The Crossing of the Paths
Second Edition
By MMM/AJ
Part I: Desert Wind
A/N: Hey again everyone! New readers will notice that this "chapter" in reality contains several actual chapters, and that's because I like to break up my work into many smaller chapters, but I upload it in larger chunks with 2-3 chapters per chunk so that my readers still get a substantial portion to chew on with each upload. This is a tradition I've kept since the rough draft, I feel it helps enhance the overall flow of the story. Returning readers from the old version will notice more changes abound as we move into Desert Wind, and one of the biggest changes is that I'm entirely removing the old italicized Flavor Paragraphs that used to be included in the start of every chapter. Now before you worry that all that content is lost, I can tell you that I have written it into the main body of the story itself via a few interesting storytelling segments. I've also made significant changes and upgrades to the setting to make it more Zelda-y and at least a little bit less of a Dune ripoff. I've been borrowing inspiration and design elements, as well as the Gerudo Language, from Breath of the Wild, but please remember that this fic is still based solely on Ocarina and Majora. Thanks again to everyone for sticking with me and reading my stuff through all these years!
Chapter 1: The Divergence
Mewtwo was greeted by a truly beautiful sight when he dove through the portal. The space between dimensions was filled with a chaotic soup of glowing multicolored energy which seemed to part in front of him as he flew. The stuff looked like some form of super-heated plasma, if plasma came in a full spectrum of bright rainbow colors. Thankfully Mewtwo's shield managed to block out most of the intense ambient heat of the place, but he could feel the air inside his shield bubble starting to gradually warm up. The point where the plasma seemed to part in front of him was roughly 50 feet ahead, and it was forming an almost perfect cylindrical tunnel shape for him to pass through with plenty of clearance. Mewtwo looked back briefly and saw that the plasma was closing up behind him too. When he looked closer at the walls of the "tunnel" around him, he could see that they were studded with small openings that showed views to starry black space inside other realities. Thanks to Mew's training, he knew that these were small latent gateways to other universes which he could pry open with his psychic power and fly through. Each one had slightly varying amounts of additional glowing plasma energy pouring out of them from around the edges. That freshly arrived plasma also came in a myriad of colors and rapidly commingled into the walls of the tunnel around it.
Almost immediately Mewtwo felt a powerful lurching force starting to draw him forward, even through his bubble. He began to pick up speed without expending any sort of psychic energy to do so, almost like this place applied some sort of natural acceleration onto his shield bubble. Thankfully the pocket of open tunnel accelerated with him, so he didn't immediately slam into the chaotic plasma. Still, the jolt of acceleration was enough to immediately wake Mewtwo up from the mesmerized state he had been in. He glanced around at the dozens of different latent gateways to different realities and tried to pick one out to try, but most of them were identical. One or two occasionally were pitch black, and he even passed one that was spewing a column of blindingly bright white light. These were easy to discount as potentially unsafe. But their presence planted a scary thought into Mewtwo's mind: what if he opened a portal inside a solid object? Or a different universe where the laws of physics didn't apply in the same way? What if he chose a realm where psionics didn't work and he lost his shield bubble while out in the vacuum of space? Even if something like that didn't happen, what if he simply ended up wandering the depths of space for hours or days until his reserves of psychic power ran dry and his shield failed? A cold, sinking feeling of dread pooled in Mewtwo's innards as he realized how reckless and rash he had been to just rush into this without preparation!
Mewtwo tried to turn and reverse course back to the gateway to his own world, but the tunnel needed time to turn, it couldn't just stop on a dime. He was still picking up speed too, which made it increasingly more difficult to navigate. He tried to decelerate by applying telekinetic force in the opposite direction, and it worked to a certain degree; ut it wasn't stopping his acceleration, only slowing it. He could end up burning quite a lot of his reserves that way, so he just tried to turn back as quickly as possible instead.
That's when things went really wrong. He was homing in on the gateway back home when he passed closeby to what looked like a gigantic whirlpool in the wall of the tunnel. At the center of that swirling sinkhole was another gateway to a different realm; it was a gateway that seemed to be sucking in as much energy as it could possibly get a hold of. The plasma at the center of the maelstrom was glowing much brighter as it compressed to fit through the narrow aperture. Mewtwo tried to give it a wide berth but it began to suck him in regardless. It pulled with a force similar to gravity; the magnitude of the pull immediately took Mewtwo by surprise and caused him to start plummet toward the tiny gateway! He immediately poured telekinetic force on, trying to rip his way free of the suction with raw power, but something even more terrifying happened in response. Suddenly he felt the vortex begin to drain the psychic energy right out of him! His extra telekinetic push was completely sucked away and he continued to fall toward the vortex at the exact same pace. Panic started to bubble up in Mewtwo's mind, he only had moments to make a snap decision about what to do. He could either keep trying to break free, risking a chance that it could suck his reserves dry and cause him to suffocate here, or he could go with the flow and dive through the gate, taking the risk of surviving whatever was sucking the energy through on the other side. Neither option sounded good, but his imagination painted a vivid picture of there being a Black Hole on the other side of the gate, spurring him to try to break free again.
Unfortunately, Mewtwo's attempt to escape was cut short when a massive free-floating blob of plasma came careening out of the tunnel behind him and slammed violently into his shield bubble on the way toward the gate! The force of the impact was tremendous, bending and buckling his shield with thousands upon thousands of PSI of pressure. Normally Mewtwo could handle repelling such force with enough concentration, but since he had been focusing so hard on breaking free of the vortex, and because the impact had taken him by surprise, he shuddered and lost control, causing his shield to break.
For a brief moment, Mewtwo was openly exposed to the vacuum. The shield had reflected the plasma away from his body before it broke, so he wasn't immediately cooked alive by it, but in that quick flash of time while his shield was down, Mewtwo felt a sickening, bizarre jolt violently surge through his body.
KRRRZZZZZZZTTTT!
Mewtwo instinctively re-raised his shield almost immediately, managing to capture a majority of his air before it could escape. In that brief second though, he had a blurry hallucination blink into his vision. He could just barely make out the ghostly form of... himself? It seemed to be rocketing away from him at a colossal speed, heading back away from the vortex and down the tunnel. But before it could get too far down the tunnel it seemed to vanish into thin air. He forgot it immediately though, as his impending demise was yawning up below, closer and closer. The vortex had a complete grip on him now and he was about to pass into the funnel proper. His psychic reserves were draining rapidly now, so it was definitely impossible for him to break free with brute force. He knew that his only option was to go with the flow and try to widen the aperture so that he could get through without being bathed in super-heated plasma.
Mewtwo used a bit more of his dwindling reserves in an attempt to open the portal wider, and for a few seconds it actually worked. But he wasn't widening it fast enough compared to to how quickly he was plummeting toward it and he ended up clipping the edge as he passed through. This time he didn't have the energy to maintain the shield thanks to the draining effect that the vortex had had on him, so his shield buckled and he blacked out right as he passed through.
Floating in the blackness of space was a barren orange desert planet with a single pale moon. In orbit around this planet was a single, inconspicuous starship with a hull painted jet black. At the top of this ship was a glass-domed observation deck where a pair of shadowy figures were standing and looking down at the planet below. They could see a grid pattern composed of hundreds of tiny little shimmering motes of red light on the planet's surface, but these were only visible on the night side of the planet. The observation deck was totally dark in order for the occupants to get a better view of the planet below, though there was still a dim red glow provided by a few holographic control panels nearby. One of the two figures was cloaked in what looked like some sort of wings, while the other was wearing a set of polished metallic armor. They seemed to be in the midst of a heated argument, with the cloaked figure actively yelling and berating the armored one.
"And how many of the suspected artifacts did you find during all those years of searching, Admiral Shadetalon?" The cloaked figure growled in a deceptively calm tone that belied suppressed fury.
"One, sir." Replied the armored figure quietly.
"Then now you have your explanation as to why we are terminating our operations in this sector and moving on. It is no longer worth the significant expenditure of time and resources to search for items that very well may not exist, especially now that I know how much of that time you've wasted on idle, hedonistic recreation. Now how long do we have until the final charging sequence is complete? I came here for fireworks and I am tired of waiting." The winged figure growled.
"It's all complete milord, we're just wrapping up the final evacuation of staff. Give it about twenty more minutes and we'll be ready to fire."
The winged figure turned his glowing red eyes on the Admiral and gave him a lethal glare.
"I said I was tired of waiting. How many-"
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud thud however, as the unconscious and ice-encrusted figure of Mewtwo bumped against the glass enclosing the observation deck.
"What the actual-" The admiral mumbled in shock.
The other figure narrowed his eyes and then reached one hand out to point at the dying form of Mewtwo, and there was a flash of light as he teleported inside, landing unceremoniously on the metal floor of the deck.
"Heal him!" The cloaked figure barked angrily. "And give him an anesthetic so he doesn't wake up!"
The admiral knelt down and injected Mewtwo with a cocktail of medicines and anesthetic, and then laid his hands on Mewtwo's chest. Glowing red energy poured out, healing all the damage caused by vacuum exposure.
"Sir, this can't be who I think it is! This is impossible!" The admiral said, standing up and backing away from Mewtwo's unconscious form.
"I know that! Give me a moment..." The cloaked one replied, his voice trailing off as he knelt down next to Mewtwo.
He laid his hand on Mewtwo's forehead for a brief moment, then recoiled sharply in shock. "The tunnel!" He gasped, then turned to the admiral and snarled.
"This isn't good. The fact that either of us even touched him at all could have dire consequences. We could already have doomed ourselves just by saving him from the vacuum."
"So he is-"
"Yes." The cloaked one spat.
"Then that means..." The admiral paused for a moment to think, then continued. "We're trapped in a no win situation, milord. No matter what we do, even if we hadn't intervened at all, we'd be at risk of ceasing to exist!"
"Indeed."
"So what do we do?"
"The only thing we can do: intervene as minimally as possible. He can't ever know who I am, and we must set him back on the proper course and try to steer him from a distance."
"Can't we just send him back to Sarne?"
"I don't have the coordinates for that, it's been centuries and I didn't have any machines to record the location at the time. Besides, that would risk further complicating the tangles in our thread. We must work with as little direct action as possible, and that includes taking him through more gateways! Our hands are forced, our plans must unfold here in this realm."
"With all due respect milord, how the hell are we going to pull this off?"
The cloaked figure turned and looked back down at the orange sandy planet below, narrowing his eyes. "Cancel the firing sequence, but order all facilities to only vent to the visibility threshold and to hold the rest of their charge. Put some skeleton crews back on key facilities and set us on course toward...hmmmmmm...let's say... facility 2956. That's close to one of those villages full of thieving rats, they will prove useful for what I have in mind."
The Admiral walked over to one of the consoles and began to type, and soon the ship lurched and began to move.
"Oh, and don't initiate landing procedures. Our guest can't know we picked him up, so why don't we drop him from a non-lethal height so he thinks he landed on his own while unconscious."
The Admiral laughed softly and said "Ever the creative one, aren't you sir?"
Chapter 2: Ven'rakesh
The first thing that Mewtwo felt when he awoke was blinding, fiery agony in his right foot, knee, and hip. The pain rapidly jolted him to full alertness, though his eyes stung painfully from sand when he tried to open them. He immediately opened his mouth and bellowed at the top of his lungs from the pain. That wordless cry echoed a bit, but a lot of the sound was lost in the howling of an intensely strong wind.
Mewtwo panted and forced his muscles to stop twitching and spasming long enough for him to rub his eyes and get the sand out of them. When he did get them open he saw almost nothing; it was currently nighttime and there seemed to be a vicious sandstorm howling above him, blocking out the starlight. He could vaguely make out the rough shape of some sort of crater around him; he was sitting in the bottom of it with his body partially buried in sand. He could also just barely see what looked like a jagged spur of bone jutting out of a bloody wound on his knee.
Mewtwo couldn't hold back another bellowing roar of pain that welled up in him. The sound echoed again before vanishing into the sandstorm. Mewtwo instinctively tried to use his powers to heal himself, but the psychic energy necessary for using Recover just didn't seem to be there. He tried again and again, but it seemed his reserves were totally dry. Suddenly he remembered the energy-draining effects of the sinkhole he had fallen into, and a feeling of despair and resignation washed over him. Well, this was it. He had really screwed himself up good now, and now he was going to die for it. Some part of him was incredulous about how he could have survived a fall from orbit without turning into a greasy red smear on the sand dunes, but it didn't matter anyway. He was doomed no matter if he fell miles or a few feet; his powers were gone and he was going to pass out from shock from his injuries soon enough.
A fresh surge of burning agony wracked Mewtwo's body and he involuntarily squirmed around in the sand, grabbing and squeezing handfuls of it while yelling himself hoarse. He was about to give up when suddenly, his ears faintly made out a distant shout that seemed to come in reply to his. In an instant the cold resignation of death parted and Mewtwo filled his lungs to yell again, trying to draw his potential savior to him. He knew that there was as good a chance as any that the source of the replying voice could be hostile, or even some sort of horrific alien creature, but his death would be certain if he stayed helpless out here in the storm. Better to at least take a gamble than to give up all his agency over the situation. He laid there waiting for a brief second or two, and the reply came again. His brief glimmer of hope began to grow, so he continued to yell back and forth with his would-be rescuer. Each time their voice got a bit closer. Amazingly, after several minutes of this back and forth routine, some light appeared out of the darkness at the edge of the crater.
Mewtwo looked up and saw the figure of a tall, cloaked humanoid woman staring down at him with intense golden eyes. She was carrying a large flare for light; it was pouring a column of intense white sparking flames directly upwards that illuminated her and the surrounding area in bright contrast. Dark, intense shadows danced against the blowing sand behind her. Mewtwo's eyes took in every single detail; the woman had knee-length ruby red hair tied into a large flowing ponytail behind her. The cloak she wore was made from ragged brown leather stitched together in haphazard patches. Underneath the cloak was a light, somewhat revealing outfit composed of red silk parachute pants and a red silk halter top that exposed her midriff. She had a red silk veil that covered her entire face, but the fabric of the veil was so thin and the light from the flare so intense that Mewtwo could see her face through it quite clearly. She had noticeably piercing and intense golden eyes, a somewhat sharp, pronounced nose, and wore a silver tiara with a large red ruby set in the center. He could also see a sheathed, curved scimitar attached to her belt and a small brass buckler tied to her back. Her skin was a dark tanned brown and she had multiple large battle scars dotting her arms and body. More unsettlingly, she didn't exactly look pleased when she spotted him, and her hand reached for the handle of her blade.
"Sulaaq!" she uttered in a disgusted tone.
Mewtwo suddenly tried to speak, but he had forgotten that his psychic reserves were completely dry and the telepathic message fizzled and failed. He realized then that he had never taken the time to learn how to actually speak English with his own physical mouth. Over-reliance on his psychic abilities may have just sealed his fate. There was a low metallic "Sssschwing!" sound as the woman drew her scimitar and prepared to jump down and attack.
"M... M-m-mew... Two..."
The weird, quiet sputtering in Pokéspeak from Mewtwo was miraculously enough to stay the hand of the warrior woman, who paused and gave him a perplexed look.
"Did you just... speak?" she asked, her tone incredulous.
"Yes, I'm trying to talk to you now!" Was what Mewtwo attempted to say, but the ridiculous Pokéspeak babbled out of his mouth instead.
Mewtwo cringed in humiliation when he heard the worthless nonsense come spilling out instead of what he wanted to say. The veiled woman knitted her brow and gave him a deeply concerned and confused look, then climbed down into the crater to get closer to him. She didn't sheathe her weapon, but she didn't seem to be preparing to strike him anymore.
"Mew? What do you mean? Is that all you can say?" she asked.
Mewtwo nodded his head frantically, then winced and bit his tongue to stifle a cry as another surging blast of pain smashed through his body. Now he was feeling woozy; it was clear he didn't have long before he succumbed to the shock. Frantically, he reached one hand out and drew words into the sand with a fingertip.
"Yes, that is all I can say. Please help me, I'm about to die!"
A look of shock came over the veiled woman's face as she read the message in the sand. "You can write?! That's impossible! Sulaaq can't write! I don't suppose you have a name do you?"
Mewtwo nodded and drew out his name in the sand. Her expression of shock intensified and she leaned down and looked him directly in the eye. Her gaze was uncomfortably intense and searching for another few brief moments, but Mewtwo couldn't maintain eye contact for long before he started to drift. Darkness was beginning to take him.
"Hold on, stay with me Mewtwo! Listen, take this and swallow it!" She said urgently, sheathing her scimitar and producing a small vial of red liquid. She uncorked it and tried to hand it to him but he was unable to muster the strength to reach up and grasp it. Determined to save him suddenly, she braced his head and tilted the liquid into his mouth for him. A strange, tingly warm sensation flowed down Mewtwo's throat, and he sputtered wetly between swallows. The flavor was a strange mixture of spiciness together with some unfamiliar sweet berry.
Mewtwo suddenly felt the darkness fade away almost as if a blast of cool refreshing water had washed it off of his mind. Full clarity returned to him and the pain from his leg dulled down to a very tolerable background level. He opened his eyes and looked up at his savior, first showing shock and then gratitude with his expression. The veiled woman corked the little empty vial and stowed it in a pouch on her belt, then spoke.
"Listen to me, Mewtwo. My name is Kalana Quindalo and I'm going to help you. The potion I gave you is too weak to heal all your wounds, but hopefully it will suppress your pain well enough that I can brace you and get you back to my village, Ven'rakesh. But Ven'rakesh is a fairly long distance by foot and the beasts of the desert love to hunt for food when the sandstorms hit, so if we're attacked I may need to drop you and fight them off. If it comes to that, I need you to play dead so they target me first as the greater threat. Do you understand?"
Mewtwo nodded eagerly.
"Good, now let's see if we can get you up on one foot at least."
Kalana rapidly began to dig Mewtwo out of the sand with both hands. Once he was freed she took his hands and began to pull him up. He cried out wordlessly from a horrible stabbing wave of pain when he was forced to move the shattered joints in his ruined leg, but once he was braced against her and had the bad foot dangling the pain faded back to a dull background throb.
Mewtwo had to lean against Kalana fairly heavily but she managed to take his weight and help him hobble along just fine. Getting up out of the crater was a struggle but Kalana was surprisingly strong and well-coordinated. Mewtwo winced and bit back more cries of pain as his leg moved; the stabbing jolts were still terrible but it still was much more tolerable than before. As they climbed Mewtwo noticed that Kalana was actually the same height as him. Impressive for a human, given that Mewtwo was 6'7".
Once they surpassed the lip of the crater Mewtwo was buffeted by the wind and his eyes stung sharply as blowing sand assaulted them. He winced and stumbled a little due to the fact that he was now essentially totally blinded.
"Just keep your eyes closed! We'll take it slowly and carefully and I will call out warnings for any obstacles we might encounter." Kalana shouted over the howling winds.
Mewtwo gave the only reply he could: a quick nod. From then on he leaned against Kalana and hopped along on his good foot, slowly climbing and descending the shifting dunes. He immediately lost track of time as they made their way; the howling wind made talking impossible and he had nothing to focus his mind on aside from forcing his body to keep moving forward. On and on and on they trudged, with Mewtwo nearly losing his footing and falling on more than one occasion, until suddenly Kalana stopped them in her tracks.
"Drop!" She suddenly said, then let go of him and let him tumble to the ground like a discarded sack of potatoes.
Mewtwo fell onto the sand with a dull thud, going limp and giving his best impersonation of a lifeless corpse like Kalana had asked. He had to bite his tongue again as the impact rattled his ruined leg but he managed to avoid making any sound. He couldn't open his eyes to see what was happening thanks to the sandstorm, but his ears did pick up multiple footsteps, scuffling, and then Kalana yelling fiercely. There were clanging sounds of metal on metal, followed by a strangely inhuman snarling and croaking. Kalana screamed something strange in a language Mewtwo couldn't understand, then there was a squelching sound of a weapon striking flesh. Mewtwo's imagination lit up with images of some sort of nightmarish monster striking Kalana down, but the scuffling stopped and her voice called out over the wind.
"Disgusting Vura, you won't get the best of me!"
There was one more piercing inhuman screech before silence fell, and then Kalana ran over to Mewtwo and began to help him up. "Come on Mewtwo, one or two Lizalfos won't stop us but a large group of their friends might. We should move quickly now so they don't find us. This will be rough on your leg, but better to endure it than be turned into cutlets for the beasts."
Mewtwo really couldn't argue with that logic, despite the feeling of dread he immediately felt at the prospect of walking on his ruined leg. He climbed up to his feet and braced himself against Kalana, grinding his teeth the whole way, and they took off at as brisk of a pace as they could manage. It was agonizing; after several minutes the pain began to threaten to black him out again. He was starting to slow down and wobble when the sandstorm suddenly began to abate.
Once the wind had died down to a whisper Mewtwo used his free hand to rub the sand out of his eyes, then opened them and took in his surroundings. He and Kalana were traversing a sprawling orange desert that was currently bathed in a pale, ethereal white moonlight. With the end of the sandstorm he could see significantly far in all directions. There were periodic spires, outcroppings, and mesas of dry orange sandstone dotting the desert, as well as sparse ground vegetation in the form of low lying succulents, shrubs, and the rare cactus. Off in the distance ahead of them was some sort of broad structure that stuck out above the dunes; for now it was too far off for Mewtwo to make out clearly. Above them the sky was filled with a sprawling mural of stars that were undiminished by any sort of light pollution, aside from that provided by the brightly luminescent moon. Mewtwo noticed that Kalana was slowing them down a bit now thankfully, giving him some time to rest his leg a bit, so he spent the time examining the sky. It was curious to him; this world's moon looked identical to the moon which orbited the Earth, but he couldn't spot a single familiar constellation in the night sky. Not even the North Star appeared to provide its guidance, though there were six other larger unfamiliar stars twinkling in the sky which could compare to it in luminosity. Mewtwo let his stargazing fill the tedium of their journey until Kalana's voice interrupted him.
"We're almost to Ven'rakesh now Mewtwo, but I have to warn you about something. I know you're not Sulaaq, you would have tried to eviscerate me the moment I lowered my guard if you were. But the other villagers are going to be terrified of your demonic appearance, so I need you to act as non-threatening as possible. Move slowly and act calm at all times or one of the guards might decide to fill you with arrows, or worse. Understood?"
Mewtwo nodded weakly but remained silent, not wanting to humiliate himself any further with Pokéspeak. He looked up and saw that they had closed the distance sufficiently that he could make out the settlement with several details now. The town of Ven'rakesh appeared to have been carved directly out of a huge sandstone mesa with its top shaved off. There were no windows in the sides, but a large archway acted as an entrance with huge, slap-dash doors made of sloppily welded scrap metal sealing it shut. There were narrow vertical slots in the walls alongside the door, some of which had some sort of gun barrels pointing out of them. There was a symbol engraved in the top of the arch above the door and embossed with a layer of gold; the symbol looked roughly like a pair of dots inside the grip of a double-ended wrench, with curvy pair of caps around the wrench on top and bottom. There were rickety looking guard towers made of wood and rusty metal standing just inside the wall, watching over the shut doors, and Mewtwo could vaguely make out humanoid figures standing watch in each one. Torchlight glowed out of the open top of the town, as well as multiple small plumes of smoke. Once they got close to the gates of Ven'rakesh, one of the guard towers turned on a small floodlight and pointed the beam down at them, causing Mewtwo to wince and cover his eyes. A woman's voice shouted harshly from the top of the tower, again in some strange foreign tongue, and Kalana shouted back with equal urgency. A feeling of fear and helplessness coiled through Mewtwo's mind as he stood in the spotlight, imagining multiple weapons pointing down at him.
"Shout your name at them if you can, Mewtwo!" Kalana suddenly said to him in a hushed, panicked tone.
Mewtwo was grateful that Pokéspeak would at least allow him that. He coughed and cleared his throat, then shouted "Mewtwo!"
There was a long, drawn out pause while the tower guards considered what to do next. Then suddenly the spotlight extinguished, a few muffled shouts sounded from behind the door, and then a loud set of clanking noises followed. A latch clicked and then the huge rusty doors slowly slid open, making a loud gritty grinding sound as they dragged across the sandstone. Once it was fully open they were greeted by a rush of guards carrying spears, scimitars, and even a few strange, futuristic looking rifles made out of a weird black metal. All the guards were women with similar skin tones and builds to Kalana, though a few were even taller and more muscular. All wore veils to protect their faces from blowing sand, as well as the parachute pants and halter tops in varying shades of red. There was some divergence in the details of their gear, such as pouches and backpacks and waterskins, but none seemed to be wearing any serious heavy armor of any kind. Most had battle scars of varying sizes and locations, perhaps as a result of this lack of armor, but they all seemed healthy and tough. They certainly didn't seem happy to see Mewtwo, considering the fact that they drew their weapons and pointed them at him while one of them angrily argued with Kalana.
Mewtwo remembered what Kalana said about appearing non-threatening, so he swallowed his already bruised pride and cowered as much as he could while clinging to Kalana's side. As humiliating as this was, his survival instinct overrode his ego entirely while he listened to their indecipherable argument.
After several painfully long seconds of this shouting match, the guards seemed to agree to allow them to enter, and Kalana braced Mewtwo and began to lead him inside.
"Come on Mewtwo, let's go. We're going to take you to a small empty house where you can lie down and rest your leg. I'm going to try to argue your cause in order to get our Medicine Woman to help you, but we'll need approval from the Chief." Kalana explained softly.
Mewtwo nodded gratefully and hobbled alongside her silently. He was briefly startled by a dull clang as the town's gate shut behind them, but soon he turned his gaze out to examine the town itself. It was mostly just rows of squat, tiered sandstone buildings that had been carved directly out of the mesa. They were all boxy and cuboid, and had narrow, vertical slit windows. Doors were mostly either made from rusty old black metal or rickety dry wood. Scattered among them were more ramshackle huts that had been cobbled together out of scrap metal, dusty old wood, and stretched animal skins. Some were attached directly to the sides of the sandstone buildings. The streets were lit with torchlight; some sources were ornately carved golden and brass lanterns bolted to buildings, some were merely wooden torches or rusty old oil lamps. Many buildings looked absolutely ancient, having plenty of obvious wear and tear that was patched with simple mortar or rusty metal plates. They entered the main square which was paved with beautiful, ornately painted sandstone and adobe bricks and it was lined on both sides with closed up storefronts and empty market stalls. There was an old, dusty, empty fountain in the center of the square that looked like it hadn't had any water running in it in decades. The fountain did have a statue depicting a stylized, beautiful woman similar to Kalana and the guards; she was holding up a large jug that probably would have acted as the source of the fountain's water if it was running. The statue was decorated beautifully with gold leaf inlays and intricate geometric carvings. The same geometric patterns were evident in the decorations all over the buildings of the town, though some of the buildings had lost their decorations due to neglect and exposure to the elements.
The square was mostly quiet as the escort squad marched Mewtwo and Kalana through it; nobody was up this late except more guards. But the noise made by the squad crossing the square caused several doors to creak open as curious souls peered out to see what the ruckus was about. The escorting soldiers took Mewtwo and Kalana over to a smaller home on the bottom of a three tier complex on the Northwestern corner of the square. Kalana opened the old wooden door and led Mewtwo inside. He could see several shelves built into large rectangular indentations carved into the sandstone walls, all of which were now empty. There was a wooden table with two chairs and a small adobe brick oven for food that was empty on the far wall. Opposite of that was a bed frame filled with a heap of straw, which Kalana hauled Mewtwo up onto. He winced and groaned again as the movement sent agony shooting through his leg. At least a touch of relief followed once the pain ended; it was good to relax and get off his feet.
"Stay here, I'll be right back." Kalana said.
With that she stepped out and left Mewtwo alone. The guards hadn't walked in with him, but he could see them standing just outside the door keeping an eye on him. He heaved a heavy sigh and tried to collect his thoughts. Somehow the little potion that Kalana had given him was keeping him from going into shock, but he knew he'd need to get real medical treatment very soon. He tried again to use Recover on himself, but his reserves were just as dry as before. What was going on here? Was this whole dimension just a giant energy vacuum that sucked psionic power out of him? Did psionics not work at all in this realm? The implications of that were dire both for his leg and for his chances of ever getting home. What would happen if this Chief decided that he was actually a demon after all? Did that word that Kalana had muttered before, "Sulaaq", translate to demon, or was it something even more sinister? He pondered these terrible thoughts in silence until he heard the sound of the wind starting to pick up and howl again. It seemed like the sandstorm wasn't finished with them yet.
A few moments later Kalana returned with a much older, hunched over woman wearing ornate golden jewelry. She looked to be in her late 60s or early 70s and had an even more pronounced, hooked nose that almost made her resemble some sort of fairytale witch. An intricate golden tiara and headdress sat on her head, featuring a massive ruby right over her forehead. She also had a sheathed scimitar strapped to her waist; the handle and cross guard were made with ornately carved gold and another massive ruby was set on the pommel. She eyed Mewtwo with a look of disgust and began to draw her weapon.
"No mother, please wait!" Kalana interrupted with an urgent tone. She reached over to put a hand on the Elderly chief's weapon to stop her from drawing it.
The Chief glared daggers at Kalana but thankfully refrained from drawing her blade. "You said it speaks? Well, out with it!"
Mewtwo winced and stammered out his name again. Every time he spoke it felt more and more like admitting some shameful secret that he'd been hiding. The Chief's gaze immediately softened from angry mistrust into mild shock; she walked over to his bedside and examined him closer.
"How strange. You look almost exactly like the demons of old: The Sulaaq. Yet you clearly just spoke, and the old tales were explicitly clear that the Sulaaq were almost all mute. You did not come from their towers did you?"
Kalana came over alongside her and interjected. "I found him while I was out alone investigating that weird storm. He was lying in a crater by himself only a few miles away from town, and it seemed like the bizarre red lightning stopped as soon as I found him. He seems to only be able to say his own name, but he can write. Here, look."
Kalana handed Mewtwo a blank scroll of parchment and an old, scratched, dinged up fountain pen made of what looked like black plastic. Mewtwo took these and hastily scribbled down a few sentences while the Chief gawked in amazement.
"Yes, I can only say my own name. I'm definitely not a demon, I don't mean anyone any harm. Please help me, my leg is going to get infected and I'm going to die!"
The chief snatched up the parchment once Mewtwo finished and mumbled something incomprehensible while she read it.
"Kalana... I don't know what to think of this. You said it appeared right before the end of the sinister red storm? Don't you realize the ominous nature of such portents?" The Chief asked.
"Yes Véma. I was on my last patrol of the night when the storm started and when I headed in its direction I found him. I genuinely believe that he's not a demon. Look at him; he carries no armor, wields no weapon, has no blades or claws, and his eyes and skin aren't even the correct color." Kalana replied with a firm conviction.
"I suppose you are right. But what are we to do? The rest of the townspeople are going to be terrified."
Kalana heaved a heavy sigh. "I think that maybe... This might be a part of the old unfinished legend of the Traveler."
Mewtwo grunted in dismay and grabbed the scroll and pen back to write some more. "I'll tell you everything you want about my past and I'll do anything I can to help you, please just spare my life! The pain in my leg is worsening again!"
The Chief read his message and then turned to give Kalana a gravely concerned look. "If I let it stay, taking care of it and guarding it will be your responsibility. If it attacks or harms anyone in the village it will be on your shoulders. Do you understand?"
Kalana nodded solemnly. "I understand and fully accept the responsibility. I will sacrifice a potion ration of my own to see him healed too."
"Very well. I will let this strange...creature stay for now. I must go and fetch out the old scrolls to refresh my memory of that legend see if this truly does match it. We will have to discuss how to proceed from there. In the mean time, I will have Fara brought in to heal it." The chief replied, then quickly departed.
Kalana was left alone with Mewtwo for a moment, so she walked over alongside his bed and talked to him a bit.
"I am sorry for how harsh the Chief was with you. You must understand that it is her responsibility to protect our people and she takes the task extremely seriously. The Sulaaq vanished mysteriously so long ago that none have been seen in living memory by anyone living in the four tribes, but the ancient legends were very detailed with stories of them and the terrors they wrought upon our ancestors."
Mewtwo gripped at the pen and scribbled down another question on the parchment. "Who are the Sulaaq?"
"That's a more complicated question than you'd think. They have been called many different names, such as "The Hushed", "The Immortals", and "the Demon Lords of the Many Towers", but nobody actually knows what they really are since they're known to be shape-shifters who take the shape of whatever terrifies their victims the most. Scrolls left by our ancestors describe them as totally mute and have depicted them in many different physical forms, including forms similar to yours, but nobody really knows which form is their "true form", if they even have one. So we have called them Demons in the absence of any other answers. They were the ones who decimated the ancient world and turned it into the Vile Desert that we live upon now. With a huge arsenal of strange technology and powerful magic, including a potent mind-controlling incantation, they have ruled over our world of Hypalia for 500 years, sucking the magic out of the land and hoarding the world's riches and resources. My people, known as the Gerudo, are the only surviving free people left in Hypalia. All others have been reduced to mindless thralls of the Sulaaq. They stopped making direct appearances on our world more than 200 years ago, so nobody lives now who has seen one in person, but their thralls still patrol the towers they have built, so we assume they are still here, hiding somewhere."
Mewtwo nodded slightly as he took in this information. He was immediately troubled by the idea that these demons could potentially look like him; the fact that they were also mute and could control minds immediately led him to the awful idea that there could be others of his kind out there in this universe who were not nearly as benevolent with their abilities as he was. His train of thought derailed when the door to his little home swung open and another Gerudo woman walked in.
"Ah, it's about time Fara! I don't know how much longer the mini-dose that I gave to my friend will last. Can you heal him?" Kalana asked.
Fara's eyes widened as she approached Mewtwo's bed and examined him. "Sa'oten! The Chief told me I'd be helping someone fearsome-looking but this is a whole different level from what I expected! What... are you?"
"M-Mewtwo!" came Mewtwo's irritated, mumbling reply. He was starting to chafe under the idea that he'd need an interpreter to explain to dozens of people that he was unable to speak any more than that. He glanced over at Kalana with a pleading expression, hoping she'd explain it for him.
Kalana thankfully seemed to understand immediately. "His name is Mewtwo. He's nearly mute and can only say his name, but it's not important now. I want you to give him all the treatment he needs. Take it out of my rations."
Fara gave Kalana a serious look before replying. "That doesn't seem like the wisest choice to me-"
Kalana shot Fara an angry look that caused the medicine woman to stop mid-sentence.
"But who am I to question the daughter of the chief. Alright, let me examine the injury."
Fara walked up alongside the bed and began to curiously inspect Mewtwo from head to toe, pausing at his wounds. It was clear she was looking at his whole body not just as part of the assessment, but because she was still trying to make heads or tails of what exactly he was. Fara had sharper and more elongated facial features than Kalana, as well as an even bigger nose and striking green eyes. She looked over him with an expression that was mostly cold and dispassionate, albeit with a tinge of curiosity. She seemed to have some sort of wooden staff or walking stick packed away on her back, but otherwise was the first person he'd seen in Ven'rakesh without any sort of deadly weapon on her person. She took off her face veil as she examined him and made a tutting sound as she looked over his leg.
"Hmmmm, multiple comminuted compound fractures around the knee, a transverse ankle fracture, and a dislocated hip. This is quite a nasty set of breakages, how did you do this to yourself?" Fara asked.
Mewtwo sighed and pointed angrily at his mouth.
"Oh, right, forgot you can't speak much. Sorry about that." Fara replied awkwardly, then slid off her backpack and began to rummage around in it.
Fara produced a much larger bottle that was filled with what looked like the same thick red substance that Kalana had given to Mewtwo before. This time there was nearly a whole pint of the stuff, and it seemed to be swirling and flowing around inside the bottle on its own as Fara uncorked it. Mewtwo found himself reminded of the potions that humans used to heal Pokémon back home on Earth, though those had to sprayed onto a wound rather than drank.
"Here, drink this Red Potion, the dosage should hopefully be enough to fully heal you. If you had just a flesh wound it would heal in mere seconds, but since bones are displaced it will take some time to make them re-set and mend. The potion will relieve most of the pain but this is quite a nasty injury so it won't take care of all of it. The pain will return in full if you move the injured leg before the recovery process is complete so make sure you keep still. Also make sure you don't waste a single droplet, these are extremely difficult to brew!"
Fara handed the bottle to Mewtwo and he greedily chugged it down in a few gulps. Thankfully he felt the effects almost immediately; an intoxicating warmth spread throughout his body quicker than the liquid seemed capable of going down his throat, almost like a supernatural effect. The level and speed of the relief reminded him of the spring in Purity Canyon; it made a simple trainer's potion seem like a placebo by comparison. He had just started to feel the shock starting to creep back in before taking that drink, and now it completely cleared away once more. The room seemed to cool slightly and his vision even seemed to sharpen a little. He felt good enough to start sitting up a little bit, but a touch of recklessness caused him to accidentally move his leg a little bit and a jolt of pain forced him to lay back down.
"Hey, I just told you not to move your leg you silly cat! The last thing you need is to disrupt the re-setting of your bones or to cause them to heal wrong. I know it will be boring, but just try to keep still here until the healing is finished. It should be done around sunrise, plus or minus a few hours. You may feel sudden jolts of pain when bones move, that's just a normal part of the process. I'll come check on you after the morning's breakfast tomorrow, alright?" Fara said.
Mewtwo simply nodded to her in response, having no other ways to communicate. Satisfied, Fara took the empty potion bottle and strolled out of the house with a quick stride. Now he was alone with Kalana, who walked over to his bedside and gave him a look that was filled with a murky mixture of exhaustion and worry.
"Our supplies are often rationed here in Ven'rakesh, but don't worry about me giving away my potion for you. I was going to use it during tomorrow's raid on the nearby Sulaaq Tower, but the Chief has reassigned me to another duty instead. I'm to be responsible for guarding you for the foreseeable future, until the Chief feels certain that you won't cause any trouble. I know that a lot of people saw me carrying you into the town, but Chief Hadara is still unsure what to say about you and has ordered me to keep you out of the public eye until she does finally make a formal decree. Until then, she has instructed me to keep you shut away here."
Mewtwo nodded silently in understanding. He didn't necessarily like being cooped up like this for an indefinite amount of time, but it was better than dying of his injuries alone in the dunes.
"Since there's only room for one person in this little room, I'll be sleeping on the floor above you tonight. There's a chamber pot under your bed, and if you need anything else, use this to bang on the ceiling above you to call me, ok?"
Kalana reached over to the other side of the room and grabbed an old broom and leaned it in the corner next to his bed within reach. He nodded in understanding and then scrawled out a question on the parchment: "Are you going to bed soon?"
"I'm going to try, though adjusting my sleep schedule is difficult at the best of times. Normally I do night patrols of the desert surrounding the town to keep watch for signs of Lizalfos and now I'll have to readjust my sleep schedule and become diurnal in order to keep an eye on you every day." Kalana replied.
"I'm actually nocturnal too." Mewtwo wrote.
Kalana smirked a bit when she read it. "Well then, we'll be readjusting to a new schedule together. I need to get to bed now so I can at least try to sleep, but don't hesitate to call me if you need me."
With that she climbed up a ladder in the corner of the room, pushed open a wooden hatch in the ceiling, and vanished into the upper floor. Mewtwo couldn't really hear her moving around up there over the howling sound of the sandstorm outside, so he laid there in silence and closed his eyes, trying to sleep. Of course the sandman proved elusive due to his ingrained nocturnal schedule so he ended up letting his mind wander for the better part of an hour. He attempted to use Recover on himself one more time, then resigned himself to powerlessness when it again refused to work. It seemed like he was going to be stuck on this world for the foreseeable future. When sleep finally came to him, it was a restless and uncomfortable sleep that soon filled with nightmares.
Chapter 3: The Gaze of the Sulaaq
Most of Mewtwo's dreams that night were easily forgotten but one lodged itself firmly into his memory so clearly that he would have a hard time banishing it from his thoughts for the foreseeable future. It started with him sitting alone in an empty, dark, shapeless void all by himself. He could see nothing but blackness in every direction, and the floor he was sitting on was dark and indistinguishable. He couldn't focus on its details for long though, since his attention was soon drawn to a massive pair of glowing red demonic eyes that opened in the darkness directly in front of him. A sinking feeling of paralyzing dread flooded over Mewtwo as he gazed into the slitted, sinister pupils that had fixated themselves on him. He distinctly remembered that the dream was utterly silent the entire time; whoever owned those eyes didn't seem interested in attempting to interact with him. But despite the lack of words, the gaze seemed to communicate a profound sense of malice and intelligence as it watched him. The eyes were so colossally large that they would have fit on a 50 foot dragon of some sort. They didn't even blink once during the entire dream, and Mewtwo was filled with a horrible sense that they could see directly into his soul. They seemed to be examining him with the curiosity and hunger of a giant predator that was cautiously sizing up a tasty morsel of prey before moving in for the kill. The kill never came though, the eyes simply continued to watch him until that growing sense of dread became strong enough to drive Mewtwo to wakefulness.
Mewtwo bolted upright in bed and involuntarily released a wordless bellow of terror. The swiftness of his movements jarred his leg, which hadn't finished healing yet, and a fresh dose of scorching, stabbing pain caused him to spasm and flinch before falling onto his back into the bed. He moaned in agony while the pain slowly subsided, and a few moments later her heard thumping above him and the creak of the hatch opening in the ceiling. Kalana jumped down into the room to check on him, scimitar drawn and ready to face an intruding foe. She scanned the room rapidly and then sheathed her weapon when she saw that there was no burglar in sight.
"Are you alright?" Kalana asked, coming up alongside Mewtwo's bed.
Mewtwo groggily grasped for the pen and parchment that were laying on the floor next to his bed, missing a few times due to the pain clouding his mind. Kalana thankfully reached down to help him, placing the items into his grasping hands. He rubbed his eyes then scrawled out a sloppy "Bad dreams" on the parchment.
Kalana, who was no longer wearing her face veil, nodded in understanding and seemed to completely relax. "Let me guess, you dreamed of a gigantic pair of glowing red eyes, yes?"
Mewtwo's eyes widened in shock and he nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! How did you know?!" He wrote.
"It is unfortunately a common phenomenon out here on the Vile Desert. Everyone shares this dream and it happens at least 3 or 4 times a week, with some unfortunate souls seeing it nightly without rest. We call it "The Gaze of the Sulaaq" because of the terror it instills." Kalana explained.
"Is it some form of-" Mewtwo tried to write, but ran out of space on the page and had to flip it over. "-spying technology or psychic power?"
Kalana shook her head. "Not that we know of. It's been documented in historical records for hundreds of years. Even our nomadic ancestors who were actively pursued by Sulaaq slavers during the days after the fall of the old world were watched by the Gaze, but they still managed to evade their pursuers. If the Gaze is some sort of spying technique, then the Sulaaq actively avoid using whatever intelligence they glean from it. My mother believes it's nothing more than an intimidation tactic, or some kind of curse. At least the fact that an outsider like you can suffer from it confirms that the Gaze isn't something only Gerudos can suffer from. Though now that I think about it, I don't think I yet asked where you came from, or why you're here."
Mewtwo winced a bit. How would he explain his story to Kalana without his powers to back it up? If he told her the whole truth about coming from another universe she might not even understand it completely. But he had a sinking feeling that she would immediately sense his dishonesty if he tried to lie though, there was an incredibly sharp, insightful quality to her gaze that he couldn't deny.
"It's...a long story. I don't want to lie to you since you saved my life, but there are elements to it that are so implausible and outlandish that it's unlikely you'll believe me." He wrote.
Kalana gazed down at the parchment and knitted her brow before turning her sharp eyes on him. "That is a fair concern, but I am honestly very curious. I haven't really managed to get an ounce of sleep yet tonight, so why don't you tell me your story and I'll suspend disbelief for the sake of hearing the whole thing."
Mewtwo hesitated a little, then wrote "I'll need a few more extra pages."
That got a chuckle from Kalana, who headed upstairs for a moment to fetch a whole bundle for him to write on. Mewtwo hesitated a little bit, his hands shaking as he gripped the dusty paper, and he began to write. He had to lean sideways onto the little table next to his bed, which made the whole thing cramped and uncomfortable, but he was more concerned with what Kalana would think of him once she knew the truth. He felt so helpless and vulnerable with his powers stripped away, so he had to leave all of his ego behind and bare himself to her in a terrifyingly honest way. He decided that it'd be a much better idea to engage conversationally rather than just dumping a long textual story onto her all at once, so he wrote in bits and let her respond.
"Have you ever heard the theory that there are many different worlds in the cosmos aside from just this one? That there could be countless realities all existing in parallel?"
Kalana gave him a confused look and tilted her head to the side. "Yes, old legends have talked about such things many times. If I remember my history lessons, there used to be stories about a separate realm from our own called The Sacred Realm, where the gods used to hide artifacts of untold power. How is this relevant though?"
"It's relevant because it's true. I came from one such world, separate from this one, hoping to find a new home. But I was reckless and foolish; I left without any sort of supplies or preparation and I didn't know what sort of dangers I could expect. Some sort of great maelstrom robbed me of my powers and pulled me into this world, and I blacked out. I must have fallen while unconscious, leading to these injuries here."
"Ok, putting aside the fact that confirmation of the existence of parallel worlds is extremely huge news, why did you leave your home world?" Kalana asked.
Mewtwo heaved a much heavier sigh and his hand shook nervously as he wrote. "I left because I needed to protect the people of my world from myself. I am a bloodthirsty murderer. As much as I have tried and tried and tried to control my own anger, I have failed on two occasions and have killed multiple people during blind, unstoppable rages. I didn't want to let myself harm anyone else."
Mewtwo expected Kalana's gaze to harden into disgust or contempt when she read this, but much to his surprise she seemed to withhold judgement. "What happened to drive you to such a state? Surely you would not kill unprovoked. There's something about you that seems...unlike the cold-blooded monsters of our world that kill for pleasure. You actually seem consumed by guilt over what you've done."
Mewtwo took some time to ponder how to reply. Gary's death was so fresh in his mind that he still felt consumed with guilt over it, so it seemed strange trying to find justification for the things he had done. "The first time, it was humans who had created me. I was not naturally born, humans used technology to create me and give me immense psychic power in hopes that they could use me as a living weapon of war. They were callous in their treatment of me, especially their leader Giovanni, who regarded me with no more thought or compassion than an inanimate metal sword. I killed them to escape the servitude they were imposing upon me."
"Did you try to find a peaceful way to escape their control before you resorted to bloodshed?" Kalana asked.
"I..." Mewtwo paused and then scratched it out. "No, not nearly enough. I was engulfed in rage at their malice and cruelty. I completely destroyed their base of operations with dozens of men and women inside it, when I could have merely flown away with my powers and not engaged. It was an act of mass-murder I now sorely regret."
"I see." Kalana replied softly, then looked down at the floor with a wistful expression. "You mentioned this as only the first time you took a life?"
"Yes, there was a second time. Another human, who used technology to imprison me and protect himself from my powers. He too wanted to use me as a tool for his own gain, but I should have known better this time. When I killed the humans who created me, I was still young and foolish and I did not understand the moral implications of killing. But since then I have educated myself and I consciously knew my rage was my greatest weakness. This human, Gary, he taunted me with my own failings and used them to try and trap me in a bluff, hoping he could harness my powers where the others had failed. Despite all my time spent trying to better myself, I was still consumed by fury and killed him too. That's why I left, Kalana. I do not deserve to share a world with people when I can barely even control myself."
Kalana was quiet for a few moments when she read this. Still she didn't seem to scorn him, but instead she reached over and put one of her rough, calloused hands on his. "I understand. You at the very least have regret for what you have done, it proves you are not a monster."
Kalana paused for a little bit longer and a conflicted look came over her face. Mewtwo felt the urge to write a reply thanking her for her charitable assessment of his character, but he didn't want to pull his hand away from hers. There was a warmth of kindness to that touch that he hadn't felt since Mew had sat on his shoulder last time they met. Finally she seemed to conjure up the strength to speak again.
"Mewtwo, I understand the strength it must have taken to confess that to a stranger. Especially one who basically holds your life and your future in her hands like I do. I appreciate that. May I tell you something of my own now in return?"
Mewtwo nodded. He was filled with a strange upwelling of emotions from witnessing someone who was basically a stranger showing such compassion and understanding to him.
"I...also have some blood on my hands. Perhaps not nearly as much as you do, but my own is no less haunting."
Kalana stood up and walked over to the singular window in the wall next to the door in order to look outside while she talked, as if she couldn't really bring herself to look at him while she shared her own shame with him.
"I had a little sister once. Her name was Ruru, and she was the most kindhearted and charitable little girl you could ever hope to meet. She always automatically assumed the best of everyone she met, she never once let herself stay angry at anyone who wronged her, and she had an unfailingly optimistic nature despite the desolate times our people live in. She always looked up to me as a role model since I was her older sister, and I got to be more of a hero to her than anyone else since our mother had to be the stern authority figure as the Chief of our tribe. Ruru also had a very fiery spirit when it came to combat, she loved to fight and was always trying to learn more. She tried every single weapon she got her hands on, and more than once got in trouble for sneaking a real scimitar to play with when she knew she was too young to handle one. Needless to say, it was incessant. Every single day she tried to get me to take her with me on my patrols out in the desert. She wanted to watch me fight, wanted to see a real Lizalfos or even a dreaded Molduga. She also thought she could take them on herself, as youths often tend to do. Needless to say it was out of the question, she was only 18 years old at the time and she couldn't even lift a real Gerudo spear."
Kalana saw Mewtwo giving her a weird, confused look when she mentioned Ruru's age. She chuckled a bit and said "Sorry, I thought I explained that our people are long-lived, but I guess it doesn't necessarily follow that it also means that we age slower. 18 years for a Gerudo is equivalent to 9 years for a human."
Mewtwo hummed thoughtfully as he grasped the explanation. Unable to speak, he gestured to Kalana to continue her story.
"Well...one evening two years ago I was getting ready for my nightly patrol while our mother was down with a fever and unable to keep an eye on us. Ruru was extremely insistent that she come with me on my patrol, to the point where I was becoming very angry. Stressed over mother's illness, I decided that maybe it would do her some good if I brought Ruru along to keep her out of mother's hair so she could sleep. I was overconfident and cocky, figuring that I could handle any threats that came our way. As you can guess, things did not go well."
Kalana reached down and grabbed the beautiful little circular brass shield that she carried on her hip and unbelted it so she could hold it up and examine the decorations on the outward-facing side.
"Normally the thralls of the Sulaaq don't leave their towers. They have a network of underground tunnels connecting all of their various bases of operation so that they don't suffer under the heat of the desert sun. But for some reason that night, they were out in a convoy riding in their accursed black steel vehicles. In the darkness of the moonless night we couldn't see them until we had blundered right into their path. One of their vehicles knocked me off my feet, breaking multiple bones in my body and nearly killing me outright, while Ruru thankfully avoided any collision. The impact knocked the vehicle sideways enough that they stopped their convoy to investigate. I scrambled to put my earplugs in barely just in time before their mind-control Incantation flooded on through the magical sound-producing devices on their vehicles...but Ruru hadn't brought any earplugs. We didn't plan to go anywhere near a Sulaaq tower so she didn't think she'd need a pair. I had to watch as the magic enthralled her and turned her into another one of their mindless slaves. I tried to get up to grab her so they couldn't take her away, but both my legs were broken and I couldn't do much more than crawl. The thralls ignored me entirely and just took her aboard one of their vehicles, then drove away. I've never seen her again since...but I know her fate was not to live long. The Sulaaq work most of their thralls to death in their factories or the tunnels beneath their towers. Only those who are strong enough to be made into guards for the towers manage to escape that fate, and she was far too young to be made a guard."
Mewtwo wished dearly that he could speak. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that she shouldn't blame herself for the evil deeds of others. But his muteness stymied him. Tears welled up in his eyes and he tried to mumble wordlessly at her, gesturing to her to come over so he could write his words to her. But she remained over on the opposite side of the room, still gazing at her shield so she wouldn't have to face him. She traced her fingers over a dent in the shield quietly until she could work out the next few words.
"She'd still be here, alive and happy, if I had just not let her come with me, Mewtwo. Nobody in the town blames me for her loss, not even mother. Hah, normally she of all people with her stern, authoritarian discipline should have been the one to chastise me for my mistakes, but we were all busied with our mourning. Despite all their understanding and support I still struggle with that feeling of guilt. I know just as well as anyone that I shouldn't put the misdeeds of the Sulaaq onto my own shoulders, but I'm the one who has to live with the image of all the life and will draining out of my baby sister's eyes as those wretched slavers turned her into their automaton. I carry that weight and I always will. So I guess...the reason why I'm telling you all this is because I understand the pain you carry with you too, Mewtwo. If I had strange mental powers and the ability to find other worlds, I very well might have left our world of Hypalia behind during the worst hours of my mourning for Ruru."
Kalana finally reached down to strap her shield back onto her back and then walked back over to Mewtwo's bedside. When she looked at him again, he could see she had the beginnings of tears welling up in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away and regained control.
"Mewtwo, these rages of yours, do you believe that they might come again and drive you to hurt the people of Ven'rakesh?"
Mewtwo turned and wrote some more. "I can't promise that my rages are gone. But for some reason, my psychic powers don't seem to work in this world. Without them, my primary ability to act on my anger is gone. All I'm left with is a weak, untrained body that you and your guards could easily overpower."
Kalana chuckled darkly as she read. "Well, I do know why your abilities won't work. That's the fault of the Sulaaq. They have built hundreds of these massive towers all over the face of the world, each of which sucks every ounce of magical energy out of the world for hundreds of miles around it. Nobody can cast any spells of any kind so long as the tower nearest to them stands operational. They probably sucked out your abilities too, even if they are under a different name than magic. So at least, for as long as the nearest local tower stands, you will remain powerless."
Mewtwo felt a sudden understanding click into place in his mind. This must have been what caused the massive energy-draining vortex that he had stumbled into inside the interdimensional space! Of course that relief of understanding was immediately replaced by a mixture of other intense realizations: He would be safe from ever worrying about killing these Gerudo people with his powers, but he might be trapped on this world for the rest of his life if he didn't figure out a way to attack the Sulaaq. He scribbled out a few more frantic lines of text as his brain spun with all this information.
"Kalana, I know that I can't wash away all your guilt with some magical eloquent wording in one go. If there was such an easy way to fight off those sorts of inner demons I would have used them on myself long ago. But the people of Ven'rakesh are right, you're not a murderer. You're just a normal, everyday woman who was trying to be the best big sister that she could and made a flawed judgment call. I think, if Ruru was as altruistic and forgiving as you said, she'd have forgiven you and wouldn't have wanted you to feel so sad about what happened either."
When Kalana read that bit, she didn't reply with words. Instead, she gently leaned down and wrapped her arms around Mewtwo and embraced him. He didn't hear any sobbing from her, but he did feel the moisture of a few of her tears soaking into his shoulder. For that brief moment he allowed himself a few tears as well. He'd never truly been hugged before, not like this. It was a new experience for him and he didn't know what he might have said even if he did have his power of speech back. So he did the only thing he could do, he gently reached up to put his arms around Kalana to return the hug. It lasted for only a few seconds, but those fleeting little motes of time left a more profound imprint on Mewtwo than he realized. Though when Kalana drew back to let go, she accidentally bumped against his leg, sending searing explosions of pain through it.
Mewtwo spasmed and grabbed the edges of the bed as he bellowed wordlessly in agony. Kalana recoiled back in shock, a guilty look coming over her face. "Oh Goddesses I'm so sorry Mewtwo, I didn't mean to!"
Mewtwo nodded and gestured at her, hoping to communicate that it was nothing and he didn't blame her. He looked down through the haze of pain at his knee and saw that the bone spur had retreated several inches back into his leg now, and his hip seemed to have shifted back into place again, but there was still plenty of healing left to be done. Once the pain cleared enough to write he sloppily scrawled out "It's ok, it was an accident."
"Still, I should let you try to sleep. You're not going to heal as fast if I'm down here keeping you awake with my sob stories, and you can tell me the rest of your story tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning, ok?"
With that Kalana quickly climbed the ladder and vanished into the upper floor again, leaving Mewtwo alone with his thoughts. He had to admit to himself that she was right but...he missed that moment of connection they shared when they hugged. For the first time, it felt like he actually had earned a real friend. He laid back and stared at the ceiling, dreading another staring match with the Gaze of the Sulaaq, but eventually the exhaustion of all his experiences caught up to him and eased him back to sleep.
