"Ash Ketchum?"
The name held a certain curiosity on the tip of his tongue. Something had struck his bell, and quite strong too. The syllables felt a tad bit off or even a little muddled. Something felt terribly wrong with this name.
But what wasn't a little screwy now-a-days?
From across the table, he was listening intently from the old man and his understanding began to take off. Everything was coming together just as the scriptures had foretold.
"Yes. The boy has come a long way from his dark past. Every day I see him growing more and more into the funny little beacon of light we need him to be, whether he likes it or not. I'm sure you've heard of the Legatine?"
How could he have not? This bastard of a race has kept him occupied his entire life. Although they've been long gone and just a myth by now, his research has caused very long nights of no sleep and much paranoia. The "Angels of the Gods" were the most prevalent and destructive forces the world had ever known. Powers so great, they resembled the legendary Pokémon, but in the shape of humans. Waging genocide and thousands of years of bloodshed, these malevolent beasts roamed the Earth with abilities of legendaries and no opposing forces. Humanity and the Pokémon were nearing their end. But there was no way the old man could possibly know this, it was the League's most guarded secret.
And secrets are his profession.
"Come on professor, have you been reading up on child bed time stories? Don't tell me you're getting too old?" A smirk was crawling onto his face, "The Legatine are a long lost speck of dust in the wind, just a fairy tale mommy tells little Johnny on a cold dead night to shut him up and sleep."
Now he'd done it, every little crease in the man's face tightened just a tad bit to show annoyance. Almost like a movie of a prune in fast forward. Man, he was getting old.
"Damn it June," A fist was slammed on the desk, "Don't play games with me. You and I both know of the ancients and what they were capable of. I don't care if your superiors are the richest or most power beings on the planet; I have what you need in order to save this damned world. All of the other professors and doctors agree. We have X."
There was dead silence, almost like the after-sound of a gunshot. Jun was one of the, if not the, top operatives in his division. Conducting the most dangerous experiments and having hands-on experience with the masters earned him his title. Code X was only known to himself, the masters, and ears of the dead, 6 feet in the ground. So unless the Professor had recently pried the secret from the rotting skulls of our beloved deceased, he'd just made the luckiest guess of his life. He didn't seem the type of a sick bastard, so he must be playing his ace.
The Legatine waged unstoppable wars for millennia, but just like ancient Rome, even those with great power have their downfall. One day, the prophecies told of an even greater threat arising. This sentient life form was a mixture of human, Pokémon, and even Legatine. A man in whom some say crawled from the very deeps of Earth. In every sacred temple scattered across the world, his name is repeated numerous times.
Cronus.
There are those who believe that this creature would rise again to protect the natural order and balance of life on Earth. But this is where he drew the line. As Jun was indeed a man of science and fact, the only confirmed hypotheses involving the Cronus were repeating symbols on the walls, this wasn't going to start his beliefs in imagination. Scientist all across the world were baffled by this depiction of a scythe and what it could mean, and so they created the myth of this unstoppable being. Only to quyell the question of what the hell actually killed off the Legatine. Code X was an imaginary title given to an imaginary creature. Regardless, still extremely need-to-know basis only knowledge.
His smirk dropped and a tight frown appeared, "Looks like someone made a deal to the devil and is now suddenly all-knowing. Prey-tell doc, what exactly have you been doing in the last decade? Sleeping with a Master's wife to gather Intel? Or did you summon the illustrious Jirachi to grant your one wish?" He was dead serious now.
A breach of security wasn't something to laugh about. Lives could be at stake so protocol demanded this to be dealt with if the findings were a hoax or a mistake. Unless this wasn't a joke and the legend was indeed becoming true yet again, the professor would be dealt with harshly, trusted or not.
"My details are none of your business as indicated in the 234. We are at the crossroads of a scientific blowout. I have researched and studied this child since his entrance and admission to my school."
"By the League's demand and for the security and protection of every individual of this great nation, I hereby order you to dispel documented evidence in your possession." His posture straightened and voice became stale.
Even though Jun loved to have fun and joke around, business was business when his job took prevalence. Repeated probably thousands of times, this phrase was just exactly what gave the League the most power. Almost like wielding a gun pointed at every single head.
"Did you really think I was going to try and escape with my Intel like a bad Shakespeare play? Here take a look, Lord knows I've looked it over enough times to cause blindness."
The professor leaned back in his chair to stretch his old bones, and then slowly stood. Jun watched as he rummaged through the holographic screen on his desk, not batting an eye. With the efficiency of a high-tech specialist, the professor typed a couple of passwords or regulations, and a female voice resonated in the room.
"Welcome Brown. File transfer complete, codename X."
A couple more key-strokes and the doc looked up from his work with a scary look overcoming his face. Almost as if he was scared and excited for what he was about to revel. Things were quickly becoming sketchy, and it almost reminded him of a bad horror movie.
"Jun, what I'm about to show might be of a little shock to you. My mother would always preach to me about the arrival of a God on this Earth, and I believe we are among him."
Flipping the hollow screen towards him, Jun began to decipher the information. What he saw consisted of a normal human boy, aged at 13 and had a haircut to scare any loving mother. At first, he believed the professor was trying to trick him into this fairy-tell, so his ass wouldn't be sent to the brig.
But scrolling down through the physical assessments and sit-reps, words began to jump out. These reports were entailing that this boy had unusual glands in which provided him with unknown chemicals. Almost if pulled out of a cheap alien knock-off blockbuster, these graphs were off the charts and were not reading anything remotely close to human.
But what really disturbed Jun the deepest, was the color of his skeleton. Deep black as the recesses of space, every bone in his body was showing alien-like temperature readings and other undocumented information. Also among these reports were no comments about how he was even alive.
"My God…"
A video began playing of the boy when he looked to be just a toddler. Inside a room filled with all the usual baby decorations, a maternal figure was approaching the crying child in the crib. No sound was heard, but he could tell by the expression on the woman's face that she was trying to comfort and sooth. Reaching out with her right hand to caress his face, the screen went intensely white, then black for a few seconds. With the video coming to, the woman was a smoking pile of ash on the ground and the child was no where to be seen. The feed cut to static.
Every one of us is both a hero and a monster, and the world we inhabit is both beautiful and twisted. Everything has its own sick story. We are shaken by changes, losses, gains, insights, desires, mistakes, and transitions. And just when we've gotten settled back down, things get shaken up again. This is the life we've been given. So how do we make sense of life's unexpected nature, find a way to embrace the tension, and live with a sense of peace despite pain?