Bea's hopeful smile turned wicked as she snatched up her possessed cell phone. Her Rotom Phone's eyes widened in shock at seeing its mistress's new form. Timidly it requested her identity before meekly unlocking its call function when Bea snarled back a bestial response in irritation.
As Bea's fingers taped out the first few digests of the team Shuttle hotline Number, Bea tried to nurture the giddy excitement that had conquered her abnormal fear of doctors. There was no telling how long this would last; it might be the only chance for her to both fix herself and get revenge against the parasitic pokèmon.
[i]Mess with my body and memories, bug? Just you wait. We'll see you wriggle and squirm on a dissection table once they rip you out of me... "Sniff." Strange, why does that feel familiar? [/i]
A hint of nausea bloomed in her belly as cold nostalgia flashed through Bea's marrow. She snorted, something warm and thick oozing out her right nostril. A feverish chill swept, across her shoulders and thighs, sickly goosebumps rising in its wake. Bea's fingers cramped in rebellion, unwilling to input the final digits. With a growl, she gritted her teeth and forced them to continue dialing.
[i]Just a few more numbers. Come on. You can do this, Bea. Don't let the fucking Yanma win. A little further than someone will be here to help- Oh fuck! What's wrong with my hand?![/i]
Bea's digits flinched away from the scene. Her face blanched in horror at the swollen, blistered skin coating her hand. The inflammation had spread over her arms, legs and flanks, the surface covered in Vein-like protuberances. Revoltingly the corrupted growths contorted like trapped worms under her skin. Her breathing came in short and rapid as the flesh of her collar started broiling, the cords of muscles flexing spasmodically around her neck.
The wordless dread that had infected Bea's mind was back tenfold. She felt she was tottering on the edge of a pit filled with nightmarish half-remembered things. Glinting metal, scratched glass, ruptured chitin. One false thought and Bea would fall-
[i]A human wearing a hazmat suit.[/i]
Bea howled in anguish as the remaining walls around the memories inside her chimeric brains shattered. Her hands clapped her head as electric misery arched between her horns and collar. Thick purple blood gushed from her nose. Bea's organic necklaces wiggled to life, clawing feelers unfurling from its flesh. Likewise, her back tentacles squirmed to life, aimless as they tried to weather the mental storm.
Bea's hands pulled away from her face as the migraine slightly eased. But her eyes were vacant as they stared directly ahead into nothing. Streams of tears ran freely down her cheeks as the muscles of her face twitched into a rictus. Her teeth ground against one another, and her brow furrowed as Bea futilely tried to hold back a tide of eerily familiar memories.
[i]"No![/i]" Bea croaked. "[i]That wasn't me.[/i]"
Bea could remember the day the rubber hand had dragged her out of her translucent egg. Her eyes were burned and blinded from contact with open air and the intense white light emanating from above. Before her compound eyes could adapt, the hands had roughly pinned her to a metallic surface.
Bea had squirmed and wriggled in alarm at this treatment. Her instincts had shrieked at her to flee, to fly and hide. The white-clad hand swam into focus again, gripping a glinting device. There had been a series of pneumatic thunks, and Bea's limbs and wings had been stapled to the ground by slivers of metal. Her first experience of the world was pain and confusion, and the newborn Bea had shrilly yammered in distress, her ultrasonic voice inaudible to her captors.
"[i]Please...[/i]" Bea begged in the present. "[i]I don't want to remember this. This isn't me. I've never been a Yanma[/i]."
Once her multifaceted eyes had adjusted to the oppressive light, Bea had found herself inside a hive- No, a laboratory. She retroactively knew that now thanks to her human brain. The two humans in the room had nailed her to a work table inside a sterile operating theatre. Across from her had been a pair of fluid-filled glass vats filled with the grizzly remains of past test subjects. To Bea's horror, then and now, she had recognized the occupants as her siblings.
There were, or had been, Yanma like her, but their bodies had been twisted almost beyond recognition. Their thoraxes had bloated and ruptured, spewing entrails out into the confines of the tube. Tumorous growths and feelers budding out from the gore. Despite their dull, lifeless eyes, their guts and pseudopods still writhed aimless life, distracting Bea from the two Bipeds standing to each side of her.
"[i]Log entry seven[/i]." The faceless human on her left had boomed in a deep voice. The once meaningless noise it uttered was now translated by Bea's higher cognition.
The pair of humans had been wearing full hazmat gear, but at the time, Bea had perceived them as featureless and utterly alien. The one on the right was preparing a large syringe, filling it with lavender fluid from a bottle marked EPG-8662. The other human on the left continued its monologue into a head-mounted microphone.
"[i]Subject seven of project element is a female Yanma of above average height and weight. Gene grafts for this test include the ones for both Parasect and Tentacruel's elemental powers and abilities.[/i]"
"[i]Hmmm... Reckon the genetics development team was over ambitions for this one. Bug, flying, Grass and water. Our Project manager must be desperate for results after all the promises she has made to the admin[/i]."
Briefly, the speaking humanoid turned off the mike before staring closely at Bea. She had trembled under the gaze of the giant dead-looking eyes beneath their protective eyewear. Then, after a moment, it straightened in a squeak of rubber before continuing its monologue.
"[i]The cloned subject has been birthed in good condition. The specimen is a bit appears quite physically robust for a Yanma. No external signs of her altered genes being expressed as unstable mutations. Seven's predecessor never managed to make it past the second instar before expiring. However, subject seven might be stable enough for even phase three and four testings.[/i]"
"[i]Still, considering the explosive results of subjects four and five after activating their dormant genes, I doubt this one will last much longer afterward. Mutations in the previous batch have been expressed as tentacles or fungal-like cancerous growths that quickly invade the organism's internal organs. Dubiously, our geneticists have sworn they have fixed this problem with the seventh generation, having isolated the genes exclusive to pokèmon typing. So we will begin phase two testing on subject seven now.[/i]"
The speaking human shut off the microphone with an electric crackle before releasing a depressed sigh. "[i]I am getting so fucking sick of killing pokèmon. Okay, Hans, you can inject the activating agent .[/i]"
The human on Bea's right had remained silent, pressing the plunger on his syringe, as a shot of coloured liquid squirted into the air. The faceless human had reached out and grabbed Bea behind the head.