The Quest for the Legends

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 68: Truths

It was well past dark when the three Charizard touched down near the temporary Crater Town Gym by the roots of Mount Fever. Mark’s Charizard and Charlie were panting in exhaustion; Robin’s didn’t show it so much, but shook his body gratefully once May had dismounted him.

“Great job, guys,” Alan said. “We couldn’t have gotten here in record time without you giving it your all. Want to rest outside your balls?”

Charizard and Charlie nodded immediately, but Robin’s Charizard shook his head. May recalled him, though not before giving him a strange look that Mark couldn’t place.

The temporary Gym was a rough, bare concrete building that stood out starkly on the barren ground around the volcano but nonetheless in some strange way seemed to fit right in with the landscape. A plain white sign on the simple wooden door said, ‘CRATER TOWN POKÉMON GYM’. The building was clearly far too small to house a battle arena, though; it looked like it could barely be more than two or three rooms.

Mark glanced at the others and shrugged. “Well, this has got to be it,” he said before he knocked on the door.

A moment passed before the lock clicked and the door opened. “You do realize the Gym closes at...” Carl’s familiar, stern voice began, but cut off as he recognized Mark. “Ah.”

“Hello,” Mark said awkwardly, remembering all too well that Carl hadn’t liked him too much the first time they’d met. “How, uh, is the town doing?”

Carl surveyed him silently, sparing a brief glance at May and Alan. “All right,” he answered after a second. “The inhabitants are all safe. We’re planning to found another town. You can see I’ve set up a temporary Gym. How did battling – Polaryu, was it? – go?”

“It went okay,” Mark said, uncomfortably aware that most of what he’d told Carl about Polaryu was a lie. “We caught him. Disaster averted.”

“We want to talk to you,” May cut in. “Do you have time?”

Carl looked between them, again taking a moment to answer. “As a matter of fact I do,” he finally said. “Come in.”

The inside of the building resembled a crudely rebuilt version of Carl’s Crater Town home: they stepped straight into a simple living room with a table, a couch and a television, with doors to a bathroom and a small bedroom on the right side and a corner serving as a kitchen. The only thing Mark decidedly did not remember from the night he’d spent in Crater Town was the large metal safe in the opposite left corner of the living room.

“Where do you have your Gym battles?” May asked as she looked around.

“Outside,” Carl said. “I always hated the standard, sterile, boxed-in arena. Pokémon battles belong in organic environments.” He gestured towards the couch. “Have a seat.”

They did so while Carl got a chair from the kitchenette, positioned it at the opposite side of the living room table and then sat down on it.

“So,” he said. “What is it?”

May and Alan looked at Mark; he opened his mouth and closed it again. He’d spent the entire flight there thinking about what he was going to say, and yet it all seemed to have vanished when Carl had opened that door. All he could think now, as the Gym leader’s sharp, piercing gaze bored into him, was the memory of that same cold gaze, months ago, when Carl had told him, I don’t like liars. For a pathetic moment, a part of him wanted to just start weaving more of the story he’d made up for the evacuation: perhaps Chaletwo was going to mind-control all the legendaries into doing his bidding, unless they could capture them all first…

But even without Chaletwo’s appalled indignation in the back of his mind, and the knowledge that they could never keep Carl in the dark if he did join them, the idea made him shudder. Not today.

He took a deep breath. “We, ah, we weren’t entirely truthful with you, back when we battled Volcaryu.”

The corner of Carl’s mouth twitched into a crooked half-smile. “I had guessed that much.”

Mark waited a second for Carl to lunge at him with an axe or something. It didn’t happen.

“So,” he went on and was about to start explaining when he was cut off by Chaletwo.

“Ask him where Volcaryu is,” the legendary said urgently, a barely noticeable tremble to his telepathic voice. “I’m not sure we should actually get him to help us.”

“Ah,” Mark said; he thought Carl looked suspicious at the sudden interruption, but he might have been imagining it. “We... first, where’s Volcaryu?”

“In there,” said Carl coolly, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the safe in the corner without taking his eyes off Mark. “That’s a bomb-proof safe. It can withstand any Pokémon attack and any reasonable amount of every explosive known to man, and the locks are specially made to be impossible to crack. Don’t ask me what the combination is; I set it at random and I’m quite happy to say I’ve entirely forgotten it.”

Mark stared at the safe, then back at Carl. It struck him finally that perhaps Carl hadn’t taken Volcaryu just to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else. Perhaps he’d wanted to keep Volcaryu away from them.

He felt Chaletwo’s silent horror dimly in his mind: Carl didn’t intend for the dragon to ever come out of that safe, and from the looks of it he’d made pretty sure of that.

“We’re not telling him anything,” Chaletwo said, his voice shaking with cold anger. “We don’t want anything to do with this man. Get out.”

Mark wasn’t so sure. Carl had seen Volcaryu’s sheer power and the dangerous madness that drove him; it wasn’t hard to see why he’d want him locked away forever. And hadn’t Volcaryu spent most of his existence locked away, kept forcibly asleep in a hidden cavern, by Chaletwo’s own doing?

The dragons were dangerous. Carl had responded to the danger as seemed appropriate to him. And if this was excessive, it was because he didn’t know the truth.

“Look, Mark,” Chaletwo said fiercely, “if you’re going to be rebellious again, I’m not backing your story, and without me it’s laughable. Why would he believe an even crazier story when you’ve already told him you’re a liar? He is not joining us. Get out of here!”

Mark glanced at May and Alan. They were looking at him, waiting; he’d asked to do the talking earlier. Part of him wanted to do as Chaletwo said and invent an excuse to leave. But…

Carl had helped them. He’d gone out of his way to give them the benefit of the doubt, even when he was sceptical. Mark couldn’t leave in good conscience without coming clean.

He took a deep breath and started again. “I’m not going to be able to prove this to you,” he began, trying to ignore Chaletwo’s wordless psychic fury clawing at his brain. “But it’s the truth. Take it or leave it.”

Carl raised his eyebrows, waiting. May looked at Mark with a puzzled frown, but didn’t comment.

“I made up most of what I told the townspeople, and I’m sorry for that. But I really am Mark Greenlet who was killed by Chaletwo. It’s not because Chaletwo’s evil; it’s because Chaletwo wanted me to help him save the world. There’s a terrible disaster coming, and to stop it we need to temporarily capture every legendary in a Pokéball. There are more people doing it, not just us – and we’ve almost succeeded. We only have two battles left.”

Carl’s eyes were steady, waiting. “Where does Volcaryu fit into all this?”

“He, and the two other dragons we told you about, really were created by Chaletwo.” There was that twitch of a half-smile from Carl again. “But he regretted it, and he knew how dangerous they were. It was him who sent me to warn you to evacuate the town. He had to wake Volcaryu because soon he wouldn’t be able to keep him asleep anymore – before the disaster, the legendaries slowly lose their powers. And we really were headed to Champion Island next to get Polaryu.”

Carl considered it. He still didn’t move; he just continued to gaze at Mark, like he was trying to read the truth off his face. “Now, why,” he began eventually, “just why on Earth would you make up that silly lie you told my townspeople? The same thing but with Chaletwo cartoonishly evil instead of good? In what possible way did you think that would help your story?”

Mark blinked. “Well, I…”

“Usually liars are individuals with something to hide, who want to make their story sound better than it is. As far as I can tell, your cover story was in every way less believable and more risky than the truth, if this is it. So why lie to begin with?”

Mark didn’t know what to say. He felt stupid now about how confident he’d felt telling that story, sure they were all buying it hook, line and sinker. “I… I couldn’t tell you the truth,” he managed after a few awkward seconds; the psychic background noise of Chaletwo’s anger, now tinged with resentful vindication, was making it hard to think. “We had to keep it secret. If the other legendaries found out we were trying to capture all of them, they’d know to stay away.”

“And you didn’t worry about the other legendaries finding out supposedly Chaletwo was trying to take over the world? You trusted my townspeople with keeping the fake story quiet; why not the real one? I cautioned the people that your tale was likely false, by the way, and so far as I know they haven’t spread it, but imagine if they had.”

Mark looked down. Why had he made up that story? Ultimately, mostly because at the time he’d really wanted to show up Chaletwo, which seemed like the pettiest thing in the world right now. “I wasn’t thinking,” he muttered.

“Yes, it’s quite plain you weren’t. That’s likely why I’m inclined to believe you; this entire story is too fraught with genuine human incompetence to be fabricated.”

For a moment there was silence, Carl’s words hanging in the air like a final judgement. Then, suddenly, Alan spoke, his voice tight.

“Then why did you give us badges and send us on our way to get Polaryu, if you thought we were lying all along?”

“That’s a good question,” Carl said, unfazed. “I knew from the start I wasn’t going to let you take the dragon, of course, particularly not when I saw you’d already caught another one. But when you immediately agreed so long as I kept it behind lock and key, it seemed to me that you clearly only wanted the dragons neutralized, not to possess them. That indicated that whatever your true motivations, they were presumably altruistic, and letting you handle Polaryu was probably for the best. I still made precautions in case I was wrong and you tried to get Volcaryu from me later, of course.” He inclined his head towards the safe.

“Well, we weren’t going to try to get Volcaryu from you later,” Alan said, his face flushed with heat. “We’re trying to save the world. And maybe we’re not very good at it, but you know what? We’ve almost done it anyway! We saved Stormy Town, and we saved your town. We’d been told not to tell you the truth, so Mark made something up on the spot to get you to evacuate, and it worked. We came here to ask for your help, but on second thought I’m not sure we need you.”

“What?” May hissed. “Alan, what are you –”

“No, actually,” Mark interrupted. “I… I also think we’ll probably be fine.” Alan looked at him, as surprised as May, as the psychic pressure in the back of Mark’s mind started to recede. “I think we should go. Thanks for everything.”

“Fair enough,” Carl said, raising his eyebrows as Mark and Alan stood up, followed by the still puzzled May. “For the record, I was frank with you for your own sake. I’m still grateful that you helped save my town, and if your story is true – the part you told me, at any rate – I wish you the best of luck with what remains.”

“Goodbye,” Mark said, and Carl nodded in return.

“Also, May,” Carl said as Mark opened the front door, “I watched the League finals. Great performance, as much as the outcome was a disgrace. Your Tyranitar deserved better.”

May stared at him for a second, frozen, before she hastily turned around and followed the boys out the door.

Outside, in the crisp evening air, Alan took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t…”

“What the hell was that?” May asked, turning an accusatory glare towards both of the boys as they walked towards where Charizard and Charlie were waiting. “Weren’t we going to recruit him?”

“We’re not recruiting him,” Chaletwo said, his telepathic voice still trembling noticeably. “Sick bastard. Locking Volcaryu in a…”

“Wait, what?” May was raising her voice. “That’s it? We’re ditching him because he put your pet dragon in a safe where it belongs?”

“He didn’t choose to be that way!” Chaletwo said fiercely, his voice tenser than Mark thought he’d ever heard it before. “When I get my powers back I was going to fix him!”

“You made it that way to begin with!” They were approaching the Charizard now, where they lay lazily by the roots of the volcano; they looked up in puzzlement as they heard May. “How is it Carl’s fault that your dragons are psychotic?”

“They never even got a chance at life!”

“Chaletwo,” Alan interrupted before May could respond, his voice quiet but firm, “if you get your powers back, then you can get him out of the safe. It won’t stop the world’s most powerful legendary Pokémon. Carl can’t keep him in there forever.”

Mark felt the throbbing tension in the back of his mind starting to fade. “Yes,” Chaletwo said after few seconds, “that’s true. You’re right. He’ll be fine. I’m sorry.”

May took a deep breath. “So, are we going back in there?”

Mark’s mind stung. “I still don’t want him with us.”

Alan winced. “I’m… not sure I want him with us, either.”

Mark shrugged uncomfortably; he still sort of wanted to get Carl on their side, but he knew exactly why Alan didn’t. May’s gaze shifted between him and Alan; she folded her arms, shivering with cold, but didn’t say anything.

“We can always come back if we fail,” Mark said with a sigh. “Maybe we don’t need him, but if it turns out we do, I think we should talk to him again.”

“Agreed,” Chaletwo said, a little reluctantly. Alan nodded, while May gave a barely visible shrug.

“Let’s just get back to Stormy Town,” Mark said, and nobody objected.

-------

Felix the Alakazam whisked them back to the Stormy Town Pokémon Center in a blink. Leah, Victor and Robin were waiting for them on the couches inside, holding half-finished ice creams.

“No Carl?” Leah asked, licking at her ice cream as she held her hand forward to take Felix’s ball from Mark.

“He wasn’t up for it,” Chaletwo responded, and nobody contradicted him. May handed Robin her Charizard’s Pokéball without words.

“Can’t have everything.” Leah shrugged. “Meanwhile, we asked around town and there are some rumours flying around about Mew appearing near Scorpio City a few weeks back, but Mew is always on the move, so odds are she’s not there anymore. There’s a good chance she might still be somewhere in Ouen, though, so that’s a lead for when we’re done with the Waraider herd.”

She said that so casually. How were they ever going to track down a legendary who was constantly moving, with nothing narrower than an entire region to go on? Not for the first time, Mark was a bit intimidated by her confidence, but he pushed the thought aside. They could think about Mew when they got there.

They headed to the Gym building when the others had finished their ice creams. Sparky was waiting for them just inside the entrance, leaning against the wall. “There you are!” he said, instantly springing into a standing position. “You wanted to go somewhere private, correct? Follow me.”

He led them up the stairs where Mark remembered their bedrooms being when they’d stayed in Stormy Town. “The good thing about the off season,” the Gym leader said, “is that all these rooms are free. It’s great for movie nights. Nobody to complain if the sound is too loud.”

Mark smiled. The unease linering in his stomach since their conversation with Carl was finally starting to fade.

Sparky opened one of the doors on the corridor to reveal a room with popcorn strewn across the floor. “Oh, not this one.” He chuckled. “Still have to clean that up.” He shook his head at the next one as well, where video game consoles and controllers lay in a tangle in front of the television, then showed them into the third one, which was spotlessly clean.

“So,” he said, sitting down on the bed and removing his shades. The trademark twinkle in his eyes faded and gave way to a surprising seriousness that should have felt out of place on his face but somehow seemed to belong. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Mark hesitated; the change had disoriented him. “Remember...” he began, intending to ask about Thunderyu, but then changed his mind. “Remember reading or hearing about Chaletwo killing a boy at the Pokémon Festival last May?”

Sparky nodded slowly, then stopped mid-nod. “That was – that was you, wasn’t it?” he said, his brow furrowing. “I should have noticed.”

“You didn’t notice because your memory was modified to not make the connection,” Mark went on. “Chaletwo recruited me on a mission to capture all of the legendary Pokémon before a huge disaster happens. When we caught that dragon that was in Thunderclap Cave, that was part of it.”

Sparky was watching him intently, his eyes very open. “Oh, my,” he said. “This is much bigger than I thought.”

“It is,” said Chaletwo; Sparky jumped. “This is Chaletwo. I’ve been guiding them along through an anchor to Mark’s brain. Only the Waraider herd and Mew are left; there’s eight of the former, and we have to fight them all at once, so we need more firepower. These kids are the team we’ve gathered so far, and we were hoping you could join us.”

Sparky swallowed, shaking his head. “I have so many questions,” he began. “What –”

“The disaster is caused by something that drains away their powers. They’re severely weakened by now – still powerful, but not so powerful that it’s not feasible to take them down. We can answer all your questions if you agree.”

Sparky looked between them in silence and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure that I’m the best person to bring on for this,” he said. “Running a Gym places certain restrictions on my Pokémon – I’d wager any one of you could blow them down without much effort by now. And as you saw, I have a pretty busy restaurant to run. Someone else could likely be of more use and have less to leave behind.”

“Well, we’re running rather short on options,” Chaletwo said, a flash of irritation throbbing in Mark’s head. “We’re talking to you because you already knew about Thunderyu, the dragon in the mountain. We’d rather not tell more uninvolved people.”

“Electric-types would come in handy, even if they’re not that strong,” Robin put in. “Paralyzing all of them as soon as possible would be a huge help, and they’re all part Flying. I think there’s a lot your Pokémon could do.”

Sparky gave a slow nod, still staring at Mark. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “This sounds dangerous, and all the more so for Pokémon who have never battled anything at that level. I’d have to confer with them. But…” He shook his head, smiling wistfully. “If I know them correctly, they’ll say yes.”

“In that case, we only need to know what you’ll say.”

Sparky nodded again, pursing his lips in thought, closing his eyes.

“Ah, where’s my spirit of adventure?” he said after only a few seconds, looking up. He was smiling again, the playful twinkle back in his eyes. “If we can truly help, and my Pokémon agree, I can close down the restaurant for a while and come with you. Is that enough for you?”

Chaletwo’s relief flooded through Mark’s mind. “Yes, that’s enough. Thank you for joining us.”

“You can stay here for free for the night,” Sparky said. “I’ll want to talk to my Pokémon alone tonight and give them until morning to think about it. But first, I want to know more. What kind of disaster is this? Why is it happening now?”

As Chaletwo and Leah started to explain the War of the Legends, Mark couldn’t help but notice May standing in the corner of the room, quiet, picking at her fingernails.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 69: Lies

May lay awake in her bed, arm over her eyes. Sparky had given everyone a room in the Gym; hers was next to his own, and for a long time after lying down she’d indistinctly heard him and his Pokémon talking through the wall, until eventally they’d gone quiet. Now the only sounds to be heard were the ghostly cries of wild Hoothoot outside, barely audible after she’d closed the window.

But she still couldn’t sleep.

She sighed, moving her arm and blinking blearily into the darkness of the ceiling. She reached for the lamp on her nightstand and switched it on. If only the room had some books or something. She checked the drawer to be sure, but it only had a pen and a notebook.

If she were Mark she could draw something, but she wasn’t.

She closed the drawer and reached for the Pokéball necklace she’d left sitting on top of the nightstand instead. After detaching Spirit’s ball and maximizing it, she hesitated, changed her mind and took out Stantler’s instead.

“May?” the deer Pokémon asked when she materialized, looking around. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” May said. “I just… couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s just one of those things.”

“Why did you bring me out?”

“Somebody to talk to, I guess.” May rubbed her face with her hands. “Unless you know some amazing Stantler sleep tips or something.”

Stantler looked at her for a moment. “I could try a Hypnosis,” she said. “But if you wanted to talk, we can talk first.”

Hypnosis. Of course. She should have thought of that. She hated that she hadn’t.

She considered just asking her to do that now, so she could finally go to sleep. But…

May exhaled. “Do you think the police are going to… to figure out it was Tyranitar?”

“I only know what you told me,” Stantler said after a considered pause. “What are you worried about?”

“I don’t know, Robin was…” What had she told Stantler? “They know it was a Tyranitar. But there are wild ones where it happened. They can’t say I did it just because I released a Tyranitar at a similar time. It doesn’t prove anything.”

Stantler gazed at her. May wished she wouldn’t always take so long to answer, like she had to deliberate over every word. “No,” the Pokémon said at last, “it doesn’t sound like there’s any proof it was your Tyranitar who killed him.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” Why would Robin even –

“But it was him,” Stantler said.

“That’s not the point.”

“I think it is.”

“No, it isn’t,” May said. “It happened, and it was my fault, but it’s done. I just want to move on, but then Robin and everyone just…”

“What did Robin say?”

May took a deep breath. At least it was Stantler. She could talk to Stantler. “She thinks I should turn myself in. That Rick deserves to know what happened. But we’ve got legendaries to hunt down, and Rick’s a bloody nutcase either way. How would that even help? It’s not going to bring him back.”

Stantler considered it for a moment. “It would be unwise to do anything that might hinder or delay your quest further at this point,” she said. “But after this is over, perhaps it might help you.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” May said firmly.

The Pokémon surveyed her closely. “Are you sure?” she asked. “This has clearly been weighing on you. Perhaps having it out in the open would relieve some of that weight.”

“Telling people doesn’t help,” May snapped. “It just makes them think I’m the scum of the earth. That’s not helpful.”

“You aren’t,” Stantler said.

“Yes, I know.”

There was another pause. “I think owning up to what happened and facing the consequences of your actions could help you truly move on. You could finally be free of this suffocating secret and everything that comes with it. It might be the least painful course of action for you, in the end.”

“Well, I can’t risk that,” May said. “They’d probably revoke my license at the very least, and when they do that you can’t get it back.”

Stantler tilted her head, a budding curiosity in her eyes. “Is training Pokémon important to you?”

“It’s what I’m good at.”

“You’re good at many things.”

“I’m not going to the police, okay?”

“That’s a decision only you can make,” said Stantler. Even if May could talk to her, she could still be infuriating.

May sighed, lying back down on the bed. “Try that Hypnosis. Recall yourself if it works.”

-------

The lack of Pokémon, Gyms or any other strong incentive for trainers to visit meant Sailance had no Pokémon Center, so instead Felix had memorized the front of the library. The bright white building with the ornate carvings above the door evoked a strange sense of nostalgia within Mark; this library was his childhood, and it was bizarre to realize that he hadn’t been there for the better part of a year now.

He would have thought he’d long to go home, coming here again, but somehow, he didn’t. Home felt like part of a different world that wasn’t important at the moment, a strange world where Mark’s biggest concern had been his overprotective parents and mean-spirited teacher. But the two worlds intersected at the library, in a weird, disorienting way; he’d visited it so often to read about legendary Pokémon, staring in awe at the beautiful illustrations, and now here he was again, having fought and captured some of those legendary Pokémon. The memory seemed like an unreal dream.

“Well,” Leah said, recalling her Alakazam. “He said he’d be here. Let’s get inside.”

“Do you know what he looks like?” May asked as they stepped through the automatic door.

“Of course. I followed the news whenever Chaletwo slaughtered more innocents. He’d be a couple years older now, but he shouldn’t be hard to recognize.”

“And even if you didn’t, I’m here too.”

“Funnily enough, Chaletwo, I never thought memory was one of your best qualities.” Leah looked around. “Mark, you know this place. What floor would he be on?”

“Probably the third,” Mark said immediately. “That’s where the legendary books are.”

They crammed themselves into one of the elevators, and Leah pressed the third-floor button. Mark was gripped with an odd sense of déjà vu; for a moment he felt like he was back in the old world, like his entire journey had been an unusually vivid daydream on a particularly boring elevator ride.

“He said he’d been doing some computer thingamajig,” Leah said as they stepped out of the lift, looking around. “Are there computers around here somewhere?”

“Behind there,” Mark said, pointing past a row of bookshelves. It was stupid, but he kind of enjoyed being the one who knew stuff for once.

As soon as they’d rounded the corner, a boy by one of the computers jumped out of his seat. “Le... Miss Donaldson?” He was maybe fourteen, a bit chubby, with curly red hair, freckles and large, round eyes. She whipped around at the mention of her name.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, brightening. “Ryan whatshisname, right?”

“Good to see you again, Ryan,” Chaletwo said.

The boy nodded, grinning. “You’re the new kid,” he said, pointing at Mark before he looked at the others, “but... whoa, Gym leaders.” His already wide eyes widened further. “League semifinalist! The Ouen Champion! That’s some group you’ve got.”

“I’m not the Champion,” May said.

“Well, not technically, but come on!” Ryan spread his arms. “That kid was a disgrace to Pokémon training, and you would’ve kicked his ass any day of the week without Mewtwo².”

May pressed her lips together; Mark quickly tried to change the subject. “You said you had something on the Waraider herd?”

“Yes!” Ryan said enthusiastically as he sat back down at the computer, beckoning them to follow. “See, about a year ago I started gathering every scrap of information about the unicorns – there have been a lot of sightings, you know, even if they’re pretty unclear – and it wasn’t long before I started seeing a pattern. Look.”

He brought up a map of Ouen with red dots plotted onto it that Mark assumed stood for sightings. Almost all the dots were clustered together in about a dozen groups, scattered around the region.

“See? You’d expect this sort of thing to be a pretty even random distribution across similar areas, but it’s not.”

“Doesn’t that just mean they were in one place long enough for multiple people to see them?” May asked, sceptical.

“Ah.” Ryan held up a finger. “Exactly what I would’ve thought. But the times don’t match up. In fact, if I color the spots by time, then...”

He fiddled with menus on the screen; the dots changed to be various hues instead of red.

“See – the spots in each cluster are different colors, far apart in time.”

May squinted at it. “So... they keep coming back to the same places?”

“Not only that,” Ryan added excitedly. “In the same order. I’m almost certain of it. The record is spotty, and they don’t always stay for the same amount of time, so it’s not obvious, but I’ve been analyzing this data for months and it’s uncanny. They have to be going the same round trip around the region over and over again – only it’s not a round trip, it’s a ridiculous polygon trip. Look, here’s the way I think they go.”

He changed more options, and a wild criss-crossing web of lines connecting the clusters of dots appeared. It really wasn’t a round trip: if this was right, the Waraider herd regularly flew halfway across the region to get to a place, then flew back to another place much closer to the one they’d started at. It was bizarre.

“How sure are you?” asked Leah, doubtful.

“Pretty sure. I mean, if you’ve got a sighting at time X in location A, and a sighting at time Y in location B, then any sightings between X and Y are going to be from the locations that come between A and B in this cycle, except where the difference between X and Y is so big they’ve probably gone all the way around in between, or where the sighting is really dubious and probably fake. And it’s a lot of data points, and this matches up way better than chance. It’s by far the best possible match with the data. I wrote a program that worked it out.”

“Does that make any sense to you, Chaletwo?” Leah glanced at Mark out of the corner of her eye.

“It’s strange, but frankly I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Leah raised her eyebrows. “Nice. So where are they now, according to your thing?”

“Well.” Ryan rubbed his hands together. “It’s a little hard to tell, because like I said, they don’t always stay for the same amount of time, and I haven’t managed to find any sightings newer than sometime in June. But playing around with averages, at the moment they’re most likely to be somewhere around here.” He pointed triumphantly at a cluster shortly northeast of Alumine.

“Have you checked?” Leah asked.

Ryan’s face fell a little. “Well, no,” he said. “I’d been looking for newer data, but when you called I started working on finishing the algorithm and running it on the current dataset instead, and I just wrapped that up this morning. Besides, I was waiting for you.”

“I guess.” Leah squinted at the map again. “That’s a pretty big cluster, though. We’ll probably have to split up searching. And we can’t Teleport, since Felix hasn’t been to Alumine, either.”

“But my Xatu has,” Ryan said proudly. “She can get us all there in a whiff. And even if they’re not there, we travelled to all the hotspots once I’d identified them. We can search them in in order of likelihood until we find them.”

Leah blinked. “Huh. You’re actually pretty good.”

Ryan beamed. “Should we get going now?”

-------

“So how long have you been traveling with Leah?” Ryan asked. They’d split into two groups for the search after arriving in Alumine and planning things out; Mark had gone with Ryan, Robin and Sparky to explore the eastern half of the area, while Leah, May, Alan and Victor had gone west.

“Only a couple of days,” Mark said. “But we’d met before – she sent a distress call when she was battling Entei, and we came to help her.”

“Oh.” Ryan paused. “What’s she like?”

Mark shrugged. “She’s pretty cool, I guess?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said with a sigh. “I mean, she’s caught so many legendaries. I’ve only gotten a couple myself – went for the Sinnoh pixies, Heatran, then working on the herd. Seems kind of pathetic in the space of almost three years, next to her and Mary with, like, fifteen or twenty. But if we count the unicorns as mine after this, I guess I’m not doing so bad.” He chuckled nervously and opened his mouth again as if to ask something, then closed it again.

Mark nodded, distracted. He – well, they – had caught a lot of legendaries for only having been out there for less than a year, but that was mostly because of Thunderyu, Volcaryu, Polaryu and Suicune all being in known locations and getting lucky with the female Color Dragons. He’d never have even thought of something like plotting historical sightings on a map and trying to see a pattern; next to someone who could do something like that and genuinely track down a legendary, he felt hopelessly out of his league.

“What’s with May, anyway?” Ryan said after a few seconds. “When I watched the League I got the impression she wanted to win really badly. Isn’t she happy to be basically the Champion? I mean, of course she’d’ve wanted to actually beat him, and it’s terrible he died, but –”

“It was her Tyranitar that killed him,” Robin said before anyone else could answer. Mark froze in his tracks. Ryan turned around in puzzlement, and Sparky stopped, giving Robin a wary look.

“She told me,” Robin said; she had stopped too, and though her voice was slightly unsteady, she stood firm. “I think she should tell the police. They’re still investigating what happened, and it makes it look worse if she’s trying to hide it. I tried to tell her we should go to them, but she got really evasive, and –”

“What do you mean, her Tyranitar?” Ryan asked blankly.

“She said she’d wished death on him. She says she didn’t mean it, but her Tyranitar thought she did, and he killed him.”

“What? But...” Ryan’s eyes were even wider than usual.

“It was an accident,” Chaletwo said. “Yes, he died, very sad, but I’m not hearing anything more about this. She didn’t mean for him to be killed. It has no bearing on today, and going to the police won’t help anyone. Remember saving the world?”

“What about Rick?” Robin said, unyielding. “He was devastated when his brother died. He deserves to know what really happened.”

“No, he doesn’t! The man is insane, and he’s all the more reason not to tell the police. Remember how he was capturing legendaries before any of you, just because he could? Remember that TV interview where he went nuts? We don’t want him anywhere near our mission.”

“This is wrong,” Robin said, shaking her head. “If it really was just an accident and not her fault, then I don’t understand why you’re all so insistent on covering it up. And if Rick’s a bit unhinged, maybe it’s not helping that his brother died and he still doesn’t know why. I mean, Taylor was his only family. He’d been raising him since he was a toddler. He needs closure and peace, for God’s sake. Have some compassion.”

“Will it jog your memory if I remind you that interview involved him threatening to murder whomever was responsible?” Chaletwo said coldly. “We’re not telling him anything, and we’re not telling the police anything that they might tell him.”

Robin looked away, wincing. “Look, I’m not suggesting we outright report her to the police behind her back. It’s just… I’m really not comfortable going around pretending this didn’t happen, and I think it’d be better for everyone if she just came clean and let the police handle it. And as for Rick, I mean, she said you could do something about it if they figured it out, so couldn’t you just do the same if he… tried anything? I don’t know; she just refuses to hear any of this from me, since…” She spread her arms in a gesture of frustrated puzzlement. “Well, she obviously has some sort of problem with me.”

“If she has a problem with you, it’s probably because you’re not willing to let this go,” Chaletwo said, irritated. “Again, I won’t hear any more of this. You can worry about their peace of mind when the world isn’t ending.”

Robin looked silently at Sparky and then back at Mark, sighing. Ryan still stood there, pale, glancing between the three of them. A second passed before Sparky spoke, wary. “This sounds like something we ought to be aware of. Can you please explain exactly what happened?”

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” Chaletwo said. “Right now we’re looking for the Waraider herd. If you’re not with us, then feel free to leave. I don’t want to hear another word about this.”

Mark felt a tinge of guilty hesitation in the back of his mind after the last word, but Sparky only shook his head slightly and set off walking again. After a moment, Robin threw her hands up and did the same. Ryan looked doubtfully at Mark; he sighed and followed suit, and Ryan hurried to catch up.

-------

May trudged silently alongside the others. She’d managed to go with the group that didn’t have Robin, but it did have Alan, and although Alan probably had nothing left unsaid to her by now, she was still wary.

“So, uh,” Victor said after a while, “May, did you get that Mutark?”

She nodded, glancing at Alan where he was walking beside Leah at the front of the party, but he didn’t react. Leah turned her head, though. “Didn’t you watch the League? She used one there. Gave it a Sticky Barb so it could transform right away. Pretty slick.”

“Oh.” Victor looked away. “I missed it, I’m sorry. I only watched the finals because of all the buzz about Rick’s brother, to be honest.”

Leah shrugged. “I never used to follow the League religiously either until I got recruited. Turns out it’s a nice place to pick up creative strategies – fun fact, I’ve ripped off more than one Champion in my legendary fights.” She grinned. “Ironically, I actually kind of missed the finals this time around. I usually listen to it on my PokéGear radio when I’m on the road, but seeing as the commentator up and left, I gave up trying to follow what was going on within the first five minutes. Just a lot of roars and growls and attack names. I read about it in the paper when I came to town, obviously, but.”

Victor winced. “It was pretty brutal. You read about the… the Mewtwo clone? It just threw her Tyranitar around like a cheap toy. I felt kind of bad for him.”

“Yeah, so I heard,” Leah said, raising her eyebrows. “Psychic against a Dark-type. How nuts is that?” She shook her head. “Then again, we’re a bunch of teenagers going around fighting gods, so, you know.”

“How’s he doing, anyway?” asked Victor, turning towards May. He was trying to make the question sound more casual than it was, and May hated that she could tell. “He… seemed so determined to win. Did he take it okay?”

Alan turned around, too. May imagined them vanishing, just blinking out of existence and leaving her alone, but that wasn’t helpful. “I released him.”

Victor’s awkward attempt at a smile vanished, his lips tightening, too quickly. “You released him because he didn’t win?”

She inhaled sharply. “Yeah,” she said, without thinking, and instantly regretted it. But Alan didn’t say anything. He stood there, staring at her, but his mouth didn’t open.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Victor said. “I mean, nothing could have stood against that Mewtwo². You shouldn’t –”

“Hey, lay off her, okay?” Leah said, turning her head. “You don’t know what happened between them and it’s none of your business. Releasing a Pokémon is hard; don’t rub it in.”

Victor looked at May for a brief moment before averting his eyes again. “Right. Sorry.”

Alan’s gaze, on the other hand, lingered on her for several seconds before Leah continued walking and he turned around to follow.

-------

Mark’s group was still wandering aimlessly across the uneven hills. There were no roads around here, or even footpaths; it was all dead, yellow grass, rocks and irregularities that made it far more exhausting to get around than a manmade road. Mark envied Ryan’s Xatu for being able to follow them with a casual series of teleports without actually having to walk.

He was falling into a daze of repetition when Robin called, “Look!”

He turned and caught a strange, shimmering glimpse out of the corner of his eye, but then it was gone. He blinked, squinting at the spot where it had been; there seemed to be nothing there.

“What?” asked Ryan.

“I’m sure I saw something,” Robin said, wary. “Like in my peripheral vision. I can’t see it anymore, though.”

“Me too,” Mark said, looking around for a sign of the phenomenon again; everything seemed normal now. “It can’t be just a coincidence, can it?”

“Xatu, Miracle Eye,” Ryan ordered, pointing in the direction of the place they were looking at. The bird Pokémon turned towards it, her eyes glowing red; for a moment there was that shimmering again, and then suddenly eight unicorns with folded wings, grazing lazily in the field, were visible in plain sight.

“Xatu, send the signal, quick!” Ryan said urgently; the Pokémon’s eyes flashed red again, and all at once, the unicorns looked up. With a chorus of panicked neighs, they broke into a gallop, unfurling their wings and preparing to take off.

Robin had already reached for a Pokéball. Her Charizard emerged in a burst of white, and she swung onto his back with a practiced ease. “Follow them!” she shouted. Mark belatedly fumbled for his Charizard’s ball and sent him out as well.

“We found the Waraider herd,” he said quickly as the dragon emerged. Charizard only gave a brief nod, lowering his wing for Mark to climb aboard.

“Xatu, go with them,” Ryan said. “Remember this spot, then come get us when you’ve seen where the herd went.”

Xatu nodded, and in a sudden show of animatedness, the normally-statuesque Pokémon spread her wings and shot into the air as Charizard took off in a lurch.

Mark looked down at Ryan and Sparky, feeling a little bad for having to leave them behind. As he gave them an apologetic smile, Leah, May, Victor and Alan appeared on the ground, holding onto Felix the Alakazam and looking wildly around.

“They went that way!” Mark shouted. “Robin and I are going – you can come, or Xatu can get you when they land.”

May gave a quick nod of acknowledgement. Alan looked between them and Mark, his hand hovering near his Pokéball belt, but then he relaxed it and didn’t send anything out. Mark imagined he was thinking of Charlie.

“Charizard,” Mark said, leaning forward and clinging to his Pokémon’s neck, “we can wait for Xatu, if you don’t think you can catch up with Robin.”

“I don’t know about catching up,” he said, “but I don’t think Robin should be going after them alone.”

And he increased his speed, zooming after the orange spot ahead of them and the indistinct shapes it was following.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 70: Waraider

When Charizard finally caught up with Robin and Xatu, it was because they were descending and slowing down. The unicorns were an indistinct shape near the horizon; he wasn’t sure they’d be able to see them much longer.

“Is your Charizard getting tired?” Mark called as they pulled up beside her.

Robin shook her head. “I think we should let them think they’ve shaken us off,” she said. “That’s why we’re flying so low, to be less visible against the sky. The next hotspot on Ryan’s map was on Route 317, and they’ve been flying straight in that direction – I figured that’s probably where they’re going, and Xatu agreed.”

Mark blinked, his feelings of inadequacy returning. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said. “Route 317, though? That’s pretty far.”

“They’ve got to take a break eventually, right?” Robin said. “If they think we’re gone, they’ll hopefully lower their guard and land for a bit before too long, and we can all attack them there.”

“They’re legendaries,” Mark pointed out, wary. “Are you sure they won’t outlast a couple of Charizard with riders before they get tired?”

Robin shrugged. “Well, we can’t really know, but if they do shake us off, Xatu can take us all straight to the Route 317 spot and we can hide and wait for them to get there.” She looked at Charizard, smiling. “If you’re getting out of breath, though, I have some Ethers. Won’t replace a good rest, but it’s something.”

“No need,” Charizard huffed. “Just... maybe later.”

“Sure. Just say when.”

They flew on for a while, low. The herd had disappeared into the distance. Xatu meticulously scanned the ground below with Miracle Eye, watching for any sign of the unicorns. Charizard strained to keep up, and Mark couldn’t help but be painfully aware of how effortless Robin’s Charizard’s flight seemed in comparison.

Finally, Robin turned around. “Hey, Mark,” she said, her voice quieter than usual. “If Chaletwo doesn’t want to do anything about it, fine, but… how much do you know about how Taylor died? I just… I just want to know the truth.”

Mark saw a brief flash of glassy, staring eyes and jutting, broken ribs; he shuddered. “I… I saw it happen.”

Robin blinked and then stared, her brow furrowing. “Wait, what?”

He swallowed. “May – she wanted a rematch after the finals, so she went to Taylor’s training spot to wait for him, and I came with her, but I didn’t know that’s where we were. Taylor showed up and agreed to battle her again, and she sent out Tyranitar first, and then he… he attacked him.”

“And you just stood there?” asked Robin, incredulous.

“I… we didn’t realize he was going to… May tried to recall him but it was too late.” Mark felt a little sick; he’d never really felt like he could have done something about it, prevented all this, but it was true, wasn’t it? He wasn’t sure exactly what he should have done, but…

Robin pressed her lips together. Her Charizard looked at Mark over his shoulder, a hint of real or imagined accusation in his eyes. “And what, then you just… left him?” Robin asked, her voice tight.

Mark nodded, a growing pit in his stomach. Again he remembered the body lying on the barren ground, the way they’d tried to avoid looking at it or thinking about it.

“Remember how I didn’t want to hear another word about this?” Chaletwo said irritably. “There was nothing better they could do. You wanted to know what happened, and now you know, so drop it.”

Robin gazed at Mark for a few long seconds. “All right,” she said finally, turning around to stare at the ground ahead.

-------

Sitting cross-legged, May tore a fistful of dead grass off the ground, then idly snapped each blade in half until the pieces were too small to get a good grip on. They’d set up a temporary camp, if one could call it that, where Xatu had left them; they had to be ready to go with her at a moment’s notice when she returned, so they’d all sat down on the hard ground around Charlie’s tail flame, uselessly twiddling their thumbs as they waited. At least the grass was dry.

“Well,” Leah said, “might as well do some more planning while we’re here. Obviously the unicorns are pretty jumpy, and we’re going to need to approach them without having to chase them off to who knows where again. If they really don’t want to be separated, they won’t leave one behind, so getting a trapper in there and trapping just one of them should be enough, but the trapper needs to be able to approach the herd and survive until we get there. So…”

“Sounds like a job for Spirit,” Sparky said. May looked up.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Leah went on. “Ghosty Ninetales just phases out completely, reappears in the middle of the herd, gets a Mean Look in, then goes insubstantial. By the time they figure out most moves won’t hit her, we’ll have caught up.” She looked at May. “You know, I’ve got to hand it to the beasts,” she said cheerfully. “These chosen Pokémon can be pretty sweet.”

May snorted. “Don’t let her hear that.”

She pulled Spirit’s ball off her necklace and dropped it on the ground. The Ninetales stretched, looked around and turned to May, questioning.

“Mark, Robin and Xatu are chasing the herd,” May said. “Once they come back to get us, we’re going to need you to go into the strong spirit spirit form, use a Mean Look to trap one of them, and then stay in the weak spirit form until we can get close. Can you do that?”

Spirit straightened. “Of course,” she said. “When are they coming?”

“No idea.” May shook her head. “You can stay out until then if you like, I guess.”

Spirit shook herself, thinking for a moment, but then lay down in the grass beside May, resting her head on her paws. May stroked her head, the Ninetales’ fur soft beneath her fingers. It’d been a while. Part of her wished she’d brought Spirit out last night after all, and part of her really didn’t.

Sparky was still gazing at her, his expression unreadable behind his shades. “May, could I talk to you for a second?”

She shrugged, scratching Spirit’s ear. “If you want.”

She stood up and the Gym leader beckoned her to come with him out of earshot. She was tense but not sure why; she pulled her coat tighter, folding her arms. “Is this about Spirit?”

“No.” Sparky lifted his shades. “Earlier,” he said, his voice quiet, “Robin told us that your Tyranitar killed Taylor Lancaster. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Robin. Rage boiled up in her stomach; why had she ever trusted her? How could she have been so stupid? She glanced at Alan out of the corner of her eye, but he was only talking to Ryan, oblivious to their conversation.

She looked back up at Sparky and the searching concern in his eyes, pulling the coat tighter again. “No.”

“No?”

“No, I don’t want to tell you about it.” Robin had no right. No right at all. Who the hell did she think she was? “Is that all?”

Sparky straightened, his brow furrowing slightly. “Yes, I suppose that is all.”

May turned and sat back down by Spirit’s side before he could say anything else, burying her fingers in her mane.

-------

After what felt like hours and two Ethers for Charizard, something prodded at Mark’s mind from the outside. He looked up, startled; Xatu gave him and Robin a meaningful look before pointing down with her beak. Sure enough, in a secluded valley below them, he could make out the forms of the unicorns as they grazed, oblivious to their presence.

Xatu nodded at them and dived, and the two Charizard followed suit. They landed in the mountains just on the outside of the valley, hidden from sight.

“Finally,” said Leah when Xatu had vanished and reappeared with the rest of the group. “Where are they?”

“Down in the valley.” Robin pointed past the outcropping of rock that was shielding them from view, speaking quietly.

“Great. We came up with a plan to trap them while you were gone, too – May’s Ninetales is going to sneak up and Mean Look them for us.”

Robin glanced at May and Spirit, who was standing by her side, but May was looking the other way.

“And then we can just fly or teleport down there, Pokémon out, according to plan, bam, done.” Leah grinned. “They won’t know what hit them.”

“No,” Alan said firmly. “First we talk to them and try to get them to agree to be caught.”

Leah looked at him, incredulous. “Seriously? You gathered eight people for this thing so you could talk to them?”

“We successfully negotiated with the female Color Dragons,” Alan said.

“Yeah,” May responded, looking at him out of the corner of her eye, “but if you remember, most of that negotiation was them trying to kill us and Dragoreen threatening to drop Mark off a cliff.”

Mark felt a momentary flash of stinging phantom pain in his ribs; he shuddered, but pushed it aside. “They deserve to at least know why we’re doing this,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do. And talking to the female Color Dragons helped us find the males, remember.”

“Except Dragoreen sent us on a six-week wild goose chase first.”

“Enough,” Chaletwo said. “Yes, we should try to talk to them. It probably won’t work, but not trying would be irresponsible. I’m still not sure you can actually win this.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Well, whatever, you’re the boss.”

Once everyone was ready and holding onto Felix the Alakazam, May nodded to Spirit and the Ninetales vanished. They moved carefully past the rock so they could see the herd below; the unicorns seemed at peace now, focusing on the grass they were eating instead of looking up, and paid them no notice.

They waited tensely for something to happen for a minute, nothing moving but the cold wind. Then, all of a sudden, Spirit reappeared behind Waraider, her eyes glowing.

Again, the unicorns simultaneously raised their heads. Without even looking to see what was there, they broke into a run –

– and then Waraider ran into an invisible barrier; his legs refused to move as he strained against the Mean Look, neighing in panic, and the herd dissolved into chaos as the others stopped too, rearing and whinnying in an incoherent frenzy.

“Felix, go!” Leah called, and all of a sudden they were several meters down the mountainside, only to be somewhere else again a fraction of a second later. Everything flickered like frames in an old movie, and for a moment Mark felt so completely disoriented that it turned into nausea; he wanted to let go and make it stop, but the Alakazam’s clawed hand tightened around his, pulling him along. He caught unreal, progressively closer glimpses of Waraider turning and noticing Spirit, rushing at her with his long horn glowing white, then passing harmlessly through her insubstantial, ghostlike form, then all the others rushing towards her…

“Stop!” Chaletwo shouted when they’d gotten close enough, and in an instant, everything was normal again. Mark’s entire mind was still reeling after the experience; he would never envy this mode of transportation again. “This is Chaletwo. That Ninetales and these humans are with me. I’m sorry for trapping you, but we couldn’t see any other way to get close enough to talk to you.”

The unicorns stopped and turned, all at once, but looked no calmer. A bluish-white one with icicles forming her wings and horn – Freezaroy, Mark recalled dimly, perhaps with Chaletwo’s help – let out a bloodcurdling scream. “No! Let us go!”

“How dare you sneak up on us like this?” snarled the Fire-type – Emphire – as her mane and tail flared up with new heat.

“This is important,” Chaletwo said. “Has Mew told you about the War of the Legends?”

“What?” asked Emphire, her eyes narrowing.

“Should Mew have told us about a war?” asked the Psychic one, or so Mark presumed from the large, purple gem resembling a third eye that she had in place of a horn. The name Mysticrown surfaced somewhere in his head. “She hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Please explain,” said Electhrone, the Electric-type.

“You’ve felt your powers weakening, correct?” Chaletwo said. “They’re being drained – by someone called the Destroyer. Sometime in the next few months, he will release all that power to drive the legendaries mad, and we’ll all fight each other until only one is left. The only way to stop this is if we’re all in human Pokéballs when it happens. All the others are in now except you and Mew. Please let us capture you, and we can save the world. If you don’t, then we’ll all die.”

The unicorns looked at one another and began talking all at once; Mark couldn’t follow so many simultaneous, nearly identical voices of Pokémon speech. “Who is the Destroyer?” Electhrone asked eventually, stepping closer to Mark while the others squabbled on in a chaotic chorus. His tail whipped restlessly back and forth, releasing a flurry of sparks.

“We don’t know,” Chaletwo said. “Probably some unknown legendary. It’s most likely not important, so long as you’re all captured – or, I suppose, if you prefer that, you could make soul gems and be resurrected afterwards.”

“But what about the Destroyer himself? Does he not need to be caught as well?”

“Hopefully not, because that would make it impossible.”

Yet again, even though only Electhrone had appeared to be paying any attention to their conversation, the unicorns all simultaneously stopped talking and whipped their heads around. They had to have some kind of psychic bond, Mark thought. “What do you mean, hopefully?” asked Freezaroy frantically.

“He’s just making this up as he goes along,” Emphire hissed, her mane flaring.

“Well, if the Destroyer is the only legendary left, the theory is that the same thing that normally makes it stop when there’s only one left will prevent it from happening at all. It makes sense if you think about it.”

The unicorns looked at one another again. “I think we should do it,” said Mysticrown.

“I think so too, for the sake of the world,” said the Grass-type with the leafy wings, Natruler.

“But it’s not certain,” Freezaroy objected, her eyes darting wildly from side to side at the others. “He’s guessing. You can tell he’s guessing.”

“Why did he bring all these trainers and use a Ninetales to trap us if he only wanted to help us?” Emphire hissed. “How do we know he intends to release us again, and this isn’t his ploy to take over?”

“I knew this would happen,” Chaletwo said irritably. “Look. Waraider, you’re the leader, aren’t you? Do you really think I’d make this up? Be sensible.”

Waraider, the plain white unicorn, had been at the back of the herd, not saying much, but at this, the others stepped back to clear the way for him. He took a hesitant step forward, folding and unfolding his feathered wings uneasily. “What do you think?” he finally said, looking back at the others.

This started another round of squabbling neighs and whinnies. Unlike Mark, Waraider didn’t appear to have trouble following them; he didn’t ask them to slow down or speak one at a time, instead just listening to the cacophony until all of a sudden, in an instant, they went silent. “Natruler, Electhrone, Seasar, Darkhan and Mysticrown agree, but Emphire and Freezaroy don’t trust you,” he said. “What is your response?”

“My response is screw them. You’re the leader. You can override them if you really want. They’d follow you.”

Waraider shook his head slowly, his gaze flicking back and forth. “I… I only mediate between them,” he said.

“If you’re not caught, you’ll die!” Chaletwo said. “You can’t tell me you don’t have an opinion on that. If you care so much about them, then make sure you’ll all live to see another day. It’s up to you, and it’s the easiest choice you’ll ever make. Come on!”

Waraider stared at Mark for a moment, then shifted his weight, adjusting his wings again. “I don’t…”

“And if all you do is mediate, well, as I count it the majority is for it. Even if you don’t trust me, make soul gems on your own terms. Why are you even hesitating?”

“And be at the mercy of other Pokémon to be resurrected in the future?” Freezaroy asked, her voice trembling.

Waraider closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “We have a system. We go to the green valley and then we go to the misty plains and then we go to the edge of the large woods and then we go to the rocky field. We can’t change unless we agree.”

Chaletwo sighed and then gave up. “If you don’t agree willingly, we’ll have to take you by force.”

“What?” said Emphire, fury blazing in her voice.

“No!” Freezaroy whinnied, rearing up in a panic.

“Then you are our enemy,” hissed the pitch-black, bat-winged one – Darkhan.

“Tough luck. We’re trying to save the world. If that means we have to mess up your… ‘system’, then too bad for your system.”

The unicorns’ eyes narrowed simultaneously. Waraider straightened where he stood. “We all agree,” he said firmly, “that we will not abandon one another for any reason.”

“This is it,” Chaletwo said. “Pokéballs out.”

“Wait!” Mark shouted as everyone began to send out their Pokémon. “We don’t want you to abandon one another – please, listen!”

But it was too late. The unicorns were grouping into a rough circle, each facing outward, head lowered, hooves stomping as Pokémon emerged all around them.

“Pokémon, divide yourselves!” Chaletwo shouted. “According to plan! Trainers, spread out!”

Throwing his Pokéballs, Mark ran to the right, trying to remember everything they’d laid out in Alumine as four dozen Pokémon headed for their targets, rushing past in every direction, and a flurry of Thunder Waves sparkled through the air. He made a snap decision to focus on Waraider, where Jolteon and Dragonite were headed along with Ryan’s Letaligon (his heart stung suddenly), and sprinted closer to be better positioned to watch.

Most of the unicorns were paralyzed and struggling to move, but Natruler flapped her leaf-wings, a thick wind with a strange, sharp scent to it passed over them, and suddenly they weren’t paralyzed anymore. They took off the ground in a synchronized, graceful leap; Waraider neighed fiercely, and he dived into the ground, crashing down with his hooves and sending tremors through the earth around them.

Sparky had already shouted, “Magnet Rise!” and his Magneton and Electrode successfully levitated themselves high enough to avoid being affected by the Earthquake; all of the other Electric-types were struck helplessly, even Jolteon who bravely attempted to dodge it but wasn’t used to doing it on uneven ground. Sparky had to recall his Manectric, Ampharos and Electabuzz; thankfully they appeared to be the only immediate casualties.

“Okay, no more statuses unless Natruler is incapacitated!” Chaletwo shouted. “Watch out!”

Mark couldn’t get his hopes up about that: even as Natruler was withstanding a barrage of attacks from several Pokémon, he could see her leaves glowing green and revitalizing her with photosynthesized energy. As if taking down all of them wouldn’t have been hard enough before, she had healing moves. Dread crept up on Mark again: this wasn’t possible, there was no way, they’d lose –

“Try to do something about Waraider!” he called, eyes widening as the herd took off again in unison. “Or he’ll use another –”

But it was far too late to say that. Another Earthquake shook the ground, Jolteon, Raichu, Diamond and Robin’s Luxray collapsed, and Mark recalled Jolteon, biting his lip, hoping desperately that they weren’t packing more attacks that could hit all of their Pokémon without damaging each other.

He wasn’t even sure if they could do anything about Waraider. If they had to take them down at the same time, they couldn’t just knock him out and then continue with the others. If only they could...

“Felix, Disable on Waraider!” Leah shouted as she came running towards their side of the fight, and the Alakazam teleported next to her and held forward one of his spoons, eyes flashing. As the unicorn was pulling up and preparing for another Earthquake, he abruptly stopped, blinked and looked around, disoriented.

Next to Waraider, Darkhan kicked the two Weavile fighting him away and released a pulse of dark energy that struck Felix and knocked him backwards; Emphire, beside him, followed with a rush of superheated air, radiating far enough outwards to hit not only the Pokémon in front of her but also those surrounding Darkhan and Freezaroy. Weavile collapsed, charred and limp; Mark recalled her, looking a bit enviously at the other Weavile, Leah’s, who was charging into Darkhan with another Ice Punch, energetic as ever – he supposed it was inevitable Leah’s team was far tougher than theirs, but that didn’t make him feel any more useful.

Above, Dragonite was Thunderpunching Waraider, aided by Pamela’s Thunderbolt; Felix unleashed powerful Psychic attacks, and Ryan’s Letaligon fired tricolored beams from the points of his mask, stomping his feet impatiently as he flexed his claws. Waraider was in no hurry to get closer to him; he tore himself away from Dragonite, his long horn starting to glow, and then rushed back into him as the dragon headed for him again – Horn Drill, Mark realized too late to say anything as the horn pierced Dragonite’s belly, his eyes widened, and his body drifted downward like a deflating balloon. Mark quickly recalled him and ran around to the group fighting Freezaroy.

All three Charizard were surrounding the Ice unicorn in the air, supported by Spirit and Leah’s Arcanine. They were moving sluggishly, though, almost struggling to keep themselves aloft – Icy Wind, he realized with a pang of discomfort as Freezaroy flapped her wings and produced another blast of frigid air. “Just get down on the ground!” he called; they had to be able to focus better on attacking without having to try to fly as well.

Charizard gave him a quick glance before descending clunkily to land, followed by Charlie. Robin’s Charizard stayed stubbornly in the air, but Mark supposed he was doing better than the others anyway; he was still circling Freezaroy nimbly, firing Flamethrowers whenever he could get one in.

Now that she was no longer surrounded in the air, however, the Ice-type was free to withdraw higher away from him. She flapped her wings powerfully as he started to follow, producing a rush of ice and snow that threw him down, straight into the other two Charizard. They tumbled back in a pile of orange, growling.

“Willow, Heat Wave!” Leah shouted, and her Arcanine blasted a wave of heat against the Blizzard, giving the Charizard time to untangle themselves. Charlie didn’t stand up; Charizard managed to crawl to his feet, but was panting and exhausted, and Mark could tell he wouldn’t be standing for long.

“Try a Flare Blitz!” Mark called, and Charizard used the last of his strength to leap up, wreathed in flames, and launch himself at Freezaroy from the side. She neighed in panic, trying to stay aloft as he tackled her out of the air, but failed; they crashed into the ground together, and when she tried to scramble to her feet, eyes wide and shining, Charizard had lost consciousness.

“Good job,” Mark muttered as he recalled him. Leah’s Arcanine used the opportunity to leap onto Freezaroy’s struggling form to stop her from standing up; Spirit and Robin’s Charizard Flamethrowered her from where they were standing. They appeared to be doing okay for now.

Mark moved left, to where Sandslash, Flygon, and Robin’s Gastrodon were still fighting Electhrone using coordinated Rock Slides. The Electric unicorn flapped his wings rapidly, forming a powerful blast of wind that sent Flygon careening backwards in the air and even knocked Mark off his feet. Thankfully the ground was grassy and soft; he stood up quickly, and Flygon had recovered with reasonable ease too. At least these three were doing –

From the left came a blast of water that sent Sandslash flying towards the hills. Mark looked back, bewildered, to find Seasar moving unhindered to attack the Ground-types. All of Sparky’s Electric-types were gone.

Mark winced but made a snap decision and sprinted to get to Sandslash. The pangolin had rolled a short way off to the side from where he’d hit the hill. Mark quickly turned him over, and he opened his eyes weakly.

“Are you okay?” Mark asked. “Do you think you can still battle?”

“Probably not,” Sandslash replied, his voice pained. “If that’s all right.”

“Of course. You were doing great.” Mark tried to smile as he took out his Pokéball and recalled him.

The only one of his Pokémon that remained was Scyther, then. He looked over and spotted the mantis Pokémon still in the air near Natruler, delivering quick Aerial Aces in between zooming around to avoid any attacks; Mark hurried over there. Natruler didn’t look very hurt, probably thanks to those healing moves, but she did look exhausted, and she’d given up flying in favour of staying on the ground. She wasn’t paying much attention to Scyther at all, instead staring down Leah’s Venusaur, who stood bruised and battered in front of her in the middle of a circle of destroyed vines and roots, panting, his eyes still blazing with determination as he produced two more vines from the base of his flower with a groan of effort. The vines never reached their target; Natruler beat her wings heavily to produce a Hurricane, and the Venusaur gave a great roar as the fierce wind uprooted him and sent him tumbling back.

“Tiberius, come back,” Leah said, running up to him and gripping his Pokéball. Mark looked around; her Ariados had been assigned to Natruler too, and the legendary was still covered with loose strands of silk, but the spider Pokémon was nowhere to be seen now, so Mark assumed he had fainted, too. May’s Skarmory, Ryan’s Xatu and Sparky’s Swellow were still there, though, the former two circling around in the air and diving in to attack whenever they got the chance, Xatu standing defiant behind where the Venusaur had been and producing sharp bursts of wind with her wings.

Just as he was thinking they were doing pretty well, Electhrone rushed in from the right, electricity crackling in the air around him. Mark looked back at where he had been in a panic: both Flygon and Robin’s Gastrodon seemed to have gone down, probably largely thanks to Seasar, who was now wrapped in a sticky, sparkling web and being bombarded by Electric attacks from Ryan’s Galvantula. They had too few Pokémon left by now to be able to keep the unicorns separate from each other, and it was unravelling their battle plan.

“Little help here?” Mark called as Electhrone Thunderbolted Skarmory and Natruler blasted a Hurricane towards Scyther.

Ryan, who was standing near Waraider, looked up. “Letaligon, Galvantula, stop the Electric-type!”

Electhrone had managed to Thunderbolt Skarmory again, sending him crashing; May came running from Waraider’s end to recall him, shouting, “Stantler, follow me!” The deer Pokémon was followed by Ryan’s Letaligon, while Galvantula shot a last ball of electricity towards Seasar for good measure before crawling in from the other side.

Another Thunderbolt from Electhrone shot Swellow out of the air just before a Spider Web hit the legendary and pulled him back towards the ground. The Letaligon charged at him, smashing his glowing body into him with a Giga Impact; Stantler followed with her antlers shimmering like a mirage, striking the Electric unicorn with a Zen Headbutt that sent him reeling, shaking his head.

Mark looked quickly back at Scyther; he was zooming at Natruler again, but this time she managed to meet him head-on with another Hurricane, and he was blasted back, crashed into the ground and tumbled over a few times before coming to a standstill. When he didn’t rise again, Mark recalled him. That was it, then. He was out of the fight. He exhaled, trying to calm his nerves as he stepped back to continue to watch.

Sparky had knelt down by his Swellow’s side, gently patting the back of her head before he recalled her and stood up, giving Mark a weary smile. Ryan’s Galvantula was repeatedly shocking Electhrone, but he’d managed to take down Xatu now too, and with Scyther out of the way, that left nobody dealing with Natruler. Mark jerked his head up at the Grass unicorn; she was flying towards Emphire, gathering a swirl of leaves in front of her.

“Look out!” Mark called, sprinting around to the other side of the battle. Robin’s Charizard seemed to have fainted, but Spirit and Leah’s Arcanine rushed to meet Natruler with Flamethrowers; that left a severely charred and injured Freezaroy to rise shakily to her feet, and Natruler managed to unleash the Leaf Storm anyway. Mist and Floatzel took the worst of it, and both of them gave in to unconsciousness. Alan was already there and recalled the Vaporeon, biting his lip.

Meanwhile, Ryan’s Walrein shot an Ice Beam at Natruler’s right wing. The ice formed a clump around her leaf-feathers that sent her spiralling into the ground, and Walrein and Leah’s Tentacruel resumed Hydro Pumping Emphire, who was snarling and hissing as she tried to form a Hurricane with her wings.

Leah’s Arcanine rushed back to attack Freezaroy. Spirit was starting to look very tired; she panted, her head low. “You need to stay in the game,” Mark said quickly to her. “If you faint, they could all run off. Just try to be in the weak spirit form if you can.”

Spirit nodded wordlessly and faded into a ghostly, semitransparent form – just in time, because Seasar had managed to untangle himself and blasted a Hydro Pump at the Arcanine that might otherwise have hit Spirit as well. The giant dog Pokémon shook her cream-colored fur, gathered electricity in her mouth and leapt to bite the Water-type, again leaving Freezaroy alone. The Ice-type hurried to join Electhrone, shooting an Ice Beam at Galvantula; Electhrone had managed to take down Stantler as well, Mark realized, and May was instead running over to him.

“Floatzel, come back,” she said, recalling the sea otter, who was still lying fainted in the grass. “Spirit, yeah, that’s good, stay in spirit form.”

May looked up at Mark. “This isn’t going too well,” she said, and Mark had to anxiously agree. Out of Victor’s Pokémon, only his Absol was still fighting Mysticrown, and she looked on the brink of unconsciousness; though the unicorn had suffered a lot of slashes, she, like Natruler, was using Hurricane to make up for her Psychic attacks’ ineffectiveness. While Robin’s Froslass was blowing an Ominous Wind Mysticrown’s way, Darkhan hit her with a Dark Pulse, and she fainted with a shriek – in fact, all the Pokémon that had been attacking Darkhan were gone, with Robin’s Machamp still lying face-down on the ground nearby as her trainer dashed towards Froslass. No one was attacking Waraider anymore, either – and he landed rearing next to Victor’s Absol and took her down with a Stomp.

They were all hurt, though, and tired – even Natruler had exhausted her healing abilities. Maybe, just maybe…

“Let’s just go for the Pokéballs!” May shouted, maximizing an Ultra Ball in her hand. “We’re not going to weaken them much more than this! If any break out, just send out the others immediately and run!”

“I’m not sure that’s…” Chaletwo began, but Leah apparently agreed with May because she pulled out an Ultra Ball almost immediately, and when she’d done it everyone else did as well.

“Three, two, one... go!” May called, and eight Ultra Balls soared towards eight unicorns.

Seven of them simply bounced off, as if they’d hit inanimate objects, and judging from the panicked bafflement in the back of Mark’s head, that was not what Chaletwo’d had in mind.

The eighth sucked Waraider in, and as his whinny distorted and faded and his body dissolved into translucent red, the eyes of the others all glazed over with the same empty, terrified rage. Swirling energies radiated chaotically from them, blazing in different colors, enveloping the few Pokémon that remained; the grass underneath their feet blackened and crumbled as they reared, whinnying, and began to dash off blindly in different directions – but they hit an invisible barrier at a certain distance from the still-surviving Spirit. As they were knocked back from nothing, their cries became even more frenzied; black flames surrounded them, the earth trembled, the sky darkened –

“Do something!” Chaletwo screamed, and Mark didn’t know what to do –

And then the Ultra Ball that was wobbling on the ground popped open, releasing Waraider again in a burst of white. The others calmed instantly without even looking his way; the flames disappeared, the ground was still, the sun was bright.

Waraider stared at them, his gaze wild and frantic and very confused. The only one of their Pokémon left standing was Spirit, who looked back and forth, still insubstantial. The other unicorns didn’t move or attack; they stood still where they were, their faces blank.

“Why don’t Pokéballs work on them?” Leah shouted, her eyes wide. “Why didn’t they even go in?”

“I don’t know!”

“How the hell are we going to catch them if we can’t use Pokéballs? Are they even Pokémon?”

“How am I supposed to – I didn’t make them! Just… just do something!”

Waraider’s eyes locked onto Mark’s, pleading desperately for an explanation. The frantic voices around him seemed distant and distorted. His mind raced to decipher what all of this meant, his heartbeat thumping in his ears.

The Pokéballs didn’t work. So… they weren’t Pokémon. Not real, living Pokémon, at any rate. Waraider was, but not the others.

The moment Waraider had gone into that ball, their individuality and character had simply vanished – they’d been identical, blind, unravelling forces of nature. As if their souls were gone, had been sucked into the Pokéball with Waraider.

They’d had different views and opinions, but they’d all talked at the same time, noticed things at the same time, had the same knowledge, like they had a psychic bond – or perhaps like they were all, somehow, the same person. Like… like they were just different voices in a single individual’s head.

Mew and Chaletwo had only created one unicorn.

Mark snapped back to reality, dizzy as he tried to make sense of it all. “Waraider,” he said, “exactly where did they come from?”

Waraider looked from side to side, at where the rest of his herd was standing, curiously still and quiet. “They were… they were always there,” he said, in a weak, trembling neigh.

There was a moment of silence. “What?” Chaletwo said. “What are you talking about? We only created you. The others appeared a few months later. I asked you about them, remember?”

“We were always there,” said the other unicorns, simultaneously, in an eerie chorus.

Waraider shook his head, his eyes shining with fear and doubt and confusion. “They were… I think they…”

“Listen,” Mark said, hoping desperately that he was on the right track, “they’re… I think they’re just you. They’re like manifestations of different aspects of you and your power, not real separate individuals. Is that… does that make sense?”

“They’re real,” Waraider said, taking an unsteady step back, glancing frantically at the others. “What do you mean, they’re not real?”

“We’re real,” they said, but their voices had lost all of their organic individuality now, instead droning unconvincingly as a hollow, robotic legion. Waraider flinched, backing away, his ears pinned back against his head, and turned to Mark again, staring.

“What’s going on?” he asked, pleading. “What happened to them?”

Mark hesitated. Everyone was staring at him – Leah in bafflement, Ryan open-mouthed, Victor with a curious kind of surprise. And Sparky, a grin of realization spreading across his face, gave him a nod of encouragement.

“I…” A frantic jumble of information poured into his brain from Chaletwo, something about how unconscious manifestations of power were conditional upon expectation – “I guess they become less real when you start to doubt that they are?”

Waraider stared back at the rest of his herd. They stood stiff, unmoving, and then began to flicker and distort, like images from a broken projector.

His eyes widened. “No!” he screamed. “Stop! What are you doing?” He rushed towards them, but they showed no reaction. “Freezaroy? Natruler?” He stopped in front of the Grass-type’s blank gaze, extending his muzzle gingerly out towards hers – and then flinched back as it simply went through her, as if she weren’t there.

“I don’t understand! Please!” Waraider turned his head back towards Mark, tears streaming from his eyes, before letting out a desperate, whinnying scream and diving straight through to the middle of the group, where he met no resistance but air.

Shaking with heaving, shuddering breaths, his eyes closed, Waraider stood still as the flickering forms of the other unicorns silently walked towards him and vanished as they simply joined together with his body. At the end, he was alone. Just like he always had been.

“Waraider?” Mark said carefully, feeling everyone’s eyes on him again.

“Why?” asked Waraider, his voice small and quiet.

Mark paused, trying to work out what to say. “Do… do you remember where they came from now?”

Waraider hesitated, tossing his head uncomfortably. “I… I always heard them,” he muttered. “They kept disagreeing, and I tried to make them all happy… but I didn’t see them, not at first.”

“And then…?”

“Then I…” Waraider squeezed his eyes shut. “They were there. They just were. They were always there. Why wouldn’t they be…?”

“It sounds,” said Chaletwo cautiously, “like you unconsciously manifested different aspects of your personality to function as separate beings. How did you do that?”

Waraider stared at him. “I… I don’t know.” He hung his head. “Can I get them back?”

“Well,” Chaletwo said slowly, “you should be able to… hear them, or whatever it is you did before they gained physical form. Nothing’s changed; you’ve just realized they weren’t really there.”

The other legendary flinched at his words, but stood still, closing his eyes. “They’re still there,” he muttered.

“Great,” Chaletwo said. “The point is, you’re you. There’s only one of you. You can listen to the… the others if you want, but actually they’re irrelevant and the choice is up to you. So will you let us capture you to stop the War?”

Waraider shuddered. “They’re not… they’re not irrelevant.”

“What he means is,” Mark said before Chaletwo could speak, “they can help you sort out what you think, but you don’t have to make them all happy.”

Waraider looked at Mark, hesitating. “But… Emphire and Freezaroy didn’t want to.”

“Well, they… told you about some concerns that you have,” Mark said carefully. “But if you decided you want to do it anyway, you’re not betraying them, because they’re you.”

The legendary gave him a long, searching look. “So… if I agree… you’ll release us – me – after?” he mumbled.

“Of course. You have my word.”

Waraider’s eyes flicked around, as if he were looking to the others for opinions. “Can I trust him?” he asked quietly after a moment, looking back at Mark – it took him a second to process that Waraider was asking him.

He opened his mouth and then hesitated with a pang of doubt. For a moment it occurred to him that he’d only trusted Chaletwo from the start because he was a legendary, and that after everything he’d experienced in the past months, that seemed like the worst possible reason to trust anyone. Could he actually vouch for him in good conscience? What if they couldn’t actually trust him? What if somehow he’d been duping them all along, for his own reasons? Would they have any way to know?

In the back of Mark’s mind, Chaletwo’s indignant annoyance couldn’t mask the flickering, stinging hurt. It felt like all the times Mrs. Grodski had called him hopeless, like his parents not trusting him out on a journey, like Letaligon leaving.

Mark took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think we can trust him. We’ll make sure.”

Waraider exhaled and nodded, closing his eyes again. “Then… I agree.”

“Thank you,” Mark said, warm relief trickling down his spine. He pulled another Ultra Ball out of his pocket and held it forward.

“Thank you,” Waraider said, and he reached his head forward to touch the ball before his form transformed into red energy and disappeared.

[Dragonfree]

The Final Stretch – Chapter 71: Shattered

“To Mark, legendary psychiatrist,” Leah said, grinning as she raised a glass of cola. “Who would’ve thought?”

Mark felt himself blush as the group raised their glasses along with her. He still felt dazed and strange, trying to wrap his brain around the fact that he had actually managed to persuade a legendary to their side, with words, him. Everyone had been there, people like Leah and Ryan who were better and brainier and cooler than him, and yet it’d been him who’d realized why the other unicorns hadn’t gone into the balls, him who Waraider had trusted enough to agree. He’d had help – but he’d done it. And now there was only one legendary left.

“What do we do now?” he asked as everyone put their drinks back down. “How are we going to find Mew?”

“We split up,” Leah said. “Mew knows a lot of moves, but there’s only one of her, and of course, she’s been getting weaker. Ryan and I could take her solo no problem. You guys might want to go in pairs, I guess, just in case, but the hard part is finding her. We’ll want to spread out.”

“Are we sure we have to fight her?” Sparky asked, stroking his chin. “I can’t claim to be a legendary expert, but my impression was that Mew wasn’t much of a fighter.”

“We can’t persuade him,” Chaletwo said flatly. “I’ve tried.”

“I should go with Mark,” May said out of the blue. “Our Pokémon have fought together the most. It makes sense.”

Mark turned towards her, a bit surprised, but she was only looking down at her food, busily cutting into a mini-pizza. “Okay, sure,” he said.

“I don’t think Sparky and I could handle a legendary on our own,” Victor said, looking at Alan and Robin. “So each of us goes with one of you, I guess?”

“Sparky?” Alan suggested.

“Why not?” Sparky replied, smiling. Robin and Victor shrugged at each other.

“Do we have any leads on where Mew is?” Mark asked.

“Just that one sighting in Scorpio City from a couple weeks back,” Leah said. “We should concentrate on Ouen to start with, but not too much – she does teleport, so although she usually sticks to flying around, she could also be, y’know, off in Unova somewhere by now. Let’s start off dividing Ouen between us and then spread out more if we haven’t found her in a couple of weeks. Any special requests?”

Robin shrugged. “I know the east side of the region pretty well. We could cover that.” Victor nodded at her.

“Same with me and the northwest, near Stormy Town,” Sparky said, looking at Alan. “Does that sound good to you?”

“Sure,” Alan said.

Mark opened his mouth. “I… I’ve been thinking we should look into somebody here in Alumine,” he said. “Dunno if it’ll help, but there’s someone who managed to find Mew once, and maybe… maybe he’d be willing to help, or we could dig something up about how he did it.” May gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He was a little apprehensive about voluntarily approaching the Mew Hunter again – but if it could lead them to Mew, they had to try. And surely he didn’t want the world to end any more than they did.

“Sure,” Leah said, raising her eyebrows. “Let us know if you get anything useful out of that. Let’s see, after that you could cover the west side, so how about I grab the south and Ryan takes the north?”

Everyone muttered some form of agreement.

“Great! That’s that all settled. Now for the rest of tonight let’s just sit back and –”

“Hey, look,” Robin said suddenly, pointing at the TV above the bar.

Mark looked, and his heart skipped a beat. In the top right corner of the screen, behind the news anchor, Taylor’s picture smiled obliviously down at him, alongside a standard Pokédex render of a Tyranitar.

“…who claims to be responsible for the death of controversial Ouen Champion Taylor Lancaster. The wild Tyranitar approached a trainer on the island this morning to confess to the murder of Lancaster and ask to be captured and taken to the human authorities. In a statement made to the police, the Tyranitar claims it happened upon Lancaster in the mountains and attacked him after he insulted Tyranitar. The statement goes on to say the Tyranitar now understands why it was wrong, that it deeply regrets its actions, and that it wishes to face human justice to atone for its crime.”

Mark turned towards May, his heart thumping. She stared at the screen, the color drained from her face. Alan, Robin and Sparky were all looking at her; Ryan’s gaze flicked uncertainly between her and Mark. Victor stared wide-eyed at her, lips pressed together, clenching his fist on the table. Leah looked around at everyone in confusion.

“Among legal experts,” the anchor went on, “opinions are split on how to handle the Tyranitar’s unusual request for human justice.”

The report cut to a woman in a suit, identified as a lawyer. “Regardless of the creature’s desire to be punished, it is a wild Pokémon,” she said. “It’s commendable if it wants to take responsibility, but the Agreement is clear that wild Pokémon are not subject to human laws and standards, and vice versa. Cross-species murder has always been an unpleasant can of worms, but there’s no good solution here. The legal separation is an absolutely fundamental part of the Agreement, and upholding it is far more important than any individual case.”

Another lawyer appeared, impatiently adjusting his sleeves as he spoke: “When a Pokémon joins a trainer, it voluntarily submits to the rule of human law and becomes legally responsible for its actions within human society. This Tyranitar may not be trained, but it’s voluntarily submitting to the rule of human law just the same. I see no reason not to treat it the same way.”

“Champion Island police declined to comment on the matter of jurisdiction, but have stated that the Tyranitar is currently in custody and urge the public to have patience as the investigation continues.”

May’s gaze flicked from side to side, to all the eyes fixed on her, and then, abruptly, she stood up and stormed out of the restaurant.

-------

They caught up with her on the road out of town. She was leaning over a wall by the roadside, taking deep, heaving breaths. When they approached, she stumbled a bit further before giving up and turning around to face them, still supporting herself against the wall.

“If you told him to lie he’d do it, huh,” Robin said.

“I did not tell him to do that!” May shouted, her voice hot and raw.

“You were there!” Robin shouted back, fists clenched. “You were there! Why is it him giving himself up to the police and not you?”

“I don’t know!” May threw her hands up in agitation. “I told him to go away and find some wild Tyranitar! I don’t know why he’s doing this!”

“I knew it,” Victor said coldly. “God, I knew it. I knew you two weren’t right.”

Mark blinked, turning around in confusion, and flinched under the sudden accusation in his gaze. “What happened to your Letal?” Victor asked, his voice harsh.

“What?” Mark’s brain was frozen in befuddlement. “What are you talking about?”

“Your Letal!” Victor rounded on him. “You used her way too long in our battle, and she failed to evolve, Nurse Joy said you could’ve killed her, and now you don’t have her anymore!”

“That’s not…” Mark’s gut stung, his face burned. “I – I think you’re mis…”

“And you, yelling at your Vibrava like that – I should’ve seen it earlier but I liked you and wanted to be your friend, and I didn’t put it together until I watched the League finals and your Tyranitar was just… like a child, and thought he was weak, and you just yelled at him and watched him get hurt! And even then, I thought you’d released him for not being good enough, I never thought – why did I come with you?”

“I didn’t make him do it!” May shouted, fists clenched. “He just…”

“I think this is quite enough,” Chaletwo said. “Yes, there was an unfortunate accident –”

“They were there!” Robin yelled.

“– but none of this has any bearing on our mission, which is to find and capture Mew. We have almost succeeded. How can you stand here still arguing about this? You’re splitting up anyway; if you have a problem with May, then great, you never have to see her again.”

Robin stared at Mark, anger gleaming in her eyes. “What about Tyranitar?” she said, her voice quiet. “He’s sitting in captivity right now trying to get himself punished, who knows what they’ll end up doing to him, and they’re standing here getting away with it.”

“Well, contrary to some of your wild theorizing here, it was the Tyranitar who killed him, of his own volition. For the record, May tried to stop him. And as far as I’m concerned this wraps things up nicely. Weren’t you complaining about Rick not knowing how his brother died? Well, now he knows, and he has no reason to think there’s anything more to it than an aggressive Tyranitar, as he should. Frankly this couldn’t have ended better if you ask me.”

Robin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Look. Chaletwo. Maybe you don’t know this. But just because trained Pokémon submit to human law doesn’t mean the trainer is free of all responsibility. The trainer’s the one who makes sure their Pokémon understand and honor the contract they’re entering into. It’s the trainer’s job to inform and educate the Pokémon about human society, and evaluate whether they can be trusted, and recall them if they ever do get carried away during a fight. You know, May tried to tell me it was all a misunderstanding. The problem with that is that actually, making sure he understands stuff like ‘murder is wrong’ was her responsibility, and the moment Tyranitar made a move towards Taylor, he should’ve been recalled. So unless you’re going to tell me that after somehow misunderstanding the most basic rule of being trained, this huge lumbering beast that can be outsped by a Fletchling attacked so fast and so out of nowhere that nobody could possibly have seen it coming, this should not have happened!”

She glared at Mark; his heart pounded uncomfortably. He should’ve done something. He should’ve stepped up when Tyranitar approached Taylor, said something. He should’ve objected to May’s methods. He should’ve…

“No? I didn’t think so,” Robin said, her voice hard.

“Well, my point still stands,” Chaletwo said, defensive. “Even if May bears some responsibility for this boy’s death, we’re looking for Mew. That’s far more important than your high-flying notions of justice. It’s fine if you hate her, but we need her out there searching, not sitting in jail or whatever it is your human justice system would do with her. And I assure you that if you make any attempt to sabotage our mission, you’ll make me very angry with you.”

Robin stared at him and shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. Victor, let’s go.”

She turned to join Victor where the road led onwards, out of Alumine.

“Victor,” Mark managed to croak out as he finally remembered how to speak. “My Letal, she wasn’t… She always wanted to be released after the League. I just took her back home.”

A flicker of doubt passed across Victor’s face. Robin turned, too. “Yeah, well, good for you,” she said. “I guess your only crime is sitting around watching while Tyranitar murdered someone and then participating in covering it up. Hooray.”

She threw up her hands and strode down the road without looking back. After a moment’s hesitation, Victor followed.

“I… I think I’d better go,” Ryan mumbled, taking out a Pokéball. “Xatu, Green Town.” And in a second, he was gone, too.

“Well, that sure was a thing,” Leah said after a moment, raising her eyebrows. “So, uh, were there any plans to let me in on this murder everyone else apparently knew about?”

Chaletwo gave a frustrated sigh. “I never meant for any of you to hear about this,” he said. “Robin learned of it and informed our group earlier; it was just as hard to reason with her then. As for Victor, I don’t know what he was on about. He didn’t seem to believe any of this nonsense the last time we met. Frankly I’m happy to be rid of them.”

“Same old Chaletwo after all,” Leah said dryly. “Well, so long as you don’t get me tangled up in this. I don’t want anything to do with murdered kids, okay? It’s none of my business how you deal with it, but don’t make it my problem.”

“Why would it be your problem?” Chaletwo replied irritably.

“I don’t know, just don’t.” Leah looked at Mark, grim. “Well, I guess I’m off to look for Mew, too,” she said, giving a sarcastic wave of her hand. “Bye, everyone. Good luck with all that.”

Mark was too dazed to even say goodbye before she’d sent out Felix and teleported away.

That left Mark, May, Alan and Sparky standing on the crossroads. May was still by the wall, averting her gaze.

“May?” Alan said quietly, stepping closer. “Are you okay?”

She looked up. “Fine,” she said after a moment’s pause. “We should probably get going too.”

Mark shrugged limply as she turned her gaze towards him. Robin’s words still echoed in his ears. Hooray.

Alan stared at May, brow furrowing. “Look, I… I don’t think they were being fair. It wasn’t your fault, not like…”

“That’s new,” May said coldly without looking at him.

Alan glanced at Mark, sighing. “We… we didn’t see it either,” he said. “None of us knew Tyranitar would do something like that, but he did. And you’ve been suffering for it, and I…”

“I’m not suffering,” May said, turning abruptly, fists clenched. “Let’s go.”

Sparky, who had been standing silently back, listening, stepped forward. “I can see you don’t want help or pity,” he said, his voice level and calm. “But for the record, I also think they judged you too harshly. It’s true that a trainer is formally meant to inform their Pokémon about human laws, but in practice, most Pokémon already know and most trainers don’t bother. I certainly never sat down for a legal chat with any of my Pokémon, and to be frank, I doubt they did, either. It’s easy in hindsight to call someone a monster for the mistakes they’ve made, but it’s human nature to make mistakes; whose mistakes result in tragedy is often a matter of sheer moral luck.”

May didn’t answer. She stood still, knuckles white, lips pressed together.

“Look,” Alan said, exhaling. “You were careless towards your Pokémon. I still think that. Maybe Tyranitar wouldn’t have done it if you’d raised him better. But I know you didn’t want this to happen. I’ve been thinking about the way I’ve been acting, and…” He glanced at Mark. “I didn’t really want to see it before, but I’ve finally started to notice what you’ve been going through because of this. And I’m sorry for making it worse.”

“Just go,” May said.

Alan and Sparky looked at one another. “The last thing I want to say,” Sparky said, slowly, “is that in my experience, lies and secrets lead to nothing good. I hope the truth will eventually come to light in a way that’s fair to you and to your Tyranitar, and I hope you can be at peace with what that might mean.”

May didn’t answer.

“I guess we should get going,” Alan said after a moment, sighing. “See you around. Let’s hope we can find Mew soon and put an end to all this.”

“Goodbye,” Sparky said. “And good luck.”

“Bye,” Mark said limply. May only gave a vague nod, not looking at them.

And Alan and Sparky turned to head northward, leaving them alone on the empty road.

Mark let out the breath he’d been holding. His arms and legs were trembling, his body weak with emotional exhaustion; he wanted to go back to the trainer hotel and sleep, forever, forget about Tyranitar and everything that had happened.

May inhaled sharply. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get back.”

He nodded, and they set off in silence, back down the road into the city.

“Are you sure this Mew Hunter person can help us?” Chaletwo asked after a minute, a note of lingering irritation in his voice. “From what I’ve gathered of your memories, he doesn’t seem very pleasant or reasonable.”

Mark shrugged uncertainly. He’d felt a lot more confident earlier. “Scyther used to be his Pokémon,” he said. “He might be able to talk to him.”

He took out Scyther’s Pokéball and dropped it. The mantis materialized out of white light, stretching.

“We were thinking about talking to the Mew Hunter and seeing if he’d be able to help us find Mew,” Mark said.

“So I heard,” Scyther replied.

His gaze was distant and contemplative as he scanned his surroundings – the city he’d spent three years of his life in. Mark suddenly had a thought that he should have had before. “Wait, do you know anything about how he found Mew back then?”

Scyther shook his head slowly. “That was before he caught me. He would often talk about it, but he never mentioned a strategy. I always assumed he simply wandered.”

“Didn’t Rick find Mew at the same time, though?” May said. “That’d be a weird coincidence.”

Scyther hesitated. “I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t tell me everything.” He paused again, wincing. “I don’t know if he’d talk to me. He thought I’d betrayed him. But I do know that he’d never help you capture Mew. He was in agony after losing it to Rick. He wouldn’t tell you anything unless he thought it’d help him find Mew himself.”

Mark shared a brief glance with May before she looked away again. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. What if the Mew Hunter demanded to come along, threw his own Pokéball at Mew when they’d weakened him?

“Well, then at least the War would be prevented,” Chaletwo said. “You can worry about what follows if it comes to that.”

He shrugged uncertainly, and they walked on towards the hideous yellow building on the edge of town.

-------

When they knocked on the large steel door, though, there was no answer. The curtainless windows were all dark.

“He’s gone,” Scyther whispered, his gaze distant.

“Home?” Mark asked.

Scyther shook his head. “He lived in the Gym. He must have gone out to search for Mew again.” He chuckled bitterly. “I always knew he would. Never stopped hoping, though.”

Mark stared at him. He really should have known that was a possibility, but somehow he’d felt like the Mew Hunter would simply be waiting there, rambling incoherently on the floor forever like they’d left him, as if time wouldn’t pass when they weren’t there.

“So what then?” he asked. “Is there anything here that could give us any clues?”

Scyther hesitated. “He kept a diary,” he said after a moment. “He never let us see it, but sometimes I could see him writing in it late at night. Perhaps he wrote about how he found Mew there.”

“And you think he’d have left it here?”

Scyther shrugged slightly. “It was a few years ago. If he still keeps a diary, it wouldn’t be the same one.”

Although he said it casually, he averted his gaze to stare into the distance. Mark supposed he even now felt conflicted about invading his former trainer’s privacy.

“We have to do this if it might help us find Mew,” he said.

“I know,” Scyther said, sighing.

“May?” Mark said, looking at her. She’d been staring at the door, but snapped to attention as he said her name.

“Right,” she said and took a deep breath. “I’ve broken into this place once. I can do it again.”

And she marched decisively around to the back of the building as Mark recalled Scyther and scrambled to keep up.

-------

Near the top of a corner of the back wall of the gym, a large ventilation grate was bolted onto the concrete. Without speaking, May raised a Pokéball and released Skarmory from it.

“Get the grate,” she said, matter-of-factly, like this was something she did regularly, and Skarmory flew up, dug his claws between the slits and tore the grate clean off the wall. It dropped to the ground with a clatter; Mark’s gaze darted down the alleys on either side, waiting for some bystander to appear to investigate the noise and catch them in the act, but no one came. He wasn’t sure that made him feel any better. (Getting away with it.)

“You coming?” May said, climbing onto Skarmory’s back. He wanted to say no and stay here looking the other way, pretend he had nothing to do with this, but he couldn’t. He nodded, his mouth dry, before getting on behind her. The bird Pokémon trilled and clumsily took off the ground to ferry them up.

May went in first and Mark squeezed in after her, ducking down to let her recall Skarmory over his shoulder. The ventilation duct was dirty and only barely wide enough for them to crawl through on all fours, but thankfully it wasn’t very long: it only went through a small side room, visible through a grate in the bottom of the duct, and then ended in a third grate on the wall of the main gym arena. Cold air rushed past them from the outside, as if drawing them in.

“Go,” May whispered, knocking Skarmory’s Pokéball against the inside grate. It burst open in a shower of white light, releasing Skarmory on the other side, where he could tear off the grate and ferry them down. As May absorbed Skarmory back into his ball, Mark released Scyther again, looking around apprehensively.

It was obvious no one had been in the Gym for a while; the floor was dusty, the windows grimy, and the lights were off. Scyther looked wistfully out the window and around the room, like a cherished childhood home, but the harsh, bare concrete of the empty walls only pricked at chilling memories Mark had tried to forget: being pinned against that same wall, scythe at his throat, threatened with death.

“He wasn’t a madman,” Scyther said, as if he’d read Mark’s mind. “He was kind and he loved us. I would’ve followed him anywhere, short of murdering a child for Mew. And even then I considered it.”

Mark shuddered. He couldn’t see the man he’d met that day, with those glinting, light blue eyes and that hoarse voice that went from low to bellowing in a second, as anything other than frightening and dangerous. Even the idea he could also have been kind to his Pokémon seemed irrevocably in conflict with the rest of him.

“Come on,” May said behind them. “There’s nothing here.”

She turned to the door beneath the ventilation grate, to the back room. They pushed it open, carefully; inside, there was a table, a refrigerator, some cupboards, and a bed with a small window above it.

“This is where he lived?” Mark asked.

Scyther nodded. “He never went back home after his Pokémon journey. Bought the Gym, lived here ever since.”

Mark swallowed. The room was tiny, dark and dirty – not the kind of place one would want to spend a single night in, let alone live in. And yet in some way it didn’t entirely surprise him. It seemed to fit with the man’s unkempt appearance and strange behaviour.

May opened the refrigerator to find it loaded with beer cans. “I can see where Scyther gets the drinking problem from,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she closed it again. The cupboards, too, were full of liquor bottles of various shapes and sizes.

Scyther chuckled. “He wouldn’t let us have any of that,” he said. “Said it was too strong for Pokémon.”

May only arched an eyebrow at him in disbelief.

Mark looked around, and his gaze settled on a black object lying on the windowsill above the bed. “What’s this?” he said, climbing onto the bed to reach for it; it turned out to be a small, dust-covered book. There was no title or picture on either cover.

“That’s it,” Scyther said. “That’s the diary.”

Mark turned it over, apprehensive. He’d known they were looking for it, but it still felt strange to be holding the diary of someone like that in his hands, like his madness could be infectious, somehow. What would they find in there? Could they really just read it?

May snagged the book out of his hands, sighing impatiently. As she opened it, Mark caught a glance of bizarre, alien writing at the bottom of the page, and his gut twisted in a sudden, irrational panic before May turned it the right way up and flipped to the start of the book. It had no date, only a hastily scribbled, barely legible block of text covering the page from top to bottom.

Mew is the greatest Pokémon, originator of all life – all of them in one, the ultimate being. They say it wanders the earth and appears only to the pure of heart who desire to see it. It knows their hearts and takes mercy on them by gracing them with its presence. Mew would underst

It cut off suddenly in the middle of the word; a loose, hasty scribble crossed the entire paragraph out before the writing began anew in the next line.

Mew is the most perfect and pure-hearted of all Pokémon. People don’t see it but I do. There are rotten people everywhere poisoning the world, capturing Pokémon and enslaving them for their own gain. Mew must be devastated, tired, harrowed, at the filthy selfishness of all those people, just like me. I understand. This world is broken and Mew must suffer and I can help. I understand Mew. I can help Mew. I can save

Again, the paragraph cut off suddenly. Mark swallowed, his mouth dry as he read on.

I’m a savior. I save Pokémon. That’s what they tell me. I capture them so I can save them. Feraligatr was nervous about trainers, but with me he said he could be himself. Sandslash lost his parents, but I came in their place. Sneasel was an outcast rejected by his kind, and I accepted him for who he was and taught him to trust again. Kabutops is haunted by ancient memories, but I listen and help him process them. They would be lost if it weren’t for me. I saved them because I love them, more than anything. Other trainers don’t care, they don’t care to understand them, they just want to use them for fights. They’re repulsive and wrong. I can save Mew from all the filth and the selfishness and the greed. Mew must cry every day at how broken the world is. I can help, I can make Mew whole again, I can make it better. But how can I make it see? How can I let it know that I’m different from them? Mew wouldn’t let itself be captured by an ordinary trainer, I know. Even with a Master Ball, it would teleport away instantly when released. I have to find a way to make it stay and give me a chance, like Feraligatr and Sandslash and Sneasel and Kabutops, so I can show it that I understand and earn its trust and save it, just like I saved them.

May took a deep breath, glancing at Mark for a second, before she turned the page.

Pokéball books at the library. It’s not that hard to modify balls. I never thought it would be so easy. The secrets seem so closely guarded from afar, but the technology is old and it’s simple when you look into it. I think I know what I need to do, found some info on Mean Look. Just have to experiment and confirm, get some balls to try it on. I can feel Mew getting closer. Please

I can do it. Tried it on Sneasel’s ball. The first attempt didn’t work but the second did. He can’t stray far from the ball now. I switched him back to a normal one, but it works. If I just get a ball that can hold Mew, everything will be complete, but I need money. I think I’ll open a Gym. Feraligatr and Sandslash and Sneasel and Kabutops are strong. They can do it. They believe in me.

The next few entries were about the process of setting up the Gym and opening it; May gave an impatient sigh and turned the page, then gave the next a brief scan and flipped it again. Mark caught glimpses of sentences as she skimmed:

The Master Ball price is going down. I will wait. Mew has time. Mew has unlimited time but it is alone and it has no one. I’m coming for you Mew

Sneasel was distracted during a fight today. I asked him what was wrong and he said he’s feeling sick but didn’t want to disrupt the management of the Gym. I told him never do that again, he’s more important. He said he doesn’t think he’s important. I said he’s important to me and to us. Took him to the Pokémon Center, they wanted to keep him overnight. Can’t sleep, hope he’s okay.

Kabutops remembers seeing Mew once, back in his previous life. I nearly choked. I asked what he had seen but he says it’s all fuzzy, all he remembers is a pink glow and a serene smile. So back then, Mew was happy. I wish

“Okay, here we go,” May said at last as she turned the page once more.

I have the ball now. That means I only need to find it. I don’t know how, but it doesn’t matter, because Mew appears to the pure of heart who desire to see it, and I know it will appear to me. I only need to go out, wander the world like Mew does, and our kinship and connection will grow. I can feel destiny drawing us together already. I am meant to be Mew’s trainer and it is meant to be mine, so I can help it heal and we can face the world together. It will happen soon.

So far nothing. It’s been a month, I think, haven’t kept track. It doesn’t matter. I have time and patience. Mew cannot be rushed. Mew lives without worrying about time. It has nowhere it needs to be, nobody it must see, it just is. It’s like me. We will find each other.

I know my heart is pure. I know it. But does Mew know?

Mew still hasn’t come. I have patience. I

Still nothing.

Heard a rumour today. Bad rumour, about some kid from Cleanwater City capturing legendary Pokémon, cloning them, planning to open a Gym. He’s just a teenager, an orphan. They say he’s caught a few already. How can that be possible? The legendaries of the myths are so powerful no trainer could take them down. It has to be a lie.

Still haven’t found Mew. The kid’s still at it, they say. It’s said he’s caught even more legendaries, like he has a way, like can track them down. It’s impossible. I don’t believe them.

I think I saw the kid today. He travels with a sense of purpose, like he already knows where he’s going. He has a device at his belt that he looks at every now and then. That has to be how he’s finding them. He can’t find Mew that way. Mew only appears to the pure of heart. How dare he? I should

I can’t risk him finding Mew first. I’m following him. If I’m there too when he finds it, Mew will choose me. I have the ball. Everything is ready. Mew will come to me.

May sighed. “So he just tailed Rick, I guess. What a waste of time.”

“What are you talking about?” Chaletwo said. “Apparently Rick had a device that led him to Mew. This is fantastic news. If we can get that device from him, we can track Mew down.”

Mark’s stomach twisted. They’d have to talk to Rick. Rick, whose brother they had killed. May looked away, silent.

“Well, if you really don’t want to, we can try to get some of the others to check that out and you can start looking in the meantime.”

May took a deep breath. “No,” she said firmly, and Mark blinked in surprise. “Let’s go see Rick. We can still make it tonight.”

She closed the diary, thrust it into Mark’s hands and turned around to exit the room. Mark motioned to replace the diary on the windowsill where he’d found it.

“Mark?” Scyther said quietly. “I’d… I’d like to read just a little further.”

Mark hesitated before opening the book again. Truth be told, he was a little curious as well, but the apprehension he’d felt before had only grown.

I think he knows I’m after him. He takes long ways around, leaves early in the morning like he’s trying to shake me off. He doesn’t fool me. I know better than to let him escape. I have a duty to Mew and I cannot fail it.

He’s gone. He left even before I woke up. Has he already found Mew? Sneasel may be able to smell him. I will try

Mew chose him. What they say about pure hearts is false. Mew refused me. Why? I don’t understand. I thought I understood but I don’t. Mew chose enslavement and brainwashing. I wanted to tackle him down and wrestle the ball away from him, but Mew made the choice. Why? I don’t underst

Why

Mew is gone. It’s gone. It thinks I’m worse than him. There’s nothing left. No point. Mew’s right. Goodbye.

I failed. Like at everything else. Couldn’t go through with it. Kabutops found me. What would they have done without me? I can’t leave them. It was cowardly. I have to move on, for them. It’s the only thing I can do.

Mark shivered, a knot of unease in his stomach.

Behind him, Scyther let out a long, heavy sigh. “That’s enough. Thank you.”

Mark nodded and placed the diary carefully back on the windowsill where he’d found it before he recalled Scyther and hurried out after May.

[Dragonfree]

The Final Stretch – Chapter 72: Rick

They flew to Cleanwater City. May was silent, staring fixedly ahead, leaning forward as if it’d make Skarmory go faster; Mark couldn’t begin to guess at what she was thinking.

Charizard sighed, and Mark patted his neck. “Getting tired?”

“I think I’ve done enough flying lately to last me a while,” Charizard said, smiling weakly.

Mark was about to ask what he meant when he stopped. They had been flying a lot. To Acaria City, then Scorpio City, then for the battle with the male Color Dragons, then Acaria again, then from Stormy Town to Crater Town, then after the unicorns… “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” he said, yet another new pang of guilt in his stomach; he’d had other things on his mind, but that was no excuse for not thinking of his Pokémon. “Should I get Dragonite out instead?”

Charizard shook his head. “It’s fine; I’m faster. I’ll take you there.”

“If you’re sure,” Mark said, furrowing his brow. “If it helps, I think this is our last flight in a while. We’ll probably be on foot looking for Mew.”

The Pokémon nodded. “But if you do need to fly, then…”

“Then I’ll get Dragonite,” Mark said firmly. “It’s okay. You more than deserve a rest. Thanks for everything. I mean, without you I wouldn’t even be here.”

Charizard smiled. “Without you, I wouldn’t be here.”

It took a second for Mark to even remember what he meant. Then, in a flash, he was back in Sailance on the night that he’d pulled Charmander in from the rain: that surreal moment of seeing that orange blur on the road through the rain-streaked window, his clumsy efforts to keep the little lizard’s dying tail flame alive, the fragility of the limp, warm body that would eventually grow into a dragon who would fight legendaries for him. And who’d carried him for miles and miles without him even stopping to think about it.

Something broke in the swirl of emotions that he’d barely kept at bay for the last couple of hours; tears flooded his eyes and he wrapped his arms around Charizard’s neck, leaning forward to hug him tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Mark whispered. “Whatever happens, I’m glad I met you.”

“Me too,” Charizard said quietly, wrapping his own arms around Mark’s.

May either didn’t hear them or ignored them, staring steadfastly towards the field of shimmering lights in the distance.

-------

“Where does Rick even live?” May asked as they dismounted their Pokémon in front of the Pokémon Center. She looked around restlessly, as if he might appear around a nearby corner at any moment.

Mark shrugged. “I guess we can ask someone.” He put a hand on Charizard’s neck. “First, though, they need a rest.”

Charizard smiled gratefully at him again before they recalled their Pokémon and entered the Pokémon Center.

They’d almost left again, after handing the pair of Pokéballs to Nurse Joy, when it finally occurred to Mark that she was a person, one who presumably lived here. “Excuse me,” he said, and the nurse turned back around, smiling. “Do you know where Rick lives?”

The nurse blinked. “Do you mean the Gym?”

“No, we… we need to talk to him.”

Nurse Joy frowned. “It’s number seventeen, Taillow Street, straight left from the Gym. But I don’t think he takes visitors from the public. He’s a very solitary man, especially since… you know.”

“It’s important,” May said; she sounded cool as always, but her fists were clenched at her sides. “We need to talk to him tonight.”

The nurse peered at the two of them, probably trying to gauge if they were up to something. “Well, if you go there, I must warn you he’s in a delicate state these days. His brother’s death hit him rather hard. Please be careful with him.”

Mark wasn’t sure if she meant that for Rick’s sake or theirs, but he nodded. “Thanks,” he said, turning away from the desk. May led the way back outside, not looking at him.

Taillow Street wasn’t difficult to find, and though a lot of the houses looked similar – white, squared-off, flat roofs – they all had prominent house numbers. They approached the front door of number seventeen; it seemed strange that Rick lived in such an unremarkable, normal-looking home, in exactly the way that it hadn’t felt strange that the Mew Hunter lived in a room in his Gym.

Mark shot a glance at May. She was standing a little behind him now, pale, but gave a quick nod. He found the doorbell beside the door and pressed it; a faint ringing sounded inside the house.

A few seconds passed. Mark shifted on his feet, uncomfortable, trying to stay focused. The device that found Mew; that was all they needed. Mew – with a sudden pang of dread in his stomach, he remembered Rick throwing him Mew’s ball after his first Gym battle and ordering him to take it away. Would Rick remember him? Did he expect him to still have it?

But before he could take that train of thought any further, faint footsteps sounded through the door, the lock clicked, and the door opened.

Rick stood in the doorway, looking more or less like he had at the beginning of that short-lived interview: his eyes wide, staring and bloodshot, his blond hair wild and unruly. He looked at Mark, then at May behind him, then back at Mark, the corner of his mouth twitching, but didn’t say anything.

“Um, hello,” Mark said, his brain scrambling to string words together. “Sorry to bother you, but could we possibly speak to you in private for a bit? It’s very important and concerns legendaries – we need your help.”

Rick spent a few more seconds standing there, looking between the two of them, as if he hadn’t heard anything. Just as Mark was about to repeat himself, thinking he might have zoned out altogether, the Gym leader suddenly became animated again, his mouth twitching into a polite smile as he nodded. “Come in,” he said and opened the door, walking inside without another word. Mark proceeded after him, still a bit disoriented, and May followed. She hesitated before closing the door behind them.

“Hello, Rick,” Chaletwo began. “Don’t be alarmed; this is Chaletwo, and I’m with them. I’d rather not go into detail, but we’re looking for Mew, and it’s imperative that we find him quickly. We gather a few years ago you made or obtained some kind of device to track Mew down, and we need to borrow it.”

Rick didn’t look alarmed at all; he only nodded vaguely, heading down the corridor ahead. Mark hesitated, not sure if they were meant to follow. The small entrance hall had a wardrobe on the left and some jackets and coats hanging from hooks on the right-side wall; they looked too small to fit Rick, and it took Mark a second to realize with a sickening pit in his stomach who they must have belonged to. He was a lot more unnerved being in here than he’d anticipated; he looked from side to side, wondering where Rick was going, his heart thumping.

“So, did you hear about that Tyranitar?”

Mark turned towards May in alarm. She’d stepped through the inside door and looked casually around the room, as if it were a simple off-hand question, but her fists were clenched tightly at her sides, trembling. Rick grunted in response as he entered a room on the left-hand side of the corridor.

“What’d you think?” she went on, taking another step, looking in after Rick. Her fingers fiddled with the nail of her thumb as she took a deep breath. “I don’t know, I’m not sure that’s the one who did it. My… my uncle works for the Champion Island police. He says its story doesn’t match up with the evidence. They’re still looking into it, but…”

Rick reappeared through the door, holding a strange metal device – and following behind him came the tall, bony shape of Mewtwo². Mark’s stomach twisted into a knot as Rick pointed at him, his mind freezing up before he could even process what was happening. “Destroy this, silence them and then keep him away,” Rick growled.

“Rick, what are you…”

Mewtwo²’s eyes glowed blue, and the device in Rick’s hand twisted and collapsed into a useless lump of metal before he tossed it into a corner. The instinct to run as fast as he could hit Mark a split second later, but his limbs refused to move, frozen in place by some terrifying force. May, unrestrained, bolted for the door, but Rick leapt at her like a hungry predator, grabbing the collar of her jacket. She threw her hands back and the jacket began to slip off her shoulders, but before it could, he’d wrapped a muscular arm around her neck, gripped her shoulder with his other hand and pulled her back inside, throwing her against the wall of the corridor. Mark tried to scream but his mouth wouldn’t move, either, and breathing was almost impossible even as icy terror and panic clawed at his lungs, desperate for air; he heard a strange, squeaky moan emerge from his throat, too weak to be heard by anyone who could help.

May, eyes wide open and lips pressed together, kicked desperately at Rick as he gripped her neck with both hands; he didn’t even flinch. “You killed him!” he snarled. “It was you!”

“Rick, let her go,” Chaletwo ordered. “She’s with me.”

“She killed my brother!” Rick shouted, without taking his eyes off May; his fingers tightened around her throat.

“Of course she didn’t. I’ve been with her the whole time.”

“You’re lying!” Rick bellowed. “They told me but I always knew!”

“What are you talking about? Who told you? Look, it’s…”

“That girl from the semifinals and the Acaria Gym leader!”

“What?” Mark’s heart skipped a beat. Robin. Victor. “What do you mean, they told you?”

“They said it had a trainer!” May made a small, choked sound, struggling in his grip. “She was the only trainer with a Tyranitar at the League! I checked the records!”

“That doesn’t mean – and why would you even believe kids knocking on your door claiming inside information? How would they even –”

“She lost to him!” Rick roared. “She lost to him and she had a Tyranitar! I knew it from the start!”

“Well, your wild, outrageous guesswork is wrong. Now let her go!”

“Make me,” Rick growled. May’s face was turning unnervingly purple, her struggles becoming feebler.

“I’m not physically here right now, but believe me, you don’t want me angry with you. Let her go right now!”

Rick didn’t even respond this time; he only continued to throttle May, gritting his teeth. Mark strained to move, but nothing budged, every muscle in his body on fire, blood pulsing in his ears, his mind fuzzy, praying to every force in the universe for some kind of help, please, please –

A blinding white light burst out of May’s necklace, and Rick’s momentary distraction became a roar of pain as Floatzel materialized with her teeth locked around his right arm. May collapsed, gasping for breath, as Rick unthinkingly released his grip on her. “Kill it,” he growled as Floatzel scratched madly at him with her paws; she yelped as Mewtwo² squeezed its two fingers together and an invisible force pressed in around Floatzel, twisting her limbs back with a horrible cracking sound –

Another Pokéball hit the floor, releasing Spirit. As Rick threw the limp Floatzel away like a deformed ragdoll, he ordered, “Kill it too.”

“Destiny Bond!” May wheezed, her voice raspy and hoarse; Spirit’s eyes flashed, and as she too succumbed to Mewtwo²’s power, it collapsed with her in a burst of black flame.

Mark crumpled to the floor as the force holding him in place abruptly vanished; he reached for the first Pokéball on his belt, threw it and screamed, “Help!”

Weavile emerged as he stumbled to his feet and grabbed frantically at May where she was coughing on the floor. He took her hand, shaking, and pulled her towards the door. As the Pokémon materialized and eyed Floatzel’s body on the floor, she let out a screeching hiss and leapt at Rick as he was grabbing for Mark; he yelled out as her frost-coated claws sliced into the side of his face.

Mark opened the door and was starting to pull May through when he realized she was pointing Pokéballs at Spirit and Floatzel. His heart stopped for a second in a sickening fear, then started again as both of them dissolved into red energy and were absorbed into their balls. They were still alive.

Rick tore the mad Weavile off his bloodied face and threw her to the floor; she sprang up again with a hiss, ice circling her claws, and delivered an Ice Punch to the side of his head. He staggered back against the wall, hands reaching blindly out towards Mark and May before he collapsed, unconscious, blood trickling down the side of his face.

Mark recalled Weavile as May crawled to her feet, and together they stumbled outside and made a run for the Pokémon Center.

[Dragonfree]

The Final Stretch – Chapter 73: Recuperation

Mark half-dragged May through the automatic doors of the Pokémon Center, panting and shivering uncontrollably. “He can’t attack us in a public place,” he muttered, over and over, like a mantra; it was all he could think at the moment.

“Kids, are you okay?” called Nurse Joy before hastening over to them. “What happened? Was it Rick?”

Mark nodded, unable to explain; lingering terror seemed to have settled into his speech centers, allowing him only to think that one sentence: He can’t hurt us in a public place.

“Did he attack you?” the nurse asked anxiously, pulling May gently upright. She recoiled in horror as she saw the redness of her neck. “Oh, I should never have given you his address. I wasn’t thinking, but I never thought he would...”

May doubled over and threw up on the fuzzy carpet. Nurse Joy only seemed more sympathetic as she gently pulled them away from that spot and called over one of the Center’s Blissey to clean it up. “I’m so sorry. I’ll call the police; they can’t ignore an assault on a child on top of everything else. They just can’t.”

May shook her head frantically, pulling herself into an upright position on the nurse’s arm. “Don’t,” she said, her voice raw and shaking.

“The police should get involved,” Joy repeated. “This is serious. And you should go to a proper, human hospital and get professional treatment. There’s only so much I can do for you.”

“No,” May said. “Please just leave it.” She turned around, trembling, and unclenched her hand from around the two minimized Pokéballs she was still holding. “They’re… they’re hurt.”

“Your Pokémon too?” Nurse Joy shook her head, taking the Pokéballs from May’s hand. “Now, I’ll take a look at them later, but they’re safe in their balls for now, so we should focus on you first. Can you tell me how you feel right now?”

“I’m fine,” May said, glancing around the room. “Please, can we just…”

“Any lingering nausea, difficulty breathing?”

May shook her head, her gaze still flicking restlessly around. Nurse Joy peered at her for a second.

“Why don’t you come with me to the back while you regain your bearings?” she offered. “It’s safe and less public.”

Mark nodded automatically, and the nurse gestured at the Blissey to take over the front desk before leading them to the door at the back of the lobby. A strange memory floated to the top of Mark’s head as they entered: this was where he’d talked to Eevee, back when he’d first set off as a trainer. The thought felt inappropriate and out of place, yet somehow comforting.

“What about you?” Nurse Joy said as she motioned to close the door, looking at Mark. “Are you or your Pokémon hurt?”

Mark opened his hand to give her Weavile’s ball.

“Just sit down over there,” the nurse said as she took it, pointing to a bed with a simple white mattress in the corner. “Try to breathe normally for me, all right? And if you feel any different, tell me immediately. It could be a sign of more serious damage.”

Mark looked back at May; he realized vaguely that he was still gripping her limp hand and let go of it. She nodded slightly and they walked over to settle down on the bed.

May sat, staring down at the floor, clutching the edge of the mattress tightly with both hands, her arms shaking. Mark shuddered as he got a better look at her neck; the red marks were shaped visibly like thick, clutching fingers that almost appeared to still be strangling her. She coughed again, but said nothing. Mark didn’t either. His legs were trembling; he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand up again even if he tried.

Nurse Joy sent out Weavile, and she appeared, panting, looking from side to side for any sign of Rick. “It’s all right now,” Joy said softly. “You’re safe and so is your trainer. How hurt are you?”

“Where’s Floatzel?” Weavile asked, ignoring the question.

“The others are still in their Pokéballs. I’m just going to take a look at you first.”

“I’m fine,” Weavile insisted. “Floatzel wasn’t. She needs the Pokémon Center, not me.”

Joy started as she looked Weavile over. “Is that blood on your claws?”

“I don’t care!” hissed Weavile. “He killed Floatzel!”

“If Floatzel is in a Pokéball, then she’s alive,” Nurse Joy said, her voice concerned but calm. “Did you attack Rick?”

“It was self-defense!”

“He was okay,” Mark said. “He... Weavile knocked him out so we could escape, but I think he was all right.” Oh, God, what if he isn’t?

Nurse Joy nodded, then turned back to Weavile. “All right. I’ll take a look at Floatzel, just to see where we stand.”

“It’s the Ultra Ball,” May said quietly.

Floatzel somehow looked even worse emerging from the ball than she had before being recalled: everything seemed aligned strangely or bent at odd angles, things sticking out in weird places. Weavile stared at her in shock; Mark shuddered and looked away. “I can’t believe him,” the nurse whispered, a quiet fury burning in her voice as she quickly recalled her back into the ball. “Was it that Mewtwo²?”

Mark nodded.

“She’s going to need extensive surgery,” Nurse Joy said. “I just hope her system can take it.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Weavile asked.

The nurse shook her head. “I can’t make any promises, but as long as she’s in the ball, she won’t get any worse. Let me treat you first.”

May swallowed, still pale as Weavile nodded reluctantly. “My Ninetales was attacked by Mewtwo² as well, but she used Destiny Bond,” she said. “I think she’s not as bad but...”

Nurse Joy nodded, then started to gently feel around Weavile’s body, asking her to say when it hurt. She hissed as Joy’s hand passed over her left side, and the nurse reached onto a shelf for a potion spray of some kind. “Did he just attack you for wanting to talk to him?” she asked while she sprayed it. “I never thought he’d go to such extremes for something so small.”

Mark looked at May, a sting of guilt in his stomach, not sure what to say, but he didn’t have to. “He thought I killed his brother,” she said quietly, without looking up.

Joy looked at her, recognition dawning on her face. “Oh, you’re that girl from the finals, aren’t you? I suppose he thought you had something to do with it just because you used a Tyranitar.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry I sent you there. I should have realized how unstable he was. What were you going to talk to him about?”

Mark stared at her in a numb panic. His brain felt like sludge, but some detached part of him managed to open his mouth anyway. “He… he gave me this Growlithe when I fought him,” he heard himself say. His voice was weird, raw. “It went missing and we wanted his help finding it.”

“Rick gave you a Growlithe?” The nurse glanced at him, frowning.

“Yeah, he… he seemed to just want to get rid of it.” Mark’s heart was thumping rapidly, his pulse hot in his ears. There’d been an Arcanine. He’d fought an Arcanine at Rick’s Gym. Hadn’t he?

“Oh.” The nurse turned back to Weavile, shaking her head. Mark exhaled slowly. He felt terrible misleading her, however slightly, when she was being so helpful and kind, but they couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. “That does sound like him,” she went on, sighing. “If he’s giving them to kids, I guess that’s better than dumping them behind the Gym.” She grimaced. “I hope you find that Growlithe. They do often return to familiar places, but to be honest I don’t know if he could’ve helped you any. Search around the Gym, maybe. Put out some food.”

“Yeah, we’ll try that.” Mark swallowed. “Thanks.”

After giving Weavile another check-up, Nurse Joy seemed satisfied that she wasn’t seriously injured. She handed the ball back to Mark.

“You’ll try to save Floatzel, right?” Weavile muttered.

“Of course,” she said, giving her a reassuring smile. I’ll do everything I can.”

Weavile nodded, and Mark recalled her.

“Now,” the nurse said, turning back to Mark and May, “I know you’re in shock and need rest, but I still have to call the police. You’re kids; it’s the law, and they can keep you safe from him. I’m sure now they’ll listen. He always got far more leeway than he should on his Gym, but this?” She shuddered as she turned around to the telephone on the counter behind her and picked up the receiver.

Mark looked at May again, wanting to mouth some sort of objection, but she wasn’t saying anything now, just staring transfixed at the tiled floor.

“Hello, Cleanwater police? This is Joy speaking. I’ve got two children here, twelve or thirteen years old, who say they were violently assaulted by Rick Lancaster. I…” She fell silent, frowning. “They hung up on me.”

She hesitated for a second, then quickly dialled again. “Hello? I was just trying to call about Rick Lanc…”

“It’s no use,” Mark said as Joy was cut off again. “He… he uses Mewtwo² to hypnotize the authorities. They just do whatever he says.”

Nurse Joy blinked at him, still holding the telephone receiver. “What?” Her frown deepened, eyebrows furrowing in thought. “Oh. Oh. That… that explains a lot. Oh, God.” She put the receiver down hastily and took a deep breath, biting her lip. She was silent for a moment, then slowly looked back up at Mark and May, her gaze firm.

“Would you like to sleep at the Pokémon Center tonight while I do what I can for your Pokémon? We’re supposed to refer people to the trainer hotel these days, but we’ve still got rooms in the back. Rick won’t expect you to be there.”

Mark looked at May; she was still staring at the same spot. The thought of staying overnight so close to Rick made him shudder, but all he really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and never have to move ever again. Travel seemed an insurmountable obstacle; he wasn’t sure he trusted himself not to fall off Charizard’s back right now.

Is there… is there any way he could make her tell him where we are? he asked inward. It was all the caution he could manage.

“Probably not,” Chaletwo replied. His telepathic voice was quieter than usual. “From what I’ve seen, Mewtwo²’s power is very blunt. He never learned to use it properly. Getting someone to recall specific information would take finesse that I don’t think he’s capable of.”

That had to be enough. He nodded to Nurse Joy. May glanced over and nodded too, almost imperceptibly.

“All right,” the nurse said. “I’ll take you there. Get some rest, come to me right away if you experience anything unusual, more nausea, anything, and I’ll come tell you how your Pokémon are doing in the morning. Don’t leave the back until then, just to be safe.”

Mark stood up; his legs felt like lead, wobbling strangely, but they were steadier than before, slowly recovering strength. May stood as well, hugging her body with her arms. The nurse took them hastily through a locked door into a dark corridor, turned on the light and handed them a pair of keys, then left them with the assurance that she would do everything in her power to help Floatzel and Spirit.

“Good night, then, I guess,” Mark said as he opened the door to his room. A strange fear still trembled in his chest, but he didn’t know what to do about it. The thought of sleep was simultaneously welcome and terrifying. “I… I hope they’re okay.”

May gripped the knob of her room’s door, but stopped. “Is…” she said, staring at the knob, her voice faint and hoarse. “Is it okay if I come in with you for a bit?”

Mark was strangely relieved at the suggestion. He nodded and held the door open as she entered the room and sat down on the small bed with her hands clutched together in her lap. He closed the door, locked it and sat down beside her.

There was silence. The room seemed almost unnervingly peaceful and ordinary. Mark’s heart was still thumping faster than usual, his mouth dry, his mind reflexively picturing Rick bursting through the door, but now at least it felt like an irrational thought, something he could try to push aside and ignore. May was still staring at her lap.

“Are you okay?” he asked carefully, and suddenly May broke into sobs.

She covered her mouth with her hands as tears streamed down her cheeks, then clenched them into fists in front of her face, shaking. Abruptly, she stood up, walked to the corner of the room and laid the palm of her right hand flat onto the wall for a moment, as if to support herself, then curled it into a fist again and punched the wall. Once, twice. Three times.

Mark looked away; she didn’t want him to see this, he knew, but he couldn’t abandon her either. In the corner, May took a breath that trembled audibly, only to dissolve into suppressed sobbing again as she tried to exhale.

She was there for what felt like a long, long time, and Mark sat and stared at the side wall, trying to let her forget he was there.

Eventually her breathing started to calm. She sniffed a few times. Several seconds passed before she sat very slowly down on the bed again, in the same spot she’d been. Mark turned carefully; she was still looking down, her right fist clenched tightly in front of her mouth, her left hand fiddling around her neck.

“You okay?” he asked again, quietly.

“No,” she said without looking at him. Her voice was weird and nasal and still trembling. “You can see that.”

Mark looked at her, not sure what to say. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s... I mean, it’s normal to... Rick just tried to kill you and all.”

May stared at her lap. “I wanted him to die,” she muttered.

Mark blinked, dread creeping up his spine. “What?”

“I wanted him to die. I wished he’d just… have a fall in the mountains and break his neck. Many times.”

Her voice was faint, dull. Mark shivered, suddenly cold. “But you didn’t want Tyranitar to…”

“No! I…” she said almost reflexively before she trailed off, shaking her head slightly, still without looking up. She lowered her hands. “I don’t know.”

Chaletwo gave a huge telepathic sigh. “Not you too.”

May clenched her fists. “Go away.”

“Is this why you didn’t want me in your head? Look, this had nothing to do with whatever idle fantasies you were entertaining during the League; Rick couldn’t have known any of that. He did it because he’s insane and needed somebody to blame, and then Robin and Victor went and told him just to spite us. I swear, when I get my hands on them…”

“They did it for Tyranitar,” May said, still not looking at him.

“What are you talking about? They –”

“Rick could’ve had him put down in a heartbeat,” May said. Her voice was steady now, but still quiet. “They said he had a trainer so Rick wouldn’t go after him. They didn’t tell him it was me.”

There was a pause. May remained where she was, picking at her fingernails.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Chaletwo said reluctantly, “but…”

“Chaletwo,” Mark said, something about the voice in his skull sickening and overbearing, “just… stop.”

A flicker of psychic exasperation flashed through his mind, but then Chaletwo’s presence retreated back to a pinprick corner of his brain, something he could almost ignore.

“Thanks,” May said, quietly.

Mark nodded, and they sat together in silence a few more minutes. There was a strange comfort simply in being there, in the calm, not alone. Slowly, May’s breathing calmed and steadied, her legs stopped shaking, her hands lowered.

Then, finally, she took a deep breath and rose to her feet. “I should go to bed.”

Mark nodded again. As she opened the door, she turned around, looking him in the eye for the first time since they’d sat at the restaurant, a few eternal hours ago. “Good night, Mark,” she said.

“Good night,” Mark said, and she exited the room and closed the door.

-------

May sat down on her own bed, took a deep breath, and dropped a Pokéball.

“Stantler?” she said, her voice still hoarse.

“Are you all right?” the deer Pokémon said immediately when she had formed. She’d probably heard everything from inside her ball – and her other Pokémon too, May realized, wincing.

“Yeah,” she managed. “Floatzel… Floatzel stopped him.”

Stantler nodded slowly. “I never learned to let myself out of a Pokéball. Perhaps I should have.”

May looked away. She knew a couple of Mark’s Pokémon could do that; their balls must have been locked shut by the same power that’d kept Mark frozen, staring, choking. She’d always thought it was pointless: why have them waste time learning to come out on their own when she could just as well send them out herself when they were needed?

“She must’ve figured it out on the spot,” she muttered.

“That’s impressive of her,” Stantler said. “From what I’ve heard, it takes hours of practice for most Pokémon to learn to do it reliably, and the first time is always the most difficult. She must have been very determined to save you. Perhaps she cares more than she lets on.”

Yeah. What did it take to pick up a new skill, never practiced, under pressure, while in the dreamlike haze of a Pokéball? That only made it worse. If Floatzel had just done it for an excuse to fight, then at least it wouldn’t have had anything to do with May.

(Had any of her other Pokémon been trying and failing? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.)

“She… she was badly hurt,” May said after a moment. “Spirit too. I sent her out to take down Mewtwo² with Destiny Bond, but that meant…” She swallowed; her throat hurt, and she took a slow breath as the pain subsided, shaking her head. “I don’t know what else I could have done.”

“Spirit is loyal,” Stantler said. “She would die for you. I have no doubt she’d have done it on her own if she could.”

“I don’t want anyone dying for me, okay?” She said it too quickly, too loudly, and her voice dissolved into coughs that tore into her raw throat all over again until she wished she hadn’t said anything.

“They survived, though, didn’t they?” Stantler said softly. “How are they?”

May shook her head. “It looked bad. The nurse said she’d do her best, but…”

Stantler nodded again, grave. “Then there’s nothing for us to do but to wait and hope they pull through. Remember that whatever happens, this wasn’t your fault.”

Her words left an acidic taste in May’s mouth. She looked away, swallowing again, hating the pain, wishing it would go away and let her just forget about what had happened.

“I wanted him to die. That’s why I told Tyranitar that.”

“Did you tell him that so he’d do it?” Stantler asked, her voice level as always. She’d probably heard that through her ball earlier, too. And yet she was still here, talking to her.

May stared at the wall. “No,” she said after a moment. “I wanted it but I didn’t expect it to actually happen. I just…”

“People often fantasize about violence without really, truly wanting it enacted,” Stantler said. “What matters is what you choose to put into action.”

She knew that. That was what she’d been telling Chaletwo when he was in her head. But it felt like a hollow excuse, a lie she’d told herself to shift the blame – a lie that Rick’s wretched gaze had shattered and peeled back from the naked truth that in every way that really mattered, she’d killed him. Tyranitar had acted on her words, words that hadn’t been just a figure of speech, and now Taylor was dead. Why would anything else matter?

And meanwhile, Tyranitar had given himself up and gone out of his way to pretend he’d been wild. To protect her. Why would he do that? Why?

May clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms until they hurt. She stared at the floor beneath Stantler’s feet, imagining everything just melting away into nothingness, but it never would.

“I need to talk to the police,” she muttered, without looking up.

“When we have captured Mew, then?” Stantler responded, unfazed.

May hesitated. She wanted to just go now, get it over with before she changed her mind, so she could stop thinking about it. But Mark probably couldn’t take out Mew on his own, and Rick had no reason to go after Tyranitar anymore, so he should be safe in custody for the moment; she hated the voice that told her that, because it felt like the same voice that just wanted to go on and forget about Tyranitar and pretend none of this ever happened, but it was true.

“Yeah,” she said. “Once we’ve caught Mew.”

May took a deep breath and exhaled it, slowly, staring into her lap. She wished Spirit were here, but she wasn’t. Maybe she never would be again.

Stantler stepped closer and gently touched her nose to May’s forehead. May lifted a hand and stroked her neck absent-mindedly. It wasn’t as soft as the Ninetales’ mane, but warmer, steadier.

“Don’t blame yourself for what happened to Floatzel and Spirit,” Stantler said. “You never wanted them to get hurt. It was Rick who attacked them.”

“Does that change anything?” May muttered.

“Of course it does,” Stantler replied. “They were there because of you, but you didn’t cause the harm. Assigning blame down an endless chain of inadvertent causes leads nowhere. I’ve been down that road before.”

“When your… when your trainer died?”

Stantler nodded. May shifted on the bed. “He’s still just as dead, though.”

There was a brief pause. “That’s true,” Stantler said. “But blaming myself for his death didn’t bring him back either. Blame can never change the past; it can only direct our perspective on how we should proceed in the future.” She paused again before continuing, her voice softening. “Some things I realized I could have done differently, and I resolved to do better. But other things I couldn’t fault given the circumstances. Sometimes you’re an accidental link in the chain of causality, nothing more, and there is no real change you could have made without the benefit of hindsight. In these situations, there’s little to be accomplished by dwelling on whatever role you may have played in the chain of events. Focus on actions that you can take from here, not events that are already past. Sometimes that’s hard, but it’s all you can do.”

May nodded slowly.

“How are you feeling?” Stantler asked after a few seconds.

“I don’t know.” May looked up, forced her back to straighten. “Better, I think. Thanks.”

“I can use Hypnosis, if it would help.”

Her first instinct was to say no, but it wasn’t true. She nodded wordlessly, lying down on the bed, and Stantler leaned over her, her eyes gentle.

“Stantler?” May said as the air between her antlers started to shimmer with psychic distortion. “Do you… do you want to sleep outside your ball tonight?”

She nodded. “I will.”

The distortion between her antlers intensified, and within seconds the room and the world turned into a rippling, unreal canvas that crumpled and faded into nothing at all.

-------

Mark didn’t feel like he’d slept much at all. The night seemed like a long string of vaguely disturbing nightmares interrupted by periods of waking, tossing and turning, snapping awake at any sound from outside, until finally the light of morning streamed in through the narrow gap between the thick curtains and he decided he was too awake to fall asleep again. He got dressed and brushed his teeth in the hope of dispelling some of his grogginess, then knocked carefully on the door to May’s room. She opened it only a few seconds later, already dressed and ready, looking jarringly normal.

“Have you seen Joy?” he asked.

“No,” she said. Her voice was still a little hoarse, but better than yesterday. Her gaze flicked around the corridor.

“Do you want to hang out in my room until she comes?” he offered.

May shrugged, and they went back into his room. She glanced at Sandslash and Jolteon, who were still sleeping at the foot of the bed, before she sat down on the far side of it. She was still silent, looking away.

Mark looked at her, unsure what to say. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached for his bag and pulled out his sketchbook. “Hey, tell me something to draw and I’ll do it.”

She looked at him. “Vulpix,” she said, without thinking about it.

Mark smiled as he picked up his pencil and sat down on the bed with her. “Vulpix is my favorite Pokémon.”

“Huh.” May wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm, but she still looked over at the paper to watch him sketch. After the Vulpix, she suggested a Skarmory, and he was halfway through that drawing when there was a knock on the door.

“It’s me,” said Joy’s voice on the other side.

Mark stood up to unlock the door and opened it. Joy’s face was tight, grave, and Mark’s stomach stung.

“How did it go?” May asked, hugging her chest.

“They’re resting,” Joy said, putting on a brief smile. “The surgery went well, and they should both make a full recovery, but they’re going to need a while before they can get out of the Pokémon Center, Floatzel especially.” She took a deep breath. “Rick came here late last night,” she said, her voice quieter. “He asked if I’d seen you.”

Mark’s heart skipped a beat. “And what…?”

“I told him you’d come by to get your flying Pokémon and left in a hurry,” the nurse replied. “He seemed very out of it; he appeared to be suffering from a severe concussion in addition to the slashes on his face. I persuaded him to let me call him an ambulance.” She took another deep breath. “His memory seemed fuzzy on exactly what had happened, but he clearly still wanted to find you. Given his injuries, I expect he’ll be in the hospital for most of today at the absolute least, but to be safe, I strongly suggest you get out of town as soon as you can.”

Mark glanced at May. She shifted, not looking at the nurse. “What about Floatzel and Spirit?” she asked after a moment.

“You’ll have to leave them here. I’ll take care of them; you can call me from any Pokémon Center, and when they’re ready I can transfer them to you.”

May nodded. “Can… can I see them before we go?”

The nurse smiled slightly. “Of course.”

She led them into the recovery room. Floatzel was lying on one of the beds, most of her wrapped in a cast; she was fast asleep. Spirit lay on another, blinking slowly, her legs bandaged. She turned her head as they walked in, wincing in pain.

“Spirit,” May said quietly, approaching her bed and stroking the fur on her head. “Are you okay?”

“It was worth it,” the Ninetales said, her voice hoarse. “Nothing else could have taken down Mewtwo².”

May gave a faint wince. “It was Robin’s idea.”

“At least the gems are unharmed,” Spirit went on, looking at the pendant still hanging around her neck and the three rubies embedded in it. “To think Rick could have destroyed them without even knowing.”

Oh. Mark looked dully at the soul gems and realized he wouldn’t have cared if they’d been broken, wouldn’t have even noticed. He stood back, silent, as May ran her hand through the Ninetales’ silky fur a few more times before moving over to Floatzel’s bed, hesitantly placing her hand on the sea otter’s head. Floatzel twitched a little in her sleep.

“So she’s going to be fine?” May asked, stroking her Pokémon’s fine, orange fur carefully.

“She should be,” the nurse responded. “Pokémon are resilient. I’ve set the bones and stopped the major internal bleedings; her system should handle it from here with some help from standard potions. But she will need to rest for a while. They can’t heal as fast when the damage is so widespread.”

May nodded, staring at Floatzel for a few more moments before turning to Spirit. “We need to go,” she said. “Rick’s trying to find us again. We have to leave town and stay under the radar.”

“What?” Spirit looked up sharply. “Where is he?”

“He’s at a hospital now,” May said. “But we have to get out of here before he gets out. We have to leave you behind until you get better.”

Spirit struggled to stand up. “I’m coming with you,” she said. “I will be fine if I just…”

“No,” May said, her voice a little unsteady. “You’ve done enough. Please just stay here and rest.”

Spirit gave a pained whine as she gave up and laid herself back down on her front legs. “Very well.”

“And…” May hesitated. “Be nice to Floatzel when she wakes up, all right?”

Spirit glanced over at Floatzel’s bed, sighing. “She saved your life, didn’t she?”

May nodded without words.

“Perhaps I misjudged her,” the Ninetales said. “I don’t know if she will grant me the same courtesy, but I suppose she deserves it.”

“Tell her… tell her thanks.” May turned around. “Goodbye, Spirit. I’m sorry.”

And with that, May walked out of the room without looking back. Mark waved a brief goodbye to Spirit before he followed.

[Dragonfree]

On this day fifteen years ago, I started the original version of The Quest for the Legends. Today, I'm posting chapter 74 of this same story that's followed me through most of my life.

I wanted to be able to finish the fic today, or else post the climax (chapters 75 and 76) - alas, it wasn't to be. But in a way, this is a pretty appropriate chapter to post today. It's not the most exciting or action-packed chapter, but it's a very nostalgic one, including, referencing or calling back to several events, characters and places from very early in the fic (don't worry, I don't expect you to still remember any of that), and one of the scenes here I literally first thought up when I was twelve or thirteen, making it by far the oldest scene this late in the fic - it has evolved over the years, of course, but my thirteen-year-old self would still recognize it. That feels pretty amazing, and looking back on all that history and the little thoughtless, childish writing decisions from the early days that this chapter lovingly embraces and recontextualizes a bit is a nice way to celebrate the fic's fifteenth anniversary.

I confess I'd probably be spending more time on this chapter if it weren't the anniversary, but I think it more or less does what it's supposed to do, and I'm content with that.

Thanks to everyone who's been here for this journey, whether you started reading this year or a decade ago. I know I have readers my age who've been following this story since they were kids, and it's amazing to think something I wrote has been a part of their lives for so long. Thanks to everyone who's been cheering me on over the years, poking me about my progress until I got here. And of course, a very special thanks to elyvorg and opaltiger, who've been my beta-readers for the past several years.



The Final Stretch – Chapter 74: Unraveling

They’d been assigned the west side of the region, and despite everything that had happened since yesterday, no plans had been changed, so west side it was.

They headed south into Rainbow Woods, traveling a bit off the beaten path, keeping a silent, wary lookout for anything suspicious. Every movement made Mark’s stomach lurch, his mind preparing to see Rick’s clenched jaw and bloodshot eyes, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. The woods were peaceful and quiet, weak wild Pokémon occasionally flitting between the trees but avoiding engagement.

Rick was probably still in the hospital, Mark reminded himself every time a rattling in the bushes turned out to be a Rattata. There was no reason for him to be here now.

After a few hours of repeated false alarms, that reflex finally started to numb somewhat, and Mark’s mind began to wander to other worries, to their quest and to Mew.

“Hey,” he said eventually. May glanced back at him, her expression unreadable as usual.

“I was thinking,” he went on. “So when Mew…” He paused. “Wait, did I ever properly explain the thing with Mew? Why the Mew Hunter went after me and all that?”

“No,” Chaletwo said. “I had been planning to ask you about that myself. You were thinking something yesterday about Rick giving Mew to you…?”

“Yeah. When I battled Rick, he used Mew, but Mew was resisting the Clone Ball, and I think it freaked him out. He got all weird and angry and then he gave Mew’s ball to me and told me to just take it away.”

“Huh,” Chaletwo said, slowly. “I’d gathered that you’d met Mew a couple of times before, but not like that. I always thought Rick had simply released him.”

“No,” Mark said. “It was me. I switched him to a normal Pokéball, and after we talked for a bit he flew out through my window.”

“And you released him formally through the PC after that?”

“Yeah,” Mark replied. “And I put the ball in the recycling bin and everything. I’ve still got the Clone Ball in my bag somewhere, but obviously that’s deactivated. Nothing that helps us now.”

“The mind-control ball? You kept that?” Faint disgust pricked at Mark’s mind.

Mark shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed like sort of an interesting keepsake, I guess.”

Chaletwo sighed. “Well, it’s a moot point now. What were you going to say?”

“Yeah, so… when I released Mew back there, he told me his home was here. In Rainbow Woods.”

“Oh.” Chaletwo’s telepathic voice was dull. “What Mew calls home doesn’t mean very much. He spends most of his time traveling, seeing the world and observing its inhabitants. Every once in a while he picks a place that strikes his fancy and designates it as ‘home’, but he only occasionally spends much time there. He may not return to it for years, and this is not one of the times that he sticks around. He might come back here or he might not. It’s no more likely than any other place.”

Mark nodded slowly. “Do you think he might return home when his power starts to run out? If he’s too weak to travel like normal – would he come back here?”

“Maybe,” Chaletwo said, reluctant. “That would be cutting it uncomfortably close, but if it comes to that, it might make sense to return here.” That was something, at least – a contingency plan. Chaletwo sighed. “If only we could have gotten that device off Rick.”

May looked away. “Do you have any idea how that thing worked?”

“Mmm. I can’t know for sure, but it’s likely it was something that detected psychic signals. A strong Psychic legendary like Mew gives off an aura. You can only feel it when the legendary is physically close, but theoretically it’s possible he could make a machine that could pick up a much fainter signal, and then he could triangulate Mew’s approximate location from that. That’s my best guess, anyway. Doesn’t help us find him without the device itself.”

“But what about twenty years ago when you first asked him about the War?” Mark asked. “Or when Raudra and Puragon wanted to warn him about us, or Mewtwo – how are they finding him?”

“He wants to talk to them,” Chaletwo said pointedly. “It’s not usually hard for a legendary to find him – wander around looking, don’t make a secret of what you’re looking for, and before long he’ll pop up to greet you. But he’s obviously been avoiding us since we proposed the plan, and he pays close attention to news and rumours of the other legendaries. He’ll know he’s the only one left by now.”

Mark nodded, silent. No shortcuts. They’d just have to stumble upon him, somehow.

One Pokémon in the entire world, and they had… seven groups looking? He’d tried not to think about Mew and how hard it’d be to find him, to push all that back to when they got there, but now they were there and there was nowhere else to push it; all the built-up dread that he’d managed to ignore up to this point was seeping back into his mind, amplified by his general anxiety about Rick.

May just walked on, staring straight ahead. He didn’t think he would ever understand how she maintained that steely composure even now, but somehow seeing her soldiering on after everything gave him some small measure of strength. He hastened to keep up with her, and as they continued their trudge through the forest, he tried to think only of the next step, the next clearing, the next clump of bushes.

-------

They camped out in the woods in the evening. May was quiet as they ate a cold dinner of beans and crackers; Mark persuaded her into another drawing game before they retreated to their tents, though, and she gave a faint smile at his drawing of Floatzel. Weavile offered to keep watch as they slept, silent and devoid of her usual cocky demeanor, grim determination in her eyes.

It was almost completely dark when Mark woke with a start, gripped with a chilling feeling of being watched. Something rustled outside, like footsteps, as an indistinct shadow – Weavile? – shifted on the wall of the tent, flickering in the faint light of the fire. He held his breath, paralyzed; everything was silent now but his thumping heartbeat as he waited for Rick to tear open the tent, silhouetted against the flames, Mewtwo²’s looming, hunched-over form at his side.

But nothing happened. After several minutes tense and frozen in the dead quiet, taking shallow, silent breaths, Mark finally dared to fully exhale. He sat up, slowly, and carefully unzipped the front of the tent. “Weavile?” he whispered.

“Someone was here,” she said. The glow that remained of their campfire reflected in her eyes and her gleaming claws. “They bolted when I noticed them.”

Mark shivered, staring into the darkness. Rick? But why would he have run off without a fight?

Weavile glanced away, then back at him. “Sleep,” she said. “I’ll wake you if there’s trouble. I won’t let him get you too.”

“No, let’s… let’s move,” Mark said weakly, his mouth dry. “We can’t risk it, not with Mewtwo² around. It can hurt Dark-types.” If only they’d thought to take its ball off Rick while he was unconscious – but of course, they’d been in no state to think that far.

Weavile averted her eyes, but didn’t object. Mark crawled out of his tent to wake May, shaking with both cold and adrenaline.

“I never used to have anyone I wanted to protect,” Weavile muttered, and Mark turned around. “And now that I do, I can’t.”

“You helped us escape,” Mark said.

“Didn’t help Floatzel. Couldn’t have helped Floatzel.”

Mark tried to shrug. “You… you can’t always help.”

Weavile didn’t answer. Mark shivered again as he turned back to May’s tent.

You can’t always help.

-------

They moved to a different campsite. Mark didn’t get much sleep after that, but there was no further sign of their visitor. In the morning, they searched around Alumine, tired and exhausted, but found nothing. They camped in the woods again, after wading through a mess of undergrowth and a thicket of trees, lighting no campfire so they’d be less likely to be seen. Again, the night was quiet. Nothing happened, no one attacked – but that didn’t ease his mind much.

The next day was similar. May still said nothing, staring distantly around the forest as they searched as if on autopilot. The silence was deafening, but what could he say?

“Draw Mew,” she said when they’d eaten dinner that night.

“It’s too dark,” Mark said. Again they had no fire, no light, and even though their dinner was early, the trees obscured the diminishing light of the setting sun.

May shrugged slightly. “We can use my torch inside one of the tents.”

Mark couldn’t help compulsively worrying – wouldn’t the beam be visible through the fabric of the tent? – but by the time they were huddled together over his sketchpad by the flashlight, he could forget about all that for a moment. In his drawing, Mew was sleeping, peaceful, serene.

“Did you know,” he said absent-mindedly as he shaded the tiny body, “back in Scorpio City after you got stung by that Scorplack – Mew came there?”

May blinked. “Huh?”

“I was sitting there alone with you, Mitch left to check on some blood test, and Mew just… appeared.”

“Why?”

Mark shrugged. “He said something about… fate, and appearing because he felt he should? I asked him to heal you but he said he couldn’t because Scorplack is a Dark-type. Then he just left again when Mitch was about to come in.”

“Did it say anything else?”

“Not really.” Mark shook his head, turning the memory over in his mind: it was pretty odd, wasn’t it? “He was only there for maybe twenty or thirty seconds. Didn’t do anything.”

“Weird.” May looked at the drawing again. “Chaletwo, you got anything?”

“It sounds like Mew,” Chaletwo said, sighing. “Banging on about fate, appearing at random. He likes to show himself more than to be inadvertently seen, so appearing to you but leaving before someone else walked in sounds typical.”

May stared unseeingly at the paper. “Why would he go somewhere for such a short time, if he didn’t do anything while he was there? What was the point?”

“You can’t reason about Mew. He works in mysterious ways. I’ve never been able to figure him out.”

Mark shrugged, but he could see May, her gaze distant, still mulling it over while he finished his drawing.

-------

As February wore on, they spent a few days searching near Alumine, then a few in the forest, then a few around the Lake of Purity. By a silent, implicit agreement, they didn’t get too close to Cleanwater City itself. Mark thought to himself, without knowing if it was true, that Mew probably wouldn’t want to spend time in a city where he’d been trapped and mind-controlled for three years, either. If Chaletwo thought otherwise, he didn’t object.

Mark initially wasn’t sure about covering the northwest corner of the region, near his hometown: surely, if all wild Pokémon avoided the area, Mew would too? But Chaletwo was unsure, so they searched around Sailance, too. There was a knot in Mark’s stomach as they skirted around the edges of town, as he tried not to think of what would happen to his parents if they couldn’t find Mew. Could he save them, get them into Mrs. Riverstone’s shelter before it was too late? Would it be enough? What about everyone else, who wouldn’t have a shelter?

At May’s suggestion, they slipped into a clothing store after they restocked on food and bought large, hooded wind jackets, hats, and scarves that obscured their features from afar. Mark wasn’t sure it would stop Rick, but he still felt safer, wrapped in warm, concealing layers. They still hadn’t had a nighttime encounter since that first night. Perhaps they’d shaken him off.

After Sailance, they headed back past the Lake of Purity and through the forest, then threaded the beaches west of it. They were back near Alumine, a couple of weeks into the search, when something was different about the atmosphere as they packed up their tents in the morning; May was distracted, fidgety, in a way she hadn’t been before, and even Chaletwo was radiating a faint sense of apprehension from somewhere in the back of his mind.

“What’s up?” Mark asked, looking at May.

“Nothing,” she said immediately, stuffing the minimized box with her tent into her bag, then pulling the hood of her jacket further over her head. Mark’s gaze lingered on her. She still wasn’t talking much, but she watched him draw most nights, hugging her knees close, making quick suggestions like she was trying not to think about them – always Pokémon. He was never sure what she was thinking or how he could help.

She glanced back at him, then away again. “It’s…” she began, her voice quiet. “It’s my birthday.”

Mark blinked at her. She busied herself with zipping up her bag, as if she expected that to be the end of the conversation. With a sting in his gut, Mark recalled his own last birthday: Sparky throwing him a party, May and Alan helping to make him a cake. Now, here they were, hiding in the woods, subsisting on bottled water and dry crackers and cold beans and cereal bars.

“Hey,” he said, willing himself to smile as she looked up again. “Happy birthday! Thirteen, right? So you’re… you’re a teenager. Congrats.”

He laughed as she grimaced exaggeratedly. “Don’t remind me.”

“How about we go somewhere and celebrate?” Mark said. “There’s a café at the edge of the woods. They might have cake or something.”

“Really?” May gave him a sceptical glance.

He shifted on his feet. “There’s… nobody’s been following us lately, and we’ve got our disguises. It has to be okay for just maybe an hour, right? Some proper food?” Mark really hoped he was right. “It’s your birthday.”

May looked away, still hesitant. In truth, Mark wasn’t quite sure either; images of Rick bursting in and Mewtwo²’s empty eyes flickered in his mind, underlined by the faint buzz of tension and fear and guilt in the back of his skull.

“If…” Chaletwo said abruptly, “if it would help, you can switch me to an active ball. If Rick did appear, you should have time to let me out before he could pick you out of the crowd, and I could teleport us out of there. It should be fine.” May blinked in surprise. “You... you both deserve this,” he added awkwardly. “Happy birthday.”

Mark grinned in disbelief, looking back at May. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “Sure.”

-------

They reached the café around lunchtime. Mark couldn’t help being apprehensive again as they approached it, but Chaletwo’s ball was comforting in his hand; even though it was unlikely it would come to that, knowing they had a backup plan if something went wrong calmed him down.

The little red door was friendly and welcoming. They frantically scanned the other customers as they entered, but once they were sure they hadn’t just barged in on Rick, May led the way to a corner booth, sitting down on the side that faced towards the door. Mark took a seat opposite her; as he sank into the cushion and dropped his backpack down on the floor next to him, all the pent-up tension and worries of the past weeks seemed to lift off his shoulders as well. They were okay. They were here. They were going to have some nice food again, in the warmth of a house, because it was May’s birthday, and for the moment that was all that they had to think about. He’d needed this break, really needed it; he hadn’t realized how much so until now.

He inhaled deeply, rolling his sore shoulders, relishing the smell of food. A waitress approached the table, smiling, and took their order. For a minute he just sat back with his eyes closed, feeling the tension melt out of his muscles; then he opened his eyes again and glanced at May where she sat gazing at nothing in particular. The interior of the café was cozy and nostalgically familiar.

“It’s weird to be here again,” he said, smiling at May. “Still seems bigger on the inside.”

“Last time we were here, you thought I’d stolen your Pokémon,” May said.

“Did I?” Mark laughed; he could just about remember it, but the thought seemed alien now, like something that had happened to someone else.

“Yeah. It was when the Mew Hunter took them. You freaked out at me because you thought I’d wanted to steal Dratini.”

He did remember that. Back when he’d caught him, May had tried to argue that Dratini should be hers because she’d brought the tools to fish him out of the lake. “And then you said you didn’t really want him anyway, because…” He trailed off as he caught himself, the humour of the situation dying down into an awkward silence. Because she had Larvitar.

They looked at one another for a moment before May averted her gaze. Thankfully, just then their waitress arrived with the food, smoothly disposing of the subject.

Halfway through his grilled cheese sandwich, Mark spoke again. “I was kind of a jerk back there,” he said. “We both wanted Dratini, but I just took him and ran while you were distracted. I’m sorry.”

May shook her head; she was eating her sandwich with a knife and fork, one meticulous bite at a time. “You were the one who caught him. I just made up some dumb reason I should get him instead because I was jealous.”

Mark blinked at her, surprised by her bluntness. Not that he hadn’t guessed; it occurred to him, fleetingly, that it was no wonder they hadn’t noticed anything off about Larvitar, because they’d both been too busy being childishly excited about having pseudo-legendaries.

“I guess we’ve both grown up a bit since we started out, huh?” he said. “Happy birthday again.”

May poked the bottom of her glass of cola with her straw, absent-mindedly, her face expressionless. “I never really used to have any friends,” she said, without looking up. “I had Spirit, but the New Bark Town kids never liked me. I told myself it was because they were idiots, but I guess actually I was the idiot.”

Mark looked at her, unsure how to react to a confession like that. “I… I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

“You didn’t like me either,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I didn’t actually start trying to be friendly until after the Dratini thing. And even then I wasn’t very good at it. Remember how I just left you behind in Scorpio City?”

“Oh.” Mark scratched the back of his head. “I figured you’d just moved on, though. It wasn’t a big deal.”

She grimaced. “You can tell I wasn’t used to having friends.”

She put her glass down, still not looking him in the eye. Mark hesitated before opening his mouth again. “I’m glad we ended up traveling together.”

May looked up. “Why?”

“You helped me with battling a lot. I’d never have gotten so far at the League without you, or caught any of those legendaries. And… you’re not perfect, but we’ve been through a lot and I just… I’m glad you’re here.”

May looked at him for a long moment. “Well, thanks, for… coming to my birthday party, I guess.” She glanced back towards the counter. “Anyway, didn’t you say they had cake? I want cake. Screw the money.”

She called over a waiter and ordered two large slices of chocolate cake, which arrived quickly. Mark wasn’t too hungry after the sandwich, but he ate his slice anyway, almost as an act of solidarity.

“What was that Sparky said again?” May asked when she’d finished, putting her fork down. “Make every birthday the best you’ve ever had because it might be your last? Seems apt.”

“Don’t say that,” Chaletwo said. “We only have Mew left. We’ve got to find him eventually.”

“Yeah,” May said. “Sure.”

Mark felt a sudden, abrupt flash of intense anger in the back of his mind. “No! You will not undermine everything we’ve worked for at this stage in the game. We’re almost done. Do you understand what we’ve accomplished? We’ve captured every legendary but one!”

May blinked at him, her brow furrowing.

“Mew is just one more. We’ll get him. Not one more word of this. It’s your birthday! Talk about… presents or school or whatever it is you talk about on birthdays.”

Mark shared a glance with May, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Chaletwo?” he asked under his breath.

“I just…” The legendary’s psychic sigh reverberated through Mark’s mind, trembling. “My power loss is slowing down. That’s what happens near the end. We may have somewhat less time than I thought.”

“What?” Mark’s ears rang with a strange, otherworldly static. “How much time?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really know to begin with. I was hoping we had until May at least. I’m not sure anymore.”

“So what, it could just… happen any day now?”

“No,” Chaletwo said. “I’ll know when it’s getting very close. We probably have at least a month or two. It just… made me concerned.”

May pressed her lips together. “I guess we should get going,” she said and started to push her chair away from the table.

“But…” Mark trailed off; May stopped. “Can we… can May at least have her birthday?”

“It’s fine,” Chaletwo said, sighing. “You lose far more time at night than you do here. I wasn’t going to tell you until after this.”

“No,” May said after a moment. “Let’s go. The cake’s done, anyway.”

-------

They kept on searching. Mark kept a close eye on May, concerned after all she’d said at the café, but she was actually less quiet than before, commenting dryly on the search, the weather, the Pokémon they encountered. Every night now, she suggested a new Pokémon for him to draw: an Espeon, a Milotic, a Lapras (he looked at her when she said it, and her lips were tight but she said nothing).

After another week or so, Chaletwo persuaded Mark to message the others through May’s Pokégear. There was a knot in his stomach as he typed: Been a few weeks, should we spread out?

Heard of more sightings in Ouen, Leah replied back. Better stay here. Keep doing what you’re doing, everyone. I’ll contact Mary and get her over here too.

Roger, came Alan’s answer. Take care, guys.

Mark felt anxious for the rest of the day, compulsively checking the Pokégear while at the same time dreading it, his throat tight, but the others never responded. The device showed they’d gotten the message, at least; they had to trust that they were still searching.

They went up and down the coast, through the woods again, back beyond Sailance, around the Lake of Purity, down to Alumine; then they combed the whole area again but found nothing. Chaletwo’s apprehension was a steady throb in Mark’s skull, growing little by little every day into a constant, maddening tension that left him restless and unable to relax, constantly shaking with nerves.

In the evenings, he continued drawing, the quiet sessions with May becoming the only times he could temporarily escape that relentless anxiety, an anchor of comforting tradition that kept him going: Pidgeot, Salamence, Blaziken, Mutark, Flygon, Raichu, Butterfree. Charmander. Quilava. Spirit.

It was April when, after several exhausting nights of fitful sleep interrupted by flashes of alien terror, Chaletwo muttered, “I think I should get out of your head.”

Mark felt his brain grinding clunkily out of a state of autopilot, a strange mixture of relief and dread bubbling up in his head. “Is… is it close?”

“Not… not that close, I think. I just… I just think it’s best if I conserve my power from here. I could still teleport you somewhere, and it’s good if I can in an emergency.”

Mark swallowed. “How are we going to know if it’s too late?”

“I’m… I’m sure I’ll be able to tell if you release me for a moment, maybe once a week. I’ll let you know. It’ll be fine.”

Mark and May looked at each other, silent. “All right,” Mark said, hesitant.

“This is… this is goodbye for now, then.” Chaletwo’s voice was forced and unsteady. “You’re sure the storage system’s Pokéball farms are safe?”

Mark nodded, his mouth dry. “Yeah, they should be.” But…

“Good. Just put me on the PC and –”

“No,” Mark said, his voice tight. “I’ll keep your ball with me until you tell me it’s too late. We might need you to teleport quickly again. And…” He hesitated, an uncomfortable stinging in his gut. “I need to know that you’ll really tell us. I… maybe I want to call my parents.”

Chaletwo was silent for a long moment. “All right. I’ll talk to you in a week. Keep searching.”

And then, all of a sudden, he was gone. The presence in Mark’s head vanished, a smothering weight of oppressive emotion abruptly lifted from his mind, leaving behind a strange void. He felt lightheaded for a moment, followed by a weird pins-and-needles sensation, and then, finally, normal. No Chaletwo. They were on their own.

“Is he gone?” May asked, and Mark nodded. They looked at each other in silence for a few more seconds; neither of them wanted to voice the obvious, like it would somehow make it more real.

Mark forcibly pushed it out of his mind, turned and prepared to go on autopilot again, to just stare at the ground and the bushes and not think about anything.

“Wait,” May said suddenly. “I… I want to get Spirit and Floatzel back.”

-------

The nurse from Cleanwater City was visibly relieved to see them when they called her on the videophone in the Alumine Pokémon Center. She looked quickly from side to side before leaning in closer, lowering her voice. “I’m so glad to see you safe. How are you doing? Did you find your Growlithe?”

It took Mark a moment to remember what she was talking about. “Yeah, we did,” he said as his brain caught up, feeling a little guilty again for lying to her. “We’re okay. We’ve been keeping a low profile.”

The nurse nodded. “Good. Your Pokémon are doing well; they’ve made a full recovery, more or less. Your Ninetales has been concerned after not hearing from you for so long. Rick’s been out of town since he got out of the hospital, probably searching for you. I hoped the fact he hadn’t returned meant he hadn’t found you, but we couldn’t know for certain.”

“What about Floatzel?” May asked.

“She said you’d never let him catch you.” Nurse Joy smiled. “They’ll both be glad to be back.”

They kept it brief. Spirit and Floatzel were transferred over and they said goodbye to Nurse Joy before heading back out into the woods, until they felt safe again. They sent out all the Pokémon they could to welcome the pair back; May hugged Spirit close, while Weavile practically jumped on Floatzel with a playful Quick Attack as soon as she was out, the sea otter cackling with glee as she retaliated.

“Thanks,” May said as she let go of Spirit, looking towards Floatzel but not quite making eye contact.

“Only what you do for a trainer, isn’t it?” Floatzel said, cocking her head. “I get battles and food and I protect you. That’s how it goes, yes? A deal’s a deal.”

May stared at her a moment as Spirit eyed her grimly; then Weavile pounced again, and Floatzel turned, darting out of the way and preparing a countering Aqua Jet. May took a deep breath. “There’s more,” she said, looking over the group of Pokémon. “Chaletwo’s gone from Mark’s head. Apparently there’s not that much time left. So if… if any of you want to leave and find a safe place now, you can go. Mrs. Riverstone had a shelter.”

Floatzel laughed and returned to the playfight. The other Pokémon murmured to each other, but nobody stepped forward.

“Are you sure?” May asked, clenching her fists. “You don’t have to stay.”

“We’ve come this far,” Butterfree said. “We can’t quit now.”

“How long do we have?” Flygon asked, his wings twitching.

“We don’t know,” Mark said. “He said we should release him once a week and he’ll say if it’s coming.” The knot in his stomach tightened. Weeks. Everything might be ending in weeks.

The Pokémon looked at each other. “Then,” May’s Flygon said, tilting his head, “we can think about leaving if Chaletwo says that.”

The other Pokémon murmured in agreement. Nobody objected.

May stared at them in silence for a few moments. “Well, then let’s go,” she said, reaching for her Pokéball necklace again. “Better not waste any more time.”

-------

A week passed, slowly but far too quickly. Chaletwo said that it was okay, it was fine, there was still time.

Another week went by, and May asked Mark to draw some of his favorite Pokémon. So he drew Lugia, Articuno, Moltres, legendaries he’d adored since he was a little kid staring wide-eyed at the illustrations in his picture books. Back then, they’d seemed impossibly big and beautiful, perfect, immortal beings that he could only dream of seeing from a distance one day – but they were just Pokémon, weren’t they? Just a bunch of beautiful, undying, flawed, scared Pokémon that were doomed to destroy one another, unless they succeeded on this strange quest. He wondered again, for the first time in a while, why Mew, who already knew about the War, didn’t want it stopped. Had Mew and Chalenor tried to stop it before? Exactly what had happened before the last War, a thousand years ago?

One more week, and Chaletwo told them to contact the others again. There had still been sightings in Ouen, all over the place, scattered throughout the region in no discernible pattern. There was nothing better to do than to keep doing what they’d been doing. The lack of a change, a plan, of any sense of progress, was maddening, but they kept going, walking the same familiar woods and beaches and edges of cities.

“Draw Tyranitar,” May said quietly at the beginning of the next week, and Mark drew him as he successfully stood up to Mewtwo²’s power in the League finals, not weak, that one glorious moment when it had seemed like she would win. The next day, when May asked him to choose, he drew Letaligon, roaring in triumph after her evolution. Where was she now? The rest of the week’s drawings were more victories, successes, happy moments frozen in time with everything that came after them forgotten: bringing down Thunderyu, winning badges, Jolteon holding his own against May’s Flygon, Waraider when he agreed to be captured.

At the end of the week they sent Chaletwo out, in the thicket of the forest, and he was silent.

“How long do we have?” May asked.

“Stick to the forest,” Chaletwo said after a few seconds. “You said his home is here. He’ll come back. He must come back. Search it better.”

A cold, invisible hand clutched at Mark’s insides. He didn’t know what to say, but even if he had, his throat ached with weeks of built-up looming horror finally latching on and settling in, making him want to curl up and scream until it was over.

“How long?” May repeated.

“It’s… it’s fine. Just keep looking. By this point he’d be getting weak. He’ll be back to the forest.”

“Are you sure?” May asked. Her voice was level but firm, her fists clenched, knuckles white.

“Yes. Yes! I’m sure. It’s not yet. We’ll find him when he returns to the forest. It’s fine.”

“So…” Mark began, his tongue sticky and uncomfortable in his mouth, “what you’re saying is… I should put you on the PC and call my parents?”

“I’m…” Chaletwo hesitated. “No! No, it’s… it’s not yet. Not quite. It’s not less than a week. It can’t be. He’s coming; I know he’s coming here. Just keep looking!”

And he recalled himself back into his ball.

May looked at Mark, her fists still clenched tight.

Chaletwo hadn’t actually asked to be sent to the PC. That had to… that had to mean he believed it. Didn’t it?

His parents. Was he actually going to call them, show them he was alive only to tell them the world was ending? Would they believe him? Would Mrs. Riverstone’s shelter actually keep anyone safe? If they did survive a legendary apocalypse, what kind of life would be waiting for them afterwards, with maybe thousands or millions dead? All these questions seemed abstract and unreal; his mind went blank trying to imagine it, flinching away from the idea, retreating back behind a barrier of safe, sane normalcy: Chaletwo didn’t ask to be sent to the PC. Mew is probably coming back here. We can find him. We’re going to find him.

Even if he could save his parents or other friends or family members, could he really do that, knowing so many others were doomed?

Was the time he was wasting here thinking about it time in which they could have found Mew?

“So are you calling home?” May asked.

“I…” For a moment he stood there speechless, his parents’ faces at the edge of his mind, never quite in focus as some desperate part of him insistently pushed them back, behind that safe barrier. “Not… not yet,” he said, numb. “Let’s try for at least a few more days.”

May nodded slowly, without responding.

“We should message the others,” he managed to add. “Let them know. And our Pokémon.”

She handed him the Pokégear, and he typed a message with shaking hands: It’s coming soon. Mrs. Riverstone wanted Robin home. There might be room in her shelter. We’re still searching.

Despite everything, none of their Pokémon wanted to leave. May’s Flygon looked uneasy, curling his tail around himself, glancing anxiously from side to side, but when no one else volunteered, he didn’t either. May asked if he was sure, twice, staring at him like she wanted to make him go, but he insisted he was staying, at least for now, and that was that. Stantler asked if they were okay, if they were going to contact anyone, but Mark said no, and May shook her head. For a brief moment he wondered about her family, why she didn’t want to call them, but that train of thought took him back towards his own, and within moments, before he could take that horrible plunge into nightmarish finality, the barrier was back, banishing the thought. They could do it. They could do it. They’d stop it. Everything would be fine, somehow. It had to be.

And then they had to go. There was no more time to waste. May kept Spirit out, saying if they found Mew they’d need a quick Mean Look, and they set off yet again, the Ninetales staying close by her side.

“You know what’s funny?” May muttered that night as they were hastily pitching their tents. “Part of me doesn’t mind.”

Mark shivered. He wanted to respond, but there was nothing he could say that wasn’t painful and terrifying.

There was no more drawing after that.

-------

And then, after five more days of restlessly combing through the forest, shaking, unable to stop or think or sleep more than a few hours, there was a change.

A soft, familiar tingling brushed by the back of his mind, something light and warm and feathery, and he knew what it was. He hadn’t really registered it back then, but just the same, he recognized it instantly, some subconscious memory surfacing for air from the depths of everything, a sudden ray of hope out of the darkness.

May and Spirit noticed, too, stopping, holding their breaths. Everything was hazy and unreal as Mark led the way towards that gentle guiding signal, the soft psychic aura of the last legendary.

And then they were there, pushing aside the branches of a tree to reveal a small clearing where Mew lay curled up in sleep inside a pink protective bubble, hovering lightly just above the ground.

And then, before Spirit could step forward and use Mean Look, before any of them could start to process what was happening, the red recall beam of a Pokéball shot towards Mew from the bushes to the side, and the legendary was absorbed into it and disappeared.

Mark’s heart stopped, his body frozen and numb with shock. Behind the bush, an all-too-familiar man in a trench coat with a thick, unkempt beard rose to his feet and chuckled in disbelief, gazing at a black Pokéball in his hand. A Kabutops stood by his side, staring at Mark.

His brain could think one thing and one thing only. “How?” he croaked. “How do you have a Clone B…”

The Mew Hunter looked up, sharply, as if he hadn’t noticed them, taking a step back behind his Kabutops. He hesitated a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, but then a gloating smirk broke out on his face. “Don’t you recognize it?” he said. “It’s yours. I heard you say you still had it and then nabbed it from your bag at the Rainbow Café, when I finally had a chance.”

Everything spun around in Mark’s head. Him. He’d been following them, for weeks. He’d been the nighttime visitor. “It… it was deactivated! I know I…”

“I reactivated it,” the Mew Hunter said, his voice cool, holding the ball close to his chest. “The recall data isn’t permanently lost on deactivation. It can be recovered, if you know how. I studied Pokéballs, remember.” Oh. “I removed Rick’s repulsive mind-control hardware, of course. I need better tools for the Mean Look modification, but once I get home I’ll make it a ball fit for Mew.”

“Okay,” May said, and Mark looked back at her in alarm. “Okay. It’s fine. You can have it. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t send it out for a while, okay? If you just keep it in there for –”

The Mew Hunter’s lip twitched. “You think I caught Mew to be a mere prize in my collection? To let it rot in a ball? No! I caught it because I understand. I’ll give Mew friendship and happiness. I care about it. I care more than anyone! That’s why I was destined to be Mew’s trainer. I’m the only one who can save it!”

“Give her to us,” Spirit snarled. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Look,” May said, keeping her voice level. “There’s this periodic disaster –”

“I’d die before giving Mew up to the likes of you!” the Mew Hunter growled, pulling four Pokéballs off his belt. “I’d sooner release it now and find it all over again than let you get your filthy hands on this ball. Cover me!”

As he took off running through the woods, four bursts of light formed around him, his Feraligatr, Sandslash, Sneasel and Fangcat joining Kabutops, looking back and brandishing claws and fangs as they ran alongside him in a protective formation. May glanced at Mark as they sprinted after him, Spirit bounding ahead. They could beat his Pokémon easily, of course – they’d taken down legendaries. But if he felt threatened and threw that ball and Mew teleported away, to some far-off region…

Mark grabbed Chaletwo’s ball from his belt, but before he could throw it, one of his other balls popped open.

“Rob!” Scyther called as he materialized in front of Mark, and the fleeing man froze in his tracks, his Pokémon whirling around to face them.

The Mew Hunter turned, slowly. “You… you’re with them?” he asked limply, his voice quiet and shaking as he lowered Mew’s ball. “You joined them for good?”

Scyther nodded warily, glancing at the five Pokémon surrounding his former trainer. “Rob, what are you doing?”

“Does he ever talk to you, like I did?” the Mew Hunter said, his voice low. “Spend evenings washing the blood from your self-inflicted wounds and trying to give you comfort and warmth? Let you drink and vent and forget?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Scyther said.

“I gave you everything!” the Mew Hunter barked, his eyes wide and shining. “I saved your life! I loved you. I did everything I could to help you. How could you abandon me just when I could finally live again, only to join up with...” He waved a trembling hand at Mark. “...with these slave-drivers who want to destroy everything that’s important to me?”

Scyther took a breath. “I loved you too, Rob,” he said. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you – you taught me a way to cope when I had nothing. But my head’s cleared a lot since I left you, and I don’t think it was the right way anymore. I wallowed in my own worthlessness instead of questioning it, instead of getting anywhere. And I did that because that’s all that you did.” He hesitated, staring at the Mew Hunter, then at his Pokémon again. “You don’t need Mew. You can have a normal life with your Pokémon, who would die for you. Rob, you can let go. I swear you can. All Mew’s ever given you is misery. Just… just give that ball to Mark and walk away. Please.”

The Mew Hunter cradled the ball tightly against his chest. “Why should I give it to him?” he snarled. “He’s done nothing to deserve Mew. Either it comes with me or it goes free.”

“He doesn’t want it, Rob,” Scyther said, sighing. “We just need Mew to be in a ball for a while, until it’s safe. There’s a…”

“What are you talking about?” the Mew Hunter snapped. “Mew shouldn’t be trapped in a ball. Do you remember how I didn’t even keep you in a Pokéball unless I had to, because you didn’t like it? Remember how at first you wanted to escape but then I let you stay outside your ball and watch me with the others for as long as you needed until you grew to trust me? How is Mew going to trust me if I don’t send it out?”

“There’s a legendary war that happens every thousand years,” Scyther continued. “If every legendary is inside a ball, it won’t happen, but if even one is out there, the world could be destroyed. We only wanted to capture Mew to prevent it. Mew, and the others, will be released when it’s safe. If you followed us, you must have heard them talk about the War. That was what they meant.”

The Mew Hunter’s Kabutops shifted uncomfortably, looking back at his trainer as his other Pokémon stared at Scyther. The man’s gaze remained fierce and suspicious. “How do I know you aren’t just lying to make me give it to you and your filthy new trainer?”

Scyther sighed heavily. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Rob.”

“You betrayed me.” By the Mew Hunter’s side, his Kabutops winced, looking back at Scyther. Feraligatr and Sandslash glanced at each other.

“I didn’t betray you,” Scyther said softly. “You were you when you caught me, when you thought Mew was lost. But once you saw it again in Cleanwater City, you turned into someone who’d threaten a kid and wanted me dead for questioning you.”

“Mew is worth it!” the Mew Hunter shouted. “I can save it. This is what was meant to be!”

Scyther shook his head, slowly. “That’s only what you’ve been telling yourself. Mew is a legendary Pokémon and doesn’t even know who you are. Why would he befriend you? We only did because we had nowhere else to go. I’m sorry, Rob.”

The Mew Hunter’s eyes widened as his face contorted in rage, his Fangcat hissing at Scyther from his side. “No! You know nothing! Mew will understand me! Mew will know! Mew will give me a chance! Just watch, you –”

And he pulled back his arm as he prepared to throw the Clone Ball. Mark froze, his heart lurching in panic; by his side, Spirit growled, preparing to attempt a Mean Look –

– and then, suddenly, a deep, powerful tremor shook the ground. Everyone looked up in alarm as a massive shockwave blasted through the forest, knocking leaves from branches and the kids off their feet. Mark lost his grip on Chaletwo’s ball, and it sailed through the air as the Mew Hunter too lost his balance, fell forward and sent the Clone Ball flying.

Chaletwo materialized on the ground, looking frantically around. Mew emerged in mid-air, blinking, his gaze turning from confused to worried.

“That… that was it!” Chaletwo said, his voice shaking with nervous excitement. “The... the Destroyer’s pulse! Before Mew came out! We did it!”

Mark blinked in incomprehension as he crawled to his feet. It was over? They were done? They’d saved the world?

Mew turned sharply. “No, no, no,” he muttered. “No! Why!”

“No?” Chaletwo repeated, his voice fierce and incredulous, whirling towards Mew. <i class="telepathy">“No? I’ve just saved the whole world from destruction, including [/i]you[i], that’s why! You should be thanking me on your knees!”</i>

Mew just shook his head. Chaletwo continued, heat growing to a furious pitch in his voice. “What, are you going to tell me now that you had some great reason to oppose the plan all along? That we’re actually all going to die now, is that it? Because you’ve had twenty years to tell me to stop and the only reason you ever managed to give was some dumb crap about destiny!”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Mew said, his voice trembling.

“No, of course I wouldn’t. I’m not Chalenor, am I, so how could I ever understand –”

“You never even knew Chalenor!” Mew interrupted, desperate tears in his eyes. “Why are you talking about him? You have no idea who he even was!”

Mark’s heart thumped; there was something strange in the air. He didn’t understand what was going on anymore. Why was Mew so upset? Something was off, he could tell, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I know enough!” Chaletwo spat. “You kept on telling me about him, about how he was the Preserver before me and your best friend in the world and no one could ever compare –”

Mew squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head bitterly – and then, suddenly, Mark recognized the strange feeling in the air, the oppressive psychic pressure that was growing, magnifying, smothering everything, like but so unlike Mew’s light footprint, only so much stronger than he’d ever felt it before. Chaletwo’d stopped speaking, turning his head sharply as Mew looked around in wonder. “Oh, no,” Chaletwo said, his voice quiet again. “Oh, nonononono. What is that?”

“I’m sorry,” Mew whispered, trembling.

“That’s… that’s Mewtwo²,” Mark breathed, heart hammering in his chest.

“What?” Chaletwo stared at him through his eyelids. “Oh, no. He was out. Rick had him out. This can’t happen. This can’t happen!”

“Isn’t… isn’t there anything we can do?” Mark asked, numb.

“I…”

“Hold on,” May said, pale. “It’s already got a ball. It’s got a ball that mind-controls it. Maybe if it’s recalled, then…”

Chaletwo whirled towards her. “Yes. Yes. We can still stop it. We can still stop it. Come on!”

And before Mark had any idea what was happening, Chaletwo had grabbed Mark and May by the shoulders. May only just managed to place her hand on Spirit’s head, clutching her mane, before he teleported them away.

-------

Razor might have been left behind, but he knew where he had to go. There was a tangible shift in the psychic interference if he turned, an unmistakable pull towards the east. If he just flew straight and followed that pull, he would find them. Mew was looking in that direction too, fiddling anxiously as if conflicted.

“Mew,” said Rob hoarsely, still on his hands and knees on the ground. “I will protect you. I understand. Come with me. I can help you.”

Mew shook his head, staring into the distance. “There is nothing you or anyone can do to help me.”

And then, stopping, Mew took a deep breath, closed his eyes and vanished, without giving Rob so much as a second glance.

“Goodbye, Rob,” Razor said quietly. “I need to help my trainer.”

“Mew, please,” Rob muttered. “Don’t… don’t go.”

His Pokémon were silent. Fangcat growled quietly, nudging his leg, but he didn’t react. Kabutops looked up at Razor, hesitating.

“You know this is mad,” Razor said. “You’ve always known.”

“Yeah.” Kabutops sighed, looking away. “It’s just how he is sometimes. You never knew him back the first time around.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Razor glanced between his former teammates. “I meant what I said before. It’s possible to let go, even if it doesn’t seem that way. I… I met Nightmare again. I realized the Code was wrong. I found a reason to live.” Kabutops stared at him in wonder. “You can break free.”

Feraligatr and Sneasel nodded silently, glancing at their trainer again. Rob heard everything they were saying, Razor knew, but he didn’t respond or even look up.

“Goodbye,” Razor said. “Try to… try to help him.”

And he took a deep breath, turned around and took off, heading towards the source of that terrible looming power.

The Mew Hunter was left lying on the ground with his Pokémon, sobbing quietly.

[Dragonfree]

The Final Stretch – Chapter 75: Mewtwo²

Mitch lay back in his sofa and stared at the ceiling, arms folded tightly across his chest, listening to the faint tick of the clock and his own heartbeat as the hours dragged on. Nothing changed, nothing improved, no more than ever. He wasn’t sure what he was even waiting for anymore.

please no

A looming, suffocating dread hung over his mind: a desperate fear of the inevitable, a deep and fundamental knowledge that something was horribly wrong, something terrible was happening and he was powerless to stop it. He was helpless, trapped, alone, and all he could do was wait for everything to fall apart.

The problem was that he had absolutely no idea why he was feeling any of these things.

not this

Outside, the sun was shining, birds were singing, a gentle breeze was blowing through the trees; it was a beautiful, calm spring day. He might have liked to take a walk, a nice little hike in the mountains around the desert perhaps – if he weren’t here, clinging to the last vestiges of his sanity inside his locked Gym.

no no no

Mitch sighed, unfolding his arms carefully to rub his temples. It had never been like this before, not this strong. He’d always experienced it as vague feelings, intuitions, beliefs that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. But now it was like a tangible presence somewhere in the back of his mind, not speaking exactly but sparking intense flashes of emotions that seemed disconnected from everything, as if they weren’t his own, flashes that disappeared if he tried to focus upon them. Like… like someone was there, at the edge of his consciousness, barely brushing past his thoughts.

it’s all my fault no please

At first, Mitch had thought the phantom emotions – faint back then – were some strange side-effect of the Scorplack venom. He’d started to research it, interviewed countless other survivors, but none had experienced anything like it. Then he’d realized it seemed to be telling him things, somehow giving him information that he shouldn’t have, that he just inexplicably felt. He’d figured it meant he was a late-blooming psychic, and he’d been okay with that. But then he’d read some books on it, and their descriptions had been similar but not quite the same, and then he’d gone to see an actual psychic – a legit one, he’d made sure – who’d told him she felt nothing at all from him: no latent psychic powers, no trickster Ghost Pokémon sneakily following him and messing with his head, nothing. He’d seen another one for a second opinion and gotten the same answer. And then he’d paid them through his teeth to keep it quiet, because he didn’t know what he’d even do with himself if the League found out and decided they’d rather not employ a Gym leader who was hearing voices that weren’t there, and slowly but steadily getting worse.

(And could he really blame them?)

please

Then he’d quietly seen a psychiatrist, of course, been on several different antipsychotics with wretched side-effects for a while. Nothing had changed.

And ever the feelings had grown stronger, clearer, more defined. It had occurred to him, of course, that maybe the psychics were both wrong and there was something there that they weren’t sensing, somehow. But it had also occurred to him that he could simply be hallucinating, imagining the whole thing. Sometimes his mind surged with conviction: what about that time, how could you have known that – but it could be a coincidence. He felt lots of things that didn’t tell him anything specific, sudden pangs of worries and loss and fear that had nothing to do with anything; why wouldn’t some happen to line up with real events? It seemed unlikely, but – odds were meaningless, weren’t they? And he could hardly trust his own brain to judge if his brain was the one producing these feelings in the first place.

must not happen

So he’d waited, for something, some kind of change or shift or – he wasn’t sure, really, but as it was there didn’t seem to be anything he could do, and that helplessness was maddening. Sometimes, when he was sure he was crazy, he’d thought about admitting himself to the mental hospital in Alumine before he started really hearing voices and believing what they said and doing something reckless or dangerous or harmful. But – what if he wasn’t? And the meds hadn’t helped before; why would they now?

MUST NOT HAPPEN

And, although he hated to admit it, he just didn’t want to be crazy. He could feel his brain rationalizing and downplaying and sanitizing it, assuring him he was fine and his mind was sound and there must be something real there. And he could tell those were insidious thought processes, the same ones that would be at work if he really were going mad, but they were too tempting to entirely ignore. Too tempting to make a decision like locking himself in an asylum.

So instead, he’d locked himself up in the Gym, waiting and waiting for some vague miracle to solve everything – something that’d just settle the question and give him some kind of starting point – as if that wasn’t the most useless kind of wishful thinking. As if wasting away with restless boredom, fearing his own thoughts, wouldn’t eventually drive him mad even if he wasn’t already.

nononono

He sat in silence listening to the dull throb of alien emotions, hearing his breath shaking as he exhaled. He couldn’t keep this up forever. Nothing was getting better. Nothing was going to just sort itself out and make sense. Any sense this would ever make was something he’d have to make for himself.

please

Mitch took a deep breath, closing his eyes. That strange, pleading desperation was so tangible he could almost taste it – and then, as he focused on it, it was gone, and he couldn’t tell if he’d just been imagining it. “Okay,” he whispered, teeth clenched. “Let’s say you’re real. Then prove it. Come out and talk to me. Can’t you talk?”

For a moment he sat there as nothing happened, like an idiot, hating that he was far enough gone, desperate enough, to be indulging his own hallucinations. But then, suddenly, there was a – an answer. His heart wrenched suddenly in his chest, and a no emerged from the back of his mind – not the word, not speech, but a vague urge to shake his head, to object, to protest. He probably wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it, waiting for it, today when the feelings were stronger than ever before. But it was there, he was sure of it. He felt his pulse quickening, his attention suddenly on high alert, his head spinning.

He scrambled to gather his thoughts. An imaginary voice would probably answer, too, noted a dispassionate, reasonable part of him – this wasn’t proof of anything, was it? And abruptly, he realized he didn’t care. Whatever this was, whether it was a hallucination or not, it was better than sitting there, waiting, forever.

“You… you’re real,” he said. From the back of his mind came an urgent affirmation, a longing to nod eagerly: another answer, a different one. Real. A strange wave of elation washed over him, his eyes watering. “So you’re…”

Mitch blinked rapidly. Even now he could feel it, not communicating anything in particular, just there, at the edge of his mind. If he tried to concentrate on it, as usual, it went away – but then he shifted his focus and he could sense it reappearing. How could he have gone so long without realizing?

For a while he was silent, eyes closed, aware of it only as that tingling, shivering presence: real, comforting, safe.

“You’re the one who saved me from the Scorplack that day, aren’t you?” he asked softly.

For a moment there was nothing; then came a hesitant, half-apologetic confirmation, the regret of good intentions gone awry. “No, thank you,” he said, chuckling. “I only… I was so confused.” Mitch took a deep breath. “But here you are. I should have… I should have tried this earlier.”

A spark of happiness, reassurance, the relief of old, nagging doubts and guilt finally laid to rest. The undercurrent of urgent, screaming desperation wasn’t gone, but – it was glad for that, at least. Glad he thought it was worth it, glad he was glad to be talking to it. It was strange, but somehow, now that he was paying attention, its presence felt deeply familiar, as if he’d known it intimately all those years since that day and just never realized it. As if it was an old friend – a friend he’d never known he had, who’d saved his life and then stewed in anxiety wondering if he would have preferred if it hadn’t.

He couldn’t help but linger on that thought. In some way he’d always thought of himself, of Mitch, as a puppet of some nebulous, inscrutable power that was toying with him, like this was all part of some fate or plan that he was helpless to contest – but that had never been it, had it? Perhaps it had only ever simply been something, someone, that’d wanted to help, and tried to, as best it could, the only way it could think of.

He chuckled. “I’ve had so many theories,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’ve spent the last seven years of my life trying to figure you out. And…” He paused. And what? What could he say to it? What are you? How could it possibly begin to answer that?

“What… what happened? Why are you so upset?” he asked at last.

Flashes of pain, grief, loneliness of an intensity that was terrifying and ancient and inhuman, coursed through his mind and left him breathless and shivering. Then a blanket of deep, desperate guilt smothered all of that, drowned it, made it seem trivial in comparison. He wanted to die, wanted to disappear, and yet he couldn’t; he was trapped, suffocating, screaming with no voice, forever and ever, in a silent, isolated hell.

Mitch clutched his head as he caught his breath, eyes squeezed shut, still trembling uncontrollably. It… it was suffering. He couldn’t tell why, or how, but it had been suffering, in a way he couldn’t even imagine, for a long, long time. An intense sympathy gripped him; after feeling what it felt, the urge to assist somehow, some way, was overpowering.

“So there’s… there’s nothing you can do about it?” he murmured.

His heart wrenched as that horrible, suffocating sense of entrapment consumed him again, of being imprisoned and powerless and mute – and then it hit him. “You’re… stuck in my head?”

Yes: a brief sensation of faint relief, an urge to nod. It couldn’t do anything at all, because it was a prisoner in his brain. How had it gotten there and why? There was no way it could answer that, was there? (A sense of flustered helplessness affirmed this.)

“Can I… can I help?”

His heart stung again, with hopelessness and regret and weakness in the face of overwhelming odds and another flash of that sense of being trapped and unable to speak.

He really couldn’t, anyway. What could he possibly do to help it, when it couldn’t tell him what to do, what was even wrong? It might share his brain, but his brain had too much him in it. He supposed the way it vanished from where his attention was meant his own thought processes drowned it out, kept it confined where all it could do was twang his emotions.

And that thought gave him pause, a chilling idea creeping up on him.

“Say… say I could lend you my body,” he said, slowly. “Would that… would that help?”

A spark of hope, real hope, flashed across his mind, tinged with a hesitant wariness, a hint of sorrow and pain: maybe, but.

“Is it dangerous?” he guessed.

Yes.

“Dangerous to whom? Is anyone else getting hurt?”

Hesitation, uncertainty, a stab of pain and loss, determination, grim hope – probably, but it would try to prevent it.

Mitch nodded slowly. “Would we die?”

The response was pained, a regretful, tentative affirmation made of endless grief and dejected apology. It wasn’t certain, but it didn’t have a lot of hope for them.

“Is it worth it?” he asked softly, and the answer was yes – tinged with guilt and regret, but no trace of doubt. It didn’t want him to die, but this was important, more important than anything.

Mitch paused. So this was it, then.

“There’s a rare, reclusive Poison-type in this region called Wasparch,” he said. “It lays its eggs in comatose victims and buries them as a living larder for its young. Its venom shuts down the higher brain functions, but keeps the body alive. I have a sample of it in my cupboard.” He hesitated. “So does that sound like you could…?”

A jolt of hope, excitement, wonder, coupled with immense gratitude, hesitation, sorrow, apology again. The alien emotions felt discordant, strange against his own sticky, drying mouth and the pit in his stomach, but they were somehow comforting nonetheless. He wasn’t alone. He had a friend. A friend who was suffering, and he could help.

He stood up, his body trembling as his head buzzed with conflicted feelings: tightness, grief, warmth, love. Was he really doing this? Dying for the voice in his head, this companion that – even if it didn’t seem that way – he’d only actually known for a matter of minutes?

Yes, he thought, and this time it was all him.

It wasn’t as if he shouldn’t have been dead seven years ago. It was time to repay it the life that he never ought to have had – the fake, troubled life of Mitch that it had given him that day in the desert. He owed it that much.

And if none of this was real, realized that rational part of him, if it was all a hallucination and he’d never had a companion – then he’d just drift away and stop existing. They’d find him sometime when people started to worry about him not returning calls, and euthanize his empty shell, and he’d never have to endure any of this again. Nobody would get hurt.

It was an oddly calming realization. He had nothing to lose.

Slowly, he walked over to the lab and opened the cupboard of venom samples. He rummaged through it for the right vial, an odd routineness to the act, as if he were simply looking for a normal Weedle antidote on any ordinary day.

(The growing nervous hesitation in the back of his mind probed at him again with a stab of concern. “Yes, I’m sure,” he whispered. “You need it more than I do.”)

And then, finally, he found it. He pulled it out carefully and fiddled with the label for a moment, gazing at the thick navy ooze inside it, ignoring the trembling of his hands. Wasparch. Effective when ingested as well as injected. He took a deep breath, not sure he could feel his legs anymore. The poison acted slower when ingested: it would take about a minute or two before he became dizzy and lightheaded, and then he would fade away. He’d read it, researched it, interviewed survivors, studied countless diagrams and surveys and medical reports; he knew how this went.

With a shaking hand, he lifted the vial towards his faint reflection in the glass door of the cupboard. “Cheers,” he said, chuckling – he looked like a lunatic, he thought – before he let it clink softly against the glass, raised it to his lips and poured the contents into his mouth in one swift gulp.

It tasted faintly sweet and sticky, distantly reminiscent of blood, leaving a cold, tingling feeling on his tongue and the inside of his mouth. He shuddered as he swallowed it, then walked slowly, slowly back to the couch, legs trembling. As an afterthought, he picked up the pencil and half-solved crossword puzzle lying on the coffee table and scribbled a note in the margin:

If you find me here, I don’t want to wake up

I’m sorry

-Mitch

He put the paper down and laid himself gently down on the sofa, feeling sleepy and fuzzy and slow. It was becoming difficult to think. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, only an unusual one; it wasn’t a bad way to go, all things considered.

“I hope I could help,” he whispered, “whoever you are.”

And then he drifted away, leaving his fate to the friend he’d never known.

-------

Mark blinked rapidly into cold air that was thick with dust. The hunched-over form of Mewtwo² stood limply on the ground ahead of them, shivering uncontrollably. An electrifying sensation of power hung in the air around it, a psychic pressure that threatened to tear everything apart; Mark felt every hair on his body standing on end, nerves tingling in anticipation of looming, terrifying danger. In front of the clone, a shallow, circular crater was carved into the rocky ground, still smoking with heat and twirling dust, surrounding a sickening, unrecognizable splatter of red – some unwary wild Pokémon suddenly obliterated by the power of a hundred legendaries.

Behind it stood Rick, coughing, arm shielding his face, a ball clutched in his hand.

“Recall him!” Chaletwo screamed. “Recall him now, or that’s what happens to this entire planet!”

Rick’s head snapped around, his gaze locking onto them, surprised, alarmed. For a split second he stared at them, frozen. Then, all at once, recognition spread across his face and melted into a familiar, stomach-turning madness.

He raised a trembling hand towards May. “Kill her!” he snarled.

Mark’s heart thumped in slow-motion as May stared back at Rick, pale, fingers tight in Spirit’s mane. Then she released her grip on the Ninetales, closing her eyes, inhaling sharply, and before he could consciously think anything at all, Mark had thrown himself at her in some stupid attempt to get her out of the way. They tumbled over each other on the ground, his head smashing into a rock that sent his vision spinning as he realized that it was no use, he couldn’t help, this was Mewtwo² imbued with the power of every legendary and it would just blast him into oblivion too.

For another eternal heartbeat, he clutched May’s jacket, eyes screwed shut, bracing himself for an inevitable death.

But his heart thumped again, and he opened his eyes. May was still there, coughing in the dusty air, blinking at him, with nothing more than a gash on her leg. Mewtwo² stood in the same place it had been, its arm extended in their direction, shaking as if straining against some invisible force.

“Kill her!” Rick ordered again, louder, and still Mewtwo² didn’t attack.

“Recall him! Now, goddamn it!” Chaletwo lunged towards Rick, but Mewtwo²’s eyes flashed blue and an invisible barrier stopped him. “Recall him or he kills us all!”

Rick glanced in his direction, hesitating only a split second before he looked back at May. “Kill—”

Abruptly, Mewtwo² moved, sweeping its hand back with a heaving lurch of effort, turning its head towards Rick as the power in the air intensified, burning, searing. The man’s eyes widened as he stepped back, raising the ball in his hand.

And then his hand just folded in on itself, bone crunching and electronics sparking and then it was simply gone. Rick let out a piercing scream, and then Mewtwo² swept its other hand down and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore as a formless red mist splattered the clone’s body. Mark stared in mute, detached horror, unable to properly comprehend or absorb the unreality of it. Somewhere, dimly, behind what had just happened to Rick, he realized the ball was gone, vaporized. There was nothing left, no way to stop it.

And yet, Mewtwo² stood there still, quiet, pupilless eyes rolling in its head.

Run. They should run, screamed a terrified part of Mark. But another part of him was paralyzed, fascinated, silently waiting for what would happen next, and his legs didn’t move. What was the use in running, anyway, if the world was ending?

“I…” Chaletwo said, backing away, his voice wavering. “Why isn’t he doing anything?”

“He’s spent all his life struggling against forces subduing his will,” said a quiet voice, and Mark looked around, startled, to find Mew suddenly hovering near them, staring towards Mewtwo². “He’s still fighting back. I should have known.”

“So he’s… he’s not going mad? It’s not happening?”

Mew shook his head slightly. “He can’t resist forever. He’s not the first to try.”

“Then throw another ball! Anything!”

His voice was piercing and desperate. Mark rose to his feet on wobbly legs, fumbling for an Ultra Ball, but as he threw it, Mewtwo² looked up sharply and it simply disintegrated in mid-air. At the sight of it, with a bloodcurdling physical scream, Chaletwo opened his eyes, and Mark shuddered in anticipation, the memory of the day he’d died flashing through his mind – but instead of the blinding, terrifying brightness he remembered, the light shining from Chaletwo’s eyes was only a faint glow.

Across from them, Mewtwo² didn’t even react.

Chaletwo’s scream died in a strangled, disbelieving cry as he closed his eyes again and doubled over, panting and shaking.

“You’re too weak to use your eyes,” Mew said softly, not quite looking at him. “But with the power he has now, he could block it even if you could. It can’t be escaped.” He took a deep breath. “Once he succumbs, he’ll hunt down all of us. Pokéballs, soul gems, he’ll destroy them. Legendaries have tried to escape it before; we have always struggled with the idea of dying. But it’s no use. I’m sorry. We should try to use these final moments to make peace and accept it, like the mortals—”

“Hypocrite!” Chaletwo lashed out, rounding on Mew. “You tried to escape it! You and Chalenor went to the future together trying to insure yourselves, and then when I try to do the same thing you just babble on about fate and acceptance!”

Mew blinked, turning towards him.

“If you’d just told me what went wrong with your attempt, we could have made a better plan, goddamn it!” Chaletwo went on, fiercely. “We could’ve been working on it for a thousand years instead of twenty! We could’ve gotten all the legendaries in on it from the beginning, instead of trying to keep it a secret! Everything you’ve done, everything, it’s all like you just wanted to...”

“What are you talking about?” Mew interrupted, frantic. “Me and Chalenor in the future?”

“Mewtwo told us all about it, that you appeared on his island babbling about insurance and made a copy of his body and took it back to the past – is that where I came from? A botched safety precaution for Chalenor?”

The alarm in Mew’s expression faded. “Oh.” He looked away, bitterly. “I’m sorry. I did go to the future and bring a copy of his body back. But I was alone.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Chaletwo snapped. Mew stared at the ground, not moving, paws clenched. “How could you travel through time alone? If you’re going to continue lying to me, I swear –”

“Because I was the Preserver,” Mew said. His voice shook as he looked up, still not looking Chaletwo in the eye.

“What are you talking about?” Chaletwo’s hostility was gaining an undertone of desperate fear and confusion. “Chalenor was the Preserver! Like me!”

Mew shook his head again, almost imperceptibly. “No, he wasn’t.”

“Yes, he was!” Chaletwo screamed, a crazed ferocity in his voice. “It was the first thing you told me about him!”

“I lied,” Mew whispered, staring at Mewtwo².

“No! That doesn’t make any sense! Why in the hell would you lie to me about that?!”

A cold shiver of realization trickled down Mark’s spine, but before Mew could give an answer, there was a sudden change in the throbbing psychic background noise as Molzapart blinked into existence ahead. At his side stood Alan and Sparky, visibly relieved to see them.

“Chaletwo!” Molzapart said, his voice sharp, as Alan ran over to hug Mark. He hesitated as he looked at May, who didn’t meet his eye, then gave her a quick hug as well. “What’s happening? I’ve stopped growing weaker, and they said they felt some kind of pulse. Was that it? And what’s…” He trailed off, staring at Mewtwo². “Oh, no. Is that the power we’re feeling? Please tell me it wasn’t out.”

Chaletwo didn’t answer. He stood still, arms shaking, fingers clenched together.

“It was out,” May said, her voice hoarse. “Mew said it’s resisting but it can’t hold out for long. It…” She swallowed. “It killed Rick and destroyed its ball.”

“Then how do we stop it?” Molzapart hissed.

“It can’t be stopped,” Mew said, without looking at Molzapart. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Molzapart stared at him. “There has to be a way!” he said. “We can’t fight power like that, but what about…”

He trailed off suddenly, turning wide-eyed towards Mewtwo² as the clone began to stir. There was a strange disruption in the energy surrounding it, a sudden sensation of stinging heat, as it slowly pushed itself upright, strangely rigid and tense, stared at Mew, and stretched out its arm.

“I’m sorry,” Mew said again, closing his eyes.

And then, all of a sudden, an orb of dark energy smashed into Mewtwo², sending it flying back. It took a few limp tumbles on the ground, then went rigid again, floating into the air as a new protective sphere formed around it. Mark looked wildly towards where the attack had come from, expecting another legendary somehow, only to see Mitch sprinting in their direction, already forming another shadowy orb between his hands.

Mark had no chance to even try to wrap his brain around what was going on before Mitch leapt into the air, unnaturally high, and threw another Shadow Ball at Mewtwo². It dissipated as it hit the barrier, only for Mewtwo² to drunkenly swing its arm downwards, sending Mitch hurtling towards the ground. He vanished suddenly inches above the dirt, reappeared in the air behind Mewtwo² and crashed into the barrier, clawing madly at it with his fingers as tendrils of darkness twirled around his hands, and Mewtwo² jerked away, bringing the barrier with him. Mitch charged back towards it, but froze suddenly in mid-air as Mewtwo² held its arm forward, bringing its trembling fingers together.

He let out a chilling, almost inhuman scream as his head and limbs were twisted back, and Mark felt a horrible certainty that he was about to meet the same fate as Rick – and then, somehow, a burst of dark energy exploded out of him and surged towards Mewtwo², straight through the barrier. A stab of piercing psychic agony rang out as the clone dropped out of the sky, and for a heartstopping moment Mark thought Mitch had actually knocked it unconscious – but its fall came to a gentle stop as it glowed blue, curling up into a ball on the ground and clutching its head. The barrier around it thickened somehow, turning a more opaque white that throbbed like a living thing, and inside, it lay motionless, shivering, breathing rapidly. The thrum of power in the air had barely diminished; it wasn’t defeated, only… recovering?

Mitch stared warily at Mewtwo² from the air for a few seconds, as if making sure it wasn’t standing up again, then landed in an exhausted stumble, panting, blood trickling from his lip. Mark was about to run over to help him, to ask if he was all right and how in the world he’d done that – but then Mitch looked up, his eyes a startling, alien bright teal color that definitely wasn’t what they’d been last time they’d met, and the words died in Mark’s throat.

“Mew?” Mitch said quietly, his voice raw and shaky and unlike himself.

Mew whirled around, his eyes widening. “Chalenor?” he said, trembling, but didn’t wait for an answer before he shot towards Mitch.

The Gym leader broke into a run. He caught Mew in his arms in midair and pulled him tightly against his chest as he fell to his knees, knuckles white as he embraced the legendary like his life depended on it.

“Mew, I’m so sorry,” Mitch said, his voice choked with sobs. “This is all my fault.”

“You were dead,” Mew whispered, still in shock. “I tried to resurrect you but I couldn’t find you – sometimes I could have sworn I felt you there, but with the Dark type I couldn’t—”

“What?” Chaletwo said weakly, staring at the two of them. “What do you mean, he’s…”

“I know,” murmured Mitch, except it wasn’t Mitch. “I tried to move on after I died, but I couldn’t, something was anchoring me there, and I wanted to talk to you, to anyone, but there was nothing I could do.” He shivered violently. “It’s been a thousand years.”

“As an undetectable roaming spirit?” Mew’s voice shook.

“I passed between hosts and tried to communicate, but I wasn’t strong enough, not until…” He trembled again, staring at his hands, Mitch’s hands. “He lent me his body, he didn’t even know why, and now he’ll die with me.”

Mew shook his head fervently. “No, no, you can’t go through that again, I won’t let you, I won’t let you—”

Sparky stepped forward, wary, his brow furrowed. “Mitch?” he said cautiously.

The other Gym leader flinched strangely as he turned; he looked oddly small, somehow, still clutching Mew tightly.

“I’m not him,” he said, quietly, his voice trembling as his eyes flared teal again. “I’m Chalenor, the Destroyer.”

There it was. Mark’s stomach twisted in on itself, his ears ringing as a ripple of wordless, desperate psychic fury passed through his mind.

“No!” Chaletwo screamed, head bowed low, his hands trembling at his sides. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

Mitch – Chalenor – flinched again, squeezing his eyes shut. “I know this is my fault, but please, let me help.”

“It isn’t your fault!” Mew said desperately, wrenching around in his grip. He turned towards Chaletwo, pleading. “Arceus made him to punish the legendaries for their arrogance, eons ago – he doesn’t control it! He never has!”

Alan stared at them. “But… I thought Chalenor was the Preserver?”

Chalenor blinked at him. A wisp of a smile crossed his face as he looked back at Mew, his eyes darkening to a calm, murky blue. “Is that… is that what you told them?”

Mew took a deep breath. “I only –”

“No!” Chaletwo’s voice shook with anger. “Why?!”

“You don’t know what it was like,” Mew said, his voice quiet, not meeting Chaletwo’s eye. “For millennia every legendary knew him as the Destroyer. They knew he would drain their power and make them mortal and then watch them tear each other apart. They feared and despised him. You would have too if you’d known.”

“You said… you said he was…!”

“I thought he was dead.” Mew looked away. “All I wanted was to make a world where at least he’d be remembered like I remembered him.”

Chalenor stared down at Mew, holding him tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured again.

“Why are you sorry? It’s my fault.” Mew curled up against his chest, bitter tears forming between his eyelids. “I screwed everything up. I – I k—”

And then, suddenly, the psychic pressure began to shift yet again with a nauseating sensation of the world being skewed and off-balance, and Mew was cut off abruptly as Chalenor scrambled back to his feet. He released Mew gently in the air, like something precious and fragile, and then took a protective stance in front of him, forming another dark orb between his hands.

In the rubble, beneath the thick protective shield, Mewtwo² was stirring, crawling to its feet, slowly, jerkily. The shield faded, and Chalenor flung the Shadow Ball with a desperate yell, but again, it simply fizzled away harmlessly in the air as Mewtwo²’s eyes flashed.

As the clone’s body arched upright, its gaze locked onto Chalenor. It swung its arm downwards, and a vertical, ripple-like shockwave passed through the air, tossing Chalenor’s body back like a ragdoll. He landed in a heap, and Mew rushed over to check on him. Mewtwo²’s hand pointed back towards the two of them again, only for its body to suddenly jerk back, convulsing strangely.

“I don’t know if I can defeat him,” Chalenor said as he crawled back to his feet, his voice hoarse. “But if I can, it should end for now, shouldn’t it?”

Mew stared at him. “I don’t know,” he said. “He won’t become the Creator unless we’re all dead, but…”

“I have to try,” Chalenor said. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth as he pushed himself to his feet, just in time to form a translucent white shield in front of them as Mewtwo² stood rigid again and fired a clumsy psychic blast that smashed the barrier apart and brought him back to his knees.

“But what if you die again?” Mew said urgently, pleading.

Chalenor paused, watching Mewtwo² carefully as it clutched its head, eyes shut, a protective sphere flickering in and out of existence around it. “Wasn’t that what I wanted in the first place?”

“But – what if you can’t move on, like last time?” Mew’s voice was desperate. “Another thousand years as a Dark-type ghost? I can’t let you do that to yourself!”

Chalenor hurled another Shadow Ball as Mewtwo²’s barrier flickered off, but the clone raised its hand again, and this time the attack swung around and smashed back towards Mew. Chalenor leapt into the way, producing a shield that scattered much of the blast into dark tendrils of energy that hit him instead. He shuddered, sucking in a breath before he jumped into the air again, sending a pulse of darkness towards Mewtwo² and then shooting higher up, the clone following. The two circled each other in the air, spiralling upwards, firing attacks, darting aside, putting up shields. Mew stared up at their battle, quivering.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Chaletwo said suddenly, his voice flat. Mew turned towards him, eyes wide.

“It’s me. I’m the anchor.” His voice began to tremble, a furious psychic cocktail of rage and confusion and terror spilling out of him in waves. “You transferred the essence from his eye into me, and it tethered his soul to me, and that’s why he couldn’t move on. That’s why the War is still happening. It’s me! You did this! Goddamn it!”

A strange pain passed across Mew’s face; then he averted his eyes, turning back towards the fight raging above.

“You knew?” A fresh wave of desperate, confused psychic anger lashed across Mark’s mind. “You knew all along?”

“I suspected,” Mew said quietly, his voice bitter. “I didn’t know he was trapped here, or I would’ve…” He clenched his paws, staring. “But when I felt my power was being drained again, I thought it might have to do with you. I hoped I was wrong. I’d seen the effect Chalenor’s skull had where I buried it, near Sailance; perhaps it would have done it regardless.”

Sailance. Mark froze. The Pokémon. The lack of Pokémon in northwest Ouen.

“It’s not fair!” Chaletwo yelled. “It’s not fair! I’ve been fighting to stop it!”

“I know,” Mew whispered, looking away. “I couldn’t tell you, not after watching how Chalenor suffered every day of his life. I’m sorry.”

“I was trying!” Chaletwo screamed. “It could have worked! You could have helped! Why didn’t you help?!”

Mew squeezed his eyes shut. Above, the battle raged on, bursts of energy flying between the clashing beings. “It can’t be stopped. It’s no use. I told you that.”

“You didn’t know that! You didn’t even try!” Chaletwo’s rage had taken on an almost physical quality, swimming through the thick background of Mewtwo²’s power. “Earlier, when you came out of the ball, you thought it wasn’t happening! It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been out! But you just decided it wouldn’t work and made excuses! Like you – like you wanted it to happen!”

Mew stared down at the ground, silent, for a long, long moment.

“I…” he said in a whisper. “I just wanted to see Chalenor again.”

A desperate, wordless psychic scream emanated from Chaletwo’s mind. Molzapart stared at him, opening his beak as if to say something.

And then Chalenor crashed into the ground with force enough to shake the earth, sliding several feet in the dirt on his back. Mew shot to his side as Mewtwo² descended, paying no mind to Molzapart, who shuffled back to stay out of its way. It pointed its now-steady hand towards Mew and Chalenor –

– and then, suddenly, a green blur knocked it down. Mark stared as a shape – Scyther – slashed madly at Mewtwo², severing one of the two pipes connecting the base of its neck to the back of its head. A stab of pain pierced through Mark’s mind before the clone thrust Scyther away with a psychic blast, the two ends of the neck pipe already knitting back together as the flesh mended itself. Scyther rose again, swaying, hurtling back towards it with a desperate battle cry, and Mewtwo² lifted a hand – which trembled before it fired a small, clumsy burst of purple light that barely slowed him down. Scyther lunged at its throat, but Mewtwo² flexed its fingers and produced a protective barrier that stopped him, its blank eyes staring at the mantis’s form as he tore into the barrier with a Fury Cutter, to no avail. Slowly, the clone turned away from him, its eyes fixing back on where Chalenor was lying.

Scyther blinked at Mewtwo² and then glanced at Mark.

Mark’s heart thumped. He knew what Scyther was thinking. Mewtwo² could have obliterated him with a thought, and yet it hadn’t. Scyther had tried to kill it, and still it hadn’t. For that matter, it could have attacked any one of them, and yet it was still focused blindly on Chalenor, attacking only him.

“Guys,” he said, feeling his pulse in his throat, lightheaded in the sea of psychic static. He reached for his Pokéballs. “It’s still resisting. It’s not attacking Scyther.”

Mewtwo² fired a Psycho Cut towards Chalenor, and Mew darted in front of him, squeezing his eyes shut as a faint, feeble pink bubble formed around him. Chalenor pushed himself partially upright in a lurch, holding his hand forward to create a stronger shield in front of Mew that deflected the attack before he collapsed again. Mewtwo² stared at them, motionless.

Scyther leapt up again, and this time he got a few slashes in before the clone psychically thrust him away and raised its shield again, its wounds easily closing.

“Go!” Mark shouted as four Pokéballs opened in bursts of light. Charizard, Dragonite, Jolteon and Weavile materialized on the ground. “We can… we can help! Be careful!”

He glanced at Charizard and was going to ask him if he was okay to fight now – but before he’d said anything out loud, Charizard nodded. “I’m fine.”

And he kicked off into the air.

As Mark’s Pokémon surrounded Mewtwo², another burst of white light emerged in front of him. May jerked her hand up to her necklace, but Floatzel was already forming, racing after Weavile with a manic grin.

“Mark’s right,” Spirit said, looking up at May. “The madness only compels it to attack legendary Pokémon, does it not?”

“I…” May pressed her lips together, a trembling hand clutching her Pokéballs. “I don’t…”

“May,” Spirit said, her voice firm. “We will all die if we don’t stop it.”

May bit her lip, glancing over at Floatzel before she gave a slight nod, pulled the remaining balls from her necklace and threw them. Flygon, Butterfree, Mutark and Skarmory came out of their balls ready, Mutark licking herself and transforming within moments. Only Flygon hesitated, trembling as he stared towards Mewtwo².

“Flygon,” May said, fists clenched. “Should I switch you out?”

The dragon took a deep breath and shook his head, then darted after the others.

Alan and Sparky’s Pokémon joined the fray as well, but Mewtwo² remained inside a protective bubble, shielded from the onslaught of attacks, twitching restlessly. Chalenor had risen to his hands and knees, struggling to recover; Mew hovered by his shoulder, worried.

The psychic noise shifted, and Mark’s stomach twisted in anticipation of Mewtwo² firing off another attack – but then Spirit disappeared and reappeared behind it inside the barrier, locking her teeth around its neck pipes. Again, a surge of pain pulsed outward. The Pokémon gathered around Mewtwo² visibly flinched as it raised an arm and telekinetically tore Spirit away, healing its wounds again. She landed on the ground beside it and was quick to get back to her feet, preparing to pounce again.

Mewtwo²’s arm pointed at her, twitching. Mark’s heart pounded as May clutched the Pokéball in her hand. It shouldn’t attack her, not really, not badly –

– and then, abruptly, Spirit was yanked into the air. Mewtwo² levitated her pendant as it stared at it, eyes rolling, oblivious to Spirit’s struggling form suspended from it by the neck. May threw her arm forward, pressing the button to recall her.

The beam of the Pokéball passed through the barrier and began to absorb her – but as the glow tried to take the necklace with her, it couldn’t. The chain trembled in the air, flickering red, the Ninetales’ amorphous shape still dangling from it.

“Spirit, let it go!” shouted May, her eyes wide, but the Ninetales continued to struggle against the pull, the red glow clawing desperately at the chain. “Spirit! Please! Don’t!”

For a second more, Spirit strained to take the pendant with her. But then, her translucent form was absorbed into the ball, and in Mewtwo²’s psychic grip, the necklace and Entei’s striking red soul gems crumbled to dust.

The clone stood there for a few seconds, breathing rapidly. Slowly, carefully, May placed Spirit’s ball back on her necklace, staring towards the other Pokémon. Coughing, Chalenor rose to his feet, facing Mewtwo² again.

The clone flexed its fingers for a moment; then the barrier around it disappeared as its eyes glowed blue. Immediately, the Pokémon around it sprang into action, led by Floatzel slamming into it with an Aqua Jet. Mewtwo² took the flurry of attacks without flinching, almost comically unaffected, but looked around, shaking its head, concentration faltering, and whatever attack it’d been preparing never landed. Charizard engulfed it in a Flamethrower, and then, without warning, a shockwave threw all the Pokémon back, clearing the area around the clone. Chalenor, leaping into the air, tossed a Shadow Ball at it, and Mewtwo² stumbled back momentarily before wrapping itself in another protective bubble and shooting off into the air after Chalenor, followed by all of the flying Pokémon.

They surrounded Mewtwo² in the air, orbiting it in a circle, but its barrier kept them away whenever they tried to strike. The two legendaries danced around each other, exchanging blows, barriers clashing, firing attacks – but Chalenor’s movements were exhausted, desperate, while the clone fought with the same indifference as ever, barely hurt. “No,” whispered Mew, staring at the fight above, “no no no no no no –”

“He’s not going to make it,” Molzapart said, his voice tight and fierce. “The thing’s not even tired, and he’s stuck in a useless human body. It’s only a matter of time.” He looked restlessly around before fixing his gaze on Chaletwo. “If ever there was a time for your murder-eyes, it’s now. Why haven’t you obliterated it?”

Chaletwo didn’t respond. Mew shook his head. “He’s too weak. It’s no use.”

Molzapart looked away, then back. “So if you had more power, you could do it?”

Mewtwo² hovered above Chalenor and thrust its fist downward, producing a burst of energy that crushed him against the ground next to them, where he lay motionless. “No!” Mew said, nudging him desperately. “Come on, come on!” Up above, Mewtwo² hung in the air, a shadowed figure wreathed in a combination of orange and blue flames, motionless but for its tail lashing restlessly around.

“I mean it. Could you do it with more power?” Molzapart repeated, looking urgently at Chaletwo. “Because I can do that.”

Chaletwo looked up, slowly.

“Power Drain, remember? I can drain the power of willing subjects, and I could channel it into you. I don’t know how much you’d need, but…” He glanced at Chalenor. “With all the Pokémon here, and him, it might be enough.”

Chaletwo stared at him. Somewhere in the raging psychic storm sparked a flash of faint, confused hope.

Mew squeezed his eyes shut as Chalenor stirred on the ground. “You don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “With the power that Mewtwo² has now, he can block or redirect anything he pleases. He may be able to ignore your Pokémon’s attacks, but anything that could truly hurt him or stop him, he will instinctively react to. Even at full power, Chaletwo’s eyes would be useless. There is nothing you can do here.”

Mew took a deep breath, looking back towards Molzapart. “And I don’t remember much of the War. But I remember what the madness felt like. Nothing mattered but the legendaries, surviving long enough to destroy them. And…” He trembled at the recollection, his gaze distant. “Any legendary who attacked me, I had to retaliate. That compulsion was stronger than anything. When only Chalenor is fighting him, he can focus on only him. But as soon as you try to attack, he will strike back. If you’re a true threat, he’ll be forced to use everything he has. He’ll kill you where you stand in the attempt.”

“Well, according to you it’s going to kill us all anyway!” Molzapart hissed. “Do you have a better idea?”

Something rippled through the psychic noise. Mark looked up to see Mewtwo² beginning to move again, descending slowly as attacks bombarded its protective bubble, preparing an attack between its hands. Chalenor lay in the dirt, exhausted, looking up in silent resignation; Mew curled up against his chest, face digging into his shirt, closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry, for everything,” Mew said quietly.

“Maybe this time we’ll both die,” Chalenor said, his voice hoarse, smiling faintly. Then, in a murmur, he added, “I’m glad I got to see you again.”

“Me too,” Mew whispered.

Up above, Mewtwo² stared at the two of them, its arms still, shaking with effort as the energy around its hands dissipated, its bulging eyebrows twitching. A psychic wave of horror and nausea spilled out of it for a brief second before it was superseded by a forceful pulse of blind anger. Mewtwo² lifted its arms to clutch its head, then snarled as a ripple of frustration passed through Mark’s mind, then went rigid and started preparing an attack again.

And something about that visceral psychic horror hit Mark like a punch to the gut as he stared at the clone, a sudden stab of sympathy piercing through his fear of it. And with that, a strange, stark sense of clarity came over him.

Before he knew it he was moving, running, sprinting towards Mew and Chalenor. He spread his arms in front of them, facing Mewtwo², heart hammering, and stared at the clone.

And Mewtwo² hesitated, staring back at him, eyes rolling in his head.

“Mewtwo²?” Mark said, his voice shaking. The clone’s empty eyes pierced back into his, the psychic force in the air pricking at his brain like a thousand tiny needles. “You’re still fighting back, as hard as you can, aren’t you? You don’t want this. You don’t want to kill anyone else.”

The clone let out a faint whine, curling up in the air, the barrier around him shimmering; then his arm shot outwards again, charging a Shadow Ball.

“Please,” Mark said. His legs were wobbling, but he was frozen in place; he couldn’t have backed off if he’d wanted to. “I’m… I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” He swallowed, tears starting to blur his vision as the clone stared at him, his head twitching from side to side. “You didn’t deserve any of this. I… I wish we could free you, but I don’t know if that’s possible.”

His mouth was dry; it was hard to speak. He wasn’t sure if there was any possible way for this to accomplish anything; how could there be anything he could say that’d be stronger than the madness that’d killed every legendary for thousands upon thousands of years?

But he had to say it anyway. If nothing else, Mewtwo² deserved to hear it.

“I remember I met you in Rick’s Gym, a year ago, and even then you were fighting back, saying you didn’t want this. You never got to have a life of your own, did you? Just… just fighting for whoever held your ball. I’m so sorry.” He blinked rapidly. “We don’t want to hurt you; we just don’t want you to kill everyone. I can see you don’t want that either. I wish we knew how we could help you.”

Mewtwo² released the Shadow Ball with a roar, and Mark’s heart stopped, only for the attack to hit the ground several meters away in a spray of sand and dirt. The clone stared at him, trembling.

“Please.” Mark turned around at the sound; Chalenor had pushed himself upright, staring up at Mewtwo². “He’s right. You’re still fighting back, still trying.” He swallowed. “You’re causing destruction that you don’t want and are attacked for it. I… I’m sorry.” He averted his eyes. “Others have tried this before, and it never worked. That’s why I attacked. But you…”

He looked back up, meeting the clone’s eyes, milky white staring into tealish blue.

“You’re stronger than any of them, aren’t you?” Chalenor murmured. “You’ve had a lifetime to learn to resist. If anyone can stop the cycle, it’s you, isn’t it? Another… another anomaly that Arceus didn’t account for. Please, keep trying.”

They stared at one another for a few more seconds of tense, electrifying silence. The psychic field intensified to a feverish pitch; Mark’s ears rang, his heart pumping like it was about to explode. Something probed at his mind, fumbling and frantic and shaking.

“I…” said a voice in his head, and he recognized it, faintly, from that day. “Please…”

The clone’s body seized up; the barrier vanished, and a psychic shockwave abruptly thrust the flying Pokémon around him away.

“K-k…” The telepathic voice was strained as Mewtwo²’s body convulsed in the air. Then, a sudden moment of abrupt alertness, his blank eyes staring straight into Mark’s, pleading. “Kill me!”

Then he seized anew, roaring once again, and began to prepare an attack, only for Charizard to tackle him with a Flare Blitz. Mewtwo² swung his arm, and Charizard was slammed into the ground with a heavy thud. Finally, Mark could move again; he ran over to kneel by his starter’s side, stroking his head. Charizard opened an eye. “I’m okay,” he said, weakly, and Mark tried to smile before recalling him back to the safety of his ball.

“I…” came the psychic voice again as Mewtwo² formed a new barrier around himself. He stared at Mark as abruptly, the barrier disappeared. One, two, three seconds, he convulsed in the air, fingers twitching; Scyther dived in towards him again, raising his scythe, but the instant he swung it and it made contact with Mewtwo²’s flesh, the clone flung out his hand and sent him flying. He remained unshielded for a second more; then a forceful wave of rage exploded through the psychic field, and the barrier was up again, his wounds healing. Mark stared up at him, his heart hammering. Mewtwo² could deliberately take down the barrier. That was what he was showing them. He could stop defending himself, if only for a few moments. So…?

“Do it!” the voice shouted, and then, with a roar, Mewtwo² flared up with a purple aura and smashed into the other flying Pokémon, firing off clumsy Psycho Cuts.

Molzapart looked at Chaletwo with a maniacal fervor. “That’s it! I Power Drain and you get it when the shield goes down!”

“He’s still going to counterattack, isn’t he?” Chaletwo asked slowly, his telepathic voice dull. He was still standing, head bowed, not turning. “He can let an attack through but he still hit Scyther back.”

Mew nodded silently. Molzapart’s eyes widened. “But…”

In the air, Sparky’s Swellow, Charlie and May’s Flygon danced around Mewtwo², keeping him occupied, dodging carelessly thrown but increasingly forceful attacks.

Naked fear trembled in the air around Chaletwo as Molzapart stared at him, silent. “It’s not fair,” he murmured, wiping his closed eyes with his hand, “it’s not fair, it’s not fair!”

Mew hovered closer, but Chaletwo swung his hand, flinging Mew back; Chalenor caught him, cradling him protectively in his arms.

“You lied to me! All you did was lie to me, for him! All I ever was was a stupid mistake, for him!”

Mew shook his head, eyes squeezed shut. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is!” Chaletwo shouted. His fists trembled as tears streamed from his eyes; his voice grew quiet. “But that doesn’t matter, does it? Of course you cared about him more than anybody else. I always knew that.” The psychic anger around him was thickening, congealing into heavy despair. “I need to die anyway, right? I need to die so he can move on and the War can stop. That was always how it was going to end, wasn’t it? Now or in a thousand years.” He took a shaking breath. “I wanted to save the world, didn’t I?” Another swirl of terrified fury lashed through the air. “It’s not fair!”

Mew pulled himself from Chalenor’s grip and floated cautiously towards Chaletwo again. “Chaletwo, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was selfish. All I could do was forget and pretend. I was never… All this was my fault.” He shook his head, his voice trembling. “I could never stop seeing my mistake in you, but even despite that, you grew to be a better Preserver than I ever was.”

Mew wrapped his tiny paws around Chaletwo’s torso, eyes filled with tears. Chaletwo stared down at Mew for a moment, then slowly, slowly wrapped his arms around him and hugged him in return, a confused flurry of emotions radiating from his mind.

A stab of urgency cut through the air. Up above, Mewtwo² flung the last of the flying Pokémon away with a pulse of psychic energy and descended slowly towards the ground, staring at Chalenor. Chaletwo looked up, releasing Mew, taking a deep, trembling breath.

With a quick teleport, he was in front of Mark, grabbed his shoulder, teleported him to Molzapart’s side, and then took his place.

“If we both die, it ends forever, doesn’t it?” he said, his voice shaking, looking back at Chalenor. “We’ll… we’ll end it. Right?”

Chalenor nodded, reaching for Chaletwo’s hand. “I think so.”

Chaletwo started to pull away, but then hesitated. Chalenor gripped his bony fingers tightly as Mew floated up to them, settling on Chalenor’s shoulder.

“Mew, go! Get out of here!”

“No,” Mew whispered, wrapping his tail around their joined hands. “I’m going with you.”

Chaletwo stared at Mew for a long moment.

Then, abruptly, he turned to face Mewtwo². The Pokémon on the ground were frantically attacking, keeping him convulsing as the remaining Electric-types alternated electric shocks, but with a sweep of his hand, the clone threw them aside yet again and produced a translucent bubble around himself.

“Molzapart, do it!”

“I…” Molzapart stared at Chaletwo, hesitant.

“Do it!” Chaletwo’s voice broke. “Before I change my mind!”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Molzapart said.

He looked down in concentration, and strings of energy shot towards him from all the gathered Pokémon. Chalenor and Mew shivered as the ghostly tendrils sucked out their strength; Floatzel and Weavile collapsed side by side, Floatzel shooting Weavile a grin. Jolteon whined, ears pinned back as he lay down, eyes closed.

Chaletwo trembled like a leaf in the wind, unmoving in the deathly silence that followed. In front of him, Mewtwo² stood on the ground, hunched, still covered by his defensive barrier.

“Mark?” said Chaletwo’s voice suddenly; it was strangely weak, shaking. “Get Molzapart to fix the dragons. Give them a life. Please.”

Mark nodded, frozen. He wanted to say goodbye, say something, but his voice was gone.

A bright beam of power shot from Molzapart’s beak and enveloped Chaletwo in a glowing aura as he took a trembling breath.

Mewtwo² clutched his head, and the barrier was gone.

Chaletwo screamed as he opened his eyes, and brilliant, blinding light shone from his eye sockets, sending shivers of phantom agony down Mark’s spine. The clone jerked where he stood, suddenly rigid, his back arching, eyes rolling back, arms outstretched.

“Thank you,” Chalenor whispered.

A huge orb of dark purple energy formed in front of Mewtwo² and shot towards Chaletwo. The ground shook with deep, shuddering tremors as it exploded, tendrils of darkness whirling around in a dark vortex before dissipating into nothingness.

When the dust settled, there was another shallow crater carved into the earth. Nothing remained of the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer, gone together into the great beyond.

Opposite the crater, Mewtwo²’s body slumped motionless to the ground, its pupilless eyes peacefully closed at last.

Beside it, a single purple gem clattered on the rocks and settled in the dirt.

[Dragonfree]

Chapter 76: Chalenor

He was dangerous, they said. He could kill with his eyes. He was taking their power bit by bit, slowly but surely, until they were no stronger than mortal Pokémon. One day he would strip them of even their sanity, watch them blindly tear one another apart until only one was left to revive the world. And he was unkillable, unavoidable, inescapable. He was the incarnation of their doom, Death itself in the flesh.

But Mew was curious, and he was a true immortal; he had nothing to fear. Not until a thousand years from now, anyway – and that seemed like an eternity to someone only a few years old.

And so, he headed out to find the Destroyer, despite the other legendaries’ warnings.

-------

Mew had gotten the impression, from the hushed talk of the others, that the Destroyer must leave a path of corruption and horror in his wake – that she could simply follow some dark, sinister aura to find him. But Death was subtler than she’d thought. They had told her he resided in the Black Desert, but it took Mew a few hours of idle searching before she spotted a dark shape lying in the shadow of a rock, curled up in sleep.

She descended, hovering warily above the sand. She had expected a more imposing figure; despite the long, angled, jet-black spikes protruding from its body as a warning sign not to come closer, the creature looked almost like it was trying to be inconspicuous. It was a curious sight, and Mew inched closer, cautious.

Abruptly, without opening its eyes, the creature started awake – a sudden change as it jerked its head up, muscles tensing before it sprang up in alarm, crouching into a defensive position. Its closed eyes somehow locked onto her, staring at her through shut eyelids. “Stay away,” the Destroyer hissed, his spikes flaring with a bright green color.

“Are you him?” Mew asked, tilting her head. She hadn’t expected the Destroyer himself to be so jumpy – the most powerful creature in this reality, murderer of every legendary Pokémon since the dawn of time, starting at the slightest of sounds.

“I am Chalenor,” replied the creature, not moving. “What do you want with me?”

Chalenor. Yes, Mew had heard, vaguely, that that was what the Destroyer called himself. His speech was rough, raw, like he didn’t use it often; it was strange, fascinating. Mew idly floated upside-down, considering. “Don’t the others ever come here?”

The Destroyer’s closed eyes remained fixed on Mew. “Why would they? I’ll kill them all either way. Why are you here?”

The bright green color of his spikes faded into a more tealish hue. Something was off about his hostility. Mew hadn’t expected the Destroyer to be friendly, but the tension in his stance seemed fearful, almost desperate, and he still hadn’t attacked. The creature shifted uneasily, still keeping a wary closed eye on Mew.

“Why do you do it?” Mew asked.

The Destroyer chuckled hollowly. “What is it to you, mew?” he asked. “I am the Destroyer. It’s what I do.”

He used no name emphasis; it was a strange mistake, another thing that was off about his speech. Mew tilted her head at him again, and he stiffened. “Are you afraid of me?” she asked slowly.

The Destroyer’s tail rose, defensive again as the teal glow of his spikes brightened in intensity. His claws were flexed, his muscles taut. “Why should I be afraid of you, mew? I can’t die, no matter what you do to me.”

Again, he didn’t use any name emphasis – and all of a sudden, Mew was struck with her first true inkling of the age of the creature before her as it dawned on her that it wasn’t a mistake. He hadn’t just lived a full millennium, like Iriesce, or two, like she would have by the next War; not even three, like the very luckiest of Creators who survived two Wars in a row. He had seen so many millennia, so many incarnations of Mew, that they were simply a species to him.

Even thinking of that length of time was dizzying and incomprehensible: her entire life thus far, thousands upon thousands of times over. She stared at him as he crouched deeper and started to growl quietly. “I’m not here to fight you,” she said. “Do the others try to fight you?”

The creature looked warily at her for a moment before he relaxed, tentatively, still watching her, and sat down on his haunches. When she didn’t move, he looked down, let out a breath and wrapped his tail around his legs, his spikes fading slowly to a dark blue. “Sometimes,” he said at last. “Sometimes they think they can kill me and stop the War. But they can’t. It’s no use.”

“I only wanted to talk,” she said. “Doesn’t anyone ever talk to you?”

The Destroyer hesitated. “A few times,” he said, quietly. “But they always die, and then I wish they’d never come. You should go.”

Mew watched the shifting blue hues on his spikes in silence for a moment. “You can’t help it, can you?” she asked. “You don’t want to drain our power and cause the War, but it happens anyway.”

He nodded, looking away, his spikes a stark, clear blue.

“Then they shouldn’t hate you,” she said.

He didn’t answer, still turned away, the blue of his spikes flickering in intensity. She considered doing as he had said, writing this encounter off as a curiosity and going on to explore the rest of the planet. But he was so strange and sad and afraid, this incomprehensibly ancient creature doomed to destroy the world. Even if she left, she knew, she couldn’t simply forget. He’d seep back into her mind, when she curled up to sleep, when she flew over a desert, the flickering colors of his spikes and his shaky speech and the way he averted his closed eyes from her, as if he were terrified of what might happen if he looked at her too long.

The Destroyer.

Chalenor.

She hovered down to his eye level. He shook his head frantically as she approached, rising and shuffling back. “No, no, you should go, you shouldn’t –”

But as she reached her paws out to him, he stopped. She touched the tip of his nose, and he stood still, trembling, as he looked down. “No,” he muttered again, but he didn’t move as she carefully wrapped her paws around his muzzle in a small embrace.

“It’s all right,” she said as hot tears streamed from his closed eyes. “You shouldn’t have to be alone.”

“I’ll kill you,” he said, his voice shaking.

“I know,” she said cheerfully, not letting go. “But that’s a thousand years from now.”

-------

The day went by in a blur. Mew asked him what he liked to do, where he liked to go, but Chalenor said he didn’t do much of anything, so Mew took him to his own favorite places instead. Chalenor knew them all, had been to them before – of course he had, in so many thousands of years – but he didn’t complain; they rolled around in the lush, dew-coated fields of Hoenn, and they raced each other down the slopes of Mt. Silver, and Chalenor tried his best to follow Mew through the maze-like caves of the Acaria Mountains until his spikes caught on the ceiling for the eleventh time and he gave up, apologizing, shrinking back outside, earnestly surprised when Mew followed him back out, laughing, and teleported them to Sunset Beach instead. Chalenor shivered with lingering cold from the snowy mountains; Mew produced a flame to warm him, and they sat together for a while until he eventually stopped shivering, his green spikes slowly fading to a calm bluish-blackness.

“Did you have fun?” Mew asked, tilting his head as Chalenor gazed at the brilliant sunset. In truth, he already wanted to do more, show him more, go on a real adventure somewhere he’d never been before, but he could tell Chalenor didn’t want to go anywhere else at the moment.

Chalenor nodded distantly, another flicker of blue passing across his spikes.

“Should I come find you again tomorrow?”

“I… I don’t know.” Chalenor looked down, silent. Mew wished he could have really felt what was going on in his mind, but to his psychic senses, Chalenor was a dark void, like a murkrow or scorplack or houndour – if he closed his eyes it felt like he wasn’t there at all, unless he listened for his breathing or his heartbeat.

“Then I will,” Mew decided anyway, and Chalenor didn’t object.

-------

At first, Mew was cautious. Maybe Chalenor really didn’t want her to return; he had said no before, and perhaps she had been too pushy, too excited. She flew over the Black Desert, looking for him, and some part of her expected him to be gone, hiding somewhere she wouldn’t find him again.

But no, he hadn’t gone; he was waiting in the same place he’d been the previous day, awake, tense, looking around, and as he spotted her he relaxed visibly. He liked all the places she took him to, all the new areas she hadn’t explored yet. In a couple of places, he commented softly, sharing brief, vague memories from previous times he’d been there. When she asked if he’d had anyone else with him, though, he grew quiet.

They met every day after that, traveling to new places, playing little games that Mew came up with on the spot, talking about the world. She listened with fascination every time he shared something from thousands of years ago – the fields that were here before this lava flowed, the island these mountains used to be when the sea was higher. Her mind spun to think of it, how long he’d been quietly observing this ever-changing planet; he’d seen everything, knew everything, watched the eons work their merciless work upon everything that ever had been. The other legendaries seemed dull in comparison, still cautiously coming into their roles, learning the ways of the world – even Iriesce, who had always seemed so impossibly wise when she talked about the era before. Mew was learning things they could never have dreamed of.

And for a while, she simply enjoyed that thrill of discovery and companionship, of having someone who would come with her, teach her things, indulge her wildest curiosities.

-------

One day, though, he wasn’t in his usual spot in the desert. Mew jolted out of a happy reverie, thinking for a moment that Chalenor must have finally grown tired of him, only to notice him a short distance away, pawing at something in the sand. Mew approached, puzzled; Chalenor started, shuffling back as he looked up, then sagged as he recognized Mew, looking down again.

“What are you doing?” Mew asked, hovering near his head.

By Chalenor’s feet lay a squirming Pokémon – a trapinch, helpless on its back with stubby legs flailing in the air. He gingerly turned it over with his paw, and the trapinch scuttled away across the sand before burying down into it some distance away.

“Just… helping,” he murmured as he watched it disappear.

Mew tilted his head. The Destroyer, helping mortal Pokémon. None of it made any sense. “Why? Do you do that often?”

“Sometimes,” Chalenor said, turning his head away. “I don’t always. Helping one can hurt another. Sometimes there’s nothing I can do that’ll help, not really.”

And that bothered him. Mew stared at him, at the tension in his stance, his downcast gaze. “But mortal Pokémon die so easily,” Mew said. “They hunt one another. Even if you help, it won’t last. Maybe that trapinch dies tomorrow.” And he was so old. Their tiny, fleeting lives had to be mere blips to him, brief flashes of existence gone before he knew it, and yet here he was, helping a trapinch to its feet, simply because he could.

“I know,” he murmured, looking away.

That night, after a day of exploring swamps and jungles and volcanoes, Chalenor spoke out of the blue when Mew was about to go. “Sometimes I don’t help,” he confessed, his voice raw and desperate, not quite looking Mew in the eye, “because I’m afraid. Sometimes I think if I help, it’ll make it harder to know that they’ll die, so I don’t.”

Mew gazed at him in the flickering teal light of his spikes. He thought of all the mortals he met every day, tiny beings with tiny concerns, living their little lives, that he didn’t give a second glance to, because they were mortals, common, unimportant, and before he knew it they’d be gone.

“It’s all right,” Mew said numbly. “You don’t have to help everyone. That doesn’t make you bad.”

Mew could sense the confusion and anxiety and loneliness in Chalenor’s mind even without psychic powers. He stayed, talking to him, about life and mortality and right and wrong, until Chalenor fell asleep, head resting on his paws, his spikes faded to a dull, peaceful black. Mew curled up against his side and lay awake, unable to sleep, thinking of the mortals, of Chalenor, of everything he knew about the Destroyer, and a nagging sense of injustice began to grow in his heart.

-------

“I tried to talk to some of the others today,” she said a few weeks later, when she had settled into her usual sleeping spot, tight against Chalenor’s body, and he shivered, his spikes flaring teal.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “It’ll… it’ll only make it worse.”

“I don’t understand,” Mew said. “They won’t hear it when I tell them you don’t want to cause the War. Iriesce was so angry.”

Chalenor’s body trembled. “She should be angry. I killed everyone she knew.”

“But it’s not the same,” Mew protested. “What’s the use in being angry at you, when you can’t help it? They really killed each other, but they couldn’t help it, and you couldn’t help it either. It was Arceus who made you this way.”

“Arceus hasn’t been seen in eons,” Chalenor murmured. “All the legendaries he wanted to punish are dead countless times over. It’s still happening because I’m still here.”

Mew sighed. “Why would Arceus make you like that anyway?”

Chalenor looked away. “Arceus woke from thousands of years’ sleep and found the legendary Pokémon had become arrogant and selfish, ruling over the mortals as tyrants. He told them that from now on they’d know weakness and mortality and fear it every day of their lives. But he knew they would never truly change, and the lesson would only need to be taught again to their replacements. So he created a personification of his punishment, someone who could remind them why they were being punished for eons to come, who could never die but could kill them instantly if they tried, that he named the Destroyer. And when he’d done that, his power was exhausted and his soul was shattered, and he fell back into his eternal slumber.”

Beneath the hint of bitterness in Chalenor’s voice, it had the air of a rehearsed story – the same story Iriesce had told Mew, more or less, and the one the Creator before her had taught her, only Chalenor must have heard it from the source, sometime in a past Mew couldn’t even comprehend. “But why was he so sure they would never change? The legendaries after the first War were completely different. We’re not ruling over the mortals as tyrants. Iriesce would never do that.”

There was a long pause. “He was angry,” Chalenor said, his voice quiet. “At that moment, it felt true to him. I don’t think he meant for me to have a soul, either. But his mind was clouded with rage and grief and agitation, and I came out wrong. His soul shattered and I got one instead.”

Mew made a small noise of discontent. “It’s not fair,” she said after a moment. “It’s not fair that you make the War happen even though you don’t want to and it’s not fair that they act like it’s all your fault. It’s not fair that you’re the Destroyer. You didn’t want to be. I never asked to be the Preserver either.”

He was silent for a moment. “What is it like?” he asked softly. “Being the Preserver?”

“I don’t know.” Mew thought back, to Iriesce’s first words to her; she’d been shaking, exhausted, drained, her pearlescent feathers streaked with tears and her mind radiating shock and horror and grief, and yet she’d softened as she looked at Mew, her eyes kind and motherly and her voice gentle. It was painful to think of that Iriesce now, when she couldn’t erase the livid, hateful Iriesce from today from her mind. “When I was created she told me I should watch over all life. Find Pokémon in need and help them, even humans. Look out for any greater evil and try to prevent it, if I can.” And she had tried. But between helping mortals, creatures that would die soon anyway, and exploring the wonders and splendors and horrors of a living, breathing, eternal planet…

Chalenor chuckled softly. “That sounds nice,” he murmured.

Abruptly, for the first time, she felt ashamed of her ambivalent feelings about her role. Here she was, Mew, an incarnation of the original Creator, and the Destroyer would have made a better Preserver than she did. Everything Iriesce had told her that day, everything she was meant to embody – she’d never truly cared, and somewhere deep down she’d assumed no one did. And that wasn’t true.

(In the back of her mind, it struck her too, as an afterthought, that Iriesce cared. She’d been angry because she cared.)

Perhaps that didn’t mean she was bad. But then again, maybe it did. Maybe she was selfish and uncaring, every bit as conceited and arrogant as the legendaries of old.

“You’d have been a good Preserver,” she muttered. And she wished she was better.

-------

“Hey,” Mew said the next morning, pulling Chalenor’s tail playfully. “I want to help. Let’s help someone.”

Chalenor chuckled, shaking himself as he rose. They teleported around between places where he said he’d sometimes found someone in need, and eventually, in the woods of Unova, they helped a deerling find its mother. Mew’s heart pounded in giddy excitement as it squeaked a quick, intimidated thank you, and Chalenor actually smiled as they turned to walk away, along the river running through the forest. This was good. This was rewarding. It might be even better than exploring.

“We’re heroes!” Mew trilled, twirling in the air. A young poliwag flopped helplessly on the rocks by the riverside; Mew teleported it into the water and waved cheerfully as it stared back in wonder.

“I don’t know,” Chalenor said, looking away, but he was still smiling faintly.

“Of course we are. We’re helping.” Mew floated upside-down in front of him. “Isn’t that what you like to do?”

“I suppose,” Chalenor replied. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Then I’m thinking it for you. Heroes!” Mew dived into the river and splashed water in Chalenor’s face. He shook himself as Mew giggled, then leapt after him into the river. They swam, and laughed, and talked, and everything seemed better. Mew could get used to this. Perhaps he could be good, after all.

-------

She got better at helping. It never quite came to her like she suspected it came to him, but it became instinct to wonder what he would do, and doing it made her happy. More importantly, it made him happy – or, not happy exactly, but it was like he forgot everything for a moment, like the heavy melancholy that hung over him always was lifted for just a bit.

And years passed, and it had been a long time since Mew had talked to Iriesce. Sometimes she missed her, and then Mew would think of the way she’d lashed out in violent hatred at the mere mention of Chalenor, and she didn’t want to make more eternal memories of that.

Eventually, she did try to broach the topic again, and as Iriesce froze and her gaze went cold, Mew shrank away and realized it would never be the same. It became hard to be around Iriesce as her gaze became intense and suspicious, fearful, distraught, a constant reminder that she hated him and was starting to hate Mew a little bit, too, for not hating him enough.

And eventually Mew realized nothing would ever change, and she let Iriesce go, Iriesce and all the others. It was painful, and it made Chalenor sad, but it had to happen. And as she curled up next to him in the night, and Chalenor asked her in a murmur why she didn’t just let him go instead, she replied, “Because I’d rather have you than any of them.”

-------

Mew bounded across the grassy landscape, heart beating furiously in his chest. He hovered nimbly over a hill, then dived into a valley, swerved to the right and ascended to confuse his pursuer. Up into the treetops, down in another direction, and then speeding straight ahead: he must be unpredictable, random. He looked quickly over his shoulder; had he shaken him off?

And then all of a sudden came a black shadow from the other side, crashing into him and throwing him aside. Mew struggled to get away, but a paw had pinned him down before he could escape, and a huge, fanged mouth locked around his body.

“Fine. You win again.”

Chalenor released him gingerly and shook himself, panting. “A thousand years and I sometimes still can’t believe how fast you are.”

He sat down, curling his spiked tail around himself. The sun was setting over the sea in the west; the sky transformed brilliantly from orange to yellow and finally to blue higher up, while purple clouds hovered lazily over the ocean, too small to hide the sun from view. Mew sat down too, wordlessly, to watch it with him.

“It’s going to end soon,” Chalenor said quietly after a while.

Mew nodded; his gut stung at the thought, but he knew showing that would only make it worse. “We always knew it wouldn’t last.”

There was a long silence.

“What do you think happens to the souls of the dead?” Chalenor said after a while, a distant thoughtfulness in his voice.

Mew took a deep breath. “I think they go to somewhere better,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. There will be others who’ll see you for who you are. They’ll probably be better than me.”

“I don’t want to replace you,” Chalenor said softly.

Mew winced. “Neither of us wants this,” he said. “But you have to move on. You’re doomed to live forever, truly forever, and I won’t.”

Chalenor was silent for another few seconds. “What if I’m not?”

Mew looked up at him, wary. “What do you mean?”

There was another pause as Chalenor gathered his thoughts. “Every cycle has more legendaries with more power than the last,” he said. “Every War takes a bit more of my power to match theirs. I was weaker during the last War than during any before it, and… my healing didn’t work right. I was hurt when Iriesce killed the last of them, at the end, and it didn’t fully heal until she came to and my power was returning.”

Mew blinked up at him in incomprehension. “It took your true immortality? But –”

“I didn’t understand what it meant then,” Chalenor said. “I don’t think Arceus meant for this to happen when he made me. There were a lot of things he didn’t mean to happen. But I think… this War might make me mortal.”

Mew stared at him, mind racing. “A loophole? But that means…”

“This War could be the last,” Chalenor finished, his voice quiet, trembling. “If I’m in harm’s way.”

Mew looked away, quickly, fixing his gaze on the distant sunset instead, his heart thumping. “Ending it,” he whispered. “We could end the War, forever.”

Chalenor turned his head slightly towards him. “So do you think there’s somewhere else?” His voice was an unsteady murmur, his spikes flaring teal. “Somewhere we could meet again?”

Mew nodded, not taking his eyes off the setting sun. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. There has to be.”

Chalenor was still, silent, undetectable, but in Mew’s peripheral vision, wild, rapid patterns of light flickered across the surface of his spikes, throbbing, restless, pained.

“Hey,” Mew said, hovering in front of him. “We’ll end it. Together. We’re heroes, remember?”

Behind those ever-shut eyelids, Chalenor stared at him. “Heroes,” he murmured as he looked away.

“Heroes.” Mew nestled on top of his head, and they watched the sunset in silence. Slowly, slowly, as Mew suppressed the sickening feeling creeping up his lungs, the light of Chalenor’s spikes began to fade into a calm, soft blackness.

-------

Mew wasn’t sure if she really believed the dead went anywhere at all. But believing it was all she could do.

Every morning, she awoke gipped with icy terror after nightmares of bloody war and catastrophe and Chalenor lying dead among the carnage. She told herself they were going to stop the War, and that was worth it even if there was nothing beyond death, but then she looked at the other legendaries and felt a rush of hatred towards them, them who all despised Chalenor for how he’d been made, and she didn’t want to save their successors. She looked at the innocent Pokémon with their short, mortal lifespans, and some part of her didn’t want to give up her life, his life, for them.

Her life was void either way, she supposed; there was no way out of the War for her, whether it was this one or the next. But Chalenor could live. He was never meant to be mortal at all. Normally the legendaries wouldn’t even attack him. He could live.

And what if the War didn’t end? Was Arceus so easily fooled? Wouldn’t he simply rise from his eternal sleep and make another Destroyer, one who would truly remain immortal?

It ate at her, bit by bit; she tried to smile and pretend to Chalenor that nothing was wrong, because she couldn’t take this away from him, this small measure of true happiness that their plan had given him, but it became harder and harder. She stopped being able to sleep; she would lie awake in the dark and hallucinate rivers of blood and armies of Destroyers and Chalenor’s severed head with gaping, empty eye sockets, and one day she started out of a deranged vision with a wild resolve that she had to know, she must see how it really worked out, no matter what they said about time travel. She closed her eyes and reached a thousand years through time; everything swirled for a moment, and then it was cold and rainy.

She opened her eyes, shivering, and saw a strange Pokémon, large and gray and leathery with a long, purple tail. He turned around as she stared at him in confusion – there was something eerily familiar about him, almost as if he were a twisted version of her – and then he said, like he knew her, “Mew? What brings you here?”

“Who are you?” she blurted out, because it was the first thing that occurred to her.

He paused as he looked at her. “It’s me, Mewtwo,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

He must know the Mew of this time, she thought – but that wasn’t important. “The War,” she said urgently, knowing she didn’t have much time; she already felt her power diminishing, trying to draw her back to the past. “Is the War gone?”

“The War? You said it was drawing closer,” he said warily, and she wanted to scream. “Mew, we were talking about this only a month ago.”

“What happened?” she said, frantic. “I… I can’t remember. What happened in the last War?”

“You were the victor,” he said, hesitantly, and that was all he said, like it had just been an ordinary War and she had…

“Chalenor,” she said urgently, pleading, as if he could change the truth if he took pity on her. “Where’s Chalenor?”

He hesitated. “Chalenor is dead,” he said. “You said he died in the War. Why don’t you remember? Are you all right?”

She stared at him as she tried to comprehend what had happened. They had failed. The War wasn’t gone. And… he was dead, while she lived on, a true immortal, for a thousand more years.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, looking wildly around. “No, no, everything is wrong –”

“I’m sorry,” the other said, as if it meant anything.

“This can’t happen, it can’t.” Her voice shook. She felt her power dwindling and knew she couldn’t stay for long. “We have to fix it. Chalenor – Chalenor has to live, and –”

And, she realized in a rush of wild hope, she was going to win the War. She would live. If they just canceled the plan, they’d have another thousand years together, and they wouldn’t have to worry about the War again for a long, long time –

But of course, this was only one possible future, and now that she knew it, had been changed by the knowledge of it, there was no guarantee of the outcome anymore. What was this future? What had she done in this past? What if a change meant she wouldn’t win?

She shook her head again. “No, we – we need to escape,” she said, “insurance – I need insurance.” And suddenly it dawned on her that she was standing in front of a new legendary Pokémon, one she hadn’t recognized, one nobody in her time would. What if…?

“What?” said the other in confusion, but she had no time to explain; she drew upon all of her remaining strength as the Preserver and formed a duplicate of the strange Pokémon in front of her, and she managed only to grab tightly on to it before she couldn’t hold the anchor anymore and was whisked back in time.

-------

“Chalenor,” he said, “Chalenor, wake up, we have to change the plan –”

“What?” said Chalenor, his black spikes flickering slowly to life as he raised his head, drowsy. “Why are you wet?”

“I went to the future. You were dead, and I’d won the War, but it was still happening – the plan fails, it’s all going to go wrong – but then I realized that if I can just win the War and you stay out of the way, then…”

“What?” Chalenor hesitated, his spikes brightening, blue and teal. “I… but what if you don’t win?”

“I figured it out,” Mew went on eagerly, heart thumping. “I took the body of a future legendary that the others don’t know and have no reason to attack – if I’m killed, you can resurrect me in that body before I disappear. An immortal body! And we can find another one in the future before the next War. We can both – we can both live on forever – we don’t have to…”

“But…” Chalenor stared at him for a long moment. “I’m not sure I want that,” he murmured.

“What do you mean? We’ll both live!”

Chalenor shuddered, looking away. “I… I don’t think I want to live on forever.”

Mew blinked. “But it’s still going to happen even if you die!” he said. “It doesn’t work – the plan doesn’t work! The War keeps happening! You dying won’t accomplish anything!”

“I…”

Chalenor stared at the ground, his spikes roiling with an intense, turbulent blue. Slowly, hesitantly, he looked up. “I’m not sure I really want to accomplish anything.”

His voice was quiet, shaking; Mew stared at him in incomprehension.

“If I’m dead, it’s not me doing it anymore. That’s all I want.” He let out a trembling breath. “I’m not a hero. I’m a coward. I just don’t want to be the Destroyer. I don’t want to have to see all that suffering, over and over and over again, and know that I made it happen. That’s all. That’s why I wanted to do this.”

He looked away again, the light of his spikes brightening, flickering. Mew stared at him, his lungs burning with creeping despair and anger and terror. “Don’t you see?” he pleaded as his ears rang with a strange white noise. “We can live.”

Chalenor shook his head, slowly. “While all the others die around us? It’s torture to watch, every time, and it’ll be worse when one of them is you. I should know. I’m sorry, Mew, I’m so sorry.”

Desperate tears began to burst from the corners of Mew’s eyes. “But…”

“You can live,” Chalenor said, his voice softening. “Like in the future you saw. You said you won the War. Please, live and be happy for another thousand years – maybe you can come up with a way to survive the next too.”

“No!”

“Thank you for everything,” Chalenor went on in a murmur. “These were the happiest thousand years I’ve ever had. But I just… I just want it to end. Forget about me. Please.”

“No!” Mew yelled, tears streaming down his cheeks. “You can’t just die!”

“Mew, I…”

“Souls don’t go anywhere!” Mew’s voice broke into desperate sobs. “They don’t go anywhere! They just fade away and disappear!”

Chalenor backed away, shaking his head as Mew closed in on him, his spikes bright teal. “We don’t know,” he whispered. “We don’t know that.”

“We have a new plan now!”

“Mew, no –”

“We have a new plan! It will work! All you have to do is…”

Suddenly Chalenor’s spikes flared with a piercing yellow, and with a desperate roar, he smashed his tail into the limp legendary body lying beside Mew. Blood spurted from where one of his tail spikes pierced into its chest, into its heart, ruining it, destroying it –

“There,” Chalenor said, a manic, pleading desperation in his voice, raising his tail again, “what if we can’t use this body anymore? Let’s go back to the old plan, Mew, please, please let’s go back to the plan –”

“No!” Chalenor lowered his tail, startled, as Mew’s vision swam in a delirious combination of horror and rage and suffocating fear, he was going to die he was going to die no no NO –

“Mew?” Chalenor took a trembling step closer, his spikes bright teal again. “I’m sorry –”

A shrill, hysterical screech sounded somewhere from the depths of a void of hot, indescribable terror. Before Mew knew what he was doing, he’d produced a blinding, searing Moonblast between his paws. Chalenor cried out in agony, flinching under the burst of energy, and retaliated with a pulse of deep darkness that made Mew’s entire being shudder with cold and nausea.

“Fine!” Mew shouted, his vision shrouded in darkness. “Fine! Go and die in the War, you coward, and I’ll live on for as long as –”

Chalenor screamed, and this time there was something different about it that Mew couldn’t place, something that made the hairs rise on his body; he didn’t know how, but somehow he knew that he was releasing the War, that it was early, that somehow Chalenor was making it happen now when they should still have a few more months, a few more precious months of life and laughter and joy –

“No!” he yelled into the darkness. “Chale…”

And then a hazy red mist covered everything, and his last thought before he tore his only friend apart was I’m sorry.

-------

She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up – she shouldn’t have expected it to work. But her heart still wrenched in agony when the creature created from Chalenor’s eye wasn’t him. She fumbled to give him a name, to stop her mind from screaming so he could hear, to explain that his eyes were dangerous and he mustn’t open them. Midway through she realized that because he’d been her first creation, that meant he was the Preserver, the one who must work with her to protect life and oversee the world for the next thousand years, and she wished she hadn’t done it, hadn’t foolishly created an eternal, immortal reminder that Chalenor was dead and she had killed him.

She knew they had work to do, that they would have to recreate all the legendaries, fix the world, bring everything back to normal. But the thought alone was insurmountable when she was still shaking, grieving, fumbling to remember what living was meant to look like. She told Chaletwo – she wished she hadn’t given him that name, but it was too late, too harsh to try to take it back from him – that they would start in the morning. She knew humans and Pokémon were dying out there, would die while they waited, but the thought seemed abstract and distant; she knew she ought to care, ought to be out there saving lives and undoing the damage, but right now she couldn’t convince herself it wouldn’t be better if it all burned down.

(She’d never been a good Preserver.)

Chaletwo sat beside her, contemplative, staring at the fire she’d created for them through the permanently shut eyelids that still reminded her of him. His childish, unpracticed mind spilled psychic fragments of thoughts and emotions that he couldn’t yet contain, wonder and curiosity and a timid wariness. Despite her best efforts, he had sensed her agitation, the resentment that she’d tried so hard to conceal because, in the end, it wasn’t his fault.

“Mew?” he asked at last, hesitant. “Why are my eyes dangerous?”

Her heart stung. “I… I made you with the power of someone called Chalenor. It gave you his eyes.”

She could feel his apprehension, confusion, a twinge of fear. “Who was he?”

She stared into the distance. The wind was cold, the world empty. Everyone was dead. Everyone who had known him. Everyone who had hated him.

“He was the Preserver, like you,” she said, staring at the fire as a new resolve took hold. In her mind she heard his voice, his laugh: That sounds nice.

“Oh.” Chaletwo was surprised, but relieved, curious. “What was he like?”

Mew took a deep breath.

“He was kind,” she said. “All he ever wanted was to help others. He was braver than he thought. Stronger than I’ll ever be. And…” She took a trembling breath, wishing she had better words to say, but she had never been good with words. “And he was my friend.”

Chaletwo’s curious admiration gave way to concern, worry, sadness. “What happened to him?”

“He died.”

He looked down. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded faintly. Sympathy emanated from his mind; she’d told him what death was, that that was what was happening to all the creatures around them. The soul severing from the body, leaving an empty husk behind to be uselessly mourned. And then, after a little while, ceasing to exist.

(Or, perhaps, it just went somewhere else. Somewhere better. She supposed believing that was all she could do.)

A creeping edge of confused, nervous apprehension tinged Chaletwo’s emotions. He hesitated, anxious, looking up at her again.

“Am… am I going to die?” he asked.

Mew stared out at the ruined world, avoiding the sight of Chalenor’s mangled body.

“No. Never.”

[Dragonfree]

Well, it's time. This is the final chapter of this story. It's done.

This has been a beautiful, ridiculous sixteen-year ride. Thanks to everyone who's read it over the years; it really means a lot to me.



Chapter 77: Home

“It’s a soul gem,” Molzapart said as Mark turned the purple gemstone over in his hand. “I can sense it in there. Huh.”

Mark could only nod at first, numb, still in a state of shock after everything that had happened. But as he closed his fingers around the gem, the realization began to melt its way through it all, something good and warm on a small, easily comprehensible scale. Mewtwo² had cheated death. He was safe. They hadn’t killed him.

“So you can resurrect him?” Mark said. His voice was hoarse and strange.

Molzapart hesitated. “I…” He stopped, glancing away. “Well, I’d rather wait for a bit before trying, just in case the madness still lingers in its body somehow. I can feel my power returning now that it’s dead; I expect it should be safe in perhaps an hour or two.”

Molzapart’s reluctance tickled at the lump in Mark’s throat, but right here, right now, he didn’t want to confront or rebuke him, or do anything at all that’d somehow upset the fragile calm that’d descended over the area. Instead, all he did was nod. “Okay.”

He straightened himself slowly, placed the gem carefully in his pocket and looked around. The others were already recalling their Pokémon from where they were strewn around the battlefield. He found Scyther fainted a short distance away – Scyther, who’d probably saved all their lives with the suicidal charge that’d shown them Mewtwo² had more control than it seemed. Jolteon was still conscious but weak, grateful to return to his ball after Mark had given his head spikes a gentle stroke. May had already recalled Floatzel, so Weavile lay on her own, eyes closed, smiling contentedly, and he scratched her head before recalling her. Dragonite had collapsed a bit further away, over where the flying Pokémon had surrounded Mewtwo²; Mark walked over to him, still in a hazy sort of trance.

As he called Dragonite back into his ball, he looked idly over to where May was kneeling on the ground by her Flygon a short distance away – and froze.

Flygon was missing a leg and part of his tail, in an unnaturally clean, straight cut crusted over with blood. His chest moved erratically as he breathed. The dirt around him was stained crimson, a few red-smeared bottles of potions scattered at May’s feet.

“Did I…” Flygon wheezed, his eyes shining and unfocused. “Did I do well?”

May clenched her fist. “Who cares?” she said. “You need a Pokémon Center.”

She pushed the button on his ball to recall him, pressing her lips together as he disappeared into red light. Mark thought back to near the end of the fight, to Mewtwo²’s increasingly forceful and uncontrollable Psycho Cuts as the Pokémon held him off. He should have realized they might not be safe anymore, but in the middle of everything, it hadn’t quite registered. “That’s… I’m sorry,” he said, shuddering.

“He was scared,” May said without looking at him, her voice empty. “He didn’t want to be here, but every time I asked he insisted he was fine.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I know.” May squeezed the ball in her hand for a moment, knuckles white; then she minimized it and replaced it on her necklace.

A muffled beeping sounded from her backpack. She pulled it off and took out her Pokégear; it was a text message from Leah. Everyone still here?? What’s happening?

May typed back: That was it. We stopped it. It’s fine. She pressed the send button and hesitated before turning the device off and hastily stuffing it back in her bag.

“Kids?” came Sparky’s voice, gentle and level. “I don’t know how you’re feeling after all this, but if you’d like to come back to Stormy Town with me later, I’ll cook us all some dinner while Joy takes care of your Pokémon.”

-------

They ate together in the empty, still officially closed restaurant with the curtains drawn. Molzapart stood awkwardly at the side with Mewtwo²’s body, glancing at it every now and then; the Pokémon that weren’t too big and hadn’t needed special treatment were scattered around the room with plates of their own food. Spirit lay low on the floor by May’s side, ears flat, restlessly digging her nose through her thick neck fur every now and then as if expecting to find the necklace hiding in there somehow. May glanced down at her in between picking at her food.

Sparky gazed at each of them in turn. “What now?” he asked, his voice quiet. “Are you headed home?”

Mark nodded, a strange flutter in his stomach, and across from him, Alan did the same.

“Home, huh?” Alan said, sighing as he leaned back in his chair. “It’ll be weird to go back.”

“I’m…” May began, glancing at Sparky as she prodded at a piece of salad. “Yeah. Something like that, I guess.”

“I suppose your parents must be missing you,” Sparky said.

“Yeah,” Mark said. He thought of his mother’s face, now safe and within reach – and then another, painful thought struck him, a pang of strange emptiness in his stomach. “Or, well – Chaletwo told me the memory modification they did means they don’t really think about me anymore. So maybe they don’t.”

“They’ll remember when they see you in the flesh,” Molzapart said, a little defensively. “It’s the same thing that happened with all of you.”

Alan glanced at Molzapart before turning back to Mark. “I’m sure they do miss you. That’s just what parents do.” The corners of his mouth lifted a little; he fiddled with the hat lying on the table beside his plate. “Dad texted me earlier, this… this goofy message about how he was proud of me and believed in me.”

Mark smiled. Sparky nodded, grinning. “Ah, yes, that sounds like a parent for you. You answered him, I hope?”

“Yeah. I told him I’d be having dinner with you and he told me to have fun, with a bunch of exclamation marks. And that he’d make an even better dinner tomorrow.”

Sparky chuckled. “Oh dear. I suppose you’ll have to be the judge.”

Alan grinned. “He says that, but I don’t think he can compete with this.”

“Happy to please.” Sparky bowed with a flourish.

Mark finished off his plate and laid his cutlery aside, thinking. “What’s everyone going to think happened? There’s no way Mewtwo²’s power surge wasn’t felt by most of the region.”

“I’ll handle that,” Molzapart said from the corner. “I’ve talked to the human media before. There’ll likely be people who recognized the disturbance as Mewtwo²; I can tell them it happened when it broke free of Rick’s control. But that’s about all they need to know. Better not cause a mass panic.” He paused. “They’ll notice Mew and Chaletwo are gone, eventually. But it’s simpler if people don’t connect them. I expect Mitch will be filed as a missing person and that will be that.”

Mark nodded slowly. “Everything’s going to be okay, right? With… with no Creator or Preserver? Or is there going to be a Creator?”

“I don’t know that much about this,” Molzapart said reluctantly. “But I expect there won’t be a Creator exactly, no. The power that the Creator would have gained will likely be split between all the surviving legendaries.”

Beneath the table, Spirit let out a faint whine. May dropped her fork with a clatter. “Spirit,” she said. “Entei didn’t care about you. He was a tool and he was using you for his own ends. Can’t you see that?”

Spirit jerked back, standing up and shaking her head. “I am… no, Entei was…” She trailed off, exhaling in a huffy sigh, flattening her ears. “I was meant to guard his soul,” she muttered.

“You weren’t meant to do anything. He plucked you away from your mom and almost killed you. It’s his own damn fault he decided to put his soul in a stupid necklace, okay?”

Spirit bared her teeth for an instant before catching herself, wincing guiltily and lying back down on the floor under the table with a sigh.

“Let her process it at her own pace,” Stantler said gently. “She needs time to mourn.”

May took a deep breath, looking down at Spirit, then at Stantler, then Sparky.

“…Yeah.” She winced like she had something bitter in her mouth. “Spirit, I’m sorry. It’s just…”

She stroked the Ninetales’ mane a few times. Spirit leaned into her hand, closing her eyes.

“I’m not going home,” May said after a few seconds of silence, staring at her plate. “I’m going to the police. I need to tell them about Tyranitar.”

Spirit’s eyes blinked open. “What? But –”

“And whatever else happens, they’re definitely going to revoke my license. So you all do whatever you want to, I guess.” Her fingers curled around Spirit’s fur.

May’s Pokémon stared at her in surprise – all except Stantler, who gazed evenly at her trainer, giving a slow nod.

“I see,” Sparky said, surveying her closely. May didn’t look up. “Legally,” Sparky went on after a moment, “it may not be permanent. You are a juvenile; you should be able to reapply for a license after you’re of age. The legal system has its problems, but people don’t suffer forever for mistakes made when they were children, so long as they’re deemed no longer at risk on reevaluation. The rest, I suppose, will depend on the testimony of your Tyranitar, and any witnesses.” Sparky glanced towards Mark, and his stomach twisted uncomfortably.

“Same thing,” May said, her fist clenched around her knife. “It’s not like you’re all going to just wait around for me for years. I don’t expect that.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Spirit said firmly.

May inhaled sharply. “I don’t… I don’t know if you can, Spirit. That’s the thing. I don’t… I don’t think they let you have Pokémon in detention, for a start, if…”

Spirit stared up at her.

“You can stay with Dad. I know you need someone right now and he’s useless, but I can’t. I’m sorry I can’t be there.” May’s voice was starting to tremble. “I’m sorry. I hate this. I hate all of this. All I ever wanted to do was be a great trainer, and I screwed it up. I should’ve recalled Tyranitar, and I shouldn’t have said that about Taylor, and I shouldn’t have even caught him in the first place, or Lapras, or Flygon. But I did it anyway, and I can’t undo any of it, and the only thing I can do to set anything right is make sure Tyranitar gets free, okay? So I have to do this. I’m sorry.”

“May—” Alan began, but before he could finish, May abruptly stood up from the table and headed for the door, Spirit looking after her in shock.

Alan let out a heavy sigh as the door slammed behind her. Sparky put his hand on the table, preparing to stand up.

“Wait,” Mark said. “I’ll… I’ll go talk to her.”

-------

May was outside, sitting against the side of the Gym and hugging her knees, looking out in the direction of the mountains. It was cold, but the skies were still bright and mostly clear, a lingering memento of the success of their fight against Thunderyu.

She looked up as he approached and wiped her face with her sleeve. He sat down by the wall near her. Spirit padded up to her, tentatively, ears flat; as she nudged her trainer’s shoulder, May wrapped her arms around the Pokémon’s neck, burying her face in her mane.

Mark sat there, silent, for a little while, looking towards the half-collapsed remains of Thunderclap Cave. Beside him, May sniffled quietly a few times, until he heard her sit back against the wall again, exhaling. “How are you feeling?” he asked, turning back towards her. Spirit had laid her head down in May’s lap, and she stroked the Ninetales’s mane absent-mindedly.

May took a deep breath, without looking back at him. “I’m okay,” she said. Then, “I mean, no, I’m not okay. But I’ll live. It’s the best thing I can do and I know that. I’ve had a couple months to think about it. It was just…”

She trailed off, glancing at Mark, and he nodded.

They sat silently for a moment. “Earlier,” he said after a while, “you said your dad was useless.”

May winced. “Not exactly, but you know.”

“I don’t.” May glanced back at him. He hesitated. “Back when we were looking for Mew, and I was going to maybe call my parents, I noticed you never wanted to call yours. Is that…?”

May sighed, leaning back against the wall. “My dad used to be a trainer. He was pretty well known in the adult competitive circuit for a while. Then his Meganium died in a battle, just an accident, and he just… never got over it. Quit training cold turkey, and couldn’t hold down a decent job after that. My brother and I had to handle a lot of stuff on our own. He’s not bad, but he’s got far too many of his own issues to help anyone else.”

“And you didn’t want to call him?”

May fidgeted with her fingernails. “I’m not sure he’d actually do anything about it even if he heard the world was ending.” She paused. “And… he’d just start asking about my journey, and my Pokémon, and the League.”

Mark nodded slowly. May had never talked about her family, as far as he could recall. He considered asking about her mother, or her brother, but decided against it.

“How’s Flygon? What’d Nurse Joy say?”

May was silent for a few moments. “She said he’d be okay. Flygon spend most of their time flying anyway; guess he doesn’t need his legs that much. Might have a harder time with balance because of the tail. Either way, she said he’d probably do all right in the wild if he’s released, so…” She sighed. “That’s something.”

“I hope so.”

She picked at her fingernails for a minute, avoiding Mark’s gaze. “In a way it’s a relief,” she muttered. “In a way I don’t want to do any of this anymore. Maybe I’m becoming like Dad.”

Mark shrugged slightly. “Maybe you just need a break.”

“Maybe.”

May scratched the Ninetales’ ears for a minute. Eventually, she opened her mouth again. “Spirit,” she said. “You should talk to Stantler. Just… see if she’ll stay with you in New Bark. She can probably help you sort through all that stuff.”

Spirit made a small noise of complaint, but then sighed. “I will try,” she said quietly.

“If I have to go, I’ll be back for you,” May said, her voice firm.

The Ninetales closed her eyes. “I’ll come visit,” she murmured.

They sat there for a while, looking up at the sky. Clouds were slowly gathering in the west, heralding oncoming rain.

“You should draw Chaletwo,” May said.

A strange mixture of emotions bubbled up within him at the request, something warm and nostalgic coupled with empty sadness and regret. Wordlessly, he pulled off his backpack and took out his sketchpad.

All he really meant to do was Chaletwo, but without thinking about it he started sketching the rest of the image still burned into his mind: Mewtwo² opposite him, Mew and Chalenor by his side, Chaletwo’s tear-stricken face tight with anguish. For a moment Mark was struck with a guilty sense of impropriety; was this how he’d want to be remembered, as a terrified wreck?

As a hero, another part of him pointed out. As someone who saved the world.

On some level he’d always had nagging doubts about Chaletwo’s motivations, whether he was really doing this for everyone’s sake or to save his own skin – whether he’d ultimately try to save himself and let the world rot. And in the end, he’d been scared, he’d lashed out, he’d protested, but he’d faced down death anyway. In a way it meant more knowing how hard that had been for him. Mark had probably never respected Chaletwo more than in this moment. Drawing it felt right.

May gave him a questioning look, and he took a deep breath and resumed. Mark still didn’t entirely understand what he’d learned about Chalenor and Mew – the reluctant Destroyer, trapped in isolation for a thousand years, and the friend who’d constructed a clumsy web of lies in his memory, desperate to see him again. But he supposed he didn’t have to. Their story was their own, and now they were gone – together.

And Mewtwo²… Mewtwo² would be okay.

“That’s good,” May said as he slowly lifted his pencil from the finished sketch. There was a strange, trembling heaviness in his chest as he looked at it. “Always wanted to draw like that,” she added in a half-hearted mutter.

“It’s never too late to start,” he said as he closed his sketchbook and placed it back in his bag. She looked up at him for a moment, blinking.

Then a sharp gust of wind blew past, and she shivered, pulling her jacket closer. “It’s getting cold,” she said. “I guess we should get back inside.”

“Yeah.” Mark stood up, hoisting his bag back onto his shoulders.

“Hey, I’m…” May began, and he looked back at her. She trailed off, looking away. “Well, no, I wish none of this ever happened. But I’m glad you were there.”

Mark smiled, offering her his hand. “Me too.”

-------

And then it was time for goodbyes. They went over the practicalities, and Molzapart volunteered to teleport them where they needed to go.

Sparky hugged everyone, assuring them they’d be welcome in Stormy Town for a free dinner any time they wanted. He wished them good luck in their future endeavors, and offered to host Mark’s next birthday party, and gave May some hushed advice that Mark couldn’t hear.

Then it was off to the woods near Green Town. Alan gave Mark a tight hug and promised to call sometime. May fidgeted by Molzapart’s side, avoiding Alan’s gaze.

Alan hesitated a moment, looking at May. “Hey,” he said. She looked up tentatively, still guarded. “I… I really admire what you’re doing. It’s the right thing.”

May inhaled. “Yeah.”

He looked at her for a few moments, his face tight and awkward. “Well, take care,” he said at last, turning towards the road into town.

“I will,” May said, and Alan turned around in surprise. She’d straightened a bit, looking at him directly. “Thanks.”

Alan nodded, smiling a little. “I’ll call you too someday.”

He waved as he turned and headed towards his home.

-------

The next stop, then, was the Champion Island police station.

May took a deep breath in front of steps leading up to the door, her hand tangled in Spirit’s mane. Weavile stood by her other side; she’d wanted to follow Floatzel, whatever the outcome.

“You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Mark asked.

“I need to do this,” she said, shaking her head. “But thanks.”

“You can tell them I was there and I’ll tell them you tried to recall him.”

She nodded slightly. “I know.”

Hesitantly, Mark spread his arms. For a moment, May blinked at him and he felt incredibly stupid – but then she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

After a few seconds she abruptly pulled away. They looked at each other for an awkward moment. “Good luck,” Mark said.

She smiled a little. “Goodbye, Mark.”

“Goodbye.”

And she turned to walk up the stairs, Spirit at her side. After a quick wave and a grin to Mark, Weavile darted after her.

-------

And then it was just him and Molzapart, with a couple of things to take care of.

A cold, purple glow enveloped the gem in Mark’s hand. His stomach fluttered weirdly, elated and anxious at the same time; Molzapart’s eyes were closed in grim concentration, the tip of his wing gingerly touching Mewtwo²’s body. They were in some barren off-route valley in the middle of the region; Molzapart had insisted they do this somewhere secluded.

The clone’s lifeless form lit up with the same glow, and then, abruptly, his eyes snapped open. There was no obvious transition from corpse to living being, only that sudden movement. Mewtwo² jerked upward, and Molzapart flinched, backing away.

“Are you sane?” he asked, wary.

“I…” Mewtwo² clutched his head for a moment, blinking slowly. He levitated himself to his feet, gently, and looked around, tail swishing experimentally behind him, his back straight but relaxed, his movements fluid and alive. Something about that, the contrast to every other time he’d seen this tortured creature, made Mark’s heart flutter with elation. It’d been hard to separate the straining, struggling, half-mad Mewtwo² of the battle from Rick’s dead-eyed tool and the memory of being restrained, unable to breathe, helpless as May choked – but the clone felt different now, as a being acting on his own will.

“You,” Mewtwo² said. He took a wobbly step in Mark’s direction, then another, more confident one – and fell into his arms, clumsily, his long, bony forearms wrapping around Mark. The Pokémon shook as Mark embraced him back, a flurry of emotions swirling in his mind, relief and disbelief and new pangs of sympathy as he felt the contours of the Pokémon’s spine and ribs under the thin, leathery skin of his back. How much had Rick ever let him eat?

“Thank you,” said the clone’s telepathic voice, unsteady with emotion but free of strain. “I… am sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mark said, his voice shaking with something he couldn’t quite place. Relief and gratitude flooded into his mind, then vanished as Mewtwo² carefully pulled away again.

“What are you planning to do now?” Mark asked.

“Hmm.” Mewtwo²’s blank eyes blinked slowly. They weren’t nearly as unsettling now that he looked alert and alive. “I want… a home,” he answered after a moment. “And then… explore. Learn. Make up for… all that happened.”

“Have you… have you considered looking for Mewtwo?” Mark said. “He’s the one you were created from, and… I think you might have a lot in common.”

Mewtwo² tilted his head, tail twitching curiously. “Thank you. I will find him.”

The clone kicked off the ground into a playful loop in the air, and a psychic wave of thrill and exuberance washed over Mark. He grinned as Mewtwo² experimentally levitated himself down in front of Mark, hovering a few inches above the ground.

Molzapart sighed. “The legendaries will expect you to act as one of them. We have a purpose; we must try to protect the mortals and keep the world in balance.”

“I know,” said Mewtwo², without moving aside from the gentle up-and-down bobbing of hs levitating form. “I will try. Perhaps Mewtwo can help.”

“I’m sure he will.”

Molzapart grimaced. “I might also need you to talk to the humans at some point. Show them you’re not a ticking time bomb. After you killed Rick and broadcast all that power, they might have concerns.”

Mewtwo² squeezed his eyes shut at the mention of Rick. “I didn’t want to,” he muttered.

“It’s a little late for that.”

Mewtwo² shook his head, hunched over again, agitated, a nervous sense of psychic upset stabbing through the air. Mark took a deep breath. “Stop,” he said. “Stop talking to him like that.”

Molzapart turned, defensive. “I…”

“Stop. He’s been through enough. He did more to save the world than you ever did.”

Molzapart fell silent. Mewtwo² rose slowly, a thrum of gratitude warming Mark’s mind.

“I can talk to the humans,” the clone said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Molzapart nodded without meeting his eye.

Mark sighed inwardly, but extended his hand to Mewtwo². “Did you want your gem back?” Something about the purple stone felt different now, some strange, electrifying energy gone now that it was just an ordinary gem.

“Hmm. Why not?” The clone reached his abnormally long arm out to take it, holding it between his two fingers. “Goodbye,” he said, blinking softly at Mark again. “Thank you.”

“Goodbye,” Mark said, raising a hand to wave. “I… I hope we can meet again sometime.”

Mewtwo² nodded, and then he jumped, shooting up into the air. A prick of psychic joy jolted Mark’s mind again. He watched the clone disappear as a speck in the sky, spiralling in free-flowing loops.

Molzapart was distracted, still looking away.

“Chaletwo wanted me to fix his dragons, didn’t he?” he muttered after a while.

“Yeah.” Mark’s heart stung.

“I gather the last one’s still with Carl.”

Mark nodded, his mouth dry.

“Then I guess we’re paying Carl a visit.”

-------

For the second time, Mark knocked on the door of the temporary Crater Town Gym with butterflies in his stomach.

Carl didn’t bat an eye when he opened the door, only slightly raising his eyebrows. “You again,” he said. “Here to tell me another story about Chaletwo?”

Mark couldn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. “Chaletwo is dead,” said Molzapart, and for the first time, Carl actually blinked in surprise, pulling the door open further to see the legendary by Mark’s side.

“Interesting,” he said. “You weren’t part of the story either the first or the second time around.”

Molzapart gave Mark a side glance. “Never mind about the story. The only reason we’re here is to retrieve the dragon they let you capture.”

Carl’s gaze hardened. “I see.”

“We’re going to fix him,” Mark said quickly. “To… to not be dangerous anymore. Molzapart can do that.”

Carl didn’t move. “I think at this stage it would be extraordinarily foolish of me to take you at your word.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” Molzapart snapped.

“Wait,” Mark cut in. “I’ll explain. All of it this time. Please listen.”

-------

Seated on Carl’s couch with his hands in his lap, Mark recounted everything – about the War, their quest, Chaletwo. The Gym leader sat silent, head cocked, lips pressed together, throwing suspicious glances at Molzapart every now and then.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said when Mark had finished. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but Carl continued: “This entire plan was asinine. Recruiting a bunch of children? Refusing to get more qualified help on grounds that are waved away later? Frankly it’s a miracle you somehow bungled your way into success. Last time, you made it sound as if things were under control without my help; now it’s plain they were nothing of the sort. You could have gotten us all killed.”

Mark squeezed his eyes shut. “Okay. Sure. It was kind of a stupid plan.”

“So you’ve told him,” Molzapart said irritably from behind him. “Can we now get to the point?”

“That being said, I hate to say this, but I don’t think you’re lying,” Carl went on. “Whatever else you are, you aren’t a good liar, and I doubt you could have convincingly fabricated and delivered every ridiculous detail of this. I’ll consider your story a warning of the fallibility of legendaries, but I believe you, for now.” He shot a brief glare towards Molzapart. “Besides, I expect the bird can and will do what he pleases regardless of what I think.”

“I don’t have time for your condescension,” Molzapart said coldly. “If you have nothing else to say, we’ll take the dragon and leave.”

Carl wasn’t looking at him, instead focusing on Mark. “So this fixing of the dragon that you mentioned,” he said. “What, precisely, does that entail?”

Mark looked at Molzapart; he wasn’t actually sure exactly how this would work. “Well,” he began, slowly, “when Chaletwo made them, he made them obsessed with killing each other, so it’s all they can think about. He’d remove that from them and make them… normal, I guess?”

“That’s not enough,” Carl said, his eyes boring into Mark’s. “If that’s all they’ve known, they have never learned morality or restraint. This might revert them to the minds of children – but children can be extraordinarily cruel. They will need guidance and oversight, someone who can rein them in and keep them under control, for years, while they mature. Have you prepared for that? Or did you again fail to think things through?”

Mark stared at him, face flushed, opening his mouth to answer.

“I’ll do it,” Molzapart said before he could say anything, sounding like he hated every word. Mark turned towards him, blinking. “Chaletwo wanted me to fix the dragons. That includes this. I’ll raise them, keep an eye out for them and make sure they don’t harm anyone. You have my word.”

Carl raised an eyebrow, not moving. “Fair enough that you say that,” he said. “But you haven’t given me much reason to trust your word.”

“You don’t have a choice!” Molzapart snapped. He looked away, wincing, before reluctantly facing Carl again. “Chaletwo died for this,” he said, quieter. “His last wish was to fix the dragons – to have him make me fix the dragons.” He glanced at Mark, grimacing. “If I’m left here – at least I can do this.”

Carl surveyed him with interest for a moment. “I see.” Slowly, he stood up from his chair. “Well, as you say, I don’t have a choice, do I? The safe was meant to be indestructible, mind you, but I suppose that wouldn’t account for you.”

“You suppose correctly.” Molzapart’s eyes glowed; the metal of the safe in the corner warped and twisted, and with a sweep of his wing, the door tore off its hinges and crumpled together into a lump on the floor. Carl watched with the same grim expression as the Ultra Ball inside levitated into the air and towards Mark. He took it carefully, looking at Carl.

“I suppose we’re done here,” the Gym leader said, folding his arms. “But know that if any legendary attacks my town again, we will be prepared. I don’t trust your competence, for obvious reasons.”

“You won’t have to worry about that,” Molzapart said, coldly. “I’ll handle it.”

“So I’d hope.” Carl moved towards the door, opened it, and gestured for them to leave. With a ‘hmph’, Molzapart teleported outside.

Mark nodded slightly to Carl as he made his way towards the door.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” Carl said; Mark stopped and looked up at him in surprise. “It’s plain you didn’t need to be here.”

“I wanted to,” Mark said, numb.

“It was a dumb plan and you should’ve questioned it,” Carl went on. “But you’re a kid. The immortal deities don’t have that excuse. It’s on them.”

Mark took a deep breath. “Molzapart’s going to do his best. I think it’ll be okay.”

“That’s very optimistic,” Carl said. “But fair enough. I’ll be prepared anyway. I never trusted legendaries.”

“They’re…” Mark paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “They’re just people. They’re not perfect, but they’re not evil either. They’re just… trying.”

Carl raised his eyebrows.

“Thanks for listening,” Mark said without waiting for an answer, stepping back through the door. “Tell your townspeople I said hi.”

-------

The next stop was the plains outside of Ruxido.

A large, lone oak tree stood on a hill overlooking the woods. In the grass below the hill, Mark could just make out the glint of blades here and there, giving away the otherwise-camouflaged Scyther. Against the tree, though, sat two indistinct shapes, red and green.

Scyther inhaled sharply as he stared towards the tree. “I never thought I’d make it back,” he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. He turned to Mark. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me. It was more than you know.”

“Thank you for what you did at the battle with Mewtwo²,” Mark said.

Scyther looked away, a wisp of a smile on his face. “I thought I’d die there. I was ready. But at the same time, I realized I didn’t want to. And it was the best feeling in the world.”

Mark nodded, a lump in his throat.

“Goodbye,” Scyther said. “I’ll never forget you.”

“Try to be happy,” Mark said, willing himself to smile. “And – if you bump into Letaligon – please make sure she’s okay.”

Scyther nodded and turned before taking off the ground and zooming towards the tree, letting out an elated, whooping cry. All around, heads poked out of the grass, watching him curiously.

The green shape at the tree rose instantly and flew out to meet him. The red shape stood, leaning against the tree, and raised a pincer in greeting.

Mark turned back to Molzapart, and they vanished.

-------

Sandslash wanted to return to the Lake of Purity.

Molzapart waited in the woods while the two of them walked along the bank of the lake. The brilliant colors of sunset reflected across the still water; Mark couldn’t help but think back to his first fateful night here as Sandslash told him stories of his old Sandshrew buddies – silly competitions, back-and-forth pranks, weird hijinks.

The Pokémon shook his head, chuckling. “Initially I didn’t want to come back. They were a childish lot and I wasn’t very close to anyone. But when I visited, back when we came here to capture Suicune, it was… nice. I used to be small and scaredy and they kind of ignored me, but suddenly I was the grown-up and everyone wanted to know about what I’d been doing with my trainer. I liked telling them stories and showing them moves and answering questions. Teaching them.”

Mark smiled. “It’s weird to think of you being scaredy.”

“It’s weird for me, too,” Sandslash said, looking out across the lake. “I gained a lot of confidence on this journey, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Same.”

They walked on in a pleasant, comfortable silence. The sun was disappearing behind the trees, shadows stretching out across the lake; the dark cloud bank from the northwest was moving in rapidly, promising a change in the weather.

And then, just as he was thinking he’d have to say goodbye and turn back, the excited cries of a troop of Sandshrew surrounded them. Sandslash grinned as the tiny figures rolled into him in bursts of giggles, examined his claws with awed gasps, and started asking him how many legendaries he’d fought.

Mark stepped back, smiling. Sandslash looked up and raised a paw to wave, laughing as one of the Sandshrew climbed onto his head.

As Mark turned around and headed back for where Molzapart was waiting, he could still hear the echoes of their conversation:

“Diggerclaw, Diggerclaw!”

“Did you fight the whole Waraider herd, Diggerclaw?”

“We did,” Sandslash said, chuckling. “And we saved the world.”

-------

Finally, Molzapart teleported Mark into the alley next to the Sailance library. They looked at one another, boy and bird, human and legendary.

“Thank you for all you’ve done,” the legendary said.

“Thanks for taking us everywhere,” Mark said.

“It was the least I could do.” Molzapart looked away, uncomfortable. “I’ll raise the Dragons of Ouen as best I can. You gave me all the legendaries you held, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll handle releasing them safely, explaining why we did it when necessary, and picking up the ones the others have. In an emergency I can perform a memory modification. You won’t have to worry about them.” He took a deep breath. “All in all, you can return to your life as it was. No one has to know your part in any of this unless you choose to tell them. I’d advise you not to tell too many people.”

Mark nodded slowly.

“I think that’s all,” Molzapart said. “If you ever need me, I’ll be keeping an eye out.”

“Thanks,” Mark said. He was oddly numb; the fact it was over and he was going home still seemed unreal, like it wasn’t really happening. “Goodbye, then. Take good care of the dragons.”

Molzapart nodded, grave. “Farewell, Mark.”

And then he was gone. The first drops of rain were falling from the sky, and Mark blinked. The world seemed to zoom in suddenly, locking into place in a new order. He was here, back in Sailance, and the rain made it real.

Shivering, he fished his raincoat out of his bag, put it on, and set off walking the familiar route towards his home.

The school building was gray and dull as ever as he approached it, the fenced-off schoolyard empty. As he passed by the front entrance, though, a figure was stepping out of the door, opening an umbrella, and something made him stop.

“Mrs. Grodski?” he said.

His teacher lifted the umbrella, looking at him. “Greenlet?” she said disinterestedly – and then her eyebrows scrunched. “Wait. No, you –”

She stared at him, hard, before looking away and sighing. “Never mind.” There was something intense and upset about her gaze still; there were bags under her eyes, her whole face gaunt with exhaustion. Mark wasn’t sure if she’d changed or if she’d always looked like that and he just hadn’t noticed. A strange mixture of emotions battled in his head; the monster she’d seemed like back then, how absurdly trivial all of that seemed now, the realization of how disorienting Molzapart’s memory modification might feel from the inside. He shifted on his feet as Mrs. Grodski shook her head and walked down the steps, preparing to head the other way.

“Listen,” he blurted out. “I’m… I’m sorry I was such a brat.”

She turned around, blinking warily at him, fingers tense around the handle of the umbrella, as if she expected this was some kind of prank.

Mark smiled. She hesitated for a second, glancing sideways. “You made it pretty far at the League, didn’t you?” she said, sighing. “Good work. I suppose I underestimated you.”

Mark blinked – and then, without meaning to, he burst out in a disbelieving grin. “I guess you did.”

She squinted at him for a moment, like her brain was fighting, grasping for purchase on a slippery surface. “I… I think I wasn’t quite fair to you,” she said. “I’m not…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I regret that.”

Mark stared at her. The confused muddle of feelings in his chest was starting to settle into pity. “It’s… it’s all right, Mrs. Grodski.”

She took a deep breath, her expression softening as she looked at him. Slowly, her shoulders sagged, her fingers seemed to just slightly loosen their grip on the handle of the umbrella. “Welcome home, Greenlet,” she said. “Take care.”

“I will,” Mark said, smiling at her. “Have a nice evening, Mrs. Grodski.”

“You too,” she said. She looked at him for a second more before she shook her head, turned, and headed off in the other direction.

-------

A strange sense of déjà vu hit him as he turned into his home street. The rain, the rivulets of water draining from the road, the bushes in front of his house – for a split second, he half-expected something small and orange lying on the pavement, breathing raggedly, a faint flame curled against the side of its body. But that was a long time ago.

These gardens, the houses, his house: it’d been so long since he’d seen any of them. Everything was nostalgic and new at the same time, familiar and yet different: new decorations in the neighbor’s windows, a blooming flowerbed, a newly-painted fence. Life had gone on without him, the slow progress of time and change continuing.

The steps up to his house were smaller than he remembered. He lifted a hand and rang the doorbell.

It was his mom who answered it. The door opened and she stood there, and instantly, with a sudden, powerful ache in his chest, Mark realized how much he’d missed her. Her default polite smile changed to a warm, happy one as she saw him; then her brow furrowed, and her eyes widened, and her lips parted in shock.

“Hi, Mom,” Mark said, a strange lump in his throat. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she pulled him in close and hugged him tighter than he thought he’d ever been hugged.

“You... you were dead and I forgot,” she whispered in shocked confusion, clutching his coat as if he might otherwise simply float away. “How could I forget?”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Mark murmured, his voice muffled against her tear-stained shoulder. “I’ll explain everything.”

-------

In the back of his mind, Mark had wondered if they’d believe him. But he needn’t have worried: after realizing they’d forgotten their son’s funeral, his parents were willing to entertain whatever he told them. They listened to him talk with rapt attention, for hours, hardly interrupting; maybe later, when they’d slept on it and recovered from the shock, they’d interrogate him, but for the moment all they cared about was having him back, alive.

He introduced them to Charizard and Jolteon and Dragonite in the garden. Maybe they wouldn’t have agreed to let them live there under other circumstances, but as it was, they simply accepted it. His mom tearfully thanked them for taking care of him, his dad silent and awkward, nodding at the Pokémon like he wasn’t sure what to say to them. Dragonite wouldn’t be staying long, of course – he’d only wanted to have a place to return to when he travelled the world. Charizard had said he might go with him sometime, but for the moment he wanted a break to just rest and recover.

Jolteon was content to be a pet. For now, at least, he’d seen enough of the world for a lifetime.

It was hours past his bedtime by the time the conversation was winding down, Jolteon snoozing peacefully in his lap, Charizard and Dragonite dozing off sat against one another in the garden. Normally, Mark knew, his parents would have sent him to bed by now, and although he’d journeyed across the whole region, he imagined they’d balk if he asked to go out again now – besides, he was pretty exhausted himself.

“I think I’ll get some sleep,” he said, yawning, gently lifting Jolteon and placing him on the couch. “You… you didn’t throw away my stuff or anything, did you?”

They hadn’t, of course, because they’d forgotten he was dead. Mark apologized to them for probably the twentieth time that night; he wasn’t sure it would ever be enough.

-------

He slept until the afternoon. He’d almost forgotten how good it was to sleep in an actual bed.

After dragging himself to his feet and eating the breakfast-slash-lunch that his dad cooked for him, though, he told his parents he had to go to the beach, and was smothered with hugs and ‘take care’s that would have irritated him a year ago but seemed kind of sweet now. Jolteon followed him outside; Charizard and Dragonite were lazing around in the shadow of the garden’s trees, talking.

They could have flown, but the beach was only a short walk away; Sailance was by the shore, and their house was on the sea side of town. In the movies he’d watched as a kid, beaches were always hot, yellow and crowded with people, but this one had black sand and cold winds, waves crashing mercilessly against huge rocks and banks growing with faded grass. He’d always liked this beach for what it was; he’d used to come here to draw sometimes, imagining Lugia sleeping at the bottom of the ocean, forever just out of reach.

Today the wind was light; the rain had cleared up since yesterday, and the rocks were warmed by springtime sun. He sat down on a weathered boulder with Jolteon, looking out at the ocean for a moment, before he took out his last Pokéball.

“Gyarados, we’re here.”

The sea monster emerged in the water, stretching his fins. “So this is your hometown,” he said in a low rumble.

“Yeah.” Mark smiled.

Gyarados looked around, then glanced at the gems on his neck. “I suppose the Ninetales was devastated.”

Mark nodded silently. He really should’ve done this while he was still with Molzapart, shouldn’t he – gotten him to teleport them to the sea first and revive Suicune immediately. But he couldn’t entirely regret it.

“We’re going to have to resurrect Suicune,” he said.

Gyarados grunted. “I know.”

“Other than that, all that’s left is for you to decide what you want to do. You can stay around here, and I’ll come and bring you some food when I can. Or you can go, wherever you want.”

“I promised to serve you forever, didn’t I, back at the lake,” Gyarados said.

Mark winced. “You shouldn’t have promised that.”

Gyarados chuckled. “You’re right. It was a stupid promise. You don’t need me anyway, do you?” He paused. “I always did want to swim the ocean. Be free. That’s what I really wished for.”

“Then that’s what you should do.”

Gyarados gave a slow nod. “What about Suicune?”

Mark took a deep breath. “I think you can handle it,” he said. “If you find a legendary, or a strong Psychic Pokémon, see if they can do it. There have to be plenty of them in the ocean.”

“So you trust me.” Gyarados’s lips curled in amusement. “What’s to stop me just not doing it? Keeping him trapped and helpless at my mercy, forever?”

“Nothing.” Mark’s gaze didn’t waver. “But you know what that’s like. You’re better than that.”

Gyarados smiled, looking off into the distance. “I wouldn’t want to carry him forever anyway.”

“You won’t destroy the gems either.”

Gyarados let out a rumbling sigh. “No, I won’t.”

Mark sat in silence for a moment as Gyarados gazed out at the vast stretch of ocean before him. The wind ruffled his hair. There was no deadline, no worries. He could just sit here, as long as he liked.

“I figured you’d prefer this,” he said. “Over having yet another legendary dictating your fate. Molzapart probably only heard about you maybe once, from Alan, sometime while we were at the League. I don’t think he remembered. But if he realizes you’ve still got Suicune before you can get him resurrected, he’ll probably try to find you.”

Gyarados chuckled. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He swam a few experimental circles in the ocean water. Mark watched him dive and resurface, shaking the water out of his fins.

“Goodbye,” he said, bowing his head towards Mark. “Thanks for getting me out of that lake.”

“Goodbye, Gyarados,” Mark said, smiling. “Good luck out there.”

“I’ll be traveling too,” Dragonite said. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime.”

Gyarados nodded slowly. “Mmm. I think I’ll come back here someday, too. Maybe when Suicune is gone.”

“I’ll be on the lookout,” Charizard said.

Jolteon nodded, eyes shining. “Goodbye.”

“See you around,” Gyarados said. And with that, he turned around and dived into the sea.

Mark watched him go with the others until the ripples in his wake disappeared. It really was a nice day. Charizard lay on the rocks in the sun, the tip of his tail flicking idly back and forth, the flame burning peacefully. Dragonite sat in the sand, looking out at the calm ocean. Jolteon lay leaning against his side, eyes closed.

He took his bag off his shoulders, pulled out his sketchpad, and started to draw Charizard. Distantly, from the trees in the direction of the city, he could just hear the first Taillow song in Sailance in a long, long time.