His perfect world is silent.
Perhaps that statement is slightly skewed. Wind would still brush against leaves, water would still bubble as it descends along the line of its stream. That without spirit logically retains the freedom only it could possess, after all. Even the machines that infest his childhood memories made some modicum of noise.
Even so; in his perfect world, there would be silence.
The racket of her heels clicking against the stone beneath her feet merely serves as another reminder of his utter failure.
"You're getting more difficult to track down, Cyrus."
He withholds the urge to sigh as she confirms her identity, his back remaining ramrod straight as he stares out into the deep abyss of his new home. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as she moves to join him, a stray portion of his mind busy calculating how easy it would be to push her from the ledge they now rested upon and finally be free of her irritation forever.
No, he shook his head, drawing her attention as his eyelids drooped. He's tried that before, three separate times, and it has never worked so far. Cynthia never fails to bring along a Pokémon capable of flight, and his already crushed desires deflate just that little bit further every time her smirking face reappears over whatever ledge he's chosen lately to spend his existence, and attempt to end hers.
"You look horrible."
An island infested with vines floats past them at moderate speed, and Cyrus' eyes follow after it, for lack of anything better to do. His coat, or what is rest of it, hangs from his shoulders, its appearance lending more credence to that of a cape than anything else. Frankly, it looks ridiculous, but the rest of his clothing isn't faring much better, and he has recently found himself making excuses to hang on to it.
On the previous island, he'd been too cold to let it go. The island before that, he'd passed an orb of floating water and decided that it made him look quite dashing, in a rugged and homeless fashion.
The island before that, he'd needed a handkerchief, and had then proceeded to forget that it was even hanging over his shoulders.
Oh, how far he has fallen.
"I am fully capable of holding a conversation with myself." He doesn't even bother glancing in her direction, because he does not care about anything she has to say. There is another island flying far below them - or above, it was impossible to tell there - and most of his attention has shifted to figuring out if she would have time to even release a Pokémon from its confines before she landed. "That doesn't mean I want to."
Cynthia shuffles into a more comfortable position, using both of her hands for support as she stares up at what may as well have been considered the sky. Her words echo through the emptiness, yet another another reminder of how close he really had been.
His scowl, already etched into the granite of his face through years of practice and facial exercises, deepens even further, a small shiver running down his spine as the temperature of his rock abruptly plummets.
Just another perk of spending his existence in a Reversed World; utterly unpredictable climate, his long dead and shrivelled sense of humour informs him drily, in that flat voice that even his thoughts have taken as their own.
If the Champion sitting beside him has noticed the change, then she hides it masterfully. If anything, she reclines further, her eyes closed and her stance being one that wouldn't look out of place on a sunbather. For all he knows, she has just been bathed in light, and he merely cannot perceive it from his position.
Not that he's really looking at her, no, merely observing. She was his enemy in one world, so she is a threat here as well, one more to add to the potentially endless list.
"I lost the position of Champion last week." Despite his reluctance, Cyrus' head turns towards her slightly, one eyebrow raised marginally. Whether noticing she has his attention or bored of the continued silence, Cynthia continues.
"The battle was amazing. We were both down to our last Pokémon, and I was just about to win. In the end, I got too close, and it turns out that she taught her Machamp Ice Punch. Garchomp hadn't lost in years, but she'd had a Gliscor to deal with before that, and it was too much for her."
A female trainer, possession of a Gliscor and a Machamp? Cyrus turned away as the memory surfaced, the complete defeat he had faced against a Gligar and a Machoke, all that time ago in the Celestic Ruins.
Cyrus climbs to his feet, one hand securing his coat around his shoulders and the other reaching for a Poké Ball. His mood hasn't been soured by the news, but it is still making an honest and commendable effort to burrow below bedrock.
This new situation had now endangered his control, something of which he cannot allow to happen again.
"State your business, or leave." His voice is scratchy from lack of use, sounding odd to his own ears. Cynthia's relaxed aura falters, her eyes opening and her arms pushing her back up slightly. "Preferably the latter."
Not that her demeanour has fooled Cyrus. Even if she was telling the truth and the title no longer belongs to her, she has still been famous through Sinnoh for close to a decade as its' strongest. There is no reason for her to lower her guard so drastically, to think that he would be above slashing her throat whilst her eyes are closed or her back is turned.
Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't. The lustre of her demise has faded over the extended period of time he's spent in his own world; he has no reason to lie to himself about that.
But she has no way of coming to the same conclusion. To her, he is but a deluded megalomaniac, bent on seeing the world remade in his own image.
Alas, he cannot even fault her on that assessment.
Cynthia heaves a sigh as he returns to his default settings, as though she hadn't been expecting his response, for whatever reason. Cyrus cannot even find it within himself to feel anything more than slight dismay at her inability to learn and her naïveté. Which baffles him, as he had no problems in doing so before his extended vacation.
Perhaps he has gotten old? Perhaps the air that surrounds him is laced with some form of pollutant?
Yes, that must be it.
"Come back to Sinnoh." Cynthia's previous light tone has dissipated, leaving in its place the Champion that had reigned before his departure. It is a demand fit to come from a queen atop her throne, and the swift shift brings him surprise, followed by the disgust of those memories of his plan failing from what must have been so long ago resurfacing.
Her content smile still remains, if only to mock him.
That disgust colours his tone, curling his upper lip as he yanks Crobat's Poké Ball free from his coat-turned-cloak and turns to face the abyss before them.
"Absolutely not."
"And if I were to force you?"
Cyrus freezes, the temperature surrounding him coincidentally dropping even further. His breath comes out in a quaking mass of fog as he turns to regard the former Champion, his impressive mind working faster than it has in recent memory to think of an escape route.
He is tired, as are his Pokémon. They had been finishing their regular training when Houndoom had discovered Cynthia's approaching scent, as well as that of her Lucario. Returning them to their confines had been a calculated risk, an attempt to lure her in to some form of false sense of security, should one be required.
But now he is stuck. Cynthia has never resorted to force before, and he must have slipped far enough by this point to not account for the possibility. Perhaps if he has had some time to prepare, he can stand up to whatever assault she has in mind, but she has focused on battling for most of her life; climbed high enough in that regard to conquer the Elite Four. Himself? Not so much.
And they both know so.
The only solutions that comes to his mind is escape on foot and leave his Pokémon behind to buy himself some time, but against his will, his fingers tighten around the Poké Ball in his grasp protectively.
His jaw tenses further as Cynthia's eyes travel down to his hand, her previous smile lost to a blank look of… pity?
"That's Crobat, isn't it?" She asks quietly. His confusion disappears almost as quickly as it had surfaced; she had been watching his battle against the new Champion since it had begun, so of course she would know what his team consisted of. It wasn't like there was anything in this world to add to them.
"And so what if it is?" He inquires coolly. Does she expect him to fly away on Gyarados? Perhaps Weavile can carry him off into the sunset like a knight his princess?
His face twitches minutely at the mere image in his mind, all of his effort going into choking down the laughter threatening to escape.
How far has he fallen recently?
Unaware of his plight, Cynthia shakes her head slowly, her knees being drawn up to her chest. Her expression shifts to sorrowful, her eyes darting to the miasmic swirl of monotonous colouring that surrounds them.
"Your plan was doomed from the beginning, Cyrus." She begins sadly, that simple sentence snapping Cyrus from his thoughts rather violently and shifting the entirety of his attention into the present. "A world without emotion was impossible, before you even thought of the idea. You'd still be a part of that world, after all, and I don't need a degree to see that the war you've waged on your view of the world was the only way your suppressed anger could hope to escape."
He remains silent as he mulls that over. After all, what is he supposed to do, enact an angry rejection of her ideas? In the end, she is still wrong; at least, he believes so.
"It's been half a year, Cyrus. I'm not going to give up on you, I refuse to. You could do so much for Sinnoh. You could solve so many problems, just like you did for Sunyshore."
Just like a balloon exploding against a particularly sharp blade of grass, his previous conviction against losing control of those much detested emotions disappears with a sudden and very loud pop.
"Do not speak to me of Sunyshore!" Cyrus spits the name as though it were some horrid abomination, his teeth bared in a snarl as he rounds on Cynthia. The logic behind landing a blow that low is lost on him, not that he is in any condition to deliberate it. "Those… creatures were ruled by their own greed, too intimidated by the intelligence I held as a child to even think their petty hatred through! I gave them everything, and I feel absolutely nothing but regret!"
Almost immediately, he recognises that as the wrong thing to have said, as Cynthia tilts her head back to meet his eyes. Fire burns behind them, leashing an anger that hadn't been directed towards him in years.
"So the whole world and everyone within it must pay the retribution? I wouldn't have expected the person who almost remade the entire world to be so petty." The ire behind Cynthia's words dies out surprisingly quickly, one hand coming up to run through her hair as she lets out a tired sigh. "Please, Cyrus. I want my friend back. I want that teenager I met in the Canalave Library to come back to me."
"That child died back in Canalave." Cyrus' eyes are narrowed further than usual as he turns away. Those had been his weakest days, the final hole in his conviction before he'd discarded it for one anew. One far sturdier, in all regards. "He was killed, along with the last dregs of faith I held for your world."
Her words are clipped, not quite stubborn, but still lacking of any logic. "I don't believe you."
He could almost growl in frustration as the last of what could be considered adult abandons their conversation. No matter how persistent Cyrus has been, she has managed to steer their infrequent conversations, but never has it strayed into such territory. The conclusion that she had forgotten their brief time together, amongst the bookshelves that held so much of their shared interest, had been one both borne of logic and of the disaster that had led her away from making any further contact with him.
She had been his first- his only friend, and he had told her such before she'd left. To use that against him now, to attempt to manipulate him so thoroughly through his largest weakness…
He is almost impressed. Of course, he's also absolutely livid.
"Fine then, he was terminated. Eliminated. Dispatched. Murdered. Martyred." Cyrus stows Crobat's Poké Ball back under his cloak; there's no reason for the bat to have to shoulder any of this weight. "Take your pick, and desist your pointless pleading. That sentimentality has no place in any conversation of which I am a subject of discussion."
He's not entirely sure where he is supposed to be going to as he turns around and marches towards the center of the island. Cynthia will find him eventually, somehow she always does. Her voice, hardly raised, easily carries to his ears.
"Very well. I'll leave, but you have to answer one question for me first."
Despite himself, he stops, and throws a cold glance over his shoulder. She has turned back to the edge of the cliff, a breeze that has never been present before picking up and carrying her hair along with it.
She doesn't turn to face him, but somehow, she knows that she now holds his attention.
"I've brought along the most powerful Pokémon currently in my possession, the ones that defended my title for so long against the most powerful challengers. I know for a fact that you wouldn't have a hope against them, so what would you do?"
Multiple situations fly through his mind as he automatically starts to consider his answer. What would she want to hear? What would she accept? What was the purpose behind her asking?
His Pokémon are powerful. Very much so. He has taken to training them more thoroughly, ever since he has found himself in this world. Never needing to eat, nor sleep, nor even age. They have been eager to please him, and there has been more than one recent occasion in which he's called upon them, just because he could.
Not to keep watch, or to train. Merely to have someone to spend some time with. After all the hard work they'd put in, they deserve some time to themselves, and perhaps he has been feeling slightly hospitable as of late.
But against a Champion, former or no? They would stand no chance. Of victory, or of escape.
"I would leave my Pokémon to stall you whilst I make my escape, of course." He answers coldly, once again setting his eyes on the opposite direction.
This time, when he hears her voice, he doesn't stop walking.
"Perhaps I would believe you, if that Poké Ball you were holding didn't belong to a Crobat. Farewell for now, Cyrus."
Apologies if I switch between present tense and past tense every now and then. Not sorry enough to bother going back and editing it all, though. This category is mostly full of crap anyway, this can't possibly smell worse than all of that.