Lethe

[Jackie Cat]

The Forlasan Voidlands had vistas and biomes of their own. The stratified cliffs and dull amber light of the Fossil Valleys; the aurora-laced azure peaks and indigo-silhouetted conifers of the High Nightlands; the shadow-dappled moors and ruins of the Mosaic Shades... These were the territories Powehi walked eternally, guarding the countless souls at rest here, in this limbo of perpetual gloaming. Lethe – his kingdom of the lost.

Now, though, he stood at the edge of something new. A dark storm above barren spires and clay-red dirt. A vision of hunger and suffering. A kind of purple hell.

The timeworn Lucario tramped onward, fixing his eyes on the shadowy shape of a certain polycephalous dragon...

"I don't believe we discussed redecorating," he growled, sarcasm oozing from his jaws like black treacle. "First you intrude on worldly rifts, then you interfere with other assets, now you insinuate your influence into my Voidlands. Explain yourself, hydra würm."

 

[Namohysip]

Black smoke swirled around the Hydreigon's darkened scales like a constant, gentle whirlpool. The atmosphere of the Voidlands not only seemed to obey his passive command but fueled him effortlessly.

When Powehi finally confronted him during one of his traveling stints, no doubt going from one waypoint to another, the Hydreigon stopped and merely turned his main head back to address him. He looked at Powehi as if he'd forgotten all about him.

But what was strange... was that Alexander's voice held no distortion, despite all the time he'd spent in the Voidlands, and all the Shadows that surrounded him.

"I apologize if I'm... encroaching on your territory," Alexander replied, his voice smooth and calming. There wasn't a hint of negativity in how he spoke. It was... political, down to the aura.

Until there was a hint, a glimmer, of contempt after the words were uttered.

"I previously mentioned that I was already familiar with lands like these. They are much more beautiful than the lands I'm from, but with just as many souls lost and weary." His tail brushed against the soil, flicking up motes of light. Slumbering spirits...

They gently sank into his scales, readily accepting a new host.

"But it... slipped my mind," Alexander said, "to tell you how familiar I am."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Dark Matter of Forlas narrowed his eyes, taking his measure of Alexander's aura. At first he couldn't see it. Then his eyes rose to the edge of the storm... It wasn't that the hydra had no Shadow – his caliginous soul was seeped in it. He'd become enmeshed with the voidlands itself. Immersed deeply enough to crush any mortal soul into a singularity...

"Dark Matter," spat Powehi. "Usurper."

Hip lip curled back in a silent snarl, recognising the Hydreigon for what he truly was. For a mortal to become this—

Unthinkable. Taboo.

"You seek now to etch your presence into the laws of this world. You cannot prevail. You may have profaned your own reality, but you have no mandate here."

The Lucario raised a paw...

...and hesitated.

If a world had two Dark Matters, and they clashed... He could only infer the outcome – such a thing was unprecedented – but it would mean turning the void against itself. Even if he could win, he might evict the hydra from Forlas, but it would risk rending the Voidlands open. Spilling the souls there into oblivion. Unconscionable. A price he would never pay.

And that bastard knew it.

"Perfidious würm," he muttered, clenching his paw with a series of dull cracks. "Apostate."

 

[Namohysip]

Alexander smirked. "Such poor, wandering souls," he said, drifting further away as those motes sank into his scales. "To send them all away, to risk their rest... Many would surely wander in the void. Perhaps even create their own realities as new, lost gods with nothing to stop them in a domainless realm.

"Maybe some would become haunting specters in reality, spreading the Void into the light, creating chaos...

"Slumbering souls only slumber if they aren't disturbed. How delicate a balance it is... especially when so many will be vengeful and hungry."

Alexander tilted his head. "But I have a better use for them, all this power. And I've never been one for gods lording over me..."

"Besides," he went on, shrugging. "I still have a role to fill here. And I'll be doing the work you wished to get done... and do away with those invading humans and their abuse of... your power." That final little phrase was almost mocking.

"So. If we're done here... I'll be on my way."

He turned his back to Powehi. It seemed like he'd left his guard completely down. But... Powehi knew better. The 'Usurper'... The Charmander had mentioned that term, but referred to himself as it, toward a god of Radiance.

It seemed the world they hailed from had more than one Usurper... and Powehi had aligned with the other. The Usurper of Shadow.

 

[Jackie Cat]

An abyssal growl rose in Powehi's chest at the sight of soul-motes falling under the sway of this trespasser. This blight on his plane. There could be no such rot permitted, no such sin forgiven. Forlas' Dark Matter – sentinel over the dead – was bound by an antediluvian ethical code. One that demanded retribution.

"I would have pardoned your previous excesses if only you had returned to your realm of origin as agreed," he seethed, crude-oil contempt flowing from his jaws. "For this, I would see your soul extinguished, reprobate."

Powehi's digits twitched with stygian power, but still he did not attack. Too cautious by nature, too restrained, too afraid of underestimating that pompous wretch ever again. Too aware of those souls that might still be saved—

He closed his eyes, aura sensors quivering on end as he sought to gauge Alexander's own Shadows, to sense for doubt, anxiety, vacillation...

 

[Namohysip]

And what Powehi got in return was the equivalent of an electric shock to the forehead. A ZAP that instantly disrupted his attempt at reading into Alexander, a cut connection, complete static.

And the Hydreigon stopped his departure to glance behind him... with a cruel, fanged grin.

Amid the static, Powehi heard a single sentence.

I'd always wanted to see a god's fear.

Alexander's tail carved the dirt on the ground, slowly dredging up the instabilities between the Voidlands and the living realm. A portal formed as the Hydreigon's presence drifted inside.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Powehi's whiskers quivered with limitless ire. He had little concern for his own perpetuation, but Forlas' aquifers of forgotten souls would be preserved.

"Fear," he whispered. "Naturally I am afraid. Terror and dread do overrun in me. Yet, so too does wrath."

And while he could not risk smiting the usurper himself, there were other means of bringing Alexander to justice...

The ancient Lucario turned from the and walked into the darkling plains of the departed.

"Hear me, Wayfarers. The risk you represent is now eclipsed by another threat. This world has need of your service after all..."

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