Machamp called out to Grey while still hauling bricks and working hard on the reconstruction.
The rebuilding of Saffron Gym had finally been put on the schedule. With Machamp and Conkeldurr, two veteran construction pros, on the job, the efficiency was naturally outstanding.
The Fighting Dojo and Saffron Gym both used fairly standard Gym construction styles, so they were not especially rigorous when it came to defending against Pokémon moves.
As long as the structure could withstand attacks from Elite Four-level Pokémon, that was good enough.
Of course, the original defensive standard of Saffron Gym had actually been enough to resist the kind of attacks a normal official Gym ace could dish out.
The problem was that Sabrina was not a normal Gym ace.
She herself was Elite Four-level.
Back when Petrel had come looking for her, her psychic power had accidentally gone out of control and blown up her own place.
"That works. I'll go take a look with you."
The last time Grey had gone to Saffron Gym was, well, the last time he had gone. It had already been so long that this was the perfect chance to check on it.
He also wanted to get a better look at the space between the Fighting Dojo and Saffron Gym and think carefully about what to do with it.
He kept saying he wanted to build a place that could handle Legendary Pokémon, but the truth was he still had no real idea how to pull that off.
He would have to wait until Blue came over before anything could really be finalized.
Grey was not the sort of client who constantly made trouble for contractors.
He was the kind who paid, stood off to the side, and only checked in from time to time.
Professional work should be left to professionals. Grey knew he was not an expert in this area, so he had no intention of handing out amateur advice to people who actually knew what they were doing.
That did not mean he was going to let anyone take advantage of him, of course. He still had basic common sense.
...
...
Saffron Gym.
The place was already very different from the ruins it had once been.
It was starting to take shape.
"Machamp." ("Boss, there's a gap over here. You said it looked like this place was going to be merged with ours, so we left it open.")
Machamp pointed toward an unfinished section of the ruins and explained it to Grey.
"That's right, we are going to merge them. Though actually, you didn't have to leave it completely open. You could've filled some of it in and just left an opening later."
Grey took a rough look at the passage. It was wide enough for about ten people to pass through at the same time.
Not exactly huge.
But not small, either.
It was about right.
Since they had already left it open, Grey was not about to do something silly like tell Machamp and the others to fill it back in.
This was fine.
"Conkeldurr." ("Oh right, Boss, while we've been rebuilding Saffron Gym these past few days, wild Pokémon have been coming by now and then and just staring at us. Do you want to do something about that?")
Conkeldurr was a rough-and-ready type. It had been around humans since birth, so it had never really developed a very thorough way of dealing with wild Pokémon.
That was why it wanted Grey to decide what should happen to that group.
"Oh? Take me to them."
Grey raised a brow at once, instantly interested.
Wild Pokémon showing up near a place where humans lived, especially near the ruins of the old Saffron Gym, might lead to an unexpected discovery.
"Conkeldurr." ("Follow me, Boss. They're not far from here.")
Leaning on its concrete pillars, Conkeldurr led Grey step by step to where the wild Pokémon were hiding.
"Abra, Mr. Mime, Wobbuffet, and Ralts? All Psychic-types. Were they drawn here by the psychic energy Sabrina left behind?"
Grey closed his eyes. With Aura, he could easily sense the lingering psychic power left behind when Sabrina blew up Saffron Gym.
That kind of energy did not dissipate easily. Unless someone of the same level, or stronger, came along and erased it, it could remain for years.
Now that this group of Psychic-type Pokémon was staying nearby, Grey figured the reason was simple enough. They had probably been drawn in by the psychic power Sabrina had left behind and assumed this was the territory of some powerful elder of their kind, so they had come hoping for help.
But after all this time, that powerful senior had never appeared, and instead a whole lot of Fighting-type Pokémon had shown up.
That was enough to keep them from daring to reveal themselves.
Now Conkeldurr had discovered them.
The strongest among them, Mr. Mime, immediately stepped forward and tried to use Psychic to restrain Conkeldurr.
Conkeldurr, on the other hand, did not even bother to lift its eyes.
It casually swung a concrete pillar down into the ground.
The resulting shockwave shattered the psychic restraint, and the psychic field cracked apart piece by piece.
Flying stone fragments scraped against Mr. Mime's barrier, sending ring after ring of chaotic energy rippling through the air.
"Mime?!" ("How is that possible?! My Psychic was broken just like that?!")
Mr. Mime had always thought it was pretty strong.
In terms of human Gyms, it was honestly around the level of a fairly standard Gym battler.
And yet even in that situation, Conkeldurr had smashed its move apart with one swing of a concrete pillar.
That was a monster.
"Mime?!" ("Don't tell me the powerful elder of our kind is already...")
Mr. Mime did not even dare finish the thought.
No wonder there were so many Fighting-type Pokémon here and barely any Psychic-types to be seen.
So the elder of their kind had already...
At that thought, Mr. Mime sucked in a sharp breath.
That tragic emotion spread outward, and when the other three Psychic-types sensed it, they could not help starting to sob.
Grey: "..."
Aura let him sense Pokémon emotions.
With that wave of sorrow crashing over him, Grey scratched his cheek and opened his mouth slightly, wanting to explain.
But...
In a situation like this, the more he explained, the worse it would probably sound.
"Gallade, I'm leaving this to you."
Grey chose to dump the problem onto Gallade, who had come along with him.
"Gallade?" ("What? I just came to watch the drama. I don't know anything either.")
Gallade looked completely baffled.
It had just wandered over to take a look, so how had this suddenly become its job?
"Gallade, I'm trusting you with this because I believe in you. Come on, I know you can handle this perfectly."
Grey patted Gallade on the shoulder, his eyes full of trust.
There were not many Psychic-type Pokémon with him right now, and Gallade was the only really dependable one among them.
"Victini!" ("Hey, hey, hey! Grey, what's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm not dependable?")
Victini, who had followed Grey over in hopes of freeloading some food, immediately picked up on Grey's thoughts and confronted him.
"Yeah. Victini, I'm glad to see you're so self-aware."
Grey gave Victini a very enthusiastic thumbs-up.
"Mew." ("That's right, little Victini. I happen to know a way to make you dependable. Want me to teach you?")
Mew, now back in its little Riolu form, narrowed its eyes. Its black ears swayed as it spoke in a temptingly smooth voice.
"Victini?" ("What way? What way? I want to learn!")
Victini nodded again and again, clearly eager to learn how to become dependable from little Riolu.
Its special power was very dependable, but in certain situations, it really did not come off that way.
Little Riolu fell into thought.
It looked Victini over carefully.
Then it reached out and gave Victini's face a few squeezes.
"Mew." ("You've got potential. It's just that one part still isn't quite right. If you want to become dependable, come with me somewhere.")
After a moment's thought, little Riolu decided it would turn back into human form this time and take Victini out to eat at a buffet.
"Mew." ("Tell me, what do we need if we want to become a dependable Pokémon?")
"Victini?" ("What do we need?")
Victini scratched its head.
It had no idea, but it sounded impressive.
"Mew." ("That would be doing dependable things. You can't become a dependable Pokémon just by doing one or two things. It takes doing a whole lot of things over a long period of time, building it up bit by bit.")
"Mew." ("Honestly, explaining all this is kind of a hassle. Here, I'll take you somewhere, and once we get there, you'll understand.")
As it spoke, little Riolu started leading Victini off toward the bustling city center.
"..."
The corner of Grey's eye twitched.
He knew exactly what little Riolu was planning to do.
Mewtwo had already been "scammed" by little Riolu once before.
And now Victini was about to get "scammed" too, which was honestly pretty funny.
Speaking of which, where had Mewtwo run off to this time?
...
...
Unova, P2 Laboratory.
This was another major Team Plasma base.
It was also the second base Colress had fled to after Ghetsis was arrested by the Unova League.
"Mr. Mewtwo, Mewtwo's creation process has already reached fifty percent. And the first Mega Stone is almost complete as well. Would you like to examine it and see whether it meets your standards?"
Colress barely dared to breathe. The Team Rocket executive standing before him, the one who shared a name with that artificial Pokémon, was simply too terrifying. Nearly every Mega Stone Colress had produced had already been "judged."
And the verdict was almost always the same.
Worthless junk, or worthless junk.
There were hardly any that had ever satisfied Mewtwo.
Mewtwo held the Mega Stone in its hand. After feeling the massive power contained within it, it said nothing at first and only stared silently at Colress.
"Explain what this Mega Stone does."
This time, Mewtwo's tone was a little calmer.
Seeing that, Colress finally let out a breath of relief.
The weight hanging in his heart eased at last.
"Mr. Mewtwo, this Mega Stone has been infused with unprecedented psychic power. In other words, once Mewtwo is successfully created, if it Mega Evolves, both of its attacking stats will increase tremendously."
"Among them, the Special Attack increase is the most dramatic. Preliminary estimates suggest it can approach the peak single-stat level seen in the Regi family."
The Regi family, the six legendary golems.
Many of those pillar-like Pokémon had one peak stat that reached 200, a level most Pokémon could never hope to touch.
Of course, because the Regis had limited overall base stats, those extreme stat distributions came at the cost of the rest of their numbers looking far less impressive.
But Mewtwo was different.
Mewtwo's template had been built from the top-tier Legendary Pokémon of multiple regions, creating an artificial legendary Pokémon.
Its base stat total was as high as 680. If it could Mega Evolve, that total would rise to 780.
No matter how those points were distributed, unless the result was absurdly lopsided, it would absolutely be a revolutionary Pokémon.
That was Colress's view of Mewtwo.
He believed Mewtwo was the greatest Pokémon in the world. Even Genesect could not compare to it.
How could a Pokémon that was practically locked into a hard ceiling ever be mentioned in the same breath as an artificial legend?
If the original Colress had only been carrying out orders, his gloves stained again and again with chemical residue no amount of scrubbing could fully remove,
then the curled-up figure inside the incubation chamber now made his breathing run hot.
Those writhing gene chains were no longer cold data. They had become a revelation being woven right at his fingertips.
"Mr. Mewtwo, we are creating a god, aren't we?"
Colress pressed a hand to the protective glass, his eyes reflecting the frenzied flow of genetic sequences.
The test tubes on the rack trembled faintly inside the psychic field, as though they were knocking on the gate to the realm of gods.
"No... no, that's not right! I was wrong!"
Before Mewtwo could say anything, Colress's eyes gradually turned feverish with madness.
"This isn't creation. It's a welcome. We are welcoming the descent of a new god for humanity!"
"..."
Mewtwo did not answer.
To it, Colress was nothing more than a useful tool.
Highly intelligent, but utterly focused on high-tech research.
For Mewtwo, that made him the perfect kind of tool.
...
...
Kanto, Saffron City, Fighting Dojo.
After returning to the dojo yet again, Grey was stopped by Reshiram.
"Grey, I have a feeling something is about to happen in Unova."
It was not just Reshiram this time. Even Kyurem stepped forward and gave a light nod.
"That's true. This kind of energy field... someone in Unova is trying to create a legend."
If it were just some lesser Legendary, then fine, let them make one.
But if it was something capable of affecting an entire region, something so abnormal that even across the ocean the two of them, both top-tier Legendary Pokémon, could sense it, then there was only one possibility.
A man-made top-tier Legendary was about to appear.
"So, what do you think? Should I head to Unova right now and catch that Pokémon?"
Grey tightened his hand around the Master Ball.
Sure, the Master Ball would get broken.
But with Reshiram and Kyurem here, that was no problem.
They could beat Mewtwo into submission the moment it was created and then catch it in one shot with the Master Ball.
As for what happened after it got out again?
Well, Reshiram and Kyurem were still here.
They could just beat it up again.
The earlier Mewtwo already seemed to be heading down the wrong path.
This second Mewtwo absolutely could not be allowed to do the same.
"Grey, that approach is incredibly true to yourself. I like it."
Reshiram liked heroes who did not overthink things and just got moving.
Even when they did think, they were only thinking about how to get it done.
That kind of straightforward practicality felt like a spring breeze to Reshiram.
It was wonderful.
Far more comfortable than that hero Zekrom had ended up with.
"Oh, right..."
The moment the subject of heroes came up, Kyurem remembered that Grey still had not settled the matter of becoming its hero.
"Grey, do you want to become my hero? It's time for you to give me an answer."
"No! Absolutely not! Grey, Kyurem is definitely up to no good!"
Reshiram was genuinely panicking.
If Grey became Kyurem's hero and Kyurem's power tripled,
wouldn't that mean Kyurem would pin Reshiram down and beat it senseless?
No.
Absolutely not.
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