Chapter 1 | Twins: Genesis
After 24 hours of unconsciousness, Raymond mustered the courage to open his eyes.
The day before today had been a blur. There wasn't much to remember, to be fair. He broke out of containment and immediately had a pack of poochyena and mightyena sicced on him. They'd run through the laboratory, his muscles burning, and he could only think to locate his younger sister in her own holding cell before they dragged him down and knocked him out just a few meters from his destination.
One detail stuck out to him. Just before he fainted, he saw her open her eyes, and they were glowing like she was using a move. It was debatable whether he'd woken her up or if she just happened to regain consciousness at that exact moment.
As he looked around, he realized they weren't in the lab anymore. It was dark. He lay on a nest of old blankets, probably salvaged from the nearby abandoned village, and water dripped from the ceiling around him. The entrance to the area was several meters away. Leila sat there, staring into the sunset, facing away so he couldn't see feather's expression. Glow could tell through examining her body that she was covered in injuries, battered and bruised, but not in as sorry a state as he found glowself in.
She looked… different.
He looked different, too.
He'd been awake through most of the process of becoming the strange pokemon glow was now, but glow was a mew before all this, as was his sister. Now he didn't even know what they were. If their species had a name, it hadn't been uttered by the scientists to him. Why would they reveal their intentions, anyhow?
Leila turned to him. She seemed to be reading glow's mind.
“Mewtwo.”
“...what?”
“Mewtwo. That's what we are now. Kind of a silly name, really,” feather went on to say, shrugging her shoulders and standing up before walking over to glow. Now that he saw her closer, glow could smell smoke on her. Had the lab burned down? Had SHE burned down the lab? He wasn't able to ponder these questions as feather laid down beside him and huddled up to glow's side. Glow wasted no time pulling feather into his arms, desperate for warmth and contact and feeling after years of knowing only pain and confusion. They used to cuddle like this all the time as kids. Where had the time gone? The longer they held each other, the more conflicted he felt about the idea of letting go, and that once again raised the question. How long had it been? He thought about his and her friends and family.
Barry must think they're dead by now. Becoming a mewtwo was not at all a fast process. Had Thurston evolved? The little guy was always so spunky and eager, and Leila had been helping him train and get stronger so he could become a charmeleon. They'd even found him a megastone together. What about glow's friends? Were they still around?
Raymond felt Leila nestle herself deeper in his chest. She was thinking about the same thing. Sighing, glow lifted a paw and gently stroked the thin fur on her head, calming feather down. “We're gonna find them. Okay?”
“Mm-mm”
“Yeah, we are.” He repeated his point firmly, determined for it to be the truth. “We're gonna find dad, and then we're gonna go find Thurston and Baron, and all our other buddies. And things aren't gonna be the same, because we aren't the same, but our friends didn't love us for the forms we could take, or what we could provide. Everything's gonna be okay. Say it with me, hmm? Everything's…!”
“...gonna be okay.”
Feather's voice was weak. She didn't believe her own words. Glow either didn’t notice this, or was confident he could change Leila’s mind.
“Yeah! Everything's gonna be alright. For now, though, you need to rest up, and in the morning we can find something to eat and go find our friends.”
Raymond felt her nod, and sighed happily, wrapping his tail around her body and relaxing more when feather did the same. Never again would they be separated. From here on out, things were only going to look up.
At least, he hoped they would.
Chapter Illustration
