"No matter if it's in fire, in water, on the grass, or in the forest…"
"Underground or in the clouds…"
"Even though it's extremely, extremely difficult, I will catch them! I will catch Pokémon!"
Nawaki Senju hummed a slightly off-key yet passionate song as he strutted down the cold metal corridors of Team Rocket's new island base.
He had just executed a "perfect" covert operation.
Bulbasaur's vines, like dexterous fingers, had "borrowed" the access card to a high-security area and returned it quietly without anyone noticing.
Gengar, using its ghostly body, passed through walls like a perfect perhaps ghostly radar, alerting him to any approaching patrols.
Nawaki had already mapped out half of the research island base in his mind. He felt a surge of pride, moving like a dancing king, leaping and singing at the same time.
"Da-ne~" Bulbasaur followed closely, its vines flailing wildly as it mimicked Nawaki's voice.
"Boo-oo!" Gengar tumbled overhead, twisting its smoky form into various comical shapes.
Just as he reveled in his own triumph, a sudden, unexpected voice echoed in his head, clear and bright.
Wha! My god!
Nawaki was terrified, leaping like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his back instantly drenched in cold sweat.
He spun around, instinctively forming the Tiger hand seal.
Chakra, nonexistent in that moment, stuck in his throat, threatening to erupt.
The corridor was empty. Only the cold metal walls reflected his panicked face.
Was it an illusion? He focused, only to find his meager chakra still at a standstill.
"Who's there?" he whispered, scanning the surroundings.
His ninja instincts quickly calmed him, though his heart still pounded violently.
It was clear now that no one was around, and no hallucination could explain the strange feeling.
A thought flashed through his mind a name, like lightning.
Dr. Fuji.
He forced his racing heart under control and focused, thinking of the old man and his work.
Dr. Fuji's daughter had died young. In his grief, Fuji had attempted to preserve her memory through technological and biological research, creating holographic AI and exploring Pokémon cloning.
Over the following days, Nawaki diligently completed the data organization assigned by Team Rocket, playing the role of an ordinary researcher.
He occasionally joined other members in Pokémon battle training, mainly commanding Gengar, while Bulbasaur remained hidden.
Meanwhile, he gathered intelligence on the base's layout, access protocols, and patrol routines. His observations were meticulous, building an extraordinarily detailed mental map.
The base's most restricted area lay at the center of the main lab, sealed with multiple layers of alloy and energy barriers.
A massive cylindrical biocontainment tank, filled with glowing green nutrient solution, rose like a modern technological altar.
Inside, a silver-gray figure floated silently, its sleek body and long tail curling slightly.
Mewtwo's unique form blended artificial precision and natural majesty, its eyes tightly closed.
Countless tubes, like tendrils of fate, connected to its body, continuously delivering energy and monitoring its vital signs.
The flickering green light illuminated its sleeping or rather imprisoned face, the scene radiating chilling technological beauty and deep sadness.
Days passed in seemingly quiet reconnaissance and information gathering.
Nawaki mapped over seventy percent of the base, confirming even Dr. Fuji's private rest areas and the secret archives.
But he noticed that the energy readings from the containment tanks were becoming unstable.
He remembered the original movie's plot due to imperfect cloning technology, Mewtwo and the other cloned Pokémon had become unstable, their energy dissipating prematurely.
His blood ran cold. He had overlooked the inherent fragility and limited lifespan of the clones.
A living spark of life was slowly fading.
"It's not too late yet!"
He sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes closed, forcing his slowly recovering chakra to circulate.
In this world, extracting chakra was extraordinarily difficult; every cycle felt like pushing a heavy millstone.
Sweat soaked his clothes, and overexertion left his face pale.
But he could not stop. He needed enough chakra to perform a long-conceived ninja technique.
A technique based on the principles of sealing jutsu, designed to preserve consciousness.
Inspired by the Human Pillar Sealing space, originally developed in the Naruto world to deal with loved ones nearing death, Nawaki intended to reverse and modify its principles.
Not to seal a jutsu, but to seal a consciousness on the verge of disappearance.
The jutsu he had developed to save his grandmother, Kushina Uzumaki, would be applied preemptively in the Pokémon world.
He didn't need to place Mewtwo's consciousness into a living body; that was too dangerous and impractical.
A simpler, more stable "container" occurred to him: a blank data disc.
These devices were everywhere in the research base. They were stable and could store information in energy form.
He intended to create a temporary "home for the soul," imprinting Mewtwo's unique consciousness onto the disc as data.
It was an enormous gamble, pushing sealing jutsu to its limits.
But he had no choice.
The strain of extracting chakra left Nawaki mentally exhausted, yet he finally accumulated it to what he estimated was the critical point.