//------------------------------// // Rise of Castle Cerulean // Story: A Matter of Genetics // by Guardsman_Sparky //------------------------------// As I flew through the wild skies above the Everfree Forest, I pulled in a hissing breath. I hurt all over. A quick self-scan with my psychic abilities revealed no serious internal trauma--nothing that wouldn't heal, at least--but I was going to be a single mass of bruises beneath my fur for the foreseeable future. My thoughts turned to my fight with Discord. For some reason, despite delaying Discord long enough for the Elements of Harmony to regroup, I felt a deep sense of shame at being so utterly outclassed. I had not made a good showing. Thinking back, I was pretty much played from beginning to end. Discord was wily, to say the least. He was completely and utterly unpredictable, every action unexpected, every attack at an angle I couldn't predict. He was a creature that had spent millennia honing his chaotic craft, millennia of practice in using his magic to his own ends. By contrast, I was very much an inexperienced fighter. I had never been in a true, no-holds-barred fight before, not one that I remembered, at any rate. And I had never before used my psychic abilities in anger. Insanity, yes. But anger? No. Beyond that, I had not been in the best of shape before my transformation, and I doubt a thousand or so years encased in stone had done me any favors. My biggest mistake, I'm sure, had been jumping into a fight without a plan. Especially against one such as Discord. He was not one to be beaten by brute force alone. Which brought me to the crux of my next problem. There were things out there that scared Discord, I was sure, and if I were to survive any such encounter, I needed to train. Oh sure, I had technically spent centuries practicing my psychic abilities, but I was encased in magical stone at the time. The vast majority of my powers were unavailable to me, and what I was able to access was mentally strenuous and taxing to use. While I had been able to hone my control to near perfect levels, that had been with using only a trickle of power. Freeing myself from the stone had turned that trickle into an ocean. Using my telekinesis now was akin to trying to ice a cake with a fire hose. I was lucky that my telepathy was largely unchanged. Then there was the matter of Pokemon moves. I had been unable to learn any at all: during my rampage, I was in no state of mind to even try, and later, my mystical stone prison had barely allowed me to use my telekinesis and telepathy, let alone mold that strange inner energy that Pokemon used (Aura, I think it was called aura, if my memories aren't too fuzzled). But that led me to another problem. I was strong. Like, retardedly so. If I were to train, I needed a place that could stand up to my abuse, or one that I wouldn't mind destroying utterly in my quest for better control. Sighing, I looked down to see a series of ruins scattered across the forest floor below. A half-remembered memory came to the fore of my mind, and inspiration struck. Chuckling, I bled off my forward momentum and allowed myself to drift down into the ruins. Alighting gently upon the ground, I looked around. I stood in the courtyard of a crumbling stone castle. It had been magnificent once, likely with tall walls, towering towers, and waving pennants. But now, it was just a pile of moldering stone. This, if I wasn't mistaken, was the abandoned Castle of the Two Sisters. Or, at least, I think that's what the name was. Again, as I'm sure I don't need to remind you, my memory of things from Before were spotty at best. As I had said, this was magnificent once, though you could hardly know it to look at the overgrown stones lying about. But, as I walked about (well, less walked and more hovered just off the ground: my legs weren't quite positioned properly for comfortable bipedal locomotion) taking in the still intact foundations, I could see the potential. This place, it had a palpable history to it, a weight you could feel. For centuries, it had stood as a bastion, a bulwark from where power was levied. And soon, it would be so once again. Setting my feet on the ground, I held out my arms before me, closed my eyes, and concentrated. I needed a place I could safely practice my stronger abilities, and I also needed to practice my fine control. And what better way to achieve both-- I opened my eyes to see a multitude of stone blocks rising from the forest around me. --than to build my own castle? Slowly, I began to move my arms, and as a conductor conducts a symphony, the stones followed my movements. I started slowly, carefully so as not to damage anything and to make sure all the pieces fit properly in place. But, as it turns out, I didn't need to do any of that. For centuries, perhaps even millennia, this castle had been exposed to, and in some cases enchanted with, untold amounts of unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, and alicorn magics. In addition to the wild magicks of the Everfree Forest, this place had been the resting place of the Elements of Harmony. And all of that had changed the Castle of the Two Sisters. The stones were alive; perhaps, not in a manner you or I would understand, but they possessed a consciousness of sorts. Time and magicks unimaginable had transformed the citadel into a Genius loci. And it wanted to be whole again. I was willing to oblige: if it would let me make a few changes. It agreed. Great blocks of stone sped by at breakneck speeds, crisscrossing over and through the paths of other blocks in a massive storm of flying rock. And there, at the eye of that storm, wreathed in the blue flames of my very own St. Elmo's fire, I stood. Standing there at the center of it all, watching ancient walls rise anew. It was spectacular, and I hardly had to do a thing: the stones knew where they belonged, all I did was let them move on their own. As the walls rose high, massive trees from the Everfree and within the ruins themselves came floating in, some still dropping clumps of dirt from where they'd been uprooted. Immediately, the trees were divested of limbs, roots, and bark: my psychic powers stripping the trunks down as the Genius loci showed me what to do. Concentrating, I split the bare trunks into planks and beams, while at the same time, the discarded branches and limbs were rendered down into bundles of wood fibers. Meanwhile, the different barks were all put aside for later processing and organizing. With the beams and planks complete, I raised them into place, creating a framework for the roof. Then, following the Genius loci's instructions, I fused the wood together, mimicking the spells used to do so in the original castle so long ago. Slowly but surely, the castle came into being at my own hands--paws, until it towered above the ancient trees of the Everfree Forest. Finally, the last piece slid into place, and the castle was complete...mostly. I didn't have the benefit of plundering the minds of various scientists and engineers like the original Mewtwo did, so the castle lacked any modern utilities, like electricity. Lowering my arms, I let out a breath. "That was exhausting." That was what I meant to say. What came out of my mouth though, was this: "Mef mef mefme...Mef?" Mef? I was baffled at the sounds that came out of my mouth for but a moment before the obvious made me press the heel of my paw against my forehead in exasperation. I was Pokemon. They...er, we can't talk. Well...I suppose we can, but learning to speak as a human--or pony, as the case may be--was a long and arduous process. Fortunately, I was a Mewtwo: I could cheat with telepathy. With that in mind, I turned my attention back to the castle. It needed a name. It was no longer the Castle of the Two Sisters, left to rot in the wilds of the Everfree. Now, it was my castle, my fortress, my citadel. It deserved a new name. One befitting its new status. I reflected back on what I could remember of the original Mewtwo. In the anime, Mewtwo-1 had been created on New Island, where upon reaching maturity, he had destroyed the lab there and left the island. Later, he had returned and built a castle on the island. Luring powerful trainers to the island, he had sought to replace all Pokemon with his own "superior" Pokemon clones, only to have a change of heart: thanks to a young boy, he came upon a revelation about the beauty of life. Abandoning the island, he had taken his clones to an unnamed caldera in the Johto region, where he later left to travel the world. There was at least one other Mewtwo created by a third party, but I don't believe they ever stuck to one place long enough to be associated with it. In the manga...actually, the less said about the manga, the better. Gym Leader Blaine being a partial (after-the-fact) clone of Mewtwo was just a little too weird for me. As for the game (and the much later Pokemon Origins anime), Mewtwo-1 had been created in a lab on Cinnabar Island, where he had then performed the standard destroy the lab and leave act. I don't know what he did after that, but once you beat the Elite Four, he is found in Cerulean Cave. Hmm...Cerulean. I smiled. Yes, that would do. That would do nicely. I raised my arms to the high ceilings above. From now on, you shall be the Castle Cerulean. Judging from sensations that lingered at the edge of my mind, I'd say the castle approved. Still watching the sky where the strange felinoid had vanished, Twilight Sparkle's mind raced. That creature was something that wasn't in any of her zoology books, and yet, she was certain that she knew it from somewhere. But where? "Well done, my little ponies." Twilight and the other five members of the Elements of Harmony turned around to see a radiant pony who shone like the sun. Twilight cried out a gleeful greeting. "Princess Celestia!" Princess Celestia, Solar Diarch of Equestria and immortal alicorn, smiled gently down at her six subjects. Her silken mane and tail waved as if a breeze, an ethereal aurora of pink, green, and blue. Great wings were tucked at her sides and her long horn glistened in the sun. She wore a gold tiara on her head, a gold mantle on her chest, and golden slippers on her hooves, but those all paled in comparison to the way her pure white fur gleamed, or the way the picture of a sun on her flanks seemed to glow. Her radiant smile turned into a small frown as she took in her subjects' expressions. "Whatever is the matter? Did you not defeat Discord?" "Oh, well we sure did, Princess," remarked Applejack honestly. "But we had a bit of help." Celestia tilted her head, looking down at the six mares. "Help? What kind of help?" "Well, Ah'm not rightly sure," Applejack responded quizzically. "Biggest darned cat Ah ever done seen, though." A look of worry crossed Celestia's face. "Cat?" "Oh yes Princess," Rarity interjected. "It was quite a fetching shade of purple." Worry turned to dread. "I've never seen anything like it in any of my books, but I could swear that I've seen it before..." Twilight trailed off as she caught the expression on her Princess' face. "Princess?" Celestia took a deep breath. "We best take this inside. Twilight, is your home available?" Twilight was taken aback at the shaky timber to Celestia's voice. "Well, yes...why?" "I'll explain soon, Twilight," the Solar diarch promised. "Sergeant." One of Celestia's guards, a group of identical alabaster pegasi stallions, stood to attention. "Ma'am!" "Secure the town." "Ma'am!" As the pegasi guards scattered, Princess Celestia Turned back to Twilight and her friends. "When we get inside," she said to Twilight. "Tell me everything." "And that's everything that happened, Princess." Finishing her story, Twilight took a deep breath. "What's this all about?" With a grim set to her jaw, Celestia stood up and slowly trotted to look out the window of Golden Oaks Library, Twilight's home. "This creature that you encountered fighting Discord. It was the Hellcat." Twilight gasped. "The Hellcat?" "Okay!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed in annoyance. "For those of us who have better things to do than read, what's a Hellcat!?" "The Hellcat is a demon of immeasurable power," Celestia stated gravely. "Now I remember," Twilight exclaimed. "From Lost Legends of Equestria." She turned to her friends to give them a bit of context. "It's the reason the Applachian Plains are not the Applachian Mountains." "Dang!" "Good heavens!" "Wowie!" "Lord a' mercy!" "Oh my." "Indeed," agreed Celestia grimly. "For those who know where to look, the history books will tell you that Hellcat was a creature of horrendous power, destroying all in its wake. But what those stories do not tell you, is that the Hellcat did not attack out of malice or greed, but out of madness." The six friends shared a look before turning back to the somber alicorn. "Madness, Princess?" Twilight asked. "Madness," Celestia agreed. "When my sister and I confronted the beast, it was clear that something had driven it completely and utterly insane, to the point it lashed out at everything around it in a mindless rage. It could not be reasoned with, and so we were forced to fight it." "I bet you kicked its flank, right Princess?" Dash exclaimed boisterously. "We did not," Celestia simply replied. At the six mares' exclamations of shock and denial, Celestia turned from the window to face them. "Luna and I held back, as much as we could without endangering our subjects--it was fortunate that the Applachian Mountains were largely uninhabited." "Forgive me for asking, Princess," interrupted Rarity. "But why on Equestria did you hold back?" "Understand," explained Celestia. "That this was just after Discord's first reign of madness. We did not know if this was one of Discord's creations, or a victim forced to fight against his will." "The poor thing," whispered Fluttershy. Celestia continued on. "We were unable to free it from its madness, and so were forced to use the Elements of Harmony upon the creature, sealing it away in stone. That it broke free at the same time as Discord, is disturbing." "Huh," Pinkie pondered. "It didn't seem very mad, but it was very angry at Discord. Ooh, maybe that's why Hellcat's a psychotic type!" At that moment, before Celestia or anyone else could respond to that apparent non sequitur, one of the pegasi guards burst through the door. "Princess! A castle rises from the forest!" Stiffening, Celestia pushed out the door past the guard and stared. Sure enough, tall, twisting towers were rising above the Everfree Forest treeline off in the distance. That was the direction her old castle once lay. She grit her teeth, before turning to address the six mares that had followed her outside. "Girls, I have one more task for you this day," Celestia stated solemnly. "I must ask of you to investigate that castle. But be careful," she cautioned. "If what I fear is true, then that is where the Hellcat has made its lair. Do not draw its ire. If it is still caught in the throes of madness, then I must ask you to trap it in stone once more." "We won't let you down, Princess," Twilight pledged. "Come on girls!" As she watched the six mares gallop down the street, Celestia let out a deep sigh. "Be safe, my little ponies."