1/3 done with this story, I'm really learning a lot about myself writing it.

Arc II, The Plate of Time

Chapter Twenty-Four:

All The Time Spent in Vain

My first impressions of Mauville City were that it was overcrowded, and that it smelled like candy and sewage.

The warm months were long behind me. I had spent a majority of that time lurking in the shadows of buildings and alleyways, listening for any hint of Luce's existence. I could not be sure that the Antebureau operated independently without its leader — a spider without its head — but I had to be sure.

I stood next to a shop on an avenue that I knew well, watching the snow, like cinders falling from the clouds. Humans and Pokémon milled around me, paying no attention to my place on the sidewalk. I exhaled, releasing my breath into a misty fog.

When the fog cleared, I saw Aurelio standing across the street, waiting for the bus.

He wore a heavy coat and a hat, and I could see strands of his bronze hair sticking out from under the fabric. There were other people standing around him, too close to be strangers. Colleagues, perhaps, because they were all leaning into the book that he was reading, excitedly pointing at the pages like they had never seen anything so fascinating.

But he looked miserable.

I had pulled up my white hair and hid it beneath a cap. With my own winter garments, meant only for disguise, the only features of mine that could have revealed me were my height and my skin. Amongst the crowd, even though he vaguely looked towards me, Aurelio didn't glance at me twice. He offered a weak smile in response to someone's joke. Boarded the bus. Then he was turning right through the gray sludges of snow, and he was gone.

"I dropped him off at his apartment the night that you left," said Latios, suddenly appearing beside me. He was more heavily bundled in clothing than me. "He protested and yelled. But when I left through the balcony window, he didn't do anything. Just stared. Like he was convincing himself that it had all been a fantastic dream."

We walked through the streets with our hands in our pockets, being as human as we could.

"You know, you're not doing him a favor," he continued. He craned his head back, his rose-red irises brightening under the white skies. "You think that you're protecting him, but all you've done is condemn him to normality. An unfinished chapter of his life. Leaving him hanging, wondering if he can ever be the same again."

"I am protecting him," I said sourly. "Together, I thought we might have taken the Antebureau. But after meeting Luce…"

"Do you think Aurelio gives a shit about the Antebureau or Luce or any of that bigger picture stuff?" asked Latios, the bitterness of his words betraying his composure. "He was never in it to stop them. Not even from the beginning. All he wanted was to stay at your side, because you're his everything."

Play my game, or I will shatter it. No normal human could break these, but I can.

"I'm now dealing with an entity who challenges even my power," I responded. I had never mentioned anything about the chaos. About Luce's origins. Our origins, bound together by destiny. "I have to gather the three Plates together before he can. If he obtains them first, he will break them, ending me and the universe all in one fell swoop."

"Then you'll need a loyal friend to help you through."

I suddenly halted on the sidewalk. Someone bumped into my shoulder and cursed.

"If Luce can take the entire trinity and do what he did to the Plate of Space," I whispered angrily, "what do you think he could do to a meager human like Aurelio?"

Latios glared at me. "Humans are stronger than you think," he said. "He is a resilient man. He's intelligent. And he would do anything — anything — for you! Why do you push away the people that you love the most, just like you pushed away Adam?"

My eyes flashed red. "Don't talk about him as if these situations are the same!"

"You are so caught up in your own lie that you keep everyone else from coming close," said Latios. Some people on the sidewalk were beginning to stare as they walked past. "You pushed away Adam because you were afraid that you were becoming too human. Now you're pushing away Aurelio, because you're once again afraid to become involved."

"That's not true at all!"

Was it?

"Because you're once again afraid," Latios went on, speaking faster and more erratic, "they'll eventually figure out that you're nothing but a fraud. And you'll have nothing to do but reminisce about the mistake you made in creating the Alterstone. That you'll fall in love with someone and allow them to love you back. Years will pass, and after those years have gone, it will occur to you that you are not human, and that you're guiltily living the lie that came with the cost of the universe."

My eyes were watering. "Latios, stop at once," I commanded, fragile and weak.

Latios obeyed, albeit unwillingly. "You know, Arceus," he said softly. "For someone who is essentially immortal, you spend a lot of time not living. The wonder of mortality comes with the price of a short-lived existence. That's why humans run. They take risks, they laugh, they learn. They love. From their birth, they sprint to the finish line, as fast as they can, so that they might experience the sensation of infiniteness."

"But…" My single, pathetic protest lingered, frail in the cold air.

"You gave up the pillars supporting our universe," said Latios, "just to live an existence like that. So start living. Lord knows how much time we have left, anyway."

I paced in front of college building, searching for the apologies, the excuses, the truth — whatever I needed to give — to explain exactly why I had disappeared without warning for four months and never returned. "I will come back for you," I had promised. I had said it as honestly as I could at the time. But the situation had changed once I confronted Luce in the catacombs.

Since my time in Mauville, I had watched Aurelio walk into this building at twilight on Tuesdays and Thursdays. According to Latios, he had started teaching a fall course at the university shortly after returning home. Probably as a distraction, Latios had made sure to mention.

Two hours, however, had passed and he still hadn't emerged.

Left. Right. To the left. Right again. I focused on where my footfalls landed relative to the cracks in the sidewalk. The bells closer to the center of the campus chimed.

"Remember how I said I would come back?" I muttered to myself. "Well, I thought that — no. Not that. I'm really sorry for not upholding my promise. Ugh." I stopped, rubbed my temples, presumed walking. "I was waiting outside. What sort of class is — of course he won't be receptive to casual small talk."

A flash of bronze caught my eye, and I looked through the windows above the doors.

Aurelio was leaning against the frame, his hair unusually bright under the florescent lighting. Tilting his head against the pane, I watched with awe as he continued talking to whomever he was teaching, although his eyes were slowly following the snowfall outside. His mouth autonomously moved, but he seemed to be a constant state of wakeful dreaming.

"Adam?" I asked, peering around the corner into my throne room.

He sat by the windows, his head resting in the crook of his elbows. After his persistent requests, I had allowed daylight into the immortal dimension, so that he could sleep and write and draw beneath the warm sunshine. Though I had called him, he hadn't acknowledged my presence. Wistful and soft, he stared through the windows

"Adam," I repeated, clearing my throat.

"Arceus," he said, awakened. Embarrassed, he grabbed his journal and resumed his drawing. He held up the journal, showing me. "Just a rough sketch of the gardens. Are the flowers blooming naturally or do you make them do that?"

I stayed by the door. Clutched to it for dear life. "Everything here is only a façade, remember?"

"Oh…" He half-smiled at his journal. When he glanced upward at me, only for a second, the light caught the jade fractures in his eyes. "I was hoping that it was because you had let in the sunshine. You should leave it this way. Don't you just love it?"

It was not the sunlight making my world brighter by the day.

"Aurelio," I breathed. I wanted him to look into the courtyard. "Aurelio!"

Frustrated, I hurried into the building. I went to the nearest staircase and leapt up the stairs three at a time. At the moment my hand hovered the doorknob for his classroom, I found myself wishing for courage. One of his students in the front row noticed me standing outside, but she did nothing other than glance between me and Aurelio. When she raised her hand to grab his attention, I froze, and wished more and more for the bravery to face him.

But I couldn't open the door.

I took a wobbling step backwards. Then I fled down the stairs.

When I was outside in the snow, I warmed my hands with my breath, cursing and cursing like I had never cursed at myself before. I looked at the parking lot, blanketed with white, and morosely wondered which way I would wander into the dreary night.

"Arceus."

I spun around, where Aurelio was standing, breaths coming hard. He had not donned a coat or a scarf before leaving, and he was shivering and red in the face. His students were piled around the windows, practically on top of each other, squinting at the courtyard. Some of them were laughing and slapping their palms onto the pane.

He groaned, his face in his hands. "They think that we're a couple."

I laughed nervously. "Because we are. There are two of us."

"Arceus—"

"I know what you meant this time," I said, feeling a huge burden lift from my shoulders.

He smiled, although it looked exhausting for him.

"Professor Solomon," he said in a high falsetto, likely imitating the girl from earlier, "is that your girlfriend outside? And, like the idiot I am, I said that I don't have a girlfriend — but I'd be happy to ask out whoever's been staring at me, and what does she look like? Dark skin, white hair, blue eyes…? That's all I heard before I excused myself and ran out the door."

"I don't know whom your student was describing, but that certainly wasn't me."

"Then could you tell me which way they went?" Aurelio asked. Someone knocking from the second floor caught his attention. "I have to return to the lecture. I can't go back in there until I can say that I asked you out on a date. I know you're not a huge coffee fan—"

"Or a fan of any food or drink at all."

"So let's just meet at my apartment later tonight, and I'll make you a nice, romantic nonexistent dinner," Aurelio finished, grinning. "I would write down my address for you, but I have the distinct feeling you've been hanging around Mauville more than I would be led to believe."

End of Chapter Twenty-Four