Lingering Guilt

SPOILER WARNING!

FOR THE ENDING/EPILOGUE OF

POKEMON SUPER MYSTERY DUNGEON

SPOILER WARNING!

Chapter 1 - A Talk at Dusk

It didn't take long for things to return to normal in Serene Village. Regardless of what phenomenon occurred, the village would bounce back to normality within a matter of days. This became especially evident after the school-haunting incident. Shortly after Farfetch'd had been dragged away from the school, the haunting just…stopped. Everyone was rattled for a fair bit of time, but other than that everything went back to the way it was. Almost as if the haunting had never happened in the first place.

Nuzleaf shook his head, making his leaf sway from side to side. He took a seat atop an oh-so-familiar hill next to the giant tree and heaved a heavy sigh as he stared out at the village. The sun had set hours ago and the first stars of the night were beginning to peek through the quickly-darkening sky. Lights were flickering on in the village houses as Pokemon went about preparing dinner for their families. In the distance, he could see the silhouette of his own house illuminated by light pouring from Carracosta's place. He narrowed his eyes slightly in contemplation.

The village's resilience was a troubling concept for him. He was happy that everything was okay after Dark Matter's plans (that he was a major contributor to, he added bitterly) were foiled, but it also unsettled him to see practically no changes as a result of the near-catastrophe. The planet almost collided into the sun and almost all Pokemon had been turned into stone, and yet Serene Village showed no signs that such a terrible event had taken place at all. He couldn't help but be unnerved by that.

That's not to say that the residents hadn't been affected by the event. He'd observed them long enough to see the trauma caused from them being turned into stone. Some Pokemon looked exhausted, no doubt tormented by horrible nightmares of the Voidlands. Others had a permanent tremble in their walk cycle, and others developed a case of shifty-eyes. Most Pokemon were afflicted in ways that he couldn't tell, but he had no doubt that everyone came out of the experience with scars of some sort.

'And I reckon it's my duty to try an' heal these scars,' he thought to himself. 'I helped cause 'em, after all…'

Despite these afflictions, the residents talked and interacted with each other like everything was normal. Not five days ago, everything was on the verge of being brought to a terrible end, but now Pokemon stop on the street to chat about the weather.

He couldn't help but chuckle. Though it was slightly disturbing how quickly the village recovered from horrible events, part of him found it endearing as well. There was something beautifully charming about Serene Village's blissful simplicity.

So, now what?

On one hand, he could return to the life he had where he lived among the village residents. On the other hand, that life had been a lie – a setup for luring his target to Revelation Mountain and shattering the barrier preventing him from obtaining the Luminous Water. How could he return to a life that he originally had for sinister intentions?

What other choice did he have? If he left, there was no guarantee anyone else would welcome him with open arms. Having a major hand in bringing about the end of the world wouldn't be a good ice-breaker when moving somewhere new, he imagined.

'No. I don't wanna live nowhere else,' he decided with a firm nod. 'I used this place for plottin' evil things, and spat in the villagers' faces by tarnishin' Revelation Mountain – a sacred place passed down from generation to generation.'

If he was to make amends anywhere, this was the place to do it. How he was going to do so for nearly destroying the entire world was utterly beyond him, but he had to try.

However, there was another matter that made his heart drop into the pit of his stomach. And he nearly leapt out of his skin as a guttural laugh sounded from the base of the hill.

"Well, if it ain't my dear neighbor who's new hobby is constantly disappearing!"

He shifted into an awkward half-crouch, half-kneel position as he turned and faced Carracosta. "Wh-what in tarnation!? Where'd you come from?"

"Don't give me that! You'd have heard me if you weren't so busy daydreaming."

Nuzleaf's lips pulled into a thin frown as the giant blue turtle Pokemon made his way up the hill and settled next to him. He'd have lied if he said he didn't want the company, and there were certainly worse candidates to have discovered his presence.

"What're you doing up here anyway?" Carracosta huffed. "Stargazing?"

The other shook his head. "Just…thinkin'."

"About your kid?"

He flinched before rubbing the back of his neck and looking down out of guilt. "Well…they're among the things I'm thinkin' about, yeah."

"They were here the night before last." A smile stretched across the other's face, though his eyes portrayed a hint of sadness. "Had a little friend with them who reminded me of my kid."

He flinched again. Rumors of their vanishing had reached his ears, though he'd been skeptical of their validity. After the whole world-ending event (that he caused) he should've realized anything was possible. "I'm sorry."

Carracosta gave him a sideways glance. "Hm?"

"For your child. M'sorry." He looked sadly out at the village and gave a half smile. "I reckon you must think I'm pretty pathetic. You lost yours and I'm too much of a coward to face mine again."

"Naw, I don't think you're pathetic. I understand why you're afraid to talk to them."

Nuzleaf narrowed his eyes. A feeling of dread welled up in his chest as he recalled a moment where he'd been controlled by Dark Matter. "Well…there's more to it than you think."

"They think the world of you, Nuzleaf. Regardless of how you think of yourself, they still view you as a father."

At this, his eyes filled with tears. "Well, they shouldn't. I'm a horrible Pokemon."

The other grit his teeth. "Don't say that."

"It's true. I don't got the right to exist in this world." He drew his legs up close to his chest before burying his face in them.

"Now see here," he started as he glared at his weeping neighbor. "You are not horrible, and you have every right to live in this world. Just because you were being controlled doesn't me-"

"I WANTED TO KILL MY KID!"

They stared at each other for a long moment. Nuzleaf's face was slightly splotched from crying, but he glared at the other through the tears. Carracosta was taken aback by his outburst and bewildered at what he'd heard.

"Don't try tellin' me I'm not horrible. After they shattered the barrier on Revelation Mountain, all I wanted was for them to just disappear. When they came back, I felt annoyed and wanted to kill 'em so they never interfered with me again. I-I don't know if that's because Dark Matter was controllin' me or if those were my actual thoughts and…and…" he took a deep breath, "When we were at the Prehistoric Ruins, I'd planned on turning them to stone in a special room that would send them straight to the very bottom of the Voidlands. After they…" He shook his head violently before burying it in his knees again. "Who am I kidding? I was sending them to the pits of Hell. After they escaped, I got this real dark urge to do somethin' horrible to them the next time I saw them."

Carracosta could only listen patiently as the other rambled, frowning the entire time. He pondered the possibility of Dark Matter influencing Nuzleaf so deeply to the point where their thoughts and feelings were one and the same. Or rather, to the point where Nuzleaf thought their feelings were one and the same.

"How could I face the child again after that?"

How indeed? To want to hurt a child that you cared and loved for...a preposterous notion, under any other circumstance. If this was a different Pokemon, he'd accuse them of never having cared for their child at all. However, he'd seen the two interact. Controlled by Dark Matter or no, Nuzleaf shared an undeniable paternal connection with his kid. And that kind of connection made his question all the more troubling.

Regardless of where the feeling originated from, Nuzleaf had felt the urge to kill. Not knock out, but kill. To end someone's life for good. This was very different from the planet crashing into the sun - that event would've wiped out everything, yes, but such a thing was only possible through Dark Matter's existence. The urge to kill, however, dated back to before Pokemon created homes and villages, to a time where they hunted each other and lived in caves. Such urges were normal for Pokemon like Mightyena and Mandibuzz, but not for most others. In desiring to kill the human-turned-Pokemon out of frustration, Dark Matter (perhaps unintentionally) gave a Pokemon that's normally not a vicious hunter the instincts of one. Nuzleafs were known as tricksters at worst, not hunters. The urge to kill must've been a new and terribly frightening experience for him.

So the question was, how could he help? How could Carracosta help someone he cared about with a problem that was utterly beyond him? He couldn't even imagine wanting to cause harm to his own child, let alone kill them.

Carracosta shook his head. In truth, there really wasn't anything he could do. Erasing or fixing something that dark was simply beyond him, so he gave up trying to find an answer to his question. He decided instead to focus on what he did understand.

"I don't think that urge came from you."

Nuzleaf turned his head to look at his neighbor and sniffled softly.

"You were being controlled by Dark Matter, right? That means its intentions were yours. Its thoughts and desires were yours. And when your kid kept escaping its clutches and posing future problems, Dark Matter was frustrated. It wanted to kill your kid, not you. You may have felt the same thing it felt while you were possessed, but that horrible feeling didn't originate from you."

"How do you know?"

"Because the Pokemon I'm looking at isn't capable of murder," he replied softly. "If those thoughts of wanting to hurt, or kill, your kid were truly yours, I don't think you'd be this shaken from thinking back on the feeling now."

Nuzleaf frowned as he looked out over the village, the bottom half of his face rested in his arms atop his legs. Carracosta's words made sense, but he still had his doubts.

"Do you still want to kill your kid?"

His head turned back to him so fast his leaf could've split a tree. "'Course not! What kinda question is that!?"

"An enlightening one," replied the other with a smirk. "You had those feelings when Dark Matter controlled you, and now that it isn't you don't have them. See where I'm going with this?"

He sighed before turning his attention back to the village. "Bein' controlled by Dark Matter doesn't change the fact that I felt it. It wanted me to do such horrible things to them..." He looked down at his hands in horror, as if they were covered in blood already. "Don't make up for the terrible things I done, either."

"Nuzleaf, before you work on earning the forgiveness of others, you need to find a way to forgive yourself. Those terrible thoughts weren't yours, and those terrible actions weren't yours, but you still want to hold yourself accountable for them because…well, somebody needs to pay for what happened, right? Is that the line of thinking you're on?"

He didn't reply, which was answer enough for the other.

"You need to remember that you're a victim in this too," he continued. "What you did was terrible, yes, but it wasn't you who did it. Nobody here would fault you for what happened when you had no control over it." He followed the other's gaze out to the village. It was getting late and lights were slowly flickering off one by one. It amazed the two of them how beautiful the village remained when bathed in the pale moonlight.

He understood what Carracosta was saying, but it still didn't sit right with him. He may not have wanted to do Dark Matter's bidding, but the fact remained that he did it. Who cares what he wanted out of the exchange? What he did was another story entirely. It's easy for someone to brush his actions off as merely, 'It's okay, you were possessed.' Every Pokemon being tormented by their memories of the Voidlands would have to find solace in the fact that the being who made them experience that was possessed. They'd have to smile and act friendly towards him because all the bad stuff he did wasn't his fault. 'Oh, the Voidlands were a dreadful place where I had to fight to survive every second, and every time I turned around I was afraid I'd be swallowed up by the Void Shadows. But the Pokemon who sent me there was possessed? I guess it's not his fault then.'

To him, that was NOT okay.

Still, trying to make up for such a grave misdeed was a pretty tall order, and he didn't quite know where to start. He hurt so many Pokemon and did so many terrible things. The easiest way to approach the situation was start where Dark Matter's actions started. First terrible thing Dark Matter made him do - turn Pokemon to stone. Making a list of all the Pokemon he'd turned to stone and approaching each one of them would take a very long time, so he set that task aside for later. Second thing Dark Matter made him do - betray the child.

That topic is where his heart sank. It hadn't occurred to him while he was fighting them before, but after they'd been reduced to nothing - after they lost all their memories, their fighting experience and strength - they were just a kid. For someone who'd fought Dark Matter before, they were so young. While he waited for them to inevitably turn on him, the kid was busy making happy memories with their little friend. He saw them as a temporary ally to remain wary of, while they saw him as a new father to trust and care about. They were so happy and lively when they came home every night and told him stories about school and the village and their adventures.

And the day that he betrayed them...

"You said I need to find a way to forgive myself, right?" Nuzleaf asked softly, his voice distant. "I reckon in order to do that…I need to make things right between me and the child." A gentle smile pulled at his lips as he realized he should be more specific. "My child."

Carracosta chuckled softly as he watched him get up. "That's the spirit. What made you think to start there?"

He shrugged as he dusted himself off. "Tryin' to make peace with everything I done is a monumental task. I can't right forgive myself for tryin' to destroy the world just yet, not until I do some good to make up for it. But in my actions, I…I hurt my child, too." He looked down at the ground out of shame. "You shoulda seen the look on their face when I turned on them. I was laughin' evilly on the outside, but inside I was writhin'. I never wanna see them make that face at me again. I…I couldn't take it…" He looked back up at Carracosta, who was frowning back at him. "They looked at me like I was a monster."

The other shook his head. "Let's not start up the water works again. You weren't the monster."

Nuzleaf nodded slowly. "I-I know. Just hard not to think about, y'know? It'll take time." He bit his bottom lip a bit as he wrung his hands together, trying to divert his thoughts from that moment. "Um...th-thanks for the talk, Carracosta."

"Any time, old friend." The older Pokemon grunted softly as he got up from his position, uttering a soft cuss as his back cracked a bit from not moving in a while. "What are you fixing to do now?"

"I reckon I'll run home and prepare for the journey to Lively Town, then get some shut-eye." He took a few steps towards the decline of the hill before stopping short and turning back to his neighbor. "When I get back…holler if you need help with anything. Got it? I won't take kindly to bein' ignored if I find out you needed help with somethin'."

He chuckled again. "I'll be sure to remember that."

As he walked down the hill and towards the path leading into the village, Nuzleaf's smile quickly drooped into an uneasy frown. Their entire discussion replayed in his mind over and over. Reassuring as the other's words were, they did little to completely take his mind off his worries. He had a long road ahead of him to Lively Town in the morning, and that was the least of his worries. He wasn't even sure how he was going to approach some of the town Pokemon after everything that'd happened, let alone what he was going to say to the kid. The last time he'd seen them was when he helped smash the Dark Matter core (albeit probably not as much as what they'd done themselves) within the Tree of Life. How do you even approach someone after something like that? Not to mention he wasn't there for them after their friend had vanished.

He sighed heavily. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

A/N: Yay, long story typed and submitted! I recently replayed Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, and much like Gates To Infinity, as disappointed I was with the gameplay (the lack of level grinding, making some later parts frustratingly difficult), the story was pretty solid. There were some parts that were kinda meh, but I liked it. Decided to type somethin' up in honor of Leaf Papa :3 Lemme know what you think. Might add some chapters to this later, maybe not. Not sure.

To clear up any confusion, this is during the Epilogue after you meet Mew, but before you go to the Purifying Cave.