AN: Cool. Needless to say I've scrapped the whole "marathon chapter" idea. Hope no one minds. On a side note, sorry about the confusion about May's Swellows. At the time of the writing I didn't think it was odd enough to merit mention that a character would have duplicate Pokemon. Come to think of it though, none of the named characters did. Oh well, sorry bout that.
Thanks for reading.
Peace!
Chapter 36 - By Fire
Mewtwo watched Ash in silence for only a second. "As you'll have it," it said, its tone icy as it raised a hand and pointed a finger at Ash.
As the young savant went for Snorlax's pokeball, a sphere of darkness the size of a grain of sand appeared at the tip of Mewtwo's finger and shot forward. It struck Ash in the chest with a report like a clap of thunder. Ash spun backwards through the air, his world going dark around the edges as he landed some twenty feet from where he'd stood and skidded to a halt several yards farther still from the psychic. Ash watched, his vision pulsing, as Mewtwo stalked forward. Head forward, shoulders arched, fists clenched the psychic stomped forward.
As Arcanine howled a challenge and leapt in, positioning himself between Ash and Mewtwo, the trainer lashed out and threw Snorlax's pokeball. The orb snapped open, but even as light flooded across the floor, Mewtwo's eyes began to burn and smoke with an infernal purple glow. Without looking away from Ash the psychic gestured to Oz as the pokemon remained half-formed. It slashed his hand through the air and an explosion of purple light smashed into the Snorlax, sending the huge Pokemon spiralling through the air like a rag doll. After a long arc above the ground, Snorlax crashed to the stone floor, tearing up debris and throwing dust in all directions.
As it closed within a few strides of Ash, Mewtwo reached out with a glowing purple hand. Arcanine roared like a lion and bolted forward, leaping through the air with fangs bared to bite, tongue wreathed in flame. Mewtwo vanished in a blur and Arcanine's leap took it sailing only through empty air as the psychic materialized behind the massive canine, hand still outstretched. Before Arcanine touched down, Mewtwo swept a finger downward. A sheet of purple energy fizzled into existence above Arcanine and came crashing down like the head of an enormous hammer. Arcanine slammed to the ground, pinned between the sheet and floor for only a second before the hammer disappeared and left the canine stunned.
Mewtwo turned around again, its eyes widening for a split second as, rather than a helpless human, all it saw were the fanged jaws of a charging Charizard ready to close around its face. Hand snapping up, Mewtwo flashed with light and caught Charizard by the throat, holding him at bay. All of the dragon's momentum vanishing, Charizard whipped its body around and slapped at Mewtwo with its tail. The psychic failed to even flinch as a barrier of purple light sprung to life to absorb the blow. Mewtwo's eyes again burned as its fingers grew tight around Charizard's neck. The heavy dragon, held aloft as though he weighed nothing, opened its jaws unnaturally wide as a fire roared to life behind its teeth. Mewtwo raised its arm to shield its face a second too late. A jet of crimson flame slapped up against the purple shield that leapt up to stop the fire, bending the flames around Mewtwo like water around a stone.
The psychic growled and spun, bringing Charizard up in an arc over its head and slamming the dragon into the ground on its opposite side. With another thunderous crack and flash of purple light, Mewtwo sent Charizard skidding across the floor where he crashed into Arcanine. Both Pokemon yelped from the impact and tumbled across the smooth stone.
Ash pushed himself up to his side, the numbness in his hands and legs worsening, only to look up and see Mewtwo towering over him. "So now what?" Ash grumbled, meeting Mewtwo's gaze. "You kill me and there's nothing standing between you and humanity?"
Mewtwo reached down and lifted Ash off the ground by his throat. "A pity, but yes."
"What if I surrendered?" Ash choked.
Mewtwo held Ash out at arm's length, bringing its free hand up to Ash's chest where the ends of its fingers began to burn purple. "You wouldn't," it said calmly.
Ash watched as the fire in Mewtwo's hand began to burn brighter, and his shell of black armor began to flake up and burn away like paper next to a blowtorch. "Haunter!" he screamed.
A ghostly cackle, like chains being dragged through gravel and mud chortled behind Mewtwo. The psychic turned its attention on the rapidly coalescing mass of purple mist, the fire in its fingers snuffed out as though by a chill wind. Dropping Ash in a heap, Mewtwo turned and vanished a split second before Haunter's taloned hand could rake its face. Appearing a few strides behind Haunter, Mewtwo lashed out with a whip of violet light that Haunter barely managed to dodge.
Again pushing himself up to an elbow, Ash looked between Arcanine and Charizard, both battered Pokemon only now beginning to recover their footing, and Mewtwo as it dueled with Haunter. The ghost, all maniacal laughter gone, would charge forward and grab at Mewtwo with his dagger-like claws, only for the psychic to teleport a short distance away and retaliate with a bolt of purple energy or a strike from a whip of light that Haunter would narrowly manage to avoid. This dance repeated for several seconds, neither opponent landing any meaningful blow against the other.
"He's slowed down," Ash muttered, watching as Mewtwo's attacks and teleportation grew ever slightly more sluggish when Haunter neared him. "Got it," he whispered.
"Enough," Mewtwo said calmly. The room grew darker as thousands of the lights overhead flickered out of existence and Mewtwo faced Haunter without dodging away. The ghost reached for the psychic again, claws outstretched. "Congratulations," the psychic said as Haunter's talons rebounded as if from an invisible shield. "You've merited more than my passing attention."
Haunter screamed as purple fire leapt from Mewtwo's eyes and snaked through the ghost's gaseous form like angry vipers. Haunter retreated, shrieking to Ash as Mewtwo straightened up and turned back to the young trainer.
The psychic brushed one hand down its flank to clear away some dust. "Damn ghosts," it said.
Ash held his hand to one side, calling Haunter with a silent order. As if moving on its own, Ash's helmet snapped to his side and the young trainer donned the battered piece of armor. "Charizard, Arcanine," he said, looking between his two Pokemon and stepping back. "Light him up."
With no hesitation, Arcanine disappeared in a blur of speed that left footprints in the stone floor and a trail of embers in the air. He appeared behind Mewtwo, fur lit up with countless glowing embers. While Mewtwo turned and raised a hand at Arcanine, Charizard flapped his wings once and leapt through the air, closing the distance between himself and Mewtwo in an instant. Slashing its fingers through a harsh X pattern, Mewtwo unleashed a volley of purple darts at Arcanine that passed only through empty air as the massive canine disappeared in a puff of wind again.
Charizard roared his shrieking battle cry and dug his claws into the stone floor, anchoring himself and tearing up narrow trenches. Arching his neck back and snapping his horned head forward the dragon opened his jaws and spewed a volcanic mixture of glowing hot saliva and superheated breath at the psychic. Grunting as it did so, Mewtwo turned to face the blast head on, not stepping back as the flames wrapped around its invisible shield and left Mewtwo unharmed. At the same time, Arcanine reappeared behind the pychic and shook out his glowing fur. The burning embers arced in every direction as the Pokemon snarled and began closing on Mewtwo. With every step he shook himself from side to side faster and harder, flinging an ever greater volume of embers out in a continuous spray.
Mewtwo raised its other hand to point at Arcanine, summoning a purple barrier between himself and the canine that warped into a hemisphere of light around its figure. As the searing points of light stuck to the shield and the floor and continued to burn like hot coals, Charizard relented in its breath attack only long enough to suck in another belly-full of air and pull himself forward on the floor before renewing his hellish torch. Waves of heat rippling out, the flames and embers encased the psychic's shield so completely Ash only knew it was there due to the warped shape of Charizard's fire.
A few thousand more of the mapped stars overhead winked out of existence and the sphere of fire exploded out, throwing both Charizard and Arcanine away, banishing the jets of flame, and leaving Mewtwo, standing hunched with clenched fists, unharmed in the center of circular trench of melted and pooling rock. Eyes white with fire, Mewtwo stepped forward, over the rivulet of flowing and steaming stone. A purple spark leapt between its eyes and Ash rose into the air, arms snapping out to his sides as a titanic pressure crushed at his chest.
Dozens more lights vanished and Mewtwo's corona grew brighter. "Give in," the psychic's tone had grown deep; it spoke with what sounded like dozens of echoing voices, "and your suffering will be shorter-"
"Haunter!" Ash screamed. Instantly a deep purple glow, dark as to be almost black, exploded around Ash and he dropped a few feet to the ground as Haunter's misty form hung in the air around him. "Arcanine! Charizard!" Ash shouted, seeing the sweat beginning to bead on Mewtwo's arms and forehead, "keep-"
Arcanine needed no further prodding. With a furious howl and a puff of smoke as his fur burst into flames, Arcanine charged with invisible speed. A trail of smoke and embers and glowing paw prints left pressed into the stone were the only signals of the canine's movement as he rushed at Mewtwo, disappearing the instant before the psychic could strike and appearing behind it again. This time however Arcanine sprinted at an angle, drawing in his wake a fallen pillar of translucent fire in a wide circle around Mewtwo. The psychic took aim and loosed a volley of bullets that struck the stone floor like lightning bolts. Running so fast he almost completed a lap between the launching of the darts and their landing, Arcanine made no further effort to dodge them, rather focusing on continuing his laps and intensifying the circle of fire.
Charizard again dug itself in, heaved in a breath, and loosed a glowing column of heated air at Mewtwo. The flames again arced around the psychic's shield, but this time Mewtwo raised both hands as if to block the attack, sweat now pouring off its frame. Arcanine made no effort to dodge Charizard's infernal attack, rather running through the jet of fire and whipping it into his own trail of flame. When Charizard began beating its wings to further stir the flames, Mewtwo disappeared entirely behind the opaque inferno. The waves of fire spiralled around Mewtwo in Arcanine's wake, rising in pillars and spires that danced like a tremendous furnace. The stone at the edges of the pillar began to warp and run like sludge at first, but every circle Arcanine completed freed more of the rock from its solid state and after only seconds the magma flowed like water, some droplets even rose, caught up in the inferno and spun around like rain in a tornado.
Looking to his Snorlax, Ash caught the massive Pokemon's attention with a wordless shout. "Oz!" he bellowed a second later, not looking away from the image of hell before him as bolts of purple energy and spikes of lightning arced from the tower of fire in random directions, "get the door!" he pointed to massive vaulted door on the opposite end of the room. "Haunter! You know what to do!"
Oz, already staggering in the furnace into which Ash had made the room, stood up and plodded forward. Slowly at first but gaining momentum with every step, before long the Pokemon ran at a full sprint. Closing his eyes to shield them from the heat, the Snorlax lowered his shoulder and barrelled for the door.
Ash turned back to the screaming blaze. "How's that?" he shouted, knowing the psychic would hear him. "All that godly power and you can't take a little heat?" He turned away from the vault door so far away, sensing with every cell in his body the power that lay beyond it.
The whole cavern began to rumble and all at once the entire star map overhead vanished. "ENOUGH," Mewtwo's voice roared over the howl of the fires. Blasting out like a dying sun, the towering inferno exploded, sending Arcanine and Charizard tumbling away again like paper dolls in a storm. Hovering an inch off the ground, Mewtwo stared at Ash, eyes blank sheets of glowing violet light. Its once smooth and purple body now shone dull red and pink all over in the white halo of energy surrounding Mewtwo. Over most of its frame its skin had been peeled away by the heat, exposing the red flesh and blood beneath. At its outermost extremities, Mewtwo's arms and feet and the horns on its head, blood pulsed through cauterized and cracking veins into view and dripped to the ground where it sizzled and mingled with the still molten stone.
Ash took a few steps forward while Mewtwo hung silent. "Block all the fire you want! Convection's a bitch, huh." Ash shouted.
Mewtwo's halo began to burn brighter and the cavern started to shake. Dust breaking loose from the floor and floating into the air, the whole world seemed to grow silent. "In your arrogance you've tried to anger the ultimate Pokemon," the psychic's voice filled the room. "And you succeeded."
From Mewtwo's flank, Arcanine charged as Charizard tried to get back up to his feet. In a flash the psychic vanished and reappeared behind Arcanine. Mewtwo spun through the air and brought its foot down on Aracnine's back with a sickening crack. Before the canine, still mid leap, could strike the ground Mewtwo teleported again, flashing into existence beneath Arcanine and, eyes burning purple, planted its outstretched hand firmly against the Pokemon's chest. A purple explosion lit the room and Arcanine shot skywards like a rocket, too stunned to yelp in pain. Winking out of sight, Mewtwo vanished and reappeared in a flash of light high overhead. Less than a second after it landed its first blow against Arcanine the psychic angled both his hands down at the rising Pokemon. Without a sound or a gesture, Mewtwo's eyes lit up like the sun and a wave of energy, so bright purple it burned Ash's eyes through his tinted visor, shot downwards like a meteor and slammed smashed into Arcanine. Exploding with a thunderous report, the wave of energy sent Arcanine's smoking figure plummeting to the stone beneath.
Before Arcanine struck the ground, Mewtwo was gone again, this time flashing into view behind Charizard. The red dragon whirled on the psychic with fangs spread wide, his throat glowing like a furnace. A purple cloud of energy rushed from Mewtwo's palm at the dragon, twining around his jaws like chains and snapping them shut. Charizard hung in the air and jerked his body around. His tail slapped soundly against Mewtwo's raised forearm, but stopped there as if it had struck the very pillars of the earth. Mewtwo's eyes narrowed as it closed its fingers around Charizard's tail and, swinging the dragon from the appendage like a weight on a chain, slammed Charizard again and again into the floor all around. After tearing up a dozen chunks of rock with Charizard's now limp frame, Mewtwo let the dragon hang like a fish out of water as it pointed its hand at the floor.
Mewtwo snapped its fingers and a stalagmite of rock, ten feet tall, over a foot wide at the base, and tapering to a wickedly sharp point exploded up. Mewtwo reared back and swung Charizard over its head by his tail, bringing him down on the spike of stone. Charizard screamed as the spike slid between two of his ribs. The dragon crashed to the ground, impaled through his chest all the way to the spike's hilt. He thrashed for a moment as Mewtwo released his tail, but grew stiller seconds later, only the rapid and shallow rising and falling of his chest betraying his being alive.
Dropping to his knees, Ash looked between his two crumpled Pokemon. As Mewtwo dropped to the floor and stalked towards Ash, the young trainer, reached up and put his hands on his helmet. When Mewtwo stopped less than a full stride away, Ash pulled away the helmet and tossed it to the ground. His face a blank mask, he looked up at the psychic.
Mewtwo held one hand out to his side, still looking down at Ash, and snapped its fingers. The dull violet spark that shot between the digits faded instantly, and Ash could only watch as a sheath of deep crimson energy criss-crossed by veins of darkness wrapped up the psychic's arm. In a flash it raced over the creature's entire frame and vanished, leaving Mewtwo's body free of any burns or visible blood.
Ash's face fell. "Oh shit," he muttered.
Mewtwo leaned forward and put its foot against Ash's chest. Stepping into the motion it pushed Ash onto his back and held him pinned against the stone. "You did better than either May or Giovanni, none of their Pokemon survived," said the psychic. "It will be fast. You won't feel a thing." Mewtwo pointed a single finger at Ash, a sphere of black energy materializing between the trainer and the Pokemon.
"Can I ask you two questions?" Ash muttered, no small amount of defeat in his tone.
Mewtwo lowered his hand but kept Ash immobile. "You may."
"When I asked," Ash said slowly, "you said that the Sun Soul could raise the dead, but it would take... how did you put it?"
"An act of unimaginable selfishness," Mewtwo answered, "Yes. I remember."
"Were you lying?" asked the young savant. "Were you just manipulating me?"
Mewtwo stood silent for a moment. "No, the Sun Soul does indeed have the power to raise the dead," the psychics voice grew less intense and the countless myriads of lights overhead began winking back into sight. "But such a wish would be a waste of its true potential."
"What kind of waste?" Ash asked. "How so?"
"Imagine," Mewtwo said, still looking down at the helpless trainer, "you can keep this artifact and grow ever stronger as long as it calls you master. Every day you grow smarter and stronger, your understanding of the universe expands, and any of your natural talents are multiplied. Or, you can have a single wish and then nothing more, one thing you desire. Would you really waste infinite potential on something so small as one wish?"
Ash shook his head. "That makes sense I suppose."
Mewtwo nodded and another crackle of energy in the air between them birthed a second sphere of darkness that hung in the air over Ash's head. "If you're ready," Mewtwo said.
"Just one more question," Ash said, waiting as Mewtwo paused, unable to read the psychic's alien face. He smirked. "Haven't you noticed my Haunter's been gone a long time?"
Behind Mewtwo May screamed, a wordless fury burning in her eyes as she raised the knife above her head with both hands. As Mewtwo looked over his shoulder at the raging girl and the knife, itself glowing purple and wreathed in a dark miasma, May brought the weapon down. The blade struck Mewtwo's invisible shield, hesitating for only second as Haunter cried out with effort and the knife continued downward. The psychic tried to turn away, but too late.
May plunged the blade between Mewtwo's shoulders where it sank to the hilt. The girl screamed, her eyes wide and wild as she jerked the knife and twisted it with all her strength. Mewtwo staggered forward as bolts of purple energy arced from the knife and tore further at the wound May opened in his back as Haunter erupted into laughter.
Mewtwo tired to turn, but the chains of ghostly energy clawing at its arms and legs and tearing into the wound in its back made the psychic stagger and slow to move. It swiped at May with a clumsy attack, affording the girl, stripped as she was of her armor, ample time to get away. Leaving the knife in Mewtwo's back, May reached down and took up a fist sized stone from the floor. Leaping forward as Mewtwo struggled to pry the blade from its back, May struck the psychic Pokemon with the stone, bashing its hip and raising the rock to strike again.
Yanking the knife from where it had landed, Mewtwo threw the weapon to the ground. Immediately its eyes burned brighter and it reached out, wrapping its fingers around May's throat. Shaking her like a toy until she dropped the stone, Mewtwo threw the girl to the ground.
Landing with a hard thud, May pressed herself up to her elbows. "That was for my Blaziken you son of a bitch."
Mewtwo raised a hand towards May as its fingers began to burn with black energy. "A pity it had to-" Mewtwo stopped short. Eyes snapping wide the psychic whirled towards the vault doors, seeing them laying smashed in around a prone and unmoving Snorlax. Disappearing in an instant, Mewtwo teleported away.
Sprinting down the wide hall as fast as their feet would carry them, Ash and Giovanni skidded to a stop at an intersection of half a dozen passages. Both turned this way and that for a second before Ash turned to his father. "Was there anything about this in those schematics of yours!" he shouted.
"Uh," Giovanni paused and looked quickly down each hall in turn.
"No?!" Ash blurted, his voice echoing up the lavender stone walls.
"Cut me some slack!" shouted the man in the suit. "The blueprints were on a fucking journel page and half of it was missing!"
"Brilliant," Ash growled a split second before both he and Giovanni stood up alert and looked down the same hall. "This way," they spoke in unison and resumed running.
As they neared a bend in the hall, both savants felt their breath catch though the elder spoke first. "The door's right around that corner!"
They ran for the bend and Giovanni cleared it first. Only a few steps behind, Ash gasped and leaned back, skidding to a halt as Mewtwo appeared from thin air before him and stretched out its hand. A bolt of black energy leaping between the psychic's finger and Ash's breastplate, the protective shell shattered like glass, the force of the blow knocking Ash off his feet and sending him flopping to the ground with a dull thud and the sound of a breaking bone.
As Ash spat a curse and growled, Mewtwo stepped over him and raised his foot to strike. "Nuisance," it muttered.
"Get away from my son!" Giovanni screamed like a man possessed, leaping from behind Mewtwo and locking his arm around the psychic Pokemon's throat. "Ash!" he shouted as Mewtwo took a step backwards, off balance. "Catch!" the older trainer, wrestling and barking curses, reached into his suit's jacket, drew out an object the size of a large coin, and threw it to Ash as the younger trainer got to his feet.
His eyes beginning to burn purple, Mewtwo ceased struggling. "Damned humans!" it's voice rumbled as a corona of psychic fire flashed to life all around it.
Ash watched for only a second as Giovanni closed his eyes and screamed, the fire clawing its way up his frame and eating away the suit like animated acid. Still the older savant clung to Mewtwo's back, anchoring himself with one hand and madly bashing his fist into the psychic's neck and skull.
"Ash!" Giovanni cried out. "Son! Get out of here! Go!"
Spotting the object Giovanni threw as the older trainer and Mewtwo continued to grapple and struggle, Ash snatched it up and dodged past the conflict before him, rounding the corner. Coming to a set of steps so steep it might as well have been a cliff, he stopped immediately and peered down the shaft. Ash had to catch his breath.
The sounds of Giovanni's struggle still ringing from down the hall, Ash looked over his shoulder, then back at the stairs. Gritting his teeth, heart racing and his hands growing even more numb, Ash set off down the stairs as fast as he could. With no handrails or holds and his legs numb almost to the knees, he slipped and began to fall. Tumbling through the dark, Ash could only put his arms up before his face and try to think through the piercingly painful blows that stabbed into him as gravity did its work.
Slamming down on a cold floor, the impact knocked the wind out of Ash's chest. The young trainer choked out a gasp as he curled in on himself and tried not to cry. "When does it end?" he croaked, looking up. Immediately his eyes widened. At the end of the landing on which he lay stood a simple door made of what the trainer guessed to be iron or some equally sturdy metal, reinforced by bands of steel.
Looking down at the little object in his hand, Ash saw it to be a key, the same shade of grey as the door, but inlaid with gold filagree. "I'll be damned," he growled, struggling to his feet and staggering towards the door. Finding the handle Ash fumbled with the key, leaning all the weight he could against the sturdy door. Turning the key in the lock, the young trainer opened the door and practically fell through, barely managing to catch himself on numb feet.
"God," he muttered, standing in the open door of the small vault. Barely twenty feet across, and sporting a ceiling less than ten feet high, the chamber's only feature and only source of light was the small point of luminescence floating above a square pedestal in the center of the room.
Glowing like a star the size of a grain of sand, the tiny point of light hovered mere feet away. Too small and too bright for Ash to guess its actual shape, the Sun Soul only waited, silent and unmoving while the young savant stood transfixed and staring at it.
Appearing from nowhere between Ash and the pedestal, Mewtwo stepped out of oblivion and looked down on Ash. Tail twitching from side to side like a cat's, Mewtwo's eyes met Ash's and the two stared at each other for a long minute.
"Well done," said the psychic. "Truly an effort worthy of remembrance, but this game is now over." It offered its hand. "Surrender, and the end will be instant and painless." Mewtwo hesitated as Ash remained completely still, his face unreadable. "You've nothing to fear from oblivion. One can't have a non-experience. There will be no pain, no fear, nothing. Surrender, and it will be fast. There's no one left to sacrifice themselves for you now."
Ash took a deep breath and let it out. "Then what are you so afraid of?" he met the psychic's eye and the two stared at each other for a long time before Ash looked down at the floor and took another heavy breath. "Fine," he said.
Closing his eyes, Ash dropped to his knees. His back straight he looked down at the ground and put his hands behind his back. He waited for a second as Mewtwo took a step forward and stretched out its hand. Letting its fingers hover a few inches from Ash's head, the psychic's eyes began to burn purple.
Ash took a few more steadying breaths. "Game over," he muttered.
Eyes snapping open Ash rolled to the side as a bolt of energy shot from Mewtwo's palm and ripped up the solid stone floor. Reaching behind his back, Ash reared around and slashed his hand through the air. Snorlax's empty pokeball spun towards Mewtwo and snapped open, flooding the tiny chamber with blinding light that rushed out for the psychic like the arms of an octopus. Stepping back, Mewtwo slapped the pokeball away and turned back for Ash.
"No!" the psychic screamed, spotting Ash dashing for the Sun Soul and throwing out its hand.
A corona of violet fire erupted around Ash as he stretched out for the point of light. In an instant his shirt boiled away and all the skin of his exposed face, chest, and hands began to peel and bubble like paint in an oven. His feet rooted to the ground by the fire and psychic weight, Ash screamed and reached, his fingers millimeters from the little gem. As his hair burned away and his flesh boiled on his bones, Ash heaved forward. His armor catching fire and smoking, more muscle than skin showing, his head burned clean of hair, Ash closed his eyes and fell forward.
His fingertip touched the gem.
Watching as Ash's blackened body collapsed to the floor, still smouldering, smoking, and unmoving, Mewtwo waited, almost expectantly as the next few seconds ticked by. "Pity," it muttered, shaking its head and not looking away from the corpse before it. "Such a-" The psychic paused and turned all its attention on the tiny spark hovering in the air above the pedestal as the Sun Soul began to pulse in bursts of two, glowing brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again. "Fascinating-"
The Sun Soul exploded, flooding the tiny room with the brightest blinding light and a roar like the winds of a hurricane.
SC
May came to with a gasp. Laying on her side, stretched out across the cold stone floor of Mewtwo's sanctum. She pushed herself up and got to her feet, looking around as she did at the evidence of Ash's battle with Mewtwo. The trenches carved in the floor and riverbeds of now cool stone that had a short time ago been molten were the only clue she had that anyone had even been in this room recently.
"Ash?" she called out. "Giovanni?" May paused and waited for a reply that didn't come. "Anyone?" she said. "Hello?"
Knowing she had no means of flying out of Malebolge the way she'd flown in, May began making her way deeper into the lair. Passing by the cold bodies of Ash's Arcanine, Charizard, and Snorlax, May had to stop and pause for a moment, unsure of continuing. Muttering a curse to herself, the young savant stepped through the threshold of the broken vault doors and followed the long hallway until it came to an intersection of many different passages.
Standing in the center of the junction, May stopped and looked down each hall in turn. "Ash!" she shouted. "Giovanni! Where are you!?"
Waiting for several minutes and receiving no answer, May shook her head and started down one of the halls to her right. Stopping a few paces down she thought for a second, turned around, and promptly chose another way. Following that passage for a moment and rounding a corner, May gasped and ran to Giovanni's side. The man in the suit lay immobile, slouched against the wall next to a stairway.
"Giovanni!" May dropped to her knees beside him, quickly taking stock of the burns covering his naked body and lack of movement in his chest. "Sir," she reached out and shook him.
May drew her hand away from the man's shoulder, both sticky with blood and crunchy with charred flesh that clung to her palm and fingers. "Shit," she sighed, standing up from the corpse and biting her lip. "Shit," she cursed again after looking between the dead man and the stairway. "Do I really have to go down there?"
Cursing her luck, May moved to the stairs and began descending as carefully as she could, often taking several seconds between each step to measure her next move down. Reaching the landing at the bottom, May saw the door standing wide open. Inside she saw standing before a pedestal with his back to her a tall man with short hair and tattered black armor barely hanging from his hips.
"Ash!" May bolted inside the room, stopping a step short of Ash. "Thank god you're alive!"
Turning around to face her, Ash didn't answer and May took a moment to look him over.
"Your eyes," said the girl, staring. "They're... glowing."
Still silent, Ash held his hand, as if taking a moment to register that the dim blue glow reflecting off his hand. "Oh," he said, sounding dazed. "Well, would you look at that."
Turning on her heel at the sound of a footstep behind her, May instantly leapt away as Mewtwo rose up to his full height from the corner of the room and took a step forward. Reflexively the young trainer's hand went to her belt as her eyes locked on the psychic Pokemon. "Ash!" she shouted, "look out!" May moved to attack but stopped short, suddenly noting the soft blue glow behind Mewtwo's eyes, not the harsh purple hue she expected.
"May," Ash reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down. It's alright." he stepped beside her and looked down at her, a smile slowly tugging up at his lip.
"Ash, what's going on?" May muttered. "Are you alright? I thought you were dead."
Taking a second to breathe and look over his shoulder at the dull brown mote of sand laying on the pedestal, Ash reached up with his free hand and scratched his fingers through his thick black hair. "I think I was," he said.