Day fifty-one, and Marcus was staring at a pill.
It was small. Unremarkable. A standard pharmaceutical capsule, approximately one centimeter long, its shell a translucent blue-green that caught the overhead light of the R&D lab and refracted it into tiny, dancing specks across the steel table. It looked like a vitamin supplement. It looked like something you'd buy at a pharmacy for three dollars and take with your morning orange juice because the label promised "enhanced energy and vitality" and you were too tired to question the marketing.
It was, according to the research team that had spent the past two weeks synthesizing it, the most significant breakthrough in Pokémon biology since the invention of the Poké Ball.
Dr. Ishida—the head of Team Rocket's genetic research division, a thin, intense man with wire-rimmed glasses and the perpetually haunted expression of a scientist who had seen too many impossible things and hadn't slept properly in weeks—stood across the table, holding a tablet loaded with data that he was gesturing at with the nervous energy of someone presenting a thesis to a committee that could either fund his life's work or have him quietly disappeared.
"The compound works by activating dormant genetic sequences," Ishida explained, swiping through charts and graphs that meant very little to Marcus but clearly meant everything to the scientist. "Every Pokémon carries what we call 'latent potential code'—genetic sequences that exist in their DNA but are never expressed under normal circumstances. These sequences encode for enhanced physical attributes, expanded energy reserves, deeper move pools, and in some cases, entirely new abilities."
"And the pill activates them," Marcus said.
"Yes, sir. The bio-data we extracted from Red's Pokémon was invaluable. His Pikachu, for example, has approximately 340% more active genetic code than a standard Pikachu. His Charizard is operating at nearly 400%. Whatever that boy is doing—whether it's his training methodology, his emotional bond, his... whatever it is—it's triggering a cascade of genetic activation that we've never observed in any other trainer's Pokémon."
Marcus nodded. He knew what Red was doing. Red had the Old Fire. The same thing Marcus had with Ace. The same cosmic bond that Groudon had recognized. Red just had it naturally, intuitively, without ever needing to understand what it was or how it worked.
"The pill replicates this activation artificially," Ishida continued. "A single dose triggers approximately 15-20% of a Pokémon's latent code. The effects are permanent—once the sequences are activated, they stay activated. Cumulative doses can push activation higher, though we recommend spacing them at least two weeks apart to allow the Pokémon's biology to stabilize between activations."
"Side effects?"
"Increased appetite, temporary lethargy during the integration period—usually twelve to twenty-four hours—and some emotional volatility as the Pokémon adjusts to its enhanced capabilities. Nothing dangerous. Nothing permanent."
Marcus picked up the pill. Turned it in his fingers. Such a small thing. Such an enormous implication.
"How many do we have?"
"The first batch produced forty-two pills. We can produce more as needed—the synthesis process is resource-intensive but scalable. Given Silph Co.'s pharmaceutical infrastructure—which, as you know, we now have access to—we could ramp up to several hundred per month within six weeks."
Several hundred per month. Enough to enhance every Pokémon in Team Rocket's arsenal. Enough to turn his organization's collective combat power from "competent but unremarkable" to "terrifying."
Marcus pocketed the pill. "I want twelve pills delivered to my office by tonight. The rest go into secure storage. Nobody touches them without my explicit authorization. Nobody outside this room knows they exist. If I find out that information about these pills has leaked—to anyone, inside or outside the organization—the consequences will be severe. Am I clear?"
Ishida swallowed. "Crystal clear, sir."
"Good work, Doctor. You've earned a bonus. Take a few days off. Sleep. You look like you're about to collapse."
Ishida blinked, apparently not accustomed to receiving both compliments and threats in the same thirty-second window. "Thank you, sir."
Marcus left the lab with twelve pills in his jacket pocket and a grin on his face that would have made a Gengar uncomfortable.
He administered the first pills that evening, in the privacy of the training facility, with the doors locked and the security cameras disabled.
Ace first.
Marcus knelt in front of his Persian, the pill balanced on his palm. Ace sniffed it—delicately, with the fastidious suspicion of a cat being offered something that might be food or might be an insult—and then, with the trust that only years of partnership could build, ate it from his hand.
The effect was not immediate. Ishida had said twelve to twenty-four hours for full integration. But within minutes, Marcus could see something happening. A subtle shift in the way Ace held herself. A sharpening of focus in her ruby eyes. A tightening of muscles that were already powerful, coiling beneath fur that seemed—was he imagining this?—slightly more lustrous than it had been moments ago.
Ace blinked. Shook her head. Made a soft, questioning mrow that was more confused than distressed.
"Easy, girl. It's working. Just let it happen."
Over the next hour, he administered pills to the rest of his main team.
Nidoking took his with the stoic acceptance of a warrior being handed a new weapon. The purple monarch swallowed the capsule, stood very still for approximately thirty seconds, and then flexed his claws. Sparks—actual sparks—danced between his fingers, and his Thunderbolt-capable horn crackled with a persistent, ambient electrical charge that hadn't been there before.
Nidoqueen took hers with maternal calm, nudging the pill into her mouth with her tongue and settling down on the training room floor with her eyes closed, her body processing the changes with the patient, unhurried grace she brought to everything.
Rhydon ate his pill, stared at the wall for ten seconds, and then headbutted it. The wall—reinforced concrete, designed to withstand Earthquake-level impacts—cracked. Not the hairline fractures of previous impacts. A crack. A real, structural, "we're going to need to call someone about this" crack that spiderwebbed outward from the impact point for three feet in every direction.
Rhydon looked at the crack with an expression of vague surprise, as if it hadn't expected that to happen and wasn't sure how to feel about it.
"That's new," Marcus said.
Beedrill took its pill mid-hover, plucking the capsule from Marcus's hand with its front legs and consuming it with insectoid efficiency. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Beedrill's wings, which normally buzzed at a frequency that was merely "fast," accelerated to a frequency that was "invisible." The bug Pokémon didn't just hover—it vibrated, its body blurring at the edges, its compound eyes blazing with an intensity that turned them from passive sensors into active targeting systems.
Kangaskhan took its pill and immediately tried to give half to its baby. Marcus intervened. "One each. Baby gets its own." He administered a half-dose to the pouch baby, which chewed the pill fragment with the enthusiastic, indiscriminate appetite of an infant that would eat literally anything and had once tried to consume a rock.
And finally, Dragonair.
Marcus held the pill up to his dragon, and Dragonair regarded it with the intelligent, evaluating gaze that had replaced Dratini's simple curiosity. The crystalline orbs on its body pulsed—a soft, rhythmic glow, like a heartbeat made of light—and Marcus could feel the dragon reaching out through their bond, sensing his intent, reading his emotions.
Trust me, Marcus projected. Not in words—in feeling. The same way he communicated with Kyogre and Groudon, except warmer, more personal, less "negotiating with a god" and more "asking a friend to take their medicine."
Dragonair ate the pill.
The reaction was immediate and dramatic.
Dragonair's body blazed. Not the soft, ambient glow of its orbs—a full-body luminescence that turned the dragon into a living beacon, its scales radiating blue-white light so intense that Marcus had to shield his eyes. The orbs on its throat and tail went from "pulsing gently" to "miniature suns," flooding the training room with light that cast razor-sharp shadows and made the air crackle with atmospheric energy.
The temperature dropped ten degrees in two seconds. Then rose fifteen degrees. Then dropped again. Dragonair's weather-manipulation ability was going haywire, the pill's activation of latent genetic code supercharging capabilities that were already extraordinary. Rain appeared from nowhere, falling in sheets inside the sealed training room. Then stopped. Then started again as snow. Then hail. Then brilliant, impossible sunshine that emanated from the dragon itself rather than any external source.
"Dragonair! Easy! Easy!"
The dragon thrashed—not in pain, but in overwhelm. Too much, too fast, too many new capabilities flooding its consciousness simultaneously. Its body lengthened, contracted, lengthened again—was it trying to evolve? No. Not yet. The pill didn't trigger evolution—but it was pushing Dragonair closer to that threshold, loading the spring, building the pressure.
Marcus grabbed Dragonair's head—both hands on either side of its face, fingers gripping the smooth, blazing-hot scales—and held on. "LOOK AT ME."
Dragonair's eyes found his. Wild, frightened, overwhelmed—but trusting. Still trusting. Through the chaos and the sensory overload and the terrifying, exhilarating rush of new power flooding every cell of its body, Dragonair still trusted him.
Marcus pushed calm through the bond. Not words. Not thoughts. Just calm. The deep, steady, unshakeable calm of a man who had caught two gods and wasn't going to lose his dragon to a vitamin.
Slowly—gradually—the chaos subsided. The weather effects faded. The light dimmed to a manageable glow. Dragonair's breathing steadied, its body relaxing, its eyes refocusing.
It chirped. Weakly. The Dragonair equivalent of "that was a lot."
"Yeah," Marcus agreed, his heart hammering. "That was a lot."
He held his dragon until the integration stabilized, and when he finally let go, the Dragonair that looked back at him was different. Not dramatically different—not visually, not obviously. But the presence was different. The ambient psychic weight of a Pokémon that was teetering on the edge of its final evolution, carrying power that was straining against the boundaries of its current form, waiting—waiting—for the moment when the spring would finally release.
Dragonair was going to become a Dragonite soon. Marcus could feel it. Not days. Not weeks.
Soon.
The next twelve hours were, to use a technical term, nuts.
Marcus had planned to space out the integration periods—give each Pokémon time to adjust individually, monitor them for adverse effects, take it slow and careful. What actually happened was that all seven Pokémon integrated simultaneously, in the same training room, and the result was a cacophony of enhanced abilities going off like fireworks at a festival.
Ace woke from her integration nap and immediately went into Resonance without Marcus triggering it. The bond-evolution activated on its own, responding to the enhanced genetic activation, and Resonance Ace was—Marcus checked his stopwatch—approximately 40% more powerful than she'd been in their last session. Her Power Gem punched through the reinforced training wall and continued through the wall behind that wall, creating a tunnel that led directly into the Team Rocket cafeteria and startled a group of grunts who had been eating lunch.
Nidoking's Thunderbolt output doubled. Not "increased significantly." Doubled. The electrical discharge from a single Thunderbolt overloaded the training room's power grid and blacked out the entire floor.
Nidoqueen's Ice Beam froze a training dummy so thoroughly that the dummy shattered when Kangaskhan—testing its enhanced Mega Punch—accidentally brushed against it while punching a different target on the other side of the room.
Beedrill moved so fast it created a sonic boom inside the training room. The shockwave knocked Marcus off his feet.
Rhydon's Earthquake cracked the building's foundation. Structural engineers were called. They were not happy.
And Dragonair's weather manipulation, now operating at its enhanced capacity, turned the training room into a rotating cycle of meteorological events—rain, sun, hail, sandstorm, rain again—that left Marcus standing in the center of a localized climate disaster zone, soaking wet, sunburned, pelted with ice, and covered in sand, watching his team discover their new capabilities with the kind of enthusiastic, destructive glee that children displayed when given power tools.
"EVERYONE STOP!"
They stopped. Seven Pokémon—enhanced, empowered, vibrating with barely contained potential—turned to look at their trainer, who was standing in a puddle of mixed rainwater and melted hail, his orange suit destroyed beyond salvaging, his hair pointing in seven different directions, his expression hovering somewhere between exasperation and awe.
"Okay," he said, wringing water out of his sleeve. "So the pills work."
Day fifty-two brought a message that made Marcus's morning coffee taste like champagne.
FROM: Kalos Geological Survey Team
TO: Giovanni, Director
SUBJECT: CONFIRMED FIND - PRIORITY ALPHA
Sir,
We found them.
Location: Terminal Cave, eastern Kalos. Depth: approximately 400 meters below surface. Embedded in a crystalline geological formation of unknown composition.
We have recovered the following items:
1. One (1) stone exhibiting energy signature consistent with "Mega Evolution" theoretical framework. Stone is amber-colored, spherical, approximately 3cm diameter. Exhibits resonance when brought within proximity of Kangaskhan DNA samples. TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION: Kangaskhanite.
2. One (1) stone, similar characteristics. Purple-black coloration. Exhibits resonance with Beedrill DNA samples. TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION: Beedrillite.
3. One (1) stone, similar characteristics. Blue-white coloration. Does not resonate with any DNA samples currently in our possession. Resonance pattern suggests Psychic-type affinity. UNIDENTIFIED.
4. One (1) stone, different from the above. Smaller, multifaceted, rainbow-spectral coloration. Exhibits resonance with HUMAN bio-signatures rather than Pokémon DNA. TENTATIVE IDENTIFICATION: Key Stone.
All items are in secure containment and ready for transport. Awaiting instructions.
Marcus set down his coffee cup with a click that echoed through the silent office like a gunshot.
Mega Stones.
Mega Stones.
Kangaskhanite. Beedrillite. An unidentified Psychic-type stone. And a Key Stone—the catalyst that trainers needed to trigger Mega Evolution, the conduit between human will and Pokémon potential.
He had them. After weeks of searching, after deploying teams across two continents, after investing millions in geological surveys and mineral extraction—he had them.
Mega Kangaskhan. The most broken Pokémon in competitive history. A Normal-type that gained the Parental Bond ability upon Mega Evolution, allowing it to hit twice with every attack—the mother and the baby attacking in tandem, each strike carrying the full force of Kangaskhan's devastating physical power. In the games, Mega Kangaskhan had been so overwhelmingly dominant that it had warped the entire metagame around itself, forcing every competitive team to either carry a counter for it or accept that they were going to lose to it.
And now Marcus was going to have one. In a world where Mega Evolution didn't exist yet. Where nobody knew what it was. Where nobody had any counter for it, because you couldn't counter something you'd never seen.
Mega Beedrill. The fastest Mega Evolution. Base 145 Speed, base 150 Attack, with the Adaptability ability that boosted same-type moves by an additional 33%. A Mega Beedrill using Poison Jab or U-Turn or Drill Run would hit with a force-to-speed ratio that made it essentially a guided missile with stingers. And his Beedrill, enhanced by the genetic potential pill, was already faster and stronger than any Beedrill in the world.
The combination would be obscene.
And the Key Stone. The piece that made it all possible. Without a Key Stone, the Mega Stones were just pretty rocks. With one, they were the keys to a level of power that this world wouldn't discover for another decade.
Marcus drafted his reply: Transport immediately. Maximum security. If those stones are lost or damaged in transit, the responsible parties will wish they had never been born. I do not say this as a threat. I say this as a meteorological forecast.
He sent the message, leaned back in his chair, and allowed himself exactly thirty seconds of pure, unrestrained giddiness before schooling his features back into Giovanni's commanding mask.
Thirty seconds was enough. He had things to do.
The report from Cinnabar arrived at noon.
Marcus opened it with the careful reverence he always brought to Mewtwo updates. Each one brought the awakening closer. Each one raised the stakes.
PROJECT M - STATUS UPDATE - DAY 51
Subject development: 89%.
Neural formation is complete. Repeat: neural formation is COMPLETE. The subject's brain is fully formed and is now in a maturation phase—the neural pathways are solidifying, the psychic energy channels are stabilizing, and the overall architecture is settling into its final configuration.
The numbers are staggering, sir. I've run the calculations seven times because I didn't believe them the first six.
Estimated psychic output at awakening: 12,400 terajoules.
For context: Alakazam, the strongest known Psychic-type, peaks at approximately 3.7 terajoules. The subject will be operating at roughly 3,350 times that level.
This is not a Pokémon, sir. This is a force of nature wearing a Pokémon's shape.
Projected awakening: 14-21 days.
The environmental modifications are complete. The awakening chamber has been transformed per Dr. Mori's specifications: living plants, natural wood surfaces, a water feature, soft lighting, and a window—we had to bore through sixty feet of rock to install it, but you said you wanted sunlight and sunlight is what you'll get.
Dr. Mori's first-contact protocol is finalized. When the subject wakes, the chamber will be empty except for two individuals: Dr. Mori and yourself. Dr. Mori will monitor from a discreet position. You will be the first thing the subject sees.
I must be honest, sir. I am terrified.
Not of the subject. Of failing the subject.
We created this being. We brought it into existence without its consent, designed it for a purpose it never chose. If we fail in this moment—if we treat it as a thing rather than a person, if we approach it with fear rather than welcome—it will know. It will know instantly, because it will be reading our minds before we've finished our first sentence.
And if it decides we are its enemies... nothing will stop it. Not the containment. Not the building. Not the mountain above us. Nothing.
Please be ready, sir.
Dr. Fuji
Fourteen to twenty-one days. Two to three weeks. The most powerful Pokémon in the world would open its eyes, and the first thing it would see would be Marcus's face.
He closed the report, stared at the wall for sixty seconds, and then pulled out his notebook.
MEWTWO AWAKENING - PREPARATION NOTES
What I need to project:
- Warmth. Genuine warmth. Not "I am glad you are useful" warmth. "I am glad you exist" warmth.
- Calm. The kind of calm that comes from certainty, not from suppressed fear. Mewtwo will read through faked calm in 0.001 seconds.
- No agenda. This is the hardest part. I DO have an agenda. I want Mewtwo on my team. But in the moment of first contact, the agenda needs to not exist. I need to be genuinely present, genuinely open, genuinely just... meeting someone new.
What I need to NOT project:
- Fear. Obviously.
- Ownership. Mewtwo is not my property. It is a being. If it decides to leave, it leaves. I cannot and will not try to contain it.
- Calculation. No strategic thinking. No "how can I use this." Just presence.
Can I actually do this?
He stared at the question for a long time.
Then he wrote: Yes. Because I actually do care. The strategy is real, but the caring is real too. They coexist. That's what makes me different from the original Giovanni. The original Giovanni saw Mewtwo as a weapon. I see it as a person who happens to be the most powerful weapon in the world. Person first. Weapon second. Always.
He closed the notebook.
Then he opened it again and added: Also, practice not thinking about Team Rocket for extended periods. Mewtwo will be reading my mind. If it finds the criminal empire in there, this whole thing is over. Mental compartmentalization drills. Start today.
The fossil report arrived while Marcus was doing mental compartmentalization exercises, which basically involved trying to think about nothing while a Persian judged him from the couch.
The report came from the Mt. Moon operation—specifically, from the archaeological team that had been cataloguing geological finds from the tunnels before Maxie's team had taken over the site and subsequently been shut down after the Team Magma leader proved incapable of not getting into fights with twelve-year-olds.
Most of the finds were standard—Moon Stones, the fossilized remains of ancient Pokémon (Kabuto and Omanyte specimens, mostly), and various mineral deposits of academic interest. But three items in the catalogue made Marcus sit up straight.
ITEM MT-2847: Fossilized specimen, unknown species. Skeletal structure suggests bipedal Pokémon, approximately 1.2 meters tall. Cranial structure shows unusual formations consistent with...
Marcus didn't need to read the rest. He recognized the description immediately.
Hisuian fossils.
Pokémon from the ancient Hisui region—the historical predecessor to modern Sinnoh, a land of primal wilderness and Pokémon that had adapted to a world far harsher and more dangerous than the present day. Hisuian Pokémon were, in the games, regional variants that existed only in Pokémon Legends: Arceus—ancient forms of familiar species, adapted to Hisui's unique environment, with different types, different abilities, and different evolutionary lines.
And here they were. Fossilized. Real. Buried in the tunnels of Mt. Moon, waiting for someone who knew what they were and had the resources to bring them back.
Marcus checked the rest of the catalogue. Three fossils total. Without full analysis he couldn't determine exactly which species they were from the descriptions alone, but the structural details suggested at least one was from a Hisuian variant.
Fossil resurrection technology existed. The museums in Pewter City and Cinnabar Island had fossil resurrection machines—devices that could extract DNA from fossilized remains and reconstruct a living Pokémon from the genetic template. The technology was well-established, widely available, and—crucially—something Marcus could access without raising suspicion.
He just needed a resurrection machine.
Cinnabar's was too close to the Mewtwo project—too many Rocket operatives, too much overlap. Using it would create connections he didn't want.
Pewter City's museum was the better option. And Pewter City's museum was, conveniently, operating without its primary patron.
Brock had left.
Marcus had received intelligence three days ago that Brock, the Pewter City Gym Leader, had closed his gym temporarily and departed to join Ash Ketchum on his journey. The gym was being run by Brock's father, a semi-retired trainer who had neither the interest nor the authority to manage the museum's research operations.
The museum itself was struggling. Without Brock's oversight and the gym's financial support, it was running on a skeleton budget, unable to fund new expeditions or maintain its equipment. The fossil resurrection machine—an expensive, temperamental piece of technology that required regular maintenance and calibration—was in danger of being decommissioned for lack of funding.
Marcus picked up his communicator.
"Get me the director of the Pewter City Museum of Science."
The call connected. The museum director—a harried-sounding man named Takeshi—answered with the wary politeness of someone who had been fielding calls from creditors.
"This is Giovanni, the Viridian City Gym Leader," Marcus said, deploying his most charming, most trustworthy, most "I am a respectable pillar of the community" tone. "I understand the museum has been facing some financial difficulties since Brock's departure."
Silence. Then, cautiously: "That's... accurate, yes. We've had to cut several programs. The fossil resurrection lab is barely operational."
"I'd like to help. I've recently become involved with Silph Co.—perhaps you've seen the news—and I'm looking to expand the company's involvement in scientific research. The Pewter Museum's work on fossil resurrection is exactly the kind of project that aligns with our goals. I'd like to propose a partnership: Silph Co. provides funding, equipment upgrades, and research staff. In return, we get access to the facility for our own fossil research."
"That's... that's incredibly generous, Mr. Giovanni. But what kind of fossil research?"
"I've come into possession of several unusual specimens that I believe may represent previously unknown ancient Pokémon species. I'd like to use the museum's resurrection technology to analyze and, if possible, restore them."
"Unusual specimens? From where?"
"Mt. Moon, originally. They were recovered during a geological survey that was unfortunately disrupted by criminal activity in the area."
Not technically a lie. The survey had been disrupted by criminal activity. The criminal activity had just happened to be conducted by a different criminal organization that Marcus had lured to the area specifically to serve as a distraction. Details.
Takeshi was quiet for a moment. Then: "Mr. Giovanni, if these specimens are genuinely unknown species, the scientific implications would be extraordinary. We'd be honored to partner with Silph Co. on this."
"Excellent. I'll have contracts drawn up by the end of the week. In the meantime, I'm going to send a team to upgrade your resurrection equipment. I want the best technology available—money is no object."
"I... yes. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, sir. This is—the museum has been struggling, and—thank you."
Marcus ended the call with the satisfaction of a man who had just acquired access to fossil resurrection technology through the perfectly legal and completely altruistic method of buying a struggling museum's cooperation with corporate sponsorship money.
Brock, wherever he was, would probably approve. The museum would be saved. Science would advance. Everyone benefited.
That Marcus's primary motivation was to resurrect ancient Pokémon variants for his personal team was a detail that nobody needed to know.
Day fifty-three. The Sabrina situation.
Marcus had been dreading this.
No. That wasn't the right word. He hadn't been dreading it. He'd been looking forward to it, because discussing Pokémon training methodology with another experienced trainer was genuinely interesting to him. The opportunity to learn from Kanto's most powerful Psychic-type specialist—to understand how psychic bonds between trainer and Pokémon worked, to explore the intersection between his Resonance ability and Sabrina's psychic sensitivity—was professionally invaluable.
It was a professional meeting. About Pokémon training. Between two Gym Leaders. That was what it was.
"You're wearing cologne," Domino observed as Marcus passed through the headquarters lobby on his way out.
"I always wear cologne."
"You're wearing more cologne. And you had your suit pressed. And you got a haircut."
"I'm meeting a fellow Gym Leader for a professional discussion about training methodology. Appearances matter in professional settings."
Domino stared at him.
Marcus stared back, genuinely confused by the intensity of her gaze.
"Sir," Domino said slowly, "are you aware that Sabrina is—"
"Running late. I know. That's why I need to leave now. Traffic in Saffron can be unpredictable."
"That's not what I—"
"Hold my calls, Domino. I'll be back by evening."
He walked out.
Behind him, Domino stood in the lobby, her expression cycling through a complex sequence of emotions—professional concern, personal jealousy, reluctant amusement, and a deep, abiding bewilderment at the fact that her boss—the most strategically brilliant man she had ever known, a man who could manipulate world leaders and catch gods and run a criminal empire with his eyes closed—was apparently completely blind to the most obvious romantic interest she had ever witnessed in her professional or personal life.
"He doesn't know," she said aloud, to no one. "He genuinely doesn't know."
She pulled out her communicator and sent a message to the Giovanni Appreciation Society's group chat:
Emergency meeting tonight. The Boss is going to Sabrina's gym. ALONE. For a "professional discussion." I need everyone to understand what I am saying. He thinks it is a PROFESSIONAL DISCUSSION. He is wearing COLOGNE. He got a HAIRCUT. He has NO IDEA. I am going to scream.
Forty-seven responses arrived within thirty seconds.
The Saffron City Gym was, architecturally, a masterpiece of psychic-themed design. The building was all clean lines and floating geometry, with walls that seemed to shift and phase when you looked at them from certain angles—an optical illusion, probably, though with a Psychic-type specialist running the place, you could never be entirely sure. The interior was a maze of teleportation pads that shuttled visitors between rooms in a disorienting network designed to test the mental fortitude of challengers.
Marcus navigated the teleportation maze with Giovanni's muscle memory guiding his feet. Warp pad, room transition, warp pad, room transition, warp pad—the sequence was complex but he'd done it before, and after thirty seconds of nauseating spatial displacement, he arrived in the gym's inner sanctum.
Sabrina was waiting for him.
She was standing in the center of the training arena—a large, open space with a polished wooden floor, high ceilings, and walls lined with psychic-dampening panels that prevented stray telekinetic energy from damaging the structure. The lighting was soft, warm, almost intimate—not the harsh fluorescents of most gym facilities but a gentle, golden glow that came from fixtures designed to mimic natural sunlight.
She had changed out of the outfit she'd worn at the League conference. What she was wearing now was—
Marcus's brain commenced its emergency shutdown sequence.
She was wearing a training outfit. That was the charitable description. It consisted of a fitted, sleeveless top in deep purple—the color of her eyes, of psychic energy, of Marcus's impending cognitive death—and form-fitting leggings in black. Athletic wear. Practical. Functional.
On a normal person.
On Sabrina, the outfit was—
The top was sleeveless, which meant Sabrina's arms were bare—toned, elegant arms that moved with the controlled grace of a martial artist and transitioned, at the shoulder, into a torso that was— Marcus was looking at the training arena. Very nice arena. Excellent flooring. Really top-notch woodwork.
"Giovanni." Sabrina's voice—low, warm, carrying that subtle psychic resonance that made his hindbrain sit up and purr—cut through his desperate inventory of architectural features. "Thank you for coming."
"Of course," Marcus said, his eyes fixed on a particularly fascinating wall panel approximately forty-five degrees to Sabrina's left. "I've been looking forward to this. The intersection of psychic bonding and physical training methodology is a subject I find extremely—"
"Interesting," Sabrina finished. She took a step toward him. "I find it interesting too."
She was closer now. Not inappropriately close—not yet—but close enough that Marcus's peripheral vision was picking up information that his conscious mind was desperately trying to firewall. The training top was— the top was—
The top was engaged in a battle it could not win. The fabric, designed for athletic movement, was constructed from a high-performance material that was meant to stretch, flex, and breathe. On Sabrina, it was doing all of those things and also screaming. Every thread was at its tensile limit, the purple fabric stretched so thin across the landscape of her chest that it was nearly translucent, the outline of every curve, every contour, every impossibility visible beneath the straining material like a topographical map of something that should not exist.
And the leggings. The leggings. Black, form-fitting, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination—not that Marcus's imagination needed any help, because what the leggings revealed was already beyond what imagination could produce. They clung to her hips, her thighs, her— Marcus's brain generated a critical error and rebooted in safe mode.
He was looking at her face. He was maintaining eye contact. He was a professional.
"Shall we begin?" Marcus said. His voice was perfectly steady. Giovanni's vocal cords did not betray him.
"Yes," Sabrina said. "Let's."
She smiled. That small, subtle, devastating smile that she'd deployed at the League conference. The one that made her violet eyes soften and her lips curve in a way that communicated things that Marcus's conscious mind refused to decode.
They began with a discussion of training philosophy. Marcus explained his approach—the emphasis on bond development, on emotional authenticity, on treating each Pokémon as an individual with unique needs and potential. He described Resonance in general terms, careful to share enough to be interesting without revealing enough to be exploitable.
Sabrina listened with the focused attention of someone who was hearing exactly what she wanted to hear. She asked insightful questions. She offered her own perspective on psychic bonds—how her connection with her Pokémon operated on a telepathic level, how she could feel their emotions and they could feel hers, how the depth of the bond directly correlated with the power of their psychic abilities.
It was, genuinely, one of the most intellectually stimulating conversations Marcus had ever had. Sabrina was brilliant. Her understanding of Pokémon psychology was light-years ahead of anyone else he'd spoken to, and her insights into the psychic dimension of the trainer-Pokémon bond were providing him with data that he couldn't have gotten from any other source.
He was so engrossed in the conversation that he forgot to be nervous about her proximity.
This was a mistake.
Because Sabrina had been getting closer throughout the discussion. Gradually, imperceptibly, one small step at a time—closing the distance between them with the patient, measured approach of a predator that knew its prey wasn't going to run because its prey didn't know it was being hunted.
They were now standing approximately eighteen inches apart.
Marcus was explaining his theory about the Old Fire—the ancient bond that Groudon had recognized—when Sabrina interrupted him.
"Show me."
"Show you what?"
"The Resonance. I want to feel it. Through my psychic senses." She raised her hand. "May I?"
She was asking permission to touch his forehead. A psychic's traditional method of establishing a direct mental link—skin contact, focused intent, psychic bridge between two minds.
Marcus hesitated. If Sabrina touched his mind directly, she might sense things he didn't want her to sense. Team Rocket. The orbs. The master plan.
But he'd been practicing mental compartmentalization for days. And the opportunity to have a powerful psychic directly observe Resonance was too valuable to pass up.
"Alright," he said. "But I should warn you—the bond with my Persian is intense. It might be overwhelming."
"I can handle overwhelming," Sabrina said, and the way she said "overwhelming"—low, warm, with a slight emphasis on the second syllable that turned a mundane word into something that sounded like it belonged in a very different kind of conversation—made Marcus's hindbrain send a memo to his forebrain that his forebrain immediately deleted without reading.
He released Ace from her ball. The Persian materialized between them, looked at Sabrina, looked at Marcus, and performed the feline equivalent of a knowing smirk.
"I'm going to activate Resonance," Marcus said. "Watch through your psychic senses. Tell me what you see."
He focused. Reached for the bond. Found the warmth, the trust, the genuine love he had for Ace—his first partner in this world, his companion, his friend. The gold thread of connection between them blazed to life.
Ace transformed. The Resonance engaged—faster, stronger, more vivid than ever before. The pill's genetic enhancement had amplified the bond, deepened the connection, pushed Resonance to a level that Marcus hadn't reached before. Ace's fur blazed with golden light. Her eyes became twin suns. Her body coiled with power that made the air around her hum.
And Sabrina gasped.
Not a small gasp. A full-body, eyes-wide, lips-parted, trembling gasp that shook her from head to toe and made her psychic aura—normally invisible, but momentarily flaring into the visual spectrum—blaze violet around her body like a corona.
"I can feel it," she breathed. Her eyes were glowing—actually glowing, the violet irises luminous with channeled psychic energy. "The bond. It's—Giovanni, it's beautiful. It's like—like fire, but not destructive. Creative. Generative. It's—"
She stepped forward. Closer. Much closer. Her hand was still raised, reaching for his forehead, but her body was—her entire body was—
Marcus, focused on maintaining Resonance, did not notice that Sabrina had entered his personal space.
He did not notice that her hand, reaching for his forehead, was trembling.
He did not notice that her breathing had accelerated, that her pupils were dilated, that her psychic aura was pulsing in a rhythm that had nothing to do with academic observation and everything to do with the fact that she was standing twelve inches away from a man she found devastatingly attractive while experiencing, through her psychic senses, the most powerful emotional bond she had ever witnessed.
"Can I—" Sabrina started.
"Of course, go ahead and—" Marcus stepped forward to give her better access to his forehead.
Sabrina stepped forward at the same time.
Their trajectories intersected.
It happened faster than the Luna incident.
One moment Marcus was standing upright, focused on Resonance, his mind on Ace and the Old Fire and the scientific implications of psychic observation. The next moment, he had stepped directly into Sabrina, and Sabrina—who was taller than Luna, who was built on a scale that made Luna look restrained—had not stepped back.
Marcus's face hit first. Then his shoulders. Then his entire upper torso, driven forward by momentum and the sheer gravitational inevitability of walking into something that occupied this much physical space.
He vanished.
Completely.
The world went dark. Warm. Soft. Impossibly, overwhelmingly, cosmically soft, a softness that was not merely a texture but an experience—a full-body immersion in a medium so yielding, so encompassing, so fundamentally absolute that Marcus's brain didn't even attempt to process it. It simply shut down, hung a "Gone Fishing" sign on the door, and left his body to fend for itself.
His face was buried. His shoulders were engulfed. His arms were pinned. Every square inch of his upper body that was in contact with Sabrina—and there were many square inches, because the volume that had consumed him was vast enough to make "square inches" feel like an inadequate unit of measurement—was experiencing a sensory input so intense that it existed somewhere beyond the spectrum of human perception, in a range that could only be described as "transcendent."
She was warm. Not just physically warm—psychically warm. Sabrina's body radiated a subtle psychic energy that Marcus could feel through his skin, a gentle, pulsing warmth that seeped into his muscles, his bones, his mind, dissolving tension he didn't know he was carrying and replacing it with a calm so profound it bordered on sedation.
She smelled like lavender. And something else—something underneath the lavender, something that was purely Sabrina, a scent that Marcus's hindbrain registered and catalogued and filed under a heading that his forebrain would never be allowed to access.
And she was soft. So soft that the word "soft" committed seppuku in shame at its inadequacy and was replaced by a void where language used to be. The flesh surrounding Marcus's face, his head, his shoulders—pressed against him from every direction, yielding but substantial, giving but not collapsing, warm and alive and present in a way that made the concept of "the rest of the world" feel abstract and unimportant.
He could hear her heartbeat. Rapid. Much more rapid than resting. A quick, excited, thrilled rhythm that communicated, more clearly than any words, that the owner of this heartbeat was not experiencing this moment as an accident.
Marcus tried to pull back.
Sabrina's arms came up.
They wrapped around his back—not tentatively, not hesitantly, but with the decisive, confident grip of a woman who was, in addition to being a Psychic-type Gym Leader with the power to bend spoons with her brain, apparently also in possession of upper body strength that was completely disproportionate to her slender arms. Her hands flattened against his shoulder blades. Her fingers spread. And she pulled.
Not violently. Not desperately. Gently. Firmly. The way you'd pull a pillow closer when settling into bed. The way you'd hug something precious that you'd been waiting to hold.
Marcus sank deeper.
His entire head was now fully enclosed. His ears were covered—all sound muffled to a distant, dreamy hum except for Sabrina's heartbeat, which was everywhere, surrounding him, resonating in his skull like a second pulse. His face was pressed against skin that was smooth and warm and smelled like lavender and psychic energy and Sabrina.
And then she hummed.
Not a hum of effort or exertion. A hum of contentment. A low, melodic vibration that started in her chest—her chest, which was currently serving as Marcus's entire universe—and radiated outward through the flesh surrounding him, through his skin, through his bones, into his very consciousness. It was a sound that bypassed ears entirely and was felt rather than heard—a psychic lullaby, unconscious and instinctive, the sound of a powerful telepath expressing pure, unguarded happiness.
The hum was accompanied by a psychic impression—unintentional, leaked through the physical contact between their bodies, Sabrina's psychic barriers lowered in a moment of genuine emotion. Marcus felt it wash over him like warm water:
Finally. You're here. I've been waiting. You're warm. You're so warm. Don't move. Stay. Stay stay stay.
The impression was so clear, so unguarded, so naked in its longing that Marcus's brain—which had been completely offline for the past several seconds—jolted back to awareness with the digital equivalent of a car alarm.
"MMMMPH," Marcus said.
Sabrina hummed louder.
"MMMMMMMPH."
"Hmm?" The vibration of her voice traveled through her chest and directly into Marcus's skull.
He managed to turn his head approximately one degree—a heroic feat given the compressive forces at play—and found a tiny pocket of air near what he estimated was the junction of her chest and her arm.
"Sabrina."
"Yes?"
"I can't breathe."
A pause. The humming stopped. The arms loosened—fractionally. Enough for Marcus to extract his face from the depths and emerge, gasping, into the light.
He staggered backward. Three steps. Four. Put distance between himself and the Gym Leader who had just absorbed 60% of his body mass into her anatomy and held him there while humming a psychic lullaby.
He blinked. Straightened his suit. Ran a hand through his hair, which was pointing in directions that hair should not point.
Sabrina stood before him, her cheeks flushed a deep rose, her violet eyes bright and slightly unfocused, her hands—the hands that had just held him with a grip that could have restrained a Machamp—clasped in front of her in a pose of entirely unconvincing innocence.
"I apologize," she said. She did not sound apologetic. She sounded like a woman who had just gotten away with something and was struggling to contain her satisfaction. "I lost my balance."
"You lost your balance."
"Yes."
"And your arms wrapped around me because..."
"Reflexive stabilization."
"And the humming?"
"A psychic centering technique. Standard practice."
Marcus looked at Sabrina. Sabrina looked at Marcus. The silence between them was thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Right," Marcus said. "Well. I think we covered a lot of useful ground today regarding training methodology. The psychic observation of Resonance was particularly valuable. I'll review my notes and follow up with any additional questions via email."
Sabrina blinked. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Email," she repeated.
"Yes. Professional correspondence. Very efficient. Thank you for your time, Sabrina. This was a productive meeting."
He recalled Ace—who was sitting on the arena floor, Resonance long since faded, watching the proceedings with the flat, unimpressed stare of a cat that had seen everything and was deeply disappointed in all of it—and turned toward the exit.
"Giovanni."
He paused at the door. "Yes?"
"Next week. Same time. I have more to show you." The way she said "show you" carried approximately seventeen layers of meaning, of which Marcus detected exactly one: the professional layer.
"Looking forward to it."
He left.
Sabrina stood alone in her gym, her hands pressed to her burning cheeks, her psychic aura flickering wildly around her body like a candle in a hurricane.
Her Alakazam—which had been meditating in the corner throughout the entire encounter—opened one eye, regarded its trainer with an expression that could only be described as "long-suffering," and telekinetically offered her a glass of water.
She drank the entire glass without pausing for breath.
"His mind," she whispered to Alakazam. "When I touched it—when I felt the Resonance—it was the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. Like touching the sun. Like—"
She stopped. Her eyes glazed over slightly. A dreamy, completely unprofessional smile spread across her face.
Alakazam sighed. It was a very human sigh for a Pokémon that communicated primarily through telepathy. It conveyed, with remarkable eloquence, the sentiment: We are going to be doing this for a while, aren't we.
Marcus's communicator buzzed on the helicopter ride back to Viridian. A message from Red.
He opened it, immediately focused. Red never contacted him unless it was important.
Giovanni,
I've been tracking Archie and Maxie for two weeks. They're difficult to pin down. Every time I find one of their operations and shut it down, they've moved to a new location by the time I get there. They're mobile, they're unpredictable, and they keep splitting their forces in ways that make it impossible to engage both simultaneously.
I need their base locations. If I can hit their main bases, I can shut down their operations permanently. Do you have this information?
Red.
Marcus read the message twice. Then he leaned back in his seat and smiled.
Red wanted the base locations. Red wanted to end Archie and Maxie.
Which meant Red was done playing defense. The kid was going on the offensive—which, in terms of Marcus's plans, was perfect timing.
Archie and Maxie had served their purpose. They had distracted Red for weeks, drawing the boy's attention and energy away from Team Rocket's operations while Marcus consolidated power, caught gods, bought corporations, and enhanced his team. Every day that Red had spent chasing eco-terrorists through Kanto's countryside was a day he hadn't spent investigating the real criminal organization operating under his nose.
But the distractions were reaching their expiration date. Archie and Maxie, despite being idiots, were also dangerous idiots—their continued presence in Kanto created risks. The more they operated, the more attention they drew, and the more likely it was that someone—the League, the International Police, or Red himself—would start asking uncomfortable questions about why these organizations had come to Kanto in the first place and who had invited them.
Better to let Red clean them up. Wrap a bow on the whole operation. Let the kid take out the trash.
Marcus typed his reply:
Red,
Archie's primary base is on the eastern shore of the Seafoam Islands, in a cave system accessible only by water. He has approximately thirty operatives and a small fleet of boats. His personal quarters are in the deepest chamber, near a freshwater spring.
Maxie's primary base is in the lower levels of Mt. Moon, section C-7, accessible through a hidden passage behind the large boulder formation on the third sublevel. He has approximately forty operatives and has been using the cave's natural formations as laboratory space.
Both leaders will likely be at their bases in the evening hours. Archie conducts "team morale exercises" (which I believe involves group swimming) at sunset. Maxie conducts "research reviews" (which involves him lecturing his subordinates for two hours) after dinner.
Be careful. These are desperate men with dangerous Pokémon. But I believe in you, Red. End this.
Giovanni
He sent the message with the pleasant satisfaction of a man sending a guided missile toward two targets that had outlived their usefulness.
Then, because he was thorough, he sent a second message—to Sable.
Archie and Maxie are about to be removed. Ensure all Rocket assets and operatives in both locations are extracted before Red arrives. Nothing connecting us to either base. Clean exit. You have forty-eight hours.
Red would find Team Aqua and Team Magma's bases. Red would defeat Archie and Maxie. Red would be the hero. The League would celebrate. The threat would be neutralized.
And nobody—not Red, not the League, not Archie, not Maxie, not anyone—would ever know that the entire operation, from start to finish, had been orchestrated by the man Red trusted most.
As if to punctuate the beautiful irony of the situation, Marcus's surveillance feeds captured one final, glorious moment from the Archie-Maxie saga before the curtain fell.
It happened at 3 PM on a road between Cerulean City and Mt. Moon, where Archie, traveling with a small escort of Team Aqua grunts, physically ran into Maxie, traveling with a small escort of Team Magma grunts, at an intersection.
Marcus watched the feed with popcorn. He had literally asked the cafeteria for popcorn.
"MAXIE!" Archie roared, his voice carrying across the surveillance microphones with the clarity of a foghorn. "What are YOU doing on MY road?!"
"YOUR road?!" Maxie sputtered, adjusting his glasses so aggressively that they briefly went diagonal on his face. "This is a PUBLIC THOROUGHFARE and it runs through LAND which is MY DOMAIN because I am the champion of CONTINENTAL EXPANSION and—"
"CONTINENTAL EXPANSION IS JUST A FANCY WAY OF SAYING YOU WANT TO PAVE OVER THE OCEAN!"
"AND OCEANIC PRESERVATION IS JUST A FANCY WAY OF SAYING YOU WANT TO DROWN EVERYONE!"
They stood in the middle of the road, two grown men, two leaders of international criminal organizations, screaming at each other about the relative merits of land versus water while their respective grunts stood awkwardly behind them, trying not to make eye contact with the opposing team.
"Giovanni INVITED ME here!" Archie bellowed. "He RESPECTS the sea! He UNDERSTANDS the importance of marine conservation! He chose ME to help Kanto!"
"Giovanni invited ME!" Maxie fired back. "He recognizes the SCIENTIFIC VALUE of geological research! He chose ME because I am a GENIUS and you are a FISH-OBSESSED BUFFOON!"
Marcus ate popcorn.
Neither of them questioned why Giovanni had invited both of them. Neither of them considered the possibility that being invited to the same region by the same person to do contradictory things might indicate manipulation. Neither of them paused, even for a moment, to think about whether they were being used.
They were too busy arguing about water.
The confrontation escalated into a Pokémon battle—a messy, chaotic, poorly strategized brawl between Archie's Water-types and Maxie's Fire-types that tore up the road and traumatized a flock of Pidgey. Neither side won decisively. Both sides declared victory. Both leaders retreated to their respective bases, more convinced than ever that the other was the true enemy and that Giovanni was their greatest ally.
Marcus finished his popcorn.
"Beautiful," he said. "Absolutely beautiful."
Ace, lying on the couch, purred in agreement.
Dragonair, coiled on the floor, chirped.
Boss, on the windowsill, watched the sunset with the patient, knowing gaze of a cat that understood that the world was ridiculous and found it endlessly entertaining.
In forty-eight hours, Red would destroy both bases. Archie and Maxie would be driven from Kanto, defeated and humiliated, their organizations crippled, their grand plans in ruins. They would go home to Hoenn, lick their wounds, and eventually resume their eternal, pointless conflict over the merits of land versus water.
They would never know they'd been pawns.
They would never know about the orbs, sitting in Giovanni's vault, pulsing with the power of gods they had spent their entire lives seeking and would never find.
They would never know about any of it.
And that was how Giovanni liked it.
He closed the surveillance feeds, filed the footage for later amusement, and turned his attention to the next item on his agenda.
Fossil resurrection. Mega Stones. Mewtwo. The future.
The grind continued.
The grind was glorious.
END OF CHAPTER 7
Next Chapter: The fossil resurrection produces something unexpected and ancient and terrifying, Marcus receives the Mega Stones and Key Stone and tests Mega Evolution for the first time, Red destroys Archie and Maxie's bases in spectacular fashion, and the countdown to Mewtwo's awakening enters its final days as Marcus prepares for the most important meeting of his life—with a newborn god.