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Welcome to chapter 9! I'm very sorry this took so long to finish. School hit me harder than a truckload of Taco Bell and really killed my will to write. I recently had a four day weekend that I used to pump out most of the chapter and I just put the final touched in. Without Further Adieu chapter nine. *sound of pages turning.*

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Chapter 9: It's Just a Flesh Wound

Kuzu stood in Matthias' office playing around with the electricity arcing between his fingers. Matthias was staring out his window, looking over the city. The sunrise was beautiful and the citizens of Rustboro had gone to a normal schedule that, albeit different, wasn't very hard on them. Everyone had their own personal routine. Though the people weren't very happy with their new lives, they didn't seem to mind.

Matthias spoke, "Isn't it great Kuzu? Everyone in the city is safe from poverty and violence. So long as they pull their own weight, they don't need to worry about money, and soon we'll have Verdanturf and Petalburg as well."

Kuzu's expression was one of disdain. "It's great and all, but couldn't we do something... I don't know... more?"

Matthias turned to look at the young scientist, "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean look at what we've done!" Kuzu stood and willed his hands to glow with electric power and bolts of energy flew around the room. The energy settled. "We've created something amazing. We can use it for all kinds of things. We could take over more than just Hoenn."

"What could be better usage for such an invention than to protect people?"

Kuzu sat back down in his chair, "I don't know. Just seems like a waste."

"Hardly, in my opinion," Matthias said with a smile, though he seemed deep in thought..

Kuzu rubbed his head, "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. We've reduced the number of pokémon needed for the operation to five! A tremendous change!"

Matthias' face lit up, "That's excellent news! We can easily create more soldiers for the elemental regiment now."

"Um, about that," Kuzu began. "I ran some numbers through the data projections based on the information obtained from our tests so far. It would seem Jeckelyn, David and I were lucky. The procedure only has a forty eight percent chance of working and seventy three percent of the failures could lead to death."

Matthias stared at the floor, "That is most unfortunate. Is there anything we can do to fix this problem." His face became grim. He realized how close he had come to losing Kuzu. Kuzu was his right hand man, but more importantly he was like a son to Matthias.

"Teams are working on it now. I'll get back to you with findings tomorrow... hopefully." Kuzu let out a yawn.

"Hey Kuzu, I think you could use some rest."

Kuzu stretched his arms and put them behind his head, "I think we could all use some rest."

~

Koto fell, for what seemed like an eternity. He continued down into the seemingly unending dark void, the sensation of weightlessness was uncomfortable to him and the air rushing past him smelt sulfuric. After an uncountable amount of time the bottom became visible. As Koto neared the ground large spikes seemed grow out of it. He felt hopeless. As he descended towards the large pointed stones, he closed his eyes and hoped it was over quick.

Koto opened his eyes. He was still in the cave and he could feel his heart racing and the tension in his muscles. That was the third time he'd had that dream tonight. He didn't like unfamiliar places, and he certainly didn't like sleeping around others he didn't know. He rolled over to look at Zacks watch, which read four AM. Koto groaned and rolled over. He saw Seth and his pokémon sleeping, Seth's steelix curled around them in a large semi-circle. Then he noticed that seth wasn't asleep. "Hey, Seth," Koto whispered quietly.

Seth seemed to snap out of a daydream and looked over to Koto. "Hey what's up," he replied and began to stretch his arms.

Suddenly Nick joined the in the whispering, "I was just about to get some sleep but whatever."

"Sorry," Koto and Seth whispered in unison. Seth stood up and walked over to Koto and Nick before sitting crossed legged in front of them. "So what's on your mind?"

Koto got up and sat on his hind legs. "What exactly is our plan? What're we gonna do?"

"Well, I'm actually not a hundred percent on that yet," he said with a twinge apology in his voice. "We're going to hold a meeting about it in the morning so try not to worry too much about it now."

Koto exhaled heavily, "but what do we know about them now, and holy shit you can understand me perfectly." Koto was genuinely amazed. It normally took people forever just to get a basic understanding of what a pokémon was trying to say, and it didn't carry over to others, but Seth had no problems interpreting his speech.

Seth chuckled, "yeah, I guess you could say I have sort of a special connection with pokémon." Koto tilted his head in confusion. Seth reached out, "give me your paw." Koto reached over hesitantly and put his paw on top of seth's hand. "Try not to freak out." Koto watched as his paw began to darken. It seemed as if the darkest of shadows were being cast onto his paw, reaching a darkness that seemed impossible. Compared to his arm, the dim cave could be called bright. Then it began to travel up his arm. Koto first reaction was to pull away, but he didn't. Instead, he thought of the words Sarah had told him in his dream.

"The shadows will save me," Koto said under his breath. No one else seemed to notice.

"Whoa only dark type pokémon should be able to do stuff like that," Nick whispered excitedly. "How can you?"

Seth took his hand away and the shadows on Koto's arm receded. Koto however continued to stare at his paw where the shadow had been. Seth shrugged his shoulders, " To be honest I really don't know. I was just kind of born with it."

"That's really quite amazing," Nick continued in awe. "How much can you do with that?"

"Well It basically allows me to affect objects from a distance," he said stretching his arm. "I can use it on a fairly large scale, but that uses a lot of energy as I'm sure you can imagine."

Koto looked up at seth with a smile, "well you are only human after all."

"This is the truth," Seth concurred with a another slight chuckle. "Anyway, what do we know? Well, we know that Matthias plans on a region wide take over. We also know that they're going to attempt this using something they've been researching. I don't know what it is, but it sounds dangerous."

Koto let out a yawn, "well anything being made by Matthias can't be good."

"Well that's the thing," Seth said. "Matthias isn't directly conducting the research. Someone else named Kuzu is."

"That sounds familiar somehow," Koto said.

"He's a young genius. Fourteen years of age and has a history of violent outbursts, though they don't happen often," Seth explained reflecting on his own words. "To me it seems like a bad mixture."

"Nick you've practically been around Hoenn now. Have you heard anything about this Kuzu?" Koto asked the oshawott.

Nick thought for a second, "nope, I'm drawin a blank."

"Well we'll talk tomorrow," Seth stated standing up and beginning to walk back over to where he laid before. "You, sir Nick, need sleep."

"Yeah, I know," Nick responded rolling over on his side.

Koto laid down on his side as well and pondered. What can we do against someone like Matthias? I doubt this rag tag militia is half as large as his trained army. Koto didn't think to much longer before drifting off to sleep and having the same dream again.

~

Kuzu woke up much later than usual. Letting out a groan he picked his head up off his desk, bringing a piece of paper with it. As he pulled the paper from his forehead, he heard the sound of his pen hitting the floor. The boy sighed as he put the paper on his desk."Oh physics, why must you persist in making things difficult," he said to himself.

"Kuzu!" A shout came from the doorway. He turned his head to see Jeckelyn striding through the doorway. "I've been looking all over for you... did you sleep here?"

"It would appear so." Kuzu stood up and ran his fingers through his hair, "What's going on now?"

"Matthias wants to know how it's going with the research on making the E.R.T.I.S. less dangerous."

"Oh, that." Kuzu threw on his lab coat, "Well the work is coming together, but there haven't been any major breakthroughs yet." He walked over to a whiteboard filled with polynomials, quadratic equation and a lot of other scribblings that no one but a genius could understand.

Jeckelyn took a moment to stare at the boy. He was younger than pretty much everyone on the team that she knew of. Yet he carries himself so maturely. She could never quite get a read on him. Kuzu just didn't seem to care about much, other than his research. He just did what he was told, indifferent to the world around him. But just then jeckelyn noticed that his skin was unusually pale, and he was slouching rather than standing straight like he always did. "Kuzu, are you all right? You seem like you might be coming down with something."

The young scientist let out a soft a chuckle, "I just haven't been getting much sleep. I'll be fine." Kuzu erased a few of the equations on the board and as he was writing new ones he spoke, "The question is, Jeckelyn, how do you feel? You had the energy implant first, have you experienced anything yet to come for David and I."

"Not so far. Speaking of David, Matthias will be sending him on his first mission soon. Maybe you should monitor that."

"Hmmm... what's the mission." Kuzu grabbed a towel in attempt to wipe the dry erase marker of his hands.

"Reconnaissance. Matthias figures there must be some sort of organized counterattack coming together by now."

"Makes sense that there would be, and David's grass type abilities could be useful for camouflage. I'll look into it, thank you." Kuzu swore under his breath and began erasing about half of the board.

"Well, I'll be heading back up now, I don't much care for being hundreds of feet underground," Jeckelyn began to walk back to the service elevator. "Buzz me if you need anything. I'm off duty till tomorrow."

"Will do..." Kuzu broke into a coughing fit and slumped against the wall.

Jeckelyn quickly ran back over to the boy, "Dear Arceus. Are you all right?"

Kuzu made a weak attempt to clear his throat, "I think I'm..." He didn't finish and almost fell over but Jeckelyn caught him.

"Damnit!" She laid him gently on the ground and pulled out her communicator. "I need a medic to floor B23 now!" A few doctors stationed throughout the facility began responding that they were on the way. Before long the elevators unloaded four doctors who instantly rushed towards Kuzu.

"Check his pulse," one of them commanded urgently.

"It's faint but there."

"Good get him to the elevator."

"He's freezing, he may have hypothermia. We don't have long."

Jeckelyn stepped up when she heard this. "I can help."

"Who the hell are you?"

"You idiot, that's Jeckelyn," another medic replied slapping him on the back of the head. "The firestarter. Ring any bells?"

"Apologies. Try not burn him."

Jeckelyn had spent a lot of time practicing with her new powers since the operation. She'd gotten fairly good at weaponizing her flames, but she'd never tried to control it so that there was only heat but no fire. "I'll try my best." This attempt could seriously injure Kuzu, but if it did work, it may save his life. One of the doctors lifted Kuzu's shirt as Jeckelyn put her hands together began to heat them. She felt the temperature in her hands rising as she tried to control its ascent. She was about to place her hands on Kuzu when the temperature spiked and her hands sparked a few flames. Quickly regaining control she placed her hands on Kuzu's pale skin. The instant contact was made, she felt the cold of his body pushing against her over one-hundred degree fahrenheit hands.

She held her hands there a while. The doctors staring on with awe. The cold was unwilling to move, but so was she. It felt like forever that Jeckelyn kneeled there, her knees began to hurt and her back aching. Finally she felt the cold began to fade, but she couldn't quit just yet. Soon a bit of color began returning to his skin. "You can stop now," one of the medics said and put two fingers on Kuzu's throat. "Pulse is still faint. Get him to the ER now."

Jeckelyn watched as Kuzu was dragged to the elevator. The elevator doors shut, leaving Jeckelyn all by her lonesome. Walking over to Kuzu's desk, she picked up his pen off of the floor and placed it in the pen mug that read '#1 Scientist.' As she began to go and call the elevator back down, one of the papers on the desk caught her eye. The title said 'Dual Energy Analysis.' On the page was a journal entry written by Kuzu that read, 'First electricity, then ice. What next? Now that I can have as many types as I want, no one can stop me.'

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Thank you for reading. Just viewing this helps me stay motivated. However, I'm putting Koto on hold for a while. I'll still try to keep writing it when I have the time, but I won't upload any for quite a while. Until next time.