Chapter 5: All My Friends Have Off-Switches

It wasn't long before Dee ran into the first of what she would later learn was a Lobotomite: a poke-person in a patient gown and with a mask and goggles their hid their face. It might have been a Bidoof-man but she wasn't sure as it swung at her with a piece of broken pipe. Despite the extra weight from her prosthetic organs, she was able to dodge aside and strike at him with a Metal Claw across the chest. The Lobotomite stumbled and Dee turned to deliver three strikes to his head, killing him.

His head hit the ground and split open which showed the mechanical brain inside. Dee almost threw up right then and there. Was that what was also inside her head? She turned away and swallowed her breakfast back down. No idea if there was enough food in this place so she couldn't let herself give up anything. She checked her Rotom-boy and set the compass to find the nearest of the three pieces of tech the Think Tank had ordered her to find: the sonic emitter.

The trip to the X-8 research facility was undisturbed but not quiet, in the distance Dee could hear noises and they all made her fur stand on end imagining what else they might belong to.

The inside of X-8 wasn't any better, right at the entrance she could see a series of circular saws on arms cutting a body apart through a window and extracted brains in jars both on shelves and in tanks like the empty one back at the Sink. She hurried further into the facility and was greeted with more surgical tables but thankfully no more viscera as she found the terminal that would let her access the sonic wave emitter.

Dee entered what looked like the entrance hall of a pre-war high school, including shelves with a few burned books stacked up on them. She heard a few growls behind a closed door to her right but ignored them as she walked to a computer in the wall and accessed it.

"Take Sonic Emitter from storage, complete information retrieval test by finding three student records," she read the information on the screen. A moment later a small hatch opened below the screen in which was stored a small sci-fi looking ray gun with an oscilloscope on the back of the barrel.

Dee picked up the emitter and held it like a pistol in both hands, "Wonder if my aim is any better with an artificial brain?"

Her thoughts were interrupted by a nearby door swinging open and a robotic bark. She turned and saw a cyborg Growlithe with its brain in a jar on top of its head. It shot a gout of flame at Dee from its mouth and she dodged aside then fired the sonic emitter, which threw a ring of energy from its barrel, and missed. The cyborg charged and tried to bite Dee but she kicked it hard, a few sparks of fire appearing around her foot, and sent if flying back then charged and punched its brain case and shattered it. She shuddered and shook the biogel off her hand then looked at the dead creature. Was it another victim of the Think Tank or a life-saving procedure? Her question was answered when two more cyborg Growlithes barked and engaged her.

OoOoO

"Down at the end of the hall is BALL storage. For jocks who like BALLS, like RICHIE MARKUS. Do you hear me, Betsy? RICHIE likes BALLS." The recording of Dr. Borous' voice blared over the loudspeaker as Dee reached the end of the course. That announcement combined with one of the documents being 'Richie Markus' Midterm Grades' all being F-s told Dee a lot more about Borous than she had learned in her brief interaction with him.

After four total run throughs of the course, Dee had the sonic emitter upgraded so that its shots, even from her inaccurate hands, shut off the force fields that blocked some of the doors. She kept it holstered at her side as she left the building, right into an ambush of three yellow Robo-Skorupi with red pincer and stingers.

"Beware my Robo-Skorupi, as they drain you brain with their brain drain stingers! Give me the technology and you may yet survive!" Dr. Mobius' voice came from the robots as they attacked Dee. She took several strikes from their claws and blasts from their tail lasers as she struck and tore them apart with difficulty especially since she couldn't focus enough to make a Blaze Kick. After she smashed all three she barely had a moment to breathe before they exploded and knocked Dee off her feet.

Dee groaned and got to her feet in serious pain. "Ow…" she grabbed the one stimpack she'd managed to find inside X-8 and injected herself, "I can't take another fight like that, need a better way to fight them." She held up her hand, clenched into a fist, and tried to focus the aura into electricity. A few sparks appeared until she stopped herself, her prosthetic brain just wasn't playing nice with her aura. She tried to throw another Blaze Kick and only produced a small flame. She'd have to focus even harder just to do things that used to be trivial.

Dee winced as she felt another pang of pain from the fights, "Maybe I should find those other personality chips first, especially the auto-doc," she reset her Rotom-boy to track the signals from the personality chips scattered around the crater then set off again.

While she walked, Dee practiced her speech. She knew she'd probably have to talk to the Think Tank again and she wanted to be able to do so coherently without injecting tons of Lu, Ca, and Rios into every word she said. Thankfully it wasn't as hard as she initially thought, she wasn't learning a new language just getting her voice to form words she already knew but now took more effort.

As Dee headed north she heard a strange and horrifyingly familiar buzzing a moment before something blew past her and sliced into her arm. She cried out in pain and rounded on the creature as it spun around to give her a brief view, a Ninjadrill which she now saw had a long stinger at the bottom of its abdomen, thin legs and antenna. It charged again and Dee barely dodged the second pass. She struck out, managing to slice its wing off with her hand spike which sent the thing crashing to the ground. Despite this, it was up on its limbs and raced at Dee as she threw a punch, trying to call forth lightning again but only managing a spark in the adrenaline rush of the moment. It was enough to smash the monster's face in and splatter it on the ground.

Dee panted and shook, the first back in Vaniville was bad enough with backup but if these things were here? She shuddered at the thought then looked at the nearby building. If that thing was hanging around here then this was likely its nesting ground so she skirted around the door and continued on, the first personality chip was ahead.

Thankfully the first chip was easy to find as it just lay in the back of a military transport truck. Sadly it wasn't a chip but a small piece of metal shaped like a keyhole, probably for the Poke ball she'd found earlier. As she pocketed it and climbed out of the truck's bed she heard electronic staticky noise nearby and turned to see a Porygon, or rather a warped Porygon the size of an adult human with thin blue arms and tail in a Y-Shape and crazy ringed eyes on a head that was detached from its body!

"KILL KILL DESTROY!" It shrieked and began to charge up a large ball of electricity in front of its nose. Dee dropped to the ground and rolled under the Zap Cannon, which flew past her and exploded the truck she'd just been in, before she was back on her feet. She didn't even try to conjure an Aura Sphere but instead hurled a vacuum wave at the warped Porygon, which threw off its balance and caused it to fire its Hyper Beam off-target, which Dee barely dodged. The Hyper Beam left the Porygon stunned long enough for Dee to run up and punch its head, which flew off and shattered into data on the nearby building's wall. Its body shook then dissolved into data. Dee panted then looked at the building and checked her Rotom-boy. Thankfully nothing else was in there so she set off going counterclockwise around the Big MT crater.

With every hour that passed, Dee was greeted by new dangers and horrors created by the mad science of the Think Tank: human skeletons running around in spacesuits, more cyborg dogs, Lobotomites, boxy robots with brains in jars and a chain link fenced prison camp full of decapitated human and Poke-people corpses.

After seeing that, Dee needed a breather so took shelter inside the prison camp's watchtower. Inside she found a few strange looking Poke balls, black balls with strange ribbed structures all around them. After a quick exam she was relieved to find they were non-functional, some even seemed to have exploded, likely a result of the detonator that lay on the desk next to a still functioning computer.

Needing something else to think about, Dee sat down to go through the logs which described that the user had decided to test these 'dark balls' on various humans and poke-people that were trapped in the camp by the Think Tank for experiments, and that they left an energy ring that could blow off the captured person's head if the owner so chose. She shuddered at the thought, this hadn't been the best idea. The last entry had her more intrigued than horrified.

"Saw a glint from the ruined building, thought it was that other courier I met but it didn't seem like their style. The Brotherhood might have sent someone after me, probably a dark-type so I need to get the drop on them." So there were other visitors to Big MT who didn't get lobotomized before her? Was this the same courier that had let her take the job that got her shot in the head? She took what was left of the preserved food and water from the tower and moved on, heading south.

Dee wanted to just leave Big MT, especially when she saw a hole in the crater wall flanked by two electrical towers, but she started to feel dizzy as she approached them and a loud announcement from the Think Tank blared out to remind her that she couldn't leave, as the towers would knock her out if she got too close. Those announcements blanketed the crater every so often ranging from mundane proclamations about how it made Klein sound like a 'god' or Dr. O reminding people to "Wash the walking eye." Said walking eyes being some strange four-legged eye bots that Dee found in a flooded workspace where she retrieved another of the personality chips. They unnerved her as they just stared at her but didn't do anything else so she just left them be.

It was late afternoon when Dee entered a cave and heard awkward muffled grunting sounds echoing off the walls. Dee crept forwards and almost stumbled when she two Lobotomites, both with white fur, having sex! Dee was no prude but she had to look away as she remembered what they were, but still had to marvel that they would engage in such activity when every single one she'd ran into thus far had just tried to murder her.

She wasn't sure if they finished or just noticed her but a moment later they let out muffled cries of rage and were charging at her with whatever weapon they can grab from the ground. It was with some reluctance that Dee put them down then retrieved a personality chip from what she could only describe as a 'shrine' surrounded by piles of scrap and the gutted remains of toasters.

Just outside the cave Dee ran right into a sentry bot, a three-wheeled military robot with a minigun and missile launcher for arms. She barely managed to dodge back inside before a missile flew past her and exploded on the side of the cave, the shockwave nearly knocking her down. She didn't have any pulse grenades and it was too close for any other kind of explosive so she'd have to fight close. She held up a fist and with strength born from desperation she focused all her effort and aura into her fist as she heard the war machine wheel closer. There were a few sparks then finally her fist was enveloped in a field of electricity. It wasn't a moment to soon as the sentry bot rounded the corner and Dee threw her first Thunder Punch at the robot's head. The direct hit ripped the robot's head off and the electricity fried all of its systems as it ground to a halt. Dee braced herself but thankfully the sentry bot didn't explode. Relieved, Dee continued on, following the marker on her Rotom-boy towards the last personality chip.

"Food!"

"Kill!"

"Bite!"

"Eat!"

It was almost sundown when Dee was ambushed near a large hangar by a pack of six Zanviper, their wild animal sounds understandable to her ears. She was surrounded by the hybrid Pokemon before they attacked, biting and shredding her scientist scrubs as she fought back desperately, managing to ignite a Blaze Kick in the middle of the fight. By the end all the Zanviper were dead and Dee was covered in fang bites that left her scrubs in tatters. In serious pain, she managed to inject one of the stimpacks she'd found during her exploration then limped towards the hangar's door, which bore the words 'HIGGS VILLAGE' on the sign then made sure to seal the door behind her.

For once, Dee's surprise wasn't of horror as she looked out from the entrance door. The catwalk she was on overlooked a quaint suburban cul-de-sac with six houses connected by cobblestone walkways that surrounded a large dry fountain. Relieved that she couldn't hear anything moving inside the hangar, Dee limped down the catwalk and towards the first house. There was a bar right inside the door so she grabbed a bottle of water from the shelf and downed it. Despite her pain, she dragged herself up the stairs to the bedroom. She dropped her pack and tore off the remains of the scrubs she'd been wearing all day then collapsed on the bed.

Dee didn't even expect to wake up with all the venomous bites she'd received from the Zanviper, the radiation and mutations from the post-war had made the venom of poison-types so potent it could even affect other poison and steel-types, but she did and while still in pain she felt much better especially as she found preserved food and a lot of water and even soft drinks at the bar. There was alcohol too but she had no desire to get drunk. Dee was surprised and relieved to find a set of green scientist's scrubs in the bedroom which she was grateful to pull on, albeit these were tighter around her breasts and hips but beggars couldn't be choosers.

As Dee searched all six houses, looking for food, water and medical supplies, she thought aloud to herself, "I guess this is where the Think Tank and Mobius used to live. Maybe they wanted something that reminded them of a normal life." Though 'normal' was a stretch as she founds signs of various instabilities in each home, like cups and dinner plates arranged with the precision of someone with OCD, or a fashion runway lined with Teddiursa plushes, or a basement with computers containing half-finished schematics for Porygon and a dog house with a bowl still set in front of it and the name GABE over the entrance.

Dee took stock of her supplies before she left the hangar, thankfully now with more than enough food and water to keep her going. One other thing she noted was that she didn't feel any back pain, in fact she hadn't at all yesterday despite how much walking and fighting she'd done. Maybe her new spine could better support her breasts. Even so, she didn't want to be full of metal and so left Higgs Village to find the last personality chip.

Said chip was in a medical facility populated by floating ball-shaped robots with three eyes and three limbs that immediately attacked her. They were no threat compared to sentry bots, so after she destroyed them she found the last personality chip and a huge load of medical supplies before she set off back to the Sink. She'd had enough practise that she figured she could speak non poke-speak again.

"Greetings, sir. I trust you'll find that everything is in its proper order, sir." The Sink CIU's words still made Dee wince as she unloaded her bag.

"I found the other personalities," Dee pulled the eight chips from her bag along with the strange keyhole shaped chip, "Now let's see what they do."

She decided to open the Poke ball first, if only to free whatever Pokemon was trapped inside. Once she inserted the little chip she felt the ball come to life then she threw it like she'd seen in the cartoons and games back when she was a kid, and out burst a Porygon the size of a Caterpie with a small handle on the back of its head.

It turned to look up at Dee for a moment, then shouted in a manic voice too loud for its small frame, "You! Hey, you! Yeah you! Got any mugs?"

Dee just stared in stunned silence for a moment before she answered, "Uhh, no."

"You some kinda sick mug hoarder!?" the Porygon jabbed its nose at Dee, "Oh Arceus, give the coffee cup, please! It's sitting there in your pack, taunting me!"

Dee took a step back, "Who are you? What are you?" The words were coming easier now that she had figured out the little tricks her vocal cords had forgotten.

That set the little Porygon on a tirade, "Oh you've seen those big Porygon floating around. Well Dr. O got jealous of Mr. House's big bad Porygon so he though it would be HILLARIOUS to make a TEENY TINY PORYGON OBSSESSED WITH CLEANING! But why!?" it lamented, "They wanted me to clean all their dishes but then they were all 'let's put our brains into floating jars'. You know how man coffee cups giant robot brains in jars use on a daily basis? NOT FUCKING MANY!"

Dee took a few more steps back, "OK, I'll just leave you to your rant."

"Of course!" it wailed, "No one cares about poor Muggy."

Dee stopped at the toaster on the way to the center and checked the other chips. They were numbered rather than named so she had to check each chip before she found the right one and inserted it. The toaster came to life, cackling.

"Ahahaha! I am on-line once again! Tremble, world, before my electric heating coil of doom!"

Dee recoiled slightly, "I almost afraid to ask, but what do you do exactly?"

"You should be afraid! I am the scourge of all small appliance and the bogeyman that keeps lesser toasters awake at night!" the toaster raved, "And once I have amassed power the world will burn in atomic fire!"

"Right… good luck with that," Dee turned away. "Are all these personalities going to be insane?"

The two light switches were next, and both briefly tried to flirt with Dee only to then start bitching at each other like a stereotypical cat fight. The book chute spoke in a very polite tone but then asked Dee to submit any books she had to eradicate sedition. The Sink (that is the washing basin sink not the apartment they were in called 'The Sink') sounded disgusted the instant Dee plugged its chip in and asked if Dee could scrub everything clean, but at least finally let her fill the empty bottles Dee had with purified water. The Jukebox was mostly normal and sounded like a smooth Jazz DJ. As for the device called the Biological Research Station…

"Ooh… oh yeah baby," the BRS spoke in the voice of a ladies' man, "feels good to be on-line again! Yeah, all circuits on-line… ready to receive your seed."

"Nope!" Dee turned and marched away from the device.

The last was the Auto-Doc, which Dee had only left for last out of curiosity for the other appliances' functions. "I wonder what kind of nut-job this one's going to be," she muttered as she plugged its chip in.

"Hmph… well how about that? Old Auto-Doc's back on-line," it spoke in the voice of a vaguely western 'doc' like in old films, "Well, all right, come here, let's have a look at you."

Dee breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank Arceus you're not completely nuts like the others."

"I know the others are pretty eccentric. As for you… Well, you ain't the fittest Ponyta that even ran a race, but you don't appear to be in immediate danger of keeling over. I can patch you up if you want," the Auto-Doc's computer screen interface lit up.

"I do," A thought occurred to Dee as the front door of the Auto-Doc opened, "And scan my body for any parasites that might be living in it."

"All right, just step inside and let's get you all fixed up."

It was a bit uncomfortable inside but Dee stepped out with all her cuts, burns and minor lacerations healed as the Auto-Doc delivered its report. "You're fit as a fiddle now, no parasites inside you thankfully."

That confirmed it, her Ultra-Parasite was gone, but she put that aside for the moment and turned back to the Auto-Doc, "Can you put my heart and spine back inside me?"

"That's a negative. The procedure was wiped after they were taken out, and even if it hadn't been I'd still need to get your brain back so I know how it's all hooked up, just to be safe."

"Just thought I'd ask, thank you." As Dee stepped away she heard the Auto-Doc sound like it fell asleep and started to snore. She just rolled her eyes then headed for the bedroom, stepping over Muggy who was now just wandering The Sink and whining about the Biological Research Station 'seeding' it.

Thankfully none of the personalities were able to open the door as she stripped down and sat on her bed. She touched her chest under her breasts and let the weight of the revelation settle in: the Ultra Beast larva/parasite she'd had in her since her birth was gone. The whole reason she had been created, why her home Vault 18 had been invaded, why Mewtwo and the remnants of the Aether Enclave had wanted to capture her and what had kept her alive through the wasteland, fights with mutant Pokemon, Raiders, Mewtwo, Ultra-hybrids, Aether soldiers, the storms of the Galarian Divide, the disaster that laid waste to what was left of the Galar Region and maybe even being shot in the head, was gone.

What did that make her? After all her creation had just been part of Aether's experiments in human immortality though Ultra Space and the success of her specific Ultra-Parasite was somewhat of a fluke. Hybridising into a Poke-person had weakened the parasite from a guarantee that she'd become an Ultra-Beast into a balanced source of regeneration she'd gotten so used to that when the first Zanviper bit her she was alarmed when she woke up with the bite still on her leg. It finally sank in just how much she had relied on that healing factor to keep her going as she looked at the pile of stimpacks in her bag. She used to just keep a couple on her for emergencies but she'd used more in the last week than she had in a year before she was shot.

As big a deal as this was, it was also part of all the terror she'd suffered here in the Big MT. Dee felt the scars down her back, around her head and between her breasts where her chest spike had been just a couple days ago and how those scars would have healed if her parasite was still alive, like when she'd regenerated a severed aura-dread while she was still a Riolu. All of this weight on her mind made Dee start to cry out of frustration as she lay down. Eventually, Dee drifted off to sleep the only real comfort being she knew she was at least safe from the horrors that roamed the crater while she was in here.