Chapter 9: And the Void Crashed Down
The central operating core of the Ephram, like all of the worldships, was the most massive internal section, a sphere approximately five hundred feet in diameter. But its most important feature was also the smallest: an entirely invisible pinprick of mass at the absolute center of the room. The object was the source of nearly all the power that the worldship consumed, though practically none of it came from this object directly. It was the object's gravity that did it, accelerating what would otherwise be simply a cloud of gas and dust to amazing, near cosmic speed. At nearly the speed of light, and with compression from both the inside and out, the swirling ball became a miniature version of one of the hottest and brightest objects in the universe: A quasar. Kept fed with a relatively minor mass at just the right angle (so as to orbit the object for as long as possible rather than simply be swallowed in the event-horizon), this chamber would provide enough energy to lift the fantastic mass of the worldship, to operate its shields, weapons, and most everything else aboard. The technology to harness the singularity was perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ahead of what humanity should be capable of. But humanity alone had not built this ship, and they were not alone in operating it either.
Not even an artificial intelligence could accurately regulate an object of such absurd mass and complexity. Only the most powerful psychic (or dark) types could accomplish the task, which left a very small list of candidates to operate all twenty-one of the massive ships. This, as the first-built, largest, and greatest of ships, had the greatest of operators. At the moment though, that inscrutable being seemed to be paying little attention to the myriad controls, his entire energy focused on a rapidly expanding and seemingly infinite geometric shape whose closest analogue was a four-dimensional dodecahedron. Between these two tasks, the Eldest could not so much as hover, and rested atop the operator's chair, sitting alert and seeming to have all of his senses fixed on the shape. The thing pulsed like a heartbeat in tune to the energy from the micro-quasar, feeding on much of the energy that it produced even as it grew several times larger with each pulse. The eon-old legendary would extend a paw, crushing the object down to the size of an atom, and resume growing it, thousands of little glowing filaments laced together and each one humming with a slightly different tune.
Sirens rung-out throughout the huge chamber, but all the louder in the connecting hallway, as one by one shielded sections were lowered allowing someone to pass through. "Danger! Central core is active. Danger! Central core is active. Full spectrum shielding not detected, locking yo-… override. Access granted. " That person was Bit, the mew who's technical prowess had made the melding between legendary and human technology possible. She looked human, but that appearance was a shallow illusion, the result of a Holographic Privacy Filter and not true shapechange. Any human would have to be wearing a powerful personal shield to survive in that room, as the high-energy cosmic rays and massive levels of radiation would have reduced any human (or most pokemon for that matter) to dust. For mew though, provided with a direct and plentiful source of their truest nutrition, the result was spritely energy, rapid healing, and a massive increase in psychic power that lasted so long as they remained within the field. This was how a living thing, which ordinarily grew tired and required rest, could maintain ships indefinitely. Within the core they become almost greater than living, and Bit felt herself charged with force as she stepped inside. The load of nearly two days of constant labor was lifted from her shoulders, and she moved with new vigor before the still figure whom she had always resented and a little feared. His big blue eyes did not so much as look up at her as she entered, or when he began to speak. The intense pain in whatever mental endeavor he was performing was obvious in the way his voice faltered and cracked, and the way he resorted to speaking aloud at all, meaningless mews that were doubtless far less meaningless to Bit. "Did you bring it?"
Bit nodded, snapping both clasps on the metal case she carried, and setting it atop the flat surface of the controls, speaking as she did so. "I did, sir. I followed your instructions exactly, but I don't think humans will be too happy when somebody opens the vault and finds it missing." The case clicked open, and blinding white light began to pour from every crack, so bright it was a wonder the heat of it did not turn the thing red hot. Only then did the Eldest look in her direction, staring unblinking into the most efficient energy conversion in the universe.
"The revisions I asked you to make, have you made them? Exactly as I specified."
Again Bit nodded, pulling out the contents of the case and holding it so the watching mew could see. This body was an illusion, and of course her hands did not really touch it. If they had, she could not have spoke. It was impossible to see the gem itself: The light it radiated was far brighter than the little allowed to escape from the quasar into the room, fluctuating ever-so-slightly as the quasar itself rhythmically grew brighter and dimmer. It was obvious the object had not behaved like this before, because even Bit could not take her eyes from it for a moment. Even she could no longer see the changes she had made to the stone against the light. Fortunately she could feel them, feel the way they resisted the heat and the vibrations, as the stone shook so fast it sounded faintly like a song. A distant hymn sung out the deepest secrets of the universe, much too quietly for Bit to hear. Still, the math was positively beautiful, and she listened just as closely as to the Eldest's words. "Exactly as I asked. Perfect."
Bit did not know when she spoke next. It could have been hours, or perhaps seconds. "Why did you ask me to build a regi-interface for the Omega Catalyst?"
The eldest was little prone to answering questions, Bit's least of all. But this time he did, pointing to the far end of the room where a pair of humanoid shapes were barely visible mere feet from the swirling torrent of energy. "The one on the right is open, ready to accept what you brought. Dispose of the case while you're installing it, and then I'll show you. Hurry." There was great pain in the voice, so that it was spoken more like a request than an order, but Bit obeyed anyways, taking the case in one "hand" and the still glowing stone with her, which glowed brighter and brighter as she neared the center of energy. As she did so, the radiation became more than even she could handle. First the hologram faded, its mechanisms shorted by the increasingly unregulated torrent of particles and antiparticles. Bit protected herself and the stone with a shield of bright pink energy: The case she pulled along behind her, even as it melted to a violent globule of bubbling metal, pouring noxious smoke. On the edge of the inner-field, she flung its mass upward into the spiraling dance of gas and dust, which surged brilliantly with greatly increased fuel for a moment, and as the mass disrupted the ordinarily precise flow of matter across the event horizon of the singularity. That done, Bit quickly approached the larger of the two entities, pushing against the pull of gravity from above with greater and greater energy as she neared the only being that could exist in its natural state so close, a being made from neither stone or metal. In legend, they were sometimes called the "Hands of the Gods", after the few battles in which they had intervened in the protection of one human nation or another.
Very few of these legendary golems had survived to present day, but every one had been re-awoken to service somewhere or another. These two to unfaltering service to the eldest, unmoving in his instructions since they had arrived, utterly silent. One turned as she approached, its massive body shaking the earth below her and looming high over her head. The regigigas advanced only a few paces though, before turning away, the bits and pieces of its back sliding and cracking and spurting little bursts of sand as it opened. Bit did not look too closely at this thing she had never imagined she would see, nor could she in the overwhelming light that poured from the gem she held tightly to her. She could only look away, waiting as the mechanical bits automatically connected themselves with the existing machinery, glad she had not used her actual paws to do it for how fast the machine closed, turning to return to its place as though absolutely nothing had changed. Bit flew from the center with as much speed as she could muster, coming to rest in the air a few feet from the Eldest, obviously quite relieved for the chance to put some distance between her and the singularity. As she again neared the edge of the room, Bit dissipated her shield, which popped like a similarly shaped bubble made of soap.
"The Omega Catalyst had a very specific purpose. Even humans knew it was special, but they do not know as we do. They fail to understand just how unique that object is."
Bit stared openly at the Eldest, watching this uncharacteristic behavior with as much dignity as she could muster. She watched the glowing shape continue to pulse, speaking quietly so that she would not overpower his voice. She could not even imagine the task that could completely occupy one with such vast power, almost incapacitate him. "It's from the tower, is it not? That machine ancient mew made to reach true immortality?"
"Not just from that machine." The eldest continued, smiling just a fraction. Already this was the longest conversation Bit had ever had with him by far, but she saw none of the disgust that was almost always present in his eyes. It was as though, for the first time in forever, he was looking at her like a proper mew, not some mistake he had allowed to get one of his other mew into bed with him. "The Omega Catalyst is that machine, by far the most important and irreplaceable component. Our earliest ancestors scoured the known universe for it. They clawed apart galaxies, using machines that make the most destructive stip-mining humans have ever done seem benign. Entire planets were obliterated one by one, until they found nearly as much crystalline minerals as many times the mass of the earth, forging it in a now-dead blue giant until only the purest remained. These they brought together into the Omega Catalyst, a gemstone almost flawless."
Bit got closer, listening to this story she fully suspected was largely mythological, but… then again, after serving as long as she had on one of the worldships, could she really be sure? Extra-solar travel might be lost to the mew of today, but much of their old techniques had been lost. She could not be sure. "What is that?" She found herself asking, almost automatically, like a computer seeking and obtaining more information.
"It accepts the instructions we give it. If we err in our logic, or fall short of our understanding, it cannot tell us so, though it always knows. It carried out the near genocide of our entire species. It created the exarchs." His smile got wider. "Can you believe humans used it to power a space station? We could fashion a weapon which would burn through anything from the outside, send it back there in tatters and ruin. But there are too many. I have always known there would be. There were billionsof us. All far older and wiser than myself."
"So what are you doing then, Eldest?" Bit was almost indignant as she spoke now, almost angry as she flew in closer, though never did she block his view of the object he was constructing of pure thought and energy harvested from the reactor. "Why didn't you tell them about this weapon they did not even know they had? Why are you composing sculpture instead of thinking of some genus way to save everyone? Most of this…" She gestured around them. "All this. It was our idea. Humans and us both, working together. But never you. You gave your blessing, but hardly lifted a hand except when you had to." Bit felt a little bad going after the Eldest when he was in such a position of weakness, but… she doubted very much she would ever be brave enough to go for him when he was at his full strength, power which could crush her skull and end her life whenever he wanted and wherever he wanted.
But the Eldest did not argue. Perhaps he did not have the strength… all that happened was his expression fell, eyes avoiding her for the first time she could ever remember. Or maybe he was just concentrating on his… whatever he was making. Bit could not remember any analogue of it in her intricate examination of history, though unless he had completely lost his mind, she had no doubt the object must serve some use. "I'm sorry, Bit. I'm sorry I ever doubted you could make a successful mew. I was wrong, I freely admit. Wrong about a great many things. But… I hope you'll find some little kindness for my feelings."
Bit's eyes burned as his words dragged a torrent of emotion to the surface, along with the memory of everything she had ever said to him, the hundreds if not thousands of times she had attempted to be constructive and he had dismissed her outright purely because of what she had been, not even considering her ideas. He had not approached her when the time of the year came to mate… which frankly had relieved her more than anything, but at the same time… the species had been far worse off than it was now and he wouldn't even consider a viable, healthy female, older and smarter than any of the other females who would have anything to do with them. He had barely looked at her, and seemed to hate everything she was. He had contacted her a few days ago with an urgent and absurd request, which she had followed for… well, she didn't even know really. It felt like the right thing to do? She was afraid of what he might do, or perhaps just eager to feel like she was useful to him.
"There's no time." The eldest abruptly said, cutting her off. "The prefect is coming, and it is imperative you are not discovered after stealing the Omega catalyst." He paused, as though gathering the will to say something he lacked the courage to say. "I need you to go to the arctic. There… there are those of our own blood as rotten as anything that sometimes counts itself human. Hide your thoughts and answer only to the one who saved you. The others might be with us or they might not, but she has walked where no unclean thing may go… hide with the northern Lugia on their migration. They are expecting you, and should protect you until your skills are needed."
Bit wanted to say more, tried even, but the illusion that the Eldest's power was somehow diminished by this impossible task he was undertaking appeared to be just that. Or perhaps he had simply stopped. The Eldest lifted her into the air with one paw. She was struggling now, but not from a lack of cooperating so much as it was a desire to say more. Like that apology, all this trusting her, talking about how valuable she was. Bit had no doubt about that, and knew she would be sorely missed by many. In some ways she already knew what task she would be given when her brief period of hiding was complete: She knew it because the Eldest had already given a part of it to her.
Still, she had instincts, and one of them was to resist external changes to herself, resist someone simply lifting her into the air and manhandling her as the Eldest was so prone to do. "W-wait, sto-". Those words were choked off as he triggered her own shape-changing powers, or tried. She was not very good at it, so instead of simply following the instructions, Bit's ineptitude combined with her fear and she became instantly human again, a young woman with very light pink hair, green eyes, and rather modest features. She was naked, but… that concern was hardly foremost in her mind when the Eldest realized what had happened, and fully raised one of his paws, eyes narrowing in concentration. His little sculpture had definitely stopped growing now, this effort requiring his full and complete attention.
"Changing into another legendary is tricky for any of us, Bit… very easy to get wrong, and even easier to make permanent. I need you to relax… I will not make mistakes." He didn't, but that did not make the sensation easier to tolerate. It reminded her of the first time she had been human under Logan's teaching, when the other (young) mew had puppeted her powers into transforming for her. Human shapes had been something familiar and easy for her then though, a Lugia was… strange, at best. Huge, powerful, and terrifying, the father of all birds and mother of whales. Despite her age, Bit had avoided shapechange as much as possible, and what little practice she did get with it was to and from various human avatars. The fact that she was going from a human body to another body that was not her own only made things worse. As though it hadn't been hard enough adapting to having a body at all!
The first thing she felt was heavier, which said alot considering the Eldest was obviously levitating her himself. She was getting bigger, skin burning as silver fur ripped upward from her feet, speeding along her back and arms and quickly replacing her hair, lengthening and thicking far beyond what she had expected, like tiny waxy feathers. Her hands no longer felt like hands as she continued to get bigger, ten feet tall at least, and still growing, and seeming to lose joints as her bones changed to fit a new structure.'I don't want a new body.' She concentrated on saying with her mind, as her mouth was a mess of thickening and sharpening teeth that prevented speech. 'Can't I hide some other way? Lugia will never accept me. Almost a century now and mew still haven't…'
The eldest was hardly watching now that he had got the transformation started, but unlike the way he doubtless would have behaved in the past, he seemed concerned with Bit's mental well-being, and spoke accordingly. "I'm sorry about that… it's my fault you haven't felt more welcome. I have no doubt my successor will be a far better Eldest than I am. But I have already given you everything you need to know: Downloaded, if you will. Do not be afraid… it's almost over, and where you're going is probably one of the safest places on earth."
Either the Eldest had a different idea of what "almost over" meant, or he was lying about that last, because Bit surely didn't think what happened next was minor, as her arms stretched fully into wings, cracking painlessly as they moved back, and less painlessly as her organs squelched one after another into the widening cavity that was her gut, swelling and growing significantly in size even as Bit hovered at around twelve feet long or so, her new tail rippling with newly-formed muscle and cracking with new-growing bones, including the bony, dragonlike plates at the tip, which grew up along her back as well, remaining open for the moment to give her lungs access to the air. Her neck lengthened a little as the transformation finished, leaving a very-confused and somewhat pained Bit hovering in the center of one of the few rooms large enough to hold her. Only for a moment, though. "Goodbye, Bit. Fight well, and do not forget my instructions." Entry sirens were blaring again, and new urgency filled the Eldest's face as he concentrated on this last impossible task. Fifty meters of lead and magnesium shielding did not prevent him from opening the crackling passage through higher-dimensional space to somewhere else. Though between that and shielding both of them from the black hole's radiation, to maintaing the black-hole itself, as well as compose his sculpture… this transport was very awkward by his standards. It opened with a splitting crack and closed again a moment later, drawing Bit through before it did and leaving the Eldest very momentarily alone.
Prefect Edward was much younger than one would expect for the holder of an office that was essentially president of all humanity, representative of the entire (most important) race in the defense of earth. He looked somewhere between thirty and forty, with pale blonde hair that was kept just long enough to be dignified and just short enough that he did not too often have to maintain it. He seemed to be carrying little, though what he wore was obviously very expensive, custom-tailored and was a little reminiscent of theater with its use of contrasting whites and blacks, clean lines, and long-sleeves. He would have seemed merely like an unearthly businessman were it not for his personal guard, sixteen of which he had brought. Each one had their faces obscured along with all of their skin, dressed in powered armor that was tinted the same purple as that which protected and served legendaries aboard-ship. It was this deep shade of indigo that had earned them their name: The Praetorian Guard. There were less than three hundred of these individuals, humans (people guessed) that had given up all ties to their relatives and endured some experimental and highly disfiguring gene-therapy. The result were people stronger, faster, and better than their stock in every way, but also wholly reliant on technology to survive.
Still, technology they did not lack, and each one was dressed in the lightest (And most advanced) powered-armor exoskeletons that existed, with firstborn shielding and firstborn weapons of the highest caliber. The Prefect's guard were all volunteers, and all specially conditioned in ways that not even the legendaries had been told, remaining separate from the rest of the guard once they made the transition. The formation was perfect as they walked in, a sphere two men thick in most places, and obviously meant for show. As much as their weapons, the heaviest forces of molecular disruption that most people even in powered armor could scarcely lift, much less fire.
If Edward was trying to impress the Eldest with the display, his efforts in this respect seemed to carry little weight. The foot-tall feline did not even look up as the Prefect entered, his concentration entirely focused on the rapidly expanding sculpture of thought and raw energy. "Eldest of the Firstborn." He said, very slowly and carefully, like an experienced politician. His voice was only slightly tinged with an eastern-european accent, though it contained a great deal of disgust. His guards surrounded the Eldest, personal force-fields flickering a visible and non-visible rainbow as charged particles spun off and between them. The guards kept their weapons down, but this hardly made them look less threatening. Still the Eldest did not move. "I have sad news to deliver." There was no sadness in that face though, only triumph. "The decades of your dictatorship are over. My species will be slaves no longer. I-"
The eldest opened one of his eyes, which seemed to bore through the man's powerful shield, through his expensive clothes, and through his soul, so much so that even he was caught momentarily off-guard. Not nearly as much as he was by the Eldest's words, though. "You're here to inform me coups have taken place on all the world-ships captained by non-humans. To remind me that all our manufacturing and all our weapons and all our soldiers come from humanity. You have the cooperation of Irongate Innovations and Silph Munitions, as well as the Steel Conglomerate." The man stumbled back as if he'd just been struck, but the Eldest went on. "You've also discovered a sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence may act as a substitute for my kind in the reactors, obsoleteing the need for us entirely. That one is carrying one right now." He flicked his tail in the direction of one of the few guards holding back from the rest, his arms burdened entirely with a large ceramic case.
As much as he seemed momentarily silenced by the Eldest's words, he retained enough of his dignity not to scream something like "It's impossible!" Or "I don't know what you're talking about!". Instead he merely folded his arms. "We aren't going to be slaves anymore." He repeated. "You think we're all sheep, submitting blindly to the staff of the shepard… but no longer! There are those of us who have always known of your secret atrocities… the people you kidnapped and erased, the minds you tampered with, and worst of all, guiding human affairs like you had any right to interfere. You've acted like gods, and now that we have understanding we will not submit. We fight all our enemies on our own terms, and one of them is you." He moved more rapidly than any human should have been able to move then, drawing something from his jacket and lunging at the eldest, who seemed as though he was about to be caught off-guard.
He wasn't. The prefect's entire body froze, the blade clutched in both hands a mere inch from the Eldest's chest, the alien green metal shimmering in its own light. Thirteen weapons raised in mechanical unison, and fired a short few nanoseconds later, exploding the control panel the Eldest was resting on and sending shards of metal and plastic in all direction, bounding harmlessly off shields on all sides. The ancient mew had not departed, however… he had merely moved behind his sculpture, continuing to build it as though nothing had changed. His face grew all the more impatient, fearful even, as one who was well and truly out of time. The object was growing more rapidly than ever now, though it rippled with weapons fire. Again the entropic rifles fell short of their targets, though the stone behind where the Eldest had been standing took several hits, bits and pieces dissolving in a splattering of misapplied energy. This time the mew was on the far right of the room, continuing to build his creation of light and thought and seeming to struggle even to lift himself with the effort it cost him.
"Why do you run, pokemon?" Edward asked, his voice scathing. "Where's your world-shaking power now?" The guards took another few shots, every one of which fell far short. "You won't even face a handful of humans?" Edward pulled something from his belt, depressing the key that caused the masterball to grow to its full size in his hand before throwing it.
"Regi-GIGAS!" The ball crumbled to dust in mid-flight, rising slowly in a fine powder to join the matter already twisting and coiling together in the central reactor. The two stone pokemon standing near the central core had looked like silent statues until then, but they were still no longer, rushing forward with remarkable speed and slamming into the Praetorians. It spoke wonders for their reaction time that they gathered together into formation as the massive pokemon hit, surrounding their charge and making a slow, calm retreat of a few paces even as the first three in their line were practically turned to jelly. The pokemon screamed, held back by their energy-shields for only a moment, before crushing them and the armored forms beneath in one smooth blow. The armor cracked like eggshells, bits of bone and flesh and black ichor dribbling slowly from the sides and seams.
The mew turned away from the bloodshed, muttering now with each rapid gesture, though his words seemed far more akin to a programming language than anything one might ordinarily speak, and it was anyone's guess who he was communicating with.
Not that the Praetorians cared. With three of their number decimated, they turned their weapons and fired on the two regis. At first there was no effect whatever, energy spreading evenly along their exterior surfaces without so much as denting them. The next few guards they struck, on the other hand, went soaring through the air, slamming into stone walls on contrails of fire or electricity. The guards faced death fearlessly, attacking with all their strength and dying without exclamation, without a word or a sound other than the squelching of their various internal fluids.
The pokemon might even have won were it not for the Eldest himself. They struggled to protect him, fighting on either side and deflecting or absorbing blow after blow and shot after shot. But the technology of their enemies was far from what it had been thirty years ago. The mew had been extremely liberal with their technological knowledge, and more of it had been poured into the weapons and armor of these soldiers than any others. With the Eldest's help they would have been decimated, but without it these numbers in quarters so close, where more powerful attacks might damage the technology containing the singularity and put the entire ship at risk…
They could not survive it all. The Praetorians fought without fear, one flowing force that swept over the rocks that moved like men. The first was easy. Though each blow cost the guard a life (sometimes two), their weapons did take their toll on whatever the gollum was made from, and enough began to crack it, splintering the pokemon with their force until it could survive no more, and crumbled to powder. The other seemed entirely impervious to their shots, though each one pushed it a few feet backward. The guard used this fact, focusing fire like a computer and driving it back until they could push it into the shaft running straight through the entire world-ship, the central channel where dusty air was drawn up to fuel the singularity. A few careful bursts from the three guards who were left by then sent the Eldest's last protector tumbling down into the night.
The ancient mew seemed to not even be watching the battle, even as men died in scores around him and their remains were drawn up into the air, before being burned away by the high-neutron plasma orbiting rapidly around the singularity. The few that remained fired several times at the Eldest, each time ineffectively, but this time more from luck and wearyness than anything else. One of them was limping, one had a right arm torn clean off, thick black blood and grease dribbling down the place where its arm should've been. "Wait! If you just kill him, we've failed." Edward called, casually walking up to where the Eldest rested, eyes rolled back in his head as the sculpture rapidly grew a skin of twisting light. He did not react as the uninjured Prefect approached him, listening to the faint whispers in the pokemon's native tongue. Edward could not understand it, but he did not stop to listen for very long. He was practically standing over the Eldest now, the mew perched precariously on a small patch of stone that hadn't been damaged by the weapons fire, drawing his knife again, running a thumb along the blade. The blade was polished like onyx, but it did not reflect the seething energy of the quasar far above. The only thing that shone in its surface was the singularity, surrounded by a hundred hungry shapes that barely resembled pokemon.
Edward lowered one hand experimentally near the Eldest's back, the one without the dagger. He did not react. "I dedicate this death…" He began, whispering. Almost as though he were speaking with the blade. "to Darkrai." His other hand slammed down into the ancient pokemon's neck, just as somewhere far overhead, lightning streaked across the sky, impacting the ship in one of the metallic rods put there for that purpose and dissipating harmlessly. The sphere of light shimmered for a minute, before abruptly vanishing, gone with the thunderclap of an outgoing teleport. For one impossible instant the Prefect's eyes glazed over, as his mind was drawn along the lines of his murder to that place in the fathomless infinities he had invoked. His eyes filled with horror as he realized his mistake, watching with some twisted reflection of guilt as this necrotic invader traveled along his mentor's weapon and stormed the gates of his silent masters. The light of the quasar twisted and spiraled downward into the knife, so bright Edward let go, screaming and covering his eyes as he stumbled back. "Seal off the core!" He ordered, still covering his blind eyes with both hands, as he stumbled towards the exit. "Tell engineering to prepare a full plasma-flush of the deck, and…" One of the more intact guards twisted him gently in the direction of the exit. "Get me to the damn sick-bay!" Edward staggered from the chamber, leaving his foe impaled with the unearthly dagger. The light of a thousand stars poured into the weapon, a rushing ever-quickening torrent that never illuminated the blade, even as the body beneath it charred and burned, and the worldship began to sink slightly for want of power.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Izzy squirmed as she awoke, whimpering at the pressure of fabric all around her, and the heat it had produced. The feline tried to move as a human might, pushing herself upright with her forepaws. All this accomplished was rustling the thin fabric she was being held in. A few seconds later and the cloth opened somewhere above her, and moonlight shone in along with Alvin's somewhat pained face.
"You alright in there?" The voice sounded different to Izzy, as though her ears were sensitive to different frequencies of sound. His face was exactly as she remembered and yet it wasn't, because she could see straight through his body now. Izzy tried not to look away, as through the skin and bones and blood vessels she saw something far more akin to herself than any human form should afford. At the same time, she could not ignore her instincts completely, and there was something inherently frightening about a human being. So she twisted away, so violently that Alvin's arms were forced away, the blanket dropped, and Izzy found herself falling… for half a second, catching herself easily in mid-air, so confidently that she did a little spin around Alvin before facing him again, positively bouncing with energy. "Well. I guess I don't need to ask if you're healthy after all." He grinned mischievously, before snapping his arm quickly down, throwing a pinecone at her as hard as he could. It wasn't even close. One moment she was hovering there in the air helpless, the next she was surrounded with blazing pink, and the pinecone shattered as though it had been throw against concrete.
Izzy stuck her tongue out, dropping low to the ground and taunting him, shaking her tail at him for a few seconds. Everything seemed so… funny. Even the hideous blotches quivering towards them from all directions. They were no threat to her, not anymore. If anything, it was her duty to stay and deal with them… a duty she knew she would ignore in favor of her much more important responsibility: Protecting Alvin. She tried to speak and found she could only mew, so quickly resorted to thoughts instead. She had experience enough receiving telepathic impressions: Ophelia had enough to say and had always been eager to say it. But until now, she had never been the sender. It was a nearly indescribable feeling… like pressing herself to some invisible, impossible membrane and whispering into it so loud it shook the world. 'That wasn't very nice. What if I hadn't been ready? It could've really hurt!' Izzy scanned the area around her for a pinecone of her own, without ever taking her eyes from Alvin. ESP seemed to come as easy to her as the flying, and with it she found something suitable, and wrapped invisible hands around it, flinging it at Alvin with at least as much force as he had used.
The kid had no defense, raising his arms too late as it struck his chest, and whimpering as it did, collapsing to his knees. "No fair, Izzy! I couldn't block that if I wanted to… that's what you're here to do, remember? You have to protect both of us until I've decided what I'm going to be."
'Here's an idea.' Izzy landed on one of his shoulders. 'If it's that simple, why don't you be an… me.'
"A mew?" Alvin reached over, stroking the cat, who arched her back and began to purr involuntarily.
'Yeah.' Her words came a little slower while she was being petted, but… she seemed to realize that, lifting off of Alvin's shoulder and glaring at the hand that had been stroking her. 'As an insider, I can confirm that it's…' She lifted meters into the sky, vanishing through the trees… only to descend rapidly towards him, stopping dead in the air and giggling. 'Alot like that. And if you're afraid I can't defend us… just wait until you see all the attacks I know now.'
She seemed about to do just that, and Alvin put both of his hands up, eyes widening a little. "Let's not do that just now, Izzy. I trust you… and I'm sure that it will be much more impressive when you use it on someone who is actually trying to hurt us." That took a little wind out of her. The somewhat disappointed expression formed on her face with childlike speed, and Alvin thought quickly, trying to remember his few years of babysitting experience decades and decades buried in his memory. "Ophelia's resting just over there! She's been watching you since you fell asleep… I bet she'd love to hear those cute noises you make when you open your mouth."
As it turned out, she did. Izzy had communicated with Ophelia (and most pokemon for that matter) as a matter of intuition, but when the Kadabra actually opened her mouth, and she could differentiate between specific words, Izzy had to do another series of excited loops through the air. I guess flying is how I express my emotions now? She thought, even as she landed on a stump beside the larger pokemon, listening as the kadabra spoke somewhat scathingly. "Isabellea should remember where we are." She said, eyes like a disapproving parent down at the feline. "And how close we are to danger. I want to play with you, but you taught me better… you need to get onto the ship before it gets too far away, and I need to…" She looked down helplessly. "I don't know exactly. Do you want me to go with you? I could, but… I don't think you need me anymore.
"Alvin doesn't need me either." Sparks cut in, emerging from a nearby bush with a somewhat sheepish expression, standing about a foot from the mew. "I want to keep going with him, but having to keep me safe just makes things harder for him." He looked directly at Ophelia. "Could I go with you? You're smart enough that I don't think you would try and eat me, and I know you're fast enough to get away from the… monsters." A shiver then, as though they all knew what the monsters were. They did.
Izzy ignored the pichu… or more accurately, responded to him too with the same words she spoke to Ophelia. "I don't want to leave you behind just because I don't need you to get around anymore." She said, her face as sincere as a young feline could look. "You're my friend! We grew up together, remember? Just like…" She looked over at Sparks. "I'm sure Alvin raised you too. You two seemed so close…"
Alvin smiled faintly from where he watched, leaning on a nearby tree just close enough that the speaking pokemon didn't seem to care he was listening. It was difficult to guess what was being said just using their tone and what Sparks was saying, but… not impossible. "We were" Sparks was saying. "He used some of his own pichu genes and some of Desumo's… that was his old pikachu… to make me in a labratory…" He looked up, folding his arms knowingly. "You know… one of those bright bad-smelling places with all the shiny stuff on tables… But his experiment's over. Alvin wanted to know if pokemon could be as smart as people, and I think he knows now. Plus… don't tell him, but…" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I don't think he cares about that experiment anymore, not now that there's a whole world to save and everything… so that's why I want to go with you! I don't care where you put me, so long as its safe. Pokemon must have their own safe-places, right? Like… the Regis. Maybe we could find some of them… I remember learning once that they protect wild pokemon when they can."
Ophelia shrugged. "I suppose they do." She looked back at her master. "Well, Izzy? Do you think we should come with you or not?"
Pause as the mew considered. She hated to admit it, but the honest truth was that their pokemon would just slow them down. Alvin had abilities beyond any of the knowledge she had been fed from beyond space, and he had the plan… though he hadn't told her what that was yet, and she hadn't asked. Subconsciously… without meaning to… Izzy found herself doing what many mew did when there was a difficult decision to be made: Ask for advice. She thought louder, reaching out for the others of her species. The result was immediate, pouring into her mind and rending her unprepared consciousness almost paralyzed by the rush of thoughts, which were as much about her as they were to her. They sounded different, but she was so new at this she had no way to tell them apart. She was lucky she could even catch all the words as they all poured into her head.
'Newcomer is thinking. Where is she? Somewhere in Kanto, a few more seconds and we should be able to triangulate her. You feel her David? I do. Where do you come from, child?' The voices did not wait for her to recover enough to answer, their conversation went on. 'How could we not have noticed her this long? You think it's one of Logan's? No, I would recognize them. Bit maybe?' The first voice again, the loudest. 'It isn't anyone we know. Maybe she's related to why the Eldest went quiet somehow.' Then someone else asked. 'What's your name, newcomer?'
This time she did answer, a great struggle against the second-long blast of conversation. 'Isabella Irongate.' She said, and before they could interrupt her again. 'I wasn't like this until just now, but now I am. I didn't realize you kept in contact at such… range…' Because she didn't just sense their thoughts. She sensed their bodies too, a little. One of them was sitting in a huge room with lots of computers, one was resting on the top of a tree, one of them was watching a city from a skyscraper, one stood beside a tall grey pokemon and listened as he talked with words Izzy couldn't make out. Realizing the pokemon were still staring expectantly, she hastily said. "Hold on. I'm talking with the other legendaries. They just found me."
'Have you seen Terah, Isabellea Irongate?' That was the louder voice again. She was getting better at this. Though it still wasn't easy. All those female voices, many of them close to the same age. How was she supposed to tell the difference when what they said was so similar? 'He is the most important person alive, and nobody can find him. Rachel is also missing. It isn't unusual for the Eldest to leave without telling us. Not anymore it isn't. I still think he must have gone to take Rachel's place in the Ephriam's core. Then what happened to Rachel?' The discussion went on, but Izzy wouldn't remain connected with it any longer. It was too confusing, and frankly some of the voices made her more than a little uncomfortable. Whatever they were talking about sounded very important, but it also sounded mostly unrelated with what she and Alvin were doing. What… was that anyways? Awkwardly, she looked back up at the pokemon, and forced the answer she knew to be the truth to squeak out her mouth. "Well, I… I really appreciate everything you've done for me Ophelia, but Alvin seems to think that the Worldship is going to be very dangerous. I agree… even the legendaries seem worried about something, though I can't figure out what. I think… the safest place for you two is somewhere far away… like the island!" Her eyes fixed on Ophelia, and she lifted up from where she stood. "My father's an asshole, but it's such a big island. He won't care about pokemon so long as they stay out of his way. All those defenses he installed, all those mercenaries… and company contractors. If the worldships aren't safe, the island is… and you'd be able to get there easier than anywhere else since we both grew up there!" She was smiling now as she thought about it. "That way I will be able to find you when this is all over!"
Ophelia seemed satisfied with this idea. "Safer than looking for a legendary that might not help us anyways… at least your father's soldiers will fight for us while they protect him. But… no more time to talk, I think. Do you feel them?" Izzy did. The infested had come, with as many void-spawn as there were, closing in slowly in small numbers from all around.
"We can fight." Alvin said abruptly, clutching a fallen tree-limb in two gangly arms. "But I can't fight like you, and we have places we have to be. People to meet. We have to get onto the ship that is trying to kill us." He dropped the stick, tossing Sparks's ultraball to Ophelia, who caught it with her psychic power and held it in the air in front of her, obviously understanding. Alvin dropped to his knees, catching Sparks as the pichu collided with him, bleeding electricity and crying. The energy surged along his body, but he restrained the muscle contractions, and almost all of it was channeled harmlessly into the ground. Alvin had a great deal of experience with being shocked after all, and this time it was obviously not really meant to harm him. Just unrestrained instinct as Sparks cried.
"I might not ever see you again!" He was saying. "First Des, then Tom, and now you might come next!" He whimpered. Alvin just stroked the Pichu's back, trying to get him to calm down. It didn't really work. "You really think you'll make it?"
Alvin did not have to pause long to think, shaking his head sadly. "The me you know died when we first went into the reverse-world." The pichu's crying just got louder, but for once Alvin did not shrink from it. This might be the last time he saw Sparks, the last thing he was going to do was lie to him. "You put the pieces back together brilliantly, Sparks, otherwise I would have died completely. But I haven't. But… if any part of me makes it, it won't be the human parts. If I cling to those, I'm letting everyone down." The pichu looked confused, and so did Izzy. He didn't elaborate. "Keep yourself safe, Sparks. Evolve, find a female as smart as you are, and teach your pichu about Des, and about Erica. I designed you, remember? So in a way… so long as you're alive, you'll carry me along with you." He stood up, dropping Sparks down onto the ground near Ophelia. He then reached out, and scooped Izzy into his arms. They vanished with a bang, leaving Sparks staring tearfully upward, before Ophelia walked up to him, took one of his forepaws silently, and they vanished too.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As a matter of safety worldship shields were always active, save for small gaps opened for air-traffic. This was easy, since producing them took little energy when they weren't actually blocking anything. Through principals even Logan did not understand, their own kind (along with most other legendaries), so long as they were completely free of the soulphage, could move through the shield like it wasn't there. That was precisely what she did, arriving loudly and with a rush of air that someone more adept at long-range teleportation would've scoffed at. Still, she was in a hurry. Logan had no time for needlessly complex pressure calculation with a matter so urgent in her mind. Jamie and Miya were there beside her, eyes dutifully closed against the otherworldly rigors that came with so blatantly violating what most people took for physical laws.
The Green Room, so named for the verdant carpet of plant-life that made it look more like a park, was one of the few places on Ephraim that no human had ever seen. The only entrance was from the arboretum on the top of the ship, and none of the wild pokemon there would allow anyone who even smelled human near it. The same was not true of former humans though. All four occupants of the ovular chamber had once counted themselves that way.
As it was, the only other occupant of the room was doing little more than running in worried circles around a holographic display set into the floor, occasionally glancing up at the data projected there and squeaking faintly. "It's sinking, it's sinking! Ground is only ten miles now… reactors can't keep up…" It looked more like a little potted topiary was scrabbling along, propping itself up on its hindpaws so that it could see the screen, then landing on all four paws and darting to another console, repeat. She looked up as Logan appeared, recognizing her either by appearance, or by the company she kept. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Arceus. There really is a god." The green-and-white hedgehog darted over to where they hung in the air, jumping up and down until they floated down to her, Jamie far before any of the others. "Down here! Everything's going to hell… thank god somebody showed up who might actually know what they're doing!"
"Hi Marilyn!" Jamie said, landing on the ground in front of the Shaymin and stretching out onto four paws, if just for a second. "Why are all those alarms going off?"
The grass-type looked somewhat impatient. "Oh gee, I dunno. Maybe because Ephraim is FALLING! Dunno, that might have something to do with it."
Jamie's face fell, as it always did when faced with Marilyn's sarcasm, but Logan didn't chastise the shaymin about it this time. Instead she asked: "How long has it been falling? If something happened to Rachel, wouldn't the Eldest have stepped in? I'm sure he could lift this ship by himself, without needing to use any of its systems."
"That's the worst part!" The Shaymin called upward, standing on her hindpaws as Logan landed, trying to seem as imposing as possible. It hardly worked, and after a few unsteady seconds, she fell back onto her forepaws, doing her best not to show embarrassment. "Eight hours ago, the reactor safeties shut down the singularity, so he went in to see what was wrong. He sent a message and told us that Rachel was missing, and he hadn't left the reactor until suddenly the ship started going crazy!" She was positively bouncing up and down now. "The failsafes aren't responding, but there aren't any abnormal readings from outside the core… Almost no energy readings at all! It's pulling energy from the rest of the ship now, even the emergency fusion reactors can't keep up… everybody's scrambling to figure out what to do, and most people don't even know what's going on, but… all they'd have to do is look outside!" She whimpered. "I want to help, but I can't do anything like this, and the Gracideas are out there!" She gestured to the door, closed as it was. "The pokemon don't know what's going on, they want to know what to do, but I can't face them all! They're so big, and so mad right now… they might eat me!"
Logan sighed, floating back into the air and lifting something that looked like a thin metallic name-badge from a rack. "What about Bit? She could handle the singularity, I'm sure of it…" With a click, the thing activated, and Logan's mew-body vanished, replaced by a slowly solidifying grid-work shaped like a human female. After a few seconds the textures were superimposed on the grid, and Logan clipped it to the pocket of her blue jumpsuit, adjusting the physical characteristics of the projection until she reached something she was happy with.
Marilyn's answer hardly reassured. "She went into the core about ten minutes before everything went bad… please Logan, you have to help!"
"Alright… Jamie, go with Marilyn, get her some of that flower and then see if you two can't sever the power-transfer to the lower levels from the outside of the ship. The anti-gravity on the upper decks should be able to hold our position at least, and if we keep the power away from the core, I don't see how it could be drained. Then you report straight back to me, alright little missy?" She glowered down at Jamie. "If you let yourself get hurt, I swear I'll make you eat emergency rations for a week. Now… get going, you two. Dealing with scared pokemon is the easier job, I promise." She took another nametag off of the charging rack, looking down at Miya, before the words "what about me" could leave her lips. "As for you, put this on. We're going to the core."
Miya was relieved Logan had not forced her to properly change shape for this: Imitating the pressure that limbs exerted with psionic power was much easier for her than actually using transform. Miya obeyed, waving weakly to her sister as Jamie left beside the Shaymin. Miya wondered which one of them had been given the most difficult task. As usual, she settled on herself. Logan always made her work harder. "I thought you said I was too young for the core." She said, in the vain hope she might escape from whatever her adoptive mother had in mind.
As usual, it didn't work. "You are, but the best way to learn is doing it anyway." She took Miya's hand, or seemed to. "Close your eyes." BANG! They were standing outside the entrance to the core, up to their ankles in… Miya screamed. The pathway leading directly into the core was one of the most heavily guarded on the ship, with armored emplacements and several layers of combat shield generators, and an entire contingent of part-human and fully pokemon guards. They were all dead, limbs scattered and blood everywhere. There were bullet-wounds, but the few corpses that had them had been struck in the back, as if by friendly fire. The stench was awful, but not nearly so bad as it would be. The blood was still fresh, some of it was still liquid.
"Damit!" Logan swore loudly, bending down with one of her hands extended over a corpse, feeling it with invisible senses. Her eyes went wide as she did. She moved from one corpse to another, and at each one, her expression of horror only deepened. After throughly examining the corpse of a tyranitar that had been impaled with a large chunk of machinery, she got up, taking one of Miya's hands in hers and running towards the reactor.
Miya had lost most of her self-control by then. It was all she could do to keep up with her mother, eyes closed and crying. She didn't ask what had so disturbed her mother, if not the sight of the slaughter itself. So she had no way of knowing that Logan was most frightened by the fact her own mental signature was present on all the corpses, every bit of wire or steel rebar that had been twisted to strangle and choke and impale.
Unlike her mother, who's abilities only seemed enhanced with the stress. The first door remained defiantly closed for her even after she scanned her genetic identification, she merely lifted the five-ton security door with both forepaws, eyes burning pink as she did it, ignoring the sirens that followed and pulling Miya along under it before it could slam closed again. The second and third doors were easier to bypass, lifting them and slamming them and moving right through. The forth was the easiest of all, a simple energy shield that any legendary could pass through without being lowered, identical to that outside the station. Once through it though, both of them wished they hadn't.
The singularity itself was visible, or rather patch of non-light that it's farmost event horizon absorbed. The quasar was stretched and distended, a faint shadow of the light it usually possessed. A shadow of the brightest object in the universe was still quite bright, but Logan shielded the two of them so fast that their holograms didn't even flicker. Through the polarization they could make out the room: All the equipment melted, a constant ocean of plasma pouring in from the celling and twisting straight down into the vortex of light and energy that spun smaller and smaller until it reached the hilt of the blade, where a single jet-black gem seemed to be absorbing the entirety of the energy. The sound was almost as bad as the light on their feline ears, like the crackle of the Northern Lights magnified a thousand times and mingled with the sound of a tornado. Logan too began to cry as she saw the Eldest's body, and the blade that went entirely through his back. The body was remarkably intact, vibrantly alive save for a light scorching of his fur. Logan suspected the blade was absorbing energy so completely that she could approach the quasar without her shield, if she had the courage. She didn't.
'Listen very closely, Miya." Logan wiped her eyes, speaking directly to Miya's mind so as to bypass the torrential rush of sound from all around them. 'If you get this wrong, we will both die. I'm not teaching you this time… no safety net or magic rescues.' They were halfway across the room, and Miya began to pull away from her, making as though to run backward through the shield and flee from such responsibility. As she passed through Logan's bubble though… she did not feel the other mew extending it to protect her flight, as she usually would. Her mother normally taught through pressure, but it was pressure mitigated by the knowledge that you were always safe, really.
This time when Miya passed through the shield Logan allowed her skin to be instantly and severely sunburned from the fraction of a second of exposure, causing Miya to whimper and pull back into the shield. The holographic privacy filter shorted and fried by the high-intensity-radiation, she stared up at her mother with big, hurt eyes. 'I can't believe you… you didn't…'
'I can't protect you, Miya. For once I need you to protect me.' Logan dropped her own holographic filter, which itself fried once the two felines had hovered far enough away. The larger landed on the ground just beside her fallen mate, sniffing feebly at him for a moment in a way that was obviously instinct, before collecting herself and glancing back to Miya. 'Feel that?' She asked very quietly, her mental voice barely a whisper. Her shield was almost totally opaque now, doing its darndest to protect them from conditions entirely hostile to life. The sound alone probably would've liquified their brains were they unprotected.
Miya shook her head, though it was impossible to keep the tiniest bit of sarcasm from her voice, even faced with something she thought was impossible: The corpse of the Eldest. Then again, perhaps it was her only defense. 'What, besides the hurricane, and my eyes going blind from all the light? No, I don't.'
Logan didn't scold her for her attitude this time. If anything, she looked that much more hurt, subdued. Like she was getting smaller by the second. Still, there was a faint glimmer of hope in her eyes as she spoke. 'Think about it like this. When the mew built their ladder to try to climb to heaven, they failed, because they were trying to go from a very simple state to a very complexly encoded one. Imagine taking a compact disk… god, you probably don't even remember those do you?' Miya promptly interrupted that of course she remembered them, that despite how she looked she was fairly close to Logan's physical age, and so the older mew went on. 'Well imagine taking that and trying to upload it directly to the modern internet, with no knowledge of how it operated except to know it existed. How would you do it? Where would you send the files? How would such a primitive format even be processed by a server without being encapsulated first? Don't even start on actually having a service provider…' She trailed off, her eyes fixed on her fallen mate. Miya found herself straining for what her mother meant. What was the older mew getting at? Everything she said simply seemed to confuse her more, and have little to do with what was actually going on. But Logan had a point. 'On the other hand, how easy would it be for someone on the modern internet to take a file small enough and download it onto an old format. Sure it would be hard to find a piece of media that old, but…' Logan's eyes fixed on the knife for a moment, and Miya made the connection.
'So you think the Eldest did this to himself? That… by letting himself die he was going… onto a CD?'
Logan shook her head, smiling very faintly. 'I feel his heart beating in the dark. I think I know where all this energy is going, so much faster than a singularity could consume it. And I need to go in after him.'
'Don't. Don't do that, mommy!' Miya couldn't help herself. She pressed her body to Logan's side, trying to prevent what she thought was inevitable now. And she was almost right. 'I don't want you to die too!'
Logan shook her head, slowly. 'That's where you come in. I don't think I need to die now that Terah has opened the way. I'll follow all this energy to him and see…' This next part was a lie. She knew it was completely impossible, knew it from the blood that had seeped from the wound and spread across the ground, knew it from the cold and from the silence in the brain. There was one person and one person only who might be able to save someone so far gone, might be able to repair the body and get the blood flowing. Unfortunately, that person was also the one with the knife in his neck. 'if I can pull him back. Stay close. Remember when I taught you how to make a bubble?"
Miya nodded, shock filling her eyes. 'But I've never been able to keep a shield for more than a few seconds! All this energy…'
'From your perspective, a few seconds should be enough. Count to five, then pull my paw away. Start with the shield… make it outside of mine, but don't try to block the stream… you won't be able to.'
Miya concentrated with all her might, face wrinkling and limbs shaking with the effort, possibly more than she had ever spent. Perhaps there was something to be said for teaching mechanisms like this… because with a crack, the bubble burst into being, and Logan's faded away. The older mew propped her forepaws up on the Eldest's corpse, and abruptly made contact with one paw. Her eyes lost their focus, as Miya felt her mind seem to entirely vanish from her body, heartbeat and breathing completely frozen. She shivered. 'A-alright Logan. One…"
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A/N: What a freakin' chapter that was. You won't believe how many hours that took compared to my average, and the worst part was I had to cut three whole sections to make it fit within a reasonable human length for a story this size. With all of them it would have been at least 20k, and that's just absurd… like you guys are payin' me to write this stuff or somethin'. Oh gee I'd love to write this stuff full time…
All sorts of crap happing this time, and our first main FD-verse character to kick the bucket this story. Wonder how many people thought the Eldest might be dead before the war even started. How will our brave humans/pokemon survive the exarchs without the Eldest's help? I suppose we'll have to wait a week or two to find that out. Probably on the shorter side of things, since I've already got one section half written for next time (the section I was halfway through writing when I realized how insanely long this chapter was).
For those of you who simply CANNOT SURVIVE until the next chapter, there's this great little community that exists in a persistent Skype chat room that I'd like to extend an invitation to any reader. It's TEXT ONLY to participate, so no need to get sheepish/squeamish about contributing your face/voice if you're not into that. We originally got together as a casual place to discuss things transformation and pokemon related, but we've since branched off quite a bit and often get together for video gaming and discussion and such. The average age is in the low twenties, but older/younger (I'm 19 myself) people are very much welcome. Levels of participation vary, and obviously it's free and no activities are required. Just a very casual group that you can sign online/offline to at any time, people are almost always online to talk. I'd like to thank that group now for their help with EDITING, as I know my chapters would have far more problems then they do if it wasn't for their help. Several characters from this story also belong to or were inspired by people from the group. Please don't be afraid to use 's email system to drop me a request for an invite to the Skype group, I'll respond as promptly as I can.
But enough pimping the group. I skimped on review responses for a few chapters now, so it's time to man up. As usual, reviews are the reason I keep writing… actually, it's feedback from readers, but reviews are the most obvious feedback I receive. The more I hear from other people about my work, the greater the incentive to keep writing.
Chapter 7
KA: That remark had nothing to do with making humans look bad. It was actually my way of nodding towards some popular ideas about the future of the universe without having to confirm or deny any of them. I enjoy science, but this story isn't about it, and I don't want to go into pages and pages of it explaining what my theories are. I'd rather just acknowledge that similar theories are held in the pokemon world and move on.
I don't think Logan is going to be particularly vocal unless she has to be. Because really even as someone who got the information directly and not a reader who's told much in exposition, I don't think she well understands everything she was told. You take it as meaning an afterlife. Maybe that's what it means, maybe not. But I don't think it's fair either way to blame belief of an afterlife for the atrocities committed by early world religions. I think we both know that's a scapegoat, and a pretty weak one at that. Literally /anything/ can be used to justify evil if you're persuasive enough, and that just happened to be the flavor of the week back in olden times for what was often a political dispute, with religious differences serving more than anything to simply illustrate the divide. Logan will have to think hard about how much to tell the other mew, but I don't think the previous consequences of religious belief (which may or may not have even happened in the pokemon world, though religion itself clearly has in various forms) Plus, this isn't nor ever will be a religion. What Logan learned inside the voidship is very different from early religion in that it's all demonstrable fact. Faith has nothing at all to do with it. With the right instruments, it can be measured, experiments repeated et-cetera. I think the only holocaust that could ever result from this knowledge is the usual way the scientific method ruthlessly murders incorrect ideas.
No, I didn't go into much detail about the "afterlife". I think if I did it would rob the story of both its focus and the dramatic weight of the concept itself. Part of death is that it's mysterious. If I just go and freakin' say what it's like, then that doesn't make for much of a story, does it?
Absolutely the voidship told them everything, those early mew, but they were a primitive tribal people then, and later… they were still a very young, very physical species. It may have told them the truth of the so-called "afterlife", which may be what the mew were really rebelling against. Maybe the thing isn't so great, like you suspect.
DPL: Yep, Glowworm! Not your favorite name, but then Jamie came up with it and not me, so you shuddup about it. Yep. I'm honestly surprised we missed the Black "clack" typo. Geez, talk about embarrassing. Unfortunately this chapter was more of a backstory chapter than one that is filled with all the eventhappenings like usual. Still, some stuff went down, battles and being blow out of the sky by a rocket, and stuff like that, so…
Kirby Oak: For all we know, the Eldest may have known lots and lots of stuff before it happened, maybe all of it. Genetic memory and all is just soooo much fun. As to what the Voidship did, it pretty much created a simulation based on its last recorded encounter with mew, but it did so synthesizing all the matter involved, and controlling all of it so that it might as well have actually been a beach, rather than just the simulated picture of one. I actually intended someone to ask the voidship about this at some point but lost track and thought it wasn't really important in the grand scheme of what was going on. I think you know already if Ion ended up being saved, though. Still, at least that girl was? So things aren't /all/ bad! But yes… the connection mew think they have to the cosmic microwave background isn't as literal as was previously thought. Their old stories say they came from it… now we know that to be very literal, as they were created by a race of beings whose success shaped it the way we know it. For all this ship is obviously a powerful device though I don't think it is capable of simply stopping the exarchs, or we would have to see if it would. Maybe it could be a serious contender for the job if it was willing to put all its resources to bear and possibly be destroyed in the endeavor… but remember it has responsibilities to those yet unborn in universes that haven't even been conceived of yet. It is not going to jeprordize itself no matter the stakes for just one universe. I never really liked Deoxys much, so I don't know if it is real, and I doubt very much that I will confirm or deny it's existence in this story. More likely than anything it will remained unmentioned, so that readers may decide for themselves how many space DNA viruses there are. Adam meeting Alvin and Izzy, though? Wouldn't that be just fancy? Maybe they'd play a part in Izzy's trainer fantasy from the next chapter somehow…
ShadowVee:
Omg a new-ish reader review, yay! And such an estute, timely, and scientific one no less. I hope you are still reading, my dear Eevee of shadow, though it seems some of the finer points of theoretical metaphysics do not see a unanimous agreement between us. I indeed see what you're saying about the lifespan of iron, though I disagree on grounds you doubtless understand very well, considering you mention them here. Proton decay is something which (as you say) has not ever been observed. As pretty and nice as all the grand unified theories for physics are, until I see evidence to the contrary I'm just gonna keep on truckin' with protons being the lightest energy baryon (and therefore never ever decaying to a lower energy state). You are completely right about the decay of Neutrons though, and this wound indeed require the intervention of the voidship (which I'm sure we can all agree it is more than equal to providing).
Overall I'm pleasantly surprised someone even understands things well enough to be able to call me on something like that, someone who is also reading a pokemon fanfiction that is sometimes about transformation. Keep on truckin', awesome dude, and I hope to see reviews from you in the future!
Chapter 8
Kirby Oak:
Yay first review! Perhaps the only review at this rate… this has got to be the weakest response I have ever got to a chapter. Still, these things happen… I've got to keep going for the sake of the story if nothing else. That's a very interesting little theory about Alvin there. If it's true, that would be perhaps the most unfortunate FD-verse TF (zombies not withstanding) on record. Or most fortunate, if your other theory turns out to be true. I think you're on the right track with both ideas, but I think I'll let the story confirm or deny stuff. Yes, Richard's sister is a pretty cool person. I think we'll get a chance to meet her in an upcoming chapter (assuming you didn't meet her in this chapter) For all your talk of my Stargate influences (which I don't think has been very true of this story) IT seems like this was all influenced by later lore of homestuck, which of course I did not know since I just recently read it all.
DPL: Yay second review! Everybody loves reviews, and everybody's name is me. You probably should have gone back and re-read the last paragraph or so of the previous story, as I imagine it would have answered all your questions about the aircraft exploding. Yes, the Worldship told them they were going to be taken in safely. Then it lied and shot them down. Hah. You're the second person begging him to kiss her and expecting her not to, and… HE DID! So screw you guys! ^^ Balls to the wall for someone who hasn't had any real romance since he was actually fifteen. Yep new characters… wanted to get some people that were important that were more on the ordinary side of things than the genuinely extraordinary people we're usually looking at.
So all and all not one of your longer reviews, but I appreciate the insight all the same. It's to you I must apologize the most, because… it seems with your english skills as they are, you're doomed to read out this story in a state of confusion. It was all well and good back in the days of MM, but now we're dealing with complex metaphysical crap from day 1 and I'm not surprised you're often unsure of what's going on. I would be.
KragmoorBithen: This was perhaps the most flattering review I have ever received on any of my stories ever. It really made my day the day I got it to have something so unrepentantly positive about my work, which I often don't think of too positively (if you always have low expectations than all your surprises are pleasant ones, after all!) I sure wish that your hypothesis A was true, though. I'd really love to make the mainstream with my work, and hopefully someday I will. C is completely correct, and perhaps the most all-encompassing hypothesis you provided, though B is sorta true (Writing Minor actually, CS Major). None of this is for a project or anything… just something to do in my free time. Honestly I have no idea why I pour so many hours and so much effort into fanfiction… quite alot of it if I examine my whole history. Guess I just can't help myself. As for what Alvin is… I've been dropping my little hints here and there, and I'm sure your subconscious is getting them. When it all comes together, I have no doubt many readers will go "Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh" and remember all the signs they've seen of what was happening.
Link759: Yep, that sure is alot of questions. I mean sure I could answer them all now, the ones that have answers, but I think you'll be much happier to find them out via reading.
So that's it. Another chapter done. Until next time, Fragmented Disillusionment signing off!