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"Thank you!" Shadow said, attempting an awkward wave as he crouched down to see after him. "You're a nice Shadow too."

Shadow looked at him for a moment. "All right. If you're sure it will be okay." He exhaled a small cloud of wispy shadows. "I hope Nate doesn't hurt you again. You don't deserve that."

Shadow smiled back at him with a couple of wags of his tail. "That's good! I'm glad we got to talk, too. Even though there's not a lot of time left." He hesitated a moment, looking back towards Nate's table. "Is he going to hurt you if you go back there?"

Shadow took a small step back and tried to discreetly make himself smaller, less threatening. "I say things he won't. Like how you apologized for Nate when he won't. And Dave hates that, but sometimes I think it's better that I said it." He paused. "I'm glad you're here, and that you said that."

Shadow thought back, to the fight where he'd first emerged. Everything was fuzzy back then, just blended together with Dave's own memories. Brisa rushing into danger, him powerless to stop it once again. "That's true," he said softly. "But you're here anyway. And... I think since we got here...

There it was. Shadow glanced back towards Nate's table. How far could a Shadow get from their original, anyway? "He shouldn't hurt you. You haven't done anything wrong." He paused. Wanted to offer to protect him, somehow, but he couldn't protect anyone, and he had an awful suspicion that Dave...

Shadow looked at him in incomprehension. Lots of friends? (In a flash, the sensation of punching Brisa, trying to make her attack him.) "So you... haven't come out, until just now?" He cocked his head. "Then why are you hiding here, now?"

Shadow looked back at him, blinking slowly. "So do I," he said, quiet. "I think... we're similar. In some ways. We both hurt people we don't want to hurt." He glanced back at where Nate was, again. It was hard not to wonder why his Shadow was here, hiding under tables. Hard not to guess. "Where...

Shadow pulled back immediately, like he'd been stung, shrinking away. "Sorry. Never mind." Stupid. Why did he do that? "I just wanted to... help." He looked away. Had the Mudkip just called him a nice shadow? "I still don't think you seem like the bad part."

"He knows. But that's a lot of why he doesn't like me. He doesn't like himself very much." Shadow paused to gather his thoughts. "But I remind him of his daughter sometimes, and he loves her. So if he just doesn't think about me being him, he doesn't hate me as much. I'm just some other...

"No. I'm scared and pathetic and talk too much." Shadow looked down, at the spreading shadow puddle around the Mudkip. "But he likes me better if he... just pretends I'm somebody else." He hesitated, looking back up at Nate's Shadow for a lingering moment. "I don't think you're what's bad about...

"No. There's nothing like that. Just people." Shadow paused, looking away. "I don't know what will happen when they leave. Maybe we'll just disappear. But they'll have to go on anyway, with the same lives that they had, and the same problems, and the same people will still be dead." He glanced...

Shadow shivered, ears flattening against his head. "The real Mia is dead," he muttered. "It's not really her but... I don't want to lose her again." His gaze followed the Mudkip's to the table. "She seems happier in Cibus than the real one ever was back home, though. I hope she does stick with...

Shadow blinked. ”That’s… that’s okay.” The Shadow Mudkip looked so small and scared, and it was weird. Shadow winced, looking away. ”I’m… sorry, too. I hurt you, a lot. And I was mean back. I mean, he was, but it’s the same thing.” But being sorry didn’t fix anything, did it? Here was Nate’s...

"...Why are you sorry?" Shadow glanced back at Nate's table. The Mudkip's demeanor was strikingly unlike his original, tiny and frantic and panicked. "Is he mad at you?"

Shadow crept a little closer, looking over his shoulder, but Dave was paying him no mind, occupied with his drink and the loud argument going on at the next table that he heard every word of despite his best efforts. "...Are you Nate's Shadow?"

The fight was done and they'd saved the world and they were going home soon and all this would be gone and forgotten. If ever there was an occasion for a drink it was now. Shadow sat and watched him as he drank. Dave drummed his paws on the table, debating whether he wanted some company...

"See you then. Thanks for the chat." If that happened. Who was to say? It'd be up to the whims of whatever gods went about summoning 'heroes'. No power to even influence it, when the request'd come from another fucking universe. But it was something. Maybe Brisa and Starr could have a nice...

Dave looked at her, at the fierce determination in her eyes, a cold hand gripping his insides. The Miracle Matters. Well, they hadn't exactly gotten to come back to their Cibus, had they? Even if Team Spectrum were called back, they weren't fucking coming back here. They just might get pulled...

Dave took a breath, looking away. "Yeah. I hope so. Not that we'll ever fucking know." He paused. Wished for a drink again. "Back when we went to Spirits' Edge, we talked to her dad. Convinced him to come look for her and get her help for the shit he's been up to. Maybe that'll jostle her...