Where am I...?
Click. Click. Click.
His body felt heavy. So heavy.
Click. Click. Click.
He twitched in his seat, feeling his chin lolling against his chest. He could hardly lift his head.
Click. Click. Click.
Hands were swollen. Wrists felt raw.
Click. Click. Click.
The night came rushing back to him: The funny aftertaste of his drink. Her smile. The walk down the hallway. Stumbling, falling. Those hateful eyes.
Click. Click. Click.
His eyes.
Click. Click. Click.
Even now, even so many years later, he would recognize his eyes anywhere.
Click. Click. Click.
After all, he saw them every morning when he looked in the mirror.
Click. Click.
The noise halted abruptly as he groaned, eyes fluttering as he stirred in his seat. The world was dark, bleary, and out of focus. He saw doubles of the space around him squirming and swirling. Saw doubles of the figure sitting across from him, thumb paused on the cap of a lighter. Saw doubles of his eyes.
Lance, he tried to say, but all that came out of him was another groan.
"Ah. You're awake."
Click. Click. Click.
The light, steel-edged voice cut through the swimming of reality, gripping his mind to yank through the fog. The figure was hunched over in his seat, clicking his lighter open and shut over and over and over and over.
"I wondered how long you'd be asleep. Thought about smackin' ya around a bit. Shame. But maybe I still can."
He stood. He wasn't tall. Jurou's eyes slowly came into focus. He could see her in his face. He could see himself in his face. The man stepped forward to lean down over him, grabbing him by the jaw to yank his head up.
"Lance," he managed around his clumsy tongue, "Lance, I—"
"It's not time for you to talk."
His grip was painfully tight, a stark contrast to his small frame and stature. It was a grip that wanted to squeeze and crush, only barely holding back, and pain blossomed from the touch. When he let go, it was with a moment of hesitation and then sheer force of will. A sucker-punch to the gut had him doubling over in his seat, the wind forced out of him as he struggled to catch a breath, and an ache settled in him. Jurou didn't speak. He did.
"I want you to know something. Something very important."
The flash of steel, but not his voice. The point of a knife danced along his jawline, trailing down his neck to poke and prod gently near the artery.
"I want you to know that I don't blame you for me. I was always fucked up."
He expects it to puncture the skin, but it doesn't. It trails lower, gliding over his clavicle, tapping along his shoulder. The movements are gentle and smooth, almost hypnotizing as he holds his breath and prays he'll leave with small scratches. Suddenly he slips the knife half-way into his shoulder, and Jurou gasps and chokes as white-hot pain flares up his arm.
"I blame you for her. Not for me. 'Cause it was you, wasn't it? It was you that got her in that shitty van."
The knife slid down and down, separating flesh until it chewed a large gash all the way to the crook of his elbow. He gasped and panted and groaned, stars exploding in front of his eyes.
"Lance," he tried to beg, and this time the slap came, hard against his jaw. It would have sent him sprawling, but rough rope held his wrists fast to the chair, and instead he tipped sideways before clattering back down, jostling his wound and making him cry out.
"I told you it ain't your turn to talk."
He was shaking and still blind from the pain, but the hand gripped his jaw tightly and forced it open. He struggled and struggled, his mind turning to visions of scissors cutting through tongues and teeth yanked out of skulls, every cheap slasher flick he'd seen in his youth. Instead, something small, metal, and round was placed just behind his teeth, and before he realized what was going on, while he was still trying to spit it out, he heard the tell-tale click, and the pokeball expanded, forcing his mouth open painfully. It was too big. Stuck. Forced his jaw open so wide Jurou thought his head would split in two.
"That's better. I'd almost forgotten what you looked like, you know. It's been decades, ain't it?"
This time it cut a shallow line up his face, tracing under and around his eye, and Jurou squirmed and squirmed and squirmed.
"The other thing I want you to know? She was coked up. All the time. That's your fault, too. But you know what else? You're lucky she was. See, if she'd been clean, I wouldn't have ended up here. I'd have gotten my degree. Hell, I'd probably be workin' at Silph right now, just like you."
Warm breath at his ear, and Jurou shivered, and not just from the fear. He was starting to feel cold. His hurt arm was bright red and slick and sticky. He tugged weakly at his wrists, tried to spit the pokeball out again, but nothing. Nothing.
"I'd have done this a long time ago, Kanda. It don't matter who owned me. I'd have done this the second I met you, 'cause this is all you deserve. So I'm going to make sure you hurt nice and long before you go."
The hateful, rotten eyes held his gaze as he groaned and plead from behind the pokeball. He was feeling woozy. Another slap snapped his head to the side, and his body slumped. He didn't bother trying to pick himself up.
"You wanna know why you're lucky, though?" His hand tangled in Jurou's hair, yanking his head up again. "'Cause I don't get to kill you until we're done with our chat. Now, I'm gonna take that pokeball out ya mouth for a second. You're gonna be there for me for once in your goddamn life, you understand?"
Jurou let out a soft, weakened, defeated note. He seemed to find that agreeable, and as the pokeball was minimized and removed, Jurou worked his jaw to try and ease the screaming pain.
"Alright, old man." Lance leaned over him, his rotten green eyes alight with glee as much as seething anger. "You're going to tell me where the Silph Scope prototype is."
Jurou sat there helplessly. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who would hear him. Maybe, he thought, this really was karma coming to bite him in the ass. He weighed his options. None of them were good. Maybe it was time for all of this to be over.
He opened his mouth, sucked in a breath, and told him.
I am ready...
Cinnabar Island was warm, compared to the rest of the region. Something about the air was different, the smell and the quality. Something about the earth, too. Archer glanced out the window, across Ariana, to the volcano rising mightily at the far end of the island. He wasn't sure whose idea it was to build a research facility all the way out here, but at the very least, the location was remote, and the surroundings quite beautiful. If they weren't currently staring down a ticking doomsday clock without the one person they absolutely needed at the moment, Archer supposed he would be enjoying it more. Frowning, he pressed the gas just a little harder, pushing them further and further over the speed limit.
"I can't believe you," Ariana snarled for not the first time since their trip began, "time and time again I told you, I needed Proton here to check the security. Do you listen? No. No, it takes fucking Petrel, who you can't even stand, to get your ass in gear—and you still refuse to bring Proton in!"
"I told you," Archer muttered distractedly, his attention focused intently on traffic, "we need the Silph Scope. He's the only one competent enough to drag the information out of Kanda."
"Good, great," Ariana snorted, "we'll lose everything, but at least we've stolen a microscope and made the six o'clock news. I can see it now—'body found washed up on the shore, corpse unidentifiable,' and they'll have a little police sketch that—"
"Yes, I am very well aware of what's going to happen," he snapped back at her, "and your bitching won't solve anything. We need results. Proton will get us those results."
"Fuck you. Giovanni's going to have your ass incinerated for this."
"We will secure the specimen before anything bad happens, I assure you. Have faith."
"I will do no such thing."
Archer's grip tightened on the wheel and he had to work very hard not to explode then and there. What he really wanted was to jerk the wheel, hop the curb, and park so he could tear his darling sister a new one, but he had no idea what sort of time they had left. Since Petrel had patched them through to Faba and the latter had explained his concerns, all they knew was that sooner or later, the specimen was going to be out for blood. The only thing they could do was pray that moment wasn't now. So Archer pressed his foot down just a little more, feeling the car speed up the curving streets, straight to the huge research facility Giovanni had purchased long ago.
They had hardly come to a stop when the twins jumped out of the car and hurried inside, by no means out of place in their black business suits. They marched past the front desk and down the halls, ignoring the protests of researchers bustling about until they let themselves down into the access stairs and tromped further and further, deep into the bowels. There was a clean room. They decontaminated and dressed themselves in sterile suits. They stepped through and into the lab.
The chamber was huge and plated with reinforced steel. It was filled with servers, computers, machinery, and lab stations. Researchers bustled too and fro, constantly in a state of motion, and every last occurrence in the lab happened around the same machine. Far in the back was the nautiloid, with a gaping entrance on the front for a purpose neither Archer nor Ariana were particularly familiar with. Jutting from the side was a smaller circle chamber, still three men high at least, with a single computer station of its own. Two of the researchers were gathered around the screen, motioning and speaking together in undertones. Three more researchers were near the nautiloid's entrance, preparing a series of vials to insert into the machinery.
The twin executives ignored this and went straight to the computer, where one of the researchers—the man in charge—turned around to greet them with a smile, adjusting the glasses that sat perched on the bridge of his nose.
"Is it reports day already?" he joked.
"Dr. Fuji," Ariana greeted, "we would like to see the current readings on the specimen."
Dr. Fuji tugged his beard and wheeled his chair back with a squeak, then took to his feet and offered it to her. Ariana sat.
"Everything seems fine, honestly," he told her as she pulled herself up to the screen, "its brain activity is the strongest we've seen in years."
"That's not always a good thing," Ariana told him. She tapped through screens, scowling as she tried to make sense of the readings.
"Is something wrong?"
"Has it stirred? Shown any signs of aggression?"
"No, it's slept without issue." Dr. Fuji tugged his beard again, leaning over her shoulder to point to certain displays. "Look, you see? This pattern here, in its activity? It's dreaming."
"Dreaming?" Ariana scoffed, "pokemon don't dream."
"Well," Dr. Fuji told her, "this one does."
Archer mostly ignored the two as they spoke. Ariana always handled Fuji; this wasn't his area. The pokemon itself was his area.
Archer stood in front of the tanks. There were five, all tall, connected directly to the nautiloid. Out of all of them, only was was occupied. It was filled with a strange, orange liquid that the researchers assured him was somehow shock-absorbent enough to contain any pokemon without fear of it breaking loose. Even long before this day, Archer had his doubts.
Curled inside the liquid was the specimen. It was large, much larger than Archer, though he wasn't quite sure by how much. Its uncannily human-shaped body reminded him of a cat, and was covered in fine white fur, though the long, thick tail curled around itself was a deep purple. Two blunt horns protruded from its strange and angular head, and connecting its hind brain to the top of its spine was a coiled nerve cluster hidden away inside a fleshy tube.
It... seemed fine. Archer drew nearer to the tank, leaning in as close as he dared to get a better look. The creature wasn't thrashing in its sleep or really moving much at all. He could see its eyes twitching under closed eyelids, and that was about it. He leaned closer.
Suddenly the creature spasmed, its tail twitching and swishing, and Archer quickly took a step back as a powerful pressure settled in his heart, making his breath quicken and his lungs and heart feel heavy and leaden. He took another step back, then another, stumbling, but almost as quickly as it began, it stopped, and the creature settled.
"What was that?" he demanded, glancing at Ariana and Fuji over his shoulder.
"Oh, don't mind that," Dr. Fuji answered, "our best guess is it's dreaming of battling. I'm sure it will be quite the contender when we finally wake it. Mr. Sakaki will be pleased, eh?"
Archer eyed the creature uncertainly. Yes, he thought as he collected himself, that would make sense. His houndoom often dreamed of chasing things—he would twitch and even sleep-eat his prey. Archer was certain it was the same thing. The pressure lifted, and breath slowly returned to him.
"More than pleased, I'm sure," he replied. He left the tanks and returned to his sister's side. "We do have some concerns about the security."
"Don't we all?" Fuji laughed awkwardly, "what we have should be fine, but I don't think any of us would complain if Mr. Sakaki could invest just a little bit more."
"Why?" Ariana pressed him, "has something happened? Do you have reason to believe something will happen?" Dr. Fuji shook his head, but motioned to the creature all the same.
"Mrs. Sakaki, we're scientists, not pokemon trainers," he told her, "as much as we appreciate the challenges and insights of reconstructing the mew from what little we had, we're not fit to contain the specimen if it decides it would rather battle us."
She shot Archer a look. He rolled his eyes. They were there, weren't they, he thought bitterly. Proton would be there soon, and even Petrel had been able to secure an early flight home to help them deal with the situation. They were taking it seriously.
"We're waiting on our specialist to arrive," Archer informed him, "and then we shall return. We will make the necessary arrangements once he's surveyed your lab."
"Thank you," said Dr. Fuji, "we're running the final tests this week. I would appreciate it if we could expedite the work before we wake the specimen."
"We shall see. Ariana, come. I'd like to speak to you outside."
He knew she was pissed without even having to look at her; she was always pissed when he bossed her around. But right now he didn't have the time to worry about what she thought or whether or not he was being condescending. She followed him out of the lab, up the stairs, all the way back outside.
"Something's wrong," she said the moment they were in the sun, "you felt it too, didn't you?" Archer pursed his lips.
"I felt something," he admitted, "but perhaps... perhaps that was how it was supposed to feel." It was supposed to be a psychic pokemon, after all. Of course if it was dreaming of grand battles the feelings would spill over. But as well as he could breathe, now, his heart was still pounding in his ears, and he shifted uncomfortably on the spot. "Perhaps... perhaps I shouldn't have kept Proton away."
"That's not a real apology," she snapped at him. "Fuck it. I don't care. I don't care. How much longer until he arrives. Archer checked his watch.
"Should only be an hour or so, if he's already on the ferry," he told her, "it won't be long, now."
Everything was going to be fine. It had to be fine. Nothing either of them had seen pointed to catastrophe. Perhaps, he mused, Faba had just been fucking with all of them. It wasn't the first time Petrel's and his pissing contest bled over into Rocket matters, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Archer drew another deep breath. And if anything went wrong, he had his houndoom.
Everything had to be fine.
...to be.
Noise. Darkness. Noise and darkness, that's all there was. That's all there ever was. He could hear them talking. They sounded so far away, but he could always, always hear them. They were always there. Even if it was just one. Or two. Always.
Where am I?
And he was always cold. When he was aware, he was always cold. Too cold. Shouldn't he have been warm? He longed always for the feeling of something warm and soft. He longed to be curled and carried and touched. Never carried. Never touched. Always cold.
He wasn't always aware, but when he was, he learned, slowly, what the noises were. He could pick them out. Some were high and some were low. Some were slower and others faster. Occasionally, too rare for him know exactly how rare, the noises were strange. Today they were strange.
Those voices.
They came near him. He could feel them. Feel something close. He could feel they were bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad—he didn't know why. But they were. In times past, that feeling made him scared.
He wasn't scared anymore.
They were the ones who were scared.
They're outside.
In fact, all of them were scared. How funny. He had never noticed it, before. He could always feel them nearby, but for the first time, he felt they were scared. He wondered why. His body twitched. Spasmed. It had been happening more and more often. They would draw near, and he would feel something fury spark white-hot inside of him. He didn't like being cold. He didn't like the noise. He didn't like floating alone in this thing, unable to touch or feel or see.
Where I must be.
Purple eyes shot open. Something burst. Glass shattered and the shock-absorbent amniotic fluid spilled to the floor in a great rush. He landed harshly on something hard and metal, and unbothered, he shook himself and flicked his tail. Then, he looked up.
People stood around him and around the room, filled with things he had only felt and never seen or given name to. He knew them by the way they touched his mind and fed him, and only now, when he cast his mind out, did he learn their names. He could feel all of them. Their language and memories and loves and losts, overwhelming, hidden emotion that he couldn't help but to see and hear and feel, and it made his head ache and pound. All noise. Always noise. Such loud noise.
"It's awake!" said Dr. Fuji, who he knew by the longing in his heart and a smile he himself had long since forgotten but felt all the same. "It's... it's alive!"
I... am alive, he repeated, and the people all jumped at his thought. I am alive.
"It... it spoke?"
"Telepathy, it's already using telepathy, this is amazing!"
They spoke more with their mouths. It was loud. So loud. He heard them speak and heard them think, and his head hurt worse and worse. Gone. He was out, and he wanted to be gone. In some of their minds he felt something soft and green and saw something vast and blue. Grass. Sky. Clouds. Sea.
One of Dr. Fuji's assistants was speaking with her mouth, now. He knew her by her grief and the snippets of an aging woman unable to remember her name.
"We should collect a fresh blood sample, now that it's awake," she was saying, "reconnect the machines, complete a new brain scan."
Another assistant next to her spoke with his mouth, too. He was older, and he knew him by how much vile-tasting, funny-looking liquids he drank at night and the way his other human would argue and fight with him.
"We'll need fresh measurements, too," he also was saying, "Dr. Fuji, do we do cognitive exams now? Later?"
"You're all getting over-eager," Dr. Fuji said with his mouth, "exams can wait. Measurements first, then brain scan. We'll give its body time to adjust before we take more blood samples."
Poking. Prodding. He saw their intentions in their thoughts. Sharp things. He didn't want it. Dr. Fuji slowly came toward him. He tried to move away, but he was clumsy and wasn't sure what to do with his legs. Hands came for his face, pulling him this way and that to look at his eyes, his ears, pull his lips back, and he hated it. His tail lashed and fluffed up. They laughed with their mouths and called him cute. They pulled at his arms and his tail and poked at the sensitive pads of his feet and he puffed up even more, a hissing noise leaving his throat. In one mind he saw her slap him for what he dared to call her. Another one approached him and he did the same, powerful muscles tensing under his white fur as he smacked them on the head with his paw.
"Agh!" The assistant rubbed their nose. "Can we restrain it, for now?"
"Not a bad idea," Dr. Fuji admitted, "someone get the clamp and the—"
Clamp. Clamp on his neck. His back-neck. He could see its use in their minds. Clamp on his nerves, dampen his mind. No. He just woke up. No more. His head ached and ached and ached. No more. Free mind. So many new thoughts. So many new words and meanings. A world outside his prison. No more.
One of the assistants approached with the clamp in hand. He squirmed and pushed his shaky legs under himself, trying to stand for the first time, but they were so quick, coming closer, too close, too close, no, no, no no no no no—
No! he finally shouted, and some force sent them all sprawling back, falling over themselves. For one glorious moment, the noise stopped and his aching head felt some small measure of relief. Then it all started again, louder, louder, scared and so much louder.
"Mewtwo!" Dr. Fuji called him, standing up, "Mewtwo, it's alright! It's okay! I know—I know you understand me." His voice was gentle, now that it was directed at him.
Mewtwo.
That was his name.
He hesitated, his tail flicking nervously.
"There you are. It's fine. Everything is okay. Just relax—we just need to see how awake you are. You remember that, don't you? How we looked at how asleep you were?"
Yes. All day, every day, asleep. Listening to their memories. Seeing them in his dreams. Seeing their dreams. Seeing himself in their eyes.
It wasn't fine, and it wasn't okay. They wanted to poke and prod. They wanted to do things that would make his head hurt worse. His fur stood on end. Dr. Fuji edged towards him. He could feel their knowledge. Knowledge of the machines. He knew the machines, now, too. He didn't speak to them again.
Mewtwo turned his head, focusing his eyes and his mind on the nautiloid, and in a shower of sparks it overloaded, exploding with raw, fiery energy that sent shrapnel flying and then bodies. He turned his head the other way, towards the servers. Those too burst and shattered at his simplest thought, and the sprinklers were going off and the fire alarm was blaring, and people were screaming, and he couldn't take it, he couldn't, he couldn't. His mind lashed out wildly and he felt them rip and tear and spill onto the floor, and he threw them one after the other to the side as suddenly they were quiet.
He saved Dr. Fuji for last.
When the good doctor was in pieces in the flames, Mewtwo finally turned his head up, to the dark ceiling, and with one thought wrenched at the metal until it split open. His legs were still shaky. His tummy rumbled. He would not be able to climb. But if he could throw the people, he could throw himself. Carefully, he lifted from the ground, swerving and faltering at first, but quickly he grew steady. So many ceilings. Many more thoughts. He wanted somewhere quiet. He wanted this building gone.
His eyes fluttering shut, he played the game he once used to trick the researchers into thinking their machines didn't work, long ago when he was small, the first time he stirred to the edge of consciousness: he pulled kinetic energy around him like a thick blanket to ward off whatever he came near, and as he held it, he pulled too on the building. It creaked at first. Then it began to crumble and fall. He heard more minds screaming, and he knew soon they would be quiet, too. He pulled harder and harder. Machines and computers and generators were exploding. Fire everywhere. Nothing left. Burn. All of it would burn, and he would never have to come back again. He pulled until he felt every bit of tension coursing through his body—then, he let go, slingshotting himself up and through the collapsing building, feeling debris and shrapnel fling off his kinetic barrier.
It was so bright! So gorgeously bright! He sailed through open air and smelled the wind and the sea for the first time, but there was no time to stop. He had to get far, far away before the bad minds found him. They were still there—he knew they were there. He knew they were not among the ones he quieted. So he flew, faster and faster and faster, nearly crashing into a big metal fearow as he raced towards the mainland.
I am alive, he said to himself, I am free.
Archer and Ariana were milling around by a vending machine in an alley just a few blocks away from the research facilities when it happened. They were still in the middle of arguing, because of course neither of them would relinquish any ground to the other. The only thing they could agree on, apparently, was that Giovanni was going to be displeased in some way.
"If something happens to his pet project in there, he's going to flip," Ariana was growling, "I'm serious! And somehow all of you are going to blame me! I know how this works! That's how it's always been, and I'm fucking sick of it!"
"It's not my fault there have been higher priorities!" Archer snapped back, "as if he would even give us the funding to improve the security here, anyways!"
"No wonder he promoted you to senior executive, I bet you suck his cock so well he—"
Then the building exploded.
It happened all at once, fire, debris, the building itself wrenching and squealing as entire parts collapsed. Something fast burst from the wreckage and flew away, leaving a deafening boom in its wake, and between it all, the force and the dust and the falling debris, the way the very ground shook under their feet, Archer and Ariana fell over each other, landing in a heap before they ducked their heads and Archer scrambled to cover Ariana. He was wheezing when the dust finally settled, and he fell over, desperately patting and grasping at various pockets and parts of his jacket. Ariana pushed herself up and scrambled over to him, snagging his inhaler and shoving it towards his face.
"Are you alright?" she asked, voice much softer as she rubbed his back, "breathe, Kane, c'mon. Deep breaths. Are you alright?"
"Bleeding hell!" Archer wheezed back at her, "was that—did it just—?!"
"Told you," Ariana said dryly. She helped him to his feet, and together they surveyed the wreckage.
"Giovanni is going to be pissed."
Petrel was having a pretty nice flight, all things considered. He was a little bit cramped—he was a big guy, after all, and the space between seats were small—but he was listening to music and flipping through a trashy romance novel he picked up at the airport to pass the time, occasionally glancing out of the plane window to the land and sea below. They were only ten, fifteen minutes out from landing, and despite the fact he knew he was about to walk into an entire shitshow, he was bound and determined to enjoy his last few minutes relaxing until he had to get back to work. Maybe when it was all said and done he could drag Proton along for dinner out somewhere. He had a craving for real ramen, and he wasn't one to be deterred.
He was just getting to the good part of his book when there was the distant sound of rumbling. Not thunder, surely? He looked back outside. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun shining brightly.
"Look!" cried someone on the other side of the plane, "oh my god! Cinnabar exploded!"
Frowning, Petrel began to lift himself up from his seat to try and get a good look over all the heads, and for a brief moment he saw the dusty cloud settling—and suddenly the plane rocked and swayed harshly, falling out from under him and causing him to fall as well. He just barely caught the seat in front of him as he saw the strange form of the pokemon specimen zoom over them, its tail whipping along behind it in the wind.
"Jesus fucking christ!" he breathed to himself as the plane stabilized. He watched the pokemon go, then slowly turned an anxious look back across the plane, to the unmistakable wreckage of the research facility in the distance.
Maybe, he found himself thinking, he should have stayed in Tiksi.
Proton was on the ferry, and he could see the Cinnabar marina in the distance. People left a wide berth around him, just like everywhere he went. He was leaning against the safety railing at the front of the boat, not moving a muscle as his eyes reflected back at him from the ocean waves. He hated those eyes. The eyes hated right back. He had cleaned himself up as much as he could, but he was sure he still stunk in the way blood and gore did. He didn't have a lot of time. But he knew things, now. Knew a lot of things he'd forgotten, too. Most importantly, he knew where the Silph Scope was. Archer would be proud. So would Giovanni. He would get to Cinnabar and help Ariana, and she would hate him moderately less. Then he could go home and sleep.
His head ached, and he took his cap off to rub his scalp in a lame attempt to sooth it.
Boom.
The shock wave burst across the sea as much as it did the land. It tossed the boat from side to side, and Proton went flying, landing harshly onto the deck. Something zipped by overhead, its powerful wake leaving a stream of wind that made the boat rock again, and Proton kept himself curled up into a ball until he was certain that was the last of it.
Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet. Dust fell and settled on Cinnabar, and it looked like half the research facility was just gone. Swallowing hard, he turned on the spot, watching something strange flying through the air nearly crash into a passing plane.
"Fuck," he swore under his breath, "fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
He was too late.
Everything was gone.