Prologue - Cage Opening
Harmonian roots had winded through the ash and carnage of a war-torn Unova. The region's near ruination was precisely the condition that had allowed the name of Harmonia to thrive, as the consequences of the war strengthened their resolve to support their true king, the Hero of Truth, in his quest.
Year X013
Golden heat that battered into Alder's skin fluctuated in intensity from harsh to unrelenting every few, variable seconds via a cheap ceiling lamp. Shifting his seat slightly out of range from the only light source in the room would have perhaps allowed the cool metal surfaces of the rest of the containment to relieve him of the heat, but at that moment, Alder was too distracted to amend his discomfort. He ran a hand across his perspiring forehead, straightening back into the most dignified pose he could manage with his shaking limbs.
When Alder found himself still fidgeting in his seat, he attempted to recollect himself by gathering his bearings, as having been caught in a whirlwind of blind rage that had lasted up until his entrance into the room had denied him any real understanding of the cage he trapped himself in. He'd never been tasked with interrogating anyone before in his life, yet out of his own volition he had stormed into the Driftveil Police Station to do just that. The steel containment and possibly one-way mirror to his right were not the most ideal conditions in which he wished to receive the answers he had sought for, and although Clay had said as much before, Alder paid him no heed at the time and dove headfirst into a tense situation. Perhaps he regretted it, but backing down now would only subvert his earliest chance to relieve his curiosity. Exhaling the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding, Alder looked up.
"I don't know who you are." Then Alder's eyes averted to his hands, of which were wrung upon his lap and still shaking, albeit imperceptible to anyone without sharp senses (to Alder's knowledge and dismay, the only other person in the room was indeed observant to an infallible degree). Receiving no reply, he raised his head after the brief, yet thick silence that engulfed the small space and its two occupants. "Not anymore, at least," he added. While the action was completely unnecessary due the other man's blatant disinterest at exchanging any glances in the first place, Alder had bowed his head once more to avoid eye contact.
Instead, Ghetsis' eye bore into the metallic tabletop in front of him. The only sound penetrating the heavy silence was the rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the metal surface, and soon the echo of each his fingertips jabbing against the table in rigid intervals became almost comforting to Alder when compared to the drawn out sigh of the fallen Team Plasma mastermind.
"Hmmm...is that so?" Ghetsis murmured. He lifted his head, staring directly past Alder. "What makes you think you ever knew me in the first place?"
Alder slammed a fist against the table. In his motion's wake, a sharp pang resonated as the table rattled violently for a fleeting moment. "We were friends, damn it! Even if you've been using me for the past few years, you cannot deny that we'd grown together, traveled together, and had experienced the consequences of inflated egos - together." His voice faltered at his last word as Ghetsis' lips twisted into a smirk.
While the world seemed to come at a standstill, the sensation of spinning still seeped into his head like poison pumped into his blood, and soon Alder felt close to crumbling dead or at least debilitated onto the floor. He had indeed mulled over the thought before, but the reality of it had never dawned on him: many years had been wasted, regardless of how willing he was to accept the fact.
"Using you? You moronic oaf." Chuckling darkly, Ghetsis' red eye flickered first to Alder's paled face, then lowered back down to the table with a dull gleam of light reflected in its blood-red hue, although his misshapen smile remained as he spoke. "Even for a fool like you it should have been quite obvious that you were only a slight bump in my path towards glory. I couldn't possibly aggrandize you as a tool when I had no use for you in the first place." He gestured to him with a wave.
A mixture of anger and disbelief seized at Alder like chafing ropes. Now, he felt his hands shake with fury rather than out of fear of the unknown. The exchange so far had made it quite clear to him that Ghetsis Harmonia was the most contemptible of bastards. "There's no 'glory' in manipulating and twisting the mind of a young child to carry out your schemes. Or better yet, attempting to seize control of an entire region through the brute force of a legendary that had many years ago, lay waste upon this very same land! What part of any of that sounds similar to achieving 'glory' to you?"
With another exasperated exhale as well as the slowing of his movements, it was evident that the man was tired and most especially, utterly bored. "None of us want to bask in the other's presence any longer, so do the both of us a favor and take your leave. It's a waste of my precious time to entertain you." Ghetsis drawled.
Alder straightened back in his seat, his fists balled and cracking at the knuckles as he honed his gaze dead on Ghetsis. "I'll leave once you tell me why you've set forth on this road. Why you've become this."
Ghetsis waved a hand dismissively. "Is this really your concern?"
"I'll leave as soon as you give me an honest answer."
"Ever the idealist, aren't you?" Ghetsis had hissed, no doubt with flashes of Zekrom falling his team brought to mind. He slouched in his seat with a cold glare, visibly irritated for the first time since Alder's arrival.
Uncharacteristically pleased with himself for cracking through Ghetsis' stoic exterior and completely aware that he'd be burdened with immense guilt for it afterwards, Alder replied almost sadistically, "Perhaps I do know why you've decided to do this." Ghetsis had looked up then.
Alder redirected his line of sight to include Ghetsis' hands, of which were adorned by thick golden bands that only barely concealed the white lines of scars slashed across his fingers. They weren't shaking as Alder's had previously. Ghetsis was frozen in his place.
"Because of what happened to her, right?" Alder prodded. The rush he'd felt at the prospect of decimating Ghetsis' nonchalance had dissipated as quickly as it had come, and Alder lowered his head in shame. It was a topic that had remained unbreached for decades, and a pain that was not easily forgotten, Alder knew. Therefore, the reply he received was unprecedented.
"No." Ghetsis said.
Alder's head snapped back up as his brows knitted together. "No? What do you mean 'no'?" He sputtered in desperation. There was very little to be understood of Ghetsis and his intentions despite all of Alder's years of knowing him, and yet the one clue that could have disassembled the unmitigable shadow cast over his character had been deflected with a simple, monosyllabic utterance at Ghetsis' disposal. The man had told many lies, but sans the bravado that coincided his usual speech in an attempt to reign in the interest of manipulable masses, Alder knew Ghetsis' resounding 'no' was indubitable truth. To some extent, Alder amended.
A smirk reappeared on Ghetsis' face. "I'm not nearly as sympathetic a person as you'd like me to be, Alder. In fact, I had planned to mold this world into one that excluded exhausting heroics such as yourself."
"You're a liar." Alder shook his head, unbelieving. "You may say otherwise, but you can't simply deny the only thing that humanizes your cause."
"I would think that my near-successful endeavor in destroying this pathetic region would have been evidence enough that our morals simply do not align," Ghetsis leaned in closer, "I don't need my intentions to reflect whatever little humanity you seem to believe I have left in me. You may have convinced yourself that there is good in all people, as all idealistic fools do, but before you get out of my sight, I want to impart this bit of wisdom unto you: all I have done has been for no one but myself. Not a single one of you flawed creatures have made the smallest bit of impact on my choices and to believe otherwise is simple egotism on your part."
Before Alder could present the haphazardly strewn together retort in his head, a light knock and the creaking of a door hinge magnetized both men's glares from each other to the only exit from the room. Alder squinted as white light slid in through the narrow opening, overtaking the comparably less overbearing yellow lighting.
"Alder?" Through the sliver of an opening created, Cheren peered into the room. His dark blue eyes scanned over the small space, akin to a satellite reaching the far corners of space to gather information. After assessing the situation and poorly concealing the slight grimace of disgust upon catching a glimpse of Ghetsis, Cheren's eyes settled back on Alder. "The League's requesting your presence," he said, eyes darting between the seated men back-and-forth in quick succession.
"Ah, yes, I've just about finished here. Just wait outside for a moment, if you don't mind." Alder said with a weak laugh.
"I'll be outside then." Cheren nodded curtly as he moved to close the door. Another long creak of the door hinge strung through the silence of the room before the door shut close and the white light narrowed down to nothing, Alder all the while following its departure with his eyes. The yellow light fixture dimmed suddenly.
Alder averted his focus back to Ghetsis. "This discussion isn't over."
"It isn't 'over' until you're satisfied, you mean?" Ghetsis sighed, "As much as I'd like to make this our last meeting, I'm not going to fabricate a tragic backstory to justify all that I've done just to indulge you." He sneered.
Alder grunted in affirmation. "Indeed, I wouldn't want you to lie to me as you've done to everyone else these past years. Besides, it's not as if anything you make up will satisfy me since I already know that you weren't driven by greed." Alder slowly got up from his seat and moved to the door. "Not when you had had everything prior to your self-destruction."
Behind him, Alder could hear the barking, almost manic laugh Ghetsis gave in response. "You truly believe that I had everything? After I lost -" Ghetsis stopped, and from the corner of his eye Alder watched him silently fuming in his seat.
"It seems that I'm already closer to figuring out what drove you to this state." He smiled to himself as he rested a hand on the metallic handle. "I'll visit again to hear the rest. See you soon." Alder could almost feel the skin on his back set ablaze by Ghetsis' burning glare. He pulled on the handle and rubbed at his irritated eyes when the bright light of the halls pierced into view.
Shutting the door behind him, Alder barely made a movement before Cheren began walking from across the hallway, a sharp gaze honed in on the champion.
"Exactly how are you two acquainted?" He asked. As per usual, Alder was caught off guard by the teen's impeccable perception. Rarely did Cheren ever initiate conversations with simple observations or mundane questions, delving straight into territory that was downright prying. Cheren seemed particularly quick at voicing himself around the champion, as Alder was often more impressed than offended by this quirk compared to most other people unfamiliar with the boy's bluntness.
"So you've gathered that we knew each other before all of this. You're bright," Alder said.
Cheren motioned for the champion to follow him as he began walking down the hall. "Naturally that'd be my assumption, since the both of you were inaugurated as Elite Four members at the same time," he said.
Visions of his first years as part of the Elite Four were prompted, a rush of exhilaration and nostalgia then regret filling him as he recalled Ghetsis' role in that part of his lifetime. The opulent celebrations and the bonds he'd made at the initial years of his Elite Four days receded into the background of his thoughts when the more recent memories were of bloodshed and severed ties.
"Alder?" The man in question was ripped away from his thoughts as Cheren continued, "You haven't answered my question -"
"And you haven't told me what the League needs me for, young man. It also begs the question as to why they've sent you as messenger." Alder scolded, albeit with a teasing grin.
Cheren groaned slightly with a roll of his eyes. "I wasn't the first choice of messenger, but I'm also not the one in the hospital, so here I am." He answered. "What the League needs from you is your invaluable input on how to deal with Team Plasma. That's the gist of it."
Alder's eyes widened. "Hold on, the hospital? Is your friend quite alright?" Obviously not, but Alder felt responsible as well as guilty for the hero's apparent lack of well-being, with all that he had been unable to protect the child from.
"Alive and breathing. Along with a few broken bones and a quote, 'broken heart because of the green-haired idiot that flew out the window,' unquote." Cheren deadpanned.
Alder realized, much to his luck and just in time before responding, that he was thinking of the wrong "green-haired idiot" and stayed silent.
"And the League's especially curious about what'll be done with..." Cheren jerked his head back down the hall behind him. The green-haired idiot, Alder finished mentally as he directed his gaze towards the door they'd left.
"Yes. Him. I'll be sure to let them know of what I believe is the necessary course in action." Whatever that may be, Alder thought to himself.
The teen crossed his arms and turned his nose up. "Well, as far as I'm concerned, his crimes warrant a relocation to Interpol captivity. Locked up far away in a dark and dank cell. I'm only assuming that those would be the conditions of a prison cell that the Interpol would deem suitable for someone as vile as him." Cheren said.
Alder's mouth strained to form a tight-lipped smile. "You don't suppose that would be too harsh of a punishment?"
Cheren stared back, confused for possibly one of the first times in his sixteen years of living. "I don't...think so? It's a bit surprising that you of all people would consider otherwise, after...that incident." He finished. His tone had cascaded into a quieter and less assured one as he spoke, because someone of his character must have had significant trouble with delicacy, Alder had reasoned.
Then Alder nodded once, clapping a hand onto Cheren's shoulder. "You would be right," he said, removing his hand.
As the two rounded a corner, a glass door that would open to the outside came into view, a mere ten feet away.
"So, the answer to my question-"
"We knew each other before becoming part of the Elite Four." Alder replied. While Cheren halted briefly to ponder over the vague response, Alder continued forward.
A chill seemed to course through the air and embedded into his skin when Alder imagined three pairs of eyes blink his way from the shadowy corners of the hall. The strange clenching sensation that coiled in his stomach left once he clasped a hand over his volcarona's pokeball and neared the exit of the building.
Pushing through the glass door, rays of sunlight immediately clung to Alder like a second skin. He ventured into the bright light, feeling himself ascend elsewhere as he peered into the blue expanse of the cloudless sky overhead, relishing in the inexplicable sensation of chains that had held him down for many years brittling away into dust.
Alder decided then. He would never turn back.
This will be one of the few chapters written in Alder's POV. The bulk of this story will be told through the eyes of a self-righteous brat and I can't fucking wait to get this shit rolling.