Chapter Five: Arrival
Lavaridge, ca. 2509
Max sat on the floor beside Molly as she typed slowly on the Pokemon Center's computer. Max watched in irritation as his companion hunted and pecked her way across the keyboard. Finally, Molly sighed with relief as she finished her part of the chapter.
Max yawned loudly, sticking his nose up into the air. "Finally! Nothing happened! Mew created a Relicanth and a Wailord! Wow," he sneered sarcastically, "I bet people wet themselves with excitement."
Molly turned toward Max. "Pffbt," she replied, sticking out her tongue, "you're just mad because no one died. Besides, one of those books Professor Birch was reading said those two pokemon were very important in those ruins and I thought it'd be neat if we included them in our story."
"Who are we going to wake up next?" Max asked, trying hard to ignore this confounding little girl. How could May believe that they liked each other? Eww...
Molly turned back toward the computer. "I think I'll continue about the Legendary Birds. They're very pretty and very strong, too."
Max wiped his nose with his hand. He looked around to make sure Ash, May, and Brock weren't in the lobby where they could hear him. "So, did you see that trailer for the disaster movie? Are you going to go see it? You know, the one where the ocean currents change and everything on Earth goes haywire?"
Molly raised her hand in a "talk to the hand" position, then resumed typing. "Of course not, moron. I already saw one like that, and it had pokemon in it - it was much better. I liked the song they played that fixed the weather. It sounded nice."
Behind the two pre-teens were Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy, sharing a much-deserved break during a lunch hour that should have come two hours earlier had not several emergencies demanded their attention. Jenny liked to come to the Pokemon Center during her breaks. Nurse Joy was so sweet and compassionate, a real empathetic woman who always seemed to say the right things to make you feel better. There had been so much crime lately that Jenny, brushing her long blue hair away from her lavender tea, found herself depending on Joy's good nature more and more often.
Jenny sighed. "It's been bad enough that I've got Magma and Aqua executives running around town, but to have these idiotic Team Rocket members showing up, too- I just don't think the police can handle three crime bosses at one time."
Joy handed Jenny the pitcher of tea. She preferred coffee most of the time, since she had to work double shifts just about every day, but she knew Jenny's work made her stressed out. Caffeine was the last thingJenny needed after a day dealing with organized crime on a small budget. "Still, you should be happy that Team Rocket doesn't have a real base here in Hoenn. They can't seem to operate on the same level as our locals." She paused as Jenny sighed heavily, nearly dropping her teacup from exhaustion. "Besides, you did catch one of them, right?"
Jenny nodded slightly. "We caught the woman at two o'clock this morning. I believe the reports identify her as Jesse, a grunt from Team Rocket, Kanto division."
"You're not sure?" Joy asked. "Aren't they always advertising themselves?"
"That's just it - she has no identification. All three teams have identification, logos on their uniforms, that sort of thing. Even when they go in disguise, they're generally wearing their uniforms underneath. She put up quite a fight, and says she knows nothing about Team Rocket. I'm having a doctor check her, just in case she was involved in some psychic attack that wiped her memories. She looks like the woman in the report - skinny yet athletic, long red hair, an amazing temper - it has to be her."
Pacific Ocean, ca. 2010
Mew surfaced to get some air, having said good-bye to the Relicanth she had created. Mew was learning that her very presence was altering the DNA of any living creature that came into contact with her, and she thought it'd be neat if it weren't so disconcerting. She couldn't yet describe the emotion she felt - it wasn't fear, dread, happiness, justification - she had tried to label her feelings, but the correct identification was just out of reach.
Mew saw a long, heavily-armed ship coming straight for her. Suddenly, a puff of smoke and a flash of light emanated from one of the cannons aboard the aircraft carrier. A thin grey-white missile rushed toward her. Mew threw up a giant pink barrier, then had second thoughts and dove down quickly into the water. The barrier she had erected for protection also carried a comfortable amount of air that would allow her to stay submerged for an hour or two. Then, she heard a large splash...
She looked up and found the missile coming for her through the water, and as she began to swim away she noticed two torpedoes coming for her as well, painted with dark glaring eyes and a red toothy grin. Mew flew through the dark blue water, trying to think of something. She flew past the torpedo on her left, narrowly missing the right incoming weapon. A large explosion burst the barrier and sent Mew sinking rapidly toward the ocean floor. The missile and one of the torpedoes has collided, knocking back the other torpedo. Mew had had the wind knocked out of her, and the worst part was that now she was out of air, too. The momentum of the explosion kept her heading downwards and Mew became terrified that she was going to drown. She didn't have enough time left to resurface and she was too stunned to teleport.
A large current caught Mew and shoved her into a more horizontal trajectory. She could feel darkness coming for her. She looked up as best she could (even though the current had her flipping in somersaults) and saw a blue and white shark with dark eyes and a gold scar on its forehead. It seemed to be just a head and a tailfin, Mew thought. It was coming straight for her.
Suddenly, Mew felt an energizing rush from the current that was sweeping her away toward the unknown. She could feel amino acids churning in the current, forming long chains of DNA that glowed in the heavily-filtered light of the deep ocean. Mew felt herself losing consciousness from the lack of oxygen, resigned that either the ocean or the strange new pokemon she had created accidentally would take her life. She could see that she was being carried to a great light that was forming further along in the current. It kept getting bigger and bigger...
"ooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooooOOooOOOOOOO"
The strange melodic song reverberated in the current, energizing Mew to the extent that she found she once again had the energy to teleport. She appeared high up above the ocean, the salt water from the ocean falling around her from being taken during the teleportation process. Mew stared at the ship on the surface of the churning ocean as she gasped desperately for air. She could see the bright light growing near the ship. The bright blue skies darkened around her as she floated safely out of range. Suddenly, three swirling tornadoes appeared around Mew, and she teleported quickly, avoiding the mile-wide blast of light that burst from the depths of the ocean, overturning the aircraft carrier and shattering the water-colored tornadoes, knocking out a small blue-and-white flying creature with long forearms, and a similar creature, except it was red-and-white. Two giant splashes threatened to sink the ship as the creatures fell back into the ocean.
The United States, ca. 2010
Jacob Running Deer watched the pow-wow celebration. This portion of the festival was reserved for full-blooded Indians, but it might just be canceled due to a violent storm that seemed to come out from nowhere. Jacob looked up as lightning stretched for miles in every direction across clouds that blocked out any sight of the sky.
His father, tonight's storyteller, frowned. "Did you see that" he asked his boy of thirteen. "Do you know what this means?"
Jacob sighed. "It was an airplane, Dad," he muttered.
"It wasn't an airplane, son," the father retorted in a stern tone. "That shadow belonged to a creature feared by my father and his father before him. It is the great Thunderbird Himself, returning from the mountains in the west where the waisichu (white men in Sioux - I think) killed him when they took our lands and stole the buffalo he fed upon to prevent eating us. Now he's back in his homeland, and we're all going to suffer His wrath."
As the singing and dancing hit a climax during the celebration, a tremendous flash illuminated the sky. As Jacob woke up, he found everyone knocked to the ground, having been struck by lightning. He saw in horror as a giant yellow-black bird with a sharp orange beak swept down from the clouds and snatched several unconscious participants, taking them back to the mountains from which it had re-awakened as Zapdos, Titan of Lightning.