The first sensation Wes felt was the gentle heave of a ship on a blustery day. Somewhere far to his right he heard the muffled sound of shouting voices and distant footsteps. The taste of salt hung about his lips.
Wes opened his eyes. He sat on the edge of a cot in the center of a tiny room. Smooth white walls glistened in the light of a single lamp set into the ceiling. They wrapped around him in a circle, seamless except for a door with no handle and a circular glass window.
Something moved in the room beyond the glass, but Wes didn’t care. His eyes stared ahead unfocused, his brain refusing to form any complex thought. He simply saw and heard and tasted.
A nagging feeling suggested that he should care, yet concern eluded him. Something about the white walls brought comfort.
Time passed, although time meant little to Wes, enveloped as he was in the warm, white walls.
Ever so slowly, clarity began to return. He remembered caring about something that had made him angry and afraid. Maybe he still felt that way? Adam told him to always be aware of himself, so maybe he should care.
Wait… Who was Adam?
This entire train of thought made little sense. Wes pushed it aside.
A strange and yet familiar presence brushed against the edge of his mind.
The presence slammed into his mind with urgency and strength that struggled against the calm warmth enveloping him. The fuzziness receded ever so slightly. Perhaps the presence conveyed some truth. Yes, Ras was right. Wes should be concerned.
Wait Ras? Who was Ras? And what exactly should he be concerned about again?
Wes’ eyes focused through the window of the cell, settling upon a white cat-like creature standing not ten paces away. It stood some three feet high at the shoulder, a white fur coat covering its hide from the base of its blade-like tail to a mane that lay flat and loose across its shoulders. Shorter, blueish-black fur grew around the face, muzzle, and the right side of its head where a single horn curved upwards like a scythe. Three massive claws protruded from each paw while a fourth spur grew from the ankles of its digitigrade limbs. The creature’s appearance might have been intimidating but for the fearful gaze it swept across the room and for the straps binding it in place.
Wes recognized the pokemon for what it was: an Absol by the name of Rastigan. His absol.
The first hint of emotion touched Wes’ drugged mind. He felt a deep seated familiarity and comfort brought about by the presence of the pokemon. Curiosity grew, and Wes brought his attention to the rest of the room.
The absol stood in the center of a large open laboratory with benches holding various pieces of equipment Wes didn’t recognize, a microscope, and a computer. Two cylindrical objects constructed of glass, steel, and plastic dominated the far wall. They looked something like an old-fashioned teleportation system with a jumble of tubes connecting the two objects.
A middle-aged man wearing white lab coat and a pair of everyday jeans sat hunched over the microscope. Dark, unruly hair touched with gray framed a haggard face and a mouth draw into a thin line. He glanced up irritably at a brown-haired woman in a blue uniform slouched against the door frame. Wes recognized the red and white symbol of the Pokemon League embroidered on her uniform.
“Of course it’s punishment! They put me on a damned rustbucket with an impossible task and a fraction of the resources required to complete it.” The man was shouting.
The woman at the door sighed. “Nathan, they put you here because you’re the only one who could do this.”
“They expect me to recreate the work of one of the world’s most brilliant scientists with a mobile lab and a shoestring budget. If they cared so much, they would have given me proper resources.” Nathan grumbled.
“They didn’t give you the resources because they have a cheaper option.”
“An inferior option.” Nathan said. “I’m going to get a failure on my record because some snotty officials felt like throwing blindfolded darts at a wall.”
“You haven’t failed yet. Imagine their faces if you succeeded.” The woman said.
“Yet.” The researcher glanced over to the absol and then sharply back at the woman. “Now leave me be. I need to work.”
The woman shook her head and slipped out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her. Nathan heaved a deep sigh and stood, turning to the absol in the center of the room. Rastigan glared at the researcher with hateful red eyes, his entire body trembling with a seething fury that Wes sensed through the fog in his mind. With a muffled cry, the absol struggled against the straps that bound him, its feeble strength doing little against the bonds.
“You’re in good health.” Nathan spoke half to the pokemon and half to himself. “All my notes, all my progress, everything says this should work.” He looked deeply into the creature’s eyes. “No, it must work. This is my last chance.”
The researcher grabbed a pokeball from his belt and pressed the button. There was a flash of red light and with a metallic thump, a large bipedal pokemon stood before the absol. Some five feet tall and covered metallic red armor and silvery blades, the Bisharp looked in askance at his trainer.
Nathan pointed to the strange cylindrical device against the back wall and the bisharp nodded its head in acknowledgement. It grabbed the blade-like horn of the absol while the researcher reached down and released the straps. This time the absol didn’t struggle, instead allowing the stranger pokemon to lead him into one of the two strange cylindrical devices standing against the far wall. With a soft click, the glass door of the device slid shut, locking the absol inside. Nathan recalled the bisharp to the pokeball.
Turning towards the cell where Wes watched everything transpire, the researcher marched across the room. He stopped for a moment to gaze at Wes through the window before typing something into a panel just outside the door. With a soft hiss, the door slid open and the researcher stepped inside.
“Eyes are tracking properly, you’re more lucid than I expected. That will make things easier.” The researcher said, stopping at Wes’s feet. Why will it make things easier? Wes wanted to say, but his muddled thoughts stopped him from forming words of his own.
“Remove your clothes.” Nathan ordered.
Seeing no reason not to do as the man said, Wes pulled his shirt over his head and began fumbling with his pants.
“The previous experiments ended in a complete rejection of body and mind.” Nathan continued as Wes undressed. “I think I have the physical rejection sorted out, but the mental one remains a problem. I have a hunch that the emotional bond between the participants is important, something which you and your absol fit into quite nicely.”
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Nathan seemed to like talking to himself, Wes realized. Perhaps the man was lonely. Wes understood that. He remembered feeling lonely sometimes too. Rastigan usually cheered him up though.
“To be honest all of this is mostly guesswork without a gardevoir or the like. My request to headquarters for one was denied of course.”
Wes finished disrobing himself and followed the researcher into the lab. They stopped beside the door where a computer monitor displayed some bureaucratic form. On the table next to the monitor was what Wes recognized as his wallet, his trainer ID, and Rastigan’s pokeball complete with the stylized ‘R’ he’d drawn upon it when he was younger. The presence of these objects was strange to Wes. Why would this man have his things?
With every heartbeat, the haze in Wes’s mind receded, and for the first time, something resembling proper concern prodded at his thoughts.
“Weston Gibbson, 17 years old, born on May 25th. Is this correct?” The researcher glanced over to Wes. “Well?”
Wes nodded.
“Good, now step into the left teleporter.” The researcher indicated the empty device.
So it is a teleporter. Wes thought, walking across the room to step inside the strange cylinder even as he wondered if this was truly a good idea. He turned around to watch the researcher slide the glass door shut with a click, and step over to a computer terminal bolted to the floor between the two devices. The man took a deep breath and tapped a button on the screen.
“Project theta-5 research log #1471.” He spoke into the air. “I completed the adjustments mentioned in log #1470 to stabilize the physical rejection of the subject. Analysis of mental instability suggests that familiar, friendly, test subjects may alleviate instinctual discordance. Two subjects fulfilling all new criteria have been prepared for the trial.
“Test subject designated PT31 is Weston Gibbson, human male, age 17, Kasper native, average build. Vitals normal. Test subject designated PT31b is an absol, male, fit, average build. White rank. Vitals normal. Genetic and mental analysis of test subjects #PT31 and #PT31b indicates optimal chances of success. An addendum will be added to this log following the test’s completion.”
The researcher pressed another button on the screen to end the recording. He spared one last glance to Wes and the Absol before closing his eyes.
“One last chance.” Nathan muttered to himself. “Please let this work.” He opened his eyes and tapped the center of the screen.
The teleporters hummed.
White light filled Wes’s eyes before his perception lurched and agony consumed him. Fire lanced through every muscle in his body and seared across every twisted surface of his skin. Pain overtook his senses. Pain let him know everything was twisted and wrong. Four limbs jutted from his torso at strange angles and thrashed against the floor. They were covered in white fur, three claws at the end of each limb screeching against the metal walls while blade-like tail banged against the glass of the teleporter. Blood dripped from the sharp teeth lining his maw while a dark-furred muzzle loomed in his vision.
The soul-shivering shriek of an absol filled the air. Only when Wes sucked in a deep breath and the scream stopped did he realize the cry came from himself. Through the glass door he saw the researcher and the empty teleporter from the wrong side of the room.
Wes’s thrashing grew weaker as the agony continued unabated. His cries faltered and he struggled to suck in a second breath. Darkness closed in around his vision.
Wes knew with absolute certainty he was going to die.
“ARCEUS DAMN IT!” the Researcher roared in frustration, tapping something on the computer terminal.
The teleporters hummed, light filling Wes’s eyes once more. In the far teleporter, something crumpled to the ground with a muffled thump.
The pain receded, leaving behind a dull throbbing in his limbs and a bone deep weariness that settled about him. Lucidity returned to Wes’s thoughts with a clarity he’d not felt since before waking up in this strange lab. Clarity enough to feel the wrongness in his limbs and to recognize the body of the absol he now inhabited.
“Log #1472. Addendum to log #1471. Subject experienced full physical rejection. Neither subject survived the test. Insufficient data to assess mental cohesion.” Nathan spoke from beside the computer terminal.
Neither survived the test? Wes’s thoughts raced. He tried to move his limbs, but they failed to respond. He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to move. Panic rose. He needed air. He needed something, anything! Was he doomed to perish in the dying flesh of his best friend?
Wes’s mind fought through the paralysis gripping his body. His lungs burned.
I don’t want to die.
Something in his body responded. His lungs twitched and a trickle of air was drawn in through his nose.
“Arceus above! Why didn’t it work?!” Nathan shouted, turning away from the console to give the pokemon one last look of disgust before stomping over to a computer set up upon the far table. The researcher sat down in an office chair and stared blankly at the screen. He slumped forward, burying his face in his hands.
“This is it then.” He murmured. With a deep sigh he glanced back at the screen and began to type.
Wes drew in a slow second breath, his panic receding as his lungs tasted air. He wasn't dead yet.
The boy-turned-pokemon’s thoughts began to churn. If he wanted to escape this hellhole, he couldn’t let the researcher know he was still alive. If the man expected a corpse, maybe Wes could use that. Wes was alive, unchained, and unguarded except for the one man. But what would he do? Could he even walk on four limbs let alone put up a fight? If the lab was on a ship, what could he possibly do if it was still at sea? There were too many variables.
Wes closed his eyes, searching his memories for anything useful. The last thing he remembered was hiking along the Slate Cliffs with Rastigan. There was a loud sound and then nothing until he woke up a few minutes ago.
Wes drew in another slow breath, careful not to make a sound. A pounding headache began to build behind his eyes. He ignored it, his mind wheeling through the possibilities. His immediate problem lay in the researcher. Would Nathan leave upon finishing his report, or would he dispose of the corpses himself?
The headache grew further and Wes closed his eyes.
A disgruntled man wearing a blue raincoat and a white sailor’s hat dragged the researcher out of the lab by his ear, leaving the door to the lab ajar.
Wes blinked, tossing the daydream aside. He needed a plan, not some silly fantasy. As much as that would be amusing to watch, he needed to find a way out.
Someone rapped against the door to the lab and entered without waiting for an answer. Wes cracked open a curious eye to see a tall man dressed in a blue raincoat and white sailor’s hat step into the room. The jacket dripped water across the floor. He was the same man Wes had imagined a moment before.
That shouldn’t be possible.
“What do you want?” The researcher growled at the newcomer, not even bothering to look up from his typing.
“Boss is on the phone.” The sailor said. “She wants to talk to you about your progress. Captain told me to get you.”
The researcher tore his gaze off the computer and glared at the gruff sailor. “Of course she wants an update!” he ranted. “She promises me exciting, unrestricted research, and then sends me to a half-baked lab on some oversized yacht with a failed teleporter created decades ago by some crackpot Kantonian researcher!” The researcher stood, his report forgotten. “This entire situation is absurd. It’s obvious she never expected me to succeed in the first place!”
“EY!” The sailor said. “Save your breath for the boss. Now let’s go! Boss is waiting.”
“If Ezzy is going to pull this shit, she can wait until I’m ready!”
The sailor reached out and grabbed Nathan’s ear and pulled the researcher unceremoniously towards the door.
“Alright, alright, I’ll talk to her!” Nathan screeched. “That hurts! Let go!”
“Fine, but stop whining and follow.”
The two men disappeared, leaving the door ajar and Wes alone in the room.
What was that… Wes blinked. Whatever vision he saw before wasn’t just a daydream. Now, however, was not the time to think. This might be his only opportunity to leave this place unseen. He needed to move. He needed to GET UP.
Wes’s limbs trembled and then shifted across the floor of the teleporter. He instinctively lifted his head and pulled his elbows beneath himself as he’d seen Rastigan do many times before. His strange, aching limbs protested the movement, and Wes looked down to see Rastigan's once white fur dyed red, and the floor beneath him slick with blood. The skin on his side was raw from his frenzied struggle while blood seeped from a dozen inexplicable lacerations spread across his hide. Wounds of the like would spell the death of a human if left untreated. For a pokemon? He wasn’t quite sure.
With a silent groan, Wes rolled onto his belly and pushed himself up on four unsteady legs. The world swam in a moment of vertigo, but as his head settled he turned his attention to the small latch on the cylinder door. He lifted a paw, tottering on three legs as he pulled it down with his claws. With an audible click, the door slid open, sending the now unbalanced Wes to topple forward into the lab.
He lay there for a long moment, gasping for air as fresh pain lanced through his alien body. With a force of determination, he shoved himself upright and began stumbling across the room to the second teleporter. He stopped next to it, peering inside.
A Wes-shaped lump of torn flesh met his eyes.
He turned away, swallowing back rising nausea and the fear of knowing that the body of Wes Gibbson was dead.
And Rastigan? What had happened to the pokemon whose body he now inhabited? Was his mind simply replaced by Wes’s own, or was he shunted into the dying human corpse in Wes’s place? No matter the explanation, the truth remained that his best friend was gone.
Wes blinked at the floor, another headache building behind his eyes. He blinked.
The researcher entered the lab and stared in shock at the wounded absol lying in the center of the room, its bloody pawprints leading from an open teleporter. Nathan quietly reached into his lab coat, pulled out a gun with a single dart loaded in the chamber. He aimed the gun at the helpless pokemon with a growing smile.
Wes opened his eyes and jerked his gaze to the still-empty door to the lab. It swayed and creaked with the gentle heave of the ship. Wes knew without a doubt that he needed to be off the ship before the researcher returned. If that was even possible.
Choking down the painful lump in his throat, he half-walked, half-wobbled back across the lab to the open door.
Rasitigan is gone.
The thought echoed through his mind. More than the physical pain of his wounds, or the wrongness of his alien body, the loss of his best friend was more than he could bear. Never again would he and Rastigan race across the Slate Cliffs, or annoy the wild pokemon in the Denville park, or watch a late-night tournament snug beneath a blanket on the sofa.
Never again.
Wes took a deep breath and used his mouth to grab Rastigan’s pokeball from the bench. With a growing lump in his throat, he stepped through the open door.
Goodbye Ras.