Feral Game

[Syrynn]

Table of Contents:
Key
Published!
Written, but unpublished!
Unfinished, but planned!

Chapter List
Chapter One: Experience Points the Way (Posted 6/4/2009)
Chapter Two: Beakon of Hope (Posted 6/5/2009)
Chapter Three: Earie Happenings (Tentative Date: 6/9/2009)
Chapter Four: Pidge over Troubled Waters (Tentative Date: 6/13/2009)
Chapter Five: The Tails We Weave (Tentative Date: 6/21/2009)
Chapter Six: Family Joules
Chapter Seven: Arcing Up the Wrong Tree
Chapter Eight: Turning the Paige
Chapter Nine: Morph for Your Money

Disclaimer:
All rights to Pokémon, the species names of such, Team Galactic, Cyrus, and all other general game data are copyright Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Game Freak Inc., and all other applicable parties involved in their creation. All original characters not covered above are copyright myself.

As this is my first fan fiction, I don't expect it to be wonderful, so critiques, comments, and general tips and tricks are welcome...

Story Rating:
This story is rated PG-13 for mild language, violence, and thematic elements.






Feral Game
By Matthew Nichols (aka Syrynn)



Chapter One: Experience Points the Way

"So, how long have you been here?"

The young man looked over in the direction of the voice speaking to him. He shrugged his broad shoulders and replied, "About a week, I'd guess." As he shook his head, his untamed red hair fell backward behind his ears. His skin was a healthy shade of tan, undoubtedly thanks due to a recent bout of diligent sunbathing. He stared at the iron bars of his cage and put his head in his hands, looking either exhausted, ashamed, or a combination of the two.

"You'll never make it out," the voice said suddenly in a gruff tone. "I've been here for... well, I believe about twenty-one years. I'd wager my last coin that you've been alive for less time than that. Unfortunately, they took all my coins and bills when they threw me in this stuffy old prison trap. I can't remember what I was even doing here when I got captured. I don't remember my true name anymore. This dank hellhole took all that I held dear, including my memories..."

The red-haired man looked up and nodded. "Legendaries alive... well, I remember my sister Kyra had called me over here to discuss some monetary problems she'd been having. Then the next thing I remember, I woke up in this cage. My name's Dylan... Dylan Jones." He nodded softly and looked at the iron ceiling of his makeshift cell. "Speaking of money, you'd win that wager you made. I'm only sixteen years old." He chuckled softly and showed a half-smile. His teeth were barely faded, with a near-perfect alignment. Only the space between his two front teeth seemed to be a nonstandard distance.

"Dylan Jones..." The voice was silent for a minute as its owner seemed to be pondering. "You can call me Shade," it finally replied, adding a deep groan in the end. "That's what the guards and scientists seem to call me, at least. I don't know why you're here, but I hope you'll tough out your incarceration. In a cell with nothing to do, I'm surprised I never fell over dead from the pure boredom."

Dylan tugged at the collar of his black prisoner's jumpsuit, one size too small for his five-foot-seven body. Deep down he cursed his captors for giving him the tight and itchy clothing, but it was certainly better than the alternative. He had a somewhat thin, yet moderately muscled build that required him to wear a large size in clothing. Apparently, so did many of the Galactic employees. The jumpsuit was nothing more than the Galactic uniform painted in a pure ebony and sewn together crudely. Nothing but the worst for their prisoners, obviously.

"Shade..." Dylan uttered suddenly.

"Yes?" came the reply.

"Since when did Team Galactic have such an elaborate prison scheme?"

"Hmm... Dylan, I'm not a hundred percent sure," Shade answered hesitantly. "I believe this is a secret underground facility of theirs. Only the high-ranking officials and inmates will ever find out about the dungeon that we're entombed in. When Team Galactic was founded forty years ago, they originally built this place to store highly dangerous experiments and incurably wild Pokémon.

"Ten years later," Shade went on, "most of this large room was destroyed in a fire caused by one of the loosened experiments. History has forgotten who he was before Galactic got their mitts on him; now we only know him as 'Pyrus.' The only prior history of Pyrus that is certain is the fact that he was once a human being.

"His species and all other attributes are a mystery to even Galactic officials. They never kept records of anyone they experimented on, just in case the police ever found their hidden laboratory. After the fire was quelled by alert guards, the surviving experiments and Pokémon were moved to a recently refurbished warehouse on the same floor. In the chaos of the moving day, Pyrus fought his way past the guards and into the stairwell.

"Upon weaving his way to the ground floor, he outfoxed the greatest mind of the Galactic force: Cyrus. Disguising himself as a grunt, he was ordered by Cyrus to leave for the day and get some rest, as 'tomorrow our plan will swing into full force.' He willfully obeyed, and upon his exit of the Galactic hideout, no one ever saw him again..."

Dylan whistled in awe at all of the information he had just taken in. "So, we're in a former experimental facility?" he asked. "That means that I might be exposed to mutated DNA strands at this very moment?"

"Yes," Shade responded with a conceding sigh. "I've never known Team Galactic to wash any of their holding cells, cages, or other equipment in this lower floor. For all we know, your very chemistry might be changing as we speak..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Kyra?"

The blond woman sighed softly as she heard her name. She was twenty-one, and stood at a height of five-foot-three. Her complexion was fair and even, with her wheat-colored locks draping the sides of her face like perfect curtains on a high-class window. Her jade eyes shone dimly under the laboratory's fluorescent lighting. "Ugh, what do you want now?" she moaned with a disdainful look on her face as she turned to address her dark-skinned coworker.

"Something's bothering you," the brunette explained meekly. "You're not yourself anymore." She looked at Kyra with walnut eyes, her hair tied behind her head in a bun. Rectangular, rose-tinted glasses lay snugly on the bridge of her nose. Her indigo lips shook as she awaited a response.

"Oh, for Legendaries' sake." Kyra's response was abrasive, shaking the very nerves of her coworker's foundation. "Chell, can't I get a thought in my head without you thinking something's wrong?" She threw up her hands in exasperation, the orange polish glistening on her fingernails.

Chell didn't seem convinced. Though she was only seventeen, and considerably shorter at four-foot-nine, she had a mind and mental sanity far surpassing her friend's. "It's Dylan, isn't it?" she said finally. She brushed the left sleeve of her white lab coat, wrinkling it slightly. There was a black ink stain on the cuff from when she had spilled her inkwell earlier that morning. "Kyra, you can tell me. We've been friends for over five years out here. What's going on?"

"I told you, nothing's wrong!" She flung her hand forward as she yelled, and in her haste tipped over the potion sample she had been working on for the past month. The glass vial fell to the floor, and with a deafening shatter, one unusually loud for such a small object, the vial broke into thousands upon thousands of miniature shards. Several hundred pieces, or what seemed to be so, lay at Kyra's blue boots. Just above her socks, several shards had cut into her skin, leaving a red, rash-like mark on her leg. Kyra dusted off the bottom of her black lab dress and examined her wound.

"Oh, great," Chell said snidely as she walked off to the east. "I'll go get the broom. In the meantime, I hope you can think of an explanation and fast."

Kyra looked at Chell indignantly and scoffed. "Explanation?" she thought out loud as she turned around to find the boss staring at her with a sneer on his cold, unforgiving face.

The boss didn't go by any name. Most of the workers just called him 'Boss.' At least, the smart ones did. His six-foot-ten stature towered over every other Galactic member. His heavy-set build brought fright to the faces of his subordinates, as they had to look up to even see what emotions their leader was possibly trying to feel. Boss tapped his right foot, the laces on his leather shoe bouncing slightly with each pound into the ground. Boss' black tuxedo was a sign of his power, as he was the only one allowed to wear a suit in the facility. "Jones!" he roared. "What is the meaning of this!?"

"Um... Boss, I..." she began. She looked away as she remembered her wound.

Boss cut in unceremoniously at that point. "Oh, I know exactly what happened, Miss Jones," he snapped with a snide tone in his voice. "You thought you were 'Little Miss Tough Stuff' and in your big-headed state, knocked over my sample! Do you even realize what that was!? That was for my experiments! And now your body is being overrun with it!" Boss stopped for a second to catch his breath, then continued, "Your little broom-wielding friend over there?" He pointed to Chell as she returned with the broom and dustpan as she had promised. "Thanks to your little stunt, Miss Davies is also infected!!"

Chell's face cast a horrified look. "With what, exactly, Boss?" she said reluctantly. She suddenly noticed the red chemical stains all over her arms and gulped. Something told her she didn't want to know what was going on...

END OF CHAPTER ONE

 

[Syrynn]

Chapter Two: Beakon of Hope

A lone Pidgey fluttered its wings on the basement floor. As it stared at the empty white walls and surrounding cages, it chirped a low, trilling call as it hopped in place several times. The small, brown bird had an unusual pair of brown eyes, along with a slightly discolored red beak. Why its beak was its crimson hue, Dylan didn't know. He eyed the Pidgey carefully as it began to dart around the room randomly, neither paying attention to Dylan nor its surroundings. As the poor critter smacked into the bars of Dylan's cage, Dylan reached out a single finger between the bars to pet the Pidgey. It blinked softly once, then hopped closer to the finger and allowed itself to be scratched softly. Dylan smiled and patted the bird softly, then withdrew back into his cage.

"Dylan, what is that you're petting?" Shade said with a hint of curiosity.

"Just a Pidgey," Dylan replied gently. "It's strange, this one's so beautiful too. I've never seen such a remarkable little bird. These brown eyes are incredible. And this red beak... I've never seen anything like this."

"Then obviously you haven't been to the right places," a feminine voice tweeted. Though the voice belonged to the Pidgey, Dylan wasn't sure whether someone else other than the three of them had made their way to the basement. "Shade? Did you say something?" Dylan queried.

"What? No, I didn't say anything yet," Shade explained quickly. "What, you're already hearing voices, Dylan? I had such high hopes for you... that shouldn't come into effect for at least another year!"

"The only voice the poor kid is hearing is mine!" the Pidgey chirped. "Shut up for a minute and let me talk to the red-headed jailbird."

Dylan looked at the new face and smiled. "So... you can talk too, huh?" He remembered his brief experience with a talking Pokémon a year earlier. He recalled that it was a Meowth who kept grumbling about two idiots it knew from about forty years ago. He chuckled as in his mind he replayed the whole speech about 'using up eight and nine-tenths of my nine lives' and how they always kept getting thrown into the stratosphere by Pokémon attacks. After the speech, Dylan recalled being so exhausted from listening to the cat's rambling that he swore off listening to talking Pokémon forever. However, since he really had no choice in the matter in his current state of affairs, he decided to give the bird an ear.

"Sure I can talk." The Pidgey ruffled its feathers and fluttered a pair of high notes into the air. "What, you thought we only knew our own names? What a load of crud. We've always known how to speak your language. It's just that all but a very few decide not to do it. Since you silly humans don't know our language, we stick to it around you. After all, we need our own secret communications method."

"What's so complicated about Pokéspeech?" Dylan said abrasively. "All you do is say your own names, or certain syllables."

The bird put a wing to its beak and shook its head softly. "Oh, you silly head of hair..." it replied soothingly. "Believe me, if you tried to speak our language, I guarantee you would say something so beyond ridiculous. A whole flock of Pokémon would laugh at you for quite some time. Do you know how many dialects of our speech there are?"

"As many as there are species of Pokémon, obviously," Dylan answered with a confident air about him.

The Pidgey squawked with a chortle. "No, there are over five thousand," it said. "Each species has at least five or six different regional dialects. Some have as many as two hundred! You'd never stand a chance."

"She's right, Dylan," Shade added with a soothing temperament. "Believe me, I've had to learn the language."

As Dylan pondered what Shade had said, he touched the tip of the bird's beak. His finger seemed to be absorbing some of the crimson hue. As the Pidgey tweeted softly, Dylan leaned against the bars of his cage, perhaps daydreaming of going for a run through a crowded meadow. His eyes closed as footsteps pounded the stairs in the background, slowly getting louder...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"You're certain it's down here, Miss Jones?"

As Boss uttered these words, he, Chell, and Kyra wound their way through the thin stairwell. Each step was barely big enough to hold both of Boss's feet, so the three had to queue up to fit on the staircase. The copper steps clanged lightly with each step any of the group took, echoing into the chambers both above and below. As they reached the halfway point, the area widened to hold both Boss and Kyra comfortably. Chell stood two steps above them, watching the conversation unfold.

"Yes sir," Kyra said reluctantly. "Our cure serum is in the back room of our basement. As I recall, we have only three vials left. One is still setting, and won't be at adequate strength for at least a week. If Chell and I don't want to be infected with our own strain of morphic virus, we need to use the two that have been properly processed."

"You realize, Miss Jones," Boss replied with a hint of disdain, "that your mistake endangered Miss Davies the most, so she will be the first to take the cure. I highly doubt there should be any reason that the second vial should prove useless, but just in case, you'll only drink after she's confirmed strain-free."

Kyra nodded softly and looked back at Chell. The red chemical marks had begun to spread to her coworker's face and legs, leaving
her looking like she had been sunburned in a patchwork manner. Areas of her natural skin tone remained, however, the markings were slowly but surely encompassing her body. The virus that Kyra and Chell had developed took full effect within three hours of exposure. After that time, there was no known cure. It had already taken twenty minutes for Kyra to recall the antibody location, and another ten for the group to reach their current spot halfway to the basement. Boss took several steps toward the bottom of the staircase, and slowly opened the door.

As the door swung open slightly, the Pidgey by Dylan's side chirped loudly. Her call didn't wake Dylan, for he was already lost in slumber. Pidgey stared at him and flew to the opposite side of the cage. She tilted her head slightly, watching for Boss's move as the door creaked open fully. Boss motioned with his left hand for Kyra and Chell to come down, and stepped toward Dylan's cage.

"Oh, it's Major Fuzzball," Shade lamented loudly. The distraction didn't faze Boss at all, as he had slowly immunized himself from Shade's sharp tongue over the years. He could take the taunts, provocations, and general idiocy of his experiments and enemies without so much as a blink. When it came to his workers, however, he left no room for error. Boss was a precise man, and inaccuracy, especially that which endangered others, was intolerable. He took a glance at Dylan, then turned as Kyra and Chell entered the area.

"Yuck, it smells like someone spouted Toxic in here or something!" Kyra exclaimed immediately as she pinched her nose with her thumb and index finger.

"If someone spouted Toxic in here, Boss would be dead, stupid," Chell answered angrily. "Stop being dumb, Kyra. You have to remember this is basically a wasteland. All sorts of experiments, mutations, and other crap line the cages down here."

"Enough, Miss Jones," Boss chimed in suddenly. "Miss Davies, I'm glad at least someone other than myself has the moxie to stand up to Miss Jones. She's been getting away with this sort of smarminess for far too long. Now, Miss Jones, show us the room with the antidote."

Kyra rolled her eyes and pointed at a door about twenty yards to the right of Dylan's cage. Boss nodded, and the three walked toward it. Kyra shoved the door open angrily, tired of taking Boss's mouth. After the slam, several loud smashes of glass rippled through the basement in a domino effect, like an echo straining to keep its volume.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?" Boss screamed as his face turned a perfect shade of furious blood red. His teeth gnashed against each other between breaths. "YOU STUPID LITTLE..." Every muscle in Boss' body shook as he strained to avoid using foul language in front of Chell. He was an angry man, but he had a lot of respect for Chell, as she was one of his ten best employees. As such, he thought it improper to be that crude around her.

Chell seemed to get the hint quickly. "Boss, I'll be upstairs, doing some paperwork before this sets in," she explained as she ran to the stairwell. She wasn't going to be there when Kyra got yelled at by Boss. With each quivering breath, she seemed to shed a tear from her eyes. Obviously, she knew that Kyra's anger had twice screwed her over. Soon she would be no better off than Dylan, Shade, and all of the other basement inhabitants.

Boss grabbed one of the shelves of the now non-functional antidote and vials room. He tossed the wooden slab at Kyra as she turned away in shame, the two-by-four landing with a deafening slap against her back. Vertebrae cracked as Kyra fell over, her breaths shortening. Her eyes clouded and eyelids shut reflexively. Unconsciousness had set in, as her body lay motionless on the ground. Boss grabbed an empty steel cage, six feet long, four feet wide, and three feet tall. He pulled out a large key, with 'BPCK' engraved upon the brass lining. As he inserted it into the lock and turned it right, the mechanisms clicked and the door swung open. He threw Kyra's limp body inside, then shut the door and re-locked it. Her body lay crumpled gently against the bars, each one-eighth inch thick, and one-quarter inch apart. As he looked over at Dylan, he said something softly about 'a bunch of idiots in that family...'

END OF CHAPTER TWO