.
xii. noogenesis
Ten thousand years ago, a great flood washed over Unova, and wiped it clean of war and hatred.
But before that, a clever human and his pokémon companion watched the stars, and foresaw the flood. So when the clouds rolled in, they had already built an enormous boat, which they used to save those they could. When the waters receded, the survivors began to rebuild. The lines they had drawn between themselves had been swept away by the storm; now, in the fertile and flooded earth, they could learn to love one another again.
But the human and his pokémon could find no peace. While others tilled the fields, sowed new crops and reaped them, the two stood on a high place and stared out at the placid sea. They must fear a second flood, the survivors whispered among themselves, but this was not the case. The human and his pokemon could not forget the violence that had first caused the storms. The gods had cleaned the world once, but people are people—one day, the gods would purge it again.
Or worse, they wouldn't.
So the human and his pokémon returned to the dragon gods, and stole from them a single scale. Together, they fashioned it into a sail for their boat, and when the winds blew, their boat lifted into the starry river that stretched across the night sky. Thus prepared, the pair began an endless voyage amongst the stars for peace.
Every thousand years, the sky cries and traces one tear across the horizon. Legend would tell you that it's the two companions, holding fast to one another during their journey into the void. Your denwatcher would tell you that it's a comet of ice and flame, orbiting your sun and only coming close enough to be seen for brief moments of its relatively huge galactic lifespan. But just because it's not visible doesn't mean it's not there.
You were imparted on the day that the comet passed overhead. Your denwatcher, Venant, had watched the skies for centuries. Though their eyes had long grown rheumy, Venant knew their duty, and could hear the comet's call. From their arms split two children—from the right arm came you, Denebola; and from the left came Albieba. The den rejoiced, for children were rare, especially in these times. Albieba was a gifted child, with a burbling of two songs wrapped up in her one mind, like the binary star for which she was named. But you held Venant's pride, and their right side, and the expectations that had rested on their shoulders as watcher of the East. Many minds before, many right sides ago, Venant and their forebearers were soothsayers for kings and queens, and perhaps one day you would be as well.
Twenty-two years after that wondrous night when Venant's consciousness faded and then flared to life in the mind of another, you allowed a human child to capture you. She called you first solosis, and then Jericho.
When she walked past, the other solosis felt nothing. They lived in complete worlds, linked together in their minds. But for you, Venant lived again, and all the lives before them did too. Seven lifetimes ago you advised kings, and in that one frail moment, you felt the ancient weight upon your shoulders.
So you leapt from the protected decks of the world you'd always known and fell with her like a comet, hurtling across the night sky towards her destiny.
※
Most people have hazy ideas of what they want the world to be. You can feel those potential futures, and they glow with the strength of the one who imagined them. That is the power of Venant's sight, the one who foresaw kings.
In Amara's ideal world, she's a zebstrika, but also not a zebstrika. You don't understand the distinction between these two zebstrika but you sense a conviction at the very heart of the blitzle's being. This is different from a regular zebstrika. You'd asked her about it once, when the five of you were gathered around a crackling campfire.
{The difference is kafara,} she'd said solemnly, and though her words were clear to you, their meaning was not.
But from what you can gather in the flashes of her mind, of her one day standing tall and fierce, mane crackling with the storm she contains, it involves being a zebstrika.
She evolves in your fight with Elesa. The plan was that first Amara would wear down Elesa's team, then you; Vaselva could handle the rest.
You stayed on the sidelines longer than you'd expected: that day, Amara had something to prove. Perhaps it was in the way Elesa's zestrika cantered proudly onto the field, hooves sparking blue and against the mirrored floor, Elesa casually lounging sidesaddle on his back. Or maybe it had been when Elesa's zebstrika whinnied and fired a thin bolt of lightning into the air, cueing the pre-timed spotlights and a raucous cheer from the audience. Or maybe it had been when Elesa's zebstrika snorted in response after Elesa smoothly dismounted in six-inch stilettos and surveyed the four of you, one eyebrow raised, and remarked, "She looks feisty, Cavalli, wouldn't you agree?"
Hard to say, really.
Amara evolves after the first emolga goes down in a spiral of flame, and for a brief moment she's radiant. You've seen enough dreamers outside of your den to know what's coming, and you stare hungrily at that bright light, the pride, the culmination. She'd dreamt of being a zebstrika her entire life, and she'd finally made it.
The radiance fades. A second emolga takes to the air with a teasing giggle. His air slash shreds the tile floor, and Amara's newly-mended flanks with it.
※
"I'm going to the carnival. Do you want to stay out, Jer?"
Hilda's stony. Vaselva must've lost to the zebstrika after you fainted.
That's a surprise. You wish you'd seen it. The servine calls the shots around here, as far as you can tell. She and Amara battle for Hilda's heart. That's fine with you. You only care about her mind.
"One for yes, two for no, Jer," Hilda says when you don't respond. "Reylin said no. The others are staying at the pokécenter for now."
Was Elesa's zebstrika really strong enough to hurt Vaselva that badly, or is she just sulking? You try to think back. The second emolga was simple—any contest that involves range was always yours to win. Hilda showed you quickly enough that the shimmering blue lights that the denwatchers used to communicate are somewhat explosive upon contact with an unprepared target. Most pokémon in battles on the circuit are unprepared targets.
The zebstrika was not an unprepared target, and he also preferred to fight up close. Your battle to lose. The sensation was unpleasant, but for you at least it's easy enough to project your mind somewhere else, to a time where your body doesn't feel pain, while your ectoplasm knits itself back together. Hilda's ideal world, for example.
It takes you a moment to retreat from it, rearrange your mind carefully back into your ectoplasm. There's no pain now.
The carnival. You roll the word over in your mind. What is a carnival?
You aren't sure, but you'd like to see it. You chirp once.
It's a bit of a walk from the pokécenter, but even from a distance you can see this carnival—an enormous, shining collection of gemstones, twinkling against a purple sky. Nimbasa shimmers even at night. Even in the midst of Unova's jewel of a city, this thing is impossible to miss, with all its glamor and flashing lights. The sounds come next, a blur of laughter and mechanical screeching and canned music.
But Hilda seems to shrivel up the closer you get, tucking her hands into her pockets and her elbows close to her side. You orbit her head, struggling to stay close in the throng of people.
She seems bothered, but she chose to come here. Strange. You ponder that one for a while as the two of you make your way through the carnival. An apron-clad man hands ice cream cones out of a red-and-white striped cart to a group of giggling children. A tinny earworm of a song wafts through the air, twined with the sounds of elated screams as a roller coaster whooshes overhead.
With this many people around, you can relax. Hilda was quick to learn this lesson: you do not do well in small groups of people. Their thoughts and their threads spin around your mind, each one screaming for its place. All of them seek things, and you can see where those desires end. Once, Hilda left you alone near Amara, and came back to find you had buried yourself in a pile of leaves to drown out the raging imperfection of her too-short, frayed thread—this one will be cut soon. She learned fast; now, you only come out when the entire group is out, when there's enough minds around to protect you from themselves.
At home, in the dens, the reuniclus and the duosion and even the young solosis knew how to exist alongside one another without screaming their thoughts. You knew each other's minds and they were no more foreign than your own. No one spoke louder than the rest.
Here, with this many people, it's almost the same. The thoughts become a seething mass, no single one louder than the rest, and you can tune them out as white noise. Does the girl passing you wish to evolve into a watchog one day? Is the palpitoad to your left upset that he lost that battle, or is it the human boy beside him? It doesn't matter. You float alongside Hilda, content to take in the sights and sounds, unimpeded by the sea of thoughts that swirls beneath them.
Hilda's hard to pin down right now. If you open yourself up too much to her thoughts, you won't be able to tune out the flood. What you get is snippets:a girl crumbles pieces of of her sandwich for pidove in the schoolyard, her hands tremble as she dabs septic on a glimmering cut in Vaselva's scales, her fingertips close around the cool surface of a smooth, dark stone.
"Ever been to one of these?" she asks as she wanders. You do not think she has any direction in mind.
There are stalls where human children gather to throw red and white stones at a pyramid of bottles; the two of you pass a snaking line for some sort of enormous spinning disc. But nothing seems to catch her fancy.
You chirp twice for no.
"Me neither," she says in a low voice. "Never been to one growing up. I was curious."
It's a good reason, same as yours.
A short scream of frustration draws both of your attention—your heads whip over to see a boy's hand pinned to a table by an enormous robotic throh. Can you beat the legendary arm wrestler? the sign above their heads asks.
You're not sure she understands what you mean when you chirp thrice, when she says, "Looks like I wasn't missing out on much. Just another place where the games are rigged for you to lose."
In that moment her ideal world is plunged into darkness, and in that blackness you can see her as she sees herself.
She fed the pidove and went to class hungry. She withdrew Vaselva and cried silently, flipped her pokédex over and over in her hands. She hid the stone from Lenora after she heard it call to her, because she didn't trust anyone else with it, because somewhere deep inside she had to know what it truly meant.
"Then again, I'd probably have a better chance of winning here, don't you think?"
Two chirps.
Hilda brightens, just barely. "Thanks."
The stalls thin out, and you see: perhaps unknowingly, she's wandered back to the spinning wheel. There's hardly a line now; seems like everyone would rather be elsewhere.
"What do you think, Jer? Ever ridden a ferris wheel?"
Two chirps.
※
In Reylin's ideal world, he doesn't have to fight.
It took Hilda maybe fifteen minutes after meeting him to realize he hates it. She was faster on the uptake than Amara or Vaselva, stymied as they were by his strange tongue, but now everyone agrees. The archen sits and flinches during training; in battles, it's even worse. You fought Cheren last week, and Reylin clumsily flapped behind Hilda's boots, quaking as he peered out from behind her ankles, squawking incomprehensible words.
You don't blame Reylin for hiding from this fight; Cheren's dewott was frightening. Newly evolved, proud of his power, and eager to show it—when the dewott lashed out with his shells, he left gouges in the pavement. Hilda waited until the pansage came out, and asked Reylin again. This time, he found the courage to fight. With his eyes squeezed shut as he stabbed blindly with his beak, he took out the pansage in one hit.
Sometimes Hilda's mind wanders and she strays into that ideal world, where people like her wouldn't have to claw their way to the top, where people like him aren't caught up in it. None of you are that different, really—you all only have this one path out of the lives you were given; you all have no choice but to walk it. Reylin was a gift from Lenora. As you understand it, when pokémon are given as gifts, it becomes less about the pokémon than about the humans behind them. Was Lenora testing her when she gave Hilda that fossil? Or was it simply a genuine offer of support? Either way, Hilda's fresh-faced and inexperienced; training three pokémon this early is already difficult, but four—and a strange, skittering species at that—four is a clear challenge.
Reylin's ideal world is very simple. It involves him, a turtle, and an endless sky.
Hilda dreams of something different. Some of it is amorphous, vague, unshaped. When it comes to Reylin she's not sure what the rules would be, how you'd govern out this loophole where pokémon don't have to fight, but they don't have anything else they're allowed to be. But in this future, it's simple: you and Vaselva and Amara are powerful. Reylin can stay, or he can go—he simply doesn't have to fight any more, not now that Hilda's strong enough that she doesn't need a fourth. That's a similarity between the two of them—Hilda's not necessarily in Reylin's ideal world, either. She's not definitively absent from it, written out the same way that he erases battles and gyms from existence in his, but she doesn't have to be there, either. There's a dim corner where she could be; there from one angle and gone from the next.
His world doesn't shine very brightly, because he doesn't have much faith that he'll ever get there.
"I'm sorry," she tells Reyin after she calls your sparring match with him to a close. Now she's fussing over the dressing on his wing. They're always so delicate with his plumage. "Okay, so a physical build isn't working out. Maybe something ranged?"
The archen tilts his head back and stares at her, blinking.
"I know," Hilda says quietly. "But you're strong, okay? You just need to recognize it."
He squawks something in an unknown language.
"You are! I've seen you." She leans in and tickles under his chin, earning a weak trill. "You're getting so much better already! I saw you dodge that attack. That was so fast."
She isn't lying, not quite. It's not impossible. She just doesn't think it's likely.
Later that evening, when he had relaxed onto her lap and sunk into a twitchy sleep, you heard her murmur, "Even if I let you free, where could you go?"
His ideal world is simple, dim, and empty. For one so unhappy, there's relatively little that he actually wants.
※
The wheel ticks up slowly. You can feel each creak emanating from the central hub, the way the motor strains. As the two of you inch higher and higher, Nimbasa shrinks below. The sky's turned almost black by now, but looking down you see the glimmering star of the gym.
When you look over, Hilda's watching it too. Half of her face is reflected in the mirror of the carriage, and while she isn't facing you, her reflection stares back, washed-out and blurred.
"Was that your first gym battle?"
One chirp.
"I wasn't sure."
You tick higher.
"I researched before I went into this battle. Elesa usually doesn't use her zebstrika for fourth badge fights."
This concept of battling is new to you. It's lucky that you're good at it, but its intricacies are still foreign. You reach back to remember what the Venant before Venant knew about this. That Venant saw a war, and that Venant understood: you only use your full strength for an opponent you truly respect.
Three chirps.
The reflection's face darkens. "She didn't want us to win."
You have to turn that idea over and over a few times. The denwatchers shared one mind. Even if a fight had ever taken place, there could be no loss. But the humans, you have learned, are not so closely linked.
Wins and losses are also a strange concept. When you all share your thoughts, there's no such thing as being alone, being better, being worse. When you are linked with all the ones around you, why would you strive to defeat them?
You ponder for a moment, and the answer to your own question surfaces in your mind: if you do not think of them as an ally, if you see them as someone separate from yourself, you will not care if they lose. The answer is simple: you have to become unlinked.
One year ago a shadow slipped into the back of the den. It wore a face like yours, but when you reached for it, you found nothing. It was like you only in shape and image; beneath the surface, it was dark, empty, vapid. Intrigued by this strange reflection of yourselves, you and Albieba had warbled over to where it watched from the surface. And the shadow grew teeth; with a wicked smile it leapt forward and sank its fangs into Albieba.
The den ripped into motion, but you dropped to the ground. The air was a thick haze of psychic energy; you could only watch, paralyzed, as Satevis, the watcher of the West, hovered forward, a storm brewing around their arms. They twisted, and gravity seemed to triple. You couldn't rise from the ground; with their hands, Satevis tore the world and a blinding bolt of thunder erupted.
The shadow screamed and sprouted tufts of red and black fur. The scent of singed flesh rose in the heavy air. The watcher of the West fired again; blue lightning filled the den. When the light finally cleared, the shadow was gone.
it took you a moment to understand what was strange. But when you did, the void was everywhere. {Albieba,} you'd gasped, when you were finally able to feel again.
Satevis turned back to look at you. {Albieba,} they said solemnly. {Albieba is with you now.}
Your split was only supposed to be temporary. The two of you came from Venant's arms; one day, you would create a mind in her image, and grow arms of your own. But you were never supposed to search for her—she would always be by your side.
Venant's right could see the futures people desired. Venant's left could see which ones would come to be. In the moment that she went dark, Albieba took with her Venant's true sight.
But that wasn't what you really lost. Your den, your siblings—without Albieba, they didn't feel fully yours any more. The denwatchers were kind, but you could sense their stifled shudders when your minds touched. They couldn't hide how they pulled back instinctively at you and your mismatch. You were one of them—and yet not.
You think back to the look on Elesa's face, the lilting amusement when she'd called Hilda and Amara feisty—perhaps she hadn't been amused after all, just trying to cast out what she thought didn't belong. And all at once, you understand why Hilda is frowning, why her hands have curled into fists.
The thick glass of the ferris wheel shudders, and the attendant opens the door. You blink, looking around. Nimbasa's no longer a tiny pinprick in the distance. You're at the bottom again.
※
In Vaselva's ideal world, she's with Hilda. Everything is the same, except for one small detail, that you scarcely notice at first. When Hilda calls Vaselva's name, she doesn't say Vaselva. But even though you can hear the word loud and clear in the vision, when you try say it aloud you find it's always out of reach.
※
There's someone waiting at the bottom of the ferris wheel.
"You wanted to talk?" he asks quietly.
"Hey, N," Hilda responds glumly, which you realize doesn't answer his question.
Maybe she does want to talk. More than likely, she doesn't, because she doesn't say anything at all. Humans have to speak in order for their denmates to understand them, although sometimes it seems to you that they understand each other fine without speaking at all.
They walk for a bit. Hilda keeps her eyes on her feet. Her hands are in her pockets, her lips tightly pursed. And N's much the same, but he's looking around at all the sights. His eyes linger on a booth where a man is painting liepard spots onto a young girl's face. His face flickers with a scowl as he passes a sign proclaiming SUPER SIMISAGE SAMANTHA in blocky letters above the image of a simisage on a unicycle, her hands pressed firmly to her lips.
Finally, he looks at you. "Hi," he says uncertainly. "I don't think we've met. I'm N."
{Jericho.}
"Jericho." He sounds the syllables out carefully on his tongue. "Did I pronounce that right? Nice to meet you."
Hilda finally looks up at the sound of your subdued conversation. "You really can talk to pokémon, can't you."
It's not a question.
"Since I was a child, yes."
What a strange talent for a human. Unbidden, you think of Super Simisage Samantha and her unicycle. Would there be another tent for this one, where everyone else can marvel at him for his unique skills?
"He's newish. Can you ask him if he's happy?"
He looks expectantly at you.
{Hilda will change our world. I want to see it.}
N relays the message with a strained smile.
"Him too?" Her laugh is strained as well, and for a moment you're sure she's going to end the conversation then and there. "I swear, all of you have the same ideas."
She's uneasy, but that's okay. The fate-touched are never aware of what the world is calling them to do. That's why your kind watches the stars.
The three of you walk a little further, until Hilda says, "Is that why you're with Team Plasma? Because you think you'll change the world?"
"In a sense, yes." He rolls his shoulders and sighs.
"I was on board before you …" She swallows her words alongside her anger. Each syllable is clipped short. "Did you know, N? Did you know that Team Plasma is stealing pokémon?"
"Liberation isn't theft."
Hilda's face hardens. "So you know."
"I've always known." His voice sounds almost gentle, almost pleading, when he adds, "Liberating pokémon is why we founded Plasma."
Hilda's jaw tightens, and you watch her shore up the gap between her eyebrows. "Plasma stole my friend's munna. Bi is a good trainer, N. Did you know they targeted her?"
"I did. I was there." N's stiff now too. "Munny asked to go back to her human, so we helped her do that."
For a moment you feel something leaking off of him, a wish, an ideal, some sort of regret. You lean forward, toward this strange black hole, and—
Hilda's rage pulses stronger, and with it the image of a shattered Plasma. A future splinters off of her, one where having power didn't mean you could just go around doing whatever you wanted, taking what you wanted, hurting who you wanted.
"You don't even know what you did to her, do you?" Hilda scoffs. "Do you know anything about her?"
The answer the two of you get isn't one you expected: N smiles warmly. "No. I don't. What would you like me to know?"
Hilda's a seething ball of anger; you can feel the thoughts lashing out around her even if you can't read them fully. She was never one to let something stand between her and where she needed to be, yet when someone doesn't try to fight her … what does she do?
She doesn't say anything. So instead, you find yourself answering, {Did you know that training is the highest-income profession in Unova that does not require a high school degree?} There are words in that statement that are lost to you—but you'd heard Hilda explain this over and over to Bianca, back when she was begging Bianca not to quit.
N's smile falters. Just a little. "I did know that," he says quietly.
{For some people, it is the only choice they have.}
"Wouldn't you rather they have more choices though, Jericho?"
You can't help it: you reach out again. Surely a sentence like that, such a wondrous question—surely he would be able to see that world; surely he would be able to know what those choices even are.
There's nothing. Nothing at all.
{Wouldn't you?}
"Is he … what is he saying?" Hilda looks between the two of you, her gaze guarded. Is she afraid she'll betray you like Elesa? You could never do that to her.
"He respects your drive." N fiddles with the edge of his shirt. "And he would stay with you." There's another pause, and you see him twist the fold of his sleeve into a tight spiral. "Even if he had somewhere else to go."
"So that settles it, doesn't it? You talked to Munny, and now Jericho." A pleading edge slips into Hilda's voice, and there's another world now—one where Plasma can be good, where they focus their efforts on the abusers and the cheaters and—
"Tell me, Hilda. When you climb Unova. When you get to the top. What do you see?"
Hilda swallows. "I understand why you don't like battling, N. I really, really do. You don't think it's fair that pokémon aren't free to be people." When she looks at him, her world shines with the brilliance of the sun. It's so bright that she can barely take it into her hands and form words, but when she does, she's unflinching. "But I don't think it's fair that people aren't free."
In that moment, N begins to glow, and you see the thread forming between them, two minds that could touch and feel and share—
"Is that … it is! Hilda Verdandi! Juniper's very own sponsored trainer, here in the flesh!" Someone's pushing through the various throngs of carnival-goers; you see a camera, a looming boom mic. "Hilda, I'm with Nimbasa Nightly. Do you have a second for an interview?"
Reflexively, Hilda takes a step back from the fuzzy mic overhead, and then another one to avoid the one that was thrust up in her face. You see what he wants from this, a tangle of chatter and words across a page and you're trying to parse what he means by news when she answers—"Sure?"
"Right. Jeremy, get in tighter." You focus on a man: thin-faced, brown hair, sharp jaw, fast talker. He leans in conspiratorially close to Hilda. "Hiya folks, here with Hilda Verdandi, Juniper's very own sponsored trainer! How's it going, Hilda?" He doesn't even wait for her to finish her pained nod before: "So, some of our viewers at home are wondering what happened! After your stunning defeat of Burgh, even with a bad type matchup for both of your pokémon—has Elesa made you lose your groove?"
"What? No, I—"
"Focusing on other things, perhaps?" He winks at the camera. "Other people, perhaps?" he adds, and you see Hilda's face lurch when the camera lurches over to point at N. "Folks, you saw it here first. The Nimbasa Carnival ranked in our top fifty good places for a first date, after all, and—" He trails off suddenly, staring at N's hair.
"Battle me," Hilda says in a strangled voice.
"What?" N looks surprised. Perhaps he doesn't realize what's happening, what everyone else is starting to piece together.
Hilda knows the unwritten rules. In a conversation, humans only look at themselves. But in a battle, they'll only look at the pokémon. If he battles her now he'll be nothing more than a blur in the backdrop. If he loses, if he doesn't keep it close, no one will be able to see him afterward, either. Victory makes you shine in Unova. It lifts you into the light of the future.
"Battle me," Hilda repeats without meeting his eyes.
"Hilda—"
"Jericho, you're up." Her voice is hard. She spears N with a flinty glare. Please, she mouths.
Maybe he gets it. Maybe he just trusts her. Either way, he takes a step away.
"You know the public battle rules. Thirty feet back."
This time he backs up all the way, almost to the end of the promenade. The rest of the crowd has started to take note, and they're clearing out, giving you all space—but the camera's trained on you and Hilda. She stares forward with a level gaze.
You see a flicker at the far end of the makeshift pitch, and what looks like a scraggy disentangles himself from the crowd when N calls. A few more follow suit—the low, flickering glow of a darumaka catches your attention; followed by some enormous, floating, rainbow bird that you've never seen before.
There's a brief exchanging of words over on N's side of the field. The bird hums something in response, and then flutters forward.
"Screens," Hilda says curtly. "Eighty percent to the sides."
You pick up what she means by that almost immediately, and a prismatic wall glimmers up around you, scintillating green and blue. You've been practicing hard; by now, it's milky and translucent, almost like a wall of glass. Idly, you angle it between yourself and the cameraman, filling the lens with a stab of dazzling light. You hear him hiss in annoyance, but he doesn't move more than five feet from Hilda. You tab him in your mind as you hover closer to the bird, in case he tries to reposition.
"Psyshock." Her voice is flat. There's no enjoyment in this. You can see from the way that the bird bobs up and down in a smooth, predictable arc that this is going to be a one-sided battle.
You reach out with your mind, and an arc of blue light forms around you. The crowd gasps in shock as the light fans out, splitting off into a dozen glimmering spheres, and then with a single movement you send them all swatting down on the bird like falling stars.
"Shields to front, and then Psyshock again," Hilda says, just before the bird lashes out with a wave of pink energy. You swivel the screen forward, and the wave breaks against it, sending shards of pink light onto the ground. A psychic attack of some sort? You don't risk probing the bird's head to check. It regards you silently. No battle cries, no shouts of pain, nothing, and you strike it down.
N gives a muffled cry of warning, but he's too late, and another barrage of blue knocks the bird to the ground. "Withdraw, withdraw!" N's shouting frantically, and the scraggy runs up in the bird's place.
"Hidden Power." You slam the scraggy with a ball of searing heat while he's still scooting forward.
The scraggy falls down and stays there. N runs over and scoops him up in his arms. He's too far away for you to see the details on his face, but you sense a tinge of desperation.
But he doesn't fight back. He doesn't ask Hilda to stop. Instead, he clutches the scraggy close to his chest, whispers something to the darumaka at his feet.
{I will do what it takes,} says the darumaka in the dialect of sand.
N screws his eyes shut when he hears the answer. "I'm sorry," he whispers—he's much too far away to hear, but he isn't too far to see.
You look past him, not with your eyes but with your sight, as something impossibly bright leaks off of him.
You can't place what makes it strange at first. It glows like all dreams do, perhaps a bit brighter. A glimmering hydreigon curls up alongside a human boy and a gently crackling fire. The hydreigon flicks his tail while the boy reads aloud from a book in his hands, and—
The words on the page are razor sharp. The image is clear. There's no haze, no areas he's left unimagined, because he isn't imaging at all. This isn't a future. This is a past.
You recoil in disgust.
Every night the stars are a little different than the night before. Somewhere in the nightly expanse, they're hurtling away; from where you stand, they only shift a hair, in tiny, barely noticeable steps that must be watched across generations. When the stars wander, they do so in different directions, dancing over one another. But none of them double back the way they came. You cannot wish for that. It's simply not right.
In that moment your mind splits into two. You are both Denebola, and you are both different, and you are both one. It comes in flashes at first, but then it's the brightest thing you've ever seen.
Albieba? You reach out tentatively.
She isn't there. But Hilda is.
One mind sees: Hilda's battling. She's finally strong enough. Vaselva's a serperior; you're a reuniclus. There's a monster with green hair in front of her; she beats him down, down, down while everyone watches with breathless anticipation as she becomes a hero. The people in power get to make the rules, but if she's more powerful than anyone else? If she gets to make the rules now?
Then she'll do what everyone up top kept failing to do, and she'll protect the ones beneath her. No matter the cost.
"Jericho, Protect!"
You raised a glimmering green against a wall of fire. Raising? Will raise? Where are you?
Another mind sees: Hilda's battling. Your power flares to life. You've never used this technique before—but you sense in a language deeper than words that this is what must be done. A protective barrier appears just as the darumaka's flames are about to make impact; they splutter away and hit the ground with a sizzle of embers. You wheel back—for a moment it is a dozen feet tall and made of black scales and three bloody heads; the next instant, it's a sputtering darumaka barely taller than you are. Which one is it?
Eyes glowing blue, you send a stab of psychic power through her forehead.
Your arms are buckling from the strain, but wait—you don't have arms yet.
"Jericho?" she's shouting from behind you.
Where are you? All you can see is light, and the smudges of creatures who get too close. There's a sandile in front of you now, scuttling around, its mind curiously blank. You reach out and your probe slips smoothly off: it must be partially dark. There's nothing there, nothing for you to latch onto.
The sandile burrows out from under the ground, his jaws snapping. In another world he's not aiming for you; his scales are red and his frame is enormous as he digs through the floor of the League, eyes hungrily fixed on something just out of reach.
But the sandile in front of you is close enough. His fangs dig into your side, teeth digging furrows that blossom into pain, and it's in that moment you understand how someone like Hilda can make an ideal shine so brightly that no one else can see it: you create two minds.
This must be what Venant learned when they ascended, what all reuniclus must face upon evolution. You must do as the human strategists do. With one mind you understand your enemy; with the other, you snuff them out. With one mind you accept that the world is broken; with the other, one that you keep far away, you swear to change it.
Amara, fully grown, brays in pain from hundreds of moons away. One day she dies while you hold a shield up like this one; one day she is safe in her pokéball, unaware of the events that will fray her thread until it snaps.
Which one is it? With one mind, you lash out, ripping up a concrete battle hall to rain stone on an oncoming dragon, cast him back, back, back. With one mind you look up, and the sandile is a tiny brown lump in the middle of a cratered stretch of pavement twenty feet across. N is running forward, his face twisted in horror. You bob forward as well, one of your minds reaching out with a twinge of sympathy only to find that the dark-type's mind is as shielded to you as ever; Hilda's raising her hand and—
"That's the difference between me and a random trainer," Hilda explains to the camera. "Thank you for your time."
※
When Hilda walked past you, your combined lifetimes hit you at once, and you felt her calling to you to leap, leap into the starry river.
There are some who walk this earth who pick out points of light where others would see only darkness. The truly bold can look into the void and trace out what they want to see. Like forming a crown from a constellation. Hilda is one of those minds. Venant another. But what made her shine to you wasn't the light that she saw. It was the future she dreamt of, that she held deep inside, so bright that it reflected around everything she touched.
When you were born, you could look to the skies and see the Voyagers studded out, entwined in their constellation as they sank slowly into the sea each summer. There were hundreds of other constellations, each one with its own story mapping out how it came to watch over you, and the den could tell you one each night for an entire year before needing to repeat.
You think about N's vision again, the way it screamed out to you, raw and wrong. When the human sailor and his companion fashioned their boat, it was because they knew the gods were wrong: flooding the world would only return things to how they were. It would not stop those things from happening again.
There is beauty in constellations, stories hidden in the past. But even those shapes drift over time, and when they do, you must let them. It means it is time for a new story to begin.
Venant knew this, and understood: there is one star that traces the same path across the years. It outshines all the rest, and it rises in the East.
Hilda's destiny is cyclical, as is the destiny of all heroes. She will rise in the summer sky and sink into the starry river come autumn. It might take her weeks, or months, or years, but she will burn her way across Unova, with you by her side. Someone else will take her place. And you will all only move one way.
The last part of the vision, of her ideal world, is the most visceral, one that almost has no words. Searing pain. Your shield and your body shattering. Behind you, the deepest black you have ever seen, but it is more than a mere absence of light.
A god roars and acknowledges the one who will reshape Unova.
.
