#rs chapter

The Second Cycle - Mulake

Grimm shared in the child’s memories.

There was more to it than just seeing. While he did look through its eyes, he could not describe it as simply viewing. Whenever Pyre brought the child back to the camp, its experiences came flooding back to him like a tidal wave. Every little scratch, every touch, the whispered words, the affection. The spell that bound the child to the charm also bound the charm to Pyre.

Their lives were woven together, kindling to flame and the ash that remained in their wake. He was terribly attached to the hybrid already. Sparring with him was going to be… an experience.

And they had an audience.

Pyre did not seem to mind. He looked very calm as he stepped into the makeshift arena. It was a particularly large grassy field that the Troupe had helped clear out the night before at Grimm’s suggestion, so that the grass was shorn short for ease of viewing and any rocks lingering around were removed to avoid unintentional injury. Pyre had shed his usual cloak in favor of bracers that protected his arms and legs, and a chestplate in crimson that matched Grimm’s own natural coloration. He’d brought with him an elegant nail inlaid with a webbed pattern that brought to mind a damselfly’s wings; the engravings ran from the pommel all the way to the tip, giving the optional illusion of angles to the shape. It was a curved longtail; that, it seemed, was Pyre’s weapon of choice. Grimm did not fight with one at all. He was not that kind of fighter. He was a magician. But Atlas was trying to teach him to fight without the use of his flames.

Against Atlas, that was going terribly. Pyre, he hoped, would prove to be another story.

“Are you sure you do not want to arm yourself?” Nightshade asked him. She had a new set of daggers in sheaths at her side; she held one out for him to look at. “Atlas is adept at forging; he’s been –”

“He is?” Grimm asked, puzzled.

“Yeah,” the moth answered. “He’s been making weapons for all of us. He made Marra the most wicked scythe I’ve ever seen. Alula has a long nail, Atlas has his axe – that thing’s heavier than I am, by the way – and he even gave Reed some daggers like mine. He’s been teaching Mist to use a staff, too. Mist doesn’t really like blades.”

Making weapons for everyone but him, it seemed. He’d known Atlas used an axe, although he’d never bothered with weapons when fighting Grimm. He rarely needed to. He had the physical advantage.

He handed the dagger back. He had a staff, made elegantly by Marra, but he considered it to be more of a show piece than something for actual use. He’d be devastated if it was damaged in combat. All he actually used when sparring was his claws. Maybe he should learn to do more, but it was a rather redundant thought right before a sparring match.

“He never told me he was a smith,” Grimm observed; he glanced into the group assembling around them. Every Troupe member was present, but what fascinated him the most was that Mist was perched near Fae and ignoring everyone else entirely. And he had something over his head: a piece of filmy fabric held in place by woven bands around his mask. “When did our butterfly become so fond of the flashier twin?”

“Fae’s been teaching him about butterfly culture, actually,” the moth hummed. “Pyre gave him that veil. Apparently, there is a lot about butterflies we did not know.”

Did not remember, more like.

He knew, instantly, that veils had significance. The memory came flooding back, unbidden: wearing veils was a social symbol among their kind. Different colors denoted different things. Black was, traditionally, mourning, but adorning it with gems meant that the wearer was of considerable status. The twins did not wear veils, despite being half-butterfly, but clearly, they knew the importance of them.

He did not often think about such things. Who they were before the Troupe was of no great consequence to Grimm. They were his people and he was fond of them as they were. It should have occurred to him, though, that Mist would want to know more about where he came from. Especially since they were both the very last butterflies left in the world of that particular tribe.

Grimm would speak with him after the fight. Not just because he wanted to know what Fae was teaching him, but he also wanted Mist to know what memories he had from Luster. That had felt like a forbidden topic for so long, considering how young the butterfly was when he’d joined them, but…

Not anymore.

Mist was not young in truth now, and he would never be old, either.

“I like his veil,” Nightshade continued. “He’s very fond of it. It belonged to their mother, the twins. Pyre seemed to like that it was going to someone who would take good care of it. That it would be worn for eternity.”

That fit. Pyre was a sentimental creature.

“Speaking of him,” the moth continued. “He brought back the little one. It’s mean of you to send the baby away. Do you not realize how cute little-you is?”

He knew. He even agreed, strange though it might have been for him to admit.

“It is better,” Grimm told her.

“How is it better? You are a part of this family, you jerk. You need to remember that.”

It was better because he wanted to be more than he was. He wanted to be a thing apart. He wanted to learn from others, to take in their experiences, to –

To what?

To fix the holes in his heart, ever glowing like his eyes? To fix who he was, in hopes that he would become someone more worthy of the love that people offered him? Perhaps. Or maybe he was projecting. Maybe he just wanted to look into the mirror and like the person looking back at him.

(Time. Time would give him that.)

“Root for me,” Grimm asked of Nightshade; he twitched his tail and smiled behind his mask. “Your husband beats me up often enough. I need something to assure me that I am not totally hopeless.”

“Atlas says you’ve improved.” She looked at Pyre, then turned back to say, “Greatly. He keeps talking about wanting to fight you in the Nightmare. He says he feels like you are crippled here, even with your magic.”

That was eerily close to how Cross had once described him and, inadvertently, it dug deep into an old wound. There was a time when those words would have paralyzed him. He did not think Cross would ever be a wound that fully healed. He saw the snail in everything. But Grimm was surprised to find that while it did feel a little like being slapped, the sharp ache to his heart faded. Atlas was not Cross, and Atlas meant it as a compliment, in his own way.

(And Atlas hadn’t given up on him, either. Stubborn moth.)

“If I manage to win, I will grant your husband’s wish,” he told her. “I will let him find out what it is like to fight the real me.”

“Can I watch?”

His tail playfully undulated to the side. “Perhaps.” But likely not. He did not like disrupting dreams, but he would make an exception to challenge Atlas in the Nightmare. He wanted to let him see exactly how right he was… because he was correct: in the real world, he was crippled, bound by mortal laws, tied to a physical form. He was not physical in his own world. He wasn’t anywhere close to crippled there.

He'd enjoy that fight immensely. But only if he managed to win. Only if he managed to prove that he could. Otherwise, what was the point? To lose to Atlas, as he had so many times before? No, thank you.

Grimm turned and crossed the field. The clearing was good enough for a normal spar. Pyre met him in the middle of it, and the child left the hybrid’s shoulder to fly over to him. He held one hand up and stroked its wings before sending it to settle on Nightshade’s lap (Complain less, moth).

“Are you sure that you are up to this?” Pyre asked him. “Iris told me you’ve been taking her venom. If you are not well…”

How sweet.

“I assure you that I am fine. Do you intend to use magic?” Grimm hummed, turning his head to the side. At Pyre’s nod, he said, “Then I will, too.”

“I would hope so.”

“Are you ready, my friend?” Grimm asked, with Pyre nodding again, and then he offered a flourishing bow, one wing spread at his side. “Then dance with me,” he purred. The lilt in his voice was impossible to miss. Musical.

He did so like to put on a show.

Pyre did not bow back, though he did hesitate (as though considering doing so – perhaps he’d never seen anyone bow in combat, considering that he had so little experience in it in a less life-or-death situation?). He launched forward with a slash, and Grimm teleported away with a soft ‘pop’ – which was perhaps not the most charitable response, but he was not about to be hit while he was being polite.

Rude, Pyre. Very rude.

He reappeared on the other side of the hybrid, who had whirled to meet him. Pyre raised his nail to parry Grimm’s clawed slash and then struck downward. Grimm danced out of the way of it and swiped again, and –

There was a tempo to it, wasn’t there? He’d called it a dance, and fighting was a dance. One-two step.

(Did practicing with Atlas have a similar flow? You slice, I slash. You back up, I step forward. I retreat and you close distance. Was it always like that?)

The sound of metal hitting his claws was loud. They reverberated and felt numb to him. He needed to get better protectors for them if he was going to use them in physical combat, he realized.

Slice. Parry. Scratch.

Rhythm. There was a melody to each movement and he hummed quietly to himself to match it. Pyre no doubt heard him but did not question what he was doing – which was kind of him, as Grimm did not know.

What he did know was that Pyre failed to dodge one of his attacks, and his claws ripped through his shoulder nastily.

Lost the tempo. Fell out of step. The next two hits landed soundly: one-two scratch.

(Give him a minute to get up.

Would a real opponent? No. But it wasn’t a real fight.

He’d drawn hemolymph first.

But he wanted to win. He wanted to win.

He wanted to win fairly. Give him a minute.)

Grimm scurried backwards, giving Pyre more space. The hybrid leapt back to his feet and then –

Threw his nail across the field. That was unexpected. Grimm dodged out of the way of it, only to be sliced on its return as magic propelled it back to its owner. He felt the wound gape in his side over tender scar tissue.

One-two slice.

He dodged. He parried. He moved like he owned the ground, and Grimm was surprised to find that he felt like he did. There was something incredibly satisfying about keeping the tempo, keeping to the melody, like – like –

Left. Right.

One-two scratch.

(You slice, I back up. I fill the distance with my own claws.)

He landed more blows than he took, but Pyre’s nail managed to nick his wings in several places, and at least once on his arm. It was good practice, even as his fingers started to numb from using the length of his claws to block attacks.

(They were going to be so, so sore.)

Every time one of them fell out of the tempo, they took a hit, he noticed. There was synergy between the two of them, and as long as he continued to hum along to it, he… didn’t falter.

Dirt kicked up under scuffling feet as Pyre dashed at him, both hands clenched on the hilt to swing the blade down, and the reaction was instant. Grimm jumped and landed, squarely, on the edge of the blade. He perched, crouched, fingers on one end and feet under him; his claws came up, then, to catch the hybrid’s face; Pyre’s grip on the blade faltered under his weight, the nail hitting the ground, but Grimm himself did not fall, levitating in the air.

Fire danced from his fingertips and flared, blindingly bright, right in Pyre’s eyes.

“Live up to your name. Burn for me.”

As he spoke, Pyre hissed and half-screamed, stumbling back and clutching his face. That was almost enough to make him feel guilty.

Almost.

Grimm skittered backwards, essence spirals trailing in his wake and he stopped far enough away to avoid a counterattack.

He could end it now. He could –

That thought was interrupted by fire igniting underneath him. Unlike his own flames, which were undeniably scarlet, Pyre’s were a rich orange that seared up like a vortex. If he was anyone else, he would have been screaming as his wings shriveled in the heat.

Instead, he called magic into them. His intention was to use them to wrap up Pyre, to disable him, but that was not what happened. No, as if of their own accord, his wings shot into the ground, burrowing serpentine beneath it. Flames rolled down his back, trailed over the extended lengths, and exploded out of the ground directly in front of Pyre, sending him careening into the air.

…when had he learned—

In the middle of a fight was not the best time to think about the fact that his wings seemed to have taken on a mind of their own; he could analyze it later.

He teleported, then, and when the still-blind hybrid hit the ground, Grimm landed on top of him, claws wrapping around his throat, piercing shell a little.

Pyre coughed. His throat spasmed between Grimm’s fingers. “You’re fast,” he panted. “And your fire is nasty. I relent. I need – I need –”

“Alula will have a salve for your eyes,” Grimm answered, releasing his throat. “You seared my wings.”

“You started with the fire.” Pyre coughed and brought his hands up to his eyes, his nail falling to his side. “Going for the eyes. That is a bit dishonorable—”

“It’s fucking brilliant, actually,” came the brusque correction. Grimm looked up to see Atlas approaching, one hand held out to the fallen twin. “Where the fuck is that when you fight me, princess? Where is this jumping on blades and dodging by a hair’s breadth instead of getting punched in the guts like you like it? Where the hell is any of this coming from? I’ve never seen you do most of that.”

One-two slash.

Pyre took Atlas’s hand and sat up. “Brilliant or not, my eyes –”

“You’ll be fine.” Atlas did not sound sympathetic at all. Grimm had thought that he and Pyre were friends. Or… at least friendly? “Alula will fix you right up.”

Pyre looked incredibly unhappy.

(Pyre was a bad patient, Grimm realized. As bad a patient as Grimm himself was. Even if he was fond of Alula – and he clearly was – he was not relishing the idea of being doted on. Grimm felt some sympathy for that. Good luck.)

The child rose from Nightshade’s lap and flew over to daintily land on Pyre’s shoulder. It mrrr’d quietly, bumping its head into his chin, and the annoyance on the twin’s face dissolved away immediately.

“Your father is a bit mean,” Pyre told the child, to Grimm’s quiet laughter. The hybrid leaned down conspiratorially. “I forgive him, though. Even if you and I are more alike right now than usual. Both of us blinded.”

“It can see,” Grimm corrected. “Through my eyes.”

The little buzz of wings told him that Pyre was aware and did not care. Dissociating the two of them, father, and child, seemed to be preferable. Easier for him to process, perhaps.

Pyre patted the child’s back and looked sideways at Grimm. “Next time, you will not get a chance to use such underhanded tricks. Think of something more clever.”

He was very hung up on it being ‘underhanded.’ Grimm was of the opinion that winning was more important than honor, to some degree.

He would ask Atlas if he was wrong about. But it did not sound like he was.

A real enemy would not ask permission before wounding someone, after all.

-

“I want to keep records.”

Grimm lifted his head to look over his shoulder. Mist stood in the entrance to the tent, arms folded, the short veil that Pyre gave him covering his face, and his wings were twitching slightly at his lower back. Usually when they moved, it meant that he was agitated. His voice alone gave that away, though. Mist sounded positively distressed.

Grimm had meant to talk to him, he had – he’d just… put it off, in part because of dread, in part because of being busy.

“Fae has been teaching me,” Mist continued.

“Has he?” Grimm hummed. He’d noticed the two of them together while he was dueling with Pyre; he’d retreated to his tent after the fight to let the hybrid and Alula have some alone time, for his own injuries were superficial by comparison. He did not ask where Fae went after the fight. The older twin was still something of a mystery. He’d taken to Mist immediately, but not to Grimm.

“Yes. About butterflies. About my culture.” Mist sat on the end of the table, pulling his knees up to his chest.  “I didn’t know that our people have an oral tradition of storytelling, or that – that some of them keep complex recordings of every culture they visit. Nomadic. Like we are.” He took a long, shaky breath. “We are bad at being butterflies.”

Perhaps.

“So you want to keep records of the kingdoms we’ve visited, then?” Grimm asked, his tail coming up to undulate behind him. He was fiddling with the enchantments on a hilt not unlike the one he’d made for Iris. “What is stopping you?”

“I want you to, too.”

Ah?

He’d been keeping records for a long time. Ever since his first life. He’d started keeping them after Cross – at an off-hand suggestion from Nightshade. They were wrapped scrolls and bound into shellwood or silks to form books. No one in the Troupe had ever seen them. He did not intend to speak of their existence, either.

“Have you seen my handwriting?” Grimm teased. “It is barely legi—”

“You carry on my brother’s legacy. You owe him this.”

Oh, Mist was pulling no punches, was he?

Grimm turned his head to the side and then exhaled. This was bound to come up eventually, he thought. He’d learned of butterfly culture from Luster’s memories. Though it had been so long (how long? Centuries?) he could recall the events of his first body’s life with absolute clarity. In many ways, it was almost as though he and Luster had become one. The others did not remember him – including Mist. Mist knew of him, but could not recall Luster’s face, Luster’s voice, anything about him. All that he knew was what Grimm deigned to tell him.

He'd thought that kinder, once, but –

Maybe it was not.

Butterflies, as a culture, had oral traditions: they told stories around their campfires every night, for their children and for their adults. Legends. Myths. Some were invented on the spot and some were passed down. They performed music for one another, too, and he could not help but wonder if his fondness for it was at least in part fueled by Luster’s. They’d invented string instruments (was that why he’d picked one?). They existed in small packs and traveled. They never stayed anywhere too long. And they kept intricate, highly detailed chronicles, scrolls and books.

Mist was right. Butterflies were nomadic the same way that the Troupe was. Were they really all that different? But the tribe that he and Luster hailed from was different, because they’d settled in one place. They’d devoted their existence to the worship of the void at the shores of the great swell of darkness. Their people adopted Alula and Nightshade’s family and the others that had come with them. When they died, they threw themselves into the void sea as an offering, to return to the nothingness from whence they came. And when they became adults, they partook of it, ingesting it to forever be dying.

Luster’s past was poisoning him, slowly. The void did not give back what it took.

“ – please, I know, but—”

Speaking. Ah. He’d – he’d missed part of that.

“Come again?” he asked. Mist gave him a funny look. “I was thinking about what you asked.”

“I was reiterating that… bad handwriting or not. You’re the last of my people. Other butterflies exist, but you’re the last of my kind. Our kind, really, you’re one of us, but –”

“No, you had the right of it,” Grimm corrected. “Your people. I am a thing apart and I am not the god that they worshipped.”

He’d been thinking the same, though, that while he’d long abandoned Luster’s body, he had a responsibility to uphold his memory. In many regards, he considered himself a living tribute to a people long deceased: the last will and testament of a culture long gone. With that in mind, did Grimm not think that it was a good idea to preserve all that he knew, in case he himself forgot? In case he, himself, faded?

(He, who could not die?)

But…

He was not sure that ripping open that scar was the best of ideas. Mist did have a right to know. He did have a right to learn about the culture that he’d come from, the people he’d left behind. Alula and Nightshade would want to know what they’d lost, too. The problem was that poking a festering wound risked letting them remember it, and they’d given their memories up willingly to him in order to escape them.

(They are not the same people that they were that day on the banks of the void sea. They have grown. They are not alone anymore. No longer are Alula and Nightshade barely adults who’ve lost everything that they’ve ever loved. No longer do they have nothing left in the world but each other. They have you. They have Marra, Atlas, Mist, Reed. They may even have Iris, Fae, and Pyre. They are not alone. Will it hurt them, truly, if they should get those memories back?

Do you want to risk it?)

“You would have me record your people’s history, as Luster knew it, then?” he asked Mist; he let his tail flick to the side. “You may remember things that you would rather forget. Reading it could bring back the memories you gave to me. I cannot promise they are lost forever. If you stare too far into the dark, you cannot be surprised when eyes meet your own. Is that a risk you would be willing to take, my friend?”

Mist may have looked like a child but treating him like one would be disrespectful. Even if it felt kinder to hide from him the things that Grimm knew would hurt. And they would hurt.

Those were not memories that he would enjoy having.

That culture was dead, but they’d suffered in their dying. They were hurt, tormented, purged like a sickness from the earth by his sister. She’d burnt them away with fire. In their dying moments, they prayed to a god that did not answer and might not have even existed.

The void did not feel. It was a vast reservoir of power, yes, an endless fount. And it felt nothing at all for their problems. What care had it, when in the end all would return to it eventually?

The butterflies of that tribe worked hand-in-hand with the snails who worshipped the void’s magic, who were fixated with understanding its very nature. Cross was one such snail, and Grimm – Grimm had his memories, too. They’d intrinsically understood the nature of the void, of Soul, and of the beast that slumbered near that sea, whose blood flowed cerulean and could heal any wound.

Where there is death, there must also be life. All things in balance.

“I need to know my history. I need to know where I came from,” Mist told him, his head bowing. “I want to be a butterfly in truth. Right now I’m just… a strange moth at best.”

“The Moth Tribe has a very similar outlook on history. They do not tell stories as much, but they do keep records. Butterflies and moths have ever been two sides of the same coin. One flies in the day and the other under the cover of moonlight, but you are not that different of creatures.”

Mist fluttered his wings, agitated. Grimm lifted one hand to brush his fingers over the butterfly’s mask. “You know your history. You know your past. You are yourself. You have ever been. What you remember is your truth. What came before is what you left behind.”

That got him a slanted look, a slight glare, and Grimm smiled, a squint of scarlet behind the mask, and then he said, “But I have given you warning enough. I will grant your request. If your heart breaks at the history that you learn – for it is not the most pleasant story to tell, why else would you have given it up? – that is not something I will be held accountable for. Do you agree?”

He could deny Mist nothing.

He’d promised Luster, once upon a time, to look after his brother. Keep him safe, happy, give him the life that he deserved. He might not have always succeeded at that, but he was trying to get better, and if nothing else, he deserved acknowledgment for the effort.

Grimm was trying.

Mist shook his head. “I… I agree. I won’t blame you. But you can’t protect me forever. Not from everything.”

So sayeth he. That would not stop Grimm from trying.

-

Alula’s tent smelled heavily of medicine: a little bitter, with the heavy stench of alcohol only barely disguised by floral notes found in the soaps and cleaning agents. She combatted that scent with candles and her sister’s herb sticks, but there really was no way of ‘fixing’ it. She cleaned wounds. She kept the majority of her tent sterile. She was always soaking utensils. If she was in the process of taking care of someone or had recently, it would always be particularly pungent.

He found it comforting.

It was the dead of night, well after the sun had set. Pyre had retreated to one of the empty tents, with Fae and presumably Iris, and strangely, Marra was not with Alula. She was by herself.

He found her wiping down one of the chairs. Probably where she’d sat the hybrid down when she treated his eyes. Grimm had waited a few hours to give her plenty of time quite intentionally, but –

“The eyes were a vicious move,” the moth scolded. “In a real fight, the right choice. We really must teach you the difference between that and a spar, though.”

“He will heal, will he not?” Grimm asked curiously. Alula leveled him a disapproving stare from behind her mask as he crossed the threshold to sit on her table. He perched like he owned it. She always looked annoyed when he did that – which was, of course, why he did it. “And it gave you an excuse to give him medical treatment. Should you not be thanking me?”

“He’s as awful a patient as you are. Barely sat still once his sight returned. Kept insisting that he had things to do. And do you know, I considered pinning his wings to the floor.” She sounded so exasperated; he was deeply amused.

Grimm pulled his legs up and crossed them underneath him. “I might have been a little mean on purpose. I might be… still upset on behalf of Marra.”

That declaration earned him the most withering look. She pulled her mask off, stepped over in front of him, and yanked him down by his horns to meet his gaze. “Then you should be dropping firebombs in Marra’s eyes as well, because they are as much in the wrong as –”

“Lulu, I am on your side on this. I told them to talk to you,” he interrupted. “Do not berate me so.”

“Stay out of it then.” Her tone was sharp. Disapproving. And exhausted. He immediately felt guilty.

No. It was not his business or his place to tell Alula what to do with her relationships, and never would he presume to do so. She deserved to be happy, whatever it took, and if that meant being with Pyre instead of Marra… he would try to understand. He was attached to the dragonfly, she knew that, but he was also becoming very fond of Pyre. It was a complicated situation.

And she was right. It had nothing to do with him. He was not at all in a position to tell her what to do with her life. But…

He brought his hands up to catch her face and pulled her closer to press his forehead to hers.

“I want to see you happy, mama.” She was not his real mother but she was close enough that he was willing to fake it for her. “If it makes you feel any better, I promise that I will not say anything to Pyre, nor will I try to sway any of your decisions or Marra’s. I simply told them to talk to you. To make choices with you, instead of excluding you. That making them on their own without you involved was an injustice to you.”

The moth sighed and brought one hand up to scratch his horns. The shell was a little loose there, over the ridges where they tapered, and her claws gently dislodged some of the shedding bits. It chased away the itch, so he leaned his head into the touch instinctively.

“They did talk to me,” she told him. “For all the good that it did. It is Pyre that they need to talk to. But you stay out of it. And stop bullying Pyre because you’ve got a favorite. Marra would not want you doing that, either.”

She was right, he knew.

He laid his head against hers, closing his eyes slowly.

“I want them all three to stay with us,” Grimm told the moth and Alula laughed. “Oh, stop. It is not because of the twins at all. They are… an added bonus. For you and for Iris. But she is the reason I want them to stay. She is, not them.”

That made her somber up a little.

“She reminds you of your hurts.” At his nod, Alula continued, “And what you’ve overcome. What you have survived. That’s a poor reason to want to keep someone, though. You shouldn’t offer unless you have a better one than that. Iris deserves to be more than just a monument to your pain. She’s a living, thinking person, with feelings and hurts of her own. You’re not the only one who has suffered.”

He knew that. He did. She was right, though, to say it. Just because he was aware did not mean that he was consciously thinking about it at all.

“And you.” Alula’s words drew him sharply out of his thoughts. “Mister chronically single, wants no relationships, needs no one else, happy-by-myself. When you are in a committed relationship, then and only then do you get to start trying to give me or anyone else advice on that matter. Do you understand me?”

He laughed. She was right. He did not want any kind of relationship of that nature. He was not exactly ‘happy,’ but he did not want to give his broken and damaged heart to anyone else.

Better that he be alone than ever subject someone else to the storm that was his entire being. His was a soul on fire, burning forever. No one else needed to sear.

This meme was based on what Vex from @incorrect-pokespe-quotes​ and I talked about in the pokespe art discord server.

We are both salty at the fact that Courtney replaced Sapphire during the final battle in RS while Sapphire has to be stuck in the air car. Yes, Ruby has good intentions to trap her in that damn air car but Vex and I thought it would’ve been better if Ruby and Sapphire did everything in the final battle in the RS arc together, as they should be.

There are so many possibilities if Ruby and Sapphire worked together in the final battle. There is a potential angst where Sapphire could’ve died [kudos to Vex] and Ruby wishing Celebi to bring her back to life, but no, Courtney has to replace Sapphire. There is so much potential in that but no, it was wasted and I hate it.