RE: Feral Twilight (PG-13/Chapter Three Posted In-Full, Chapter Four Preview Up!)
IV. Cause of Infection
For over eighty years, the International Institute of Pokémon Science on Maritide has been heralded as one of the most prestigious colleges in the world for Pokémon studies. Situated on the island’s northernmost peninsula, the campus consisted of one central building with four annexes branching off in the intermediate directions. However, in comparison to the region’s other schools, the facility was relatively small and hosted no on-campus housing for students, meaning I’d have to find an apartment downtown when my first semester started.
Despite its pleasant façade, though, there remained one factoid about IIPS that boggled the mind of everyone who so much as visited the institute. Some twenty years ago, a catastrophic experiment took place that resulted in massive explosion, which caused major damage to the main building’s biology lab and front lobby. The full details about what exactly happened that night still remained up-for-debate, but the chain-of-events that followed ultimately made Dr. Felicia Marian Barnes the head scientist at IIPS, while getting her mentor Dr. Edwin Nobles fired and his credibility as a Pokémon researcher destroyed.
Even knowing the place’s history, I only concerned myself with the reason why Felicia asked me to come here today. Though she explicitly stated in the email that this was supposed to be an orientation, my gut kept telling me she either finally fulfilled my request to find out how to make Spunky evolve or meant to send me on a wild goose chase. More than likely, it’d be the latter…
Pulling into the main parking lot, I found myself in awe as usual at the massive area it took up. The blacktopped surface stretched out to nearly the size of a football field, if not more. However, there were only a few cars here near the sidewalk leading up to the main building’s entrance. A few spots over from the handicap spaces, I noticed a familiar yellow Camaro and decided to park right next to it.
Undoing my seatbelt and then opening the door, I cringed as I realized that I’d parked just a little too close to Felicia’s car. Squeezing out, I slowly closed my door and checked the adjacent vehicle. Thankfully, I didn’t scratch it, or I’d never hear the end of it.
Starting down the sidewalk, I noted that the campus lawn was just as expansive as the parking area and then some. Occasional trees obscured parts of the landscape, but it otherwise seemed to sprawl right on up to the granite-brick walls of college buildings. On top of that, the grass itself looked amazingly lush and vibrantly green.
Reaching the path leading up to the entrance, I stopped a moment to gaze admiringly at a pair of twin statues honoring the deities of ancient Sinnoh. On the right stood a massive quadruped of dinosaur-like stature with an elongated neck, sturdy legs, a tail that arced downward, a large frill atop its rear, and a huge bulge protruding from its chest. Off to the left, its counterpart was a bipedal monster of similar height with a shorter neck, shield-like forearms, a large orb protruding from each of its shoulders, a relatively stout body, and a vaguely reptilian figure.
Despite constant opposition from members of the community (including Felicia herself), IIPS’s oversight committee decided some ten years ago that it would be appropriate to erect statues of the mythical Pokémon Palkia and Dialga as a show of good faith towards Sinnoh, given Ronac had a shared history with the far-off region. Personally, I thought the twosome looming overhead as I headed for the building was sort of awesome, but I could also understand why people actually hated having them in place of Ronac’s own legendaries such the Golbanian quadruplets.
On the opposite side of the statues, the central building of the university towered over them and everything else on-campus at nearly eight stories high. Its design appeared octagonal when viewed from the front, though I knew that the backside of the complex was indented with a large courtyard where students could relax between classes. Glancing up at the three story panes of glass decorating the exterior of the lobby, I felt even more entranced by how the tinted glass had been adored the etching of three distinct lupine Pokémon.
The first on the right-hand side bared a clear resemblance to Spunky, save only for how this beast appeared to be clad in armor and twice Spunky’s size. Its armor consisted of a helmet that shaped to its forehead and upper jaw, a solid shell that protected most of its torso and part of its back, and chain mail that covered its neck, forelegs, and belly. I saw that, like Spunky’s mane, there were locks of hair sticking out from the backside of its helmet, but they draped down the sides of this wolf’s neck rather than flow down it like his did. Lastly, I noticed that the beast had a triad of long talons forged into a ring around each of its forepaws that arced forward so the blades were positioned several inches from its toes.
Opposite the armored wolf, on the left-hand side, was a six-foot-tall biped with a wolf-like head. Aside from having a human-like form, the Pokémon didn’t have any distinguishing characteristics in particular save for the demonic four-eyed mask it wore over its eyes and forehead as well as the bands it had around its neck, wrists, and ankles. However, I did recall hearing rumors that this creature did have insane psychic strength despite its earthly façade.
Across the windows above the two, there appeared the elegant silhouette of a third lupine being. Unlike the other two, its form was stretched out and obscured by a phantasmal mane of hair. Only its head and forelegs were revealed at the far left side of the etching, and even then, they looked like they were shaded out due to the mid-morning lighting. I made out that this creature had a distinct mask atop its brow with evident markings in it.
Metalupus and Canersia were heralded as Ronac’s “pseudo-legendaries,” given that they ultimately evolved from the same infant and were referenced in several legends throughout the region. It was common knowledge that Optipug always evolved into Lupudle thanks to tender-loving care from either their packs or trainers, and that they’d evolve into Caniclops if they grew to despise others. Coincidentally, nobody knew how Lupudle evolved into Metalupus or how Caniclops evolved into Canersia. For that reason, I asked Felicia if she could do some research into the matter if she had the time.
The identity of the third wolf, though, remained a total mystery. Myths from the Dallinos culture often portrayed him as either a king or chieftain of all the wolf clans in the region, and as the grave opponent of another Pokémon who betrayed him in his youth. Also, those same legends spoke of his two siblings (a snake and an arachnid) and how all three reigned over a Dreamtime world known as Beyi Quofyi. Of course, I didn’t put much stake into stuff like that myself.
I stopped at the front door and took a peek through the tinted glass to see if anyone was inside the lobby. Apparently, someone had been there earlier since I spotted a briefcase on one of the tables off to the side of the commons, but otherwise I couldn’t see anybody there right now. Trying the door, I realized that it had been left unlocked after all, so I went in.
A small antechamber separated entry doors from the actual lobby with three walls of clear glass. After I exited it, I entered a large reception area that formed a virtual trapezoid with how it started out wide near the entrance and then the flanking tan walls slanted inward towards each other until they met the one on the other side of the room. From what I could see, most of the floor was covered in a brownish office carpet except for three paths of white ceramic tile forked down middle and sides of the lobby. Four marble pillars formed a virtual square in the center of the foyer, due to how they were positioned in the left and right central parts of the room. Finally, I noticed that several tables, desks, and couches had been positioned neatly along the outside and middle areas of the commons.
Clearly something happened since the school’s offices were all opened up with their lights on, and the reception counter on the far side of the room. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to start poking my nose around, so I immediately took a seat on a nearby couch. Realizing a television had been mounted on a closest pillar to the entryway, I turned it on and watched a local news channel while I waited for someone to show up.
“To say that you people are idiots is an understatement!” Dr. Barnes basically screamed as she stomped out of far corridor and towards her office. Glancing at her, I immediately shut the television off so she didn’t think I’d been here long. Today she wore a long black dress with an ornate floral pattern that spiraled counterclockwise around her figure, high-heel shoes, and a pair of narrow-framed glasses.
“Felicia, please be reasonable!” a six-foot-tall African man with a thick accent pleaded, breaking away from a group of security officers to catch up to her. His attire consisted of a white lab coat, a gray shirt underneath it, sleek black pants, and a pair of blue suede shoes. For a scientist, though, he seemed rather muscular as opposed to most of the nerdy people I’d met the few other times I’d visited here.
“No, Ali! Due to the incompetence of people YOU hired, one of the deadliest Pokémon alive is in the possession of three bumbling bozos who wandered in off the streets during the wee hours of the morning.”
“But it was only a parasite. It couldn’t possibly be that dangerous,” the poor guy muttered.
“Doxisite can suck a Pokémon’s body dry in mere seconds. Do you have any idea what he’d do to a human? The monster’s got an insatiable appetite, and won’t stop feasting for weeks at a time. That’s why I had him confined to a Stasis Ball in the first place.”
“Felicia!” I called from across the room. The two scientists looked at me, but the man called Ali glanced away immediately.
“Jay, you’re here already? Good. At least someone here will be able to take my mind off all the crap I’ve had to put up with this morning,” Felicia commented with a smirk as she turned back to Ali, “You, stay here. And the rest of you, find out who the hell stole my Pokémon!”
“But, Felicia…” one of the security officers muttered.
“You’ve all got computers, and you’re all skilled hackers! That’s why you were hired in the first place! Get to work!”
“I have to apologize for that,” she then whispered as she ushered me to her office, “The sh*t really hit the fan when I came into work today. Since then, it’s just been one thing right after another going wrong.” When we got to it, we both went inside.
Felicia’s office was a spacious room with ornately-painted walls, bearing the fresco-like design of four snakes wrapping around each other until their heads met on the opposite side of the room; each serpent had a different symbol on his face (one with a V-shaped marking that extended from his forehead to his nose, another with a plus-sign between his eyes, the third with an upright pentagram on his snout, and the last with an X-shaped marking under his jaw). I saw that Felicia had her doctorate mounted dead-center on the far wall between the snakes’ heads. Likewise, she had a pair of replica samurai swords crisscrossing underneath the certificate. Several pictures and other ornaments hung on the other walls, including a flat-screen TV on the left-hand one. In the middle of the office a large sofa and coffee table were set out for visitors. Behind those, Felicia had a large desk with a Sony VIAO laptop and several portfolios atop it as well as a few file cabinets and office chairs at its sides.
As the woman headed across the room, she said, “So, I presume you know why I asked you to come here today, right?”
I took a seat in one of the chairs near her desk and replied, “You said it was for a private orientation, but I know you better than that.”
“Hmm…” she hummed before sitting down and thumbing through one of the folders on her workstation, “Actually I was going to give you a tour, but only after you do a little favor for me.”
“As usual…” She always had something she wanted me to do before anything else. Last time, she sent me into the Forest Ruins near Marble Town to try and find an ancient Dallinos tribal relic that ultimately didn’t exist. I couldn’t imagine what sort of thing she needed me for now.
“You’re familiar with the incident that occurred here over twenty years ago, correct?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Good,” she grinned, taking a piece of paper out of the file she’d just skimmed through. Then she set it in front of me and I read through it for a long moment.
“A confidentiality agreement?” I asked as she handed me a pen.
“What I’m about to tell deserves the utmost secrecy, and if you so much as utter a word of it to anyone outside of this school, you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands the likes of which you’d never imagine.” Shrugging, I took her pen and signed the bottom line of the contract in my best cursive.
“Thank you,” she commented, taking the sheet of paper and pen back. Then she reclined back in her chair and took a short glance back at her doctorate.
“Twenty-five years ago, your mother and I were graduate students here at IIPS. While we each studied different fields, her focus being general Pokémon studies and mine being Pokémon physiology, the two of us had quite a bond. Roommates, colleagues, friends… You know this much already, right?” Felicia spoke longingly. I nodded in response, and she looked back at me.
“Well, about a year later, Roselyn finished her Masters’ degree and went on to pursue a career as a regional contest judge. No offense, but that’s perhaps the biggest mistake of her life, regardless of how famous she became,” she continued, “I, on the other hand, continued forward with my studies to earn my Ph. D. As you can plainly see, my life turned all the better for it.”
“So what? You made me come here just to talk smack about my mom?”
“No. I’m just voicing my open opinion to you while I’ve got your ear,” the woman responded while rolling her eyes, “Let me continue…”
“The fall semester after your mother left was quite stressful for me. While I had all of these astonishing theories on how Pokémon gene frequencies could be converted through chemical-based reassignment, I possessed absolutely no hard data to back them up and designing an experiment that used living creatures wasn’t only unethical, but downright illegal in this region even at the time. So, it came down to two choices…either quit while I was ahead and find another field of study or improvise. As you may guess, I chose the latter.”
“Of course,” I said with a sarcastic grin. She gave me a stern look for a moment, and my smile immediately turned into a blank expression again.
“After several months of trail-and-error experimentation on microorganisms such as bacteria and protists, I finally decided to create a synthetic membrane I could seed with artificial compounds that mimicked DNA. At first it seemed fruitless, but eventually I got something to actually develop into a living specimen.”
“Interesting, but that sounds a bit farfetched to me.”
“Understandable, but everything I’ve just mentioned is one-hundred percent true. It was quite a revolutionary breakthrough since, until that point, no one else had been able to thoroughly prove Darwin’s theory of evolution correct in the sense that all modern organisms developed from ancestral species.”
“Come again? I thought you said you just created a new life form. What does that have anything to do with Darwinian Evolution?”
She sighed and continued, “The organism in question rapidly developed from a small cluster of microorganisms into a unified mega-colony with sub-human intelligence. Because its genetic code changed with every new generation of cells born, my project proved one and for all that organisms do and can evolve from previous forms over vast amounts of time, not just as part of their natural life-cycles such as the case with most Pokémon.”
“Now that’s where I’m a bit confused. I’m aware that the current theories about the origins of modern day Pokémon species state that they developed from ancestral species, hence why Darwin’s theory is important to you as a Pokémon Scientist. But, the idea is that the process took place over millions if not billions of years. What type of experiment could you have run in a relatively short amount of time that could have supported those ideas beyond a shadow of a doubt?”
“Doxi Riboneria is what it eventually became known as. But the common name I assigned her was Doxinox. As I just said, this creature’s gene frequency changed rapidly, meaning that it evolved into more advanced forms in a short amount of time as well. Seven months, to be specific.”
“So, if you created such a miraculous organism, where is it now?”
She shuffled through some of her folders and then pulled out a thick one with photos sticking out of its side. From what I could tell, some of them were pictures of red eyeballs with slits for irises, while others had blobby masses with lime-green and black streaks across their surfaces.
“To be honest, I haven’t a clue. I lost it the original prototype after the catastrophe twenty-two years ago, but several progeny were somehow birthed from the event.”
Opening the file, she pulled out two of the photographs. The first had the image of a distinctly reptilian monster whose form consisted almost strictly of a head with oversized jaws, a large conical tail, and two powerful arms protruding from its cheeks. Similarly, the other one showed three Pokémon that looked like they’d split off from its tail, its scalp, and its face through mitosis.
Pointing at the center of the second picture, she commented, “This was the Pokémon that got stolen this morning.”
Looking more closely at the photo, I saw that the creature had a thick cone-shaped body with alternating lime-and-black rings around his form. His gaping maw, though, drew my attention in particular since a set of dagger-like teeth comprised the entirety of his devilish smile. Aside from staring dead-on in the direction of the camera with a bloodthirsty gaze, the Pokémon appeared to have a large serrated fins coursing down his backside.
“Doxisite is a very dangerous predator, especially in comparison to his siblings and mother. Doxibond and Doxifice only react in self-defense, while Doxisite attacks any other organism he can clamp his maw around. From there, he’ll inject his prey with narrow tubes and drain out a victim’s body fluids straight from inside its heart.”
“Geez, I see why you’re so angry at your staff then.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Ali was assigned to keep the Doxi Siblings under wraps, and nobody should have known about their existence besides him, myself, and a select few professors.”
“How do you know the thieves weren’t just after exotic Pokémon?”
“I kept their specially-designed Poké Balls in a safe hidden inside the courtyard’s central statue. It requires a twenty-digit pass code to access the compartment as well as a thumbprint scan to unlock the safe itself. Just Ali and I have our prints registered. So when I discovered Doxisite’s ball missing, it could only have been because Ali accessed it.”
“Back up a second. Where do the three ‘bumbling bozos’ you mentioned out in the lobby come in, then?”
“The parking lot’s security cameras showed three men loitering on the premises around 3:00AM. They came to the front doors several times before someone eventually let them in. Who did, though, is what I’m trying to find out.”
“Okay, so you think Ali…”
“I know he did!” she barked, pounding her fist on the table.
“Am I right to assume he’s your vice-dean or something?”
She nodded and then replied, “Doctor Jubara has been working here for several years now and was a trusted colleague until several months ago when he signed on with the Zenith Corporation for some special project they needed our Spectral Studies wing for. Since then, his demeanor’s apparently become a lot shiftier.”
“Okay, so where does that put me?”
“Doctor Jubara has spent some time in the South Maritide sewers investigating workers’ reports of an unidentified Pokémon that matches the description of Doxinox. To this point, he never encountered it, but he did acquire some strong evidence that she is there.” After that, she pulled open a drawer, took out several items, and placed them in front of me. One appeared to be a map of some sort with markings all over it, several Xs crossing out certain areas and a few other parts circled, while the other two were Poké Balls with lime-green and black hemispheres rather than the normal red and white coloring.
“You may want to stand back for a moment, and move the seats for me please,” she then ordered. I did what she asked and stood over by her coffee table.
Pressing the switch on one of the balls, she suddenly released a blobby mass upon the floor. The oozing Pokémon looked and smelled distinctly familiar, but the wavering lime-green and black streaks across its body sort of made me wonder if it could really be what I thought it was.
“Grimer…” it suddenly moaned. Weakly, the sludge monster tried to reach out and grab my pants’ leg but couldn’t muster up the strength to stretch more than a couple inches from where it sat.
“Doxinox instinctively assimilates any pseudo-organic mass to stimulate her own growth as well as nourish her pre-existing cells. For some reason, though, she has a preference for decomposing matter or anything that gives off the appearance of it.”
“You mean this thing’s being turned into a ‘Doxinox?’”
“Actually its cells are becoming part of the mega-colony. It’s not going to transform into Doxinox’s clone.” She then recalled the creature into its ball and put it away inside her desk.
“So what’s with the other stuff then?”
She pointed at the map and said, “These are schematics of the city’s southern sewer system. Like I just said, Ali investigated several locations where city employees claimed to have spotted Doxinox. Thus far, he’s found three spots with anomalous ooze trails and Pokémon infected like that Grimer is.”
“So what do you want me to do, then?”
“Track down and recapture Doxinox for me. Ali clearly can’t be trusted with this task anymore, especially after this morning’s incident.”
“That all?” I asked, knowing that her requests often turned into full-blown missions.
“Ali will be accompanying you, so make sure you keep an eye on him.”
“Thought so…”
“So are you onboard or not?”
“Of course, but I can’t guarantee I’ll find anything.”
Felicia stood up with a widening grin and held her hand out to shake on the deal. I accepted the gesture and shook accordingly. Afterwards, she gave me the map and the second Poké Ball she’d taken out.
“That Poké Ball is actually a refurbished version of the one Doxinox was originally kept in. Its design causes Pokémon housed within it to be put into a form of suspended animation, rather than how standard ones that just serve as capsulated storage units.”
“Wait, is this even legal to use then? I don’t want to get accused of Pokémon abuse just for having this thing.”
“This is why I had you sign that confidentiality agreement. Some of the technology we utilize is legal but controversial.”
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to IIPS to be ahead of the game but also borderline when it came to unethical experimentation. On that note, she motioned towards the door and I followed her out of the room.
Dr. Jubara came running at us from the reception desks across the lobby. He held a paper in his right hand that he waved about frantically. When he finally stopped before Felicia and me, I noticed his thick brown locks dripped with sweat and his tawny eyes had tears running down from them.
“Doctor Barnes! We found out who is behind this and it’s worse than any of us could possibly imagine!”
“Spit it out, then!” Felicia demanded, snatching the sheet from him.
“His name is Miror B. He’s wanted in several regions for Pokémon theft and selling said Pokémon on the black market, not to mention he renowned for being a former boss of the Orre crime syndicate known as Cipher.”
Glancing at the print-off, I immediately recognized the man’s afro and said, “Hey, I just battled that guy barely an hour ago.”
“Damn it, Jay! Didn’t he use Doxisite against you? Why didn’t you mention something after I just showed you what the Pokémon looked like?”
“The Pokémon he used against me was just a Destail, which isn’t exactly a threat to my Skunter. But apparently, my buddy Rick almost lost his Girafarig to some other monster that this Miror guy had fight against it.”
“This is bad. Did you find out where he was heading after you battled him?”
“No, the guy and his cronies just took off for God knows where.”
“We’ll have to call the authorities now, Felicia. This is way out of our hands,” Ali said, pivoted back towards the reception desks.
“No way in hell!” Felicia shouted at him, “Keeping an incident under wraps is the only way to prevent a media wildfire. This school has too much at stake to have its reputation smeared by scandal.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” he shrewdly asked.
She huffed a moment and then calmly stated, “For the time being, you will escort Jay Christie to the sites you discovered Doxinox likely rested at for long periods of time. At this moment, that’s my top priority because, without the original experiment, my next project cannot advance.”
“Wait… What next project?” I asked.
“You didn’t explain that to him, Felicia?” Ali responded, clearly confused.
Felicia rubbed her chin and then stated, “I was going to wait until you came back, but there’s another thing I need you for today, Jay.”
“And that’s?”
“Ah, I will tell you the full details on our way downtown. In the meantime, I’d suggest we make haste,” Ali interrupted.
“Fine, but I want straight answers.”
After that, Felicia and I nodded to one another. Ali and I then headed for the entrance, leaving the building and going straight to my truck. Pulling out of the parking lot, I felt a sense of something amiss, but whatever it was would have to wait until we got back.
<End Chapter Four>
