Sinners: Arc 2

A/N: So yeah, this story hasn't been abandoned!



I've been working on a lot of major plot changes in my outline for the past few months, and now they're mostly finished. I still intend to make smaller, more frequently-updated chapters from now on, but there will, of course, be the occasional monster. This is not one of those monsters, however. I decided to split the planned chapter into two, with this portion being titled "The Demon Dreams", and the next (which will hopefully be finished in the next couple weeks) being titled "The Demon Stirs".



Anyway, enough babbling. This chapter features a certain antagonist receiving a vision of his own...a vision that will clarify just what his fate is.



Or rather, his lack of a fate.



Word count: ~6500 words



*****



Chapter 30: The Demon Dreams







For what seemed like an eternity, there was only darkness. There were shapes moving around in that darkness...maybe his imagination, maybe actual entities trying to breach his mind...but these faded into little more than mist as consciousness slowly and grudgingly returned to him. The last of these images nearly remained in his grasp...something about a castle, a mighty eyeless giant, and an enormous black-winged beast...but like the other images, they slipped from the hand of memory and fell back into the boiling mass of over-analysis and self-deceit that composed a great deal of Kiako Sensiari's mind.



Next came a long period of confusing, feverish delirium that kept him in a constant nightmare of jumbled images and screeching sounds. Many times he believed that he was up and walking through the ruins of Fallarbor...no, he was running, as though pursued by something huge and monstrous...only to be snapped back into reality, the reality being that he was laying broken and defenseless in the dirt and ash. However, even when he was vaguely aware of his true condition, that feeling of being watched never went away. Something was here in Fallarbor, and it was not one of those mutant beasts...no, it was something far more intelligent and far more powerful. Even with the strange veil gone, it prowled the gutted remains of the city, as though searching for prey.



In his moments of near-lucidity, Kiako tried to open his eyes, but he could not muster even that small amount of strength. He tried to prog his body and ascertain the damage, but he couldn't do that either. Whatever had happened to him was far worse than the thrashing he'd suffered at Giovanni's hands long ago...even more vicious than his first encounter with Rayquaza over the seas of Hoenn. He was mangled. Broken. Perhaps even near death. And whatever was stalking around Fallarbor would likely sense that vulnerability. He needed to move himself into cover.



First he needed to figure out where he was. His face felt warm, and behind his locked eyelids he could see an orange glow. Sunlight, most likely. The ash cloud was gone, and considering that he was (apparently) not dead, that had to mean that Rayquaza had succeeded in stopping the eruption of Chimney. Despite only surviving due to the dragon's success, Kiako was nonetheless furious that the Lord of the Sky had escaped his wrath and vengeance. Next time things would be different. Assuming that he lived long enough to ensure that there was a next time.



The city was utterly destroyed, and without any buildings to restrict it, a bitingly-cold breeze blew though Fallarbor, numbing his mangled form. The wind seemed to increase in intensity as that presence drew closer, its soft fluttering slowly becoming a ragged scream...and the glow of daylight seemed to be slowly fading with its approach. No, this was no mere mutant.



[My gun,] Kiako thought, trying to will his remaining arm to move. His fingers twitched against his hip, but neither gun nor holster was there. His clothing was shredded and largely torn from his body; it was quite likely that the gun had been destroyed during his psychic explosion. His Pokeballs were still present and intact, but none of his Pokemon were capable of fighting, not after the vicious battles they'd been through in the past several days. He was physically destroyed, psychically drained, and completely unarmed...and the enormous force was still moving closer.



The gusts had become gales, whipping the ash painfully against his wound-covered body...and then, without warning, the wind died down to nothingness. The darkness behind his eyelids brightened slightly, but it seemed somewhat...off. He managed to slightly open his eyes, and he found that the sky, though clear, was a sickly green-yellow...the color of a bruise. The sun itself was nowhere to be seen, as though there were a filthy layer of film between it and the earth. Kiako had seen a similar sight once before in his life, right before a massive tornado had touched down, but the sky over Fallarbor was completely cloudless.



While Kiako had not known what it was at the time (and he still had many questions about Slash's claims), he had easily sensed the existence of the veil of the Shadow while it hung over Fallarbor. He had sensed its collapse, as well. Whatever this entity was, its aura was different from the veil's. It did not try to seep into him as the veil had, but instead it seemed to push down on him, crushing him, making him feel as if he were being smothered by the weight of it. His instincts screamed for him to flee, but he could not even climb to his feet in this condition, and for the first time since meeting Rayquaza in the skies over the great sea, Kiako began to feel something like panic.



It was so quiet. Deathly quiet. Not a single whisper of wind, despite the near-hurricane a moment ago. The world was dead.



Just as these thoughts crossed his mind, a horrible noise began echoing through the dull remains of the city, startling him into a brief, pained cry. The noise sounded like a dying animal, bleating and wailing, making his hackles rise. He recognized it a moment later...the volcano warning sirens of Fallarbor. Every last siren post that was still standing was screaming the haunting sound into the sky.



[That's not possible. Even if the system itself survived all the fighting and my explosion, the power supply has likely been nonfunctional for some time now. Besides that, Chimney's no longer erupting, and there's no one left to activate the alarms manually. Just what the hell is going on?]



"Well, well. Just look at you."



The voice came from right behind him, and laying on his back as he was, he could not see what was speaking to him. Whatever it was, it was not human, that much was for certain. Kiako could understand the words, but the words were not in the common language, but rather some archaic variant of it. The voice was partly audible and partly telepathic, echoing maddeningly in his mind, and somehow the quiet voice seemed to cut through the agonized wail of the sirens. Kiako froze as the oppressive aura washed over him.



"You do not appear to be in very good shape, my friend." When Kiako didn't respond, there was a brief chuckle. "You should be much stronger than this, Kiako. Much stronger. But perhaps it isn't all your fault. After all, your position in existence is...rather unique."



Kiako's hand trembled by his Pokeballs as the unseen presence took another step closer to him. Strangely, the sound of boots crunching over ash pierced through the sirens, as well. No, this...thing...it was neither human nor Pokemon, neither mortal nor god. It was something in between.



"What are you?" Kiako asked in a broken voice, completely inaudible under the screaming sirens. The entity apparently heard him nonetheless.



"I am...a shadow, I suppose you could say. Not the Shadow, just...a lesser one. A shadow of you."



This statement did little to ease Kiako's worries. "You are...me? What does that mean?"



"To put it simply, I am your previous self...the spark from which your existence was forged. I am dead...long dead...but here, now, in this place where the tattered remnants of the veil still flutter down from the sky, I am capable of making a brief sojourn into your world. You should pay close attention to my words, Kiako, because this is the only time that anyone of the higher planes will actively intervene in your favor. This is the only vision that will be given to you...if you want answers beyond what I will give you here, then you'll have to confront the gods, using your own strength, and take that knowledge from them. Because you're different from every other living thing on this planet. You're...outside. Unbound. Alone."



Alone, Kiako thought to himself. That one word summed him up so perfectly. "Why is your presence so...erratic? I can hardly sense your mind at all. And I can somehow hear you over the sirens."



"Not everything that manifests in your world is fully contained within it, Kiako. Surely you, who has seen so much of the Higher World in your dreams, can understand that. There are beings that are outside of your world...beings so beyond comprehension that humans can only observe the faintest shadows of their presence. I am but one of those beings. Even after I lost everything, I am still leagues beyond the rest of the dead, for whom the journey is fully one-way. Even if only for a moment, and only because of where we are and what has transpired, I am capable of briefly...breaking through the border." The voice sighed. "Although, once the veil is fully dispelled, I will be dragged back into...the place where I must forever linger. There will be no second chance to escape as I have, so I'm afraid that we must make this brief."



Another step closer. Kiako could see a vague shape at the top of his vision...black body and red eyes, and...ragged, somehow. Like this being's body was mauled by something. "My...my shadow, you say? Those bastards kept talking about me harming the world in the past...they wouldn't shut up about it, accusing me of crimes I have no memory of. Perhaps the Gardevoir isn't the only one who's been reincarnated."



"Yes, that's right. Though reincarnation is not the correct word for it. More accurate to call it...echoing."



"Tell me of it."



"There is little time for stories," the shadow chided. "And there is much more important information to tell you, and in such a short time."



Kiako forced a painful scowl onto his face, trying to appear strong despite being utterly defenseless. "I do not care. I will not allow anyone, neither god nor feeble fool, to accuse me of crimes I did not commit in this life. You will tell me of what you did to anger the Great Ones so thoroughly in the past, so I may properly inform them of their ignorance in the future."



The shadow sighed in a melodramatic and condescending tone. "Very well. I suppose you deserve the same knowledge that your enemies have gained. More than a thousand years ago, in the time of the First Kingdom of Hoenn, there were three beings who held the future of the world in their hands...the Princess of Pokemon, the Prince of mankind...and myself, the Seer of Both Worlds, who served as the chief adviser to the great King that you and your organization are so interested in. You'd be wise to ask Giovanni about what he knows, Kiako. You might be surprised at what he's been keeping from you."



Kiako's eyes widened at that comment, but the entity continued speaking before he could get a chance to question its words.



"You must understand that I was not like you, Kiako. I sought recognition, but I did not seek to rule. All I wanted was...to be accepted. And while the King took me in from the streets and spared me from dying cold and hungry, it was...not enough. I knew, you see. I could sense the thoughts of every servant in the palace...every passer-by on the streets...even the thoughts of the so-called Great Ones. They did not trust me. I was a hybrid of human and Pokemon...to them, a freak...and the more the King trusted me, the more the Pokemon of the Kingdom loathed me. And the humans, in their pitiful half-collapsed kingdom on the other side of the continent, would have been no better to me."



The voice seemed to soften, becoming almost sad.



"All I wanted was to make the Kingdom a better place for those like myself. My kind...we were born of both worlds, and yet both worlds forsook us. I advised the King on nearly all matters, but I never sought to install myself in power, because he was succeeding in his work! Slowly but surely, the world was improving for those like me...and yet, with every year that passed, the people around me continued to suspect that I sought something more than mere equality. I heard the whispers in their minds, even when I did not try to prog them...the thoughts that I planned an assassination, or a coup. And I swear to you, such a thought never crossed my mind. Not once."



Kiako shivered at the tone of his shadow's voice. It wasn't threatening, not overtly, but it seemed to dare him to question its sincerity. With his body broken and the world itself seeming to unravel around him, he did not dare to do so.



"However, as time passed, there soon was...something else I wanted. The King's daughter...born from his divinity, imbued with his greatness, and...I wanted her. Not because of her power or closeness to the King, but because she was so innocent. She knew almost nothing of the great war between human and Pokemon, the source of the hatred between the two peoples. She never once asked of my parentage...well, nobody ever asked, not to my face, but they always wondered about it, hoping that the answer would be something that would further 'justify' their hatred of me. But never once did I even hear the thought in her mind! She...honestly accepted me for what I was. Who I was. That is why I fell in love with her. Why I wanted her so badly. Thanks to her acceptance, I grew more confident in myself...I began to ignore the spiteful words and hateful thoughts of the people. Her acceptance strengthened my resolve to change the world into one that would not belittle those like me...a world where the Princess and I could live together, happily and at peace, with no cruel looks ever shot our way."



Memories of the encounter with Slash and the Gardevoir rushed through Kiako's mind. Was this shadow's millennium-old longing for the ancient Princess the source of his confusion during that battle? Did that love 'echo' as well? Was that why his reasoning was so distorted?



"Over time, the Princess and I became friends, and...it was all going so well...but then that damned human prince entered her life. At first I was blind to his true intentions...he seemed to want the same things that I did, to forge a peace between human and Pokemon and usher in an era of understanding and acceptance. We became friends, too. I even introduced him to the Princess, thinking that together, the three of us could succeed at this lofty goal. But it wasn't until much later that I learned the truth...that he had been seducing her for months, preying on her innocence to lure her into his clutches! He did not seek to change the world because he wanted a higher ideal for the two peoples...he only wanted a world where he could fuck her and get away with it without being lynched! His kindness, his love, it was just a shell covering his self-centered heart! And a flimsy shell, at that!"



The innate sense of self-preservation began to scream in the back of Kiako's mind as the shadow's monologue slowly transformed into harsh, fevered rambling. Dead it may have been, but even still, Kiako sensed that it was nonetheless extremely dangerous. Considering that it apparently was his own precursor, who knew what it could be capable of?



"I wanted to tell her about his lies, but when I learned that they were to be mated and married, I...I fled. I could not bear to see them together! By the time I was able to force myself to return to the capitol, it was too late...they'd been mated, and thus the chances of me convincing her that she was being used were all but nothing. The delusion was etched into her very being. Every day I had to watch her being deceived by him, and watch him pretend to give the faintest shit about the cause I had been championing my entire life, just so he could have her night and day! And because of my damned powers, I felt it every time he took her! In their quarters, in the garden, in the great hall when none were around...every part of the Castle became a horrific reminder of it. I could barely stand walking through the rooms where they had...been together. I could not even focus on my dreams of bringing equality to the kingdom, not when I could barely keep from screaming every time I walked through the conference room!"



The sirens began to warp into something monstrous and warbling, and the sky deepened into a venomous green. The ground itself began to tremble beneath Kiako's back.



"I began to drink, to quiet my mind and free it from these dreadful thoughts. But my drinking quickly went from comfort to vise, and in my despair, I could not break free of it. One night, when he was away from the capitol, I had a particularly bad binge. I went to her room, a drunken fool, and I foolishly came onto her...I pawed at her, she slapped me...and I fled in shame. Any chances I might have had to confront her with the truth were lost forever, along with her trust. She would never know that she was being used by that deceitful bastard...that the prince cared nothing for her...and she would never know that my declaration of love was more than just a...a drunken ploy for her body. I knew that the King would eventually learn of what I'd done, and I did not want to be there to hear his regrets in taking a mere hybrid like myself into his home...so yes, I fled my post, along with my dreams and duty. I wandered the world, uncertain of my purpose, my thoughts always returning to the girl who I loved...and to the monster that had corrupted her. Despite all my efforts to make the world a better place, they had cast me out so easily...threw me into the cold, away from the warmth of friendship and love." The voice chuckled humorlessly. "Surely you understand what that feels like."



Kiako did not reply, but oh yes, he knew.



"Since they refused to let me take part in their destiny, I decided that I would forge my own...something grander, and...more realistic than my naive hopes for equality and peace. I wandered a world that was vast, largely uncharted, and full of magic both malicious and benign. And during my travels, I found...doors."



"Doors?"



"Yes...doors that lead to different levels of existence. Other places. Other times. And though the doors I found were all connected to places within our universe, I could see that there were an infinite number of other realms that existed beyond my access...realms that were just as corrupt and tainted as ours. I could see them all, even if I could not enter them...and you know what? There was no paradise waiting! Not anywhere! Even the so-called afterlives were trash! Even after billions of years, nobody in all of the countless worlds had found a way to achieve true happiness. Can you imagine it, Kiako, looking into the myriad universes and seeing not even the faintest glimmer of hope? Countless worlds where people like Quiero, the Prince of Lies, plied their dark wishes on those too weak or innocent to resist them! Worlds where even the gods had abandoned their creations in disgust! Existence...all of it...it was damned, and at last I realized that hope was forever beyond our grasp. It was then that I realized that love, too, was a mere illusion...the mind desperately trying to convince itself that there is a reason to persist. Once I realized that last truth, I knew what I had to do. I knew what my purpose was."



"And what was that?" Kiako asked weakly. He knew, of course. This entity was almost as unproggable as he was himself, but one didn't need psychic powers to read someone who wore their emotions so openly. Despite the incredible power of this...this shadow...it was leaking its emotions like a bucket full of holes. Or, rather, like a monster with huge, gaping, oozing wounds.



"I had to destroy it. Everything. Not just our world, but our universe, and the countless universes beyond it. Existence was...flawed. Damaged. Even the beings that had crafted these infinite worlds were just as flawed as their creations. There was no point in trying to make a world of peace in such a broken existence. It was better to collapse the multiverse into the chaos from which it was forged...the great Nothing and Everything...and hope for a better version to spring forth from the clashing randomness someday. In a way, our goals are not that dissimilar, Kiako. We both seek to break the established order to create a better future, is that not correct? Our opinions merely differ on what the necessary scale of the destruction must be for a...proper cleansing."



"Perhaps." Despite the overwhelming sense of danger, Kiako forced himself to continue. "But perhaps you saw that you were too weak to rule such a complex place, so you sought to destroy everything to alleviate your sense of shame."



Instead of violently snapping at him, the shadow merely shook its head. "Your dream of ruling existence...it's terribly naive. You'll come to see it my way, I think. When you access those doors and look out into the multiverse...when you see the truth of existence, the filth of it...you'll come to see what I did...that nobody can reform it. Reality is fundamentally broken. But one way or the other, you can...fix it. Immolation, reparation...both are within your grasp."



The sirens cut off their wailing as suddenly as they began, though the sky remained the same putrid color. Kiako stretched his fingers, trying to limber up his arm enough to climb back to his feet, but further movement continued to elude him. He wondered if his immobility was exclusively due to his injuries. Perhaps this shadow was restraining him, forcing him to hear it out. When it spoke again, it completely changed the subject. "Extend your senses towards Chimney, Kiako. Tell me what you sense."



Curious, Kiako did as the voice suggested. He cast his still-potent progs at the south, where Chimney's broken remains still smoked and churned with magma and venom. The volcano had previously topped ten thousand feet, and yet now it was less than half of that, as though it had simply collapsed in on itself. Stranger still, while the ground was still coated in ash, the air was utterly scraped clean of it for miles. Rayquaza's work, Kiako supposed. It was reasonable to assume that the Lord of the Sky could have such power. But while the sky was now clean, and the dark veil that had once covered all of northwest Hoenn had been torn to decaying ribbons, there was something else in the air now...something that hummed with power. It was a great and fearsome presence, one that surpassed even Rayquaza's might. Kiako sharpened his progging (ignoring the blinding flash behind his eyes as he did so), and realized that it was not in fact a single power, but many smaller separate presences. While each of these entities was weaker than the Lord of the Sky, they still rivaled lesser Great Ones in power, and that was nothing to take lightly.



"What are they?"



"Your kin, Kiako. They, like you, are not bound to the wheel of destiny. What you sense is only their physical forms...the little pieces of them that extrude into this simple world of yours, the only bits that lesser entities can observe without going mad. They are the leftovers of the Great Chaos that existed in this particular universe before [......] created it. Even he could not erase them from existence, so he sealed them within the bowels of the earth...innumerable beings of horrific power, each of which is capable of bringing devastation to this fragile little mudball. They remain firmly sealed within their prison, only escaping in times of great cataclysm...such as during the battle between Groudon and Kyogre, when hundreds of demons burst forth to prowl over the shattered world. And now, due to the veil's effects, and Rayquaza's actions in destroying Chimney, a number of these beings have escaped. Even during the Tribulation of the old Kingdom, they remained locked away, but now these demons will coexist with humans for the first time in history. History is not repeating itself...it's far, far more malicious than that."



Kiako sensed no deceit from the entity. Demons? The Jirachians and their equally mad competitors often babbled about such creatures, but while Kiako had seen and fought numerous Great Ones during his time with Team Rocket, he had never come across a being that could be described as a demon. He had thought them creatures of legend, but if what this entity was telling him was true, then the world's troubles were only just beginning.



"When you say that I am unbound by destiny...what do you mean?"



Though he could not clearly see the shadow, he thought that he could sense it grinning.



"Once I realized that existence needed purging, I sought out a power to fulfill such a grand task. Unfortunately, neither mortal nor god is capable of transcending fate. Only beings from outside existence can do such a thing...beings that existed long before even [......] hatched from his egg. Those creatures that are crawling from the innards of that volcano are but the least of their host. There is another...a god amongst the godless...an entity that, by its very nature, defies fate and order. It is the embodiment of the inevitability of existence to eventually return to chaos. If I am the shadow of your individual life, Kiako Sensiari, then it is the Shadow of everything...the dark agent of chaos that lurks unseen and unfelt behind the curtains of reality. The antithesis of existence. And during my wanderings, I found it, and it freed me. It unchained me. And, as you are my echo, it unchained you, too."



Kiako's eyes widened as he sensed the truth of his shadow's words. Oh, there was something here, some great and ancient truth. Slash's words of a foul power behind the King's Seal rang in his ears...as did the promise that Kiako had been making to himself ever since he was old enough to feel hurt and pain, that he would find a way to transcend the world's limitations and remake it as he wished.



"It was so frail when I first found it...a tiny little thing floating just beyond the great hallways that connect the universes together. I took it into myself and gave it my strength...my pain...my intent. It was nourished by my will and grew strong again. And with its power at my command, we shattered the feeble Kingdom of old. We broke the backbone of hope, killing legions of their so-called heroes and turning their defeated and dead into soldiers for our cause. My body was eventually destroyed, but the Shadow no longer required a human vessel by that point, and my spirit lived on within its core...and when this great King of Demons slaughtered Miyako, the easily-deceived idiot that I had once foolishly loved, I was relieved to find that I felt...nothing."



The shadow stepped over Kiako's body, and for the first time the sight of it was clear. Its form was that of an older version of himself, with intricate black lines weaving over its tattered skin like haunted artwork. The corruption was not killing it...corruption had become it. Or it had become corruption. It didn't matter. Either way, this...thing...it was as much of a demon as the beings crawling out from under Mount Chimney. Something of this great Shadow had rubbed off on it.



"We failed, I regret to say, because we made our move too soon. The remnants of civilization banded together with those gods that had not yet succumbed to our might. At the cost of everything they held dear, they managed to lock the Shadow away, and I was torn from its core and cast forever into the void of death, separated from its greatness forever. Regardless of what transpires here in the future, never again can I touch its glory. But even with all of this world's effort and all their sacrifice, the Shadow could not be destroyed. It persists. Locked behind the King's Seal, it waits for a new master to nourish it once again. That master can be you, Kiako...if you want it hard enough. I had to struggle to free myself from fate, and even then, I was not...as you are. I needed the Shadow to remain free, and soon after my body was destroyed, I was cast into the void by the combined efforts of the surviving gods of the world. But because of what I did...what I achieved...you, my echo, were freed from destiny's chains from the moment you were forged. You, by your very nature, are what I had to bleed and fight and die to achieve. It cannot be taken away from you. And if someone truly unchained from fate should find and unite with the Shadow...anything is possible. You could destroy the multiverse...rebuild it...abandon it and create another...make doors, destroy doors, rule a trillion infinities for all time...whatever you desire. You can stare [......] in the eye and demand that he yield...and he will. Every equivalent god of every universe will yield, as well. You, Kiako, and only you, can truly rule this...savage reality."



Despite his agony, Kiako could not help but smile at those words. He had known it his entire life. Every time he encountered injustice, cowardice, hypocrisy, and maliciousness, he had known that he could do more than scream obscenities or gain trifling little victories that would begin to fade the moment he died. It was always his right to change the world....to change all worlds...and now he knew why. It was not his destiny...he had no destiny. His life was the very antithesis of destiny! He was free! As long as he had the strength and the will to pursue his wishes, he could have anything and everything! The godhood he had lost could be his once again, and it would only be the beginning!



"Now you understand, my friend...but you have yet to understand all the implications of your freedom. Being unbound from fate is both a blessing and a curse. While it gives you the capacity to transcend all limitations, even those of the highest deities, it also means that, unlike everybody else on this planet, there is nobody watching over you. No forces are trying to guide you. The Great Ones see the fate of the others, and even though fate itself is beginning to weaken as the Shadow grows in strength, fate will nonetheless carry them far." The voice grew cold as it continued. "They see that the four chosen by fate will confront the Shadow in the ruins of Hoenn. The Sunset Prince, the Silver Princess, the Forsaken Child, and the Wrathful God...chosen by destiny, they are bound together by the chains of fate, and they can draw from each other's strength. Whenever the gods can save them without being tainted by the Shadow, they will do so. And while those four chosen ones may still fail...their chances of success are great, if they hurry to this confrontation before the Shadow can regain its true strength. But since you, Kiako, are not bound by destiny, there is no god hoping for your success. There will be no miracles to save the day. Nobody can guarantee that you will even be alive at the end of this great Tribulation, let alone its final victor. You will have to make it happen. If you do not, then you will die here in the dust, and the Tribulation of Darkrai, the Shadow King of Demons, will continue without you. The world will not miss you."



[Darkrai. So that is the name of my future servant. Very well, then.]



"I understand." Kiako glared up at his predecessor and smiled mockingly, much of his fear vanishing as his powers began to return to him. He understood plenty, all right. He had been wrong...despite this being's fearsome aura, it was little more than a ghost. Its influence on the living world was limited to mere illusions, and intimidating as those illusions were, they could not harm him. "And if I die, will I become like you? A fleeting shadow, desperately clinging to memories of your past strength despite knowing that you'll never attain it again?"



The shadow flashed back a disturbingly mocking grin of its own. "No, Kiako, you do not need to worry about that. Beings ruled by destiny...as I was, when separated from the Shadow...they have other worlds to explore. Some have heavens...some, hells...some have new lives awaiting them in worlds strange and infinite. And some, like me, have the Maddening Void, where we languish until the end of time. You see, at the moment of death, the chains of fate briefly snap, and new chains can attach to wayward souls and drag them into other worlds than these. But you are completely unbound, Kiako...meaning that once you die, there is nothing waiting for you. No second chance, no hope of resurrection, no persistence in any form. Nothing at all. You may destroy the afterlives of others, but you can never create one for yourself. Either find a way to live forever...or..."



The voice trailed off, leaving Kiako to realize the impossibility of grasping the totality of nothingness. After a long moment of silence, he noticed that blue was seeping back into the sky, and the oppressive aura of the entity was slowly bleeding away.



"It seems my time is nearly up, Kiako. I hope you remember all that I told you, because as I told you earlier, this is the only reprieve you'll ever get from the higher world. From this point on, you're on your own."



"Fine with me. I've been on my own for nearly all of my life."



"So what will you do? Will you betray your alliances and set out, alone, on your quest for that greatness? Or perhaps you will compensate for your lack of patron deities by relying on those alliances for strength and hoping that they never betray you? While I found that self-reliance was far less stressful than putting my life in the hands of strangers, I can't say that you'd be completely unwise in choosing another path...after all, it is only due to the sacrifice of your Pokemon that you are still alive, and even now two of your allies are rushing to this shattered city to come to your aid." The shadow sighed and shrugged its shoulders. "Perhaps your dream is more pure than my own...but it remains to be seen if you're strong enough to survive and make that dream come true."



The body of the shadow began to fade away as normalcy returned to the graveyard of Fallarbor. The wind began to blow again, a soft touch of coldness running over Kiako's exposed body, but there was something else behind the sound of that breeze...the sound of harsh growling. Clashing teeth. Scraping claws. Beating wings.



"In fact, it remains to be seen if you're strong enough to survive the next five minutes. Goodbye, Kiako."



The entity vanished back to the madness from which it came, and Kiako again found himself helpless and alone. Alone. Oh yes, alone. No gods. No destiny. Just his own strength, and the strength of whatever allies and bonds he chose to make for himself. Would they be enough? Would they become liabilities? Would it be best to abandon them and seek his future alone, as his predecessor had suggested? As he was now, he was barely stronger than a normal human. And, at this very moment, he was barely able to move.



Something huge slammed into the ground behind the range of his vision, something alive and grumbling. The sound of feathered wings accompanied another loud thump to his right. He could half-see this creature...a twisted mess of black lines and several razored beaks, clattering mindlessly together. More of these Nightmares crawled towards him on their bellies, heedless of the ash digging into their flesh and scraping it bloody and raw, and within moments he found himself completely surrounded by squawking monsters, some formerly human and some formerly Pokemon, and others that were utterly unrecognizable. Yet despite his vulnerability, they did not lunge at him and tear him to pieces...instead they seemed to be arguing amongst themselves, and when he progged their minds, he sensed the last traces of some cobbled-together group mind fading away. Now there was only insanity, and in that insanity, he heard two words being screamed amongst the pack of ravenous beasts, as though in argument.



[GOD,] screeched several of the creatures, glaring menacingly at the other Nightmares.



[PREY,] they screamed back at them, slowly prowling towards his broken form.



Kiako found that he could feel his legs, and with a touch of his slowly-regenerating psychic power, he could move them, as well. He climbed to his feet very slowly, trying to ignore the pain of the breaks and ruptures that littered his insides. The Nightmares reacted by drawing closer, their conflicting screams increasing in volume. There was nowhere to run. His Pokemon were all but useless. And while that shadow had said that help was on the way, likely a Rocket recovery team, Kiako did not know how long it would take them to arrive.



One of the beasts charged at him, and Kiako was stunned to find that he recognized it. The creature was once a Lombre, and its body was torn into many pieces, the individual chunks held together by strands of some foul, stretchy substance that had only the barest visual similarity to bone. Its mouth was now a massive sucker, ringed with teeth. Its organs hung from its bisected midsection like rubbery ropes. It moved remarkably fast for something that had been utterly dismembered in life.



And it recognized him, too.



[PREY!] it screamed from its puckered maw, and as a desperate Kiako scrambled for Relicanth's Pokeball, the monster crouched down and lunged at him.



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



To be continued.