Chapter 2!
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks
Chapter 2
Misty woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache. Brock was brewing hot coffee, a pan of eggs sizzling over a small fire. Ash was grooming his Pikachu. It looked like a perfectly normal scene…
The events of last night hit with a jolt. “Ash!”
“Yes, Misty?” He smiled at her. “Good morning.”
“Don’t ‘good morning’ me, you – you fraud!”
A hurt expression crossed Ash’s face. “Misty, what did I do to you?”
“Why you-! Trying to deny the truth, are you?” She pulled her mallet out threateningly. “Tell me the truth!”
“… What truth?” Ash blinked.
“You’re not
even human!”
Ash froze. “How-how did you find out?”
“You’re a robot! A computer! But whatever you are – ugh! I can’t believe I fell in love with you!”
“Misty…”
“What sort of elaborate set up is this anyways? Why are all of you faking?”
“We’re not fake! We have feelings just like humans do!”
“You’re a bunch of chips! As if!”
“It’s true!”
“Oh yeah? Well, guess what? I don’t need you! I’ll go find a real man for me!” With that, Misty huffily grabbed her backpack and stalked off into the forest.
Ash gave Brock a pleading look. Brock shrugged.
“Nothing I can do. It’s not my area of expertise... I’m just an observational unit, really. Not like you, Ash. At least you can catch and train pokemon.”
“But they’re not real…”
“Ash, are you real?”
Ash froze.
“Sir!”
Lance turned to Lorelei. “Don’t ‘sir’ me, Lorelei. What’s going on?”
“Unit zero is on red alert! His systems are shutting down!”
“What? But he doesn’t need system restore or a virus scan… what’s happening?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Lance sighed. “Can you get one of the others to do it?”
“I’ll ask Sabrina or Erika…”
The Indigo Gym System is built a special way. At the top are the Elite Four. Beneath them are the eight gym leaders.
The Elite Four run the AILF program. AILF stands for the Artificially Intelligent Life Forms project.
There are far too many trainers in the Indigo League for them to monitor and control and keep an eye on. So they don’t.
They build Units of humans and pokemon, and send them out to observe. Only an exceptionally trained technician would be able to tell the difference.
The four gym leaders – Koga, Sabrina, Erika, and Blaine oversee any Units in their area. Giovanni and his ‘Team Rocket’ act as human observers, and also traveling maintenance.
The Elite Four usually do not pay service calls, unless the Unit is of special importance. But Ash Ketchum is.
He is Unit Zero. The first one they ever created with a real personality. The others followed – the pokemon, the trainers, but they think he was the most human of them all.
The three first gym leaders – Surge, Brock, and Misty are all Units as well. They are twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five respectively. They are observational units, of course, but with some battling skills as well, higher than normal ‘Junior Trainer’ and ‘Bug Catcher’ sub-types.
To help the illusion of humanity with those three units, and the four Unit subtypes – Junior Trainer, Bug Catcher, Fisherman, and Hiker, they do not remember being serviced and maintained, with the exception of Brock and perhaps one or two others.
It does not matter.
In the Indigo System, the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennies are also Units. They are known simply as the Nurse and Officer Units. Usually, one of each in a town is sufficient to keep the peace and keep the town running.
Few true
humans know the secret of AILF, not counting the Elite Four and five gym
leaders, plus the higher executives of Team Rocket. It is the Indigo League’s
best-kept secret.
“Hi, Brock.” Sabrina said, having teleported in with her Haunter Unit. “I heard Ash was having problems. What happened?”
“Misty found out.” Brock said flatly.
“She found out about the AIFL?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she’s one herself…”
“No, she found out that Ash was one.”
“Ah… and like the others, she thinks she’s human… all right. Where’s Ash?”
“When he started powering down, Unit Two and Unit Three performed the service link. They’re over there.”
Sabrina nodded, walking into the bush. With a sigh, she took out her tools and began fixing…
“Misty is not an especially important Unit, hence we do not keep tabs on her. However, Ash will not function well with her memory.”
“You’re going to do a System Purge?”
“I’m going to do a Partial Memory Deletion.” Sabrina told Lorelei.
Lorelei nodded as she watched the procedure on her Jynx’s View Screen – Jynx was a good unit. “All right.”
Sabrina
finished her work about forty-five minutes later. “All done. No more memories
of Misty are left, save for one designating her as a Gym Leader Unit. Unit
Thirty-Five. He should function normally now.”
Brock nodded. “You know,
Sabrina… you’re even prettier up close.”
“We should have never let Bruno program you.” Sabrina muttered, patting Brock on the head. “I’ll see you around, maybe.” With a flash of blue, she was gone.
Ash’s eyes opened and he smiled. “Let’s go catch some more pokemon, Brock!”
Brock smiled. “Yes, let’s.”
By the end of the day, everything had returned to normal… and the Red Alert was cancelled. The Elite Four finished their work for the day and went home.
“I’m going to kill you!”
Lance blinked. “Hi Misty.”
“Don’t ‘Hi Misty’ me! What have you done to my boyfriend?”
“Nothing. Truth is truth after all – what, surprised?”
Misty glared. “You turned him into a robot!”
“… You’re an idiot.”
“I’m going to kill you!”
Lance watched as she charged him – seems like she had raided his kitchen, seeing all the knives, but really, he wasn’t weak…
A clear shimmering dome of Reflect went up around him, and then he slammed her into a wall.
“You’re no better than he is.” Lance smirked, before he tore Misty’s top off, and pressed the secret spring…
Misty screamed as her chest swung open, revealing sparkling wires inside. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
End Chapter
Completed 7/1/05