Selene's Genes

Evening, June 24

Professor Elm's laboratory

Sleep seemed to have abandoned Kai and Elm.

With the barest amount of napping, the duo had managed to bury themselves in the research for the last four days.

Professor Elm had come out to be as every bit odd as it was known about him. Not once he had asked about Item-M and Petyr's presence in the lab. Nor did he ask about arranging quarters for them. Food came on time, but unlike Kai, he had eaten little. Thrice the old butler had come, knocking on the lab's door, asking for Elm's health.

Kai had persuaded the Professor to send the butler away without letting him in every time.

"My god!" Elm exclaimed, nudging the glasses over his bloodshot eyes. "Look at this, Professor Desmond."

Words were wind. Not caring for the honorific, Kai followed Elm's gaze to the screen and saw the data. His eyes narrowed. For a long time, they had been waiting to see the results.

On the screen, there was a DNA structure, slowly rotating. Half of the base pairs (the links connecting the spirals, also called the backbones) were blue, and half were white. Overall, those colors gave the entire DNA structure a ghostly and icy appearance.

The trouble began beyond those colors.

"Are you seeing what I am seeing, Professor?" Professor Elm addressed Kai, pointing at the nano-sized black tendrils on the blue half. "It looks like some kind of foreign pathogen trying to force their way into the DNA."

Elm's voice was incredulous. Kai shared his colleague's ecstasy, but his eyes weren't only on the black tendrils. Opposite the tendrils, towards the white side of the DNA structure, there were even tinier yellow rings. If Kai wasn't so susceptible to everything yellow, even he would have ignored them.

-/Elm,/- Kai said, looking back at the glass-encased Selene. -/Zoom on those yellow rings on the white half./-

Selene lifted her hood and hissed, flicking out her tongue.

-Master, I want to hunt- she said, slithering into the confined space. -How much longer?-

-Not long- Kai hissed back the same two words for the umpteenth time.

"Yellow rings?!" Professor Elm muttered, adjusting his glasses. "Oh my! I didn't notice them."

When the screen zoomed in, Kai saw what he had feared the most. The rhythm of his breathing broke, and blood rose to his head in sheer horror. Unlike the black tendrils' obvious attempt to assimilate themselves into the DNA, the yellow rings were inconspicuous about their attempts. Not to mention the disgusting geometric patterns that made little sense and birthed such a repulsion upon seeing them that Kai's entire face crumpled.

-/A forced genome modification,/- Kai declared.

Professor Elm snapped his head. "How can that be?!" he exclaimed, refusing to believe the possibility. "I have devoted my entire life to the genome modification Pokemon goes upon evolving. There is no one more mysterious and mind-baffling phenomenon. And yet…"

-/Yet, in front of our eyes, something is trying to modify the Ghost Serpent's genome./- Kai completed the words as Professor Elm trailed off. -/The question is not what is this external agent, professor? The question is what is keeping them from going in./-

"Indeed," Elm agreed. "Seeing their number, and how these black tendrils and patterned yellow rings are being kept at the bay, there must be something that is naturally resisting them."

-/Is it possible…/- Kai wondered, -/that these half-successful attempts had blinded the Pokemon? And that bulge…/-

By now, Kai and Elm had already scanned Selene and the bulge in between her blind eyes, using all the means possible. One time would have been enough to conclude, but what they had found was so bizarre that they had to doubt the results and start the scanning anew using another method.

To Kai's dismay, the result hadn't changed, though.

The bulge was the mass of tissues, which resembled the beginning of an evolutionary stage of an eye. A third eye.

"Not only that, Professor Desmond," Elm said as if he had figured out something. "But I think the change is irrevocable. And if whatever that is keeping the Pokemon's genome from being modified doesn't stop, this struggle against these pathogens can permanently damage the subject."

'A true mad scientist,' Kai thought. He looked at Professor Elm with wide eyes. -/You aren't suggesting what I think you are suggesting, right?/-

Elm nudged his glasses, almost behaving like he hadn't heard or seen Kai. "I think we should push the pathogens in. Studying the change in DNA structure and the evolutionary stages of an ancient species can become the mightiest leap for science in the history of this world."

Kai wasn't sure about it. It was one thing, Selene becoming useless and Kai devouring her, and exchanging his Koffing's blood essence. Another thing entirely to see what would happen once both the children of his Glitch (the black tendrils) and spawns of Hastur (the yellow rings) had corrupted Selene.

What kind of creature would come into being after that? Kai shuddered at the thought.

At last, curiosity came out to be victorious, trampling all hesitation in Kai's heart and reasonable mind.

'Better a monster than a useless worm,' he thought, rubbing his hands through his hair.

Professor Elm's next words pushed Kai beyond the line of no return. "If we follow the known data on the current Pokemon species," he began, mulling over every single word, "then I think a potent stimulant should do the trick. An extremely strong stimulant."

Kai's eyes shone with realization. -/Like eating a Legendary Pokemon?/-

"Huh?" Professor Elm looked terrified at the suggestion. "That… that… Yes, that might work."

-/I am just joking, professor,/- Kai said, laughing. -/There are other ways to replicate the effects of the results of that statement./-

If there were, Professor Elm surely didn't know, for he said nothing in reply to Kai's joke.

"I must say," Kai said, reminiscing, "these last few days have made me recall many old memories. I am honored to assist you in this research, Elm."

Kai extended his hand and shook Elm's hand. The two shared a smile among them, before breaking eye contact.

"You say you are much older than you look, Desmond," Professor Elm said, zooming out of the screen. "Well, it might be true. But I am not sure who assisted whom in this research."

The corner of Kai's mouth lifted at that.

**********

AN: A long awaited ability will greet Kai tomorrow. And an unexpected proposal.