Day fifty-eight, and the fossil resurrection machine was humming.
Marcus stood in the basement laboratory of the Pewter City Museum of Science, watching the most expensive piece of scientific equipment in Kanto do something that should have been impossible. The machine—a massive, cylindrical chamber roughly the size of a delivery truck, covered in cables and cooling vents and blinking indicators that communicated status information in a language that only three people in the building understood—was processing the first of his three Mt. Moon fossils.
The process was, frankly, terrifying to watch.
The fossil went in one end—a chunk of mineralized bone and compressed sediment, grey-brown and unremarkable, looking less like the remains of an ancient creature and more like something you'd use to prop open a door. The machine's scanners analyzed the fossil's genetic material—extracting DNA fragments, sequencing them, filling in gaps with computational modeling, building a complete genetic blueprint from the fragmented remains of something that had been dead for thousands of years.
Then the machine built a Pokémon from that blueprint.
Not instantly. The process took approximately four hours per specimen, during which the chamber's interior was filled with a soup of biological compounds—proteins, amino acids, cellular building blocks—that the machine assembled, molecule by molecule, into a living organism. It was 3D printing, except the printer used life as its medium and the finished product had a heartbeat.
Marcus had arrived at 6 AM. It was now 10 AM, and the first fossil was about to complete its resurrection cycle.
The museum director, Takeshi, stood beside him, vibrating with an excitement that was barely contained by his professional demeanor. The man was a paleontologist at heart—he'd taken this job because it put him close to fossils, and the prospect of resurrecting a potentially unknown species had reduced him to a state of near-hysterical academic enthusiasm.
"The genetic sequencing results were extraordinary," Takeshi said, for the fourth time. "The DNA doesn't match any known Pokémon species in our database. Not even close. The closest match is—well, there is no close match. This is something entirely new."
Marcus knew what it was. He'd known the moment he'd read the fossil descriptions in the Mt. Moon catalogue. But he couldn't say that, because "I know what this is because I played a video game from the future in another dimension" was not an explanation that would go over well in academic circles.
"Let's see what we get," he said, projecting calm curiosity instead of the screaming excitement happening inside his chest.
The machine's hum changed pitch. The status indicators shifted from amber to green, one by one, a cascade of confirmations that told the operators: process complete. Organism viable. Containment ready.
The chamber's front panel slid open with a hiss of pressurized air. Steam billowed outward—warm, humid, carrying the faint, mineral scent of newly formed biological tissue.
And from the steam, something moved.
It was small. That was Marcus's first thought. Smaller than he'd expected, maybe two and a half feet tall, crouched on the chamber's platform with the tense, coiled posture of a creature that had just been born and was already prepared to fight for its survival.
It was also wrong. Not wrong in the way the Red Gyarados had been wrong—not broken, not suffering. Wrong in the way that ancient things were wrong. Wrong in the way that a creature designed for a world that no longer existed was wrong when placed in a world it had never known.
Its body was covered in coarse, dark fur—not the sleek, groomed fur of a modern Pokémon but the thick, insulating pelt of something that had lived in harsh, cold environments where warmth was survival. Its claws were long, curved, and looked sharp—not the decorative claws of a pampered house pet but the functional, battle-hardened weapons of a predator that had killed for its meals. Its eyes—large, dark, pupils dilated in the unfamiliar light—were scanning the room with a rapid, calculating intelligence that made Marcus's threat-assessment instincts tingle.
He knew what it was.
Hisuian Sneasel.
Not the modern Sneasel—the Dark/Ice type that every trainer in Johto and Sinnoh knew. This was its ancient ancestor. The Hisuian variant. Fighting/Poison type. A creature from a time when the world was wilder, harsher, and the Pokémon that survived in it were built accordingly.
And this particular Hisuian Sneasel, freshly resurrected from thousands of years of fossilized sleep, was looking at Marcus with an expression that clearly communicated: I don't know where I am, I don't know who you are, and I am absolutely prepared to claw your face off if you give me a reason.
"Easy," Marcus said softly, crouching to the creature's level. Giovanni's baritone, pitched low and gentle, filled the steam-hazed chamber with the warm authority of a man who was very, very good with animals and also capable of having you killed. "Easy. You're safe."
The Hisuian Sneasel hissed. Its claws extended—fully, visibly, threateningly—and the fur along its spine bristled in a display of aggression that was as instinctive as it was impressive.
Marcus didn't flinch. He'd stared down Kyogre. He'd stood in a caldera with Groudon. A two-and-a-half-foot weasel with an attitude problem was not going to intimidate him.
He reached into his pocket and produced a piece of dried meat—Pokémon jerky, high-protein, the kind of thing that any predatory Pokémon would find irresistible. He held it out, palm up, the universal gesture of "I come bearing gifts and would prefer not to lose my fingers."
The Sneasel's nostrils flared. Its eyes—those dark, ancient, sharp eyes—locked onto the jerky with a focus that shifted instantaneously from "fight" to "food." The aggression didn't disappear, but it was momentarily shelved in favor of a more pressing biological priority.
It snatched the jerky from his hand. The speed of the grab was startling—Marcus's eyes could barely track it, a blur of dark fur and curved claws that was there and gone in the space between heartbeats. The Sneasel retreated to the far corner of the chamber, clutching its prize, and consumed it with the savage, single-minded intensity of a creature that had been dead for several thousand years and was very hungry.
"It's a Sneasel," Takeshi breathed, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "But—but it's not a Sneasel. The coloring is wrong, the body structure is different, the claws are—what is this?"
"Something very old," Marcus said. "And very special."
He produced another piece of jerky. Then another. The Hisuian Sneasel ate each one with the same feral urgency, but by the fourth offering, it had stopped retreating to the corner. By the sixth, it was taking the food from his hand without flinching. By the eighth, it was sitting in front of him, still wary, still tense, but no longer actively threatening to disembowel him.
Progress.
"I'm going to keep this one," Marcus told Takeshi.
"Sir, as a scientist, I must insist on at least a basic examination before—"
"Takeshi. I funded your museum. I upgraded your equipment. I am paying your salary. This Pokémon is mine."
"...Yes, sir."
Marcus produced a Poké Ball—not an enhanced one, just a standard ball—and held it in front of the Hisuian Sneasel. The ancient creature regarded it with suspicion, sniffing the air around it, its dark eyes evaluating this strange sphere with the same calculating intelligence it brought to everything.
"Your choice," Marcus said. "Come with me, or stay here and let them poke and prod you."
The Sneasel looked at the ball. Looked at Marcus. Looked at the scientists hovering nervously in the background with their scanners and their clipboards and their undisguised desire to examine every molecule of its ancient body.
It pressed its forehead against the ball.
Click.
No shaking. No struggle. Just acceptance—the immediate, decisive acceptance of a creature that had assessed its options, identified the best one, and committed to it without hesitation.
Marcus clipped the ball to his belt, feeling the Sneasel's fierce, wary presence through the shell. It wasn't trust. Not yet. But it was a start.
"Next fossil," he said.
The second fossil produced a Hisuian Growlithe.
Where the Sneasel had been sharp and aggressive, the Growlithe was— well, it was still aggressive, because Growlithe were always aggressive, it was a species trait—but it was also adorable in a way that hit Marcus directly in the soft, Pokémon-loving core that no amount of crime-lording could calcify.
It was a Fire/Rock type—different from the standard Growlithe's Fire typing—with fur that was longer, thicker, and a deeper orange than its modern counterpart. Its body was stockier, more muscular, built for the rugged, mountainous terrain of ancient Hisui. And its eyes—warm amber, bright and curious—fixed on Marcus with an immediate, instinctive recognition that was hard to explain and impossible to resist.
Unlike the Sneasel, the Growlithe didn't need to be bribed with food. It walked out of the resurrection chamber, looked around the room, looked at Marcus, and bounded toward him with the enthusiastic, full-body joy of a puppy that had just discovered its favorite person existed. It slammed into his legs, nearly knocking him over, and began licking his hands, his shoes, and anything else within reach of its tongue.
"Whoa—hey—down—"
The Growlithe was not going down. The Growlithe was going up. It planted its front paws on Marcus's chest, stretched its face toward his, and unleashed a barrage of licks that covered Giovanni's dignified jaw in a layer of ancient canine saliva.
"This is extremely unprofessional," Marcus said, while doing absolutely nothing to stop it because his heart was melting and he was allowed to have nice things, he was a crime lord, he could pet a puppy if he wanted to.
Takeshi was taking notes with trembling hands. "Another unknown variant. Fire/Rock typing, based on the initial scans. The rock-type characteristics are fascinating—look at the fur, it has a semi-crystalline structure, almost like—"
"Mine," Marcus said, holding up a Poké Ball.
The Growlithe licked the ball, then licked Marcus's face again, then went into the ball voluntarily because it apparently decided that being inside the ball meant being closer to the person who had fed it exactly zero times but who it had already imprinted on with the desperate, unconditional devotion that only dogs and dog-like Pokémon were capable of.
Click.
Two ancient Pokémon. Two additions to his roster.
The third fossil was different.
The resurrection machine's hum changed when it began processing the third specimen.
Not subtly. Dramatically. The pitch dropped, the vibration intensified, and several of the status indicators that had been cheerfully green for the first two resurrections flickered to amber and then to red.
"Is that normal?" Marcus asked.
Takeshi was staring at his monitoring equipment with an expression that suggested it was very much not normal. "The genetic density is... sir, the genetic density of this specimen is approximately four times higher than the previous two. The machine is having to work significantly harder to process the—"
An alarm went off. Not a gentle, "please check the settings" alarm. A klaxon. A "something has gone wrong and you should probably leave the building" klaxon that filled the laboratory with a pulsing red light and a sound designed to trigger the human fight-or-flight response.
"Sir, we need to—"
"No," Marcus said. He was staring at the chamber. At the swirling, churning biological soup inside it, which was moving now, actively moving, not with the passive currents of the resurrection process but with the deliberate, powerful movements of something that was already alive and was not happy about being confined.
He knew. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. The third fossil was not a standard Pokémon. The third fossil was something else—something bigger, something older, something that came from a time when the world was genuinely dangerous and the creatures that lived in it were built to match.
The chamber cracked.
A hairline fracture, running from the top of the cylinder to the bottom, appeared in the reinforced glass with a sound like a rifle shot. The biological fluid inside began to leak—thick, warm, organic-smelling—pooling on the laboratory floor.
Another crack. Then another. The fractures spiderwebbed across the chamber's surface, each one accompanied by a thump of impact from inside—something hitting the glass, testing it, probing for weakness.
"EVERYONE OUT!" Takeshi shouted, grabbing his equipment and backing toward the door.
Marcus didn't move. He stood in front of the cracking chamber, his hands at his sides, his feet planted, Giovanni's body radiating the absolute, immovable calm of a man who had negotiated with ocean gods and was not going to be intimidated by a fish tank with a bad attitude.
The chamber shattered.
Glass exploded outward—Marcus threw his arm up to shield his face, shards pinging off Giovanni's suit like hail against a window—and biological fluid cascaded across the floor in a warm, viscous wave that soaked his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. The emergency lighting strobed red-white-red-white, casting the scene in alternating frames of color and shadow.
And from the ruins of the chamber, something emerged.
It was big.
Not Kyogre big. Not Groudon big. But big in a way that the laboratory—designed to contain Pokémon the size of a standard Aerodactyl or Kabutops—was very much not prepared for.
It stood seven feet tall at the shoulder, hunched forward in a posture that was simultaneously defensive and aggressive—the stance of a creature that expected the world to be hostile and was prepared to be hostile right back. Its body was covered in thick, overlapping plates of what appeared to be natural armor—dark grey, almost black, with jagged edges and a texture that looked like volcanic rock. A massive head, crowned with horns that curved backward like ancient weapons, swung left and right, surveying the room with eyes that glowed a dull, smoldering amber.
Marcus stared at it.
It stared at Marcus.
He didn't recognize it. Not immediately. Not from any game he'd played, not from any Pokédex he'd memorized. This wasn't a known Hisuian variant. This wasn't a species he'd seen in Legends: Arceus or any other Pokémon game.
This was something new.
Or rather, something very, very old.
The creature opened its mouth and roared—not the theatrical, display-oriented roar of a Gyarados or a Tyranitar, but a deep, subsonic bellow that vibrated the floor, shook loose ceiling tiles, and hit Marcus's chest like a physical blow. The sound carried with it an unmistakable message: I am ancient. I am powerful. And I am very confused about why I'm standing in a room full of glass and strange lights instead of the volcanic mountains where I belong.
Marcus did the only thing he could think of.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the entire bag of Pokémon jerky, and tossed it at the creature's feet.
The ancient beast looked down at the bag. Looked at Marcus. Looked at the bag again.
It ate the bag. Not the contents—the bag. Leather exterior and all. Chewed it twice, swallowed, and fixed Marcus with an expression that, despite the language barrier of approximately ten thousand years and one species divide, clearly communicated: More.
"I'll get you more," Marcus said. "I'll get you all the food you want. But first, you need to calm down, because you're scaring the scientists and I need them alive to resurrect more fossils."
The creature considered this. Its amber eyes—ancient, intelligent, evaluating—studied Marcus with an intensity that went beyond animal assessment. This was not a simple beast. This was a creature with cognitive capabilities well beyond what its prehistoric appearance suggested.
It sat down.
The impact of its armored rear hitting the laboratory floor cracked three tiles and made the monitoring equipment jump.
It was—Marcus could now see, from a closer, less panic-stricken perspective—genuinely magnificent. A prehistoric Pokémon, perfectly adapted to the volcanic, hostile environment of ancient Hisui, armored and armed and carrying itself with the patient, unshakeable confidence of a creature that had been at the top of its food chain and knew it.
Marcus held up a Poké Ball.
The ancient beast looked at it with the same evaluating intelligence it brought to everything. Then it snorted—a jet of hot air that smelled like sulfur and smoke—and lowered its armored head.
Why not, the gesture seemed to say. Everything else about this situation is insane. Might as well.
Click.
Three ancient Pokémon. Two he recognized, one he didn't. His roster was expanding in directions that nobody in the current Pokémon world could predict or prepare for.
Marcus looked at the ruined laboratory—shattered chamber, flooded floor, cracked tiles, traumatized scientists huddling in the doorway.
"Send the repair bill to Silph Co.," he told Takeshi.
The Mega Stones arrived at headquarters the following morning.
Marcus had cleared his schedule for this. Cancelled gym battles. Delegated Rocket business to his executive team. Locked himself in the training facility with his Pokémon and the small, padded case that had been delivered by armed courier from Kalos under the tightest security protocols Team Rocket had ever deployed.
He opened the case.
Four stones sat in custom-molded foam cradles. Three were roughly the same size—about two centimeters in diameter, spherical, each one pulsing with a faint, internal light that seemed to respond to Marcus's proximity by brightening slightly. The fourth—the Key Stone—was smaller, multifaceted, and radiated a rainbow spectrum of colors that shifted depending on the angle of observation.
Kangaskhanite. Amber-gold, warm to the touch, pulsing with a maternal energy that Marcus could feel even through the foam. When he held it near Kangaskhan's Poké Ball, both the stone and the ball vibrated in resonance—a subtle, harmonic tremor that said we belong together.
Beedrillite. Purple-black, cool, vibrating with a sharp, aggressive energy that was completely different from the Kangaskhanite's warmth. Where the Kangaskhanite felt like a hearth fire, the Beedrillite felt like a wasp sting—quick, precise, dangerous.
The unidentified Psychic-type stone. Blue-white, cold, emanating a psychic pressure that made Marcus's temples throb. He didn't know which Pokémon this stone was meant for. It didn't resonate with any of his current team. He'd need to run tests.
And the Key Stone. Marcus picked it up last, holding it in his palm, feeling its weight—light, almost weightless, as if the stone existed partly in this dimension and partly somewhere else. The rainbow light intensified when he touched it, the colors swirling faster, and Marcus felt a pull—a tug at his consciousness, a reaching-out, a stone that was searching for a mind to bond with.
He let it in.
The connection was instant. Not gradual, not building—instant, like a switch being thrown, like a circuit closing. One moment the Key Stone was just a pretty rock in his hand. The next, it was part of him—an extension of his will, a conduit for the Old Fire, a bridge between his bond with his Pokémon and the evolutionary energy locked inside the Mega Stones.
He could feel Kangaskhanite. Through the Key Stone, across the room, he could feel it calling to Kangaskhan—a song of potential, of transformation, of becoming. He could feel Beedrillite doing the same thing, its frequency sharper, faster, matching Beedrill's rapid, aggressive energy signature.
"Okay," Marcus said, his voice slightly unsteady. "Let's test this."
He released Kangaskhan from its ball.
The mother Pokémon materialized in the center of the training room, its baby peeking out of its pouch with wide, curious eyes. Kangaskhan looked at Marcus, looked at the glowing stone in his hand, and tilted its head with a questioning rumble.
Marcus held up the Kangaskhanite. "This is going to feel strange. But I need you to trust me."
Kangaskhan looked at the stone. The stone blazed—amber light flooding the room, warm and fierce and maternal, the energy of a mother's love distilled into crystalline form.
Marcus activated the Key Stone.
He didn't know the proper technique. In the games, Mega Evolution was triggered by selecting an option in the battle menu. In the anime, trainers struck dramatic poses and shouted things. In reality, Marcus had nothing to go on except instinct and the connection between the Key Stone and his will.
He reached through the Key Stone. Felt the bridge form. Felt it extend outward, toward Kangaskhanite, toward Kangaskhan, connecting all three—trainer, stone, Pokémon—in a circuit of evolutionary energy that blazed to life like a star igniting.
Kangaskhan screamed.
Not in pain—in power. The scream was a birth cry, a declaration, a sound that said "I am becoming something MORE" with every decibel. The amber light consumed Kangaskhan's body, its outline dissolving into a silhouette of pure, blazing energy that grew—larger, broader, more powerful, the baby in its pouch emerging, becoming its own entity, a second combatant standing beside its mother with the fierce, protective fury of an offspring that would fight the world for the creature that gave it life.
The light faded.
Mega Kangaskhan stood in the training room.
It was— Marcus had seen the sprites. He'd seen the 3D models. He'd read the stats. He'd theorycrafted teams around this Pokémon's insane power level.
None of it prepared him for the reality.
Mega Kangaskhan was massive. Seven feet tall, armored in thickened hide that looked like it could deflect artillery fire, its eyes blazing with a focused, intelligent fury that said "I am a mother, I am a warrior, and you will NOT touch my child." The baby—normally small and helpless—was now standing beside its mother, half its mother's height, its tiny fists raised, its face set in an expression of combative determination that was simultaneously adorable and terrifying.
"Hit something," Marcus said.
Mega Kangaskhan hit the reinforced training wall.
Both of them. Mother and child. Parental Bond. Two hits, one after the other, the mother's fist connecting with a CRACK that sounded like a cannon firing, followed immediately by the baby's fist—smaller but powered by the same evolutionary energy—striking the exact same spot with a CRACK that was only slightly less deafening.
The wall held.
The wall behind the wall didn't.
The double impact punched through the reinforced concrete like it was cardboard, creating a hole roughly the size of a refrigerator that looked through into the adjacent storage room, where a shelf of supplies collapsed in a cascade of boxes and scattered equipment.
Marcus stared at the hole. Stared at Mega Kangaskhan. Stared at the hole again.
"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he whispered.
Mega Kangaskhan roared—both of them, mother and child in harmony—and the sound shook dust from the ceiling and made every other Pokémon in their balls vibrate with instinctive awareness that something extremely powerful was nearby and they should probably pay attention.
Marcus checked his timer. The Mega Evolution had been active for forty-five seconds. Kangaskhan was showing no signs of strain—the transformation felt stable, sustainable, powered by the connection between Key Stone, Mega Stone, and the bond between trainer and Pokémon.
He could maintain this.
In battle—against anyone, anyone in Kanto—this would be an instant win. Nobody in the current era had ever seen Mega Evolution. Nobody had counters for it. Nobody had strategies against a Pokémon that hit twice with every attack and had the raw power to punch through reinforced concrete.
This was his trump card. His secret weapon. His "break glass in case of emergency" option that he would keep hidden until the moment it mattered most.
He deactivated the Mega Evolution—willed the Key Stone to close the circuit, felt the energy recede, watched Kangaskhan return to its normal form, the baby retreating into its pouch, both mother and child looking slightly dazed but satisfied. The satisfied look of beings who had tasted power and knew it was theirs, waiting whenever they needed it.
Marcus didn't test the Beedrillite. Not today. One Mega Evolution test was enough—the structural damage alone was going to cost a fortune to repair, and he didn't want to find out what Mega Beedrill's speed would do to a building that was already showing signs of stress.
He tucked the Key Stone into his breast pocket—close to his heart, where the bond was strongest—and placed the Mega Stones in a secure case.
Then he sat down on the training room floor, surrounded by the debris of his demonstration, and laughed.
He had Mega Evolution.
He had Mega Evolution.
Nobody else in the world had it. Nobody else in the world even knew it existed.
The game was his.
Red destroyed Team Aqua's Seafoam Islands base at sunset.
Marcus watched the surveillance feed with a glass of whiskey and the comfortable satisfaction of a man watching a plan execute perfectly.
Red arrived by water—his Lapras carrying him across the channel between the mainland and the Seafoam Islands, cutting through the waves with the smooth, effortless grace of a Pokémon that was born for the ocean. He made landfall on the eastern shore, within sight of Archie's cave base, and immediately encountered the first line of defense: six Team Aqua grunts positioned at the cave entrance, their Pokémon deployed in a defensive formation.
Red deployed Pikachu.
The grunts lasted forty-three seconds.
Marcus timed it. Forty-three seconds for six trainers, twelve Pokémon, all swept by a single Pikachu using a combination of Thunderbolt, Quick Attack, and Iron Tail. The Electric-type moved like lightning—literally and figuratively—bouncing between opponents so fast that each grunt thought they were being attacked simultaneously by multiple Pokémon.
Red entered the cave.
The interior of Archie's base was a network of natural caverns that Team Aqua had converted into living quarters, storage areas, and a command center. The caves were wet, dark, and filled with the sound of dripping water and the echoes of panicked shouting as word spread through the base that the kid from Pallet Town was inside.
Archie met him in the main cavern.
"YOU!" Archie roared, his voice echoing off the stalactites. "How did you find this place?!"
Red said nothing. He just stared. That flat, calm, terrifying stare.
"I don't know who told you where we are," Archie continued, pacing, his hands clenching and unclenching, "but it doesn't matter! This is Team Aqua's stronghold! You won't—"
"Charizard," Red said.
The ball opened. The cave lit up.
The battle was not close.
Archie deployed his full team—Sharpedo, Muk, Crawdaunt, Tentacruel, and his ace, a newly trained Walrein that he'd brought specifically as an anti-Fire counter. It didn't matter. Red's Charizard was operating at a level that Archie's team simply could not compete with—the genetic potential pills that Marcus had unknowingly contributed to (through the bio-scanner data) had been supplemented by Red's own natural training ability, and the result was a Charizard that hit like a meteor and moved like the wind.
Sharpedo went down to a single Dragon Claw. Muk went down to an Earthquake that cracked the cave floor. Crawdaunt lasted two hits—a Flamethrower followed by an Air Slash that sent the crustacean spinning into the cave wall. Tentacruel went down to a Thunder Punch that made the cave's electrical systems short out.
And Walrein—Archie's counter, his ace in the hole, his "this will definitely stop the Fire-type" play—met a Solar Beam that Red's Charizard charged in under two seconds, the dragon's tail flame blazing so hot that the cave temperature rose by twenty degrees and the stalactites began to drip.
The Solar Beam hit Walrein with the force of a concentrated sunrise. The Ice/Water type didn't just faint—it was driven backward across the cavern floor, its massive body carving a furrow in the rock, sliding to a stop at Archie's feet like a gift-wrapped declaration of total defeat.
Archie stood in his ruined base, his team destroyed, his operatives scattered, his grand vision for oceanic expansion crumbling around him like the stalactites that Red's Charizard had loosened with its heat.
"It's over, Archie," Red said quietly. "Leave Kanto."
For a moment—a brief, painful, almost human moment—Archie's face crumbled. The bravado fell away. The ideology fell away. What was left was just a man. A tired, beaten man standing in a cave, surrounded by the ruins of everything he'd built, realizing that the dream he'd dedicated his life to was as fragile as the sandcastle it had always been.
Then the moment passed, and Archie's jaw set with the stubborn, unbreakable determination of a true believer who had lost the battle but would never, never abandon the war.
"The ocean is eternal, kid," he said, his voice rough. "This isn't over."
He recalled his fainted Pokémon, gathered what remained of his team, and retreated deeper into the caves, toward a secondary exit that would take him to a waiting boat.
Marcus watched him go. He didn't feel sorry for Archie. Archie had made his choices. But he respected the man's conviction, even as he found it profoundly misguided.
He switched feeds to Mt. Moon.
Maxie's defeat was more dramatic.
Not because Maxie was a better trainer—he wasn't, his team had the same fundamental problem as Archie's, which was that their Pokémon were strong but their training was ideology-driven rather than strategically optimized. No, Maxie's defeat was more dramatic because of what happened after Red finished dismantling his team.
Red arrived at the Mt. Moon base through the hidden entrance that Marcus had described, navigating the cave system with the methodical efficiency of a trainer who had been given a map and intended to use it. He encountered resistance—Team Magma grunts, positioned at chokepoints, defending their territory with the fierce but ultimately doomed loyalty of soldiers who knew they were outmatched.
Red's Ivysaur—which had evolved into Venusaur since Marcus had last received intelligence on the kid's team, because apparently everything Red touched turned into a fully evolved powerhouse—handled the grunts with Sleep Powder and Giga Drain, putting enemies to sleep and draining their Pokémon's energy with the calm efficiency of a surgeon performing routine procedures.
Maxie met Red in the base's central laboratory—a large cavern filled with geological equipment, research stations, and the remnants of the rock-type research that had been Team Magma's cover story for their Kanto operations.
"Ah," Maxie said, adjusting his glasses with the deliberate calm of a man who had seen this coming and had prepared a speech. "The prodigy. I've been expecting you."
He had not been expecting Red. This was obvious from the half-eaten sandwich on his desk and the surprise in his eyes. But Maxie was committed to the narrative that he was always in control, and he delivered his "I've been expecting you" line with the practiced gravitas of someone who had rehearsed it in the mirror.
Red waited. Patiently. The way a cat waits outside a mouse hole.
"You don't understand what we're trying to accomplish here," Maxie continued, warming to his theme. "The expansion of landmass is not merely an environmental goal—it's a necessity. The world's population is growing. Resources are finite. We need more land, more space, more room for—"
"Your Pokémon," Red said. "Send them out."
Maxie's speech died in his throat. The kid didn't care about speeches. The kid cared about battles. And Maxie, despite his pretensions of intellectual superiority, was standing in a cave with a twelve-year-old who had just swept his entire base guard and was looking at him with the flat, patient expression of someone who was going to win and was simply waiting for the formalities to be completed.
The battle lasted six minutes.
Red used only Pikachu and Venusaur. Pikachu's Thunder obliterated Maxie's Camerupt—the same Camerupt that had been swept in their first encounter, now even more outclassed by a Pikachu that had been training intensively for weeks. Venusaur handled Mightyena and a newly added Torkoal with Sleep Powder into Solar Beam, a combination that was becoming Red's signature move—put them to sleep, charge up, destroy.
Maxie's final Pokémon was a Crobat—fast, tricky, and carrying Cross Poison for anti-Grass coverage. It was, by a significant margin, the best-trained Pokémon on Maxie's team.
Pikachu one-shot it with Thunder.
Maxie stood in his laboratory, glasses askew, coat singed, surrounded by unconscious Pokémon and scattered research papers.
"Leave," Red said.
What happened next was not part of Marcus's plan, but it was very welcome.
As Archie and Maxie retreated from their respective bases—Archie by boat from the Seafoam Islands, Maxie on foot through Mt. Moon's lower tunnels—they ran into something unexpected.
The police.
Specifically, the Hoenn Regional Police Force, operating under warrants issued by the International Police, acting on intelligence provided by an anonymous source that had detailed the criminal activities of both Team Aqua and Team Magma with comprehensive, damning, untraceable evidence.
Marcus's Dittos had been busy.
The shapeshifting operatives that he'd deployed to infiltrate both organizations' Hoenn bases months ago had never left. They'd been there the entire time—embedded in the command structures, attending meetings, accessing files, copying data, cataloguing every criminal act, every illegal operation, every violation of Hoenn law that both organizations had committed.
And then, three days ago, they'd packaged all of that information—every file, every recording, every piece of evidence—into a comprehensive intelligence report and delivered it to the one person in Hoenn who could act on it most decisively.
Steven Stone.
The Champion of Hoenn. The Steel-type master. The son of the president of Devon Corporation. A man with the power, the authority, and the political connections to turn a stack of intelligence files into arrest warrants within forty-eight hours.
Steven had received the package at his personal residence in Mossdeep City. It had been left on his doorstep—no return address, no sender identification, just a plain envelope containing a data drive and a handwritten note that read:
For the protection of Hoenn. Use it wisely.
Steven had used it wisely. Very wisely. Within twenty-four hours, he had presented the evidence to the International Police, secured warrants for the arrest of both Archie and Maxie, and coordinated a multi-agency operation that placed law enforcement teams at every port, airport, and border crossing in Hoenn, Kanto, and Johto.
Archie was arrested at the Seafoam Islands dock, stepping off his escape boat directly into the arms of four International Police officers who had been waiting for exactly this moment. He went quietly—or at least, as quietly as Archie ever went, which involved a lot of shouting about the ocean and rights and how this was "a travesty of justice against the sea itself."
Maxie was arrested at the base of Mt. Moon, emerging from the cave's lower exit into a circle of police officers and flashing lights. He went more quietly than Archie—Maxie had the presence of mind to recognize a situation from which there was no escape and submit with dignified resignation, adjusting his glasses one final time before placing his wrists together for the handcuffs.
Both were charged with a comprehensive list of crimes: illegal Pokémon experimentation, theft, property destruction, operating criminal organizations, conspiracy, and approximately forty-seven other charges that the International Police had compiled from the Dittos' intelligence.
Neither was charged with anything connected to Giovanni. Because nothing in the evidence connected them to Giovanni. The Dittos had been meticulous—every piece of intelligence they'd provided focused exclusively on Aqua and Magma's own crimes, with no reference to Team Rocket, no mention of Giovanni's name, and no hint that either organization's presence in Kanto had been orchestrated by a third party.
As far as the world was concerned, Archie and Maxie had come to Kanto of their own volition, committed crimes of their own design, and been brought to justice through the tireless work of the International Police and the Hoenn Champion.
As far as Marcus was concerned, two loose ends had been tied off, two distractions had been permanently removed, and all of their research—every scrap of data on Kyogre, Groudon, Primal Reversion, and the Weather Trio—was sitting in Team Rocket's servers, copied by Dittos who had downloaded everything before the police arrived.
The research was invaluable. Years of work by dedicated (if misguided) scientists, cataloguing the behavioral patterns, energy signatures, habitat preferences, and biological characteristics of two of the most powerful Pokémon in existence. Marcus's R&D team was already analyzing it, cross-referencing it with the data from the orbs and the Paldea expedition's temporal energy readings.
Everything connected. Everything fed into the larger plan.
Marcus sent a brief, encrypted message to the Ditto handlers: Excellent work. Extract all assets. Full bonuses for every operative. The Dittos get stickers and gourmet food. They earned it.
Then he turned his attention to the next phase.
Rayquaza.
The third member of the Weather Trio. The Dragon/Flying type that lived in the ozone layer—literally in the sky, above the clouds, above the weather, above the reach of almost every Pokémon and every trainer who had ever lived.
Rayquaza was, in many ways, the most important of the three Weather Legends. Not because it was the strongest (though it was immensely powerful), but because of its role. Rayquaza was the mediator. The balancer. The force that kept Kyogre and Groudon from destroying the world when their eternal conflict spiraled out of control. When the ocean and the earth went to war, Rayquaza descended from the sky and ended it.
And Rayquaza could Mega Evolve.
Without a stone.
Mega Rayquaza was the single most powerful Pokémon in competitive history—so broken, so overwhelmingly dominant, that it had been banned not just from standard competitive play but from the banlist tier, creating an entirely new category—"Anything Goes"—just to have somewhere to put it. It was the only Pokémon to ever be too powerful for the tier designed to contain overpowered Pokémon.
Marcus wanted it.
He also knew he couldn't get it. Not yet. The Jade Orb—the artifact that summoned Rayquaza—was somewhere in the Hoenn region, its location unknown to Team Rocket's intelligence network. And even if he could find it, approaching Rayquaza was a fundamentally different challenge than approaching Kyogre or Groudon. The ocean god and the earth god had been sleeping—ancient, dormant, waiting to be awakened. Rayquaza was awake. Active. Patrolling the upper atmosphere at speeds that exceeded anything any aircraft could match, its keen draconic senses scanning the world below for threats.
You didn't sneak up on Rayquaza. You didn't ambush it. You didn't catch it off-guard. You either earned its respect or you didn't, and if you didn't, it would destroy you with a Hyper Beam from the stratosphere and you would never even see it coming.
Marcus began laying groundwork. Long-term groundwork. Research into the Jade Orb's possible locations. Analysis of Rayquaza's patrol patterns—satellite tracking data that Team Rocket's orbital surveillance team (yes, they had an orbital surveillance team; Giovanni's budget was apparently infinite) was collecting. Theoretical models for approaching a Pokémon that lived in the sky and could move at Mach 3.
It would take time. Months, possibly. But Marcus was patient. He had Kyogre and Groudon already—two-thirds of the Weather Trio, secured and bonded. Rayquaza would come. When the time was right.
In between the fossil resurrections and the Mega Evolution tests and the Weather Trio planning and Red's spectacular dismantling of two criminal organizations, Marcus had been quietly deploying Dittos.
A lot of Dittos.
The success of the Hoenn infiltrations had proven the concept beyond any doubt: Dittos were the perfect espionage assets. Silent, adaptable, untraceable, and utterly loyal (in exchange for stickers and premium Poké food, which was the most cost-effective compensation package in the history of intelligence operations). Marcus had expanded the Ditto program dramatically, breeding and training new operatives at a facility on an island south of Cinnabar that nobody knew about.
He now had forty-seven field-capable Dittos. And he was deploying them across the world.
Team Galactic - Sinnoh Region
Eight Dittos, disguised as low-ranking Galactic grunts, inserted into Team Galactic's operations in the Sinnoh region. Team Galactic was led by Cyrus—a man who, in Marcus's assessment, was the most dangerous villain in any Pokémon game, because unlike Archie and Maxie (who were idiots with good intentions) or Lysandre (who was an idiot with bad intentions), Cyrus was genuinely intelligent and genuinely nihilistic. The man wanted to unmake reality itself—to destroy the existing universe and replace it with one that had no emotion, no conflict, no suffering.
He was, in psychiatric terms, a high-functioning sociopath with a god complex and access to the literal gods of time and space.
Marcus's Dittos were there to gather intelligence—everything about Team Galactic's operations, their research into Dialga and Palkia, their exploration of the Distortion World, their technology for accessing and manipulating dimensional energy. Not to stop Cyrus (that was Sinnoh's problem), but to understand him. To learn from his research. To acquire the knowledge that Cyrus was accumulating about the fundamental forces of reality—time, space, antimatter—without having to do the dangerous, world-threatening research personally.
Team Flare - Kalos Region
Six Dittos, inserted into Team Flare's organization in Kalos. Team Flare was led by Lysandre—a man who wanted to destroy the world because he thought it was too ugly, which was the most "rich guy having a bad day" villain motivation Marcus had ever encountered. But Lysandre's organization had resources, and more importantly, Lysandre had access to the Ultimate Weapon—an ancient device powered by the life energy of Pokémon that could, theoretically, be repurposed for any number of applications.
Marcus didn't want the Ultimate Weapon. He wanted the research. The data on life energy, on Mega Evolution (which Lysandre's scientists were independently studying), on the Kalosian legendary Pokémon Xerneas and Yveltal.
And, of course, Kalos was where the Mega Stones were. The Dittos had standing orders to identify and catalogue every Mega Stone location they encountered, feeding information back to Marcus's survey teams.
Team Plasma - Unova Region
Six Dittos, inserted into Team Plasma's dual structure—both Ghetsis's secret inner circle and N's public-facing organization. Team Plasma was complicated. N—the nominal leader—was, by all accounts, a genuinely good person who had been manipulated by Ghetsis into serving as a puppet for the old man's power grab. Marcus had a grudging respect for N and absolutely none for Ghetsis.
The intelligence targets here were Reshiram and Zekrom—the Tao Duo, the legendary dragons of truth and ideals. And the DNA Splicers—the artifact that could fuse the Tao dragons back into their original form, the Original Dragon, which was arguably the most powerful being in Unova's history.
Aether Foundation - Alola Region
Ten Dittos. The largest deployment. Not because the Aether Foundation was the most dangerous target—it wasn't, not yet—but because the Alola region contained things that Marcus wanted very, very badly.
Z-Crystals. Z-Rings. And information about Ultra Space.
The Aether Foundation, led by Lusamine, was publicly a Pokémon conservation organization. Privately, it was conducting research into Ultra Wormholes—tears in the fabric of reality that connected the normal world to Ultra Space, a dimension populated by extradimensional beings called Ultra Beasts. The research was dangerous, the motives were questionable, and the implications were staggering.
Ultra Beasts were, in competitive terms, some of the most powerful Pokémon in existence. And Ultra Space itself—a dimension outside normal reality—contained resources, energy sources, and phenomena that could revolutionize every aspect of Pokémon science.
Marcus wanted data. Energy readings. Dimensional frequency analysis. Everything the Aether Foundation was learning about Ultra Space, copied and transmitted to Team Rocket's servers.
And, as a secondary objective, the Dittos were tasked with acquiring Z-Crystals.
Z-Crystals were scattered across the Alola region—found in trials, given by the island guardians, embedded in the cultural and spiritual traditions of the Alolan people. Marcus's Dittos couldn't take them openly—that would draw attention. But they could identify locations, catalogue availability, and, if the opportunity presented itself, acquire a few through... creative means.
The boldest objective was the Z-Ring.
Z-Rings were crafted from Sparkling Stones—rare minerals found on Alola's beaches that resonated with Z-Crystal energy. But the most powerful Z-Rings were made by the island guardians themselves—the Tapu, four Fairy-type legendary Pokémon that protected Alola's four islands.
Tapu Koko, the guardian of Melemele Island, was known for its capricious, curious nature. It often appeared before trainers it found interesting, testing them, challenging them, sometimes gifting them with Z-Rings as a sign of its approval.
Marcus's most audacious instruction to the Alola team: attract Tapu Koko's attention. Impress it. And if—if—the guardian decided to gift one of his operatives with a Z-Ring... accept it graciously and send it to Kanto immediately.
It was a long shot. Tapu Koko was a god, and gods weren't easily manipulated. But Marcus had found that in this world, the gods were more approachable than the games suggested—more curious, more interested in humans, more willing to engage with those who demonstrated genuine strength and authentic intent.
And if it didn't work? He'd find another way. He always did.
Day sixty-two. Twelve days to Mewtwo's projected awakening.
Marcus sat in his office at midnight, the room dark except for the glow of his monitor and the soft, ambient light of Dragonair's orbs. The dragon was coiled on the office floor, its head resting on the desk, one eye open and watching Marcus with the sleepy attentiveness of a Pokémon that would wake fully at the slightest sign of trouble.
He was reading the latest Mewtwo report. Not the technical data—he'd read that already, absorbed the numbers, processed the projections. He was reading Dr. Mori's psychological preparation brief.
First-Contact Protocol - Final Draft
The subject (proposed name pending your approval, sir) will achieve consciousness gradually, not suddenly. The transition from pre-conscious neural activity to full waking awareness will take approximately 4-6 hours, during which the subject will experience progressively more complex levels of perception.
Phase 1 (Hours 0-1): Sensory awareness. The subject will begin processing basic sensory input—light, sound, temperature, touch. During this phase, it is critical that the environment be calm, warm, and free of sudden stimuli. No loud noises. No bright lights. No sudden movements.
Phase 2 (Hours 1-3): Emotional awareness. The subject will begin experiencing emotions—confusion, curiosity, possibly fear. This is the most critical phase. The subject's psychic abilities will be active but unfocused, reaching out instinctively, searching for other minds, trying to understand what it is and where it is. The emotional state of anyone in proximity will be directly perceived and will significantly influence the subject's developing emotional baseline.
Phase 3 (Hours 3-5): Cognitive awareness. The subject will begin to think—to process information, form concepts, develop understanding. Language acquisition will be rapid, possibly instantaneous, as the subject's psychic abilities allow it to absorb linguistic knowledge from nearby minds. By the end of this phase, the subject will be capable of communication.
Phase 4 (Hours 5-6): Full consciousness. The subject will be fully awake, fully aware, and fully capable of independent thought and action. At this point, the subject will be, for all practical purposes, a person—with opinions, preferences, questions, and the psychic power to enforce its will on anyone who displeases it.
Recommendation: You should be present from Phase 1 through Phase 4. Do not leave. Do not bring anyone else in until Phase 4 is complete. The subject needs to bond with one person first—one consistent, reliable, emotionally authentic presence that it can anchor to during the disorientation of first consciousness.
Be that anchor, sir.
Marcus closed the report, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
Twelve days.
In twelve days, he was going to meet a god. Not catch one—he'd done that, twice, and it had been terrifying but ultimately transactional. This was different. This was going to be a birth. The emergence of a consciousness from nothing—a mind forming, a personality developing, a person being born.
And Marcus was going to be the first face it saw.
He thought about what he would say. How he would feel. What he would project through the psychic connection that Mewtwo would inevitably establish.
He thought about the original Giovanni. The Giovanni who had treated Mewtwo as a weapon. Who had built it, used it, and lost it because he'd never understood that the most powerful Pokémon in the world was also the most vulnerable—a newborn in the body of a god, desperate for connection, terrified of abandonment, and capable of leveling a city if it felt threatened.
Marcus was not going to make that mistake.
He picked up his pen and wrote in his notebook:
Mewtwo's name.
He'd been thinking about this for weeks. Dr. Fuji's report had asked him to choose a name—something that acknowledged Mewtwo as a being rather than a designation. Not "Mewtwo"—that was a project code, cold and clinical, a reminder that this creature existed because scientists had decided to play god.
Marcus wanted a name that meant something. A name that said "you are valued" and "you are wanted" and "you are more than what you were made to be."
He wrote: Prometheus.
The one who brought fire to humanity. The one who defied the gods to give mortals the power to shape their own destiny. A being created by forces greater than itself, who chose its own path, who defined itself not by its origins but by its choices.
Marcus looked at the name. Considered it. Felt the weight of it.
Then he crossed it out.
Too grandiose. Too heavy. Too much expectation loaded into a single word. Mewtwo didn't need to carry the weight of mythological symbolism before it had even opened its eyes.
He wrote another name. Simpler. Quieter. A name that meant "beginning" in a language that most people in this world didn't speak but that Marcus, from his previous life, remembered.
Hajime.
Beginning. The start of something new. A name that didn't define what Mewtwo was or what it should be, but simply acknowledged that it was starting—that every moment from here forward was new, was its own, was a story that Mewtwo would write for itself.
Marcus looked at the name for a long time.
Then he closed the notebook and went to bed.
Twelve days.
The grind continued.
But for this—for the birth of a being that deserved kindness and warmth and the chance to become whatever it chose to become—Marcus would stop grinding long enough to be present.
To be human.
To be the first kind face that a newborn god would see.
END OF CHAPTER 8