Chapter 9: The secret of the gym
Mark went to the hotel to change clothes, but May wanted to fish a little more and train some. He healed his pokémon and then thought about his goal. He wanted to be a legendary collector. But did Dratini count as a legendary? And what about Gyarados? He wondered where he could get to know, and then he thought Rick must know everything about legendary pokémon, so he decided to go and ask him.
When Mark came into the gym, the junior trainer wasn’t there. On the door was a note saying “Went down for break. Please go right through.” When he went through, he however found out that all the junior trainers had similar notes. The one with the Mewtwotwo had that note on top of the “went to get another Mewtwo” note. And Rick’s arena was empty too. His note, however, said “Went down to the basement – will be back.” Mark supposed the basement was where the junior trainers were taking a break. But he really wanted to talk to Rick now! He wondered where the door to the basement could be, and walked a few steps backwards while looking around. And what else happened than that he fell into the pool.
The first thing he thought was that now these clothes were wet too. The second thing was “How oddly deep this pool is!” and the third thing was “Why is that hole in the wall down there?” The fourth thing was that he better get up to the surface. He swam up and sent out Gyarados.
“Gyaroooo!”
“Gyarados, go down there, through that hole in the wall just by the bottom, and see if there’s air at the other end somewhere.”
Gyarados dived down, but the more if Gyarados’ body disappeared into the hole, the more hopeless it was that he could swim there. After what seemed like ages, Gyarados returned.
“Was there air?”
Gyarados nodded.
“Would you think I could make it there?”
Gyarados shook its head.
“But would you think Rick could make it?”
“Gyaaro!”
“Never? Then he must hide some oxygen here... or... Gyarados, go down again and see if there’s something the water would go down through if it was open.”
“Gyaar.” Gyarados went down, and came back soon.
“Gyaro gyaaaaaar!”
“Is there one? Great! It must be electric, somehow...he can open it from up here... Jolteon!”
“Jolt!”
“Do you think you could somehow... shock... the... no, it won’t work. We’d get a shock. There must be a switch here somewhere...” Mark looked around and saw six buttons on one wall. He walked up to the buttons and pressed the first one, because the buttons weren’t marked in any way. The lights went out. Mark pressed the button again, but nothing happened. He pressed the second button, and the boxes where the trainers were supposed to stand got lighted up. He pressed it again too, and nothing happened. He tried the third button, and suddenly, bright spotlights lit up Jolteon and Gyarados. Jolteon was so startled that it accidentally let of a Thundershock, which almost hit Gyarados. Mark pressed the fourth button and the lights went back to normal. He pressed the fifth one, and the water started to run out of the pool. He quickly recalled Gyarados and Jolteon, and when all the water was out of the pool, he saw it was way too deep for him to get down. Mark went back and pressed the sixth button, pretty hopeless, but then small things appeared out of one wall with even between them – stairs. He went down and through the hole, wondering if Rick would be mad when he saw him. The hole turned out to be a long tunnel. Then he went up another stairs, and into a very strange room.
It was all lit by red lights. There were strange machines that looked the same except for the size everywhere by the walls, but there were other things that interested Mark more. Everywhere around the floor were curious-looking machines with lots of buttons sort of at the middle, but with glass tanks at the upper part. And the glass tanks held very disgusting things: pokémon fetuses. Floating in some kind of a brown liquid, some looked certainly like pokémon, others looked like shapeless forms he wondered what could possibly be. Mark knew instantly where he was; this was Rick’s cloning lab.
He heard some voices and quickly went behind some red glass and bent down. In walked some scientists. One went to a glass tank with a Caterpie-like thing that seemed to be darker in color than most Caterpies he had seen. The other one went to a glass tank he couldn’t see well because it was farther away. Instead, he watched the other one.
“Peter, come,” he said, calling the other one. “I think’s it’s finished, what do you think?”
The other scientist came. “Yes, I think so too. It looks pretty good.” Then he went back to his tank. The scientist with the Caterpie pressed two buttons, and the brown liquid slowly started to run down. When all the liquid was out, the Caterpie, which seemed to have a dark blue feeler, lay at the bottom of the tank like dead. The scientist pressed another button and some kind of an electric wave struck the strange Caterpie and caused it to wake up. The scientist watched it opening one eye, rising up, opening the other eye, and looking curiously around. Then he pressed yet another button, and the glass tank opened with a low hiss. He took the Caterpie, examined it, and then said “It’s a beauty! What a perfect clone!” The strange Caterpie replied with “Catertwo!” Now Mark knew what they were doing. They were making clones that were a little different, two-clones, like Mewtwo.
“Look, mine’s absolutely perfect too!” The other scientist (the one called Peter) came with a strange Pikachu. It had blue balls on it ears, blue cheeks, blue triangle-shaped tail, large blue claws and paws and sharp teeth. “Pikatwo!” it said.
“It’s not as good as the one Rick gave to Taylor, though,” the Catertwo cloner replied. “But that one was so perfect, I doubt we’ll ever make one like that again!”
“Rick made it himself, of course,” Peter said. “I think he’s spoiling Taylor. I mean, he’s just Rick’s little brother, if my little brother cam to me and said the Charmander he got as a starting pokémon was too weak and he wanted a cloned pokémon too, I’d tell him to shut up and clone one himself. But no, Rick made that Pikatwo for him, and it’s said he made even more later... anyway, he got that Quilava, and somehow lost his Charmander, and he doesn’t even train it! He keeps messing around with his clones, and Rick is actually proud of him! If I had a brother like that, I’d be embarrassed...” He couldn’t get any farther because then Rick came in.
“Who was playing with the buttons? The computer came up with a message that someone was pressing all the buttons!”
“I have no idea,” said Peter.
“And I was with him all the time,” said the other scientist.
“Oh well,” said Rick, “probably it was just some kid who thought I’d come if they pressed the buttons!” Rick went back into the room beside the cloning lab.
“Anyway, should we test them together?” Peter asked. The other one agreed.
“Go, Catertwo!”
“Catertwo!”
Go, Pikatwo!”
“Pikatwo!”
When Pikatwo came out, blue electric waves started streaming between the balls on its ears.
“Catertwo, Bug rush!”
“Pikatwo, Running shock!”
The Catertwo sort of rolled up, then leapt forward and hit Pikatwo. Pikatwo then ran at Catertwo with its ears stretched forward, and got a wave of the electricity between the ears touching Catertwo. The Catertwo went stiff, and then fell down, paralyzed.
“Great! Now, let’s evolve them,” Peter said. “You first, Jim.”
Jim picked up the Catertwo and took it to one of the machines by the walls, a very small one. He opened it, put Catertwo inside and closed. Then he pressed a button, waited a few seconds, then opened it again and took out – a metallic gray Metapod. Those machines were obivously some kind of evolvers.
“Let’s try this one,” Jim said and sent it out agains Pikatwo.
“Metatwo, Metal shield!”
“Metatwo!” said the Metatwo and hardened, but much more than a normal harden does.
“Pikatwo, try touching it it any way!”
The Pikatwo tackled the Metatwo, but just hurt its leg. Metatwo did not seem harmed at all.
“Very good! Now, it’s time for Pikatwo to be evolved.”
Peter put Pikatwo in a little larger evolver and pressed the button. The pokémon he took out again had purple balls on its ears, purple cheeks, purple belly, purple claws and paws and a purple tail. “Raitwo!” it said.
“Let’s try out your unique attack! Raitwo, Power shock!”
The Raitwo ran at Metatwo and touched it with the tip of its ear. Metatwo recieved a powerful shock and fainted.
Jim took Metatwo into an evolver and it became a Buttertwo with a very purple body and dark blue legs and mouh. It used Anteanna shock, an attack that paralyzed Raitwo instantly. Then the scientists went out. Mark crawled around behind the glass, afraid they might hear him, and managed to read about a lot of plans for ‘twos’ which were on the walls. There were rough drawings and unique attacks on them. (Click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here to see them) After he saw Nidorinatwo, he was at the end and leapt back into the tunnel, ran up the stairs and out. When Mark came to the pokémon center, he met May.
“Hi Mark! Where have you been? I caught a rare pokémon! See!” She sent out a pokémon – a Larvitar. Looked like May was getting somewhat his rival. But that was not what he was thinking of now.
“May. The guy who stole your Quilava is named Taylor. He is Rick’s little brother and the Pikachu you battled wasn’t a Pikachu, it was a Pikatwo. I’ll explain later.” Then he rushed off to the hotel to change clothes again.
