Wow. This game really deserves more fanfiction. Anyway; late game spoilers from this point on. If you haven't proceeded past the Mechonis Core events and don't want to be spoiled, go back now. (Only minor spoilers if you've gone past MC but not to Prison Island yet... your choice.)

Anyway. I really didn't like that they turned Dickson into a villain. I actually liked him a lot. So... remember when Dickson first revealed himself as Zanza's disciple and Dunban thought he was being controlled/possessed? What if Dunban had been right? Takes place during the party's final (and first?) battle with Dickson at Prison Island. Slightly AU because I actually give him a visible wound... in the game it looks like he just sits down, has a smoke, and dies for no reason. Also because I turned Dickson into a father figure for Shulk. The game implied that anyway, but only after Dickson announced he was evil, so... oh well. Enjoy! (Is that the right word to say for a death fic...?)

The piercing light of Shulk's Replica Monado slashed through air, cutting through flesh and bone and vaporizing all else. The sound of the Monado's victory coupled harshly with an anguished scream of defeat to echo in a dissonant chorus of war, and the slain beast fell to his knees. His long howl echoed through the high rocks and lofty crevasses of Prison Island as it morphed into a throaty roar that shook the ground and ripped violently through the air, a terrible sound. A lingering azure wave of shivering power was all that remained of the once monster born of Zanza's strength.

The disciple of a god had fallen.

"We decide our own futures, Dickson. Tell that to Zanza."

Shulk pulled back, letting his weapon fall to his side, the glowing blade of blue sliding back into its sheath. He took a step back to rejoin the others, their band of seven that dared to defy fate, and looked on at one who claimed to decide it. The monster was slowly shrinking, form molding back into that of a Homs, wild hair and beast like features taming into those he recognized. The transformation was quick, everything but the bright slash on his chest blurring back into the painfully familiar figure of the man he had once called a father.

Shulk readied himself to fight again, and his friends did the same, when they saw Dickson was still standing and strong. He tightened his grip on his sword and prepared to prove himself again, but Dickson only stood his ground for one more moment before his claimed strength failed him, and he fell back to the ground.

With his fall, Dickson's face transformed, expression wiped clean of that smirk he had grown so used to, and he exhaled deeply. But he didn't just breathe air.

A cloud of green dust laced with luminous, verdant light emerged from their enemy's slack mouth, floating up onto the wind- light as a feather. It looked almost like ether... except- ether didn't leave the body like that. It couldn't. Even if Dickson were dead, it couldn't do that.

Dickson breathed out again, corded muscles tensing and jerking and the blood draining fast from his features, leaving him white as a ghost, and the thin cloud of ether grew thick. The green glowed bright by the time Dickson had slumped back onto the ground, and Shulk watched warily, prepared to fight again.

But neither Dickson nor the cloud took the form of an enemy. Dickson remained still and panting on the ground, and the ether began to move, gravitating towards them- almost as if attracted by a magnetic pull. They all tensed, but its motion remained slow and calm- even when its destination of the Monado became apparent.

It swarmed around his weapon like a mass of buzzing insects, swallowing it whole. Shulk jerked back but the ether meant him no harm; it just slowly began to absorb into the Monado like it was returning home. He felt the blade warm up with a familiar strength until it was almost burning hot, and the blue blade of energy was pulsating and blindingly bright, and the ether just kept streaming in.

The energy grew ever stronger under his hands... ever more familiar...

Until he felt like he was holding the real Monado in his hands again.

Zanza's Monado.

But why would ether from Dickson feel like Zanza? And why had it gone to his Monado in the first place?

Unless...

Shulk's heart nearly stopped.

Unless that wasn't really Dickson.

His world spun, and with a powerful wave of dizziness touched with horror, Shulk almost collapsed.

Unless Zanza was inside him.

The adrenaline of the fight still coursing through his body came to a stuttering halt and left Shulk frozen, a cold upwell of horror rising up to cloak him throughly. It was hard to breathe and even harder to think; the beating horror took delight in choking off his air and wrapped itself tight around his heart.

Slowly, Shulk raised his head.

Dickson was still. The gaping wound across his chest slowly oozed a mass of blood, the bright red soaking into his shirt and spilling onto the rocks around him. Aside from the slow, forced rise and fall of his chest, he didn't move; it looked like the life had steadily drained out of him so greatly that any kind of threat he could pose was now far removed. Now he was just their once enemy, once friend, dying on the ground.

The weapon by his side had slipped from slack fingers- just as the darkness had from his eyes.

He was smiling.

"Dickson!"

The scream was raw and tore his throat, and Shulk didn't care, he just ran. His legs stumbled into motion and his body moved forward of their own accord, carrying him towards Dickson until he collapsed at his side and screamed his name again. Dickson kept on smiling and Shulk frantically tried to cover the wound, but it was too big, and there was so much blood already, and Dickson was still smiling and it didn't make any sense how he could be smiling and bleeding like that at the same time.

"Sharla!" he cried, flattening his hand out over the gash and trying in vain to stop the bleeding. "Sharla, help him! You have to help him! Please!"

There was a rush of pounding footsteps, and suddenly, his friends all appeared with him, standing around Dickson and staring down at them both like he'd lost his mind, but Sharla was the only one to speak. "Shulk, are you sure?! He's with Zanza! He could betray us again!"

Shulk just shook his head. He couldn't stop shaking his head and his voice was caught somewhere in his throat, but every moment he wasted gasping Dickson spent bleeding, bleeding, bleeding...

There's so much blood- a person can't bleed this much and live- there's so much blood-

"He's not!" he gasped, then shook his head again and pressed his hands so tight over Dickson's wound it hurt. "He's not... that was Zanza. Zanza again. T-that ether, that was Zanza... it was him the whole time..."

The whole time, it was you...

The round of shocked gasps from around him didn't even come close to rivaling the horror he felt. The look on Dunban's face did.

Sharla's more experienced hands replaced his own, and her rifle started up its healing work again as if by magic. Melia joined her side, her hands and staff glowing blue with the power of water elementals, and together, they both poured out everything they had into the man before them.

He was still smiling.

"Thanks for... getting 'em for me... Shulk. Thought for a m-minute there... Zanza had ya."

Dickson's voice was rough and tired, stopping and starting around coughs and hitching breaths, but clear as day, the familiar drawl dragging on each word and speech, one that felt just all too familiar. Shulk was rendered mute, the look on Dickson's face enough to leave him still with shock, but Dunban was still able to speak and did.

"No, Dickson, don't talk. You must conserve your strength," Dunban instructed, one gloved hand reaching out to rest on his friend's shoulder, either to hold him down or just to touch him- Shulk couldn't tell. Probably a little bit of both.

Dickson coughed again. It was wet and sounded painful, but he grinned, and his gaze moved from Shulk to his war buddy. "Eh? For what, Dunban? Or... you just getting soft... on me n-now..."

Shulk's eyes widened and Dunban shook his head fiercely, the hand on Dickson's shoulder pressing down harder. "You're going to be fine. You haven't seen what these two ladies can do; they're going to fix you up well enough to face Zanza with us. You'll see."

But Shulk didn't see.

He could see the future. He could see the passage of the enemy's blade, he could see Zanza waiting for them somewhere in the fabric of space and time- he could see the hand Melia would raise to summon another storm of water ether.

But he couldn't see Dickson alive.

We killed him.

I killed him.

I just killed my friend.

Dickson coughed again. This time, he coughed up blood.

God, what have we done?

Shulk and Dunban both flinched at the red droplets that sprayed them and Dickson winced, his usually stoic features turning pained. His coughs got worse, so hard he surely couldn't breathe, and Dunban worked an arm around his shoulders to help him up enough to stop suffocating. Shulk felt surreal; the horror was still real, but so was disbelief, and even when Dickson spat out the globule of blood in his throat, muttering out a gargled, "Damn, that's foul,", and Shulk realized just how much of the scarlet liquid coated his hands and his teammates and the rocks around him, and the stream of healing ether began to slow, he still didn't believe it.

Well- he didn't want to believe it. There was a difference.

"Dickson," he gasped, but somehow, he couldn't figure out a way to put all of his regret and sorrow forth into his words. He still couldn't stop himself, shaking apologies pouring out like water down a waterfall. "Dickson, I'm sorry. I should've realized... I should've known-! I'm sorry."

Dickson glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, one eyebrow raising, and he coughed through another grin. "Don't worry about it, kid. ...Guess I just wa... wasn't meant to... see this through... to the end..."

And at Dickson's words, Shulk's heart gave an anguished throb of regret, Dunban's face contorted as if now, he really understood- and Sharla and Melia stopped healing.

Shulk saw them look at each other, shake their heads- and then just stop. Not with his eyes; he'd seen it as a vision, known it would happen- known even as he screamed for them to help that it wouldn't change the future. He'd known as soon as he drawn his Monado across Dickson's chest that he was dead.

Except this one time... I couldn't change the future...

"Dickson. Dickson!"

"Come on, man, stop playing with us..."

"Dickson no get up. But Dickson good guy. Dickson supposed to get up."

I can't save everyone. I tried so hard, but I just... can't...

The Emperor.

Egil.

The High Entia.

Dickson.

It got worse every time. Every person he couldn't save was closer and closer to him. They could change the future a million times but when it mattered, when it really counted- they played right into Zanza's hand!

And now, the man who'd raised him was dying by his hand.

"All of you. Stop it." Dickson's head rolled, the man himself too weak to stop it, ending up in Dunban's lap. The steely gaze Shulk knew so well bored into the eyes of his partner, but his words were to them all. "I woulda killed you... if you hadn't gotten me. Zanza wants... you dead... you had to do it. Okay? D-don't go b-blaming yourselves."

"Dickson..."

Dunban's voice was soft and laden with crushed sorrow, something of how Shulk felt right now, but the soldier was having none of it. Even in his final moments, Dickson wasn't letting them give up.

"So you... couldn't save me. But Zanza didn't g-get his way... either... you got him. Just keep going a... little... more... You can stop him. I know you can."

Dickson was dying faster now. His breaths were short, strained little gasps, more than a few laden with blood; his skin was the same shade of paper and the light in his black eyes was draining away. The lump in Shulk's throat was thick, and his eyes burned; even if he'd had a reply to Dickson's words he wouldn't have been able to vocalize it.

Once again, it was Dunban who spoke when he could not.

"But you..." Several heavy, ragged gasps, and then, "you're..." a quiet wheeze, "we s-should've known. I should've-" Dunban broke off, choking on a sob, his features contorted in grief and wracked with anguish. "I should've known it was Zanza. You're my friend. I believed s-so easily..." Another sob. Shulk's eyes felt wet. "And now, you're..."

Dunban's voice cracked, shoulders shuddering, and something hot and wet trailed down Shulk's cheek. Dunban shook his head and tightened the hand on his friend's shoulder, his breaths just as short and weak as Dickson's. "I should've helped you. I should've saved you! You're my friend!"

Dickson just weakly shook his head, his eyes slowly beginning to slip closed and the sharp pain on his features, beginning to fade. "I know. I- I know. You're... mine... too. So don't let me... die... for n... nothing. Keep fighting. Keep fighting. Ke.. Keep..." Dickson's eyes opened again, just barely slits, and the fingers that had somehow found Dunban's tightened with what was surely the last of a dying man's strength.

"Change the future for me. One last time."

Dickson held on until Dunban had managed to nod. He held on until Dunban had managed to promise.

And then, with one last faded smile, he was gone.

It was a while before Shulk could move again.

He couldn't hear, and breathing was a difficulty. He felt himself fall back onto the hard, rough ground, and he knew his hands scraped on the rocks, but didn't feel the pain. There was an odd roaring in his ears, the hot, arid wind harsh against his skin- but just like his hands, he couldn't feel it.

Like how he knew Dickson was dead, but didn't feel it because he couldn't understand it.

Shulk blinked, and the wetness in his eyes grew even worse, and he found himself looking forward to his team. His friends. His...

Family.

My only family left, now, because Dickson was all I had, and he's dead.

Melia was standing back a little with Sharla and Riki. All three were staring down at the scene before them with such great degrees of sympathy and pity it made it hurt even worse, and his heart struggled to beat against the tidal wave of sorrow. His eyes met Melia's, her sad, sad eyes, and the princess opened her mouth as if to speak, to comfort- then shut it again.

There were no words.

He turned numbly towards Fiora and Reyn, the pair kneeling together, arms wrapped around each other in the shared grief for a mentor. No- not a mentor, Shulk corrected himself, not just that. A hero. Because Dickson was Dunban. Kallain. Otharon. Egil. Meyneth. Dickson had laid his life down for their fight. Willingly or not, it didn't matter- because Shulk knew, given the choice, Dickson would've done it anyway.

And then, there was Dunban.

He still sat where he'd fallen, partner's head resting in his lap- and his expression was just a s blank as Dickson's. Slack jaw, empty eyes, numb features. His hands were sticky with blood and his vest was splattered with it, but Dunban sat uncaring- uncomprehending.

Just like Shulk. He didn't understand.

...No. It's not just a hero, either.

It's a friend. That's who we're grieving.

The world's hero...

Fiora's uncle...

Reyn's teacher...

Dunban's friend...

My father...

A friend.

Shulk tried to swallow the lump in his throat. It didn't work.

He tried to blink away the hot stream of tears. It didn't work either.

He tried to choke back a sob. It didn't work either.

I feel blind. I can't see... there's no visions anymore. I don't know what happens. It's all ended... and I can't see...

Everything's over...

He didn't know what the future held anymore. All he could say was what it didn't have.

No Melia's family.

No Gadolt.

No Dunban's and Fiora's family.

No Reyn's family.

And no Dickson.

What kind of future was that? What kind of future was a wasteland where everyone they cared for wasn't there? What kind of future were they fighting for?!

Not one that he wanted.

Change the future for me. One last time.

Shulk shook his head.

Change it to what? No future he could make would give back the lives that had been lost.

No future would bring them back.

Shulk looked down at Dickson.

He lay spreadeagled on the ground, limp and still. The rip in his flesh that spilled blood and gore was a massive and an unavoidable sight, and the scattered droplets of scarlet were EVERYWHERE. He didn't look like he was sleeping. He didn't look peaceful. He looked like he was dead.

I never wanted this.

I never wanted ANY of this.

Shulk left Colony 9 to avenge Fiora. That was it. And Dickson had seen him off then, too, told him to do whatever it took and bring hell onto the monsters that had attacked their colony- and back then, that was all he had wanted.

He had never wanted to this to go further than that.

He'd never wanted to fight the head of Mechonis.

He'd never wanted to see the future.

He'd never wanted to save Bionis.

I just wanted to take down that faced Mechon. I never wanted Dickson to die!

I never wanted any of this to happen!

Then, something in his head just stopped.

Did he really think that Dickson had wanted any of this to happen?

Colony 6? The High Entia? Meyneth?

Had anybody wanted this to happen aside from Zanza?

No!

No, they hadn't!

Shulk closed his eyes and bowed his head. This wasn't the future any of them had wanted. But the future wasn't supposed to be just what they wanted. Them or Zanza. Fate wasn't something for them to control. Fate was something they made on their own. Their future was something they controlled themselves- and as long as Zanza stood at the helm of things and tried to grab the reins of fate, then there would just be more people like Dickson. More people to die because a corrupted god fought to eradicate what he'd made.

Just because things didn't go his way didn't mean he could stop here. No- because this had happened, he had to keep going. He had to reach Zanza, and he had to tell him that just because he was a god did not give him the right to do this.

I don't know what the future holds. But I'll fight to make sure we have one.

I'll fight to make sure Dickson didn't die for nothing- I'll fight to make sure that Zanza won't kill anyone else-

I'll fight to make sure our future is ours to decide!

Shulk opened his eyes again.

"Come on, everyone."

The others all fell jerkily out of the realms of grief, tired, red eyes meeting his, torn mixtures of agony facing him, and Shulk nodded slowly at them all. "Dickson deserves better than this. But we have to go."

"Shulk..."

He looked at Reyn and shook his head. Digging his Monado into the ground, Shulk pushed himself up and drew himself to his full height, standing above them all. "We'll come back for him. But we have to face Zanza now. For all free life on Bionis- for all there was on Mechonis- for Dickson. The longer we wait, the more time we give Zanza to act. We have to face him now, and show him now that we won't stand for this."

Sharla, Melia, and Riki were already standing. They all turned to look at the others, and, after one deep, shaky breath, Reyn stood as well. "Shulk's right," he said, nodding firmly and crossing his arms. "Besides, waiting around like this isn't something Dickson would've done. He would act now- so so should we. We've gotta show that god what happens when you treat us like toys and food." He held a hand down for Fiora, and she, too, after just a brief moment of hesitation, took it and stood.

All that was left was Dunban.

The former wielder of the Monado still sat silent and motionless, his head bowed- no sign present that he had even heard what Shulk or Reyn had said. He just stared down at his close friend, expression utterly empty. The sight made a deep sense of worry and concern begin to stir up inside of him, and Shulk carefully moved a few steps forward- his feeling of regret now even more potent.

Because I may have just killed my father... but I also just killed his best friend.

"Dunban?" he asked softly. "Can you do this?"

Because, of all of them, Dunban's grief must weigh the heaviest.

To know that you just killed your closest friend... because you thought he'd betrayed you, when he really had no choice...

An uneasy look at Reyn was all he needed to put himself in Dunban's shoes, and he swallowed a tremor of fear.

But Dunban nodded.

"Yes. ...Like you said- it's what he would want."

Shulk smiled.

Dunban's far stronger than me. Much more worthy of the title hero.

He held out a hand and waited, but Dunban didn't move. Despite his words, the older man didn't appear to be able to bring himself to leave Dickson's side. Shulk swallowed back another slowly rising wave of emotion.

"We will come back for him," he said, softer.

"...I know."

And Dunban reached up to clasp his hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

Together, the seven turned and faced each other. And Shulk saw nothing there but determination. Grief, anger, fury, sorrow; all were present, all were waiting to claim them in the throes of their hellish tortures again- but here and now, there remained nothing but their desire to fight Zanza. Shulk couldn't see the future anymore, but he didn't have to see anything to know that they would see this through to end.

The end of everything lay with Zanza. And, live or die, they would face him.

Dunban turned around- away from the sight of the battle. "Let's go. For Dickson."

Together, they nodded. And together, they followed.

Shulk, however, turned and looked over his shoulder for only one moment.

Dickson lay behind them. Alone in the desolate landscape, torso hewn open, but that smile still on his face. The rocky bed beneath him wet and glistening in the red light, the sword that had once fought for their safety now stained with their blood and lying by his side. His eyes were open, and Shulk met their empty, staring gaze.

I promise, Dickson. We'll be back for you.

Just let us get the future you deserved first.

Then, he turned to follow Dunban.

He did not look back.