Polaris–Ponyta, Charren–Charizard, Ferry-Lapras, Kinesis-Alakazam, Jarday-Jolteon, Flarga-Flareon.

Happy to be Home

I laughed as I felt myself drifting up on the air, light as a feather. I'd flown with Charren before, but never floated.

I turned and raised my hand in farewell to Ash, Misty and Brock. They and the other trainers watched us wide-eyed as we rose high above the stadium.

Polaris whinnied, tossed her hooves, and placed her forehead against my back. She was, as always, unafraid. Even when her hooves were far from solid ground.

I smiled. The weight that had been resting on my heart all day had lifted finally. Things were fine again. And I'd found Mewtwo.

But now I had to speak with him. He wasn't evil. That didn't mean that he wasn't dangerous. And he'd changed. I guess my dying changed him. Would I be able to help him anymore?

We joined the flock of flying clones. The Pikachu and Jolteon drifted over to greet me. I patted them both on the head. I wanted to hug them, but I wasn't sure how well they'd receive that… I dunno.

Mewtwo was flying out across the ocean, carrying all of us with him. Mew glided along beside him, turning to wink at me. She doubled back, grabbing my hand, and she pulled me up towards Mewtwo.

He didn't want to bring you along, she informed me. But I said that he needed to. That you were my friend.

Thanks, Mew. I'm glad to be your friend.

Mew smiled. You helped me.

Well, you were only in trouble in the first place because you tried to help me.

Not the first time.

What? I didn't know what she meant by that. I didn't get a chance to ask though. We'd just drawn level with Mewtwo. He glanced at me, then turned back to the front.

"I'll return the other trainers and their Pokémon to the mainland," he informed me.

"Yeah, thanks." I took a deep breath. I was nervous speaking to him. "Um, Mewtwo? Where are you going? You and your clones?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Uh… I know where you can go," I blurted. I froze, amazed that I'd just said that.

Mewtwo glanced at me again. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, see, there's this island. A really big one. Only me and my friend ever go there. And you could stay there and… be safe. You and the clones. No one would bother you, and you'd have plenty of room to go around, and stuff…" I trailed off lamely.

"Perhaps," said Mewtwo, giving a little nod.

He still seemed rather cold and distant with me. Although his whole attitude towards people wouldn't change all at once. At least he's not trying to kill anyone anymore. Damn, even when I die, I can't get him to open up to me. Whatever. What do I expect? I was here with him, and he was speaking with me. That was more than I could have hoped just ten minutes ago.

"I don't think it's too far from here," I said, rubbing my forehead. "Do you want instructions?"

"I got them already. I read your mind."

Ah, well, that's slightly strange…

"OK." Boy, I'm just great at this aren't I? Making new friends? Jeez, I can't even talk without my voice shaking now. I'd felt wonderful when I first floated off the ground. Now I was nervous as heck. I was afraid of saying something that might set him off again. I didn't want him to drop me, or something. I mean, I knew it wasn't going to happen, but the ocean was a LONG way below us, and Mewtwo was the only thing that was keeping me from falling. This is what made me decide not to mention my dream yet. I'd wait till we were on solid ground.

I took several more deep breaths.

"Do I make you nervous?"

I shot a glance over at Mewtwo. He wasn't looking at me. He was flying on, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

I paused and thought for a moment.

"I don't think I'm afraid of you," I admitted slowly. "I guess, I'm afraid for you."

He hadn't expected to hear that. "What?"

I looked in the other direction. That was a weird thing to say. By now, I was pretty disgusted by my speech abilities.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

"What?" I asked, turning back towards him.

"When Mew's attack first hit me back at New Island, you spoke with me. You have telepathy. And you tried to say something that would calm me down. Only I didn't listen. I didn't even know it was a human speaking, let alone one of the trainers I'd invited. And when I was blasted back into the stands, you jumped up to where I'd fallen. You were trying to figure out if I was OK, weren't you?"

I didn't reply. I wasn't sure what to say.

"I'm sorry."

That startled me again.

"I don't suppose I deserve your concern," he continued. "And I don't suppose my apology means much, coming from someone who, minutes ago, would have killed you without a second thought."

I flinched. This conversation wasn't going in the direction that I'd hoped.

"That's OK," I said lamely. I wanted to say something more. But "let's be friends" would have sounded rather awkward.

"I'm glad you're all right," I added a minute later.

Mewtwo was silent again. The conversation had ended.

Mew and I drifted backwards to join the rest of the clones. Mewtwo remained at the front, heading towards Avalon. It would be a while before we arrived.

During the rest of our flight, I spoke with the clones, making up names for some of them. I like making up names.

My team remained by my side. Polaris, especially, remained very close to me. She was being rather protective considering, well, I'd just died.

The Pikachu and the Jolteon clones were the first to make friends with me. But the other clones were pretty friendly too. Their tears, after all, had brought me back to life. I was glad that they were all OK now. They were tired, yes, but overall, OK. And they were smiling. That was great. They had had very short lives. Lives filled with nothing but misunderstanding, and fighting. Now they could finally be happy. And I was happy too.

I began to relax again, playing some made-up airborne games with the clones.

After a while, there was a chattering among all of the Pokémon. Avalon had just come into view. And we began our descent.

Our group landed in the big meadow, between the house and the lake.

The arrival of about 40 Pokémon from the sky caused something of a commotion. All of the Pokémon grazing in the meadow lifted their heads and stared at us. Nova, my Rapidash, looked like he wanted to greet us, but was nervous about all these strange new Pokémon. So Polaris trotted over to greet him.

Ferry looked happy to have her flippers on firm ground once more, but many of the clones seemed disappointed that the flight had ended.

Avalon gave me a new courage. I didn't feel quite so nervous as I approached Mewtwo this time.

"I think everyone should rest for a while. They all need it," I said, gesturing to the clones. "But when everyone's feeling better…" I hesitated. "Well, I never got a chance to challenge your Charizard to a battle. It would just a friendly match. Not a serious fight. But since I didn't challenge you at the island…"

Mewtwo examined me and didn't reply for a few moments. "A friendly match," he repeated.

"Yeah. Battles don't need to be violent. You can spar just to have fun and test each other's strengths."

"I've never done one of those before," he admitted.

"Well, uh, this should be fun then. But I don't want to battle when everyone's so tired though."

I'm not tired! Mew said, leaning against my shoulder.

I smiled. "Yeah. But I'm tired too, actually." I almost said "I guess dying does that to you," but that would have been pretty weird.

"I guess you can all rest out here. I don't think you'll all fit in the house." I rubbed the back of my head, examining Gyarados. "I need to go find Ben. He's my friend. He should be inside now. I just want to let him know I'm home."

Mewtwo watched me again.

"Do you want to come? "I asked, not sure what he wanted.

He shook his head. "No. I'll wait out here with the others."

"OK. I'll be back in a minute."

I went to take a step, but my foot twisted to the side and I promptly fell flat on the ground. After flying for so long, I felt weird to walk again. Plus I was still a bit weak from… earlier.

I got back to my feet, blushing fiercely, and headed off to the house as fast as I could without falling again.

I pushed open the door. I felt so strange doing so. By all rights, I shouldn't have been able to walk through this door anymore. I guess dying really changes your view on life.

I didn't need to go far. Pooka came racing up to me to greet me. Ben appeared a moment later. He'd obviously noticed all of the Pokémon in the front yard cause he looked slightly alarmed.

"Cara! You're back! What's going on? What's with all those guys out front?"

"Ah, it's a really long story. Want to come outside? There's someone I want you to meet. And there's a story you should hear."

…

I yawned and sat up, blinking sleepily. I'd just woken up from my nap. Well, I guess it was heavier than a nap. It was already morning. I'd slept for several hours.

I was in the front yard, leaning against Polaris's side as she dozed. Mew was snuggled up next to me. She gave a little sigh in her sleep and her tail twitched. The clones were scattered all around me, asleep. Ben was asleep too, with his Arcanine. But the one person I didn't see was…

I sat up slowly, shifting Mew onto my lap so I wouldn't disturb her.

Oh, there he is. Mewtwo was up on the roof, facing away from us and staring into the distance.

I hesitated. I guess now would be as good a time as any.

I set Mew in the grass where I'd been sitting and stood up, making my way towards the house. I went to the trellis and began to climb. I finally heaved myself onto the roof.

Mewtwo was already watching me.

"Did you get any rest?" I asked.

He turned away again. "No."

"Oh." I rubbed my head. "Uh, listen. Can I tell you something?"

"Mm."

"Well, see, I have a few psychic powers. Not many. Like you noticed, I have some telepathy. A couple… a couple weeks ago, I think Mew sent me an image. I guess it was her. It might have been me, I suppose. It was a dream. In my dream… I wasn't myself. I was floating in a tank." Mewtwo fixed his eyes on me again. He either stared at me, or refused to look at me.

"Uh, maybe I should start from the beginning. A couple years ago, I met Mew. Team Rocket captured her."

"Team Rocket?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I went to rescue her because I found out that they wanted to use her DNA to clone her. To make a super-powered Mew. And with a lot of help from Ben and some Pokémon, we got her free. But then a couple weeks ago, I had the dream. A dream where I was in the body of the very creature that I'd heard about so long ago. And he was upset. The people that made him didn't care about him. And he got mad and…"

I trailed off. I realized with a jolt that a tear was sliding down my cheek. I brushed it away before Mewtwo could notice it. "That dream scared me so much. And I felt so bad for you. And Giovanni was behind it after all. He used a fossil since he couldn't use Mew herself."

"You tried to prevent my creation."

I looked up, startled. "Wait, that's not what I meant. Team Rocket, they just wanted to create a weapon. I didn't want them to make something, because their plan sounded so horrible. What they could do with that much power…"

"It worked, didn't it? They gave me the power to destroy the world. And I would have done it too."

"But see, after that dream, I went to look for you. I wanted to find you. From my dream, I knew that you weren't evil. You just needed someone… someone to… love." I almost whispered the last part of the phrase. Mewtwo was more like a human than any other Pokémon I'd met. I never treated Pokémon inferior, but I didn't need to treat them like humans either. While you don't go around just hugging people, I hug my Pokémon all the time. That kind of stuff, you know. But I doubt it would be well received if I tried to hug Mewtwo.

I shook my head to clear those random thoughts. "And then I got your invitation. After my dream, I was only one of a handful of people to reach your island."

"Are you trying to say something?"

"I don't know. I just thought I'd tell you what I knew."

He gave a small nod. "During most of my time, I was with Giovanni. He used me. Like you said, I was nothing more than a machine to him. When he told me that I was his slave, I destroyed his mansion and left to New Island."

"You were with Giovanni," I murmured. That guy was certainly capable of turning any Pokémon sour.

"And I'll tell you one more thing."

I nodded.

"It was short. Just a few moments. But I had a dream about you too."