Chapter 14: Absolute Zero
As if things couldn't get any worse, they did. It was like every single Pokémon on the planet ran up to visit us, but Samus' ship kept them away, and now the floodgates had finally opened despite the fact that we were all in a poisonous swampy wasteland. First, some Pokémon (whom I have no idea who they were) shouted, "Hey! There's that human! Get it!" and shot all kinds of Vine Whips and String Shots at me so I couldn't move a muscle. Then, someone else gasped and said, "Oh my gosh. It's Team Pecha! THE Team Pecha!" so of course Big Amy and Chikorita got swarmed. Finally, Exploud and his group of trumpet-like Pokémon (whom I still have no idea what their names were) saw Grovyle and threw a welcoming party, saying things like, "Welcome back, Your Awesomeness!" As if that weren't enough, Celebi happened to fly in and practically choked him while hugging him really hard, sobbing something about how much she missed him. I couldn't tell if she was overdramatizing or not. All of these happened within ten seconds or less. Naturally, no one could save me from being picked up and hauled away. Oh yeah, and someone stabbed me in the back with a tranquilizer dart. Or was it Poison Jab? I couldn't tell.
I woke to the strange mix of tribal drum pounding and electric whirring. I was still alive, so I guess I got lucky that the Poison Jab or whatever it was ended up not poisoning me after all. As I blinked my eyes open, I saw a crowd of Pokémon all around me, and identified such ones as Zigzagoon, Probopass, Cacnea, Sneasel, and Vileplume. I also saw that I was suddenly in a jungle. But the vast majority of the Pokémon were species I had never seen before, and for a second I vaguely wondered if they were really Pokémon or if they were aliens. The chanting ones were walking around me in a circle while making weird motions with whatever stick-like objects they were carrying. They vaguely looked like the Boggobians from Meteos, only their purple and gray colorations suggested that they were Poison/Steel type.
The one thing they all had in common was that they were all upside down. No, wait. The ground was upside down too. Huh? I was confused. Finally, my gaze turned to find out what those things were that were restricting my arms and legs. They were vines.
They tied me upside-down.
"What the…?" I uttered before I could stop myself. Dozens of pairs of eyes turned to gaze in my direction. Then they started saying things like, "It talked! It talked!"
It? IT? Did these guys know so little about humans that they didn't even know what—Never mind. I realized that no matter where I would go, the whole "gender confusion" theme would not go away. Furthermore, I remembered how there were already lots of Pokémon in the Pokémon section in Gaijin City, so I had to ask, "Wha—what's going on here? Isn't interplanetary travel here already? Aren't you supposed to know about humans already? How about Gaijin City? Capital Planet? …Anything?"
Several of them started to shout out answers, but someone shouted, "QUIET! I'll speak to it." As the crowd parted to let the guy through, I saw that he was a Toxicroak. I could tell that he was male since he had an unusually large red poison sac under his throat. I groaned on the inside. It looked like this "gender confusion" theme only went one-way so far.
He cleared his throat and said, "Let me explain. We have heard legends of the existence of humans ever since the legendary Team Pecha and their misunderstood friend Grovyle saved the world not once, but twice. Uh, can you understand what I'm saying?"
I nodded. "Perfectly."
"Um, yes. Well. Anyway, legends have it that the Jigglypuff leader was rumored to have been a human from the future before she was turned into a Jigglypuff and lost her memory. Her name was Amy. Well? Does that name sound like a human name?"
"Amy? Yeah, it's a human name! In fact, it's more common than I thought it would be!"
Several gasps of shock and awe. Toxicroak shushed them again. "Thank you for your patience. You are correct that this so-called interplanetary travel has reached our world in general. Unfortunately, our quaint little tribe has never heard of what might be out there in the stars, and no one we have sent out there has ever come back to tell the tale."
"I see…So why did you guys tie me up like this?"
He continued to exude a bumbling and disorganized air about himself, but right then, I thought I caught a glimpse of a tiny smile flash across his face. "Um, yes…about that…See, none of us have ever seen a human before, since no human ever came here, and—"
"Can we DISSECT it yet?" shouted one of those little Poison/Steel guys, waving around that really sharp implement. I gasped. It could easily be used for dissection. Dissection?
"WHAT?" I shouted, not believing my ears.
Toxicroak's demeanor completely changed. He stopped screwing around and pulled himself up confidently and nastily. "That's right," he grinned. "I tried to be nice, but now you know what you're really here for. There's no way we'll let you leave." He lifted a sharp claw dripping with poison to my throat, and I cringed away, shutting my eyes. It's not enough for these uncivilized Pokémon to attack whoever invades their territory; they have to dissect humans too? Since when did Pokémon learn the concept of dissection, anyway? Suddenly, I remembered something Samus told me what felt like a lifetime ago.
"You just violated Interplanetary Rule #51.245: If you're a human and you travel to another planet where they've heard of humans but none live there, and someone identifies you…you run for it! You have no idea what kinds of things sentient beings could do to creatures they've heard of but never actually seen before. It should be common sense. Why do you think I wear my Power Suit all the time?"
She was right. I had no idea after all. "The most ridiculous official rule I've ever heard" suddenly didn't seem so ridiculous anymore. I had no idea that Pokémon—such creatures like Pokémon!—were capable of sick operations like these. It made absolutely no sense…but on the other hand, these were Pokémon from 500 years in the future. And I gasped as I realized that she must've abandoned me here for that very reason…so I could learn what a terrible mistake that was. That experience with Zoroark and the meanie-butts was bad enough. I was terrified to learn that I was going through it again.
"YOOM…TAH!"
Big Amy's by-now-familiar-but-still-oh-so-welcome Hyper Voice blasted my eardrums and every single Pokémon in sight. She and Chikorita burst out from above, landed perfectly in front of them, ready to fight. "LEAVE HER ALONE!" she shouted, still in that loud voice.
"We'll get you out of here, Little Amy! Hang on," said Chikorita. She tilted the leaf on her head back, and I realize what she was about to do.
"No no, wait wait wait—!" I argued too late. She unleashed a surprisingly accurate Razor Leaf that slashed the thick, squishy vines tying me up. There was no way I could tell her that I was about to land on my head on the ground hard, possibly knocking me out or paralyzing me or worse, in only half a second. The only thing I could utter was "AAAAAH—!"
I didn't land on my head. I heard Chikorita's voice straining with effort, and I found that she caught me with Vine Whip instead. Whew! She lowered me to the ground safely. "Th—thanks…" I gasped.
Everyone was shocked. They muttered something about how it was them, the famous Team Pecha.
"That's right, guys! We're Team Pecha, and she's with us! Now you can either let her go with us or you'll have to get through us!" shouted Big Amy to the crowd.
Toxicroak looked conflicted for a second, but then he smiled again. "You know what? Doesn't matter if the human is with you, the famous Team Pecha. We can't give…her…up. Besides, I think I can handle the two of you all by myself." He cracked his knuckles. They gulped. And I could see why, too. Toxicroak was Poison/Fighting type, super-effective against both Big Amy and Chikorita. This wasn't going to be easy.
As it turned out, I didn't need to worry. One more Hyper Voice was enough to knock the guy out, combined with a Hidden Power with Chikorita. "Whoooaaa…" My jaw dropped in awe. Then it hit me; these girls were most likely used to fighting guys like Dialga all the time. Maybe they were Level 100 by now.
Everyone stood stone still in amazement. Big Amy tiptoed backwards and urgently whispered to me, "Now, Little Amy! Let's run for it!"
I didn't need to be told twice. I scooped her up and bolted, with Chikorita hot on my heels using Razor Leaf on any Pokémon that tried to follow, which were practically all of them. We blundered through the swampy jungle, having no idea where we were going. Random plants and twigs scratched me everywhere. If only I had my spacesuit, I could've avoided all of that extra pain, but I still had my sailor school uniform on. Kind of ludicrous for this kind of thing, but hey, we had to face life as it came, no matter what shape we were in.
I looked behind myself to see if any more were following. None yet. Then I ran right-smack into something and tripped over it, falling onto the ground. "Oooow…" the four of us groaned.
Four?
It was Grovyle! Apparently, we didn't trip over a rock. We tripped over him.
"Grovyle! You're late!" grouched Big Amy.
"What took you so long?" complained Chikorita.
Several Pin Missiles and such projectiles rained down around us. The swarm of tribal Pokémon caught up to us. "Had to ditch Celebi and that ludicrous entourage. Now let's go!" ordered Grovyle.
We ran. Grovyle stayed behind to punch out a few of the closest enemies, but he still managed to pass me. "You are so slow," he huffed. Then, taking me completely by surprise, he picked me up and jumped to a really long branch. Big Amy was already on my head, and Chikorita jumped on my shoulder, but it didn't slow Grovyle down any. We slid on tree trunks, branches, and vines at the speed of a roller coaster, and Grovyle provided all the speed. I shut my eyes and shouted. I was terrified of roller coasters…at least, real ones. This was exactly like in Tarzan (the Disney movie) and I realized that despite the impracticality of my outfit at the time, Jane's cumbersome yellow dress was way worse. So I figured, if she could survive this ride, so could I.
We finally defeated all the enemies. Then we saw the end of the line. "Hang on!" ordered Grovyle. He jumped just as the branch ended, and we sailed out of the jungle and into the air, dozens of feet into the air. The jungle was on a high cliff, and we were about to land in the middle of a trashy-looking plains that looked more like a wasteland. "AAAAAAAAAH!" we all shouted, except for Grovyle of course. I grabbed Big Amy and held her in front of my face, where the ground was about to hit me.
WHAM! At least her fluffy body cushioned the blow. We bounced a few more times before finally coming to a stop. I rubbed my sore spots all over, groaning and trying to calm my hammering heart down. In fact, my heart had been hammering the whole time since the Pokéathlon Contest. On one hand, everything that had happened to me so far made life much more interesting; on the other hand, I was worried that any moment now, rips of pain would sear through my stomach from constant stress. I really didn't like how I inherited my mom's annoyingly weak stomach, so I had to take measures to calm myself.
I looked around and saw the jungle where we came from sitting up there on the cliff. Odd place for a jungle, but I didn't argue at the time. "Wh…where are we?" asked Big Amy.
Grovyle explained, "This is the Forgotten Plains, close by to the Forgotten Swamp. No one ever comes here anymore, ever since the native Pokémon suddenly started disappearing from here. It was rumored that an unknown monster killed them all."
"M—m—monster?" whimpered Chikorita. "KILLING Pokémon?"
"Nothing we can't handle, of course."
With that scary thought, we sat down for a bit and thought over a few things. "…So what do we do now?" I asked.
We sat there for about five minutes. No one had any idea what to say, though Big Amy and Chikorita were constantly on the lookout for said Pokémon-killing monster. Grovyle was acting oddly distant, though. He had his back turned to me the whole time. Finally, he said, "Okay, human. I think I gave you more than enough time to get to know you, and I've come to a conclusion."
The tone of his voice made my breath stop. Big Amy, Chikorita, and I stared at him in confusion. Didn't he just save our lives? What was going on in here? I also felt annoyed that he never ever called me by my real name, and afraid that this was the opening for something worse.
"YOU…are a THREAT…to me, Chikorita…and MY Amy!" He turned around. We gasped and staggered back. His eyes were blazing with anger. It was worse. "You always have been…and you always will. You know the proof. We all saw it."
He sharpened his Leaf Blades as he stepped closer to me. I quickly skittered back, my heart racing faster and faster by the second. "You mean her? N—no way! I said I could never be—"
"Don't give me that garbage. She came from a Dimensional Hole. I know enough about time travel. Samus was right to ditch you here, but not us. Not long from now, something is going to make you change that much…and if we stay affiliated with you, you're going to kill us all. So you see, I have no choice. I didn't want to do this, but…"
I tripped over a rock and fell backwards on the suddenly hard ground. "NO!" we all shouted. We? Big Amy and Chikorita leapt in front of me.
"Don't do this, Grovyle! Don't!" pleaded Big Amy.
"She can't be evil! She just can't! There has to be a good reason for this!" shouted Chikorita. My eyes teared up, and my heart leapt with hope. They still knew the truth—that I was a good person! Thanks, guys!
"Amy. Chikorita. You're being fooled just like Dusknoir fooled you. Think about it. That device of hers has the whole story. She knows everything about us, everything, and she's going to use that knowledge against us one day!"
Big Amy defended me. "But she CAN'T be like him! I can feel it! Back then, I could FEEL something was wrong with him, but I don't feel anything like that from her at all!"
Chikorita joined in, "She's our friend! It's not like her to betray us, it just isn't! So what if she has that device? So what if she actually wrote everything that happened to you guys from the Axiatomic Link to the time I met Amy? She had no way to know that everything she wrote would actually happen in real life!"
Uh-oh.
That did it.
"You…WROTE…everything that happened to Amy and me? You MADE her suffer like that? And you could've completely PREVENTED that from ever HAPPENING to us?" he roared. I was tongue-tied. I couldn't move. I couldn't say a thing. I wanted to argue, but I couldn't. Everything he said was completely true. How could I lie? That was the moment I really should've said something, anything, in my defense. But my accursed slow-acting introverted brain couldn't think of anything in the next 0.5 seconds, betraying me again, this time sealing my fate.
And then he pounced on me!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" My blood-curdling shout that was more like a scream reverberated throughout the Forgotten Plains. It was the scream that I could only emit when my worst fear finally came true.
In a fully fixed and pristine Temporal Tower, at the rooftop floor among the majestic columns, Dialga is minding his own business making sure the flow of time is in perfect balance and stuff. He gazes upon the five Time Gears in the altar, emitting green light through the formerly red lines threading through the place, reminiscing about how the Pokémon managed to figure out that once every 150 years, they were supposed to return them to their hiding places, and 150 years later, back to Temporal Tower. Suddenly, he notices a change in the air. The tower is starting to crack.
Dialga: …I CAN FEEL IT. TIME IS STARTING TO STOP…
At the same time, in Spacial Rift, Palkia wakes up and notices the same sensation in the air.
Palkia: …SPACE IS STARTING TO COLLAPSE…
Now for a new place! In the dimension on the opposite side of the galaxy, but mostly centered on Planet Portania, lives the Renegade Pokémon Giratina. He notices pools of dark clouds forming everywhere.
Giratina: …EVEN MY REVERSE WORLD…?
In the clouds high, high above Planet Portania is a temple that looks vaguely Greek yet has a bright, powerful, otherworldly golden aura coating around it. It's the Sky Temple, housing the one and only Alpha Pokémon Arceus, the ruler of everything and everyone.
Arceus: …IT'S HAPPENING. JUDGEMENT DAY HAS FINALLY COME. TIME…SPACE…ANTIMATTER…ALL OF IT, THIS WHOLE DIMENSION, IS…
And finally, far, far away from Planet Portania, in the deep depths of space, in a super-secret location that no one knows about, clouded in nebula dust, lays a hidden planet. Planet Chozodia, the last known refuge for the galaxy's most enlightened beings. The Chozo and the Ylla coexist together peacefully on the planet, learning from each other's wisdom. But as of this moment, every single one of them becomes aware of the disturbance in the air. Old Bird and Gray Voice, two elderly Chozo very familiar to Metroid fans, discuss this.
Old Bird: …the fabric of the time-space continuum, this very dimension…is in danger of collapsing!
Gray Voice: I can feel it too. We have no choice, do we, Old Bird?
Old Bird: We have no choice indeed. We must activate the Teleportation Warp Gate!
Gray Voice: (The one our ancestors built in case anything like this would ever happen…)
They run to the tunnel in a mountain on the edge of their village.
I found that I had absolutely no idea what true pain, agony, and suffering felt like.
He really did vent his anger out on me this time! He was absolutely merciless. He slashed me everywhere, leaving no time to think, or argue, or even breathe. Big Amy and Chikorita pleaded at him to stop, and they even tried defending me, but no matter what they did, Grovyle would always avoid them to get to me. But with every slash, the sight made them recoil in terror, until they couldn't even bear to look at me anymore.
That full-contact pummeling I received when I was a yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do? That was a feather. That time when the other me zapped me with the lowest setting of her newfound power? A cottonball. Everything I endured the moment I stowed away on Samus' ship? Oh, please. Nothing—I mean, nothing—in my life could even remotely compare to the agony he inflicted on me. It was official. True, I was scared to death of intimidating, angry people, but I've never had to deal with a situation like this before. I didn't think I could forget this even if I wanted to. This was why I didn't want to tell anyone here about how much I knew, especially not Grovyle. But all my efforts were in vain. My knowledge sealed my fate from the start. I had it coming to me no matter what I did.
Anything, I mean anything, would've been preferable to this. Maybe dissection, maybe the other me's torturous powers, maybe Mother Brain, maybe even Zoroark and those meanie-butts. Did I really escape them all only to die at the hands of the one guy I always wanted to be friends with? The guy I truly cared about as much as Team Pecha, all three of whom I could feel we could've had a deeper friendship than anyone I ever knew back on Earth? That's why I couldn't fight him, not honestly. The few times I managed to fight back had virtually no effect on his scaly-tough skin. It was so wrong. Against the very person I should've fought the hardest…I couldn't bring myself to do so. Is this what they meant by intimate enemies?
"Grovyle, STOP!" pleaded Chikorita.
No, he wouldn't stop. Not until he finished the job.
"Something's happening to me, Grovyle!" I heard Big Amy shout.
Still no letup. I desperately wanted to see what she was talking about, but by that point, the pain was so severe, I had no choice but to keep my eyes shut.
"Grovyle! STOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"
It was exactly the same shout that she shouted at Grovyle when she wanted to stop him from killing Azelf—no wait, to stop him from taking the last Time Gear when she and Chikorita were nowhere near stopping him. It was the kind of shout with a type of anguish suffusing it that I never knew existed. And it was the only kind of shout that could get him to stop when he otherwise could never be stopped; the shout of his best friend for all of time.
He saw her and gasped, letting me fall to the ground facedown. "Oh, no. No no no no no…" he whimpered. I was absolutely desperate to see what was happening to her, what was causing Grovyle to worry so deeply. I would go crazy if I didn't know, but the pain was so bad that I couldn't even move anymore.
"Not again! H—how do I stop it?" he asked in despair. Stop what?
"I don't know! I don't want to die!" she panicked.
"Don't die, Amy! I can't lose you again!" wailed Chikorita.
All I had to do was open one eye. Just one eye. Then I would see everything that was going on. Why did it take so much pain and agony just to open…one…eye? As if my suffering wasn't bad enough, I had to hear and feel all of their hopeless sorrow too. This really the worst way to die, ever. Couldn't I at least get one look before I had to go, too? Finally, after much effort, I…opened my eye!
"Hey! It's going away!" exclaimed Chikorita.
Was it just my imagination, or did I just see some glowing yellow orbs suddenly evaporate from around Big Amy? Couldn't have been my imagination. Why else would they be panicking?
"I'm alive…I'm alive!" she whispered in awe.
"I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you again…" He hugged her tightly, as if not wanting to ever let go, and my heart groaned in despair. This was a guy who truly loved his best friends. The same guy who just a second ago was absolutely merciless to me. How could one guy be so loving and so cold-blooded at the same time? Betrayed. The word couldn't even begin to describe the agony I felt.
Finally, he turned to me, and I shut my eyes tight again. What now? "Interesting…" he muttered. "Let me test something out here, okay guys?"
He gripped my hair, all of it, and yanked my head up. I paled. I've read about this in another one of Stephanie Meyer's books called The Host before, but I never thought I'd actually experience what it felt like for myself. A sharp edge touching against my throat against my throat confirmed my fears. Decapitation, as in the French Revolution! But that made no sense. No Grovyle could possibly know the move Guillotine. Unless…unless…there was a slight, slight chance he actually did. "Oh no no no no no, no no, oh please, please! Not that!" I could only babble incoherently.
"Yes," he replied coldly. "That!"
I braced myself.
"Grovyle!" shouted Big Amy and Chikorita in that same anguished tone of voice again.
SHING!
I fell facedown into the ground. Big Amy gasped. Chikorita screamed. But why? My neck felt perfectly fine. He missed, didn't he?
Then I noticed that my hair didn't feel nearly as long as it used to be. I cracked an eye open, and saw that he was holding a bundle of hair slightly lighter shade of brown from my normal hair color. "My hair!" I gasped in disbelief and confusion. "You sliced my hair!"
"It's not YOUR hair, you fake. You don't deserve this," he answered coldly, stuffing it in his Treasure Bag. He then turned to his two friends and barked, "Amy! Chikorita! Let's get out of here."
"WHAT? But…but—!"
"No buts! Just go!"
Reluctantly, with tears in their eyes, they turned to leave, wailing from heartbreak. But he didn't. Not yet, at least. He stayed behind, walked up to me, and whispered nastily in my ear.
"What do you know. You know everything about us—you even controlled what happened to us!—but in the end, you bleed just like any normal, filthy human being. In fact, you are so pathetically weak; it escapes me as to how you could possibly become so obscenely powerful in the future."
The pain returned, and I could only groan. He sniffed and snorted in disgust before continuing. "Your scent is overpowering. It wouldn't be long before you attract some hungry Pokémon to this place. Or maybe the monster will find you first, who knows? Judging by the rate in which this ghastly liquid is running out of you, I imagine you'd succumb long before anything like that happens. Apparently, I'm not able finish you off myself. Perhaps something else can without hurting my Amy."
He got up and started to leave me there, lying on the ground facedown. Before he walked out of earshot, he had one final word to deliver. "And if you're trying to ask me why I did this to you, I'll tell you why. Everything was perfect. She and I could've finally been together." He paused for a long time before coming to his conclusion. "Then you came along." With that ominous note, he dashed away, never to come back.
With a pang of guilt and horror, it hit me. He never got over his heartbreak for Amy Vee Purima at all. Not one day in two years. This was his one chance to be with her and make up for lost time.
And the moment he saw me emerge from the ship, I ruined it. Just by being here, I ruined it all for them. I was never supposed to be in this story at all. If it weren't for me, my four friends—Samus, Grovyle, Chikorita, and Amy—would've all still been on their epically awesome space adventure now. Maybe they would've reached the Tetra Galaxy to collect Octoliths again like in Metroid Prime Hunters or something like that. Anything but this.
Now don't get me wrong; I value my life. I always did. Back at home in my normal life, I just graduated from high school. I've already been practicing my story writing and artistic abilities since the age of 14, in fact, my whole life. I had everything to live for. But in that exact place, in that exact time, in the exact condition that I was in, after those exact heartbreaking events…for the first time ever, in my happiness-filled life full of hope and promise as a rising manga artist…I wanted to die.
"So. Now you know why it's futile to have friends."
Samus' voice wafted to my ears. I could feel her footsteps through the ground. I had no idea how much time had passed; maybe 20 minutes, maybe less. I still couldn't move, and felt like I was about to faint. "Mmph…" I mumbled into the dirt, meaning, "Really…?"
"Friends can't last forever. Sooner or later, they have to leave you. Either they die, they move away, or they betray you. And the more you get involved, the more it breaks you on the inside. Had to learn that the hard way, you know. Way too many times for me to count."
I mumbled something again, totally agreeing at the moment.
"In this brutal galaxy, the only one you can afford to permanently trust is you yourself. Your enemies can use anyone and everyone you affiliate yourself with to get to you. That's why I always fight alone."
"Mm-hmm…" I mumbled.
She knelt down and whispered in my ear, "You believe me now, don't you? You know how I feel now, don't you?"
"Yeah…?" I cracked an eye open again and saw that she was not in her Power Suit, but in her Zero Suit. That really confused me. Didn't she say that she always kept her Power Suit on, especially on Planet Portania? By that point, I was getting suspicious. I thought back and asked, "Ms. Aran? Didn't you just abandon us here and—?"
Suddenly, she seized the back of my throat and whispered nastily, right in my face, "Took you long enough. I told you I would break you. I told you it wasn't over between us. Now you have no choice but to become like me." I choked. Why did she sound exactly like my doppelganger but looked like Samus Aran? Who the heck was she? What the heck was going on in here? And did I just see a tint of orange behind her normally bright blue eyes?
I wanted to run. I wanted to fight. I wanted to do something, anything, other than just hang there paralyzed from my injuries, unable to move. As she slowly stood up, she lifted me by the throat to meet her eye level, dragging even more excruciating pain through me. She whistled and remarked, "Whoa. That Grovyle really did a number on you. He really hates you, you know. And to think that Chikorita and that Jigglypuff couldn't even save you…it's sad. It really is. For you."
"How…did…you…know?" I gasped with all my might.
"Okay. I guess I can explain. I am the mastermind that manipulated your every move; from the moment Zoroark pulled you into this dimension. Every move. I told him what to do, I told Zark and Zork what to do, I told the Space Pirates, Kraid, Sylux, Ridley, and even Mother Brain what to do. Even I expected you would have as much fun as you did in Gaijin City. All to bring you here, to this very spot, at my mercy…all to preserve my very existence…and all for me to gain the ultimate knowledge I need. You already know my subjects way too well, don't you?"
She suddenly pinched me at the base of my neck. Hard. My eyes dimmed. My senses dulled. My breath ran out. My consciousness started to evaporate. Since when did whoever-she-was know how to do the Vulcan Neck Pinch? I blacked out.
The last thing I remembered seeing in the darkness of my mind seized my heart more than anything else I ever saw in my life. It was a clear view of an orange, translucent, gelatinous blob. No wait, it was a mass of them encased in a spherical shell with spikes on the outside. No wait; it was a several of them, fused to create a large, mucky entity that had a life of its own. My breath came up short. I haven't seen them since the last time I played Metroid Fusion. She was right. I already knew them way too well.
They were the X Parasites.
"My name is Queen X. Now this galaxy shall be mine! And it shall all be because of you. Goodbye…Amy [you know who]!"
Why the heck were the X Parasites on Planet Portania? I thought Samus made sure they were restricted to Planet SR-388. And their queen, too, whom neither Samus nor I had ever seen or even heard of, for that matter? I now knew why Pokémon around here were never seen again; she killed and copied them whenever she got hungry. She was the monster. And I realized that the other me really wasn't me after all; she was Queen X, who had copied my looks, memories, hopes, dreams, and fears. She even managed to augment my lame combat abilities with frighteningly powerful dark energy from someone else she copied.
I knew that X Parasites infect the nervous systems of their hosts, kill, and replicate them perfectly. In Metroid Fusion, they infected Samus, but the Galactic Federation medics managed to completely cure her with a serum Metroid DNA since it turned out that the Metroids were the X Parasites' natural predators. Before the serum, in the care of the Galactic Federation medics, Samus had a 0.873% chance of survival.
What about my chances? Considering how I was here, already critically injured, in the middle of nowhere in outer space, with no medics to try and save me, and the queen herself attacking? Considering how they should really be called X Parasoids since they always killed their hosts? Considering how Metroids, the natural enemies of those parasites and only source of the only known cure, were now extinct?
Absolute zero.
Whatever I said about wanting to die, I took it back. I wanted to tell Amy, Chikorita, Grovyle, and Samus the truth. I wanted to be friends with them again. If only I'd refined my storytelling instincts, I probably could've seen this coming.
But I was too late.
To be continued…
Coming up next: I vowed to never kill off another character in any story of mine, and guess who gets killed off first in this series? Me! So learn from my stupid mistake and be careful what you wish for. Anyway, Amy and Chikorita will never look at Grovyle the same way again. Samus and Grovyle become wracked with G.U.I.L.T., and I don't mean the diseases from Trauma Center. Whatever happens from here will be a complete mystery, but no matter what, don't expect me to narrate for a while…*shudder*…if ever!