Mental Wonderland (Part 4)



Mental Wonderland (Part 4) is the thirty-sixth episode of Tales of Dikuda. It is also the twelfth episode of the third season. Additionally it is the fourth and last part of a four part series based on the old, original concept of Mental Wonderland.

Summary
Following a complete mental breakdown, Gwady has to face the consequences of her past actions, which lead to her undertaking a long journey through her own mind, trying to complete 180 deeds in order to achieve peace and quiet inside her head.

Episode in Detail


As more time passes, Gwady comes to the realisation, that her appearance has changed. The thoughts and emotions coming from this shape are different from what she is used to, comparable to Ryahno, but also like herself. Despite the curiosity she feels about the new appearance, she keeps walking to continue with the deeds, which have by now come to be violent, even attacking her.

While she walks, she thinks about the deeds and how direction in her completely black surroundings actually did matter, and how the different deeds are actually not separated, but interwoven, changing and adapting when others were interacted with. As she keeps thinking, she compares this dealing with the deeds to rewiring her brain.

After a while she bumps into the next deed: A woman, which she recognized as someone from BiS, that she had stabbed to death in HowYu's mansion (in episode 15). The scientist starts the conversation between the two, asking the rat why she did what she had done. During the course of the talk the woman talks about how she had been hoping to get captured, so she wouldn't have had to work for BiS any longer, but Gwady had effectively stopped that from happening by killing her. Gwady, regretting her rash actions back then, apologizes for what she did, which allows the scientist to move on.

Following the departure of the scientist, Gwady makes her way to the next deed: ZeChow, who hasn't managed to move on yet, instead being stuck and slowly turning into a twisted. The rat explains to him, that his inability to deal with his problems has made him drag himself towards a purgatory, where he will end, unless he makes a choice to change, let go or restart. He opts for the latter option, restarting fresh with a new life.

Done with the deed, Gwady walks onwards then, until she reaches a Victorian style mansion, to which she feels an attachment. Warily she enters, remembering the last encounter with a mansion in her mind. Stepping inside, she finds herself in an attic with Iris in front of a chest, who, after opening it, changes appearance to another woman. Confused, Gwady tries to talk to her, but when the woman notices her, she addresses her with a different name: 37, commanding her to "get back to work" and pushing her backwards, through the wall and outside. The mansion disappears afterwards, as Gwady hits the ground. The rat realises that she is in her normal clothing again, the armor and appearance she previously had, having disappeared.

After a bit of thinking, the rat comes to the conclusion, that this wasn't a deed like the others, as she had no chance to solve it, before the mansion began falling apart. Instead she plans on talking with Iris once she's done with the deeds and back in the outside world. Walking onwards in search for the next deed, she eventually realises that even though her mind is completely silent around her and while she misses outside audio input, she is surprisingly sane, albeit lonely.

The rat then bumps into what appears to be herself, or rather her past life: 37, or Weido, who is slightly taller and physically stronger looking than her. The woman is wearing the armor Gwady temporarily had. She follows the taller woman when she starts walking until they reach what appears to be a memory: a burning village of rats. The sight reminds Gwady of her own past, causing her to get emotional. The scene ends with images of a young rat, apparently Weido, being carted away against her will.

Following this, the image changes, showing more of the woman's past, working at a Victorian mansion, as well as an attack on said mansion, during which 37 and Ryahno meet. Impressed with the rat dragon's skills, Weido decides to abandon the other knights of the mansion to join the woman's side. A scene after that shows Weido, along with other guards, in a row, talked to by Yuw, who informs them to be ready to be looked over by Ryahno, as one of them to be picked to join the rat dragon in battle. After a moment of consideration and conversation with 37, Ryahno then decides to pick her.

After images showing Ryahno and Weido in battle together, it takes a dark turn, as the scenes following, depict the rat's death during a fight to defend Dikuda. Following this is the aftermath, first showing Ryahno verbally assaulting and lashing out at Yuw for getting Weido killed in the battle, then the depression the rat dragon experiences after the loss.

As Ryahno slowly returns to work, completing missions, it is revealed that after a bit more than a year, on a mission, she attempts to save a rat village from being poisoned, but was only able to rescue one of the rats: Gwady. The sight of her past, breaks the rat's heart, though also brings back memories of Ryahno taking her to Dikuda. During a conversation to come up with a new name for the rat, Gwady at the time had a sudden epiphany and settled on "Gwadeweido" - a name that includes "Weido." Ryahno, recognising the familiarity in Gwady's features, agrees with the suggestion. The images of her past then end, leaving the rat to realise that the name she came up with hadn't been random at all, even though she had thought it had been.

Following her realisation, a bright light appears in front of her, apparently the exit out of her mind. She encounters a person, a woman that appears familiar. First mistaking her to be Falehi, Gwady soon finds, that it's in fact The Lord, whom she attacks, but as previously, with the other encounters in her mind, is unable to actually hurt. Instead she falls through the door and wakes up in the outside world.

Looking around, she realises she's in her home, with Yavei beside her. The first thing the rat asks the woman is how much time passed, almost in a panic at the possibility of it having been years. As it turns out, it had only been three months, but she still wonders what she missed during the time. Yavei temporarily distracts her from the thoughts by telling her to get used to existing in this world again, including food and rest, before leaving.

Meanwhile at the police station, people are doing their job as usually, with one of them quietly sitting in his corner and thinking about Gwady and how her appearance in Dikuda had caused all his secret plans with mobsters to fail. Finally, frustrated with the situation the man pulls out a gun from his desk, starting to blindly fire at people in the office. He is soon joined by others that too had made deals with the mobsters and were unhappy that the corruptness was fought against and their plans ruined. The scene turns into a massacre of people wildly shooting each other.

In the aftermath of what happened, Loco and Yuw watch on as the corpses are covered and the injured taken to the hospital. The dreary result is that almost everyone at the police station was killed during the shooting. Loco is clearly and visibly troubled by what she sees, already wondering what caused this to happen in the first place. The two are then joined by Yavei, who is dressed as a cop to not stick out.

She explains to them that Ching is fine. Loco, still unable to comprehend fully what happened, engages in a discussion with Yavei, asking about the why and trying to blame Gwady for what happened, as the rat was a well known criminal in the city for a long time and surely must have inspired lawless behavior against the police.

While the two are talking, Yuw is slowly blanking out as her thoughts and emotions are pulled to something else altogether. Looking at her sweaty feeling hands, the giant sees them, as well as her clothes suddenly covered in blood - a visual hallucination caused by Rutbouc, who is distraught at the sight of the dead bodies around them. The redhead seems so affected by her emotions, that she subconsciously pulls Yuw's focus and soul towards her, which causes the blue haired giant to panic. She is able to pull away after she catches noises of the world around her.

The conversation meanwhile came to the conclusion that Yavei knew this was going to happen, but didn't stop it, which infuriates Loco. It is explained that the policemen had many chances to change, but they didn't. Loco falls silent then, remembering all the times where she thought maybe "praying" would help with the trouble at the police station, and thus going to the temple of the Bringer of Punishment. The woman wonders if her praying helped trigger the situation. The discussion comes to an end when Yavei then commands her to start rebuilding the police force.

Gwady a while later watches the news to try and catch up on what happened in the three months that she was gone, only to bump into a report of the massacre at the police station. After a moment the rat starts laughing then, stating that she warned them and even tried to get rid of the mobsters behind the scenes. In the end she concludes that they don't have to worry, as she's back in the action.

Characters
The following characters appear in this episode (in order):


 * Gwadeweido
 * Dicante Gen (mentioned)
 * Akin Bolo (mentioned)
 * Layer Deinsk (mentioned)
 * Dr. Isabella Pertinax (mentioned)
 * The Lord
 * Casey Mckinsie
 * Su HowYu (mentioned)
 * ZeChow
 * Iris Boromas
 * Galice Boromas
 * Weido/37/The Knight
 * Kuraz Ryahno
 * Tenyu Eesh Yuw
 * Pabu Ran
 * Sheenyai Yavei/The All-Seer
 * Dahvius Falehi (mentioned)
 * Husky Policeman
 * Loco Wish
 * Liu Cha Ching (mentioned)
 * The Bringer of Punishment (mentioned)
 * Rutbouc

Trivia

 * In Chinese naming culture, when you are given a name at your birth, despite if it’s your parents, your grandparents or some other well educated person who knows about fortune telling that gave you your name, it’s actually your own soul speaking to the name giver, and thus giving you a name that will shape what the rest of your life will be like. Which is why after ShiaoChiao awakened and was needed to be given a new name, it became "Gwadeweido".


 * It's safe to say (and confirmed by Zennore) that Ryahno and Weido almost got into a romantic relationship, if it hadn't for the fact that they both were very conservative about their feelings.


 * If Pabu was in the war with Weido, which happened over 300+ years ago, then him talking as if the whole thing happened around 8+ years ago, means something is off. Either he doesn't know how much time has passed or he is lying.


 * When Ryahno confronted Yuw after Weido's death, Yavei didn't bother intervening, because she knew that the giant had schemed to get rid of Weido for her own selfish purposes. She had also put the country’s security at big risk, prompting YiFung's military to take over the situation, which ended the problem within a few hours.


 * Rutbouc was having a flashback of her past when she saw all the dead policemen. The emotions she felt were strong enough to temporarily pull Yuw from reality.


 * Layer Deinsk is mentioned in this episode for the first time, but doesn't actually appear until episode 45.

Links

 * Official link to the post on tumblr.