As he sat amongst the berry bushes and stared at the smooth cat’s-eye-patterned gemstone in his hand – and, intermittently, at the humans who’d come to make up a minority population within their little village – Two could not help but ponder.
His original ‘partnership’ with Giovanni had, despite looming large in the clone’s memories, not lasted for a particularly long time. Less than a year. Less than a twentieth of my life and half that for him…
A quarter of the time Two had spent building New Island. Less than a tenth of the time he had existed as a half-alive shadow in Cerulean Cave. Already, his life in the valley eclipsed those memories three times over. And yet…
And yet, Two knew Giovanni Capo. The former boss of Team Rocket was a ruthless man – a man who valued power and control over all else. It was what had caused him to bankroll Cinnabar Labs in the first place, what had urged him to respond to its destruction by rushing there in person, what had made him the face of Kanto’s ‘heroic’ aggression in the Indigo War… And his lust for control had also been what had driven him and Two apart.
Lights flicked on as Mewtwo floated through the doorway, the metal slab that had stood in the opening’s place still ringing from its collision with the wall.
“Immature?” he growled, the question directed at the human behind him. “How exactly am I immature, Giovanni?” His voice was calm, but inside the clone was simmering – and as he floated down to the dual healing/repair machine without even sparing a glance for the stairs, Mewtwo acknowledged that it was a poor facade he'd put up.
After all, the security door was all but embedded in the wall… not that the human seemed to notice. Giovanni's answer came without hesitation, not a single hint of fear evident in either his tone or posture.
“Every day, you ask those same questions incessantly. ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What am I?’ ‘What is my purpose?’” Each quotation came with the ghost of a sneer hidden within his deep, steady voice. The man might have been actually, genuinely angry… or Mewtwo might simply be imagining the depth of his emotion. The Pokémon was in no state to distinguish the two possibilities, with his battered armour and a head that buzzed with a decidedly real anger all his own. “You weren’t born a mewling infant, Mewtwo, and I grow tired of hearing you act like one. You will cease such useless ponderings when in my presence – especially when we are in the field.”
Mewtwo clenched his fists, and shot his ‘trainer’ a glare. Back home for no more than five minutes, and already he thinks to order me around like a member of his precious ‘team…’ “Do not speak to me in such a manner, Giovanni,” the clone replied as he seated himself in the repair dock. “You are correct – I am no child. Your scolding means nothing to me.” Tension strained the air between them as his glare parted around the human’s form, the little buzzes and beeps the armour made as it was returned to function each sending a spike of annoyance down the clone’s spine – and a background element of Mewtwo’s mind reflected that perhaps now wasn’t the best time for them to be aggravating each other.
The war had been unfolding poorly even with his involvement, and Giovanni was restless. It caused him to chafe against every little thing, demanding unreasonable levels of success – and that, in turn, shortened Mewtwo’s fuse as well. But knowing that one was in the middle of a bad decision and stopping were two different things, and so he continued.
“My purpose is not to be a mere weapon, or a tool… It is something much grander, a destiny that encompasses the entire world. Even now, its true shape eludes me…” His voice, too, held a certain amount of sneering disdain. I only know the vaguest of outlines. Something that will change everything, lift the world up and set it to rights. But… “But this discussion is pointless. How could you, a mere human, ever understand the scope of-”
“Your purpose is to serve your master,” Giovanni interrupted, stating it without any sort of special inflection – he seemed almost indifferent now, a mask of superiority slipping on as though Mewtwo’s search for the meaning of his existence was no more interesting than a vapid remark about the weather. Still silhouetted against the open doorway where they'd come in, the human’s face was only a shadow… But Giovanni's voice was as strong and clear as it always was, echoing over the mostly-empty room where Mewtwo retired to heal, recharge his armour, and occasionally even sleep. Still strong, despite the fact that they'd just been forced to retreat with their tails, both literal and figurative, tucked between their legs.
He had been forced to retreat, Mewtwo corrected himself in the span between the human's sentences. I, of course, could have fought on alone.
“You were created to fight for me,” Giovanni continued, either ignorant or malicious in his mockery of Mewtwo’s thoughts. “That is your purpose.”
Whatever the rationale behind the human's words, they were a spark that set off an explosion of rage – and much like an explosion, a moment later the emotion was gone. Mewtwo suppressed himself, his anger, his destructive impulses, mashing it all to paste under an unbending seal of absolute control; only cold logic could be allowed to dictate his actions, lest he do something… unwise, as he had the day of his birth.
And yet even with the anger purged, the conclusion he arrived at was a perfect match for his first instinct. “No.”
Finally, an overt expression. Giovanni’s chin raised, the faint outline of his nostrils mirroring equally faint displeasure. “No?”
“No. That – this – cannot be my destiny.” Again, the anger intruded – and this time the world’s strongest Pokémon allowed it to build. Even as his wounds closed and his energy was replenished, Mewtwo couldn't escape the niggling itch of their existence. Wounds that I would not have suffered, if not for this man's insipid orders. “You said we would be equals, Giovanni. That we would build a new world!” Wires and tubes danced under the sway of his emanations, and only the special dampening properties of his now-pristine focusing armour kept the wave from disintegrating both it, and the intricate machine that maintained it. “Yet we have done nothing. Nothing but fight your meaningless Indigo War, as though the lines of a map bear any relevance to reality. No, Giovanni, I am finished.
“My destiny no longer lies here, in this small world, fighting for small men.” Control, urged the clone’s thoughts. Control must be maintained at all times. A tiny expression of power, and all at once the many tubes and wires disconnected. Lest you break something that cannot be reassembled.
And yet the Rocket Boss’s words only drove him to further emotion. “What would you know of destiny?” Giovanni said. “If you refuse to accept an answer, why bother opening your mouth?” His soft human hand gripped the metal guardrail that Mewtwo had so easily floated over as though it were an impenetrable wall. “You were made for me, to be the strongest weapon on the face of the Earth, stronger than even a legendary Pokémon. To make me invincible.” Giovanni turned, and for a moment Mewtwo contemplated smashing the man against the ceiling – but no, he was better than that.
But apparently Giovanni was not, for he hovered – again, figuratively – in the doorway, and took the opportunity to put a bow on their exchange. “That is the truth – and yet you insist on disobeying me, taking foolish risks and retreating from the creatures you hold in such contempt. You were created by humans to obey humans. You wish to be equals?” A single bark of laughter shattered the fragile air between them. “This past year has shown me the truth; you are nothing but a Pokémon. You could never be my equal.”
The memory passed sluggishly through Two’s head like it was travelling uphill, the imaginary scene reflected in the Mega Stone’s glassy surface. Then it jumped forward to the aftermath of the argument, suddenly lightning-quick: Viridian Gym with a gaping hole in its ceiling, the building that Giovanni had not yet completely taken over receding into the distance as Two shed the restricting, focusing armour that he had eventually realised was nothing more than another means of control.
No, Giovanni would never have allowed… this.
Lowering the stone, he once more looked to the humans his partner – and oh, how that word still scratched at his brain – had brought out once Two had verified his intent to join forces. There were four of them present, with a fifth having flown off to the east several days ago – and in a maddening show of inconsistency, Giovanni himself had simply let Ghetsis go.
He hadn't even asked after the crippled man’s destination, just… left him to his own devices to go train on a nearby peak. How? Mewtwo asked himself as he watched a man in red cotton and a man in blue spandex argue over some board game while a third human placidly took advantage of their distraction to move his pieces into a better configuration. The last, who was also male as proven by his great mane of fiery hair, watched with thinly veiled distaste – not, Two suddenly realised, unlike himself.
Disguised by the internal comparison, Two tore his gaze away. Do not become distracted. The Giovanni in my memories might be different from the one standing in the present, but they are the same man; the chances that he's sincere about this… partnership are slim. I may have gained greater strength since our parting, but so has he… I cannot afford to be lax.
And so with his self-admonishment complete, Two went back to focusing two strands of similar-but-distinct energy into the seemingly endless depths of the Mega Stone.
Lysandre watched as the game between his alleged peers resumed, and continued watching as neither Archie nor Maxie expressed even the slightest suspicion that their opponent had done anything at all. Nor did the unsettlingly ugly man give the game away; no, Cyrus merely continued smiling his small, bland smile, his eyes focused on something far-off and illusory rather than anything in front of him.
The exchange made the leader of Team Flare cringe; these were the masterminds that had unleashed a pair of ancient deities? This was the heartless monster who had reportedly held the very fabric of reality in his hands, if only for a single timeless moment? Ridiculous.
None of these fools could possibly be on my level – what game is Giovanni playing, gathering bickering children and cripples? He must have started with the dregs and worked his way up; it was obvious that only the former Rocket Boss himself was fit to stand on the same stage as Lysandre… And, the arbiter of life's beauty conceded as his eyes wandered, perhaps that abomination of science Giovanni had named Mewtwo as well. But definitely not the leaders of Aqua, Magma, or Galactic – and especially definitely not the hideous, malformed wreck of a human being that called itself Ghetsis.
No, it was obvious that most of this gathering was, like the world entire, composed only of ugly, useless voices crying out to be silenced. It was only the deep well of patience that Lysandre had cultivated over his years as a… celebrity that allowed him to keep the sneer off his face. Patience, he soothed himself. Patience and temperance will see me through.
With these fools running about, I won't even need to sabotage anything; their inevitable failure is reflected in their natures, and soon I will be the only one left standing…
And then the true work of making the world beautiful could begin… Starting with the removal of this bloody pox of a country. Lysander leaned back against one of the simple wooden dwellings that the ‘people’ of the valley had built, and imagined a gentle but firm hand taking everything before his eyes into its grasp, and caressing it with fire until it was clean.
How if only it were clean…
Gropius Harmonia Ghetsis dipped his eyes low as he finished examining Sambus’s work, and the conclusion he reached bid the stiff flesh of his lips to twitch.
Only a true idiot savant could build something this exquisite and manage to make it look like a random jumble of garbage. The fact that the primary ingredient in its construction was actual garbage had nothing to do with it; form was an aspect of function, and one could not make a containment chamber with holes in the sides and expect it to work.
Yet Ghetsis was certain that the bulky, ramshackle-looking copy of the original Gene Wedge his minions had obtained in Opelucid would work perfectly – and unlike that ancient trinket, this machine wouldn’t be stolen by a lucky child. It is too big, for one. Yes, the giant hulking mass was ugly, but its appearance was merely a quirk of its creator’s curiously backwards sloth. It was the same with Genesect; Sambus always put ten times the effort into skipping the ‘useless’ steps, even if they were the least laborious ones. Dudley had to basically weld himself to the man's side so the final product didn't come out looking like a garbodor.
In hindsight it was completely obvious that he would've found the wayward scientist managing a junkyard – Flowerberry Sambus had been a slovenly person even when he'd been wearing a pristine white labcoat in one of the most advanced scientific facilities on the planet.
“So,” the man in question drawled at Ghetsis’s side. “Does it meet your approval, o wise Sage?”
He said the title like it was the dirtiest of slurs, but the soft smile remained on the leader of Team Plasma’s face. “It does, Sambus. I find myself impressed – did you truly build this with only yourself?” Of course Ghetsis knew the answer, but giving his newly rehired minion a chance to stroke his own ego every now and then should help keep him… on-task.
“You bet your fuckin' ass I did, you hippy fuck,” Sambus replied. “And I'm insulted by the implication that I didn't.”
As the man bit the hand that was currently feeding him, Ghetsis’s expression returned to the flat look he'd been wearing. Ah, I suppose it was too much to hope that he'd remain properly submissive… At some point the scientist’s bravado had returned, and it seemed, unfortunately, that the quirk would stick.
And, wonder of wonders, it further seemed that he wasn't even done with the latest attempt to kill himself. “Also, Gene Wedge is a stupid-ass name. Doesn't have a damn thing to do with DNA.”
Infuriating. Even more than Sambus's insubordination, it was his scratchy, aging voice that killed Ghetsis's smile – though the crudity of the former did nothing to lighten his mood. Three decades… The thought was full of cold anger, black and heavy as glacial ice. The amount of time taken from me by that freak. I offered him everything; a father's love, a crown, power beyond mortal imagining..!
The old rant stalled, unfinished, as he fully turned to the younger – but still old, I've become so..! – man. “Image is everything, Flowerberry. Learned men such as ourselves know the difference between genetic material and the energy Pokémon use, but the public is ignorant; a… simple, palatable name is often more effective than an accurate one.”
“Like you're gonna be sellin’ it on a street corner…” Sambus muttered – and the twitch of a smile returned.
I think you’ll be surprised at how public our debut will be, you rancid old creature, Ghetsis thought, the smile he wanted to make much larger than what the skin of his face was comfortable with. But there’s no point in explaining anything to a paranoid fool – and besides, I want to enjoy seeing the look you make when you discover what this machine can really do. Aloud, he only chuckled dryly. “I suppose not… But some of my colleagues are ignoramuses as well. Let it be for their benefit, if nothing else.” As his voice ceased echoing across the large, mostly-empty room and Sambus raised a sceptical – or perhaps only mocking – eyebrow, a cadre of footsteps approached to fill the growing silence.
“Ah, but I’m afraid we’re out of time to chat.” And then Ghetsis smiled in truth, the action genuine despite the way each muscle pulled at the old burns covering the right side of his face. “Your coworkers have finally heeded my summons.” The men following after the sound of their own footsteps entered through a propped-open doorway, and as their identities became clear he felt Sambus stiffen. As though a few thugs are a greater threat than their very master. But the man’s stupidity was almost endearing in its irrationality; Flowerberry Sambus was no Achroma Colress, but he was certainly turning out to be easier to control.
“All of them..?” the scientist muttered under his breath. “I knew he must have a few to’ve set up this whole shit, but…”
“Sir,” the lead Weepinbell Rider called as he and his fellows lined up. Their poise was less than perfect – the hardened ranks of Team Plasma’s remnants, these were not – but that would hopefully change in time. The quartet gave that silly-looking palm-out salute Kantonians were so enamoured with, and Ghetsis nodded their way.
“Get the wedge hidden in the basement, my friends – and one of you go and prepare the heli. I think it’s time I introduce my contumacious engineer here to…” The smirk held steady. “The real boss of our operation.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The gangsters he’d suborned quickly got to work, and for a moment Ghetsis simply basked in the feeling of being out and about again; for too long had he been cooped up in that wretched boat, living the half-existence of a shadow with nothing to cast it. Soon, the world will fall into our grasp – and I, Gropius Harmonia Ghetsis, will stand as the true power behind the throne. Friendship? Allies? Giovanni may have some measure of strength, but he has obviously gone soft since his days as Kanto’s master… oh, but he will still make a fine King indeed. And I his wise advisor…
And then, as his vision of the beautiful future reached its apex, it was brought down by a sour cough. “Ack-! Oh, Arceus above,” Sambus muttered loudly. “Did I really just hear the word con-tum-ac-i-ous? Gods, I must’ve picked up an allergy to self-aggrandising blowhards since we last met, ‘cause you’re fuckin’ killing me man…” Another fake cough, and then the man actually spat – and Ghetsis decided that Sambus could ride in the cargo hold, rather than seated in the main area of the Rainbow Rocket helicopter like a civilised person.
Blainetwo – or Junior, as was both his cover name and actual preference – had been forced to make the journey up Cinnabar Volcano’s side a whole hell of a lot more times than he’d have liked.
Training, his father called it, and while one part of him was forced to acknowledge that contending with the Pokémon of Cinnabar Island’s singular wild area did indeed provide dividends to his team, the rest of him was convinced the old man just liked to see him suffer. Not necessarily in a sadistic way – Blaine wasn’t a sadist, no matter how brutally unfair his games and quizzes could get – but in a sort of…
A sort of overbearing parent sort of way, he concluded as he pulled himself up the latest in a long staircase of steep igneous cliffsides. A passing ponyta revealed itself above him, glancing down curiously as it stood on an incline that would’ve made a seasoned rock climber sweat. Junior stared back, willing it to move away as his introspection played out. An ‘I suffered and I’m successful, so the suffering was obviously part of the success’ sort of way. It was a flawed lens to view the world through – one could say a dark lens, even – but also a deceptively hard one to argue against. Because Junior was, quite literally, a direct copy of his father.
Putting him into a pressure cooker should, in theory, have the same result as the end of the Shogunate did on Blaine Model One. Damnit. Hold that thought…
“Could you please leave?” he asked politely as the ponyta continued to stand directly in his path. “Or move? Like, a few steps to the side..? No?” Silence as the fiery horse blinked its large, black eyes. Blainetwo sighed; it may look cute and harmless, but he hadn't missed the sizzling fire coating the colt’s hooves. “Fine then.”
Fletchinder was able to get the wild Pokémon to move, and even held his own for a while against the mama when it inevitably showed up. Quilava finished things up while Junior hung by his fingertips, and the rest of the trip was rather a lot less perilous. A few graveler, a few slugma, and then he and his team had reached their destination.
Not quite the top, but pretty close – that was where the overgrown forest that had once been Cinnabar Labs rested, the crater itself filled in by flowing magma and ash sourced mainly from the last eruption. “Dad!” Junior called as he trudged through the underbrush. It's always thicker than I remember. Damn fertile volcanic sediment… “I know you're out here!”
No answer presented itself for long seconds, and he began to think that maybe this time his father had decided to take his brooding elsewhere – but then a cheerful electronic ding! sounded out through the young-but-still-dense-as-hell treescape. Junior sighed, half-relieved despite the scrapes all along his limbs, and started forwards.
At least it's nice flat ground, he thought, only for a trio of hooting mankey to drop out of nowhere. Sigh… Why do I even bother to come up here?
He found Blaine exactly where he'd been expecting to: the very centre of the former crater, where a white stone sat solemnly amongst the green. Blainetwo had seen the grave marker more times than he could count, and yet as he approached the epitaph grabbed his attention like it always did – as though it was the first time every time.
‘Tenmo Fuji
1962–1990
Dedicated’
The single word should've come off as plain, maybe even insultingly so – but here in this place, and knowing the context behind its existence, it brought only a shiver of… some emotion too unique to name. Something like nostalgia, though aimed at a man the clone had never met. Significance, maybe. But he swiftly put the feeling aside as he came to stand beside the Gym Leader’s chair. “Dad. Are you going to spend all day up here?”
The old man in his bulky wheelchair responded with a wordless grumble, and Junior could only examine his father as he stared at the spot marking his friend’s death. Blaine Katsura was not a man accustomed to a smile, no matter how much zany humour he packed into each episode of his show, but anyone who called him grim or dour would be completely incorrect – the Gym Leader was an upbeat sort of man, he only had a very… unique way of showing it.
But the Blaine that his son observed was slumped, and his tightened bald eyebrows almost met above the dark glasses he always wore. There was a set look to his jaw, too, one that usually only came out when… “Huh,” Junior commented, “You don’t usually get like this until the start of spring.” The anniversary of the project’s end.
His words roused the man to speak properly. “Lay off it. I’m eighty years old, I’m allowed to mope whenever I want.”
And then… nothing. Junior waited for his father to speak, a process that took multiple minutes; Blaine Model One liked to ruminate, to chew his ideas until even the toughest bits were nothing but a thin paste. It was, in fact, a trait they shared.
“I’ve been talking with Bill a lot lately,” he eventually started, and Junior immediately replied to give the old man something to bounce off of.
“My condolences.”
That earned a twitch, Blaine’s finger going towards the Good Answer! button before catching itself. “Hmph. He’s actually less annoying than usual – apparently the man’s gotten some kind of big breakthrough on his research.” Another silence, though a shorter one. “The ditto I sent him might actually survive. Do you think I was wrong to create you?”
The question came out so blasé, so unexpectedly, that Junior didn’t even register it for a handful of heartbeats. And when he did… What? Do I think..? Huh? His immediate instinct was to blurt out that no, of course he didn’t; wishing you’d never been born was for immature teens and the idiot leads of bargain-bin dramas. But Blaine would go sour at an off-the-cuff answer, and so Junior sat on it and actually thought the question through. Do I… think it was wrong for my father to clone himself..?
The tiny patch of jungle on the side of the active volcano was a lot quieter than most people would assume, and yet as his brain ticked over it seemed especially silent. Putting aside the fact that I’m me, the result of said creation, and looking at it more objectively… “No.” Egotistical, I’ll grant. But not immoral.
The conclusion caused Blaine to tap his armrest in impatience, so Junior continued. “No, what you did wasn’t particularly distinct from any other parent. Cloning might be seen as, ah, creepy by some people, but I’m not any different from if I’d had a mother who’d just… died in childbirth, or something.”
“I did it on a whim,” his father countered. “To honour a dead man. The reasoning behind it was bad.”
Junior could only shrug. “Plenty of people turn into parents because they happened to get drunk on the wrong night. It’s not like you left me in a dumpster or something.”
Another expression of amusement; Blaine’s lips parted just slightly, turning into something that would be called a pained grimace on anyone else. “Ha. No, I suppose I could’ve done worse…” A third silence, and then: “I have reason to believe that Bill’s going to try something completely insane soon. You might be taking over for me sooner than expected.”
Another shrug. Like you said, you’re eighty. ‘Sooner than expected’ is any day now. Five or six years ago the act of thinking about it would’ve driven him into a funk, but Junior had been observing his father’s deterioration go from trickle to raging rapids over the last while – after his legs had gone, it’d become impossible to deny. “I’ll make sure you get one of these-” A solid pat to the top of the marker. “-Wherever it is you finally erupt. Try not to leave a body; I want to still be hearing rumours I’m actually you with some fantasy youth treatment after I turn eighty.”
A happy buzz sounded out, and then the two continued to stare at the wild gravesite in silence for a long, peaceful-but-sad while.
“You’re going to be stronger than me,” Blaine said without warning or further elaboration, swiftly turning his chair around to begin the descent. His off-hand went to his tie, the one he always claimed had been burned by the Moltres itself. “Stronger than Bill. Stronger than Oak. Stronger even than him.”
Blainetwo stood for a moment, annoyed and touched in equal measure, then started after his father. No need to ask who him is, not when I’m standing right on top of the crater he made.
In his head, Giovanni had his team sorted into three different tiers.
First, there were his aces – for while most trainers only used the label for their strongest Pokémon, Giovanni could not diminish a single one of the monsters that had carried him across the span of the entire world.
Don the rhydon had been with him from the very start, joining King and Queen – his nidoking and nidoqueen; he could admit that his naming sense was somewhat predictable – as the solid foundation that he’d built his accomplishments on. Then there was Emperor, who was less adaptable than the core three but packed strength above his weight class… and golem was not a light Pokémon.
Shah the persian and Khan the kangaskhan rounded out the standard six, with Triumph the dugtrio acting as a lightning-fast pivot he could send out when things got dicey and his powerhouses were too large or slow.
Then there was the second tier, his backup ‘mons; an arcanine, exeggutor, gyarados, marowak, and tauros, each of them less exemplary than his true team, but still powerful enough they’d have earned a spot on any Elite’s squad the world over. The five existed mainly to account for those opponents who brought a specialised anti-Giovanni team – something he assumed the Indigo League kept ready in its back pocket even now, ten years after he’d fled his homeland. They had better, or this will be entirely too easy.
And finally, the true second-stringers; garchomp, krookodile, hippowdon, and gliscor. They were relative newcomers, interesting Pokémon that he’d captured more to see what the ‘top’ Pokémon of other regions had to offer than any pressing desire to train them. As such, they received less than a tenth the attention of those above them – sometimes he went weeks without a dedicated training session for any one of them.
But today, he’d woken up feeling the desire to return to the basics.
“Garchomp, put your back into it! Krookodile, stop trying to Dig – he’s countered you twice already, smarten up!”
The movements of the fully-evolved ground types were sharp and precise – but that was not enough. At the level they needed to operate at sharp was the bare minimum; true mastery required perfection. That was the standard that Giovanni had been chasing for ten years… and it was the standard he would continue to chase, for there was always another hill to climb, another sliver of speed and power to squeeze out. Accepting that had been the first step on his road to rebirth, and it had arguably been the hardest – the thought that he would never actually become the best version of himself had broken him when he’d first had it.
But like a smashed vase welded back together with pure gold, Giovanni had emerged from that dark crevasse with a new glint in his eyes. And as his Pokémon sparred said eyes rose to take in the setting he’d chosen for his day’s labour; a nameless mountain peak nestled so deep into the Silver Range he could see slivers of sea peeking through the multitude of crowded, rocky teeth.
Those tiny slivers sparkled in the far distance, as did the white clouds that merged together with the land as they went. From his perch atop the world, everything looked like it was bleeding together – like the world was a single piece, rather than something carved into chunks separated by wide oceans, like Giovanni could reach out and simply take it with one hand.
Beautiful, he thought as the mist of his breath came out, it too merging with the land and sea and clouds before disappearing entirely. As his garchomp and krookodile dueled, the man who had promised to himself that he would become the strongest trainer in the world looked at the sky and simply breathed. This is what it means to be truly strong. It is not a solid, grounded thing, but a continuous motion – each day, I must kill myself and be born anew, pure and without weakness. A little closer to that impossible standard, to reaching out and grabbing the universe like a monkey grabbing the moon out of its reflection.
A little closer to Red Ketchum’s back.
He continued to imagine it for a moment, feeling the dream’s shape, taking in its enormity – and then he returned his eyes to earth, and began showing his monsters how to exceed themselves the way his main seven had already learned.
It was nearly midnight by the time Two gave up on waiting and simply teleported to where Giovanni was, his chest trembling with frustration and his head full of hot smoke.
He arrived with a sharp crack, pushing air violently away from himself in a display that was more an announcement of his presence than anything else. It should have been bright, but despite the full moon hanging amongst countless stars it was not bright enough, and so the clone gathered a speck of power and erupted with light.
“Giovanni. I accepted you as my partner, yet here I find you playing games with your pets. Is this disrespect intentional, or have you simply taken leave of your senses?”
Below him, a trio of Pokémon cringed back as the Flash overpowered even the thickest knots of sand flying through the air – a strangely-shaped dragon, a great fat cow-thing with sand spewing from several holes in its hide, and a round ball of stones with limbs. And then there was the human, who aside from raising a hand to shield his eyes completely failed to act surprised by Two’s sudden appearance. Giovanni smiled – smiled! – up at the clone, looking not the least bit insulted.
“Two. Given up trying to activate the stone on your own?”
Two’s teeth clenched, hard, but he mastered himself. Of course he would be unruffled. I suppose hoping something as simple as straightforward antagonism would reveal his true self was naive of me. Rather than reply verbally, Two cut the telekinesis keeping him airborne and dropped. The ten-metre fall was easily absorbed by his powerful legs, and two of the three Pokémon cringed further.
And Giovanni simply chuckled. “You’ll have to do something much more intimidating to get a reaction out of Emperor here; we’ve been through quite the ringer together. But that was a serious question; are you ready to try achieving your Mega Evolution for real?” Two remained silent for a moment longer – and then he gestured, and the Mega Stone appeared.
“I concede that I've had little success thus far, but I still see no logical reason why I cannot activate it on my own. I was created to be the perfect fusion of human and Pokémon; I should be able to fill both roles at once.” It was not an empty boast; Two was more than capable of using both type energy and the more nebulous essence of DNA-based life simultaneously – that was what had allowed him to overpower Mew in their initial meeting, expressing his human energy to render her ghost and dark type attacks ineffective. And yet despite focusing both energies into the Mega Stone, it had remained completely inert.
“Mega Evolution is only partly influenced by power,” Giovanni replied, and in the next moment he’d returned the three ground types to their balls. The swirling sands settled as the wind died, and as the moonlight shone forth it was revealed that the previously-pristine mountaintop had been churned up into something closer to a desert.
He turned, walked a few paces, and sat on an exposed rock as Two resisted the urge to tap his foot. “Come, sit,” the human continued, and Two…
With an internal sigh, Two obeyed. Another speck of power brought up a stone seat – a proper seat, shaped for his body – and the clone sat roughly. “There. Are you content, Giovanni?”
The reply came with a sharpening of the man’s smile. “I will never be content, Two. There will always be a greater challenge to overcome, a more powerful enemy to fight.” He had the gall to look upwards as he spoke, ignoring the speech’s actual recipient in favour of the stars. “That is the realisation that made me understand myself; there will never be an end, only yet loftier ambitions.” He barked out a laugh. “That… is my destiny.”
Despite the lateness of the night, Abratwo heard the cars before he saw their headlights. The whooshing sounds were still distant, yet their existence buoyed him up – not that he showed it.
No, his partner had enough of a physical reaction for the both of them. “Civilisation!” Kiribo all but screamed, pointing towards the distant highway separating Saffron City from the great fields that supplied it with a portion of its grain and fruit. “I hear the great rumbling of a roadway – we are close! Come, brother, let us make the last step of our journey a swift one!”
But Kiribo’s actions failed to line up with his words; when he moved, it was at a speed that could not be described as anything faster than a trot. The human was sweating despite the continuing chill, streaked with scrapes and sores where his thick traveller’s clothes had failed to protect him – and even more tellingly, his mouth was a firm line rather than the brilliant, arguably idiotic grin that usually sat at the bottom of his face. “Ha…” he panted as Abratwo followed at an even slower pace. “Yes, I long for the embrace of silk sheets and a plush, bosom-like pillow..! My lover shall be the maiden of a good night’s rest! I…” He paused, taking a breath. “I am very tired, my friend. Perhaps that last exchange with that clan of hypno was a spot unwise.”
[Perhaps,] the alakazam sent back. Of course the correct answer would be absolutely, but that would be admitting his own hand in their exhaustion and so Abratwo kept his response to the one word. We definitely overdid it… And I’m afraid the warehouse is unlikely to contain any silk sheets or… bosom-pillows. But that was fine; he could sleep in his Pokéball, unlike the human.
And speaking of that, once we’re clear of this accursed forest- ah, right on cue. Finally the moving lights broke through the trees, and Abratwo felt another bolt of relief arc down his spine; they really were almost there. No more wild Pokémon to contend with; they’ll be frightened away by the cars.
“Do ho! I- hah – I never doubted for a moment! Our return will be glorious!”
Unlikely. We failed to kill that politician. [Yes, I’m sure Jessie and James will compose a song for the occasion. We are safe now; put me in my ball.]
Kiribo noisily inhaled the growing scent of exhaust fumes. “In a moment, in a moment – first, let me bask in the triumph of success…” The fat human settled himself down on his generous behind, and after a few more breaths began to look slightly healthier – but when he spoke again, it was with a subdued voice. “Oh. Hm…”
[What?] Put me in my ball; I want to sleep.
“Do you happen to recall which side of the city we were meant to meet my esteemed uncle at? With all the fuss about the Articuno and all that, it seems to have slipped my mind…”
Abratwo stopped pulling himself forward. [Are you..?] No, Kiribo’s jokes were much dumber than this; he was serious. [You are serious,] he repeated, more from incredulousness than any desire to communicate.
“I am afraid so. That is a ‘no,’ then?”
In the decade-and-a-half since we met, have I ever paid attention to an order a single time? I wasn’t even out of my ball when you were getting the assignment, you fat oaf. A tired exhale flew from the clone’s nostrils, and without further discussion Abratwo turned slightly, chose a promising-looking tree, and blasted.
The tree rose up as the earth under its roots was forced apart, and by the time Kiribo was finished squawking in surprise the dusty snow had cleared to reveal a reasonably-sized shelter beneath the trunk.
[I am sleeping,] the alakazam stated as he telekinetically retrieved his ball. [Wake me when you’ve found the hideout.] Psychic power manifested a facsimile of a finger complete with bioelectricity to press down on the lens, and the Rocket Ball expanded to full size. He opened his mouth and used his actual physical voice to say “Return,” and then Abratwo ceased to have a body.
The inside of the ball was a paradoxical realm; it felt cramped and yet spacious, airtight and yet full of holes. It was unlike any phenomena he’d ever experienced in the outside world – but more than anything, it was comforting. The aches and pains of their midnight romp through the woods ceased to have meaning as he became a being of pure energy, and within ten seconds Abratwo was asleep.
He dreamed of the flap of great wings, of ice, and lightning, and fire, of the world ending. Then he dreamed of raising his spoons, and pulling down the entire sky.
The dream, too, was comforting.
Within Our Nation was organised into books, this would be the end of the third one.
