He didn’t realize that it was pure adrenaline driving him forward at this point—never mind the fact that the seemingly never-ending swarm of frozen shards launched by his other!self kept on coming despite the abrupt change in temperature.
Now, imagine if the Z-move had the
actual power to disrupt thermodynamics… wouldn’t that have been a sight to see. But alas, that is not the case—
‘It worked!’‘And not a moment too soon!’‘Th-thank you.’And then that’s when things went to shit.
The flash-frozen chunk of ice that was keeping his stab wound from bleeding dislodged itself, clattering to the frozen ‘surface’ where the remnants of the Z-move’s energy had manifested.
Neither Lars nor the deity noticed what had happened when the pillar with the image for ‘Ice’ had been struck—as he turned to face his other!self, trapped in the surrounding frost from the knee-down (and spreading fast). The deity turned to face their counterpart, who had (mercifully) been quieted,
for the moment.
There was—something, that
he wanted to know.
He then approached the other, him but at the same time, not so. He still held onto the blunt chunk of flash-frozen ice just in case the other did some weird shit as he drew near.
“Tell…me,” he began quietly.
“Is… is he alive?”Lars was banking on the knowledge that
if they were one and the same, then they would have had similar experiences—surely his other!self would know what
he was talking about.
He was met with a shake of his other!self’s head. He blinked at that statement, unable to believe that piece of information. What
exactly happened here, anyway?!
“What about… Léanne?”To his surprise, he got a nod—so there
were some things that were slightly different, after all.
“How… how about her?”Another nod.
The deity looked down at what was going on.
‘What are you doing?’‘Just listen, will you?’“Claude?”This was where things started to differ—back home, he knew that
claude anderson was doing his own thing in Unova, and that Léanne was dead; however here, things were the opposite, apparently, as he was met with another shake of the head.
‘He’s not that chatty.’‘Obviously.’“What…about…” he faltered, burning to know—if Claude was
supposedly dead in this reality they were dropped into, but Léanne and their mother was alive, then what about…
‘Oh. I see where this is going.’‘You saw his reaction. Some things are the same, some aren’t…’It felt like an eternity before he could even bring himself to say
his name.
“…Evan?”Before he could get an answer, the other!deity shrieked, suddenly surging forward with a desperate burst of energy—and Lars heard the deity screaming in his head, as the two iceborne mirages clashed once again in the air above the space where they were talking.
Well, Lars was doing
most of the talking anyway.
At the same time the screaming from the deity began assaulting his thoughts, he felt a sudden piercing pain—and Lars looked down to see that the chunk of ice he’d covered on the injury where he’d been stabbed by the other!Katherine (Catherine?!) was gone; instead of a clear blue there was a patch of spreading dark red. Warm, wet, rusty-smelling blood—
‘We have to get out of here!’‘What?!’‘Look up!’He then saw that there was a blur of orange heading towards a portal that had opened high above them—was that Stormy, he wasn’t too certain—but the longer he lingered, the more he could feel the blood,
his blood seeping through the suit, staining the ice-blue a deep, scarlet, very wet
red—
Wait, why was the world around him spinning?
Before he could get the answer from his other!self, his own iceborne mirage had flown down and literally caught him before he crashed down onto the ice before ascending as fast as they could manage with a burst of
Agility towards the portal.
‘I know you wanted to do something, but now’s not the time for that! We have to go, now!’‘You knew?!’‘Of course I did!’To this retort, Lars could only laugh.
Of course the deity would know.
“And I never got my answer.”Little did he know that his other!self had deliberately chosen
not to answer that last question, and instead watched the ‘other’ Articuno heading towards the strange opening far above where he was frozen from the waist down (as the ice had been slowly creeping up on the other!self while Lars was attempting to get answers from them).
• Lars decides to ask his other!self questions instead of killing the other!self outright
•
and boy do the answers he gets shock him• before he could get a definite answer to the question of whether or not the existence of a certain
evan fader can be confirmed, though—
• the other!deity suddenly sweeps in for a last-minute desperate attack, to which the og!deity responds in a defensive gesture
•
‘Oh shit, why am I bleeding?’ (
very belated afterthought)
• surprisingly it’s the og!deity that makes the suggestion of them getting out of there before the portal closes and leaves them behind in this strange reality
• Lars is picked up by the og!deity before he face plants on the ice and they attempt to make their exit
• the other!self deliberately chose
not to answer Lars’s final question because
we love emotionally destroying cliffhangersm o n k a s
However, skepticism is voided by 
Similarly, 
Nearby, 
Sea-Kim stares up at the activated rains and portal. Balling his hands into fists, he whines, voice a trembling tempest. "it's not FAIR!!" He unleashes his tantrum. His handsome sea-face contorts into a labyrinth of wrinkles and exasperation. He sees their battle falling apart, lip trembling as if the gag he once wore is his lost pacifier. "NOT FAIR AT ALL!! WAAGHH!!!"[break][break]
