“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Whoa! Who is that? Who’s there?”
“Oh, I’m so glad! I’ve been trying so long to talk to you!”
“No, for real, who are you? What’s going on?”
“Before I can answer that, how’d you end up getting here?”
“Um… I was on a boat. A ferry. And we’d just hit shore at Birth Island. And we saw those Neo Rocket guys there at the same time. Then… then… ”
“Take your time. Try your best to recall.”
“I jumped out of the boat, and then…”
***
Mel jumped out of the boat, clearing the railing in a single leap. The water was bitterly cold, sinking straight in to her bones, but she cleared the distance from the ferry to the shore in what would have been record time for her had she been keeping track. Repeat clung tight to the back of her head, and she could feel him shivering every time the wind whipped the water into a spray.
Soon, Mel could feel the sand beneath her boots, and she ran up onto the shore without even bothering to dry off. The Neo Rockets were marching towards the center of the island, all of their steps perfectly in sync with one another. There were seven of them, and Mel recognized four: the two who she’d seen on the night of the Venomoth Festival (that feels so long ago now, she thought; so much has happened since then), the one who’d called herself No.2, and… Janine, No.8. Mel’s heart skipped a beat, but she forced it steady; there was no time to repeat what she’d done in the Tanoby Ruins.
But there was someone else, too, running up behind the Neo Rockets – a woman with rust-red hair and a pace that spoke to the fire fueling her. Even from a distance, the look in her eyes made Mel flinch. Izzy was on the scene, and she immediately let fly a Pokeball that opened and dropped an Exploud squarely in the middle of the crowd of grunts. The Exploud opened its mouth and let out an almost-visible sound wave, the force of which scattered the grunts to the ground. It was enough to make Mel clap her hands to her ears, even as far away as she was.
Mel took the opportunity to close the gap between her and Izzy, neatly skipping over an assortment of prone bodies. The blast hadn’t thrown them for very long; a chorus of groaning rose into the air as the Neo Rockets began the laborious trek back to their feet. “What’re you doing here, Izzy?” she hissed, then repeated herself after facing her when she remembered that Izzy couldn’t hear her.
“Took a lot of work,” Izzy signed. “But I tracked them down. The Neo Rockets. I found their ship right as they were leaving port. Followed them here.” She paused her signs a moment to crack her knuckles, the meaning of which was abundantly clear even to Mel. “And now, here, where they can’t run away from me, I will crush every single one of them. I will stop them from causing any more harm.”
“O-oh.”
***
“Why didn’t you say anything else to her?”
“Look, if you haven’t met Izzy… Let me put it like this. When I ran into her the first time, she punched a stone wall hard enough to leave a dent and played it off like it was nothing. So when she started talking about crushing people, I didn’t want to do anything that would put me on the list of people who needed to be crushed.”
“Ah, I understand. Please, keep going. What happened next?”
“Well…”
***
The Neo Rockets regrouped, forming a semi-circle around the Exploud, who immediately backed off towards Izzy, waiting for a command. In all of the grunts’ hands were Pokeballs – all of them, Mel noticed, except for No.2. In a split second, all of the Pokeballs opened and six Pokemon appeared. Mel recognized the Hariyama as the same one that had pounded Repeat into a puddle, but it was far from the only formidable Pokemon in the lineup. Alongside it were an Exeggutor, turning this way and that so all three of its heads could see what was going on; a Scyther, running the edges of its blades along each other; a Lopunny, hopping from foot to foot; an Absol, keeping its steely gaze fixed on the Exploud; and… Janine’s Venomoth.
Izzy extended an arm, barring Mel from going any further, not that she was inclined to. “You stay out of this. You’ll only get in my way.”
A Pokeball arced over Mel’s head and released the hulking form of a Snorlax, coming nearly eye to eye with the Hariyama and dwarfing everyone else. “I would be loath to phrase it so, but I find myself in agreement with our colleague,” came a voice from behind Mel. “I think, perhaps, you might wish to use the items you brought with you while we keep these miscreants at bay.” Hyacinth took their place beside Izzy, nodding in acknowledgement at her and Mel both.
Even though her first instinct was to argue with Izzy, Mel bit it back. “On it,” she said, backing away from the group.
“Subject cannot be allowed to escape,” droned No.2. She gestured to the other grunts. “Dispose of these enemy combatants, then intercept.” The others nodded as one and began issuing their orders to their Pokemon. The Hariyama grappled with Dozer, fighting for control; Dozer’s eyes glowed a brilliant blue, then she released a Psychic blast that knocked the Hariyama aside. The Lopunny was next; it sprung nimbly out of range of each of Dozer’s blows before darting in to land quick strikes. Each one individually didn’t seem to faze Dozer, but the Lopunny could land several hits before Dozer could even launch an attack. Meanwhile, the Scyther, the Exeggutor, the Venomoth, and the Absol all had their attention focused on the Exploud, but were keeping their distance; the Exploud, for its part, seemed likewise reluctant to approach. Izzy, evidently tired of keep-away, signed a command to the Exploud, who let fly a sound wave strong enough to tear up the dirt underneath it. It plowed into its foes, who scattered like bowling pins.
Mel slipped away, dropping her bag underneath one of the long-dead trees that stood near the edges of the island. “They seem to have this under control,” she muttered to Repeat.
“Yeah, boss,” said Repeat. “Don’t ever get on their bad sides. That’s what I’m taking away from that.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m already on Izzy’s bad side.”
“I don’t think she has a good side.”
Mel chuckled as she emptied her bag out onto the ground. Only one pocket was open, so the only things that came spilling out were the CD, the amber, and the Mega Stone, not that she was certain that it was even a Mega Stone. “Okay,” she said under her breath. “I got them here. Pretty sure these are the right items, pretty sure this is the right place. So what do I do with them?”
“Remember what happens every time you touch them, chief?” Repeat said, perched on her shoulder.
“You think I should just… let it happen?” asked Mel. “Aren’t you usually the one snapping me out of it?”
Repeat made a shrugging motion. “Maybe it’s what needs to happen now. I can’t think of any other way you’d use a rock and a CD together.”
Mel swallowed and closed her eyes, reaching out her hands until she’d grabbed all of the items – one stone in each hand, and the Upgrade carefully clasped in between her index and middle fingers. She could feel the sparks erupting from them, and pictures of all three of them formed in her mind – as clear as if she was looking at them herself. Emotions ran high around her, threatening to sweep her up entirely, from all of the humans and Pokemon nearby – she could feel the anger and determination rising off of Izzy and her Exploud and the ever-present desire to be helpful from Hyacinth and Dozer, but she could even sense something welling up below the surface in the Neo Rockets. Wait, she thought. Just one of the Neo Rockets. It’s coming from… from No.2. What is… She shook her head. No. Can’t get distracted.
The rocks and the CD sent an electric jolt up her arms and down her spine, and Mel felt a familiar sensation, one she recognized from every other time she’d held them – the feeling of standing at the edge of a hole into the world while stars danced around her, of being drawn into a darkness that was nevertheless so bright it nearly hurt, of wanting to just let herself drop and fall in and let the universe envelop her—
Mel fell forward, the items still clutched firmly in hand.
***
“Do I have to explain the next part? I mean, you were there for it, kinda.”
“If you don’t mind? I just want to be sure we’re both on the same page, if you get what I mean.”
“If you say so.”
***
Mel opened her eyes. She didn’t recognize her surroundings, she knew that much – lush, grassy plains, much more alive than the island she had been on moments ago (was it moments? It feels like it could have been an eternity), spread as far as she could see in every direction. Trees, flush with vibrant leaves and plump fruit in a rainbow of colors, dotted the landscape, and they were just the right size for climbing. The breeze that ambled past her was cool but not cold, the exact right temperature, and the sun was creeping over the horizon, filling the sky with a comforting golden light.
“Isn’t that something, Repeat,” Mel said, shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. “I dunno where we ended up, but this is beautiful.”
The only sound that followed was the rustling of grass shaking in the gentle wind.
“Repeat?” Mel asked. She reached up to her shoulder, to her head, to her backpack – only to find that not only was Repeat missing, but so was her bag. “Oh,” she said, more quietly. She closed her eyes and tried to extend her senses further out from her, searching for any sign of anyone else nearby – Repeat, Hyacinth, even Izzy – but got almost nothing. As far as Mel could tell, she was completely alone – aside from a vague hint of a presence further away than she could see. It was far enough away that she couldn’t even tell what it was, much less what emotion it was feeling, but it gave her a place to start. She started walking.
The walk was long, longer than Mel could even keep track of, but she never felt herself get tired. The burning weariness that liked to set into her legs when she went on hikes never materialized. She had no way to tell how much time was passing – the sun rose and hovered in the sky above her, but it seemed to be going in the wrong direction and moving too slow anyway.
Eventually, the sky began to darken – not from the sun setting, but from clouds that only appeared when she wasn’t looking. They were light and fluffy at first, but soon grew heavy, ominously black. “I don’t like the looks of that, Repeat,” Mel said, only remembering his absence after silence set in again.
Still triangulating her path using the distant mind she could feel but not identify, Mel climbed to the peak of a hill, decorated with one lone apple tree, as the wind picked up around her. For miles around, the same landscape dominated, but one oddity stood out to her.
The clouds, the dark, evil-looking ones, weren’t blanketing the sky indiscriminately. They led somewhere, and Mel would have bet money that they were leading the same direction her psychic sense was taking her. She hoisted herself into the tree’s branches, trying to get as much height as she could – and then she could see it.
Set into the side of another hill, far away, was a cave. The clouds weren’t emanating from it, but they all seemed to be pointed in that direction.
“Well, Repeat,” Mel said, fully aware that he was nowhere to be found, “I guess we know where we’re headed, huh.”
She would have given anything for him to answer back.
***
“Aw, you miss your partner, huh?”
“Hey, shut up.”
“No, no! I’m not poking fun! I think it’s great that you and Repeat are so close.”
“Anyway…”
***
Mel arrived at the cave only to find its opening completely sealed – a metal door covered the whole thing, and it refused to budge no matter how much Mel pulled on the handles. “Dunno why I thought that would work, Repeat,” she muttered, and her mind almost filled in the snappy retort on its own. “This door is locked up tight, and on top of that, it’s got all these thick metal chains across it.” She halfheartedly plucked at a chain, one of several that spanned the width of the cave’s mouth. “What am I supposed to do now…?”
The presence Mel had been following was the strongest she’d felt it, and she had a hunch that if she could only open the door, she’d see whatever it was sitting right behind. Getting nearer to it had done little to inform Mel as to what the presence was, though, and part of her was harboring some bitter resentment that she was essentially back at square one.
Then, she heard the voice.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
It echoed inside her head, zapping straight to her brain without going through her ears.
***
“And the rest you know,” Mel finished. She was speaking out loud, in contrast to the voice’s resonance inside her mind, and she’d made herself as comfortable as she could by sitting on the grass, her back against the door. “Now I did what you asked. Mind telling me what’s going on, exactly?”
The voice didn’t say anything for a moment that let Mel listen to the wind whip around her. The door was set a little ways into the mouth of the cave, so Mel was protected from the elements, but she could still feel her stomach lurching with every gust. “I know you asked,” the voice eventually said, “but you’ve probably got your own guesses as to who I am, right?”
The thought had been circling in her head the entire time. Mel nodded. “You’re… the Mew-child, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, chief.”
Words tumbled over each other, fighting to get out of Mel’s mouth. The first one to make it was “Wow.” This was followed shortly by “I’m supposed to protect you! What’s going on? Where is this? And how can I get you out?”
“I am sealed away, as you’ve figured out,” the Mew-child said. Its voice was young-sounding, but there was a weariness in its words that suggested lifetimes of tragedy. “This place is a… projection of where I am confined. The items you found allowed your mind to reach mine, if only for a moment, and by doing so, you’ve weakened the seal some already.”
Mel looked over her shoulder at the door incredulously. “This is what the door looks like when it’s already weakened? Musta been a fortress to begin with.”
“Something like that. Look, I fear we don’t have much time. If you can release me, I will be safe. I know it,” the Mew-child said, its voice taking on a pleading tone. “But only you can do it. The others… they can’t be allowed to get to me. Their plans are…” It shuddered. “I don’t know what their plans are, but I dread finding out. Nothing good.”
“I’m…” Mel tripped over her words. “I’m trying my best, but how do I get you free? What do I have to do? And why is it only me that can? Why am I special?”
“It’s because—”
***
Mel’s eyes snapped open.
She was back on Birth Island, under the tree.
Her hands were empty. The items were gone.
Her senses returned to her in a flash, and she took in her surroundings.
The Neo Rockets’ Pokemon lay collapsed on the dry soil, all of them except for the Absol. The Absol stood alongside No.2, and together the two of them held the fossils and the CD. Another Absol – who Mel immediately realized was Repeat – crouched about midway between her and the Neo Rockets, not yet fainted but still injured. The Absol stole them, Mel thought, but it had to fight its way through Repeat first.
Dozer and the Exploud were also knocked out, and Hyacinth and Izzy knelt near them, and from how bruised and battered they were, Mel guessed they must have taken some blows too – but not without giving as good as they got, since all of the Neo Rockets themselves, save for No.2, were unconscious.
“The subject is awake,” No.2 said, and it was enough to make Mel jump; underneath No.2’s mask, she could feel… emotion. Barely-constrained rage, lighting No.2 up like a bonfire. But also… amusement? Is that what that is? “Well then, Subject Mel. I am pleased to see you,” No.2 continued, despite her emotions telling a different story. “Your… friends… here fought as hard as they could to protect you. However, it was pointless.” Her voice was still a careful monotone, even as her emotions boiled off of her. “I am the one left standing. And I have yet to exhaust all of my options.”
“Repeat,” Mel called. “Are you okay? Can you keep going?”
“Sorry, boss,” Repeat groaned. “They got me pretty good.”
No.2 extended her arms, a gray Pokeball in each hand. “It is just as well. You would not be able to stand up against this. Tell me, Subject Mel. I suppose you have figured out that brainwashing is a key part of our team’s formation.”
Mel grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes.
“Have you wondered how the act is done? How we remove memories? Erase emotions?” No.2 shook her head. “It is elegant, really. Allow me to demonstrate.” She tossed the two Pokeballs to the ground, and a Pokemon emerged from each of them.
The two Pokemon looked superficially similar – they were both only about a foot tall and they both floated in the air; their elfin bodies were blue-gray and they had a pair of slender tails each that ended in a red jewel. The only difference came in their heads: while they both had yet another red jewel in their foreheads, one had a pinkish-purple face and the other’s was yellow.
Mel knew what they were, though she’d never seen them in person before. How could she have? They were two of the guardians of Sinnoh – Uxie, the spirit of knowledge, and Mesprit, the spirit of emotion.
No.2 pointed a finger towards Mel. “Attack,” she said.
The two legendary Pokemon followed her command immediately, firing twin Signal Beams that struck Mel in the chest. She was thrown backwards and collided with the tree before slumping back down to the ground.
Mel’s vision began fading. She could hear voices at the edge of her consciousness, and she tried desperately to hold onto them, but they slipped away as soon as she processed them.
“Miss Rylan! Hold on!”
That’s Hyacinth.
“Hey! Boss! BOSS!”
And there’s Repeat…
“You must stay the course, Mel. Only you can do it!”
And that is… that is…
…the Mew-child?
“Whoa! Who is that? Who’s there?”
“Oh, I’m so glad! I’ve been trying so long to talk to you!”
“No, for real, who are you? What’s going on?”
“Before I can answer that, how’d you end up getting here?”
“Um… I was on a boat. A ferry. And we’d just hit shore at Birth Island. And we saw those Neo Rocket guys there at the same time. Then… then… ”
“Take your time. Try your best to recall.”
“I jumped out of the boat, and then…”
***
Mel jumped out of the boat, clearing the railing in a single leap. The water was bitterly cold, sinking straight in to her bones, but she cleared the distance from the ferry to the shore in what would have been record time for her had she been keeping track. Repeat clung tight to the back of her head, and she could feel him shivering every time the wind whipped the water into a spray.
Soon, Mel could feel the sand beneath her boots, and she ran up onto the shore without even bothering to dry off. The Neo Rockets were marching towards the center of the island, all of their steps perfectly in sync with one another. There were seven of them, and Mel recognized four: the two who she’d seen on the night of the Venomoth Festival (that feels so long ago now, she thought; so much has happened since then), the one who’d called herself No.2, and… Janine, No.8. Mel’s heart skipped a beat, but she forced it steady; there was no time to repeat what she’d done in the Tanoby Ruins.
But there was someone else, too, running up behind the Neo Rockets – a woman with rust-red hair and a pace that spoke to the fire fueling her. Even from a distance, the look in her eyes made Mel flinch. Izzy was on the scene, and she immediately let fly a Pokeball that opened and dropped an Exploud squarely in the middle of the crowd of grunts. The Exploud opened its mouth and let out an almost-visible sound wave, the force of which scattered the grunts to the ground. It was enough to make Mel clap her hands to her ears, even as far away as she was.
Mel took the opportunity to close the gap between her and Izzy, neatly skipping over an assortment of prone bodies. The blast hadn’t thrown them for very long; a chorus of groaning rose into the air as the Neo Rockets began the laborious trek back to their feet. “What’re you doing here, Izzy?” she hissed, then repeated herself after facing her when she remembered that Izzy couldn’t hear her.
“Took a lot of work,” Izzy signed. “But I tracked them down. The Neo Rockets. I found their ship right as they were leaving port. Followed them here.” She paused her signs a moment to crack her knuckles, the meaning of which was abundantly clear even to Mel. “And now, here, where they can’t run away from me, I will crush every single one of them. I will stop them from causing any more harm.”
“O-oh.”
***
“Why didn’t you say anything else to her?”
“Look, if you haven’t met Izzy… Let me put it like this. When I ran into her the first time, she punched a stone wall hard enough to leave a dent and played it off like it was nothing. So when she started talking about crushing people, I didn’t want to do anything that would put me on the list of people who needed to be crushed.”
“Ah, I understand. Please, keep going. What happened next?”
“Well…”
***
The Neo Rockets regrouped, forming a semi-circle around the Exploud, who immediately backed off towards Izzy, waiting for a command. In all of the grunts’ hands were Pokeballs – all of them, Mel noticed, except for No.2. In a split second, all of the Pokeballs opened and six Pokemon appeared. Mel recognized the Hariyama as the same one that had pounded Repeat into a puddle, but it was far from the only formidable Pokemon in the lineup. Alongside it were an Exeggutor, turning this way and that so all three of its heads could see what was going on; a Scyther, running the edges of its blades along each other; a Lopunny, hopping from foot to foot; an Absol, keeping its steely gaze fixed on the Exploud; and… Janine’s Venomoth.
Izzy extended an arm, barring Mel from going any further, not that she was inclined to. “You stay out of this. You’ll only get in my way.”
A Pokeball arced over Mel’s head and released the hulking form of a Snorlax, coming nearly eye to eye with the Hariyama and dwarfing everyone else. “I would be loath to phrase it so, but I find myself in agreement with our colleague,” came a voice from behind Mel. “I think, perhaps, you might wish to use the items you brought with you while we keep these miscreants at bay.” Hyacinth took their place beside Izzy, nodding in acknowledgement at her and Mel both.
Even though her first instinct was to argue with Izzy, Mel bit it back. “On it,” she said, backing away from the group.
“Subject cannot be allowed to escape,” droned No.2. She gestured to the other grunts. “Dispose of these enemy combatants, then intercept.” The others nodded as one and began issuing their orders to their Pokemon. The Hariyama grappled with Dozer, fighting for control; Dozer’s eyes glowed a brilliant blue, then she released a Psychic blast that knocked the Hariyama aside. The Lopunny was next; it sprung nimbly out of range of each of Dozer’s blows before darting in to land quick strikes. Each one individually didn’t seem to faze Dozer, but the Lopunny could land several hits before Dozer could even launch an attack. Meanwhile, the Scyther, the Exeggutor, the Venomoth, and the Absol all had their attention focused on the Exploud, but were keeping their distance; the Exploud, for its part, seemed likewise reluctant to approach. Izzy, evidently tired of keep-away, signed a command to the Exploud, who let fly a sound wave strong enough to tear up the dirt underneath it. It plowed into its foes, who scattered like bowling pins.
Mel slipped away, dropping her bag underneath one of the long-dead trees that stood near the edges of the island. “They seem to have this under control,” she muttered to Repeat.
“Yeah, boss,” said Repeat. “Don’t ever get on their bad sides. That’s what I’m taking away from that.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m already on Izzy’s bad side.”
“I don’t think she has a good side.”
Mel chuckled as she emptied her bag out onto the ground. Only one pocket was open, so the only things that came spilling out were the CD, the amber, and the Mega Stone, not that she was certain that it was even a Mega Stone. “Okay,” she said under her breath. “I got them here. Pretty sure these are the right items, pretty sure this is the right place. So what do I do with them?”
“Remember what happens every time you touch them, chief?” Repeat said, perched on her shoulder.
“You think I should just… let it happen?” asked Mel. “Aren’t you usually the one snapping me out of it?”
Repeat made a shrugging motion. “Maybe it’s what needs to happen now. I can’t think of any other way you’d use a rock and a CD together.”
Mel swallowed and closed her eyes, reaching out her hands until she’d grabbed all of the items – one stone in each hand, and the Upgrade carefully clasped in between her index and middle fingers. She could feel the sparks erupting from them, and pictures of all three of them formed in her mind – as clear as if she was looking at them herself. Emotions ran high around her, threatening to sweep her up entirely, from all of the humans and Pokemon nearby – she could feel the anger and determination rising off of Izzy and her Exploud and the ever-present desire to be helpful from Hyacinth and Dozer, but she could even sense something welling up below the surface in the Neo Rockets. Wait, she thought. Just one of the Neo Rockets. It’s coming from… from No.2. What is… She shook her head. No. Can’t get distracted.
The rocks and the CD sent an electric jolt up her arms and down her spine, and Mel felt a familiar sensation, one she recognized from every other time she’d held them – the feeling of standing at the edge of a hole into the world while stars danced around her, of being drawn into a darkness that was nevertheless so bright it nearly hurt, of wanting to just let herself drop and fall in and let the universe envelop her—
Mel fell forward, the items still clutched firmly in hand.
***
“Do I have to explain the next part? I mean, you were there for it, kinda.”
“If you don’t mind? I just want to be sure we’re both on the same page, if you get what I mean.”
“If you say so.”
***
Mel opened her eyes. She didn’t recognize her surroundings, she knew that much – lush, grassy plains, much more alive than the island she had been on moments ago (was it moments? It feels like it could have been an eternity), spread as far as she could see in every direction. Trees, flush with vibrant leaves and plump fruit in a rainbow of colors, dotted the landscape, and they were just the right size for climbing. The breeze that ambled past her was cool but not cold, the exact right temperature, and the sun was creeping over the horizon, filling the sky with a comforting golden light.
“Isn’t that something, Repeat,” Mel said, shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. “I dunno where we ended up, but this is beautiful.”
The only sound that followed was the rustling of grass shaking in the gentle wind.
“Repeat?” Mel asked. She reached up to her shoulder, to her head, to her backpack – only to find that not only was Repeat missing, but so was her bag. “Oh,” she said, more quietly. She closed her eyes and tried to extend her senses further out from her, searching for any sign of anyone else nearby – Repeat, Hyacinth, even Izzy – but got almost nothing. As far as Mel could tell, she was completely alone – aside from a vague hint of a presence further away than she could see. It was far enough away that she couldn’t even tell what it was, much less what emotion it was feeling, but it gave her a place to start. She started walking.
The walk was long, longer than Mel could even keep track of, but she never felt herself get tired. The burning weariness that liked to set into her legs when she went on hikes never materialized. She had no way to tell how much time was passing – the sun rose and hovered in the sky above her, but it seemed to be going in the wrong direction and moving too slow anyway.
Eventually, the sky began to darken – not from the sun setting, but from clouds that only appeared when she wasn’t looking. They were light and fluffy at first, but soon grew heavy, ominously black. “I don’t like the looks of that, Repeat,” Mel said, only remembering his absence after silence set in again.
Still triangulating her path using the distant mind she could feel but not identify, Mel climbed to the peak of a hill, decorated with one lone apple tree, as the wind picked up around her. For miles around, the same landscape dominated, but one oddity stood out to her.
The clouds, the dark, evil-looking ones, weren’t blanketing the sky indiscriminately. They led somewhere, and Mel would have bet money that they were leading the same direction her psychic sense was taking her. She hoisted herself into the tree’s branches, trying to get as much height as she could – and then she could see it.
Set into the side of another hill, far away, was a cave. The clouds weren’t emanating from it, but they all seemed to be pointed in that direction.
“Well, Repeat,” Mel said, fully aware that he was nowhere to be found, “I guess we know where we’re headed, huh.”
She would have given anything for him to answer back.
***
“Aw, you miss your partner, huh?”
“Hey, shut up.”
“No, no! I’m not poking fun! I think it’s great that you and Repeat are so close.”
“Anyway…”
***
Mel arrived at the cave only to find its opening completely sealed – a metal door covered the whole thing, and it refused to budge no matter how much Mel pulled on the handles. “Dunno why I thought that would work, Repeat,” she muttered, and her mind almost filled in the snappy retort on its own. “This door is locked up tight, and on top of that, it’s got all these thick metal chains across it.” She halfheartedly plucked at a chain, one of several that spanned the width of the cave’s mouth. “What am I supposed to do now…?”
The presence Mel had been following was the strongest she’d felt it, and she had a hunch that if she could only open the door, she’d see whatever it was sitting right behind. Getting nearer to it had done little to inform Mel as to what the presence was, though, and part of her was harboring some bitter resentment that she was essentially back at square one.
Then, she heard the voice.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
It echoed inside her head, zapping straight to her brain without going through her ears.
***
“And the rest you know,” Mel finished. She was speaking out loud, in contrast to the voice’s resonance inside her mind, and she’d made herself as comfortable as she could by sitting on the grass, her back against the door. “Now I did what you asked. Mind telling me what’s going on, exactly?”
The voice didn’t say anything for a moment that let Mel listen to the wind whip around her. The door was set a little ways into the mouth of the cave, so Mel was protected from the elements, but she could still feel her stomach lurching with every gust. “I know you asked,” the voice eventually said, “but you’ve probably got your own guesses as to who I am, right?”
The thought had been circling in her head the entire time. Mel nodded. “You’re… the Mew-child, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, chief.”
Words tumbled over each other, fighting to get out of Mel’s mouth. The first one to make it was “Wow.” This was followed shortly by “I’m supposed to protect you! What’s going on? Where is this? And how can I get you out?”
“I am sealed away, as you’ve figured out,” the Mew-child said. Its voice was young-sounding, but there was a weariness in its words that suggested lifetimes of tragedy. “This place is a… projection of where I am confined. The items you found allowed your mind to reach mine, if only for a moment, and by doing so, you’ve weakened the seal some already.”
Mel looked over her shoulder at the door incredulously. “This is what the door looks like when it’s already weakened? Musta been a fortress to begin with.”
“Something like that. Look, I fear we don’t have much time. If you can release me, I will be safe. I know it,” the Mew-child said, its voice taking on a pleading tone. “But only you can do it. The others… they can’t be allowed to get to me. Their plans are…” It shuddered. “I don’t know what their plans are, but I dread finding out. Nothing good.”
“I’m…” Mel tripped over her words. “I’m trying my best, but how do I get you free? What do I have to do? And why is it only me that can? Why am I special?”
“It’s because—”
***
Mel’s eyes snapped open.
She was back on Birth Island, under the tree.
Her hands were empty. The items were gone.
Her senses returned to her in a flash, and she took in her surroundings.
The Neo Rockets’ Pokemon lay collapsed on the dry soil, all of them except for the Absol. The Absol stood alongside No.2, and together the two of them held the fossils and the CD. Another Absol – who Mel immediately realized was Repeat – crouched about midway between her and the Neo Rockets, not yet fainted but still injured. The Absol stole them, Mel thought, but it had to fight its way through Repeat first.
Dozer and the Exploud were also knocked out, and Hyacinth and Izzy knelt near them, and from how bruised and battered they were, Mel guessed they must have taken some blows too – but not without giving as good as they got, since all of the Neo Rockets themselves, save for No.2, were unconscious.
“The subject is awake,” No.2 said, and it was enough to make Mel jump; underneath No.2’s mask, she could feel… emotion. Barely-constrained rage, lighting No.2 up like a bonfire. But also… amusement? Is that what that is? “Well then, Subject Mel. I am pleased to see you,” No.2 continued, despite her emotions telling a different story. “Your… friends… here fought as hard as they could to protect you. However, it was pointless.” Her voice was still a careful monotone, even as her emotions boiled off of her. “I am the one left standing. And I have yet to exhaust all of my options.”
“Repeat,” Mel called. “Are you okay? Can you keep going?”
“Sorry, boss,” Repeat groaned. “They got me pretty good.”
No.2 extended her arms, a gray Pokeball in each hand. “It is just as well. You would not be able to stand up against this. Tell me, Subject Mel. I suppose you have figured out that brainwashing is a key part of our team’s formation.”
Mel grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes.
“Have you wondered how the act is done? How we remove memories? Erase emotions?” No.2 shook her head. “It is elegant, really. Allow me to demonstrate.” She tossed the two Pokeballs to the ground, and a Pokemon emerged from each of them.
The two Pokemon looked superficially similar – they were both only about a foot tall and they both floated in the air; their elfin bodies were blue-gray and they had a pair of slender tails each that ended in a red jewel. The only difference came in their heads: while they both had yet another red jewel in their foreheads, one had a pinkish-purple face and the other’s was yellow.
Mel knew what they were, though she’d never seen them in person before. How could she have? They were two of the guardians of Sinnoh – Uxie, the spirit of knowledge, and Mesprit, the spirit of emotion.
No.2 pointed a finger towards Mel. “Attack,” she said.
The two legendary Pokemon followed her command immediately, firing twin Signal Beams that struck Mel in the chest. She was thrown backwards and collided with the tree before slumping back down to the ground.
Mel’s vision began fading. She could hear voices at the edge of her consciousness, and she tried desperately to hold onto them, but they slipped away as soon as she processed them.
“Miss Rylan! Hold on!”
That’s Hyacinth.
“Hey! Boss! BOSS!”
And there’s Repeat…
“You must stay the course, Mel. Only you can do it!”
And that is… that is…
…the Mew-child?