The Human Species 44 - Vicious Intellectual Mewtwo

"Aura Sphere, baby! Perfect aim, too!" Lucario said with a smile, trying to cover up the fact that he had not been aiming anywhere near Zerobi to begin with.

Zerobi stood completely frozen, staring into space with a terrified look. The attack had not hit her, yet still a numbing sensation spread from her torso and paralyzed her lungs, making her breaths came quick and hard. It spread to the rest of her body before she suddenly fell to her knees.

"N… N…" she said with a meek voice as she grasped at the ground, "Never use that again…"

"Huh? Why?" Lucario asked, still prideful over having successfully pulled it off, "This thing's awesome, I'm going to use it all the time from now on!"

"Not against me, you idiot!" Zerobi shouted angrily as she looked up, wishing she could explain to him that he had almost successfully recreated the most traumatic moment of her life, "I… I told you before, I hate that attack…"

"… Heh," Lucario huffed and crossed his arms, "Be glad you didn't see what Rukario did when I ran into her again, then."

"… She found you again? I had a feeling…" Zerobi mumbled while getting to her feet, telling herself to get over what had just happened, "Where's she now?"

"Uh… Last I saw of her, she was being carted off to a hospital," Lucario replied and started wondering to himself if she had finished healing yet, "She was beaten pretty badly, so she might still be there."

"Wh-What!?" Zerobi exclaimed with a startled voice, recalling when Lucario punched the crying woman in the face back in Snowpoint City, "What did you do to her this time!?"

"Nothing, nothing!" Lucario said quickly as he waved his hands in front of him, "We ran into trouble, that's all."

Zerobi became quiet, and Lucario was about to say something when it suddenly occurred to him that they were no longer standing in the middle of a storm. He looked around and realized he must have been focusing so hard on the Aura Sphere he hadn't noticed it stopping. His vigorous movements earlier and free-flying Aura Sphere told him that neither Mew nor Celebi were using barriers anymore, but he still knew that no regular storm could possibly disappear so quickly.

"… So, no Aura Spheres, no blood and nothing involving a handshake…" Lucario muttered as he felt like getting back to talking, "… Pretty high maintenance, huh?"

"Oh, that's rich, coming from a guy who knew nothing about anything and still managed to be hunted by two murderous legendary Pokémon," Zerobi replied with an annoyed expression before crossing her arms, "Please tell me you've at least got that thing sorted out."

"Uh…" Lucario mumbled, "Does 'I will hit them with my Aura Sphere if they come back' count?"

"You've got to be joking…" Zerobi groaned, "No wonder you stuck with Mew like glue. She's the only thing standing between you and a horrible death!"

"Well, maybe at first, but the real reason is…" Lucario said while thinking back, and suddenly realized he had forgotten to tell the most important news of all, "… Oh yeah! I found out exactly which human I used to be before becoming a Pokémon, name and everything!"

"… You didn't know?" Zerobi asked with a confused and somewhat irritated stare, "You said you remembered all that!"

"Well, uh, I did… Kind of," Lucario stammered as he tried to explain, "I forgot everything relating to Pokémon, so let's just say my professional life got hit pretty hard with amnesia."

"You mean… You used to be a Pokémon profess-" Zerobi said before hearing herself and starting to laugh at the ridiculous notion, "AHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! OK, no, I'm just kidding…"

"You were close… I guess?" Lucario responded with a scrunched up face, trying to figure out why him being a professor would seem so farfetched.

"… Oh, I see, you were a trainer?" Zerobi said with clarity in her voice after she stopped laughing, "I should've known, the way you were eyeing me with that Master Ball!"

"That's right!" Lucario exclaimed happily, eagerly awaiting the astonished look on her face when she realizes exactly who he used to be, "And I wasn't just any trainer, I was a real famous one! Take a guess!"

"Brock?" Zerobi answered almost immediately.

"Who?" Lucario replied just as quickly.

"Brock, Brock, tough as a rock?" Zerobi chimed with a smile, the old rhyme from her days at school still fresh in memory. Her smile faded as she saw Lucario looking back at her with complete confusion.

"… Bill?" Zerobi said, trying another guess.

"Don't know who that is," Lucario said carefully, wondering if she had resorted to saying generic names in the hopes of getting it right.

"… Aha, I know! You were a female human!" Zerobi nearly shouted as the sudden explanation as to why Lucario had not been looking for closer relations now seemed very obvious.

"WHAT!? No!" Lucario burst out, shocked to the core by the idea, "I… How… Why would you ever think that?"

"Hmm… Well, you do scream an awful lot wherever you get hurt," Zerobi mused, although she knew from past experience that men could easily scream just as much when dismembered in just the right way. She felt a little sickened by the thought, mostly because she had thought of it during this cheerful moment. She knew she could never escape her past, but wished it would leave her alone when things were important.

"Hmpf. Just for that, I'm not telling you which human I used to be," Lucario muttered, his demeanor growing sour. He threw a quick glance behind himself and saw Mew and Celebi still talking to each other, wondering if Mew could somehow vouch for his awesomeness without giving anything away.

"Like I care," Zerobi said with a shrug, replacing her inner turmoil with the fact that there were millions trainers in the world with only a select few she knew anything about, "Unless you were really, really famous or something…"

"I'll have you know, I was really, really, REALLY famous!" Lucario said loudly and with pride, "It would've blown your mind!"

"… Lance?" Zerobi asked after a moment of silence, racking her brains to try to figure out which famous trainer he was, excluding those she had already seen try to kill him.

"No!" Lucario shouted angrily, wondering if maybe he had overestimated Ethan's popularity. He suddenly remembered that Zoroark had told him Ethan disappeared from the public's eyes nearly 10 years ago, so Zerobi was probably too young to even remember him. Lucario grumbled to himself, wishing his past self had posed for the cover of an occult magazine or something to win him a couple of points now.

"Oh, hey," Zerobi said as she looked behind Lucario, who turned around to see both Mew and Celebi slowly drifting towards him. Lucario held his hand up to welcome them, but instantly stopped himself as a sudden chill ran through the air. He knew he was not the only one who felt it, as everyone apart from Zerobi visibly flinched. Even Mew seemed shaken by this, the same creature he had not gotten to even twitch after waking her up by knocking on her head. The chill only lasted a moment, but even after it had disappeared, a new and much worse sensation lingered in its place.

If the sensation Celebi's aura radiated could be described as peacefulness, this new one was the complete opposite. Hate and anger surged unhindered through Lucario, but did not affect his disposition. Instead, it made him feel bad inside, like he had just upchucked a particularly nasty berry, or was feeling the first stages of a developing sickness.

"He… He actually came?" Mew said as quickly as she could catch breath, her psychic power scrambled to adjust itself to this new presence.

"… He cannot sense sis!" Celebi suddenly burst out as she swooped down and grabbed Zerobi's arm, "Let me take her inside!"

"Hey, what's…" Zerobi protested, standing completely still while being tugged by Celebi's weak arms. Her sister's eyes told her the situation was too urgent to explain, and she quickly decided to follow on her own accord, silently waving goodbye to Lucario who was too shell-shocked to notice.

"Lucario!" Mew exclaimed as she lowered herself to the level of his eyes, finally getting him to respond.

"Wh… What…?" Lucario stammered, not sure of what to say, "I can sense it… What is it?"

"Mewtwo is coming," Mew said sternly before looking behind her, making sure that no one was listening, "He has already noticed your aura, so I fear it is too late to erase it. Stay back, stay quiet and under no circumstances tell him that you are Ethan!"

"Mewtwo… Your clone?" Lucario repeated as he vaguely remembered hearing her talk about him before, "Why not? You said something about him being an ally, right?"

"Mewtwo despises humans," Mew explained, never breaking eye contact to enunciate the importance of what she was saying, "If he finds out about you, he might kill you!"

"Pfft, yeah right," Lucario exclaimed confidently while shrugging, "With the Aura Sphere, I could defeat him before he even has time to blink."

"To kill someone like you, he will not need that long!" Mew insisted as she moved so close their hairs were nearly touching, "Please!"

"... OK, OK…" Lucario said quietly as he pulled his head back. He had never seen Mew this worried before, and as much as he was itching to use the Aura Sphere in an actual fight, he was less eager to die on the doorstep of their long-awaited destination.

"One last warning," Mew whispered while looking away shamefully, "He… Might hurt me. You absolutely must not intervene if that happens."

"What!? Like hell, I'd let him…" Lucario yelled, his previous fears of dying whisked away at the thought of someone beating up Mew without him doing anything. He stopped himself when he realized the two of them were no longer alone, a figure coming from seemingly nowhere and gracefully setting down on the ground in front of them.

The Pokémon before him was nothing like what Lucario had been expecting, and he wondered if Mew really knew what a clone was supposed to be. Mewtwo was tall, humanoid and standing upright, reminding him much more of himself than the small legendary floating beside him. The two did share a few similarities, however. Their heads looked about the same with the exception of Mewtwo's being less wide, probably to match his much taller torso. Mewtwo's feet were also nearly the same size as his legs, but unlike Mew they seemed to be more muscular and not just there for show. In the same sense, Mewtwo's tail was strong and thick instead of long and slender, and also appeared to be fused into his lower body like a third leg or another rather common appendage Lucario had no intention to draw parallels to.

The closer Lucario looked, the more he realized that Mewtwo really was a warped version of the legendary he knew so well. Where Mew's large blue eyes glittered with pure wisdom, Mewtwo's purple counterparts showed cold intelligence. Where her three-fingered hands lay restless against her side, his much bigger duplicates were flexed and seemed ready to crush something at any moment. Where she would show curiosity by carefully looking someone over, he would be analyzing every detail with a judgmental stare.

Lucario gulped, seeing how that 'someone' was now him.

"Hello, Mewtwo!" Mew said with a surprisingly cheerful voice, "I am glad to see you decided to come!"

"This one reeks of you, original," Mewtwo said with a deep, cold voice as he remained motionless, "What is he?"

"He... He is…" Mew stammered, finding herself at a rare lack of words when she understood the gravity of the situation. Mewtwo already knew something was unusual about Lucario, and depending on how much he knew, she realized her friend might simply explode into a cloud of guts and gore at any moment. The fact that he hadn't already meant Mewtwo probably did not know Lucario's true nature, or he did and was just instilling her with a false sense of security for his own amusement. She knew both to be very probable scenarios.

"A bodyguard," Lucario filled in for her, hesitating a little as both their gazes fell upon him, "Her bodyguard. So, you'd best not try anything, pal."

Mewtwo's eyes flared in anger, and Lucario compared his presence to swimming around freely underwater before suddenly being crushed underneath the weight of a boulder. Even so, Lucario had gained a familiarity towards such a strong presence after spending so much time with Mew, and was able to stand tall without flinching as the hateful sensation grew stronger.

"What is he?" Mewtwo repeated, turning his menacing eyes away from Lucario who despite his resilience quickly filled up with relief, as if breaking the surface after almost drowning.

"He is… An accident," Mew responded, hesitating shortly as she carefully picked her words and hoped Lucario was not the type to hold a grudge, "A perversion of nature, brought about by my own recklessness. I felt sorry for him and decided to let him accompany me here, to ask the legendaries for counsel."

Lucario instantly told himself it was just something she said to mislead Mewtwo from the real question, but it did little to lessen the impact. In a single moment, he understood that what he had just heard was a far more likely explanation to her helpfulness than the fact that she genuinely cared for him. The fearful radiance surrounding him helped him come to this conclusion as he felt worse inside than ever before.

"Are you attempting to fool a being of superior intellect?" Mewtwo asked with a frighteningly deep voice before suddenly turning his eyes back to Lucario, "You. Explain to me precisely what you are."

"… You know, don't you?" Lucario replied bitterly, forcing himself to meet the fearsome eyes. The combined forces of Mewtwo's presence and Mew's betrayal had made him depressed enough to throw all caution to the wind and let his rebellious nature roam freely.

"Lucario, no!" Mew shouted quickly in an effort to stop him, not caring about how to defend her actions to Mewtwo and not wanting to see Lucario get hurt.

"I'm not a Pokémon…" Lucario said bluntly, staring directly at Mewtwo who stared back with severe intensity.

"I'm human."