Part 2 Enemies

As we hurried out of my house, Clover attempted to clarify. "Apparently something's going on in the downtown area. I haven't found out much yet, I only just got the alert."

"Yeah, great." I replied, adjusting the belt with my Pokeball on it. The ball was still a little bit odd to have there, so I just tried my best to ignore it.

We made our way to the downtown area in a hurry, quickly passing through my familiar suburbs to steadily more populated areas. The buildings became taller, the trees became fewer, and soon enough, we arrived.

This part of the city was much like any other city. Buildings with multiple stories stretched up on either side of the street, there was  long median in the road filled with trees every couple yards. Traffic at least seemed normal today, always a positive when dealing with weird s*** like we go through.

As we waited at a crosswalk, I turned to Clover, and asked, "So where exactly is this happening?"

She sort of shrugged. "I didn't really think to ask, I figured I'd just grab you and we'd find out when we got there."

There was then a distant sound of an explosion. Eyes all around turned toward the source of the noise, which was further up the street from us and around a corner.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, lucky for you..." I took off across the street, ignoring the general laws of pedestrian-ism. I hurried down the street, carefully sidestepping people and objects that entered my path as I hurried through. Unfortunately, I had to stop and turn around when I heard a loud honk and the screeching of tires.

Clover quickly vaulted over the hood of a car, before shouting back, "So sorry!"

As she caught up to me in our rush to the scene of attack, I asked if she was okay.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Truth be told I've always wanted to jump over a car like that." 

I frowned. "I thought you lost your memories?"

She shrugged in response. "Yeah, but doesn't everyone want to do something like that?"

I decided not to respond, and so the both of us rounded the corner and got a good look at our problem. A large hole had formed in the upper levels of a building at the end of this new street. I couldn't really tell what had caused it, or what was going on, but I could only hope the team was already on its way.

I turned to Clover. "All right, listen. You go get help, okay? I don't know what this is, and I don't want you to rush in there for something you're not prepared to handle."

She started to speak up, but apparently decided it was better to just not argue. "Fine."

I began running once more toward the building ahead, removing Sandslash's Pokeball from the belt.

I didn't see anything at first glance that would need immediate attention, so I went directly into the building.

Upon entering, my face filled with smoke and dust. I tried to wave it away, to almost no avail. I elected to keep moving, making my way through the shaken building. The bottom floor seemed to have been evacuated, likely because people were smart enough to get the crap out when things got bad.

There was still an eeriness to it, with the workplace, currently unaffected by the damage, looking like everyone had just up and disappeared. I passed by somebody's computer, and noticed it was still active, with a picture of a woman I guess was somebody's wife.

The floor echoed slightly under my footsteps as I crossed the linoleum floor to the staircase. I pushed through the doorway, and found myself under assault by new amounts of noise.

A quick glance up showed that the upper part of the stairs had been taken out by falling rubble. I could hear shouts from up above me, so it seemed there were people who needed to get down.

I took a deep breath, and extended my arms. It wasn't necessary for my telekinesis, but it helped me direct it. I mentally took hold of a few large objects, and then raised my hands slowly to draw them out of the stack of debris and align them in a semi-ramp down the staircase. 

I stepped out into view of the people. They looked at the path I was creating with confusion. I jerked my head in the direction I wanted them to go. A young man at the front lowered a foot carefully onto the first piece, and tested it. He applied pressure a few times, and then took a step onto it. I had no problem supporting his weight, but telekinesis could be a literal headache to do for a long time, so I urged them, "C'mon!"

As the people began to make their way down, I concentrated on something that would keep my thinking steady. I thought about all the people I had met from strange places. I had made more than a few friends in alternate dimensions. I had connections with a number of people in my own dimension. It was encouraging, that even when I was here by myself, somewhere out there, there were people wondering if I was okay.

The final woman was making her way over the ramp when a rumble up above caught my attention. I looked up, watching a stack of debris tumble down right over her. I instantly made a decision, releasing my grip on the bridge and grabbing her instead.

I was forced to quickly develop and execute a strategy to safely move her out of the way. I shifted my control to her actual body. If I tried to get her out of the way, she would have to move fast. Really fast. As in, if I launched her uncontrollably out of the way, she'd probably end up just as bad as having a staircase fall on on top of her. So I tried to avoid that.

I instead used myself as a cushion.

Even though I had a pretty good idea of my powers, I was hit harder than I had expected, and the wind rushed out of me. I hit the ground under her force, barely avoiding smacking my skull against the floor with what would have surely been concussive force. I took a moment to catch my breath, something the woman seemed to be in complete agreement on. After that moment, I politely tapped her on the shoulder. "Could you...get off?"

The woman politely obliged, standing up fairly easily. She seemed mostly unharmed, which I was more than happy to see. I had never tried something like that before, and I was really hoping one of us wouldn't somehow end up dead.

The woman seemed ready to walk away, but she hesitated. Turning around with a look that pretty much said word for word, thank you, but this is really uncomfortable, she held out a hand down to where I lay. I extended my own and accepted her help, getting to my feet. I had some bruises on my elbows and back, but I would certainly live.

As we stared at each other for a second surrounded by rubble and depressing gray wall paint, she shifted a little and began to apologize: "I don't mean to be so...resistant..."

I raised a hand to stop her. "It's not a problem. I lived in hiding from the police for almost two years. A weird look is nothing new. You're very welcome."

She nodded, but then a look of worry crossed her face. "What's wrong?" I asked.

She stammered, "W-well, there's a woman who works here. She brought her son to work today, since she couldn't get anyone to watch him. She was taking him upstairs to do something just before the blast. Do you think..."

I nodded. "Say no more. I'll try to find them." I turned and looked up the rising stairs.

After noticing the woman was still next to me, I motioned to the door. "You should probably go."

The woman seemed to come back to the present, and sort of nodded before hurrying away. I turned and focused myself. I began to concentrate immensely. Levitation had always taken more energy out of me than anything else. I wasn't really sure how lifting large amounts of debris could be less draining than just lifting myself, but it was. It was almost like every time I lifted myself up, I was lifting against something keeping me tethered to the ground.

But I still lifted myself. I began to rise up between the flights of stairs, carefully watching for anymore objects that might interrupt my ascent. 

Nothing did, thankfully, and I landed safely at the floor which seemed to have been the epicenter of the blast. I walked inside and was forced to stop.

The destruction was total. Almost everything around the floor had been incinerated completely. A few loose papers drifted in the now open hole in the side of the building, and remarkably enough, a trash can sat in a section of the room, somehow almost completely untouched.

I decided to now release Sandslash from his Pokeball. The little brown Pokemon eagerly jumped up upon being set free. "It's about time!" He cheered as he bounced up and down. "Let's fight something!"

I shook my head and looked at him. "This is serious, buddy. We need to find someone, and figure out what caused this damage."

He looked towards me, but then the look in his large black eyes changed. "Think I figured it out."

I turned around to find a young man standing in the doorway to the stairwell. He was about my age and wore a black sleeveless tank along with some ripped jeans. His face seemed gentle and non threatening, and his light brown hair hung loosely over his head and face.

And then there was the weird, because heaven forbid we ever deal with anything normal for once. Across his skin, small rocks were nestled in his body. They seemed to be generated by him, and I could watch a few form on his arm on he stared at me. It was an odd sight, and unnerved me to the core. "Who are you?" I managed to ask.

The young man said nothing. He only pointed to me, and pointed up.

"What's that?" Sandslash asked. "Is he saying you're goin' to heaven? Cause that's pretty presumptuous."

"The roof." I replied. "He wants me to go to the roof." A slight nod in response was my only assurance of my assumption.

I looked down at Sandslash. "I don't like this," I whispered, "so if he tries anything, take him down."

"Best order you've given me in weeks." 

I hesitantly moved away to the hole in the wall, and levitated myself up onto the roof. Upon landing, I found a sight that I was anxiously hoping wouldn't await me.

Standing with a sinister smile around the middle of the roof was my evil clone. I felt my anger rise just making contact with the familiar build and hairstyle, my own. Upon turning around, I did notice a difference in his appearance. His hair, which had always been a darker black than my own, had grown out in front of one side of his face, and the area that covered his eye had been colored red. Beside him was a kid, who appeared to be about 10 or 11, with obvious terror filling his face.

I looked over near the staircase that led to the roof, and saw a woman on her knees, looking at me with eyes flooded with tears. She had a cut across her forehead, but she seemed to be far more worried about the boy, who I assumed was her son. This must have been who the other woman had been referring to.

As I stared at my evil self, I could hear a faint noise coming from his body. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small stereo. When he removed it, the sound became much louder and more clear. It was some kind of rock music.

"Enemies." His voice came, still startling me with its likeness to my own. He nodded toward the speaker. "By Shinedown. You ever hear it?"

(Author Note: Yes, it's a real song. No, I don't own anything related to it)

I swallowed and replied with as much spite as I could muster, "Not my type of music."

He shrugged. "You should try it. Rock isn't always the most pleasant music, but it's taught me a lot about myself. Or, ourselves."

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Did you like the guy downstairs? I bet your Pokemon's having a great time fighting him. You can thank him for the boom, by the way. He's got DNA of a Pokemon that can self-destruct for defensive purposes. Oh yeah, and you remember those kids that you set free from...what was it? A digital monkey king? Man, you guys do weird stuff."

"Get to your point!" I yelled.

He held up a hand. "Okay, give me a minute. Anyway, needless to say, they didn't exactly go free. I've been looking forward to this meeting. To be able to say thank you for giving me a free army. Not a lot of guys would be willing to do that for someone."

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, trying to keep him on topic.

"Of course. As I mentioned, I've come to realize some things. Take that song for example. How does the chorus go again...'you've got the world on its knees, you're taking all that you please, you want more...' something along those lines."

I shook my head. "And that's supposed to mean what? You're not ambitious enough?"

He gave me a look like I was crazy. "Of course not. I'm thinking of you. You see, the more I think about it, the more I realize something. I'm you. Sure, my judgement's a little more flawed than yours, but all in all, we're about as close as you can get."

"I am nothing like you! I'm not a murderer! I'm not crazy!"

"Except how many people have died because of what you do? How many lives have been lost because you and your friends decide to take the fate of the world into your hands? You are crazy. I know you think about it, because I do too."

"What are you saying?" I asked him, my hands beginning to sweat.

"I'm saying that the song's right. You get a few lucky wins. You make a few good decisions. Suddenly everyone's willing to recognize you as some kind of hero, when all you really are is some kid who got weird superpowers, and thought he could be a real hero with them. I know you. This life is a miracle for you."

I was filled with anger. "You're a liar!"

"You're damn right I am!" He screamed in reply. "Because you hate it! I can feel your anger at yourself. Your longing for something different. But that's impossible, right? You can't go back, so you figure you might as well go forward."

I couldn't reply. I looked over to the woman, and sent her a telepathic message. Leave. I'll get your son. I promise.

He smiled as he watched her. "That's the problem. You move on. You ignore the monsters you create. I could have been like you. I can feel part of me wanting to do the 'right thing'. But you rejected me. You only saw what was wrong with me, because it's what's wrong with you. You left me behind, and thought you were just leaving those things with me. But you see, my do good-er double, we all lead different lives, but deep down we all have the same sins. If you want to leave those sins behind you like you try to, you'll have to leave behind every single person you meet."

I clenched my fists. "I'll kill you."

He smiled. "And here you were trying to prove yourself innocent."

I held out an arm, and tried to will him backward. Unfortunately, nothing happened. I tried the move again.

"Having trouble?" My clone chuckled while grabbing the arm of the child. "I heard you got some new tricks, so I figured, if you have 'em, maybe I do. Unfortunately I can't be flinging anybody into walls, but I've figured out just enough to keep you from doing that to me."

He led the child to the edge of the building, where the street noises echoed up from below.

"You're no hero, Todd. And that's what I've decided what I'm gonna do. I promise you, that no matter what victories you have, no matter how many times you get back up, I will always be there to remind you of all the pain, horror, and misery you bring to yourself and everyone you know and love."

My eyes welled up as I watched him, watched the words come out of my own mouth. I couldn't tell myself he was fake. Couldn't convince my mind that he wasn't me. "What...what is wrong with you?" I mustered. "Could you actually do that?"

His face showed a twinge of pain, but it was swept under by a sinister smile. "Cross my heart. Hope to die."

And with that, he gave the kid a push off the ledge.

"NO!!!" I screamed, propelling myself forward, stopping at the edge and using all the power in my body to try to stop him. I couldn't think about the side effects. The energy, the whiplash. All that mattered was he didn't hit the ground.

The child's body stopped right above the ground, his head smacking down into the ground.

I held him there for a few moments until his mother came over to him. She looked up the building at me.

And my back erupted with a pain like nothing I'd ever felt.

I let out a shout of pain as I released my mental hold, hopefully letting the child fall into her arms. I grunted and moaned as a strange feeling flared across my back. My skin felt like it wanted to rip off. I stumbled back from the ledge. I fell onto my side, my vision blurring in and out.

Dark Todd just smiled. "Another precaution I made. A special type of Pokemon move, very effective on Pokemon with telekinetic abilities like your own. Don't worry, you won't die. It's just a nice reminder."

My hearing was going in and out, and everything else was a nightmare. The pit of my stomach reeled like it had been chucked off the roof as well, causing me to gag, and really hope I wouldn't throw up. Or maybe I had already and didn't notice.

I could barely hear Dark walking away, but it was all I thought about. He stopped a short distance away, and said to someone, "Blow the building. Don't worry, he'll make it out alive." His voice stopped, and I got the undeniable sense that he was looking right at me. "He always does."

With that, they left, and I struggled against my body. I knew I could have overcome this, but my mind was so conflicted I couldn't motivate myself. He hit home, and I didn't know what to think. I had no way to convince myself he was wrong.

I can't prove him wrong.

"I 'll never know that..." I whispered to myself, as I planted a fist on the concrete, "...if I don't survive."

I used a tremendous amount of effort to lift myself onto one knee. I caught my breath and tried to let myself rest just a little before pushing to an unsteady stand. My knees buckled every couple steps, but I didn't stop. I cast a glance down at where I had laid on the ground. There was no puke there, but a decently sized puddle of blood.

 I came to the edge of the building, and dropped down, grabbing hold of the next floor down through the hole in the wall. My arms strained to support my weight. I could feel my head growing faint again. I called out for Sandslash. I called again. My voice slipped, and I almost passed out, barely maintaining a weak hold on the floor.

I looked up to see a wonderful sight. My Pokemon stood there, looking down at me with concern. I didn't have time to explain, just grabbed the Pokeball from my belt and pressed the button. Evidently this wasn't what Sandslash would have suggested, as he waved his arms in protest as he was sucked in by a beam of red light.

I looked down at the street, but my blurry vision told me nothing. Without anything to go on, I let go and tried. Tried as hard as I could to catch myself just a little. To slow myself down even a little bit.

I didn't know for sure whether or not it worked.

---

Another part to the Pokemon Max saga.

At first I felt a little anxious to use Dark Todd again. I kind of asked myself if it seemed like I had no ideas. But this is what it has to be. I've thought about it, and found that Dark Todd is the best villain for this part of the story, because he's more than just a bad guy. He's a bad Todd.

Anyway, that chapter was pretty satisfying to write. I'll get around to another one as soon as possible. Until next time!