Celebi Like Them (21)

Interlude

Avery was small.

Of all the experiences in her life, this was new. In that regard, Quinn's tragic accident had given her an incredible gift. Humanity was so small a price to pay for everything she had gained.

Life in the city called Starfall varied little for her from day to day. Avery woke with the dawn, because that was what her body wanted.

She was never alone, but slept comfortably in her mother's bed, basking in the warmth of another living thing. Adoptive though she might be, Metis had never made her feel as though she were anything less than a mother.

The older mew was many times her size, big enough that she could've easily bullied or forced Avery into doing whatever she wanted. Her powers were certainly enough for that, even if their bodies were ill-suited to physical violence. But from her first moment in Starfall, Metis had only ever treated her with love.

Their home was a plain but comfortable affair in a skyscraper on the outskirts of the city, in a space smaller than the closet in her apartment back home.

That didn't matter when she was much less than a meter long, and even her powerful mother could've curled up comfortably in a shoebox. Besides, you could do a lot with very little space when you could fly.

Avery could fly now, more naturally than she had ever been able to walk or run or swim before. At first, life in Starfall had been very hard, waking up each morning barely breathing under gravity's relentless pressure. But Metis taught her day and night; she took her to the jungle and the athletics arena and to the training field. Now she flew even when she was asleep, managing her acceleration relative to the planet with powers that Baast had tried many times to explain.

It was so simple! How badly she wanted to go back to that earlier version of herself and scream how simple it was. The field of Parapsychology wasn't doomed, it was inevitable. Because humans weren't trying to change into something strange, they were returning to the way they were supposed to be.

"I know you didn't grow up eating like this, you are still going to have your breakfast," her mother would say each morning, giving her algae crackers with a thick, chemical-tasting paste smeared between them. If she was very good, she got a little saucer of milk in the evening. "But you will not grow unless you are properly nourished. You would not give your infants the choice of their own food, either."

I never thought I would get an infant of my own. She tried not to say things like that, or even to think them too loudly. Metis could see into her head at any time she wished. She usually didn't; except when powerful or particularly notable thoughts drew her attention. Where there was powerful emotion, the cat watched.

Yet her adoptive mother barely even comprehended the significance of struggles that had tormented a great portion of Avery's early life. "All is right now, kitten," she might say. "Put it from your mind."

Sometimes she didn't, like one day when they'd gone deep into the jungle, and lounged together in the sunny branches atop a tree.

They weren't wild Pokémon, despite every stereotype and bias Avery brought to her life in Starfall. The cats there wore clothing: vests, sometimes transmitters and projection-based computers that wrapped around necks or tails. Some carried tools, though most of those were young. An older cat had no need of external enhancements when their own powers were so vast. To carry a weapon or a tool was an admission that something was missing.

"I could barely sleep some nights," she said, stretching out along the branch. The fall of many stories off the edge didn't frighten her as it once would. She had already lifted most of the gravity away from herself, and she could dismiss the rest if she had to. "Hated to see myself in the mirror."

"No kitten should feel that way." Metis gestured, and she floated further up, joining her mother on the branch above. She moved in close, tucked in under a foreleg. Warmth moved along her head, the touch of a mew's rough tongue on skin.

It should probably disgust her. But Avery was past all that. Besides, Metis didn't need to speak out loud to communicate. If anything, her thoughts were easier to understand. "It is the same for everyone forced to live in degenerate forms. To change is good, but to be trapped is not. The spirit longs for its true reflection."

Her mother wasn't just kind, but wise. There was no question she could not answer. "All of them? The Pokémon I met don't seem to mind the way they are. They're happy."

Metis spun her around, forcing her to look up at those huge, blue eyes. "Their cases are the most tragic of all. Born into their empty lives, they can't reach high enough to survive the transition. You were greater than them all, and barely survived. Some nights I feared we would lose you too."

"Not me!" She floated out of her grip and into the air, shaking herself out. It was soothing to be groomed, but also claustrophobic to be trapped. Avery wanted to be moving! "Not after making it this far. I'm not giving up until I learn as much as you!"

Her mother would always laugh when she said things like that. Sometimes she would direct her to study, while other times they might have a brief lesson together, to reinforce the scope of the challenge waiting for Avery. Mew could live a very long time, and learned a great deal in all those years. Her adoptive mother was one of the youngest cats she had met so far, and even she was centuries old.

Life in Starfall might've been perfect, except for a few little broken pieces, like dirt wedging themselves under her fingernails. True, she couldn't quite understand the feeling she once had for Quinn. Complex desires where joy mixed with pain, longing for things that hadn't happened and fear for what she couldn't be.

Too complex to fit in a kitten's head. But she still thought about him, and asked more often than Metis liked. "The one who brought me, I want to see him. See how his treatment is going."

Her mother was almost perfect. Except for this one thing. Mentioning Quinn or Baast always got her to close off, her thoughts becoming abruptly hidden from her.

Except today. Avery's psychic senses were stronger than before, strong enough to see the cracks in someone's mental protection. Powerful emotions could leak out, especially when the cat wasn't practiced at hiding things. Today, Avery felt her pain, and a little fear.

They were back home then, in the office that was often Avery's little classroom. She was still too small for a proper Firstborn school, and too young. But her mother was kind, and would never tell her as much directly. Instead, she taught her there at least a few hours each day. Whenever Avery asked her hardest questions, they were usually in the classroom.

Metis seemed to realize she'd slipped up, because she instantly recoiled, floating out of the cushion that she used as her seat while Avery studied. She bobbed backward through the air, glancing at the entrance. On the floor, since they flew into the room from below. Doors and hallways were for people who walked.

"Mom? What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know I promised you would get to meet him again when you were older. But I don't think that's possible anymore. Your friend is... he's gone. Been gone for weeks now."

Weeks. And she hadn't said anything?

Avery took off, knocking her little hologram projector off the desk. The computer kept playing the soothing music of her differential equations lesson, showing different curves and blocks with kittens playing between them.

She ignored the music and the bright colors, floating over it. "Gone where?"

"Gone." Metis repeated. "I'm sorry. The whole hospital closed after that. They're not even taking divergent patients anymore."

She gestured, and Avery vanished from the air, reappearing in her grip. "You're very lucky that didn't happen to you too. With the childhood you had, you could've been a degenerate mutation too. But you're doing so good, Avery! You're growing into a perfect little kitten. One day you won't even remember you were different."

She said it like Avery was supposed to be happy. Forget that she'd been born wrong, forget about her first life in a distant world, about her work helping humans unlock all their latent psychic powers. An important mission she was now perfect to complete, when she could make it back.

But no matter how long Mew apparently lived, she had no illusions about surviving across thousands and thousands of years the conventional way. Mew were so rare in her future that barely anyone had ever seen them, if you ignored all of Team Infinity's absurd claims. She would not return to her own time. Not without Quinn.

"Do you mean he left, or he died?" she asked. Avery was rarely so brave, but rarely did she have anything so important to fight for. She floated directly up to her mother, puffing out her fur and keeping her tail high behind her. Let the cat see that she wouldn't be distracted or forget.

"I don't know," Mom said. And she meant it, sharing her fear and confusion along with the words. "There were some... dangerous cases in that hospital. You saw when you visited, how serious they took security. Good reason. They were some scary Pokémon down there."

"Quinn wasn't scary!" she yelled. "He would never hurt anyone! Or let anything bad happen to me. Quinn was... nice."

Metis tried to pull her into an embrace, but Avery retreated through the room. She wasn't strong enough to fight her mother's psychic powers, but Metis wasn't accustomed to being fought. When she felt resistance, she stopped pulling, eyes wide. "It may've felt that way, Avery. But you're a kitten. You don't understand how dangerous he was. If you had stayed with him, exposed to his strangeness for too long, you would diverge too. The temptation to change can be so strong, especially when you're young. If you don't know how to find your way back, then... you're lost."

Avery thought about running away too, maybe hunting for her lost friend in the forest somewhere. But Metis didn't give her that chance. Her powers were too strong, her grip irresistible. More importantly, she showed Avery the report, and what it contained about the hospital.

"The isolation hospital was completely leveled in the event. No survivors were located within the containment boundary."

That didn't mean there was no chance they'd escaped, though. Avery repeated that thought defiantly in her head over the next few weeks. Whenever she remembered her old friend, whenever she cried at night afraid that she might never go home. She thought about Quinn.

She was too small to do anything yet, too weak. And her mother... she meant well. She didn't want Avery to suffer, or to say goodbye to her friend forever. Despite that whole suite of stupid, pointless fears of "degenerate" Pokémon.

Avery was a good kitten, she would listen to what her mother said. She would try not to be too sad about what she couldn't have.

But she wouldn't forget. Every day she would study. Until one day, she would be strong and smart enough to go out and find her friend, no matter how "degenerate" he got. She even knew where to look!