Chapter 25: Motivations

Mew walked out of the portal feeling spry as a spring chicken...At least in his mind. The moment he stepped back into the dusty hallway his heart thumped loudly once against his chest and he nearly tumbled over. He laid one hand upon his chest, cracked a shaky grin and muttered, "Guess there had to be a cost for pulling off my craziest stunt so far..."

He leaned his head back and saw that Kairi hadn't followed him through. On top of that he blinked and realized, "Oh, crap! Forgot to get the stamp off-"

The portal started sliding off to the right to reveal the final staircase and Mew quietly made a note of, "Neeeeever mind."

He slowly turned around and sat himself down on the bottom step, giving his body a bit of a rest. He stared at the portal and waited for Kairi to pop out. It was hard to imagine that she was particularly happy with him, and that likely fed into her inability to believe that he was doing well.

"I'm really quite the jackass for lying to her so much, ain't I?" He thought to himself. He let out a deep sigh and then slowly paced his breaths to get his heart back to pumping at its normal speed.

Not a few seconds later Kairi was out of the portal and looked around, shocked that it had moved. Mew waved his hand up to get her attention, barely putting any effort into the gesture.

"There you are!" She proclaimed with a slight hint of worry in her voice. It was a tone that Mew was somewhat taken aback by after the last few days of relative abrasiveness.

She ran up to him and looked down. Mew could barely keep his eyes open to look back at her, and his hands and legs drooped towards the ground. He looked pitiful, and there was no hiding it this time.

"Y-You're hurt," Kairi was trying to take a stand against his lies, but she was definitely not used to acting this way towards someone else as she hastily spat out, "And don't tell me you're not!"

Mew leaned back a little, gently slapped his right knee and chuckled, "Alright alright. You got me! I admit it!"

Kairi curled a fist up to her chest and slowly shook her head as she said, "W-We need to get you back to my mom. She could heal you up and-"

"And you think Gravitus would allow that?" Mew prodded his pointer finger up twice over his head and smiled, "He practically wrote out an invitation to me in bold ink."

Kairi's eyes darted for the stairs and then after a few seconds back to Mew. The curling of her lips and tightening of her fist showed her struggling to make a decision. Mew could only begin to imagine how she felt but, as rude as it may come across, he had to make the decision for her. Even if it meant lying a little more.

"Its not like I'm out of energy," Mew pointed at his chest, "My heart just needs a little more time to readjust. It'll only take a few minutes, promise!"

Her eyes now locked onto him and him alone. The rest of her posture remained unchanged.

"I don't get you..." She muttered, before breaking out into more of a yell, "I just don't get you at all!"

Mew slowly widened his eyes as her frustrations reached a new peak, and she vented her problems towards him all at once.

"You kept pushing yourself when you could've beaten every Planetary Aurian on your own! You keep trying to hide when you're hurt despite giving me crap for hiding my feelings! A-And..." Kairi squeezed her eyes and bit her teeth down, "Yet you DO care. N-Nobody asked you to help Venus, or Mercury, or Uranus, o-or me, but..."

She slowly shook her head and muttered, "You're the most stubborn idiot I've ever met Mew, a-and yet I..."

Her lips moved but nothing came out. There was no way to decipher what she wanted to say. But whatever it was, it made her face turn beet red afterwards as she swerved her head away.

Mew stared at her and thought, "Yep. That settles it. I'm a Grade-A asshole."

He then scratched the side of his head and whispered, "Its not like I meant to give you the wrong idea Kairi, its just..."

He clamped his hands down on his knees and lifted his legs to balance on his butt. He then leaned into the stairs and laid himself out flat on his back. He patted the empty space to his left a couple and said, "Sit down for a moment. Might as well pass the time with a little conversation."

"Who knows?" Mew shrugged and felt a little melancholic as he mentioned, "This could be our last chance to get this stuff off our chest."

Kairi sat right down beside Mew and bent her knees up to her chest, clasping them around her arms. Mew sat up and laid his hands on his knees. Neither of them looked at each other. He stared up, she stared down. He was paddling his legs in the air, she was stiff as could be.

After a few moments of silence in the stagnant air, Mew let out a long sigh.

"I've never really had to...talk about this kind of thing before," He turned to Kairi and cracked a big ol' grin, "It may come as a shock but...You're kinda my first friend Kairi."

Kairi unfurled her legs from her chest and wondered aloud, "But what about some of the Planetary Aurians?"

"Yeah sure, I could play games with Seth or enjoy a nice drink with Noel. But to me a friend requires more than just one shared interest. A friend is..." Mew paused to lift his head and think about that a little more, then resumed looking at Kairi with a smile, "Well...A friend is someone you feel comfortable talking to about anything."

He then stared out into the dusty hall, finding himself distracted by the curious, confused look in Kairi's eyes.

"My lack of friends doesn't have anything to do with how I feel towards humanity. I love my people. We're a bunch of goofballs who tend to create more mistakes than we do miracles but...I'd like to think that gives us our charm, y'know?"

"But...humanity is also really fragile. Sure, I've gotten pretty good at controlling my power, but all it takes is one party and a little too much excitement and the next thing you know a simple slap on the back turns a friend into a skipping stone to the Great Wall of China."

"And that's not even getting into my role as the Elemental Overlord. Its never happened so far but like...I've always had this feeling in the pit of my gut that there's a few unsavory folk out there who'd be more than happy to eliminate the Elemental Overlord by any means necessary. And the last thing I'd want is to get humanity wrapped up in my problems."

"That's why I was...kinda happy when I first came to Sancturia. Finally, I had found people a bit more like me. Guys who could, if worse comes to worse, survive whatever decides to come after me."

"Or so I thought. Turned out there's only a handful of you guys who were close to my level of power."

"That's not true," Kairi interjected on a rather sour note," You're even stronger than us – I-I mean...t-them."

"Well duh, but its not like I'd go walking around like an angel all the time!"

After his hearty chuckle Kairi had to say to Mew, "Well why not? Sounds to me like it'd solve your problems..."

"Yeeeeeah..." Mew flicked his wrists around and felt a little less sore than he had a bit ago, "I could've taken down most of the Planetary Aurians quickly had I used it, but..."

He turned to Kairi and bluntly remarked, "I don't really like to."

"You don't like to?" Kairi found the reasoning insanely baffling and, to Mew's credit, even he found it loopy on paper.

"Ok. Imagine doing something you really like to do. Running. Swimming. Or...Brrr, reading a book," Mew acknowledged Kairi's rather twisted glance of confusion with a grin, "Now imagine something you don't like to do AS much, but its still enjoyable. That something is the only thing you're allowed to do every single day. No matter how much you want it, you aren't able to do your favorite thing. Every day, over and over again..."

"That was my routine for the last two years: Get up, do a little training, play some video games or watch TV...Maybe stop some bad weather if it rolled around," Mew raised his hand flat up before his chest, "I enjoy my routine but there's no denying that I was in a rut. What I really wanted was something it felt like I'd never have."

He closed his hand into a fist until the bones cracked, "A fight."

"Its like there's this...itch in the center of my brain that can't be scratched unless I fight. I wish I knew where it came from. Not cause I dislike it, no no no! It just feels strange." Mew pulled apart his fingers and stroked the side of his hair from front to back, stopping there.

"Training's a good placebo but until this week my itch wasn't getting scratched enough."

"So you're a battle junkie..." Kaiir remarked, tinged with a little grief.

"You could say that yeah. But I'm not obsessed with finding the strongest or seeking conflict. If I've gotta scratch that itch then the fight oughta be fun or it should mean something. Fighting for the sake of fighting is just...wrong."

"So when you transformed...it was because it meant something?" Kairi replied.

Mew looked into her eyes and saw her longing for this answer. They were lightly soaked and even in this dusky room they glistened like emeralds.

Mew turned his head away, closed his eyes and remarked, "I'm sorry Kairi. I wanted to have it both ways. To have fun with my fights and also have them mean something...Its impossible."

"If I didn't do it though then..." Mew paused and thought deeply about what he was going to say.

He'd been running his mouth for a few minutes and, while what he said hadn't necessarily been untrue...There was one factor that linked his feelings together into one unified web of boredom and misery. And it began and ended with a "D."

Mew squeezed his hands atop his kneecaps and could almost hear the demon cackling. But now he wasn't alone. He had someone to share that burden with. He began to open his mouth, then let out a brief, dry cough of air. He pursed his lips, grimacing as his heart beat loudly.

"I can't do it..." He turned to Kairi and saw her leaning in slightly, her hand raised only for it to be brought right back down.

"Not yet." But he was leaving her hanging. He had to say something.

"If I didn't do it though then I'd probably lose my humanity. And there's nothing that scares me more than that." His body trembled afterwards, only to stop when Kairi put her hand on his arm.

Her grip wasn't firm but rather loose. Not all of her fingers were touching and she was starting to pull away. When her arm retracted all the way she pulled her head down and mumbled, "I-I think I get it now."

"Wanting to help people and wanting to fight...I-Its not a contradiction. T-They're both halves of the same person."

She lifted her head and said with watery eyes, "You're the first person who has been this genuinely honest about their feelings since...since Shina..."

Mew stuck two fingers up and tapped her playfully on the forehead. He then smiled at her stunned silence and told her, "Really? I haven't been honest enough, truthfully! Heehee, guess this puts us on the same boat, eh?"

"H-Huh?" Kairi widened her eyes and Mew slyly grinned at her.

"Come on. If you're worried for my well-being just say it. Tap dancin' around the issue gets us nowhere!"

Kairi quickly shoved Mew's hand away, puffed her cheeks and declared, "F-Fine! I don't want you to fight Gravitus! C-Cause if you do I'm afraid you'll-"

"Die?" Mew put on his best grin and laughed, "Yeah, maybe! But that's always a risk you take when you fight."

He then cocked his head slightly to the right and said, "I've never had any second-guesses about my mortality. I ain't immortal! But I can give my word a hundred times over that Gravitus isn't going to be my Grim Reaper."

"You can't guarantee that! Gravitus is the strongest Aurian...W-What if your best isn't enough?!" What Kairi said wasn't just out of concern for Mew's well-being, it was also a genuine doubt in her own abilities.

"What happened with Pluto really affected her..." Mew closed his eyes and grumbled internally, "But boy howdy am I really not cut out for this..."

"My best has to be enough," He said, winging it with his usual gusto, "Hell, it WILL be enough!"

"W-Well what if we work together?" Kairi asked.

"That's a no go Kairi." Mew swiftly replied.

"I know I made a mistake but-!"

"That mistake could've been all it took for Gravitus to win!" Mew suddenly raised his voice, putting some strain on his heart. But he staved off the pain long enough to push the weight of his words onto Kaiir. But when she started looking frightened by the panic in his eyes he backed off a little.

"...I can't tell you to go home after coming this far but please, don't get any ideas about fighting Gravitus."

"Is there really no other way?" Kairi murmured.

"Not unless you'd be willing to try fusion!" Mew joked loudly. Kairi's face brightened pink.

"Kidding, kidding..." Mew quietly replied, though he did come with an idea in the meanwhile.

"Actually, there IS something you could do for me."

"Yeah?" Kairi perked up a bit.

"I wanna hear more about Shina. No need for a document length exposition piece just, y'know, share with me some of your favorites memories with her." Mew knew his honest request would be answered, though it took Kairi a moment to reply.

"Ok..." Kairi swiveled away from Mew and pinched her hands between her kneecaps. She readied and steadied herself with a deep breath.

"Ummm...My earliest memory of Shina was when I was a baby. She was three years old at the time and spent a lot of time climbing onto my cradle to watch over me and say hello," Kaiir had a wobbly smile and she blushed, "M-Mom used to tell me that my first word to say 'Hello' back."

"Hehehe, that's adorable!" Mew leaned back into the stairs and saw Kairi's hands go taut. This tensing up flew right over his head as he raised his eyes and muttered, "I wonder what my first word was?"

"Ahem!" Kairi blurted in a flustered huff.

Mew sat himself upright and went, "Oh sorry. Continue."

"..." Kairi slowly turned away from Mew and did just that, "After that Shina spent even more time talking to me to teach me new words. She was really eager to have someone new to talk to but...I-I was just a baby for crying out loud. And even though I was that young I already knew I was going to be overwhelmed by the type of person my big sis was."

"I started learning how to walk when I was around...two I want to say? Shina helped me out a lot with that too. She'd stand behind me, hold my arms up, and make me pretend like I was tip-toeing over lava."

"That was kind of a part of her charm, y'know? She'd turn even the most mundane things into some grand adventure. So even if she could be overbearing at times it didn't matter to me."

"She got me to start eating greens by convincing me that evil broccoli people were invading my dinner plate, or taught me how to tie my shoelaces by mentioning that it was necessary to prevent demons from invading."

She turned to look at Mew and the goofy grin he tried NOT to wear and then stuttered out, "B-But its not like I still believe her or anything! I grew out of it! E-Eventually..."

Mew didn't say a word and in fact vehemently denied the possibility by squeezing his lips shut, though it wobbled into something resembling a smile.

"Mrrrghh...You don't believe me do you?!" She puffed her cheeks and turned bright red. Mew threw his arms up and went "I do! I do!" though his mind told a different tale.

"Though considering all that talk of fairy tales..." He gleamed aside for a moment and his smile grew a little. Then, a little time passed and she continued again.

"When we got old enough to start going to school she'd walk me there every day, even when we were in wholly separate grades. We'd help each other out with our homework too. That was like, the one time I ever saw Shina buckle down and get serious about something."

"I always expected her to say how we had to conquer the 'Math Aliens' or survive against the 'Mind Goblins'. It was because she treated it so seriously...That I really got into reading books."

"And she also taught you about the wonderful world of video games and anime!" Mew proclaimed proudly.

"N-No...!" Kairi pinched her lips and slowly shook her head like he had lost his mind. Mew slyly grinned and nudged his brows up.

"Awww come on, don't be shy now."

Kairi gently slapped Mew across the waist and remarked, "Its not like that! I really DON'T care about any of that stuff!"

She then eased up a little, turned her head away and stared up at the ceiling, "At least...Not as obsessively as you do."

Mew rubbed where he got hit while asking her, "Sorry. So what is it then?"

"I usually kept to my room when I studied if Shina finished before me. But one time, when I was around eight years old, I peeked downstairs and saw Shina tapping away at a video game on the TV. It was so strange to me how the character on the TV seemed to react to what she was doing on the controller. And the worlds she directed that character along were so big and vibrant compared to Sancturia."

"She caught me peeping from the staircase and the next thing I knew she whisked me down to the couch and put the controller in my lap before I could object. I put a little time into playing the game. She helped me get used to the controls, of course. It was...fun. I enjoyed myself. Though, I think a lot of it had to do with how it gave me another connection to my sister."

Kairi tilted her head to Mew and with an uneasy smile told him bluntly, "And that's it really. I learned all that I know from hanging around my sister."

Mew shrugged his shoulders and said right away, "Eh, fair enough."

"...Really," Kairi squinted her eyes almost like she was disappointed, "That's all it took?"

"Its a special memory for you. I ain't gonna soil it by demanding you play video games with me."

"...W-Well maybe I'd like to just..." Kairi's whispers grew increasingly quieter until even Mew could no longer hear her.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" She perked right back up to yell.

Mew then wagged a hand up her way and said, "But you gotta tell me what the first video game you played was."

Kairi turned her face away and said, "O-Ok but you have to promise not to laugh."

"Why would I-"

"Promise!" She exclaimed while jerking her head back to look over her shoulder.

"Ok! Ok! I promise!" Mew felt a little uncomfortable saying that.

She turned back around and muttered while looking to nibble her fingernails, "I-It was Spyro Year of the Dragon."

"No shit?" Mew sounded wowed and he put his hand on his chest to say, "That was actually one of my first games too!"

Kairi tilted her head at him and was markedly unconvinced, "You're just saying that."

"No I'm being serious!" Mew said with a smile. Kairi simply leaned her head down, closed her eyes partway, and shook her head in disbelief.

"Heeeey now you're the one doubting me." He made mention of while waving his finger at her accusingly.

"Ah whatever. Proceed." He brushed it off with some mild annoyance. Kairi lifted her head back up and continued.

"Our life was pretty normal. Well, as normal as life could be with Shina...But how could I ever forget the day things changed between us?"

She looked to Mew and preceded this leg of the commentary with a note of, "Its not like we ever got into a big fight. This was different than that. We made...well...A promise."

She then closed her eyes, laid her hands over her crossed legs, and paddled her feet like a child at the edge of a pool, "It was a starry night. The northern lights shone really bright. Shina and I were on the edge of Sancturia hoping to watch a comet fall..."

"It was something we did once a month. But this time around Shina suddenly said 'Y'know what'd be fun? If we went down to the surface!' Of course, I had to remind her that it was forbidden but she didn't care. She said that when we were both old enough we'd go down to the surface together."

"It was supposed to be our special thing...A-And..." Kairi couldn't finish the sentence before curling her bottom lip and squeezing a tear or two out of her eyes. But what appeared to be the start of an emotional outburst wound up becoming little more than a brief flash of grief.

She hung her head and gently lifted the headband around her neck up a little, the reflection visible from the corner of Mew's eyes.

"...Two years ago. A few days after my fourteenth birthday. Shina came into my room and told me she was going somewhere. I-I remember crying and begging her not to go, but she said she had to. She left me this headband as a birthday present. A-And she told me to always be good..."

Mew focused on the headband for a bit and thought to himself, "That thing always looked out of place on her. Now it makes sense..."

Kairi tried to smile as she leaned the headband towards him and said, "Shina made this all by herself. The symbol carved into it is the kanji for 'Hope'..."

"Looks a little small for a headband though." Was the most important thing on Mew's mind.

"It is yeah," Kairi had a dainty laugh at the gift's expense then wiped a tear off her cheek, "Shina always thought I was gonna remain her 'little' sister."

She then swallowed a little and clenched the metal plate around her fingers, whispering in a veiled tone of self-reflection, "...But we all have to grow up eventually, don't we?"

Mew turned his head away and leaned his head forward. He put his arms on his lap and then cracked a bit of a smile. His heart was still feeling a little too throbby for his liking, but it was a pain that could be ignored.

"So? Don't you feel better now?" He remarked in a perky tone of voice.

"Huh?" Kairi swiftly turned her head and let go of the headband, then answered in a puzzled yet soothed tone of voice, "Yeah I...do, actually."

Mew then sprung right up onto his feet and propped his fist up against his hips, "And so do I! I bet I could take on at least 10 Gravitus' now!"

His heart throbbed really hard against his chest but he grit his teeth and tried to look cool. Kairi seemed to buy it as she also stood up and said to him, "You...do look like you're back to your normal self."

"And its all thanks to you," Mew said with his head swiveled towards her baffled face, "Hearing you talk about what Shina meant to you...It makes me feel like I've been entrusted with a part of your burden. And I'm not just carrying your soul, but the memories of Shina as well."

Mew laid one hand where his heart was and mentioned, "Even if those feelings I feel aren't as passionately driven as yours, that little bit I'm borrowing could be more than enough to tip the scales in a climatic moment."

He then raised his head up to nod down as hard as a weight being dropped and proclaimed, "Yeah! I'm feeling it now! I can definitely win this!"

He turned around and took a couple steps up the stairs before Kairi yelled at him, "W-Wait!"

He swiftly turned his head over his shoulder but her intercepted any further attempts at her holding him back by smiling bright and saying, "And when this is over, I promise you this above all else."

He thrust one pointer finger back towards her face and gave her a wink, "I will take you down to the surface myself. No one can replace a loving sister Kairi...But that doesn't mean you can't still honor her memory by doing what she's no longer able to."

Kairi put her hands up to her chest and didn't know what to say. When Mew turned around and continued climbing the stairs, he heard her yell out "W-WAIT!" again.

He stopped but didn't budge his head this time until he was positive it was necessary. She followed him up the stairs a little bit and whispered to him, "There's something that's been bugging me for a while now...Priscilla and Pluto said that...I-I'm the one meant to get the Neo Drive?"

"Ah crap." Mew didn't like that can of worms being opened up this close to the end of the road and started rubbing the back of his head as she kept talking.

"What does that mean?" It was a simple question with a not-so-simple answer.

"Ah, don't worry about it," Could probably get into the top 10 for worst answers possible, "There's something about worthiness and bloodlines...I guess?"

He then quickly spun back around and had a wily attitude about him as he waved his hands around his head and rolled his eyes, "Look, once we confront Gravitus he'll spill his guts about his evil plan and all the stuff that goes along with it. AFTER I've handed Gravitus his ass on a silver platter we can worry about you and the Neo Drive, ok?"

"...I don't know." She replied.

Mew stiffened his body upright and turned around, continuing his march up the stairs while squeezing his fists by his hips. The facts lined up in his head and culminated in some turmoil swelling in the pit of his gut.

"I don't know either. But I've got a bad feeling about this..."

And so Kairi followed along, circumstances favoring her poorly and making her a spectator in what should be her final battle. Mew was going to be going it alone, by choice, into a battle that wouldn't just decide Sancturia's fate, but potentially that of the entire universe...

Next Time: Bloodlines