Pokémon: Master of the Rain Team

Chapter 597 - 597 – Reiji the Smooth Talker

"Saur... Saur...""Char... Char..."

"Blast... Blast..."

While Reiji was thinking, he suddenly heard movement outside. He turned toward the door and froze.

A crowd of Pokémon had gathered outside, led by the fully evolved Kanto starters: Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise.

Behind them were Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Psyduck, Vulpix, Meowth, Gyarados, Seadra, Nidoqueen, Golduck, Tentacruel, Vaporeon, Pidgeot, Scyther, Hitmonlee, Sandslash, Rhyhorn, Dewgong, Wigglytuff, Vileplume, Ninetales, and Rapidash.

Many of them had the same obvious markings as Amber's cloned starters: the red patches on Charizard's face, the shell markings on Blastoise's back, and the pale spots around Venusaur's eyes.

"What is this?" Reiji looked at Mewtwo. "Where did all these Pokémon come from? You brought them here?"

"They are the Pokémon I cloned." Mewtwo lowered its head.

It knew what it had done was wrong. But the clones already existed, and now it could only try to make things right. It wanted to find them somewhere quiet, somewhere no one would bother them.

"This many?"

Reiji looked away from the three fully evolved starters and glanced at Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Pikachu. Those should be Ash's clones.

Vulpix and Psyduck were probably Brock's and Misty's. Meowth had to be Team Rocket's Meowth clone.

There were so many of them, and none looked weak. They had fought evenly against the Pokémon of the Trainers Mewtwo invited to New Island. At the very least, they couldn't be bad.

"When I escaped, I brought them with me," Mewtwo said awkwardly.

So many mouths to feed. It had no idea what to do with them.

"How are you planning to feed all of them?" Reiji's mind immediately started moving.

The starter trio was all here. The problem was that none of them could appear in public.

Still, Gengar had already reached Elite Four tier, and Reiji himself was not far from that level. Cleaning up the clones' identities later wouldn't be too difficult.

Mewtwo was the real problem.

"Do you have a way?" Mewtwo looked at him, clearly embarrassed.

It had brought the Pokémon here, but it had no plan for what came next.

"What way would I have? There are too many of them." Reiji took out Pokéblocks of different types and passed them to Mewtwo. "They can stay here for now. I still have some food. Give these out first."

There were nine Water types, the biggest group. Three Grass types, four Fire types, one Electric type, two Normal types, three Ground types, two Flying types, and one Fighting type.

"Thank you."

That was the first time Mewtwo thanked him.

It hadn't thanked him for the Potion spray earlier. Only after Reiji brought out food for the other Pokémon did it say those words.

"It's just food." Reiji waved it off, then added, "Can you remove the clone markings from them? They'll be easier to hide if they look normal."

"I can."

Mewtwo nodded.

Changing a little skin pigment was simple for it. It had just never thought to do it before.

Mewtwo lifted a hand, and psychic power wrapped around the Pokémon with clone markings. None of them panicked. They knew it was Mewtwo's power.

When the glow faded, their skin had returned to normal.

Reiji stared.

So that was all it took. No machines, no long process like Blaine had used. Mewtwo just raised a hand and wiped the markings away.

"Good. Then they can stay here for now. No one will bother them. The Water types can live in the lake. The rest can make do inside and around the cabin for a few days. Later, I'll find someone to build a wooden Pokémon shelter so they have somewhere to stay out of the wind and rain."

Reiji rubbed his chin, already thinking about how to settle them in.

A few of these Pokémon really tempted him.

The three fully evolved starters, Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Seadra, Psyduck, Ninetales, Vulpix...

Too many. There were too many Pokémon he wanted.

But only if Mewtwo agreed. Otherwise, he could only look.

"Thank you for taking them in," Mewtwo said again.

Reiji had helped it more than it knew. Mewtwo didn't understand any of this.

"It's fine. Food is the hard part. If all of them eat Pokéblocks every day, I probably can't afford it."

Reiji gave an awkward smile.

And that was true. If every Pokémon ate Pokéblocks, he couldn't support them unless he had a business of his own.

He already had more than thirty Pokémon. Add these twenty-five, and he was suddenly responsible for more than fifty. At that scale, he would need a proper Breeder to handle daily care, or it would eat into all his training time.

"How do I get this food?" Mewtwo asked.

It knew nothing about money.

"You need money. A lot of money."

Reiji explained how Pokéblocks worked.

"For lower-level Pokémon, one Pokéblock can make them feel full. Two a day is usually enough. Bigger Pokémon need more. If they aren't training or moving much, five a day is usually the limit."

"How do I get money?" Mewtwo asked again.

"I..."

Reiji almost said "get a job," then quickly shut his mouth.

This was Mewtwo. A top-tier Legendary Pokémon. Was it really going to go work for wages?

"Not right now. I can cover it for a while. Let's talk about you first."

Reiji looked at Mewtwo.

Keeping the twenty-five clones meant he was confident he could protect them. Some of them were Pokémon he wanted anyway, so helping raise them was fine. If they stayed long enough, he might even get something out of it.

Mewtwo was different.

"Team Rocket is looking for you. I can't beat Team Rocket. Sorry."

"I understand how strong Team Rocket is," Mewtwo said. "Once my injuries heal, I will leave. You don't need to worry."

It knew Team Rocket wanted it. If it separated from the cloned Pokémon, the others might actually be safer.

"With your power, Team Rocket can't catch you easily," Reiji said. "But if you go find Amber, don't let Team Rocket see you."

He still wanted Mewtwo. Of course he did. But keeping Mewtwo here meant facing Team Rocket directly, and he was not ready for that.

Amber was another issue. If Team Rocket found out she existed, and found out she was connected to Mewtwo, she would be kidnapped sooner or later.

Reiji didn't want that.

Amber had her own life.

"I know." Mewtwo looked at the cloned Pokémon eating outside the cabin. "Thank you for everything you've done for them. If all Trainers were like you and Ash..."

It didn't finish.

That was the view of the world Ash had given it.

Ash and Pikachu's bond had shaken Mewtwo deeply. Ash had shown it that not all humans were like Team Rocket. There were still simple, kind people in the world.

"Ash? That idiot?" Reiji smiled. "He's a very pure Trainer."

He had to admit that much. Ash had grown up exactly the way the League's ideals wanted Trainers to grow. Pure, direct, and completely sincere about Pokémon.

"You know Ash?" Mewtwo asked, surprised.

"Of course."

Reiji chuckled and started telling Mewtwo about the Indigo Plateau Conference.

"Ash is an interesting Trainer," Mewtwo said, smiling.

Talking with Reiji felt easy. No Team Rocket control. No one trying to use it. No lies piled on top of lies.

"Mewtwo, do you remember Dr. Fuji?" Reiji asked.

He thought of Amber's father. Mewtwo should be calm enough now to hear about this.

"My creator. What about him?"

Of course Mewtwo knew Dr. Fuji. That man was the root of its birth.

"Amber is Dr. Fuji's daughter. The reason he started the Mewtwo project with Team Rocket was because he wanted to bring Amber back."

Reiji watched Mewtwo's reaction. It stayed calm, so he continued.

"Dr. Fuji wanted to revive his daughter, and by accident, he created you."

"You were born from Mew's genes. Dr. Fuji placed a lot of hope in you, which is why he named you Mewtwo. The name means a Pokémon meant to surpass Mew. He put the hope of bringing his daughter back on you."

"So that's what it was..."

Mewtwo had never heard it explained that way. Before, its mind had been too chaotic to think about any of this properly.

"But Dr. Fuji failed," Reiji said. "You were a newborn life form. Everything around you was unknown: the world, humans, even yourself."

"Of course you lost control. You had just been born. And yet those scientists somehow thought their creation would wake up already knowing everything. That was their biggest mistake."

"You were as blank as a newborn child. Then Giovanni led you around and turned you into Team Rocket's weapon. After you got tired of their lies, you were still lost, so you returned to the place where you were born: New Island."

"You went there to find yourself, or maybe just to find something to hold on to. You were scared of being lost. Scared of the unknown. In the end, you chose Mew as your goal. That was still the mission those scientists had left inside you. They wanted you to surpass Mew, so you tried to prove you could."

"If I'm right, Ash was the one who finally made you understand. He's an idiot, but he's completely sincere with Pokémon. He helped you see that you are you, and Mew is Mew. You are different beings. You're both living Pokémon, with your own thoughts and the things you care about. There is no need to prove who surpasses whom."

"That's also why I refused to approach you back then and had Darkrai seal your memories. You had just been born. Your psychic power and your mind were both unstable. You could lose control at any moment, and if you did, I wouldn't survive it."

"I'm sorry I didn't take you with me then. Your body was still inside Team Rocket's base, and I was not powerful enough at the time. I couldn't help you."

"Human... can you read minds?" Mewtwo asked.

Reiji had cut straight into the confusion it had carried since birth. For a moment, Mewtwo almost lost control again, but it steadied itself.

Reiji couldn't hurt it. There was no reason to panic.

But the more he talked, the more shocked Mewtwo became. He had described its state almost perfectly.

When it was born, the world was unknown. Humans were unknown. It had terrifying power inside it, but no understanding of anything. Beneath the confusion, there had been fear. Fear of everything it didn't know.

And loneliness.

"No."

Reiji shook his head and tapped his temple.

"Dr. Fuji gave you genes from many Pokémon, and even some human genes. You're too much like a person."

"I can't read minds, but I understand people a little. You were like a human newborn. You followed Team Rocket because you were curious about the world and wanted to understand it. But all Team Rocket gave you were lies. That's why you came to hate humans."

"If someone had given you a proper human teacher when you were born—no, maybe someone more like a mother—you might not have turned out that way."

"It was messy, but you're doing better now. You should thank Ash for showing you that the human world isn't only Team Rocket. There are good people too."

"You... you..."

Mewtwo opened its mouth, and its telepathy almost cracked.

Every word had hit the mark.

Impressive, right?

Not really. This was just other people's wisdom. In his previous life, Reiji had studied Mewtwo's story and argued with plenty of other fans about how to make Mewtwo join him.

Talk it down, or beat it down?

Everyone eventually agreed on talking.

Mewtwo had been beaten in the anime, sure. But they would still choose talking. It was the easiest way to win Mewtwo over.

Mostly because none of them could beat it.

"Mewtwo."

Reiji raised a hand, telling it to calm down.

He had said all of this only to raise Mewtwo's opinion of him. Nothing more. He didn't dare keep Mewtwo now, but that might not always be true. There was no harm in building trust first.

Once Mewtwo settled, Reiji continued.

"The human world is complicated. Good and evil aren't always cleanly separated. Some people are truly rotten. Some are honestly kind. As long as their own interests aren't involved, there are probably more decent people than bad ones. But greedy people are everywhere."

"Humans get lost too. It happens all the time. You only seem different because your power makes the consequences much bigger."

"What should I do?" Mewtwo asked suddenly. "Can you teach me?"

It had finally found direction.

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

Where am I going?

Those three old questions had followed humans for ages.

Mewtwo had already answered the first two.

Ash had helped it understand who it was. Reiji had just answered where it came from: who created it, why it was born, why it was called Mewtwo and not something else.

Now only the third question remained.

Where was it going?

Mewtwo understood that it was alive. It wanted to live quietly with the others. But where could they go? Where could they live?

If anyone could help it think past that, it was the human in front of it.

This human understood it too well.

"I can't teach the current you," Reiji said.

Mewtwo's eyes dimmed.

Then Reiji added, "But I do have one idea you can try."

"What idea?"

Mewtwo asked at once, like a drowning child reaching for the hand of an adult who had come to pull it out.

[End of chapter]

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