Title: Myamoto Project Story Five: Truth
Author: Shadowcat
Shadowcat's Note: NOT the conclusion to the Series as I originally
intended, there will be a Story Six! But several elements of the story are
brought together here. Oh, and there is a little snatch of
conversation early on that is of a religious nature, but it's short, so don't let
that scare you off if you are *not* into Christianity. It's something
that I chose to put in the story in dealing with the existential
questions brought up by cloning. PG-13 as always. Enjoy!
"So it is true;" Myamoto whispered in awe, staring at an enormous
computer screen, her eyes switching from it to a file of papers that she
held in her hands. James stood beside her, longing to put a hand uponn
her shoulder for comfort, but daring not too, knowing the electrocution
that it would bring.
Myamoto and James had broken into the Records Warehouse as the Isle
Noir Team Rocket Base. It felt to James as if he and Myamoto were
playing Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in an episode of "The X-Files", peering
around in a darkened building of secrets with tiny flashlights. The
'Files had been one of Jessie's favorite shows, he recalled, though it had
often scared him.
They found the records that they had been seeking, which merely
confirmed what Myamoto had already known. The dreams that she had been
having of late had been becoming more vivid and, through them, "memories"
began to surface.
Now, Myamoto stood staring at solid, written confirmation. Her
original, the woman that she had been cloned from, and therefore she, in a
way...was Myamoto Lillis, the mother of Jessica Musashi Lillis.
"James;" she whispered; "I feel...like I AM her, that she was me. I-I
have to meet my daughter, your partner. And...I have to leave here...I
wish no longer to be Father Giovanni's slave."
"I promise;" James said; "That we will escape this place. If Jessie's
alive, we will find her. I...have a plan...We will escape Isle Noir,
or die trying..."
"Please! You've got to believe me!" said a young man in a very
tattered black shirt and white pants.
Ash, Misty, Brock, and Tracey looked at him with much suspicion.
Pikachu started charging his cheek pouches.
Both Tracey and Brock were traveling with Ash on his Journey for the
time being. Brock had resumed traveling with the would-be Pokemon
Master after working for a while with Professor Ivy and Tracey had taken a
short leave of his work with Professor Oak. Misty, as always, was still
hounding Ash to repay her for her bike he had destroyed so very long
ago.
The brown-haired youth standing before them told the group that he was
a Team Rocket member looking for Jessie of Team Rocket. Ash and his
friends had not seen Jessie, James, and Meowth (who used to constantly
plague them) in several months.
The young man, who called himself Mondo, acted gruff and criminal when
he first encountered the group, demanding the four travelers to tell
him where Jessie was, assuming that they knew, because Jessie and James
used to follow them. That was the reason for the great mistrust now.
Acting tough had not gotten Mondo the information that he sought, so
now he was pleading. He poured out a cockamamie (in the opinion of Ash
and his friends) tale about escaping Team Rocket kidnappers, who had
taken their old enemy James to some island to perform weird experiments
upon him and he, himself being on the run from assassins.
"A likely story;" muttered Brock.
"Why should we believe you?" said Ash.
"You admitted to being with Team Rocket;" yelled Misty; "If you wanted
us to trust you, you shouldn't have threatened us!"
A loud "Whizz!" came out of nowhere! A shiny bit of metal embedded
itself in the trunk of a tree. Another bullet soared over everybody's
heads.
"Duck!" Tracey shouted.
"Run!" Mondo cried.
Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, Tracey and Mondo ran through the forest.
Their attackers made themselves evident, bursting through bushes.
"Ha! There's the little traitor!" one of the two black-clad men
exclaimed.
"What about those kids?" replied the other.
"Witness elimination!"
"Hold it right there!" a voice out of the woods shouted, followed by a
second, older sounding voice.
"Freeze, scumbags!"
Two Officer Jennys, one whose indigo hair was streaked with gray,
stood with guns drawn upon the black-uniformed men. Two figures stood
behind them, one very short and the other very tall with long red hair.
"Jessie! Meowth!" Mondo gasped as he turned around to look at the
Officers.
The assassins opened fire upon Jenny and Jennifer Justicia! The
policewomen returned fire and Jessie produced a gun. Misty shrieked.
Brock, Tracey, and Mondo ducked. Pikachu, the fear in his rapidly beating
little rodent heart overcoming his logic, ran right into the center of
the gun battle!
"Pikachu!" Ash screamed, rushing to grab and shield his beloved
pokemon as the bullets flew.
"Pika!"
"Arrrrgggghhh!"
"Ash!" Misty cried.
"Arrrrgggghhh!" groaned one of the assassins as he fell to the ground.
The other swore, dropping his gun as his hand became a bloody mass!
The two Officer Jennys ran to the two black-clad men. Young Jenny
assessed the condition of the one on the ground, pronouncing to him that
he was under arrest as soon as she found that he was alive and the wound
that she had given him not serious. Jennifer confiscated the gun of
the other man and handcuffed him (by his good hand) to a tree. Then she
turned to the civilians.
Misty knelt beside two forms that lay on the ground, Ash and Pikachu.
"Ash! Oh, no....no...."
"Groooooannnnn....Misty? PIKACHU!"
"Chu...."
Older Officer Jenny knelt beside Ash; "I just called for an ambulance
from Alizarin City, and they are on their way. Hold on, son, just hold
on."
"Jessie!" Mondo cried, nearly crushing his old friend in a tight
embrace.
"Mondo?"
"Oh, Jessie! I've been looking for you and Meowth for months! I
escaped the kidnappers at the Vermilion Hospital, and-and..."
"Kidnappers?"
"Let me explain..."
"James is alive?" Jessie asked Mondo while sitting in the Alizarin
City Hospital Waiting Room. Brock and Tracey were there, as well as the
two Officer Jennys (who were busy filing reports with one of the
hospital secretaries), while Misty had gone in to see Ash and Pikachu. The
hospital staff were only letting one person in to see them at the moment,
and his surgeon would announce when he felt that he was ready to have
more visitors.
As for the care of Pikachu, Alizarin City Hospital always kept a Nurse
Joy on hand for any pokemon emergency that should arise nearby, for the
nearest Pokemon Center was far from this particular human hospital and
sometimes, local people brought their pokemon there in a crisis.
"I'm actually not too sure of that now;" Mondo replied. I know that
they took him to Isle Noir, it's an island in the Orange Archipelago,
yet so far from the other islands that it is not considered a part of it.
I know the coordinates. It is thought to be deserted, but Giovanni's
set up a secret Base there."
Meowth stirred where he lay on Mondo's lap.
"So's ya mean dat James got kidnapped an' taken to dis Isle Noir
place? Dat he ain't dead like me an' Jessie tawght?"
"Whether he's alive or dead, I do not know now. He very well could be
dead. I have no idea what they were planning to do with him, all I
know is that it was some sort of genetic research involving humans and
pokemon and that they had some other project going on there, something to
do with cloning."
"Cloning?" replied Jessie; "Mondo, have you heard anything about a
'Myamoto Project'?
"Yes, I think that's what it was called."
"Jessie an' I've found records;" said Meowth.
Jessie and Meowth then began their long story of what they had learned
in the last several months. They told of what they knew about the Joys
and Jennys and about what they had uncovered about the "Myamoto
Project". Jessie also told Mondo with much pain that the original Myamoto was
her mother. The Jennys came from the secretary's desk and sat down to
join the conversation.
The older Jenny, Jennifer Justicia, bore many surprising secrets about
her family. Brock and Tracey listened transfixed and amazed.
"So you mean;" whispered Tracey; "You're all clones?"
"Yes."
"But you are all individuals at the same time, right?" asked Brock;
"not to sound rude, but how do you sort out your identity if you
are...clones?"
"And why do you let the cloning continue?" asked Mondo; "I know this
sounds weird coming from a...'Rocket', but isn't that...a little
unethical?"
"It is the only way to keep our family line alive, I'm afraid;"
Jennifer answered; "You see, none of us are...able to have children. The
cloning process renders us sterile. The only way we can keep the Justicia
family alive and preserve the memory of our mother, JennyOne, the
original Jennifer Justicia, is by the cloning. Besides that, our race are
the perfect civil servants. We all love police work and do it well, as
do the Joys in their occupation. The cities as we know them today are
partially built upon our skilled and dedicated service and would be in
dire straits if we did not continue our families. You understand?"
After receiving nods from Tracey, Brock, Mondo, Jessie, Meowth, and
Young Jenny, Jennifer continued; "Though I know that I am a clone,
'JennyNine', I don't feel like I am less than human. When I first learned of
my status as a child with the Old Team Rocket, it created a great
amount of confusion within me. I grew quickly and never really had a
childhood, but my adult life has been long and I still grew and learned."
She continued; "As far as I'm concerned, even though I was created by
humankind, I am still a creation of God, just, perhaps, a little
indirectly. I've found my identity in my faith in God. I've come to believe
in Jesus and, in Him, I have found ultimate worth."
"You'll have to excuse my Aunt;" said the Young Officer Jenny; "She
does this to almost everyone..."
"Oh, don't excuse me, dear;" interrupted Jennifer; "I am never ashamed
of the Truth."
Jessie couldn't believe all that was going on. Just this morning, she
was involved in a raging gun battle, got re-aquatinted with an old
friend, learned that her dead partner might still be alive, and now was
getting preached to by a Christian clone.
"Whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
If nothing else, a clone like me qualifies as a whosoever..."
A doctor came in, Doctor Lockter, Ash's surgeon.
"You may go see your friends now. Mr. Ketchum is resting comfortably
and both he and the Pikachu will be just fine."
Ash had sustained a minor gunshot wound to his upper left arm. He was
to be held for observation for two or three days, but Doctor Lockter
said that there was no cause for worry. Pikachu was slightly worse off,
one of the assassin's bullets had nearly destroyed his tail.
Young Jenny, after briefly visiting Ash, had gone to check with some
other doctors on the condition of the Team Rocket assassins, also
brought into the Alizarin Hospital. She was to make arrangements for them to
be held there under heavy guard until they were well enough to be
released into Police custody.
"So;" Brock said after a long exchange of information between all
parties; "the two Jennys have agreed to help Jessie and Mondo stop Team
Rocket's plans. Tracey and I have decided to join them."
"Join them?!" Misty cried; "Are you serious?!"
"Yes;" Tracey ansy answered; "We think that you should stay here with Ash.
With my skills as a Watcher and Brock's skills with pokemon, we will be
able to help Mondo and Jessie to infiltrate Isle Noir and gather the
evidence that the Police need."
Ash looked up at his friends from his bed as he stroked Pikachu, who
was laying with bandaged tail upon his chest; "Promise you'll be
careful."
"Chu."
Somewhere in the forest of Isle Noir, several miles from the Team
Rocket Base, two figures wandered. They had to get to the coast by dawn,
before the search Growlithes found them. If they were found, Myamoto
would be spared but it would be the end of James.
The escape from the Base yesterday had worked and they had been hiding
and on the run all of yesterday afternoon and today and it was well
into the night. James had disabled a few unwary guards with his
electricity, making possible his and Myamoto's escape.
Now the plan was to make it to one of the smaller docks on the East
coast of Noir and to hijack one of the speedboats harbored there. They
were both fatigued but Myamoto looked especially unwell.
"James, I-I have to rest. I don't know why I feel...so tired, but I
have to-"
"No, Mya. They'll surely catch up to us if we stop now. We have to
go on."
James parted some bushes only to see a motley group of people walking
through the woods in his direction. He froze, stunned.
"Jessie? Meowth? Mondo?"
Myamoto stared as well. Jennifer, Jenny, Brock, and Tracey stared at
Myamoto and James, an old enemy with a purple-haired stranger.
"James!" Jessie cried, running to embrace her partner and friend,
ecstatic that he was alive.
"Jessie! No!" James yelled, but it was too late. There was a loud
"BZZZZT!" akin to the sound of an insect-zapper going off and Jessie lay
on the ground, breathless.
The world was a blur of blue and white as Jessie's eyes fluttered
open. There was a loud ringing in her ears that was slowly subsiding as
she grew steadily more awake. Her body was racked with a screaming ache,
the muscles of her arms, legs, and chest felt as though they had been
pulled and stretched like taffy.
"She's coming to;" stated a voice above her, a familiar and comforting
voice.
As her vision became clearer, Jessie found herself staring into the
forest green eyes of James.
"So, I wasn't dreaming;" she whispered; "You are alive." She reached
out her right hand to touch his face but he quickly drew away.
"Wha-?"
"You can't touch me, Jessie, no one can. It's a long story, but I will
explain."
Jessie learned that she and her party were no longer on Isle Noir.
After she had been electrocuted, Mondo had saved her life with the quick
application of CPR and he, along with the Officer Jennys, Tracey,
Brock, and James, had brought her back to the Mainland via Jennifer
Justicia's helicopter. They were in a small hospital in a coastal town called
Anaranjado.
James wove a long tale about how he had been genetically spliced with
a Jolteon and how it had given him the ability to duplicate the
pokemon's electric attacks. He also told of how no living thing could touch
him without him involuntarily shocking it.
James agreed to testify against Team Rocket in court, in exchange that
no charges be pressed against Jessie, himself, Mondo, and Meowth.
And Jessie met "Myamototwo".
It was strange at first, to Jessie, seeing her "mother" again. Not
only was it like receiving someone back from the dead, but her "mother"
was almost as young as she was.
When Myamoto was cloned, her body had been aged to approximately equal
the age at which her original had died, a woman in her early twenties.
"Oh, Musa, don't cry, don't cry..." Myamoto comforted while hugging
Jessie, who was overcome with emotion at reliving memories. Myamoto
called her "Musa", a shortening of Jessie's middle name, Mushashi. It was
a name that Jessie's mother used to call her when she was very young.
Myamoto had regained nearly all of the memories of her original now,
they came to her in full-force upon meeting her "daughter".
It had been only four days since they had been introduced to each
other, but Jessie and Myamoto had bonded as if they had known each other
forever. It was as if they actually were a mother and daughter who had
been separated for several years, making up in their reunion for all the
time between.
Myamoto waso was set to testify before the Police with James, but was
staying in Anaranjado with Jessie while the hospital physicians and the two
Officer Jennys from Pewter City ran a few minor tests on her.
Myamoto, ever since she had left Isle Noir, had grown ill. She had an
overall weakness that was growing by the day and the doctors did not
quite know why.'
"Weird that they're all clones;" Brock muttered; "I've always thought
that the Viridian City Officer Jenny was the most beautiful,
very...elegant."
"I've always liked the Nurse Joys a little better, myself;" Tracey
sighed, turning pages in his sketchbook. He and Brock were sitting in one
of the hallways of Anaranjado Hospital waiting to meet Young Officer
Jenny of Pewter City there.
They had both been put up in a local hotel, for they were key
witnesses in the newest investigation against Team Rocket along with James,
Mondo, and Myamoto.
"Ash, Misty, and I met this one island-hopping. She'd kayak to
outlying islands to treat the pokemon there, sometimes miles at a stretch.
That's why she's so buff."
Tracey presented Brock a drawing of a slightly muscular Nurse Joy
standing next to a Gyrados.
"Hey, that's good!" said Brock; "Still pretty strange that the women
we love are all clones."
Tracey nodded.
"Someone! Help! Quickly!" someone shouted from down the hall, it was
Jessie!
"My mom-er-Myamoto...something's wrong! We were talking and she
just...fainted! Get the doctors in here!"
"She's missing a specific mixture of vital chemicals in her body;"
said Doctor Raymond, one of Anranjado's Chiefs of Medicine, to Jessie,
James, Meowth, Mondo, Brock, Tracey, the two Pewter City Jennys, and
Myamoto, who was standing in the room behind everybody else clad in a
hospital gown.
"We were able to synthesize it, but not completely. Myamoto, what we
injected you with will sustain you for a short period, but there is a
missing component - something that seems specific to your system. We
believe that your creators may have engineered you with a deficiency,
something whereby Team Rocket could control you, a chemical that they were
somehow giving you that you cannot survive without."
"Ketrecel White;" Young Jenny spoke up.
"What?" Older Jenny asked.
"The science fiction that I like to watch. On Star Trek: DS9 there
are these genetically engineered soldiers, the Jem H'dar. They fight for
the evil 'Dominion' and they are addicted to a chemical substance that
they need in order to survive. That way, the Dominion keeps them
loyal."
"Bingo;" said Doctor Raymond; "Team Rocket probably engineered it as
part of your your system that you need to survive, to keep you loyal to
them."
"I was..;" Myamoto began; "given something to drink by the guard
outside my bedchamber every night. I was never told what it was, only that
I 'needed' it."
"That means one thing;" said James, trembling; "To save your life, we
must go back to Isle Noir."
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