CHAPTER 306 - IT'S SO LONELY HERE

I awoke to the distorted sound of rushing water.

Opening my eyes, the first thing that jumped at me was color. The sky was impossibly vast in a way that was difficult to describe, but it wasn't blue. The heavens were a canvas of ever-shifting color unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It was every single hue imaginable, every mix, every combination one could think of was there in the sky with enough volume to have dread creep up my spine. It was difficult to tell how far away it was from me, too. If I focused my eyes a certain way, the sky looked close enough to touch, but sometimes it looked so far, like I was staring at the firmament instead. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust for me to realize that it wasn't… well, it wasn't exactly real. Like someone had plastered a two-dimensional colorful tarp over the sky and called it a day. There were no clouds, no sun in the sky, nothing to grasp at to tell myself that this place could exist, yet I felt warmth coming from somewhere, just colors instead of a star. The sky was still vast enough to have me shiver, like the world was boundless and so overwhelming, but fake in a very subtle way that you'd overlook if you didn't focus enough.

My entire body felt sluggish. My hands gripped at the ground, hoping to find dirt, but the surface was smooth as metal instead, warm as pavement under the gentle heat of late spring. Rising into a sitting position, this place unfurled before me. Everywhere I looked, the world seemed to pulsate with emotion as if it were alive. Mountains rose like titans of color, their peaks shimmering in the radiant light reflected from somewhere while another was shrouded in darker tones and nearly invisible to the naked eye. Rivers flowed with liquid rainbows, their currents twisting and turning in mesmerizing patterns. To my left was one that dizzied if you looked long enough, and it spread out into a waterfall that fell down into a valley, but it was like everything moved slower here. The water was almost frozen in time, only moving a few inches every second, if even that. Far away— impossibly far away, as if I was somehow looking at something thousands of miles away, enormous pillars of different hues stood, stretching so high into the sky I just…

Just…

How high did they go? I looked on, and on, and on, but they never ended. I'd called them pillars, but they were more like storms frozen in time. If I got closer, I bet I'd see them move, but I didn't want to see what would happen to my state of mind if I was thrown into one of those storms.

This place. It boggled the mind and unease kept crawling down my spine like little bugs or grains of sand were slithering down my back. It shouldn't exist. It was a world beyond my understanding that felt suffocating to be in. It was so beautiful, almost frozen.

Like a painting. Mesprit had always been obsessed with colors, hadn't they?

And God, was it a painting. For one, I didn't fit in, as if I'd been shoved into one of those cartoons Princess liked while still looking like a normal human. Each area I would look at was stylized differently, with strange shapes, textures and… not themes, but… gah, I'd never been interested in art! Louis or Cece would be able to put this into thought far better than I was, but at the same time, it wasn't like there were words to describe what I was looking at. A Legendary inconceivably old had created this place, and it would be a foolish endeavor to attempt to make sense of it.

Instead of an endless void, this was Mesprit's inner mind when they were not dormant, it seemed, and it took a significant amount of effort not to sit and stare forever. It would be easy to. Everywhere I looked, I could get lost in fractals that went on forever, or at least hadn't ended as far as I had looked. There were no voices here, but it was like something was telling me to keep my eyes wide open and bask in whatever this was. I supposed someone who wasn't the shard of emotion would have gotten overwhelmed by this subtle perception to the point of paralysis, and for better or for worse, I'd been given this duty.

And I was on a time limit.

I rose to my feet with a spring in my step, remembering that I wasn't wounded in this dream world or mindscape or whatever you wanted to call it. For a moment, I put weight on my leg— my full weight, and I giggled. The first unnatural sound this place had seen in thousands of years was me and my stupid laugh. It was— it had been so long since I'd been able to do that. When meeting Mesprit for the first time, I'd been too focused on surviving with my mind intact. I technically walked without a crutch now, but doing this was still impossible and holy crap this felt liberating.

Could I run? Mesprit was nowhere to be found, and I needed to cover ground quickly, so it made sense to try. My leg hesitantly flattened on the smooth ground, and then I started… running. There was no wind to zip past my ears here, no need to breathe loudly because my lungs were on fire, but it was real, and I was running! I was running! Smoke and paint burst from my skin, all bright colors that etched themselves in the ground and sky behind me. There was a sense of liberation with each step, almost like I'd been given wings! Every time my foot stomped on the ground, the possibility of me taking flight was there, at the tip of my feet. Legendaries, to be able to feel the ground beneath my feet, just to stomp and not have pain surge through my leg!

This was heaven. This was the magic of movement.

"Haha… hahaha!"

I was happy here, when I'd been gloomy right before entering Mesprit's world. Was it a subtle trick of the mind, or was I just meant to be here?

I jogged, skipping across a few 'stones' lying about the waterfall. I'd never been the most agile girl, but by the Legendaries, I made that river look like a chump. I had no idea what would have happened if I'd fallen in it or if it was even a real liquid or not, but I didn't care. The only thing I could do was laugh and run, barreling down the hill while my arms windmilled at my sides with no direction in mind. My leg was caught behind another and I tripped, rolling on the floor, and I found myself unable to stop laughing. And why even stop? This place was— this place was so beautiful! Oh, how far it stretched! How it showed me colors I'd never even considered before, how they bled into my skin and became me.

Plus, there were no signs of Mesprit anywhere, nor anything I should look for. Maybe those darkened mountains in the distance? They…

Hold on.

Had they moved?

My legs stopped, skidding across the smooth, painted floor. Come to think of it, it was dry, but my clothes and skin were starting to get soaked in color. Yellow, pink, brown and red on my shoes and legs while the extremities of my fingers were turning bright purple, white and a strange, ashy grey that pulsated every few seconds. It was growing ever so slowly, but it was different than the colors everywhere else. It was as if the paint wasn't covering me, but becoming my skin. I blinked as I brought my hand up and saw the paint crawl across it ever so slowly about as fast as everything else moved here.

I couldn't let it cover me. This was… this was a timer. It was strange to know something without any prior context, but that was what it was— the only thing that it could be. But wouldn't my time in here be shorter? The main problem was that Mars was using the Red Chain to take control of Azelf, and I had no idea if this place would have a way to know how long that would take. I needed to act like I had even less time than what this place was trying to show me, because chances were she would Teleport away before I was done here and I'd be pulled away. I had no heart capable of pounding against my chest, but the anxiety was there. It was real, tangible, and in front of my eyes, so solid I could actually grab it, and grab it I did. The stormy cloud shattered against my hand and splattered all over me and the ground at my feet with a small explosion, releasing a pressure I hadn't known had been there, and I was happy again.

This place was definitely drugging me without my consent. Focus. Shard of Emotion my ass, this place was a fucking trap meant to keep you here for as long as Mesprit wanted.

"Ar—Ar—"

Arceus? I couldn't say His name. It was like it was constantly on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't utter it.

"I wish my Pokemon were here," I finished my sentence. They'd keep me grounded, at least. Or Cecilia. I missed her, even though it had only been a few hours. I so desperately wanted her with me in a way that made my heart physically hurt.

My eyes drifted back to the darkened mountain, and I turned… away from it and toward the hill I'd just run down from.

Or at least I thought I did. Everywhere I looked, it was at the center of my vision as if the world itself was forcefully bending itself to get me to look. Witnessing this made no sense and made my head spin, but either way, it had the desired effect. The mountain was the tallest in this world, an oppressive force that sapped me of any joy if I focused on it for too long.

I smiled and made a note to look every minute to center myself and to not get lost in the weeds of this place. Either way, this crushing feeling was familiar. Being this happy for too long felt alien, not that I was incapable of being happy, but the highs just never felt as good as the lows felt awful, lately. Everything had just been recalibrated, somehow.

I looked at my fingers once more. The grey was inching forward ever so slowly. If Cass had been here, they would have been able to estimate how long it'd take to cover all of me within the minute.

There was a pull. Like I was about to be swept off my feet and carried toward the mountain.

I have to go there.

I didn't know when I started running again. One second I'd been standing, breathlessly staring at doom itself, and then the next, the world was blurred around me until making out the ground from the sky was impossible. It all blended together into a torrent of chromaticity that spun around me and overtook every inch of my vision. Until I couldn't make up from down, right from left, save for the looming mountain in the distance. I went so quickly that light bent around me and I couldn't feel the ground underneath my feet.

My hands were covered in gray when I made it, and it was crawling up my ankles too. This mountain— this tower was difficult to describe. The way I craned my neck as far as possible and it unfurled before me like a titan, and how it made me feel like I was falling upwards. This is even taller than those storms. This was a painting, so I could theoretically see as far as Mesprit had drawn. There were no clouds or atmosphere to mask things that were too far, and so I could fully witness how grand it was. How it stretched so far into the heavens it might as well have been infinite. I was a speck, a microbe under its shadow. So insignificant that it took my breath away, and negative emotions pressing down my back weren't helping.

I was supposed to climb this? This was like a Mount Coronet onto itself! I was going to run out of time… the realization dawned on me, and my lips trembled. Is this mountain modeled like Mount Coronet? It certainly had the scale to it, but I hadn't stumbled onto an entrance of any kind and telling was actually impossible. Maybe I was supposed to climb it? It wasn't like this body was real. I'd fallen over earlier and felt no pain whatsoever, could run faster than Honey could in real life, and didn't get tired. Glancing at my hands again, I bit my lip. I was wise to this world's tricks now, and I pushed down the apathy trying to worm its way into my brain. The little voice telling me that it would be pointless to try. Part of me wondered why it and the previous happiness was so subtle. After all, hadn't a dormant Mesprit blasted me with emotion so strong I'd been at their complete whims when I'd met them for the first time? What was with the cloak and dagger? Was it because Team Galactic couldn't use Mesprit's full power? That answer didn't sit right with me, but there was no time to dawdle.

I took a deep breath and started scaling into the malevolent hues. The rocks were streaked with shades of the darkest ebony and midnight blue so dark it might as well have been black. It was like stepping into a void, and it reminded me of Shiftry's darkness. Colors so dark they reflected little light. My hands were like torches each time they were placed onto the mountain, gripping each dark stone, and I threw myself upward with renewed vigor. The more I climbed, the more my thoughts grew morbid. Little voices at the back of my head— my voice, until it crystalized, materialized into a literal solid that weighed me down and tried to drag me back to the base of the mountain. You aren't going to make it. You aren't like your predecessor, Atreus. You're useless, unchosen, only picked through sheer chance. People you care about have died because of you. Justin is dead because of you, and he won't be the only one—

"Fuck you," I snarled.

No more self-doubt. No more moping. I had to do this, come hell or high water. I clenched my teeth, buried my worries and kept climbing, occasionally destroying the miasma of horrible emotions that manifested around me. Given that my body wasn't real, I never actually got exhausted physically, but mentally?

When the gray finished covering my forearm, I reached… a place. My mind was so foggy that I had to sit still for a few minutes to keep track of where I was and what was going on.

This wasn't the summit, I would have needed to climb forever to get there, even at those speeds. Instead, I reached a flattened bit of ground that stretched for miles and miles. I'd always said that this place was wrong, but this one was truly strange. It was like a mishmash of painting styles had just been stuck together to create a whole in a way that made my head hurt, but there was a house in here. A small cabin surrounded by trees that weren't really there, but just drawn into the air. Why the hell would Mesprit know or care about a cabin in the woods? Was it a metaphor for something? Either way, the pull here was stronger than ever and I knew this was where I needed to go. That house? It was real, just like me.

There was an arch I needed to cross to get to the house. I could also go around it, but the world had a way to stretch or contract that forced me to walk through the structure. It was drawn in the same way everything else was, made of a bony white and adorned by traces of gold and green woven throughout the arch. I took a hesitant step forward and heard a gong, or maybe a drum that announced my presence. My eyes grew wet as soon as I made it through, and for a moment I felt like crying for a reason I'd forgotten. It had slipped my mind— barely sticking for a fraction of a second before I'd forgotten. Not grief, but maybe… nostalgia. Melancholy?

Legendaries, this was weird. I sniffled and wiped away the tears.

The answers lay in that house— I knew that to be true. It was the only thing in this damn place that looked like something I might see out of the real world and not some crazed artist's drawing. It was something that didn't fit. It wasn't born of this world or Mesprit's knowing, so it was the only possibility that made any sense to me.

My mind grew clearer and clearer as I approached the cabin until I finally returned to normal, or as close to normal as I could be given the circumstances. Being certain of it was impossible, but my mind was clear and I felt similar to how I'd been before entering Mesprit's mindscape. Out of habit, I tried to release my team before entering the house, but the Pokeballs on my belt weren't real. They were only imagined, just like my own self, and no Pokemon would come out no matter how many times I pressed that button. I placed my head against the wood, trying to see if I could hear anything, but it was deafeningly silent.

"It's not real. Open the door."

Look at yourself, so worried about danger when you can't die here.

It was a simple wooden door with indentations running up and down the surface of the wood. The handle was a little loose when I placed my hand around it, like a simple tug or push would knock it off the door.

It didn't. I slowly opened it, surprised to see it didn't creak at all, and a single room revealed itself to me.

But before I could even notice anything else, Mars was here with Mesprit, sitting on the floor at a coffee table with a cup of tea in her hand while the Legend hovered above it. My body moved before I even understood what I was looking at, my hand lunging for the girl's throat, but it ran through her body and hovered right above the table. I blinked and tried again to wrap a hand around her neck, but she wasn't actually there. This was fake— or maybe not fake, but not something I was capable of influencing, and Mars had the Red Chain with her. Mesprit's eyes were wide open here, but they clearly weren't themselves.

"Mesprit! Mesprit, can you hear me?!" I tried. No response.

"Here's the thing, Munchkins," Mars said in way too casual of a tone while she blew into her cup. "I understand that you've got a duty to the Big Guy, but you made the right choice. Isn't it so sweet to just have a little bit of fun with me?" Her head swayed from side to side. "You haven't been out of this dump for like what, hundreds of thousands of years? More? What's wrong with a little break? A few days tops?"

Frowning, I sat next to the two and let the conversation play out, ignoring how surreal and helpless it felt to watch this unstable girl talk with a literal God.

"Don't push your luck, human! I'm just considering my options, and I've never had options before!" Mesprit spoke. Their voice was duller than I'd grown used to, but the cabin shook as one when they did, color eating away at its edges and dissolving the wood before allowing it to even exist again, which was further proof that this home was… made through Mars. Was it significant to her somehow? There were no items other than furniture here, and for some reason, there was only a living room. It was quite minimalist. "Maybe you should do more to convince me."

"You're already helping her," I muttered in disbelief. Still no answer.

"Munchkin, you're already helping," Mars echoed my statement, sipping at her tea. "Eugh, what kind of drink is this? It's like drinking color— wait where did it even come from? This makes no sense. Anyway, what I was getting at is that… I get you, you know? You look to the Big Guy up top and he barely acknowledges you, if even that." Mars took a deep breath before continuing and placed her cup down. "I know Cyrus doesn't love me, you know? I know he never will, too, but I help him anyway because at least he talks to me. He's real in a physical sense, and he helped me with my memory troubles and actually raised me. But you? You get shoved in a lake for who knows how long, and you're expected to listen to His rules? Where does this guy get off, right?"

"Don't talk of Him this way!" Mesprit cried out. So small. So weak. Yet the Red Chain around Mars' neck pulsated. "All I wanted… all I wanted was…" they sobbed. "It's just so lonely here."

Ah.

I understood now. It had clicked.

The Red Chain was not a 'device' to enslave their minds. It always hadn't sat right with me, that literal Gods were capable of being so easily controlled with the right technology and dedication. It was made to dissolve Arceus' rules that were usually so ironclad, so etched into a Legendary's personality that disobeying them wasn't even a consideration. After that, push and prod at the right weakness, manipulate using the chain, and…

They still had to be convinced in some way, but it made them less concepts and more Pokemon.

Was the real Mars in a world of her own convincing Azelf right now?

"All you wanted was to talk to Him again," Mars said. "Feel the warmth of His words like you must have at your birth. Sucks that He's an absentee father, right? You know, there are way too many of those, it's like, what the hell, right? Where the dads at?"

"If you bring me to Spear Pillar," Mesprit muttered. "If you bring me to Spear Pillar, will you allow me to talk to Him?"

"Oh. Could I do that?"

I screamed again, tried to link my emotions to Mesprit, but nothing worked.

"It is His throne, you useless girl!" the Legend screamed, forcing both of us to cover our ears. Mars paled, crawling back a few feet while I fell to the ground and cradled myself as dread spread through me. "I will call out to Him there and beg for an audience. We will do that instead of your daft plan to end His Creation."

"Th—then sure," the Commander nodded weakly as the chain glowered. "Yeah, you can do that. Totes."

Lie.

There was a subtle way one could tell when I was lying or being untrue to myself. The smile spread across Mars' face was just as bittersweet and full of hurt as mine had been when I'd told my team I was fine shortly after my ankle had been broken in Pastoria. It twitched at its edges and was just a little too wide, just a little forced, because the truth of the matter was, Mars did feel bad for Mesprit's circumstances. And with the chain, Mesprit couldn't tell she was lying about her plan. She had no intention of allowing them to see Arceus— if He would even answer their call in the first place. His whole philosophy was to observe without intervention, but Mesprit wasn't thinking straight. They couldn't. Not after their mind had been altered so much from what it used to be.

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"Fine. But make no mistake, I will be the one in charge! If you try anything, I'll condemn you to an eternity of sorrow in this place," Mesprit warned. "And there's something I must address about people who have part of me and my siblings' powers— wait."

Shit.

The Legendary paused and stared right at me. To have those bright yellow eyes pierce through mine made me want to cower in fear. I didn't.

"She's here. My Shard."

It was at this moment, that Mars noticed me. Or at least Mars' echo. The redhead beamed, giggling as she threw herself at me with a hug. I tried to kick her away, but our bodies just went through each other just as they had before. Mars crashed face-first into the floor, causing the coffee table to rattle and her cup to drop, spilling colors all over the wooden planks and shattering the ceramic.

"Ow. Ow," she groaned. "Wait, it doesn't hurt at all, never mind! Grace! I can't believe you're here—"

"Mesprit! Mesprit, she's manipulating you," I tried. "Look at that chain around her neck! That's the Red Chain you and your siblings warned us about! You have to wake up."

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

Mesprit squinted. "I don't see anything there. Why are you lying to me?"

Fuck. Fuck, they couldn't see it, of fucking course they couldn't.

"If she doesn't have the chain, then how would she have come here?" I asked. I had to find a hole in their logic, anything to get them to realize they were being tricked. "Think, Mesprit. This is still the same Mars! She wants to end the world because her ideals are the same as Cyrus'. She doesn't have a single independent thought!"

"Wait. How are you here, Mars?"

"You invited me, duh! We're pals!"

"Of course. I invited her."

"You didn't—" the grey was crawling up my arms and legs. I had to change strategies. "Damn it, okay. Think of it this way, Mesprit. You would do anything for Him, right?"

Each time I inferred Arceus' name, warmth spread through my throat.

The Legend tilted their head, floating up to me, and I did my best to stand my ground. "Of course, I would. I love Him more than you can even fathom."

"Don't let her gaslight you," Mars said. "She's way too good at it, I know her."

I bit down on my tongue before continuing. I couldn't see the anger building up inside of me here, but I knew it was present. Focus. "Mars would do anything for Cyrus too, and he isn't planning to let you meet your Creator. He's so fucking miserable he wants to destroy the world instead of trying to fix himself or taking himself out on his own."

"Hey!" Mars pouted. "You're lucky I like you! But I can convince Cyrus, Mesprit. Don't sweat the details— GAH!"

I had grabbed a nearby chair and thrown it in her face, and she cried out as the wood splintered across her fake, pale skin. Funnily enough, I couldn't touch her, but the things I threw at her made contact easily. Hearing the wood snap against her was like music to my ears, and I bent down to grab a piece of the chair that had split off.

"Shut the fuck up." I kept beating her, the stick coming down with each word. "Shut. the. FUCK. UP. I'm tired of you and your fucking attitude, like everything is an Ar— a game!" I turned back at Mesprit with a deep breath. "Do you remember when we first met, Mesprit? How important the rules were to you? Do you remember those?"

"The… rules?"

Now we were getting somewhere. I had to hone in on this.

"Yes! And all of the rules were put in place to protect His Creation, right? By going to Spear Pillar, you would—"

There was an impact at my side, but it was without pain. A dull hit that was strong enough to topple me and send me careening toward the coffee table. It split in two from my weight and Mars stood atop of me with one of the chair legs in her hands, grinning from ear to ear like she was having the time of her life.

"That was so fucking cool when you hit me," she moaned, hands tracing down the sides of her face. "We can hit each other all day in here and be fine!" She stomped on my head and I whimpered, trying to cover my head, but her foot only went through me. It was hard enough for the impact to bend the wood behind my head. "Wish I could touch you, though. Like I did at the Power Plant. This is kind of dull. What's the point of it if we can't bleed, you know?"

Arceus, she could still scare me. The way her voice wrapped around my ears and was so perverse terrified me like I was that little girl in her clutches again. I bit my lip, and quickly grabbed one of my Pokeballs, throwing it at her face at full force. She yelped, taking a step back, and that short lapse in time allowed me to stand up.

"When I get the opportunity, I'll fucking kill you and make it slow," I growled.

"Legendaries, I love it when you're mad," Mars wistfully sighed. "I wish we could hang out together more. Isn't this what sisterhood is all about? Wanna describe how you're going to do it? Are you going to pull my fingernails first? Oh, oh, I know! Break each finger!"

My body was on edge and ready to lunge at her once more. "No, you psycho. I want nothing to do with you."

Mars softly clicked her tongue. "Ah, see, Mesprit? She wants nothing to do with me."

"She wants nothing to do with you," they echoed.

The chain pulsed, and I tried striking at Mars again, this time with a sharpened shard of her broken cup, but she just weaved out of the way and beat it out of my hand with her stick. She had better reflexes than me and she could move unnaturally quickly. I'd lost mine when I'd gotten close to the cabin, but she was still so fast.

"And yet we're so similar," she continued. I attacked again to stop her from spewing her poison, but it was no use. When I couldn't catch her by surprise, she would always have the upper hand. The wooden chair leg hit my neck at blurring speeds, and I slumped to the ground, limp. "Doesn't that mean she doesn't want anything to do with you, either? And wait, actually! What is she even doing here?" Another two hits, this time on my back. "How'd you get in here, hm?"

"It's true that she has expressed disgust at my ideas and self time and time again," the Legendary agreed. "She is unworthy and squandered her potential. Champion by happenstance."

"Champion? Oh right, you were gonna tell me something about that earlier, I nearly forgot!"

Shit. Shit. Shit! Would the real Mars get all of this knowledge when this was said and done? Would she figure out that I was a shard? How in the hell was I even supposed to do this when the fucking chain was pulling the strings? When Mesprit wanted someone who was so different from me? Even when I'd met them at Lake Verity, they had said that Mars perfectly encapsulated who they'd wanted as a Shard. I had come into an uphill battle from the beginning, but this was just… unfair. The chain allowed Mars' lies to pass for truth when I couldn't lie, and she was like the damn favorite child among the two of us.

"As I said, she was chosen and has a fraction of my capabilities as Shard of Emotion."

"Oooooh, interesting. Emotional manipulation, sensing, what else—"

"Mesprit, please," I groused, slowly getting up. "Don't let her do this to you. Everything He's made, everything He's done is going to get erased. I understand that you're lonely. I understand that it's difficult, and that I haven't spoken to you much, but—"

Mars rolled her eyes. "Come on. You understand? You, the same person that's swarmed by friends who love her at all times, who has people to support her for every little itty bitty thing?" She laughed, lazily walking toward me. I expected another painless hit, but instead she just tapped wood on the floor. "Don't lie to my little Munchkin like that, Grace."

"And what do you know?" I hissed. "Just because you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back doesn't mean that you can understand a modicum of what being confined to a Lake is like. To only be able to prod and feel at its surroundings and to never be allowed out. You can't compare a few years of memory to an eternity."

"That's true."

"But between the two of us, I come the closest, big sis," Mars said, giggling. "Man, I've always wanted to say that!" Her face shifted quickly into a more serious one. "But you know, I've been wondering about loneliness lately. I mean, I have my Pokemon, but I can't shake the fact that there's something about them… like they aren't acting right, and Dusky's been hiding the subject of my memories since I woke up in that dumpster. And people? I don't have any of those."

The grey was up to my shoulder and chest, now. "Boo hoo, so what? I don't give a fuck about your pity party, Mars. Mesprit, you—"

"Let her speak. You'll get your turn, Grace."

Damn it, I did not have time for this!

"Saturn's a whining wacko who thinks I'm too unserious, but hey, honestly I think he's the obnoxious one, always taking everything so seriously." She paced around the room, using the wood like a walking stick. "Charon hates me for prodding at his dead sister all the time, and not only does Cyrus think I'm too clingy, he can't actually feel anything," she listed. "Juju… Juju's kind of like a fun version of Cyrus. She's the kind of person that's impossible to connect with— truly connect with. She could know you for a decade and she'd still shrug while you die in front of her. Hell, she'd use you as a damn shield too if it meant she could live a little longer! You know, I want someone a little more real. A little more tangible."

"Maybe the reason you can't connect to people is because you torture and kill them all."

"If they can't handle me at my worst, then do they truly deserve me? And if they don't deserve me, then they don't deserve to live either!" she yelled. "Anyway, this is where my pitch comes in. Do you want to be friends?"

"What?"

"Friends first, then siblings, I'm willing to take things slow for you. I follow you on social media you know? I watch your friends' streams every time you appear on them and I wanted to pre-order your merch, too, but they wouldn't let me do that. I'm your biggest fan!"

She wasn't real. She wasn't a fucking real person; who the hell thought like this? The fate of the world rested on our shoulders and this was what she was talking about? Really?

"I know it seems crazy, but I'm serious. I think you should join our side."

I laughed. "And why, pray tell, would I do that?"

"Because! Guess what? Your grandmother's dead!"

"Yeah. Okay."

"What? That's it?"

There was guilt, still, but… yes. That was it.

The Commander brought up her hands and stared at the ceiling. "That was so anticlimactic, I was waiting for the right moment to worm that into the conversation. Did you not care about her? Well, whatever, it's just an extra soul for Dusky and it's not like I expected that alone to work. Maybe I should have sent him after your friend's parents, that Denzel dude. Legendaries, his streams are so boring. You should have better friends. Like me."

I swallowed, but knew they'd fled like my own mother. "Mesprit, how long do I have to listen to this?"

"Until she's done."

"They probably weren't there anyway, huh?" Mars guessed. "I suppose I'll have to kill your friends one by one until you change your mind, then, since they'll be available. Maybe I'll start with Cecilia."

I felt cold as blood drained from my face.

"Or Louis! Or Justin— Oh. Oh!" Mars grinned. "That was a weird shift— is there someone else? Did one of your pals already die? Which one? Louis or Justin?"

"No one," I forced out.

"Only a matter of time until we get someone else," she mused. "Just for you, I'll make their deaths quick!"

My fist clenched, and Mesprit finally allowed me to talk. "I don't think you understand, so allow me to make myself clear. You can try and take everyone and everything from me. My friends, my girlfriend, my family— and you sure as hell won't succeed, but I will never join your cause. What you want is total annihilation." I pressed those words so Mesprit could hear, but I was running out of time. "If the opportunity shows, I will end you slowly and make you suffer as much pain as possible for what your Dusknoir's done to people. For what you've done to people…" Mathilda's words popped up in my mind. Dusknoir owned Mars, and the fact that Cynthia had just said she wasn't a human in the flesh lent credence to that theory. Was she one of the souls he'd eaten that he had taken a liking to?

Was she being manipulated? All of her life, she'd been basically groomed by Cyrus and a murderous ghost. Had they been the ones to turn her into what she was? Acting like they'd had no influence on her would be asinine of me.

I'd be sad if I cared. I'd told myself a long time ago, that there would be no second chances for any of the Commanders, and she was included in that no matter what her life had been like. The world would be better off with all of them dead. I knew she was stronger than me, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to go for the throat if she tried killing the people I cared about. I was, frankly, out of goodwill to give.

Mars rolled her eyes. "We'll see about that. It's easy to be all talk, but I'm sure little old me will find a way to make it just right."

"Die in a ditch," I smiled. It was a perfectly amicable one, too, and polite. The kind you'd show at a sponsorship interview. The grey was crawling up my neck. Mars being here was rattling me and making me waste time. "Mesprit, I'll ask again. I'll talk to you more— just like Mira does to Uxie, okay? And you can see the world through my eyes, right? Haven't I been entertaining to you? I mean, I feel you laugh at me sometimes."

"Maybe a little bit. And you live through a range of emotions far wider than this shell."

Shell. I remembered that Mesprit called Cyrus an empty shell, but Mars was one too? Not empty, though. The statement seemed to have rattled her, too, because for once in her life she was shutting the hell up. No, not shutting up. She clenched at her head and kept whispering to herself.

"Shell? No. No. No. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real. I'm real…"

Pleasure coursed through my veins like I'd just been rejuvenated, and I let the savage smile take me. There was nothing quite like this. The feeling of victory over her, of finding what could possibly make her squirm.

"She's just a one-note girl that's trying her best to be interesting to you, but she can't be," I pressed, not shying away from Mesprit's stare. "Sure, she might be fun right now and allows her emotions to always guide her but isn't she just so dull?" I walked around the table, and Mars shied away from me. I wanted to hit her with something, but it'd be best to focus on Mesprit right now. "Always killing, torturing, and so gratuitously, I mean what even is the point, right? One murder is a monumental event, but a thousand? That's boring, and you know it."

I threw another Pokeball at Mars' head with all of my strength, for good measure, and she fell to her side. I knew for sure it hadn't been strong enough for that, but her body was totally limp.

"Where's the grit? The struggle? Isn't it more fun to be with me? To live with my inner conflict, my moral scruples and to laugh when I fail to be the person I want to be or to grumble when I succeed?"

"I… what is happening?"

"You know, I'm a big fan of movies and shows. Always have been. It allows me to live through eyes that aren't mine for a moment— to be transported into another world. I'm telling you that watching a show where the protagonist never changes, always does the same thing episode after episode gets boring after a while." I pointed a thumb at Mars. "I couldn't imagine being stuck with a girl like her. She doesn't understand change because she's not human. And Humans are His sacred creation, aren't they?"

"Right. She is a shell. A puppet capable of independent thought, but only built for a single purpose," Mesprit calmly declared. "Mars, I hereby declare—" then, their eyes stared into… into nothingness, like there was something there that also wasn't.

"Mesprit?"

"My sibling is… you have to go."

There was a pull, as if the world itself was sucking me upward. I screamed, my hands desperate to cling to anything to keep me grounded, yet everything I touched dissolved at their seams into puffs of color. Gravity pulled me up through the roof and the little amount of resistance I'd been able to offer just died.

The world around me collapsed, shriveling into darkness, the last thing I heard being Mars' disbelieving words. No, no, no! I hadn't had enough time— I hadn't found the right words, I—

My eyes shut tight, and I breathed shakily. It had been so close. How the fuck could they just kick me out like that? How was I supposed to free them if they could just do that? Damn it. Damn this fucking job, I hated it! I hated this responsibility, hated that I had to see that crazy girl and I'd been completely incapable of harming her.

Lake Valor unfurled around me, and I screamed, falling back on the paved road. In front of me was Dusknoir, wisps of smoke barely visible through the monochrome world he had wrought. There were screams, but the ACEs didn't panic, redirecting their attacks toward the ghost. Lucario grunted, exuding blue light through every inch of his skin. He'd been the one holding Dusknoir back… Maylene and he had saved my life. Hands dragged me back, and I recognized the arms as Maylene's, and holy crap she's strong. She was lifting me like I was a feather. It was almost disorienting, to be back in the real world after spending what felt like hours inside of Mesprit's head, but from what I could see only a few dozen seconds had passed here at most.

The barrier around Mars had cracked, five of her psychics were slumped on the ground unconscious, and she seemed completely oblivious to the conversation I'd had with her other self. I had no idea if me almost convincing Mesprit had something to do with that, but… it didn't even matter.

Azelf was floating high in the sky, around a hundred feet away.

Mars had convinced him using the chain faster than I'd been with Mesprit. Dusknoir was disintegrated by the flurry of attacks and was actually about to die. The ghost could barely hold himself together and Lucario was using some kind of aura prison to keep him still and away from me. Dusknoir's edges shivered and his stomach desperately tried to open, but it was no use. Mars raised a Pokeball and an ACE's Donphan instantly lifted a pillar of earth to prevent her from recalling Dusknoir, but—

My head.

Everything felt so pointless all of a sudden. My body slumped against the ground as Maylene dropped me, but I didn't even register the pain from bumping my head against the asphalt road. It was like I was just… floating there, unable to think. My body felt weightless, and I could barely register the touch of the hot ground against my skin. The only thing I was capable of was staring at the sky and reveling in this feeling of sheer loss. There was a flash of red at the corner of my vision and the shattering of glass— of a barrier, but I could barely pay attention to the sounds surrounding me. It took another ten seconds to be able to think of anything at all.

This wasn't Azelf's work. This was Mesprit's. Not the sapping of willpower, but the imbuing of lassitude.

As for Mars? She was gone, along with Mesprit and Azelf. She'd left her cohort of psychics and grunts here, possibly because she'd needed to sacrifice some to get away unscathed.

Shit.

I'd failed.

"Are you okay?" a voice behind me said. "Sorry I— I dropped you, I just felt totally…"

"Defeated, I got it too," I sighed. Even as a Shard, I hadn't been able to resist… hell, Cynthia had gotten her bearings before I had, apparently, given that she was already ordering people around. "I failed to stop her." My hands hugged my knees. "I fucked up, I'm sorry. Mars was faster than I was."

For a moment, there was silence, and I expected an outburst. "It's… well, I don't know if it's okay, but you tried."

Arceus damn it, yell at me or something! I desperately wanted her to, yet nothing else came except a few ACEs, then Cynthia to ask me what I'd seen. She had relayed disclosing the existence of this Legendary to everyone who had been here to Lucian, from what I understood. There were so many questions they made my head spin, and by the end of it, the League was trying to give me a blueprint for 'next time' I tried to talk to Mesprit if there was even going to be a next time…

I had to fight. I'd said no more moping, damn it, no giving up. There was too much at stake to just put my hands up and give in no matter how much I wanted to. Things were going to move faster and faster from here on out.

Think of it like a battle, Grace. You're behind right now, but that doesn't mean it's over.

Mars had apparently not escaped unscathed. More than half her body had been… destroyed before she Teleported out, though Cynthia wasn't sure it actually mattered, given that she wasn't human. Hell, apparently from how many attacks hit her it was surprising that there was even some of her left. The way it might matter was that it could have her doubting herself like she had in Mesprit's head, and that was a weakness I'd quickly told the League about. A few theories were forming in Cynthia's head, one asking herself why exactly they hadn't made use of Azelf, and instead sacrificed the strength of Mesprit's barrier to blast us with that feeling of defeat and pointlessness. Part of me hoped me having come so close to convincing Mesprit had also helped them breach the barrier, but there was no way to be sure about that. Another explaining Mars' origins, and it involved her lost memory and the fact that Dusknoir might be able to just alter it at will or at least delete certain portions of it he found would do her more harm than good.

But Dusknoir was in his Pokeball right now. He'd been recalled to be saved, and I was sure Mars had questions for herself about why she hadn't bled to death or died from shock. So much so that we weren't actually sure she'd be able to actually pick up the slack and gain control of Uxie. Not everything was lost, after all, and something told me that if Mars still handed the chain to Cyrus, freeing Mesprit from him would be easier than her, given that he couldn't feel anything. They'd hate his guts, if they would even listen. It'd probably have to be another Commander. She might not even show up, really.

"Turns out I've been assigned to you permanently."

The wind swept through my hair and across the Lake. I'd been watching its surface to see if Azelf's absence had changed anything, and it had. The water was less smooth, now. Turbulent, with small waves forming due to the wind, and it wasn't warm like usual. Most of all, it was…

The feeling of willpower, that everything was going to be okay that filled people's hearts when they stepped close to the Lake?

It was gone.

Honey and Princess were at my side, along with Cass who hovered above us. I was petting the fairy's back while Electivire fiddled with his hand, which was now basically back at full capacity. Electricity would sometimes course through it as he practiced his control again.

I turned toward the voice.

"Sorry about that," I shrugged. "I really thought it'd be just for the Lake."

"Nope, it's gonna be for the entire day," Maylene sighed. She scratched her cheek and sat next to me, watching the water. "Well, I guess night, now. Sun's about to set. We'll probably be going into Mount Coronet together with your team of League-assigned ACEs soon."

"Hmhm." I slung an arm over my knee and bit my lip. "Hey, you— you saved my life earlier. Managed to catch Dusknoir before any of the ACEs could. With all the questions and everything, I never had a chance to thank you for that, so… yeah, thank you."

"Meh. Thank Lucario when he's done getting sprayed by Full Restores. I was just doing my job. What, was I supposed to just let you die and doom the world?"

"Yeah. I still appreciate it, though."

"Whatever you say." She shifted in place, her hand clenching around some grass. "You know, Dusknoir kind of attacked you out of nowhere near the end there even though he'd be risking his death. We thought he wouldn't show up, since it was so dangerous and he'd obviously die, or at least we thought so."

"Oh. He only showed himself near the end?" I licked my lips. "Might have been when Mars was having her identity crisis in there. Maybe he wanted to cut the entire thing short… but that would mean he'd know about everything that second Mars was learning in there, and that he was continuously linked to what she felt."

Arceus, how far did this go?

"Huh. I've got to say, their whole thing has got to be the weirdest trainer-Pokemon relationship I've ever seen." Maylene leaned back, using her hands to support herself and stare up at the sky. "Ready for the jump to Acuity? You'll see your friends there. It's our last stand."

"Hm."

"Do you… do you think we're going to make it?" There was a quiver in her voice, like the facade she'd been putting on was cracking. "Do you think this is it?"

"We've got to try, don't we? If I can get another chance with Mesprit, I can— I can get them to agree, I think. I just need enough time, but I don't know if I'll get it. They… connected a lot with Mars, you know? It kind of surprised me when it shouldn't have." My left hand hit the ground repeatedly, gently enough for it not to hurt. Honey grabbed it anyway and kept it still. "I mean, I know she had the Red Chain and that Mesprit normally would never have considered her words, but still."

"You know, I don't really care much for this Legendary bullcrap." Then, she scrambled. "I mean, I'm not telling you to shut up, or anything, I'm just saying that it's, you know, it's a little annoying to have everything depend on these three turds who are so old and powerful, yet have weaknesses that can be exploited. It's like… why even make it this way, you know? If I'm Arceus—"

There was a short exhale through my nose. Not a snort or a laugh, but close to it.

"No, I'm for real! If I'm Arceus, and I'm building the world, then why leave it this way? It's like you're asking for this to happen, and hell, it's the second time it's happened!"

"I'd say something, but I don't want to…" agh, how to say this? "I don't want the consequences to bite me in the ass later. Part of Mesprit's still in my head, even if they aren't paying attention."

"Hey, I'll say it for you. Arceus sucks and he's the worst at his job, and I think someone else deserves a promotion. Maybe me."

My lips tugged at their sides. "No comment."