Disclaimers 'n such: I do not own pokemon. Nintendo and all the other generous producers who created the game and subsequent anime own them, and they have my everlasting thanks. Thanks also go to Mystic Mewtwo, who nudged me into putting up the storyline I'd had in my mind since first viewing Pokemon: The First Movie and later, Mewtwo Returns. I only own characters that are figments of my imagination, including Madhea, the girl Mewtwo, and Sharie Triesta, the psychic daughter of one of the scientsts who created Mewtwo for Giovanni. (If the name sounds familiar, Power Rangers fans, it is because I am also the author of the "From the Stars" series a couple of years ago on Cynthia's site. I am lazy with changing names in set characters. Sharie Triesta has just become a generic name for me.)
Okay, the other stuff. I take liberties with certain established facts of the characters, certain established storylines, the timeline, or other "set" pokemon facts. So if what I write contradicts what you know is "real", well, it's most likely I do know and am choosing to ignore/change it for story reasons. Oh, yeah, I KNOW Ai/Amber actually had blue eyes rather than the Amethyst eyes I establish here....but it's changed for story's sake. I go by the English version of the Anime, BTW. Sorry, can't speak Japanese very well (although with as much subtitled Anime as I've been getting my hands on lately, I have picked up a little bit). Which also means that the girl, Ai, from the Japanese short "Mewtwo's Origin" is refferred to here with her English name, Amber.
Synopsis: It's gonna get pretty tangled, but basically, Sharie Triesta, a human girl with extraoridnary Psychic powers and a scientist in her own right, rescues a baby Mewtwo that Giovanni forgot about when Mewtwo purged his memory. She knows she must keep the baby out of human grasp, and decides to take her to Mewtwo, where she hopes she would be safe....the question is: Will Mewtwo, upon discovering that it was *her* family that helped create him, accept her presence....or could it go all the worse for both of them? Plus, they discover that shadows from their pasts seem to say they've met before....but from where? Enjoy. I do accept comments and suggestions, but flames with no critiquing value will be deleted without reply.
Oh, yeah.....rated PG-13, mostly for violence and a bit of mild language--nothing too bad, I promise. (The rating may seem a bit stretched, but better safe than sorry.)
****
Moonlight Shadows and Echoes Past
by ZeoViolet
Mewtwo stared at the full moon, shining brightly upon him and reflecting in his amethyst-purple eyes--eyes that he strove hard to not reflect the shadows of pain echoing in their depths. Depths that struck straight and true to his heart.
*Moonlight*, he thought to no one in particular. *For those not of nature's order, we are only able to walk the moonshadow path. If we are to survive in a world that deems us different, we must travel where others would not be found. The shadows of moonlight are a fitting place to us, echoes of living creatures.*
He was glad no one was watching him. Here, safe within the hidden depths of caverns beneath Mt. Quena, all of his fellow clones were asleep, tired from their recent journey. Only he was awake, standing at one of the waterfall openings that spewed river water out of the sides of the mountain to the valley below.
This was but a temporary home, now. Part of the time they could live here, for the bus would not attempt to cross but once a month. The rest of the time they had to leave, just to avoid detection. Luna and Cullen Calix, the closest humans to the mountain, did not remember him, and he hoped they would not again attempt to climb Mt. Quena. As long as they stayed down where they were, doing their own research, he was fine with it.
Mewtwo sighed, placing his tri-fingered hand against the stone wall and closing his eyes. Try as he might, he could not ignore the deep, spearing pain of lonliness that pierced his very soul. The very pain that had been growing within him steadily since he could remember. The others might be clones, like himself, but they were not him. He was the sole pokemon of his species, and thus doomed to an existence of utter solitude, knowing there was not another like himself to find companionship with.
*No,* he thought firmly to himself, *I would not wish such a fate on any other pokemon. I'd rather be alone for eternity than have another like myself suffering at some cruel scientists' hands, like those damnable Triesta brothers who created me....or worse, serving someone like Giovanni. Any such pokemon is better off dead.*
He clenched his teeth, fighting the pain from the horrors of his past back. It faded, but left a hollow emptiness within him. He crossed his hands over his abdomen and shut his eyes tightly, feeling quite the lonliest creature in the universe.
****
Of all those born different, those destined to walk a fine line between shadow and light, a very few humans are also born into this fold. Even if they do not realize it, they are destined to walk in a very different world than any other human, a world riding the fine edge between human and pokemon, an edge occupied by both light and dark--a realm of shadows.
One could not always tell from the outside. If a person could be born pokemon-like in spirit, but with a human's body, that would describe part of it. They are sometimes born with powers that no human should have or ever use, powers only pokemon alone sould weild. This fact alone would often brand them outcasts by others with cruel tongues. It was a rare enough occurence, too, with only a small handful of humans gifted/cursed with it in history.
Sharie Triesta was one such individual. Born Psychic into a family with a long history of psychics and scientists, this should not have been a problem. But with psychic powers that were far more pokemon in origin than human, it was an immediate identifiable stamp, a stamp that would become a curse.
The first indication had been her incessant cries as a baby. Worried, her father, Dr. Donningan Triesta, took her to see his favorite Alakazam, who made it clear just what the girl's problem was, that her psychic nature was causing her stress. All the pokemon could do for the frazzled father was place a Psychic suggestion in the girl's mind to ease the pain until she could build her own defenses. This was a type of Psychic power not even her own father, both a Psychic himself and a scientist to boot, could help her with.
Not too long afterwards, she began to display a rather astounding trait that had very little to do with her psychic powers--she had the unique ability to understand any pokemon's sub-language and talk back to them in it.
They found it out quite by accident. Sharie wasn't even walking yet, although she was talking in broken sentences--an early indication of how telepathy easily increased her vocabulary. Her father had been caring for her for the day while at work, and, in a hurry to finish an experiment, placed her in a pen beside a Bulbasaur.
"Watch her, would you?" he asked tiredly.
"Zoar." Sadly, the Bulbasaur looked at him and nodded. Donningan was not an unfeeling man and he smiled and rubbed the Bulbasaur's head before walking to the nearby table and mixing chemichals.
"Bubba--zoar?"
Surprised, the Bulbasaur had turned his head to see Sharie sitting there, watching him.
"Zoar-zoar, Bulba?" he asked.
Emphatically, she nodded. "Soar! Bubba-soar!"
Crash!
Her father had dropped his glass beakers in utter shock.
Sharie only looked at him.
"Bubbasaur lonely," she said simply.
"And how do you know that?" he asked in a quivering voice.
"He say. Miss old twainer, but twainer leave him. Bubbasoar not 'volve. Happy here, but lonely."
"You can say his words." It was more a statement than a question.
His daughter only stared at him.
****
As she grew, her powers became more evident. Her parents tried to train her in control, but often, she left them stumped. How could you easily train a kid whose powers already exceeded your own?
They began to rage out of control when Sharie's mother died when she was barely four years old. Heartbroken, her father took daughter in hand and took her with him to his various labs he co-owned with one of his brothers, Daryn Triesta. Sharie ended up growing up in several labratory settings, often distant labs far from any city or town, regarded by many scientsts as much an experimentee as the eventual experimenter she would become. The cruelties they inflicted upon her behind her father's back would haunt her for the rest of her days. It was only compounded when her powers would rage out of control and she could depend on little but herself, or the occassional Psychic pokemon, to bring her relief until she could control each new power surge as her abilities grew in strength and complexity.
As her abilities grew, so did her ability to control herself, though she feared that she would always be prone to sudden power surges until she was grown. Desperate for some outlet to focus her abilities, she turned to studying just to take her mind off the torment. Putting all that power towards learning did have certain advantages--home-schooling courses granted her several scientific degrees at an early age. But it wasn't enough, for while it was an outlet, it left Sharie deeply unfulfilled.
In his younger days, Dr. Triesta had been declared by the League to be a pokemon master in his own right, so when he discovered how much it meant to Sharie to interact with pokemon, he pulled some strings and managed to get her a trainer's license and a Master's ranking when she was only seven years old. By mutual agreement, it was only partially valid, for it would allow her to freely interact with the lab pokemon, but she would not be able to capture any of her own until her tenth birthday, nor participate in official trainer battles until then. The Master's ranking--the results of her test scores for League entry--was to be an even tighter-kept secret for many years.
Even after her tenth birthday, Sharie refused to capture pokemon. She knew what it was like to be considered below someone else and she did not dream of depriving any pokemon the freedom of life they deserved in the wild. Her father had tried to protect her, but as much as he, her Uncle Daryn, Aunt Alyssa, and her cousin Amber loved her, she knew full well of life's cruel realities and came to the conclusion that moonlight was the best place for someone who seemed as much pokemon as human.
Knowing her feelings, her father did not tell her when he first left on a brief exploration trip, and then, along with her uncle, went on a secret project they did not tell her about. Sharie hated mental intrusion so much that it did not occur to her to read her family's mind. When Amber died, she was devastated, and it did not help when her uncle Daryn said that Amber was still alive, in a way, and maybe she could come back....but only maybe. He gave no further details. Her Aunt Alyssa divorced her Uncle Daryn soon afterwards, and were it not for the fact that she was also Sharie's mother's blood sister and remained her aunt regardless--two brothers marrying two sisters--, she would have disappeared for good.
In the midst of all the turmoil, the blackouts started..
The first she could not remember. She woke up to her father and uncle sadly telling her that she had been unconscious for weeks after an accident, and that during the time, Amber really had passed on for good. Sharie felt the crushing blow a second time, but like before, she did not cry. She had long since forgotten how.
The day that she first learned of Mewtwo's existence was the day when he awoke....and the same time he did, she fell unconscious.
This time, however, she remembered everything. It was so vivid--like she had been standing beside him. She could not really see into his mind, but she could feel his deep anger.
Sharie's family were lucky to escape with their lives.
What she remebered most vividly was the screams. She sensed anger surging through this pokemon, and she could only stand by and do nothing. She was almost bowled over by intense Psychic blasts the pokemon kept surging forth, with little idea or caring for control.
"We dreamed of creating the world's most powerful pokemon," she heard her uncle Daryn whisper in the distance. "....And we succeeded...."
She had been nearly blinded by a flash of white light, and the raging fire that consumed the island.
"Behold my power, for I am the greatest pokemon ever created," she heard Mewtwo snarl in a psychically projected voice. She could only watch as he stared spitefully down at the crude stone carving of Mew on the ground. "Greater even than *you*."
****
At her demand, Sharie's father and uncle told her everything, and showed her the project they had been working on. It was only the promise of free help that led to their unholy alliance with Team Rocket.
"Our family is wealthy enough!" she had cried to them. "Team Rocket is evil! Why, Uncle Daryn, why did you treat Mewtwo like he was nothing more than an object, a machine?!"
It was only when they told her about reawakening Amber, then losing her again, did she soften and forgive them. She sensed it was not the complete story, but seeing their own pain, she decided not to press them further on day-by-day details. She also reminded them that pokemon were sentient and to create life with no intent but cold scientific study was cruel in the extreme. Knowing how gentle they both usually were with pokemon--lab specimins or not--, she knew it was more their grief over Amber than anything that had led to their attitudes towards Mewtwo--for he had survived, while Amber had not.
Now they understood how right she was.
Since then, she had blacked out several more times. Each time, it was like she was standing beside the pokemon known as Mewtwo, though he could not really see her. All she could do was stand and watch, invisible to him, as he trained under Giovanni's tutelage. She felt sick when she discovered that he was in the hands of Team Rocket, even if they were teaching him control. Her anger was his the day Giovanni came upon Mewtwo pondering his existence and cut him further with cruel words.
"You were created for *me*," came the sharply cutting words. "You were created *by* humans to *obey* humans. *That* is your destiny, nothing more."
"That *cannot* be!" was the reply, and Sharie felt keenly the stabbing pain in her own heart echoing his. "You said we were partners, we stood as equals!"
"You are a pokemon!" came the cold reply. "Not human. You could *never* be my equal."
To her own horror, Sharie had felt her own personal response and Mewtwo's become one, for a bare instant. "I was not born a pokemon, I was created! My creators have used and betrayed me--so, I stand *alone*!"
*We both are destined to stand alone,* she had thought sadly, though he did not hear her. She felt utterly numb when, now with his powers at his full control, he destroyed the lab and fled, leaving Giovanni far behind. She had even briefly wondered if it was well within his rights to come after his creators after all the pain he had experienced for being different--absolutely powerful, but different.
But the worst was yet to come.
One day she blacked out again, and was unconscious for what seemed like an eternity to her frightened father. This time, she did not lay quietly, but thrashed all over the place, her mind clearly not in her body.
Only when she woke, after a great struggle, did they learn of the horrors she had seen.
Mewtwo had attempted to take over the world.
She had seen it all. The trainers, the fight, the startling fact that Mew was not extinct as believed....and the boy Ash that had opened the cold heart of Mewtwo, at the price of his life.
And the miracle of the pokemon tears restoring it, causing Mewtwo to feel as if his heart was wrenched open and flooded with emotions he had never before felt.
"I see now," he had said quietly to Mew, watching how the boy, Ash, valued all pokemon, born or created, as if it truly did not matter to him. "I see now. The circumstances of one's birth--when choosing what to do with life, those circumstances are irrelavant, aren't they? It is what you *do* with life's gift, that must determine who you are."
His deep-seated rage at humanity gone, he took his new fellow clones and left, erasing the memories of all but the silent partner whom he did not know was there--except for some deeply hidden, unconscious corner.
His deep rage had ebbed, but not the anger or the hurt, from such painful betrayal. That, he felt, would never leave him. All he wanted now, was peace. A place alone, from dangerous humanity. Even if they had to live as outcasts, he and his fellow clones would live in peace.
For the next year, Sharie felt nothing more of him.
Until the horrific scenes at Mt. Quena rendered her by his side once more. Once again, the boy Ash was there, and once again, it was his pure-hearted spirit that overcame Giovanni's offensive. And this time, Mewtwo agreed to spare the memories of Ash and his friends while this time he erased everyone else's.
Except that of the silent watcher. All this time, he had no real awareness she was there--at most, he had felt watched once or twice, but nothing appeared to him, so only the deepest depths of his unconscious mind and heart remembered the bond they had formed, in a time neither could remember, and that when his life's path took a curve, she had been there to witness it with him.
Not even Sharie herself knew the reason behind her strange bond with a unique being as Mewtwo. After awhile, she had simply given up pondering it. She only resigned it as destiny, never dreaming that she and Mewtwo could possibly meet one day.
****
Donningan Triesta transferred the e-mail he had recieved into the pokegear held in his daughter's surprised hands.
"Read it," he said wearily. "After all that has happened, you of all people deserve to know. Read it."
She did, her amethyst-purple eyes growing wide with a comprehending horror, absoultely thunderstruck. No sooner did she get to the last word than she ripped the pokegear device from around her neck and flung it onto the couch, flopping down hard beside it and staring off into space.
"I have just one question, Da," she said in a low voice. "Did you have *anything* at all to do with this new baby Mewtwo's creation this time?"
"After what happened last time, and what you've had to go through since?" he asked, kneeling to her eye level, his own amethyst eyes meeting her matching ones. "I would have told you if I had decided to follow such a course with Team Rocket again. You would have ripped me limb from limb for getting involved in their affairs after the promise I made to you."
"Not limb from limb," she said softly. "But it would have been very hard to forgive you, Da. Mewtwo is a living creature, like us, and as intelligent as any human, if not more. He has a soul the same as mine, and yet he was treated the same as a machine, like a curiosity to be prodded and examined. Some of your colleagues were fit to try and treat me the same way. Only my protests and the intervention of you and Uncle Daryn prevented much of it. You are Psychic, Da, and you of all people should have known that."
"I know that now," he said softly. "I know that now."
Sharie picked up her pokegear again. "After Giovanni's memory was erased, almost everyone involved forgot that they were creating this new baby. Only one scientist involved remained behind at the airbase, and thus was spared Mewtwo's knowledge. I can't believe he felt guilty enough to e-mail you and tell you about it, and leave Giovanni in the dark."
"I never gave Giovanni permission to use my techniques to create another Mewtwo," said Donningan quietly, his arm around his daughter. "Although he did approach me about it, I flatly refused. He even warned me that it was not a wise idea to refuse him, but I would not do it. I should have hidden my own files better. This one came from a seperate fossil found, unrelated to the first. The DNA alterations themselves were identical. However, the way the pokemon has been grown is different than what I did. They placed the DNA into a pokemon ovum and have been growing it from an embryonic stage in an artificial womb, like any pokemon or human baby. They intend to have it 'born' when it reaches fetal maturity, instead of full physical maturity like Mewtwo was."
"Either way, Da, the baby was intended for Team Rocket's use," Sharie said quietly, gritting her teeth. To his surprise, her father saw something flash deeply in her eyes, a new fire he had never before seen in his 17-year-old daughter. He guessed part of her intentions before she even voiced them.
"I am going, Da. That child will otherwise die from neglect if I don't. It must *not* be allowed to fall into Giovanni's hands."
"That's well and good in itself," he conceded quietly. "But what can be done with the baby? Surely knowing you, you would not have it grow up in a labratory setting if you could help it."
She arose from the couch, her father with her, easily towering over her petite frame. "No, Da, I don't. The child must be kept away from humanity and it's dangers. It deserves to grow up freely. Maybe even with others like itself. I will find the child, Da, and if at all possible, I will take it to Mewtwo to keep safe from humans. It could be the baby's only real hope."
Her father's eyes widened in horror, and he looked at Sharie's resolute face, the features very similar to his own--features that her own cousin Amber had, once upon a time. Amber had been a beautiful child, not looking like her father but like her uncle and cousin, and sometimes, the reminder was painfully evident to both brothers in Sharie's face. Amber would have grown into a very attractive young woman one day, if she had lived.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Wouldn't that be foolish? You know how he feels about our family. I'd be afraid he'd at least attempt to kill you."
"I hope not," came the dry reply. "It is a risk I am willing to take. I must set right the many wrongs that have been done already. Oh, Da!"
Sharie sighed and stared out the window at the setting sun. "You say that despite the freakish powers I have I am a normal human otherwise. Maybe so. But with powers such as mine--what is my destiny? The only time I feel at peace with myself is when I am working with pokemon, being with them as they are. It is my only sense of--of being one with myself, and I have never had any indication of what my destiny may be. I don't want to sit around in labratories all my life, doing nothing but following in the family footsteps. For the first time, with this, I feel as if I might have some purpose. That there might actually be a deeper reason I was born with such powers as I have, besides never giving me much peace."
"Follow your own heart, Sharie," said her father sadly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "You've already put those powers of yours to use in communicating with pokemon when nobody else can understand them--even I cannot without a Psychic link. You've already obtained the degrees I spent years working on, and I know your heart yearns for peace and something more for your own destiny. If you feel that you must go out and face the world in this manner, then so be it. Don't let the child fall into the wrong hands. Find it a place where it can belong....maybe you will find your own niche in the world while you are gone. I pray it is true. Good luck, my daughter, and stay safe--you are the only one Daryn and I have left."
"I'll try, Da," she answered, hugging him fiercely. "I'll try."
****
Both father and uncle were waiting at the foot of the stairs when Sharie came down the next morning, backpack in hand.
Especially her uncle Daryn looked at her sadly. Sharie's heart ached for him; losing Amber and her Aunt Alyssa both had been very hard for her uncle, his hair already a premature white while he was still so young. At times when he looked at her, she kenw his sadness grew more poingant--for, except for the hair, Amber had looked very much like she did. The resemblence wasn't exact, but it was pretty darned close. They could have been sisters. Only the fact that Amber had wavy aquamarine hair instead of Sharie's hip-length, platinum blonde tight curls and the fact that she was almost five years younger was the real difference. When they did get a chance to be together, they had been inseperable, and was, Sharie now reflected, her only true friend.
Amber had been ten when she had died over a year and a half ago. Thank goodness the illness had been merciful enough that she did not suffer long. It only reinforced Sharie's patient resolve--that she was meant to go through life alone.
Fiercely they hugged her goodbye. She could tell they were scared for her. Mewtwo had, after all, tried to kill them.
However, for the first time, she could feel whispers of destiny calling her down a path, giving her some sense of purpose. It was a heed she could not ignore.
And, maybe, giving the baby mewtwo over would finally set some old wrongs right.
And Mewtwo would not have to be alone anymore.
"My old colleague did not give me a specific location of the lab," said Donningan. "He only said it was in the far west reaches of the Johto reigon. The closest towns here are New Bark Town to the South and Pallet Town to the South East, in Kanto. Sharie," her father placed his hands on her narrow shoulders and knelt so his height was adjusted with her small frame and they were eye-to-eye. "Please, be careful. Do what your heart tells you is right. Whatever you decide to do in the future, find your own path and know that Daryn and I are behind you all the way, in spirit if not in body. If all else fails in your search for Mewtwo, then we swear we will help you keep the child out of the rest of humanity's vicious grasp until it is grown. No labs, no tests. On this you have our word."
For a moment, Sharie's eyes shimmered, and she hugged them hard.
*I'll try my best,* they heard her thoughts in their minds in a rare display of telepathy. *I cannot say when I would be back, it could be a long time, but I must find my destiny by myself. But I'll take comfort in the fact that you are with me in spirit. Nobody can break those bonds.*
They shared one last, fierce hug, and Sharie left without another word.
For nothing more needed to be said.
****
The search took weeks. Sharie only had a general sense of where to look, and the more time that passed, the more she knew that time was in short supply. The letter had said that a computer fed the baby automatically, but surely, without supervision, it could not last for much longer.
As the days wore on, she pushed deeper and deeper into the wilderness of Johto, rarely coming across a town or city. Along the way, she occupied herself by doing some of the things she did best--healing sick pokemon as best she could without a pokecenter. Thanks to her own abiltities, and stuff she had learned from pokemon themselves, she was as adept at finding forest medicine as any other pokemon doctor or forest creature. Healing others also gave her a measure of peace in her own soul.
Besides, pokemon were always plesantly surprised to discover that she could speak their own languages on their own terms, even ones she had never heard before.
It took a long time, but at last by intervewing forest pokemon, Sharie learned of a lab, deep in the forest, that had, weeks before, apparently been abandoned. It was shut up tight and no pokemon had dared to try and enter it themselves.
With new directions, Sharie at last came to a building hidden deeply away from the world.
Painted upon the doors was a symbol that made her blood run cold--a huge, capital letter R.
Sharie immediately slowed and approached the building cautiously, keeping to the shadows of the trees and ignoring the scratches the thorny brush gave her. The resident pokemon had said that the building was empty, but she preferred caution. She had no pokemon to battle with herself; she could only rely on her own powers. Any devices that could ensnare a mewtwo--surely they had them here--could certainly work on her as well.
There was no sign of movement, no shadows in the windows, highligted by the full moon of night. Only then did Sharie dare open her mind a little to try and sense any presence of evil about the place, or any human signature. She hated mental intrusion so much that seldom did she allow herself to sense another's mind or thoughts, especially without their permission--but in this case, it was necessary.
She could sense no human presence.
Only then did she approach the doors, walking as quietly as she could.
Quickly, she entered the access codes that her father had used long ago with Mewtwo, praying they would work. Her relief was great when the door wooshed open, admitting her without protest.
Slowly, she entered the dark hallways, only dimly lit with those self-sustaining flourescent bulbs that were themselves threatening to go out any moment. In a short distance she reached the main labratory.
Except for one functioning computer and one glowing column of light in the corner of the main room, the area was dark.
*Why on earth did Giovanni need *every* scientist from this place to accompany him?* she thought. It just did not sound like him, to abandon such a project as cloning a second Mewtwo. Well--he probably figured the baby would be stable enough for a couple of days alone, and with a pokemon like Mewtwo, he needed every scientist on hand who had enough knowledge of him to help capture him. Only the one scientist, who had stayed behind at the airbase, had escaped Mewtwo's knowledge and therefore, the memory purge.....
But, if Mewtwo had erased everyone's memory of *him*, why, then, did they forget this place, as well? Sharie thought back to what she had seen, and then, with a flash of clarity, remembered.....Mewtwo had erased their memories of him and *anything to do with him*, so there would be no reminders. The Psychic suggestion he had placed in their minds would have automatically buried any memory that had anything to do with him, and surely, the creation of a second Mewtwo had a lot to do with him.....
She shuddered. Mewtwo surely did not know of this himself, or she doubted he would have ignored this place for so long. He did not have to explore a person's memory to block and bury any memories he did not want them to have.
Sharie went to the computer console. She squinted at it a moment, trying to see the many buttons in the darkness that pressed in on all sides. The layout was familiar enough. She decided it would not be difficult to work. Her fingertips found the button that activated the lights, and she had to cover her eyes for a moment, temporarily blinded.
She then moved to the glowing tube in the corner. Bubbles occassionly drifted in it and there were wires and electrodes going down in from the top. Sharie recognized it as a maturation chamber--an artificial womb.
Seeing what was within, her heart sank.
For inside it, indeed, floated a tiny baby Mewtwo. There could be no mistake, and the scientist had not lied.
****
*This wasn't right.* Those were the first words to echo in Sharie's mind. This--all of it--did not look right. The equipment was barely functioning. The baby floating within was curled in a fetal position, but the readouts told her that it was past due to have been born.
Why, then, was it so small? It could not weigh more than four or five pounds.
Sharie stepped closer to the tube and peered closer at the floating infant. Her heart sank at how still the baby was, and the pallor of the skin--it was all wrong.
In fact, the color of the artificial amniotic fluid itself was wrong.
With a start, Sharie drew back. The liquid the child was floating in--it had become contaminated! The water should have been a clearer color, instead, it was cloudy, a sign of negelct.
*Is the child even alive?*
Sharie ran back to the computer and punched up the readouts. As an afterthought, she set up the computer to download all information on the baby into a small computer pad she was carrying with her.
Her heart sank further as she turned back to the readouts.
The child was alive, but barely. The essential equiptment--providing her blood with food and oxygen--was functioning, but the contaminants had invaded her body. In her haste, Sharie dimly noted that the readouts indicated a female baby, but that was not important now. No wonder the poor child was so sickly colored, and did not move--her tiny body was livid with an infection that was slowly eating her alive.
For a moment, she stood still, thinking. The baby had to be born, *now*, if she was to survive. The infection had to be tackled, if it wasn't too late already.
Sharie closed her eyes and, rather superstitiously, crossed her fingers. Her heart beat faster and a weird, tingling sensation gripped her heart. Where another would have panicked, she let this new feeling guide her hands and prayed she did this right.
She had to force herself to walk over to the computer console and boot up the process that would allow the mewtwo baby to be 'born'.
The equipment moved sluggishly, but complied. The many tubes hooked up to the infant disengaged, and a brief mechanical nudge turned her upside down towards the bottom of the chamber.
Sharie's heart beat faster with a sense of impending doom she could not brush away. She had to move to catch the infant as she was pushed to the bottom of the chamber and expelled slowly from the opening in a series of pulsing contractions.
Sharie ceased to breathe as she caught the little head and eased the rest of the small body forth, out into the world. She felt a flash of panic when she realized the infant did not move. She lifted her quickly up onto a nearby table and used a suction to remove any debris from the little mouth.
*Come on, baby, breathe.*
Suddenly, the infant's back arched, and she seemed to struggle for a moment to draw in her first breath, the first assurance that she was still alive.
The infant was too weak to keep up the struggle for more than a few moments. The small chest tremored with effort, but did not rise, the lungs could not inflate, and exhausted with the effort, the baby went limp a moment later as Sharie watched in total horror.
She had failed to take her first breath of life.
*NO!*
The word exploded into Sharie's brain. She could not think, she could only move for a few seconds. Some deep, desperate desire would not let her give up on the little one.
*No! She cannot die! Everyone deserves a chance at life! This child must have a future--she *must*!!*
Quickly she reached for the suction again and doubly cleaned out both the small nose and the mouth. She slipped the fingers of one hand behind the small neck and lifted the chin, sealing her lips around the baby's mouth, and forcefully blew air into the baby's lungs, inflating them herself for the first time. With her other hand, she firmly thumped the bottom of the small feet.
The baby arched beneath her again, reacting to the double stimulation, and when Sharie removed her mouth, the infant uttered a small squeak. The baby gasped, breathing on her own, and as Sharie watched, heart in her throat, let out a series of tiny mews, protesting the intrusion of her solitary world.
Sharie's heart fell to her toes. She was alive! Her quick thinking had worked. The child was so weak it was no wonder she did not have the strength required to draw in her first breath by herself.
Sharie could only sink into a chair, baby in her arms. She tucked her feet under her and cradled the small baby close to her heart protectively. She felt so exhausted she could not move. She looked down at the little baby and could not hide a smile, despite her concerns. She was perfect! Nobody had to tell her otherwise, this baby was a perfectly formed Mewtwo infant. She was tiny, but if she lived, she would grow.
*If she lived.* Sharie started and sat up suddenly. She looked at the baby again. The pallor she had noticed earlier looked no better on this side of the glass. Despite the fact the girl was breathing now, it was labored, and Sharie heard a distinct wheezing in her chest that should not have been there, an indication of how far the infection had spread. She had a high fever, too. Sharie easily felt it when she ran her fingertips over the baby's forehead.
At her touch, the infant uttered a small squeak and moved her head slightly. The newborn's amethyst eyes opened, met Sharie's matching ones, and held.
****
For what seemed an eternity, they held. Sharie was too enthralled to tear her gaze away, or even to breathe. The baby's eyes, even clouded with fever, were thick with the ancient wisdom of her Mew ancestors, and their intensity speared her deeply into her heart.
Unconsciously, Sharie's hand moved to stroke the smooth skin of the baby's cheek, unable to help herself. Her heart was spiralling with emotions she had never before felt, emotions awakened from the deepest recesses of her heart. It was more than protective instincts, or even maternal instincts. It was much more. It was something that was undefineable by words.
Sharie's hand paused when a tiny, hot hand reached up and covered her small fingers with it's own. Deep down, Sharie felt something connect between them, jolting through both almost like electricity, and in that moment, she knew her fate regarding this baby was sealed. Never, ever could she back out.
*Little one, from this moment forth I swear that you will never suffer the anger, pain, or betrayal either Mewtwo, the one like yourself, or I had to suffer. No matter what the risk to myself, I will see to it that you are raised safely and happily. I will take you to Mewtwo, where you will remain, far from the dangers of evil humans, even though it will break my heart to give you up. I want you to know the kind of stability and security we were denied because we were different. Your path may start in the world of moonshadows, little one, but one day, I promise that you will walk in sunlight just as freely and without reservation. No matter what I have to do, it will be done.*
Sharie did not voice these thoughts aloud, but her eyes spoke of the deep love she was helpless to deny. A tiny smile fluttered about the baby Mewtwo's lips, and her amethyst eyes closed in exhaustion.
Sharie reached for a blanket and wrapped the baby in it. She was so small--the size of a five-pound human infant--she could easily be carried in one arm, for now. The next few days would be a struggle, for it was pretty clear that it would take all of Sharie's skill for the baby to have a chance, because she was so ill.
At last, Sharie felt a thread of destiny take hold. For now, her only purpose was to see to the baby's happiness. Whatever happened to her would be beside the point. Until this baby was safe, all of Sharie's existence would be for her.
*I have always had no idea of who I am,* Sharie thought to herself. *Why I was born this way. Why I had to be born with what I have. Maybe, for a little while, I will have a destiny now. To show this baby to her own destiny, wherever it may be.*
Before they left, Sharie barely remembered to pick up the computer pad, which had finished downloading all information regarding this baby. She would read it later.
As they stepped outside, the full moon silently greeted them as a beacon of bright light, leading away from the lab of Team Rocket.
Again the baby's eyes opened, having never seen the sky before, almost immediately focusing on the moon. Sharie glanced downwards in the same instant, and she could not help her mouth opening slightly in astonishment.
The sight of the moonbeams reflecting in the baby's amethyst eyes dazzled Sharie to no end, and in that moment, a name for the baby was seared upon her mind to stay. A name that was certainly unsusual, but beautiful in sound and for this baby, who despite her sickly appearance, was indded beautiful. A smile curved her lips, she could not help it.
"You shall be called Madhea," she whispered aloud. "In the pokemon langauge, Madhea means Moonlight Beauty. Seeing you now, I cannot think of a more perfect name for you. I can see your inner beauty, Madhea, and it is as bright as the moonbeams reflected in your eyes. Welcome to the world, Madhea. It's a big place out there."
Again a tiny smile curved the small mouth, and Sharie knew that somehow, the baby understood her words. The large amethyst eyes fluttered, then closed. Madhea snuggled down against Sharie's chest, and Sharie felt certain that her dreams would be of moonbeams.
End chapter 1
Like it so far? I know that in a couple of places, the story was pretty squished-sounding, but I was trying to introduce the characters in a place where I only have so much space. The Desktop Publisher I type on will only allow about thirteen or fourteen pages per file. I quit (hopefully) doing that when I got to Sharie's first conversation with her father, and the story truly began.....oh, well, chapter 2 will be up soon, so.....stay tuned.
****
Okay, the other stuff. I take liberties with certain established facts of the characters, certain established storylines, the timeline, or other "set" pokemon facts. So if what I write contradicts what you know is "real", well, it's most likely I do know and am choosing to ignore/change it for story reasons. Oh, yeah, I KNOW Ai/Amber actually had blue eyes rather than the Amethyst eyes I establish here....but it's changed for story's sake. I go by the English version of the Anime, BTW. Sorry, can't speak Japanese very well (although with as much subtitled Anime as I've been getting my hands on lately, I have picked up a little bit). Which also means that the girl, Ai, from the Japanese short "Mewtwo's Origin" is refferred to here with her English name, Amber.
Synopsis: It's gonna get pretty tangled, but basically, Sharie Triesta, a human girl with extraoridnary Psychic powers and a scientist in her own right, rescues a baby Mewtwo that Giovanni forgot about when Mewtwo purged his memory. She knows she must keep the baby out of human grasp, and decides to take her to Mewtwo, where she hopes she would be safe....the question is: Will Mewtwo, upon discovering that it was *her* family that helped create him, accept her presence....or could it go all the worse for both of them? Plus, they discover that shadows from their pasts seem to say they've met before....but from where? Enjoy. I do accept comments and suggestions, but flames with no critiquing value will be deleted without reply.
Oh, yeah.....rated PG-13, mostly for violence and a bit of mild language--nothing too bad, I promise. (The rating may seem a bit stretched, but better safe than sorry.)
****
Moonlight Shadows and Echoes Past
by ZeoViolet
Mewtwo stared at the full moon, shining brightly upon him and reflecting in his amethyst-purple eyes--eyes that he strove hard to not reflect the shadows of pain echoing in their depths. Depths that struck straight and true to his heart.
*Moonlight*, he thought to no one in particular. *For those not of nature's order, we are only able to walk the moonshadow path. If we are to survive in a world that deems us different, we must travel where others would not be found. The shadows of moonlight are a fitting place to us, echoes of living creatures.*
He was glad no one was watching him. Here, safe within the hidden depths of caverns beneath Mt. Quena, all of his fellow clones were asleep, tired from their recent journey. Only he was awake, standing at one of the waterfall openings that spewed river water out of the sides of the mountain to the valley below.
This was but a temporary home, now. Part of the time they could live here, for the bus would not attempt to cross but once a month. The rest of the time they had to leave, just to avoid detection. Luna and Cullen Calix, the closest humans to the mountain, did not remember him, and he hoped they would not again attempt to climb Mt. Quena. As long as they stayed down where they were, doing their own research, he was fine with it.
Mewtwo sighed, placing his tri-fingered hand against the stone wall and closing his eyes. Try as he might, he could not ignore the deep, spearing pain of lonliness that pierced his very soul. The very pain that had been growing within him steadily since he could remember. The others might be clones, like himself, but they were not him. He was the sole pokemon of his species, and thus doomed to an existence of utter solitude, knowing there was not another like himself to find companionship with.
*No,* he thought firmly to himself, *I would not wish such a fate on any other pokemon. I'd rather be alone for eternity than have another like myself suffering at some cruel scientists' hands, like those damnable Triesta brothers who created me....or worse, serving someone like Giovanni. Any such pokemon is better off dead.*
He clenched his teeth, fighting the pain from the horrors of his past back. It faded, but left a hollow emptiness within him. He crossed his hands over his abdomen and shut his eyes tightly, feeling quite the lonliest creature in the universe.
****
Of all those born different, those destined to walk a fine line between shadow and light, a very few humans are also born into this fold. Even if they do not realize it, they are destined to walk in a very different world than any other human, a world riding the fine edge between human and pokemon, an edge occupied by both light and dark--a realm of shadows.
One could not always tell from the outside. If a person could be born pokemon-like in spirit, but with a human's body, that would describe part of it. They are sometimes born with powers that no human should have or ever use, powers only pokemon alone sould weild. This fact alone would often brand them outcasts by others with cruel tongues. It was a rare enough occurence, too, with only a small handful of humans gifted/cursed with it in history.
Sharie Triesta was one such individual. Born Psychic into a family with a long history of psychics and scientists, this should not have been a problem. But with psychic powers that were far more pokemon in origin than human, it was an immediate identifiable stamp, a stamp that would become a curse.
The first indication had been her incessant cries as a baby. Worried, her father, Dr. Donningan Triesta, took her to see his favorite Alakazam, who made it clear just what the girl's problem was, that her psychic nature was causing her stress. All the pokemon could do for the frazzled father was place a Psychic suggestion in the girl's mind to ease the pain until she could build her own defenses. This was a type of Psychic power not even her own father, both a Psychic himself and a scientist to boot, could help her with.
Not too long afterwards, she began to display a rather astounding trait that had very little to do with her psychic powers--she had the unique ability to understand any pokemon's sub-language and talk back to them in it.
They found it out quite by accident. Sharie wasn't even walking yet, although she was talking in broken sentences--an early indication of how telepathy easily increased her vocabulary. Her father had been caring for her for the day while at work, and, in a hurry to finish an experiment, placed her in a pen beside a Bulbasaur.
"Watch her, would you?" he asked tiredly.
"Zoar." Sadly, the Bulbasaur looked at him and nodded. Donningan was not an unfeeling man and he smiled and rubbed the Bulbasaur's head before walking to the nearby table and mixing chemichals.
"Bubba--zoar?"
Surprised, the Bulbasaur had turned his head to see Sharie sitting there, watching him.
"Zoar-zoar, Bulba?" he asked.
Emphatically, she nodded. "Soar! Bubba-soar!"
Crash!
Her father had dropped his glass beakers in utter shock.
Sharie only looked at him.
"Bubbasaur lonely," she said simply.
"And how do you know that?" he asked in a quivering voice.
"He say. Miss old twainer, but twainer leave him. Bubbasoar not 'volve. Happy here, but lonely."
"You can say his words." It was more a statement than a question.
His daughter only stared at him.
****
As she grew, her powers became more evident. Her parents tried to train her in control, but often, she left them stumped. How could you easily train a kid whose powers already exceeded your own?
They began to rage out of control when Sharie's mother died when she was barely four years old. Heartbroken, her father took daughter in hand and took her with him to his various labs he co-owned with one of his brothers, Daryn Triesta. Sharie ended up growing up in several labratory settings, often distant labs far from any city or town, regarded by many scientsts as much an experimentee as the eventual experimenter she would become. The cruelties they inflicted upon her behind her father's back would haunt her for the rest of her days. It was only compounded when her powers would rage out of control and she could depend on little but herself, or the occassional Psychic pokemon, to bring her relief until she could control each new power surge as her abilities grew in strength and complexity.
As her abilities grew, so did her ability to control herself, though she feared that she would always be prone to sudden power surges until she was grown. Desperate for some outlet to focus her abilities, she turned to studying just to take her mind off the torment. Putting all that power towards learning did have certain advantages--home-schooling courses granted her several scientific degrees at an early age. But it wasn't enough, for while it was an outlet, it left Sharie deeply unfulfilled.
In his younger days, Dr. Triesta had been declared by the League to be a pokemon master in his own right, so when he discovered how much it meant to Sharie to interact with pokemon, he pulled some strings and managed to get her a trainer's license and a Master's ranking when she was only seven years old. By mutual agreement, it was only partially valid, for it would allow her to freely interact with the lab pokemon, but she would not be able to capture any of her own until her tenth birthday, nor participate in official trainer battles until then. The Master's ranking--the results of her test scores for League entry--was to be an even tighter-kept secret for many years.
Even after her tenth birthday, Sharie refused to capture pokemon. She knew what it was like to be considered below someone else and she did not dream of depriving any pokemon the freedom of life they deserved in the wild. Her father had tried to protect her, but as much as he, her Uncle Daryn, Aunt Alyssa, and her cousin Amber loved her, she knew full well of life's cruel realities and came to the conclusion that moonlight was the best place for someone who seemed as much pokemon as human.
Knowing her feelings, her father did not tell her when he first left on a brief exploration trip, and then, along with her uncle, went on a secret project they did not tell her about. Sharie hated mental intrusion so much that it did not occur to her to read her family's mind. When Amber died, she was devastated, and it did not help when her uncle Daryn said that Amber was still alive, in a way, and maybe she could come back....but only maybe. He gave no further details. Her Aunt Alyssa divorced her Uncle Daryn soon afterwards, and were it not for the fact that she was also Sharie's mother's blood sister and remained her aunt regardless--two brothers marrying two sisters--, she would have disappeared for good.
In the midst of all the turmoil, the blackouts started..
The first she could not remember. She woke up to her father and uncle sadly telling her that she had been unconscious for weeks after an accident, and that during the time, Amber really had passed on for good. Sharie felt the crushing blow a second time, but like before, she did not cry. She had long since forgotten how.
The day that she first learned of Mewtwo's existence was the day when he awoke....and the same time he did, she fell unconscious.
This time, however, she remembered everything. It was so vivid--like she had been standing beside him. She could not really see into his mind, but she could feel his deep anger.
Sharie's family were lucky to escape with their lives.
What she remebered most vividly was the screams. She sensed anger surging through this pokemon, and she could only stand by and do nothing. She was almost bowled over by intense Psychic blasts the pokemon kept surging forth, with little idea or caring for control.
"We dreamed of creating the world's most powerful pokemon," she heard her uncle Daryn whisper in the distance. "....And we succeeded...."
She had been nearly blinded by a flash of white light, and the raging fire that consumed the island.
"Behold my power, for I am the greatest pokemon ever created," she heard Mewtwo snarl in a psychically projected voice. She could only watch as he stared spitefully down at the crude stone carving of Mew on the ground. "Greater even than *you*."
****
At her demand, Sharie's father and uncle told her everything, and showed her the project they had been working on. It was only the promise of free help that led to their unholy alliance with Team Rocket.
"Our family is wealthy enough!" she had cried to them. "Team Rocket is evil! Why, Uncle Daryn, why did you treat Mewtwo like he was nothing more than an object, a machine?!"
It was only when they told her about reawakening Amber, then losing her again, did she soften and forgive them. She sensed it was not the complete story, but seeing their own pain, she decided not to press them further on day-by-day details. She also reminded them that pokemon were sentient and to create life with no intent but cold scientific study was cruel in the extreme. Knowing how gentle they both usually were with pokemon--lab specimins or not--, she knew it was more their grief over Amber than anything that had led to their attitudes towards Mewtwo--for he had survived, while Amber had not.
Now they understood how right she was.
Since then, she had blacked out several more times. Each time, it was like she was standing beside the pokemon known as Mewtwo, though he could not really see her. All she could do was stand and watch, invisible to him, as he trained under Giovanni's tutelage. She felt sick when she discovered that he was in the hands of Team Rocket, even if they were teaching him control. Her anger was his the day Giovanni came upon Mewtwo pondering his existence and cut him further with cruel words.
"You were created for *me*," came the sharply cutting words. "You were created *by* humans to *obey* humans. *That* is your destiny, nothing more."
"That *cannot* be!" was the reply, and Sharie felt keenly the stabbing pain in her own heart echoing his. "You said we were partners, we stood as equals!"
"You are a pokemon!" came the cold reply. "Not human. You could *never* be my equal."
To her own horror, Sharie had felt her own personal response and Mewtwo's become one, for a bare instant. "I was not born a pokemon, I was created! My creators have used and betrayed me--so, I stand *alone*!"
*We both are destined to stand alone,* she had thought sadly, though he did not hear her. She felt utterly numb when, now with his powers at his full control, he destroyed the lab and fled, leaving Giovanni far behind. She had even briefly wondered if it was well within his rights to come after his creators after all the pain he had experienced for being different--absolutely powerful, but different.
But the worst was yet to come.
One day she blacked out again, and was unconscious for what seemed like an eternity to her frightened father. This time, she did not lay quietly, but thrashed all over the place, her mind clearly not in her body.
Only when she woke, after a great struggle, did they learn of the horrors she had seen.
Mewtwo had attempted to take over the world.
She had seen it all. The trainers, the fight, the startling fact that Mew was not extinct as believed....and the boy Ash that had opened the cold heart of Mewtwo, at the price of his life.
And the miracle of the pokemon tears restoring it, causing Mewtwo to feel as if his heart was wrenched open and flooded with emotions he had never before felt.
"I see now," he had said quietly to Mew, watching how the boy, Ash, valued all pokemon, born or created, as if it truly did not matter to him. "I see now. The circumstances of one's birth--when choosing what to do with life, those circumstances are irrelavant, aren't they? It is what you *do* with life's gift, that must determine who you are."
His deep-seated rage at humanity gone, he took his new fellow clones and left, erasing the memories of all but the silent partner whom he did not know was there--except for some deeply hidden, unconscious corner.
His deep rage had ebbed, but not the anger or the hurt, from such painful betrayal. That, he felt, would never leave him. All he wanted now, was peace. A place alone, from dangerous humanity. Even if they had to live as outcasts, he and his fellow clones would live in peace.
For the next year, Sharie felt nothing more of him.
Until the horrific scenes at Mt. Quena rendered her by his side once more. Once again, the boy Ash was there, and once again, it was his pure-hearted spirit that overcame Giovanni's offensive. And this time, Mewtwo agreed to spare the memories of Ash and his friends while this time he erased everyone else's.
Except that of the silent watcher. All this time, he had no real awareness she was there--at most, he had felt watched once or twice, but nothing appeared to him, so only the deepest depths of his unconscious mind and heart remembered the bond they had formed, in a time neither could remember, and that when his life's path took a curve, she had been there to witness it with him.
Not even Sharie herself knew the reason behind her strange bond with a unique being as Mewtwo. After awhile, she had simply given up pondering it. She only resigned it as destiny, never dreaming that she and Mewtwo could possibly meet one day.
****
Donningan Triesta transferred the e-mail he had recieved into the pokegear held in his daughter's surprised hands.
"Read it," he said wearily. "After all that has happened, you of all people deserve to know. Read it."
She did, her amethyst-purple eyes growing wide with a comprehending horror, absoultely thunderstruck. No sooner did she get to the last word than she ripped the pokegear device from around her neck and flung it onto the couch, flopping down hard beside it and staring off into space.
"I have just one question, Da," she said in a low voice. "Did you have *anything* at all to do with this new baby Mewtwo's creation this time?"
"After what happened last time, and what you've had to go through since?" he asked, kneeling to her eye level, his own amethyst eyes meeting her matching ones. "I would have told you if I had decided to follow such a course with Team Rocket again. You would have ripped me limb from limb for getting involved in their affairs after the promise I made to you."
"Not limb from limb," she said softly. "But it would have been very hard to forgive you, Da. Mewtwo is a living creature, like us, and as intelligent as any human, if not more. He has a soul the same as mine, and yet he was treated the same as a machine, like a curiosity to be prodded and examined. Some of your colleagues were fit to try and treat me the same way. Only my protests and the intervention of you and Uncle Daryn prevented much of it. You are Psychic, Da, and you of all people should have known that."
"I know that now," he said softly. "I know that now."
Sharie picked up her pokegear again. "After Giovanni's memory was erased, almost everyone involved forgot that they were creating this new baby. Only one scientist involved remained behind at the airbase, and thus was spared Mewtwo's knowledge. I can't believe he felt guilty enough to e-mail you and tell you about it, and leave Giovanni in the dark."
"I never gave Giovanni permission to use my techniques to create another Mewtwo," said Donningan quietly, his arm around his daughter. "Although he did approach me about it, I flatly refused. He even warned me that it was not a wise idea to refuse him, but I would not do it. I should have hidden my own files better. This one came from a seperate fossil found, unrelated to the first. The DNA alterations themselves were identical. However, the way the pokemon has been grown is different than what I did. They placed the DNA into a pokemon ovum and have been growing it from an embryonic stage in an artificial womb, like any pokemon or human baby. They intend to have it 'born' when it reaches fetal maturity, instead of full physical maturity like Mewtwo was."
"Either way, Da, the baby was intended for Team Rocket's use," Sharie said quietly, gritting her teeth. To his surprise, her father saw something flash deeply in her eyes, a new fire he had never before seen in his 17-year-old daughter. He guessed part of her intentions before she even voiced them.
"I am going, Da. That child will otherwise die from neglect if I don't. It must *not* be allowed to fall into Giovanni's hands."
"That's well and good in itself," he conceded quietly. "But what can be done with the baby? Surely knowing you, you would not have it grow up in a labratory setting if you could help it."
She arose from the couch, her father with her, easily towering over her petite frame. "No, Da, I don't. The child must be kept away from humanity and it's dangers. It deserves to grow up freely. Maybe even with others like itself. I will find the child, Da, and if at all possible, I will take it to Mewtwo to keep safe from humans. It could be the baby's only real hope."
Her father's eyes widened in horror, and he looked at Sharie's resolute face, the features very similar to his own--features that her own cousin Amber had, once upon a time. Amber had been a beautiful child, not looking like her father but like her uncle and cousin, and sometimes, the reminder was painfully evident to both brothers in Sharie's face. Amber would have grown into a very attractive young woman one day, if she had lived.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Wouldn't that be foolish? You know how he feels about our family. I'd be afraid he'd at least attempt to kill you."
"I hope not," came the dry reply. "It is a risk I am willing to take. I must set right the many wrongs that have been done already. Oh, Da!"
Sharie sighed and stared out the window at the setting sun. "You say that despite the freakish powers I have I am a normal human otherwise. Maybe so. But with powers such as mine--what is my destiny? The only time I feel at peace with myself is when I am working with pokemon, being with them as they are. It is my only sense of--of being one with myself, and I have never had any indication of what my destiny may be. I don't want to sit around in labratories all my life, doing nothing but following in the family footsteps. For the first time, with this, I feel as if I might have some purpose. That there might actually be a deeper reason I was born with such powers as I have, besides never giving me much peace."
"Follow your own heart, Sharie," said her father sadly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "You've already put those powers of yours to use in communicating with pokemon when nobody else can understand them--even I cannot without a Psychic link. You've already obtained the degrees I spent years working on, and I know your heart yearns for peace and something more for your own destiny. If you feel that you must go out and face the world in this manner, then so be it. Don't let the child fall into the wrong hands. Find it a place where it can belong....maybe you will find your own niche in the world while you are gone. I pray it is true. Good luck, my daughter, and stay safe--you are the only one Daryn and I have left."
"I'll try, Da," she answered, hugging him fiercely. "I'll try."
****
Both father and uncle were waiting at the foot of the stairs when Sharie came down the next morning, backpack in hand.
Especially her uncle Daryn looked at her sadly. Sharie's heart ached for him; losing Amber and her Aunt Alyssa both had been very hard for her uncle, his hair already a premature white while he was still so young. At times when he looked at her, she kenw his sadness grew more poingant--for, except for the hair, Amber had looked very much like she did. The resemblence wasn't exact, but it was pretty darned close. They could have been sisters. Only the fact that Amber had wavy aquamarine hair instead of Sharie's hip-length, platinum blonde tight curls and the fact that she was almost five years younger was the real difference. When they did get a chance to be together, they had been inseperable, and was, Sharie now reflected, her only true friend.
Amber had been ten when she had died over a year and a half ago. Thank goodness the illness had been merciful enough that she did not suffer long. It only reinforced Sharie's patient resolve--that she was meant to go through life alone.
Fiercely they hugged her goodbye. She could tell they were scared for her. Mewtwo had, after all, tried to kill them.
However, for the first time, she could feel whispers of destiny calling her down a path, giving her some sense of purpose. It was a heed she could not ignore.
And, maybe, giving the baby mewtwo over would finally set some old wrongs right.
And Mewtwo would not have to be alone anymore.
"My old colleague did not give me a specific location of the lab," said Donningan. "He only said it was in the far west reaches of the Johto reigon. The closest towns here are New Bark Town to the South and Pallet Town to the South East, in Kanto. Sharie," her father placed his hands on her narrow shoulders and knelt so his height was adjusted with her small frame and they were eye-to-eye. "Please, be careful. Do what your heart tells you is right. Whatever you decide to do in the future, find your own path and know that Daryn and I are behind you all the way, in spirit if not in body. If all else fails in your search for Mewtwo, then we swear we will help you keep the child out of the rest of humanity's vicious grasp until it is grown. No labs, no tests. On this you have our word."
For a moment, Sharie's eyes shimmered, and she hugged them hard.
*I'll try my best,* they heard her thoughts in their minds in a rare display of telepathy. *I cannot say when I would be back, it could be a long time, but I must find my destiny by myself. But I'll take comfort in the fact that you are with me in spirit. Nobody can break those bonds.*
They shared one last, fierce hug, and Sharie left without another word.
For nothing more needed to be said.
****
The search took weeks. Sharie only had a general sense of where to look, and the more time that passed, the more she knew that time was in short supply. The letter had said that a computer fed the baby automatically, but surely, without supervision, it could not last for much longer.
As the days wore on, she pushed deeper and deeper into the wilderness of Johto, rarely coming across a town or city. Along the way, she occupied herself by doing some of the things she did best--healing sick pokemon as best she could without a pokecenter. Thanks to her own abiltities, and stuff she had learned from pokemon themselves, she was as adept at finding forest medicine as any other pokemon doctor or forest creature. Healing others also gave her a measure of peace in her own soul.
Besides, pokemon were always plesantly surprised to discover that she could speak their own languages on their own terms, even ones she had never heard before.
It took a long time, but at last by intervewing forest pokemon, Sharie learned of a lab, deep in the forest, that had, weeks before, apparently been abandoned. It was shut up tight and no pokemon had dared to try and enter it themselves.
With new directions, Sharie at last came to a building hidden deeply away from the world.
Painted upon the doors was a symbol that made her blood run cold--a huge, capital letter R.
Sharie immediately slowed and approached the building cautiously, keeping to the shadows of the trees and ignoring the scratches the thorny brush gave her. The resident pokemon had said that the building was empty, but she preferred caution. She had no pokemon to battle with herself; she could only rely on her own powers. Any devices that could ensnare a mewtwo--surely they had them here--could certainly work on her as well.
There was no sign of movement, no shadows in the windows, highligted by the full moon of night. Only then did Sharie dare open her mind a little to try and sense any presence of evil about the place, or any human signature. She hated mental intrusion so much that seldom did she allow herself to sense another's mind or thoughts, especially without their permission--but in this case, it was necessary.
She could sense no human presence.
Only then did she approach the doors, walking as quietly as she could.
Quickly, she entered the access codes that her father had used long ago with Mewtwo, praying they would work. Her relief was great when the door wooshed open, admitting her without protest.
Slowly, she entered the dark hallways, only dimly lit with those self-sustaining flourescent bulbs that were themselves threatening to go out any moment. In a short distance she reached the main labratory.
Except for one functioning computer and one glowing column of light in the corner of the main room, the area was dark.
*Why on earth did Giovanni need *every* scientist from this place to accompany him?* she thought. It just did not sound like him, to abandon such a project as cloning a second Mewtwo. Well--he probably figured the baby would be stable enough for a couple of days alone, and with a pokemon like Mewtwo, he needed every scientist on hand who had enough knowledge of him to help capture him. Only the one scientist, who had stayed behind at the airbase, had escaped Mewtwo's knowledge and therefore, the memory purge.....
But, if Mewtwo had erased everyone's memory of *him*, why, then, did they forget this place, as well? Sharie thought back to what she had seen, and then, with a flash of clarity, remembered.....Mewtwo had erased their memories of him and *anything to do with him*, so there would be no reminders. The Psychic suggestion he had placed in their minds would have automatically buried any memory that had anything to do with him, and surely, the creation of a second Mewtwo had a lot to do with him.....
She shuddered. Mewtwo surely did not know of this himself, or she doubted he would have ignored this place for so long. He did not have to explore a person's memory to block and bury any memories he did not want them to have.
Sharie went to the computer console. She squinted at it a moment, trying to see the many buttons in the darkness that pressed in on all sides. The layout was familiar enough. She decided it would not be difficult to work. Her fingertips found the button that activated the lights, and she had to cover her eyes for a moment, temporarily blinded.
She then moved to the glowing tube in the corner. Bubbles occassionly drifted in it and there were wires and electrodes going down in from the top. Sharie recognized it as a maturation chamber--an artificial womb.
Seeing what was within, her heart sank.
For inside it, indeed, floated a tiny baby Mewtwo. There could be no mistake, and the scientist had not lied.
****
*This wasn't right.* Those were the first words to echo in Sharie's mind. This--all of it--did not look right. The equipment was barely functioning. The baby floating within was curled in a fetal position, but the readouts told her that it was past due to have been born.
Why, then, was it so small? It could not weigh more than four or five pounds.
Sharie stepped closer to the tube and peered closer at the floating infant. Her heart sank at how still the baby was, and the pallor of the skin--it was all wrong.
In fact, the color of the artificial amniotic fluid itself was wrong.
With a start, Sharie drew back. The liquid the child was floating in--it had become contaminated! The water should have been a clearer color, instead, it was cloudy, a sign of negelct.
*Is the child even alive?*
Sharie ran back to the computer and punched up the readouts. As an afterthought, she set up the computer to download all information on the baby into a small computer pad she was carrying with her.
Her heart sank further as she turned back to the readouts.
The child was alive, but barely. The essential equiptment--providing her blood with food and oxygen--was functioning, but the contaminants had invaded her body. In her haste, Sharie dimly noted that the readouts indicated a female baby, but that was not important now. No wonder the poor child was so sickly colored, and did not move--her tiny body was livid with an infection that was slowly eating her alive.
For a moment, she stood still, thinking. The baby had to be born, *now*, if she was to survive. The infection had to be tackled, if it wasn't too late already.
Sharie closed her eyes and, rather superstitiously, crossed her fingers. Her heart beat faster and a weird, tingling sensation gripped her heart. Where another would have panicked, she let this new feeling guide her hands and prayed she did this right.
She had to force herself to walk over to the computer console and boot up the process that would allow the mewtwo baby to be 'born'.
The equipment moved sluggishly, but complied. The many tubes hooked up to the infant disengaged, and a brief mechanical nudge turned her upside down towards the bottom of the chamber.
Sharie's heart beat faster with a sense of impending doom she could not brush away. She had to move to catch the infant as she was pushed to the bottom of the chamber and expelled slowly from the opening in a series of pulsing contractions.
Sharie ceased to breathe as she caught the little head and eased the rest of the small body forth, out into the world. She felt a flash of panic when she realized the infant did not move. She lifted her quickly up onto a nearby table and used a suction to remove any debris from the little mouth.
*Come on, baby, breathe.*
Suddenly, the infant's back arched, and she seemed to struggle for a moment to draw in her first breath, the first assurance that she was still alive.
The infant was too weak to keep up the struggle for more than a few moments. The small chest tremored with effort, but did not rise, the lungs could not inflate, and exhausted with the effort, the baby went limp a moment later as Sharie watched in total horror.
She had failed to take her first breath of life.
*NO!*
The word exploded into Sharie's brain. She could not think, she could only move for a few seconds. Some deep, desperate desire would not let her give up on the little one.
*No! She cannot die! Everyone deserves a chance at life! This child must have a future--she *must*!!*
Quickly she reached for the suction again and doubly cleaned out both the small nose and the mouth. She slipped the fingers of one hand behind the small neck and lifted the chin, sealing her lips around the baby's mouth, and forcefully blew air into the baby's lungs, inflating them herself for the first time. With her other hand, she firmly thumped the bottom of the small feet.
The baby arched beneath her again, reacting to the double stimulation, and when Sharie removed her mouth, the infant uttered a small squeak. The baby gasped, breathing on her own, and as Sharie watched, heart in her throat, let out a series of tiny mews, protesting the intrusion of her solitary world.
Sharie's heart fell to her toes. She was alive! Her quick thinking had worked. The child was so weak it was no wonder she did not have the strength required to draw in her first breath by herself.
Sharie could only sink into a chair, baby in her arms. She tucked her feet under her and cradled the small baby close to her heart protectively. She felt so exhausted she could not move. She looked down at the little baby and could not hide a smile, despite her concerns. She was perfect! Nobody had to tell her otherwise, this baby was a perfectly formed Mewtwo infant. She was tiny, but if she lived, she would grow.
*If she lived.* Sharie started and sat up suddenly. She looked at the baby again. The pallor she had noticed earlier looked no better on this side of the glass. Despite the fact the girl was breathing now, it was labored, and Sharie heard a distinct wheezing in her chest that should not have been there, an indication of how far the infection had spread. She had a high fever, too. Sharie easily felt it when she ran her fingertips over the baby's forehead.
At her touch, the infant uttered a small squeak and moved her head slightly. The newborn's amethyst eyes opened, met Sharie's matching ones, and held.
****
For what seemed an eternity, they held. Sharie was too enthralled to tear her gaze away, or even to breathe. The baby's eyes, even clouded with fever, were thick with the ancient wisdom of her Mew ancestors, and their intensity speared her deeply into her heart.
Unconsciously, Sharie's hand moved to stroke the smooth skin of the baby's cheek, unable to help herself. Her heart was spiralling with emotions she had never before felt, emotions awakened from the deepest recesses of her heart. It was more than protective instincts, or even maternal instincts. It was much more. It was something that was undefineable by words.
Sharie's hand paused when a tiny, hot hand reached up and covered her small fingers with it's own. Deep down, Sharie felt something connect between them, jolting through both almost like electricity, and in that moment, she knew her fate regarding this baby was sealed. Never, ever could she back out.
*Little one, from this moment forth I swear that you will never suffer the anger, pain, or betrayal either Mewtwo, the one like yourself, or I had to suffer. No matter what the risk to myself, I will see to it that you are raised safely and happily. I will take you to Mewtwo, where you will remain, far from the dangers of evil humans, even though it will break my heart to give you up. I want you to know the kind of stability and security we were denied because we were different. Your path may start in the world of moonshadows, little one, but one day, I promise that you will walk in sunlight just as freely and without reservation. No matter what I have to do, it will be done.*
Sharie did not voice these thoughts aloud, but her eyes spoke of the deep love she was helpless to deny. A tiny smile fluttered about the baby Mewtwo's lips, and her amethyst eyes closed in exhaustion.
Sharie reached for a blanket and wrapped the baby in it. She was so small--the size of a five-pound human infant--she could easily be carried in one arm, for now. The next few days would be a struggle, for it was pretty clear that it would take all of Sharie's skill for the baby to have a chance, because she was so ill.
At last, Sharie felt a thread of destiny take hold. For now, her only purpose was to see to the baby's happiness. Whatever happened to her would be beside the point. Until this baby was safe, all of Sharie's existence would be for her.
*I have always had no idea of who I am,* Sharie thought to herself. *Why I was born this way. Why I had to be born with what I have. Maybe, for a little while, I will have a destiny now. To show this baby to her own destiny, wherever it may be.*
Before they left, Sharie barely remembered to pick up the computer pad, which had finished downloading all information regarding this baby. She would read it later.
As they stepped outside, the full moon silently greeted them as a beacon of bright light, leading away from the lab of Team Rocket.
Again the baby's eyes opened, having never seen the sky before, almost immediately focusing on the moon. Sharie glanced downwards in the same instant, and she could not help her mouth opening slightly in astonishment.
The sight of the moonbeams reflecting in the baby's amethyst eyes dazzled Sharie to no end, and in that moment, a name for the baby was seared upon her mind to stay. A name that was certainly unsusual, but beautiful in sound and for this baby, who despite her sickly appearance, was indded beautiful. A smile curved her lips, she could not help it.
"You shall be called Madhea," she whispered aloud. "In the pokemon langauge, Madhea means Moonlight Beauty. Seeing you now, I cannot think of a more perfect name for you. I can see your inner beauty, Madhea, and it is as bright as the moonbeams reflected in your eyes. Welcome to the world, Madhea. It's a big place out there."
Again a tiny smile curved the small mouth, and Sharie knew that somehow, the baby understood her words. The large amethyst eyes fluttered, then closed. Madhea snuggled down against Sharie's chest, and Sharie felt certain that her dreams would be of moonbeams.
End chapter 1
Like it so far? I know that in a couple of places, the story was pretty squished-sounding, but I was trying to introduce the characters in a place where I only have so much space. The Desktop Publisher I type on will only allow about thirteen or fourteen pages per file. I quit (hopefully) doing that when I got to Sharie's first conversation with her father, and the story truly began.....oh, well, chapter 2 will be up soon, so.....stay tuned.
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