Chapter 4 Prof Oak

To say Samuel Oak was sceptical of his granddaughter's frantic phone call about a big yellow electric mouse she had to look after was an understatement; he had been expecting a prank with a stuffed toy and a Van de Graaff generator, not a large yellow mouse that sparked menacingly at him.

"So what have you been feeding it?" Sam calmly inquired, belying the school-girl giddiness that he felt.

"Just berries, the ones at the front desk I nibble on during the day. I didn't want to feed it too much in case it forgot who its owner was," replied Daisy. Sam wondered if they should keep feeding it since mice normally ate between 15-20 times a day. Maybe they could talk about it with the girl when she came in at lunch time.

"And you say this girl found it last night outside her dorm?" asked Sam.

"Yes. Now that I think about it, it's rather strange. I have heard stories of pets following people home, but to be so determined as to follow them to school is a new one for me. Maybe it's already been trained or it's really young and thought the girl was its mother," said Daisy.

"It might be an escaped subject from an experiment, but I have not heard of any. I will check with all the usual suspects, but I doubt they are responsible for this; genetically modified crops and vat grown beef are the extent of their research. Your 'mother' hypothesis might be right, but if this creature is an infant, then it's rather large and well developed. It's not impossible but unlikely," mused Sam, peering at the big yellow mouse thing.

At this point Pikachu gave a rather large zap from its red cheeks that scorched the pen's walls.

"I think we need to do more than just feed it; have you tried to play with it?" asked Sam.

"Yes, I gave it some toys, but it didn't seem to know what to do with them... or just was not interested," said Daisy, indicating some squeaky dog toys and a cat ball with a bell in it.

"Mmm, let me try something. I'll be back in a minute," said Sam as he walked away, his head bent in thought. The play instinct of animals was normally a social interaction, but getting in the cage with an agitated electric mouse was not a smart idea, and giving it a playmate was just cruel.

But this was Academy City: the most advanced city in the world. So when things were too dangerous for a human they sent in a robot. He was back within ten minutes with everything he would need: one remote control car, some batteries, one ball of string, and one stuffed toy frog about 25 cm in height.

"You know you're just going to scare it with that," said Daisy disapprovingly.

"If it gets scared, I will switch it off and pull it out," said Oak while setting up his contraption. He tied the frog to the top of the car, and then tied a second piece of string to the back of the frog so that he could pull it out of the pen if it got stuck.

"Fine, I will get it over this side of the pen so you can put the car in, but I want you to pull it out as soon as there is the slightest hint that it's getting upset. I am supposed to be looking after it, not experimenting on it," said Daisy. She was always taking the side of the animals, which was fine for her line of work and kept him in check. But for once he wished she would just believe in him.

As Daisy pulled out a berry and waggled it in front of the cage bars, Sam slid the door open and slipped in the playmate. Pikachu was not fooled by the treat and looked as if it was going to make a break for freedom, so Sam slammed the door shut before it could get close.

Sam decided to leave the two in the pen to get acquainted before moving the car. The plan was shortly ruined as Pikachu flipped it over and started gnawing at the bottom.

"What's it doing?" asked Daisy moving back round to Sam's side of the pen.

"I don't know; all that's there are the batteries. Maybe it's a hunting instinct. Most animals have a soft underbelly which gives predators a target to slash at, but it's not normal to bite there unless the pray is no longer capable of resisting," said Sam, trying to puzzle it out. Animal behaviour is never as simple as people think; pets need more than food and a place to sleep, but what this creature was doing was unusual. Sam was too interested in what Pikachu was doing to its playmate to try and rescue it when the creature finally got the battery cover off and prised out the batteries.

"We've got to get those batteries out; if it eats one it could die," Daisy worriedly said. Pikachu just looked at her with an AA battery in its mouth, and gave a contented "Pikachu!" before flicking it away and chasing after it.

Sam finally got it - this creature was an electric mouse. It needed electricity and had sensed the power in the car, so it was much more interested in the batteries than the stuffed toy. Sam knew of cats and dogs that had liked the wrapper better than the toy, but he had never found anything that liked the battery better than the toy. The green frog lay discarded off to one side of the remote control car as Pikachu played with the batteries.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Misaka was unable to retrieve the Pokémon without alerting the original to Misaka's presence, explains Misaka," explained one of the Misaka clones sent to retrieve the mouse thing that the idiot had made, what was her number again, 10032?

"What is a Pokémon?" asked Ao.

"Pokémon, Accelerator came up with the name for a small but powerful creature, says Misaka as Misaka wonders if Misaka can put it in her pocket," said the second one, Misaka 10033 wasn't it? The one Harumi called James, he didn't want to know why she had a guy's name.

"I think that's a good name for my creations what do you think Meowth?" said Harumi,

"Meowth?" asked the strange looking cat Harumi was holding.

Before Ao could say anything Harumi was surrounded by several dozen clones all cooing at the abomination.

"What is that!" exclaimed Ao in horror.

"This is Meowth, I was going to use your pet rock to create another specimen, but I found this stray cat out the back, and thought it would be easier to produce an Esper if I started with something living," said Harumi.

"Are you mad! What superpower did you give it? Teleportation? Fire? Water? telekinesis? Wait, no, you didn't give it auto-reflect?" asked Ao in growing panic.

"No, no. I just gave him some of the normal Esper chemicals to boost intelligence and strength - I am not about to make another level 5 Pokemon. You could even consider Meowth a level zero. I don't know where the golden coin on its head came from, but I am sure I can figure it out," said Harumi stroking said coin.

"Can Misaka keep it, asked Misaka," asked the entire horde of Misaka clones standing around the idiot and abomination.

"Now now, owning a pet is not a small thing. You have to toilet train it, feed it, and empty the litter tray every day; it's a big responsibility," said Harumi.

"Misaka understands as Misaka grabs Meowth and runs away to play with it," said the entire group of clones as they grabbed the terrified creature and ran off in the direction of the cloning vats.

0o0o0o0o0o0

The creature known as Meowth was scared. It could sense the electricity radiating off the girls who crowded around him. All this newborn clone of a Persian cat that had been playing in the dumpster out back of the lab could do was to curl up in a defensive ball and shiver.

"Misaka has a plan to toilet-train Meowth, we use Testament, just like Harumi used on Misaka to toilet-train Misaka, announced Misaka," said one of the girls, but of course Meowth didn't understand a word.

"Why is Misaka speaking out loud when Misaka could communicate using the network more efficiently? asked Misaka, exasperated at Misaka's lack of network discipline," said another, once again meaningless to Meowth.

"Yes, but then how would the readers know what Misaka is planning? asked Misaka," asked a Misaka as she put the cat down on a bed and attached a helmet to the helpless cat who, immediately tried to get it off.

"Misaka thinks this is a bad idea, said Misaka hoping to be the voice of reason."

"Misaka thinks it will be fine, says Misaka as Misaka flips the switch."

Pain rushed through Meowth's body as a machine - designed to teach humans - tried to work on a smaller brain wired completely differently. Words entered and left the cat's mind: the tongue twister 'she sells seashells on the seashore'... how to use a toilet correctly was mixed up with how to drink a cup of water... several Hollywood movies that a technician had been watching when he should have been monitoring the sisters. As the pain and the nonsense wore off, the glass lid over the bed rose.

"Da hell was that!" exclaimed the utterly confused, Hollywood-inspired cat, now speaking English.

A/N To follow up on what a guest said in their review, who do you think is going to cause more problems, a level 5 Pikachu or the roulette machine owned by the unluckiest guy in the world? out of the two i would have to say Togepi, but, Well, there's now Meowth who just learnt to speak, thanks to being shoved into a Testament by a couple of naive girls wanting to skip toilet-training.

I have had this on my HDD since 2014, so sorry work etc, etc. Don't count on many updates any time soon

Many thanks to werewolf2005 for his beta work, this story sounds so much better with his input.