{Zero Chapter – The Truths}
There are a series of universal truths when it comes to stories. The first is the most obvious: It must all start somewhere.
For this tale, it all started with a picnic. A father has taken his daughter and son to enjoy a warm spring day in the countryside near their house. The sounds of birds and the first of the season's rousing insects, both normal animals and pokémon alike, made their way over the family as they settled down to eat. The little girl, barely turned seven, bounded around happily as the boy helped his father set up.
It was a peaceful scene, a happy family enjoying a pleasant afternoon. If you glanced quickly at them, it would almost be heartwarming. However, fortune smiled upon them that they had the area to themselves, because it wouldn't take long to see where the lines of cheer start to break.
Conflict, the second universal truth. Without conflict, there is no story worth telling. The day to day existence of a well off, well mannered, properly respected, and perfectly contented family makes for dry material. Without conflict, there can be no interest in the continuance of the story, no desire to see the situation back to a form of equilibrium. The broken family holds far more attention.
The three were not waiting for anyone. The mother could not join them today, or any day, as she had passed nearly three years ago. This would begin to explain the pain etched behind the smile of the father as he watched his daughter play. Then you would see how much he cringed at the sound of clinking cutlery, the way he winced if he turned too fully into the sun. One could almost admire his stubborn stamina, coming out to be with his children with such a painful hangover as he had.
But the son would tell so much more of the story. Not quite a full year older than his sister, his actions held as much responsibility as the middle-aged man that had brought them here. When it came time to eat, he was the one that brought the happy, care-free sister to the blanket, and it was he that served the meal that he had made that morning. He still refused to loose the smile that came so easily to his sibling, so difficult to his father, but his eyes betrayed his attitude to show the strength that no doubt held his broken family together that day.
Cliché? Perhaps. Not a universal element, but not a useless tool. However, the next truth is change. Watching a broken family may be of more interest than watching one better glued, however the interest lies more in the balancing act than the state of being. Are they brought together after awkward years, or torn apart in a final furious act? Does such a change persist, or is it merely fluctuation of the routine? That is what you silently ask yourselves now. The answer, however, is never direct.
A rustling of branches heralds an unusual approach. While not far from foothills, seeing the white and blue form of an Absol was never a common sight, and certainly a first for the children. Sitting with perfect views, they saw it long before the father's blurry vision could focus behind him, below the afternoon light he had turned away from.
Indeed, the father had seen one of the disaster pokémon before, nearly three years ago. The very day that his love was lost. He couldn't reach in time to stop his energetic boy from leaping up and rushing towards the edge of the clearing, but his other arm catches his daughter and hauls her up as he stumbles fearfully to his feet.
"Tatsuya, get away from that thing, it's dangerous!" Curiously, it's the father, with his little girl in protective arms, that runs from the clearing first, not sparing a look over his shoulder to the fate of his son.
The boy stops in his tracks, only a few meters from the pokémon. The red eyes of its fox-like face study him curiously, but it remains relaxed, its pose stating as loud as words that it doesn't want to hurt the boy.
Tatsuya understands this almost instinctively. He is the one that their cat had gotten along with best, and from what he could see, this pokémon was nothing more than a larger version of their runaway pet.
A hand reaches out tentatively, causing the Absol to step back. It didn't particularly want to have a human friend, but wasn't so against one to simply leave. Tense moments pass as the two slowly closed the gap, but all tension vanishes as they make contact. The itchy spots on an Absol are apparently not so different from those of a cat, and Tatsuya quickly buries his fingers in the pokémon's mane, getting all of the hard to reach places around the shoulders and neck.
"Heh, Kiara's gonna love you. She likes fluffy things almost as much as she likes pink." The pokémon had no reply, save for a quiet rumbling sound that was assumed to be an equivalent to a purr.
"Come on, let's clean up and go home. Dad was wrong, you're not dangerous are you? Hey, do you got a name?"
The pokémon seems to consider the question for a moment, or maybe it simply wondered why the attention had stopped, but it eventually make an exclamation that worked to both possibilities. "Sol!"
"Sol, huh?" The boy resumes his petting, getting a happy purr that he assumes to be consent. "Alright, Sol! Come on, we gotta clean up and get home or they'll get worried." As he goes to the blanket and holds out a scrap of lunch, Sol took a moment to consider things before deciding that the food would be worth keeping the stray pup company. After all, he could always leave once the child was home.
One truth has been forgotten in this story. True, the tale is young, and perhaps such truths and literary elements could be spread throughout, but here, the now family of four has no such luck. Conflict we've seen, and even resolution, but there is fallout to all conflict, for in some way there is always the last of the universal truths: pain.
There was no reason for the father to panic as he did, but he couldn't have know the kindness of the pokémon he'd immediately labeled as a threat. He had his daughter in her room, with quiet half assurances that Tatsuya was most likely alright.
As he paces in the kitchen, the lights of the world dimming behind storm clouds outside, his hands slip unconsciously to his case of beer, as they had every time he found more than a moment to himself. Just one drink, he promises himself. It's just to calm his nerves before going to see what was taking his son so long.
He had probably over reacted, really. He'd never heard of Absol attacks. Tatsuya probably just ran out of breath on the run back. He tells himself this as the booze does its job of calming him down
One drink and he'd go and check.
Unfortunately, over three years, he'd developed a habit of turning 'just one drink when he had a moment' into three or four. Today, he failed to notice that he'd finished his first drink until he's hit his sixth, and once he's realized the time that passed, his inebriation steals his earlier certainty. "My god, something's happened to him..."
He can't know that Tatsuya and his new friend Sol are walking slowly with the weight of the heavy basket, that they would be home in a few minutes. It didn't even occur to the man that his son had stopped for their lunch.
As the first rain drop hits the window, his drunken spirits fall to the floor. "It rained for her too. Oh no, it's happening again. My son..." His mind makes connections, leaps of logic that are beyond the scope of a rational mind.
He didn't recall that, while his beloved had died after an Absol sighting, it had been his drunken rage that ended her life. He didn't recall that they had gone on the picnic today to take in the last clear day before the yearly lowland rainy season brings its first storm crashing over them tonight. His mind was bending under intoxication as empty bottles line up in his grief, then crash away in his rage.
"It was the Absol's fault, always the Absol's fault!" He didn't hear the footsteps behind him, and only barely catches the scared voice, trying to make itself heard.
"Daddy, where's Tatsuya? Will he be home soon?"
The man stops, his focus and his rage now turning to his daughter. The empty case had stolen his coherency, and all he knows is that there is a little thing behind him, vaguely familiar. He'd taken the shape instead of Tatsuya, and all that white... To blurry, confused eyes he could almost see her as... "The Absol... It's all your fault! You tricked me into taking you didn't you? Rather than my own son! And now he's gone because of you!"
The confusion on her face is only matched by her terror. She tries to say something, tell her father that he was wrong, tell him he's making a mistake. With him thundering towards her, reeking of beer and sweat, growling and roaring as though a best, all she did was scream.
The sounds worried Tatsuya as he came towards his home. Crashes, bangs and yells, he'd familiarized himself with those sounds. He had only ever sheltered his sister from the truth of his father's fury, and he'd been left to hear every sound. He knew it was trouble that he heard them now, while he wasn't there to keep his sister out of the way.
Sol too senses the disaster within the house, and he runs with the basket alongside the boy, dropping it on the porch as they storm into the wreckage of his home. It doesn't take long to tell that the damage was now happening upstairs, and the pokémon let the boy lead the way only until it became apparent where the sounds were coming from.
The screams had stopped long before he was close enough to hear them, he had no warning of the sight that waited for him as he walks into his room, where his father rages. When he finally finds his voice, it barely rises above the din.
"Dad... What have you done!?"
His eyes are glued to the sight of his sister: cut, bruised, and nearly broken. He doesn't know much about medicine, but he understands that with her injuries she won't last long without help.
The beast that had taken his father now faces confusion. The son he was raging over stands before him, as does the Absol that he thinks of as the root of his problems. His mind battles to find the meaning of it, but rage wins out. He decides that it's some magic of his enemy, taking his son for the force that would pull from him everything he has left. The beast's rush happens in an instant. Tatsuya only had time to stumble to his back on the floor before his father was bearing down on him, doubled fists dropping like a sledgehammer.
The curious thing is that as the boy looks up after a moment, curious as to how he hadn't felt the blow, the fists were being held above him, a massive line of darkness crackling beneath them, as though a tear had formed in the light. Only then do they notice the growl.
Some form of reason returns to the man as he faces one of the most sobering sights of his life. Sol was crouching further and further down, eyes glowing red in some unearthly way that made them look darker, more menacing. The horn on the side of his head was cracking with more of the same energy that had stopped the strike dead.
It should have brought him to his senses. He should have fallen away in horror at the sight of a pokémon of pure darkness focusing so much menace towards him. However, the beast's anger saw threat before he understood. He roars and turns his fists, hoping to smash the face of all of his troubles.
His fists meet the rushing horn, then his elbows meet his own stomach as the force turns back on him. Then the hallway explodes in darkness, as though even light was afraid of Sol's retributive fury.
After the light returns, Tatsuya looks at the lump of his father, notes the steady, if labored breathing, and the slow flow of blood from his fists, broken into a single mass from the blast. His mind then reels, and he looks through the legs of the Absol standing protectively above him.
"Kiara! Kiara, please tell me you're alright!" He scrambles to his feet and throws broken scraps off of his sister's frame, noting with relief that while she didn't respond, the hair in front of her nose still moved with her breath, at least what little of her hair that wasn't matted with blood. He decides after a quick check of her injuries that it's safer to move her than leave her anywhere near his father. "Sol! Help me get her to the truck!"
He wasn't allowed to use his father's truck. He couldn't legally sit behind the wheel while it was on the road. He also couldn't travel through town with such a powerful pokémon unbound. But the vehicle's suspension was smooth even at speed, and Kiara needed a hospital more than a wait for an ambulance. He didn't care what he couldn't do.
The world moved beneath him as he and Sol got his sister to help. Tatsuya would tolerate nothing less.