I: JEWEL OF THE DESERT


In the time that came before, the land was not as it is. The Elder Titan had shaped the continents and then was sealed to hold fast the crust of the world. The Titans of the land, the Titans of Rock, Steel and Ice sent forth their own reminders to the inhabitants of the land that the direction of the Elder Titan, and the machinations of the Alpha, would hold them safe.

But unrest would tear the world asunder. The Titans crumbled, buried into the land the Grand Titan sought to carefully shape. The Alpha saw the Titans crumble, lost beneath the tides of burning rock and misting spray as the Primals fought to the bitter end.

With a great cry and a grand crack heard rippling across the land, the Alpha called down the Sky and smothered the Land and Sea.

The damage had been done and new land and new seas had risen. The Titans had crumbled into the belly of the earth and slept now with the Elder. The Alpha disappeared, bound for parts unknown and named the Sky, "Sentinel."

The Sentinel spread itself across the skies of the world, and now it stares, ever watchful, upon Creation. It remembers the monument to its work, the monument that the hands of Man built to commemorate their savior.

Give thanks, grace, glory and honor to the Sky!

The Sentinel watches over us all, and ensures that never again will the might of the Primal Land nor the crash of the Primal Sea consume the earth again.

Give thanks, grace, glory and honor to the Alpha!

Without the might of the Old One, the Alpha, Man would never have known prosperity.

Pay respects to the Titans that fell, for their task was thankless, and endlessly now do they rest.

Remember the Titans that fell.


The sounds of sand spraying against the hood of the jeep, against the doors, and along the undercarriage formed a pleasant rhythm with the purr of the engine and the rushing of the wind. Keala leaned back in her seat, one hand resting against the steering wheel, providing only minor corrections now and again. "Unless I'm mistaken, Diane, I think we're just about there." The sneasel to her right stirred in her seat and sat up proper with a yawning mewl. She fixed the shawl she wore over head head and draped it across her shoulders, then pulled her pendant loose from underneath the cloth. "You know, I'm kind of jealous I'm not wearing that right now. Could use with a bit of cooling." The sneasel gave her a toothy grin and a meow in response and stood in her seat to look over the dashboard at the scenery as it whipped past them.

"According those handy pictures I took back in Lumiose, there should be some kind of structure coming up. Not too sure why exactly the KMHPS would expect anything concerning Kalosian history to be out in the middle of the desert here in Hoenn but- oh!" She squinted up at an imposing rock formation ahead. "That looks like the place, Di. You ready to do some pick work?"

Diane responded by opening the glove compartment and removing a comically small pick, sized for her, and held it aloft with a wide smile. It was almost useless, meant mostly to gauge rock integrity than anything else, but she had her trainer carry it around nonetheless. She turned back to looking over the dashboard and let out an impressed meow at the sight of the rock formation.

It sort of resembled a breadbox.

The jeep pulled up to the imposing face of the stone formation. Keala turned off the car and hopped out, then rounded to its trunk and began to pull her gear out. Ropes, picks, flares, glow sticks, UV luminescent chalk, standard chalk - she let out a sigh of exertion as she affixed everything to various portions of her person, hanging pieces here, looping pieces there and slotting pieces into holders wherever room was left. She wiped her forehead and took a swig from her canteen. "C'mon up. I'll take extra weight over burnin' up in this heat." The sneasel hopped up onto her trainer's back. The waistpack Keala wore proved exceptionally useful for Diane, who could use it as a makeshift seat as she hung off her trainer's back.

The duo made their way closer to the rock. "Well… uh… see any entrances?" she asked, frowning. "'Cos all I'm getting is a big ol' buzz-off rock." A meow of agreement rose up behind her and she sighed. "Thought cats' eyes were meant for catching stuff sharpish. Maybe that's birds- ow!" She jumped as Di let out an insulted sounding meow and poked her side. "Sorry, sorry, not your fault, jeez. Little devil. Just for that, you get to climb up to the entrance and drop the rope if it's above ground, though."

Diane responded with a meow of reluctant affirmation and hugged Keala tighter. The archeologist felt immense gratitude - the cat was effectively an ice pack that never melted. In the mounting midday heat that surrounded them, and the harsh, brilliant sunlight that bore down upon them and the hot sand, any respite was welcome respite.

The two wandered about the rock, making their way roughly one-half circuit around when Keala stopped and shouted, "Look at this! Divots, like in those machines back in that chamber!" She made her way closer to the rock and ran her hand across the hot stone, feeling the smooth, curiously polished interior of each one. Diane hopped off her back and joined her in contemplating the divots, but could not reach up to feel them. "Let's see here...three by three… I've only got one stone sphere thing." She pulled it from her belt, where it sat hooked next to Diane's pokeball and held it up before her face, frowning all the while. She traced her eyes from the nine divots up to a crease in the rocks. "Always with the secret chambers and cryptic puzzles…" She pressed her stone sphere into the center divot. Nothing happened. "Ancient man was an asshole, Di. ...Di? What's that?" She pointed to the soft glow emanating from beneath the sneasel's head-and-shoulders-scarf. Even in the light of the sun it managed to stand out.

Diane rummaged under her scarf and pulled her pendant out into view. It was a bluish, glittery and crystalline lump of what appeared to be ice, and at this moment it was shining with a brilliant white light. "Not even in the heat of the sun, eh, Di?" she said, grinning. It seemed to be completely impervious to melting, despite ostensibly being nothing but a lump of ice. "Gods above, what the hell is this thing? Take it off for a sec, will you? I wanna see something…" With some hesitation, Diane pulled the necklace from around her neck and offered it to her trainer.

"You'll get it back, don't worry. I know how much you like it," cooed Keala. She raised it up to the center divot and pressed it against the smooth stone. The pendant flashed and the divot began to glow a soft red.

"Hmm. Well, Di, I have solved our puzzle. Probably." She moved the pendant to the hole above, and the red glow in the center divot vanished. "Or I haven't? What the…" She pressed the pendant into the center hole again, whereupon it began to glow red once more, then instead moved her pendant to the divot below. "Oh come on, what is it with ancient man and his weird, unwieldy door locks?" She pressed the pendant into the center divot once more and then to the divot to the left. Both glowed a steady red. This time, she moved the pendant to the divot above…

After twenty painstaking minutes, Keala stared back at a set of divots. The first column of three divots glowed red, the center divot of the second column glowed, and the middle and lower dot of the third column glowed. "Well, guess it's just…" She tapped the pendant to the last unlit divot in the third column and it began to glow red as well. All of the lights flashed a bright blue and then the glow faded, With the sound of stone scraping against stone, the stone the divots were carved into began to slide into the earth, revealing an entryway into a dark, cavernous chamber.

"Ha! Alright, Di, let's find out what the hell that map back in Kalos was trying to show us!" she exclaimed, excited. With a rousing meow from Diane as her response, Keala switched her flashlight on and hung it from loop on her shirt. She crept through the entryway into the cavern it led into, Diane at her side. With a low whistle, she turned left and right, the beam shining from her chest casting a long cone that illuminated slick sandstone walls - and a curiously smooth section of floor. "Is that...a path?" she asked, puzzled. She pointed out the smooth section that stretched out into the dark beyond the cone of her flashlight.

Diane padded over to start of the smooth stone path that juxtaposed with the rough, uneven floor that surrounded it, the claws on her feet scratching a soft sstak sstak into the air. She got down on all fours and ran a clawed finger along the ground, then meowed inquisitively. She turned her head to Keala and shrugged.

"C'mon, let's follow it. Doesn't look like there's any other way to go deeper anyway," said Keala. She passed up Diane and beckoned for her to follow. The sneasel caught up and the two began to make their way down the smooth path - as they followed it, it began to slope downwards. Cracks here and there, bits of gravel and the occasional partial cave-in impeded their progress infrequently, and after five minutes of walking, the two found themselves at a bend that sent them down an incline of still more smooth path. What the hell was that weird map for? This place seems more like a tomb than anything… I don't know of any tombs in Hoenn that would be of interest to a society that cares about Kalosian Monarchy. That just doesn't make sense. This better not be a wasted day. Maybe I was too excited- oh. It's flattened out.

Keala looked around the landing the bend created and focused on a curious sconce that jutted from the wall. She pulled a lighter free from a pouch and handed it to Diane. "Jump on up to my shoulders and see if there's anything to light in that sconce, will ya?"

Di replied with a happy meow and a nod of her head and took the lighter from her friend. She clambered onto Keala's shoulders. The archeologist heard the sneasel struggle to get the wheel to spark, and then a purr of content, cut off immediately with a growl of displeasure. Keala frowned. "Nothing in there, huh?"

The sneasel hopped down from her trainer's shoulders and handed her back the lighter with a shake of her head. She peered past Keala's legs and pointed to the sloping path further down and let out a soft, inquisitive purr.

"Yeah, let's keep going, I guess," agreed Keala, stowing the lighter.

The incline led to another bend, to another incline, to another bend that became a long, flat section of tunnel. Keala squinted towards the end of the tunnel from where the incline evened out. "This is long. Really long." She tweaked her flashlight left and right and gasped. Stone supports jutted from along the walls of the tunnel every few meters. Pillars of stone that ran along the vertical walls stretched up to the ceiling and created a large arch that crossed the smoothly curving ceiling. She approached one of the pillars and details upon it came into relief.

"By the Tapu… Di, that's- that's the Regirock." She ran her hand up the stone carving of the fabled titan and traced her eyes up to the ceiling, where its hands reached towards- "Rayquaza." Keala felt her legs nearly give out. "Th-this, th-this…" Her eyes widened. "We need to get moving. I have to see what's at the end of this tunnel. This could be big. Really big. Bigger than anything we've ever found before!" She made to continue down the tunnel and stopped in her tracks when she noticed the next pillar in the tunnel was shaped differently. "That's the Regice. And I bet-" She raced to the next pillar and whooped. "That's Registeel. Diane, I don't know what we found, maybe some tomb, maybe some kind of proof about those old legends they don't ever stop blabbing about in Sinnoh and Johto, but, but but- come on!"

She sprinted down the corridor, the loud tk tk tk of Diane's claws scratching against the stone floor ringing out just behind her, barely audible over her own heavy footfalls and the sloshing, jingling and rustling of her myriad of equipment and supplies she'd strapped to herself.

A lonely, defiant beam of light illuminated little of the inky black chamber the two found themselves in. Keala inched her way into the cavernous room with slow, steady, careful steps. She squinted against the oppressive black and swore under her breath. "Can't see shit here." The cone of light that issued from the flashlight at her chest illuminated a pillar, and with a start, she drew closer, revealing an empty, featureless stone basin lying upon the pedestal - just beyond it, a sheer drop. A tingle ran down Keala's spine, and she stopped and shone her flashlight along the rim. This hole is huge. She pulled a flare from a pouch and struck it to life, sending red sparks dancing into the air.

Keala took in her freshly illuminated surroundings and began to walk her way around the hole. With her free hand, she pulled out her compass and made her way to the northeast, and found a tunnel led off somewhere. She tugged a piece of chalk loose and tossed it to the sneasel. "Mark 'er up!" With a grin, the sneasel marked the entrance to the tunnel with a sharp set of nonsense markings, purring contentedly all the while. When she'd finished, she turned to Keala with an expectant look on her face and a smug grin on her lips. The archeologist rolled her eyes and admitted, "Job well done there, Diane. Come on, let's keep going 'round this thing."

They found another tunnel to the northwest from their original position, and with a whistle, Keala pointed at the wall beside the tunnel. Diane scrawled a wobbly circle on the wall and then handed the chalk back to Keala, then immediately began to paw at her trainer's leg, her other paw reaching up towards the flare with an innocent look on her face.

"Pfft, alright, alright, sure. Go ahead," relented Keala. She handed the flare to the sneasel and with a happy meow, she took the lead, waving the flare about through the air, eyes focused more upon the dancing sparks that shot from it than the shape of their surroundings.

Keala watched the edges of the hole as they walked back to their starting point, and let out a low whistle. "This thing is huge." She estimated it was perhaps sixty feet in diameter, and given the generally smooth nature of the edge the hole had, possibly manmade. "What the hell is this hole even for?"

She walked slowly around the hole with Diane in front, and upon reaching where they started, she marked the wall with the symbol of a house and tucked the chalk away. She then turned and approached the pedestal to inspect the stone basin upon it. It was smooth and curiously well polished, but bore no markings of any kind, nor any grooves or hidden buttons as she worked her hands along it and around it.

"Well, let's check the northeast tunnel then, Di," mumbled Keala as she moved from the basin to peer over the edge down into the hole. She took the flare gently from the sneasel, ignoring the pout on her face, and held it over the edge of the hole and looked down again. Zilch. Jeez. How far down does this thing go? I'd drop this flare if- aw, to hell with it. Nothing ventured… She dropped the flare into the hole to the sound of an alarmed hiss and then a soft whine from Diane, and the watched the flare fall down into the hole. Down. Down. Down.

Darkness.

"Did it just- did it just wink out of existence or something? Hit some water? I didn't hear anything, did you?" asked Keala, incredulous. The sneasel shook her head, now on all fours and peering as far down into the hole as she could manage.

"C'mon, let's go. Might as well figure out where this tunnel takes us. Maybe we'll find something to put in that empty basin on that pedestal." Her flashlight illuminated a small portion of the tunnel and revealed it to be both long and downward sloping. There were no pillars lining the walls in this tunnel. "Hope whatever is at the end is worth it." Diane meowed in agreement.


Janus watched the desert whip past him with a frown and wiped the sweat from his brow. "First alarm we've had in months." His tone was almost accusatory. "You trust your vibrava's, ah, report, Brother Victor? It would be most unfortunate for this to be a total waste of my time."

The driver of the buggy gulped and ignored the snickering that came from the backseat where three more passengers sat. "I am positive, sir. Vibrava followed the buggy at a distance, and while the camera he wore failed before they had done anything but walk around the rock, the woman and her sneasel seemed to know exactly what they were doing."

"You could tell all that from just a few seconds of video, could you, Brother Victor?" needled Janus.

"Y-yes, sir, I could. They were slow and deliberate. I asked vibrava if they had gone into the rock and he told me that yes, they had. One buzz for yes, two for no, sir. I asked several times. One buzz, every single time."

In the distance, Janus saw a parked jeep come into view as they crested over a sand dune, but the heat of the desert cast much of the imposing stone in the distance in a distorted haze. "Very well, Victor, but I hope you realize that if this is a false lead, the punishment is rather severe. We are in need of volunteers to penetrate further into that accursed Society to dismantle its delusions of grandeur and-" Janus cut his sentence short and his mouth dropped as they drew closer to the jeep and the rock itself. The distortions created by the heat had vanished and revealed an opening in the rock that did not appear to be the product of explosives.

"Stop, stop, stop!" shouted Janus. Everyone in the buggy lurched forward as Victor slammed on the brakes and with shaking hands, Janus sprang from his seat and ran to the trunk of the buggy. "We draw closer to the holy plains of the Alpha, my brothers! Open and free is the tomb of a Titan!" The three other men and Victor had scarcely gotten out of the buggy when they bowed their heads in prayer at this news. A droning, rhythmic, mumbled prayer issued from all of them. Janus joined in, though he did not bow his head. Instead, he pulled several white robes from the trunk and handed one off to each man. They were double-stitched at each hem, with one set of stitches done in rainbow threading, and the other in a soft, shimmering gold.

Janus pulled a coarse grey robe from the car and pulled it on. Intricate embroidery done in golden thread lined his sleeves and wound up along them, meeting in the center of his chest and creating the golden cross-wheel of Arceus. He watched the men dress, and when they had finished, he raised his hands and said, "My brothers, we have been blessed with an opportunity. Sit laus deo!" The men echoed his statement enthusiastically. "Gather the supplies we will require to dive into these unknown, sacred depths. And you, Victor, come here."

The man approached and nodded. "Yes, sir?"

Janus threw his arm around Victor and pulled him close. "You were correct. And now, we must find this woman, and we must squeeze all she knows from her brain. We can only hope she is not here on behalf of that foul Society," he whispered.

"But, s-sir, what if she is?"

"Then it is very likely she may not tell us anything," admitted Janus. He pulled Victor closer still and looked the man in the eyes. "Whereupon our course of action is simple: we will break her."