Chapter 25 Mewtwo Strikes Back

Miranda shook her head. "Sorry, but the ferry services have been cancelled. This storm is too much for the ships." A Wingull flew to her shoulder and cawed something. "And it's only getting worse. He says it's an all-up Supercell. Strange, it's definitely not the right kind of weather for a hurricane."

Ash shrugged. "Well, I'll just make my own way."

The local Jenny appeared next to him. "That's not very safe, young man!"

By way of reply, the boy flipped his jacket open to show his eight Badges and released his Pidgeot. "I'm not just a kid, you know, I have a fairly impressive set of badges. All of these were combat, not just emotional test. Besides, Pidgeot sneers at hurricanes."

The Flying type ruffled her wings. "It's true. I do."

Jenny looked blank. Miranda leant over and whispered a translation to her.

"I see. Still, it's dangerous, so take care."

"You know," Miranda said, looking preoccupied, "I heard a story about a storm that came from nowhere – just like this one, actually."

"Oh, the Winds of Water?" Ash asked. "I remember hearing that once. Not sure where, though." As he spoke, he climbed onto Pidgeot's back. "Ready, girl? Tell you what, we'll go right up above the clouds and drop down into the eye."

"Ah, a challenge!" Pidgeot launched herself up and into the storm with a slamming downbeat of her wings.

Miranda and Jenny looked after him. "He's awfully young…"

Then the two of them spotted some people moving on the wharf, and watched as Gary, Misty and Brock plunged into the water on and with a succession of Water Pokémon.

The pier master huffed. "How rude! They didn't even wait to ask me!"

Bink

James looked at the high cliffs, large number of surfers and storm on the horizon. "Nope, Seafoam isn't at the centre of the hurricane either."

Then find the one that is! Teleporting all of you these kinds of distances more than once is too much like hard work.

"All right, keep ya fur on." Meowth examined the map again, sighing at the number of archipelagoes that littered that area of the Pacific and the Kanto Bay. "Hang on a sec. Remember when we ended up on dat island wid no clue how?"

"You'll have to be more specific." Jessie muttered, remembering an incident shortly after falling from Lugia.

"About dis time last timeline?"

James nodded. "I think so. You think that was the place?"

Meowth shrugged. "At da least, we can triangulate from it."

Good thought. I'll take the coordinates from your memory, though we best drop in in the sea nearby. Abra moved over to take Meowth's shoulder. With your permission?

Meowth nodded, and Abra's eyes glowed as he scanned through the scratch cat's mind.

Got it.

Bink

"Wow…" Ash said, looking out over the storm from above. "That really puts it in perspective. Three hours ago, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and now it's spread as far as Viridian city. I have to admit, I'm impressed."

Mewtwo is a Legendary Pokémon, Ash. Possibly the strongest – apart from Arceus.

"Yeah." Ash's thoughts drifted off for a moment. "Well, at least I managed it."

Yesterday.

"And there's a reason I had so much more food than normal last night, especially all that wheat-grass. I don't intend to just give up."

Be careful, Ash.

"I will. I wouldn't even contemplate this if he wasn't maintaining a storm the size of a small country as well." Ash said, solemnly. Then turned his face forwards, grinned, and patted Pidgeot on the flank. "Back down we go, girl!"

She chirped enthusiastically, flipped over into a dive and shot downwards.

"This place is just amazing," Jessie breathed. "It's some kind of lab, but it's more complex than anything I've ever seen. Didn't Mewtwo come here bare weeks ago?"

James shook his head. "I think this is where they originally created him. The Boss gave us his file on Mewtwo, remember?"

Jessie huffed. "I read the bit about his powers. You're the one who decided to read the life story as well."

Well, it's certainly impressive. Meowth, back here a bit.

"Why?" Meowth asked.

I can't block too large an area. Don't go more than about ten metres away or Mewtwo can sense you.

Pidgeot came gliding down over New Island in a lazy spiral, shedding her height and speed as she dropped past the mile or two of Eye wall, then alighted on the edge of a large pool in the main courtyard.

The same woman from the invitation walked over to him, and began speaking in a light monotone. "Welcome to New Island. You are the first to arrive. Would you like refreshments while you wait?"

Ash nodded. "That'd be great, thanks." Riolu and Pikachu clambered out of his bag, and he released the rest of his Pokémon. "Right, guys, we've arrived. Looks like we get a bit of a wait before we find out why we're here."

Most of them made varied sounds of assent. Primeape shrugged, and jumped onto the pool to practice, while Charizard took his turn to stretch his wings and flew off to mess around with the edge of the Eye wall.

"Watch out!" Ash shouted to him, "The eye's tiny, so this is going to be one hell of a storm!"

He turned away, throwing up his hands. "I warned him. I warned him, and three to one odds he's going to be struck by lightning within the hour."

Ivysaur watched as Pidgeot took flight again. "And are you going to warn her?"

"She sneers at hurricanes. We know this." At this point, the hostess arrived with a tray. "Oh, thank you."

Ash heard footsteps, and turned to a door set into one wall of the dining room.

Misty stomped up, utterly drenched, followed by Brock. Gary, similarly soaked, brought up the rear.

"Glad to see you made it!" the young trainer said, getting up from where he'd been sitting. "You all look fairly damp!"

Gary rolled his eyes. "That storm was ridiculous. I eventually just borrowed a rebreather from Misty and came here underwater."

"I wouldn't know." Ash shrugged. "Pidgeot flew over the entire hurricane." Misty looked resentful, but let it go.

A rumbling boom sounded. Ash turned to see Charizard coming back for a landing, smouldering slightly.

"Not a word. Not. A. Word." The dragon muttered, Pidgeot piping laughter next to him.

"Did you actually get hit by lightning?" Ash asked, grinning broadly.

"It's not my fault. I'm not sure whose it is, but it's not mine."

Ash nodded, before looking concerned. "All joking aside, are you alright?"

"Pikachu shocks harder. I'll be fine with a bit of rest."

Over the next hour or so, another two trainers and their retinues arrived. Fergus was a water speciality trainer who spent most of the time after he arrived chatting animatedly with Misty (he said he'd got there by having his Vaporeon use her Acid Armour ability to carry him in a shell of her water) and Corey dropped in by Pidgeot much as Ash had done, though he hadn't thought of going up and over the storm.

Brock stared at the hostess whenever she appeared, mentioning how she seemed very familiar - but he couldn't tell how. Ash wished he could ask Dexter, but the Porygon was lying low, and as their trump card Ash couldn't risk revealing him.

Eventually, the hostess stepped onto the dais once more and attracted everyone's attention.

"Here is the one who called you all here. The strongest Pokémon in the world, Mewtwo.

The Pokémon stepped out from the shadows behind her. Fergus snorted. "You mean you take orders from a Pokémon? How?"

Misty put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't antagonise him."

Corey's Rhydon tried to charge at the apparent threat, but found itself pinned to the floor by a number of roots. Growling, it looked around and saw Ivysaur with his feet sunk in the ground. Ivysaur shook his head, and retracted the roots, warning given.

She takes orders from me in this manner. Everyone in the room but Ash flinched as the powerful thought imposed itself on their minds. I am a Psychic type Pokémon. But her usefulness has ended. With a touch, Mewtwo removed his control from the hostess and she slumped to the floor, startled.

Brock ran over and helped her up. "I knew I recognized you! You're the Joy that the Jenny from Viridian said went missing weeks ago!"

"I… where am I? I don't recognize this place." The Joy said, still a bit dazed.

This is New Island. My birthplace, and the birthplace of a new order. But I get ahead of myself. Come. Mewtwo gestured, and the connecting door between the dining room and the courtyard-arena in which Ash had arrived swung wide. One of the reasons for inviting the trainers I did is that among your number are trainers of all three of the Kanto Starter Pokémon. I first began my time as a Trainer with those same Pokémon – but, of course, they are stronger now. I will show you.

Riolu hopped onto Ash's shoulder and discreetly whispered something to him. Ash nodded, and headed for the door behind everyone else.

Under the island, three tanks with fully evolved Pokémon in them lit up.

Meowth flinched, as he'd been tapping on one of them at the time. "Gah!"

Not noticing, James beckoned Jessie over to a computer. "Look. Usage files for the machine – I think it's a cloning device."

"Well, we know Mewtwo's a clone." Jessie said, before reading the screen again. "Wait, that's new. Ambertwo? Bulbasaurtwo? And a lot of other clones as well – page down, I want to see the rest."

Fuji process uses record file

Batch one

Mew DNA = Mewtwo

Amber Fuji's DNA = Ambertwo

Bulbasaur DNA = Bulbasaurtwo

Squirtle DNA = Squirtletwo

Charmander DNA = Charmandertwo

All clones under this batch apart from Mewtwo died quickly due to a problem with the fifth stage process, resulting in insufficient life force for protracted survival. It is believed that the sheer power of Mewtwo compensated for this.

Experimentation will continue in the hopes of a viable human cloning method being developed.

Batch two to four

Non-viable clones of Amber Fuji. As before, the main problem is the loss of life force and subsequent death.

Batch five

Bulbasaurthree

Charmanderthree

Squirtlethree

Jessie chuckled weakly. "Not very imaginative, are they?"

James ran his finger down the list. "Those last three have a much later date stamp. Barely a week ago. Wonder where they are."

I think Meowth knows.

The two humans turned. "Gah!"

At that point, the three Pokémon were released from their tubes and lumbered off somewhere.

Shaken, James returned to the computer. "Wait, there's a video file here. Most recent thing on the system apart from all the stuff since Mewtwo escaped."

The Rockets crowded round the screen, and watched as Dr. Fuji hurriedly explained the origin of Mewtwo, making the dire pronouncement that Mewtwo was the world's "strongest Pokémon."

Meowth shrugged. "Eh. Don't tink he beats out Arceus."

True. But apart from Arceus, none of the Legendaries match him on sheer power. I mean, most of them have had decades or centuries to practice. Mewtwo's had only a fraction of that and his control's still terrible, relatively speaking, but… well. The giant hurricane speaks for itself.

So. One of you has a Charizard, one has a Blastoise, and one a Venusaur. Which will be the first to face their cloned – their better – counterpart?

Gary and Corey looked at one another, then to Ash. "Well? What do you think?"

Ash blinked. "Who to the what now?"

Strange… Mewtwo mused, finding that he'd been miscounting. The boy had seven Pokémon, not six, which had caused him to miss the way Ash was psychically blank. Miracle Eye. I asked which of you would be willing to fight my Pokémon first.

The boy shrugged. "Don't know. I'm not desperate to go first."

After a couple more seconds, Corey stepped forward with his Venusaur, Bruteroot. "I'll go first!"

Very well. Venusaur, advance.

Bruteroot fired a volley of Razor Leaf attacks which were blocked more or less effortlessly by the cloned Venusaur, then a simple Vine Whip attack knocked the natural-born Pokémon backwards into the wall and out of the fight.

Ash frowned. "Why did both of you use Grass attacks? I mean, Tackle would have worked better."

Corey and half his Pokémon hauled Bruteroot out of the wall, and the trainer began fumbling for a Potion. "He's trained as a poison and grass attacker. I use him for things like Rock type enemies."

"I see." Ash then looked at Gary. "You want to go next?"

"Yeah, whatever. Blastoise!"

Gary's Blastoise ran his cannons out to their full extent, and faced down the clone unflinchingly. "I won't give in! I won't hold back! That's how team Dai-gurren roll!"

Is your Pokémon well? Mewtwo asked, somewhat taken aback.

"Yes," Ash answered for Gary, drowning out Misty's quick "No, he's an anime nut."

If you say so. Blastoise, water gun.

"Rime!" Gary shouted, diving for cover. Ash and co. followed suit as both of the cannons opened up with a blast of water. Upon contacting the clone's Water Gun, it instantly froze solid.

Ash glanced at Gary. "Rime?"

"Supercooled water. Freezes as soon as it touches something. They have weather like it in Sinnoh sometimes."

The cloned Blastoise broke free of the thin icy layer that splashback from the collision had produced, and launched into a rumbling charge. Gary's Blastoise volleyed off a pair of Flash Cannon shots into the floor of the stadium, then stamped his foot on the ground and caused it to cave in. More Rime then filled the pit to waist height as the clone recovered.

Gary smirked. "Yield the match? He can't break that much ice."

Impressive, human. Mewtwo's eyes glowed, and the ice shattered. I am grudgingly impressed, but that was trickery to substitute for the force you do not have. Just as my whole life has been servitude I was tricked into by those less powerful.

Ash jogged past Gary. "My turn! Charizard, get him!"

Charizard roared a challenge. "Any instructions?"

His trainer shrugged cheekily. "Nothing lethal, no other restrictions."

As one, Ash's Pokémon and those of his friends dove for what cover they could. Brock, Misty and Gary followed suit.

Ash's Charizard opened with an enormous flamethrower attack that nearly engulfed Mewtwo as well, though the Psychic type simply gestured and a shield covered him and his other clones. The cloned Charizard took to the air and replied with a gout of his own flame, more to generate cover than a serious attack.

The natural-born Charizard leapt into the air to follow him, and the two began a series of long-ranged fire blasts interspersed with lunges to close and bite.

Gary squinted up into the sky. "That's strange… it almost seems like your Charizard knows what the clone's about to do."

"Good to know his boast was well-supported, then. He spent a good couple of years in the Charific Valley, you may recall, so he knows all the moves Charizard use when fighting." Ash shaded his own eyes; it looked like the other Charizard was enduring the hits well, so this would be safe. "Hey, boy? Come down a bit!"

Ash's Charizard disengaged somewhat and hovered lower, keeping an eye on the other orbiting above. "Yes?"

"I think it's time to show off, Charizard... Blast Burn."

Charizard nodded once, curtly, and opened his jaws, an eerie blue light shining from them.

When he exhaled, for a moment a cone of blue gas seemed to just blink into existence, barely a foot wide at his mouth and extending to completely cover Mewtwo's Charizard in the strange substance.

Then, starting at the apex, the entire cone exploded.

The awed watchers saw, through the shimmering of the heat from the earlier stages of the battle, a line of fire connecting to a great starburst in the heavens.

Then the shockwave hit, hammering everyone to the floor, dislodging loose stones and even knocking the instigator backwards almost fifty feet.

The first people to recover from the blast saw a mushrooming cloud of smoke from the great explosion and a smouldering cloned Charizard dropping from the sky to slam into the fountain - though fortunately for the clone, his life-flame was outside the water and clearly still alight.

Ash's Charizard landed daintily on his hind legs, snorted at his foe, and turned to the awestruck trainers.

"Okay, Ash!" Gary got out, "What the hell was that?"

"New kind of Blast Burn, basically a hydrogen fuel-air bomb." Ash said innocently. "It uses the outer edge of the blast to compress the inner section, and with a little Aura in there to control itself properly it can – just – achieve fusion. That's about as powerful as the attack can get, though, as soon as any fusion occurs it destroys the local pressure necessary to fuse in the first place."

"Sorry, Ash," Misty said in a brittle voice, "Did you just say you nuked Mewtwo's Charizard?"

"Kinda, yeah." Ash rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. "It's based on what we managed to reverse engineer of how V-Generate works, though I think that relies on Vinicti's Psychic typing to keep the hydrogen compressed."

I can say with all honesty I did not expect that. Regardless. A trio of levitating black balls shot past Mewtwo and instantly captured all three of the Pokémon that had fought.

"What was that for!" Ash shouted, all light-heartedness gone, and let his Aura build into the visible spectrum.

Your Pokémon are unusually strong. I will make clones of them, and they will be the only creatures left to inherit the earth after I have scoured it clean of life. Mewtwo 'pathed implacably. Dozens more of the black Poké balls appeared and swarmed the trainers.

Pikachu reacted first, creating a shield of electricity like a canopy over all Ash's and most of Brock and Misty's Pokémon, along with Gary's Eevee. Gyarados and Steelix, unfortunately, were too large to protect and promptly captured. Ash ran out of the shield and fired a brace of Aura Spheres at the Pokeballs heading for some of the other trainers, but to little effect – within an astonishingly small span of time, the only natural-born Pokémon left in the room were those inside Pikachu's shield.

"Damn it…" Gary sighed. "At least Eevee's safe. How long can you keep that up, Pikachu?"

"Pretty much indefinitely, actually, I can run it on Light Ball alone at this size."

Mewtwo frowned, and with a gesture the shield was struck by a massive psychic blow. Misty's Psyduck opposed the blast, boosting his abilities as far as they went and throwing off an enormous corona of backlash, but after only a few seconds the shield collapsed and the Pokémon scattered.

Finally pushed beyond his measure of emotional control, Ash released a blast of unfocused Aura that caught Mewtwo's attention. "Mewtwo, what the hell are you doing!"

I explained this.

"No, I mean why this whole plan to begin with!" Ash heard a screech of despair from his Pidgeot that was cut off by the sound of a ball catching her, and his heart ached.

Humans are inferior, and the Pokémon that follow them are fools. To end the human trickery, I must purge the entire planet of them and begin anew.

"What about if I could convince you that you were wrong? That humans aren't all like the ones you've met?" Ash pressed, hardly believing how far Mewtwo was willing to go. Behind the Genetic Pokémon, two of the balls exploded under a massive blast of flame from Brock's Ninetales, which then wrapped around her and the Eevee sheltering next to her.

Intriguing. Demonstrate to me, human, and I may reconsider.

"Let's sort this out ourselves, then." Ash said, striding forward. "You, a Pokémon made by humanity to be their weapon, who broke their chains… and myself, a human shaped by his Pokémon. One on one."

Mewtwo chuckled, his Miracle Eye allowing his thoughts to be conveyed past the strange shield this human had. And do you think you can match me?

"Normally, no. But I've learned a lot in the past year, and one of the most interesting things is the nature of the Ghost type." He held out a hand, gloved as usual, and sliced his forefinger with a nail – a thin sheen of metal on the nail revealing how he had done it.

Blood welled up, and he clenched his fist for a moment to spread it across the gloved palm of his hand. "Their powers are related to sacrifice. For a Ghost, it's something they can channel without problem as they've already paid half the equation." Something smoky began to coalesce in his hand. "For a Pokémon, they can just fuel Ghost attacks with their energy, becoming fatigued. But although I could do the same, it would exhaust me in mere minutes for little effect."

Finally taking shape, a Shadow Ball spun in his hand. "So I can use my very life blood. That alone can give me the strength to fight you, Mewtwo."

The Legendary stared at the greyish, half-there ball. What are you?

A sardonic smile graced Ash's face for a second. "Just a kid trying to fill some very big boots. So, what do you say?"

I have to admit, I am impressed. Very well. If you can demonstrate to me your strength enough to injure me, then I will recant my opinions on humanity's strength. If you can somehow convince me that even one human on this rock is noble enough, then I will recant my opinion on their treacherous nature. If you can do both, then, who knows? Maybe mankind will live another day.

Mewtwo gestured, and the world seemed to ripple. The storm wall is no longer advancing. I will maintain it at this size until your challenge is up… one way or another.

He levitated six feet into the air and enclosed himself in a protective bubble, then slashed a powerful Psycho Cut at Ash, who dodged and shot his Shadow Ball back.

Right now, Ash was feeling doubly grateful he had managed to decipher the Shadow Ball. Not only was it an attack that had a lot better potential hurting Mewtwo than any Aura Sphere (he dove behind some cover as a bolt of pressurised air snapped at his kneecap) but since he was using a physical reagent, it took very little Aura. And he needed all the Aura he could get to dodge.

Forming a Shadow ball in one hand and shifting his other into the shimmer of Mirror Coat, he contemplated the Ghost attack for a moment.

Aura Sphere was actually very similar to a Shadow Ball (and thankfully for him, while Mewtwo knew that attack himself it was not his strong point), but the latter attack didn't home in on its' targets. The fundamental property of the Aura Sphere was that it was formed of one of the energies of life, so it could be induced to do that. The same was not true of Shadow Ball.

Ash pulsed a Protect as two of Mewtwo's Shadow Balls (speak of the devil!) arced over the improvised barricade. Mewtwo's version of the attack used his own psychic powers to make them curve after firing, which wasn't exactly something open to Ash.

More worrying was that, after almost ten minutes of combat, he was running out of scenery to hide behind. And starting to feel a bit woozy.

Ash pulsed power to his boots and jumped clear onto the ceiling, then stuck there by way of one of Riolu's little Aura tricks and dropped his Shadow Ball. Not that it would do much good even if it hit, though. Ash had found out early on that the protective bubble Mewtwo had up was able to resist Ghost attacks.

What, in all honesty, could he do? He wasn't low on Aura, but he couldn't get anything from it. He had lost what he estimated to be a good pint of blood just powering his Shadow Balls, half of that in a single thirty-second barrage when he had scored a hit and seen the shield ripple in his Sight.

The main problem was definitely the shield.

Ash kicked off back to the floor as yet another mammoth salvo of Psychic energy obliterated most of the roof, and rolled upright after using a flare of Aura to blunt the impact.

He had to surprise Mewtwo. The only way to do that would be to disappear from his sight – fortunately, Mewtwo couldn't track him by any other method since his Miracle Eye had worn off long ago.

Got it.

Ash dove behind the wall between the dining room (the current area of their battle) and the the courtyard. It hadn't taken as much damage as the rest of their battleground, mainly because Ash didn't want his friends caught in the backlash and they were hiding outside.

Once there, he drew blood yet again from his abused hand, fought off a dizzy spell, and coated both his hands with a generous helping.

As yet another blast of force blew the wall into rubble, he raised a Protect shield to defend himself and slipped over to one side.

Mewtwo floated through the demolished wall, ignoring the cracking sounds coming from the fortress and the rain of brick parts pinging off his shield. Ash imagined he was probably broadcasting something snide telepathically – it didn't matter. He had his chance.

Only when Ash's needle-thin spike of a Shadow Claw punctured his shield did Mewtwo realize something was wrong. He began to turn, even as Ash pushed a whirling Shadow Ball forward in his other hand. He had to-!

Then a psychically-launched blast of air sent him rocketing back into a wall, and something cracked.

Miracle Eye. Mewtwo's mental 'voice' came again, through a lot of pain. Almost, boy. But all it was in the end was deceit and trickery again.

Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Of course, since I need to remove all humans from this world, I'd better start with the ones right here.

Mewtwo began to charge up an attack that looked/felt like the one he'd been using on all the load bearing walls… and this time it was pointing at Misty, Brock, Gary, Corey and Fergus.

"No!" Ash protested, pushing himself back up. Yep, that was definitely a broken rib.

Foolish boy. You can't possibly do anything in your condition.

By way of reply, Ash began stumbling forward, to do anything to protect his friends, to-

He was too late. Mewtwo fired before he'd made it more than halfway.

"Afternoon!" A cheery male voice said through the smoke and dust.

Ash checked himself in his run, grabbing hold of a lump of masonry to keep himself up. What the hell just happened?

"Sorry we took so long," a female voice that Ash knew he really should recognize. "But it took quite a bit of work to knock all those clones out."

The smoke cleared abruptly with an angry sweep of Mewtwo's arm, revealing what had happened.

In front of the five humans were stood two more and seven Pokémon, most notably an Abra with his arms extended and a staggeringly dense array of shields in front of him and a Cubone holding a badly dented Thick Club in one hand. The other looked to be holding something off a Weavile.

Ash caught a glimpse of hundreds of translucent fragments dissipating into thin air in front of the shieldwall. It looked like Abra had lost most of his shields from the attack, in fact – but not all.

"Thank you, Arceus. Thank you…" he muttered, resting his hands on his knees for a moment.

How? Mewtwo asked imperiously. How did you block my attack?

That was simple, Abra said. All it took was Cubone using Ancient Power, me using Psych Up and then an absolutely immense number of Barrier, Reflect, Light Screen and Protect shields.

This changes nothing. Mewtwo glared at the Rocket cell. All you have done is added to the number who will die here today.

James shrugged. "If we didn't do anything, we'd all die in a hurricane within the week. It's this or we wonder if we could have made a difference."

Mewtwo noticed their eyes flicking to his left, and turned to block whatever Ash was going to try to do this time.

Instead of the punch or Shadow Ball he was expecting, all he got was Ash grasping his shoulder for a second, then collapsing.

And Mewtwo remembered.

I… I see. I have done terrible things, and nearly done them all again. Thank you, Ash Ketchum, for saving me. Once again.

Then he noticed that Ash didn't actually seem to be breathing.

Ash found himself floating in nothingness. For the second time in fairly recent memory, in fact.

:Well, I suppose this means I'm dead then.:

Dead? No, no, this isn't quite dead. A shape appeared in front of him. A Pokémon made of darkness, with a red collar and a white plume.

:Darkrai. Aren't you the god of death? Why didn't I see you before?:

I only appear for special occasions. It keeps things flowing, as it were. That being said, Ash Ketchum, from your file you have quite the history with near death experiences. And time travel, for that matter.

:So… I'm dying, then?:

Not any more. This isn't for between living and dead. This is for when things go… very unusually. I'm not taking you for quite a while yet.

Ash felt himself being drawn back the way he'd come.

:But… how?:

Darkrai vanished, leaving only a ghostly chuckle.

What did you think the purpose of Sacred Ash was?

His eyes fluttered open, and saw a familiar yellow mouse gazing with concern at his face.

"Hi… Pikachu." He managed, weakly. "Looks like I'm still here."

Indeed, though I am not sure why. But we had better resolve all this.

With the help of Riolu and Squirtle, Ash managed to rise to a sitting position, and caught sight of his friends standing around him. His hands were bandaged, and there was the tang of a Sitrus berry in his mouth.

Misty affected an angry pose, though the pretence was threadbare. "Ash! You have got to stop making a habit of this!"

"Please, Misty… later." The boy turned to Mewtwo. "Alright… now?"

Fully. Thank you for… Mewtwo paused. I think it's called Aura Purge, yes?

After a moment of incomprehension, Ash caught what Mewtwo meant and nodded.

Thank you for that, then. To think I had forgotten what my very first friend in the world told me… Mewtwo made a grand gesture, and the entire storm dissolved as if it had never existed. If any of the Pokémon here who I did not manage to capture are willing, I would be honoured to take clones of them with me as well – for I intend to travel to a remote location to contemplate what my place in the world will be.

Most of Ash's, Brock's and Misty's Pokémon responded in the affirmative near instantly – those that weren't already caught, anyway. Riolu and Togekiss shared a glance, then nodded as well.

I had at first contemplated wiping the events here from the minds of those who witnessed them… the Legendary continued, and many of those in the room flinched, but to do so would be a disservice. And I couldn't leave Ash scrambling to explain where his blood loss came from.

"Yay…" Ash muttered weakly. "My mum's… going to love this one…"

In short order, the clones were decanted or revived, and the originals released (often in some indignity) from their captivity. Gary's Blastoise had been adamant that ten more minutes and he'd have broken the tanks, while Pidgeot demanded that she get a chance to shower as soon as possible to clear the gunk from her flight feathers.

I assume you have some kind of explanation worked out for Giovanni?

"We got sometin'," Meowth replied, "But he's not da kind of man ta let it go lightly."

James nodded. "I think our best chance is to emphasize both your change of heart, and how you were throwing around building-demolishing Psystrikes while also maintaining a hurricane."

If you would seek peace, prepare for war. Very well, I shall hope it is enough.

"Just one ting dat's puzzlin' me, though." Meowth said. "How'd da clones know any moves?"

Mewtwo blinked. I'm… not actually sure. The machines are survivors of my rampage through the laboratory. I assume flash learning, though since Meowthtwo can't speak then there must be some kind of filter.

"Guess we'll call it a mystery, den." Meowth shrugged. "You takin' any of da stuff on da island wid you?"

Only a little. The cloning tanks go into Mount Ember, frankly. Mewtwo's arms spread. Now, everyone, you may feel a slight disorientation.

The surroundings blurred, and suddenly everyone who had travelled to New Island was in the Pokémon centre from which Ash and his friends had set off.

The pier master started with shock. "Where did you come from?"

Brock shrugged. "The last ten minutes were very confusing and may have involved at least one Teleport."

Behind him, the Officer Jenny embraced the returned Joy. "Oh, it's so good to see you safe!"

"It's good to be back," the nurse replied with a smile.

"But…" The officer stepped back a bit. "Where have you been?"

With a flicker of movement, Mewtwo appeared outside the window. Sorry, forgot that loose end. Another ripple of psychic distortion, and the Officer reached out to shake Ash's hand.

"Thank you for saving her from being stranded on that island, mister Ketchum. I can't believe I forgot to search the bay, in hindsight it's obvious what happened after both she and her schooner disappeared."

"Heh, yeah…" Ash said weakly, as he spotted Mewtwo levitating the schooner in question out of the harbour before teleporting off with it to parts unknown.

And as the Legendary vanished off to a self imposed exile, something dropped into his pocket.

After the rest of the people in the Pokémon centre who didn't know what had really happened on New Island had finished congratulating him, he checked what it was. He found an all-white Poké ball, with a note.

I hope you don't mind the presumption.

Ash grinned. Only Mewtwo would have assigned himself a Premier Ball.

AN: And that's the First Movie done!

Writing Mewtwo was hard. I had to remember that his main human contact was Giovanni in full-on "Pokemon do not matter" mode.

If anyone's confused by the stuff about Ambertwo and Mewtwo's first friend in the world, then the answer is that there was a load of extra backstory about clones and cloning on the DVD version. Ambertwo didn't care whether Mewtwo was a human or a Pokemon - indeed, she said the question itself was sort of silly - so it's strange that Mewtwo went so bad.

Ash did in fact die there, mainly of blood loss and overexertion. Fortunately for him, I set up his way out of that mess quite a while ago...

Mewtwo's signature move as of Gen V is Psystrike. It's as powerful as Earthquake, in statistical terms, so ouch.