Max yawned, stretching his hands out as he woke up.

He must have left the window open, as he was feeling quite chilly.

Looking over to his desk to see what time it was, Max realized something. He wasn't in his bed! Even worse, he wasn't in his house!

Gazing across the room where he now lay, he saw various lab equipment messily placed across some desks. Mountains of paper were stacked together in disorganized piles. A trash can ley on it's side, recently tipped over with its innards plastering onto the dusty floor.

"Where the hell am I?" Max asked to no one in particular. 

'Why would he wake up in a lab? Was I abducted by scientists in my sleep?' The confused Max thought, as he was trying to make some sense of what was happening.

"Achoo" sneezing, Max lowered his head to cover his nose. While looking down, he saw another detail he failed to notice in the dark room. He had no clothes on!

This was strange, very strange. Waking up in a strange location was one thing. Waking up in a lab while being naked was another.

Muscles now tense, his hairs stud on end. In his panic, he hurried over to one of the walls where a few lab coats were hung up. He couldn't see any other clothes in the room, and anything would be better than being bare cheeked in a cold laboratory.

Now that Max had returned some of his decency, he moved to more pressing matters. Where in god's name was he? The last thing he could remember was going to sleep after coming back from work.

Not having an idea of what was going on, he looked for clues in the papers littering the tables. Max yanked a handful of papers and flicked through them. Most of them were just full of text, which he didn't bother reading since it would probably take too long anyway. 

After flicking through a few more, he stopped on some pictures of foetuses incubated in glass chambers. Max stopped at an image of a red lizard.

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Clone #004

After showing good signs during the incubation period, the clone went into cardiac arrest and died.

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Max then flicked onto the next image of a turtle. Clone #002. It had also died of a cardiac arrest.

'Don't tell me I've been kidnapped to be cloned for organ harvesting.' Max thought in panic as the papers did nothing to relieve him of his worries. 'Or even worse, am I a clone?'

As his mind was spiralling into chaos while grasping at straws of an explanation, Max stopped his thoughts before he had an existential crisis. Taking deep breaths, he started focusing on more pressing matter. 

He may not know why he was here, but he did know that he had to get out of here as fast as possible. The main problem, he had no idea where he was. Moreover, if he was kidnapped, why was he not locked up in a room, or strapped into a medical bed waiting for his organs to be harvested. Although they were pretty important questions, it would be better to figure that out after he had escaped.

Going out of the room unprepared would most likely get him captured. Max looked across the room, looking for anything he could use to defend himself with. If they kidnapped him, they should be armed too or had guards that were.

After scurrying through the random assortments of items, max found a long wooden ruler. Giving it a practice wave, he nodded in approval. It would have to do, as the rest of the items were quite unwieldy. Max didn't fancy carrying a wooden stool along with him after all. He would be more likely to hurt himself than the people who had captured him.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down, max opened the door to peek his head outside. The door led to a hallway. Looking left and right quickly, Max didn't see anyone.

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Seeing that the coast was clear, max crept through the hallway. He needed to find an exit, and get out of here without being noticed. Probably the best bet was to find a room with some windows to climb out of. Most likely the entrance would be guarded or closely monitored, it would be naive of him to try and use it.

As Max turned the corner, he, he ran into an elderly man who was also wearing a lab coat. The man stopped, his facial expression froze for a few seconds as he looked at Max in confusion.

As max made eye contact with him, he had a strange feeling in his mind. The feeling washed through his body, and before he knew it, he seemed to be shrinking. Max looked at his hands, and the once smooth and young fingers started to become wrinkly.

"What the hell is going on?" Max exclaimed as he was waving the ruler towards the scientist in confusion.

The old man who now looked panicked quickly took a device from his lab coat pocket and pressed a button. The lights in the corridor started to flash red as a siren started to blare throughout the building. 

Max, in panic, ran past the old man. Forgetting that he was now running in an old man's body. After turning through a few corridors, he was out of breath and stopped running while panting. He could hear footsteps running in his direction. A few men in black uniforms with a giant red R on their chests ran towards him.

'Team Rocket?' Max thought, as he saw the classic uniform in front of him.

The one in the lead who looked like the leader stopped and looked strangely towards him.

"Dr Fuji, did the intruder take your clothes." The leader asked in a confused and comforting voice.

Max replied with a few fast nods without making any eye contact.

The group overlooked his strange behaviour, as they would probably be acting strangely too if someone stole their clothes.

"Barry, take the doctor to the safe room." The leader instructed towards one of the members following behind him.

"Yes, Sir!" He replied with respect, saluting towards the captain.

"Stay safe doctor" The leader said, as he started to jog again with his team in tow.

As the group went past the corner out of their sight, the remaining member looked towards Max.

"Doctor, please follow me." He politely asked. Receiving a response of Max's bobbing head, which was now full of even more questions.

After a few minutes of walking at a fast pace, Max saw some windows in the corridor that they were now traversing. Seeing this as his best chance of escaping, Max raised the wooden ruler and hit Barry at the back of the head. The Team Rocket member fell like a sack of potatoes, laying unconscious on the floor.

If he had more time, he would have switched clothes with Barry. But he was running out of time.

Max quickly opened the window, leaving enough space for himself to crawl out of. After getting out on the other side, he saw a barbed wire fence. On the other side lay a forest.

Max didn't fancy the choice of climbing over it with the clothes he was wearing, or the lack their off. Following the fence to look for an exit, Max found a section of the fence that had a small hole large enough to squeeze through. 

Max ran towards the hole and tried pushing against the fence to open up some more space. As he was doing so, the rattling of the fence alerted some guards.

"Hey you, what are you doing!" A guard shouted as he ran towards Max.

Seeing that time was tight, Max quickly squeezed through, getting grazed by some of the wires. He hissed and ignored the pain as he ran into the woods.

Running on the floor bare-footed was a new experience for Max. His unadulterated feet were now full of scrapes and bloody scratches.

After running for a few hundred meters, Max was huffing and puffing as he was trying to catch his breath. 

When his ears stopped ringing from the adrenalin, he could hear the signs of people chasing him. He could also smell the taste of salt in the air, as he guessed he was getting closer to the sea.

Max quickly carried on in the same direction and shortly came to a standstill. In front of him, the trees started to part and left a few meters of space before descending into a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, he was greeted by crashing waves.

As Max was pondering about what to do next, the crunching of fallen leaves warned Max of the appending arrival of his captives. When Max was thinking of what to do, a squawk of a bird rang out above him. When he looked towards the sound, he saw a large seagull.

The strange feeling he felt when he saw the professor happened once again. He kept on shrinking, and before he knew it, he had transformed into a large bird. The sounds of the hunters were getting closer, and Max knew he needed to leave as fast as possible.

He may be a bird now, but he remembered one key detail. He didn't know how to fly...

Max took a leap of faith and held out his wings as still as a statue, worried that any wrong move would send him plunging into the dark waters below. However, his fears didn't come to be. Flying, at least as a bird, ended up being a lot easier than he expected.

Max flapped his wings, getting higher and higher up in the air. He circled where he once was and now saw a small island. Flying away from the island, Max saw a large body of land over the horizon. Knowing that staying on the island was probably a bad idea, Max started to fly away towards the horizon.

After flying for what felt like hours, Max finally reached the other side. What welcomed him were groups of woods and fields. Following some tracks, most likely left by humans, it didn't take long for him to see a town not too far away. 

Being a bird, his vision was sharper than normal, and he could spot a giant welcome sign that hung over the path that now had become a road. It read, Welcome to Pallet Town.