Legacies
A Sequel to Crossing of the Paths

By MMM/AJ

A/N: Well, my Internal Assessments have had me dancing a jig of schoolwork lately. I blame them mainly for making this next part so late. And it's only a prologue too! I hope you guys will forgive me, but school just has to take a higher priority. As I finish up my assessments expect my rate of writing to come back up again. Until then, enjoy this little snippet of a prologue that is from a very different point of view!

Part II - Resurrection

Prologue: Benca

Entry #43543

Pondering the vast opportunities that lay ahead of me, I find myself ruminating on the future. All that I see can and will become mine, the power is almost within my grasp. After nearly forty years of infuriating search I have nearly pinned down the one who has eluded me, the one who has kept me from accomplishing my goal for such an incredibly long time. When I find them, there will be hell to pay, and I will enjoy myself greatly.

Then comes the great resurrection, and afterward my rise to power. But what then? With two worlds already in ruins at my feet, where will I go? What will I do? Will I extend the Black Vortex to yet another realm and take what I see? Or should I set about to explore the universes I already inhabit? Space is such a vast, unconquerable realm. I would not hope to even scratch its surface within just one realm, let alone three. With all this power afforded to me, I can now look into the future, and I all I see is emptiness, meaninglessness, and pointlessness. The more I see, the more it makes me wonder about my own kind and my true nature.

Mewtwo once had these same thoughts as well, right out of his birthing tube. From the moment he struck Giovanni down he took his own path however, a path that eventually led him to greatness. Here I am already set toward the same destiny, only by a different route. He used heroism and fought for the innocent in his time, and I seek to force obedience on all who oppose. Why is it that I foresee so much emptiness in my future when every possible happiness is assured?

At the same time I ask myself this I already find an answer forming in my mind. I have watched it again and again from the Time amulet, Mewtwo befriending a tribe of Gerudos and becoming comrades with them. The answer was right there all along, and yet I have not seen it until now. He had friends, those who he considered his emotional and intellectual equals. Whenever he was with them he was happy… perhaps it is the lack of this happiness I have forseen in my own future?

But it cannot be the answer! For when his friends ever perished it caused him a great deal of emotional harm! Clearly, one who is destined to control the fate of universes like myself cannot be allowed to have such a fundamental weakness! My whole empire could collapse due to some rash, idiotic decisions made in a crucible of anger or sorrow!

And yet, when I loom forward again I see myself upon my throne, bored by the delights of a thousands worlds as they all pass by in turn. Oh what lament! To live as a wise, isolated lord, or to risk it all for a richer life? The stakes are truly high, many things can happen to one who holds so many strings of fate in their hands. Strong emotions…they were Mewtwo's greatest weakness, and at times his greatest strength. Yet what good are they to me, who have much more to think about in my life than the lives of a rogue band of thieves living on a desert or a kingdom of savages living in stone dwellings? Again this leads me to wonder if less is indeed more as the humans once said.

No! I will not let my petty emotions rob me of a life of pleasure! The answer must be somewhere, I am just blind to it. Perhaps I should look again within the Time Medallion tonight. Even if it solves nothing, it will keep my idle mind away from such destructive thoughts as I am having now.

Entry #43544

I have been such a fool! Yet another answer has come to me from the Medallion. I should have learned by now what wisdom can be gleaned from Mewtwo's life. Though he fought for a fundamentally opposite idea than the one I hold, his emotions and mine are strikingly similar. I must remind myself to consult the Medallion more often when in the cold, slimy grip of self doubt.

It was a portion of Mewtwo's memories I had neglected, the last 50 years of his life. I had always watched his memories of the great wars between Darkest and Lightest, not taking the time to watch him help lost children in the woods after his glory days were over. The answer to my problems lies within the concept of my old rival, Tanis.

Mewtwo created Tanis in order to carry on the legacy of our species. Being the only of his kind, Mewtwo could think of no other way besides cloning, the method he still despised even to his death. But continuation was not his only motivation I see now, Tanis meant more to him than just another guardian of justice for the years ahead. He genuinely hoped that he could have finished Tanis before dying, so he could at least have a friend who was his equal on all levels. Sure, he still had Ruru and Kalana if he wanted to travel back to Hyrule via dimension door, but they were different to him now. They were not the ones he had known while living on the Vile Desert before meeting Darkest for the first time. Hyrule now has never known Darkest's touch, and the people are much more content, lazy, and unlikable even to him.

Another of the species it seemed, would finally be the true friend Mewtwo needed. Equal on mental, physical and psychic levels, he would raise Tanis just like a human father would raise his son. Frankly, he was naive to think he could pull it off when he started so late in his life.

So how does this relate to me? Perhaps…just perhaps, this kind of equal is what I need to fill in the void as well. I have seen it now, I have looked into the future and tried to imagine what it would be like if I had a daughter or son at my side as I conquered worlds. I could not see it clearly, it has not yet become inevitable as a future event. But, I could definitely not sense the gaping emotional hole that was filling my future life in my other readings. Obviously, this is the first part of the answer to my problems.

But that still leaves the major problem of emotional attachments in context to loss. What if I were to lose this son or daughter? Wouldn't it be a horrific blow to me emotionally? One that could potentially cause the collapse of my rule? The solution is obvious now, being of the same race as me, my son or daughter would have psychic powers equal to or greater than my own. Collective energy pools between the Acolytes, him myself and I could create a protective barrier against any threat, even old age itself. And should the impossible occur and he dies, I would retain his brain function and clone him a new body. When a power this great is at my fingertips, solutions come much easier than they do to mere mortals, as I may now call them!

I must get started right away, it took Mewtwo almost forty years to develop Tanis' DNA, and another 21 years for maturation. Though I may now have many lifetimes upon my hands, I still feel impatient. Perhaps now I will taste what happiness those humans once flaunted as their great strength; brotherhood?

Entry #44678

Oh disaster! What horrific fate conspires against me on a day such as this? Today, it is one week until my daughter is ready to be freed from her tube and now a rogue band of humans have attacked my lab! I have not the slightest clue as to how they gathered the technology and number strength to attack so without my detecting of them! They commanded a flotilla of light assault ships that destroyed patrols over my lab and then began bombarding it to rubble! In my haste to escape death I left my daughter in her tube as I left to gather the fleet.

It did not take long to destroy the comparatively small human fleet, but by the time my full forces arrived my lab was pummeled to the ground! My daughter is surely lost, I can no longer sense her thoughts or life pulse! Search is futile, the entire region is flattened. All my effort, years of engineering her to be perfect, all lost.

My revenge upon them will be swift and merciless, I have already trained numerous satellites upon their underground bas, which I obtained from one of the prisoners. I could turn their whole civilization to ash from orbit, but I plan on taking a much sweeter, painful vengeance than that. I will go there personally and kill them all, I will not stop until the blood of each and every one of them is cooling upon my hands!

A/N: Well, what did you think of that little peek into Ares' mind? He's not as shallow of a villain as you thought is he? I was getting a little tired of characters as two-dimensional as Darkest, so I had to have a little reason nibbling on Ares' mind as he stood poised on domination. Once again, all honest reviews are appreciated, whether flattering or not. Your opinions matter to me, so make them heard no matter what they are!