Legacy: Chapter 2
#2 of Legacy
The air was thick, heavy and dark. Some unnatural light source hovered above him, fighting to penetrate the gloom, but lost the battle only a few feet away. The rest of the world was black. The meager light only served to make Jack feel exposed. It followed him as he navigated his nightmare, illuminating a step or two in front of him, but no more.
_ A sickening, ragged breathing trailed him just beyond where he could see, and although he could not hear the others, he knew that they were all around him._
Accusing, spiteful, malicious things.
Slowly he made his way forward, feeling their eyes on him, feeling their hatred. He dare not stand still as they shuffled towards him through the darkness, but he did not know where he was going.
The mud gripped his boots with each step, and let go with a reluctant sucking sound. Each step he took was more labored than the last, the ooze deepened in every direction. Yet they followed tirelessly, close enough to grab him if he slowed.
Jack knew that he was dreaming, and that he would not wake until it was over. So he pushed forward. On and on he trudged, unable to run in the thick ooze. He did not know where he was, and he did not care. His mind was thick with the fog that hung in the air, and all that mattered was escaping his relentless pursuers.
_ He had to stop when the light revealed a wall that loomed up in front of him, barring his path. The hideous sounds behind him grew more animated. He started to the left, but a rotted hand swiped at him, grazing his arm. He turned on his heel, with only one direction left to go, and found his retreat blocked by a rancid, living corpse. The dead man had a second mouth beneath his chin, and blood sprayed onto Jack's face as the creature gasped for air through its ruined throat._
Suddenly a small pink creature popped into the scene, arriving between Jack and the encroaching monstrosities. Mew surveyed the scene with the detached curiosity of one watching children at play. The attackers retreated slightly, patiently circling their prey whilst staying just out of arm's reach.
Jack examined the intruder, and his mind began to clear.
"You!" he hissed, "You lied to-"
"I did not lie to you."
"Lying by omission is still lying, you little rat!" He wanted to take a swing at the floating pokémon, but his arms felt like lead. It was all he could manage to make fists at his sides.
"I left out nothing of any relevance." Mew was thoroughly unmoved by his anger. "You still need to kill the creature."
Jack could feel them still, pacing in a semi circle that cornered him to the wall.
"I think I made it pretty clear that I've torn up our contract."
_Mew's eyes glowed pink, and to Jack's horror, the radius of light around him began to recede. Gurgling, hissing, snarling sounds invaded his hearing all around him. They were no longer stalking, they had cornered their prey, and they sensed his vulnerability. _
"Just kill it." As the light receded further, the beasts closed in, shedding their reluctance as they worked themselves into a frenzy.
"Kill it," came the command, "and I will make the nightmares stop."
And then Mew vanished, along with the light, and Jack was suddenly left alone with the horrors of the darkness. He could see nothing, but he felt hot, sour breath on his face. Trying not to tremble, he stepped to his left, and his shoulder met with soft flesh, but two powerful arms gripped him around his chest before he could back away. He kicked and thrashed to no avail; the grip on him was hard, and cold as steel.
"It's not my fault," Jack tried to explain as he struggled, "We could have stopped them, someone had to do something..."
But they ignored him, pressing in as he failed to free himself.
"You knew what you were in for!" he spat angrily. The creature that held him screeched, a horrible call that chilled him, and suddenly something holding a red-hot knife burst through the darkness and thrust the blade deep into the flesh in his right shoulder.
He cried out, clutching his wound. A bright light blinded him from overhead, and he could feel the sticky wetness of blood where the creature had stabbed him. His head swam, and his first attempt at sitting upright was thwarted by nausea and weakness. His eyes began to adjust as he lay on his back, shaking and confused.
The sun. There was no sun in the Team Rocket compound. He forced himself into a sitting position as pain seared through his shoulder, desperate to examine his surroundings. But his head grew heavy and his arm instinctively shot out to keep him upright. It promptly buckled beneath his weight, and this time he found himself falling face first. Into the sand.
He laughed, the movement intensifying his pain, but it felt good. He continued to laugh, inhaling sand until he could barely breathe, and rolled himself over his left side until he was once more on his back.
Waves rolled and sloshed in the distance, and the warming rays of the sun felt good on his face. Jack closed his eyes and lay unmoving, still confused, but content.
A shadow came between Jack and the light, and he opened his eyes but the afterimage of the sun obscured the intruder.
WHY DO THEY WANT YOU TO KILL ME?
The voice boomed from inside his head, with no discernible outside source, and the sudden invasion shocked Jack out of his lulled bliss.
"Jesus christ..." he reached for his throbbing head, and the invader leaned in closer, bringing the two of them face to face. As Jack's eyes adjusted to the light, he got a good look at the creature, and memories flooded back. The pokémon in the tank, throwing the broken mop at the doctor, the...connection. And the light!
WHY DO THEY WANT YOU TO KILL ME?
She leaned in even closer, bringing her lightly colored body just inches above his as he lay in the sand.
"I...I don't know." He tried to scramble backwards with his good arm, uncomfortable being in such close proximity to this creature that he knew nothing about. "Where are we?" He examined his surroundings from his limited vantage point on his back. Something seemed oddly familiar...
WHY DO THEY WA-
"Fucking hell did I pull your string or something?"
The creature seemed startled by his interruption and retreated slightly, giving Jack the chance to pull himself into a sitting position. He rubbed his eyes with the fingers of his good hand, and looked over at his shoulder.
He peeled the sticky fabric away with a grimace as the creature looked on. The wound felt like it was on fire, but still he inhaled sharply and probed the back of the shoulder. He grinned; there was an exit wound.
Laughter shook him again and pain shot through his bullet hole. He examined his surroundings further, unable to shake the feeling that he had been here before. He recognized that tree at the edge of the clearing...
Shakily, he pushed himself to his feet, pausing for a moment at the top to fight the encroaching tunnel vision. "I know that tree. God damn it if I don't." He made his way slowly towards the tree, the stiffness leaving his body with each step, but the pain intensifying. The tree was only a few feet away, but the walk felt like a journey. This whole place was somehow familiar and yet not. He made it to the tree, and looked beyond it.
Behind the tree lay a familiar spot, a place where he had come to sit and think countless times. A place that nobody else knew about. Then he understood; he had seen that familiar tree many times...from the other side.
"That's great. You brought us here, right?" He paced back and forth, not looking at the accused. "Actually, don't answer that. I don't need to go through that mind megaphone shit again."
This was where you wanted to be. The sound was much softer this time; a voice.
"That...that link." He had stopped his pacing, and leaned his good shoulder against a tree. "That was how you knew, wasn't it?"
Silence.
"It was, then. So you invaded my fucking mind!" He was sweating now. Blood soaked through his shirt and began to seep down his arm. "Let me get this all in order. I free you, and in return you break into my brain, extract information about the most private place I know of, and then you take us there and start to interrogate me when I wake up, bleeding to death."
I'm not interrogating you. I need to know who that was, in your dream.
"Oh, alright, so you invaded my dreams too." He tore a strip off the cuff of his pants and tied it tightly from his armpit to his shoulder, so that it applied pressure to his wound.
_What else was I going to do? I couldn't wake you up. _
"So you might as well take a look-see, right? I don't know who that was, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you a goddamn thing."
The creature stood up, without using any of her limbs to lift herself. It was as though she floated up into a standing position, just a few inches above the ground. Before Jack knew it, she had closed the distance between them, the only indication that she had even moved was a wake of wind that followed her and washed over him.
Jack's breath caught in his throat as he once again found himself face to face with this magnificent being. She hovered there, an inch or two above his eye level so that he had to look slightly upwards to make eye contact.
Maybe I don't need you to explicitly tell me anything. Her eyes began to glow that deep purple again, a contrast to her lightly colored face.
"Go ahead. Go right fucking ahead. But you're just going to find that there's nothing in there that wasn't there the first time."
The glow in her eyes faded, and Jack found himself unclenching his teeth.
Then we're even.
The glow returned as a familiar ringing began to build in his ears, and Jack knew what was coming. "Not this shit..."
His hands went up to cover his ears reflexively, although he was aware that it would be of no help. His right arm didn't even get halfway before the pain forced him to stop, and then the light came. It came from the creature, the trees, the air...everything.
Jack closed his eyes just as the light became painful, and then suddenly it was over. She was gone. There was no passing out this time, but the ordeal left Jack emptying his stomach violently.
Between bouts of retching he surveyed the mass of water that stood between him and the rest of the world. He wiped the vomit from his mouth and roughly tightened his bandage. It was going to be a long swim.
"I don't know why my father even keeps you around." Gio's rage was palpable; it hung in the air as though waiting to be challenged.
"Your father had a talent for recognizing genius, and-"
"Has a talent."
"Yes, has a talent for recognizing ge-"
"-genuinely stupid people. I don't care how brilliant you are, if you lack common sense. So you create this new pokemon...what did you call it?"
"Mewtwo."
"Mewtwo! And what exactly is Mewtwo capable of?"
"She has incredible psychic abilities! We were unable to perform any cognitive tests, due to-"
"-due to a lapse in brain power that led to her escape, as well as the escape of the most important political prisoner we have ever held." He scratched his chin. "'Incredible psychic abilities', you say. Tell me more. I want to know exactly what this creature can do."
The doctor showed no signs of his unease. "As previously stated, we were unable to perform any tests on Mewtwo before the incident. In theory her abilities should be similar to those possessed by Mew, but there could be deviations."
"Deviations?"
"Her genetic code is not identical to Mew's, as evident by her physical appearance. She could be lacking certain abilities that Mew possesses...and she could have abilities that Mew does not."
Gio rubbed his eyes in exasperation. "So what you are telling me is that you have no idea. You have created a creature of which you know very little, save for the fact that it is probably very powerful."
Brue remained silent.
The Rocket leader gestured expectantly. "I'm waiting for you to tell me what you were thinking."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't." he sighed.
"We are this close," he spread his thumb and index finger an inch apart, "this close to possibly the biggest Team Rocket breakthrough that we have ever had. The world is ours. There are no major resistance movements left. We have complete control. So I suppose what I am asking you is: What the fuck were you thinking when you decided to create this thing, and allowed it to escape with the head of the Kanlites?"
A lesser man might have shifted uncomfortably. "You are aware that it was not my intention to allow this incident to occur. As for Mewtwo, I-"
"-Forget it. I don't even care. You aren't going to be running your own little pet projects anymore. Anything you are interested in sinking funds into needs my direct approval first."
"So...?" He gestured again.
"Sir?"
"So, how do we get rid of it?"
"Get rid...surely you don't want to kill her?"
"I abso-fucking-lutely do. Or at least contain..." he paused to think, "...her."
"I was not planning on setting her loose. I did not get the opportunity to create any...counter measures as of yet."
Gio barked a laugh. "You don't think much of me, do you? I'm not my father, but I'm not stupid. I know how you operate. Now, how exactly can we take this thing out?"
"As I have said, I was not prepared for the escape-"
"Don't bullshit me! I'm not going to ask you a third time."
"I assure you that I haven't yet produced any means of finding or restraining her. She does not necessarily pose any imminent threat to Team Rocket operations."
Gio's hands went up. "Fine." He gestured to the two nearest grunts, waiting at the entrance of the room. "Put him away. Search his office, then his home. It's there. Take one more grunt, and two guys from tech. It could be a document, a device...find it. And bring it here." They snapped to attention wordlessly.
He turned back to the Doctor. "I keep you around because you are profitable. I did not inherit any respect for you from my father. I don't care what you have done for this company. If either of our two escapees become a problem, i'm going to have done to you exactly what I would have done to them."
His face softened. "That being said, I'll have you released as soon as you provide us with verifiable information on how to locate and retrieve the pokémon. So, do you have anything to say?"
Silence was the reply. "Off with you, then."
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