The Moiety stood as hollowed ground, not for pokemon to disturb with a light cause. It held a sculpting of the four Protectors, pokemon of force, defenders of the Sand Continent, now gone, stopped a decade ago when they fell to Yveltal in battle and crashed into dust. Beetle stood right under their visage and fought the urge to quail under his failure to right himself.
A heracross, a nidoking, a solrock, and an ivysaur. All surrounding a pidgeot: the first four Protectors and their summoner. Nowadays, many believed they lived in an age after the last four. A coat of ancient dust blanketed everything in the lonely tomb.
Pokemon held forward lanterns for a politoed, named Maxim, who moved in on Beetle.
Maxim arrived two feet from the sandshrew and presented the tome tucked in his arms. His limbs shook as he brought it still closer to the child. It was a heavy book, physically and in content.
The smell of the ceremonial bread flavored with sitrus spread, which they partook in before setting out, lingered on the politoed's breath. It didn't scatter until an assistant came forward to open the book, well over one thousand and five hundred pages-in just this first volume. Then its musty pages took over the ruins. Its familiarity pulled Beetle in.
"Young traveler," Maxim announced. "You were born in the Wastes. Here you began your journey with the tribe. Here, you will restart with the blessing of a great scribe."
"Restart," the crowd repeated.
"-Restart." Creo, Beetle's brother, added in. He sniffed and started to pick at the sculpting near his back. The tome blocked the complete view, but Beetle heard a rock-chunk hit the floor and he winced.
The scribe glanced back. "Yes... you selected from this, the Syntopicon, in order to find new understanding for yourself. What one chooses to understand molds who they are. What did you choose, Beetle?"
The sandshrew leafed through the open book, arriving at a chapter close to the end. A pang of guilt went through him as the scribe's left arm faltered under the weight, needing an assistant to rush forward to catch it. The politoed bolstered him with a smile even as he fought to regain control. A brief look at the chapter's picture, the outside view of the Moiety, won over his nervousness. This would be his subject. How he would help his tribe survive in the rough Sand Continent. Even if others thought it a useless topic, he could prove them wrong with effort.
"Destiny," Beetle said.
"Destiny," the crowd answered back.
He heard the amateur scribes, here to learn, eagerly call out the word to please Maxim. Beetle's father's aide, a bibarel, cried loud, to assuage the fact father couldn't attend. Volunteer-striders, tasked with keeping ferals at bay, spoke the quietest. Beetle missed his brother's voice in the chorus altogether.
"Destiny," Maxim said, "a chapter on intended paths. It also represents the work of the Protectors, and those who learn from the four Moieties are expected, by the tribe, to be the door through which Protectors come to exist. It is why we refer to this temple as the Moiety: it is the end, and the beginning. Two parts of the whole, the ultimate change. If a Protector appears before you, Beetle, you will lose a part of yourself to the task. Are you willing?"
Medicine. Battling. The sun, the moon, light, anger, sadness, these were all topics one could study under the Syntopicon's guidance. The great book of topics gave instructions on where one should go to understand a subject--for Destiny, it listed the four Moieties. Students of Destiny were pilgrims, incomplete, having abandoned their intended path. Instead these students sacrificed everything for the Rover tribe. To gain the right to summon Protectors... and defend the entire Continent from ruin.
Beetle nodded sickly. "I believe so."
Creo coughed.
"Y-Yes," Beetle amended, resisting his urge to peek over the Syntopicon. As loathsome as it would be to lose more of the sculpting, Beetle hoped a chunk would find its way onto his brother's skull. "Absolutely! If it's my destiny to experience these changes, I accept it."
The two assistants lifted the Syntopicon over the politoed's head, then snapped it shut. A cold, webbed hand came to rest on his forehead.
"I declare you a student of Destiny," the scribe said. "Study well."
A congratulatory murmur coursed through the crowd. Beetle felt a lump for in his throat.
The murmurs turned to hisses as Creo left his spot and started to walk down the crumbling hall. Beetle, now unshielded by his tome, caught his brother's unconcerned look.
"What're you thinking?" The scribe asked, dropping his regal tone. "Creo, your brother is now a student of Destiny. He must still try to summon a Protector."
Creo blinked. "Oh. I wasn't aware we'd bother." He went on all fours and scampered back into line. Not an inkling of embarrassment to be seen.
"Hmph! Beetle, step back from the pedestal. We must set up for the ritual."
"Can I go speak to my brother?" Beetle asked.
The politoed leaned in. "My arms are tired. Strike true that cur for my sake!"
He tried to find a laugh but found the weight missing from his shoulders distracting. It was supposed to be weightier than this. He had expected responsibility to beam into him from the stone Protectors' eyes. It felt all too small. Maybe if father saw...
He jumped off of the pedestal and bee-lined for Creo. Both sandshrew and sandslash spun around to face the wall and spoke in hushed whispers.
"Big brother," Beetle whined. "You are ruining my ceremony."
"Sorry!" Creo cried, yet if Beetle knew his brother, he was just building on his next remark. "I didn't expect you to try and summon those creatures that've been dead for ten years."
Beetle snarled.
"You have, what, six or eight, nine pokemon patting your back for choosing to be a student of Destiny? Why d'ya need me to smile?"
"Because you're my-gah!" Beetle noticed he had broken the threshold, and now confirmed for everyone a squabble. Tears formed in his eyes. This wasn't the sort of attention he left the safety of the tribe for, certainly not the reward worthy of adventuring into a Mystery Expanse. "Oh, I acted out..."
A gargantuan claw fell on his shoulder. "Shh, shh..."
The sandshrew shuddered.
"Okay. I realize it now, my behavior is nothing short of infuriating. I'm trying hard to respect your decision, Little Beetle." He closed his eyes. "But I remember what happened to the last student of Destiny, and I imagine you away from the others, and how much fun you'll miss."
Fun? Beetle regretted it, but he fared differently than his father and brother. All of them burrowers, used to sticking to the ground. Beetle wanted to be more like the bird, high-up in the air, the quills of feathers prickling his skin as they pulled loose, making room for others to grow. It made his stomach churn: it was his belief he took after mother.
The two brothers put their heads together, breathing out the argument, taking in fresh air. Like all the problems they shared, it would come to pass. It was the nomad's advantage: they were a forgetful kind.
"How angry were you?" Creo teased.
Beetle chuckled. "When you coughed at me, I hoped a rock would-"
His brother shoved him back. The room spun, the smooth of the sandshrew's back helping him build spin rather than lose it to friction. Practicing what little his brother taught him, Beetle drove out a claw and wrenched to a painful halt-chest stinging, his arm and its socket in flames. Before being furious or hurt, confusion overwhelmed him in the instants following.
Creo backed away as a boulder-it was no chunk-punched into the ground.
Beetle thought he saw the noise explode out from where it fell. The concussive force snared on his body, forcing him into a backwards crawl. He was not used to such loud crashes. It robbed him of his hearing, worse than that, the ensuing high-pitched whine in his eardrums inspired fear, the fear of more rocks falling down, no way to tell where, and so they did, pebbles and chunks of many sizes rained and one even managed to cut his ear. It was as if he couldn't hear his own pain.
The scribe managed to grasp his arm. He panicked and won against the older pokemon, earning the right to flee towards the wall. The other pokemon didn't have the wherewithal to seize him. Feeling the heroic Protectors under his claw, the blinded, deaf sandshrew clumsily entered into a ball-the beetle's refrain
Help: the child begged for it. His ears acclimated, but he didn't dare peek out.
"Some energy ran through the Moiety!" A pokemon called, an amateur scribe ever yearning to impress. "The ruin is in disrepair. The energy is laying it flat!"
Several voices entered a yelling match, but Creo shouted them down. "My brother is over there! He doesn't know what to do!"
A blue light bloomed on the back of Beetle's eyelids. A cool sensation worked over his trembling body, and he found it easier to breathe. He felt as if the rocks couldn't reach him, so close to the pedestal. It seemed like another side-effect to this newfound terror, but he welcomed it. It was like he was speaking to someone wondrous, yet, somehow, not privy to what about.
"The chief's son needs us," Maxim wailed. "Everyone dig..." the rumbling subsided. "T-The earthquake's..." a few rocks joined their siblings on the ground, and all went still.
Silence. Beetle rolled out of his ball, feeling tireder than ever before. A rock hadn't touched him after the one hit his ear. The stone Protectors spared him.
"Little Beetle!" Creo was yelling, over and over, though his voice sounded muffled. The sandshrew rubbed his eyes and understood what 'over there' meant: a barrier of rubble blocked the path out of the Moiety.
Beetle laid a claw on one of the rocks, choking back a sob. "Here, brother. I'm scared."
Creo let out a sigh of relief. "Thank Arceus. Don't be scared for long, I'm digging you a way to our end."
Someone on the other end spoke, voice brought low in an attempt to exclude Beetle. "There is a very good chance this pile stopped the place from crumbling."
"Oh, you're right. Let's leave him there forever," Creo spat. "If your belly is yellower than mine is, metaphorically speaking, I'd start running. Beetle, step back. I'm shaking things up again."
Please don't, Beetle thought. The need to escape his small prison was overwhelming, however, and he obliged. From the other side came noises of preparation, as well as a few pokemon scrambling for the exit. It was easier to focus on this than the crumbled roof or uncomfortable creaking in the walls.
Step, step, step Beetle went back, until his paw landed on something icy resting atop the pedestal. He gasped and whipped around. Right away another endeavor began, this time a sprint, a race to start digging an exit.
"Help!" Beetle screamed, "there's something in here with me!"
Creo roared and struck at the rock. The entire room shook in protest.
"Halt, halt," Maxim said. His tone took on the reverence it had before. "The burst of energy... Beetle, see if you might find a lantern."
Air or action it was, so the child held his breath and picked up a lantern somehow spared a crack. Removed from its corner among the rubble, the lantern's light cast over the tomb. Now, perhaps, sixteen feet out and eight feet wide.
On the pedestal rested a pokemon, like Beetle knew. It slept with all its legs tucked in around a great belly, studded in the center by a gem that saw the flickering light with a dazzle all its own. As Beetle blinked away the flash and stowed the torch while stifling a whimper, the sparkling dimmed to a luster, it became easier to notice how the torrents of dust in the air were chilled into a standstill about the pokemon's body.
A rock popped loose and streaked by the stranger's nose, hitting a corner of the pedestal.
Its eyes didn't open, not yet, they just moved behind the lids. Its body did rise, to a tall and audacious height. The pedestal proved too small, meaning it wiggled off to stand before Beetle.
"What is it?"
Now its eyes shot open. For a moment they were milky, empty, and a pang of fear shot through Beetle: this had to be a feral pokemon broken in by the quake. Then wit flooded behind the dinosaur's pupils. It was like a cup of intelligence spilt into the creature, in a flash it seemed to move, look, breathe as a sentient pokemon does.
Now standing and sentient, Its, his, eyes fell on Beetle, and he seemed to understand something immediately. He winked.
"How's it going?" The Protector asked.