Shred woke up to pain. That was good. Pain was misery, sharp and jabbing and throbbing and burning, mixed into the air that Paul breathed, the skin that wrapped his body of burns and cooked meat, and the sensory misery that was sentience.

It was pain, but it was proof of his very existence. It was proof that Paul Meatles was alive. If life was agony, if life was pain, then Shred Zeppelin was, without a shadow of a doubt, fucking alive. Unfortunately, he had to share that existence with the person who had marched into hell alongside him.

"Shred. Shred!" A silhouette appeared in the harsh light, and a plunging sensation erupted in Shred's arm as something was shoved into it. It was but a quiet addition to the symphony of agony plaguing his existence, but it was distinct.

The pain relented slightly. The lights became less harsh. The person standing above Shred became more recognizable.

"You're alive." Howard Slayte stood at the foot of the bed, looking far worse for wear. His nose had been straightened, his face was marked with frostbite from constant exposure to the cold, and his hair had grayed slightly, yet he was alive.

They were alive. They were miserable and wretched, licking their wounds from a failure to defeat illeana reyes and PENELOPE LIVY , but they were alive. Gloriously sentient, gloriously miserable, gloriously still kicking. Howard's eye softened as he looked at the specter that crawled back from death's door.

"Welcome back, Shred."

---

Shred Zeppelin

The agony begins to fade. Your scream quiets to a rasp. As a gentle numbness spreads throughout your being, your dulling mind frantically tries to piece everything together. All of those whos, what, whens, wheres, and whys swim about your brain, only to be drowned by the painkiller flooding through your body. The bigger picture is too big. You need to focus on you right now.

Not that it's a pleasant sight. It's a wasteland of bandages covering you from head to toe, a second skin of gauze to cover up the damage. But more than everything else, your eyes linger upon the space where your arm used to be. Even though it's gone, you can still feel a phantom sensation, the gentle ache of muscles and nerves that are no longer yours. It's a reminder from the Shred Zeppelin who died that day, burnt to ash and obliterated by a Hyper Beam: "You will never be me ever again."

You force your eyes shut and take a shaky breath. No. Can't cry here. Not while Howard's watching. Howard. Howard...

"Howard."

No.

"Howard."

No.

"Howard."

Good enough.

"Good to see you again." You greet your brother-in-arms, your voice hoarse and tired, but still a vast improvement compared to your prior deathrattle. "I'm glad you're alive."

Yes. That should be what matters, right? You knew this was an unwinnable fight. You both knew what you were getting into. You both knew the risks. Yet you fought it anyway. You both threw yourselves onto the funeral pyre. But, you lived. You survived! You may have been burnt by the flames, but you still walked out the other side with your heads held high. All things considered, that should be a victory.

So why haven't you opened your eyes? Why aren't you smiling with your friend? Why is it that amidst this anodyne haze, you still feel a gnawing pain in the depths of your heart?

"I'm sorry. I couldn't save him."

---

howard slayte [googlefont=Rubik Burned]

That phantom pain would never leave.

That sensation of frayed nerves, damaged tissue, missing faculties was the reward for daring to rebel against the status quo of the world. Nature demanded that if an Ursaring was stuck in a trap, it would gnaw off its leg and continue moving. Yet it was the Ursaring's fault for getting trapped, and thus it was punished.

Shred has lost his arm, Howard had lost his eye. Both would never have the blissful release of never feeling those things again. That phantom pain was theirs.

Forever.

They were alive, though. They would exist to experience the nascent misery of life for another day. That was fine. That was enough. Howard had learned to live with a missing eye, Shred would make do. Yet to miss an arm... Howard swallowed. Miserable.

"You did more than any man there. Nobody will ever doubt what you did. You did not fail Kyurem." He leaned forward, reaching to grasp for a hand that no longer existed. "I failed you. If I was stronger, if Rocket had helped more..."

If. If. If.

"I'm glad you're alive too." Howard closed his eye and felt a tear roll down from his other socket. "Thank you for living."

Silence.

"Kyurem is not dead, though. You did not fail it." Yes, it had been sealed away. Buried under the weight of a deity that commanded the fabric of space. A being that had made Howard and Shred dance to its divine orchestra, yet it could not kill Kyurem. It could merely seal the frozen dragon away. "It's like you, resting. Another day, Shred."

After a moment, he braved a smile.

"You did that. Palkia might have killed it, had you not stepped in. You mattered in the end, Shred Zeppelin."

---

Shred Zeppelin

"Stop."

All of his words only makes it hurt more. It feels like you've got a knife buried in your chest, and Howard is trying to pull it out. It's miserable, isn't it? He thinks he's being kind, and yet couldn't possibly know how much worse he's making it. Despite everything you've been through, the good times and the bad, he'd never understand how you feel right now. He's just too different from you.

And yet, you still have to try. You have to try and explain it. You have to try and bridge the gap between him and you. You have to, because if nothing else, he deserves that much from you.

"I didn't save him." The way you say it is so matter-of-factly. As though you're repeating an objective fact, like grass being green or the sky being blue. "He might've survived, but that doesn't mean he's himself anymore. They changed him. They took himself from him. They stole a part of him, and now he'll never be whole again, no matter how hard he tries."

For a moment, your eyes drift back to where your arm used to be.

"I failed."

---

howard slayte

He tried to understand. He genuinely did.

Yet there was a fundamental gap between Shred Zeppelin and Howard Slayte. Howard had been blessed with understanding, intellect, and a power that few in the region could understand. He held a shard of the ice age in his hand, and with it he could defeat many of the League's strongest trainers who, themselves, had not been blessed by good fortune.

Despite the circumstances of their lives, Howard stood as an honored one. Shred only had himself. He had his failures and the circumstances of his birth, both of which had tied him down.

Howard could not understand that. He could not understand being 'incomplete'. He had integrated himself into Rocket as a nameless cog, and had made himself miserable. Yet he was complete, he was whole.

Or was he? He tapped at his missing eye, missing the sight it had once provided.

"You're right. He will never be whole again." Howard admitted. Kyurem had only reached its level of power with the aid of Hoopa. It had only become complete because another had aided it and filled its cracks with something more. "But..."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gleaming white stone. Shred's reflection appeared in its polished surface, showing that he did look like the wasteland he envisioned himself as.

"...we can put them back together."

Not just Kyurem, but Shred as well.

---

Shred Zeppelin

Lured by rustling of pockets and the implication of importance, you finally open your eyes, only to quickly narrow them soon after.

Howard Slayte is holding a rock. Well, no, not a rock rock, but something akin to a rock. It might be better to call it an orb or a sphere, but... No. Those words just don't feel right on your tongue. Likewise, you could call it a bauble or a trinket, but those feel wrong too. You don't even entertain sinking to the level of "artefact", because lord knows the archaeologist already has enough undefined artefacts without adding more to the list. It takes a little thinking, but eventually, you manage to pick out the right term,

"Huh. Cool stone."

Yeah, it is a pretty cool stone, isn't it? Judging by the white colouring, you assume its some kind of marble or granite or something? And the indents, were they carved out, or naturally formed? But those idle ponderings are ultimately pushed aside in favour of the most pressing concern on your mind:

"...But, uh... We were kind of in the middle of something here..."

Namely, the topic of putting Kyurem back together. Hah! "Putting Kyurem back together". It sounds easy when you put it like that, doesn't it? It sounds like a simple fix. Like you could do it with glue and tape and elbow grease.

If only it were that simple.

"Not that I can blame you for wanting to switch gears. I mean, no Kyurem, no Reshiram, no Hoopa? Hah... That's fucking bleak, is what that is. Guess there's no point even discussing it, huh?"

---

howard slayte

Howard looked at the man with a classic glare. It was the glare that he gave whenever his friend said something unfathomably stupid. It was a glare that, unfortunately, Shred would be intimately familiar with.

"Idiot." Howard blinked once and looked at the stone. Perfectly shined, perfectly polished, a gleaming example of what light represented. The Light Stone had been kept under extreme security, but Howard was both an admin and geologist. Out of the four Team Rocket Admins, he had the most right to take it out of storage.

"Oh, right. You weren't exactly around to see what happened, were you?" The words were bitter, but it was a draught that Howard was grateful to swallow. Did Shred even remember the Hyper Beam that atomized him? Did he even know that it was from Howard? "This is Reshiram, Shred."

It sounded like a joke, but it was no mockery. Howard's face was serious, and there was no merriment to betray hints of a jest.

Shred deserved to know. This shard, so pristine and perfect, housed the Dragon of Truth. Howard watched as Shred held it. He held it like any rock, but he suspected that the dragon within wouldn't mind. Shred treating it like any other rock was genuine. It was true.

It was fair.

"We can put it back together." Howard repeated his mantra like a chant. "We can reassemble what was lost. Kyurem won't have to rage, knowing its missing something that can never be reclaimed. It can heal. You can heal."

The most damning realization was that Howard actually believed it. He genuinely believed that this was possible, because Shred did as well. Maybe it was an attempt to make up for almost killing his colleague. Maybe it was guilt.

Did it really matter in the end?

---

Shred Zeppelin

"Huh?"

You look at stone. You stare. You squint. You try your very best to see something that you can't see, but ultimately, you can't. Honestly, you find it hard to believe that this is Reshiram. You expected it to be special, somehow. But it isn't. Not really. If Howard hadn't told you, you'd never have thought this was the dormant form of a great dragon.

Somehow, you find that comforting. It feels like you're holding your lost arm, like you've found the missing piece of a puzzle. You have the key to wholeness in the palm of your hand. Not your own, but that of another.

And maybe, if you can help him, he'll help you.

"I see..."

You lean forward. That's a mistake. You feel your whole body strain under the simple exertion of sitting up in bed. The web of tubes and cables connected to your body all try and pull you back down. Once the effects of the painkillers fade and the numbness leaves your body, this'll hurt later. And yet, you can't say you care right now.

Your body and your mind might be damaged beyond repair, but your soul is still shining. Even if the rest of you is cinder, there's still fire in your eyes.

"That's all I needed to know. Now, let's go find him."

---

howard slayte

"Idiot." The word drips with guilt, scorn, and affection. It's a word that could only be uttered by someone responsible for putting the Beast in the hospital. The amount of emotion packed into a handful of letters was incredible.

"First, you need to rest. When you get your strength back, we'll hunt it down." Howard gently pushed the man back into his pillows as he stood. He plucked the Light Stone from Shred's hands, holding it with the care of a newborn child. Even if he was an admin, moving the stone would not look well if it was not quickly returned.

That, of course, would whiff of treason. Admin Fox was no traitor.

He did not know when Reshiram would stir. He did not know if Kyurem would return. Yet he could make this promise, this lie masquerading as a vow. Kyurem was a dimension away, and Howard had no idea how they were going to recover it. They'd need something capable of traversing worlds.

Hoopa, maybe. Necrozma, perhaps. There had to be a key to move the colossus from its prison. Yet doing so would be dangerous.

That was fine.

"We're preparing to raid the chasm that opened up during the battle with Kyurem. Recover. I'll need you at top performance when we depart. Your arm..." Howard's face softened slightly. "How're you going to fight without it?"

---

Shred Zeppelin

All that effort to struggle up to a sitting position, and yet, it takes him so little to push you back down.

You think about protesting. A thousand different excuses and explanations flood your mind, fight to be the one that's spoken. Ultimately, however, you say nothing, because there's nothing you can say. You could sit up a thousand times, and he'd push you back down a thousand times. You suppose you should be thankful for that, shouldn't you? And yet, thankful is the last thing you are right now.

Still, you relent. Loathe as you are to give up at a time like this, he does have a point. You're not going to accomplish anything staggering about half-dead. Better to rest up, sleep off the pain, let the medicine do its work as your body knits itself back together. Then, when you're only quarter-dead, you can get back to business.

Until then?

"My arm..." You instinctively glance to your surviving arm, only for your expression to darken as you realise what he means. It takes considerable willpower to drag your gaze over to where your other arm once was. Not even a stub remains. Even looking at the sheer nothingness is enough to make your whole body cringe. How are you going to fight without it? You've spent forty-one years with it, and now, you're without. Everything you've ever known, every instinct your body has on how to move, is now wrong. What do you even do about that?

"I'll figure something out." You murmur. It's a statement that's completely lacking in confidence, yet absolute in belief. "Until then... I'll survive. Always have. Always will."

---

howard slayte

Had he?

Had he always survived?

That question was meaningless. It wasn't one for Howard to answer. There's a flicker of doubt in the admin's eye as he looked down at Shred. That flicker vanished like a single star flickering out in the starry sky above. Unnoticed, buried. Shred's arm...

It was like his eye. He couldn't imagine living without it, and yet they made do. When Howard first went to sleep without his eye, he thought he'd never adjust to the darkness that covered one half of his vision. The fear that there was something there in the obscured half of his gaze terrified him.

Yet after enough time had passed, he barely even noticed anymore. Time healed all wounds, or at least reduced them to nothing more than phantom aches and tricks of the mind.

"I know you will." Admin Fox whistled over to a nurse. A muffled series of words were exchanged, and something was hooked to Shred's IV drip. Immediately, unconsciousness called for him. "That's what makes you strong. I've never seen you give up. Not once."

The Light Stone glimmered in Howard's hand as he regarded it. After a moment, he slipped it into a pocket.

"Never change that."

Never.

Forty-one years, and it was time to reach that pristine dawn.

---

Shred Zeppelin