Chapter 54

The person who answers the door is human, and you freeze, thinking you must have somehow gotten Hypno’s house wrong. You feel like that’s the sort of mistake you could make right now. For a second you consider staying anyway and talking to whoever this is, who cares, but then you remember that Hypno lives with her trainer, and–yes, you’ve seen her before, haven’t you? You’re not especially good with faces right now, but you’re definitely confident that you’ve met this human before.

“Hello?” the woman says.

“Hello,” you say. “I am looking for Hypno.”

“Oh, well…” The woman glances over her shoulder. “I don’t know if she’s up yet, actually.”

“That is okay. I can wait.”

“Uh, hmm, maybe you could come back later? Hypno has class in the morning, but she’s usually back by 1:30 or so.”

No. No, no. Absolutely not. “I will wait,” you say, and shoulder past her. Then you’re in Hypno’s house for the first time, and it’s nice. There are pictures on the walls and everything.

Hypno’s trainer catches herself against the doorframe, then draws herself up, not quite matching your height. “Um! The two of us are going to be leaving soon, but you can come back later. I’m sorry, but you can’t wait here.”

You offer the woman a smile, and her eyes get kind of big. She shrinks back against the wall and calls out, “Hy-Hypno? Are you up? There’s… There’s someone here to see you.”

To your relief Hypno appears a couple seconds later, moving much faster than you’d expect from someone who was supposedly just asleep. Her arm’s up, pendant swinging from her fingers, its flashing arc drawing your eyes. Something about you gives Hypno pause. “Yes?” she ventures. “How can I help you?”

She doesn’t recognize you. Of course she doesn’t. Nobody’s ever been you up to a few hours ago. And then you’re about to say that you’re Mewtwo’s friend, and your stomach clenches so you know if you mention him you’re just going to throw up all over Hypno and not stop, ever. You try to think through dizziness and instead say, “It’s me. From… from the factory.”

“Oh,” Hypno says, but the look she gives you isn’t much more welcoming. Shouldn’t she be happy to see you? She said to come by any time, didn’t she? If you ever needed anything? Or…

She knows. She must know. Everybody has to know now. It must say on your forehead, even, in big letters: “murd”–

“Hello. I wanted to see you,” you say.

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning,” Hypno says.

There’s a big illuminated clock outside a drugstore down the street, glowing through a high-up window. “It’s 6:49 AM,” you say. There! That was helpful. You’re helping. You’re helping, and what you were thinking about earlier doesn’t even make any sense. Of course Hypno doesn’t know anything. She’s just your friend, right? She’s surprised to see you, but she’s your friend, and she doesn’t know anything.

Hypno’s trainer’s eyes have only gotten bigger while she’s been standing there, watching you converse. Oh, right. You’ve been talking pokémon. Hypno turns and gives a meaningful nod towards the door.

“Well, I think I ought to get going,” Hypno’s trainer says, like it’s a question.

“Okay. If you want,” you say.

Hypno gives her trainer another firm nod, then starts off down the hall. “Why don’t we go to the kitchen?” she suggests. “Would you like something to drink? Some coffee, maybe?”

“Coffee is gross. Do you have more of the fruity soda from the picnic?”

“We might have a bottle hanging around,” Hypno says. “Come on. It’s this way.”

You leave Hypno’s trainer still standing there by the door. Maybe she changed her mind about going out.

The kitchen is almost suspiciously clean. Where does Hypno keep all of her cooking things? There isn’t even a milkshake maker. But she does find a bottle of red cherry soda in her fridge, and points you to a seat at a small table, then sits down herself with a cup of tea close to hand.

“So, what brings you out here so early? Is everything okay? Did something happen with” and then the rest of the words are cut off by a noise like radio static, but that’s okay, you think you know what she was saying anyway.

“No! Nope! Everything is good. I remembered you said we could come over anytime, and I was bored, so I thought I would visit and see your house. It’s really nice! But don’t you even have a toaster oven?”

“No, we don’t,” Hypno says. But she’s giving you a strange look, and then you remember, of course, she’s psychic. Even if she isn’t as strong as… as other psychics, she can tell what you’re feeling. You have to calm down. You have to stop thinking about things so you can calm down.

“That’s too bad! Toaster ovens are great. You can make pizza bagels in them,” you say. “Or do you not have toaster ovens in Orre? Is that another thing you don’t have here?”

“I can’t say I’ve seen any around,” Hypno says. She scratches an ear, and with sinking dread you realize she’s going to say something to make you go away. She doesn’t want to talk about toaster ovens. You have to come up with something better.

“If you don’t mind,” Hypno begins, but you’re quick to swoop in with, “Were you watching TV? You like TV, right? Maybe we should watch some TV right now.”

“I have class this morning,” Hypno says. “I was planning to leave soon, actually. The same as Alina. Maybe we could pick this conversation up tomorrow?”

No, no, no. She can’t make you leave. Where else would you go? Heracross isn’t home, and you don’t know where Noctowl lives. You don’t want to go out and meet random people. And you don’t want to go back, you really don’t want to go back where you came from. Not now, not ever. Never again. “Okay, you can go to school if you really want to,” you say, “but first I wanted to ask you….”

What? What will make her stay? It can’t be an easy question. It has to be a good question. You don’t think you’ve been further from thinking up a good question in your life. Already Hypno’s frowning into the pause. Irritated. Impatient. Actually more interested in going to school than hanging out with you.

“What was it like to be a shadow pokémon?” you blurt out.

That makes Hypno stop scowling, at least. She stares like she isn’t sure she heard you. “What was being a shadow pokémon like?”

“Yes!” Maybe this will actually work. She’s not asking you to go away yet, at least. “Shadow pokémon are all really weird in the movies. And scary! But you don’t seem like that at all. Or Noctowl, or Heracross, or even Tyranitar!” It’s hard to imagine Hypno ever being a shadow pokémon, with glowing red eyes and lots of blood on. Her pink helmet keeps trying to creep into your mental picture.

“It’s not like the movies, no,” Hypno says. She turns her eyes away from you, curling in around her tea. Not good. She doesn’t want to talk to you. She doesn’t want to talk to you and she wants you to go away.

You don’t want to do it. You don’t want to do it at all. But you have to get her to talk or she’s going to make you leave, and then where will you go? Who will you be, what will you do now? “I wanted to know because I thought it might be like with, with Mewtwo and–and you would know things about it.”

“Like with Mewtwo?” That does get her attention. You try not to react to the name. You try to hold it in your mind without thinking about it. You don’t want to talk about Mewtwo, you don’t. Instead you nod.

“Did something happen with him? Is that why you’re out here at the crack of dawn, looking like you’ve been in a traffic accident?”

You don’t know about traffic accident, you don’t know why she’s saying that. But you know, reluctantly, agonizingly, that there’s only one thing that’s going to hold her attention right now. “Yes. Something happened with Mewtwo,” you say softly.

Hypno looks towards the door as though expecting to see the clone there, waiting behind you. And that’s scary enough that you turn to look, too. But no, of course no one’s there. “Mewtwo?” she says. “Really?” Her grip tightens around her cup. “He’s not a shadow pokémon,” she says quietly. “But he had something similar happen to him. And you’re right, maybe some of the same things could help him.”

“He’s awful,” you say vehemently.

“That’s not what I meant.” For a moment you’re frozen, transfixed by the fury in Hypno’s expression. Why is she so mad? Mewtwo is awful. Even she must see it.

You think this might be a time to apologize, since you’ve so obviously offended, even if you don’t understand why. But you can’t. You’re right, and you’re not going to pretend Mewtwo’s anything but what he is. Especially not now. Instead you turn your attention to the unopened bottle of soda in front of you. “Was it bad?” you ask after a few seconds. “When I asked about being a shadow pokémon. Do you not want to talk about it?”

“Well, it is a bit of a personal question,” Hypno says. “Would you want someone asking you about the worst day of your life? People don’t always want to think about that sort of thing, especially not when they’re caught off guard by it. It’s nice to imagine that you might have normal days, now, when you don’t even think about what happened.”

You want to protest that you died and you don’t even care if people want to know about it, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but then you think of Lance and the master ball and you suppose, actually, that there are some things you don’t want questions about after all.

You might have sat there for a very long time, too scared and sad to move, until Hypno got up and left. But she stays. At last she speaks. “What it’s like to be a shadow pokémon… It’s a little hard to say. You have to understand, you really aren’t yourself when you’re shadowed. Looking back, it’s hard to even understand what you were thinking or feeling or any of that. It’s almost like remembering a bad dream, you know? You understand it was scary, but it doesn’t really make sense if you think about it while you’re awake.”

You nod, slowly. You think you understand that a little bit. A lot of your memories don’t fit quite right, the ones that happened to your other self, or the ones from when you were Mew. They don’t feel like they actually happened to you, mostly, and a lot of them are hard to understand.

“So, that’s my disclaimer,” Hypno says. “But what it feels like… It doesn’t really feel like anything. It doesn’t feel bad. I guess that’s why they talk about ‘closing the door to a pokémon’s heart’ or things like that. It’s not being angry or violent or anything. It’s being nothing. Or…” Hypno tugs on an ear, looking off into space. “It’s reacting in the moment without really thinking about it. It’s like the only time that exists is now, and it’s always been now, and it’s always going to be now. If that makes sense.”

It definitely doesn’t. “But shadow pokémon attack people! Like wild pokémon, except for no reason! They are violent.”

“Well, there’s a couple reasons for that,” Hypno says. “The first is that shadow pokémon don’t really understand hurting other people. You know that pokémon don’t want to seriously injure their opponents when they battle, right? Or themselves. Shadow pokémon don’t care. They use all their strongest attacks, with as much force as they can put behind them, as many times as it takes before they either exhaust themselves or their opponents stop attacking. They don’t understand battle rules, either, and that alone makes fighting them dangerous.” Hypno stops for a sip of tea, but before you can say anything, she goes on. “It’s more than that, though. The shadow process wears off over time. Shadow pokémon start to get flashes of emotion–fear, anger, sadness, even something like happiness or contentment. They don’t know how to handle them, even the positive ones–they’re strange, and they’re scary, and they can make a shadow pokémon lash out. That’s why they seem unpredictable and violent, and they actually get more dangerous the closer they are to being purified. They’re closer to being ‘normal,’ but they don’t know how to process what’s happening to them.”

“So you were afraid of being happy?”

Hypno sighs. “More like I didn’t remember how to be happy, so when my body tried to do that, it kind of backfired and made me go crazy instead.”

It’s actually impossible to imagine Hypno going crazy over anything. She’s still talking, not even to you, really. To no one, or the air. “It was very strange. You’d get flashes of your old life, and they’d feel so alien to what you were experiencing–it’s like being shadow didn’t really bother me until I remembered what it was like not to be. Mostly I didn’t. But sometimes something would catch me, you know? A smell, or a familiar place, whatever it was. And that was so scary and sad and confusing that it was a relief when the shadow took hold again.” She looks down into her tea. “Professor Krane thinks that memory’s really important for understanding shadowfication, actually. That’s why Celebi’s supposed to be able to heal shadow pokémon. Purify them, whatever. Celebi’s specialty is history. She can return a pokémon the history that’s been stolen from them. Bring back memories.”

“You got to meet Celebi?!”

“Well, no,” Hypno says, face crinkling up in an embarrassed grimace. “I was purified with Professor Krane’s machine. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? It works a little differently. But Heracross visited the Relic Stone. I don’t know if I’d exactly recommend asking her about it, but, well… Maybe if you get to be good friends.”

You enjoy a moment of bitter satisfaction over how jealous Mewtwo would be of that. “So you got rescued and then purified from the professor’s dancing machine, and then you decided to stay in Orre and become a hypnotism, right?”

Hypno smiles faintly. “More or less. It’s not quite as simple as getting ‘purified’ and being completely back to normal. I spent some time working with Michael, learning how to cope with making my own decisions again, figuring out what I was going to do next. That’s kind of how it works, I guess–you have to remember how to feel things, and then how to live, and then…” Hypno waves a hand vaguely. “Then you get to decide what you’ll do with the rest of your life.”

Hypno seems like she has things all figured out, but it doesn’t make any sense. People forget things all the time, and it doesn’t give them glowy eyes or weird auras. “I do not get it. How could forgetting things make you learn how to do other things? Like use shadow attacks?”

Hypno leans back in her chair and smiles at nothing. “Oh, boy. Does Professor Krane ever have theories about that.” She shakes her head. “I mean, this is getting way beyond what I understand, but I guess Professor Krane’s idea is that the memory loss is more of a symptom than the actual cause–it’s part of what makes the condition so hard to come back from, but what really makes a shadow pokémon a shadow pokémon is some kind of change in aura metabolism or something. You’d have to talk to Professor Krane about it, honestly. He’s got this whole schpiel about how the body affects the mind and vice versa, and infinity energy and aura and how your mood regulates them and how they get out of balance and all that.”

She goes to take another sip of her tea, but then stares down into her cup and sets it aside, empty. You expect her to make some excuse about leaving then, or at least go back to the kettle for a refill, but she seems thoughtful, not entirely focused on what’s in front of her. “I don’t know. Memory has to be important somehow. That was the whole idea behind trying to make shadow pokémon that couldn’t be purified, like Lugia. Pokémon who would get permanently stuck in shadow kinds of thoughts, I guess. Like they’d never be able to find their way back out. Pokémon like me, we still had all our memories, they were just suppressed. If you could get rid of them entirely, then shadowfication could last forever, I guess.”

You still can’t believe Cipher managed to catch a legendary pokémon and stick it in a machine. You suppose they must have done that with Mew, too, but Lugia’s so big! And it lives underwater most of the time, so how did Cipher ever find it? It’s so weird to think of things like that happening in Orre, a tiny region nobody cares about.

“You really like Professor Krane, don’t you?” you ask. “You talk about him all the time.”

“Well, sure,” Hypno says with a smile. “He helped me out a lot, obviously, and all the other shadow pokémon, too. He did more than he needed to, honestly, with getting me set up here and everything. We aren’t just research subjects to him, you know? He actually cares. Even if shadow pokémon can be pretty hard to care for sometimes, with everything some of us did.”

You squeeze the bottle of soda. You haven’t even taken a sip, you realize distantly, but it’s not like you’re actually thirsty. “Did you do bad things when you were a shadow pokémon?”

“Well, definitely some things I’m not proud of. Not things I’d do today, or want to do again, ever. But I had it easier than some people.”

“Did you ever kill someone?”

“No,” Hypno says immediately. “But when I was shadowed, if someone had told me to kill, well, I would have. And some people did.” A deep frown steals over her face, her forehead creasing in what you think must be actual anger. It’s a strange expression on her face, which seems built for her mild smile. “Too many people. That was one of the draws of shadow pokémon, wasn’t it? That they’d be fighting machines who’d never question orders.”

“Do you know anybody who killed someone?”

“That’s another one of those very personal questions,” Hypno says in a voice that’s somehow final.

So she’s not going to tell you. That probably means “yes,” doesn’t it? Otherwise she would have said “no” real loud, the same way she did when you asked about her. Who is it? One of the other Musketeers? Or some other shadow pokémon friend you’ve never met?

“But that’s enough about me,” Hypno says. “All this shadow talk.”

No. No, it’s not enough. She can’t stop talking now. She’s going to make you go away, and you can’t leave. Not now, not ever. “I, I, no,” you say. “What about–?”

“But I am curious,” Hypno cuts you off, “why you’re out here at this hour. In some kind of disguise?”

That isn’t much better. But she isn’t telling you to go away yet. You laugh desperately. “It is not a disguise! I just look like this sometimes.”

Hypno peers at you, like the ceiling light isn’t enough to see you by. “You’re definitely taller now, aren’t you? How does that–?”

“It is nothing! It is normal!”

“Yes. This is all very normal, I can tell.” Hypno sits back again, but she’s still studying you, not suspicious, maybe, but troubled. Her gaze is intent. Normally you’d want to leave, to get away from that look, but you’re not getting up from this table ever again in your life.

“You know, you’ve never told us much about yourself,” Hypno says. “It was strange enough to meet a human who could understand pokémon, but you can speak our language, too? I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I am special.”

“Clearly.” Hypno contemplates you with horrifying attention. “You know, if you’re a ditto or something, that’s totally fine. You don’t need to–”

“I am not a ditto.”

“Okay, fine. You’re not a ditto. What are you, then? You’ve heard my story. What about yours?”

She wouldn’t believe your story, even if you wanted to tell it. Even if you wanted to go paging back through your memories today, or ever. “I am special,” you say again, hopelessly. “I am here because… because I want to find Mew.”

“Yes. But why? Why is that so important to you? How did you even figure out that Mew’s… lost? Or that Cipher has her?”

You try not to squeeze your soda too hard. If you pop it, Hypno’s going to know something’s wrong, and then she’s going to ask about it. She’s going to keep asking and asking, trying to make you think about things you don’t want to. Things you really shouldn’t. Can’t. She’ll keeps asking questions. Your pulse pounds in your temples, and you try to focus on the soda. You can’t make your fingers unclench enough to let it go, but you can make yourself stop squeezing before the plastic crumples and the red liquid inside sprays everywhere, on you, on the table, on Hypno… You aren’t going to do that. You concentrate very hard on the plastic between your hands, feeling the pulse in your fingertips like it’s coming from the bottle itself.

Hypno’s taking a breath. She’s gearing up to ask something else, she’s going to keep talking at you and talking at you until you screw something up. It’s too much. You can’t do this, you can’t. “Stop! Stop asking questions! Stop it!”

Hypno winces like she’s been slapped, and you try to breathe. That’s it. You ruined it. You’ve made everything worse.

At least Hypno stopped talking for a moment. You have some time to think, now, not about what Hypno wants you to, but about what you need to. Only what’s happening now. Right now. Nothing that came before.

“I’m sorry,” Hypno says after a long pause. “I can tell you aren’t feeling well. I don’t suppose you want to talk about that, either?”

“No.”

Hypno nods and drums her fingers on the table. “Well, that’s all right, I guess. I can’t stay with you much longer, but I’m not going to turn you away, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t exactly blame you if you don’t want to go back to the factory, but, you know… Are you going to be okay until I get back?”

“Yes. I will be fine. I do not… I do not want to go back. If you will let me stay here… Thank you.” You twist the neck of the soda bottle back and forth between your hands, ever aware of how fragile it is, how easy to tear.

“All right.” Hypno expels a long breath through her nose and sets her teacup aside. “Let’s see… I’ll let Alina know, I guess. We must have some extra blankets around somewhere. I can do up the couch in case you want to sleep at all.” Her gaze flicks to the green-glowing microwave clock, and she grimaces. “Let’s see what I can find.”

You aren’t sure if you’re supposed to go with Hypno or wait for her to come back, but when she starts to leave you realize that you definitely don’t want to sit here alone, actually. Hypno doesn’t seem to care about you following her. You could be convinced she doesn’t even notice you’re there, but she’s psychic. She must always be feeling who’s around her. She mutters to herself while she digs through a drawer full of sheets, absorbed in her work. Until suddenly she isn’t. Stopping, turning to look over her shoulder at nothing.

It makes your heart race without you even realizing why. Then you feel it, the faint, far-off prickle of some other mind, a consciousness now conscious of you, and you stop being able to think of anything else.

Hypno says something to you. You can see her lips moving, see her frown, but you can’t hear anything, nothing but the buzz inside your own head, the mounting pressure that you’re all too sure will form into words, the malevolent broadcast of the worst pokémon on the planet.

Hypno’s moving away, abandoning the still-open drawer. You’re paralyzed, unable to decide where to run, where to hide. You need to teleport. Where? Where can you go?

I see you. The voice is far-off but commanding. Don’t even think of running.

Hypno. What’s going to happen to Hypno? You realize now what she must be doing. She’s going to the door. She’s going to let Mewtwo in. You hurry after her, mouth dry and throat closed up in terror. You have to take her with you.

The psychic pressure grows stronger, horribly stronger, horribly fast. Mewtwo must be flying around out there, or walking through the streets of Phenac City. Of course secrecy would never be enough to stop him from setting out to find you.

No. The voice echoes loud within your skull. Hypno’s at the door, looking through its little bubble window. You ran away. You forced me to disregard your precious secrecy in order to find you.

A shadow falls across the peephole. You start to call out, make one desperate bid to stop Hypno as she reaches for the handle, but then Mewtwo’s voice is in your head again. Don’t even try it. Act as though everything’s normal. It will go even worse for you if you interfere.

Act normal. Right. Hypno can feel your every jangling nerve, if you aren’t getting drowned out by Mewtwo’s psychic presence. Even if you are, she must at least be able to hear the hammering of your heart. Your words remain trapped in your throat, and you can’t do more than watch as Hypno opens the door.

“Mewtwo! I thought you couldn’t be seen. Do you… do you want to come in?” Hypno hesitates a moment, there. She can feel what Mewtwo’s feeling. He’s not angry in his usual explosive way, but there’s nonetheless a disturbing cold intent to his thoughts. Perhaps this is his version of “acting normal,” the best he can muster to hide the true depths of his fury.

Yes, thank you, Mewtwo says, and ducks through the doorway. His eyes stay locked on you, and you reach to grab the wall behind you, shaking as you are.

“What happened?” Hypno asks. “Your friend is terrified, and if you’re coming out of hiding…”

Nothing you need to worry about. The situation is under control. I only came to collect my associate.

“Did you?” Hypno shoots a glance at you, and you straighten up, lent strength by terror alone. You need to calm down, you need to, before Mewtwo starts getting angry at you. Angrier. Before he devises some even-worse punishment for you. Because there must be some punishment coming.

Oh, yes. Punishment indeed, Mewtwo says. Perhaps if you perform well now, I can be convinced to be lenient. We shall see. You haven’t shown much promise thus far.

That doesn’t help. You swallow, leaning harder against the wall while your vision fuzzes from the very thought of what Mewtwo’s going to do to you.

To Hypno, Mewtwo says, Yes. We have work to do. I’m sorry to have bothered you.

“It’s not a bother. Do you think your friend ought to stay here for a while, though? They don’t seem to be feeling well.”

They feel fine, Mewtwo says, and the psychic pressure intensifies around you. You have to answer, then.

“I am okay,” you croak.

“You don’t sound very okay.” Hypno crosses her arms.

Excellent work, Mewtwo hisses, and you flinch despite yourself.

“No, really, I am fine,” you say, drawing yourself up as best you can. Can you be your other self now? You’d feel better, but it really wouldn’t help you “act normal.” “I should go… go with Mewtwo.”

Hypno looks slowly between the two of you. “What happened?” she asks. “You’re worrying me, both of you. If there’s something back at the factory and you need to stay here for a bit, that’s perfectly fine. I promise.”

That’s very generous of you, Mewtwo says, but I’m afraid we must leave. We have work to do. Perhaps later we can discuss whether anything needs to change.

“Yes,” you say, not meeting Mewtwo’s gaze. “He is… right. We should go back.”

“Are you sure?” Hypno’s looking directly at you. Little frissons of anger skirl through the air, courtesy Mewtwo.

You should really look her in the eye and say it. Should shove back your shoulders and project all the confidence in the world, so she knows you truly mean it. Mewtwo’s watching. But it’s all you can do just to get the words out, in a mostly-normal voice. “I’m sure. I’m okay. We’re going to be fine.”

Let’s go. Mewtwo’s tone is deadly firm.

Hypno frowns, turning her pendant over and over between her fingers, but all she says is, “All right, if you’re really sure about it. But you can call on me if you ever need something. It’s no trouble. Really.”

Of course. I appreciate that very much. But for now, we must be going.

You don’t need the extra emphasis on the last word. You know what Mewtwo expects. You start forward, head down, careful not to look at Hypno. You don’t want there to be any chance that she’ll try to stop you. You don’t know if you’d be able to keep following Mewtwo if she did.

You try to move faster, despite the weight of Mewtwo’s mind pressing you down into the floor. Every step is one step closer to whatever horrible punishment he has in mind for you. Each one takes you further from Hypno, though. At least she’ll be safe if you leave. At least she won’t have to see anything.

Outside it’s almost full light, pale blue sky tinged orange and pink just above the horizon. You flinch when Mewtwo steps out after you, an invisible force pulling the door closed behind him. He stands tall and alien on this quiet Phenac City street, in full view of anyone passing by, anyone glancing from a window at the sunrise.

If you hadn’t made me come looking for you–

“Yes, I know!” you hiss, feeling desperately exposed. Any second now someone will come along and make a scene, and then Mewtwo will do something about it, like he wanted to do to those children in Agate. You can’t take anything else after last night. Nothing more, nothing ever again. “Just get in your master ball so we can go.”

Oh? You think you’re the one in charge?

He would be horrible about it, of course. Even now he’d rather be horrible than do what’s best for your mission. “Just get inside.” You swallow down the lump in your throat. “Please. If you do I’ll… never run away again. I’ll stop complaining to you so much and saying your ideas are bad. I’ll be good if you’ll get in your master ball.” You just need everything to stop for a while.

Mewtwo doesn’t say anything for long, horrible seconds. Drawing it out, making you wait, sick with fear, on his decision. But at last he says, I’ll hold you to that, and disappears in a flash of red. The master ball clatters to the pavement in front of you and lies inert, innocent, innocuous in the growing light.

You stare at it, wrung-out brain throwing up impossible thoughts. Dangerous ones.

You couldn’t. Get rid of it, make it so he can never get back at you. Make it so he can never make you do something you don’t want to ever again. Make it so he’ll never be able to hurt anybody else.

But you can’t. That would be the end of your mission, wouldn’t it? Mew would be gone forever. Would you leave your mother to die, just to get rid of Mewtwo?

You might. Right now you think you honestly might.

Your heart pounds sickeningly, pulsing in your empty, aching head. You can get rid of Mewtwo now, for good. Before things get even worse. If that means Cipher keeps Mew forever, that’s really bad, but even an important pokémon can’t be worth all the people Mewtwo’s going to kill. Just like he said, he’s only getting started.

You shove the master ball into your pocket, trying to block Mewtwo’s whining from your mind. It’s harder to hear him when you aren’t actually touching the master ball, but he’s being loud enough that you get the gist of his complaints, not that they’re any different than usual.

You need to get rid of the ball. What to do with it? Throw it in the ocean? Hide it down deep in a cave? It has to be somewhere no one will ever find it. Somewhere far, far away, so that not even a powerful psychic will be able to hear the pleas of Mewtwo’s trapped and angry mind.

You’re already walking, without knowing where you’re going to. The master ball burns feverishly inside your pocket. You need something to put it in. Yes. There. A raggedy bag of chips showing bright blue amidst the detritus of an unclean gutter. Peel it out of the dirt, and it’s mostly whole, only frayed where it was torn open. Shove the master ball in without bothering to dump out the sand-blasted gunk inside, start looking for something to tie it with. It radiates angry energy. You need to get rid of it, fast.

You set off briskly down a side street, away from Phenac City’s grand fountain, which you hear burbling a few blocks over. How lucky you are to find yourself in Orre. There’s no better place to hide something. Wander out into the desert, as far from civilization as you like. Find somewhere empty, no landmarks in sight. Dig a hole, deep, deep down, dig until you’re swallowed by sand massed on sand. Drop the bag there, then fill everything in.

If you dig deep enough, no one will feel Mewtwo’s mind from the surface. There are no pokémon to encounter him by chance burrowing. No reason for anyone to dig in some nowhere-empty patch of sand. You pick up speed, restless energy turning to eager resolve. Morning’s coming on fast–you don’t have long before you’re caught by the full heat of the day. Not long before you’re rid of Mewtwo forever.

You can have your life back. You sprint out into the desert, aiming for nowhere but the most anonymous patch of sand that you can find. Mewtwo thought Orre would be the stage to host his greatest triumph. Let it be his tomb instead.