OK, so I’m going to be honest now. I really have no interest in the anime version of Pokèmon anymore. So, I’m very sorry if I make mistakes with the writing of this fic – I did try to do some catching up with it, but Pokèmon isn’t showing that often in Britain anymore, and the first three series aren’t showing at all, as far as I know.

Thanks for the reviews; I’ll try to get on with it, but as of now, I’m not adverse to any writing help any Pokèmon fans want to give me on this one, as my chances of ever finishing this without any are slim.

Note: Only Pokèmon 1-251 (not even all of those) will be in this fanfic; I don’t know anything about the rest and none of them are in Johto at this point in time anyway.

Disclaimer: Pokèmon: The Anime belongs to 4Kids Entertainment, Nintendo and anyone else who claims rights to it – this plotline is the only one I own.

Serum – Part 4

By :~Zarrah~:

Trixie DeCart stood on Victory Road – about half a mile from the Indigo Plateau, but very far away from the Team Rocket base, and safety. She was here because Giovanni wanted her to train, and of course, what Giovanni wanted was top priority for all Rockets.

Inside the cave, there wasn’t enough sunlight for her to use her newly developed ‘Morning Sun’ technique – which was really her only way of healing or defending herself.

There were no Rocket Guards in sight – most of them were being tested on and the ones not being tested on were too afraid of the powerful wild and trained Pokèmon that populated the area. She was all alone.

Except, of course, for the wild one coming up behind her – she managed to roll out of the way of the enraged Rhydon performing ‘Horn Drill’ in her direction just in the nick of time. Thankfully, the move was so inaccurate, even she managed to escape it; no matter how powerful her Pokèmon abilities got, for now she had the speed of a human.

That wasn’t a good thing.

Rhydon are predators, she thought to herself. It was probably hungry, and she was obviously the only non-Rock type Pokèmon in the area. In other words, she was the only thing edible. Oh, crap.

Crouching, she mentally flipped through her current list of attacks. ‘Vine Whip’. ‘Leer’. ‘Razor Leaf’ – but she wasn’t all too good at that one yet. ‘Morning Sun’ – useless here. ‘Sweet Scent’ – yeah, like that would do her any good.

Rhydon turned to face her, growling in its native tongue – she didn’t understand it, which was rather strange, considering she could understand most Grass Pokèmon – of course, she hadn’t been too interested in studying the fine details, and wasn’t to know that many Pokèmon not of the same elemental type don’t understand the others’ languages unless used to them.

The starving wild Pokèmon began a ‘Rock Throw’, reaching down to grab the biggest boulder it could lift and toss at her. Her chest constricted in fear, and adrenaline oozed through her veins, making her strangely cold. Maybe coming here had been a bad idea…

With a single-minded roar of “Rhyyy!”, the Rock Pokèmon threw the boulder at her – panicking, she shot a ‘Razor Leaf’ at the rock from the vines on her wrists; where a fully evolved Grass Pokèmon such as Venusaur could have shattered the rock into powder with the attack, her weak leaves only managed to break it into shrapnel-like chips of rock that sliced through her still outstretched arms, creating cuts that ran with blood of a nameless colour. She squeaked, shocked more than anything else. A strangely bitter scent filled the air, noxious to her enhanced senses.

The Rhydon snorted, ready to try again with another attack. Trixie debated running, but the only place to run right now, what with the Rhydon blocking the way she’d came, would be the Indigo Plateau – and quite frankly, she preferred the Rhydon.

She looked at it closely again; it was beginning a ‘Rock Slide’. Oh, no. Not thinking, she tried simultaneously ‘Leering’ at the creature and striking it with ‘Vine Whip’, but the damage was already done; boulders of all shapes and sizes began tumbling at her from every direction, striking her torso and limbs, bruising them badly.

She screamed in pain, but the scream was cut off as a small rock flew right into her mouth; she spat it out, now getting angry.

She was Trixie DeCart – she had the intelligence of a human and the power of a Pokèmon, and some wild Pokèmon with rocks for brains was not going to do anything to her!

Lucky Trixie – the Rhydon’s last attack had both made it need to stop for breath, and had broken a hole in the roof of the cave – not big enough to cause a cave-in, but large enough that a beam of sunlight was now inside the cave, bathing the grey floor in yellow.

If Trixie had been as intelligent as she thought herself, she would have used ‘Morning Sun’, healed her wounds and left before the Rhydon caught its breath. But, no.

Running into the beam of light, she began to charge for something she’d never tried – hadn’t been going to try – until now. ‘Solar Beam’. The most powerful of the Grass type moves – sure to knock the Rhydon out, giving her both experience and power; Giovanni was going to be impressed with her.

The feeling of the sun warmed her, easing her bruises somewhat and giving her the power to do what she needed to do – a ball of energy formed at her midriff, growing in size until she thrust out her arms toward the Rhydon and screamed wordlessly.

Unable to control the power she’d created, all she could do was will it to go in the direction she wanted it to go. It wasn’t that easy, as any genuine Grass Pokèmon would be happy to tell her.

The energy ball exploded, hitting her hard – she flew back with a glass-shattering screech, hitting the wall with a crack and sliding down it, leaving a trail of liquid that was dark on the sunless rock wall. The solar energy, now having nowhere to go and hanging dormant in the air, danced across, making it gleam in rainbow colours.

::

By the time Pokèmon officials, having heard the screams, managed to find the scene, all they found was what looked like a puddle of oil on the ground and rock face, and a trail of it leading off into the darkness of Victory Road – there was one Rhydon out there that afternoon that would be well fed.

:~*~*~:

“Welcome to the Goldenrod City Pokèmon Centre!” the undistinguishable Joy chirped, looking, like all the other Joys, both perky and happy, without a care in the world.

Pity Misty wasn’t feeling that way right about now. She kept reaching back into her backpack for Togepi, looking down the road to see how far behind it was, opening her mouth to tell the guys it had ran off again… before remembering that Togepi had been Poke-napped by Team Rocket.

And whenever she had to tell herself that again, her chest and throat tightened with emotion and she had to pinch herself hard to keep from crying. She was trying her hardest to keep her mind off that, now.

Feigning a smile, trying to look as cheerful as Nurse Joy, she handed over her Pokèballs and said “Could you take care of my Pokèmon?”, in as upbeat a voice as she could. Anything she could have or would have said afterward was cut off by Brock dashing forward, grabbing Joy’s hands and beginning his daily hormone-induced flirting session.

It always annoyed her when Brock jumped after anything with a skirt on – at first, she’d been telling herself that it was because he was embarrassing the lot of them, and that Ash had enough of a success doing that. Then she’d been afraid it was because she was jealous of Brock paying attention to them and not her.

Then she’d dismissed that whole idea as ludicrous. Now she just took the whole thing at face value. Brock did it, it annoyed her, end of story. It was like Ash’s clumsiness – a bad habit that needed to be stomped out, literally.

Either way, this time was quite a lot worse for her, in that the knowledge that Brock wouldn’t be doing this if it were his Vulpix in the hands of Team Rocket was burning at the back of her mind.

And that was probably her motivation for beating him up with a well placed mallet instead of dragging him away by the earlobe as usual. She loved that mallet. Daisy had given it to her in a rare moment of sisterly-love, telling her that mallet-ing was the best defence against a guy who wasn’t thinking with the right head.

Her oldest sister had then broken that moment by saying something along the lines of,

“But what am I saying? No guy’s ever going to be that interested in you, Misty!”

She’d then dramatically sighed, and said “Sometimes it’s tough, me being so beautiful.”

Misty had to cross to a window at that moment to spit the bad taste out of her mouth.

Swigging at a bottle of water afterward, she sat down beside Ash, who was moping on the bench, waiting for Joy to finish with their Pokèmon. She’d been a little delayed by having to push some of Brock’s joints back into place, but she was well on track now – Brock was busy carving the memory of Joy touching his limbs into his brain, and was sitting on the other side of Ash, occasionally giggling perversely and attracting strange looks from passing trainers.

Ash was looking- he was looking very determined. Misty knew the younger boy well enough to know that he was going through battle strategy for any upcoming battle with Team Rocket – she also knew him well enough to know that any plan he came up with would go straight out of the window as soon as there was a sniff of a battle; Ash would do something spontaneous and stupid, and most of the time, Lady Luck would smile upon him and it’d come off.

Sometimes it didn’t. But that was OK – he always had Brock and Misty to back him up.

Misty just hoped that would happen this time, too.

Tonight, they’d be setting out their new clothes and identities – and first thing tomorrow morning they’d be going into the Underground Marketplace in the west – and straight into the Persian’s den.

:~*~*~:

“Herbal remedies! Get your herbal remedies here!”

“Pokèmon haircuts! We can only do one a day!”

Brock glanced around nervously at the various merchants shouting at the three trainers. The old woman rattling on about Pokèmon remedies was stroking a Murkrow, which was in turn pushing its head into her touch, glaring in the direction of the three young people as if to dare them not to buy its owner’s wares.

The two boys advertising Pokèmon haircuts were waving scissors around – definitely not a good way to make business, Brock thought. There was a Togetic beside them that Misty was casting occasional glances at, then pointedly looking away again as if not allowing herself to think about her baby Pokèmon.

The Underground Marketplace was very… dark, for lack of a better word. The stone walls glistened with moisture, the sandy floor squished under their feet. The air had a musty, humid quality. This was obviously the dumping ground for those traders not good enough to find anywhere more comfortable to sell what they had to offer.

There were a few trainers hanging around, but Ash snubbed their challenges – one from a geeky-looking boy who had to keep pushing his glasses up, the other from a young man who obviously fancied himself as a bit of a psychic – and moved on, heading for the shady-looking man in black standing about halfway across the Marketplace, standing in a tiny alley, almost hidden. Team Rocket was rumoured to recruit young trainers here, but each time the police came to investigate complaints, there was nothing but a tiny alleyway. Part of the rock face had looked a bit suspicious, but they’d not been able to find anything to back up claims of an entrance to a secret lair, so had left.

Ash marched up to him and almost yelled, “Are you Team…”

The man clamped a gloved hand over the boy’s mouth and gave him a dark-eyed glare.

“Keep it down, kid, you want the cops to hear ya?” he hissed. As soon as he was sure Ash had processed the message, he took his hand away.

Ash had gotten the message. “Are you Team Rocket?” he almost mumbled back, and this time, the man couldn’t hear him. Brock spoke up, exasperated. At this rate, the man would suspect something.

“You’re Team Rocket, right?” At the man’s nod, he pressed on, “We’re looking to join up.”

The man nodded again and gave a toothy grin – his teeth were sparkling white. “OK, then, kids, we’ll be happy to have you. Names?”

Brock had named himself after his father, “Flint.”

Misty had given herself the only other water-oriented name she could think of at the time, “Luna.”

Ash, unable to think of anything else, had named himself after the current Pokèmon Master, “Lance.”

Team Rocket would be highly unlikely to check up on their names, Professor Oak had said the night before, so it didn’t really matter what names they chose. Besides, so many trainers renamed themselves stupid and un-pronounceable names (he cited Rune Angelique and Avalonis Ligress as examples from his own trainer database) when they began their Pokèmon journeys that it was almost impossible to find out trainers’ real identities even if somebody did get suspicious.

The man, who had come out of the shadows a little – they could see his dark robes now, covering what looked like a very skinny body – asked for their ages (there was really no point lying on that one), their towns of origin (They all named the same Johto City – Azalea) and which Pokèmon they had.

Misty had one of Ash’s Tauros, Ash’s Kingler and Tracey’s Marill. Ash had another one of his Tauros, and a Charmeleon and a Houndour belonging to Professor Elm. Brock had a Hitmonchan and a Geodude belonging to Professor Oak and his Vulpix, which he’d refused to go anywhere without.

The nine Pokèmon’s IDs had been scrambled, and they were able to give the names without fear of detection.

Finally, the Rocket agent nodded, and stepped out of the alleyway completely. He beckoned them toward the exit, a staircase not very far away.

“This way, please,” he murmured, almost inaudibly. Ash, Misty and Brock followed in silence.

:~*~*~:

Jessie had been sitting on the same bed for the past half an hour – it had been about ten minutes since a doctor had come and made her drink a cup of red liquid that was probably the serum, and all it was doing was giving her a red hot feeling in her head that occasionally spread down to her stomach as if she had just drunk a cup of coffee – or eaten a Charmander.

It was making her slightly ill. At first she tried to slow her breathing, call a doctor – and ended up slapping a passing nurse and getting him to call the doctor. She tried to stop the retching feeling in her stomach, of bile rising to her throat, and the strange, yet familiar feeling of her stomach twitching convulsively. She was going to be sick.

Finally, it got to be too much, and just as a large silver bowl was shoved under her nose, she vomited what she at first thought was blood (images of her suing Team Rocket for as much as she could get flashed in her mind) but then realised was simply the stuff she’d been given, or some of it.

Being sick left her with a penetrating exhaustion and a feeling of dizziness that made her want to lie down, but at least the heat and sickness was gone. She lay back down and was almost instantly asleep.

Beside her, the nurse flipped through a clipboard until he reached Jessie’s name – and put a frustrated tick beside the words ‘Unsuccessful – Subject Rejected Serum’.

::

Across the ward, the purple haired man called James had been injected with the Dark Serum, a murky purple liquid that shone like oil under the light. Doctor Andreas had been charged with watching this subject, as Dark Serum subjects had been known to combust under the pressures of the serum, and had to have a close eye kept on them.

He wasn’t really responding to the stuff at the moment. He had complained about the pain in his arm after the injection, in a voice that sounded almost feminine in tone, before settling down with Pokè-Girl Magazine and reading almost religiously.

At least someone around here was happy. Most of the other Rockets in here definitely weren’t. Many of the Grunts were having to watch each other die – either fatally rejecting the serum or becoming so violent after a dosage of it that trained Houndoom were sent in to kill them. Nobody had really bothered cleaning the place up after these exterminations, and so the ward smelt heavily of sweet, metallic blood and was dotted with dark red in random places.

There was an ear splitting scream somewhere across the ward – James dropped his magazine in fright; someone had been injected with the Electric Pokèmon serum, and static was crackling across the room already, sending some of the equipment haywire (James’ pulse momentarily shot to 250BPM and then back to normal as the energy affected the machine analysing it) and the young man in question was thrashing on his bed, yelling and screaming in pain.

A few Executives, each leading a Houndoom, dashed in and stood by the bed, waiting with a sort of anticipation that reminded Dr. Andreas of scavenging Bird Pokèmon. The Houndoom – five of them – were sitting now at the bed, a couple glaring around, but most staring feverishly at the victim, slavering eagerly; the Dark Pokèmon were starved to maximise killing efficiency.

Andreas looked away, lips pursed, reminding himself of the massive bonus he had been promised to work with the serum. At this point, that was the only thing keeping him there. He was a doctor, a little voice in his head whispered, not an attendant in a torture chamber.

James, still watching the spectacle avidly, turned to the doctor, “I-is that going to happen to me?”

Andreas shrugged indifferently, and a flash of panic stormed across James’ emerald eyes. An outside spectator would have found his next actions rather funny; he looked around him quickly, panic stricken, and upon seeing his target – the now stabilised Jessie – dashed out of bed and sprinted for her at top speed, occasionally giving the entire ward flashes of areas under the gown he was wearing. Thankfully for him, no one was really paying attention – but Andreas felt a twinge of embarrassment for him all the same.

He blinked. For a man in a hospital gown, James was sure moving fast. Almost as if he were used to wearing dresses… Nah.

He’d give him five minutes over there before dragging him back. Anyway, it would be about eight hours before he died-- err… before the Serum would begin to take effect – he had time.

:~*~*~:

And… end of chapter.

I would have left this until tomorrow – i.e. exactly a year after last updating, which would be kinda funny to me, but I won’t, mostly because I’ll forget by then, silly me.

Thanks to those who’ve reviewed so far, and especially to Alex Warlorn for bringing up points I need to think about.