The Creation of Auroz_Bot

At the prosperous property of the infamous Pikachu, Darkening Lotsamoni, a tiny trickster known as Auroz had just finished his mischief. He dashed towards the large spike-tipped gates in the distance, dodging maids tossing themselves at him, arms out-stretched. The petit furball evaded each attempt by agilely zigzagging at the precise moments. When he reached the front gates, he turned around to laugh mockingly at the underpaid workers.

There was a small figure standing in the mansion doorway, donned in stylish albeit stereotypical attire including a top hat, black tuxedo and a monocle in the right eye. It was none other than the affluent owner, Darkening. He glared at the troublemaking Zorua, his paw gripped tightly around his cane.

“If you ever show your face around here again, I’ll make you sorry you ever messed with me!” he yelled, whacking the paving underfoot with the bottom of his cane.”Do you hear me, you insignificant runt?”

Auroz poked his tongue out at the enraged rat before dashing away, leaving a bunch of exhausted maids in his wake. He could hear the irate roars of Darkening scolding his employees during his getaway and could only chortle in response.

He ran down a path leading into a forest, wondering what juvenile prank he will pull next. It wasn’t too long until he noticed a fidgety Whimsicott sitting on a tree stump munching on potato chips. With a mischievous grin manifesting on his face, Auroz sauntered up to the cotton-covered Grass-Type and cleared his throat.

The Whimsicott looked over the salty chip at the dark grinning fox, his mouth still agape. He slowly placed the crispy treat on his tongue, retracting it back into his mouth at a steady pace. After a few loud munches, a smile curled up on his cheery complexion.

“Hello!” Whimsicott greeted, hopping down from the stump, offering a crumb covered paw for Auroz to shake. “My name is Tony, yup!” As he spoke, his voice escalated into one that exhibited a higher amount of glee. “What is your name?”

Auroz was taken aback by the Pokemon’s sudden eruption of happiness, but nevertheless he responded almost straight away. “Well, you sure are a happy one, aren’t you?” he asked, refusing the paw-shake proposal to look the Whimsicott straight in the eyes. “Since you asked so nicely, my name is Auroz. Pleased to meet you, Tony.”

“I don’t see that many Zorua around here,” Tony spoke, snatching up Auroz’s paw to shake regardless, grinning like a goof while he did so. “I am so happy to finally meet someone! I have been waiting to show the first person who walked by a nice present, yup!”

Auroz growled under his breath, not taking kindly to Tony’s passive aggressiveness; already he was formulating the most humiliating trick to torment him with. Whatever present Tony was going on about, Auroz couldn’t care less, instead smirking maliciously at the numerous ideas flashing by in his head. Lost in a trail of devious thoughts, Auroz did not notice Tony digging his paw into his back fluff, taking out a petit silver-metal coated microchip.

Auroz’s mouth opened wider to show off a large grin, mentally chuckling sinisterly. The perfect plan – or so he thought – had been created, and he planned to bring it into fruition. Unluckily for him, however, his scheme was put on hold by a potent blast to his mental state. Tony had slapped the microchip onto the Zorua’s forehead, which stuck to it like glue. A tiny light in the centre began to continuously blink a bluish colour in a slow rhythm.

“What the....” Auroz could only whimper for a second before a more powerful zap to the brain silenced him.

His jaw went ajar, his pupils sank into the pure whiteness of his eyes and his body stiffened like a board. Whatever trickery he had cooked up was now wiped out; his mind was now vulnerable, exposed to the suggestion of whomever decided to exert power over him. The piece of technology had made short work on Auroz, making him highly suggestible to the whims of the sneaky Whimsicott.

“Wow, it sure is fast acting, yep,” the jolly Whimsicott noted, waving his hand in front of the Zorua’s emotionless, unblinking eyes. “The doc will be pleased that I finally got hold of a slave!” He brought a chip to his mouth and munched noisily.

Tony finished up the bag of chips, folding it horizontally first then vertically second so that it was flat and thin. He pulled away Auroz’s goggle strap and slipped the trash under it. Auroz remained absolutely entranced by the microchip, which was now flashing at a leisurely rate.

“Alright, Auroz, it’s time for you to go meet the doc,” Tony commanded, performing a graceful swirl on one leg. He gave the mind-controlled Dark-Type a pat on the head before skipping down the path. “Be quick now! She doesn’t like time-wasters, yup!”

With a tiny acknowledging head bob, Auroz followed the energetic Whimsicott at a noticeably sluggish compared to him. Along the way, Tony frequently turned around whilst jogging backwards, urging the lagging Zorua to walk faster with hand gestures. This did nothing to provoke any sort of response other than a blank stare and miniature strides. His diminished mental capacity simply could not comprehend the request.

Shrugging it off, Tony continued heading down a muddy pathway, trekking deeper into the forest. He eventually stopped by a tall tree that had a darker shade of bark from the rest, knocking on it a few times. A small, scarcely noticeable glimmer of what looked like a lens of a camera shrouded in the shrubbery of the towering tree shone for a few seconds. After an additional couple of seconds, a doorway opened up before Tony’s eyes.

“Come on, Auroz!” Tony encouraged, appearing behind the entranced victim with a swift breeze of wind. “No use dallying when the doc is expecting a gift from me, yup!” He began to forcefully shove him through the entrance, all the while having a cheerful grin stretched across his mug.

As Auroz walked forward, Tony held out his leg, which the entranced Zorua promptly tripped over. He dipped tumbling into the darkened insides of the tree, slamming up against a wall. There was an echoing metallic thud as his body impacted. Tony leaped in after him and pulled down a switch situated on the wall above the now upside down Auroz. There was an abrupt and rather strident sound of something large shifting before the ground started to descent. The door closed, casting the two in a thick blanket of darkness.

“I could sure go for a soda pop right about now, yep,” Tony stated nonchalantly, directing his words at Auroz and forgetting the fact the Zorua was unable to think, let alone speak. “I hope the ride isn’t too dark for you.”

Their journey into the depths was soon brightened slightly by wall lights placed all around them. Instead of dirt and natural earth, the surrounding area had sturdy, metal-plated walls. With a jolt, the elevator came to a complete stop, and a bright light filled the tiny shaft when a door automatically slid open. When the barrier around the lift retracted, Tony grabbed hold of Auroz, guiding him into the corridor.

The corridor was long with plain dark-grey walls, its numerous light bulbs stretching forward in an endless line, their illumination lighting the tiny grey square tiles. At the very end of the room, in the corner, was a security camera positioned on the edge, moving constantly from left to right.

Tony took the lead down the hallway followed close behind by Auroz. As they turned the corner, the security camera stopped its routine motion to focus solely on Auroz, a green light blinking on top of it. On the receiving end of the footage, Clefarious was closely observing her new visitor as he tagged along with her happy-go-lucky assistant.

“That little idiot,” the sinister scientist snapped after taking a hastened sip of her coffee. “I specifically asked him to bring back either Cutey Punny or a powerful Pokemon, not that puny excuse for a specimen!” She sighed angrily, slumping back into her chair which caused her glasses to slip down her irritated face. “Why must I be surrounded by such incompetence?”

She pushed up her glasses using one finger while swirling around on her seat to face the laboratory entrance. Tony was standing in the open doorway, smiling at his frustrated boss, unaware of his failure. In the blink of an eye and a sudden gust of wind summoned from seemingly nowhere, the young Whimsicott was by the Clefairy’s side, resting his elbow on the chair handle.

“I got the test subject, doc, yup,” he proudly declared, pointing at the zonked out Auroz, who was halfway across the room. “I know you wanted a stronger one, but I was running out of snacks, so I chose him,” he then said, picking up the coffee cup to see what it contained.

Clefarious slapped her forehead. “I should really be blaming myself. Why I continue to put any faith in you really discredits my intellect,” she noted, once more adjusting her half-glasses. “Regardless, this Zorua will have to suffice. Tony, put him into the machine.”

Tony saluted. “Righty-o, Doc,” he loyally exclaimed prior to darting over to the right corner of the room while dragging Auroz along with him, skidding to a halt before a huge vertical glass tube.

The tube was connected to a bulky steel base, where a single step flanked the front. Tony pressed a green button on the nearby control panel that opened up an entryway into the tube big enough for Auroz to fit through. Urged on with a pat on the back from Tony, the hypnotized Zorua entered the strange machine. It closed up seconds after.

“Ready when you are, doc, yup,” Tony chirped, his paw hovering over a big red button.

Clefarious shot a glare at her assistant. “Tony, do not try my patience,” she snarled. “When I tell you to put a subject in the machine, I expect you to have enough brainpower to activate it without my consent!”

Remaining jovial in spite of the scolding, Tony slammed his paw onto the foreboding button. Immediately, metal casing emerged from the base to cover the entirety of the tube as an increasingly noisy humming sound started up. Inside the diabolical invention, Auroz was sitting calmly, staring vacantly ahead, absolutely unaware of the bright red glow intensifying underfoot. The humming got louder and louder, accompanied with what sounded like an otherworldly engine revving up.

All of a sudden, Auroz’s body was struck with a potent jolt of energy that proceeded to stiffen his body. Even though the mighty shock wasn’t enough to knock him out of his mesmerized state instantly, it did succeed at short circuiting the microchip. It fizzled, letting off a wimpy puff of smoke before crumpling away.

A second blast from the machine fully brought Auroz back to reality, albeit in a period of yelling in agony from the frequent zaps.

He hadn’t experienced anything like this before; there was this awful yet strangely tasteless feeling in his mouth. In addition to this, he could no longer feel any pain even though the relentless energy was still present on his body. Only seconds ago he could hear his frantic heartbeats, but now all that there was to listen to was his own pitiful yelps.

His body started to change starting from the head down. Auroz’s groomed fur had hardened like steel as it lost its usual colouring, shifting instead into a metallic silver. His fear-stricken eyes had been replaced for ones that were emotion-deprived, glowing red and lacking pupils. Gone was his terrified facial expression along with his panicky disposition, which had been forcibly erased when his brain was converted into a computer; there was no pre-set programming for needless traits such as emotions and disobedience. The doomed Zorua was now a machine himself, outside and most definitely inside. It took no longer than a minute to fully assimilate a being of flesh, fur and bones into a robotic monstrosity.

“By now the robotocization should be finished,” Clefarious noted, walking over to her Whimsicott assistant. “Tony, you know what to do.”

Tony, whom was gulping from a can of grape soda, gave a tiny nod while pressing a button on the panel with his spare paw. The tube’s cover swirled downwards into the base, revealing the new-and-improved Auroz to its onlookers. With a push of the first button, the door on the tube slid open and Auroz slowly walked out, light mechanical noises sounding with each step he took.

Auroz stopped a few steps away from Clefarious, bringing his paw up to salute her. “I am Zorua_Bot,” he spoke, voice changed into one that suited his new appearance – dull and robotic. “I am programmed to obey your every will.”

The evil scientist remained silent, approaching the mindless machine to examine it. She reached into her lab pocket, taking out a small silver pen-like object to wave it around Auroz’s body. It emitted a blue light which scanned Auroz’s body.

“Everything seems fine, and the functionality of this unit is just about decent,” Clefarious noted, slipping the device back into her pocket. She moved her paw around in the air, which the robot Zorua’s eyes obediently followed it, mimicking a Skitty stalking a laser light. “Its reaction time is at an acceptable standard.”

Tony finished up every last drop of his soda before crushing the can up against Auroz’s hard, well-built body. “So Auroz was a good target after all, Doc?” he inquired, playfully twirling the flat can.

“Unit’s designation is Zorua_Bot, not Auroz,” the robot slave announced, turning his head to look at Tony. “Auroz was obsolete; a major update and reformatting were required. The only remnants of my inferior self are the memories.”

“Is there anything worth saving in your memory files, Zorua_Bot?” Clefarious questioned her piece of property. “Do any of your family and friends possess any type of remarkable skills and/or some value?”

Zorua_Bot looked at his creator. “Affirmative, Dr. Clefarious. My creator via birth is a Zoroark called Oroa. Even though I have rid myself of all emotions, she will seek me out if I go missing,” he stated. “Oroa loves me dearly like regular mothers are inclined to do.”

“A Zoroark will make a much more sufficient guard robot than you would, unit,” the wicked Clefairy stated in a condescending tone. “Zorua_Bot, I command you to capture this Oroa and bring her to me.” She walked over to her swivel chair, arms placed behind her back. “Use any means necessary - and do not fail me.”

“Affirmative, Dr. Clefarious,” the robot fox responded, stiffly raising his paw up to salute. “Your order will be followed precisely and completed promptly.”

Now that a purpose had been set, the loyal little drone marched out of the laboratory. He made his way to the elevator which took him back up to the surface level, returning to the fake tree in the forest. He re-entered the outside world and leisurely headed in the direction of the forest’s southern exit, passing by a couple of wild Pokemon timidly peeking at him from behind a bush.

It was approaching evening by the time Zorua_Bot arrived on the other side of the forest. Not stopping, even for a slight second, the subservient robot travelled onwards down the hill that overlooked a tiny town. As luck would have it, it was the very same town that his mother liked to visit around this time. The robot had an abundant amount of both curious and terrified looks directed at him as he entered the town. When he noticed Oroa leave the local general store, he hastened his pace to catch up with her.

“Target located – proceeding to second stage,” he monotonously stated, his speed ever-increasing to the point where his body made a very noticeable noise. “Initiating capture protocol.”

Oroa’s ears twitched and she stopped; looking behind her at converted child staring at with her with his red eyes glowing ominously.

The end.

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For:  AiraFox

Auroz and Oroa are owned by  AiraFox

Clefarious, Tony and Darkening are owned by me.

I don't own Pokemon