Mewtwo Sagas

By Karen L.

Book 2-

On the Trail

Black clouds rolled across the dark sky. Flashes of lightning were all around, striking the earth in a wild frenzy, giving off a powerful, thundering sound. The ground shook as the lightning grew nearer and nearer.

I looked around. There was nothing to hide under whatsoever, just an endless field. The field was taking on shades of gray from the oncoming storm. There was little time left, and no where to hide.

I then laid flat on the ground, remembering lightning tended to strike the tallest thing. Cold rain splattered against my back, soaking my clothes. I was freezing and was probably going to catch hypothermia. All I could do was lay waiting, though.

Then, the dark cloud that loomed above me flashed and glowed. No bolt of lightning came, no thunder, but the cloud still flashed. Then something broke through the cloud. It was hard to make out at first, since it was nearly pitch black out here. But I could tell that the figure was huge, probably the size of two or three men standing on each other’s shoulders.

There was a loud screech and then the area lit up with lightning and the figure turned out to be a very large, yellow, spiky-feathered bird with a pointy beak and menacing eyes. Then, the bird waved its giant wing. Lightning came right in front of me, and my world turned bright white.

My eyes popped open. Directly in front of my face were some large, sharp, pearly white teeth complete with fangs.

“Ahhhhh!” I leapt backward, then slipped on something soft and fell to the floor. My knees scraped the rug. I pulled myself up and tossed my hair out of my face.

“Gengar gengar gengar!” my pokemon giggled.

“Shutup. Man, why do you have to wake me up so early?!” I scolded him.

“Gengar!” he informed me, pointing at the digital clock that rested on the night stand near my bed. It read 12:38. It was near lunchtime and I had just woken up. I was still tired too.

“God…” I rubbed my hands over my eyes and across my face.

“Eee vuee,” Eva said, approaching my feet. She jumped up, bounced off my back and onto my shoulder, then wrapped her thick, bushy tail around my neck for support. I made my way into the bathroom and began to brush my teeth.

My name is Karen, and, as you’ve probably already assumed, I’m a pokemon trainer. I’m seventeen years old and have been training since I was thirteen. And just last night I ran into an unusually intelligent and powerful pokemon, who also happened to be extremely hostile. Now that pokemon, Mewtwo, is loose on earth and out for revenge on humans due to its poor treatment in the past. I now feel like I have to stop him myself.

Of course I’ll have some help. I travel with my friends, Laura, Jennifer, Ben, and Daniel, who are all long-time pokemon trainers just like me. Laura’s Marowak was killed by Mewtwo’s psychic power last night. Jennifer and Ben were held captive as bait for Laura, Daniel, and I. We were all brutally attacked by Mewtwo and I’ve been told that my heart stopped for about a whole minute after being attacked with his psychic power. I had somehow survived.

I wanted revenge on Mewtwo. He was a threat to all humans and pokemon. The problem was I had no idea how to harm him. He was mortal, as far as I know, but he was still very swift, smart, and strong.

After getting dressed, I told my pokemon to wait in the room and proceeded to my friends’ hotel rooms. They all seemed to just be waking up as well, except for Ben, who had been watching television. We assembled downstairs in the lobby to talk about last night’s events.

“How did you survive?” Laura kept asking me repeatedly.

“I told you, I don’t know!”

“But your heart stopped beating. You were physically dead for a few minutes. Then you just sort of woke up. It doesn’t make sense!” Laura was usually the epitome of blondness, but this morning she wouldn’t stop firing annoying questions at me.

“Why is Mewtwo after the legendary birds?” Daniel thought aloud.

“He is?” Ben asked.

“What’s Mewtwo’s weakness?” Jennifer asked. “He has to have one.”

“Jen, you actually wanna fight that thing?! You’re insane!” Laura cried.

“You know, he can’t be as strong as we think he is,” I commented.

“What do you mean? Of course he is!” Laura spat.

“No. Remember how he could break through the rock in the cave? So could Sandslash. The rock there was very brittle from all the moisture.” There was a brief silence as everyone thought this over.

“Keep in mind he killed you,” Laura reminded me.

“Will you shutup about that already?!” I said, punching her on the shoulder. “You’re pissing me off. Can we focus here?”

Jennifer sighed. “Psychic pokemon are weak against bug pokemon, right? Maybe if we captured Scythers…”

“What do you mean? Beedrill is a bug pokemon. And your Butterfree is, too!” Ben piped up.

“Your lousy Beedrill is part poison, so he’d loose. And Butterfree doesn’t really have any bug-type attacks. She can’t use them very well.”

“Whatever.”

“Are you all saying we’re going to battle Mewtwo? You know we don’t have to. Leave it up to the morons who created him! It’s their fault he’s been released,” Laura whined.

“That’s something else I’ve been wondering about. Mewtwo wasn’t disposed of like he was supposed to be. They just threw his pokeball in a cave that was open to the public!” I pointed out.

“We should tell the newspapers about this. That’ll alert trainers all over the world to be ready to attack Mewtwo,” Ben suggested.

I shook my head. “No. Last time, Team Rocket tried to capture Mewtwo. They’ll try again. If Team Rocket does get a hold of Mewtwo, who knows what they could do!”

“They wouldn’t be able to control him,” Jennifer stated.

“They have some scientists working for them in Silph Co. They’d find a way.”

Jennifer opened her mouth to say something, but her words hung in the air. She closed her mouth again, then whispered “Damn.”

“I have an idea,” Ben spoke up.

“What?”

“How about we go get some info from the scientists who created Mewtwo? We’d have to go to Saffron.”

“Didn’t we just say that there are some Rockets working for Silph?” Laura reminded us.

“We don’t have to tell them that Mewtwo’s loose. We’ll say it’s for a school project or something.”

“We haven’t been to school since last summer!”

“That doesn’t matter. We’re going,” I said.

After many long bus rides, we finally arrived in Saffron City two days later, after resting the first day and riding the late bus the next day. It was mid-afternoon, but there was still time to go do our research.

Ben and Daniel headed to the local library to search for old newspaper articles on Mewtwo. Jennifer, Laura, and I went to the Silph building, concealing our pokemon in their pokeballs, stowed away in our backpacks. We tried our best to not look like trainers.

There was a secretary-type woman sitting behind a desk in the Silph Co. building lobby. She was putting together some files. I strolled in and casually approached the desk. She ignored me and continued to sort papers.

“Um, excuse me?” I said, trying to get attention.

“What?” she asked.

“Can we talk to Professor Talbot?”

“Why?”

“We have to for a school project.”

“No, you can’t see her right now. She’s working. Talk to her later,” the woman answered roughly, then went back to her filing.

“Listen, lady: if I don’t complete this project, I’m going to have to repeat a year of school and will probably never be accepted by any colleges. And if that happens I’m going to make your life a living hell.”

“Tough break,” she replied.

“Um, miss?” Jennifer began. But before she could say anything, I pulled out a pokeball. “Karen!”

“Gengar, hypnosis!” A beam of light shot out of the pokeball and formed into my Gengar. The woman looked surprised, but expression quickly faded as Gengar used his hypnosis power. Her head hit the desk with a thud.

“Gengar,” my ghost pokemon laughed.

“Gengar, make sure she doesn’t remember us being here. We’ll be back.”

"Geng!" Gengar gave me a salute.

"You're going to blow our cover!" Jennifer scolded me as she followed me up the stairs to the building’s offices. “You should’ve-“

“Jen, she would never let us see the professor, even if we waited, and we really don’t have the time.” I peeked through open doors, searching for Talbot’s office as fast as possible.

“Maybe he’s up in the labs,” Laura suggested. “Let’s go further up.” We bounded up the stairs and searched more. I opened a door slowly and found a large, sterile room filled with electronic equipment. It appeared to be a place for pokeball storage research. I was just about to turn and leave when I spotted two large bookcases in the corner loaded down with files on various projects.

Silph Co. was a popular company known for its great pokemon training products. Silph also was the first to produce the innovative pokeball. In the last few years, however, the company had started expanding from more than just pokemon capture devices. It began researching pokemon genetics, to learn about pokemon growth, dietary needs, and the extent of their unique powers. They finally got around to engineering pokemon in hopes of creating a stronger pokemon. They ended up with Mewtwo, who, after growing tired of being nothing but a lab guinea pig, turned against his creators. Trainers nearby tried to help recapture the creature, including my friend, Amara, who died in battle and left me to raise her Nidoqueen. Team Rocket even made an appearance to try and capture Mewtwo for their leader, and they nearly succeeded. Then Mewtwo was captured in a master ball and was said to have been disposed of safely.

Could there be something about why Mewtwo was stupidly thrown in an open cave? I began searching through the binders and folders on the shelves. There had to be something…

Then I stopped, coming across a dark blue binder. There was a white label along its spine with the words “Project Mew” written on it. I stared for a minute, then reached to pull it out.

“Hey!”

The binder slipped from my hand and hit the floor. I turned around, startled. In the doorway stood a small woman with ebony hair and pale skin. She looked about forty or so, and she had a stern look on her face. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“Oh, uh… Nothing. I’m doing a research project for school, and the lady downstairs said we could find Professor Talbot up here,” I lied, hoping she would buy it.

“Who’s ‘we’?” she asked.

“Oh, my friends are here with me.” I walked to the doorway and yelled “Laura! Jen! Over here!”

“Don’t yell! You’ll disrupt the other workers!” the woman said.

“You’re not my mom,” I said dryly.

“You-“ she began, but stopped as Jennifer and Laura came into the room.

“Oh! Hi!” Laura said nervously as she saw the woman. “Excuse me, but we’re looking for Professor Talbot. Would you happen to know where he is?”

“I am Professor Talbot!” the woman shouted at Laura.

“Really?” Laura looked surprised. “Oh.”

“On the news a couple years ago, they said you were a guy,” I said.

“Huh?” the woman asked.

“Back in the Mewtwo crisis, the news reporters said you were male.”

“That was the old head of science. He’s dead now. Mewtwo killed him,” she explained. “Now what are you all doing here?” She studied my face for a moment, suspicious.

“We’re doing research for a school report on Mewtwo,” Jennifer began. “Mind if we ask you a couple of questions?” She brought out a pen and a pad of paper as if about to take notes, acting out our lame little charade.

Talbot raised an eyebrow and studied our faces with suspicion. Then she gave us a warm smile. “Okay, I have time. But keep in mind some information is classified. So, what are you? College students?”

“We’re seniors in high school,” Laura said, which was half-true, except that we were all on our trainer’s leaves, and had plenty of days left before having to return to school.

“What school are you all from?” asked the woman.

“Uh, it’s Saffron High,” I said, though I had no clue if there was a school actually called just “Saffron High”.

“Ah,” the professor nodded thoughtfully. “So, what do you need to know?”

I thought for a moment so that I could choose my words carefully. “What was Mewtwo created for? Or is that classified?”

“Mewtwo was created merely as a project to make a highly intelligent and powerful pokemon. We were hoping to have a pokemon that would be almost sentient.”

“How long did it take you to create Mewtwo?”

“The project began in ’95. There was a lot of planning involved, and we had to hire many other qualified genetic scientists for the project. Then we began working on the first genome-“

“First?”

“Well, we worked on a few specimens, but we only allowed the most superior one to become a beating heart. We upgraded with each specimen. Finally, after nearly four years, we had Mewtwo.”

“How was Mewtwo raised?” asked Jennifer.

“After birth, we studied Mewtwo a bit to see if we got the desired results. We also found out much about his anatomy and chemistry, so we were able to create a special growth formula for his nutritional needs. He was taught by humans and, once he learned how to read-“

“Read? My pokemon learned a few words. How far did Mewtwo get?” Laura asked.

“Well, human-trained pokemon tend to be smarter than wild pokemon, and some pokemon may actually learn to read a few words in English. Mewtwo, however, learned a large variety of words and has an entire English vocabulary.

“Anyway, his psychic powers were also tested and exercised. Mewtwo was brilliant, above average intelligence compared to humans. His psychic powers are superior to all, yet he was still mortal.”

“What happened to make him rebel?” I asked.

Professor Talbot sighed. “We did hundreds of experiments on him, we almost forgot that this creature with all this power and undiscovered information, was a living being. He knew what he could do, and attacked. He even got loose in Saffron, so we quickly called on every nearby pokemon trainer. Many came to battle him, many got injured, a small number even died. Finally he was caught in a prototype master ball.”

“What did you do with the master ball?” I urged. Jennifer shot me an unamused look, but I ignored her.

“We wouldn’t dare release him again and kill him. It was too dangerous. So, we had him transported miles away from shore and buried under the sea.”

Yeah, right. Then why is it alive? I thought.

“Hey, I was just wondering, does this place know anything about the legendary birds?” asked Laura casually. “There was a rumor that Silph Co. had proof of their existence.”

Talbot looked startled. “We have no actual proof, nothing but blurred photographs and sightings by drunkards, people who’ve had near-death experiences. Some believe they were trying to get attention or were hallucinating, but I am unsure myself.”

“Oh. Where were these sightings?” Laura asked.

“All over. The firebird was seen in caves and volcanoes, the ice bird in caves and mountaintops, and the thunderbird in severe thunderstorms and abandoned power plants.”

“Hm,” Laura replied, thoughtfully.

“My time is almost up,” Talbot said impatiently after a short pause. “Anything else you want to ask me?” Laura, Jennifer, and I all exchanged glances, then shook our heads. “Alright, then.”

“Thanks for your time, Professor Talbot. Nice meeting you,” Jennifer said. She then knelt down on the ground and attempted to shove her notepad back in her backpack. She accidentally knocked a pokeball out, but thrust her hand in front of it to block Talbot’s view and threw it back in. I looked over at Talbot. Had she seen it? Did it matter? She could’ve been with Team Rocket…

“Let’s get out of here,” Laura said and swung down the stairs of the building. I pushed the thought away and followed her.

It wasn’t long before we met up with Ben and Daniel again. We all sat in the food court of the local mall. Everyone seemed tempted to go spend some cash and enjoy themselves, being only half-focused on our conversation. Laura continuously glanced over her shoulder towards a bookstore. Jennifer’s gaze kept slowly moving up to the televisions hanging from the roof of the food court. Daniel was staring at a video game shop. Ben monotonously sighed and watched the window of a lingerie store.

“So, what’d you guys find out?” I asked Ben and Daniel.

“Not much more than we already knew. The newspapers didn’t give away much. How ‘bout you guys?” Ben answered.

“We actually found out a lot.” I nodded towards Jennifer. She reached into her backpack and took out her notes, then placed them in the middle of the table. “We had to pose as students, so Jennifer took notes. The history of Mewtwo’s life is in there. No wonder he’s pissed.”

“You interviewed Talbot himself?” Ben asked, somewhat surprised.

“Herself,” I corrected him. “The old head of the science department, who was a man, was killed by Mewtwo.” I shook my head. “Yet he still wants revenge.”

“We already knew he was biased.”

“Yeah…”

“No one realized you were pokemon trainers?” Daniel asked.

“Those precautions are stupid,” Laura commented.

“You can never be too careful, right Karen?” Jennifer sneered.

“Shutup. Gengar deleted those images from that lady’s mind,” I replied.

“You let out Gengar?!”

“He hypnotized the secretary. She doesn’t remember us even being there now. By the way, Jen, you almost let Talbot see your pokeballs!” Ben snickered at the thought. He must’ve misinterpreted.

“Okay, well, what’s with this thing on the legendary birds? No one has explained that to me yet,” Ben said, examining the notes.

“Well, Raichu was the one who suggested it. Maybe the pokemon know something we don’t.” I shrugged indifferently. “We think Mewtwo is after the legendary birds. We don’t know why.”

“We still don’t know if they even exist,” Jennifer pointed out.

“Maybe we should check out some of the areas where there were sightings of them,” Laura said. “Like tomorrow.”

“Are we going to be able to leave town tomorrow?” Daniel asked.

“We’ll get outta here as soon as possible. Probably not tomorrow, though. Besides, I still wanna do some more research. And relax a little.”

We all sat quietly for a moment and exchanged glances around the table. We all nodded to one another, then walked off in the direction of our favorite stores in the mall.

Epilogue

“Closing time,” came a voice. Professor Talbot looked up from her desk and saw a young man, only about a year or two out of college, standing in the doorway of her office. “Everyone else is gone already.”

Talbot smiled. “It’s alright. I have some important project to work on right now. I’ll turn off all the lights.”

The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He turned and walked away. Talbot listened as his footsteps faded, then finally disappeared. She sat silent and motionless in her chair, thinking to herself of what was to come.

After a few minutes, she reached over towards the phone and put the receiver to her ear. She tapped in a few numbers, then waited, lightly drumming her fingers against the desk with a sort of nervousness or excitement.

“Hello… Vanessa Talbot… No, I wish to speak to the boss… Thank you…” She paused again and waited. She stood and paced back and forth through the office, then nearly jumped. “This is Vanessa Talbot. I have some important news that you might be interested in…” She stood by the window and watched as people wandered down the sidewalks, heading over to the suburban area where they lived. “Project Mew was successful, I believe…Yes, really… Well, it’s only a hunch, but I was told to alert you of everything… Well, three girls came to me today claiming to be local high school students doing a project on Mewtwo… Yes, it was ridiculous. The school they say to be from doesn’t exist. They obviously are not from around here. And I have reason to believe they are pokemon trainers. At least one of them has a pokeball…”

She listened quietly, grinning to herself at this magnificent discovery. “They could have been just trainers hoping to find Mewtwo, assuming he is still alive. But they seem to know something more… They asked about the legendary birds as well… If you would organize a search party, I would be happy to offer my knowledge of him… For a price, of course… Thank you sir. Do not worry. You shall have your prized pokemon.”