Chapter 48
Several hours later, you remain Melanie Roth, but you have a new backstory: you're a journalism student from Saffron University, penning an article on Orre's shadow incidents in hopes of winning a big contest. It'll be your own original reporting! And students from Kanto love to visit Orre on their breaks, go out and party on its beaches and sample its abundant drugs. You think you'd have a lot of fun being Melanie, if it weren't for Mewtwo in his master ball, whispering threats into your brain. You try to smile and look eager and ignore the thought that he'll never let you be alone again.
Professor Krane's receptionist doesn't help by inventing problems like needing an appointment, or the professor being busy all day, or could she see some ID? She doesn't know that if she won't let you pass, Mewtwo's going to make you let him out to murder her. It's her luck as well as yours that you spy Professor Krane going into an office down the hall. You're much more scared of Mewtwo than any stupid human rules, so a couple minutes later you're standing in front of Professor Krane while the receptionist hangs onto the door-frame, panting.
"I'm so sorry, Professor," she gasps. "I told her you were booked, but she just ran..."
"Ah." Professor Krane blinks at you from behind thick glasses. He's a bit stooped, with thick, dark hair that resembles some alien organism attacking his head. He reminds you of Leonard Kerrigan a lot. "Well, what Judy said is true. I can't speak to you right now, but I'm sure she'd be able to help you find a better time."
"No, it has to be today!" you say. "I have a--a big deadline for a contest worth a lot of money! It is going to be important for my grade! I cannot fail this class, or I will lose my scholarship! And I really really need to know about shadow pokémon! It is important!"
"Left it a bit late, haven't you?" says the guy whose desk Professor Krane is standing by.
"Well..." Professor Krane looks between you and the red-faced receptionist. "My next appointment is running late. Perhaps we can squeeze in a few minutes before they arrive? This will be quick, won't it?"
"Yes, quick. Very quick."
"Okay. Earl, I'll catch up with you later."
"Yeah, yeah, go on," the man at the desk grumbles into his coffee.
"This way, then," Professor Krane says with a smile for you. He's the only one smiling, actually. The receptionist in particular is going an angry, splotchy red-white. You hold your head high as you go past her. Professor Krane said it was okay.
"I like your lab," you say out in the hallway. It's all glass and high ceilings, somehow light and airy despite the abundance of metal and cold tile. And it has trees! You can see them through the big glass bubble at the front of the building, green shadows against the sun. They're real trees, not the bushy kind that normally grow near the desert but oaks and maples other great-big broadleaf kinds, and their roots clutch earth covered in real, thick grass. Professor Krane isn't nearly as famous as Professor Oak, but you think maybe he wants to be, or at least wants to bring some of the prestige of Kanto and Johto out here to a little region that doesn't even have its own League.
"Thank you." Professor Krane beams. "I've worked very hard on it. Now, let's go see the Purify Chamber." He guides you to a room choked with computer equipment. In the middle sits a round platform surrounded by VR projectors.
"Can I try it?" you ask.
"Of course! Well, the interface, anyway. It wouldn't do to digitize you and actually put you in the chamber," Professor Krane says, still smiling. "Please, stand on the platform there. The routine will begin automatically."
You step onto the platform, and whirls of hazy light like stylized musical notes spin around the projectors. The room falls away, and you find yourself standing in a vast empty space, the faint suggestion of walls and floor outlined by glowing geometric patterns. Three-dimensional projections of pokémon slowly orbit you.
"So I imagine you know what the Purify Chamber does," Professor Krane says, voice echoing over the quiet, abstract music that fills the place.
"Yes. It makes shadow pokémon go back to normal," you say. There are a bunch of numbers floating near what you could call the ceiling, along with little graphs and statistics that mean nothing to you. You point at one, and the interface changes, bringing up a display with icons of pokémon standing in a circle and... dancing? The music's changed to something peppy and upbeat.
"That's right," Professor Krane says. "Shadow pokémon have blunted emotional responses, and over time the areas of their brains responsible for regulating emotion can actually atrophy. The Purify Chamber analyzes the neural activity of normal, healthy pokémon and attempts to create similar patterns of activation in the brains of shadow pokémon to repair atrophied connections. I would give you a demonstration, but thankfully we've purified all of the shadow pokémon Cipher produced, so we don't have any to work with at the moment. Do you have any questions about the Purify Chamber?"
"Umm, can you turn it off? The music is really annoying."
You idiot, don't provoke him, Mewtwo hisses, but Professor Krane laughs.
"Yes, of course." The interface fades to no more than a faint smog of musical notes, then evaporates entirely. "We've found some elements of music therapy to be useful in the purification process, and the assisting pokémon seem to enjoy dancing, so..." Professor Krane spreads his hands with a sheepish smile.
You wouldn't want to dance to that, much less for hours on end.
"So what questions did you have? Don't mind me, I'm just looking at some numbers, here," Professor Krane says. He sits on the edge of a desk, pecking at a computer and examining its screen over the rims of his glasses.
"Um," you say, but Mewtwo supplies you with a question almost immediately.
Just what are these 'shadow pokémon?' What makes them special?
Professor Krane smiles absently after you repeat Mewtwo's question. "Going to start off with the big one, are we? If you find somebody who knows the answer to that I'd dearly love to speak with them."
"But you studied them so much! And you built the Purify Chamber! How can you not know?"
"Well, we can observe shadow pokémon's symptoms and come up with ways to treat them without knowing everything about them. Shadow pokémon seem unable to express emotions besides anxiety and rage. They have an unquestioning drive to follow orders, and they produce "shadow" attacks that are effective against all known pokémon types. Obviously some component of being a shadow pokémon is mental--I was telling you how their brains can change.
"But there's more to it than that. They can use shadow attacks, and they also seem to have difficulty processing the infinity energy they're exposed to in battle--they can't learn or grow nearly as fast as normal pokémon. But we don't know what the source of those differences is, whether mental changes somehow alter energy metabolism, or vice versa, or if there's something else entirely underneath it all.
"There's also been speculation that the shadow state is contagious. In the same way that interacting with normal pokémon can gradually heal a shadow pokémon, it's possible that exposing normal pokémon to shadow pokémon is how Cipher made more of them. Even if that was the case, though, we'd still need to find out where the condition came from in the first place. How did Cipher make their first shadow pokémon? Or did they simply find it?"
So he doesn't know how Cipher made* shadow pokémon?* Mewtwo asks sharply. He doesn't know what it did to them?
"Oh, no, no, I'm afraid not," Professor Krane says. "No, the only high-ranking members of Cipher that have been captured are management types. We really need to get ahold of some of their top scientists, especially Lovrina. The techs that were apprehended could describe how the machines they used worked, or what their part in the process was, but it hasn't been enough to get a sense of what was going on big-picture-wise."
Why hasn't anyone found them? How could they all just disappear?
"Ah." Professor Krane's mouth thins to a flat line, and he gives the keyboard a couple particularly aggressive jabs. "If you weren't aware, Orre's law enforcement isn't exactly known for... competence. Probably something you'll want to research for your article. But even with the best police in the world it would be hard to find someone in Orre. It's impossible to monitor the whole desert, we barely have maps, and most of those are out of date... There are loads of little caves and crannies... It's just full of hiding places. Good for criminals, bad for everyone else."
No one has any idea where they went? None at all? You clench one hand at your side, squeezing hard to burn off some of the anger Mewtwo's beaming into your head.
"I certainly don't. I'm sorry." He shakes his head.
What about our mother? Mewtwo demands. What about Mew?
"Mew?" Professor Krane frowns and looks up from the computer. "Why do you ask?"
"Umm, no reason. I just like Mew... And it's rare... So..."
Professor Krane studies you for a second before answering. "Well, I guess there were some rumors about Mew being in the desert a while back, but I never saw it myself. Did you think there was some connection with shadow pokémon?"
"No, no, nothing like that. I was just asking." Is he mad because he wants to be talking about his own research all the time?
Worthless, Mewtwo snarls to himself. Worthless, ignorant human.
Since he would rather be angry than ask another question, you offer up one of your own. "How did people deal with shadow pokémon before you made your Purify Chamber?"
Professor Krane brightens up at that. "Well, the purification process has to do with emotion, of course, but memory may be even more important. Shadow pokémon respond strongly to scents, and scent is heavily linked to memory. That might also be why Celebi's shrine helps with--"
Celebi? Mewtwo demands, and you lose track of Professor Krane's monologue as the clone goes on, He visits this place? Where there aren't even any trees?
"Hmm? Oh, the shrine's in Agate Village. It was built long before Orre became a desert. Some people think it might be part of why Agate is so green. For whatever reason, shadow pokémon brought to the shrine sometimes exhibited remarkable recoveries. That was part of my inspiration, actually. I wanted to create a machine that could do what the shrine could do, but anytime, anywhere, and fast. What would happen if shadow pokémon began appearing in other regions or, Gods forbid, Cipher did something to the shrine? We need an alternative in case there's someone else out there who has a better grasp on Cipher's technology than we do."
This is excellent, Mewtwo says. Celebi will help us. We need to find this shrine.
You blink. Professor Krane's staring at you. "Umm," you say nervously.
"I said, is that all?"
Mewtwo's still purring to himself about his new plan. He's excited; he's gotten what he wants. But you're still curious. "Does that mean you think there's going to be more shadow pokémon? Is that why you're still working on a way to help them even though Cipher's gone?"
"That's what everyone asked when we started designing it in the first place. They thought Cipher was gone for good. And then, two years later, look what happened. We're in the same situation today. It would be naive to think shadow pokémon won't show up again somehow." Professor Krane takes a deep breath and continues in a more upbeat tone, "Also, we're researching the interactions between emotion and infinity energy in pokémon. We hope to develop treatments for ailments besides shadowfication, maybe even treatments that will work on humans. That's the kind of thing I have to say to get money," he adds a bit sheepishly.
"Pokémon dance, and people are not sick anymore?"
Professor Krane's smile is visibly strained. "It's research. The idea is to find out."
Enough of this. We're done here, Mewtwo says. We need to meet Celebi.
"That sounds pretty weird, but good luck," you say graciously. "That is everything I wanted to ask. Thank you."
"It's no problem. I would say stop by anytime, but," this time Professor Krane's smile is definitely genuine, "next time let someone know you're coming, okay?"
You leave Professor Krane's office grinning. That was easy! You expected to spend weeks wandering around, trying to find a lead. Even if Celebi doesn't know anything, having him on your side will be great. Maybe he could time travel into the past and make it so Mew never got caught in the first place. Time travel is never a good idea in movies, but it's what Celebi does all day, he has to be good at it.
Mewtwo's filling your head with questions. Where is this shrine? Do you know how to get there? You didn't ask. How far away is it?
You can't answer him here, not with people coming and going all around you. There are even pokémon wandering the broad tiled hallway, the most you've seen in Orre. Mewtwo keeps going anyway, like he's thinking out loud. Desert heat envelops you as you pass through the lab's sliding glass doors, but it's still early, still bearable, and you're still in the shade of Professor Krane's improbable trees. You never would have imagined Celebi living in the desert, not with how he's supposed to love forests.
You're so wrapped up in anticipation that you don't notice anyone coming up behind you until a hand closes on your arm. You turn, and instead of some annoying human or other find a flashing disc of metal. It swings gently back and forth.
What is that? Mewtwo asks, but you're too busy to answer. You try to follow the pendant with your eyes, but it moves so fast! Even turning your head doesn't work. The pendant keeps slipping out of your field of vision, then swinging back the other way just when you manage to catch it. Maybe you'd have a better shot if Mewtwo wasn't yelling nonsense. The pendant blurs to a shining arc of light, racing faster and faster. Or maybe you're getting slower.
The pendant flashes bright, and then everything goes dark.
"Are you okay?"
Someone's shaking your shoulder. It's hot. You're hot. You smell stone and dust.
"Hello?" More shaking. Stronger this time. "Hello? Can you wake up?"
You open your eyes into searing blue sky, blinking away tears.
"Oh," says the voice. "Oh, oh. Okay. Are you okay?"
A human hovers over you, shadowy against the sky. Her dark hair frizzes out around her ears. "I am so, so sorry," she says. "Hypno's never done that to someone before." She turns to look at something outside your field of view. "You have to give that back, Hypno. You know that's not how you ask for a fight."
Give what back? You don't feel bad, actually. Just groggy. More than anything you want to go back to sleep.
"No," some pokémon says. "I need to know where she got this. She shouldn't have it."
The woman grimaces and bites her lip. "No? Because... it's bad? Hypno, you can't just take things from people. I'm sure this woman knows how to handle her pokémon." After a second she adds, "If you won't give it back, will you let me hold onto it instead?"
"No."
This is stupid. You won't be able to get any sleep at all at this rate. You make no attempt to smother a groan of irritation as you drag yourself upright. You hope you look as cranky as you feel as you squint around for the pokémon that's been causing trouble.
The hypno stiffens when you face her, clutching the thing she took from you. Which is--you freeze. You don't feel tired anymore.
"Give that back!" You reach towards Hypno, who retreats a step, hunching defensively over Mewtwo's master ball. What are the chances you'd run across a psychic pokémon out here? Pokémon are supposed to be rare in Orre! You should have insisted on leaving Mewtwo behind. It's not safe to carry him around where someone might overhear one of his mental jabs.
"Who is this?" the hypno demands. You open your mouth to reply but catch yourself just in time. Hypno stares up at you with narrowed eyes. "You understand me, don't you? The one in this ball was talking like you could hear. What are you?"
"No, no, it's okay, it's okay," Hypno's trainer babbles, pushing her way between the two of you. "She'll give it back, I promise. If we can just calm down a moment, calm down and work this out..."
"She needs to give that back now," you say. "That is a dangerous pokémon. She cannot let it out."
"See, Hypno, it's no good for battling. Give the ball back, now."
Hypno spares a glance for her trainer. "We need to talk. Alone."
It would be easier to handle this without the human here, yes. It would be even easier to fight, though, just punch the hypno out, take the ball, and be on your way. You clench one fist experimentally.
The human's staring at Hypno. "You want me to... go away?" Hypno grunts and makes a shooing gesture with the hand that has her pendulum wrapped around it.
The human looks between you and Hypno. "I don't... Why? You aren't going to hypnotize her again, are you?"
"She is not going to hypnotize me," you say. You were expecting Hypno to back you up, but she has her head tipped towards the master ball, listening. Mewtwo must be talking to her. That's exactly what you need.
"I really, I just don't know." The woman's chewing her lip like she's been confronted with the worst dilemma of her life. "This is all so weird, I..."
Hypno's eyes went unfocused while she listened, but now her gaze snaps to you, intense and suspicious. "He says he wants to talk to me more. Distract my trainer. We need a minute."
Did Mewtwo say that, or is the hypno making it up? You hesitate. Why would Mewtwo want to talk to some random pokémon?
"You've caused enough trouble for one day!" the human's saying. Hypno makes an exasperated wheezy-honk at her, retreating from her outstretched hand. "We're running late. The professor's expecting us."
Hypno can't teleport or anything, and she's nowhere near as strong as you. If she tries anything, you'll stop her, no problem. "It is okay," you say, then again, louder, and the human finally turns to you.
"What?"
"If she wants to talk to my pokémon, it is okay."
The human's mouth goes thin, but after a moment she turns and says to Hypno, "If Professor Krane's mad at us for being late, you're taking the blame, okay?"
Hypno nods, grunting something dismissive, then retreats a couple steps. She stands cupping the master ball just under her nose, a pose you've fallen into many times when arguing with Mewtwo.
"What do you have in there?" the human asks sharply, watching the two of them commune.
"An alakazam," you say uneasily.
"An alakazam so dangerous you can't let it out? What are you even doing with a pokémon like that?"
"Um," you say, "I came to Orre because I heard about shadow pokémon, and I was wondering, umm... If this alakazam is, uh, is kind of like a shadow pokémon, maybe somebody here would be able to help him."
"Oh!" The human's expression changes to beaming so fast you're afraid you might have screwed something up. It wasn't that good of a story. "That makes sense. Hypno was a shadow pokémon."
"Really?" You scrutinize Hypno, who's still deep in conversation. She doesn't even have fangs or anything.
"Uh-huh. Part of the second wave, in that big cargo ship that got stolen. If she sensed something wrong with your alakazam, she probably wants to help."
"How did you get a shadow pokémon?"
"Professor Krane arranged it. I have chronic insomnia. Really bad, actually. Drowzee and hypno are special because their hypnosis isn't like a normal attack, so it works on humans. Like you found out, I guess. They're used to treat sleep disorders sometimes. Hypno lives with me and helps with my insomnia while she works on getting certified as a sleep pathologist for real. I guess I'm her guinea pig." She laughs. "But no, it helps out a lot, really. I'm glad she decided to stick around."
She looks over at Hypno, smiling fondly. The pokémon's staring hard at the master ball, eyes squinted in concentration. You can't share the human's warmth; the scene just makes you nervous.
"She was going to Hoenn, right?" That's where the S. S. Libra was headed before Shadow Lugia got it. "If she's better, why is she still here?"
"I'm not sure. I've asked, but even though Hypno can send me decent mental images, it's still hard to tell what she means a lot of the time. She has friends here, though. Other pokémon that used to be with Cipher. They've been through a lot together. "
Not surprising. Telepathy takes more control than any other psychic power. Mewtwo makes it feel like he's talking in your head, with actual words, but a psychic has to be at least as strong as Sabrina's alakazam, you think, to do that. Usually they can only cause feelings; if Hypno can make actual pictures, she must be pretty good.
"What about you and your alakazam? How did you end up with such a dangerous pokémon?"
You suppress a wince. You thought you'd managed to get off that topic. "Oh, it just kind of happened."
"Oh?" The human turns back to you. "And it's in a master ball. Where did you get one of those? They're restricted."
"I won it. In a tournament," you say. After a moment you add, "I have other pokémon. They, uh... are not here right now."
"Mmm." The human considers you for long, uncomfortable seconds. "Did the professor have any idea how to help your alakazam?"
"Um, no, not really. And when I asked him about shadow pokémon he did not seem to know much."
"I guess nobody does, except maybe the people who were actually in Cipher. Professor Krane does his best, though. We usually meet with him once a month to make sure everything's going okay with the sleep stuff and there aren't any signs of Hypno's shadow-ness, uh, coming back. It's a very important appointment that we're definitely really late for."
Hypno catches the pointed word, and she frowns and raises a finger in the universal gesture for just a moment. You wish she'd wrap it up, too. You're tired of making conversation.
Fortunately Hypno's satisfied after only a couple more minutes of talk. She approaches slowly, frowning attention all trained on you, but she does offer the master ball back.
"Thank you," you say, and take it from her.
"Okay, good. We all happy?" Hypno waves a hand dismissively and walks past her trainer, as though the human's the one who's been holding things up all along. The woman nods to you and says, "Sorry again. I hope you find help for that alakazam."
"What did you find out?" you whisper to Mewtwo while the human trots off, catching up to Hypno just before she reaches the lab's big glass doors.
Nothing terribly interesting, Mewtwo says, which must be calculated to infuriate you. She wants to help, though. And she knows other shadow pokémon. Perhaps one of those will be more useful. We'll meet with some of them tomorrow.
"That's good!" The hypno didn't seem like anything special, but maybe she was only faking. More shadow pokémon. You grin, imagining.
Good, yes, but later, Mewtwo snaps. We're going to see Celebi, remember? And if all goes well, we won't need any of these shadow pokémon at all.
The desert around Professor Krane's lab is green with the spindly beginnings of forest, which grow lusher and more tangled the farther you go into the foothills. They're real hills, not dunes, with grass and yellow and white and purple wildflowers. The hover-scooter's grav-rings still kick up sand along the winding track that leads towards Agate Village, but there are footprints in the dirt, so people actually walk along this road instead of always using hovercraft like they do to cross the proper desert.
No pokémon, though. With this much green there should be enough food for a few at least. But no. No sign.
Agate Village itself is built on a mountain, and you think Professor Krane hardly needed to invoke Celebi to explain why it's green. The biggest waterfall you've ever seen cascades through the village, streams and rivulets trickling along its streets so you can never escape the sound of running water. Its rusty little houses are overgrown with moss and tree roots. Orre's relentless industrialization hasn't touched this place at all. Maybe that's the Celebi connection: Agate is a place outside of time.
You could almost mistake this for somewhere in Kanto, you think as you climb the spongy, grassy slope into town.
There isn't time to stand around admiring the place, though. You need to find someone who can tell you where Celebi's shrine is, and you have to keep an eye out for psychic pokémon, too. The last thing you need is a repeat of the incident with the hypno.
At least most of the people around here look old, which suits you fine; old people are harmless and eager to help. They're good to practice conversations with. An elderly woman in a pink and purple hat passes by, a combusken trotting beside her. You want a hat like that.
When you stop her she says, "Oh, the Relic Stone? Getting to be a bit of a tourist attraction, isn't it? It's in a cave behind the waterfall, dear. There's a path going down right by the Pokémon Center."
Feeling inexplicably more cheerful, you make your way downhill, following the sound of falling water. Mewtwo's prodding has you moving faster than you'd like, but it's a pleasant walk anyway, along a clear mountain stream that flows into a cave glowing with luminescent algae. There are even trainers battling by the water's edge.
Light streams through an opening at the far end of the cave, and you can hear bird calls--mundane birds, but more than you've heard since arriving in Orre. The air feels different here, too. It's not a psychic field, or you don't think so, but there's a sense of some kind of power, calm and gently-flowing like the stream cutting through the cavern or the breeze fluttering the ferns around its mouth. This place feels alive like nowhere else you've been in Orre, and maybe in Kanto, either.
Move faster! Mewtwo snaps.
You hurry past the last trainers, as eager as Mewtwo for once. You push through the curtain of ferns and step out into warm sunlight, a hidden grotto filled with trees. Real trees, tall and broad, sheltered from the wind and watered by Agate's stream. It's like Professor Krane's lab, a piece of another world transported to the desert, but wild instead of planned and planted and vigorously tamed. Overgrown slabs lead up to a crooked stack of stone discs standing at least twice your height.
You pace slowly around the Relic Stone, looking for any hint of how you might summon Celebi. The stones are old, weathered smooth even in this protected place. Feeling at least as nervous as hopeful, you press your palm against the side of the monument, fingers splayed. Nothing happens.
"Celebi?" you call. You would feel silly if not for that strange energy in the air. Something must be here. "Celebi, I... I need your help!"
The birds go quiet for a few seconds, but nothing else changes. The energy suffusing the air is still calm. Still dormant, maybe?
Let me out. I'll do it.
"Mewtwo, there's people right outside. It's okay. I can go back to town and probably find someone who knows how--"
I can do it myself. Celebi will not ignore my* call.*
"But the people--"
Deal with them, or I will.
You peer through the curtain of leaves at the trainers loitering, chatting, fighting. They have no idea, you think, your heartbeat picking up. Even the peace of the Relic Stone can't soothe your jangling nerves.
Your first thought is poison gas, to send them running from the smell. But that could make them sick, and you don't want any to retreat in here instead of out. Loud noise could work, if it didn't completely incapacitate them. What else?
Get on with it.
You slip behind the Relic Stone, out of sight, and move your hands gently back and forth, fingers spread wide as you rake them through the air. The breeze filtering through the mouth of the cave grows stronger, and stronger yet, blowing steadily out towards Agate Village. Confused shouts sound faintly over the blustering wind. It's only a tailwind--uncomfortable enough to drive some people off, maybe, but not enough to force the issue.
That comes next. You turn your hands palm-up and wiggle your fingers, threads of air twining between them and whipping outwards as the wind rises around you. Tree branches thrash and clatter; some snap clean off, and you grimace, hoping Celebi won't be mad at you for hurting his trees. Dead leaves and twigs and whole boughs swirl through the air around the Relic Stone, with you standing in the calm right next to it.
You push out with your hands, directing the cyclone towards the tunnel. It slams into the grotto's wall, spilling crazed rivulets of air in all directions while gale-force winds howl out through the cave.
You lean around the Relic Stone and squint past fern-fronds battered and bent where they haven't been ripped from the stone entirely. The bridge is torn up, boards scattered amidst shredded vegetation, all of it slick with water tossed from the stream. And over it all the tailwind keeps streaming, discouraging anyone from running back in to see what caused all the commotion.
No humans, which is the main thing. One woman hit a wall instead of getting properly blown out of the cavern, but she looks like she isn't getting up for a while, so that's okay. You take the master ball from your belt.
As always, you have to crane your neck back to look Mewtwo in the face. As Melanie Roth you don't even make it to his shoulders. Mewtwo's purple eyes barely move to take in the grotto; he's already seen it in your mind. I didn't expect you to destroy the place, Mewtwo grouses. You should show more respect. You're in the presence of power.
"It worked, didn't it?" is the most you allow yourself to say.
Mewtwo examines the Relic Stone for himself, circling around with his nose practically pressed against the monument. Determined to pick up on on everything you missed, you suppose. You try to divide your attention between him and the cave. You have to make sure no one's coming back in.
Mewtwo stops his circuit of the Relic Stone and stands looking up at it, psychic field thrumming with anticipation. Celebi! he says, mental voice ringing with excitement. I call you! We have need of your power!
Silence. Not even birdsong now. Just Mewtwo's humming mind and whatever lies beneath it, that slow, gentle sense of awareness. It seems as tranquil--unresponsive--as ever. You can barely feel it now, smothered as it is by Mewtwo's psychic presence.
Mewtwo raises his arms, which is more expressive than you think you've ever seen him. With hands spread he entreats the Relic Stone again. Celebi! Hear me! I am Mewtwo, Mew's son! A pause. I know you're listening!
A longer pause. Your stomach turns over as you feel uncertainty creeping in around the edges of Mewtwo's exultation. He's going to get angry. You bend your own thoughts towards Celebi, praying for an answer, for him to just say something.
We seek my mother, Mewtwo says with a calm you feel him working hard to maintain. She's been captured by humans. We want to free her. Anything you know would be helpful. The wait for an answer has you so on edge that you nearly jump when you notice movement outside. A pair of sturdy timburr brave the wind, trudging over to the fallen woman by the cave's exit. Not a problem yet, but if more people follow, you could be in trouble.
Are you going to stand by and do nothing while Mew is tortured? Mewtwo roars. Answer me! Why are you silent? His eyes glow purple, telekinetic waves stirring dead leaves to frenzied dancing around his toes.
"He's probably not here, Mewtwo. That's all," you say anxiously. The timburr hoist the unconscious woman in their arms while a couple kids watch from the cave entrance, off to the side and out of the worst of the wind. They won't be able to see Mewtwo unless they venture further in, but if he lets his psychic field grow they'll certainly be able to hear him.
He's here! He's watching us! Can't you feel it? Mewtwo snarls. And maybe you do, maybe that's what you feel, but even if it is you don't think screaming at Celebi's going to help.
"Celebi has lots of shrines. That doesn't mean he's watching them all. I mean, he lives in Ilex Forest, everyone knows that. Maybe we ought to--"
Answer me! Mewtwo howls. I know you're listening! Do you think you can ignore me? That I'm less* than you because I was created by humans? You think I'm some common pokémon come to beg a favor of its god? I'm more powerful than you could ever hope to be! You will aid me now, or when the time comes, when my mother is released, I'll find you. I'll find you, and I'll make you pay for sitting idle while she suffered. I'll make you pay for ignoring me in my time of need. I ask you one final time: answer me!*
He doesn't exactly give Celebi much time to respond: your head throbs as he gathers power, and a droning hum fills the air, so loud it drowns out the whipping wind. Even if Celebi said something, there's no way you'd hear. The monument's stones appear to tremble, but you aren't sure if they're moving or if your eyes are vibrating in your skull. Then you're sure, and battle training gone instinctive has you throwing up a protect shield as you dive to the ground.
The Relic Stone explodes, chunks of rock scything through the trees and clattering against the grotto's walls. There's a blinding flash of green, a long, high note like a violin quavering at the top of its range, and then silence falls again.
Mewtwo's psychic field recedes to a gentle, contented buzz. The clone pants while he surveys his handiwork, the shattered stump in front of him, fallen branches and trees splintered by the spray of rocks. You eye the remains of the Relic Stone in wonder. There must have been something more than mortar holding it together, if Mewtwo had to work so hard to smash it.
The clearing's odd presence hasn't changed. It's undiminished, in no way agitated by all the commotion. Asleep, maybe, or not aware at all.
You walk over to stand beside Mewtwo, unsure of what to say. He's perfectly aware of the thoughts eddying around your skull anyway. You're impressed despite yourself, and Mewtwo apparently finds that extremely amusing.
Oh, it is gratifying. But no. I was laughing at our audience.
You spin around, in one icy second realizing you forgot to maintain your tailwind. And yes, there they are, two boys with their timburr out in front of them in defensive stances. The humans' eyes are huge and round, fixed on the clone.
You're a curious pair, aren't you? Mewtwo asks. The air smells of ozone as he gathers power again.
"Mewtwo, stop!" you say. The timburr pound their logs against the ground, yelling--there's less than no chance for them, and they know it, but it's their duty to at least try to protect their trainers. Or friends. Whatever they are, whatever they won't be in another second.
We can't have witnesses, Mewtwo says, psychic field thrumming with delight. You know that, don't you?
He's enjoying this. Tingling cold spreads across your body. Mewtwo's savoring the humans' fear, drawing it out, raising his hand towards them in a completely unnecessary flourish.
There's a strange, squeaky noise like what you'd hear from a video played on rewind, sounds blurring to a frantic high pitch. The grotto snaps back to the way it was before. The Relic Stone stands tall and whole at the center. The trees are unbroken. Birds sing from them, oblivious, carefree.
Mewtwo turns and stares, his emotions shifting so fast they leave you dizzy: surprise, confusion, fear, and sudden, terrible anger, directionless and impotent. Where are you? he roars in your head. Where are you? Answer me!
Again the Relic Stone trembles, and you throw yourself on the ground, eyes watering from a splitting headache. The stone shakes and cracks, green light glowing from fissures down its sides, but this time it doesn't shatter. Before Mewtwo can finish prying it apart it snaps back whole again. Mewtwo yowls aloud, a sound of wild frustration, and kicks off from the ground, leaving a contrail of purple energy crackling behind as he shoots off to--where? Where? Where's he going?
"Mewtwo!" you yell after him, but he's already so far away. You scramble up and run for the tunnel, hoping you'll at least be able to see where he lands, but the two boys and their timburr are still there, frozen in comical attitudes of shock. For a second horrifying calculations pass through your head--Mewtwo's right, you can't have any witnesses.
It doesn't matter. Dozens of people must have seen him fly off. You clench your teeth and satisfy yourself with pushing roughly past the kids, toppling the timburr in a heap with them. You speed through the cave into daylight and the waterfall's spray.
The trainers who were battling earlier stand with heads tipped back and mouths hanging open, watching purple light arc across the sky. Mewtwo vanishes into the distance while you watch--where is he going?
Of course he'd do something like this. You can't trust him with anything! You've been in Orre two days and already he's blown your cover and run off. Are you going to have to wait for the news reports to know where he went?
The people around you titter and exclaim and argue about what they just saw. The boys come running out of the cave with their timburr in tow, and you decide now's a good time to be gone, shove your way out of the crowd and pelt up the hill. People call out to you as you go past.
Where did Mewtwo go? He doesn't know Orre. Or is he just going to land somewhere in the desert and hide?
That would be better, you think with a chill, than going off to wreck Gateon Port or something to blow off steam. If he goes out and murders a bunch of people, you, you'll--what would you even do? He already told you he wanted to. If it doesn't happen now, it probably will later.
That thought brings you up short. For a moment you're caught by something like vertigo, looking into the future and seeing inevitable slaughter. But after a second you shake it off. You can't worry about that right now. You have to find Mewtwo before anything else. Him running around on his own can only be a bad thing.
Where did he go? He doesn't even know anywhere except Professor Krane's lab, and here, a little. Plus the factory, of course, but he wouldn't drag a neon line through the sky to point right at it. He wouldn't make it the first place everyone would go looking for him. He isn't that stupid.
You grit your teeth and put on a burst of speed, not even caring if you're running too fast for a human. You almost knock your scooter over in your hurry to get on, slapping at the control panel while it takes forever to warm up, then throw it into the highest gear immediately, taking off with a jolt and a whine to speed away into the desert.
You leave the hover-scooter parked in the Cipher factory's weird, jagged shadow, not caring if anyone sees. No point putting effort in if Mewtwo's going to have a tantrum and blow your cover anyway.
You don't waste time climbing through the spooky building, either. One second of concentration and you're standing on the roof, anxious to find Mewtwo there, anxious not to, to have a long search ahead for him as well as your mother. Only one moment after appearing you realize your mistake. If you'd taken the slow way, you'd have felt the waves of emotion radiating from the clone long before you reached him. You would have had the chance to turn back.
Mewtwo's curled near the edge of the roof with the tip of his tail looped up by his face, crying. Get out of here! he snarls in your head, which is even weirder than usual because he's whimpering at the same time. Leave me alone!
You're only too happy to. But when you turn to go you nearly trip over Absol, who is abruptly there, sitting, looking up at you with red eyes. "What happened?" she asks.
"A lot of things. He wants me to leave, so." You gesture towards the top of the stairs, take a couple hopeful steps that way. Absol stays where she is, staring.
You shoot a nervous look at Mewtwo. He has his hands over his eyes, not that it makes a difference. He's perfectly aware that you're still here. "Mewtwo got mad because Celebi wouldn't talk to him, then he blew up Celebi's statue thing and Celebi fixed it right away," you blurt as fast as you can. And you can't help but add, in a vicious whisper, "Which you'd know if you actually bothered to come with us."
Absol looks up at you blandly, then saunters around you, padding across the roof to nudge Mewtwo's shoulder with her nose. Okay, fine, she can do that if she wants, but you--when you turn back towards the stairs, you find your pokémon peeking up from them. Maybe they heard your voice, or maybe Mewtwo's psychic anguish made them curious enough to come check on its own.
You hurry over to them, making shooing motions. "We need to get out of here!" you hiss. "Mewtwo's--"
And then his voice blares in your head, a response to something Absol said. Mocking me! Mewtwo snarls. Thinks he's better than me because he's one of the originals. I'll show him. I'll show all of them! Idiots! They stand by and do nothing while Mew suffers, and then they make fun* of me... They laugh at me... I'm stronger than any of them. I'm the strongest! And they act like I'm nothing!*
"Boss, what?" Rats asks.
"I'll tell you later," you say. "Come on, let's go."
Absol sits down next to Mewtwo and asks, "What did Celebi say?"
Nothing! Mewtwo's only sniffling now, his mind projecting slighted fury. He acted like I wasn't even there, and then he fixed things like I couldn't do anything. Like I wasn't even worth noticing!
You wish you could just ignore him like Celebi. You cringe immediately after the thought, but fortunately Mewtwo seems wrapped up in his conversation with Absol and doesn't respond. This is why you need to get out of here. Mewtwo doesn't like criticism, and you're too mad at him right now not to think it.
The pokémon protest but let you herd them down the stairs, and then deeper into the factory, until you can no longer hear Mewtwo's indignant ranting in your head, until the faintest tingle of his mind has faded. You're exhausted when you finally call a halt, as though you ran a marathon instead of going down a couple flights of stairs.
"What the heck, boss?" Rats asks immediately. "You went and left us all behind, and what happened?"
And then you have to explain, of course. Your pokémon are a good audience, at least, as shocked and horrified by Mewtwo's behavior as you are. But all the time you're talking you keep thinking of Absol sitting there by Mewtwo's side, listening while he cries. Lying down next to him, maybe, to comfort him with her warmth and the softness of her fur. You're sure she's not saying anything useful, not helping, because when does she ever do that? But you can't stop thinking about it, still.
How many times has she sat with you while you cried? It's the kind of thing she does. But Mewtwo doesn't deserve it. Everything that went wrong today, everything he's crying about, was his own fault. And yet Absol sits and listens, acts like he isn't throwing a tantrum because he's a terrible person who didn't get to kill somebody today even though he wanted to. You shouldn't be frustrated with Absol. You shouldn't. She's weird, and who knows her reasons for doing anything. But it bothers you, and bothers you, for a great deal longer than it should.