The Crossing of the Paths
Second Edition
By MMM/AJ
Book II: Darkness & Light
A/N: Well hello again my dear readers! I have another fresh new chunk hot off the presses for you and it only took a couple months since the last upload! I know in the last chunk I said I might try to have this one done much earlier if my muse permitted, but I really did need a bit of a break, both to avoid burning myself out on the story and to give me time to work on other projects. There's also a pair of other reasons why it took me so long: This chunk is a real fucking chungus at almost 30,000 words, and it also contains some very very emotionally heavy stuff again. Like, so heavy I feel obligated to include a Content Warning again at the end of the chunk, so if you're sensitive I ask you to please scroll down to the bottom to read it.
Writing emotionally heavy stuff like this can be really rough on me, it tends to slow me down. I also needed a fair few edits and rewrites on this one too in order to polish it up to my ever-growing standards. During this time I've also been uploading the story to other sites and making a lot of progress on my other projects though, so I'm very satisfied with how long it took overall. I'm hella proud of this chunk despite how much of a gutpuncher is, and I hope you enjoy it too!
Book II: Darkness & Light
Prologue: Lingering Shadows
Ven'rakúl was always dazzling at night. Perhaps it wasn't as brightly lit or densely populated as Saffron City had been back on Earth, but it had its own unique sort of beauty. For the last month that the Gerudos had been living here since the city's completion, their craftswomen and artisans had been beautifying it even further. Its silvery and white buildings had already started off quite beautiful; they glinted reflectively in sunlight and artificial light alike. But the architecture and aesthetic had been purely futuristic and angelic to begin with and the Gerudos were adding their own flavor to it. They had brought numerous decorative items with them with the help of the Guardians using their teleportation power, so now pottery and tapestries and other such things were put up on display all around the city. The clean white electric lights that the Guardians had installed were supplemented with ornate brass oil lamps and lanterns. Stained glass mini-tile mosaics and geometric Gerudo paint designs had been added into several buildings in a subtle way that complemented their look. There even were a few new statues being actively worked on by a team of sculptors. Most notable was a brand new Temple to Nariva that had been founded on the Western edge of town. It was still being constructed but it was planned to mimic the design of the Spirit Temple, just on a smaller scale.
The comparatively larger population of Ven'rakúl meant that it had a much more active night life than Ven'rakesh; there was a tavern on the eastern side of town that was always packed at every time of the day or night. Guards finishing their patrol shifts always went right to it when they were done putting away their gear. It was nearing 1AM now and Mewtwo could still hear the laughing, singing, and shouting in there, even from his perch atop the power plant on the northern end of town. He couldn't help but smile a little when he saw Nereti leaving the tavern with a tipsy swagger to her step. She was laughing loudly and was flanked on either side by Q'diri and Kurala. It was so like her to share drinks with the other Arbiters in the middle of the night. A part of him wanted to fly down there and join them but he knew they were likely heading to bed now and his dour, depressed mood would only bring them down. He refused to ruin the end of their night by being a killjoy.
Worry about Ruru was once again the primary reason for his self isolation, but he couldn't deny that he had plenty of other sources of pain contributing to it. He was still pondering Zuriel's final words to him from last month and the grief for Kalana was still simmering away silently in the back of his thoughts. Trying to keep all this pain tucked away and balanced was gut wrenching and it was too much to convincingly suppress or hide around others. So he avoided the company of even the people he loved and retreated to solitude while abandoning any attempt to maintain his hard-fought diurnal sleep schedule. City watching had always been such a comforting habit for him even before he came to Hypalia, so it was natural he would return to it in the end.
"Ahem."
Mewtwo nearly jumped out of his cloak. He spun around to spot the source of the sound and saw one of the Guardians that Zuriel had left behind to stay on Hypalia. She was again almost exactly the same as Lightest in appearance, save for a handful of small distinguishing features. She had no wings on her back just like all the other guardians, was shorter and a bit more stout than Lightest, and had a pair of blue, downward-pointing triangle markings on her cheeks, one beneath each eye. She also had a set of very faint grey snow leopard splotches on her back, arms, and legs. She was standing next to the single doorway on the roof that led down to the power plant's interior and her face was painted with a worried expression.
"Ah! Commander Cadriel. I apologize, I didn't expect to see you up here. Is there a problem?" Mewtwo asked.
"Not exactly. I've been seeing you on the plant's security cameras every time you come up here to perch on the roof. It's been almost every night for the past week when I take my nightly maintenance shifts and I've grown worried about you. Are you feeling ok?" Cadriel asked.
There was a gentle compassion paired with concern in the Guardian's tone, but Mewtwo couldn't help but crack a cynical smile.
"Come to make sure I'm not about to suffer a mental break and undergo the split?"
Cadriel furrowed her brow and gave him a sad look. "It may be my mission to keep an eye on you but that doesn't mean I can't legitimately care about your well being. You're like a grandfather to all of us Guardians and I want to help you. Do you want to talk about whatever is bothering you?"
"Where do I even start? There's just... so much of it. I'll probably struggle to articulate all of it coherently in one single conversation. I'm not exactly eager to talk about any of it either, but I suppose it would be better to discuss it with you than with the Gerudos. I don't want to burden any of them with any of it."
Cadriel nodded briefly in understanding and came over to sit next to Mewtwo on his left. She dangled her legs over the edge of the building and remained silent, expecting him to launch into conversation first. He drew a heavy sigh as he tried to decide where to start.
"Commander, do you know anything about temporal mechanics?"
"It's not my specialty. I do know that time travel is possible; you being here now is proof enough of that. But actually attempting to travel back in time on purpose was strictly outlawed by Lady Lightest at the very beginning of the war. The risks of paradox are just too high to tolerate. Even Darkest himself didn't dare dabble in it, and he was always looking for ways to get an advantage over us."
"And then I somehow managed to deposit myself right into his back yard anyway. The gods must have quite a sense of humor." Mewtwo interjected with a dark little smirk.
"Lucky for all of us he botched his opportunity so badly then." Cadriel offered optimistically.
"I think most of the credit belongs to you and your people in that regard. Shadetalon told me the only reason he didn't flood this planet with clone troops was because you were keeping them all tied up in battles."
"You met Admiral Shadetalon?!" Cadriel asked, visibly recoiling in shock and dread.
"Unfortunately. He was the one running this whole planetwide farce before you and the rest of the Guardians showed up. I had no choice but to become very well acquainted with his sadistic methodology. At least I was able to put a blade through his necks at the end of it all though."
Cadriel looked instantly relieved as Mewtwo finished speaking. She reached down to lay one hand on his as she replied.
"I'm sorry you had to suffer under his sadism. For what it's worth, you avenged a lot of people by ending him like that. Including some people I once called friends."
Mewtwo looked down at the white-furred hand holding onto his, then up at Cadriel's face. She was smiling warmly with gratitude. Her face reminded him so much of Lightest's. He suddenly felt like a gigantic heel for treating her so cynically.
"Thank you. You would have done the same in my place, Cadriel. Ultimately it's not his deeds that are haunting me right now though, it's something he said right before I killed him. You know that he told me the full story of how I was supposed to have become Darkest and Lightest, yes? After that, he told me that my fore-knowledge of the event was lethally dangerous to the fabric of spacetime. Since I now have no reason to allow myself to become Darkest and Lightest, and no way to ever reach the planet Sarne, then there should have been a temporal correction. None of your people, or his, should ever have existed. The whole world of Hypalia, no, the whole Universe should have changed back to how they were before Darkest ruined everything. Or else, the paradox should have erased all of reality by now. So why hasn't it? I don't know, but Shadetalon believed it's because the split is still destined to happen somehow. Even against my will and your protection. Even if you do your best to fulfill the final Plan-Z portion of Zuriel's mission." Mewtwo replied.
Cadriel furrowed her brow and quietly removed her hand from his. "You know that's a very last resort scenario and none of us would ever enjoy enacting it. We do genuinely want to help you."
Mewtwo instantly felt a mixture of guilt and other emotions come snarling up in the back of his mind. Why had he brought that up? He had just wanted to show Cadriel kindness and empathy, but somehow his mind just seemed to act on its own and throw that nastiness back in her face instead. He wanted to stop himself and apologize to her for his behavior, but there still seemed to be some animus to his anger that was churning out of his control.
"Then tell me this, Cadriel. Why do you think nothing has changed? Why hasn't reality been snuffed out? Why are we still sitting on this same ruined planet, scrabbling around the last remaining patch of greenery? Even with all the technology you and the others have brought here, the people deserve a better world than this. I know that Zuriel will keep her promise to return and terraform the planet, but that temporal correction should have made it unnecessary. The Gerudos deserve to have lived in a better timeline from the start, Cadriel. One without the oppression and famine they've suffered up until now. Even if it was a timeline..."
Mewtwo trailed off suddenly as his train of thought pulled into a far darker mental train station than he'd expected. A chill of dread ran down his spine as he took a breath and worked up the strength to finish his sentence.
"A timeline where they never met me."
Cadriel's expression of worry and sympathy grew stronger and she turned her gaze away to stare up at the stars instead. "I don't know, Mewtwo. I wish I did. Believe me when I tell you that if I did know I'd already be acting on that knowledge myself. It seems like the machinations of Fate and Destiny are still beyond even the best of our seers and scientists. All we can do is make the best of what we have now."
"I wish I knew how to make the best of it though. I can fight through this sadness on my own eventually but I don't know how to help others through it too. I don't have all the special training one needs to work as a counselor and there are so many Gerudos here who are suffering and need that sort of care. I desperately want to help them, but I can't."
Cadriel nodded and returned her gaze back to the glowing city lights below them. "So I've heard. The professors that Zuriel left behind have told me how bad the embedded trauma is in the people they're teaching. I've already used our comms satellite to send a request to Ralos for some dedicated therapists to come down to Hypalia and help, but there isn't exactly an overabundance of them on hand. Darkest has traumatized billions of people on thousands of worlds, Zuriel and her advisors are having to resort to a sort of mental health triage to try and help the greatest amount of people, and that means some will inevitably go without one-on-one care. I'm hoping that sometime soon she'll be able to send someone here, but in the mean time I and the others are doing our best. I know it's not enough, we're not trained in counseling either, but that doesn't mean we can't show as much kindness as possible regardless."
"I show them kindness too, Cadriel. I give them as much of it as I can, but for some of them it's not enough. Ruru..."
Again he trailed off. It was too hard to verbalize the dead emptiness he'd seen in the young girl's eyes. He turned his gaze down to the ground below and clenched his hands tightly as he tried to hold back the tears. Cadriel saw it from the corner of her eyes and slowly returned her hand to his again, forgetting his earlier sharp words. Mewtwo felt her psychic presence lightly brushing against his mind; it was a gesture meant to politely offer a telepathic link between them. He suspected that she wanted to try to psychically absorb some of his grief and pain, but he did his best to remain polite as he rejected it. He didn't want to spread that churning, toxic ooze of grief and self-blame to anyone else. A bitter smile came over his face as he found the will to speak again.
"Maybe Zuriel was right, Cadriel. Maybe I should have left Hypalia and gone with her. I can't help Ruru here, and if I had gone to Ralos then maybe the safety and protection it affords would be enough to guarantee I'd never split. That could be enough to start the temporal correction. Maybe it was horribly selfish of me to throw away the chance to save all those countless billions of lives just because I wanted to stay here with a few friends. And you know the worst part? I can't even enjoy the time that I bought with that sacrifice. They're down there drinking and joking and laughing, and here I am moping up here in self-imposed isolation again. I'd almost be tempted to say Shadetalon was right and got the last laugh when he said that he'd break my mind by telling me the truth. But... I suppose self-isolation and depressing introspection have always come natural to me long before I came to this realm."
"Well if you are serious about this then it's not too late to call one of our ships back here to pick you up. Zuriel did leave that satellite in orbit for just such an occasion. And believe me when I tell you that Zuriel would forcefully dig up one of Ralos's best therapists to help you out. Healing your mind is not only the right thing to do, but it could guarantee that you never endure the split and the temporal correction finally does happen. You don't have to go through this alone." Cadriel offered.
Mewtwo's mind boiled with fresh indecision in response to her offer. He hated the idea that he'd get special preferential treatment ahead of any of the Gerudos even though he knew it was a highly logical and rational choice to make for the exact reasons Cadriel had explained. His logical side knew this was the safest and most ethically sound path to take, but he couldn't bear the thought of leaving behind the people he cared about. Worse than that however was the thought of what it'd do to Ruru. Losing one of her best friends so soon after losing her sister would be even more devastating to her fragile mental state. Sure it was possible that Zuriel's people could figure out how to guarantee the temporal correction and prevent all of Ruru's suffering from ever happening in the first place, but what if they couldn't? Would his leaving Hypalia for an empty promise of restoring the timeline be the final blow that fully shatters Ruru's psyche? Mewtwo felt physically sick at the thought. He shook his head and frowned.
"Give me some time to think it over, ok? That's not the sort of decision I can make lightly."
"Of course. For now there's no reason to rush yourself. As far as we all can tell, none of the remnants of Darkest's Dominion have tried to return to this sector of space." Cadriel replied.
"Very well. I think I'm going to go home for now though. I feel like it may be wise to sleep on this decision for a night or two." Mewtwo said as he stood up to leave.
"Of course. You know where to find me if you need me."
Mewtwo never imagined that he'd end up missing the old "Gaze of the Sulaaq" dreams from before. But now that Darkest's Dominion was no longer around to forcefully project those dreams into his mind every night, his subconscious was free to brew up brand new nightmares that were far, far worse. In the absence of the manufactured regularity and predictability of those old Gaze dreams, the natural nightmares became terrifyingly random, though they at least seemed to stick to a constant theme: Darkest and his misdeeds. That morning Mewtwo bolted upright in his bed, shaking and sweating in the morning light. With ragged, panting breaths rushing through his nose, he frantically threw off his sweat-soaked blanket and examined himself. He whispered a wordless Thank You to Nariva when he saw that there were no claws on the tips of his fingers and his skin and fur were still the same old color. Still, the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins didn't let him relax just yet, so he climbed out of bed and shuffled over to his bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. The same purple eyes and feline face stared back at him, lacking any visible demonic features. He heaved a long sigh of relief and turned on the cold water in his sink.
"I'm not... not him." Mewtwo mumbled to himself.
He began to vigorously wash his hands and face while trying to banish the nightmare's gory imagery from his mind. For minutes on end he scrubbed and scoured his fingers with a rough sponge and plenty of soap, yet the phantom sensation of warm, wet blood from the dream still lingered on his skin. He only stopped when he remembered that Ven'rakúl's water was a strictly finite resource and it was extremely rude and short-sighted of him to waste so much of it. He mumbled in wordless, tired frustration as he twisted the tap shut and toweled off.
Returning to the main room of his small abode, Mewtwo stopped to consider starting that personal journal like Hadara had recently suggested. She had recommended it to help him manage his stress and trauma, but he didn't see the point in it. What would he even write? "Last night I dreamed that I transformed into Darkest and slaughtered everyone I cared about against my will. Again. Oh fiddlesticks." It struck him as patently ridiculous, and besides, once he checked his clock he saw that it was just about time to go meet the Vatorsa Sisters for his daily combat training lesson. The prospect of that was one of the few things that could drag him out of his usual funks. He brightened up a little as he tossed a quick sandwich together and crammed it down his gullet.
Mewtwo was still fairly sleepy as he took the Vatorsa Spear down from its wall mount. He found himself idly wondering whether any plants native to Hypalia might have any caffeine in them that could help with these rough mornings. He'd never actually had coffee back when he lived on Earth but he remembered how much the humans regarded it as a panacea for their own moments of exhaustion. Once he was ready he opened the door of his house and began to head out into the blinding morning light. It was because of the sheer brightness of that light that he didn't see Ciela there in his doorway and blundered right into her.
"Agh! Ah, Mewtwo! I'm so sorry!" Ciela said frantically as she braced herself to avoid falling.
"No no, that was my fault, I'm not entirely awake yet." Mewtwo replied, catching the doorframe to steady himself.
"No really, I should have been more careful. I got too used to having only one working eye before. I'm still getting acclimated to having my depth perception back after you healed me. Thank you for that, by the way."
"Oh, Ciela. I'm glad to see you're doing well at least." Mewtwo said, now recognizing her by her words since his eyes were still adjusting to the glare.
"Yeah, it's a good sort of acclimation period. But enough about that, do you mind if I come in? I wanted to speak to you briefly in private if that's ok."
"I was just getting ready for my daily spear fighting lessons, but I think Q'diri will forgive a small delay. What's on your mind?"
Mewtwo stepped back inside and gestured to Ciela to follow. Ciela walked inside with a quick, yet stilted pace that matched the awkward expression on her face. She had always seemed anxious like this around Mewtwo ever since Darkest's defeat and even seemed to be avoiding him. Mewtwo suspected it was shame that she was probably feeling for all the times she had tried to kill him before that battle, and he was quickly proven right. The moment he shut the door behind them she began to open up about it.
"Mewtwo, I wanted to apologize for all the terrible things I did to you leading up to the night of the battle. I was-"
Mewtwo raised one hand gently to interrupt.
"You were doing what you thought was the right thing to save your people and your family. The only difference between what you and I were trying to do was the information we were acting on. Through no fault of your own you were led to believe that I was a Sulaaq. In fact, I bet Flametongue was using psychic illusions to disguise himself as me in order to get you to draw those conclusions, wasn't he?"
"I don't really know what you mean by 'psychic', but yes he did seem to be using illusions to mimic you."
"There, see? It's as I suspected, you were the victim of his deception, and the pain and trauma that he inflicted on you were undoubtedly driving you to act unlike yourself out of desperation."
Ciela's expression shifted through a range of emotions as he spoke. There was gratitude and relief for his understanding and kindness, mixed in with a pained struggle to allow herself to accept that kindness.
"There were so many signs that I missed though. Flametongue either couldn't or didn't try to hide the fire in his maw even while he was imitating you. His manner and personality were so different from yours too. I should have paid more attention."
"While they were torturing you? Ciela, very few people could endure what you did with any sort of sanity intact. The fact that you're even talking to me now with such clarity is a testament to your superhuman mental fortitude. Remember, Shadetalon himself admitted to me that he and Flametongue were intentionally manipulating your mind to set you against me. It's a miracle from Nariva herself that you broke free of that manipulation and you should take pride in it."
Mewtwo smiled a little bit as he paused to let this sink in before continuing. He reached out to take her hand and give it a comforting squeeze as he spoke again.
"Besides, there's a very good chance that they may have done more than just manipulate you with deceit. They may have used their powers to directly tamper with your mind too before letting you escape. As far as I'm concerned it would be cruel of me to hold you responsible for the actions you took in such a state."
"Well, I still want to apologize anyway because it's the right thing to do." She replied.
Mewtwo almost went to his old standby about there being nothing for him to forgive, but then he realized something. Ciela had probably been working up the courage to do this ever since that night, and if he tried to negate her guilt that way it might end up making her feel foolish for taking that long. To her, what she did was still real and was lingering like a poison regardless of the extenuating circumstances. If he wanted to give her true closure he realized that he should validate those feelings. He gave her hand another squeeze when he spoke.
"To me there is nothing to forgive, but I know it means a lot to you to hear this anyway. You are forgiven for everything."
A look of immense relief came over Ciela's face and she reached her other hand up to clasp his.
"Thank you. Indiru was right, you do have a heart full of warmth."
"I'm just doing what's right. What anyone should do in my position. Besides, I owe you at least this much after what you did for me back at the tower that night. After you helped me to kill Flametongue I was in... a very very dark place. Grief, guilt, and self hatred for what happened to Kalana were all ripping my heart out of my chest and I was ready to give up and accept the embrace of death. So when you handed me back that Medallion and pulled me back up to my feet, it made all the difference. You reminded me that I was not alone and there were still people left to fight for. As far as I'm concerned, you earned all my forgiveness there and then."
If Ciela was feeling touched before then this was a real step above. She clenched his hand tighter and then only let go so she could give him a tight hug and firm pat on the back.
"Like you said, I was just doing what was right." She said, then took a deep breath to regain her composure. She let go of the hug and then began to wipe her eyes. "I should go soon though. I still have to go find Chief Quindalo and apologize to her too. You know, for all the other stuff. The thievery, taking her people hostage, leading the Lizalfos to attack her camp, etcetera. I just pray that that goes as well as this one did."
"Hey, if she or Arbiter Q'diri still insist on putting you on trial I will gladly testify on your behalf. If my word doesn't carry weight now after everything that's happened then I'll eat a whole Molduga raw." Mewtwo offered with a sincere smile.
"Hah! Hopefully it won't come to that. Given the fact that nobody's shown up to drag me off to the new Arbiter's Grounds just yet, I think I might be in the clear. Doesn't mean I shouldn't at least go apologize anyway. Ugh, Nariva give me the strength for it."
With that Ciela began to turn to leave with a grimace of anxious determination on her face. Just as her fingers were closing around the door handle however a flash of remembrance crossed her face.
"Oh, before I go, just one more thing. Back there on the tower, after we defeated Darkest together and his ship crashed into it, mother told me that one of the tower spires fell and struck me on the head. Obviously I don't remember what happened after that thanks to the blackout, but when I woke up the Master Sword was gone. What happened to it?"
"Oh, I'm sorry but... well, I lost it."
"What?! How?"
"I was scrambling to save everyone at the time, including you. The tower was tilting and getting ready to fall and it could have accelerated rapidly at any second. I didn't have much time either since there were a lot of people up there to teleport and the tilting was already making their footing unsure. I was also already fully tapped out of psychic power from the fight and the only reason I even managed to save anyone at all was because of the Guardians sending me their own energy as a replacement. They were using a telepathic link to do this and I wasn't exactly used to channeling someone else's power remotely in that way. This meant that I was splitting my focus between that channeling as well as teleporting as many people as quickly as I could. That limitation on my focus was why I could only teleport a few people at a time. I was also juggling that with healing your head injury, as I was very worried the blow could have been fatal if not healed immediately. Given the choice between saving people and saving a sword, I chose the people. Even then, I did still have time to try, but the sword seemed to resist all my attempts to pick it up anyway. My grip seemed to slide off of it as though it was covered in grease. I tried until the tower began to go into full free fall, then I had to teleport myself to safety. I'm sorry, I did my best to save it."
Ciela looked crestfallen but she didn't get angry. "I understand. The Deku Tree did tell me that only those judged worthy could even touch the sword. Knowing that, then I suppose there's nothing you could have done in that situation. Perhaps though, may I ask you a favor?"
"What sort of favor?"
"I was hoping that you could fly back to the ruins of the old Sulaaq capitol and search the wreckage for the sword. Since this time you wouldn't be under any time pressure it should be easier for you to figure out a way to carry it without touching it. You could maybe use shards of rubble? A metal rod could shove it onto a flat panel, which you could then carry for example."
"Hmm, I suppose I could try. It could be buried fairly deep in the debris, but my telekinesis ought to let me dig as deep as I need. I'm still going to do my spear training session first though." Mewtwo replied.
"Of course, there's no reason to rush. The blade isn't going anywhere. Thank you again Mewtwo."
With their conversation now finished, Ciela bade Mewtwo farewell and turned to leave. Mewtwo cleared his mind for a brief moment and then set out into the morning sunlight, heading for the training grounds on the Eastern side of Ven'rakúl. Along the way he passed through the main square, where once again the shop stalls were buzzing with activity. Gerudos wearing all four tribal colors were gathered here for their daily business. Cheerful voices filled the air as people shopped, cooked, ate, chattered, and even gambled a little. Mewtwo politely slipped through the cracks in the throng with deft precision. He was almost halfway across the square when he heard a familiar voice call out his name behind him.
"Ah, Mewtwo! What divine timing, I was just about to start looking for you!"
Mewtwo dutifully stopped and turned around to see that it was Sumati Maeryn, the famed bard. She was smiling with excitement as she pushed through the crowd to approach him.
"Good morning Sumati. I'm happy to help you but I must request it be brief; I'm already late for my morning lessons."
"Of course, it's just one quick question. I was hoping to commemorate the great deeds and historic events of our time by plying my trade. I want to compose a heroic ballad about the fall of the Sulaaq. But I also want to ask your permission to include you before I write it. It is only proper to make sure you don't mind me using your name in such a way."
Mewtwo hesitated noticeably. There was that word again. "Hero." It unsettled him and Sumati must have picked up on it, as her expression fell from excitement to concern. Mewtwo didn't like the idea of talking about these feelings in such a public spot so he gestured to Sumati to follow him to the edge of the square. She followed him past the boundaries of the crowd and they stopped behind a small, empty closed up market stall.
"I get the feeling this isn't mere humility, Mewtwo. Is something eating at you? Grief for Kalana perhaps?"
"There is some of that yes, but there's more to it than that. I don't exactly feel worthy of being called 'heroic.' All I did was what I hope anyone would have done in my position."
"You don't seem to mind it when the children call you 'Heroine' though." Sumati pointed out.
"Yes, but I'm not about to argue with them and bring them down with my depressing inner struggles. They deserve to have an inspiring figure to look up to. One who gives them hope."
"And the rest of us don't?" Sumati retorted smartly.
Mewtwo winced. Sumati was too sharp; there was no hiding his real feelings from her.
"No, I don't mean it like that. I just... I think a real hero could have saved Kalana too."
All at once Sumati's expression shifted to one of understanding and sympathy. She reached one hand up to comfortingly lay on his shoulder.
"Mewtwo, only the Goddesses are perfect. Even for one with spells as mighty as yours, defeating a worldwide empire like the Sulaaq is impossible without suffering losses and making terrible sacrifices. Even the strongest of all mortals is still finite and fallible. We are all immensely blessed to have come through that fight with as few losses as we have."
"That doesn't make my failure to save her hurt any less."
Sumati furrowed her brow as she pondered this for a few moments. When she replied next it was with a tone of gentle, tempered optimism.
"Then perhaps what you need is a penance to give you a way to express and process this guilt. Back during the era of Hylian rule, our ancestors used to go on pilgrimages across the Vile Desert to visit the Spirit Temple and offer penance to Nariva. They often bore heavy, painful burdens of guilt for the banditry they were forced to commit in order to survive. They would travel on foot, alone or in pairs, through deadly terrain and sandstorms. It was said that those who failed to find divine absolution still found the trials of the pilgrimage to be a good source of catharsis."
Mewtwo paused to consider Sumati's words for a brief moment. With his powers of flight and teleportation such a journey would be trivial for him, so it's not like the trip itself would be cathartic. But perhaps Nariva could help him once he reached the Temple. If she could bless weapons with holy smiting power then it made sense that she could soothe a troubled mind like his. He could just add this as another stop on his planned journey later on in the day.
"I think you may be right. Thank you Sumati, once again your wisdom and compassion are invaluable to me."
Sumati smiled warmly and patted his shoulder. "It's the least I can do. You are a hero, Mewtwo. Even if you don't yet feel worthy of the title. But I think doing more good deeds for the world and continuing to follow the Hero's Path will assuage that guilt and sense of unworthiness. I am sure we will find more reasons to need your sorcery in due time, so just keep to the path of selflessness and you will eventually find your inner peace."
Feeling touched once again by Sumati's compassion, Mewtwo embraced her briefly to show his gratitude. She accepted the hug gracefully for a few moments before gently withdrawing to face him again and ask him another question.
"Now then, you didn't answer my original question. May I have permission to write you into my ballad?"
Mewtwo drew a slightly exasperated breath but smiled and nodded his assent.
"Very well. But only because I trust you and your wisdom to share credit with everyone involved. I fully expect you to immortalize Ruru and Indiru in your song too. We are a team after all."
"Of course! Nariva blessed them with holy relics too after all. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get to work on this song while my muse is still fresh."
With that Sumati gave him a short, respectful bow and then departed. Mewtwo smiled as she left; her words had filled him with a reinvigorated sense of purpose. Now that he had a goal to strive toward, the gloom of guilt and impostor syndrome no longer felt choking. Even if he never felt truly worthy of being called a hero, it didn't make the pursuit of selflessness any less worthwhile. As long as he stayed busy then he wouldn't have time to sit alone and listen to his demons. Just as he finished coming to this conclusion he saw another opportunity to do some good too. There were Hadara and Ruru navigating their way through the crowded square on their way to morning lessons. He felt inspired to try reaching out to Ruru again now despite his earlier failures. Sumati's words gave him the strength to try again, so he rushed through the masses to intercept them.
"Hey!" Mewtwo called out to them as he approached. Then, remembering his manners, he stopped to give Hadara a brief bow once he reached them.
"Sav'otta my Chief. Do you have a moment?"
"For you my friend I always have time. What is it?" Hadara asked.
"I have a proposal for you for today. I know that Ruru is supposed to attend her morning lessons shortly, but perhaps she deserves a chance to do something fun today? Like, perhaps coming with me to combat training with the Arbiter and her sister?"
To her credit, Hadara realized right away that Mewtwo was trying to cheer Ruru up, so instead of defaulting to the stern pragmatism of her initial instinct she smiled and looked down at Ruru warmly.
"I think in this one case I can allow that. What do you think Vehví, would you like to spar?"
"No thanks." Ruru said softly, staring down at the ground.
Mewtwo's heart broke anew as he saw Ruru's reaction. He knew this approach had failed before, but he had been hoping that perhaps he could at least catch her on a day when he mood had improved and it might go over better then. But she looked as empty and aloof as ever and she wasn't even carrying the wooden practice staff that she loved to take with her everywhere. But Mewtwo was determined to not give up on her. He crouched down in front of her to try to look her in the eye now as he spoke.
"Well, what sort of fun stuff would you like to do today?"
"I dunno." Ruru replied indifferently.
"How about a game of Hajarud with rocks instead of Rupees? Or maybe you can teach me how to play Keese & Leevers? Madiri always said she wanted to teach it to me, but she never has the time."
Ruru didn't even reply verbally this time, she just shrugged and continued staring quietly down at the cobblestones. Mewtwo scrambled to come up with an idea for something else that they could do together. Only one other thing came to mind.
"Well, how about we go flying like before? This time I bet there won't be anything weird up there to spook us."
"I'd rather just go back to bed, thank you." Ruru said.
Mewtwo had to really struggle to hold back the crushing sadness he felt seeing Ruru like this. Grief really had robbed her of all the joys in her life. There was nothing left he could think of that could cheer her up now and it made him feel like a failure all over again. Luckily Hadara put one hand on the young girl's shoulder and spoke softly before Mewtwo could be left hanging in awkward, defeated silence.
"It's alright Mewtwo. These things take time. Her heart will mend eventually, until then we will just make sure that we're there for her."
Grateful for Hadara's wisdom, Mewtwo nodded up to her and let go of that feeling of failure.
"Ruru, there was a time during our trip when your sister told me something really important. I was grieving for all the mind controlled thralls that I had been forced to kill, and the strain of trying to hold it all in and look strong was killing me inside. Kalana told me that crying and expressing my emotions didn't make me any less of a warrior or Heroine, and that it was often vital to processing those feelings rather than letting them fester away inside. The same thing applies to you; you're no less of a Heroine regardless of your feelings. It's ok for you to cry about this. But I also understand that you may not feel ready yet to get those feelings out either, and there's nothing wrong with that too. It took me a long time before I was ready to cry for Ruisa. What I want you to know is that we'll all be here for you to listen and help once you do feel ready, ok?"
Ruru still didn't speak, but she did look up at Mewtwo and give him a nod. There still was sadness lingering on her face, but he could now see gratitude in her eyes. Then she finally did speak, albeit very quietly.
"Thank you."
Mewtwo gasped out in pain and involuntarily dropped the training staff as the blunt end of Q'diri's own staff caught him squarely in the gut. He heaved forward and clenched the bruise on his stomach that the Arbiter had just given him. It was the hardest blow he'd taken for the entire grueling three hour training session and it was enough to totally knock the wind out of him and break the flow of his movements. The Vatorsa sisters had been having him train coordination and endurance by making him defend himself from rhythmic staff blows that were coming from both of them simultaneously. Each blow was delivered to the pace of a drum beat provided by one of Sumati's troupe members sitting outside of the sparring ring. The idea had been that mastering such regular pacing of attacks would hone his coordination, and the penalty for failing to hold to the beat was taking one of the blows he was supposed to block. Madiri was about to land a second blow to the drum beat, but her sister interrupted her.
"Woah now, stop!" Q'diri shouted, and the drummer abruptly halted her beats.
Madiri immediately stopped the swing she had been winding up for. She felt a little bad for getting carried away in the rhythm of their swings. "You ok Mewtwo? She got you pretty good with that one."
"I noticed." Mewtwo coughed.
It took a moment for him to banish the pain with his Recover ability and regain his footing. The bruise vanished under the touch of his glowing fingers and he drew a few shaky breaths to steady the pace of his breathing once more.
"Alright, I'm fine. Continue." He said, grabbing his staff and raising it to a ready position.
Q'diri raised an eyebrow as she regarded him now. Mewtwo could see concern in her eyes, which he appreciated, but he felt embarrassed by his mistake and wanted badly to correct it.
"Maybe we should stop for now. There's only a few minutes left until lunchtime and I think all three of us could use a rest." Q'diri said.
"I can handle a little more. It's clear I need more practice blocking jabs, and I can't build more endurance by resting." Mewtwo replied.
"Aren't you at least a little hungry though?" Madiri asked.
"Perhaps a touch, but that's not important. I need to get stronger."
Q'diri sighed and reached out to take his training staff from him. "You won't get stronger by overstraining and injuring yourself. Besides, you need to eat something hearty after such a strenuous exercise in order to build that strength. Go get cleaned up, then eat something with meat or beans in it. That will make sure the training takes. Arbiter's orders!"
Mewtwo let go of his staff and let Q'diri take it with a crestfallen expression. "Alright alright. But tomorrow I want to go longer, and I want you both to go harder on me, ok?"
Madiri gave him a playful and evil look and smacked her staff against her other palm. "Ok, but remember that you asked for it!"
Mewtwo smirked a little bit and gave her a nod, then walked over and retrieved his spear. They gave him a pat on the back before he took off and headed back home to get a bite to eat. After a quick telekinetic flight he opened his front door and walked over to the miniature kitchen to grab some lunch. He chose some leftover molduga jerky for the protein he'd been directed to eat, understanding it would be necessary to help his muscles repair themselves from the exertion. He followed it up with some canned fruit provided by the Guardians and a small bit of frozen hydromelon. Still feeling sore and tired from his training, he spent a little time resting and cleaning himself up before finally it was time for him to take off and head out on his planned trip.
Mewtwo didn't expect to encounter any monsters or Sulaaq remnants on his trip to the capitol ruins, but that didn't stop him from packing some weaponry anyway just in case. He strapped the Vatorsa Spear to his back and a Guardian pistol to his hip, figuring that it cost him nothing to keep redundant extra weapons on him despite having full access to his powers now. He briefly pondered going to tell Ciela that he was heading out to find her sword, but then decided it was just quicker to get it over with. He stepped outside, took a breath of the cool, fresh forest air, then kicked off and rocketed into the air. He shot a few hundred feet straight up to get enough altitude to pass over the tallest trees of the Lost Woods, then turned East and aimed toward the ruins. Trees zoomed past below him, cold air whipped across his body, and the clear afternoon sunlight warmed his back as he flew.
It took less than an hour at top speed for Mewtwo to cross the woods and approach the old capitol again. He sensed it before his eyes could spot it; there was a terrible sinking feeling of looming doom hanging over that place. He kept his eyes fixated on the horizon as he approached and steeled himself to resist the sense of dread. It wasn't long until the ugly black scorch mark on the land appeared in the distance. Here the skies were thickly overcast, sending dull grey shadows across the befouled landscape. It wasn't dark enough to be comparable to night, but it didn't need to be. The dull, ominous illumination of a deep stormy morning was more than enough to enhance the fel aura that surrounded that place. At first it was too distant to make out any detail, but the speed of Mewtwo's flight brought him there fairly quickly. It only took a scant minute or two before he could make out distinct rubble piles that used to be buildings, as well as the deformed, slouched hull of the starship that had crashed into the former tower. The ebony husk of the ruined battlecruiser had gouged a deep trench into the Earth and all of the menacing spikes on the front of it had been torn off either during its grinding slide or crushed under the debris of the collapsed tower. The dark brown Earth that had been exposed and churned up by the ship's impact had been mostly scorched black by the ensuing fires. Dust was being kicked up by the wind too, creating wispy pockets of ethereal grey and brown that licked across the blighted wastes. Remembering Zuriel's warning about pollution here, Mewtwo assumed that this dust was toxic and raised an airtight telekinetic barrier around himself as he came in for a landing.
Realizing that the rubble was full of razor sharp protrusions of torn metal and shattered glass, Mewtwo decided not to actually land though. He came to a stop hovering a foot or two above the cold, dead wreckage and surveyed his surroundings with a sharp eye. Not a single building had been left standing here, Shadetalon had been quite thorough in planting explosive charges in order to ensure there was nothing left. The collapse of the central tower had been impressively complete too, almost nothing identifiable remained in the heap of twisted metal and concrete it had become. It had covered the front nose of the wrecked ship, which was the tallest landmark left in that place now. Here and there Mewtwo could see the occasional recognizable chunk of something like a door or window, but there was no sign of the Master Sword.
Then Mewtwo noticed something else; he didn't feel alone here. This place was bone-chillingly creepy and he had a familiar sensation of being watched. It felt similar to the atmosphere back in the Spirit Temple before he and Kalana had exorcised Twinrova, but far more intense and malevolent. Unlike in the Spirit Temple though, this sensation of being watched wasn't solely coming from directly behind him; it felt like it was coming at him from all directions. Mewtwo didn't need to stop and think to know what this feeling meant. He closed his eyes to focus for a few seconds and called upon the power of the Spirit Medallion, which was still soul-bonded to him. A gentle, warm tingling rising up in his chest told him that it was working. When he reopened his eyes, what he saw next made his blood practically freeze in his veins. The Medallion's gift of spirit sight revealed that he was surrounded in all directions by countless pairs of faintly glowing red ethereal eyes. A horde of dark spirits was clinging to the ruins around him. The Medallion was letting him see their ragged, vaporous forms with surprisingly clarity. The fact that their eyes were all the exact same menacing red as his Gaze dreams told him everything he needed to know.
Fortunately the Medallion also seemed to be giving Mewtwo the power to intuitively sense what types of spirits these were. They were pure spirits rather than full-blown Ghost type Pokemon, which meant they were comparatively powerless to harm him. The most they could do without months of slow, painstaking energy gathering was just lingering around tainting the energy of this place and trying to scare anyone who came through. They were far too weak and faint to try to manipulate physical matter or possess Mewtwo in their current states. But that didn't make their presence any less horrifying though. Thankfully Mewtwo wasn't intimidated by them enough to freeze up, not when he had come so well prepared. He reached back to grab the Vatorsa Spear off of his back and yank it out of its straps.
Remembering the instructions that Nariva had left for them in her inscription back inside the Spirit Temple, Mewtwo raised the spear over his head with one hand. Suddenly he felt power surging up through it underneath his fingertips as the Goddess's holy might began to gather. It glowed with a gentle golden aura and seemed to speak to his mind, urging him to put all his strength into this. He followed this guidance with gusto, calling upon the energy of the Medallions and focusing it into the spear. With all the force of his emotions and will, he bellowed a single word at the spirits at the top of his lungs.
"BEGONE!"
The energy that Mewtwo had felt rapidly building inside him and his weapon was released all at once in a massive spherical burst that radiated out of him in all directions. It exploded out at tremendous speed and created a deafening, crackling thunderclap that made Mewtwo's ears ring. As the light washed over the ruins Mewtwo saw the ghostly outlines of the phantom Immortals being shredded into nothingness. Their glowing eyes vanished under the torrent of scouring energy and Mewtwo could just barely hear the sound of anguished, unearthly howls over the ringing in his ears. The further the bubble of light expanded though, the thinner and weaker it got, until finally it was stretched too thin and evaporated into nothingness. All of the dark spirits left around the edges of the area took this as their cue to turn tail and flee. Mewtwo was still recovering as his eyes followed their ragged, transparent shapes darting up through the air. It was clear that they were all headed in the same direction. They had retreated back to the shadowy hulk of the wrecked Sulaaq starship.
Mewtwo felt physically tired from the sheer energy that the exorcism had taken out of him. He lowered the spear and turned his gaze toward the crumpled silhouette of the old ship with a deep scowl. His eyes followed individual phantoms as they phased through the hull and vanished. That's when he sensed something far more powerful and equally sinister hiding in the bowels of that ship. He couldn't tell what it was from this far away but he felt like he could make a fairly logical deduction. It felt like an actual Ghost Pokemon, or a powerful spirit akin to Twinrova, and there were only three people like that who he could think of that had died here: Flametongue, Shadetalon, or Darkest himself.
A gut-churning wave of fear and dread made Mewtwo balk at the prospect of going inside that wreck, but he quickly reminded himself that his foes would be far less powerful in this state. Even if all three of them had come back as powerful Ghost Pokemon and they managed to team up on him, the Medallions and the spear would be more than enough to tilt the odds back into his favor. Ghost Pokemon relied on their ability to turn ethereal and invisible to get the drop on their prey, and the Spirit Medallion's gift rendered that strategy useless. Without their psychic powers, the Sulaaq leadership were now nothing more than pathetic pranksters before his might. Mewtwo took comfort in this thought and then drew a deep breath to steel himself before floating over toward the wreck.
"If I have to kill all of these sulir all over again then so be it." he growled to himself.
Mewtwo quickly found an outer airlock that had been blown open and drifted cautiously inside. It was chokingly dark in there so he created an orb of soft white psychic light to illuminate the corridor. He saw that the entire structure of that corridor was twisted and deformed slightly to the left due to the force of the impact bending the entire ship's superstructure. This meant that the floor was tilted to the left and all of the bulkheads were at least partially crumpled and contorted. Blown conduits and wires dangled from ruptures in the ceiling and there was a thick layer of soot all over the walls from the numerous fires that had started after the crash. Mewtwo could see scorched black debris coating the floor and there were dozens of pockmarks, craters, and gashes in the structure all around him. Undoubtedly these were created when the Immortals and Chosen turned on each other after Darkest's death. This was proven true in short order when Mewtwo began to float down the corridor and found numerous charred corpses.
Nausea and horror churned in Mewtwo's stomach as he stopped briefly to inspect one of those bodies. He'd never seen the bones of his own kind before. It was a sharp, stabbing reminder of his own mortality. Worse than that though was the rotten, charred bits of flesh still clinging to those bones and the familiar black armor wrapped around it. He'd seen this armor before, it was reminiscent of the suit Darkest wore, though this one was lighter and less concealing. It, just like Darkest's, was modeled after the design of that old terrible suppression armor that Giovanni had created. It wasn't an exact replica of course, it had been painted jet black and had been given additional spikes as well as long wrist-mounted razor sharp claws on its gauntlets. The fact that Darkest had willingly paid such a twisted homage to one of the worst parts of Mewtwo's life was uniquely disturbing to him. The feeling got even worse when he looked at the helmet and saw the inch-thick solid steel control bolt connecting it to the back of the immortal's skull. Mewtwo couldn't help but wince and look away. Darkest's sadism truly did know no limits.
Again Mewtwo had to pause and clear his mind before proceeding. Once done, he floated quietly over the bodies and kept his gaze fixed forward so he wouldn't accidentally take in any more of the gory details. He passed over more than a dozen such bodies in similar states before turning a corner and heading deeper into the ship. With the Spirit Medallion's blessing aiding him, he could sense the locus of all that dark energy was hidden several levels lower in the bowels of the ship. He could also sense the nature of this energy a lot clearer now; there was one distinct powerful presence and something else entirely different located down there roughly in the same place. Both were dark and sinister feeling, but he had a strange sensation that only one of the two was really sapient or aware. The other felt... strangely inhuman and elemental. He then also sensed the presences of all those other spirits who had fled from him out in the open. They were retreating further down and gathering tightly around these two energy sources, as if coalescing around them. Something really strange was going on here and he was starting to feel glad he'd stumbled onto it now before it could potentially come to a head and harm the Gerudos. Ciela's little favor request may have inadvertently helped him to head off a disaster looming unseen in their future. Now all he had to do was figure out just what that disaster was. Without any power the ship's lifts were all offline, so the only option he could see was a tight, claustrophobic little maintenance shaft leading straight down with a ladder in it. It was only just barely big enough to fit Mewtwo's body inside and his orb of light could hardly penetrate the darkness further than a floor or two down. Again dread and fear churned in Mewtwo's gut, but he fought it back and stepped down to begin climbing.
Mewtwo didn't get too far down before something in the atmosphere of the place seemed to change. He sensed the presences of several of those pure spirits coming back up from the depths where they had been congregating. They swirled past him and he scrambled to draw his spear again while climbing back up the ladder to ready himself. Fortunately these spirits didn't try to attack him; they seemed occupied with something else entirely. They were heading into the corridor behind him. Then his ears picked up the distinct sounds of dry cracking, metallic clanking, and wet squelching. The blood chilled in his veins and he spun around just in time to see something that would haunt his nightmares for years to come. The corpses of the dead Immortals were standing up!
Mewtwo was utterly paralyzed with horror for several seconds as his mind tried to process what he was seeing. Four charred, rotten, half-skeletal zombie 'Twos were shakily rising to their feet. Damaged armor and chunks of flesh hung off of their bones. The closest one turned to look at Mewtwo and he saw its helmet had been smashed open to reveal the fact that it had tiny glowing pinpoints of menacing red light in its hollow eye sockets. Since its jaw had been fully burned off, the only sound it made was a raspy, hollow growl. It raised its hands to brandish its bladed gauntlets and began to sloppily hobble toward him.
This was enough to snap Mewtwo out of his frozen state. His tactical mind re-awoke and rapidly began to assess the situation. If these things had still retained access to their psychic abilities then they would have started using them immediately, so chances were good that their gauntlets were their only useful weapons against him. They were most likely being reanimated by the spirits of the Immortals using energy from whatever that power source was at the bottom of the wreck. This meant that they probably could use at least a few Ghost type attacks, so he needed to be cautious and avoid letting them get up close to strike him. Those gauntlets could easily carve through his shield if they were wreathed in a Shadow Claw attack regardless of the Medallions he possessed. This tactical thinking grounded Mewtwo against his fear and gave him the focus he needed to act. He had to move decisively, strike first, and keep his distance so that his foes couldn't get in swiping range. Fortunately for him he just so happened to have the ideal type of weapon for these tactics. Drawing on his training from the Vatorsa Sisters, he stepped into a fighting stance and then jabbed his spear forward, aiming for the belly of the closest ghoul. Just like before he called on the Medallions and threw all his strength and willpower into the attack.
"STAY DOWN!" He bellowed.
The purifying divine radiance of Nariva's power poured out of the tip of the spear as it pierced the zombie right in the stomach. The ragged flesh offered so little resistance that the bladed head burst out of its back effortlessly just as the pulse of divine light emerged from it. The sheer intensity of the ensuing blast caused the zombie's body to be shredded to pieces and burned to ashes nearly instantly. The narrow corridor then constrained the expanding surge of holy energy and channeled it forward, filling the entire width and height of the passage. It washed over the other three shambling monstrosities, which had no psychic shields or any other means of defense outside of their ruined bits of armor. That armor was no match for Nariva's smiting fury and all three zombies were vaporized with the same brutal efficiency as the first. Mewtwo did still wince back painfully though, as the thunderous BOOM released by the smite deafened him and caused a piercing pain to stab at his ears. He lowered the spear and used one hand to channel some healing energy into his ears in order to quickly stop the pain and bring his hearing back. He couldn't help but smile through that fading pain though. All that was left of his opponents were scattered chunks of armor that fell to the floor with a satisfying series of clanks.
"This thing really packs a punch when the Medallions are boosting it. I don't even need my powers for this now." He marveled, speaking softly to himself.
Unfortunately Mewtwo let the spear's display of power lull him into a false sense of security in that moment. He forgot about the other bodies left in the previous hallway just around the corner and didn't realize that the purifying column of light couldn't turn that corner. While his guard was lowered another zombie crept around the corner and fixed its glowing gaze on him while opening its burnt maw. It was ironic that Mewtwo had just finished healing his ears, as the abomination's first act was to emit an ear-piercing shriek. Mewtwo was caught totally unprepared by the magical effect of that shriek. Just like the voice of the late Valisse, this magic was conveyed by sound and completely ignored Mewtwo's telekinetic shield. It instantaneously rendered him completely paralyzed in place. The only parts of his body he could still move were his diaphragm and his eyes. He immediately turned his gaze toward the source of the sound and spotted the undead abomination, which was now stepping around the corner and shambling slowly toward him.
This paralysis was different from Valisse's however; it hadn't disconnected his will from his body painlessly. Rather it was like an agonizingly painful full-body cramping spasm that was violently locking his muscles in place with tension. Every inch of his body was wracked with terrible ripping pain and his attempts to struggle free only made that pain worse. Worst of it all, that amount of pain made it extremely difficult for Mewtwo to focus and use his psychic powers properly. As sheer panic came roaring up in his mind he recklessly let loose a wild, uncontrolled blast of raw telekinetic force in the direction of the zombie. Most of it missed, but at least the edge of the burst clipped the thing on the left side of its head, causing the skull to be cleanly blown in half along a vertical line. One half stayed attached while the other erupted backward behind it in a geyser of shattered skull fragments and pulped, rotten brains. This made the zombie stagger for a few seconds, but unbelievably it then resumed its shuffling approach! It didn't seem to care about the river of liquefied, putrid brain matter pouring out of its open skull, it kept creeping closer at the same gradual pace.
Now Mewtwo really began to panic. He didn't dare try to teleport himself while his concentration was rattled this badly; there was simply too great a risk that he'd accidentally reappear inside of solid matter like a wall or floor and die a horrible death from fusing with it. He still couldn't shake off the paralysis even as the zombie closed to melee distance. The only thing left he could do was try one more unfocused psychic blast. At least it would be much harder to miss at point blank range. His whole body glowed as he hurled a second wave of telekinetic force.
Thankfully this time he was able connect with the zombie's torso quite cleanly despite his aim still being off by a fair amount. Half of the blast carved a smouldering horizontal hole in the wall to the left of the creature while the other half neatly bisected it along its waistline, creating a spray of foul gore aimed down the hall behind it. The upper half of its torso teetered and slid off, landing with a disgusting wet splat on the floor. Its lower half then simply toppled backward with a thud and went still. This finally seemed to be enough to break the spell of the shriek; Mewtwo's muscles instantly relaxed and he staggered backward with a gasp. He took a step back just in time, as the zombie's upper body still seemed to be clinging to un-life and it took a swing at his legs with its bladed gauntlets. It just barely missed, and Mewtwo angrily retaliated by stabbing his spear down into its chest. Divine radiance shone forth, albeit much milder than before, and it produced just enough holy power to vaporize the zombie where it laid.
Mewtwo only had a few scant moments to catch his breath and recuperate now. He could hear more soft shuffling footsteps coming down the hallway toward the corner. The rest of those corpses must have risen and were making their way toward him. He used Recover on himself in a frantic rush to soothe the lingering pain in his muscles, then scrambled to dig through the pockets in his cloak for his old earplugs. He found himself feeling infinitely grateful that he had never bothered to throw them out even though the incantation was gone. By the time he had dug them out and stuffed them into his ears, the glowing red eyes of another zombie were already starting to peek around the corner.
"No you don't!" Mewtwo yelled angrily.
Before the next undead attacker could let loose its paralytic scream Mewtwo hurled a Shadow Ball attack directly at its head as fast as he could. The orb completely beheaded the creature in one fell swoop, which proved to be enough to cause it to topple to the floor and stop moving altogether. Mewtwo could still sense its spirit rising up out of the body and floating away, so the problem wasn't permanently solved, but he preferred this new method since it prevented them from getting another chance at screaming. Given the fact that he didn't know whether the magic would still affect him through his earplugs, he preferred not to test their effectiveness if he didn't have to. For all he knew, even a tiny muffled fraction of the sound could still work on him. He backed down the hallway several more feet to give himself distance and blasted the shit out of every single ghoul that dared to show its rotten face. He systematically annihilated more than a dozen of the horrible things before they finally stopped coming. By the time he got to the end, the ease and repetition of the fighting had robbed them of most of their menace and let Mewtwo's confidence come roaring back to full strength. Once their numbers had been totally depleted he stepped a bit closer and used his psychic powers to conjure a roaring column of flame to finish cremating the bodies so that there would be absolutely no biomass left to reanimate again. When silence finally settled on the hallway, he could still feel the spirits lurking in the distance around him, watching quietly.
"Well? Would anyone else like to try their luck?" He shouted, turning around to look at his surroundings while holding up his spear confidently.
Nothing but silence met his ears. In fact, he actually sensed the presences around him retreat back down toward the dark energy source at the bottom of the wreck again.
"That's what I thought." Mewtwo said in a smug tone.
With that, he returned his attention to the ladder and resumed his climb down toward the lower decks. Nothing else dared to interrupt him as he made his way to the lowest floor. The oppressive, choking atmosphere got much stronger as he hit the bottom of the ladder though. It was nasty enough to blunt Mewtwo's smug cockiness and remind him to take this seriously. He found that the ladder seemed like it could have gone down even deeper, but the floor here was crumpled, mangled, and deformed by the impact of the ship against the Earth. Undoubtedly the lowest decks of the ship had been compressed into a solid layer of crushed steel; he was now standing on the final deck that had managed to retain some form of cohesion and open space. It was just as dark as the others, but now the deformation of the hallway's shape was far more severe. Mewtwo had to bend down by several inches to fit in the squished space of the passage. The energy source he detected was just down the left hallway and he could faintly see some sort of glowing light further down the corridor. It was a bizarre, purple-ish darkness that seemed to both blend into and stand out from the mundane darkness in a way that was difficult to describe. It struck Mewtwo as eerily familiar too, but at first he couldn't quite put his finger on it. With his psychic barrier raised and spear at the ready, he cautiously walked down the hallway toward it. He kept his head on a swivel the entire time and made sure to check his corners and look down every passage at every intersection he crossed along the way.
At the end of the corridor, Mewtwo found a pressure door standing open and a large cargo bay on the other side. The far half of the room was completely collapsed by the crumpling of the ship against the ground and he could see the dark, scorched brown Earth mixed in with the shredded steel of the ship's structure. The strange glowing un-light was radiating up from this churned wreckage, implying something was buried in there. Mewtwo began to cautiously approach it, but his instincts were alight with a sense of danger. The cargo bay was still filled with hundreds of huge black steel crates and the walkways between them were narrow and totally dark. In several places, the crates were stacked all the way to the ceiling, while in others they had plenty of space for someone or something to climb up on top for an easy ambush. There were also plenty of blind corners, and some of the crates were collapsed or smashed open, providing ample crevices and hidey holes for lurking enemies to hide in. There were literally dozens of different angles of attack that a foe could surprise him from and his feline instincts were screaming at him not to go down there. He ignored those warnings mostly, but at least heeded the desire to proceed very slowly and cautiously, checking every possible angle meticulously as he went. Then he heard something that stopped him in his tracks. Someone was laughing at him.
The sound was extremely faint, and the room was big enough that it was hard to pinpoint where it exactly had come from, but Mewtwo's superior feline hearing still picked it up clearly. He spun around to face the direction of the sound, and off in the distance he spotted another pair of glowing red eyes sitting just above the top of one of the crate stacks near the ceiling. He squinted and focused harder, and then the power of the Spirit Medallion allowed him to make out the source in much clearer details. He saw the outlined silhouette of an all-too-familiar creature. It was a ghost Pokemon, specifically Gengar. It was squatting atop that crate in its ethereal form and watching him with a huge, sinister, Cheshire cat's grin. It didn't seem to be aware that he had spotted it, he figured it was relying on its typically invisible, ethereal form to hide its presence as it watched him. Mewtwo scowled deeply, he knew this had to be one of the three Sulaaq leaders like he had been suspecting.
Then a thought struck Mewtwo: if becoming a Ghost type Pokemon really did cause the subject to forget most of their previous self's memories, then it was likely that this one wouldn't remember the fact that Mewtwo had the Spirit Medallion and could see through its stealth. So he decided to play dumb and pretend he couldn't see it in order to lure it in closer so he could attack it with his spear. He spun his head around, pretending to search for the source of the sound, and shouted to it with feigned fear.
"Whoever or whatever you are, show yourself!"
The ruse worked flawlessly. As Mewtwo scanned his surroundings he saw the Gengar phase through the crates and come closer and closer. It darted around the room in a haphazard zigzag pattern as it approached though, using each little side-detour to make another frightening noise in order to mess with Mewtwo's mind. It laughed a couple more times, knocked over a small metal item inside a crate, and made a menacing animalistic growl in another spot, all while getting slowly closer and closer. This was utterly predictable to Mewtwo though, it was all totally stock Ghost Pokemon tactics right out of their traditional playbook and it all relied on him not being able to see it as it approached in order to build and feed off of his fear. He did still feel a small measure of fear, his instincts were rankled at the feeling of being stalked like this and he knew its Ghost type attacks would do an absolute number on him if he was reckless enough to let one land on him. But he was still gripping firmly to his own inner analytical, tactical side and it was keeping him grounded in the face of that fear. Then his tactical mind realized something, this Gengar was probably the more sapient presence he had sensed, while the glowing object in the rubble was the more elemental presence. Perhaps this was a trap that the Gengar had set in order to lure him down into an ambush? If so, then this was a golden opportunity to turn the tables on his foe. He pretended to scan his surroundings one more time, then turned and slowly resumed walking toward the item under the rubble. The moment his foe made the leap to attack, he'd turn and smite them with the spear mid-leap.
Mewtwo's plan unfolded exactly as he had hoped. Just as he stopped in front of the glowing pile of debris, his psychic senses lit up with a rush of aggression and he felt the Gengar rapidly coming up behind him. With only seconds to act, he spun around, locked eyes with his foe, and plunged the spear forward with one brutal thrust. The bladed tip caught the Gengar in the left thigh and Nariva's golden radiance flared out in a controlled, sizzling burst. This time Mewtwo didn't put all the power of the Medallions into it though, he wanted to catch and pin down his foe in order to interrogate him first before annihilating him. Nariva's power responded to his will, bursting out in a much smaller, more controlled pulse that engulfed the Gengar but didn't destroy it. Instead, that holy power trapped it and forced it to shift back into a solid physical form, with the blade of the spear stuck embedded in its leg. Mewtwo followed through on his thrust by then angling the spear down and shoving the blade right into the rubble on the floor, embedding in the churned Earth and pinning his foe down onto the ground. The Gengar was totally trapped, and the crackling golden bolts jumping across its body prevented it from turning back to its ethereal form and escaping. It opened its mouth to howl in outright agony, and that was when Mewtwo spotted the telltale flames in its mouth that gave away its true identity.
"Flametongue!" Mewtwo snarled in disgust.
"Oh yes, that was my name before wasn't it?" Flametongue replied, now speaking in Pokespeak thanks to his new form.
Mewtwo glared lethally at his quarry and couldn't help but push down on the spear a little harder, causing Flametongue to wince. His tone was filled with contemptuous venom as he spoke.
"Forgot your old life so easily did you? Well if you're still lingering here then you must have been around to watch while I killed your masters. Tell me, where are Shadetalon and Darkest?! If you came back as a ghost Pokemon then they must have too!"
Flametongue winced sharply from the weapon twisting in his leg, but then chuckled darkly. "You mean those other Mewtwos you killed? They didn't come back. They couldn't. You annihilated them! Totally erased their souls from existence. Nothing was left, not even a whisper of spiritual dust. Whatever was in those weapons you used really packed a wallop!"
"If that's true then why are you still here? Why weren't you destroyed too?"
"Because you didn't use that spear or sword on me! I at least remember that much. The arrows your rat friend used weren't as strong as your weapons, they were just enough to break my focus and paralyze me. It was your own psychic firestorm that finished me off, and as strong as that was, it didn't have the power to destroy a soul like the spear and sword." Flametongue explained.
Mewtwo only needed a moment to digest this and realize that Flametongue was right. A thoughtful look briefly crossed his face before his scowl returned. "And I suppose all the others here didn't want to lose their memories and identities, so they chose to come back as Pure Spirits instead?"
"Oh you mean them?" Flametongue asked, raising one hand to point to the crowd of other spirits lingering around the edges of the room to watch. "They were shock troops. I think your rat friends called them 'Immortals', if I remember right. They're too fucking stupid to understand the ramifications of their decisions. Remember they were genetically bred with reduced intelligence, most of them were barely more than slavering animals on psychic leashes. It's why they were so eager to start slaughtering each other once psychic control was shattered. They no more understood the choice than an Oddish would. A few did come back as measly little Gastlies, but I was able to easily devour their souls and take what was left of their power for myself. That's how I got this nice evolved form so quickly!" Flametongue laughed.
Mewtwo sneered in contempt, unable to believe Flametongue was still acting so flippant despite the mortal danger he was in. "And let me guess, the last few lingering ones here you've enslaved again in death to use as your new ghostly minions?"
"That's right! You're just as sharp as ever, I don't feel so bad anymore about you being the one to finally best me."
"How did you raise them as zombies though? No Pokemon at home could do something like that, at least as far as I can remember."
"Oh come now, don't be dumb right after I just finished complimenting you! Don't you remember that fancy little purple disk that your other rat friend was using to power her cute little trick voice?"
"The Shadow Medallion!" Mewtwo gasped, suddenly realizing how this all fit together.
"Bingo! It seems perfectly aligned for someone like me to use, even if I'm not familiar with how this world's magic works. Turns out that thing makes it really damn easy to raise the dead." Flametongue laughed.
Mewtwo then pointed one hand backward and used telekinesis to rip apart the rubble pile, exploding chunks of steel and dirt outward into the air that bounced harmlessly off of his barrier. He held the spear firmly in his other hand to ensure Flametongue was kept pinned while he worked. It only took a moment before he ripped the Shadow Medallion free of the debris and picked it up with his telekinesis. It floated over to land in his hand, and he could feel the spiritual bond linking it to Flametongue's soul. He also felt another tingling wave of magical power washing over his hand and up his arm when he physically touched it for the first time, just like when he first touched the Spirit Medallion. Fortunately it didn't force a distracting vision onto him though, so he was able to clutch it firmly and maintain his focus. He returned his gaze to Flametongue and then decided to try something new. He focused his will into the spear, trying to instruct it to use its holy power to sever the link that Flametongue had formed with the Shadow Medallion. On cue another burst of golden radiance pulsed out of the spear, scorching Flametongue's body and causing him to yell out in agony again. The link was fully severed, and slowly Flametongue's body began to fade and shrink slightly as his power was massively reduced.
"Ooooooooooh that burns so good!" Flametongue growled out after his yell, his tone turning to a disturbing sound of enjoyment. Mewtwo's stomach twisted in further disgust.
"There. Now you can't use its power ever again. You're done Flametongue. Release your slaves."
"Or what? You'll torture me? I do remember vaguely what I did to you, but I don't think you'll find it any more satisfying to do it to me."
"Why is that?" Mewtwo snapped.
"Because there is absolutely nothing you can do to me that can match what Lord Darkest did to all of us lovely minions of his. I certainly can't forget the creative and terrible things he concocted to torture the clones that displeased him. Whatever it is you do to me will only be like a little bit of tickling foreplay by comparison! And besides, if you do stoop to my level then I'll take special pleasure in how it proves we were right. It will show you really are Darkest deep down in that rotten core of yours! And you know what else I love about this? If you decide to prove me wrong and be the bigger person by just annihilating me quickly and painlessly with that spear, then I won't have to face any sort of punishments that might be lurking in this world's afterlife. There's no Yveltal here to usher me to the other side, no Arceus to judge me, no Giratina to punish me. I get to go to the void peacefully, never once regretting anything I've done!" Flametongue cackled sadistically.
Righteous fury bubbled up in Mewtwo's stomach as he realized just how right Flametongue was. Even now in death and defeat, the depraved monster had one last no-win trap to spring on Mewtwo. He hated both options and hated him for it all the more. There would be no satisfaction in vengeance and no closure in avenging Kalana. Maybe Nariva's inscription was right. But then an idea struck Mewtwo. A wicked, sinister, infinitely amusing idea. It was a hidden third option outside of the no-win binary choice that Flametongue had tried to trick him with. A sadistic grin of his own came over his face and he quickly slipped the Shadow Medallion into his backpack to free up his other hand.
"Tell me Flametongue, did you ever read the inscription on this spear of mine?" Mewtwo asked, then raised his free hand and pointed it at the space to the right of where he had his enemy pinned. His body began to glow as he channeled up an immense upwelling of power.
"No, how is that even relevant?" Flametongue asked, his mocking laughter fading to confusion.
"There are two of them, and the relevant one says 'Retháza alea Niemah', or 'Righteousness Through Grace' in the Gerudo tongue. It's a reminder of an engraved message that the Goddess Nariva gave me when she blessed the spear with the power that's now holding you trapped."
"So? Why should I care?!" Flametongue growled, starting to look nervous. He was sensing the power that Mewtwo was channeling now and seemed genuinely uncertain and afraid of what he was planning to do.
"The engraving said 'True justice is not found in the pursuit of vengeance but in the prevention of further evil.' That was a reminder to be a better man, as you said. Chasing revenge for personal satisfaction only feeds the darker side of you and makes it grow." Mewtwo said, and as he focused a glowing pinpoint of light appeared floating in the air where his free hand was pointing.
"So you are going to erase me then? Whatever you're doing there won't work though, you have to use the spear to do it." Flametongue growled.
"I'm not going to use the spear to do it." Mewtwo said with a smile.
Suddenly Flametongue seemed to realize that Mewtwo's speech was a distraction. He turned his head and looked at the growing pinpoint of light, which was now slowly expanding into a circular little portal. Mewtwo watched it carefully, prepared to leap aside if another column of superheated plasma poured out of it just like the last time he'd opened a hole in the fabric of reality. No such eruption took place though, which then fully confirmed what Mewtwo had suspected; it must have been the drain devices on the Sulaaq towers that had been causing this realm to suck in that energy through the open gateway. Now that the towers were all shut down, the gate opened just fine, exposing the rainbow colored storms of plasma swirling on the other side. In fact, the opposite began to happen, just as Mew had warned him when she taught him how to open these portals. There was a vacuum on the other side, so violently powerful winds began to suck into the portal, whipping and tearing at Mewtwo and his cloak. He had to anchor himself to his spot with telekinesis to resist the vortex of wind as it was sucked through the portal, and chunks of dirt, steel, and debris were lifted up and hurled through. The chunks bounced sharply against Mewtwo's barrier but he didn't falter. In fact, his wicked grin began to widen. He saw the lingering spirits of the Immortals begin falling into the portal too, struggling fruitlessly to resist the inward pull of the gateway. One by one they fell, then in groups, tumbling into the abyss outside reality. That's when Flametongue fully realized what Mewtwo planned to do to him.
"What the fuck?! This isn't a merciful or quick death!" He bellowed angrily.
"It might be. You never know with the chaotic nature of that space. Tell me, didn't Shadetalon ever teach you about the nature of the space between dimensions?" Mewtwo asked, now using telepathy so Flametongue could hear him over the deafening howl of the winds.
"I'm not a fucking idiot Mewtwo, I know what's out there!" Flametongue bellowed, now grabbing the shaft of the spear with both hands and clinging to it as the wind pulled on him stronger and stronger.
"Then you know that there's just as good a chance that the spatial distortions could shred your soul into nothingness instantly. It's like my own little form of plausible deniability, if you will. I won't be around to see it if you do end up getting locked in a temporal distortion for billions upon billions of years, left to go mad inside your own mind for a nice little fragment of eternity. After all, it's not my fault that you don't have those fancy psychic powers to use to make a shield anymore." Mewtwo said, his tone filled with malicious relish as he savored the fate he was about to doom his foe to.
He then pulled the spear up from the ground, which might have unpinned Flametongue if it weren't for Nariva's energy keeping him trapped and stuck to its head. He then simply turned and poked the head through the portal, dangling Flametongue over the churning void.
"You're no better than me for doing this! Even if you're not torturing me yourself! You're just letting something else do it for you! You're torturing me by indirect action!" Shadetalon yelled at the top of his lungs as he desperately clung to the spear while the vortex whipped around him.
"Maybe you're right. But you know what Flametongue? I don't care. And if I'm judging by the fact that the Spear is still letting me harness its holy energy regardless of that fact, I think Nariva agrees with me. You deserve whatever you get out there."
"I'll find a way back! I'll come back and torture all the-" Flametongue screamed in spiteful terror.
"Goodbye Flametongue." Mewtwo said coldly.
Then Mewtwo channeled just enough holy power from the Medallions through the spear to create another mild burst of divine light. It blasted Flametongue free of the spear and sent him careening into the churning maw of oblivion without outright destroying him. Then Mewtwo yanked the spear back out of the portal and let go of the energy holding it open. It instantly snapped shut with a deafening BANG! Then it was over and Mewtwo was alone again. No more creepy sensations of being watched lingered there anymore. The dust and debris settled down around him and a lonely silence returned. He basked in the grim satisfaction of his vengeance, but slowly that satisfaction faded. He perhaps had done the right thing by preventing Flametongue and his ghostly lackeys from gaining enough power to hurt the Gerudos, but it still wouldn't bring Kalana back to him. Then he felt guilt creeping back up into his mind once again. Was Flametongue right? Had he truly betrayed the spirit of Nariva's directive for him? Sure he hadn't personally taken the time to feed his inner sadist by doing the torturing himself, but he still had taken pleasure from the idea of the void driving him insane. He pondered this in utter silence, then decided that the dark, lonely atmosphere of the ship's empty husk wasn't helping his mood. Holding the spear tightly to himself, he teleported back out of the ship and reappeared floating in the air above the ruins where he could get some fresh air.
It was now raining outside, albeit lightly enough that it wouldn't have been more than an inconvenience to him. Mewtwo's barrier kept him comfy and dry, but the muted light that filtered down through the storm clouds wasn't enough to soothe his guilt. If anything the shadowy and stormy atmosphere of the place was just as bad as the deep darkness of the ship's tomb-like interior. Compelled by his guilt, Mewtwo held the spear in front of his face and stared at the inscription while speaking, as though trying to address Nariva herself.
"I don't know if that was the right thing to do, Goddess. Even if I didn't do the torturing myself, maybe I still was indulging my inner desire for sadistic revenge. I didn't think it would be justice if he just got away scot-free. Maybe it was wrong even if it did prevent him from doing any further evil. I feel like I failed you."
The spear didn't respond of course, and just like before he didn't get any divine signs through something blatant like a voice from the heavens. But... he did still feel the energy remaining in the spear; it was just as strong as ever. It seemed to resonate softly with the Medallions inside him very faintly, giving him a wordless, instinctual gut feeling. He didn't know where this feeling came from, but he sensed that if he had truly failed Nariva, then the spear's power would have left him, just like he had theorized while dangling Flametongue over the void. The fact that it was still there waiting for him to use it again was like a divine message all of its own. He smiled now as he comprehended this message and a sense of peace and reassurance washed over him. Then he noticed the fact that that resonance he had felt wasn't just with the Spirit and Forest Medallions hidden in his soul, but in the Shadow Medallion too. Feeling suddenly curious, he gingerly dug that Medallion out of his bag and examined it closely for the first time. Just like the others its surface was impossibly polished and mirror smooth without a single dent or scratch, and it felt warm to the touch all the time. It was made of a rich dark purple metal of some sort, and it was adorned with an embossed symbol on each side. One side shared the same identical stacked three triangle symbol as all the others he'd seen, and the other side had a new one he'd never seen. This new symbol was in the shape of a single upside-down triangle with circular outward dimples around it, aligned with its three sides. The energy it radiated was strange, it seemed to carry a sense of danger and slight foreboding, but it wasn't an overpowering malice anymore. Now that its link to Flametongue had been severed it seemed to carry no evil of its own, it just felt like a raw elemental force again. It struck him then that despite its magical element being something so easily considered evil, it wasn't actually inherently evil on its own. It was only as evil as the person who wielded it, just like any other weapon of great power. It reflected the soul of the one who bonded to it. Perhaps he could bond with it himself someday and it wouldn't be dangerous. But for now he didn't know how and he didn't have any obvious leads for how to learn, so he gently returned it to his bag.
"Well, I suppose now it's time to dig." Mewtwo said, turning his gaze to the mountainous pile of ruins that had once been the capital tower.
Chapter 1: I'll Always Be With You
Hours. Mewtwo had been digging for hours now and still there was no sign of the Blade of Evil's Bane. He had upended thousands upon thousands of tons of twisted metal, concrete, and glass, and he hadn't seen an iota of the sword's remains. The storm above him had finished dumping its rain on him and blown completely away into the East while he worked, and still he had found nothing. He spent considerable amounts of telekinetic energy combing through and ripping apart the ruins to find that sword, but it truly seemed to be gone. He couldn't even sense any energy from it even while focusing his psychic senses and using the Medallions to aid him. He was loathe to give up and disappoint Ciela after promising to help her that morning, but ultimately he was still a mortal and he couldn't omnisciently pull a missing object out of thin air. He could only speculate as to where the sword had gone, but he had a sinking feeling that it had must have been destroyed when the capacitors in the tower exploded and released the colossal amount of energy that they were storing for the superweapon. Crestfallen and disappointed in himself, Mewtwo finally gave up the search once the sun began to dip low in the sky, signaling the coming of early evening. He still wanted to make his pilgrimage to the Spirit Temple like Sumati suggested, so he dropped the last chunk of debris and took off to fly West.
It took a couple hours flying at top speed for Mewtwo to reach his destination. He might have tapped out of psychic power along the way after spending so much of it digging, but thankfully the Medallions were helping to fuel him and keep him going just like during his battle with Darkest. In fact, they were keeping him completely topped up at max now, as though he hadn't spent any of his energy at all. It seemed like the Deku Tree really had been right when he said it was always worthwhile to collect as many of the Medallions as he could, even if he couldn't bond with all of them. They were all empowering each other and becoming more than the sum of their parts. As Mewtwo flew he pondered the possibility of going to hunt for the last few remaining ones on his own time in the future. If he could find them all then he would be strong enough even to take on an entire platoon of Chosen and Immortals from the remnants of the Sulaaq empire on his own. The thought comforted him as he sailed above the permanent sandstorm that clung to the haunted wastelands between the ruins of Gerudo Valley and the Spirit Temple.
When he finally arrived at the Temple though, he didn't feel particularly compelled to go inside. He stared down at the huge statue of Nariva and frowned. For some reason it just didn't seem to be calling to him. Sure the time he'd spent with Kalana here fighting Twinrova had been important to his journey, but it didn't seem as emotionally resonant to him as what Sumati had said. He didn't feel like he'd get any catharsis here, even if he returned to the altar where Nariva's engraved message to him remained. He floated silently and pondered this before a different idea struck him. Perhaps this destination wasn't meaningful to him like it was to the Gerudos since he'd only been here for a few hours at most. He needed to choose a place that carried true emotional weight, and the first one that came to mind was Ven'rakesh. It would be a much longer trip even while flying at maximum speed, but since the Medallions were empowering him then energy wouldn't be an issue. The answer then came to him in a flash of insight: he could fly straight up into orbit above the planet again to attain a much higher maximum speed in the vacuum. Once he got close he could re-enter the atmosphere directly above Ven'rakesh, and this would let him be there in mere hours rather than the days such a trip would take. This time there wouldn't be any lurking Sulaaq ships in the heavens to chase him too.
Mewtwo made up his mind and then rocketed straight up into the blue sky above him with a new determination. As the atmosphere rapidly fell away around him he was reminded again of Ruru and wished that she could be there with him to share in the joy of flight once more. But then he reminded himself that this was a very personal journey and it was perhaps for the best that he did this alone. Once he surmounted the upper Thermosphere and entered the thinnest border regions with space he was able to really take off and rocket through the emptiness at a colossal speed. But after a few minutes of this, something caught his attention.
It was hard to see initially due to the distances involved up there, but Mewtwo's eyes caught a glimpse of sunlight glinting off of the shattered hulls of wrecked starships orbiting tenuously above the planet. He suddenly remembered the huge orbital battle that had taken place above the planet when Darkest and Lightest's forces converged on it to fight over his fate. As he looked closer he saw more and more of a colossal debris field leftover from that battle that was now silently drifting through the void above and around him. Half of it was very hard to see, since Darkest's ships were painted black and thus blended in very effectively with the blackness of space around them. But the remains of Lightest's ships stood out much more easily since they were painted an angelic white and silver, and even had some reflective golden accents too. They were still easy to miss if he didn't specifically look for them just because of the distances involved, but when he focused his eyes he could see tens of thousands of floating shards and chunks of drifting, shattered metal floating soundlessly in the blackness. Every time the sunlight caught one of their reflective surfaces just right he could see pinpricks of brilliant light flash into and then back out of view.
Mewtwo felt a morbid curiosity come welling up inside him. Part of him wanted to fly further up and out to inspect the wreckage for himself. Logically he knew that if there had been any survivors in the larger chunks of the ships that by now they would have either been rescued by the Guardians or run out of air and died. But some part of him wanted to see for himself the price that Lightest's people had paid in order to save him. Since he had gained so much time with this little orbital jaunt he decided to indulge himself, if only just to briefly gaze at the ruins for only a few minutes before returning to his course.
The distance was deceptive though, he took many more minutes than he expected before he finally reached the debris field and could examine it in detail. It seemed like the Guardians had probably salvaged most of the wreckage by now for recycling, as there weren't any significantly large chunks of intact ship left that he could see. The field stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions around him, perhaps even thousands of miles, but all he could see were fragments no larger than a human car. There was nothing left that could still contain any mortal remains of Lightest's Guardians or Darkest's Immortals, so he was left to ponder shards of plating and structural beams in the dead silence of space. Part of him was grateful for the lack of any bodies here; he had had his lifetime fill of gore and death already. But he still felt the lingering sadness of this place. Even though he couldn't feel a trace of any spirits haunting the debris, the chunks of ship were still more than enough of a concrete reminder of how many people had died up there around him. He wordlessly lowered his head and paid respects to the Guardians who had given their lives here, and then after a minute or two he turned around and resumed heading for Ven'rakesh.
Four hours was all it took to cross the hundreds of miles back to Ven'rakesh. At the incredible speeds he reached outside of the atmosphere he actually kept up with the movement of daylight across the world, so even though it was early evening when he left the capital ruins by Ven'rakúl, it was still early evening when he reached Ven'rakesh. Re-entry was as rattling as ever and he felt grateful for his earplugs when the flames roared against his shield. But when he finally arrived, he pulled those earplugs out and quietly took in the sight.
Lightest's Guardians had put a great deal of care into protecting the empty settlement in their absence, just as Hadara had requested. A huge dome-shaped segment of starship hull had been specifically crafted and lowered down to place over the top of the mesa. It was many hundreds of feet in diameter and completely surrounded the whole mesa rather than just resting atop it. Most of it was solid Tritanium Steel more than two feet thick in order to resist any digging or blasting attempts by the Lizalfos, but the center top portion had been made out of transparent starship-grade super-dense quartz glass to allow a column of natural sunlight to shine down inside. The Guardians had even embedded the edges of this dome deeply down into the desert sand all the way to bedrock so the Lizalfos couldn't burrow under it, ensuring that it was safe from raiding for the indefinite future. To Mewtwo though, this dome wasn't an impediment in the slightest, he simply teleported past it and reappeared standing in the central square of the town.
Here the atmosphere was somber and quiet due to the way the dome affected the light. The window over the square just illuminated the square itself; the rest of the town was plunged into shadow that was hard for Mewtwo's eyes to penetrate from there. The sharp contrast of the beam of light against that darkness made the darkness look much deeper than it actually was, and the light was keeping his eyes from adjusting well enough to see into it. The result was a very liminal and disquieting appearance that made it look like Mewtwo was standing in a heavenly column of divine radiance in the center of a dark, cursed city. Moreover, since the dome blocked all wind, the air was deathly still there and it was dead quiet. He could clearly hear the sound of his heart beating against a backdrop of silence that complete, and every footstep he took was deafeningly loud by comparison. But the worst aspect of it all was how all this eeriness cumulatively contrasted with the warmly familiar nature of the space. He recognized every building here, from Chief Hadara's house to the little humble tiered building where he had lived, but the clinging darkness and quiet emptiness subverted the warm familiarity of home. It was home, but the lack of people made it feel soulless and hollow.
Now Mewtwo could feel the emotions really stirring up inside him as he took in his surroundings. Whether it was truly cathartic or not he couldn't yet tell, but he knew that he was at the very least feeling a great sense of disquiet from how dead and lonely Ven'rakesh felt without the buzzing activity of people inside. There were no spirits lingering here either, even though he knew that there undoubtedly had been generations of Gerudos who had been born and died in these walls. Perhaps they too had felt lonely and sad when the living departed this place and ended up going with them. As a result he felt a true sense of kenopsia as he cast his gaze around the dark, empty windows, doors, and walls around him. He didn't have to enter any of the buildings to know that their interiors had been stripped bare too, he remembered the Guardians bringing all their belongings with them to Ven'rakúl, so every single interior was undoubtedly going to be even more barren and lonely. He only could bring himself to visit one of the buildings, and that was his former home where Kalana had brought him after rescuing him from the desert.
It was indeed stripped bare and empty in there. Since this building was on the edge of the town square, there was still enough radiant light shining in through the door and windows for him to see by. It was still moderately dark of course, but he could still see a rectangular discolored spot where his former bed had once sat. He looked to the corner where the broom had been that Kalana had given him to notify her if he needed help, it too was empty. He could still remember everything that had happened here so clearly, from the warmth and kindness they had shown each other when they first opened up, to the sadness and anger when Hadara had first ordered him to leave. He stood there staring at the barren walls in utter silence for a few minutes before he finally couldn't take it anymore and turned to leave. The emotions were getting to be too much for him to handle.
Mewtwo wandered back into the center of the square and found himself pondering the statue that Sumati's mothers had carved. All the water Sumati had conjured during the funeral ceremony had since been taken and the residue dried up, so the fountain basin was again bone dry. The sunlight shining down through the roof was starting to tilt away from the statue as evening progressed, leaving only the upper half of it still bathed in direct sunbeams. But the result was a beautiful bright radiance shining off the statue from the waist up, making it look like the woman it depicted was glowing with a holy radiance. Even here in this shadowy emptiness it seemed like a beacon of hope. Mewtwo smiled softly, finally feeling the catharsis he had come here for. It really did look like a sign to him from Nariva; it felt like she was telling him there was always some light to cling to even amidst the deepest and loneliest of shadows.
Then Mewtwo noticed something strange. Something was different about the fountain than he remembered. There was a glint of silver on the opposite side of the fountain from where he was standing. Suddenly curious, he walked around the edge of the fountain basin to see what it was. Upon arrival he saw that a new metal placard had been placed on the rim of the stone basin facing upward so someone could read it. It was two feet wide by one foot high and had a memorial embossed on it in English, together with the stamp of Lightest's Guardian Federation above the text. It read:
"In Honor of Lady Lightest, Beloved Founder and Matriarch of the Guardian Federation.
0-801AS
or
1998-2799AD
Through all the sorrow, through all the joy
Be a light in the darkness that none can destroy"
Mewtwo felt as though he had been punched in the gut when he read that simple couplet on the placard. He hadn't realized it, but perhaps his grief for Lightest had been a lot stronger than he thought. He had only known her for an hour at most and his grief for Kalana had instead been far more immediate, but now he knew there had been pain there for Lightest that he had buried and never processed during all that time after the battle. Seeing how simply and powerfully the Guardians had poured their love for their leader into those two lines brought it all up and forced him to express it. He stood there and cried softly in the quiet stillness for awhile, allowing himself all the time he needed to get it all out. When the tears finally ran dry and he could again draw long breaths without sobs, he couldn't help but smile. Zuriel had probably come here to place this placard sometime quietly after the evacuation of the Gerudos had been finished, and it was suiting that this memorial would be placed here alongside the one for Kalana. Though the two had never actually met, both Lightest and Kalana had willingly embraced their ends in order to stop Darkest, so it was fitting their memorials would stand side by side. It gave Mewtwo at least some of the peace that he had come here to find, but then one final thought struck him. Something felt off balance. If Zuriel could come by after the fact to add her own tribute to Lightest, then Mewtwo felt it would only be fair for him to add his own for Kalana. There was only one problem: he didn't have any fancy metal placards on hand, nor the tools to emboss anything. Part of him felt like he couldn't possibly hope to live up to the beautiful quality of what Zuriel's people had made. On top of that, if he did just write something on a scrap of paper, what would stop it from just blowing away?
Then Mewtwo remembered the fact that the dome blocked all the wind and felt quite foolish. In fact, with no people here, he really could leave a memorial on paper and nothing would ever disturb it. Besides, Kalana wouldn't care about what medium he left his message on, she wasn't petty or stuck-up like that. All that mattered was the sincerity of the emotions. Feeling suddenly emboldened, he pulled out his bundle of parchment notes, tore out a single blank page, and used his pen to write a memorial of his own.
"In Honor of Kalana Quindalo, Sage of Spirit, Loyal Friend, Beloved Sister, and Peerless Warrior."
He paused for a moment, realizing he didn't know her birthday or death day, or even how this world's calendar system even worked. So he couldn't actually include that part of the memorial. But then he shook it off and decided that didn't matter. As he had said to himself, it was the sincerity. He took a deep breath to steady his shaking hands, then put pen to paper and gave free reign to all the feelings deep in his chest.
"In the Goddess's arms your suffering ends
But I know deep down that we'll meet again."
There, that was enough. It wasn't perfect; calling it a slant rhyme was charitable at best. But even if it didn't fit any elegant syllabic structure, it was simple, heartfelt, and deeply sincere. Mewtwo then folded the sheet of parchment up and gently tucked it into a crack between the stones of the basin wall around the fountain so the sunlight wouldn't fade and destroy the ink or the parchment over time.
Then Mewtwo felt it. Some measures of true catharsis and closure were settling in his heart and he felt lighter and far more peaceful than before. He could go home now and hopefully look ahead to the future with less sadness burdening his spirit. But before he left though, he turned back to the fountain and bowed deeply. He didn't care about the fact that he didn't sense any spirits there with him, he spoke softly out loud anyway.
"I'll miss you both, but thank you. Thank you for everything."
Mewtwo had the closure he wanted, and for the next day his heart indeed felt lighter. Sadness for Kalana no longer tormented his thoughts during every quiet moment he had alone, but he could tell it wasn't a perfect cure and he would probably still feel pain when something actively reminded him of her. But improvement was still improvement even if it came in baby steps and Mewtwo was glad to take what he could get. The day after his trip to Ven'rakesh he spent several more hours training with the Vatorsas, then snuck up onto the roof of the power plant early, before the sun had even set. He was still feeling embarrassed about his failure to find the Master Sword, so now it was his turn to actively avoid Ciela instead of the other way around. By the time the sun began to set on that day Mewtwo suspected he would probably get another visit from Cadriel, but ultimately he was proven wrong. He knew she had another shift in the plant that night and would have seen him on the cameras again. But she respected his space and left him alone, and this turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.
Being alone felt safe and comfortable to Mewtwo like always, but it also opened him up to being tormented by his demons some more. Sure he had done a good job of calming his demons of grief, but those were only a small portion of the large cadre of them living in his head. The others were quite happy to push in and take the space that the grief had left. Chiefly, he was again consumed with sadness and fear over Ruru's mental health and the uncertainty of the future of spacetime. Sure he could still hear Sumati's advice from yesterday ringing in his head; he knew he could soothe his fear by pursuing more acts of selflessness. But when it came to Ruru's pain and the fabric of reality he didn't know what to do. He was adrift in a soupy swamp of uncertainty with no leads to follow or ideas to chase, and in that state he could only sit and ponder. So sit and ponder he did for several more long hours into the night, until finally restlessness and frustration made him feel fed up. With nothing else to do he flew down to the ground on the Eastern side of town and set off on a walk into the woods to try and clear his thoughts.
Mewtwo chose not to approach the Deku Tree that night despite the thought striking him as he left. Sure the ancient tree was laden with centuries of wisdom that could be helpful, but Mewtwo felt as though it would be disrespectful to disturb the venerable old soul with anything less than another global crisis. So instead he wandered aimlessly southeast, paying little attention to his surroundings as he walked and ruminated.
Unfortunately, walking didn't prove to be any better for his mind than sitting. Even when he tried to push back his thoughts about Ruru, his mind just picked something else to dwell on. For example, his recent failure to find the Master Sword was eating at him despite knowing full well that Ciela would hardly blame him. When he pushed back on that, his mind then just went back to the night he'd spent talking with Cadriel. He knew he hadn't made any progress on deciding whether or not to call Zuriel to take him away from Hypalia, and now he imagined Cadriel getting impatient with him for his answer. That then led him into the destructive territory of pessimistic "What if's." What if the best efforts of Zuriel and her people couldn't figure out why there hadn't been a temporal correction or how to trigger it? What if his split into Darkest and Lightest was truly inevitable and he was only drawing out his own suffering by resisting it? What if some Chosen maintained control over a ship and came here with hundreds of Immortals? What if Ruru never got better, or even got worse and tried to harm herself? Those thoughts led his mind back to the same dark train station he'd dipped into during that conversation. Some darker part of his mind in that terrible place whispered a chilling thought back to him:
"What if the only true way to be 100% certain that Darkest would never exist was for you to die before the split could happen?"
Mewtwo stopped dead in his tracks as that icy little idea curled itself through the contours of his thoughts. The last time such suicidal ideation had skulked through the dark hallways of his mind it had been right after he had killed Gary Oak. It was the last thing he wanted to welcome into his mind but he couldn't stop himself from realizing the cold, hard, undeniable logic of it. He felt his hands beginning to shake as he tried to fight the thought off, but it wouldn't go away. Then, seemingly acting on its own accord, his hand rose up and conjured a small knife blade made of telekinetic force between his fingers. He stared at the blade starkly and stood stock still for several cold, numb seconds. It would be so easy, he'd just have to quickly draw it over his first neck rather than his second neck so that it wouldn't flicker out and vanish partway through the motion. He shivered and his stomach sank as he imagined it. Part of him protested the idea by pointing out how heartbroken Ruru would be without him, but the darker part remembered that the act would guarantee the temporal correction and Ruru would be given a new, better life. His guts sank even further as the temptation grew stronger. Hadn't he just been pondering earlier about how he wanted to try to work harder at fulfilling the role of a hero? If so, wasn't this the exact sort of thing that heroes were supposed to do? Sacrifice themselves to save the greatest amounts of people possible? He did want to save everyone, but something still felt wrong about this. Heroic sacrifices were supposed to be last stands against impossible odds. Heroes were supposed to walk into certain death in order to hold back a horde of foes to buy others time to survive. There didn't seem to be any glory or bravery in this here, staring down his own blade alone in silence in the deep dark forest. It felt cowardly instead, like it would be taking the easy way out in the face of uncertainty. Worse than that, it'd be breaking his promise to Amber.
That last thought turned his stomach enough to finally make him dispel the blade. He couldn't do that to her, not after making it through everything else already. He'd just have to figure this puzzle out the hard way, whether or not he decided to ask Zuriel to help him. A sense of relief washed over Mewtwo now that he'd finished his standoff with the reaper unscathed. He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath of chilly forest air and savored the feeling of being alive. That feeling was suddenly sharper than before now that he realized how close he'd come to the edge. He did want to live after all. Amber was right, life is wonderful, agony and all. He would just have to hold tightly to the idea of becoming his best self, just like she'd said at the oasis.
"Hello Mewtwo." Said a young girl's voice from behind him.
Mewtwo's mind lit up with disbelief and surprise, thinking Amber's spirit actually had come to him in this dark hour. "Amber?!" He gasped, spinning around to face the source of the sound.
It wasn't Amber he saw though, but rather Indiru. She was wearing the same thick, baggy blue formal Vha'an Seer's Robes as the night she'd proclaimed him to be the Traveler in front of all three tribes in Ven'vha. They were pristinely washed and pressed, save for the excess fabric which dragged across the forest floor, picking up countless errant twigs and leaves. She was also wearing her jeweled Seer's circlet on her forehead and that familiar detached, formal look on her face. Mewtwo could immediately see a painful sadness once again hiding behind that facade of neutrality though.
"Oh, Indiru. What in the Goddess's name are you doing alone out here this deep in the forest this late at night?"
"The same thing I've always done in such a position." She replied with a faint, sentimental little smile.
Mewtwo quickly walked up to her and reached out for her hand. "You know you can give me your warnings back in Ven'rakúl. There's no reason to risk coming out this far all alone."
Indiru sighed and shook her head as she pulled her hand away from his.
"Actually, no. There is a reason. Follow me, there's something you need to see."
Indiru began to head due East deeper into the forest at a brisk pace. Mewtwo briefly considered teleporting them both directly back to Ven'rakúl then and there in order to keep Indiru safe, but the seriousness of her demeanor and the fact that she'd worn her formal robes gave him pause. He decided to take her seriously and follow her for now. If a monster did attack them he was confident his powers would be enough to keep them both safe.
"What's this all about? Is something wrong?" He asked.
Indiru pondered how to reply to him in silence for several moments as they walked. She pushed aside some underbrush then and a bunch of branches snagged on her robes, causing her to grumble in frustration. Maybe she had been short-sighted in deciding to wear this outfit into a thicket.
"I had another vision this evening and... I have reason to believe it may be the most important one of my life."
"More important than the one that sent Kalana and I on our mission into the East?" Mewtwo asked incredulously.
"Yes. I don't suppose you could use your powers to clear a path straight through this thicket for us could you?" Indiru asked.
Not wanting to risk upsetting the Deku Tree by destroying the foliage, Mewtwo instead chose to use his telekinesis to shove it aside rather than cutting any of it. This opened a path for them that led into a small clearing in the woods that was hemmed in on all sides with cliffs. It was filled with tall clusters of grass and had a few huge, old rotting tree stumps scattered around. On the far side was a tunnel through the cliffs that seemed to be made from a hollowed out old fallen tree trunk. Indiru began to pick up the pace as she headed into the clearing and homed in on that tunnel. Before long they were across and Indiru was heading straight in without delay regardless of the choking darkness inside it.
Fearing that wild beasts might be lurking in that darkness, Mewtwo conjured a glowing orb of white psychic light to illuminate their path. This seemed to cause a concerned look to come across Indiru's face.
"Don't worry, there is no evil lurking here. This is an old sacred place; relax and treat it respectfully." She said.
"Very well, though I hardly think it disrespectful to want to avoid tripping in the dark." He replied softly with a slight smile.
Indiru gave a soft exasperated sigh but smiled in resignation anyway. She didn't argue any further and instead led him deeper down the shadowy tunnel for several quiet moments. Soon a light appeared at the end of that tunnel and before long they had emerged into another clearing. This one was also bordered on all sides by earthen cliffs, though it was half the size in area compared to the previous one. Instead of being home to large patches of overgrown grass however, it contained a staggered row of massive tree stumps that had been horizontally cut at different heights. The cuts were so clean that they had to have been artificial, and the variation in height formed a neat stairstep path from the ground to the cliff edge at the far side of the clearing. Up there Mewtwo could see a much larger tree coated in vines that was about half the size of the Great Deku Tree, but lacking the face. Indiru pointed her finger plaintively up at it.
"Up there."
Before Mewtwo could ask her about it she climbed up onto the first stump and began hop upward from stump to stump. Mewtwo simply levitated himself all the way up there with his telekinesis and easily arrived first. Upon arrival he saw there was a large round doorway that had been cleanly carved into the base of that huge tree. It was covered over with a thick mat of vines that rendered it impassable, but Mewtwo could still see the darkness of the passage behind them through the gaps. Once Indiru surmounted the ledge alongside Mewtwo she brushed off her robes and then looked up at those vines too. As she stared, Indiru drew a single, heavy, dread-laden breath.
"Well... I guess this is it then. No more putting it off, it's time." She said in a heavy, sad tone.
"Time for what? For Goddess's sake Indiru, you're starting to worry me with the way you're talking here."
Indiru lowered her head and took a moment to steel herself before she replied.
"It's time for the choice. This vision I told you about was a decision that the Goddesses wished for me to pass on to you. But the vision already showed me what you would choose, so in a way it became more of my own decision than yours. I could choose to hide the vision from you to ensure that you would never take this path, or I could tell you in the knowledge that you would."
"Path? What path? Is it this vine-covered passage in this tree?" Mewtwo asked.
"Yes, but it's more than that. It's... hard to explain. The vision was indistinct and vague. It operated more in feelings and abstract meanings than actual concrete imagery. Visually it at least showed me this tree and the route we'd need to take to find it, but it did not show me what laid beyond. It only communicated a wordless set of meanings from here on, as though divined directly into my mind. I could sense that through this vine-sealed tunnel laid the hidden, secret solution to all the troubles you've been struggling with. Through here is the way to solve it all. The pain of Ruru's grief, the pain of your own grief, the sorry state of our world, even the bizarre knot in the thread of your timeline. I don't actually know what these solutions look like, how they will work, or how you will actually find them, just that this is the first step in the journey toward them." Indiru explained.
"That sounds fantastic though!" Mewtwo exclaimed as an initial burst of relief and optimism struck him. But then he quickly remembered the pained sadness that Indiru was expressing and sobered up. "In fact it sounds too good to be true. How does this relate to the choice that you keep mentioning?"
"The choice is whether you'd wish to go or not, knowing the price of such a journey."
"What price is that?"
"The price is..."
Indiru trailed off and a look of terrible anguish crashed over her face. It broke Mewtwo's heart to see her like this; she hadn't looked this guilt-wracked and sorrowful even when crying in his arms back in Ven'vha. It took her a few more moments before she found the heart to continue.
"It's a one-way journey. If you step through here, none of us will ever see you again."
Again Mewtwo was rendered speechless by the young Seer's words. She had been just vague enough to leave ample uncertainty about why he'd never come back. He had a feeling that there was a good chance that her vision actually had been quite clear about the reason for it and she was just leaving out the worst details to soften the blow for him. Since his little brush with suicidal ideation was still so fresh in his mind he couldn't help but connect the dots between them. He could almost hear it as a faint whispered voice behind his conscious thoughts.
"The path leads to your death. That's why Indiru won't tell you why you'll never come back, she can't bear to describe it. You'll die and the temporal correction will fix everything. They will have better lives but they will have never known you and never will..."
Mewtwo was dead silent as the impact of all this sank in. Indiru sensed his anguish and drew up the courage to continue speaking instead.
"I know you well enough to know that you won't turn a blind eye to a choice like this. The selfless side of you will drive you to go, no matter the cost. That's why this was my choice too. I chose to tell you despite knowing that you would go, and... for that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Seeing Indiru's sorrow was enough to snap Mewtwo out of his dread-filled silence. He knelt down in front of her and forced back his fear long enough to attempt to reassure her.
"Hey, listen. I didn't go to all this trouble to save everyone just to abandon you, ok? Whatever is waiting for me inside this tree, I promise you it won't be enough to make me even think about leaving you and the others behind permanently. And if I have to face some sort of deadly threat, I can damn well guarantee it can't be any worse than Darkest and his cronies. I'll be back eventually, even if it takes awhile. I promise."
Indiru smiled at this, though it was a profoundly bittersweet smile. It communicated a potent cocktail of emotions to Mewtwo without the need for a single word. It told him that she believed he was being sincere and she deeply appreciated his bravery and resolve, but she also knew that it was tragically futile regardless. That was the sorrowful smile of a little girl giving her best friend one last goodbye. His blood ran cold again as he realized the stark, undeniable truth in it. She really had foreseen his death. He really was going to die if he left. A smaller, instinct-driven part of Mewtwo's mind began to rail violently against the prospect, while that same other little dark corner of it began to whisper again.
"Regardless of the form or nature of whatever is beyond that tunnel, it's either going to kill you itself or it will force you to come to grips with the truth of the fact that you have to die to prevent Darkest's genesis. Either path leads to the same end, your future is decided."
Mewtwo angrily gritted his teeth, resenting his own mind for forcing him to continue thinking about this. Fortunately he was then given a distraction from it all, as Indiru reached down down to dig in one of the pockets of her robes for something.
"Before you go, I want you to have this."
Indiru then produced a small folded piece of parchment and held it out to Mewtwo. At first he thought it was just another scrap with a map on it to guide his journey just like before, perhaps with some additional information like the password she'd also given him. But when he unfolded it he saw something else entirely that struck him totally speechless again for a moment. It was a drawing that Indiru had made for him, and not just a drawing of a map. The lines were drawn in simple black ink with one of those ballpoint pens stolen from the Sulaaq and it was colored with dyes derived from local flowers found around Ven'rakúl. The lines and coloration were just as flawed and unsteady as could be expected from a child her age, but Mewtwo hardly even noticed that. To him this was a treasure that surpassed the Vatorsa Spear and stood side-by-side with Kalana's amulet. It depicted Mewtwo and Indiru sitting together side-by-side atop that same old Alchemist's shop in Ven'vha. It was night and the two of them were drawn facing away from the viewer and craning their heads up to stare at the starry night sky together. They were holding hands, and Indiru had written a single bit of text along the bottom edge. Just like the map she had given him before, this text was made specifically for him to read by using common words, just transliterated into Gerudo lettering. It said "I'll Always Be With You."
"I didn't want you to only remember me as just the bearer of bad omens who sent you down the road of suffering. I wanted you to remember me as a friend." Indiru said softly while Mewtwo was still looking at her work.
Mewtwo had to move the drawing a few inches further away from himself to avoid it getting wet as tears began to stream down his face and fall between his arms. "Oh Indiru..." He began to say, but choked up too much to continue.
Instead of saying anything else, Mewtwo folded the drawing back up and pulled Indiru in to a tight, long-lasting hug. Neither of them had any other words to say in that moment, but neither of them needed any. He held her there as the emotions washed over him, and after a moment he felt some of his own old memories unlock and come bubbling up to carry him off for a fleeting moment. He was a kitten again, barely three feet tall and untouched by all the cruelties of the world, save for the one unfolding before him. He was floating in an empty, dark, starry sky, alone save for the tiny figure of a green-haired little girl who was floating a few feet in front of him. She was giving him a similar smile to the one Indiru had just given him, laden down with the crushing burden of bittersweet sadness. Tears were also rolling down Mewtwo's cheeks in this memory too, and the figure of Amber spoke to him.
"Don't be sad Mewtwo. You're going to live, and life is wonderful."
Then Amber faded away into nothingness, followed by the starry sky around them. The memory itself ended on a similar fadeout and Mewtwo was back in the Lost Woods with Indiru still held tightly in his arms. He still felt like that same lost kitten though; he was facing down a dark unknown future and would have to do it alone just like before. With all those layers of pride and confidence in his powers stripped back he realized that he'd always been that same lost kitten who'd never had the wisdom and warmth of a parent to prepare him for the harsh truths of life. All he'd had to hold onto as a substitute was his psychic power, and more recently his Gerudo friends. He didn't want to lose them. He didn't want to face the darkness by himself again and he was deeply, deeply afraid. But he couldn't bring himself to bring anyone else along with him after what had happened to Kalana. He knew that Madiri, Nereti, and even Kurala and Q'diri would proudly march into the depths of hell itself alongside him, but he wouldn't be able to ever forgive himself for leading them into it. He would not add a single additional soul to his X+80 count. The Gerudos would not become this timeline's Sarienne, even if it cost him everything, including his life.
It was then that Mewtwo suddenly felt a growing resolve begin to take shape in his chest. He would wouldn't walk quietly into the dark unknown, especially after staring down his own blade and turning his back on it. Maybe Indiru really had seen his death, and maybe all her other prophecies had been true before too, but Mewtwo did know one thing for sure. The fate he'd made when he faced down Darkest had not fit any of the possible interpretations of Mireth's ancient prophecy. Neither the Doomseers nor the Hopeseers had been perfectly correct. That meant that even the greatest prophecies weren't flawless and there was still room for him to reshape his own destiny. The Gods, whatever they truly were, may have had their plans for the shape of his timeline, but as long as he still drew breath he would never stop fighting to forge his own path. If there was anything Darkest had ever said that he could agree with, it was that he would always be the type of person to make that last Hail Mary play. And now, that next Hail Mary play was to step through that tunnel alone and do whatever it took to make a better life for his friends. If he had to face down the Grim Reaper, Yveltal, or whatever the Hypalians called their own god of Death, then he'd spit in its face just like he'd done to Darkest. Amber probably wasn't seeing the future when she told him that he was going to live, but he was determined to prove her right anyway.
Mewtwo's train of thought was finally interrupted when he felt Indiru starting to shift in his arms. He must have been lost in thought a lot longer than he had intended. He released the hug and glanced down at her drawing one more time before carefully tucking it into a pocket on the inside of his cloak while wiping his eyes.
"Thank you Indiru, I will treasure it more than all the Rupees and gold in the world."
In a flash of blue light he then teleported them directly back to Ven'rakúl. They arrived just outside the doorstep of Mewtwo's home and Indiru suddenly looked shaken and confused. She glanced around the well-lit city streets and shot him a deeply worried look.
"Wait, what? Aren't you going to go?"
"Yes, but I couldn't just turn and leave on the spot. I need to gather my things, and the last thing I wanted to do was leave you stranded alone deep in those woods in the middle of the night."
"Oh, that reminds me. Don't bring the Medallions with you!" Indiru said with renewed urgency.
"What? Why not?" Mewtwo asked.
"The vision included a warning against it. Gods, and I almost forgot that part too! It was just as indistinct and non-specific as the goal you would seek though. It didn't show me what would happen, just implied something absolutely horrible would happen if you brought the Medallions with you. You can still bring everything else, just don't take any of the Medallions."
Mewtwo furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side as he chewed over Indiru's warning. He didn't like the idea of giving up such potentially vital sources of power when facing down the unknown by himself, but he also trusted Indiru implicitly by this point. Feeling resigned to his fate, he released a sigh and nodded his head. "Very well, I will leave them behind in my home. But I will still bring my spear at the very least; it was vital during the battle with Darkest. But now you should really be getting home."
"Yeah, even if mom never notices my absence, Ciela might. I guess this is goodbye then..."
Mewtwo nodded softly and leaned down to hug her one last time, intending this one to be far more brief. She returned it tightly anyway and drew a deep breath before letting go and turning to depart.
"Goddesses be with you, Heroine." She said as she left.
Then Mewtwo was alone again, left with the pangs of bittersweetness that those words had left in his mind. He turned to open his door and head inside, shifting his thoughts toward what he needed to pack. He decided instead to start by unbonding the Medallions from his soul first, since it was perhaps the most emotionally difficult task. He sat down on his bed and crossed his legs in order to comfortably perform the necessary meditation, and after a few minutes the energy gently suffused up through his chest and departed his body. A pair of soft thumps marked the Medallions materializing and falling onto the bed in front of him. When he opened his eyes he saw that both had come out simultaneously, even though he had only really been focusing on one. When he laid his eyes on the Spirit Medallion he got another painful reminder of Kalana too. He could still picture her smiling in relief after bonding to it for the first time out there in the Lost Woods. It was a good thing he'd gone out to find closure yesterday or the thought would have brought him to tears again. Leaving the Spirit Medallion behind felt like severing one of the strongest threads still tying him to her. But he reminded himself that he still had her Amulet and the thought gave him the strength to move on. He dug the Shadow Medallion out of his pack and then placed it with the other two, then wrapped them in his bedsheets and gently tucked them under his bed. Perhaps it wasn't the most secure hiding place for them, but he knew he couldn't take them over to the Chiefs without giving away his plans to leave.
Next Mewtwo began to gather his belongings. He started by strapping the Vatorsa Spear to his back, then he placed Kalana's Amulet in the same inner cloak pocket that held Indiru's drawing. He hesitated when he came to Hadara's dagger; he had complex feelings about the weapon since it'd been used in both Kalana's death as well as Darkest's. Some deep-seated intuition told him that he might need it though, so he caved in and strapped it to his hip. He then stuffed his knapsack with dried rations given to him by Zuriel, as well as two Red Potions and his old Gerudo Language notes. He also took a couple of grenades and a small silvery laser pistol that had also been given to him by Zuriel, making sure he had at least three fully charged battery packs for ammunition. He hesitated again when he came to the small leather Rupee bag containing the last few Rupees given to him by Madiri and Ruisa. Thinking about Madiri was renewing the guilt he was feeling about leaving without telling her goodbye. He knew it was wrong to slip away into the night without a word like this again after all they'd done for him. After he packed the Rupees away he decided to do the same thing he'd done back when he and Kalana had left Ven'vha: he would leave a goodbye note that explained everything. Once he had packed everything he fetched a blank sheet out of his notes and began to write.
"To everyone in Ven'rakúl,
It is with a heavy heart that I must once again steal away into the night while everyone sleeps. Just as before, I do it not because of some rift or rejection between any of us, but in the name of the greater good. Indiru has once again delivered a vision to me that I cannot ignore, and it calls on me to venture out into the unknown just as before. This time however I will face the risks alone. After what happened to Kalana I will not allow anyone else to follow me into harm's way. I do not know the true nature of the dangers ahead of me but I know at least this much: they are truly perilous and may require many weeks, months, or even years for me to overcome. I know that the same sense of selfless sisterhood that drove you to follow me before may make you want to follow me again, but I must humbly request that this time you refrain. Kalana and I fought so hard-"
Mewtwo had to pause there for a moment. This was a lot harder to write than he had expected and the sadness was causing him to lose focus. A teardrop rolled down his face and fell onto the parchment, smearing the ink of the last word he'd wrote. He did his best to dab it up with a tissue and tried to resume.
"She made the ultimate sacrifice to save everyone's lives and I ask you not to throw any of those lives away. If you truly do respect me as your brother then I beg of you to respect this request. No-one else should ever die on my behalf. I would also ask that none of you harass Indiru about the vision she had that sent me on this journey. The mere act of telling me about it wracked the poor child with guilt and grief, as she believes she has sent me to my death. I trust you all to understand that she has bore more than her fair share of anguish over the last few months and does not deserve to have it exacerbated by throngs of bystanders reopening those wounds with incessant questions. Beyond that, her vision was vague and lacked details regardless, which is why I am walking down this path blindly myself, so further questioning will yield you no answers. She has finished playing her part in whatever bizarre plan Nariva has laid out for us and she now deserves the peace of a normal, loving childhood.
But know this; even if Indiru believes that she has sent me into the arms of the reaper himself, I have no plans to surrender to his cold embrace anytime soon. The warmth, kindness, and sisterhood you all have shown me have profoundly changed my life for the better and given me the strength and determination to stand up and face any overwhelming odds. When I came to Hypalia I had already resigned myself to the slow agony of solitude and eventual death in my self-imposed exile. But the selflessness and acceptance of the Gerudo elevated me from those depths and showed me that there was still something left to live and fight for. As long as I still draw breath I will continue that fight, and if the claws and fangs of Darkest himself couldn't stop me, then nothing else on this planet ever will. With Nariva as my witness I swear to return to you someday, no matter how long and hard that road may be. Goddesses willing, when I do return it will be with the secrets I need to bring about an even greater new age of happiness and prosperity to Ven'rakúl. When I do, perhaps there will be enough Hydromelon for all of us to share together, not just the chosen Heroines and Molduga Slayers."
Mewtwo once again found himself coming to a stop. The letter was essentially finished; all it needed was his signature. Yet none of the traditional signoffs he could remember seemed to feel fitting, given the gravity and tone of its contents. "Sincerely yours" was tonally incongruous, and something like "Your dearest friend" felt shallow by comparison. He pondered this for several moments and chewed on a mealy mouthful of indecision until the perfect finisher finally came to him.
"Until we meet again,
-Mewtwo."
Perfect. He folded the letter up gently and then briefly pondered teleporting it to the home of Chief Hadara or the Vatorsa Sisters, but then decided to just leave it on the nightside stand next to his bed. They'd find it eventually when they came to search his home after his disappearance. Then there was nothing left for him to do other than re-check his supplies one last time to ensure he had everything he needed. He realized that he'd forgotten to bring any water and stopped to fill up the camelback that the Guardians had given him too. A part of him pondered floating above the city under a psychic cloaking field for a few hours to see how the Gerudos reacted to his disappearance, but he quickly tossed that idea aside. It'd just be an exercise in emotional self harm, and Chief Lasheera would sense his presence with her magic-sensing gift anyway. No, it would be best to leave immediately before his emotions weighed him down any more and gave him more chances to second guess himself. He closed his eyes and said a silent farewell to Ven'rakúl, and then teleported back to that spot in the forest that Indiru had shown him.
Mewtwo nearly stumbled backward and fell on his ass when he instantly came face to face with the worried countenance of Ciela Lasheera just a few inches from him. The older princess had been thoroughly searching the spot where Mewtwo and Indiru had been standing before Mewtwo had teleported them back to Ven'rakúl. She yelped in surprise from his sudden appearance and staggered back a few feet.
"Sa'oveer! Mewtwo! You scared the poe out of me!"
"Oh, Ciela! I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to be there. Are you alright?"
"Yeah, fine. We really have to stop meeting like this." Ciela joked briefly, but then sobered up. "Seriously though, what's going on out here? Where's Indiru?"
"I just took her back home to Ven'rakúl via teleport. She had followed me out here when I went out on a walk in order to tell me of one of her prophecies."
Ciela instantly looked relieved like a ten ton weight had been lifted off of her. "Oh thank Nariva. I didn't know what it meant when the two of you vanished like that. I forgot you can teleport and thought some other wicked sorcery was at work."
"Well fortunately that isn't the case. I wasn't about to let her walk all the way back home alone; she already pressed her luck enough by following me out here alone in the dark. What about you though? Were you eavesdropping on us?" Mewtwo asked.
"I couldn't overhear what you were saying if that's what you're worried about. I'm here because I secretly followed Indiru out into the woods to keep an eye on her after spotting her sneaking out when she was supposed to be in bed. She's stealthy enough to evade our mother's old failing hearing, but not stealthy enough to get past me. I didn't stop her right away because I know she usually only sneaks out like this when a vision of something terrible and important is weighing on her mind. I wanted to see what this could be. I kept just enough distance between us to not lose sight of her while not alerting her to my presence, and that kept me far enough not to overhear what you two were saying. Then you both vanished and I nearly went into a panic about it."
"Ah, I see. Well it was very fortunate then that you weren't standing in the exact spot where I teleported to. Last thing we needed was to be unintentionally fused together into some sort of Gerudo-Pokemon homunculus." Mewtwo said with a dark chuckle.
Ciela didn't seem to find the idea funny; instead she winced at the thought. Rather than dwelling on visualizing what such a creature would look like, she instead turned her attention back to Mewtwo and noticed all the gear he was wearing. Her expression shifted and immediately told on her as she put two and two together.
"Mewtwo... what are you actually doing back out here now? You're all packed to the gills. Are you leaving?"
Mewtwo froze like a Stantler in headlights; he was caught red handed with no excuses at the ready. He lowered his head and decided to come clean immediately regardless of how hard it would be.
"Yes, but not forever. I'll be back when I've found what it is that I'm looking for."
"And what exactly are you looking for?" Ciela asked.
"I... don't know exactly. Indiru told me, it was something she'd foreseen but she said it was indistinct and vague. But she was certain it would help solve all our problems."
Ciela furrowed her brow as though she was about to impulsively interrogate him about what sort of problems could justify such a prompt and unannounced departure. But then she seemed to remember everything he'd told her that had been haunting him and decided to hold her tongue. Her expression shifted from frustration to sadness, and when she spoke next there was a soft wistfulness to her tone.
"She must be heartbroken then. I should go back to Ven'rakúl to comfort her. But before I do, did you ever manage to find my lost blade?"
Mewtwo shook his head regretfully. "No. I went back to the capital ruins yesterday to search for it, but fortune didn't favor me. I did at least find the Shadow Medallion though. It must have fallen to the base of the tower during the battle and then ended up buried under the rubble when the tower collapsed. It was easy to find due to all the magical energy it emanates constantly. I stowed it away in my house alongside the Spirit and Forest Medallions."
"Aren't you going to take any of them with you though? You might need them." Ciela asked.
"Your sister warned me in no uncertain terms that something horrible would happen if I did. I suspect that you and the others will need them to help defend Ven'rakúl while I'm gone. If a large number of Sulaaq Remnants come here searching for me then you'll need every bit of help you can get. Sure you will still have the Guardians here to protect you, but if the enemy brings a numerically superior force then the Medallions could be enough to tilt the balance back in your favor. They're most effective in the hands of those who can wield magic already, so I'd recommend distributing them to the Guardians or Ven'rakúl's strongest mages."
Ciela nodded solemnly in understanding. "Good idea, I'll pass it along."
A short pause then passed between them as Ciela realized that this was it. Just like her sister before she was lost for a brief moment of silence as she navigated her feelings. Eventually she spoke up again though once she found some words.
"So that's it then? You're just going to go now without saying goodbye to anyone?"
"I have to. You know that some of them will try to talk me out of it. They'll point out how vague Indiru's vision was, perhaps rightly so, and argue that I shouldn't rush off into the unknown so recklessly. Frankly, I'm not sure I have the emotional strength to resist them. I need to go now before they can convince me otherwise. It's for Indiru and Ruru's sake."
Ciela seemed to accept Mewtwo's logic and turned to look down at her feet morosely. One more thought struck her then and she began to speak.
"Then at least let me have my penance for what I did to you by letting me come-"
"With me? No. As much as I fear treading this path alone, you're needed here. Indiru needs her big sister now and you know it."
"Yeah, I can't deny that..." Ciela replied, trailing off with a bittersweet smile.
Another moment of poignant silence passed between them, this time much longer than the last. Neither of them had any words left now it seemed. They were both sick of all the sadness in their lives and they both wanted to say something kind and uplifting to each other instead of goodbye. Ciela's first instinct was to apologize to Mewtwo again even though she'd done so already, but she also knew repetition wouldn't help her feel any better and this wasn't the time to keep trying to assuage her own guilt. Mewtwo's instinct was to give her some comforting platitude or reassurance of his return, but he knew she was already too keenly aware of the potential danger he was walking into and it'd just come off as hollow. Then it finally came to Ciela first and she reached up to put one hand on Mewtwo's left shoulder.
"Before you go, I want to thank you for being there for Indiru while I wasn't. She told me about the kindness and support you showed her during her times of need. It's my fault for wasting a year sneaking around the dunes while she unfairly bore the brunt of mother's trauma. I will learn to live with that guilt while I do my best to make it up to her. You were an anchor of understanding and strength for her and it made more of a difference than you can ever know. You got her through the storm with her mind intact and for that I owe you a debt I can never hope to repay."
Mewtwo smiled a little again and reached up to take her hand in his. "If you truly want to repay me, then go be that anchor for her again while I'm gone, ok? And try to find time to pull in Ruru and include her too. Nariva knows they'll both need it."
"Trust me, by the time you get back they'll both be totally sick of all the affection I'll have been smothering them with. All the magic in the world won't keep me from them."
"Good. And if Ruru complains about it, tell her that I formally appointed you as my temporary replacement in our team of Four Heroines until I return. You can remind her that I saved her butt and she owes me one, and I'd want her to accept you as part of the team."
Ciela laughed softly and grinned from ear to ear. "You have a way with kids, Mewtwo. Thank you."
"Just making up for lost time." He replied, smiling as he thought of Amber and her warmth.
Then Mewtwo knew it was time to go. He wanted to leave on a high note and he couldn't think of anything better than that. He drew his cloak tighter around himself with a sigh and then turned to face the dark opening in the base of the giant tree. It was almost supernaturally dark inside; not even his sharp feline eyes could pierce the soupy veil of blackness. He created a fresh new psychic orb of light to illuminate the passage beyond, but the glow only seemed to penetrate a few feet ahead. He felt slightly intimidated by the resilience of that shadow; it seemed to be almost emblematic of the uncertainty he was walking into. He took his first step inside and suddenly the stark reality of what he was doing hit him. The fear and regret plowed into him like a charging Rhydon. His thoughts came to a jumbling, crashing halt and he stopped in his tracks. He clenched his cloak so tightly in his hands that his finger joints ached in protest. He felt tears again spilling down his cheeks and shakily reached up to wipe them away before Ciela could see. He didn't want to be seen by anyone in this state; he wanted so badly to be seen instead as a pillar of strength. Moreover, he felt ashamed that it was this of all things that was finally breaking his resolve. He hadn't struggled like this before, not even when his life had actually been on the line. He'd willingly walked into the force field trap of Giovanni's machines back on Earth to save his clone Pokemon friends and not even hesitated. He'd stepped into the jaws of the molduga at Ven'rakesh to save Madiri. He'd even faced down Darkest himself and not blinked. And yet here he was, unable to take another step as he was forced to come to grips with leaving his friends. It was perhaps the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life so far, and he felt like a coward because of it.
Mewtwo then finally remembered again what Sumati had said to him earlier. He realized then that perhaps this path of heroism she had suggested wasn't just about sacrificing his own life. He had to sacrifice the things that brought him joy and comfort too. He remembered what Lightest had said about the fight against Darkest never giving her a chance to do anything else with her life and now he realized that he fully understood how she must have felt. He looked up to her for that sacrifice, and those grains of idealistic sentiment at least gave him the will to pick up his feet again and keep moving, but his mind seemed determined to scramble for any other reasons to delay or stop. Now he wished that he could have found the time to include individual goodbyes for specific friends in the letter he had left. There were so many things he wanted to say to so many people back home in Ven'rakúl. He had just enough time to look back and ask Ciela to pass along at least one of them for him.
"Oh, and Ciela, please tell Nereti that when I get back I want to take her up on her offer to teach me that spin dance."
"I will, I promise. Goddesses be with you Mewtwo."
Then it was truly done. He returned to his path and resumed putting one foot forward despite the herculean effort each step took. There was nothing else he could do to put it off any longer. As the darkness closed in all around him, Mewtwo found himself regretting not passing along any other personal messages for anyone else. He could have asked Madiri to be ready for that game of cards she'd promised him, or asked Sumati to have her ballad ready by the time he returned. But if he kept indulging all these thoughts he'd end up faltering and eventually turning back. Then another quiet, dark little thought crept into the back of his mind.
"Indiru is probably right. She almost always is. You're really never going to see any of them ever again."
Fighting off all of these dark thoughts caused Mewtwo's mind to recede into itself and lose track of the world around him as he walked. The all-encompassing shadow continued to resist his light orb's luminescence and he could barely even make out the wooden floor he was walking on. Then he was suddenly jarred back into reality when he put his right foot forward and it met nothing but open air. A shocked gasp rushed from his lips as gravity took over and pulled his whole body forward into the empty void he'd blindly stumbled into. Mewtwo called up his telekinesis to catch himself before he could tumble facefirst into the abyss, and at first this seemed to work just fine. His body glowed a soft blue and his descent immediately halted. But something very strange was going on; Mewtwo felt some sort of inexplicable external force gathering around him that he couldn't quite put a finger on. It was almost like some sort of ethereal presence that his psychic senses could pick up, but it didn't feel like any mind he'd felt before, living or dead.
"Hello?" He called out, but there was no answer.
Mewtwo couldn't tell which direction the sensation was coming from, so he spun around to look in all directions. That's when he saw something so utterly bizarre that he gasped and sputtered in confusion. The ledge that he'd stumbled over and fell off of was rushing away into the darkness above him anyway as though he was still falling. Yet he felt no motion or acceleration, and his telekinesis was working just fine. It was like the entire world was moving itself around him while he remained still.
"What?! Impossible!" He exclaimed in increasingly frightened confusion.
Mewtwo quickly lost sight of the ledge as it accelerated away rapidly. Now he was totally immersed in the all-consuming shadow and the only thing his psychic light orb illuminated was his body. Feeling suddenly terrified, he used his telekinesis to propel himself directly upward toward the ledge at tremendous speed, yet the opening never reappeared. He flew with all the power he could muster, leaving a glowing blue streak of psychic energy behind him, but he found nothing. His powers still seemed to be working just fine, it was this strange limbo that was all wrong. Then a nightmarish thought struck him; was this why Indiru was so convinced that this was a one way journey? Did he just get sucked into some sort of alternate dimension or mythical underworld? Was he dead? He hadn't noticed anything happening that could be construed as death, but then again human history was littered with campfire stories about ghosts who didn't know they were dead. Then Mewtwo saw something that boggled his mind even more. Strange floating lights began to appear out of the darkness beneath him.
By now Mewtwo was streaking through the air at his absolute maximum speed, yet these lights still caught up to him and began to slowly overtake him. As they got closer he was able to turn his head and get a clearer look. They looked exactly like glowing multicolored neon tube signs that humans built in front of garish casinos or sleazy storefronts. They formed crude outlines of familiar faces, symbols, and objects through free floating luminous lines, though they didn't seem to have any actual physical substance to them. It was like a parade of glowing cartoon ghosts out of a Las Vegas casino strip floating up past him. They kept just outside of his reach and gently faded into the ether above him after they passed him. It was what these 'ghost signs' depicted that really gave Mewtwo pause though. They appeared to be caricatures of familiar people and things from his life. He saw the faces of Hadara, Kalana, Kamilia, Indiru, Ruru, and several others. They mingled with depictions of inanimate things, such as the symbol on the Gerudo flag, Gerudo weapons, and even Sulaaq and Guardian weapons. He felt especially disturbed when he saw the faces of Darkest and Lightest in the mix too. It now seemed like someone had read his mind and was taunting him with phantoms of things they had seen in his memories. That is, until new, unfamiliar faces and symbols appeared in the mix. Strange inhuman beings with pale, scaly skin appeared in the floating menagerie, as well as a human woman with long sandy blonde hair, and a human man with short white bangs and eerie, empty white eyes.
It was at this point that Mewtwo decided to hit the brakes on his flying, both to investigate these lights and to stop wasting his psychic reserves. He no longer had the Medallions to keep his reserves topped up after all. Strangely, the lights slowed down to match him, maintaining their gradual upward speed relative to him. But before he could try flying out laterally to chase down and try grabbing one of them, they promptly stopped appearing. All of the currently lingering ones vanished into the shadows above him and the cloying darkness closed back in at full strength. He barely had time to think about what this might mean before a sudden, stomach-turning jolt jerked through him.
It felt as though Mewtwo had been abruptly accelerated downward with tremendous force against his volition. An unfamiliar room with wooden walls abruptly appeared out of the shadows beneath him and rushed up toward him at high speed, prompting him to desperately apply a huge surge of telekinetic force away from it to avoid smashing into the floor at lethally high speed. The strange jerky acceleration he'd felt turned out to be surprisingly hard to fight though. He managed to cancel most of it out but he had had so little time to react that he still smashed into the foliage-covered floor with an unpleasantly strong impact. It was very lucky that he had landed on top of some sort of gigantic, pink, person-sized flower, as it managed to cushion the blow and limit his injuries to mere bruises.
"GAH!" He yelled out regardless, not enjoying the feeling of the landing.
Mewtwo's mind was now on high alert after such an inexplicable experience. He jumped to his feet and used his Recover ability to heal all his bruises while rapidly scanning his surroundings with his eyes. He was alone in this small square room; the only things he could see in there with him were two burning torches on tall stands, a small pool of water, and the oversized flower that he had landed on. There was a single solid, round wooden door in the far wall in front of him, but otherwise he saw no other obvious entrances or exits to the room. He quickly craned his head upward to check where he'd come from and what he saw shocked him and chilled him to his core. There was nothing but a solid wooden ceiling there now. There wasn't even the tiniest little opening that he could have fallen through, nor any visible explanation for what had just happened to him. It seemed that Indiru may really have been right, there was no going back now.
A/N: CONTENT WARNING: This chunk contains more detailed depictions of grief, suicidal ideation, and emotional trauma! Reader discretion is advised!
Well folks, that wraps the ending of chunk 1! It was extremely painful for both Mewtwo and for me as an author to separate him from the Gerudos, but it was 100% necessary for the plot of the story to progress. I damn well made myself cry more than a few times while writing and editing this chunk, but I think it was worth it.
The next few chunks won't be quite as long as this one turned out. The Prologue needed to wrap up a bunch of loose ends that I had legitimately forgotten to tie up in the ending of Desert Wind, and I really wanted to put a HEAVY emphasis on just how horrible the struggle was for Mewtwo to leave the people he cared about. I expect the next few chunks will be a fair bit snappier and more concise, as there will be plenty of plot points firing off in rapid succession and a bit of a shorter pacing will help keep the tone aligned at the level I want it.
Though I will say this chunk was hard enough to write that I'll probably take a 1 month break here to rest my brain again. I do have a good 8K words already pre-written on the next chunk, but I feel another 8K-ish left and I wanna cool my brainmeats off. In the mean time, I hope you enjoyed and I'd love it if you dropped me a comment! It's optional as always of course, I won't guilt or pressure anyone into commenting, but know it will make my day if you do! See you next time!
