Chapter Three: Mewtwo
Denver, ColoradoThe crimson-haired man awoke with a jolt. He felt like he would vomit blood again, but he did not. Maybe there wasn't enough left in his body, he thought.
He looked down at his body to discover that his wounds were closed. He reached up to his eye and felt that even the massive gash on his forehead had scabbed over. He had been changed into fresh clothes, too; he now wore an immaculate white hospital gown.
He was lying on a hospital bed in an otherwise empty white room. There were no doors, but there was a long rectangular window running along the length of one of the walls. It offered a view of what appeared to be some high tech facility; various machines could be seen with their lights blinking on and off in monotonous repetition.
Sitting in a forest green rolling chair, looking in at him through the glass, was the hunter who had captured him. He no longer wore his armor nor his cape; he was dressed simply in a black suit on which his battalion's crest was emblazoned in lime green. He had a stern, virtually emotionless face and short, neat, slicked back hair. By some unnatural occurrence, both his hair and his eyes were an eerie bright green. Hunters had been known to alter their physical appearance in order to identify their squadron of allegiance, or so the rumors went. The crimson-haired man had never seen a hunter without his helmet before.
"What do you want with me?" The captured man asked, assuming that his capturer could hear him through some sort of intercom, as he sat up in his bed.
"I have already made my aims clear," The hunter replied stoically, "I want to know the location of the axe. I know that it was, until recently, in your possession. Where is it?"
"What axe?" The bedridden man answered the question with another question.
"You know well what axe I'm referring to, Demi-Pokemon. The Seismic Incisor. The physical manifestation of the power of the Super Demi-Pokemon Groudon."
"Oh, that's right," The supposed Demi-Pokemon rubbed his temples, "I'll never tell you." Upon remembering, the man unhesitantly returned to his attitude of indignation.
The hunter suddenly disappeared and reappeared at his prey's bedside, holding one of his ornate green pistols to the man's head while the other rested at its owner's side.
"You can teleport. That's not scary," The prey said, unafraid, "Anyone can do that these days. I'm not afraid of you. After what I've seen... your ordinary weapons can't scare me. What are those... custom-modded Venusaur Guns? That's unimpressive."
"You're arrogant," The hunter remarked, though he seemed unannoyed by this insolence, "If you will not tell me where the Seismic Incisor is, I will kill you."
"No you won't. That would be a waste. You know I know where the axe is, so you're going to use a mind-reader wand on me."
"I don't need to," The corner of the hunter's mouth curved upward slightly to create what could barely be called a smile, "Because killing you will reveal its location to me instantly."
The Demi-Pokemon chuckled lightly, as if impressed.
"How'd you figure it out?"
"Your confidence. Any regular Demi-Pokemon would be terrified. You are merely indignant. You don't fear my ability to easily take your life right now, and that is exactly why I now will."
"Sorry. I won't let you." He swung his right arm, which instantaneously transformed into a ruby-red claw, at the gun-toting hunter. The hunter jumped back quickly, avoiding the swiping attack. The bed collapsed as Grayson Quinn took on the form of the ruby-plated behemoth Groudon. As he grew to his full height of eleven and a half feet, his head almost hit the ceiling of the room.
"As I thought," The hunter nodded, "But what I cannot figure out is why you made it so easy for me to find you. Why were you alone in the open? How did you become so mortally wounded?"
"There's something out there that's more powerful and more dangerous than the Super Demi-Pokemon," Grayson explained in his mighty roaring voice, "You should refocus your efforts."
"Unlikely. Demi-Pokemon are the single most dangerous threat in the universe... and I will not rest until every one of them is eliminated."
"Just wait, hunter. That ignorance is going to be your undoing." Grayson struck the ground with one of his mighty claws. The floor began to crumble. The hunter teleported out of the collapsing room before he could fall victim to gravity. He knew better than to try chasing the ground-type Super Demi-Pokemon underground.
Milwaukee, WisconsinDart and Rose sat across from each other at the square, false wooden table in their kitchen. The former was eating ravenously, and had already consumed most of his meal. The latter, on the other hand, had barely touched her food, and was childishly moving peas around her plate with her fork.
"Honey, what's wrong?" Dart asked. She didn't hear him. "Rose?"
"What?" She quickly removed her gaze from its fixated position on her plate and looked at her fiance. She acted as if she had just been woken from a deep sleep.
"Are you okay? You're not eating," The caring man was greatly concerned, "What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing," She lied, "I'm just thinking, that's all."
"About what?"
"About the way things used to be... before we separated."
"Yeah... I know. I miss the way things were, too. But after what happened... there's no going back. We can't go back to the way things were, no matter how much we want to."
"I know," Rose sighed, "I just... I'd give anything to be able to see the others again, even for a day. Especially Jimmy, and Cristal, and..." Tears began to well up in her eyes, "Holden... oh god... Holden..." A flood burst from her eyes.
"Rose, it's okay, calm down," Dart said reassuringly as he hugged her tightly, "Come on. It's okay. There there." He grabbed a fistful of tissues from the nearby counter and handed them to her.
"Thanks," Rose sniffled and wiped her eyes, "I just... I had just found him, and..."
"I know," He rubbed her back, "It's okay. It's alright to be upset."
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, you don't need to apologize. Let it all out."
They sat silently for a few minutes.
"We..." Rose was the first to speak again, "We still know where Cristal is, right?"
"Yeah, she's with the refuge, back in Detroit." Dart continued to use the most comforting tones he possessed.
"I think... I'd like to go find her." She wiped her eyes dry.
"A-Are you sure?" Dart tried to cover the surprised tone that suddenly emerged amidst the comforting one, "I-I don't know if we should, with you so close to the end of your term..."
"I'll be fine. I just want to see them again, really badly. And maybe... maybe Cristal will know where some of the others are, too."
"It's worth checking, I guess," Dart replied agreeably, "Well, if you're sure you'll be okay... we could probably leave tomorrow."
"Let's do it." Rose smiled. Despite his concern for her wellbeing, Dart couldn't possibly resist her request after seeing how happy the idea of seeing the other Super Demi-Pokemon for the first time in over half a year had made her.
On the outside, she appeared to be happy, but inside, Rose felt a very different emotion. She was disappointed that she had to lie to her husband about her motives. She was worried that even if they found Cristal, they wouldn't be any closer to finding the person she was really looking for. And most of all, she was upset about what had happened eight months ago; the last time they had seen any of the other Super Demi-Pokemon.
Dallas, TexasThe pungent odor of spilled chemicals wafted through the air of the dark, damp laboratory. Almost all of the machines and man-sized test tubes lining the walls of the room were intact, but none of them showed any signs of activity. Large amounts of cobwebs and dust had gathered in every corner and on every surface. It was clear that the lab had been undisturbed for several years.
All of the tall test tubes were filled with oddly colored fluid, and most were empty. Some sort of white sediment had gathered at the bottom of a good few of them, but it, like the machines attached to the fluid-filled chambers, bore no sign of life or activity. One tube in the back of the room, however, contained more life than the rest of the room combined: in it floated a white humanoid creature with remotely feline features and a long purple tail. Its arms were crossed over its chest, and its eyes were closed. In the center of its back was a circular black mark. It did not appear to be dead or unconscious; rather, it looked as if it was in a state of restful sleep.
Suddenly, a computer screen attached to the creature's chamber flickered on. Lines of white text began to scroll rapidly across the eerie green screen. After several minutes of credit-like scrolling, the text ceased its movement. At the bottom of the screen, the last line read "All Systems Activated. Initiating Birth Sequence."
The creature's eyes jolted open, revealing its piercing purple irises. It uncrossed its arms and lowered them to their resting positions by its sides.
"This place..." It looked back and forth, surveying the abandoned laboratory, "I know this place. This is... Rebirth Tower. The one hundred and fifty first floor laboratory. There were once people here... scientists. And... a girl." The creature looked over to the test tube directly to its right. Empty.
"She is gone," It concluded, "How long ago did she leave? How long have I been asleep?" It shook its head, "No. I was not asleep, because I was never awake. I know what I know because I sensed it with my unconscious mind... but that means that it could have been a dream. No... I know that it was not a dream. So... what happened to the people? Why did they... abandon me?" It closed and opened its hands, and the glass of the tube surrounding it shattered. Green liquid spilled out onto the floor, and the creature landed on the pedestal that was the bottom of the broken chamber.
"I do not truly remember anything. I do not know the circumstances of my birth... or my creation. All I know is that they abandoned me... and that I have a name. My name... is Mewtwo."
Somewhere in TexasThe sunset on the horizon was beautiful. The cobalt blue dragon flapped her scarlet wings, weaving gracefully in and out of the clouds. Everything was so peaceful, so serene; the sound of the summer breeze blowing across her aerodynamic body was solitary and melodic. At the same time, the thrill of this flight came not solely from its tranquility, but, in fact, mostly from its associated danger. She was told to be careful, flying about in the open like this - if a hunter saw her, she'd be as good as dead. But she didn't have to worry about this; no one could see her at her cruising altitude amongst the cumulus.
She felt a sharp pain in her right wing. She glanced at it as she began to descend and saw a profuse amount of blood. Her wing had been pierced by some sort of projectile, and it felt very, very cold. She knew that it was an ice arrow; she'd felt plenty of them puncture her scaly skin during training, but this is the first time that one had touched her wing, and it was the first time that one had gone straight through any part of her body.
She watched as the blood poured from her wound and seemingly floated upward into the sky. She knew that it wasn't really flying; she was just falling faster than it was. She'd been knocked out of the sky before, but never from such a great altitude. She tried to flap her wings to recover from her increasingly steep descent, but her right wing wouldn't respond. All she could do was spin around in circles as she continued to spiral down towards the impact-induced death that awaited her when she finally hit the ground. That is, if the hunters waiting like antlions below didn't kill her first.
There were three of them, each dressed exactly like the other two. Sapphire armor with white crests, lupine masks, bows and arrows - they were members of the Neptunian Torrent, the division of the hunters known best for its cooperative team strategies. Alone, a Torrent hunter wasn't much of a threat, but when paired with even a single partner, the risk he or she posed increased exponentially. Three was a fairly typical pack size for taking down an average Demi-Pokemon. The key word there, though, was average - the hunters were in for more than they bargained for with this particular quarry.
She was growing closer to her predators by the second - five hundred feet away, four hundred, three hundred - she could see that they had their weapons drawn back and ready to fire. But, then again, so did she. She opened her mouth and let forth a highly concentrated beam of energy, wide enough to obliterate all three hunters if it managed to hit them. Even when they jumped out of the way, she did not let up - she was going to use the force of the beam hitting the ground to soften her own impact.
Smoke obscured the hunters' view of whether or not their prey's plan had worked. One of them slowly and cautiously disarmed his weapon so that he had one hand free. He removed a small metal device from his belt, held it up, and pressed its lone button. The device emitted a brilliant light, and the smoke seemed to evaporate. He could see the dragon clearly now: it was upon him.
Her fangs dug into his flesh as she bit through his armor and tore his lower right arm clear off at the elbow joint. Relentlessly, she continued her assault. His allies began to shoot her in rapid succession, but to no avail. The arrows were tearing through her skin, but she continued her attack as if they had been nerf darts.
It was not until a mere stump of a man remained that she finally began to feel the effect of the several dozen arrows that had pierced her skin and her wings. She collapsed on top of the hunter's partial corpse and began to revert to her human form. She was twenty-two years old and had raven hair that extended just below her shoulders. She wore a red sweatshirt that had been dyed even darker by blood, and blue jeans that were beginning to look more like purple.
Very carefully, the remaining hunters approached their seemingly felled prey. She was still breathing, but it was very heavy and labored. They had lost a comrade, but they had successfully subdued the Demi-Pokemon. Now it was just a matter of delivering the final blow.
The hunters froze in place instantly, encased in a ten foot thick block of ice.
The venerable woman in the wildly weather-inappropriate baby blue fleece jacket, cornflower snowpants and black boots stepped forward, glancing only momentarily at her handiwork. She was more concerned with what had befallen her fellow Demi-Pokemon.
"I saw what happened," She said in a wise voice as she walked over to the bleeding girl and pulled an orange spray canister from the depths of her jacket, "What terrible timing. We were so close... and that attack set you back at least two months." She sprayed the contents of the canister on the barely conscious girl's wounds. The former dragon winced slightly at the stinging sensation of the medicine, but her wounds began to close very shortly after being exposed to the spray.
"I'm... sorry..." She finally managed to say with great effort.
"Do not worry. We are very close now to the cure. I only need one final ingredient, and I know where we can find it."
"Where's that?"
"The place where your troubles began. The International Federation's United States Headquarters building."
Dallas, TexasMewtwo drifted, its feet several inches above the stairs that it passed over, up through the enclosed staircase, whose surrounding walls were only partially intact. Still, the shadows of higher flights of stairs masked the creature from any outside eye that might be peering in.
Mewtwo instinctively knew that although the laboratory which it had called home had been abandoned, it was not alone in the building. Something else was there, alive but comatose, as Mewtwo itself had been. Mewtwo only had a vague subconscious memory, a fuzzy picture, of the scientists and the girl who had been in the laboratory, but the knowledge that another creature was still breathing within the walls of Rebirth Tower was crystal clear. It could smell her. It knew nothing about the other being that hadn't evacuated, but it knew exactly where to find her.
The forgotten experiment arrived at the door that its senses had led it to. Time had worn away the painted-on floor number, of which only the first digit '1' was still visible, but floor numbers hardly mattered in the building's current condition. Mewtwo reached its arm out and pulled backwards, telekinetically taking the door off of its hinges and throwing it against the posterior wall of the staircase. The smell grew stronger as the humanoid creature stepped onto the moist, cushioned green floor. It walked across the lightless green room to an immaculate white door opposite the staircase that had been untouched by the effects of time that plagued the rest of the laboratory.
Foregoing its psychic abilities, the creature reached out and manually turned the doorknob. Ultraviolet light poured forth into the lab's antechamber as the door slowly creaked open, revealing a long, narrow hallway with glass walls. Mewtwo's skin glowed brightly in the ultraviolet light. It barely noticed this interesting development, however; it was focused on a target at the end of the corridor. It passed by countless withering plants and deceased grass-type Pokemon - who almost certainly died of malnutrition due to the building's abandonment by the International Federation scientists - all trapped behind the glass panes that made up the hall's walls. Though Mewtwo paid no heed to the lifeless flora itself, it did notice that thin, barely visible catheters were connected to each subject and were running along the wall behind the glass. Green residue had collected in places in some of the tubes, but they all led back to the same place: Mewtwo's target.
Near the end of the corridor, close to the opposite door, the glass was emitting a faint, unnatural green glow. He approached the glowing glass and the organism, shrouded in mechanically produced smoke, behind it.
"Are you... her?" Mewtwo asked rhetorically. The smoke-cloaked experiment offered no response. Mewtwo merely stood in front of the glass, staring intently at the creature on the other side.
Finally, it shook its head. Though it was virtually impossible for its face to display any emotion, it almost looked as if it was disappointed.
"No... you are not," Mewtwo decided, "You are not her. Something about you feels... different. But I can tell... you are like me, but you lack the capacity to free yourself from this prison. And so... I will free you." The escaped experiment put its hand to the glass and closed its eyes.
The glass shattered, and green smoke filled the hall. The catheters and other various wires that were stuck in and on the floral experiment disconnected immediately and began to flail about, spraying liquid in the air.
The newly freed prisoner coughed and fell to her knees. As she began to recover from the shock of waking up for the first time in six years, she looked up.
"Who are you?" Asked the voice of a wise old woman.
"My name is Mewtwo," It replied, "I am looking for Megan Bishop."
"I'm sorry, I've never heard of her."
"Very well then." It began to walk towards the door opposite the one it had entered through.
"Wait," The female experiment stopped it, "How did you find me?"
"I could smell you," It replied straightforwardly, "And now I smell others. Their smell... is very similar to yours, but one is much stronger."
"Similar to mine..." The experiment thought, "Of course. They're probably agents of the International Federation. There are tons of them here. If you're an experiment like I am, you should be careful that none of them sees you..."
"There are only two."
"What?"
"There are only two other living entities in the building."
"That can't be... this is the world headquarters building. There should be thousands of agents here."
"My recollection of what I sensed with my unconscious mind is unclear, and it is difficult to determine the exact temporal or spatial coordinates of my thoughts... but I suspect that it has been a very long time since there was any activity in the room in which I was kept. The same may apply to this entire building."
The other experiment was speechless.
"I am going to discern whether or not the other two beings in the building have any knowledge as to the whereabouts of Megan Bishop. I do not care what you do. You are of no use to me... and so, this is where we part ways." Without another word, Mewtwo opened the steel door and stepped outside.
Outside of Rebirth TowerThe two women stood at the base of the ruined Rebirth Tower. The once mighty two hundred and fifty-one story building was a mere shell of its former self. Entire floors had been leveled, in the wake of their destruction leaving only a few support columns to prevent the entire building's collapse. Such odd sights as office chairs dangling by telephone cords out of shattered windows were abundant. And, of course, the tower and every building within a mile radius of it had been evacuated - including the other eleven Re Towers, all of which remained structurally sound.
"The final ingredient should be in the greenhouse on the one hundred and ninety-second floor." The elder woman informed her partner.
"I can fly us up there, but I'm probably going to lose track of the floor number." The younger confessed.
"You will recognize it. An experiment went wrong in the greenhouse, not long before the International Federation's downfall six years ago. Since no one has touched the tower, no one has cleaned up the aftermath of the experiment."
"Is it dangerous?" The twenty-one year old asked as she took on her draconic form and allowed her senior to climb onto her back.
"Nothing that you can't handle." The Salamence took to the sky. Row after row of intermittently smashed windows offered glimpses at offices and laboratories in various stages of disarray. The rider did not have to tell her mount when their target was approaching; the transformed Demi-Pokemon could see the overgrown plants sprawling out of broken glass panes and shielding facades of the surrounding floors with a wall of vine and ivy.
The aroma of freshly cut grass hung in the breeze that blew through the open windows of the hundred and ninety-second floor. It smelled sweet and seductive, but there was something menacingly ominous about the air where the dragon now floated. She could see into the hundred and ninety-second floor, which, though it may have once been a proud and reputable laboratory studying the properties of floral Pokemon, was now a dark jungle, illuminated in only a few places where holes in the walls and ceiling allowed slivers of sunlight to shine through. Thick vines and beautiful but deadly looking plants covered everything, from the walls to the desks to the rough forms of what must've been microscopes. The foliage was mostly colored in dark shades of green, but there were a few spots of bright orange and yellow here and there.
Though she heard nothing, the dragon Demi knew that some sort of creature resided inside, waiting for her to step into its lair.
"What are we looking for?" Sabrina asked, still hesitant to enter the verdant dungeon.
"A potion that the International Federation brewed a few months before the Super Demi incident. They never tested it, but it's supposed to counteract the effects of Demi-Dust."
"Wait, it can do that by itself? Then why did you make me go looking for all those other ingredients?" Sabrina felt deceived.
"There was a good reason why the concoction was never tested," Gloria explained, "It's imperfect. You can't give it to any Demi-Pokemon and expect it to take effect. The last formula they managed to create is still a prototype; one that, theoretically, is only effective on Demi-Pokemon who have already overcome the dust's side effects on the mind. That is why we collected the other ingredients; that is why I have been training your mind for years. The potion can undo the physical effects of the federation's dust, but not the mental effects."
"So... what would happen if I drank the potion while my brain was still messed up?" Sabrina asked nervously.
"Theoretically," Gloria replied solemnly, "It could completely counteract the physical effect of the dust while amplifying the mental side effects."
"What does that mean?"
"It could strip you of your Demi-Pokemon powers altogether while plunging you much deeper into the insanity that the federation's dust brought about in your mind."
Sabrina was terrified by the thought. She was no longer sure that she was interested in finding this cure.
"Forget it," The dragon shook her head, "It isn't worth it. I'm not risking it." She began to turn away from the federation building.
"I understand if you do not wish to drink the potion now, but I still intend to retrieve it from that laboratory. If it falls into the wrong hands, it could do terrible harm to what little remains of the Demi-Pokemon community."
"Fine," Sabrina sighed, knowing she didn't have a choice in the matter, "But let's do it quick. I have a bad feeling about that lab."
With great hesitation, she hovered into the giant hole in the side of the building, let Gloria off of her back, and reverted to her human form. The duo cautiously proceeded into the laboratory, with Gloria, who seemed to know where she was going, leading her partner. They passed by moss-covered tables and vine-draped cabinets; ferns growing out of cracks in the floor and miniature trees sprouting up in sinks. The fact that all of this plant life was growing in such unsupportive conditions creeped Sabrina out enough; the fact that it all seemed alive in some way only added to her discomfort.
"Hey, Gloria..." She asked, "What kind of experiment were the scientists conducting that went wrong?"
"I don't know the details," Gloria admitted, "I was not a member of the Research Branch, after all. But I know that it was, as is the case with nearly every project undertaken by the federation, an experiment that was supposed to increase the powers of federation soldiers. It was somehow related to the amplification of the abilities of grass-type Demi-Pokemon."
"You don't say." Sabrina responded sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.
"Here it is." The duo approached a glass cabinet on the wall. The glass had been broken into by a thick, thorny vine that appeared to have fallen from a higher perch, but the contents of the case were unharmed. In the cabinet were three impenetrable-looking steel flasks, with ink labels on them that read "ANTI-DUST V. 0.75".
"Is this it?"
"Remember that it is a prototype. The federation most likely did not need remotely large quantities of it, especially if they only inteded to experiment on a few test subjects."
"I guess, but how can you be sure that nobody already took some?"
"If they had, they likely would have taken it all. Or at least, that is what we must hope," She began to walk back towards the hole in the wall that they had used as their makeshift entrance, "Let us depart." Sabrina walked over to the edge of the floor, and was just beginning to transform when she was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming open. Gloria turned to see the source of the noise, and Sabrina sprouted wings just in time to avoid losing her balance and falling one hundred and ninety-two stories.
"You," Mewtwo stood, cloaked in a veil of ultraviolet light, in a doorway on the side of the room opposite the broken windows, "You are an agent of the International Federation. I can smell it." It pointed at Gloria.
"What are you, creature?" Gloria stood her ground while Sabrina completed her transformation.
"And you are as well," The creature's finger shifted from the elder ex-agent to the younger, "You reek of it. Your smell is much stronger than hers."
"What's it talking about?" Sabrina asked Gloria nervously.
"Tell me," It asked forcefully as it adopted a stance that signaled its intent to charge, "What have you done with her? What have you done with Megan Bishop?" Wasting no time awaiting a response, it leaped off of its feet and glided quickly towards the pair of female Demi.