Boom—boom—boom—
Mewtwo snapped completely.
It stopped holding back and tore loose with its psychic power, flinging every human who got close—along with their Psychic-type Pokémon—like they weighed nothing.
The lab couldn't take it. Alloy walls groaned, readouts spiked off the charts, glass instruments burst, and flames shot upward, swallowing Mewtwo's silhouette in a storm of fire.
Mewtwo only raised a hand. Blue light flooded its eyes, and the flames blew apart as if someone had swept them away.
With nothing left to restrain it, Mewtwo moved through the facility like it owned the place. Wherever it went, it tore everything down.
By the time it was done, the entire Mewtwo research lab was rubble. Every structure on the surface of New Island was rubble too.
Even Dr. Fuji—the scientists, the researchers, and the combat personnel who tried to escape via the underground submarine route—were all missing. Dead or alive, no one knew.
The submarine was ripped out of the sea by telekinesis, slammed onto the ruins, and hammered into the ground over and over. Only after the hull twisted, blew apart, and erupted into fire did Mewtwo finally stop.
Mewtwo hovered in the air, its eyes burning brighter. Blue light wrapped its whole body as its power dragged seawater up around the island, forming towering waterspouts like pillars of the ocean.
The earlier clear sky was gone. A mass of black cloud covered everything, and the hurricane it had created kept expanding outward.
No one could stop it. The only hope was that Mewtwo would exhaust itself and calm down.
With tornadoes and hurricane winds tearing through the area, nothing could get close. This sea belonged to Mewtwo alone.
A passenger ship was cutting across the water nearby—Reiji's ship.
Passengers put down whatever they were holding and stared toward New Island as the weather flipped in seconds. A wall of black cloud was already rolling toward them.
The captain's voice came over the loudspeakers, tight and urgent, ordering everyone back to their cabins and telling them to lock doors and windows. If the gale caught them on deck, it would throw them straight into the sea.
The ship was turning away from the storm. If it couldn't outrun it… then it was shipwreck or worse.
…
At the same time, Team Rocket's headquarters in the Kanto Region received the alert: New Island had gone dark.
The last message they got was blunt—test subject out of control. Evacuation underway.
Then nothing.
"Boss," Giovanni's secretary, Matori, reported, "We've lost contact with New Island."
"When?" Giovanni asked.
He sat behind his desk with his chair turned slightly away, giving nothing away.
"Half an hour ago. The scientists reported that Mewtwo had lost control and caused chaos. They began evacuating, but now even the evacuees have gone silent."
Giovanni's voice stayed calm. "So the evacuation failed. That means it's even stronger than I expected. Any witnesses?"
"Yes. There's a passenger ship in the area." Matori hesitated, then added, "It's… one of ours. From our shipping company."
Giovanni didn't flinch. "Contact the captain. Tell him to cooperate."
He paused for half a beat, then continued, voice flat. "Send people disguised as pirates. Take control of the ship. Collect every electronic device—anything that can take photos or record video—and destroy it."
"Understood, Boss." Matori wrote rapidly and sent the order down the chain.
Giovanni tapped the desk once. "And who's available? I need someone to clean up the narrative on board."
Matori pulled up a file immediately. "Will is free. He's nearby, overseeing an exhibition match."
"Then use him," Giovanni said. "Have him handle it."
He stood at last, the chair finally turning. "You prepare as well. Once that sea calms down, we'll take a helicopter to New Island. The 'pirates' can move first."
"Yes, Boss." Matori left at once. The clock was already running. They had to wipe this clean before the League caught the scent.
…
On the ship, Reiji woke to the noise outside his cabin.
He'd just finished settling Amber after her fright in the nightmare world, and then he surfaced back into his first-class room.
The view through the floor-to-ceiling window made his breath catch. Black cloud layered the sky, lightning ripping through it in jagged bursts. The chair that had been on the balcony was long gone—torn away by the wind.
"Darkrai," Reiji said, voice low, "that storm… that's where we just were, isn't it?"
He didn't need a long explanation. Before he slept, the sea had been calm. He woke to a sky at war.
Darkrai's shadow stirred. "Yes. I can still sense it. The psychic energy over there is violent. It's the same thing we felt."
Even Darkrai sounded unsettled. It had never seen weather like this—something so vast, so brutal, and caused by a single Pokémon. In the dream space, Mewtwo hadn't even truly flexed. If it had, Darkrai wouldn't have had the room to show off at all.
"That's a monster humans made," Reiji said. "This isn't something we can touch. The ship's already turning away. We'll be fine."
He wasn't only reassuring his Pokémon. He was saying it to keep his own thoughts from spiralling.
And he didn't blame himself for what happened.
Even if he'd done nothing—if he hadn't tried to preserve Amber—she would still have faded, and Mewtwo would still have snapped. This was bigger than his choices. He didn't have the power to rewrite the tide.
Mewtwo's rampage wasn't something he could stop.
Humans created a Pokémon with that kind of power, raised it in a cage, and expected it to come out normal.
No companions. No real life. No pack, no community, no world outside glass.
The only "friends" it had were Amber and three cloned starters. Amber was a child, still forming her sense of right and wrong. The clones were even worse—blank slates with nothing filled in.
Mewtwo didn't learn how to interact with other Pokémon. It didn't learn what affection or disgust looked like. It didn't learn what tears meant. It didn't even learn hunger the way living creatures did—nutrient fluid arrived on schedule, every time, without struggle, without consequence.
Then it broke out.
It stepped into the real world without knowing who it was. When something like that happens, the first instinct is simple: establish dominance. Prove your place in the food chain.
Reiji had seen the pattern before in old stories—creatures born in isolation, built wrong, taught nothing. They didn't destroy because they were evil. They destroyed because they were lost.
And Mewtwo was worse than most.
It could crush anything around it by accident, and once fear took root, it would grab every ounce of power it had to protect itself. That panic wasn't weakness. It was self-preservation wearing a mask of rage.
Once it realised the humans and Pokémon attacking it were helpless, the destruction only accelerated. Like a newborn that bites and tears things apart while learning what the world is, Mewtwo was "learning"—except its hands could turn a laboratory into ash.
What it needed wasn't another scientist with a clipboard.
It needed someone who understood a child's mind.
The League would eventually send someone. Ash would eventually reach it. And once Mewtwo had enough self-awareness to listen, words could reach it—especially after it saw that humans weren't all Team Rocket.
But right now?
Right now it was a blank sheet of paper with a hurricane in its veins.
Reiji exhaled through his nose.
Could he try to talk to it? Maybe.
Should he? Absolutely not.
He wasn't a hero, and he wasn't interested in attracting the hatred of Mewtwo and Team Rocket at the same time. Let Team Rocket take the full blast of that rage. When Mewtwo finally calmed down and started thinking like a person, then maybe there'd be room to move.
And even then, he'd only have leverage because of one thing.
Amber.
He didn't want to admit it, but saving Amber wasn't only about an old regret. It was also the only realistic way to influence Mewtwo later.
A Pokémon that could rival the highest-tier Legendary Pokémon wandering freely was a waste—and a disaster waiting to happen. If Amber could deepen that bond, she could become the one voice Mewtwo didn't reject.
Reiji might end up fighting the entire power structure of the Orange Archipelago one day. He'd be doing it alone.
If the situation turned impossible, he'd back off. He wasn't going to throw his life away just because he had Elite Four tier strength. The Orange Archipelago had other Elite Four tier trainers. It didn't need him.
Amber fading and Mewtwo rampaging—none of that surprised him. He'd expected it from the moment he saw where the ship was passing.
The surprise ended quickly.
What came next was the problem.
Could he still reach the Kanto Region? Could he still reach Pallet Town—the place every trainer's dream began?
Right now, he didn't know.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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