A/N: Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter of Recollections. I will say that this series won't be totally linear – I'll be having different stories from different times being shown before others are complete. Hiro's story will continue and be completed but this is an entirely different story.

I will say that it's probably best that you've read through at least Chapter 21 of Traveler or the only chapter of my incomplete story Champion before you start this chapter if you really want to understand it. It might be difficult to follow along if you don't have that basic knowledge. It draws much more heavily from my other stories than the last chapter did.

I hope you enjoy! It's much, much shorter than usual but I thought it was fitting.

He plodded through the forest, his heavy tail dragging behind him. Trees splintered with his every stride. His bulk was unmarred by the countless fights he'd just emerged from, though traces of blood still clung to his gently spinning horn. It would come off in time. For now it served as a reminder to those who would challenge his hold on these vast territories.

Mamoru's nostrils flared. His chest quaked with a deep ominous rumble. Tiny, jagged pebbles littering the ground and even the vast, weathered boulders dotting the mountainous land around him shifted and quailed – he barely noticed.

By now he rarely thought of his connection to the Stone. It was as much a part of him as he was a part of it. They were One, now, just as he was once One with his Brother.

His tail flicked to the side and shattered a tree. Mamoru didn't even feel the shards as they slammed into his carapace.

The Stone was a poor substitute.

His children, the "Rhypherior" as so many of the hairless creatures his Brother had spawned called them, quailed as the Stone roared with his one foul mood. Mamoru grunted and his horn stilled. He did not need to scare the little ones. Most had only seen a few decades.

One of his youngest grunted softly, shifting her heavily shielded shape to place a blunted claw against his body. Mamoru growled – they didn't need to be around him right now. Not when he was irritable. Too many had died by his horn for him to be blind to the repercussions.

Mamoru's growl shook the earth. Dust billowed around him and his children stepped back, well-aware of his will. They would return to Sanctuary at their own pace while Mamoru went ahead. He could more easily transport the vast heaps of berries and other food he'd demanded from "Rhydon" all over the region as tribute.

It would feed his children and his herd for many moons. He would not have to worry about his young feeling the pangs of hunger. And when he did he would simply repeat the cycle.

He bent his back and held his tail aloft. His children scurried away, tearing apart the forest wherever they went. They looked on, envious. Mamoru knew many would kill him to hold the power he had gained through two centuries of introspection and grief.

Brother would be so proud, he knew. Mamoru growled as Brother's bright blue eyes filled his gaze and the annoying, cheerful laugh he knew better than his own children's shapes rang in his ears.

That specter had haunted him for so, so long now. Mamoru knew he would never leave – Brother's specter wouldn't pass on until the Stone itself crumbled and abandoned Mamoru to his fate.

He snarled. His horn spun quickly. His children fled. They would find their own way home.

Mamoru closed his great eyes. His claws clenched down and ground torrents of dust from his hands. It didn't matter. Not when he could feel the Stone.

It wrapped around the great heaps of food his children had dragged with fibrous nets appropriated from human traps around the woods. Mamoru could have any number of the other creatures in the area weave them for his herd but he found a simple sort of amusement in appropriating them from the inhabitants of this harsh land.

After what he and his Brother had done for them he thought this tithe was the least they could do for him. They couldn't stop him regardless.

He looked at the heaps of berries he'd divide out between his mates and the calves that had been born this year. They would need the sustenance while they regained their strength from the long winter. It had been long and hard this year.

Mamoru snorted softly as he surveyed the hundreds of berries and heaps of grasses, herbs, and other fruits his subjects had gathered for him. They had done well and he hadn't even needed to assert his own strength more than once. His legend had spread in the past century or two. He had already slain most of those strong and foolhardy enough to challenge him.

It disappointed him but most of his recent challengers came from his own bloodline. Several of his sons had inherited his own great physical strength – the strength that had helped carve Brother Taimu's dreams into reality and cursed him with this long life – but had been too foolish and hot of blood to realize that was the least of his power.

He could bring down mountains with his connection to the Stone. What was one of his children in comparison?

Brother Taimu would be disappointed. He had always placed great emphasis on family – Mamoru had learned those values well. Even now his heart ached for dear Sister Akemi or Mother Kappa. Father Hisou's broken mind still haunted him…Mamoru snarled at the black fury that gnawed at him.

Perhaps a tour of the Cerulean territories was overdue. The Ryujin no longer lived to safeguard it from Mamoru's wrath.

That was appealing to have him pondering it even as he rushed forward and carved a path through the Fuchsia territories on great, rolling hills of shifting stone…Mamoru ignored the entities that watched in awe from the forests even as they scattered before him.

His life had been full of lesser creatures regarding him with awe and fear. This was nothing new.

Though fear might be the more appealing of the two when he returned to the lands of those whose forefathers had pillaged and poisoned the city he and Taimu had called home…

TRTR

By the time the sun set and shadows crept through the forests Mamoru claimed as his own he neared the mountain sanctuary his herd based itself out of.

He glared up at the dozens of mountains dotting the landscape, surging upward like the wrathful fists of a great, craggy creature. Mamoru recalled the tales he'd heard from Sister Chinatsu of vast Earth and where it slept far to the southwest (Hoenn, Brother Taimu had called the Behemoth's resting place) and wondered if these mountains were created by that force.

But it did not matter, Mamoru knew. Whatever had spawned the great spines of mountains that ran up and down these harsh lands was irrelevant.

Mamoru himself was the only lord it knew.

He had discovered the secrets of Stone here, had learnt that if he listened to the world hard enough it would listen back. It was one of the few bright spots in his life since Brother Taimu had fallen in the mountain's heart.

White-hot rage flashed. Mamoru was brought back to his senses when he felt the Stone shudder and writhe under the weight of that dread memory. Trees splintered, Pidgey cried and ran, and dust filled the air.

Pointless. Brother Taimu would be disappointed in him if he saw Mamoru now. Brought so low even by the memory of his old friend's death…even two centuries could not dull the fearsome poison it infected his spirit with.

Mamoru looked to the Stone for solace. He poured his fury and sorrow into it and it listened, shuddering and curling around him as he vented. Such emotion could only bring pain to his children if he harbored it for long. They were not as strong as he.

He allowed the Stone to slow and calm as he reached the hidden entrance to the mountain he had claimed as sacred ground. Mamoru raised a great arm and thrashed his tail. The tons of food he had carried with him was carried upward by a flowing ramp of stone that surged farther and farther upward with his every breath until he had deposited it safely into the small tunnel he had created many decades ago to house it.

The food would be safe there. Nothing within a hundred miles was brave or arrogant enough to test the might of Mamoru. He had seen to that the decade after Brother Taimu had left to join Mighty Shinobu in the stars, embraced by their cold light.

Sister Chinatsu had told him once, before she returned to safeguard the center of their Lord's power for the generations to come, that each star was simply a departed spirit keeping watch over those who lived on. One day Ho-Oh , Light, would manifest those vigilant spirits once more in Sacred Fire so they may be renewed.

Mamoru hoped it was true. His life was eternal. To see his Brother one last time…

He paused. Mamoru's nostrils flared. Blood and chipped stone. His ears caught the wailing of a mother wounded in body and spirit.

The mountain trembled with his fury. He surged forward. Stone rippled and parted in front of him even as it reshaped seamlessly behind him – Mamoru's roar could not be heard by the ears of any base mortal, merely felt as the earth itself exploded in an ageless fury that had not been seen since the First Champion had been slain.

Mamoru arrived at the mountain's sanctum in seconds. To traverse his mountain was nothing. He was its master and spirit given form.

His vast rage that could bring the mountains down in a crash of dust and thunder stilled. It was sharpened, focused, diverted.

The herd was sundered. Those of his children who had traversed the wild lands of Kanto with him had not yet arrived. His mates – though none held his affection for long – were fallen and discarded. His children, the future of his legacy, were gone.

Mamoru stilled his heart. The impassive nature of Stone filled him. He shut his eyes and ignored the cries and grunts and whimpers of his injured mates and what calves hadn't been taken.

For a moment he knew everything in and around the mountain. He became a mere vessel of it, an extension of the mountain's Stone, and as such knew it.

He only needed those scant few seconds to confirm what he already knew.

The Sanctum had been attacked. His herd would be fine. None had passed on, though all had been subdued with the same powders Maki had been so fond of in the days of old. He could feel their heartbeats and so he relaxed.

His mates, the mothers, and the matrons would be able to care for the calves whom had not been taken. They were not killed, just sleeping or subdued through the use of powders and spores. Mamoru knew they would all recover. Most had not been able to put up any sort of meaningful resistance before they had been overwhelmed by the noxious, debilitating particles in the air – only a few bore signs of injuries.

Perhaps the Violaters who had robbed him of his legacy thought they would soothe his wrath by staying their hands against the helpless calves and their mothers who had remained home for the winter to rest.

Perhaps they had simply doubted their ability to hurt those he held precious.

Perhaps they had simply tried to escape as quickly as possible with their bounty.

It did not matter. Mamoru only knew there would be many more stars glittering in the night.

His children would arrive soon. Until then he could not leave despite his own desires. It would be another night at the least before he would be able to wreak justice upon those who had dared to tread upon this sacred ground without his permission.

He shifted forward and stared into the black sky revealed by the perfect circle he had carved out soon after he learnt to listen to the Stone. Mamoru did not move to aid those who had been defeated. They would rise in time. For now there was little he could do even if he desired to help them.

Mamoru breathed evenly and thrust both of his arms high in the air. The mountain's entrance was sealed, shielding his herd from any future interference. He should have done it decades ago. His herd could not be exposed to danger. They were all he had now.

If they wanted to leave it would be through him. He chuffed lightly and swung around, his tail seamlessly parting the stone wall around it so it moved unhindered. The mountainside rippled under it was solid once more, unscathed by his passing.

There was only one place he should be now. Only one place he had to make sure was safe.

TRTR

The Boulder of Pewter.

The Cascade of Cerulean.

The Thunder Star of Vermillion.

The Rainbow Flower of Celadon.

The Marsh of Saffron.

The Flame of Cinnabar.

The Plant of Viridian.

Mamoru had passed by these sacred symbols ten thousand times over the past century or so. They had been created in testament to the grave of the greatest human to ever walk the earth.

Ai Taimu. First Champion of the Indigo League. Hero of Kanto, Conqueror of Johto. Drakeslayer.

All mighty titles. Each deserved to be remembered until the stars themselves burned away. Sister Chinatsu would ensure that his memory would never pass. He was the greatest mortal to ever walk this base earth that was unfit to bear his brilliant presence.

They did not sum up what Ai Taimu was to Ai Mamoru: Brother.

He stepped into the Shrine he had entombed Taimu in so very, very long ago. Mamoru's every step felt heavy. The Stone did not ripple here, though it was where he had first learnt to listen. This was not Mamoru's territory.

This room belonged to Taimu. He had not died here – the Glade hidden in this mountain was where his blood had flowed into the dirt and stone – but this was where Mamoru had brought him. Mamoru would never let Brother Taimu's body be left where it may be harmed.

So he had dug his way through the mountain with naught but his claws and the blue fire borne of Sister Chinatsu's sorrow. This was where his heart rested.

He stepped past the threshold.

Mamoru had painted this room in marble. He had used it like the brush Brother Taimu had so enjoyed writing with. It was his art and he would never use such a technique again – he would never have reason to. Only the Golden Chinatsu would merit that honor and she was eternal, bound to Fire.

When he walked through the still, silent room he felt great peace fill him. This was where he had spent much of his time since he'd lost the only two entities that he still cared for. His herd would live on without him.

His body was heavy as he stepped up to the monument where Brother Taimu's likeness stared down at him. It was no larger than Brother Taimu had been in real life but Mamoru thought it fitting. He and Chinatsu were shaped from the Stone flanking his Brother, though he had only made his own figure as an afterthought.

Every step echoed throughout the chamber. His heavy weight did not shift the Stone as it would elsewhere. It could not.

Brother Taimu's likeness, cold and carved of rock and not at all like what he had been in life, was bathed in a single beam of moonlight. Mamoru closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to reach out with a blunt claw and rest his hands against the harsh stone. In this statue the bones of Taimu were sealed, wrapped up in the embrace of Stone for eternity.

Here rests Champion Taimu, the Uniter. May his name live forever in the stars.

Mamoru recalled the rough example of the written language Chinatsu had instructed him to write. They had spent weeks here in this room before she left him, a time that left them both weary and full of sorrow. When she had left he had spent another year resting in this place before he'd departed.

It was a time that pained him even now. Mamoru had lost his second half, then. He had taken many moons for his soul to heal.

He opened his eyes and looked down to meet Brother Taimu's eyes – Mamoru wondered if the human was watching him through the beam of moonlight that shone down to illuminate the immortal stone figure.

Mamoru froze. White fury danced in his vision. Were he not in this sacred place he would bring the entire mountain down and damn the consequences.

The thousand injustices he and his own had suffered flashed before him. Cerulean butchering his home, the maddened gibberish spouted by the Last Indigo Champion as he hung at Indigo's gates…even the betrayals and challenges of their war to unify Kanto seemed to pass by. Only the death of Mighty Shinobu made him pause until he remembered the moment his soul was rent when Brother Taimu had been gored by the deathly horn of a foul Nidorino.

All of that pain, exhaustion, and sorrow built upon itself now. It was his monument.

And that made it all the worse when he realized that the scum that had taken his young had stooped so low as to take the brilliant sapphires of Brother Taimu's eyes from their stone sockets.

Mamoru roared. The world quaked. The Stone howled. His claws rent through his carapace easily. He saw red.

The rubies of Chinatsu's eyes glowed and the dead Fire Stone cradled between her stone paws ignited.

Had the invaders only assaulted his children and his mate he would merely have slain them. It was a grievous offense but one that he could recover from. But this? It was unforgivable. There would be no more stars added to the tapestry of the night sky.

The foul hairless wretches who had perpetrated this atrocity would be claimed forever by the Stone. Their children would be crushed, their homes shattered, their bloodlines erased. He would ensure that none would ever settle again on the land where they made their life.

Mamoru would reshape this entire nation to see justice done.