The Crossing of the Paths
By MMM/AJ
Part II: Desert Wind

A/N: I decided to split this book up and publish it in chunks. This is the THIRD chunk. I'm amazed by the speediness that this one got cranked out with! It was the polar opposite from the last chapter! And one other thing I realized; FF.N does not support the Italic thing from Microsoft Word which I use to write. I used Italics on the first paragraph of every mini chapter to denote a historic anecdote. I hope this clears up some confusion. WARNING: This is where the violence starts folks! It's not graphically descriptive of each little bit of gore, but it let's you know it's there, so don't say I didn't warn you!

Chapter IX

A small facet of history overlooked by many Gerudo Elders was the Hylian legends of the Triforce. The legend told of the three goddesses of Power, Courage, and Wisdom, who descended and created the world. With their elegant arms they cast spell of great power, creating the world, filling it with life, and giving it a strong magical essence. After their tasks were complete, the goddesses departed, leaving behind an essence of their powers, known as the Triforce. The First Hylians built a temple around it, and protected it with powerful magic. It was said that whoever obtained the whole Triforce, would be granted the power of the gods, and would have their wish granted. But the heart of the seeker had to be balanced, or the Triforce would break, each shard would go to a destined man or woman whom had the trait strongest that the piece represented. This is why the evil king Ganondorf did not gain the whole Triforce when he conquered Hyrule so many years ago.

Mewtwo marched along with the Gerudos at a swift pace. They maintained a constant course, the tower which was continually growing on the horizon. With this tiring and mindless physical work, Mewtwo's mind wandered. His memory of the past month and a half with the Gerudos came back to him. He remembered the feast night, when he had made his small speech to the Gerudo tribeswomen, and he remembered the black pall of uneasiness that had hung over his mind before his speech. He had shrugged off after nothing bad had happened, but it had stuck to his unconscious mind like gum on a shoe. Now it was once again strong over his thoughts, like an ominous thundercloud overshadowing the world of his mind.

Mewtwo was shaken out of dreamland by the sight of the tower gigantic in his field of vision. They were almost at the gates. Mewtwo felt the sheer energy drain on him from the device, which was at the top of the tower. "So this is why that the dimensional portal was such a sinkhole," He thought to himself, "This machine is sucking the very life force from the world."

As the troops neared the massive iron gates, the guard next to him handed him some soft yellow blobs. "What are these?" Mewtwo asked curiously.

"You don't know about the incantation?" The guard inquired.

"Why no. What is it?" Mewtwo asked.

"It's a slowly repeated spoken spell, broadcasted out from the towers. It's a form of mind control. They use it to control their workers and capture raiders who are foolish enough to attack without earplugs." The soldier said.

Mewtwo shrugged and stuffed the blobs into his small ear holes, and noticed how they completely blocked his hearing. He felt at the curiously as they marched.

As they reached the gates of the building, shots rang out from turrets on the tower, seemingly shattering the calm pall over the desert. Mewtwo could definitely hear those through the earplugs. The Elder shouted a battle cry and the once orderly ranks broke apart and the guards ran up and edged against the tower wall. Mewtwo wisely followed suit. Without the order of the ranks, Mewtwo found himself standing next to Kalana.

He knew why they were straddling the wall, the guards had guns, and they couldn't shoot them through the floor. He was now officially stressed and worried, because now he knew for sure that the empire used guns. He sighed and shook his head, and edged across the wall, past Kalana, to the gates.

He found the Elder examining a code keypad on the wall. He suddenly realized that the Elder was cracking the code to gain access. He was simply stunned by the technical knowledge she had.

The Elder cursed heavily in Hylian as she worked on the code. She eventually threw up her hands in disgust. She gestured wildly with her hands, as if asking for something.

A guard came up carrying a bag full of black powder. Mewtwo recognized it immediately, gun powder. The Gerudos probably stole it on a previous raid.

The Elder slammed her fist against the code panel until it slid out, revealing wires. She gently poured all of the gun powder inside the hole and stood back. She pulled out a flint and a stone and cracked them together. Sparks flew out, and one landed in the gun powder. The Elder jumped back as the explosion's noise dulled through Mewtwo's earplugs as a soft, but pronounced thud.

The next thing that happened shocked Mewtwo almost senseless, the doors creaked open. "This must be some shoddy electronic security system we're dealing with if the doors will open when a keypad is destroyed." Mewtwo thought to himself.

Gerudos began pouring into the building, and Mewtwo heard shots ringing out through his earplugs again. He winced and imagined the Gerudos falling, with bullets burrowing into them. When the time came, Mewtwo followed the guards into the mine. He was amazed to see all of the Gerudos unharmed. Their armor was simply dented from the bullets. He was once again amazed by their resourcefulness. He saw them spreading out into the rooms, systematically killing off the guards while he trailed in the rear.

Mewtwo saw the effects of the mind control. The workers toiled mindlessly, and their eyes were empty of life, simply staring at the work at hand. The guards were not intelligent either, without their free will. The Gerudos slaughtered them effortlessly.

The Gerudos move systematically room to room, killing guards and tying down workers. They were working upwards, up the tower and towards the energy draining device. Mewtwo remained in the back of the band, but his blood was beginning to flow hotly, and battle anticipation roiled in his mind.

After nearly half an hour, the Gerudo war band had reached the top of the tower. The burst through a strong metal door and flooded into a large tower top room. Immediately, Mewtwo recognized the sound of a machine gun barking out. He saw a Gerudo in the head of the band getting pummeled with bullets. Her armor contorted and twisted, and then split open. The woman was ripped to pieces by the fury of steel. The Gerudos were pushed back out into the hallway by the maelstrom of steel, and they stood outside the door, thinking of a plan.

The Elder was rummaging through her bag, and suddenly squealed with joy. She pulled out three black spheres, roughly the size of tennis balls. She squeezed on hard in her palm and threw it into the room. It burst almost instantly, and a billowing yellow smoke poured forth. The Elder did the same for the other two spheres. "Smoke bombs. They must have stolen those too." Mewtwo thought to himself.

The room was filled completely with the thick smog, and the Gerudos rushed in. The guards, mindless and stupid, had no idea how to counter this, and were simply slaughtered behind their guns. The Gerudos had taken the tower.

After twenty minutes, the smoke cleared enough to allow vision to be restored. Mewtwo looked in awe at the machine that towered over them. Like a huge, glowing, pulsating monster, the machine was sucking in energy, processing it, and transporting it to the rest of the tower and the mines and tunnels below.

The Elder made the same gesture again, and a guard came up carrying a considerably larger sack of gun powder. The Elder pulled out a string and stuck it into the bag and tied the bag shut. She set the bag inside a network of cables in the machine, and led the thread out.

The Gerudos moved out of the room, and the Elder cracked the flint against the stone again. A spark landed on the thread, and the Elder blew on it, hard, until it caught aflame. The flame traveled down the thread and into the room. Mewtwo put his hands over his already blocked ears.

Another small thud of an explosion made its way into Mewtwo's mind, and so did something else, energy. He felt new life coming up into his mind, and he looked into the room to see the device destroyed. He looked over to see the Gerudos removing the earplugs from their ears. He did the same.

"Now that we've destroyed the device, there's no power. And no power means no incantation! The Elder said gleefully.

Mewtwo nodded, and looked down at his paws with awe. They glowed with power once more.

"And now, we can use magic once more!" Kalana said with pure joy on her face. She strode up to Mewtwo smiling. Her smile melted away when she saw Mewtwo's expression of awe and surprise. She followed his gaze down to his hands, and gasped and drew back when she saw them glowing. The Gerudos all gasped and drew away from Mewtwo. The Elder however, walked up to him.

"You told us about this incredible power you had. I mildly doubted that it existed." She said.

Mewtwo gestured his hands toward a shard of metal on the floor, and it flew up in the air at his bidding. He drew it in close to himself and grabbed it out of the air. Murmurs and whispers ran rampant among the Gerudos. Mewtwo let go of the shard, letting it hover in midair. He brought it out into the open, and concentrated. The shard liquefied and began boiling as it hovered in the air. Its molecular structure began to break down, and it fizzed and exploded. Mewtwo caught the droplets and threw them down, where they solidified into metal globules on the floor. The Gerudos were totally silent.

"Now I see that you were telling the truth. Your power rivals that of the ancient warlock of legends himself." The Elder said. Murmurs broke out again.

Mewtwo ignored the Elder and began hovering in the air. He floated over to the body of the Gerudo that was first to die under the machine gun's wrath. The Gerudos that were alive whispered in awe at the sight of Mewtwo floating.

Mewtwo looked down at the dead woman. Her abdomen was ripped open, and her organs were spilled on the floor. Her blood was still warm and her face held a look of horror, trapped in time from the first moment that the bullets entered her body. A small, delicate tear ran down Mewtwo's face, and fell to land on her hand. Mewtwo grabbed her hand with his, and put her scimitar in her hand, and then put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. He stood up, and looked around at the living Gerudos, all of whom were staring at him silently. In his mind, his sadness for the deceased was transforming, transforming into the familiar red rage that crept up into his eyes. He saw into the future again, he saw the tombstone for each of the living Gerudos standing before him. His heart wrenched when he saw Kalana's, with an inscription etched for time of death ten years from now.

The sight of Kalana's early death tore at Mewtwo, and his heart burned with sadness and rage. His consciousness began to melt with anger, and tears flowed from him. He cried out with his psychic voice, booming over the Gerudos. A few of them screamed in fear, and the Elder's eyes showed a look of sheer horror at this awful cry that came into her head.

Mewtwo lost his last bastion of sanity when he saw the Elder's tombstone, marked with time of death five years from now. He cried out again, and teleported away, down into the tunnels below the tower.

There he found the workers, suddenly free from mind control, wandering around trying to find out who and where they were. But his rage had completely destroyed all rational thought, and all he saw were the mindless, soulless eyes of murderers, men and women who would kill all he knew and cherished in a few short years. He shouted in primal rage and with bursts of psychic energy, fried the brains of every single man and woman in the tunnel. He fell to the ground, sobbing and panting.

Chapter X

Raids on the mines over the centuries have revealed some of the best kept secrets of the empire. The magic draining device on the top of every tower is the source of the water generated. While operating, the device's hull cools down to extremely low temperatures, despite the desert heat. Water condenses at an alarming rate, and is collected to use. The rest is dumped. Another secret was the tunnels underneath. The Gerudos know that these structures are mines, but they are also linked together with all the other towers through a vast underground tunnel network. Food is delivered along this tunnel, although each tower generates its own water and energy, so there is no need to transport water or energy.

The Gerudos found Mewtwo sobbing in the tunnel station below the tower. Around him were the scattered bodies of workers and guards. He was leaning over a worker's body, sobbing his heart out.

The Gerudos quickly secured the tunnel station, finding all guards and workers dead. The station was eerily silent. In the center of the station was a lowered set of tracks, where the food cars would arrive. The Gerudos, now armed with magic, were preparing for the cars to arrive, and would then kill the guards and tie down the workers.

The Elder walked up to Mewtwo, who was kneeling over a dead worker and crying. The worker was a Gerudo woman.

"One of our own, fallen victim to the mind control." The Elder said.

Mewtwo cried harder. The dead woman's face held a look of shock. Mewtwo closed her eyes and stood up. He nearly shook with emotional pain.

"They were innocent. All of them." He said. "They were just freed from the mind control, and I killed them. I killed them all." Mewtwo said, holding back more crying.

The Elder walked up to him and grabbed his hand in hers. She squeezed hard. "You were not yourself." She said.

Mewtwo squeezed the Elder's hand. He wanted to tell her why he went over the edge, but he couldn't bear telling her she was going to die in five years. He let go of the Elder's hand, and a new thought crossed his mind.

Mewtwo bent over the dead Gerudo worker and touched his hand to hers. His body glowed blue, and all the Gerudos stared at Mewtwo in awe. Mewtwo remembered the past when he and Mew were fighting. He remembered the trainer Ash jumping into the line of fire, sacrificing himself to stop to horrendous fighting. He remembered the tears of the Pokemon flew to Ash's hard, cold body and resurrected him. Mewtwo leaned down, and a single tear fell from his face and down onto the face of the woman.

The station was eerily calm as the bodies of Mewtwo and the woman glowed bright blue. After five minutes, the Gerudo blinked her eyes and sat up.

All of the Gerudos in the room gasped in shock. Mewtwo reached out his hand, and the Gerudo woman shrank back in terror. The Elder reached down and pulled up the woman. She said something in Hylian to her and they hugged each other hard. The elder patted the woman on the back and said something more in Hylian. The Gerudo walked out of the room.

The Elder walked up to Mewtwo and hugged him hard. "That was my youngest daughter you saved." She said. "I lost her when she ran off foolishly to try and destroy the tower herself. She left and never came back. I thought I would never see her again." The Elder said. Mewtwo felt a tear on his shoulder.

Kalana ran out of her hiding place and grabbed the Elder's hand. "The food car will be here soon. We need to get ready." She said.

The Elder let go of Mewtwo and smiled. Tears were streaming down her face. "Thank you." She said.

The Gerudos all found hiding places in nooks and crannies around the station. Mewtwo hid behind a group of barrels. He felt strange. The black, emptiness that filled him after his rages had died down quickly. It was replaced with a warmth inside. He felt happy, almost joyful, that he had saved the life of the Elder's daughter.

His thoughts were interrupted by the Elder shouting. "These cars have their own power! That means mind control!" The Elder cried over to him.

"Don't worry!" He shouted. "I have my power back!"

Ten minutes passed without anything happening. The station was eerily quiet as the Gerudos awaited the train car's arrival. Mewtwo's giddiness soon wilted back into the same foreshadowing cloud over his mind. He felt a black pall over his mind, and an evil atmosphere flowing into the room. Night was falling over the desert outside, and the room was getting darker and darker. Mewtwo swallowed hard, and his brooding feeling was growing into fear and horror. He suddenly felt that he couldn't stand being here any longer, and the room was suffocating him. He finally lost it and created a small psychic light. It brightened the whole room, and he sighed with relief. The Gerudos made "shhh" sounds and the Elder shook her head from her hiding place.

Mewtwo swallowed hard and put out the light. The darkness closed in on him. He closed his eyes in horror. The atmosphere was oppressive and evil, and he felt like he was choking. Then he recognized the sound of a train clicking along steel tracks. He threw the bad feelings off and powered up. He was planning on giving the Gerudos a little show.

After another ten minutes, the car pulled into the station, and Mewtwo heard the sweet, mellow sound of a Gerudo woman's voice easing out of speakers on the side of the car. He felt eased into submission, and smiled. The chant was in Hylian, but Mewtwo felt submissive and quieted. He smiled dumbly and stood up. The doors to the car opened, and a guard came out carrying a rocket launcher. He looked around with his lifeless eyes.

Mewtwo suddenly snapped out of his calm, seeing the rocket launcher in the guard's hands. He knew that the mind control had almost snared him, and he created a psychic barrier around his mind, protecting it from outside influence. He was about to charge out when a little black sphere rolled out of the Elder's hiding place. It burst open and the familiar yellow smoke billowed out. The guard looked down at it dumbly, and did nothing as the smoke enveloped him. Mewtwo heard the Gerudo footsteps, and heard the familiar sound of a scimitar hitting flesh. Gunshots rang out in the haze, and Mewtwo heard the Elder's battle cry. A scuffle was heard, a few more shots shattered the air, and a cry of pain was heard. Mewtwo winced.

Never once did an enslaved one make a sound, so Mewtwo knew it was a Gerudo that had been hurt. He walked out from behind the barrels and was about to fry the megaphones blaring out the mind control when he sensed something. A horrible, evil power, that seemed to emanate from inside the car. Suddenly, the fighting stopped abruptly. Mewtwo heard laughing, pure, black, evil laughter, and the smoke suddenly blew away. The sight that met Mewtwo's eyes wracked his mind. In the door of the car, surrounded by suspended floating Gerudos, was another Mewtwo. But it was different. Its body was black, jet black, and its eyes glowed sinister red. It was holding up one paw, holding the Gerudos psychically suspended in the air.

"Surprise!" It boomed in its psychic voice. The Gerudos screamed in pain as pressure was applied to their grip.

Mewtwo, our Mewtwo, stammered in shock. "Who….who…are you?" He said aloud.

"Still speaking with that puny mouth of yours, eh?" The other smugly replied.

Mewtwo was speechless. He stared in sheer paralyzing shock. He moved his lips but no sound came.

"Well, it seems you're out of your mind with shock. I know what will bring you out of it!" the evil one said. He formed a dark blade out of energy and tossed it with a quick flick of the wrist. It embedded in the head of a Gerudo. She fell limp, dead almost instantly. She then fell to the floor, loose from the grip.

Mewtwo burst out of his shock. "How dare you?" He screamed in his psychic voice.

The black one smiled, revealing razor sharp teeth. "That's more like it. Get mad!" He said, and suddenly another Gerudo split in half in his grip and landed on the floor screaming in pain.

Mewtwo acted violently and without thinking. He sent a powerful psychic wave at the black one. The Black one dropped the Gerudos and blocked the attack. The waves of invisible energy clashing in the air sparked electrically. The air itself crackled and the two opponents strained hard, trying to push the other's attack off. Both opponents pushed harder and harder, and the air tasted of pure static energy.

Soon, the energy fields stood out visually. Bolts of lightning flashed around two glowing energy fields, blue and black. The floor began shaking, and small cracks webbed throughout the plated steel floor. Barrels and boxes lifted off the floor, suspended by the sheer energy permeating the room. The train car groaned and lifted off of its tracks. Glass windows of a security box in the ceiling shattered, raining glass shards. The shards slowed down and hovered with the barrels. Something was going to give soon.

The black one, sweating and straining, smiled. "We are evenly matched." He said, "Time to break the stalemate." He finished his sentence, and formed an energy blade. He threw it quickly towards the elder.

Mewtwo cried out and let go of his concentration and moved his energy to block the attack on the Elder. The black energy from his stalemate slammed into Mewtwo, searing his skin and slamming him into the wall. His bones cracked and his skin was burned black. The hovering barrels thudded to the floor and the glass shards fell and slashed and cut Mewtwo and the Gerudos.

Mewtwo's pain nearly caused him to black out, but he had his powers back, and he was far from done. The Black one laughed as Mewtwo used his recover ability, and stood up, unharmed. He was more than normal, he was going into a rage, which was heightening his power. He formed a shadow ball in his hands, charging it up and expanding it until it was almost four feet in diameter, and slung it at the black one.

The black one formed an energy barrier, and the shadow ball smashed into it, bending the barrier, and then shattering it. It blew a hole into the black one's torso. He gasped as he was thrown into the wall. Black blood seeped out of his mouth. He sputtered and laughed. "I've found out what I need to know." He said, and suddenly disappeared, having teleported away.

Chapter XI

One of the last Hylian legends was that of the apocalypse. Hylian prophets foretold a great and evil power from the sky would descend and immerse Hyrule in evil. It was said that the world would be doomed if the evil was not vanquished, and despair would rule all. The only way to stop the fate of the world was to bring all of the Triforce pieces together, all of the descendants of the seven sages together, and to sacrifice the life of the one who was destined to hold the Triforce in its wholeness. Only then would a spell of great power be cast, and the evil swept off the world. This legend has been believed to be true by most Gerudo elders, who see the empire and its towers as that evil force which conquered the world.

Almost all of the Gerudos were unharmed. They soon recovered from their attack and began plundering the food car. The injured ones that had survived were about to leave when Mewtwo stopped them.

"I can help." He said.

A Gerudo with a slash wound on her shoulder walked up to him with a confused and dazed look. Mewtwo put his hands on the wound, and used his power to heal it. The Gerudo hugged him spontaneously, and Mewtwo smiled. He was recovering from his rage well. He had saved lives this time, instead of taking them. He healed the Gerudos, and when he was done, the car had been emptied completely.

The procession soon began to leave the basement of the tower, and a thought entered his head. He wanted to do all he could to help the Gerudos, and he was always thinking of new ways. He had just thought of a new one. He hung back at the end of the precession climbing the tower's stairs. The Gerudos panted and strained under the tremendous weight of the food crates. Mewtwo was hardly noticed, as the Elder was at the front and Kalana was in the middle, carrying a crate. He concentrated hard and glowed blue. He wrapped his consciousness around the Gerudos in front and bent the fabric of the dimension, and the entire procession disappeared out of the tower and appeared back in the village.

A few Gerudos stumbled and tripped with surprise, and a few shouts and cries were heard. The Elder, who was about to step on the next step on the stairs, fell face first into the sand. Mewtwo stifled back a laugh.

The Elder quickly regained her composure and shouted a roll call. Everyone was accounted for, and Mewtwo laughed and called her over to talk to him.

"What exactly happened?" She asked.

"I teleported us back to the village." Mewtwo said. "Boy you should've seen the looks on all of your faces!" Mewtwo laughed, and his psychic voice's laughter boomed through the minds of the Gerudos. They cowered with fear.

"Stop that!" The Elder snapped. "However you're talking in our heads like that, it's terrifying the villagers!"

Mewtwo winced. He was about to say something when the Elder continued.

"I don't want you talking with that voice again! Frankly, after that horrifying evil copy of you attacked us, the villagers are shaken up and could lose it if you kept doing things like 'teleporting' or other such magic. I don't want to see any more public displays of power again! I'm not sure if the villagers trust you anymore after that evil version of you nearly killed them all!" The Elder shouted.

Kalana set down her crate and ran up to throw in her two cents. "Just a minute Elder! You're overreacting!" She said.

"How dare you chide an Elder, let alone your own mother!" the Elder shrieked.

"Just listen to me! Mewtwo saved all of our lives today! You, I, and the whole village owe him our lives!"

"That may be true! But not half of these nitwits are calm enough to realize that, and after the evil look-alike nearly killed us all, I think that there needs to be a little peace around here!" the Elder shouted.

"Right. You're right. But I still think you should treat the one who saved your life with a little more respect!" Kalana said, lowering her voice.

"And you need to respect your mother and Tribe Elder! Anymore of this insubordinate behavior will have you in serious trouble!" the Elder said. She turned to face Mewtwo. "I suppose I was a bit harsh, and I do owe you for what you did, but I need to ask you to not use your powers for a few days. I don't want a riot before we start on our trip east." The Elder said.

Mewtwo nodded. "When are we leaving?" he asked.

"Tomorrow at the break of dawn. We will be packing all the food and goods onto wagons tonight." The Elder said.

"How will you pull them? There are no pack animals in this kind of environment." Mewtwo said.

"We will use engines stolen from the empire. Don't worry; we have stolen enough fuel for them to last the journey as well." The Elder said.

Mewtwo sighed in amazement. The Gerudos seemed to be almost completely dependant on the Empire for all of their needs, from food and water to transportation. The straw for their beds must have been stolen as well. And the Empire still hasn't figured out a way to stop them. And where did the other Mewtwo come from? All of these thought ricocheted around Mewtwo's mind as he walked back to his hut. The Elder had made it painfully obvious to him that she didn't want him using his powers, so there was nothing he could do to help them prepare for the trip. He went back to his hut and slept.

A/N: This chapter got cranked out pretty fast, so please forgive any extremely stupid spelling or grammar errors. If you find any that are particularly egregious, then let me know by review or E-mail. And remember, it was your excellent reviews that motivated me to do this one fast and excellently!