A letter to his only colleague

Surveil's journal is full of things he found interesting - detailed notes about his experiments with Espurrs and research into Mew, the trio of Humanity, and the connections between Love, Emotion, Knowledge, and Willpower, and his first experiments with infusing Pokemon with raw Hatred to create what he deems Anima Beasts, or Demons as you know them. So much is there to pore through however, that eventually you find yourself flipping to the last few pages to see if anything was penned recently, and you find the following: a letter addressed to Melody Ipu.

Dear Melody,

I figure you will find this journal and reach this point sometime after my coming departure, after the upcoming battle is concluded. If not, I've left documents pointing here among the rest of my things. And if the battle does not conclude in Nolgranda's favor, then I suppose this passage will mean very little. With what I plan to do, perhaps it is pitiful that I hope for your safety, but here we are. I will write this assuming the best.

When I was married to Yulia, she was the light of my life. Cliche, I know, but true. Her family wasn't fond of our union, but their opinions didn't matter. We were young and carefree, and Artifour Alabaster took Yulia's surname, di Surveil, without caring about the implications it would have for the di Surveil line. Having originated from foreign blood, they were lower on the hierarchy of Nolgranda's noble castes than my own family. Marrying 'down', so to speak, wasn't so bad, but taking her surname put Yulia's family in a bad light. It gave them negative attention among the other nobles, who saw them as absorbing an older, more prestigious lineage. Perhaps that was the start of it. I myself never cared for the trappings of nobility, and I was the last of my line with no more family to my name. I didn't think it would hurt. But perhaps that was the start of it all.

It was their disdain that caused Yulia and I to seek residence elsewhere. The quaint village of Whisperwhite nestled on one of the few snowy peaks in the neighboring country of Rivale seemed like a perfect retreat. There was a kind community there, a thriving ice trade, and there was work for someone like me, taking apprenticeship under the famous Alastor Crowley, master of chimera research. You know a good deal of this already from the talks we have shared, but I'd like to make sure I don't miss anything - especially if it comes that this document is reviewed for legal or historical purposes later. Our life in Whisperwhite seemed as though it would be cathartic and peaceful. That is, until one day, my wife went to pick fresh berries coming up for the first time in the thawing spring snow. The weather turned that day, snow and sleet both. I have no doubt that the piled snow looked safe to stand on, but I fear she stepped too unsure and tumbled until the mountain had wrung the life from her. We never found her body, but I knew for certain she was dead when the enchanted sapphire on my wedding ring lost its glow.

I was devastated. I want to say a piece of me died that day, but perhaps the opposite was true. Instead, something of a fire was started within me. I began to research ways of bringing back the dead. Crowley thought me a fool, and perhaps I was. I had heard of a powerful man wielding the True Rune of Life who was said to be able to perform such wonders, but without a body it was all but hopeless. I began searching for the usual easy roads out: philosopher stones, ho-oh feathers, tomes of forbidden knowledge bound in human flesh. Though I came upon an unusual artifact at an estate sale in Davadezi, none of these things dared show themselves to me. I returned to Crowley's apprenticeship disheartened, but it wasn't long before I began research into that forbidden area of research: that of human chimeras. My first attempt, and my second chimera in total - appeared to be a great success. I had created the form of a woman resembling Yulia, though as a vessel she seemed... empty. Able to reason, but utterly incapable of empathy. I found her dissecting a pidove she had caught and strangled to death with her own hands. The chimera however, was obedient in whole. I put baser thoughts aside, however, and tried to maintain a detached, professional connection to the chimera, who I named Yuna.

I thought to myself if this woman lacked a soul, then perhaps I had learned enough about experimentation on human matter to conjure Yulia's soul back from the dead and impart it to this new body. I attempted to create a Froslass/human chimera, with my sapphire wedding ring as the focus for drawing Yulia's soul back from beyond. The results were catastrophic. Crowley's lab was wrecked, and Yuna, who had been standing nearby, had been warped by the backlash of alchemical energies into a horrifying monster. To make matters worse, when the egg hatched, the Snorunt inside seemed ignorant of my identity. The sapphire jewel I had used was embedded in its forehead, and its enchantment, still linked to her, was cold and silent. I had failed utterly.

Crowley cast me out at this point. I decided to free my chimeras into the wilderness - Yuna, the snorunt, and Asterion, my first chimera, the minotauros. The snorunt would find a tribe nearby, I was sure - and Yuna was intelligent and resourceful, if anything. I thought about giving her a mercy killing, but I couldn't find the will to do so. Asterion I had little doubts about. He was a gentle soul, and well learned about the mountains, though he would probably follow Yuna. He had taken a fancy to her for some reason.

At this point, I considered myself out of options. It was at that point that I decided to return to Nolgranda. I applied myself vigorously, and even met with the King and Queen, who were especially interested in my human chimera research. I suddenly found myself in the position of Chief Wizard and Dean of Brighthaven, neither of which I had expected, but it was welcome. I could surely use the resources I would have at my disposal.

Time passed. I met you, still a student at the academy. Took you under my wing, as I'm sure you remember well. The taboo always fascinated you to a degree, didn't it? And who was I to deny such a curiosity after what I had done? I'm sure I don't need to recount to you the days we spent together, but I want you to know they were a great comfort. You became as a daughter to me. Thank you for that. Though I am still a shell of the man I once was, you actually kept me far more grounded than I would have been otherwise.

What I didn't tell you, though, was what I got up to during this time period in my own research. Many things became increasingly clear to me, the first and most important of which is that the world is not fair. With my earlier failures, I had considered that maybe an enchanted ring and a connection to the legend of Froslass simply wasn't enough to bring Yulia back. Perhaps I needed to sacrifice my own soul to restore hers. A naive point, I would soon learn. Equivalent exchange is an incorrect approach to alchemy. Simply substituting something for something of like worth is impossible. The world needs more. It wants to profit on the endeavor. Energy or matter is lost in alchemical exchanges, leaving the final product lesser than its parts, despite what it may seem. This is what we call entropy - and in fact the more you alchemize something, the more energy and matter is lost, and the greater disorder it will fall into. This unfortunately holds true for -natural- alchemical processes as well, such as burning stars. Eventually all will crumble and nothing will be left, and there's nothing we can do about it. Not really fair, is it?

To bring back Yulia's soul, I had to consider what a soul actually IS. The two parts of a soul, the anima - the spiritual soul, and the animus - the physical soul. What ARE these things? The animus seems to be a loose collection of aetherial imprints tied to the biological functions of the body. Memory, emotion, reason. When the body is damaged in specific ways, such as an injury to the brain that yet leaves the victim alive, the result is usually that the animus is also damaged and its functionality changes. When an old man begins to go senile, that is his animus breaking down because his body can no longer support the connection to his soul as well. The anima on the other hand, is disconnected. It is the spiritual power of a person. The self, the willpower. The ability to use magic. The power to dream. The connections we have to our colleagues. It is vaguer, less definable, but essentially a great mass of aetherial energy that attaches to the animus. Human-like races, those we collectively call humanity, possess anima, while Pokemon and normal animals do not, unless the Pokemon are Rune-Bonded to their trainer, in which case they share a part of our anima. When a person dies, their animus is torn away from their physical body by its connection to the anima, which departs for places unknown. The animus then seems to begin to dissipate. It is unknown what happens to the anima, but I predict it simply returns to the aether, becoming part of the world of dreams.

And herein lies the problem - if a person's animus has already dissipated, then their memories - which are an enormous part of who they are - are gone. To rearrange the particular memories long dispersed into the aether would take far more than a single soul offered in return. It would be exponential amounts more. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? It became clear to me that my quest to resurrect Yulia had been a fool's errand. And that fire that had started inside of me began to burn hotter and blacker. What then? I was at a loss. I had nothing else to turn to, and my heart would not simply let her go. It wasn't fair, I thought.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't... fair. Lots of things were not fair, were they? It was not fair I could not give my life to bring Yulia back. It was not fair that she died in a freak accident like that day. It was not fair that people died of preventable illness, or that children were born deformed, diseased, or stillborne. It wasn't fair that the strong ruled the weak despite what morals they held. That these things happened, or even were allowed to exist... this was negligence on the part of the gods, was it not? Or worse yet, it was complicity in evil. Yes, the gods, the True Runes, who took part in creating our world. We are all, each and every one, victims of their gross negligence. That is what I realized that day. Love created life, and Emotion, Knowledge and Willpower were born, granting their gifts to humanity. But where was Justice? What primal force rules morality and righteousness? There is the Hero Rune, that conglomerate of four swordsmen who stand united together, but heroes are not inherently righteous. They can be self centered and glory seeking, saviors only by circumstance. Simply put, Justice is not inherent to the world. How could they? How dare they create a world like this and not give it their protection? No, instead we were left to our own devices, thrown in a pool of sharks and told to make the best of it all. The world is supposedly ours to change, but it was given to us in such a sorry state, a world of survival of the fittest, incident and chance. What good could come of this all?

I began my research into the origin of life, Mew. Love. Love is a powerful force, but it is neither omniscient, nor inherently benevolent. What of its opposite, Hatred? Yes, come to think of it, one of man's worst enemies was himself. We were created with the capacity to hate, and with that hatred, commit evil. And perhaps that was Love's greatest sin. In giving us complete, unchecked free will, in their 'benevolence', the gods created evil. And I thought to myself that while perhaps their intentions were not evil, it does not excuse them. What then, could be done? In the absence of benevolent gods, I created a malevolent one, intended to punish the rest. Hatred is its power. Mewtwo is the name I give it. And now we have come to the crux of the matter.

For what it is worth, Melody, I must apologize. Of all the people in the world that I will wrong, you are the one I regret wronging most. What I intend is no less than a complete betrayal. I will commit atrocity after atrocity to show how complicit the world is in evil, I will gather the hatred of as much of the world as I can, and use it to strengthen my artificial god. With that power, I will let my own anger burn, burn, burn this world away. I will eradicate everything. And when the ashes settle I will turn my sights on the gods. I will have them start again. I will make them atone for the evils they were complicit in through their negligence. From the ashes, a new world shall rise. Not one under my rule - I have no interest in such power. I simply wish to see the capacity for evil to be eliminated. Free will should still be able to exist without it, an appendix of the emotional spectrum. Random chance will be eliminated, and no one will suffer from accidents, or from means beyond their control. And then when I am satisfied from what I see, only then will I let the flames consuming me turn myself and Mewtwo to ash as well. It will be done, the Final Injustice. The Most Necessary Evil. The destruction of the world of suffering to create a world with hope.

But there is always a chance that I fail. Even now forces descend upon this bastion that could threaten my plans. The leaders of that rebel group, the Chroma Peace Alliance, who are yet fighting for their ideals. There are undoubtably more heroes like that elsewhere too. Should that come to pass - should I fail and the world remain, then take what little is left of the love in my heart with you. Be safe, Melody. Do not begrudge what happens to me. I am to be the enemy of mankind, after all.

Should Nolgranda remain in its current capacity after my theoretical failure, and my assets are not seized, then I leave all that is mine to you. All that was part of house Alabaster, and all of Yulia's that is mine to give. I have named you my heir in my will. This includes a recommendation that you be made Chief Witch. Do with that title what you will. Treasure it or cast it aside. But if I fail, do not follow in my mistakes. We have all tread dark roads as of late, but you are not quite as far gone as I. I sense the intense self-hatred within your heart. You, in some capacity, loathe what you are becoming. That's good. That means there's still hope for you. Don't worry about the prisoners. The Queen knew full well what she was implying when she gave control of the bastille to you and Maybel, and her orders would have been to execute them had you not used them in your research. At the very least, maybe you'll learn something that will help others. You have always been an exceedingly bright young woman. But take it from a man who knows full well what you feel - do not let your hatred consume you.

Finally, I have one final confession to make. At the Queen's behest, in each of the Heaven's Hand (apart from Mackenzie, who had already departed) I was to implant a seed of raw Hatred into each of their hearts - to blunt their morality and ensure their loyalty. Perhaps you've noticed changes in Maybel's behavior as of late, or that she's even been encouraging experimentation on the prisoners. Now you know why - I carried out the order I was given, with exception - I left your heart alone. In some ways perhaps this was crueler to do, but even I couldn't bear to twist the hatred in your heart further. With my death, this infusion should become undone. I don't expect you will forgive me, but I never expected forgiveness at the end of any of the paths before me. Regardless... I truly wish you the best. You have been the one and only human since Yulia I could truly call a friend.

Goodbye,

Artifour di Surveil