Well, I'm glad everyone enjoyed Suzaku's stay with Death.
And now for something completely different.
-}+{-
Without death, all we have are random events.
An accumulation of memories.
You cannot call that a life.
False tears only hurt others, but false smiles can only hurt yourself.
Lelouch, do you know why snow is white?
It's because it's forgotten what colour it once was.
You should stay away from those you do not wish to lose.
Because it feels so good to be with them.
Then they change.
You grow apart.
And it hurts.
It hurts so much.
Happy memories are so much sweeter than the pain of separation.
And I'm always being left behind.
They always move on, leaving me behind.
I never leave them behind.
I don't get the choice.
And it hurts.
I don't want to hurt anymore.
The nameless witch sat in the jail cell.
They'd burn her in the morning.
This would be the seventh time she'd be burnt like this.
But it was getting easier.
The past few times, it was like it wasn't even happening to her, and she was just another onlooker, watching as the poor woman screamed.
But it wouldn't hurt her.
It would hurt the poor girl's body getting burnt.
But her mind would be elsewhere.
It was easy to distance herself from the pain.
The problem is afterwards.
She'd be clumsy for a while, like she'd lost touch with her body.
She couldn't keep going like this.
The gate opened.
A dirty young man with scruffy blonde hair was standing at the door, his knuckles covered in blood.
"Angegangen." He said, reaching out for her hand. "Ich bin hier, Sie zu speichern."
The green haired woman dimly grasped the man's hand and left with him.
"Johan is a nice name, isn't it?"
C.C. looked up from where she was sitting in the marble floor.
A man stood there with a pleasant smile.
He was slightly shorter than average, with black hair and glasses that framed his wide face.
He was dressed in a black jumper and some brown trousers.
Honestly?
He looked completely ordinary.
"I don't think we know each other?" C.C. asked.
The man tilted his head. "Why do you refer to yourself like that?" he asked her.
C.C.'s brow twisted in confusion.
"There, you just did it again." The man pointed out. "C2, you sound like a car or a computer program."
The witch glared. "Who are you?" she asked.
The man squatted down to face her. "Why is snow white?" he asked her.
C.C. stood to her feet. "Because it's forgotten what colour it once was." She replied.
"I think green suits you." The man told her, rising to her level. "It's a nice colour."
"You're avoiding my question."
The man smiled at the witch. "You've been avoiding mine." He told her. "Why do you call yourself C.C.?"
"Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine." The witch replied.
"Alright then." The man said. "My name is Mew."
C.C. blinked.
"Your turn." The man said with a smile, swinging on the balls of his feet. "Tell me your real name this time."
The witch's neck froze as she comprehended just who she was with.
She answered the question.
"Sierra." She replied. "My name is Sierra."
Look not into Uxie's eyes.
In but an instant, you'll have no recollection of who you are.
Return home, but how? When there is nothing to remember?
Dare not touch Mesprit's body.
In but three short days, all emotions will drain away.
Above all, above all, harm not Azelf.
In a scant five days, the offender will become as a dead man.
Sierra held her head as she contemplated the identity of her companion.
"Mew." She said. "The Mew."
The man laughed. "I know, most people prefer the glowy pink furball, but this is my true form." He said.
"So, is Mew a title, or your name?" Sierra asked. "Is Mew your C.C.?"
The man's smile changed from pleasant to mischievous. "Well, my parents thought Arthur was a nice name, but what can I say?" he asked, shrugging. "Mew is what I am, and they never really got chance to name me otherwise."
"Unbelievable." Sierra sighed. "I was expecting someone taller for your human face."
"Nah, you just hang around with some pretty boys." Mew replied. "This is what the standard human looks like."
Sierra smirked at the joke, but then turned serious. "You can make me mortal again, can't you?" she asked.
Mew sucked in breath as he slowly winced. "Yes and no." he replied. "I'm the penultimate judge of your Geass."
Sierra glared. "Explain."
Mew sighed, rubbing his head. "It's strange, isn't it?" he asked. "I mean, now that the roles have reversed." Sierra tilted her head. "I mean, you've been the one with the knowledge and experience for the past five or six centuries." Mew explained. "And suddenly, this kid Lelouch knows more than you do, and then there's me."
C.C. didn't say anything.
She just glared at the god shaped like a man.
Mew groaned, but submitted. "Uxie, Mespirit and Azelf." He said. "Mind, Heart and Soul, Wisdom, Love and Will. One of them gives you an OK, you get your first Geass Runaway. If two like you, you get a second Geass. If all three like you, then you've got a Double Runaway."
"Then, when I see fit, you enter my game." Mew explained. "You regain control of your Geass, both of them. Then, next time you die, you become a Code. After that, it's a game of hide-and-seek."
"Hide-and-seek?" Sierra asked him.
"Yeah, I hide, you seek." Mew explained. "Of course, it wouldn't be fair to expect you to do it in a mortal's life-time, so you get immortality to go with it to keep you going. Throw in the power to manually use other Geass powers, and you'll be fine."
Sierra nodded. She'd already reached that conclusion concerning her abilities when using travelling in another's mind a long time ago. In theory, she could simulate the effect of every single Geass in the world with a single touch and enough time to do it. It was all in the re-wiring of the brain, after all.
"Spot on." Mew noted. "So, there's me, the wise and infinite me, and I hide from you until you're ready."
"Seven centuries and I still wasn't worthy?" C.C. snarled. "Yet Red was a Code for barely a week before you gave him a pass."
"That's just how it is." Mew shrugged. "He was ready, you'd been hurt so much that you forgot what the Lake Guardians taught you."
Sierra laughed bitterly. "So, I forgot to love until Lelouch came along?" she asked. "Is that it?"
"Well, yeah." Mew told her. "That's it."
"That's it?" Sierra asked. "That's it?"
Mew rubbed his temples wearily. "Well, if you want, we can go through seven hundred years of trauma and we can pick apart just why and how you're screwed up in the head, but I thought it'd be easier for both of us if I just gave you pokémon powers and we went and found the guy that can fix this."
Sierra slumped against a marble pillar, sliding to the ground. "Of course that's my problem." She said, ignoring what Mew just said. "My Geass is 'to be loved'. My entire psyche is based around a crushing need for affection."
Mew sighed.
Azelf's presence just left her.
He can't give her the strength he needs unless all the guardians allow it.
This was why he didn't want to break down her walls.
Bleeding feels even better when it's cold. It feels warm on your outside. It stings a bit, but only on the outside, and that's always better than hurt on your inside. It's just, any kind of warmth helps make you try to keep going.
"You hate yourself." Mew said. "You hate yourself for what you do to people. Even when you sealed off your Geass, they become entranced by your glamour and their sole purpose of life becomes you. And it hurts." He said. "You're always the one crying at their funerals. You're always the one getting left behind as time marches on."
C.C. stopped.
"You know what's dangerous about you, Sierra?" Mew asked. "It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you."
"Shut up."
"You make it so they don't want to let you down." Mew continued, regardless. "You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around. Just look at Lelouch." He added, twisting the knife and pouring salt on the wound. "He abandoned his sister and tore the world apart just to impress you."
"I told you to shut up."
"Ooh, anger, nice." Mew smiled. "It felt good to bring that Mars bitch down, didn't it?" she asked. "You'd held that mask together for so long, pretending to have it all together, and didn't it feel good to let it all go and become a beast for once in a hundred years."
"I don't have to hear this."
"I know why you always dance at weddings."
C.C. froze.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.
An Immortal Code may be crazy and want to leave the game. All he has to do is ask; and as soon as he does, he would no longer be crazy and would be fit to play the game again.
The Code would be crazy to play the game and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to play. If he played then he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
Missingno. was deeply impressed by this logic.
"That's some catch, Mew." He said.
"It's the best there is." Mew replied. "It catches them all."
"You are sick." C.C. glared at Mew. "You're even with Missingno.."
"We're both ambassadors on either side of the Cosmic Horror Story." Mew explained. "I represent that which is, he represents that which is not."
C.C. glared, but decided to drop it. "So, why's this game so important to you that you needed to develop a catch to keep us playing?"
Mew smiled sadly. "Because it needs to be played." He said. "And there must be two winners."
C.C. raised her head at this. "Why is the Geass passed from one gender to the other?"
"Because there must be two winners." Mew said. "And it's not enough to have two Code's evolve into Masters." He added.
"So, two Masters need to start a new race of human-pokémon hybrids?" C.C. asked.
Mew burst up laughing.
"No such thing!" he shouted eventually. "After all, pokémon are humans too."
C.C. froze as a sinister grin crept up Mew's face. "You're old Sierra." He said. "But you aren't that old."
"Who are you?" She glared. "Talk."
Mew smiled.
"I am the last of my kind." He said.
"I have told you my true name Mew." Sierra snarled. "Tell me yours."
Mew frowned.
"Adam." He said.
A young man, callow and foolish in innocence, came to own a sword.
With it, he smote pokémon, which gave sustenance, with carefree abandon.
Those not taken as food, he discarded, with no afterthought.
The following year, no pokémon appeared. Larders grew bare.
The young man, seeking the missing pokémon, journeyed afar.
Long did he search. And far and wide, too, until one he did find.
Asked he, "Why do you hide?" To which the pokémon replied...
If you bear your sword to bring harm upon us, with claws and fangs, we will exact a toll.
From your kind we will take our toll, for it must be done.
Done it must be to guard ourselves and for it, I apologize.
To the skies, the young man shouted his dismay.
"In having found the sword, I have lost so much.
"Gorged with power, I grew blind to pokémon being alive.
"I will never fall savage again. This sword I denounce and forsake.
"I plead for forgiveness, for I was but a fool."
So saying, the young man hurled the sword to the ground, snapping it.
Seeing this, the pokémon disappeared to a place beyond seeing...
"The Adam?" C.C. asked.
"To call me the first human would be a misnomer." Mew sighed. "That would be Eve."
"But you're a pokémon." C.C. told him.
"No." Mew replied. "That would be Lilith."
There once were pokémon that became very close to humans.
There once were humans and pokémon that ate together at the same table.
It was a time when there existed no differences to distinguish the two.
"One race." Sierra said. "That divided into two."
"The Fruit of Life and the Fruit of Knowledge." Mew sighed. "One grew powerful in body, but their mind waned, and they became submissive. The other grew mighty in intellect, but their bodies weakened, for they no longer needed that power. They could harness the strength of the monsters that knelt to their wisdom."
"So, humans and pokémon descended from the same gene pool." Sierra sighed, rubbing her head. "And the Geass is an experiment to reunite them?"
"It has only been completed three times to date." Mew said with a serene sigh. "Each time human and pokémon reunite, the resulting people never had the drive to take the world that is rightfully theirs."
"Why are you telling me this?" C.C. asked. "Because you never told anyone this before."
"I have hopes that you two won't shun your calling." Mew said. "But the other Master has been taken by the Generation that never was."
C.C. sighed. "So, the new race-"
"Mew." Mew said. "There is a reason that we are called the New Species pokémon, despite being the first."
C.C. smirked. "So, your plan that Lelouch and I become Mew and conquer the world?"
"It really won't be like that." Mew told her. "Call it Eschaton- the dawn of a new world."
C.C. didn't smile. "There are two other Masters already." She said. "Suzaku and Ashford."
"Mew is a dual organism." Mew corrected. "And no, there isn't any merging of bodies or whatever. I was the first Mew, I don't count."
"And I owe you this… why?" she asked him.
Mew tilted his head. "We had a contract, did we not?" he asked. "You wished for love, so I led you to the one who could best do that." He smiled. "A seven century age gap between two lovers is rather cruel, is it not?"
Our words shall remain here for the ages
Thus we shall erect a pokémon statue outside
They possess great insight and refuse the outside world
We humans must learn to walk in harmony with them
We depart for their sakes
"Bear with me. Seven centuries of a theories is a lot to shake off for the truth." C.C. said deadpan tone. "So, how do I know you're real, and not some illusion created by Missingno.?"
"You don't." Mew admitted. "But I reckon that you can throw Shadow Balls now."
C.C. looked at her hand.
Dark flames gathered between her fingers.
"And now you become a Master." Mew said, standing upright. "Of course, this renders you once more as mortal. Try not to get yourself killed as usual."
C.C. smiled, standing upright.
#000
Sierra
Normal/Ghost
The Clement Pokémon
"You've waited for too long." Mew told her, helping her to her feet.
"Why twenty-two?" Sierra asked him, looking down at the black dress she was wearing.
"Because I am Catch-21." Mew replied. "Alright, let's get Lelouch and bring him in."
The witch nodded as a black portal opened and a foul burning smell drifted into the air.
A figure burst from the portal, running for his life and flailing his arms around him to ward off some unseen assailant.
C.C. caught him and held him still. "Lelouch!" she shouted, struggling to keep him in her grip. "Lelouch, calm down."
The black prince twisted up and looked at her, blind, confused terror in his eyes. "Is that…"
She stroked his head, hiding her shock and fear behind a comforting smile. "It's alright." She said as she slowly knelt to the ground, holding him. "It's me. I'm here."
Lelouch pulled his face into her chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
C.C. pulled him into her embrace.
What could have done this to him..?
Not Lelouch, Lelouch would never be broken this badly so easily.
She placed a palm on his back
She used Dream Eater.
I watch you. I see the hatred in your eyes, well-hidden behind courtly graces.
I listen. I know the terrible darkness that hides behind your well-rehearsed lies.
I wait for you at the edge of sanity. I taste the pain in your mind, the yearning to end this charade.
I make my home in the darkest pits of your soul. In the shadows I bide my time.
I patiently wait for you to open your eyes and realize that it is by my will alone that you draw breath.
For I am Missingno. and you are my puppet who dances to my tune.
-}+{-
Next chapter probably won't be that interesting, just Lelouch getting thoroughly raped up the cerebellum by a being that will make Tzeentch look like Gendo Ikari.
Now would be a good place to stop if you like your dreams without nightmares.
And whatever you do… don't.