The Day a Rattata Saved the World, a pokémon fanfic

The Day a Rattata Saved The World

How do you convince a psychotic, hurting psychic feline not to kill humanity? Also, you have a bunch of pound rejects to help you, including a blind and deaf eevee and a rattata. Bit of a deconstruction.

self-indulgent OC-insert fic (very similar to the Zombie Cat Science fic character Neko, if you've read that one) where a clever fool who likes to tinker with tech and use actual strategy in battles attempts to befriend Mewtwo (emphasis on attempts) and stop him from taking over, and some musing on the pokeworld in a bit of a dark examination of that world in a way that isn't just 'add gore to make it darker', covering themes of abuse and helping victims to recover/escape from it. That's about it, it's a bit more cheerful than it sounds I promise. I do warn that the insert's death wasn't the common Truck-san but suicide, though it isn't lingered upon.

Part of the inspiration was that I got a surprising number of eevees and what were clear breeding-reject babies of various species in the Wonder Trade system, so this is based in part on actual experience mashed up with the real world demand for white tigers, which I figure are the closest thing we have to real world shinies.

Part - 1: The Harsh Way of the World

"No Team Plasma, don't beat up that pokemon!" the TV protagonist cried out.

"We have to beat up pokemon in order to save pokemon!" the cartoon continued, and I rolled my eyes.

The propoganda was very obvious. Make the only people interested in pokemon liberation complete strawmen who abuse pokemon versus virtuous trainers who never, ever do anything wrong. I didn't understand how the other kids in my class ate this up, but they did. A real, grittier take on it would examine when the trainer system actually goes wrong and ask if there was anything about the system that could possibly be improved without abandoning it entirely. (Mind, if you managed to actually sneak in late at night to watch the TV and see the adult 'gritty' shows, you'd see their concept of dark and gritty was usually just to add lots of blood and gore, not carefully consider the moral grays of the system.)

Of course, maybe the fact they were children while I wasn't (at least in my head) had something to do with it. I still couldn't believe that I had apparently been reborn into the world of Pokemon.

My way out originally hadn't been pretty; I'd killed myself. The 'why' isn't particularly important now, as I'd decided to stay my hand at least for now while I figured out the rules of this world. Of all the worlds I could end up in, Pokemon, at least at first glance, seemed one of the most idyllic. But I was slowly beginning to suspect that, in the version I had ended up in at least, that was a lie.

The first was the extreme poverty I and many of my fellows lived in which led many of us to turn to Team Rocket. I had been born in Celadon, a seemingly prosperous city, yet it had a dark underside. Why exactly were so many content to receive rattata, voltorb and grimer when these pokemon, to be frank, absolutely sucked?

Because the alternative was worse.

The people of this world who got starters like bulbasaur, charmander and squirtle? Yeah, they lucked out. They weren't the norm, or nearly everyone and their brother would have one. You either tested in, had money, or had connections, like being lucky enough to be born in a town with a famous professor or breeder who had extra starters to give away.

"Erika," I asked, turning away from the TV and trotting up to the gym leader who was our current babysitter. I was surprised the local gym leader volunteered to educate brats, but she did seem very kind-hearted. This wasn't her normal job, but sometimes she came over to the local school to introduce us to pokemon and let us play or, in this case, veg out watching battle-oriented TV which we would then have to analyze the strategies and tactics of. A lucky few would be chosen to work in her gym with her and receive a grass type pokemon. Almost all of them were girls or androgynous kids. I didn't ID as a girl, but I was fine with being androgynous and I might have begged her for a gym mon if I didn't dislike Bellsprout and Oddish even more than Rattata.

"Yes?" she said, looking down at me with a frown. None of the adults had really known what to do with me. My parents had said I had been born haunted - literately, a Haunter by my bedside, and had given me up for adoption when I had failed to be the normal cute adorable child but someone quiet and morose. I wasn't psychic, but there had always been something eerie about me. Knowing this world, I wouldn't be surprised if I was not in some sense actually a ghost of some kind inhabiting a mortal shell.

My quietness wasn't from being a ghost, though, but just my old depression talking. I was trying to fight it, but it was hard when the one thing that would most cheer it up - having a pokemon - seemed so out of reach sometimes. "Why do pokemon really obey? Is it true that badges can force a powerful pokemon to obey?"

She paused, uneasy. "What makes you think the official explanation isn't right? Pokemon really do enjoy fighting. They are our friends."

"You didn't fully answer my question. Something like a pokeball is easily ripe for abuse. Even if you enjoy fights, being forced to fight even when you aren't in a good mood or beyond the point you are able may not be fun to you," I said slowly. "It's like enjoying cake and being forced to eat it when you're already full... what's to stop that from happening? After all, catching a pokemon involves throwing pokeballs at it endlessly until it stops struggling - surely if you've broken out of 50 pokeballs you won't believe your trainer will just let you out on the 51st and will start to acquire some sort of learned helplessness. And what about cases where a pokemon gets angry and loses control? Couldn't they seriously hurt someone just by accident? Either you are saying pokemon can easily escape and we have no actual manner of restraint available if one decides to escape and cause harm, or we have manners of restraint available and a pokemon that genuinely wants to escape may sometimes not be able to. You can't have it both ways."

Erika ushered me away from the other children. "Can I trust you not to speak of this and upset the others?"

Eager for answers, I nod quickly. Finally, the truth.

"Pokemon can indeed severely hurt and even kill people. That's why we encourage getting a license, to go through the process of learning what you are actually doing before acquiring a 'mon. Abuse of a pokemon can result in the stripping of a license, so you don't need to worry about that, it's illegal." But being illegal and being actually enforced were two different things, I couldn't help but note. If you could return an angry pokemon to its ball and it couldn't escape, what if you just left it there as a punishment or to prevent it from telling anyone? Yes, pokemon could escape from balls, but higher quality ones were deliberately marketed as harder to do so - meaning they weren't just containers that a pokemon opted to go in of its own free will but actual barriers. "A gym badge has several effects. A psychically or elementally imbued rock, it boosts the stats of the owner's pokemon, but also has a calming effect and in a pinch can help neutralize the worst of an attack. This is sufficient for traded pokemon, who are often anxious or angry about being traded but used to obeying people. For really dangerous cases a specialist is usually called in or heavier gear."

"I see." So it wasn't total control, but not zero, either. "If they really like fighting, why do they have to be stuffed into pokeballs? Wouldn't they agree without them?"

She purses her lips. "I was afraid you were going to ask this question. Come with me." She opens the door outside, and Erika and I walk down the street toward a demolished building. "Do you see this building? It was destroyed by a rogue pokemon." She casts her hand out. "This whole city could be destroyed by wild pokemon if we didn't have the means to defend ourselves. Pokeballs, and captured pokemon, are more humane and more cost effective than gunning them down or bombing them, which often fails to work and can make them even more mad."

I look around, and nod. "So you see it as the price to pay for your comfort and survival. It will all work nicely, until you meet a pokemon that can't or won't be controlled."

"The mythical pokemon Zapdos destroyed a power plant a year ago, but, despite being a legendary, even it could not withstand enough teams of pokemon thrown at it and had to flee to avoid capture." Erika told me firmly. I don't know if she thought this was reassuring, or if she just wanted to make sure I didn't decide to take inspiration from Team Plasma. "We have access to healing that most pokemon do not, and they only occasionally work in swarms, usually of the same kind. Their competitiveness across species and types is their downfall." She smiles at me then. "And yes, I'm aware of the irony of saying that as a grass mono-type specialist. It comes with being a gym leader meant to test people rather than actually crush them all into the dirt, as well as being someone who enjoys the added challenge it takes to be good as a specialist versus a generalist."

I nod. Then I can't quite help myself. "...do you think I could have a pokemon?" I'm lonely, dammit, and I know I won't mistreat it. And if I can actually meet one away from people I can try to talk to it and see how it feels about all this.

My response seems to cause her immediate relief that I wasn't looking to overthrow the system. "You know, I'll see what I can do. I'm glad you understand."

My first pokemon if anything leaves me even more horrified with this world. I'm brought to a pound full of breeding rejects or abandoned pokemon who no longer know how to survive on their own, and the misery here is palpable. There are cages full of shiny inbred eevee with pug noses and crossed eyes, and one of them has malformed limbs and another has to use a wheelchair on their back legs because their spinal cord doesn't work right.

"The blue eyed ones are usually deaf and blind," Erika tells me when I linger too close staring at some of the more normal looking ones. "Shinies are so rare that parents are often siblings, and the popularity of eevees means there's a greater market for them than almost any other non-dragon 'mon."

That makes me a little sick. I turn my attentions to the more normal looking pokemon here. "Why are the other, more normal brown eevee here?"

"The non-shiny eevee are generally bred for competitive battling but have a minor defect of some kind, like not inheriting an egg move from a parent that can't be learned any other way or another issue that makes them unsuited for fighting," she told me. "It's unfortunate, but common. Eevee are popular and not as fast breeding as bugs or fish so you don't find them in the wild anymore, but their very popularity means they tend to be heavily inbred. It's hard to find a good honest breeder, and this means a lot of eevee suffer from behavioral issues." As she speaks, I watch one hyper-actively chase its own tail obsessively, another one next to it chewing on itself. One seems perfectly normal, and I grow hopeful, until I go close to the bars and it bears its fangs at me and lunges. Definitely not that one, then.

I decide to wander and examine some of the other pokemon, a part of me disappointed that I may not be able to get an eevee that isn't deformed in some way, although I plan to take another look again before making a final decision, especially when it looks like there are other shiny mons and inbred mons who suffer from the same exact problems. Baby mons like Pichu are particularly common, and so are defective shiny starters, fairies like Mawile and dragons, although the difficulty of breeding dragons makes them comparatively rarer than the others, and Mawile sometimes try to eat anything that moves. The dragons also have an issue in that many unscrupulous people deliberately breed them to be aggressive and then can no longer control them once they grow out of the cute stage, or sometimes not even then. Most of the pokemon are here because someone didn't want them for a reason and couldn't let them out in the wild, so expecting a lot of functional well-adjusted pokemon may have been a bit much to hope for, yet somehow I hadn't been expecting things to be this horrifically bad.

Seeing them all makes my heart hurt a bit, really. If only I could take more than one... "How much does it cost to adopt one?" I ask.

"Several hundred poke, which is still considerably cheaper than the thousands from a professional breeder or even just a wild caught. We used to have some no money adoptions, but this lead to further abuse, and this kind of service unfortunately also costs money and that helps pay for it," she said. It was what I feared.

"Can I volunteer here?" I ask impulsively, the first thing I've really felt even slightly passionate about since getting here. It might be just the thing to knock me out of my depression. "I don't really want to just grab the first pokemon who looks pretty, I want to get to know them. And I feel bad I can't take all the pokemon here home."

"That's very mature of you," Erika says. "But you are far too young and don't have a license."

"Please?" I gave her big eyes. "I know some 'mons are safe enough they are given as pets to small children, I could just work with those! I'll clean out their cages and everything!"

"Alright," she relents. "I will see if I can arrange for you to work here. But one accident from horsing around with a pokemon too dangerous for you and it's straight back home, buster."

Back home to the orphanage? Hah. Like that was home. I quickly give consent. "Thank you, Erika."

"We'll see how much you are still thanking me when you're scrubbing out mankey and aipom poop from the ceiling," she says dryly. "On the plus side, you'll get a small salary for this."
...what did I just volunteer to do again?

My quiet nature actually suits me fairly well for the more skittish pokemon, and I even come up with a strategy to deal with the unusually aggressive brown eevee who seemed otherwise normal: I put my back against the cage and didn't make any sudden moves and let it just get used to me and my scent, and I put treats nearby me while I read a book on pokemon care.

The mankey and aipom are definitely the absolute worst pokemon in the pound, though. They would fling their shit and anything else they could get their hands on at visitors. I had never disliked mankey before, but now I had to admit I detested them with a vengeance simply for all the messes they deliberately made. Then there were the grimer and muk who would literately poison you with their toxic slime if you weren't careful, and koffing that would release toxic gas, but I actually didn't mind them so much because they didn't do it deliberately. The next worst after that tended to be wooper, bidoof and mudkip, because they'd shoot literal mud everywhere, and slugma who would leave oozing trails of fire that threatened to burn the whole place down if anything flammable was accidentally left near them.

I wasn't allowed to actually work with the grimer and slugma at first due to the danger, but as I grew older they gradually trusted me more and more.
Occasionally, actually really good pokemon would get deposited who had trainers who simply couldn't care for them any more or because their team had outgrown them on a professional level, like one fellow who dumped a fully evolved Pidgeot in favor of a Gyarados on their team instead, or an Arcanine replaced by a Houndoom, or on one memorable occasion a Venusaur replaced by a Jolteon. These almost always got snapped up almost instantly by either one of the many who popped in every day scouting for a good rare find or by one of those who had the pound list of pokemon on a watchlist and got pinged whenever there were updates. Since most of these pokemon were trained above a badge or evolved, I couldn't take them in legally, which was kind of frustrating because sometimes there really were fantastic mons deposited here who didn't deserve it, and I wasn't talking just about power but behaviorally: many of these pokemon were really well trained in every way and it showed in their attitude. That Venusaur had been a literal gentle giant, and radiated sorrow from their every pore; they had probably been someone's starter and had never expected to be abandoned like that, but in the really competetive multi-national fights (not the local league championships) starters often just didn't cut it anymore like they did back home. Others, like raticate and beedrill, probably expected to be dumped at some point, although with pokemon you could never tell just how much they knew about human habits since it was hard to talk to them. Maybe they hadn't known almost everyone dumps their raticate sooner or later. The beedrill were a particular mess, because they had aggressive tendencies from the start; beedrill tended to be pretty good at surviving on their own, so you'd think they'd be good candidates for simple rehabilitation and release, and we did do that sometimes, but their aggression meant that sometimes they held a permanent resentment toward humans for treating them as trash and couldn't be released without later resulting in beedrill swarms attacking people.

Actually, this was a general problem for pokemon who had been habituated to humans: if they weren't afraid of people any more, they might simply wander in to town and start taking things from stores or start begging from people, or if they were a more aggressive breed, attack them to get what they wanted. I never used to care for the 'weaker' mons like rattata but actually meeting and getting to know them in person, I started to really feel for them, because they were often acutely aware of their weakness (how could they not, when it was pounded into them and often the reason for their abandonment?) and easier tempered than the pokemon who were convinced they were the bee's knees; the one time someone dumped a Gyarados for instance it was a complete disaster. The building had parts of it fortified to stand up to hyper beams, but that didn't mean the people trying to feed the damn Gyarados were or the vets trying to give it health check-ups. The entire thing had been a nightmare until a water specialist had come in to get it off our hands, and even then, it had to be sedated before-hand.

I spent a lot of time with the behaviorally or physically messed up pokemon trying to rehabilitate them. There was a really sweet but slightly skittish (only because it couldn't sense you coming) blind and deaf white eevee that I took a shine to who would lick your face the moment it smelled you there. It would never be a great battler, which sucked for all my plans, because I really wanted a 'mon who could at least offer some degree of protection, but at the same time it really deserved someone who cared about it. I knew pokemon were intelligent, so I tried to enrich its life by introducing it - a her, it turned out - to engravings and braille, tried to teach her to read so we could communicate.

The aggressive brown eevee turned out to be a male. It was young and untrained enough that it could be handled with gloves but usually tried to bite people who tried. I ended up being his main caretaker because I was the only one who would put up with him.
There were also several other aggressive mons, several of whom were shiny starters, who I rehabilitated, and this turned out to be really painful, because pretty much the moment I achieved success they got adopted out by other people with more money than I had. The only benefit I got out of it was that I was able to demand a bonus in salary whenever this happened.

Erika was actually pretty shocked at my decision when I told her the freebie mon I wanted to take was the blind and deaf eevee. "Are you really sure you want that one?" she exclaimed. "She'll never be able to battle, she can't even hear your commands."

"I'm sure," I said. I had gotten attached enough that at this point I couldn't stand the idea of someone else adopting her, even though the chances of that with her condition were pretty unlikely. "She's... my only friend," I admitted. Her affection was so unconditional, when I buried my face in her incredibly soft fur and she licked me tenderly it threatened to make me cry sometimes.

Erika softened. "Oh, kiddo. Alright, I was just making sure. At least I know by this point that you're responsible. What's her name?"

I paused. "I've been calling her Sweetness in my head." I knew that probably sounded pretty stupid. I tried to tell her, 'you'+'are'+'sweetness'. I'd tried to teach her 'me' and 'you' by putting her paw on me and herself and signing on her paw the symbols, and 'eevee', 'pokemon', and 'human', so she knew some really basic grammar. I'd taught her 'fruit' and 'sour' and 'sweet', but she didn't actually know what sweetness meant, so to her this was probably just going to seem like I was calling her 'sweet'.

I tried to introduce myself, at the same time. 'I' 'am' 'Neon'.

Yeah, Neon was a terrible name, but in a world with a bunch of kid with color names I supposed it fit, didn't it?

I tried to ask her a question. 'Is Sweetness OK name?' the same way I'd ask her if she'd like a berry. It was one of the more complicated things I'd ever asked her though, and I didn't know how much she understood. She enthusiastically bumped against me, but was she only doing that because I gave her berries the previous times I'd asked her 'Is _ ok?' questions and she'd responded that way? In a way, all my understanding of how intelligent pokemon really were was going to hinge on her. 'Do you want to come live with me?' I ask. I know she might not understand all that, so I use a word she does know. Sometimes, we take the pokemon on walks for exercise. 'Go outside?'

She does something I didn't dare hope.

She signs 'Yes' on my skin.

I tremble and nearly cry.

For the first time in years, I have someone to talk to in this world of powerful monsters... And she's even more defenseless than I am.

'I love you' I sign and bury my face into her fur for comfort, and I know she doesn't understand that one, but she does understand I'm crying. This world isn't fair. I don't know why I expected it to be fairer than the old one, but it's not.

Bitey the aggressive eevee - I know that's not a good name but it is what sticks in my mind - tries to talk to Sweetness when she does rounds with me, trying to demand, I would imagine, why she's hanging out free with the human and not escaping, and getting frustrated when she doesn't respond.
"She can't understand you," I tell Bitey. "She's deaf. But she does understand the alphabet signed into her fur."

It's the fact that Sweetness is the one being that Bitey doesn't, well, bite, that leads me to eventually taking him home with me as my second pokemon, even though I don't expect to turn him into a battler either because he's refused every trainer who's asked that of him. He's savage and furious, clawing and swiping, but he calms a tiny bit when I tell him I'm taking him to live with Sweetness and that I'm not going to force him to do anything he doesn't want to. "I can teach you sign, if you want," I say, when I notice him staring intently when I'm telling Sweetness about him as her new room-mate. "I actually don't know much official sign language or anything, and it wouldn't help because she's blind and couldn't see it anyway as well as deaf, but I can show you the alphabet and how it sounds out and then you can just trace letters into her fur."

He's looking at me, but not actually giving me the affirmative. He does this when he's hungry and too stubborn to admit it, too, so I just start reading out loud when I'm doing story-time with Sweetness. It isn't the life I imagined, this tiny little apartment that I can barely afford even with the orphan stipend I get until I can apply for my trainer license and go out into the world at 10 as a legal adult (what the fuck, world?) but this world seems high on self-sufficiency even for minors and they honestly don't mind me trying to get my own apartment. Erika has to approve the decision, but she does, and I enjoy having my own place to myself away from the other kids. I like kids, but not so much when I'm their own size and they can pick on me or, more poignantly, my pokemon.
Bitey in particularly really isn't suitable for being around other children.

I eventually catch Bitey having conversations with Sweetness. I feel a little hurt and left out that he won't talk to me, but I know he's been abused, and if he doesn't want to talk to me, that's his business. I imagine he and Sweetness are having a good time teaching her how to talk like an actual pokemon, because for the first time I hear her utter a 'vee' when I open the door carrying a bag of food. I don't really like feeding them low quality pokechow and I do spoil them with my human food when I have left-overs (which, alas, do not seem to have the magical healing properties I'd hoped), but honestly I can't afford better.

My life nearly ends one day when I'm taking them both out for a walk, glad that I can finally trust Bitey to not run off. It's not that I'm opposed to Bitey going wild if he really wants to, it's that I'm not convinced the young pokemon would actually know how to survive. We need to have a more in-depth conversation sometime, but he's still not really talking to me and might never do so even though I know he's capable of it now.

I turn around a corner, more focused on them than on where I'm going, and run right into a Team Rocket thug twirling a pokeball, who grins on seeing us. I start to panic, my pokemon aren't battlers and I'm a scrawny unmuscled child. "Eevees, huh? Those might fetch a nice price."

"They're pound-pups, sir, of no interest to you. This one is blind and deaf." I point down to Sweetness, who is confused why we halted but can feel me shiver.

The man's face crinkles in disgust. "Blind and deaf? Ugh. I should have known from the white fur. What a waste of my time. Something like that should really just be put out of its misery."

Bitey snarls, but it comes out rather unthreatening coming from a tiny cute eevee.

"Now this one's gotta spark to it, don't it?" He looks amused. "Maybe I'll take this one then. He's clearly not deaf, and they don't mind a little viciousness when they go in for re-conditioning. They'll all break just the same. Rattata!" he calls out, and out comes a rat. I find myself thinking that we might actually win this, if that's the best he has, and if it isn't leveled at all, because even a level 10 rattata could KO a level 5 eevee like Bitey must be. "Hyper fang!" And my hopes are promptly dashed. No way a level 5 rattata knows hyper fang already.

Yet as the purple rat rushes forward, Bitey snarls and a protective barrier slams into it, stopping it in its tracks.

"Huh?" his trainer exclaims. "Is that a Detect?"

"Bitey!" I exclaim. "Spam Charm or another move like Growl to weaken its power!" It was our only chance while his trainer was confused. For once, Bitey actually listens to me. To my relief, Bitey does know Charm, a little heart going out from it. I've never been so thankful for something so ridiculous looking.

"Tch. You can keep up only so many Detects! Hyper Fang again!"

"Detect again, then if you can, use Double Kick, if not... Bite?" I say uncertainly. I knew they didn't learn Bite until later normally, but Bitey, well, sure seemed to love that move, so maybe it was an unwanted egg move that one of the parents had learned in the past. Apparently in this version of the world that could happen, it wasn't as neat and clear cut as the games.

Bitey gave a nasty grin and ran forward. I felt a paw against my side and looked down to Sweetness asking what was going on, and quickly knelt down to sign to her 'A fight vs ROCKET'.

My inattention nearly cost me as Bitey took his first blow from a quick attack, his trainer apparently annoyed at how I wasn't neatly following turn rules and wanting to get in a hit before I could call for a Detect again. "Charm again, Bitey, then hit it again!" I wasn't too worried about a mere Quick Attack, but I didn't expect the trainer to stick to that for long.

Bitey went for the rat's throat, and I was shocked at the bloodiness of the scene and how fast it was - I almost didn't see the next flurry of blows, although I certainly heard them with the squeaks, yelps and shrieks. When they broke off from each other next, Bitey was limping. Shit.

To my shock, Sweetness chose that moment to run in, sniffing the air. She could probably sense the blood of her comrade and was obviously upset, shouting "Vee!" even though she couldn't hear herself speak. She bared her teeth.

"Oh, you want to make it two on two?" the Rocket said with a laugh. "Alright, come on, go Koffing!" I was pretty horrified. Of all the pokemon he had to chose, it had to be one that floated - there was no way Sweetness could run into it like that - and yet...

It stank, and made her nose twitch. Her head jerked up, sniffing, and she threw herself upward, smacking into the purple gasbag with a powerful if slightly mis-aimed Return that nearly missed. It weezed and spurted poison all over her, making her hack and cough. Her frail body nearly collapsed to the ground from that one move. Bitey howled in rage and grief, and shook the rattata hard in his mouth, knocking it unconscious, before launching at the Koffing. It released more poison gas, and Bitey went down, stumbling weakly.

Shit, shit. I trembled. There was nothing more I could do. Both of my pokemon were basically down.

Then Sweetness pulled one last trick I wasn't expecting. She opened up her mouth and yawned.

The Koffing yawned back, closed its eyes, and sank down like a stone.

"What the heck?" the man exclaimed. "Get up! Wake up you, dammit! This is no time to sleep on the job! Stealing from children is supposed to be easy, stop messing it up!"

Unable to believe my luck, but also very wary of the Rocket member, I ran to Bitey and Sweetness and picked them up, then ran toward the Pokemon Center. The shocked Rocket started to run after me, then thought better of it when he remembered he still hadn't recalled his pokemon and that a grown man chasing a small child would make quite a scene.

I didn't remember much of the rest of that day, only police officers interrogating me and making a promise I suspected would soon be broken that they would catch the man, and Erika arriving, looking disturbed. She was something of my guardian even if she didn't show up much in my life, and signed the hospital papers for me: technically, to use the Pokemon Center a registered trainer was supposed to vouch for the pokemon, to prevent unregistered unlicensed fighting, and I wasn't that.

"How could you go walking out at night? Don't you know how dangerous that is?"
"I do now," I said softly. "I don't understand why you don't stop them. The bastards hang out around the game corner, it should be damn obvious they're located in the city somewhere around there or even in that damn place itself." I didn't want to give too much away, but I really did wonder why they hadn't moved on them before. Were the police here corrupt?
She pursed her lips. "You ask a lot of questions, Neon. One of these days it could get you killed."
"That's not an answer. Unless you are saying you'll kill me if I pry too much on this one?" I ask. I used to be suicidal, dammit, this death-threat wasn't going to phase me much.
"No, of course I'm not going to kill you!" she says with an exasperated sigh. "You're such a cynical little child who readily believes the worst in everyone you meet. But I guess I can't entirely blame you for that with the life you've led." Damn straight. "I'm going to sponsor you for getting your trainer license early. You've proven yourself pretty well, and I'd enjoy seeing you take on my gym."
I look at her with surprised hope. Is this a bribe for shutting up? If so, I guess I can be quiet for now. "But one of my pokemon is blind," I point out. "Our win was more of a lucky fluke than anything."
"But one of your pokemon isn't," she points out. "And I think he wants to get stronger now to avoid what happened before." At her words, Bitey races toward me with a series of angry, frustrated "Vee vee!"s, knocking into my side.
"Oof," I grunt, and reach down to pet him. "Is that really what you want?"
"Vee!"
"Alright," I say. "But when we get home we're having a real talk."

It doesn't feel entirely safe at home any more. I turn on the lights, but I'm all too aware anyone could easily break in. Still, it's all we have.
"One of my goals originally," I begin, "was to get an Umbreon, being one of the few dark types available in Kanto. I don't think the world at this time is very familiar with that pokemon. I also wanted to get a pokemon with Protect and another with Reflect or Substitute."
Bitey tilts his head. "Vee?"
"Yeah, Detect is quite similar, ironic that we should meet like that, but I think it can be used less times? Anyway, my reason was simple. There are really powerful monsters in this world, and a good defensive move could really save a person should they decide to turn on them. A lot of those powerful beings are psychic, and to that there's only one reliable counter: dark types. Umbreon is a dark type evolution of Eevee that comes from evolving at night, without a stone."
Bitey's eyes grow big.
"Its counterpart is Espeon, who evolves during the day and is Psychic. There are, uh, is also, um, I forget the name..." It had been awhile. "A fairy. Sylveon, that was it. That one hunts dragons."
"Veeee!" Bitey sounds really excited.
"It is also bright pink and is likely to get you mistaken for a girl all the time, if you care about that at all," I tell him. "You need to know the move Babydoll Eyes and I don't know how to teach that if you haven't learned it already."
"Vee." The eevee pouts slightly. Whether from not knowing the move or at the prospect of being pink, I'm not sure which. I don't think Pokemon care about human gender norms, so I'm going to assume it's about not knowing the move.
His gaze drifts to Sweetness, who is tuckered out asleep on the couch, and he hops over and signs to me, a little clumsily, 'Would being psychic let her sense?'
That... was actually a really good question! "I don't know. I think it would more than she does now, sure. I think she could 'hear' thoughts, so while it wouldn't give her sight, it could give her effective hearing as long as there is another living being around." That actually makes me a little excited. "That's a really good idea, Bitey. Though that reminds me now that you're talking to me, do you prefer a different name? That one kind of just stuck but it's not, um, the nicest. If I knew what you wanted to evolve into - and there's more options by the way, like Glaceon the Ice Type or Jolteon the Electric - then I could give you a matching name maybe, like Moon?"
Bitey shakes his head. 'I like Bitey.'
"I guess that's my fault. Hm, wait, what about Crunch? It's a little more dignified, and it's a move name but not one that Umbreon typically learns, so it could really confuse your opponents the first time they hear it."
'If I do not learn it I do not think I want to be called it, that seems silly.'
"Alright," I relent. "Bitey it is. I guess that's just what I get for naming you like a small child."
'You are a small child?'
"Sort of," I say. "This isn't my first life. That's a secret I haven't told anyone before." The eevee's eyes are staring really wide at me now. "But I feel I can trust you. I mean, you really saved us back there." His chest puffs with pride, and a small tail wag that I've never seen him give before. "I want to ask, what do you want out of life? Do you really want to train, or is that just because today was terrifying to all of us? You don't have to if you don't want to."
'I do. I did not want to before because I was bred and abandoned for battle, and it hurt that it was all anyone who came to look at me wanted me for,' the eevee signed, then hissed in a rather good ekans impression. 'But Sweetness is not like that. You are not like that, although it sounds like you started out wanting me just for my fighting ability too.' His ears drooped a little.
"I won't lie, that is why I first looked at eevees, but I never intended to abuse you or force you to fight if you didn't want to," I said softly. "Eventually I really did want you just for you. I never expected Sweetness to fight, and I still don't really; no matter what, she's still going to be blind, that's a horrible disadvantage in a fight to have. If she wants, I'll try to help her evolve, which will help expand her senses and make it so she can at least stand up to random men with rattatas," I laugh at the last bit, even though after today it isn't really funny. A man with a rattata could still murder you if you were unprepared. "I don't think she'll need much more experience to evolve because she's already really loving and affectionate with me. That's actually most of what there is to it, you need to get a little experience while having a deep bond of affection for... I would say your trainer, but I think that maybe having it for someone else could do the trick too." I gaze toward Sweetness. "So maybe if you fight thinking about your loved ones..." I didn't try to include myself on that list.
He surprises me by jumping up into my arms, tears in his eyes. Today was pretty upsetting for everybody. 'I really thought for a moment we were all going to die.'
"I know, buddy, me too."

I think I have two friends now.

- 2: Goodbyes and Hellos

I acquire a Poliwhirl shortly, a local pokemon who unfortunately won't be of much use in a fight against Erika but did have the benefit of having no deep psychological issues, and I end up taking on two more abused pokemon. The first is a maimed Scyther missing an arm with a feral look in her eyes, ready to lash out at any and every human who goes near. If I didn't take her, she would have been put down. Erika is really reluctant to let me have her, and tells me I absolutely must pass her gym if I want to keep her. Since a life is literately on the line, I reluctantly agree and work hard on grinding my two eevees against each other and against Poliwhirl in mock-battle.

When I see a glow start to form around Sweetness, but at the wrong time of day (or rather, night), I feel deeply apologetic as I have to startle her out of it. But it means we're incredibly close, and the very next day, she's an absolutely stunning shiny Espeon, if, unfortunately, still very blind and deaf and not used enough to her powers to compensate for that at all yet. I do get a cheap Teleport TM for her right away. While in the games it was always nearly useless, here having an instant transport service is beyond wonderful, and might be a life-saver someday.

The second is, long term wise, an even worse threat being a dragon type taken from the local smuggling ring. I honestly hadn't been planning on getting a Dratini because they take so long to grow up, and would have preferred a Larvitar given a chance, but dragons are really nothing to sniff at. The thing is, the poor thing breaks out into a panic attack whenever it sees a red flash of light from a pokeball. It was one of the pokemon who didn't take well to the 'conditioning' Rocket gave its stolen mons and simply broke down into a nonresponsive puddle on the ground instead of attacking. It was going to take a lot of care to get its confidence back again, and when it evolved there was a very strong chance it was going to get temperamental and start attacking people as it remembered what they had done to it. If I didn't take care of it very carefully, it was also going to get put down, through no fault of its own.

I actually don't have much interest in keeping a scyther on my team, as cool as they are, I would have to trade her to evolve her in the first place and as a bug/flying she's just not really powerful enough to deal with some of the worst threats out there, especially with a missing limb. For a grass gym, though, she's absolutely great. Or would be, if I could get her to calm down enough. One thing I do try to do is teach all my pokemon how to communicate with me and how to read. This is problematic with Scyther who has literal scythes for arms, making it difficult to manipulate anything, but at least she isn't blind so as long as someone turns the pages for her, she can at least read, and other pokemon can communicate her words to me.

When Bitey evolves into a sleek black Umbreon, I feel blissful relief. I knew from the Espeon that second gen types had to exist, but actually seeing one in person is another thing. It means my knowledge did translate over, at least, even if I don't know why I've been given another chance. Maybe it really was the work of some screwed up ghost type having a joke at my expense? Or maybe I was the ghost type and accidentally gave my life's memories to a human babe? Who knows.

Scyther, Poliwhirl/Poliwrath (as soon as he evolves), maybe-Dratini, Espeon and Umbreon, that left one slot open. With fighting, psychic, and dark I had good broad coverage there, but a double-weakness to electric with only one resisting. If it weren't for the fact we'd be going against a grass gym shortly, I'd be really tempted to get a ground type pokemon. Although considering all the poisons, that might still work out, it was a pretty risky strategy. Locally, Clefairy were commonly traded but just a touch expensive, and I debated getting one just for the sake of having a fairy, but putting Icebeam on Poliwhirl would do just as well, and if I was spending money, I'd rather have an Ice TM. If I didn't get Espeon, I'd have gotten an Abra as they were incredibly cheap.
Alas, I was really dismayed to learn right now that TMs weren't currently re-usable. Not surprising, but dismaying all the same.

I was reluctant to go out and simply catch a random bird pokemon in the grass that I'd never use again, despite the extreme usefulness of an extra super-effective against the local gym. If I had the cash, I'd get a fire TM for Dratini or Icebeam for Poliwhirl... probably Ice for Poliwhirl because Dratini was still terrified of everything that moved and might never actually be a fighter. That was perfectly okay with me. I just wanted to work on desensitisation exercises so Dratini didn't have to live with so much terror. I worked with using the pokeball and giving it lots of treats and praise for tolerating the red flash and mostly just let the thing hang out in my apartment playing with my other pokemon.

For Scyther... that was trickier because she could really hurt me if she wanted, and only Poliwrath really stood in her way effectively. I keep my distance and let her hang out with my other pokemon and let her listen in on reading lessons, give her treats, let her know I'm okay with releasing her to the wild if she wants as long as she agrees not to hurt anyone.

She actually agrees to that, nodding, and I feel, I must admit, a wave of disappointment despite myself. I had kind of hoped she'd stick with us. I tell her that we have some traveling to do before we can reach the Safari Zone where I know a number of her kind live, and that it would help if she fought the grass gym with us, but, she doesn't have to. Once I get past the local gym, I'll be allowed to travel out of the city with a potentially dangerous pokemon like herself.
'I want to watch', she scratches out very awkwardly, dipping the very tip of her scythe in ink and being very very careful with the paper.

"Okay. That should be alright, I guess." I will probably get my ass beaten in.

Actually, in hindsight, I over-estimate the difficulty a little bit simply from my knowledge of the games. "Because this is your first gym battle, I will use only two pokemon, and you may use as many as you like."

At that, I relax a lot. "Then I'll start with Bitey." After that, I'd use Poliwraith, despite the type disadvantage, and only then would I resort to Sweetness. Then I'd be done, as there was no way I was going to use Dratini and Scyther said she didn't want to.

Erika is quite curious when she sees Bitey pop out. "I've never seen a pokemon like that before."

"That's because everyone in Kanto evolves their eevees by stone as soon as possible, I suspect," I mutter to myself, then more loudly and politely say, "He's an Umbreon. Bitey, start with a Detect as a scouting move to see some of what she's got up her sleeve."

"Not bad, but you probably should have timed that better, you didn't have to shout your move first as the challenger," she said with amusement, sending out her Gloom. "Sunny Day."

I groan. "I walked right into that. Okay, um, Sand Attack multiple times, Bitey." Detect, Sand Attack, Bite, Tackle, not a lot to work with but it would have to do.
"Solar beam, Gloom."

The beam misses at first, Gloom sweeping a little hectically and nearly hitting us before getting a sharp rebuke from Erika, but with the strong sunlight it can stop and repeat as fast as it wants, re-aiming, and it hits on its next try. Bitey gives a cry.

"Another Sand Attack, then hit it with a Bite but be careful not to take it face on!" Getting close was the riskiest part of this, you didn't need good aim if you got up nearly point blank, but right after a fresh sand attack was really our only option before we'd have to switch. Gloom took the blow from the side but turned and got Bitey again, and I reluctantly recalled. "Alright, that's enough for now."

A ranged attacker would do better, probably. "Whirl, you're up!"

"Pol!" he exclaims happily. It was nice to have a cheerful mon who had no grudges or tragic backstories that I was aware of, just a happy wog from a pond eager for adventure.

"You've got a type disadvantage so keep your distance and keep yourself a moving target, and hit it with repeat water guns until it goes down!"

There is, however, one problem with this plan, which is that this isn't the games.

Erika smiles. "You've just washed the sand off my Gloom. I thank you for the common beginner's mistake."

"Wha-? Dammit!" I curse as Gloom unleashes a full accuracy Solar Beam on Poliwhirl. My only consolation is that the bright sunlight finally dims a bit, a cloud passing overhead. We needed to use another move, pound wouldn't cut it, oh, wait, of course! "Hypnosis!" Now that its eyes were clear again, it could be hypnotized!

"Whirl!"

Gloom fell asleep, and Erika smiled. "Enough. Return, Gloom. Come out, Weepinbell. Two can play the sleeping game. Sleep Powder!"

Whirl's eyes close, and the poliwhirl slinks into slumber himself. You'd think being a sleep user he'd be a little more wary and able to counter of such a technique, but nope. Something to work on later maybe.

"Alright, return." I reluctantly pull out Sweetness's ball and summon her right next to my side. I'll only be able to give her one command this entire fight. "Sweetness," I tap gently against her side. "try to get the Weepinbell in front of you with a Confusion. If you feel you can't you can come back and I'll get you at any time you want."

"Eon!"

Erika stares. "Is that... your blind and deaf eevee?" She is a little bit appauled, I admit I feel a little shame. "Can she even fight?"

Sweetness trots forward, blissfully unaware of our argument, focuses and lifts Weepinbell straight into the air.

I laugh. "I think that's a... little bit more than a Confusion there, Sweetness," but of course, she can't hear me.

"Of course," Erika breathes out. "You evolved her into a psychic type, the one thing that might be able to let her compensate for her disability. That's actually rather smart."

I couldn't take full credit for that one, since my dear Bitey came up with that one. Instead, I focused on the field where Sweetness was pulverizing the poor Weepinbell in a shaky and often rather aimless looking, but definitely very effective manner as the plant got rolled around and smashed into random things. The grass type fainted and Erika recalled, and Sweetness paused, a little confused, and lifted up a chair of roughly the same weight as the other pokemon and started smashing it against the ground instead.

"Oookay, I think that's enough." I ran out to her in embarrassment and put a hand to her. She startled, and it occurred to me if she'd been a more aggressive mon I could have been bitten just then, mistaken for an enemy. "You won, girl, stop trying to kill the chair." I returned her after that.

"I am a little surprised you didn't use Scyther." Erika said. "Can you not control her?"

I glanced toward where Scyther was watching. "Scyther doesn't really want to fight any more. It freaks her out."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But you know a real trainer would help a pokemon overcome their fears, and not let their pokemon command them," she says a little disapprovingly. I flash her a look of profoundly not caring.

"Goodbye Erika. I guess you were kind of the closest thing I had to a mother here?" I say with a shrug, taking her badge with a little reluctance, knowing that it apparently could mess with minds. "We probably won't see each other again, at least for a long time anyway." I don't have any reason to come back to the gym, we both know that.

She nods, and there is a brief silence between us. "I think you can be a great trainer, Neon. You should try the other gyms."

"I bet you say that to all the boys," I say, only half joking, because I was pretty sure gym leaders did say that to everyone they didn't think was totally terrible who won at their gyms, maybe even legally obligated to by the league.

"Goodbye Neon," she says a little more softly, as I turn and walk out the door forever. "You were a sweet boy."

I try not to feel terribly lonely. I have monsters at my pocket now, I don't need a mother. Yet somehow, it still hurts.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that you can't always have what you want.

I don't get a Scyther, she leaves us shortly, released into Fuschia, although she does join us briefly for a double battle melee that is rather enjoyable against a biker gang. We do happily get a Toxic TM from the poison gym, which I immediately apply to Bitey. Bitey is a wall, with Detect and Sand Attack he could make a very annoying staller now.

Although I work hard with Dratini, she ends up leaving us as well, simply too shaken by whatever horrors happened to her and simply not of a mind to fight. She promises that she won't seek revenge on humans in the future, for what it is worth, remembering our kindness and not just our cruelty. That will have to be enough. It's still deeply disappointing to me though: I'd started to have daydreams about Dragonite.

-3 A Plan

Flush with some actual cash, I finally get an Icebeam TM for Whirl which really rounds out our team, and someone gives a freebie Submission TM which also really helps him. The one thing I still need is a Water Stone for the guy, but that can wait. We learn to surf with a bunch of hipsters on surf boards, including one really funky surfing pikachu I admire, and I debate for a moment going after Articuno before deciding that would be suicidal at this time. Plus, I told myself I wasn't going to take pokemon against their will, and legendaries didn't strike me as the type to want to go from being worshipped as gods to being treated as pets.

I do hang out in the Safari Zone out of sheer hopefulness, but most of the pokemon are shy from having rocks thrown at them. Why you would throw rocks at something that could murder you, I have no idea.

I'm ultimately approached by a nidorino who really wants a trainer and keeps getting passed up due to being one of the most common pokemon there, and I'm a little reluctant to take on yet another 'mon who needs a stone I don't have, but beggars can't be choosers and a ground type is undeniably useful even if poison won't be very useful until people start using fairies. Plus, it has great coverage, Nidoking can learn Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, Fire Blast and Earthquake, and was a solid, dependable pokemon. One could certainly easily do worse. The biggest problem is that all of those moves would really eat into my wallet, so another gym we must face.

We hit the psychic gym next briefly, Bitey really enjoying himself. Nidorino was unfortunately not much help here, nor Whirl, and I found myself really wishing Scyther had stayed as we could have used a bug type. We take a pause while taking on some of the associated trainers in town after being given a warning that Sabrina sometimes... toys... with her opponents when they lose, and I suddenly remember the damn anime and decide it would be prudent to go to Lavender and pick up a ghost.

I had been kind of putting off Lavender Town because of my own connection to ghosts. I am slightly afraid that they'll claim me as one of them. It's irrational when my heart is clearly beating, but maybe not completely so, considering my history.
It's a little disturbing, actually. I get a swarm of ghosts crowding around me almost immediately. It's like something about me is delicious to them, and I actually wake one night there feeling pain and finding one using Dream Eater on me. Suffice to say after that I always have Bitey in the same room with me. The incident puts me considerably off the idea of getting a ghost on the team, and I spent time training up Bitey and Sweetness instead. I'm always really careful with Sweetness, considering her condition, I feel bad when I cause her to come to harm.
"Stop coddling me," she says to me one day, startling me with the clarity of her voice.
"You figured it out!"
"It wasn't easy, when you have no concept of sound," she told me. "But I managed. Because though I may be blind and deaf, I am not weak, Neon. You saw potential in me no one else did, you knew from the beginning that I had a mind, just no opportunity to use it. So I'd appreciate it if you stopped treating me like I had to be constantly protected too. Yes, I'll probably never match some of the top tier pokemon out there, especially other, better bred Espeon," this last is intoned with a bit of bitterness that I can physically feel, possibly due to her conveying it psychically, "but I can still fight, and I want to be able to protect you and myself." She paused. "I also, now that I am older, and so are you, really want to know about our long term goals. Did you have one? I suspect you did, because you specifically wanted an Umbreon, and for me to have Teleport, from the beginning."
"Part of that was just being cautious, but, you're right, I did have an idea in mind... I wanted to learn more about how this world works. I'd forgotten about it until now, but I'd actually kind of wanted to mess around with technology, like maybe giving humans pokemon genes so they could understand them and empathize with them better or making a universal translator." Personally, it would be very cool to use pokemon moves yourself. "I'd kind of like to fight in battle with you and not just, you know, lording over you, but I can't because I'm weak. If anybody is coddled I guess it's me and the other humans," I laugh. "I also wanted to learn more about Rocket's operations. It actually crossed my mind to infiltrate them, but that would be really dangerous."
"Infiltrate?" she says with interest. "You're right, that would be."
"Anyway, if gyms get more dangerous as you go on normally, except for Sabrina who doesn't seem to know how to hold her punches, I think we should head toward Viridan. There's actually something I really want to know about when it happens there, and that's going to require frequent checking." If it hadn't already happened. "There's a disaster we may be able to prevent. If this world is similar but not identical to the one I'm familiar with, things could go very badly for humanity very soon. It's one of the reasons I wanted a dark type, actually."
"Oh?" she says with a querying tone.
"Yeah, I'm not the only one interested in experiments, suffice to say. There's going to be a really powerful pokemon there if my guess is right, and I kind of want to fight it with Bitey." I pause. "To be honest, I'd really be more comfortable with a second pokemon with effectiveness against psychics. You're a good backup, but this pokemon is going to be, well, much more powerful than any other psychic, and I don't really want to see you hurt, which is what will happen if I send you up first."
"We could try a Yawn and Baton Pass."
I blink. "If you're willing to risk that, yeah, that'd be great. Probably wouldn't be expecting that strategy. But I'm trying to think of what the next step is should we actually beat it. I mean, it was never beaten before, so if things go bad, it'll probably confront us later. That's better than it immediately leaping to murder all of humanity and pokemon that aren't like itself-"
"Wait, that's actually what happens?" she says psychically, horrified.
"Well, almost. It does plot to, but in the original timeline it plays around with some trainers first, toying with them by sending out other pokemon like itself, and one trainer manages to impress on it that not all trainers are evil. But this world seems a little darker than that one, and I'm not sure we can rely on that happening again," I said. "So we need to grind like crazy, and we need to know the instant that pokemon appears. That's where Teleport and your psychic abilities could come in really useful."
She pauses and thinks about it. "I could spy often, but then you'd be left without a psychic a lot of the time."
"Yeah, that's a definite downside. If only we had Scyther..." I sighed. "Then at least we'd have another super-effective."
"If the fate of the world is at stake... I think I shall see what I can do," she says suddenly, and she vanishes without warning.
"Woah!" I say. I couldn't say I'd been expecting that!

The next morning, there is an array of Pokemon in our campsite and my jaw drops. "What the heck, Sweetness?!"
"While not everyone believed me, some were swayed by the fact psychic and dark types sometimes genuinely portend the future, and it would be foolish to ignore a threat to all of our kind completely. Some of them also remember you." She looks to the side. A Scizor with both arms, and a Dragonair.
"Is that really Scyther?" I say skeptically.
"It is. As a bug type, she effectively molted upon evolution and regained her limb."
"That's fantastic," I said, genuinely relieved and surprised. "We'll definitely find a strong bug type useful against what we may be facing." I look to Dragonair, then. "I'm sorry to drag you into this, I know you don't like fighting. Do you really think you can face Team Rocket again?"
Dragonair snarls. I take it evolution has indeed made her more cantankerous, as often happens to mistreated dragons.
There other pokemon there are unfamiliar to me, but not their species. Sweetness has really outdone herself here, because there's a damn Dragonite sitting right there, an Alakazam, a Heracross, a Rhydon, and most useful of all, a Tyranitar. I don't even know where she found a Tyranitar, but I am so relieved. "Alakazam can teleport, so scouting is the number one important thing you can do right now." That meant Sweetness could stay at my side and train more, too. "Tyranitar, as a really strong dark type, you're probably our best chance of actually taking down that pokemon if it strikes," that makes the Tyranitar give me a smug smirk and thrash its tail, "Dragonite can fly and observe movements of people from above discreetly, which reminds me that there's another place worth checking out. There's supposed to be a laboratory built on Cinnabar. It's possible that if it hasn't been built yet and we sabotage it, we could prevent this pokemon from even being born or take them as a baby away from the scientists experimenting on it, which would actually be my first preference." I actually feel kind of guilty about that, but, someone who hasn't been born yet can't complain right? And it's the entire pokemon and human race at stake if it decides to wipe us out on a whim. In some versions, Mewtwo is just plain vicious from the get go and we all get lucky he simply happens to go into a cave to sulk for some random reason instead of murder half the populace. "Heracross, you're another bug type but you are also part fighting, so I'm afraid you'll probably be most useful for scouting. You can fly, right?" Heracross nods. "That's good. If we have an eye on Cinnabar, another pair on Viridian, then we can set the last on Celadon which is an unlikely but not impossible place for it to show up because I know there are Rockets there."
"You seem like you really have this thought out, human," Alakazam states. "And I sense that you genuinely think this threat is real. This is no prank. We will help you." The other pokemon nod agreement.

Everything was clicking into place faster than I expected.

The laboratory exists. The problem is that there are actually multiple laboratories on Cinnabar, and we have no idea which one.

I evolve Whirl into Poliwrath, Nidorino into Nidoking, and go through several gyms just earning enough prizemoney to afford a load of TMs. I send my pokemon through the grinder. We also end up with more volunteers than we know what to do with, including a Gyarados which is amazing (at this point I could probably start doing a Lance impersonation), so I use the opportunity to train my pokemon against many different types and to set up more spies.

Unfortunately, this leads to an overzealous attack on the laboratory, once we identify it, by the wild pokemon, which leads to increased protections and security. It's possible this may mean that when the time comes, not all of the scientists will die this time, so it could have positive side effects, or maybe not, who knows.

It does become apparent that I'm a bit early in the timeline possibly by several years, though, as there doesn't seem to be any psychic energies sensible from the labs, so I decide to use the opportunity to start studying for myself, doing things like tinkering with TMs and examining how the pokemon storage system works. In this world, pokemon stored are sent to a ranch like Professor Oak's somewhere, not actually stuffed in a box forever, which is a relief. I try to make a reusable TM, but it's slow going especially when I have other things on my mind, and I start studying all available genetic research.

One huge problem I come to is that a lot of technology is actually proprietary in the pokemon world and kept a secret. Silph Co patented the pokeball as a cheap mass-produceable version of the Aprikot ball, and it was only when the patent expired that it was motivated to create the higher quality balls or started getting competitors. It's a little easier to find information on TMs and genetic material of pokemon because pokemon researchers tend to enjoy pure research, and I read eagerly on the articles of someone successfully reviving an aerodactyl. It occurs to me that this article is probably what spurred Giovanni to show interest in the process in the first place, so it serves as the beginning of that particular timeline. Dating to a year ago, a lot depends on when exactly Mew DNA was acquired - if that took a long time digging through ruins, or whether it was a fairly short process. I'm going to assume it took at least a few months, and that more time was spent processing the data and figuring out the best way to go about cloning it. So Mewtwo might be just a tiny clump of cells right now or not even existent. There certainly isn't a near full grown version lurking, thank goodness.

I end up attracting a little bit of attention from other human beings on the trainer circuit, which surprises and frightens me a bit, but probably shouldn't have surprised me at all. Even though I tended to avoid televised tournaments, pokemon matches were very popular and it wasn't surprising someone would have taped me at some point or at least gossiped about me. I was that stranger with weird pokemon who also appeared with evolved dragon pokemon out of the blue, and you didn't see too many people like that; a lot of people who spent the cash apparently got frustrated with a dragon's slow growth or couldn't handle them when they evolved, and although I never used them in the gym circuit unless they asked to go, I did end up using them enough that people knew I had both a Dragonite, Gyarados and a Tyranitar on my team sometimes.

"What is that strange eevee evolution you have with you?" asked a nosy reporter after a particularly brutal battle at the Cerulean gym, where as one of my later gyms the leaders had sent another Gyarados at me and a Quagsire, each with a type advantage over some of the usual counters to water pokemon.

"I have two of them actually. No further questions," I quickly moved to teleport away, but paused when I spotted another figure.

No, it couldn't be.

"How would you like an employment opportunity?" Cassidy of Team Rocket spoke.

This... was too perfect.

"I have some interest in gym work," I offer back quickly.

"What we have in mind for you isn't gym work but considerably more... lucrative."

Okay, maybe not so perfect. "I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

I teleport away. Not a bad way to make an exit, no?

'Why did you turn her down, Neon?' Bitey asks later, frustrated. 'You could have worked your way over to their base!'

"And I would have had to steal many pokemon to do it, with no guarantee I'd get to visit Viridian Gym when the time came." That shut him up.

-4: The Fight

I realize we screwed up somewhere when an island reportedly explodes, but not Cinnabar. They must have gotten suspicious after the attack or realized that they were being monitored at some point, and set up an entirely different lab and re-vet everyone involved for leaks. That might explain why it's several years later when this happens, although considering a little girl was cloned it's likely that it also just took several years for the cloning process to reach this stage.

"There's a new psychic at Viridian Gym," the Alakazam reports.

"It's time." I feel a little faint. Everything rides on this. If I screw it up... the whole world could end. "Let me know when the first humiliated challenger comes out. I'll teleport over then." I didn't want to accidentally challenge too soon if the psychic was still getting situated there, and end up facing a normal team.
I had at this point done several Johto gyms, though I'd gradually gone through every gym with less frequency after I completed all of Kanto except Viridian. It wouldn't be too strange if I popped in now after all this time, I had a perfectly normal alibi that it was my last gym to conquer in the area and that I had put it off for last due to its difficulty, if anyone asked.

We go in.

I hope it won't be the last mistake I ever make, or my team.

"The mysterious Neon," Giovanni says. "I've been expecting you." That, I feel, doesn't bode well at all. "The mysterious trainer infamous for using a blind pokemon in battle."

"I find that being psychic more than compensates for such a lack." At this point, she effectively wasn't blind and deaf any more, sensory wise, although she still wouldn't notice the difference between a shiny and a non she could identify a pokemon in front of her from its psychic energies unless it was dark. "I'll show you," I say, trying to inspire him to send out Mewtwo as soon as possible. I know he has fighting types in the gym -

And out goes a Tyranitar. Damn me. Did he know about dark types now purely because of me being an idiot and using one? Had he tested it against Mewtwo and realized he could potentially keep it here with a team of those things? Although it would be difficult to get that many Tyranitar, if that was the only dark type he knew how to get I'm sure he'd waste any price...

"I was curious when I saw that pokemon and decided I had to acquire one for myself. I still couldn't find an Umbreon, however. And all my attempts to evolve an eevee into one met with failure. I thought perhaps a moonstone would do, but there was no reaction." That's because it was about friendship, you dumbass, not a special stone. Also, weirdly, time of day. But mostly friendship.

"Same as our original strategy, Sweetness, Yawn, Barrier, and Baton Pass." I definitely wouldn't be using Tyranitar against Mewtwo now except as a last resort, just in case. Damn, this was eroding my battle plan from the start.

"Crunch."

Sweetness tries to yawn, but is cut off by a rampaging, Godzilla-like beast charging for her. She darts around, dodging, and it makes it difficult to pull off a yawn. Finally, she throws up a barrier and switches out on her own.

"Pursuit."

"Ah, pursuit doesn't work against Baton Pass. It's not a common situation in Kanto so it's not unusual you wouldn't know that." I'm not big into humiliating my opponents even if they probably deserve it. Plus, I might need to angle to get hired here, and pissing him off would not go well with that. That, and I'm honestly just not a dick like some people. Just because a dude is a mafia boss doesn't mean you have to forget your manners. Some would say you should especially remember your manners in that situation, in fact.

Sweetness sends out Poliwrath, who goes out with a flying fist and smacks straight into the Tyranitar.

"I notice you allow your pokemon some leeway in choosing their own moves."

"They know what is expected of them ahead of time," I tell him. "I expect a certain ruthless efficiency from my pokemon." That should impress him, I think. And it does earn a slight smile from the man with terrible taste in bright orange suits. Seriously, who wears bright orange? I'm named Neon and I wouldn't wear that. Maybe it's just my queerness speaking, although I don't normally pay much attention to fashion, I at least have some sense of it. "Finish it off with Hydro Pump."

"Try to freeze it in place with an Ice Punch." That's actually not a bad gamble, but since I told Poliwrath to use a distance move and this gives it extra time to keep firing before the punch can even land, it ends up not working and Tyranitar goes out.

"Electabuzz, Thunder Punch," he sends out his next pokemon, and I wisely decide to switch.

After a moment of reluctance, I send out my own buddy Tyranitar. "Earthquake."

"Cross chop." Electabuzz moves faster, and gets a good hit in before going down.

"Machamp."

His Machamp sends Tyranitar down without even a command before I can switch it out. This is honestly not the battle I anticipated, and I'm feeling a little nervous. Will I even get to see Mewtwo? Was I too late? No, if I was, the gym should have been partially destroyed or something, anything, to give a signal. And Sweetness said she sensed psychic power lurking here. That had to count for something.
I send out Sweetness again, and she takes it down in a single shot, but she's still hurting from the crunch that nearly took her out before.

Finally, Giovanni smiles and says. "I have a special surprise. A unique pokemon of my own. Come out."

A familiar figure shrouded in shadow emerges, a suit covering its body as it gracefully floats forward. "I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait," it says with a touch of petulance.

Good! Well, no, not good. This could end very badly. I clear my throat. "It's always nice to meet another pokemon I can communicate with."

I can sense a touch of impatience, but also curiosity at being addressed - my guess is that none of the other trainers it swept before did that. Unfortunately, I can see Giovanni is not so pleased at this, his eyes narrowing at my impertinence. "Finish the cripple off."

Sweetness yelps in pain, lifted up into the air before I can do anything. "Yawn-" I try to get off one last move, but her cry starts to turn into a scream, and I quickly hit return, worried that Mewtwo had done actual internal damage to her and that she was dying now. Didn't anyone teach him not to punch further when your opponent was clearly down? Shit. "Bitey, it's up to you." I did have Scizor left, but didn't know how much I could really depend on anyone who wasn't totally immmune, though I did have a Protect on it which might make for a single surprise hit. Alakazam was waiting outside of the building ready to teleport everyone out if Mewtwo should turn completely murderous, and so as teleport backup wouldn't be fighting in the gym battle.
My sleek, ebony furred friend darts on to the field, having already been out of his ball. "Double Team, Charm," I pause, "Mean Look." No escape this time, no rescue from a fighting type either.

Mewtwo attempts to lift Bitey into the air like everyone else, and its (his? he sounded like a he but I didn't think they actually had a gender) tail lashes in frustration as nothing happens. "Why isn't my power working?" he says, and there is a trace of fear in his voice that he's probably never genuinely experienced before.

"Double Team does make it harder to hit a Pokemon," Giovanni says, but his voice is slightly dubious, and I can tell he suspects already. "Try to grab all of them."

"I am!" Mewtwo says, starting to sound angry. This turns to fear when Umbreon launches forward and smacks into him, and he gives a pained huff as he stumbles backward. This might be the first time in his life he's ever experienced actual pain, and from the way his head lowers I think he's either very angry, very scared, or both. Because if he isn't the most powerful pokemon, what is he?

"My Umbreon also knows Detect, which makes it immune to hits temporarily," I say, just to muddy the waters and confuse things further. "Sometimes strategy wins out over brute strength," I say, which seems to make Mewtwo straighten up a little in relief, but I can tell Giovanni is furious. His most precious powerful pokemon in the whole world is getting taken out by gutter trash from Celadon and I just implied it was his fault. That... may have been a stupid move on my part, even if it made Mewtwo feel better.

"Mewtwo, return," Giovanni says, but Mewtwo freezes in place. "We'll see if a Swift barrage from one of my other pokemon can get through this."

"I c-can't." Oh. He's terrified. Umbreon smacks into him again, and I can't tell if he's even trying to fight anymore.

"This is no time to turn into a coward, Mewtwo!"

"It isn't his fault. Mean Look traps the pokemon in battle," I inform him. I'm actually starting to feel pretty bad. Beating up a legendary isn't supposed to be this easy, but the information gap, the experience gap, is pretty large here. What is Mewtwo right now, anyway? If fossils come out at around level 30, maybe 50 right now from his training? Since my Sweetness can juuust barely tank a crunch hit from a minimum level 55 Tyranitar, I know I've likely grinded her and the others much higher than that. Or maybe this universe doesn't even run on levels. In that case, he's still potentially only a few months old, that's practically a newborn.

"Then keep up your attack. They said temporarily! Try a different move!" I can tell Giovanni is a little desperate now.

Mewtwo throws what I suspect must be a shadowball, but Bitey the Umbreon silently throws an actual Detect and takes it easily, then, without my asking, increases the double teams again. Good strategy, just like we practiced. Then he opens his mouth, purple forming.
I can't do this anymore.

"Bitey, stop. I think we've seen enough to conclude a winner. I take no delight in attacking a frightened, defenseless pokemon into unconsciousness." I know I've changed time now, but in what way I can't say.

I'd actually been planning on a Toxic if this turned into a harder fight and we couldn't get paralysis or sleep on him, but it genuinely doesn't look necessary now and would just be pouring salt on to an open wound. I move down to the field, which is quite dangerous, but I feel relatively safe with Bitey at my side. I reach out a hand to Mewtwo. "Hey," I say softly. The purple felid regards me with suspicion and looks ready to snap back at any sudden moves, so I go very, very still until he breathes a little more loosely again.

"You are acting against League Regulations," Giovanni stated. "If you continue, I will be forced to disqualify you." Wouldn't that be a darn shame.

"Do you want to be able to return your pokemon?" I ask. "Then let me help him get over Mean Look. Also, I take it this means you want to continue the fight with a different pokemon?"

Giovanni is proud, so of course he says, "Yes, we can continue," but very grudgingly. I don't think he's going to offer me employment now, I've humiliated him too deeply. You can't have an employee stronger than the boss, the thinking goes. It was never a very realistic plan in the first place, I suppose, but I had been thinking I might actually lose this, but do well enough he'd want someone to help shore up Mewtwo's weaknesses.

"Close your eyes and calm down. We're not going to hurt you." I seek a patch of skin not covered by the armor to touch gently, and he flinches.

"Because I'm so weak and defenseless I'm beneath your contempt?"

"No!" I exclaim, then lower my voice. "With a better strategy, you would hardly have been defenseless. Your trainer just thought he could brute force everything with a Psychic, so he didn't give you a wider variety of moves. Not everything in life is about being stronger than somebody else," I tell him, and hope it sinks in. He's basically a damn baby right now with homicidal urges. "If you want you can come talk to me sometime," I offer, and really hope he takes me up on it. "I could show you something fun that isn't fighting."

It's hard to read someone who's face is covered in a visor, but he sounds skeptical. "Something... fun?"

"Have you had enough time, Trainer?" Ooh, he's mad, he's not even using my name. I expel a breath and step back, hoping he didn't overhear too much of that, but knowing him he's probably got microphones and cameras stashed all over the place.

"Yeah, that should be enough. Try moving, Mewtwo."

Mewtwo floats into the air, then shoots off like a rocket far out of sight, well away from me and my 'terrifying' Umbreon.

"He'll come back to me," Giovanni says, but his confidence is clearly slightly shaken. "Now get off my field."

I hastily move back to my proper spot, and we resume the match. The rest of it isn't nearly as exciting. Umbreon tanks a number of swifts and earthquakes, and uses Moonlight to heal the worst of it, and then I send out Scizor and she finishes the Dugtrio off. Giovanni had sent a Tyranitar, Dugtrio, Electabuzz, Mewtwo, Machamp, so his final pokemon was the predictable Persian, who fired off a bubblebeam and did some pretty good damage to Scizor. I then remember that Whirl hadn't actually fainted and send him out, and his fighting type moves finish the job. Whirl, Scizor, Bitey have finished the battle without fainting, though they've taken some blows, and I'm pretty proud of them. Sweetness, Tyranitar both went down, but I actually would have had one pokemon left if the fight had dragged on any longer. So we actually did really well, I think.

"You are the winner. Unfortunately, I don't think I can allow you to leave."

"I beg your pardon?" I say, suddenly very worried. My team was weakened and I had only one fresh pokemon left 'officially', but that particular pokemon was pretty good. Considering the difficulty and the expected type matchings, I'd reluctantly left Nidoking behind and chosen... "Dragonite." I send the beast out, and say, "Care to repeat that?"

"You've seen too much," Giovanni stated, and his unwavering air really scares me as to what he's got up his sleeve. Gas starts to emanate from the sides of the room, and I gape. There's also a click of a gun, as rows of Team Rocket grunts emerge and some of them are damn snipers with huge guns that look like they could take out an elephant. "I'm going to take your pokemon for my own. It's simply business, nothing personal."

"Nothing personal my ass, I humiliated you," I snark, which maybe wasn't the smartest decision, but he was probably about to murder me anyway. "Alakazam!" I call out.

Bullets fly as Alakazam teleports us out, and Dragonite is hit shielding me. There's no yell of pain or even a gurgle, only a horrifying bang and red and white matter flying everywhere all over us. I feel sick as I arrive in front of a pokemon center with a dead Dragonite, and some little kid who probably only just started on their journey screams their head off.

I collapse on the ground and vomit as Nurse Joy demands to know what happened. "Giovanni runs Team Rocket."

Then I put a hand to a growing red hole and realize that's the real reason I feel so whoozy.

- 5: Interrogation

When my eyes open again, I'm in a white room strapped to an IV. Bitey barks happily at seeing me awake, and my guess is that he never left my side. Sweetness is there too, but bandaged. Mewtwo must have really done a number on her if she still wasn't healed yet.

A man steps in, attracted by the commotion. "My name is Detective Looker. We attempted to capture the criminal Giovanni, but he got away. In truth, we'd been planning to go after him for some time, and soon, just needed more evidence. This blew everything over, and as he had a head start on us, he'd already flown the coop by the time we got there. Can you tell us everything you know?"

"Was there an unusually powerful pokemon with him?" I demand, raising my head.

"No. Like I said, he was already gone."

"Shit." I rest my head back again. "He said I knew too much after I encountered it and, using strategy to deal with an opponent who outclasses you in brute power, managed to defeat it. Don't spread this information around, but it's weak to Dark Type pokemon, which are immune to psychic abilities. My Umbreon and Tyranitar are examples of such pokemon." If I died, someone else needed to know this.

"What did it look like?"

"Like an upright purple feline, but he had it wearing armor, possibly to partially restrict its abilities to better control it."

"So its true power could be even greater than what you faced?" he said, looking uneasy.

"That's right. It's only a matter of time before Giovanni figures out its weaknesses, but I don't want to tip him off, so don't spread it around, like I said. Right now, as far as he's concerned, the reason I won was a lot of Double Team spam mixed with Detects to avoid being hit by any attack."

"So he'll probably teach it Swift next."

"That's right," I told him. "After that, the clock is ticking. It may very well escape from him, it's very powerful and intelligent and not all intelligent beings like being captured." I knew that was probably going to be controversial, but it was true, dammit. "However, if he figures out its weaknesses he can probably keep it contained permanently. If it does... he could take over the whole world. That's how powerful a threat it is, properly used."

"This is much worse than I imagined," Looker said, looking pale. "No wonder he tried to have you killed. I'll have a watch set over you in case of assassins."

"That's probably not a bad idea, but I should move as soon as I'm able or the moment you suspect my location is known. Someone like that won't hesitate to simply bomb a hospital," I tell him.

If anything, that makes Looker even more worried. "Actually, it made the news-"

"Ma'am, you can't bring that Electrode in here! This is a human hospital, not a pokemon one!"

We exchange looks. I reach for my belt, but of course, it isn't there, just a hospital gown. "Bitey, Sweetness, go get that Electrode teleported out and then come back here immediately!" My first thought had been for myself, but then all these other people would die.

"Eon!" they shout and head down the hall.

"Do you have a pokemon?" I ask. He nods and sends out a Croagunk.

I'm not totally surprised when Alakazam suddenly appears in front of me and Looker.

"Is this human with you?" Alakazam asks dangerously.

"He came to help. He's a human investigator," I tell him.

"You have more pokemon than just those on your team of six," Looker noted with interest, and I blush at being caught at something potentially less than legal.

"Well... technically Alakazam isn't mine at all, being wild." Except that explanation makes it even worse, because now Looker is looking even more intently at me.

"You are a very mysterous person, Neon. Are you really telling me everything?"

"You don't need my whole life's story," I retort. "But, yeah, I used to live in Celadon, I admit that I suspected there could be trouble and planned ahead. Apparently not enough, though." I'm getting worked up enough that a nurse comes in and gives Looker an annoyed look for raising my heart-rate. Although I think the latest death threat is more of an issue and the fact Sweetness still hasn't come back yet. "Alakazam, please check up on Sweetness and my other pokemon and bring them to me."

"That will leave you unprotected."

"Please?" I beg, and the pokemon relents.
When he reappears, it is with a fainted Sweetness, who apparently teleported the Electrode out and got caught in its explosion elsewhere. Bitey pads back into the room, looking forlorn, then surprised and anguished when he sees Sweetness.

"Is she okay?" I ask, and Looker checks her over.

He shakes his head. "She's... she's dead."

I just stare, stunned and shaken.

My oldest friend here.

I didn't even see what happened.

Aren't pokemon supposed to just faint? This can't be true.

"She's a hero, Neon. She's saved everyone in this hospital." Looker tells me.

"She didn't take on just one Electrode, she teleported a whole team of them out. A single explosion wouldn't have killed a pokemon like her, but a simultaneous attack like that would have leveled this building," Alakazam informed me. "We need to leave before they strike again and hurt more innocents."

"Y-yeah, you're right."

Looker hands me a card. "Stay in contact. You're still too injured to really go without a caretaker. We have a safe location for injured agents hidden nearby the Safari Zone," he tells me. He hands me my belt full of pokeballs and my folded up clothes. "Look for the Chansey. They know the way."

"Yeah, I can have Dragonite fly-" I stop as I remember Dragonite is dead now too. "Never mind."

"I can get you there, if needed."

"Alright," I agree tiredly, aware this will open me for more questioning.

I really screwed this up, didn't I?

Looker doesn't ask me what I expect him to ask as we, well, I, limp through the brush along a small almost unnoticeable trail. A Growlithe lurks behind his side, occasionally sniffing the air and surveying for danger in the jungle.

"How would you like to work for the International Police?"

I blink. "I'd have to talk it over with my team."

"So it's true. You can talk to Pokemon."

"Anyone can talk to a Pokemon. I taught them how to talk to me, that's the difference. They know how to sign symbols in the air or on the dirt on the ground, and the ones with dexterous enough hands can utilize actual sign language, which admittedly isn't many."
Growlithe suddenly leaps in front of us and gives a low growl, ears twitching. I immediately send out Bitey.

"We may have been compromised," Looker said with unease. "I wish you could talk to pokemon, that would make this much easier. Growlithe, what's wrong?"
Alakazam appeared again. Growlithe barked. "He says there are Rockets laying in wait ahead. They must have already known about the location."

"Teleport us back to the ruins of the Viridian Gym, it's the one place they won't be expecting us and we can think about where to go next," I suggest, but abruptly another Alakazam appears and strikes at my wild ally with a shadow-ball and two hands appear out of the bushes and grab me from behind. "Mfm!" I try to yell, and Looker and Growlithe run after me, but it's too late: the Rocket member who has me orders their Onix to dig down and drags me down the tunnel, collapsing it behind so Looker can't follow.

A rag dosed with Butterfree powder sends me into a gentle sleep.

When I wake up again, it's to stare at a familiar unwelcome face, looking considerably more gloating than the last time I saw him. Mewtwo is also there, looking considerably more battered and no longer in his armor, with a collar around his neck. I wonder what happened there, but the Tyranitar nearby gives me a clue. My belt is gone and my hands are bound. My only consolation is that Bitey isn't here to die with me.

"You are very lucky I have a use for you, or you'd already be dead right now," Giovanni says, and there's a definite slight undercurrent of anger there underneath the smugness. "I discovered your deception through analysis and repeated fights. Your Pokemon only uses Detect once. While double team certainly helped, the real issue was that Umbreon is a new type completely immune to psychic energy." He grabbed me by my short and, sadly, unfortunately very neon-like blue colored hair (somehow I was born like that, don't ask me how, people are born with purple hair in this universe so it's not that strange that mine would look nearly glow in the dark) and yanked me up. "You tried to trick me."

"I thought you would approve of something so underhanded," I said dryly. "I take it you want me to teach your psychic pokemon over there how to over-come them?" That could backfire on him pretty easily... "After all, he could hardly be said to be most powerful pokemon if he can't do anything to an entire type..." I mused, baiting him. Unfortunately, all it serves is to make Mewtwo flinch.

"I wanted you to tell me everything you know about Dark Types," Giovanni didn't seem to be taking the bait.

"How do I know you won't just kill me afterward?" I narrowed my eyes. "Give me some way to be useful to you long-term so I know you don't have incentive to kill me. You know I'm an excellent trainer."

"It's good that you don't seem to be the brainlessly heroic type. I had the impression otherwise when you teleported out instead of surrendering."

"To be fair, it sounded like you were just going to kill me there, not capture me," I argued back.

"True," he mused for a moment, turning his head away to examine Mewtwo, who stubbornly meets his eyes. He let go of my hair, to my relief. "Alright. I won't give you back your former team, that would be far too risky, but I can make some use of you. You'll help train new recruits, condition pokemon, obey me absolutely in anything I ask, and in return I may even let you live in relative comfort for good behavior." He pauses. "One more thing. We found this in your belongings."

He holds up one of my tinkered TMs, and I glance at it in surprise. "A TM. What about it?"

"It's modified. I want to know by who."

I think about lying, but they can make my life hell. "Me. It's a hobby."

"So you're a scientist," there's glee in his voice, and I'm not quite sure why, because the tinkered TM isn't even that good. It works twice instead of once, and that's it. "I'll get you access to a lab, monitered of course, from time to time. Do you hear that Mewtwo? This one is a scientist, exactly like those who wanted to make you into a mere experiment," and I realize in that moment exactly where that glee is coming from. He's trying to pit us against each other.
Mewtwo glares at me with active hatred instead of fear now.

- 6: The Grind

They aren't keen on giving me any alone time unsupervised with Mewtwo, which is probably smart, and at first I'm just set training rattata and grimer, which I must admit felt like a waste of my abilities, but I know they don't want to give me genuinely powerful pokemon. The wait does give me more time to heal from injuries, which is also good; I suppose they are serious about not killing me right away.

I'm ushered out of the room and given a rather plush room, if one ignores that it has no windows and very little furniture beyond a bed and a desk. I have a paper and a pen to take notes with here, silk sheets, a bowl of fruit, a bathroom, and nothing else.
It gives time for my grief from my loses to really hit me, and a wave of familiar depression that I thought I'd finally fought off to hit. Why didn't I just let him kill me? I squeeze my eyes together and focus. Because Mewtwo needs me. That's all. I have to help give him the knowledge he needs to escape. And to somehow convey in the meantime that he needs to pretend he totally buys whatever garbage Giovanni had sold him so Giovanni doesn't worry too much about him learning how to deal with dark types.

Unfortunately, there turns out to be a considerable complication of my plan.

The first day they bring me out to help train Mewtwo, Giovanni is there, smiling and holding a remote. "Mewtwo. You tried to run from me once, but you won't be able to do so again. I was slightly worried about trying to teach you how to deal with dark type pokemon, but I have a backup now. Artificial dark energy technology: this is our first prototype, with a backup of pure electricity. Even you don't care for your brain being fried, do you, hm?"

Mewtwo glares at him. "I wasn't trying to run away, I needed time to think. But all you care about is using me as a tool."

"Pokemon are tools, Mewtwo, designed by Arceus to serve man. How are you to ever truly become the strongest pokemon without man to forge you into a fine blade? Like it or not, you need me, Mewtwo. Without me, you are absolutely nothing. A weak, defenseless thing."
I shake my head but don't dare speak. I hate having my words twisted back and used like this. "Grunt Neon," he addresses me finally with a cruel smile, moving toward the door and stopping at the threshold. "It's time for you to start training Mewtwo." I look around in confusion, because there are no other pokemon and he hasn't handed me one. "Mewtwo, you may play with Neon as you like, but don't kill or permanently maim them until they've outlived their use. You should focus on your non-psychic skills."

Then my confusion evaporates, turning to horror as Mewtwo looks upon me with barely suppressed violence. Giovanni is turning me into a scapegoat, an outlet for Mewtwo's aggressions, making me into the 'shared enemy' so Giovanni can play 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' with him, and to try and ensure I have no fond feelings toward the one pokemon who could probably get me out of this.
He's on me the instant Giovanni leaves, rushing forward and back-handing me.

Humans in the pokemon world are a little bit more durable than ones not from it, especially ones who have acquired badges, but that doesn't mean I can keep up with him or that it doesn't push the breath straight out of me and hurt like crazy. It doesn't help that I'm actually pretty fundamentally unaggressive by nature, and have no desire to hurt Mewtwo back, so it takes me a few moments to get over my shock and do anything whatsoever to defend myself. His first blow sent me flying, and so did his second, but on his third I'm at least trying to move out of the way and remembering old lessons about basic blocks and throws. I make a grab of his arm and use his own momentum to throw him across the room, which surprises him.

"So you do have some fight in you," Mewtwo comments. "And here I thought you only forced others to fight for you."

"I never forced my pokemon to fight. They were free to leave if they wanted. If you ever see them again, ask them yourself."

"I'm sure that's what you deluded them into thinking was true," Mewtwo hissed, and lunged at me again. He spins me around and around until I get nauseated and hurl up my guts, which makes him step back from me in disgust and gives me a momentary breather. "You're pathetic."

I pick myself up, and just nod in agreement, which makes him snort. Why fight about it? Also, I'm a professional. I'm not going to be bothered by something like a pokemon smacking me around. It reminds me being back in the pound with some of the more unruly rejects, but any trainer with a long enough run should expect to be struck at least once in their lives. I'm just glad for the opportunity to talk, and I change subjects. "So-" I gasp for more air for a moment, "for your training, I was thinking you need some more move variety. A fighting type move is the obvious counter to darks, since they're weak to fighting, but a normal type move like Swift could also be very useful, as I noticed you are also vulnerable to being set up on and even without the type advantage my Umbreon wouldn't have been very threatened by your shadow balls once he setup multiple Double Teams on you. Swift has the feature that it always hits, except ghost types which are immune to normal attacks."

I can tell I've definitely caught Mewtwo's interest now, as they've uncurled their fist for the moment and tilted their head. "So you believe you could have defeated me even without a dark type," he says with displeasure.

"It's possible. I always try to have multiple strategies in place for use against powerful opponents. For instance, if Umbreon had gone down, I probably would have tried to status effect you and set-up another 'mon with buffs, baton-passing if needed." At his look of noncomprehension, I explained, "Baton pass is one of the big strengths of working in a team, as you can have a team-mate pass status buffs like Double Team or Barrier to you, besides having someone who can compensate for your type weaknesses of course. If I managed to raise special defense enough, it's possible that your Psychics would start to act like they weren't very effective anymore. Alternatively, if I had you paralyzed and had raised physical strength enough, I could have a fast pokemon strike and possibly take you out in a single hit before you could manage to get off a move."

"I see. I profess I did not see much of this 'setting up' or status moves that you spoke of."

"That's because most people, even the ones who make it all the way to the final gym, are total amateurs with no sense of tactics. The mono-type focus of most gyms makes them not very difficult to take out with simple super effective type-effectiveness matchups," I explain. I'm kind of glad Giovanni isn't here, although I am sure we are probably being taped, I feel more comfortable talking one on one without him there. A quick glance at our surroundings confirms my suspicions. "There are two other types you should worry about which are super-effective to you, Ghost and Bug, but not too much because they tend to be part poison which is weak to Psychic attack. If I'm right, your shadow-like ball is actually a ghost type move, which should be good against other Psychics and Ghosts, but which you want to avoid hitting normal and fighting types with as it won't do anything. Lastly, you want to worry about staller pokemon who may be able to set up on you. Chansey is the most famous of those and will go down to a Fighting move."

Mewtwo nods, drinking in what I have to say. He's much calmer now, and I don't think he wants to slowly beat me to death any more, but I wouldn't be confident that he doesn't want to eventually still kill me at the end of all of this.

"I don't have any TMs still on me, so, we'll have to teach you a Fighting move the old fashioned way. One theory says the difference between Fighting and Normal is that one uses Aura," I tell him. "But I don't actually know that much about Aura, so the more immediate useful difference is that Fighting moves tend to be more disciplined, and have an intense focus to them that Normal moves generally don't. They also tend to focus on things like punches, chops, and kicks..."

"Show me the move you used on me," he demands.

"I think that might be Counter? It does have the disadvantage that I can only really use it if you attack me, because it uses your own momentum against you, although the version I was taught wasn't really meant to damage I can easily see how it might be turned into a Pokemon attack that turns an opponent's own damage against them," I inform him. "Yeah, that should be an easy enough one to learn, and then you'll have a feel for fighting moves. Alright, here's a slowed down version." I spread out my stance, grab his arm, twist so I'm no longer facing him, and pull like I'm going to throw him across my shoulder. "Since you aren't actually moving, it's much harder to throw you over my back. If you move, objects in motion like stay in motion, so I would have the benefit of your own inertia. There's a trick to minimizing how much damage you take, by relaxing as you fall and making sure your flattened arm hits the ground first and not something important like your head." I turn toward him, and then say what I fear I'm going to regret. "Alright, come at me again."
He does with a little too much pleasure, and I barely respond in time, throwing him over my shoulder but not letting go, so I can examine his falling technique.

"Okay, not too bad, mind your tail - I don't have one of those so I forgot about it. I'm glad we have mats here in this training ground, at least." Small mercies, I suppose.

"Okay, now I'm going to come at you." I really suspect I'm going to regret this, but at least Counter is a fixed damage move... and it's not like I have a pokemon to train him on. I back up, and then I run at him and throw a punch.

He throws me across the room and I hit a wall. I slump down and groan, the existence of mats on the floor less than adequate this time. My face - no make that my whole body - is going to bruise, and my nose is bleeding. "G-good job. Maybe next time you could take it a little softer on me?" I crawl toward the sidelines where there's a water bottle available and take a swig. There's no trace of guilt on his face. I don't think he really has seen anything else in his life so far other than violence.

"How long must you take a break?" he says petulantly, tail swishing.

"I'm more fragile than you, okay?" I say, trying not to croak.

He nods, but folds his arms.

I force myself up. "Alright. Let's go again." I run and try not to cringe as I near.

For the next few weeks, getting myself beaten up is my new routine. Giovanni periodically checks in, always looking satisfied at how worn and bruised I am, although the first time, he says he's pleasantly surprised I'm not dead from how bad I look. I think he would have been perfectly happy if I had actually died. My breaks consist of tinkering on TMs or other devices like pokeballs, or helping train some of the weaker unevolved Rocket-mons. Sometimes when I'm battered enough I'm given a day to just rest in bed.

When I graduate Mewtwo to punches and kicks instead of just throws, it's my having him punch a wall instead of me (because I argue my squishy body isn't a good enough test for him) that finally gets them to offer something besides me for him to whail on. They bring out punching bags and bricks. The bricks are especially nice to see, and I exclaim "Oh, good, we can try Brick Break!"

"Brick Break?" Mewtwo asks.

"It's exactly as it sounds. You work on your chops until they and your hands are strong enough to chop straight through a brick, or row of bricks. Learning it is a bit repetitive and dull, but it's ultimately pretty simple." I demonstrate an example chop. "Just keep your arm straight, you don't want to hurt your wrist by hitting it at a weird angle."

Mewtwo goes at it for awhile, in total silence for over an hour as if perhaps to prove me wrong that the great Mewtwo could ever do something so mundane as getting bored, before turning to me and admitting, "You're right. It is very dull."

"You cracked the first layer of bricks, though."

"So we can move on?" he says hopefully.

"At least for today, yeah, that should be good," I agree. "I'd teach you pins except I can't actually think of any fighting type move that uses them? Maybe Submission? But that tends to hurt the user, possibly from the other pokemon flailing, so it's not really optimal. And we already did Low Sweep," or at least my version of it, where you swept your opponent's leg out from under them and got them off-balance to push them over. "So maybe start trying to turn your punch into a Focus Punch?" I say thoughtfully. "Or finally start working on some non-Fighting moves."

"That would be good," Mewtwo agrees, but I mostly think just because he's sick of not getting to use his psychic powers much.

"You should try variations on your Barrier," I suggest. "The counterpart to Counter is Mirror Coat, and there's a similar move called Magic Coat that bounces back non-damaging moves. I think you won't have much luck with mirror coat without being a Wobbuffet, but if you can do Magic Coat that'd still be useful, because of status moves. And if you can enforce your barrier enough to protect from all attacks, you've got Protect, which is a variation on Detect." I think he figures out how to do that on his own in the original timeline before he even leaves Giovanni, but it doesn't hurt to cover it anyway.
Mewtwo takes to it like a fish in water pretty much instantly, and enjoys watching me thwack in a futile manner against the barrier. He keeps it up a really long time, far more than you are normally supposed to be able to keep up a Protect, so we're both surprised when it finally flickers and I accidentally smack him in the face. A tiny trickle of blood pools down his nose.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," I apologize. "I didn't mean to do that." I run to the water bottle and a rag. "Let me clean you up."

He's staring at me. "Why did you apologize?"

"Because it's considered polite when you hurt someone on accident?" He really has no clue what the rest of the world is like, does he? Wow. "Or just when you feel bad that you hurt them because you don't want to see them in pain."

"I hurt you repeatedly," he states. "More than I had to."

"Yes you did," I agree with him, in a 'and that was rude' tone.

He's silent and pensive. He doesn't apologize, but I didn't expect him to yet. He's also very still, even as I move away and put the rag back and move to sit on the bench, wiped out.

"I think I'm done for the day." I feel a little dizzy and dehydrated, and I ache. I always ache, these days.

"Why..." Mewtwo starts to say, fist clenching and the unclenching, tense and not totally sure what he wants to ask. "...would someone like you want to experiment on me?"

I frown. "I don't like experiments that torture anybody, and I prefer consent. But if you are just asking about experiments in general, I guess I'd say it's because maybe they didn't realize you wouldn't like it? Different people have different tastes, and I actually wouldn't mind being an experiment if it wasn't painful."

From his disbelief, I can tell this isn't really the answer he was expecting.

"I know, that probably sounds a little nutty. But some of us like furthering the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of it, so that the world is a little less ignorant. Some experiments are really pretty benign, like testing what kind of food tastes better, so they give one group of people two foods with two different labels and another group gets to taste both with the labels reversed and they do cross-comparisons, see if just changing the name or price changes which is rated tastier or if the answers stay genuinely the same. Experiments like that? They're fun." I shrug.

I can see he doesn't entirely know how to process this, and it probably wasn't quite the answer to the real question he was looking for. "It's hard to ask consent of someone who hasn't even been born yet," I offer. "In a way, we're all kind of a result of our parents or creators experimenting, just in different ways."

Two grunts usher me out. As I leave, I can tell he's thoughtful, and he doesn't look as angry as usual.

It's progress.

- 7: unpretty lies and solidarity

Giovanni starts to get bored of beating me up, as entertaining as he finds that, and finally brings in some pokemon for Mewtwo to fight again. Or maybe he's just getting leery of the fact that Mewtwo is increasingly asking me questions about things: "What did you mean when you said there were fun things that weren't fighting?" "Y'know, games, eating nice new food, reading a book, smelling a flower..." "Do you think Pokemon are tools?" I look at the cameras with a pointed look, and bid him to do the same with flickers of my eyes, instead of answering directly on that one.

I definitely don't think Giovanni liked my response to the last one, even if I skirted around outright contradicting him. Although that might be because Mewtwo responded by destroying the cameras. That earned him an electrical shock.

In any case, we're standing in front of a Houndour and Giovanni has deigned to give us his presence again, and this time with a speech. "Both of you are my tools." He gives me a hard look that dares me to disagree with him and forfeit my life. "Neon. Even if you don't think of your Pokemon as tools, you, and our society, treat them that way. You have no hesitation using them for battles to earn you money, or to help you cross distances and obstacles. I want you to know I don't appreciate it if you put fool ideas in my pokemon's head. They are here to become a fine weapon, not for idle chit chat." He grabs me by the throat and forces me to my knees, and I don't fight back, simply hoping he won't choke me to death. I know when I'm in a bad position and need to bide my time, but I also suspect I'm running out of it. Mewtwo didn't brutally murder me like expected, and now he's picked up some fighting moves. "Agree with me."

"Yes sir," I say dully, and he finally lets go. I understand why he's done this. He needs to keep Mewtwo from building a rapport with me, and he needs to salvage his conscience by assuring himself the rest of society is really just as bad as he is.

"Good boy." He's pleased. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" Giovanni pats me on the top of the head like a dog. "Now, today you're going against dark types again, Mewtwo. Show me what you learned, and show me how useful you are. Because you don't want to know what I do to useless tools," he hisses. His Persian at his side gives a laughing "Per per!", and 'accidentally' knocks me over with its tail.

This time, it doesn't take Mewtwo much effort to completely smack the dark type into the ground. The hound is reeling, and it whimpers and runs off, which annoys Giovanni as he returns it. He then sends out another, a sneasel. Mewtwo does pretty well with that one as well, although its greater speed than the houndour means it gets some hits in first. I wonder if he's deliberately showing off all the different dark types he now has at his disposal?
Then he does something that really makes me mad. He sends out Tyranitar, but not just any, mine. I recognize them from their markings and a small scar on their side.

I stand up and start to shout, "You-!"

"Yes?" he says lazily, looking at me, daring me to finish.

Tyranitar doesn't look at me.

"What did you do to them?" I ask, finally. I know he wants to taunt me, so I'm giving him what he wants, but I want information more than I care about his gloating.

"Reconditioning. The same as we do with all stolen pokemon. What, you didn't think we stole pokemon we couldn't control, did you? I'll have you remember that my badge allows me to control any pokemon I get from a trade. A stolen one tends to take a little more effort, but... they all cave, in the end," he laughs. "Shall you see exactly how much control I have over them now?" I knew it, he just brought Tyranitar out to brag. "Tyranitar, aim a hyper beam right at your ex-trainer."

My eyes widen, and I run and duck for cover as Tyranitar moves to do exactly that, mouth glowing. Shit shit shit!

"I thought you were here to fight ME," says Mewtwo, doing a perfect impression of a spoiled child hissy fit. I could kiss him, but I don't think he'd appreciate it. "How long do I have to wait?"

"Alright, I suppose that's sufficient demonstration," Giovanni chuckles. "If you're so eager to be beaten up... Tyranitar, Dark pulse."
Mewtwo tries to flee the wave, flying up, but the darkness spreads everywhere, and I hear an anguished noise I've never heard from him before as he falls and struggles back up to his feet.

"That's a special move, and I don't think your specials will help here, so you'll have to use Brick Break or Focus Punch, Mewtwo." Mewtwo's Focus Punch wasn't as well polished, and also had the disadvantage that he couldn't suffer a hit or it would break his concentration during it. "I suggest Brick Break." Low Sweep didn't seem very practical on something that bulky with such stubby legs, although if you could actually get it to trip I'm sure it'd do a lot of damage.
He nods, and races forward. The massive Godzilla-expy gives a cry of rage, Mewtwo's superior speed easily letting him land a chop to its side.

"Repeat Dark Pulse, Tyranitar. Earthquake if he touches the ground." Unfortunately the close proximity means Mewtwo is hit by the dark pulse almost immediately, and he grits and bares it. The rumbling ground makes it harder to run across it, but the moment the dark pulse relents Mewtwo can fly across and lay a blow. Tyranitar goes down.

"A double weakness to fighting due to a Rock/Dark dual nature didn't help it here," I comment.

Giovanni frowns briefly, perhaps annoyed at the reminder of my existence, and then smiles again as he sends out... yet another Tyranitar. Joy.
This one takes the weakened Mewtwo down with a nasty Crunch, then Pursuit when he tries to flee out of the way. Giovanni wastes no time scolding Mewtwo, as he douses a minor potion on him, hardly enough to heal him as much as he needs to: he just wants him to suffer the pain a little longer. "A disappointment. You still have far to go. Clearly, your trainer has not been demanding enough of you," he nods toward me, and I avoid meeting his gaze, annoyed. "I will rectify that and finally make you into the most powerful pokemon that you were meant to be."

As I hear this, I jerk my head up to exchange a look with Mewtwo, realizing this is, in fact, the end. Giovanni intends to separate us now.

Mewtwo isn't stupid. He knows Giovanni isn't really after his best interests. "There are still moves I want Neon to teach me," he rumbles.

"Oh? Is that true?" Giovanni states skeptically. "What moves?"

"Elemental moves would be good to add to his set," I start.

"We can easily use TMs for that," Giovanni dismisses.

"I also think Mewtwo can learn some healing moves, such as Recover," I offer.

Now that is too much for him to resist. "A self-healing move, you say? Well well. You continue to surprise me, Neon. I suppose you are more useful than I thought you were. Very well, you may continue to work on moves with him for a time, but I will work on what truly strengthens him: actual battles. Nothing can replace actual battling to increase a pokemon's fighting skill."

"Yes sir," I agree tiredly.

"Although..." he gets a cruel look on his face. "Just for old times sake, I suppose, just this once - Neon, fight Mewtwo with your bare hands." I jerk. "He's severely weakened. This is the only time you would ever possibly stand a chance against him in any way. Agree, and I'll give you a small reward. Refuse, and I'll make your life hell. That goes for you too, Mewtwo."

I sigh, and drop down into the field into a ready fighting stance. I have to make a show of it, if nothing else, and get beaten up again. What a joy.
Mewtwo really doesn't look good, and for a moment I think he looks actually upset. I resolve to not really hurt him, though I'd planned that in any case. I make a somewhat familiar grab at his arms, but he's a little confused because he hadn't thrown himself at me as would be the usual precursor to this, and he spreads out his stance to try and make it more solid as he realizes I'm going for a leg sweep. Knowing that, I try for throwing my body against him to knock him over instead. It probably wouldn't have worked normally, but he was weakened and he tumbles back, and I pin him.

"Got him, sir," I intone blandly.

"That was hardly a fight," Giovanni complains.

"That's because we're both basically one good hit away from fainting," I demurr.

"Hit him," he demands.

I raise my fist, frowning at how little Mewtwo is fighting back, and lean in to whisper, "Can't you manage at least one hit on me? Raise me in the air?" I can tell he's demoralized, but can he really not manage? "Just close your eyes if you can't or won't."
He closes them, and I punch the ground hard next to him, trying to angle it to make it look like I actually hit him, then stand up. "He's out, sir. Honestly," I shake my head. "We've been over-working all week, this isn't too surprising."

Giovanni "Hmf"s, and shakes his head. "A promise is a promise, I suppose. What would you like as a reward?"

I look down at the purple psychic feline. "I don't suppose some actual time to relax and rest from time to time for the both of us is on the table?"

"A small respite for sleep, but remember, Mewtwo is ultimately a tool, and ethers and healing potions will fix it up again in working order. Pick something else."

"Scientific manuals and study texts, more access to laboratory materials," I decide to ask.

"Of course. You didn't seem like it at first, but you really are one of the typical scientist types, aren't you? Even the way you approach pokemon battling is very analytical and studied." He seems to think a moment. "After your time with Mewtwo comes to an end, I would enjoy seeing the fruits of any research you might have. How are the modified TMs coming along?"

"They work perfectly fine now," I admit. "Reusable as many times as you want, just like an HM but without the hassle of not forgetting. That's actually how I developed them, I examined the HM's code and modified from there, combining and splicing with the TM's."

"Not bad. There's another project I might let you work on. It's to create a pokeball with a 100% success rate." That catches my attention. "It's called the Masterball."

"I haven't worked much with pokeballs," I tell him honestly. "But I can take a look. Anything else?"
Like hell I'll build him a masterball.

"Expanding the kinds of TMs that can be used on a given pokemon would be good. A device to figure out compatibility ahead of a purchase would also be rather useful and save some time." To that, I nod a little more eagerly, then stop.

"Alright. Head to your room and get some rest," he orders. I risk one backwards glance toward Mewtwo, who peeks at me very briefly before going back to pretending to sleep.

I don't know if I'm actually doing any good any more.
I'm glad to give Mewtwo company and to try and show him not all humans are horrible, but... there's a chance I'm ultimately just doing more harm than good now, just empowering Giovanni into an even more difficult to stop monster. I got Sweetness killed and prolonged Mewtwo's captivity to this man.
For not the first time, I feel like I hate my weakness and hate myself. Oddly, I have a funny feeling Mewtwo is feeling the same way right now, and that actually makes me feel better in a strange way. We're in this horror together.
Or at least, until I exhaust every possible move I can think of to try and teach him. At least this isn't the game universe where you can only learn four moves. That would be unfortunate.
I do wonder what he must be thinking about me, if he's feeling any sort of solidarity. It's hard not to, in a situation like this, but then he's also been encouraged to think of me as some sort of monster only helping him because I've been forced to, or because I view him as a tool just like everyone else. His feelings are probably pretty mixed right now.
I wonder if Looker thinks I'm alive or dead. If Bitey thinks the same. I could think of worse people than Looker to look (and no, I didn't mean to make a pun) after Bitey. They could be investigators for justice together.
I wonder how the rest of my team is doing, the ones that are still alive, under the attempted brainwashing.
I don't wonder if it's all my fault. I know it is.

- 8: Final Moves and Check

I focus on training Mewtwo, but I'm both distracted and this particular technique is harder than the others, because while I know, hypothetically, he should be able to do it, it's also unlike any other technique he's used.

"What makes you so sure I can do this?" he asks.

"Because you've shown you can do a wide variety of other techniques, and because of your resemblence to Alakazam. Self-healing is a very common psychic technique. Unfortunately, I didn't have to teach Sweetness how to do it, she picked it up on her own, so I'm not totally sure how it works beyond utilizing psychic energies. You're going to have to experiment directing them at yourself, I think," I state. "In the meantime, your progress with elemental moves is pretty good."

"Because of the TMs," he scoffed. "There was no real effort involved." Well, it's good he doesn't let his ego rule everything.

"True." I pause and look at his eyes, then lower them deliberately to his neck. Specifically, his collar. "The new types, Steel and Fairy, act weaker to Fire. Your flamethrower won't do more damage against fairies, alas, but it will melt steel if it gets hot enough."
Mewtwo's eyes narrow, then widen in comprehension. I've turned my back to the main camera so it can't observe my eyes, and I keep flicking my eyes from his eyes down.
I'm telling him how to escape.

"I think you should definitely at least try to master self healing," I direct him toward Part Two of the plan. "It's very useful for a wide variety of situations, like if you ever find yourself needing to use a move that has recoil damage, or get into a fight against a more strategically motivated opponent. If all else fails, we could probably get you to learn the normal type move Rest, but that has the disadvantage that you'll be a sitting duck for attacks for a little bit as you sleep it off." So, in terms of escape attempts, completely unviable. "You should also work on your Protect a little more, I know you have it down pretty good but it never hurts to practice."

Mewtwo rolls his eyes. "That's all you ever talk about, practice."

I hunch my shoulders. "You know I don't really have a choice," I state bluntly.

"But you wouldn't change much if things were different, were you? You wanted to train me from the beginning." Is he genuinely angry about this, or is he intentionally stirring tension so Giovanni doesn't suspect collaboration? Or both? Honestly, both wouldn't surprise me. Mewtwo is clever, but he's also a lot like a big, overly powerful kid. "I'm just a weapon to you. You humans make me sick."

"What would you even do uncaged? You'd still be smugly convinced you could just sit on your rear and unlimited power would come to you without effort if it weren't for us," I retort back, although I wonder if it's too cruel. I don't want to hit too hard, plus, there is such a thing as over-acting. But this particular retort should make it clear to Mewtwo at least that I'm pretending, I hope, since I've made it clear before that I think there are things other than fighting and that I want him to escape, but if he measures his self worth in that still he might really take it to heart. I tell myself not to take any vehemence he unleashes back at me too personally.

It still takes me off-guard when he suddenly slams me into a pin. I had gotten used to him behaving a lot gentler lately - although part of that might have been because if he hadn't, he'd have killed me with some of the more powerful moves.

It occurs to me that this kind of violence is the only real touch we get from other sentient beings lately - in his case, for his whole life. I curl up in a self protective, submissive posture, but I let one hand curve around for a half-hug and rest gently on him, trying to avoid the sight of the cameras as I do so.
"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it.

"Alright, break it up!" a grunt swaggers in. "You're meant to be training, not killing 'em, at least not yet."
Mewtwo glares rebelliously, not moving. His eyes are starting to glow. He can't really be thinking of trying to escape prematurely, can he?
The grunt pushes a button, electrocuting him, and Mewtwo shakes his head and steps back, fur on end in agitation.

"Annoy me and next time I'll up the setting, got it? And you. If you can't control him any more today, it's back to work in the labs for you!"

Mewtwo is pissed at the other speaking of controlling him, and I wonder what, exactly, will be his vengence when he finally gets out. Because what I saw today in his eyes was a genuine desire for dominance, not simply faked for drama.

When I get back to the technological tinkering, I'm excited at some of the new materials I have to play with, as promised from Giovanni. Mega-Evolution stones and some genetic material from different pokemon.

What he doesn't know is that I took one of the rags used on Mewtwo and have his DNA too. No, I have no plans to clone him, but with these stones? I can try something else. I can try to reconstruct a mega-evolution stone for him.

Maybe I shouldn't be trying to make him even more powerful, but, if I can temporarily change his typing slightly, it could make breaking his bonds easier as a backup plan.

There's also a third plan, but I'm very hesitant about that one and am always careful to encrypt my work on it and leave scanty details. It's been in my head for a very long time, bothering me about how my pokemon always fight for me...

"Did you really think I wouldn't find out?" Giovanni's cold voice unexpectedly sneaks up behind me, causing me to whip my head around just in time to see the hand grabbing for me. What exactly did he find out, I panic?

The video he replays isn't the one I expect. It looks perfectly benign, at first glance.

I'm reading TM and HM how-to manuals to Mewtwo, my finger going from word to word. I don't exaggerate my enunciation or go over individual letters (except when they appear as single words like A and I of course), making it seem almost like a normal conversation about TM use, but Mewtwo is clearly looking very raptly at the page.

"You're angry I taught him how to read?" I state in disbelief.

"Mewtwo is a tool. I've told you this often enough. He doesn't need to be getting any more ideas about equality with humans."

"Yet you let him beat the crap out of me," I note wryly.

"You are an exception, as is anyone who stands in the way of Team Rocket. It is naturally expected he will act my displeasure upon those I allow him to." Giovanni lets go of me. "It's clear I've let you associate with him long enough. He's learned just about all he needs from you, and more," the last was said with disgust. "You will not be seeing him again."

"Please?" I uncharacteristically beg, but these months have brought me to new lows. "I could tinker on his armor-"

"And let you potentially install a release mechanism? I think not," Giovanni scoffs, not a complete fool. "No. Your association is at an end. Be glad I let you live, tinkering away in my lab."

I hadn't been in the best mental state before all this happened, and now I found myself slipping back into my old mindset, struggling to find meaning in anything I did. A hazy desperation settled over me, and I started seriously thinking about trying to escape - if I stayed here in captivity any longer I was going to go nuts.

It seemed like Mewtwo had a similar feeling, because the next thing I heard was a massive explosion. Then another, smaller one a half-minute later.
There were a few scenarios in my mind for how things would go. One of them was that Giovanni would get desperate and try to use my life - or a threat to it, more precisely, in a last ditch effort at control. In that particular daydream, I wixwaxed on whether Mewtwo would goad him to kill me and then psychic-nuke humanity, whether I would pull the trigger on myself and Mewtwo would be touched enough to leave humanity alone, or whether Giovanni would really kill me and Mewtwo would proceed to flip out and then psychic-nuke humanity. Maybe I'd get cloned and clone-me would have a good time, or I'd reincarnate again into something else.

In another, Giovanni tries to force me to make a weapon against Mewtwo to get him back after he escapes, but I sabotage it, and then die.
As you can tell, I wasn't feeling very optimistic when the best case scenarios usually involved my dying.

What I definitely wasn't expecting was to be rescued, my door abruptly opened by Looker and Bitey and my self ushered out.

"We need to get Mewtwo," I say. "We can't leave him here."

"Isn't that the potential humanity destroying monster?" Looker says in disbelief. "We have to go now. There's no time."

I try to bolt, but Bitey grabs me and drags me across the hall, and I'm no match for a pokemon, especially one I have no desire to even hit (Which, in hindsight, is all of them). "Let me go!" I futilely demand, but both Looker and Biter are giving me no mercy here.

"If he's as powerful as you say he is, he can probably attempt an escape on his own and he may be doing so right now. One of the explosions wasn't ours."

A part of my gut twists. Did he escape and just... leave me here, just now? That finally gets me cooperating into moving, but it's a bit listless.

Have I changed nothing at all after all? Was this entire life a mockery?

Well, at least Mewtwo probably escaped, despite my fuckups.

...also, I miiiight have made him more powerful due to the extended training. Hm.

I'm not really surprised when, after a few days of recovery from my poor treatment, Looker turns on the news and I see Mewtwo wrecking destruction. What does disturb me is the collar around his throat and Giovanni being there.

I step outside and immediately turn my head to Alakazam. "Please, take me there. I must speak to him."

"He may very well kill you."

"I will accept that outcome." I don't care, really. Bitey does, though, and growls at my self-sacrificial idiocy.

We step forward, and in a blink, we're there.

I recognize the place, we're in front of Silph Co. An army is duking it out with Mewtwo, and I am pleased to see some of them are indeed dark types. But it isn't enough: Mewtwo knows how to deal with them now.

I pull out the ace in my sleeve, a single pokeball containing another unwanted pound reject. A prize I'd spent the last few days getting up to speed, and, while I had been planning them for some time, had been very careful to keep a secret from everyone and had never used them in a match, as that would have somewhat defeated the point.

"What's that in your hand? Have you come to defeat the big bad pokemon with some hulking brute of a dark type? You know I can defeat those now." There is rage, but also a flicker of fear in his voice, because he knows I've defeated him before.

"I don't want to, Mewtwo. What happened to our strategy to get you out? Didn't you figure out how to get loose?"

Giovanni's laugh sounds, and the man steps out from the doors of Silph Co. "Did you really think I wasn't prepared for you to try to destroy it? It's made of the same material as our gym badges. Perfect for ensuring obedience. With this, the world will be mi-" Giovanni suddenly steps back, gurgling, his hands scrabble at his throat then toward the button of the device in his hand, but it is yanked telepathically.

"No, Giovanni. The world will be mine. I was merely waiting for you to tell me what it was made of," Mewtwo says dismissively. "Your obedience device won't work so well if you can't turn it on, now can it?" There's a hideous crack, a snapping of bone, and Giovanni is thrown aside. "Now, as for you."
Even as I heard the crack, I pressed the button on the pokeball - I know I might not get another chance.

Mewtwo blinks in disbelief as he stares what faces him.

A tiny purple rat.

"You sent out a rattata against me," he says, too shocked to even be angry, at least at first, but I can see it start to flicker on his features. Did I really think so little of him?

"Like I said, I really don't want to fight you," I said, implying this was the best I had.

Mewtwo laughs. "I forgot, he devastated your team and stole them from you, didn't he? So, this is merely an act of desperation, is it? I thought perhaps you were here to rescue me, but no. You saved yourself, and now you're just here to save the rest of them."

"I didn't want to leave you!" I protested. "The police dragged me out. If I cared so little, why would I have tried to tell you how to escape?"

"To leave Giovanni devoid of a weapon," is the purple cat's cynical answer.

"So what will you do with yourself now? Are you going to just keep blowing up the rest of the army?" A missile flies at him, and Mewtwo casually flings it away into a helicopter. "I mean, not that I can blame you when they're firing at you, but you can teleport. Are you just going to hide away?"

"Humans are cruel, and the other pokemon are content to be slaves to them."

"So you can go do something about it, but it doesn't have to be taking over violently," I cut him off, afraid of what his next words would have been. "Giovanni was just one person, Mewtwo, you can't judge the whole world based on one damn person, okay? Or the handful of people you met who worked for him - obviously, that's a biased sample."

"I'm not just judging them based on one person, I'm also judging them based on you," the psychic catlike being retorted hotly. "You agree there is cruelty to pokeballs, yet you've done nothing about it, you even still use them."

"They do have some uses that aren't cruel, like carrying an injured 'mon. But you're right, I could have done more, although I think you seriously overestimate how much." I shake my head. "I might have defeated you but that doesn't make me a politically powerful person, Mewtwo. I don't really have social skills, I don't know how to form a group of people - fuck, all my friends are pokemon because I'm just that socially inept. All rejecting pokeballs would have done is make me a choice of gossip. I never forced a pokemon to serve me."

Alakazam appeared. "I can confer that this is true. I have seen no sign of malice toward wild pokemon in this human. I am one myself."

Mewtwo sneered. "Perhaps the human just has you hoodwinked. Further, one human doesn't spare the rest of humanity. They had plenty of time to end the institution of the pokeball. They did not."

"Are you that desperate to lash out in pain you won't consider anything else?" I ask, dropping to my knees. "Please. Just try speaking out your demands first before you hurt anyone, at least? Show them the evidence for why they are wrong, and some people will reconsider, I'm sure of it." Maybe not enough, is my worry.

"If they obey only under the pain of potential punishment how can they be said to be truly repentant?" Mewtwo asked. "Perhaps it would be better to wipe the world clean, and start over with clones. We can be made superior, after all, I was." He raises his hand and the sky starts to churn, first an ugly growing gray, then deep, pitch black as if it were already night.

People gasp, and I give a rattled breath. "Please."

"Your silence in the face of pokemon oppression was cowardly, but you have impressed me enough that you should be glad about all this," Mewtwo says. "I think I'll allow you to be one of the few to live."

"Rattata, you know the drill. Bite," I command. The purple rat rushes forward to meet the cat, who easily repels the rat with a barrier. I wasn't really trying to get it in, though. I was merely trying to entice Mewtwo to attack.

"A dark type attack? Cute, but you know a mere rat is no match for me, especially one that isn't even a dark type itself and thus not immune to my psychic powers. I did want a rematch, but this is not quite what I imagined," Mewtwo muses, and then, with casual cruelty, it lifts Rattata in the air and chokes it, torments it, before flicking it back to me.

"How very predictable," I mutter. "Rattata, as we planned. Finish this. Endeavor."
Mewtwo's eyes widen as Rattata suddenly gets up, pulling off a small sash around its neck, and rushes forward, glowing. The glow rushes past the Rattata and Mewtwo begins to howl, falling to his knees.
"This strategy is known as FEAR," I say with a smile. "Perhaps you can guess why. Focus sash allows Rattata to survive any blow once. Endeavor, well, it made your own strike against Rattata work against you as it matched your health to Rattata's."

"I should-" he pants, "-have known. You always have more tricks." His words are angry, but there is a slight smile at the end, as if he's remembering.

"You're on your last legs now. Give it up. A quick attack is all I need to knock you out." I raise an ultraball. It's the safest option, I don't want anyone else catching him.

It also turns out to be a bad move, because Mewtwo snarls when he sees it. "I will not go back into captivity!"

"Okay," I say placatingly and move to pocket it back, then raising an empty hand. "Just stand down easy, then? Stand down." He's no longer snarling, so that's something, but he looks pretty pissed. Then again, he looks pissed most of the time I've known him. "We can just teleport somewhere nice and isolated and talk, just-"

I stop and stare with horror, a red dot appearing on his head that he can't see. And because I'm an idiot, I turn my back on him and move in the fucking way.
That's the last thing I remember.

- 10: Aftermath

I wake hazily, curled up against something warm and fuzzy, and I lean into it. I missed touch. The being stiffens, as if not used to contact.
Everything hurts, and I drift out of consciousness again.

I wasn't too unlike them, in my last life. A reject, you know. Born kinda fucked up, at least by society's standards, too queer and weird.
I reincarnated once, so I wasn't really too surprised when I opened my eyes again, although the location definitely did. Floating in a tank? Not usually my thing. I feel a bit more thrilled when I recognize the foxy-like creature in the tank next to me, although my optimism is a little cautious. I mean, it couldn't be-?
Sweetness?
Abruptly, the liquid leaks out and so I myself go, flowing out on to the floor with a splutter and cough. The lights flicker, and there's chaos in lots of bodies all around, shoving and running. Was that a Pikachu? Ugh. So he went with his clone plan after all?

When I trail out behind the rest, dripping wet still, Mewtwo's eyes flicker to me and I raise up a hand in a wave. "Yo, we never had that damn talk. Are you still planning the end of the world, or do we have to fight yet again? You'd think dying for you would count for something!" His eyes widen in shock, which doesn't really make sense. Surely he was expecting me.

"Neon?" he says in a small voice, and I wonder if I really look that awful.

I look down, and I realize that while I'm still roughly humanoid (four limbs, could stand upright, although that didn't say much), I don't entirely look like myself anymore. For one, I now seem to be covered in fur. Despairingly, bright unnaturally colored fur that would never lend itself to any kind of stealth. How did pokemon live like this? Maybe the super tall grass made it irrelevant.

"...did you use that experimental serum I was working on?" I ask, because it's the only thing that really makes sense.

"I found your notes, read your addled mind, and concluded with your injuries, splicing your genetics with a pokemon would be the only way to save you," Mewtwo said gravely. "We never finished our 'talk', as you declared it. Although, you seem rather nonchalant about all of this."

My mind is only half on his words. So, I'm a pokemon? Or am I just a really fuzzy human? "Huh. Apparently. I guess I should have mentioned it at some point," I flash him a grin. "But this ain't my first time dying."

"That pokemon talks!" someone exclaims, and I finally take note of the fact we have an audience.

"No shit Sherlock," I mutter.

"I did what you said. I brought out more humans to test them. I have found them wanting," Mewtwo hissed.

"That's... not really what I meant?" I looked around. "You went and fought a bunch of children?"

"I'm not a child!" a young man shouts.

"Yeah, you're a teenager, that's so much better," I snark back. "Now, let these kids go, and let's calmly talk like I said we would. Maybe play some video games, and I always wanted to introduce you to television. No need to rush things. I mean," I tilt my head. "I'm apparently fucking immortal, which sucks, but what can you do?"

"I... alright," Mewtwo says, finally agreeing for once in his life. Maybe he's just too shocked to do anything else, if he sensed the truth behind my seemingly exaggerated words.

I then look down at my purple body, checking it out further, noting the big fluffy ears and the curl at the end of the tail. "Although maybe you could kill me again, because apparently, I'm now a freaking rattata." What the hell, Mewtwo. Why would you clone one. I mean, I like rattata, don't get me wrong, and my FEAR rattata was pretty cool (maybe that was a gene donor?) but their lot in life is... usually pretty sad.

Emphasis on usually. Because sometimes?

A mere rat can change the world and strike fear into the most terrible of foes.

"You aren't just a rattata," Mewtwo says in a tone torn between mirth and indignation, like I personally offended him somehow-

Oh.

Oh Arceus. What other pokemon do I know with purple fur?

"The only DNA I had to play around with was yours," I realize abruptly. "You made me like you. That means you're kinda like a scientist now, aren't you?"
Mewtwo flinches slightly, which is strange as I didn't mean it as an insult, but thinking about it, he'd never viewed the scientists who experimented on him very well, and now he's mirrored their deeds on myself.

"You needed something with a strong healing factor, and a rattata wouldn't have been enough," I concluded. "It's okay." I would've preferred a dark type but this was a solid second choice.

Mewtwo gave a twitch as if he had heard my thoughts. Then a small smile, and suddenly I was convinced he was. Eavesdropper!

"Your mind is shouting," he tells me, amused, which is better than angry or disdainful I suppose. "Now, on to business. We agree the human world, as-is, is messed up, yes?"

I nod, as I can't really find myself to disagree with it. "There aren't enough mechanisms in place to make sure pokemon aren't being abused and can go free whenever they want - the very fact they can be 'stolen' and re-sold off so easily to unwary or unscrupulous trainers," many of the pokemon at the game corner had been stolen I'd come to learn, the sell-off of high quality pokemon was why the grunts weren't all sporting scyther, porygon and kadabra, "and the fact that communication between man and pokemon isn't standard practice even though it can be implemented with writing or sign language, speaks poorly of current standards."

"But my Pikachu loves me!" some eleven year old kid interrupts as if this is sage wisdom. There's something about him that vaguely cogs my memory; must have been from my past life, which I honestly don't remember very well anymore after so many years, especially not groggy from the aftermath of a battle. "My pokemon really do want to fight!"

"I'm sure they do, kid, but that doesn't mean the system isn't flawed. Are you really saying you've never seen an abusive trainer?" That makes the kid flinch.

"A few bad apples will be found in every system, it doesn't mean the entire thing is rotted," states someone I recognize, and I blink with surprise to see Cerulean gym leader Misty here.

"It also doesn't mean it's flawless. I think pokeballs have a use in capturing pokemon that are trying to commit murder, or carrying injured pokemon, but otherwise, they're too potentially easy to abuse. A pokemon who really wants to go with you will make it known," I argue. "So really the only time you actually need one that can restrain one against their will is when it's a life or death situation."

"So what are you suggesting?" Another Gym Leader says, Brock, maybe this wasn't a completely random assortment of teenagers after all? I'd forgotten how many gym leaders and elite trainers were teenagers.

"That the restraint mechanism in pokeballs be disabled except for certain individuals like gym leaders, elite, and the police," I say loudly, addressing it to the crowd but also to Mewtwo, who is the person who really needs to hear this. An option that doesn't involve just murdering everyone, but actual reform.

"Why not licensed trainers? Then that would be the system we already have, and like I said, I'm pretty sure the abuse is just a few bad apples," Misty argues, having no clue how close she is to the peril of humanity's death. Still, I'm kind of glad someone argues, because if someone in this crowd didn't, someone outside of it certainly would have and I'd rather address it now and in-person rather than risk Mewtwo drawing conclusions about the majority of humans all being permanently deluded about their sins or something with no counterpoint later on.

As it is, he looks pretty pissed.

"Those 'few bad apples' are still causing some pretty heavy damage; I'm sure you all have heard of Team Rocket?"

There's a weird, small yelp from somewhere that confuses me, as it doesn't seem to have come from the crowd, but I ignore it.

"Yeah, we run into them all the time," says the Pikachu-loving boy with black hair again and I suddenly vaguely remember something about an anime protagonist. Ash was it? Eh. It's weird I hadn't heard about him in the professional circuits, you'd think he'd be better at battles or something. "They're really obnoxious, but they're not very good at actually getting away with any crimes."

"You're kidding, right?" I say, shocked. "Team Rocket murdered my pokemon." There's a weird crashing noise elsewhere.

"Really? Those incompetents?!" Misty shrieks. "No way!"

"Aren't you a pokemon yourself?" Ash exclaims, looking befuddled. To be fair, it didn't look like it took much to befuddle him.

"Look, Team Rocket is an entire organization, it's not unlikely you met some low level mooks and that they went easy on you because you're basically children, but trust me, the big dogs like Giovanni?" I whistle. "You do not want to mess with them, they're ruthless beyond measure."
Just as I'm starting to conclude arguing with children is a giant waste of time, a weird vaguely sparkly noise catches everyone's attention, and a growing pink light. And then I feel it - an immense power, mischievous, playful, but also...

Disdainful of us by all measure.

"Mew," came the deceptively cute noise, to human ears nothing to worry about, but something about the new me recognized it as distinctly ominous and threatening. I felt my fur fluffing and my tail - that was so weird, I had a tail? - curling around me instinctively and submissively. "Mew mew Me-mew wew mew. Mewmew ew. Mew!"

A Meowth walked forward and coughed. "Mew says that the clones are an abomination against this world, and that the balance of power must not be disrupted. Surrender or die."

"So my predecessor finally deigns to show themself," Mewtwo is torn between rage and pleasure, and perhaps the smallest flicker of fear - I've worked with Mewtwo too hard for the pokemon to still think themselves invincible, and this pokemon is surely much older and wiser than him.
But as I watch Mewtwo make a shadow-ball and the two pokemon blast into each other repeatedly, I realize I may have made a miscalculation.
Trained pokemon are generally stronger than untrained. If they were originally going to be evenly matched, then this time...

Mew slams into the dirt with a sharp cry.

Reluctantly, for this version of Mew hasn't exactly made me their biggest fan, I jump into the fray, a little amused to see that one of the humans had a similar idea but was a bit slower about it. Mewtwo stops pummeling into Mew when he sees me, but only just. It really is shockingly one-sided, as while Mew gets in a few initial blows, Mewtwo heals himself like nothing happened.

"You can't possibly want to defend them, they wanted to kill you as well!" His tail lashes angrily as he speaks.

"You can't bludgeon a weak and defenseless pokemon," I echo myself, and that gives him pause, thinking back on his old memories to look for deeper significance. "Even if they're gits who hurt you more than they have to and then don't say sorry." That also calls back memories.

"Are you really comparing us?"

"I think you're already doing the comparison without my help," I say, and that gets him, because it's absolutely true. "Otherwise, why so eager to prove yourself the superior specimen? But besides that, isn't it obvious that Mew thought they could defeat you with brute force? That they thought the first solution was to murder? Doesn't that remind you of anybody?" I chide.

Mewtwo huffs, and to my great relief, steps away from Mew. It doesn't surprise me so much anymore that he's so vicious as a first reaction if this is his original counterpart. I'm just glad he's not totally immune to reason; a lot of beings react only on emotion. But maybe the fact the fight was so one-sided made it easier emotionally too.

"You got the validation you wanted," I note tiredly. "Is it all you hoped for? Being the strongest pokemon?"

His tail flicks in agitation again, and his brooding makes me tense. He turns toward me. Maybe I shouldn't have egged him on?

"There's still one being I haven't defeated," he steps closer, in spite of the fact he could just levitate over. I shiver at the proximity, remembering all the times he's inflicted pain on me, but another, stupider part of me with no self preservation wishes I could hug him. "You."

"You know very well you can beat the crap out of me," I point out a little warily, because while I sort of get what he's saying, it technically isn't true at all. He's beaten me one on one many times.

"You know what I meant," he growls, and there's something new and animalistic in me that reacts to that - not as a predator to run away from, but as another member of my species aggressive at me, demanding a social reaction. "You never truly submitted, only bided your time." For a moment, I spare a thought for our audience, which must be horribly confused and lost about all of this, but then I see the Meowth explaining something to the confused humans, something about Team Rocket kidnapping, and I realize they probably aren't going to stay completely lost.

I don't know how his species shows submission, and in fact I suspect neither does he, but I press back and make myself small and unthreatening, which should be pretty universal. "Are you going to genocide everyone?"

"No," he denies, to my relief. "I find your solution of altering the pokeballs acceptable." He turns briefly toward our audience with mild irritation, as if they have grown to be a mere inconvenience, and his eyes glow. To my shock, for I've never seen so many beings manipulated psychically at one time, they all vanish. The great dark and twisted hall is empty as if they were never there. The sheer amount of space makes the absence of it between us all the more poignant.

"Then I submit," I say, and, unsure of what gesture to use, expose my throat.

His expression is mixed, like it both was and wasn't what he really wanted, or maybe that he's just as socially confused as I am about what body language pokemon use, or most likely, both.

Then he shocks me by moving forward and biting it, likely out of sheer instinct, and I give a startled cry as I wonder if I miscalculated. It's entirely possible, considering Mew's reaction, that his species is always lethally territorial. But it's much gentler than it could have been, not even drawing blood as far as I can tell, and my panic lessens as he lets go. I'm sick and tired of us always ending everything with conflict, so, aware it might be suicidal, I hug him after a few moments. "You didn't have to go that far, y'know. Other people settle things with, like, handshakes or making somebody sit in a time out." He stills and I can practically feel his confusion.

Wait. I actually can, possibly. I think I'm a low-level psychic now.

This information also quietly re-affirms my suspicion that Mew and Mewtwo strictly speaking don't actually have a gender as we understand it, because I got the faint impression Mewtwo used a male voice simply because male humans were the first he encountered and he liked how much more intimidating it made him sound, but this just leaves me even more clueless about how they actually reproduce. Then again, that had been a mystery even in the games, and considering all the breeding farm rejects I'd seen, and all the horror that having too many legendaries in too many hands would imply, maybe it was for the best it wasn't easy to breed legendaries.

My second-biggest (After the whole, y'know, world not ending thing) relief at the moment is that even if the bite did end up drawing a little blood, at least pokemon heal fast, and surely he wouldn't have brought me back just to kill me again two minutes later?
Speaking of Mew, we were interrupted by it stirring weakly, and I realized we were not in fact totally alone. Mewtwo had removed the humans and most of the pokemon, but Mew had remained. Maybe he simply hadn't known what to do with it, or maybe teleporting it, a near-equal, was simply beyond his power.
Mew gave me a wary look, but not hateful, and I suppose it realized what happened and was not incapable of gratitude. That was good, at least.

"Perhaps humans and clones can live in peace after all," it said, and I grew very confused as I realized I could now understand it, but this confusion didn't last long before something more urgent caught my attention.

I vomited blood.

"Neon?" Mewtwo said worriedly.

I stared at my hands, which were starting to develop even more pokemon-like instead of merely furred. "I think I'm not done changing," I state the obvious. "Or maybe," I consider how shit I feel, "the pokemon DNA isn't even compatible?" If that was the case then I'd blissfully fall over dead again soon, yay.

"Don't think like that," Mewtwo chides me to my befuddlement, before I remember that he's, y'know, psychic and apparently my thoughts are often loud now. ...Oh god did he hear me think about pokemon mating habits as if they were birds in a documentary? Kill me now.

"Life is precious," agrees Mew, which is precious coming from a tiny fuzzy pink murder hobo. Mew glares at me and Mewtwo laughs, which... strikes me as kind of amazing because I've rarely heard him laugh before. And certainly not so freely. "Did you not fight for just that?"
I pause.

"I guess I did."

"Then shouldn't you value your life as much as you do others? A little hypocritical, don't you think?"

I close my eyes.

I guess...

I could try?

Grief swells through me. I don't have Sweetness any more, my first friend. I've lost so much.

"I..." Mewtwo seems like he wants to say something, but isn't sure if he really wants to, or if it would be wanted. "I want a proper battle with you, one on one. A rematch."

I laugh, cheered slightly but still melancholy. "Of course you do. And do you want anything else with me, or am I just a tool?"

"Of course not," he says, but there's hesitation. "I don't really... know what else there is to do, though."

And there, I perk up and finally feel a shred of purpose. Or maybe that's my insides deciding not to die on me.

"I've got an entire world to show you," I promise him, and I reach out.

And he reaches out back to me.

And the world doesn't seem quite so harsh and full of lies anymore.

"I don't have to beat you up to save you. I don't have to beat myself up to save anyone," I whisper, knowing how nonsensical the last must sound.

"No, you don't," he understood better than I expected, more than I feared. I want to cry.

I tell myself it's going to be alright now.

Mewtwo stood in a stadium, wave after wave of trainer sending their teams after him, and I had never seen him look so happy.

"Isn't this better?" I asked. "Not having to worry about Team Rocket coming after you with so many officers around, and not having to worry about people trying to catch you? And getting all the challenges you could ever want, at your own pace, until you get bored of it? And if you want to temporarily join someone's team for awhile, you can do that for as long as you want, and then leave."

"It is very nice," he agreed, taking a breather to enjoy a poke-puff souffle. I'd been teaching him how to cook, it had been an... interesting experiment, to say the least.

We got our first team with other legendary challengers that day, and I had a lot of fun suggesting strategies, not that Mewtwo really needed my help.

"How about you take the next battle and I play trainer?" he suggested mischievously.

"Me?" I squeaked, nervous.

"Yes, you. Haven't you ever wondered what it was like?"

"True... Although, I am still part rattata."

"That doesn't mean you can't win. As you yourself showed me."

"Also true. Okay, I'll give it my best!"

It was a lot of fun. If also very painful when I got my ass kicked.

"No, Team Plasma, don't beat up that pokemon!" the TV cries out.

We both laugh (well, I laugh, he scoffs) and feel exasperated over how stupid the story is, but also enjoy its simplicity and innocence, a glimpse at a world we never had the privilege to be in even as maybe we have that privilege as adults, to enjoy what we never could as children. Innocence and simplicity, where others would expect the inverse.

Afterward, I visited Sweetness's grave. I've adopted a number of blind and deaf pokemon in her honor and taught them how to read. I've also started a program to help crippled pokemon that heal on metamorphasis-style evolution, which turns out to be a surprising number of them.

A young boy raises an altered pokeball at me excitedly, then lowers it, remembering that they don't work that way anymore, and that if he wants to catch me, he'll have to actually talk to me like a sapient being. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see a ghostly fox shape slink out of the grave, but when I turn my head, it isn't there anymore.

Sometimes, you've got to take the little joys that you can get. You never know just how long life lasts or how long you'll have a friend at your side, or a silly title like 'Strongest in the world', for the world is ever changing. You don't have to roll over and accept lies to do this. But sometimes you have to give yourself permission to forget, just for a moment, even if it feels like a betrayal. Because it's not a betrayal to value yourself just as much as everyone else. And because it's not healthy to thirst after revenge all the time. I forgive them, but most of all I forgive myself, which in the end may sometimes be the harder thing to do, especially in a world that sees strength as equal to success.

To give myself and others permission to be weak, to be strange, to be small.

To be like a rattata, above all.

The End.