Chapter 17
Joasia stood still staring down her sparring partner who stood across the clearing in the middle of the leafy green forest upon the mountainside. The short, tan coloured creature looked back with its jet black eyes.
"Begin," Mewtwo stated in a dry manner.
Joasia decided to wait for her opponent to come to her to attack, which in her mind, was a good tactic. The sandshrew just stood there, presumably waiting for the same to happen. After 15 seconds of this awkward stalemate, Ubui shrugged his shoulders and advanced. The sandshrew broke into a sprint, although its rotundness limited its speed as it came towards the tall, upright being with a dark-pink coloured tail and underbelly.
"I wonder what kinds of attacks he uses…" Joasia thought to herself.
Her mental thought was answered soon enough as Ubui launched an attack consisting of rolling into a ball and coming towards her at great speed. Joasia sidestepped and avoided the attack as Ubui rolled past. Ubui ceased rolling and stood up slowly. Joasia decided to take a shot on the offensive and charged up a shadow ball.
As Ubui came back toward her, she launched the ball at the sandshrew and waited for the inevitable impact. The ball never collided with Ubui as he rolled right and the ball shot past, crashing into a tree on the other side of the clearing, causing it to fall. The resulting crash echoed through the clearing as all spectators and combatants alike turned their heads.
The moment of quiet soon ended as the combatants once again faced charged forward with surprising precision of movement whilst Joasia charged up another shadow ball as it was the only attack she had perfected over the past few days.
Ubui feinted left and Joasia launched the dark ball of energy as it crackled through the air like a bowl of rice bubbles in milk. Ubui's trick paid off as the feint he had done successfully tricked his opponent and he sharply darted right. The ball of energy flew past and collided with the ground where Ubui had been a moment earlier and exploded with a loud boom that echoed through the clearing.
Ubui used the moment of shock that dawned on his opponents face at her being tricked and rolled into a tight ball, launching into the air and colliding with her chest as he flew through the air. Joasia was knocked backwards onto the ground with a dull thud as the impact occurred.
Ubui uncurled and landed on his feet in a spectacular display of skill whilst his sparring opponent struggled to hers. Joasia glared at Ubui with increasing frustration appearing on her face. Joasia charged up yet another shadow ball to fling at the advancing sandshrew.
She launched the ball forwards with more speed and precision and it nearly hit Ubui as it impacted the ground, exploding and sending the small sandshrew flying through the air.
The sandshrew impacted with the grassy ground, leaving an Ubui sized imprint of squashed grass in his wake. Ubui stood up; imaginary staryu's flying in circles around his head.
Joasia ceased the moment of opportunity as her opponent was stunned and sent another shadow ball in his direction, but Ubui shook the dizziness from his head and rolled to avoid the incoming projectile. The ball exploded and scorched the grass where it had impacted due to the intense release of energy. Ubui ran towards Joasia in another attack sequence as Joasia attempted to stop him by swinging her tail at him. Ubui simply did a jump over her tail and tackled the much larger being to the ground, finishing by sitting on her chest, attempting to keep her on the ground.
"Ubui wins," Mewtwo stated as Ubui stood up.
"But I was going to fight back!" Joasia said with a look of disappointment on her face.
"I have seen enough, you are clearly not well trained enough yet as a much smaller and less powerful opponent was able to defeat you." Mewtwo returned with a disapproving scowl.
Joasia simply huffed in annoyance at this and walked away, no doubt thinking angered thoughts about Mewtwo.
"Watch your language please, Joasia, I have no idea where you learned such words, and it's unbecoming of you." Mew cut in out of nowhere.
"Stop reading my thoughts Mew! You hear the key word? MYthoughts, give me some privacy for goodness sake!" Joasia telepathically broadcasted back angrily as she continued walking away.
Ubui, Mateusz and Lifyra simply stared after her whilst Mew sighed and Mewtwo turned in the other direction to do some undescribed task.
Lifyra soon piped up with a question, "So Mew can just read our thoughts whenever he wants?"
"Not mine, but yours and Ubui's he can, and Mewtwo can do it too," Mateusz said with a smile.
"What? Why can't he read your thoughts then?" Lifyra inquired.
"Because I have special abilities, remember?" Mateusz returned, raising an eyebrow at the memory loss of the quilava.
"Yeah, I do remember, but you didn't mention that one of those abilities was that they couldn't read your mind," Lifyra whined.
"Hm, okay," Mateusz replied as he turned and walked in the direction Joasia had gone in...
"Sir, we have almost finished searching the forest for the escaped weapon, we only have 50 square kilometres left to search and we haven't found it yet," a Team Rocket grunt said to Giovanni via radio.
"Good progress captain, keep searching until we find it. If we don't re-capture it, our whole plan could be put at risk," Giovanni pushed the talk button and replied.
"Aye sir," the grunt said before hanging up the radio that connected straight to Giovanni's office.
Plans had been proceeding as usual and they hoped to have the weapon finished within 2 months. And when they had done that, the escaped experiments would have no effect on Team Rocket's dominion of the planet.
Giovanni sighed as he looked out the window of his office. His cousin had been killed recently, and he suspected that something was up that he just had to get to the bottom of. He just had to get revenge on the person who had done this.
He had sent squads of grunts to the town where his cousin had been killed, and they had razed the town to the ground after looting it and looking for suspects. They found that no one in the town had a weapon of any kind but just to set a grisly example, had five people executed in the streets and left their bloodied bodies lying there.
By the time security forces from a nearby town had arrived, the town was burnt out and Team Rocket was long gone. Team Rocket was a menace in the region and always left death and destruction in their wake, an idea of Giovanni's evil mind to enforce fear and power in the region, and it was super effective…
"Hey Joasia, wait up! What's the matter?" Mateusz called through the trees as he searched for Joasia.
"Go away, I don't want to talk to anyone right now," an upset voice sounded in his head.
"Come on, I just want to know why you're upset," Mateusz yelled again as he continued his search for the female mewtwo.
Mateusz spotted Joasia about forty metres away through the trees, sitting on a rock. He slowly approached and found that Joasia was looking rather glum.
"What's going on, why did you storm off like that?" Mateusz inquired as he gently drilled Joasia's amethyst eyes with his green ones.
"I'm upset because Mewtwo was treating me like I was useless," Joasia said in a sad tone as she looked back into Mateusz's stare.
"He didn't say you were useless, did he?" Mateusz cocked his head to one side.
"He acted like it when he gave me that disapproving scowl and said a less powerful opponent was able to defeat me," Joasia said back, tears beginning to form.
"Oh, I see. I think he just wants you to get better at fighting. I don't think he actually means that you're useless, he just wants you to set the bar higher you know, push yourself. Now please cheer up. It's not healthy to be sad like that," Mateusz said in a gentle tone so as not to make the sensitive mewtwo sadder.
"You think that's what he meant?" Joasia asked with a sniffle.
"Yeah, I'm certain that is what he meant; he thinks you're not trying hard enough, not enough dedication to learning," Mateusz replied her, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"Okay, I think I'm good now, thank you," Joasia wiped her watery eyes with her forearm.
"Are you going to come back now? Or do you want to stay here for a while?" Mateusz asked as he turned to leave.
"I'll come back with you; can you please help me up?" Joasia extended her hand.
"Yeah, sure," Mateusz said as he grabbed the extended appendage and helped her up off of the rock she sat on.
The pair walked through the forest trees towards the clearing where Mew, Lifyra and Ubui awaited. When they came into the clearing, Mew was having a sparring match with Ubui and Lifyra on a team against him. The battle appeared to be almost over with Lifyra and Ubui looking exhausted, whilst Mew looked as energetic as ever.
Mew unleashed a large wave of psychic energy which impacted with Lifyra and Ubui, causing them to collapse to the ground.
"Yay, I won!" Mew triumphantly did a backwards somersault in mid-air.
Ubui and Lifyra simply nodded their heads in reply as they panted heavily from the exhaustion of the battle. Mew floated over to Mateusz and Joasia with a huge smile on his face.
"Did you see me win?!" he asked excitedly like a child.
"Yes, Mew, we saw it," Joasia told him.
"I see you've calmed down from earlier on Joasia, you seem less upset," Mew said to her.
"Yeah, Mateusz helped me feel better, I was rather upset with Mewtwo," Joasia responded with a genuine smile on her face.
"Well good to know then." Mew said before floating off toward Ubui and Lifyra and asking, "You guys 'kay?"
"Yeah, we're good, just worn out," Lifyra replied, still panting but not as intensely as before.
Ubui simply put a paw up to signify he was fine. Mew nodded and floated back towards Mateusz and Joasia.
"Mewtwo is going to be back soon, and when he is, he'll give you instructions on what you guys are doing tomorrow," Mew said to Mateusz, referring to the expedition to a Team Rocket base they were partaking the next day.
Sure enough, as Mew spoke to Mateusz, Mewtwo floated through the trees on the other side of the clearing, looking as serious as ever. He landed in front of Mateusz and faced him.
"Tomorrow we will go the Team Rocket base I spoke of, it is 30km away and has at least 3 squads of Team Rocket grunts patrolling and defending it, so we will need to be careful when we go there for if they see you, I cannot guarantee your safety, or your return to this place. The base is a fully functioning headquarters for the district and is much larger than that outpost we raided the other day. I will help you break in and you will access their databases as I need some information on their plans for the next few months, and they may have some data on that creature that was mentioned at the Onosuki Initiative's base. Do you understand the risks Mateusz? I do not want you consenting to this without knowing of the dangers involved." Mewtwo divulged.
"Yes, I understand that, I will arm myself so I can protect myself." Mateusz confirmed.
"Good, we shall leave at dawn tomorrow, I will wake you up, so don't worry about not waking up in time." Mewtwo notified Mateusz…
