POV: Cynthia / LOCATION: Underground Lake

"Azelf, we're here!"

My cry slices ripples across the silent lake.

Behind me, Cyrus claps his hands and begins to sing. To my stupefied look, he explains, "I'm helping you make noise."

"Why?"

"So you won't tire of hearing your own voice."

"Fuck you."

Brushing past this pasty clown, I make way along the sandy embankment. Despite being underground, this secret lake is as spacious as its counterpart in the sky. I have no trouble maintaining my breath down here.

"Azelf!" I try again.

"Yes."

A puny, elf-like creature with a blue crown pops out of the water. Its golden eyes are open wide, pupils as big as vortexes. You'd think it just robbed a bank in broad daylight.

"I was looking for you," I say.

"You are looking at me right now."

Azelf stares through my soul. Not the chatty type, I take it.

"I'm Cynthia."

"Yes."

"I'm the Bearer of the White Moonstone."

"Yes."

"Is that all you can say?"

"No."

This is going nowhere. I cut to the point.

"Since you know all about me, then you must know what I want."

"The Time Gear."

"Can I take it?"

"No. Not yet."

Azelf glances over its shoulder. No one and nothing in sight. In the heart of the lake, the Time Gear continues emitting its signature green glow.

Holy damn. Talking to Cyrus is much, much more bearable than this.

But speaking of that chalky mofo… where is he? He was standing right there, conducting a symphony with his fingers to an audience of the voices inside his head.

Incredible. When the world needed him the most, he vanished. Bastard.

The only sign of him is the Red Sunstone, tossed carelessly in the sand. It pokes up on its spikes, a literal thorn ready to happily plunge into some poor sucker's foot. Grumbling, I bend to pick it up… and notice the deep grooves on the ground. Tracks jerking here, yanking there… as if there was some brief scuffle.

When I look up, Azelf's gaze meets mine.

"Where's Cyrus?" I say warily.

Suddenly, an explosion rocks Underground Lake. Not the Unovan blockbuster type, with its flipped cars and mushroom clouds. No, this one is felt at a visceral level. As if the very fabric of reality has shattered into a million shards of glass… as if the past, present, and future all smashed together in a violent collusion.

When I crack open my eyes, the light of the Time Gear is but a dim flicker. In that powerful flash, it has expended a majority of its energy. And within that spectacular burst of light…

…was a scream. A cry of agony that scalds the lining of my heart.

But there's no one around who could've done that. Was I imagining things?

"There," says Azelf.

Then I spot him. That bushy blue head floating in the water, at the foot of the Time Gear. Once I fish him out, I shake him until those eyelids start fluttering like wet butterfly wings.

"This isn't the time to take a swim," I snap.

Cyrus looks like he was run over by a cement truck, one which backed up and ran over him a second time. His eyes are on me, but he's not seeing anything.

"Earth to spaceman! It's Cynthia!"

"Cy…?"

Then his lips stiffen. When the glaze lifts from his eyes, he bolts up and wretches himself away from me.

"Cyrus, what…?"

His jaws collapse, and after a gasp comes a ravaged gurgling noise that could've been a scream.

"Knock it off!" I yell.

Fingernails scraping the sand, he backs away until he rams his spine into a wall. His shoulders are vibrating as if his insides have been set on fire. His mouth is ajar, an abyss of black devoid of sound.

Then a blast of psychic energy smites his skull, and he folds like tissue paper.

"Thanks?" I squeak.

Something strange happens: the blankness visibly melts from Azelf's poker face, and it pushes its paws up its cheeks as a baby would when smiling.

"Y-You are thanking me?" it gasps.

"Uh… yeah?"

"I did good?"

"Sure."

Azelf hides behind its fan-like tails.

"Take the Time Gear! Go, go!"

What the hell is going on? Nonetheless, I sling this bag of bones over my shoulder. Hurrying down the bridge of sand, I approach the pedestal and swipe the Time Gear.

At once, Underground Lake darkens. Time to get the fuck out.

"He's still sleeping?" Jupiter says.

The flight back from Northern Desert spanned in dead silence. When we returned to the Old Chateau, Cyrus went straight to his bedroom, crawled into his bed, and hasn't left since.

"He was acting weird," I say. Weirder than usual.

Jupiter sighs. "I should've gotten him that hat. The heat must've messed with his head."

"You think he got heatstroke?"

"He got something in that dessert."

Sitting at his bedside, she peels the blankets back to find him curled up like a Scolipede, his arms over his eyes. He's all ready to climb back into the womb.

"Cyrus?" she says softly.

No reaction. Not even a twitch of the muscle.

"He's dead to the world," Volkner says from the hallway.

"Volks," says Flint. "Be nice."

"I used my thermal imaging gun on him, and it showed that his body didn't emit any heat. He's a zombie, I tell you!"

An apologetic Flint pulls him out.

Shaking her head, Jupiter returns her attention to her former boss, lightly caressing her fingers above his colorless, cracked lips.

"How can someone be alive but have no heartbeat?" she mumbles.

Unable to supply a proper answer, I leave her for some fresh air. Uxie joins me in the garden.

"Congratulations."

"Azelf told you?"

"Azelf won't stop talking about it."

"Why do you sound so annoyed?"

"Because that was all Azelf could talk about. 'I helped Lucrecia!' 'Lucrecia said I did good!'"

"It's Cynthia."

"When Azelf gets excited, which hasn't been the case since Mesprit accidentally turned an entire human civilization into emotionless husks eons ago, names don't really matter. I am perplexed as to the machinations inside his head."

Then Uxie's mood lightens.

"You now have four Time Gears in your possession. I assume you've found a place to store them?"

"Looker and I scoped out a good hiding place in the Old Chateau. It's safest here, ironically enough." Too many unknown dangers await us outside this timeless forest.

"Excellent. Now, when you meet Mesprit—"

"Whoa, whoa! We just got back, and Cyrus is still out for the count."

Uxie throws up its paws. "Even glass is more durable than that soul! Is it set on hindering progress at every chance it gets?"

"He has a weak constitution." I mean it half-jokingly.

Speaking of which, there's something that hasn't been sitting well with me.

"His memories," I say. "Did you find a way to bring them back? Like you promised?"

"'Like I promised?' My, look at you putting words in my mouth."

"But—"

"Our top priority now is for you two to retrieve Mesprit's Time Gear. The fate of the world is at stake, Cynthia."

Geez. For someone who was so insistent on recovering Cyrus's lost memories, Uxie sure gave up on it quickly.

Maybe it's better that way? I've gotten used to this new Cyrus, and while he can be a bit… empty-headed, he's much more emotionally grounded. You know that he's genuinely grateful for everything he has.

Oh boy, look at me whishing how he can stay this way forever. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

Before I leave the Old Chateau, I check in on our spaceman friend.

A cool breeze lifts from the trees and leaks into the windowpane, scattering quavering strips of red sunlight over his face. Truly like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for someone to Wake-Up Slap the shit out of him.

"Mars and Saturn are waiting for you," I say to Jupiter, who hasn't left his bedside.

"Has he remembered anything?" she says.

"No."

"Good."

At the hallway, I freeze. Crap! The Red Sunstone! It's still in my pocket. Better return this to him before it gets lost like the White Moonstone.

But just as I place the Red Sunstone beside his pillow, it shocks me so hard that I instinctively fling it aside. My palm is bright red. As if something burned it.

"Cynthia!" Jupiter calls.

"Coming!"