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MEW-CHILD: Ch.6: Creature of Past and Future

by NonAnalogue

NonAnalogue Mel and Repeat find Professor Silktree, but the Tanoby Ruins grow ever more arcane.
Mel slapped a hand over her own mouth, the outburst unintentional, but it was too late. Every eye in the hallway was on her – Repeat, the two Rockets, the old man, the young woman, Hyacinth, plus an assortment of other minds Mel could feel in a vague way surrounding her. There goes the element of surprise, she thought, switching her flashlight back on.

"It appears our cover is blown," said Hyacinth, wholly unnecessarily. "Am I correct in assuming that you believe that one of the two Neo Rocket members before us is the missing Fuchsia gym leader? If so, then it would not be unfair to deduce that the Neo Rockets are engaging in some form of brainwashing."

The Neo Rocket shook her head. "There is no Janine. I am Neo Rocket No.8." Even as she said it, Mel could see her mulberry-colored hair curling out from under her cap, and her eyes, though dull and lifeless, were nevertheless still the purple Mel remembered. "Too many people are here. The odds are turning against us," No.8 added, angling her head towards her partner. "Orders, No.2?"

"Simple enough," said No.2. Her voice sounded familiar, and Mel struggled to remember why until No.2 slid up her sleeve and muttered "Prepare the ship" into her transceiver – she'd last heard her voice through a transceiver the night of the Venomoth Festival. "We execute Plan 18-Sigma. Disorient and disappear." Though No.2, just like all of the other Neo Rockets, wore a bandanna over her mouth, Mel could have sworn she was smiling – and just then, Mel felt in No.2's head a pressure, like something hidden away imperfectly struggling to break through.

"Understood." No.8 threw her Pokeball to the ground. A Venomoth appeared, one that Mel had seen countless times before, one that she knew when it was still a Venonat. Its eyes and mind were just as blank as its trainer's.

"I think you'll find," the elderly man croaked, "that we will be more than equal to your challenge. Isabella?"

His partner nodded and signed something furiously, her hands flying around each other too quickly for Mel to follow in the low light. She, too, opened a Pokeball; this one had inside it a creature that looked alarmingly like a pipe organ given life. Easily as tall as Hyacinth, the Pokemon opened its massive maw and let out a roar that Mel felt reverberating through her bones long after it finished.

Don't see many Exploud around these parts, Mel thought. Out loud, she said, "Wait! Hold on! Janine, you remember me at least, right?" Isabella fired a clenched-teeth scowl at her, but Mel held out a hand for her to wait a moment. "You promised to help me out if I needed it! Remember? At the festival?"

No.8 squinted at Mel, then glanced back at No.2, who shrugged. "No," she said.

Mel took a step closer. "But—"

That was as far as she got before the Venomoth let out a buzz, one that increased in pitch so quickly that Mel didn't even have time to register it. It was Bug Buzz, definitely, but it was much stronger than what Mel had come to expect from Janine's battles; it filled Mel's ears with infinite nails on infinite chalkboards, tormented shrieking banshees, screaming alarm bells. Pain flooded her mind – both from the emotions of everyone around her and because her own senses were shutting down. Through a haze that threatened to swallow her mind entirely, Mel saw an explosion of smoke ahead of them, where the Neo Rockets had been, and Isabella and her Exploud charging through it. Mel tried to follow, but her legs were filled with lead; she stumbled to the ground as the Bug Buzz faded away, leaving only a piercing ringing in her ears.

"Womwanna annawa wah?" Repeat asked.

"Come again?" Even just asking a question jabbed needles into Mel's head. She lay prone on the stone tiles that formed the floor. They were cold against her cheek, but a faint humming ran through them that kept them from being as soothing as they could have been. She lifted her head, but vertigo struck and the walls around her threw themselves into a spin cycle. She gently lowered herself back down. Not so bad when I don't move…

"Wom Janine annawa strong?" said Repeat again.

Mel reached out with a shaking hand. Repeat was within arm's reach and patted her gently; he, too, was on the ground, but that was less surprising for him. "I don't know if Janine was always that strong," she said. She could only barely understand her own words; answering Repeat's question required some guesswork. "I know gym leaders got that thing where they use different Pokemon depending on how many badges the trainer has. Maybe Janine was also really good at getting her Pokemon to pull their punches on weaker guys."

A pair of worn loafers, nearly obscured by a trench coat, stepped into Mel's field of vision. "Are you all right, Miss Rylan?" asked Hyacinth. Mel could almost hear them perfectly, now – the ringing was disappearing. "That Venomoth's attack was difficult to endure, but you seemed to take it harder than the rest of us. I suppose that must be a result of your, ah…" They shot a barely-perceptible glance towards the last remaining person in the hall – the old man. "Your ability, hm?" They lowered their voice and extended their hand, offering Mel help up. "Were you feeling the pain that the rest of us felt as well?"

"I don't much want to talk about it." Mel slowly rose to her feet without Hyacinth's help, a complex process that involved nearly falling over at least three times. Once upright, she wavered a little, her balance not immediately returning to her. "So, uh, what happened?"

"Young lady," the old man said, "What happened is that you and your friend scared off those criminals. You have my thanks." He looked small, but Mel realized that was mostly due to him being bent over almost double, leaning on an ornate polished oak cane for support. He wore a sturdy jacket and pants that hung loosely on his wiry frame, and a mane of powder-white hair exploded from his head like dandelion fluff. He squinted at Mel through glasses that magnified his already-wide eyes to almost cartoonish levels. "Though I've got faith in dear Isabella's abilities, she would have been outnumbered."

"Uh, sure." If he wants to see it that way, I'm not going to stop him. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be Silktree, would you?"

"Why, yes. Professor Silktree, at your service." Silktree attempted to bow, but couldn't bend much further than he already had. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Mel clapped her hands together, then immediately winced; even that noise was enough to put her head on edge. "We were looking for you," she said, gesturing to Repeat as he wound his way back up to her shoulder. He tapped the back of her neck knowingly. "Oh, right. Sorry. My name's Mel, and he's Repeat. Them over there, the one in the trench coat who's looking at the walls and pretending like they're not listening, that's Hyacinth. Nice to meet you. Look, Repeat and I need your help." She knew better than to spill her life story to a stranger, but her mouth was running on automatic; her brain was no more able to stop the words spilling out than a sponge could stop a Blastoise's Hydro Pump. "Janine, the gym leader, told us we needed to track you down, but then those Neo Rocket Guys got their grimy little hands on her, and now she's completely brainwashed or something. And there's this other group, a cult, calling themselves Genesis, and they're on my tail too."

Hyacinth had produced a pad of paper from one of their endless pockets and was diligently taking notes.

"Ugh, and Janine was right there, too!" Mel continued, clenching her fists. She wasn't really talking to Silktree anymore. The floodgates had fully opened, and they were going to stay open until she ran dry. "She was right in front of me! I'm such an idiot! I could have saved her! I could have saved her and brought her back and… and…!"

"Chief," Repeat said quietly. Hyacinth kept writing away, even though Mel was certain all they could understand was Repeat saying various permutations of "Ditto, Ditto." "It's all right. It'll be okay."

"Come on, Repeat! How can you say that?! How do you know how this'll go? What if that was our only chance to rescue Janine? What if she stays brainwashed forever because… because I…"

A fist slammed into a wall nearby, leaving an impressively-sized dent. Mel knew, logically, that it was probably because the ruins were old enough that the bricks had weakened, but it still shocked her into silence. The fist belonged to Isabella, and now Mel was able to get a better look at her. Isabella stood just as tall as Mel and had a runner's build, all lean muscle. Unlike the professor, her hiking outfit fit her perfectly; she was deeply tanned and her hair, reddish brown, was cut above her chin. In short, she looked to Mel like she spent most of her time outside. Her lantern was hooked to her backpack, and together with Silktree's lantern, they made Mel's flashlight almost redundant.

Isabella withdrew her fist, showing no sign of discomfort, and signed something furiously at Mel, leaning forward and gritting her teeth. Mel put her hands up. "Hold on, hold on," she said, "it's been a while since I last read sign, Isabella—"

"I. Z. Z. Y." The hand motions were slow and insultingly deliberate, and Mel realized that she'd never actually been spoken down to in sign language before. She wasn't a fan, she decided. "My name is Izzy," Izzy continued, her signs slower. "Only the professor calls me Isabella. I'm his assistant, after all. But you? No. All of this that's happened is your fault."

"…Is… my… fault…" whispered Mel, trying to keep up. She couldn't say anything in return; as soon as she'd finished parsing Izzy's words, translating them from the raw signs to sentences in her head, Izzy kept going.

"A single Venomoth?" Izzy asked, putting extra flair into the sign for Venomoth, a chimera of the signs for 'moth' and 'poison'. "Easy to handle. But you were a distraction. You stopped me. You scared them off. They set off a smoke bomb, and by the time I got through the smoke to get out of the ruins, they were already in their submarine. Off they went. I could have captured them. Kept them from doing anything else. But no."

"Now, now." Silktree's voice, soft-spoken and uneven though it was, cut through Izzy's tirade more thoroughly than Mel could have ever hoped to. He turned to Izzy, and from the way she focused on his mouth, her eyes almost burning a hole in his face, Mel realized she was reading his lips. "Isabella, nothing will be gained from browbeating her this way. Regardless of what you think, the facts are that those criminals are gone now, and we are all relatively unharmed." He stuck a finger in his ear and rubbed one of the inner ridges. "Even if it may take some time for our hearing to fully recover. Now… Mel, was it? You've told me that you had quite a road getting to me, but what did you need to find me for? I'm not exactly the life of the party these days," he added with a dry chuckle.

Mel took a deep breath, trying to ignore Izzy's penetrating glare. "We're trying to find the Mew-child."

Hyacinth's pen dropped from their hand, while Izzy snorted and rolled her eyes. Silktree, though, simply watched Mel, his eyes, magnified through his glasses, suddenly analytical and calculating. "It's funny you say that," he said. "In fact—"

Their lanterns went out.

Mel fumbled with her flashlight, but it too had been extinguished.

The darkness that surrounded them, impermeable, had weight to it, a soft yet unyielding pressure bearing down on them that felt like an anvil wrapped in a blanket.

The ruins watched them.

The bumps that were scattered across the walls lit up, each one a single eye.

Humming – or was it chanting? – echoed through the hall, quiet yet impossible to ignore. The eyes began moving, crawling across the walls and through the air around them. Mel could almost see shapes attached to them, rough outlines that looked like arcane symbols at first but gradually resolved into letters. The alien presence that had been lurking underneath all of the other minds in the ruins rose to the forefront, impossible to read.

"Unown," Mel whispered.

"That's right," Silktree whispered back. "The Unown in the Ruins of Alph recently became agitated. I came out here to see if it was happening here too. They began spelling words out to anyone in the ruins, like—"

MEW CHILD. The words hovered in the air, just barely visible in the darkness. The Unown shuffled themselves around, forming a different word next: FIND. Then PROTECT.

The Unown… that's what the psychic call I got said. Find and protect the Mew-child, Mel thought. Are these guys the ones who called me? "Where is the Mew-child? What do I need to do?" she asked, her voice clarion even over the clamoring of the Unown.

The next sentence had more words in it, and it took the Unown longer to wrangle enough of themselves in order. CREATURE OF PAST AND FUTURE.

"The Mew-child is? What does that mean?"

GATHER THAT WHICH HOLDS WITHIN ITSELF LIFE OF THE PAST. Mel could hear the sound of Hyacinth's pen scratching dutifully against their paper. GATHER THAT WHICH PUSHES ARTIFICIAL LIFE INTO THE FUTURE, the Unown continued. BRING THEM TO THE ISLE WHERE LIFE BEGINS. THERE THE MEW CHILD WILL BE FOUND.

The words disappeared, replaced only by a few punctuation-shaped Unown frantically rushing by. Then, like a movie ending, the light from the lanterns gradually faded back in, with no sign that anything unusual had happened.

"That seems to be that," wavered Silktree, a vaguely pleased look on his weathered features. "That's the most I've ever seen any Unown say. The ones in Johto only repeated 'Mew-child' and 'Tanoby' over and over again. It sounds to me like they had an answer for your question, though, Mel. If you're looking for the Mew-child, then I'd wager that following the steps the Unown laid out for you might be a good start. They're uncanny sometimes, these Pokemon."

Izzy's response was less measured. "I think you owe us an explanation," she signed, ice behind her narrowed eyes. "What is going on here?"

Mel looked to Repeat, who shrugged, and Hyacinth, who was too busy writing in their notes to notice. She sucked in air through her teeth, her mind racing to figure out all the angles. "Well," she eventually said, "it's like this…"

***

"So you're telling me," Izzy said, her hand motions sharp, "that not one, but two different groups are angling for this… make-believe fairy tale?"

Silktree held up a hand. "I scarcely think we can call the Mew-child a fairy tale, especially not after the display here today. It sounds to me like time is of the essence, Mel. I won't keep you any longer. Isabella? Shall we be off?"

"Wait." Izzy approached Mel, her footfalls heavy, and leaned in towards her. "From everything you've told us, if the Mew-child is real, then…"

Mel arched her eyebrows. "Then…?"

"Then if it's depending on you? It won't be alive for much longer." Izzy scowled, made a hand motion that Mel didn't recognize but suspected the worst about, and rejoined the professor, helping him slowly out of the ruins.

"Tch!" Mel sniffed. "She's something else, isn't she?"

"She's definitely some variety of pill, boss," Repeat said. "But more to the point, it really does sound like we shouldn't dawdle too long. What do you make of what the Unown said?"

"Not sure. Hey, Hyacinth!" called Mel. "Got a minute?"

Hyacinth pocketed their pencil and began flipping through the notepad. "For you, Miss Rylan? Certainly. With what do you require my assistance?"

"You were writing up a storm while all of… that was going on," Mel said, waving her arms in the air in a vain attempt to indicate the vastness of what had happened. "I know you've got some ideas about those things I'm supposed to gather. The things about past life and future life."

"As it happens," said Hyacinth, finding a specific page and tearing it out, "I do indeed. Here, I'll leave you with this."

Mel took the page before the words sunk in. "Huh? You're on your way out too?"

"Unfortunately so, as much as I would love to help you out more directly. My first priority is to my client, and I believe I've gathered quite a lot of information on Genesis and the Neo Rockets that my client will be interested in hearing. So I will bid you farewell for now, Miss Rylan. I do hope we encounter each other again." Hyacinth bowed and followed Isabella's path out.

Mel waved. "Looks like it's just the two of us again," she said once Hyacinth was gone.

"Just like old times, boss," said Repeat. "Or at least times earlier than today. What's in the note Hyacinth left?"

"Let's see." Mel unfolded the paper.

In tight, immaculate handwriting, Hyacinth had transcribed the entire message left by the Unown, and at the bottom, they'd added in some notes of their own: "Holds within life of the past = Pewter Museum? Could describe a fossil of some kind. Maybe a starting point. Pushes artificial life into the future = go to Silph Co. Could reference their work."

"That sounds as good a place to start as any," Repeat said.

"Then let's hit the road."
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