A/N. So from here on out out, I'll be making a valiant attempt to squeeze what might've taken two chapter to get to the point of into one. I will probably fail spectacularly at this endeavor.

But none of you will be able to say (hopefully) that I didn't try…

I am probably going to eat those words later.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

EP 12: Battles upon Battles; Mewtwo's Plan?!

There was an unfamiliar pounding at the back of his skull, like a headache but not quite there just yet. An unease in the air and a powerful sense of something that just was… not in front of them all per say, but was there none the less. And it was strange how he could feel like something should be there when he could barely see his own in front of his own face in the pitch darkness of the room.

There was a single light of course, but that light left him shaking in a way he hadn't since his last battle with Giovanni, when it'd been tooth and nail grinding determination against sheer skill he hadn't really had the experience to match on an even playing field.

He'd won that by a miracle and a fucking landslide of happenstance decisions and off-the-wall tactics that would've had Blue slapping him upside the head for being an idiot. But this wasn't something he actually felt like he could win.

There was… a power of some kind, so strong it was almost suffocating, somewhere above their heads and looming over them as if they were mere little caterpie in the face of a monster of a pokémon.

He wanted to run, he wanted to fight, he actually wasn't entirely sure what exactly it was he wanted to do, but there was something coming and it was far bigger than anything he'd ever faced before.

How did one face something like this and not almost cave under the pressure?

And he wasn't the only one apparently feeling that way. The others seemed almost blind to the foreboding sense of doom he'd been getting since the lights went out, but the one girl, Ace, had been looking at the ceiling with a distant but focused look and going increasingly pale the more seconds passed.

And Gary… Gary looked sick, beyond sick actually. To be honest, he hadn't thought it was possible to look that pale unless you were dead, and he'd almost made the mistake of assuming such with the younger trainer.

He was terrified, curled in on himself and trying to look far smaller than he actually was. And he felt bad for not being closer to Gary so the boy had something to cling to that wasn't a person he'd just met. But Felicity seemed to have it under some control at the very least.

She had what little of the boy's attention was left and not wrapped up in some kind of horrific nightmare only he was seeing, and she was trying to keep him as calm as she possibly could through what probably had to be the worst panic attack he'd ever seen.

If this could even be considered one.

"M-Me…"

And the sight of the misshapen, malformed, inhuman shadow floating down almost dismissively from the whole in the ceiling only seemed to be making it worse.

"G-Gary, please… You have to stay with me. I know it's difficult, but you have to breathe… Do you hear me? Breathe, or you're gonna pass out…" She had her other spontaneous charge pick up her bag, handing it to the blonde girl as she traded placed with the other girl to dig for something. He wasn't entirely sure what, but if it helped his rival's younger brother breathe a little easier he wasn't about to complain.

"A-A pokémon?" he heard one of the others question, right as the creature's feet hit the ground.

A long tail, cat-like face, too humanly proud to be considered normal stance; the fear was gone, but he wasn't sure whether he could call the new emotion he was experiencing complete and total shock, or an increasingly strange and unfamiliar form of confusion. This thing, this pokémon, whatever it was, it wasn't normal.

Not necessarily off, but its misshapen form almost reminded him of a lab experiment gone just shy of completely awry.

And the power it was emitting in waves…

But if it really was a lab experiment gone out of control, who would've been insane enough to make it?

'You idiot… Who isn't insane enough to make it is more like…' It would've been far more easier to make than the list of potential psychopaths that would want something like this in their hands.

After all he could start the latter off with the bastard known as Giovanni and end it right then and there. The man had always wanted to be revered as a god after all, and he'd made no secret of the fact, even amidst hiding the truth of who and what he actually was. But there were also a dozen more sociopaths that were almost as bad, and pinning it on Giovanni was contrastingly easy and just as impossible as proving that the esteemed gym leader was actually the big boss of a criminal organization renowned for thieving, poaching, and just generally being a source of nigh unstoppable mayhem.

Because against the seasoned experience and irrefutable reputation of the gym leader, his word would've meant less than the dirt they walked on, and they'd both known it in that final confrontation. Even if Giovanni had lost, the bastard would still go free, and next time Red wouldn't have been so lucky. And his little sister might've gotten caught in the fray. Or rather, she already had, and he'd been too stupid and too slow to stop it in time…

But playing who'd done it wasn't going to get them out of this situation in one piece, and the way that pokémon was looking at all of them promised a painful ending to this little story.

"That is right." the older woman began, interrupting his thoughts and drawing what little of their attention they'd all been willing to spare towards herself as the pokémon stood there, tail waving slightly in the air behind it. "The world's strongest pokémon trainer is also the world's strongest pokémon…"

"The hell it is! That's a pokémon! A pokémon can't be a trainer!" Ace must've been feeling particularly suicidal, because he doubted she would've said that so brazenly otherwise.

He'd heard the girl was a bit of a troublemaker at times, but to challenge a creature they didn't know the strength of, and straight to its face no less… Well, it wasn't the brightest one could do in this situation. He just prayed it wouldn't be the last thing she did.

"Silence Human... Imake therules now…" All three spoke at once, the air chilling as if someone had released one of the legendary ice-types into the room, and he heard Gary whimper as he receded into the protective shell Felicity made as she stood between the psychic and his rival's younger brother, cooing soft words and making him take some strangely colored liquid in a small jar that he hoped wouldn't put the boy out of commission for the rest of the evening, however badly Gary probably needed it.

Much as he hated to say it, the poor boy would only further hinder them if one of them had to constantly watch over his unconscious body should he just happen to pass out.

"What did you say?!" and it was all the warning any of them really got before the thing picked Ace up with some strange ethereal energy and tossed her aside like a ragdoll. She bounced rather violently against the ground, and he saw her spin slightly for a split second before she disappeared in a jet of water, landing in one of the nearby fountains, and not immediately getting back up.

"Ace!" Felicity called out, face contorted in an obvious show of concern, eyes wide and looking like she desperately wanted to go make sure the younger girl was okay, and stuck in indecision because there were two other, much younger trainers who she felt needed her just as much.

Her form practically collapsed in relief though when the trainer in question pulled herself out of the fountain finally, sputtering and looking like she wanted to kill something instead. She swore rather loudly, cussed some more and then glared the psychic down despite the fact that it had just swatted her aside like an insect.

"Son of bitch, you're gonna pay for that!" she'd screamed, motioning for one of her pokémon to attack. All three did so with little hesitation, roaring their anger at the apparent assault only to be stopped dead in their tracks before they got even a foot away from the original positions.

They struggled, but it was rather fruitless in the end, all of them meeting the exact same fate their poor trainer had. The green snake looked the least bothered by where they had landed, but they were all sporting equally murderous looks at the brazen dismissal.

"Ivy! Leaf Storm!" And she didn't give up either, the grass-type in question all but turning the table over and forcing the rest of them to scatter so they wouldn't get hit as the attack cut through the floor and headed straight at its target.

The psychic seemed to almost laugh at the sight of the rather vicious move, and the strange pokémon from earlier eyed it for a split second before herding the two humans there were so clearly brainwashed out of the way of the assault.

The powerful attack was stopped dead in its tracks however, the green wind and the leaves littered throughout inverting and twisting under the psychic's power until it formed a tight, little, heavily pressurized ball.

"Weak." The pokémon spoke, its deeper voice echoing in their heads right before it sent the attack back. It shot off with a speed he hadn't seen before, and the grass-type immediately curled around its trainer and the rest of her pokémon, a protective barrier that simply wasn't going to hold up against the onslaught.

But with no time to move…

"Ace! Drop the barrier!"

"Sage, Extreme Speed!" the girl did as instructed reluctantly, and both her and her pokémon vanished in a blur of speed as something big and close to the ground sped past. The fountain smashed in a watery explosion, the suddenly clear liquid pooling out of its broken container and spreading onto the floor, a giant crater where there'd been some rather pretty ornament at the center.

Ace appeared next to Siphon, cussing up a rather furious storm and looking no less angry as water dripped from her clothes, the typhlosion that had been sniffing at the air now standing behind her and looking down at the trainer rather scoldingly, as if to say "That was stupid and dangerous, and you know it."

"What the hell?!" she finally barked, turning her nasty glare on Siphon for a split second before focusing its surprising strength back onto the offending pokémon that was source of most of her current ire.

"Ace! You need to calm down!" the blonde reminded as she dragged a much calmer looking, if a bit dazed Gary and a rather reluctant looking slightly older ice-type specialist behind her.

"Her name's Prim…" Gary somehow slurred out, smiling at him as if he didn't have a care in the world. It almost distracted enough to question Felicity on what exactly she'd given the boy, but they all had more pressing concerns and they knew it.

"Primrose, to be specific, but Prim will do. According to Miss Willows, this is an unfortunate side effect to a homemade remedy she knows of for things like panic attacks." She introduced, and waved her arm at Gary's near entirely slumped over posture. "Apparently he's a little younger than what the dosage she gave him normally calls for, but the one she'd have given him for his age wasn't doing the trick."

"He's a little loopy, but okay otherwise. It'll go away in a minute or two…" the blonde in question assured as she mother hen-ed Ace to practical death, fussing over the girl's more apparent injuries and scolding her for being so hot headed and blunt.

"Felicity, stop! Okay, I'm fine, and that pokémon is going to pay!"

"That pokémon almost killed you!" Ace went dead silent at that, glaring at Felicity for a good fifteen seconds before huffing her defeat. She contented herself to glaring though, not so quick to let well enough go, and he couldn't honestly blame her for that.

"Powerful is right…" Apparently Ace hadn't been the only one experiencing a bout of stupid ideas though, because the brown haired trainer he hadn't recognized at all from earlier was up, wide awake, and with three pokémon out and looking ready to brawl.

'What was that Grandmother used to say about trainers? "We're all idiots who can't tell when to back down from a challenge" or something like that?'

He was answered well enough when all three of the trainer's pokémon lunged, the ground lighting up as electricity coursed through it, hopping from place to place until it surrounded the strange pokémon completely, the source growling with an almost satisfied look on its face.

The other one that had first appeared with the humans moved again, herding them out of harm's way and well out of range of the strange attack.

The flaming bug pokémon circled around, wings glittering and a strange orb of light in its arms. After a split second it shot the orb up into the air, and the kangaskhan came running up with surprising speed, her arm cloaked in fire.

Amidst the electricity covering the ground a strange arc of it appeared, stronger than the current running through the dirt, and coiling around the psychic-type…

'Thunder Wave…' his mind supplied instantly, and his jaw almost dropped at the near perfect synchronicity the three showed as they worked in tandem to subdue the powerful pokémon.

It was for not though, as the psychic stopped the flaming attack before it came anywhere close to dealing damage, eyes glowing as the normal-type struggled against its hold, only to be pushed back with the rest of their team as it broke the paralysis that had had ahold of its body just seconds prior.

'Powerful indeed…'

"You!" He'd been sure the pokémon, Mewtwo, was going to say something else, maybe mock them all for trying to take it down, insult them, fling them all around to just to show them how powerless they were in the face of his own might.

But then they turned on each other; Siphon in a strange show of volatile anger sending the two fire-types in his team after the strange trainer, and the two only just barely missing their mark due to the young man's own team.

The kangaskhan had quickly stood between the two angry pokémon and her trainer, somehow managing to hold them both off despite the clear determination showing in the two's eyes to cause her trainer harm. But she was equally as determined from what he could see, and the two fire-types were quickly forced back to their own's side by the foreign electric-type and the fire/bug dual-type.

"Mah, mah… What's with the sudden anger, buddy?" The young man questioned, looking almost… unconcerned. Now that he could see the trainer clearly, he was almost definitely the oldest in their group, but there was something strangely relaxed about him. As if he had fully expected for someone to attack him without warning or reason. "I don't think I've done anything to you before…"

"You…" Siphon growled, and looked about ready to murder the brunette for some unseen transgression. And it went completely over his head. He couldn't figure out why Siphon seemed so angry that he'd turned on an ally when there was a much bigger problem at hand.

Namely, the psychic that seemed almost content to watch them destroy each other.

"You're Siphon, right? Siphon Rayzar?" It was Felicity to speak up, confusion clear on her face as she stepped away from her adoptive charges to stare at him with an almost concerned expression, clearly worried for the safety of their younger members and whether or not the equally skilled trainer would fly off the handle and attack the kids as well.

"What of it?" he growled at her, looking particularly volatile, even if all that anger wasn't actually directed at her.

"You do realize what you're doing, right?" she questioned, pushing Gary and Prim both behind her as she stared him down, warning him from attacking the two while she was still in the way to stop him. She had a hand on one of her pokéballs, clearly ready to pin the suddenly very aggressive trainer if the situation called for it.

"Of course I know what I'm doing! I'm getting rid of a fucking criminal!" the red head immediately turned his death glare back onto the nonchalant older trainer, and the guy seemed almost amused at the sight, as if Siphon being angry and wanting him dead was the most entertaining thing he'd ever seen in his entire life.

"Criminal?" they all stared wide eyed at the nonchalant brunette at that.

"Yes, criminal! Jack Holter, a fucking poacher!"

"Pokémon merchant. Entirely different thing, I promise." There was a part of him that wanted to call bullshit for that response, and maybe punch the guy for general purposes. Pokémon merchant? Seriously? He caught wild pokémon, and probably stole owned ones, and sold them to the highest bidder without a care in the world.

"Doesn't matter! You need to suffer!"

"Suffer? Ain't that a little extreme?" Extreme maybe, but hadn't there been an incident years back when Team Rocket had almost raised Viridian City to the ground?

A lot of people had died that day, and hadn't it come on some rare, extremely short interview that Siphon was originally from Viridian City? It certainly explained to some extent why exactly Siphon was so… deadset on seeing this Jack person dead.

"A little extreme? People like you are what make the world such a bad place! You kill, you destroy, you harm pokémon and don't give two shits about who's lives you destroy in the process! You capture pokémon and sell them against their will!"

He was beginning to feel like they'd gotten themselves way off track here…

"And you're any better… how exactly?"

"I'm nothing like you!"

"Oh really? You don't capture wild pokémon, take them from their homes, maybe against their wills, and force them to do battle? You don't occasionally sell them for a different pokémon? That's what trading is, you know… Selling a pokémon to another trainer in return for one of their own."

That somehow managed to shut Siphon up long enough for the guy to do a rather perfect impression of a magikarp out of water, complete with a very interesting shade of red that he couldn't help but stare at in stunned silence as his own brain struggled to play catch-up with what was going on around him.

How had they gotten so off track so quickly that two of their own in very distant way, were going at each other's throats?

"That's it! Sage, Blaze!" the two fully evolved pokémon roared and shot forward with another Extreme Speed, ready to tear passed the three pokémon standing between them. They were stopped dead in their tracks again though, and this time it wasn't Jack's own pokémon to intervene.

The strange pokémon that had first appeared with the two humans stood, the typhlosion effectively pinned under one paw despite being the bigger of the two while it glared down the charizard it'd missed by a hair, rather literally considering the telltale bits of orange scale caught on its claws.

Both growled at each other, even as it kept the typhlosion down with little effort, snarling and trying to get the other to back down, though neither were intimidated by their opponent.

"What the-?!" Siphon seemed shocked, and he couldn't honestly blame the guy considering that the pokémon in question hadn't budged an inch beyond what was necessary to protect the two humans. For it move so suddenly, and to so effectively stop his pokémon had probably been a rather unheard of thing when it hadn't seemed interested in the fighting prior.

But it was the chance he needed, and he wasn't just going to let it slide so easily.

"ENOUGH!" he shoved Siphon back, and his pikachu sparked the two fire-types into further submission, growling as it warned them that now was not the time for vendettas. Criminal Jack may have been, but if they were going to make it out of this alive, they couldn't be killing each other at the first opportunity.

He wasn't about to let another scenario like his little sister happen again. Even if something like this hadn't been the cause, Gary was here, loopy and more than little out of it still, but here and his responsibility. He wasn't about to let Blue go through what he already had if he could stop it. And he'd throttle the both of them before he let either Jack or Siphon get in the way of that.

They needed to work together, not against each other.

"Pathetic…" Mewtwo's voice echoed out then, drawing all their attention as the strange pokémon slinked back to its side. "All you humans are the same…"

"What?"

"So quick to turn on each other at the first opportunity. Selfish, violent creatures that can't handle their own emotions, even when the situation calls for it. You've all got your scars, and still you let them blind you…"

'Blind us to what? What are you on about…?'

"You fail to realize just how the world suffers under your control."

"Suffers? Under our control?! What are you even on?! The world is just fine-!" Prim was probably gearing up for a few angry retorts to that accusation when Mewtwo cut her off with a sharp back of laughter.

"HA!" and if he hadn't known any better he might've even made the mistake of thinking this thing actually thought they were all funny. "You poison the earth and kill it, remaking it into your image… You think the world owes you and you do nothing in return. But I plan on changing that."

"So what? You're going to wipe out all the humans? Leave the world for just yourself and the pokémon?!"

"Hmph, the pokémon will die too."

That made no sense. Wipe out the humans and the pokémon? There were just too many, and there's no way the legendary pokémon would let that slide.

But he hadn't seen the articuno and moltres that dwelled on Mt. Silver's peaks in years now, and from he'd heard from a younger friend in Johto, Ho-Oh, Lugia, and the three legendary beasts had all but vanished from the region entirely. Gods were finicky things after all, and it hadn't unheard of in the past for the legendary pokémon to abandon entire societies to their doomed fate…

But they wouldn't just let Mewtwo get away with this, right?

"You're insane!" Felicity called out, flinching back when Mewtwo focused his glare on her. She didn't budge much though, and kept a firm posture that clearly stated that the two behind her weren't going to get hurt if she had anything to say and do about it.

"Gemini! Feint Attack!" Siphon called then, a strange, foxlike pokémon leaping at the psychic-type. The dark-type attack might've actually hit too, hadn't it been for the powerful protect that caused it to bounce off. It landed on its feet though, and growled warningly as it eyed the creature that had earned its trainer's ire.

"Foolish little creatures too. You always think you know everything. So sure in a power you do not actually possess." Mewtwo seemed to snort at them, eyes flashing as he changed his focus to the woman and girl he'd probably been keeping captive for who knew how long. "I no longer have a need for either of you."

They approached them, setting several of them on edge until their eyes flashed for a split second and they collapsed in a heap. The lab assistant rushed to catch the young girl while he found himself with an armful of a strangely dressed woman with… pink hair…

"Nurse Joy?" Felicity questioned as she ran over with the other two rather willingly at her heels for once, kneeling down to check the damage and see if both were okay.

"Mairin, Mairin, wake up! Please!" And apparently the rogue lab assistant knew the young girl he'd seemed so invested in. The two groaned, and blinked in confusion as they both woke up, looking at their surroundings and then at the people who were holding them.

"Hey… wait a minute… Alain, is that you…?" Felicity clearly knew the assistant personally, if the frown she got in return for her words was any indication and she actually looked down at the girl for a split second…

"What the… Where am I? And what am I doing here…?" Nurse Joy questioned, drawing all of the attention to her for a second before Mewtwo drew it back to itself.

"I needed someone with extensive knowledge on pokémon… and since you fit the role rather perfectly, I had you abducted and brought to the island to help in my plans. And I must say, it worked rather splendidly…"

"But that doesn't explain why you took Mairin! She's just a child!" Alain questioned, his hold protective as the girl still looked rather dazedly at her surroundings, clearly too confused to make sense of what was going on…

He found himself asking the same question. Nurse Joy made sense in a way he really didn't want to admit, but a little girl, probably having just recently start on her journey? What could she have that no one else would know about.

"Mega evolution… Her journeys with you and the Hoenn champion certainly made for quite the useful tool." And that explained so much and at the same time, made so many more questions.

He'd heard of mega evolution, but had never personally tried it. It was more of a Kalos and Hoenn thing, than anything else. Not necessarily rare, but it hadn't quite caught on yet with the rest of regions, and he himself had yet to travel abroad for long enough to experience it for himself. But he did know that it made pokémon strong.

Far stronger than what they could be in their final forms. Though it was supposedly a temporary thing and only lasted the duration of a battle.

Mewtwo's answer only served to anger the former lab assistant though, and clearly he didn't take well to the idea of somebody using the child like that.

"Alain, we need to remain calm here. Siphon, Ace, and Jack all proved just how stupid an idea it is to charge headlong at that pokémon…"

"There was a time… I'll admit that I thought to work alongside your kind, but I was mistaken. Your kind are a poison, and your pokémon weak! Enslaved by the humans that ruin this world!"

"Pika pi-pika!" Pika objected rather loudly to that accusation, glaring the psychic down for all his little body was worth as his cheeks sparked.

The electric mouse wouldn't attack without his say-so, but that would chance in a few seconds…

He'd had an age old nervous tick of sorts. Whenever he was angry, unbridledly so, he fiddled with a pokéball from his belt. It didn't honestly matter which one, or which pokémon it belonged to. Char's clawed to hell and back one, Saur's scratched and beaten but still functional, Vui's smooth and teeth-scarred. He just picked one. Right now, it was Pika's, old and unused since the very beginning of his journey, unmarred, perfect and yet… not. He still felt like it wasn't needed.

But it didn't matter, because this strange pokémon had just had the audacity to insult his pokémon. Any fear, any confusion, all his hesitation died a rather quick death when it came to his pokémon. He'd gone to some extreme lengths for his team, would continue to do so until it put him in his grave. It was the least he could do after all they'd done for him after all.

But come hell or high water, he refused to sit by and be idle after someone insulted them. They were family after all, and the only ones that had, aside from his little sister, never expected anything of him aside from love and affection.

They were family.

"You say we're weak…" He wasn't honestly used to having so much attention on him at once. Not since his sister had disappeared, been snatched. Right now it didn't matter, she… she could forgive him for this much at the very least. She liked his team too, so she could forgive him for putting them before her for once.

She would.

"R-Red?"

"You say we're the weak ones here, that our pokémon are weak. Prove it."

"Oh?"

"Let's battle."

A/N. Ok, so cows go moo, ducks quack, Red is pissed, and Mewtwo is being an asshole right this second. Oh! And I ate my words this chapter! Anyone else want to point out obvious things or ask questions? Yes? No?

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the long-ish chapter and thanks for reading! Please leave a review and see ya!