The world beyond my container was a blur of orange-tinted shadows. For what seemed like days, I floated, suspended in something that felt thicker than water, almost syrupy against my skin. My lungs should have been burning, demanding air, but they felt eerily still, as if my body had forgotten it needed to breathe.
Sound reached me in waves, distorted and strange. Everything felt muffled except for the deep vibrations that traveled through the fluid itself, pressing against skin that felt too new, too small, like clothes that had shrunk in the wash.
I couldn't remember how long I'd been here. Was I dead? Was I alive? I didn't know. I didn't know anything. How did I get here?
-[?.?]-
'Fuck,' I thought, hunched over my phone in the fading afternoon light. My fingers hovered over the screen as if I could somehow intimidate the numbers into change.
My Gyarados---level 40, carefully trained, survivor of multiple gym battles and approximately eight thousand random Pidgey and Mankey encounters---was down to just a sliver of health. Across the battlefield, a level 37 Vulpix stared back with pixels that somehow managed to look smug. It had probably practiced that look in the mirror.
I'd already lost two good Pokemon this past hour. My box was only down to shitty Pokemon. I couldn't lose another. Not now.
The Pokemon Mansion sprawled across my phone screen in all its 8-bit glory, a maze of broken tiles and forgotten experiments. Outside my dorm window, campus life continued its usual Sunday afternoon rhythm---distant voices, someone practicing guitar badly, and the occasional burst of laughter. None were aware I was one critical hit away from losing weeks of careful training.
Gyarados had been with me since Route 6. Just a Magikarp then, making the same old investment that everyone knows pays off---except this time, with perma-death rules, each level had felt like holding my breath underwater.
I could switch in Charizard---my starter, my ace---but the damn thing was already at the level cap. One more fight and it'd be benched until after Blaine. Kadabra might one-shot it with Psychic---if it didn't get bodied first. My Dugtrio was a speed stat with hit points at this point, and Nidoking was still fucked up from that double-battle ambush earlier. Then there was the Growlithe I'd caught an hour ago, but sending it in would be straight-up murder.
Five options. Five ways to lose a teammate. Five---
A Discord notification slid down from the top of my screen. My thumb twitched instinctively to swipe it away, but the message caught my eye before I could dismiss it.
BigDKarp: @everyone SHADOW MEWTWO RAID AT LIBRARY GYM BigDKarp: @EVERYONE 10 MIN WINDOW GET HERE NOW
Curious, I tapped the notification to see what the fuss was all about.
[March 22, 2024] RaidenMain2: Hey, anyone hear about the shadow mewtwo event? ProfOaksFavStudent: starts next week right? RaidenMain2: Does anyone want to head downtown for it? MissingNo404: Down, what time does the event start? [March 30, 2024] BigDKarp: @everyone SHADOW MEWTWO RAID AT LIBRARY GYM RaidenMain2: holy shit it's on campus? BigDKarp: @EVERYONE 10 MIN WINDOW GET HERE NOW BigDKarp: @everyone SHADOW MEWTWO AT LIBRARY RaidenMain2: @everyone LETS GOOOOO BigDKarp: TEN MINS LEFT ProfOaksFavStudent: @AlexTheGreat where u at? we need ur Darkrai
I briefly swiped back to the emulator, hesitating over my next move before quickly tapping the menu and saving my state.
'I'll deal with this later,' I decided. Shadow Mewtwo just sounded too cool and the battle wasn't going anywhere. The early spring air bit at my face as I burst from the dorm building, nearly colliding with a cluster of freshmen who hadn't learned that campus sidewalks have their own unwritten rules of navigation.
The library stood sentinel across University Avenue. The crosswalk's red hand blinked its warning---a traffic signal I'd normally respect. But the street stretched empty in both directions.
My phone buzzed again.
RaidenMain2: @AlexTheGreat where u at?? BigDKarp: 2 min until the raid @everyone HURRY IF YOU WANT SHADOW MEWTWO
My phone's screen painted my face in blue light as I jogged, the little avatar shuffling across a simplified version of my world---one minute forty-five seconds. The library's Pokestop spun with casual indifference, promising digital treasures that suddenly seemed far less important as a deep mechanical groan vibrated through my bones.
A shadow fell across my phone. I looked up---too late, too slow---as steel and chrome filled my vision. Physics asserted itself with elegant simplicity: mass plus velocity equals the end.
My last thoughts weren't deep or meaningful. Nothing about family, nothing about wasted potential, not even the cosmic irony of dying for a mobile game. Instead, I thought about my Gyarados, frozen in time with that sliver of health, waiting for a command that would never come.
Then darkness. Not the dramatic fade-to-black of movies or the peaceful drift of sleep, but a sudden cessation of input, like someone yanked the cartridge out mid-game.
\[@.@]/
Except the game hadn't ended.
A tremor rippled through my container, and another, each one stronger than the last. Then came a sound that defied description---something between a roar and a thought-given voice, so deep it seemed to resonate in bones I wasn't sure were mine anymore.
The container finally gave way. Fractures quickly spiderwebbed across my visible world, immediately transforming the emergency lights into kaleidoscopic fragments before the final crack broke.
A pair of arms caught me while I fell---arms that seemed impossibly large. They were attached to a middle-aged man whose tear-streaked face loomed above me.
"Amber," the giant middle-aged man choked out, his voice thick with emotion. "You're alive. You're really alive."
He pulled back just enough to shrug off his lab coat with shaking hands, wrapping it around my shoulders and pulling me close with gentle urgency. The fabric draped over me like a tent, still warm from his body and carrying a mix of scents---antiseptic, coffee, and something earthy that spoke of long hours.
"Who---?" I started to say, but stopped to clear my throat. This voice... wasn't mine. It felt too young. Even my coughs were weirdly super high-pitched... almost like a little girl's.
"Amber!" the giant middle-aged man whispered through his choking sobs. He eased me back so we could really see each other.
His eyes were red and swollen; he looked at me with a mix of disbelief and joy, like I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Something about him was familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Suddenly, in my peripheral vision, something caught my eye.
A tail. Purple and massive, sweeping through broken equipment with casual, elegant destruction. Trails of violet energy hung in the air behind it, making the world look unstable and unfinished.
And there, suspended in the chaos of its own liberation, was a goddamn Mewtwo. Not the 8-bit sprite or 3D render, but a terrifyingly real thing. Its form rippled with power that hadn't quite settled into being, each movement carrying the weight of something that existed outside the natural order.
Our eyes met, and primal terror froze me in place. Hours of playing Pokemon had taught me that eye contact meant a battle was about to start---but reality had its own cruel humor. I knew in that moment that no menu would slide into view, no convenient mechanics would save me.
Time stretched between us, neither moving, neither breathing. Something flickered in those violet eyes---recognition? Memory?---before reality came crashing back in the form of a torrent of flames that caught Mewtwo in its side. The legendary Pokemon tumbled through the air, its psychic shield materializing like heat shimmer before steadying.
Everything suddenly clicked into place like a puzzle I hadn't known I was solving---the liquid tank, the legendary Pokemon wreaking havoc above us, and this man who seemed achingly familiar.
Mewtwo, laboratory, and... I stared at the disheveled scientist in front of me. Was this perhaps... "Dr. Fuji?"
It felt strange to be looked at with such intensity by a man I'd only ever seen animated or an 8-bit pixel sprite.
The middle-aged man I assumed to be Dr. Fuji nodded and wiped his tears, though he kept staring at me with a hint of disbelief. "Yes... Amber... you're alive."
"And I'm... Amber?" I asked, my voice cracking. Like... the daughter of Dr. Fuji? The one that Dr. Fuji tried to clone in the first Pokemon movie? The one that Dr. Fuji tried to bring back to life through cloning?
Dr. Fuji nodded warmly and pulled me closer. "Yes, you are Amber. My Amber."
A psychic shockwave rippled through the air above us, and I looked up to see Mewtwo preparing another attack—but this time its gaze swept across the laboratory floor, across the fleeing scientists. Violet energy began to coalesce around its form, and I didn't need to be a Pokemon expert to recognize the charging of something catastrophic.
"Dr. Fuji! We have to get out of here!" someone shouted at us.
A support beam groaned overhead, fractured concrete raining down in chunks. Dr. Fuji didn't hesitate---he scooped me up like I was some kind of little kid and started running.
The world bounced with each of his strides as I finally took note of the chaos around us.
Emergency lights cutting red swaths through steam clouds, while sparks rained from destroyed equipment like artificial stars. The air itself felt wrong, charged with an electric tension that made my skin prickle and my hair stand on end.
Through the mayhem, I caught glimpses of other tanks like mine, now reduced to shattered glass and spilled fluid. I shoved aside what that meant and focused on what mattered: I couldn't help the giddy excitement as I watched Mewtwo and the Arcanine clash.
An Arcanine launched another stream of flames, catching Mewtwo mid-hover. For all its legendary status, basic physics still applied---the impact slammed it into reinforced concrete hard enough to crack both. Pain flashed across its features, quickly transforming into something darker, something that promised retribution.
For a moment, I thought we were about to witness exactly why the games classified it as being the world's strongest Pokemon. But instead, it glanced between the Arcanine, the damaged wall, and---briefly---at me, making eye contact for a second time.
Then, with a pulse of psychic energy that shattered every remaining bit of glass in the room, it blasted upward through what remained of the ceiling. Moonlight poured in through the new skylight, illuminating the destruction below. Dr. Fuji's arms tightened around me with sudden urgency as he stopped and shielded me from the falling debris.
Sound painted the picture I couldn't see---the thunderous cascade of falling concrete, the crystalline symphony of shattering glass, something that might have been a support beam groaning its way to failure.
When the crashes finally faded to scattered plinks and the occasional distant rumble, Dr. Fuji's grip loosened. I pulled back, blinking in the strange new light. Moonlight streamed through a jagged hole that had once been a ceiling, painting silver highlights on broken equipment and scattered research.
Around the laboratory, reality had stopped trying to make sense. Alarms wailed in competing frequencies---high-pitched containment breach warnings mixing with the deeper drone of structural failure alerts, creating a discordant symphony that made my teeth ache. Through the cacophony, I watched a partially-formed Kadabra variant suddenly glitch into the half-destroyed lab, its too-many-fingers leaving trails of psychic energy in the air, before disappearing again.
A pained grunt drew my attention back to Dr. Fuji. He was hunched forward now, one hand pressed against the wall for support as he groaned in pain.
"A-Are you alright?" The question slipped out in my new voice.
Dr. Fuji grunted with a pained smile. "I'm fine," he said, before he quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me along.
At this moment, I saw his back. Blood was seeping through the torn fabric of his suit, darkening the white shirt beneath in an expanding bloom. He didn't look fine, but he seemed to just be trying to be strong.
We picked our way across what remained of the laboratory floor, my bare feet finding surprising purchase on debris-scattered tiles. The reinforced door hung askew on its hinges, blown outward by Mewtwo's psychic blast. Beyond it, the scene transformed with jarring suddenness---no more clinical white walls or exposed machinery, just the refined interior of what could have been any wealthy estate. Wood paneling replaced sterile steel and ornate light fixtures cast shadows where monitoring equipment should have been.
The hallway held a handful of scientists in various states of panic, their lab coats looking strangely out of place against the mansion's carefully curated aesthetic. Two security guards tried maintaining order while radioing for backup, their professional demeanor cracking under the weight of what they'd just witnessed. Through a doorway, someone hurriedly disconnected a hard drive, hands shaking as they worked. Fragments of conversation floated above the chaos...
"...security breach in the east wing, we need..."
"...containment field's down in Enhancement Lab Three..."
"...Fuji's legendary clone..."
"...the evolution acceleration chamber is overloading..."
The facility's emergency lighting painted everything in harsh red pulses as we made our way through the corridors, but now real flames were beginning to join the artificial warning lights. Smoke curled along the ceiling in lazy ribbons, and I could feel the temperature rising with each step.
The lab coat around my shoulders felt less comforting now, its fabric growing warm from more than just body heat. I couldn't stop staring at Dr. Fuji's back, watching crimson slowly seep through his clothes while orange light from growing fires cast dancing shadows around us. Each step seemed to cost him, though he never loosened his grip on my arm.
"Everything will be different now," Dr. Fuji said softly, his voice barely carrying over the crackle of flames behind us. Orange light painted the treeline in false sunset, while smoke curled through branches. "We can fix it all---our family, our life. Everything."
Dr. Fuji's grip on my arm never loosened, even when we had to step over debris---as if he thought I might dissolve if he let go.