Mewtwo's power was immense, and Team Rocket's restrictions on it were equally extensive. Kairos knew that in reality, those restrictions went far beyond anything shown in the anime.
Team Rocket would never create a weapon so powerful that they couldn't control it themselves. Giovanni was no fool.
If Mewtwo wanted to break free from Team Rocket's grip on its own, it would need a very long time to find the right opportunity. But now, Kairos felt the moment had nearly arrived.
He had been watching closely as Mewtwo played through the game, quietly observing every shift in its emotions.
He was certain that releasing Mewtwo now wouldn't cause the kind of catastrophe that had unfolded in the original story.
Kairos's gaze swept quickly through his system inventory, and finally, his eyes landed on a peculiar device sitting quietly in the corner. He had been saving it for just the right moment, never expecting that day would actually come.
With a single thought, the item materialized in his hand.
It was a distinctly unusual sphere, roughly the size of a tennis ball, its entire surface a translucent silver-white, with rippling patterns flowing across it like waves on water.
[Item Name: Cleanser (Single-Use)]
[Item Grade: S+]
[Item Description: A strange device imbued with the power of fundamental laws. It can remove any and all status effects afflicting a target, whether curses, poisoning, parasites, brands left by legendary Pokémon, or even certain forms of forced technological control.]
[Usage Restrictions: None]
[Special Note: Though highly powerful, this item automatically calculates the resources required based on the actual severity of the statuses affecting the target. If insufficient resources are available, it cannot be used.]
Kairos raised an eyebrow slightly as he read that last line.
Team Rocket had clearly done a great deal to Mewtwo in order to keep it in check, from physical restraints and armor to psychological conditioning and embedded control programs. All of it counted as "statuses" forcibly imposed on Mewtwo's body.
And this Cleanser seemed almost purpose-built for exactly this kind of situation.
One use, and everything dirty and unwanted would be stripped from Mewtwo entirely, restoring it to complete freedom. Without question, this was the single greatest gift he could offer Mewtwo right now.
Kairos didn't hesitate. He selected "Use Reward: Cleanser on target player 'Mewtwo'" in the system interface.
The moment the command was issued, the system immediately threw up a red confirmation window with a full list of required resources.
[Warning! The target unit is under an extremely high-intensity forced control protocol!]
[Using the Cleanser requires the following resources:]
[S+ Grade Attribute Resources x2]
[Emotion Points: 5,000]
[Confirm payment?]
Seeing that list, Kairos's mouth twitched.
That hurt. It genuinely hurt.
Five thousand Emotion Points wasn't a staggering amount at this stage, but two S+ grade attribute resources were genuinely steep. Even so, Mewtwo was a long-term investment, and one with an extraordinarily proud and fiercely independent personality on top of that.
If he only offered it some ordinary rare items, Mewtwo might not appreciate the gesture at all, and might even take it as a brush-off.
Only by solving its greatest source of suffering and granting it true freedom would this gift carry any real weight.
And the goodwill of someone at Mewtwo's level was worth far more than two S+ resources. This was called investing.
Better to take the short-term pain now. You couldn't catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb.
Kairos took a slow breath and pressed the confirm button.
[Payment confirmed!]
[Deducting resources...]
[Cleanser and corresponding resources are being transferred!]
As the system notification faded, a faint smile crossed Kairos's lips.
Come on, Mewtwo. Time to come out and play.
At the same moment, deep within New Island, the image on the screen in front of Mewtwo froze on a line of golden text.
[Congratulations on clearing the game. Thank you for playing.]
Mewtwo's violet eyes reflected the screen's light as it slowly faded to black.
Inside that virtually constructed world, it had experienced, for the first time from a human perspective, a sweeping and magnificent adventure. It had chased waves along the shores of Hoenn, stood at the rim of a volcano and felt the pulse of the earth beneath its feet.
It had witnessed beings known as legendary Pokémon: Groudon's magma surging up from the depths of the land, Kyogre's towering waves raging through the farthest reaches of the deep sea, and Rayquaza's commanding presence as it descended to end the battle of gods.
That kind of power, the kind that seemed capable of rewriting the laws of the world itself, stirred something in Mewtwo's restless heart that it had never felt before.
In the game, it had only ever been a spectator, an operator working from the outside.
But when the game ended and its consciousness returned to its body, the weight of true confinement came crashing back.
It looked down at itself, wrapped in tubes and cables, surrounded by nothing but cold steel walls and the antiseptic tang of disinfectant hanging in the air. No sky. No clouds.
Those humans had told it that it was the ultimate weapon, engineered by humanity for the sake of war and power.
But was this truly its fate?
During those dozens of hours inside the game, it had witnessed something between humans and Pokémon, something called a "bond." It didn't fully understand that kind of emotion, and part of it found the concept foolish and weak. Even so, it couldn't deny that the power behind it was real.
But none of that applied to itself.
It didn't need companions.
It was Mewtwo, a singular existence, born of an act unlike any other.
If it was born as a Pokémon, then only one goal was worth pursuing.
To become the strongest.
Not to serve humanity. Not to prove anything to anyone. Simply because only from that height, the height of absolute supremacy, would it possess true authority over its own existence and be able to define what that existence meant.
But for now, that goal was still far out of reach.
Mewtwo could feel it clearly, something embedded deep in the flow of its own blood, something that felt like countless restrictions laid down by those humans. Whether it was a constraint at the genetic level or something else entirely, any thought of resistance triggered immediate, searing pain that threatened to shatter its will.
It had tried before. More than once.
Every attempt to break through the shackles had only resulted in tighter surveillance.
Those humans seemed deeply wary of it.
Was it truly going to spend its entire existence locked away in this lightless place?
After a brief silence, a sharp glint crossed Mewtwo's eyes. Violet psychic energy began surging around its body, and the instruments nearby shrieked with alarms, straining under the pressure.
Just as it was preparing to force its way through the restraints once again, a strange fluctuation appeared from nowhere.
It wasn't any signal from Team Rocket. It wasn't any form of energy Mewtwo had ever encountered.
It was light.
A gentle yet overwhelmingly dominant golden light that pierced straight through the thick walls of the culture tank without warning and fell directly onto Mewtwo's body.
[Detecting delivery of game-clear reward...]
[Received S+ Grade Item: Cleanser.]
The text that materialized out of thin air gave Mewtwo pause. Then, without warning, a force beyond description flooded into its body. It moved like a warm current, flowing through its veins and spreading to every corner of its being.
Something had changed.
The pain was gone.
Mewtwo seemed to sense what was happening. Its eyes flew wide open, and the violet aura surrounding its body erupted.
This time, its power met no resistance whatsoever. That pure psychic force swept through the entire laboratory like a tidal wave.
BOOM.
A massive explosion shook the entire base. The thick steel blast doors were torn off like sheets of paper, and piercing alarm sirens screamed through every corridor.
Mewtwo rose slowly into the air. It looked down at its own hands and felt the vast, boundless power flowing through its body, no longer bound by anything or anyone. A rush unlike anything it had ever known surged into its chest.
What was this feeling?
"...So this...is what freedom feels like?"
At the same moment, deep inside Team Rocket's headquarters in the Kanto region, Giovanni sat behind his broad desk, idly turning a coin between his fingers, his expression dark and unreadable.
Before him, a researcher in a white lab coat stood with his head bowed, cold sweat dripping steadily from his brow.
"You're telling me that Mewtwo's condition has been unstable lately?" Giovanni's voice was low and rough, giving nothing away, but the invisible weight in it seemed to solidify the very air around him.
"Y-yes, sir," the researcher replied, trembling. "Its psychic fluctuations have recently been spiking dramatically. At times they've even exceeded the measurement range of our monitoring equipment. But please don't worry; we've increased the dosage of the suppressants. It's still under control for now."
Giovanni gave a small nod and stopped turning the coin.
"Keep monitoring it. It is our greatest creation. We cannot afford any mistakes."
"Understood, sir! Of course!" The researcher bowed frantically, as if granted a pardon, and quickly backed out of the room.
The door closed, and silence settled over the office once more, heavy and absolute.
Giovanni leaned back in his chair, gaze drifting to his computer screen.
The end-of-first-playthrough screen for Emerald.
He had been playing seriously for some time now, not merely to learn about the Rainbow Rocket he had glimpsed early on, but to understand another side of this world through the lens of the game.
Inside it, he had seen the twin gods of Hoenn, had witnessed Rayquaza descending with an authority that rose above all things.
That kind of power had shaken even Giovanni, a man who prided himself on controlling everything.
He had once believed that Mewtwo represented the pinnacle of biological engineering, the most powerful existence in the world. That to hold Mewtwo was to hold dominion over the entire Pokémon world.
Now, for the first time, he found himself questioning that.
Compared to the legendary Pokémon in that game, beings that casually reshaped the land and sea, the current Mewtwo seemed to fall genuinely short of something.
And then there was Rainbow Rocket. It hadn't appeared at all throughout the entire playthrough. Apparently it was somewhere deeper in the game's remaining content.
He was still lost in thought when the red emergency phone on his desk erupted into frantic ringing.
Giovanni's brow furrowed. He picked up.
"Speak."
From the other end came the voice of a subordinate, clearly panicking, barely holding back tears.
"B-Boss! Something's happened! Mewtwo, it..."
"What about it?" Giovanni's voice dropped several degrees.
"It broke containment! And it...it's destroyed the underground base beneath Lavender Town! Now it looks like it's heading toward New Island!"
"What?!"
Giovanni shot to his feet. The coin in his hand was crushed into a twisted shape.
New Island. The very place where Mewtwo had been created.
And the place where every piece of data from the Mewtwo creation experiment was stored.
"Get the car ready. We leave for New Island immediately."
Several hours later, on New Island.
What had once been a scenic wild island was now a field of ruins.
A massive storm still churned above, violent winds driving sheets of rain across the devastated land.
Deep, jagged fissures split the ground in every direction, torn open by forces of incomprehensible magnitude.
Giovanni stood at the edge of a shattered cliff, his black coat whipping in the gale. His face was as dark as a storm cloud, and the fury in his eyes as he surveyed the destruction looked ready to overflow.
Behind him, several surviving researchers knelt on the ground, shaking, not one of them daring to raise their head.
"This is what you called still under control?"
Giovanni's voice was quiet, but it cut through the roaring wind without effort.
"What exactly happened? What became of the restraints? The control chips? Why didn't any of them activate?!"
An older researcher lifted his head with great effort, his face white as a sheet.
"We...we don't know, sir! Just a little while ago, a strange energy broke into the system and wiped out every single control program in one fell sweep!
It was...it was a technology we've never seen before. There was absolutely no way to defend against it!"
"No way to defend against it," Giovanni said with a cold laugh. "Then what exactly are you people good for?"
At that moment, a figure in red stepped out from the shadows.
It was Archer, one of Team Rocket's top executives.
He bowed respectfully before Giovanni, then spoke in a low voice.
"Sir, according to our tracking systems, Mewtwo has already left the area. It was moving extremely fast and has deliberately blocked our signals. Shall I dispatch an elite unit to pursue it?"
Giovanni said nothing.
He stared at the churning clouds in the distance, his expression shifting into something deeply complicated.
Pursue it?
With what?
It was a creature fully awakened — a fully awakened beast, at that — and pushing it into a corner would only provoke it. A provoked Mewtwo could bring catastrophic destruction down on Team Rocket.
More than that, Giovanni's mind kept returning to an image from the game: the silhouette of a great green dragon.
Rayquaza.
He had believed that Mewtwo was the greatest creation in existence, a weapon capable of standing against any legendary Pokémon.
But now, looking at things honestly, the current Mewtwo still couldn't genuinely compete with the true legends of this world. It was powerful, yes, but not powerful enough for him to risk annihilating his own forces just to reclaim it.
"No."
Giovanni let out a single word, and his voice had, somehow, grown calm.
"No pursuit?" Archer froze for a moment, as if he couldn't trust his own ears. "But sir, that's Mewtwo we're talking about..."
"I said no."
Giovanni turned away from the ruins, his gaze settling into something distant and unreadable.
"It is no longer a piece on our board. What we have now is a wild horse that has slipped its reins. If it can't be ridden, leave it for the time being. We have far more important matters to attend to."