Entry for November Challenge.
Mid development link: http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/skw/mid-december-november-challenge

Here's a quick story behind the fusion of Machoke and Arcanine; Mark Nine.

Team Rocket, the Pokemon terrorist organization was still at it. Devious plots, elaborate plans, and magnificent expansions; only to be spoiled by a rag tag group of trainers. However, this time, they were not foiled by innocent children. The weather around the Ss. Anne sailing out of the Vermillion Port turned treacherous and the ship began to sink. The incognito presence of the Organisation left Pokemon hybrids they had been transporting and escaped. However, as power on the ship began to fade with the engine room flooding; shorting out the electricity, the energy cages imprisoning the Pokemon dissipated. The Pokemon scrambled through out halls and corridors desperate to escape the deathly water trap. Thunder boomed and a lightning bolt struck the side of the sinking ship blowing a massive hole in the hull. Pokemon close enough jumped into the churning water and started swimming to shore.

A machoke hybrid crawled out of the water onto the local beach. He shook water off, the air beginning to chill his wet body. He was lost. Mark Nine had spent all his life in a sterile lab room. His first memory had been waking up trapped in a tube filled with saline with a name tag strapped around his arm. He had been subjected to numerous cruel, strenuous tests until the scientists deemed him fit. They had caged him and then held him aboard the ship to be taken to Johto to work. Mark Nine ambled into the glowing city. Nobody was in sight because the radios alerted the populous of an incoming Winter storm. A mysterious white substance, falling lazily through the dark sky began to surround him. He began to tear up. It was his first Snowfall. The snow steamed off him due to his fire type body. He looked up and saw the dark sky, illuminated by specks of light and a radial glow from the light of lamps bouncing off the snow. He stayed still for a few more moments just before disappearing off into the increasingly heavy snowfall. Mark Nine was leaving for an adventure and perhaps, revenge on Team Rocket.