Chapter 12
Tall Tales
Mew had managed to teleport them directly back inside of Cole's cabin. All of them, simultaneously - which was an outrageous feat considering the distance and the number of people, but then again, it was an actual Mew, so…
Still, the group had somehow managed to reappear in the oddest of locations. AJ was seated on the mantle of the fireplace, displacing several of Cole's hand-carved trinkets, sending them tumbling down onto the rug with a muffled clatter. Jade wound up lying on the couch on her back with her legs up over the armrest. Cole was in the kitchen, sitting on one of the chairs at the table as though he'd just arrived for a meal, and Sammy was lying face-first on the floor directly beneath the window, half obscured by Cole's thick, woolen curtains.
Maybe this was Mew's idea of a joke? Or maybe it literally had no idea what humans did in a house and this was its best guess. Either way, they'd made it here all in one piece, so she supposed she had no room to complain. And even better - she had her hat! She'd thought she'd left it in the Sanctuary, but here it was, on her knee for some reason. Beggars can't be choosers.
She thought for a moment that Mew hadn't joined them - until Jade's Mawile came ambling out of the back room, having heard them return, and was immediately confronted with Mew popping out of nowhere, floating upside-down and staring straight into her eyes with unsettling intensity. Mawile could only gape in astonishment.
After taking a moment to gather themselves, Jade getting off the couch and AJ hopping off the mantle, the group immediately got to work dealing with Sammy. AJ and Jade picked him up under his arms and dragged him back to Cole's bedroom, where they laid him down on the bed beside the injured Pichu, draping him in blankets and fretting over him impotently.
Cole suggested they leave him to rest for now. He'd need some hot foot when he was awake, of course, but for now he just needed to focus on warming up. AJ considered suggesting that she and Jade climb into the bed with him - to share body heat - but the bed wasn't all that large and she was worried about disrupting Pichu. Her partner needed rest as badly as Sammy did.
Ultimately, they decided to leave Sammy and Pichu alone and return to the kitchens to wait, with AJ releasing Sammy's Gallade and Leafeon to watch over them, just as she'd promised she would. Leafeon ended up crawling up into the bed beside Sammy anyway, and she was small enough that Pichu wasn't disturbed. Gallade promised to keep an eye on Sammy and Pichu both, and took up a position beside the bedroom door, watching his trainer with haggard eyes.
Mawile, freed from babysitting duty, was returned to Jade's pokeball. Something she was all too pleased with, considering how Mew had decided to try using Mawile's large, rear-facing jaws as a kiddy slide and seemed to find it hilarious whenever Mawile would snap at it.
Before leaving the bedroom, however, AJ paused to check on her Pichu. It had only been a few short hours since the battle, and it was far too early for him to have recovered, but she couldn't help it.
She reached out gently as Cole and Jade filed out of the room, letting her finger trail across one of his pudgy little cheeks. He looked so small like this. So much more so than usual. Without his constant presence, she felt unbalanced. Like she was suddenly missing one of her arms. She needed him to wake up. To get better. So she could apologize. So things could go back to normal again.
If they ever could.
To her surprise, at the stroke of her finger, Pichu seemed to rouse a bit. It half-opened its eyes and gazed up at her blearily through a haze of sleep and medicine and pain. She felt tears sting her eyes again but forced them down - Pichu didn't need to see her crying. She'd done enough of that. She needed to be strong, for him.
"Hey bud," she whispered softly, crouching down so she was closer. She looped her left arm around his body, curving around him atop the mattress - not touching him directly, conscious of his injuries, but the closest approximation she could get to a hug. "How… How are you feeling?"
He made a weak squeaking noise and tried to smile. It made her heart break all over again.
"It's ok," she said, forcing positivity into her voice. "Don't strain yourself, just get some sleep. We found Sammy; he's sleeping next to you. Everything's going to be ok, alright? Just rest now. I'll see you in the morning."
It seemed to AJ that some of the tension left Pichu's body upon hearing that Sammy was ok. With a weak mewl, he nuzzled AJ's finger with his cheek, giving her a very light affectionate shock, and then a moment later, he was out again.
AJ took a moment to collect herself. No more crying. She was done being weak.
When she stood and turned around, she was surprised to find her father's Pikachu standing in the doorway. She'd forgotten it had chosen to come with them. It had a tiny blanket clenched between its teeth - the same one it had brought over earlier that day when they'd arrived at the cabin, half frozen to death. It regarded her for a moment with quiet eyes before darting forward, hopping onto the bed and draping the little blanket around Pichu's body. A moment later, it jumped down and disappeared back into the outer room.
AJ followed, feeling hollow, and slowly closed the bedroom door behind her, doing her best to pretend like she was locking her sorrow away behind the door as well.
Back in the main room, however, things were clearly tense.
Jade had seated herself at the kitchen table, elbows on the hard wood as she stared daggers at Cole as though the force of her gaze could draw words out of him like water from a damp sponge. Cole, for his part, was studiously ignoring her while he prattled around the kitchen, randomly opening and closing cupboards, slamming them closed only to moments later open them again, aimlessly wandering in circles as he seemingly did his best to ignore her entirely.
Jade, however, was not the type to be ignored, and once AJ had rejoined them in the outer room, she broke the tense silence with a curt, "I think you owe us an explanation."
Cole whirled around, looking incensed.
"I owe you an explanation?" he said, practically shouting. "You? You, who deliberately ignored my warnings and snuck out on your own? Do you have any idea what you've done? What you've ruined?!"
"No!" Jade cried, throwing her hands in the air. "Because you won't tell us anything! How is it our fault when we have no idea what's going on!"
Cole seemed to chew on that for a moment, worrying his lip between his teeth as he glowered down at her, his face slowly turning red from the strain of holding in whatever it was he was trying not to say.
AJ pulled out the chair beside Jade and sat down as well, staring up at the old man - her grandfather? She hadn't actually paused to unpack that yet - and said, softly, "Cole. Please."
Whether it was because of her tone or because she was the one who was asking, it seemed to do the trick. His shoulders slumped, a heavy, haggard breath leaving his lungs in one fell swoosh, and he passed a weary, trembling hand over his face and beard as though wiping away a sheen of not-present sweat.
Across the room, she could see Pikachu sitting on the couch, eyes darting between them and the Mew who was trying to inspect the chimney despite the currently burning fire. After trying to not get burned and failing, the Mew erected a psychic shield around the top of the flames, which only resulted in smoke being diverted from the chimney shaft and instead pouring into the main room for a moment until Pikachu's enraged shouts got the Mew to take the shield down.
Finally, after another moment of silence, Cole stomped over to the table and plopped himself down heavily in a chair across from them.
"I suppose…" he began, then shook his head and sighed. His eyes were glued to the table top, but they seemed heavy and sad. "I suppose… You're right, lass. Now that it's come to this, now that you… know… There's no sense in keeping you in the dark. But I never… I never intended this…"
He seemed to crumple for a moment, drawing in on himself, but with a herculean effort, he managed to pull himself back together. Not for the first time, AJ found herself thinking about just how solid Cole seemed. Not just physically, but mentally. Emotionally.
"I guess… Well, I guess we should start with… Well… I'm sure you put this together already, but… I'm your grandad."
He affected a kind of awkward smile that seemed to be more of him bracing for impact than extending kindness, like he thought she was going to lash out at him. Well, to be fair, that's exactly what she'd done when she saw Ash for the first time. She supposed he had reason to be wary.
Still - for some reason, none of that burning resentment and hate that she had for her father was present when she looked at or thought of Cole. Oh, she wasn't happy with him - he'd abandoned Grandma Delia. Did he never think about her? About how lonely she was, all by herself in Pallet? Yet still, even though she thought he was a terrible person… She didn't hate him. Not with that same level of vitriol and rage that she felt for her father. Her dislike for Cole was a candle beside a raging forest fire when compared to how she felt about her dad.
Instead of verbally acknowledging his declaration, she simply nodded and waited for him to go on. She wasn't about to rage, but if he thought she was going to smile or be happy about it, he had another thing coming. And if he even dared to ask about Grandma Delia…
But Cole seemed to understand how she felt, nodding back and letting his eyes dart away and look absently around the room as he gathered himself.
Finally, he began to speak.
"To fully understand what's going on here - about Mewtwo, and the Sanctuary, and… everything… I think we need to go back a bit. Back to when I was a young man - younger than you two, even. That's when it all started. When I was just a young trainer traveling the world with my best friend, and we made the discovery that would change everything… forever…"
Cole's story was a long one, but he took it slow. They had time, after all - basically under house arrest and waiting for their injured friends to rest and recover. It wasn't hard to get drawn into his tale, either - especially not when he started with a bombshell reveal that came out of left field.
He'd been born and raised in Viridian, he said. Spent his days playing in the forest and dreaming of going on his pokemon journey, just like every other kid in Kanto. He'd had no grand ideals of becoming the Champion or anything like that - clearly, AJ and Ash had gotten that from somewhere else. He'd just wanted adventure. To travel the world and see everything there was to see. Not like his best friend. No, Giovanni had wanted to be the absolute best for as long as Cole could remember.
It took a second for his words to register, but when Cole paused after revealing his friends name, after the patient look he gave them, it became obvious.
"Wait," Jade said, exchanging looks with AJ. "When you say your friend's name was Giovanni, you don't mean…?"
"Indeed I do, lass," Cole said with a sad smile. "That Giovanni. The man who would go on to become the leader of the infamous international crime syndicate known as Team Rocket. Though at the time, I knew him as just a boy with big dreams."
"Oh, Mew…" Jade breathed, then blinked when Mew teleported over from across the room, staring at her intently as if she'd called it. Which, she was now realizing, she actually had.
But Cole just reached up and pushed the floating legendary being away with the same look of absent-minded reprimand you'd give to a Skitty who wouldn't stop jumping on the dinner table.
Cole and Giovanni started their journeys together, and after making a circuit of Kanto, they did the normal thing for serious trainers who weren't content to quit and headed off to other countries - Cole, eager to see new sights, and Giovanni, eager to test his mettle against the best and brightest that world had to offer. And for years, that was how they lived. True pokemon trainers, in the prime of their youths. Endless possibilities on every horizon.
And when they were about sixteen, they returned to Kanto. Not permanently - Giovanni was in the habit of returning once a year to challenge the trainers who showed up for the League Conference. He was determined to take the title of Grand Champion by the age of twenty - the youngest ever to do so in Indigo League history - which meant he'd need all the practice he could get. Plus, it let him keep up with other up-and-coming trainers in the Indigo League. His one-sided rivalry with Dragon-Tamer Lance, a trainer from Blackthorn, was fairly well known.
They'd decided to head up to Cerulean City before the Conference so that Giovanni could get some training done in the Cerulean Caves. They'd done their training in Victory Road for the past couple of years, but Giovanni had recently become convinced that it was too populated with Champion hopefuls, and that if he didn't want his battle strategies revealed to his opponents, he needed to train elsewhere - somewhere secluded, with strong wild pokemon. Cole thought he was paranoid, but he'd never been to the Cerulean Caves, so why not?
It was on the way to the caves that everything changed.
"We were walking along the riverbank, y'see, when I heard this strange noise coming from somewhere in the reeds. I didn't know what it was, but it sounded like a pokemon in distress. So, ignoring Gio's complaints, I decided to go and check it out. And this," he said, pointing to Mew, who was busy chirping amiably with the Slugma in the stove, "is what I found."
"You just… found a Mew along some random riverbank near Cerulean City?" Jade said, nonplussed.
Cole smiled ruefully.
"I suppose you thought we met in some fancy abandoned ruin, hmm? Somewhere fantastical and exotic and strange. But no - it was just there. All tangled up in fishing wire - with the fishing pole still attached. Oddest sight you ever saw."
"But… how?" AJ asked. Mew was psychic - it could teleport, or just break the string from sheer strength. It being trapped by something so mundane seemed almost as impossible as its actual existence.
"Who knows," Cole said, shrugging. "Maybe it didn't know what fishing wire was and got trapped by mistake. Maybe that was its weird idea of a game. It does things like that from time to time. All I know is, of all the things I'd seen, I'd never seen anything like that before. But it looked like it needed help, so I waded forward through the river to try to untangle it - only, when I drew close, it floated up and away, out of reach!"
But the fishing rod was left dangling down below it, so Cole reached out and snagged it - and then, bizarrely, was left trying to reel the Mew in like it was some common Magikarp. When he tugged on the rod, it floated further away, and when he reeled the string in, instead of pulling the Mew closer, it instead began to spin around as the string unwound. Giovanni had joined him at this point, and together the two boys kept trying to get the strange creature down so they could untangle it, but no matter what they did, it seemed to drift further and further away.
Finally, after a few minutes of reeling, the last of the string came away, and the Mew was freed - and it just stayed there in the air, floating above their heads, laughing for all the world as if the entire scenario had been some wonderful game.
"And from that moment on, it became… attached to me," Cole explained with a self-deprecating shrug. "Couldn't tell you why, honestly. At first I thought it was because I had tried to save it, but I figure it wasn't actually in any danger in the first place, so…? Gio wanted to catch it, of course - he wanted to catch everything, but especially anything strong - yet every time he tried, it was like the pokeballs would veer off course, or else Mew would teleport away and not show its face again for hours. But every time it disappeared, it always returned. Every time. Without fail.
"And to be honest, that's when I should have noticed that something was off. Gio lost at the League Conference that year, but he'd made it to the semi-finals, which was the best he'd ever done, and after that, he kept talking about how if he'd had stronger pokemon, things would have been different. He'd been more focused on training before, but after we met Mew, it was as though all he saw was a pokemon's raw power. Maybe… Maybe if I'd said something… Tried to change his mindset…"
Cole shook his head, looking older than he ever had before. Mew perched itself on top of his head like a hat, facing backwards, and let its tail dangle down in front of Cole's face. He ignored it.
"So… wait," Jade said, looking confused. "Mew has been with you ever since you were sixteen?"
"More or less," Cole said. "Not all the time, mind. It hid itself whenever strangers would show up or we'd enter a city or the like, but once we were back on the road, there it would be again. And it's not like Ash and his Pikachu - Mew's easily distractible and likes to play games. So we'd be walking along and suddenly it would fly out of a bush, chasing a pack of Pidgey, or else it would disguise itself as a Seedot and fall out of a tree and bonk one of us on the head. Childish things like that. It's more like it was following us rather than traveling with us."
Or at least, that's how it was at first. But as time went on, and as Giovanni became more and more obsessed with strength, a rift started to form in their friendship. The way that Giovanni began treating his pokemon worsened - working them harder and harder, discarding the ones who underperformed, only searching out the best and brightest that he could get his hands on. His obsession with winning was warping his worldview, and he was dismissive of Cole whenever he tried to voice an opposing opinion, usually pointing at Mew as the example of everything a pokemon should be. Much of the fun of their adventures had been sucked away, replaced by Giovanni's obsession with power.
By the time they returned to Kanto a year later so Giovanni could challenge the League Conference again, Cole had already made up his mind. He was going to enter the League Conference as well - one last hurrah with his childhood friend. And then, after it was over, win or lose… he was going to end his journey. And Giovanni would continue on his own.
"Gio was fine with it," Cole said. "I'd expected… I don't know, maybe some level of argument from him. We'd started our journey together, after all, and even though he'd changed much from the boy I used to know, on some level, he was still my best friend. But he didn't seem to care at all that I was stopping. He even seemed sort of relieved. He mostly was concerned about whether Mew would follow him or me. He seemed to think it would be him - like it was a given, since he was the better trainer of the two of us. Like one day, it would deem him worthy and allow him to catch it. But then we entered the tournament, and…"
And Cole had done much better than he'd expected. Sure, he'd had nearly seven years of journeying under his belt at that point, but battles had never really been his focus. Still, it was hard to spend that much time traveling and training with a talented trainer like Giovanni and not pick up a few things, and before he knew it, he'd made it to the semi-finals.
And his opponent was Giovanni.
"Gio was delighted," Cole said with a rueful smile. "Not to be battling his friend; he was delighted because he knew he'd destroy me, which meant he'd be going on to the finals. The best he'd ever done. I didn't care much - I'd already done much better than I'd intended, and what better way to hang up my hat as a trainer than helping my old friend take another step on his journey? But then, well… The unexpected happened."
Cole had called out his first pokemon… and instead, Mew had appeared.
Not openly. That is, Mew appeared, but it had changed its appearance to look like Cole's first pokemon, so the crowd, the ref - even Giovanni and Cole himself - had no idea what had happened. At least, at first.
"Wait," Jade interrupted. "How on earth did you not know? I mean… wouldn't it be kind of obvious?"
"There's a thing that makes Mew unique. A thing that has earned Mew its spot among legends - even legends that have been claimed to be spirits of nature, creatures who rule the elements, or even veritable gods who created the world we live on. And honestly - after what I've seen in the Sanctuary, after the stories I've heard from Ash, I believe most of those legends. But Mew stands out largely due to its unique ability - it can use any move that any other pokemon can use."
Jade frowned. "So you mean… it… transformed? Like a Ditto?"
"Exactly," Cole said, nodding along. "But a Ditto can only transform into a pokemon that's nearby, and it can only use the moves that pokemon knows. Mew doesn't have that restriction. Mew can do anything that any other pokemon can do. So it can transform, yes, just like a Ditto - and it can create illusions like a Zoroark, and it can explode like an Electrode, or create huge earthquakes like a Torterra, or… well…"
When Cole had summoned his first pokemon, he'd intended for his Rapidash to come out. And out a Rapidash came - only, it wasn't really his Rapidash, it was Mew, transformed into a Rapidash. So when Giovanni called his Rydon, both he and Cole, and the entire crowd, assumed that Cole's pokemon was done for.
So imagine everyone's surprise when, instead of using Agility like Cole had ordered, his Rapidash seemingly ignored his order and instead used Hydro Cannon, hitting Giovanni's Rydon with a jet of water so powerful that it blasted him right out of the arena in a single blow.
The stadium went absolutely wild. They thought they were seeing the results of an exceptionally well-trained Rapidash, who had defied the constraints of its species' natural typing and was manifesting some new, unique strength, never-before seen in the world of Pokemon battles.
But Cole and Giovanni knew the truth. That wasn't Cole's Rapidash.
And one by one, Mew, disguising itself as Cole's pokemon - even when he tried to recall it, to swap out, no matter what he did, always, Mew stayed in the arena - completely swept Giovanni's entire team. Using moves and displaying abilities that those pokemon should never have been able to learn. It was a total knock-out. Cole six, Giovanni zero.
And Giovanni was furious.
"He wouldn't believe me," Cole said, shaking his head. "He thought I'd been lying to him all this time, that I'd actually caught Mew and never told him, that I'd intentionally brought him out in our battle to embarrass him in front of the crowd and his rivals and peers. No matter what I said, what explanations or excuses I gave, even after I forfeited the final match, he wouldn't hear it - though, coincidentally, that was how Lance won the League Conference that year, by me dropping out - though he didn't become Champion for a few years yet. Anyway, Giovanni was furious, incensed that I had stolen away his victory, spat on his dreams, and flaunted a strength I hadn't earned. And from that moment on, our friendship was over."
But not before breaking into Cole's hotel room that night and trying to steal Mew from him.
"I barely even recognized him anymore at that point. He broke through my door just after midnight with his Nidoking and his Persian, coming straight for me, convinced I had Mew's pokeball and that he could steal it from me and make its strength his own. But I didn't. I'd never caught Mew. After a few moments of battling in which the room was completely destroyed, Mew teleported me away - and we returned to the place we'd first met. The riverbank north of Cerulean City."
And there, Cole said goodbye. It was too dangerous, keeping Mew with him. Giovanni would certainly make another try at catching it, and Cole would be much easier to find than Mew. For its own safety - and honestly, for his - the two would need to separate. So there, on the riverbank, Cole explained the situation as best he could and bid Mew farewell. And he left, hanging up his hat as a trainer, just as he promised. And he didn't see Giovanni again for years.
"I decided to go to Pallet Town," Cole said. "After I'd confirmed that Giovanni had left the country to continue his journey, I figured it was safe to stay in Kanto. He'd figure out soon enough that I didn't have Mew anymore, and I was ready to put my training days behind me and become a proper adult. Y'know, become boring."
Here, he flashed Jade a knowing smile, which, surprisingly, Jade returned. Were they friends again? Wasn't Jade mad at him? People were weird.
"And, well… We can skip ahead a bit, but… It was in Pallet that I met your grandmother, Delia. I won't bore you with the details, but we dated for a bit, fell in love, then got married, and bought a tiny little house with a lot of land at the edge of the town, because it's what she'd always wanted, but also because it was more remote and I figured I'd be less likely to find there. Though I still hadn't seen or heard from Giovanni in years."
"And Mew?" AJ asked, eager to change the subject off of her grandmother, just in case her anger on behalf of this woman she loved got the better of her and she started yelling again. "Did it actually stay away? It… doesn't seem like the type to listen to commands."
At that exact moment, Mew knocked over a glass jar full of chestnuts, spilling them all over the counter, which was apparently uproariously funny to it and it alone.
Cole rolled his eyes.
"Mew listens about as well as a two-year-old, but it did stay away for a bit. Though it wasn't long before I started seeing it popping up around Pallet. Not usually as close as it did before, and never where others could see it. But it was around. It would disappear - sometimes for weeks, even months - and then randomly show up in the pantry when I went to get a snack, or float past the window when no one else was looking. I remember one time, I pulled back the shower curtain and there it was. Screamed so loud, Delia thought I was being murdered. Couldn't tell her though - I mean, how could I? Mew never showed itself to anyone else. She'd think I was crazy. So I just kept quiet.
"It didn't seem to mind Ash seeing it though. Oh, he was a baby - he doesn't remember, and that may be why Mew didn't care. But sometimes, when Delia was out of the house, or in the garden, I'd find Mew floating above his crib, letting him play with its tail. It was cute, in a way."
AJ fought down the sudden surge of annoyance. Oh, sure - Mew popped up to her dad when he was just a baby, and he'd met every other legendary on the planet. But AJ? Only got to meet a legendary for the first time after she met her father. How was that fair?
"So then…" Jade said, looking both eager to move the story along, but also hesitant to broach what was clearly a sensitive subject, "...why did you disappear?"
Cole sighed, then turned to gaze out the window. It was pitch-black outside, well past the point where they should have been asleep, but his eyes stared as though he were seeing things no one else could.
"It was Mew," he said finally. "Came to me one night after Delia and Ash were asleep. It was in a panic - I'd never seen it so agitated before. And before I knew what was happening, it grabbed me and teleported me away - in my pajamas and everything. Back to the riverbank in Cerulean."
"But why?"
AJ was surprised to find she was the one who had asked. Cole turned back, meeting her gaze, and his eyes seemed so heavy.
"Giovanni was back. It had been years since I'd seen him, but those years had… changed him. He had… new friends. Associates, I guess. They'd come into money. And they'd returned to the riverbank in Cerulean where we'd first seen Mew, desperate this time to find and catch it. And maybe the smart thing would have been to simply stay away - but they were catching any wild pokemon they came across, en masse, using these odd electrical cages that shocked and injured the pokemon they captured. I think they were built with catching Mew in mind, but they were using them to catch anything and everything they could. Some would be used and abused by the newly formed Team Rocket, but most would be sold on the black market. Mew brought me there to save them. I think it thought I could reason with him. Stop Giovanni. But…"
Cole's shoulders slumped.
"I failed. I found him, and we fought. First with our words - me, calling his actions wrong. Him, calling me a hypocrite and a liar. Then, with our pokemon. But I didn't have my team with me, and most of them hadn't battled in years anyway. So I battled with Mew. The fight grew fierce, much of the riverbank was destroyed. But Giovanni had grown strong since last we'd battled, and he managed to injure Mew. Not badly enough to win the fight, but he drew blood. I didn't know what the ramifications of that would be at the time. If I had…"
He shook his head again, then continued.
"We won, but the destruction was immense. Before Giovanni fled, he swore that he'd come for me again. That he'd follow me to the ends of the earth to get his hands on Mew. And I knew, then, that Delia and Ash would be in danger so long as I was with them. Even if I got Mew to leave. So I asked Mew to take us somewhere safe, and…"
He opened his hands and looked around.
"It brought me here. Turns out, the top of Mt. Silver has been a sort of Sanctuary since… well, probably forever. It's not man-made; the pokemon made it. Those grassy fields and warmth? Legendaries maintain it as a kind of… space outside of space. They go there to keep away from humanity. Used to be, there were several spaces like that all around the world, but as technology has advanced, so too has human civilization, and fully wild spaces are becoming few and far between. Mt. Silver may be the very last such refuge in all of the Indigo League.
"But I never meant to disappear like I did. Oh, I intended to go into hiding, but… Not without word. Not by vanishing in the night, leaving Delia alone to raise Ash without me. When I realized where I was, I got angry. I demanded that Mew take me back to Pallet so I could explain - demanded that it show itself to my wife so she wouldn't think I'd gone insane or was making up excuses. But it refused. We fought - or rather, I screamed and yelled and it… disappeared again - this time for months - leaving me alone, abandoned in the sanctuary at the very top of an icy mountain."
He turned to AJ, his eyes full of sorrow.
"I'm not trying to make excuses, lass. You have every right to hate me - just as Ash did. But I had no tools, no clothes appropriate for the weather - nothing to tackle this frozen death trap. And no pokemon to ride or to help fend off the hoards of ferocious wild pokemon that call the slopes their home. It took years for me to begin befriending the locals, years before I was slowly able to start building a life here. By the time I had what I needed to get down the mountain again on my own… Well, I'd lost track of time, but I knew a lot had passed. I'll never forget my first run-in with the Rangers at the base of the mountain. When they told me what year it was… I broke down and cried for hours. Ash was already seven years old. I'd been gone for five years."
Cole leaned back in his chair and examined the ceiling.
"I suppose… I could have tried to go back. Tried to explain - to hope Delia would believe me. But then, how could she? How could anyone? Oh, the legendary Pokemon Mew who no one has ever seen before popped into our house in the dead of night and teleported me to the top of a frozen mountain. They'd put me away. Or worse - what if they believed me? What if they came looking and found the refuge? And meeting the Rangers brought me back in touch with news of the world. I knew Team Rocket was still a thing - stronger and larger than ever, expanding overseas. If they hadn't found me yet, it was because the sanctuary truly was safe - but it wouldn't stay safe forever. Not without someone looking after it.
"So… I stayed. I figured… Ash would be leaving on his journey soon. He didn't need a father anymore, and what kind of father brings with him the threat of an attack by Team Rocket? He and Delia had likely written me off as dead or a dead-beat years ago. She'd probably moved on. Found someone else. Someone better. And I… I'd made enough mistakes. I had a calling to do."
"And here you still are," Jade said quietly, and Cole nodded.
"Nearly forty years. I help the Rangers, keep poachers off the mountain, work with the wild pokemon to protect the Sanctuary. As time has passed, more and more legendaries have been coming by. There truly are fewer places for them to stay. Fewer places left where they can be safe from humans. I know Team Rocket is gone now - Ash told me - but there will always be men like Giovanni in the world, and even people with the best intentions can make terrible mistakes. I failed my wife and son… and my granddaughter… but maybe, I can still help these pokemon."
AJ thought back to the attempted Team Rocket resurgence just a few years ago that Ethan had been involved in stopping. Then to the incident with Team Plasma in Unova that had led to Hilda running away. Cole was right. One criminal organization abusing pokemon was bad enough, but people like this were everywhere. And if they ever caught wind of the sanctuary, if they ever got their hands on a pokemon as strong as Mew, then the world itself would be in danger.
She still didn't quite forgive Cole. But she also understood that it wasn't fully his fault, either. She'd only known Mew for about an hour now, and even she could tell that everyone was basically at the mercy of its infantile, mercurial whims. How much did Mew even understand about humans? About human ideas of morality, of right and of wrong? It probably had no conception of abandonment, or what it had done to her family. It was just trying to keep Cole safe.
After a quiet moment, she said, softly, "For what it's worth… I think Grandma Delia would forgive you."
Cole shook his head, looking mournful.
"Ash says the same, but I…"
"Grandma Delia is the best person I know," Jade added in. "She'd totally forgive you. She'd forgive just about anyone. Her heart is just huge like that."
"I know," Cole said. "Believe me, I do. But I… I don't think I deserve it. I don't think… I should get to take advantage of her kindness like that."
"It's not about being deserving," AJ replied, her voice soft. "She'd forgive you because she wants to. Because she still…"
She couldn't finish the sentence. She was still waiting for him to come home. Him, and Ash, too. In that little house in Pallet where they'd been a family, once. And now, she was waiting for her, as well. Vanished in the night, stuck now on this stupid mountain. A supernatural magnet for stupid Ketchums. Would she ever get back home?
"Hang on," Jade said suddenly. "That explains why you're here, yeah, and I guess it explains about that weird… sanctuary or whatever. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but… What about that thing - Mewtwo. Is that some legendary I've never heard of? Some monster who wants to keep us prisoner here forever? What's the deal?"
Cole let out another sigh, but this time, rather than being weighted with grief and solemnity, it instead sounded somewhat exasperation.
"Honestly, lass? That's a whole different can of worms entirely. I mean, not really - it's connected, all of it. But it's a long story, longer still than what we've already gone over, and it's late.
"More than that, though," he added when AJ opened her mouth to argue, "I don't rightly think I'm the one who should be telling it. Truth to tell, I wasn't a part of most of it, not the beginning at least, so you'd just be getting the tale second hand from me. Plus, there are bits of it I still don't fully understand. No, if you want the rest of the story, you'll need to speak with your father."
AJ had to bite her tongue to stop herself from shouting 'He's not my father!' at the top of her lungs. Honestly, the response had risen up unbidden, completely of its own volition. Like a knee-jerk reaction she'd become conditioned to give to certain stimuli.
That didn't stop her from scowling at Cole, even if she knew that reaction was petulant in the extreme. Speak to Ash? No, thank you. She didn't need a full run-down on Mewtwo's life. It was a crazed, homicidal monster who was keeping her and her friends prisoner on this mountain, and that was all she needed to know. No, what they needed was a way out, a way to get home. Nothing else mattered.
Well… Nothing except for Pichu and Sammy's health. They were stuck here until the two of them recovered, even if she had a plan of escape. And since they had time anyway… Well, perhaps it was better to let the story rest after all. No need to browbeat Cole for any more information, at least not tonight.
For tonight, they would get some sleep. Tomorrow… Tomorrow, she and Jade would put their heads together and come up with a plan. A plan that did not involve her father.
She'd made it this far on her own. She didn't need him then, and she didn't need him now.
Even if everything she'd ever known had been turned right on its head, that, at least, would never change.