Was trying to seduce an emotionally stunted and physically addicted lesbian teenager a bad idea?
Well, I wasn't getting paid to think, so I honestly didn't know or care.
'What do you think about our current ethical dilemma, my intrepid divinity-seeking 'mon?' I asked using my brand spanking new telepathy. Awakening Pokémon powers. Five credits I will never get back… was it worth it?
My brain says yes, but my miserly heart says no. I'm sure there was something I could steal or grab or something to give myself moderate superhumanity and a bevy of confusing abilities and psychic powers. Could have just thrown a dart and jumped somewhere. Mewtwo was the one who made me buy it. Impatient catman.
I honestly don't believe that you have had a single coherent thought once in your life. The strongest Psychic-type lambasted.
'Hey, you looked over my plan and thought it was pretty good.' I thought back at my psychic support that was currently trying to examine the shard dimension. I don't think he was making much progress based on his periodic 'Hmms' of fake brilliance.
No, I looked over the mangled piece of paper on which you scrawled 'Steps for getting Amy Dallon to Love Me'. It consisted of four steps, with the third being a series of question marks and the fourth being just the word 'Profit'.
'Yeah, and you didn't have any complaints. That's basically an A+ rating from you.' I'd been living with my new Pokémon buddies and Mewtwo for a week now. Honestly, with the ability to be anywhere at any time, it was super easy to just pinch food here and there to keep us fed, while squatting in houses. Mewtwo called it a 'terrible indignity' but I found him living it up in a literal cave so he didn't have room to complain about it.
It was either this or the farce you wanted to try with that comic book world. I rolled my eyes at his lack of faith.
It took a lot of shop talk, but we eventually decided on one fictional world and target. I wanted to go to the DC universe and chat up Death. Unfortunately, Mewtwo was a bit of a pussy and did not like the odds of leaving me alone with the personification of the end of existence. Something about weighing the value of his survival against the joy of seeing me subjected to instantaneous eradication by self-stupidity.
Mewtwo is a bit of a hater, I've come to learn.
DC would have been the easiest place to find a way to godhood, too. People literally trip over rocks to become New Gods. I think. I don't remember much of that extended lore.
Hater? I am merely exercising a single iota of forethought. Portaling to the end of existence and trying to take the goddess of said End on a date before offering to help her put up the chairs and turn off the lights is not a valid mating tactic.
I blew a raspberry in my mind. That was hard to learn how to do, by the way.
'Hey, Death would have loved that. It would have been an in-and-out single-day adventure, and an easy five thousand credits.' I reasoned. I totally could have gotten Death to fall in love with me in a day. On this, I swear to future God Mewtwo.
Stop bothering me with your inane prattling; you have a stratagem to execute, as much as I loathe to describe it as such. He then hung up the mind phone. Yeah, you know that bit from DBZ Abridged where King Kai accidentally dials George Takei? After developing psychic powers myself, I've realized it's less funny in person. Turns out, telepathically linking with someone is very much like dialing on an old wired home phone.
Back to my grand plan to get Panacea to admit her love for me.
Step 1. Find Panacea.
Step 2. Wooper.
Step 3. ????
Step 4. Profit.
Genius in its simplicity, right? Well, unfortunately, the Brain to my Pinky had a whole host of addendums. The plan swelled from four easy steps into a long, objective-based, meandering giant of a document.
The barebones were still the same, given what I definitively knew about Panacea that may have been fanfiction or whatever. Her Shaper offshoot was less restricted and provoking her. It influenced its host to gather data in expediency via conflict. Amy Dallon did not want to give data, and combined with her depressing home life something something something. I stopped paying attention when Mewtwo tried to break down a bunch of psychological stressors.
Heck, he even designed the current 'me' that I made using cosmetic shapeshifting. I was blonde-haired, brown-eyed, with dimpled cheeks and a gigawatt smile. Fit-looking, but not truly athletic. More or less, someone coasting by on good genes and a passable diet.
Yeah, I looked like Victoria Dallon. As a dude. If a bit taller. Oh, and also, my name is now 'Marcus' according to all the paperwork that Mewtwo fudged using his phenomenal psychic might.
Mewtwo was not a subtle planner, as you can tell. Sort of expected, when his original method to announce himself to the world was to either hide in a cave waiting for the most powerful trainers or create a worldwide typhoon-hurricane super storm.
Apparently, my shapeshifting wasn't supposed to affect my internals, but Pokémon Aura did not play around with its user's health and robustness.
So, yeah, that, plus Mewtwo's strongest Heal Pulse, and I am now officially seventeen again, with seventeen-year-old meatware. Which is probably why my planning skills have gone from 'World-Class Improv Comedy' to 'fly by the seat of my pants'.
Also, the depression and crippling loneliness that I have not yet grown immune to.
And I'm back in high school.
Wow, I am doing some outrageously stupid garbage for a hundred bucks and a temporary girlfriend. I should go back in time and punch past me for coming up with this bullshit.
\-\
There were many classes that Amy Dallon hated. Biology was one of those classes. She had a fairly good reason for it, too. As always, it was due to other people's expectations.
Despite her power being sold as only working on living things, every single one of her lab partners always tried to get her to do all the work at the beginning of the school year. It was always 'But, don't you have the most experience?' or 'It's a little too gross' or in one particularly bitchy case 'You do this all the time, don't you?'. Lacey was lucky that Panacea was above giving people horrible bouts of crotch acne.
The coinciding stress breakout at the end of the year due to her learning nothing about Bio and needing to cram for finals was particularly satisfying, though.
So, when she got paired with the new guy who transferred in this year, she was expecting the eightieth verse to go the same as the first.
"Um-Hi! I'm Marcus. Marcus Michina. And you're Amy. Right? We got put together for lab so…" Frankly, Amy thought the guy was a little too good-looking for his own good. Like, wow. The only person she thought could compete in the whole school was Vicky.
And she'd been carefully curating and smoothing out some imperfections here and there over the years at the request of her amazing sister. No, Vicky, Dean is not going to notice the weird discoloration between your shoulder blades. He shouldn't have been looking there in the first place.
Like, Amy didn't believe in pretty privilege since her power broke down everyone to the internals, but Marcus' face was almost enough to get her to cave and actually greet him like a normal person.
She didn't, obviously. Because, unlike some people - no names, but it rhymed with Lean - Amy could actually ignore a pretty blonde when she saw one acting cute.
"Sooo…?" Amy monotonously groaned. Complete with 'Over-this' eyeroll. The guy, unlike the popular kid she pegged him as, wilted a bit.
Hmm, maybe he only recently grew into his looks, or something like that. A teen getting hit with the puberty bat over the summer in Arcadia was more common than not, given that most kids who went here tended to be upper-middle-class.
"S-sorry. Just wanted to introduce myself to the local celebrity. It's - uhm - it's cool if you don't want to talk… I mean, you must do Bio stuff all the time, so you're probably a bit tired of it… Sorry, I'll be quiet now." He mumbled out, pulling his notebook out as the teacher started handing out worksheets. It was the first lab of the school year, so they weren't exactly going to be dissecting anything yet. Their first activity was actually a group work quiz on lab procedure. Open book and everything. It even included a detailed list of in-school punishments for not following directions.
You know, to make sure some idiot didn't lick the formaldehyde frog this year.
It took them about five minutes to finish. Well, for her to finish. When Amy looked over and was getting ready to hand over her completed answers - because that was usually easier than griping with her current pain in the ass of the week - Marcus was also already done.
He must have sensed her somehow, because he turned and met her straight-on, not even a second after she turned to him.
"Oh, sorry. I'm uh… I like Bio. I got a bunch of pets, and they're really cool. Like, Axalotls. They're really cute, too. Did you know they can…" He trailed off, blushing as he realised he was oversharing again. Hmm. Yeah, he was way too good-looking. He even blushed prettily. Which was weird considering that he was a guy.
"What about them?" She asked. Amy wouldn't say she was interested, but something about this was eerily familiar and made her want to see where it went.
"Oh, they're super regenerators. They can do things like regrow vital organs, spinal cords, and more. I - sorry if this is a little weird - but have you ever used your power on one? I always wanted to know how they did it. See, I think it's -" Marcus chattered. Chattered.
It hit her immediately. She wasn't blind after all. The new kid was like Vicky with her cape rambling. Did all hot blondes have a weird, goofy, nerdy side? Was that just a thing?
As the healer came to terms with her revelation about what a more cultured person would call gap moe, her lab partner rambled on and on about random animal trivia.
Honestly, it was kind of cute to see a hot guy have a weird nerdy hobby like caring for animals.
"No, I don't think I have." Amy finally answered. Now that she thought about it, she seldom used her powers on animals. Plants were one thing, but they were simplistic and were more of the same across the board. You see one cellulose structure, you've seen them all. Maybe a different chemical here, or there, but…
Marcus worried his lip, unsure if he should interrupt her thoughts, but the brunette finally decided to take the initiative in the conversation herself.
"Hey, what else can you tell me about them?" Amy asked. It wasn't like she was ever going to touch one in her life, but hearing about neat biology instead of the basic mechanics was scratching a weird itch in her brain. Just speculating about how to replicate the things he told her about was interesting in and of itself.
The boy's face brightened. It actually brought a smile to Amy's own to see him so excited, like a large puppy. Her own was more of a pompous smirk than the overly enthusiastic thing that was on Marcus' face, though. She wasn't really built for being non-condescending.
"They're like super cancer resistant. Like, I read on the internet that they're a thousand times more resistant. They also have this little grin all the time, it's super cute, like a happy little buddy -" Amy leaned her cheek against her palm, settling in for a ramble session like she would with her sister.
This was honestly the nicest lab experience she'd ever had.
\-\
Oh my god, I'm such a fucking loser. Mewtwo! Mewtwo! The plan is failing!
I noticed. What happened to succinct and easy? The human-cat Pokémon asked, the contempt in his voice coming across as teasing rather than insulting.
Though knowing him, it was probably both.
'I don't know! I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. I was going to go with aloof and uninterested. Match her energy, ya know? Build a rapport of grouchiness. Next thing I know, I'm thinking about how cute she is, my face is red hot, and I'm saying random bullshit about Axalotls!' I mentally shouted, panicking as I splashed some water in my face. I think I might have mixed some Pokémon facts in there that I played off as exaggerated myths. No, I definitely said their skin secreted some kind of poison.
Well, as long as it's salvageable… Also, these 'shards' are terribly inefficient. I have never seen such impressive physical might used so recklessly. You would think that after thousands of years of evolution, they would be more streamlined. Mewtwo sent through the link. I left him with the phone since I had no use for it, and it wasn't like my 'retinue' was actually bound or anything. There wasn't even the mutually assured destruction factor where they would be sold after my death, because I already cashed them in for credit value.
I think he might have a doctorate in theoretical Earth physics already.
I do. I had one provisioned for myself by Harvard. I could feel his smug cat aura mocking me. Here I was, with my terrible teenage brain, and he was walking around with the ubermensch supercomputer. I want my improv ability back, damn it! How the hell else was I supposed to get out of this situation? By being honest with my feelings?!
According to popular literature, that is how one starts and strengthens a relationship. The legendary snarked.
'Mewtwo, if everyone on Earth were honest about their feelings, we'd be in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max world after they made the Atom Bomb.' I made my opinion on that thought completely clear. I stepped out of the bathroom and made my way back to class. Okay, game face on, Marky Mark. Get your funky bunch together. It's just a teenage girl. How terrifying can that be?
The bell rang as I turned the corner. The halls weren't flooded yet, but I could see doors opening. I stepped up to the classroom and was immediately pushed aside by the outpour of students. I was thankfully tall in this life, like my last, and had enough mass that it was more like soft brush asides than shoving.
Eventually, it emptied, and I stepped in to grab my stuff. Panacea was still sitting at the lab table, looking something up on her phone. Weird.
"Oh, thanks for watching my stuff. Sorry about that." I cringed at my half-assed excuse for a conversation. She was probably just trying to avoid the hall crush. I really wasn't all that important enough to be making assumptions like that. The frizzled-haired girl looked up from her phone.
"Hmm." She half-heartedly grunted before turning back to her phone. I swallowed my saliva. Okay. Blatant dismissal, for some reason, made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. Palms sweaty, and you know the rest. I blame Mewtwo.
I tried not to let any of it show as I packed my things and grabbed my bag. I made it about halfway to the door before she spoke up again.
"Hey, you know where the cafeteria is, right? My sister is begging to meet her 'twin'." It took every ounce of willpower - not that I had much - to not slap myself in the face. I should not have let Mewtwo decide my looks.
"Um - I - Are you sure?" Damn it. Where the hell is my suaveness? I want to use my isekai cheat to push her psychological buttons, not be reminded of my original high school experience where a cute girl could bat her lashes and get me to carry her two blocks in a blizzard.
That actually happened, by the way. We were friends, and her shoes were soaked through, so it wasn't the biggest deal, but still!
Amy stared at me, her piercing gaze highlighting her raised brow. Yeah, that was probably something she got from her adopted mother, because I folded like a crappy tailgating chair.
That is to say, collapsed under what seemed to be three hundred pounds of pressure.
"Yeahokay." I blurted out in a string of two words. This seemed to satisfy the mousy brunette, because she went from disappointed mom back to disinterested teen in under a second. I just plodded along behind her as she got up and walked through the now easier-to-manage hallway.
Man, this was so not how Mewtwo planned it.
I'm sure that whatever passes for your natural charm can overpower her psychological conditioning and evoke true love.
'You know, you could just tell me to go fuck myself and save about ten words.' I snarked at the experimental Pokémon.
And deprive you of my mocking? Think of it as a crash course in diction and eloquence.
\-\
Well, that is something you do not see every day. Dean thought to himself. Amy Dallon was a girl who could be best described as reticent and churlish. So to see her open up this way was a little odd, to say the least.
She was still herself of course, and if you were an outsider to their little group, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Her body posture was closed, and her gaze staring blankly at the object of her attention. She was resting her head on her open palm, one of the ultimate signifiers of boredom.
But it was what she wasn't doing that was the interesting part. The healer wasn't paying the usual polite lip service. There were no 'Uh-huhs', 'Sorry, have to be at the hospital', or 'My sister needs help with something'. All the little ways she used to exit conversations rudely, without seeming rude.
She was even participating with light probing questions as the young man talked about sharks.
Dean could see out the corner of his eye the sheer amount of glee and confusion in Vicky's expression. On one hand, seeing Amy actually engage in conversation with a boy was one hell of a treat for the blonde girl. On the other, Dean could count the number of people who could hold Amy's positive attention on one finger.
Seeing her go out of her way to make the new kid feel welcome was a weird start to the lunch period.
"Hey, Ames, care to introduce us to your new friend?" Vicky jumped in between the two. Dean rolled his eyes at her fabricated pretence. It's not like the girl didn't know who Marcus Michina was, given the rumours that started this morning about Glory Girl having a twin.
"Marcus, my sister Vicky. Vicky, Marcus. He's my lab partner this week." Amy brushed off, trying to wrestle herself out of her sister's grip. Dean had to refrain from smirking as he saw the embarrassment literally well up and colour the girl. She may have been closed off to everyone else, but his power made her a bit of an open book. Most of the time. There were still some weird fluctuations he'd see from her here and there that would throw off most of his mental interpretations.