InGen's Rebirth

Like the mightiest of Rexes, InGen was in a rut bigger than they could have possibly imagined.

It was difficult enough navigating through all the changes after Dr. Wu was arrested. He was the de facto leader of InGen, the face, the one who negotiated with the big names and gangs. Not only that, his knowledge of genetics and creating dinosaurs with "more teeth" was top notch, something his juniors couldn't accomplish without aid. Losing him was more akin to losing a head, the lower ranks scrambling to find someone willing to lead.

Worse yet, there were other businesses snapping up resources. They didn't have enough access to more vicious dinosaur DNA. Nobody was willing to take a chance to maybe get a tiny blood sample from even Sue's Ceratosaurus and raptors, nevermind get even the teeniest of blood samples from Rexy. They were too heavily guarded, too dangerous to approach. They had other, odder DNA for mass reproduction, but nothing they were 100% sure would pique the interest of their new parent company, nevermind others wishing to buy their products. No one comes to get an Iguanadon or a large array of sea scorpions in a flying city.

Their saving grace right now was that they were scooped up by CarverCorp... but not by much. It meant they would keep afloat, but their resources were further dwindled by CarverCorps' scientists grabbing whatever DNA they could find for their own splicing experiments. InGen was nothing more than a supplier to them, investing only enough that the company could outbid others for DNA and research on what could possibly suit their parent company's needs at the time.

With no central leadership aside from the demands from CarverCorp, teams bickered about how to proceed.

"Look, we go find that dumb factory Rexy died in, then we can scrape all the blood and get the DNA samples!" one said as he made a very complex diagram of how to go about this. "It's not like that stupid frog cares what happens! We need the more fierce predators, the DANGEROUS ones. CarverCorp wants to experiment with more things like the Carnotaurus! Giving them something even bigger is bound to get us some bonus checks!"

Another shook her head as she said, "Who's to say he hasn't already demolished the factory? What we should be doing is showcasing more rare, cunning species. Bring in the oversized spiders, the giant dragonflies, those that came waaaay before the dinosaurs!"

"But they thrived off an oxygen rich environment! How are they going to sustain themselves?"

"I dunno, throw a pinch of magic in there or something!"

"We're SCIENTISTS, not WIZARDS, Sonja-"

A door flung open, silencing the bickering team as someone strutted in, unimpressed. She towered over most of her collegues, some of them flinching at the sight of her as she brushed her long, black hair back. Others were more distracted by her entourage of what looked like a floating bean painted like a pink easter egg, and an equally pink creature whom some might quickly compare to "that one Kobber elf. No, not the jealous one." And one in particular glared daggers at her, his face twisted into a fierce scowl.

"Oh look, it's the resident turncoat," he said as he crossed his arms. "Weren't you given the pink slip, Tori?"

Before he could continue, she interrupted him and said, "Yeah, no shit, dingus. I was actually having a great time being an actual professor over making KobberFucker9000."

The man's face turned beet red as he shouted, "Indoraptor was PERFECT for taking them on, and you know it! It was abso-"

"-lutely flawless, eh?" Tori scoffed and leaned on the wall, the bean hovering behind her and quivering a bit as the other creature tried to comfort it. "Yeah, sure! Perfectly good fodder for some other schmucks to beat its ass." She placed a finger on her chin and thought for a moment before she added, "If you can't even beat Death then you certainly aren't gonna beat a Kobber. I'm just surprised the defect it had didn't kill it first."

"Perhaps if you weren't doddling about and raising objections over an ally and actually bothered to AID us-"

Another colleague jumped in between them as Tori approached, almost ready to smack him. "H-hey, um, yeah, that didn't go well, but before we get fiesty, uh... why are you here, Tori? You were fired."

Tori saw the angry man open his mouth again and glared at him hard enough that he backed off before looking her friendlier colleague in the eye. "Higher ups were basically at a loss. Wu's stupid ass did five million illegal as shit things, including recreating a psychic dinosaur on life support, and they really just want to be an independent company again instead of tied to Carvercorp at the hip. And, well, guess who got invited right back in?"

The smug look was enough for the man to approach her and shout at her, in spite of his colleague holding him back.

"You nearly cost us an alliance with The Curse with your damned beliefs! You weren't focused on defeating the one force that stopped us from conquering Olympia! You're a damn traitor, a stupid Pokemaniac who didn't give a shit about the comp-"

The moment his spittle flew on her face was the very moment her fist connected with his nose. A loud CRACK, and he was on the floor, several scientists gathering around him to make sure he was okay.

"You guys actually thought working with the filthiest scum this planet has to offer was for the good of the company?" she snarled. "Fine, how the hell did that turn out? Oh, it was all a ploy for some lobster with an ego the size of Uranus to try to take over the world. Yeah, real good stuff for the company, possibly being enslaved by Lobster Overlords!

I warned you guys the moment you started getting involved: joining a mysterious gang with a member as vicious as Giovanni? It wasn't going to end well. Nothing he's involved in ends well, and I know because I've dealt with scum like him. The only way things would have been worse is if Plague fucking had Ghetsis in Giovanni's place.

We're not going to deal with that shit anymore. Wu fucked it up for all of us, and now we're going to have to dig ourselves out. It won't be easy, especially since we're gonna have to kiss CarverCorp's ass for a while before we find a way to split." She looked over to one of her Pokemon for a moment, then over to her whimpering colleague as she said, "Audi, heal him. Slap him if he tries anything funny, though."

Audi saluted and waddled over, holding her little hands over the man's face as she unleashed a pulse. A sickening CRACK happened as his nose went back in place, any bleeding stopping, any pain ebbing away. In spite of that, though, many of Tori's colleagues were glaring back at her.

"You didn't have to go that far!"

"Way to be a total dick, dude."

"Y-you could have just been a bit more stern..."

Tori rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm not tolerating any of his shit. If he doesn't like the ideas I'm proposing, he's free to go to CarverCorp's lab crew and suck them off. I'm not here to follow in Wu's footsteps, I'm not here to AVENGE THE CURSE, and I'm DEFINITELY not here to try to murder a force that's proven, since the Vegas years, that cannot be stopped. Especially not when they could save our bacon with the rut we've gotten ourselves into.

I'm here for three things: exposing enough of CarverCorp's dirty laundry to free us from their clutches, actually researching some of these ancient beasts, and making some stupidass abominations. Both for CarverCorp and for our defense."

They continued to glare at her, though one colleague asked, "Well, that's nice, but we don't have the DNA abundance we used to have. We keep getting outbid by another genetics company..."

A smirk crossed Tori's face. "Well, that won't be a problem. Because we have stuff that other genetics companies can't even get." She snapped her fingers and called out, "Deedee! Bring in the samples!"

It was strange, seeing a more goth Audi walk in with a suitcase, which she gently set on a table with psychic powers and opened it up. Each and every vial was labled, and as the scientists gathered to look, their eyes widened at just what Tori brought.

"P-Pokemon DNA?" the man sputtered in disbelief. "F-from Kanto to the Galar regions...?!"

Tori couldn't help but grin devilishly. "Yep. Enough to make some crazy fusions. I have fossils, too, so fossil pokemon aren't out of our reach. Give me some more time to check out archeaological search sites and I might be able to get some DNA samples of some dinosaurs too, while I'm at it. In the meantime, you can use those and maybe go back to the WCW days."

"...Well, there WAS a factory where Rexy died-"

Tori's grin faded for shock. "Wait, Rexy DIED?!"

"To Cuphead and Mugman, yeah, in some Secret Fiter Scuffle-"

"Oh, well that's different," Tori said with a sigh of relief. "Guessing she's back to life now, so that's a no-go for DNA."

The man interjected, "We can scrape her blood off the floor-"

Tori stared at him blankly. "Yeah, blood. That wasn't preserved. Which is probably mixed in with other people's blood, so it's not pure. And it's old. In a factory that might have been demolished."

"I-it's worth a shot!"

She rolled her eyes. "Sure, go ahead. Try to prove me wrong. But you're taking backup and if that sample's too impure, you're not fucking with it. Last thing we need is a Rexybomination who'll kill us for doing this to her. Everyone else, start studying up on your Pokemon and try not to make Sunwoop. Anyone who tries will be fired on the spot. Debbie, you're to revive the fossils and see what you can make with their DNA. And Sandra, you-"

As Dr. Tori finished giving orders, everyone scrambled to work while she looked towards Deedee with concern.

"Do you have your doubts, Mistress?" Anyone could have mistaken the voice as coming straight from the Pokemon's mouth, but in actuality, there was a collar around her neck that autotranslated her words. "This workplace seems rather, uh, dangerous."

"It'll get even more dangerous if we start rebelling against CarverCorp immediately, Deedee," Tori said as she took a seat  and slumped back as far as she could. "All we can do is take all the knowledge we got from the higher ups and see if we can get some aid digging up more dirt. It's easier to infiltrate from the inside than the outside, anyway." All the while, the pink bean Munna floated up to her, the scientist nuzzling the cute creature with gusto.

Deedee tilted her head and frowned. "I suppose, but there might be more devious machinations at work. We may be caught in something much bigger than ourselves, much like in Galar."

"Can't worry about what might happen, otherwise we'll end up paralyzed with indecision. We go with the flow and expose things as we go. All I know is that we can't do this alone: we're going to need to rely on outside help, and we have to do it discreetly."

She had to admit: she was nervous. CarverCorp was an entirely different beast than The Curse. She couldn't punch it like she wanted to do with Giovanni. There were reports buried about misdeeds and illegally making psychics out of dinosaurs, and so many angry blogposts from a dinolover about the abuses going on. It was going to be a walk on a tightrope, a balancing act. One wrong step...

No. No wrong steps. She'd have to wing it... but Tori was determined to get InGen out of the mire Dr. Wu made for them. For their sake. For everyone's sake.