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Project Divinity - Front Cover by family_staralternate_emailTopazTalon

posted 4 years ago, edited 4 years ago

This is for a comic/story I'm working on. I have three pages finished, and I'll be posting them within the next few days!

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Art/Story/Characters (C) @topaztalon

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Pokéumans: Re-lived Part 1 "From parallel worlds" Chapter 4 "Rescued?"It was fairly early that Saturday. The sun hadn’t risen yet as people started arriving to the station, with the dense trees surrounding the area making it even more dark though the people didn’t mind nor care as long as they were hidden, some of them were residing in said station, whereas others came from their home in the nearby towns and cities. Spirits were relatively high after a visit from the director of the region’s main Pokextinction base, which also operated this station remotely. One of the people that had arrived was a scientist, his job was simply to take over research, particularly in pokextinction’s new top project and “principal” duties at the education centre of the station for the weekend, His life outside didn’t matter, his personal details didn’t matter, the job was what mattered. He arrived on a white ford, far from fancy, and registered inside as he got through the several security locks that were at the entrance typing code after code, inserting fingerprint after keycard, until eventually, it opened. The first thing he did was head into the main office. The nameless scientist quickly made sure to read through the updates and notes that the other nameless scientist who worked throughout the week left behind. He quickly took interest in how all but one of the transformees in progress had already moved onto the taming stage of their re-education process, even one that had been brought in the very same week. Beyond that though everything seemed to be going as normal, and by that he meant stale. It was frankly a little boring having nothing to do, all the transformees were still on their first stages of re-education or they had already completed it and were moved to other stations or even the main regional base as this one didn’t really require much pokéuman workforce, as he walked across the building eventually reaching the doors/pods he did take notice that the masquerain pokéuman was almost finished with the taming process, but the scientist would still have to wait a little more so the classrooms would remain empty for longer, oh well, not like there was much use for a masquerain. While walking through the base floor he ended up coming across the guard of this building, who as usual seemed to have a weird and honestly somewhat cruel enthusiasm for the treatment of the pokéumans, though not like he cared much, the guard could do whatever to the freaks so long as they were still alive to be studied on and re-educated. The scientist briefly checked up on the first and second floor, the first was empty and the second was more focused on research than re-education and since that wasn’t what his focus was, he paid little focus to it, he stroke small conversation with the other staff members there, including what he recognised to be the extraction team but that was that. Returning back to his office for what he’d assume to be the rest of the day at first he simply took notes and reports about the transformees but as there wasn’t much to update on he simply waited, the guard as usual pestered him and barged into his office for “security” when he knew it was really just to annoy him. However what was weird is that he only did it once, after he left he never came back and though at first the scientist was happy and didn’t think much of it, it didn’t take long for him g realise something was off and so, even though his survival instincts told him otherwise he grabbed a laser pistol for protection and exited his office to see what was going on. The building was eerily silent, more than usual, and the scientist felt a massive chill on his pine, keeping him almost paralysed but he continued on trying to look for the guard, he became even more nervous when he couldn’t find him anywhere despite the job of the guard being to literally patrol across the whole area. Even more scared but even more determined, the scientist walked upstairs to the first floor, the floor was mostly just classrooms for the second stage of re-education, teaching the tamed pokéumans all they needed to serve the pokextinction organisation, these classrooms currently were not being occupied though so they were just sitting there empty, locked and collecting dust, the scientist walked from classroom to classroom, and as he was close to not finding anything and thinking he was going insane he suddenly noticed a door who’s lock had been broken. The scientist by this point was completely petrified yet as he very slowly turned the knob open he was met with the unconscious body of the guard. Without looking away from the body and in a state of shock, the scientist moved his hands towards a communicator, trembling and shaking constantly almost dropping it, before slowly moving it towards his mouth and turning it on. Bzzt “Hello, extraction team of station 3? Can you read me? This is scientist #87 I have found the body of the guard unconscious inside one of the re-education classrooms which appears to have been unlocked forcibly, I believe there could be a hidden attacker in the facility.” He had already been agitated as he contacted the other people at the facility, but what they replied with only made his skin crawl worse than he had ever felt. “Are you sure? From what we can tell the guard is currently with us at the very moment.” The scientist dropped his communicator at that, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t rationalise himself, all he could think of at that moment was that he needed to get away and fast, as he ran downstairs his first thoughts were to head to his office, he was about to enter when suddenly a loud alarm sounded throughout that could only mean one thing, one horrible thing. The prt were attacking. A few unassuming cars drove through the highways in the outskirts of the city, in-between the borders of Mexico city and State of Mexico, as it was fairly early in the morning and the sun was only starting to rise traffic was low and most cars drove almost by themselves. One of these cars appeared to be like any other, in it, four friends, all in their twenties were heading to a large meet-up in the state, or at least that’s what they would say if asked by any onlooker. The people in that car were all fairly different from each other, from body type to fashion style, the driver was a fairly bulky dark-skinned man, with a little bit of heft and a little bit of muscle, and a little bit of beard, he also appeared to be the oldest one though not by much, he dressed pretty unassumingly all things considered, a simple pair of sweats and a hoodie, but seemed to be the most relaxed of the bunch as noted by his happy expression. The second one was by contrast the youngest of the group, the lankiest and the lightest skinned, he was blonde, looked to be around 19 and had by far the most energy as he was fidgeting a little on his seat, he wore glasses, shorts and a somewhat ironic Digimon shirt, his expression was slightly nervous and slightly excited. The third person, the only woman amongst the group sitting at the front right next to the driver was also fairly thin although had more of a swimmer build, she had short straight hair and had a slight alternative emo look to her as she wore a leather jacket, boots and jeans, a fully black shirt, several piercings and a red highlight on her hair, her expression was serious and slightly neutral. The fourth person had a similar thin yet athletic built, he wore a jean jacket, and a fairly average attire. He also had the most serious and frustrated expression of the bunch. They all seemed to be a diverse group, but one thing all of them had in common is, although in different positions, they all wore the same exact silver ring in their hands. The man in the jean jacket let out a groan of frustration before he suddenly spoke. “How much longer until we arrive? I’m getting impatient.” The driver replied. “Relax Diego, just because you failed your final exam doesn’t mean this meet up is going to go badly either.” One can’t be blamed for not noticing at first the weird, almost coded way the group spoke. Though it wasn’t the most subtle either. The girl then spoke. “Both of you better not try and pick up any girls while there, especially you Rodri, I know you have your habits.” She said as she turned to the driver Rodri seemed to flinch as she spoke, immediately he replied in a whisper and a tone completely different from how they were talking about before. “Do we really have to make that comparison Vale? It feels really inappropriate given they’re kids and all...” “It’s either that or getting found out y’know? I’m not the most comfortable with it either for obvious reasons.” Vale whispered in response. “Fine...” Rodri exhaled defeated before his mood slowly recovered. The lanky one decided then to speak up. “We probably should be careful, I heard the other class’ teacher is also going there.” Diego then exclaimed in shock “What?! Why didn’t you tell us until now Jaime?!?!” Jaime replied. “It was a rumour, it could always be wrong, they could’ve already left as well.” Diego sighed. “You better be wrong.” The car drove across the main road in-between wilderness, hills and the occasional buildings, before switching to smaller roads and eventually, as the four friends looked towards each other, nodded, and the girl fiddled with her ring, the car changed direction entirely from existing paths right into the forest. The car continued driving through the woods until deep enough to not be seen, the occupants once again looked at each other and nodded, before all of them exited the car, and then, one by one they all took their rings off, flashing a bright light that revealed four different Pokémon. Rodri became a Chesnaught, Vale became a Zoroark, Diego became a Gallade, and Jaime became a Rotom. They all looked at each other and the chesnaught spoke. “Ok everyone, you remember the plan right? We’re not far off from the pke station it’ll only take a bit of walking.” The rotom raised his arm-like limb. “Yes Jaime?” “I still don’t understand why you’re only here as backup and you can’t be brought in alongside Diego, you’re the strongest of all of us.” “Because.” Rodri replied. “This station’s main focus is the brainwashing and indoctrination process of captured transformers, they don’t wanna risk a possible breach by bringing pokéuman workers so they mostly use humans, having there suddenly be two pokéuman workers would arouse a lot of suspicion, and I may be the strongest but I’m the least qualified to sneak around, besides I’m the one that came up with the plan so, no biggie.” The rotom, Jaime, seemed to nod at that although it was clear he wasn’t 100% on board, but he trusted the chesnaught regardless. The group of pokémon walked through the forest for a good while, eventually spotting the clearing where the station was located, they hid behind the dense foliage watching around for the building they were looking for until... “Aha! There it is.” Rodri said pointing to the entrance of the largest building. As soon as he did the rotom quickly zipped around, the zoroark following closely behind, and entered into the digital security system of the entrance, it took a while for anything notable to happen but eventually the door opened and the zoroark headed inside, motioning for the gallade to follow, the gallade, right before entering put on grey contacts on his eyes, making him look like the brainwashed pokémon. It didn’t take long for the duo to find the guard, they took notice him immediately as he had just exited the scientist’s office. “Huh? Intruders!!! G-gah!!” Before he could alert anyone about the intruders he was swiftly and silently knocked out by the duo of agile pokémon, the Zoroark quickly used her illusion abilities to take the form of the unconscious guard and carried him around her arms, knowing that she had to hide him somewhere. “Urghh... Why are they always heavier than they seem?.” She muttered to herself. “Alright... If this is a brainwashing facility there’s most likely a bunch of rooms for the different stages, the brainwashing pods are too risky for us hmm... What else, what else.” The gallade spoke quietly. “There’s probably plenty of classrooms in here as well, usually they’re in the first floor and they’re mostly left unbothered without the threat of us falling to the brainwashing, we should see if any of them are empty.” “Got it.” Vale replied as she quickly climbed up the stairs with the gallade following, She prepared herself to cautiously sneak around and avoid being detected until she realised that all the classrooms were empty. “Weird... There’s nothing here.” Said the zoroark. “I suppose the pokémon they have are all only on their early brainwashing stage, still we should probably remain cautious as the extinctionists could walk down at any moment.” The disguised zoroark simply nodded as she quickly ran across the halls, eventually choosing a classroom located close to a corner where after a while of figuring out how to break the lock and having to break her illusion temporarily she eventually opened the door and left the unconscious body of the guard in. She quickly retook the form of the guard, eventually heading back to the stairs to get to the second floor, the one that had what they came here for. “Are you sure you won’t have any trouble making an illusion of the guard’s words? You only heard him speak like, two words.” Diego asked in a concerned whisper. “I made sure to train my best of my illusionary capabilities, don’t worry.” The zoroark responded using the guard’s voice. Neither of them spoke as they both arrived at the top floor, the gallade wearing a completely emotionless expression on him and the disguised zoroark trying her best to not draw attention to herself. They came across several scientist that paid them not mind, although they often seemed to give them odd looks, the group of infiltrators assumed it was due to the brainwashed pokemon following, they couldn’t have imagined that it was because the guard they impersonated wasn’t exactly known for being reserved. It took a good while as they had to do their best to avoid detection and they often hid from view for several minutes but they arrived in front of the door of the main laboratory, however before they could enter a scientist walked in front of them to stop them. “Hey what’s the big deal?” the “guard” asked “You know full well you’re not supposed to enter here.” The scientist responded. “But it’s my job to patrol across every part of this building!” “We don’t care, we’re not giving you the luxury of getting yourself involved with pokextinction’s top project. And where did you get that pokémon?” “He was transferred here to assist on the very same research, I was tasked to bringing it to you.” The scientist raised a cold eyebrow. “Shouldn’t that be the bottom floor scientist’s job?” “Excuse me?” the zoroark replied, having to use her illusions to disguise her surprise, suddenly before anyone else could say anything they were both interrupted by the scientist’s communicator going off. Bzzt “Hello, extraction team of station 3? Can you read me? This is scientist #87 I have found the body of the guard unconscious inside one of the re-education classrooms which appears to have been unlocked forcibly, I believe there could be a hidden attacker in the facility.” The zoroark and gallade internally screamed “Oh shit!” as they heard that “Are you sure? From what we can tell the guard is currently with us at the very moment.” The scientist replied on his end of the communicator as he glared at the “guard” in front of him. No words were needed as the zoroark dropped the illusion and the gallade removed his contacts and both charged at the scientist... Rodri had waited a while, he was admittedly a little bored but for the sake of his teammates he hoped they wouldn’t need his help, he knew missions like this were never going to be quick, especially one of such importance, it helped that being around trees and nature was in his element as a grass type. People always asked him why he seemed to always be so calm and happy most of the time despite his position, mostly the students at the base who looked up to him, truthfully he didn’t really think he was calm, but for the most part he simply wanted to be a good pokéuman and help others who needed it, if anyone needed someone to be there for him he would be that someone, he always liked to see a bit of himself on people. His daydreaming got suddenly interrupted by an alert from his communicator. “Rodri!! Diego and I have managed to gain access to the lab holding the files and particles we needed, but we’ve been discovered, there was a scientist working independently from the others we were not aware of, we request back up IMMEDIATELY, the whole station has been alerted already, get Jaime as well so that he isn’t discovered, over and out.” Came from the communicator Rodri smirked and ran as fast as he could to the entrance, he came across a few pokextinctionists on the way but he was strong enough to deal with them quickly, he eventually made it to the entrance and started whispering to the electronic lock. “Hey, Jaime, there’s been a change of plans so it’s best for you to get the hell out of here, I’ll barge in myself.” With that the chesnaught left the entrance, walked over to a wall of the building and crashed inside with a combination of rollout and spiky shield, breaking the wall inside. “Phew, a huevo.” He muttered to himself (I’m not translating that) as he entered and briefly collected himself before he started running through the hallways of the base floor. The pokéuman had ran through the halls of the extinctioist facility, often switching from a bipedal and quadrupedal stance depending on the space he was in. He had come across a few pokextinctionists who tried to fight him once the alarm turned on and they noticed him but even with their mighty tech they were no match for the raw strength of a Chesnaught. “We’ve managed to get a hold of the particles, and despite them being alerted and us originally believing the director was in the facility they haven’t made their presence known to us so it’s probably a good time for a retreat, we’ve got all the info we needed, over.” Came from the chesnaught’s hidden communicator. *“Understood, I’ll meet up soon but I’ll scout for any leftover info just in case, there’s only one hallway left and the bottom floor seems to be devoid of people.” Just as the Chesnaught said that, he was suddenly ambushed by a trembling scientist who tried to threaten him with a gun but was quickly put unconscious with a vine whip attack. “Be careful Rodri, don’t try to do anything you’re not supposed to.” Came from his communicator. “Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control. Over and out.” With that the Chesnaught continued, he quickly realised the hallway he entered was none other than Pokextinction’s infamous education chambers, or rather, brainwashing chambers, as he looked throughout the windows of the many rooms he found identical sights in all of them. Several different pokémon, some blissfully smiling, some had an emotionless look, but all of them were in a still, pacified position as they were drenched in the purple light keeping them controlled and turning their eyes into a cold empty grey. “I can never get used to this no matter how many times I see it.” Rodri mumbled to himself, he was about to leave as he came across one final room on a corner where he suddenly stopped as he realised there was something different about the Pokémon inside. ”No way.” Inside the last room was a low-key toxtricity, he was in the same pacified position as everyone else and at first it didn’t seem like there was anything different from him over anyone else, but the chesnaught could see one vital difference he had over the other brainwashed pokémon. His eyes weren’t grey. Rodri could not believe it, he blinked in disbelief before eventually realising that he didn’t have enough time to be confused. He immediately broke the door open and, with his eyes closed, broke the purple light that was brainwashing the toxtricity, the toxtricity fell unconscious, clearly unable to handle a sudden stop to the attack on his mind, he looked to be somewhere around ten years younger than him, as usual. Rodri carried the toxtricity on his shoulder, careful not to impale him with his spikes, before grabbing his communicator and directing it at everyone. “Hey so... Slight change of plans hehe, don’t worry I’ll catch up soon.” “Rodri you did not.” “What have we kept telling you!!!” “Are you crazy?” “It’ll make sense once I get there, ok? Out.” Rodri closed his communicator as he looked over at the unconscious toxtricity he carried. “Well, whoever you are, you were very lucky right now, and something tells me there could be something special about you, I just know it.” ... “L... x...” “L.... X!” I stirred awake for a moment, but not enough to be conscious, I could make out a few unfamiliar voices. “Don’t do that ever again!!” “Just let me drive and take care of the toxtricity!!!!” “You realise how dangerous what you did...” Then it faded into the background .... ... A vision “L...x, c... you h.... me?” “You... m... ...cial th... y.. ..ow!” Huh? Suddenly everything got really bright... I woke up groggily in a completely unrecognisable yet familiar environment, however I felt extremely tired and drained, it took me a while to even open my eyes, then it took me a longer while to actually be able to move my body, I was probably in bed for an hour, I tried to remember what had last happened to me let’s see, I was captured by pokextinction, My transformation had almost finished, everyone else... Oh, right... An alarm sounded, a scientist grabbed me and sent me too a weird room and then everything just got blurry, a little painfully so, Like TV static. In-between everything, I heard bits and pieces of conversations surrounding me. “He’s awake!...” “Be careful in case he’s still conditioned...” “Wow, He must be tired...” Eventually I was able to fully sit up and look towards my surroundings, once again I woke up somewhere I didn’t know, but it was a much less hostile environment than the cages, I wouldn’t call it friendly though, it was still fairly monotone, only a lot lighter than the dull cold grey of pokextinction, I could also see a little bit of green and blue, but more than anything I noticed how I was in a bed, covered by a singular sheet that reminded me a lot of the ones in hospitals, looking around then the whole room appeared to be a hospital, a tiny desk surrounded me beside the bed, I could see a tiny tv in front of me beside an entrance into what I was assumed to be the bathroom, and curtains, lots and lots of curtains. but, where was I? “Finally able to stand up?” Came from a voice that just entered the room, as I looked over in its direction, I found myself with a fully formed togekiss wearing a nurse hat who looked to be an adult though I have zero idea how I was able to tell that. Despite all the craziness of last week I still couldn’t help but be shocked at the sight, but I knew there were more important stuff and whether I liked it or not I was getting used to this mess, and I would’ve rather ask questions than sit there with my mouth open. “W-where am I? Who are you? What’s going on?” Involuntarily left my mouth. “Easy there kid, you do not have the energy to make such questions so fast, everything will be answered eventually but for now keep yourself calm.” The togekiss replied with a tone of voice that made it clear she was the kind of nurse that was just plain done with everyone’s shit and was going to be a nightmare to be with, I groaned internally both at that realization and at her response, being familiar with this kind of nurse. “You’ll get your questions answered, provided your following check up goes well, and I don’t have the time to answer them so you’ll have to wait for your “rescuer” to get here.” The nurse continued as she then walked over to the door and opened it. “You can finally come in.” “Huh?” Suddenly, almost bursting from the entrance a chesnaught appeared, running quickly at my direction as he stared in amazement. “You’re awake! Are you ok? What’s your name? I’m Rodrigo Palagot, but you can just call me Rodri.” He said with a smile. The togekiss nurse quickly pulled the chesnaught away from me. “The same as it is for him goes to you, leave him alone until we know he’s completely okay.” “I’m sure he’s fine, his transformation still hadn’t finished when he was in the pod.” The chesnaught replied nonchalantly, it was a bit weird how casual he seemed to be, he felt almost naive in a way. “No but it was close to finishing and with pokextinction you never know.” I jumped a little at the mention of pokextinction, though I wasn’t exactly able to follow what they were talking about, it seemed like the chesnaught noticed. “Don’t worry kid, I’ll tell you what you need to know, you see, you are a pokéuman, a hybrid between pokémon and human, you were captured by pokextinction, an organisation that kidnaps pokéumans and-“ I interrupted. “I-i already know the basic stuff... If I’m right at least.” My voice trailed off into a whisper as the sentence went along due to slight nerves. The nurse nodded and then looked over at the chesnaught. “Rodri, you know full well you can’t tell him anything until we’re sure he’s safe and checked up.” “Alright fine.” He eventually said, accepting defeat. The nurse then turned over to me. “Now it does seem like your back spikes have finally grown meaning that your transformation has finalised and thus you can go have your check-up.” I quickly moved my hands to my back to check and even though I couldn’t see I could feel my back spikes and, more importantly, I could truly feel that I was now 100% low key form toxtricity. “It was weird how they decided to send you to the brainwashing chambers with your transformation unfinished, but I guess they were getting desperate given how the classrooms were empty.” Rodri mentioned “So I was right about the brainwashing...” I muttered out loud to myself. “This kid already knows a lot more than most, I do think it’s best that we start his check-up as soon as possible.” The chesnaught continued. “Fine.” The nurse replied bluntly as she motioned for me to get up and follow the chesnaught, we exited the room and walked through a few hallways and I immediately took notice of my surroundings. The area was still fairly sterile, but it was a lot less hostile than the pokextinction building, while that was like a horror movie, this was more closer to a subway or a school or a military base, the last comparison seemed the most appropriate as I walked around and could see green and blue tones all over the walls, even a few murals that definitely reminded me of the military bases my dad worked at, sometimes I would see framed pictures of seemingly important people, only they weren’t people but pokémon, fairly strong pokemon, I would as well occasionally bump into other still strong looking Pokémon walking around. A venusaur, a tyranitar, A talonflame, etc. Seriously, I’m already not surprised by the existence of real life pokémon but why and how?? The pokémon I bumped into all seemed to be fairly busy and a bit reserved when they looked at me, but they were totally open when they talked to Rodri, who seemed to be fairly respected here. I was starting to wonder where the chesnaught was leading me into until finally we arrived at a small office door. The chesnaught knocked. “Hey, Luis, the patient’s here.” “Come in.” Came from inside as the door opened, when we walked in I quickly saw a fairly typical hospital office, fairly similar to the ones I’m used to going at the military hospitals my family takes me. Including a desk with two chairs, a bunch of equipment at the back and a hospital bed in the front of the desk, but what took my attention the most was the labcoat wearing hypno that was on the desk.” “Good afternoon, I am Doctor Luis Rosales, pokéuman neurologist and specialist in mind alteration. I’ve been made aware of your situation and I will be in charge of your mental check-ups for lingering brainwashing, I would like to elaborate more but unfortunately for security concerns I am unable to until we conclude the first check up.” I was a bit confused though I was kinda making a little sense of it given my theory but I decided against saying anything anyway. The chesnaught then spoke. “It seems from the time he was in pokextinction he already knows a few things here and there so I’m sure he understands.” I nodded although it was more a half truth than anything. “Very well, now then Rodri, you said you found him in pke’s brainwashing chambers on your mission from yesterday with his eyes still having his natural colour and his transformation unfinished right?” The pokémon in a labcoat asked. I thought to myself. “Uh huh, I noticed quickly that his eyes weren’t gray despite being in the chamber, then as I got him out I realised he still had patches of skin where he now has his spikes.” Rodri replied. “I see.” The Hypno took a few notes. “Then I shall begin, and do not worry, none of the check-ups will hurt.” With that the hypno closed his eyes and pointed his pendulum at me, at first I thought he would swing it but instead it stood still as a pinkish purple aura glew from it, a few minutes passed and it suddenly stopped and the doctor reopened his eyes. “Very unusual, I couldn’t feel a single trace of the brainwashing. Hmm. Young toxtricity, you don’t mind if ask you a few questions?” I nodded. “Very well, what is the last thing you remember dreaming about?” Um... I quickly had to think as I wasn’t good at remembering my dreams, I first came to the weird voice I heard before I woke up on the hospital bed but I wasn’t sure if that counts as a full dream so I answered with the last dream I had with my transformation.” “I... Dreamt, a day before I started transforming, that I was a toxtricity in the middle of a war I believe...” The hypno seemed a little bit surprised at that “Interesting... Very interesting...” “What are the questions for?” “I’ll explain once we’re done, What was the last thing you remember before waking up here?” “Umm... I was trapped in a cage by pokextinction... I noticed the guard that usually checks up on hadn’t appeared for a while, then suddenly a scientist came over, dragged me from my cage outside of the room and i realised alarms were blaring all over, the scientist then dragged me to a weird room and then I...” I tried recalling what was after but once again I had that weird feeling of static from before. “I... I don’t remember, it’s fuzzy.” The hypno’s tone got serious after my reply. “Fuzzy how, elaborate.” “I-i dunno, it’s a bit like static? I guess? It kinda makes my head hurt a little. The doctor cocked his eyebrow hearing that. “Really? That’s weird, you didn’t feel a soothing sensation?” It was my turn to be confused. “...No? Far from it honestly.” “Amazing...” I could hear both the hypno and the chesnaught mutter as the hypno quickly began writing more notes again. “Do you remember seeing a purple light?” “No.” They hypno suddenly turned to the chesnaught. “Do you remember seeing a purple light on his pod?” “I’m pretty sure I watched it filtered through the window, when i broke in I closed my eyes and immediately broke the lightbulb regardless of if I was right or not.” “Hmm...” the hypno was lost in thought. “Can I... Ask now?” “Ah, forgive me, of course, I will first answer you anything related to this session and Rodri here will later take care of answering any general questions, your first check up went extraordinarily well, if there’s any brainwashing lingering on you, which seems very unlikely so far, it would be rooted so deep in your subconscious that the base sees you currently as under your own will, and thus, considered safe, we will still have to do a few more advanced tests in the following days but if they go as well as this one, you’ll be good to go very soon.” With that explanation I was slowly starting to make a little bit more sense of what was going on, and most of my questions were general but I still had a few things to question about. “How exactly does this brainwashing work?” The hypno thought for a little bit before replying. “Well there are many different types, the most standard, which seemed to be the one you were experiencing is the full brainwashing that they do to almost all the pokéumans they capture and most humans subconsciously, this is caused by exposure to a purple light and the most notable symptoms are the subject losing total and complete emotion and eyes turning a grey colour if they have them, with an almost zombie-like devotion for pokextinction. There is also a version of this brainwashing that is much more subtle but much more fragile, it keeps your eyes and normal colour and doesn’t make you a completely mindless drone, but it does manipulate your emotions, particularly focusing on your aggression to align you with pokextinction’s ideals, this first check-up was to detect these two kinds of brainwashing as they tend to be the most common, and as you can tell, you seem to be clear of both of them.” I nodded, somewhat following the hypno’s explanation. The hypno however, seemed to take note of my lingering confusion and spoke after taking a deep breath. “Alas, it is clear to me that you still need to understand the full picture to fully grasp my explanation, Rodri I’ll let you do the honours, I’ll see you at my office tomorrow at this exact hour Mr.... Oh, right, what was your name? We don’t need your full name yet, just however people refer to you.” I gulped before answering, it almost seemed like the hypno had read my mind as I usually answer my full name when asked, although now that I think about it it’s entirely plausible. “Lex.” We arrived back at the hospital room, the nurse wasn’t there at the moment but I knew well she would come back from time to time, it’s not like I had never been at a hospital before, but the circumstances were definitely far, FAR, from the ordinary. Rodri walked fairly leisurely as we arrived. “This is going to be where you’ll stay for the next few days until we conclude your check ups, after that you’ll be able to descend to the bottom floors alongside everyone else, I was honestly surprised at how well the first check-up went for you, if that rate continues which I very much hope it does you’ll be out of here maybe next Tuesday!!” He explained in a cheerful tone. Despite his best efforts it was impossible for me to follow along with anything he said, I clearly did not have context for anything of what he was going on about, bottom floor? Everyone else? What did he even meant by that? Where even were we? I felt sunlight in the doctor’s office but there was something odd about it. And despite all of these questions running through my head I didn’t focus on any of them, I instead focused on one I had since I was in the middle of my transformation that was sitting on the back of my mind for days. And I could finally ask it. “Are my parents brainwashed, Rodri?” I looked over at the chesnaught, and I could tell he had an expression of surprise, as if he expected any of the questions I had circulating through my head except for the one I ended up asking, he took a few seconds to compose himself before a lot less confidently replying: “W-well you see... Ok, listen, I know you’re tired of this and just want answers but there’s one very important thing I must tell you before I can answer any of your questions.” I think he could see how disappointed I was at hearing that, he continued. “Look, it’s a long story, literally, I have to tell you a whole story to get the general concept of what you’re dealing with, every transformee hears this story when they arrive here, although, speaking of, you seemed to know a little bit of us from polextinction.” His normal, happy and somewhat carefree expression shifted to a very stern stare that just had the slightest thing of worry. “Did they tell you the story of pokéumans?” I was taken back by his sudden and drastic shift in demeanour. “N-no, another transformee told me we were pokeumans and we were kidnapped by polextinction and that was pretty much it, he said he heard it from someone who had a failed rescue attempt.” I answered with nervousness. “We... Er, I still have not a single idea as to why any of this is going on.” The chesnaught’s demeanour seemed to brighten up with relief at that Phew “alright, here goes, I’m about to tell you, the story of how us pokéumans came to be, like I said, it’s very long, and it comes in three parts, all of it is true no matter how crazy it may seem, believe me, I thought it was insane too, you might want to sit down for this.” I nodded along, sat down on the bed and awaited him to start telling this story... Yet he didn’t. “Just... Just give me a minute, I’m trying to make sure I don’t miss any details.” “Oh, fair enough.” I replied, Rodri seemed to focus for a bit before breathing in and out and beginning: “It was a long time ago, after the age of the dinosaurs but before the age of the humans, creatures known as pokémon came to be, no one is certain as to how beyond what’s known of the legendary pokémon, but they came to be and they were the most intelligent species on the planet at that point.” I opened my mouth in surprise before he continued. “These pokémon, with their diverse and supernatural abilities to control the elements adapted to any and all environments and were smart enough to build a civilization that advanced a lot faster than ours, this, is called the lost era as it has been completely erased from history. These times were mostly marked by happiness, as pokémon fighting was part of their nature and not something used for conflict, so wars were uncommon. Eventually, after a few centuries humanity began to evolve from the Neanderthals. The original pokémon were very cautious about them, some saw them as dangerous, others were simply curious, the natural reaction to anything unknown. The pokémon realised though that these humans were not as advanced as them, and so they decided to help them, to some degree, they created an almost magical kind of mineral that could non-permanently change their form into a human’s, under these guises the pokémon well... They mixed with the humans, starting families and sharing their knowledge so they could develop together. And things went well at first! However, as time went on, the humans, who grew smarter thanks to the pokemon ended up becoming more... Devious, they started subjugating the original Pokémon, forcing them to obey the humans, getting treated as inferior, in response pokémon started rebelling, and soon enough it was an all out war. Families were torn apart, everyone was hurt or killed from either side, eventually, after many, many years the pokémon couldn’t take it anymore, so they called upon the legendaries and decided to leave the humans alone to their own devices, erasing all trace of their existence. How, you may ask? Well, it was a great effort, the ground types dug up fossils and bones and anything that could be buried, any single record of their existance of any kind was taken away, utilizing uxie, beheeyem and any pokémon with power over the mind they created a massive memory wipe to all humans, making sure they remembered nothing, and regressing them back to a previous stage, essentially undoing all their influence as far as it was possible for them. Every single legendary, including some we don’t even know about yet combined their powers to open a magic wormhole into a new dimension, and overtime, every single pokémon crossed to the other side. They did however agree to keep a legendary in this dimension to keep an eye on the humans, who would eventually evolve all on their own, this duty ended up falling to the holder of the dna of all pokémon, Mew. This does not explain why we exist yet however, but it is what you must understand first before anything else, now we move onto part two of this story. For millions of years mew wandered the earth hidden amongst the humans, secretly watching them grow and develop as we normally did, however, despite her best efforts, one can only stay hidden so much for so long, and in the year 1910 her total secrecy came to an end. You see there was this scientist, who was a genius and years ahead of his time period, yet was forced because of it to work almost entirely in secret, he was stationed on south america on an expedition through the Guyanan jungle, when he suddenly found a little, unusual, pink hair, that seemed to belong to no species known yet, and possessed unusual properties as far as they could investigate, this scientist quickly took this mysterious single hair on an island where he and a team of scientists worked, you see this scientist had been researching cloning and was actually close to a big break, a machine that could create a full clone from the tiniest piece of DNA and he decided to use this hair from a mysterious specimen as a test subject, trying to recreate whatever creature it belonged to. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the machine, and there was a nuclear reaction that shook the whole world, kinda like Chernobyl, but even more intense, this one however had unusual effects on the populace, you see, despite erasing themselves completely from history some of the pokémon’s influence simply couldn’t be undone, with the humans still carrying a gene leftover from their pokémon ancestors, this gene had laid dormant and undetected up until now, but when the invisible reaction circled through the earth it awoke, and many humans from every continent, of every background started to transform into pokémon. Creating what we know as pokéumans Back to the scientist, as his island was the closest to the genetic shockwave, it ended up evaporating in the explosion from the world, alongside the workers in it, the scientist, who was the closest to the reaction actually survived, but, his gene was altered, not turning into an ordinary pokémon but into a Mewtwo, a completely new being coming from the mutations of mew and the scientist’s own DNA, this change left him insane as he was bombarded with all the knowledge that was kept away from the humans about the lost era at once, he gained so much power and intelligence and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to take over the world. Taking the name of Mr. X. Mr. X quickly took notice of all the other humans changing into pokémon, and his advanced brain hell bent on conquest very quickly created a plan, using the human’s fear of the unknown and lesser knowledge he wandered across the earth recruiting horrified humans and manipulating them, making them think he wanted to cure or even get rid of these strange new creatures, and thus pokextinction was formed, eventually, by his own psychic abilities and manipulating a few pokéumans as well he ended up turning practically the entire human race into sleeper agents, ready to capture any pokéuman at the sight of their transformation, and erasing everyone’s memory of the shockwave and of his previous human life as well to make sure he was never challenged. Mew would obviously take notice of what was going on and she quickly developed a counterplan to fight Mr. X, rounding up all the transforming pokéumans, most of whom were children on their early teens as it appeared that the gene manifested the strongest during puberty, rescuing a few of the pokéumans Mr. X kidnapped and began the pokéuman organisation headquartered in Japan, an organisation who’s goals are to help rescue new pokéumans and give them a new home after the previous one had been taken away from them, develop their natural abilities and, if possible, train them to combat the pokextinction threat, it varies from base to base, but here we try to give them as much of a choice as possible. Mew also decided to try and let the world be aware of us in a subtle way, eventually taking a human alias and developing what you now know as the pokémon games and eventually the pokémon franchise, you probably recognise who I’m talking about, this also helped future transformees get a glimpse of their hidden true self and get them ready for what they will become with information about their species, notice how huge pokémon got after its release? It’s because a lot of people saw some of themselves subconsciously on the many creatures they discovered on their videogame consoles, usually a sign of being a pokéuman is being a devoted fan of pokémon and feeling an almost personal connection with a specific pokémon, that being the one they transform into. This facilitates us and pokextinction to locate transformees so they can attempt to kidnap them and we can attempt to rescue them. Anyway, all of this became the status quo to this day, a war has been fought in secret hidden from all of humanity between pokéumans and pokextinction, pokéumans hide in bases usually underground across every corner of the world, right know you are in the top floor of one of them, the Base Pokeumana Desierto de los leones (In english: Desert of the lions pokéumans base), located in the national park of the same name here in Mexico city. Pokextinction meanwhile prefers to have several facilities organised by a local branch that rivals a nearby pokéuman base, the branch that kidnapped you was the Base Lider de Pokextinción CDMX (In english: Mexico city Pokextinction Leader base) You were specifically brought in and rescued from their main re-education facility.” Rodri said the last part with air quotes. “The only kind of agreement both organisations have is to keep this war a secret from the rest of humanity, neither side affiliated at least directly with any organisation of the human world, we’re not working with the government and pke, aka pokextinction aren’t working with the cartel for example. And to ensure this secrecy given the amount of people who normally would suddenly go missing from the world and be taken from their families to never be seen again, pokextinction prepares exact clones of every single person possible, using the DNA they take of the transformees they kidnap and we pokéumans are forced to let them do their thing, as we are unable to reveal ourselves to the world, it would be too dangerous, this means that above there’s a clone of you and a clone of me who are continuing our lives from where we left off.” ((So that’s what happened to my family...)) I thought to myself. “But we’re still not done yet! Time for the third and final part of this story, 100 years after the beginning of the war, and more specifically 12 years ago something insane happened. Mr. X went missing, eventually declared dead. The full details of what happened are unknown, even after all this time, there’s been many rumours of what ended up going on, most say that he was defeated by an unknown pokémon of equal power to Mr. X, some say from new york, there were even reports of portals allegedly going to the pokémon dimension opening in several bases, particularly in the United States.” ((Because of course there were there)) I thought to myself. “No one really knows what truly went on, Mew and the pokéuman who is said to have defeated Mr. X’s whereabouts are unknown, the pokéuman headquarters and the new York base suspected to be involved became increasingly secretive and private, no one being able to communicate with them, and thus all we have is incomplete rumours. But one thing is for sure and that is Mr. X’s reign was over. The war, however, isn’t. It has been going on for too long at this point and Mr. X’s impact was simply too great to be undone so we just... Kept fighting. Pke, after the fall of their leader, ended up fragmented into disorganised pieces, every base by themselves, some continued the rivalries they had earned with the local pku bases, some tried to continue the original mission, which as human values changed slowly shifted from eradicating us to taming us to keep humanity safe, while some strayed from it drastically, they even say there have been pokéuman and pokextinction bases that worked together and made truces since then. Although evidently you can tell the base that kidnapped you wasn’t one of them.And now you know the story of pokéumans Lex, you are one of us.” Rodri took a deep breath after telling the whole story. “I will leave you with a few minutes to process all of this information as I know from experience that you’re going to need it, once you’re done, I will let you ask any questions you want and I’ll try my best to answer them for you, I hope most of the basic ones were covered in this backstory.” I could not believe a word of what I had just heard, but then again nothing was surprising anymore, I had been slowly introduced in the past week to all of this universe and this story pretty much was the missing piece that I needed for everything to click and make sense, I guess it’s easier to process this way rather than find everything out all at once, and I was perfectly content to take this story as fact, don’t get me wrong there were holes and a few questions left to answer, but nothing too different to what’s normal when talking about history in such a condensed way, especially with such a large time frame. In the end I was able to collect my thoughts and I was feeling bittersweet, I understood this was a complicated situation but then again from his explanation it seemed like it was this way for everyone else, and I had proof of it with Alan and Lázaro and Yulian... If only they could’ve made it here. I only had one question to ask now. “Rodri?” “Mhm?” “I’ll never see them again, ever, will I?” I didn’t have to specify who I meant by them for Rodri to nod in response. “I’m sorry.” I was a devastated and didn’t protest when he came to hug me, it was a horrible feeling, especially knowing I had basically been replaced with a clone and they would never realise that I had lost them forever, but frankly I already accepted this a while ago in worse circumstances. I tried to change topic and signal a little bit to the chesnaught to stop the hug. “So um... This base, you said we were underground?” “Oh! Yeah, you’re right now in the first floor of the desert of the lions pokéuman base, hidden deep underneath the woods, this is the largest and oldest base in all of Mexico, we take pokéumans from all over the valley of Mexico and nearby.” He suddenly exclaimed, bursting with energy. “If you’re wondering how we manage to live underground like this, well, us pokéumans are good at coming up with new inventions and ingenious solutions to our problems, we’ve already figured out a completely healthy alternative to sunlight, which is what you felt in Luis’ office and it helps me a lot as a grass type!” Rodri was quiet for a bit, seemingly realised he had gone a bit off topic from where he started before continuing. “Usually, you’d be in a civil hospital the floor below but due to the circumstances of your rescue we had to keep you on the top floor.” “The top floor?” I asked. “Yup, this floor is dedicated exclusively to the PRTs affairs. The remaining floors are for recreation, education, and housing.” “PRT... Wait, that’s another thing I heard from when I was at the pke base!” Rodri smiled in surprise. “From your transformee friend like you said, I assume.” “I... yeah, he didn’t know what exactly it meant.” Rodri chuckled. “Don’t worry, I was going to explain to you anyway.” “The PRT are essentially a global military for pokéumans, when we talk about the pokéuman organisation as a whole we usually refer to the PRT.” He explained. “The name stands for Pokéuman Rescue Troop. (In spanish: tropa de rescate pokeumana.)” “It’s essentially the force that takes care of rescuing pokéumans from pokextinction and combating them and is the main line of defence of pokéuman bases, not every pokéuman has to join but most choose to do so, and I was one of them, I am actually chief commander of this base myself, pretty much the highest rank below the headmaster.” He said very casually, as if he had no idea he sounded like he was bragging. “Um... I think I’ll pass on joining that.” I said, not fond of the idea of joining the pokémon equivalent of the military Rodri simply chuckled and said it was alright, from then on the rest of the day passed, Rodri exited the room shortly after this conversation ended, as because of his important position he was often busy taking care of his job and overseeing the PRT, but often came back at brief intervals to check on me and continue explaining basic things about pokéuman society and just in general have a chat, though sometimes a random PRT member would barge in and interrupt him because he was needed somewhere, but he always made sure to come back and finish, he didn’t seem to struggle keeping up with either responsibility which was admirable. Rodri explained to me stuff like what the headmaster was: essentially the leaders of every pokéuman base and a weird hybrid between heads of state/government and school headmasters, he also explained to me that if everything went well with my check-ups, I would meet him soon to officially get registered as a resident there, he unusually didn’t want to elaborate when I asked him about who this base’s headmaster was, however. The nurse also came to the room on occasions, usually when Rodri wasn’t there but not every time so I had a few moments alone, her visits were a lot less remarkable, she really just brought me trays of food, mostly human food that she said would help me adjust to the great changes in my biology, but with every tray she brought a glass of water that I couldn’t recognise the flavour of, and whenever I asked she would just say “Try it.” She definitely reminded me of my grandma, who was also a military nurse funnily enough. I was apprehensive at first but eventually after I tried it, I found that it was delicious! It was a very hard to describe flavour, strong, potent but good weirdly enough, she still refused to tell me what it was though. Rodri kept conversing with me whenever he could, telling a few personal details like age, where we came from, etc. And other facts about each other like how he was an honorary elite PRT member, explaining what that meant, or giving me the details of the mission where he rescued me from pokextinction, apparently, they were looking to take info from pke that could be related to the dynamax phenomenon from the sword and shield games, I could’ve asked for more details but I didn’t really feel the need to. He also told me that mega evolution is a thing, not that it meant anything for either of us. At some point, clearly a lot later in the day we both ended up talking about the beginning of our transformations and how we were first kidnapped, apparently Rodri transformed the day after the X and Y games released and as soon as he evolved his chespin into quilladin, he grew a quilladin’s nose. “Yeah... Not the most flattering first sign, but it was essentially that or a sudden rapid gain of weight.” he explained, rubbing the back of his head a little in embarrassment. His rescue attempt seemed to do a lot better than mine, though, he even claimed to hold his own against pke, again, it didn’t seem to occur to him that it sounded like he was bragging, he said it so innocently. Once he finished telling his story I could see him starting to tear up thinking of his human life. He made no effort to hold it in and I tried my best to console him, I approached my hand slowly but he moved it away. “No, don’t worry, this is only natural.” He said as he cheered up a little. He then surprised me with what he followed with. “Hey Lex? Do me a favour.” “H-huh?” “Don’t try to hide your feelings, I’m sure you most likely miss them too, and it hurts, a lot, because being a pokéuman is losing everything to never have a chance of getting it back, even the smallest thing you took for granted, it’s not just losing your families and home, it’s being unable to go to that restaurant you liked, or to the neighbourhood you grew up in, or have any of the experiences of life you had so commonly before, taking a walk on the streets, going to big events, any belonging you had no matter how important to you is gone, you. Lose. Everything. You are cut off from everything and no one, trust me, not a single person is able to handle that much loss. Everyone here experiences the same thing and you wanna know what we do with that knowledge? We empathise with each other, and we work together to ensure we all get the best we can in this shitty situation we are forced to live in. So believe me when I say you have no reason to try and pretend this hasn’t affected you, or that it’s not continuing to affect you, I don’t even know if it’s possible to get over something like this, all we can do then is stick together now more than ever, that’s what being a pokéuman is.” Rodri said. His breath was shaky and emotional but he had a fire in his speech that was admirable, you can tell he meant it, you can tell he was passionate and you can tell why he was such a high importance PRT member from it, it reminded me of Alan’s speech too, they both essentially came to the same conclusion, I couldn’t help but smile and tear up a bit as well. Almost as if he read my mind, Rodri spoke. “I really wish we could’ve helped those friends of yours, but unfortunately despite it being our main mission we aren’t always able to rescue everyone, and it always crushes us to know we failed in our mission to help our new generation. But we really can’t afford to dwell on that as much as it hurts, instead we should focus on those we could save against all odds, like you, Lex.” I was a little flustered at that description of me. “R-right, I suppose...” “Well, it’s getting late.” Rodri said as he stood up and walked over to the exit. “I would love to stay and watch over you for the night, but I’ve got things to do, even at this hour, plus I think you’re old enough to sleep by yourself.” “I guess, I’m not an adult though.” I replied. “You’re not a child either.” Rodri argued. “Besides, with how low our life expectancy as pokéumans is you’d be seen as an adult for most responsibilities give or take already.” He said as he opened the door. “you would only be a year away from joining the PRT.” And with that, he left and shut off the lights. I decided to head to sleep soon after, though not before messing around with the single bedsheet I was wearing, it was a little cold, but I was tired enough for it to not bother me, it had been an interesting past couple of days, that’s for sure, despite everything, I was kinda glad it was all over to a degree, at least for now, as my consciousness fade there was one leftover thought crossing my mind. “So humans and pokémon had se-.”