Chương 69

Veyra faced herself across the recovery basin. Ditto had copied the charcoal coat, narrow muzzle, pale bone bands, and golden lines beneath the skin. It had even reproduced the small notch in Veyra's left ear and the uneven fur covering her most recent bandage. The resemblance ended with posture. Veyra stood with her weight balanced over four trained legs. The transformed Ditto sagged toward the basin, unfamiliar paws spreading beneath a body it had borrowed in panic. Its breathing came too quickly.

Yellow light accumulated along copied ribs with no practiced route toward release. Identify unfolded. Ditto — Transformed State: Veyra Frostfang Copied typing: Dark / Fire / Electric Copied Ability: Elemental Dynamo — Immature Copied battle attributes: active Copied move set: active Retained: Level 21 / current vitality / status conditions Warning: copied output exceeds current endurance Transform had obeyed rules Rine remembered. Appearance, typing, ability, battle attributes, and moves belonged to the target.

Level and vitality remained with Ditto. The difference between knowing the mechanic and seeing a starving body attempt it was the difference between arithmetic and medicine.

"No one touch the basin," Rine said. The nearest Ranger had already reached for an insulated pole. She stopped. Ditto's copied lips peeled back. Ember heated behind its teeth while electricity crowded the jaw around it. Veyra did not growl in return. She stepped closer. One paw entered the basin. The transformed Ditto tried to retreat and found the wall. Its current spiked. Rine felt Veyra's attention cross their aura bond, asking rather than waiting for a command. He opened his hand. Your choice.

Veyra placed her left forepaw beside Ditto's. She breathed slowly. Gold brightened along her ribs, traveled through her shoulder, and entered the conductive recovery mat beneath the basin. Grounded Step produced no attack and barely enough electricity to light the medical indicator. The copied Houndour watched. Its first attempt released nothing. The second forced charge backward into the copied chest. Ditto cried out in Veyra's voice. Rine's body prepared to intervene. He remained where he was.

Veyra reset her paw and demonstrated again. The third attempt produced a weak arc between claw and mat. The medical indicator flashed amber. Ditto stared at it. The Ember behind its teeth faded. Its breathing slowed enough for the copied electrical pathways to stop accumulating charge. Then Transform collapsed. Black fur melted into purple gel. Horn ridges softened. Ditto poured across the basin floor and lay still except for two exhausted eyes. Veyra kept her paw beside it.

Doctor Sen appeared on Rine's communication tablet before anyone requested her. The Gym had transmitted the medical feed automatically under Veyra's mutation order.

"Explain," she said. Rine showed her the Transform reading. Sen examined the data twice.

"Did Veyra discharge offensively?"

"No."

"Cardiac variance?"

"Within clearance."

"Ditto?"

"Stable but depleted."

"Then move both patients out of the contaminated shaft before someone decides this is an excellent research opportunity." Several people looked toward the circular cradle. Doctor Sen's eyes narrowed.

"That sentence included all of you." The hidden passage remained sealed. Mara assigned a watch, placed tamper sensors around the seam, and sent the lower team back to the surface. Rine objected only once.

"Pell moved material through that door."

"And the door has remained closed for at least eighteen hours," Mara said.

"Opening it without atmosphere readings may kill whoever is waiting on either side."

"If someone is alive."

"Then we improve their chances by bringing air, maps, and a team that has eaten." Blaine looked at Rine over his glasses.

"The volcano has been here longer than your urgency. It will still be here after lunch." Rine disliked being managed by sentences that were correct. He returned to the lift. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Muk remained in the waste corridor while Poison specialists secured the broken pipes. A nutrient mixture had been placed where clean runoff entered her pool. She tasted it with one hand and watched every worker with suspicion.

When Ditto's basin passed, Muk rose. Ditto extended a pseudopod through the open top. Muk touched it, leaving a smear of dark sludge along the purple surface. The medical Ranger reached for a wipe. Ditto pulled the smear against its body. The Ranger lowered her hand. Not all contamination was unwanted. The Cinnabar Laboratory admitted Ditto through a rear quarantine entrance. Staff rolled the basin into a warm isolation room with adjustable walls and no fixed restraint points. A Chansey offered glucose gel.

Ditto ignored it until Veyra sniffed the packet and sat beside the door. Then Ditto ate. Rine remained outside the glass. His provisional license did not make him part of the medical team. Identify did not make him a geneticist. Having been the first person to open the cylinder did not give him ownership of what came out. These distinctions had to be repeated because the opposite logic had been trained deeply. Lyra joined him with two bowls from the laboratory cafeteria.

Cinnabar stew contained red root vegetables, seaweed, and pieces of bread baked dark with volcanic mineral salt.

"Blaine threatened to classify refusing lunch as an island safety violation," she said.

"Is it?"

"He is the Civic Thermal Authority. On Cinnabar, he can probably classify bad shoes as a geological hazard." They ate beside the isolation window. Ditto slowly regained shape. Veyra slept near the glass, her golden markings dim. Morrow occupied a dark examination lamp and projected faces onto the wall whenever a technician passed. One technician acquired a moustache larger than Blaine's.

"You are becoming reckless," Rine told him. Morrow made the moustache catch fire. Lyra covered a smile with her bowl. For several minutes, the room contained no conspiracy large enough to crush them. Then Ditto saw Morrow. Its body rippled. Rine stood.

"You do not need to—" Purple gel lifted into a sphere of violet gas. Red eyes opened. A mouth appeared beneath them, curved into Morrow's exact grin. Two Gastly floated on opposite sides of the glass. Morrow became perfectly still. The copied Ghost tilted left. Morrow tilted right. Ditto copied the movement. Morrow expanded his eyes to twice their size. Ditto followed. Morrow formed a ridiculous crown from vapor. The transformed Ditto attempted the same and produced something resembling a melted cooking pot.

Morrow's laughter reached Rine as a burst of cold delight. The medical monitor showed elevated exertion but no collapse. Copying Morrow placed less strain on Ditto than Veyra's unstable triple typing. For thirty seconds, Transform was not evidence, weaponry, or a genetic miracle. It was play. Ditto returned to itself voluntarily and consumed the remaining glucose gel. Rine sat again.

"You were going to stop it," Lyra said.

"It collapsed last time."

"A reasonable concern."

"There is a second half to that sentence."

"You expressed the concern as authority before checking whether the conditions were different." Rine looked through the glass.

"You enjoy being correct."

"Only when you notice." Their shoulders touched. Neither moved away. The laboratory's genetic specialist arrived after the first meal. Doctor Lian Orre was a narrow man with copper-brown skin, close-cropped hair, and magnifying lenses attached to one side of his glasses. A Castform floated beside him inside a climate-controlled collar. He reviewed Ditto's cellular scan without using the word specimen.

"Transform temporarily expresses copied genetic and elemental structures," he said.

"That is ordinary for Ditto, however extraordinary it looks. The concern is what was done between transformations." He enlarged a tissue map. Tiny biopsy scars covered Ditto's body. Most had healed without care. Several deeper sites showed where researchers removed samples from the nucleus-like cellular structures governing Transform.

"They were using Ditto as a translation medium," Orre continued.

"Introduce damaged tissue. Trigger Transform against a healthy target. Compare what Ditto repairs automatically." He changed the display to show two cellular maps overlaid in different colors.

"Transform is not unrestricted shapeshifting," he said.

"A Ditto reads a present subject and temporarily duplicates the structures relevant to that form. It copies typing, active Ability, battle capabilities, and known techniques. It does not gain the subject's memories. It does not inherit experience merely because the copied muscles are stronger."

"And it keeps its own level and injuries," Rine said.

"Precisely. A weakened Ditto can copy the defenses of a healthy Rhydon and still collapse from the metabolic cost. The form changes what its body can do, not how much life the body has left to spend." Lyra glanced toward the isolation room.

"Could it copy Pell from memory?"

"Not reliably, and not as a recording. Some unusually trained Ditto can hold familiar forms or reconstruct them from repeated exposure, but that is learned control. This patient has demonstrated neither. Its reaction to a photograph may show recognition. Any shape it chooses will tell us what it needs now, not what happened then." That distinction altered the planned interview. They would not parade suspects past the glass hoping Ditto became one of them.

They would watch distance, color, defensive posture, and whether the Pokémon asked to end the session. Evidence did not become kinder merely because it was useful.

"Could that stabilize a clone?" Lyra asked.

"It could teach someone which failures prevent a copied structure from living. That is not the same as producing a viable organism."

"But it brings them closer."

"Yes." Rine remembered the journals. Mew. Mewtwo. A newborn given a number before anyone asked what life had been made.

"The two genetic signatures in CR-17," he said.

"Could one be a healthy reference and the other damaged material?" Orre folded his hands.

"Possible. We need uncontaminated samples before I offer more than possibility." Mara entered carrying a sealed evidence tablet.

"Ditto may view images," she said.

"No demand to Transform. No repeated exposure after distress. The welfare advocate approved six photographs connected to the annex." The first showed the Cold Current handler. Ditto remained neutral. The second showed Cassian. Its body tightened slightly, but no clear recognition followed. The third showed Gideon. Ditto moved away from the glass. The fourth showed Dr. Soren Pell. Transform activated before anyone spoke. Ditto became Veyra again. Not because Veyra was the threat.

Because Veyra's body was the strongest shape Ditto currently knew. The copied Houndour pressed into the rear corner, electricity leaking from her ribs while a growl shook the isolation-room glass. Morrow's playfulness disappeared. His gas spread across the ceiling. Dr. Pell had been here. Mara removed the image. Veyra entered the room after Ditto struck the consent panel with one paw. She repeated Grounded Step until the copied current faded. The transformation ended without collapse this time.

Doctor Orre recorded improvement and refused to call it compliance. The consent panel still showed three illuminated shapes: continue, pause, and end. No one presented the fifth or sixth photograph. Ditto rested for almost a minute. Then it extended one pseudopod and pressed end. Mara sealed the unused images inside the evidence tablet.

"Session concluded by the witness." The formal language mattered. In Rocket reports, a Pokémon ended an examination only by becoming useless, unconscious, or dead. Here, a purple body with no registered Trainer had touched a square, and armed adults accepted the answer. Ditto drew Veyra's empty glucose wrapper into the basin and folded it badly against its side. Orre watched the monitor.

"No more tests tonight."

"Even if the passage contains perishable evidence?" one analyst asked.

"Especially then. Urgency is how researchers learn to call a patient equipment." Rine heard Doctor Sato's lesson in different words. At dusk, the lower team prepared to open the sealed passage. Atmosphere probes showed breathable air for sixty meters, then a region of extreme heat surrounding an old thermal exchange. Blaine produced original mansion foundation plans. Mara assigned routes, retreat conditions, and medical roles. Rine checked Veyra's harness. No Electric techniques. One defensive battle.

Immediate withdrawal on cardiac amber. Morrow's cohesion had returned to eighty-one percent. Doctor Mori cleared him for support but prohibited Cursed Smog as firmly as ever. They were halfway through equipment inspection when every light in the laboratory went out. Emergency lamps should have activated. They did not. Castform's collar began flashing red as room temperature climbed. From beneath the floor came the deep metallic sound of the hidden passage opening by itself. Magmar roared somewhere in the dark.

Then the ventilation system reversed. Hot air rushed upward from the buried laboratory carrying smoke, synthetic poison, and the faint sweetness of burning sleep powder. Dr. Pell was no longer cleaning the evidence. She was trying to make sure it never woke again.