Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, or any characters therein (except for Mewduo).

Prologue: Awakening

My office spreads out before me, created to combine form with function, and so far it's done so admirably. Right now, however, it isn't enough to keep me happy. My pet Persian, Kenshin, is taking a nap downtown at my house, and I lack moral support for this unpleasant business. I look at the two teenagers standing across my desk, trying to appear impassive but cringing ever so slightly. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself?" I'm not exactly shouting here, but the blue-haired boy and blond girl flinch nevertheless. I'm an intimidating person. Is that so wrong?

David Newman, better known as Butch, and Cassidy Vale struggle for words for a moment. I wait until Cassidy opens her mouth, then break in. "How many times have I had to bail you out from jail in the past couple of years? I can hardly remember how you two became Captains in the first place. I've waited to do this for far too long!"

"To do what?" Newman sneers. "Bust us back down to Rookie like those morons Jessie and James?"

"They were once Captains too, dear," Cassidy mutters worriedly. "When the Boss gets angry, anything is possible."

"But none of this has been our fault!" Butch mutters back.

"You can't very well say that it's not your fault, seeing as how it's been your plans that have failed!" I break in, startling the partners and not bothering to correct them as to Jessica Miyamoto and James Halen's fate- their dues and expired ID cards built up so that the computers simply wrote them off and they had to rejoin as Rookies. God, life is funny sometimes! "Although, it is true that only after contact with a certain party has many a career... short-circuited." I can't help giggle as rage fills the two faces opposite me, although I can't blame them. When I review botched jobs, a smudgy-faced boy and an electric mouse pop up like a plague. A plague that has infected the media ever since Ashton Ketchum won the Hoenn League competition last month. Not just low-level bunglers, either- by all accounts, he was there when Erik's evolution ray project was destroyed, throwing substantial suspicion on him and all of Silph Enterprises, the beautiful scientific research company behind which the main Team Rocket branch operates. The fact that I, Jason Caligula Giovanni, Silph's illustrious CEO, have repeatedly bailed known criminals out of jail, doesn't help matters- otherwise, I would have bailed Carl Tyson and his squad by now. "Certainly Miyamoto and Halen's downward spiral only began after they began this misguided Pikachu vendetta. It seems to me that your records might all improve if you avoided this problem- and stopped this ridiculous infighting."

"What are you talking about?" Cassidy inquires.

The bad part is over. Now I just spring Plan A on these funny fellows. "You will get together with Jessica and James- they are currently on an assignment in Hoenn and form a task force to develop a plan to remove this pest Ketchum. Although others have aided him in the past, he appears to be the focal point for it all. Once he is taken care of, the opposition that he has led will fall apart."

"Work with those fools?" Butch practically screams. "Never!"

Okay, I'm the boss here, I'm not putting up with this crap!

"This is what I'm talking about!" I shout, leaping up from my chair. "This sort of thing has got to stop if you want to get your good reputations back!" I stop; they're halfway across the room. "Now, get going. The sooner you... Rookies get this done, the sooner you'll be back on top." They back slowly towards the stairs. I buzz-wave like Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element, and they turn around and scurry away.

I wait for a few minutes then follow their path down to the opulent lounge beneath and into the large circular elevator in the center. A secret card key opens a certain panel in the woodwork, and the button there sends me about halfway down to the lower stop- Erik's office.

The Silph tower is shaped like a cone without a point because the point sticks into a giant globe at the top. Just below this point is Erik's office. My office is the upper hemisphere of the globe, and the lounge takes up a bit of the space below. I decided to fill the rest of the space and smuggled scaffolding and all sorts of equipment into this room piece by piece after forging my own elevator door within, through which no other has ever gone. Besides the essentials, only a small part of the equipment, down near the floor, is currently lit up. I hurry down some stairs towards it.

For some time now, ever since that freaky night I found myself on an airfield with company Head of Security Domino, my heliship (the Spartacus), and the entire Combat Unit, with no idea how in the hell we'd gotten there, I have been plagued with the thought that I have tried and failed at something, and I have to try again. It's led me to immerse myself in genetic research and find the last remnant of a creature long dead, then enhance it. Now I see the result before me in a tank full of bubbly red liquid surrounded by computer banks.

I push a button. The wires attached to the dark hunched mass in the tank disengage and retract, the liquid drains, and the glass slides out of sight. The creature fully stands, almost as tall as I am. A biped covered entirely in white fur except for its lower torso and a long tail that show bluish brown skin. Two huge feet with peculiar balls set into the heels. Two bony arms with tri-fingered hands, each finger having another ball set into the end. Armorlike plates, also covered with fur, on its chest. A head with slanted eyes that now open, a barely visible mouth, and stubby ears that give it a vaguely feline appearance. All programmed to be loyal to no end, barely self-aware, christened in the ancient mother tongue.

"What is your name?" I demand.

A deep voice fills the air. "Mewduo..."

"And whom do you serve?"

"The lord of all that he surveys: Jason Caligula Giovanni..."

Kanto Mew Mew

Fit One: Operation Grounding String

It was an early summer's eve, and Ash Ketchum was restless.

He hadn't been back in Pallet Town long after his triumphant return from Hoenn, but even without outside stimuli, the trainer-adventurer blood within him would scream for a new quest. And outside stimuli were running rampant, telling him that there was a quest for him. Over the past couple of weeks on his way back, he had heard of numerous capers across the countryside that the police seemed unable to stop. Team Rocket's up to it again, he could sense. It was little consolation that the bumbling crooks had not pestered him since before the tournament- especially since that meant they were too far away for him to intervene. Not that he'd cared about distance, but May, Max, Brock, Misty (who had rejoined the group at the start of the Hoenn League competition), and the Pikachu now perched on his shoulder had given him a sense of proportion.

So now he was here, continually hearing of the devastation continually being wrought where he continually wasn't.- Except he hadn't heard anything about it during the last few days. Weird.

"Pika, pikachu ka," the electric mouse said, sensing his uneasy thoughts. Ash turned his head and smiled. "Yeah, I guess no news is good news in this case." But he still couldn't help but wonder...

"Ash! Oh, Ash!" There was his mom again, calling out for him for dinner. "Well, you can't think on an empty stomach," the young adventurer said to his rodent pal, who leapt from its perch and ran alongside Ash down to the cabin, unaware that five pairs of eyes were watching them steadily.

"There goes the twerp again," Jessie Miyamoto, devious yet bumbling Rookie Rocket (B-Level in official terms) noted. "Can't he just wander off so we can grab him and get this thing over with?"

"Guess he's famished," said her blue-haired partner, James Halen, having heard Delia Ketchum's call. "So am I, for that matter," he suddenly moaned. "Can't we just crash the party down there and grab some ch-OWW!"

"Why can't you tink wi' your head for once instead of your stomach?" screamed the talking scratch-cat Pokemon, Meowth, as he applied a Fury Swipes to James's face. "We gots a better chance o' success if he an' dat Pikachu are all alone, remembah? Da boss gave orders dat we hold our fire until we got 'em trapped, far from help... isn't dat right?" he asked, with a suspicious look at his group's temporary allies.

Cassidy Vale grinned. "Exactly. And we have a better chance of doing that if you keep it down, you furball," grabbing Meowth's forehead charm to restrain him.

"Ack, sorry, I just got carried away by da moment, dat's all. To tink we're finally gonna carry da day against dat twerp, and Pikachu'll be ours!"

"Heh, we could've done that ages ago," rasped Butch Newman.

"I don't recall you having any more luck against those kids that we did." James giggled at the memory of his rivals' numerous downfalls. "I certainly notice you're not wearing your fancy Elite uniforms anymore." Butch and Cassidy had traded in their customary uniforms for ones that looked more like J&J's custom-made ones but were black instead of white.

"Well, most of the time, you were helping them, you morons!" Butch shot back.

"You boys can argue later," Jessie interrupted. "We need to keep watch." And so the crooks settled back down... and waited... to put Operation Grounding String into action.

Ash's nerves still hadn't calmed down after dinner, so he decided to work off his adrenaline with a training session. He headed out beneath the moonlight that had already started to shine, Pikachu tagging along behind him, to the area where he had trained for the Indigo League two years before. Had it really been that long? And it had been another year earlier that he had first started his Pokemon journey, and met Misty, Pikachu, and Brock. How time flies... hey... how come I thought of Misty first just now, even before Pikachu? Weird... He shook his head quickly and let Pikachu jump onto his shoulder, then walked along, humming a little walking tune he'd picked up a few week back- much to the chagrin of the others, as he was somewhat lacking in vocal ability. But now, screw them, he could sing to himself if he wanted to. "I was walkin'... I was talkin'... I was talkin' to myself last nAARGH!"

His whimsical ditty was cut short by the ground beneath him giving way, and the subsequent pains of landing flat on one's back on hard underground. "Oh, not this... not now..." As if on cue, a hyperannoying poem materialized from above.

"Prepare for trouble!"

"And make it double!"

"To protect the world from devastation..."

"To unite all peoples within our nation..."

"To denounce the evils of truth and love..."

"To extend our each to the stars above!"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Wo-ob-buf-fet!"

"Oh, for the love of Ho-oh..."

But the torment wasn't done yet...

"Prepare for trouble..."

"And make it double..."

"To infect the world with devastation..."

"To blight all peoples within our nation."

"To announce the goods of truth and love..."

"To extend our wrath to the stars above!"

"Cassidy!"

"Butch!"

"We're Team Rocket, circling Earth each day and night!"

"Surrender now or you shall surely lose the fight!"

"Not you two too!" Ash had gotten over the initial shock of his disrupted walk and was now just mad. "What do you think you're doing, coming here?... And since when do you four get along?"

"FIVE! Don't forget me-owth!" The feline wisecracker piped up.

"The same as always, little twerp." Jessie grinned down into the pit. "We want that powerful little Pikachu of yours- and this time were getting it for sure!"

"That's what you always say- and how come you've teamed up all of a sudden?"

"Doesn't a girl have a right to change her mind?" Cassidy elbowed Jessie aside. "Plus we've decided to put an ultimate end to these little annoyances of yours.-" The blond Rocket girl was displaced again by the redhead. "Hey, this is my speech!" "You talk too much as is!" "MEEEOWWWTH!" Meowth deployed his Fury Swipes once again to break up the argument as Butch stepped forward, grinning at his trapped foes and pulling out a Pokeball. "I think it's time for Operation Grounding String to begin... Onix, I choose you!" The giant rock snake appeared in a flash of red light. "Earthquake attack!"

The Onix dived at Ash and Pikachu. The boy grabbed his Pokemon under one arm and rolled up against the side of the pit so Onix missed, then grabbed onto the giant Pokemon, climbing up it as it dug itself into the ground. What do they think I am, a fish in a barrel? he thought. I'll

show them...

"Totodile, I choose you!" Ash called, releasing the crocodile Pokemon, one of several he had retrieved from Professor Oak upon his return. "Water Gun now!" "Dile!" The stream of spray struck the rock snake, knocking it back. Suddenly, Ash felt a sharp tug around his waist, and turned to see a Fearow and Wingull rip his Pokeball belt off with their beaks. "Oh, crap..."

"Pii-kaa-CHUUUUU!" The electric mouse leaped into the air to retrieve his friend's Pokemon, releasing a stupendous Thunder attack. Only it wouldn't work. "Wobbuffet, Mirror Coat!" screamed Jessie to the blue blob that had suddenly slithered up the Onix and leaped in front of Pikachu, who suddenly fell 15 feet to the ground, fried by his own attack.

Oh, no... Now Totodile was all Ash had left, and though he knew it could take a lot, it was too much to hope that it could take care of all of this task force, as Onix, Fearow, Wingull, and Meowth all moved in. Cacnea and Seviper appeared in twin flashes of scarlet light and joined. Even Wobbuffet stood by, ready to help. Unable to call Totodile to safety, since its Pokeball was with all of the others, he could only watch helplessly while trying to get to the ground. His only hope now was to fight his way out of this mess himself and get to the others. Geez, Misty's never gonna let me live this down...

As a Body Slam from Onix finally sent the weakened croc into dreamland, Ash hopped to the dirt and turned to run- but instead found himself face to face with a grinning Butch. Aw, this guy is worse than Jason Voorhees! Ash groaned inwardly. And true to form, he was holding some... thing pointed at Ash. Some thing that suddenly sprayed a blue mist at him. Ash was perhaps not the brightest bulb on the tree, but even he knew this stuff when he saw it. Sleep Powder! Oh my... oh... oh n- His panicked thoughts suddenly gave way to a yawn as he collapsed, the world spinning 'round him, certain he heard wicked laughter coming from every direction...

The moonlight that had seen Ash and Pikachu off on their ill-fated training also gleamed off of the larger buildings, not at all tall enough to be called "skyscrapers", of Viridian City, illuminating a solitary figure perched on one of them. Mewtwo sighed. All of this time since that misguided venture on New Island, since his confrontation with Giovanni in Purity Canyon, and he didn't know what the hell to do with his life. The only thing he knew for sure was that this wasn't it.

How humans and Pokemon are able to coexist so peacefully, despite being so different... he wondered, doing his maudlin thing. Why is it that I cannot find that balance? He turned away from his view to think- and saw himself staring back at him. "Who- what are you?" he asked in his psychic voice.

"I... am... Mewduo..." the doppleganger feline replied, in a tone that seemed to Mewtwo devoid of any real consciousness or autonomy. "My master... has sent me... to search for elements that can be... useful to him. You... seem like me, and therefore powerful... You shall come to him."

"And what if I do not want to do so?" Mewtwo shot back, somehow aware that the only person unbalanced enough to create this thing was the one he had already escaped.

"Then... I will make you..." The other clone seemed to grin, despite its lack of anything remotely resembling a mouth- and was rudely interrupted by a crackling energy ball that crashed into it. "Resistance... is... futile..." It pulled back, then blasted a Hyper Beam at Mewtwo, who barely dodged as the beam instead hit the roof of the fortunately abandoned tower.

"Two can play at that game, copycat," Mewtwo snarled, sending out his own Hyper Beam, which zapped Mewduo, enervated from its powerful attack, straight-on. As Mewtwo kept up the pulsing beam, his foe started to glow with bluish energy, so he could only see its silhouette. A silhouette that suddenly underwent mitosis. Mewtwo stopped the attack in shock.

Mewduo still floated there, singed, but mostly simply as confused as his double. The reason for this confusion was there next to him. Something floated there that resembled the two combatants, but seemed a head taller (although height was hard to judge when you were floating more than your own height off the ground anyway) and had a sharp thing that looked like a stinger on the end of its tail. The thing looked around, then announced, "I am Mewtres."

Mewduo replied, "The master... shall find you... interesting..." and turned towards it, glowing slightly- obviously, it was not going to make the same mistake as it had with Mewtwo. The blast came so suddenly that Mewduo never had a chance, blown into the top of another building by a Hyper Beam.

Mewtwo practically screamed, "How DARE you! He didn't DO anything yet!" Not bothering to see if Mewduo had survived, he flew towards the new arrival- then came to a screeching halt, surrounded by black light if that makes any sense;; this Mewtres had powers beyond even Mewtwo's comprehension. The freakish cloned clone hovered over to his rival- then his tail arched up and over, Mewtwo realizing that the thing that resembled a stinger was exactly that a split second before it sent him into unconsciousness.

Mewtres watched his defeated opponent's body fall onto the roof. It looked around for a moment- then flew off, in search of something else to do.

End Fit One