Offline?
Nathan Hale stared at the screen for a long time, but Mewtwo never replied.
He lightly rubbed his chin.
Did I push too hard?
Actually, Nathan Hale was confident that he could help Mewtwo understand what the id, the ego, and even the superego were.
Only after truly understanding these concepts could Mewtwo grasp the meaning of “I” in the fullest sense.
It was neither merely a name nor simply a label.
Once Mewtwo understood this, perhaps it would realize that although it was indeed special, every Pokémon in the world was special in its own way.
The only difference was the degree of that “specialness.”
After all, Nathan Hale was a transmigrator who knew the plot.
He already understood Mewtwo fairly well.
This was therefore a highly targeted treatment.
It was essentially drawing the target after firing the arrow.
No matter how he explained it, he could make it work.
But Mewtwo’s sudden disconnection left Nathan Hale feeling as though he’d thrown a punch with all his strength, only for it to land on cotton.
“Forget it.”
After sitting there for a while, Nathan Hale shook his head.
Regardless of whether Mewtwo could accept what he had said, he had already done what a Pokémon psychologist ought to do.
And Mewtwo was still under Team Rocket’s control.
It wasn’t as though it would crawl through the internet and come chop him up, right?
After collecting himself and resting for a while, Nathan Hale took the sneeze-prone Gastly and headed for the training room.
What he didn’t know was that because of his little “therapy session,” Team Rocket—the infamous underground organization spanning Kanto and Johto, whose network even the Pokémon League could not easily penetrate—had suffered a complete network outage.
For an entire day!
Viridian City, Team Rocket Headquarters.
Dim light illuminated the gloomy hall.
A conspicuous crimson R stood out in the hazy shadows.
Beneath its reflected glow sat a man gently stroking Persian.
Beside him stood a woman in glasses and a secretary’s uniform, respectfully reporting:
“.
.
.Boss, that’s the situation in general.
Mewtwo appears to have accessed the network without anyone’s knowledge.
It seems to have been subjected to some kind of stimulus, causing its psychic power to erupt.
As a result, the entire Team Rocket network went down, and even Porygon wasn’t spared.
The estimated losses are—”
“Stimulus?”
A deep, resonant voice interrupted her.
“Yes.
According to the data obtained by the researchers before the system crashed, Mewtwo’s psychic power reached three times its normal level at the time.
Its upper limit is unknown.”
As Giovanni’s secretary, Matori reported everything truthfully.
The hand stroking Persian paused.
“Meow—”
Persian opened its eyes in confusion.
“Can we determine who Mewtwo contacted at the time?”
Giovanni once again placed his hand on Persian’s back.
Matori’s expression became troubled.
“I’m afraid it’ll be difficult.
Because of Mewtwo’s power, the Team Rocket network still hasn’t recovered.
Some of the critical data from that time was lost because the database was practically filled to capacity and nearly formatted, so—”
Furthermore, although the League couldn’t easily infiltrate Team Rocket’s network, Team Rocket trying to infiltrate the League’s network wasn’t exactly easy either.
“Filled?”
Giovanni was slightly surprised.
Team Rocket’s database was comparable to the League’s own.
How could it possibly be full?
Matori pursed her lips, her expression becoming somewhat strange.
She gave an awkward smile.
“It was filled with the words ‘Gastly, Gastly…'”
Giovanni was silent.
For a moment, he seemed to imagine opening his blanket at night only to find it completely covered in Gastly.
After a long silence, he finally uttered one word.
“Investigate.”
“Yes!”
“Achoo!”
In the training room, Gastly suddenly froze in the middle of its training and let out a violent sneeze.
A thick, dark-purple cloud of gas immediately erupted from its body and drifted toward Nathan Hale.
Nathan Hale’s expression tightened, and he hurriedly dodged to the side.
Poison-type move: Smog!
After avoiding it, Nathan Hale took a deep breath.
Every time he trained Gastly, some kind of “accident” would inevitably happen.
Not only did Gastly need training, but Nathan Hale had apparently been training his dodging skills right alongside it.
He felt like his movements had actually become more agile lately.
“Ko-gee, ko-gee.”
I didn’t do it on purpose.
Gastly looked at Nathan Hale with an aggrieved expression.
（.＿.）
“If you hadn’t immediately wiped that ‘what a pity’ look off your face just now, I might’ve believed you.”
Nathan Hale dusted off his clothes and glared at it.
“Ko-gee—”
Gastly secretly sighed.
Being the Pokémon of a Pokémon psychology professor is hard.
Nothing gets past him.
Still, it really hadn’t done it on purpose.
It simply didn’t understand why it had suddenly started sneezing so much today.
“Forget it.
You don’t seem to be in very good shape today either.
Training should be done in moderation.
That’s enough for today.”
Nathan Hale took out a purple-glowing Energy Cube.
“Ko-gee!”
The instant Gastly saw the Energy Cube, every other problem was thrown out of its mind.
Nom!
It swallowed the Energy Cube in one bite and revealed a blissful expression.
With training finished, Nathan Hale decided to leave work early.
The Academy didn’t really care when its teachers arrived or left anyway.
Even Dr.
Solans disappeared two or three times a week, and nobody seemed to mind.
Nathan Hale had even heard that some of the Academy’s teachers took on side jobs for extra income.
For example, teachers from the battle department might work as instructors at battle clubs, earning considerably more than their Academy salaries.
But after work, Nathan Hale didn’t head straight home with Gastly.
Instead, he went to downtown Rustboro City.
The Energy Cubes he’d bought last time were almost gone, so he needed to restock.
They were also running low on groceries, so he planned to buy a larger supply while he was at it.
Shopping with Gastly was actually quite difficult.
The little fellow had slept for nearly a thousand years.
To it, absolutely everything was fascinating.
If it fiddled with one thing here and dawdled over another there, Nathan Hale couldn’t afford the damages.
But keeping such an energetic little troublemaker under control wasn’t easy either.
In the end, Nathan Hale had to pay the painful price of three Energy Cubes just to buy himself a relatively peaceful shopping trip.
The constant “Ko-gee, ko-gee” beside his ear didn’t count.
Fortunately, everything went relatively smoothly.
When Nathan Hale walked out of the Energy Cube store, the price of his rapidly shrinking wallet had bought Gastly approximately two weeks’ worth of food.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure whether it would really last two weeks.
Last time, he’d bought what he thought would be enough for two weeks.
Gastly had finished it all in one week.
Its appetite was far greater than he’d expected.
He’d increased the amount this time, but he had no idea how long it would actually last.
“Sigh.”
Standing outside the Energy Cube store, Nathan Hale sighed.
“I really need to find a way to make some money…”
“AAAAAH!”
Suddenly—
A sharp, piercing scream rang out from the street, drawing everyone’s attention.
A masked man had snatched a woman’s bag at incredible speed.
He immediately jumped onto a motorcycle that had been waiting nearby and prepared to speed away with his accomplice.
Several bystanders changed expressions and moved to intervene.
But the robbers had clearly prepared thoroughly in advance.
They weren’t going to be easy to stop.
Then, a familiar voice sounded almost right beside Nathan Hale’s ear.
“Metang, Confusion!”
A familiar figure subsequently entered his field of vision.
The other party also seemed to notice him.
“Daigo?”
“Teacher Nathan Hale?”