#multityped

Just as Zekrom had shattered Kyurem’s ice and the icicles about the freezing cavern--but those shards hadn’t done nothing, and even Reshiram's fire couldn’t prevent all the damage from happening.

Not far off was her brother--impaled by one of many shattered icicles, and clearly unmoving--and the same seemed to have been said for their friend--surely dead, with ice having had struck him in the head--and then there was the poor little stormcloud who didn’t have the mercy of a quick end.  The loathing in her eyes likely did nothing to calm the pain must have been coming from her surely shattered leg.

Ghetsis had no intentions of helping--after all, what good had she done him!?

His mind was long gone from some sense of stability--all he felt was hatred, himself.  Hatred, anger, he'd killed her brother and he still hadn’t satisfied his need for vengeance on the pair of Heroes.  Disgust--though he dared not consider if it was for himself or for her--fear--a whirlwind of negative feeling that made him dizzy.

That made him giddy.

Ah, there was the fear--this was not a situation for him to be grinning in, not to her or to him--but there was still too much light in her.  Too much fire in her eyes--or perhaps too much lightning.  Either way, he was unsatisfied.  She had not suffered enough.  He had not done enough.

He had left his mark on Unova, surely--he would go down in history as its worst villain--but for her. . .no, even everything she’d suffered to get here and upon getting here wasn’t enough.

She screeched as he stamped down hard on her injured leg, feeling already broken bone shift and tear from his force.  But he was not done.

He should kill her, too.  But that would be too easy.

No, this bitch had done him far too dirty for that freedom.  He wanted her to suffer.  He wanted to leave a mark on this child that wouldn’t ever, ever go away, not from her mind or from her body, either.

He wanted to haunt this child’s nightmares for the rest of her miserable, pathetic, less-than-shit excuse for an existence.

He wasn’t done with her, not by a long shot--or at least, not for a few minutes while the Pokémon(N included) handled their own business.  He’d already lost, he knew, but the end hadn’t come yet.

He lifted his cane as he held her leg underfoot, as if it was going anywhere in its current state.  He was grinning, he was cackling, he considered that perhaps he should have disgusted himself sometimes, but pretty little Gray Nox deserved everything that was coming to her for the transgressions she committed against such a perfect being as himself.  She should not have gone and pissed him off, wronged him, ruined him, and then gone lying on the ground to leave herself at his mercy!  Especially not now, not when he had none for her or for Unova or for anything else in the world!

She was horrified, he could tell.  She was screaming more--and she didn’t even know what he had in store for her!  He was grinning, shaking, unable to identify how he felt or even much of what he was doing though he was fully in control of himself, and she, she was crying!  Like the little girl--no, little baby she--

She. . . .

He didn’t feel like he was grinning.  Shaking, wobbling yes, and nauseous--was that excitement or something else?--and dizzy and--

And she was a baby, crying on the doorstep to the place he hid away.  It was not nearly so cold here as it was in the cavern.  She was even more vulnerable and he had already lost just as he had back then, but. . .this was different still.

His grip on his cane loosened, and the staff was dropped, fortunately not at an angle that allowed Gray to be hurt.  He took a step back and stumbled against the doorframe.  He wasn’t laughing or excited or angry like he was in his memory, he was just. . . .

He wasn’t sure he felt much of anything, really.  Anything but sick and tired and weak as he dropped quickly to the floor.

What had been done had been done.  Killing this. . .anomaly in time and space, this tiny little version of somebody he both loathed and felt forever attached to--it wouldn’t change anything today.  Maybe it would change something in the future for himself in some world beyond this one.  But here it would do nothing to kill the would-be Hero of Ideals.  Out from his magic hiding place, Gray would still exist and the past would remain unchanged.  This was no sacrifice to Dialga or Celebi, and this would not make what was now different.  Only make the number of people he’d killed grow by one.

There was no reason to kill this child.

There was an unpleasant bubbling in his gut and a gurgle leaving his throat.  He wasn’t having another stroke, he’d’ve noticed that, but perhaps the memory had stressed his mind and body to sickness.“Help?”  He croaked back into the house, shuddering and heaving and coughing, before eventually vomiting, his body’s attempt at making whatever the bad feeling he was having go away.  Stupid human flesh bag didn’t even know how to care for itself.

Was Gray still crying?  He didn’t know.  His ears were ringing too loud.

The Triad had likely been there a decent amount of time, and he’d probably told them to bring Gray inside, to help him up, and blurs and dizziness and more vomiting later he was cleaned up and in bed again, his cane leaned against the wall.  Disoriented but not feeling quite as sick, he vaguely recalled that he must have asked for Gray to be brought to him, and he held out his arm to hold the now calmed little thing.  He was no longer radiating malice, so she must have no longer felt any particular fear.  Babies were not intelligent beings by a long shot.  Minutes ago he was about to kill her.

It still would have done nothing in the long run.

She was adjusted in his hold until she settled comfortably against his chest.

Killing her would do nothing. She likely wasn’t real, and so neither would keeping her.

But she would be of better use and worth if he considered the future, not the past.

Thought forward, not backwards. . . .

Right.  The end wasn’t there yet.  There was tomorrow and the rest of time following.

Whether she stuck around or not, he had to think about what he would do and not what he had done.  Giving up wasn’t something he bothered to do.

She would help him.  She was and would be too useful not to.

But that did not let her off the hook.