First Aide

[Zincspider]

Alrighty. Here it goes, my next attempt at FanFicdom. I sure hope I can keep up with this one... and due to the lack of a certain someone in my life now, I should be able to focus on this much more! Hopefully I don't kill it off like my last... 2 or 3 attempts.
Anyway, let us begin the journey of Randy Pilt. Professor Oak's Number One Aide... at least he is for now.


WARNING!: This chapter is rated 'PG' for blood... and that's about it... had to play it safe.

First Aide

Chapter 1- No! Alone Time is Useless Now!


“Randy, once you finish giving those Sunkern their growth serum, please input today’s record into the server,” called out a slightly high-pitched voice, which reached the ears of a young man who was bent over a large terrarium (whose name was no doubt that which the man was calling out). “We had three evolutions from that tank today, and not a sunstone in sight. We may soon be approaching the means to evolve Pokémon without the use of that blasted rock.”

Randy, looked down into the tank, and nodded his head. He knew the Professor wouldn’t hear him simply moving his head, but it was understood that he would get right on it. Besides, if he yelled, he might wake up the sleeping Pokémon in the tank. Four of the original ten Sunkern from when the experiment began remained in the tank. So, so far six had evolved from this tank? That was far from conclusive. The small striped, yellow and black seeds only needed brief exposure to a sunstone to evolve, so even a crushed one accidentally placed in the soil could spring the evolutionary process in one of the creatures with a weak resistance. It could be countered with an everstone in the tank, but that would also restrict the evolution from the serum that Randy had been feeding them for five days now.

Randy proceeded to drip a few drops of the bright yellow liquid from the small dropper in his had onto each of the leaves of the four Sunkern. When he ran out, he would simply fill the dropper from a small bottle in his coat pocket. It was tedious work, but it was relaxing as well to see the small sleeping faces on the young plants. When he finished, Randy stood up, wiping his brown hair out of his glasses, noticing that his hair was slightly sticking to the thick frames. He had been sweating more than he thought. The temperature needed to keep the Sunkern healthy was simply devastating when wearing a white lab coat… either that, or Randy had been working harder than he thought today. That must be it.

“Sleep well small ones…” Randy murmured, ignoring the heat for a bit to look around the room. Like the rest of the lab, the floor was flat grey stone, polished and extremely clean. Randy should know, he had to sanitize it every morning… in every room but this one; the chemical fumes might kill the Sunkern. Two had already died in tank three when Phil dropped his busted pen in the tank. The ink was ingested by the two infants, and it acted like poison to their bodies (and although it was sad, it was also important, as it is now known that ink will kill a Sunkern). Randy then began to pull out his clipboard from inside his coat (thankfully, the metal clip had been pressing against his side rather uncomfortably), so he could look at all ten tanks once again, and recheck his data. After retrieving the clipboard, Randy began screwing the bottle top back on the solution.

“Randy are you done yet?” Oak shouted from his office, once again. “We can go home once you finish up!” Randy shook his head, feeling his ponytail slap his back as he moved his neck. Oak sure did get impatient on Tuesdays. Of course, ‘Grey’s Caterpie’ was on tonight, so Randy held his tongue. He knew Oak loved the show. But Oak had almost woken the Pokémon, and it would take another hour to get the wailing infants back to sleep. And with how far Randy would have to bend down to reach into the soil filled tanks to lull them to sleep, his back would hurt even more than it did now. (And it hurt much more than it should at his age. 17 was not when you should develop back problems. But with how Oak worked his aides…) Randy hurriedly slapped on the screw lid, trying to please Oak, if even a little bit.

Randy turned around, and left the room to the right so that he could input his collected data in Oak’s computer. He reached into his pocket with his free right hand, and took out the bottle of serum, again, so that he could refill it in the office as well.

In comparison to the previously dark room, the bright light of the small computer room was painful to the eyes. Randy stumbled into the small wooden desk the computer monitor was seated on out of blurred vision. After the blow to his thigh, he almost stubbed his toe on the tower on the ground as well… how unlucky he didn’t. He might have moved it out of the way.
“Gack!” Randy exclaimed, throwing his clipboard and bottle on the table so that he could clutch his now aching thigh. The clipboard soared after the small bottle, and the board tipped the container over. The loose lid popped off the bottle when it impacted with the table top, and bright fluid spilled from the table onto the computer tower lying on the ground, shorting out the circuits, and creating an extremely large popping noise.

“What’s that?” Randy asked out of panic, looking up from holding his leg. With the shock of the noise, and loss of control over his injured leg, Randy began to stumble backwards into the experimental room. After a few jumpy back peddling steps, Randy fell down backwards into Tank Number ten. His bottom hit the closer edge first, raising the other like a see-saw, and the opposite slammed into Randy’s head at such force it knocked him unconscious, and shattered most of the tank, only pieces of one wall were standing. And they were only four inches high… but ended in horribly sharp peaks, which matched the wit of an Alakazam.

Randy’s limp from rolled to his right, placing his thin arm right on the edges of the tank, and the large glass peaks pierced his flesh easily as his own body weight pressed harder on his arm. He didn’t feel a thing however, even as his blood poured down the edges of the tank.

There is one good thing about this. Tank Number ten was empty of Sunkern, as the final ones in the tank had evolved that day, so none of them were harmed. Yay…

-

Present Day

My name is Randy Pilt. One year ago I became an official aide to Professor Oak when I reached the age of sixteen (the legal age to receive a job in Kanto). I sacrificed my relationship with my friends to do so, seeing as all of them left to become great Pokémon masters. ‘Sixteen?’, you say, ‘Don’t you mean ten?’. No, the age to legally be able to go out on your own was raised to the age to get a job when I was nine. The rise of several gangs, the arrival of more Pokémon from other countries, and common sense on the part of the government finally restricted the age of a Pokémon trainer.

But that’s beside the point. My point was that my friends all left Pallet Town, and I was left to do my job. Not that I’m complaining. I loved working with Oak, and learning more about Pokémon, and discovering several things myself. Did you know that Weedle Venom injected into Kakuna speeds up the evolution process drastically? Yeah, that was me who found that. You’re welcome.

But just over a month ago, I had an accident in Oak’s lab, one that made me wish I had left with my friends. I tripped, and got giant wedges of glass shoved into my right arm… and it hasn’t been the same, to say the least.

-

*One Month Ago*

Randy woke up with a start to see Professor Oak standing over him. What a refreshing sight. The old man didn’t look his age, as the only wrinkles on his square-jawed face were from smiling, which he was doing at the moment. His grey buzz cut was matted with sweat as though he had been working hard for quite a while. And now that Randy thought about, he might have very well been doing that. Instead of his normal red Polo shirt and white lab coat, he was donning a pastel green doctor’s smock, and a matching face mask was swinging around his neck on an elastic cord.

“Hey, Oak… what’s going on?” Randy asked. To his surprise, that took a lot out of him. Just asking that simple question had taken away all of his breath. He turned his head to find several transparent cords, one filled with a dark red liquid running into his arm. Blood. He was receiving blood… so that must mean he was in the hospital section of Oak’s Lab. But what for… then he remembered falling in the Lab. ‘So that must be it’ he thought, trying to comprehend the situation ‘I broke something in the fall’. But that didn’t explain the blood. He had to have done something else. However, he couldn’t think straight. His head was muddled from what he assumed were pain killers.

“Randy, don’t speak right now. You just woke up… it’s still too early for you to move around. You lost a bunch of blood, buddy.” Oak stated, grinning suspiciously. It seemed he was hiding something that had happened.

“Hey… Oak… what’s with… the getup?” Randy asked trying to raise his right arm to point at the smock. But it wouldn’t rise. ‘Must be the drugs…’.

“I happen to be a certified surgeon, Randy. The only one in Pallet, by the way. The town had to have one. But get to sleep…” Oak informed, speaking quietly. Then he pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid from a tray next to him, and injected it into the tube with nothing in it. The fluid cascaded into his body, and Randy immediately began feeling a bit drowsy.

Before he went to sleep again, Randy noticed a large chunk of metal on Oak’s tray. Then he dozed off.

-

The next time Randy woke up, it was to due to the need to use the rest room. He swung his feet over the left side of the bed, and stepped onto the cold floor. He cringed as his bare feet felt the tingle from the stone. From there, he lifted up his thin frame and began to walk straight ahead of him to where he knew the bathroom in the hospital rooms was located, without having to really thing straight. Working in Oak’s Lab had a few advantages like that. After a few trudging steps he felt a small tug on his arm, then he remembered the tubes, and he turned to grab the metal fixture on which two bags hung (One filled with red, and the other with a clear liquid) with his right hand, and dragged them along to the other side of the small room. When he reached the opposite wall, he fumbled around with his left arm to find the knob, and when he located the cold metal object, he opened the door and entered the bathroom.

Now, what I have to say here is that Randy had to perform Number One, and that when he reached down with his hands to support his… err… urine disposal unit, he felt something unsettling cold instead of a hand. When he looked at his arm, he first rubbed his eyes with the non-offending left hand, as he was missing his glasses. It could have been an oversight. But when he didn’t see anything different, he took in a deep breath… and shrieked like a little girl.

“AAAAIIIIIIIIEEEE!”

For what he saw was not his hand. It was decidedly mechanical. It was much larger than his old arm, and even then, it had no covering. He could see all of the inner workings of the ‘arm’, and what moved when he wanted to. Deep inside he noticed what seemed to be a purple metal… a strangely familiar metal. Before he could examine this ‘thing’ on his arm any closer, Oak burst in the bathroom, dressed in pastel blue pajamas and a nightcap.

“What’s going on in!... oh… you’re up…” Oak whispered, looking away from Randy’s… well… thing.

\“What in Mew’s name is this?” Randy shouted, flinging his right forearm, up in anger, and clenching his fist. But the motion didn’t go where it was intended, instead his arm swung sideways, and into the bathroom wall, shattering a couple of the tacky pink tiles. “Oh great! It doesn’t even work! WHERE’S MY REAL ARM OAK?”

Oak shook his head, muttering a little under his breath, all the while leaning on the door frame.

“Alright Randy, it seems you’re up… now go lay down, and I will explain everything. You can’t be using that arm too soon, or it might fall off as well… and for Mew’s sake put that thing away,” Oak ordered, moving out of the door. Randy noticed a somber tone in his voice. One that definitely showed signs of regret, but not malice. Randy calmed down a bit, and grabbed his IV stand with his FLESH hand, and dragged back over to the bed, and sat down awaiting his answers intently. Oak slowly walked over, being careful to rub his hand over the full length of the counter in the room. Then he turned to Randy.

“Do you remember anything that happened? From before you woke up? Any idea why you are in here?” Oak inquired, his mouth forced into a frown… something that wasn’t commonplace on Oak’s face.

Randy slowly nodded his head. “I know that I fell down in the lab. But what would POSSIBLY cause my arm to be replaced by the monstrosity?” Randy questioned, pointing to the arm in question instead of using it to show itself again. It hadn’t ended well last time. Oak sighed very deeply, then looked into Randy’s eyes sadly.

“Yes, you did fall, but when you did, you rolled onto very large spikes of glass from the terrarium you broke in the process of falling,” Oak began to explain. He then reached over to Randy’s left arm, and lifted it up as if showing it as an exhibit to his case. It was very thin, with only an average amount of muscle, and a very thin layer of fat, commonplace on most people. Even the thickest parts didn’t reach more than five inches in diameter. Oak continued “And your arm, being as thin as it was, had nearly all of the muscle severed off the bone. If you were to look at your ribs, some pieces even shoved all the way through your arm, and started poking you in the chest.” Oak released Randy’s arm, and returned to the counter, and this time he sat on it.

“When I heard the crash from you falling, I ran into the experimentation room, and found you unconscious on the ground. I picked you up, and broke of the glass into your arm. If I had pulled it out, you would have bled to death… it’s still a wonder you didn’t. But I carried you up to the operating room, and did what I could… which wasn’t much.” Oak looked at Randy’s arm for a few seconds before he started again.

In that time, Randy tried to comprehend what Oak was saying… it was almost too much. How could he have fallen in the perfect position for that to happen? What were the chances that that would ever happen? But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the chances didn’t matter. All that did was that it happened. He had lost his arm in a freak accident.

“The muscle damage was too severe; you had almost no chance of ever repairing the damage. I was simply going to amputate the arm… but then I had a better plan,” Oak continued. Randy nodded, seeing where this was going. Oak had replaced his arm with… this thing, hoping it would serve as a proper substitute. But what was it?

“I had been developing a new Pokémon Prosthetic. I had been meaning to test it out soon… but I didn’t plan for the subject to be human. I quickly called up your father, and asked permission to perform the surgery to 'give' it to you instead. He quickly agreed, and I began work immediately. You almost didn’t make it there. You lost a lot of blood, but in the end you pulled through.” Oak said, beginning to smile again, happy that Randy wasn’t down his throat about the situation anymore. But he had relaxed too soon.

“You… attached a Pokémon part to my body?” Randy asked, teeth clenched in anger, his voice barely audible. Oak quickly raised both of his hands.

“It was meant for Pokémon at first. The technology was going to be put to use for humans as well, but we needed somewhere to start. As I said before, I didn’t expect the first test to be run on a human. In fact, that was meant for a Machoke,” Oak speedily covered.

Randy shook his head. He still didn’t approve of one word in that sentence. Test. He was a test subject at the moment. For a Pokémon part, no matter what Oak said. Randy expressed this thought to Oak, and in return he got a light chuckle.

“It’s only a term Randy. That piece of equipment on your arm is a very expensive proto-type. As a test subject, I don’t have to charge you or your family. In fact, now that your father has agreed to the terms, I not only cover the price of the arm, but your hospital bills as well… in fact, I should be paying you for doing this. It was for the betterment of science, and your family to consider it a… test.” Oak concluded, his expression now one of delight. A big change from when had started explaining. Randy guessed that the fact that he had lost his arm was supposed to be somber news when give, and that’s why Oak was acting as such.

But Oak had rightfully thought so. However, Randy wasn’t as awestruck or depressed as he thought he would be from hearing this sort of news. He simply kept silent. Perhaps he was just taking it well… or he was so horrified that his own flesh and blood arm had been replaced by a cybernetic piece of junk that seemed to fantastical to be real.

“Umm… thanks…” Randy muttered, still not partial to the idea of being a test subject. “But how does this thing even work?” Randy asked finally, pointing at the arm. It seemed to be all machine except for the purple core. He didn’t see anything that resembled any kind of synthetic nerve. Oak nodded, as if he had been expecting the question.

“Do you remember the test we ran with the Staryu a while back?” Oak asked, hoping for a yes. Randy nodded. The experiment was a complicated one. Seeing as Staryu were able to regenerate torn off limbs, Oak wanted to know what other regeneration skills it had… such as possibly reattaching the limb that fell off, instead of growing a new one.

The hypothesis was proven to be true, as the Staryu could become attached to its old arm again. But the strange thing was that the arm did the attaching, not the core Pokémon. When the appendage was presented to the wound, the limb began to reach out, and form to the wound. Randy thought the results to be fascinating, but couldn’t remember what the use of the test was.

Oak nodded back, and began a rant, “Well, I sent that report to Professor Elm in Johto, and he used the findings to run a test of his own. Recently, a Growlithe puppy had been hatched in Elm’s lab. But the poor little fire-dog only had three legs. It was extremely difficult for the little guy to even learn how to walk, and Elm was afraid he would have to put it down. But after reading my report, he decided to try something to save the little creature. He went out and bought a Staryu from the nearest Pokémon breeder, and chopped off one of its limbs, then he proceeded to remove the end of the puppy’s extremely short stub. He pressed the leg to the wound, and stitched it on. Lo and behold, after about an hour, Elm began seeing a drastic change in the shape of the leg. The limb had bent in the middle like a knee, and the end bet out as if it were a foot. The limb had adapted to the Growlithe’s body. In a month or so, the Growlithe was walking around, a little sloppily due to the odd shape of his extra appendage, but walking none the less. Elm had discovered a way to create new limbs.”

Randy stared out in amazement… and horror. If what he was hearing was correct, then the purple center of his arm was…. No, no, no. He refused to believe it. Oak started up again. The old man was on a roll, and as Randy knew, when he began to explain things, he didn’t stop until he had exhausted every piece of knowledge on the subject.

“Using that discovery, the other Professors from around the world- Elm, Rowan, Birch- and I predominately, began seeing what else we could use to make a replaceable limb that was in the shape of an actual limb for whatever being it was being used on. We decided to switch the Staryu limb with a Starmie one instead, as its psychic properties were essential for our plan, and for the fact that the Starmie limb absorbed water from the air to survive, so keeping it alive was easy.

“We didn’t have the need to create synthetic nerves, seeing as the limb provided its own, but we needed a way to have our mechanical arm to be moved by the new limb. We hypothesized that by recognizing the prosthetic as your own arm, when you tried moving it with your normal brain functions, the Starmie limb interprets these, and using many a wire we have hooked up to the limb, and uses the brain waves to power actions in the arm.” Oak looked very proud of himself with that extremely long explanation. Of course he should, having thought up part of the ingenious plan.

Randy slapped his face with his normal hand. It was true. He had a Starmie arm… great. Just freaking peachy.

“But if it’s supposed to be 'all that', why did it smash the wall a bit ago instead of doing what I wanted?” Randy questioned. Oak all the sudden changed back to looking gloomy.

“Well, the Starmie arm still registers its original owner’s brain waves. Yours are different. It will take several weeks at least for the arm to adjust to your way of thinking…” Oak laid out, sounding almost pouty, which an extremely weird way of talking to come out the mouth of an old man. Randy shook his head. His real arm was gone, and replaced with a rouge Starmie part… and to make matters worse, the area where the arm connected into his shoulder socket was itching horribly. Then a horrifying thought crossed his mind.

“Oak, how will I be able to work in the lab with this arm. It would be dangerous to be around the chemicals and machinery with it… I would be a hazard to everyone there… not to mention I might punch out the walls.” Randy admitted frightfully. ‘This is it,’ he thought ‘I just lost my job because of a stupid accident.’ But Oak just smiled, and nodded. Randy cocked a brown eyebrow at the expression. Was Oak happy to fire him? Instead, Oak reached back in one of the counter drawers, and pulled out a fresh pokédex from the depths. He threw it next to Randy’s right side on the bed, and gave off the most maniacal, frightening, and excited smile Randy had ever seen on Oak’s face.

“That’s right, so I promoted you to Field Tester. You begin your new job as soon as you recover.”

[Hotshot]

A wondrous first chapter, Zinc! I'm pretty sure you fixed all of the errors I pointed out earlier, so everything looks fine to me now...of course, I'm not perfect, so I could be missing something that another person will point out.

Still, it was an epic first chapter, and I can't wait to read more!

[Zincspider]

Originally Posted by Hotshot

A wondrous first chapter, Zinc! I'm pretty sure you fixed all of the errors I pointed out earlier, so everything looks fine to me now...of course, I'm not perfect, so I could be missing something that another person will point out.

Still, it was an epic first chapter, and I can't wait to read more!

Why thank you HotShot, and yes, I fixed the ones you pointed out, and also those that Krug and Ysa also found (bless them).
I hope that I have most of them now ;p
I'm working on polishing the next chapter now, so you might not have to wait too long.

Oh, and did you catch the title for this chapter?

[Hotshot]

Originally Posted by Zincspider

Oh, and did you catch the title for this chapter?

I've got some ideas as to what the title might refer to, but I'm not altogether sure. Care to explain?

[Zincspider]

Originally Posted by Hotshot

I've got some ideas as to what the title might refer to, but I'm not altogether sure. Care to explain?

Well... I plan on putting all of the dirty jokes in the chapter titles... that's pretty much all I can say with my rating up there |3

[asperger1981]

The concept of this story seems to have a lot of potential; an untested prosthetic device seems to have a lot of potential...plot coupons to apply. And I kinda like the Justimon shout out that the upper picture provides (or more indirectly...to riderman)

read you later.

P.D:

check this=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riderman