Another morning. The little creature's eyelids cracked open slowly, hesitantly, hopefully. Could this be the day? Could this be the day that his dreams would come true, that the sight to greet his lonely eyes would not be the drab confines of Professor Radhaz's lab, but the warm and friendly "let's kill some bad lemons and then party the night away" atmosphere of the Midorishu's interior?

No.

The creature opened his eyes to find himself still imprisoned in his claustrophobic glass tank, but the sight soon became mercifully blurry as the creature's eyes filled with tears. However, as he became more awake, his other senses began to perceive additional features of the lab, making it impossible to escape the truth. The grating buzzes and whirs of the lab's machinery assailed his hearing, and the poor creature's eyes widened and his hands flew to the sides of his head. Dammit, the lab always gave him such a headache first thing in the morning!

He wanted to scream his frustrations out to the world... no, to the whole universe! He opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and... "GEODUCK!"... honked out his name in a nasal voice. "Geoduck, Geoduck, Geoduck..."

Darn, why didn't he have the ability to talk?

"Oh, so you're the one making all the noise," Professor Radhaz mumbled, peering into the tank at Geoduck. "Good morning, Subject #100."

"Geoduck!"

"What?" Radhaz said tiredly, "Oh... oh yeah. Sorry, I forgot to alter the part of your DNA that would have made your vocal cords capable of full human speech. It slipped my mind that Geodudes and Psyducks don't have vocal cords as adaptable as a Meowth's. However, you have psychic abilities that should allow you to talk to me with your mind."

_My mind?_ Geoduck thought at Radhaz.

"Ah, you got it!" Radhaz said, "Very good!"

_What am I?_ asked Geoduck.

"You are Geoduck, my 100th attempt at creating the ultimate pokemon for The Master," Radhaz replied, "Subject #99 was a psychic Meowth named Ms. Cool. The Master was very pleased with her, and asked me to create more pokemon."

CP, a robot that Radhaz had created, came up behind the scientist just then. At nine feet tall, she certainly was an impressive sight. One of her massive hands held a mirror, which she gave to her creator. Radhaz then held the mirror up so that Geoduck could look into it and see his reflection for the first time: a pudgy duck with sad eyes and granite gray feathers.

"You are a hybrid created from two pokemon," Radhaz continued, "You have the rock-like physical strength of a Geodude, combined with the awesome psychic powers of a Psyduck. You are also a blatant rip-off of 'Pokemon: The First Movie'."

_I... am your experiment?_ Geoduck asked flatly.

"Yes..." Radhaz said, his mouth twitching into a nervous smile, "Um... er... oh dear. You're going to go berserk and destroy the lab, aren't you?"

_Yes,_ came Geoduck's reply.

Several minutes later, a tremendous amount of racket erupted from the basement of The Master's fortress of evil, where Radhaz's lab had been set up. Several minutes after that, The Master sent his two most powerful henchmen, Vegeta P and Vegeta Q, down to investigate.

When the evil Saiyan clones reached the bottom of the stairs that led down to the basement, they impatiently waved away the clouds of smoke that greeted them, until they could make out the faint shape of a large window in front of them.

"What hit this place?" Vegeta P grumbled, waving more smoke away.

"Is that the observation window to the lab?" asked Vegeta Q, squinting through the haze at the window before them.

"Yes, it is," Vegeta P answered, "It's also about to be a blatant rip-off of a scene from that silly 'Independence Day' movie."

Just as Vegeta P said that, the forms of CP and Professor Radhaz suddenly flew up and smacked into the window from the other side, with CP pressed against her creator so that the scientist was squished between the robot and the glass. "Release me..." Radhaz wheezed. He looked very much like one of those stuffed animals used to decorate car windows. All he was missing were suction cups on his hands and feet.

"Cool," Vegeta Q commented dryly.

"Release me..." Radhaz wheezed again.

"Who did this?" Vegeta P asked, ignoring Radhaz's plea.

"It... was... Geoduck..." Radhaz managed to say.

"What? The Master's new pokemon?" Vegeta Q exclaimed. He threw open the door to the lab and ran inside, with Vegeta P right behind him. There were still clouds of smoke, but they could see enough to know that The Master was going to be very displeased. Valuable equipment had been smashed, wires ripped out of the walls, tables tipped over, and somehow the porn channel was no longer scrambled on the largest computer/TV monitor. Hmm... well, maybe The Master wouldn't be ENTIRELY displeased.

But the tank that held Geoduck had been shattered open, and the Vegetas could not detect the escaped pokemon anywhere on their scouters.

************************************************************************

Having used his powers to teleport out of The Master's fortress, Geoduck floated through the quiet emptiness of fan fiction limbo to rest and plan his next move. The only problem was that his ever-present headache made it hard to think.

Well, at least he now had plenty of time to look at the bundle of information that he had hastily read from Radhaz's mind. It seemed that the scientist had planned on escaping from the lab himself, and that he had somehow made himself young again, as well as created the robot CP to help him flee. Unluckily for Radhaz, he had chosen to try escaping on the very same day that The Master had created Vegeta P and Vegeta Q, and even a robot as huge and powerful as CP was no match for two Saiyans. So Radhaz had been forced to stay put and work on more experiments for The Master, including the creation of Ms. Cool and Geoduck.

With this new knowledge, Geoduck felt a pang of regret for having telekinetically thrown CP and Radhaz against that window. Still, it was too late to go back for them. He didn't know if even his powers were sufficient to take on Vegeta P and Vegeta Q... and even if he was powerful enough, he hadn't had an adequate amount of practice with his abilities to be able to defeat them yet.

So... what to do now? Geoduck thought back to his experiences in the lab, before Radhaz had made him fully aware of what he was. He had awakened in that tank every day, with nothing to do... nothing at all to help with his headache. Nothing, that is, except for the monitors. The monitors in Radhaz's lab kept track of all sorts of things going on in all sorts of dimensions, but none of them had interested Geoduck as much as the ones used to spy on Lesell Charis and the rest of her party. Oh, how he had longed to be a part of that group! It had been those images of friendship and teamwork that had kept Geoduck going: the hope that one day he would open his eyes to find that the sight of the Midorishu's interior was not just an image on a screen, but his real environment, and that he was a member of Lesell's team. Flying from fan fic to fan fic... destroying bad lemons... good friends, great parties... eating strawberry Pocky while listening to the Hummingbird Sisters CD... Yes, this was his dream! This was what he wanted!

And, now that he was free, could he make his dream come true? Could it really happen? Closing his eyes and concentrating, Geoduck reached out with his psychic powers, mentally following the trail of destroyed lemons Lesell's team had left behind... ah, there they were! They were in the process of destroying a bad lemon called "What The Hell Is This" right now! Fan fiction limbo lit up for a brief moment as Geoduck teleported himself out of there, and into the fic.

The psychic pokemon winked back into existence inside "What The Hell Is This", in the air right above the onsen. There they were, down below! Lesell and her team members had just succeeded in stopping the part of the fic where Ayeka died in the onsen from drinking acid instead of sake. Geoduck's heart soared. He had found them! Already he could almost feel the warm embrace of Lesell the pokemon trainer... oh wait, that was the embrace of gravity.

Before he could try to use his powers to levitate, Geoduck dropped like a stone, falling towards the waters of the onsen. Poor Geoduck was terrified... even though he was a duck, he had DNA from a rock-type pokemon, and was weak against water!

Meanwhile, Lesell and her teammates were sitting down at the side of the onsen to catch their breaths. "Whew! We stopped another bad lemon," Masami sighed in relief.

"That rabid Tenchi almost bit Metroid," Lesell grumbled, hugging her pokemon protectively.

"I know a good doctor who could've helped Metroid if he had been bitten," AleeN said, trying to reassure the concerned pokemon trainer.

"Thanks, but I'd only take Metroid to a Nurse Joy for treatment," said Lesell, "I'd just be too worried that anyone else would turn out to be a quack." Just as she said that, a roly-poly gray duck fell from the ceiling and hit the water. Everyone sweatdropped.

When the duck didn't come up to the surface after a few minutes, MarvelBoy dove into the water and pulled the poor creature out.

Geoduck opened his eyes, coughing and sputtering. The sight that greeted his eyes was a circle of faces that he had longed to see for real. At last, at long last!

"Poor little Psyduck, it almost drowned!" said Lita Eagle, petting Geoduck on the head.

"Someone get a towel!" said Honey Kisaragi.

"I didn't know that there was any such thing as a Psyduck with gray feathers, uh-uh, nope," said War-Ouki.

"Genetically altered pokemon?" Seion suggested.

"Maybe," said K'thardin.

"Geoduck!" Geoduck said happily, as Lesell wrapped him in a towel and began to dry him off. He nuzzled Lesell's hand, and her bright green eyes became large and sparkly.

"You're so cute!" Lesell gushed, "Your name's Geoduck? How'd you like to be my pokemon, Geoduck?"

When Geoduck nodded enthusiastically, Lesell jumped for joy, cradling Geoduck in one arm and triumphantly raising her other hand in a V-for-victory sign. "Yes! I've got another pokemon!" Still holding Geoduck, Lesell then used her free arm to hug Metroid close to her. "Look Metroid, we have a new friend! This is going to be so great! Come on team, back to the ship, we're done here! Oh, we're going to have so much fun..."

The rest of our heroes followed Lesell back to the Midorishu as she continued to chatter excitedly.

"Wow, I haven't seen Lesell looking so happy for a long time!" Yayoi Toreishi remarked.

"I've never seen such a happy-looking pokemon, either," said AleeN.

Everyone entered the Midorishu, and the ship took to the air. War-Ouki pressed a button, and the explosives he had planted in the fic went off, sending "What The Hell Is This" into fan fic hell. "Yay!" everyone cheered, each taking a glass of his or her favorite beverage and raising it in a toast. Yayoi played the song "Rainbow Forces" over the ship's sound system, and Lesell offered Geoduck some strawberry Pocky.

"Geoduck!" the pokemon exclaimed happily. At long last, he was on the Midorishu. At long last, his dream had come true.

"Ack!" everyone screamed, as the volume on "Rainbow Forces" suddenly became much louder.

"Yayoi, turn that down!" Seion shouted.

"It's not my fault, Honey was leaning on the volume control!"

"I was not!"

"Guys, the pizza in the oven is burning, and War-Ouki traded our fire extinguisher for hentai doujinshi last week!"

"It wasn't me, uh-uh, nope! It was K'thardin!"

"What?! Cyraqs, you pervert!" *WHAM!*

"Aw geez, Lita, did you have to mallet him now?"

"GUYS, THAT FIRE'S NOT GONNA PUT ITSELF OUT!"

Everyone charged into the kitchen, screaming and flailing their arms. Geoduck smiled as they all worked together to put out the fire. He was surrounded by teammates... allies... friends. Sure, they would be having burnt pizza for dinner, and the smoke and overly loud music was giving him a new kind of headache, but he couldn't be happier. Hmm... either Radhaz's experiment was not completely sane, or our plucky little pokemon hero had a better understanding of true happiness than most folks did. Perhaps both. Ah well, if he wasn't quite sane, then he'd definitely fit in with Lesell's team just fine. ^_^