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Chapter 79

Me and My Shadow

My name is Dimitri. Well, it was when I was still a human. But now that I'm a Pokémon, I'm Terron.

But I don't mind that. I like the name. Even though I originally got the name because of sad circumstances, I still like being called by the name. It fits me. It's powerful and fits the body I got put into after my soul got torn in half. But maybe I'm just thinking that because I've been called that name for months now.

Well it doesn't matter what I'm called really, because pretty soon I'm not going to exist anymore. But I guess that's just the price I pay for wanting to kill the Primogenitor when I've got a piece of it in me.

Let me tell you that I really don't want to die. If there was any other way, I would have found a way to kill the Primogenitor without having to get killed myself. But there is no other choice. The Primogenitor's going to take over Shiron very soon, and then it's probably going to go after Kuron. After that it might start going to other planets. So I have to die. I have to if I want to stop the destruction that's being spread everywhere.

I have to die if I want to make up for the fact that I'm the reason everyone's turning into Plagued Ones.

Yeah, I can finally admit that now. I never really wanted to and went to really crazy lengths to make it so that I could keep denying the truth, but it's true. I woke up the Primogenitor back on Kuron those many years ago. I feel this stinging pain in my heart whenever I have to think about it.

But I'm not alone in this. I'm not the only one responsible for all of this destruction going on.

Yimtri's responsible too. He's responsible because he's Dimitri's shadow. He was with me when I woke up the Primogenitor. He was a bunch of whispers in the back of my mind, offering me ideas and telling me things I sometimes didn't want to hear. I remember that now. He was like a ghost, whispering things to me, but never being able to actually do anything to me if I didn't listen except bother me more.

So imagine how weird it is to now have my shadow walking around as a Sableye with his own thoughts and feelings. As in I can literally see him in front of me, staring at me and knowing that he can hurt me if I get him angry. He's still a ghost funnily enough, but still. It kind of creeps me out that all of that darkness that once existed inside of me is now its own person when I really think about it.

But I'm not really scared of him. I was at one point, hated him at other points too, but I don't mind him anymore. He's keeping me with him in his secret camp in this swamp I found him in so that nobody can find me and kill me. He assures me that he'll come with me to Aurora Town when we need to meet up with my other friends and stop the Primogenitor, but for now, I'm going to be sticking with him in this swamp. I don't mind that too much. I feel pretty protected by all of his followers, not to mention I do need to stick close to Yimtri. I need that unwavering strength he has in him. I don't know how he has it and I don't when we're the same person, but maybe that's just a shadow thing. Maybe shadows have more raw willpower in them. Maybe that's why the guy never seems to sleep.

I guess that was why my corrupt plague wanted to absorb him back when I was trying to kill him here in this swamp. Well it's a good thing Yimtri didn't fall for its bribe then and smothered it right out of existence with that pin... I can feel myself shuddering at the thought of what it would have done after it absorbed both him and me.

But it's strange. Yimtri hasn't really talked to me since that whole incident. I mean, he tells me some things, like to tell him right away if I start feeling my plague starting to take over me or that I can ask any of his members for something if he's not around, but that's it. He doesn't actually have any conversations with me. I don't know why. He acknowledges I exist… but he won't sit down and talk to me. He doesn't even ask how I knew that he told Zekra about what we did as humans or anything I was rambling about when I was trying to kill him. I figured he'd ask about it, but he hasn't.

Even now, while I'm sitting here on one of the swamp's little islands and sitting by the edge all alone, I expected he'd come up and ask me questions. I know he likes to have answers. He doesn't like being kept in the dark about anything. But he isn't bothering me. He's doing who knows what while I'm staring far into the murky darkness of the night.

I don't know what to think. I probably wouldn't want to talk much with him anyway. He always used to drive me crazy when I tried to talk to him before. None of our conversations were ever exactly pleasant, and I'm pretty sure most of the time we only talked because we were threatening each other. It's probably best there be some silence between us unless we absolutely have to talk.

There's… only two Pokémon I really want to talk to anyway.

Zekra and Novus.

God… I really need to talk to those two again. I've suffered because of a lot of things… but it breaks my heart every time I even think about any of them.

Zekra's suffering because of me. She's in pain and she ran away from the group because of me. Zev died because of me. Everything's that's been going wrong in her life is because of me! Just the thought of that is enough to bring tears to my eyes. And the worst part is that I could have stopped all of her pain. I could have, if I had just figured out fast enough why she was avoiding me so much and was practically scared of me. Yimtri ditching our group should have tipped me off that she knew something… but I didn't. And now she's out there in the world, in all of that pain all because she doesn't want me to know what I did as a human. Or maybe she hates me now thanks to knowing that.

I don't know.

Whatever Zekra's thoughts about me are right now, I need to find her. I need to talk to her and tell her that I'm sorry. I need to tell her that I'm sorry for causing her all of that pain and never realizing how bad it was. And… for all of the pain I brought her before that.

Those arguments we had in the past… they weren't just her fault. They were my fault too. When Zekra was pretending I was someone else, I did have a reason to be mad at her. I didn't want to be someone else in her eyes. But I should have realized that it wasn't entirely her fault either… I mean, she had just escaped from her town being devoured by Plagued Ones. Of course she was traumatized and pretended I was someone familiar! She wasn't thinking straight and needed something to cling to in order to keep herself sane! I was too hard on her. I shouldn't have been so distant from her. I still should have confronted her like I did, but not without taking some blame for myself…

Some best friend I was to her…

She needs to know how sorry I am. She needs to know that I care about her and wish I could undo all of the pain I brought on her life. She needs to know that she doesn't need to keep suffering anymore…

Then with Novus… where do I begin with him? Where do I begin with all of the things I need to say to him?

I'm sorry for all of the nasty remarks I made while I was seething with rage and wanted to kill Yimtri? I'm sorry for not caring about your lifelong dream, something that you've been trying to do for years? I'm sorry that I stabbed you in the back, literally, and then left you behind to go on a pointless suicide mission? I'm sorry that you have to do everything all alone now and that I have no idea where you are or if you're even alive?

I can't believe I actually did all of those things. I really can't. Sometimes I think it's just a really bad nightmare that I mix up with reality. But all I have to do is look to my side and realize that there isn't a Quilava with me to know it was all real. I hurt him, emotionally and physically, I attacked him, and I ditched him. I still remember the look on his face when I left him behind. I remember he was looking at me like I was a demon. Like I was the abomination that's growing inside of me.

Well he had the right to look at me like that. I was that abomination. I was a demon.

I may not have known Novus as long as Zekra, but he was still my friend. He could understand things about me that hardly anyone else could. How many other Pokémon can say they know what's it like to be half of someone? How many others can say they know what's it like to be the reason the Primogenitor is wreaking havoc everywhere?

And worst of all, he was a god. A god, like Arceus or Giratina. I hurt and abandoned a god in the hour of his need. Sure, he doesn't want to think that he's Reshiram until he gets his real body back, but he's still Reshiram. He's still a god that has all of this power and wisdom inside of him. He had helped me in my times of need despite being able to leave so easily. He didn't have to stay with me. He could have gone to stop the Primogenitor on his own somehow. He could have found his body without me. And what did I do to repay him for his kindness and for sticking with me? I stabbed him.

I really need to find Novus. Maybe even more than Zekra. Not because I need his help, though. I do need his help if I want to kill the Primogenitor, but more importantly, I need his forgiveness. I need to tell him how sorry I am. I'd be willing to say he doesn't need to help me kill the Primogenitor if I can just find him and get him to accept my apology. That's how much I want to talk to him again. And just like with Zekra, I don't know if I can find him. I don't know if he'll show up at Aurora Town when the reunion day comes. It's in a week from now. I don't know if that's enough time for him, or if he'll even want to show up.

All I can do is hope I suppose…

And I still need to apologize to Nyx too, except that I can't since she's inside the Primogenitor right now…

I'm not able to ruminate for any longer, because then I notice somebody coming toward me. I look toward the source to find that it's Yimtri. He's walking toward me, his gemstone eyes glowing so that they're brighter than the moon in the sky. But he doesn't look sinister. He looks pretty expressionless as he approaches me and then stops a few feet away from me. I stare at him and he stares at me. I see his gemstones flicker a little. I get a little creeped out when that happens. I keep thinking he'll attack me when he does that, because he has before. But sometimes it just happens for no reason. I guess it's a bit of a Sableye quirk, kind of like how sometimes I'll find myself really wanting to put something over my head. It just doesn't feel right to not have a persona for this long.

This is one of those quirk flickers though, since Yimtri doesn't attack me and instead talks.

"You were mentioning on the day that you tried to kill me that Nyx was absorbed into the Primogenitor," he states, trying to sound nonchalant even though I know he really does care. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

"I mean… well, the Primogenitor was hurting me and Novus, so she went inside of it," I answer him. "She did something to it to make it let us go, but she's still inside of it I think."

He doesn't say anything to me. He stares at me instead and tries not to show any kind of emotion. But somehow I know how he's really feeling. There's this weird glimmer to his eyes that looks somber and he's frowning a little too much.

That's when Yimtri does something I don't expect him to do. He sits down in the muddy ground. He doesn't sit next to me, since he's still quite a distance from me, but he actually takes a seat and slouches a little. Now for anyone else this wouldn't be weird at all. Sitting is a pretty normal thing you do, even if the ground is kind of wet and dirty. Standing around all day can get kind of tiring. But this is Yimtri, and well, the guy is always standing. I don't know if it's because he doesn't know how to relax or because sitting down means he can't leave a conversation as quickly, but it's pretty baffling to see.

"So she's stuck within the Primogenitor," Yimtri says more to himself than me.

"Yeah… she is," I say to him quietly. "Sorry. I mean, I know you liked her so-"

"She's not gone," Yimtri interrupts, shooting me a glare. "There's a way to get her back. Don't worry about her."

I don't say anything. Admittedly I kind of want to ask him exactly what was going on between him and Nyx since they both looked pretty close when Nyx was still Chloe, and if they're still that way now, but I know he'd probably attack me if I dare to ask. So I keep my mouth shut and I don't say anything more.

There's some more silence between us. I just stare at my reflection in the water and notice how weird I look without a helmet on. It's been a while since I've had a persona. But even though I look weird and it does feel weird not to have one either, I don't really feel the need to have one. I don't know why I feel that way. I mean, I remember I used to always want a persona before, and now suddenly I don't. I don't know. Maybe it's because I feel a little stronger than I did before. Maybe I don't need the strength that my persona used to give me anymore.

"What exactly happened to everyone after I left?" Yimtri then asks out of nowhere.

I nearly fall into the water because how much I jump from the sudden question, but I keep myself together and look back at Yimtri. He's still sitting where he was before, but he's not looking at me anymore. He's looking down at his own reflection.

"What?" I ask him.

"What happened after I left behind your group?" Yimtri asks again, still not looking at me.

"Oh. Oh well, that's a long story," I answer sheepishly.

Truthfully I don't really want to answer the question. I mean, a lot of stuff happened while he was away. A lot of painful things that I kind of don't want to think about.

But I'm not allowed to keep quiet, because Yimtri starts frowning.

"I don't care. Tell me what happened," he demands. "I want to know everything that happened to each of you."

"Why do you want to know anyway?" I then ask. "I mean, you never wanted to know before. Why ask now?"

He stops looking at his reflection. He looks at me instead and he starts glaring at me. But it's not a malicious glare like he's given me way too many times.

"Because I want to know how much damage I brought to your group with my decision to leave you all behind," he says to me in the most serious voice I've ever heard.

Now that response was something I had no idea what to make of. Did he feel bad about leaving us all behind? Did he feel bad about telling Zekra about his secret? I had no idea what to make of his demand. He had never shown any remorse for any of his choices before. His choice to ditch us didn't seem to affect him much either. Even now, even though I can tell he wants me to honestly tell him what kind of suffering he brought on everyone, I can't see any remorse in his gemstone eyes. It's just a solemnness I haven't seen in him before.

But I don't bother arguing with him. I know he's going to force me to talk one way or another.

So even though I don't want to talk… I tell him everything. I tell him everything that I knew about Zekra, like how she was going crazy from knowing his secret and how she was currently trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. I explain that Zev had died because he was trying to protect Zekra from the Fellowship.

Then… I tell him everything about my time with Nyx and Novus. I tell him about how we got into Kuron and how we found Zekrom there. I tell him how Novus was really Reshiram and his entire backstory about why he was a Quilava. Then I tell Yimtri about how Nyx and I went to visit my parents so that I could get closure before I discovered what I had done as a human. Then I go on to describe how I merged with the corrupt plague in me and how I killed Chrysalis and my encounter with the Primogenitor and exactly what it was. Then I explain that Novus and I got sent to the spirit realm and that we obtained a bunch of information from there thanks to some spirits, and how I split away from Novus because I was so angry with Yimtri…

By the time I am all the way up to the part where I got away from that Glaceon intent on killing me, I start crying and I have to bury my face into the sleeves of my robe. Having to recite all of the events that led up to the pain all of my friends were having, as well as myself, was unbearable. I thought I could have told the whole story without crying, but I was wrong. I couldn't talk about what happened without slipping into sobbing. Talking about it made me remember how everything went wrong…

I just didn't understand why everything had to go wrong…

It was supposed to great! And then it wasn't.

Everything fell apart…

I tell myself to stop crying over all of this, but I can't stop. I still feel bad about everything that happened, and it's terrible. I'm not supposed to cry about all of this. I'm supposed to be stronger than I was! I'm supposed to have unmoving strength so that I can keep going and get rid of the Primogenitor! Strong leaders don't cry over tragedies like I am…

Maybe I'm not really as strong as I think I am. Maybe I was just feeling strong because I was high off my revelation I had after Yimtri made my plagued self quiet.

"I see," Yimtri then says, which makes me stop crying for a second. "It seems that quite a lot has happened thanks to my actions…"

I notice that he still seems just as solemn as he was before. He doesn't look sad or regretful for what's done at all. He just looks… blank. Like he has no idea what he wants to think. But he still doesn't look like he's going to have a meltdown. He still seems to be taking everything really well.

I just don't get it.

"How?" I ask him in a raspy voice, lowering my hands so I can look at him, "How are you able to… to be like that even though you know you've brought so much pain? How are you able to stay so calm?"

He looks at me for a moment like he has no idea what I'm saying. I want to say more to make him understand what I mean, but my throat hurts and I find I can't keep talking. So I just wait for him to answer. He should be able to know what I'm thinking anyway. He's got that weird connection with me after all.

"By knowing that there is a way to get rid of the pain," Yimtri answers, "That is your answer."

"What do you mean?" I ask him.

There's a glimmer in his eyes again. Immediately I see what he's thinking in my mind. I see him doing the action in my thoughts and I panic. I scramble away from him, but because I'm still crying and feeling sluggish, I can't react fast enough. He springs forward and then he pushes me into the swamp water. I fall into it and I start feeling unbearably cold. I feel stinging everywhere as I plummet down. I hurry and wave my arms around and get myself back to the surface. Then, once I take in a deep breath, I hurry back onto the land, shivering and feeling miserable. Yimtri's standing in front of me, staring down at me with that blank stare he's always got. I glare at him as I spit water out of my lungs.

"What was that for?!" I yell at him.

"It hurt to be in that water, didn't it?" he asks me instead.

"Well no duh! Of course it did!" I say in exasperation. "Cubone don't exactly like water."

"But you knew that getting out of the water makes the pain go away," he then states.

I'm about to yell at him for stating something really obvious, but then I stop when I realize what he's getting at. I stop glaring at him as the gears in my brain start working and I finally start to understand this weird, if insensitive lesson he's trying to teach me.

"The principle is the same for misery," he tells me. "Misery always has a catalyst. Sometimes it's difficult to find, but there is always a cause for why the misery and pain exists in the first place. If you can determine what the cause is, then you can figure out a way to stop the pain. For instance, if you're suffering because you accidentally spent all of your money at a marketplace and will not have any more money for some time, you can rid yourself of the pain by realizing the mistake you made. You can view the mistake and realize that by not doing it again, you won't have this pain anymore. Or if you do not want to wait, you can find a way to obtain more money so that your loss is lessened. Either way works. Do you understand what I am saying?"

I think about what he's saying and realize that he actually has a point. The reason Yimtri was never going crazy or upset with what he did was because he knew there was a way to stop his pain. He knew that the way to stop his greatest pain… the monster that was engulfing the world that he had come to call his own…

Was to be willing to do anything to get rid of the very monster he unleashed. He knew he was going to die at the end. Of course he knew. There was no way he didn't know this already.

Every day he repeated that mantra to himself. He told himself every day that he had to kill the Primogenitor because it was the only way he could ever get over the pain he felt every day. And when I thought about it… that was Novus's mantra too. He was always so bent on killing the Primogenitor to end the suffering it brought his planet, even if he didn't completely understand why for so long.

When I realize this, I know that this has to be my mantra as well. I realize I have to remember there is a way to get rid of the pain I feel. There always is.

The pain I feel will end one day. It always will.

But I have to make it end.

"Yeah, I think I do," I say to Yimtri. "That's… really good advice. Heh, I kind of wish we could be one again just so I can have all of that knowledge and advice you have."

Yimtri doesn't say anything to me. He looks kind of mortified by the remark actually. He tries to hide it by turning away for a second, but I still see it. I get to my feet as I look at him some more.

"What do you think about merging back anyway?" I then ask him. "I mean, I never really thought about it too before until now. Guess I never got to spend enough time with you to really think about it."

He doesn't give me a response. He just stares at me and I can tell he doesn't like this conversation at all. But I keep waiting for him to answer because I do want to know. I mean, there's no guarantee that he and I can even go back to being Dimitri, but I wonder what it would be like if we could be one again. What would happen to us? Would we both disappear as this third entity that was somewhere inside both of us took over? Or would it be like we take turns controlling the new body? And how would we even merge back together anyway?

"I'd rather not merge back into Dimitri," Yimtri finally says.

"Really?" I then ask him, "Why not?"

He doesn't answer me. He just keeps staring at me, having absolutely no intentions of answering my question. Of course he's being like this. He never did like to talk about his own thoughts. I shouldn't have expected him to be any different. I sigh as I shake my head.

"Alright fine, don't tell me," I then say. "It's not like it matters anyway since we're both just going to die when everything's done and over with."

Yimtri snorts as he then turns away from me and looks up at the moon in the sky.

"We're leaving tomorrow to meet at the rendezvous point you spoke of in Aurora Town," he says to me. "Meet me at the meeting tent at dawn. Enjoy your last night of peaceful rest until then. You're going to need it."

Then just like that, he leaves me to go who knows where, and I'm alone again. But I don't feel lonely. I feel okay. Even though I know that tomorrow I will leave the safety of this swamp, I'll hopefully be able to see Zekra and Novus again. Hopefully they'll come to the meeting place we promised each other we'd go to when the time came. I have so much to say to them.

So please, Zekra and Novus, please be okay.