Remnants
By Chibi Pika
Rating: PG-13 for violence/blood and mild language
Genre: Angst


I caught the sound of footsteps as it rebounded off the hallways like the echo of memories across time. My eyes widened and young, juvenile fear flooded my senses the moment I sensed their nearing. Razors heard it as well, and he knew there was no escape. No other experiment had succeeded in rebelling and he would be no different.

“They’ve come,” he mumbled slowly. His Scyther pride shrouded his voice in an emotionless mist, but I knew him well enough to see through the veil and into the pure terror that flooded his soul.

“No…they can’t…” I said, choking slightly on the words as tears pricked my eyes. He turned his reptilian head to me, his large red-brown eyes filled with hopeless acceptance.

“They can’t!” I found myself yelling. “All the others…they weren’t the same ever since…since…. We can fight them, come on!” I urged.

He sighed with a slight smile forming along his snout. We were about the same age, yet he always seemed so much older…so much wiser. He slowly stood to his feet, using his immense, blade-lined arms to support his tall frame. Large plates of steel-hard, green armor covered his praying mantis-like body. The two of us, and many others were genetically altered hybrids, but he was one of the few they called a ‘successful experiment.’ Their goal with him was to create the perfect Scyther—one with the lightning-fast reflexes of his own kind, but with the impervious rock armor of the ancient beast, Kabutops.

Keys clicked in the lock and I glanced up to see the main door opening. Torrents of adrenaline surged through me the second I saw them enter; those black uniforms and white lab coats would remain scarred into my thoughts as long as I live. Our cells were lined with impenetrable force fields—otherwise I would have already had them dead and twitching on the icy concrete floor.

With a quick, fearful, glance, I shot a look into the cells to the left to me—all of them empty, each experiment having met their fate in “the room.” Each one of them now bearing the same, cold, emotionless face like that of some deranged animal. Turning back to the right of me, I saw them deactivating the field around Razors’ cell.

It was so unexpected, that even I couldn’t have anticipated it. With lightning speed surpassed by few, Razors lunged out of the cell before the men could do anything about it.

“What the—get that damn thing in its ball, NOW!” the lead human shouted.

One of the other men turned and held out a small sphere, purest of black and symbolizing only the fact that we were different and therefore couldn’t be stored normally in Poké balls. A narrow black beam shot out from the center like a laser towards Razors; or at least where he had been milliseconds earlier. My keen, almost hawk-like eyes followed his every movement even as he made his decision. In motions far too swift for humans to see, Razors darted forward and swept his right blade at the lead human. I flinched the second he severed the man’s head. Crimson blood spurted, his body collapsed instantly, and the head rolled lightly into the corner leaving a trail of deep scarlet in its wake.

In such a closed space, chaos was ensuing. Razors sprinted forward to the door, dodging more beams from the ball. He crashed headlong into the door and fell to the ground amidst the splinters of wood. He looked back with a twinge of fear in his eyes—a move that would cost him. I looked on helplessly as the beam from the Poké ball caught him and dissolved his body into it with a flash of black. Tears flooded my eyes as they looked once at the Poké ball and then to their fallen comrade with contempt. The scientist said something into a radio and then walked off with the other man, nothing to stop them from corrupting the one creature who had been like a brother to me.

“Razors!!!” I shouted. But there was no one around to hear.



My eyes jolted open as I snapped into reality, my mind racing. Yet again, my subconscious had revisited that day in my dreams. I couldn’t say I disliked it, yet why must one be forced to relive one’s worst memories at any given night, even if they are worth remembering?

The eternally happy paradise surrounded me as it always did. It was hard to remember that while I was minimized and contained within a Poké ball, I wasn’t truly awake. The state of hibernation Pokemon were placed in meant that our minds were constantly in the virtual reality programmed into the ball. It was an escape from the harsh reality that was my life, yet it still annoyed me.

I was jarred from my thoughts as I felt the false surrounding dissolving into a blur of white light. I felt myself flying through the air before coming in contact with a cement floor, the pale energy quickly converting into flesh and spikes of yellow fur. I twitched my long, black-tipped ears and glanced back at the human I knew was there.

He was a tall, burly man with thick black hair and dark eyes surrounded by a stern and commanding face. I knew him well; he was the experiment handler, Tyson. He replaced the black Poké ball at his belt and pulled out another one to release another experiment that I knew, or at least had. She was taller than me, but not by much and had sleek black fur covering her weasel-like body. Large blade claws tipped her forelegs and reddish-pink feather-like fins lined her back and left ear. Her eyes were blank and pupil-less, showing no evidence of any thought or emotion. She was the first to enter “the room” and the first to have her mind succumbed to their control.

“Alright, training in skill area two-three with work on timing and cumulative battle effects, let’s go,” he commanded.

What he said would have seemed meaningless to some, yet made perfect sense to me. I lunged forward on the battlefield, charging my body with electricity as I did. I no longer cared about attacking my fellow experiments, and sent lightning flying at my training opponent. She leaped forward, brandishing her genetically enlarged claws and swiped at me, but I was already out of the way.

I powered up a Thunderbolt technique and let the strings of electricity surge forward toward her. The Sneasel unleashed a wave of ink-black energy to counter my assault before completely disappearing from view. I caught the sound of her footsteps behind me and turned only to be smacked in the face with an invisible Ice Punch. I stepped back clutched my face, the freezing cold ice crystals already forming and numbing my senses.

I was mad now. I reminded myself that this wasn’t really her choice and that the operations done in “the room” were what forced her to obey whatever Tyson and the others said. Even still, I felt my body almost instinctively generating sparks of power. I realized what was happening and tried to stop, but suddenly found myself letting loose an enormous surge of power. I struggled to control it and managed to keep it from electrocuting everything in the area, but was unable to keep myself from creating the lightning.

“No, no, NO!!!” Tyson shouted. “I said battle area two-three and you go off discharging!”

I glared at him and felt the energy drain from my body. I released my hold on the power and saw the lightning fly wild before finally dissipating. I groaned in fatigue. It was not the first time this had happened. Tyson recalled the other experiment and was about to draw me into a second black ball, but then stopped. Another human, an older, shorter and slightly balding man ran forward holding several pieces of printed out paper.

“Tell me you’ve found a way to control the damn thing,” Tyson muttered.

“Unfortunately no, however, the Executives in our secondary headquarters have been experimenting with technology to restrain even the most powerful of Legendary Pokémon. On the subject of the battle, though, I have studied the Pikachu-Zapdos hybrid’s genetic makeup more thoroughly and have discovered that the spontaneous discharges are outside its control,” the scientist explained.

“They wouldn’t be if we could just tap into its mind like we did the others. Should we teleport it to our secondary base for testing when we send the supply shipment?” Tyson asked.

“Actually, no…. The word is that the Pokémon League officials will be regulating all teleportation more thoroughly. We could be found out…”

“Understood. I have a mission to attend to in this coming hour so make sure the supplies as well as the other failed Experimental Pokémon get sent to the base somehow,” Tyson said, handing the man my Poké ball and walking off. “I’d advise the transport jet.”

“Right, I’ll tell my superiors,” the scientist said, nodding.

I grinned to myself. Tyson ran everything with an iron fist, but with him gone for awhile I could have some fun. The scientist looked back at me and winced slightly, holding out my Poké ball and attempting to recall me into it. I grinned again, even as the black beam shot out from the center toward me. The light struck my body, and I focused my energy intently right at that moment, causing the beam to shatter and return to the source.

“News flash, doc…I can keep from goin’ in there if I don’t want to,” I said.

No doubt a man of his intelligence could understand Pokéspeech, because he then said, “Fine, just follow me or there will be trouble.” I didn’t see any reason why not to, so I did. He led me away from the battlefield and down a corridor to another room, where he left me outside the door. I considered leaving and exploring the base, but then remembered the punishment I had to endure the last time I did.

I soon grew bored of waiting there and found myself focusing yet again on memories to pass the time. It was nearly an hour before I saw any sign of movement in the seemingly deserted hallway. A man dressed in a white suit was walking toward here, pushing a cart with a small metal cage on it. I didn’t like the look of that, and I backed away slowly when I heard the sound of the door opening behind me. I turned and saw the scientist walking out of the room with two men I had never seen before. Before I could react, he revealed a syringe and poked it into my arm. I struggled to come up with an electrical attack to blast them with, but was still tired from the battle and came up with only sparks. The man in the suit opened the cage and placed me in it. I tried to fight back, but could already feel my muscles going limp.

“Have the other failed experiments already been caged and sedated?” the scientist asked.

“Yes and they’re already being loaded onto the jet along with the supplies,” the man in the suit replied.

“Good, we’ll be soon be able to further our knowledge of Legendary Pokémon control by testing with the hybrid…”

That was all I managed to hear, because while I tired my hardest to remain conscious, the sedative finally took over as my world went dark.



The next thing I saw was a human girl with an orange lizard Pokémon looking in through the bars of my cage. I blinked once and had just gotten over my initial confusion as to who they were and why they were here when I noticed it. The cage was open. No other fact mattered more than that. I bolted out of my prison and streaked up the pile of crates stacked on the floor. I looked around and realized that I was in the cargo bay of the transport jet they had mentioned.

“No, don’t!” the girl yelled. I turned and glared at her, guessing she was some sort of prisoner because I knew this jet had a place for keeping captives. Apparently, she had escaped with her Charmander and had opened all of the cages. The others were still sedated, however, and I let sparks fly throughout the room. Suddenly, I heard the clanking of a door opening and turned.

“Wha—what the hell?!” Tyson yelled, walking into the cargo area. I looked at him in surprise and guessed that his mission had ended early.

“Uhh, hey…” the girl said awkwardly.

He looked from the girl to me and finally to the other sedated experiments. He pulled out a black Poké ball and released an experiment from within it. The light took the form of Razors, or at least Razors’ body, for his mind was hardly there. He flashed his impressive scythe arms, seemingly cutting the very air.

“We kept all the successful experiments for ourselves,” Tyson explained to the girl. “This one happens to be my personal favorite. Razors, attack!!!”

Though I had no idea who the girl and the Charmander were, I didn’t feel in fair to drag them into my issues with Tyson. I streaked forward toward Razors like a bullet and fired a burst of electricity toward him, my mind racing. I had fought him and the other experiments before, and yet it was like I was doing it for the first time. Though it wasn’t really him I was attacking, I was hit with an overwhelming pang of guilt that seemed to drive me on.

Razors may have been in the way of things, but I could not let Tyson bend my will.

I fired my lightning in surges and dodged his slashes, but it was as though I wasn’t there. Memories flooded my mind. Past occurrences blocked out my senses and left me with nothing but images of previous torments. I was the only remnant of their experimentation that still could think, and now they intended on using me to find out how to gain control over the Legendary Pokémon…the most powerful creatures on earth.

Hate coursed through my mind as I glanced from Tyson to the Scyther that once was Razors. It was like I was battling on autopilot as my eyes fell upon the cockpit of the plane. The two captives had been thrown into a mess that been going on for years, yet despite their innocence, there was only one way I could end the torment.

They wouldn’t bend my will. They wouldn’t.

If it were the last thing I did, the plane would never land….