Warnings: Vomiting, past teenage pregnancy, fantasy disease, allergies

Chapter One - A Kind of Hero

At the end of their adolescence, most Pokemon trainers were collecting winnings and finding to their surprise that they had to find real job or risk being broke, or worse, boredom.

Nikolai Darius had to worry about neither. Instead, he was holding his little girl's full, dark hair up as she threw up in the toilet. Not that it bothered him much anymore. She had made it to the toilet this time.

"No more soft-shelled krabby for you," he told her, relief welling up in his own stomach. It wasn't the fever, it wasn't the Giratina Shroud coming to take her so soon. It was just an allergy. Noelani looked at him with pitiful, watery blue eyes, just like his, before giving one last heave into the bowl. When they were sure it was done, he helped her wipe her own face with shaking hands.

He picked her up when it was over and let her tremble weakly in his arms. Bile warred in his throat with the horrible urge to cry. Instead, he smoothed her hair and murmured as his mother and father had done for him, even in times they should not have, the gentle folk they were.

Her breathing and shaking slowed after a while both as he walked and rocked her. He was well-practiced at this by now, well-practiced at taking care of things. He even liked it now, so long as it was for her.

Nikolai glanced her over, seeing the peace in the little girl's face. The desire to let her sleep in his arms warred with the soreness in them. He compensated by sitting down to rest her head on his lap instead. She barely stirred.

Then, after a few moments of dread, he dialed the top number in his contacts.

Blonde hair and grey eyes appear first, glowing with some emotion that Nikolai is incapable of recognizing no matter what emotional state he is in. He estimated it was surprise or relief. Maybe it was joy. Alas, he had no idea.

The screen fizzled out a moment, his Holo-Caster two models too old and him too busy to simply get a new one. Then she returned, a quickly formed smile on her face. "Lo, Lai-Lai."

If anyone heard that slow, peacefully relaxed speech from the Grand Dame of Sinnoh, they would have blanched and been disgusted promptly in turn. However, this was not anyone.

"Lo, Cyn," he said back, shoulders hunching up by reflex. "You can't let her have shellfish."

Her face wrinkled into a frown. "Oh dear. And she'd been eyeing my grandmother's shellder stew recipe too. You're sure it's not the Shroud?"

"Shroud doesn't make you puke." He brushed her shock of white hair with shaking, chalky fingers. "Just makes you still, stone, weak, coughing. You showed me yourself."

"That I did." She settled deeper into her plush chair. "It's progressing a little fast, don't you think? It's possible the treatments I suggested were-"

"'S not your fault." Nikolai hunched his shoulders, his consolation meek and easy to dismiss. "We're gonna try one more. In September. If not…"

If not, his baby girl was going to die. That was all there was to it.

"... Is there anything I can do?"

Nikolai ran his fingers through his hair. "We'll need a temporary Coronet pass for her."

"You're with her," Cynthia pointed out. "Grandmother grants your family endless passage and research." When Nikolai didn't answer, her eyes widened beneath her eyeliner. "It's been four years, Nikolai."

"I told them!" He defended, watching Noelani twitch in her sleep. He lowered his voice. "They're fine with it. It's everyone else! It's… It's me, okay? I'm not you!"

Cynthia tried to contain her smile, placation in the upturn of her hands. "I know. And we're better for it."

His white hair, which had been slowly puffing up like it had a mind of its own, began to wilt down to its normal mess. "You would say that."

"I do." She chewed her lip. "Why do you really want the pass, Nikolai?"

He didn't want to play mind games with her. Strangers were fine but this was, she was, different. "The Flute."

She made a face. "None of us have found it. Dawn hasn't found it. What makes you think you can?"

"I don't think I can." He smiled and it made his lips hurt. "I think she can."

Maybe their daughter could summon Arceus. After all, hadn't he done just as odd of things during his journey?

Team Galactic, for all their scientific posturing, had been a cult, Nikolai knew cults. There was always one or two legendary cults in every generation. As far as he knew, even the obsession was familiar with patterns of history.

The problematic thing though, was that all these legendary maniacs were succeeding.

The dog-eared pages and pages of scripture, of translated warnings that had gone ignored. Many of those who had tried had failed. Was it because their ideals weren't strong enough? Because science outdid magic? Or was the world in a state that didn't need such monsters at the commands of petty wishes?

He wasn't able to say for sure, but he did get a general idea. After all, legends were at their end point, out of control. They bent their knee out of curiosity and due to technology. It was very rare that one of them actually liked you. FIckle things.

But the last champion in the past six years had had a Legendary, a triad, at that, call to her for aid. And then Dawn, being the prime example of a stupid ten-year-old, had mucked it all up.

Not that he could really blame her in its entirety. Cynthia and Rowan had filled her head with adventure.

Still. She and Cynthia were the fools who had left Sendoff Spring open for anything to come in and come out and without Giratina to keep it all where it belonged, something had.

The Shroud, or Reversal Flu, was the most technical term. It seemed more like the flu, but the word fever passed around much like one. All the familiar flu symptoms, except they came and went like a machine until it simply did not leave. He had seen the images. It was killing his baby girl. Admittedly she was not a girl he had meant to have but that didn't mean she deserved this. People didn't deserve this kind of pain.

He wasn't a medical professional of any kind, however. All he knew was what he saw and what he heard.

Nikolai swallowed as he tucked her into bed again, so close to his own. Then he sat back against his bed.

"All right, Rune," he said to himself. "Back to work."

He propped open another book, and off to work he went.

A/N: And there. The first few chapters have been done for a while, so I've decided to go ahead and start posting. Welcome to a somewhat short family focused fic. (By short I mean 60k) So please enjoy father and daughter on their adventures!

Challenges: Epic Masterclass (gen) 5. alternate timeline, Three Sided Box, Epic Big Bang (PFC), Mega Prompts Writing Prompt 187.