The sky overhead, previously part of a battlefield that spanned the entire globe, had since been deserted by the warriors who once filled its skies. The snow and thunder storms caused by the clash of Legendary Pokémon against genetically enhanced Pokémorphs had since weakened to a heavy rain. Not that the figure on the mountainside minded. Despite standing in the middle of the rain, he wasn't even the slightest bit wet. And why should he be? Even if his abilities did need a good rest after the battle he'd been through, cats still don't like water.

        The sound of the pattering of the rain was a rare comfort to him. But there was more to his waiting than simply enjoying the weather. Those he had taken up the company of had informed him of events in Tatto- the entity called Tajiri had awakened, and become active again. Soon, a refreshing energy wash spreading across the land would reach Kanto, blending the genes of existing creatures into new life forms to fill the spaces that time had left blank through extinction. 

       

        And the hooded figure, a creature known as Mewtwo, wanted to feel the event as it happened.

 

        Mewtwo lost perception of time as he waited. It was unusual for him to lose any of his senses... but until the moment he waited for, he felt time was the one he could put to rest. And then, in the blackest part of the night, the wave came, and Mewtwo was pulled out of one trance into another.

        Since the moment of awakening in the orange fluid of the cloning chamber, he had not once felt totally at peace. The manipulation by the man who'd arranged his 'birth'... his own efforts to destroy the planet that had spawned him... the guilt of living with that past effort after realizing the good he'd nearly destroyed... the erasure of the memories of his pursuers... through all of it, his mind had held on to a great deal of uneasiness about his existence. Even though that tension was eased on being welcomed into the circles of the Agrarian seers as though he were truly an equal, in mind and spirit if not in shape and abilities, he still had the nagging of uncertainty about him.

        But for this moment... this one brief moment, all of that melted away. He could feel it- the sensation of new life forms receiving their first breath... feeling their minds being filled with the instincts they'd need to survive in their natural roles. Herbivores, scavengers, predators, parasites, and chlorophytes. Birds, fish, reptiles, mammals, of every type and shape, being brought in, and with it, he could sense the innocence of the newly-born in the bodies of hundreds of newly-formed forest creatures.

        The innocence of hundreds of newborn life forms was like a dream come true... like something Mewtwo had never had the chance to experience until now. It was as if he was being born a second time, but to a much purer world.

        But just like a dream, it shattered. All the innocence of hundreds was pushed aside as a single entity's psychic scream turned the sensation into a hellish nightmare. Mewtwo's eyes widened at the sudden pain as his body went stiff- the utter hatred he sensed from a single, blackened mind... awakened the moment the energy wave hit that area... it was like nothing Mewtwo had ever encountered before.

 

        For the first time since awakening in the cloning chamber, Mewtwo felt utterly terrified.

 

        The hooded figures watching both raised their eyebrows when Mewtwo's mouth uttered a sound. The sound was much like a cross between a cat screeching and someone scraping a chalkboard. They'd heard him 'speak' by reversing a Pokemon's comprehension abilities, but he'd never once used his natural vocal cords in their presence.

        It sounded more like something a Pokémon that had just been shot would utter rather than something from the rejuvenation of Tajiri's energy wave. And, like a Pokémon that had been shot, Mewtwo toppled forward, landing on his face. His small force field fell, as the rain seeping into his robes made perfectly obvious.

        "Oh crud!" was the first thing the figure to the right could utter. They both rushed forward towards the robed Pokémon, hurriedly turning him face up.

        "He's still breathing, Akiva," the second one said, adjusting the hood on her head to keep the rain out of her face. "That's a good sign at least. The experience must have simply overwhelmed him." 

        The first looked at his partner, skepticism obvious in his eyes. "Him? Of all the Pokémon in existence, I don't think that for him the words 'simply' and 'overwhelmed' go together. No, Megan... that sounded more like he was attacked."

        Megan looked back at Akiva, thinking on it a second, before returning her gaze to Mewtwo. "Yeah... I guess you might be right. Either way, we better get him back to the others- we're hardly qualified for telepathic healing." The two figures lifted up Mewtwo's limp frame, placing him between them and his arms across their shoulders.

        "But still... what could possibly knock out the world's strongest psychic Pokémon?"

 

 

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

 

 

        Mirielle Campbell, more well known in Vermillion by her career-required nickname of 'Officer Jenny,' sighed. Why had she kept getting a bunch of kids asking a police officer to come out to the forest lately, and all because they kept reporting being scared of something?

        It was ridiculous. It was one thing when a five year old asked his parents to check under his bed for monsters, even though, of course, there usually weren't any there. But for Pokémon trainers - TRAINERS, mind you!- asked you to check in the forest for monsters? Of course there are monsters there! And these trainers are supposed to be out there catching and training them, and carrying their own for protection!

        Upon reaching the forest north of town, 'Jenny' dismounted her motorcycle and leaned it up against a tree, removed her keys from the ignition, and began her walk in to find out whether there was anything to those trainers' claims, or if it was just a prank.

        About four minutes and thirty feet into the forest, Officer Jenny realized the first hint that something may have been amiss- a total lack of Pokémon noises. The 'monsters' that she had previously commented to herself were there... weren't. This was strange enough as it was. But considering reports of new Pokémon popping up practically everywhere in the last few weeks, even in previously unpopulated areas, it was especially disturbing.

        Had the Pokémon in the area been scared away by that massive commotion that had been going on half a week ago, when all those masses of 'Legendary' Pokémon had suddenly appeared to do battle with an equally surprising amount of Team Rocket agents? That was a possibility- the fighting had mostly happened on an island just a few dozen miles off-shore in the Kanto Gulf, but with several each of Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres in one place, the sparks of the battle could be seen all the way from Vermillion.

        It was possible. But, Jenny realized, unlikely. If the situation that happened in the Orange Islands back in '96 was anything to go by, Pokémon were more likely to be attracted to those battles rather than scared away from them.

 

        "GAAHHL!! DUCKDUCKDUCKGA~"

 

        The first Pokémon noise Jenny had heard since entering the forest disrupted her train of thought and brought her back to reality. The sound didn't last long, its halt punctuated by a very sickening crunch, forcing a shiver through her. It had come from the east part of the forest, from the pond in the middle- from that, and the sound the Pokémon had squawked, it was probably a Golduck.

        Pokémon poachers? And she thought her counterparts near the various Safari Zones were the ones most likely to encounter those... but it was always a possibility, and it definitely gave trainers reason to be afraid.

        She choked down those thoughts, and shook her head as she shook off her fear. She wasn't some frightened little girl- she was Officer Jenny. Even if the name wasn't her real one, she still had all the traits it implied- like all female officers who wore the name and the wig, she was trained to deal with criminals of any type. Nodding to herself, and satisfied that her being out here was justified, she made her way towards the lake. As the short walk towards the pond neared its end, Jenny could make out a figure through the trees. Or rather, the silhouette of one.

        Reaching the edge of the pond area, Jenny took shelter behind a tree to watch without being noticed. It was one thing to scare the pants off of a petty thief by announcing her presence and then giving chase. But poachers were far more likely to be packing lethal weaponry than petty thieves were, and also unlike most thieves, they had the stomach to pull the trigger and the accuracy to hit the target. Naturally, it wouldn't be very smart to rush in practically asking to become said target.

        As Jenny watched, though, she realized that the figure didn't look much like a poacher. There was no questioning that this was a male adult, but while she couldn't make out anything but the shape of his silhouette from this angle and this time of evening, it didn't look like he had the accoutrements of a standard poacher. It was hard to tell back from front with only seeing the silhouette, but Jenny could figure that his back was to her- he sat cross-legged, with a bluish figure lying prone on the ground in front of him, and he had one hand placed upon this second figure's chest.

        Jenny blinked a moment, and squinted to see the blue figure. Surely enough, it was the Golduck she had heard, but from the way its head lay, that crack must have been exactly the death blow it had sounded like.

        Squinting further, though, Jenny noticed something else. Though the side of the figure that was towards her was nothing but a silhouette... its shadow lay on the ground going away from her! She was facing east- the sun was to the west at this part of the evening, so she should be able to see the figure clearer from here! It was as if the humanoid figure just... absorbed any light touching it, destroying it completely.

        Jenny never did figure out the implications of this. It stopped mattering as an eerie... black light, was the best word for it... started spreading from the hand over the Golduck's body. Once it covered the Pokémon completely, it was followed by a bright, blinding flash of light. As soon as Jenny recovered from this and opened her eyes, she saw the Golduck's entire body start to wrinkle and turn a sickly brown.

        The creature standing there was not human. Not by a long shot. It could not possibly be a Pokémon either. No Pokémon, not even a ghost or dark type, ever, ever left its victims withering like dead plants. This beast, whatever it was, was a monster, pure and simple. Worse than the worst demons that Jenny's nightmares had ever conjured up, for one reason alone- this was real!

        Standing there, behind that tree, was no longer the no-nonsense policewoman called Officer Jenny. Standing there was a frightened woman in a police uniform and a wig. It was Mirielle, not Jenny, who screamed when the Golduck's body crumbled to dust. 

        It was Mirielle who shook off the high-heeled shoes that would have slowed her down as she fled, barely dodging the baseball-sized spheres of energy the now-standing black figure fired from his hands. It was Mirielle who hurriedly jammed her keys back in the ignition, leaped on the motorcycle, and hit the gas on full throttle, all the while still being fired at by the black figure.

        And it was Mirielle who trainers found over an hour later, barely conscious and completely incoherent, lying amidst a pool of her own blood and the mangled, burned out wreckage of her motorcycle.