.
o. end
The moment before it all ends is serene.
A crack slowly spreads down the stone, reaching out across the room to trace through all the chaos. Time seems to slow down as it crawls across the battle.
On the edges of the throne room are the first casualties of this fight: a pair of Corinthian stone columns. Fractured from the sheer heat of a stray fire attack, based on the scorch marks and soot. Bits and pieces of them have crumbled inward, shattering on the marble of the floor, but the tiny splinters there immediately dissolve into the web of fractures that's starting to swallow up the entire room.
Down further, at the foot of the dais, a klinklang is scattered on the ground, their body gears in four separate pieces. It's more reassuring to look at them in slow motion—were time going at its normal speed, the lack of spinning would be painfully obvious.
Closer, directly above the sundered gears, a reuniclus is splayed on the stairs, his arms limply tracing down the steps. Collapsed beside him is a carracosta in heavy-plated armor, his fins and head partially withdrawn into his shell.
Closer still. A serperior is frozen in mid-leap, every leaf on her body glowing with green light, so bright that it blots out her face. Beside her, a trainer stands, one hand frozen and outstretched, eyebrows furrowed, mouth halfway through a command. The human's face is smeared with dust, but her eyes brim with dark flame.
The crack twists around the battlefield. An archeops rises up to meet the serperior and her human, his wings halfway down, talons outstretched. Even when still, his plumage is a feathery blur of brick red, leafy green, sky blue.
And here, at the very epicenter of the fracture, the yang dragon erupts. White-feathered wings unfurl across the room, bringing all under their shadow. Blue eyes blaze with all the intensity of a dying star. Their mouth is open in a roar so loud that it blots out all other sound, all other commotion, except—
{Is this what you want, Hero of Truth? If you and I act together as one, what we do here will never be able to be undone, by my power or any other's.}
Pokémon never tell lies. There won't be any coming back from this.
In the corner of the room, at the foot of the dais, is the collapsed form of Zekrom. The ancient scales are charred; raw wounds leak blue blood onto the granite. The stone tiles are cratered; the dragon of legends lies unconscious. Sand slowly leaks down around their form, hazing the edges.
In front of you, Reshiram.
Pokémon. Humans. Black. White. Two worlds that have spent so long trying to merge into one balance, and yet—the interplay was always distinct. Every yin has a yang; at the center of each darkness is a drop of light, but between them there was and would always be a line. Pretending it's not there doesn't make the line stop existing.
Is it wrong to believe that this was the only ending? Perhaps. But was there a better way? Was there a diverging branch that got overlooked, a path that led to an ideal world where everyone was happy? Probably. Was it worth letting thousands of people suffer while you tried to find the route that left their oppressors undisturbed? No.
Behind the ancient dragon, time speeds up again. The archeops twists out of the way as the serperior crashes down. The trainer screams another command, but she's too slow, too late. You have your answer.
"Yes. This is what I want."
Your name is Natural Harmonia Gropius, and you've finally, after all your struggles, saved the world.
For some reason, you don't feel like the hero.
The rest of the story plays out backwards.
.
quick author's note: Hiya! Welcome to my weird quarantine project. Content warnings for abuse, violence/blood, character death, and depictions of police brutality. Specific chapters will be tagged as content arises.
Open to any and all feedback! This fic has some spicy takes on the ethics of pokemon training and I am very open to discussing your thoughts.
This is another entry in the caNon that's been floating around/growing in the past few months in a really cool way—inspiration/in response to Negrek's Decoherence, An Author's Pen Let It Ring/Without a Human Heart, and Keleri's People and Humans.
Fic title is from "The Beekeeper", a song by Dessa. I'd link and quote it because it's excellent, but FFN hates both of those things, so.