He walked into the kitchen in an unusually melancholy mood. Angelise had never seen her father this depressed. She was curious of what could depress her father. "Pikachu is back, I can feel it..." he began. Aerith was standing in the doorway, listening. She had remembered her husband’s vision: He killed Pikachu, but did not live long enough to savor the moment. He must have had that vision again. "I know you can beat him, daddy!" Angelise said in a cheery tone. Her father did not seem to share the same happiness. "I know I can, Angie. I’m just worried about what may happen because of him..." Almathea then walked in. "Don’t worry about it, Charon. What happens, it happens... no matter how much we want to change it..." These words rang true to Gatoris: he knew first-hand. He tried to save his daughter Jessica’s friend, but she refused help. Even though he knew it was not his fault, he felt like he failed. The guilt still grated at him. "I know, Alma... If I die today, so be it. If not, then that is more quality time I can spend with my family." A smile came to his face. He picked his young daughter up and sat her on his lap. He looked at her, and then to Aerith. These are two people worth dying for... he thought. Angelise looked up at her father. "Don’t think like that, dad..." He smirked and looked at Almathea. "Of all the things you could have taught her, you had to teach mind-reading first..."

This semi-happy moment was disrupted by a telephone call. Gatoris’ other sister, Sailor Stardust, had seen Pikachu go past her tower, heading straight to him. Gatoris thanked her for warning him. "I will always love you, angel. Tell Jessica that too. Farewell, Akane..." He hung up the phone in tears. "It is time..." he muttered. "...Judgment Day..." Almathea finished. "Yeah, that. I promise I will try to return alive..." He grabbed his sword, kissed his three angels goodbye, and waked out the door, ready for fate to decide his course.

Outside of New Mideel, began to think of why he was doing this. He thought of every reason great and small to keep fighting like he had been. He thought of his daughter, his wife... his entire family. Gatoris also thought about the planet and all the innocent people on it. His mind eventually wandered to Edge, the one he could not save. He finally figured out her reasons. "The life of one person is nothing compared to the innocent lives of the masses... I get it now, Edge... thank you." After ten years of grating his soul, the conflict was resolved. He could now fight with purpose. Gatoris began to gather energy in an open field, awaiting the evil one’s appearance. Soon, it will all be over... he thought. The evil will be vanquished, and my job will be complete...

Pikachu finally made it to the field. He had kept his true, human form, believing it was the most powerful. He had expected Gatoris to meet him out there. "Fool!" he bolstered. "You actually think you can defeat me?" Gatoris looked at him, removing his glasses. "You bet I do!" he bellowed. "I am Gatoris Tonberry, Savior of the Cetra race and protector of the planet! I stand up for the downtrodden. I speak for those without voices. I fight for those who are weak. I live for those who needlessly died! And I swear by my eternal soul and my mother’s grave that I will destroy you!" He drew the Masamune and waited for Pikachu’s response. "Long-winded, aren’t we?" the evil one chimed in. "Those will make good last words." On that, he exposed his claws and lunged at Gatoris. He missed striking the skin, but he ripped up his shirt. Gatoris was still focused. He swung the Masamune with all his might. Unfortunately, Pikachu rolled under it and countered with another swipe. Again he failed to scratch him. Gatoris gave him a kick in the face for his efforts. As he back flipped away, Gatoris kicked him one more time, dislocating the beast’s jaw. Pikachu dusted himself off and repositioned his mouth. "You still have all that energy..." the evil creature growled. "I must have it..." he began to call upon his dark powers to subdue Gatoris.

The field disappeared to a dark, endless space. "Great, not these mind games again," Gatoris moaned. Then, the voices started. He first heard Aerith’s. "This is suicidal, Gatoris. You won’t beat him..." it began. "If you don’t love me, just tell me. You don’t have to kill yourself to get away from me..." Gatoris had to laugh. "That was pathetic! I know she wouldn’t say that! Try something else!" Next came Cloud’s voice. "Gatoris, I am going to kill you! You took my love away from me! I loved Aerith more than you ever will!" Gatoris laughed at this second failure. "Enough with the voices! You are losing your touch, you old rat!" "Ah... but you haven’t seen my masterpiece..." Pikachu’s voice boomed in the darkness. Suddenly, it was no longer darkness...

...it was his courtyard. Gatoris was puzzled by the sudden shift in location. He suddenly saw the Angelise from the future walk towards him. Gatoris was so confused, he could not tell if this was part of Pikachu’s illusion or if she was coming to save him...

Although he had said not to follow him, Aerith, and Almathea walked to the open field. They saw Gatoris just standing there, unaware of his surroundings. There seemed to be no trace of Pikachu. However, Almathea sensed something wrong. "Pikachu’s playing with his mind again..." she muttered. Aerith suddenly fell to her knees. Her ability to peer into Gatoris’ mind had let her see the illusion. The rat was using an illusion of their daughter to trick him...

"...Dad..." Angelise began. "...come with me and you’ll be safe from Pikachu." Still unsure if this was one of the rat’s sadistic illusions, he followed her. She led them into a small room with just a simple light. After she locked the door, she seemed angry. "You let yourself die... You could have lived, but you were afraid... afraid that I would become weak if you lived..." Gatoris arched an eyebrow. What was she going on about? "...you weakened me more with your death. I had so much anger when you died... more like when you abandoned me!" He knew something was up, but he did not suspect what it was. She began to strap him down in the chair he was seated at. "You heartless bastard... You never cared once for me..." Gatoris would have rebutted these claims, but he was struggling to break free. "You filled me full of empty feelings... I despised you and everything you had stood for..." she continued as she sharpened a pair of knives. It had yet to dawn on Gatoris that this was Pikachu’s ‘masterpiece’. "Although I felt bad after I killed mom, it didn’t last long. I had no remorse when I killed your precious brother Sephiroth..." Gatoris finally got it. The demon had slipped up. Goku was his brother, not Sephiroth. Upon this, he became full of rage and exploded with power. He broke the straps that binded him and went after the impostor. "You just ruined your masterpiece, baka."

Aerith smiled slightly when she sensed Gatoris breaking free. That smile was short-lived, for both Aerith and Almathea saw Meowth sneaking up behind a zoned-out Gatoris. Aerith’s eyes began to turn... no, glow... blue. "I must save him..." Cara had awakened. A brilliant flash of light surrounded her body, and she began to change. She had again become the Queen of the Angels. She then swooped down behind Gatoris.

Gatoris grabbed the impostor by the throat, and clutched a dagger in his hand. "Time to die, Pika..." Gatoris had finally snapped. "You wouldn’t kill your daughter, would you?" Pikachu thought he still had him confused. "I wouldn’t kill my daughter, but I would kill a fake!" he shouted as he cut off Pikachu’s head. He slowly began to return to reality, but he had a bad feeling about something...

Cara stood next to Gatoris, protecting him from the deranged Pokémon zombie-cat. When he came within ten feet of her, Cara saw the dagger he was holding. She decided to take advantage of her wings. She turned her back and shielded Gatoris’ body with her massive wings. Meowth, too hell-bent on killing anything possible, stabbed Cara instead. She fell to the ground about the same time Gatoris awoke.

To make matters worse...

In Deadwood, it was an rainy summer day. Angelina was driving to the cemetery to visit Garrett’s grave. As she turned onto the highway to take her out of town, her car skidded into the oncoming lane, directly in front of a speeding coal truck. She never saw it coming...

In her tower, Sailor Stardust was sitting on the floor, clutching her crystal wand. She noticed a new crystal shard forming on it. It was almost pure white. She knew immediately what had happened. "Cara..." she said as she started to cry.

Almathea had seen the whole thing unfold. "Angelina..." She began to break down in tears. "MOM!!!" a voice shouted. Angelise had tagged along behind them. "Help me... Gatoris..." Aerith was dying... Angelise hugged her mother. "Mom... don’t leave me..." her tears rolled, as well. "Your mom is not going to die, Angie..." Gatoris said. He began to think of a way to save her...

Three words escaped his lips: "Jupiter Lover’s Action..." Almathea looked at him. "What?" "Your ultimate move... Granting the wish of a loving and pure heart..." Gatoris said. Almathea balked a little. "Not that I doubt the purity of your heart, but there is a slight risk of my dying if I do this..." she replied. "I don’t want to do it... but I will. What is it you want Gatoris?" Gatoris drew a deep breath. "...I want to trade places with her." Both Almathea and Angelise looked at him. "That’s suicide!" Almathea exclaimed. Gatoris let his hair turn brown for a moment. "Cara is gone... I have nothing left... I have to be with her. Besides, If Aerith dies, I’ll die anyway. I want Angie to have at least one parent." Almathea sighed. She couldn’t talk him out of it. She began to chant. A warm light surrounded the two. Slowly, Aerith seemed to regain life. Gatoris screamed in agony as the pain was transferred to his body. When it was complete, both Gatoris and Almathea fell to the ground.

In Stardust’s tower, Sailor Comet, Gatoris’ daughter Jessica, found her aunt in a ball sobbing. She had also dropped her crystal wand. Jessica took one look at it and saw the translucent green crystal in the center of the cluster of crystals...

Garret’s spirit lingered for a moment. He lingered long enough to see the ones he cared for. He looked Aerith and Angelise. I was right, he thought. They were worth dying for. As much as Cara was. Garret then felt a hand on his shoulder. "Garret... it’s time to go..." He turned around and hugged Cara. "I know that seemed hypocritical of me..." Garret said. He remembered how he had been angry when Cara tried to kill herself. "That wasn’t hypocritical. You did it to save Aerith." Garret nodded. He then looked back at Angelise. "I just wish we could be there for her..." Cara hugged him. "One day, Garret..." Cara said, "One day, we will have children..." The two faded from the plane of existence, onto their next leg of their journey.

Almathea looked at her brother’s body. "It’s not over, Charon... It’s not over until I die." She stood up and hugged Aerith. "I have to go follow him..." she sighed. "It was nice knowing you..." Aerith replied. Angelise hugged her aunt. "I’m going to miss you the most, pumpkin..." Angelise looked up at her. "I’ll miss you too, Aunt Almathea..." Almathea began to walk off. As she began to disappear in the horizon, she was enveloped in a flash of lavender.

Almathea began to travel through the dimensions seeking Garret and Cara. She remembered what her brother had called her... yumemono utsukushii. It meant ‘beautiful dreamer.’ She wished that she was just a dreamer, and all that had happened to her had been a dream. Then, she could just wake up from this dream...

Almathea Chaste woke up from her dream. She stared around her dorm room. Her hazel eyes stumbled upon a picture on her dresser. It was of her brother Garret, who had died a year before in a car accident. As the tears welled up, she began to think. Had it really been a year since he died? It seemed like only yesterday at times, others it seemed like an eternity away. Almathea then fixed her gaze on her roommate, Angelina. She was her sister-in-law and Garret’s wife, a simple girl from a small Indiana town. Of all the people that had anything to do with Garret’s life, she was the hardest hit. Almathea knew as she laid in bed, Angelina only thought of him. Almathea smiled as she recalled how the two met. She was visiting friends in New Jersey when the two met by accident. They seemed to hit it off immediately, but Garret did not ask her out first. He let his best friend Jason Shields go with her. After one date, he decided she was not for him. It was then that Garret asked her out. Approximately one year later, they were married. Both were eighteen years old, and deeply in love with each other. A year later, they were blessed with a daughter named Angelise Rose Chaste. This was about a year before Garret’s death. Almathea then looked at her niece sleeping in another bed. She then wept for what Angelise would never know: the love of her father.

Angelina stirred in her bed. She noticed her sister-in-law crying, and went to check on her. She noticed what Almathea was looking at, and began to cry as well. "She may look like you, but she has her father’s heart..." Almathea finally spoke up. Angelina hugged her. "You should know. You were closer to him than your parents were." Almathea began to think of something. "Why didn’t you stay at Indiana State to finish up college?" Garret and Angelina had been attending Indiana State University together before he died. "Garret was transferring here to be closer to you anyway, so I decided to come as well. He would have wanted me to." The two let out a sigh.

The ladies suddenly had a knock on the door. Almathea wondered who would visit at one in the morning. When she opened the door, there was no one there, but there was a box. A note on the outside stated it was for her. She brought it in and opened it. When she saw the contents, she wept. There was a large book in there, with a familiar pair of glasses resting upon it. She immediately knew what it was. Garret had been writing fanfiction in his spare time. That was one thing the two had in common. They read each other’s works often. Almathea remembered that near his death, Garret was working on a fanfic he called The Tonberry Chronicles. It was almost complete, save an Epilog. This book was all of the story. Almathea thumbed to the end and was surprised: there was a hand-written epilog.

Almathea cried. She felt that since he died, she had been searching for Garret. She looked down further to see some more words from Garret, this time directed to her.

Almathea also noticed there were already tear stains on the paper. Were these Garret’s? Why did she ask herself? She knew they were his. He loved his family so much, it pained him to be separated from them. Finally there was a haiku that he had written. It was partially smeared by tears, but it was still readable:

These were Garret’s words. He had never had the chance to say goodbye. He however found a way to do it. Almathea put the book down and clutched his picture to her chest. She began to whisper, not wanting Angelina to hear. "I will, brother... I will take care of your angels..." Angelina was over her shoulder. She had seen his words, his final goodbye to all he cared for. "I... I miss him, Alma..." Angelina was crying as well.

Both women cried themselves back to sleep. Almathea also kept muttering her promise to her brother: "I will take care of your angels, Garret... until we meet up in our next lives..." until she fell asleep...

This makes an interesting transition back into Almathea’s story. Of all the tear-jerkers I have written, I saved the best (in my opinion) for last. It is hard to write your own demise, even if it is only fiction. I am reminded of Guns ‘n Roses’s November Rain:

The semi-cute (borderline cocker spaniel’s rump-looking) one of the family,

Gatoris Tonberry

(AKA Garrett Mackenzie, AKA Garret Bradford, AKA Adam)