By the time she heard the sound of footsteps approaching the lab, Minene lost count of how many times her stomach had protested. These footsteps sounded like the boy who'd left.
"Minene fight back..."
Crouched on the ground, her knees to her chest, Project X slowly raised her head.
There standing at the entrance was exactly the person she'd expected to see. Entering the chamber, the boy timidly approached Minene. Something in him seemed to have changed. She could tell he no longer meant her any harm.
Minene twitched her nose and stared at him. More specifically, she stared at what he held. In his hands were bread, jerky, and an apple, and the aroma coming from them was stimulating her stomach like never before. Within seconds, her mouth was coated in saliva, and drool ran down the sides of her mouth.
Stopping out of Minene's reach, the boy took back the knife that she'd dropped on the floor and replaced it with the food, which he then pushed toward her.
"Your just hungry, right?"
Minene began to reach for the food but froze. She hadn't been allowed to fill her belly without first engaging in a "fight." Her hesitation was due to a fear that eating now might inconvenience her in some way.
She continued to think but found no answer. To begin with, inconveniences were the story of her life, and not being able to sate her hunger was a far more serious problem. She grabbed the bread and tore it, hurriedly swallowing it before her tongue even had the chance to get a taste.
"Your not a monster at all, are you?" The boy asked, but Minene was too busy with her feast. "Dr. Colress said there was a creature he'd raised to help Pokemon Liberation, but you look like a person to me..." The boy observed her closely.
Lending an ear to the boys voice, Minene shoved the jerky into her mouth. She needed to eat as fast as she possibly could. She was like a wild animal preparing for winter, absorbing nutrients to store in her body.
After poking his own head, he asked, "Did father bring you hear?"
Minene ate in silence, unresponsive to his questions. Within a few minutes, she'd consumed all the food.
"What's your name?"
"...Name?"
"Your not an experiment, are you?"
"Minene." Minene knew few words, but at least she knew her own name.
"I'm N," he said, pointing to the tip of his nose. "And this is Zorua." He pointed to the Pokemon on his shoulder. "It's nice to meet you, Minene."
N. Nice, meet you." Minene said in a clumsy imitation of his words.
****
After that day, N and Zorua began to make frequent appearances at the chamber. The visits were no easy task. They were only able to drop in at night and had to return by sunrise, lest his father find out and they all get in trouble, Dr. Colress having allowed them to meet in the first place.
N always bore gifts, namely food. The amounts were small so that his pilfering wouldn't be noticed, but silence an empty stomach they did. It went without saying that his provisions did wonders to allay Minene's once-frequent stomachaches.
He brought more fortune to Minene than just food, though.
"So you were never an experiment in the first place," N fumed, wrapping Minene's body in a towel. "Your human, just like me."
"Just like N-kun..."
Minene angled her head, and N grinned and nodded in satisfaction. "You know, your speaking has gotten better."
The primary benefit Minene gained by meeting N was language. She learned naturally just from struggling to communicate her thoughts to him, and it brought about a near-revolution change to both her heart and her mind.
"What is Pokemon?"
"I don't know," N replied with a shake of his head.
Minene was surprised by this response. N was like an Omnipotent god to her, and she believed he could address any and all queries.
He shrugged. "No one knows what Pokemon really are. It's not in any books..." Flipping through the pages of the volume he'd brought with him, he presented it to her.
In it, she saw a strange picture. "This is?"
"It's an illustrated map."
"Ill-us-trate?"
"It's a drawing that represents the world we live in...I think."
"Your right, Zorua. But this map shows the region we live in, Unova."
The book depicted large circles as well as a number of people in them walking inside them.
"This is where we are now," N said, pointing near the outskirts of the circles, " and this is called Nuvema Town." His finger moved to the next ring. "This is where trainers begin their journeys."
"But they have to be a certain age to go."
'They have to wait to leave even if they want to go...like being in a cage, waiting to be freed...'
She could almost justify all of the shackles that had deprived her of freedom throughout her life. If what N said was true, she was a human who had been labeled a monster. Her predicament was inevitable because no matter how much pleading and begging any one if them did, Dr. Colress wouldn't free her. He and N often argued about setting her free. Dr. Colress said it was his research so he'd do what he liked with it. N protested that it was unfair. But Dr. Colress always seemed to say something that Minene couldn't hear that made N give up trying too persuade him. It must have been a just case, since N and Zorua hadn't been down in her chamber for a few days. It had gotten lonely.
Minene stared at the shackles on her limbs. The well-worn iron restraints had grown rusty from her blood, sweat, and excrement, but removing them was nigh impossible. Even her strong teeth that could snap a tough jerky in two stood no chance against metal chains. The keyholes had been welded shut, leaving amputation as the only way for Minene to regain freedom.
They had always been with her, and thought of removing them had stopped occurring to her-until now. She could never go back to not knowing her true identity, nor did she wish to. Yet, although she was curious about what awaited her beyond the chamber, at the moment her interest converged on a single point.
'What exactly is a Pokemon Champion?'
According to Dr. Colress, this Pokemon Champion was responsible for ruining her life. He said that he found her abandoned along Victory Road. Alder, the champion, had ditched her out there to fend for herself, and Colress took her in.
She wanted to meet Alder if she could.
But to do that, she would need to cast off her shackles and bound into Unova. It wasn't something she could do immediately, but it wasn't impossible. She just hadn't given it any consideration until now.
'Chain can be broken.'
If she did what she needed to do in order to break them, of course. The day would come far in the future, but she had to begin working toward it without delay. First, though, there was something she needed.
"N-kun?" N looked at her as he entered in the dead of night. "Teach me about human world."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, I tried to draw Minene meeting N and Zorua. I don't know if its good or bad (probably 'cause I never showed anyone yet XD) but I hope it's not super terrible >.<
Leave any suggestions or questions in the comments
Thanks for reading!
