"I would rely on anything to win," Mars snapped back. "Anything but taking things seriously, of course."

She felt it then, felt Gardevoir approach from behind even before the mists shifted. Her body moved on its own. Skin bubbled and shifted, tendrils of pink flesh rising from her arms and chest like coiling worms. Time seemed to crawl.

Yes… that's the one step she'd never take. Because if she stopped smiling and cracking jokes, if she stopped making fun of herself and her victims, if for even one second she took all this bloodshed seriously, then… then she wouldn't be any different from that idiotic girl who'd gotten herself betrayed, would she?

Mars closed her eyes and felt the moment as though she were living it. Dark shapes, clouds of dust, a pair of hurt yet empathetic eyes staring up at her, slowly losing their color. Two bloodied hands grasping at each other. A hellish beast flying high above, death standing on top, her eyes a green so cold and uncaring they could have passed for grey.

Siffa had died that day. Something much worse had taken her place.

Mars' eyes flew open. A storm of flesh exploded from her. She threw her head back and drank in the pain, the beautiful pain like a noxious crimson cloud covering her from tip to toe. Forced, uncanny laughter left her lips. Dozens of tendrils jutted all around her like whips, shifting from one shape to the other like a person with a thousand faces, arms becoming legs which then turned into claws which then exploded into eyes and mouths and noses.

Gardevoir's expression twitched. The barest hint of repulsion, the smallest speck of fear. One of the tendrils brushed her arm, making her wince. Unable to teleport due to the loss of concentration, or perhaps too shocked to do so, she lowered her hands toward the ground and let out an explosion of psychic energy that propelled her high into the air, a safe distance from Mars' reach. There she hovered, extending both arms to the side as pulsing spheres of dark light manifested in her hands.

The swirling mass of pink began to retreat back into Mars but she forced it out, instead covering herself with it as though it were armor. Enormous black wings grew from her back. Her legs became long and coiled. The shield that previously rested on the back of her right arm transferred to the left and the other one shifted into a Scyther's blade with incredible ease, as though welcoming an old friend. Her skin opened up in various places throughout her body, eyes jutting out of her shoulders, back, nape and stomach, each one the same cold, furious red as her real ones.

Each piece in place, Mars drew in a deep breath. The transformation was unstable; too much mass spread out toward different places, too many parts to control at the same time. It would all collapse unless she took this seriously.

Or unless she gave herself to it. The red mist, the intoxicating pain, agony and anger she'd been saving up all this time. Saving for the one who had caused it in the first place. Saving it for Shadi.

Oh well, she thought, letting go of the breath. I'll just have to pretend she's her for a minute.

She could live with that. She could live with a lot of things, actually, that was the point.

The ground broke under her feet as she jumped, a shock-wave of air and snow exploding in a circle around her. Mist seemed to part as she flew, as though burned by her touch. She sliced at the air just as Gardevoir brought both balls of energy down on her. A flash of darkness, an explosion of pain. Mars was thrown back, her foe nowhere to be seen. She spun in mid air and extended one of her Hitmonlee legs down, kicking the ground and pushing herself up once more just as Gardevoir materialized in mid air, blades of psychic energy covering her arms.

Mars batted both wings forward in an attempt to dispel the energy but Gardevoir stopped her flight with a sudden jolt, as though pulled back by a string. The tip of the wings missed her by inches. She threw both arms to the side and the energy coating them exploded into hundreds of glowing needles which flew above and below the extended wingspan to reach Mars' body. She swiped at the air with the back of her hand, dispelling most of them with her shield, but couldn't do anything to block the ones that came from below. A gasp caught in her throat as dozens of needles dug into her legs and lower torso, sending shocks of immobilizing pain all throughout her body. The warmth of blood replaced them a second after.

M-more, more! the beast taking over her yelled inside her head. Lead her in a circle; make her spill more blood!

She kicked up but Gardevoir was far gone by then. Her leg uncoiled with the speed of a bullet, crashing against the crown of a tree and burying its feet into the sturdy wood as though it were foam. A light shone above. Hundreds of thin threads of light converging around her location. That horrible whistling in her ears. Mars grit her teeth and coiled that leg again, throwing herself toward the tree just before the energy imploded in her location. The world blurred as she flew through the air vertically, arms thrown back. She batted at the air with her wings in opposite directions and spun herself as she crashed against the trunk, lowering her knees and stabbing the Scyther blade against the wood to keep herself in place. She held her breath, eyes wide open.

The mists stood still. No sounds could be heard other than that of the leaves falling around her, dancing through the air, green cutting into pink. Mars exhaled, then swallowed.

Where…?

Snapping wood. The sound came a moment before the trunk of the tree vibrated and she tensed her legs to jump again, but wasn't fast enough. Gardevoir ran her arm through the back of the tree with the ease of a knife cutting butter, its glowing tip exiting through the other side and stabbing through the eye in Mars' back.

Air left her. In desperation she jumped and sliced at the tree with all her strength, separating the crown from the trunk with a clean cut. The blade phased through Gardevoir. Another illusion. She'd switched places right after stabbing her. Both Mars and the top of the tree toppled back, mists parting with ease before them as they crashed into the ground.

The back of her head hit the snow and her vision blackened for a moment. Her parts moved on their own; wings pushing her up to her knees and other pairs of eyes frantically looking around for any other attacks. Mars herself was too stunned. She parted her lips to breathe, but no air came. A horribly sharp pain throbbed in her back as she got to her feet, dwarfing all the others with ease. She was suffocating.

Lung! Lunglunglunglung!

The mass that formed the eye on her back retreated, closing the wound and forming new tissue where her lung had been pierced. She finally gasped in some air, body shaking. Unfortunately she was forced to gasp it out again as Gardevoir materialized before her and shot a point-blank Moonblast at her face.

She raised her shield but only caught half of it. The explosion blinded her. She felt herself flying through the air, bits and pieces of her breaking and reforming over the stinging burns on her face. Her legs and wings re-oriented her mid flight and she was able to land on her feet before crashing against another tree, eyes flying open with difficulty, their vision foggy. It hurt to keep them open. It hurt to do anything, really, but she was pretty sure that last attack had done some sort of permanent damage.

Oh well.

Gardevoir came at her again, flying through the air, a hail of psychic arrows trailing behind her.

Mars' body leapt forward on its own. She wasn't in control anymore; all she could do was let out a furious scream as every inch of her morphed and twisted and moved in the way it needed to in order to keep her alive. She hated it. Hated being a puppet for someone else, even if that someone was still a minuscule part of her. But she couldn't die. She wouldn't die, not until she found her.

Not until she found the answer to the question that burned deep within her.

Seconds passed. Everything was a blur of color, lights and pain as she zipped through the mists, slashing and blocking and dodging to the best of her abilities, but even that wasn't enough. Gardevoir zipped through the air like a mote of light, like the flash of lighting. Energy poured out from her at an incredible rate, making her glow like a miniature pink sun, the very air bending around her power, the psychic plane breaking and reforming by her will alone. Each of Mars' swings was dodged, each strategy soundly countered. More and more of her blood sprayed the ground beneath her feet, each clash causing more wounds, slicing and piercing more of her skin as she slowly bled out.

Mars fought a monster. The Pokemon's body was weak, her frame so fragile that even a child could break her bones if she allowed them to. But her psychic power was so devastating that such a weakness didn't matter in the slightest. She couldn't be touched. Her strength couldn't be challenged. Mars now knew why her and Asta had been such a terrifying force during the war, why the mere mention of their names was enough to make entire platoons flee on sight.

Another Moonblast slammed into her shield, lifting her feet from the ground. Her vision grew dark. Adrenaline flooding her body, she forced herself to move anyway, slamming the ground with her feet as she jumped straight up.

Gardevoir burst from a cloud of light above her, hovering, gaze set on her. Mars bellowed with rage and stabbed forward with her right arm but the Pokemon slapped it out of the way as though it were an annoying fly. Mars grunted. Both wings batted forward, slicing through the air toward her. Sparks of light showered them as they hit a fake body, an illusion, the real Gardevoir slipping past the extended wingspans and appearing inches from Mars' face.

Time slowed to a crawl. The both of them hovered horizontally in the air, moments from falling. Gardevoir raised both hands and tried to place them against Mars' chest, who simply closed her real eyes and looked through the ones jutting out of her shoulders. The ground under her was stained with her blood in a huge circle, the two of them hovering above the middle. She smiled, knowing that if she wanted to, she could block her opponent's next attack.

She didn't. Gardevoir let out a blast of psychic energy from the palms of her hands and Mars dropped with the strength of a cannonball. Consciousness left her for a few heartbeats. Every one of her transformations dispelled, wings and eyes and sword and shield retracting back into her body as her concentration faded.

Mars opened her eyes, a cloud of dirt and snow rising from the outline of her body. She laid on her back, arms and legs sprawled out, and high above her Gardevoir stood on the air itself, energy coalescing in her hands.

This is it.

Gardevoir fell on her like a bullet. Even if she wanted to react, Mars knew that she wouldn't have been fast enough.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The impact blinded her with pain. The sound of pierced skin and broken bones throbbed inside her head like a second heartbeat, deafening her. Gardevoir stabbed each blade into Mars' open palms, running them through and burying them into the ground below, her knees crashing against the woman's legs with such force that the bones shattered.

"Now, Sabrina. Hold her."

Then came the worst part. An invisible, crushing force fell on her like a mantle made of iron, each cell in her body being pulled inward as though a black hole had been opened inside her chest. She couldn't move. Couldn't blink, could barely breathe and, as she discovered with a rush of panic a moment after, couldn't even transform herself in any way.

"Well, you certainly gave it your best, I suppose."

The mists vanished into the air as though slapped away by a giant hand, ushering forth the roar of the blizzard and the hail of snow to take over once more. Mars tried to breathe in but her head swam with pain. The rushing of the wind was indistinguishable from her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears, a quick, panicked rapport. Through the edge of her vision she saw Asta approach. The real Asta. She walked with her hands in her pockets and a poised, yet smug expression on her face.

She stopped beside Mars, sneering down at her.

"I'd ask if you have any last words, but I know better than to open myself up for a crude insult." She glanced at Gardevoir, lips drawn into a line. "Do it. Take it out of her."

The Pokemon lifted her arms, cupping her hands on top of Mars' chest. The psychic knives remained in place nonetheless, pinning her to the ground.

Her eyes flashed, and Mars screamed.

There were no words. No feeling, no concept of time, no form of awareness or consciousness that could process the amount of pain she felt in those few moments as Ditto's mass was ripped from her flesh. It was nothing like losing a limb. It wasn't even like having an organ forcibly taken out. Mars somehow felt as her cells and nerves were severed with extreme precision, splitting apart like two distinct substances that had been cast together, like two metals that had formed a new alloy being separated once again. It felt like a piece of her soul being siphoned away.

Finally, after seconds that felt like eons, the last of it was extracted. Mars slumped against the ground, numb from head to toe, eyes wide and mouth gaping, a look of utter agony on her face. Above her, Gardevoir held most of Ditto's shifting mass inside a psychic bubble. It struggled to escape, to break its cage, to no avail.

Gardevoir floated up, rising to her feet. The psychic knives dispelled into puffs of light and soon blood began to pour out, not only from her hands but from every other wound in her body. Mars felt no pain. She felt practically nothing, her nerves burned to numbness, but she could tell that there was something wrong inside of her. Her liver and lungs were still pierced. She would die in minutes.

"Send it away, Sabrina."

Gardevoir nodded, then made the bubble shift and vanish with a wave of the hand, sending it back to base most likely. Mars stared at her with faded, glassy eyes. She twitched her head slightly, looking at her right and then at her left with what little strength remained in her. Blood splatters formed an almost perfect circle with them in the middle.

Mars smiled. It was a weak gesture, the edges of her lips quirking up slightly.

"It was a pleasure, Siffa, but we'll be taking our leave. May your death be either painless or–"

"Y-you missed…."

Asta froze midway through turning around, then looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "What did you say?"

Mars met her eyes and smiled a terrible smile of bloody teeth.

"You missed a spot."

It happened in a blink. Every single blood splatter around them began to bubble and shift as though brought to a boil, and then dozens of thin, needle-like spikes shot up with the speed of a bullet. The roaring of the blizzard muffled the sound of flesh being pierced. Gardevoir was lifted from her feet, spikes jutting out of her arms, legs, chest and throat, her eyes wide in shock and pain.

The fake blood began to retreat. Mars jumped to her feet, stepping on her broken legs, every inch of her body feeling like it'd been wrung out and seared, but she shoved all that to the back of her mind and lunged forward, shifting mass forming into a Scyther's blade in her arm.

It was a clean cut. Gardevoir's body slumped against the ground and her head followed an instant later, bouncing on the snow once before rolling back against the roots of a pine tree, blood rushing out of the cut, staining red the white underneath.

Mars breathed out and time started passing again. She dismissed the Scyther arm and used most of the mass to cover up and heal her most critical injuries. A sharp gasp was heard as her lungs were sealed and she was able to breathe again, sensation slowly returning to her body, an all-encompassing, dazing heat covering her from head to toe.

She turned to look at Asta. The woman didn't scream, she simply stared ahead with a dazed, disbelieving look on her face, all semblance of color gone from her expression. There was a moment of stillness and she fell to her knees, almost crumpling into herself. Tears ran down her face.

"How…?" Her voice was less than a whisper. "I… we were sure… Oh god, Sabrina…"

Mars made her neck click, then dusted off the snow and dirt off her tattered clothes before answering.

"Ditto mass transformed into a red, liquid substance, then covered in the actual blood from my wounds," she said, voice raspy and tired. "I had to be careful. Make sure the strings connecting each splatter were the same color as the ground and that the blood itself fell in a circle, all while jumping around and avoiding lethal injuries."

She frowned. Damn, her shirt had been pretty much sliced in half by her outburst earlier. Not like she minded going around bare-chested, embarrassment over nakedness being something she'd never partaken in, but still, she liked that shirt.

"The thing with the bag and fingers was a distraction," she continued. "I made the strings there intentionally sloppy so you'd see through that and think I wouldn't try something like that again. Fool your opponent by making them think you're beneath them, then pull the rug from under their feet." She took a moment to breathe, her expression blank. "Shadi taught me that."

Asta shook her head weakly, the haunted look on her face akin to broken glass. "N-no…the mass, we took it, she took it all away…"

"I told you she'd missed a spot."

Mars rolled back her right sleeve, showing her the space where an arm should have been. A low gasp left Asta's lips.

"It can't… We weren't told…"

"No one knows," said Mars. "I wanted to save the surprise for Shadi, then again…" She shrugged. "It's not like you'll be telling anyone."

That was enough, it seemed. Asta fell back, crumpling into a broken heap of clothes and limbs, eyes hidden by shadows. It didn't look like she'd move again. Mars sighed, then morphed her right hand into a Pawniard's blade. A smaller weapon than she usually preferred. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to form a Scyther's arm any time soon, at least until her wounds healed on their own.

"Oh, by the way…" She smiled, digging into her pocket with her left hand. "The first one was a fake, yeah, but…"

The small bag landed at Asta's feet, opening up and scattering about a small pile of severed fingers, exactly the same as the last ones.

"That one's real. I did kill them."

A broken, agonized sob left Asta's lips. Her whole body shook with barely-contained spasms, her partner's blood pooling near her, slowly approaching.

"W-why?" she asked, looking up at Mars. "Why!?"

Mars met her gaze with her own; cold, deep and completely sane. She didn't smile.

"Because I want to know."

"Know wh–!?"

She buried the knife into Asta's forehead. The woman let out a last, tiny gasp, then went soft as her body fell back into Sabrina's pool of blood, and moved no more.

Mars stared at the bodies for a few seconds, feeling numb. The red of her eyes was faded and distant.

"I want to know what she felt when she did this to me."

----------------------------------------

Shadi dragged her feet across the dark hallway, a tired yet satisfied smile on her lips.

"I've been thinking," she said. "About the concept of glory."

Her steps echoed in the empty building. Slivers of moonlight filtered through the windows at her right, yet most of the place was completely covered in shadows. Despite this, her own shadow was quite distinct from the blackness surrounding it.

It had eyes, for one thing.

"Oh sure, everyone says they want to help out in some way. Make the world a better place. Yet when they're pressured further they always end up revealing that their goals aren't wholly altruistic; this is the part where they claim glory is the only reward they're after, as to save face." She kept her hand in her pocket and walked with a slow, resolute rhythm. "But that's rarely ever true. Monarchs, heroes, Champions, celebrities, they're all the same once you start paying attention.

"Let's say you present these people with a choice. A private choice, one that only they will know about. They can either rise to the top and become a recognized and beloved beacon of greatness, or…" She left the sentence hanging for a moment, tasting the pause. "…they can give up all semblance of fame and legacy in order to stop someone who would become the exact opposite of those who make the first choice. What do you think most would answer?"

She looked over her shoulder, the faded green of her eyes meeting the cold, bright blue of her shadow's. A voice spoke in her head.

"I despise you."

"Right, most would choose the first option. Even if the second would bring more peace and stability to the world, what would the point be if they can't take the credit for that?" She shook her head, though kept her eyes open. "So I can't help but think… isn't that what glory is, by definition? A greatness that has been recognized and celebrated by others? Does that mean that you can't obtain glory unless your good deeds have been publicized and approved of by the general public? Is it possible…?"

She reached the end of the hallway and turned right toward a flight of stairs lined with metal railings. Her eyes stung like she'd dropped soap on them. Letting out a sigh, she finally closed them after an entire minute, one hand taking hold of the railway.

Screams. A cacophony of agonized wails, bellows and whimpers boomed inside her mind, pulsing within it like a second heartbeat, sending a surge of pain all throughout her body.

Then whispers.

"Give up."

"It was your fault."

"Her blood is on your hands."

"The world would be a better place without you."

"It would be easy. Blissful. Follow the path your own hands have carved."

"Die. Diediediediedie."

Her eyes flew open and she gasped in a breath. They didn't sting anymore. Good; hopefully she could go another minute or two without blinking.

"…Is it possible to do something glorious, yet unrecognized or just flat out disregarded as villainy by others? That's the crux of the issue, I think." She smirked, looking over her shoulder once more. "By the way, you're getting less subtle each time, friend. When are you going to realize that won't work on me?"

"I don't care. You will know no peace for as long as you hold on to me. I'll make sure of that."

"Just like you made sure to get revenge on me?"

"I will. Eventually." There was a calm, cold rage in its voice. Controlled. "You will pay for what you did to me and my partner. Once you set me free, I will feast upon your mind and create a world of nightmares for you, from which you will never escape until I'm satisfied."

"Great. Keep at it then," she encouraged him. "The more you believe you can best me in the end, the more willing you'll be to cooperate for the time being."

"I hate you."

"I know."

She began walking up the stairs, her muscles feeling sore and her vision slightly blurry. Sleep would have been nice. Unfortunately, forcing Darkrai itself to bond with her soul meant that she couldn't quite find a moment to rest, lest he took control of her body and forced her to stab herself or something similarly grisly in order to free his soul. It'd taken her a while to find a way around that problem.

Luckily, through a mixture of meditation, drugs and some help from Ludwig, she'd managed to stay awake for the better part of the last two years.

She threw the door at the end of the flight of stairs open and walked into the rooftop of the Eterna Gym building. Nothing but a dark square of concrete. From up here, Shadi could see the city itself unfold around her like the petals of a flower, thin threads of moonlight filtering through the clouds and illuminating the town in patches. Subtle floral scents danced in the air, sour and citric, yet somehow also sweet. She breathed it in, feeling her muscles relax somewhat.

Eterna had always been her favorite city in all of Sinnoh. It really was a shame.

"All right. No point delaying it."

She brought her hand in front of her chest. Shadows began to coalesce around it, forming a deep and shifting pool of liquid darkness that rested in her palm. Slowly, carefully, Shadi raised her hand toward the sky. A single drop detached from the rest and fell upward. It flew for a few moments before touching something vast and invisible, making ripples in the night itself as though it were a sheet of liquid hovering high above the city.

The sky rippled for a few moments, then stilled. Shadi sighed in relief.

"Fourth portal set, three to go," she whispered to herself. "Sunnyshore's gonna be the hardest to set, there's just too much damn light in that place. Not to mention Volkner has pretty sharp eyes. I wish I could set one in Hearthome too, but there's no chance Fantina won't pick up on our presence if I go there. Oh well."

Talking to herself had always been calming for Shadi, in the same way as relaxing on a couch or watching T.V was for other people. She never understood why people thought it was weird. Who better to have as a conversation partner than yourself?

She shook her head, then froze for a moment. A thought came to her.

"Oh, that's right. I meant to ask this yesterday but it must have slipped off my mind." She looked over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "Mind telling me where my little sister is? Cyrus should have captured her by now."