11.5.02

Hi people! This is chapter one of my saga, Serum – I started this puppy a while ago (It’ll be even longer by the time I publish this, as I’m only on to planning Part 2, I’m starting to work on Part 1 in May, and I’m not publishing till the planning’s done – plus the fic should be quite a few chapters… Plus, the Internet’s buggered now, so I can’t even go on it!)

Disclaimer:~ I don’t own Pokemon, even though I would love to… It’d be cool – and if I were running the show, Pokemon would be back to at least 6 episodes a day on Sky One (Remember the good ol’ days, Brits?)…

But I might be getting Cable once NTL pull their fingers out and move into my county with their new Cable deal… Or I could move 20 Miles away cos they’re already there! I’ll miss Sky TV… Who am I kidding?! I won’t miss it for a day! A new episode of all my fave shows as they come out!! I’ll be able to watch Ranma ½, Love Hina, InuYasha and all the other great anime I wanna watch!! WWEEEHHEEEEYYY!!! J

Ok, now my rant’s over… On with it… ^_^;

:~Evil-Zarrah~: Presents

Serum

Giovanni marched down the long, dark, quiet corridor. He smirked to see that all the Rocket Grunts who passed him pressed themselves into walls until he was passed them. He arrived at a large, silver automatic door, which was about the only thing that wasn’t black in the corridor, making it stand out. He marched through the door, into the Team Rocket Laboratory. A man in a doctor’s jacket sat at a computer terminal; taking readings from a glass vial full of a dark, pink liquid. As Giovanni watched, he turned off the computer and put the vial on a shelf, along with eleven others of different colours.

“What are those?!” Giovanni snapped

“Oh! Mr Giovanni! I didn’t expect you! These,” The doctor marched to the shelf and grabbed three bottles, “Are the greatest discoveries ever known to man!”

Giovanni waved his hand, “So…? What do they do?”

“Well,” The scientist searched for words, glancing around the large room, nervously, “Well, as you know, Pokemon stolen from a trainer are very hard to control – often there’s no point in keeping it because it just won’t do anything! Well, you never have any problem training new recruits do you? That’s because humans are very easy to control! So, what if you could give a Pokemon’s powers to a human? You’d have a very powerful creature that’ll do your every bidding!”

Giovanni felt a smile crawl across his features, not quite getting to his eyes. He raised the bottle to his face to examine it more closely. The green colour of the liquid reflected from his face as the light hit it.

“You are going to make me rich…” He spoke so softly the scientist couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but only caught the word ‘rich’. Maybe that meant he’d get a promotion…

‘I can dream…’ The man thought.

:~~~~~~~:

Brock tossed some spices into his (in) famous Lazy-Boy-No-Chew-Stew. He glanced to the other side of the clearing he sat in. Ash sat on his sleeping bag, looking through his Pokedex. There was a strange expression on his face, Brock couldn’t decide if it was guilt, anger, sadness, or all three.

Misty wasn’t there. She was at the nearby lake with her Pokemon. Last he’d seen of her, the five of them had been playing Tag in the water. Well, Psyduck mostly floated along, and Togepi mostly rode along on Psyduck’s stomach, but anyway…

:~~~~~~~~~~:

FLASHBACK

:~~~~~~~~~~:

“Staryu, Go!”

“Chikorita, I choose you!”

The last round of a three on three Pokemon battle, Ash versus Misty, was about to begin. Ash had fallen into the old trap of Togepi versus Pikachu again, while Noctowl had knocked out Misty’s Goldeen.

The pair Tackled each other for a few seconds, before Staryu led off a Tri Attack, a move Misty had recently taught it without Ash knowing. The Fire in the Tri Attack damaged Chikorita, but she refused to back down, throwing a Razor Leaf at it. Staryu dodged easily, firing an Ice Beam, which missed.

Ash laughed slightly, “That the best you got?”

Misty only smirked.

Staryu continued the Ice Beam, still not connecting to its target. Chikorita continued to dodge, until finally both her and Ash realised that Misty had caged Chikorita in with the build up of frozen water. Now it only had one way to go. Toward Staryu.

“Staryu, finish it! Double Edge!” Misty yelled.

Staryu spun itself round, faster and faster, until nobody could follow it anymore. It flew toward Chikorita, who had nowhere else to go now. All other escape routes had been cut off.

“Razor Leaf the ice, try to get out!” Ash called desperately, but it was too late. Staryu collided headlong with Chikorita, knocking her back into the ice wall. She collapsed.

“Haha! Well done Staryu!” Misty hugged the Starfish Pokemon happily.

Ash cradled his fallen Chikorita, “It’s Ok, Chikorita, you did great. Return.” Chikorita was encased in a red glow, and she disappeared.

“Hey!” Ash stormed over to Misty.

“Yeah, Ash?” Misty looked up at him, her happiness shining in her eyes.

“You cheated!”

The happy look disappeared, to be replaced by one of confusion, “Wha--?”

“Staryu can’t use Tri Attack, or Ice Beam!”

“Well, mine can!” Misty stood up to her full height, which wasn’t all that intimidating to Ash, as he was now about the same size as her.

“Get over it Ash! You lost, because you don’t appreciate my skills, and you underestimate me! That’s why you lost, not because I cheated!”

:~~~~~~~~~~~~~:

END FLASHBACK

:~~~~~~~~~~~~~:

The argument hadn’t continued for long. It ended with Misty taking her bag, returning Staryu, grabbing Togepi, and storming off.

Now, Brock was stuck making dinner for two. It didn’t look like Misty was gonna be back for a while, if at all… Pikachu wandered over to him and looked up at him questioningly.

“Right, I’ve had enough!” Brock growled to himself.

“<~Is that because you really have had enough…~>” Pikachu flicked his tail, “<~Or because you just run out of aspirin~>” The electric mouse shook the plastic bottle lying beside Brock’s feet.

Brock grabbed the bottle and threw it in his backpack. “I don’t know what you just said Pikachu, but I better get more aspirin soon or those two better kiss and make-up soon, or I’m gonna go crazy.”

“<~Yeah… Kiss and make-up… Those two would rather kiss Gyarados…~>”

Brock understood most of that…

“You really believe that?!” He shook his head. “Professor Oak was right with that ‘Pokemon takes after Trainer’ thing. You’re getting as dense as Ash is…”

“<~That is mighty close to a Thunderbolt…~>” Pikachu snarled as small sparks began to fly from his cheeks.

“Ok, Ok, calm down, calm down!” Brock stuttered in a panic.

“<~Hmph…~>” Pikachu snorted. He would never be as dense as Ash…

“I mean, those two don’t hate each other as much as they make out… Of course they wouldn’t kiss… That would be bad…” Brock shook his head.

“<~Tha-at’s right.~>” Pikachu agreed, flicking his head cutely.

“I mean, how embarrassing would it be for me if Ash got his first kiss before me?!” Brock cried.

“<~Ho Boy…~>” Pikachu muttered. “<~I’m going to go see Ash…~>” He glanced at the hat haired teen, “<~Before he destroys that poor Pokedex…~>” Little did Pikachu know Ash had simply been flipping between Staryu’s information, and a list of possible attacks it could learn. Sure enough, there they were – Ice Beam and Tri Attack… Of course, there was no way he could ever admit that to Misty.

:~~~~~~~~~~:

Misty had given up the game of Tag, leaving Staryu, Poliwhirl and Goldeen to play Piggy in the Middle with a tennis ball, while she lay on the ground on her stomach, dressed only in a small towel, playing Solitaire with a set of Dog-Eared cards that had belonged to her oldest sister, Daisy, while Psyduck and Togepi watched.

The nerve of that… That… Boy!!

The cards lay untouched for a few moments as she silently fumed, again, about Ash and the battle from earlier that day…

:~~~~~~~~~~:

Giovanni marched along another corridor in the main base on Black Island.

Ok, so he hadn’t told any of the doctors he was coming, but that was the best way to catch them doing what they did when he wasn’t around. Sneaky? Yeah, but it gets you through the day…

Giovanni walked back into the Lab. It was bustling with activity. Grunts sat at the beds, being seen to by doctors and nurses. A nurse walked slowly and carefully to Giovanni.

“Yes, sir…? What is it you need? I could get the doctor…” She spoke hesitantly.

“No need. I’m here to find out the state of the experiments.” He snapped briskly.

“Oh… The serums are being tested on the Grunts as we speak. There have been…”

A siren screamed, and the nurse raced to a bed, where a female Grunt with long blue hair thrashed wildly. She was turning a sickly green colour, and strange vine-like appendages were popping up all over her body. As orderlies tried to hold her down, a nurse took readings from a display while a doctor took samples from the thrashing Grunt.

“Report!” Giovanni barked quickly. A nurse moved over, out of breath.

“This woman was injected with the serum containing Grass Pokemon genes. We’re still trying to find out what’s going on…” The nurse rushed back to the woman, who had by now stopped moving, and lay limp on the bed.

“Her heart is stopping! She’s not responding!”

The doctor sighed. “Give her 30mls of cyanide, and record time of death. Ugh, I thought we had it this time…”

“30mls cyanide.” The deadly poison was injected into the woman’s bloodstream.

“She’s… She’s not responding to it! It’s not affecting her at all…!” A nurse cried.

The doctor thought for a minute.

“Grass Pokemon are immune to cyanide.” He spoke quietly.

“Then… Could it be working?”

He ran to the bed. “Increase the dose of serum!”

The three nurses quietened and gazed at him.

“O…K…” A male nurse grabbed another hypo and jabbed it in the Grunt’s neck.

She screamed, a bloodcurdling scream, and her skin began to lose its green hue. Instead, vines wrapped themselves round her wrists, trailing from her wrists to her elbows, and her blue eyes, now open and rolled back into her head, were changing colour to an emerald green. Finally, the horrible screaming stopped, and she fell unconscious.

“Well?”

“She… She’s stable.” A nurse gasped.

Giovanni marched over. “Does this mean the experiment was successful?”

“I think it does sir!” The doctor beamed. “The woman should regain consciousness in about three hours. Why don’t you come back then to talk to her?”

“Oh… I’ll be here.” Giovanni smiled, a small, sinister smile, and left the room.

:~~~~~~~~~~~~:

“But…”

“No buts! You will be at the island in two days – I’m giving you that time to actually do something useful with the time you have in those uniforms, and if I don’t see results, fast, things will be so much worse for you!” The Boss roared at Jessie, James and Meowth, and cut the comm. Link.

“Me-Owth! Now whadda we do?”

“I’ve got an idea!” Jemes cried.

“Aloit the media…”

“Shut up Meowth. We can capture Pikachu!”

“Where’ve you been for four years, James?! We haven’t ever succeeded in getting that fluff ball, and that’s why we’re here!!” Jessie smacked him over the head with a fan again for good measure…

“No! If we get Pikachu, the Boss might reconsider! And we don’t have to get tested on!” James was pleased with his little plan.

“That might work! What we need is a plan so devious, so evil, that the Boss himself’ll be jealous.” Jessie purred.

“What ya got, Jess?” Meowth jumped up onto James’ head to hear this marvellous plan.

“Nothing. I just know that’s what we need.”

James and Meowth facefaulted.

:~~~~~~~~~~~~~:

Oh, God, I give up, 2000-odd words is good enough for me… It’s August now, and it was May when I started the damn thing… ^_^; Writer’s Block? You don’t know the half of it! J