Chapter 52

Fortunately not even Mewtwo can spend all his time out murdering people. He doesn’t sleep, but he does rest, and he rests longer when he’s had to use a lot of psychic power. That means you get to sleep yourself and still have time left over to do what you want while he’s busy meditating or whatever it is.

If you’re going to stay at the factory for a while, you need to make it livable. You need TV. And for TV you need power, which is why you’re out on the roof a couple days after the disastrous picnic, tools strewn all around you, banging on the solar generator that crowns the weird ziggurat building in the middle of the roof.

Thunderstorm hangs in the air beside you and tells you what you need to do while you crawl around and poke at sand-blasted wire and dusty old solar panels. It also shines spotlights on things, checks currents, and lifts obstructions with its electromagnetism. Then there’s Absol, sunning herself on the hot roof in her ominous way. Her idea of helping is to observe and occasionally hold something for you.

Neither of them is big on conversation, which is perfectly okay. You feel like you’ve been talking and talking and talking recently. It’s nice to think of nothing but the work in front of you, to watch things slowly get better and better until finally you can pull the big lever and the whole solar array comes online, gauges light up and needles twirl, and deep inside the factory’s black heart emergency lights flicker on.

Thunderstorm lets out a buzzing exclamation and promptly floats over to stick itself to the side of the generator, and a couple minutes later Duskull pops out of the roof tiles to complain, and all you can do is laugh at him, and at everything. Now you can plug in a TV.

Everything is bright beneath the searing desert sun, and the night and the horrors you can’t ever tell Rats about feel far away. You want nothing more than to set up a satellite dish and spend the rest of the day catching up on your favorite shows. You’ll get to learn whether Elder Gray was really the father of Elodie’s baby. And Pokémon Trainer Zack should have at least two more badges by now! It’s nearly spring, so the League arc’s bound to start soon. You bet there’s a new Tranformozords toy, too! They introduced the Purple Ranger right before Mewtwo burned down your house, so there should be at least one cool transforming action figure of her now.

But Absol stays close, a white-furred reminder of everything that you’re supposed to be doing, the entire reason for you being here, the mission that Mewtwo has decided he’s now in charge of. And maybe the only person who can stop him. You regard her queasily from the corner of your eye.

“Did Rats talk to you?” you ask.

Absol regards you quietly. “She has spoken to me.”

Okay, you know that’s a tricky answer somehow. “About Mewtwo? Did she ask if you could talk some sense into Mewtwo?”

Absol’s gaze turns to the reclining clone. “Yes,” she says, and you sense you’ve scored some kind of point.

“So can you? Did you try?”

Absol stares silently at Mewtwo. “It is not my place to intervene.”

Of course. “Absol, he’s killing people!” Maybe you’re imagining it, but it feels like the air temperature drops. Absol still won’t look at you. “Rats wants to stop it. If she keeps getting in Mewtwo’s way, he’s going to hurt her. Maybe he’ll kill her, too!”

“No,” Absol says. “The raticate sees your mother. I am sure of that much. Your brother will not defy Fate.”

“He doesn’t care about Fate! He just cares about doing what he wants!”

Absol extends one paw and then drags it back towards herself, claws grating loud against the metal roof. “Neither of you is as you should be.”

“What?”

Absol scrapes her claws again, a prolonged rasping noise that makes your spine want to climb out of your skin. “This killing. Who has the choice not to murder, but chooses otherwise? It makes no sense.”

“Yes! Yes, exactly! That’s what I mean! Mewtwo’s terrible, Absol. If you can stop him, you should. I know I can’t, but–”

“No.” The single syllable cuts through your train of thought as easily as Absol’s blade. “You, too. Neither of you are as you should be.”

“Me?” All of a sudden your skull’s full of static. What does she mean? What does she mean by that? “I don’t kill people!” You remember the Rockets in Viridian Base, falling before you almost as fast as they did before Mewtwo. But you weren’t trying to kill anybody. They got hurt, but they were probably fine eventually. And anyway, they wouldn’t… wouldn’t… count…

Absol’s staring at you like she can see every swirling guilty thought. But you draw yourself up under her gaze, indignant. No. No, you’re not like Mewtwo. You’re not. “What do you mean?” you demand. “What did I do wrong?”

“The Rocket human. You intended for him to die. More than once.”

The Rocket… she can’t possibly still be talking about that, can she? “Well, he’s still alive, isn’t he? So I didn’t kill him,” you say bitterly. “We already talked about this, Absol. I saved his life. You told me he was important, so I healed him. Even though I didn’t like him! Mewtwo wouldn’t care, he would just–”

“No!” This time Absol punctuates the word by bringing her paw down so hard it lands with an echoing boom. “He isn’t important! His life means nothing! That is the point!

You flinch. Absol was weird the last time you were talking about this, too. “That’s what you said!” you insist. “I remember!” You wouldn’t have helped the great Nathaniel Morgan if she hadn’t insisted on it.

Would you now?

You push the errant thought away. It doesn’t matter because you’re never going to see him again. He was very clear about that. And you’re glad.

Absol stares into nothing, as violently silent as you’ve ever seen her.

“You told me,” you say again. “You told me he was going to die and I had to stop it. Because it wasn’t right.” You’re sure, you’re sure. Why is she being so weird about this?

Absol shudders. “You would have done nothing.”

“I know that. So what? You told me not to do anything plenty of times when someone else was going to die.”

“Yes, because Fate had chosen an end for them. Fate had no care for that human. You were free to act as you desired.”

“So it didn’t matter if he lived or died,” you say, exasperated. “Why did you act like it did?”

Absol bows her head, claws splayed out over the metal roof, tension written in her every line. “Because if I did not, you would have let him die.”

It takes a few seconds for you to work it out. It can’t possibly be right. But the suspicion creeps over you, a wild, insane-feeling explanation that at the same time seems dreadfully plausible. “Absol, did you lie?”

Absol shudders, her gaze going to Mewtwo. “It was not right,” she says softly.

You can’t even be mad. It’s almost awe-inspiring. “I didn’t know you could lie,” leaves your mouth before you can even think about it.

“It’s a shameful thing,” Absol says, closing her eyes as if pained.

Your mind whirls at the implications. “But then–why? If the great Nathaniel Morgan’s not important, why was he important enough to lie about?” She can’t like doing it. If that’s how she always acts when she’s doing it. You’d know if she lied a lot. You’d notice she was acting crazy.

You can’t let that distract you from the original point. Why are you talking about the great Nathaniel Morgan all of a sudden, anyway? Who cares? “And anyway, I’m not bad. I’m not like Mewtwo.”

Absol doesn’t answer beyond scraping her claws again, distant as ever. “Absol!” When she won’t look at you, you usually think it’s because she’s being aloof. Creating a sense of mystery. You don’t know now, though. Is it possible she won’t look at you because she’s ashamed? “Can’t you just tell me what you mean? You know I’m confused. It’s important, isn’t it?” No answer. Absol’s head is dipped as if in mourning. “Absol?” you venture again, when she’s stayed like that for several seconds.

Absol’s on her feet in an instant, at last meeting your gaze with wild red eyes. “Why would you choose death? Either of you! What is wrong with you?”

She whirls and disappears into the generator’s shadow, leaving you staring at empty air, a half-formed question on your lips. What just happened? What–Get over here!

The psychic message is so powerful it nearly bowls you over. Your heart hammers in sudden panic, sweat breaking out over your skin as you stare around wildly. Mewtwo isn’t in sight, and before you can calm down enough to properly feel which way he is, he hits you with another blast of, Now! Get over here, now!

You run blindly towards Mewtwo, following the gradient of his anger while dread pools in your stomach. What can possibly have happened to panic him like this? Someone’s found you? Even then, wouldn’t he just kill them and make it your fault somehow? “What? What do you want?”

Those shadow pokémon! They’re here!

“Who? What is–?” you come to stand beside him, and Mewtwo unhelpfully beams images into your mind so you can’t actually see what’s down below. You’re paralyzed by sensory overload: Hypno seen through your eyes, seen through her own eyes; her thoughts and feelings and impressions, the sensation of her hand on your arm, the taste of what she was eating at the picnic last night. And Noctowl, and Heracross…

“Yes! I know them!”

They’re here. They’re down there, for some reason. Mewtwo points over the edge of the roof. Why are they here?

“How should I know?” Sure enough, now that you can actually see again, you recognize them down below. Tiny and far-off but inside the fence’s perimeter now, a pink hover-cycle parked behind them. “We could wait and see if they go away,” you say uncertainly. “Or if they decide to come inside, we can make them leave.”

No. If they aren’t hostile to us already, I would prefer they not become so.

Well, whose fault would it be if they were hostile? “I think they probably came to see you, Mewtwo.”

Me? If Mewtwo’s emotions keep yo-yoing like that you swear you’re going to get heart palpitations. After that disaster of a “picnic?” Why would they ever want to see me? He actually turns to glare at you. And that was your fault. You did nothing to prepare me. Were you expecting me to figure out those pokémon’s strange rituals myself? You want them to like us too, don’t you? I can see it. And you couldn’t even help with this, your supposed area of expertise.

“What? What did you want me to tell you? I didn’t realize you didn’t know how a picnic works.”

Why would I? the clone snarls. I was made for battle, not for boring anecdotes or… or swimming.

Surely they must have tried to teach him to swim. Who would expend so much work on a weapon that would fall to pieces in deep water? Who knows? I’m not about to answer for my designers’ flaws. You were utterly worthless! That’s the point here!

Far below, Heracross cups her claws around her mouth and calls up to you a tiny, “Halllloooooo?”

I don’t want to see them. You ask what they want, you say yes if it’s easy and no if it’s not. All you need to do is figure out what they’re after and make them go away. Happily if you can, but unhappily if you must.

This is what scared him? A couple of pokémon being mad at him because he ruined their picnic? This is why he screamed for you to come running?

Scared? With that surge of incandescent fury, he certainly isn’t anymore. You think I’m scared of that lot? I could crush them with a single stroke!

“Fine. If you’re not scared, then prove it.” Oh, no. Mewtwo’s anger is getting to you.

You open your mouth, desperate to somehow call your words back, but a gust of psychic power slams you against the railing, your stomach lurching even though you chide yourself that you’re not going to fall. Even if you did you’d simply catch yourself.

Mewtwo rises slowly from the roof, wreathed by crackling sparks of psychic discharge. Prove it? he asks, radiating pure malice. I have no need to prove anything to the likes of you. But if you truly are so incompetent that you cannot handle this, I suppose I shall have to myself.

He disappears over the edge of the roof, and you drag in deep breaths of air, suddenly uncompressed by his psychic field. Oh, no. Oh, no. You have to go down there. You leap into empty space, psychic power slowing your descent. Each second feels like it stretches forever before you land behind Mewtwo, not gently, but at least not injuriously hard.

“Oh, very stylish,” Heracross says with a weak chuckle. “You two really know how to make an entrance, don’t you?” The other Musketeers are frozen, staring up at Mewtwo, who looms cloaked in all his power.

Why, he asks, terribly slowly, are you here?

“We wanted to apologize,” Noctowl says after a palpable pause that simmers with psychic tension. “To you two and to all the other pokémon. For what happened the other night.”

“Yes!” Hypno says. She takes a hesitant step forward, stoops as though unsure if she should, what? Kneel? Throw herself face-down? Ultimately she remains standing while she says, “Mewtwo, I, I shouldn’t have egged you on like that. For somebody who’d never tried to swim before… That really wasn’t how it should have been done. It could have ended very badly. And that was my mistake.”

You don’t remember her egging Mewtwo on about anything. He’d just been mad that you were doing something he couldn’t. Mewtwo’s eyes narrow, a dangerous crease appearing between them, but he doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Heracross cuts in with, “It’s more than that! We found some of that information you’ve been looking for.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “There’s a pokémon out there, another shadow pokémon like us. But not just any pokémon, one of the boss’ personal team! If you’re looking for someone who knows all the dirt, it’s not gonna get much better than that!”

Mewtwo’s hostility evaporates into confusion, then excitement. Where? he asks. Who is it?

A thrill goes through you, too. Someone who knows Cipher people who actually matter, not nobodies like Divel. More nighttime visits to anonymous apartments, run-down houses, back alleys and abandoned streets. But maybe fewer of them, if this pokémon really knows important people. People who might be working for Cipher even now, who might know where to find them. Might even have seen Mew with their own eyes. It’s… exciting. It should be exciting.

“Not an easy mon to track down, that’s who!” Heracross says, emboldened by Mewtwo’s change in mood. “Took us a little while, but I feel pretty good about getting it done. Not just anybody would have been able to get that guy to talk.”

“Yes, I think we all have a lot to thank Noctowl for,” Hypno says pointedly. “But we’ll need you, too, Mewtwo. Tyranitar wants to see you for himself before he digs back into those memories.”

Just like these three had. Mewtwo’s psychic field swirls with conflicting emotion–excitement, distaste, anxiety. You need me? Where? Where are you going?

“Way out in the mountains,” Hypno says. “It’ll take a while to bike there. So I guess you’d, ah, need to take your master ball again?” She rubs the back of her neck. “I think what Tyranitar really wants is to battle you, if, if that’s okay.”

A battle? Mewtwo’s dark mood churns, what feel like invisible thunderclouds framing his words. But he likes battles, doesn’t he? He likes to show off how strong he is. And more than anything, he must want the information this tyranitar claims to have. The storm clouds clear. Very well. But be quick about your journey. I don’t appreciate confinement. Then he’s gone. The master ball lies still on the courtyard’s scuffed metal.

You let out a long breath, Hypno sags, and Noctowl ruffles his feathers and blinks his eyes. Well, that went well enough, considering. Nothing like what you’d been fearing–it all feels silly now. Were you honestly expecting these three to, what, show up to demand an apology from Mewtwo?

After a moment, Hypno clears her throat and says, “Well, that’s… I guess we should get going. Is your scooter ready?”

“Yes,” you say. “I’ll…” Go get it? Go get Rats and Thunder? Titan’s out flying with Togetic. Duskull’s not coming. Absol will show up if she wants to. Rats and Thunder…

You hesitate. “Sorry,” Hypno says. “Is that a no?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” you say. “We can go now. One second.” And indeed, that’s all it takes you to get everything ready, pointedly not looking back at the factory while you do. Not that you’d see anyone if you did. No one watching, waiting, while you drove away. That would just be silly.

“Mind if I ride with you?” Heracross asks. “Hypno’s scooter fits all three of us, but it’s pretty tight.”

“Okay,” you say in mild surprise. It’s weird to have Heracross hop up on the seat behind you and put her claws over your shoulders, but thrilling, too. Almost like you’re one of the Musketeers yourself.

Hypno buckles on a dusty helmet, cinching it tight under her chin while ignoring Heracross’ ribbing. Her scooter’s mostly like yours, just pink instead of blue and more beat up. Noctowl perches on the seat behind her, gripping tight with his talons.

“Ready?” Hypno asks, and at your nod, sets off across the dunes at a respectable putt-putt-putt. You follow just behind, Heracross clinging on tight and Noctowl watching you the whole way, looking ridiculously uncomfortable with his feathers blowing in all directions. This feels like maybe the most Orre thing you’ve done the whole time you’ve been here. At last it feels like you’re getting somewhere, as the sand falls away and the mountains rise up in front of you. At last, maybe, there’s an end to your mission in sight.

---

By the time Hypno slows to a halt the mountains stretch above you like a wall. You have to crane your neck way back to even see the sky. Hypno putters around, taking off her helmet and shrugging on a backpack, and Noctowl takes flight, soaring up and away and leaving you all behind. You start to call out to him, but Heracross says, “The bird’s gone on ahead to let the big guy know we’re coming. This is the place. So when you’re ready, you can…” she points to the master ball at your waist.

When you’re ready. You could run away, ride your scooter off into the empty desert and never return, and never let Mewtwo out again, either. Until Absol found you. And then you’d see just how far she’d go to defend Fate.

Tyranitar wants to see Mewtwo, though. Won’t cooperate otherwise. The tyranitar who might hold the key to Mew’s whereabouts at last. Slowly your fingers unclip the master ball from your belt. Numbly your arm tosses it to the ground.

By now you don’t even flinch when psychic energy envelops you. It’s too familiar. You know by now how this goes.

Where is this tyranitar? Mewtwo demands.

“This way,” Hypno says. “Watch your step. It’s a bit of a climb.”

There is a trail of sorts, a broad one, even, so that Hypno and Heracross can climb it side by side. It’s littered with fallen rocks, though, here and there crumbling into nothing or buried under scree. Whoever comes this way doesn’t do so often. You press on grimly, trying to think only of your goal ahead, and Mewtwo doesn’t climb at all, of course, floating out in front of everyone.

That’s why you can’t even see what’s going on when a sudden spike of panic rams itself into your chest, transmitted through Mewtwo’s psychic field. A trap! he snarls, and you can feel him gathering power.

“Wait!” That’s… Noctowl? It takes you a moment to recognize him in your addled state. “Don’t! Don’t touch the sculptures!”

Hypno runs, Heracross takes to buzzing flight, and you scramble straight up the side of the cliff, the proper path forgotten. You haul yourself onto a higher ledge and then freeze, the breath dying in your throat.

“Whoah.” The broad shield-head with its radiating crests, the serpentine body with its many tentacles–it’s like Zygarde is rising out of the rock towards you, empty stone eyes fixed on your face. The sculpture’s at least ten feet long, actually seeming to emerge from the cliffside, body fusing back with the rough, natural stone at its base.

There’s also Mewtwo, glowing purple light warping and twisting around his fingers, staring Zygarde down with palpable hostility. What is this? he demands.

“A sculpture,” Hypno answers, a note of wonder in her voice. “That’s right, isn’t it, Noctowl?”

“Yes,” Noctowl says. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have warned you. They are quite lifelike.”

Lifelike? Mewtwo’s psychic field ripples and strains with confused indignation, purple threads of energy swaying and twisting around his fingers in response. You stifle a laugh. He got tricked!

“Well, what do you know?” Heracross says, reaching over to retrieve a can of soda from Hypno’s backpack. She walks right up to the Zygarde, inspecting it with a critical eye while she sips. “You escape from an evil organization and get your head unfucked and you take up a new hobby, I guess.”

Some hobby, Mewtwo grumbles, and to your relief he aims his half-formed aura sphere off towards a distant, unmarked rock, which explodes in a shower of fragments.

“Not far now,” Noctowl says, rising on silent wings. “He’s waiting for you.”

You spare a last longing glance for the smooth, broad shield of Zygarde’s head, then follow the others. The path ahead is watched over by Xerneas and Yveltal, the deer legend’s branching antlers rendered in an incredible tangle of delicate rocky spires. More pokémon emerge from outcrops and stray boulders, even a few of the smaller rocks scattered to either side of the path. You recognize duraludon and yamask, turtonator and umbreon, espurr peering creepily from behind a scraggly, prickly bush. The pokémon look like they’ve been frozen to stone rather than sculpted, but you think–at least you hope–tyranitar can’t do that.

“Look at all these!” Hypno exclaims. “And he can’t have been working for, what, more than five years or so?”

Up ahead the path opens out into a wide plateau broken by curious upright spires of rock, like columns raised up from the ground. Not natural, you think, and the shapes they’ve been carved into certainly aren’t: twisted trees and leaning pokémon and even humans, here with pokémon, there alone. The figures are stretched and swept as if frozen in a moment of bracing wind, less detailed than the pokémon you saw on the way up but alive with a sort of movement those other sculptures didn’t capture.

With a wordless burst of excitement Mewtwo takes off gliding across the plateau, sweeping towards the hulking pokémon standing at its far side. He makes the clone look small by comparison. You slow as awe saps some of the urgency from your stride. You’ve never been anywhere near this close to a tyranitar in real life. This one’s everything you expected and more, a miniature mountain clad in scarred and pitted armor, spines jutting huge and wide where they haven’t been snapped clean off. He watches Mewtwo’s approach without visible reaction, barely a gleam of eyes showing from deep within his rocky helmet.

“Excuse me!” you call, and the tyranitar raises his head. “You made all these sculptures, right?”

We’ve established that, Mewtwo snaps at the same time the tyranitar says, “I did. Who are you?” You don’t know if his deep, rumbling words are hostile or only sound that way to people who aren’t tyranitar. Maybe he’s like the great Nathaniel Morgan’s steelix, you think hopefully.

“Here he is,” Noctowl says, winging down to settle on an uncarven spire. “Mewtwo. We brought him, just as agreed.”

“So you did.” The tyranitar inclines his head in a way that immediately makes you think of Absol.

Well, then. Mewtwo gives the mental impression of spreading his arms without moving in the slightest. Here I am. I was told you want a battle.

The tyranitar gives him a level look. “You’re an impatient one,” he says, and you wonder briefly how old he is. You don’t think tyranitar get as old as other rock-types, but you wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s over a hundred, or maybe even two. “And sure of yourself. Exactly what I expected.”

I’m not here to banter, Mewtwo says. If a battle’s what you want, I see no reason to delay. There’s no further warning. Mewtwo launches a pulsing purple aura sphere at Tyranitar and kicks off from the ground to hover higher than the dark-type can reach.

Tyranitar doesn’t block. Can’t, wasn’t prepared to–won’t? He snarls as the aura sphere bursts against his armor and nearly topples over backwards. Mewtwo conjures another pair of aura spheres, but Tyranitar’s beginning his own attack, arms raised and boulders rising to answer. The aura spheres slam uselessly into floating hunks of rock. Tyranitar hurls his boulders at Mewtwo, but a simple pulse of psychic power shatters the lot to powder that rains down over the plateau. Tyranitar grunts and narrows his eyes, sparks crackling down his rocky spines. Mewtwo dodges the blinding thunderbolt that leaps free from Tyranitar’s armor and lazily tosses off another aura sphere.

Beside you Heracross and Hypno are enraptured by the fight, Heracross whooping and waving her soda in the air. You feel more like Noctowl looks: stricken, fearful, only waiting for something to go wrong. This is too much like when Mewtwo fought you. Tyranitar doesn’t stand a chance, and his best hope is that Mewtwo gets bored and ends things quickly.

This time Tyranitar addresses the aura sphere with a scything dark pulse that shreds it to nothing, then breathes a flamethrower up at Mewtwo. As before, Mewtwo swoops away from the attack–and straight into a jagged spire of rock.

You flinch as Mewtwo’s pain hits you, pain Tyranitar can’t feel; the dark-type clenches a fist, and more narrow spears of earth lance up to stab Mewtwo while he’s reeling. A quick gesture from the clone slices the tops off the lot of them, and irritation pulses through his psychic field as he pivots to face Tyranitar. Very well, he says, even as the dark-type inhales for another flamethrower. I’ll do this the easy way, then.

Rainbow colors sweep across Tyranitar’s armor, a miracle eye seeking his mind through his darkness. Tyranitar chokes as sudden psychic pressure hits him, the flames dying in his throat. He bends as though beneath a high wind, eyes squeezed shut against the pain Mewtwo must be pouring into his head. After a second, though, his shadow wavers, black flowing up his legs towards the spines radiating from his back. Mewtwo does the psychic equivalent of snorting in derision. With a twitch of his hand Tyranitar’s airborne, limbs waving uselessly. A second tiny motion and he goes crashing back to earth.

Tyranitar begins to rise, inch by agonized inch, muscles straining against invisible force. Mewtwo grabs him with psychic again, lifts him, drops him, then drags him across the ground with telekinesis. You wince, imagining Tyranitar’s spines snapping and grinding away against the rocky earth.

Some realization seems to come over Tyranitar, the whites of his eyes showing bright in the shadow of his helmet. “Yield! I yield!” he gasps.

Very well, Mewtwo says, and you assume he releases his psychic hold. But a big pokémon like Tyranitar still has loads of momentum, and he goes right on sliding towards what you only now realize was Mewtwo’s target all along: a fantastical town done in rock, tiny houses and avenues lined with miniature trees, minute pokémon wandering the streets. You take an involuntary step forward, heart in your throat, as Tyranitar comes to rest with an enormous crash.

Glowing out of the settling dust is an energy barrier that separates Tyranitar from his sculpture, which is untouched save for a burst of sand-laden air rushing through its tiny streets. You let out a huge breath and look up at Mewtwo in wonder. You thought he meant to pulverize that sculpture for sure.

Oh. His tail twitches with a fury you’d no doubt feel if it weren’t concentrated elsewhere. Namely on Hypno and Noctowl, who hold arm and wing stretched towards the sculpture, eyes glowing as they reinforce a joint reflect shield. Right. Okay. That makes more sense.

There, Mewtwo says icily, fierce anger pulsing through his psychic field. I’ve given you your battle. Now talk.

Tyranitar would rather lie there for a second, apparently, but then he guffaws. “I suppose I did ask for that,” he says, stretching creakily. There are a couple new pits in his armor, you note. He seems both unhurried and completely oblivious to Mewtwo’s undisguised anger, pushing himself back to his feet while Hypno runs over to offer him a couple potions. Does he realize how close he came to losing one of his sculptures? Does he realize he might lose it yet, if he keeps aggravating Mewtwo? “I made you work for it, though,” Tyranitar goes on. “I’ll take that as a point of pride.”

You lost. There’s no honor in that.

“If that’s how you feel,” Tyranitar says. He accepts a Max Potion from hypno and sits heavily, spraying the drug into the chinks in his armor, trying to heal whatever damage lies beneath, you suppose. “So who do I know from Cipher, was that it?”

Yes, Mewtwo says. He lowers himself back to the ground, and you relax at last.

“Well, let me see,” Tyranitar says in his deep, deep voice. “It’s all a bit foggy, you understand. It’s not that I don’t remember that time, it’s that what I thought was important then isn’t the same as what’s important to me now. Makes it a bit hard to figure out what all went on.”

Get on with it, Mewtwo snarls.

“We know what you mean. Just remember what you can,” Noctowl says gently.

“The human who had me was one of the most important ones in the organization. Evice. But he’s old news. Put away a long time ago. Huge victory. Supposed to be the end of the Shadow Crisis.”

“But there was somebody else,” you say. “The real person running everything, and they got away.”

Tyranitar gives a curt nod. “Greevil and his sons, yes. I knew them. The top scientist, Ein. Lovrina. Everyone’s heard of those. But there were more, of course. Names…” Tyranitar lets out a long rumble, his eyes falling closed. “Baila, Arton, Aybel. Rixor and Naride. Jezzile. And someone named Edelyn. Who were they? No idea. Perhaps they weren’t part of Cipher but only people the admins talked about. People fighting against Cipher, even.”

You can see Mewtwo taking it all in, filing the names away in some personal collection. Good. You think you’re too excited to even remember them after this. Is that all? Mewtwo asks. Those seven?

“Is that all,” like you’ve gotten anywhere close to this much before now. “You never met any of those people?” you ask. “You only know their names?”

“I knew some of them, in a way,” Tyranitar says musingly. “Understand that it’s rare for shadow pokémon to be released from their pokéballs except for battle. We weren’t exactly encouraged to interact with humans. But Jezzile was a scientist. She worked with me–on me. If I was causing trouble, she was the one they’d send me to. I don’t know how useful any of this information is for you, though. I can’t tell you where she lived, even then. What she looked like? Who can say with humans? A little smaller than usual, with the lighter kind of hair. I don’t know if I ever met Rixor, but I heard about them often. An executive, I think. That was a name that seemed to make people nervous. Arton and Baila were battle partners. I did see them sometimes, I suppose. I couldn’t tell their sex. They were usually in that armor Cipher agents like to wear. One of them used a gloom and a sunflora. The other had a glalie, a piloswine, and…” Tyranitar thinks for a time, then lets out a sigh with a puff of sand. “That’s all I can remember. About any of them. The rest of them I only heard names. If I ever met them, I didn’t know.”

It’s almost nothing. It’s much more than you’ve ever been able to find. “We can start looking for them right away!” you say brightly, heart pounding. “Tonight!”

We can, Mewtwo says after a long moment. He’s distracted, stewing in conflicted feelings. But the air sings with unreleased tension, undeniable excitement. Thank you, the clone finally says, reluctantly. That’s very helpful. And… I suppose you were a worthier opponent than many I’ve encountered.

You’re impressed. That’s nearly a compliment.

“Excellent,” Hypno says, her eyes shining. “Thank you, Tyranitar.”

The huge pokémon nods. “Of course. Anything to help end Cipher for good.”

Anything? Mewtwo asks, and oh. You don’t like that tone.

“All right, well, perhaps not anything,” Tyranitar says with an uneasy chuckle. “But you know what I mean. Happy to help where I can.”

Ah, I see, Mewtwo says in a deadpan tone that doesn’t at all conceal his disdain. Whatever’s convenient, then. Wouldn’t want to go too far when it comes to ending humans who’ve done so much harm.

An uncomfortable silence follows. “How did you make these?” you ask desperately, pointing to a sculpture of a sleeping charmander.

Tyranitar gestures curtly at the ground, and a spire of rock jolts up, crunches, grinds into place. “I can get the general shape I’m looking for with my stone sense,” he says lazily. “The angle, the size. All of that. The trick is the setting and the composition of the rock. Can’t alter those. You have to find someplace that has as close to what you’re looking for as possible. After that, claws to start your subject off. Wind and sand take care of the rest. Usually takes a couple weeks.”

“Weeks!” You can’t help it. It bursts right out of you. You think the longest any of your art projects has taken is maybe a couple days.

“Tyranitar are considered some of the most skilled stone artisans in the world,” Noctowl supplies.

Tyranitar laughs. “Something like that. Sand and stone, that’s what we’re good at.”

“So you just live up here in the mountains now?” you ask. “You decided to stay in Orre? Why?”

“Orre’s empty,” Tyranitar says. “I guess some people would call it lonely, but I prefer to keep to myself anyway. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an advantage. Any other region, I’d be fighting all the time to keep other people from moving in on my space. They’d break my sculptures. Interrupt my process. Here, the whole mountain range is my canvas. Even the fact that it’s desert is ideal. There’s less wind here, less rain. It will take longer for my work to weather away. I don’t know if I could have found a more perfect spot if I tried.”

“If there’s nobody else around, that means nobody gets to enjoy your sculptures, though. Don’t you want people to see them?” You look around at the twisting spires and delicate bridges, the deerling peeking from behind stony trunks, slender and lively and completely still.

Tyranitar lets out a low, rumbling laugh, thumping his tail against the ground. “This is all for me. I make the mountains around here how I like them. I don’t mind people coming and going so long as they don’t touch anything. If it makes them happy, all the better. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m the only one I need to please.” He lets out a chuff of air, then, “Not a lot of visitors, and that suits me fine. That means not a lot of battles, though.” He inclines his head towards Mewtwo. “Clearly I’m out of practice.”

Mewtwo’s glaring at the carven city the Musketeers saved from him like he might set it on fire with his gaze. Which he could actually do if he wanted, you think nervously.

I don’t understand, the clone says darkly. After what Cipher did to you, how can you live alone out here, making your little artworks? How can you not long for retribution? You are reasonably powerful. Why not tear down Cipher’s labs around their ears?

“I’m not that strong, as well you know,” Tyranitar says. “I’d much rather put all that behind me. I thought it was.” He lets out an immense sigh, and you aren’t sure whether the wind takes it or if it’s the sigh itself that conjures the sandy, scouring breeze that streams across the plateau.

“I think we all did,” Noctowl says softly.

“You don’t have to worry, though. You’ve got us on the case,” Heracross says with a crooked grin. “Oh, and I guess Mewtwo, too, only the most powerful pokémon ever. Maybe that counts for something.”

Mewtwo thrums with pleasure for a second, but it won’t last. It’s time to go. Lingering here will only invite an argument.

Fortunately Hypno’s settling her backpack more comfortably on her shoulders, giving off a departing air. “You did more than you had to,” she tells Tyranitar. “Thank you. We really appreciate it.”

“Bah.” The huge rock-type shakes himself, a couple newly-shorn spines clattering down his back. “It was the least I could do. Good luck to you all.” He starts to turn away, but there’s something in his eyes as he stops to look back at the Musketeers, some kind of longing. You almost want to ask him if he’d like to come with you, but you can’t bring more people into this, into Mewtwo’s game.

You take a different path down the mountain, one that leads you through more of Tyranitar’s gallery. The sculptures grow more abstract the farther you descend, until they’re little more than wind-scoured lumps, suggestions of creatures rising out of stone, struggling to be free. The Musketeers seem in no hurry, wandering from carving to carving, considering. Hypno keeps trying to coax Mewtwo into something like a normal conversation. “I do wonder what all these different kinds of rock are called.”

Why? the clone asks, examining a carving of a faceless human cradling a blobbish sort of caterpie with deep contempt.

“I don’t know. I suppose it’s nice to know the names for things, and to know a little bit of history. There are different kinds of rocks in places that used to be ocean than ones that used to have volcanoes. Orre used to have volcanoes–well, there’s still one left.”

I thought art was a human endeavor, Mewtwo says, and you sigh inwardly. He couldn’t care less about the history of Orre, wouldn’t care about the place at all if it weren’t his mother’s prison. It must be hard for him to wrap his head around people spending time at something that isn’t fighting or being terrible.

“This is something we’d never find in Kanto, or in Johto. Orre may be a dirty place, and a dangerous one, and a hard one to live in. But it has its beauty, too,” Noctowl says.

“That’s right,” Hypno says. “People always like to say that about the desert, that it’s harsh but that there’s beauty in it. This is one of the beauties, isn’t it?”

Something about the exchange quiets Mewtwo the rest of the way down the mountain. He’s hardly a philosopher. His silence only makes you suspicious.

“Thank you,” Noctowl says once you reach the mountain’s base. “We never would have gotten that information from him without you.”

“That’s right. And good luck with it!” Heracross raises her drink in salute. “Go kick some Cipher ass, huh? Bet it feels satisfying to finally have some admins to sink your teeth into.”

Oh, it does, it does, Mewtwo purrs. I guarantee you that asses will be kicked.

You cringe. At least that was only bad and not actively mean.

“Thank you for coming with us, Mewtwo,” Hypno says. “After everything that happened with the picnic, I was afraid we might not see you again.”

What? Mewtwo’s indignant. You thought I would hide? From you?

“No, no,” Hypno says, raising her hands in a placating gesture. “I thought you wouldn’t want to deal with us again. Because we’re, you know, annoying.”

It’s hard for you to keep a straight face. Your lips keep wanting to twist all funny.

You were at fault, Mewtwo says generously, but I asked for information, and you provided it. That is the most important thing.

“And we’ll get more!” Heracross says. “We’ve got those names now, too. We’ll pass them around, see if anyone we know’s heard anything. Whether they jog any memories, that sort of thing.”

Good. You have done well so far. Another stunningly positive assessment.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?” Hypno says. “We should meet up again, information or not. I know the last time didn’t go so well, but… let us make it up to you.” Noctowl punctuates her words with a firm nod.

Mewtwo roils with internal conflict. Confusion. He doesn’t want to, truly. But he has to like the Musketeers at least a little bit, even despite himself. They say nice things about him and endure his rants with no more than strained smiles. He knows, too, that having him around while you’re visiting the Musketeers will make you miserable.

Of course, Mewtwo says smoothly. I would enjoy socializing with you, but I’m afraid I’m not well-versed in leisure activities. They don’t come naturally to me.

“We understand,” Noctowl says quietly.

“Yeah. It took us a while to figure out ‘leisure’ after our little adventure with Cipher, too,” Heracross says darkly. “Don’t worry about it! We can show you how to have a good time.”

“Absolutely.” Hypno smiles broadly. “What do you say we meet up in three days, then?”

Mewtwo nods without moving, a psychic command that makes your head bob. Very well. In three days.

“Thanks for offering,” you say quietly, working hard to keep any trace of bitterness from your voice. It isn’t the Musketeers’ fault. They don’t realize how awful Mewtwo is. They can tell he’s angry, even dangerous, but you doubt they take him for a murderer. They’re normal pokémon who are used to other pokémon being nice. They want to like him. They must really, really want to like him.

The Musketeers leave one way. You wait for their scooter to grow tiny and distant before setting out yourself. You and Mewtwo have nothing to say to each other, before the scooter ride or after. When you release him on the factory’s roof, he stalks away to look out over the desert like usual. You can feel heavy thoughts working around in his head.

You jump when something silky brushes against your arm. Absol! She looks up at you with deep red eyes. What’s she doing here?

I don’t understand, Mewtwo mutters to himself. So many pokémon know the evils of humanity. They have experienced them personally. And yet they do nothing to stop them. They feel no desire for revenge. They’d rather make their little sculptures or engage in pointless show fights or, worse, go off to serve some other humans instead! And all their excuses are, oh, I’m too weak, I could never do anything to them anyway.

The child frowns, considering. “Do you mean you think they should work together with other weak pokémon so when they’re combined they’re strong enough to do those things? Or should they do at least a little bit, even if they can’t get rid of Cipher completely?”

No, Mewtwo snaps. I’m saying this is why the weak are useless. This is why the powerful rule the world. It takes someone like me to right the wrongs those lazy fools don’t want to deal with.

“Strength is one thing. But it is not the only thing,” Absol says.

What do you mean? Do you think I should ask people to change? Mewtwo’s tail actually twitches a little, there, with the force of his derision. Who gives up power willingly? If you’re to have, you must take from someone else.

“Why do you think that?”

I wish you would give straight answers, Mewtwo says, and you feel an abrupt and unwanted flash of kinship.

“Sometimes you can get what you want without fighting, Mewtwo. Without people dying. Because killing people is bad.”

Yes, yes, everyone’s very eager to get on their moral high horse, aren’t they? Even though taking their slow, respectful approach would only lead to more deaths in the delay. Humans kill pokémon, and I kill humans. It’s what I was born to do. Mewtwo gives a mental headshake. I understand what you’re saying, Guardian. Truly, I do. But you are only a common pokémon, after all. Haven’t you ever wished you could simply snap your fingers–click you teeth, perhaps–and fix something?

Mewtwo lazily snaps his fingers, and a tearing bolt of psychic energy races across the sky. Clouds boil up in its wake, clouds that split and roar with lightning and practically hurl rain at the ground. You squeak and try to take shelter in the ziggurat’s doorway, but it wasn’t made with rain in mind. Nothing on this building was. Already puddles are forming on the broad, flat roof. You bet the interior’s full of leaks.

I can do that, Mewtwo says. I can fix everything. If I don’t allow myself to be bogged down by the constraints of lesser creatures. I am not one of them. I am not beholden to their rules.

Absol inclines her head the faintest bit, as if acknowledging a good show. “You are very confident in yourself. Many are not. They might wonder whether they truly saw so much more clearly than anyone else. They might wonder whether those they killed could have meant more alive. They might wonder whether their dreams of a better world would mean anything if they had to be bought with so much blood.”

I don’t understand why you’re so certain that I’m wrong, Mewtwo says. You know Fate. You know how all of this ends. You know I’m right. Admit it. I understand that you’re scared. I know you fear change, especially in those crevices your portents don’t reveal. But let go of that fear. What will come to pass will come to pass, won’t it?

“Do I seem fearful to you?”

You can feel a cutting comment right there at the edge of Mewtwo’s mind, not quite coalescing into words. Not even he dares speak it when he looks into Absol’s calm face. I’m right, is all he says at last.

“There is much one can learn from we common pokémon,” Absol says mildly. “I would not be so quick to assume that any action besides what you approve of is the same as inaction. I would not be so quick to assume that the way you see forward is the best way.”

The clone lets out a huff of air and turns away, as though his words are wasted on Absol. Other pokémon are confusing, he says bitterly.

How many pokémon has Mewtwo even known, really? The Champion’s team, and you’d guess that’s about it. And they aren’t exactly normal.

These shadow pokémon… Mewtwo begins. His hand clenches on thin air, then relaxes. I can tell they don’t like me. But they keep trying to. Why?

“They just want to be friends, Mewtwo.”

No. They must be playing at something. But he sounds uncertain of that. The heracross, maybe. She sees where I’m coming from. The hypno’s nervous, but she feels she must not understand me. And the noctowl–the noctowl pities me. Mewtwo’s tone is so venomous that your stomach churns with nausea. Me! And for no… For no good reason.

“You wanted to be friends with them in the first place,” you say after a long moment of silence. “Why don’t you believe that they want to be friends, too?”

To what purpose? That’s what I can’t grasp. You and I have good reason to seek their assistance. What do they gain? There’s a certain weariness about Mewtwo’s words, a kind of mental sigh. I wish they would be content being “friends” with you alone. I have no interest in these… bonding activities, whatever you want to call them. Pointless wastes of time. Imagine swimming for pleasure.

“But that’s what being friendly is,” you say in exasperation. “You can’t be friends if you don’t do anything besides work all the time!”

I have no talent for friendship. I was designed for battle. That is my interest, and that is where I have my greatest strength. I don’t understand this obsession with friendship. It’s nothing but a liability for someone like me.

He hasn’t watched enough TV. There are quite a few shows that could teach him about the power of friendship.

Oh, yes, humans do enjoy their friendship fictions, don’t they? Pokémon are friends? They love to give up their power to humans? Mewtwo chuckles nastily. And perhaps it’s poisoned pokémon as well. Made them soft, looking for succor rather than seeking to improve themselves. Yes. Perhaps that’s it.

Mewtwo’s really weird. “I don’t believe strength matters for friendship,” Absol says, to your surprise. “The strong, the weak. The old stories hold examples of both. Often it was the weaker friend who offered the stronger something they couldn’t get for themselves, despite their power.”

Mewtwo chuckles again, a dark and bitter sound. Is that it, then? Tell me, Guardian. Do your visions of me include anything like friends?

Absol is silent. More laughter. I have never had friends in my entire life. I certainly don’t intend to begin now.

“I suppose after all your many years, it makes sense that you’d be set in your ways,” Absol says blandly.

You’re trying to puzzle out why she would say Mewtwo has many years–he’s barely older than you–and why Mewtwo’s getting mad about it when the clone breaks in with a sneer. I have more important concerns to attend to. Such as my mother. Perhaps once she is no longer being imprisoned and tortured I can turn my attention to such entertaining tasks as learning to make friends.

“You could try being less scary,” you say. “The shadow pokémon want to like you, Mewtwo. You won’t have to do much.”

Less scary? Less scary? His laughter is bad, reverberating in your chest instead of his–he’s as ever icy, quiet, still. But it’s bad not in the way it was before: less bitter and instead somehow wild, almost desperate. Everyone fears me. Everyone. Perhaps if more people had my particular gifts, they wouldn’t trouble themselves with thoughts of “friendship.” I know what others think of me, all of it. All the thoughts that would never leave the skulls of the polite. All the desires unrealized, the secrets concealed behind social niceties. How often do people lie? How often do they look on their supposed friends with contempt? I alone have the privilege of knowing exactly what others think of me.

Your stomach clenches. That doesn’t sound like a privilege, actually. Even people you really like–well, you get annoyed with them sometimes, too. It’s a good thing they can’t see everything that goes through your head. After all, you can’t help it when you get angry, even if you know it’s unfair. You can’t help it, the same way you can’t help the thoughts that well up when you look at Mewtwo. You can’t control them, you can’t help them, and you know Mewtwo can see all of them, even if you would never say–

That you pity me? Another dark wave of laughter washes over you. You’re a fool. The same as the rest. I know the truth. And the truth is power. All of you who prefer your world of cozy, comfortable lies–cowards. I know what people think. I know that they fear. They all fear. Your ribs ache from horrible laughter. My own mother feared me. Did you know that?

You did, yes. You have her memories, after all. But you hadn’t realized–of course he would be able to see it. Of course he knew and would know. Mewtwo’s emotions buffet you, twisted humor and disdain. Your own quiet thoughts hold nothing but weary sadness.

Yes, they all fear me, Mewtwo says. So let them! He looks down on Orre. If they would fear me, I will give them something to fear. If they think I’m frightening now, well. I haven’t even gotten started.

He laughs at that, long and loud, and you decide to leave him to it, your heart pounding in your ears. Mercifully he lets you go, and you retreat back down the factory’s stairs until at last you aren’t beset by fits of horrified giggles. You sigh in relief, then leap in fright when something pale white glides through the shadows.

Absol stares back at you calmly. No comment necessary.

“Did you know it was going to go like that? Was that Fate?”

“I saw nothing. But I am not surprised.”

You’re not surprised, either. Rats would say you needed to try anyway. Maybe you did. And at least Absol did something. “Mewtwo just hates everybody. It’s pointless trying to talk to him.”

“I think your brother is very lonely,” Absol says.

“Maybe he’d be less lonely if he tried to be friendly instead of murdering people all the time,” you say viciously and stand up. “I’m going to sleep now, since I can’t sleep at night, because Mewtwo keeps wanting me to be there so I can help him kill people.”

It doesn’t actually feel good to be more right than Absol. She doesn’t follow you, doesn’t acknowledge that you won. And you don’t sleep, either. You lie in darkness and try to remember Tyranitar’s stone sculptures, tracing their contours with your mind’s eye. They’re beautiful, intricate, sweeping stonework legends and inspiring battles. But you think your favorite is the lumpy one with the human and the caterpie. The one that Mewtwo hated.