more important was that it was there, and as she regarded each in turn, her dread mounted inside her. There were two of them...not one, buttwoembryos were growing in her womb, each with minute differences between them, indicating that they were not identical. This meant that she was bearing fraternal twins, and in her horror at the notion, Cassandra severed the empathic connection and hunched herself together further.
As she opened her eyes, she noted that the others in the waiting room were gone. Time had passed during her search as it would have in sleep, with hours slipping by in mere moments. From the next room, a pair of adults and a teenage girl emerged; the girl appeared wearied, as if she had fought in a long battle and had finally been defeated. Tears streamed down her face, which her parents ignored with averted eyes, and from their stiff mannerisms and clipped speech, Cassandra suspected they believed their daughter's abortion had been done for her own good. Perhaps they were even right...but the fact remained that the younger female did not agree with them, and as they swept by, the vagrant heard the teenager hiss that she hated them and would not forgive them for what they had done. Such declarations were all that remained of her willful spirit, of an angry ghost inhabiting an otherwise broken husk of a being.
When they left, a nurse called out Cassandra's alias, saying that the doctor was ready for her now.
...And quite suddenly, Cassandra couldn't do it - she couldn't enter that pale, sterile room. If she did so, the children…Mewtwo's and her children…would die. Their small, warm lights would fade, and she would be left all alone in the darkness once again. As terror flooded her at the thought, she bolted to her feet and began to walk away briskly, ignoring the calls for her to return. She quivered with the urge to run, and curbed it until she strode purposefully out the facility's front doors. When her boots hit the pavement, her pace quickened, rising exponentially until she was sprinting down the sidewalk, shoving her way through the crowds as if hounds were on her heels. Soon fatigue began to overwhelm her legs, and as they trembled beneath her she turned into an alleyway and sank down against a brick wall. Over her a lamppost cast a muted, golden glow; it was evening, and once again it was snowing. Yet still she curled up and stared into nothingness, feeling hot tears spill down her cheeks, feeling the chilly air trying to molest her through her clothes...
What are you doing?A voice within her roared. Are you so selfish that you'll cling to them for solace, knowing that you condemn them through doing so? You have nothing you can offer them beyond a nightmare!
No,she retorted to the cruel angel lurking in her mind, I can give them love...I can try to protect them and make them happy.
And you will fail…you cannot embrace them while holding the weapon that would defend them.
Her hands, empty, clenched into fists at her sides.But I can try, and that's all anyone can promise to do: I'll try.
And resolving herself to do just that, Cassandra breathed in deeply and rose to her feet. It was time to move forward.
Around her the snow fell, pure and bright, like shards of hope in the dark...
"…It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the buzz
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
I wish I was
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the most fuzz…"
Three fortnights had passed since his goddaughter had departed with the abomination, and during that time, Giovanni had grappled with the chaos birthed by her betrayal. Only a handful of hours after she had fled, signs of how forcefully the organization had been shaken became apparent: riots erupted amongst the factions of Team Rocket, their ranks being undermined by confusion, suspicion, and uncertainty. Like a silent and deathly epidemic, a poisonous truth began to spread and weaken his soldiers with doubt: the heir, their tangible proof of the empire's longevity, was no longer living, and one of the highest agents in power had abdicated her thrown. While both figures were essentially detached from the collective gang, and so rarely encountered by the common thugs, they had represented the strength, the loyalty, and the privilege of the Team Rocket Elite. That one figure had been murdered, and the other was to be murdered for her indiscretions, cracked the otherwise solid structure of the gang. True, death and treachery were abundant in any criminal gathering...but this duo had been among their leaders, and if their leaders were being destroyed and corrupted, what unity could there possibly be among their subordinates, and what faith could they possibly give to their Signore if he could not keep his affairs and his "children" in order...?
In an attempt to restore order and repair the damage she had made, Giovanni had given them a cause to pursue, and at least for now, it seemed to be working. The doubt which had threatened to shatter his ranks had turned into healing fury overnight; his soldiers would scour Kanto for the traitor and punish her for her wickedness. Within hours, the rumors of her wayward behavior before her desertion were known by all of the factions; with venomous words they reduced the once feared Angel of Death into a lowly Judas, a filthy slut, and a murderess of her own kind. In return for her shedding their blood, they would shed hers, and they had begun to exact their revenge barely half a day after her flight from the base: they had exterminated the beast she had rode naked upon, ridding her of the unclean bliss she had traded her status to indulge in. Her monster had perished in a tsunami of white fire, erased entirely from the world...
Yet although Giovanni was gratified by the certainty of the clone's demise, he was also displeased that its destruction had resulted in the annihilation of its body. Had his scouts followed his commands explicitly, the genetic blueprints from the carcass would have been available to him. However, as they had overlooked that necessity, they did not find reward upon their return. Instead, Giovanni punished them severely for the infraction, leaving them barely capable of walking from his office after they had reported to him. This maltreatment, however, had served to strengthen their fellow agents, for the abuse proved that the Signore had not softened, and that he still ruled his organization with an unyielding, steel fist. Clearly the whore had been fragile individual, and consequently weak in her resolve; surely that had caused her to abandon her superior and nothing more. All the same, as they sighted her and attempted to do to her what they had done to her pet, they firmly kept in mind that her body was not to be ruined. Giovanni, surely, would have some use for it...
Yet although they glimpsed the traitor and even engaged her in battle, so far they had failed to capture or severely wound her. Her training, far more advanced than their own, aided her in evading and deflecting their strikes. However, the crime lord knew her luck could only hold for so long; that she lingered in Cerulean City only degraded her chances of continuing to elude them. Already they had almost fully occupied the Water Capital, and soon she would be surrounded with no avenue of escape left to her...and he wondered, vaguely, if she would even care when her death finally ensnared her. Surely, she would fight against them, but those who had survived their encounters with her had all reported the same thing: that her expression was deadened and her appearance unkempt, indicating that she had fallen far from grace. Losing one's beloved typically had the effect of breaking the spirit; such was a part of the reason why he had long forsaken love as a dangerous and misguided emotion. Contemplating the notion, he wondered to himself whether seeing her destroyed would invoke a similar pain in him. Perhaps not...but as she was akin to an incomplete painting being torn apart by its maker, its potential for glory shredded by the hands of the one who had created it, he admitted that her loss would be, at the very least, a disappointment to him.
However, when Domino strode into his office bearing a single disk, he learned that some of Cassandra's previous value could yet be salvaged. As the lights dimmed and the video contents of the hardcopy began to play, his second-in-command explained that the footage had been taken from a medical facility in Cerulean. The time stamp, showing the date and hour in the lower-hand corner, revealed that the recording was less than a two week's old...but more important to him was the figure the recording displayed, who sat huddled in a chair near the registration counter. Upon occasion well-dressed personnel and other patients passed in front of the young woman, who seemed seized in fitful sleep. Pausing the recording, Giovanni asked if the female's health was degrading. Would she linger near the building for medical assistance, and hence be easier from them to apprehend? His companion merely shook her head, and then stated in monotone, "She wasn't at a hospital. This footage was taken in an abortion clinic."
Giovanni's expression contorted in surprise, before he regained his composure and leaned forward, resting his mouth against intertwined fingers. If Cassandra had been willing to risk using one of Team Rocket financial accounts, knowing well that she would be traced to this facility in doing so, then she must have been completely certain of her condition – of her pregnancy. The notion that she was carrying a child was difficult for the crime lord to grasp, for Cassandra had been a strict abstinent for a majority of her life, and for a moment, he wondered wildly if Zachariah had managed to enjoy a successful wedding night before his bloody demise. Yet as he watched the remaining footage, it became clear to him that this was not the case: after observing a distraught teenager being escorted from the operating room, his goddaughter's face contorted with fear, and in what seemed to be a fit of maternal instinct, she fled from the scene, her hands drifting near her abdomen as she went. She had not gone through with the abortion...and although he could not hope to understand the core of Cassandra's soul, he realized well what this meant. Had the infant belonged to Zachariah or some random male, she would have allowed the unborn's execution. Yet the creature in her womb had evidently been conceived in an entirely different emotion than lust. It was a love child...and hence, it was undeniably Mewtwo's.
The laws of nature told him that was impossible; a human and a pokémon could not form new life. Yet his years of experience with the improbable told him to believe, and believe he did. Leaning back into his office chair, he said, "The orders have changed: I want her captured and returned to me alive. Her womb contains the last bit of Mewtwo's genetic heritage, and until it is thrust into the world and into our hands, she cannot be allowed to perish. Having this child will be better than nothing..."
And perhaps it would even be better than the clone itself: because this monstrosity would be a mongrel, a mingled version of Cassandra and Mewtwo, possessing traits and abilities from each betrayer. Beyond the control he might be able to wield over such a specimen, the uses it could offer him were nearly infinite…!
And besides...if all else failed, would make the ideal proxy for its parents, enduring in full the anguish he had promised to inflict upon them.
Indeed, the saying was true: a child was truly the most valuable resource a man could reach out to take...!
Present Day.
"…From a little shell
At the bottom of the sea
Was the Earth and the Moon
And the Sun around me
There is love, there is love
There is love
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the buzz
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
I wish I was
It's the buzz, it's the buzz
It's the buzz."
While the foreday had proven blessedly sweet with silence and shadow, and the covers she lay beneath gloriously soft and warm, Cassandra had found herself incapable of true sleep after the night of the ambush. Recollections from the past three months and the choice facing her made dreaming fitful, and more than once she had lain awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering if she should leave the Center or not. In the end, she knew her decision was not a difficult one to make; only one option was actually viable. However, fear and dread pooled in her stomach at the thought of what remaining in this place could lead to. Beyond becoming an unmoving target, the dangers of remaining with lawful agents were potentially lethal, especially when she considered what could occur if her previous role in Team Rocket was exposed. Yet whenever her hand strayed to her firm abdomen, she was reminded of her foremost priority: protecting the children. Being what they were, the twins were likely quite fragile, and if she abandoned this chance to properly sustain them, she might lose them...and that thought terrified her more than any other. In the last two months since she had realized their existence, she had devoted herself entirely to keeping them safe, and increasingly had begun to yearn for them. She needed them as desperately as they currently needed her, and if they perished she knew she would as well. As such, endangering them was unthinkable; they were all she had left, and if she could live long enough to give birth to them, hold them, and raise them, she would be content and ask for nothing more. For all of their sakes, she must stay with these people, no matter the risks...
An hour after sunrise, Cassandra rose wearily from the bed and strode into Aurora Joy's office. There she found the woman explaining to a young trainer not to let his pokémon battle for another two weeks, and after he nodded, left, and surrendered the doctor's attention, the once-vagrant murmured, "I'll stay here, for the sake of the twins."
Aurora's smile mingled relief with satisfaction. "I am happy to hear that, and I am certain that Michael – he's the man who protected you last night – will be equally pleased. His superiors assigned him to be your guardian, so as his friend, I'm going to ask you to not give him too much trouble, okay? Now why don't you sit down? You're probably long overdue for some prenatal examinations, and I want to check to see that everything's in order."
After a moment of surprise, and then uncertain hesitation, Cassandra did as instructed. The doctor assessed and noted the mother-to-be's weight ("Tsk, we're going to need to stuff you for awhile – you're far too skinny for my liking!"), height, blood pressure, heart rate, drew a vile of blood to test for disease and potential Rh conflicts, all the while asking the young woman questions concerning her medical history. On this count, Cassandra could not report much, as she did not know her if her family possessed a history of illnesses or genetic defects - yet in regards to her own health, she answered as informatively as she could. Surprisingly, hearing of the violence in her past did not faze Aurora; only after Cassandra told her about the drug cocktail she had been taking, up until shortly before she had conceived, had Aurora appeared positively gobsmacked. She had muttered and cussed harshly that combining an anti-depressant with a painkiller was a sure way to court suicide, and that adoctorhad prescribed it to her…unbelievable! Only when she had the nineteen-year-old lay down for a pelvic exam did her grumbling quiet: the scars across the female's genitalia were, to say the least,unsettling, and the doctor had to forcefully suppress the suspicion that the girl's "one other sexual partner" had carved them into her flesh with his nails. Still, as she examined the girl's vagina and cervix, checking for abnormalities and signs of infections - of which there were none - she noted how her patient's fingers clutched at the edges of the table. This young woman did not want a stranger examining her, even if she had a medical license, and as Aurora allowed Cassandra to redress, she stated that she would need a urine sample for the other tests, and asked, hoping to dispel the tension she had caused, if the teenager would like to hear her babies' heartbeats.
It was a wonder the doctor didn't hear cervical vertebrae crack, given how quickly the girl snapped her head upwards at the suggestion. As she nodded, Aurora smiled and told her to lie back down, and retrieved a handheld Doppler instrument from her supplies: it looked like a white walk-talkie, but had a spiraling cord with a probe at its end, and a heartbeat monitor above the speaker of the device's main body. Flipping it on, she gently pressed the probe beneath the young woman's belly, where it was beginning to curve outwards…and then the sound of blood being pumped by a small heart, as fast as that of a tiny bird, rose from the speaker. Beneath this noise was an underlying echo; the twin's hearts beat in subtly different, but still frantic, times, as was to be expected now that they were over twelve weeks old. Aurora Joy grinned in satisfaction at the result on the fetal heart rate display: 142 beats per minute - they were both in the proper range. She glanced up to tell Cassandra that, but remained silent when she saw how her patient was peering at her own belly: awe, amazement, and warmth were plain on her face, and as she closed her eyes, she smiled softly as she listened to the sound...it was wonderful….
After awhile, Aurora flipped off the device, returned it to its drawer, and said, "That should be all for today, Cassandra. We will have to run some more tests to confirm that none of you are sick, but besides being weak from undernourishment, I am willing to bet that you three are otherwise okay. Still, would the additional screenings be alright with you?"
Cassandra seemed to still with uncertainty, but then slowly nodded her consent. Content at that, the redhead pulled a bottle of vitamins from a cabinet and handed them to the girl, and commented lightly, "Now why don't we head to breakfast and stuff you with folic-enriched bread products? That sound good to you?"
Amusement flickered across the other woman's face, and rising, she walked to the cafeteria with the doctor. Around them repairs were being made to the damaged Center, and friends and family visited the wounded. Accompanying the daylight was a sense of good cheer among the residents, and as no one had perished in the night, declarations of victory and exaggerated "war stories" made even the most drugged patients smirk. The aromas of waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs, and diced fruits enticed everyone to breakfast, and as Cassandra and Aurora, still in their pajamas, sat down, Michael cast them a glance from the other side of the ruined lobby. Today's newspaper had been amended overnight to chronicle the attack on the Center, and thankfully, the girl had been kept out of it. No reporters would hound her and no children would question her; she would stay here in peace, as long as they were able to defend her. Stroking Asriel down the spine, he gave the dark puppy his bacon, and mused that the upcoming months would be intriguing indeed...
Halfway though their meal, Cassandra lifted her head and murmured to her companion, "Miss Joy…er, Aurora? Would you promise me something?"
Knowing that gaining the girl's trust was integral, the doctor stamped down her sneaking suspicions and agreed. The young woman bit her lip, and then said, "Whatever you find in your tests, would you promise to keep it between us...?"
"Of course – that's required in patient confidentiality," Aurora replied, relieved that this was all the mother-to-be wanted. Popping a slice of tangerine into her mouth, she savored the taste and, after gulping it down, asked in jest, "Why? Is there something I should know? Are your kids alien babies or something?"
Cassandra gave a weak laugh, and shook her head, "No, they are most certainlynotalien babies, Aurora!"
Yet she stared into her drink, unable to meet the woman's eyes, and thankfully Aurora was too engrossed in a sudden revelation to notice: she had just realized that she would no longer have to scrub any of those pink hearts from the windows anymore – they had been burned to crisps! With a laugh, she bit into another slice of tangerine and watched her fellow citizens joke and work.
All was well.
Author's Note:Please leave a review, if you would be so kind, telling me what you think of these latest developments. I know that many of you will be skeptical regarding Cassandra's condition, and know that I do have a viable scientific explanation for how the laws of nature have been defied in this fic. Those of you who are familiar withMoonlight VigilanteandHollowwill have encountered these theories before, but they were originally made while I was contemplating the future of this particular story. At any rate, in the upcoming chapters many of the scientific oddities inAngelic Shadowswill be explained, thanks to the addition of Aurora Joy. Both Michael and herself are actually rather pivotal to this story, and I am extremely happy to finally be writing about them; I confess, I rather adore the duo. Beyond these aspects, I realize that this has been a rather lengthy chapter: it covers three full months, as the next two also will. I suppose I could have removed the middle sections concerning Cassandra and Giovanni, but I felt both were important in fleshing out the events mentioned in the beginning of the chapter and those that may yet occur. That, and some of those scenes have been stuck in my head for years, so I was itching to write them down. Finally, I am certain more than one of you will point out how unlikely it was that, under the conditions Cassandra was enduring, she did not miscarry. Personally, if someone can manage to have a baby in a concentration camp (it worked inThe Devil's Arithmetic), then I am sure someone can do so on the streets. Plus, I would like to think that Mewtwo's kits are stubborn, strong little things – they are weak right now, of course, but that will change. (Grins.)
At any rate, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. See ya' next time.
Sincerely,
WiseAbsol