Alchemist Spirit Knight Lucina

Chapter Forty Three- Ashes

Given his dazed, half-open eyes and pale skin, Pit should have realized something was wrong with Lucas before sending him after his brother. Ness tried to warn him, calling out "Pit, don't let him keep fighting!", but everything had already been set into motion. The Knight of Love was quickly lost in a flash of light as he reached for the Masked Man, followed by an ear-splitting booming and a brilliant pink explosion.

As ash and rosy bits of broken glass rained down on the pavement, Pit could only think of one thing. His mind snapped back to a hospital room with light fluttering through the curtains, to the faint spikes of a cardiac monitor, to the almost colorless cheeks with green hair that was somehow paler than he'd remembered falling across them. Once more, he had thought he'd known what he was doing, and once more, someone who didn't deserve death was pulled into its clutches. Worse, this time it was surely permanent, as it had happened in an instant right in front of his eyes.

For some strange reason, Red began to chuckle. "Hey, Sparky, Doduo," he called with a mad grin on his face that looked as twisted as the one Circe had bore when fighting them. "Remember what he said back when- wait, you two weren't there, just the Princess and Spitfire. Anyways, he said we should destroy his core so he wouldn't have to fight with us, and Tiara Boy told him if he did it'd cause a huge explosion! Guess he remembered that, huh?"

A low growl came from behind them. "Marth is dead now, so stop making fun of him," Ike snarled, a murderous glint that Pit didn't even have to turn around to know was there shining in his eyes. Just hearing the thundering footsteps behind him made some of the pain melt away, and he turned to see Shulk's firm refusal to meet anyone's eyes. Looking down, without a word, and with the hood on his red vest up. This scared Pit nearly as much as the ashes on the ground or Viridi's blood on the floor, but only because he was reminded of the scared little boy he'd met three years ago and not the strong, clever fighter he'd stood beside for so long.

He'd barely realized he was making strides towards the seer, but he was quickly close enough to trap him in a tight hug. Shulk let out something between a gasp and a sob, returning far more quickly than he would have normally. "I-I'm sorry," he forced out. "I-I messed up a-again. I-I c-couldn't s-save anyone. I-I kn-knew a-all of this w-would h-happen, but I c-couldn't st-stop it."

"It's not your fault," Pit assured him with his mind rather than his voice. "I was the one who should have stopped Lucas, and none of the other things were your fault either."

"There were surely things I could have done, though," muttered the seer. "I could have paid more attention to Viridi to stop her from attacking, or not had the pin with me, and I lost my pin, I'm so sorry, and I can't see how we can stop things from getting worse. Should we just go ahead and form the Star core and break this world apart, I don't think we'd be hurting it anymore than I already have."

With those words, Pit knew with terrifying certainty that Shulk had lost all hope. He didn't blame him for it at all. No, he would have too if he'd seen such terrible things happen in his nightmares all his life, only to finally have the chance to stop them from coming true and screwing it up so badly. All things considered, he was tempted to tell him to go ahead, to make a new world where maybe Lucas hadn't been blown to bits by his own powers, Marth hadn't accepted his fate, Viridi hadn't turned against them and made them lost their chance to save her, and Meta Knight hadn't died without giving Pit a chance to help.

The "Please do" was about to escape his lips, but something stopped him. The world would be completely reformed around Shulk's very existence, but what did that mean? Would it reform to his will, or would it change every part of his life? Perhaps in that world so many cruel deaths wouldn't have happened, but if he'd not met Shulk in that world, he didn't want to see it. That alone made him shake his head. "You can't. We don't know what would happen. For all we know, it could kill you, or make it so we never met, or worse!" With a small chuckle, he added "Well, I don't know what could be worse than that, but there's probably something."

A note of pure, unbroken laughter pierced the air, a sound he hardly realized had come from Shulk. "I can't either," he admitted. "Besides, if we give up now, the Star Eaters win, and we still need to make them pay for killing Meta Knight. Well, and they might destroy the world if we give them that sort of power boost."

"Forget about that, we need to make them pay for making you want to reset. And for raising our taxes!", he added with an overdramatic flourish.

More laughter, followed by Shulk reminding him that Rosalina made sure the taxes wouldn't affect them anyways. "But we must be heroes of justice!", Pit declared, finally breaking the hug to make some sort of stance and punch the air. "We must make ice cream cheaper for all!"

Neither of them could hold in the childish giggles, and Pit forgot for a moment what it was they'd been in such despair over. It might as well have been a year ago, when they were both excited to fight for the sake of their world, or a month ago when they'd both been in awe of how incredible the heroes they'd heard about for so long really were. It might have even been a week ago, when he'd only lost one person he loved, which had been counter-balanced by regaining another he'd thought had been lost forever. A day ago, even, he could see them laughing like this, or even mere hours ago, but now, the bright flame of joy burned out quickly and he became very aware of how awful it was to be laughing at that moment.

At very least, he knew now why Red had laughed right after the explosion. It really did help to forget about the pain for a minute, even if it seemed rude. Now, though, wasn't really the time to feel better, and he became very aware of a pair of green eyes watching him out of the corner of his eye, accompanied by a frown.

Something Lucas had said- no, that had come out of his mind while Lucas was trying to read it popped back in his mind. Palutena, even if he tried to deny it, she just wasn't the same now. Always guilty, always sad, with hardly any of the light and joy she'd carried before. Pit had changed as well, hadn't he? They'd both changed independently, and even if he hated to admit it, four years ago he would have said Palutena would be the person he'd most hate to lose. Three, and he would have said her death was something he would never get over, but the next year he knew his life had taken a turn for the better, even if he'd lost something important in the process. He had to be honest with himself: things would never be the same between him and Palutena, because he had moved on. Shulk, Palutena, even if they were equally broken, and there was no doubt they were, he'd already chosen to come to the seer to try to comfort him before even looking her way.

That didn't mean he couldn't still try to be her friend, even if they couldn't be as close as they once were. A few steps towards the green-haired girl, and he put his hand on her shoulder and met her teary eyes. "Viridi's death wasn't your fault," he stated, as firmly as he could. "None of this was. There's only one thing to blame here and that's the whole idea of the Star Eaters. If they want to hurt the people we love enough to make us tear the world apart, then fine, but we're not going to just stand here and let them, right?"

Her reply was almost a whisper. "Lucas seemed like a nice person. I wish I would have gotten to know him more. Marth too," she added, almost as if he was an afterthought.

"Me too," he replied. "I really think we could have been friends if he hadn't gone so soon."

Silence flickered between the two of them like lightning flashes, but it was quickly broken by another conversation he hadn't been aware had been happening beside his own. "Ness, Luigi and I are going to leave," Peach announced in a hollow shell of a voice. "The Mushroom Kingdom will be in ruins after the Star Eaters' attacks, and with Mario gone, there wouldn't be anyone left to protect it from anyone who decides to use its vulnerability to its advantage."

Shulk turned towards the Knight of Electricity, the light of focus back in his eyes. "Are you sure?", he asked Ness, who gave an affirmative nod.

"They need my help right now," he explained. "Besides, after all of that, I don't really want to stay here."

Without a second thought, Pit pulled the star-shaped pin that had been attacked to his scarf for the past three years off and handed it to Ness. It was another loss of the day, but certainly the least of them. "Ask Shulk to explain how to use this, I can't ever figure it out so I end up just asking him to do it for me," Pit directed. Without a word, Ness gave him the yellow pendant he'd bore, and a small, broken smile. For a brief moment, he was sure a charred metal chain was wrapped around his wrist, but he didn't get a good enough look at it to be sure.

As Shulk launched into words Pit barely understood directed towards Ness, and Peach handed the seer her core, a trio of tired looking Alchemist Knights approached him, the absence of their fourth partner jarring. Before even beginning to explain, Lucina handed him the cores of herself, Roy, and Ike. "I'm sorry Pit, but none of us want to keep fighting like this," she began. "I know it's not right for us to quit like this, but-"

Pit cut them off. "I understand," he assured them, eyes directed in the painful gap between the Knights of Fire and Ice. "You don't have to stay with us, but," he held the cores back towards Lucina. "Can you keep these? I know it's hard for you, but maybe after you have time to think on it some more you might be ready to help us again?"

The three took their respective weapons, each with a different expression. While Ike looked near tears, Roy seemed almost resentful, and Lucina simply sighed. "We'll think about it," Roy stated in a flat tone that contradicted his words. "We needed the Time core to get home anyways, I guess."

With an indigo circle spreading out under them, the three vanished in a flash of light that felt like it really should have been golden. Ness, Peach, and Luigi vanished a brief moment afterwards, in a soft cyan light that Pit was going to miss seeing. He almost jumped when he heard the voice of his double, someone he was overwhelmed with guilt for forgetting about. "Well that's not good," he stated. "It's only been a day, and we're already down half."

Half? Was it really only half of them that had left? He counted on his fingers. Lucas and Marth, Ness and Peach, Lucina, Roy, and Ike: that made seven. So, who was left? Shulk, himself, Palutena, who else? A quick scan of the area jolted the Knight of Blood, the lifeless robot, and the creepy scientist back into his mind. So, Zelda, Metal, and Red, but that was six, and they'd lost seven. It took him a moment to realized Dark Pit had counted himself in the remaining number, and he felt bad once again. He really did need to try to get closer to him, considering they'd only talked a few times since meeting in battle and saving Palutena together.

"Closer to a third, if I can help it," Shulk corrected. He didn't get the chance to ask what he meant before the seer pointed to a device on his wrist matching one Ike had been wearing, and the image of a few sketches of a communicator among the messy workspace floated to the surface of his mind. "But if I'm going to talk those three around, I'll need a bit of help. You two up to the task?"

While his double gave a complacent shrug, Pit gave a nod and a cry of "Of course!". As Shulk began to propose strategies for this task, Pit pushed the day's horrors to the side. He knew they'd resurface at when he tried to sleep, of course, but he supposed Shulk had woken him up in the middle of the night to talk away nightmares enough to make it fair.


AN- Well, I guess this is the end of this "arc". Will the first three Main Characters come back? That's pretty much inevitable, but I can't say the same of the group headed to the Mushroom Kingdom. Before the next arc starts, you lovely people will be getting new Gaiden chapters finally! Ike's and Metal's, to be exact, but I'm not sure in what order.

So, chapterly question: what part of the story has been the most emotional/sad? I think I know what everyone will say, but personally, mine was Ness's Gaiden. I never thought I'd like Ness's character much, but I'm glad he proved me wrong.

So, thanks for reading! –Twilight Joltik