The Crossing of the Paths
Second Edition
By MMM/AJ
Part I: Desert Wind
A/N: Hello again dear readers! This chunk features a big dose of the promised Lore Dumping that I mentioned earlier as a replacement for the old flavor paragraphs! But fortunately I also understand that some people find such infodumping to be more than a little boring, so I also included some proper characterization and a nice action scene to keep things spiced up. Again there is a large amount of brand new content added here that wasn't in the first edition too, including at least two new characters. While we're still very ROUGHLY sticking to the original's plot structure here, the fleshing out means this will still have plenty of surprises for new readers. I hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 9: Luck of the Gods
The malicious, angry red stare returned to Mewtwo's dreams again that night. He was already struggling to force himself into a diurnal sleep schedule to match the Gerudos and the Gaze wasn't exactly helping his progress. But something was different this time around. After an indeterminate length of time with Mewtwo sitting curled up in the black dream void with the eyes glaring down at him, he thought he heard something. The dreams had been deadly silent up until now so this roused Mewtwo from his terrified paralysis and made him sit up and look around for the source of the sound. He couldn't pinpoint anything in the darkness though, and the sound seemed diffuse and nonspecific as if it was coming from the air all around him. It sounded like a voice; it was very faint and muffled as if someone was speaking a great distance away. He couldn't really make anything out, save for a scant few words that overcame the auditory fuzz that was blocking them.
"What?!"
"...don't...but..."
"...fish..."
Mewtwo strained to hear more, both out of fascination and out of an eager desire to cling to anything that might distract him from the horrific eyes that were hovering in front of him. Only one other word came to him, and it was spoken in such a loud, angry tone that it shattered his sleep and shocked him awake.
"NOW!"
Mewtwo bolted upright in his bed in the tiny little adobe and sandstone house that he had been given to stay in in Ven'rakesh. His head swiveled around rapidly as he scanned his room for threats but there was no sign of any sort of source for the shout he had heard. It took a few seconds for Mewtwo to realize that the sound had been a part of the dream and calm himself down. Mewtwo was no stranger to nightmares of course, he'd had plenty of them back when he lived on Earth. But usually they were fuzzy, mishmashed clumps of existential dread related to his origins as a clone. The Gaze of the Sulaaq was so sharp and clear by comparison, and he never seemed to forget a detail about it when he woke up.
Fortunately the adrenaline began to wear off as Mewtwo climbed out of bed and walked over to grab the cloak and gear the Gerudos had given him. Today was going to be a busy day; Chief Hadara had asked him to come to her home for lessons that morning while Kalana was out there doing her double duty on patrol. Mewtwo grabbed a fistful of that foul, gamey green jerky that had been provided for his meals and then draped his patchwork leather cloak over himself before departing.
Mewtwo still felt a little nervous about being seen in public despite the legally protected acceptance that he'd fought so hard for. He could still feel the intensity of a hundred eyes staring at him as he walked through the main square of Ven'rakesh. He might have rushed through with his hood tugged down over his face and missed everything if he hadn't accidentally bumped into a small crowd gathered on the square. He looked up to see what was going on and ended up surprised by the scene in front of him.
Mewtwo was used to walking through the square at night when the shops were closed up and the people were all asleep in their homes. Now the bright sunlight was illuminating crowds of Gerudo women gathered in the square; some were milling around shop stalls, some were walking briskly toward their own personal business, and several were gathered in the center of the square by the fountain. The shops had rolled out their wares on wooden stalls, displaying everything from fancy red silk Gerudo clothing, golden jewelry, weapons, rugs, and freshly cooked sizzling meals. He could see shopkeeps searing freshly cut meats in huge steel pans atop crackling flames, sending delicious scents wafting through the air. He could see tough, well-muscled Gerudo workers lugging huge clay jugs around between the shops, undoubtedly carrying water. The whole place seemed to be bustling with vitality and filled with wealth despite the rationing and poverty that Mewtwo had been told about.
The crowd at the center of the square was what he'd bumped into, and they seemed to be gathered around two primary sources of entertainment. One was a small musical band consisting of four Gerudos playing different instruments and one elegant dancer, and the other was a game of dice that players were squatting around. Both were surrounded by roughly a dozen spectators each, though neither was directly interacting with the other. Mewtwo guessed that the players of the dice game had chosen the location so they could enjoy the dance troupe's music, which was a fast-paced and cheerful song that could brighten even the sourest of moods. He also could also recognize that these musicians were the same ones who had been playing at Mewtwo's induction ceremony before. It took one of the members of the dice playing group raising their voice at him before Mewtwo realized that he had interrupted their game when he bumped into them.
"Hey! Alafir! Vas'otta!" said one of the women in the crowd.
"I'm sorry, I don't really know what that means." Mewtwo mumbled softly.
Another younger Gerudo picked her way through the group and slugged the shoulder of the one who had spoken to him. "What this amalaq of a friend of mine said was a greeting. One that she should have said in the common tongue and with less familiar terms, Ruisa!" She turned and shot a death glare at the one she'd slugged.
"Hey, back off Madiri, you know it was all in good fun." Ruisa replied, then pushed Madiri backward lightly with one hand.
Mewtwo gave Madiri a grateful nod as he spoke. "Thank you, I appreciate it. I didn't mean to intrude on your game, I was caught up in thought, I won't interrupt any further."
"Hey, don't just go running off though. You're the newest member of the Rakeshan tribe, that means eventually you're going to be doing guard duty with the rest of us guardswomen soon. Why not get to know your sisters with a friendly game of Hajarud?" Ruisa offered.
"I am expected at Chief Hadara's home soon for my lessons, I should be going." Mewtwo replied, feeling somewhat cowed by Ruisa's confident energy compared to his own meager social skills.
"Bah, it's a very simple game, one round takes mere seconds to complete! Come, join us for a few, it will barely take a minute. Unless you think your favor with the Chief makes you above such nonsense?" Ruisa insisted.
Ruisa grabbed Mewtwo by the shoulder as she spoke and began to drag him into the inner circle. Her tone of voice grew slightly resentful as she asked the question at the end, implying she and the others would take offense if he snubbed their offer.
"Come on Ruisa, he doesn't have to play if he doesn't want to. You know how the chief gets when people keep her waiting." Madiri interjected frustratedly.
"Madiri you're always such a dead Vuró! Just because your sister is the Ataran doesn't mean you have the authority to ruin every game we play!" Ruisa replied angrily.
At this point Mewtwo caved into the social pressure and interrupted. "It's alright, I'll play one or two rounds as long as you teach me the rules clearly, all in the common tongue."
"Great! The rules of Hajarud are simple. Two opposing players compete against each other by rolling two six-sided dice, one player rolling a red set and the other rolling white. Whoever rolls a higher sum wins the round, and you play to best 3 out of 5. Each round the players place a round of bets, and the winner of the set takes the whole pot at the end. Ante is 1 Rupee at the start of every round, and each roll you can choose to Push, which means you pay the ante but not add more, Bet more, or fold. When you fold early then your opponent wins and takes the pot, but if you feel like you're on a run of bad luck it can be a good way to cut your losses and get out before you lose any more."
Ruisa handed Mewtwo a pair of six-sided dice that were painted a bright cherry red, then scooped up the white dice for herself as she explained the game to him. He was pondering how the whole thing was purely luck based when Madiri interjected angrily.
"Ruisa are you really scooping up the white dice for yourself while he's still new to the game?!"
Madiri's tone implied that this was some sort of hugely impolite gesture on Ruisa's part, and Mewtwo gave them a quizzical look.
"Pffft. It's just silly superstition." Ruisa replied, then turned to explain it to Mewtwo. "Old traditional folktales say that the red dice are bad luck, but I don't really believe in that nonsense. I just grabbed the dice randomly."
Mewtwo gave a cynical chuckle but took the red dice without complaint. "Alright. I assume there's a rule against using magic to affect the outcome of the rolls?"
"Of course. And there's one other traditional rule, we roll simultaneously and at least one of our dice has to strike the other's dice during the roll in order to ensure that it's a fair game and not affected by hand movement trickery. If none of your dice touch my dice or vice versa, the roll is called a Foul. Understand?"
"Yes. Though... I don't actually have any money." Mewtwo admitted.
Ruisa looked kinda deflated by this, and her response got a round of chuckles from the crowd. At that point Madiri interjected a second time, reaching out and handing Mewtwo a handful of green, semi-translucent crystals. There were five of them and they were shaped like elongated hexagons with a wide center, and they had a beautiful sparkling luster in the bright morning sun.
"Here, you can play on me. You don't have to pay me back, consider it a welcome gift."
"Heh, you a vereq now Madiri?" someone called out from the crowd in a mocking tone.
"Hey, amalaq! Your grandmothers would be ashamed of you saying such things! What are you, Twinrova?" Madiri shouted back.
The whole crowd gave an excited gasp in response followed by "Ooooooooh!"
"Ante up!" Ruisa barked, cutting them all off and getting attention focused back on the game.
Ruisa pulled a leather pouch off her belt and opened the drawstring, then dug out one of her own green crystalline Rupees to place on the cobblestones. Mewtwo followed her lead and put down one of his own.
"Ok, roll on the count of three. One, two, three!" Ruisa called out, then tossed her dice aggressively.
Mewtwo gave his dice a decent fling and watched as they clacked softly against Ruisa's and came to a rest. The result came up, 7 for Ruisa, 9 for Mewtwo.
"First round to the newcomer!" Madiri shouted.
Ruisa smirked, not shaken by the results in the slightest. "Custom dictates that the winner of the round gets to bet first on the next round. What will it be?"
"Push." Mewtwo replied, putting down the minimum 1 rupee ante.
"Alright. I bet 5." Ruisa replied confidently, then placed down a blue rupee on the pile. "Now when your opponent bets higher than your push, you have to either match their bet, give up and fold, or if you don't have the money to match their bet you can go All In. Though be warned, an All In bet turns the next round into the final round!"
Mewtwo scowled. He couldn't afford to match a bet of 5 and Ruisa knew it. She was intentionally intimidating him and forcing him to choose between giving up the ante he'd paid in or risk everything he had already. Logically he knew this game was pure luck and his best bet was to walk away with his remaining 3 rupees without letting Ruisa intimidate him. But this wasn't money he'd worked for, it was money that Madiri had given him expressly to gamble. Why not give her and the rest of the crowd a good show for that money?
"All In." Mewtwo replied, dumping all his remaining Rupees on the pile.
That got another "Oooooooh!" from the crowd, and people pressed in closer. Nobody even seemed to notice that the dance troupe had paused their music to watch.
"Ah, so you do have a backbone then, alafir!" Ruisa said with an impressed grin.
"I did face down a Sulaaq Chosen in battle with Kalana at my side after all, what's a couple of Rupees?" Mewtwo asked, keeping a cool and collected facade.
Ruisa gave him a look that showed an impressed respect, then counted down and rolled her dice. Mewtwo tossed his dice in return, a little bit harder than last time, and sent one of Ruisa's dice skittering several feet across the cobblestones. The audience jumped backwards and upwards to get out of the way, trying to avoid tainting the result of the roll. When all four of the dice came to a stop, the result was a 5 to 5 tie!
"Tiebreaker! Tiebreaker!" the crowd shouted excitedly.
By now the audience had expanded significantly, almost two dozen Gerudos had gathered to see the newcomer testing his luck. Ruisa arched her brow and said "Normally tie rolls dictate a bonus round of extra betting and another roll of the dice, but since you're All In then there's a special All Or Nothing roll where the results of the previous rolls are all ignored and the winner takes all based on this one round."
"Alright, I'm not about to back down now. Count us down."
The crowd got hushed now as Ruisa counted them down again and rolled. This time she tossed her dice with more aggression, but her aim was off and she ended up missing Mewtwo's dice entirely! The crowd broke out in uproarious laughter at this!
"Nice Foul Ruisa!" Madiri laughed mockingly.
"Ruisa you have the skill of a Stalchild!" another one joked.
"Does...that mean I win?" Mewtwo asked in a cautious tone.
"Yup! When your opponent clearly misses and you aimed fairly in the center, the Foul is on them and you win the roll. It's supposed to incentivize both players to aim fairly. You get the whole pot!" Madiri explained.
Ruisa scowled and shoved the pile of money over to Mewtwo, who scooped it up and set it on the ground in front of himself. He didn't have long to admire the colorful crystals before Ruisa spoke up.
"I gave you that win. How about a real round? Or do you fear the luck that the Gods might give you?"
Mewtwo, who had by now lost track of time entirely, grinned and put one Rupee forward for ante. "You're on."
The first roll of the next game went to Ruisa 9 to 7, and Mewtwo immediately knew what she was going to do next as he watched her dig around in her money pouch. She produced a larger, red colored Rupee and firmly slapped it onto the stones.
"I bet 20!" She declared haughtily.
There it was again, the same strategy. Ruisa was throwing her own wealth around and using it to try to intimidate him, knowing he couldn't afford to match her bet. At this point he was still playing on other people's money, so Mewtwo smirked and kept up the show.
"All In."
This time the crowd was much louder, he heard shouting in mixed Gerudo and common, as well as a few whoops and cheers.
"Ruisa you're not going to scare him, our Alafir has a will made of stone!" Madiri whooped.
Ruisa ignored her and instead loudly counted down their next roll, which caused the crowd go totally silent. They tossed their dice with steady aim and Ruisa's pair came up 10 while both of Mewtwo's dice came to rest in the seams between the cobblestones without any numbers clearly facing up.
"Cocked dice!" Ruisa shouted excitedly.
"What happens now?" Mewtwo asked.
"Whenever there's a cocked dice the player gets a free re-roll, but ONLY the dice that came up cocked. Since Ruisa's dice both landed fairly, she gets to keep her 10 and you have to re-roll both of yours and beat it." Madiri explained.
"Looks like your luck is wearing thin Mewtwo. I think I'll buy myself some roast Lizalfos loin with the Rupees that Madiri gave you, I could go for a big dinner." Ruisa boasted.
"It's not over until I get my last roll." Mewtwo replied coolly. "Do we still count down if I'm the only one rolling?"
"No, just make sure you strike my dice where they lay. Roll whenever you feel, but don't keep us waiting long!" Ruisa replied.
Mewtwo nodded and picked up his dice. He looked down at the shimmering pile of Rupees and admired their beauty, realizing that he had no idea how much this sum could actually buy. He didn't know whether this was worth all the tension building on the air, but his gut was telling him it wasn't a meager sum. He decided not to let his instinct for introspection keep him paralyzed and cast the dice one more time. They struck Ruisa's dice fairly and came to rest with boxcars face-up! He'd done it! The crowd burst into cheers and several Gerudos slapped him on the back in congratulations. He winced slightly, worried they might accidentally strike his sensitive second neck and send him into fits of agony, but fortunately they seemed to avoid touching it.
"Some damn fine playing Mewtwo! No wonder the Chosen couldn't defeat you in combat!" Madiri declared, giving him a firm smack on the back too.
Mewtwo might have been carried off in the elation of the crowd if he hadn't spotted something that disturbed him. For a brief moment, there was a flash of horrible, sinking existential dread in Ruisa's eyes as the reality of her loss sank in. It was the look of terror and despair that he'd seen on the faces of humans leaving casinos after having blown their entire life savings. Ruisa quickly hid that expression behind false bravado however, she dispassionately shoved the heap of Rupees at Mewtwo and stood up to leave.
"I have work to do now. I will play some more later." she grumbled, then pushed her way out of the crowd and walked away toward the Northern end of the square.
Mewtwo felt the horrible sinking stone of guilt forming in the pit of his stomach. He let the crowd pull him to his feet and smiled, playing along with their jubilations, but he watched out of the corner of his eyes as Ruisa slipped down an alley and vanished.
"You have the Luck of the Gods on your side Mewtwo!" One crowd member shouted.
"Maybe he really is The Traveler?" someone else called out.
"Impressive. I may have to play a game or two with you myself." The dancer from the music troupe added.
"Hey Mewtwo, why don't you play a few rounds against me and spend some of that money before the Spider's Curse gets you?" Madiri laughed.
"I shouldn't, I'm probably already late for my lessons with the chief now and you know how she can be." Mewtwo replied, too worried about the time now to have time to ask about the curse she'd mentioned.
"Oh Gods yeah I do. Get going! Tomorrow I can teach you how to play Keese and Leevers when you aren't busy with your lessons!" Madiri replied cheerfully, then helped bag up Mewtwo's winnings and part the crowd for him before shooing him off.
Mewtwo then dashed up Northwards toward the alley he'd seen Ruisa go into. He crossed the road on the northern side of the square and was about to enter the alley when he heard a familiar voice call out to him. It was Chief Hadara and she didn't sound happy!
"Mewtwo! There you are! You're late!" she chided angrily as she came up toward him.
"I'm deeply sorry my Chief, I lost track of time and it's my fault. I'll be right over to your home shortly, I just need to take care of one quick matter first."
Hadara came to a stop with a surprised look plastered all over her face. It was clear that she didn't expect him to be pushing his luck even more when he knew she was already angry at him.
"Just what sort of matter are you talking about?" She demanded.
"A matter of morals. It won't take long." Mewtwo replied, then ducked into the alley.
Either Hadara was too gobsmacked by his sheer devil-may-care attitude or she just didn't care to put in the effort to chase him; either way Mewtwo was grateful for the opportunity to do this uninterrupted. He found Ruisa sitting in the back alley, crouched down in front of a small sandstone shrine. The shrine was about 3 feet tall and carved in the shape of some sort of Naga or Lamia being which had the upper body of a Gerudo woman with a cobra hood and the lower body of a snake.
"Hey Ruisa."
She opened her eyes and turned to shoot him a vicious glare. "Can't you see I'm busy praying to the Goddess right now? Or is your desire to rub salt in my wounds by boasting your victory too important to care about silly things like that?"
Mewtwo internally winced, but he didn't let the stinging rebuke stop him. He opened up the bag of rupees that he had won and grabbed the red and blue ones that Ruisa had lost.
"If you will just listen to me for a moment I'll let you get back to your prayers. Here, I came to give these back to you."
Initially a look of surprise came over Ruisa's face, followed by a conflicted look and then anger.
"I don't need your damned pity, Mewtwo. You can take my money away from me but I will not allow you to take my pride too!"
"Don't be ridiculous, if I wanted to step on your pride I'd have given you back the money in full view of the crowd! I came back here to do it not just because you ran off, but so that you can save face without anyone else having to know." Mewtwo replied in a quiet, frustrated tone.
Ruisa knotted her brow, still looking slightly irritated, but his point seemed to have made an impact.
"That and if this was all about pity I'd be giving you the entire thing, but I'm not. I'm keeping Madiri's money and the ante money for myself, I'm just giving you back what you bet. I don't even really know what the value of a Rupee is so if it's that large of a sum then I'm certainly not-"
At this point Ruisa raised a hand to interrupt him, then spoke.
"Alright. I'm not going to sit down and explain our monetary system to you, that's the Chief's duty. But I will take the money on one condition. Nobody else can know."
"Of course. I have my own pride Ruisa, I know how this feels. As far as everyone else is concerned, you still have plenty of money left even after losing all this to me simply because you're that wealthy and skilled at managing it." Mewtwo replied with a smile.
Ruisa finally smiled in return. She took the offered rupees and tucked them into her coin purse.
"Alright, but next time I'm going to be the one who swoops in to rescue you, got it?"
Mewtwo chuckled a little bit and nodded as he replied. "Of course, it's only fair. Now I will let you get back to your prayers."
Mewtwo turned and made his way back down the alley now, feeling comforted by how that had went. He turned a corner and nearly collided headfirst with Hadara, who had been standing there waiting for him.
"Oh! Um, Chief Hadara. I'm ready to follow you to my lessons now. I'll accept responsibility for being late, whatever punishment you assign is fairly earned."
Hadara gave him an imperious look at first, but then put a hand on Mewtwo's shoulder and began to lead him out of the alley. Her expression softened as she began to speak.
"I saw what you did for Ruisa back there. You didn't have to do that if you won that money fairly."
"I know. But I chose to stay here in Ven'rakesh in order to help people, anything less would be entirely counter-productive. Plus, it's like you said, we have to be as brother and sisters out here in the desert."
Hadara nodded quietly as she listened to him. They exited the alley together and she turned Westward toward her home.
"If Q'diri could see this generous side of you she wouldn't still cling to the idea that you are a Sulaaq. No Sulaaq would be so selfless, especially if they were doing so in private and didn't need to."
Mewtwo nodded in agreement but didn't have much to say in response. It felt good to be complimented by Hadara like that, but he was still worried about being late to the lesson. After a few moments he worked up the nerve to ask about it.
"Are you still angry about my poor punctuality?"
"I will forgive it this time, but next time there will be some cleaning duties involved if you are late again."
"Thank you."
Mewtwo breathed a sigh of relief. A few moments later they paused at a small sandstone house at the bottom of a tier of stacked houses while Hadara reached into her pocket for a key. Mewtwo felt a sudden burst of surprise when he realized that this small, humble little domicile was where the Chief of the entire Rakeshan tribe lived! He'd imagined she would live in some grandiose palace decorated with gold, but this looked no different on the outside from any other commoner's house. Hadara unlocked and opened the door, then shouted inside.
"Ruru! Time to go! Get over here!"
"Go? Go where? I thought we were having the lessons here in your home?" Mewtwo asked.
"Oh no, as comfortable as that would be, we keep our scrolls and other records stored safely in a third party location outside of the walls of Ven'rakesh."
"Why would you do that? This place seems like the safest location in the whole desert."
At this point Ruru came jogging up to them through the door with a huge smile on her face. She was now wearing a bronze tiara on her forehead with a dull ruby set in the center. She was carrying a child-size wooden staff and looked as excited and exuberant as ever.
"Ready for action!"
Hadara chuckled and said "Why are you carrying that staff my dear Vehví?"
"In case the Lizalfos ambush us on the walk to the Grounds of course! I'll bonk them so hard their horns'll fall off!"
Hadara paused for a moment, looking conflicted about whether to allow this or not. She then smiled and gave Ruru a pat on the head. "After what you've been through I'd say you've earned the right to carry that with you. Come, let's go."
The three of them began to walk through Ven'rakesh together, heading toward the East gate. The dancing and music in the square had resumed, though Mewtwo could no longer see anyone playing Hajarud. As they passed the square, Mewtwo interjected.
"Apologies for being rude, but you didn't answer my question from before."
"Ah, you are right, I'm sorry. The reason is simple, Ven'rakesh isn't the safest place in the desert. Well, at least for storing relics. You see, our village is densely populated and filled with food, metals, gear, and other wealth. The beasts of the desert may be uncivilized savages, but they are not entirely stupid. They can prioritize targets, and they have little use for dusty old scrolls covered in Ancient Hylian runes. If we store our records somewhere else outside the walls of the village, then even if the monsters breach our defenses and burn the whole thing to the ground, we will not lose a shred of our heritage and history.
"Wait, has this ever happened before?" Mewtwo asked.
"Not in living memory. But our early ancestors suffered many such raids before they settled into more permanent walled villages. As you're about to learn, our ancestors went through a period of nomadic wandering between the new age of walled villages and the fall of the ancient world. Those nomadic days were harsh, to say the least."
Hadara paused her speech when they turned the corner and came up to the East gates. She shouted up at the guards in the watchtowers to open the gates and two of them scrambled down the rusty metal ladders and began to pull on the huge wooden wheels that cranked the chains and opened the doors. It took a few minutes for the huge steel doors to groan open, and once they were through Hadara shouted back at them.
"We're headed to the Arbiter's Grounds, we will return in three or four hours!"
Mewtwo felt a little nervous as they crossed the amphitheater where he'd had his trial only a day before. He had hoped it'd be a long time before he saw this place again, if at all. But he repeatedly reminded himself that he wasn't on trial this time, this was apparently all a part of his lessons. They approached the single open archway leading into the interior of the mesa half that hadn't been carved off, and Hadara grabbed a cold, dead torch off of a metal sconce mounted on the wall on the inside of the archway.
"Ruru, flint please." Hadara requested, stopping them just shy of walking inside.
"Yes mom."
Mewtwo stood by patiently as Ruru dug out the two stones and handed them to Hadara, who began to strike them together to produce sparks to ignite the torch.
"Sorry I kinda forgot the kindling." Ruru said sheepishly.
"It's alright. They still haven't managed to rebuild the drain device at the tower, so I think I can indulge a little bit of magic."
Hadara returned the flint and snapped her fingers above the torch, causing it to spontaneously catch flame. Mewtwo could sense Hadara drawing energy out of the environment in a similar way to psychic power, which confirmed to him that the power these people called magic was at least somewhat similar to his own.
"So why use the Arbiter's Grounds specifically to store valuables anyway? Isn't it supposed to be something akin to a courthouse?" Mewtwo asked.
"Technically it's both a court and a prison. Traditionally Gerudos kept the worst of our criminals in these places, though nowadays very few of our people commit crimes severe enough to warrant such a sentence. We still follow tradition and build these prisons to this day, but use the building mostly for storing our cultural valuables instead. The solid iron bars and locks make this much safer than just burying our scrolls in chests under the dunes."
While she was talking, Hadara produced an old wrought iron key from her belongings and led them inside by torchlight. They came up to an old, rusty iron gate built into the wall that Hadara unlocked with the key. They ignited more torches as they went, and just past the gate was a bracket-shaped U-turn in the passage that they had to walk through. Once past that they entered a broader open hall filled with six empty prison cells, each one separated by carved solid sandstone walls and closed in with more gated iron bars. The far wall had another barred gate in the center of the wall leading deeper into the complex. The cells were lining the left and right sides of the room with three on each side, and all of their doors were standing open. Mewtwo immediately noticed that the cell in the center on the left side however seemed to have been broken open. Someone or something had cleanly sliced right through the iron bars as if they were made of butter, leaving a circular hole big enough for a person to easily climb through. Hadara began to sift through her key ring as she led them across the room toward the gate in the far wall, but Mewtwo paused to examine the clean cuts through the bars on the left center cell.
"What happened here?"
Hadara furrowed her brow as she replied. "About a month before you arrived, Ven'rakesh was infiltrated several times by a lone Gerudo thief. We know that she hailed from the Vha'an Tribe in the east due to the blue garb she wore, but we couldn't ascertain her identity because her face was scarred and disfigured and she refused to identify herself. She scaled the walls at night and robbed my home multiple times, stealing at least two ancient heirloom weapons that my family has guarded for generations. She was only finally caught on her third raid as she attempted to take a haul of money out of our treasury. We imprisoned her here, but apparently she also had a talent for magic that we were unaware of. She must have used magic to carve the bars open while most of our soldiers were raiding the Sulaaq Tower and the drain device was disabled."
"Are raids from the Vha'an Tribe a frequent problem?"
"Absolutely not! All four tribes are allies with each other, we even hold festivals together yearly. This thief was acting alone; it's likely she was a criminal who was banished from Ven'vha for some terrible misdeed and chose to resort to thievery rather than bear the shame of approaching the other tribes as a Va'no." Hadara said, then slid the proper key into the lock on the inner gate.
"As a what?" Mewtwo asked.
"Ah, sorry. It's an older word for one who was dishonorably banished from their tribe for heinous crimes such as murder or treachery. It's not exactly a flattering term either. But come, we're finally at the archives."
Hadara opened the gate and led them into the next chamber. It was a large cylindrical room at least 50 feet tall and with a 30 foot diameter, and it was dominated by a massive stone sculpture in the center. The statue took up a third of the room's area and leaned against the far wall. It was carved in the shape of the same Goddess that Mewtwo had seen Ruisa praying to earlier in the alley. The Goddess was sitting upon the coils of her own snake half and had her hood spread open. She was gazing down at the door with a neutral expression and holding out her hands atop her coils with both her palms facing up and her fingers stretched open. The statue had been painted too, with its serpentine coils being painted a dull green and its clothing being bright red. Mewtwo got a clearer look as Hadara walked a circle around the chamber, lighting up several small torches in sconces along the wall as she went. There was a stone altar sitting at the base of the statue that was just big enough for an adult human or Gerudo to lay on top of on their back without their feet dangling off. There were two larger standing torches framing this altar, one on either side, and Hadara lit those too.
The firelight flooding the chamber allowed Mewtwo to see the walls, which he now realized were covered in multiple gorgeously carved and painted murals. These murals had apparently been carved into the rock first to show the shapes of Gerudo figures before colors were painted onto them, and all of them had been beautifully preserved. It was clear that the shelter from the elements inside this chamber had protected the paint from exposure, so the colors were still fairly vibrant. Mewtwo also noticed that the walls between the murals were absolutely covered with thousands upon thousands of intricately carved Gerudo runes! It looked like an entire novel's worth of text had been carved here, and the letters were so small that he would have to get up close to read them, assuming he ever learned the language. The builders of the place had taken good care in protecting the text and the murals from the torch flames too, as a wide berth of bare rock clearance had been given around each torch sconce so the layers of black soot around them didn't cover anything up. The ceiling had a small hole that the smoke seemed to vent out of, and nothing had been painted or carved on the ceiling since it was inevitably covered in black soot from the torches. There were also some shelves carved into the walls immediately alongside the huge Goddess statue, each immediately on the statue's right and left sides. Those shelves were crammed full of tomes and scrolls. Notably, there was absolutely nothing made of metals of any kind in here, aside from from the dull wrought iron that made up the sconces, gates, and cells.
Once Hadara had finished lighting the torches she turned to Ruru and smiled warmly, gesturing toward the altar. "Would you do the honors for us? This would be a good chance for you to show off your Maraqé skills for Mewtwo."
"Oooooh sure! I practiced some last night!" Ruru replied excitedly.
Hadara gently took Mewtwo by the shoulder and whispered "It is customary to offer a song or a prayer at the shrine of the Goddess when visiting a holy place, one or the other. Typically one member of a group will play a song while the rest pray. Then the group may proceed with their business inside the shrine."
"I'm not sure what to say, I've never exactly been religious." Mewtwo replied, letting her guide him down to a kneeling position behind Ruru.
"It is a silent, private prayer not meant to be shared, so the content doesn't need to be tailored precisely. Merely ask the Goddess Nariva for permission to stand upon this holy ground and share in the knowledge stored here in these walls."
Mewtwo nodded and bowed his head alongside Hadara. He didn't actually pray, he didn't even know anything about this Nariva in the first place. Even if she was saintly in her behavior as a deity, Mewtwo still didn't feel right with the idea of religion in general. But he respected the culture of Hadara and the rest of the Rakeshan people, so he bowed and quietly pretended to pray anyway. His quiet reverence was rewarded with some somber, soft notes from Ruru playing the Maraqé. She apparently shared in a measure of her mother's talent, though her youth and inexperience meant that she didn't have the sheer flourish of skill compared to Hadara. The melody was somber and simple, being six low notes in D Minor, repeated a few times with a brief crescendo at the end. The whole thing had an appropriate tone for quiet religious reflection and the ending allowed it to wrap up on an uplifting positive tone.
"Very good Ruru, you didn't make any mistakes that time. Your time as a Thrall has fortunately not degraded your musical skills one bit." Hadara said, then leaned down to plant a quick kiss on Ruru's forehead.
"I'm just that good!" Ruru replied with her typical grinning confidence.
Hadara then coughed and cleared her throat as she turned to address Mewtwo. "As a new inductee, you do not possess even the most basic of knowledge about our people and our history. This means that I will have to start from the very beginning, covering stories and lore that children are normally told by their mothers. You mentioned that you are from another world, yes? 'Earth', if I remember correctly?"
Mewtwo nodded quietly in response, not needing any words beyond that.
"Then we will start from the very beginning. Observe this mural, carved and painted by my mothers."
Hadara led him over to the mural on the far left, which seemed to depict three feminine figures whose bodies were made of gold. They were blowing a mighty wind from their mouths which seemed to be gathering up rocks and forming them together into a planet.
"In the beginning, the three Goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore created the world of Hypalia that we all stand upon today. Each played a distinct role in the making of the world, with Din creating the rocky Earth, Nayru creating the seas and sky, and Farore creating the living beings who would walk upon it all. In addition to this, each of them offered a spiritual gift to the living beings of Hypalia. Din, whose holy domain was Power, gave to mortals the gifts of ambition, agency, and energy. From her all living things gained the ability and the drive to pursue their goals and the energy to power that pursuit. From Nayru, whose divine domain was Wisdom, came the gift of knowledge and intelligence as well as the understanding of justice and ethics. It was her temperance that would counterbalance the will-to-power that her sister had given, and allow mortals to understand the difference between right and wrong. And lastly, from Farore whose domain was courage, came the gifts of bravery and selflessness. In a way, her gift was almost a blending of the first two, as courage required both willpower to motivate it and the knowledge to know evil in order to act against it. Then, when their work was completed, the three Goddesses departed for the heavens together, though in the days afterward Din was troubled. She was jealous of her sister's creation, as only Farore had created living things and life was considered to be the greatest accomplishment of all. Din desired daughters of her own, so she acted in secret and mothered a new child, a serpent Goddess named Nariva. Nariva was a minor deity with a much more limited scope; she became the Goddess of the Desert and the serpents who lived upon it. Din tasked her with creating the Gerudo people, who would be their own culture separate from Farore's creation. Thus, from this point forward, the early Gerudos would name themselves the Granddaughters of Din, and would worship Nariva and Din above all other Gods."
Hadara paused to sip some water from her canteen as she led Mewtwo over to the next mural. Eight Gerudo women of especially tall and powerful stature were standing in a circle and holding up Greatswords with one hand so that each sword's tip met in the center of the circle.
"The first Gerudos awoke in the burning heart of the desert, and initially they scattered and lived meager lives of brutal subsistence, scrounging what they could from the barren sands. Then Nariva chose 8 of their strongest warriors and gave them divine visions, teaching them hidden knowledge of many vital concepts such as reading and writing, metalworking, and agriculture. She then inspired them to unite and travel across the deserts together, seeking out the scattered nomadic Gerudo people in order to unify them into one tribe. Though some resisted the calling with force, most saw the light of knowledge that they carried and joined with them in order to uplift their own quality of life. Once their labors were complete, the first unified tribe of Gerudo people was founded, and they chose the leader of the Eight Heroines, Konoru Quindalo, to be their Chief. The Goddess Din saw this and was pleased, and gifted Konoru with the Spirit Medallion, making her the very first Sage of Spirit. From then on, her descendants would be the chiefs of the tribe and inherit the mantle of the Spirit Sage, and for a time the Gerudos had a golden age."
Hadara paused again to move on to the next mural, and this time Mewtwo spoke up with a question.
"Quindalo, isn't that your surname? Does that make you Konoru's descendant?"
"Yes, I am the Rakeshan Chief by birthright because of this. Tradition would dictate I have sovereignty over all Gerudos, but our people split into four tribes nearly 500 years ago and each tribe has chosen their own chiefs. The Ravéan Tribe, who hail from Ven'ravé in the North and wear golden yellow finery, are led by Chief Nephra Akila. The Suulan Tribe, who hail from Ven'suul in the South and wear rich green finery, are led by Chief Lamira Nurali. And finally, the Vha'an Tribe, who hail from Ven'vha in the East and wear pure blue finery, are led by Chief Kamilia Lasheera, descendant of the famed Seer Mireth Lasheera."
"You know all of this by heart?" Mewtwo asked, already impressed by Hadara's knowledge.
"Yes. While it's true that we have a decent portion of our history written down on scrolls now, tradition dictates that Chiefs must also memorize it all perfectly and pass it down verbally while also maintaining and copying the scrolls. There's a good reason for this redundancy: a large portion of our written history was lost when the Sulaaq first invaded our world and burned down the village our ancestors lived in at the time. There's a huge series of gaps in our knowledge of history because of the large number of scrolls that the Sulaaq burned during that dark time. All the original records of Gerudo history from before the fall of the old world were lost because the Chiefs of the time hadn't perfectly memorized all of it. When the new scrolls were laid down, everything that they had forgotten was lost forever, so now all Chiefs in all four tribes have made it their duty to fully memorize everything should our scrolls be lost a second time." Hadara explained.
"That's tragic. It seems fortunate that you have retained as much history as you have." Mewtwo replied.
"It is. But come, I've gotten ahead of myself. The next mural is here."
Hadara walked a few more steps and gestured up at the next mural, which depicted three small scenes. The leftmost scene depicted fair-skinned humans with blonde hair and long, pointy ears riding horses into battle against a gaggle of Gerudo warriors. The middle scene showed a Gerudo chief shaking hands with a human king with short grey hair and luxurious red robes. The rightmost scene showed the Eight Heroines again, fighting alongside the same humans that had been attacking them earlier, with their foe being a huge monstrous boar creature wielding a trident.
"This mural depicts the age of the Hylians within the context of how our ancestors interacted with them. The Hylians were the pale-skinned peoples made by Farore who inhabited the eastern portion of the continent. They founded the Kingdom of Hyrule and waged a bloody war of subjugation against all the other races who lived on the continent of Hyera, including the fabled Zoras and Gorons, as well as the Gerudos. Ultimately they won victory and forced the Gerudos to swear fealty to their king. The peace that ensued was brief however, as the Hylians forced the Gerudos to live in poverty by extracting most of their wealth for royal taxes and tribute, and this climate of destitution gave rise to a terrible new period of strife."
Hadara coughed softly and pointed up at the boar monster in the rightmost third of the mural. Ruru winced and hid her face in her hands.
"We call him by two titles, "The King of Evil" or "The Great Shame." His true name was intentionally stricken from all Gerudo history as a punishment for the dishonor and disgrace he brought to the Gerudo name. It was a fitting punishment in addition to his death, for he was the sort of man who lusted for power and dominion over all else. Born innocently enough, he soon was drowned in anger and resentment when he saw the lives of hunger and suffering his fellow Gerudos were forced to live in. For the Hylians claimed most of the arable land of the Hyeran continent and constrained the Gerudos deep in the western desert, where they were forced to resort to banditry to survive and feed their families. He soon became twisted with rage and hatred, which eventually transformed into a desire for vengeance and a hunger for power. He rose up and conquered the Gerudo people, overthrowing the rightful chief of the time, then militarized our people and led them in a rebellion against the Hylians. Fortunately, the chief at the time, Nabooru Quindalo, refused to go quietly and awoke the seven other descendants of the Eight Heroines, then united them to betray and destroy the King of Evil. The King was slain in combat and his soul banished outside of our reality into the realm known as The Sacred Realm, and peace returned for a time longer. For this, Nabooru gained the title of "Exalted" and was chosen as the new Sage of Spirit and named the Eighth Heroine of her time."
"And she's the one that mom named me after!" Ruru chimed in, uncovering her face and smiling now that they had moved past the King of Evil.
Hadara smiled a little and gave Ruru a pat on the shoulder before leading them to the last mural. This one was subdivided into two parts. The left part showed a shadowy Hylian mage with his face hidden in a robe. He was standing over a dune of desert sand and raising his hands into the air above his head, and waves of ominous dark energy were flowing out of his hands and spreading through the sky above him. The right portion depicted a group of Gerudos riding in wooden wagons drawn by horses, fleeing in terror from a huge black steel Sulaaq tower.
"This last mural depicts the Era known as The Fall of the Old World. It began in the years after the defeat of the King of Evil, whose misdeeds poisoned the minds of the Hylians against us with mistrust and hatred. Even though it was the bravery of the new Eight Heroines that had vanquished the Evil King, the wounds he had dealt to their people were too fresh and deep. To them, every single one of the Gerudo people bore the weight of the Evil King's sins, and after a few years they rose up again in war against the Gerudo people. In the beginning of their war, a Hylian mage of immense power attempted to cast a Death Curse of tremendous scale, hoping to slay every single one of our people instantly, but legend has it that the curse misfired and slew the mage instead. It is also rumored that the tremendous lingering cloud of dark magical energy leftover from the curse was what first caused the Vile Desert to begin growing and overtaking the lands of Hyrule, though proof of that was never found. What is known is that a great climate of darkness and evil descended upon the world as the Hylians waged their war of retribution against the Gerudos, and this climate caused the oceans of the world to shrink and recede while the deserts grew and grew. The war finally came to an end when the Hylian forces slew the Exalted Nabooru and drove the Gerudos out of their home in the valley on the western edge of Hyrule. In disarray and leaderless, our people fled into the west, following the receding oceans in hopes of surviving on fishing as the desert grew ever larger."
Hadara took another quick break to drink some water. A sad look was coming over her face again, and this was mirrored by Ruru.
"The banished Gerudos attempted to settle down again for a time once the Hylians stopped pursuing them, but just as before, peace was short lived. Now came the Sulaaq, arriving in the skies above the world in great flying steel ships that seemed to descend from the heavens. They were countless in number and their Immortals were vicious, merciless monsters in combat. They fell upon the newly built village and burned everything, slaughtering every single living being they could get their slavering jaws upon. The Chosen stood back and watched with maniacal delight while the Immortals pillaged and burned the settlement, ripping apart Gerudo warriors, civilians, and children with their clawed hands and fangs, like ravenous Wolfos. Some of our people who had magical talent were moderately successful in holding off the Immortals at first, but when the Immortals realized that brute physical force wasn't enough to kill our mages, they used their own immense magic to overwhelm and subdue them before slaughtering and devouring them too. It would have been a complete extinction if the Chosen hadn't reeled them in at the end, almost as if they wanted some of us to survive."
"The survivors were again panicked and disorganized, and without Nabooru's leadership they shattered into four groups, each of which fled in a different direction in hopes that the Sulaaq couldn't follow all of them. Each of these groups would travel through the Vile Desert for an uncounted number of years, never settling for long, as the Sulaaq pursued them doggedly and took stragglers as slaves. During this time the Vile Desert's growth and expansion exploded in speed, and soon the nomadic groups lost sight of the oceans and could never seem to find them ever again. At the same time the Sulaaq built their menacing black steel towers all over the face of the world using their thralls as slave labor. Finally, after enough time had passed, the Sulaaq finished their work building and stopped chasing the nomadic Gerudo tribes, allowing them to begin settling in place once more. They were all forced to build their homes within walking distance of Sulaaq towers in order to raid them, relying on them as their primary sources of fresh water and food in the absence of the ocean or any green fertile farmland. That leads us here to the present day, where the four tribes now live separately, but as allies, each leeching off of the lifeblood of the Sulaaq infrastructure."
"Do we even know what happened to the Hylians?" Mewtwo asked curiously.
"There is no direct proof of what happened, but given how effortlessly the Sulaaq crushed our best warriors and mages, it is unlikely they fared any better than us. This is compounded by the fact that our nomadic ancestors reported seeing a great many Hylians, Zoras, and Gorons working as enthralled slaves of the Sulaaq. The answer thusly seems tragically clear." Hadara replied in a somber tone.
"This history seems surprisingly complete, given the amount of holes you said there were." Mewtwo remarked.
"Well remember that this collection of stories was remade from scratch after the burning of our last united village by the Sulaaq. It's likely that my grandmother and the other chiefs have made flawed guesses about some elements in order to fill those gaps. And some are still quite known to be missing. For example, my mother told me that during the age of the Hylian Unification War, the Gerudos were initially divided by a significantly large and bitter political squabble, and it was that squabble that allowed the Hylians to divide our people and set sister against sister in order to complete their conquest. But the actual reasons behind that political divide were entirely lost to history when the scrolls were burned."
At this point Ruru interrupted, raising one hand and shouting. "Hey mom do you hear that?"
"Hear what, sweetie?" Hadara asked, since it seemed dead quiet inside the Shrine.
"Shhh!" Ruru replied, raising one finger to her lips and closing her eyes.
All three of them stood there in utter silence for a moment or two, and Mewtwo thought he could just barely hear an extremely faint rumbling sound in the distance.
"Something's wrong mom. That sounds like a Molduga!" Ruru said in a fearful, quiet tone.
"Don't be silly Ruru, it's midday. You know Moldugas don't leave their small patches of home territory to hunt outside an hour each at sunrise and sunset during Twilight. There's no Molduga territory patches this close to Ven'rakesh."
"I know, that's why I'm worried something is really really wrong!" Ruru retorted angrily.
Hadara was just about to open her mouth to reprimand the young girl when Ruru scrunched up her face into a scowl and then turned to dash out of the room! She ran through the open iron gate with surprising speed and passed out of sight into the U-shaped bend in the corridor past the prison. Hadara scowled and got up to run after her.
"Wait just a moment young lady!" She angrily called after Ruru.
Mewtwo furrowed his brow and got up to follow, managing to catch up with the two of them standing outside of the doorway into the mesa. They were standing side by side in the open sunlight that bathed the amphitheater where the Arbiter held trials. Out there in the open Mewtwo could hear the rumbling a little bit clearer than before, but it was still faint in the distance, North and toward Ven'rakesh.
"Do you hear it now mom?!" Ruru asked urgently.
Hadara craned her neck and cupped one hand to her ear, but shook her head. "Nothing. Is your imagination running wild right now Ruru?"
"I do actually hear a bit of a rumbling noise myself. It seems to be coming from that direction." Mewtwo interrupted, pointing toward the perceived source of the noise.
Then, before Hadara could say anything else, a much louder and clearer noise made itself heard from the same direction where Mewtwo was pointing. It sounded like some loud reverberating brass horn that was blowing one long, continuous low note for several seconds. Even Hadara could hear it, judging by the look of shock that came over her face.
"What's that?" Mewtwo asked, thinking that Hadara recognized the new sound.
"An Alarm Horn! Someone's in trouble!" Hadara said.
"I told you I heard something, come on let's go save them!" Ruru shouted, then ran off ahead of them into the brightly lit desert dunes.
"Wait right there Ruru! You're not running right into a battle headlong!" Hadara snarled, then chased after her.
Mewtwo, having nothing else to do, chased after them both. He at least had long enough legs to keep pace with Ruru and Hadara without huge amounts of effort, so he didn't bother using telekinetic flight. But he did stay close enough to keep his eyes on Ruru, knowing he might need to jump into action to help her if anything attacked her. He was just curious enough about what was going on that he wanted to see it for himself before intervening.
Chapter 10: Fish Out of Water
Mewtwo wasn't sure what he expected to see as he followed Ruru and Hadara toward the rumbling, which was growing louder and louder by the moment. They were now within sight of Ven'rakesh on the North side and the dunes were a little bit taller on this side. This made it harder for Mewtwo to see what was going on. He did spot a number of Gerudo soldiers emerging out of the North gate with weapons at the ready, rushing toward the source of the sound. A few seemed to be wearing massive suits of stylized, bulky solid steel plate armor, which was slowing them down considerably. He could hear some of them shouting as they ran, but they were still too distant to make out.
A few minutes later and Mewtwo and Hadara caught up with Ruru atop the crest of an especially large dune that overlooked a comparatively flatter stretch of sand. About a couple dozen feet to their left the crowd of Gerudo reinforcements also arrived at the top of the dune and came to a stop. They all could see what appeared to be Kalana standing dead still in the middle of the flat clearing, refusing to move. A dozen feet past her, there was an ominous, large bulging disturbance sticking up atop the surface of the sands, as if something massive was burrowing not very deep beneath. It was very slowly moving in a circle around the edges of the clearing, not making any sounds at all save for the low, hissing rumbling of the moving sand.
"Nobody move! It's a Molduga!" Kalana shouted at the top of her voice in order to be heard by everyone.
"That's impossible! We're too far away from any know territorial grounds!" one of the soldiers gasped.
"If you don't believe me, try running down here to join me!" Kalana shouted back.
Nobody seemed willing to take Kalana up on her offer, the entire group of soldiers froze in place where they stood.
"What do we do? I don't know anything about Moldugas or how to fight them." Mewtwo asked Hadara quietly.
Mewtwo wasn't nearly as cowed by this potential threat while the Sulaaq drain device was down, but he preferred to know at least a little bit about his opponent before starting to fling attacks heedlessly after what had happened to Ruru in his last battle.
"Moldugas swim through the sand much like a fish swims through water. They sense their prey by feeling the vibrations in the sand caused by a person's footfalls. As long as you remain perfectly still it can't find you." Hadara explained.
"Yes I remember hearing that much, but how do you fight one?"
"The only real way is to use some sort of decoy to send vibrations through the ground in order to lure them into leaping out of the surface to try and swallow the prey. Usually a small bomb creates sufficient vibration to lure them out, and this then exposes them to attack. But there are multiple problems, the first of which is that they have insanely tough hides that can take forty blows with a blade or more in order to penetrate. The second problem is that I don't have any bombs!" Hadara whispered, trying not to make much noise.
"Did anyone bring Sulaaq weapons out here with them?!" Kalana suddenly shouted to the soldiers.
The entire group of soldiers briefly checked their equipment, but none had any. "We didn't know that it was a Molduga that was attacking you!" One of the soldiers shouted back.
There was a moment of additional silence as everyone stood stock still and tried to come up with a plan.
"I've never actually seen a Molduga before, just heard them." Ruru whispered, showing a complete lack of fear despite the looming danger.
"And you're not going to see one either if I can help it!" Hadara growled, then turned to Mewtwo to ask him a question. "I need to get Ruru to safety. If I take her and make a run for the mesa, it's not long before I'll reach rocky sandstone ground where it can't swim. If it chases us, can you use your amazing powers to distract or even stop it?"
"Of course. A fancy armored hide means nothing to a direct psychic attack to the brain. Go!"
Hadara nodded and then grabbed Ruru and scooped her up in her arms before turning and running down the back of the dune toward Ven'rakesh.
"But moooooom!" Ruru protested the whole way, her voice trailing into the distance.
The sound made Mewtwo chuckle. Kids were cute, especially when they were bratty and not your problem. He did see the disturbance in the sand abruptly turn and start zooming off toward Hadara and Ruru, but he wasn't worried. He was fully confident in his powers, especially since he had hardly used them at all since he'd awoken this morning so his reserves were still full and fresh. He stepped over to put himself directly between the Molduga and Hadara, standing squarely in its path. He pointed his hand squarely at the bulging oval of sand and focused on conjuring up the telekinetic strength to grab the Molduga and unceremoniously rip it up directly to the surface. Except when he tried, he found his reserves dry! The drain device must have just been reactivated!
The blood ran icy cold in his veins as he tried repeatedly to conjure up his power without success while staring down that eerily huge bulge in the sand. He had perhaps a handful of seconds before it reached him due to its shocking swiftness. Then he heard Kalana call out to him.
"Mewtwo! Don't move!"
Kalana seemed to have realized that he was dry. She dug out what looked like a fist-sized black powder bomb, lit the fuse, and tossed it to her left. It exploded with a piercing BANG, sending sand and smoke sailing through the air. This presented a much more tempting target for the Molduga, which rapidly changed direction and swung around before erupting through the surface of the sand exactly where the bomb had exploded.
Mewtwo got a good clear look at the Molduga for the very first time as it sailed directly upward into the air with its mouth gaping open. It really did have the exact same body shape as a fish, if a fish was the size of a double decker bus! It had a long snout filled with rows of razor sharp teeth, and just above its maw were two tiny little beady eyes. Just below its mouth was a giant horizontal flat bony fin where a chin might have been, easily the size of a bulldozer's blade. This chin fin was perfectly angled to scoop up a person and dump them into its gaping maw, which could easily fit a small car inside whole. It had a ragged, torn-up dorsal fin on its back and a larger fan-shaped fin on its tail that it used to propel itself through the sand. Disturbingly, it also seemed to have tiny little vestigial legs and arms sticking out of the sides of its body, all of which looked far too scrawny to support any of its colossal weight. It had dark, mottled brown and green scales all over its body that were covered with dull scuffing from the constant sandblasting it was getting as it swam. It had erupted straight upward in a way that if a person had been standing on the surface, they would have been snapped up right between its yawning jaws as it burst through.
The considerable mass of the gigantic creature's body sailed up about 15 feet into the air before clumsily slamming back down onto the ground. It seemed to be stunned by the impact of its body haphazardly striking the ground and the snap of its own empty jaws. Suddenly Kalana made a beeline toward the dune ridge where Mewtwo and the soldiers were standing, using this opportunity to put some distance between herself and the Molduga as it flopped and flailed awkwardly on top of the sands.
"Make a run for Ven'rakesh!" Kalana shouted at the top of her lungs as she ran.
Mewtwo didn't need to be told twice, he turned and sprinted down the dune as fast as his legs could carry him. He saw the other Gerudos keeping pace with him or even outpacing him, with the exception of the four that were wearing those massive sets of steel plate armor. The group easily left them behind as they crossed the distance toward Ven'rakesh, and one of the armor wearers even stumbled on the shifting sand and fell! She started to tumble down the dune with a series of painful cries and loud clanks.
Mewtwo couldn't see the Molduga anymore now that they were on the opposite side of the dune, but he could hear a loud crunching, scrabbling noise followed by more rumbling. He figured that the Molduga had probably managed to burrow its way back under the surface and would be homing in on the falling Gerudo in mere moments. Mewtwo knew she was going to die if nothing was done, and a sudden feeling of determination came welling up inside him. He couldn't bear the thought of failing to save any more people after having seen all those thralls die. No more Gerudos were ever going to die on his watch ever again. Almost as if automatically on instinct he stopped and turned around to sprint toward the bottom of the dune where the soldier was about to land. She rolled to a stop at his feet, half of her armor missing and scattered across the surface of the dune. Wasting no time Mewtwo reached down and helped her to her feet. Her helmet had come off during the fall and now Mewtwo could see her face. He instantly recognized her as Madiri, the woman he had befriended at the dice game earlier that day!
"Mewtwo!? What are you doing?! You shouldn't have come back for me, now we're both going to die!"
"Some thanks for coming back to save you. Are you alright? No major injuries?" Mewtwo asked.
"Just a ton of bruises and an existential dread over what the Chief will say about all of the armor pieces I just lost."
"We have bigger problems than that. Look!"
Mewtwo pointed up at the top of the dune behind them, which was beginning to shift and distort. The bulge-shaped disturbance caused by the Molduga was crossing the pinnacle and coming slowly down toward them.
"Shit. Don't move. It's too close, we wouldn't make it if we sprinted toward the gates." Madiri whispered.
"What do we do though?! It's coming right toward us! Won't it feel our presence if it passes directly underneath us?"
"Not necessarily. The moving sand that it displaces causes a small blind spot in its vibration sense. As long as the shifting of the sand doesn't knock you over we'll be undetected, so try to brace and balance yourself carefully as it passes. And as long as it's moving slowly like this, it means that it doesn't know where we are exactly. It only charges when it has the location of its prey reliably fixed." Madiri replied.
The pit of dread in Mewtwo's stomach grew larger and larger as that slow-moving hump of shifting sand gradually moved ever closer. It was slowing down as it moved, but not enough to come to a stop before it passed under them. He couldn't bear to watch it as it got close, so he turned his gaze back toward Ven'rakesh. Fortunately he could see that the gates had just finished swinging open and Kalana was waving the crowd of guards inside. He couldn't see Hadara or Ruru out there anymore, which gave him a brief sensation of relief.
The relief was short-lived however. As he watched the Gerudos running inside of Ven'rakesh he felt the sand starting to move underneath his feet. Almost immediately his brain seemed to shift into combat mode as adrenaline surged through his veins. The world seemed to slow down around him as his brain became hyper-aware and he immediately swiveled his head around to look at Madiri. Fortunately he seemed to keep his footing even as the sands lifted them up and slid around. He could feel his feet sink several inches into the sand thanks to the movements making it behave more like a flowing liquid; the sensation sent chills of terror up and down his spine.
It felt like it took agonizing minutes for the Molduga to pass, especially as Mewtwo felt his heart nearly pounding its way out of his chest. He desperately wished that he could have his powers back; the timing of the Sulaaq rebuilding their drain device couldn't have been any worse. Finally the disturbance passed, slowly heading a straight line directly in front of them, and came to a dead stop about ten feet away. Mewtwo took a few deep breaths to calm himself as his vision began to slowly return to a more normal state.
"By Din!" Madiri whispered softly, looking just as relieved as Mewtwo.
"What now?" He asked quietly.
"It knows that we're here somewhere closeby, so it's going to try to wait us out. We're shit out of luck at this point, as it's close enough that we'd only get one or two steps before it gets us if we tried to run for it, and Moldugas are famous for waiting hours upon hours on end for their prey to move. We're going to be playing a waiting game all day, we just have to hope that the Chief or Kalana come up with an idea to save us."
"I guess that means you don't have a bomb on you for this, then?"
Madiri shook her head in resignation. "I didn't think I'd need any when I suited up and came out here to respond to the distress horn. Moldugas have never come this close to Ven'rakesh before, the sand here gets rougher and more coarse the closer you get to mesas like ours, and rougher sand scours their hides a lot quicker than fine, soft sand. Even young Moldugas that are looking for new territory to claim as a hunting ground try to avoid this area. It's unheard of."
Mewtwo sighed and turned to watch the huge mound of unmoving sand for a while. He was nervously waiting for any sign of motion. The sound of the gates of Ven'rakesh slamming closed filled him with an ominous sense of dread and resignation. It was too easy to imagine this was what it would have sounded like if Hadara or the Arbiter had succeeded in exiling him earlier. He took a long, slow breath in an attempt to calm himself down a little, then reminded himself that Kalana had refused to abandon him before so it was vanishingly unlikely that she'd truly abandon him this time. It was most likely that she and Hadara were making sure that everyone else was accounted for and then preparing some sort of rescue plan.
"Hey Madiri, it sounded like you wanted me to leave you behind in order to save myself earlier. Is that official guidance when dealing with a threat as large as this?" Mewtwo asked suddenly.
"Of course not! The Rakeshan Guard are all sworn sisters, just like rest of the Tribe. They wouldn't all leave me to die, they're just not stupid enough to engage a Molduga directly in combat without a Sulaaq gun and some bombs. I was worried about you risking yourself unnecessarily when I at least have training about how to handle a Molduga while you do not."
Mewtwo immediately knew she had a point and winced from the stinging barb of truth. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to help."
"Don't worry about it. It's pointless for me to scold you for this right now. We're in this together now and the best thing we can do is keep our minds firmly in the present moment and think clearly. Take a few more deep breaths and focus first on keeping your body still. All we have to do is stay still and wait until they come up with a plan."
Mewtwo appreciated Madiri's calm pragmatism. He gave her a nod and took a few more deep breaths, turning his gaze toward Ven'rakesh once more. He could see that a swarm of soldiers had gathered to stand atop the settlement's outer walls to watch him and Madiri. It looked like one of them was even using an old-fashioned sailor's spyglass to see them.
"It definitely looks like they're planning something. Look!" Mewtwo noted.
One of the Gerudos atop the wall hurled a small item out across the dunes, landing a dozen feet or so outside the wall. It turned out to be a bomb, which immediately exploded with an echoing bang! But unfortunately it seemed like the Molduga didn't show any interest in getting closer to the wall; it remained motionless in the same spot as always.
"Shit, that should have worked!" Madiri growled quietly.
"At least we know they're trying things. Maybe the bomb was too close to the rocky ground. If they throw one further out here toward us it might work." Mewtwo retorted.
He watched quietly as the Gerudos seemed to discuss their next plan atop the wall. Minutes passed and Mewtwo could feel his leg muscles starting to cramp up a little bit from holding rigidly still for so long. He started to wobble a little bit, gasping as a sharp stabbing spasm jolted through his left leg.
"Ahhhh! Damnit!"
Madiri put her hand on his shoulder to try to stabilize him. "Easy there. If you need to, close your eyes and focus your entire mind on a soothing, relaxing memory."
Mewtwo did as instructed, remembering the time when he met Mew again back in Purity Canyon. He focused on the kindness and understanding that Mew had shown him, and while it didn't do anything to stop the pain from his cramp, it did make it at least moderately more tolerable. He managed to hold his footing for now, especially thanks to Madiri bracing him.
"Thank you. Needless to say... I struggle to cope with these sorts of experiences without my psychic powers." Mewtwo said, perhaps feeling a little more vulnerable and willing to open up now that the jaws of death were waiting for him mere feet away.
"It's alright Mewtwo. You're a member of the Rakeshan guard now, that makes you my brother. You didn't leave me behind when I fell, I won't leave you behind either."
Still wincing slightly from the cramp, Mewtwo gave her a genuine smile. "I...thank you. I should borrow Rupees from you more often."
Madiri broke out into laughter and patted his shoulder firmly. "That was a gift, not a loan! But I will gladly share 5 Rupees worth of roast with you when this is all over. If we can manage to kill this Molduga then its meat will feed all of Ven'rakesh for weeks, and our share of the kill will make for a veritable feast."
Madiri's unfailing good cheer in the face of mortal peril was exactly what Mewtwo had needed to maintain his grip on his emotions. He found himself in awe of just how differently the Gerudo people treated him than the humans back home. He didn't even know how to articulate his sudden, profound feeling of being touched.
Suddenly Madiri pointed back at Ven'rakesh and smiled. "Hey Mewtwo, look! Kalana is up on top of the wall and it looks like they're building something up there!"
Mewtwo swallowed his emotions and turned to look. He saw Kalana standing up there waving her arms at them. Once she saw they were both looking at her, she gave them the same hand signal for "Wait" that she'd used during their raid of the Sulaaq tower.
"She's telling us to wait. They must have a new plan to save us!" Mewtwo said with tempered excitement.
Now Mewtwo entirely forgot the accursed pain in his legs. He glanced over the rest of the wall and saw that the soldiers were bringing up some old dry, dusty wooden beams and some rope, as well as tools like hammers and saws. It was too early to tell what it was that they were starting to build, but the sight of them rushing to build it was immensely comforting.
"See? I told you that we just needed to wait. As long as we can keep another cramp from causing you to move we'll be fine. If we were a little bit further away from the Molduga I'd have suggested we very very carefully shift to a sitting position without disturbing the sand in order to play a game of Keese and Leevers to pass the time. I always keep a deck of cards on me."
Mewtwo chuckled a little bit. "I do still have some of those rupees from earlier today, I spent most of them already but kept the ante you gave me."
"K&L isn't a betting game traditionally, it's a simple children's card game just based on the luck of the draw. Hajarud at least adds mind games based around betting progressively more money, giving it a modicum of skill to learn, even if it's not much."
"Well regardless of that, if we can't move around even a tiny bit due to the proximity of the threat, how about we tell each other some stories to pass the time instead? I bet you have some incredible ones saved up." Mewtwo suggested.
"You better believe it. Did you ever hear from the other guards about the time when I took on five Lizalfos at once while wearing my armor?"
Mewtwo lost track of time fairly quickly once he and Madiri began exchanging stories. He let Madiri do most of the storytelling though, not having a huge amount of tales of his own that weren't painfully depressing. Nonetheless the atmosphere remained much more jovial than before, since Madiri had dozens of tales to tell and seemed to enjoy telling them. Granted the slow, creeping dread of the nearby Molduga never went away, but it was easy to put out of mind while Mewtwo listened to Madiri's stories.
They were into the seventh such tale when Madiri was suddenly interrupted by the sound of someone blowing on a horn over at Ven'rakesh. Both of them turned to look simultaneously and Mewtwo spotted Kalana standing atop the wall holding a horn and giving them the hand signal for "Don't Move." Not too far to her right, he spotted a huge, crudely-constructed slingshot that they had built during the last hour or so. The beams were made of wood and they were using what looked like an old black rubber belt from a machine of some sort for the stretchy band. They had just loaded a black powder bomb into the leather cup on the band, and four muscular Gerudo soldiers were pulling it back.
"Those crazy Amalaqs!" Madiri laughed.
The group then let go and watched as the slingshot launched the bomb hundreds of feet into the air, sailing out over the desert in their general direction.
"Heads up!" Mewtwo said urgently.
The bomb seemed to unfailingly careen directly toward Mewtwo and Madiri as if guided by the hands of fate. Mewtwo realized that it was going to land directly on top of them and another surging wave of icy dread washed over him. He would have only seconds to react, at best. If it landed close enough to them then the explosion would just lead the Molduga directly to them, so their only choice would be to catch and throw it.
Mewtwo internally prayed to no deity in particular that the fuse was long enough to do what he needed to do. As it homed in he realized that it was going to pass over their heads and land a few feet behind them, and he needed to jump to catch it. Acting on instinct he leaped into the air, and for a second time now his brain went into combat mode and seemed to slow everything down around him. He plucked the basketball-sized black polished sphere out of the air and then landed with an unceremonious thud. The Molduga immediately sprang into motion, but fortunately it was facing directly away from them and had to travel forward a bit while turning. The fact that the creature couldn't turn on a dime while buried in the sand gave Mewtwo a few precious seconds to wind up and hurl the bomb as hard as he could. He angled his throw toward the sands in front of the turning Molduga, hoping that this would maximize the chance that the explosion would distract it. It was already fully turned around by the time the bomb landed on the sand, and Madiri was grabbing Mewtwo by the shoulder now and screaming wordlessly while trying to pull him away from the Molduga's advance.
Mewtwo knew that this was her attempting to save his life and he was deeply grateful for it, even if he knew there was no chance they would escape if the Molduga didn't go for the bomb. Its fuse was still fizzling softly as the Molduga aligned itself and powered toward the two of them. Mewtwo heard Kalana blowing on the Alarm Horn again, as if desperately trying to warn them. Mewtwo just stood there and watched the Molduga's sandy calling card racing toward them while resignation gripped him. He had one or two seconds left, if that. He decided in that moment that if he was going to die, then at least his penance for killing Gary would be saving Madiri. He turned to her and used the most forceful physical move he could conjure to knock her away, a kick. His legs were the strongest part of him and even if the kick knocked the wind out of her, it would hopefully send her flying back far enough for her to clear the Molduga's lunge. Once it swallowed Mewtwo and landed on the surface, she would have enough time to flee to Ven'rakesh intact.
In that split second after Mewtwo's kick landed, he locked eyes with Madiri as she sailed through the air. That moment seemed to last forever, he could see the look of confused shock in her eyes as she sailed backwards. The sound of terrible rumbling filled Mewtwo's ears and he began to feel the sand swelling up underneath his feet. Instead of recalling his entire life in the last moments before his death though, he found himself remembering back to New Island when Ash threw himself in between the beams of energy while he and Mew were battling. He had always admired the purity of the selflessness of the act, and he held it in his mind as he felt the sand picking up and surging upward beneath his feet.
There was a deafening BOOM as the bomb suddenly exploded, and Mewtwo's ears stung and suddenly went deaf, filled with nothing but muffled cotton and a faint piercing ringing. The explosion seemed to cause the Molduga to hesitate halfway through its breaching jump. It turned toward the blast as it emerged from the ground amidst a column of flying sand. The edge of its mouth sailed past Mewtwo by inches, and its fangs grazed his tail and cut three shallow gashes in the flesh as it passed. He was knocked backwards by a wave of sand that the Molduga had thrown flying as it breached the surface, and he didn't even sense the pain from the impact and gashes as he fell backward toward Madiri.
Unable to control his trajectory without his telekinesis, Mewtwo flew through the air and landed on top of Madiri, knocking the wind out of her and pinning her against the ground. Mewtwo saw the Molduga sail through the air away from them, having steered its leap toward the location of the explosion. Its jaws gaped open as it homed in on the cloud of black powder smoke hanging in the air, and then it made a brutal thudding boom as it landed face-first on the empty ground. Just like before the Molduga was stunned by the impact of its weight slamming against the ground, and he could hear a loud crack and a shrill shriek as it landed with its jaw open.
Mewtwo struggled to climb to his feet. He hadn't broken any bones but he had had the wind knocked out him quite thoroughly when he was thrown. He coughed and struggled to regain his breath as the Molduga flopped around, and Madiri seemed to be fighting similar difficulties.
"Come on!" He grunted between breaths.
Mewtwo grabbed Madiri's hand and pulled her to her feet, then tried to run toward Ven'rakesh. His body still wasn't particularly fit however and he began to feel dizzy after a few dozen feet. He started to lose his footing and nearly fell, but then he heard shouting from Ven'rakesh and looked up to see Kalana hefting a large black steel Sulaaq rifle as she stood atop the wall. She was aiming for the Molduga, trying to draw a bead on its soft underbelly as it thrashed around atop the sand and tried to pop its dislocated jaw back into place. Just like the stationary turret they had used back inside the Sulaaq tower, this rifle made a loud thrumming sound as it fired, and a hair-thin beam of blindingly bright red light flashed into existence, connecting the lens of the rifle with the Molduga's belly. The laser flashed on for less than a second, yet it scoured a blackened hole directly through the Molduga's body, exiting the other side and flashing the sand where it struck into a patch of dull steaming glass. Even through his deafened, cottony ears Mewtwo could hear the sharp, intense whipcrack sound of the report as the beam superheated the air, just like an electrical arc.
Then they all could hear it as the Molduga emitted an agonized, piercing shriek from the mortal wound it had just received. Astoundingly it didn't topple over and die just yet, but frantically began to shovel its snout into the sand with the bony bill on its chin, trying to find shelter and escape. Another flash of red and an ear-penetrating CRACK marked Kalana opening fire a second time, this time striking the Molduga just underneath its tail. The hole it pierced must have severed some vital tendon or muscle responsible for helping it propel itself forward, as the tail went completely limp, leaving it stranded motionless on the sandy surface. It thrashed its head back and forth a few more times, as if desperately trying to shove its head under, then fell silent.
Mewtwo stumbled to a stop and finally allowed himself to really breathe and rest. He put his hands on his knees and panted raggedly, still not noticing the trail of blood his tail had left behind him. He heard Madiri saying something and thankfully this time his deafened ears could just barely make it out.
"Thank the Goddesses! We made it!" Madiri gasped, then came up and just hugged Mewtwo tightly in sheer relief.
"Yeah. Yeah we did." He replied in a wheezing tone.
Mewtwo slowly returned the hug, though he winced slightly as the contact reminded him of the bruises covering his body after being tossed by the beast. Eventually Madiri let go of the hug when she noticed the blood pouring out of his tail wounds.
"Sa'oten! You're pouring blood from your tail! Here, take this!"
Thankfully Mewtwo could hear this a bit clearer, it seemed like his hearing was beginning to recover now. Madiri scrambled under her armor and produced a red potion. Mewtwo looked back at his tail while she uncorked it and gawked slightly.
"Huh, would you look at that. I didn't even feel it. Amazing what adrenaline can do." Mewtwo replied.
He took the potion and began to greedily gulp it down, and soon he heard the sound of the Ven'rakesh gates grinding open. He handed the bottle back to Madiri and looked over to see a huge crowd of Gerudos coming swarming out of the gate, this time wielding more of those Sulaaq rifles and black powder bombs. Kalana got there first and hugged Mewtwo tightly, sweeping him up off his feet. He gasped a little bit from the surprising show of raw strength, but thankfully his bruises didn't hurt as much this time thanks to the potion. As Kalana set him down the serum seemed to finish healing his ears the rest of the way too, as his hearing now returned to perfect crispness and the ringing sound vanished.
"Are you both alright?" Kalana asked urgently.
"I'll be fine, Madiri gave me her red potion. I can already feel it sealing my tail wounds." Mewtwo explained.
"I'm a little bruised up, but nothing severe. Mewtwo here has a kick that could kill a Chosen though!" Madiri said with a laugh.
"Fara! Bring up a spare red potion for our heroic sister who stood her ground in the face of certain death!" Kalana shouted back at the rest of the arriving crowd.
At this point the rest of the crowd gathered around them, grabbing Mewtwo's hands and shaking them energetically. They were cheering excitedly in Gerudo and common, patting him and Madiri on the back. He could barely hear any specific words any of them were shouting due to the sheer din of their excited cheers. Mewtwo recognized Fara as she emerged from the crowd and came forward to hand a fresh potion bottle to Madiri. She gladly accepted it and chugged it down in two gulps.
"It's fortunate you're spending your rations on a beast such as this. Its guts will help me brew a whole new batch of especially potent potions." Fara chimed in with a smile.
Then, before any of them could say anything else, the Molduga seemed to spring back to life and emit another terrible shrill cry. The crowd went silent and jolted around to look, brandishing their weapons. Mewtwo spun around as well and saw it clawing at the sand in a feeble attempt to haul its huge, shuddering mass toward the Gerudos. It was too gravely injured to actually move itself more than a foot or two. One of the other Gerudo soldiers raised her Sulaaq Rifle to take aim for another shot, but Kalana reached over and grabbed the barrel of the rifle to shove it down.
"Hold your fire! Don't waste your shots. We only have a few spare reservoirs for these guns, and the Molduga is immobilized."
"Its jaws are still perfectly capable of snapping at anyone who comes close though!" replied the one she'd scolded.
"I won't have to get close for very long." Kalana said, then grabbed one of the basketball-sized black powder bombs from a nearby soldier.
Everyone in the crowd followed about ten feet behind Kalana as she walked over toward the struggling monster. She walked up dangerously close and lit the fuse on the bomb with some flint as she walked. Just as the Molduga turned to snap at her, she deftly jumped backwards and hurled the lit bomb into its maw. Mewtwo plugged his ears this time, not wanting to hurt his ears a second time around, and Kalana jumped backward to avoid the explosion.
The bomb detonated while it was still inside the creature's mouth, and the power of the explosion violently blasted apart the entire top of its head. Gooey green blood and chunks of ruptured Molduga flesh rained down around them and this time the beast slumped over for good.
Mewtwo winced back from the blast and shielded his head, and a moment later he heard a sandy thump as something landed at his feet. He opened his eyes and saw a damaged piece of machinery of some sort had been blown out of the Molduga's body by the bomb and had landed right next to him. It was roughly cube shaped and about six inches wide on each face, and all but one face was plated over with black steel. The single open face had tiny wires and electrodes dangling out, and most of those contact points had fresh chunks of brain matter sticking to them. On the opposite face there seemed to be a short, black wire antenna sticking out. Mewtwo reached down to pick it up, but stayed his hand when he felt a significant plume of heat billowing off of it.
"What's that thing there?" one of Gerudos asked, noticing Mewtwo reaching for it.
"I don't know, but be careful, it's still hot from the explosion. It looks like some sort of machine, I think it was attached to the Molduga's brain." Mewtwo replied.
At this point the crowd parted and Hadara appeared. She poked at the corpse with her staff, then called out to the crowd at the top of her lungs.
"Everyone who has a blade, I need you to get to work butchering and cleaning this corpse. The meat here will feed everyone for the entirety of Taji Alirha this year and I want all of it properly dried and salted before it has a chance to spoil! Hurry up, the midday heat isn't going to make this any easier!"
Most of the Gerudos sprang to work all at once, no longer having the time to stand around gawking. Mewtwo waved over Hadara before she could join the work, however.
"Have you ever seen anything like this before, Chief?"
Hadara squinted and then reached her staff down to poke through one of the looped wires in order to pick it up without burning her hands. She lifted it up between them so they both could take a closer look.
"Hmmmm, it's definitely Sulaaq-built technology, this is the same dark steel they use in all their construction. But I've never seen this specific type of item before and I have no idea what purpose it might serve."
"I think the bomb blast blew it free from the spot where it had been implanted inside the Molduga's body. Look, this appears to be brain tissue attached to these wires."
Hadara pulled the item closer to herself along the staff and squinted harder. "Hmmmm, I think you're right. But what sort of device would the Sulaaq attach to the brain of a Molduga?"
"Indeed. I think if we can figure out the answer to that, then we'll also know what the Molduga was doing hunting so close to Ven'rakesh in the middle of the day too."
