Chapter 9: Battle in the Center of Magicant
(Author's Note: I should say this in advance: I gave this fic a T rating for a reason that hasn't been obvious until now. Because they're in Lucas's mind, this chapter will be a little darker than usual, and by a little I mean a lot. Don't say I didn't warn you. Also there are always spoilers for MOTHER 3 in this fic but this chapter has a lot of them, as well as from the Pokemon movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back".)
Lucas blinked several times, wiping his eyes as he woke up as if from a dream. He dusted the dirt off his fingers as he pushed himself up from the grassy ground which was covered in sunflowers. It was quiet other than a gentle breezed that pushed the flowers, his messy blonde hair, and his clothes...except that last part wasn't true. The realization he wasn't wearing any snapped him out of his dazed state instantly.
"Eek!"
Lucas covered himself, his face flushed red with embarrassment. Somehow, reality answered his wish, causing his blue and white striped pajamas to materialize onto his body out of thin air with a strange 'poof' sound. The Franklin Badge was attached to them too. He held his head in shock, wondering if he was going crazy or if that had really just happened.
What was that?!
Lucas could tell there was definitely something strange going on as he took a look at his surroundings. He saw some of the buildings from the old Tazmily Village, including his house. Then there were cone-shaped trees with a checkerboard-like pattern on them, giant carrots growing from the ground, and many familiar yet out of place objects strewn about the landscape randomly. A doorknob, a wooden stick, a yellow beam sword, a set of train tracks and more were among them. Other strange sights were a giant tower with a strange device and a fat man on top, a humanoid yet also cat-like Pokemon, and a purple sea surrounding most of this mysterious island except for a land bridge that stretched out to another island-
Wait, what?! What's with this place..?
Lucas's eyes widened as he took a step back in surprise. One of those did not belong...he blinked for a second and said cat-like Pokemon was gone, only to appear right next to him with the same stoic expression as usual. "Ah!" Lucas stumbled backwards in surprise and tripped, falling on his butt like he had sometimes in the days of 'Brawl'.
"Must I explain everything? This land was created by your own mind, so you should know it better than anyone."
Lucas awkwardly got back up and backed away cautiously, reminded of how they had just been fighting. What Mewtwo said also reminded him that in order to defeat Giygas, Ness once ventured into his own mind and fought against his deepest fears and nightmares to unlock his true potential. That mental world was called 'Magicant', which meant this was Lucas's own Magicant. A sweat drop trickled down Lucas's face as he realized why Mewtwo would send him inside his own head. It had to be for a psychic technique Lucas didn't even think possible until he learned from Red how some psychic Pokemon could do it. He didn't know how to do it, but even if he did he would never use something so...invasive.
If he brought me to my Magicant in a fight, then...he's trying to control my mind..!
"Exactly. Psychic powers can be used for far more than merely creating explosions and firing elemental attacks. Once one learns to alter the mind itself, erasing memories, reading thoughts, and controlling people are all simple tasks."
Lucas frowned angrily, trying to not let his fear show. "B-but that's awful...You can't just mess with people's heads like that!" It wasn't very effective in a world literally made of thoughts and feelings. Definitely not effective when Lucas could sense the huge purple aura flooding the air thanks to all the time Mewtwo had spent using Calm Mind.
"That naivety is what holds you and Ness back from your full potential. Tell me, do your enemies ever show you as much mercy as you do to them?"
"..." Lucas averted his eyes, not knowing what to say. In the world of Smash Bros, killing was illegal and even impossible thanks to their indestructible trophy forms, but in real conflicts things were different. The Pigmasks and the Chimeras they made never hesitated to hit him with bullets, fangs, explosions, and many other painful attacks. The same went for all the Shadow Bug monsters made by the Subspace Army, and the traitors tricked into aiding them, especially the fat and smelly one.
"I will take that as a 'no'. However, despite what the Pokedex says, I am not heartless. The process will be painless so long as you do not fight back."
Lucas started glowing with his own psychic aura as he mustered up as much strength and courage as he could. "What?! No way...I won't let you make me hurt my friends!" A second aura overlapped with the first, this one blue while the other was orange. The two auras together were Lucas's equivalent of "Calm Mind". Normally the Omega version was for buffing a team of four, but since joining Smash he had learned how to use it on just himself to make the effect stronger.
[Lucas tried Offense Up Ω!][Lucas tried Defense Up Ω!][Lucas tried PSI Shie-]
[Mewtwo used Psychic!]
Lucas was flung across the fields telekinetically before he could finish making a barrier, sending him crashing through the walls of several consecutive buildings which sent wooden splinters flying everywhere, including into his skin. He painfully slid across the ground until he rolled to a stop. A green light covered his body, removing the splinters and healing the bleeding wounds as he got back on his feet.
Wait, blood?
It was because they were fighting inside Magicant, the world of his mind. Lucas had spent a lot more of his life being able to bleed than immune to it, so it was no surprise it happened here. However, that train of thought changed tracks when he saw someone next to where he had landed: it was Alec, his grandpa. Suddenly, Lucas's mind returned to a memory from when he was only ten years old...It caused the entire landscape to temporarily change to the memory, where Lucas returned to his younger self and Mewtwo appeared transparently like a ghost, able to observe but not interact with it.
It was the day after the forest fire and the other thing that happened in the forest. Lucas, his dad, his grandpa Alec, and many of the Tazmily villagers were attending...that. The conversation led to Alec asking Lucas where Claus was, because he'd gone missing after saying he would go visit Flint only to not show up.
"Lucas! It's not good to keep secrets from people! Don't tell me Claus went after that detestable Drago to try to..."
Lucas twiddled his thumbs nervously, not sure what to say. "N-n-n-no! He didn't take Dad's homemade knife and go into the mountains to kill the Drago! ...Aah!" He stumbled back awkwardly, embarrassed and angry at himself for revealing what was supposed to be a secret.
Alec chuckled a little. "It's a good thing you raised him to be honest, Flint! Does Claus honestly think a homemade knife can kill a Drago? Lucas! Why didn't you stop him?" His tone was more serious at the end, worried for his other grandson's safety.
Lucas averted his eyes in shame. "Well...I said I wanted to go too, but he said no because he was going alone..." He was shaking a little, scared what would happen with his brother and the Drago now. He had wanted to go after it too but had been too afraid to force Claus to stop or insist on going with him...
"So you just let him go? You fool!"
Lucas, who had been struggling to hold back tears of grief this whole time, couldn't take it anymore. The incredible guilt he now felt made him break down crying as he ran away...
When Lucas's thoughts returned the land of Magicant to how it was before, his eyes darted around, seeing that Mewtwo hadn't attacked him in that time and simply appeared out of thin air with a distinct blink sound...it was because he had been sucked into the memory too. The Magicant version of Alec faded away after the memory ended. Lucas clenched his teeth in frustration that he had to go back to such an unpleasant memory.
"What did you do..? Stop messing with my head!" PSI sparked from Lucas's hands as he blasted Mewtwo with PK Love, knocking him into and destroying his own house in a giant, multicolored hexagonal explosion that sent a shower of debris in all directions. The genetic Pokemon was seemingly crushed beneath the rubble...
[Mewtwo used Recover.] [Mewtwo used Psychic!]
A huge pillar of psychic energy burst from the debris, sending everything nearby flying into the sky, both the remains of the house and large chunks of the ground including the one Lucas was standing on. Lucas's vision spun as his platform was tossed through the air at high speeds, continuing to dizzy him until he used his PSI to abruptly stop the spinning. The whiplash hurt a little, but it was better than leaving himself helpless.
With another blink, Mewtwo appeared floating on the opposite end of the newly formed cloud of debris which strangely wasn't obeying the force of gravity. Perhaps not so strangely since this land was made of dreams and thought, not the laws of physics. Perhaps a mind like Jeff's that had those laws memorized would be more faithful to them.
"That was not my doing. The man you saw was only an illusion, a manifestation of your subconscious like everything else here. Almost everything else..."
As he said that, many of the walls, floors, beds, and other objects from Lucas's house started glowing purple from Mewtwo's telekinetic control of them. Not only that, but they changed into other things like the metal walls and floors of a laboratory and even a few computers. The air around Mewtwo was distorting as more and more changed into things from his world...
In other words, Mewtwo was starting to override Lucas's Magicant with his own. If he took over completely, then the mind control would be a success.
I can't let him do that..!
Lucas held out his arms to each side, his hands glowing with yellow and blue hexagons as he answered Mewtwo's telekinetic attack with his own. Both of them launched a barrage of debris at each other, intercepting each others' projectiles. Rocks crumbled, wooden walls were torn apart, machines exploded, and metal bent as the many objects clashed in a deafening spectacle. Some missed each other to go flying into the distance, most were destroyed, but a lucky few on each side slipped by to their intended target.
Lucas really wished he had a weapon when a rock, half of his bed and the floor below it were all hurled at him...just like that, his Mystical Stick flew into his hand, allowing him to swing it like a bat to deflect them. Mewtwo did the same with another weapon among the debris. With it, he sliced the incoming wall into two halves with an absurdly clean cut. The weapon was a yellow beam sword, which he then swung at Lucas.
For some reason, Lucas couldn't attack. He kept defending by parrying the sword slashes over and over with his stick and healed himself whenever a cut got through. The wounds didn't bleed since the heat of the energy sword cauterized them on its own. A sensation he was all too familiar with. Sparks flew from the energy sword as Lucas struggled to hold it back with a mere wooden stick.
"T-that's not yours, it's my brother's...Give it back!" Lucas's voice was shaky, very disturbed by Mewtwo using that particular weapon. The cat-like Pokemon was unfazed and put more force into his swing, enough to knock Lucas away and knock the Mystical Stick out of his hands, disarming him. Blink. Instantly, he was right behind Lucas, about to slash again until he saw something else behind him. The machine on top of that strange tower from before was charging something. Specifically, it fired a high voltage lightning bolt directly at the two of them. Blink. Mewtwo disappeared just as it reached them, causing it to fry Lucas instead...At least it would have if not for something else.
[The Franklin Badge reflected the lightning back!]
The machine was fried by its own shot, causing a huge explosion that made the entire building start to collapse. It also brought back another memory: the last time he destroyed this thing.
It was during the earlier half of his journey, before they learned about the mysterious Seven Needles. Back then, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, and Boney were just doing whatever they could to end the Pigmask Army's control and corruption of their village, and this Thunder Tower played a major role in that. Ever since Fassad started bringing "Happy Boxes", money, and technology to change their way of life, lightning 'coincidentally' kept striking at or near the houses of those who didn't buy any 'Happy Boxes', and Lucas was the only one who remained defiant.
Eventually, Lucas and friends made their way to the top and finally destroyed the generator, but that wasn't the end of it: they met Fassad himself after that, who tried to cowardly escape on the nearby airship while ordering it to destroy the disabled tower and them with it. Luckily, he slipped on his own dropped banana peel and fell to a very deserved death. At least he should have, except he was rebuilt as a cyborg to face them again later.
More importantly, back then they escaped death by grabbing the rope ladder of the nearby ship, which put them face to face with a masked man staring down at them who Lucas felt a strange psychic connection with. 'Man' wasn't the best term: He was a boy about Lucas's age who carried an unusual sword...
Mewtwo stopped himself in midair, pausing for a moment as Lucas continued to fall. He closed his eyes, lost in thought as he connected the dots with the help of a little mind reading. This made him drop the beam sword.
"I see...so you ended up fighting your brother. So did I."
"Huh?!"
Blink. He appeared in front of Lucas and grabbed him with a three-fingered hand while he was too surprised to react. Blink. The scenery around them changed as Mewtwo teleported them both somewhere else. However, something unusual happened after what Mewtwo said. Before Lucas could see where they had warped to, he caught a glimpse into Mewtwo's memories this time instead of the other way around.
The first thing he saw was the sky: It was a dark and stormy night. How cliche. It suited the rest of what he saw, which was an intense battle between Mewtwo and none other than Mew, the legendary Pokemon whose DNA he was cloned from. The two psychic types were flying through the sky and clashing again and again while surrounding themselves with spheres of energy. Not only that, but another battle raged on on the ground, this one between many pairs of nearly identical Pokemon. However, the ones on Mewtwo's side looked slightly abnormal. Like him, they were clones, and Mewtwo was making them fight the originals to try to prove their superiority.
Lucas looked around some more, and saw there were humans there too, watching the battle anxiously. It turned out some of the Pokemon there were theirs, like the Pikachu, but there was nothing they could do to stop the battle. Both Mew and Mewtwo were trying to settle it once and for all by charging up attacks powerful enough that the stage lights for their arena shorted out. They looked evenly matched...
Then one of the humans ran right in between them, telling them to stop just as they fired. Lucas tried telling him to stop and pull him out of the way, but he only passed through him like a ghost. It did not end well for the boy who was somehow turned to stone by the two psychic attacks. The boy's death made his Pikachu cry as he pointlessly tried to revive him with his electricity...the other Pokemon (besides Mewtwo and Mew) were also brought to tears at the sight of this. So were the humans.
So was Lucas. It wasn't the first time he had seen someone die, but he would never get used to it. Especially not when the kid only looked about ten years old, even younger than Lucas.
"H-how could you do this?! Because of your fight that boy is d...d-!" Lucas was cut off as Mewtwo's telepathic voice interrupted him.
"He is not...Just watch."
Sure enough, what Mewtwo said was true. Lucas was left speechless as the tears of all the Pokemon, both original and clone, somehow revived the boy who was unusually young to be adventuring around the world and joining such dangerous battles. In the memory, even Mewtwo was moved by the sight of the opposing Pokemon grieving together to bring back the petrified child. He obviously didn't cry like the others, but it changed his perspective on life completely, causing him to reconcile his differences with Mew. It was best summarized with what the past version of Mewtwo said next.
"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant...It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."
The memory started to fade away after that, giving Mewtwo some more time to explain it.
"As you can see, he survived, and I decided I no longer needed to prove my superiority to Mew for my existence to have meaning. I recently met another clone named 'Pittwo', and he has similar thoughts about being able to choose his own identity despite being a 'freak of nature'..."
It was a good thing the fight between Mewtwo and Mew had ended well. That was what Lucas told himself, but something about it got to him. Seeing Mewtwo resolve his duel against the closest thing he had to a brother so peacefully made him more than a little jealous...He prepared to fight, focusing PSI in his hands as Mewtwo spoke up again.
"But enough talk. Let us settle this!"
And so, they returned to the location they had teleported to.
Lucas found himself in a familiar, yet disturbing location. They were in a hallway lined with many automatic metal doors, the floor being light blue with a hexagonal pattern. The air was very stale and sterile, and cameras watched their every move. This was definitely a laboratory, but not just any laboratory...He remembered how terrible experiments were conducted here. The scientists here took countless animals apart and 'reconstructed' them by fusing them with other animals or machines to create disturbing and violent abominations known as "Chimeras".
This was the Chimera Lab. Just seeing it made Lucas tense up, and he didn't hesitate to destroy some of it by blasting Mewtwo with PK Love, sending him flying through one of the automatic doors and into a room full of small and large glass tubes filled with strange liquid and...things that made Lucas sick to his stomach. Some had animals in them, some only parts of animals. Others had disturbing hybrid and cyborg Chimeras, and a number of them including the one Mewtwo crashed into had humans in them. The tube shattered to pieces when Mewtwo collided with it, sending glass shards flying while water and the unfortunate man inside spilled out onto the ground. Whoever he was, he was still alive, somehow not feeling pain and talking in a slurred voice as he repeated the same line over and over.
*glub**glub* "This feels sooooo niiiice...I...want to help Master Porky..."
This was how the Pigmask Army got its recruits: brainwashing. Even Mewtwo was disturbed as he healed himself with Recover and hurled the scattered glass shards back at Lucas, who defended himself with a PSI Shield. This wasn't just a nightmare, but was based on true events in Lucas's life. There were also a few glass tubes that had Pokemon in them, a sign of Mewtwo's mental influence starting to take over, and one with a human girl who somehow felt familiar. It was giving Mewtwo a serious headache as he tried to remember when he last saw her, but couldn't...
They were both distracted from those thoughts by many sounds filling the laboratory. First was the blaring sound of alarms, then pattering of many footsteps, and what sounded like pigs squealing...That was what a Pigmask sounded like when they screamed since their helmet also worked as a voice changer. Then there were heavy thuds from something heavy walking, and a crunch followed by more and much louder squeals.
Then, a deafening silence.
Lucas's clutched his chest, feeling his heart racing so fast it was practically bursting out of it. It had to be his worst memory of this place, and the most terrifying thing in the Chimera Lab. A demonic beast that should never have been created let alone set loose on an unsuspecting world. Mewtwo was left confused why Lucas seemingly ignored him, giving him an easy opening to blast him into the wall with a Shadow Ball. Then he decided to see what had distracted them. Blink. Just then, it went around the corner and was right in their sights, only a few feet away from Mewtwo.
"What in the name of Arceus?!"
Mewtwo saw a red, four-legged creature with a devil-like tail, tiny bat-like wings too small to fly with, yellow bloodshot eyes with no pupils, an equally yellow bird sitting on its head, a button on its back, but most importantly an absolutely massive mouth which somehow took up most of its body and had many rows of incredibly sharp teeth which were stained a darker red than its skin...It was chewing the severed arm of a Pigmask, one of many victims whose remaining body parts that weren't devoured whole and blood covered the floor of the hallway it came from. It promptly dropped the arm when it saw new prey, making a loud "SHING" sound followed by an all too familiar roar.
It was the Ultimate Chimera.
"AHHH! RUN!" Lucas got up from the ground and ran in a panic, sprinting down the hallway as fast as he could until he was out of its sight. He practically burst into a nearby room, closing the door behind him and hoping he could hide and escape from its murderous rampage like he had before. He didn't dare take the time to look back and check what happened to Mewtwo, but he heard another blink just before the loud crushing sound of metal being torn apart. Then a few seconds later, more squeals.
Mewtwo suddenly appeared next to him and surprisingly, he did not attack. For now. Instead he for once had something besides that emotionless stoic expression, his eyes widened in shock by the horrific things in this child's mind. He was also irritated that they were making it difficult to fight normally, but that was less important.
"What is wrong with you?! A child's mind should NOT look like a horror movie!"
Lucas didn't say anything as he trembled in fear. He stuck next to the wall and watched the door nervously, not wanting to make a sound the Ultimate Chimera could hear. He could have used telepathy, but he was too terrified to think straight.
"I have observed many humans and their strange thought patterns, and they are nothing like this. A teenage boy like you should have a mind full of frivolous thoughts, such as how 'lame' you think your parents are, or how you want to act in a way that is appealing and 'cool' to your peers, or what Pokemon you will catch next on your adventure across the world that your parents let you go on completely unsupervised, or how to obey the raging hormones you humans have and engage in your ridiculous courting rituals, or...I believe I have made my point."
Lucas's body loosened just a little, slightly less terrified now that the Ultimate Chimera had gone elsewhere. He could hear more squeals in the distance which meant it had pursued the others instead. The psychic boy calmed down just enough to remember he was in fact, psychic.
"I know I'm weird, but it's all true...It's a long story...how do I say this...Uh..." He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, trying to breathe normally and stay calm. All this adrenaline was not making it easy to concentrate... "Well, long story short, some really bad people called the 'Pigmask Army' used this lab to make all kinds of monsters and robots, and they ruined all the nice stuff about my village, so I had to stop them. It was really scary sometimes, like when I went here, but in the end me and my friends took them down..." Lucas awkwardly summarized his journey while leaving out many details. He was still staring at the door instead of Mewtwo since he was very intimidating. It was no wonder his ability was called "Pressure".
Mewtwo held his chin pensively, seeing the implications of what Lucas said. "So you were a child soldier." He didn't say it like a question, but a statement of a fact based on the evidence of Lucas's story and all the memories he had seen so far. Meanwhile the squeals in the distance had stopped.
Lucas winced a little at that description. "Um...It's not like anyone forced me to fight, and I wasn't in an army...I just had to stop them or else everything would get destroyed if Claus pulled the final Needle..." He shuddered at the thought of if it had ended differently. The Dark Dragon reflected the heart of whoever pulled its Needles, either filling the world with good or evil, but if someone had no heart when they awakened it...it could have been the end of everything. Except for Porky, who was perfectly fine with the possibility of watching everyone die while safe inside his Capsule. Lucas clenched his fists, trying not to think about his unfounded revenge.
"...You are giving me more questions than answers."
It looked like Mewtwo was taking the time to chat with Lucas instead of fight, but that was only partly true. As they were talking, Mewtwo was using his psychic power to slowly take over more of the mental world, trying to win the less painful way while getting some answers from the only fellow psychic in this tournament who he hadn't met before. The child's mind was just proving more resilient than he thought since he expected to have won already. However, their conversation was cut short.
THUD
The metal door to their room bulged inwards as something slammed into it. "Ahhhh!" Lucas screamed and jumped back towards the wall, terrified of their impending demise. Mewtwo remained calm and glowed with purple psychic energy, deciding to get some more useful information while preparing to fight. He could sense an extreme psychic presence, indicating that when Lucas saw it in real life he thought of it as incredibly powerful, perhaps even invincible, which is what made it so powerful in his mind.
"What is this creature? Does it have any weaknesses? I need answers, now!"
CRASH
The door was sent flying off its hinges, forcing Lucas to jump out of the way to not get crushed by it. He stammered in a panic, trying to talk as the Ultimate Chimera made the same terrifying "SHING" and roar as always.
"W-w-weaknesses? Its weakness is..uh..." For a moment, he panicked and couldn't remember. Then it rushed towards them, opening its giant maw which was even bloodier than before, full of the chewed remains of the other Pigmasks. That jolted his memory as well as nearly making him puke.
"It's the B-B-BUTTON! HIT IT!" Lucas covered his eyes and winced as it jumped right at him, about to devour him whole with its dozens of fangs...
Click. Mewtwo threw one of the room's cameras into the button telekinetically, making it stop as its fangs started to poke into Lucas's pajamas. The lights in its eyes went out, as it had been turned off. Its only weakness to compensate for its invincibility and instant-kill nature was that it was battery-powered and could be disabled. Lucas awkwardly tore himself free of its jaws, tearing his pajamas slightly. He was grossed out having to see the gorey stuff in its mouth, and some of the blood even got on his pajamas. Now he sighed in relief, glad he only had Mewtwo to worry about as he ran out of the room.
SHING
The bird on its flew down and pressed the button, turning it on again. Then the button somehow receded inside its body, making it no longer possible to press and now truly invincible. Lucas ran out into the hallways while Mewtwo sighed, grabbed Lucas again, then...
Blink.
Just like that, they escaped, teleporting to another room of the Chimera Lab. Lucas was at first relieved, and then annoyed. And then envious. He pouted at Mewtwo, puffing his cheeks. "Why didn't you do that earlier?! Teleporting is no fair...I wish I could do that..." He glared out of jealousy, trying to look as intimidating as he could...
[It wasn't very effective.]
Mewtwo was completely ignoring him, instead staring at something behind him. Lucas finally gave up and turned around to see what it was. It left him in a stunned silence.
This room was one built around operating tables meant for taking things apart and rebuilding them, and was full of medical tools for doing so. One of them was small, just the right size for a human. That one was empty. The other was very large, so big that it could even fit a Drago on it, which was a dinosaur-like creature big enough to stomp on tanks. It did in fact have a Drago on it, one that had just been 'reconstructed': A Mecha-Drago. As it jumped at Lucas and Mewtwo, a memory took over the area, specifically the one Lucas least wanted to remember.
It was when he first saw a Mecha-Drago.
(Author's Note: I know this chapter has a lot of flashbacks from MOTHER 3 and the Mewtwo movie, but it's because I wanted to make sure those who haven't played the game or watched the movie before know the relevant backstory. Assuming they don't care about spoilers, otherwise they wouldn't be reading this fic...Hopefully. The reason it took so long is because I was trying to fit the entire Lucas vs Mewtwo in Magicant battle into one chapter when I realized recently I planned enough for it to be more like two, so I just cut off this half of the fight here which resulted in another cliffhanger. Sorry. However since I have some of the next chapter done already, it should be out sooner than usually...Probably.
As usual, I don't own either the Mewtwo movie or MOTHER 3 or any of the scenes/plot points in them including the ones shown here. I hope the flashbacks aren't making this too unoriginal but there shouldn't be as many in the future when it isn't a battle inside the mind like this. Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated and thanks for reading!)
