I stomped the sand with my boot and noticed how warm it is. How warm the water is… Maybe it`s because the goddamn drought is unstoppably burning us for some days in a row? I heard some strange rumors that have no sense and no actual explanation. I just hope it ends soon, I prefer cool weather more.
Some days passed since our victory at Cinnabar gym, and all this time I was thinking. I was thinking a lot… How can I solve problems of my partner pokemon? How can I solve my problems? Where the heck does this life lead me? And what`s the most important – where should I lead myself?
That changed until I got a signal from Bill, stating that he got our small bug working perfectly. Now we have the next possible location of Team Rocket and, maybe, Giovanni. The last trace leads back to Viridian City. So there`re now more reasons for me to go back.
And that`s exactly why I`m here… At the sandy beach of Cinnabar Island, on its north side near the Route 21 that can lead me straight to Pallet Town. I wanted to visit professor Oak, wished to give him a present… Maybe I really should do it.
But before leaving, I have to solve one big problem.
For that I released my whole team outside… except for Harry.
"Okay, guys, there is one problem… And I need your help." I asked them seriously. "Harry is in bad state now… Things went really harsh on him."
My gang began to hum, considering the deal. They know Harry and know how serious things can get.
"So I need you to help him too in a moment of need. Whatever happens now… Do not attack, understand?!"
They all humbly bowed, accepting this, even Lei Sheng.
"Okay… Here we go." I said to myself and took a scratched pokeball in my hand. I haven`t released my Victreebel since that moment in mansion. Things may be really bad.
I carefully released him outside and made a step back. Harry twitched and straightened, stretching after so long time in pokeball. Then he raised his eyesight on me.
"I know you are angry…" I tried to begin my speech, but he interrupted me with loud cry. All other pokemon tensed, but stayed motionless. "I failed you. But we can`t stop now, we can`t let them win! Giovanni is still free, and still has the power to continue his work!"
Harry stared at me with eyes full of blood and… tears at the same time. The feelings tear him apart from inside, and that really hurts. Seeing this hurts me even more.
"I gave you the choice earlier… And I give it to you again. If you hate me now, you`re free to leave. But remember about Team Rocket. If we won`t stop them, even more pokemon may get hurt. As for me… I`m going to find Giovanni and put an end to all his efforts anyway."
Victreebel made a deep sigh and looked down. He understands that I lie to him - I give him a choice that doesn`t exist. He has no choice. He HAS to stop Giovanni from destroying even more pokemon. He HAS to finish off Team Rocket. He HAS to stay with me for all this. So he growled displeased… but agreed.
And then I sighed deeply with relief.
"Thank you. I promise, we will find Giovanni. And we will take revenge for all he have done." I seriously said to Harry, giving him one last argument. Revenge. Maybe, now he DOES look like me, both by appearance and destiny.
I got up and looked around. Looked at my team. All of us are so different, pursue different goals. But all of us are united by our destiny. Maybe, these guys would never have the adventures they had with me, never saw the horrors we had to come through… But if Team Rocket wished to create an ultimate pokemon… Then this would touch EVERYONE in Kanto. And until Giovanni is alive, the threat still exists.
"I`m glad that you`re all here, guys." I sincerely said to my gang. "I could not do this far without you."
My gang gladly roared, really happy to be with me too. Well, maybe there IS some special emotional connection to people and pokemon.
"Ah, how cute!" Suddenly Douchebag`s voice reached me from behind. All of us turned back to see him with his Quartz. This sight made my Dumpling quietly growl at his old rival, which caused the same reaction from Blastoise. "Just kiss each other already!"
"Why are you still here?" I rudely asked him. "I know you were listening to me and Jane that day. You know that Viridian gym is opened now…"
"I had to do some trainings…" He obviously lied. "But now we`re going back home and then – to Viridian City! And we will reach Pallet Town first!"
I silently returned all my pokemon except for Dumpling, and then quickly got on top of him.
"The first to the last, loser!" I grinned, replying to him. "Here`s some nutritious sand for you!"
Dumpling literally read my mind and flew up, flapping his wings so quickly the large cloud of sand and dirt covered the whole beach, and Douchebag with Quartz too.
"Cough… cough… Hydro Pump them, Quartz!" He tried to shoot us down.
"Not gonna happen!" I tapped Dumpling`s shoulder, and he accelerated into the sky, easily dodging the dangerous attack and reaching the height where they can`t get us. Two douchebags remained there on beach…
The worst thing when flying your pokemon too often – you get used to it. You don`t feel this excitement like the first time. And if you`re flying a fire-type pokemon in extremely hot weather, letting the red-hot wind burn your face – the excitement fades completely. So I even asked Dumpling to throw me down the water a couple of time just not to turn into a steak in greatcoat.
It became a bit better when evening came, but not much. It`s still surprisingly hot even now! Damn, this year`s winter is hotter than last summer…
But I managed to survive this and finally reach Pallet Town. Familiar places, familiar faces… I wonder is Oak in lab now? It`s not that late.
We landed near the entrance to laboratory and approached the entrance. Suddenly, the door opened by itself before me, and the old man came to see us.
"Hello there, young man!" He gladly greeted me. "And look who is here!" Oak switched to Charizard behind me. "You sure grew up since our last meeting."
Dumpling confusedly looked at the professor then - at me and growled questionably, like asking "who the heck this man is".
"Hey, it`s the professor that took care of you before me, don`t you remember?" I reminded him this a bit. Judging by his another confused growl, he doesn`t.
"Ugh, that`s what you get for your kindness!" Professor grumbled. "You take care of them, prepare for a journey, and they just forget you! Ah, pokemon kids these days…"
Then suddenly a quiet bark sounded somewhere down. I looked there and saw MEE-Three, joyfully sitting there and staring at me. Something changed in him now… Well, he grew up a bit and… now he`s closer to silver color than brown. How curious.
"Hey there, MEE-Three! How are you doing?" I asked the little cute pokemon.
"He is fine." Professor Oak answered for his pet. "Each day uncovers new powers and… this messes with my researches quite a lot. By the way, I named him Mithry now."
"That sounds like a good name." I nodded in agreement. "I was going to Viridian for my last gym battle and decided to visit you. I want to talk a bit. Maybe, we come in?"
"Well… I`m closing the lab now, so if you have time – you may accompany me home." He made an offer.
"Um… may I place dangerous things to show you there?" I made a small hint for him to think. He firstly fell into a stupor for some time, but then realized that I have found something really interesting during my journey, and that interested him too.
"I have one specific place there." He nodded, excited from the surprise I prepared for him. "I`ll be ready in a minute."
So he disappeared in corridor of his lab with Mithry, leaving me and Dumpling waiting outside.
"Hey, big guy!" I addressed my pokemon. "Want to have some rest in a comfortable pokeball? A flight was damn long."
Dumpling nodded tiredly in agreement, accepting my offer. I knew he needs some rest and returned him inside. This evening will be all about some other pokemon.
And now I returned back into Oak`s house. It changed a bit since I was there last time. As Douchebag went travelling, professor had the building all for himself. But some places looked like needed the force repair.
"Come in, please. A cup of tea?" The host asked me politely. This reminded me of exact day when I came to Douchebag with a bite. Professor may be old and grumpy, but at least he has manners.
"Yes, please." I took the exact same place on couch I did that day and patiently waited for Oak to prepare a tea for us. Pretty soon Mithry appeared, jumped on my knees and curled to sleep.
"Well, Mithry seems to like you." Professor Oak commented this while putting the tray with teacups on table.
"Meh, this guy is too cute for me." I answered and grabbed a cup to drink.
"So, what so special you wanted me to tell? To show?" The old man went straight to the most interesting part.
"Yeah… There are very much things to tell. Good and… not very good." I prepared myself for telling about loss of PokeDex. "You may not believe me… but I encountered a legendary pokemon Articuno!"
"Hmm…" Professor made a sip, mumbling like he is not surprised. "I think that is possible. You are… definitely the type that likes to crawl in dangerous places. I heard one or two things about you …"
"And… I lost your PokeDex in his cave." I admitted and closed my eyes, preparing for the worst.
"Ah! That`s why I lost the signal in Seafoam Islands." Professor calmly replied, suddenly making ME really worried.
"A signal?" I asked him again.
"Yeah, I can track any of my PokeDexes easily. Yours disappeared somewhere in the place that newspaper told to be Articuno`s nest." He explained the thing.
"You could track PokeDexes?!" I felt really pissed off. "Why didn`t you tell me?"
"What for? That is confidential information, and Bill also installed a protective software when…"
"Bill installed it?" I suddenly remembered the day Bill offered me to update my PokeDex. I just thought he updates the pokemon database, but he also installed a tracking device and something else! Thank Arceus I got rid of this shit.
"Why are you so worried? You are not wanted globally, are you?"
"Well… No, I am not." I calmed a bit. But I`m still going to have a talk with Bill later.
"Then you should be worried about other thing. You met the legendary pokemon!" Oak returned the topic back to positive mood. "Not much people had the chance to do it. Even less – survived the encounter…"
"What do you mean?"
"Legendary pokemon are considered really dangerous because of their extreme power, not controlled by anything. But they live in peace on faraway islands, not bothered by stupid human. Otherwise it could end in a disaster."
Professor`s words sound very trustful. He is right – it was stupid to look for a legendary pokemon and fight him. I could easily die and get my pokemon killed too. I was just too carried away by our rivalry with Douchebag.
"And there is one more thing." I put the now empty cup back on tray and pulled a capsule of my pocket. The one with crazy coloring ad even crazier containment.
"What is it?" Professor asked, really interested.
"Where is your place for dangerous things?" I carefully asked, giving him a hint. He understood that, nodded and stood up.
"Follow me."
We headed to the basement that professor turned into a home laboratory. It has a small room fully covered with metal plates.
"Is it big enough?" He asked me pointing at that space.
"More than enough." I took the pokeball and released the creature inside. A formless energy turned into a formless pool of pink slime. I expected to see some disgust on professor`s face, but there was none. He was very into it.
"Oh my god… What is this?" He carefully approached the creature and observed it. Ditto got a bit up and stared at old man with his beady eyes.
"It is a Ditto. A secret experiment of Team Rocket… Failed experiment."
"How interesting…" Professor made a circle around the pokemon and then dared to come closer. "What type is it? What can it do?"
I looked back to notice Mithry patiently waiting for the permission to come in. I carefully grabbed him and placed into the room before Ditto. Professor gave me a serious look, but then returned to observation again.
Two pokemon looked at each other, but didn`t have courage to come closer. But then Ditto suddenly began to shine brightly and deformed into Mithry.
"Oh my god!" Professor Oak exclaimed in shock.
"Yes. They can turn into other pokemon. Any pokemon, as far as I know." I proudly crossed my hands on chest.
"Fascinating… Can they attack too?"
"Again, as far as I know, they also copy moves too. But… they are not very clever to execute commands. And not as strong as the originals they copy." I shortly described the magnificent abilities of the transform pokemon. "Did you hear about recent events on Cinnabar Island?"
"Oh, that was them?" Old man exclaimed again, being too excited about the mutated pokemon invasion on the city. "All I know is just the herd of wild pokemon escaping the flames from Pokemon Mansion."
"O-o-h, you can`t even imagine what the full story is." I smiled cunningly. "I want to leave this guy here, with you. For science! They don`t even seem to have problems with being dissected… I think."
"No, I don`t do such things. I specialize in pokemon physiology and behavior." He explained. "But even so this can be a very interesting thing to observe. Maybe I can discover something really interesting for the Pokemon Science Conference next year."
Professor Oak retreated back from the fake Eevee and took a notebook from nearby table to write something in it.
"Good job, my boy, I can even forgive that you lost the rare and expensive device of mine." He praised me while writing. "This indeed a new specie. Maybe I can even fit it into my classification instead of the one kind that extinct recently."
"You may be interested in one more thing…" I mysteriously said, taking out my diary with a list of paper where I draw the statue from Pokemon mansion. "Ditto was created as a failed experiment of Team Rocket trying to clone… this pokemon."
Professor grabbed the paper with real interested and inspected it. His face changed some times, stating the chaotic stream of his thoughts.
"I have never seen this pokemon." He finally exclaimed. "What is it?"
"I have no idea. Pokemon Mansion had statues of this pokemon, and for some reason I thought this will be interesting for you. Their diaries said about finding a pokemon named Mew…"
"Mew?!" This single word shocked professor to the extreme. He rushed to me and stared in my eyes, seriously demanding to hear the truth. "Are you sure?"
"Well, yes. I have read their papers that survived the fire…"
Professor made a step back and looked away. For some reason my story involving Mew affected him very much.
"Mew… It is a pokemon from old myth. A specie that has DNA of all other pokemon in its own." Old man was mumbling quietly. "No one ever saw Mew… So no one ever believed it existed. And you tell me… Team Rocket found it?"
"According to their diaries, yes." I nodded positively, a bit confused by such reaction of professor.
"And this… Ditto is a result of cloning Mew?"
"Yeah. A failed one." I approved again.
For some time professor stared at the creepy slime thing crawling around his leg. Then he began to look at my paper to compare it to Ditto.
"There is nothing common between these two." He said to me after the check.
"Well, I can`t tell much… Maybe, there IS something that we just don`t see right now." I said and gave a closer look to my drawing and Ditto too. "But I`m pretty sure that those statues had a meaning. Even if they do not depict Mew himself… They were very new. They may depict the pokemon they managed to create… Mewtwo."
Professor looked closely at my drawing one more time.
"I have never seen Mew and never actually believed it to exist. But, maybe, I can contact some other regional professors and ask them a couple of questions." He was thinking out loud.
"If this helps you – Rocket have found Mew… somewhere near Unova." I remembered a thing to help him.
"Then I should contact my old pal Cedric about it." Professor commented, already making plans for his research. "Then I could check Ditto`s DNA and… well… I don`t know. Maybe this may finally prove that Mew exists! I may have not just one, but TWO projects to show on the conference next year!"
"That is great!" I felt for some reason happy that this old man has so strong goals in his life. Really cool goals that I have helped him a bit. Too bad I have my own goals now. And problems that I need to deal with, really badly. "So… may I ask some help of you?" I timidly switched the topic. "I have some pokemon with… problems. Regular PokeCenter checks don`t seem to help, so I would like to ask a professional."
"Oh, stop it! My granddad was a professional, I`m still learning… even in my sixties." Professor waved away and placed a plate of something edible before Ditto. "But let`s see at your pokemon. Follow me."
Again, he took a lead. We have left Ditto in the basement and headed outside the house, to the small field that looked like…
"…a battlefield?" I asked confusingly. "Why do you need your own?"
"Well, sometimes the best way to understand the problems of pokemon is to watch their battle. This will also help me in my observation too." Professor Oak explained slowly and looked at the silver Eevee near his leg.
"Battling with Mithry?" I carefully asked.
"Yes. I needed someone to challenge for a long time… Mithry did a good job practicing moves he naturally cannot know… on my doors and bookshelves." He gave a strict look to cheerful and happy Mithry that, obviously, made some fires in the house and forced old professor to make some repairs.
So, he wants to give his experiment object some practice.
"Is this safe for our pokemon?" I asked just to make sure. "Do you think Mithry is ready to battle?"
"Hah! It was ready to incinerate the whole Pallet Town!" Professor answered with determination. "So you may even help me with teaching Mithry to control its power and saving our town from its next temper tantrum… and also this will give me a good chance to observe your pokemon. My patient."
"Oh… I hope no patients died during THIS observation method earlier…" I sighed and grabbed the capsule of my most problematic pokemon – Moment. I carefully released him outside and made sure he still needs treatment.
Yes, he needs. He looks and acts really weak and exhausted, despite he wasn`t in battle since last PC visit.
"I see…" Professor said quietly and thoughtfully. "Let`s try to shake it with a good fight! Mithry, use Flamethrower!"
Wow, this Eevee knows Flamethrower? Professor wasn`t joking when said about 'new powers'.
"Okay, Moment, we need to check your agility. Try to dodge it!" I addressed my tired pokemon.
He quietly screeched and focused on the opponent. Eevee jumped forward and stretched, trying to perform something, but… it didn`t look like Flamethrower at all. Mithry stomped the ground causing the large shake of ground that turned into a local earthquake. A move completely useless against my Moment.
"Yeah, Mithry doesn`t listen to order moves. It always uses what it wants." Professor admitted. "It will be hard to make a battling pokemon out of it."
"Still, the Earthquake is amazing." I praised what I saw. "But useless, yeah."
"It is. So we will now try to use it this time! Earthquake, Mithry!" Old man gave the order.
"Keep dodging what comes at you, pal!" I calmly said to Moment.
This time Mithry surprised us even more – instead of Earthquake, he tensed himself and launched an electric bolt from his fur. The long and powerful thunderbolt struck my Golbat that tried to dodge that, but failed. The super effective hit was really painful.
"Is there some sort of… relation to what Mithry actually uses?" I asked carefully, looking at my poor Moment. This is not a treatment I would expect him to get.
"Nope, not at all. I never know what moves it can use, like it always uses Metronome." Professor shook his head.
"What`s a Metronome?" I asked, getting some suspicious look from my opponent.
"You got seven badges and still don`t know it?" He questioned me, a bit disappointed. "It`s a move that can cause ANY move in existence!"
"Wow! How is that possible?" I was really shocked by this. How cool it is to have a move that can perform any other move! "There is a catch, yes?"
"Yeah… You never know what move it can be. It can save the whole match… or destroy your close and absolute win." He sadly explained it to me. "But let`s continue, one more try. Mithry, use Tackle!"
For me it became unusual to hear a simple move like Tackle in battle… But I know that Mithry`s power can turn it into literally anything.
"Moment, focus! Dodge it, whatever it is!" I kept on playing safe and protecting my Golbat despite his complete inability to act quick now. But… it didn`t work anyway.
Mithry joyfully jumped into the middle of battlefield and squeaked loudly. Then he began to shine brightly with red. With a look of this, professor Oak widened his eyes in extreme surprise and… fear.
"It`s Explosion! Get down!" He suddenly shouted.
I dropped on ground and covered my head right before the loud explosion and powerful energy wave from the explosion reached me…