Part 7.75: The Lost Fict
Memory Phase 6
Hey look, it's the Cycle again!
I don't own Pokémon.
Secany
Memory Phase - 6
When I returned my attention to the scene below, the strider was gone. In its place was Aza, clearly flustered in his poise. His ears were back, his tail high, alert. Nephi, taken to her Pokémon body, was still in the flowers. She was smiling as always, eyes closed. Nobody was sitting upon the headstone, but I was still at too great a distance to read its text.
"Why?! Th-that's supposed to be my job! You told me! You PROMISED me!" Aza blared, cautious to cross the threshold, albeit not so to raise his voice.
"Dear, I promised you nothing but a future," Nephi spoke, serene. "And your future is with I. You did show some concern about it, no? Some heartache? 'Doubt'?"
"Nephi, this is not fair! This isn't bloody RIGHT," clamored the albino espeon. "I've done everything the way you wanted – I killed for you over and over, I left Celebi and Mars in the Paradox, I-... N-now you're telling me that strider will take over my only damned chance to bring my life back?!"
"Need I squelch what life you have right now?" Nephi asked. "Bark at me again and I will see you buried."
Aza restrained himself, his split tail flowing down into the sand. He was scornfully defeated, and I'd missed the context.
"You and Cruce... It's always you and Cruce and the Azabell... Every cycle, whatever the means, you win." he muttered, less of a bark and more of a whimper.
"I am sure that Luna shares the feeling." Nephi mused.
"Luna can't 'feel'. You insisted that much." he replied.
"Prithee, are you senseless? Did you not learn from our research? Ah-hu, well, all the more reason to trust Luna then." Nephi dismissed. She turned away from Aza and studied the scripture on the stone, or so it seemed. She was reading with her eyes closed, from what I gathered.
"Please, talk to me. I can't stand not knowing. Where did this side of you come from, Topher?" Aza asked, wholly out of a blue as Blue as himself. Nephi didn't say a thing, only letting the rumbling of the clock above speak for her. That was, until she sniffed, let her little legs turn her around, and show Aza two tiny green eyes. They blinked at him. Nephi wasn't smiling. She was looking at him as clearly as her two eyes had finally opened.
"Is it-..." Nephi stuttered. "Is it that you are only a spirit? I tore your mind and your body from you, and this 'espeon' was the end result. So, would it be than you cannot think?"
"Your eyes..." said Aza.
"I want to see you for you – for fear I've missed something," Nephi said. "And so I've opened my eyes, but I still see this boy here.
You've told me of your escapades here, reflecting upon cycles. You infected humans and turned them into your kind. Easy as that. But, you toil with a boy named Edge, the Azabell, and you are defeated by him. That is a fallacy, Aza.
You and Edge are the same person. If not for me, then you would share the same body. It is only because of my Cross that you exist separately, yet you remember each and every cycle of our 'Wave' before this as though you were separate to begin with.
What does that tell you?"
It took him a moment.
"You didn't give me the Crossblade. I didn't end up with your White Gamma..." he ventured. It sounded to me like he didn't grasp the idea.
"Irrelevant," Nephi growled. "In every cycle, you are 'slain' by Edge and the friends that he makes. Correct?"
"Yes! Every time! It fills me with bloody hatred!" Aza rallied.
"This hatred is why your color wanes," said the shaymin. "Your Gamma is Red and Blue – they intersect. They cannot live without each other, because you hate – because you latch onto that and make it your being. Or so I see.
If you cannot think for yourself, at least pretend to. Humor me; you've done well so far!
Aza. Darling. This is not our first cycle together. How else would I know you? How else would I know that, in cycles long passed, you were the Bell.
The Bell was all that Blue could do, and so it rang and beckoned Blue Champions that created a spitting image of their leader.
But they were always beaten by 'Edge and his friends'.
Edge and his friends were Fluxed. All of them. Cruce. Myself. Fluxes. We took over the world. We beat you. We won. And yet we all always come back here with no memory of it at all.
Most of us. Some of us do remember, but we choose to close our eyes and forget."
With the moot point, the shaymin took a breath, then closed off her green eyes with her tiny white eyelids. She composed herself, pointing her muzzle into the sand.
"I have so many memories..." the shaymin said, in short breaths, vulnerable and miserable. "I cannot afford to despise them, lest I see Red once again. I prefer not to 'see' at all. I have made my own story, and I will take my world back, dearest Aza. I do not trust you to do it. You never could.
And so, my... history as Nephi, Topher, and that Flux – the three of them are one. To find a timespace where I could write my story in peace in hopes that it could defeat Flux... I'm finally lucky. I'm gifted."
"Mmh..." Aza sighed, both through mouth and nose. "So you're saying I'm the blind one?"
"You make up for what I do see. I see everything, and you see nothing. Such chemistry allures me," the shaymin said. "I can see that the Wave goes deeper than you and I."
"How do you mean?"
"I should think you would need'st earn the right to that knowledge," Nephi claimed, once more composed, superior. "I find it trivial to tell you something you would sooner forget in another realm. So, I'll invite you to a game. A 'cosmic chess', perhaps."
"Chess? You really can't just tell me what I've missed?" Aza suggested, passive.
"What would you do with that information? Trip over your own tail? Let hatred anchor you down? I do enjoy laughing, but prithee, do not make me," Nephi huffed. "I have bridged it such that this world and the Paradox share a flow of time. In doing that, you may use your Paradox's Conception to come and go as you please."
"Alright, um, where was that when I was... getting striders for you?" Aza murmured.
"What was that?"
"Nothing," Aza sulked. "What would you need me to do?"
"You need only oppose me." she simply suggested.
"I beg your pardon?!"
"Oppose me. I want you to think for yourself. You will be living proof that a mindless spirit can think, act, and change the world – not just some striders. I want YOU to be a person, and I want you to race my Gamma.
It is either I crucify the world in delightful suffering, or you take that away from me. We will make our plays separate from one another." Nephi concluded.
"How is... 'delightful suffering' any better than the Flux though?" asked the espeon. "In fact, that sounds just like the Flux. I've known plenty of them to take delight in suffering."
"Then you would 'delight' in opposing it. Make determination out of it. Make incentive. Make your own way – be a person with aspirations, and you should better discover yourself that way. Victory's been a myth, but now it is on the table for you. Courtesy of yours sincerely~." Nephi explained.
"If... if this is what you want, then I don't really have a way to back out. Y-you're telling me to disobey you this time, so..." Aza hung his head low, not so much to bow, but to lament. "I have to, don't I?"
"Ah-huhu, you do!"
"Okay," he answered, submissive. "I know what I want to do. I'll need the Bell to do it."
"Yes, upon Scion's return," Nephi started. "I will have him pass the Bell to you. I think I know what your first move will be."
A smile, albeit coy, returned to the shaymin's face, as though she was genuinely enjoying herself. Despite her power over Aza, she appreciated his company. She wanted him to be better. I was sure a part of her wanted Aza to win; but, she'd said it herself: Aza's Gamma didn't come without Red, and that was her enemy. There were still unspoken motives.
"Right, uhm," Aza glowered. "Where is Scion anyway?"
"A neighboring shore," she answered, ambiguous. "To finish his duty."
Aza didn't answer. He didn't even move. Both of them were frozen, plastered to the environment like a photo. The shadowy clock looming high began to turn more quickly, in spite of the surroundings' stasis. The secondhand spun wildly, the minute hand accelerating until the ticking became a whirring, one hand a blur while the other raced it hopelessly.
Then, both hands stopped, the whole clock shade pulsing, numbing me – whatever body I owned right now. It pulsed, and I felt as frozen as Aza and Nephi before it.
