Chapter Nine
My eyes shot open as I awoke in the dark. I was scared and confused, unsure of how long I had been out or where I had been taken. I knew I was alive though – the aches and pains throughout my body made sure I didn't forget it. I was honestly amazed by that fact. I had fought tough Pokémon before, sure. But Blackjack had made it explicit that he meant to kill me. If it hadn't been for Mew, then I would have died. At the thought of her, I bolted up. Despite the pain of my sudden movement, I still managed to shout, "Mew!"

"Quiet down," a familiar voice said. "I'm here, there's no need to yell."

My eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, but it was useless. Wherever we were was pitch-dark. "Where are-" I started, only to stop when I felt her soft paw against my forehead.

"I'm here," she said again soothingly.

My eyes began to make out her form above me, a less dark outline in the overall blackness. I swallowed and began to speak again, calmer this time. "Where are we?"

"A cave by the city," Mew said. "We're safe here."

"Are we back under Mount Moon?"

Her head shook slightly in dark. "No, somewhere more hidden."

I tried to remember the maps of Kanto that my trainer had studied, but my head started to pound and I gave up and instead rested back against the ground. At that point, I noticed just how soft the surface was. My paw curled around some light and fluffy kind of moss or maybe another species of plant. My mind was struggling to make connections, but all I could firmly grasp was the feeling that something was unusual about this place. Despite our being in a cave, the atmosphere did not feel oppressive or dank, but rather brimming with energy. It hurt to think about it, or to do much of anything really, so I was grateful when Mew touched something cool against my head, giving me a chance to distract myself. "What was that?" I asked.

"It's a species of mushroom planted by the Parasect who once lived in this cave. It has some healing properties, but you still need to rest for a few days."

"Give it to me straight, doc," I said. "How bad is it?"

I could almost see her smile in the dark. "That Hitmonchan really did a number on you," she said, rubbing what I assumed was another one of these healing fungi on my battered body. "He wasn't holding back."

"Yeah." Then realization hit me, and I tried to get up again. "You can't stay here for a few days, you have to keep running! They'll be coming for you!"

"No," she said quietly. Her eyes refused to meet me in the dark.

My hysterics ground to a halt at her single word. "What do you mean?"

"They won't be bothering us for a while."

"Why?" I asked. Then, the images came flooding back. Mew being surrounded in a violent pink glow. The crackling and snapping of psychic fireworks around her. Her empty eyes. "Mew, what did you do?" She ignored me, so I repeated my question, but quieter.

Finally, the dam burst. "I hurt them!" Mew cried out in a voice that echoed inside of my skull. Her whole form was surrounded by a pink glow again, but it was softer and duller than it had been on the cliff. It was still enough to light up the entire grotto we were in, revealing high ceilings and a lagoon, all devoid of Pokémon besides the two of us. "They were going to kill you, Zeke," she continued, seemingly unaware of the anguish she was radiating from her small body. "They hurt you so I hurt them!"

I unsteadily rose to my feet. Any pain that I was feeling was overwhelmed by the waves of despair that Mew's aura was radiating, and as I moved closer to the legendary Pokémon to hug her, the feeling only intensified. Still, I powered through and wrapped myself around Mew's floating form. I thought about reassuring her with words, but nothing that I said seemed like it would be enough. So instead I held her until I felt her aura dissipate and saw the cave grow dark again.

Finally, I felt her look up. Feeling awkward at the prolonged contact, I disentangled myself from Mew. The pain in my body had resumed its preeminence, but it was tempered by a feeling of joy that kept a smile on my face no matter what I felt. "Thank you," she said.

"I should be thanking you," I sputtered. "You saved my life." I paused for a second. "I don't want to upset you, but what did you do them?"

I could feel Mew's hesitation, and I was ready to drop the subject entirely. Instead she looked at me and whispered, "I could show you."

"Show me?"

But instead of explaining, she placed her paws against my head. Her eyes began to glow pink, and then everything in the blackness seemed to have a pink hue to it. It took me a few seconds to realize that the cause of this was that my own eyes were glowing too. I jerked back in fright, but Mew held on to my head and pressed her forehead against mine.

Suddenly a surge of memories and feelings filled me. I saw myself get beaten by Blackjack from Mew's point of view and felt her mounting fury. I heard her speak and felt the surge of psychic power rush through her veins. I watched Mew stretch out her paw and, with a flick of her tiny wrist, send the Hitmonchan careening into the side of Mount Moon. Club and Scimitar were sent crashing into each other, and the trio were pulled from the crumbled mass of bodies by Mew's psychic powers to be juggled about like rag dolls. Mew orchestrated their every mid-air collision and their every rise to the heavens and crash to the earth with her paws, but the scariest part of the whole experience was that Mew's fury had been replaced by a void of feeling. She was focused on hurting them, but only in a mechanical, methodical way. Finally, the trio of broken and bloody bodies were unceremoniously dumped in the river below the cliff, their cries cut short by a loud splash.

The vision ended with Mew releasing me. I was sent sprawling back onto the mat of moss. Silence hung in the air as I attempted to process what I had seen. Finally, I sat up and spoke. "Did you kill them?"

"No," Mew said, shaking her head violently in the dark.

"Why not? You could have stopped them from chasing you at any time."

"Zeke," she said, a forcefulness in her voice that I had not heard in a while, "I am Mew, the legendary Pokémon embodying the creation of life. I am supposed to be friend to all living things. I hate violence. I hate to hurt. It goes against everything that I am."

"But you could do it?" I pressed.

The psychic Pokémon sighed. "I don't know. I've never tried. It's been so long since I tried anything like what I did with those three. In order to hurt them, I had to turn off any part of me that makes me who I am. I had to give into that desire to hurt and hope that I'd still be able to find my way back from that emptiness."

"But you took that risk for me," I said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"You said you had done something like that before. What prompted it then?"

"Do you remember how I said that legendary Pokémon had sanctuaries where they could rest?" Mew gestured in the dark to the cave around us. "This used to be my domain. A cave full of Pokémon who worshipped me and served me as protectors and retainers."

"Worshipped you?" I asked incredulously.

"Yup," Mew said. "That was a long time ago, before the city nearby was built. In fact, it was the construction of the city that was the root cause of the problem. Human tribes had always lived in this area, but a few centuries ago, they began to consolidate into larger and larger groups, eventually forming towns, cities, and even countries. My cave and the area surrounding it were always treated with reverence by the nomadic tribes in the area, but as more humans moved into the area from the south, drawn by its flowing waterways and mineral deposits, tensions grew. Not only did the humans clash, but increasingly our sanctuary was intruded upon. At first I made the decision to retreat deeper into the caves and let the humans fight it out.

"But we were pressed for space and resources. Some of the Pokémon wanted to meet the humans in battle and retake the area surrounding this cave in my name. I refused to countenance such an action, but things only got worse. The increase in the human population made it more and more dangerous for my disciples to forage for food, with humans capturing them or killing them, for food, trophies, or even sport."

"So you struck back against the humans?" I asked, my eyes wide at her story.

"Not exactly," Mew said, her voice tentative but strong. "Among my followers, things came to a head, with two factions forming. One wanted to attempt to wait out the human settlement. The other sought the destruction of the encroachers and the reclamation of what they still thought of as their land. When the two sides of Pokémon came to blows, I separated them with force. I wasn't as brutal with them as I was with the trio of Pokémon outside Mount Moon, but I still hurt the ringleaders enough to force them to stop."

"What happened next?"

"Some of them thought about turning on me, but the majority were quelled for the time being. When I came back to myself, I was ashamed at how I had acted, and I fled. I sought out another sanctuary to the southern seas and abandoned them to their fates." The Pokémon spun around the cave, surveying the emptiness. "I shouldn't have been so surprised to see this place empty. I wonder if any of the wild Pokémon around here still know how to find the entrances to this cave," she said ruefully.

I laid down on the moss, feeling the cool surface mold itself to the weight of my body. "You intervened then to stop Pokémon you care about from getting hurt, and you intervened again to protect me," I said, more to myself than to her. Then, to her, I asked, "What does that make us?"

Mew drifted closer to me and lowered herself onto the cave's overgrown floor as well. "Friends, I suppose," she said after a while.

"Friends," I said, trying out the word on my tongue. It felt like an old friend coming home. "I like it, Mew."

"I suppose it's only fair to tell you that that's not my name," she said with a giggle.

"What?"

"It's more of a title than anything."

"So what's your real name?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"No one knows outside of legendary Pokémon. Do you think you're ready for that kind of responsibility?" she teased.

I felt a smile spread across my face. "I think I'll take my chances."

Mew took a deep breath, let it out, and then said, "Amie."

"Huh," I said, "the Kalosian word for friend. Fitting for someone who is supposed to be a friend to all living creatures."

"They got it from me, actually."

I laughed at that, and it wasn't long before she started laughing too. My sides hurt from the injuries I had sustained, but I kept on chortling. As long as I kept laughing, I could forget about the fact that Amie might still be in danger. I could forget about not having a clue of what the future held. And most importantly, I could focus on the Pokémon that was giggling so hard she was snorting and try to forget the vision she had shown me of her effortlessly hurting three powerful and vicious Pokémon. So I kept laughing and tried to ignore the sinking feeling that things were far from over.