Dear God, I pray I can finish this in four parts, since that's been my
goal since my first fanfic, but due to some requests on the part of the
first and a lack of RAM on the part of the second, I've had to extend
each one at least one part.  Well, here's to hoping.


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


End Mission



Somewhere in the woods, the zombie army was still going strong, but
even with their impressive numbers they still couldn't beat down Eric's
strength.  After a little while he began to tire of just beating them
back and decided to take the fight to them.  The ground around him
began to glow in a circle formation around him, then it exploded
upward, disintegrating some zombies and knocking down what it didn't
hit.  Another circle exploded a second later, right outside the first,
and with a larger diameter than the first.  Then another circle
appeared and killed more zombies, then another and another, till every
single zombie and tree within a hundred yards was destroyed.

"Damn, I'm good!"


Inside the mountain, Mewtwo stood and waited for Spectre to make a
move.  At the moment, any attack he initiated would most likely kill
him, so he was now on the defensive.  The shadow pokŽmon leaped at him
with fangs bared, and tried to take a bite out of his neck, but he
sideswiped the attack and fired another wave of energy at it, causing
the same rippling in it's body, but no real damage.

"This...is not good," Maggie said slowly.  She couldn't stand to fight,
since Spectre had bitten out the tendons in her foot.  She could walk
again if she got to an Agency hospital, hopefully soon.

"I can still defeat...it," Mewtwo replied.

"But wouldn't it be so much easier to let me do it?" a voice from the
entrance shouted.

They all turned to see Eric standing in the doorway with a nasty look
on his face.  "I'm back, and I'm pissed!"  Before they could react, he
shot forward and connected his knee with Khali's face, sending him
crashing through the ceiling of the mountain and out into the open air.
He immediately followed, and the battle continued.

Mewtwo looked around, but Spectre had disappeared.  Probably out
helping Khali, he thought.  He walked over to Maggie and inspected her
wound.  "You'll be fine," he said plainly.

"Yeah, I know," she replied sheepishly, "But I'm gonna have to sit
this battle out."

Mewtwo was about to pick her up and set her against a rock to rest, but
a blast of cold came at him from behind.  He spun around and saw
Spectre, but in the shape of the bird he had seen before.  The bright
shade of blue was gone, and in its place was the regular darkness.  The
creature fired another beam of ice at him, but he managed to raise a
force field around him before it hit, and the result was a wall of ice
forming on the edge of the field.  A red spot appeared in the middle of
the ice, then a stream of fire burst through and almost broke through
the force field and burned off his head.

Before he could recover, a large black wolf crashed through the ice and
the force field and pinned him on his back, then tried to take a bite
out of his horn.  He threw it off with a psychic attack and rolled to
the side, and was on his feet in less than a second.  The wolf suddenly
melted, then reformed itself into a small, strange animal.  It fired a
number of super-sharp blades at him, but another well-timed force field
deflected them.  Spectre once again morphed into the bird, then flew
out through the hole in the ceiling.  Mewtwo followed, but once he was
out in the open, he couldn't see where it had gone.  He fell back into
the mountain, then caught a glimpse of the battle between Eric and
Khali.

He turned to Maggie and asked, "Can Eric beat Khali on his own?"

"He can kick his rosy red ass!"


Her colorful description aside, Eric was holding his own, at least.
Khali had countered with a number of swipes from his deadly claws, but
Eric dodged and delivered a powerful punch to the face, then before he
could hit the ground, zoomed behind him, spun around and hit him with
a roundhouse kick to the side of his head.  The demon crashed against a
tree, but was up in a flash and charged the young Agent, picking him up
with his horns and smashing him against the mountain.  It misaligned
his spine, but he ignored it and pressed on, grabbing the demon's horns
and flipping him up and over his head, then moved out of the way and
smashed the horns right through a very large rock.  Instead of the rock
shattering, it remained intact with the horns inside, but Khali didn't
even give it a second thought.  He picked up the rock, still on his
head, and used it to attack Eric.  He knocked him back into the air,
then shot forward and hit him with another headbutt, sending him
through a tree and causing further damage to his spine.

Eric didn't move at first, so Khali thought he had won, but just to
make sure, he began gathering energy, then fired a beam of power from
his mouth, straight at Eric's position.  Two seconds later, the area
was engulfed in a brilliant explosion, and when the smoke cleared, the
only thing left was a smoking crater, with the battered body of an
Agent in the middle.

***

Mewtwo had been watching the battle for some time now, and he was about
to fly up to the demon and engage him, but motion from below caught his
eye, and he saw the form of...something fly up and stop just inches
from Khali.  He decided it was Eric, and stayed on the ground.

***

Khali was feeling very pleased with himself.  He had beaten the one
thing that could kill him, and now all he had to deal with was a
crippled Agent and a weak pokŽmon.  Spectre could deal with them both.
Just as he was about to drop to the ground and destroy the mountain,
another Agent flew up to him, stopping just in front of him.

"Oh.  It's you."  He knew who this one was.  He was the one he was
truly afraid of.  "It's nice to see you."

The Agent smirked.  "Likewise."  Before Khali knew what hit him, the
Agent shot forward and punched him back, then flipped around and kicked
him higher into the air, and finally knocked him to the ground with a
very powerful ball of energy.

The next few sensations were brief.  Before he even hit the ground the
Agent landed, then held up his knee, which Khali promptly fell onto,
cleanly splitting his spine in two and letting the energy ball
disintegrate his stomach.  "Was it good for you?" his assailant asked
calmly.  He moved his knee, letting Khali finally reach the ground,
then reached behind him and pulled a sword from behind him, then calmly
thrust it straight through his chest.  The blade began to glow with a
bright light that could be seen from very far away, even in the light
of day.  The demon's body glowed with the same light, then the light
vanished, along with Khali.

"Now that was fun."

***

A twenty-something female stood over Eric's motionless body, looking at
him with something that resembled pity.  "I sure hope you appreciate
this, buddy."  She put a hand to his chest, then the burns on his face
slowly dissolved, and the cuts and breaks mended themselves.

"Take care."  With that, she disappeared in a flash of light.

Two seconds later, Eric opened his eyes, although he had a hard time
believing he was still alive.  His first impression was that he was
dead, but when he saw the clouds above in the same formation as before,
he decided Mewtwo must've gone ahead and fought Khali, and won, since
there was no sign of the demon.  He floated into the air and flipped
himself into a standing position, then went back to the mountain.

***

Somewhere in the air, the male Agent watched as Eric walked back into
the mountain, then turned his attention on the crater below him.  He
had to remove all evidence the Agency had been here, since anything
done in this time period would have drastic effects on the future.  And
he couldn't have that.  He focused his mind on the crater, then on the
earth below it, and slowly, very slowly, the crater filled itself in,
the dirt rising from below, making the ground whole again.  The grass
that once grew there was suddenly there again, and eventually, there
was no more evidence that anyone was there.  Hopefully, the deaths of
one thousand people wouldn't have that much of an effect on the future.
Then again, he could always change it.  No problem.

***

"Okay, I think we've got enough."

They spent the rest of the day gathering rocks, and seriously depleting
the total supply.  They eventually had to blast, using Mewtwo's psychic
power to blow open new veins of rocks.  They finally reached a grand
total of two-hundred and seventeen near sunset.

"How the hell do we power up the remote, anyway?" Maggie asked.

Eric didn't really know himself, truthfully.  "I'm not sure," he said
sheepishly.  "Well...since the evolution process for the creatures here
works on a basis of physical contact, we could probably make it work by
touching the stones to the battery pack."

"It's a theory, at least," Mewtwo offered.  Personally, he had been
wondering why they hadn't just used the portal remote in the first
place.  Then again, their presense in the Agency in a time when they
shouldn't be there would probably get them in a lot of trouble.  Oh,
well, at least now they would go home.  Hopefully.

Eric cracked open the casing of the remote with his dagger, then
touched a stone to a very small square of bronze-looking metal.  The
stone began to glow, then after a few seconds the glow died down.
"Well...looks like it works."  He continued the process till all the
stones were used up, then put the remote back together and checked a
few things on the front screen.  "Okay!  Looks like we have enough
power to get home!  Mewtwo, help me with Maggie."  They picked her up
by her shoulders, then Eric activated the remote.  "Here's to hoping."

The light enveloped them, then the feeling of ants returned, then a few
seconds later, they were gone.

***

Somewhere in the air above the battlefield, the dark figure of a bird
floated in midair, observing the landscape.  It felt newfound power
flowing through it, power that was once Khali's, but had been passed to
it upon his death.  Such was the way of demons.  Even now, even with
this power, it was still obsessed with Mewtwo.  Just before it's birth,
Khali had imprinted the desire and absolute need to kill the pokŽmon.
But to do this, it needed more power than just Khali's.  But it
couldn't get that kind of power here.  It searched it's mind for the
necessary means to leave this world, and found a unique ability to
create portals to other...places.  It invoked this ability, watching as
a portal burst into existence, then slowly moved through it, eagerly
awaiting the power beyond.

***

Sometime in the future, a bright light filled Mt. Moon.  Once the light
died down, there were three beings in its place.  Luckily, no one was
around at the time.  Soon after, there was another flash of light, but
this time it was a blue-white light, and like before, it quickly
disappeared.

***

Two days later, a male Agent and a young woman met in a little-known
corner of Limbo.  Darkness surrounded them, but for the male, it was a
very...familiar environment.

"Well?" he asked.

"The test mission for the temporal remote was declared...unresolved,"
she replied uneasily.

"How will this affect the plan?"

"It's negligible."

"What about Spectre?"

"I'm...not sure.  I couldn't track it.  But it should only have Khali's
power as well as its own, so it should be easy to get rid of."

"Good.  All we need to do now is kill off the kid, and we'll be done."

He disappeared in a flash of light, but it didn't reach into the thick
darkness of Limbo.  She stayed there for a few more minutes, thinking.
Many spiritual leaders had said that what they were doing was immoral,
but they had just made a broad speculation based on religious
teachings.  No one knew what they had done, and hopefully no one would
have to know.  It was just too horrible to think about...

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

You think you know the truth?  You can't handle the truth!  Seriously,
I'm glad I finally finished this, because I've been planning this whole
thing for a while, and now I'll actually be able to write it down.  And
to answer somebody's question, yes, Mewtwo will still be a character,
because I think I found a way to integrate him him fully into these
stories.  Hopefully, it'll work as well on paper as it does in my head.


The Master of Eternal Darkness,

Shadow