Chapter 19: Past

As much as the journey through Prison Island had been a struggle, it had also been immensely educational. As it turned out, the isle appeared to have originally been some sort of communal Giant mansion, before the race was wiped out and the High Entia repurposed it. It was unclear whether the strange creatures within were related to the Giants, given how alien they were compared to everything else they knew, though they certainly had a similar aesthetic about them.

But now it was just about over. The transporter the group had expected to be the last indeed was, and they were now at the foot of the staircase leading to the terrace. Dunban had suggested the team take a fifteen-minute breather before moving on, and they all agreed.

Shulk was tense. He didn't need anyone to confirm whether Dickson was waiting at the top of the staircase, he just somehow knew. He wondered how the others felt about challenging Dickson, though not strongly enough to ask. Presumably Dunban had the worst of it aside from himself, even though outwardly Reyn was a lot more vocal about it. Sharla never really got to know Dickson, and Riki pretty much never interacted with him, so neither of them would have many feelings about it. Melia he guessed would be in the middle, if only because of how much he'd talked with her about Dickson over the past day or so.

It almost felt like he was a kid again, walking home from school stiff and scared with the burden of the teacher's note he had to get signed, knowing that he was about to lose all his favourite things for a time. Dickson had been fairly lax about most things, but when he did punish Shulk, it was harsh. He still vividly remembered the worst occasion - Dickson had ordered him to clean up all his personal projects and not touch them for two weeks. Dickson could've put them away himself but made Shulk do it, partly because he never touched Shulk's stuff out of respect for the kid's obsession with the tiniest details, but mostly to make him feel worse about what he'd done and how dreadfully boring the next two weeks would be. It was so bad he honestly couldn't even remember what the punishment was for.

"Riki have question for Shulk."

Shulk was so busy being introspective that he didn't notice Riki had approached. "Oh. Uh, okay, what is it?"

"Was Dickson a good daddypon to Shulk?"

"I don't know." It was a quick, dejected response. But even though it came easily, Shulk felt it couldn't really be true, so he continued. "I mean, I guess? I never felt like...well, I guess sometimes I thought I didn't like him, but everyone thinks that about their parents every now and then don't they? But overall...I dunno, I don't have anything to compare him to."

"Shulk is unsure. That good sign. It mean Dickson good enough to not be all bad." Riki scooted a bit closer and spoke a bit quieter. "Riki not be much of daddypon if he did everything perfect every time. Riki sometimes do small thing wrong on purpose so littlepon can see not just good, but also bad. Littlepon and daddypon learn from each others' mistakes, not just own mistakes."

Shulk turned to the side and frowned. He felt like Riki was missing the point, but it didn't feel right to try and set him straight.

Riki could tell he was unlikely to get anywhere further, so he sat down beside Shulk to let him make the next move. Shulk chose not to do so.

It felt like it was no time at all before Dunban turned towards the stairs. "Is everyone ready to move on?"

Instead of any verbal response, the group stood up and began to ascend.

The climb was short. In no time at all, they reached the terrace, with Dickson leaning against the far wall where Arglas used to be.

"Kept me waiting, huh?" he drawled.

Shulk put on a determined face. Some variation of "you're late" was something he and Melia had indeed planned for.

"I didn't think you of all people would complain about having to wait."

Dickson nodded and frowned in reluctant approval. "Fair enough. But I was always more of an active waiter, always busy doing something. You lot have forced me to just sit around up here instead."

Shulk continued to give a solid stare. "Maybe it forced you to think about what you've done."

"What, you want me to feel bad about it or something? Pfeh. I've been working for Lord Zanza since the beginning. Everythin' over the last how many years has gone to plan because of me. I ain't feelin' any remorse for a job well done."

"I guess we didn't really expect you to. But we had to try. We d-" He changed his mind without realising it. "I don't want to have to kill you."

"Of course not. Said the same thing about Egil, didn't you?" A pause. "My fault I suppose. I needed to walk the line on how to raise you, whether to make you care about others or be ruthless to them. Needed a bit of both to succeed, and I didn't give you enough of the latter. But that's all water under the bridge now. It's time to end this."

Dickson released a yell as a strange light surrounded him. He started to glow and grow, ballooning to a huge size with fleshy wings appearing from his back, his weapon also mutating into a blade of purple stone.

Shulk looked at the new shape of the enemy. A strange cross between Arglas and the Dickson he knew, with bulging muscles and tattooed skin, but recognisable silver medallions and an eerily familiar face. It would be easier to fight him than if he hadn't transformed, but he looked similar enough that it wouldn't be simple.

Melia on the other hand had only one feeling: vindication. Finally, Dickson looked as he felt; his gruesome appearance matched his chaotic aura. It was like a weight off her chest to see his outer appearance match his inner ether.

As the others all readied their weapons, Shulk sighed and did the same. "I guess we are ending this."

The battle began. It wasn't for nothing that Dickson was revered as a brilliant tactician. He'd studied the group's methods in the previous battles he'd watched, and wasn't about to make the same mistakes as previous foes - he didn't target anyone for personal reasons, he didn't fall for Reyn's taunting, he tried to obstruct Sharla's line of sight to the others, and he actually considered Riki a threat. Just the last of these was enough for the battle to take on a very different character, and altogether it quickly turned into chaos - the group was forced to think much harder and work a lot more to try and stick to their roles.

It didn't help that Shulk was having a lot of trouble keeping his mind on the battle. Actually standing against Dickson on the battlefield was so much harder than simply preparing for it that he was practically not ready for it. It was evident that his heart wasn't in it, that he couldn't put the full force into his attacks as if hoping that someone else would take care of the problem for him. Normally the team could pick up the slack for any one person playing below average, but not in a battle as challenging as this one.

Dickson could tell that the party's energy and morale were dropping, and there was one thing to do with the upper hand like that - make it worse by taunting them. There was no risk; either they'd ignore him, or they'd get mad and fight even worse for it.

"Was' the matter kid, lost your Monado? Forgot all how to fight without it?"

"I told ya you needed to buck up, big kid! You ain't protectin' no one out here!"

"Go on an' hit me, Mr. Hero! I'm right here! Just try to make it hurt!"

"Shoulda stayed home lass, so your little brother didn't have to die alone in his toy fort!"

"How's it feel to be a princess of one? To help Lord Zanza wipe everyone else out?"

"I bet your kids never thought their dad would abandon them on some chase for glory."

This last one was a mistake.

"YOU NO INSULT RIKI'S FATHERHOOD!"

Riki leaped into the air and cracked his biter over Dickson's head. The resulting sonic boom left the entire battlefield in stunned disarray for several seconds.

As a Giant, Dickson was first to come back to his senses, and used the opportunity to quickly land a solid blow on everyone else before turning to heal the massive welt that had formed on his head.

"Can't believe I still underestimated that Nopon," he grumbled. He then addressed the group once more. "So how're you lot doing so far? Not good, eh? C'mon, I'm just gettin' started, give me some spice here! You gonna stick your backs into it, or just stay down and take it?"

Despite having not really done much of anything, Shulk was mentally exhausted. He couldn't force himself to care about fighting on.

"So that's a no then?" Dickson grinned and charged at Shulk. "Suits me just fine!"

"What're ya doin', Shulk?" Reyn lumbered up and stood between the two, easily taking the running slash with his shield. "You seriously gonna give up just 'cuz you thought you knew this guy? You gotta prove him wrong about you, man! Don't jus' let 'im put you down!"

Riki walked up to Shulk and patted him on the head. "Riki no believe it, but Reyn right. Riki no want to see Shulk's sad lose face. Riki know Shulk strong! Shulk fight for friends as he always does! Shulk is bestest!" He darted off with a crazy laugh to try and get behind the enemy.

Dickson shoved Reyn aside, but Dunban was there, and locked blades with his old friend.

"Focus, Shulk!" he called. "We cannot show mercy to any that stand against us! If you must think about the past, do it later! Now is the time for the battle in front of you!"

"He's right!" yelled Sharla from across the battlefield. "You've gotten this far, why would you stop caring now? Don't you still have people you're fighting to protect?"

On hearing this, the first thing that came to Shulk's mind was not helpful - it was when Dunban had so long ago, before he and Reyn had left Colony 9, spoke of how Fiora had died to protect him. Man, he still missed her. Even now, sometimes he still looked behind him and expected to see her blonde-

No. Bad. Shulk instinctively activated the coping strategy he'd accidentally gotten used to for whenever he thought about Fiora: to instead think about Melia.

-to see her silver hair curls hanging there and bouncing around. He'd been wanting to ask about that actually - why was her hair curly? It didn't seem like any other High Entia had curly hair. Maybe it was another half-blood thing? The High Entia really were fascinating in how they were both so similar yet wildly different compared to Homs.

There was a loud squeak, jolting Shulk back to reality as Riki sailed by. Apparently, Dickson had decided that the defenders circling Shulk gave him the perfect chance to strike elsewhere, and only Riki had an angle to block his advance on Melia.

Shulk had honestly not been paying much attention to the fight thus far, since he was busy moping around and being depressed. So this was the first time he had properly processed the sight of Dickson, a greedy grin on his face, looming over the tiny Melia.

"Guess I'll just take this runt," Dickson drawled as he started to reach out with his free hand.

Melia considered that it might be easier to poke him in the palm than to try and dodge the grab, but he could then just grab the staff instead, and she wouldn't put it past him to be capable of snapping it. She knew Dickson would be expecting a dodge, and it was too risky to assume otherwise, so she had to guess which direction he would overcorrect towards and go the other way. Left or right?

She guessed wrong, and hopped right into his grasp.

"Well lookiee what I caught!"

The hand wasn't as big as Melia expected, but it was still large enough to have a hold around her waist and right arm. She quickly passed her staff into the other hand and smacked his fingers with it, but she didn't have the angle for any power behind the strike, and there was no reaction at all. She currently had a flare and an ice active - she'd need to summon something else, that didn't have a blast radius, in order to safely knock herself loose.

Dickson turned towards the wall of the terrace. "Let's see how well your pet bird can fly!"

Melia had a bolt ready now, but before she could whack Dickson in the knuckles with it, she lost contact with the ground and was suddenly turned sideways. She barely had time to realise she was facing up before her head suddenly snapped back and she was cartwheeling through the air.

Shulk stared open-mouthed at seeing Melia get thrown directly at the solid wall of stone.

"Gotcha!" Sharla led her shot perfectly and struck Melia with a Shield Bullet, surrounding her with a round barrier.

Melia had time to register a positive energy around her before she struck the wall. The barrier instantly broke on impact, the reaction force slowing her velocity enough that when her head hit it only felt like she'd tripped and broken her nose on the floor. Then she fell.

"Heropon is here!" Riki leaped up to collide with and catch Melia at the peak of his jump, causing the pair to land hard but without serious injury.

Melia shakily pushed herself up into a sitting position. By the time she was upright, the team had already healed her from the impacts, but her head was still spinning. She squinted to see that Dickson was occupied by Reyn and Dunban again, so she was safe for the moment. Shulk wasn't visible, so he was probably behind Dickson.

Dickson snarled. "I'll break through your teamwork eventually. I've got more patience than you lot can dr-AAGH!"

He whirled around to find that Shulk, visibly angry, had attacked him for the first time.

"So you do remember how to fight," he taunted, taking a swing.

Shulk stared him in the eyes as their blades clashed. "You broke the number-one rule," he spat. "Never touch what I'm working on!"

Dickson smirked. This was what he'd been waiting for.

Now that Shulk had broken past his mental block, the fight was really on. The team was fighting as six once more, as united as they had ever been. But Dickson was no easier a foe just because another person was now playing their role. He did have to ease up on the commentary now that the hole in the party's strategy had been filled, but the battle remained fairly even.

Three minutes into the renewed combat, Melia stepped back to consider the situation. The team had stabilised compared to when the fight began, but they needed another push to get the advantage, and it was going to be difficult to get much more out of personal encouragement. The problem was that Dickson was clever and experienced enough to see most tricks before they happened, and strong enough to shrug off low-risk-low-reward novelties. She would have to try something riskier.

She had been getting better at locating and drawing out the remnants of Meyneth's power without requiring mass amounts of painful emotion, so she was confident she could do it when fighting this scumbag of a traitor. The question was what to do with it; it needed to be strong and dramatic enough to swing the fight without taking too much out of her. There was also the problem that she hadn't really tried to control it before - aside from the "preinstalled" Final Cross art, her previous attempts were simply "try to do something", and the exact result was instinctual rather than premeditated.

She then noticed that Shulk was also preparing something drastic, based on his stance and focus on his weapon. It might only be a replica, but she knew the energy of the Monado's blade well by now. It wouldn't be too hard to mould an ether blast to interact with and intensify the attack he was planning. She waited until her path came into Shulk's view and nodded at him, left hand facing upward like a claw, beginning to focus on the anger of Dickson's betrayal.

Shulk saw Melia come into view and give him some sort of signal. He didn't know what it meant, but the first thing that came to mind was "go for it and I'll cover you". He had been waiting for Dickson to look away for just a moment, but he couldn't wait much longer, so he might as well let it loose now.

Melia saw Shulk start to dash and charged a two-part mix of Meyneth's energy: an amplifying pulse for Shulk's weapon, and a ragged blast intended to reflect off the sword and into the same spot he was attacking. She knew Shulk liked to jump for decisive blows, so she'd have to wait for his squat and aim above that point. Hopefully he wouldn't break off or choose to feint, or she'd probably hit him instead. That would be awkward.

Dickson saw the two attacks being prepared from different directions and chose to focus on blocking Shulk's physical strike. His bulk would handle the ether one.

Melia made her judgement and fired, launching a cluster of red energy into the air.

Shulk leapt into the air with a yell and made a great horizontal slash at Dickson's chest. He didn't notice until just after that something had turned his blade white, and it felt like he'd whacked a lacrosse ball with a stick rather than cut a blade through a body. His first thought was that he missed, that he didn't get close enough and only struck one of Dickson's medallions.

Dickson recoiled backward and yelled in pain as a huge white gash appeared across his chest. The battlefield shook as he fell to the ground.

"How is it possible without the Monado?" he grumbled.

"Get up!" The sight of knocking Dickson straight down had given Shulk another boost of confidence. "Stand and fight us!"

"That how it is, eh?"

It sounded sinister enough that Shulk automatically took a step back as Dickson rose. But instead of attacking, the Giant put his weapon away and waved his hand at something behind Shulk.

"Forget it. I'm done. Have it your way."

"What?!"

In a flash of light, Dickson appeared Homs again. "I've seen enough. No need to draw it out. I ain't gonna risk my life to stop you." He turned away and walked off.

"WHAT?!" yelled Reyn. "You expect us to just let you g- Eh?" He was interrupted by Shulk holding his arm out.

"Leave it," he said, shaking a little. "We don't need him. It's Zanza we're after."

"Uh...well all right."

One by one, the party turned to see a newly activated transporter and went towards it.

Except for Melia, who instead chose to follow Dickson as he sat against the back wall of the terrace. She had a job to do.

Dickson half-heartedly waved her away. "Shove off, princess."

"I will leave once it is certain you have died and not a moment before." She glared at him. If the traitor cheated death somehow, she'd put it right.

He shook his head and lit his cigar. "Was never supposed to be this way. You've gone and messed it all up."

Melia's stare did not move or cease. She focused on the scar she'd drawn across his face what felt so long ago, which was faintly glowing with the same greenish light as the new wound on his chest.

Dickson took a long pull. "So, you say you're in love with Shulk, huh?" he started, gradually slowing down. "Let me give you a free piece of advice. Shulk gets real upset when things don't do what he wants. He'd spend hours whining that whatever he's building isn't coming together or working out. An' it's not just things either, it's people too. He was real late in learning that other people like and want different things than he does. He'd never want to play with his friends if it wasn't something he liked, he'd just stay in and do what he wanted instead. I dunno if "selfish" is the right word, but it fits. Maybe that was Lord Zanza rubbing off on him a little. So if you plan to spend a lot of time with him, you better get used to not be doing much of what you like."

Melia could tell that even if Dickson was speaking the truth, he was just trying to plant doubt in her. But it wasn't going to work very well. She remembered not only how Shulk had said he considered it important to respect her limits, but how calming it had felt to simply sit next to him and watch him work. If observing him ever became boring, she could just begin her favourite leisure activity of reading a book without needing to interrupt him or leave the room. Letting him do what he wanted did not seem like a problem at all.

She wasn't going to tell Dickson any of this, it was a bit too personal. But she was going to set him straight. "This is hardly the first time you have been wrong."

"s'pose," he mumbled. "least he'll be...happy...with you."

And that was it. The cigar dropped from his mouth as the ether began to drain from his body.

Melia instinctively took a few steps back as the shadowy mass of Dickson's ether, invisible but no less real, began to pool and spread across the floor. Normally such inner inert ether would simply drain from where it was and fade into the nothingness, but presumably there was something strange with a Giant dying in a Homs body.

It was a very quick death, she noted. Both her parents and her aunt were significantly more drawn out, their ether fading over minutes rather than seconds. Dickson deserved worse, but there was no use brooding over it.

She turned away and marched back to the transporter. The others were all facing away, waiting for her without watching. Shulk was stood a little farther away from the others; it looked like he might have been crying.

"Onward," she stated simply.

The group quickly convened and stepped through the cloud of darkness.

A Telethia, rampaging through the streets of a Homs colony.

The Bionis, alone in the endless sea, waiting for something.

The two vessels, with the other four opposers, standing to face him.

A sudden end.

"Why?" Zanza opened his eyes, frustrated that his latest attempt at seeing the future had ended just as prematurely as all the others. "Why can I not see any further? Now that I possess both Monados, I should be at one with the passage of fate. Why does the vision end here?"

And both Lorithia and Dickson were dead, he noticed shortly. He had not been paying much attention to Lorithia; he did not have all that much faith in her, and was not too surprised to find she had died several days ago. Dickson was the troubling one, he was supposed to be stronger than this. What was going on?

He closed his eyes again, but this time chose to look into the past. At the unexpected point, when the silver faced Mechon acted in a way he did not foresee. It was now obvious why - it was also a vessel at the time, and of course Meyneth would have the ability to act against the passage of fate. It was down to his impeccable planning that the future did not change all that much from this single blemish, still allowing his vessel the chance to defeat Mechonis, and lead to his rebirth.

But still...he then had no choice but to work closely with Meyneth's new vessel, the half-breed. Even now, the idea drew up great vitriol. He had been trying for the entire journey thus far to turn his vessel away from the cursed abomination, yet then he was forced to tolerate further interaction with her until he could be reborn. Even the half-Homs half-Mechonis being he was originally planning for would have been easier to stomach than this, since at least there was existing familiarity there. The half-breed was a fresh companion that demanded a completely different kind of attention.

She was good, he had to admit. Not many creatures of Bionis could host a god (especially the opposite god) and retain their sense of self, nor last more than a few seconds in battle against him even in his weakened state just after rebirth. His disappointment was genuine that it would take more than just an infusion of ether to restore what would certainly be a formidable Telethia.

And then...Meyneth chose to sacrifice herself.

"A world that has no need for gods?" He recalled the silly words with a smirk on his face. "There is no world without a god. This world belongs to me!"

As Zanza prepared himself for the arrival of the opposers, an interesting thought curled into his mind.

Melia's first instinct once the transport completed was that there had been some mistake. An infinite field of stars in alien formations against a pitch-black sky surrounded her, an innumerable number of irregular rocks flew by, and a large striped yellow ball of unknown material floated in the distance. The normal surrounding field of ether, usually produced by plants, animals, and soil, was absent.

"What the..." Reyn looked around in mass confusion.

"It night-time already?" asked Riki. "Riki not think it been that long."

Shulk carefully tapped his foot on where he expected the ground to be. It emitted a bright lattice of energy for a moment. "We...can't be anywhere near the Bionis. There's no titan, no sea, no clouds, no nothing."

Melia carefully tuned her mind into the nearest rocks. Ether-wise, they were entirely blank, as if they did not exist. She caught a glimpse of two colliding without a sound and guessed they were simply illusions.

Dunban was the first to indicate a wave of red energy, a thin line of light that led to a green spark in the distance. "I suppose we can only move on."

It was eerie to walk through the strange night sky, against the floor that was only visible for a moment when stepped on. The background of rocks and the large sphere did not seem to shift as they travelled, so they had to be quite far away - and thus much larger than expected.

It was about halfway to the green spark when Melia heard it.

"So, the kids have come out to play!"

Melia whirled around to see Metal Face, or at least a ghostly green apparition of him, flying in and preparing to land.

To her relief, Riki had also heard the voice and turned to see it. "Waaah! Friends to battle!"

The rest of the party seemed unprepared to see the spirit, but wasted no time in dispatching it. He went down rather easily, constantly repeating things he'd said when he was alive, though only two of their number could hear it.

"So, we're in a land of spirits," Dunban muttered. "We all know that won't be the last of them. Stay alert."

There were no further attacks before the group reached the green spark.

Reyn circled around behind it. "Now what?"

Melia frowned at what the ether around the spark was doing. "Its energy is very similar to a typical High Entia transporter. But its endpoint must be exceedingly distant."

"That's not too surprising," said Shulk. He waved towards the yellow ball in the distance. "Look at how big and far away all that stuff is."

"True." Melia chose to step into the transporter first.

It was a very quick transport, occurring in a bright flash rather than a fade of particles. She could almost feel her mind dragging behind across the intervening space like a streamer. As the others came through, she stepped away and had to fight the whiplash before noticing anything about the new location.

The same starry blackness surrounded the group. Gone were the misshapen rocks and yellow ball, replaced by an even bigger sphere of orange and white stripes, banded horizontally like a spill of watercolour paint with a large red spot to the side. Smaller spheres of all description surrounded it, while a massive streak below looked much like a shooting star.

This time, the spirit was clearly visible on the path to the next green spark, standing and waiting for them. It was one of the Mass-Produced Faces, wielding the old hammer rather than the new spear.

"We'll wait until he attacks us first," said Shulk. "We can't assume they're all hostile."

The party acknowledged and proceeded. Unfortunately, once they approached, the spirit shifted its stance and moved to block their progress.

"Want s'more, Monado moron?"

Both Melia and Riki paused in surprise at the strange voice. The Mass-Produced Faces had never talked to them; Vanea said Egil had stopped bothering to give them speech projectors once the mass production began. This one must have been a prototype, and considering how much he talked about being hungry, it was probably the Xord the others had mentioned taking down in the Ether Mine.

The others, unable to hear the spirit's voice, simply proceeded with the fight. It was no more difficult than the last. Not needing any more fanfare, they continued on through the next transporter.

This time, the sphere in the background was mostly in darkness, a thin crescent of rust pointing to the larger star in the distance. The spirit here was a Telethia with the unique shape of the one Alvis commanded.

As the party approached, Melia's first reaction was worry, but then she reconsidered. Shulk once said that he recognised Alvis' Telethia as the one that saved them at Colony 6, so it couldn't be anyone she knew. In fact, it was probably a specimen grown in the laboratory specifically for Alvis' purposes. The odds of it hammering her mind (and Riki's) with constant repeated phrases, like the Face spirits did, were extremely low. It wouldn't be too bad.

"My daughter."

Melia unconsciously stopped dead and trembled. Out of all the possibilities, her father's voice was the last thing she expected to hear out of the Telethia, and it completely threw her for a loop.

Riki immediately created a diversion so the others wouldn't notice. "It time for final episode of Heropon slay Dinobeast! Rrraaaah!"

Thank you, Riki. Melia shook it off and took up her position in the battle. She supposed it was probably an inevitable cruel twist of fate, to fight the spirit of her father after she'd already dispatched her stepmother and brother. The fact that he had appeared as a Telethia disturbed her more than the encounter itself; it implied some pretty ugly things about the afterlife. But that could be worried about later.

The Telethia spirit went down without issue, and the group moved on.

The next "area" had two floating spheres present. But the next spirit left them no time to observe.

"Suffer, as we have suffered!"

Jade Face was there, already charging his lasers. While this caught the party off guard, it was not much of a problem at large, and the spirit vanished like the others.

With the way clear, now they could see the background. The larger sphere was a rocky grey, with what appeared to be ring-shaped mountains across the lit crescent. The smaller one was a mix of blue, green, brown, and white.

The second sphere caught Shulk's attention. "Is that...a ball of water?"

Melia agreed with this assessment, but did not respond. She was more interested in what looked like faint lights irregularly placed across the dark half of the watery ball. They did not seem like the right colour or "texture" to be a natural feature.

"[~- So, you finally made it, Shulk. -~]"

"It's you!" Shulk looked around for Alvis, half-expecting to see him walking up to the group. But he kind of knew he wouldn't see him, given that he sounded...weird in a way he couldn't describe.

Melia gave Shulk a funny look for a moment, before considering that Shulk hearing things that no one else could wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"[~- I cannot wait to see which path you choose. Let us meet again after you have made your choice. -~]"

A point near the watery sphere began to glow, which quickly flared out into a blinding light.