"Healing Grace!"
Ash whispered the words in his mind.
Hummm—
Under the tense, breath-held gazes of everyone in the laboratory, Ash's hand began to glow with a soft, crystalline emerald-green light.
A strange yet familiar force—brimming with natural vitality—flowed out and was injected directly into the fertilized egg.
The researchers didn't linger on Ash's glowing hand for long. Instead, they immediately turned back to the experimental consoles, carrying out a series of operations Ash couldn't understand.
Very soon, a holographic projection appeared above the lab table.
On the screen was a spiraling, distorted DNA helix.
But unlike a normal genetic chain, this one felt profoundly unnatural—
as if it had been crudely stitched together from fragments of Pokémon genes and human genes, forcibly fused into a single structure.
Beyond its eerie appearance, there was an even more obvious problem:
The DNA chain was extremely unstable—
so fragile it looked as if it could collapse and shatter at any moment.
However, as Ash continued channeling Healing Grace, infusing the fertilized egg with the Viridian Power—Natural Affinity , that fragile genetic helix began to change.
It slowly stabilized.
Slowly harmonized.
On the holographic chromosome scan, as the DNA strands settled into balance, smiles bloomed across the faces of every researcher present.
"Ash, that's enough. You can stop now."
Based on the real-time monitoring data, Dr. Fuji confirmed that not only had the genetic chain stabilized, but the entire fertilized egg had been restored to a healthy state thanks to Ash's power.
Dr. Fuji immediately called out to stop him—before Ash pushed himself any further.
After all, too much of anything was dangerous.
Adequate life energy ensured healthy development and accelerated growth.
But excessive vitality could just as easily lead to catastrophic imbalance.
"Hah… hah…"
Ash halted the Healing Art.
Sweat poured down his face as he stepped away from the lab table, his entire body swaying as if he might collapse at any second.
This wasn't an act.
This was his true condition.
Ash had originally thought that healing a single fertilized egg wouldn't take much effort.
But in reality, the process had been astonishingly exhausting.
The strain manifested in two ways.
First—
The sheer energy consumption required to heal the egg was enormous.
Second—
As he used Viridian Power to stabilize the genetic chains, Ash felt an invisible, overwhelming resistance pushing back against him.
It was as if Mewtwo's very existence violated natural law—
too defiant, too blasphemous—
As though the world itself did not wish for Mewtwo to be born.
Throughout the healing process, Ash wasn't just expending terrifying amounts of energy—
he was also locked in a silent struggle against that unseen resistance.
And during that struggle, doubt crept into his heart.
Was helping Team Rocket create Mewtwo…
right or wrong?
The reason Ash had agreed to help Team Rocket in the first place was simple:
He wasn't strong enough yet.
He needed time to grow.
If he tore relations apart with Team Rocket now, he couldn't guarantee his own safety—
let alone the safety of his mother, Delia Ketchum.
For now, he needed to maintain a carefully balanced relationship with Team Rocket—
neither ally nor enemy, ambiguous yet relatively safe.
Secondly—
When Ash had guessed that the Pokémon Team Rocket wanted him to "heal" was Mewtwo, he had still chosen to accept.
Why?
Because having seen the original story, he knew Team Rocket would eventually create Mewtwo.
He believed it was inevitable—and assumed Mewtwo had already been born.
But reality proved otherwise.
The Mewtwo Project had not yet truly begun.
Mewtwo wasn't even an embryo—only fragmented genetic material.
By secretly listening to the researchers' thoughts, Ash learned something even more critical:
Team Rocket only had this single remaining sample of Mew's genes.
If Ash wanted to sabotage the experiment—
He absolutely could.
He alone had the power to decide whether Mewtwo would be born… or never exist at all.
So the question became unavoidable:
Should he help Team Rocket create Mewtwo?
Ash knew the original story all too well.
Mewtwo was the crystallization of Team Rocket's ambition.
Fans loved Mewtwo—his power, his presence, his tragedy—
But anyone who truly understood the story also knew this:
Because Mewtwo was created by human scientists using Mew's genes,
he was plagued by confusion over his own identity.
For a very long time, Mewtwo lived in pain.
To Mewtwo, Team Rocket was the root of that suffering.
If Ash helped Team Rocket create Mewtwo, then—
wasn't he also an accomplice?
Ash had once hoped Mewtwo would be born so that, one day, Mewtwo might turn against Team Rocket—
crippling or even destroying it.
But if Mewtwo discovered that Ash himself had played a role in his creation—
Would Mewtwo destroy Team Rocket…
and then destroy Ash as well?
Team Rocket vs. Mewtwo.
There was no question that Mewtwo was terrifyingly powerful.
As an individual being, Mewtwo wasn't as structurally dangerous as Team Rocket, whose roots ran deep through human society.
Team Rocket, after all, was still bound—at least partially—by the rules of the human world.
Ash could ally himself with upper-tier families and financial conglomerates tied to Team Rocket, using shared interests as a protective shield.
But Mewtwo was a Pokémon.
He existed outside human social order.
He was bound by none of those rules.
If Mewtwo truly decided to kill Ash—
there would be nothing Ash could do to stop it.
—Mewtwo was dangerous.
—Mewtwo was suffering.
—The will of the world resisted Mewtwo's birth.
By all logic, Ash should have sabotaged Team Rocket and prevented Mewtwo from ever coming into existence.
But—
Ash was standing inside Team Rocket's underground base.
Behind him stood Giovanni, a Champion-level powerhouse.
If Ash tried anything clever now, even Charizard couldn't protect him.
Mewtwo was the embodiment of Giovanni's ambition.
Its importance to Giovanni was beyond question.
If Ash pulled any tricks here, he would be openly tearing relations apart with Team Rocket.
Giovanni would never let him walk away.
At that point, Ash might not even survive long enough to see Team Rocket move against his family.
Mewtwo's suffering.
Mewtwo's danger.
The world's resistance to his birth.
Compared to his own survival—
What did any of that matter?
In the end, Ash was a person who placed his own interests first.
A selfish person.
And just as Ash finally made up his mind—
deciding to pour everything he had into helping Team Rocket bring Mewtwo into existence—
That invisible resistance…
vanished.
As if the world itself had reconsidered.
As if the will of the Pokémon world had decided that, despite how unnatural Mewtwo was—
His existence still held value.
That the Pokémon world…
needed Mewtwo.
--------------
T/N:
Access Advance Chapters on my
P@treon: [email protected]/PokePals