AN: Hello, Oof here. I can't really take credibility for the introduction idea of this story. This whole chapter- and more to come- is heavily inspired from The Path Anew by 11JJ11. It is a far superior fanfic. I got permission to post this after asking. Don't worry, I have created my own main plot so I'm not writing the exact same thing, with just a lower quality. It might seem that way in the first chapters (hopefully not), but once the story kicks off it will become apparent that I am putting my own twists to plot, characters, and generally creating a mild AU.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. If I did, the Red battle in pokemon Gold, Silver, and their remakes would literally be impossible to beat. And that would be rather annoying.
Prologue: Terror and Flames
Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, there was a maze of hallways and rooms. The walls were a dark gray with a crimson red stripe running the trim. The tiled floors shinned as though they were a brand new, waxed car, despite being a pitch black color.
Tap Tap Tap.
The percussive sound was hardly heard from the squeaky clean shoes that it originated from. The person who owned said shoes seemed to be in his mid thirties and rather thin, not exactly muscled. He wore a dark gray, almost trousers and shirt, which had a crimson 'R' right on the chest. With white gloves and boots, hardly any of his skin was left bare. Two shiny pokeballs were clipped upon his bulky white belt. A hat the same color as his shirt finished the look.
The man walked to the end of the hallway he was in before swiftly turning in place and walking back to where the branch he was patrolling reconnected with the main hallway. A large raticate followed closely behind him. She looked at her partner briefly before gazing with a critical eye at her surroundings. Raticate and her master had been assigned to patrol this specific science hallway. It, unlike the many other halls, only had one door.
Raticate didn't understand why that door, or rather room, was so important that it had its own hallway just for itself, but she didn't question it.
The guard stared at his beloved rat pokemon. He had caught the rat pokemon on his own, not stolen or a gift, and worked hard to achieve the position he was in along with his golbat. Now he was trusted to guard this very important hallway. With luck he might even get a promotion to bodyguard and fight alongside elites.
The scuffling scratches on the tiled suddenly stopped, signaling the guard that Raticate had stopped. He turned and looked questioningly at his pokemon, who was staring with a blank look in her eyes. She turned towards the man with a strange constipated grunt.
Then she lunged. The Raticate attacked so swiftly that the guard didn't even have time to give a scream before his head hit the wall with a crack and he collapsed, motionless, in a heap on the floor. The raticate stopped viciously attacking her master before blinking and shaking her head. She opened her eyes to see her master, bloody and beaten on the ground. She stared at her own claws. Bloody. His blood. Letting out a confused squeak, the raticate slowly nudged his form.
Distress seemed to emanate from the rat pokemon. It croone, a soft noise.
What did this, the raticate pondered. Certainly not me; I would never attack Master. She sniffed the air and her hackles raised, she turned and saw a young boy standing at the entrance to the hallway.
The boy couldn't have been older than twelve, not that the raticate had much experience with young, human newborns. He wore almost the same uniform as her master, except there was a lack of pokeballs and he had a curious plastic wringlet around his ankle. Other than that, the only two other characteristics the boy seemed to have were his gleaming, pale red eyes.
Anyone in this facility would know who he was if they managed to spot those red eyes.
Raticate growled, stepping forward. Even with a passed out trainer, she had a job to do.
The boy narrowed his eyes, the color deepening and growing to a bright glowing crimson, and concentrated on the fear deep within the animal he knew was there. the raticate whimpered in terror, before promptly passing out on the floor. Fear, the boy thought. Fear was an easy emotion. Anger too. Pokemon have many reasons to be scared if they were a rat. And anger was always present, no matter what species they are.
If an emotion was there, it could be magnified. If not, it could always be placed there; emotions were a fickle thing. The child continued onward, carefully stepping around the pool of blood that had already stopped expanding. Briefly looking at the guard's body, the child assessed that he would live. While large, the cuts were shallow and mostly on the arms and legs- the man most likely passed out from being tackled into a wall by a 40 pound rat.
The rockets favorite experiment was escaping today. A shiver crawled down his spine at that thought. That thought of freedom. It only seemed like a dream till now.
The red eyed child continued down the hall, soon reaching the door at the end of it. Quickly slipping off a shoe, he took out a hidden key card. The key card of the head scientist.
The boy had managed to take it off of him earlier after the days session. He had been a very good boy lately, and managed to win himself some freedom (his hands weren't bound with psychic regulator handcuffs). If he hadn't had good behavior for the whole month, this opportunity would never had manifested itself.
Taking the card and swiping it through the card reader by the door, the light flashed green before the door slid open.
The room, unlike the outside, was mainly a bright white color. Various silver machines lined the walls and computers were in a circle around the obviously most important thing in the room. It was a large cylinder that ran from the floor to ceiling. The outside was thick glass while the inside was layered with two energy barriers, one red and the other blue, casting a purple light through the room. The creature inside was even more impressive.
It was the only being he could consider his friend. An experiment friends with the weapon
Mewtwo, thought the boy. Any description would not do the legendary pokemon justice, but often it was described as a lilac psychic cat. Mewtwo opened his eyes and focused on the boy, glaring in an impatient, imperious manner.
Moving forward quickly, the boy ran towards the biggest computer- obviously the main one. With a swipe of his key card and a few button presses later, the blue barrier disappeared, leaving the room to be bathed in red light.
A psychic presence unleashed itself- billowing out as though it had just woken up from a nap and needed to stretch. There was no little tingle preparing the boy for communication for the legendary, simply an all but blaring voice announcing its arrival.
I feared for a moment that you had failed to carry out your side of the agreement. Mewtwo glared, the ever present scowl on its face deepening.
Guards are everywhere. The child briefly thought about how meticulous he had been to make sure to knock out or avoid every guard and camera. There were a lot of guards and a lot of cameras. I had to be very careful getting here
I suppose all that matters is that you are her now. Mewtwo mused. And are working on disabling that last shield
The device that encases Mewtwo is a design system of two barriers. One blocks his telepathy from going beyond it, while the other prevents attacks and physical objects. It may seem a simple mechanism, but it also had to hold back the power of a legendary pokemon. The power needed to generate those types of barriers must have been enormous, but the experiment never picked up those type of scientific stuff from the conversations he happened to overhear from scientists or guards.
Mewtwo had once tested the limits of the barrier. It had flung every attack it knew at it, but it never shattered, only glitched and shuddered. The psychic ended up exhausted before the barrier broke. It needed an outside source to escape.
That was Red's job.
Mewtwo exuded distaste. Are you hesitating? The clone huffed. If you don't open that barrier soon, you'll never see the light of day. We both would be stuck here and you would lose all of those privileges you have earned. Tortured everyday into obedience, instead of baited with reward. Mewtwo words were stern, not particularly loud. However they kept ringing in his ears, echoing through his head.
Never see the light of day. Tortured. I know that already. You never told me how.
Mewtwo gave the equivalent of a mental sigh, before showing a memory of some man (probably the one who made this machine) instructing Dr. Flinchcook, the current head scientist, on how to deactivate the controls.
Release me. Mewtwo ordered.
The boy shakily copied the same codes and sequences, swiping the card once more- to make sure he wasn't locked from the system.
Mewtwo was radiating eagerness in waves, making it hard to concentrate, but Red managed to nearly complete the sequence.
A robotic voice echoed from the control panel. "Request to disable physical barrier detected. Please make sure that Project M2 is fully sedated before continuing." Red shuddered, from some unknown emotion, before hitting the last button.
There was a pause and soon the red barrier deactivated. The glass barrier shattered from a brief surge of power.
I shall never be contained again! Mewtwo released a psywave at Red.
Eyes wide, the experiment lunged forward, glass cutting into his arm. The attack hit the main control panel. Mewtwo unleashed more waves of energy, shattering and distorting the chrom technology surrounding them. Alarms began blaring.
Lights danced in front of his eyes and he shook his head, only to see mewtwo floating closer to him, the calm fury evident in his mind.
Red. The alarm's red lights were reflecting off the broken glass, the colors dancing in his eye. I had vowed to kill everyone in this lab. That included you.
Red's eyes widened to an impossible degree. His entire body felt frozen- shock, fear, or something entirely else. He couldn't move.
Couldn't breath.
Chocked.
DyingI'mdyingthewallsaretooclosestranglingmepleasehelpwhatdidIeverdotoyou-
Child. The legendaries voice halted all mental panic that was occuring in Red's head. It was. . . strangely gentle, conflicting with the prior statement Mewtwo just 'voiced.' You didn't let me finish. That was what I had been thinking the once we made that deal. However, I had plenty of time to think in between the days I would see you. I found myself changing my mind.
Red's breathing was still too shallow, too quick. Taking a few seconds to compose himself, it had finally sunk in that Mewtwo wasn't killing him. Wasn't choking him. He had a panic attack.
It wasn't the first one he'd ever had.
We might not meet again, however, if we do, your innocence will surely be corrupted by the ideas and ideals of your fellow humans by then.
I will not spare you again.
Then, without another word, Mewtwo was gone, crashing through rooms and obliterating everything in his way. And Red could move again. Think again. Breath again.
Scrambling over to a sturdy looking piece of rubble, the experiment held it in both his hands, raising it high over his head. The anklet needed to go. The shrapnel missed the plastic band and instead hit his own ankle.
Spots danced in his eyes and he sucked in a breath, dropping the metal shrapnel and covering his mouth in an attempt to muffle his scream. The building shook.
He gulped down more air. His ankle was throbbing, pupils fluctuating from pain. But Red steeled himself. Picking the piece up once more, he brought it down onto the band. Plastic cracked, his ankle screamed. Hot, crimson blood dripped down from his arm. Its smell tainted the air. Coppery.
Why was his arm bleeding? Glancing at it, he noticed shards of glass sticking from it. That's new. Or was it? He couldn't remember.
Red examined the wringlet, before bringing the shrapnel down upon it once more. That should be enough to break whatever mechanism inside. He threw the metal aside, it it the ground with a soft clang. The sound seemed quiet against the blaring sirens.
His suffering seemed small compared to the destruction surrounding him. Insignificant.
Either way it all ended tonight.
And Red would leave the only way he knew how. The stairs.
Notes: Like I said earlier, If you have read The Path Anew, this will seem rather familiar.
If you haven't, go and read it. Please.
Also please review. Gives me confidence.