Kind of wishing I did something for April Fools Day, but I'm sure all of you have had enough^^;
I work at a school, so things have been a little hectic around here as we set up online classes for the students. We are also nearing the end of this arc, so I'm trying to figure out what to do to bridge the other fics together in a logical way. I hope you enjoy the last few chapters!
Chapter 35
"Sorry . . . to have kept you waiting."
Mewtwo's apology was hardly audible over the sirens and the Rockets calling to each other in a nearby hallway. I felt more uneasy than relieved by the sight of him, but I still took his outstretched hand and let him help me off the ground. Despite my hesitation, I could not see any trace of his anger from earlier, his face was now more drawn than I had ever seen it. I became so overwhelmed by everything that was happening that my vision started to blur with tears. "Wh-What are you—"
I froze and nearly stopped breathing when he put both his hands on my shoulders. I did not realize how scared of him I was until that moment. "I came to bring you home, of course," he said in reply as he looked me up and down. If Mewtwo sensed my fear, he did not say anything about it.
"But I thought . . . aren't you—"
Before I could ask if he was still angry with me, he used my shoulders to steady himself as he bent down on one knee, bringing himself down to my eye level. But even still, his voice was almost too low for me to hear when he asked: "Did they lay their hands on you?"
I stopped speaking, shocked he had asked me that. "Why are you—?"
He lifted one of his hands. When two of his fingers lightly touched the left side of my face, I instinctively closed my eyes and flinched back. "Did they hurt you at all?" he asked again.
I opened my eyes again, wondering how he knew about my face. "I . . . a little," I murmured, still avoiding his gaze, "but I'm okay now. I was scared more than anything else."
His expression was strange to me when I looked up again. I could not tell what was going through his mind. In the time that I had known him up until then, 'worry' was never a look that crossed his face, and it looked about as foreign as a smile would have. But stranger still, he returned his hand to my shoulder and seemed to use it to stand up to his full height again. I was taken out of the moment. Did I imagine that?
"Did they hurt you?" I asked, my eyes widening, "you seem like you're out of—"
"Save your questions for later," he said, abruptly cutting me off and releasing me from his grip. "We have to get out of here immediately."
It was then that I heard voices shouting from behind, just around the corner of the hallway I came from. "We can teleport, right?" I asked, moving close to him.
"Yes," he confirmed, placing one of his hands back on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes and breathed another sigh of relief, expecting the din of the sirens and shouting to stop by the time I had finished exhaling.
But as the noise continued, I opened my eyes again in confusion. When I looked up at his face, I saw that he was staring fixedly at the wall behind me. One of his eyes seemed to be barely twitching. "Uh . . . Mewtwo?" I asked, growing a little concerned.
His concentration was broken when I said his name. "Just . . . give me a minute," he said, blinking and rubbing his head with his free hand.
"Give you a minute?" I echoed, my voice louder than I thought it would be. But Mewtwo did not even tell me to quiet down. He suddenly removed his hand from my shoulder and leaned against the wall. Then he closed his eyes again and inhaled deeply, as if every last member of Team Rocket in the building was not trying to hunt us down at that very moment. I looked behind myself nervously, bewildered by what was happening.
"What are you waiting for?" I asked again, my voice rising in pitch as my panic grew. "You've never had to wait before."
When he still didn't respond, I said more urgently, "We have to go now, they're going to find us here any second!
He took one last deep breath and opened his eyes. "Okay," Mewtwo said, standing upright again.
He put both of his hands firmly on my shoulders this time as he said, "We can go now."
He closed his eyes once more. I kept mine open as I waited, listening to the men who had shouted grow closer and closer to where we were standing.
"What's going on?" I asked quietly when nothing happened, close to tears again.
"Shh," he hissed impatiently.
"Why are we still here? Is something wrong?" I insisted.
"Let me . . . concentrate," he practically said through his teeth.
I fell silent, wondering how he could focus at all with the sirens and lights. With each passing second, Mewtwo's breathing became more and more labored, and I could feel his hands begin to shake as his grip on my shoulders steadily slackened. It suddenly clicked that he was unable to teleport, and his efforts to do so were making him weaker. "Mewtwo, stop it!" I shouted finally.
He gasped and his eyelids flew open. From the look on his face, I could see that he arrived at the same horrific conclusion I did: we were unable to leave the hideout. After a moment his arms buckled, and he practically fell on me. I gasped loudly in surprise, but I steadied him and pushed him upright again.
"They're over here!" I heard a man shout.
From the volume of his voice, I could tell that they were about to turn the corner to this hallway. I knew we could not stay there any longer. "Come on, this way!" I said finally, grabbing his wrist and running in the opposite direction of the voices.
I began to sprint as fast as I was able toward the atrium with the windows that led to the outside, but it felt as though I was pulling a sack of bricks as Mewtwo stumbled down the corridor behind me. I could sense that he was unsuccessfully trying to levitate from the way his weight dramatically shifted in my grasp. "Lilly," he called from behind, panting loudly "my legs . . . I am not designed to—"
"We're almost there, keep pace with me!" I called back desperately.
I already knew what he was going to say: though his legs were much longer than those of Mew, the Pokémon his designed was based on, they were not designed to move faster than a walking pace. But getting to that atrium was our only way out, and we were out of time. The hat I wore flew off, but I did not stop to pick it up. My hair also quickly came down, flying behind me as I ran.
Just as we were about to enter the atrium, I turned my head and shouted back at him, "We just have to break out of this—!"
I saw it happen before I could do anything to stop it. Mewtwo brought his leg up to take another step forward, but one of his toes caught on his ankle. Unable to levitate, he tripped and fell flat on his front.
"Mewtwo!"
He began to push himself off the steel floor again, but he could not hold his own weight up long enough even to get to his knees. I got down beside him and tried to pull him up myself, but I was not strong enough. My eyes went wide with fear.
"How is this happening?" I asked again, looking him over as I sat him upright against the wall that we were closest to. "Is it your injuries from back then? Have they—"
"No, they . . . nothing happened," he gasped out, his eyes screwed shut.
"Then why is this . . ."
I was at a loss for words, so I just asked again, "What's happening to you?!"
There was a pause before he began to respond, "I . . . I do not—"
"You have to get up, they're going to catch up to us!" I cut him off, realizing that even his speech was becoming more lethargic. I began pushing him up against the wall in an effort to get him back on his feet.
"Lilly—"
"Come on, help me!" I heaved.
"I am slowing you down."
I shook my head, "Then get up . . . faster!" I gasped out.
With one final grunt, I stopped trying to push him up the wall and looked at him imploringly. "Mewtwo, please, we're so close to the exit! It's right over— "
He silenced me with a scathing look of his own, but he blinked it away once I had stopped talking. Then he reached out with his hands and put them on my head, closing his eyes once more and lowering his head slightly. "They want . . . me," he murmured between breaths, "they just want me."
Confused, I tried to ask, "Wait, what are you—"
"I am . . . sending you back home," he said, his eyes still closed.
I was sure that I had not heard him right. "What?"
"My strength is gone . . ."
As he spoke, I felt his hands begin to shake again on my head. "They are almost upon us. I can only do enough . . ."
In that moment, I finally realized what he was attempting to do. I cried out, "No!"
"To . . . get you . . ."
A deep crimson began to run down his nose and over his mouth as he spoke. The blood dripped onto the lilac skin on his chest. It was the first time I had ever seen his nose bleed. Yet I could see that he was still trying to finish his sentence, oblivious to the damage he was causing. I, however, could no longer watch him do this to himself. "Mewtwo, stop it!"
I reached up and grabbed one of his hands with mine, pulling it off my head and laying it on his leg. He opened his eyes when he heard me begin to cry. "Lilly . . . I need to—"
"No, something's wrong!" I choked out, reaching up and wiping his nose with the shoulder of my white shirt, showing him the blood. "See? You're just making yourself worse! Stop trying to send me away!"
"Then . . . you must run. You can save yourself now . . . they already have—"
"No!" I pressed my forehead to his before exclaiming, "We have to leave t-together!"
"Listen to me, now!"
I could tell that it was a tremendous effort for him to raise his voice above a whisper. I backed away, my face finally crumbling.
"To them . . . you are disposable."
"Disposable?" I whispered.
"Yes. They . . . will not kill me. They need me."
I shook my head vigorously, squeezing his arms in my hands. "They won't kill me, either!" I insisted, "Giovanni doesn't—"
"Giovanni is not . . . the man you think he is," Mewtwo said with as much urgency as he was able to. "I know . . . he will not listen to you on this matter. The only way I can survive . . . is if you—"
"You're lying to me!" I cried, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence.
"I am not—"
"Yes, you are! They'll kill you, we both need to leave!"
He shook his head slowly in denial. "I am not lying, but . . . if I am wrong, so be it. You have people . . . and Pokémon waiting—"
"Stop talking like that!"
Without letting him finish that thought, I let go of his hands and hooked my arms under his shoulders. "Save your breath . . . for escaping! You also have people and Pokémon who care about you!" I cried out. I started pushing him against the wall again in a final effort to stand him upright.
"We're . . . we're in this together! I'm not gonna let them take you, not after all we've been through!" I gasped out between attempts. I kept pulling with all the strength I had in my body, but it wasn't enough to get him on his feet. "But please," I exclaimed, my entire upper body shaking, "I need you to stand up!"
A moment later, my heart swelled with relief when I felt him begin to push up with his feet as I pulled as hard as I could. "That's it! D-Don't give up yet!" I said encouragingly, though my voice was beginning to break from pulling his weight and the tears I was holding back.
He was finally on his feet against the wall, with my arms still under his shoulders. I pressed my sweaty forehead into him and cried out in frustration. With agonizing slowness, Mewtwo wrapped his thin arms around my back before lowering his head onto mine, as if to rest for a moment. "Please" I choked out, "we're almost there, I . . . I need you to . . ."
The lights and pandemonium surrounding us seemed to vanish as I buried my face into his chest, locking my hands together behind him in the strongest grip I could manage. After a moment, I tried pulling him off the wall but stopped when I felt his knees buckle slightly. I knew then that it was over.
"Mewtwo," I cried weakly, "I'm—!"
BANG.
