Mewtwo was feeling more and more incredulous, the more she spoke. Finally he shook his head a bit.

But you didn't intend harm. That much he could tell, from listening to her and shamelessly listening in on her thoughts.

"No, of course not," Ithica said. "Really, just sating my curiosity. I can't even reasonably claim I wanted to catch you because I know how that would turn out."

Mewtwo took a few moments to mull that over, watching her. Finally, the menacing aura around him eased.

You are a very odd human.

"Thank you?" Ithica said, a little uncertainly. She glanced between Red and Mewtwo. "So... how do you two know each other? Because I did notice that neither one of you was surprised to see the other."

Red shrugged. "I came down here years ago after hearing the rumors," he said. "I wanted to see if it was true."

He at least is not insufferable, Mewtwo not-quite-grouched, which was praise pretty much.

"Okay, that's fair," Ithica said. She gave Red a bit of a rueful look. "So you just let me walk down here and do the same thing? Like a rite of passage? Or some sort of trial by fire-- or rather, trial by psychic?"

"You knew the way," Red pointed out. "I wanted to know why." He shrugged. "And trial by psychic is perhaps not incorrect."

Ithica sighed at that, but nodded a bit.

"Okay, I probably deserved it," she said. She paused for a moment. "Though now that that's out of the way, I'm probably going to demolish the Elite Four and then head out to the Orange Islands."

Red smirked at that, because that he'd like to see.

Mewtwo blinked at that but didn't say anything else, just watching her for now.

After another moment of silence, Ithica glanced at Mewtwo.

"Are you still rooting around in my head?" she asked. "I genuinely can't tell."

Yes, Mewtwo said without any shame. I'm curious.

Red snorted at that, looking highly amused.

"I promise you my mind isn't that interesting," Ithica said. "Mostly just useless trivia, really."

Useless trivia to you, perhaps, but entirely new information to this world, Mewtwo pointed out. What is this 'Pokémon Go' thing?

"It's a game," Ithica replied carefully. "Fun little virtual app that Mel and I were playing just before we... ended up here."

Mewtwo gave her a Look that told her he knew better than that. But he didn't push. Yet.

Red looked interested though. "From your world?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ithica replied, nodding. She was still trying to be careful of how much she said. "Just a fun little game designed to get people outside and walking around."

Red noticed her pickiness with her words and raised his eyebrows at her to see if she'd elaborate or not.

Ithica weighed her options for a moment, and then decided screw it, Mewtwo had already been in her head and probably knew everything already, may as well tell Red as well.

"So, where we're from, Pokemon aren't... real. All of this is just... well, a cartoon, and a game and such, but not actually real."

Red blinked. Twice. "A cartoon? And game?" His eyebrows shot up, because of course that was difficult to believe.

Ithica raised an eyebrow in return.

"There's a legendary out there whose powers are literally all about punching through dimensions and--" She paused as she registered what she was saying. "--and Giratina might be able to help us fix this. It's all about dimensions, it even has Distortion World, maybe that's what happened..." She trailed off, thinking.

Mewtwo considered that for a few moments. And that is what you wish? To fix this and return home?

That made Ithica stop. That wasn't something she had really thought about. And the thought of going back and leaving her pokemon behind wasn't one she particularly wanted to entertain. She'd grown attached to them, and she didn't want to give them up.

"I... don't know," she admitted. She looked at him. "Stop that, I don't want any sort of existential crisis right now, that's your job."

That is something you will have to consider, before you find Giratina, Mewtwo pointed out. What exactly you want.

"I know where Giratina is," Ithica commented distractedly as she tried to gather her thoughts again. "Or where it ought to be, at least, though Twist Mountain is a pain in the ass to navigate." Now that Mewtwo had brought up the subject of whether or not she wanted to leave, it was bothering her, and she kept turning it over in her head as she tried to think it over.

Mewtwo seemed amused now. Well, then, go on, he told them. Go pester someone else for a while. And he melted back into the darkness.