A/N: I guess it's been well over a month. These last few weeks have been hectic as Hell, so apologies once more for the delay. I'll explain more in the end notes.
Review Responses
BookMage7: And I enjoyed reading your thoughts, as usual ^^ Rosa's PoV was honestly my favourite part to write, since I have some grand plans for her arc over the course of this fic.
I will also admit that the pokémon was Keldeo—not going to stand on ceremony over such an obvious secret.
pulseliberosis: Thank you for the kind words! We did end up touching base on discord, so I won't rave too much here. All I'll say is I hope you're in this for the long haul, and I don't end up disappointing you xD
Interlude Chapter 3: Convergent Kings
Watchful eyes conducted a ballad of silence, where azure sparks left not echoes over an empty chasm. The tears of this lonesome alien fell not upon pity's broken urn, for even as an outcast who mourned, he knew that the act of mourning was reserved for the dead. Reflected in those crystalline eyes of faded jade… was hope swirling with desperation.
The original form of this hope had been pure. In a simpler time, this man called himself "King": a title bestowed upon him in a coronation of paupers and puppets. Plasma signified the birth of a new star, and when that star announced his name, he did so with pride.
Natural Harmonia Gropius… N, the former champion of Unova, and the Hero of Ideals, now, an incomplete half of Unova's whole—his voice as wayward as he.
"Where have you gone?"
He spoke into the emptiness that swallowed his words. Nothing but the ambient humming of this cavernous maze responded. This was a product of the intense magnetic energies coursing through the rocky labyrinth. Blue sparks danced along the boulders suspended in the air through magnetic levitation; these boulders were deceptively light, and allowed for the easy rearrangement of the passages.
This outcast, however, knew of the larger secrets surrounding this anomalous structure. Beyond the precipice where his boots were planted, the void did not brush against a solid cliffside.
"You're looking straight at the core of the planet."
The silence crumbled.
"Long ago, a legendary pokémon battle permanently shifted the electromagnetic spectrum around this cave system. What most experience as a lucid set of caverns… is actually a single, floating chunk of tectonic rock—its gravitation is forever altered." There was a theatrical pause. "It levitates over an abyss nobody can look into… lest the abyss stare back into them."
N's eyes left their entranced state as he picked up on the voice piercing the silent ambience.
"Well, that is what the academicians will tell you, anyway." Whimsical inflections inhabited a masculine voice of dismissal. "The last bit is but poetry from some no-name philosopher. Nobody truly knows what's down there due to the pressure and radiation… So try not to fall over."
Flowing lime hair framed N's sidelong gaze back, where the luminous rocks had floated off the path.
"... Am I to assume you came to find out what nobody truly knows?"
"Oh, heavens no. I've little interest in the void, or what its philosophical ramifications are." The scoffing man appeared from the light of many magnetic rocks, his lab coat billowing in the wake of a poised stride. "I find the question of origin at the core of modern discourse to be quite trite. Using reason as a shield within a Universe that tends to chaos… all so you can stand proud upon the breaking back of purpose. I'd challenge any to name an endeavour more pointless."
"So you seek the path forward, using reason as a carving blade." N replied calmly, though that composure shook when he got a good look at this stranger. "That is certainly a novel approach. I respect it, though I do not share your sentiment."
There were many odd features about him, from the sleek, striated outfit beneath his coat, to the bang of blue hair that wove around an otherwise blond head like a halo, to the strange tablet in his right hand, which whirred in dissonance with the cave's hum. None of these struck a chord like the eyes behind light-catching spectacles. Hollow spheres that swallowed even the nothingness before them both.
"You look on edge," the scientist chuckled, looking towards the screen in his hand. "I apologise if philosophy is dear to you. This is a free country; my contempt for its practice needn't extend to its patrons."
N turned around, processing the words of this stranger. He shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. I just find your perspective interesting."
He paced towards one of the many floating stones, touching his palm gently against its glowing surface.
"To me, the question of origin is a positive force. That question birthed science… The formulas that express the forces behind gravity, heat, electricity… their connections to pokémon, and humans and pokémon themselves." Once more, N locked his eyes with the stranger's. "These are all positive things."
"Would positivity not be a perspective?" The scientist's spectacles shone. "I doubt you mean the positive electrical charge… and my opinions on philosophy have been made clear."
"Of course… But now, I must know." More than before, the air grew charged. "Is your contempt for philosophical positivity the same as your contempt for the void beneath us… or more for the void within you?"
Behind the spectacles, those hollow spheres narrowed, igniting a spark along their sightline. "Ah, so you fancy yourself a philosopher."
N sighed and shook his head. "No, I am just a curious man, lost beyond the path I have strayed from."
"Of course you are…" Menacing shadows danced upon the man's face. "I'd be lost too, after tasting the kind of defeat you know."
"... And what do you know of my defeats?"
"You would be surprised."
The game had shifted.
In pointing out what his perspective gleaned as an obvious truth, it appeared N had stepped upon a landmine. His deepest instinct stayed apology, though. Tensions around them thickened to a fever pitch, interlacing the air into gordian knots, taut on the cusp of breakdown.
He met the scientist's malevolent gaze head on, drawing forth a dry laughter in return.
"But I must apologise… This discussion's depth has made me forget my manners." Intoning the now sinister edge of his voice was a low rumble and intense humming, as tiny chunks of the ceiling had begun to fall with ensuing quakes. "I am Colress. To your abject failure two years back, I am one of the few real witnesses."
An unease grew within N's visage. That was a day he did not wish to recall. "What is it you seek from me?"
"That's simple." Colress' voice crawled under the skin. "I have only one goal: To realize the full potential of pokémon… no matter what it takes."
KRA-KOOM!
The vigilant N leapt off the downward path of the guillotine that fell upon his position. Haxorus had split open the ceiling, landing upon and eviscerating the magnetic stone he had been touching. Its axe jaw had cleaved clean through, and the rest of its abyssal black scales had shattered it into tiny pieces.
Crimson eyes were visible through the veil of dust at the centre of nascent fissures. N felt sweat drops form on his skin. Even a moment's hesitation, and this cave would have been his tomb.
"Well dodged. Inspiring! I can see why people hailed you as their King—you truly have what it takes to lead."
Colress' boots crunched through the rock and gravel, and his eyes took on a manic glint upon seeing the data charts on his tablet.
"But don't hold out on me now…" With a simple gesture from its master, Haxorus took its own forward step, slicing apart the dust cloud before locking its gaze upon N. "Show me your legendary power—the power of communion! To make even wild pokémon surpass their limits just by forming a bond with them!"
"… What would a man like you know of bonds?" N's gaze intensified, as he looked right back into Haxorus' eyes, peering into its very soul. "You're torturing your own partner. Can't you hear him crying out for you to stop? How long must this game of yours go on?"
"As long as my research needs it to. I told you—I do whatever it takes."
His fingers danced across his tablet, and Haxorus subsequently let out a howl of defiance. Bright crimson sparks reflected in N's horrified eyes, as they danced over and through the dragon's black scales. The morbid truth of the situation manifested as the voice of its heart gave way to madness.
"Tell me, King Harmonia," Colress' head tilted mockingly. "Did you think you were truly all that above us peasants? There are countless ways to skin a purrloin."
"Stop it!" N roared.
Haxorus' voice chilled him to the bone. It sounded alien now, unlike anything in nature.
"Now this is most interesting… Just mere moments ago, you seemed to know what lay within my partner's heart. You thought you understood it, didn't you?"
N didn't answer, and Haxorus unleashed a nebulous black ray of destruction. The hero was thus forced to his feet once more, leaping behind a nearby rock for cover as the screeching beam carved out a section of the cave before disappearing into the void.
"While not immediately relevant to my thesis, your confusion does bring its own share of amusement—it's plain as day illustration of your folly!" The triumph in his voice was vicious. "Your utter lack of evidential rigor allowed you to be swept away by delusions of grandeur!"
"Who…?" N was gritting his teeth now. "There's absolutely no way you could track me so closely. Who sent you after me?"
Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius commanded the auditorium with an ironclad presence, and his forward step onto the raised passage led the legions upon legions of Neo Plasma grunts to stand at attention. Their silence was unwavering, and their blank eyes reflected the loyalty of trained bloodhounds.
Support beams formed a dreary patchwork of shadows, but all lights shone upon the podium when the puppetmaster stood to address the crowd. His singular eye focused, with the other hidden behind a placebo shaded like blood. Both were his windows into the souls of his men. He stood tall, well over two metres, and his imposing figure was draped in inky garbs of black, sporting embroidered eyes to break the monotony of darkness. His cane stabbed into the ground, silencing the microphone's feedback.
"Men," his malignant voice froze the marrow of even his faithful followers. "I stand before you today for one reason, and one reason alone… that being our path towards Apotheosis!"
Ten thousand men stamped ten thousand boots, and thumped ten thousand fists to their hearts.
"Two years ago, our treacherous King turned his back upon all of you! He staked his own honour along with the souls of all who put their faith in his raised sword, before disgracing himself and disappearing into the shadows of yonder!"
Even within the empty eyes of this militant assembly, Ghetsis' words evoked a unified fury. They stood still, but the flames stoked erupted skywards.
"I do not know why that traitor abandoned us… But here me, Plasma! I, Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius, swear fealty to our grand vision! To a greater Unova!"
His fist clenched the air, bleeding out the palm of his hand before its release allowed the drops to fall.
"For two agonizing years, you swallowed your pride and entered a world of shadow… but that time is at an end! For providence has answered the piety of this lone sage, who now stands before you in defiance of prophecy!" The bleeding hand of Harmonia shook. "The texts sang before: Cometh the age when the string nocking the arrow of progress will have forgotten to whir… Cometh the age when the man most contemptible will snuff out the dancing star of the human soul… Beware! The most contemptible man shall be the last to walk this Earth enlightened!"
A prophecy of the sacred texts Team Plasma once abided.
"The most contemptible man, my dear comrades… has been extricated. For it was the King himself! The King who was supposed to subvert the prophecy! Hear me, Plasma! Today marks the day we as a movement—no… we as Legion—ascend past his grievous treachery, and embrace the new tomorrow!"
Ten thousand men stamped ten thousand boots, and thumped ten thousand fists to their hearts. Together, they chanted, FOR HONOUR!
"That is right… For Honour! It is for Plasma's Honour that I bring you the divination of our sacred priests: the Third Way is upon us! Like blind fools, we followed blind ideals… and our champion was blinded by heretical truth… But today we march upon the hallowed grounds of the Third Way! Our operative target slumbers there… within a valley shadowed by Death. But! With our hearts as one, we need fear nothing… but fear itself."
Ten thousand men stamped ten thousand boots, and thumped ten thousand fists to their hearts. Together, they chanted, FOR GLORY!
The grin on Ghetsis' solemn visage would have been manic, but he controlled his impulses. Repeatedly, they chanted, FOR HONOUR! FOR GLORY! FOR GHETSIS! The elation he felt was beyond compare.
His blood-soaked hand rose to quell these chants, and his cordial smile parted to utter these words. "Black Knights of Plasma… lend me your blades and lend me your lives, and I promise you true salvation. Prepare yourselves! Soon… we will march upon the North."
Behind the stage lay a corridor to Ghetsis' private quarters. When he stepped by one of numerous evenly distanced windows, his singular eye took in an endless sea of clouds. Amid the corridors, where soundproofing was less potent, the whirring of engines was clear as day to even the untrained ears. They sailed across the Unovan skies, with bleeding-edge cloaking technology masking them from the air traffic authorities.
"The Church to Arceus reveres the very heavens that allow us—their greatest enemies—all the refuge we could possibly need." The voice addressing him trailed playfully. "Ironic, isn't it?"
Ghetsis sighed, tracing the sound of that voice which grated upon his nerves. Leaning against the wall next to his quarters was a stout man garbed in a venomous purple. His smile was ice cold, folding into shape the wrinkles upon his wizened visage.
"You know, I thought you'd lost your touch after it all fell through at the League. This was a pleasant surprise."
"Zinzolin… I didn't realize you had the time to saunter about."
"How could I miss the great 'Third Way'?" Zinzolin let out dry laughter. "You've got these monkeys jumping from tree to tree at your beck and call… and they don't even know it! Classic."
Ghetsis looked to the never-ending sky.
"It is human nature to fear individuality… That is why men forfeit their power, birthing the kings that would oppress them." His lips curled. "And when these same kings deprive them of life and liberty, they look towards the heavens… their gods… for salvation."
"Woefully ignorant of the kings' dominion over said gods." Zinzolin's left eye opened with a haughty sneer. "And what, pray tell, will you do… should N intercept us?"
"That child is shattered beyond repair." Ghetsis responded. "I personally saw to that."
Zinzolin said nothing, leading Ghetsis' eye to narrow.
"Do you doubt me?"
"Doubt is a harsh word… but can you blame me? My quarters are so inconveniently situated." Zinzolin pushed himself off the wall, gracefully poised to stride. "You've been on edge ever since your trip down south. Audibly so."
"Zinzolin…" The tension in the air cleared as his voice grew sweet. Eerily sweet. "Were I to back away from the edge of tomorrow, I would hardly be worthy of kingship."
Zinzolin laughed at this verbal dressing. "Are you a king, or a sage?"
Ghetsis' eye was pried from the clouds beyond, gazing into Zinzolin's own. "Among the ranks of the oldest, greatest kings, dear Zinzolin, there walked a sage. In communion with the forces from beyond, he received a key—five tomes of forbidden knowledge—that he used to build a kingdom which saw two centuries of prosperity."
Silence thickened the air.
"The graveyard where that empire lies is the foundation of this land we call Unova. For before the founding, or even the descent of the Original Dragon… It was a war of titans that entombed the sage's reign."
Zinzolin's face remained a sculpture of ice, leading Ghetsis to smile.
"Such is the nature of wisdom beyond tomes. That sage is the one man in human history… who conquered death."
"... And what about the here and now?" His playful tone nary wavered as his head tilted. "That scientist was our greatest shot at dealing with your bastard son, wasn't he? Seeing as he isn't with us, I can only assume he spit in our faces and told us to beat it."
The two men were at that moment linking wavelengths beyond pretences, and Zinzolin's speech was like frosted fog.
"N and his legendary dragon, they remain a huge problem."
"… A problem, you say? Don't overstate his ability. I raised that boy up from nothing, and I broke him right back down… to nothing." A palpable vitriol intoned his voice, and as Ghetsis strode towards his quarters, he allowed his words to linger. "Colress' compliance was never a factor. Rest assured… N will die a dog's death amid a tomb of crystals."
An abominable roar quaked the suspended caverns, dislodging crystalline stalactites into free fall. They were no different from guillotines, and N was forced into a retreat towards the abyss, lest he be skewered. Haxorus whipped its tail about to shatter the magnetized rock, landing in front of Colress, who looked upon an N covered in dust and grime, whose back foot was at the edge of the void below.
"You asked before, didn't you? About who sent me?" Colress hummed. "The fact that you think I am one to be controlled is rather offensive."
In the lens of his spectacles, his tablet reflected data that was going positively haywire. Diagnostic information about the surroundings, geiger counts, electromagnetic waves, they all mingled into a dataset so complex, nothing short of a specialised computer could hope to process it. And yet, here was this man, accused of being hollow, gleefully computing it all.
Irony's taste was a sweet cruelty upon man.
"Tell me, your majesty, did you think I was one of Ghetsis' lackeys?"
N's dark expression remained as stone. "You keep assigning me the same title of faux royalty… I can hardly be blamed for making a mistake."
The sweat drops trailing down N's body were reflective of the sparks that charged the air around them. Colress simply scoffed at his words.
"You've continually played defense despite that flawed premise. Whatever could you have in mind?" Then, something seemed to click in Colress' face. "Don't tell me… You want me to end you? Did that decayed relic really take you for that much of a ride at the League?"
"… I would not put such a burden on your soul."
"Please, you don't get to talk like that after refusing to call forth a single pokémon. Your little cult may have brainwashed the poor fools across Unova, but you'll need a more than low-ground pontification to get through to me."
He couldn't help but notice N's fixation upon the abyssal form of Haxorus. At first sight, it was all too normal to view this strangely coloured pokémon with curiosity, but this was Natural Harmonia. Discerning his warped mind from a mere first sight was, however, a folly uncharacteristic of Colress.
"I see… You're afraid of calling forth wild pokémon." He smiled. "It boggles your mind that these creatures you thought you knew are capable of such alien 'language'! Well, my friend, allow me to enlighten you on the valuable data I gathered."
Colress stopped his pokémon from attacking, revelling in this tear-down of his philosophical enemy.
"Pokémon are not human beings, despite whatever theories you may have. They did not evolve to develop 'language' like us human beings… No, they evolved in a different fashion." An artful gesture over his tablet brought forth holographic display screens. "Pokémon, within their very DNA, emit an energy on a spectrum inaccessible to other creatures. Their auditory cues are a farcical remnant of a more savage age—interspecies communication is nothing but tapping into this wavelength of power. The very same wavelength is rationalized by less qualified men as a 'bond'."
"You'd reduce a bond to some data on a screen?"
"No, no," Colress sneered. "What I'm doing is interpreting data. It's the same thing you do when classing this phenomenon as a 'bond'. A gross oversimplification that leads to gaps in your logic."
"You're making a mistake…" N's face soured. "The same kind of mistake I made in the past. Reality isn't as simple as a single perspective."
"And yet," Colress retorted. "My perspective has prevailed in this situation."
It had been a strange stint of Haxorus obediently standing by. N looked troubled by the way this exchange had gone; something deep within him had clearly been shaken. Colress relished in this very fact. There was no answer this legendary trainer had for him… other than projection.
"You've lost the debate, so why don't you call it out? I know it's there."
N hesitated, but eventually, he loosened his body, leading Colress' face to grow manic from excitement.
"Yes! Stand ready, Haxorus! We're about to see just how far you can go!"
As N's body plummeted backwards into the deep black beyond the precipice, Haxorus let out a defiant battlecry, cloaking its entire body in crimson draconic aura. The deep black itself then shivered, as sparks danced across Chargestone Cave. New Moon could nary compare to the darkness endemic to the gargantuan dragon's scales. It was as though N stood upon the night itself, rising from the abyss atop a titan with blood-like eyes.
Colress' tablet shorted out in his hand, and he threw the device away to brace himself. "Come on, N! Your 'bond' against my science! Let's see who comes out on top!"
Zekrom cast a menacing shadow, and the generator within its tail began to scream from activation. Azure lightning tore through the air and unleashed a torrent of ionizing charges. In response, Haxorus grinned with warlike bloodlust in its eyes. The raw power unleashed by the legendary dragon seemed to sharpen the blades upon its jaw.
Atop his mount, N cast his hand forth. "Fusion Bolt."
"Don't back down!" Colress was invigorated. "Use Outrage!"
The clash between the two was cataclysmic, and even N looked horrified at Haxorus' raw, unbridled power.
"Wh-What—"
SH—WING!
Haxorus' axe jaw swiped through their grinding energies, and it drew Zekrom's blood through a nick upon the wrist… before getting blasted back into the wall.
When the explosion of dust cleared, Colress remained unharmed, though the section of the cave he had stood upon was all but vapourised. Eerie beeping noises broke the cavern's monotony, as the spinning gears of Klinklang kept both itself and its trainer afloat. From behind him, Beheeyem emerged, allowing the dust to finally flow in normalcy. Its psychic powers had distorted the fabric of spacetime to form a localized barrier.
Colress' pokéball sent forth its retrieval ray to catch Haxorus before it fell into the abyss, and the scientist himself looked on in grim excitement. His opponent had made a deft escape into the distant void.
"Let today be marked, Beheeyem, Klinklang… as the day we sank our fangs into a deity." His head tilted, and his spectacles shone. "How much longer will those delusions of grandeur last him, I wonder."
A/N: So long story short, I got into the Moot Court Society, and was a researcher at a competition representing our University. The last few months have been me drowning in law databases for commentaries and case precedent because our problem happened to be procedural af. This on top of brutal assignment deadlines left me next to no time to write.
I'm also sad to announce that this will likely be the last interlude, and you won't get the next arc until I get time to sit and write it out. With how things are going in University, the only promise I can make is that this will come out some time in the future.
I also wanted to get you guys' opinions on something—what do you think of me editing earlier segments of this story? I'd originally refrained completely from doing it, since I wanted this story to be a sort of journey log for my own growth as a writer, but some of the earlier sections come off as borderline unreadable (to me at least) compared to the later sections. Would you guys want me to preserve the rough nature of the earlier sections of the story, or would you be okay with edits?
With that out of the way, I guess this is goodbye for a while. Please note that I am readily contactable on discord. Tag's Ace#4566, so feel free to shoot me requests and/or DMs. I respond as soon as I can in most cases. Thanks once again for your support and constant feedback, I really appreciate both.
Until next time!
Regards,
~ Ace ️