|
|
Lights burned brightly on a nearby tavern, a sleepy Scyther stood guard at the taverns door. Not that the Scyther had to worry about any attackers... this part of the country was just as deserted as the others. Very few people or Pokemon were anywhere nearby... but up on a distant hill one conspicuous light burned.
Up a root-filled trail, rarely if ever traveled, was a lab, a lantern burning on it's balcony. Through a metal door with rusty hinges, and up breaking stairs, and into a room filled with computers, which looked much too advanced compared to the rest of the house, and these were the computers of the Lab of the Futures Saviors. One person sat alone, quietly talking.
"Viridian City? once a place of wonder. That was, of course, until Team Rocket got it's hands on a massive amount of Exeggutor. The psychic Pokemon managed to hypnotize many people in power? but the naturally greedy minds of the people in Team Rocket somehow shifted the balance.
The Pokemon wars were the result. Bombing, murders, all out warfare took place on all the cities. Cerulean against Pewter, Vermilion against Fuschia. It no longer made sense who fought who; all that mattered was the killing. And the killing the warriors had.
Radioactivity was used on Pokemon; to create vicious breeds made for killing and destroying. There were set upon buildings, tumbling down huge Pokemon Centers. They ripped apart Gym leaders like they were first year trainers. Everything was destroyed.
But the fun didn't stop there. After what seemed when the battle was all fought out of the humans, the Pokemon attacked each other. The slaughtered each other and themselves, committing suicide just to see the blood. Ranks of them passed through cities, murdering everything they saw. Cerulean, Pewter, Vermilion, and Pallet City were leveled. Wide swatches of land where nothing at all survived was common.
One city, the most grand of the original cities, was considered the best. Viridian City. It was in terrible shape, but compared to the others, it was in wonderful shape. The people ceased trying to rebuild, and instead concentrated on trying to survive. The world went into a further state of decay. Team Rocket rose up and crashed back down, like a tidal wave. Anarchy became the rule. And all power shifted, from good to evil."
Sabrina blinked tears from her eyes, looking to the skies. "Please let Meowth succeed."
There was a small growl behind her, and Sabrina slowly turned?
Tumbling down the hole seemed to last forever. The fire spun on their heels, sweeping the helpless Pokemon in front of it like a huge tidal wave sweeps boats. The pipe seemed endless, and it was heating up around them as the heat of the fire traveled faster then the fire could actually manage. Then, they were shot out into open air. For three sickening seconds, which seemed like hours, they fell, and then hit the ground with a sickening squelch. They had landed in the sewer pipe, which dripped of pestilence and disease. Despite his charred fur and the remaining heat of the pipe, Meowth felt cold. He flexed his tired muscles, and got up.
Meowth turned to check on the other members of his team, and cried out in distress. "Raticate!" He exclaimed, running over.
The huge rat was the reason he and Pikachu had not been fried. The size of the Pokemon kept most of the fire from passing him in the pipe. The fur on the rat was mostly gone, the skin was charred. And the same thing had happened to the army outside, only in a much greater extent. Butch, Cassidy? although Meowth never really cared much for them, even hated them, they didn't deserve to die. At least not in that way.
"If you alter this reality, none of this will happen." Sabrina's words echoed in Meowth's mind.
"Raticate, can you go on?" Meowth asked. "We have to move while they're still concentrating on the army outside.
"They wouldn't bother to clean anything up." Pikachu replied snottily.
"Master? master." Raticate said dully.
"If we can stop this from happening, they will never die." Meowth assured Raticate. "Now let's go."
Sneaking through the pipes turned out to be more difficult then Meowth expected. There were the unison marching of some sort of guard patrol above. After one patrol passed, Meowth pushed up the grill on the floor, and he looked around. No one in sight. The three Pokemon crawled out, and onto hard, sturdy ground. They hurried down the halls as fast as they could without alerting anyone, and without making unnecessary noise, all the time searching for some machine, which was the one thing, which had to be destroyed. Meowth didn't know why, but that was his quest.
The main corridor was easy enough to see. However, there were three guards. Two looked like androids, with parts of the skin on their face missing to reveal shiny metal underneath. The other one was Officer Jenny.
She looked metallic as well. Harsh, hard, unmoving, everything one could expect from a person made of steel. For one moment, Meowth desperately wished that the Cysian he had met in Team Rocket Headquarters could be there, to draw off their attack. But they had no Cysian? it was all up to them.
"Pikachu, leap out there and give them a shock! You have the only range!" Meowth exclaimed.
Pikachu darted into the open, and let loose a terribly powerful electric shock. The systems and circuits of the androids over-heated, and exploded, showering sparks in every direction. The machines collapsed. Raticate and Meowth hurried out and darted past the robots.
Raticate suddenly screeched in surprise, as something got hold of his charred tail. It was Officer Jenny. With one jerk of impossibly powerful mechanical powers, she pulled the tail right off. Raticate slumped forward with a sound. "Yah!" Meowth exclaimed, and leaped forward, fury swiping at the machine's optic sensory areas. The machine sparked, and drew a gun. "Look out, Pikachu!" Meowth exclaimed, leaping to slash at the gun, but it was too late. Pikachu fell backwards, a huge hole in his tiny furry body.
The sound of the gun reverberated through the dead corridors. There was a clanking sound, and suddenly seven Nurse Joy turned the corner, all stomping towards him. Meowth ran out of there, and through the door. Meowth backed up. He was trapped. There was no way out of here. His mission would possibly end now? "No! Not when I'm so close!" Meowth exclaimed.
He made a frantic lunge to one side as the mechanical Jennie fired her gun. The wall that Meowth hit gave out underneath him, and he fell into another sloping tunnel, sliding at top speed towards the ground. He let out a meow of surprise, and then was shot into open space.
Meowth hit the ground and slid. He blinked, and shook his head, standing slowly up, trying to recover his equilibrium. Then, he saw the machine.
The machine was a huge, red eye. It was blinking, and looking this way and that. Meowth darted to the top, where there were some large panels sitting there, untouched for what seemed to be weeks, if the amount of dust on it was any indication. Meowth began typing things in.
"Stop!" A voice yelled, and Meowth froze, turning. That voice? so familier.
"Misty?" Meowth gasped in surprise. This was the Misty? from HIS time.
"Oh, you figured out my little secret, now did you?" Misty said sweetly.
"I find this hard to believe." Meowth said slowly. "You were working with us? to stop all this? you're the reason?"
"Ha! Glad you figured it out, finally." Misty said, drawing a small pistol from her jacket. "Too bad you won't live that long to chew on the facts."
"But I don't understand? you? the agency?" Meowth stuttered, unable to work this out in his head.
"The Lab of the Future Saviors? Oh please. I took care of them, just, oh a few minutes ago. And I sent the androids after you and the electric rat I so came to hate." Misty snarled, and pointed the gun at Meowth. "Besides? look at this place! It's wonderful, now. Made in a perfect image."
"Have you looked around you?" Meowth asked. "Or are you that oblivious? This world isn't wonderful! It's a mess! And you made it that way!"
Just then, four Nurse Joy androids marched in, or perhaps one of them was real, and Misty melted in the background. "It's not ugly!" They cried into unison, taking up Misty's cry. "It's lovely! It's beautiful! It's the way the world was meant to be!"
"Well, this world just took a turn." Meowth said, and tapped the button.
The machine powered up, and eye lifted its huge, red iris to the air. It fired a blast of light. One of the Nurse Joy leaped over, and pulled the wire connecting it to the power source out. The machine ground to a halt.
"Without the power, the machine cannot change perfection!" The remaining three Joys exclaimed, the fourth having been melted. "You can not escape us now!"
Meowth had one chance. If one of the Nurse Joys were real, then maybe he could take that one down, at least. Meowth leaped forward, and fury swiped a Nurse Joy. It punched at him, his claws met on metal. He tired another. This one had blood. He continued to fury swipe, but one of the other Nurse Joy grabbed him from behind. He hung there, helplessly.
Then, the machine powered up again. "No!" A huge voice seemed to scream? all of the Nurse Joy at once. Brock certainly picked the wrong woman. Not that the Brock in this world was actually a?
"Stop that rodent!" Misty screamed.
Meowth looked over. Pikachu was holding the wire to the machine, and lightning was shooting everywhere. Nurse Joy after Nurse Joy shot towards him, but they were struck by the lightning and cleaved in half. The red beam of light swelled to an enormous level, and suddenly the world seemed to explode.
Meowth went flying. He landed heavily, by what remained of Pikachu and Misty. The entire room was collapsing? Meowth doubted he could escape. He felt the huge shard of glass sticking out of his abdomen and knew he wouldn't have very long, whether or not he escaped. Meowth looked up into the sky, and it seemed to clear, opening up as if to welcome him. One phrase stuck in his pain filled mind?
"If you alter this reality?"
