The Crossing of the Paths
By MMM/AJ
Part III: Of Darkness and Light

A/N: Like Part II, I plan on posting this one in chunks as well. This is Chunk TEN. Well, now I can guarantee that there will be more than 10 chunks, as we're at 10 right now and the story is still far from over. I estimate at least 4-6 more chunks left in the story overall, and at least 130+ pages total on the finished product. And again, I would ask that anyone who has made comments and think I might have replied to them, go to my userpage, scroll down and find the hyperlink that contains "CPComments", which is where I have responded to numerous reviews and E-mails concerning the story. Thank you.

Chapter XXIII

Mewtwo awoke on his own, not influenced by the fact that it had been day for some time now on the planet that he had chosen. He felt hundreds of times better, but could still sleep some more if he so desired. But with the clearer head that the rest had afforded him, when he saw how many potions were left, he realized how short on time he was. He downed one of the potions and took off.

Mewtwo again traveled for an extensive period of time, what seemed like a day and a half, when he finally saw a promising sight in the distance. He tripled his speed, now knowing he would need to conserve no longer, and silently cut through space like a speeding razor blade. As he neared, his heart filled with joy and hope, brilliant white ships came more into focus as he approached. The tingling feeling that had guided him grew into a shining orb of starlight in his mind, and he nearly sang to himself as he approached the ships.

There were ten ships of varying sizes, four bulking carriers, two deadly armed battlecruisers, and four smaller frigates. No doubt the carriers each held their own hosts of fighters. Mewtwo knew there would be hope if he brought them to Hyrule in time. As he got close to them however, his bubble collided with the ships' energy shields and Mewtwo cried out in surprise and frustration.

"Let me in!" He shouted physically and psychically. A few of the carrier's laser pods turned to face him, but did not fire. A few moments passed before a psychic reply came to him.

"Who are you? What do you seek from us?" A voice asked.

"I am Mewtwo, the original! I come to seek counsel with Lightest!" Mewtwo called back. He felt a slight feeling of surprise in the psychic carrier wave and waited as all fell silent again. And then, the energy shield in front of him opened a hole just small enough for his bubble to fit through. He flied through and found a small airlock in the hull swishing open. A gale of air blasted out and stopped abruptly, and Mewtwo entered the airlock. The door closed behind him, and a small clank signaled the sealing of the door.

The walls of the ship around him were sterile and white, plates of white alloys composed the bulkhead with only a small glowing keypad in the wall as an interface. The buttons were large enough for his fingers. As he observed the interior of the airlock, Mewtwo heard air hissing back into the room as it re-pressurized, and waited until he felt no vacuum tugging on his bubble before letting it fade away. The air in the ship felt cleaner and cooler, and Mewtwo breathed deep the refreshing and soothing air. Then, gravity suddenly kicked in and he fell forward onto his face. He stood and picked up his significantly lighter supplies and tried best to look presentable as the inner airlock doors opened.

Mewtwo wasn't exactly ready to see more clones of himself, but he was not especially alarmed because the one who met him at the door was benevolent feeling, with white fur on its body and light blue on the tail and its eyes, an exact copy of how Mewtwo remembered lightest. The copy did not wear any armor, it only held a small keypad in its right hand and wore a small headset that had a display curving around in front of its right eye. It smiled and him and spoke.

"So you are the original. Lightest will want to speak with you right away." The copy said gently.

The copy lead Mewtwo through the ship. It lead him through long, well lit corridors, past more copies working on repairing a damaged section of ductwork, through many doors, up an elevator, and up to a door labeled "Bridge" It pressed a sequence of buttons on the keypad and the door opened. What was inside was an impressive sight to any creature's eyes. The bridge was approximately 40 feet long and ten feet wide, control panels covered virtually every surface except the floor and ceiling, and glimmering holographic displays filled the air. Some displays showed tactical maps, different courses and numbers of ships played through different scenarios in the blink of an eye. Others displayed statistics about the ship, such as engines, weapons and shields status. And others gave camera views of the space outside the ship, giving many different angles of the same ships that flew alongside this one. The room was abuzz with activity, hundreds of identical looking copies were milling about the control panels and displays, many were seated and were entering instructions into the computer, and many were moving between stations to perform random tasks. But they all fell still and silent when Mewtwo entered the room. They turned to stare at him in awe, wonder and shock.

"It is him the original!" all of them suddenly said in chorus, as if they were one mind using many mouths to talk.

"Quickly! Warm up the interdimensional drives, we must bring him to Lightest!" The one who had guided Mewtwo said.

"You mean Lightest isn't on this ship or any of the others in this formation?" Mewtwo asked, suddenly feeling pressed for time.

"No, we must travel back to the original dimension to find him." The guide replied.

"Will that take long?" Mewtwo asked.

"Only an hour's worth of interdimensional travel. Our slipspace drive technology has been advancing rapidly and we will interface with home base and the main fleet soon."

"Very good." Mewtwo said, his stress leaving him. "I have need to talk to Lightest on many serious matters. But in the mean time, do you have anything decent for me to eat? I've been living off of dry, hard bread and tough salty meat for weeks now."

"I can have someone escort you to a room that you can use as temporary quarters. There you will find a food synthesizer that can generate any type of sustenance you desire."

"Good, let's do it right away, I'm hungry and tired, and would like a bit of rest." Mewtwo said. He could still use a bit more sleep even after what he guessed was a 15 hour sleep back on that mysterious planet.

Chapter XXIV

It seemed that the call buzzer rang as soon as Mewtwo had laid his head down on the pillow in his quarters. An hour of sleep whizzed past before he even knew it and he had to return to the bridge of the ship as it made contact with the main fleet. The crew of copies was cleaning the ship thoroughly, scrubbing the metal plates with bleach and shining them until they were even more brilliant than before. As he entered the bridge, he saw that the entire front of the room was filled with a holographic screen, showing the space directly in front of the ship. Mewtwo looked on in awe. The entire view screen was filled with glimmering white ships. Ships of different sizes and classes were mixed in individual phalanxes and there were too many to count. Mewtwo estimated that there were at least five hundred thousand ships in the view screen, and there were probably more beyond the limits of what the camera saw. And in the center of the screen was a massive flagship. It was beyond comparison with the largest of the other classes, it was practically the size of a planet. There were hundreds of docks along its hull, many big enough for carriers and battlecruisers to dock in.

The ship that Mewtwo was in was approaching this massive flagship, and as they came closer, Mewtwo made out thousands of individual weapons turrets, torpedo bays, and large energy cannons. This flagship was powerful enough to decimate an entire fleet on its own. Mewtwo felt the ship's direction shift under his feet, and the view screen came to a stop directly in front of the ship's hull. Energy shields flashed and then deactivated, and then the ship moved upwards parallel to the flagship's hull until it found a carrier sized docking port. It moved gently inside, inching until a thump indicated they had contacted the docking arms. Some more thumping and clanging resonated through the hull as the latches clamped onto the hull. The carrier suddenly jolted slightly as the arms adjusted, moving the ship upwards a bit in order to align the airlocks for entry. Another slight rattle was felt as the airlocks clamped onto the ship and pressurized. Then total silence fell. The crew of copies in the bridge around Mewtwo suddenly stopped what they were doing and walked to the center of the bridge to stand in attention.

Only a minute or two passed when the door to the bridge slid open and another familiar face strode in. Lightest's angel wings brushed gently through the doorway and he strode right up to Mewtwo with suspicion in his eyes. "How can this be possible? How and why are you here?" Lightest asked briskly.

"Just read my mind, it'll save a lot of breath and time." Mewtwo said.

Lightest tilted his head slightly and then nodded. Mewtwo didn't even feel it as Lightest quickly accessed his memories and pulled back out, Lightest was certainly more courteous with mind intrusion than Darkest had been.

"I do not mean to be rude, but you my friend have acted quite foolishly by meddling in the time-space continuum as such." Lightest said frankly.

Mewtwo lowered his head a bit. "Yes, I know."

"Well, I don't know if this situation has been directly caused by your messing with the time stream, but the simple fact that I can't see Darkest's next actions is a serious disadvantage to us."

Mewtwo felt ashamed of himself, he looked down at his feet and mentally slapped himself.

"But, the fact that Darkest doesn't know what we are planning next also gives us an advantage." Lightest said with a somewhat devious grin. "Now, we need to get to this planet quickly, if your memories serve correctly then we only have a day and a half to get there before Darkest begins the invasion. We need to act fast.

Mewtwo perked up, glad that there would be some action now. Lightest turned to one of the crew members and spoke to him, and that copy then saluted and walked off briskly. Lightest then turned and faced the entire crew.

"Alright, warm the interdimensional drives back up again and plot a course back to the dimension you came from. We're going into battle with Darkest's forces in that sector, so have the weapons systems online and warmed up as well." Lightest turned to Mewtwo. "And you can come with me."

Mewtwo followed Lightest out of the bridge and into a hallway. They turned a short corner to find an airlock opening into the flagship that they had docked with. They walked through and the door to the carrier sealed behind them. An almost unnoticeable jolt snuck through the floor as the carrier was suddenly let free by all the docking clamps. The inside of the flagship was identical to the carrier, white polished metal panels arranged in an orderly pattern with only keypads at the doors to break the clean cut monotony. They turned around a smooth corner and found a medium sized circular door.

"This ship, the LFS Dream, is my life's work." Lightest said, dialing a sequence of buttons on the keypad. "It's so incredibly massive that we need to use teleportation systems to cover distances inside it."

As Lightest spoke, the circular doors slid open to reveal a six foot diameter circular room. They walked in and the door closed, and the thought entered Mewtwo's mind that it was somewhat like standing inside a giant soda can. And then, a quick flash of fluorescent green filled his senses and the room changed slightly in an instant. A distinguishing mark on the door vanished, and Mewtwo knew that they had just been teleported. The door slip open and they continued walking down the halls.

"The ship is powered by almost forty nuclear fission reactors, and we have been experimenting with antimatter propulsion for a time now." Lightest continued. "If we were able to make it work, one antimatter drive would replace all 38 fission cores on this ship. It's amazing technology, but also incredibly volatile. That's why were' also experimenting with it for weapons purposes."

They passed through several doors and through many hallways until they turned a corner to face a set of doors of average size that were covered with swirling gold inlays. Lightest entered some figures into a keypad and the doors slid open to a bridge that made the carrier's bridge look like a sandbox. The LFS Dream's bridge was only a bit smaller than a football field and roughly the same shape. On both ends of the room the stations sloped upwards slightly to make the center of the room lower than the two ends. There were hundreds of flickering view screens in the room, around 35 officers, all the same light copies of Mewtwo, were mulling at stations of moving from station to station. One gigantic view screen was splashed across the wall opposite the one that Mewtwo and Lightest entered through, and it displayed a tactical map of their entire fleet and Darkest's fleet. Darkest's fleet was substantially smaller, there were two carriers in Lightest's fleet for every one in Darkest's.

As Mewtwo and Lightest walked into the center of the room, Mewtwo indicated the tactical map. "Couldn't you easily defeat his fleet at this point? Your fleet is much larger!" Mewtwo said.

"We could, we were actually about to strike at them when we got the signal from the carrier that they had found you. And now I know where all of Darkest's other ships have gone. Instead of being here to defend against me, they're invading Hyrule. We should move out now, but still leave enough ships to defend against attack from the forces he still has here." Lightest said, walking over to a circular hologram table that was in the dead center of the room.

The hologram table showed a 3D version of the tactical map that was on the main screen. The scale of the map was astounding. A tiny little pinprick on the map represented a cluster of capital ships. Small readouts hovered over each dot, telling the amount of ships in each cluster and what kind of ships they were made up of. The lettering of each readout was almost to small to read, and thousands of the dots swarmed the 3D map. Mewtwo looked down at one point of light and read it's readout. It indicated that the cluster contained 15 battlecruisers and 12 carriers, along with an entire squadron of frigates, totaling 60 of the smaller ships. He looked at another cluster, and it contained a similar number of ships. He tried to count how many clusters were displayed, but the swarms were bafflingly numerous. Mewtwo guessed that there could be up to three million ships represented in the entire fleet, not counter fightercraft which were docked and did not show up on the map.

"This force is beyond comprehension!" Mewtwo stammered. "With the amount of crew it would take to keep each ship fully manned, you mist have billions and billions of clones!"

"That's right, around 12 billion overall." Lightest said. "This is only a rough quarter of all the ships in my empire as well. I have 9 million ships that are frigate class or larger."

Mewtwo simply stared in awe at the map, his mind overloaded trying to comprehend the power of Lightest's Empire. He simply couldn't, if each clone individually had the same amount of power as he, the original did, then if all of them pooled their energy it would be enough to create or wipe out entire galaxies in a single stroke, maybe even whole universes. And each ship in the fleet was loaded with energy weapons as well, if all of Lightest's forces were to gather into one army, it would be completely unstoppable, it would contain power to rival the gods themselves.

"That's right." Lightest said, nodding.

"You read my mind?" Mewtwo asked.

"Yes. But I can assure you that my entire fleet would never be able to pool its power like that, it has to remain evenly distributed across multiple universes and dimensions in order to keep up our failing attempts at containing Darkest's forces. Slowly, he is stretching us thinner and thinner, knowing that I can't let him simply destroy world with impunity. He is using me good nature against me, so that I'll stretch my fleet thinner and thinner until he can strike decisively."

"But surely these efforts are spreading his fleet thin as well!" Mewtwo said.

"To an extent. But he has the advantage. His gorilla tactics are slowly stymieing my forces and dragging them down into individual wars from which there are no feasible exit strategies. And at the same time, I cannot let him run rampant across worlds, sacking and burning them, killing billions of innocents. It is who I am to keep these things from happening. All the while he lures my forces into more and more compromising situations while still maintaining a strong centralized position. His tactics are like that of bees, individuals sting on the outskirts while the hive still protects its nest."

As Lightest spoke, the map on the table shifted. It crossed a few sparse light-years to another seeming cloud of points of light. These were also indications of ship clusters, they were tinted in red and indicated Darkest's fleet. Mewtwo stared down into them and saw that the ships had formed a defensive orb formation, they were all bunched around 2 or three solar systems in a defensive posture. Small lines webbed through the clusters, indicating a large structure of some sort.

"What you see is an automated defense grid. It is nothing but a thinly spread mesh of space stations surrounding his space, covered in high powered energy cannons. They are powerful enough to pierce an energy shield in three shots. This grid provides support for the inner solar systems that Darkest's main production stations inhabit."

"I don't understand, if their defenses are so powerful, why were you going to attack them?" Mewtwo asked.

"No no, we weren't going to attack their inner space, we were going to attack the small fleet stationed nearby. We would defeat this fleet and build a staging area there from which we could prepare an attack strong enough to challenge their defensive grid. Darkest has known about the plan for a long time, and I was going to use this against him to pull a surprise action at the last second. But a week ago, suddenly our psychic link was severed somehow and his new tactics have eluded me. Now I see that he has diverted most of his strength to take Hyrule, and it mystifies me somewhat. If it would only take one carrier full of Centurions to defeat Hyrule, then why did he send half of his posted secondary defensive fleet? He knows it will make my attack against his inner systems a lot easier."

"Maybe he expects you to intervene in his invasion of Hyrule, forgetting all about your main assault on his home systems?"

"That can't be possible, our link has been severed for too long and you do not even enter into his mind because he still thinks the time stream is where it should be. He thinks you split into him and me almost eight hundred years ago, and that you aren't here telling me all this. This is where our advantage lies." Lightest said.

"Then we should press both fronts at once, with a delay in between!" Mewtwo said. We will take a significant number of ships to halt his attempts at Hyrule, and a few days later you can attack his stationed fleet as originally planned! He has already divided his force for you, now all you need to do is drive the wedge further in, and destroy his fleet in two strokes!"

"I can already see where I got my tactical intelligence from." Lightest said, smiling and tapping his head.

"Yeah, eight hundred years of fleet building and fighting a foe who will see your next action before you can take it." Mewtwo said, returning the smile.

"Alright, so now we just need to work out the specifics." Lightest said. "Were you ever able to ascertain the amount of ships in orbit around Hyrule?"

"What you saw in my memory is all I know. All I remember is that they filled the sky in a spread out web."

"Well, I think we can assume that they took a large amount of ships with them, considering how many are missing from his stationed fleet."

"How many are missing?" Mewtwo asked."

"Last recon shows that around 12000 ships are missing."

"That's insignificant compared to the size of your fleet! Look, the main view screen must be inaccurate, it clearly portrays your fleet as being substantially larger than his!" Mewtwo said, waving at the image on the wall.

"That's the tactical map of a battle currently occurring in a completely different dimension, it's unrelated to what is going on now." Lightest said.

"I see. So we should take around 17000 ships with us to attack Darkest's invasion of Hyrule?" Mewtwo asked.

"I was thinking 20000 would suffice. Darkest's standing fleet was already slightly smaller than mine in this sector anyway, I was simply stalling for time until the right moment to attack. And now that the link has been severed, the right time is now." Lightest said.

That table shifted back to Lightest's fleet, and Lightest suddenly reached out onto the table with both arms and grasped handfuls of cluster representations in his hands. He moved them away from the rest of the fleet and then reached back and enetered some commands into a keypad. The clusters that he had grabbed and moved suddenly disappeared through miniature representations of dimensional portals. Large letters flashed over the map that read "Time passage: two days", and then all the clusters of the main fleet began to move. They crossed the distance over to the outer Perimeters of Darkest's space and met with thousands of red clusters. Then another blinking set of letters flashed over the hologram: "Unable to predict battle outcome".

"It will still be relatively close." Lightest said, "But I think that this divide and conquer strategy we've cooked up is enough to push us over the border of uncertainty into victory."

Lightest extended his hand, and Mewtwo blinked, and then took his hand and shook it. It was the first time he had shaken hands with someone whose hands were identical to his, and it felt strange, in a good way.

Chapter XXV

Lightest offered Mewtwo a room to rest in after they finished their strategy counsel, but he declined. After seeing the scale of the war and helping plan a part in its strategy, Mewtwo was suddenly filled with excitement. He stayed in the bridge and walked around observing the actions being processed and made. Lightest gave a quick debriefing to his bridge crew of their new plan, and as soon as he initiated the orders for the ships to move out, Mewtwo felt the ship lurch through his feet.

"Interdimensional drives are hot and ready to fire sir!" An officer shouted from his station.

"Good, move the ships out on their regular reactors until we reach minimum distance from the fleet and fire the Interdimensional drives." Lightest yelled back at the copy, who waved his tail in acknowledgement.

The main strategic screen which had show the other unrelated battle earlier now flicked over to the ship's outside camera's first showing empty space in front of the LFS dream and then to the fleet behind it. The swarms of ships slowly became smaller and smaller as they moved off slowly, but no matter how far they got from the fleet it was still big enough to fill the entire view screen and Mewtwo still wasn't quite adjusted to such a vast amount of ships. The view screen flicked to a side view and showed the other ships that traveled alongside the flagship; they were in hundreds of ordered lines and phalanxes and bristled with guns and cannons. Mewtwo suddenly smiled at the thought of the look of surprise that would splash upon Darkest's face when he would first see the miniature fleet that would come knocking at the door of his invasion. And suddenly, the view screen snapped off and the ship jolted again as the interdimensional drives suddenly ripped a portal in the dimensional walls and the ship entered. Mewtwo knew the beautiful sight that awaited just outside the hull, he remembered the swirling rainbows of mixing colored energy that the dimensional tunnel held. He remembered it well, still clearly from the day he had left the Pokemon world to eventually get pulled into a post apocalyptic Hyrule.

"ETA is one hour, four minutes and 12 seconds!" Another copy shouted across the room.

"What is the status of the Dimensional tunnel?" Lightest asked, hovering through the air across the room. Mewtwo followed on foot.

The light clone who was sitting at his station tapped his panel elegantly, evidenced of great skill in keyboarding. "Scan data is being received and processed now…" He said.

Lightest and Mewtwo leaned over his shoulder and looked at the readout on the small screen in front of him. It simply stated "Processing" over a small progress bar. The bar rapidly moved from 50 to 100 in a few minutes. As it completed, a list of data sprawled out across the screen.

"Tunnel stability normal, energy surge levels at normal strength, no dimensional, temporal, or energy anomalies detected." The clone said, skimming the data. "Wait, I think there's something here.."

Mewtwo and Lightest stood silent and watched as the clone scrolled the screen across a small, almost undetectable blip along the line indicating energy signatures. He highlighted the blip and enlarged it and enhanced the signal, using the computer to analyze it in all spectrums.

"I think we might have company." The clone said, staring at the screen. Suddenly, the computer finished the analysis and flashed a match indicator window at the bottom of the screen. The signature they had detected was identical to the energy signatures of the Interdimensional drives on Darkest's ships. "Make that definite company sir, we've got relatives coming and it's not just for a friendly dinner."

"Right then." Lightest said, reaching a hand over the officer's control panel. He pressed a small inconspicuous red button and suddenly the lights in the room changed from white to red and a smooth yet loud klaxon sounded on the ship's com system.

"High priority combat alert!" Lightest shouted, floating back through the air to the other side of the bridge. Mewtwo jogged along behind.

The red lights lit up on all the other ships as well, and weapons systems began to warm up. All were tense and slightly shaken, combat had never been attempted inside a dimensional slipstream before.

"Ops officer 384, can you get me the number and types of ships coming our way, and a confirmed intercept trajectory?" Lightest asked.

"Scan data is being processed…wait, here we go. We've got around 10000 ships trailing behind us, mostly frigates with only a few scattered capital ships. They are on a direct intercept course, but they will not intercept us until we exit the dimensional tunnel. They will engage us approximately seven and a half minutes after we exit the dimensional tunnel." The ops officer said.

"We have time, and it seems that they're only sending the bare minimum to stop us. They must have only just detected our departure and followed in blind pursuit. Darkest would not send a fleet of mostly frigates against 20000 capital ships and my flagship. They must be some bloodthirsty underlings of his craving battle. We will defeat them easily. Lower our ships to moderate priority combat alert, and make sure we're ready to fight after exiting the dimensional tunnel" Lightest said.

"Yes sir." The ops officer replied, typing masterfully.

"It's too strange to be true." Mewtwo suddenly said. Lightest looked at him expectantly. Either darkest has predicted our actions or he has only barely assembled that interception forces at the last second after seeing our departure. Something doesn't feel quite right."

"I know, it seems suspicious to me as well, but now we can only hope for the best be as best prepared as we can for whatever will happen. We have 45 minutes until arrival now, so if you can think up anything, then do so within that time." Lightest said.

"You will try as well?" Mewtwo asked. Lightest nodded. They both sat down around the holographic table and thought deeply.

Interlude 2

"It has been almost 3 weeks since the link has been severed, and now I think I have discovered why. The Time-space continuum has been becoming more and more unstable with every passing week, I can feel it in the inherent energy of the universe. Soon physical distortions will start to form in space itself, and the entire continuum could snap in less than a month. And here right on deck with me is the reason; the original has appeared in this time. It is practically impossible, but apparently a loop paradox has occurred in the time stream and has brought the original here. The separation wars have apparently caused singularities in the space between dimensions and one has pulled the original into our time. And since the time stream has not flashed into an alternate formation, it is safe to assume that a loop has formed. But why the instabilities haven't caused the entire universe to collapse is beyond me, I can sense some odd energy present in the continuum that I can't even track with the contributed energy from all of my army. It seems only time will tell whether the instabilities will stabilize or if we will all be destroyed by a fate which in itself has not even come to pass.

A/N: Whoo! Now you've gotta admit that this chunk was awesome huh? Space tactics are fun to read and even more fun to write! The story is starting to escalate into more and more exciting regions, and yet another interlude makes its appearance. The interlude aught to answer some questions about the story and then raise some more. What happens in the next chunk is going to be a real doozy! Read and let the excitement grip you, and then tell me what you think!