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For several years, Mewtwo has been exploring the world—searching for a place where it belongs.
For the longest time, it had huddled in Kanto, reluctant to explore the world around it; eventually, though, it had drifted to Johto; and by now, it had explored as far away as Unova. It wasn’t as familiar with this world as somebody who had been born truly belonging to this world would be; but it knew its way around a few mountains, a few cities; and, more importantly, it knew how to handle itself in places that it didn’t know.
But somehow, it always drifted back to Johto.
To one city, in Johto.
Goldenrod City was a sprawling metropolis, growing fast and terrifyingly urbanized, lit up even at night—not the kind of place where Mewtwo was safe, if it wanted to stay hidden from humans (and it did); but Mewtwo couldn’t keep away from the city. Over and over, it found itself lurking in its dark corners, crouching atop its spires, slinking down its alleys, more like a ghost than a psychic. And every time it tried to leave Goldenrod City, it found itself slowly spiraling back in on it, like water down a whirlpool.
Something about Goldenrod City was familiar. Well—yes, of course it was familiar now, now that Mewtwo had spent so much time in it—but even aside from that. The first time Mewtwo came to Goldenrod City, on its first foray into Johto—and it had passed so many other cities before slowing down at this one—the city had struck it with nostalgia and déjà vu. No other place had before or since. Only this one. Creeping along the edges and shadows of the city as Mewtwo did, much of the city remained unexplored—and yet, every once in a while, Mewtwo would turn a corner on a street it knew it had never explored before, and see something—a shopfront, a tree, an elementary school—that it recognized as clearly as though it had visited them a hundred times before. Why?
Eventually, Mewtwo stopped resisting the city’s magnetic pull. There were only so many times it could fly away as Goldenrod City sucked it back in before it became clear that Mewtwo would have to stay, and explore, and find out what it was in this city that called to it.
And so it began exploring.
Slowly, piece by piece—weaving through the industrial district, all warehouses and trucks near the port, where day laborer Machop and Machoke nested at night in hopes that they’d get to move some cargo in the morning; through the parks and walking trails, hovering and keeping its tail wrapped around its waist so it didn’t stir the bug Pokémon (ugh), and occasionally having to bolt up a good fifty feet into the sky when a Spinarak jumped out at it; slinking along back alleys, darting around corners and and up fire escapes when somebody passed by, occasionally lifting heavy dumpster lids to help street Meowth, Pidgey, and Rattata forage for food. It explored empty marketplaces by night, and peered at 24-hour Pokémon Centers from a distance, wondering what they were like inside. Mewtwo had spent all of its early life in human structures, and yet even now, bricks and concrete and chain link fence still struck it both as far too familiar for its short life, and impossibly alien, something created by minds unlike its own that it would never fully understand. It missed caves. Being in a city felt like being in the bottom of a canyon.
As it explored, it found more places that were unnaturally familiar. A store with a picture of a pink Mareep on the sign, with little statues in the front window wearing clothes; the statues were barely half Mewtwo’s height. A movie theater. A swingset in a park. A couple of restaurants, both disappointingly vegetarian; the garbage was edible, but Mewtwo missed fish. A store that looked like it had been closed for years—but in its mind, Mewtwo could see the signs it used to have, and the toys that used to be displayed in the boarded-up windows. How? Mewtwo was many things, but to its knowledge it was neither precognitive nor retrocognitive—except, seemingly, in this city.
Over several weeks, it moved further and further through Goldenrod City; and then out from the city, to the low, sprawling neighborhoods south and east of downtown. There were fewer Meowth and more Snubbull. Sometimes the fences were lower than it was tall, and it had to hunch over as it snuck through backyards.
Mewtwo was getting closer. Something about this place was familiar. The street lamps with two perfect circles atop each pole, the wide wide streets and two-story houses mixed in with trees like a strange forest. Mewtwo tried to stay close to the ground, to avoid detection; but one time it shot up, to get away from a Weedle that had come out of absolutely nowhere—and then, slowly, in wonder, rose up higher, and higher, looking back toward the city as something clicked into place in one of those memories it didn’t remember. It had seen Goldenrod City before, from this precise angle, flying over this exact neighborhood. It had seen the city during the day, and watched the sun set over it. Mewtwo could count on one hand the number of times it had moved in a city, any city, during daylight, and Goldenrod City wasn’t among them.
Mewtwo didn’t understand. But the answers were here. It could feel it.
It swooped down, and flew along the wide streets, only a couple feet above the ground, hardly bothering with subtlety—who was awake at this hour but a few wild nocturnal Pokémon?—and swept through the neighborhood, looking for something that felt right.
Night crept onward. It was nearly dawn when something tugged at the side of Mewtwo’s mind, at the corner of its vision—there. It stopped in front of a house.
And inside the house were a kitchen, a living room, three bedrooms upstairs—one for the parents, one for guests, one for Mewtwo—a basement, and a garage, except the garage had been combined with the basement and you could reach it from a staircase, and there was a laboratory in the garage/basement, and—
Mewtwo didn’t have a bedroom. It shook its head, hovering in front of the house, dazed and amazed. It was even more confused now than it had been before this sudden burst of mysterious knowledge. But it knew one thing for certain:
This was the place.
Mewtwo drifted up to the house, and landed in front of the door. Something was in here. Something that belonged to it. Something from before it was born. Made. Born. Whatever it was.
It snapped the door’s bolt with a thought—easier than bending a spoon—and walked into the house.
Things had changed. There was supposed to be a coat rack in the entryway; now there was a walker. But there was the staircase leading up to the right; there was the door to the kitchen in front of it; there was the living room opening to the left. Mewtwo walked further in, peering into the living room. That was a much larger TV than it had remembered, but it was in the same place. All the furniture was different, a huge plushy couch and two equally cushy arm chairs, arranged around a heavy wood coffee table. But the layout was right. The—what were they called—the skin and fur of the room, rolled up on the walls and across the floor, they were the same color and texture. Mewtwo was certain, now: it remembered this house from long ago. And if it went further into the house, it could find out how—
A Fearow screeched. Mewtwo whirled around arms raised to blast it, and stopped when—instead of a Fearow—it saw an ancient human in hair curlers and a yellow bathrobe, gaping at it from the stairs.
“Harold!” She made the same Fearow screech again. “Harold, there’s a man in the house! Wake up, Harold!”
The lights flipped on. Mewtwo flinched. “Oh my stars, Harold, it’s not a man, it’s a Pokémon! It’s huge!”
Mewtwo heard something thumping upstairs, and backed away from the staircase, toward the living room. That had changed, too. They weren’t supposed to be here.
Of course they were supposed to be here. This was a house. You can’t walk into a house unless you’re prepared to battle wild humans.
The thudding moved toward the staircase—Mewtwo looked up, straining its senses, and thought that the thumps and footsteps were coming from the direction of what was supposed to be the parents’ room—and a second voice spoke. “What kind is it, Betty? Houndy! Get'im, Houndy!”
“I don’t know!” Betty was bouncing on the stairs, shaking her hands in distress. How was Mewtwo going to get out of this? It couldn’t talk to them, of course, because then they’d know it could talk; it could run, but they might report it to—who?—the police, the news, the neighbors? If Mewtwo spoke, it would have to wipe their memories before it left, and be careful not to disturb the neighbors in the process. It should probably wipe their memories anyway. The last Mewtwo had heard, Team Rocket was still active in Johto, if they got news of it—
A Houndoom bounded down the stairs, flames licking its mouth, nearly knocking Betty over as it passed. Mewtwo bolted up, hovering near the ceiling with its legs pulled up and tail tucked around its feet. It hissed.
“HAROLD! It’s a psychic Pokémon, it’s floating! Harold, get down here, you know how I am with psychics!”
What was she screeching about?! She wasn’t the one pinned to the ceiling by a snarling hellhound with a bite that could could filet flesh from bone and an immunity to Mewtwo’s most powerful moves! Unless Mewtwo wanted to let it bite first and then counterattack. Ha. Ha ha.
“How d'you… How d'you know it’s psychic?” Harold wheezed. Mewtwo could see his bare feet finally shuffling into view at the top of the staircase. “It might be an electric Pokémon, you…” a huff, “you know some of them have got that—'lectromagnet levitation—”
“You know my fake knee goes off around electrics, it’s definitely psychic. Look at it! It’s pink!”
“All right, all right… I’m coming, I—” He bent down to peer under the ceiling at Mewtwo. “My goodness, you’re a biggun.”
“Harooold!”
“All right, all right, I’ll get it.” He stood in front of Betty protectively and edged down the stairs, catching his breath. “I think… Houndy’s got it cornered. I’ll keep it in the living room. Get to the kitchen and—you remember when that Spearow got indoors?”
“Right!” They crept down the stairs together Betty clinging to both the handrail and Harold, and as soon as she had a protected shot to the kitchen, Betty hustled through the doorway and out of sight.
Mewtwo, meanwhile, had erected a barrier around itself; had braced to protect itself if Houndoom tried anything; and was lifting a coffee table like a shield in front of the barrier. The Houndoom howled as it tried to get around the table, leaping up to bite at the wood. In frustration, it let out a terrifying roar that would have sent Mewtwo zipping out the door if that wouldn’t have taken it straight past the Houndoom.
“Shh! Don’t make it bolt, you don’t want to spook it upstairs,” Harold commanded. “And stop scratching up Betty’s nice table. Just, keep it where it is.”
The Houndoom immediately backed off and paced like a sentinel in front of Mewtwo, giving it a nasty glower that made it pull the coffee table closer to itself. Mewtwo glowered back over the edge of the table. It wasn’t very effective.
Here they were, then. Mewtwo, the unstoppable force; and Houndoom, the immovable object. The most powerful source of psychic energy in the world, and a dark fiend that absorbed all psychic energy like a black hole absorbing light. Mewtwo’s only match.
But one day—mark its words—one day, it was going to get its paws on a TM and it was going to learn how to punch things. And then Houndoom everywhere were going to be sorry—
Harold smacked Mewtwo with a broom.
Mewtwo immediately dropped the table. It stared at Harold in amazement.
“Go on!” Harold paffed its thigh again. Mewtwo moved a few inches to the side. “That’s right, that’s the way. Houndy, guard the stairs and kitchen.” Houndoom barked, and darted back to the entryway, standing near the base of the stairs and the doorway beside it.
Betty and her hair curlers peeked out of the doorway. “Are you getting it?”
“Working on it!” Harold pulled the broom back to pap Mewtwo again. It erected a new barrier, and the broom bounced harmlessly off of it. “Oh, shoot—Betty, it’s got a forcefield.”
“A forcefield?”
“Like in that Rosa movie on the TV last week, with the aliens?”
“Oh, I couldn’t watch it!” Betty shuddered. “Too many Beheeyem!”
The broom smacked Mewtwo’s barrier ineffectively. It glowered at Harold. Of all the insults. Mewtwo has been used, abused, enslaved, imprisoned, manipulated, and lied to—but never had anyone had the gall to smack it with a broom. The disrespect. The dismissiveness of it. Mewtwo merited at least a baseball bat, if not a whole floor lamp. A few years ago, Mewtwo would have blasted a hole in the wall and flung Betty and Harold across the street for such insolence.
Betty held on to the doorframe for balance as she bent down to pet Hoondoom’s back. “Can you get rid of its forcefield for Harold, sweetie?” she asked. “Ram it apart for us.” Houndoom lowered its horned headband pawed at the ground like a Taurus preparing to charge.
Oh, no. Mewtwo was not interested in getting impaled on those horns. As the Houndoom charged, Mewtwo dragged the fluffy couch into its path, tipping it over. With a yelp, the Houndoom crashed with a quiet pufft into the seat. Its horns ripped into the cushions and lodged in place. Betty let out another Fearow screech. “HAROLD!”
Mewtwo dodged another swing, flung open the front door, bolted across the room and over the Houndoom while it was trying to free itself, and flew outside.
Twenty feet away, it reversed course, ducked back in the doorway, and snapped Harold’s broom.
Then it was gone.
A couple of blocks away, there was a house—like all other houses in this neighborhood, massed on every available side by tall, healthy trees—which had a hidden shed with a very easily broken lock. After tiredly assuring the resident Gastly and family of Sentret that it only needed somewhere to stay the day and wouldn’t disturb the Sentret nest or the Gastly’s mortal remains as long as the Gastly didn’t get anywhere near it, Mewtwo was permitted to come in, move aside some gardening tools, and make itself a nest out of a bunch of empty trash bags and an uninflated inflatable pool.
It was time to move on. Mewtwo should go exploring again; maybe it could visit the mountains in Hoenn, it hadn’t had a chance to explore the caves around the volcano very much the last time it was there. Or perhaps it was time to return to Kanto, see what ruins remained of the place where it was made…
… No. Not yet. Mewtwo had done enough digging into its past for now.
It had found that house: that was enough. Someday, it would come back—it would find out why the house mattered. Why Mewtwo remembered the house. But for now, it was enough for Mewtwo to know that it did remember. That in its mind it could see the garage/basement laboratory, and the room that its memories said was its own—a room with one small bed made just the right size to fit one of the statues in the clothing store, with a round Pikachu doll waiting next to the pillow, and a white dress with long sleeves on a hanger hooked on the bedroom doorknob.
Mewtwo drifted off to sleep wondering why it was crying.