Chapter 162. The Showdown Between Clones and Originals
"So scary, meow!"
Seeing Ash Ketchum leave, Meowth latched onto Natsume's leg.
"By the way, Team Rocket, why are you here?"
Misty eyed the bedraggled trio with curiosity.
They seemed to have gone through something untellable, dripping wet and giving off a faint stench.
"Don't bring it up.
Boss Giovanni said Mewtwo might come back here, so he sent us over," James said, crestfallen.
"Hmph, this mess was caused by Team Rocket in the first place.
And Giovanni is taking it this lightly?" Brock bristled.
"What do you mean 'taking it lightly'?
Listen up, twerp: we're the Team Rocket Special Operations Unit, and we answer only to Boss Giovanni!" Jessie roared back, full of bluster.
Beside them, Natsume's expression turned odd.
Giovanni knows where Mewtwo came back to.
Well, of course—this is New Island, where Mewtwo was created.
There's definitely a chance it would return here.
If you come check on purpose, you'll know whether Mewtwo's here.
But Giovanni only sent the Team Rocket trio.
Natsume felt something was off.
Giovanni's pursuit of Mewtwo didn't seem that serious.
In fact, it even felt like he didn't care.
"Mew, I will defeat you."
Mewtwo's eyes narrowed, and a blue sphere of light bloomed in its hand.
Quietly, Natsume opened the Divinity logging function.
[Detected Genetic Authority.
Please collect sufficient battle data to log—logging in progress.]
Boom—
The light sphere crashed at Mew, only to be dissolved again by the pink bubbles it blew.
"Why won't you fight back?"
After several attacks in a row, Mew kept relying on defense and evasion.
Mewtwo couldn't understand it.
"Myuu, myuu!"
Mew spoke, seemingly conversing with Mewtwo.
After listening, Mewtwo froze in place.
"Natsume, what is Mew saying?"
"No idea," Natsume shook his head.
No helping it—his psychic power was hard to exert right now, and telepathy was even harder to use on a wary Psychic-type Pokémon.
"Mew makes a lot of sense, meow!" Meowth nodded in agreement.
"You understand it!?" Natsume blinked.
That Meowth could understand ordinary Pokémon speech could be chalked up to study.
But why could it also understand Mew?
"Sure.
What's so strange about that?
Once you've learned dozens of Pokémon languages, the rest naturally start to interconnect, meow!
As long as it's within the same linguistic system, even if you haven't learned it, you can roughly get the meaning, meow!" Meowth said smugly, waving a paw.
"Oh."
Natsume's eyes narrowed.
He suddenly felt Meowth was the most suitable professor for Pokémon linguistics at a school.
"Mew means that whether clone or original, they're the same.
If you don't use moves, your bodies are identical.
You won't win and you won't lose—mmph!"
Before Meowth could finish translating, Mewtwo sealed his mouth with telekinesis.
"Shut up!"
A burst of raging telekinesis erupted.
Everyone felt a strong wind lash their faces and couldn't open their eyes.
"Clones are optimized.
They're stronger than the originals!"
As Mewtwo finished, the clone Pokémon behind it charged.
Mew shook its head, and the original Pokémon behind it charged as well.
Almost to refute Mew's words, the clone Pokémon did not use moves.
Both sides brawled with their bodies alone.
Bulbasaur butted heads with Bulbasaur.
Two Rhyhorn locked horns and pushed.
Natsume had checked with his system: these clones generally had slightly higher individual values than the originals.
At first he thought they'd added some "booster" during cloning.
But now, it looked like this was just the function of Genetic Authority.
Because the moment Mew appeared, the originals' individual values also rose.
Now, the originals and the clones were truly identical!
"Gyarados, don't fight!
I can raise two of you!" a burly Trainer shouted, but for some reason, the fighting only grew fiercer.
"This is so heartbreaking.
It's completely unnecessary…" Misty wiped away tears.
Mew faced off against Mewtwo.
Original Pokémon faced off against clone Pokémon.
Chaotic, and yet there was a kind of order.
As if guided by tacit understanding, everyone found the other version of themselves.
Except for one big lug.
"Uuu—"
The big Dragonite stood there, dazed, and rubbed the horn on its head.
Its intelligence wasn't enough to grasp what was happening now.
But it knew everyone had a playmate—except itself.
Dragonite was very angry.
Thump—thump—thump!
In a corner, two Psyduck were whacking each other with bricks.
You smack me once with a brick, then I take the brick and smack you once.
They alternated with uncanny harmony.
The next second, whoosh, the bricks were snatched away.
"Psy?"
"Psy?"
The two Psyduck looked up into a snarling face dripping with blood-sweat.
"Psy-psy!"
They hugged each other, shivering.
Dragonite felt bored and drifted among the battling Pokémon.
Suddenly, it spotted a Pikachu.
Dragonite thought it was center-parted, brightened, and went over.
"Pika!"
Slap—slap—slap—
Up close, it was Ash's Pikachu and another Pikachu.
The other Pikachu was slapping Ash's Pikachu across the face, one smack after another.
Ash's Pikachu's eyes were brimming with tears, but it didn't fight back.
Dragonite tilted its head.
It didn't get it.
But center-parted's boss had told it: Pikachu = companion.
Companion = something Dragonite must protect.
Dragonite's face hardened.
The furrows on its face rose, and droplets of blood-sweat fell.
"Pika-pika-pika!"
Why aren't you fighting back!
The other Pikachu kept slapping Ash's Pikachu.
In the next instant, a fierce, grim, blood-reeking silhouette surged up behind Ash's Pikachu.
The savage aura made all the battling Pokémon around them pause.
Needless to say, the Pikachu locked onto by Dragonite froze.
"Pika!"
That Pikachu sat down, trembling.
Just as Dragonite's fist was about to come down, Ash's Pikachu stepped in front of it.
"Pika, pika!"
Ash's Pikachu shook its head at Dragonite.
The other Pikachu stared blankly at Ash's Pikachu.
"Pika?"
Whatever it heard, that terrifying Dragonite pulled back, turned, and left.
On the sidelines, Natsume rubbed his nose.
How did his Dragonite feel like it had the Intimidate Ability even though it didn't?
Up in the sky, Mewtwo and Mew's battlefield climbed higher and higher, and they were already out of sight.
"Meowth is still so scared, meow!"
Meowth clung to Natsume's leg again.
Although Dragonite had stopped a few fights, most of the Pokémon were still locked in duels.
Dragonite got bored again, found center-parted napping in a corner of the arena, lifted it onto its head, and stood unmoving at Natsume's side.
"Repelling one's own kind—so long as there's no group-living trait, most wild Pokémon will fight when they meet members of their own species.
It's the law of nature."
Natsume shook his head slightly.
The Divinity logging progress kept accelerating, but far too slowly.
Natsume decided to add something stronger.
"No way, meow.
Meowth has no territorial instinct.
I won't fight, meow."
As Meowth spoke, it suddenly noticed another Meowth had wrapped itself around Natsume's other leg.
"Who are you, meow?
Do you know this is my turf, meow!"
Meowth flared up, claws bared.
"Meow."
The other Meowth licked its paw, ignoring the threat.
"You're right, meow.
Claws hurt when they rake into your body, meow.
Your claws would hurt me too, meow."
Meowth lowered its head, suddenly dejected.
"Natsume, what do we do?
We can't get involved at all!" Brock ran back.
Behind him, two Geodude were going all out against each other.
"Handling Pokémon brawls, huh…"
Natsume recalled the frequent scuffles at Professor Oak's Laboratory.
He nodded and stepped into the arena.
"Stop fighting.
You won't kill each other like this—"
A while later, Natsume came back with a black eye and a swollen nose.
"No good.
The moment I spoke up, they fought even harder."
"What did you say?"
"To those two Venusaur, I said: don't ram your flower buds together—that's a courtship behavior.
And to those two Machamp, don't grab each other's wrists, or people will gossip."
Brock's mouth twitched.
"Then what, are we just going to watch?"
Misty, anxious, hauled the two Psyduck over.
Thanks to Dragonite's little episode, the two former-enemies Psyduck were now clinging tight, still trembling.
Seeing this, Natsume nodded.
"At least it shows the conflict isn't utterly irreconcilable, doesn't it?"
"Sounds right, meow."
Meowth glanced at that zen-like clone Meowth, then proudly puffed out its chest.
"Obviously I, Meowth, am naturally full of wisdom.
That clone can only get along so well with my clone because of Meowth's wisdom, meow!"
"Bibarel!"
A Bibarel tugged on Meowth's fur and handed over a card.
"Pokémon Gwent.
We're short one for five.
Two tables?"
Meowth looked back, baffled.
In a corner behind them, seven Bibarel were seated at two tables, each holding a hand of cards.
"…"
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