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Very tangibly anxious opening. I enjoyed bits like the child refusing to look at the clock because then they'd know it's been longer than the time they'd promised themselves they'd leave.
Hypno's preparing tea. Not like you she did last time, with the kettle and all. She seems intently focused on getting everything together and into the microwave, as though even this is some difficult chore. "We talked," she says, and it sounds like a curse.
Enjoy this, Hypno getting her mind off things by making tea in a more busy sort of way.
"Did Mewtwo tell you, then? About all the people he's killed?" Hypno doesn't look at you, instead taking a sip of her steaming tea. Isn't it still too hot? "Because if he didn't, he's lying," you plow on, unable to stop yourself. That must be it. He lied and made it all your fault somehow, and now Hypno's acting like this because she's mad at you, and she's never going to believe you over him. "I'm telling the truth. You can tell, can't you? You know! It was hi—"
Oh, child. I enjoy Hypno in this scene generally, all the tangible details of her agitation and how it's mostly going over the child's head, because of course.
Her trainer fled at the crack of dawn, citing "class" like she did the last time.
"Does she really go to school?" you ask Hypno.
She gives you a troubled look. "Yes, of course." So maybe her trainer really is that weird and excited for learning.
Love this child logic. Obviously if the trainer keeps leaving early and saying she's going to class, and she really does have school, it's just because she's that psyched about learning. Definitely not because of the creepy shapeshifter in her apartment and her Pokémon partner giving off every sign she needs space.
Yes, real danger. What's he going to do without you waiting on him and bringing him food all the time? He couldn't possibly survive.
You think again about the great Nathaniel Morgan, and how he likes to talk in opposites, and feel like you might understand him a little bit.
I feel like I do get now why you offscreened the meeting with Mewtwo - it gives a lot of opportunity for the child to just be here being anxious and uncomprehending about exactly how this conversation went, why Mewtwo would have agreed to see Professor Krane, whether he was lying or manipulating them, and leaves a lot of tension there for the reader, too. Even though the child's view of Mewtwo is far too simplistic and black-and-white, I still do find myself apprehensive, precisely because I didn't see how the conversation actually went either - no proper basis to infer exactly what Mewtwo's state of mind is, which is pretty nerve-wracking.
Hypno's pendant flashes carelessly in the sun, and you avert your eyes.
Hypno waits in the lobby, seated in a cubey soft chair of the kind found in lobbies everywhere. She's put earbuds in; no doubt they've been riding in the fanny pack right beside the master ball. What is she listening to? Maybe a book or a radio show, but if you had to guess you'd say she's reviewing something for one of her classes. That's it, isn't it? Sometimes Hypno acts so hardworking and responsible that you want to scream. Look at her, sitting there thinking she's right about everything, and also getting work done instead of playing with the other pokémon in the lab or something normal like that.
"I bet he was really surprised to see Mewtwo! You should have told the professor who you were bringing ahead of time."
Hypno gives you an odd look. "I tried," she says. "I drew a picture for him. I don't know if he thought I was joking or if it just wasn't very good. Now, I've got to get a few things ready before the others get here. Would you like to help? Or would you like to rest some more?"
Totally not giving away that the child was watching It is the best at hiding things
The thought creeps up on you slowly. There is one person you know they want to find. It's someone you know pretty well, actually. You could be him, no problem, and Team Rocket would never even suspect you were anyone else. Easy.
You don't know how he should sound, either. Can't quite catch the shape of his voice in your memories. A lot of the time it was scratchy or mucusy anyway. It's strange to think about it now, but you've never really known the great Nathaniel Morgan when he's been well.
Awww, look at the child actually reflecting and caring a bit.
Deep breath. You can do this. Now you look the bartender straight in the eye and say, "Hey, fuck. I fucking want one of your goddamn fucking shitty fuck drinks, right the fuck fucking now."
The man behind the counter, so immense he has to hunch down to avoid the old train car's ceiling, stares back at you. After a long and poisonous second, he finally responds with, "What?"
"I said I fucking fuck want a fuck... goddamn... Oh, forget it. Just get me a drink already."
Deeply anxious chapter! Hard to be totally sure where Mewtwo's head is at, though it's not as impossible as the child thinks it is that he would make a somewhat legit effort if the Musketeers managed to approach him right. I enjoyed the Musketeers a lot here - Hypno upset and agitated but doing what she can, Noctowl just sympathetic, Heracross being very Heracross about it. Very tickled by the plan to impersonate Nate, and how differently the child goes about impersonating him than back in the early days - clearly a legit effort to actually sound like him, as questionable as the result is!
I think my top prediction is actually that Team Rocket already has Nate, will know exactly what the child is, and capture it, and then they'll have to escape Rocket together by their powers combined. That'd be fun and also I've been eagerly anticipating the return of Nate and one way or another I think we're leading up to that here.
Congratulations on getting this one out! Looking forward to chapter 60.
The bedding Hypno gave you is disheveled, rucked by your restless shifting, bunched and sweaty where you hands have clutched it.
Interesting to see the contrast as Hypno and Noctowl are excited about the stakeout and the child thinks about how once upon a time it would've felt the same and been less careful, but things have become so serious now and it's become so intensely aware of the dangers involved.
"Yes," Noctowl says. "I'm sorry we gave you the impression that we don't appreciate the danger here. We're taking it seriously, I promise you. Sometimes people can act a bit silly when they're trying to forget how dangerous something is."
Your fingers twitch. One shadow ball is all it would take. You could bring Hypno back with you unconscious. As many of the other Musketeers as necessary, too. And the kidnapped woman, well...
Don't want Team Rocket to have her. Can't let her go.
You know what the answer has to be. No witnesses.
It's like Mewtwo's right there with you, standing in the dark behind the headlights, a shadow with purple-glowing eyes. His voice echoes in your head, words without sound.
You have to turn away from Hypno, stomach clenching, and reach out to catch yourself against a wall. "Do what you want," you say, and then you leave it there, all of it, the blood and the Musketeers and the ruined cycles and everything, and the whole time Mewtwo's words follow you. They're a part of you now. You're never going to escape him, not really.
Noctowl tips his head back, staring into the ceiling rather than at you. "Whatever way I can. I tell myself that it wasn't really me who did it. I was made to. I do my best to be better. I remember kindness. I remember patience, for myself as well as others. I try to have no expectations." He bows his head. "At the least I can know that it won't happen again."
It wasn't really him and he was made to - both things easy for the child to latch onto, aren't they.
"Ah." Noctowl's eyes go wide, his feathers sucking in. "I forgot. I'm sorry—of course I forgot." He reaches a wing out towards you, though he can only gently brush you with its tip. "I should have realized what would have brought you to ask that. I apologize. That sort of self-deprecation helps no one."
Yeah, I would imagine it's easy to forget that someone so childish committed multiple murders.
So the Shadowfication process really is pretty much just weaponized trauma/learned helplessness. Being able to beam fear/pain into Pokémon's heads sure does sound pretty psychic - both Mew and Mewtwo do this thing of psychically making others feel what they're feeling. So now I'm wondering if what they did with Mew is torture her in order to make these other Pokémon feel her pain? Given the whole multiple discrete machines and red light thing, that doesn't quite seem to rhyme with it being about Mew literally being there causing it in real time, but possibly they were able to like, capture the psychic signal of her torture/death and then just broadcast it blaring through these machines, constantly?
In any case, it makes sense then that Mewtwo isn't a Shadow Pokémon, and Red and his Pokémon aren't quite either, though they're something in that direction. Mewtwo has issues but it's not quite that he's traumatized. Red and his Pokémon were pretty traumatized by Mewtwo, but not in quite the same way. The child is likewise fairly traumatized, and definitely has had some learned helplessness going on, but not to the degree that a true Shadow Pokémon would.
Interesting that Noctowl describes the signs of Shadow Pokémon in terms of behaviour first. Red's Blastoise made a pretty strong impression with his aura like an overripe fruit that the child detected through Giga Drain (not even a special aura-sensing thing per se), so I'd always figured something very obvious and very specific and unusual had to have been done to their auras - but then again, Blastoise's weird behaviour was definitely noticeable before they got a look at his aura! Then there's of course how the other proprties of Shadow Pokémon come into it, like Shadow moves and such; unsure precisely how that connects, if it's all about beaming torture at them, but it may either be sort of a natural consequence or a special additional thing.
You're graceful about it. Hypno will bring you something to eat, and you won't even complain much about whatever it is. Your comments about how awful Mewtwo is will not exceed three. Usually. Mostly you let the Musketeers know how much you don't care about the fact that they're going off to visit a mass-murderer like it's a harmless hobby.
Professor Krane's lab is quiet inside. That's nothing new. It's a big place with not a lot of people in it, and the climate control drowns out all the little sounds of life.
You wouldn't even find the receptionist's absence weird, under ordinary circumstances. Probably she takes breaks. If the lab's not busy, who cares?
It's the sableye perched on the edge of her desk that's wrong. She leans back on her foreclaws, kicking her legs idly. Her crystal smile gleams deadly white. "Hello, Amethyst-eyes. And friends," she says to Mewtwo, who stands glaring, thin fur on end. "Do you have an appointment?"
Oh no. Guessing Eskar has been making plans since recognizing the child at the start. Is Hypno there? There's no mention of Hypno, aaagh. Mewtwo isn't mentioned either until Eskar is speaking to him, so I'm going to assume Hypno is there too, but I am paranoid.
Slower chapter, but some good character insight and development going on - I particularly enjoyed the progression on killing and the child processing its trauma a bit. Noctowl is so very good. The Musketeers trying to include them and help them, from this patient, more mature adult perspective, with mixed success, is always heartbreaking.
As an aside, I went back to re-skim some bits of previous chapters, which reminded me that originally their only reason to think Mew was in Orre was vague information about possible sightings there, while the child had dreams about Mew being at a lab. Can't recall if they ever got much of anything else actually suggesting where Mew is at this point. Wondering if it would make sense for Mew to just be long dead, killed for experimental purposes; main thing pointing away from that is Absol suggesting they do meet Mew. Or, of course, my favorite pet theory that the child is all that's left, the sightings in Orre were sightings of it, and its memories of all that have just been sealed away.
You claws at the air behind her, but it's too late.
Well, time for the first part of the Review Blitz from my perspective. And turns out I haven't read any of your fanfics yet Negrek, so here I go round to having a closer look at this particular fanfic! I'm going to start with the first three chapters and carry on from there!
So, looking over at the first chapter, I can immediately tell straight away that this is not the usual kind of fanfic. Going for the second person viewpoint approach is something different and striking, especially when compared to the likes of the usual choices of first and third person in whatever format they take. That would be intriguing enough on its own, but then you deliver an absolute killer first line that pretty much immediately catches my initial attention and gets me to push onward to the end.
I tend to provide more of my feedback towards worldbuilding and characters over writing style, so I’ll focus on that in all of these sections. A recurrent theme in all of the chapters, but somewhere I will put a particular bit of attention on here. Like most stories, it’s still early days on the worldbuilding, but it is plainly based on the regular Pokemon world rather than a PMD setting. However, we don’t get much of a view of the wider world in this first chapter, and in fact, there is this vagueness that is pretty much prevalent throughout not just this chapter but also the other chapters. Normally, this would cause some issues, as we don’t get much of an idea about the wider state of the world, or even just the local area, but here, it actually works rather well here, as we can it meshes well with the main viewpoint character. The child. We don’t know who they are, they are anomalous and from what we can tell, amnesiac. Any other character following these traits, or lack of very clear cut ones, would almost certainly be considered generic, but again, in this case, it actually works, because it becomes apparent that the main character is not entirely sure about themselves, or is deliberately hiding key bits of information from the reader. In fact, we don’t entirely know, and this is effective because it makes us interested in working out exactly who this child is and what they are.
The plot for the first chapter also works very well, and ties very centrally with this character as well. A trainer is clearly predicted to die, and the child holds back and lets it happen. Murder by inaction then in that case. Then they are going out of the way to learn as much as they can from the deceased trainer and essentially assimilate their identity to form the foundation of… a new identity? An alias? Again, it’s not entirely clear, and this helps out. The vagueness is what keeps the reader hooked in to the wider story.
The second chapter comes across as a follow up from this one, and only amplifies the vagueness of the story even more. The child is clearly leading some kind of wider team, and yet, it seems like a very… unusual team. Pokemon clearly can communicate with each other, yet the child seems to be some kind of weird… hybrid maybe? We don’t know how that runs, and it seems like in a few ways that they don’t exactly know themselves. Or maybe they do. Again, cryptic, and helps hooks things in further.
Then we get the first really big character interaction and that… is definitely something else. I have no idea what the overall aim was, but it screams of the child effectively attempt to gaslight or at the very least, manipulate another character into joining their team or embracing some kind of alternate identity? Again, the descriptions from the chapter don’t make this entirely clear. Is the child fully embracing the identity of the trainer? Or are they bringing back some… so far unseen character from the past that we don’t know about otherwise? Either way, the events are unclear, confusing and to some extent, a little bit horrifying, as we see the child attempt to break this character and… perhaps succeed? Either way, it’s disturbing, and in the interest of finding answers, it’s enough to have me keep poking my head in to have a closer look.
Chapter 3 is comparison is far more pleasant, but seems to take place more distantly in the future. How far in the future we don’t know, but it is clear quite a bit of time has passed since the first two chapters. The child has ended up picking another identity for a time, and we get a glimpse of some of the recurring human characters, or at least, one of them. An unofficially sort of enemy who is chasing up on the activities of the child – who now at least seems somewhat grown up. It represents an interesting change of pace, and we do get a little bit more of a glimpse into the child’s character, or at least, their more developed self. It’s the first little sliver of answers to the initial questions, and it makes me hope more of those answers will soon start coming through the door, at least in the breadcrumb format.
As for the writing itself, it all looks pretty solid. There are some moments where it becomes difficult to visualise the scenes that are present, but it actually helps things in this case given the ever present vagueness in some of the story, and the rest of the description holds up well. As does the dialogue, I have no issues there.
Either way, this was a fascinating first three chapters to read through, it’s very different from the standard fare of stuff I usually end up reading, and I definitely want to know what on earth the child is and what their mission is. I want my answers dang it!
Righto! I know it’s the oneshot week, but I have been meaning to catch up with this particular fan-fic since the last time I read through it. My original disclaimer regarding these fan-fics applies as normal, focusing on worldbuilding, characters and plot over writing and grammar. But this time, I’m going to go ahead and read through and review Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7. That pretty much gets a significant chunk of the fan-fic reviewed here.
So, Chapter 4 essentially follows up Chapter 3. Things seem to be going fairly well across the board. The grown up child is in a pretty happy state of mind. Things are going well, they’ve had a pleasant day, nothing can possibly go wrong – oh crap, the Pokedex has been revoked and… well, the child’s contraband Pokedex has been not only disabled, but basically stuck inside the Pokedex equivalent of a card machine. Their breakdown comes… very much out of nowhere, very much attached and dependent on that item which has become the basis of their identity. Which is why it’s pretty stunning for them to almost completely break their cover and smash the machine open in front of every single person in the Pokemon centre. Well, if you wanted to stay incognito, well, you pretty much blew it completely there. And your maturity too for good measure. So our poor protagonist comes running back home, and sobbing the whole time. They know who’s to blame for this, or at least, they have a solid idea on who exactly they need to blame. But it matters very little, Absol is basically being not only cryptic, but also scolding and supportive at the same time. They are trying to talk down the child from doing anything rash, but nope, the temper tantrum isn’t helping things out. And so the kid is plotting revenge.
Which brings us over to Chapter 5, which I will admit I nearly ended up missing and I’m really glad I didn’t. Here, we get an encounter between the child and Kerrigan, and damn, is it a solid read. It’s tense, with plenty of show and don’t tell moments in there which really makes this whole sequence really hit hard. Especially when a fraction of the truth comes out of the window. Poor Kerrigan is probably going to have more than a few nightmares. But there is also an additional scene which finally brings a cryptic – but still helpful – context to the child’s actions, especially with Absol in the picture. The child was someone who died and had their Pokemon taken away from them, namely the people who had a hand in creating Mewtwo, and now they have to die in order to retrieve said Pokemon. Notably, a trainer at the League is the ultimate goal. The Pokemon are being gathered to enter the League in order to face this trainer huh? Alright, that explains things in more detail. But I still have a feeling that all this ‘fate’ stuff is going to lead to a very sudden change that flips things on their heads.
Chapter 6 and 7 are kinda set in the same location, so I’ll review both of those together. Basically, in order to get to the League, which only a month away mind you, they need to take over the identity of someone else, preferably with a short path to the league. Naturally, this means another inaction or another murder. And so the protagonist watches things from behind the scenes, seeing a rather… ruthless take on Team Rocket when they beat a former member to an inch of his life. Seems fairly trivial so far… until Absol again emerges as the absolute cryptic and insists that this particular trainer needs to live for some unknown reason related to fate. Welp, that is kinda frustrating, but also interesting when it leads to Chapter 7. Or at the very least, should be interesting at a glance.
Unfortunately, Chapter 7 is very much a chapter I didn’t really like. I’m very much of the view that every chapter should serve a purpose, and this much is true here. There is a purpose. The problem is the purpose completely outstays it’s welcome. Like Chapter 2, there is an argument involved with bringing someone to the child’s way of thinking or into their plan. Unlike Chapter 2 though, which was cryptic enough to make the endless argument taking place rather interesting and horrific… Chapter 7 plays very much the same way, except we don’t have that cryptic background and tension from Chapter 2. Instead, it’s just a back and forth argument between the child and this half-dead-half-healed trainer with a crap load of f-bombs and the like. It… just goes round in circles. Nothing happens apart from the argument of the child trying to convince the trainer to assist it. Again, this might have been fine, but this is one of the few occasions where I’d outright urge for the chapter to be cut down so either it ends earlier, or the chapter has something different added into the mix. Whilst the trainer eventually comes round to helping the child, it doesn’t feel satisfying. Sorry, I’ve got to speak my mind out there.
Grammar wise and writing wise, I had no issues. The show don’t tell of it all works very well, combat isn’t the to the point, but it’s not a drag either which is solid in my books. The fights themselves are quick and brutal, and you hold no punches regarding Pokemon’s overall power in the encounters. There is a moment in Chapter 5 where I got a bit confused about the time period, but I’m not entirely sure how best to correct that one. Chapter 4 did really get into the child’s panicking mind extremely well!
My overall opinion on these chapters is interesting. Chapter’s 4 and 5 are easily my favourites so far, with plenty of tension, shock and a bit of action that makes them very appealing. Chapter 5’s revealing of some context is deliciously welcome as well. Chapter 6 is okay, plenty of action taking place and tension with new challenges thrown into the mix. Chapter 7 though kinda threw me through a loop I’m afraid by it’s premise being drawn out into an argument with characters being… kinda like jerks?
I’ll try and get the last three chapters done before the end of the blitz even though they are on the longer end, so hopefully Chapter 7 is just a blip. It’s still an enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to the outcome!
Oho, so if the child starts to take a Team Rocket agent as a prisoner for Mewtwo to question, the other Rockets will kill the one it's capturing? Man, they really ARE cutthroat!
Now that I've played Colosseum and XD, I appreciate how surprising it is to see Team Rocket members in Orre. Feels like nowhere is safe from their grasp.
I was a little lost at the battle in the parking lot otwards the start of the chapter. I take it the child and Mewtwo are there, that the child tried to attack Eskar, but Eskar attacked first? I think it's my difficulty with understanding second-person present-tense, since it's such an unusual POV to see.
but between you and him a solid rank of upright figures stands.
At first, I thought the metal glinting up the Rockets' arms might be guns--but now I think they may be snag machines! Intriguing!
I wondered why Mewtwo was described as running instead of flying, but if there are psychic dampers, then that would explain it.
Ugh and the child kills two more humans for being in the wrong place at the wrong time... Someone is going to pay for this someday.
Aha, I was right! They WERE snag machines! And so the Snag machines are how the Rockets are trying to get around Mewtwo already belonging to a Master Ball, that would make sense!
Heh, Mewtwo claims to not be scared, but it's apparent that he's acting out of anxiety and fear.
Wow, I didn't realise that Mewtwo wanted to be friends with the Musketeers so badly! Interesting that his jealousy is making him far angrier than anything else thus far.
Well, after Metwo's outburst about the Champion, I think that maybe he's not so much jealous for friendship as that the concept of friendship is triggering to him. Seems like a pretty awful ordeal he went through, but it's not nearly enough to make his torture and killing justifiable.
And agh, the child told the truth about Mewtwo! I'm now appreciating how much of this story goes into relationships, and how people/creatures can only be pushed so far before they snap. Sure, Mewtwo was never treated well, but he can't keep torturing and threatening the child and expect it to last. The child spilling the truth to someone at some point was inevitable, although it makes me sad to realise that the Musketeers will be the ones to pay the price.
Noctowl's eyes stretch wide and dark, his breathing shallow, his wings dragging on the tiles to either side of him while he runs. Hypno's still getting her bearings, shaking her head while she tries to pull herself out of your grasp. A spike of irritation cuts through your fear. They said they wanted to help, but here they are, only giving you more people you have to protect. You should have pushed them harder to learn some proper battle skills. You should have never let them get involved in all this from the start.
Should've pushed them harder to learn some proper battle skills! No trauma involved here, nope
Another master ball whizzes at you, and you swat it away with a burst of wind, then sweep your arms wide, conjuring a swirling wall of fire between yourself and the Rockets. Heracross yelps and jumps back as flames lick her face, barely within the fire spin's perimeter. The heat and the swirling air currents it creates should keep any master balls from getting through. And when it dies back, you'll make another one.
I enjoy the understated contrast between how Hypno and Heracross work together in sync and how the child just does not know how to work with anyone else, constantly hitting them or nearly so.
You jerk your head aside, a master ball sailing just past your ear. Then your gut wrenches in realization and you have to snap off a quick vacuum wave to deflect it away from Heracross.
Is this from Professor Krane's desk? You suppose this must be the remains of his office.
Turn it over!
On the back in sprawling cursive: Summer 1986. Graduation with Lily and Rixor.
Rixor. The bottom drops out of your stomach. That was one of Tyranitar's names, wasn't it? But that's not right. Cipher even kidnapped Professor Krane before. There's no way he has anything to do with them.
Or maybe, at the time they graduated, he was not part of Team Cipher yet, have you considered this
Mewtwo turns, and you flinch, convinced that his returning anger must be meant for you. But he walks right past you, seething but determined, mind all sharp, smooth edges of crystallized purpose.
Enjoy how Mewtwo feeling a sense of purpose is already a "Mewtwo, no."
The problem is that it doesn't stay quiet. Slowly you become aware of the sounds of movement within the rubble. Faint cries from people still trapped. You should be helping, shouldn't you? Digging whoever you can out of the debris, healing whatever injured people you find. You won't be able to save everyone, but surely you have to try. Just like you have to try to save the Musketeers. Stop Mewtwo getting captured. Find Mew and fix everything and then solve whatever impossible task rises before you next.
The smell of death surrounds you, suddenly inescapable. Abruptly you can't stand one second more of this. And so you leave.
You appear in the abandoned factory, just behind the half-circle of chairs facing towards the Rocket base. You sit down, hard, at the sight of them, right there on the decaying concrete. Just for a moment. Four chairs and now only one occupant.
Not forever, you have to remind yourself. Getting the Musketeers back is the whole reason you're here. After everything, you can't let Team Rocket have them. There'd be no one left. No one left but Absol, and even she isn't there half the time.
Even if you find them—you'll find them. Even then, one chair's going to stay empty. Forever.
I am sort of confused by the progression on where they think Hypno and Noctowl are. Back at the lab, they seemed to be assuming their balls had still been on the floor and were buried in the rubble. But now they're acting like they actually need to go into the Rocket base to get them back - and while it makes sense that when they're about to enter the base they sort of decide to convince themselves they're definitely in there as justification for it, I'm not quite clear on what is driving them to want to go in there, if they don't really believe they need to go there to find them. It's Mewtwo who insists they need to destroy Team Rocket first, before they find them, because he's bent on revenge, but the child, I would have assumed, would rather find them without having to join Mewtwo in doing another mass murder, right? Even if being at the lab right now feels intolerable, it still seems preferable to that, right, at least if they first take a moment to gain their bearings? So what's really motivating them to insist no, Hypno and Noctowl are definitely at the Rocket base so they need to go in there with Mewtwo? First reading through, I wondered if I'd missed some kind of actual indication that they had been taken away by Team Rocket, but it doesn't look like it...? Mewtwo doesn't even appear to believe they're actually there.
Mewtwo. She saved Mewtwo. You lie where you are, uncomprehending. The only thing Absol's ever cared about is defending you. Defending the child. That was Mew's last wish. The wish of a god. Absol's always saved you. That's what she's there for.
Oh no, was it phrased like that. Mew's actual child is Mewtwo.
You barely notice them, don't even hear what they say, don't know who they're talking to when they speak. All you hear, as cold realization creeps over you, as no Absol reappears, is: defend the child. Defend the child.
Delicious little POV twist, after all this time alternating between calling the protagonist "the child" and "you".
I went back to chapter 11, and of course you don't tell us exactly what Absol actually said there, only that "Mew herself had told her to protect you that day so many years ago, after your death and just before the lab went up in flames." Sneaky sneaky. Unsure if it ever came up anywhere else where we could have guessed it, though I did notice in one of the fifties chapters Absol talks about how she feels like it's her fault that Mewtwo is like this, in a way that in hindsight makes sense if he was the one she was really told to protect.
We also get some Mew info from Professor Krane at last! I kind of wish Rixor were somebody we'd heard about before in a greater capacity than simply as one of Tyranitar's names; I was a bit like "...Who?" (Though maybe we had heard stuff that I just don't recall at all/am not connecting?) Mew already being listless, confused and uncommunicative before getting captured by Rixor is verrry interesting - at the Cinnabar Lab, at least per chapter 11, that's not at all how I'd describe Mew, who there seem to be frantic and very singlemindedly fixed on saving Mewtwo and confused mainly in a circumstantial sort of way because of all the chaos, even if *Sara* doesn't pick up what she's trying to communicate.
Meanwhile, you know who was confused and deeply traumatized? The child, for at least a couple of years after becoming what it is today. Absol explicitly taught them to be a person again; that lines up pretty well with not being able to make themself understood, doesn't it. So the theory that that was the child (who is also Mew) who got sighted in the deserts of Orre is alive and well. That would mean, of course, that eventually they escaped from Cipher (maybe that's where Duskull and Togetic came from), and the lab dreams are memories from Cipher, or from Krane's lab.
The other possibility is that Mew deposited all her memories/soul/etc. into Sara, and the Mew found in Orre later was simply what was left - confused and listless and uncommunicative because she was left as kind of an amnesiac blank slate with no idea what was going on, hoping that her son will eventually manage to help her recover her memories and identity with Absol's help. In this case I'm not totally clear on Mew's motivation for doing this (it sounds unlikely to be about caring for Sara all in all, particularly with the revelation that she never actually asked Absol to protect the child), but maybe she thought somehow it's keep her safer from Team Rocket...?
All in all, intrigue! Not the full-on answers I almost expected based on the chapter description you posted on TR, but illuminating nonetheless! :P
Meanwhile, alas, poor Heracross; RIP best Musketeer. I enjoyed all you did with the Musketeers here - the way they don't immediately jump to fighting, the trauma associated with it especially for Noctowl, the child's oblivious impatience with them and utter lack of any sense of teamwork while still caring, Hypno and Heracross's fluid background team-up like they're an actual pair of friends who've battled together countless times. Hypno and Noctowl getting captured and Heracross's suicidal desperation to bring down the building if that's what it'll take to prevent Team Rocket from getting them hurts just the way it should, and I enjoyed the child's understated reactions too - their inability to say it straight out, the naïve incomprehension that Heracross could have known what would happen, the bit about how one chair will always be unoccupied.
And meanwhile...
Yells and bestial roars filter in from the hallway. Slowly the Cipher agent pulls themself back to their feet, leaning heavily on the wall. Blood smears all down the left side of their armor, and they weave drunkenly as they come to stand over you.
You barely notice them, don't even hear what they say, don't know who they're talking to when they speak.
All in all, a good chapter and worth the wait! Eagerly awaiting the final story arc.
Imagine that Hypno's disappointment to learn her hero was so pathetic. So disgusting. This liar. Mewtwo's words are accompanied by horrid wet crunches. Professor Krane's face distorts like he's trying to scream. You can't see what Mewtwo's doing to him, but dark purple-blue creeps across his skin, like he's turning into one giant bruise. What did that Hypno expect, placing her trust in a human?*
This is good, isn't it? In movies, the villain monologues until someone can come to the hero's rescue, or until they figure out an escape on their own own.
How dare she
