TCG-TF2: Mother

Please read the first story before reading this one. (link in description)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Martha pulled down the steel door to the mover’s truck with the weight of her body, completely deprived of strength to do it with her arms alone. With a deafening crash of metal scraping against metal, the door closed and locked. Martha put her back against the door and slid down its side until her body came down to the asphalt. It had been a long day for Martha at her job. She had started early in the morning while the sun had yet to rise from the horizon. It was late in the afternoon and she was fatigued from the constant strain of moving others’ furniture. Martha had to bring many miscellaneous belongings from house to truck, from truck to house, and from truck to storage. She was never on break. Being the only woman at her place of employment she stood out from the ungentlemanly and uncaring bum-son-of-an-unfortunate-woman’s-loins co-workers, they believed that was enough to force her to do all the labor. Though the work was strenuous, Martha wouldn’t have it any other way. She always wanted a job that would do more than just pay her, even if it was meager. To Martha, there was only one thing that mattered to her more than her own life, her son Mike. As his mother, she would protect him always; Mike was her baby, even though her baby was turning sixteen that very same day. If all the heavy lifting would give her the strength to overpower anyone who would dare harm her son, she would lift until she could lift no more.

     Martha’s long brunette hair stuck to her face and tan skin that dripped with sweat from the heat. She sat on the blazing hot asphalt until she managed to pull herself up from the ground to close shop and head home.

     She drove smoothly down the road that led to her house. As she turned the corner, a ball skittered in front of her car along with a young boy chasing after it. The car’s tires screeched when Martha slammed her foot down on the brakes. Then car skidded forward and was inches away from the boy. Only then did he notice; he stared wide-eyed and his face flushed. Martha jumped out of her car as soon as it came to a halt while the grille of the car growled out heated air into the boy’s terrified face. Before she could even ask if the boy was alright, his own mother had appeared and yanked him out of the street.
     Shouting at the boy, she questioned. “How many times have I told you to look when you cross the street?!”

     Martha tried to speak but her voice was drowned out by the mother’s shouts as she dragged him into the house.

     “Mom wait I dropped someth—” The boy was cut off by the door of his house slamming shut. Martha stood in the middle of the road confused. She looked down at the pavement where the boy almost ate much more than just a mouthful of car. On the ground was a playing card Martha assumed were the boy’s. Not wanting to leave the card behind to blow away in the wind and become litter, she pocketed the card to throw away later and tossed the boy’s ball into his yard.
     Her first step back towards her car landed awkwardly, as she was overcome by a sudden dizzy spell. Looking ahead, everything still retained their colors but looked like it was losing definition; one object would melt into another sparing only her vision up close. Martha blinked and rubbed her eyes but it made no difference.
Sitting back down in the driver’s seat of her car Martha hunched over the steering wheel and took a deep breath to steady herself. Stepping on the gas pedal, a large three-toed brown foot tore out from her tennis shoes. Under the dizzy spell, Martha passed it off as a hallucination and all the more reason to hurry down the final block of houses to her home.
     When she arrived, the blurring of her vision worsened. Each step towards the front door was a lurch that required effort from her whole body. While one of her legs still appeared human, the three-toed foot that Martha thought she hallucinated walked as if it were a physical part of her, its supposed shape tearing the seams of her pant leg. Reaching for the door knob, her arms entered the short spiral of her tunneled vision. Martha fumbled with the handle as her fingers merged into one another. Her pinkies to her ring finger, middle to index, each forming a thick claw at the end of each widened finger.

     Martha fell to the floor on her back just after managing to shut the door behind her. Soon her left foot changed to mirror the right with the same brown skin and three-toes.
     Each of Martha’s limbs went limp at her sides with hands and feet fully changed. She closed her eyes to hide the sight of herself.
     “What’s happening?” she wondered distraught between wanting to know and not wanting to believe what was going on.
     Martha’s curiosity took over when a line of irritation passed over her belly. Though she kept her eyes closed all the tighter, Martha looked at herself with her hands. The irritation passed within a few seconds leaving her belly feeling pleasantly warm as if she were wearing a wool blanket over it. Carefully working with her new claws, Martha placed her claws atop her belly discovering the seam of a pouch. The pouch, Martha realized, was meant for carrying young.
     Martha’s eyes shot open at the sensation of the base of her spine melting and losing its form. Then it began to grow several feet stretching her skin, creating new flesh and bone that was drawing out into a long tail. Martha felt the appendage in her mind; to her thoughts the muscles in the tail would respond swinging side to side, up and down. She curled her thick tail over her body and gave it a small tug to confirm it really was a part of her.

     The transforming creature was an unbelievable sight, or so thought the witness of Martha’s change unbeknownst to her.
     ‘Then again,’  the witness thought. ‘It’s unbelievable I’m here to begin with too.’  He chuckled softly so Martha would not hear and continued to watch from around the corner of the room.
     _{‘So this is the power boss wants. Those cards are…’}

     The skin on Martha’s belly did not change, it remained the light tan color of Martha’s original skin but everywhere else her skin darkened to a brown; some areas began callusing forming thick pads on her legs, arms, shoulders, and tail.
     Up next was Martha’s head. With the skin already darkened, different kinds of changes were taking place. Martha brought her hands up to rub at an intense pressure building up at her temples. While she continued to rub her temples, Martha’s palms were pushed away by new growth underneath. Two horns took shape; one on the left, its opposite on the right side of her skull.
     Her hair was discarded for a desolate scalp of dark green that grew from the back of her head then forward. The dark scalp stretched passed the limit of her cranium and encompassed her entire forehead, eliminating her eyebrows, and the bridge of her nose pushing it forward into a short, rounded muzzle.
     The reshaping of her jaw made Martha’s canines jut out showing off their response to the transformation in size. Martha’s eyes altered as well to her widened face and her irises turned red.
     With that final change, sight returned to Martha but she wouldn’t have known it; she still kept her eyes shut tight.

    “Ooh poor thing…” a venomous voice crooned.
     The voice gave Martha a start. She didn’t recognize it. The only one who could have been home was…
    “Mike!” Martha exclaimed. The sudden realization of her son’s absence throughout her transformation, Martha knew, was no coincidence. Mike would have certainly come to her aid.
     Martha got to her feet looking through her new eyes for the first time. Across the room from her stood a lanky, rather pale, young adult. “Who are you?!” Martha questioned.
    “Incredible! You can still speak!” The man said ignoring the question.
    “How did you get in here? Did you do this to me?!”
     This time the man did answer. “No my dear,” That same malicious tone was in his voice. “Your current state is not my fault and the front door was wide open when I got here.”
     “And where is my son? What have you done with Mike!?” Martha could tell this man is not someone with noble intentions.
    “Your son? I had no Idea anyone else would be here.”
    “LIAR!” Martha screamed.
    “Unsatisfied?” The man queried. “Then let me assure you what I am about to say is all of non-fiction. Who am I, you asked; a lowly grunt and that’s all you need to know about that. By my boss I was sent in search of card number one-hundred-fifteen, the card of Kangaskhan. It appears I am too late though. However your body is of use to us even if the card’s ability has been spent.”
     ‘Card? What Card?’ Martha wondered but soon realized what he meant after a glance at herself. Martha had become just like the creature on the boy’s card she picked up. That card, from the moment she picked it up, caused all her changes Martha concluded.
     “Please come with me.” The man said with a soft smile and a sympathetic expression. “I’m sure my introduction was shocking to say the least on top of what you have just experienced. If you come with me we can better understand what has happened to you.”
     Martha looked at the man. The air around him was so much lighter now. His frightful demeanor was gone. She stared into the man’s eyes that smiled along with his lips for a while feeling that perhaps she could trust him. Then she sensed something foul. Invisible to her eyes but she could feel it in her spine like a monster creeping up from behind. This monster loomed as a shadow over the man and she remembered that this man trespassed into her home and that he could have done something to Mike. Wherever Mike is, she would find out if she had to beat the truth out of the man in front of her. No one touches her baby!

     The man let his facade fade away when he realized Martha saw through it and deformed into a displeased grimace. He knew Martha would not come of her free will. He stepped toward her. Step after step he could see Martha tense up. He stopped only a few feet away from her, just in front of the door where light shone inside through a small window in the door’s center. The light shined onto his chest revealing a bright red capital “R” emblazoned on his shirt.

    The man’s tone darkened. “All I need is your body. I don’t need you alive. You decide how easy this will be. Come with me and there will be minimal pain.”

     Martha shook her head. If the man was going to take the offensive then so would she for the sake of finding her son even if the man could solve the mystery of her transformation. They each stared each other down with hostility. Martha was ready to crush that saltine cracker of a man between her claws of she had to.

     They were both distracted by a strange noise, like a drill whirring away at high speed. The sound of it was so distant though but so high pitched that it felt as if it were a fly buzzing around their ears. The whirring began to increase in volume higher and higher until it’s high-pitched sound was deafening.
     A metallic click of whatever the man was about to pull out from behind him recaptured Martha’s attention. She began stomping towards him, her steps were made noiseless by the sound of the drill that was now just outside the door.

     The man quickly reached behind his waist to pull out an object, a weapon Martha assumed and instinctively swung her arm back to toss her massive fist forward with a full swing.

     Before Martha could make contact, the front door burst inward with a shower of glass, splinters, and dry-wall hurtling the man several feet away on impact, howling. The hurled body rammed into the far wall, buried by chunks of large wood. When the sounds of the crash subsided and the dust settled, the whirring sound of the drill could be heard again. A hulking creature of solid stone stomped into the house. The whirring, Martha noticed, came from a conical drill like horn atop the stone creature’s face whose spinning was now slowing down; the whirring dropped in pitch with it until the drill-nose came to a halt. The stone creature snorted loudly out of its nostrils at the good-for-nothing pile of garbage he just buried in debris before turning to a shaken Martha.
     “Are you okay Martha?” a familiar voice asked her.
     Martha gasped. Though the voice had the echo of stones sliding against each other beneath it, she recognized the voice but almost couldn’t believe it. Martha asked already knowing the answer, “Big Poppa? Is—is that you?” She had matched the voice of the creature to that of the father of her son.

     “How did you—I mean how is it that—what happened to you?”
     “I should be the one asking you that. Are you alright, no harm done?” Francisco asked.
     “If you could call this no harm done.” Martha said gesturing to her entire body. “Then yes, I’m just dandy.” She sighed. “What are you Poppa?”

     “Boss says I’m what they call a Rhydon.” Big Poppa said proudly jutting out his stone chest proudly. “If I remember correctly, you’re a… What was it now, something like Genghis Khan—Kangaskhan! That’s it!”

     “Who’s boss? You mean the same boss as that man you pulverized? Who’s ‘they’? And I’m a WHAT?”

    “You two shut yer traps!” The man shouted from under the ruble while getting to his feet. “Both of you are coming with me!” The man revealed his weapon, a peculiar sphere of red and white.

    “MARTHA GET DOWN!

    Big Poppa lunged at the man just as he threw the ball catching it in midflight. Big Poppa crushed the ball and rubbed his stone palms together reducing the ball to shimmering metallic dust. “Sorry pal. You’ll find that in this dimension you won’t be making any captures so easily.”

    “Excellent work Francisco.” said a new voice.

    Big Poppa turned to the source of the voice coming from just past the threshold of the blown-open door. A tall man stepped into the home. Martha tried to discern his features but couldn’t see a thing through the man’s several layers of clothing he wore hiding most of the definition to his body. A hood covered his head, his cloak draped over his entire body from the shoulders down, long sleeves covered his arms and white gloves were worn on each hand. From under the hood at least his face would have been visible if he wasn’t wearing a scarf that covered the majority of his face from chin to nose and his eyes were hidden behind elliptical green lenses trimmed with silver frames. Just like his gloves all of his clothing was snow white and so clean that some  of the light casted on him reflected off his clothes giving him almost an angelic glow.

     “Hey boss.” Big Poppa answered. “Over there.” He said gesturing with his horn.
     The heavily cloaked man paced toward the razed Rocket Grunt “You cannot capture these two pokemon here, let alone the one you seemed to have been assigned to.” He stated indifferently to the threat he had just posed. “You have failed your mission. Leave now and tell your superior that he will never attain the power in my cards, no matter how many he gains, no matter what he does to them.” The grunt continued to lay in the pile of rubble, staring down the cloaked man.
     The cloaked man stepped past Martha, deeper into the house, and grabbed the stunned rocket grunt by the collar of his jacket, lifting him off the ground. While he held the rocket grunt suspended in the air he whispered in an unearthly tone of voice that only the grunt could hear
     _{Leave.    Now.}</strong>


     The grunt pushed himself up to his feet but before bolting out of the door he directed his gaze at each of them, staring for a particularly long time at the heavily dressed man, memorizing their appearance. “I’ll say it again, Kangaskhan. The house was empty when I got here. Don’t you dare try and hold me responsible for what I haven’t done.” Then he was nowhere to be seen the moment he passed through the burst open door frame.

     The cloaked man let out a sigh of relief before asking, “Misses Guzman?”
     Martha gave the man a hesitant reply. “Y-yes?”
     “It makes me glad to see that you are unharmed. I will spare you of ignorance by informing you that your transformation was my doing.”
     “I don’t care about myself! Where’s Mike?”
     ”Let me finish” he answered in the same unearthly voice as before. Reverberating though her ears, the voice expelled Martha’s unruliness.
     “Your son left earlier and he is perfectly safe. The topic of your transformation however is a bit lengthy.”

     The cloaked man continued, “I’ll start from the beginning. There is a particular game in this world named Pocket Monsters, pokemon for short. The creatures in this game are similarly named; each specie has their own name as well. I’ve collected every card ever created and sent them out into the world with a purpose. I plan on populating the Earth with pokemon. The bond pokemon can share with humans has such potential that once the humans of our world see it for themselves it will make Earth a better place to live. Pokemon can understand humans and together they can become priceless partners. It is the cards, Martha. The cards are the triggers that cause transformation from human to pokemon.”
     The man watched Martha as he spoke, witnessing disbelief, wonder, and denial cross in her expression.
    “If the cards cause change how come this happened to me? I didn’t have this card at to begin with, I picked it up off the street after a boy dropped it. Why didn’t the card change him?”
     “Good question. I didn’t know the answer to that until just recently. When I created the cards, I also created purpose in their being without realizing it. Doing so I unknowingly twisted fate. The cards, you see, don’t change people at the touch of them, the cards only change who they appear to be destined for.”
     “Martha don’t you want to know how I know that your son is safe?” Martha’s surprised reaction made him smile. “Just like you, your son received a card similar to yours. On that card was a creature named smeargle which your son transformed to.”
     Martha was about to object as to why the man would change her son but Big Poppa finally came in. “Don’t worry Martha, dear. He’ll be alright.” The husky rhydon let out a small laugh. “He is my son after all too.”
     “It’s heartening to see you so sincerely concerned about your son. Your motherly nature and caring for the safety of your child, which stands out prominently from all of your traits, is why this card came to you and why you were destined for it. However, the destiny of each card is unknown even to me. All I know is that it means that the cards chose you to fulfill a purpose that only the form you have now can help achieve.”  

     The cloaked man stayed silent for a few moments as Martha took a breath to help her take all the information in.
     “To be frank, I don’t know where your son is at the moment but I do know where he will be, in time. There is a safe haven I have made where others like you have lived in peace for some time now. It is meant to keep the world from going into shock; humans might not respond correctly to new beings appearing suddenly. I ask that you please come with me so that I can take you there. The world right now isn’t ready for real pokemon right now.”
    That last part struck a nerve in Martha and she couldn’t help but ask, “If I—we—have to hide from the world how will the world ever be ready for us?”
     If not for the man’s green glasses Martha could have seen him look beyond her in deep solemn thought. “The ones who will prepare the world for its transformation have already been chosen and will reveal themselves soon.”
     Martha suddenly panicked. She shouted, “No! No! Not my son! Don’t tell me that my Mike is going to be some kind of lab rat sacrifice!”
     The man sighed. “Yes. Your son is one of the few to be the first of all pokemon to reveal themselves to the world. On the other hand, Mike’s purpose is not to become a lab rat. That fate has already been taken.” He gravely stated.
     “Martha, think about what he’s said.” Big Poppa began in attempt to settle her down. “I know how devastated you would be if anything were to happen to Mike. If you’ve got a purpose to fulfill, you’re no good for that purpose as a depressed wreck. Mike will come back safe.”
     “Your ex-husband is correct. Mike will return to you safely.” He waited whilst Martha pondered; her time had come where she, as a mother, would have to let go of her child.
     Martha accepted it.
     “If you are satisfied then please take my hand.” The man said outstretching his arm.
     Martha was apprehensive of strangers thanks to the Team Rocket grunt. Had Big Poppa not been there to assure her, she wouldn’t have trusted him either.

     “Fine. I’ll go with you. Just one last question; what is your name?”
     “Oh! Of course. Where are my manners?” The man removed the garbs covering his face revealing it to Martha, stepping beside her. He whispered his name softly so that only she could hear.