Chapter 6: Ex-Siblings in my Dreams

In spite of himself, Chris blushed deep scarlet red. Everything had gotten 
very quiet. Even Mismagius was a little unsettled by what he had just said. 
Only Bayleaf suddenly leapt up and understood.

Karma looked like she was seeing Chris clearly for the first time, sort of 
looking at him and calculating something at the same time. Yet her pokemon 
and Growlithe however looked like they thought Chris might suddenly have 
turned very stupid or something.

“Oh yeah, and you thought I was crazy eh?” laughed Growlithe.

Bayleaf had good reason to understand what Chris meant. They together had 
shared many adventures in their childhood and now knew where Chris was going 
with his plan.

“Listen, please, before you think I’m crazy,” said Chris. “This could work. 
Remember I come from Johto. From Azalea Town, which is right next to Ilex 
Forest. We could go and ask the guardian of the forest to help us. Celebi has 
the power to send us back in time!”

“Celebi?” asked Growlthe. “What’s that? What’s a forest guardian?”

“Celebi? As is the legendary pokemon that no one even knows exists, Chris?” 
countered Karma. For some reason, she inexplicably turned towards Growlithe 
and her voice betrayed a note of anger “Your whole plan is to get Celebi to 
send you back in time? I don’t want to believe your crazy, Chris but that’s 
getting hard now.”

“That’s the big plan, Chris?” asked Growlithe gravely. “Getting a pokemon 
that we don’t even know exists, to use a power that probably doesn’t exist, 
to send us back in time? Are you freaking serious?”

“The reason that I want to go to Ilex Forest to look for Celebi is that I 
know that Celebi is there,” said Chris calmly.

“How do you know, Chris?” said Karma.

“Because, both me and Bayleaf have met Celebi before,” finished Chris.

“You wha?” asked Growlithe now looking at Bayleaf.

Bayleaf was nodding its long head. A long sound of pleasure escaping its 
mouth, it began to stamp its front feet several times.

“When I was younger, and when Bayleaf was a Chikorita, we met Celebi in the 
forest. We helped it. If we can find it, I know it will help us too,” 
finished Chris a little more melodramatically than he would have liked.

“Okay fine. So maybe it does exist, you realize your talking about a 
legendary pokemon right? There’s a reason they’re so rare. Finding Celebi 
will be hard enough. What if it doesn’t remember you?” asked Karma. Chris was 
finding out that despite how she dressed, Karma was a very down to Earth sort 
of girl.

“I just know that if we find Celebi, it will work out, alright?” said Chris 
simply.

Karma didn’t say anything for a while. A strange silence had descended upon 
the group. Bayleaf had settled back down and Karma seemed to be thinking 
about something. Growlithe still looked confused.

“So, the reason that you want any information that I can tell you is that you 
really need to be certain that Growlithe was that trainer who got murdered?” 
Karma suddenly turned towards Growlithe, she had a strange look on her face.

“Yeah, if we find Celebi and somehow get the wrong trainer. I don’t think 
Celebi would take us for a round trip,” explained Chris. “We need to get the 
right trainer, the first time. It’s really important, so anything you can 
tell us with a connection between Growlithe and the dead trainer will help.”

“So help us out, Purples,” yawned Growlithe.

Karma looked at Growlithe for a long while. She reached over and patted his 
head. Then she got up and walked a few feet away, she talked while facing 
away from them and when she spoke her voice was a bit strained.

“This Growlithe is for sure the human trainer that got murdered,” she finally 
said. “No doubt at all.”

“What? For sure?” cried Growlithe and Chris almost perfectly together.

“Yes. From his aura, I can tell his age, and it matches with the age of the 
murdered trainer…” she said very steadily. “Just a little over 17 years.”

“17 years…but…how did you know the trainer’s age?” asked Chris. “I never told 
you his age…”

“This Growlithe, has his aura too actually…” a soft wind blew and she paused 
for a second. “The trainer’s name, it was Greg Metrawire. He was my brother 
and the only one that I have ever known to call me ‘Purples’ while yawning.”

“His…sister?” whispered Growlithe. “Then your…”

Chris could merely gape at this development. Shame spread out slowly as well, 
he had been after all, referring to this ‘dead trainer’ like it meant nothing 
at all. Saying how it would mean nothing to save his life and not 
Growlithe’s…

“Your as lazy as ever brother,” she said. She turned around. Chris could have 
sworn she would have had watery eyes. Yet, she had nothing of the sort. Only 
an accusing glare covered her face. “I came from home to identify the body. I 
just got off the Magnet Train yesterday. You’ve caused our family a lot of 
pain, big-brother.”

She came back and sat next to Growlithe. “I agree. I will accompany you on 
this journey to help my brother.”

<><><><><>

Nearly fifty people, adorned solely in black, stood facing towards the center 
of the large chamber. It was dark, stank, and the mood was tense, but it was 
just this way that the leader liked it.

The center of the room was lone and empty. It was the only light in the room, 
a large beam of light reflected down from there, it was this way so that the 
questioned would get more tense, and in turn, would say more.

“Bring him in,” said the highest voice. A large bulky shadow standing on what 
might have been a throne, high above everyone else.

A door at the opposite end of the room opened quickly and two more people 
dressed in black brought in a third in chains. They threw him in the center 
of the room, and all who could see now could make out his tattered clothes, 
his bruises, and scars. He had been tortured.

“You may leave,” said the leader slowly. The two new arrivals made a salute 
and left quickly. The body in the center of the room was breathing heavily.

“What did you see?” asked the high shadow simply.

“I saw nothing! I saw nothing! Please! I didn’t see nothing!” sobbed the man 
on the floor, lifting himself on his front arms. “Please boss, I didn’t.”

“Listen carefully,” this was directed at the people who surrounded the room. 
“This is a classic case of mistake. He returned to Rocket Base 17 outside 
Cerulean City several days ago. A beaten mess, he cried tales of talking 
pokemon. He got what every grunt gets if they dare come back beaten and 
without pokemon. He got… ‘educated’.”

The man in the center let out a louder sob at this.

“Yet eventually, a confirmed story of a talking pokemon appeared from 
Cerulean. It appears that there was some truth to what he was spouting. If 
what this fool says is true, then not only is this said pokemon extremely 
rare, but it is also extremely powerful, capable of combining different 
attacks simultaneously to create a shocking offense.”

Talk instantly broke out between the people in the room, yet the leader 
silenced them with a wave of his hand.

“Unfortunately, by then this fool had been ‘educated’ and he became unwilling 
to speak of his incident,” the high shadow let out a low laugh. “So now…we 
need the aide of a friend.”

The leader snapped his fingers a secret door opened in the left wall. Several 
people who had been standing there hurried away. From within emerged 
something that may have been half mechanical and half alien. Tall and 
slender, clothed in mechanical armor and visor, stood the form of Mewtwo.

“If you will Mewtwo, persuade him to talk,” said the high shadow.

Mewtwo lifted a single arm and pointed it at the body on the floor. The man 
screamed, his cries bouncing around the room, tears falling from his eyes. 
His body writhing in the little free movement that it was allowed.

The high shadow raised an arm and Mewtwo stopped exerting pressure on the 
man’s body.

“Now then, what did you see?”

“It was a Growlithe! A trainer, teenage- a twerp, found him in the pond on 
Route 25!” he paused to gasp. “It said that it had no memory…”

“That’s all? Most of that we already knew…” said the voice standing up. “Do 
you wish to disappoint me?”

The room had gone silent and cold, the man’s sobbing ceased.

“Please Giovanni…please that’s all I know…please,” whispered the shivering 
bundle on the floor.

“Mewtwo, eradicate him,” said Giovanni. Mewtwo pointed its slender arm at the 
man again, he was instantly flicked into the air. He rose higher and higher 
until he was near the high ceiling.

“Please no…mercy, please that’s all I know!” squealed the man.

He dropped with astounding speed, towards the floor, mere seconds away from 
splattering on the pavement, when he screamed: “Fire bird!”

The body stopped its rushing descent.

“What?” asked the standing Giovanni.

“That pokemon…it…it said something about a ‘fire bird’ or something…something 
like that…” he was still paralyzed in midair, he turned his head to see what 
Mewtwo was doing and shook violently when he saw Mewtwo’s arm was still 
pointing at him. “Maybe ‘moon bird’…or ‘fire bird’…I know I heard it say 
something like that…”

Giovanni looked at the shivering man for a whole minute before he proceeded. 
“ ‘Moon bird’? That could be the legendary pokemon Cresselia… ‘fire bird’? 
Maybe the legendary Moltres?” he turned his back on the scene. “Yes…legendary 
pokemon, it would be interesting to see how Mewtwo stacks up against such 
pokemon…yes…”

Giovanni turned to look towards Mewtwo. “What do you think…partner?”

‘If that is my purpose’, thought Mewtwo, it’s psychic thoughts reaching 
everyone in the room. Giovanni laughed. A truly sick laugh it was, he turned 
and strode towards a door behind his throne-like chair. “Wha…what about me?” 
cried out the levitating man. “Huh?” Giovanni stopped and turned around. “Oh 
yes, kill him.” His last cry echoed throughout the hallways of the Viridian 
Gym, until