Kairos froze mid-pour, the water jug suspended in midair.
This mission had arrived at exactly the right moment.
The ultimate module he had his eye on required a full five hundred thousand emotion points to unlock.
If he wanted to accumulate that kind of astronomical sum in the shortest amount of time, producing a film capable of triggering a massive cultural wave was, without question, the fastest and most effective method available for harvesting emotion points.
The problem was, he had only just wrapped up the Aura Guardian project. What should his next work be about?
Kairos settled back in his chair, leaned against the backrest, and turned the question over carefully in his mind.
Should he film the Guardian of Cerulean City? Or put together an epic piece about Palkia's one-versus-nine showdown?
He ran through the options and concluded that neither felt quite right.
In the end, he kept coming back to one answer: Mewtwo was still the best fit.
The reasoning was entirely practical. He had just glanced at the reward from the previous mission settlement and noticed the Mewtwonite sitting there.
The stone was priceless, but right now it was nothing more than a pretty ornament sitting on his desk.
Since he would eventually need to find a way to deliver it to Mewtwo anyway, he might as well use the film as a natural opportunity to hand it over. Handled right, it would go a long way toward building goodwill and making future dealings considerably smoother.
Once his mind was made up, Kairos moved quickly. He rose from his chair, picked up the Mewtwonite from the desk, its surface cool against his fingers, tucked it carefully into his breast pocket, and headed for the door.
His plan was to find an open area outside where he could use the system to locate Mewtwo's current position.
He was on the verge of pulling up the system through the invitation card in his mind to activate the signal search function when the front door swung open and his gaze landed squarely on a purple figure hovering in midair.
Mewtwo was right there, floating without a sound in the corridor less than two meters away.
Its thick tail swayed slowly behind it, and both arms were crossed over its chest. Its eyes were cold, authoritative, and fixed entirely on Kairos.
Kairos went completely rigid, as though he had been hit with a paralysis move.
What the hell?
Those were the only two words cycling through his mind on repeat.
He had been mentally gearing up for a long search, ready to scour the world for this legendary Pokémon, and here the creature had shown up at his door without a single word of warning.
So what exactly was going on here?
In the few seconds he stood there in stunned silence, every Pokémon in the apartment erupted.
Marshadow had been sprawled across the sofa in a state of total relaxation. The moment it sensed the unfathomable, destruction-laced psychic pulse radiating from beyond the door, its body launched off the cushions like a coiled spring.
It whipped its head toward the terrifying purple silhouette in the doorway, expression blank with shock, then scrambled frantically under the sofa — and went completely still, as if becoming invisible might somehow help.
It recognized that feeling. That was the same presence from the Spirit World. This was bad. It had come looking for Kairos.
Dragonite and Chandelure felt their survival instincts fire at exactly the same moment.
Dragonite's body snapped taut. Its large eyes were full of wariness and fear, but it steeled itself and pushed forward, planting itself firmly between Mewtwo and Kairos.
It lowered its center of gravity and let out a string of low, unmistakably threatening growls toward the figure in the doorway.
The flames wreathing Chandelure shifted violently, going from its usual gentle blue to a searing, eye-piercing deep blue in an instant. Trembling under a psychic pressure so immense it felt like its very soul might shatter, Chandelure held its ground in front of Kairos all the same.
Kairos could feel the tension crackling through the apartment, the whole scene balanced on a knife's edge with a full-scale battle ready to break out at any second.
He reached out and rested a hand gently on Dragonite's shoulder.
"Easy. It's one of ours."
Mewtwo paid not the slightest attention to the hostility radiating from Dragonite and Chandelure.
Its gaze, sharp as a blade, remained locked on Kairos. Or more precisely, on the Mega Stone he had just slipped into his pocket, the one pulsing with a distinctive and unmistakable energy signature.
"Human. You have something I want. I'm willing to make a trade."
Mewtwo's voice materialized directly inside Kairos's mind, its tone flat and unhurried.
Kairos exhaled quietly with relief. Even with that overwhelming level of power, Mewtwo was still willing to propose a fair exchange when faced with something it desired. Its values were genuinely solid. All those years of guidance had not been wasted.
He was just about to respond when he noticed a subtle but unmistakable shift in Mewtwo's expression.
Mewtwo's sharp eyes narrowed slightly. A surge of psychic energy swept over Kairos from head to toe.
That faint yet wholly singular resonance in his aura, combined with the sound of his voice as he calmed his Pokémon, acted like a key turning in a lock, pulling up the memory of their encounter in the Spirit World.
In that single instant, Mewtwo knew exactly who was standing in front of it.
"You."
The telepathic voice dropped noticeably lower, carrying a trace of genuine surprise it could not quite suppress.
Kairos stiffened slightly. Now that he had been recognized face-to-face, there was no point in concealing it any further.
He relaxed his posture and acknowledged everything without hesitation.
"Yes. I made that game. The one communicating with you online all that time was me. And the one who asked for your help in the Spirit World was also me."
Mewtwo absorbed this and fell into a brief silence. Those perpetually cold eyes flickered, just for a moment, with a rare and profoundly complicated emotion.
"Back then. Why did you help me?"
There was an edge to the question. Mewtwo was referring to the period when Kairos had gone to considerable lengths to free it from Team Rocket's control, the time he had worked to awaken it through the game.
Kairos held Mewtwo's gaze steadily and gave a small shrug, as if it were nothing worth making a big deal about.
"No particular reason, really. I just thought you shouldn't have to spend your whole existence as a tool for Team Rocket."
Mewtwo fell silent again, this time for longer.
After a considerable pause, Mewtwo's gaze dropped slightly — almost imperceptibly, for a creature like this — and a single phrase formed in Kairos's mind, quieter than anything it had said before.
"Thank you."
Seizing the moment while the atmosphere had softened, Kairos reached into his pocket and produced the Mega Stone, holding it up between them.
The instant it appeared, Mewtwo's attention locked onto it completely, and a raw, instinctive longing surfaced unmistakably in its eyes.
Kairos pressed forward with terms he had long since calculated.
"Want it? It's yours. But in exchange, you'll need to help me make a movie."
Mewtwo had no idea what a movie was. But between the stone that could carry it to a higher plane of power and the genuine trust it had begun to feel toward this particular human, it gave a single, decisive nod.
Without waiting for Kairos to say another word, Mewtwo drifted inside the apartment and settled into a secluded corner of the living room.
It closed its eyes, folded its legs beneath it, and floated there in suspension, entering a meditative state on the spot. It became perfectly still, like a purple stone sculpture.
Kairos stared at this legendary-tier homebody and could only shake his head with a helpless sigh.
With Mewtwo, the single most daunting obstacle, having delivered itself to his doorstep and agreed to star in the film without a moment's hesitation, the casting problem was as good as solved.
Kairos immediately brewed himself a cup of tea, turned back to his desk, and threw himself into work.
He sat at the computer with his fingers flying across the keyboard, rapidly drafting the outline of a live-action script for Mewtwo Strikes Back.
Pulling off a production of this scale in the Pokémon world was going to be impossible on his own, even with the system's assistance. He would need professionals with serious resources to handle the overall coordination.
He pulled out his phone, scrolled to the contact, and dialed the private number of Diantha, the Kalos region Champion and one of the biggest film stars in the world.
He had come across it while browsing a film website some time ago and had saved it for exactly this kind of occasion. Today was that occasion.
The call connected after a few rings. Kairos stated his purpose efficiently.
First, he identified himself as "Wind."
He told her he was planning to fund and produce a large-scale Pokémon film and needed her to take on both a key acting role and the position of chief artistic consultant.
Then he proposed a meeting at a high-end cafe in Cerulean City known for its discretion, where they could go over the details in person.
Then he ended the call.
He had no real concern that she would say no. His name alone would be enough to bring her to the table. He was confident she would come.
His identity, of course, would remain concealed.
---
Cerulean City.
The cafe was quiet and tastefully elegant.
Diantha arrived dressed in understated but carefully chosen casual attire and took a seat by the window with unhurried ease. She wore a slight frown, as though still not quite sure whether the message she had received was genuine.
Was it really that "Wind" who had invited her?
In the next moment, a figure whose face she could not quite make out sat down directly across from her.
Kairos said nothing extra after taking his seat. He reached into his bag, produced the script outline he had printed the night before, and slid it across the table.
Diantha lifted her cup of tea, took a sip, and began to read. She had barely turned a few pages before her frown deepened steadily, her eyes filling with pure disbelief.
The narrative built around an artificially created Pokémon. The deep and agonizing interrogation of what it meant to exist. The heavy storyline threading together revenge and eventual redemption.
The writing and the sheer scale of the story's architecture surpassed, by a wide margin, every film currently on the market with their paper-thin plots.
She looked up sharply and studied the person sitting across from her with eyes that had been completely recalibrated.
A script this good. It could only be that "Wind."
But actually bringing something like this to screen would mean burning through money at a truly staggering rate.
Whether it was the top-tier post-production visual effects, the construction of massive practical sets, or the logistics of managing a large number of extras, every line item added up to figures that were nothing short of astronomical.
Diantha raised the most critical and unavoidable practical issue with sharp professional precision.
"The budget. How do you plan to handle that?"
Kairos picked up his cup and took a measured sip of coffee.
"I can put in two hundred million as a starting point. And that's just the initial investment. If it turns out not to be enough once we're in production, I can add more whenever we need it."
The composed and polished film star's facade cracked completely.
Diantha barely kept from spraying her tea across the table. Only in that moment did she fully grasp that the young man sitting across from her was not making some elaborate joke at her expense.
He was genuinely, seriously intent on producing something that would go down in cinema history.
Then again, when did "Wind" ever have a shortage of money?
Once the shock had settled and her composure was restored, Diantha drew a steadying breath and shifted immediately into sharp professional mode, launching into a focused discussion with Kairos about specific casting decisions.
Kairos made several key calls on the spot. He would personally step in front of the camera to play the male lead, Ash. As for Pikachu, his own pleasantly round Pikachu could simply play the role as itself.
At this, Diantha pursed her lips and thought carefully for a moment.
"What about the most central role? The Mewtwo you've written needs to be on par with an actual legendary Pokémon. We can't exactly go out and find one willing to act in a film."
"And if we rely entirely on computer-generated effects in post-production, the current level of visual effects technology just isn't capable of producing that kind of genuine, overwhelming presence or realistic detail."
Kairos heard this and shook his head.
"Who said anything about using visual effects?"
The words had barely left his mouth when he raised his right hand and snapped his fingers at the empty air beside him.
The space inside the entire cafe seemed to warp in that instant, as though bent by some invisible force. A crushing psychic pressure, tangible as a physical weight, flooded every corner of the room.
The force was strong enough to pass straight through the glass and spill out onto the street, startling the wild Pidgey and Spearow perched in the roadside trees into frantic, wing-beating flight skyward.
From the depths of the shadow gathered in the corner of the cafe, a tall purple figure materialized slowly, like something emerging from the dark.
Mewtwo's cold eyes snapped open. The piercing gaze of a creature in complete and total command swept the surroundings.
Fortunately, Kairos had booked the entire cafe in advance and cleared the staff, leaving no one there but the two of them.
Diantha had, quite simply, stopped functioning.
As a trainer of Champion-level strength, her instincts registered the devastating force coiled within this Pokémon in the very first second of its appearance. The kind of power capable of leveling everything around it in an instant.
And as a performer with a razor-sharp eye, she saw, in that same instant, the most utterly perfect actor. One whose existence should have been impossible in the real world.
Every fixed assumption about reality crashed to a halt — and then, before a single new thought could form to replace them, there was a thud. She fainted.