Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Wild Horses & Pokegirls - sidestories ❯ Over The Threshold ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Sidestory #4: Over the Threshold

WARNING: Dark. The Sidestories of WH&Pg are meant to further detail and explain this mileau and how such a world either came about or operates. This is the darkest of the planned sidestories, dealing with a girl experiencing Threshold.

by: Tuxedo H

January 10, 289 AS____

Hello.

My name was Janet Burke, formerly of Stone City. One of the drivers suggested that I describe what I'm going through. That it might help others who go through the same thing. I hate this.

How to speak of it? How to describe it?

My life up until now has been pretty typical. My father and mother, as far as anyone knew, were both purebreds. No pokegirls back for at least a hundred years. My mother never cared for them - refers to them as smelly animals. Mockeries of humans. Evidence of why our ancestors rightfully turned from the sciences and embraced the Green lifestyle.

My father knew better than to argue with my mother. My father is a baker. Our family business, the Burke Bakery does the usual bread and muffins and fritter sticks. No pokegirls allowed, my mother's rule, but we have a side window so that pokegirls can run errands for their masters and pick up bread without coming in the store.

My mother and her friends would talk a lot about the scandalous way these monsters were allowed to run around, and thank goodness we were in a modern city where they at least had to be branded or collared or ident-chipped to be allowed to go about on their own. Lots of gossip. Father wouldn't talk much, the main joy in his life was the simple baking of bread.

That was perhaps the greatest part of my youth, working in the bakery with dad when I was big enough to haul loaves out of the oven and hand him ingredients while he worked. He was showing me the basics, and it was expected that eventually I'd find a boy and carry on the family business another generation.

Due to the usual gender segregation in schools I'd only seen boys while working. Most of my life I considered them kind of icky, actually. Stupid, loud, and always pushing each other around in one form of game or another. Still, I understood, this was how things worked. Eventually they'd somehow stop being icky. I saw even less of pokegirls, they tended to act scared of momma.

My friends and school tended to have momma's attitude towards pokegirls. Trained animals in perpetual heat. Monsters who would fight and slave for their human masters. No more than that.

There was one girl. Amiedra, I think, genius girl who was going to be a doctor. Whatever her name she didn't have any friends. She suddenly took sick, some kind of flu where she ran a fever. That evening was the last we'd seen of her, and the next day we were all gossiping about her perfect attendance score being shot down and how she was such a quiet little witch that she might as well stay home. Of course, two days later we got the information that she wouldn't come back. Threshold.

So we laughed and joked about that. Friendless little meek girl. We bet she was going to be a mouse of some kind. I think Penny was the one who suggested buying the school snob at a pet fair and having her do our homework for us.

Laugh's on me, don't you think?

It was November when I got those first shooting pains. Headache alternating with stomach ache, fever turning to chills, sensitivity to light and loud noises. My mother took me to the local doctor, who prodded and probed and took all sorts of samples.

Threshold.

There was a lot of yelling and accusations. I was purebred, there couldn't be any pokegirl genes for me to have Threshold. I was too *young* to have Threshold. I was eleven years old, Threshold didn't hit until after fourteen and usually after sixteen.

Apparently there was something different though, because a lot of girls schools had reported having one or two members suddenly go through it. Amiedra's fate didn't look nearly so funny all of a sudden.

My mother suddenly couldn't stand me. She yelled and threw things at me if she saw me at all. It was *my* fault somehow. After the first big blowup, father quietly arranged for this trip. A Breeder's Ranch in the hills where I can learn to cope with this new development. How wonderful for me. I haven't even shown any physical alterations other than my nails and hair changing color and I'm already being hustled off as an embarrasment.

I'm no longer Janet Burke, legally. I'm simply Janet, unless someone gives me a different name.

No longer of Stone City. I'm considered to be of the Daisy Hill Breeding Center.

No longer human. No longer do I have rights. I am property. I'm listed temporarily as being an Ingenue.

January 11, 289 AS___

Work at the Center is difficult. I swear that Domina has got it in for me.

When I'm washing off all the dust and dirt in our communal shower, I notice that the gold in my nails and hair are coming in stronger. I used to be a brunette, now I have strands of spun gold coming through it all.

Creator, don't let me become a Bimbo.

Too tired to write.

January 14, 289 AS___

I got really sick and some of the pokegirls here have been taking care of me. A redfurred Vixxen whose fur and breath seem really hot has adopted me as if I were one of her kits and has been feeding me soup when it seemed like I could keep anything down.

Dumb animals my butt. Apparently Threshold girls go through this all the time when they're sent here. The proximity of other pokegirls makes the changes accelerate or else they stop changing altogether and are put under the label of Ingenue officially. Vixxen knows how the whole thing goes and has been keeping other pokegirls from trying to Tame me.

She helped me get to the mirror and look at myself.

One month ago I was a brown-eyed scraggly haired brunette with pale complexion, freckles, a nose that was too big for my face, and thin lips. I've always needed glasses but I looked like I'm squinting even when I wasn't. A lot of my former momma in me. Definitely human though.

Now my face has gotten this relatively tiny nose. My hair has gotten thicker and straighter, but what a cost to fix split ends. My ears changed shape and begun their migration. Did I mention the tail?

It was obvious enough what I was becoming. There had been a TV series about the exploits of the famous Tamer twenty years ago Shun Ukiya over in the Edo League as he tried to route spies and agents of the Darth League. His band of Threshold girls: Ruriko Ikusawa the Archer, Kaoru Konoe the enthusiastic Saijin, and the others. Oh, and Reiko Asagiri. Kitten.

Vixxen held onto me when I would've run up to the roof and tried to throw myself onto one of the stakes in the tomato patch.

I really hate her.

January 19, 289 AS__

My head really hurts. I'm going to ask the owner for something that I can take for it.

I've been in and out of sleep for the past few days as the change speeds up during this phase. Up in the usual place for such things, on Kittens anyway, are my ears. My eyes are wider and longer and they've turned copper. Same with nails. My hair's coming in the same color too.

It's not the only changes but then I haven't reached sixteen when I'd expect to go through the rest of them and reach full Kitten status. We're called Kits but then all pokegirl children are usually called kits or pups or something like that. Never babies or kids.

I don't have fur, except on the tail, but Kittens normally don't. It's Merrowl who get fur and all the other things.

I look in the mirror now and I see not Janet Burke, purebred human - and therefore an aristocrat in these times.

I'm leaner and look like I'm a study in shades of copper. Definitely a pokegirl coloration. I can see my ears flicking and twisting to catch sounds and display my mood. So is my tail, it seems almost to have a mind of its own at times.

There's other things I notice. Bright lights really hurt, but my nightvision is a lot better. I startle easy and find myself acting more animal-like in a lot of circumstances. If this continues, when I get used to my changing center of gravity and that damn tail I'll be a lot more agile.

The thing is that all this extra sensitivity to my eyes and hearing is making my head hurt. Not to mention what my sense of smell is doing. Yeah, the owner's got to have something for this.

December 29, 291 AS__

Found funny marks on paper long ago. Not know what mean till now.

Hard to think. Still.

They say Tawny Kitten try kill self. They say Master take and put through Level 4 Programming. Put in unhappy nasty girl and take out happy Kitten. Not sure.

Started remember. Little bits. Here and there. Janet. Janet be unhappy person thinks Kitten.

Kitten is Janet. Janet is Kitten. Not understand.

March 3, 292 AS__

It's my birthday so I thought I'd write this. My memories came back but it's not the same. They don't care as long as I toe the line. I went through Level 4 Programming, but there is a Level 5 and I really don't know if anything would be left afterwards.

I am Janet. I am also a Kitten named Tawny. No longer an owner of property. Now I am to be owned as property.

According to the calendar, I am fourteen years old today. Meaning that it won't be long before I can be Tamed. Supposedly you can't be sold before you're sixteen but that rule is definitely not in place. I don't look fourteen either.

This creature in the mirror is me. The coppery look is stronger now. My nails and skin, eyes and hair, all shades of the same basic color. The pudgy girl who talked about fashions and the latest bands, and who had ate way too much cheesebread growing up has been replaced. Sleek and sexy, yes. My ears and tail are definitely part of the package, as are the pointy looking teeth and those breasts. If we were allowed to wear clothes, I'd be a "C" cup from my guess. Perfectly normal for a Kitten.

I'm still a virgin of course. It's a marketable thing, and without someone Taming me I haven't gotten imprinted. That doesn't mean I haven't been groped or passed around like a bottle of cheap whisky on the day after finals by the other pokegirls.

I've gone through Threshold but not Feral. I've been Programmed but not Tamed. Tamers have looked me over and gone on to the next one.

Legends like in the Edo League stories about Shun Ukiya's group or the "Flower League" from even further back are one thing, but Kittens are fairly common and not very powerful. Tamers generally don't go after them.

Kittens *are* popular as pets sometimes. One of the League accepted breeds. They're also used in the League as clerks and "scut workers" - even a few police have chosen to have a Kitten as their pokegirl partner.

Will I become someone's pet? Will I evolve? Will it hurt? Will I find someone like Shun Ukiya was with *his* harem, who will listen to his pokegirl? Or will I end up with someone like Damien Thorne from his TV program who wants to crush my identity and will "for my own good."

Vixxen was sold sometime while I was under the influence of the programming. I miss her.

March 4, 292 AS__

A Tamer came today and used one of the Taming Rooms to break in his new Alpha. She was a Growlie and we never actually talked much.

What surprised me was all the pokegirls hanging around the room or peeping through peepholes at the whole event. I just went on weeding the tomato plants. One whiff of sex was enough to convince me of the danger.

Sure enough, most of those pokegirls watching turned to each other and made a mess on just about any horizontal surface they could find. If I'd been watching, the pheromones likely would have overwhelmed me too. Just all the screaming and moaning and other noises were distracting enough.

March 3, 294 AS__

Well, I got my glasses back when I got picked. So now I can write again.

My new Master. What a strange phrase that is. Owner? I just call him Master, it's an acceptable term for a Kitten to use.

It was almost six months ago with the final morphing to Kitten. My nails changed, then I got the most peculiar sets of sensations. I became quite aware of this pulsing hungry *thing* here between my legs. Kittens are known for being mainly Hetero, with a few strict Hetero, so at least I was fairly certain I wouldn't end up owned by a former classmate.

My new owner is a form of Researcher. He mainly needs someone to cover the basic domestic duties and occasionally the odd paperwork. He was specifically looking for a Threshold girl saying that he "didn't want someone he'd have to watch over constantly" or "micro-manage."

So it is that on my sixteeth birthday I find myself owned by someone twice my age and change. Thirty nine and the very picture of the doddering professorial type. Hardly the sort I'd have imagined being with had I not gone through Threshold but choices are one of the things pokegirls generally don't have.

We left the Farm and ended up at his place, essentially a farmhouse where he sifts through records left behind from the pre-Sukebe era. He looks for clues as to some of the lost technology that humanity turned away from during the bad times after the war.

He told me to put clothes on, which was a change from the enforced nudity of the Farm. It feels strange after so long without to wear clothing again, even if it's just a baggy white shirt belted at the waist. A private shower. Typical bachelor's kitchen - I'll have to get him to buy some real groceries.

Hey, I just realized that I'll be able to bake bread again!

Have to open some windows. My too sensitive nose is picking up all this bachelor-scent.

--------

March 5, 294 AS

Ummm. Well. So *that* is what it is like for a pokegirl who needs a Taming and what it is like to be Tamed.

Alan Smith. My owner. I know it's just pheromones and genetic programming and the like. Still the reactions are a bit overwhelming. All it takes is a smile and his hand smoothing my hair and I'm purring and leaning into him. His voice, dear kami, just his voice makes me clench my thighs together and try to get some control back.

The scent got to me apparently. I played back the security cameras because I wanted to know what happened in those missing hours.

After I left the kitchen I dropped to all fours sniffing the air, then I actively stalked and pounced on my Master. Who apparently hadn't been ready for sex but did know enough to use a rolled up newspaper to fend me off.

My Master is apparently one of those who does not have the stamina of a young man, nor does he have great esoteric knowledge of sexual techniques. Sufficient unto the task, from what I can tell. And I'm able to write, though my spoken vocabulary seems a bit simplistic right now. He doesn't even seem to enjoy the act so much as view it as a necessary part of being a pet owner.

I'll have to work on that, I think.

-------

March 25, 294 AS

It's my fault. It's all my fault.

I opened the door. I greeted the men in the suits. I didn't know. I didn't realize.

Now I'm writing my last diary entry and waiting for the executioner.

My Master is dead. He threatened to call the cops when he saw them using a shock prod on me.

They were actually after his research. They killed for his research. Now my Master's been branded a heretic, with lies about what his research actually was.

I've made contact with one of the jailors, a girl named Michiru who tells me to continue writing.

I saw them coming in here. To Viridian Gym. The lobby has these pokegirls on pedestals all around the lobby.

Stuffed. With glass eyes that seem to watch you from the shadows. All posed in such a way to emphasize that these are not humans but "animal mockeries." My mother would get along here quite nicely.

Oh, they're coming. I need to hide this. Michiru, I beg you. At least let my words escape this place.

-------

Jan 9, 299 AS:

I felt the need to add one last chapter to the tale of Janet Burke, aka Tawny Kitten. Her diary, such as it is, reached me recently and points out the pitfalls of being a Threshold girl.

Fully half end up "pets" of one kind or another. Some end up happier than this, some end up in the blood sports of the underground pit fighting circuit, some end up in Tamer's harems, and others end up dying at their own hands. More than three quarters of those who do not choose death request the level 5 programming, by the way, wanting to forget that they were ever human rather than deal with what they've lost.

Though there are those who treasure Threshold girls as the pinnacle of Domesticated pokegirls and treat them more like humans than not, there are dangers to being too obvious in such cavalier attitudes in the cities. Alan Smith, Doctor of Pre-Sukebe History, lived too near Viridick and frankly could have used a combat-trained battle-hardened pokegirl. Such as one of those whose Tamer has retired and needs a good home.

A day ago I had to visit the Gym at Viridick. Sure enough, one of the examples of taxidermy sitting on display is of a copper haired Kitten crouching on all fours over some rocks - her face permanently frozen in a snarl.

Of this "Michiru" I have no knowledge. One of those on the Council I count as an ally got me this and reported that two who wished to claim sanctuary on the preserve had abruptly vanished.

Typical, but one hopes they escape.

I wonder if it is too soon to have an electrical fire break out in that lobby?

-Cologne, Elder of the Joketsuzoku Preserve
from a privately coded transmission to one of her field agents.

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