Chapter 5: Mantle

After the first hour or two, I started to lose track of time. There was nothing here with me in this place — no light or sound or gravity. I could not even feel. I attempted to twitch my arms and legs — even my tail — and received no response from any limb.

For a while, I wondered at that. At having apparently no body. I was wrong before, it wasn't like being shrunk and stuffed into a small space. It was more like dissolving — of becoming nothing but light and energy.

And so I rebelled.

Because I could still feel anger and desperation. And sadness. Helplessness. I could still think, even if it wasn't completely coherently. My thoughts seemed to stretch, stop, and reattach; it was like I was fighting sleep and unable to hold onto an idea for more than a few seconds before moving on to something else and circling back around.

And so I rebelled. I let the well of psychic energy I had access to crash against the walls of the Master Ball I was contained in, over and over. I did this forever, only pausing to sleep and during the moments I felt something from outside, like a faint psychic signature I couldn't quite recognize.

The worst part, I think, was how hard I had to fight in order to stay angry. This...this wasn't something I had ever thought about until now — how a Pokemon became almost subservient to its trainer after being caught. There was never any question in its mind; it would attack on command. That extremely rare, one-of-a-kind red Gyarados that wants to rip your head off for disturbing it? Oh, it's fine. You caught it and it will now obey you since you have such-and-such number of badges.

The same with the legendaries. Even Mewtwo. The level 70 monster that hid away in a cave could be forced to obey an eleven-year-old who wants to beat up a bunch of bug catchers and bird keepers.

And so I rebelled.

I tried to remember that poem about dying light. It had been in that Interstellar movie. Something about not going gently into the night, but raging at the dying light. I shook the walls of the Master Ball every moment I was conscious inside it, even as I felt myself forgetting why it was important.

And then, after an eternity, my dark world exploded into piercing light.

My body reformed in a matter of a couple seconds, and with it, the sensations that came with it. My eyes squinted at the dim overhead light of the gymnasium-sized room I was crouched in, and I felt the closeness of the humid air on my thinly-haired body.

My Mewtwo toes curled and I flexed my three-fingered hands, letting my eyes dart around the room. The abilities I had been gifted, disabled as they had been in that Master Ball, alerted me of several minds behind me and I instantly whirled around.

You! I screamed, shaking as I eyed Sabrina, whose hand was still extended with the purple-and-white Pokeball in her hand. Beside her was her Alakazam and two other purple Pokemon; luckily, they were two I recognized from the recent Pokemon Go Halloween event: Gengar and Sableye. Both of them creepily smiling at me with their wide grins.

Both were ghost type Pokemon, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were here because of me. As ghosts, they had the type advantage over my psychic typing.

Sableye, though, was especially concerning. It was also a dark type, I remembered, which was naturally superior to psychic types (of which I now was, myself). Honestly, I had no idea if I could do any damage to Sableye, if it came down to it. If this world operated like the Pokemon games, it would have absolutely zero effect.

But...if this were like the anime, I might have a chance. Typing rules seemed to play more loosely in the show and in the movies, especially where powerful legendaries were concerned, of which I also was.

God, I am such a nerd for remembering this stuff.

I curled my lip and let loose a blast of energy, straight at the Sableye and the Gengar.

Only for it to fizzle out halfway there. The Sableye cackled and twitched, emitting a nearly invisible wave of something from its mouth. It crossed the distance in a snap and washed over me; I expected it to hurt, but instead I just felt drained. I gasped and dropped toward the ground, catching myself with my hands before I fell face-first into the padded floor.

And, when I tried to reach for my abilities again, I found them...gone? No. Not gone. Suppressed. Degraded. The nearly eternal well of power I was used to feeling was instead replaced with a puddle of limited, insufficient static. What had they done to me?

Sableye's Snarl and Alakazam's Disable, Sabrina's mental voice reached me. I looked up at her in defeat and she continued, glancing about the enormous room. Coupled with the unique psychic-muting properties of the crystals embedded in the walls. You won't be able to escape from here easily.

My eyes darted around the room, but I could see no doors that I could use to escape. There were no windows, either — it was one large rectangular prison. The walls were paneled and colored a pristine white, looking like something out of the game Portal. With the panels extending out from whatever the underside of the wall was composed of, it would be stupidly simple to hide the door literally anywhere.

I felt my psychic energy build as my tail swished in agitation, but I knew trying to attack her again would be even more of an embarrassment. I could feel it; though I had little experience to measure relative psychic power between Pokemon, I probably had less to bring to the table than a fourth of Alakazam's pool, and it wasn't the only psychic type Sabrina had, no doubt.

With limbs shaking, I forced myself down into a sitting position and folded my weird-ass legs under my tail, which I wrapped around so it was resting in front of me. I couldn't beat her — fine — but I would not cooperate. I only felt a slight tug at my emotions at that line of thought, telling me that letting Sabrina help me wouldn't be so bad; but I knew it probably had something to do with the Pokemon-Trainer connection that had formed when she had caught me in that Master Ball.

Brainwashing. I needed to resist.

You don't need to worry, Sabrina spoke. I narrowed my eyes at her. The effect Pokeballs have on the more intelligent Pokemon, when it comes to obedience, is not significant. This is especially true of intelligent psychic types, not to mention psychic legendaries.

You're wrong, I shook my head. I can feel it. I don't feel as angry with you as I should be. I feel… slightly apathetic about escaping.

"And yet you'll try," Sabrina spoke aloud. "Like I said, for psychics, the effect is not significant. You feel a connection to me, and yet you would still attempt to hurt me in order to escape."

I… I didn't mean to kill that man, I winced. I think I would probably stop at maiming you rather than killing you, but I can't be sure of it, since you're now my owner. I spat the last bit, hissing under my breath and causing the Alakazam beside Sabrina to narrow its eyes at me.

"I'm your trainer," she corrected, hitting the button on the Master Ball. It immediately, miraculously, shrunk in her hand until it was the size of a golf ball. "And like I told you, our relationship won't be a permanent thing. You can't trust that you'll want to leave after I am finished ensuring you are in control of your abilities, so I will give you a promise.

"I'll break this Master Ball in half as soon as I'm confident you have mastered your psychic abilities, regardless of your feelings at the end. If you still want me as your trainer after that," she paused as I mentally scoffed. "Then I'll re-capture you with a regular Ultra Ball."

I… I trailed off, conflicted. I want to believe you, but I can't.

Maybe this will help, she closed her eyes and a green shimmer formed around her body. Before I could ask what the hell she was doing, my vision clouded over and I was suddenly standing outside the Ruins of Alph — the place where my human life had apparently ended.

N-No… I backed away from the entrance of the ruins until I felt a hand land gently on my upper arm. I bared my teeth and flinched to the side, spinning out of whatever had gripped me.

Relax, Sabrina appeared before me, shimmering into existence with the green glow still about her. This close to her, it was strange; I was so much taller than her. The top of her head came to about where my boobs should have been, had I not been an anthropomorphic psychic cat creature. This is simply an illusion. I only wanted to show you what we discovered since I captured you.

Like a green screen on the news, the world around us morphed into an inside shot of the ruins, like where I had woken up. Only...it wasn't quite the same. Around us, four scientists huddled around a crack in one of the walls. Oozing out of the crack was some sort of crystal formation. It looked something like quartz, but carried an almost silver sheen to it.

And...it glowed. Like a glow-in-the-dark bouncy ball. The scientists had their lighting equipment setup, yes, but it was clear that there was some sort of luminescence to it that cast violet light a few feet around it.

What is it? I asked Sabrina, looking down at her as she watched the same crystal in the wall.

We don't know, she answered, closing her eyes. Around us, the scene sped up like a movie fast forwarding, the scientists continuing their work as super-quick blurs of motion. Watch the crystal.

It's...growing? I questioned, seeing the crystal expand maybe a centimeter before my eyes and then stop. Then, a minute later, it grew another few millimeters.

Yes, Sabrina answered, pausing the scene and turning back to me. They didn't notice it until they took the samples back to their lab, but it seems to be expanding extremely slowly. It also appears to emit low levels of psychic energy. More than a regular human, but less than an Abra.

Is that what sent me here and made me like this? I asked, hope in my eyes. If they had already found the cause, surely this could be reversed?

It's too soon to say, but it's certainly odd. While it's true that the archaeologists that work in the ruins will occasionally discover a new chamber or hieroglyphic character, this particular passage had been well documented for decades and is regularly traversed. This formation is...new. Based on their journals, it's at most a week old.

The vision faded away and left Sabrina and me standing in close formation, as in the vision; though, behind her, her Alakazam loomed like an angry bodyguard. I glanced back down at the psychic gym leader and observed her silently.

She didn't appear wary of me — of being this close to me — like she was on the beach. I didn't know if her carefree posture was a power play or if she genuinely didn't think I would attempt to harm her now. Could she be that stupid to trust someone who had already killed a person and a Pokemon not to do the same to her? Or maybe she was just that confident in her and her Pokemon's abilities. Alakazam narrowed its eyes at me and I looked away.

Probably a bit of both.

I considered, probably for the millionth time, what I should do. Admittedly, I had already been planning on finding someone to help me figure out how exactly I had fallen into this world from my own and had been changed into a Pokemon. That had always been my goal. I was pissed beyond belief that I had been captured, yeah, but could I really let my pig-headedness get in the way of answers?

I didn't trust Sabrina yet, though I could tell it would be so easy to, especially since her own psychic abilities could aid in teaching me my own. She could understand me more than probably any other human being alive on this stupid animated planet I…

I clenched my teeth and clenched my paw-hands in resolve. I'd put up with this place and Sabrina for a week. If progress wasn't being made on why the fuck I was here or why I was basically a big cat with mind powers, I was out. I'd crush that goddamn Master Ball if it killed me.

My muscles unclenched at my resolve and I felt some infinitesimally-small measure of calm. I had a plan now; I had a timeline.

I'm glad that you have decided to cooperate, Sabrina thought to me. She waved her hands and Gengar and Alakazam vanished, leaving the Sableye chittering near the wall. She sighed and glanced back at the ghost/dark type. Suddenly, Gengar phased through the paneled wall like, well, a ghost, and pulled the remaining Pokemon back through the wall with it.

Now, since you've already put yourself on a self-imposed timeline, I figure we should start right away, she continued, waving another hand.

Immediately, the building seemed to rumble and shake. From above, a circular portion — about fifteen feet in diameter — dropped down slowly from the ceiling and moved toward us. It took me a moment to realize this was some sort of elevator platform. As it got further from the ceiling, I could see three small metal beams that connected the circular platform with somewhere beyond the hold in the ceiling it had dropped down from. I turned in order to ask her what, exactly, we were going to get started on, but she had teleported out of sight, leaving only a brief flash of light as she went.

I spun around, but could not find her anywhere in the gym. She had teleported out and left me here! The elevator rumbled to a stop and I turned back to it, where it sat still suspended at least thirty feet in the air. It was probably still closer to the roof than it was to the floor.

Did she expect me to jump?

No, Sabrina's voice whispered in my head. I expect you to either levitate or teleport out. The platform is too high for you to reach with a leap, by far.

Uh, I don't know how to fly! I complained, spinning in circles, keeping my eyes glued to the suspended elevator.

Well then, feel free to teleport. You're a psychic type, Megan. I understand that you still think like a human, but you are not one any longer. The original Mewtwo and the clone that came after it all had immediate access to and knowledge of their gifts to a large degree. The only thing holding yourself back, that I can detect, is you.

Fuck you! I snarled, the sound coming out of my mouth sounding something like a cat's hiss. You're supposed to teach me!

You've already shown that you can use your abilities, Sabrina shot back. Flying or teleporting should be no more strenuous to you than an attack is. You better hurry, though. I made up a plate of food for you, but I fear it won't last long in this humidity.

Dude. Seriously. Fuck this gym leader. My stomach instantly growled so loudly I thought I saw the purple hair on my underbelly ripple. I had all but forgotten about food since being in that Master Ball and coming here, but now it was very clear to me that Pokeballs did not stop a Pokemon from starving to death.

I don't really want to think about how stupid and constipated I looked as I tried and failed again and again and again to float up to the platform. I'd straight out given up on teleportation — the entire thing just seemed beyond me. But… I could imagine flying; it's just like swimming through the air, right? Like taking a sip of a fizzy lifting drink and floating through space toward the ceiling.

Apparently not.

Fuck! I cursed and slung my paw-hand out to the side, instantly shooting a bright blue blast of energy at the wall on the other end of the gym. The structure shook and groaned, but when the light faded, there wasn't even a mark on the tiled-surface.

This was stupid and it wasn't getting me anywhere. I glanced up at the opening again and scowled. Why the hell did I have be be a defective Mewtwo? I was supposedly one of the most intelligent Pokemon in the world and I couldn't even come up with a way out of here after I failed to perform a skill that most of my now-kind knew from the beginning of their life.

I didn't really see a way to think myself out of this box, though. I mean, besides the obvious two ways Sabrina had laid out in front of me. There were no pieces of furniture that I could use to stack and climb my way to freedom — the gym was completely barren. My fingers were too thick to fit into the grooves of the wall to climb it, and even then, the walls were at least fifty feet away from the platform at the top. There was nothing I could use to propel myself up…

Wait.

I glanced down at my paw, which was turned downward, fingertips facing the ground, and then focused past it, to the tiled floor. The quirk of my lip came instantly as my conscious mind caught up with the more crazy parts of my head. The idiocy of the thought wouldn't leave my mind, though. I was nearly delirious with hunger, stranded in a cartoon, and I was a Pokemon.

But fuck it. I had no other options and I was tired and starving. I wasn't going to talk my way out of this or overthink it. And with that decided, I let the massive amount of psychic energy I had in my body swell, and funneled it into both of my palms, which were at my sides, palm down and pointing at the floor.

Please work. Please work. Please work.

I let the energy loose and it rocketed down to my feet, singing the fur near the bulb of my tail and my toes with a numb, burning sensation that pulsed, as I felt the power wash over my body like water in a shower.

And...amazingly, my feet started to lift off the floor from the thrust of it. The super thin muscles in my upper body spiked with pain as I was suddenly trying to hold my entire weight up with my arms as I slowly drifted upward — or I assumed I drifted upward, since my eyes were clamped shut from the brighter-than-the-sun psychic blast I was still churning out from my hands that whited-out the inside of the gym.

I am Iron Man! I shouted mentally, sending out a mental picture of the middle finger to Sabrina — assuming she was still paying attention — wherever she was.

It was about that time that I realized I had been thruster-packing up for probably thirty seconds and my hands were starting to burn from the pinprick sensation that radiating that much energy would probably cause. I could feel my internal stores of energy fading fast, and I knew I wouldn't be able to fly around like Tony Stark for longer than another few seconds. I could already feel my body wobbling around in the air as my hands shook, causing the blue light that was geysering from my palms to shift my trajectory.

Surely I must be close?

I cracked one eyelid open a smidge, and was treated with an instant-migraine from the burn of the light and I flinched.

I flinched.

And that flinch was enough to fuck up everything. My tail, which was bunched near my shoulders, swung out and swept my center of balance right out from under me. My legs kicked as I felt my torso tipping horizontally and I bit down hard on my lip as I fought with everything I had to keep my hands level.

But it wasn't enough. I felt myself starting to launch backward and I turned off my psychic blast out of reflex, not wanting to smack my head on anything I couldn't see behind me. The light vanished and I blinked, suspended in midair for a brief second before gravity found me and I began slowly descending back to the ground.

Well...whatever used to be the ground. My eyes were still blurry and out of focus from the lingering effects of the light, but I could clearly see the massive hole in the floor from where I was, which was about twenty feet up in the air.

I did it! I mentally shouted, ectatic that I had somehow managed to punch a hole in whatever stupid material Sabrina had built this gym out of. But then I noticed what was beneath that hole in the floor: a charred and twisted pit of ash, bedrock, and metal that went down farther than I could see. An orange glow flickered up from somewhere at the bottom, illuminating the rough features of the horrible decision I was about to get swallowed up by.

In my stupidity, I had focused a psychic attack at the ground for a solid thirty-plus seconds — with both hands — and apparently when you do that, you punch a hole to the center of the Earth. Y'know, I guess. Because that's what was happening.

I was past the mouth of the pit before I could scream. My limbs lashed out, trying to grasp hold of something to stop my free-fall, but as each of them collided with the uneven rocky walls, I started tumbling and crashing as I was battered around, the wind whistling by like a jet engine.

The wind, which had started at room temperature, started to rapidly heat up around my curled-up form. What the fuck was going on? I untucked my elbows and knees and assumed a cramped sky-diver's position in order to reorient myself and get myself right-side-up. As my body became more or less stable, I realized what the heated air and the orange glow meant as I glanced down with eyes that could see fine in the dim and grim tunnel of doom I was still falling down.

It was magma. I was falling toward a pit of hot, molten, genuine 100% certified fresh, grade a, GMO free magma. At the speed I was going, I would hit it in only about ten to twenty seconds.

The sort of primal fear I felt eclipsed everything. There wasn't room for a thought of how to react — of which it was probably for the best. If I had been able to think before doing, I probably would have resorted to my go-to of shooting a psychic blast at the magma and making my situation worse. I'd probably end up on the other side of the planet — whatever Pokemon region that was.

What happened instead is that I stopped. In mid-air. Just like that, over a course of two seconds, I floated in place with my sky-diving pose still in full-effect. With my muscles still clenched, I looked around with my eyes, not daring to move in case whatever was holding me up would suddenly let go.

I violet-blue glow surrounded me like some kind of skin-tight force field or aura, shimmering and waving sort of like fire. I flexed my fingers, toes, and tail, and still remained in my levitating state.

Was I flying? Had I done it? My mouth curved up in a smirk. Suck it, Sabrina!

I barely had time to celebrate, because just when I started to feel confident enough to experiment moving around in the cramped space of the pit and make my way back up to civilization, the pit promptly and impossibly vanished and took the magma — the dry heat of it — with it. And I was suddenly back in that gym with no gigantic hole in the floor. No elevated platform hung overhead, and Sabrina and the Alakazam were still in front of me.

What the fuck?

I told you this would be more efficient, a deep voice spoke. I instinctively understood that this was the Alakazam, who was staring at me but was clearly speaking to Sabrina, who was also staring at me. She is overthinking.

End notes: Heeeeeyyyyy. I've been hibernating but that damn Pokemon movie got me back in the groove. Sorry for the long wait.