chapter 3

'That', in question, was the gelatinous blob of pixellated garbage that Cherry had broken out of the mound, in addition to one second figure, both laying on top of the Entei.

It was very feline in nature, a shade of salmon pink covering most of its body. However, a thick brown mane sprouted from its neck, and sharp white ridges protruded from its back, between which some bare, orange spots were plainly visible. Around its wrists and ankles, just before its large feet and tiny hands, were metallic cuffs. All of these caused it to bear a very unusual resemblance to the Entei it lay on top of.

In addition, the black ears, the long whiskers and the gem on its forehead also resembled those of another Pokemon, one they perhaps thankfully didn't see among the deceased. Its tiny form was curled up into a fetal position, its long tail wrapped around itself and ending in a swirl like the feline Pokemon, the Meowth, that was still in the arms of the body that had once named Rose.

“A... completed Mew clone.” Azurra was the first to say after a long silence. She thought back to the first floor, the empty tube. It was quite honestly amazing that anything had survived up there after Mewtwo had blown the place up. “But... not just a clone... a hybrid.” Was this the clone that the logs on that computer had been talking about?

“I'm more concerned about what the fuck this thing is.” Cherry poked again at the pixellated mass.

“That... is a very good question. It looks like those things in the tubes upstairs...” Azurra too ran a hand over it, making a face at its texture. “This... may just be one of the escaped experiments... which one, I couldn't tell you... how then, did they all come to be trapped in glass...?”

“I... well, it's plainly clear how they died, at least...” Zorana pulled on some medical-grade rubber gloves which had been hanging on the wall there. “I shouldn't need to perform a full autopsy on the humans, or the Meowth or Entei... these, on the other hand... if you'll understand...”

“You have my full permission, Dr. Smith.” Azurra saluted. “A full autopsy, if you will.”

“Good. I must know how this... thing, was able to live outside of its tubes. It simply shouldn't be...” She took the smaller of the bodies and lifted them both onto operating tables. “They, on the other hand, should be suited just fine for burial straight away. I would bring our friend inside to give us a positive identification, but-”

“It's just like she said.” Cherry held out the bags with the ID cards within. “We've got an ID on two of 'em. No idea who the third guy is though. Kinda looks like the Trainer kid. Maybe a brother? Or a dad. Dunno.”

“Mmmm. Well, maybe she'll know...” Zorana took a ball from inside her duffel bag as she began to pull out her tools. “But for now...” From the ball, she released a whispy ghost of white, blue and purple, that almost resembled a living dress, a kimono.  “Nessa, chill the room, if you'd please. Then follow our friends into that closet there and turn it into a freezer, just like we did the other day.”

The Froslass made an indistinct humming noise, before it seemed to take in a breath and blow chilled air around the room, causing everyone but Zorana to shiver. It drifted over to the closet door, then watched Cherry expectantly. It took Cherry a moment to pick up the signal.

“Oh uh... sorry. Yeah.” She wheeled the cart over and opened the closet door for the Ghost Pokemon, who floated inside and shot a beam of pure chilled energy at the walls and ceiling. Once it was coated in a decent layer of ice and frost, it took the other end of the cart and pulled it inside its makeshift freezer.

Zorana, meanwhile, pulled her scrubs out of her duffel bag and began to put them on. “I would prefer you wait on a burial until all the bodies are identified. I don't want to make the poor dear squeamish, so I must ask that you don't bring her down here until I'm finished. In fact, I would much prefer you go through their Pokemon and do what you will with them while I work.”

Azurra nodded. “Do you have them, Cherry?”

“I separated them out before I rolled the bodies down. Figured I'd let you have a say on what happens to them.”

“Well enough, I suppose. We can, perhaps, let our new friend do that. She seems like she needs something to do. There isn't much here besides dusty board games and old CRT televisions on carts with no VHS tapes to go with to speak of. I doubt they're new enough that I could go fetch us a DVD player, either.”

“So uh... should we do that, then?”

“Yeah let's get out of here...”

Zorana watched them leave. It was for the best, really. It was going to get pretty gross, by the looks of that thing. Best to leave it to trained professionals like herself. Really, Zorana was just glad it wasn't decomposing, or slimy. This one might be a bit much, even for her strong stomach. Perhaps it was best to just... leave that one for last. She knew she would have to get to it eventually, but not now.

Instead, she lay out the body of the feline creature in front of the harsh, glaring surgery lights. She wasn't used to going it alone, she usually had interns to help her. And certainly it was unusual to have to perform on a Pokemon. Her domain was normally humans. She would readily admit to anyone who would listen that she wasn't nearly as well-versed in the physiology of Pokemon, though she knew the basics pretty well. A creature like this shouldn't be too hard.

Externally, it seemed uninjured. It, though Zorana didn't have much of a reference point to go on, looked younger than those rare pictures snapped of Mew tended to look. Its eyes were large, when opened, and green, quite a difference to Mew's well-known blue eyes. It couldn't have been more than a few days old when it was 'born', she had to assume. Someone would have seen it around had it ever seen the outside of this lab. Its head even seemed a bit soft, almost like a human baby's.

It didn't take much to slice through its soft, peach-fuzz skin. This must have just been as good as a baby. Her heart hurt to have to be doing this to it. Certainly, it had deserved to live...

She peeled away the skin and muscle, revealing the organs inside, paled from the blood that had long since settled to the bottom of the body when the heart stopped beating, but still intact.

It seemed about standard fare to what she could have expected. The organs were laid out much like they would be in any feline Pokemon, with only some rearrangements for its basis' bipedal nature. All of them were depressingly still and lifeless, as expected. Near the base of its abdominal cavity, she could see the organs that indicated a female nature. A small, underdeveloped fire sac, a deep brick color, rested near the base of its trachea. The poor baby wouldn't have even been able to use Fire attacks yet...

The ribs were still pliable, and easy to break and move out of the way for access to the innards within. Its windpipe and its small, juvenile lungs felt stiff to the touch, as if the workings inside had been petrified. Had it known not to breathe in when whatever had happened, happened? Oh, this was unfortunate... yes, they were heavy with glass, there wouldn't even be a need to weight them...

To her immediate left, the Froslass she had let out floated at a table, with the papers and documents. It looked as if she was carefully writing down and sketching their findings out, making indistinct humming noises as it did so.

“...Are you getting all this?”

“Yes.” Were there anyone else nearby, they might be surprised to find that the Froslass could speak. Her voice was whispy and tired, as if she had seen a lot in her day. Truly, she must have been a rather old ghost. “A mere child...”

“I know... I still can't figure out how they ended up like this... it can't be a Pokemon move... can it?”

“None that I know of... it's possible that there was more going on with this... hybrid, than we know of, however.”

“It doesn't make sense, though. Mewtwo, as far as we know, doesn't have any signature moves that it doesn't share with Mew. Surely any other clone would be the same...”

“Hmmm... perhaps. I don't know if being a hybrid would give it access to some odd combination of moves that resembles this, though... keep it in mind.”

“It seems...unlikely.”

“I thought you were the one who always preached about keeping an open mind.”

“I never said I wasn't going to take it into consideration. I said it's a long shot.” Zorana now took the scalpel to the creature's head. She cut away a path around the top of the head, peeled away the skin there, and removed the loose skull plates, then the brain itself, slicing into it after her partner had finished sketching it as it was. She didn't exactly know what to look for, but documenting anything at all would be good enough. She could take it to someone who did know what to look for later.

She was thankful, in a way, that she wouldn't also have to decorate the body for funeral. That wasn't her job anyway. Did somebody here have a fire-type? Cremation seemed like the way to go here. It would be the ideal way to dispose of medical waste without having to explain why she was dumping the organs of an undocumented clone.

...Speaking of which.

“I'm gonna do something a little bit unorthodox.”

The Froslass looked up at her. “Since when is that unusual? After all, we're here, aren't we?”

“Heh. I guess. Tell me, did I pack any syringes? I need to take a blood sample or two.”

“...Why? Do we really need to do toxicology on... this?”

“No, no. I wouldn't dare send samples from this to a lab anyway. It's for a DNA sample. It would be good to have a sample on record. Even if no one will ever know about it.”

“I suppose that's a fair point... I think there are a couple of syringes in here... here we are.”

“Thank you.” Zorana took the syringe, checked the needle and gently poked the first blood-filled artery she could find, drawing out the blackened liquid from the body. Once that was done, she rolled the cart to the side, and looked to the other body in the room. “Y'know... it's one thing when it's humans. But it's another thing entirely when it's bizarre pixellated masses that may or may not even be possible on the inside.”

The Froslass watched her as she moved toward the sink, finishing up the notations she had been writing. “It won't be that bad. You've dealt with far worse cases, you know. Do you remember the man whose heart was rotting out of his chest?”

“Very clearly. It fell apart in my hand as I tried to examine it, even. No, but... I don't know. There's just something not right about that thing. Look at it. Go feel it. It shouldn't have been able to exist at all outside of its tube. Touching it was like fondling a fetus.”

“You've said the same sorts of things about Tentacool before, you know.”

“It was my birthday, and I was drunk, thank you very much.”

“They say alcohol loosens the inhibitions, you know...~”

“Look, it isn't the same as Tentacools no matter how creepy Tentacools are. They're built for the oceant, they have a right to be as weird and goopy as they are on land. This thing... to put it simply I get the feeling they weren't aiming to make a sea creature.”

“I suppose I see what you mean.”

“It just looks so... off. It's like a glitch in a video game. How did it manage to survive?”

“Perhaps you should stop asking me, and get to answering those questions yourself.”

Zorana looked as if she were about to come back to that, but decided against it, and moved over to a nearby sink to rinse her tools. She watched the excess blood and viscera swirl down the drain off to who knows where and shuddered to think what she might release into the environment upon cutting open that other creature. Even though it was probably harmless, and deep down she knew it, she couldn't help feel unease upon even thinking about cutting it up.

But, what must be done, must be done. And with that thought, chilling as it was to her, in mind, she wheeled its table over under the surgical lights and looked down upon it. It sort of oozed off the table, seemingly unwilling to hold any shape, like it was a plastic bag full of pudding. She couldn't tell nearly anything from a physical examination. Everything was outright foreign to her. Perhaps this was why she felt so unsettled. She was so used to being able to piece together a story by the body alone...

...No, no. No stories to tell here. The cause of death was already known, the tale already told. This was purely a scientific dissection.

“Nessa.. please get me my mask..? I have a feeling this one could get messy. Really messy.”

From the duffel bag resting on one of the counters, the Froslass pulled a set of headwear that looked a lot like a modern day plague mask and handed it to the doctor. It wasn't standard issue, and Zorana used a more normal one among a mixed audience, such as when examining for a criminal case when the police would be watching, but this surgical mask was her personal gear for smaller to-do's. It resembled the old paintings of Yveltal in shape, though instead of deep red, it was a distinctly shiny metal. She felt it spiced up the morgue a little to wear around, it was easy to see out of, and it was easy to clean in case of spatter, so she couldn't complain.

She put it on, secured it, and then looked down at the corpse of the real-life glitch with a grimace. This was going to be neither fun nor pleasant, but neither was that case where she had to identify the weeks-old murder victim and cause of death. She was used to the stench of the dead, but most who passed through her workplace didn't smell quite like that poor girl did.

Okay. Just need to get up the nerve. It's no different than decomposition, she urged herself. There is nothing that could happen that couldn't happen in the morgue.

With a little shudder, she lifted her freshly disinfected scalpel and set it against the creature's membranous skin. After a horrible squelching noise, it split open, and half-developed, not quite solid flesh leaked from the body onto the autopsy table. Zorana made a noise of utter displeasure at the sight of it.

“Oh come now. You have a stronger stomach than this.” The Froslass, Nessa, commented.

“I don't think you understand. At least liquefied organs stay inside the abdominal cavity. Normal bodies don't split open and ooze everywhere.” Zorana sighed, then leaned in a little to take a closer look at what had come from the wound.

The soupy mix consisted mostly of white, bloodless globules of flesh, intermixed with half-baked veins and blotches that may have been some sort of proto-glands. The way the colorless substance refracted the light, it made the other parts of the substance appear orange and dusty purple before the creature was cut open.

Careful not to let any of it touch her before it had to, she placed her instrument of choice at the edge of the area where the skin split apart. It was as if she didn't even have to cut, it just opened on its own. But eventually there was nothing more she could do with her scalpel, and she had to get her hands dirty with this horrific muck. She peeled away the membrane, and quickly learned that there would be no need for her larger tools – there was no skeletal structure to speak of. It was almost literally a flesh-sack of underdeveloped meat and organs, swimming around at the gentlest of nudging and squishing and squashing grossly around within its veritable grocery bag of a container.

As she rifled through the mess, she hardly found anything she could actually pick apart. Every so often, she would pull out an organ or two; a half-baked heart with the ventricles hanging open for having not been formed yet, an underdeveloped kidney which wasn't much more than a few papillae and nephrons entangled with loose purple veins.

“It's like there's... no structure at all...” Zorana stared down at a pile of avioli in her foreceps. “This thing shouldn't have been able to live at all. But... how did it?”

A large mound at the center of the soup caught her attention. Dusting the ichor aside, she felt the characteristic ridges along the side of her hand through the glove of a brain, about the size of that in the Mew clone she had taken apart prior, and well developed. As she pulled it out, she noticed no stem at the base of it. In the brain stem's place were tendrils, bundles of nerves that may have eventually come together into a stem and spinal cord had the creature allowed itself to develop more.

“Well... it's clear that it must have at least been capable of thought... mostly... if I cut this open...  ech...” It was clear from her hesitation that she didn't want a repeat of the initial Y incision. This was already going to be hell to clean up properly. May as well burn the table after this. Ugh. Just fucking light it on fire and forget this ever happened. Absolutely disgusting. She worked with rotting corpses for a living, why did she find such utter contempt in this? It just wasn't supposed to be. It was horrible and wrong, it was wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. This thing wasn't supposed to have even been able to live. Ever. Not at all.

She brought the brain over to the counter and set it down, frowning quite loudly as the goop from inside the body oozed onto the surface. From the first cut, she was relieved when the brain appeared just as solid as any fully developed creature's might. But... how was it the only thing that had developed? Beyond being a Psychic type, of course... even the most physically weak Psychic types still needed internal organs to live. An Alakazam might not be able to move of its own muscular power, but it still needed a heart, lungs, digestive organs...

A thought crossed Zorana's mind. The story Azurra told mentioned that two experiments had escaped... perhaps this one was but a puppet. Sentient, but kept alive by another being. She looked over at Nessa, who was busy note-taking.

“Are you better now?” the Pokemon asked,  not looking over.

“Quite frankly no. Nothing about this makes any sense...”

“Well, you could say that at least it's over.”

“Mmhm... I don't think I'll be taking samples for this... there's no blood to draw, anyway... and who would want to even try to work with this mess? Ech. Eeeeech.”

“Find out if any of the others has a Fire-type then and burn it. Burn it and forget it happened.”

“That's maybe the best idea I've heard today... do you think they'll make us stay down here, or can we ask them to stay in a hotel in the city instead? Say what they will about how intact the structure is, I don't want to stay in a place where the showers haven't been on in twenty years. I need it after this.”

“It wouldn't hurt to ask. Go on and peel off those gloves and get to the rest of them. I'll keep the place chilled.”

“Thank you... we can have a vigil or something, and then dinner and some rest in a proper place... that'd be alright.”

~*~*~

“So how long do things usually.. y'know... take.” Cherry groaned, flopped over in a couch in the break room they had found, holding up a hand of cards and looking deeply considerate.

“Depends on what she has to do.” Azurra answered, her own set in hand. “I don't know much about what she does, but I do know that a full examination can take weeks. They have to send things in for tests and all. But of course... I strictly forbid her from sending in things to test. I hope she understands. So not more than an hour, maybe two, ideally... any Aces?”

“Go fish.”

“Not here, either...” the Articuno seemed baleful, as one might expect from someone who had just lost a loved one. “...Will she at least be... respectful?”

“She said your companion and her friends weren't the ones that needed it.” Azurra leaned down to a coffee table between their respective seats and drew a card.

“Yeah...” Cherry agreed. “I found some freaky shit in there. Kings?”

“None here.”

“No...”

“Anyway. Found an undocumented clone and some thing that touching it felt like giving an eel a handjob with 'em. You want my intuition, I bet they died in a battle.”

“It sounds correct, but... doesn't make any sense.”

The Articuno stared at her hand. “Why did she not call me out, then..? I should have died with them. Ah... do you have any... how you say... threes?”

“None here. Now don't say that.” Azurra frowned. “Without you we might never have figured out how long they've been here. You might not know it, but you've helped us put together the pieces of a very big puzzle. See, your Rose has been documented as missing in action for the last twenty years. I think I told you that, but the general assumption is that she went AWOL. Some interview documents say that most other folks in her rank thought she was too soft for the Rockets. She never had a partner like the rest of us did. But no one was ever able to track her down in any of the regions. Her mother organized a search party that spanned damn near every region. Nothing. But finding you... we finally know what happened to her.”

“I... suppose I just do not feel the same. It doesn't feel like enough to be the next of kin. I didn't want to be the one left behind.”

“Sometimes it just can't be helped. Nothing you can do but move on... how about any fives, you got any fives?”

“No...”

“...Damn it.” Cherry slipped her a card, watching her set aside the pair. “Nah though, she's right. You gotta keep living for them. Tell you what, I felt the same way when my mom died. I was a lot younger than you are, though. All you can do is keep going.”

“If you say so...” The Articuno looked unsure. “So... do we have to actually... stay here? Because I would rather not... I haven't seen the outside world in so long...”

“If I may be honest I was hoping to spend the night researching.” Azurra shrugged. “But I guess we can take a group consensus. We'll see what Zorana has to say when she's done. If I'm outvoted, we can always raid this place tomorrow.”

“I suppose that is fair...”

“Works for me.”

“Great. Now all we have to do is wait. Any sixes?”

“Not here.”

“Oh... merde.”

“Thaaaank you.” Azurra set the pair aside, and then the three looked toward the door at the sound of footsteps, setting their eyes on the sufficiently grossed out medical examiner. “Oh, you're finished... what's eating you?”

“That was by far the most disgusting autopsy I've ever done.” Zorana shivered visibly. “Feels like I need to burn my scrubs after that, even though I shouldn't have to...”

“Even more disgusting than the basketball-sized shit compactions you work with on a nigh-monthly basis?”

“At least rectal blockage is a thing that can happen naturally. Whatever that thing was, that... pixel thing, it wasn't natural.”

“Oh, so it was as liquefied as it looked.”

“Pretty much, but not in the decomposing corpse way... its flesh was literally liquid. None of the organs were fully formed... except its brain. It shouldn't have been able to live in the first place. It must have been nothing more than a hyper-intelligent fetus.”

Cherry frowned. “Sure did feel like it when I had to touch it. Fuckin' disgusting, that shit.”

“You didn't have to cut it open... ah, anyway... does anyone happen to have a Fire-type on them? The best way to dispose of the waste would be cremation...”

“Ah... nope, nothin'.”

“None here.”

“I... do not think Rose had any, either... are her-”

“The Poke Balls are intact and fine.” Azurra assured. “In fact, now would be a good time to go through them...”

“I got 'em.” Cherry pulled her bag of tools from beside her chair. You could clearly see the round shapes within it. “We got one full team, one with four, and the third schmuck even had one on him. I'm bettin' one of these was that Meowth's so that's four on the chick.”

“Well... they're yours now, as the next of kin, if you want them.” Azurra stared at the bag. “If not, we'll release them. That's how it goes.”

“I... will take them.” There was a determination in the Articuno's eyes that had not been there before. “I want to go through them. The rest, we can bring with us.”

“Well, then, let's let them out.” Azurra nodded to Cherry, who poked through the bag and released the Pokemon in groups, one by one.

In one group, there stood a gigantic green toad-looking creature with a massive flower at its back. Next to it, a red dog with majestic off-white mane, a yellow, bipedal creature with a frankly gigantic nose, a round, reptilian creature that looked as if it were made of rock, and a bird not unlike the Pidgeot that Azurra owned, with a crest of a pink, rather than a blood red.

In the other, there stood a feline that resembled a cream-colored cougar, its black ears flicking and yellow eyes flicking around the room. A massive blue tortoise with cannons poking out of its shell towered over it and the rest of its group, which also contained a bright yellow Pokemon that looked exactly like a pitcher plant, and a small, bipedal fox, light yellow, who twirled a stick in her paws nervously upon being released and seeing the crowd and strangers. And away from the others, there hovered one golden two-legged creature with a magnificent mustache, carrying two spoons in its two hands.

“They're all yours now.” Azurra motioned to the groups. “Please, choose your team.”

The Articuno looked upon them. “Ah... hello... I suppose you do not quite recognize me, do you...” She jolted a little as the crowd of Pokemon turned their attention to her. “But... I am your new Trainer. Your old ones... they are... deceased.” She almost fell out of her chair at the cries of distress from them. “I am... the... how you say, next of kin? I... hope you may learn to accept me as you accepted your old Trainers... ah... well... I do not quite know how to... select a team... so, I would like you to choose for me. Which of you would prefer to travel with me, and which of you are alright... staying in reserve...?”

There appeared to be deliberation between the crowds. After a pause, during which the Articuno seemed increasingly disheartened, the Braixen toward the back of the crowd stepped forward, chewing on its stick a bit in what looked to be a nervous habit. After it came the Venusaur, who bellowed a croak of approval at the poor, nervous woman before it.

“Oh... merci...” This appeared to ease her spirits a little.

After some hesitation, the lone Alakazam floated toward her, arms crossed. Then the Persian, who rubbed against her leg with a purr, out of some odd cat habit. Then after them, the Blastoise and the Arcanine. The Blastoise especially gave her a look of recognition, as if it knew.

“Thank you... thank you all very much...” She looked completely flattered.

“Well, then that settles it. Congratulations. You're a Pokemon Trainer.” Azurra clapped her hands together.

“That answers my questions about whether or not there's any Fire types around, too...” Zorana looked toward the stairs to the second basement. “May I ask your Arcanine and Braixen to help me with a favor, then?”

“You may, yes...”

“Good. And any Ground-types around, I might ask to... dig a couple graves.”

“I'll handle that.” Azurra looked toward the studded Poke Ball on her belt. “You. Golem. I need you to follow me outside.”

The Golem grunted in reply, giving her a look of mistrust, but obeying regardless, wandering to her side. Next to it, she released the Garchomp she had used to access these basements, who glared and glowered down at it with a snarl.

“Kali. No.” Azurra booped the dragon's nose.  “No fighting here. What would your trainer say?”

The Garchomp looked a wee bit ashamed.

“That's what I thought.” She looked toward the others. “Now, before we do this... let's take a quick poll. Would you rather stay the night here, or would you rather go get a room at a hotel?”

“You already know what I think...”

“I was just talking to Nessa about this... I want a hotel.” Zorana frowned. “After that, I'd like to stay at a place with a proper, functioning shower, if you'll understand.”

“Ehh, gotta go with the crowd here.” Cherry shrugged as she rose from her spot. “Let's bury these stiffs and go sleep somewhere that doesn't give me the fuckin' jibblies.”

“...I see I'm overwhelmingly outvoted then.” Azurra shook her head. “Very well then. We'll find a place in town and get back to this tomorrow.”

“You're lucky tomorrow is my day off or I'd staunchly refuse to come back.” Zorana folded her arms. “Ma'am, come with me, please. I need you to identify these bodies before I can sign off on them. Then, I need your Alakazam to help me move that thing without either of us having to touch it. Ugh. Ew. Ew ew ew.”

“Alright... shall we, then...?” The Articuno turned to her new companions, who nodded, then slipped off of her own chair.

“By the way, miss, I don't believe I ever caught your name.”

“That would be because I didn't have one... but... I think I know what you can call me, now.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“Please... call me Rose.”