Mewtwo paced silently back and forth in his massive laboratory, wondering what was taking Seth so long. It had been three days since they last spoke, and Mewtwo was ready to continue the experiment. The pokémon growled in annoyance and activated his computer telepathically.
"Computer. Locate Seth Turtle."
/Seth Turtle is in the library, where he has been for the last 20 hours./
Twenty hours? What is he doing in there? Mewtwo thought. The pokémon floated down the passageways that made up New Island II, until finally he came upon the library. Mewtwo pushed the door to open it, but found it to be locked. Not used to being barred from his own property, Mewtwo psychically rammed the door, making it explode with dust and wood splinters.
Seth looked up from the poorly lit library desk briefly, and then returned to the notes he had in front of him. Mewtwo walked in with an angry expression on his face. Even though Seth wasn't a telepath, he knew what Mewtwo was thinking at that moment. He was wondering why Seth would be in a library for a day, when a computer was faster, and when there was work to be done.
"What is it?" Seth said bluntly, which only added to Mewtwo's anger. The pokémon's eyes started to glow an eerie blue as his powers responded to his anger.
"'What is it?'. You sit here and waste precious time pouring over old lab manuals, without giving a reason, and all you have to say is 'What is it?'."
Seth tossed the notes he was looking at towards Mewtwo, who caught them with his three-fingered hand. Looking at them, he saw several names that meant nothing to him, but could see many of them labeled "reviews".
"That is some of the responses I've been getting from my superiors on our little experiment. As you can see, much of the information seems useful, but several of them didn't care about science. Most of them are set in their ways, and would rather see the two species beat the shit out of each other."
Mewtwo dropped the notes onto the table and slid them back to Seth, who caught them. "They will see in time that both species are equal, just as we think. Each has their own flaws and merits, but one is not better than the other. That's like saying that black people are better than white, because their more interesting to watch in basketball."
Seth stood up, and Mewtwo could clearly see him for the first time in this encounter. Seth looked like he hadn't slept in days, and he held a distinct hint of...something that Mewtwo had to call insanity. Seth looked like he was out of it. Mewtwo wondered if the mental competency of his partner had finally slipped away.
"True, but none the less they won't believe in what you or I say. The only way humans define who is better is by which one is more popular, and which one is able to beat up the other. High school life on a global level. Scientific research isn't paid attention to in my timeline unless it has something to do with fighting or changing the way you look and feel." Seth strolled to the other side of the room and picked up a book that had been haphazardly thrown around, apparently by Seth himself. Holding up the book for Mewtwo to see, he continued.
"You recognize this, don't you?"
Mewtwo nodded. "It is a copy of the letters and grants bestowed by Giovanni to the scientists that created me."
"Exactly. Giovanni brought you into existence. And you know why that is, don't you! Because he wanted something bigger, better, and lethal! These scientists did it for glory and money, as well as power."
"They were afraid. Giovanni is not somebody you can just say no to. They had no other choice. If they wished to continue their research on Mew, then they had to construct me." Mewtwo answered.
"Hah! A likely story. Inside their hearts, they may have repeated that over and over, but I know how people think. I'm a human, so I should know! They were thinking about how famous they would become when they completed you! They didn't care about your psychological merits and personality. They wanted you to tear other pokémon apart!"
Mewtwo's mind drifted back to his first awakening, when he saw the scientists outside of his tube...
****
A quick flash of memories, and a shot of anger, broke the glass around him. He looked up to see a man approaching him, asking him how he felt. Mewtwo, confused and lost, asked where he was.
"You're in Giovanni's lab. We have created you, Mewtwo!".
"Mew...two?" the newborn pokémon said to himself, looking down at his hands. They were much different than what he remembered. Long ago, he was smaller...and light as air. Now he was gigantic...and uglier. And alone.
"They...care nothing for me. They only care about their pride. I won't let them treat me as just another specimen..." Mewtwo said inside his heart.
****
Seth saw Mewtwo's eyes close, and the pokémon sighed painfully. Looking at Seth, Mewtwo answered, "They are human, yes. I know they meant well, and that they had forgotten that I was a living being too. I destroyed them for it, which was wrong of me too. I had forgotten that humans were living beings too. An eye for an eye. That was then, this is now. You and I both know that all people don't think like that."
"What does it matter if all of them don't think that or not? It's reality. The strong rule over the weak, so the only measure of who's better in the world is who is strongest. That is the only way I can get them to understand."
"You're not serious, Seth. You're exhausted. Go to bed, and I'll do today's experiment alone. You will think much clearer after a good night's sleep."
"I've never thought this clearly!" Seth retaliated. "In fact, I think I know just how to do our little experiment. Rather than one on one, why not two on two? Or more? How about...yes, that's it!" Seth leaped onto the table like an animal, crouching and cocking his head as he envisioned the next experiment. "We can open a gateway between the worlds with my technology, and trigger a world war! Pokémon versus Digimon, with millions of little mice to test out theories, all at once! That will entertain and teach my superiors, and we can succeed where others have failed!"
"That's not the way to do this, Seth. Scientific study is not an excuse to kill every living thing in two worlds. Besides, you said so yourself. Fighting will not teach anyone anything."
"But it is the only thing that we humans listen to!" Seth yelled.
"You're wrong!" Mewtwo yelled back, in his mind.
Seth growled, and grabbed the notes he had been reading. "You'll see, Mewtwo. I'll show you just what I'm talking about. Once I upload my Chrono Gates, I'll link the worlds and continue the experiment. With, or without you!" Seth punched a button on his wristwatch Chronoporter, and disappeared from the library before Mewtwo could stop him.
"Damn!" Mewtwo swore. Flying back to his main lab, Mewtwo activated the computer with a mental nod. "Computer, locate Seth Turtle!"
/Seth Turtle...does not exist./
Mewtwo growled. "He must have retreated to his timeline. I can't let him destroy our experiment, not when we've only just begun." Activating his computer with a thought, holographic images of the digi-destined appeared in the center of the room, along with Ash, Misty, and Brock.
"I must find them...before Seth makes a mistake that we'll all be sorry for."
****
Seth silently punched in the commands on his biocomputer, and warmed up the geothermic power source it runned off of. Opening the files contained within his disks, Seth activated the chronotargeting systems.
"...that should do it." he said, confirming the location of the gate. "Now, to activate the gate, and set it on autopilot. Once the gate is open, the two worlds will be linked, and the fighting will begin..."
****
Ash slept quietly underneath the snow-covered tree, snoring away along with Pikachu. Brock and Misty sat at the giant, warm campfire, munching on some rolls they had bought in the last town with the last of their money. With those two snoring, the other two decided it was better to eat some late dinner and enjoy the winter scenery rather than waste their time trying to sleep when it was obvious they wouldn't be able to.
Ash's snoring stopped momentarily, and the two hoped he was waking up. Instead, he turned over in his sleeping bag and continued to snore. Misty and Brock groaned and started to chat.
"He's louder when he sleeps than he is the rest of the day." Misty said with exasperation. "How are we going to get any sleep with him going off like that?"
"You could try ear plugs." Brock suggested.
"Where am I going to get some ear plugs genius?" Misty countered.
Brock thought for a moment, and pulled out some earmuffs. "These oughta work." he said.
Misty laughed and pulled out her earmuffs from her bag. Putting them on, she waited for a moment and shook her head. "Nope. Still can here that mouth." she said, looking at the sleeping Ash.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake, which made the two kids scream. Ash snapped to attention, yelling "Hey, quit snoring Misty!", but soon he started to scream too when he realized the whole ground was shaking. "What's going on?!" shouted Ash.
"Pi pikachu!" yelled Pikachu in agreement.
"I don't know!" shouted Brock. "It feels like an earthquake!"
"There aren't supposed to be earthquakes around here!" Misty yelled. Her eyes drifted up to the sky, and she pointed at something in the night. "Wha-wha-what's that?!"
All of them looked up to see a swirling mass of clouds that looked like a whirlpool in the air. Soon, the clouds started to fill up with varying shades of blue that illuminated the pitch black sky. A loud, massive noise permeated the air, deafening all present and making the earth rumble.
****
"Ha ha! I've got you now Izzy!" yelled Tai, punching the buttons on the controller for all he was worth. Izzy growled and tried to come back, but Tai was too fast and skillful. Tai punched the buttons and shouted a victory yell as his player did a slam dunk on the TV screen. The buzzer in the video game sounded, and the score blew up on the screen, showing the "Kamiya Bulls" beating the "Koushiro Magics" 99 to 98. Tai jumped up and did a victory dance, and Izzy fell back on the couch in defeat. Kari, Sora, Mimi and Yolei came in around the time that Tai started to do the Tootsie roll, and the two girls giggled at the sight of the junior high schooler busting a move. Tai noticed they were there and instantly stopped his victory dance, which made Izzy start laughing.
"So you girls are finally ready to go?" Tai asked, trying to change the subject.
"I take it you two have finished your grueling game?" Kari said jokingly.
"It was for the December 20th Championship of Odaiba!" Tai answered as Izzy turned off the game and TV. "For a while it looked like Izzy would beat me, but Michael Jordan and I made an amazing comeback!" cheered Tai.
"Wait until next time! You won't be so lucky!" Izzy challenged, smiling when the others started to laugh.
"So are you guys ready to go? The others are waiting downstairs at the garage." Sora said, getting her jacket from the stand next to the door.
"Yeah, let me just get my wallet." Tai said, going to the hallway in back to his room.
"Which you should have done while we were getting ready, instead of playing that stupid game." Mimi said, buttoning up her coat.
"And then we can go off to see 'The Phantom Menace!', and watch cute little Anakin." said Yolei, dancing around.
"Well, I can't share your enthusiasm for Anakin Skywalker, but I am excited to see this finally." Izzy said as he put on his jacket. "Although it isn't the first showing, it still was really tough to get the tickets to this."
"Yeah, yeah. We're all impressed by your amazing network of computer friends who helped you get the tickets for tonight." Yolei joked.
"But really, thank you for the present Izzy. It's the best Christmas gift we've had in a while." Sora said.
Tai came back out with his jacket and money, saying "What about my gift from last year? That was the best gift ever!"
"I don't think a soccer ball autographed by yourself would constitute the best gift ever." Sora said on the way out.
Everyone laughed, and Tai put on a face as if he were really hurt by the remark. "Someday you'll show that ball to your girlfriends and they'll say 'Oh my god, you know Tai Kamiya?! WOW, you're so lucky!'."
The kids went down the elevator shaft, chatting all the while about who was going to sit where in the theater, when suddenly the elevator started to shake. The ground rumbled, making the building shake with it, though luckily the earthquake wasn't too close, or the elevator would have stopped automatically.
"Earthquake!" they heard Davis shout from down below. The elevator reached the bottom floor, and the kids ran over to where Davis, Cody, TK, Joe, and Matt were hanging out.
Over the noise of the earthquake, Tai yelled "Hey Matt! Whazzup?!"
Matt put his hands together to make a megaphone over his mouth. "It's an earthquake! Probably not even a 3-pointer, but Davis is freaking out."
Davis shoved Matt playfully, and both Matt and TK shoved him back. "Just because I live in Japan doesn't mean I have to like earthquakes!" the boy yelled.
"You'd think you'd get used to them after three years." Joe said, steadying himself with a nearby jeep.
"Hey guys, look at that!" Cody "shouted". Everyone looked at what he was pointing at, and gasped.
"Th-that looks familiar, eh guys?" Tai stuttered. The original digi-destined nodded, and the younger ones looked at them with confusion.
"What are you talking about? You mean you saw this thing before?!" Davis asked, losing his footing and falling to one knee.
"It's a tear in the fabric of space and time." Izzy said. "A dimensional rift to another space-time continuum."
"He means a wormhole." Joe added, which brought understanding to the younger digi-destined.
"Where does it go?" said Yolei above the roar of the wormhole in the sky.
"The only way to find out is to go in it, but I don't suggest doing that until we think about our next step." Izzy yelled.
"Well, there goes our movie date." Kari said as they all ran into the street to get a clearer view.
"D-date?!" Davis stuttered, until finally he followed the others.
****
Ash ran up the rocky path as fast as his legs could carry him. He was quickly followed by Pikachu, who was quickly followed by Misty, who was quickly followed by Brock. The four dashed to the top of the mountain and looked at the full view of the wormhole. The massive blue pool of light in the sky swirled, making it easily visible to just about the entire eastern hemisphere.
"It looks like God flushed the toilet!" Ash yelled.
"Not funny!" Misty yelled back.
"Forget it! What'll we do about it?!" Brock shouted.
"What CAN we do about it?! We can't just go and turn it off!" Ash replied.
"What could be making it?!" yelled Misty.
****
Mewtwo looked up at the swirling portal, and hung his head.
"Damn it Seth. You're going to kill everyone, just for your little science project. Don't you have any morality left in that thick skull of yours?" Mewtwo turned to the computer and focused on the Chronoporting device that Seth had installed in the system. "Computer, acquire targets and match coordinates."
/Scanning...targets acquired. Teleportation ready./
Mewtwo focused his power, and called on the energies within to activate his teleportation power.
"If you won't listen to reason, Seth, then I'll have to show you the error that I made... and I'll put you back in your place."