A white tomorrow is waiting a story by Pink parka girl

Ye Olde Author’s Notes: Here’s a trip down memory lane for people who have been members since…well…the Bronze Age (late 2000, not early enough to be Stone Age) and remember back when there was some silly freshman who went by the various titles of Lil Pink Parka Girl, PPG, PPG Princess and another one I can’t remember for the life of me (it was something like Silly Weirdo Girl I believe). Anyway, those old timers will no doubt remember a long deleted from the site work known as The Power of Goodbye (my shameful, hideous 8th grade attempt at fanfiction who’s only lasting legacy was endowing my sister’s character, Lily Marsh, with a cool star on her forehead). The original 8th grade version, taking up 37 pages in my notebook, two or even three lines of text between each blue line on the paper, spanning seven chapters but with no ending in sight, was a real oddball. Inspired by the novel Tailchaser’s Song, believe it or not, the story started in a Howard Garis-style ‘Animal Land’ with houses and schools and cars but became more and more realistic as the story went on. When I prepared the story for posting on , I added an entirely new prologue, abandoned the ‘Animal Land’ idea for the most part and adopting a more realistic approach (with one birth scene that was a little too realistic perhaps), and dubbing the creation "Star Of Wonder, Star of Light, Chapter 1". Yes, star symbolism was very heavy in that story, and no, you could not index chapters in those days, you had to post them all separately.

It was for Chapter Two that I thought up a new idea of a type of writing that I was first getting interested in – The Pokemorph Story. Nowhere near as researched as Sunrise, and lacking a lot of scientific sense, I was quite proud of the chapter anyway (and still am, actually). What endeared it to the hearts of the people who remembered it though was Kojiro, a green eyed, purple haired Rocket Gang member. People loved Kojiro in the story, how the thoughts and reactions were told through his eyes, and asked for more. I churned out another chapter, with all Pokémon characters, before losing interest in that particular story and becoming interested in the story of two shadowy, slowly developing characters who eventually gained the names Kyle and Katherine Richards. But my fondness for Chapters Two and Three of ‘Star of Wonder, Star of Light’ never faded, and I often thought of taking them, putting a little work into them, adding more material and making a short novella (which means nowhere near as long as Sunrise, which, yes, I am still working on and have a chapter in preparation) out of em. A Kojiro-loving friend of mine decided it would be a great idea, and so, here for her pleasure and yours, are the first two chapters of this ‘new’ story. :P Because it ain’t new – most of the text was written during my freshman year of high school (late 2000), with only some minor changes. And cookies for everybody who actually remembers the original story!

Oh, and for the people who are clueless about the Japanese names, here are the English equivalent of all names mentioned so far:

Myuu: Mew

Ratta: Rattata

Kojiro: James

Myuutsuu: Mewtwo

Takiwa City: Viridian City

Nyasu: Meowth

Kosanburo: Butch

Musashi: Jessie

Pikachuu: Pikachu

Satoshi: Ash

:

Think, then, less of the picture as I have to paint it in words than of the feeling its original inspired in me, when looking closely for the first time on that rare loveliness, trembling with delight I mentally cried: ‘Oh, why has Nature, maker of so many types and of innumerable individuals of each, given to the world but one being like this?’" – W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions

1.

So his flames must waste away. – Thomas Carew, Disdain Returned

A bitter, freezing wind swept through the streets, snow billowing up from the ground like smoke from a volcano. Large piles of snow plopped down from the branches of the evergreens, landing with a phoomph in the snow banks. Water froze to ice in a matter of minutes, the following snowflakes dotting the surface of the icy puddles. In the shadows, if a human were to look closely, he would see a pair of cat-like prints cutting a path through the blazing white.

The path had been made by a pair of infant Myuu, a stranded brother and sister. Looking slightly clumsy in their youth, they had thin, feline heads and milky-blue eyes that would not reach their full brilliance until adulthood. Their dainty forepaws were quite small, and their hind-paws quite large, each toe tipped with a tiny claw. Their new grown coats, ranging from a dark purple upon the head and tail tuft to a very light pink about the muzzle and underbelly, and a darker pink everywhere in between, helped to keep them warm in the frigid weather. Each weighed about five pounds apiece.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about them was the fact they were completely alone. No matronly mother Myuu floated gently in the air next to her small children, nor did any loving father Myuu keep an eye out for hungry predators who might view a young kitten as dainty mouthful.

But were they really alone?

The female sat up suddenly and listened, her small, fluffy ears raised. Something was approaching! She roughly nudged her huddling brother, who stood up, yowled irately and boxed her between the ears, only to retreat into a thicket of dead bushes.

The female didn’t follow. She was sure she had heard something, even if the male didn’t. The sounds suddenly got a lot louder, and the Myuu kitten froze as a small ball whizzed seemingly out of nowhere to land before her. It opened up like a gaping mouth, and the shiny interior drew her in like a magnet. She tried to fight it, to resist the force it was exerting, but she couldn’t. She gave herself up to the ball, and, in a puff of smoke, was drawn into it. The ball closed with a click.

:

The ball opened quite suddenly, and the Myuu kitten rushed out in a flurry of purple and pink towards the ground not that far beneath her paws. But her muzzle hit glass. She was in a cage!

The kitten looked out at her captors. Men and women rushed about in white coats, green surgical masks hiding their features. One wheeled a cart past, and the little Myuu stared out at what was upon it, her nose suddenly wrinkling from stink. The form upon the cart was a little Ratta. A dead little Ratta, partially dissected, patches of fur and skin stripped away to reveal the raw muscle underneath. The cart vanished as it was pushed out of sight into a cold operating room.

The Myuu kitten retreated into a corner of the cage, her milky eyes closed, her face buried in her tail tip. She did not understand the meaning behind what she had seen, but the smells of death, of fear, of so many humans struck her with dumb terror. She felt sickened, repulsed, but most of all lonely, so far away from everything she knew.

The top of her cage was opened suddenly and a hand grasped the kitten by the scruff of her neck. Obeying instinct, the little Myuu dangled limp and helpless, her tail tucked up between her legs.

"It was lucky that I found you," a voice said. It was masked with kindness, but a hard, cutting malevolence shone through. "Oh, very, very lucky. Of all the Pocket Monsters in the world, it was you, infinitely beautiful, enormously powerful, that I managed to find and capture. Oh, this is a great moment!"

The Myuu kitten glanced up at the man’s face, and instantly her mind filled with the overwhelming desire to attack, to fight, but did not possess the skills to follow through. She was instantly afraid of the man, with his expensive designer suit, clean pressed and smelling of fresh linen. The man stared back at her, and rubbed her head with his hand. The kitten shuddered violently and pressed her paws closer to her chest.

"Boss?" another voice asked. "Sir? Just what is it you wanted the Myuu for?" The kitten turned her head and glanced at the new face. It was another man, with bright green eyes and a simple, soft-hearted expression on his face.

"Oh Kojiro," said the other man. "This will be the greatest achievement the Rocket Gang will accomplish. Ever. Using a serum that has been carefully developed here for several years, after all the failure we experienced with Project Myuutsuu, we will finally manage to create a powerful being, with the intelligence of a human, the power of a Pokémon, a perfect balance of what is best of both breeds! And having the most powerful of all the Pocket Monsters available is certainly lucky, isn’t it, Kojiro? Rakki rakki?"

Kojiro was at a loss for what to say. "Rakki rakki," he agreed finally, peering down curiously at the kitten dangling from the man’s large hand. "But what if the experiment fails? Shouldn’t you test the serum first?"

The other man snickered softly.

"Oh…this serum has been very carefully developed. We examined and experimented upon many, many Pokémon – and a few humans as well – to learn every part of their physiology, and the way in which their brain works, their bodies' function. We tested formula after formula, Kojiro. The one developed now should finally accomplish my dream…"

He glanced at the Myuu kitten, who still hung limp in his grasp. She did not understand the words the men spoke, nor the depth of feeling behind them – although a psychic type, she was far too young and weak to fully understand her awakening abilities.

"My creation will allow me to gain more power than ever throughout Kanto, and will induce the fear and awe of the Rocket Gang into all who see it. We will be more powerful than our yakuza rivals, or any other gang in the world. We the Rocket Gang shall rule supreme!"

Kojiro wandered off, leaving his boss to his daydreaming. He had never really enjoyed the viciously criminal aspects of the Rocket Gang, their murders, their kidnappings, their excessive desire for power. He was a meeker, gentler sort of Rocket, a poser and thief on the outside, but a soft-hearted, quietly searching man underneath. What sort of things would the miraculous serum of his boss result in? Its changes took about six hours to complete, he had heard; what sort of tomorrow lay ahead?

It was then that Kojiro made up his mind to break in and see, when the other members had retreated to their houses and left the hideout in solitude. The boss would never know…

He watched the boss place the Myuu kitten upon a counter-top, as a lesser Rocket took hold of its neck in one hand and one of its hind paws in the other, extending the leg to its full length. The boss opened a cabinet, in which Kojiro could see three vials of a viscous, red-tinged liquid, and selected one, pouring its contents into a hypodermic needle. He injected the needle into the kitten’s outstretched leg, causing it to mewl slightly, and pushed the needle’s contents into the little cat’s blood stream. Once the needle was empty he withdrew it, put it in a biohazard bag, and disposed of it. The Myuu closed her eyes, and at once settled into a deep sleep. The boss placed her on a bed in a glass-enclosed chamber, carefully securing the door behind him. He glanced at the kitten, his eyes bright, and Kojiro’s ears picked up the man’s parting whisper:

"You should be finished by the time we return in the morning, pretty one…and then, with you, the Rocket Gang will surely triumph!"

:

Kojiro sat in his apartment later that night, a small, crumbling brick building slowly disintegrating into dust that further buildings would stand upon as Takiwa City grew larger. His pet Nyasu lay in a small fleece bed before the fireplace, its wide, feline eyes looking with puzzlement upon its master. Kojiro certainly seemed preoccupied tonight, shuffling from one side of the room to the other, looking through an assortment of lock picks, slimjims and skeleton keys, and digging through his wardrobe for dark clothes. Even the stupidest of cats could have picked up the fact that something of interest was certainly going on!

"Kojiro!" The cat spoke the human word in a nasally, slightly garbled voice, his feline tongue and vocal chords wreaking havoc upon the Japanese language. "Why are you so busy tonight? Are you planning a robbery?"

Kojiro turned to Nyasu, his voice soft. "Not a robbery," he explained, "I’m just going to take a look at one of the Boss’ secret projects…he says it will change the Rocket Gang forever." Nyasu’s attention was instantly caught.

"What kind of secret project?"

"A serum, the boss says, that can turn ordinary Pocket Monsters into very powerful, intelligent, and…" Here Kojiro hesitated "…human creatures. He had three vials of serum, one he used on a Myuu kitten no bigger than a rice ball. It makes me wonder, Nyasu, but also worry…" He ran one hand over the cat’s sleek head, scratching him at the base of his neck. "If he captures two more powerful legendaries, then that means there would be two more opportunities to exploit his power. I don’t like to admit it but…" Here Kojiro sighed, his hand resting lightly on Nyasu’s back, "I…I really don’t like a lot of what the Rocket Gang does."

Nyasu didn’t reply. The cat, too, was thinking, but not about Kojiro’s secret outpourings. In fact, he had stopped listening to the man after he had mentioned the mysterious serum. Would it really work such great wonders as the boss insisted? His fur stood slightly on end in anticipation for nightfall, his eyes glimmering with hidden secrets of his own.

"Are you looking forward to tonight?" Nyasu asked finally, one soft brown paw resting lightly on the fleece bed. Kojiro sighed and took his wallet from his pocket, opening it to an edge-worn photo, carefully slipped into a plastic sleeve. He looked long at the image, of a man slightly older than he was, in a black Rocket Gang uniform. A handsome man he had admired from afar, longed to talk to, to have hold him gently while he lay his head on his shoulder…but the man ignored him, thought he was inept and foolish. Kojiro had tried his hardest to impress the man, to make him acknowledge him, but nothing ever worked. And if he got caught sneaking into the lab…

Finally, he replied to Nyasu’s answer.

"I…I guess so, Nyasu…I guess so. You’ll stay home and watch the apartment, right?"

Nyasu’s ear twitched in agitation, but gave a slight nod. "By the way, what did the serum look like?"

Kojiro paused. The question was odd, but not seeing any harm, decided to answer. "Thick and reddish, in a test-tube. Why?"

Nyasu simply grinned in reply.

Kojiro hardly paid the cat any attention. His heart ached.

:

It was about one o’clock in the morning. Kojiro stood before the door that led to the small building that housed the lab and a few other offices, a lock-pick clutched in his hand. Shaking slightly, he inserted it into the keyhole and pushed it, first to one side, then the other. In a few minutes the lock was sprung, and carefully, ever so carefully, he stepped inside.

Outside in the bushes, Nyasu watched him.

:

Kojiro crept through the corridor, the dusky sunlight of early morning faintly illuminating the Formica floor. He just had to get a glimpse at the boss’ new creation. Had the experiment worked? And, more importantly, would it really be as powerful, as dangerous as the boss seemed to think?

He pushed the door back, the one that led into the lab. Motes of dust fluttered about, sent flurrying as Kojiro walked past them. He let his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, then crept inside the room. What would the creation look like? Would it be able to talk? He hoped so. He enjoyed talking to Nyasu, and found it quite sad that many people considered their fellow creatures of the earth to be their inferiors, simply because they didn’t share their large brains and vocal chords. If more Pokémon could talk, he thought, perhaps our world would be a different place, and a better place. Maybe a utopia…

Kojiro carefully made his way to the next door, the one that led to the large glass cage where the Myuu kitten had been placed. His hand trembled in anticipation as he carefully pushed it open, feeling the wall for the light switch. He flicked it on, shutting his eyes from the glare. When Kojiro opened them again, however, he was honestly unprepared for what he saw. So, this is the result of the boss’ experiment? Oh, what has he gone and done?

:

The moment Kojiro stepped out of the lab, Nyasu went into action. The cat had crept softly behind as the man made his way through the building, constantly glancing about for anything in which the serum might possibly be concealed. Once he entered the lab, the tall, steel cabinet caught his eye, a strong chemical reek wafting about it. Swiftly he darted to it, nudging it open with a paw. And there, right before his glittering eyes, were two test-tubes, each filled with a thick, slightly crimson tinged liquid.

Without hesitating a second, Nyasu snatched them both, running from the building and into the alleys beyond.

:

"Oh!"

It was all Kojiro could say at first.

Upon the bed lay a small child, no older than six, Kojiro guessed. The small bundle of fluff that had been the Myuu kitten was truly changed; its small, feline form twisted and reshaped. The child was totally naked, and it shivered slightly, huddling deeper into the bed. A tangled mane of soft hair, the color of it ranging from a pale pink to a rich purple, flowed about the child’s head and just past her shoulders. She had short arms and long legs, its slender hands and large feet covered in soft fur, just as they had been before. Her ears remained the same as well, only larger. And the kitten-child still possessed a long, thin tail, which she kept curled up about her, her face buried in the tip.

"Oh, what the hell has he done?" Kojiro whispered, still staring at the child’s sleeping form. He thought without a doubt that this was the cruelest thing he’d ever seen the Rocket Gang do. The Myuu kitten had been a beautiful, innocent animal, with a life of freedom before it, but now it had been forced into a human form, burdening it with sentience, intelligence, and reason. It was shackled in humanity, no more would its life be free.

Kojiro sat down upon the bed, taking the small child’s head in his lap, gently stroking her fur-like hair and whispering, over and over again, like a stream running through the forest, "You poor creature!"

He stared at the girl’s face, not wanting to admit to himself that she had the sweetest, prettiest face he had ever seen on a child. It drew him and repulsed him at the same time, the creature with the child’s dainty face and body which contrasted sharply with the Pokémon features it still possessed. He took a blanket and draped it over her, not out of modesty but out of a strange pity, one he himself couldn’t understand.

Kojiro truly worried for the child’s future. It was only a little girl, not at all old enough to understand fully what sorts of things would go on around it. Because of her youth, and the fact that she wasn’t a true human being, he could only imagine how the rest of the Rocket Gang would manipulate and use her in a fashion no child or Pokémon deserved to be subjected to. It was then that Kojiro decided that he had to get the child away from here, even at risk of his own life. He would not leave her to such a future, no!

The child was trying to wake, sighing fitfully. As Kojiro looked on, the little girl suddenly opened her eyes. They were the vivid blue of psychic Pokémon, a shade no human eyes could normally reach, and were so wide and appealing that one could stare into them for hours and never get tired of their appearance. But there was a hidden sadness in them, and also a deeply knowing look far beyond ordinary six-year-olds, that seemed to contain more knowledge than Kojiro could ever hope to know.

Strange, the young man wondered, but those eyes give everything away, even more so than the animal features the girl still retains. To those who know how to look, beyond the surface of things to what really lay within, it is easy to see that the child is not a true child at all, but a Pokémon. But not many people know how to look. I know that well, because most see me either as a hard-hearted, evil member of the Rocket Gang or…they see me as Kosanburo does. As a silly faggot, not worthy of anybody’s love…

A single tear fell from Kojiro’s cheek and upon the child’s face. She stared up at him without flinching, her blue eyes peering into the man’s green ones. Then, in an instant, she had leapt upon those big feet of hers, the blanket falling to the floor. She stood shakily before the glass walls of the chamber, staring at her reflection. She raised a hand, and seemed baffled when the reflection did also. The child reached up, and touched her face with a furry hand. Then, suddenly, she turned around, jumping about like a drunkard in an effort to remain on her feet, an expression of confusion and fear upon her face. Kojiro, his mind off his inner turmoil, couldn’t help but think that the child’s wild stumbling and bewildered face were laughable and cute, and that was the worst thing about it.

The child tried to take a step forward, but finally fell flat on her face, as what remained of her old mind-set did not understand bipedal motion. Kojiro, feeling ashamed, rushed to her side, but the child hunkered down on the floor like a wild animal, glaring daggers at him. Then, with hesitation, she spoke, which surprised Kojiro, since the child had never been taught language:

Kojiro couldn’t help but grin at the irony behind the child’s first words. "I…I’m sure it does. I feel that way often, small one. But there is probably not much I can do to help you…"

He helped the child to her feet, and she clung to his leg, small kitten claws clinging to the fabric of his pants. "What happened?"

Kojiro was at a loss how to explain in a way a six-year-old would understand, and, finally, decided to not explain at all. The child’s sentient consciousness did not appear to remember ever being a Pokémon, and what remained of her instinctive mindset seemed to be fading away, although her eyes remained as bright as they were when she was still a kitten. The child still clinging to his leg, Kojiro led her out into the hallway, glancing out the windows into the world beyond. A beautiful sunrise was in progress, pinks and reds swirling across the otherwise dusky sky. The child stared up at the man she already viewed as a father and smiled, the pain and confusion of only a few moments before dissipating into thin air. No longer was her mind in turmoil! Still smiling the innocent grin of the very young, the child pressed her face affectionately against Kojiro’s knee, sighing happily.

It was with a certain apprehension that Kojiro removed one of the lab coats that hung on a rack before the door, wrapping it about the child’s small form. Fortunately, the coat was far too big for the girl, and effectively hid her non-human features. Do I really want to go through with this? the man thought, glancing down at his small charge. I have no place to keep a child. I’d become an enemy of the Rocket Gang. I can only imagine what Musashi would think, or, even worse, what Kosanburo would think! Never again could I even try to win his love! But can I really leave her here to suffer? I am sure Nyasu and I could figure something out…and maybe I’ll become such a hero for saving the child that Kosanburo will regret all the times he was cruel to me, and maybe, finally, he will realize how much I love him…

Snatching the child up in his arms, Kojiro stole into the early morning quiet of Takiwa City, darting from shadow to shadow in the direction of his apartment building.