Inyssa's heart dropped at the sight of Mars. This was the second time she'd unceremoniously shown up in front of her and Shadi, but their reactions now were very different from back then. There was no anger or exasperation, just… fear. Inyssa's fingers clung to her sister's arm with even more strength than before, and Shadi couldn't help but swallow hard, a bead of sweat running down her temple.
Frightening was the only word she could find to describe the state Mars was in. Something had… happened to her. It was nothing obvious, nothing overt. Were they in the real world, she probably wouldn't have noticed. But here, deep within domain of those in decay, Mars was in bloom. Her Spirit was a flower of rot, coiling and slithering outwards from her body like tendrils of nothingness, passing right through her body, eating away at flesh and bone, only for them to reappear a second later. It was unmistakably Giratina's influence, but it didn't seem to come from any bond or special power. Mars' soul simply… reacted to this place, like someone bringing a withering plant toward sunlight, when it had only ever known cold and darkness.
What before one might have gathered from Mars' words or actions was now obvious to the naked eye. Something inside her was deeply, horribly broken, and the two responsible for that now stood before her. Inyssa shuddered at the thought. Shadi might have been the one to drive a stake into that soul, irreparably cracking it, but it'd been her who'd done it a second time, shattering it for good.
And Mars knew that. Inyssa only needed to look into those empty eyes to know.
"…Feeling guilty?"
Inyssa actually jumped at that. The uncanny lightness in Mars' voice made her feel like a Glameow whose back had been rubbed backwards with a wet hand. Her grip on Shadi's arm became painful, but her sister didn't complain. She just made an unpleasant sound under her breath that might've been a scoff.
"You don't have to. I'm not here for you, Inyssa." Mars extended her hands to the side, smiling. "I'm grateful to you. Really. You gave me something I'd always wanted. Now I know… what they all felt. My victims. They all died feeling such… excruciating hopelessness, did they not? I'd always wondered… it turns out it really was the same I felt back then."
"I-I…" Inyssa's lower lip began to shake. She was so tired. "I s-shouldn't have…"
"Oh come on, no hard feelings between friends," said Mars, not an ounce of warmth in her tone. "True, you didn't have to make me experience it again and again and… again, until time itself slipped by me, until my mind unraveled and my soul…" Heat rose to her voice after every word, but then she stopped herself, and breathed in. And smiled. "But I told you, I'm thankful. And I'm here to repay the fav–"
"Yeah, fuck that."
Metchi's voice cut through Mars' words. She stepped forward, looking much more taller and protective from Inyssa's perspective. Barry soon joined her. They stood there with their backs to the two sisters, staring Mars down without a hint of fear or doubt.
"Please… please, just leave us alone," Barry pleaded, his face scrunched up with discomfort. The gold in his eyes flickered strongly. He must've been picking up on the emotions welling up inside Mars, which couldn't have been pleasant. "We don't want anything to do with you."
Mars blinked, then shifted her weight to her left leg and rested her free hand on her hip. "Well… isn't that convenient. I'm sorry, is this a bad time? Am I being too bothersome to the people who ruined my life? Should I come back later, maybe fill out some paperwork and schedule an appointment?"
"Funny," Metchi spat out. "But sorry. After you and your Galactic pals chased me down for months to try and kill me, you'll understand if I'm running low on empathy."
With practiced speed Metchi dug into her pockets, and trails of gleaming silver cut through the air as she raised her knives in an X.
"You're not taking a step past me," she said. "I'm taking these two kids and that other asshole back home, and if you or that emo boytoy of yours back there have a problem with that, then just try and stop me. I'll slit your throat without reservation."
Behind her, Inyssa's eyes widened a bit. "M-Metchi…"
"We don't want it to come to that," Barry hurried to say. "No one has to get hurt."
Mars looked from Metchi to Barry, then back at her. There was hesitation for a moment, but then she shook her head and laughed. Her posture was casual, unconcerned. She didn't look ready to fight at all. The man standing behind her seemed insulted by Metchi's comment, however
"E… emo boytoy?" He repeated with a frown.
"Ha. I'm sure you could overpower me easily. I'm not as strong as I was before, and I'm vastly outnumbered," Mars said. "That would be a problem if I intended to fight my way through to Shadi… but I don't. I just need her to come to me."
"…And why would I ever do that?"
For the first time, Shadi spoke. It somehow surprised everyone, like they'd momentarily forgotten she was there, which was understandable considering how pale and unsubstantial she and Inyssa looked. Like they barely existed. The mantle of light protecting them was thin, much weaker than the one covering Barry and Metchi.
"Ah… she finally speaks." Said Mars. "Hey, I'm curious. How was your stay in hell? Was it everything you'd always hoped it'd be?"
Shadi chuckled bitterly. "It felt… just like home, in a way. Far preferable than having to listen to your grating voice, though." She looked from Mars to the man beside her, frowning. "…Hey, Riley. Is that Tulip you've got there?"
Riley raised the sword on his left hand and waved it like a greeting, a polite smile on his face. The woman collapsed over his shoulder did not react. They could barely make out her features amidst the darkness surrounding them.
"Yep. I'm here to retrieve her and the Griseous Orb," he said. "Boss' orders."
"So it did end up back with her… must've been Sanbica's doing," Shadi muttered. "What about the Fourth? Is she…?"
The slight edge to Riley's smile told her everything she needed to know. For the first time since she could remember, an actual, genuine laugh left her lips.
"Figures."
"It's a shame, but what can you do," Riley shrugged. "She had a habit of biting more than she could chew. Reminded me of you, actually."
In the situation she was in, Shadi couldn't quite contest that judgment. She just harrumphed under her breath and looked back toward Mars, still smiling that dead smile of hers. Eager. Expectant.
"...What do you want, Mars?"
The woman raised a curious eyebrow. "Is that not obvious?"
"I know you want revenge. But I also know you're not stupid enough to think you can take on all of us," said Shadi. "If this is your way of killing yourself, then tough luck. You don't matter enough for me to kill you. So kindly fuck off and go somewhere else to die the little, miserable death you deserve."
There was silence for a moment. The curve on Mars' lips froze dead, the look on her face like someone had slapped her across the cheek. Slowly, her smile dropped. And the expression that rose from underneath was one they wished they hadn't seen. A terrible shiver washed over the four of them like a cold wind.
Inyssa let go of her sister's arm, and turned to look at her with a shocked expression.
"S-Shadi… she's…" Despite her exhaustion, a sliver of disappointment showed in her voice. "You're the one who…"
"So what?" Shadi cut her off, tone curt. "Should I feel pity and apologize? She was already an emotionless assassin doll when I found her, it's not my fault she went psycho after I wronged her once. You can't mistreat what's already broken and useless."
"You… say that, even now?" asked Mars, voice cold and sharp. "Even after what you did to Ciro?"
"What can I say? I guess you're just the unluckiest woman to ever exist," Shadi said with a cruel smile. "Everyone you've ever met has used and hurt you, and you haven't known a moment of warmth in all your life. Most people would've gotten the hint from the universe by now, and realized they're better off dead. If that's why you're here, then congratulations on finally reaching that conclusion. But like I said, I'd rather you throw your worthless life away someplace else, where we don't have to see it."
Anger and disgust rose from Inyssa's throat, clogging up her throat and making it difficult to speak. In a way, she should have expected this. She was already pushing her luck far enough; to make Shadi reconsider what she'd done to her own sister had been hard enough. But with someone like Mars…
Metchi shook her head in front of them. "Fucking hell, and I thought I was being cold and dismissive. Got nothing on our fucked up little expert here."
"You're… really the worst," Barry spat out, not even deigning to look back at Shadi. "If we didn't have to bring you back…"
He didn't finish the sentence, but it wasn't hard to imagine how it could've ended. Inyssa felt a pang of pain, but it wasn't like she could refute either of them, so she just looked down at the floor and bit her lip. How stupid she'd been. Of course her heartfelt talk with Shadi hadn't made her a good person just like that. The only thing it had accomplished was to finally make her see Inyssa as a human being instead of a tool for her to use.
People don't change that easily, I guess…
Yet Mars didn't refute anything Shadi said, nor reacted in any meaningful way. She just stood there with that broken expression on her face, staring straight at her as though looking for something. Whatever it was, she didn't seem to find it. Because a few seconds later, she closed her eyes and let out a cracked laugh, letting her hand fall from her hip.
"I figured you'd say something like that. But it's okay."
As she said that, everyone noticed a change in the space around them. A shift in the thick clouds of streaking purple, in the endless horizon of ruin stretching all around them. It felt almost like… a vacuum of air. As though the world of Distortion itself were shaking, being pulled by some invisible force. Above, the slithering streak of nothingness that was Giratina began spinning and shifting violently, its black and red tendrils coiling and unfurling with anxious speed.
"Is that…?" Barry looked up, eyes widening.
"Must be about to happen," said Metchi.
"Yeah," nodded Shadi. "Any second now the portal will open. So sorry, Mars, but if what you wanted was to kill me or have me kill you, then you've missed your window. Good luck rotting in here."
Mars answered that with a wide grin that Inyssa didn't like one bit.
"You've been wrong since the beginning," she said in a singsong tone. "I'm not here to do either of those things. I'm here to… follow your sister's example, I suppose. I've learned so much from what she did to me, you see…"
Shadi snapped to look at her, an uneasy crease forming in her forehead. "What do you mean–"
"I forgive you."
Time slowed to a crawl. The commotion around them seemed to freeze as those three words were uttered, hitting everyone like a hammer to the face, stunning them into silence. Shadi and Inyssa blinked in unison, sure that what they'd heard had to be wrong.
"Ex… cuse me?"
"Shadi and Inyssa… I forgive you," Mars said matter of factly. "I forgive you for everything you did to me."
The two sisters exchanged a quick glance, equally dumbfounded. This couldn't mean anything good. But what could Mars…?
"What are you trying to play at?" whispered Shadi.
"Is it that hard to believe?" Mars asked. "You two look like you forgave each other after all, so why can't I do the same?"
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That was wrong. Inyssa had never 'forgiven' Shadi, but she didn't have time to say that, as Mars kept going.
"You figured it out, didn't you, Inyssa? After all this time… you found a way to break that chain. And all it costs is our dignity. Turn the other cheek I think the saying goes, yeah?" She raised her hands to the side and let out a sudden, inhuman laugh as though she were choking and out of air. "How simple it was all along! But I guess someone as broken as me would have never thought of it!"
Inyssa somehow gathered the strength to drag herself up to her feet, and replied. "You… don't know what happened. If you just want to mock us–"
"Of course not!" Mars chuckled, putting a crackly, singsong emphasis on the middle word. "I already forgave you for everything, didn't I? This chain… forged in misery and bitterness, is so much closer to being broken for good now. All that's left now…"
She raised her strangely pale right arm, finger pointing at them. It hung there as though suspended by strings.
"…is in your hands," she finished, barely a whisper. "What do you say? Do you forgive me… Inyssa? Shadi?"
That question, innocent and innocuous as it sounded out of context, made Inyssa more terrified than anything else Mars had said so far. There was a venom to those words. It might have been the shadows falling over her face, making only those blood-red eyes and that deadly pale arm visible, it might have been the tendrils of darkness coiling around her rotting soul, but Inyssa couldn't get out of her head the mental image that a dense, heavy black sludge fell from the woman's mouth with every word she spoke, swallowing her surroundings with solid hatred. It paralyzed her, prevented her from replying. And so it was Shadi, who clearly didn't see the same danger in Mars as she did, who spoke first.
"And what… would I need to forgive you for?"
The smile that crossed Mars' face just then was brilliant. It was a joy and excitement twisted in ways no human could comprehend, filling her with such totality that they almost burst out from her chest, tinting the dark tendrils around her a pale gold for the briefest of moments. It was a smile of earned retribution. It was a sentence, one Inyssa could read clear as day.
Hook, line and sinker.
"Well…"
Slowly yet with barely-hidden excitement, Mars pulled back her hand and dug into the pocket of her jacket, finding what she was looking for after a moment of rummaging. Her smile widened. Inyssa felt a terrible shiver all of a sudden, like someone had dragged an ice cube across her back.
"S-stop!" she suddenly cried out. The mere act of yelling made her feel lightheaded, but she forced herself to push through it. "Mars, p-please, just…!"
I'm so tired, is what Inyssa wanted to say. Please, leave us alone. Let us go. But the words would not leave her mouth. Barry looked over his shoulder toward her, and that's all it took for him to understand what she was feeling. He took a step forward, next to Metchi, and faced Mars as he spoke.
"You don't have to do… this," he said, trying his best to sound patient. "Whatever it is, we can talk about it back home. We don't have time. So just tell us… what you want. What you really want, not all this… posturing and pretending. Please…"
Metchi scoffed. "I still think we should just kick her off the edge and be done with it."
The smile on Mars' face wavered somewhat at Barry's words. As if someone had brought something spoiled and rotten under her nose, as if someone had ruined her fun. But she recovered quickly, and after a quick chuckle took out what was inside her pocket, and held it in front of her. It was a mostly opaque plastic bag. Round objects could be seen inside, but they couldn't make out what they were from this distance.
Above, the slithering blackness that was Giratina roared, and the entirety of the Distortion world began to shift and swirl onto itself, like water circling down a drain. It was close now. The portal back home would open any second now.
"…What did you promise her, Inyssa?"
Inyssa snapped back to reality, blinking in confusion toward Mars, as well as the plastic bag she held toward them.
"W-what?"
"What did you promise Shadi to make her want to go back?" she repeated. "We both know… there are so very few things she actually cherishes. Only six, if I had to guess. And one of them died a horrible death just a few nights ago, drowning in the depths of Lake Valor, did she not?"
Silence. There was a second of confusion, and then realization started to dawn on Inyssa, much sooner than it did on Shadi. All of a sudden, she felt as though an icy hand were constricting her heart.
"You promised her the safety of the other five, yes?" Her smile grew, like a knife's cut across her face. "But that just wouldn't do. To take that first step toward change for such selfish, materialistic reasons… ah, but you don't have to worry. You don't have to worry one bit, Shadi. Because I took care of it. Now you'll have no incentive to change other than your own altruism."
Mars raised her other hand, grabbing the bottom of the plastic bag, and began tipping it forward. Slowly, the round objects inside slid toward the open top, now facing the floor.
It took until Shadi saw the first two halves, one a bright red and the other a gleaming silver, for her to understand. Her breathing ceased. Her eyes grew wide as plates.
"You asked me what you should forgive me for? Here's your answer."
One after the other, they fell and bounced on the ground with a light metallic clank. Ten hollow half-circles, each as wide as one's palm. Five red, five silver. The Pokeball halves fell into a pile at Mars' feet, each covered in a different shade of dried-up liquid, a different shade of Pokemon blood.
Shadi's gaze fell on them the same way a person fell down a flight of stairs, and her mouth opened ever so slightly, the sound that came out unlike anything she'd ever uttered before. Vulnerable. Terrified.
"No…"
"Sneaking into the League's vaults couldn't have been easier, with all the commotion going around," said Mars, clearly enjoying every word. "Not to mention the state your Pokemon were in. Being in containment for almost two weeks left them so terribly weakened. Even so, they didn't make it easy. I'm guessing they were desperate to see you… at least one more time, and they tried to repel me with that wish in their hearts. It really is a shame …"
The two women's eyes met, pale green against cold, dispassionate red. The next words that came out of Mars' mouth were like a knife straight into Shadi's heart.
"…I hope you can find solace in knowing they fought so, so bravely."
A crack resounded through the air. Inyssa did not know if it was due to the space around them contorting, being funneled toward the portal forming behind them, or if it was the sound of something inside Shadi finally shattering. Her sister said nothing. She let go of Inyssa and took a wobbly step forward, then another. Then, she started to run. By the time the three of them noticed what was happening, it was too late to stop her.
"W-wait. Shadi!"
"Shit! Come back h–!"
A lot of things happened at once, and Inyssa could barely process them.
Shadi hit the rocky surface as she ran, legs suddenly strong, the pain and tiredness from before burned away by a sudden, feral burst of energy. A glow like that of moonlight bathed her skin. The ashen gray of her hair flowed like a trail of smoke behind her, and the black of her clothes looked no longer solid, the inky ribbons of cloth extending from her back like tendrils, ending in burning crimson tips. The endless nothingness, the blood of her and Giratina's domain, coalesced into her. Into the flat of her palm. And from there it stretched and morphed, a malleable shadow forged into the shape of a most hateful weapon.
"GHAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Her scream shattered the world around them, booming impossibly through every corner of…
No, Inyssa realized. This is…
Behind them. She could feel a pressure, a gravitational force just like the one exerted from Giratina, only coming from the opposite direction. That shattering sound hadn't just been Shadi. The portal had opened.
That realization is what brought Inyssa to her senses, drove her to act with a burst of terrified adrenaline, but by then it was too late. Barry and Metchi hadn't realized the portal had opened. Her sister was too far away, barreling at full speed toward the expectant Mars, ready to swing that scythe forged from her own soul. And that strange man…
Wait. Where did he…?
It was too fast, too chaotic. Shadi's scream reached its peak as she jumped, throwing herself straight at Mars, who waited with wide, open arms.
"Now's your chance!" Mars exclaimed, voice barely hearable above the scream. "If you really want to break this chain of despair, you know what you have to do!"
And in that moment before Shadi reached her, she folded her arms inward and pointed at her own chest, a truly deranged grin pulling at the clay-like muscles of her face.
"Forgive me."
The hateful weapon hissed like steam rising off a kettle as Shadi swung it down at Mars' neck, leaving a hazy afterimage of nothingness behind it. Barry and Metchi's screams rang through the air. Inyssa, unable to do anything more, simply raised her hand uselessly toward her distant sister and let out a silent plea, a choked sob.
A sudden movement, a trail of gleaming silver, and the distinct squelchy sound of cold metal digging into living flesh. And just like that, it was over, as fast as it had begun. Silence. Cold, dead silence. And not a second after, a voice broke it, though no one present could tell who it had been that spoke.
"N-no..."
The plea fell on deaf ears. Far away, further away than she'd ever felt before, Shadi blinked in what appeared to be shock, her previous expression pasted onto the muscles of her face like a mask. She looked down at the source of that wet, unpleasant sound, and spluttered out a gasp.
Something long, thin and silvery was stabbed into her stomach, so deeply she could feel it coming out the other side. It took her an unreasonable long second to realize it was Mars' right arm. The one she'd taken from Shadi herself so long ago, now morphed into a weapon to kill her. From there, Shadi looked up, toward her own hand. Her wrist had been ceased, Mars' fingers gripping it tightly, and the curved blade of her scythe had been stopped mere inches from the woman's neck.
"…A-ah…"
Ideally, there was more Shadi would have liked to say. But she could not. The blade inside her stomach was forcefully pulled out, and her wrist released. Shadi stumbled back, arm falling limp at her side, the weapon of darkness going out in a puff of smoke.
In one last burst of consciousness, Shadi tried to look over her shoulder, toward Inyssa, but she barely moved her head a few inches before all strength left her, and she collapsed onto the ground like a puppet cut from its strings. It was a dry, echo-y sound. One Inyssa was fairly sure she would remember for the rest of her life.
"T-that can't…" Barry's voice was thin, brittle. "N-no way…"
"...Shit."
"S… Shadi?"
The sound that came from Inyssa's mouth, if one could even call it a voice, was small and heartbreaking. A wave of despair seemed to emanate from it, bathing everyone around her.
Everyone but Mars, of course. The red-haired woman was looking down at the blade she'd formed in her hand, like one would examine a dirty knife after using it to cut steak. After a moment she just shrugged, and turned it back to normal. When that pale arm reformed, it was still deeply covered in her sister's blood.
"What a shame."
Mars' words dug into Inyssa. They lit something inside her chest she'd thought extinguished, a strength for only those utterly exhausted of strength. The same that had fueled her sister just now as she'd thrown herself at Mars, attempting to kill her. And Mars knew this. She turned around, stepping on the slow-forming puddle of blood at her feet, and extended her arms once more, this time looking straight at her.
"What about you?" she asked. "Will you forgive me… Inyssa?"
Inyssa opened her mouth, but the roar that resounded through the world of Distortion was clearly that of the freshly-opened portal this time. It was so loud Barry and Metchi finally noticed. Their necks clicked as they looked over their shoulders with panic first, then something almost like relief.
It was like someone had cut off a piece of the primordial cloth that made up this world of nothingness, like a piece of ice breaking and sinking over the surface of a frozen lake. And the sound it made was indescribable. A crawling crackle, like millions of tiny appendages of energy tearing at the fabric of reality itself, keeping the rift open. It was the sound of two magnetic opposites being slammed together.
But Inyssa did not hear it. She didn't even see it, unaware that the portal had opened, and because of that she didn't see what happened next. Metchi opened her mouth to say something. Most likely to tell them to hurry over to the portal while she retrieved Shadi, but her words were cut off by a sudden… no, three sudden bursts of light. Three golden comets, they shot out of the portal toward them like heat-seeking missiles, one bursting ablaze with auric flames, another zig-zagging through the air like a bolt of lightning, and the last one sweeping forward like a violent gust of wind.
"Is… are those…!?"
It was an instant, magnetic reaction. The comets of light slammed against their backs, phasing through cloth and skin and bursting alight inside their chests, joining the small part of themselves that already existed there.
Barry gasped. Metchi groaned at the sudden burst of light and heat. The golden mantle of light enveloping them, protecting them from Giratina's influence, suddenly flashed brightly as its power was renewed, fueled by the near-limitless energy now residing inside them, alongside…
"M… Mesprit?" Barry asked, voice thin, unbelieving.
"Holy shit, is that… is that you, Azelf?" Metchi whispered.
"The one and only, foolish boy. It is good to be reunited again."
"Hmph. What a useless question, is it not abundantly obvious?
They both felt a strange tingle in their eyes, and reached to touch their temples in surprise. That golden hue that had covered them for so long was burned away, revealing the original colors underneath, brown and blue, respectively.
…And that familiar green as well, in Inyssa's case, paler and greyer than they had ever been before. Yet she didn't notice the change, nor the sudden presence inside her soul. A familiar voice boomed in her head, but the words made no sense to her, as though they were from a different language.
"Inyssa!" Uxie yelled, relieved and ecstatic. "I… I am so glad to see you safe an–"
To Uxie's credit, it only took it a moment to realize something was terribly wrong, and it was hard not to. Nary a second after returning to Inyssa's soul, it turned against her. That pale, misty landscape that was her mind had been twisted, shattered like a mirror, and from the cracks emerged a darkness in long, coiling tendrils that reached for Uxie as soon as they noticed it.
"Wh-Inyssa? What is…?"
A simple glance into her memories gave Uxie the answer. The legendary being froze, lost its voice for a moment, and that's all the time the darkness inside Inyssa needed to take hold of it. To constrict Uxie like a Seviper would its prey, and start draining its power.
"N-no! Inyssa… Inyssa, listen to me! Don't… agh, don't let what happened with Pyxis happen again! Do not give yourself to it–!"
But Inyssa did not listen. Wordless, expressionless, she reached for the new source of strength inside of her, and constricted it for all it could give her. The mantle of light around her grew brighter, and brighter. Barry and Metchi, who'd been momentarily distracted by their companions' return, looked back toward her and immediately realized something was wrong.
There was no longer an Inyssa where the girl had previously stood. Only a pillar of burning, furious golden light and the shapeless shadow inside, vaguely resembling the silhouette of a girl.
"NISS!"
A second they were both reaching for her, for any part of her in an attempt to stop her, and in the next they were blinded by a burst of light. Force slammed like a hammer against their entire bodies. They hit the floor violently, and by the time they opened their eyes not even that thing that had taken over Inyssa was there.
It was much, much further away now, shooting like a bolt of lightning toward Mars.
"NO!" Barry bellowed, horrified.
But nothing could have stopped it. The coiling mass of shadows that used to be Inyssa let out a broken, dismaying scream that boomed like thunder, and threw her hand toward Mars' face. The woman didn't move. Didn't try to resist or fight back like she had with Shadi. She simply stood there, closed her eyes and formed a tired, yet satisfied smile.
It was erased a second later when those shadowy fingers closed like vices against the skin on her face, and every ounce of Uxie's power was discharged through them.
There was a scream, but in the blinding light of thunder and the deafening roar that followed, no one could've said who it came from. The world of Distortion burst alight for the first time since the dawn of eternity, a gargantuan pillar of golden light cutting it in two as it rose higher and higher from that small platform, its source that young, insignificant girl whose rage had been solidified with divine power, turned into a weapon powerful enough to light up Chaos, if even for the briefest of instants.
And then, it was gone. The light and the power and what little life remained behind Mars' eyes. Only the girl remained.