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The Renegade Pokémon


Somewhere in the Safari Zone, Ash, Misty and Brock walked down the road
with Pikachu asleep in Ash's backpack. They had backtracked to the
Safari Zone so Ash could catch more pokémon before they went to
Cinnabar island. However, they had yet to see a single pokémon that
would hang around long enough to catch. Their time inside was about to
run out, but Ash wanted to hang around as long as possible.

"I know I can catch something!" Ash said in frustration.

"We've been here for three hours, and you haven't even caught a cold!"
Misty replied angrily.

"Maybe not, but I think I have," Brock said with a sneeze. "That
water was freezing."

"Well, you shouldn't have upset that Tentacool," Misty said in a huff.

"I didn't know it was sitting there!"

They continued arguing for a few minutes, then Ash spotted a pokémon
flying through the sky. But this pokémon didn't have any wings...

"Hey, look!" He pointed to the silhouette streaking across the sky.
"Is that a pokémon?"

"Let's follow it!" Brock suggested.

Up in the air, Mewtwo didn't share their good spirits. It required
energy to fly, and he had just about run out. He couldn't land in the
clearing below, or he would be exposed. He tried to stay in the air
long enough to drift down into the jungle. As he sunk beneath the
trees, he suddenly felt the great drain of energy the flying had taken
out of him. He dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, scattering the
few Pidgey's that were nesting in the dirt. Just then he caught the
scent of humans nearby...probably pokémon trainers...no one else could
possibly know he was here. He wasn't about to run from them, so he
stood his ground and waited.

"Hey, look, it landed!" Ash said excitedly. "I wonder what kind it
is."

"Maybe Dexter knows," Brock suggested.

As they closed in on Mewtwo, Ash pulled out Dexter and punched in the
command to analyze.

"No information available," Dexter said in an electronic voice.

"Well, that's real useful."

"<Who are you?>" a voice in their heads said.

"Did you hear that?" Ash said in a frightened voice.

"I think so..." Misty said slowly.

"Look!"

"What is it?"

"Doesn't look like any pokémon I've ever seen."

"Who are you?" Mewtwo said suspiciously.

"Did it just..." Brock said.

"Talk?" Ash finished.

"I guess so..." Misty said, "Maybe you should catch it and let
Professor Oak tell you what it is."

"Right!"

Ash chucked a pokéball at Mewtwo, who watched it curiously. Then he
remembered what happens to pokémon who get hit with pokéballs. Just
before it hit him in the head, his arm snapped up and he caught it.
He examined it for a few moments, then looked at the stunned faces of
the three pokémon trainers. Then he felt a surge of anger at the
realization that they were trying to capture *him*! He tightened his
grip on the pokéball till it shattered, then let the pieces fall to the
ground.

"Ash, I don't think this is your average pokémon," Brock warned.

"Right. Pikachu!"

The rodent pokémon quickly woke up, took a look at Mewtwo, screamed
"Pika!" and prompty dived back into the backpack.

"Come on, Pikachu, you can do it!"

He cautiously crawled out of the backpack and onto the ground.

"Pikachu, Thundershock!"

Pikachu let loose a bolt of electricity, but Mewtwo sensed it coming
before he even powered up. Before the bolt hit, he sent out a blast
of psionic energy, sending the electricity right back to the little
pokémon.

"Pikachu!" Ash yelled in surprise.

"Chu..."

"Is that the best you've got?" Mewtwo said angrily.

"Ash, why don't you use Charizard?" Brock suggested.

"Because Charizard won't obey me."

"Maybe not, but he's our best chance."

"Okay! Charizard, I choose you!"

Once the pokéball hit the ground, the giant fire/dragon pokémon
Charizard popped out, took one look at Mewtwo, and proceeded to burn
down a few trees.

"Ah, come on, Charizard, fight!"

Mewtwo was getting impatient with this, and decided to make the first
move. He unsheathed his claws and took a swipe at Charizard, making
some rather deep cuts in his hide. Charizard certainly didn't like
that, and decided to turn Mewtwo into barbeque. He breathed a massive
stream of fire at him, charring his flesh to a nice shade of black.
At first, Ash thought he had won, but then Mewtwo focused his mental
powers, and the burns slowly healed themselves until there wasn't a
scratch on him.

"I'm beginning to grow impatient, trainers."

Mewtwo quickly spun around and swung his tail in a high arc, hitting
Charizard in the side of the head, knocking him unconcious.

"Charizard, return!" The giant pokémon returned to the pokéball,
leaving the three trainers and Mewtwo face-to-face once again.
Suddenly, Mewtwo sensed the presense of more humans, and these were not
just more trainers. These were soldiers, possibly of the military, and
definitely searching specifically for him. He decided he would have a
better chance of leaving this place alive if they were somehow
discouraged from killing him. He noticed the three trainers and
decided that any one of them might do well as a hostage. And, as luck
would have it, Misty was the closest one by a fraction of an inch.
Mewtwo darted forward, grabbed the female trainer, hefted her onto his
shoulder, and bounded off through the jungle.

"Ash! Brock! Help me!" Misty screamed as Mewtwo ran farther and
farther away.

"Misty!" Ash pulled out one of his pokéballs and threw it to the
ground. "Pidgeotto, follow them!"

Pidgeotto screeched his acknowledgement, then flew off in the direction
Mewtwo was running.

"Put me down!" Misty screamed to the giant pokémon. She tried kicking
and punching him, but then Mewtwo held up a claw to her face, and she
settled down. They had gotten a little less than a thousand yards when
the first squad of soldiers jumped in front of them, guns ready.
Mewtwo sent them flying with a wave of energy and kept running. Then
more soldiers came, along with Dr. Jonas and Dr. Micheals.

"Mewtwo, please, stop this," Dr. Jonas begged.

"<Sorry, doctor,>" Mewtwo said in his mind, "<But I must have my
freedom, and so must my mother. She will be free.>"

"You can't keep running. Eventually we'll catch up to you, and then
the results might not be very...satisfactory."

Dr. Micheals decided to step in just then. "Will you please stop
talking and capture him?"

"<I would advise you, Dr. Micheals, if you value the safety of this
human, you will tell your soldiers to put down their weapons.>" He
pulled Misty off his shoulder and held her up like a display in a
museum.

Micheals muttered something, then told the soldiers to put down their
weapons. Mewtwo took a few tentative steps backwards when one of the
soldiers got a little overzealous and pulled a handgun from behind him,
and fired a single shot at Mewtwo's head. He watched it slice through
the air in slow motion, waiting till it was only a few feet from his
head, then, using his mind, slowed the bullet till it hung in the air,
spinning around but not moving forward. He noticed the look of
surprise on the soldier's face, then turned the bullet around so it
faced the soldier. He was about to send it through his brain when a
voice rang out.

"No! Stop!"

It was Misty, with a look of surprise and horror on her face. She kept
switching her view from the bullet to Mewtwo to the soldier. Mewtwo
was about to kill the soldier, but something about the tone of her
voice told him it wouldn't solve anything. He cut his concentration
and let the bullet fall, then looked back at the soldier that fired it.

"<You should thank her...for saving your miserable life!>"

Before they could react, he ran past them for a few dozen yards, then
leaped into the air and flew away. Pidgeotto was the only one who saw
which direction he went.

Back at the entrance to the safari zone, Ash and Brock were waiting for
Pidgeotto to return when a cavalcade of trainers ran past them and down
the road.

"Hey! What's going on?" Ash asked one of the slower trainers.

"Haven't you heard?" was all he said before running faster.

Then a red car drove by, stopping a few feet from Ash. At first, he
thought he was in luck, but then he saw who was in the front of the
car.

"Gary!"

Gary turned around to see who it was, and he was pleasantly surprised.

"Ash! Five steps behind, as usual!"

"What do you mean? What's going on?"

"Haven't you heard? A pokémon escaped from a research lab on Cinnabar
island, and they're calling for all able pokémon trainers to capture
it. There's a reward of $50,000 for whoever brings it back alive."

"It must have been that pokémon we saw in the Safari Zone," Brock said.

"Too bad you'll never catch it with such weak pokémon. That reward
money is reserved especially for the greatest pokémon master: me!"

Pidgeotto returned just then, making sure to divebomb past Gary on his
way back to Ash. "Pidgeotto! Where did Misty go?" Pidgeotto made a
few screeches in the universal language of the pokémon, then Ash ran
off with Brock close behind. "We've got to get Misty back!"

"Yeah, but how can we beat such a strong pokémon?" Brock asked.

"I'll think of something!"