SLACKERS
EPISODE XXIII
SINS OF THE FATHER
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - REUNION
Present day
"Alright, that's enough for now."
Giovanni raised his hand, and the grunts behind him inputed a code on a nearby console. His grinning face was no longer illuminated by the bright, flashing purple light coming from about ten feet in front of him.
The source of the light? An extremely powerful machine specifically engineered to keep the world's most powerful Pokemon in place.
Mewtwo's head hung low, his arms and legs outstretched and bonded like an X within a circular prison. He heaved as he hung in place, his powers not quite enough to escape the prison his "master" had built for him.
This room, an underground chamber, is where Giovanni had always kept his most secret operations. Only a very small people in the Viridian City base new about this room, those who did were either longtime veterans or those he had deemed important enough to witness his questionable methods.
Giovanni hadn't had the capacity to care for the creature in front of him for a very long time. To him, Mewtwo was nothing more than the result of his time and money well spent. All he could do was feel satisfied with himself as he slowly stepped closer to his captive, the clopping of his shoes echoing throughout the chamber.
"So," he said. "Are you finally ready to cooperate, my old friend?" he asked.
Mewtwo gave no reply. Either he had nothing to say, or he was too weak to utter anything. He looked Satanically at Giovanni, more frustrated than he'd ever felt in his whole life. The anger was rising more than it had in decades. All he could focus on was the thought of ending the life of the pathetic human in front of him.
Giovanni was unfazed.
"I think we've had enough... coercing... for today. Just remember, Mewtwo. You were created by Team Rocket, for Team Rocket. You belong to me, and no amount of psychic power or mental resistance can alter that. I will break you into submission. It's only a matter of time. You are only prolonging this for yourself, as it will continue until you finally decide to accept your purpose and cooperate."
"I..." Mewtwo weakly muttered. "I... will NEVER... cooperate with you..."
Giovanni made a half smile.
"We'll see."
What happened next, he never would have expected in his life.
Mewtwo didn't break. Guards didn't sound any alarms. A henchman didn't interrupt him with news, good or bad.
He was ready to hear any voice in the world approach him from behind, and respond with confidence higher than the reaches of outer space.
"Hello, Gio."
Except that one. One he hadn't heard in god knows how long.
His face went pale. His eyebrows raised, his jaw dropped.
He slowly turned around, and there she was. His old lover. His little strawberry. With only two armed guards behind her.
She looked so similar, perhaps a few more wrinkles and grey hairs than he had remembered, but she was all the same to him.
33 years suddenly meant nothing as he began walking to her, the clops of his shoes echoing once again through the chamber. Just in front of her, he stopped.
"Amanda...?" he finally said.
She didn't frown, but she didn't smile. She never expected to. Especially now that she was witnessing first hand what the man who was almost her husband was capable of. She looked past him, at the tortured creature trapped with no way out. She felt her heart sink. Even the most powerful being known to man could be reduced to nothing by the monster she once loved.
"What are you doing here?" asked Giovanni, in a tone completely opposite of the one he'd used when addressing his captive.
She snapped out of it and redirected her attention towards him.
"I came to talk to you."
He began raising his hand as if to touch hers, but she confidently, and calmly, backed away. He realized that perhaps he wouldn't get his way this time. He hadn't been getting his way much anyway, with the exception of finally tracking down Mewtwo.
He sighed as he let his hand fall.
"Amanda..."
Everything came rushing back to him. The night in the rain. The day she told him the news. The rage he unleashed when she ran away and he sent his whole team out to track her down. Since then, he hadn't seen nor heard from her in any capacity. The day Amanda was gone, she was gone.
And now here she was.
"You're as beautiful as you were the day you left the team," he told her.
How typical, she thought. Putting Team Rocket above her once again. He hadn't changed a bit.
Or, if he had, he'd clearly only gotten worse.
"I'm not here about that," she bravely told him. "I'm here about what you're doing to that poor Pokemon behind you."
His expression hardened.
"This doesn't concern you," he responded, his voice even more gruff than she remembered. Age had definitely taken a stronger hold on him than it had on her.
She was completely stonefaced, and not fooled in the slightest.
"In a way, it does," she said. "It concerns every person in the entire world. This... all this? ... Isn't what you wanted. You wanted to share your influence to inspire better trainers. Since when did you stop loving Pokemon and start treating them like tools? When did you stop caring about how anyone besides yourself was feeling?"
"You know that's not true," Giovanni tried to say as softly as possible.
"Gio, you forced our son's best friends to watch Baby Shark. You're evil."
Giovanni and Amanda couldn't ignore the winces that came from some nearby grunts.
"You've completely lost your way, and forgotten what you had originally set out to become. A good trainer. Not a megalomaniac. It hurts... so bad... seeing how horribly low you've fallen."
"I haven't lost anything. It was taken from me. Everything that could have been. I had plans for us, Amanda. I wanted us to be a family, and when you disappeared, you stole that dream from me. You took away from me the love of my life, and the child I never got to raise."
"It would have been a disaster."
"So you ran away from the problem instead of correcting it. I thought I knew you better."
"I could say the same thing. The man I loved would never have tortured anybody to gain the upper hand. He never would have murdered, stolen, or lied. I miss him."
Giovanni could find no answer.
He looked at Amanda, and he felt something.
Something he hadn't felt in years.
And before he figured out what it could be, someone else appeared from behind the door to the chamber. A long-haired, shaggy-bearded man, with a Mew perched on his shoulder. The new visitor looked like the perfect blend of the two of them.
Giovanni looked at Mihalis with a new set of eyes. His eyes were full of conflicting and confusing emotions.
And Mewtwo did the same for Mew. But his eyes were only full of flames.
"You..." Mew felt Mewtwo hatefully transmit to him.
Mew brushed it off, at least for now. Right now, he needed to support his friend.
"I should have expected you wouldn't be far behind," said Giovanni.
"I'm surprised you didn't," replied Mihalis.
"You had no business involving her, son," he said as if he were lecturing his child.
"You never had business involving Mewtwo. What you're doing to him isn't just cruel. It's evil."
That made two members of his family who had called him that in just a few minutes.
He wasn't actually evil... was he? He didn't know anymore. He kept up his defense.
"This is the first time all three of us have ever been together, Dad," said Mihalis, continuing his attempt to appeal to the man Amanda once knew.
"Your pathetic, fake sentiments will not stop me," Giovanni replied.
Amanda walked closer. She was now only two feet from him.
"Please, Gio..." she said, "Please, stop this."
He couldn't find the words.
"Dad... listen to her. You can still put an end to all of it. Remember the first time we met? How you wanted us to be together?"
"I..." was all he was able to say.
"End this. Start again. Be that trainer you wanted to be."
Giovanni's own heart began to feel heavy for the first time in ages.
"Come with us," said the son of Giovanni and Amanda.
For a moment, he actually considered it.
Then his thought process was interrupted by what sounded like an explosion as he heard roaring and crashing behind him, so he turned around to find out that Mewtwo, the strongest Pokemon of all time, harboring an intense hatred of Giovanni and Mew, was free.
Giovanni could have shit his pants.
Mewtwo, releasing a deafening roar, began flying around the lab, destroying every piece of equipment he could find, firing a barrage of shadow balls at any unfortunate grunt that fell within his line of sight.
The underground lair was complete pandemonium.
"MEN! DETAIN HIM!" screamed Giovanni.
No one felt they would have any ability whatsoever at taming and recapturing the mad beast destroying everything around them. Giovanni stretched his arms out in a feeble, yet noble attempt to shield Amanda and Mihalis as they slowly backed away.
Mew knew what to do without saying anything. In the past, channeling all of his energy into holding someone in place had worked. So he tried again. He squeezed his eyes shut, and when they opened, they were glowing like a blue supernova.
"Mewtwo, wait!" he shouted, as he began focusing his own power.
Finally, Mew was able to telekinetically grab Mewtwo and keep him in place.
Mewtwo's rage only grew as he stared daggers at Mew. He began fighting back, and Mew struggled to keep up his hold. It didn't take long for Mewtwo to overpower Mew and break free.
And now all of his fury was directed solely at the Pokemon without whom he never would have been born.
"You..." he roared. "You said something! You brought them to me!"
"No, I didn't!" shouted the exhausted Mew, who wasn't used to being outmatched. "I swear!"
"You couldn't stand the thought of not being the strongest," said Mewtwo. "I will put you in your place. I will destroy you, like I should have done on that island years ago!"
"Wait, can't we talk about this over a beer?" asked Mew.
The only response he received was a shadow ball flying at him at the speed of sound, which he barely dodged.
"Yikes!"
Mewtwo began chasing Mew around the room furiously, and for the first time ever, Mew feared for his life. Nothing could ever have prepared him for meeting his match, let alone finding someone even stronger than him. He hadn't spent even a second of his life coming up with how to survive such an encounter.
So he ran. His clone followed, continuing to fling deadly shadow balls that could probably kill Mew in one hit.
He'd been dead before, and he wasn't interested in revisiting Lubbock.
Neither of them were paying any attention to where they were going. Mew even flew straight into a wall a few times, desperate to not be hit. He narrowly avoided hitting Mihalis once, and probably would have if his old trainer hadn't leapt out of the way. Being struck by a supersonic Mew probably wouldn't have a very high survival rate, after all.
Then came the last shadow ball, once again aimed at Mew.
It missed.
And it struck Amanda.
"MOM!"
Mihalis got back to his feet after leaping out of Mew's way, running for his mother, suddenly not caring about the chaos happening overhead. Mew was too busy trying to survive to focus on anything else, but Mihalis's attention was fully fixated on Amanda when he skidded to his knees, not quite reaching her in time before she fell to the floor, hitting hard.
Giovanni wasn't far behind. He couldn't remember the last time he had ever run.
Mihalis tried to wake his mother up. He screamed, shook her, even smacked her face. Anything to bring her out of it.
But nothing was working. He felt for a pulse. Nothing.
He stared at Giovanni, looking like he wanted to kill him.
And too little, too late, the old man finally began to understand what he had done. If what had just happened hadn't been enough to make him realize, then his son calling him every name ever invented was.
"Now do you see what you've done, you worthless asshole?!" Mihalis shouted at his father.
Giovanni couldn't shut his jaw, but he couldn't bring himself to speak.
"Why? What kind of justice lets her die instead of you?! Why couldn't you, the evil crime lord who kills, steals, and tortures people, be the one to die?! Why did it have to be her?!"
Giovanni had no answer. He looked at his little strawberry's lifeless, resting face.
And he began to shed a tear.
I can't think of a comment this time, sorry
