Hey FFNet, it's been a while! Four years! Anyway, here's my first entry in what I want to be a story about the fragmented friendships of our favorite Kanto heroes, and this story offers an explanation of what happened to tear them apart. Let me know if any of this is confusing, I have lots of tweaking to do to make sure everyone's motivations make sense. I'll also be posting follow up chapters or stories that are part of this larger work. All questions and criticism are welcome, thanks in advance!


A fresh spring breeze ruffled Blue's hair as he engaged in battle.

"Blastoise, Hydro Pump!"

The trainer watched with admiration as his partner Pokémon blasted the opposing Machamp with a torrent from its cannons. They had this battle in the bag.

"Venusaur, Petal Dance!" Green shouted as her Pokémon scattered mysterious petals around their foes, a Seaking, Furret and Machamp, of course. Blue was surprised that Green had chosen a move that risked Venusaur's own health, but knew she had a plan.

"Flamethrower!" Red's voice exuded strength and passion as he commanded Charizard. Blue was elated that his dearest friend had begun to speak more, and his voice suited him.

Soon enough, the fight was over. The opposing trainers withdrew their tired Pokémon and handed over the prize money, thanking the three friends for the impromptu battle.

Venusaur was beginning to feel the effects of confusion, and Green withdrew him before the beast could lose balance. Red gave Charizard a couple of berries and stroked him between his horns, then let him back inside of the Pokeball.

"You did great, Blastoise." Blue praised his Pokémon and grinned as the giant turtle headbutted him happily. "Into the ball you go."

Red dashed over to Blue's side and gave him a fist bump.

"Nice job".

Blue was so happy just to hear that kid's voice.

His muscles tensed when Green wrapped her arms around him from behind, then relaxed as he realized that she was hugging him.

"You did amazing out there!" she praised him, holding him tighter than anyone (besides his mom, maybe) ever had before. "I'm so proud of you and Blastoise!" Blue felt a strange warmth creep over his face and realized he was smiling ear to ear.

"Thanks, Green, you and Venusaur took a huge risk and it was worth it!" Blue began to laugh happily but froze as the girl pecked his left cheek with her lips.

"I love you!"

I love you!


The words rang eerily in Blue's mind as he awoke, and he failed to recall where exactly he was.

I was sleeping…

He thought as he took in his surroundings. There was a digital clock on a nightstand next to him.

This is a Pokémon Center bed… I must have spent the night.

It read 4:32 AM.

Where's Red? We always bunk together. I'm alone.

Claws of ice gripped his chest as he realized what was going on.

I haven't seen Red or Green in two years.

It was just a dream.


Blue sat quietly in the lobby of the Pokémon Center, waiting for his team to be healed. He'd forgotten to drop them off at the counter last night for some reason, some reason he couldn't remember. He felt hungover but had no recollection of drinking the night before.

The memory of his dream was the only thing on his mind. It had felt so real, but too good to be true. He wasn't arguing with Red and Green. Blastoise was on top of his game, and it made Blue miss the good old days. He'd felt happy. Not just content or in a state of alcohol-induced tipsiness that masked his true emotions, but truly, purely happy. The synergy he had felt with his fellow trainers was something he hadn't experienced in years.

Blue's face flushed as he remembered the feeling of Green's affection, how she had hugged him and kissed him and said she loved him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard those three words from anyone, and he'd certainly never hear them from her.

Nurse Joy had been surprised that Blue hadn't brought in his Pokémon the night before. Apparently, their injuries were on the severe side, which tended to happen these days. For the first time in a while, Blue felt badly for his teammates. He'd been battling them just for the sake of battling, and as a release for his anger. He hadn't been thinking of their wellbeing. The poor Pokémon were out of practice but Blue still ran them ragged, trying to grasp back onto his broken dreams of becoming a master. But his purpose was gone, as he'd given it up long ago in a futile bargain for power.


"Blue, what are you doing? We have to get out of here!" Green's terrified voice rang throughout the cavern, reverberating in Blue's ears. "It's going to kill us!"

Blue ignored her and climbed over fallen boulders to reach Mewtwo. The abominable creature stood upon a ledge in the rock wall, its aura distorting the air around it.

"Genji, stop him!" Blue lost his grip and stumbled backward as Green's Gengar shifted through the shadows around him then materialized between Blue and Mewtwo. The psychic Pokémon began to break apart the shadows that made up Genji's body, and Blue watched in horror as the Pokémon began to be torn to shreds.

"NO!" Green shouted. Out of the corner of his eye, Blue saw her withdraw the Gengar before the Pokémon was killed by Mewtwo's sheer power, and Red was holding her back from running straight into the psychic Pokémon's grasp. Blue shifted his focus back to the task at hand and slipped the Master Ball out of his pocket, preparing for the catch.

"Get down from there!" Green yelled at him once more, audibly struggling to break free of Red's hold. "Mewtwo is gonna… do THAT to you!"

As he reached the ledge occupied by Mewtwo, Blue looked down at his friends.

"I have to do this, this is why I came here!" He declared, voice shaking. Blue readied the Master Ball by kicking his arm back. "If you guys want to go, then go!"

Green shrieked in rage. "THE- THE MASTER BALL FROM SILPH! THAT'S MY MASTER BALL!" She wrenched herself free from Red and hurled herself up the rock wall. "GIVE IT BACK TO ME, YOU THIEF!"

"Green, no!" Red shouted with urgency and raced after her. Mewtwo glared at Blue and released the strongest burst of power yet, knocking Green off the wall and into Red. Blue held his ground, his mind on fire from the overflow of psychic energy.

"You're mine!" He proclaimed and threw the Master Ball at Mewtwo.

The world froze.

Blue stared in disbelief as the Master Ball was suspended in mid air before it could hit the Pokémon. His arm was extended in the throw, and he couldn't move anything besides his eyes. He glanced down at Green and Red, halfway through their fall to the rocky cave floor. Only about six feet, they'll live. He thought. His eyes then moved against his will to Mewtwo, as if the Pokémon was controlling their movement.

"Have you had enough yet?" an eerie voice with an alien timbre asked. Blue knew this was Mewtwo even though the Pokémon wasn't moving its mouth.

"Not until I catch you," Blue thought, but realized that his own voice echoed throughout the cave. He seemed to be speaking with his mind.

Mewtwo released Blue from the time freeze and the trainer collapsed into himself, breathing heavily. The Pokémon turned away from him.

"Why do you want to capture me?" The question rang in the air around Blue, causing him to shiver. He looked up at Mewtwo with determination.

"Because you're the most powerful Pokémon to ever exist. I know how you were made, and you were designed to be statistically perfect in battle."

Mewtwo turned to Blue once more.

"And you chose to sacrifice yourself and the other mortals you brought with you, just for a chance at 'ultimate power'?" Mewtwo's voice began to agitate Blue.

"Of course I did, just let me catch you!" Blue's eyes widened in alarm as he realized that each of his thoughts were being read and amplified by Mewtwo – he hadn't spoken yet his own voice echoed around him.

Mewtwo closed its eyes briefly, and before Blue could think, their surroundings changed. Blue was standing in a stadium with Mewtwo by his side, and he staggered forward as he realized there were three gold medals hanging from his neck. Around the two of them were Blue's current team of Pokémon and a thousand bright lights. He'd just won the Indigo League.

"Yes, YES! This is exactly what I want!" Once again, Blue's thoughts reverberated throughout the stadium. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Mewtwo smirk.

"But at what cost?" Their surroundings changed again. A familiar, ghostly atmosphere closed in on Blue from all sides as his eyes adjusted from stadium light to hardly any light at all.

"The Pokémon Tower."

Before he could make out anything in the room they were in, Blue heard a person sobbing quietly just a few meters away. His heart sank.

"…Green?"

Blue walked closer to the sound as Mewtwo stayed behind, watching, judging. He could see Green's dark shape kneeling in front of a headstone, but he couldn't read it. He began to speak out loud.

"Green, what happened?"

She didn't look up at him, but continued crying. He'd never seen her in such a state.

"Oh, Genji, I'm sorry! I should never… We never should have…" Green's voice was ragged between sobs. Blue tried to speak to her, but she didn't seem to hear him.

"Green…" He put his hand on her shoulder, but it phased right through her.

"She doesn't know I'm here."

The air around him began to change again, and his vision whited out. The sound of his friend crying faded into the howling of a western wind. Frigid cold pummeled him from all directions.

Blue whirled around to see Mewtwo still watching him, and this time they were atop a summit, in the middle of a blizzard.

"What the hell's this stuff got to do with anything, Mewtwo?" Blue addressed the Pokémon with speech for the first time. "Where are we?"

The Pokémon nodded at him. Blue turned away and noticed the silhouette of a young man in the distance. The ground and air were so whited out that he could barely see the person, even though Blue was within twenty feet of him. Not knowing why, Blue raced through the snow towards the man, struggling to move against the wind and cold. Snow melted through his shoes, soaking through his socks.

Blue stopped in dismay as he reached the mysterious person, noticing the crimson ball cap and matching jacket immediately.

"R-Red?" he asked, shivering. His friend didn't move a muscle.

Blue walked around Red so that he was facing him, realizing nearly too late that two feet in front of his oldest friend was a steep drop-off, a cliff that fell into a frozen abyss. After making sure neither of them would fall, Blue looked at Red's face.

The young man's brown eyes were locked on something in the distance, glassy and appearing to be frozen open. His gaze never shifted as Blue moved in front of him, terrified at Red's stoic state. The frozen trainer's legs seemed rooted to the ground, and he seemed more of a statue than a person.

"Red, what's going on?" Blue couldn't think of anything else to say. It didn't make sense. Where were they? What happened? Then he looked back to where he came from, noticing Mewtwo watching, judging.

"Hey, you're just messing with me!" Blue left Red atop the cliff and raced back to Mewtwo, struggling to move efficiently as his toes began to give way to frostbite. "This is just a stupid illusion, Mewtwo! Take me back to the cave, dammit!" Surely enough, Mewtwo blinked, and before the cave materialized around them, a stunning vision of Blue surrounded by his Pokémon and donning even more medals flashed before his eyes.

Time was still frozen. Blue and Mewtwo stood facing each other, the Master Ball still suspended in the moment.

"The choice is yours." Mewtwo's voice resonated in Blue's mind.

"It's just as afraid as I am. Trying to discourage me from catching it…" Blue didn't care that Mewtwo heard his thought, even when the Pokémon's eyes flashed with some unknown emotion.

As soon as he'd made his decision, time sparked back into motion.

"I choose power."

The Master Ball collided with Mewtwo, and the cave erupted in a burst of screeching hot light.


Blue awoke to a throbbing headache, his vision blurred and heart pounding. He was splayed out on a patch of short grass, his hearing coming back into focus and picking out the sound of a flowing stream.

He sat up quickly, frantically looking around. However, he'd gotten up too fast and his vision clouded once more.

"Damn!" he cursed as he laid back down, rubbing his eyes.

"Kazam…" Blue's heart jumped as he recognized the low voice of Psych, his Alakazam. He sat up again, slower this time, to see the Pokémon sitting next to him, seemingly worried.

"Psych, what…? You're out of your Pokeball, why?"

The psychic Pokémon looked at its trainer, vanished for a moment, and appeared a few seconds later on Blue's other side. Blue turned his head to look at Psych, then his mouth fell open at the sight off in the distance. He then realized his location.

Across the Cerulean Stream was the cave he'd just been in before passing out, but now, the roof seemed completely crushed and dilapidated. He looked back at Psych, who seemed unusually solemn. The gears in Blue's head finally began to turn and clear away the mental fog.

"You teleported me out of there, right?" Alakazam nodded, then somehow commanded its Pokeball on Blue's belt to withdraw the Pokémon.

Blue stood up, still unbalanced, and gazed at the mess the cave had become. His first thought was to check his belt and his bag. Come on, where's the Master Ball?

Even after emptying every single pocket of his backpack, the ball containing Mewtwo was nowhere to be found. Then the realization crept in.

Red and Green…


Green coughed as she and Red finally broke through the collapsed entrance of the cave.

"Red, open your eyes, we made it!" She nudged her friend, who was nearly unconscious. He'd been temporarily knocked out in the blast, but the two of them had managed to escape the wreckage alive with the help of Red's hardly conscious Raichu.

Green looked over at Red, who had opened his squinted eyes and was faintly smiling with relief.

"Thank you," he sighed, for Green had to nearly carry him out. Red then slumped onto the ground, passing out completely. Green's heart leapt into her throat as she threw herself to his side, finally able to assess his wounds in the light.

The local police and search-and-rescue teams met the trainers at the entrance, as they had only recently arrived. Green braced herself for the upcoming interviews and national spotlight – three high-profile trainers possibly attacked by Mewtwo?

And the death of Professor Samuel Oak's Grandson, Blue…

She and Red had no luck in finding Blue, his Pokémon or Mewtwo after the explosion. Maybe the officials would try to find his body. The thought weighed heavily in Green's chest, but she had time to deal with the despair later. For now, she was going to help Red and help the officers understand what had happened.

But what happened?


The old mental wound had opened up again, or at least that's what Blue has called it. Ever since his encounter with Mewtwo, a searing pain would periodically flare up in one of the anterior sections of his brain. It was like the Pokémon had cut into it somehow, manipulating his mind past its limits…

"Blue, your Pokémon are feeling much better." He looked up at the voice of Nurse Joy, who was standing over him with a worried look. "Is everything alright? I've called your name twice already."

Blue shook his head, clearing up the thoughts he'd been lost in. Everything had been hazy and dark since the accident, and he was constantly thinking of other things.

"Yeah, sorry. I just haven't been getting much sleep."

"Okay," the nurse replied, handing the Poke Balls over to Blue. "Just let us know if you need anything, you hear?"

Blue heard but didn't want to take up the offer. He didn't deserve the care of others. He should be condemned by the world for what he did to his friends, he should have told the authorities the truth, he should have…

"Blue, can you hear me?" He'd been lost in thoughts again.

"Yeah, uh, sorry. Thank you, I will. I mean, I'll let you know."

He didn't.