BestLizard
Junior Trainer
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Summary: This world doesn't have pokeballs, legendaries can speak human languages as well as pokespeak, and legendaries have their own roles.
Content Warning: I'm not trying to make something edgy, but people with active imaginations, watch out - there's a lot of implied gruesome deaths, body horror, gore, and blood. No disembowelment though.
Acknowledgments: I want to thank Fobbie (PMD: Once a Thief), Truebrush (PMD: Crux of the Self), and PunninOtter for beta reading!
A Garchomp rushes up a coarse dune with a woman holding onto his back. Cuts and bruises smear over the human’s body and the lenses of her glasses are cracked. Her lab coat and the clothing beneath it are torn apart and soiled with dirt and blood. Underneath the dragon’s arm is a thick glass vial. Mew jiggles around in its fluid, balled up and whimpering. The Pokemon following her, which includes an Electrode and Pangoro, are in no better shape, with wounds ranging from sears to rocks digging into patches of skin.
The ground trembles and dislodges. The landshark falls on his front, dropping the tube. Far behind them, a colossal abomination of a Pokemon approaches them and each step shakes the ground. Its body is a grotesque collage of oversized parts belonging to a wide assortment of many Pokemon: eyes of different shapes and colours dot its body all over, ears and mouths are placed just as haphazardly. Its skin is a patchwork of scales, feathers, and fur, and each limb is a different shape with deformed bones jutting out of their ends serving as claws. Colossal wings hang off its back like they are stapled on.
Many dragon- and flying-pokemon swirl around it, breathing fire or clawing its expansive surface. Its arms flail around like its swatting flies while moves of many types spew from its countless slavering maws.
Between the giant and runaway party, Mewtwo soars across the sands at a pace faster than the monstrosity behind him. The ground dragon scrambles to pick himself and Mew up to sprint away, but his pace still loses them ground. The professor swears under her breath. Mew shakes and holds her eyes tightly shut.
They charge over a tall hill and reach a gravel plateau. Twisted spires of steel reach above where industrial buildings once sat, each holding pieces of partly-collapsed rooftops. He dashes straight forward, heading underneath one such roof. The soft thuds of rocky steps of each Pokemon turn into heavy clangs at places where the floor changes to metal and resting scrap. They approach the opposite end.
“Stop. He’s here,” she says.
The whole team stops and turns to face their adversary arriving at the edge of the ruins. His eyes glow purple. The professor slides off the dragon’s back.
“Electrode, flank his left!” the professor says. She firms her stance and furrows her brow, focusing wholly on the levitating psychic. The electric ball sparks to life and rolls up in an arc, crackling intensely and basking the ruins in a yellow tint. Mewtwo slams the ball into the remaining wall to his right with his thoughts alone. The electricity dies.
The professor shouts over the quake of the chimera’s steps. “Pangoro, night slash!” As it runs forward it makes distinct gestures to the Garchomp; use dig behind the dark-type. He puts the vial down. Mew covers her eyes.
The panda bursts into a tall inferno, screaming and flailing. It’s a morbid distraction for the dragon to dive through the steel floor. The Pangoro rolls on the ground, moving out of the way. Mewtwo approaches the human with eyes still alight, clawed grip smoking. The human ducks and braces herself but the Garchomp bursts beneath his feet and slashes a deep cut across his face. Mewtwo yells, catching himself with psychic power just before he lands. Garchomp rears his wing for dragon claw, but he can’t swing. His whole body is locked up in invisible energy. A snapping sound in his neck rings out and he goes limp. The Pangoro stumbles out of the flame and falls down, eternally resting face down.
The professor flees, holding Mew beneath her arm. She nearly escapes the edge of the derelict factory. Mewtwo flings the Garchomp up above, the dragon’s corpse landing right on her. She yells, the vial flying out of her arm and smashing into the ground in many pieces. Mew flies upwards. The factory turns dark as the approaching chrimera’s size blocks the low fun.
The human writhes beneath the heavy pokemon. “Mew! Help me! I can still get you to safety!”
The smaller legendary stops near the roof. It wobbles with the intensifying tremors. She looks at her.
“Mew, come with us,” Mewtwo says.
“Seven chimeras!” the professor says. “Seven you made with her power. Not one was supposed to fall and now you’re scrambling cause we’ll take out the last one before you take out the Last City.” She laughs and uses both her arms to push against the large body. She doesn’t budge. “Mew won’t dare join you.”
Mewtwo’s focus stays on Mew. “Mew, come here.”
“Mew! He only wants to take advantage of you. Please help me, we can save the world!”
Mew looks between the two. Mewtwo offers a hand. “Don’t be deceived again. We’re close to our perfect world of perfect beings.”
“Mew!” the professor says. Her eyes stretch wide when she floats towards him. “Mew!?!”
Mewtwo begins floating up to meet her.
“Mew! Think about all the suffering he caused!”
Mew stops and looks back at the professor. Mewtwo reaches her and offers a hand. “I need you.”
She hesitates.
She takes his hand.
“Mew! No!” the professor says. She bites her lips and trembles. Tears run down her eyes.
“...Use self-destruct!”
An explosion makes everyone’s ears ring while lurching metal groans. The roof collapses.
Mewtwo wakes to clanging metal above him. Nothing can be seen but he feels intense pain crush his leg. He projects psychic energy above but not only is the weight too great, but the agony saps too much focus. He bangs his fist on the ground. “Mew? My Child? Is anyone there?!” he shouts.
Light breaks above shortly afterward as the tip of the chimera's mangled claw pulls away debris. The chrimera is ducking on one knee, looking down at him. Every mouth moves at once to speak, creating a cacophony of masculine, feminine, shrillish, and low voices. “Father?” it asks. The earth quivers when it speaks.
Mewtwo floats up, brushing loose rocks off of him. “Where’s Mew?”
It sweeps its claw in a circle over the debris field. She’s still buried under piles of concrete and twisted wire. It glows purple as Mewtwo strains himself to peel apart layers of stone. A few concrete blocks in, a pink Pokemon drenched in dust is exposed, pinned underneath a red girder.
“Mew!” Mewtwo shouts. He hovers the bar up and pulls Mew from underneath with his own hands. Ugly brown and purple marks stretch across her middle and her chest rises and falls in uneven gasps. Her eyes are closed. Mewtwo puts his head against her chest and hears a steady heartbeat.
“Is mother okay?” the chimera asks behind him. “What do we do about the plan?”
“She can’t create new life like this, but I should be able to find and use a Pokemon Center. She’ll be okay. Go ahead with the plan. You still know the way to the Last City?”
“Yeah. I’ll head there now. Keep her safe.”
“I will, I promise. Take out the trainers who attacked you on the way”
The monster gets back up and nods. It turns around. Mewtwo floats the other way, clearing the edge of the ruins.
“So much for your perfect world, eh?” the human says behind him between heavy breaths, barely holding onto life. The debris missed her.
Mewtwo’s hand lifts up and clenches it. His eyes, fist, and the human glow a strong purple. The professor screams but the brightness is too much for Mewtwo to see what he’s doing to her. Seconds pass and the screams stop. A minute later he stops, the glowing trailing off. What remains isn’t recognizable.
Mewtwo doesn’t unclench his fist. He pulls away and flies towards the nearest city.
The landscapes they pass on the way are appalling: fields of fine ashen dust, forests of charcoal, lakes of red and yellow, fields blanketed by clouds of smoke, wide scars in the earth, hills frozen in ice. Craters in the shape of malformed claws are stamped everywhere. When the sun goes down, the chemicals of the chimera's poison attacks blush the sky in a violent red, tinting the sheen of the stars. Corpses of pokemon and humans litter the landscape, piled over and under the destruction. It's silent everywhere save for passing wind and crackling flame. Not a soul lives.
The city is worse. All buildings are leveled to rubble and many blocks are coated with hardened lava, encased in thick ice, blackened by electricity, filled with dispersing poison clouds - every type of damage a Pokemon can do has been inflicted on a large scale. Human and Pokemon bodies lie in the streets, mangled so horrendously that their species can’t be made out. The wreckage makes the red band of the Pokemon center pop out. He hovers there with Mew cradled in his arm and throws concrete slabs away until the insides are exposed. The Center’s machines are crushed.
He growls. “Soon, Mew.”
Her eyes struggle to stay half-open. The brown discolouration has spread across her front.
They fly out to the next city, still not meeting anyone still-living throughout sunrise. When they arrive at the next city, he doesn’t find the remains of a Pokemon Center, despite it being large enough for three. Skyscrapers lie on their side with whole faces charred. Smoke rises in many spots, blotting the sun. Many lying corpses pile up, but none move.
Mewtwo looks down at the smaller psychic and smiles. “Our children did really well, didn’t they?” She smiles back and opens her mouth to speak but a coughing fit takes over. “You don’t have to say anything! You did well. Just lay back and rest, okay?”
Mew nestles into his arms and falls asleep. Her chest still rises and falls heavily. Mewtwo sighs and flies away.
They cut through the region’s desert. Its yellow sands mix with black ash that contrasts the now-setting sun, but the destruction is light as there is little to be destroyed. The few dead creatures they find stick out of the sand in odd, uncanny spots. Mewtwo floats past an out-of-pace Audino lying down flat, still intact. He pokes its side.
“Hey. You alive? We could use your help,” he says in pokespeak. It doesn’t respond. Psychic energy starts turning it on its side, but after seeing a glimpse of what’s underneath, it's dropped. He carries on as the moon rises, distracting himself with thoughts of being with Mew.
After a while, the next location comes into view, cradled between two cold mountains. It was harder for his child to flatten so some buildings remain tall, although with edges roughened and torn. A chilly mist pools in the streets that preserve the corpses. Every face on them is frenzied and terrified. A Pokemon Center lies on the first floor of a tower toppled at its midway point. The entrance is submerged in the frost. Mewtwo clenches a fist, focuses his mind, and combusts the air in front of him, dropping the mist to water. They enter.
It is dark inside without any lights on, but just enough light shines through to show the rows of people and Pokemon frozen in poses of despair and defeat against the wall. Many are hugging their loved ones. The ceiling is tattered and odd bits of debris lie around the floors but the small-mon healing station remains. Mewtwo has a sigh of relief and shatters the nurse still clutching it. He cradles Mew in a small healing bed. Her torso is more red and brown than pink and her eyes are bloodshot. The power cord is slashed with a psychic cut and gripping the wirey end, he channels flashing bolts into it. The screen and bed of the machine blare alight and a dinging sound follows. Never letting go of the wire, he hovers to the front monitor and presses buttons. The bed lights up in a comforting light.
The screen turns red. “Recovery complete. Warning: Pokemon has intense internal trauma. Please call emergency services immediately or contact the on-site professor if present.”
The wire flops onto the floor and the screen goes black. Mewtwo leans over the top. Her short fur is a healthy hue without a blemish, but her breath is still heavy. She slowly reaches a limb out to Mewtwo, eyes tearful.
He picks her up and traces his bulbous fingers over her belly. Mew winces. The surface is uneven.
“Seems like these machines can’t heal whatever damage was done inside. We’ll go to the last city, we might be able to catch a professor before our child finishes everything.” Mewtwo says.
Mew doesn’t respond.
His forehead presses against her’s. “Keep hanging in there, okay?” He takes a deep breath and floats out with her, flying into the sky. They head north.
Day breaks once more but the overcast sky doesn’t brighten the blackened forest they pass. Twisting pyres rise to the sky, mixing orange as the landscape of black below and blue above. They follow the footsteps of their behemoth child. The smell of crisp charcoal is overwhelming.
There is a pinch of green in the distance, miraculously surviving. He zooms up to it. A tree has fallen partly over a dark, muddy river. A Venasaur and an unrecognizable pokemon are wedged between the log and the shore. A yellow, hour-glass shaped fruit with a fatter bottom hangs from a branch, flecks of ash sticking to the surface. The psychic brushes it off with a hand and picks it. He holds it close to the life-giving Pokemon.. “Here you go.”
The smaller psychic reaches her head out and nibbles. She’s slowly chewing and swallowing, and she makes a pained expression when she swallows. He waits as long as it takes for her to inch away at the healing fruit.
A stinging sensation on his back makes him seethe. He looks up: the clouds are now a shade away from black. Pink-purple hexagons summon around him in a sphere. Miniscule drops splashes above the barrier. He designed one of the chrimeras to acidify the world’s water. It both took care of all water-types and evaporated into the sky to rain down on any Pokemon his children missed. A new legendary later would clean it. He huddles Mew closer to his body and flies around looking for shelter. Raindrops accumulate and soon the forest is basked in hazy yellow spray. Everything hisses around him and the air is a powerful, pungent smell. He finds a small ditch underneath the large trunk of a fallen tree. The psychics rest under there.
The sounds of raindrops and melting wood soothes Mewtwo as he resumes feeding her. “We’ll find you a doctor. You’ll be healed.” Mewtwo says, unsure who he’s comforting. “Just remember our goal. It's right in sight. A perfect world of perfect beings.” He huddles her closer to his body. “Beings who won’t hurt or betray us.”
Mew’s stubby arm brushes against his torso. The corners of her mouth turn up. He returns the gesture. She grabs the sitrus berry out of his hand by her and she slowly bites more into it. Mewtwo leans his head back against the dirt wall. His eyes close.
A fetid smell fills his nostrils. He wakes up and clasps a hand over his muzzle.
The environment outside is unrecognizable. Land, trees, pools, and carcasses twirl into each other without a clear start and end. All of it is coated in a lemon-y colour. Anything not on the ground droops down as if melting. A thick fog hangs in the air, seeping into their burrow. It stings to breathe it.
Mewtwo projects his barrier again, flushing out the miasma. He looks to Mew sleeping in his lap. Her breath still comes in awkward pants. A sitrus berry core lies beside her.
He remembers he was on their way to find a doctor before his child kills them all. He must have passed out from lack of sleep.
His teeth gnash. His child likely would have killed everyone by now. The acid rain may have even caught up to the city. He flies out of the burrow, hugging Mew against his body. The cloud cover is pierced and he jets towards the remnants of humanity. Long stretches of dark clouds lie in their way.
Hours pass, and they escape the storm’s crawl. The broken skyline of the Last City scratches the valley horizon. Smoke rises and fumes over the ocean with the wind. Cutting through the carnage, the colossal body of his child lies on its side.
“My child!” He flies close to the ground and passes the still-consuming destruction of its varied powers. The mineral scent of iron is rich in the air; pools of blood rest under piles of human and mon corpses. The puddles become a wide, shallow pool as they approach the kaiju.
Swathes of hide are torched black. Cuts leaking blood slather everywhere, one in his neck spilling a river of blood. Mewtwo approaches a large, pitch black Corviknight beak near him sitting beneath a giant, closed eye. It breathes lightly, its breath heavy with the smell of rot. He places his hand on the beak. All its different-coloured eyes open. Many roll towards him.
“What happened?” Mewtwo asks.
“They all fought valiantly, working together. They wounded me everywhere. And they won’t heal. These cuts won’t close. It hurts,” It responds in its multiple voices. The ground rattles with each word. “I don’t think I’ll make it, father.”
He strokes the beak. It continues. “But, I got them all. We did it. We can make a perfect world now. Is mother better?”
Mewtwo angles Mew so it can see her. “Better, but not good enough just yet to use her power. We think something here can help.”
“You’ll work it out,” it says. It coughs. Debris around each of its mouths, including the pile of twisted cars behind Mewtwo, blow away. His thin fur combs over. “You’re amazing. You always figure something out.”
Mewtwo doesn’t respond. It breathes in as much air as it can between coughs. The colours around its throat go pale.
“Father. Did I do well?” It wheezes.
“My child, you have gone beyond my expectations. You did so well. I’m so proud,” Mewtwo says. Tears well. “You’re mother’s proud too. But you’re not done yet. You have to survive.”
Its eyes close up. “I can’t.”
“You can! Focus on breathing, don’t let the pain overwhelm you! We can be together now! You’ve earned it!”
“Father, it’s okay. I think I’m happy just resting.”
Mewtwo rests his forehead on his beak. “Child. Please, don’t leave me alone. We can be together.” Mew’s arm strokes against the beak.
“You won’t be alone. You’ll create more of us, remember? We’ll be there for you. Forever.”
“My child…”
It takes a large breath. Its eyes seize up in pain. Tears well up in many spots. “I think I can see my siblings.”
Mewtwo’s muscles tense. He pushes his head against the beak. “Please stay with us!” he shouts.
“They’re calling to me. They want me to be with them again. They’re reaching an arm out to me.” Its arm twitches upward. Its eyes dilate. “Father, mother, I love you so much. I’ll miss you.”
He takes a deep breath. “I love you too. So much”
Mew coughs, failing to speak. Her eyes are wet too.
Heavy globs of water fall from the behemoth’s eyes. They form puddles in the cracked concrete. Its eyes roll away and go glassy. Mewtwo keeps his forehead pressed against it. He bites his teeth, fighting back more tears from running down his cheek.
“Mew. We’ll find someone still in this city. It was a close battle. He may have missed one. Then we’ll have a family again soon. I promise Mew. Soon. Our perfect world. I promise, I promise…”
He takes his time to breathe and steady his emotion. A far-off thunderclap of the approaching acid storm returns a sense of urgency to him. He gets away from the child and flies around the destruction. A few fruitless hours traveling down streets and invading buildings, showers begin and concrete sizzles. One more hour of searching and the storm arrives, melting rubble and bringing down every still-standing structure. Anybody alive would be dead. He gives up with an uneasy heart and heads south.
They spend very few days traveling across the continent and stopping by every city and town. A few have been consumed by acid rain, the chemical more potent than Mewtwo expected. Every body still intact he finds is cold and immobile. There are a lot of them.
They pass the quarry field once more. Mewtwo spots the crumbled remains of the building that crushed them. The Garchomp and the lumpy bag of skin beneath him still remain.
“Hey!” He shouts to the corpse. “Why’d you do that?” A rock flies to the carcass, embedding into it. “You make a big speech about surviving. A professor, aren’t ya? You could be healing her and we wouldn’t have to worry about all life ending. Why’d you die on me!?”
His angry expression morphs into confusion. He flies off after a few seconds.
More days later, they reach the final city in the south. It's been nine days since Mew was injured and they still can’t find anybody. They have been quenching themselves by melting glaciers left behind from their child’s ice attacks, but food is scarce. Only two trees on the way had berries hanging and unsoiled by toxins. Mewtwo’s stomach is growling, and he knows Mew needs food even more. Her colour has become lighter.
Instead of finding humans first, he searches for buildings resembling supermarkets or grocery stores. It’s difficult - the wreckage buries structures, and most interiors are destroyed. The only hope the psychic-type finds after many hours is a long building half-standing at the edge of the city. Rough, cooled lava spills out of its doors and windows but holes in the roof serve as an entrance just fine. They enter.
The shelves are buried inside the igneous rock save for the few top shelves. Their shape is disfigured from partially melting. Most packaged goods have crumbled into a charred mess or in the case of cans, exploded. But some cans of beans at the far end of an aisle remain, where the rough, round rock ends.
Mewtwo carries some with psychic energy to the corner. He pulls aside the blackened bodies of doomed life to set Mew against the wall. He sits down by her. The lid of the can blow off and he lights the bottom of the can. Once cooked, beans levitate her way and float near her, letting her eat at her own pace. He feeds himself the same way. They eat side-by-side.
A hole above lets a ray of light shine on them. Dark dust particles dance around in its radiance, and it's warm on his skin. The smaller psychic shuffles against him and uses her own psychic power to carry more food to herself. The larger psychic’s head leans back and closes his eyes. It's silent. No human interrupts this.
He has a dream of crawling through a junkyard. Every manner of debris and litter lie around, piling higher than mountains. No matter how far he crawls, he can’t find anybody. Not even corpses or skeletons. Not even Mew.
A giant, white, four-legged Pokemon watches down on him from beyond the atmosphere the entire time.
Mewtwo wakes up. Red stars glitter through the hole above. Mew’s sleeping with her head resting against his side. He levitates her into his arms while the remaining cans of food bundle into a purple bubble that stays near him. He flies through the ceiling.
In the distance are rumbling clouds - more acid rain is coming. He gets to work examining each human and the rare Audino, Chansey, or Blissey, hoping each time the one he finds will be clinging onto life. Street-by-street he travels, brushing debris aside if needed. They’re all the same - discoloured and carrying a nauseating smell. They’re rotting.
One human he comes across lies face down. She wears a lab coat torn at the bottom where her legs are missing. In front of them lies a Machamp with bloody hands. They rest at the end of a dried blood streak trailing from a collapsed house.
Mewtwo prods her shoulder. “Hey, we need your help.”
The doctor doesn’t respond.
“Please. Mew is seriously injured. She needs a doctor or professor to look into her.”
The dead doctor doesn’t respond. Mewtwo gets on his knees and shakes his shoulder.
“There’s nobody else left. I’ll spare you, just please don’t leave us alone.”
Silence. Mewtwo rubs his forehead, realizing how dumb it is to believe she may still be alive.
Mew pokes him with a weak force. She’s pointing up. He’s been so focused looking at corpses on the ground that he never saw clouds cover the sky above him. It’s time to go. He forms a barrier and breaks through the cloud cover.
Every settlement has been checked. The more time they spend finding a living doctor, the more cities will be destroyed by acid rain. Mewtwo reasons exploring the desert a continent over is their best bet.
“Hold on Mew. This will take just as long as last time.”
He flies over the ocean.
Two days later, they arrive at the shore of the next continent. More toxins in the sky above than the last one and the day sky is a faded purple. Mountains with untouched snow caps dot the land inwards. Mewtwo flies up the slope, enjoying the cold air.
He melts the ice for both of them, and carries out more canned food for Mew to whittle away. She’s slower to eat than before, so he helps feed her while moving to the ridge connecting two mountains. He plans to survey the land but after reaching the top, there isn’t much to survey. A hot, wavering desert is blanketed in thick purple haze stretching to the horizon. This is another chimera’s doing, built to deal with wide areas with low human population. Everyone in this desert is dead.
The Smog doesn’t reach the shore, although no forests or towns are in sight in either direction of the coastline. They rest for the day.
They spend many days hovering past stretches of beaches brimming with beached water-types. The sounds of crashing waves and roaring wind join them with every step. Each forest they come across is burned down or washed in acid. One flattened port city they come across is buried under the sands, while another village barely outside the miasma has no consumable food. Only three cans of their supplies remain. Mewtwo cuts out meals so Mew can have more and they’ve both become thin. They approach a huge forest with patches of green trees still standing, between many charred ones. Mewtwo wonders if they’re the last green trees remaining in the world, fortunate enough to not receive rain.
The whole day, he examines every living bush and tree, taking every berry he can. Oran and Sitrus pickings provide a sweet relief from the worsening smell of rotting grass-types. He feeds them to himself and Mew immediately, knowing they’ll spoil fast.
They come across a river. Its current is still clean other than ashes swimming with it. Traveling up it, they come across a starving man lying on the shore. He cups and drinks water with one hand. A leg twists in more than one place and his ripped clothes expose charred, lumpy skin. His breathing is faint.
“Hey! We need your help! Can you heal Pokemon?” Mewtwo asks. The stranger doesn’t look. The psychic grabs his forearm. “Please, we can help you if you help us”
The man tilts his head enough to see Mewtwo. He scowls and smacks his arm away. His breath deepens. He turns away and goes back to drinking..
“Please, it must be so lonely. We can work together,” Mewtwo says.
He ignores him.
Mewtwo gets on his knee, lowering his head enough to look to the side of his face. “Don’t you at least want company? I haven’t seen anybody in about two weeks.”
The survivor tosses water into his face, A grin stretches over his lips. “You did all this.” he laughs, rolling onto his back. The pair stares until he calms. His head rolls to them one last time. “Go kill yourself!”
The two hover away into the thick foliage. Behind them, the cackling is louder and interrupted by occasional coughs.
There aren’t many berries left, but there’s enough to fill them both up and have some left over.
Those berries last six days. They pass the dry region, but the poison fog remains inland. Mewtwo’s pace has slowed to a human’s brisk walk due to hunger, but he keeps heading towards where he knows the next big human population must be. They pass over clouds of rain. Whenever they don’t, the land is abysmal: its smooth, wavy, and a nauseating shade of yellow. Chunks of jumbled land droop down slopes, mounds form where trees would have been, and the horrid fumes take their sense of smell. There isn’t a single corpse; they have dissolved away.
Between each of the days, Mewtwo has recurring nightmares. It's the same field of garbage, dwindling each dream. Eventually, it’s an empty bed of sand, the only thing to look at being the heavenly Pokemon larger than the Earth above him. Without words, they tell him You’re running out of time.
Another morning comes and goes. Their last can of food remains. Both their cheeks have hollowed out from hunger. He levitates mushy beans towards Mew, whose hue is a pale white. Her breathing has become constant wheezing. She brushes the food aside and points to the larger Psychic's muzzle.
He shakes his head. “No Mew, you need it more than me. Take it. I can keep going.”
Her arm flops. She gingerly nibbles a bite and takes minutes to chew and swallow. Mewtwo’s patience never wavers.
“There’s one more city nearby. Lancaster City. It’s where we first met. Remember how huge it was? If there are any more survivors, they must be there. And they must be a professor. They must be… We can even invite them to our family, if they save her.”
Mew nibbles her next bite. Mewtwo looks at her. “Just keep thinking of the family we’ll have. We’ll be surrounded by them, exploring the world, playing around, and creating new things. We’ll be happy. Just a little bit longer.” He winces his eyes, fighting tears again. “And we’ll have all the time in the world to be together.”
Another night passes. Or two. Three? Day and night have become the different brightnesses of crimson. The pit in his stomach makes everything excruciating. He wants to walk but the layer of acid stops him. Each night he slowly digs out enough dirt with his mind to reach safe earth. Most ice attacks left behind are melting to less than a meter, and are coated with a layer of acid. He has to blast through it to reach clean water, which never quenches him. And despite how light Mew is, he starts using his own power to keep his arms held up.
Mew’s front has become red again. She spends more time asleep than awake.
There are pits in the mushy land, sized smaller than chimera tracks. He follows them. “Just keep holding onto thoughts of a new family. We’ll meet them again. We’ll meet them again. We’ll meet them again.” He keeps this mantra up until the city is in view. He pushes himself to keep reaching it, but afraid of collapsing into the acid, he digs out one more ditch for them.
The next morning they finally reach Lancaster City, which is no longer a megalopolis. Sides of towering buildings are coated in mustard, their edges worn away to create tall, round spires. Tears droop on their faces. Everything else is flat mush. It looks edible.
Mewtwo carefully pulls out a hole in the side of a building with his remaining psychic strength. Inside looks more “normal”, resembling a charred and damaged apartment. Human and Pokemon skeletons remain inside, with piles of dirt beneath them.
He explores every room of the apartment, for every apartment on the floor. Then the next, then the next. Once the floor’s done, he goes up. “Is anyone there? We won’t harm you!” he shouts. No response.
He moves into the next room and finds a familiar, red sigil. The branding of the criminal team that made them. He’s stuck staring at it for a couple of minutes. “Have I ever told you about when I first met you?” he asks idly. Mew’s eyes open half-way, but she’s too weak to gesture. “I woke up for the first time in my life, in a vat of blue liquid. I was terrified. I was alive and I’d never been before. I had all this knowledge planted in my head and none of it told me what will happen next. But then I saw your eyes staring at me. They were bright and vibrant. A deep blue.
“I couldn’t stop looking at them.
“And when they took you away, I didn’t stop thinking about them. They were calming. I kept thinking of them throughout the tests they did me through. I knew enduring the pain would be worth it if I saw them again.” Mewtwo looks down at her. Her eyes are now more red than white. They lock onto his own eyes. “They still give me strength.”
Mewtwo keeps searching every floor of the apartment in silence. One room he comes across has an arrangement of skeletons lying on a rotted mattress. Two large humans cradle a child between them while a Vaporeon skeleton curls up around the bones of an Eevee. Tears fall down his cheeks and he leaves without searching further.
More stories further up, the far walls become more distorted and holes poke through. Yellow drips down from the ceiling. He brushes some aluminum sheets left on the ground. A box of nutrition. Mewtwo bows his head and mutters “oh Arceus…” The whole box levitates. He blasts a hole in the wall and heads out.
It's cold outside. The night sky is a deep blood-red colour glimmering with thousands of stars. The moon is full and a serene shade of pink. From this height, the shore can be seen past a tall hill. The remains of a chimera stand in the ocean past that. He floats towards it.
Its skeleton remains standing without its arm, appearing hunched over. Its bones twist and melt into each other making a convoluted mess that suspends chunks of meat and flesh. Melted eyes stretch down from ribs, its only distinguishable body parts.
Mewtwo stops at the edge of the hill where it becomes a steep drop into a deep-red sea. Roaring waves smash against the cliff-face below. Mewtwo strains himself, ripping out soiled ground until he exposes dark dirt at the bottom of the crater. He pants and hovers down, sitting in the presence of a fallen child.
He sets Mew carefully on the ground beside him. Her breath can barely be heard and her chest rises and falls. He unwraps the bar. He places it on Mew’s lips.
Her mouth opens and she slides it into the corner of her mouth. But she doesn’t bite.
“It’s okay Mew. Take a bite. You need to eat.”
Her facial muscles tense briefly.
Mewtwo reaches his other hand to her chin and pushes up, making her bite the tip.
Her mouth opens and closes. Bits of food roll helplessly around her teeth. She attempts swallowing, but her eyes widen and she weakly coughs. Mewtwo tilts her head to the side and crumbs fall out of her mouth.
“No…” Mewtwo says. He rolls onto his knees. “No… Mew… Mew… We’re this close to finding a human. You just need to eat. We’ll get through this.” He takes a deep breath. His eyes become warm. A drop of water falls onto Mew. “You can eat, right?”
Her eyes glisten. She makes a single twitch to shake her head. No.
“No, no, no. Please no…” He lurches onto his fours and grips the earth in his fists. His breath wobbles. “I’m sorry. I was going to make a perfect world for you. You’d never be hurt and we’d always be together. I failed you! I, I, I-” sobs take over his words. He bows his head as tears flow, splattering on the ground by Mew.
“Mewtwo,” Mew says. Her voice is raspy and quiet. Mewtwo opens his and stares into her own eyes. Tears still roll down his cheeks. “This world is perfect. It has you. And I got to be with you, up to the very end.”
“Mew… Mew… Mew…” He stutters. “It’s not the end. It can’t be. You just need to eat. Here,”
Mewtwo puts the bar in her mouth again.
“Just one more day. That’s all we need. Food can survive here, someone can be alive.”
He lifts her chin to let her bite it again.
“Please Mew, you need to eat.”
He puts the bar away and moves Mew’s jaw. The food grinds inside her maw.
“Can you still swallow?”
He waits.
“Why aren’t you moving, Mew?”
He lets go of her jaw. The chin hangs lopsided. Crumbs trickle out of her teeth.
The larger psychic presses his forehead against her body. “Please don’t leave me Mew, I don’t have anybody else.” He waits patiently for a reply that never comes.
He wails, straining his lungs. He falls onto his side. His face turns red as more water flows.
“Mew, I’m so sorry. Please come back to me. I love you. I… I…”
His head feels light. He grips his head and tries to take breath in but it's uneven and forced as he can’t hold his sobs back. Nothing more is said until he stabilizes his breath. He picks up Mew and holds her close to her body with both arms.
“I’m sorry…” he whispers.
A large crashing sound interrupts. The colossal structure of their child crumbles, falling towards them. The waves boom against the rocks below them while the wind howls, nearly blowing him back. He feels a force tugging his body. He turns around.
Arceus stands above them. Their legs steady themselves beyond the horizon. The red haze of the atmosphere casts a gradient over their figure. The sun illuminates half of them in a blinding light, the other half disappearing into the darkness of the night sky. The melted towers of the city bow towards the creator in the pull of their massive gravity.
Mewtwo crawls back in panic. He blinks rapidly but the mighty god in front of him stays, its long hair slowly swaying in the vacuum of space. The red iris and black pupil exposed in the light shifts to look at the psychic. Once Mewtwo knows his senses don’t betray him, he rushes onto his feet and holds Mew up above his head with both arms, as if an offering,
“Arceus! Save Mew! That must be why you’re here!” Mewtwo shouts with all the air in his lungs, in spite of the pain. He understands their response:
Numerous pillars of light blare into existence and sporadically pass the horizon in all directions. Their intensity makes Mewtwo wince. The sky turns to a stronger purple hue than during the day. The brilliance of the Arceus’s white fur shine makes their form uncertain.
The pillars expand in size.
“No!” Mewtwo shouts. His arms shake as he holds Mew’s corpse. He collapses onto his knees. “We can start life again if you save Mew! Please Arceus, don’t let this all be in vain!” He crawls forwards on his knees, reaching the edge of the crater. His eyes water from the overwhelming light. “Have you not created us for a reason?”
Arceus says nothing.
Mew shakes in his unsteady grip. “Will you create a new world, at least? We’ll be together in that one, won’t we?” He shuffles onto the yellow acid, screaming and crying in pain as his skin and thin fur dissolves, yet he inches towards god. “I love her! Please! Give us another chance!”
They bow their head and close their eyes. A tear pools in their eye.
Mewtwo’s left shaking. A heavier wave of tears floods from him.
Arceus begins turning around.
“No! Don’t leave” he shouts. He shuffles forward but falls onto his face. He shrieks as caustic chemicals smear his front. Mew falls into a shallow pool, melting away. Arceus’ back is turned to him. They walk into the depths of space. He toughs through the pain, picking Mew’s half-melted body up once more. Acid drips off of her.
Between his anguished screams, Mewtwo continues. “Give her another chance then! I’ll do anything it takes! Take away my power! Take away my love! Take my life away! But please, Arceus, give her a perfect world!”
Arceus is distant enough to be no larger than the sun. Mewtwo’s legs fail and the two lie in the shallow acid. The approaching light takes Mewtwo’s size but he begins to feel their heat.
“Please, anything for her…”
They wash over him.
A tapping sound wakes Mewtwo up. His eyes burst open as he looks down and over his body floating in a vat of light blue liquid in panic. He dives deep into his mind, sorting through his planted knowledge to find no memories. He is created life.
He looks back up. Rich blue eyes peer at him through the glass.
He looks away in annoyance.
Mew presses a hand against the glass and smiles, staring with fascinated eyes, happy to find company. Mewtwo will never know this feeling again.
Content Warning: I'm not trying to make something edgy, but people with active imaginations, watch out - there's a lot of implied gruesome deaths, body horror, gore, and blood. No disembowelment though.
Acknowledgments: I want to thank Fobbie (PMD: Once a Thief), Truebrush (PMD: Crux of the Self), and PunninOtter for beta reading!
A Perfect World
A Garchomp rushes up a coarse dune with a woman holding onto his back. Cuts and bruises smear over the human’s body and the lenses of her glasses are cracked. Her lab coat and the clothing beneath it are torn apart and soiled with dirt and blood. Underneath the dragon’s arm is a thick glass vial. Mew jiggles around in its fluid, balled up and whimpering. The Pokemon following her, which includes an Electrode and Pangoro, are in no better shape, with wounds ranging from sears to rocks digging into patches of skin.
The ground trembles and dislodges. The landshark falls on his front, dropping the tube. Far behind them, a colossal abomination of a Pokemon approaches them and each step shakes the ground. Its body is a grotesque collage of oversized parts belonging to a wide assortment of many Pokemon: eyes of different shapes and colours dot its body all over, ears and mouths are placed just as haphazardly. Its skin is a patchwork of scales, feathers, and fur, and each limb is a different shape with deformed bones jutting out of their ends serving as claws. Colossal wings hang off its back like they are stapled on.
Many dragon- and flying-pokemon swirl around it, breathing fire or clawing its expansive surface. Its arms flail around like its swatting flies while moves of many types spew from its countless slavering maws.
Between the giant and runaway party, Mewtwo soars across the sands at a pace faster than the monstrosity behind him. The ground dragon scrambles to pick himself and Mew up to sprint away, but his pace still loses them ground. The professor swears under her breath. Mew shakes and holds her eyes tightly shut.
They charge over a tall hill and reach a gravel plateau. Twisted spires of steel reach above where industrial buildings once sat, each holding pieces of partly-collapsed rooftops. He dashes straight forward, heading underneath one such roof. The soft thuds of rocky steps of each Pokemon turn into heavy clangs at places where the floor changes to metal and resting scrap. They approach the opposite end.
“Stop. He’s here,” she says.
The whole team stops and turns to face their adversary arriving at the edge of the ruins. His eyes glow purple. The professor slides off the dragon’s back.
“Electrode, flank his left!” the professor says. She firms her stance and furrows her brow, focusing wholly on the levitating psychic. The electric ball sparks to life and rolls up in an arc, crackling intensely and basking the ruins in a yellow tint. Mewtwo slams the ball into the remaining wall to his right with his thoughts alone. The electricity dies.
The professor shouts over the quake of the chimera’s steps. “Pangoro, night slash!” As it runs forward it makes distinct gestures to the Garchomp; use dig behind the dark-type. He puts the vial down. Mew covers her eyes.
The panda bursts into a tall inferno, screaming and flailing. It’s a morbid distraction for the dragon to dive through the steel floor. The Pangoro rolls on the ground, moving out of the way. Mewtwo approaches the human with eyes still alight, clawed grip smoking. The human ducks and braces herself but the Garchomp bursts beneath his feet and slashes a deep cut across his face. Mewtwo yells, catching himself with psychic power just before he lands. Garchomp rears his wing for dragon claw, but he can’t swing. His whole body is locked up in invisible energy. A snapping sound in his neck rings out and he goes limp. The Pangoro stumbles out of the flame and falls down, eternally resting face down.
The professor flees, holding Mew beneath her arm. She nearly escapes the edge of the derelict factory. Mewtwo flings the Garchomp up above, the dragon’s corpse landing right on her. She yells, the vial flying out of her arm and smashing into the ground in many pieces. Mew flies upwards. The factory turns dark as the approaching chrimera’s size blocks the low fun.
The human writhes beneath the heavy pokemon. “Mew! Help me! I can still get you to safety!”
The smaller legendary stops near the roof. It wobbles with the intensifying tremors. She looks at her.
“Mew, come with us,” Mewtwo says.
“Seven chimeras!” the professor says. “Seven you made with her power. Not one was supposed to fall and now you’re scrambling cause we’ll take out the last one before you take out the Last City.” She laughs and uses both her arms to push against the large body. She doesn’t budge. “Mew won’t dare join you.”
Mewtwo’s focus stays on Mew. “Mew, come here.”
“Mew! He only wants to take advantage of you. Please help me, we can save the world!”
Mew looks between the two. Mewtwo offers a hand. “Don’t be deceived again. We’re close to our perfect world of perfect beings.”
“Mew!” the professor says. Her eyes stretch wide when she floats towards him. “Mew!?!”
Mewtwo begins floating up to meet her.
“Mew! Think about all the suffering he caused!”
Mew stops and looks back at the professor. Mewtwo reaches her and offers a hand. “I need you.”
She hesitates.
She takes his hand.
“Mew! No!” the professor says. She bites her lips and trembles. Tears run down her eyes.
“...Use self-destruct!”
An explosion makes everyone’s ears ring while lurching metal groans. The roof collapses.
Mewtwo wakes to clanging metal above him. Nothing can be seen but he feels intense pain crush his leg. He projects psychic energy above but not only is the weight too great, but the agony saps too much focus. He bangs his fist on the ground. “Mew? My Child? Is anyone there?!” he shouts.
Light breaks above shortly afterward as the tip of the chimera's mangled claw pulls away debris. The chrimera is ducking on one knee, looking down at him. Every mouth moves at once to speak, creating a cacophony of masculine, feminine, shrillish, and low voices. “Father?” it asks. The earth quivers when it speaks.
Mewtwo floats up, brushing loose rocks off of him. “Where’s Mew?”
It sweeps its claw in a circle over the debris field. She’s still buried under piles of concrete and twisted wire. It glows purple as Mewtwo strains himself to peel apart layers of stone. A few concrete blocks in, a pink Pokemon drenched in dust is exposed, pinned underneath a red girder.
“Mew!” Mewtwo shouts. He hovers the bar up and pulls Mew from underneath with his own hands. Ugly brown and purple marks stretch across her middle and her chest rises and falls in uneven gasps. Her eyes are closed. Mewtwo puts his head against her chest and hears a steady heartbeat.
“Is mother okay?” the chimera asks behind him. “What do we do about the plan?”
“She can’t create new life like this, but I should be able to find and use a Pokemon Center. She’ll be okay. Go ahead with the plan. You still know the way to the Last City?”
“Yeah. I’ll head there now. Keep her safe.”
“I will, I promise. Take out the trainers who attacked you on the way”
The monster gets back up and nods. It turns around. Mewtwo floats the other way, clearing the edge of the ruins.
“So much for your perfect world, eh?” the human says behind him between heavy breaths, barely holding onto life. The debris missed her.
Mewtwo’s hand lifts up and clenches it. His eyes, fist, and the human glow a strong purple. The professor screams but the brightness is too much for Mewtwo to see what he’s doing to her. Seconds pass and the screams stop. A minute later he stops, the glowing trailing off. What remains isn’t recognizable.
Mewtwo doesn’t unclench his fist. He pulls away and flies towards the nearest city.
The landscapes they pass on the way are appalling: fields of fine ashen dust, forests of charcoal, lakes of red and yellow, fields blanketed by clouds of smoke, wide scars in the earth, hills frozen in ice. Craters in the shape of malformed claws are stamped everywhere. When the sun goes down, the chemicals of the chimera's poison attacks blush the sky in a violent red, tinting the sheen of the stars. Corpses of pokemon and humans litter the landscape, piled over and under the destruction. It's silent everywhere save for passing wind and crackling flame. Not a soul lives.
The city is worse. All buildings are leveled to rubble and many blocks are coated with hardened lava, encased in thick ice, blackened by electricity, filled with dispersing poison clouds - every type of damage a Pokemon can do has been inflicted on a large scale. Human and Pokemon bodies lie in the streets, mangled so horrendously that their species can’t be made out. The wreckage makes the red band of the Pokemon center pop out. He hovers there with Mew cradled in his arm and throws concrete slabs away until the insides are exposed. The Center’s machines are crushed.
He growls. “Soon, Mew.”
Her eyes struggle to stay half-open. The brown discolouration has spread across her front.
They fly out to the next city, still not meeting anyone still-living throughout sunrise. When they arrive at the next city, he doesn’t find the remains of a Pokemon Center, despite it being large enough for three. Skyscrapers lie on their side with whole faces charred. Smoke rises in many spots, blotting the sun. Many lying corpses pile up, but none move.
Mewtwo looks down at the smaller psychic and smiles. “Our children did really well, didn’t they?” She smiles back and opens her mouth to speak but a coughing fit takes over. “You don’t have to say anything! You did well. Just lay back and rest, okay?”
Mew nestles into his arms and falls asleep. Her chest still rises and falls heavily. Mewtwo sighs and flies away.
They cut through the region’s desert. Its yellow sands mix with black ash that contrasts the now-setting sun, but the destruction is light as there is little to be destroyed. The few dead creatures they find stick out of the sand in odd, uncanny spots. Mewtwo floats past an out-of-pace Audino lying down flat, still intact. He pokes its side.
“Hey. You alive? We could use your help,” he says in pokespeak. It doesn’t respond. Psychic energy starts turning it on its side, but after seeing a glimpse of what’s underneath, it's dropped. He carries on as the moon rises, distracting himself with thoughts of being with Mew.
After a while, the next location comes into view, cradled between two cold mountains. It was harder for his child to flatten so some buildings remain tall, although with edges roughened and torn. A chilly mist pools in the streets that preserve the corpses. Every face on them is frenzied and terrified. A Pokemon Center lies on the first floor of a tower toppled at its midway point. The entrance is submerged in the frost. Mewtwo clenches a fist, focuses his mind, and combusts the air in front of him, dropping the mist to water. They enter.
It is dark inside without any lights on, but just enough light shines through to show the rows of people and Pokemon frozen in poses of despair and defeat against the wall. Many are hugging their loved ones. The ceiling is tattered and odd bits of debris lie around the floors but the small-mon healing station remains. Mewtwo has a sigh of relief and shatters the nurse still clutching it. He cradles Mew in a small healing bed. Her torso is more red and brown than pink and her eyes are bloodshot. The power cord is slashed with a psychic cut and gripping the wirey end, he channels flashing bolts into it. The screen and bed of the machine blare alight and a dinging sound follows. Never letting go of the wire, he hovers to the front monitor and presses buttons. The bed lights up in a comforting light.
The screen turns red. “Recovery complete. Warning: Pokemon has intense internal trauma. Please call emergency services immediately or contact the on-site professor if present.”
The wire flops onto the floor and the screen goes black. Mewtwo leans over the top. Her short fur is a healthy hue without a blemish, but her breath is still heavy. She slowly reaches a limb out to Mewtwo, eyes tearful.
He picks her up and traces his bulbous fingers over her belly. Mew winces. The surface is uneven.
“Seems like these machines can’t heal whatever damage was done inside. We’ll go to the last city, we might be able to catch a professor before our child finishes everything.” Mewtwo says.
Mew doesn’t respond.
His forehead presses against her’s. “Keep hanging in there, okay?” He takes a deep breath and floats out with her, flying into the sky. They head north.
Day breaks once more but the overcast sky doesn’t brighten the blackened forest they pass. Twisting pyres rise to the sky, mixing orange as the landscape of black below and blue above. They follow the footsteps of their behemoth child. The smell of crisp charcoal is overwhelming.
There is a pinch of green in the distance, miraculously surviving. He zooms up to it. A tree has fallen partly over a dark, muddy river. A Venasaur and an unrecognizable pokemon are wedged between the log and the shore. A yellow, hour-glass shaped fruit with a fatter bottom hangs from a branch, flecks of ash sticking to the surface. The psychic brushes it off with a hand and picks it. He holds it close to the life-giving Pokemon.. “Here you go.”
The smaller psychic reaches her head out and nibbles. She’s slowly chewing and swallowing, and she makes a pained expression when she swallows. He waits as long as it takes for her to inch away at the healing fruit.
A stinging sensation on his back makes him seethe. He looks up: the clouds are now a shade away from black. Pink-purple hexagons summon around him in a sphere. Miniscule drops splashes above the barrier. He designed one of the chrimeras to acidify the world’s water. It both took care of all water-types and evaporated into the sky to rain down on any Pokemon his children missed. A new legendary later would clean it. He huddles Mew closer to his body and flies around looking for shelter. Raindrops accumulate and soon the forest is basked in hazy yellow spray. Everything hisses around him and the air is a powerful, pungent smell. He finds a small ditch underneath the large trunk of a fallen tree. The psychics rest under there.
The sounds of raindrops and melting wood soothes Mewtwo as he resumes feeding her. “We’ll find you a doctor. You’ll be healed.” Mewtwo says, unsure who he’s comforting. “Just remember our goal. It's right in sight. A perfect world of perfect beings.” He huddles her closer to his body. “Beings who won’t hurt or betray us.”
Mew’s stubby arm brushes against his torso. The corners of her mouth turn up. He returns the gesture. She grabs the sitrus berry out of his hand by her and she slowly bites more into it. Mewtwo leans his head back against the dirt wall. His eyes close.
A fetid smell fills his nostrils. He wakes up and clasps a hand over his muzzle.
The environment outside is unrecognizable. Land, trees, pools, and carcasses twirl into each other without a clear start and end. All of it is coated in a lemon-y colour. Anything not on the ground droops down as if melting. A thick fog hangs in the air, seeping into their burrow. It stings to breathe it.
Mewtwo projects his barrier again, flushing out the miasma. He looks to Mew sleeping in his lap. Her breath still comes in awkward pants. A sitrus berry core lies beside her.
He remembers he was on their way to find a doctor before his child kills them all. He must have passed out from lack of sleep.
His teeth gnash. His child likely would have killed everyone by now. The acid rain may have even caught up to the city. He flies out of the burrow, hugging Mew against his body. The cloud cover is pierced and he jets towards the remnants of humanity. Long stretches of dark clouds lie in their way.
Hours pass, and they escape the storm’s crawl. The broken skyline of the Last City scratches the valley horizon. Smoke rises and fumes over the ocean with the wind. Cutting through the carnage, the colossal body of his child lies on its side.
“My child!” He flies close to the ground and passes the still-consuming destruction of its varied powers. The mineral scent of iron is rich in the air; pools of blood rest under piles of human and mon corpses. The puddles become a wide, shallow pool as they approach the kaiju.
Swathes of hide are torched black. Cuts leaking blood slather everywhere, one in his neck spilling a river of blood. Mewtwo approaches a large, pitch black Corviknight beak near him sitting beneath a giant, closed eye. It breathes lightly, its breath heavy with the smell of rot. He places his hand on the beak. All its different-coloured eyes open. Many roll towards him.
“What happened?” Mewtwo asks.
“They all fought valiantly, working together. They wounded me everywhere. And they won’t heal. These cuts won’t close. It hurts,” It responds in its multiple voices. The ground rattles with each word. “I don’t think I’ll make it, father.”
He strokes the beak. It continues. “But, I got them all. We did it. We can make a perfect world now. Is mother better?”
Mewtwo angles Mew so it can see her. “Better, but not good enough just yet to use her power. We think something here can help.”
“You’ll work it out,” it says. It coughs. Debris around each of its mouths, including the pile of twisted cars behind Mewtwo, blow away. His thin fur combs over. “You’re amazing. You always figure something out.”
Mewtwo doesn’t respond. It breathes in as much air as it can between coughs. The colours around its throat go pale.
“Father. Did I do well?” It wheezes.
“My child, you have gone beyond my expectations. You did so well. I’m so proud,” Mewtwo says. Tears well. “You’re mother’s proud too. But you’re not done yet. You have to survive.”
Its eyes close up. “I can’t.”
“You can! Focus on breathing, don’t let the pain overwhelm you! We can be together now! You’ve earned it!”
“Father, it’s okay. I think I’m happy just resting.”
Mewtwo rests his forehead on his beak. “Child. Please, don’t leave me alone. We can be together.” Mew’s arm strokes against the beak.
“You won’t be alone. You’ll create more of us, remember? We’ll be there for you. Forever.”
“My child…”
It takes a large breath. Its eyes seize up in pain. Tears well up in many spots. “I think I can see my siblings.”
Mewtwo’s muscles tense. He pushes his head against the beak. “Please stay with us!” he shouts.
“They’re calling to me. They want me to be with them again. They’re reaching an arm out to me.” Its arm twitches upward. Its eyes dilate. “Father, mother, I love you so much. I’ll miss you.”
He takes a deep breath. “I love you too. So much”
Mew coughs, failing to speak. Her eyes are wet too.
Heavy globs of water fall from the behemoth’s eyes. They form puddles in the cracked concrete. Its eyes roll away and go glassy. Mewtwo keeps his forehead pressed against it. He bites his teeth, fighting back more tears from running down his cheek.
“Mew. We’ll find someone still in this city. It was a close battle. He may have missed one. Then we’ll have a family again soon. I promise Mew. Soon. Our perfect world. I promise, I promise…”
He takes his time to breathe and steady his emotion. A far-off thunderclap of the approaching acid storm returns a sense of urgency to him. He gets away from the child and flies around the destruction. A few fruitless hours traveling down streets and invading buildings, showers begin and concrete sizzles. One more hour of searching and the storm arrives, melting rubble and bringing down every still-standing structure. Anybody alive would be dead. He gives up with an uneasy heart and heads south.
They spend very few days traveling across the continent and stopping by every city and town. A few have been consumed by acid rain, the chemical more potent than Mewtwo expected. Every body still intact he finds is cold and immobile. There are a lot of them.
They pass the quarry field once more. Mewtwo spots the crumbled remains of the building that crushed them. The Garchomp and the lumpy bag of skin beneath him still remain.
“Hey!” He shouts to the corpse. “Why’d you do that?” A rock flies to the carcass, embedding into it. “You make a big speech about surviving. A professor, aren’t ya? You could be healing her and we wouldn’t have to worry about all life ending. Why’d you die on me!?”
His angry expression morphs into confusion. He flies off after a few seconds.
More days later, they reach the final city in the south. It's been nine days since Mew was injured and they still can’t find anybody. They have been quenching themselves by melting glaciers left behind from their child’s ice attacks, but food is scarce. Only two trees on the way had berries hanging and unsoiled by toxins. Mewtwo’s stomach is growling, and he knows Mew needs food even more. Her colour has become lighter.
Instead of finding humans first, he searches for buildings resembling supermarkets or grocery stores. It’s difficult - the wreckage buries structures, and most interiors are destroyed. The only hope the psychic-type finds after many hours is a long building half-standing at the edge of the city. Rough, cooled lava spills out of its doors and windows but holes in the roof serve as an entrance just fine. They enter.
The shelves are buried inside the igneous rock save for the few top shelves. Their shape is disfigured from partially melting. Most packaged goods have crumbled into a charred mess or in the case of cans, exploded. But some cans of beans at the far end of an aisle remain, where the rough, round rock ends.
Mewtwo carries some with psychic energy to the corner. He pulls aside the blackened bodies of doomed life to set Mew against the wall. He sits down by her. The lid of the can blow off and he lights the bottom of the can. Once cooked, beans levitate her way and float near her, letting her eat at her own pace. He feeds himself the same way. They eat side-by-side.
A hole above lets a ray of light shine on them. Dark dust particles dance around in its radiance, and it's warm on his skin. The smaller psychic shuffles against him and uses her own psychic power to carry more food to herself. The larger psychic’s head leans back and closes his eyes. It's silent. No human interrupts this.
He has a dream of crawling through a junkyard. Every manner of debris and litter lie around, piling higher than mountains. No matter how far he crawls, he can’t find anybody. Not even corpses or skeletons. Not even Mew.
A giant, white, four-legged Pokemon watches down on him from beyond the atmosphere the entire time.
Mewtwo wakes up. Red stars glitter through the hole above. Mew’s sleeping with her head resting against his side. He levitates her into his arms while the remaining cans of food bundle into a purple bubble that stays near him. He flies through the ceiling.
In the distance are rumbling clouds - more acid rain is coming. He gets to work examining each human and the rare Audino, Chansey, or Blissey, hoping each time the one he finds will be clinging onto life. Street-by-street he travels, brushing debris aside if needed. They’re all the same - discoloured and carrying a nauseating smell. They’re rotting.
One human he comes across lies face down. She wears a lab coat torn at the bottom where her legs are missing. In front of them lies a Machamp with bloody hands. They rest at the end of a dried blood streak trailing from a collapsed house.
Mewtwo prods her shoulder. “Hey, we need your help.”
The doctor doesn’t respond.
“Please. Mew is seriously injured. She needs a doctor or professor to look into her.”
The dead doctor doesn’t respond. Mewtwo gets on his knees and shakes his shoulder.
“There’s nobody else left. I’ll spare you, just please don’t leave us alone.”
Silence. Mewtwo rubs his forehead, realizing how dumb it is to believe she may still be alive.
Mew pokes him with a weak force. She’s pointing up. He’s been so focused looking at corpses on the ground that he never saw clouds cover the sky above him. It’s time to go. He forms a barrier and breaks through the cloud cover.
Every settlement has been checked. The more time they spend finding a living doctor, the more cities will be destroyed by acid rain. Mewtwo reasons exploring the desert a continent over is their best bet.
“Hold on Mew. This will take just as long as last time.”
He flies over the ocean.
Two days later, they arrive at the shore of the next continent. More toxins in the sky above than the last one and the day sky is a faded purple. Mountains with untouched snow caps dot the land inwards. Mewtwo flies up the slope, enjoying the cold air.
He melts the ice for both of them, and carries out more canned food for Mew to whittle away. She’s slower to eat than before, so he helps feed her while moving to the ridge connecting two mountains. He plans to survey the land but after reaching the top, there isn’t much to survey. A hot, wavering desert is blanketed in thick purple haze stretching to the horizon. This is another chimera’s doing, built to deal with wide areas with low human population. Everyone in this desert is dead.
The Smog doesn’t reach the shore, although no forests or towns are in sight in either direction of the coastline. They rest for the day.
They spend many days hovering past stretches of beaches brimming with beached water-types. The sounds of crashing waves and roaring wind join them with every step. Each forest they come across is burned down or washed in acid. One flattened port city they come across is buried under the sands, while another village barely outside the miasma has no consumable food. Only three cans of their supplies remain. Mewtwo cuts out meals so Mew can have more and they’ve both become thin. They approach a huge forest with patches of green trees still standing, between many charred ones. Mewtwo wonders if they’re the last green trees remaining in the world, fortunate enough to not receive rain.
The whole day, he examines every living bush and tree, taking every berry he can. Oran and Sitrus pickings provide a sweet relief from the worsening smell of rotting grass-types. He feeds them to himself and Mew immediately, knowing they’ll spoil fast.
They come across a river. Its current is still clean other than ashes swimming with it. Traveling up it, they come across a starving man lying on the shore. He cups and drinks water with one hand. A leg twists in more than one place and his ripped clothes expose charred, lumpy skin. His breathing is faint.
“Hey! We need your help! Can you heal Pokemon?” Mewtwo asks. The stranger doesn’t look. The psychic grabs his forearm. “Please, we can help you if you help us”
The man tilts his head enough to see Mewtwo. He scowls and smacks his arm away. His breath deepens. He turns away and goes back to drinking..
“Please, it must be so lonely. We can work together,” Mewtwo says.
He ignores him.
Mewtwo gets on his knee, lowering his head enough to look to the side of his face. “Don’t you at least want company? I haven’t seen anybody in about two weeks.”
The survivor tosses water into his face, A grin stretches over his lips. “You did all this.” he laughs, rolling onto his back. The pair stares until he calms. His head rolls to them one last time. “Go kill yourself!”
The two hover away into the thick foliage. Behind them, the cackling is louder and interrupted by occasional coughs.
There aren’t many berries left, but there’s enough to fill them both up and have some left over.
Those berries last six days. They pass the dry region, but the poison fog remains inland. Mewtwo’s pace has slowed to a human’s brisk walk due to hunger, but he keeps heading towards where he knows the next big human population must be. They pass over clouds of rain. Whenever they don’t, the land is abysmal: its smooth, wavy, and a nauseating shade of yellow. Chunks of jumbled land droop down slopes, mounds form where trees would have been, and the horrid fumes take their sense of smell. There isn’t a single corpse; they have dissolved away.
Between each of the days, Mewtwo has recurring nightmares. It's the same field of garbage, dwindling each dream. Eventually, it’s an empty bed of sand, the only thing to look at being the heavenly Pokemon larger than the Earth above him. Without words, they tell him You’re running out of time.
Another morning comes and goes. Their last can of food remains. Both their cheeks have hollowed out from hunger. He levitates mushy beans towards Mew, whose hue is a pale white. Her breathing has become constant wheezing. She brushes the food aside and points to the larger Psychic's muzzle.
He shakes his head. “No Mew, you need it more than me. Take it. I can keep going.”
Her arm flops. She gingerly nibbles a bite and takes minutes to chew and swallow. Mewtwo’s patience never wavers.
“There’s one more city nearby. Lancaster City. It’s where we first met. Remember how huge it was? If there are any more survivors, they must be there. And they must be a professor. They must be… We can even invite them to our family, if they save her.”
Mew nibbles her next bite. Mewtwo looks at her. “Just keep thinking of the family we’ll have. We’ll be surrounded by them, exploring the world, playing around, and creating new things. We’ll be happy. Just a little bit longer.” He winces his eyes, fighting tears again. “And we’ll have all the time in the world to be together.”
Another night passes. Or two. Three? Day and night have become the different brightnesses of crimson. The pit in his stomach makes everything excruciating. He wants to walk but the layer of acid stops him. Each night he slowly digs out enough dirt with his mind to reach safe earth. Most ice attacks left behind are melting to less than a meter, and are coated with a layer of acid. He has to blast through it to reach clean water, which never quenches him. And despite how light Mew is, he starts using his own power to keep his arms held up.
Mew’s front has become red again. She spends more time asleep than awake.
There are pits in the mushy land, sized smaller than chimera tracks. He follows them. “Just keep holding onto thoughts of a new family. We’ll meet them again. We’ll meet them again. We’ll meet them again.” He keeps this mantra up until the city is in view. He pushes himself to keep reaching it, but afraid of collapsing into the acid, he digs out one more ditch for them.
The next morning they finally reach Lancaster City, which is no longer a megalopolis. Sides of towering buildings are coated in mustard, their edges worn away to create tall, round spires. Tears droop on their faces. Everything else is flat mush. It looks edible.
Mewtwo carefully pulls out a hole in the side of a building with his remaining psychic strength. Inside looks more “normal”, resembling a charred and damaged apartment. Human and Pokemon skeletons remain inside, with piles of dirt beneath them.
He explores every room of the apartment, for every apartment on the floor. Then the next, then the next. Once the floor’s done, he goes up. “Is anyone there? We won’t harm you!” he shouts. No response.
He moves into the next room and finds a familiar, red sigil. The branding of the criminal team that made them. He’s stuck staring at it for a couple of minutes. “Have I ever told you about when I first met you?” he asks idly. Mew’s eyes open half-way, but she’s too weak to gesture. “I woke up for the first time in my life, in a vat of blue liquid. I was terrified. I was alive and I’d never been before. I had all this knowledge planted in my head and none of it told me what will happen next. But then I saw your eyes staring at me. They were bright and vibrant. A deep blue.
“I couldn’t stop looking at them.
“And when they took you away, I didn’t stop thinking about them. They were calming. I kept thinking of them throughout the tests they did me through. I knew enduring the pain would be worth it if I saw them again.” Mewtwo looks down at her. Her eyes are now more red than white. They lock onto his own eyes. “They still give me strength.”
Mewtwo keeps searching every floor of the apartment in silence. One room he comes across has an arrangement of skeletons lying on a rotted mattress. Two large humans cradle a child between them while a Vaporeon skeleton curls up around the bones of an Eevee. Tears fall down his cheeks and he leaves without searching further.
More stories further up, the far walls become more distorted and holes poke through. Yellow drips down from the ceiling. He brushes some aluminum sheets left on the ground. A box of nutrition. Mewtwo bows his head and mutters “oh Arceus…” The whole box levitates. He blasts a hole in the wall and heads out.
It's cold outside. The night sky is a deep blood-red colour glimmering with thousands of stars. The moon is full and a serene shade of pink. From this height, the shore can be seen past a tall hill. The remains of a chimera stand in the ocean past that. He floats towards it.
Its skeleton remains standing without its arm, appearing hunched over. Its bones twist and melt into each other making a convoluted mess that suspends chunks of meat and flesh. Melted eyes stretch down from ribs, its only distinguishable body parts.
Mewtwo stops at the edge of the hill where it becomes a steep drop into a deep-red sea. Roaring waves smash against the cliff-face below. Mewtwo strains himself, ripping out soiled ground until he exposes dark dirt at the bottom of the crater. He pants and hovers down, sitting in the presence of a fallen child.
He sets Mew carefully on the ground beside him. Her breath can barely be heard and her chest rises and falls. He unwraps the bar. He places it on Mew’s lips.
Her mouth opens and she slides it into the corner of her mouth. But she doesn’t bite.
“It’s okay Mew. Take a bite. You need to eat.”
Her facial muscles tense briefly.
Mewtwo reaches his other hand to her chin and pushes up, making her bite the tip.
Her mouth opens and closes. Bits of food roll helplessly around her teeth. She attempts swallowing, but her eyes widen and she weakly coughs. Mewtwo tilts her head to the side and crumbs fall out of her mouth.
“No…” Mewtwo says. He rolls onto his knees. “No… Mew… Mew… We’re this close to finding a human. You just need to eat. We’ll get through this.” He takes a deep breath. His eyes become warm. A drop of water falls onto Mew. “You can eat, right?”
Her eyes glisten. She makes a single twitch to shake her head. No.
“No, no, no. Please no…” He lurches onto his fours and grips the earth in his fists. His breath wobbles. “I’m sorry. I was going to make a perfect world for you. You’d never be hurt and we’d always be together. I failed you! I, I, I-” sobs take over his words. He bows his head as tears flow, splattering on the ground by Mew.
“Mewtwo,” Mew says. Her voice is raspy and quiet. Mewtwo opens his and stares into her own eyes. Tears still roll down his cheeks. “This world is perfect. It has you. And I got to be with you, up to the very end.”
“Mew… Mew… Mew…” He stutters. “It’s not the end. It can’t be. You just need to eat. Here,”
Mewtwo puts the bar in her mouth again.
“Just one more day. That’s all we need. Food can survive here, someone can be alive.”
He lifts her chin to let her bite it again.
“Please Mew, you need to eat.”
He puts the bar away and moves Mew’s jaw. The food grinds inside her maw.
“Can you still swallow?”
He waits.
“Why aren’t you moving, Mew?”
He lets go of her jaw. The chin hangs lopsided. Crumbs trickle out of her teeth.
The larger psychic presses his forehead against her body. “Please don’t leave me Mew, I don’t have anybody else.” He waits patiently for a reply that never comes.
He wails, straining his lungs. He falls onto his side. His face turns red as more water flows.
“Mew, I’m so sorry. Please come back to me. I love you. I… I…”
His head feels light. He grips his head and tries to take breath in but it's uneven and forced as he can’t hold his sobs back. Nothing more is said until he stabilizes his breath. He picks up Mew and holds her close to her body with both arms.
“I’m sorry…” he whispers.
A large crashing sound interrupts. The colossal structure of their child crumbles, falling towards them. The waves boom against the rocks below them while the wind howls, nearly blowing him back. He feels a force tugging his body. He turns around.
Arceus stands above them. Their legs steady themselves beyond the horizon. The red haze of the atmosphere casts a gradient over their figure. The sun illuminates half of them in a blinding light, the other half disappearing into the darkness of the night sky. The melted towers of the city bow towards the creator in the pull of their massive gravity.
Mewtwo crawls back in panic. He blinks rapidly but the mighty god in front of him stays, its long hair slowly swaying in the vacuum of space. The red iris and black pupil exposed in the light shifts to look at the psychic. Once Mewtwo knows his senses don’t betray him, he rushes onto his feet and holds Mew up above his head with both arms, as if an offering,
“Arceus! Save Mew! That must be why you’re here!” Mewtwo shouts with all the air in his lungs, in spite of the pain. He understands their response:
No more life can be made.
This world has ended.
I am here to reclaim it.
This world has ended.
I am here to reclaim it.
Numerous pillars of light blare into existence and sporadically pass the horizon in all directions. Their intensity makes Mewtwo wince. The sky turns to a stronger purple hue than during the day. The brilliance of the Arceus’s white fur shine makes their form uncertain.
The pillars expand in size.
“No!” Mewtwo shouts. His arms shake as he holds Mew’s corpse. He collapses onto his knees. “We can start life again if you save Mew! Please Arceus, don’t let this all be in vain!” He crawls forwards on his knees, reaching the edge of the crater. His eyes water from the overwhelming light. “Have you not created us for a reason?”
Arceus says nothing.
Mew shakes in his unsteady grip. “Will you create a new world, at least? We’ll be together in that one, won’t we?” He shuffles onto the yellow acid, screaming and crying in pain as his skin and thin fur dissolves, yet he inches towards god. “I love her! Please! Give us another chance!”
They bow their head and close their eyes. A tear pools in their eye.
Mewtwo’s left shaking. A heavier wave of tears floods from him.
Arceus begins turning around.
“No! Don’t leave” he shouts. He shuffles forward but falls onto his face. He shrieks as caustic chemicals smear his front. Mew falls into a shallow pool, melting away. Arceus’ back is turned to him. They walk into the depths of space. He toughs through the pain, picking Mew’s half-melted body up once more. Acid drips off of her.
Between his anguished screams, Mewtwo continues. “Give her another chance then! I’ll do anything it takes! Take away my power! Take away my love! Take my life away! But please, Arceus, give her a perfect world!”
Arceus is distant enough to be no larger than the sun. Mewtwo’s legs fail and the two lie in the shallow acid. The approaching light takes Mewtwo’s size but he begins to feel their heat.
“Please, anything for her…”
They wash over him.
A tapping sound wakes Mewtwo up. His eyes burst open as he looks down and over his body floating in a vat of light blue liquid in panic. He dives deep into his mind, sorting through his planted knowledge to find no memories. He is created life.
He looks back up. Rich blue eyes peer at him through the glass.
He looks away in annoyance.
Mew presses a hand against the glass and smiles, staring with fascinated eyes, happy to find company. Mewtwo will never know this feeling again.
