[16:15 – 30 July – Battle Group 151 Extension Hanger, Sovereign Base]

Nicholas felt queasy as he rode the elevator down. He wasn't sure if it was the fast drop of the lift or a tightening of his chest as he thought about what had happened.

The information they had been getting had been confused, partial signals, corrupted transmissions, bursts of static, at least one scream. Then after too long without word a message broke through that things had gone completely to hell and in some small way he had felt complicit.

He stared at his reflection in the metal of the sliding doors as the decent indicator pulsed. His light brown, almost ginger hair combed neatly, pale skin not quite but coming close to matching his white uniform that was as crisp as ever. He looked professional, in control, like someone who knew what they were doing. It was impossible to hide the tiredness in his eyes however, too many late nights were taking a toll.

There was a thrum as electromagnetic breaks came on and slowed the drop of the lift suddenly, making Nicholas definitely feel his stomach take another leap as the doors opened to the short corridor and hall beyond.

The big equipment bay had a smell that reminded him of his parent's garage with overtones of fur shampoo that brought back memories of growing up caring for his family's Houndour. The sound of his approach drew the attention of several sets of eyes, none of them human.

Closest to the door and already bolt upright from atop the short step ladder he'd been sitting on was a deep violet furred rattata morph. Dressed in an emerald t-shirt and jeans he had a comic book open in one hand which he'd been caught in the middle of.

“Boss? What's up?" he asked, sounding surprised to see him.

“If he's here, nothing good," came another voice from across the room from a workstation upon which a missile launcher had been stripped bare.

A black scaled reptilian claw rose above table top and helped pull the rest of the attached charmeleon morph in to view. He had bright amber eyes that glowed like hot coals in the darkness of his black scales and an imposing body frame that was mostly muscle. It offset any of the natural tubbiness that normally came with his species. The foreboding purple flicker from his own tail-flame created a disconcerting aura of menace around him.

With a screwdriver in his right claw as he set straight back to work on prying apart another piece of the weapon.

“J? Flint? Have either of you see Pebble?" asked Nicholas.

The charmeleon grunted dismissively, not even looking up. J shook his head, “Not for a while."

“He's with Dex," came another voice from across the hall, softer than the other two as casting his eyes across, Nicholas saw Seraph laying in her hammock, a thick book in her paws and thin-framed reading glasses on the edge of her muzzle. “They went to the arena but…"

The lucario morph sat up a little in her bed and Nicholas could see she'd made herself comfy in a dark blue knitted cardigan, that offset quite heavily from the jackal's own paler than average blue and yellow fur.

For a moment her eyes shut, a faint blue shimmering around her black dreadlocks before she looked up again at Nicholas. “You might want to give it a few minutes, they are arguing again."

“I can't, in fact, you guys should start getting ready, reports are sketchy but the whole of the offensive seems to have collapsed. We'll need you to calm things down so we can recover anyone still alive," explained Nicholas as he began to cross the hall.

The silence of shocked glances between J and Seraph was interrupted by the sudden smack of Flint's screwdriver being tossed down on to his table as he growled. “I warned you, I warned you we should have been on more than just bloody standby but no, no one listens to the damn pokémon do they?!" he snarled.

Nicholas stopped in his tracks and turned to face the charmeleon, his tail had flared and the frustration on his face made the human think he was going to lunge at him. “Flint, you know I pass on everything you guys suggest to those upstairs, but there was a mission on the cards for tonight and we wanted you all well rested. Guess that'll have to be scrubbed, recovery is more important."

“Yeah-yeah, whatever," Flint said, muttering and growling something to himself as he turned away and headed for the locker room, wiping grease from his paws on his old stained shirt, disappearing out of sight before Nicholas could call out to him again.

J and Seraph hurried quickly past as well, both nodding to him their expressions clearly torn, neither of them wanted to say anything, they both respected Nicholas, but it was clear they shared at least some of the feelings with their more hot-headed team mate. The human didn't need Seraph's empathic senses to know that. Sighing softly he hurried across the hall making his way towards the training arena.

The mew morph rubbed his temples, his eyes shut as he replayed in his mind the details of the team's last mission together, for once he was actually sat upon a grey stone rock in the arena rather than hovering just above it.

I don't understand what you think you doing, he thought, his short triangular ears swept back as he opened his large brown eyes and stared across to where Dex floated on the other side of the arena in a circle of broken rocks he'd been smashing in frustration.

Dex breathed heavily, his anger clearly not entirely spent. His thin framed chest rising and falling; bulb-tipped red tail whipping behind him in sudden darting motion as if anxious to finish this conversation quickly. The mewtwo morph finally opened his mouth and spoke out loud. “I could have finished if you'd given us more time."

Pebble sighed and replied in kind, “I warned everyone it was going to be a tight amount of time before they dropped the full mechamon on us. You trying to steal their entire database instead of just searching for the files we needed almost cost us J."

Dex scoffed and spun his fingers in the air, small rocks rising off the ground and following the motions of his hand, “J was fine, didn't even get a scratch on him."

“You know just how damn close that bullet came to us needing a new scout, and we'd have never even made it inside without him," Pebble said, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself off his rock to float over to the other cat. “Why does it always seem like you think you can do these missions by yourself? We're supposed to be a team. We're supposed to be the best team. If we don't work together, what kind of example do we set for everyone else?"

“You're having a go at me for not working together? What about what Flint did?" huffed Dex again, his maroon eyes glaring.

Pebble rolled his eyes, “Flint made a mistake, he misjudged his abilities. We all do that sometimes; I know you don't blame him either for that."

“No I don't, I blame you again for not coming up with a plan that would have let us all do our jobs properly instead of rushing, screwing up and making us look like fucking morons!"

Dex was practically glowing by this point, a red aura surrounding his floating body and the tight black fabric of his under-armour.

“My plan was perfectly competent," hissed Pebble, struggling to not soak up the anger the mewtwo was pumping out like a blazing furnace. “You are the first 'two I've had under my command not capable of following the simple order to 'stop'!"

The red mewtwo snarled and with a sudden flick of his wrist, he flung the circling stones by his paw towards Pebble.  He'd been filing them down to a sharp edge as they span in the air around him almost unconsciously. It had been a good way to vent his anger but now he lost it, his infamous anger getting the better of him as he snapped. Pebble was so shocked he barely brought up a Barrier in time, all but one rock smashing against a rippling shield of energy, the first one zipping past to cut his shoulder.

The mew was shocked, over all the years, brash as some of them were with their powers, none of his mewtwo sub-ordinates had ever out right lashed back at him. The sting of the cut was like the scratch of a meowth's claws and red blood trickled from the leading edge of the wound.

Stunned by this, he watched as, eyes now glowing red, Dex began to move a larger rock and spin it in the air, growling with frustration and rage. Pebble thrust out his hand towards the floor below his teammate. The sudden tug of high gravity on his own stomach Pebble feel uneasy as the rock fell from the air with a crash along with Dex who landed awkwardly with a shout of pain as he was pulled onto all fours, barely able to lift himself.

Both the psychics had weaker bodies, their power coming from their minds not their muscles, but Pebble was surprised again as Dex slowly lifted his neck and glared at him. He could sense energy building behind those eyes and began to prepare his defence. The voice crying out at both of them took them both embarrassingly by surprise, too caught up in their anger to register the presence of another mind entering the room.

“One, Five, One! What the hell do you two think you're playing at?!"

They snapped around to look at the human who was standing in the doorway, the orange head-fur (or hair as the humans called it) and pale completion made him instantly recognizable. It was their leader, their trainer Nicholas and despite his commanding he looked nervous as he looked from one powerful pokémorph to the other.

Pebble reacted first, quickly drawing back his hand as his gravity field dropped and Dex, who had still been trying to lift his body suddenly shot up in to the air with a surprised yowl followed by a crash as he smashed in to a light fixture above.

The mew slunk back his ears, a somewhat now embarrassed look on his rounded muzzle as Dex began to fall again, Pebble caught him in a telekinetic field of his own this time and lowered the mewtwo back down beside him. Dex now sported a quickly ripening bruise on one arm though the anger was all gone. His face was showing a similar caught-out expression as Pebble's, embarrassed and humiliated at being caught like that by their trainer.

“There was a disagreement, Nic. Over the outcome of our last mission and…" Pebble started to try and explain but Nicholas interrupted.

“I really, really don't want to hear it. You two have twice the combined brain power of everyone else on this base right now. You should be using it to help us plan how to stop Team Rocket but now I find you both in here beating the seven hells out of each other?!"

He sounded exasperated and pressed his fingers to his temples as though in prayer. The two cats remained silent as they glanced at each other and at him.

He, has a point, thought Pebble, letting Dex hear it.

Dex was quiet for a moment and then Pebble heard the mewtwo's voice in his head. I know. Just, let's save this for later okay? I think something else is up.

“What has happened?" said Pebble, breaking the silence.

Nicholas looked up again at the pair, “You two poking around in me as well now?" he sighed.

Dex spoke up, “You don't need to read minds to read your face."

The human stepped away for a moment, seeming to not want to look them in the eye as he spoke again.

“The mission we had you on stand by for, it's been a complete failure. I can only assume someone on the inside leaking our attack plans but we don't have the resources for a diglett hunt right now.

“We might even be looking at having lost nearly all the assigned battle groups."

He turned around and the two cats gave him a stoic and seemingly unaffected stare as he wondered if they realised.

How many were on that mission?

I recall seeing 20 groups listed.

Holy shit…

Yeah…

“What do you want us to do?" asked Pebble.

“Escort recovery teams to the field, then see if you can't make their sacrifice a noble one. There must be something at that facility worth guarding that heavily. Get in there and find it. The rest of your team should be nearly ready."

Dex didn't wait, there was a sudden snap and flicker of red light as the mewtwo morph vanished to tend to his bruise and get himself prepared.

“Pebble, wait," called Nicholas quickly as the pink cat looked as though he was also about to jump as well.

“What is it?"

“Dex, is… is he going to be a problem?"

The mew stepped off the ground and floated closer slowly. “No, he's just… there's a lot of anger in him. A lot of war."

“But you can handle him? I mean, Rocket, we all know they tweaked Mewtwo, the first, to naturally be far more aggressive than mew or any other pokémon the first time around. It might have been for good intensions when EDEN added Human DNA to create the likes of you but it probably only made it worse for them."

Pebble looked down at the cut on his arm, the blood congealed and already forming a scab, starting the process of healing.

“You may not realise it but, mewtwo, mew, morphs, and not. We're all family. In a strange sort of way. The mewtwo morphs out there, the ones I helped train, I helped them remember that. And family have to be there for one another, even if we piss each other off now and then."

Pebble cracked a small smile at that. “Dex, he just needs a bit more time and a few more wins under his belt to settle his temper. I think I can find those."

Nicholas returned the smile and made towards the door, pausing again one last time by the entrance as Pebble rose his hand, blue aura forming around it as he prepared to teleport himself.

“I really hope you do soon Pebble, for everyone's sake…"