This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose.
[2-2] Underworld Above
Ciel was numb. The words fell off his lips without feeling. "Cynthia and Lance are…"
"...gone," said Ujenn. She paused for a while. "First they said about it, but it happened three days ago."
"Was it about that incident in Orre?" he asked.
Ujenn shook her head but didn't elaborate. When she realized he had nothing more to say, she dragged herself to her personal cabin. Her partner kissed her on the forehead and told her she'd complete the rest of the trip. Shortly after they were back on the road, past the blockage.
Raven lied motionless on the couch between Ciel and his sister. Ciel kept his eyes on his unconscious partner as they coasted in silence. Nothing about her seemed off. Breathing and heartbeat were normal. No sores, no rashes. At first, he thought she'd encountered a nasty fever, but according to his Poké GEAR's Pokedex app, her high temperature was just the natural state of her species. His hand glided across her fur, trying to give her comfort in her catatonic state.
"Are you doing good?" Laina asked. There was a shaking hidden somewhere in her voice.
"I don't know." Ciel wanted to articulate something inspiring and profound, but there was no energy left for him to do so. "Lance is the reason I'm here. I looked up to them both, and they gave me the opportunity to keep going."
Her restless hands rubbed her thighs. "It's not gonna stop you, is it?"
He couldn't verbalize an answer. Kyoka spoke up after their short exchange once again made way for quiet.
"My wife back there is taking it pretty hard," she said. "I think most Sinnohans thought Cynthia was their crowning achievement. The fact that the greatest Trainer in the world was from Sinnoh, and that she was so entrenched in the Region's history through her research. Same with Lance. I guess it's like watching a parent die."
Parent. Ciel was struck with a sudden, urgent realization. He popped open his damaged Poké GEAR and navigated to his contacts. Brent, Crystal, Dad, Elm, Gold. He stopped on Kris. His text log was one-sided. A list of messages, one per day, asking and/or taunting him for a rematch. Yet he'd received nothing for the past few. Somehow it hadn't struck him as odd.
It rang. No answer. When he tried a second time, he got the same result, and then he slowly snapped the device shut.
He couldn't even imagine what was in her mind. Her brother too. But he wasn't going to press if she wasn't going to answer. He just promised himself he'd be there for her the next time they spoke. He was going where he was going to be a pillar for others, no matter what.
Finally, Raven began to stir. Her head lifted slowly off the couch and Ciel felt at least some of the breath he'd held finally leave him. She couldn't pull herself up, and he continued stroking her fur to calm her. Spasms blossomed beneath his palm.
"Geez, Raven, you scared me. You were out for seventeen minutes," he said.
His Pokémon tried, and failed, to stand, eventually deciding to remain in her limp state. She snarled at nothing, perhaps cursing her own inability. Whatever she reacted to completely exhausted her.
"Just rest." Ciel rubbed his index finger over her forehead, and her eyes closed once again. "We'll see a nurse once we get to Canalave."
"I'm sorry our trip started like this," said Laina.
He felt a sudden urge to hold her, so he did. Ciel reached across his partner and wrapped an arm around his sister's shoulder, leaning them together until their heads touched. She didn't say anything, but he could feel her relax a bit in his hold.
No matter what, they were still moving forward. This was their trip, and they were going to enjoy it.
But if he said it was easy to do that right now, he'd be lying.
"Thank you for everything," Ciel said. He thrust a pile of 10,000 at them. "And thank the Indigo League for me as well."
Both drivers shook their heads in unison. Ujenn said, "Keep it. The, uhh, the big man said it was his favor to ya."
"We get paid well enough anyway. You were just tagging along on a job," her wife followed up.
He shoved the coins back into his pocket. It was for Lance. He could understand that.
As he waved goodbye to his escorts, he and Laina escaped the distribution center where the caravan was unloading. The Underground access was close to the edge of the city, so they had a ways to walk to find a Pokémon Center. Ciel clutched Raven's Poké Ball despite how much she hated the displacement of stasis.
It was his first time leaving his home Region since he was a kid, and he should have been excited. A completely foreign space was the pinnacle of embodied experience. He expected, no, wanted to be tossed and turned at every corner, and he'd just fight back harder trying to brave the exotic landscape.
However, his gate to Sinnoh, Canalave, was lifeless.
A major canal bisected the city, and Ciel and his sister stood at the railing of a bridge, staring out to where the massive river filtered into the ocean. Not only did the water sparkle with untold life but a rainbow of buildings ran the banks. Most were five or six stories, maybe more, and each of their riverside walls was splattered with a maroon red or sky blue or gold. It was beautiful, and exactly what he was looking forward to.
But there was no one there. What should have been a bustling town was devoid of spirit, of energy, and the few glimpses of movement he caught on downstream streets seemed to disappear immediately as if they were hiding from something. Even on the automobile bridge, barely a few cars passed on their way to somewhere that wasn't here. And despite the sparkling river's promise, nothing jumped from the current no matter how long he looked.
The chill it dumped on the city by the infinite gray above is probably what found its way into the Underground access. He'd packed a second jacket for the colder months, but perhaps it'd be getting more use already.
His sister tugged on his arm. "Come on. We gotta get to the Center, right?"
"Uhh, yeah," he said, and let himself be dragged along.
The few other humans they found as they toured the city were barely clinging to life. He saw a lone couple sitting at an outdoor cafe. They weren't talking, nor were they eating. When Ciel tried to ask a small shop owner for directions, all she could give him were a few sad words in Sinnohan that he didn't believe were aimed at him. She didn't seem like she noticed him at all.
Laina dragged him along the unfamiliar city with standout vigor. Soon he was basically jogging to keep up with her. It seemed like she was the only living person in Canalave, because he certainly wasn't feeling very alive. They walked past a shop whose open doors emanated a fishy, seawater smell.
"Hey, Laina?" he asked.
"What?" She didn't even turn back to him to answer.
"You never even told me why you wanted to go on this trip. I thought you didn't want to be a Trainer."
His question made her stop. Ciel's momentum, however, didn't, and he smacked into her, nearly knocking her to the pavement. She turned one-eighty to throw a sour look at him.
"I don't. I don't want to spend my life on something dumb that makes Pokémon get hurt," Laina said.
"It's a lot more complicated than—"
She raised a pointed finger that shushed him up. "But more than anything I want to learn about Pokémon and people so I can score some exciting job in the League and make laws that help Pokémon be safe. And right now, I'm not learning anything."
He titled his head. What on Kibra was she on about?
"I wanna see you do your thing, you know? If you want to be super-duper famous and have all the cool stuff in the world or whatever, you can't if you're like… this," she said, motioning at him with two open hands.
Ciel hadn't noticed himself, but he was slouching a bit, and his head was hanging. His feet were a little closer together than usual. He raised his head to his sister's judgement.
"I know it's sad, but you can't let it stop you. You didn't come here because Lance Masuta sent you here. You came here because this was where you wanted to go!"
He felt his lips curl upward into a tired smile. It was a crazy decision she'd made to follow him. And in her first year in junior high, too, where she elected to do distanced education while they traveled around Sinnoh. It took an astronomical amount of convincing—whining—to finally sway their parents from "No!" to "No." to "We'll think about it." to "Absolutely not!" to "Only if Ciel promises that nothing bad happens." And he had no part in it. It was all Laina.
He had to remember that it wasn't just his adventure, but theirs. They were going to make their dreams come true somehow, someday.
He took in a breath, and as he gathered himself to respond, a brick soared narrowly past his head. It struck a window. The window shattered.
On instinct, Ciel grabbed his sister, ducked, and covered her head with both his arms. They were showered in glass. He raised his head just slightly to see a man, a hoodlum, in a hoodie and a knit cap, with another brick in his hand. Ciel snatched a capsule from his boot and Arden exploded from the materialization beam, painting the street in the glow of his inferno.
"You almost hurt my sister," Ciel said.
The man's arm was dragged down by the weight of the brick, and he took a step away from the flames. He hesitated. "I didn't mean to."
'What do you mean you didn't mean to?"
"I don't know!" he shouted back. "I just… felt like throwing something."
He took in a long breath, feeling it stretch his lungs, before letting it all out at once. Ciel roughly grabbed his sister's hand in his own, squeezed hard, and pulled her away from the glass-laden sidewalk. "Come on, Laina. Let's go."
She nodded, and they quickly left the hoodlum behind. This time it was his turn to guide them, but really, he was just trying to get away from whatever that was. An encompassing dread was all around, as if the entire city had come down with a sickness. They walked the sidewalk close to the ocean, where an armor of moored ships protected the city from the waves.
Two men walking had gotten into a fight and stood face to face with their fists balled. They were in plain view in the middle of the street, forcing a blocky car to skid to a stop. The driver stepped out and joined their quarrel, stopping a few more stray cars in their tracks.
The silent city seemed to be suddenly teeming with activity, but not the welcome kind. He and his sister hurried along, desperate to get away from whatever crazy area of the city that people were congregating in. The Pokémon Center should have been just this way. Maybe.
A smoke smell hit his nose. He turned around to recall Arden, only to find that he'd absentmindedly done so when he stormed away from the brick-thrower. The smoke felt like it was getting hotter.
"Uhh, Ciel," said Laina as she tapped his forearm.
He followed her pointing finger. Rising atop the colored buildings was a column of black smoke, and he could feel its emanating fumes coat his throat. Quickly, he jogged over to the next major street to catch a glimpse.
The largest group of people he had seen yet was congregating, as if in religious ceremony, around a fireball. Ciel saw a car melting within the flames. There must have been hundreds, and the overwhelming feeling among them was chaotic. Another soaring object crashed through a shop window. People were brawling, throwing punch after punch to whoever they could find, and splattering drops on the pavement for each hit they took in return. They were at war. With whom, he didn't know.
Law enforcement in neon vests floated at the edge of the chaotic pool, shouting orders in Sinnohan. But they too were pelted with objects and were afraid to walk too close to the gasoline fire that the rampaging citizens were keen to ignore.
Ciel saw a bright red building on the far end of the street within the sea of chaos and knew he needed to get there somehow.
A metal chime. Despite the clouds, a blinding reflection traced from his eyes, from the building's window, from the blade of a drawn knife behind him.
"Gi meg kontanter," said the man. The attacker. The criminal.
Something cold found itself against his neck. His arm fell limply to his side as he realized what was happening. He began breathing faster. His vision blurred.
"That's right. Put your little toy away, you don't need to use it," called a sickly, feminine voice.
The man rushed at them, and Ciel had no time to reach for his Poké Ball. He twisted sharply and caught the man's wrist with his opposite hand. He squeezed, hard. The man's cry of pain, and the knife falling from his grasp, was forgotten as Ciel grabbed his side, tripped him with his foot, and flipped the man brutally onto the pavement. He kicked the knife away, hoping it would slow his accelerating breath.
Laina was flat against the wall, lungs frozen. With a quick glance at her, Ciel once again grabbed Arden's Poké Ball. He leaned over the man and brandished the capsule, trying to hide how much he was shaking. "You have three seconds."
The man didn't use even one. He flipped himself up and took off, nearly tripping over himself as he did so. Ciel clenched his fist around the capsule. He was sweating, and his heart beat strong enough to share his skull with his brain. His other hand found its way to his neck, scraping at a thin scar line.
There was something wrong with this city. He looked at his sister, her face marred with a terrified expression.
"W-what's going on, Ciel?" she asked. "People are being crazy."
"I don't know, but we need to get somewhere safe. We should go back and find the caravan."
"Right," said his sister. She hugged herself to keep her splintering pieces together.
As they turned to leave, someone else arrived and planted themselves in the center of the street. An officer managing the riot ran up to him and briefed him on the situation with hitched breaths. Ciel watched the man with intrigue, wondering what exactly he was going to do, as he didn't look the part of law enforcement. He wore gray coveralls dusted with black particles and a reflective silver vest. Most strangely, a hard hat capped his head.
He drew a capsule, and in a flash, three Pokémon rose from the earth around him. Ciel didn't recognize any of them. One looked like a floating statue carved in blue stone, though its nose and brow were a bright red. The other two were walking tanks. One looked reptilian, like Hector, with distinct blue armor banding its limbs and crowning its skull, and the other was a stout creature whose shield-like head sprouted multiple tusks and spines.
The Trainer moved forward, the ground shaking with each step his creatures took. Ciel peeked to the street again and watched the immediate change.
The rioters dropped their fists and their shouts, all eyes turning to the newcomer stepping past the vague perimeter created by the vests.
For those that didn't bow immediately, the man offered an incentive. He took off his hat and swapped it for a pair of earmuffs. Then, he gave his order. "Bastiodon, Metal Sound."
If Ciel had been directly within the sound's path like they were, he was certain his eardrums would have bled. He grabbed his throbbing head as the sound of grinding metal exploded across the street. Most of the people, even those that had dropped their rampage early, were forced to their knees by the aural bombing. He heard radar in his ears when it ceased, everything muffled within rings and beeps.
"For those of you that can still hear me," he announced, speaking Unovan with a notable accent, "these are your two options. If you return to your homes immediately, you won't encounter much trouble. But if you decide to stay here, don't. Do I make myself clear?"
Clearly, he did. The crowd dispersed in seconds, leaving a street cluttered with stray bricks, pipes, trash, and remnants of a car that had started to burn down. Only a few stuck around to see the promise fulfilled and were promptly handcuffed by the vested officers now that the situation was within their control.
Ciel felt like he was in awe. The only time he had seen command of a Trainer like this was when Lance Masuta led an operation to dismantle a Rocket Syndicate complex underneath Mahogany, Johto. His father had said it succinctly. It made you feel like you could do anything.
He had stepped forward without realizing to speak with the Trainer, Laina's hand firmly in his own. His ears were still ringing. "Hey."
The man twisted to face him, his Pokémon glowered silently, and the officer beside him held his cuffs in view. Ciel put his hands up to imply no trouble.
"I'm not here to stay. I just wanted to say, err, thank you. I needed to get to the Pokémon Center," said Ciel.
"Yeah. Get to where you're going." The man sighed and made eyes with the pavement and recalled his Pokémon. "It'll be quiet as an abandoned mine for a little while."
"Are you a Gym Leader?"
The man searched him and his sister top to bottom, as if looking for some reason to be alarmed. He finally asked the officer to lay off the threat of cuffs. "You're not from around here."
"Just got here, actually. I'm from Johto. From Mahogany. Well, from Goldenrod, but now from Mahogany." Ciel tried his best not to bite his tongue off.
"Well, I'm Roark. Leader of Canalave and area foreman of the Underground."
Ciel felt himself light up. After everything that had happened today, he'd nearly forgotten why he was even here. But already, the opportunity arose to meet a Gym Leader. He took another excited step, only for Roark to silently cast him down.
"I can see those on your boot there, and if you're gonna ask what I think, you should know that you can't," the Gym Leader.
The smile melted off Ciel's face. He asked, "What?"
"All Gyms are currently suspended. I can't take challengers even if I wanted to. Most of us are preparing to be called up to the Pokémon League for something that—well, I wasn't even supposed to share that much, but you get the idea."
"He came all this way for the Gyms. When will they open?" It was Laina who spoke up, asking a question that Ciel would probably have been hesitant to press.
"Look, I know you've got big dreams and all and you want to be tough, but right now, we have bigger things to worry about. Just look what happened here." Roark pointed to the ruined street and the memory of the mayhem. "This happened because we broke the news. We didn't know how people would react, and this is way worse than we imagined."
Roark said something in Sinnohan to the officer, who joined his comrades in addressing the street. The Gym Leader turned away from Ciel.
"The most you could do is request the League directly, but I can't guarantee results. Sorry, man."
Roark left him to ruminate, and disappeared somewhere down the street, no doubt the direction of his Gym. He left Ciel a silent mess, wishing to ask so many more questions but knowing it was pointless to let them free. Instead, he turned back to the street, and to the Pokémon Center shining like a beacon at the end. The burning car had been reduced to just a pile of molten scrap coughing wisps. It looked sad.
Arden's capsule was still glued to his hand and hadn't left since the man with the knife approached them. He held it out to the ruins.
"You're right, Laina," he said.
Her hand hadn't left his grip, and she looked up at him with scared eyes.
"I can't let this get to me. I didn't come all this way just to be stopped by something like this." He held her hand a little tighter, the firmness ironically making her decompress. The gentle splashing waves, the calm sky, it was all the welcome voyage he had been hoping for if he could just look past what was blocking his view. "Future me would be able to fix this. I need to become my future me, for you and for everyone.
"What do we do first?" she asked.
He'd been frowning all afternoon, but he parted his lips to let his teeth show. "I'm going to go right to the Pokémon League. It's in my hands to be famous."
His Pokémon and his family were with him. The friends he left in Johto were together apart, and no doubt cheering him on every step of the way. Ciel had everything he needed if he could convince himself to take it.
And whether today or tomorrow, he would take it.
One element of this story is that I'm primarily styling Sinnoh's geography and architecture after Norway. Though Hokkaido is cool, I wanted to make this seem like more of a global jump and move away from the Japanese style in Johto. I can't guarantee how accurate translations will be, unfortunately, so I'll try to keep it within the limits of useful resources (simple sentences) so as not to break immersion for native speakers if I try (and fail) something more complicated. If any fluent Norwegian speakers want to rat me out, please do so.
Come back later for for the beginning of Volume 3, in Part 1: Ship Without Captain. See you someday.