Dismantle the Distortionist

by Phentys

It is not the duty of Gods to make mortal men repent. Cyrus is torn, a broken man, from the Distortion World, while Giovanni's own plans crumble beneath him time and time again. Whether it be by catastrophic injury or by the voice of constant failure, they've both hit their lowest points. Maybe there's safety in numbers.

1. A Call from the Void

It was perfect.

No, really. It was everything he could have wanted. Why make a new world if the perfect one was already in existence? Floating islands, connected by escherian waterfalls and kelp-like trees, were all he could see as far as his eyes could look. Beyond them there was only churning darkness, perhaps residual of the abyssal void from which this world and his own were created. But it held the one quality which Cyrus had valued above anything else, literally not a soul in sight. He himself was a husk, as he had been for years, and Giratina…well, regardless whether or not it had a soul, it wasn't human. It didn't matter. Cyrus had found his place in the universe, and he was satisfied.

That great, serpentine form approached him, slowly curling out of the darkness, thin wings unfurling as the islands around Cyrus shifted. It settled before him, coiled in a sort of figure eight, freezing only at the exact moment that everything else did.

"Is this what you wanted?" It didn't speak aloud, but Cyrus felt the inquiry in his mind.

"Precisely."

The thing seemed somewhat put off by his response, but it moved in what Cyrus assumed to be a disinterested shrug before retreating to the deeper parts of the void. In the week or so that Cyrus had been in the Distortion World, he hadn't needed to eat, drink, or sleep; a useful pattern if nothing else, as he was unsure whether or not the vegetation here was safe to consume. He spent nearly all of his time simply pacing, thinking, wandering deep as he could get; slowly becoming more accustomed to how to traverse the strange terrain. Giratina would sometimes return from the void to watch him. With no sun, Cyrus lost track of time, but he figured every few weeks or so the thing would fly by overhead, or even follow him for a while. Giratina seemed to be expecting something of him, but what did Cyrus have at this point to offer?

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" It asked once as it glided slowly past him.

"This is all I wanted."

It had turned abruptly away from him when he said that, diving back into the void. for a while thereafter the void was much darker, but eventually the ambient lighting returned and Cyrus resumed his wandering. He had no idea what sort of answer it had expected; it came to Spear Pillar knowing what he was trying to make, and took him here. Did it want him to change his mind?

"Do you not regret what you've brought upon yourself?" Another time it came, stopping him suddenly as he was moving between islands. "Are you not saddened by your current state?"

"Why would I be?" Cyrus had replied in earnest. A shudder ran through him, which he realized had originated from Giratina.

"You are totally alone."

"I'm aware."

"Nobody loves you."

"Nobody ever has."

Giratina recoiled slightly at the blunt statement, but then suddenly it came close to Cyrus's face.

"This is not the world you seek. It is not your world at all." Now it growled, aloud for the first time in front of Cyrus, opening its beak to bare fangs. "You are an intruder."

"You brought me here." Cyrus stated.

"As a punishment, which you seem to have not understood." Each of the claws of Giratina's pointed wings drove into the ground in pairs, upsetting Cyrus' balance. "You will die here– do you understand that?"

"I do." Cyrus righted himself.

"Then beg."

"For what?"

"To be sent back." It closed the distance between their faces, the shining crown of sulphur nearly touching him. It smelled like burnt flesh, thick and metallic, stinging Cyrus's nostrils.

"Why?"

It drew back, and Cyrus figured it would again retreat to the void as it usually did. Instead, Cyrus's vision suddenly burned white; a discordant shriek pierced his ears, and something was blasted against the left side of his face and chest. He fell back, disoriented, and as his apparent injuries began to sear in pain, he shielded himself with his right hand.

"It is not my responsibility to make you repent, human!" Giratina roared, the thunder echoing around Cyrus, "I will suffer this intrusion no longer!"

Cyrus's right arm was suddenly crushed in Giratina's jaws as he was snatched from the ground, his shoulder violently dislocated. Then he was thrown down, striking stony ground. Knife-like rocks tearing into him, into his abdomen, his throat, and he fell again. His vision still bleached white Cyrus crashed, a rock piercing his left forearm through, more slicing his legs, the back of his head. Falling. Crashing. Falling. Crashing. Cyrus could feel the blood pouring from him, and with every blast against the rock something else broke. He couldn't even scream; his whole body was in splinters, totally shattered, and still he fell and crashed, fell and crashed. The last thing he felt was one final strike, a rock against his left temple, that made his teeth ring as everything instantly split to black.

Suddenly he was choking. Something was lodged in his throat, obstructing his airway and Cyrus was instantly overwhelmed with panic. Still shrouded by blackness, he tried to move his hands to his face, but something held his arms; in fact, he couldn't move at all. Feeling slowly returned to him, first as intense pins and needles in his right arm, then in the stinging across the skin on the left side of his face and chest, and what felt like something stuck onto his inner elbow. The pain from a dozen deep lacerations slowly set in, exasperated by the panic of choking, to the point that Cyrus didn't notice right away when light began to flood into his eyes, and the clicks and whirrs of machinery around him.

Light gave way to color, but it was still mostly white; he was in some cold room, shapes moving around him. He realized that whatever was on his inner elbow was actually in his elbow, stuck beneath the skin. As the light organized itself, Cyrus was able to blink away tears of pain and made out a door, a light teal curtain; he could now feel on his skin some papery garment, and the heavier weight of a blanket. He realized the thing in his throat was a trach tube; the thing in his elbow must be an IV port.

A hospital.

Cyrus felt a deep pit form in his gut. Most of Sinnoh had heard of Team Galactic by the time he made his move at Spear Pillar. It was not possible that nobody realized what had happened; even if he hadn't seen the outcome itself, at the very least there would have been a portal at the mountain's summit, visible from the base. If he were truly back in the mortal world, what would it mean that—

"I think he's awake."

Cyrus's eyes darted to the source of the voice, a young nurse standing in the door of what was apparently his ICU room. An older woman in scrubs and a lab coat stepped past the nurse and into the room. The woman walked slowly closer, producing a small flashlight from her pocket, but then put it away.

"I'm not even going to check for dilation, his eyes are following me," She said, turning back to the nurse. "Go get Colin and have her bring me an adult dose of…something. Let's start with ativan and see how that helps."

"Got it, doc." The nurse, a tall, skinny man, glanced back at Cyrus as he left.

The doctor pulled the blankets down off Cyrus's chest, revealing to him the thick bandages covering most of his visible skin and the wires connected to stickers on his chest snuck between layers of gauze. Cyrus followed the IV line from his left inner elbow up to the bag of blood hanging from a pole at the head of the bed. His eyes wandered down to his right arm, which he couldn't see well in his periphery, but was completely swaddled in layers and layers of bandages. He realized it was numb when the doctor gently put her hand on his chest.

"The ventilator's off, you're already breathing on your own." There was a tone in her voice that Cyrus couldn't quite pinpoint. "We're gonna remove this trach so you can talk. Do you understand?"

Cyrus nodded as best he could, moving his head too much made him briefly able to feel the tube even into his chest, which made him gag.

"Okay. We're going to use this suction tube," The doctor detached some sort of device from the wall, "and we're going to make sure your airway and mouth are clear of any secretions; the tube is held in place by a balloon, so we need to make sure you won't aspirate anything when we deflate it."

The nurse returned to the room with two IV vials.

"Thanks, Martin." She took the vials from him, and moved to the other side of Cyrus's bed. "First I'm just going to flush your IV line, and give you some ativan. It'll help you relax, but it might burn a little for a second."

She pushed the first vial into the IV port in Cyrus's exposed elbow, apparently just saline, shortly followed by the second. As warned, a mild burning spread from Cyrus's arm into his body, but it quickly diminished and Cyrus felt his limbs become heavy.

The doctor adjusted Cyrus's bed so that he was sitting as close to upright as possible, and inserted the tube into his mouth next to the trach to suck up any saliva and blood that was left after his ordeal. The nurse held the tube's position while the doctor removed the device holding it to his face, and then pressed some button on the tube as Cyrus felt air pass around it, marginally improving his ability to breathe.

"I'm going to count to three, and on three I want you to cough while I pull the tube out." The doctor instructed. She took the nurse's position holding the trach tube, allowing the nurse to leave the room, and looked back down at Cyrus. "One, two…three."

Cyrus coughed, then gagged, then dry-heaved as the tube was pulled from his throat; he clamped his hands over his mouth— hand? Trying to stifle his continued coughing, Cyrus's eyes fell on his right arm, which he still couldn't move, slowly coming to the realization that the mound of bandages it terminated in was notably smaller than his closed fist.

"I'm Dr. Arzt." The doctor, finally introducing herself as she disposed of the trach tube and lowered Cyrus's bed back to its original position. "I'm the on-duty doctor right now; you're at Eterna City Trauma Center's intensive care unit."

Cyrus tried to ask what had happened, but only a low squeak came out, his eyes not moving from his right arm.

"You were found three days ago at the foot of Mt Cornet; most of your injuries were consistent with having fallen off one of the cliffs." Dr Arzt explained as she situated oxygen tubes beneath Cyrus's nose and trailing behind his ears. Martin re-entered the room.

"I do need to know your name and date of birth so we can get a record started for you; you didn't have a wallet or any form of ID on you, besides what you were wearing." When he didn't answer right away, she gently put a hand on his shoulder. "Your hand was already gone by the time paramedics found you, but we're doing everything we can to save the rest of your arm. I'll get the trauma team in here to discuss the extent of your injuries in just a moment, I just need your name and date of birth."

He paused again.

"Are you having difficulty remembering?" Dr. Arzt asked. Cyrus shook his head; he knew his damn name, but between the bright lights, the din of activity from the rest of the ICU, and the shock of his missing hand, the difficulty was in getting his mouth to form the words.

"Can you type one-handed?" Martin turned the laptop cart around and pushed it towards Cyrus. He weakly reached out with his left hand, felt the keyboard beneath his fingers and tried to estimate where the exact keys were.

XGDGX AVBER SUVRS

"He can't see the keyboard, Martin." Dr. Arzt sighed.

Cyrus's hand fell to the edge of the bed, and with some effort he pulled it back to his side. Even that exasperated his exhaustion, but he still managed to finally choke something out.

"C-Cyrus."

Martin stiffened, turning the laptop cart back towards himself to clear the name field and type in his response.

"Your full name?" Dr. Arzt inquired, moving closer to hear him better.

"…Cyrus Abner Solb-berg," he managed, somewhat breathlessly. Whatever medication they had administered had calmed him significantly but it wasn't doing much for the pain. When his voice inevitably failed him again, he took a moment to remember how to sign numbers so he could tell the doctor his date of birth. With this information, Martin abruptly left the room.

"Odd," Dr. Arzt remarked, probably more to herself than to Cyrus, "he's normally not that terse…Er, anyways, Cyrus, was it? I'm going to go get the trauma doctor that helped you a few days ago so we can give you a run-down of your injuries; I'll be right back."

And right back she was, with another doctor and another two vials. Cyrus didn't catch what the medication was, but it took the pain clean out and made the room spin every time he moved his head. The new doctor was followed in by another man…and another. And another. A fourth person came in and handcuffed Cyrus to his bed, as if he were even remotely capable of walking. Dr. Arzt and the other doctor stood aside and the four strangers, in unison, flashed International Police badges; about what Cyrus had expected.

Cyrus mostly tuned out as the police told him he was under arrest for an attempted crime against humanity, read him his rights, and explained that he'd be going straight to trial as soon as he was moved from ICU to a general ward. Dr. Arzt, apparently bewildered by this development, stared at the second doctor as the topic of conversation changed from Cyrus's attempt to destroy the universe to the injuries of his very mortal body.

Obviously, there'd been a complete amputation of the right hand, as well as extensive crushing to the radius and ulna, he'll be lucky if the upper arm is salvageable. Severe concussion, possible traumatic brain injury, a broken lumbar vertebra, broken tailbone, broken ankle, and a few broken ribs. Third degree chemical burns across the left side of the face and chest, extending slightly around his side and towards his back. Severe lacerations across the throat, chest and back, as well as down the left forearm. As well as less severe lacerations on the upper right thigh, the fronts of both shins, and the left side of the abdomen.

Medical procedures already done have included a skin graft harvest from his right thigh, a thoracotomy performed on the left side of his chest (Cyrus shuddered imagining someone's hand on his heart), and the usage of many, many stitches to try to patch his numerous lacerations back together. Further care would mostly be to keep things from getting infected, especially the skin grafts, and to keep an eye on how his brain injury develops. There's a chance that the damage done to his spine or brain will cause him problems with motor function, but they'd be able to test that further at a later point.

"You need to rest at this point; it's the only thing that's going to help a concussion. And you lost a lot of blood." The other doctor said. "Do you have any questions for us, Cyrus?"

Cyrus shook his head. He understood fully what this entailed; given the court's previous treatment of psychopaths, probably a life sentence. How would he get back to the Distortion World from a prison cell? His only real question was one that neither the doctors nor the police could answer: why had Giratina let him have a taste of paradise only to rip him away? He paused; suddenly he did have a question for them. His voice failing him again, Cyrus was able to gesture writing well enough for Dr. Arzt to bring him a pen and paper.

How long has it been?

One of the officers looked over his shoulder at the paper and sighed.

"You were last seen by our forces ascending Mt Cornet just over a year ago." He walked back towards the door. "Your admins have made appearances since then, but from what questioning we were able to get done…well, at least one of them believes you to have been taken to another world."

His admins. He'd, admittedly, forgotten about them. Cyrus wanted to ask who had ratted him out- not that he could have doled out any punishment at this point- but he was too exhausted to even write anything more. The two doctors ushered out the police and checked Cyrus's vitals before beginning to leave themselves.

"If you, uh, need anything, there's a little button here." Dr. Arzt put a small remote, wired to the side of his bed, in Cyrus's remaining hand. "Pressing this button will send an alert to the nursing station. You're catheterized, so you don't need to get up to urinate, but basically any other need you have…you know." Whatever tone had been in her voice when they first met had been replaced with something Cyrus was much better at spotting: discomfort. "Uh, good night."

The other doctor left. A pair of security guards were posted outside of the room's door. As Dr. Arzt stepped back into the hallway of the ICU, she turned off the light in Cyrus's room, which was more than enough to send Cyrus tumbling into darkness.

When Cyrus was awoken by pain in his arm and chest, it was still dark. What started as a low throb quickly escalated into what felt like knives tracing the skin graft and the deepest wound on his chest, driving into him every time he took a breath. For a moment he saw stars, and earnestly hoped he'd pass out to avoid the pain, but when he didn't he felt the little remote in his hand and pressed the button.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Cyrus was writhing, wheezing in pain; in his mind he saw that blinding light again, and he wasn't sure if he was losing his vision or having a flashback. He pressed the button again, and his vision instantly returned when he heard the door open. There stood Martin, standing still in the doorway. He said nothing.

"Help," Cyrus gasped. With the uncuffed stump he reached for his chest, but ultimately nothing he could do would numb it.

"What?" He glared at Cyrus, hatred in his voice. Cyrus could spot that much.

"Please…" Cyrus's vision was once again filled with stars. Martin's bright carmine hair caught the light from the hall, and Cyrus realized who he looked like. "It…hurts…to breathe…"

"Good."

Cyrus's condition deteriorated, and Dr. Arzt was left scratching her head as to why. When nurses came into the room to give him medication, it rarely had any effect. One day turned into two, constantly in the state between passing out and hyperventilating, and on the third sleepless day a young woman came into Cyrus's room with a note pad and a Lucario.

"Hello, Cyrus. My name is Dr. Bellamy. I am the psychiatric lead for Eterna City General." She put her hand near Cyrus's, and he made an attempt to shake it. "I'm going to ask you some questions and I need you to be open and honest with me. Nothing we say leaves this room unless I believe you or someone else is in immediate danger." She looked at the lucario, who in turn was squinting at Cyrus. "My lucario is a trained therapy pokémon—what is it, buddy?"

Lucario stepped closer to Cyrus, its aura sensors up and its eyes widening. It turned to Dr. Bellamy and barked quietly, looking quickly back and forth between Cyrus's vital monitor and the doctor.

"Dr. Arzt told me his heart rate's been elevated like that for the past three days and they don't know why." She said, probably more to Lucario than to Cyrus, then looked down at her notepad. "I'll make this as fast as possible, OK? I'll just start out with general questions…who is the current champion of Sinnoh?"

"C-Cynthia." Cyrus choked out between shallow breaths, which he'd found were somewhat less painful.

"What city are we in?"

"Eterna…"

"Do you have any existing mental health diagnoses?"

"I've…never seen…a psychiatrist…"

"Fair enough." She jotted something down, but Lucario seemed to be getting somewhat distressed looking at Cyrus. "So you've never been hospitalized for your mental health before?"

"N-no…"

"Do you have any family history of mental health issues?"

"…No…"

"If I asked you to give me the abridged version of your life story, would you be able to do that for me?"

"I was…born and…raised in… S-Sunnyshore…did well in school…not many friends…" Cyrus took a second to catch his breath, wincing when he accidentally inhaled too deeply. "realized I was…empty…in high school…"

"What do you mean, 'empty?'" Dr. Bellamy wrote something on her notepad.

"No soul…"

"Go on," she instructed, writing more.

"Went to college…for engineering…graduated with…high honors." He paused again. "I had a…revelation about…other people."

"Mmm-hm." She was furiously jotting down notes now.

"Emotions…cause pain…and obstruct…progression. I wanted to…make a world…without them…"

"A world of other people who are 'empty?'"

Cyrus nodded.

"I f-founded…Team Galactic…to achieve this… At Spear Pillar…I was taken…to my…perfect world…by Giratina…"

Dr. Bellamy paused before writing that down.

"But it…wouldn't let me…stay." Cyrus weakly lifted his intact arm and let it fall back to the bed.

"And now you're here?"

Cyrus nodded again. Apparently tired of being ignored, Lucario suddenly put its paw in Cyrus's exposed palm.

Can you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten? Cyrus heard the question in his head and it took a minute to realize that Lucario was the source. Could he answer just by thinking? How did it know he was in so much pain?

Ten. I can barely breathe. Cyrus tried to think clearly, but the stars fading in and out made it hard to focus.

You've been awake for a long time because of this, haven't you?

Nearly three days. I know my limits. I'm going to end up hallucinating soon enough.

Are the nurses in here regularly to give you medication? Lucario asked.

Yes, but nothing they give me does anything, Cyrus struggled to remember anything out of the ordinary. I know one of them hates me.

"Lucario?" Dr. Bellamy leaned closer, and Lucario touched her shoulder with its free paw.

Which one? it asked.

Martin. Tall guy, red hair. Cyrus paused and wondered whether he should mention who Martin reminded him of—

He looks like one of your admins? Lucario shook its head. We'll worry about that later. Dr. Bellamy, call Dr. Arzt and have her test him for the medications he's supposed to be on.

Dr. Bellamy stood up quickly; apparently Lucario's telepathy was just as clear to her as it was to Cyrus. She poked her head out the door and, after a few minutes and a hushed exchange of words, Dr. Arzt entered the room.

"I can't imagine that they haven't been giving him his medication," she said to Dr. Bellamy. "We keep tight records of what's administered to who, and who administered what…there hasn't been anything coming up in the charts or in the inventory."

"My Lucario has never inaccurrately detected pain before, Dr. Arzt." Dr. Bellamy replied. "I don't feel I can complete my own analysis if he's in that much pain; beyond the ethical point, it'd impact the results. I wouldn't be able to accurately give you any diagnosis."

Dr. Arzt knelt by Cyrus's bedside and donned gloves to do something with what Cyrus assumed was the collection bag for his catheter, judging by the visceral discomfort that the moving tube caused. When she stood back up, she handed a plastic cup off to a passing nurse and took the chart hanging from the wipe board near the door.

"Martin, Martin, Stephanie, Natalia, Martin, Katie, Stephanie, Martin, Natalia…" She read down the list of names of the nurses who had been giving him medication and changing his bandages.

"You said—er, through Lucario— that Martin reminded you of someone?" Dr. Bellamy looked back towards Cyrus, still being attended to by Lucario. "One of your admins?"

"He…looks like…Mars…" Cyrus said weakly.

"I don't know if he's got any cousins or siblings that got sucked up into…that." Dr. Arzt said somewhat hesitatingly. "Let me give you something now and see how it works." She quickly replaced her gloves and took two vials out of her pocket. "You're already at the maximum dosage for your weight, but you're due for another dose about now anyhow… Same as before. First one is saline, and the second one will make you feel cold."

He'd heard that a dozen times to no actual effect over the past three days. However, the second vial felt like ice going into his arm for a split second before the pain quickly faded away to unveil his total exhaustion. Cyrus's head lolled to the side as he nearly passed out, feeling for the first time since he'd woken up that he could sleep, and only held onto consciousness to hear what Dr. Arzt and Dr. Bellamy were talking about.

"Three days!?" Dr. Bellamy exclaimed suddenly; Cyrus cracked his eyelids and saw Lucario with a paw on her shoulder. "He hasn't slept in three days due to the pain, Dr. Arzt. Lucario said Cyrus believes Martin hates him…?"

"I tol 'im ih hur' t' breathe, an' he said 'good.'" Cyrus's newfound ability to breath deeply would have made it easier to talk had the medication not also caused him to slur his words. He wasn't even entirely sure if he'd managed to say that out loud, let alone coherently, until Dr. Arzt's eyes widened in shock and she turned, bewildered, to Dr. Bellamy.

"When was this?"

"Uhh…th' nigh' aft'r I wo'e up." The room around Cyrus began to swirl; his battle against unconsciousness wasn't going to last much longer. His eyes finally closed, but he kept listening as well as he could for a while. Dr. Arzt and Dr. Bellamy were urgently discussing the matter at hand, and one of them quickly left the room. He felt Lucario's paw on his hand once again as he overheard talking in the hallway gradually increase in volume until someone began shouting.

"She was my sister! I haven't spoken to her in three years!" Martin. Lucario's paw pressed into Cyrus's palm, but he didn't react. "Like hell am I gonna—"

"Martin! What's gotten into you!?"

"That bastard deserves the pain he's in!" There was scuffling on the floor, a grunt, and the clang of metal on tile. "Get off me!"

Martin's tirade continued as more voices joined in the commotion outside Cyrus's door. Dr. Bellamy, apparently still in the room, quietly closed the door, but it did little to muffle the noise of the crescendoing argument in the hall.

"He said we'd regret if if we gave the patient any of the pain meds," Cyrus heard the voice of a woman closer to the door say. "and I mean, he never said what he'd do, but…"

You can go to sleep. Lucario reassured. Security's handling it.

And with that, Cyrus slipped into the void.

Of course, the whole fiasco with Martin was all over the news, but there was no TV in Cyrus's room; as his condition slowly improved, he'd heard through the other nurses that Martin had been fired, and that there was a not-insignificant number of Sinnohans that openly supported his actions. Stephanie, a nurse who'd been threatened by Martin first-hand, had been kind enough to show him a news clip featuring the hospital's official statement.

"It is not the job of hospital staff to punish criminals." A young man in a suit and tie, probably the spokesperson, stated flatly to the reporter and the InterPol officer nearby. "The doctors and nurses are here to preform medicine for whoever walks in that door. In circumstances where a staff member's integrity may be compromised by emotions, we encourage them to step down from the task in question. The fact that Martin chose not to do this and to instead commit malicious malpractice does not reflect the hospital's philosophy, and he no longer works here."

"Do you offer any statement to Sinnohans like Martin who have lost contact with relatives after they joined Team Galactic?" The reporter asked. The spokesman looked like he was about to respond, but the InterPol officer spoke up instead.

"The longer the Galactic boss is in the hospital, the longer his trial is put off." He thumbed the badge in his hand. "I understand that emotions are running high with the news that he didn't die at Spear Pillar, however he can't be tried from an ICU bed."

"Thanks for your time, men. This has been an update on Monday's breaking news; I'm Chip Carley, SBS."

Stephanie took her phone back once Cyrus had been moved from his bed to a wheelchair. Dr. Bellamy, back to finish her psychoanalysis now that Cyrus was well-rested and not in pain, thanked Stephanie for her help before beginning to wheel Cyrus down the hall, flanked by InterPol guards as well as Dr. Bellamy's Lucario and Togekiss.

"What do you figure they're going to do to me?" Cyrus asked her.

"I've got some courtroom experience, but ultimately your case is…pretty different, in a lot of ways." She replied. "What do you think they're going to do?"

"I've never heard of a psychopath getting less than a life sentence."

"My analysis isn't complete yet, but I have not diagnosed you with psychopathy." Dr. Bellamy turned down a hallway Cyrus hadn't seen before. "We do have one more test to do."

Togekiss, floating slowly down the hallway behind the group, moved closer to the front to press the "open door" button for a new wing of the hospital. One of the guards opened a second door, this one more heavily armored, and they entered a barren gray room, containing only a set of sensors, a monitor, and a mirror. Stephanie, who Cyrus didn't realize had still been with them, helped Dr. Bellamy apply a heart monitor to Cyrus's inner wrist, and a cuff to his upper arm. He'd blocked out the fact that his right arm hadn't been salvageable, but shuddered at the image of his one-armed, scar-covered body while additional sensors were applied to various points of his chest, as well as under his remaining arm. Stephanie put his hospital gown back on.

"These last fo—three go on your palm and the soles of your feet." She said, peeling a final set of sensors hooked up to the monitor.

"What kind of test is this supposed to be?" Cyrus asked Dr. Bellamy, suddenly rather unsure of how calm he felt being handcuffed to the wheelchair.

"Fairly simple, actually; no needles involved." Dr. Bellamy explained as Stephanie and the guards vacated the room. "We're going to leave for a bit; you'll be alone in here for a little over ten minutes. Exactly ten minutes after I close the door behind me, a very loud tone will play from the speaker," she pointed to the ceiling, where there was indeed a speaker, "and after that we'll be back in to get these sensors off you and bring you back to your room."

"Most of your previous 'tests' have been questionnaires and interviews." Cyrus mumbled.

"That's normally enough for formal diagnosis, but in some cases we need…well, numbers." She motioned to the monitor as she ushered her pokémon from the room, herself turning to leave. "We'll see you in ten minutes."

Click.

The door behind Dr. Bellamy locked shut.

Cyrus tried to fight it, but he got antsy in no time at all. In the Distortion World, he'd stayed calm with endless pacing; to be fair, there was nothing to fear in the future right up until that last minute. How mundane: a loud noise. There was no reason to be this fidgety over it, but since childhood Cyrus had immense difficulties dealing with and processing sounds. It was something he'd mentioned in passing to Dr. Bellamy at their previous meeting; as a young child, he'd react to jarring noises as if they physically hurt, and even as an adult he disliked any sound besides white noise. Was this supposed to be torture?

This was the point where he'd wring his hands to bring his attention to something else besides the deafening silence screeching in his ears, but he was missing a critical part of that coping mechanism. He tried to imagine the sounds of hollow winds from the Distortion World, hoping they'd ease the tinnitus, but the sound was interrupted by Giratina's roar and, for a moment, he was falling again, brought back to reality only by the blood pressure cuff inflating. Suddenly the ringing in his ears was a little more bearable, at least in comparison to that discordant shriek that landed him here in the first place. Cyrus absentmindedly picked at the scabs from the skin graft on his face. When Stephanie had caught him doing it back in the ICU, she had put some sort of mitten over his hand to keep him from continuing. At the time he'd seen it as a wild overreaction, but now he figured she saw it as self-destructive.

Of course, that was something he'd kept to himself. Under constant surveillance by not only the InterPol but the doctors, nurses, and occasionally Dr. Bellamy's Lucario, Cyrus had very few opportunities to examine himself a little closer. He'd told Dr. Bellamy that the last time he "felt" anything was in primary school, but in reality, since then he'd sometimes experience something he couldn't accurately describe. Something hurt, but he wasn't sure what; for a long time he'd considered it a physical occurrence; after all, arthritis ran in his family, and it was mostly in his wrists and forearms. Sometimes, however, it'd be in his upper abdomen, just beneath the tip of his sternum, a more bludgeoning pain than the shooting pain he'd feel in his arms, and maybe not exactly something with a physical cause. He'd felt it when his parents reviewed his grades, or the colleges he had been accepted to, or when they found out what he planned on doing with his engineering degree. He'd never really overtly self-harmed, but college professors expressed concern at the degree to which he bit his fingernails and the skin around them, often until they bled. When Dr. Bellamy noticed him doing this, she was quick to offer solutions to reduce the behavior, including covering his fingertips in adhesive bandages. If he still had two hands, he could have easily removed them himself, but the thought of glue and cotton on his teeth was more than enough to deter him from trying. However, the substitute of shredding sheets of paper didn't stick nearly as well, and he quickly turned to picking skin in other places.

Without a clock on the wall, Cyrus had no way to keep track of how deep into the ten minutes he was, and the only thing he could do was continue to scratch at the skin graft and avoid eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. He pulled strands of cotton from the compression garment holding additional grafts to the indented stump that remained of his right shoulder, and only managed to stop himself from peeling off the adhesive sensors off his skin because he knew that errors to the data would likely result in having to undergo this "test" again. It's just a sound, you fool, he thought to himself. Within the past week you've endured near death, a loud noise is not going to kill you. It will be unpleasant for a split second, and then you'll be taken back to your room and you can go to sleep. Yet the anxiety persisted, his heart racing in his ears, and he fought the urge to again recall the sounds of the Distortion World, briefly glancing at himself in the mirror—

GZZRRRRRRRRRRT!

Cyrus screamed, jumped, and slammed his hand into his chest, hyperventilating for a moment while he processed what had just happened. The door swung open and Togekiss preceded the rest of the group, quickly floating over to Cyrus and enveloping him in its light, soft wings. He leaned back into Togekiss's fluffy down and closed his eyes as it hugged him, his heart lowering from his throat back to its rightful position. Footsteps sounded as the others came in, and he once again felt Lucario's paw on his arm. He kept his eyes closed as Stephanie carefully peeled the sensors off his body and undid the blood pressure cuff. When he opened his eyes to look at Dr. Bellamy, his vision was shrouded by the soft, round feathers of Togekiss's wings; it lowered them to reveal the doctor, distractedly writing away on her clip board.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

On the day of the trial, Cyrus still couldn't walk. Dr. Arzt had initially been concerned about paralysis, however he didn't have any lack of sensation, just motor control. She'd then hypothesized that there may have been spinal damage from his fall down Mt Cornet, though maybe the nature of his dysfunction matched more with his brain injury. Regardless, it wasn't enough to get Cyrus's trial put off any further; he'd simply have to be present in a wheelchair. Truth be told, Dr. Arzt hadn't really made it clear whether or not he'd be able to regain the function of his legs, but that had little to do with the trial at this point. Cyrus had been taken to the court in an armored vehicle, through the thick-glassed windows of which he could see protesters with signs demanding justice for Martin and Mars, or that the death penalty be reinstated in Sinnoh. There was a second crowd of protesters proclaiming Cyrus as the image of Sinnoh's failure of mental health services, calling for a rehaul of how mentally ill minors are treated, but he didn't get to see much more of them before being shielded by InterPol guards as he was brought into the courthouse.

There would be four witnesses: himself, Dr. Bellamy, Mars, who had apparently been jailed not long after the events of Spear Pillar, and a fourth person the lawyer wouldn't name. The trial would be less about whether or not he had attempted the crime against humanity, because that was beyond question, as his lawyer had informed him; it would be more about whether or not he was rehabilitatable, which would determine whether he was given a life sentence or institutionalization.

"Dr. Bellamy has decided not to diagnose you with psychopathy, for reasons she'll discuss during her own testimony." Sergio, Cyrus's Lawyer, had informed him in the week before the trial. "Our only option, based on her diagnoses of depressive type schizoaffective disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, is insanity."

"I'm not crazy." Cyrus had stated flatly. "People saw the portal from the foot of the mountain."

"We're not talking about that, Cyrus." Sergio organized the papers he'd spread on the table beside Cyrus's bed. "We're talking about your understanding of emotions. Ultimately the schizoaffective disorder is going to be the main culprit for the behaviors, with OCD and PTSD compounding them."

"I'll not see the light of day again either way."

"We'll see how that pans out." Sergio had replied.

Now Cyrus was behind the stand, the first to speak with his own lawyer and the one representing the people of Sinnoh. He told them both what he'd already told everyone else: he believed that most human suffering was either directly or indirectly caused by emotions, and that they also impeded the scientific advancement of humans as a species, so he wanted to make a perfect world where they didn't exist. When Giratina appeared at Spear Pillar, rather than kill him, it took him to the Distortion World, apparently hoping he'd regret his attempts. When he showed no remorse, it expelled him from the realm, throwing him down Mt Cornet and back into the mortal world.

"Would you do it again?" The prosecuting lawyer asked. "Do you still seek to create your 'perfect world?'"

"No." Cyrus answered, quite honestly. "If I had known that the perfect world already existed, I would have not gone to such measures to try to make one."

"How do you feel about your former admin being here to testify?"

Cyrus shrugged; when the judge prompted him for a verbal response, he clarified.

"I don't feel anything anymore."

"No further questions."

Mars was next up to bat. She was led to the witness stand in an orange prison jumpsuit, completely disheveled. With tears in her eyes and a wavering voice, Mars told of how she'd joined Team Galactic because she felt alone in the world, and that maybe she'd feel better working for a greater purpose. She'd worked her ass off to get to the level she attained, not only for respect from her peers, but also because she'd been slowly falling for Cyrus. She told a decently accurate version of his confrontation with her at the Galactic Headquarters, where she'd confessed her love and he told her that her emotions were the very flaw he sought to remove from the world. To impress him she'd worked even harder, doing everything to get him to Spear Pillar; when he'd vanished with Giratina into the void, she was completely distraught. When Charon tried to take over- a surprising development, even to Cyrus- she'd left the team and turned herself in willingly to police. Despite her direct involvement in a plot to destroy the universe, judges took some pity on her plight and had offered her a shortened sentence as long as she agreed to participate in therapy.

"How do you feel about Cyrus now, after a year of therapy?" Sergio asked her. "Has your opinion of him changed?"

Mars was silent for a moment.

"He didn't ever, like…go out recruiting people at their weakest. We came to him." She had to lift both hands to scratch her cheek because of the handcuffs. "There was a time where I hated him for dying- or so I thought- when I still believed he didn't understand what I felt, and maybe he never will. When I first went to jail I felt like he used me specifically because I loved him, because he thought that passion would mean I stayed on-project. But…I mean, the whole situation was fucked—sorry—but I don't feel anymore that he did anything…predatory… I think all he really knew was his end goal."

"No further questions." Sergio sat down.

The prosecuting lawyer, on the other hand, drilled into Mars for Cyrus's recruiting process. She insisted quite plainly that it spread through word of mouth; any "sermons" Cyrus gave were in the security of the Headquarters, and he certainly never went out trying to bring teenagers into it. When pressed about her relationship with her brother, her demeanor changed drastically; she spoke of Martin with disdain, of a condescending older brother whom her parents favored over herself. This took the prosecuting lawyer by surprise; Mars even went on to say that Martin was the main reason she ran away from home in the first place, and she was infuriated that he'd claim on TV that they were close.

"I was so mad I couldn't see straight when I saw him on the news." Mars shook her head and shivered. "Just like him to make this about himself, threaten the other nurses—"

"No further questions," the prosecuting lawyer interrupted. Mars was led back to her seat.

The next witness he saw he didn't even recognize; an exceptionally old man, using a walker to get to the witness stand and leaning heavily upon the rails in order to take his seat.

"Next to testify is Finn Solberg."

Cyrus sat bolt upright when he heard the name. Grandpa Finn. He hadn't seen his grandfather in years, probably a decade actually. Grandpa Finn cleaned his thick-framed glasses on his shirt before beginning his testimony.

"Cyrus's father, my son, initially had me pretty involved in his upbringing." He spoke slowly, staring at his lap. "I didn't live terribly far from Sunnyshore, so while Cyrus was in elementary school I babysat him quite a lot."

"So you've probably got a better image of young Cyrus's mental health than most other people?" Sergio asked.

"I guess." he fidgeted. "The first problem we ran into when he was a kid was that he was rather, uh asocial. And I mean, lots of kids are loners, but Cyrus really hated the attention of other children. He'd often hide under tables in kindergarten, and his teacher also noticed he was going out of his way to avoid loud noises, or activities where he'd be physically touched by his classmates."

"What would happen when he was put in situations like that?"

"He'd freak out. His parents saw them as temper tantrums, you know, to be expected of a really young kid, but uh, his teachers wanted them to take him to a psychiatrist." Grandpa Finn glanced over at Cyrus, and then back at his lap. "They thought he might be autistic or have some other condition like that. They wanted to offer him accommodations for his problems, but they couldn't do the paperwork to get them without a formal diagnosis."

"What did his parents do when they were told this?"

"Total denial, pretty much immediately." Grandpa Finn sighed sadly. "His dad was a pretty asocial kid growing up himself, and where they were both really brilliant scientists…well, they figured nothing could possibly be wrong with their kid. And there's a whole mess of things wrong with that statement, but they refused to take him to a psychologist."

"How did you see these problems develop as Cyrus aged?"

"Uh, the ones he started with generally stayed the same, but new ones popped up every now and then. He started chewing his nails to the point of bleeding when he was in middle school, and he also developed this fear of poisoning pretty young; he wouldn't eat something he hadn't watched someone prepare. Later on, in high school, is when things got really rough for him."

"How so?"

"At first I thought he was just going through a phase, y'know, like teenagers do, but he had this fixation on other people's emotions." He paused. "Initially I think it was tied to how his parents never really…I'm not saying they didn't love him, because they did, but they never acted impressed by anything he did, or tried to get interested in his hobbies. I don't think they realized how much a child needs that." His voice cracked briefly. "He told me one day that the reason other people get sad is because they've experienced happiness for comparison, and that the world would probably be a better place if other people were…"

"…Were what, Mr. Solberg?" Sergio inquired. Cyrus realized that Grandpa Finn had trailed off not from lack of desire to continue, but because he'd started crying.

"…If people were…empty. Like him." Grandpa Finn wiped his eyes with his forearm. "I begged his parents to take him to a psychiatrist. I knew he needed help so bad, but I wasn't his guardian so I couldn't do anything." He hid his face in his hands, and Cyrus felt that disembodied wrist pain again. "He was such a smart boy, such a sweet kid if you sat down and understood him…he wouldn't've hurt a fly when he was younger. He didn't have to end up like this…"

"Thank you, Mr. Solberg. No further questions." Sergio helped him back down from the stand and return to his seat.

Dr. Bellamy strode up when her name was called, her papers under her arm. Sergio and the prosecuting lawyer had apparently arranged that, rather than questioning her, she'd just be providing her analysis for the jurors to process.

"My diagnoses for Cyrus are depressive type schizoaffective disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder." She began. "I do not believe Cyrus to be a psychopath by any stretch; rather, his understanding of human emotion is a delusion, a symptom of his schizoaffective disorder. The behaviors Finn listed that Cyrus's teachers associated with autism I believe to be OCD, and in his current state he's suffering form PTSD due to his encounter with Giratina.

"Schizoaffective disorder is, in layman's terms, an amalgamation of schizophrenia and a mood disorder. There are several subtypes depending on the mood disorder involved; for Cyrus, I diagnosed him on the basis of his feelings of inadequacy, pain with an indeterminate source, fatigue, lack of enjoyment of any activity, and specifically his usage of the word 'empty' to describe his emotional state." She looked over her notes. "In addition to his delusion of emotion and whether he can feel them, Cyrus exhibits disorganized thought patterns and occasional auditory hallucinations; because these symptoms occur in tandem with depressive episodes, I'd categorize this as depressive type schizoaffective disorder rather than schizophrenia.

"Cyrus's obsessive behaviors include nail biting and skin picking, which could also be interpreted as a form of self-harm applicable to his depressive episodes. He, as Finn described, is extremely hesitant to eat foods he didn't himself watch be prepared; this has resulted in significant, unhealthy weight loss during his stay in the ICU. He's described to me in detail his manner of obsessive hand-washing and fear of illness, even recognizing that these behaviors are excessive, but that they grant temporary relief from the anxiety that the thoughts cause. I'm not sure that I consider the hypersensitivity to auditory and tactile stimulation to be accessories to this, however; I do not have the experience to comfortably diagnose adults with autism, but it's something I've very consistently seen in autistic patients in the past.

"Regarding the PTSD, Cyrus has regularly had flashbacks and panic attacks pertaining to the manner in which Giratina expelled him from the distortion world; he suffered massive physical trauma as a direct result, ultimately ending in the injuries you see today, as well as a traumatic brain injury which at the moment has cost him the motor function to his legs. It would honestly be more of a surprise if he didn't develop any sort of post-traumatic stress as a result of this, considering he came very close to death. It's only been two months, however, so for now this is a temporary diagnosis that should be reevaluated at a later point after participating in therapy.

"Lastly, I wanted to discuss why I came to the conclusion that Cyrus's 'emptiness' is a delusion and not psychopathy. For any members of the jury who do not know the medical definition of psychopathy, it refers to a condition in which patients are unable to feel emotion or experience empathy in any way, shape or form; it has no known treatment, and diagnosed psychopaths that commit violent crimes are generally not considered rehabilitatable. Most emotions cannot be measured in a scientific manner, a situation made more difficult by the fact that psychopaths tend to be excellent actors, even able to fool telepathic pokémon. The only emotion we can reliably measure with numbers like heart rate, blood pressure, and perspiration is fear.

"To test whether a potential psychopath is capable of feeling fear, we isolate them for a short period, no longer than half an hour, and inform them that, after a certain amount of time passes, an extremely loud tone will play in the room. There is no clock on the wall nor furnishings beyond equipment used to measure heart rate, blood pressure, and perspiration, so the patient has no way to keep track of time or distract themself. In a psychopath, no measurable change can occur; while they may be able to act anxious, they cannot artifically raise their heart rate or blood pressure, or sweat on command.

"Cyrus began to exhibit anxiety almost immediately when left alone. His heart rate and blood pressure steadily increased over the ten minutes we told him would pass between the door closing and the tone playing, peaking at 159 and 129/81 respectively; he began to perspire within the first five minutes as well. There were even points where he began shaking, and exhibiting the skin-picking behavior I discussed earlier. When the tone played, he screamed and jumped, at which point his heart rate spiked dramatically to 185. A heart rate of over 180 is the equivalent of an intense cardio workout, and aside from jumping at the end, Cyrus was stationary the entire duration of the test. In addition to irrefutable proof that Cyrus is able to feel fear, he was less-than-subtly agitated with me due to the test both on the way back to his room and at our next meeting." Dr. Bellamy turned to face the judge rather than the jury.

"In conclusion, your Honor, I believe Cyrus to be rehabilitatable, and as psychiatric lead for Eterna General Hospital, would recommend inpatient psychiatric care rather than jail time." From her folder, she produced a small packet of papers and handed them to the judge before turning back to the jury. "Schizoaffective disorder is more than treatable; with proper medication and therapy, many patients experience total remission. Even if treatment doesn't completely reduce his symptoms, schizophrenia-type symptoms often end on their own between the ages of fifty and sixty, at which point post-schizophrenic depression would occur, which itself is treatable as well. Beyond the fact that this man can be a functioning member of society with proper mental healthcare, it could cost the nation of Sinnoh far less money to treat him until he's fifty or functional, whichever comes first, than it would to jail him until he dies of old age."

"Thank you, Dr. Bellamy." The judge reviewed the paperwork in front of her. "The jury may now consider the evidence provided today, and make their decision."

Cyrus remained in the lobby, still surrounded by InterPol guards, while the jury deliberated his case. Dr. Bellamy joined him, sitting on a nearby bench.

"You seemed surprised to see your grandfather," She said quietly. "Have you not seen him in a long time?"

"I hadn't seen him since my junior year of high school. My parents told me right after winter break that I wasn't allowed to talk to him any more." Cyrus replied. "Why didn't you tell me what the test was for after it was over?"

"I wanted to gauge whether or not you'd show any anger or distress beyond the end of the test." Dr. Bellamy replied. "It worked in favor of my diagnosis, but I would like to apologize for putting you in distress. Sadly it's really the only way to confirm or exclude genuine psychopathy."

"I understand. I've done some awful things in the name of science myself." He shrugged and gestured around the courtroom.

"And a sense of humor as well." Dr. Bellamy chuckled. "That would have been a fine addition to my testimony—"

A bell rang in the lobby, indicating that the jury had made their decision on whether Cyrus would be jailed or institutionalized. Dr. Bellamy muttered something about it being rather fast, and they were ushered back into the courtroom. One of the jurors, a young woman in a pantsuit, stood and cleared her throat.

"What is the verdict?" The judge asked.

"We the jury find Cyrus Abner Solberg not guilty of an attempted crime against humanity, for reason of insanity. We concur with Dr. Bellamy that he requires hospitalization for his mental health."

"Then it is so." The judge turned to Cyrus. "Cyrus Abner Solberg, I sentence you to intensive inpatient psychiatric care until a point where two or more licensed psychiatrists deem you safe to return to society. I'll be placing you in a medium-security facility for the criminally insane. Do you have any questions?"

Cyrus silently shook his head.

"Very well. Case closed."

In a room with Sergio and Dr. Bellamy, Cyrus was presented with an immense amount of paperwork to review. Consent to treatment, listing a next-of-kin, an emergency contact, dietary restrictions and the exact symptoms his conditions caused. Dr. Bellamy also presented him with some 'optional' stuff; naming someone to be in charge of your property rather than the state during extended hospitalization, HIPPA paperwork to keep anyone he so desired informed on the state of his health, as well as sheet titled "Care of Owned Pokémon."

"You don't have to fill that one out if you don't want to, since all of your pokémon are boxed." Sergio told him. "If you instead want someone else to care for them and have access to your Pokémon Center account to be able to withdraw them, you'd specify there. You could also specify whether you'd want them to remain boxed, or if you wanted them to be released."

Cyrus stared at the sheet while Dr. Bellamy and Sergio discussed how the case went and the terms of Cyrus's hospitalization. He thought about his pokémon in the PC, effectively frozen in time; if and when he returned and was able to see them again, he wouldn't be the same man. They wouldn't know him anymore; did they really deserve to be brought back into reality with a master they'd never even seen?

Cyrus checked the box for his pokémon to be released, signed the sheet as best as he could with his left hand, and stared off into the distance as he was taken by armored vehicle to the facility where he'd be spending the foreseeable future.