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 ELEVEN. Not much to say at this Author's note, except that I've been having a total blast writing this! If you enjoy reading it just half as much as I enjoy writing it, then you have been coming close to tearing up your mouse cord with exitment. Seriously, writing this chunk was like drinking eighteen cups of coffee and eating twelve large chocolate bars, I was overwhelmed!

Chapter XXVI

"Sir, we've got a problem!" An officer on the bridge of the LFS Dream shouted.

"What is it?" Lightest asked, gliding over to the copy. Mewtwo followed.

"There has been an accident on Carrier 79346, an explosion on board has damaged several of their non-vital systems and has killed several crewmen. They are requesting additional crew in order to maintain functionality of their vessel." The copy said, reading the message as it played across the holographic view screen.

"We're already stretched thin here on the Dream, do any other ships have excess personnel?" Lightest asked.

""Sending inquiry now sir." The copy replied.

Lightest turned to Mewtwo grimly. "You're going to have to help them."

"I have no technical knowledge or space combat skills!" Mewtwo protested, suddenly nervous. This whole situation had sprung up before he could say anything about it and it was thoroughly shaking to him.

"It doesn't matter, they will project the instructions directly into your mind if need be." Lightest said.

Before Mewtwo could reply with more excuses, he felt the world whiz around him and his vision blurred out temporarily as he was teleported. He suddenly found himself in the smaller bridge of the carrier in question, and red lights flashed through the room. A copy ran up to him and spoke.

"Lightest sent you, the Original, as our bolster?" The copy said.

"I didn't have a say in it, that's for sure." Mewtwo grumbled.

"Quickly, there isn't much time. Follow me." The copy said, dashing through and open door and down the hallway.

Mewtwo followed the copy through the bowels of the ship, and the continuous red lights and loud klaxon became more and more annoying to Mewtwo as he followed the copy through twisting hallways and up through power-lifts.

"We haven't yet discovered what caused the explosion," The copy began, seemingly reading Mewtwo's mind, "But we have confirmed the extent of the damage. Parts of our main computer core were damaged or destroyed by a surge caused by the explosion, and this has caused the automated point defense system to go offline. Now we still have our guns, but there is no-one to aim and fire them. Also, parts of our inertial dampening system have been damaged as well, so certain parts of the ship are being put under physical strain."

"So what can I do?" Mewtwo asked.

"You're going to be a gunner in our rearmost laser turret, taking the place of our automated defense system. The manual operation of the turret is simple, aim with the control sticks and fire by pressing the red buttons." The copy said.

Suddenly, they came up to the end of the hallway, a ladder proceeded down through the floor to the bottom deck and a sealed pressure hatch door was on the ceiling above. The copy reached up, twisted a latch, and pulled the hatch door open. What was beyond the door was a six foot diameter translucent dome, within witch rested a large tubular machine. The whole machine was filled with glowing blue apertures and two turrets extended outside the clear dome into open space. The flowing colors of the dimensional tunnel pulsed past outside the dome. A simple chair was attached to the machine, from which a "U" shaped control arm extended. The entire construction was attached to multiple rotating bases. Silently, a ladder extended down from inside the turret and Mewtwo reluctantly climbed up and inside. He suddenly felt a powerful pull and was forced backwards into the chair.

"That's the inertial dampeners, they don't have much effect on the outside turrets. Don't' worry, you'll never experience enough force to be dangerous, but be ready for a gut shifting ride." The copy said up through the hatch.

"Yeah, thanks for the warning." Mewtwo said, thoroughly irritated with this whole situation.

"Good luck." The Copy said, and suddenly the hatch closed up.

Mewtwo admired the design of the turret, despite the fact that he didn't really want to be in it. The chair had an appropriate sized hole for his tail to fit through, so he wouldn't have to sit on it. The chair itself also seemed to mold to his anatomy, and felt surprisingly comfortable. A seat belt dangled over the side of the chair, and Mewtwo sighed and pulled around him to buckle up. The inertial forces in this room would probably toss him about if he didn't. He then grabbed the control stick in his hands and felt it match perfectly with his hand design. The trigger buttons were positioned perfectly and it felt overall ergonomic in the turret despite the fact that it was so cramped. Mewtwo moved the controls to the right, and suddenly the entire turret moved to the right. Mewtwo pointed the controls down, and the two barrels of the laser cannon moved down to the border of the dome with the ship. Mewtwo experimented with its entire range of movement, to see its swiveling bases could face it anywhere outside the ship.

Mewtwo noticed another button, this one on the center of the controls. He pressed it and a small whirring sound was all he heard at first. And then a small clear green visor slid over his head and in front of his eyes. It registered the other ships in Lightest's force with green arrows. He turned the turret to face the rear of the ship and looked backwards into the tunnel. The visor electronically picked up three hundred small red dots and outlined them with red arrows. It also stated simply that they were far out of range of the turret.

"10 minutes of trip time remaining before exiting the dimensional tunnel, we are returning to high priority combat alert." An announcement called out in Mewtwo's head, and Mewtwo recognized Lightest's voice.

Mewtwo felt a slight jarring in the ships frame and darted his eyes around the red dots in the distance, but Darkest's ships were too far out to have hit them. The ship must be experiencing difficulties. As time passed, Mewtwo watched with anticipation as the red outlined targets grew larger in his vision. More and more appeared out of the distance and they continued to approach closer and closer when a rocking jolt rocked the ship. The ten minutes had passed quickly, and suddenly the glowing colors of the dimensional tunnel fell away to the darkness of real space. Mewtwo watched as Darkest's ships followed them out of the tunnel and continued to approach. The targeting visor diligently displayed their closing distance and remained insistent that they were out of range.

"We're detecting an electromagnetic anomaly!" A psychic voice announced through Mewtwo's mind, speaking to all crew members.

"Then prepare for battle right now, because we're about to be dragged down." Lightest's voice replied.

Suddenly, a blue-white orb of energy leapt forward from Darkest's pursuing ships. It flew up to Lightest's ships, reaching a point where it flew between the ships, and suddenly exploded in a flash of electrical light. Mewtwo closed his eyes, and felt nothing as the light passed. And then, he felt the slight hum of the ship's engines fade and he opened his eyes to see the other ships in the fleet had also lost their engines. "EMP" Mewtwo thought to himself. He turned his gun on the approaching ships, and when the red arrows finally indicated minimum range had been achieved, he lined the ships up his crosshairs and pressed the fire buttons on his control stick. Luckily, the EMP had not affected the cannons, because they burst to life and barked rapid fire bolts of blue light at Darkest's ships.

Chapter XXVII

Hundreds of thousands of laser bolts showered through space as Darkest's ships roared forwards towards Lightest's immobilized fleet. The maelstrom of plasma and laser filled the rapidly shrinking space between the two forces and energy shields suddenly glowed to life and visibility underneath the barrages of energy. The thousands of black frigates were almost there when Lightest's carriers began emptying their fighter bays. There were around 1100 carriers in the force that Lightest had brought, and each one carried almost 400 fighters. When all of them launched their fighters at once, they formed a blurry white cloud in space. The frigates plowed into this cloud, laser cannons blazing, and balls of orange flame popped through space like popcorn.

Mewtwo held his gun always on the ships that were closes to him. The entire turret rattled as the laser cannon poured concentrated light into space. The only sound Mewtwo heard was the smooth hum that the laser generator emitted and the rattling of the metal as it vibrated slightly from the force of the beams it was projecting. The turret swiveled wildly as he chased individual ships away from his carrier's engines. A damaged black frigate screamed towards him, trying to make a kamikaze attack on the ship's engines. Mewtwo held the beams on this ship, and it slowly contorted and melted under the continuing fire. It suddenly exploded, the heat reaching its fuel tanks and the concussion from the near proximity of the explosion shook the turret violently. Mewtwo wiped the sweat from his brow and found another ship to fire at.

The attacking frigates were outnumbered by the fighters nearly 10 to 1, and it did not take long for them to be dispatched. As the laser fire diminished and the last orange explosions faded into the blackness, the targeting visor on Mewtwo's head suddenly beeped loudly and projected a red flashing arrow towards the back of the ship. He swiveled the turret around to look, and saw that there were still around 300 capital ships in Darkest's force that had not engaged in combat. They were sitting back and firing their weapons from a distance, and great bolts of plasma screamed into Lightest's fleet. A few ships down, a white battlecruiser suddenly mushroomed into a gigantic ball of flame as continued punishment finally reached its reactors. The concussion knocked other ships away like toys, causing some to be severely damaged as they collided with others. And the objects that had caused Mewtwo's visor to beep suddenly became visible. Eighteen monstrously large missiles were moving slowly through space towards them.

"Don't fire, they are antimatter rockets and if detonated near us, they will destroy the entire fleet!" Lightest cried out psychically to his ships.

Mewtwo panicked, not able to do anything as the missiles lumbered through space toward them. And then an idea struck him. He called out to Lightest and his copies for energy contributions, and psychically reached out to the missiles. The Triforce piece in his hand was quelled by the extra energy that Lightest and his copies sent, and Mewtwo simply bent the directional fins on the missiles with his mind. They suddenly turned off course and began flying in circles. Both fleets stood still as the missiles spun around and around, until at last their propulsion systems ran out of fuel and fell quiet. They hovered motionless in space, their deadly warheads still active. Neither fleet dared to fire any of their weapons for fear of detonating the missiles, for they were equally close to both. Minutes passed in deadlock, and finally a voice broke the silence.

"We've got our engine coils replaced and functional!" Lightest cried out to the rest of the fleet.

Suddenly, blue flashes illuminated the backs of all of Lightest's fleets as their engines finally came back on line. The floor shuddered under Mewtwo's feet as his carrier's engines suddenly came back to life. The ship began to move and picked up speed, and Darkest's ships began to move in pursuit as well. They simply flew around the 18 missiles and pursued hotly as Lightest's ships gained significant velocity. As they reached maximum velocity, Darkest's ships began gaining once again. But the circumstances were different this time around, they didn't have any EMP to fire anymore and they were far more severely outnumbered. But they dumbly followed anyway. Lightest's ships then began to drop plasma proximity mines, small spiked cubes of steel that tumbled out of their containment pods and into space where they became active.

Darkest's ships again followed blindly, plowing right through the mines and taking heavy damage. Black carriers and battlecruisers mushroomed into great explosions as the mines were sucked into their engines and detonated. As the mines were exhausted, still 150 ships still followed. Lightest's ships, out of mines, began to launch high power chemical torpedoes. The small glowing pods looked harmless as the rocketed back and stuck to the hulls of Darkest's ships, but after a few seconds they detonated into balls of green flame. The chemicals they released then began dissolving the hulls of the ships rapidly, and many of the ships suddenly fell dead as they were completely depressurized and became crewless. Mewtwo wondered how the torpedoes had even gotten through their shields. Another ship blossomed into a great ball of flame as a torpedo was sucked into its engines and detonated. Not a single sound or concussion from the explosions made it to Mewtwo's little turret.

As supplies of torpedoes were exhausted as well, most of them exploding ineffectually or missing, only a sparse few ships remained. At this point, they finally found their sense and quit the pursuit. They retreated back almost sullenly, and Mewtwo suddenly heard hundreds of cheers echoing through his head as Lightest and his people rejoiced on both the psychic and physical spectrums. Mewtwo sighed heavily with relief and stood up out of the chair. He found the latch on the door underneath him and popped it open, then he climbed down the ladder and into the hallway below. He then sighed and concentrated until he could see the bridge of the LFS Dream in his head, and then teleported.

Chapter XXVIII

Hyrule field shook and rocked under numerous explosions. Bolts of boiling red plasma rocketed down through the atmosphere and cratered the field as the ships orbited around its atmosphere. The scenario played out almost exactly the same as before, Zelda had gotten someone else to create the Extra Light Arrows and place the Medallions for her, and the barrier slid up over the castle as planned. But there was not as much energy this time without Mewtwo's presence, and Zelda and the sages were pale and solemn, the futility of the situation apparent to them without Mewtwo there to contribute. The people of Hyrule were on the verge of panic as they were lead down under the castle by a silent messenger and the soldiers on the walls faltered in their courage. A few scattered soldiers went completely insane and ran out of the castle and into the field, only to be instantly vaporized by the plasma barrage right before their comrades' eyes.

The heat from the barrage caused a hot wind to blow violently across the land, and the soldiers that stood on the wall felt that their times would soon come. As the barrage fell silent, the wind did as well and the air became stifling. Silence filled the atmosphere and the Hylians and Gerudos who manned the wall only barely kept their minds in control from paralyzing fear. And yet again, the balls of fire formed in the sky as the dropships began to burn through the atmosphere. All eyes climbed to the fire in the sky, and time seemed to stand still as they approached. They burned and roared down to hit the field in jarring explosions. Again the tanks and APC's poured out and grouped around their landing site, and the black carrier descended down to hover over the field just as it had done before. The walkers and cannons were lowered and set up, and as the ranks and lines were finally prepared, a sudden flashing filled the sky. Only a few soldiers caught notice of it, most of them were transfixed on the invading forces, but those who saw it stared in wonder. The red dots of the Imperial ships were suddenly intruded upon by glowing blue dots, other ships. Blue, orange, and red flashed dotted the sky. The soldiers touched the shoulders of their neighbors and pointed up at the wondrous light show playing out in the sky. More and more blue dots appeared, and they began to fill the space that they pushed the red dots out of. As they continued to seemingly multiply in the sky, they covered a larger and larger part of the sky. And then, a rippling covered the surface of the barrier as the emplaced guns fired. The soldiers turned their attention back to the invasion and knocked arrows as the tanks and APC's began their charge forward.

As the battle unfolded, it did so much, much worse than the first time it had played out. The barrier weakened quickly, and the combined fire from all of the attacking forces brought it down to dangerous levels quickly. It was close to shattering already as the Centurions began to pour out of the APC's, but then a sudden roaring noise caught the attention of every living being on the field and all eyes suddenly turned up to the skies. The Centurions, dumb as they were, knew that there were no more scheduled landings in the invasion, so they too craned their necks upward to look.

Another set of ships was burning down through the atmosphere, but these were coming down from the area in the sky where the blue dots were located. The ships burned through quickly, and the Centurions simply stared stupidly as the ships rocketed down straight toward them. Even more explosions rocked the field, the Castle wall nearly collapsed from the concussions as the ships landed directly outside the barrier. The barrier shuddered as the explosions from the ships landing glanced off its side. The Centurions, which were at ground Zero for the landings of the ships, were pulverized under their crashing bulk. The nearby tanks and APC's were set off in their own explosions by the concussions of the landing ships as well and burst like firecrackers once more. And then, bolts of blue plasma screamed down from the sky toward the hovering black carrier.

The carrier's shield only held for a few moments under the unrelenting torrents of plasma bolts, and it gave way quickly. The plasma cut directly through the carrier like hot knives through butter, and it suddenly lost power to its hover drives and fell out of the sky. The ground heaved as the carrier, hundreds of tons of metal, fell and hit the center of the field. The earth around the carrier was thrown up into the air in a miniature tidal wave of brown and black. More plasma bolts struck the fallen carrier repeatedly until hundreds of explosioins engulfed it and nothing was left. It's failsafe systems had engaged and locked down its reactors just in time to prevent a thermonuclear explosion. As the barrage ended, all that remained was a molten pool of slag.

As the smoke from the landing collisions cleared, around 35 white dropships became visible around the barrier. A door slid open on one, and all Hylian eyes in range of it jumped down to see. As the door opened, another form similar to a Centurion stepped out. But it was not black; it was purple and wore no armor. It flew up to the wall and the Hylians suddenly snapped into recognition. A roar of cheers and whoops of victory roared from every throat at the sight of the savior Mewtwo and the white ships he had brought. He had finally saved Hyrule.

A/N: I know that this was three pages short of a standard chunk, but It was such an incredibly exciting write that I felt I needed to share it with you now. That and there needs to be a bit of a period of a breather before diving back into the tension. If you even dare to think it's close to being over though, you're very much wrong! There's still plenty more that will happen! Stay tuned and keep with the great reviewing!