POV: Cyrus / LOCATION: Crystal Cave

I am a man of limited intellect and limitless curiosity. I always find myself tempted by what rejects me. Friendships. Familial ties. The prospect of dying a quick, painless death, preferably in my sleep, surrounded by those whom I love with all my heart.

Ever since I was a child, I have known I was to die in a fall. Or to be more precise, that I was going to fall from the sky into the sea and down from there. I would die alone, bitter and full of regrets. What legacy existed for the wicked? Then the world would move on, unperturbed by a stain in the margins of the storybook.

But not today. Today, the world will remember me as the villain who went mad resuscitating his dying dream.

The pale pink streaks of dawn salute me when I arrive at my destination. The sun will bear witness to my final stand.

Entering Crystal Cave for the third time, I am reminded of when I returned to Sunyshore after I attained my doctoral degree. Everything felt unfamiliar. No one had welcomed me home.

But the spirits here remember me. They usher me in with the excitement of a soldier boy returning home from a war that was never his to fight.

Near the field of crystallized flowers, I leave my body. The souls' forms grow sharper, acquiring substance and weight. Each one glows like a candle in a cemetery at night. Their formless hands clasp upon my own.

They are warm.

Upon returning to my body, all is cold and numb once again. I reattach a few limbs and proceed deeper in the cave, guided by the illumination of lost souls and the razor-sharp memories of a brave little soldier boy returning home.

The Crystal Puzzle awaits me in the antechamber.

I was in chains while I watched her claim all the glory in the presence of her enamored friends. She always had an audience on hand to bear witness to every. Single. Achievement. It will be them who carry on her legacy. Them who will write stories and epics for future generations to come.

Whereas I will be remembered for my shortcomings, failures, and depravity. I don't mind. A cherished hero needs a deplorable villain to highlight her best qualities.

I put my hand on the big pink crystal. Emotion is a flower, lovely, dangerous, and fragile. To preserve itself, the reddest of roses hide behind its thorns. Those who dare to approach it are skewered by its weeds.

I no longer recognize the face in my reflection. But mirrors only reflect the present. I have my sights set on the future.

My lost future.

Onward.

A curious sorrow taps my heart once I enter Crystal Lake. Nostalgia wrapped within a leaf of melancholy. In a sense, I have come home. This was where I felt the safest—

No, I digress. Nowhere is completely safe, sooner or later whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Even the most well-crafted plan will crumble before your eyes because of a silly blunder that completely slipped past your intrinsically untrusting nature.

Sitting down on the embankment, I allow myself to be lost in the wintry beauty of Crystal Lake. Crystals as pristine as snow-capped ice. Translucent water nips at my calves like timid Carvanhas. The walls breathe in chilled air and exhale a low, omnipotent rumble that sends cats' claws down one's visceral organs.

This is the perfect place to rest undisturbed. But I cannot be complacent, for there, in the heart of the lake, is the fifth and final Time Gear.

All right. Steel your heart, Cyrus. Time to finish what you've started.

"I'm home," I call out.

"Huzzuh? Who's there?"

She shoots up to the surface, her head and tails a state of disarray mainly caused by an rudely interrupted nap.

"It's me, Cyrus."

When those fluttering golden eyes find me, all traces of sleep vanish, and she clasps her paws over her mouth.

"Cyrus? Wywus?"

Smiling, I hold out my arms. Mesprit starts—and freezes.

"You… you remembered."

Uncertainly glares in her face like an interrogation light. She wants to accept my embrace, by nature, but the cold, rational logic ingrained in all living beings have encroached its way into her bleeding heart.

I wrap my arms around myself, tuck my head down, and bring my knees to my chest.

"My memories came back too fast," I whisper. "If those people know that I've remembered, they'll want my head on a silver plate. Worse, they will want to lock me up and let me rot. I don't want to be confined to a padded cell until I die. I don't want to be alone ever again, Mesprit."

"Cyrus… I… I can't…"

"You're the only one I can turn to for help, Mesprit. Please help me. Please!"

Black rot spills down my cheek. My head slides off my neck, and from this abysmal angle, I witness my decapitated torso topple over like a sack of flour.

"I'm scared," I whimper.

Two big, pearly tears spring from Mesprit's eyes. As expected, she rushes to my side.

"Hold on, Cyrus," she sobs. "Everything will be all right. I am here. I will put you back together."

And she does, with much more intent and care than Uxie ever did. Then she holds me tight. Tight enough for all her love to fill my hollow stomach, for me to lap up any and all morsel of kindness that streams out in limitless rivers from her soul.

As Mesprit whispers sweet nothingness into my torn eardrums, she threads her paws through my hair, smooth flesh caressing bruised scalp.

"I missed you, Wywus."

I return her embrace.

"Wywus, you, uh, are squeezing me an itty bitty too much. I might be an all-powerful deity, but I'm still a delicate flower!"

The smile never leaving my lips, I reach for her throat and squeeze.

"W-Wha...?" she sputters.

"You are the last obstacle standing in the way of my dream, my dearly beloved Mesprit," I say with affection, like a dutiful son.

The betrayal in her eyes taste like copper wires dipped in coagulated blood.

With a strangled screech, she summons the spirits of the sanctuary to attack me. With a flick of my wrist, the spirits of the Old Chateau flood in, countering the assault.

"Do you truly think that I came here without reinforcements? I was the leader of a terrorist cult, for crying out loud!"

Chuckling, I release my grip. Mesprit flies back, fan-like tails bristling like polished knives.

"What do you want?" she hisses, all traces of familiarity gone.

"Please allow me to take your Time Gear."

"I will never give it up to the likes of you!"

Her animosity warms my heart. "Then try and stop me!"

Growling, Mesprit sweeps a surge of her souls to my direction. I absorb my souls' corrupt energies, creating a ring of black embers which I toss into the incoming attack. Evil meets good, erupting into an explosion of multicolored glass shards.

Somewhere within the icy streams, the souls weep.

"Why won't you call for help?" I say.

"I can fix my own mistakes!" she retorts.

She called me a mistake. Well, it's nice to have it finally spat in my face.

Before I can shove my claw down her throat, a fusillade of lightning sends me staggering backwards.

"Stop, Cyruzzt!"

"I did not give you permission to leave your Poke balls," I say flatly.

Rotom defiantly stands between me and my prey.

"One," I begin.

Weavile and Gyarados escape their capsules to join Rotom.

"Two."

Honchkrow and Crobat stand beside the picket line.

"This isn't you, Cyruzzt! Snap-zzt-out of it!"

"This is your last chance to step aside."

Their answer arrives in the form of a blast of blade-sharp wind that lops my right ear right off my head.

Heh. So all that talk about loyalty was mere lip. Family do not attack each other!

"I will SLICE those traitorous tongues from your mouths!" I roar.

But the moment Weavile's claws graze my wrists, the Time Gears in my pockets burst into light. I feel their energies guzzling through my body, a million gears turning at once to power something big and frightening.

Once the green flash dies, there is a Sneasel on the ground. Unmoving.

Paralyzed by shock, I fail to evade Gyarados's Headbutt. Yet as soon as its skull touches me, the Time Gears inject themselves into my blood, and before my very eyes, my giant sea serpent regresses into a Magikarp, lying still at my feet.

"Stop!" I scream.

Honchkrow launches a spinning attack. Instinct takes over, and I raise my hands to intercept the impact. Again, within immediate contact, Honchkrow dissolves into Murkrow, also unresponsive at my heels.

Confused and rightfully terrified, I barrel past the two remaining Pokemon, scrambling to the final Time Gear. Yet, tendrils of ghastly green light spray out from the pores on my arm, wrap around the Pokemon, and strangle them. As their energies flow into me, they de-evolve. In a heartbeat of time, I watch my Crobat shrink to a Golbat, then to a Zubat, with its head lolled over. Rotom loses its electrical properties, dulling like a powered-down robot.

"What in the world?" Mesprit mumbles.

"Don't come near me!" I shriek.

Too late. The Time Gears' influence floods over Mesprit like a wave of tar. Her ancient strength pours into my soul, too fast and too suddenly, that I pass out.

And when all is said and all is done, I am left in a field of silenced, siphoned husks.

I… I stole their time. With these two monstrous hands, I killed them.

I want to throw up.

I need my acetaminophen tablets. I need my grandfather.

My knees buckle. I crawl over to my motionless Pokemon, but I cannot bring myself to scoop them up to my bosom. To assure myself that their hearts are still beating, no matter how faint the sound. If I touch them, I will hurt them even more.

A long, shrill scream rips through Crystal Cave, a cry too animalistic to have been uttered from a human throat. Rot clogs my eyes, my nostrils, every orifice on my head, yet it does not dampen this reverberating scream which fills one's heart with terror.

Cyrus, you have truly become a monster.

No! I-I didn't mean to hurt them—

Hypocrite. Look at what you've done. A monster like you must be put down. And who else is more deserving of that noble feat?

My tears give way to a giggle that skitters out of my stomach to my throat and out my eyeballs. Soon I am howling with laughter, the kind that feels like sandpaper grinding against tongue. Just bones knocking together without any meat to cushion the clamor.

What is so funny? Why the hell can't I stop?

At once, a sharp numbness stabs my hip. The Red Sunstone is ablaze.

Finally. She is here.

Sucking in a wet, glutinous breath, I rise. Scrape the loose hair out of my eyes. Smooth my crumpled pyjamas. I keep my gaze straight as I step over these time-drained corpses.

I must prepare for your arrival, Cynthia. This lake will be a nexus of our destinies, where the victor will decide whose dreams and futures will be worth saving… and whose will be mercilessly annihilated.