Crossing of the Paths (New Rewritten 2nd Edition)

by MMMAJ

Mewtwo can no longer stand living with humans, so he creates a dimensional portal and goes searching for a new realm to call home. What he stumbles into proves to be far more arduous and fateful than he ever expected. Rated M for violence/gore. Part 1 of 3 of my crossover series "The Travelers Trilogy". This is a new and fully rewritten version, read it instead of the old original!

14. Book 1: Desert Wind - Chunk 13

The Crossing of the Paths
Second Edition
By MMM/AJ
Part I: Desert Wind

A/N: Well folks, we're really getting close to the end of Desert Wind now! This chunk begins what I'd call the Final Stretch. There's just one more left after this one, then we're caught up with what I've written. Please don't forget that we'll be slowing back down to my usual slow speed once this happens!

This chunk is also a MONSTER too, just like the last one. 48,000 words and then some, and the next one will be just as big. So the story really got kinda back-heavy by the end, lol. I also feel it's necessary to warn everyone that the content in this story gets VERY DARK at some points in this chunk. Darker even than next chunk. It's probably one of the heaviest things I've ever written. Those who were with me and read the original first edition of the story will know exactly what I'm talking about. So just like before, I'm appending a big ol CONTENT WARNING to the A/N at the end of this chunk. I ask that any of you folks sensitive to violent content please jump down there to read it first, and read at your discretion. And as always, please kick back and enjoy! I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Chapter 29 - Journey's End

The low, ominous rumbling of distant thunder came rolling through the trees when Mewtwo and Kalana next woke. They had decided to take a brief rest in the forest after their ordeal with Valisse, figuring this would be their last chance to do so with something over their heads after losing their Helmasaur. Now it seemed like they had made the right decision; Mewtwo couldn't even see any daylight filtering down through the forest canopy despite the fact that it was well into mid morning. He didn't think the forest was dense enough to block out ALL sunlight, so there must have been a gnarly storm getting ready to hit them. He ate his meager morning rations in silence, then sniffed at the air when another deep chord of thunder rolled through.

"Hmm, that's odd. It sounds like a storm is coming but I don't smell any petrichor." He noted as he packed his things up.

"Pet-what?" Kalana mumbled.

"It's a word for the rich scent of wet Earth that arises after rain."

"I haven't seen rain in over a decade." Kalana said, her voice taking on a wistful tone.

Mewtwo suddenly felt like a colossal heel for talking so flippantly about rain around someone who probably had only seen it once or twice in their entire life. He brushed the feeling off fairly quickly though as another rumble echoed through the forest.

"Well if that thunder is anything to go by then we should be seeing some soon."

"As refreshing as that sounds I'm not sure I like the idea of lugging around heavy wet gear. Come on, we still have a lot of ground to cover and our rations aren't getting any more plentiful."

Mewtwo initially nodded in agreement and got up to leave with her, but then a thought struck him. He furrowed his brow and dug the Forest Medallion out of his backpack.

"Before we go any further it may be wise for us to attempt to bond with our Medallions first. According to Valisse the Sulaaq capital isn't much further once we leave the forest and I'd rather not wait until we're trying to sneak through the city to do this. For all we know the process might create a burst of light or energy that would give away our presence. The forest is the best place to conceal such a potential event."

Kalana rubbed her chin thoughtfully and nodded, but her expression was still grim. "I guess you're right, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do. You have it easy, you got the directions given to you by the Deku Tree himself. I didn't get so much as a hint. What should I do?"

Mewtwo furrowed his brow and spent a moment or two deep in thought. He didn't really have a clue how Spirit magic was supposed to work. His only lead was the Spirit Medallion responding to his ghost-type powers. All he could really do was speculate, and that risked leading them even further astray from the truth while wasting time.

"Well, how does Spirit magic traditionally work? Forest magic seems pretty straightforward to me but I don't even know the basics about Spirit."

Kalana heaved a heavy sigh and furrowed her own brow too as she replied. "I'm not exactly an expert at this either and it's not something I like to spend time thinking about ok? I've never had the innate talent for spellcasting that so many of my Rakeshan sisters have grown up with and it's been a sticking point for me for my entire life. Especially since my mother is one of the most talented mages in any of the four tribes. She's never once told me she felt disappointed in me for my lack of magical skill, but I've seen it in her eyes a few times."

Kalana's expression grew pained as she admitted to all this, and suddenly all of her past reactions to the mention of magic made sense. No wonder she'd been repeatedly trying to put off teaching him about it. He reached out and took her hand and gave it a firm, reassuring squeeze.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know this was such a painful topic for you. For what it's worth, I'm sure Hadara has plenty of other reasons to be proud of you, Molduga slayer."

Kalana smiled a little bit when he reminded her of that title they had won before departing on Taji Alirha. She chuckled a little bit too before replying. "You know what's funny? Before the fall of the old world and the construction of the drain devices, magic was our preferred way of killing Moldugas. Their tough hides make blows from traditional bladed weapons nearly useless, so a powerful lightning or ice spell was needed to properly pierce their defenses. I suppose this makes it all the more impressive that we have killed as many as we have without any magic."

"Damn right it does. Listen, after all we've been through together you know I won't think any less of you for not being a mage like the others. I don't think I need to list off all the times you've helped save my tail and shown immense bravery and selflessness. Even if we fail to get you bonded to that Medallion it's still worth a try, don't you think?"

Still smiling, Kalana nodded in agreement. She took a deep breath before continuing to speak. "Thank you Mewtwo, you're right. Spirit magic is fortunately fairly self-explanatory as well as long as you understand one very fundamental principle: The world is filled with spirits of all sorts all of the time. Be they spirits of animals, faeries, monsters, or people, there is always a large amount of them around you at all times. The vast majority of the time they are incorporeal and far too weak to interact with the physical world, and the majority of them aren't even fully aware of us or our presence. Spirit magic specializes in summoning, binding, manipulating, empowering, or exorcising them. A basic, low-level practitioner can see and speak with these spirits, whereas a master of the craft can even bind them into physical bodies and force them to do her bidding. This is the origin story behind the beast known as the Iron Knuckle, for example. Expert blacksmiths crafted the strongest armors and weapons, then masters of Spirit magic bound monstrous souls into the armor suits in order to animate them into deadly soldiers. My mother is one such master, though these days she strictly refuses to enslave spirits and limits her practice to communication or exorcisms. Even at the highest levels of skill, summoning spirits is extremely risky since they can break free of your control in unpredictable ways. Creating an Iron Knuckle only for it to go rogue and attack you is a good way to get yourself chopped in half."

"Hmmmm, I see. How do you think this could tie into a bonding ritual with the Spirit Medallion?" Mewtwo asked.

"That's the problem, I don't have the foggiest idea. If it requires the active casting of a spell then we're already shit out of luck thanks to the local drain devices here."

"I don't think it will, at least not if the method is anywhere close to the same as what the Deku Tree described for the Forest Medallion. It must be some sort of quiet ritual."

Their discussion was interrupted again by the low rumble of thunder and Mewtwo felt a tinge of fear creep up his spine. They were probably running out of time.

"We don't know that! Ugh, I have a bad feeling about us standing here wasting the morning talking about this, especially after what the Deku Tree said about time running short." Kalana protested.

"Then allow me to at least attempt to bond with the Forest Medallion while you try to think of ideas for how to bond with yours. If we can at least achieve one bond before we reach the capital then it won't have been a waste of time." Mewtwo replied.

"Very well. Go ahead and get started, I'll keep an eye on our surroundings for any hostiles while you focus."

Mewtwo gave her a grateful nod and lowered himself back to a sitting position on the soft forest grass. Remembering the Deku Tree's directions, he put himself into as relaxed a position as possible and then closed his eyes to begin concentrating. The Deku Tree had told him to focus on a forest he was familiar with, so he chose the one whose memory had made the most lasting impact on him during his life: The woods of Purity Canyon. He gripped the Medallion close to his chest and took long, deep breaths as the mental image began to become clear in his mind's eye. He could still smell the fresh, clean scent of greenery and rich Earth from that place. He could hear the soft rustling of the breeze in the trees as well as the gentle sloshing of the water at the shores of Purity Lake. He could see the rays of sunlight filtering down through the canopy and scattering over the baby Rhyhorn and Nidoran that called that place home. It was a beautiful, peaceful feeling; one that eased away his anxiety about the coming storm and trials ahead of him. Just as he felt immersed in those memories he followed the last step and tried to mentally call out to the Medallion like the Deku Tree had instructed.

At first the only sign it was working was a warm, tingling sensation starting to appear on Mewtwo's chest as the magic began to flow. He could vaguely see the beginnings of a diffuse green glow shining through his eyelids too as the Medallion started to emanate a strong green radiance. The tingling sensation grew stronger and stronger with every passing second, causing Mewtwo's heart to start racing with excitement. It was working. He had to concentrate even harder to prevent his growing elation from interfering with the integrity of his meditative focus. It only took a minute or so before the tingling warmth reached its zenith, and then suddenly the Medallion seemed to dissolve out of his grip as it turned ethereal just as the Deku Tree said. It was like holding onto the hand of a Gengar right as it decided to dematerialize, but much less eerie and far more soothing. Once it fully vanished he felt a rush of energy cascade through his chest and spread through his body all at once. It was similar to how he felt when using Grass-type techniques from Earth, but much less forceful or destructive. For a brief moment he knew the warm, placid bliss of warm nutritious sunlight suffusing his leaves. He could feel and taste the cool, refreshing touch of water on his roots. His branches swayed languidly in a warm, gentle breeze. Then it was over and he was himself again, a solitary mammal sitting on the forest floor of the Lost Woods. He opened his eyes and looked down at his empty hands and smiled.

"It worked!" Mewtwo said in an elated tone.

"So I saw! The Medallion glowed almost as bright as the sun for a few moments there. You certainly were right about us not trying to do that in Sulaaq territory! How does it feel?" Kalana asked.

"It's hard to put into words. For a fleeting moment I almost knew how it felt to actually be a tree. It was languid and serene in a way that our languages don't have words for. I can also feel the energy flowing through my body. I bet I could..."

Mewtwo then decided to put the Medallion's power to the test. He climbed to his feet, spotted a gap in the foliage above him, and raised one arm to point his hand up at it. He called on the power of the Medallion again as he tried to use his Solar Beam technique, and this time he got much more than a mere tingling hint of energy. A great, warm upwelling of forest magic surged through his body and up his arm, focusing into a glowing orb of greenish-gold energy at his fingertips. The more he focused the more it grew and grew, though it still took far longer to charge than it typically would have if he was using his own psychic energy as the source. He didn't care though, a wonderful feeling of joyous hope was flooding through his mind as he watched the orb grow and grow.

"Kalana! It really is working!" Mewtwo shouted with a relieved laugh.

The orb was just about to erupt into the proper beam shape it was meant to take when Kalana came up to him and grabbed his arm to pull it down.

"Mewtwo! I'm really glad it works, but let's try not to advertise our position to every single monster and Sulaaq for miles around us! Please don't fire it!"

Mewtwo immediately realized she was right and dispersed the growing orb with a rush of hot air. Glowing motes of gold and green shattered apart and drifted away on the wind before the beam could fire, leaving them standing in silence but still safely concealed from hostile eyes. Mewtwo felt a bit of the wind taken out of his sails by the anticlimactic nature of what had just happened, but he quickly moved past that and grinned broadly. He knew it would have worked if she hadn't interrupted him, he could feel the beam preparing to fire. He lowered his arm down and looked Kalana in the eye as he spoke with renewed excitement.

"You're right of course, but did you see how strong the attack was growing?! I can't believe it, the bonding was enough to completely fuel my Solar Beam! I could feel the drain devices delaying its charging sequence significantly, but it should still be strong enough to do a number on any Sulaaq we face!"

"Yes! It's fantastic news and I'm immensely relieved it works. Now I just have to try doing it myself, somehow." Kalana said, her excitement muted by the prospect of finally forcing herself to try it.

"Well, even if it's just fruitless speculation, why not try a meditative method like the one for Forest? Even if it doesn't work, maybe it will help you come up with other ideas to try?" Mewtwo suggested.

"I guess. It's better than standing around complaining and feeling sorry for myself at any rate isn't it?" She chuckled.

Kalana then followed Mewtwo's example and sat herself down cross-legged and closed her eyes. Mewtwo stood close by, periodically glancing around through the woods to make sure nothing ambushed them while she focused. He couldn't help but dart his gaze back to Kalana periodically, if only to check and see if the Spirit Medallion responded to her efforts. He anxiously waited for a miniature eternity as she focused, holding out hope that this would work. For awhile her efforts failed to produce even a faint glow of light from the Medallion, causing Mewtwo to worry that her attempt was doomed to fail. Then suddenly something different caught his attention: a rush of wind came blowing through the trees to the West of them, rattling the branches even louder than what the normal light breeze was causing.

Mewtwo spun around to check for any hostiles but all he could see were trees and the empty space between them. As the wind reached them he could feel it was icy cold like the gales that rolled over the desert at night, and it seemed to die out instantly as though it was just one brief, isolated wave. He suddenly felt a presence lurking around them again; it was reminiscent of the last time they had felt ghosts lingering near them in the Spirit Temple. Suddenly he felt hopeful that perhaps this was a sign that some sort of Spirit Magic was beginning to stir, and his hope was instantly fulfilled when he saw the Medallion finally starting to glow in Kalana's grasp.

Mewtwo felt the urge to speak to Kalana; he wanted to tell her she was doing something right and the Medallion seemed to be responding. But he remembered that it was important not to interrupt the meditative trance, so he remained quiet and watched as the events unfolded. A slight look of shock spread over Kalana's face, though she kept her eyes closed and her expression muted. The Medallion glowed brighter and brighter, until soon it was too bright for Mewtwo to look directly at. He shielded his eyes but smiled, knowing that when the light faded the Medallion would be gone. Just a few more seconds passed and then the light vanished, allowing Mewtwo to see her hands now empty in her lap. She opened her eyes and looked down at those hands, then beamed with relief and joy of her own.

"Exalted Nabooru!" Kalana whispered, then looked around the woods as if searching for her spirit.

"You saw her again?" Mewtwo asked.

"Not just saw her! I decided to try visualizing being back inside the Inner Sanctum of the Spirit Temple for my meditative focus, and almost immediately she appeared in that place before me and spoke to me!" Kalana said as she began to climb to her feet.

"What did she say?" Mewtwo asked, reaching down to take her hand and help her up.

"She told me that being the Sage of Spirit was more than just magical talent. That it was a title only given to those with hearts filled with the courage to stand up to evil and the willpower to strive to change the world for the better. She said I was already worthy regardless of my struggles to harness the power."

Tears began to run down Kalana's cheeks as she spoke. She paused for a moment to wipe her eyes and reign in her emotions, but Mewtwo smiled anyway. He knew just how much this had to have meant for her. "Then what happened?" He asked.

"Then she hugged me and... I don't know how to describe it. It felt as though I was surrounded by dozens more spirits. Spirits of our ancestors. Of Sages past, like Konoru, and my grandmothers. I could feel them trying to fill me with their power and their love, and then I was awash with a warm tingling energy. When I opened my eyes, the Medallion was gone, just like when you bonded with yours."

"That's fantastic! The Deku Tree did say that a Sage could help someone to bond with the Medallion, so it's only fitting Nabooru would manifest one more time to help you bond with it. After all she did to aid us up until now, this is perhaps the best boon she could grant us." Mewtwo replied.

Still smiling, Kalana nodded. "Yeah. I still don't really know any Spirit spells despite having the power of the Sage flowing through my veins, but I think it will find other ways to help us somehow."

"Absolutely. I'm still no expert on magic myself, but now we have an even better chance of success. Come on, we should capitalize on that luck and get moving."

---

The thunder continued to roll through the woods as Kalana and Mewtwo continued on the final leg of their journey. Despite the ominous nature of the sound the duo were still riding high on feelings of renewed hope after their successful bonding rituals. The Deku Tree was true to his word as well, their path was completely clear and straightforward as they made their way further East. No monsters or Sulaaq appeared and there were still no signs of any other Gerudos pursuing them. They walked for a few hours with absolutely nothing noteworthy happening, but the churning storm above them still refused to give them any rain.

The thunder did become noticeably louder and more frequent as they progressed though, and now it seemed to come from all directions instead of just the East. Eventually the trees began to thin out and grow sparse, and that's when Mewtwo noticed something truly ominous. The flashes of lightning he could see through the thinning foliage above them were a bloody neon red color rather than white. He halted in his tracks, tapped Kalana on the shoulder, and pointed up through one of the gaps in the branches. They watched the boiling black storm clouds for a few more moments before another crimson bolt raked the sky above them. Its strike was marked with a deafening thunderclap and a rush of much stronger wind that set the branches into chaotic motion. Kalana gasped quietly and gave Mewtwo a fearful look.

"That's the exact same red lightning that I saw on the night I first found you out in the desert!"

"That can't be a coincidence. But this time around, if someone does drop from the sky again I don't think they'll be friendly." Mewtwo replied.

Kalana gave him a grim nod, and in the absence of anything else they could do or say, the duo pressed on. For an indeterminate amount of time they walked and walked as their previous excitement began to fade into a feeling of anxious dread. Soon Mewtwo could see something casting an ambient red glow on the trunks of the trees ahead. The wind continued to intensify along with the thunder, whipping at their cloaks and making the branches sway violently. Yet despite all this noise and bluster the storm still refused to give up a single droplet of rain. Then the treeline finally broke, giving Mewtwo and Kalana a breathtaking yet terrifying view of a dark panorama.

Mewtwo immediately recognized it as the Sulaaq city he had seen in his vision when he first picked up the Spirit Medallion. But now he could see it in perfect clarity without the indistinct fogginess that had come with that vision. He and Kalana were standing on the top of a gently sloped ridge that marked the boundary of the forest and slid down to an open plain that surrounded the city. This gave them a commanding view of the city stretching out before them all the way to the Eastern horizon. Thousands of crowded black steel buildings covered the land like some sort of sharp, spiky diseased growth. They were all lit by the same red lighting that the Sulaaq loved, though there were signs of white lights here and there as well. Most of the buildings were short and squat with round or boxy, polygonal footprints, while some towered over the landscape in the shape of sinister, demonic high-rise skyscrapers. The biggest of these was the HQ, which was tall enough to reach its spiky claws all the way up into the clouds to violently rake their underbellies. Those clouds were so thick and dark that it looked like it was the dead of night here despite the fact that it was now mid-day. They were churning and bubbling with threatening mammatus patterns and were frequently lashed by searing red lightning bolts. Yet the storm still kept a little bit of clearance around the top of the central HQ tower, as its tip was crowned with the most terrifying thing Mewtwo had ever seen in his life.

Just a few dozen feet or so above the tips of the tower's upward-pointing claws, suspended midair in the center of the storm, was a gigantic glowing red sphere of pure energy. It was easily over 100 feet in diameter and resembled a miniature crimson sun. The clouds swirled in a circular vortex around it, never straying within ten feet or so of the colossal orb, even as near-constant bolts of red lightning danced all around it. Its underbelly cast a blood red glow down upon the city below it, creating just enough illumination for them to see by. Mewtwo deduced that this was the true shape of the weapon that each tower could create, and if he remembered the manuals that he had read before, its visibility meant that the tower's capacitors had reached at least 90% charge. This must have been the source of the "Climate of Evil" that the Deku Tree had sensed. Now Mewtwo knew they really didn't have much time left.

"Goddesses above!" Kalana whispered.

Mewtwo scanned the outskirts of the city for any route they could take without being seen. There was a small stretch of open plains between the city and the forest where they stood; if they tried to cross it on foot then anyone in the city would be able to spot them easily in the red light cast by the tower's miniature sun. There at least weren't any turrets, walls, fences, spotlights, or any other defenses or security measures present here, implying that the Sulaaq felt quite complacent. They most likely never expected anyone to get beyond their bridge checkpoint in Gerudo Valley. Even though the place seemed empty and undefended Mewtwo didn't feel like risking getting sniped by a laser rifle out in the open. Fortunately he could see a portion of the city stretched out close enough to nearly touch the forest about a mile or so North of them. He reached out one arm to point to it.

"That's probably our best point of entry, the trees will provide us cover. I'd prefer to avoid rushing in right away anyway, I don't want us to be inside the city if it's actually about to explode like in the vision the Spirit Medallion showed me. We should head over there and wait for a bit to see what happens."

Kalana nodded in agreement and followed along as Mewtwo began to walk North. They stayed in the trees to avoid being spotted and kept a close eye on the city for any signs of activity. Kalana looked conflicted though, she periodically shot glances up at the gigantic ball of red death looming ominously above the city.

"Mewtwo, I'm worried. Part of me wonders if we really should have made a better effort to find the rest of the Medallions before coming here."

"Hmm, perhaps. But consider the fact that aside from the Shadow Medallion, we have absolutely zero leads on where we could have started our search. Such aimless wandering would have wasted far more time than we could afford, especially now that we know about that." Mewtwo replied, pointing up at the miniature sun.

"I suppose you're right. Even if we did have a Helmasaur to chase Valisse with, it'd be a huge risk anyway if only because of how many Sulaaq have been searching for us. We could blunder into them or my mother's caravan pursuing us. Or get lost trying to backtrack through the Lost Woods, since there's no guarantee the Deku Tree would help us on the way backwards." Kalana said, her words just reinforcing her courage in their decision to abandon the hunt for the Medallions. Still, she seemed to be disturbed rather than relieved. "Shouldn't we be hurrying a bit more then, given the risk posed by that massive fireball?"

"Maybe, but we won't be saving anyone if we get killed or caught trying to reach that tower."

"How much time should we waste then while waiting for the city to explode?"

Mewtwo hesitated for a moment as he struggled to come up with a reply. For all he knew the detonation of the city could happen after they made it to the central tower, or even not at all. He reminded himself of the unreliability of prophecy, especially in the face of the very real and tangible orb hanging above them. Perhaps the wisest course of action was to stop wasting time on anxious speculation and just act decisively to stop the threat.

"Alright Kalana, I think you're right. If nothing happens by the time we reach the point where the forest meets the city then we'll continue on without waiting. I don't want to waffle around until the tower fires."

"Thank you for listening to me. I'm sure that-" Kalana trailed off rapidly though when suddenly a deep roaring rumble interrupted her.

The sound was far too long and sustained to be thunder from the red lightning above them, and its texture was far too even and consistent. It sounded like it was coming from the city much further South, so Mewtwo and Kalana paused to peer through the trees. What they saw confirmed one of Mewtwo's dread-laden suspicions and sent waves of fear through his gut. The dark, silhouetted outline of some sort of starship was beginning to rise up from the ground just outside the city's Southern outskirts. The red light of the doomsday orb glinted off of its hull and Mewtwo stared paralyzed in horror as he took in its details. The ship was roughly shaped like an oblong column with a huge claw on the front made of curved, forward-facing spikes and a cannon barrel in the center. More of those glowing red circular hover drives covered its underbelly. They were the same ones as Mewtwo had seen on the bellies of Sulaaq vehicles, but scaled up to the ship's much larger proportions. The back end had a cluster of conventional thrust-producing jet engines that were glowing a bright neon blue as the ship ascended. Its flanks and top were bristling with numerous weapons turrets of varying sizes and types. The whole thing looked like a floating demonic fortress studded with countless glimmering red lights. Mewtwo could scarcely estimate its size but it had to be at least the size of a small cruiser, being a few hundred feet from stem to stern. Fortunately for them, the ship either hadn't noticed them or didn't care about them; it continued unbothered on its course straight up. It rose up and away from the city over the course of several seconds and then punctured the bottom of the clouds, vanishing into the soupy storm with nary a sound aside from the roar of its engines.

"That must have been one of the great flying vessels from the old legends about the fall of the old world!" Kalana whispered.

"Have you ever seen one of these ships before?" Mewtwo asked.

"No, never. Nor has anyone else since the days of the fall."

Mewtwo and Kalana stood there quietly for a little while longer as they tried to digest the implications of what they had seen. They couldn't tell where the ship had exactly been sitting before or what it had been doing before it took off, but its mere presence was enough to start the wheels turning inside their minds.

"Mewtwo, that ship was going straight up. They're... leaving. If they can use these sky ships to come here from the heavens then they can just as easily return!"

"That's great news though! It means we can get through the city and reach the tower without anyone around to catch us!" Mewtwo replied with cautious excitement.

Kalana grabbed his wrist and began to walk North again, resuming their trek. She spoke now with a renewed sense of urgency in her tone. "That may be true but just think about it for a moment! Why would they be evacuating their ships off our world? I think it means they're about to fire the towers!"

The dread that had already began settling in Mewtwo's gut began to really curdle and intensify. He had been struggling to cope with the now undeniable confirmation that the Sulaaq were an interplanetary force, but now this seemed to be a sign that doom really was upon them. The pressure weighing on them both was multiplying rapidly.

"You're right. Come on, let's keep moving. No more wasting time." He said.

They resumed their course with a renewed haste and covered plenty of ground relatively quickly. The city loomed closer and closer as they ran, filling the horizon and closing in on the treeline. Once they finally reached the point where the outskirts met the trees, some of the clouds swirling around the tower that were still disturbed by the ship now broke apart, sending shredded pieces drifting lower and closer to the ground. Some of these passed in between them and the doomsday orb, blocking the light it was producing and sending scattered, drifting patches of deeper darkness creeping across the city.

Once they arrived Mewtwo could see absolutely no signs of anyone left in the city. It was totally empty and nearly completely silent save for electrical humming and the buzzing of machinery coming from the buildings. The streets were all fairly narrow, having just enough room for two vehicles to pass side-by-side with no sidewalks. There were no traffic signal poles or street lights, so the roads got chokingly dark in the corners and when the cloud patches blocked the light above. The city lacked any visible signs of commerce; there were no advertisements of any sort and every building appeared to be industrial in nature. The only signs he saw were plain utilitarian text over doors, such as "Polymorphic Alloy Processing Plant #7" or "Fuel Cell Production Plant #4." This gave Mewtwo the impression that the whole city was some sort of manufacturing center rather than a place where anyone lived. There were no parks, no benches, no trash cans, no water fountains, or any other kind of common amenity Mewtwo could have expected to see in such a futuristic metropolis. But there were countless cords, cables, pipes, ducts, and scattered old machines all over the place. They clung to the sides of the buildings and hung suspended in the air between them, connecting them together in a messy, haphazard manner. The roads were encrusted with filth and the wind blew loose garbage freely all over the place. The stink of foul smog and pollution suffused the air here despite the wind and the fact that every smokestack was inactive. All of this combined with the horrifying sounds of the wailing wind and rumbling thunder gave the city a menacing yet lonely atmosphere of forlorn dread. The empty liminality of the space created a potent, haunting sense of kenopsia that refused to go away despite the lingering threat that there could be a Chosen or Immortal lurking around any corner, waiting to strike.

Mewtwo and Kalana tried to keep to the smaller alleys as much as they could in order to stay hidden. They still dipped through the streets when they had no choice, but every time they did they clung to the walls and tried their best to keep to the shadows cast by the buildings and the clouds. The oppressive atmosphere of the place kept Mewtwo constantly on edge; his body was now running on a steady drip feed of anxiety and adrenaline. They used the doomsday orb above the central tower as their navigation beacon; its constant massive presence allowed them to orient themselves and stay on a steady path toward the tower as they crept through the city.

Their progress was slow due to the careful pace they were keeping and the circuitous route they often had to take. The streets would have gotten them there far more directly but the need to be stealthy was ever-present. They went down one particularly convoluted, winding alley at one point and ended up faced with a dead end at a locked door.

"Damnit, we're going to have to backtrack. Do you think your palm can open this one too?" Kalana whispered.

"Worth a try." Mewtwo replied.

He looked up at the smudged old sign over the door first. It read "Hull Alloy Foundry #6." No wonder the stink of pollution was getting even stronger here. He put his hand on the small holo-panel next to the door, and just like before it chirped and turned green while the door swished open. They exchanged uncertain glances and Mewtwo took the first step inside.

The interior of the foundry building was absolutely choked with countless thousands of twisted, gnarled pipes of varying sizes. The corridor walls were covered in them, some making smooth parallel lines along the walls and some tangled in incomprehensible knots. The lighting here was far more utilitarian than in the towers, in the sense that it was actually a clean white color rather than dark, bloody crimson. This meant it was easier to see more details, but the number of these lights was still low enough that the corridor felt dim and moody. Their footsteps made dull metallic thunk sounds on the filthy metal grate flooring, but otherwise the place was deathly silent. They tried to keep going in the same direction in order to avoid getting lost in that murky metallic labyrinth, but eventually they ran out of paths that went straight. They hung a left and ended up in a huge circular open room filled with massive casts where molten metal could be poured and cooled in order to solidify into hull plating. Mewtwo understood the basics of how a foundry worked at least well enough to recognize these casts, but most of the rest of the machinery was far too advanced and complex for him to recognize or understand. The place was filled with a wretched metallic stink and it was all coated with a thick layer of dust, rust, and grime which made Mewtwo suspect the plant hadn't been operational in a very long time. Thankfully he spotted a door to the outside and led Kalana over to it, and soon they were on their way once more.

They walked down a few more streets and alleys and soon ended up passing through a handful of other buildings along the way. They snuck through two manufacturing plants, a smeltery, and the top of a mining facility as they moved, all in similar states of disuse and decay. The furnaces were dead and cold, the assembly lines were empty and silent, and the mines were all collapsed or sealed off. They even passed through a storage warehouse that was totally barren save for a few scattered, empty storage crates and shipping containers. All that advanced tech left to rust just left Mewtwo with a sinking feeling; it reinforced the idea that the Sulaaq were done with this world and were getting ready to push the button. They had been walking for multiple hours by the time that Kalana spotted something interesting enough to point out. One of the buildings had very bright white lights glaring out from its windows into a street to their left. Since it wasn't very far out of the way Mewtwo decided to sneak over to it and peek inside.

Relief and happiness washed over Mewtwo when he saw that this was in fact a massive industrial hydroponics plant. Rows upon rows of short, stocky green alien plants were neatly arranged in vertically tiered high-tech liquid nutrition feeding basins. This equipment was all properly maintained and free of rust and grime, and it was all lit up and had liquid actively flowing through the pipes and tubes. Mewtwo even recognized some of the strange purple fruits he had eaten from cans that the Gerudos had stolen from the towers.

"Hungry?" He asked Kalana with a smile.

"Yeah but we don't have time. We need to find this 'Lord Darkest' that Valisse mentioned and kill him first. Then we can come back here for a spot of lunch. Come on."

Mewtwo nodded and followed her down the street, checking the signs on the other buildings as they passed. He wanted to remember where everything important was located so he could find the hydroponics plant again after the upcoming battle. He saw food storage warehouses, a water filtration plant, a huge water reservoir tower, a logistics and distribution center, and an oversized vehicle garage. Then the street dead ended at a building labeled "Slavehouse #4." Kalana seemed to hesitate to go in at first, but the place was directly in their path and Mewtwo forged ahead before she could protest. He pressed his hand against the door's scanner with a look of grim determination on his face; this could be his chance to finally redeem himself and actually rescue some thralls for once.

"I have a very bad feeling that we're going to see something in here that will haunt us for the rest of our lives." Kalana said, her tone conveying a profound sense of terror despite being a low whisper.

"If that's the price of saving these people then so be it." Mewtwo replied firmly.

Mewtwo suspected there might be guards here so he drew his gun as the door slid open. They passed through a small intake room that was totally empty and stripped of furniture, then entered a bare, spartan barracks filled with human-sized bunk beds. Not a single slave or guard could be seen, though Mewtwo's attention was quickly drawn to a series of blinking red screens. Every single bed in the barracks had one of these flat digital screens hung facing down toward its space for an occupant, and every single screen was displaying the same message. There were even several of these same screens mounted on the walls, all also showing the same thing. It was a simple bit of text displayed in English that said "REPORT TO BIOMASS REPROCESSING!"

There were a few doors at various points around the room, only one of which was standing open. Above that one open door was a sign that read "Biomass Reprocessing". Mewtwo could hear a faint rumbling coming from that door that was too steady to be thunder, and the dread in his gut intensified. He remembered what the Chosen had said to Valisse and knew that he didn't want to see what was beyond that door, but he knew he'd never be able to live with himself if he didn't at least check inside to see if anyone in there was still alive and in need of rescue. He rushed over to the door and covered his snout with one hand as a sickly-sweet stench grew stronger the closer he got to it. He braced himself for the worst as he passed through the door and immediately he was confronted with it.

The room he had entered was dominated by a giant sloped pit in the floor that angled down into a colossal industrial grinder machine. It was the type that used two big horizontal axels covered in interlocking parallel steel grinding wheels that were studded with sturdy teeth. As the axles turned the teeth on these densely packed wheels would catch on anything that fell in and inevitably draw it downward into the center where the wheels intersected, resulting in the victim being crushed and torn asunder by the grinding wheels and their teeth. It was perhaps the most nightmarish way to die that Mewtwo could imagine, topped only by immolation since it would be over relatively quickly by comparison. As if to prevent Mewtwo from slipping into a comforting state of denial, fate drew Mewtwo's gaze away from the grinder and toward a huge trash bin on the side of the room just before the ramp of the pit, filled with old, dusty Gerudo clothes and gear. The piles of fresher gear on top, as well as the fresh blood all over the grinder, told Mewtwo everything that he needed to know.

Immediately he whipped around and scrambled to get out of that place, but it was too late to stop his imagination from painting him a hellish mental image of the enthralled Ravéan people marching robotically into the grinder to be shredded into red pulp. The only mercy in all this was that he hadn't been forced to actually see it happen firsthand. He fought back the urge to retch up his stomach contents and braced himself as he leaned against one of the bunk beds. Kalana had come into that room alongside him and she ended up exiting it just as quickly. She looked deathly pale and sickened by what they'd seen and needed a moment to re-compose herself too. For once she failed to keep herself stoic before Mewtwo did and leaned over to empty her stomach contents onto the floor.

"Do you need any help?" Mewtwo asked in an unsteady tone.

He regained his footing and stepped over to offer Kalana some water from his last waterskin but she raised one hand to indicate that she needed him to give her some space.

"No, thank you. I'll be alright. Let's just keep going, I don't want to linger here a single moment longer."

Mewtwo couldn't help but agree. He took one more moment to reorient himself after the mental shock he'd been given and then headed further down the barracks. He opened another door that led out to an alley and they resumed their outdoor skulking while doing their best to forget that vision of hell.

The base of the central tower was now beginning to loom much closer as they walked. Time passed them by uncounted as they progressed and still not a single soul could be seen anywhere. The feeling of anticipation for their looming final confrontation soon grew strong enough to crowd out the lingering horror from the slave grinder though. At any moment they could turn the last corner and be faced with the tower's doors. Mewtwo then realized that he still didn't truly know what type of beings the Sulaaq really were even now, right before he was supposed to fight them. The sheer suicidal recklessness of their plan finally fully hit him and he suddenly felt his fight-or-flight instincts kick in and urge him to turn and flee. He desperately didn't want to die, but he couldn't let Kalana and everyone else down. Ruru, Q'diri, Hadara, Kamilia, Lamira, Nereti, all their faces blinked through his mind. If he failed now, he condemned them all. That was enough to stop his urge to flee, but it did nothing to halt his dread. All he could do was recall Nariva's message to him from before and repeat it to himself again and again.

"Kureela alea Alamúl. Dignity Through Endurance."

As if to purposefully torment him, Mewtwo's subconscious filled itself with terrifying intrusive thoughts. Even if the local tower near Ven'vha was never repaired, his failure could mean the Sulaaq could simply take one of their ships over to the town and capture all the Gerudos by force. His failure could mean Nereti and the others would be next to march into those grinders. He gritted his teeth and inwardly yelled at his own mind, resenting it for forcing him to think of such a thing. He clung tightly to Nariva's mantra again.

"Dignity Through Endurance. Dignity Through Endurance."

They turned another corner and the alley abruptly ended, opening up to a huge rectangular open-air plaza. The whole area was paved with dark concrete and seemed to cover ground all the way from the central tower's base on his left to the city's outskirts on his right. Mewtwo could see the tower properly now and his eyes spotted the familiar shape of the same double doors he'd seen on every other tower he'd visited, though these were twice as large. His heart practically leaped into his throat when he saw it. Time was up, his journey was over, and he still didn't truly know how to fight the Sulaaq. His breath came faster and more ragged as a sense of raw panic began to grip him.

"Dignity Through Endurance. Dignity Through Endurance. Dignity Through Endurance. Dignity Through Endurance!"

Mewtwo desperately cast his gaze around to try to find any possible hint or breadcrumb he could follow. Anything at all that could help him to avoid wandering blindly into that tower without a plan. He saw that the buildings lining the plaza all had doors that opened into it, and many had huge vehicle-sized sliding doors like those on garages or manufacturing plants. This, together with the painted markings on the pavement, made Mewtwo think that this plaza was actually a staging area or military rallying point where thousands of troops and vehicles could gather and form up in preparation for moving out. His eyes flashed up above the doors on the buildings to read their signs and finally he saw the breadcrumb trail he had been desperately hoping for. Just across the plaza from them was a huge, squat building labeled "Troop Cloning Facility #3." If the Chosen and Immortals were of the same species like he suspected then this could be the key to figuring out what they were. There was just one big problem, the plaza was more than 100 feet wide and they would be totally exposed out in the open if they dashed directly across it. Their only chance would be to go around and hug the edges of the plaza, including the base of the central tower itself, before heading to the other side. Mewtwo fought back the lump of dread in his throat and set out, keeping pressed against the buildings in the shadows as he went. Once they reached the base of the central tower Mewtwo picked up some speed and skipped right past the double doors that led inside.

"Mewtwo what are you doing?!" Kalana called out after him as he kept going.

"I found something important. Come on, you'll see!" He replied.

Mewtwo continued along the row of buildings on the other side of the plaza at a breakneck pace while Kalana followed and scowled deeply. She was just about to lecture him about wasting their precious limited time when he stopped in front of a door and placed his hand on its palm scanner. It slid open with a soft airy swish, revealing a small administrative office with two different doors. One was labeled "Maintenance Access" and the other "Cloning Tank Hall A." Mewtwo immediately made a beeline for the latter. Beyond that door was a long rectangular room lined on either side with dozens upon dozens of big cylindrical glass growth tanks. Each tank was huge enough to fit Mewtwo's entire body inside with room to spare. They were all filled to the brim with pale green liquid and dimly illuminated with lights recessed in their upper lids. But aside from some dangling tubes and wires in each one, all of them were unoccupied.

"Damnit! Fuck!" Mewtwo growled under his breath as he ran down the line of tanks, searching for any occupied ones.

"What's wrong?" Kalana asked.

"The sign said this is where they create their Immortals and I was hoping we could find clues here about their true nature. But it's just as empty as every other place in this wretched city!"

Kalana furrowed her brow deeply and sighed. "I guess we did get distracted last time this topic came up back in the woods. Well why not try reading one of the consoles in here?"

Mewtwo immediately felt foolish for not coming up with this idea himself. Each tank had a small glowing console next to it, so he picked one at random and put his palm on its scanner to open it. He was presented with an array of options, none of which seemed immediately helpful on its face. "Begin Gestation Sequence", "Choose Baseline Cloning Template", "Modify Template Settings", "Purge Amniotic Fluid", and "Shut Down Tank Systems" were all he could access. He tapped the button to choose a template, hoping it might give detailed information about the species of the Sulaaq, but unfortunately all he got was a textual list with nothing but names. "Shock Troop", "Officer", and "Aliens." He tried tapping one for more info but all that accomplished was making a selection and getting prompted to begin gestation. He couldn't even select the option to begin anyway; it was greyed out and had a warning next to it that said "Insufficient power!"

Feeling curious, Mewtwo backed out to the previous menu and tried the "Aliens" option next. Now he was presented with another textual list of unfamiliar species names. The size of the list made Mewtwo's stomach churn with even more dread as he scrolled through pages and pages of names. Just how many worlds had they conquered? How many cultures had they enslaved and destroyed? The implication of the vastness of the Sulaaq empire was nightmarish. Names like "Sarienne" and "Khordalum" meant nothing to him, but he knew each one represented an entire planet's worth of people that had been reduced to the same state as Hypalia, if not worse. When he reached the bottom of the list he then spotted a small cluster of familiar names. Hypalian species names. Hylians. Zoras. Gorons. Gerudos. This just confused him even more, why would they use this world as a slave farm if they could just clone new Hypalian slaves themselves? Frustration surged through Mewtwo; this was not only failing to answer his questions about the Sulaaq but was now raising new ones too. He backed through the menus and tried something else; he selected the "Modify Template Settings" option next.

Unfortunately there were no easy answers for Mewtwo here either. There was no fancy preview image or species label for what a Sulaaq soldier was. He was merely presented with a long list of slider bars for adjusting general traits such as height, IQ, muscle mass, and total lifespan. He nearly gave up here until he spotted a couple of interesting options lurking at the very bottom of the list of modifiable traits. There was a slider for adjusting psychic ability strength and a button labeled "Select Secondary Typing (Optional)". He tapped that button and it opened a window containing a complete list of every elemental type that a Pokemon could be, even including unlikely choices such as Fairy, Steel, or Ghost. Suddenly his battles with the Chosen began to make more sense; this confirmed they were indeed a Pokemon of some sort, were primarily psychic types, and could have any secondary type they liked. In fact if they picked Dark type to go along with psychic then it would explain how the Chosen had been able to use all those different psychic abilities while also being immune to Mewtwo's own psychic attacks. This combo of Psychic and Dark would also nullify a Dark type's weakness to Fighting type attacks and a Psychic's weakness to Ghosts, making his Aura Sphere and Shadow Ball moves no longer a guaranteed KO. The more he thought about it the more he realized how deeply in trouble he was now. None of his attacks would be super effective against a foe like this. His entire battle strategy relied on exploiting their type weaknesses to knock them out before they had a chance to knock him out with their super effective Dark type attacks. Now that whole plan was useless! He was going to have to hope that their stolen guns and the divine blessings on their melee weapons would be enough.

"Find anything?" Kalana whispered impatiently.

"Yes, but none of it good. Only hints about their nature, and these hints point toward bad news for us."

"How bad?"

"Do you remember back in the forest when I mentioned the terrible possibility that they could be the same species as me?" He asked quietly.

Kalana paused for a moment as she recalled just how bad that had sounded. "What can we expect from them if that's true?"

"Everything you've seen me do. Flight, teleportation, telekinesis, quick regenerative healing, aura spheres and other beams or orbs of energy, etc etc. It will be bad. Especially if they lack the weaknesses I planned to exploit. Long story short, almost every other sort of nonhuman being like me from my Earth is associated with an elemental energy type. I am psychic, and this makes me weak to some types including Dark, Ghost, and Bug. But it is possible to have more than one type, and this console implies that the Sulaaq could be Psychic and Dark, removing all the weaknesses that just being a psychic would normally have. I would therefore have no possible techniques that could take them down in one attack, while they could have several against me."

Kalana furrowed her brow and paused to think for a brief moment. She came to the same conclusion as him though, and gave him a mixed look as she brought it up.

"Our weapons will still work right?"

"As long as we attack with overwhelming speed and force. We'll need to prioritize headshots to prevent them from healing themselves. If they manage to get the drop on me even once then it's all over."

Kalana's expression sank as the reality of their situation hit her. Perhaps this mission had been doomed from the start and there was no way for them to have known it until now.

"Guess it's too late to turn back now huh?" She asked.

"Even if we did, I get the sinking feeling the towers will fire long before we make it back to the safe zone around Ven'vha. I would rather die trying to stop it than die trying to flee."

The fear vanished from Kalana's face, replaced by a renewed look of resolve. She nodded sharply and looked him right in the eye.

"Damn right. If we're going down then we're going down fighting. Together. We'll show those filthy sulir that there will always be fighting spirit in the hearts of the Gerudo people. Remember that quote from Sumati you shared with me earlier?" Kalana asked.

"It is the spirit of the Gerudo to fight and endure when all hope seems lost." Mewtwo replied with a smile. "I may not be a Gerudo by blood but I will do my damn best to live up to that spirit."

"Sa'veela!" Kalana said, pounding her fist on the console in approval.

With that the duo turned and left the cloning facility with renewed haste. Mewtwo still felt the fear of death clawing at the back of his mind, but the idea of dying valiantly in battle at Kalana's side for a righteous cause at least brought him enough comfort that he could bear it. He sprinted back toward the central tower with his gun at the ready, feeling the heat of pre-battle adrenaline beginning to pump through his veins. Once they reached the base of the tower again Mewtwo saw a fresh set of details that put a damper on his confidence. The doors were studded with hundreds of bleached white skulls just like the gates that separated the Vile Desert from the ruins of Gerudo Valley. But in addition to the human/Gerudo skulls he could also see some huge dome-shaped ones with dull gems set in their teeth, as well as some long, swept ones with elongated tops. Between these skulls were tiny, intricately carved runes. Below them was what looked like the carving of a huge planet as seen from an orbital vantage point. Its continents were unfamiliar and its surface was partially cracked and shattered, with chunks of landmass floating up into orbit. Above the skulls was the carving of another heavenly body that looked like the sun. This one had massive plumes of solar ejecta erupting out of huge rifts on its surface, and these were far too huge to be explained as typical coronal mass ejections. It looked like the sun was blowing itself apart in huge burning jets and clouds. Two colossal cosmic-scale swords had been embedded one each into both the sun and the planet, with the handles pointing inward toward each other with a dark yet beautiful symmetry. These blades straddled the seam between the doors, and right at the center between the blades were two big handles, one per door, with each one looking like a starship oriented vertically. The message seemed clear to Mewtwo: here lived beings who had shattered whole solar systems and conquered the stars themselves. He found himself remembering the menacing titles that the mad thief Ciela had referred to him by. "He whose hunger swallows the stars themselves." "He whose red wrath cracks planets."

Kalana noticed Mewtwo hesitantly standing there and staring at the carving. She reached out and put one hand on his shoulder.

"Don't pay it any mind. It's tacky, self-aggrandizing posturing. They want us to be afraid."

"Normally I am hesitant to show any sign of weakness around anyone, oftentimes even you. But now Kalana, I am... afraid. We have come so far together and the yawning maw of oblivion stands before us, and I am afraid."

In a rare display of her own weakness, Kalana nodded to him grimly. "So am I Mewtwo. So am I."

They locked eyes then and shared a brief, meaningful glance. Then something seemed to come over them both simultaneously, and without a word they gently moved together to share a tight embrace. Once they opened those doors and stepped foot inside there was no way of knowing if they'd ever have a chance to do this ever again, so they did it while they could and closed their eyes to focus on the feeling. Mewtwo was filled to the brim with a chaotic ocean of a dozen different emotions that ranged from lingering fear, to bittersweet sadness at the finality of the hug, to gratitude for the chance to even have it. No matter what happened now, this wouldn't be one of his regrets. He held it for as long as he could, then slowly eased away and turned to look back at the door. With nothing else left for them to do, he stepped forward and placed both of his palms against the door to give it a forceful push.

The weight of the door was as tremendous as its appearance implied. He had to plant his feet cautiously on the pavement in order to put his full strength into it, but even that was barely enough to even nudge it a millimetre or two. Kalana came up alongside him and pressed her shoulder against it too, adding just enough strength to swing it fully open. A wide, dark metal hallway stretched open in front of them and Kalana drew her own weapon and began to creep inside. Mewtwo followed her closely with his head on a swivel, checking every direction for lurking Chosen or Immortals. After a brief walk they arrived at a second set of inner doors, this time lacking any decorative markings. They were much lighter and easier to open too, revealing a huge vertical cylindrical inner chamber just like the ones they had seen in all the other towers, just scaled up considerably in size. It had the same array of energy absorption conduits covered in dripping water in the very center, and it stretched all the way up to the top of the tower with dozens of tiered donut-shaped floors with railings above them. But it did differ in the fact that there was a pair of grandiose curved stairways on either side of the room that led up to the second floor. The light was the same dark red that the other towers sported, but there were intricate carvings of skulls, runes, and starships on the walls around those stairs that he had never seen in any other tower. Then he spotted something standing directly in front of the conduit tower. A figure. It was humanoid in shape, wore blue tattered old Vha'an garb, and had short white hair. A sudden shock of recognition and fear jolted through Mewtwo's core as he realized who this was. Valisse Lasheera! Her eyes were blank and she was standing rigidly straight in a robotic posture, and she was carrying no weapons, save for the Shadow Medallion gripped tightly in her right hand. Mewtwo started to raise his rifle to take aim at her, but she had the drop on him since there was no delay on simply speaking. Perhaps Mewtwo hesitated a little too, not wanting to add yet another body to his count.

"HALT!"

Mewtwo and Kalana both stopped on a dime and involuntarily dropped their guns as their bodies went rigid. Mewtwo tried to clasp his hands over his ears as the sheer volume of the shout made them ring, but the power of Valisse's voice and the Shadow Medallion rendered him immobile and helpless. He could barely even move his eyeballs, though he did see Kalana struggling in an attempt to reach for her dropped weapon.

"Valisse! Please-" Kalana yelled, only to be cut off by the princess's next command.

"BOW AND SUBMIT!"

Kalana winced and yelped as the shout stung her ears and forced her body to disobey her. Her form was wracked with spasms as she violently resisted the magic and strained her muscles against it. Her resistance only lasted a second though, the power of the Medallion forced her to her knees.

Anger at Valisse's recklessness boiled up in Mewtwo's mind as he put up his own fight. He deeply resented the fact that it was her selfish refusal to cooperate with them that was now dooming their mission rather than anything he or Kalana had done wrong. If she had just stayed with them then he could have at least made an attempt at shielding her mind from their psychic control. That anger seemed to help Mewtwo's struggle; he was able to hold out for a second or two before he felt his muscles start to disobey him. A fresh wave of desperation raced through his mind but he still had one last ace up his sleeve. He called upon the energy of the Forest Medallion and tried to use its power to fuel his own mental defenses in order to ward off Valisse's control. He knew it wasn't exactly a grass type move or a Forest spell, but there was no way he'd have time to slowly charge up his Solar Beam attack before Valisse simply issued another command. Despite his skepticism that this would work though, he still felt the warm, verdant aura of power starting to well up from within him. It didn't really function very well as a fuel source for psionics unfortunately, but he did feel it suffusing his body with renewed physical vigor. Everywhere it touched, he suddenly felt his control over his body beginning to return. This allowed him to manage to defy the order to bow. He shakily remained standing, albeit still grimacing and barely able to move otherwise.

At this point his body had begun to softly glow with a faint green aura as the Medallion's magic worked. Kalana seemed to have begun to call upon her Medallion's power at this point too, as Mewtwo noticed the beginnings of a golden glow starting to appear around her as well. Valisse didn't seem to notice the glow, but she definitely did notice Mewtwo's direct defiance judging by the next command she issued.

"KNEEL! NOW!"

Valisse's voice was even more loud and forceful this time, and her whole body glowed with an aura of darkness as she tapped into even more of the Shadow Medallion's power. The sound caused Mewtwo's head to instantly fill with a blinding migraine and he nearly lost his focus on channeling the Forest Medallion's power. This time he couldn't manage to maintain his control and his legs buckled underneath him. Hell fell sharply to his knees and his mind reeled with anger, fear, and a panicked desperation. Solar Beam was his last option now; he had to at least try even if he knew it was almost guaranteed to be interrupted. He didn't want to kill Valisse though, this attack was typically huge enough to be fatal if used against a human. But she wasn't leaving him any choice, if only they had managed to find and destroy the drain device before encountering her! He tried again to hone his focus on the Medallion's power, and for a brief moment he could feel it responding in kind once more. But it was at this point that the last remaining ounce of luck he had been clinging to finally ran out. Valisse noticed the shimmering auras around their bodies and spoke the command that would ultimately seal their fate.

"USE NO SPELLS!"

The glow instantly evaporated from Kalana and Mewtwo's bodies. It was as if those words had completely cut them off from the fonts of power they had been drawing from, even though the Deku Tree had said they were bound to their very souls. Mewtwo tried again and again to conjure it back up, but it felt like scrabbling at a brick wall with his bare hands. He couldn't just give up though, he kept trying and trying and trying until finally he heard the telltale sound of rattling, clanking chains. He woefully raised his head and looked up to see two separate small processions of Ravéan thralls walking down the descending staircases, one on either side of the room. He gave one more final surge of mental effort in hopes of breaking free before it was too late, but then he heard Valisse starting to sing.

Mewtwo immediately recognized the song, it was the same melody he'd heard when the Incantation had played over the radio of their stolen Helmasaur back in Gerudo Valley. But this time it wasn't being sung in Gerudo speech, it was plain and easily understandable English. The sound immediately caused an overpowering fog to start descending on his senses. The room around him started to blur and white out, and his limbs grew numb and deadened. He could only really grok the first few lines of the song before it completely blotted out his consciousness and lulled him into complete thralldom. His eyes rolled back into his skull as he felt the clink of the cuffs on his wrists and the song flowing through his mind.

"Your brain is dead, your mind is numb."
"Your thoughts are trapped beneath my thumb."

"You will obey, you have no choice."
"You are a slave before my voice."

Interlude 3

"You did WHAT?!" Kamilia yelled.

Indiru didn't flinch this time regardless of the fury in her mother's voice. She would have no more secrets or lies to keep track of from now on and the truth was at her back. Even if she was still nervous about her own ability to phrase things in the right way to appease her mother, there was still something deeply bolstering about knowing she wasn't going to lie anymore. As the sun rose over their campsite outside the spirit temple and Indiru and Ruru stood before their furious mothers, Indiru repeated her words without anxiety or shame.

"It's true. Ruru and I snuck into the Spirit Temple last night. But we only did it because we knew that your team of warriors had already swept it for monsters and proclaimed it safe."

"That's right! And since our camp encircled the entrance we knew that no other monsters could have snuck in too!" Ruru added.

"Monsters aren't the only risk! All of the ancient elemental temples were notoriously riddled with traps! Many of those traps were built to reload themselves automatically and were made of sturdy enchanted materials that could still be intact and functional to this day. Especially since they have been shielded from the elements in the interior depths." Kamilia scolded.

"The fact that you two went inside in the middle of the night without telling anyone means that if both of you got stuck or severely hurt then nobody would have realized you were missing until it was too late!" Hadara added.

"Even without considering the danger, you both broke your promises! Do you realize how important it is to honor your word when each of you are training to be Chiefs yourselves one day? Nobody will respect or honor your authority if you can't keep your word." Kamilia said.

"Yes, but we have over a century before we have to worry about carrying those mantles. Besides, I believe it was the will of the Goddess that called us to visit the temple." Indiru replied fearlessly.

Hadara scoffed. "And what exactly makes you think that?"

"Because that's how we got these new circlets and it's where our old tiaras went. We placed those tiaras on Lady Nariva's altar, and with a divine blessing she transformed them into the circlets we're wearing now. There's even physical proof; she left a brand new engraved message on the altar to instruct us on how to use them! I can show you if you don't believe me."

The two Chiefs exchanged uncertain glances, looking as though they didn't know what to make of this story. Worried that they might write her off without going in to check, Indiru decided to take an additional step right now while the Chiefs were off guard. She took off her circlet and held it out to her mother.

"Look. There's an engraving on the inner surface too; it's like a summary of the one she left on the altar for us."

Kamilia took the circlet and examined the inner surface with a skeptical eye. She read it aloud to Hadara and then handed it to her so she could see for herself.

"Should we go in and check it out?" Kamilia asked her softly.

"Divine calling or not, they should have woken us and told us. They could have just as easily obeyed the Goddess's will with us alongside them." Hadara replied.

"That's true. As far as I'm concerned, that means there's no excuse for them to break their promise, Divine calling or not. We should send them back." Kamilia said.

"NO! I told you, we have to come along in order to save the world!" Indiru yelled, her tone starting to become desperate.

"And yet you refused to tell us any more details about why! You claimed your visions were too indistinct and just gave you a gut feeling that you needed to come along. That sounds awfully convenient to me, especially now that you've shown willingness to lie." Kamilia retorted.

Indiru began to quiver as all the anxiety and dread that had been building up inside her came to a head. Her earlier confidence was already rapidly beginning to wilt. Her mother had completely dug out all of her deception with simple reasoning and her neat little web of manipulation was coming apart. She knew that Nabooru was right and she couldn't afford to keep trying to spin that web even deeper, especially now that their mothers had no more reason to believe them. Now was the time for her to come clean and spill the beans, she just had to hope she could put a good enough spin on it like Nabooru had said. There was no time left to plan how to say it; all she could do was wing it and pray that her skills were good enough.

"Alright. I'm sorry, I admit it, I haven't been honest with any of you, even Ruru to an extent. I will tell you everything now. The vision I had that's been tormenting me the entire time was of Kalana and Mewtwo being captured by the Sulaaq. But it wasn't a capture during a pitched battle, nor was it caused by some insidious or cunning Sulaaq ambush. I saw them walk into a gigantic tower at the heart of a colossal dark city, and inside that tower they met a strange looking Gerudo thrall in Vha'an garb. She said something to them that I couldn't hear, and then they struggled for a brief moment before just... surrendering. They bowed in submission willingly and then were chained up and dragged away. I did genuinely get that gut feeling that I couldn't tell anyone else, that part wasn't a lie. It was deep and instinctual, much like my other brief flashes of insight, and most of the time those flashes are right. But I also feared that the nature of this vision would make Arbiter Tusuní and her Doomseers turn on Mewtwo again and try to kill him. That's why I lied. I didn't know how to handle what I saw and I couldn't tell if they surrendered willingly or if they were caught by something like the incantation. I thought if I was there to warn Mewtwo and Kalana in person instead of telling everyone about the vision then the Doomseers would never have a reason to rise up again. That's the honest truth!"

"Well I can tell you one thing, my Kalana would never give herself up willingly to the Sulaaq. Even if there was a reason to doubt Mewtwo's intentions there can be none regarding Kalana's. Logically that means they must have been caught without their earplugs in the Incantation." Hadara replied.

"Or the thrall they met is Princess Valisse Lasheera and she used her voice powers to control them!" Ruru chimed in.

Kamilia turned and shot a truly deadly glare at Ruru. Indiru saw it and her heart began to race; she had to keep Ruru from making their situation even worse than it already was. She blurted out even more now before Kamilia could verbally lay into Ruru.

"That's not everything though. I'll tell you why we decided to sneak into the Temple last night too. Yesterday during the big group prayer session I broke the rules and looked up and saw the ghost of Nabooru standing on the Colossus's hand for a moment. I told Ruru about it and she got very excited about it. We didn't say anything immediately but it was memorable enough to stick with us both. Then, last night in the middle of the night I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamed that Mewtwo attacked and killed Kalana with a dagger, and I woke from that dream in the early AM in a state of panic. In that dream he had a horrible look of rage in his eyes. Not only did I not know whether it was a true vision or just a dream, but it compounded on the fear I was already trying to hold back from the last vision. I've been holding all of this back not only out of fear of the Doomseers rising again, but also because... well... I don't actually know how Mireth's Prophecy will end either. My powers refuse to tell me anything about it too. I lied about seeing the answer to placate the Doomseers when they first rose up and everything since then has been to hold that lie together."

Both of the Chiefs and Ruru were silent for a moment as they processed this. Indiru felt her heart racing in her chest as she waited for their response. She was starting to realize that her fear had just driven her to blurt everything out raw without any spin on it and she was terrified it wasn't going to be enough to get them on her side. Her mind was flailing like a swimmer on the surface of a stormy ocean and she didn't know what to do. She had to try again, but her thought process couldn't really come up with a spin. Instead it just continued to dump more and more of the truth out into the open.

"And mom... I'm really sorry for this, but I lied about us finding Ciela during this trip too. I still don't know anything about her plight, I just said it because I knew it'd be the only thing that could convince you to vote yes on this mission in the absence of the truth. I'm... I'm really sorry. I don't deserve to be a Vha'an chief."

Indiru already felt buried under a mountain of shame as she made all these admissions, but the look that came over her mother's face at that point was what really drove that guilt in deep. It was a look of profound sadness and disappointment, and it was one of the rawest, most unfiltered looks that Indiru had ever seen from her mother. Now she realized she had really botched it, there was no reason for her to have told them this last part now other than to assuage her own guilt, and the timing was the worst possible since it legitimately imperiled their entire mission. Now there really was no possible way to spin words like these that could make things look more favorable to her, and now it was too late to take it back.

"What does any of that have to do with going inside the Spirit Temple though?" Hadara suddenly asked.

"That was my idea." Ruru interjected. "I thought we might see the ghost of Nabooru again and she might comfort Indiru. Not only was I right, but we even got these blessed circlets from the Goddess too! That's gotta count for something!"

"Perhaps. And maybe the lack of prophesized success means that it's more important than ever that we continue this journey rather than turning around. Kurala may be right, we could need to be there to stop Mewtwo before he betrays Kalana." Kamilia said in an icy cool tone.

"He won't! That must have just been a nightma-" Ruru began to shout before Hadara cut her off.

"DO NOT push your luck young lady! I will not hear any more of your impudence, especially now that you've shown so much disrespect for the rules!"

Tears welled up in Ruru's eyes now but she clammed up regardless. Hadara then turned to address Kamilia, who had taken on a totally cold, indifferent facade.

"Which Helmasaur should we choose to send them back in?"

"None. We can't send them back now." Kamilia replied tersely.

Hadara furrowed her brow in confusion. "What? Why not?"

"We need the warriors it would be carrying now more so than ever. We can't just take the ten who would be displaced from one Helmasaur and shove them into other vehicles, they won't fit. I won't give them up now, not when we might need them to help us stop the Traveler from murdering your daughter. Besides, it's become clear to me now that coddling Indiru has not stopped her from lying to and manipulating me. She has obviously learned nothing from the last time she defied my rules and used her Seer powers to justify reckless and foolish behavior. Now that she has done it again, it's time she saw the true consequences of her actions. Her actions set us on this course and now she should bear witness to it when our people die in combat with the Sulaaq."

"Kamilia... isn't that a little-" Hadara began.

"Harsh? Perhaps. But this is what she wanted and I think it's time for her to truly see that the intentions behind her actions don't matter as much as the consequences they cause. And if somehow this all does work out and those circlets prove to truly be evidence that the Goddess willed these events, then it's vital to allow them to continue on their current path. I will answer to the consequences of that decision myself in front of the entire assembly of the three tribes if I have to, assuming any of us survive the coming battle."

Hadara struggled to find words for this; she furrowed her brow and gave Kamilia a conflicted look. Then she turned to Ruru and gave her a quick order.

"Ruru, go find Madiri and help her with packing the caravan for departure. We'll discuss your punishment later."

Looking somewhat mollified by her mother's decision Ruru nodded quietly and turned to go. But before she got far, something inside her changed. Whatever was holding her back finally gave way and she turned and walked right up to Kamilia with a look of unrestrained fury on her face.

"Indiru didn't ask for these powers you know!" She yelled, indignant rage boiling to the surface.

"Ruru!" Hadara gasped.

"Shut up and let me finish!" Ruru yelled right back at her, then returned to her tirade. "Do you think she wants to wake up screaming in terror at night? Do you think she enjoys carrying the weight of all these burdens? Do you understand the fact that she hasn't had decades of training in responsibility or help in coping with her trauma? She's just a kid! Maybe I am too but at least I know the stuff I'm getting myself into is dangerous and I choose it anyway! But Indiru had it forced on her and nothing she ever does has ever been good enough for you or anyone else!"

"This is none of your concern." Kamilia replied with a cold, dismissive tone.

"Like hell it isn't! She's a member of our team of Four Heroines! Heroines who stick up for each other!"

Hadara came up to grab and drag Ruru away at this point but she violently slapped her hands away. Indiru's eyes welled up with fresh tears as she felt a cascade of emotions storming through her. Nobody other than Ciela had ever stood up for her like this before. Kamilia's calm demeanor finally began to break down now, she turned and spoke to Ruru with a low, lethal tone.

"What do you even want from me now?! Didn't I give you what you wanted by ordering the journey to continue and letting you both come along despite all you've done?"

"I want you to tell me what you would have done in Indiru's shoes! Tell me what she could have done differently that would have achieved all of this without making you angry!"

"I wouldn't have gone to the tower and gotten Ciela captured!" Kamilia yelled, her composure finally fully shattering.

In that yell, all four of them could hear the raw, broken anguish spilling out that Kamilia had been keeping buried for so long. All her touching moments with Indiru and her promises to Mewtwo couldn't just magically take away all the grief and trauma of a mother who had lost her daughter, so despite her appearances of making progress up until now, the pain had just been lurking beneath the surface and waiting for a perfect moment to burst its way free. Indiru buried her face in her hands and cried softly while Hadara and Ruru stared in appalled shock at Kamilia. Kamilia instantly realized what she had done and the anger dissolved off of her face, replaced with an expression of devastated regret. The looks of contemptuous shock on both Hadara and Ruru's faces, combined with the sobs of her daughter, filled Kamilia's stomach with a deep, black, tar-like pit of self-loathing that took her breath away and left her speechless. What had she done?!

"Kamilia, maybe it's for the best that I watch over Indiru for a little while. Perhaps for a day or two." Hadara said.

"Maybe it is for the best, yes." Kamilia replied quietly.

Hadara walked over and took Indiru's hand, then began to lead her away. Indiru followed them quietly at first, but something about Ruru's righteous fury had set a spark in her soul that was now catching fire. She stopped in her tracks, pulled her hand out of Hadara's, and turned to face her mother. Enough was enough.

"Ruru was right, I never asked for any of this! Maybe I was wrong for lying about Ciela, but you know what? I'm done! I'm never willingly using my powers for you or anyone else ever again!"

Then, to make that promise really stick, Indiru ripped the circlet off of her head and violently hurled it at the ground! It struck the cobblestones of the Spirit Temple's plaza with a loud, pronounced CLANG! It bounced a few times, rolled several feet, and came to rest right at Kamilia's feet. Indiru then turned back around and took Hadara's hand again to follow them away. They left Kamilia standing alone behind the rows of parked Helmasaurs in silence, and once they found privacy Indiru broke down crying again, unable to hold back the weight of her failures.

"I'm so sorry Nabooru! I tried to spin it but I couldn't do it! I tried! I tried!"

Hadara did her best to comfort her with a hug, and Ruru joined that hug without hesitation. But there was something else Ruru needed to do too. She whispered a quick "I'll be right back" and slipped away to backtrack to where they had left Kamilia.

Ruru found Kamilia still standing there in the same spot with a sorrowful look and tears rolling down her face. She had picked up Indiru's circlet and was staring balefully at the inscription.

"Clarity through Temperance." She was mumbling to herself quietly.

Still driven by that same righteous, protective indignation, Ruru charged right up to Kamilia and yanked the circlet out of her hands.

"You don't deserve this!" She snapped at Kamilia, then turned and marched off without any other words.

"Perhaps you're right." Kamilia whispered.

---

Even though the pain from Indiru's rift with her mother that morning was still fresh, she had to admit that riding along with Hadara and Ruru was very comforting. More and more she was coming to regard them as her second family. She spent time relaxing with Ruru for most of the day as their caravan left the Spirit Temple and resumed their trek across the Vile Desert. It was mid afternoon by the time they came across a massive wall of blowing sand that blocked their path. They stopped there and tried to wait out the storm for awhile, hoping it would dissipate or move on after a few hours, but strangely it refused to budge an inch or weaken even slightly.

After at least two hours of this waiting the Chiefs began to argue vociferously over the Helmasaur communicators about whether they should risk trying to push through it. Hadara and Kamilia were already on shaky ground again after that morning and they couldn't seem to agree about whether it was worth the risk to try to navigate the storm on Rainbow Vision. Ultimately it took the Arbiters siding with Kamilia and breaking the tie vote in favor of taking the risk before they finally set out again. They had agreed that their overnight stay at the Temple had wasted far too much time already and it was better to try navigating the storm during daylight hours than to risk it in the darkness of night. What ensued was several hours of agonizingly slow creeping through the howling winds as the caravan struggled to stay on course and stick together. The storm tried its very best to blow them Southward and separate them, but frequent use of the comms together with the Rainbow Vision at least kept them together. They still ended up lost despite the combined best efforts of all their navigators, and the frantic comms chatter of the increasingly nervous pilots kept most of the passengers, including Ruru and Indiru, from taking any naps.

Nervous anxiety gripped Indiru as the storm continued. She began to feel guilt pushing her to use her powers in order to divine a safe route through the storm, but her stubborn tenacity from that morning was still fresh. Occasionally she caught a few glances of their fellow passengers subtly turning their gazes on her expectantly. She didn't need to ask them why; she knew they wanted to ask for such a vision but were too mortified by the rumors of that morning's argument to dare it. Fortunately nobody in there with them did, but Indiru thought she heard the topic come up over the communicators a few times. Yet despite these circumstances, it seemed fate itself was determined to test Indiru's resolve. A few times during the drive while she was peeking around the corner at the pilot's screen she began to feel the familiar telltale sensation of a new spontaneous vision getting ready to hit her out of the blue. Rather than just sitting back and taking it though, this time she tried actively beating it back with sheer force of will and concentration. Somehow this actually seemed to work. The pain of those visions trying to fill her mind still hit her in full since she refused to wear her circlet now, but she still managed to push the visions themselves back via sheer angry determination. She didn't know what surprised her more, the fact that this actually worked or the fact that she'd never thought to try it until now.

As time crawled by and the caravan lurched onward, a growing sense of sinking dread began to take root in Indiru's mind despite the relief she felt over successfully fighting off her visions. At first she was unsure of where that feeling was coming from; she initially thought it was emotional dread over how she would handle the rift with her mother, but then she realized that they were getting close to that place. The place she had seen that was filled with the bones of the dead. She had known they would eventually have to pass through that nightmarish place but the reality of actually facing it down imminently made the pain of her resisted visions fade to the back of her list of things to worry about. Even if they did manage to get through that storm without getting further lost or separated, the bleached bones were waiting silently for them.

"For Goddesses' sake, how long have we even been wandering around in this storm now? Hours? We could be facing an entirely different direction by now thanks to that wind!" Kurala's voice suddenly came in over the comms.

"As far as we can tell the direction of the wind has been consistently southward. As long as we keep going perpendicular to it then we know we're still heading East." Nereti replied, her tone far calmer.

"But can we actually tell if the wind has been consistent? It's not like the Rainbow Vision lets us see the blowing sand!" Kurala retorted.

"Can't we just ask-" Someone else began to say, but was rapidly cut off by Kamilia.

"Don't! Do not even say it, Nahli. You know not what sort of hornet nest you are about to strike. I may have a solution anyway."

At this point Hadara picked up her handset and interjected. "What sort of solution?"

"My senses. I have a talent for detecting magic, remember? This whole region has been awash in it ever since we entered the storm." Kamilia replied.

"Really? How is that possible? Are we not in the range of at least one tower at all times out here? From where comes the magic?" Hadara asked.

"I don't know, remember my gift just allows me to sense its presence, it doesn't come with detailed information about the source. But I can tell you one thing, since spirits and ghosts are magical by their very nature, I can also sense their presence, and there are many of them out here. If you let me take lead of the caravan, I bet I could use the positions of spirits around us to get my bearings and keep us heading on a straight course."

"Huh, navigation via witchery. That's a clever idea and certainly one that never would have occurred to me on my own. Why not? I've certainly not had any better luck myself. I concede the lead to you Kamilia, lead on."

Hadara stopped them in their tracks and let Kamilia's 'saur glide past them. She followed close behind and silence fell over the radio as everyone watched expectantly. There were no outward signs that this was working for a good while though. Soon Indiru lost interest and returned to her brooding thoughts, and an indeterminate amount of time passed while everyone waited with bated breath. It was only once Indiru had become fully distracted that their attention was caught by a precipitous dropoff of the wind and a gasp of amazement from the driver's seat.

"Thank the goddesses!" Hadara said, then flipped off the Rainbow vision so she could navigate normally again.

Indiru saw the air clearing before them and a late evening landscape opened up before her eyes. There was the end of the Vile Desert stretching out ahead of them just as she'd seen, marked by the dark shapes of the rocky hills that hid the deathly place. Knowing what was coming, Indiru got up and returned to her seat next to Ruru. She heard Hadara and the others excitedly talking over the communicator again as she did.

"Hah, I knew it! This old third eye of mine still sees clearly!" Kamilia boasted loudly.

"Well done. Even I have to admit that that was a very clever use of your gift, Kamilia. I'll take the lead again for now." Hadara replied.

Indiru wasn't smiling though, she was still acutely aware of what was coming next. Ruru noticed the deathly serious look on her face and furrowed her brow as she asked about it.

"Hey Indiru what's wrong? Still thinking about this morning?"

"No. We're... we're about to pass through a really bad place." Indiru replied quietly.

"What makes it bad? Monsters? Sulaaq?"

"No, nothing you can fight that's made of flesh and blood. It's filled with tragedy."

Ruru didn't know what to say to this so she wordlessly took Indiru's hand and gave it a supportive squeeze. Indiru listened to the comms chatter as it rose to an excited pinnacle before suddenly dropping off precipitously once they reached the skull-covered gate. A lump formed in Indiru's throat and another wave of sickness washed over her as the visions attempted to hit her again.

"By the Goddesses..." Hadara said softly as she stopped them in front of the gate and took in the sight.

Meanwhile Indiru winced painfully as she worked to beat back the visions again. This batch proved far more stubborn and insistent than the last few though. She clutched her head tightly as the mental struggle caused searing hot ethereal pokers of pain to jab into her head from multiple angles.

"No! Stop it! Go away!" She groaned out involuntarily, catching Ruru's attention again.

"Indiru what's wrong?! Are you hurt?!"

Several of the other Rakeshan Gerudos in the cabin with them took notice as well and gave Indiru worried looks.

"Do you think we should ask the Chief to call Fara over the comms?" One of them asked.

"No! It's fine, I'm fine!" Indiru insisted, not wanting them to attract her mother's attention.

"Is it another vision? Here, put this back on, it'll help!" Ruru said, pulling out Indiru's circlet and offering it to her.

"No! I'm not going to take any more visions! I'm done with them!" Indiru protested, still clutching her head.

"Take? What do you mean? You can reject your visions?" Ruru asked.

"I just figured out how to do it today." Indiru replied.

Finally the pain began to subside and Indiru was able to let go of her head. She raised it up and saw that every other person in the passenger cabin was giving her a worried and sympathetic look. She felt exposed and embarrassed, and that feeling only got worse when one of them spoke up.

"Are you sure you're ok? What if that vision was an important one?"

"I don't care! Nobody will believe me anyway!" Indiru snapped.

"Indiru! Please be silent!" Hadara scolded gently from the driver's seat, then resumed her conversation on the comms.

Everyone in the passenger cabin went silent again. Indiru saw the women who had spoken up now furrowing her brow with concern, so she shot a death glare at her until she looked away. Sour, biting resentment stewed in Indiru's mind. These people had no idea of the extent of the pain she'd been through. They were just as likely to crow about how unreliable her powers were while still begging her for more revelations. She chewed on that feeling of acrid bitterness in her mind again and again until she heard a loud gasp over Hadara's comms device.

"Goddesses above! I can't even count them all! How many do you think there are?"

Ah yes, the skulls. The rear portions of the caravan must have finally caught up with them and spotted the skull-studded gate. The chatter only intensified from here.

"This has to be a warning. 'Beware all ye Gerudo who dare to return here.'" one driver said.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to go in there? I have a horrible feeling about this."

"This is the route that the Seer Princess saw isn't it?"

"Yes but what if she's wrong this time and is accidentally leading us into a Sulaaq ambush?"

There was that doubt again. Indiru clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut as she contained her anger. In this furious, freshly trauma-riddled state she was mentally lumping all her fellow tribeswomen together into one uniform, fickle mass of horrible, demanding monsters. She might have kept stewing until the anger was too much to keep bottled up if it weren't for Hadara letting out a little frustrated outburst over the mic.

"Enough! Seer or no Seer, do any of you see any other passes through these hills?"

Nobody spoke up in reply.

"I didn't think so! We could theoretically try diverting North or South to search for another pass but it could take hours or even days that we just don't have. We've already fallen behind Mewtwo and Kalana enough as it is. If there's any Sulaaq in here then I'm confident we have the weapons to defeat them! Isn't that what we came out here to do in the first place?"

"Damn right it is!" Arbiter Kurala's voice came over the speakers in reply.

"Right! Stay in close formation behind me and gunners keep your eyes sharp for any threats. If you see any vehicles without our insignia painted on them then shoot on sight!" Hadara ordered.

The caravan began to move again and Indiru leaned on Ruru quietly rather than peering around at the screens. She didn't want to see those skulls again. Ruru took her hand and gave it another reassuring squeeze, which soothed Indiru's anger and made it easier for her to tune out the world.

"Sorry for yelling." Indiru whispered to her.

"Shh, it's ok. Like Mewtwo says, there's nothing to forgive."

They rode along for awhile longer until the caravan came to a stop again. More emphatic talk poured out of the comms as they came to a halt in front of the ancient ruins of the Gerudo Fortress, but Indiru tuned it all out. She felt yet another stabbing wave of agony assault her skull as her powers fought to assert themselves, and again she refused to give in and allow them in. She completely hid the pain this time so the others wouldn't notice and meddle in her business. Chances were that they probably wouldn't have noticed though, as everyone was transfixed by the rediscovered ruins their ancestors' home. The discussion about what to do here was loud enough that everyone in the cabin could make it out clearly, but people were still clambering up to the gap between the cabin and driver's side and tussling over it to get a view of the screen. Indiru didn't hear a word of it as Hadara and the other Chiefs decided to stop and briefly scout the area before continuing down the Eastern pass. She was still tuned out when the crowd opened the back ramp and piled out. By the time Indiru's pain stopped and she was able to return to her senses she was alone in the Helmasaur with Ruru. She was just about to ask Ruru what was going on when Arbiter Nereti poked her head through the back door to check in on them.

"You girls staying out of trouble in there? Kamilia asked me to check on you to make sure you're alright."

"Yes Miss Teléma." Ruru replied politely.

Indiru couldn't conjure up much of a verbal reply other than a soft hum and a quick nod of her head. She was still reeling from how bad that last vision attack had hurt. Nereti noticed the signs of Indiru's distress and climbed aboard to sit down next to her.

"That didn't seem very convincing." She said with a soft but insistent tone.

Ruru gave Indiru a worried, uncertain look that seemed to imply that she didn't want to speak for her or spill any of her secrets. She waited and let Indiru speak first.

"It's nothing serious, you should be helping the others out there, they might run into some monsters."

"The three Chiefs are working with Arbiter Tusuní, they can take care of themselves just fine. It's you I'm more worried about. I haven't seen you or your mother acting like this since the day we lost your sister." Nereti replied.

Indiru winced sharply, both from the reminder of that terrible day and from the worry that she had done so poorly at hiding her emotions.

"Am I that transparent? The whole caravan must be talking about me."

"No, I'm just a lot more perceptive than most people. What's bothering you?" Nereti asked.

Indiru debated with herself over how much to say. She knew that Nereti was wise and trustworthy; she was the most beloved Arbiter that the Vha'an people had ever appointed. But did they have time to go over Indiru's whole fight with her mother? She had no way of knowing how long the scouting mission would take and she knew she didn't want the rest of the public to know about any of this. Ultimately her subconscious mind didn't give her much of a choice; she needed someone else to confide in aside from Ruru and Hadara. She needed someone whose wisdom would allow her to give better advice than Ruru, and someone who could do something for her without being bound by the need to be diplomatic like Hadara was. It was an Arbiter's duty to act as a check on the Chief's power after all. Most importantly of all though, her gut instinct to keep her visions a secret was starting to fade. Perhaps it was the fact that she felt freed by telling the truth so openly before, or perhaps it was just the fact that she felt Nereti to be so intrinsically trustworthy. Either way she asked Nereti to close the Helmasaur door so they could have some privacy and then let it all pour out of her, starting from how she blamed herself for Ciela's capture, going through how she lied to everyone in order to manipulate them, and ending with her recent fight with her mother.

She did her absolute best to speak quickly and succinctly to best use their time alone, but she couldn't leave out the warning that Kurala and the Doomseers couldn't be told a word of any of it. Tears poured down her face as she admitted to everything again; it wasn't an easy topic to discuss and she was worried Nereti would judge her for all her lies. To Nereti's credit though she showed no signs of anger or judgment as she listened, and once Indiru finished she gave her a nod of understanding.

"That's quite a lot to take in all at once, little seer." Nereti said gently.

"A-are you going to lock me up in the Arbiter's Grounds for lying to everyone?"

"Heavens no! Of course not! You're just a child Indiru. You had this power and responsibility forced upon you at far too young an age. When I was your age I was spending all my time playing Keese & Leevers with my friends and beating training dummies senseless with my practice staff. Nobody your age should be expected to go through what you've been through, especially without making mistakes." Nereti replied in a comforting tone.

"Then... what are you going to do?" Indiru asked.

"Once we leave this valley I'm going to make some time to sit down with your mother and have a long, difficult conversation with her about how she's acted. I don't know how it'll go, but I do know that if anything bad happens you can always stay with Hadara a little while longer. I don't know how long the tribes are going to stay together after this journey is finished but I'd trust Chief Hadara with my own daughter if I had one."

Quiet relief washed over Indiru and she hugged Nereti tightly. Taking a few moments to regain her composure, she clung to the Arbiter and drew a few deep, steady breaths.

"Thank you Miss Teléma. You'd make a great mom too."

"You can just call me Nereti, ok little one?"

Indiru nodded and was just about to let go of Nereti when the pain of another vision attack hit her even worse than before. She yelped in agony and dug her fingers into Nereti's sides, causing Nereti to gasp. Indiru hadn't really been too descriptive about how bad the attacks were getting when she told her about them, but that grip communicated everything without a need for words.

"Goddesses above! Indiru are you ok? Maybe you should put the circlet on again, if only to stop the pain."

"NO! I won't! I'm sick of this power! All it does is lead me into disasters and make people distrust me!" Indiru yelled through the pain.

"Not always. It gave us this route through the desert didn't it? It helped you sneak onto our caravan and warned you to keep the right secrets from the Doomseers didn't it? Come now, you don't even need to tell anyone what you see, just wear the circlet for the sake of your health." Nereti insisted.

Ruru then reached down to open the storage compartment under her seat and pull out the circlet again. Indiru hesitated for a brief moment as she peeked through her squinting eyes. Nereti's words made sense but the pain was definitely the most compelling argument. She relented with a groan and grabbed the circlet to slip onto her head. The relief came over her instantaneously. The pain evaporated entirely and in its absence she felt waves of cool, soothing relief. It felt like she had snuffed out a fire in her hair by dunking her entire head into a cold, refreshing oasis.

A side effect immediately became apparent though: Indiru could no longer reject a vision while she was wearing her circlet. This especially insistent one that she'd been trying to hold off came in at full force the moment the metal touched her head. Fortunately it was at least as painless as the last one she'd experienced with the circlet on. She saw their caravan packing up and leaving the ruin-filled clearing that they were parked in right now. She knew this one was terrifyingly imminent, perhaps taking place mere minutes from now. She saw them enter the Eastern pass and drive down a tight, twisting corridor. Kamilia's Helmasaur was in the lead this time, so she was the first one to emerge into a new clearing filled with Sulaaq buildings. There was a huge canyon here, the same one she'd seen while foreseeing Mewtwo's route. The Sulaaq bridge over it was guarded by four guardhouses, each of which was topped with a massive double-barreled gun turret. She hadn't seen those guns last time!

A shock of horror struck Indiru as she saw the two closer turrets open fire on Kamilia's Helmasaur with both barrels. Four massive beams of blinding red light seared through the air instantaneously, blasting directly through the Helmasaur's armor and scorching black circles onto the stone wall behind it. The damn thing didn't even stand a chance, the armored hull was useless against weapons that large. Kamilia might have had time to pull back if she hadn't been taken by surprise and blocked in by the caravan behind her. The Helmasaur detonated violently with a neon red fireball and most of its mass seemed to evaporate instantly under the intense heat. Hardly anything was left as that fireball floated up away from the gutted wreckage, though the vision mercifully ended before Indiru could catch a glimpse of her mother's charred remains.

Indiru awoke from the vision with fresh adrenaline pounding through her veins. She leaped out of her seat and bolted out of the Helmasaur's top hatch, leaving Nereti and Ruru confused in her dust. She found her mother standing at the head of a huge meeting of all three tribes alongside Hadara, Lamira, and Kurala. She pushed her way through the crowd to approach them, not caring that she was interrupting yet another meeting.

"Mom! Please! You have to listen to me! We can't go through the Eastern pass! It's a trap!"

Lamira turned to Kamilia and gave her a withering look of disappointed disbelief as though she couldn't believe Kamilia still hadn't taught her daughter not to do this. Hadara furrowed her brow with worry and Kamilia facepalmed again. Nereti came running up to the meeting at this point too, but didn't have time to get a word in. Just like last time it was Kurala who pressed Indiru for more information.

"What sort of trap?"

"Guns! Four huge ones! They're guarding the bridge we need to cross! I didn't see them last time but I just saw them now! If we go charging in they'll destroy any Helmasaur we send and kill everyone inside!"

Soft, fearful murmuring coursed through the crowd and all three Chiefs scowled deeply.

"Does this mean that you might have accidentally sent Mewtwo and Kalana to their deaths here at the hands of these guns?" Hadara asked.

"No, I already foresaw them making it to the heart of Sulaaq territory, remember? That means they must have figured out a way past the guns safely already." Indiru replied.

Of course this was a bit of a half truth. She had foreseen them making it all the way there only to be captured, but she didn't need to mention that in front of Kurala. Now she was finally trying her luck at "spinning" the truth rather than outright lying or spilling the beans like Nabooru suggested, and so far it seemed to be working.

"Can you tell us everything about these guns that you saw? Be as detailed as possible please, we need to come up with a plan to get past them." Hadara said, cutting off Lamira before she could make a snippy rude comment at Indiru.

Indiru nodded and grabbed a nearby sharp rock from the ruins and then began to scratch a crude top-down diagram of the entire upcoming clearing into the dirt. Soon the three Chiefs and both Arbiters had gathered around her to watch. Once she finished they knelt down alongside her and began to discuss ideas for a plan while the rest of the tribeswomen encircled them and peered down over their shoulders to watch and listen. Indiru noticed that nobody was hurling doubt at her this time, not even Lamira, a fact which went a long way toward easing the resentment and guilt she'd been struggling with ever since they left the Spirit Temple. She felt seen, heard, and validated by them as they knelt alongside her and talked strategy. She dared to sneak a quick darting glance up at her mother's face, but Kamilia was too busy focusing on their discussion to notice.

"Ok, here's the plan. The pass is too narrow for more than one Helmasaur to fit through at a time, but it does widen out before opening up to the clearing. We line up two of the ones with intact guns in the opening of the clearing before the corner and then have as many of our warriors cling to the outside of their hulls as possible. I'm hoping that at least six can fit on the tops and sides of each 'saur in total. Give them each a Sulaaq rifle and instruct them to focus their fire on the turrets. When all are ready, both 'saurs will charge around the corner and open fire before the guns can react. The left 'saur and its riders will shoot at the left turret and the right 'saur will shoot at the one on the right. Hopefully with all that simultaneous laser fire from the 'saurs and six rifles it will be enough to penetrate any armor on the guns and cause both of the ones on our side of the canyon to explode before they can return fire. Just in case it's not, I want everyone on rifle duty to disregard our usual combat doctrine of conserving ammo with short controlled shots. Set your rifles to full auto and plug away as fast as you can, and don't stop shooting until those guns explode or your reservoirs run dry. Then, hopefully the structure of the two guardhouses on our side of the canyon will obscure the line of fire of the ones on the opposite side, keeping us safe from their fire. The smoke from the explosions should also help with this. Next, we park the Helmasaurs behind the guardhouses on our side for cover and have everyone climb down and hide behind them on foot. With proper coordination, we have everyone peer around the edges of those guardhouses and open fire on the turrets on the opposite side of the canyon simultaneously again until they explode too. When the guns are all disabled we can then enter the near guardhouses and find the consoles in order to use them to extend the bridge and cross the canyon. Does everyone understand?" Nereti asked.

"Yes ma'am!" The crowd replied loudly.

"Kurala and I will each take a top spot on one of the two attacking 'saurs, so we need ten more people to volunteer as external gunners, two more as internal gunners, and two more as drivers." Nereti added.

Most of the crowd immediately called out to Nereti to volunteer despite the risk involved. Then Indiru heard Ruru come up alongside her and call out to Nereti too.

"I'll do it!"

"Oh no you won't. Come on you two, back to the rear Helmasaur, both of you." Hadara replied with a tone that was firm but not harsh.

Hadara marched over and picked up Ruru and Indiru, one under each arm, and carried them back to the Helmasaur they had been in before. Indiru heard chuckles roll through the crowd as they watched this take place and she couldn't help but smile a little. She'd successfully passed along the warning now and didn't need to protest as she was carried off.

"If there was a way to lock these damn things from the outside I would. You two make the worst team of troublemakers I've ever seen!" Hadara said with an exasperated tone.

"We just wanna help is all!" Ruru protested.

"And you already know the reasons why I can't let you."

"Yeah yeah yeah. Can we at least watch the battle when it starts?" Ruru asked.

"You're pushing your luck now vehví. No you can't, we have to keep the rest of the caravan out of the line of fire so it doesn't get shot. But if it will keep the two of you occupied and you don't touch any of the controls I'll leave the communicator on so you can listen in on the events. Just promise me you'll stay put for once! Really promise me this time, no more divine-ordered exceptions!"

"Ok, promise!" Ruru said, then offered her hand to her mother for a handshake.

"Sa'oten. When this is all over you and I are going to have a very long talk, vehví." Hadara said, then took that hand and gave it a brief shake.

Wanting to get back to the meeting as quickly as possible, Hadara gave them each a quick kiss on the forehead before flicking on the radio and dashing out. Ruru immediately hopped into the driver's seat. Wanting to hear it clearly too, Indiru joined her in the gunner's seat. They waited in quiet anticipation for several minutes, hearing only inconsequential prep chatter. She and Ruru began to idly chitchat about various nothings until they finally heard Nereti's voice starting a loud countdown.

"Shush, they're about to go!" Indiru said quietly.

The duo sat silently and listened in as Nereti ticked down from ten to zero, then called out an emphatic "Go go go!" Angry battle cries filled the frequency, followed by a soft thrumming of revving Helmasaur engines and then the louder thrumming of their guns charging up to fire. All at once the sharp whipcracks of dozens of reports jolted out of the speakers, peaking the audio equipment and causing the sound to distort. These sounds were so loud and numerous that Indiru could hear them echoing down the pass through the open rear door of their 'saur. Only a brief second or two later they heard a pair of near-simultaneous thudding booms, which Indiru knew in her gut had to be either the enemy guns exploding or their own 'saurs going up. Fortunately she then heard Nereti's voice still yelling over the speaker.

"Keep going! Don't stop until we've blown the other two!"

More piercing reports filled the air and Indiru gripped the edges of her seat as she listened. She dared to allow herself a little bit of hope as the seconds crawled past agonizingly slowly, but soon she heard a telltale third explosion followed shortly by a fourth. A smile spread over Indiru's face when the sound of victory cheers came through clearly.

"See? Maybe it is still worth listening to your powers sometimes?" Ruru said.

"I guess you're right. I just have to tell the right people from now on I guess. Like you." Indiru replied, then got up to give Ruru a hug.

---

Indiru couldn't help but feel nervous at first as their caravan approached the the strange green line that filled the horizon that evening. She knew it was the same big patch of green that she'd seen in her vision of Mewtwo's path, but in truth she had only the faintest inkling of its true nature. Her inner optimist hoped dearly that it really was some sort of giant oasis of greenery, but her inner cynic was still convinced that there was a chance it could be some sort of trap or illusion. It didn't help that they'd been driving through a dead, barren wasteland for several hours before this. The blackened, lifeless ground had set everyone on edge and set off a series of whispered rumors of doom all throughout the caravan. Night was now falling as they approached the green blob, making it impossible to see any details until they got much closer. When they finally did get close enough to start making out the trees Indiru heard Hadara call out to her from the driver's seat.

"Indiru would you come up here please?"

Indiru dutifully stood up and walked over to stand at Hadara's side between her seat and the gunner's, which was occupied by a Rakeshan guardswoman that Indiru wasn't familiar with.

"Yes Miss Quindalo?" She asked politely.

"Look there ahead of us, up along the distant horizon. Is that the green region that you foresaw on Mewtwo's path?" Hadara asked, pointing at her screen.

"Yes ma'am. I think I can already see individual trees." Indiru replied with a warm smile.

They watched quietly as the treeline crept over the horizon toward them and took shape. A few confused voices made comments over the comms, followed by Chief Nurali ordering them all to slow to a stop in front of the boundary of the woods. Hadara quietly hit the brakes and several Rakeshan people, including Ruru, peered around to get a good view of the beautiful old growth forest stretching out in front of them. Thick, majestic old oaks towered above them, branches gently swaying in the breeze.

"Goddesses above!" Hadara whispered in awe.

"I've never seen trees that look like these! Are they real? Is this an illusion? What are they?" Ruru asked softly.

"I don't even know. Whatever type they are though, they look real and solid enough to me. Hey Chief, I think you owe the young Seer an awful big apology for doubting her so vocally about this forest." The gunner said.

A remorseful look crossed Hadara's face and she nodded briefly.

"Yes Madiri, you're right." Hadara said, then turned to address Indiru. "Even if that doubt was driven by a desire to protect everyone from starvation it's no excuse for how we embarrassed you in front of the entire assembly before. I apologize."

Hadara then bowed her head deeply to Indiru, a gesture which she had been taught repeatedly was extremely important and meaningful coming from a Chief. A confusing flood of emotions crashed over Indiru all at once, causing her voice to catch in her throat when she tried to reply. She was briefly tangled in indecision over which feeling she wanted to address first. She felt massively vindicated of course, and perhaps a little tempted to sneak in an "I told You So" too. She was also relieved, and perhaps a bit hopeful that this might reduce the mistrust everyone felt for her. Her mind also felt a little twinge of recognition at the name "Madiri", but that was inconsequential for now. She sifted through her emotions carefully and chose the most gracious way to reply.

"Thank you Miss Quindalo, I forgive you. Remember though, Mewtwo and Kalana left in secret without permission because of this disbelief. If you are sincere in your apology and regret then I would ask you to extend it to them too and forgive them for their theft."

"Of course, I already planned to. I can't speak for Arbiter Vatorsa but I'll gladly endure another trial with her again when this is all over if I have to."

"If she's still alive that is." Madiri remarked in a sad, bitter tone.

"Madiri, now isn't the time, we already discussed this. Let's focus on the task ahead now." Hadara chided gently.

With that Hadara reached down to flick the comms back on, cleared her throat, and addressed the entire caravan.

"All units remain in single file formation for now. Reduce speed to walking pace so we can navigate the trees safely without any accidental collisions. Keep your wits about you, just because this place is stunningly beautiful doesn't mean there won't be any monsters here."

"My Chief, shouldn't we make some sort of prayer or offering to appease the forest spirits before we proceed?" one of the Rakeshan drivers asked over the comms.

"Any of our passengers are welcome to do so as they desire, but the drivers and gunners need to stay on task. We still haven't caught sight of Mewtwo and Kalana yet and we're almost out of time."

Nobody could argue with Hadara's logic so the caravan began its slow trek into the woods immediately. Indiru could hear several people begin praying in the passenger compartment but she was far too transfixed with Hadara's screen to join them. These trees were beautiful beyond her imagination and she had to watch as Hadara tried to navigate through them. Progress was slow and tedious though, and before long the forest began to grow more and more dense as they penetrated deeper. Younger, thinner trees were starting to fill the gaps between the bigger, older ones, and eventually even those larger ones seemed to get closer together too. Indiru again lost track of time as she watched, and soon the trees were forming impassibly thick walls of trunks and foliage that forced them to make turns and detours to get around them. This slowed their progress more and more, especially as these barriers began to form narrow corridors that twisted and turned.

At first Hadara seemed unperturbed by the winding, mazelike forest paths, but as the minutes passed she became visibly frustrated. She continued to navigate for awhile longer until her troubles came to a head in the form of a dead end. All three sides of them were hemmed in by dense thickets, forcing them to turn around and make for the last intersection. She swore quietly under her breath and grabbed the comms handset.

"Chief Nurali you're still covering the rear of the formation, correct?"

"That's right, why are we stopping?"

"I just hit a dead end. I need everyone to turn around and follow you back to the last intersection we passed. I'd like you to take a left there and then take over the lead for awhile."

"Sa'oten! Alright fine. You heard her everyone, about face!"

Some irritated grumbling could be heard from the other drivers over the comms but they still managed to turn themselves all around and get moving again. Hadara seemed relieved to no longer be responsible for navigation anymore, she just followed the Helmasaur in front of them and did some meditative breathing exercises. They didn't make any more noticeable progress with a different Chief doing the navigation though. They continued to blindly meander through the woods for the better part of an hour or so. Madiri, who had been growing increasingly restless and fidgety in the gunner's seat, turned to Indiru and posed her a question.

"Seer Indiru, I don't suppose you foresaw a way through these woods did you?"

Indiru shook her head. "No, just that we need to keep heading straight East. That seems difficult though given the thickness of this foliage."

"I hope Mewtwo and Kalana are ok. I have the best sense of direction in the entire Rakeshan tribe and even this is messing with me. I don't suppose you can try conjuring up a new vision of the path we need to take?" Madiri asked.

"Madiri! Don't treat a young child like a tool!" Hadara scolded sharply.

"It's ok Miss Quindalo, I don't mind. I'm not angry about this matter anymore since you apologized. Besides, my new circlet does a really good job at blocking the pain."

"Well, alright Indiru. If you really want to try then I won't stop you. I respect your decisions." Hadara replied.

Indiru smiled and nodded gratefully to Hadara. She sat down gingerly on the floor between their seats and began to psych herself up for another go. She found herself briefly wishing that her own mother could act more like Hadara, but then reminded herself that grief did terrible things to people, including her. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then banished those sad thoughts from her mind so she could focus on conjuring her gift.

Just as always it started with a dark mental fog rolling through her head and blocking off her senses. Things immediately began to feel different once she had fully come unmoored from reality though. It came on much sharper and faster than it ever had before, even with the circlet's help. It instantly planted a single static image into her mind with crystalline clarity. The circlet still did its job and prevented any pain or discomfort at least. The image she saw was that of a massive tree, one that towered over all the others and made them look like spindly twigs by comparison. It was standing in a large grassy clearing that was encircled by mundane trees on all sides and bathed in faint, indirect moonlight. There was just barely enough illumination to see the old, craggy human face shape on the gigantic tree's trunk. A huge bristle moustache, a massive pronounced nose, two closed eyes, and a pair of untamed eyebrows were all there, and all of it was composed of living, bark-coated wood. The image lingered unmoving in her mind's eye for several long seconds before then vanishing into the ether with the same suddenness that it had arrived. Indiru snapped back into reality abruptly and stuttered in confusion as her mind tried to interpret what it had just seen.

"Well? See anything useful?" Madiri asked.

Indiru stumbled over her words a little bit longer and then shook her head. "No, sorry. Just a huge tree with the shape of a face on its trunk."

"Huh, that's a little odd. Shame it's not anything we can use, but don't worry about it. I know you can't control what you see after all." Madiri replied.

A minute or two passed in contemplative silence as Indiru pondered the giant tree. She didn't notice or care about Madiri's words, as her mind was still struggling to fish up some sort of meaning from what she'd seen. It must have had some sort of special significance since static images were much rarer compared to the usual full moving scenes she almost always saw. There was also something odd about how clear and detailed the image had been, which stood in stark contrast to the typical indistinct blurriness. Then Indiru's train of thought was interrupted when she heard the comms speaker crackle to life.

"This is strange, I just found a straight, long path where there hadn't been one before." Lamira said.

"Do you think it's a good idea to check it out? This reeks of faerie mischief." Kamilia interjected.

"The worst thing that can happen is running into some forest beasts, which the armor and guns on our Helmasaurs should be able to handle easily. I say go for it, just keep a slow and cautious pace." Hadara suggested.

"Agreed. If it's just a dead end we can just turn around and swap leaders again. Let's go." Lamira replied.

Slowly but surely the caravan turned down this new passage. Things were quiet for awhile and everyone seemed to hold their breaths as they waited for something to happen. Indiru noticed that this path seemed unusually straight compared to all the others that they had been navigating before. She was about to speak up about it when Lamira said something again.

"Ah, this opens up into a clearing... What in Nariva's name is that?!"

"What? What is it you see?" Hadara asked.

"You have to see it for yourselves! Come up here quickly!"

The caravan picked up their pace accordingly and rushed down the path as quickly as possible without going dangerously fast. They entered a large clearing and began to tightly line up so they could all fit. There were all aligning themselves facing toward the North side of this clearing as if staring at something. When Indiru saw what it was they were focusing on she gave a tiny, quiet gasp. It was the giant tree with the face that she'd just seen!

"Sa'oten, what manner of tree is that?" Madiri whispered.

"That's no mundane tree, it must be enchanted." Hadara replied.

At this point the same deep, rumbling voice that Mewtwo and Kalana had heard before came creakily up out of the tree's depths. The Helmasaur's external microphone clearly picked it up and relayed it inside for all of them to hear.

"Hmmmmmmmm... how curious. Yet more Children of the Desert have come to me, hidden in the armor of the Outsiders. Yet none of them have the manners to even say hello..."

A realization came over Hadara and she got up out of her seat and opened the top hatch to climb out. Indiru watched the following events playing out on the Helmasaur's screen, feeling grateful for the fact that they had parked at the front of the group where their view was unobstructed. Hadara approached the giant tree and bowed reverently, and a moment later the other Chiefs joined her.

"Great Forest Spirit, I apologize for the impertinent manner in which we have intruded upon your domain. We are the three Chiefs of the assembled Gerudo tribes of Ven'vha, Ven'suul, and Ven'rakesh. I am Hadara Quindalo and these are Kamilia Lasheera and Lamira Nurali."

"I am the Great Deku Tree, Third of my line. I am the guardian of these woods, and I find myself curious about something. Is there one among your number who possesses the long lost gift of prophecy?"

Icy chills instantly ran up Indiru's spine. How did he know? Did he have the power to sense magic like her mother? Or did he actually project his mind into her vision earlier?

"Yes, my daughter Indiru. She is but a child, yet Nariva still saw fit to bless her regardless." Kamilia replied.

"Hmmmm... I think I would very much like to speak with this young Seer." The tree said.

Kamilia looked briefly taken aback by this request. Despite her desire to prove her renewed intent to protect Indiru she could hardly deny the request of an ancient guardian spirit. She turned to give Hadara a probing look, then Hadara gestured to the Helmasaur to call for Indiru. Knowing the seriousness of this situation Indiru put on her well-honed facade of polite formality and climbed out of the Helmasaur to approach the ancient tree. Her mother gave her a look of encouragement as she passed her, and once she was standing in front of the Chiefs Indiru bowed deeply to the tree.

"Oh Great Deku Tree, I Indiru Lasheera offer you my humblest greetings."

"You needn't be so formal, little one. I am simply glad to finally be in the company of a youthful spirit after all these long centuries alone. Tell me, at what age did your gift first manifest?"

"I don't know exactly, the visions have been coming to me ever since I could first remember." Indiru replied.

"How unusual. Everything I know about foresight tells me that it should never awaken before a Seer comes of age. The gift was thought lost not long after the outsiders first came to our world, I myself haven't been able to foresee anything since their fury first washed over the land some 500 years ago. Yet I suppose I should not be surprised, the shifting of the climate of the world produces many unusual events. The return of the Seers may very well be a brighter portent than I had dared hope to see."

Lamira gasped in amazement when the Deku Tree mentioned his age.

"By the Goddesses! You've witnessed the fall of the old world yourself?! There's so many questions I want to ask you!"

"Questions we should save for another day, Lamira. Remember we're running out of time to catch up to Mewtwo and Kalana." Kamilia pointed out.

"Ah, you seek the outsider and the princess who passed through here before?" The Deku Tree asked.

"Yes! We're trying to help them in their quest to free the world. Can you tell us how long ago they were here?" Indiru asked.

"It was very recent, perhaps only a day or two ago. In truth I am not adept at measuring the precise passage of time. When you have lived as long as I have, the days tend to blur together into an indistinct haze. But it was undoubtedly not too long ago at all, just before the other princess passed through after them." The Deku Tree replied.

"Wait, what other princess? Who was she? Did you get her name?" Kamilia asked, her voice rising with urgency.

"I did, but the name seems to have escaped me. Hmmmm... what was it she said her name was?" He mumbled.

"Was she wearing blue garb like me? Were there terrible scars on her face? Does the name Ciela ring a bell?" Indiru asked.

"Oh, yes! That was indeed her. She told me that she was searching for the legendary Blade of Evil's Bane."

"Mewtwo was right then, she is still alive!" Kamilia exclaimed, stepping forward to stand next to Indiru. "What happened next?"

"I helped her. The Blade has laid hidden and dormant in these woods for centuries and I am the only one left who still knows of its location. But I warned her that only the pure of heart could draw it from its plinth. Nobody has been judged worthy of wielding it since the Hero of Time used it to strike down the King of Evil before the coming of the outsiders. The chances of the sword judging her as worthy were vanishingly small, but she insisted she try regardless."

"That must be the sword she has been obsessing over for months before she was taken!" Kamilia exclaimed.

"She must have gone right for the sword after speaking with you. Can you tell us how to get there too?" Indiru asked the tree.

"I can, but she mentioned having very little time left on her journey to stop the evil one she was pursuing. She may have already given up on the sword by now to continue her pursuit."

"Or perhaps she has drawn the sword successfully and moved on." Kamilia noted.

Indiru then noticed her mother turning toward her and giving her a brief, conflicted glance. Indiru knew that look all too well, it was the one her mother gave her when she was debating with herself whether or not to ask Indiru for another vision. Indiru knew exactly what she would ask too; they needed to decide whether to make a detour to the lost blade's resting place to search for Ciela or to continue East. It all hinged on whether or not Ciela had succeeded in pulling the blade from its plinth. Her obsession with the sword meant that it was very likely she'd still be there trying right now if she'd failed. Indiru wouldn't necessarily have even blamed her mother for asking about this despite their recent falling out; she wanted to see Ciela again just as badly as her. Fortunately Kamilia seemed to have re-learned her lesson again for now, she instead turned and asked the Deku Tree about it instead of laying that burden on Indiru's shoulders.

"Great Deku Tree, what do you believe are the chances that Ciela might truly succeed in drawing the blade and being judged worthy?"

"Almost none. I sensed that she bore the heavy weight of guilt and shame upon her heart, and evil deeds preclude one's ability to touch the blade."

"Then we will go to its resting place to find her, as I believe she most likely will still be there trying to pull it as we speak." Kamilia said resolutely.

"What about Mewtwo and Kalana? We will fall even further behind if we take yet another detour, especially this close to the end of the journey!" Hadara protested.

Kamilia hummed indecisively, then asked the tree one more question. "How far away is the blade's resting place?"

"Less than a mile Southeast of here. Normally it is protected by a labyrinth of trees and guardian beasts, but I will use my remaining power over these woods to open a clear path for you. All that I ask in return is that you treat that sacred place with the utmost respect."

"Of course. We are boundlessly grateful for your wisdom and assistance, Great Deku Tree." Kamilia replied, bowing deeply again.

Kamilia turned and began to head back toward the Helmasaurs and the other Chiefs began to follow her. But Indiru had one more question she wanted to ask before she joined them.

"Great Deku Tree, since you know so much about the gift of prophecy, can you tell me if there's any way for me to hone my skill with it or make the visions more accurate? It seems like they have been becoming easier and easier to intentionally call up and have also been more accurate than usual lately, but I haven't done anything differently. I'm confused by this and just sick of unintentionally misleading people."

The Deku Tree gave a long, creaking sigh that seemed to carry the weight of decades of regret.

"Sadly there is not. This type of magic is wild and untameable. It answers only to the Goddesses themselves. Even the most renowned of Seers will die with their share of guilt on their shoulders from all of their failures. I speak of this from firsthand experience. Intentionally trying to call up more visions, as well as focusing on events of greater significance, will only cause the magic to rebel and give more vague and unreliable answers. Remember, this gift was originally intended to be a way for the Goddesses to warn us of oncoming calamities, it wasn't intended to be a tool for us to use to shape the future ourselves. If your visions have seemed more accurate than before as of late, consider yourself particularly blessed. The Goddesses must be walking with you."

Feeling immensely vindicated, Indiru grinned from ear to ear and bowed to the Deku Tree again. She knew that everyone in the assembly was listening, including her mother, so maybe now she'd finally get a chance to be a child without being constantly hounded for her visions. It meant she probably couldn't manipulate anyone or steer events nearly as easily as before, but that was alright. She didn't want to do any of this after all, she just wanted peace and to be given a chance to be herself.

"Thank you Deku Tree, your words help me more than you may know. I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay you."

"You owe me nothing child. But should your people pass through these woods again, stop and stay with me for a spell. This withered old scrub could use the mirthful company of youth once more."

Chapter 30 - The Trump Card

Awareness was slow to return to Mewtwo, and when it did he found his mind clouded with a dense haze of brain fog far worse than any he'd experienced before in his life. He could barely remember anything that had happened to him recently, but his stomach was sick with a deep sense of sinking dread. His senses returned to him gradually and at first all he could perceive was an empty black void. Before he could do much, he saw a familiar sight appearing out of the darkness in front of him. As soon as he saw it he immediately knew he was still asleep; it was the Gaze of the Sulaaq again. He wracked his brain and tried to remember what his circumstances had been before he fell asleep, but it was like someone had erased the contents of his short term memory. He spent a few moments wracking his brain for the answers, but before long he was again interrupted by the voices that now so often accompanied the gaze.

"SHADETALON!" Roared the same enraged voice he'd heard before.

"Milord! Please be calm! I know this looks bad but I swear to you I still have contingencies left in my plan to use! My trump card is-" Shadetalon said before the angry one cut him off.

"I no longer care about your trump card! We are officially out of time! SHE knows!"

There was a brief, loaded, highly uncomfortable pause. Mewtwo could tell that this was something absolutely pivotal by the anger and dread in his tone, as well as the way Shadetalon remained dead silent. It was as if he was speechless as the awful truth of it sank in. Mewtwo also noticed that this time the voices were coming in with absolutely perfect clarity. Not a single word was lost to muffling or distortions.

"Milord, I thought your research into suppressing the Destiny Bond was making excellent headway?" Shadetalon eventually asked.

"Headway does not mean completion you incompetent clown!"

Mewtwo winced in pain as the sheer volume of that enraged yell made his head reverberate. Still, despite the pain he couldn't help but smile. If his enemy's plans were coming unraveled this severely then it could only mean good news for him.

"But Milord, how did she get the planet's coordinates? Did you forget to avoid looking at-" Shadetalon began, but was again cut off.

"Admiral, may I remind you of the particularly tenuous position that you're in right now? You may wish to choose your next few words with special care, because if the question you were about to ask were to imply, intentionally or otherwise, that I might be responsible for the impending failure of this operation..."

The unnamed voice, who Mewtwo now assumed to be the Lord Darkest that Valisse had mentioned, trailed off in a none-too-subtly threatening manner. Another heavily loaded pause passed through here and Mewtwo took considerable pleasure from imagining Shadetalon sweating and squirming in fear under his illusory Zoroark disguise.

"I suppose it does not matter how the enemy extrapolated our coordinates now, just that she did. I assume then that she is on her way?" Shadetalon asked.

"Do you think she would simply sit on her hands and play psychic games while the fate of ... is at stake? Of course she is on her way you utter buffoon! I swear, I should never have granted your request to head the excavation missions on that useless backwater sandball for that long, the years of idleness and recreation have clearly reduced your once-brilliant mind to feckless mush!"

Mewtwo noticed that a brief blip of distortion returned during the ravings of the assumed Lord Darkest, but this time it was a form of sharp auditory static instead of the usual quiet muffling. It also seemed to be a part of their conversation rather than interference that arrived along the way to reaching Mewtwo, as Darkest seemed to react to it as he continued speaking.

"Enough. My transit is starting to cut the signal. I would have you taken to the simulation banks immediately if I could, but since it will take some time for the jump drives to bring me there, consider this your final chance. You have until my arrival to complete the operation, so go ahead and attempt to play this trump card of yours regardless of the risks involved. But if you fail to complete The Split before I arrive..."

One more lethally loaded pause crept past between them and Shadetalon didn't dare to interfere before Darkest finished.

"Well, let's just say you will want to pray that Lightest reaches the planet before I do."

The conversation then ended with an audible click. Mewtwo was again left alone in silence with nothing but the floating red eyes as company, but this time something new happened. Only a minute or two after the voices had ceased, the glowing eyes of the Gaze suddenly closed. In a literal eyeblink the familiar stare was gone and the fuzzy dark grip of sleep began to creep back in. He realized that he'd never once seen the eyes close on their own before and began to wonder if there was some special significance to it. The deep blurry fog of natural sleep fully engulfed him before he could speculate anything coherent though. It barely seemed to last an instant, then actual wakefulness started to sneak in.

Mewtwo knew it was real this time because the first sensation that greeted him was a dull, deep throbbing pain in the back of his head. He opened his eyes groggily and tried to take in his surroundings, but the heaviness of his sleep had fogged his sight and the room he was in was almost totally dark. The only thing he could make out was a faint, diffuse red light like what the Sulaaq used in their buildings. Now he felt something cold, hard, and uncomfortable latched over his head and both necks like a helmet with integrated collars. He tried to reach one hand up in order to feel what it was, but then he felt the cold metal of manacles restraining his wrists behind his back. The chain holding them together went taut and yanked against the manacles on his ankles with a series of dull clanks, preventing him from raising his hands at all. The feelings and sounds of this finally brought all the memories of recent events crashing back. The Sulaaq city, the red doomsday orb, Valisse and her voice forcing them to surrender, it hit Mewtwo all at once like a freight train whose cargo was pure adrenaline and terror.

That adrenaline began to cascade through Mewtwo's body and quickly force him to full wakefulness. He shifted into a sitting position and blinked the sleep out of his eyes until he could see his surroundings with at least some small degree of clarity. Now he saw that he had been put into a prison cell; three of the four walls around him were solid black Sulaaq steel and the fourth was composed of sturdy steel prison bars. The illumination was provided by a single small recessed red light in the ceiling, and the interior of the cell was 100% barren. He only had a bare steel floor to lie on and they hadn't even provided him a sleeping surface or toilet. Beyond the bars he saw an empty hallway leading to the left and right, and another cell on the opposite side from his. The bars on the cells all had sliding doors, but rather than a physical hole for a key, they each had a small holographic control panel keeping them secure.

With his wrists and ankles chained up there was very little left that Mewtwo could now do. His first instinct was to search for his weapons, but he found that every single item he had been carrying had been confiscated, even down to his ragged patchleather cloak. Next he tried to focus on conjuring up the Forest Medallion's power, hoping to blow a hole through the bars of his cell. He did feel the welling of warm, pleasant Forest Magic in his chest again, and for a moment he dared to allow himself a brief flicker of hope. But before the surge of magical power could manage to focus itself into a tangible orb in front of him, he heard the helmet on his head suddenly thrum to life with electrical noise and vibration. It made a pronounced alarm screech, then loudly buzzed as some sort of internal mechanism began to work. Then every ounce of that forest magic was forcefully sucked out of him before he could charge his attack, leaving him just as powerless as before.

"Goddesses damnit!" Mewtwo groaned as that flicker of hope left him.

He wasn't the type to just give up though, he couldn't imagine just sitting idly and waiting for the Sulaaq to come finish him. Even without that flicker of hope he had to do something. He tried a few more times to conjure the Medallion's power, and even though it always replied with plenty of power for him to use, the helmet kept siphoning it off. Realizing that this avenue of escape was fully cut off, Mewtwo pondered his options for a moment. He was unarmed and powerless and had no real skills that could be relevant here, but that digital panel on his door did catch his eye. Maybe his palm could open that just like it had opened everything else so far?

Mewtwo cautiously scooted up close to the bars and glanced down the hallway in both directions. It was totally deserted, not even a single Ravéan thrall could be seen. It was also slightly curved though, so after a far enough distance on either side the curvature hid its contents from Mewtwo's sight. He could however see that there were hundreds more cells like his on both sides of the hallway, stretching into the distance as far as he could see in both directions. At least now that he established that he was alone, he knew he could try to release himself without being caught. He turned around and pressed his back up against the bars in order to try to slide his hands up through them to reach the control panel. With a little blind fumbling he at least managed to get his left hand fully through the bars, but the panel was just a little bit too far away to reach completely. The tip of his left and middle fingers could just barely flatten out on the edge of it, but his palm couldn't lie flat.

The panel made an irritating screech as it rejected the scan, causing Mewtwo to growl in frustration. This time the sound seemed to rouse attention from someone though; Mewtwo heard a soft groan and a shuffling noise coming from the cell opposite from his. He awkwardly turned himself around after extricating his hands from the bars, then peered through the gloom toward the source of the noise. He hadn't been able to see through the darkness in there before, but now his eyes were fully cleared and adjusted to the darkness. Not only was the opposite cell occupied, but it contained a familiar figure clothed in Rakeshan red.

"Kalana!"

"Hrnmngghh... Mewtwo?"

Kalana tried to raise her hands and touch her head just like Mewtwo had done, and just like him she found her wrists cuffed behind her back. As she began to sit up he saw that she too was wearing some kind of black steel helmet on her head, though fortunately it was a far different shape and type than the mind control helmets that the Ravéan thralls wore. It exposed her face rather than hiding it under a visor and it had an integrated collar wrapped around her neck just like the one Mewtwo now wore too. Mewtwo then heard the same insistent, angry alarm screech from her helmet that his had made when he tried to use his Medallion.

"Save your energy, these helmets they put on us seem to act like miniature drain devices of their own. You may need your magic when we get them off." Mewtwo explained.

"Where are we? What happened? I don't remember..." Kalana mumbled, struggling to her feet.

"We must be in some sort of Sulaaq prison. They re-captured and mind controlled Valisse, then used her voice to force us to surrender."

"Ugh, that's right. That stupid Qata'ra! I knew she'd just get herself caught again, Shadow Medallion or not!" Kalana growled.

She shuffled up to the bars of her cell and used her hands to briefly try to search for her weapons. She mumbled some curses in Gerudo when her search turned up nothing. She had been stripped of her gear just as thoroughly as Mewtwo. She scanned the hallway in both directions and scowled deeply.

"I don't think I need to tell you how deep in the shit we are now Mewtwo. There's no windows here so I can't see if they fired the towers or not."

"I'm not convinced this building would even still be standing if they had. Besides, we need to act as though it's not too late anyway. If we're wrong then it won't change anything, but if we're right then we might still be able to stop it." Mewtwo replied.

Kalana closed her eyes and took a long, steadying breath, then nodded resolutely. "You're right. What do we do now? Did you try your palm on the locks?"

"I tried, but they're just out of reach. If my wrists weren't bound then I'd be able to reach them easily."

"Oveer! Ok, let's try to keep calm and approach this rationally. Did they take all your supplies too, not just your weapons?"

"Unfortunately yes, they were very thorough. But listen to me Kalana, we may still have reason to hold out hope yet. While I was out I had another Gaze dream and I heard the Sulaaq talking to each other again."

"They said something good for us?" Kalana asked hopefully.

"Yes. Some enemy of theirs, which they referred to as "Lightest", seems to have discovered the location of this world and is now on their way here. They didn't really mention any details about who or what Lightest is, but they did explicitly say they are now out of time and their plans are about to fail."

"Did they say how long they have left until this Lightest person arrives?" Kalana asked.

"No, but their tones made it sound imminent. We may only need to hold out just a little while longer."

"Good. But I still fear what their desperation may drive them to do. Last time you overheard them like this you mentioned them talking about one last ace in the hole their were saving, right?"

Mewtwo nodded grimly. "Yes, their 'trump card' as they put it. They mentioned it this time too and it sounds like they're about to use it."

An equally grim and serious look came over Kalana's face and she spent a brief moment imagining what sort of horrific doom was now looming over them. Before either of them could come up with any sort of plan though, their ears caught the very faint sound of a door swishing open in the distance down the hallway to their left, followed by footsteps. An urgent thought then struck Mewtwo and he leaned forward and whispered something to Kalana while he still had a chance to go unheard by their guest.

"Kalana! Under no circumstances should we let on how much we know about them! Or anything else for that matter! They might do something even worse to us if they realized I've been overhearing their communications. Just play dumb!"

Kalana nodded in understanding and then retreated back into her cell as the footsteps approached. Mewtwo followed her example and clenched his jaw anxiously as he leaned against the back wall of his own cell. The unseen Sulaaq approaching them was taking a leisurely pace, but his boots still made heavy metalling clomping sounds on the floor. When he finally arrived outside the cell his familiar sneering face made a pit of anger and dread form in Mewtwo's stomach. It was the same Chosen he'd been clashing with repeatedly over the course of his stay on Hypalia, still wearing that same Zoroark disguise. He was grinning viciously at Mewtwo, but surprisingly didn't seem to be accompanied by Valisse like Mewtwo expected.

"Ah good, my guests of honor have awoken right on schedule. How do you feel? Enjoying the fancy new headwear I thoughtfully gave you as a welcoming gift?" The Chosen asked in a sadistic tone.

Boiling with suppressed rage already, Mewtwo bit back at the urge to reply to him. It would accomplish nothing other than risking giving away how much he knew, so Mewtwo slid back away across the wall into the corner and remained silent. Unperturbed by this, the Chosen placed his clawed hand onto the palm scanner on Mewtwo's cell door, which then clicked and slid open with a dull metallic grinding sound. Mewtwo then considered attacking the Chosen with his tail since it was his only unbound limb, but he realized that his foe would probably use this as an excuse to use a Dark type attack on him in response. That alone was enough to make him decide to refrain.

"Time to go now friend, I have arranged a little appointment for you. You and your verminous companion are going to meet a certain good buddy of mine who has been most eager to get to know you both." The Chosen sneered with sadistic glee.

He then stepped into the cell with Mewtwo and bent down to reach for the single loose chain attached to Mewtwo's manacles, intending to use it to lead him out. Mewtwo didn't exactly want to know who this friend was, so he began to reconsider his decision to not attack. If he could just get that chain around his neck...

The Chosen seemed to be taking his sweet time bending over, and this seemed to drive Mewtwo's instinct to suddenly take over. He spun himself around with all the speed his body could muster so that his back was facing the Chosen, and then he threw his arms around the Chosen's neck! He then yanked his arms back inward, drawing the chain taut and garroting him with a loud clank! The Chosen stumbled a bit as he faceplanted into Mewtwo's back, and out of the corner of his eye Mewtwo could see a strange visual distortion around his neck where the chain was making contact. It almost looked like physical touch was passing through the illusion he wore and causing it to flutter and blur. Strangely enough, the Chosen didn't try to fight. A look of surprise flashed over his face, then he gave a loud peal of derisive, mocking laughter.

"Hahahahahah! I gotta admit, I shouldn't be surprised by the chutzpah on you kid. You really have no idea what kind of shit you're in do you?"

"How are you still talking while I'm choking you?!" Mewtwo growled. He pulled on that chain as hard as he possibly could in the hope of cutting off his air.

The Chosen didn't reply with words; instead he reached one hand up to slide under the chain and grab onto it. With just one hand's strength he effortlessly overpowered Mewtwo's grip and pulled the chain up off his neck with deliberate slowness. Once he had freed himself he grabbed Mewtwo's shoulder and spun him around to face him, then swiftly moved that hand up to grip him by his neck. He choke-slammed Mewtwo up against the back wall of the cell with enough force to bruise his back, cut off his air supply, and make the metallic helmet on his head collide with the wall with a deafening CLANG!

Mewtwo's head throbbed with agony as the sound reverberated through his ears, nearly drowning out the sound of Kalana calling out to him with terrified concern. The Chosen's vice-like grip caused him to choke and sputter in a desperate struggle for air. He tried to reach his chained hands up to grab at the arm that was keeping his breath stifled, but he still couldn't manage to get free of the manacles that kept them stuck behind his back. Interestingly, the hand gripping his throat felt more like something cold and metallic rather than the soft warmth of an organic Zoroark's hand, implying that the Chosen was wearing some sort of armor underneath his illusion. He might have given this more thought if it weren't for the fact that that hand was choking him to death.

"Look up here, look me in the eye!" The Chosen ordered in a low, deadly tone.

Desperate to stave off his impending asphyxiation, Mewtwo did as he was told in the hope that it might earn him a reprieve. As soon as he looked into those glowing red eyes he knew he was seeing the exact same pair that had been haunting his dreams ever since he first came to Hypalia. But this time there was something different about their gaze; they were filled with a much more targeted, personal sort of malice that seemed to be meant solely for him. If these eyes watched the dreams of everyone on Hypalia with a normally detached and generalized sort of hate, then Mewtwo had earned a place of special loathing in this Chosen's blackened heart. Yet the Chosen still relented slightly by loosening his grip just enough to let air pass through Mewtwo's throat. He gasped raggedly and continued to struggle now that he at least was no longer on the verge of blacking out.

"You have no idea how badly I've been wanting to do this to you ever since you first set foot on this world." The Chosen said, his tone still quietly simmering with barely-suppressed sadism and contempt.

"I think I have an inkling." Mewtwo choked out defiantly.

The Chosen then tightened his grip again in response, rendering Mewtwo mute once more. He stepped closer so that their faces were mere inches apart and his malevolent gaze filled Mewtwo's vision.

"I am Admiral Shadetalon, the greatest military genius in all of the Sulaaq Dominion! This planet, and every wriggling little parasite on it, belong to me! Including you!" He hissed.

Suddenly Shadetalon whipped his hand to the side, hurling Mewtwo to the floor in the process. Mewtwo collapsed in a heap and reached up to rub at his bruised neck while sucking in another lungful of breath. Shadetalon then once again reached down to grab Mewtwo's chain.

"Now as much as I would personally relish taking my time here to show you and your vermin friend what I think of you, my time is woefully limited and I fear my methods would be... inefficient. That's why I've booked you that appointment with Commander Flametongue; his skills with hospitality will ensure we meet our goals on time. But please, don't let me stop you from struggling, I would love to have an excuse to have a little more fun with you along the way. Now get up!"

Shadetalon yanked violently on Mewtwo's chain and the shocking amount of force strained and nearly dislocated both of his shoulders. He gave a short involuntary yell of pain and shock, but scrambled to his feet anyway to avoid any further abuse. Shadetalon led him out of the cell and stopped to open Kalana's cell too.

"Don't think you're getting out of this too, little desert rat. Get up. Or don't, I always love seeing the shock of hurt pride on the faces of you people when I overpower you." Shadetalon sneered.

"Don't give him the satisfaction Kalana." Mewtwo said quietly.

Kalana traded glances between Mewtwo and Shadetalon for a brief second, then shuffled to her feet quietly with a prideful look on her face. She came along peacefully as Shadetalon grabbed her chain too and led them down the hallway past the other cells. As they walked Mewtwo took mental note of the fact that Shadetalon had used the word "Sulaaq" to refer to his own people, even though it was a Gerudo word for them first. He immediately knew this was a sign of Shadetalon's deception; he was hiding the true name of their empire.

"Not using Princess Lasheera's voice to control us this time eh? Why's that?" Kalana suddenly asked.

"Hah, no. Her voice may work well most of the time but it has one unfortunate side effect that renders it counterproductive in this instance. It puts its victims into a trance so deep that they can barely even be considered conscious, and in that state they are incapable of remembering anything that happens to them for the duration. We need the both of you acutely aware and able to remember exactly what's about to take place." Shadetalon replied, his tone alarmingly casual.

Mewtwo and Kalana exchanged dread-laden glances as they trudged along behind him. Whatever Shadetalon's ace in the hole was, it was looking increasingly terrible and inevitable. Mewtwo wanted so badly to taunt Shadetalon with some of the things he knew, like the inevitable failure of their plans, but he reminded himself repeatedly of their plan to play dumb. He used the other half of the Goddess's mantra from their weapon engravings to anchor himself and resist the urge.

"Righteousness through Grace. Righteousness through Grace."

Mewtwo was soon distracted from his mantra when they exited the prison hallway and made a right turn at a T-junction entering a new hallway. This one was an outer hallway with its entire left wall being one big floor-to-ceiling window wall. This gave a commanding view of the outside and Mewtwo could immediately tell that they were inside the Central Tower by how high their vantage point was. He could see the city stretching out for miles around them in all directions, all lit up with twinkling red and white motes of light. It was much darker out there than before, but the radiant red light from the doomsday orb not too far up above them was still plenty bright. Mewtwo could even see the faint outline of the forest far off on the Western horizon. Relief flooded him when he saw it; they weren't too late to save everyone! He nudged Kalana with his tail and then used it to point out the window at the forest with a small smile on his face.

"Thank the Goddesses, you were right!" Kalana whispered.

Shadetalon suddenly slowed to a stop and the smiles instantly vanished off of their faces. He must have heard her. He turned to glance out the window briefly and then grinned wickedly.

"Ah yes, that reminds me. Now that we're almost done with this world, I have a little bit of bonus fun planned for myself. I might as well savor it here with you two present."

Shadetalon's grin widened and now showed rows of yellowed, razor sharp fangs. With his free hand he produced a small black metal remote with a large red button underneath a protective clear plastic protector cap. He flipped the cap up and a lightning bolt of terror surged through Mewtwo's mind. This could be the button that fired the towers! Maybe it was an illogical fear since they were still down here on the planet in person and Shadetalon didn't seem like the suicidal type, but perhaps the tower was designed to shield its occupants from the plasma storm. With no time to waste pondering these factors Mewtwo sprang into action.

With no other easy method left to use, he leaped forward and performed a full body tackle in an attempt to bowl Shadetalon over. He also simultaneously swiped his tail around to strike at Shadetalon's hand, knocking the remote out of his grasp and sending it clattering to the floor. Somehow Shadetalon managed to keep his footing despite the nearly 300 pounds of Mewtwo's body weight slamming into him all at once. He staggered a bit and grunted with exertion, and more of those fuzzy-looking distortions appeared everywhere they made contact. Seeing this all play out Kalana rushed in to join them, following Mewtwo's example and body slamming Shadetalon as well. This time their combined body weight was enough to knock Shadetalon off of his feet and send them all tumbling to the floor in a tangled heap. Shadetalon's claws made horrible screeching, scraping sounds as they tried and failed to dig into the metal floor and hold him up. When he landed on his back his body made a deafening clang. Mewtwo could feel more armor plating under Shadetalon's illusion and he scrambled to try and pin one of his arms underneath his bulk. Even though he seemed to succeed at this initially, Shadetalon simply began to laugh again. Not even bothering to struggle, the Admiral laughed and laughed and laughed, his tone becoming louder and more derisive. Unnerved by this, Kalana tried to slam one knee down into his gut to knock the wind out of him, only to be rebuked by the dull metallic thud of her kneecap hitting the armor underneath the illusion. She cried out in pain and squirmed a little bit as her knee started to swell. Shadetalon's laughter only intensified.

"Did the two of you learn nothing from the display I put on back in the cell? Are you that dense? Clearly my brilliance must be getting tarnished with age if I've been having such difficulty capturing you two before!" He laughed.

Not knowing if Shadetalon's armor extended to his head, Mewtwo made one last play by swinging his tail around to strike him in the face. He felt it connect with something cold and hard beneath the illusion and heard another muffled thud of flesh striking armor, and then Shadetalon whipped one hand up to grab that tail before it could rebound away. The strength of that metallic hand once again proved far too great to overcome. He stared at Mewtwo with a sudden look of searing malice rather than the mocking mirth he had been showing before.

"You know you're lucky I already have existing plans for the two of you already. I would love nothing more than to lop off the tip of this tail with my claws and feast on it while you watch. I think the sight of your blood dripping down my chin might actually put some proper fear into you." He growled. Then he swapped back over to his usual contemptuous levity with the speed that only a psychopath could show. "But come now, this is just getting sad. Even if it wasn't trivially easy for me to overpower you, you have forgotten two critical points. One: I have total control over the planetary energy siphon grid and I can turn it on and off at will. Two, you both are wearing siphon helms, so if I turn off the grid then that means I get my own powers back while you two don't!"

Mewtwo then heard a soft beep coming from Shadetalon's armor somewhere under the illusion. A moment later he let go of Mewtwo's tail and pointed his now-freed hand at Mewtwo. It began to rapidly glow with an aura of crimson red psychic energy. Mewtwo's entire body was then gripped by the vice-like telekinetic strength that Shadetalon was projecting. The glow encased both him and Kalana and they were helplessly lifted up off of the Admiral and held wriggling aloft.

"Let me go you filthy Sulir!" Kalana yelled, thrashing her limbs about harmlessly.

Shadetalon used his telekinesis to lift himself back up and set himself on his feet silently, still smiling unnervingly. His remote floated up off the floor and settled into his outstretched palm. Ignoring Kalana's protests, he spun his pointer finger around in a circle shape and rotated his captives so they were facing toward the window wall. Then he unceremoniously pressed the button.

"NO!" Mewtwo yelled in horror.

The tower didn't fire though. No great cascades of burning crimson plasma plummeted from the sky to burn the world. Instead, the lights rapidly began to flicker out in the city below them, followed by thousands of brief orange flashes zooming through the skyline in rapid sequence. Suddenly recognition flashed through Mewtwo's mind as he watched the entire city crumbling into dust all around them. Just like in the Spirit Medallion's vision, the city razed itself to the ground until only the Central Tower was left standing. Mewtwo was left with a profound sense of relief mixed with complete bafflement. All the while Shadetalon was snickering sinisterly to himself.

"Wha... what?" Kalana mumbled, looking just as perplexed as Mewtwo.

Shadetalon's snickering grew into more of the same laughter in response.

"I don't understand, why? Why make us watch this? Why not detonate the trap while we were still inside the city? You could have killed us easily!" Mewtwo asked.

Shadetalon got his laughter under control and twirled his finger again, causing Mewtwo to rotate around midair to face him.

"Simple. I don't want to kill you, at least not yet. Remember what I said about your appointment? Your fate is sealed of course, it's just waiting for the proper time. Besides, I have no more use for this rusty, ancient old wreck of a city. The technology here is so far out of date it'd cost more to retrofit it than it would to rebuild it all from the ground up. But I don't plan to rebuild it anyway, since like I said we're almost done with this planet. I blew it up because it was highly enjoyable to watch from down here up close compared to up there in orbit. On top of that, I wanted to see the look in your eyes when you thought I was going to end your pitiful little world."

Rage played over Kalana's face as she heard the last part of his response. She struggled some more and yelled at the top of her lungs. "You disgusting son of a kritech! When I get out of this I'll plant my blade in a much worse spot than last time!"

Shadetalon briefly looked frustrated by this, but then returned to grinning and placed his hand on his chest where she had skewered him during their first encounter. "Oh I haven't forgotten where you stabbed me, rat. You'll be paying for that in due time. Now come, I've already wasted far too much time having fun with you two as is. You're overdue for your appointment."

With that he turned to continue down the hallway, using his telekinesis to carry them along midair behind him. They walked for a few tense minutes before Shadetalon arrived at a door on the right side and stopped to open it. Inside was an incredibly ominous looking larger chamber framed on either side with two rows of four metal tables. Between each table there was a small metal shelving rack mounted to the wall, each of which was closed with metal doors to conceal their contents. Only one other person was in here, but the sight of them caused Mewtwo's blood to run cold. Here was another Chosen wearing a Zoroark disguise, but this one had a bright orange glow seeping out of the contours of his mouth. He turned to face them as Shadetalon entered and bowed deeply to the Admiral.

"Ah, Admiral, I was wondering when you might arrive. I am ready to greet our guests." This new Chosen said.

The moment he spoke, Mewtwo could see he seemed to have no normal tongue made of flesh and blood, but instead one made of brightly glowing ethereal flames. That tongue still seemed to move and function like a normal one though, allowing him to speak without any audible speech impediment. Mewtwo's mind flashed back to the time when he induced a vision of the fate of the mad thief Ciela and he remembered that same glowing tongue of fire. The red hot tiara he'd seen in that vision told him everything he needed to know. Then another thought struck him: the only way that Flametongue could even have a fiery appendage like that and not be constantly burning himself was if he was part Fire type. He'd seen fire type Pokemon bathing in lava without any discomfort back home on Earth so this logically had to mean that Flametongue's two types were Psychic and Fire. That meant he didn't have the Dark type and and all its associated perks, including the immunity to psychic attacks and resistance to ghost attacks. If he could just break free of that damned helmet he could kill that monster with one good Shadow Ball while the siphon network was still down!

"Very good. Mewtwo, vermin, I would like you to meet my friend, Commander Flametongue. He is the most talented Hospitality Artist in all of the Sulaaq Dominion. I'll be handing you both over to him this evening since his talents in this profession far exceed my own." Shadetalon said with a sneer, then turned to speak to Flametongue. "Remember what I warned you about. If you forget-"

Flametongue casually waved his hand at Shadetalon and grinned. "Trust in my skills, Admiral. I am a consummate professional. You can stay and watch my work if you like."

"I would very much like to, but our Lord seems to be calling me again. Even though we literally just talked earlier this evening. Hmmph. Don't disappoint me, Commander."

"My dear Admiral, you wound me! I promise you, my work will make you wish you could have had me on hand for this task from the beginning. Now go, shoo! Don't keep our Lord waiting, you know how he gets when you do!"

"Hmph, yes." Shadetalon replied, then set Mewtwo and Kalana down before vanishing via teleport.

Now left alone with the fiery menace, Kalana and Mewtwo turned their eyes to him with looks of utter dread. Flametongue grinned in a deceptively suave and charismatic manner, then walked up to them and leaned against one of the tables. Mewtwo noticed the leather straps on that table, positioned perfectly to secure someone's wrists and ankles. The implications were clear. Flametongue used a bit of telekinesis to shut and lock the chamber's door with a conspicuous clunk.

"So, my new friends, I have a choice I'd like to offer you. Usually when I meet a new client I have a set routine I follow for their initial intake and processing, but given the special circumstances of your arrival, I have been forced to shake things up a little. My new routine comes with two potential routes for you to take. We could begin with some... thermal skin conditioning for you both, or we could play a friendly little game of chance to determine who gets the treatment. What do you think?"

Kalana and Mewtwo again exchanged glances, unsure of what to make of this but absolutely certain they didn't want to know.

"Does it really make a difference in how this is going to end?" Kalana asked cynically.

"Actually yes! I think a little unpredictability will spice up my repertoire for once. But don't make me wait, this offer is only good for a few more seconds." Flametongue replied.

Mewtwo furrowed his brow and eventually nodded. "Fine. We'll play your game. I have a feeling you're lying and it won't matter anyway."

"Oh you'll get to see about that shortly." Flametongue snickered, then held out his hand and opened his palm, revealing two sets of dice, one white, one red.

"The game is Hajarud. I picked it out specifically because I know you are both familiar with it, saving us the trouble of explaining all the rules. Now who would like the white set and who gets red?"

"I'll take red!" Kalana interjected quickly.

Mewtwo allowed himself a tiny smile. It really was like her to volunteer to take the supposedly unlucky color in the hope of helping Mewtwo out. Even in the smallest of ways, she was so reliably selfless. Flametongue nodded and then used telekinesis to float the dice up off his hand and separate them, setting the red dice on the floor in front of Kalana and the white dice in front of Mewtwo. He then used his telekinesis to unlatch the manacles on their hands so that they could play properly, though he did leave the ones on their feet in place.

"I trust you are wise enough to know that any escape attempts now will be fruitless, so don't take my permissiveness with those cuffs to be an invitation to flee. Any attempts to escape will cause the player to forfeit their round." Flametongue explained.

"Fine. But what's the twist? I don't believe for a second we're just going to be wagering rupees like a normal game!" Kalana snapped.

"Oh we will definitely be playing with Rupees, but there is indeed a twist!" Flametongue snickered. He used telekinesis to open one of the storage lockers near the table he was leaning against and fetched a big bag out of it. The bag floated over under his command and spilled its contents out onto the floor between them. One hundred green rupees scattered out onto the floor, shimmering beautifully under the chamber's dull red light. Flametongue then used telekinesis to split them up into two piles of fifty and slid each pile to Mewtwo and Kalana respectively. Then he fetched something else out of the same storage locker. It looked like some sort of dull black steel rod with a large bulbous metal pod on the bottom. He grabbed it out of the air and held it menacingly in front of himself.

"Here's how this will go. The structure of the game will follow the traditional style, where the players play to best three out of five, placing bets as they go, with the winner at the end taking the Rupees for themselves. But the twist is that these rupees are not meant to be used monetarily, they are tokens which represent something. In our case, each Rupee token represents one lash with this."

Flametongue then flipped a switch on the base of the rod he was holding, and suddenly it flared to life with a sizzling crackle of glowing red energy. This energy took the form of a bright red whip that was projected from the rod, which Mewtwo now realized was a handle. It was some sort of plasma whip. For emphasis, Flametongue raised the weapon and made a demonstration strike into the air between them, creating a sharp, ear-piercing SNAP and a burst of red sparks. Mewtwo could smell a hint of ozone on the air, undoubtedly created by the sheer amount of energy discharged.

"Every round, the winner cashes out all the tokens they won for lashes, then I use my power to regenerate their body to prevent them from passing out from the pain. Then we start again, and play until all 100 Rupees have been awarded. And if somehow I haven't met my goal by the end of this set of 100, we'll pick another, more interesting game to play." Flametongue said, grinning in a way that cast beams of orange light out between his teeth.

"You sick freak! What even is this goal?!" Kalana yelled.

"Oh you'll see! There will be no missing it when it happens, believe me. I fully suspect we'll reach it before we even hit the 25 Rupee threshold. Now begin, place your ante and then bet!" Flametongue ordered, his voice becoming forceful.

Kalana and Mewtwo each reached down to take one rupee from their piles and set them out into the center. Mewtwo tried to come up with an idea that would allow him to rig the game so he could take the lashes for Kalana instead, but as long as the dice were fair he didn't know if it would be possible.

"Kalana what should we do? How should we bet? I want to take all the lashes for you but I don't know if it's possible. I heard there was a way to manipulate how dice land with proper hand movements but I never learned it." Mewtwo said, his tone shaky with fear.

"There is, but nobody ever used or taught it back home at Ven'rakesh, our collective sense of honor and pride was too damn strong to ever use something like that! Damnit all, I should be the one to take all the lashes though Mewtwo, at least my body is trained to handle pain and exertion!" Kalana retorted.

"You know I couldn't live with myself if I let you do that! Maybe there's a way we can manipulate the odds via betting? Maybe you bet high first and I bet low? Damnit, that won't affect the dice outcome though!" Mewtwo retorted.

"And I'd never be able to live with myself either if I let you take the lashes too!" Kalana said, her voice rising with fear and desperation.

Flametongue seemed a little bit amused by the argument brewing between the two of them. He flicked the energy whip back and forth with an even rhythm now as he interjected. "You had better decide how much you want to bet quickly. Tick tock. I'm giving you ten seconds, otherwise I decide who gets the lashes regardless of the outcome."

"Ugh, fine! I want to get this over with quickly, I'm betting everything immediately! All in!" Mewtwo shouted, shoving his entire pile of fifty into the center.

"Tsk, would you stop trying to ruin the fun for me like this? The anticipation and tension are a big part of it! Maximum starting bet is now ten rupees!" Flametongue growled, then used his telekinesis to shove back forty of Mewtwo's fifty.

"Then what's the point of even playing at all if all you're going to do is arbitrarily change the rules whenever you fucking like?!" Kalana yelled angrily.

"The point? Now it's to make sure you understand how powerless you really are! I change the rules whenever I like because you are my guests and you play how I like!" Flametongue snarled, starting to lose his smug, charismatic composure as anger surged out. But he quickly regained it, as if remembering something that caused his confidence to return. "Besides, you still haven't seen all the twists yet. Make your bet Kalana, clock is ticking."

Kalana furrowed her brow deeply with frustration and fear as Flametongue resumed flicking the whip to make clock-like snaps in tune to every second. "Fine, I match the bet!"

Kalana pushed her ten rupees into the center and then picked up her dice. Flametongue stopped flicking the whip and then knelt down on the floor beside them to watch the roll. "Roll!" He ordered.

Kalana and Mewtwo hesitantly cast their dice but it was clear there was no spirit or excitement in it. Their throws were tepid and limp, barely imparting just enough force for them to reach each other and collide as the rules required. The results were decisive though, Kalana rolled boxcars, Mewtwo rolled snake eyes.

"First round goes to the desert rat! Ante up for round two!" Flametongue crooned in delight.

Feeling his guts starting to sink, Mewtwo shakily reached down to ante up one and then grab another ten and push them into the center. "I bet ten."

Kalana added her own ante and nodded, then pushed ten of her own in again too. "I match!"

"Hahahah, still going for the high stakes I see? I may have to add more rupees to the pile if you burn through all of them this quickly!" Flametongue said. "Roll!"

Kalana and Mewtwo cast their dice again and Mewtwo chewed on his tongue, hoping desperately that Lightest, whoever she was, would arrive before the end of the set. Their dice bounced across the flat steel floor and clacked together sharply, and incredibly they rolled the exact same results a second time! Kalana got Boxcars, Mewtwo got snake eyes!

"Ooooooh, you're starting to accrue quite a pile there, desert rat! I hope you realize that these lashes are much easier to cope with in smaller doses so your body can adjust to the pain! But ah, who am I to judge your methods? Maybe you don't want to draw it out over time after all. Either way that's two-oh for you, and the pot is forty four!"

"Did... did you give us loaded dice?!" Mewtwo said as the unlikeliness of those two rolls hit him.

"Place. Your. Bets." Flametongue said with a sadistic, forceful sneer.

Mewtwo looked down at his remaining pile. If the dice were really loaded and this whole thing was a farce then he needed to change his strategy to protect Kalana. He placed his ante and then slid one single rupee up instead of ten. "I bet one. I don't want to add any more to your pile Kalana."

"Ten! I'll be alright, I've taken blows from worse beasts than him!" Kalana growled, her tone filled with contempt for their captor. She slid her rupees forward into the pile and scooped up her dice.

Flametongue continued to ignore their dialogue and grinned as he spoke the next order. "Roll!"

For the third time they rolled their bones and sat in deathly silence to watch them smack together. Just as Mewtwo suspected, the results were exactly the same again. Kalana boxcars, Mewtwo snake eyes. Flametongue clapped his hands and laughed loudly as he scooped the last batch of twelve into Kalana's pile.

"We have a winner! Congratulations to our vermin princess, you take a hefty hoard of fifty-six Rupee tokens! Let's get to the payoff shall we?" Flametongue said, his tone starting with playful mirth at first but then sinking into horrifying low malice as the sentence finished.

Flametongue then pointed his hand at Kalana and used telekinesis to grab her up off the floor and carry her through the air. He stripped the remaining chains off of her ankles and placed her onto one of the steel tables on the right side of the room, then telekinetically attached the straps to her wrists and ankles to keep her secured. She didn't give him the satisfaction of showing fear, but now Mewtwo couldn't help himself.

"You...you fucking scum! I'll-" Mewtwo yelled as he got up to try and leap at Flametongue, too angry to care about how futile it was.

Flametongue cut him off by grabbing him with telekinesis too, yanking his body into an X-shaped pose and slamming his jaws shut so he couldn't talk. The chains on Mewtwo's ankles went taut but Flametongue undid those too.

"Ah ah ah, don't you remember what I said about those who try to escape? Because of that, I'm rounding her lashes up to a nice even sixty!" Flametongue laughed.

Mewtwo wanted to yell out how that wasn't the rule Flametongue had set but his jaws were still clamped shut. He instinctively tried to use his psychic power to lash out but the siphon helmet screeched and thrummed to life as it caught the energy and drained it away. Then Flametongue set Mewtwo down on the other table opposite to Kalana's and strapped him in too. Now he was trapped and would be forced to watch.

"There, now we're all set for the show. Do you have anything to say before I begin, vermin princess?" Flametongue asked as he walked up alongside Kalana's table and gave the whip one more little crack into the air above her.

"It doesn't matter what you do to me, sulir! You can break my body and flay my flesh, but my ancestors will be waiting for me proudly on the other side! Can you say the same of yours?"

"Ancestors? Hah! I have none." Flametongue replied in a deathly cold tone. Then he raised his whip and began his grisly work.

Mewtwo slammed his eyes shut to avoid seeing what happened next. He couldn't bear to watch. But it didn't help him much, he couldn't shut his ears like his eyes and the sounds did more than enough to paint a vivid mental picture of what was happening. CRACK went the whip. A soft sizzle came after, as well as a sharp pained scream. Then it repeated, again and again and again. The pace of the sounds was slow and purposeful, demonstrating a sadistic eagerness from Flametongue to draw every strike out for maximum effect. Mewtwo intentionally didn't keep count, he didn't want to know, though he still had the final number lingering in his mind. After several passed though, Flametongue seemed to stop, and Mewtwo heard Kalana panting and whimpering in the absence of the sound.

"Here now, like I said, no passing out allowed." Flametongue crooned.

Mewtwo couldn't help but crack one eye open to see what was going on, even though he remembered what Flametongue had said about healing her when they were starting. He caught a glimpse of him with one clawed hand on her stomach, radiating glowing red psychic energy, and some blackened burn marks were rapidly shrinking and vanishing as he healed her. As Kalana's panting eased down and the healing energy took away her pain, she turned her gaze up at Flametongue with a look of wrath and did the only thing she could do with her limbs secured: She spat right in his face.

Flametongue didn't seem angered by this at all, in fact he wasn't even slightly perturbed. Instead he opened his mouth and extended his own flaming tongue to lick at it, letting the flames boil off the liquid with a hissing sizzle. Mewtwo nearly retched at the disgusting sight. He renewed his struggles, yanking violently at his straps until he felt his wrists and ankles bruise and strain.

"Do you know how unoriginal that is, princess? Everyone who I host here inevitably spits on me. Fortunately for me I enjoy it, it just tells me my hospitality is working! Let's continue!" Flametongue sneered.

The whipcracks resumed and Mewtwo clenched his eyes shut again as he struggled. Agony raced through his left wrist as he felt a horrific pop from the force he was applying. A bone must have broken. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional trauma he was enduring as he listened to Kalana's torture continuing. Crack, sizzle, scream! Crack, sizzle, scream! Crack sizzle scream, crack sizzle scream, again and again, faster and faster! Kalana's voice grew hoarse and nearly failed her, and as the set of lashes hit a crescendo, again Flametongue stopped to heal her. It went through this cycle three more times, and by the end of it both Mewtwo's wrists and ankles were limp and broken from his struggles. Time blurred as the trauma grew overwhelming, but then he felt a sudden hand laying on his left wrist. Warm tingling relief flowed through it, and Mewtwo confusedly opened his eyes.

There was Flametongue hovering over him, healing his injuries! Confusion and rage swirled together into a muddled, horrible storm in Mewtwo's eyes, especially when he saw the grin on Flametongue's face.

"Now now, it's not your turn for this sort of pain. Your focus should be on her instead." Flametongue cooed softly, reaching down to heal Mewtwo's ankles next.

"I'll kill you!" Mewtwo yelled, his vision growing tinged with the horrible red fury he'd suffered so many times before.

"Yes! I'd love to see you try!" Flametongue sneered.

"I'm going to rip your throat out!" Mewtwo yelled, his tone of speech slurring as the rage grew so powerful that it began disrupting his mind. His vision was starting to blur, almost as if it was turning into double vision. Again his siphon helm screeched as it caught his power.

"Do it!" Flametongue taunted, laughing in absolute delight.

He took a step back from Mewtwo's table, putting himself just out of reach, and then telekinetically undid the straps holding Mewtwo's hands back. He left the ankle straps intact though, wanting to keep Mewtwo stuck while still taunting him and keeping out of grab range. Mewtwo jolted upright and pushed his body forward, nearly falling headfirst off of the table as he furiously tried to grab at Flametongue to rip him apart with his bare hands. His vision was entirely red now, all he could think about was how desperately he wanted to disembowel the monster standing just beyond his grasp. In a nearly feral state of rage now he could no longer conjure any words, he yelled and roared in a feline manner as he struggled to get his hands on Flametongue.

"Come on, kill me then you fucking coward! Rip me limb from limb! Slaughter me! I bet you don't have it in you!" Flametongue taunted one last time.

Then he did something that should have tipped Mewtwo off that something was horribly wrong. Something that Mewtwo almost certainly would have cast doubt on if he hadn't been driven to a state of primal bloodlust by the torturer's taunting. Flametongue used telekinesis to open one of the storage racks next to the table just to Mewtwo's left, revealing a mostly empty rack that contained a few small weapons, including one single familiar dagger. Hadara's dagger, the one he had won from Nereti. Without thinking he turned and grabbed it, and without the ability to reach Flametongue for a slashing strike, he raised his hand and hurled it at him.

"Perfect." Flametongue said with a quiet satisfaction. Then, with perfectly calm, planned precision, he teleported out of the way.

Mewtwo was now helpless to watch as the dagger sailed through the air, crossing the gap between his table and Kalana's. As if perfectly guided by the cruelest of fates, it landed blade-first directly into Kalana's neck with a sickening squelch. Her eyes jolted wide open with shock and she spasmed and twitched on the table, and after a few horrible seconds of struggling for breath, she went limp and slumped against the table. Before Mewtwo could even say a word, she was gone.

It was nightmarishly familiar when all the rage evaporated out of Mewtwo's body again as he realized what he had done. Just like after he had killed Gary, the anger left him instantaneously and only a profound feeling of coldness and sickness lingered in its place. Flametongue reappeared to the right of Mewtwo's table and turned to look at the results of his deed, snickering with renewed sadistic glee.

"Hah, I couldn't have asked for a more flawless outcome than that! Good throw Mewtwo, I didn't realize you had such skill!" Flametongue laughed.

Something broke inside Mewtwo then, he could feel it as tangibly as the snapping of the bones in his wrists before. All that anger and sadness and self hatred that came welling up from what he had done had immediately become more than he could bear, and his control broke. But it wasn't the sort of break that caused him to give in to despair, it was the sort that removed all his remaining care for his own life or well being. He had no words for Flametongue now, just a cold, dead, lethal desire to have his head at any cost.

"I mean really, isn't the irony of this perfect Mewtwo? Killed by her mother's own blade? You couldn't find anyone as good at designing these scenarios as I am even if you searched half the galaxy!" Flametongue laughed as he walked over to pull the dagger out of Kalana's body.

Mewtwo realized that his hands were still free and he reached down to undo the straps holding his ankles while Flametongue continued to gloat. In mere moments he was free, and as soon as Flametongue turned away from the body, they were standing face to face. Flametongue didn't seem to care though, in fact he erupted with a peal of riotous laughter.

"What, are you serious?! Do you really mean to fight me by hand?! That's the funniest thing I've ever seen! Bahahahahah, seriously! I must have completely shattered your mind if you think you can stand any sort of chance against me when I have my powers and you don't!" He howled with laughter.

Mewtwo balled his fists up and advanced. He didn't care. Maybe Flametongue would finally kill him in this fight, at least it would be over.

"Like, come on now! You're supposed to be linked to us and this is all you can do? Here, I'll even give you this! You won't even touch me with it!"

Flametongue then held out Hadara's dagger to him as if offering to let him use it in their fight. Kalana's blood was still dripping freshly from the edge. Mewtwo snatched it up, and for a few moments he seriously considered drawing it across his own neck to end it all. It would only be right for him to pay in his own blood for shedding hers. But the thought of it gave him one more idea: He could try to use it to disable the siphon helmet. He would only have one chance, and perhaps only a second or less before Flametongue realized what he was doing and stopped him with telekinesis. That meant he could really only come up with one way to do it, by plunging the dagger into the helmet as hard as he physically could. It'd run the risk of overshooting and stabbing into his head, but he didn't care. The part of him that had cared had died with Kalana. While Flametongue was still distracted by his own convulsive laughter, Mewtwo reached back to put the dagger in the coils of his tail, the only limb he had that could apply enough force with leverage to do this. As fast as he could, he lowered his tail and then swung it upward with every ounce of strength he could muster. He closed his eyes right before the blade struck the helmet on the back of his head, hoping that it would at least sever his spinal cord quickly if it broke through the helmet enough to hit him.

The helmet was fortunately not armored in the least, the thin metallic shell was easily punctured by the force Mewtwo's tail could exert. It was the machinery inside that provided the strength that kept the blade from dispatching Mewtwo from his Earthly coil. It came to a stop with a millimetre to spare, and in the process severed a number of vital electronic connections that the helmet required to function properly. It gave one last shrieking electronic alarm as its systems failed, and then went silent.

Flametongue's laughter halted instantly, as though someone had flicked a switch. Profound shock and fear filled his expression as he realized the gravity of his mistake. Nobody had ever done something like that before, how could he have expected that? All that confidence and bravado evaporated, especially once he locked eyes with Mewtwo and saw that cold, dead look of calculating murder in his gaze. The tower's siphon network was off too, now nothing could stop him from using the full might of his entire psychic arsenal against him. A loud explosion of shredded metal and plastic blossomed through the air behind Mewtwo as he used his telekinesis to rip the rest of the siphon helmet apart and get it off of himself, and Hadara's dagger floated back down into his hand.

Flametongue barely had a fraction of a second to raise his own psychic barrier before Mewtwo was on him. Mewtwo pounced at him with his hands wreathed in flickering purple-black energy as he used his Shadow Claw technique, knowing it would work perfectly against him due to his typing. Flametongue's shield buckled inward as the type advantage worked against him, coupled with the raw unkempt fury of a person willing to do anything to slaughter him. Flametongue wasn't thinking clearly as panic gripped him, he knew if Admiral Shadetalon or Lord Darkest found out about the gravity of the error he had just made he would meet a fate even worse than that which he so regularly doled out against his victims. He had to get this under control now, and his masters could never know of this mistake. Perhaps he could have regained control over the situation if he called Shadetalon for help and the two of them worked together to psychically overpower Mewtwo with their combined might, but he couldn't bear to face what Shadetalon would do to him afterward. So instead he made one last desperate play to get the situation under control by himself. He teleported away from Mewtwo's attack just as the Shadow Claw punctured his barrier, avoiding the deadly blades of darkness as they plunged in.

Flametongue reappeared behind Mewtwo and threw everything he had into one gigantic overpowering psychic barrage, hoping to overwhelm his mind and stun him without landing a lethal blow that would surely doom him and everyone else. Mewtwo raised his own psychic barrier in time though, and the invisible attack suddenly lit up and exploded in a barrage of glowing orange-red telekinetic fury. He couldn't use any of his own super-effective attacks on Mewtwo, he couldn't afford to kill him, it was his Lord's command, and that put him at an overwhelming disadvantage against an opponent who suffered no such constraints. Mewtwo turned and responded in kind with a withering barrage of psychic force, and for a brief moment they were standing evenly matched, staring each other down while the space between their shields became a hellish psychic firestorm.

The force of that clash immediately sen shockwaves careening through the room, setting numerous fires and causing the floor to buckle downward a foot and the ceiling to buckle upward in tandem. The tables were ripped from their bases and hurled against the wall, sending clouds of debris tumbling around the room. Mewtwo started to lose his tactical focus as his anger rose up again, his pride and anger were blinding him and driving him to engage in this direct psychic clash instead of hurling a Shadow Ball like he should have. He threw everything he had at Flametongue and his normally blue psychic aura flared to a bloody red as he did, but Flametongue had decades upon decades of combat training in service to his lord and was no pushover despite his disadvantaged state. In fact, as seconds passed and their psychic storm continued to intensify, Flametongue started to gain ground as his combat experience and training showed through. He simply had more raw psychic might than Mewtwo did after everything he'd been through, and Mewtwo felt himself being pushed backward and his shield beginning to buckle. The storm was shredding the room to pieces and burning everything around them into cinders, but Mewtwo had one last play to make. He called on the power of the Forest Medallion, hoping its power could add to his own and help him to overwhelm Flametongue's might.

Glowing green light surged up through Mewtwo's aura, suffusing through the red that had been surrounding him. His barrier stabilized and even began to push back against Flametongue's! It was too slow though, it wasn't enough to truly overwhelm him, it just mostly evened out their disadvantage. They remained locked in this near-evenly matched state for several seconds until finally something happened to break the stalemate.

The power of their psychic storm had thrown open the door to the torture chamber, and through that door a familiar Gerudo face peeked around. Mewtwo couldn't make her out through the red and green blazing light engulfing him, but he could sense her presence. Some part of him hoped against hope that it was Kalana somehow back from the dead, but this one wore blue Vha'an garb instead. Her face was covered in disfiguring scars and her hair was now ragged and clothes tattered, but she held aloft a beautiful golden bow that began to shimmer with radiant holy light.

A twang sounded, marking the doom of Flametongue. Ciela Lasheera let loose a brilliant glowing golden arrow, which sailed through the air and passed through Flametongue's psychic barrier like tissue paper. When the holy arrow landed in his flesh it immediately loosed a storm of violent golden bolts of purifying energy that ripped through his body, scouring burns all over his skin and causing him to convulse violently. His concentration on maintaining that barrier instantly failed and it vanished into nothingness, allowing all the fury of Mewtwo's storm to come crashing through unopposed. To a bystander, it was as if he was consumed by a flash of golden light before being swallowed whole in the barrage of red and green energy that he had failed to hold back. He was gone.

Chapter 31 - In the Lap of the Goddesses Pt. 1

Princess Ciela Lasheera took several steps back from the doorway where she had fired the arrow that had smote the Sulaaq. The raging magical firestorm that the battle had caused was now vanishing before her eyes, leaving the torturer's chambers dark and silent. A thick plume of black smoke billowed out of the doorframe and flowed out over the ceiling of the hallway. In a way it mirrored the dark storm clouds that were still slowly churning in the sky just outside of the window wall. Ciela nocked another arrow quickly, fearing another Sulaaq could come and investigate after all the deafening noise caused by the battle. She also still didn't really know if she could truly trust the motivations of the outsider she'd just rescued despite the fact he'd been battling with the Sulaaq. Would he turn around and attack her next? The paranoia that her time in those exact same torture chambers had instilled was very hard to shake. But the fact that this outsider had just killed the very same one who had been responsible for torturing her was enough to instill doubt and make her hold back the urge to fire. Still, she couldn't stop her instinctual urge to raise the bow and take aim when she saw a faint multicolored glow starting to appear in the smokey doorframe.

What she saw emerge made Ciela freeze on the spot. The outsider that she'd heard the Rakeshan people call Mewtwo emerged through the door, enveloped in a transparent bubble of red and green swirling magical energy and hovering a foot off the floor. The red coloration gradually faded out of his bubble as she watched; it was replaced by a soft lapis blue. Rather than a look of rage or hostility on his face, Mewtwo bore a profound expression of sorrow. He ignored Ciela entirely and lowered himself to the floor, first landing on his feet and then slumping down to sit with his head hung low. His hands were shaking slightly and holding an item that she instantly recognized as the legendary Spirit Medallion! It shocked her mind to the core to see someone like him just casually holding such a potent artifact in his hands. He didn't even seem to be aware of its importance, as he just dropped it onto the floor between his legs and buried his face in his hands and wept. It didn't make sense! The fight, the Medallion, the way he was acting, none of it lined up with what she thought she knew! She had to figure out what was going on, damn the risks, so she began to quietly walk up to him.

"So tired... I spent too much energy... I'm sorry Kalana... I'm so sorry..." He whispered, not even noticing her presence.

Even more confused now, Ciela pressed the tip of the arrow on her bow up against his forehead and barked out a question.

"What are you?! Really?!"

"A failure." Mewtwo choked out.

He then raised his head and looked Ciela directly in the eye. His own eyes were colored a bright red at first, but now began to gradually fade back into the same purple she had seen before. He had a deathly sorrow in his gaze that struck her as far too genuine and powerful to be faked. That alone was already enough to firmly shake at the very foundations of what she thought she knew about him, but then he did something no Sulaaq would ever do. He raised his chin to expose his primary neck, then grabbed Ciela's bow with both hands and pulled it down so it was aimed right at it.

"What are you waiting for? Go ahead, do it then. Get it over with. I deserve it."

Ciela's mind absolutely reeled. Everything in her world seemed to be going insane again. In her befuddled state she couldn't bring herself to even draw back the bowstring, but her instincts at least guided her toward doing the one thing she'd set out to do ever since she escaped the Sulaaq. She went right for whatever holy artifact she could. In this case, it was the Spirit Medallion, which she scooped up with one hand after letting go of her bowstring. Mewtwo didn't even try to stop her, a fact which turned out to be the last straw for her fading belief that he was a Sulaaq. They would never give up such power willingly.

"If you're not a Sulaaq then tell me who you really are! What do you want?!" She shouted.

Mewtwo only gave her a slightly bitter little smile. "I've told you already, you and everyone else. It seems like I'll never escape being hounded by Gerudo mistrust, even here and now at the bitter end."

Those words called up memories in Ciela's mind of all the times she'd confronted him. Each time he had told her that he meant them no harm and that he wasn't a Sulaaq. Maybe he really had been telling her the truth the whole time? Then she also remembered the message that Nariva had given her back in the Spirit Temple: "Evil hides in many guises and delights in deception." This could be true in both ways, what if the Sulaaq had been masking themselves to look like Mewtwo the entire time in order to make her think he was one of them? If so, then it was time for Ciela to finally face up to the grievous mistakes she'd been making against him. She swallowed her pride in one gigantic, stomach-turning gulp, and then handed him back the Spirit Medallion.

"Come on, take it and get up on your feet. You're going to need it to help me take down Shadetalon."

Mewtwo looked up and met her gaze again, but this time more than just sorrow was evident in his eyes. Surprise, disbelief, and even a hint of relief were there. With one hand he reached up to take the Medallion. Ciela then reached both her hands down to grab that hand and close her grip around it, curling his fingers around the smooth metal. She gave it a reassuring squeeze and then used it to pull him up to his feet.

It was amazing how one simple little meaningful gesture like that could change someone's entire world. Ciela's hand was like a lifeline she had tossed down into the deep chasm of despair that he had been trapped in. His grief certainly didn't go away, but now he remembered there were still others out there that he had to fight for. If she was here then there were certainly other Gerudos following not far behind, like the caravan of pursuers Kalana had predicted would track them. They were all in range of the tower's weapon now and he couldn't let his sorrow drag him down long enough to doom them all. Once he had fully regained his footing he briefly put his arms around Ciela for a hug.

Ciela accepted the hug, though she mumbled awkwardly to interrupt it after a few seconds. "Yeah, you're welcome, but uhh... we are sort of low on time here. Shadetalon could show up at any second."

"Right. Come with me." Mewtwo replied, then turned and began to head back toward the prison.

He hesitated for just a brief fraction of a second though, just long enough to peek back into the destroyed torture chamber one more time. Kalana really was truly gone; the firestorm from his battle with Flametongue had incinerated everything in the room including her remains. Only the Spirit Medallion and Hadara's dagger had survived. He felt sickened by what he had done, both with the dagger and with the firestorm, but he didn't have time to focus on it. Just like all the other Gerudos he was now learning to hold back the grief so that he could process it after the imminent threats had been dealt with. Besides, he reminded himself that Kalana was a warrior at heart, she would have been proud to have died in the flames of battle. It was poetic that they just happened to be literal ones.

"Uhhh Mewtwo, the stairs to the command chamber are back that way!" Ciela protested, pointing down the hallway behind her.

"We're not going to the command chamber, at least not yet. We're going to go hide for a few minutes so I can try to bond with the Spirit Medallion before the fight. It requires a brief period of meditation in order for me to form a link to it and use its power. At least, I hope."

"You 'hope'?" Ciela asked in a worried, questioning tone.

They turned the corner and re-entered the prison hallway as he tried to explain. "It's complicated and I don't have time to tell you everything, but the Deku Tree told me that every Medallion has a different method to bond with it properly and I don't know the entire method for Spirit, so I'm going to try the only way I know and pray it works."

He stopped in his tracks then and raised a psychic cloaking field around himself and Ciela before then picking a single cell and teleporting them inside. That way if Shadetalon was watching them on the security cameras he wouldn't know which cell they had picked. Since he and Ciela were sharing the same single cloaking field they could at least see each other, so she didn't freak out thinking he had abandoned her. He then sat down on the floor and gripped the Medallion with both hands.

"If you see him coming, grab me by my shoulders and shake me as hard as you can. Or, if there's no time for it, let him have it with the bow. Hopefully the divine energy will stun him long enough for you to shake me out of it."

Ciela looked a little bit overwhelmed; the experience of being teleported was entirely new to her and she had been on the verge of asking him how exactly they had gotten into the cell. But she refocused herself and nodded her head instead. "Ok, got it."

Mewtwo took a few deep breaths and did his best to center himself and clear his mind as quickly as possible. It wasn't easy due to the raw, unprocessed grief waiting just under the surface of his thoughts. For a brief moment or two he questioned the tactical value of spending all the time needed to do this when he now had full access to the entire breadth and scope of his psychic abilities. He was paying an opportunity cost by losing the chance to ambush Shadetalon with those powers while doing this, especially since all he needed was one good surprise blow to his necks. But then he reminded himself of the massive security systems in these towers; it was likely Shadetalon already knew and was on guard and searching for them that very moment. Not only that, but Shadetalon did have control over the energy siphon grid and it was very likely he could just flip it on again and then shoot Mewtwo dead the moment they engaged in combat. Mewtwo desperately needed the Medallion's power to defend himself in that situation. So he honed his focus as best he could and pressed on.

It seemed that the grief and stress were too much of an obstacle for him to simply power through though. In the absence of any other ideas for Spirit-relevant focus locations he picked the Spirit Temple's inner sanctum for his meditative focus, and that didn't seem to work at all. He could picture it clearly in his mind's eye but it just didn't carry enough personal significance to really draw him in. But then inspiration struck him and he decided to try visualizing the smaller shrine to Nariva that he'd visited in the Rakeshan Arbiter's Grounds during his history lessons with Hadara. That one finally seemed to do the trick, as suddenly that dark red cell began to fade away and he felt as though he was actually sitting in front of the statue to Nariva. He could smell the vague scent of torch smoke and see the murals carved in the walls that Hadara had read from during his lessons. He was still holding the Spirit Medallion in his hands, but nothing seemed to be happening though, and for a few moments his mind started to lose focus as he worried that he was still missing something specific to the Spirit element.

Then he remembered it; it was a small simple step that he felt patently stupid for forgetting, since Hadara had taught it to him directly and he'd seen the others doing it many times before. He had to offer the proper song to the Goddess. Without a Maraqé of his own to play though, all he had was his voice. He was always self conscious about the sound of it since he was so used to relying on Telepathy before coming to Hypalia, but then he remembered something else too. In this meditative vision he still had his cloak on, so he reached down into the inner pockets and pulled out Kalana's old Amulet of Speechcraft. Even though he had broken its chain back in the Spirit Temple, in this vision the chain was still intact, so he slipped it over his head and took a deep breath. Even if it was just a figment of the vision it gave him the confidence he needed to give his best rendition of the Requiem of Spirit. He knelt before the statue and closed his eyes while humming the wordless tune, and once he was finished he felt a warm, solid hand on his shoulder.

"Not bad for the first time." A familiar voice said behind him.

Mewtwo turned around and saw two figures standing behind him, Kalana and Nabooru! Kalana was the one who had laid her hand on his shoulder, while Nabooru was standing back a few feet in the doorway of the room. Immediately Mewtwo remembered what Kalana had said about the spirit of Nabooru helping her to bond with the Medallion before they entered the city and he knew that the same thing was happening now. It was a sad reminder of what had happened to Kalana, but Mewtwo couldn't help but smile a little anyway. It was a blessing that he was having one last chance to see her again.

"Kalana, I'm..." He tried to say, but his voice broke as the sadness came welling up.

"I know. You know what I'm going to say though, it's the same thing you've said to everyone else. There's nothing to forgive." She replied, smiling warmly.

She came up to kneel in front of Mewtwo and speak to him eye to eye, and even though her smile was filled with the same kindness and strength that he always saw within her, there was a little bit of sadness there now that she couldn't hide. With nothing else to say, he leaned forward and hugged her one more time, wanting to take the opportunity before it slipped away.

"What am I going to do without you?" He asked softly, biting back the tears so they wouldn't waste their time together.

"You'll fight on like you always do. I know you have it in you, you have a warrior's spirit just as strong as mine and a good head on your shoulders to boot. You figured out how to do this after all."

Kalana then slowly released the hug and reached down to take the Medallion again and hold it up to him. Her eyes told him to follow her gesture, so he placed his own hands on hers so they were both gripping it together. The Medallion and then both their bodies began to glow with a beautiful bronze light, and Mewtwo could suddenly feel the warmth of its energy suffusing his chest, just like when he had bonded with the Forest Medallion.

"Wait, you're doing this for me? Not Nabooru?" Mewtwo asked, suddenly confused.

Nabooru smirked and walked over to put her hand on Kalana's shoulder. "Remember back in the forest when I helped her to bond with the Medallion? That wasn't the only thing I managed to do. She finally was able to genuinely awaken as the Sage of Spirit. It was about time, I'd been stuck holding the title from beyond the grave for far too long. Even if she only got to carry it for a very short time, she was always worthy of it no matter how much she doubted herself. She didn't need years of magical training to be a Sage, just a little push from yours truly."

Mewtwo looked to Nabooru as she spoke, and when she finished he returned his gaze to Kalana. He smiled a little more now as he felt the Medallion dematerialize and start to sink into his body.

"I told you that you shouldn't feel bad about that stuff." He said, enjoying the chance to return her kindness one more time.

"Oh hush you, I'm supposed to be the one comforting you right now." Kalana laughed softly.

The Medallion finished fading away and settling into Mewtwo's body at this point and he could feel its power surging through him. He knew their time was almost up now, he was about to wake up in reality. So he took that moment to yank Kalana into one final hug.

"I'll miss you." He whispered.

"I'll miss you too. We'll meet again someday though, so don't give up. Go out there and knock em dead ok? Literally." She laughed.

Then Mewtwo was awake in the cell with Ciela again. His hands were empty now that the Spirit Medallion resided within him, and his face was wet with tears again. He couldn't help but smile though, even as he noticed Ciela giving him an amazed and confused look. He slowly wiped his eyes as his mind cleared, and a new resolve flowed through his veins. His grief for Kalana wasn't gone entirely, but that last embrace had helped shrink it enough that he could now hopefully bring himself to face the upcoming fight without losing his concentration.

"What happened?!" Ciela asked urgently. "It seemed to melt into thin air and sink into you!"

"It worked." He said simply, still smiling.

Mewtwo began to stand up now, his brain processing the next sentence he was about to say to Ciela. He was interrupted midway by a sight that chilled him to his core though, there was a pair of floating red eyes glowing out of the darkness in the hallway outside the cell. He hadn't realized it, but most of the lights in the prison had been shut off except for the one in the cell he and Ciela were inhabiting. He froze in place as he realized the eyes were looking directly at them. But how was that possible? He had put up a psychic cloaking field and... and then he remembered their very first encounter with Shadetalon when he had seen right through Mewtwo's cloak too. It was then that he heard Shadetalon's telepathic voice speak directly to him.

"I was starting to wonder when you'd remember that little tidbit. Even without it, that fancy golden disc put off such an energy beacon I could have found you even without my Dark type giving me the power to pierce that silly little trick of yours."

Then Mewtwo saw a glowing orb of red energy appearing out of the darkness beneath those two eyes and knew Shadetalon was launching his attack. He had just enough time to raise his psychic shield and shout the beginnings of a warning to Ciela.

"Ciela! Your bow!"

Ciela didn't know where the threat was coming from though, and Shadetalon's attack was too fast for her to do much anyway. Her eyes widened and her hand started to reach for it, but the orb of red energy streaked through the air and hit the ground between them before she could reach it. The ensuing explosion did nothing against Mewtwo's protective barrier but it knocked Ciela backward and slammed her body against the wall of the cell violently. Her head took a share of the blow and she slid down the wall unconscious, trailing blood.

"No! I'm not losing anyone else!" Mewtwo shouted, then bolted over the smouldering floor and knelt down to begin to heal her.

The bleeding wounds caused by shrapnel at least sealed up before Shadetalon came over to intervene. The explosion had blown the cell door open, so Shadetalon was able to stroll right up and raise his arm to land a vicious Shadow Claw attack that rent right through Mewtwo's barrier effortlessly thanks to the type advantage.

"You don't have a choice in that matter anymore!" Shadetalon yelled, now sounding enraged rather than his usual sneering calm demeanor.

The blow opened a ragged wound across Mewtwo's left thigh and caused him to yell in agony and lose focus on the Heal Pulse ability he'd been using. He fell to his hands and knees for a brief moment, mentally trying to choose a move to use that would at least be marginally effective against Shadetalon's typing. He desperately wished he had the Vatorsa Spear or a gun. Knowing he had no time before Shadetalon attacked him again, he spun around into a sitting position facing Shadetalon and used his psychic power to call up a wicked beam of flames from his palm. He could still use his powers to wield other elemental attacks outside of his usual psychic repertoire after all, and in this case he chose a reliable old standard called Flamethrower.

Shadetalon raised his own telekinetic barrier to block it and was successful in avoiding harm, but the sheer power behind that column of flames shoved him backward several feet, buying Mewtwo the time and space to climb to his feet and get out of the cell. Even if the attack had proved to be entirely ineffective against his opponent it allowed Mewtwo to get out of the corner he'd been trapped in. Now the two of them were face to face in the prison hallway with nothing left to get in between them. Ciela was still out cold in the cell since Mewtwo hadn't had a chance to finish healing her. Her golden bow had been dropped haphazardly to the floor next to her. Realizing this could be the key to defeating his foe, Mewtwo used telekinesis to grab the bow and rapidly pull it through the air toward himself. Shadetalon noticed this and immediately intervened.

"Oh no you don't!" He growled.

A huge wave of glowing blackness emanated from the Admiral's body as he used Dark Pulse. Predictably, this energy once again passed directly through Mewtwo's psychic barrier and impacted his body sharply, knocking him back several feet and searing his skin. His telekinesis fizzled out as the energy washed over the room, causing the bow to drop like a stone and clatter to the ground. As Mewtwo reeled backward and struggled to keep his footing, Shadetalon pointed his hand down at the bow and teleported it somewhere out of sight.

"Just stop struggling and give up! None of your pathetic attacks have any hope of breaking my defenses! Flametongue may have been an incompetent pushover for you but you have nothing that can overcome my type advantages over you!" Shadetalon yelled angrily.

For a brief moment Mewtwo felt panic racing through his veins as he considered his position. He used his Recover ability to heal his leg and the burns now covering his body and wracked his brain for a solution. He now had no weapons, no idea how to properly use the Spirit Medallion, no time to slowly charge a Solar Beam attack with the Forest Medallion without Shadetalon retaliating, no other moves that could break Shadetalon's shield, and Shadetalon could effortlessly disregard Mewtwo's own shield and knock him out with one blow. He was well and truly fucked. Then his brain clicked and he realized that something here just didn't add up. Why didn't that Dark Pulse attack knock him out immediately? If Shadetalon was powerful enough to hold back all of Mewtwo's type-neutral attacks like Flamethrower with a psychic barrier then he should have been able to easily KO him with his weakness. Suddenly Mewtwo smirked as he remembered the fact that the Sulaaq had been so desperate to avoid killing him.

"You're holding back." Mewtwo said, then started to advance on him.

Shadetalon's look of mixed confidence and frustration instantly dropped. A genuine look of surprise replaced it for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure and sneered while raising one hand to start charging a Shadow Ball attack.

"Finally figured that out did you? It wouldn't be fun if I just instantly erased you with one strike!"

Mewtwo's smile broadened as he continued to put together the pieces of the puzzle. He took another step forward and Shadetalon actually began to back away down the hall and give ground. Now was the time to drop the playing dumb act.

"You can't kill me. Lord Darkest wants me alive, its vital to the core of his plan. And unfortunately for you, Lightest is already on her way."

Shadetalon's face now twisted into genuine horror the instant those names left Mewtwo's mouth. He was so struck with it that he lost concentration on his Shadow Ball and it fizzled out of existence in his hand. At the same time, Mewtwo slipped his hands behind his back and began to charge up his Solar Beam, hoping to use Shadetalon's distraction to buy himself time to fully prepare it.

"How do you know those names?!" Shadetalon demanded, his tone reeking of fear and desperation.

Mewtwo ignored the question entirely and continued to press forward, now realizing that secrecy must have been vital to the function of Shadetalon's plans. Light began to shine behind him as the golden-green orb of power appeared. Warm, tingling energy billowed up from inside Mewtwo as the Forest Medallion responded to his call, further empowering the attack.

"Darkest not only wants me alive, but he's tired of your schemes failing and he's on his way here right now. And when he gets here he's going to do things to you that not even Flametongue can imagine, and still you have no choice but to hold back!"

Shadetalon stammered incoherently as he tried to figure out how Mewtwo knew all this. He had no idea that the Gaze dreams had been leaking so many of his communications and now he didn't know how much of his plan had been compromised. At the same time, Mewtwo suddenly felt another upwelling of power surge through him, one that instead originated from the Spirit Medallion instead of the Forest Medallion. Of course! He had forgotten what the Deku Tree had told him; even Medallions he didn't know how to use could still passively empower others in his possession. This energy coiled itself around his body, giving him a mixed, swirling gold and green aura, and the Solar Beam's charge up sequence rapidly accelerated. It reached full charge right then and there, but before Mewtwo could fire it, Shadetalon had a sudden realization of his own and stopped stumbling backward.

"I may not be able to kill you, but I don't need to! I just need to subdue you!"

Mewtwo frowned and then pulled his hands around to let loose while he still had the chance. The glowing green-gold orb followed his right hand around and erupted into a column of blinding light that rocketed through the air and closed the gap in an instant. It struck Shadetalon's psychic barrier violently and sprayed around it like a jet of water deforming around the column of a bridge. Shadetalon clearly didn't expect the beam to strike with such incredible force, he had been fully convinced that Mewtwo was relying entirely on type advantages to have a hope of winning and didn't know about the two Medallions in his possession. The beam caused Shadetalon's shield to bend inward and buckle almost immediately, totally overpowering his psychic reserves despite his centuries of combat training. The failure of the shield started on the left side first, causing a cascade failure that partially deflected the beam, sending half of it outward in a scattered dispersal pattern to the right while the left half broke through and blasted into him. This at least saved him from being completely vaporized by Mewtwo's fury. The wall to his right was melted and blasted into slag while his right arm was roasted and torn free from its socket. He gave a raw, ragged scream from the pain and took the coward's way out, teleporting away.

Mewtwo had expected this of course, every time he'd fought Shadetalon before he had done this. He remembered back to his battle in the open desert above the army of thralls, when Shadetalon had teleported repeatedly to dodge even his Aura Sphere attacks. Again Shadetalon had left behind a cloud of Dark type energy to conceal his teleport and prevent Mewtwo from tracking it, but this time something was different. Something had awakened the Spirit Medallion's energy inside him and it was doing more than just providing raw energy for his attacks. It seemed to be sharpening his senses, allowing him to detect Shadetalon's presence and track the location of his spirit regardless of the Dark energy around him. It showed him as a billowing, smudged aura of blackness hiding in another one of those prison cells. Shadetalon was hiding from him, undoubtedly trying to use the time to heal himself from the loss of his arm. Here was his chance to press the attack and keep Shadetalon from regaining his momentum. He teleported directly to the same cell he'd sensed Shadetalon hiding in and taunted him with a telepathic whisper.

"You're not the only one who can see through trickery now!" He growled, eager to turn the tables on Shadetalon.

He didn't have time to charge another full Solar Beam again this time, so he chose another elemental attack that he could fire off quickly and knew would at least hit in a neutral manner. A thin beam of glowing teal ice fired out of his palm and struck Shadetalon in the belly, making him gasp for air as his eyes bulged out in shock. The ice began to spread rapidly over his torso, crystallizing with loud, sharp cracking sounds. He had been in the middle of using Recover on himself when it hit, and while this wasn't enough to replace his lost arm, it had been covering the cauterized stump with new, regenerated skin and removing the shock from his system. He flinched sharply as the ice kept growing, but then reopened his eyes with a glowing red fury in them.

"You can dish it out, but I know you can't take it!" He yelled.

Another Dark Pulse radiated out from Shadetalon and this time he didn't hold back nearly as much. He was unfortunately correct, even with two Medallions feeding him power at full strength, Mewtwo was still woefully weak to Dark attacks. The pulse slammed him backward against the bars, causing the back of his head to catch one with enough force for his vision to nearly totally black out. The burns on his body were so severe it felt like he had been thrown into a bonfire just like the Lizalfos that he and Kalana had roasted alive back at the Spirit Temple. He made a scream of agony not too dissimilar from the one Shadetalon had made before and slid down the bars, crumpling to his knees. Shadetalon had still held back enough to avoid knocking him out entirely, but the mind-shattering amount of pain those burns were causing was making it near impossible for him to focus on anything. Instinct drove him to use Recover on himself to stanch the pain, and he managed to just barely scramble together the focus he needed to start using it. Now a brief period of silence passed as the two combatants sat there, groaning in pain and struggling to heal themselves.

"You've ruined everything!" Shadetalon growled out first, struggling to his feet as he finished stabilizing himself and regaining his focus. He was still missing an arm, but he had stopped the pain well enough to be back into fighting condition.

Mewtwo's burns were beginning to recede but the blow he'd taken to his head was still ringing in his brain and slowing his progress. He tried to push himself up to his feet using the bars as support, but Shadetalon used a telepathic command to trigger the cell door to slide open behind him, dumping him out unceremoniously into the hallway again. His legs quivered and his vision blurred back and forth in and out of focus as he tried to regain his footing again. He could vaguely see the one-armed silhouette of Shadetalon advancing on him again and felt fear churning up in his gut. He'd hit him with every single ounce of power he could pull out of those Medallions and it hadn't been enough! He again tried to call on them for energy, but this time rather than using it for an attack he tried to use it to accelerate his own healing. This thankfully seemed to work extremely well, his body immediately began to shed huge husks of charred dead skin as new skin rapidly grew underneath it, and his vision regained clarity as the concussion was rapidly healed.

Shadetalon saw this happening though and immediately responded by pressing his advantage while he had the chance. He used telekinesis to propel himself out of the cell toward Mewtwo at lightning speed. He slammed into Mewtwo and used his remaining hand for a Shadow Claw attack, burying blades of glowing darkness directly into Mewtwo's hip! Mewtwo once again bellowed from the pain and was tackled to the ground. The Shadow Claw gouged three sizzling wounds into his body, six inches deep and cauterized from the heat. Again Shadetalon had held much less back, now only just barely avoiding knocking him unconscious entirely.

"I will do what I must to fix this!" Shadetalon yelled into his face.

Now raving like a madman, the Admiral was laying on top of Mewtwo and pinning him down with his body weight. Mewtwo's brain could feel the cold metal of that armor painfully crushing down on him as he scrabbled to regain his mental focus again. Shadetalon dismissed his Shadow Claws and grabbed Mewtwo's forehead with his gauntleted hand. Mewtwo could faintly hear alarm beeps coming from the armor under his illusion.

"There's no time left! I don't fucking care about the risks of a paradox, I'm going to induce the split myself!"

Glowing red light suddenly filled Mewtwo's vision as the hand gripping his head began to fluoresce with crimson psychic power. He felt a burning hot wave of energy course through his body, and suddenly a surging tide of uncontrollable anger came roaring up in his mind. He snarled wordlessly at Shadetalon and lost all clarity of thought before lashing out at him with a raw burst of psychic fury. In that enraged state he forgot about Shadetalon's immunity and the full force of that attack simply bounced off of him with zero effect. Shadetalon locked eyes with him now and he gave a loud peal of demented laughter. The calm coherence of thought from Kalana's blessing before now left Mewtwo entirely and now he desperately wanted nothing more than the chance to flay Shadetalon alive. He reached up to grab the Admiral's arm and tried to wrench it away, but the cold metal armor under the illusion was simply too strong. He seethed and boiled with an ocean of hate, and as his arms still futilely struggled he could see that strange double vision effect starting to kick in. Even through that split distortion his eyes still spotted something that cooled his fury and caught his full attention. Shadetalon had made physical contact so close to his face that he could see under the layer of illusion that covered him.

There was too much fuzzy distortion to get a clear image of Shadetalon's true shape, but it wasn't his body that had arrested Mewtwo's attention. What had arrested his attention was the telltale glint of something shimmering gold strapped to his back. He didn't know what it was but he had a gut feeling that it was his last best chance to survive this encounter. With a quick sweeping gesture he brought his tail around and curled it around the item hiding beneath the illusion, then ripped it free of the straps holding it in place against Shadetalon's back. As soon as it was pulled free from the Admiral's body the illusion relinquished it and Mewtwo saw that it was Kalana's heirloom weapon, Scimitar Azria!

There wasn't any time for him to ponder why Shadetalon was carrying such a thing though, the anger and distortion filling Mewtwo's mind was becoming more and more overpowering by the second. He fumbled with his telekinesis and pulled the sheath off and tossed it aside, then raised the blade up as high as he could reach so he could strike with as much force and leverage as possible from that angle. As he did, the sword began to radiate a brilliant golden holy light. Shadetalon only had a fraction of a second to see that light flooding the room and realize the gravity of his mistake. Mewtwo brought the sword down and made a long vertical slashing strike that carved its way down his back parallel to his spine. The blade's golden holy light allowed it to carve directly through his armor like cardboard and cut into the flesh unopposed. Dancing bolts and sparks of divine radiance arced out of the blade and spread over Shadetalon's armor and his body, setting his nervous system alight with white hot blistering torment. He stumbled backward off of Mewtwo as his body's muscles spasmed uncontrollably. He screamed in pain with every ounce of air in his lungs as Nariva's purifying light scorched his flesh, and the illusion that had been maintained by his suit failed as the divine energy roasted every last circuit inside of it.

Fortunately Shadetalon hadn't gotten too far with his psychic attack on Mewtwo's mind, so the distortion and unnatural anger seemed to start fading away slowly on their own in the aftermath. Now Mewtwo could finally see the truth of the Chosen laid bare. The image of the Zoroark was gone, replaced by the form of another Mewtwo clad in a jet black armored body suit that concealed every inch of his body, complete with a visored helmet that still masked his true identity. The suit did have long metallic claws shaped like those of a Zoroark though, and there was a sloppily-patched hole in the center of the suit's torso where Kalana had stabbed him during their very first encounter. The suit had a large armored backpack and plated hump on its back to protect Shadetalon's second neck, but Nariva's fury had allowed Mewtwo to cleave right through it and neatly vertically bisect that second neck like a hotdog bun. The vital nerves in there that carried all of Shadetalon's powers were fried to a crisp, rendering him completely helpless.

The divine energy hadn't killed Shadetalon though. Once it faded away the injured Admiral slumped sideways onto the floor and spasmed continuously as the nerve damage caused him to suffer a spontaneous grand mal seizure. Mewtwo slowly sat up and regained his composure as his opponent jerked and writhed.

With a simple gesture Mewtwo grabbed Scimitar Azria out of his tail with one hand, freeing his tail to sway and flick around rapidly behind him. He rose up to his knees and looked down at his helpless foe, and that fading inner anger bubbled back up a bit and begged him to press the tip of the scimitar into Shadetalon's body repeatedly. He wanted to slowly carve gashes all over the monster's body while he was still alive in order to give him all the pain that Flametongue had given to Kalana. But a glint of golden light flashed off of the surface of Azria and caught his attention. He looked over to see what had caused it and his eyes subsequently settled onto the engraving that Nariva had left for him on the side of the blade.

"Retháza alea Niemah. Righteousness through Grace."

The words were like a cold douse of water on the flames of Mewtwo's anger. He recalled back to the words Nariva had left on the altar: "True justice is not found in the pursuit of vengeance but in the prevention of further evil." The memory of this caused all the redness and double vision to fade from his eyesight entirely, returning his view to perfect clarity. The hand he was using to grip the handle of Azria began to shake and its grip loosened. He didn't drop it just yet though, his brain was still struggling with one last inner conflict. Where was the justice in letting Shadetalon have a quick merciful death when he had been the one to send Kalana to the torture room? He was just as responsible for Kalana's fate as Flametongue himself. Flametongue had already escaped a long, agonizing, drawn out revenge by dying quickly in a psychic firestorm, why should his commanding officer also get the same mercy? Then he finally remembered the words that Amber had given him back in that desert oasis during the trip for Taji Alirha: "Remember to try to be the person you always wanted yourself to be."

The person he wanted to become would never torture a helpless, downed foe, no matter how evil. If he wanted to ever have a hope of becoming more than the monster that had murdered Gary Oak, he couldn't allow himself to sink to Flametongue's level. He let go of Azria and it clattered loudly to the floor beside him. Any lingering traces of the desire for revenge finally evaporated from his mind. The clarity that came in its place allowed him to easily choose his next course of action; he would give Shadetalon a quick and painless death so he could never hurt anyone else ever again, just as Nariva willed. But first it was time for answers. With a burst of raw telekinesis he reached down and tore the visored helmet off of Shadetalon's head so he could finally see his face.

What Mewtwo saw filled him with such immense relief at first that he exhaled a huge breath of air and nearly fell back on his haunches. It wasn't his own face that he saw staring back at him like he had feared so deeply. The relief didn't last very long though, since not only was this still a member of his own species from an unknown origin, but his face was highly menacing. Shadetalon had the deepest black fur and skin that he'd ever seen, far beyond what any normal body could create with natural pigmentation. It was practically supernaturally dark, like gazing into a jar of vantablack ink. His mouth was filled with ugly yellowed fangs that curved down to razor sharp points. He had multiple scars of wildly varying sizes all over his head and face. His eyes were rolled completely back into their sockets due to the seizure though, preventing Mewtwo from seeing their appearance for now. His left ear had been lopped off halfway up its length and there was some kind of cybernetic plug socket implanted in the back of his head just above his second neck.

Mewtwo realized he probably wasn't going to get any answers out of Shadetalon in this state so he reached one hand down and applied a short, controlled Heal Pulse in order to heal his brain. He intentionally avoided using enough to heal Shadetalon's second neck so that he'd remain powerless while still regaining lucidity. All at once the Admiral's chaotic spasming ceased and he sucked in a few uneven breaths as his consciousness returned fully. When his eyes turned back around to face outward and look at him, Mewtwo saw those same familiar demonic red slitted demon's eyes as before. It seemed like the Admiral liked his eyes enough to have used them in his illusions unchanged.

"Fuck!" Shadetalon spat, raising his one remaining hand and trying to use his powers. He winced and gasped in pain as the only answer he got was a sharp stabbing sensation in his ruined second neck.

"GAH! Fucking fuck!"

"I wouldn't bother trying that again, your second neck is cut in half." Mewtwo replied dispassionately.

"Why didn't you finish me off? Didn't have the fucking balls for it?" Shadetalon growled.

Mewtwo didn't deign to respond to that question. He saw Shadetalon reach his hand down to grope around for any sort of weapon he could find, so he used telekinesis to grab and pin down all three of his limbs, then his tail too to be sure.

"It's over now Shadetalon. Stop fighting. You're lucky I have the grace not to draw some creative patterns all over your body with the tip of Kalana's sword."

"Hah, why not? I'm the one who sent every single miserable calamity after you! I sent the giant sandfish, I sent all the thrall soldiers, I set loose the crazy princess who chased you, I burned that rat nest village in the North! All of it!"

"I figured as such by now. In fact I noticed a pattern in all that misery. Aside from the poorly controlled nature of the moldugas, none of it ever directly threatened my life. Even the laser fire from your thralls seemed to only ever strike me in non-vital areas. It all seemed specifically tailored toward inflicting emotional torture on me. I even noticed something else just now that fits together with it all: both you and Flametongue have tried desperately to goad me into losing control over my emotions and giving in to my rage. Granted I know now that you'd rather I killed you now than let you live through what Darkest is about to do to you, but this pattern is too strong and long-running for me to chalk up to your own blind self-preservation. So why don't I make you an offer then, hmm? You tell me why you've been tormenting me emotionally and how it ties into your plan, and I'll kill you quickly and painlessly before Darkest can put you through his own torture program. Refuse and I'll pause in my quest to kill Darkest just long enough for him to have his way with you."

"Why not just force your way into my mind with telepathy and find it all yourself? I'm defenseless now without my powers, you could read me like an open book." Shadetalon growled.

A slightly sadistic grin formed on Mewtwo's face. "You've fought so hard to hide the truth from me, I want to enjoy it when you tell it all to me willingly."

Shadetalon couldn't help but erupt in dark, bitter laughter as though he found some nugget of spiteful amusement in this situation. He gave Mewtwo a twisted grin as he replied.

"You know it's funny, the plan was clearly working if we judge by the malicious glee you're taking in this no-win trap you've put me in. If only Flametongue hadn't been a fucking incompetent moron with his security!" Shadetalon's voice snapped.

"So you wanted me to become even more of a violent murderer? But why?! What do you have to gain by that?! It doesn't make me any easier for you to subdue or enslave! You'd better answer quickly, Darkest could arrive at any moment! Tick tock!" Mewtwo growled.

"You even sound like Flametongue now too!" Shadetalon laughed. "Oh I'll tell you everything though, and I'll enjoy doing it!"

Mewtwo gave him a confused look, totally thrown by the reversal in Shadetalon's attitude. "Why?"

"For two reasons! One: it will destroy all of us and I'll take a bitter, spiteful pleasure in seeing all of Darkest's little sandcastles come crumbling down after years of torment at his hands. Two: the truth will do just as good a job at shattering your mind as we have, if not better. If I'm going to die then I'm going down laughing as everything burns around me!"

"Just tell me!" Mewtwo yelled, starting to feel anger creeping back into his mind.

"It's simple, everything comes down to one single anomalous moment. Tell me, are you aware of the fact that there are no laws of physics in the space between dimensions?"

"What does that have to do with any of this?!" Mewtwo barked frustratedly.

"Everything! Do you remember the moment in that place after you left Earth when a blob of entropic plasma struck your shield and caused it to buckle?"

"How do you know about that?" Mewtwo asked, starting to feel extremely nervous as he realized how much of his life they were aware of.

"Oh that will become clear very shortly! During that brief fraction of a second when you were exposed bare to the unbound chaotic nature of that place it did something disastrous to the fabric of your timeline. In the interdimensional space, time can go backward or forward at a whim. It can slow down or speed up or even freeze! Psychics like us can protect ourselves from these chaotic distortions with our shields, but you lost yours. Even a femtosecond of exposure is enough. You honestly got very lucky, you could have spontaneously de-aged into a baby or been frozen in time for a few billion years from your perspective! Instead you were sucked eight hundred years forward into the future and dumped onto this shitty sandball planet when you otherwise should have escaped that sinkhole and kept going!"

"I'm still not seeing how this relates to-" Mewtwo interjected, only for Shadetalon to have the chutzpah to interrupt him right back.

"If you'll stop interrupting me I'm about to get to that! Darkest is in orbit right now so if you really want to know everything then I suggest you shut up and let me finish!"

Mewtwo actually went silent now. If he didn't already loathe the Admiral with every fiber of his being he would have admired the sheer dumb nerve it took for him to speak like that to the person holding his life in his hands. Shadetalon smirked slightly and resumed, noticeably quickening the pace of his speech.

"You weren't supposed to have come here though. You were supposed to have kept going until you found a new realm by choice and landed on an ocean planet named Sarne. There you would have met and befriended a race of aquatic aliens named the Sarienne."

Mewtwo's mind flashed with recognition, he'd seen that name on the list of alien species that the Sulaaq could clone. He didn't know how this could fit into the twisted story of time travel that Shadetalon was telling him but he had a bad feeling that it was about to take a much darker turn. He was shortly proven terribly right.

"There you would have built a deep bond of trust with the Sarienne not unlike the one you've formed with the desert vermin here. But then, something happened that not even you understood. Somehow, something you did attracted the attention of another alien race to Sarne. One that wasn't quite as benevolent as the Sarienne. One who had been seeking out and burning fledgling Sarienne colonies on other worlds with a vastly superior fleet. One who had been eagerly hunting for the location of the Sarienne homeworld up until then. You can guess what happened next. Sarne burned."

Suddenly the password to the Sulaaq computers that Indiru had seen in her visions made a sickening measure of sense. Mewtwo inwardly prayed to Nariva that Indiru had at least been spared the knowledge of the context behind that password. Still smiling with sadistic glee, Shadetalon continued.

"In the span of just a few hours the entire planet was razed. A million nameless eldritch things flooded down from the heavens, slaughtering, disfiguring, and maiming the entire populace. You fought them with all your might but against such overwhelming numbers even your legendary psychic power never stood a chance. No matter how many you killed ten more came in each one's place. Ah how I wish I could have been there to see it, watching the very oceans themselves catch flame is such a rare and beautiful treat..." He trailed off with a wistful sigh and a smile, sounding like a man reminiscing about the beautiful colors of an autumn evening.

Contempt and disgust boiled up in Mewtwo's mind in response to this. Not even Nariva's grace could stop him from winding up a kick and planting it squarely on Shadetalon's ribs. The admiral winced and coughed painfully at first, then laughed. He quickly got back on track though; the blow had delivered its message clearly.

"When the slaughter was finally over, the nameless foes chose to leave you alive on the planet's surface as they departed. They thanked you for leading them to Sarne and then left you there alone. Can you imagine it? Being the sole survivor standing on a howling dead world amidst literal mountains of corpses? You blamed yourself entirely for their deaths, and under the crushing weight of fifteen billion innocent dead souls, your psyche collapsed violently. Your mind completely shattered, and from those broken remains emerged an entirely new being. One who would eventually become known as Lord Darkest! He whose hunger swallows the stars themselves! He whose red wrath cracks planets!"

The revelation hit Mewtwo harder than any of the physical blows Shadetalon had ever struck him with. The truth stabbed into his chest with the force of a thousand Shadow Claw attacks and left him truly speechless. Not only was his previous fear about the origins of the Sulaaq right in a lot of ways, it was actually far worse than he could have dreamed of. He wanted to deny this truth more than anything else he'd ever wanted in his life, but everything in the story fit together far too perfectly. It explained why they had gone to such extreme lengths to disguise themselves. It explained why Mewtwo's handprint opened every single lock and console in all of their facilities and why their systems all used a language he could read. It explained why they had been inflicting emotional torment on him specifically ever since he had come here, and it explained why they were trying to act as indirectly as possible. They were trying to ensure the timeline change didn't erase them from existence without causing a paradox by being responsible for their own creation! It even explained why they had left the Gerudos alive when they could have slaughtered them all with no effort. The Gerudos were just the stand-ins for the Sarienne in Darkest's grand plan to re-create the circumstances of his own twisted birth. They were all mere cattle of convenience, used to form a bond with Mewtwo before they were to be slaughtered en masse for the self-preservation scheme of a galactic tyrant. Mewtwo was sickened beyond words and it showed on his face. Shadetalon must have seen it too, as he immediately emitted another burst of demented laughter greater than any he'd done before.

"I'll even tell you what we 'Chosen' and 'Immortals' are, as your rat friends call us! We're clones of Darkest! All of us! Lesser clones with reduced psychic power and intelligence to make us easier for him to control! He created us all using the knowledge of cloning he took from your mind when you became him! After all, what better soldiers for conquest could he find than more of our own disgusting species? It's beautifully poetic don't you think? Giovanni created you to be his mindless weapon of conquest and you fought it with everything you had, but in the end it was you who forced us, your twisted little 'sons', to return to that blood-soaked birthright! Hah, in all my centuries acting as your greatest Admiral I could never match the creation of such an artful ballad of darkness and suffering!"

Mewtwo mentally floundered as he tried to find some possible way to deny all of this. The way that Shadetalon talked to him as though he was already Darkest made him want to retch. Yet despite the rising disgust he felt and the knowledge that he was taking a huge risk by delaying it while Darkest was on his way, he didn't stop Shadetalon and kill him yet. He had to know everything. He needed to live with the truth no matter how nightmarish, and a part of him was still holding out hope that Shadetalon would slip up and say something that would prove the whole story to be a lie. In fact, his logical side then did find a hole in it that could unravel the whole thing.

"But if all this is true, why be so Goddess-damned sloppy with the whole operation? Ensuring my mental collapse is a matter of existential importance to your entire interstellar empire and Darkest entrusts the entire thing to one admiral, one torture artist, and a bevvy of thralls too robotic to think independently?! This whole tower should have been swarming with Immortals the moment Flametongue lost control of me!"

"You think we didn't want to do that? I'll explain this too! This shitty little planet is a backwater world. We conquered it five hundred years ago and mined its crust dry of easily accessible resources long before you ever arrived. Lord Darkest had the vast majority of his forces moved offworld so they could be returned to active combat theaters the moment the last significant holdout of resistance was stomped out. After that Lord Darkest gave it over to me as a personal trophy. Ever since then it's just been an excavation site and a recreational zone for me. I've been hunting more of those Medallions of Power ever since; they have taunted me with faint, difficult-to-trace energy signatures that have promised immense power but proven impossible to locate. I come here between my major fleet engagements to check in and have a little fun using the scattered little bands of survivors as torture dolls for my own amusement. It was never a suitable location for an operation like this, but Lord Darkest seems to think that us carrying you through portals in order to relocate you would multiply our risk of paradoxes exponentially. Never mind the fact that us affecting your path in any way at all already has us deep in that shit tank as is! He's been trying desperately to re-deploy some of his forces back here ever since your arrival, but so far everything we have is already engaged in other matters of existential importance too. I'm not sure if you realize this but one does not wage a galactic campaign of enslavement and extermination without making a few enemies. Even the most contentious alien cultures have a pesky tendency to unite with each other against a common threat like us. It wouldn't make sense for us to stanch one mortal wound to our empire only to neglect and bleed out from three others."

"He couldn't even spare like... five Immortals to help you here and now in the capital?" Mewtwo asked incredulously.

"I know, right?! Now you've seen the fucking bullshit I've been dealing with! Technically none of us clones are allowed to ever touch you due to the paradox risk, but the lack of staff left me with no other choice! The thralls, which were originally just meant to keep the rest of the survivor rats from destroying too many of my towers, were all I had that I was allowed to use to engage you directly, and they failed too! I had to disobey orders and get involved personally in the hopes that my Spec Ops suit would be enough protection against the paradox risk!" Shadetalon growled bitterly.

"I'm soooooooo sorry for you." Mewtwo sneered with all the venomous sarcasm he could muster.

Again he felt more icy cold dread sinking into his belly though. Shadetalon's explanation, as wild as it was, still made some measure of coherent sense, so Mewtwo was back to square one of searching for holes in that story. He scrambled to turn it over and examine it from all angles inside his mind. He couldn't find any flaws in it, but when his mind followed it to its natural conclusion he realized that he still had every reason to cling to hope.

"If you really are telling me the whole truth though, then I have no reason to-"

Shadetalon again cut him off, but this time with a resigned yet amused tone. "To let down your guard and allow yourself to become Darkest? Heh why do you think I told you that me telling the truth would bring this all crashing down? Now that you know your future you have the power to change it. There's no logical reason for you to ever become Darkest now that you know the danger ahead of you. Now I'm just going to grin and watch to see if this causes a clean temporal correction that just flat out erases me and the rest of my kind from existence, or if you tangled yourself up with us so badly that it causes the paradox to annihilate all of reality!"

Mewtwo couldn't help but flinch as he realized the true danger of their situation. He didn't know if a sudden collapse of all spacetime would hurt or not, but he couldn't imagine it could possibly be pleasant. An extremely tense pause laden with dread passed between them and the room was dead silent save for their breathing and the distant rumbling of thunder from the storm just outside the tower. Several seconds passed before it became clear that reality wasn't going to implode, then the sound of Shadetalon's chuckling crept through the air. The palpable sense of dread on the air was only getting stronger and stronger now despite the reprieve from oblivion they seemed to have been given. Mewtwo opened his eyes and scowled deeply when he saw that nothing around them had changed. Time hadn't erased Shadetalon from existence and he was snickering with malevolent glee.

"Nothing is happening, why is that? Have you been lying to me?!" Mewtwo demanded.

"Nope! I have no idea why too, we should be seeing something change! You can still read my mind to get proof if you want. But I honestly suspect the reason we haven't been erased is-"

This time it was Mewtwo's turn to interrupt. The ever-rising oppressive atmosphere in this place was now setting his nerves on edge and making him impatient. He grabbed Shadetalon by the neck and yanked his head up to look him in the eye.

"The reason is what?!" He snapped.

"Because Lord Darkest is almost here, I can feel it. I bet he's now willing to take the risk of personally breaking your mind himself now that everything else here has gone to shit. The fact we haven't seen a temporal correction means he's destined to succeed. Seems like you can't escape your fate!"

Shadetalon burst out into another peal of mocking laughter right into Mewtwo's face and this time Mewtwo finally had enough. He let the Admiral's head go, causing it to roughly smack the floor, and reached one hand down to grab Azria and raise it over Shadetalon's necks. But then another thought struck him: he knew how to shut down one single tower's weapon but he had no clue how to control the entire tower network. He needed to disarm all of them before Darkest arrived and potentially decided to push the button out of pure spite. Shadetalon undoubtedly had the codes and knowledge for how to do this, so Mewtwo reached one hand down to touch his head. He used some telekinesis to shove the Admiral's jaw shut to stop his laughter, then attempted to delve into his mind with telepathy.

This proved to be far more difficult and awful than Mewtwo could have imagined. Shadetalon had centuries of experience with psychic warfare and this meant he had plenty of tricks at his disposal that helped him even without any of his psychic energy left. He threw off Mewtwo's concentration by flitting rapidly between thoughts as fast as he possibly could in order to create the mental equivalent of garbled interference. This worked well for several seconds until Mewtwo applied a huge burst of psychic force to stun his mind and keep him from concentrating. Then Shadetalon switched to another tactic that required much less concentration, he willed up and pushed forward a massive overflowing of emotion in order to cloud the telepathic link. In this case it was raw, unfiltered hatred and contempt for Mewtwo. It caused Mewtwo to falter and his stomach to churn. Again this worked for several seconds, but ultimately was destined to fail simply due to the fact that Shadetalon had lost his powers and Mewtwo hadn't. Sick of the resistance, Mewtwo simply used more of his psychic energy to channel a Hypnosis attack, which easily sank into Shadetalon's mind and lulled him into a rapid, deep sleep. Yet even now with all that active resistance out of the way Mewtwo still struggled to maintain his concentration. Shadetalon's very mind itself felt like a living, pulsating entity shaped out of pure, hardened negative energy, so linking minds with him was like the psychic equivalent of dunking one's face directly into a tub of raw sewage. Rage, hatred, bitterness, jealousy, bloodlust, sadism, cruelty, contempt, greed, selfishness, his brain was absolutely seething with all these feelings even while asleep. Not even Giovanni's mind felt this unceasingly toxic; at least the mafioso had had the capability to feel familial love for his relatives. Mewtwo doubted that Shadetalon was ever capable of any kind of love. He felt like a golem that had been constructed from bricks of refined malevolence and animated with a cold and terrible intelligence. Mewtwo was utterly disturbed by the sheer unnatural quantity of evil he sensed here and had to force his mind to focus on blocking it out so it wouldn't seep through the link and taint his mental state while he tried to concentrate on searching through his memories.

The search was a slog too. Shadetalon must have been using the same anti-aging serum that they had been feeding to Princess Valisse, as his memories were absolutely vast. Organic brains were clearly not meant to store several centuries worth of memories, so a good majority of them were severely degraded. It was like looking through a colossal mazelike library containing millions upon millions of books, but most of those books had lost most of their pages to rot and decay. The unsteady nature of Mewtwo's concentration and the bizarre nature of Shadetalon's mind meant that he stumbled into the wrong memory at first while trying to search. Now he was viewing it through Shadetalon's eyes and feeling his sickening emotions as the memory played out. Shadetalon was standing on the bridge of a Sulaaq starship, and while most of the details of the scene around them were fuzzed out entirely due to the fading of the memory, he could still make out the face of another Chosen standing before him on the bridge. This one looked just like Shadetalon down to the unnaturally black fur and red eyes, but lacked the battle scars. He looked intimidated by Shadetalon and was wincing while speaking to him.

"Admiral, sir, I think we should stop the bombardment of the Northern sector of the forest." The Chosen said in a timid tone.

"Why the fuck should we? Lord Darkest wants these Medallions as soon as possible for the war effort! I am sick of trying to comb through all the fucking trees!" Shadetalon snapped.

"Well, uh, it's because the signal of the Medallion seems to be fading. In fact, the rate of signal degradation seems to perfectly match the rate of burning and bombardment. The more trees we kill, the weaker the signal gets. If we burn the entire thing then we might lose the Medallion entirely."

"Fucking shitbaskets!" Shadatalon yelled, using one clawed hand to throw down and smash a mug of some beverage he had been holding. "Alright, fine! Halt the bombardment! We'll go back to fucking scouring the forest again, but you're leading the search parties this time Sergeant! Go down there and don't you dare show your fucking face on this ship again until you find it! If it takes more than a month then I'm going to chain you to the fucking Mind Control Signal Studio down there and you can stay there watching that stupid princess until we're ready to burn this planet and leave, am I clear!?"

The oppressive amount of anger and resentment that Shadetalon had been feeling toward this lower officer on the hierarchy was enough to nauseate Mewtwo and cause him to snap himself out of that memory to take a breath. He felt instant relief as he held the telepathic link shut and took a few long, deep breaths. He had clearly underestimated the difficulty of this task and part of him wanted very badly to just cut the monster's necks and figure out the tower computers on his own. But he reminded himself that he didn't have the time to tinker around with Darkest so close at hand, so he dove back in with far more tightly focused determination.

This time Mewtwo honed his focus in on far more recent memories in Shadetalon's mind and actively avoided going too deep into any of them. He performed the psychic equivalent of walking down the aisle of library shelving, just reading the titles on the spines of all the books as he went. Finally he found the book with what he needed and skimmed briefly over it until he found the information he was seeking. The emergency stand-down code was a ten digit alphanumeric string and he could use the same satellite grid that broadcast the Incantation planetwide to send that code out to every tower on the planet.

With everything he needed now in hand Mewtwo began to sever his link with Shadetalon's mind. Before he did though, two more thoughts struck him. He delved back in one more time in order to try to find where Shadetalon had hid his spear. He fully intended to fulfill his promise to Q'diri. Unfortunately he discovered that after Shadetalon had taken Azria as a personal trophy he had given the Vatorsa Spear to Flametongue as payment for his "services" and he didn't know where Flametongue had put it after that. That knowledge had died with him in the psychic firestorm. Mewtwo would just have to make do with Azria and then search the tower for the spear after he finished with Darkest.

The other piece of information that Mewtwo wanted seemed simple on its face; he wanted to know if Shadetalon really had been telling the truth during that whole explanation of the origins of the Sulaaq. He went back as far as he could into those memories but there were so much more fragmented and patchwork now that they were nearly useless. He saw a flicker of the inside of a green cloning tank through Shadetalon's eyes as he awoke for the first time. He felt a flash of piercing pain as a control bolt implant was drilled into Shadetalon's skull while he was still awake. No, this wasn't relevant, Shadetalon's birth had come long after the origins of Darkest, so Mewtwo skipped ahead and searched for the Admiral's education instead. There was no equivalent to traditional teaching among the Sulaaq though, Shadetalon had had all the knowledge he needed to be an officer forced into his mind by other senior officers in one single agonizing telepathy session. He was told beforehand that most officer candidates failed to cope with this experience and many mentally broke. Some even succumbed entirely from neural shock caused by such a violent penetration of knowledge. But Shadetalon had survived it and retained a coherent psyche, and all the information he received began to pass secondhand to Mewtwo, albeit even more blurred and indistinct. He vaguely sensed the trip through the interdimensional space, meeting and befriending the Sarienne, the arrival of a million green living ships from the heavens, the burning and screaming of billions...

Mewtwo didn't have the stomach to go any further. All the Chosen in that memory who were forcing the knowledge into Shadetalon's mind were taking far too much pleasure in re-experiencing the genocide of the Sarienne with him as their "pupil" and Mewtwo simply couldn't take it even secondhand. He pulled the plug on the connection to Shadetalon's mind and opened his eyes. The sense of dread on the air in that prison was now so thick that Mewtwo could practically taste it. He felt his inner feline instincts yelling at him to flee for his life. Chalking it up to the dread caused by the confirmation of Shadetalon's story, he shook it off and gripped the handle of Azria tightly in his right hand as he raised it. He briefly considered waking Shadetalon up one last time to taunt him, but ultimately decided against it. Shadetalon was the sort who probably could still find something to throw right back in his face. Besides, Nariva was right, he needed to be better than them, especially if he wanted to avoid ever becoming Darkest. With one clean swing he brought the blade down on the sleeping Admiral's necks and gave him the peaceful end that he didn't deserve. The blade shone again with Nariva's divine light as it sliced right through his sleeping foe's flesh and struck the metal floor with a dull, resonating thunk. Golden radiance poured out of the blade as it struck, igniting the body with a fast-burning flame that belched out curling clouds of acrid purple and black smoke. Mewtwo pulled up the blade and stood back quickly to avoid inhaling any, but strangely most of the smoke seemed to dissipate entirely with supernatural speed. The body disintegrated with similarly abnormal haste as the flames reached their climax.

"Righteousness through Grace." Mewtwo said softly as he watched the flames start to ebb.

One last little nugget of spite inside of Mewtwo still couldn't manage to be denied though. As he watched the flickering golden pyre continue to wane, he leaned down and spat on the body before it could be completely incinerated.

"That's for all the enslaved Gerudo people you forced me to kill." He growled.

Hopefully Nariva would forgive him for just that little bit of vengeful indulgence. Once the flames were gone and only ashes remained Mewtwo turned around and returned his attention to Ciela. He teleported directly to her side and knelt down beside her to resume his work healing her. Fortunately she was still alive and stable, and her wounds were easy to finish cleaning up with Heal Pulse. He even managed to remove the scarring from her face, revealing a serene and humble sort of beauty hiding underneath. Looking over her unconscious form made Mewtwo realize that he had forgotten to check Shadetalon's mind for the location where he had teleported her holy bow and now it was too late for him to go hunting to find it. He inwardly cursed himself for his forgetfulness; he was already pushing his luck by wasting so much time. He'd have to find it when he went looking for his spear after the fight. Azria alone would have to be enough. Once the healing was fully complete he then made a snap judgment and used his Hypnosis power to keep Ciela fast asleep. Without her bow she would just be a helpless target for Darkest to use against him.

"You saved my life back there princess, now I'm going to return the favor." He whispered, not caring that she couldn't hear him.

He spent one last moment to glance into Ciela's mind in order to find the location of the command chamber that she had mentioned, then teleported her down to the base of the tower somewhere inside the interior. He figured she'd be safest down there, both from Darkest's notice and from a potential firing of the tower if Mewtwo failed to stop it. Then he climbed to his feet and made a run for the stairs. He was so close to being done now, a single thought lingered in his mind as he ran. Two down, one to go.

A/N: SERIOUS CONTENT WARNING: This chunk contains an explicit torture scene! It's not fully verbally described but it's not shied away from either! Auditory details of actual torture are included! Also included are very graphic depictions of blood and violence, major character death, and emotional trauma! Reader discretion is heavily advised!