Chapter 42

You're released in another cell--the same one? Did they keep you closed up long enough to repair the damage? No time to contemplate when you're choking on your own breath, blood flooding your throat from somewhere. Panic only makes the pain worse, makes it harder to scrape together the energy and the concentration to fix whatever's wrong.

Pink light washes over you, and for a second your heart pounds worse, your body tensing against an attack. There's no pain, though, only gentle warmth and a cinnamon sort of smell. Heal pulse.

That gardevoir again. Which means--yes, over there, on the other side of the barrier. The elites are watching, waiting for you to get put together again. You watch them back and cough until you can breathe properly. What now? You were so close to breaking out. No point trying again with all of them right there; surely they're prepared. But maybe if you wait until they leave, until it's all gone quiet and there's no one but a lone guard watching movies. That could work.

Lance nods at Will, and the gardevoir dissolves away in ruddy light. Then he addresses you. "Well, creature. As I said, we've been very accommodating. We've let you stay here when you should be in storage, since the master ball distresses you so much." Distresses. Right. "But if you pull another stunt like that, we'll have no choice but to recall you. It's a simple matter of safety. Understood?"

It's a simple matter of you almost got away, and all of them know it. Rank nausea from the master ball lingers, but otherwise you're feeling pretty good. Triumphant. You were out of it for a while there. You really weren't yourself. But actually you're strong, one of the strongest ever, and you remember that now. The elites had better watch out.

"Understood?" Lance asks again, icily impatient.

Frank dislike curdles in your guts. How could you ever have thought this guy was cool? You take your time wiping the blood off your face and wait until Lance is gathering himself to speak again before saying, "Understood."

"Good," Lance says shortly. "Now. What is Mewtwo after? Where is he going to strike next?"

"What?" That's different, at least. Usually it's where is he, not what does he want. You don't know if the elites totally get that Mewtwo is someone who wants things and does them for himself--actually usually does them for himself because it's not like he listens to other people--and not just a weapon to be deployed.

"Enough," Lance snaps. "This is your last chance. Do you understand me? We've been far too lenient with you. If it turns out all you understand is force, then force is what we'll use."

"I do not even know what you are talking about. What do you mean, strike next?"

"Mewtwo attacked Taupe Town earlier this morning. Most of it was destroyed," Koga says before Lance can speak up again. "Lives are on the line."

"I did not even know about that," you say bitterly. "Nobody told me Mewtwo was attacking people." Not that you're surprised. He's never met a problem he though violence couldn't solve.

"No? You have no possible idea where he might strike next?" Koga asks.

"No. He just attacked people? He didn't say why?"

"Oh, he left a message," Lance says. "He didn't kill everyone in Taupe. And he was very explicit with the people he let live that they needed to pass his words along. 'Stop hiding. I'll keep killing until you come back. This entire region if I have to. This doesn't end until you return.'"

Oh. He thinks you ran away. That actually makes sense. "He is looking for me! You have to let me go!"

"And have both you monsters running around out there? What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"A real big one," you snap. "You can let me go, or Mewtwo will come and find me, or he will keep killing people until you decide to let me go. Letting me go now is the best option."

"The best option is for you to tell us everything you know that could help us stop Mewtwo. Where will he attack next? What are his weaknesses? How can we stop him?"

"I do not know where he is going, and he does not have any weaknesses! That is the whole point! You cannot fight him. You have to let me go if you want him to stop killing people."

"Why don't you tell us what you do know about him, and we'll decide if it's anything useful? Just why did you help the Rocket steal him in the first place?" Will asks, then shrinks back when Lance turns to look at him.

Maybe you actually could come up with a way to defeat Mewtwo with the elites on your side. The Champion, too! You assume you haven't seen him because he's up on his mountain, but for a threat like Mewtwo they could send someone to get him, right? Now there's someone Mewtwo would actually fear. Maybe the five--six--of you could stop Mewtwo for good. It's not like you like him. It's not like you like him killing people.

But... But. You need Mewtwo to free Mew. It's one of the very few things you know for sure. You can't. Even if you actually liked the elites, or trusted them, you can't. So you look straight at Will and say, "I do not know anything. Let me go. That is the only way to stop Mewtwo."

"Enough of this," Lance growls. "This is getting us nowhere."

"Lance, come on," Koga says quietly when the dragon master's hand starts to move towards his pokéball belt.

Lance glares at Koga, who returns his gaze calmly, then finally turns his scowl back on you. "You had your chance to cooperate. Remember that later." He turns away huffily, cape flaring in a practiced way. The other elites follow, leaving you alone with your thoughts. What's Mewtwo up to? If he doesn't want to go to Orre without you, okay, but you don't see how blowing up some random humans is supposed to do any good. Does he really think that's going to make you go running back to him?

You settle back on your cot, trying to think despite growing exhaustion. The elites stuck you in the master ball right after a big fight, and then of course the master ball hurt you, and then you learned all this about Mewtwo, so more stress on top of that. It's not like the cot is comfortable, but you'd be too tired to drag yourself off it even if there were a better option.

Mewtwo--you can't think about him now. He can do whatever stupid thing he's going to do. You have to concentrate on how you're getting out of here. Which you will do, soon. You're awake now. If it's you against four humans, of course you're going to win.

---

At some point you must have fallen asleep, because you come back to yourself, hard, on the squashed and stale-smelling cot. What woke you? Some far-off noise from a guard? It's quiet now. You roll over and let out a yelp on finding Lance right there, just outside the cell. How long has he been standing there all creepy, waiting to be noticed?

You're entirely awake now and not even the tiniest bit tired. Lance has the master ball with him, held loose down at his side. He's alone, and the elites always come in pairs, if they aren't all together as a group. Something strange is going on, and strange probably means bad. "What are you doing here?" you have to ask Lance at last.

"I have some questions for you," he says. So what else is new?

"I already told you everything I know," you say, same as you've been saying for what feels like weeks now.

"I somehow doubt that," Lance says. With his free hand he takes a pokéball from his belt and releases... a tsareena?

"That is not a dragon," you blurt out. The tsareena's dangling calyx obscures her face, her expression behind it unreadable. A thick, fruity scent fills the air. You've never even seen a tsareena in real life. It's too cold for them to live in Kanto, at least out in the wild.

"Imagine that," Lance says, folding his arms over his chest. He's still holding the master ball.

"I am not going to tell you anything," you say. "And I can beat you in a battle, too. Even if you have a tsareena." Especially if he has a tsareena. What on earth does he intend to have her do?

"No doubt," Lance says. "If you're not going to talk, there's not much I can do to make you. In theory. The situation changed once Mewtwo began attacking. This is no longer about recovering stolen property. This is now a matter of regional defense. Do you understand that?"

"It does not matter. I still do not know anything about Mewtwo."

"You don't," Lance says. He looks down at the master ball in his hand, contemplative. "Why don't I believe you?"

"Who knows? You are wrong. Ask as many times as you want, I still do not know anything." You don't have time for useless questions. Your friends are probably going through something like this right now, or will be soon. You've left it too late, much too late. You need to get out of here, you need to save them, you need to find Absol. Absol always knows what to do.

"Do you think so?" Lance says. "Let's try it." He raises the master ball, and your muscles bunch and tingle with energy as you prepare to throw yourself aside, but when you move you--stumble? Stagger? You're a huge flailing target, and Lance easily hits you with the recall beam.

Into red, and then out again a second later, forming back into your broken body. There's no gardevoir to patch you up this time, only Lance and the tsareena on the far side of the shield. This time the better part of one of your hands is simply gone, your arm ending in ragged fluttering red and irregular shards of bone. It hurts and bleeds and makes your stomach lurch to look at, but it could be worse, so much worse. It's easy to heal, and you do, while Lance looks on impassively.

"Let's try that again," he says while finger-bones grow out from your mangled stub, wrapping themselves in muscle and flesh and skin, indifferently colored--it's not like it matters. "Where is Mewtwo going to attack next? What can we do to stop him?"

"You can let me go!" It comes out a shaky bark. You flex trembling new fingers into a fist, then stretch them out again. "He is looking for me. That is all I know. Let me go and maybe he will stop whatever he is doing."

"Maybe? I think we can do better than that." He raises the master ball again, even now when you've only barely put yourself back together, and again when you try to move something stops you. You're too heavy somehow, your legs won't work properly. The master ball catches you once more.

This time when you're released there's a great hole in your midriff that shows down to fatty tissue and slick organs. Not all of your liver's there. Worse blood. It hurts. You make yourself not think of it, not think of anything. Just put yourself back together. Stop thinking about it and just do it. You're only making it worse.

"Again," Lance says. "Where is Mewtwo going to attack next?"

"I do not know! I do not know! How are you doing that?" You pant with the exertion of calling up a second recover so soon after the first, quick breaths that threaten to escalate to hyperventilation.

"You don't know," Lance says, drawing the words out long. He turns the master ball idly in his fingers, and you shiver. "You don't know anything about where Mewtwo is going? What he's doing? Why he's doing it?"

"He is looking for me! I told you! I told you, that is all I know!" You watch the tsareena, who shifts under your gaze, tossing back her calyx and stamping one foot in a way that would probably mean something to another of her kind. Lance doesn't even spare her a glance.

"Is it? I don't think so." This time you're able to throw up a protect shield before the beam can hit you, and that works, for a second. Why can't you run? You should know this. Something to do with tsareena. Has to be. "I could do this all day, you know," Lance says. He stands and waits for your energy to run out, and already you're beginning to sweat with the effort of holding the protect in place. "You can tell me now, or later. I'm not leaving until I get what I want."

You have time now, a little bit of it. You should be planning. What can you do if you can't dodge anymore? But your brain's buzzing with terror instead of doing anything useful, and now the bursting physical strain of trying to keep the protect together is too much, too much for focus on anything but wresting one more second from the universe. You can't keep it up forever. When the protect falls Lance recalls you, even though you try to throw yourself to the side, fast but not unnaturally fast.

Back again, but not entirely. One whole half of your body doesn't work. You can't feel it--you can't move it. And you can't see. It's like someone plucked out one of your eyes. You try to blink and nothing happens, or you think nothing happens, because you couldn't feel it even if it did. You grab for your limp arm with your good hand and can't feel when your fingers close around it, not even when you press down hard, not even when you press down hard enough to draw blood. Half your body is just slack and dead and you don't even know why, for once you aren't bleeding anywhere, it's like you're paralyzed except even when you're paralyzed you can still see.

You start to yell, or say something, or make some sound, some noise of shock, you aren't even thinking of words, but it comes out slurrily wrong. One half of your face won't move, your tongue can't navigate a half-numb mouth.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's wrong. You need to calm down. Calm down and recover just the same as usual, and it's going to be fine.

Your body flashes cold, harsh white glowing beneath your skin. Energy condenses into new cells, unknown wounds seal and heal, and still you can't see anything out of one eye.

Real panic now. How could recover not fix you?

No--no, it is better. You try to talk and it almost works, you think your whole mouth is moving now. The sweep of pins and needles sets your deadened leg afire. What happened?

What has ever happened? Why does the master ball rip you apart, aside from the obvious fact that you aren't a pokémon?

And what's to say this is the worst of it? What if you get released with a chunk gone from your brain? With no heart at all? Your injuries don't make sense, they don't follow any pattern. If any part of you, any part of you can get hurt, it's only a matter of time. You get the brief horrible picture of you coming out of the master ball with no head instead of no hand this time.

You can speak again, now. And what to say? "You are going to kill me," you say tremulously, your heart only beating harder when, despite your best efforts, the words come out blurry. The horror of it is almost worse than pain.

"I doubt that. You look lively enough to me." Lance has been watching the entire time. Doing nothing. Does he think you're faking?

"No, you will, you will! I cannot heal everything, and if you keep doing this, eventually I will--"

"I'm not interested in listening to you whine," Lance says. The master ball again. You scream going into it, from frustration before the pain even comes. Your thoughts lurch to a halt, dissolve, and then you're back again having forgotten everything but pain and a sense of horrid wrongness. Something's broken, you just don't know what yet.

"Please," you choke, dragging untethered muscle back together, sealing it with new skin. "Please, I do not know, I swear I do not know. Mewtwo wants to go to Orre and he must want to get me back first, but that is it. That is everything. I do not know what he is planning." How much longer can you even do this? It's harder every time. You can't keep recovering forever, not without rest.

"Orre? How interesting. What's in Orre?"

No. No, you can't. You can't say about Mew, you can't say anything, what if the elites got to her first? You shake your head. "I, I don't--"

"What about Nate Morgan? Is he the one planning all this? He was the one who wanted to steal Mewtwo, wasn't he?"

"No! No, he... He does not have anything to do with this, really."

Lance snorts and raises the master ball. You can't suppress a flinch. "I am telling the truth! It does not matter how many times you recall me, I--"

The red washes over you before you can finish. Coming back to reality is like hitting a solid wall. It's hard to muster the strength for another recover. What if you just didn't? Would Lance let you lie there and bleed? Would he recall you again, send you out even more mangled?

You almost want to try it and find out. You're bleeding pretty fast, from superficial injuries mostly, just bits of skin and bone gone. You'll lie here and simply drift away as blood loss claims you. And if Lance really thinks you're faking, if he stands there and lets you bleed out, well, at least you know Absol will come. The one thing an Absol's always good for, the service she's never failed to provide.

You let your eyelids droop. Why bother healing? Let Lance deal with it. And if you get to see Absol, then, then she'll know a way to get out of this. This is stupid, actually. Why didn't you think of this before? Hurt yourself bad enough, and you can make Absol come. No matter where you are, she'll feel you, find you. Walk the dark ways and be at your side in a second, no matter where she's coming from.

Except here. The dark ways are blocked here. She could feel you dying and come racing across the region, only to circle you in the dark, trapped in shadow as you're now trapped in light. She could be out there right now, scratching to be let through, and you wouldn't know. If you're going to die, you really will die. And you'll do it all alone.

You sit up abruptly, and then everything hurts. You're still warm and sluggish, and your heartbeat is loud in your ears. You have to heal. Lance is saying something--now he says something, now he's going to interrupt you with a question?

Heal. Don't think about it now. You can't die here. You're not supposed to die here, so if you did it would be against Fate and the only reason it would happen is that they stuck you somewhere Absol couldn't reach. If you die here, now, everything will fall apart. Maybe Mew will never get free. Maybe something even worse will happen.

And Lance seems perfectly content to kill you.

"What was that earlier about Orre?" Lance asks while you desperately stitch yourself together.

"No," you gasp out, all that you can manage. The recover hurts now, dragging at guttering stocks of energy, forcing together tissues already exhausted from so many forced tearings and reformings.

"What was that?"

"I told you I do not know! I do not, I do not!"

"Why don't we focus on this one thing," Lance says. "Orre. Let's talk more about that. Just that. Why would Mewtwo be interested in Orre?"

"I do not know, I do not know." Now you actually are afraid. Before you thought you were afraid, but now... It's worse now. You should be safe, but you're not. You could die here. You could die here, all alone, and maybe no one would ever know what happened to you. Another mysterious disappearance. Who would the elites ever tell?

"Wrong answer," Lance says, and you open your mouth in a yell that never forms before the master ball pulls you back into pain.

You're out. Something tight in your chest. There's always blood. You have to heal.

"Tell me about Orre."

You can't. You can't tell him anything. How much longer is he going to keep this up? How long has it even been?

"Orre?"

You won't. You twitch any time Lance shifts his weight, your adrenaline spiking. But no amount of vigilance can stop him calling you back again.

"Why does Mewtwo want to go to Orre?"

Heal. Think about that. Don't think about having to do this again, or five times more, or a hundred or a thousand. By the end of this you're going to know every corner of a human body and all the myriad ways it can vanish.

"Answer me."

It's there on the tip of your tongue. You can't die. If it means you won't die then you have to tell him everything. But you can't betray Mew. You can't say anything. You can't say anything more.

Lance doesn't wait for your denial. He calls you back, sends you out again so you're left gathering up your spilled guts, ha, he wants you to spill your guts, but not like this. Insane laughter tries to crawl up your throat but turns to a sob somewhere along the way. "I cannot," you squeak. "I cannot tell you anything more." For how long? You're so tired. How long before you give up and say something anyway? Not that you know, of course, that really is the truth. Who could ever understand why Mewtwo does what he does, other than that he's terrible? "Let me go. Please. I will tell Mewtwo to stop killing people. He does not want to stay in Kanto anyway. Please let me go. You really are... You are going to kill me if you keep doing this."

"Were you expecting sympathy?" Lance asks. "Tell me, did you have sympathy for the trainer you killed, that one in Seafoam Caverns? Or that girl who worked in the Cinnabar lab? Whoever it is you're pretending to be now, did you have sympathy for her while you were draining her spirit, or whatever it is you do? What are you? Some kind of ghost, some kind of, some kind of parasite, stealing human bodies so you can walk among us undetected?"

Your whole body goes cold. Oh, he knows too much. Enough time and he might actually start to figure things out for real. "No! No, I am not! I did not kill any of them. Anybody! Mewtwo does that, not me."

"What are you, then?"

"I am me! I am not a murderer, I swear!"

"'I am me?' That's all? You think that's enough to satisfy me?" Lance says over your protests. He practically slashes the air with the master ball, recalling you with an angry flourish.

You take shape again and can only hold it together for a second before you start sobbing. You're broken again, and everything is too much. "What are you?" Lance roars while you try to fix yourself. "Answer me!"

"I am me. I am--" The master ball. He's going to use it again. You cast about, desperate, for anything you can say to satisfy him without giving anything real away. You've said too much already, there's nothing, you have nothing and he's going to use the master ball--"Officer Feldhorn!" you cry.

Lance pauses with his finger already creeping towards the master ball's button. "What about him?"

"I will talk to him. I will tell him what I know. I will tell him everything."

Lance frowns. "Stalling? Stop wasting my time."

You go into the ball screaming that time, and come out doing the same. Your raw throat hurts, but you can't stop. You curl in on yourself and heal and scream. "No! No! No!"

"Tell me why Mewtwo's going to Orre!" Lance barks, loud above your noise.

"Officer Feldhorn! I swear, I swear!"

"You'll speak to me or to no one."

"I'll never tell you," you sob. "Never. Officer Feldhorn. Bring him here if you want to know the answers."

You expect him to recall you. That's a recalling offense, isn't it? Giving up nothing, protesting everything. But Lance merely stands there, considering. "Why?"

"Because he believes me," you say, which might even be true. "He doesn't torture me. I don't want you, I want Officer Feldhorn."

"Tell me what you are, and then I can bring Mike here."

"I do not want to talk to you! I want Officer Feldhorn! I will talk to him, I swear! I will tell him everything! But not you!" You can't take your eyes off the master ball in Lance's hand, rolled gently between his fingers, not even to look at his face and see how he's reacting. You flinch whenever his thumb grazes the front button, prepared to throw yourself out of the way for all the good it won't do.

"Please," you say. "Please, I promise, I will tell him whatever he asks. Whatever anything. Please. Bring Officer Feldhorn. I will tell him about Orre. I will tell him about me. I will tell him whatever you want."

"What are you?" Lance asks again, slowly, deliberately. He's turning the master ball over and over. You force yourself to look away from it. You won't look. You won't care. You're vaguely aware of the tsareena, who seems like she's trying to hide behind her calyx. You doubt she's some trained, hardened torturer.

You shake your head."I already told you. I--"

"A real answer. Tell me what you are, and I'll bring Officer Feldhorn for you. It's the only way that's happening."

"I told you already. I am me, I am"--Lance is raising the master ball again, and you squeeze your eyes shut, turning away--"I do not know. I do not, I do not know what I am!"

Lance snorts, and you cringe. "Of course you don't. I've never met someone so clueless." He takes a pokéball from his belt, and you watch apprehensively while one of his dragonite takes shape. "Clean that up," Lance says to her.

If you were feeling better you could have dodged in time, but as it is you catch most of the dragonite's water pulse attack, a stinging blast that knocks you backwards and wipes some of the blood off the floor. You crawl away while the dragonite launches more attacks, pushing a wave of water towards the cell's small drain. The blood's scoured away, leaving swampy puddles behind.

"This is the last concession you'll get from me," Lance says while he recalls Dragonite and Tsareena. "If you don't tell Mike anything useful, we'll see if this thing really can kill you."

Lance knows how to make an exit. He knows how to sweep. You can't appreciate it right now. It seems ages since you thought Lance was cool. It seems like ages since you had any kind of life. The floor is still wet, and all you're going to do is lie here on it and try not to die. You could be crying from exhaustion alone, but there's so much more.

You can't rest. How long do you even have? Officer Feldhorn--you would say you're sure he won't hurt you, but what can you be sure of anymore? He gave you to these people. Even if he wanted to, he isn't really going to help. All he can give you, all unwitting, is a bit more time.

So think. Think! How can you get out of here? You're too weak for a real attack. But there must be some way.

You can't think. You're tired, and you're hurt. Bad. You hurt too much for anything. But you have to think. You can't die here. There's got to be some something you can do. Something you haven't tried. Something clever no one would think of, a combination of attacks no one would expect one pokémon to have.

The great Nathaniel Morgan would know what to do. If they'd caught him, he would have escaped ages ago. But only if they'd even managed to catch him in the first place.

Everything hurts too much. Your eyes are overflowing silent tears.

The great Nathaniel Morgan could have gotten out of this. But you... You're stupid. You don't know anything. And probably, you're going to die.

Thinking like that doesn't help you come up with a way to escape. Nothing does. You aren't injured anymore, or maybe you are. It hurts. You're tired. And you're stupid. And you cry yourself to sleep, not having come up with any solution at all.

---

How long were you asleep, and then how long lying there, trying to think of a way out? It hardly matters. However long it was, it wasn't long enough. Lance returns with Officer Feldhorn, and you don't know what to say to him, and when he leaves Lance will start in on you again. Officer Feldhorn isn't helping any, standing there frowning at you. You have to get him to care somehow, and you definitely can't do that with Lance here.

"Go away," you say to Lance.

"All interrogations require at least two people," Lance replies, stony-faced. "It's the law."

"Like you care! Go away!" You look to Officer Feldhorn, hoping for some glimmer of sympathy, but he's as dour as Lance.

"I will not say anything if you are here," you tell Lance. "I only want to talk to Officer Feldhorn."

"You can talk now, or the two of us can leave," Lance says.

Lance will contradict anything you tell Officer Feldhorn about what he did. He might even use the master ball again. He's making no pretense of hiding it; if anything he wants you to see, the ball held obviously in his hand. It's all you can do to keep from staring at it.

"No," you say again. "Leave. If you want to learn anything, you have to go."

Officer Feldhorn glances at Lance. "Perhaps if you asked Koga to be here instead, or Karen..."

Hardly better. "No. Only you. I only want to talk with you."

"I'm sorry, Mike," Lance says deliberately, not taking his eyes off you. "It's too bad you had to come all the way out here for nothing. But as you can see--"

"Hold on, Lance," Officer Feldhorn says, and your heart lifts as he draws the dragon master aside. The two of them mutter along at what they think is too low for you to hear. Even if you couldn't, watching Lance's expression would have told you enough.

"Oh, very well," he finally snaps, well above the range of conspiratorial, "but keep your wits about you. I'm sure I don't have to remind you what you're dealing with." He sets off down the hall, cape flouncing along behind.

Your heart lifts as you watch him go. You try to share your smile with Officer Feldhorn, but he doesn't return it. "Thank you," you say. "Thank you. He is bad. He--he was using the master ball on me, Officer Feldhorn. It does not work right on me, it tears me apart, it is like torture. Let me out of here. Please! Please, do not let him keep hurting me, he is going to kill me if nobody stops him."

The hope dies in your heart when Officer Feldhorn keeps frowning at you. "Is that so?"

"Yes! Really! He thinks I know what Mewtwo is going to do next. He is mad because I will not tell him, and--"

"And do you?" Officer Feldhorn asks. "Do you know where Mewtwo's going to attack next?"

"No! No. All I know is he is looking for me, he will keep killing people until he gets what he wants. You have to let me go, you have to let me out of here. If you do, he will stop, I swear."

He's unmoved. Your heart beats faster, pumping stinging ache throughout your chest. He doesn't believe you, he doesn't even care.

"Did you ask for me because you had something to tell me, Jade, or were you just hoping I'd help you escape?" Officer Feldhorn asks.

"I do not know anything!" you cry desperately. "I do not, I do not. Lance can do whatever he wants, but I still do not know anything. He will not let anybody else see, he knows it is bad, but he will not stop and it hurts! It hurts when he uses the master ball on me. If he keeps doing it, he is going to kill me. Really! You have to let me go, or I'm going to die!"

Officer Feldhorn's shaking his head, looking annoyed, like you're wasting his time or something. He's going to leave, he's going to call Lance back--and then Lance is going to be angry.

"No no no, please, you do not have to let me out, just make Lance stop using the master ball on me. It is illegal, is it not? Is it not?"

"It's not illegal to recall a pokémon, Jade."

"I am not a pokémon!"

"And what are you, then, Jade?" Officer Feldhorn asks.

Not this again. "I am not what Lance says! I am just me. I am not a pokémon. I am... I am me. And the master ball does not work on me like on a pokémon and it hurts and Lance knows it." You can see it's making no difference. Officer Feldhorn isn't your friend, and he never was. You're never going to get out of here unless Mewtwo comes for you. You're never going to get to see your pokémon again. You're going to be locked up in here until you go crazy or until Lance actually kills you, and Mew's never going to get free, not at all. You can't hold back tears, not that you're particularly trying. "I do not know anything. I do not know what Mewtwo is doing. I do not know where he will go next. I just want to go home. I want to go home!"

You don't have a home anymore. Mewtwo burned it down. Even if you get out of here, where will you go? You sob harder. You can't see, and you don't even want to look. Who cares if Officer Feldhorn is even still there? It's not like it matters. "I want my pokémon back," you say to no one. "They did not do anything. And Togetic--" What can you even say?

"I can put in a word about the pokémon, maybe," Officer Feldhorn says. He's moved closer, blurred out by tears into a watery blue blob. "You say they don't know anything, but they were with you at Indigo Plateau, weren't they? Didn't you tell them anything about your plot to steal Mewtwo?"

"I cannot..." You want to blurt out the truth, that Mewtwo had them and you haven't even gotten to see them in over a month, maybe months, who even knows anymore. But what good would that do? It wouldn't even make sense to Officer Feldhorn. For him to understand you'd have to tell him... Everything. No.

"If Lance is making you uncomfortable, maybe we can arrange so he doesn't speak with you anymore. Perhaps Koga, or Will, could--"

"It does not matter. He does it when nobody is around. It is not official," you say bitterly. You wipe your eyes, sniffle. You don't feel better for having cried.

"Is that so?" Officer Feldhorn asks.

"Yes. It is."

He doesn't believe you. And there's no way he ever will, is there? After all, Lance is Lance, the famous dragon master, and he doesn't even know what you are. You don't have any proof--you look fine, after all, and Officer Feldhorn doesn't know you can heal yourself. What are you supposed to do but show him everything you can do and try to convince him you're telling the truth?

No. No, you don't have to. What good is the truth going to do for you? You can't get through the shield to get at Officer Feldhorn, but that doesn't mean you can't affect him at all. You need to get him to turn off the shield somehow. To do that, you need to make him want to come in, probably. Certainly he's made it clear he won't let you out, and you can't do anything to his side anyway.

What could make him come in here? Maybe money. You could make it look like you have a ton of money and offer to give him some if he lets you out. But no, he won't believe you had money all this time and didn't try that already. What else does he want? Donuts? No, he can see you're not holding anything. What else?

"Please, Officer Feldhorn," you say, and the quaver in your voice isn't feigned. Meanwhile you're changing. "I do not know how long I have. I do not know why the master ball hurts me, either, but it does. I tried to heal, but..." You cough as hard as you can.

"I don't have all the time in the world, Jade," Officer Feldhorn says. "Was there anything else you wanted to tell me? I don't think Lance will let me come back here if you don't have anything to say."

"No, I... I do not feel very good." You cough again and shake a fan of bloody droplets from your fingers. "I think... I think Lance might be coming back, he..." You spit more blood luridly onto the floor. Quite a lot of blood, actually.

"Jade, what--?"

"Make him stay away!" you yell. "He is going to kill me, for real!" Boils appear on the shell of illusion that surrounds you, bursting and leaking yellow fluid. More blood. You've watched enough horror movies to have some great ideas for injuries.

Officer Feldhorn curses and looks away up the hall. "Lance!" No, that's the opposite of what he's supposed to do. "No," you say weakly and with unfeigned desperation, "it is going to get worse. Make him... go..."

Lance obviously never went far because he storms into view a second later. "What in the hells is--what are you--?"

"Call Medical," Officer Feldhorn barks at him. "Or do you have potions? An audino, anything?"

It's a good time for the illusion of you to collapse dramatically on the blood-slicked floor. "No need for that," Lance says, raising the master ball he still has at the ready. Your gut twists, but it's okay. You scoot backwards, leaving your illusion lying where it is. Lance aims the master ball at it, not at you. The red beam shoots out and hits the illusion, then passes straight through to the floor. To Lance and Officer Feldhorn, it looks like absolutely nothing happens.

Lance stares down at the master ball, and Officer Feldhorn does the same. Meanwhile you wait under your illusion, tense and drawn as wire. All you need is for them to turn the shield off for a second. Just one second. If they think you're dead, if they send somebody in to get your corpse, that's all it would take.

"What the hell was that?" Officer Feldhorn says.

"I don't know. It's never done that before." Lance tries again to recall your illusionary self, to no better result.

"Enough. Don't you have any medical staff? Get them in here!" Your illusion lies still in its false puddle of blood, and you wait anxiously behind it.

Lance scowls but turns away, barking a few clipped orders to Will over his pokénav. No good. You can handle two people, but the whole Elite Four?

Lance breaks off his conversation abruptly when Officer Feldhorn steps up close to the shield, half obscured by the wall. "What are you doing?"

"Well, at the very least I'm going to try and stop the bleeding."

"Are you insane?" Lance is over by Officer Feldhorn in one dramatic flare of cape. "You can't go in there! Will's on his way, he'll be here in less than five minutes, and--"

"How long do you think we have?" Officer Feldhorn asks. He must be at the shield's controls. Come on, do it. All you need is a second. Just one second...

"Enough time to wait and not do anything stupid," Lance says. "This is clearly some kind of trick. If you go in there it'll have your throat out in a second."

Tempting, but that would take too long. You have to get the master ball away from Lance before anything else.

"Is that so?" Officer Feldhorn says. "You know where I stand on this--all of this. And now Jade claims you've been torturing her with the master ball, that--"

"And you believe the creature? I seriously question your judgement, Officer. Get away from there."

"I don't know, Lance. Normally I wouldn't be inclined to believe much of anything, but what I've seen of your operation hasn't exactly filled me with confidence. Forget that, though. What I'm most worried about at the moment is the fact that if we stand around here waiting, you might just lose the source of information you claim to care so much about. Are you willing to risk that?"

The two of them stare each other down. It's almost impressive, Officer Feldhorn showing so much spine. You suppose you never really knew him at all. Come on, let him in here, quick, before Will shows up. You don't have long.

"You have no authority here," Lance says icily.

"And if somebody died here, after you'd been illegally detaining them, how long do you think your authority would last? How do you plan to explain not having proper healthcare available in case of emergency? Or at the least some protocol for what happens if there's an emergency?"

"The protocol for when a detainee is obviously faking is not to rush in and get yourself killed," Lance fumes. "This is a facility for pokémon. We have a healing machine, which I used on this one. I don't know why the master ball isn't working, but under any reasonable circumstances--"

"Well, these aren't reasonable circumstances," Officer Feldhorn says. "And I guess I'm not a reasonable man, because I'm not going to stand around and watch someone die, no matter what they might turn out to be."

He turns back to the control panel, and you stifle a gasp when Lance takes two pokéballs off his belt, releasing a pair of dragonite who crowd the narrow hallway. The faint pink glow of the energy shield winks off, and the mesh beyond slides down into the floor.

You thought the dragonite were supposed to attack Officer Feldhorn--to stop him going into your cage. But they only stand there while he ignores them, walking towards the illusion of you sprawled out on the floor. They're protection, then. Protection against you.

You skirt around Officer Feldhorn, going the opposite way, and form icicles in your palms. Carefully. You don't want a drop in temperature to catch the dragonite's attention.

Officer Feldhorn crouches down by your illusion and reaches out to check its pulse, maybe, or breathing. You wait on tenterhooks as his hand gets closer, closer. It touches the illusion, the fake-you disappears, and you hurl one ice shard into each dragonite's face.

Lance has good reflexes, no surprise for someone who trains with dragons, but he can't match your speed. While the dragonite are reeling, clawing at the frost around their eyes, you throw yourself at Lance with a quick attack and grab for the master ball. You have to be fast, and you have to be careful, or you might end up recalling yourself. One hand to crush Lance's wrist, one hand to grab the master ball when he drops it, and then a snarling twister drawn around yourself to knock him and the dragonite away.

It could be an awful battle, you against two of the strongest dragons around, but the dragonite are cramped in the narrow hallway and distracted by their trainer there between them, in danger from any of their attacks. You aim your ice beams at Lance, and the dragonite throw themselves in the way every time, so in the end they never even get the chance to use their legendary powers. They fall atop their trainer, who must hit his head pretty hard, because he doesn't move after that.

You want to take the master ball and smash it and never have to worry about it again. But that's dangerous, and besides, you have no time. Officer Feldhorn is standing now, and you expect him to send out some pokémon of his own. But he doesn't, doesn't even move to try, and you suppose you never have seen him with a pokémon, have you?

Officer Feldhorn looks like he's about to say something, and you have no interest in that. A confusion knocks him out cold, and you watch dispassionately while he crumples to the floor. Now. You can't very well expect to walk out of this place as Jade Winstead, and though you'd prefer to take Lance's authority, his torn and frosted clothing is liable to draw attention. Officer Feldhorn's already done you one favor today; he can spare you a second, too.

Perhaps a minute later you're Officer Feldhorn, struggling to button your uniform. It's noticeably loose on you, but there's not much you can do about that. You can only create so much extra mass when you transform, and Officer Feldhorn likes his donuts quite a lot.

You get the last button in place, and it looks like they're all lined up properly this time. You smooth your uniform down and try to relax, to remember who you are. You are Officer Feldhorn. You are... how old? No idea. Old. Call it sixty? Sure. Anyhow, you're old and you're the chief of police in Fuchsia City and also a bad cop but very sneaky about it. Today you came to make fun of a desperate innocent person who got locked up for no reason, and now you are going to take this master ball and leave. You are going to get the pokémon that you stole and take them with you when you go.

So you leave, then, with the other Officer Feldhorn and Lance securely webbed to the floor behind you. Mewtwo would have told you to kill them both, and that's the only reason you don't.

You don't know your way out of here, but you can pretend--and you can listen, too, and move towards the sound of running feet so you catch Will on his way to the cell.

"Stop!" you say, and he does, looking perplexed.

"Lance called me," he pants. "Said he needed a healer right away. You--?"

"Lance has it under control. He sent me to get the pokémon from you."

Will's trying to see around you. "What pokémon?"

"The ones that came in with Jade Winstead," you say. "And the other ones, the mightyena and steelix and--"

"What, all of them?" Will asks. "Why doesn't he just pull them out of storage himself?"

"He is busy. He figured out how to make Jade Winstead talk. With her pokémon. That is why he sent me to get them from you."

Will stares at you, and you can feel how your clothing doesn't fit, how you've surely gotten some detail of yourself wrong. "I think I'm going to talk to Lance myself," Will says and starts to shove past you.

You step in to block him. "Lance is busy. He does not want to be disturbed."

Will looks at you, and you can see it in his eyes without him even saying anything. Or maybe you don't see anything at all and it's something inside you that breaks instead. He doesn't believe you. No one ever believes you being human, at least not for long. Why do you even try?

You grab Will and slam him into the wall, pinning his arms so he can't reach his pokéballs. "Get them for me," you snarl. "All of them. Get them out of storage."

"No," Will grunts, struggling against your hold.

You slam him against the wall again. "Do you want to die? What do you think happened to Lance?"

From there it's predictable, isn't it? You've done this often enough. Enough threats, enough pain. You leave with ten pokéballs and hardly notice the guards who come running at you when you find your way to the front, your eyes glowing and now blatantly inhuman. How could they stop you, when Lance couldn't? Or Will?

You squint in sunlight that's somehow brighter than the harsh lights you slept beneath in your cage. The outside air is cold and sharp, edged with the scent of pine. Big trees all around, and beyond them, mountains. Who knows where you are, besides far from home and civilization?

The building behind you is small, low to the ground. No need for a big facility when your captives can be shrunk to the gossamer thickness of data. No need even for a fence.

You stomp a foot, sending shock-waves radiating through the earth. Cracks run up the front of the building, and you imagine lights falling from ceilings and knick-knacks shuddering off desks inside. Another earthquake rucks the ground and sets trees leaning, filling the air with the bright wintergreen smell of sap as needles shower down. The building doesn't look much worse for wear, so you raise your arms, setting a psychic field around it and crushing down with all your might.

Today, just now, that's a lot. Today you could rip brick from brick, tear off the roof or cave it inwards. You could bring everything toppling down on the people inside, entomb them under brick and metal and concrete. And they thought they could hold you.

Bricks crack with puffs of reddish dust; glass tinkles down out of ruined panes. One corner of the place crumbles in an untidy slide of loose bricks. You pour on more power, almost able to feel how the building buckles beneath the weight of your mind. You can destroy the place and everyone in it. They wanted to hurt you--they wanted to kill you. People you thought were good, people you thought were harmless, people you thought were your friends. Crush and bury all of them, leave nothing but ruins for their colleagues to find. You will. You're powerful, and you will. You're no sad scared child anymore.

A generator explodes behind the facility, sending up a plume of fire and smoke. You feel it both against your physical body and the temporary psychic field, a rush of pressure that makes you pause a moment in shock, heart pounding. But no, it's okay, that's what you want, isn't it? You'll break this place down to atoms.

Just like the Cinnabar lab, engulfed in flames and turned to bent-steel vortex where Mewtwo punched up to the sky.

You grit your teeth and redouble your efforts. Break it apart, break it all apart. Make it so that nothing's left.

Dismantle it the same way Mewtwo dismantled the Viridian City base, pulling down ceilings and crumpling blast doors. A silent tomb. Dead hands reaching, dark stains of blood...

You break off with a cry, temples throbbing as you release the psychic attack. No, no, you're going to do this--start to charge power again, headache pulsing in time with your heart. But a couple weak jabs of energy, a few precarious bricks toppling down, and you let it all go again, exhausted, tears blurring your eyes. It's over. You turn and run into the woods, stumbling uneven on legs that don't remember how to move properly, until whatever weird field the building emanates is behind you and you can flicker out of existence at last, gone and away forever.