Ethical Defiance

January 1991, New Island Laboratory, Kanto

A fairly young-looking man, perhaps in his early twenties, stood in a fairly large room filled with large tubes, wires, and countless computers. He was standing in front of an odd-looking Pokémon, floating in a large tube with some sort of orange fluid in it, wires connected to every part of its body. He pushed a lock of brunette hair away from his eyes, resting a hand on the glass cylinder, and sighed.

The last one… You’re the last one, Myuutsu, he thought, a frown pulling at his lips. Only last week, the ‘failed’ clones had died, not strong enough to go through with the cloning process. They had been a Bulbasaur, a Charmander, a Squirtle, and a human girl, who they had called Ai.

Bill removed his hand, walking over to a good-sized computer. Myuutsu had been developing nicely the past few days, however traumatized the young Pokémon had seemed at Ai’s death. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in that creature’s head; what he thought about. He knew very well that such talk displeased Dr. Fuji and most of the other scientists at the lab, but the young man couldn’t help but sympathize at least a little. After all, any Pokémon, whether it had been created naturally or by human hands, had the right to feelings.

He admitted, though, that it would be interesting to see how Myuutsu battled. Even at such a young age, his MRI results were off the charts, and with the DNA of a legendary… He chuckled slightly. There was no way any human would be able to force this one under control.

Bill looked up as Professor Fuji himself entered the room, the man’s footsteps echoing through the basically empty room.

“Might I ask why you constantly feel the need to monitor that thing? It’s not as if it’s going anywhere.”

He stiffened slightly at these words, suddenly defensive. “Did you ever think that maybe he is aware of what goes on outside of this thing?” he asked, lying a hand on the glass tank and gazing in.

Dr. Fuji snorted loudly. “Ridiculous. Get your head out of the clouds, Bill.”

“Says you, who’s tried several times to bring his daughter ‘back to life’.”

The renowned professor turned suddenly furious with his pupil, starting to say something, but was cut off.

“Fuji, this is unethical. You can’t keep trying to clone your daughter until she comes back. She just died the other week… It would be blasphemy to try to recreate her again. We are here to research to better the world, not act as the god who created it.”

The gray-haired man with a long, slender face had his eyes planted firmly on his student. “William Grant, I had a lot of faith in you when you applied for this internship. Out of thousands of people who would have killed for this job, I picked you and forty-nine others. You were at the top of your class, you knew an immense amount of information on genetics, and you have been a vital piece in this cloning research project. But you are letting your emotions cloud your common sense.”

“Common sense?!” Bill repeated loudly, throwing his hands up into the air in frustration. “Common sense would tell YOU that you need to treat your specimens less like lab rats and more like the living beings they are!”

“Look,” Fuji began dangerously, stepping up right in Bill’s face. “I made a deal with Sakaki. He funds the project, and I create him the most powerful Pokémon no man or God has ever seen.”

The young man looked taken aback. “So… This whole time… That’s all Myuutsu and the others have been? Experiments?” His handsome face shook with heated fury. “Myuutsu is the last living Pokémon in this god-forsaken lab. He is to be treated as such. I won’t let you just hand him over like a trophy on a silver platter to Sakaki. If he even survives, who are you to take away his free will?”

The professor’s eyes were like dead pieces of ice in response to this. “In that you are wrong, William. The rest of the team continues to support me. You are part of that very team.”

“Very well, then,” Bill huffed, fury still etched into his facial features. He tore off his white lab coat, throwing it on the floor in front of Myuutsu’s tube. “I am done playing God. At least I’ve got half a brain enough to know that what you’re doing goes against every moral rule, written and not. I can’t let you get away with this, Fuji. You can’t just take a Pokémon and claim it as your own simply because you created it.” With that, he spat rudely on the ground near the other man’s clean-cut shoes, walking away.

“William, don’t even consider going public with this,” his professor warned volubly, but probably just loud enough for his pupil to hear. Bill paused, suddenly a tad nervous. After a moment, though, his determination and confidence rose once again.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he lied. “But you and Sakaki and the rest of your damned group are going to regret this.” His russet eyes shot back at Fuji one last time before heading silently out the door.

William Grant had no idea this was the last time he would ever see this facility again.