This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose.

[3-2] Disputed Inheritance

Saber and Mr. Redwood ascended the grand staircase and graced the Sinnoh League with their presence. Elegant, outdated decor transitioned into a dark, electronic grand hall. It wasn't just quiet today; it was nearly vacant. A few solemn employees held down the reception counters on the main floor, and maintenance staff clogged the elevator system leading to the Elite Four gauntlet, but otherwise, their only company was the static hum of the green light panels racing down the center of the floor.

The agent led him past the reception desk, where they returned to the past. A massive hall, lined with heavy wooden doors to every corner of the castle, drew them forward. They strolled a carpet beneath stained glass windows, passing a few League employees with their heads down.

Saber couldn't help but stare up at the frosted glass. Outside light was out of his reach. The Viceroy's order was that he and his sister were indefinitely interred—detained—in the Sinnoh League until the higher-ups determined there was no suitable threat against them. However, there was little, if any, existing evidence to point them in the direction of his parents' killers. If they had nothing to find, nothing would change, and that meant they were imprisoned.

The agent turned under a massive archway and pushed open a pair of heavy wooden doors. They creaked open to reveal a wide venue—what may once have been a ballroom, though it was probably "converted" into a storage room once the cardboard boxes and strewn papers started to pile up. Clouds of dust twirled as the doors dragged through the carpet. Saber surveyed a few people rifling through the boxes and leafing through papers.

"I've arrived," announced Saber to the room.

The heads inside snapped to him, but all of them returned to their work except for the person directly in front of him. He was a lanky man in a sweater vest and tie, wearing worn and dusty boots. His face lit up.

"Ah, Sebastian Masuta! It's pleasurable to meet again!" Dr. Cassius approached him, reached forward, and took Saber's hand in his own. A heavy accent on his tongue tripped his words on the way out. "Doing well?"

"I'm standing as tall as I need to," he said.

The man's expression seemed to darken. He dropped Saber's hand. "Ah, correct. That's very good for you. I've been in work, so I haven't felt the situation yet."

Saber eyed him curiously. He was handling stacks and stacks of documents, many stamped with an official seal of the Pokémon League indicating that they were part of an archived collection.

"You must be being given inheritance from the Pokémon League, yes?'

"Erm, of course. I was granted both my parents' Pokémon to decide with them as I saw fit," said Saber.

The man nodded as he followed his words. He said, "I will give some things too. Here is this. And this. And this."

Dr. Cassius flipped through his inventory and began thrusting things at him. Saber was quickly overwhelmed by the man's excited work. He couldn't even manage to read the full title of an article before another was added to his collection.

Saber, fed up, snatched one from within and held the remainder under his arm. The Untouchables: Godly Perspectives on Legendary Pokémon Statues and the Fantasies of Ancient Settlers. He eyed it curiously, and his gaze drifted to the two co-authors. Cynthia A. Masuta and Albert G. Cassius.

"Wait, not this!" Dr. Cassius exclaimed, snatching the paper back from him. "That was my mistake. There is no organization. Anything about Legendary Pokémon will belong to me."

Confused as he was, Saber let the man string him along. It was enough to get his mind elsewhere and allow him a period of recharge. "That's your line of work, isn't it?"

"Ah, yes! Legendary Pokémon are fascinating histories, and I've studied for, oh, two-tens years. Do you… tilbe? No, wrong word. Forstår?

He was stumbling, so Saber shifted gears in his head. He spun his next words in elegant Sinnohan. "Is this easier for you?"

"Yes, yes, that's much better. Thank you." The man cleared his throat, speaking much more comfortably in his native tongue. Dr. Cassius pushed himself into Saber's face. "Do you believe in Legendary Pokémon?"

"I, uhh… I can't say that I'm certain. Fifty percent?" offered Saber.

He was notably taller than the man, so he had to look down at his pleading eyes. Dr. Cassius was insistent and wouldn't back away.

"...yes?" Saber offered.

The man lit up with a smile and returned to his sorting through the articles. "It's fine if you don't really believe. Your mother and I used to get into arguments about it. Most aren't willing, but dear to my heart is the idea that there are great forces out there we could one day discover. Or rediscover, if some myths are to be believed."

"Might I ask what the articles are for, Dr. Cassius?" asked Saber.

"As I said, they're yours," he said. "Unfinished papers, research notes and methods, essentially anything that she never published or presented to committee. Do with them whatever you will. Almost everything she, or the two of us, wrote on the Unown Language is in there. You're a linguist, aren't you?"

"I am, but—"

The man cut him off. "Well, see what you might make of it! She used to be incessant on it before she suddenly switched gears from ancient myths to oh-so more accessible middle-age folklore. Truly, a tragedy."

"Is this all you care about?"

Dr. Cassius looked up from his material with a cross glare. It flattened quickly, but the accusation seemed to rattle him. "How do you mean?"

"Your work. She was your partner, but do you only care about the work you did?" asked Saber. His mouth charged onward without him, but he couldn't deny that his question was genuine.

Dr. Cassius nodded to himself, at first not saying anything. He bowed his head. "I'm a researcher. When you take that profession, you realize that your work must be far more important than you ever were. She wanted her work to be her legacy, and I'm sure she would have wanted you to carry it on."

"You don't know what she would have wanted," said Saber, but he clamped his mouth shut immediately when he understood his own callousness. "I apologize. That was uncalled for."

The man took upon himself a soft smile. "No, you're right. I shouldn't speak for the dead, only for the future I want to make possible. So, it's your choice."

Dr. Cassius offered him two more items. One he recognized instantly, a gigantic leather-backed book with a faded blur on the cover and frayed bindings inside. Her personal notebook. She'd carried it around with her for years, scratching whatever came to mind about whatever attacked her mind. The other was a small, unlabeled black box. It felt abnormally heavy in his hand.

"Just know that I wasn't one the one who elected to give you these," said Dr. Cassius. "It's in your mother's will."

Saber eyes widened. Her will?

The man couldn't offer an immediate answer. "I'm as surprised as you. The last we discussed, I was the sole inheritor of her materials."

Saber looked down at the treasures, which felt so heavy by themselves that he struggled not to drop everything he was holding. They had never discussed what exactly he and his sisters' inheritance was, aside from him being the emergency guardian of their Pokémon, and it's not like he was intent on pursuing the same academic path as his mother. He couldn't fathom why she'd want to pass him so many specific papers.

He looked at more of the article titles in his arms. Solaceon Cave Drawings. The Illusory Origins of the Spear Pillar. Faith and Dreams: How Ancient Sinnohans Imagined the Afterlife. He clenched his eyes shut so he didn't have to look at them. He had no right to have them. They were hers.

Dr. Cassius, with a satisfied huff, stepped past him towards another collection of boxes. However, before he could continue his frantic exchange, thunderous footsteps invaded the storage hall. Saber titled his head to the doorway, where the light was completely blocked by men in regal uniform. They were armed and armored. They were the International Police.

Beside him, the bushy agent took a statuesque salute. Saber could only observe as the agents approached their target in practiced formation. Dr. Cassius gently placed down what he was holding.

"Am I necessary, gentlemen?" he asked in his dented Unovan.

One man stepped past them. Unlike the others, he didn't wear a tactical vest nor did a firearm guard his hip. Instead, the pockets of his brown trench coat were stuffed with manilla folders and his bangs hung horizontally off his head. "Yes! I am an officer of the International Police. Your presence, it is requested for questioning."

Cassius offered himself graciously. The agents spun on their feet, kicked their heels together, and mobilized once again. The man called back to Saber, once more in his native language.

"I'll summon you again when I find other things that belong to you. You should visit the League clerk to confirm any other inheritances anyway," he said.

The other workers joined Saber as witnesses, watching until Dr. Cassius and the International Police vanished to parts unknown. His own agent didn't feel safe enough to drop his salute until long after they had left.

Saber looked down at the treasures he was given, his eyes focusing on that small black box. A voice within him told him not to open it. Not yet. With the assigned agent in tow, he hurried from the room with his mother in his arms.

It was all he had left.

Saber towered over the heavy door with the armful of documents still in his arms. The frozen wood chilled his powerful knock. When there came no answer, he waited, and waited, and waited.

His arm fell to his side, and he witnessed the seemingly condemned suite around them. Though they both moved in permanently, it felt like no one lived there at all. The open kitchen begged for dishes, and the game console sitting under the expensive television was iced with dust. The curtains remained closed over the panel windows, and evening darkness beat back what little the light fixtures could provide. Frost clawed at the edges of the glass.

He was prepared to knock again when he barely registered his sister's soft mumble through the door. The voice vanished, and he prepared one last agitated knock, only for a clear word to pass through.

"What?" she asked. It was a whisper, but undoubtedly closer than before. She was standing on the opposite side.

"I… wanted to check on you! Are you feeling well?"

Saber tried to imagine her inside. Shivering, staring at the frozen barrier in front of her. She never reached to open it but he held a smile in case she ever wished to see it.

She said, "I'm okay."

"Do you want any help unpacking? I'm still not finished, so I assumed you weren't either," he said.

"No," she replied quickly. Then, far less quickly, she said, "I was just doing it."

Saber looked down at the floor. The crack beneath the door was dark and had probably been dark for a while. "Well, I'm always around. You can always request my help."

"Dr. Cassius came looking for you." She ignored his extended branch.

"I already met with him."

"That's cool."

"He gave me a few things owned by our mother. If you wanted, we could look through them together," said Saber. He'd already given her their mother's Pokémon as well, electing that she was more familiar with them on a personal level. Whether or not she'd released them yet was unknown to him.

"No," said Kris. "I think I'll pass."

He hated how she sounded. It was so unlike herself, dry and unenthused. If he were to open that door, would he see a face he could recognize? His hand found itself on the door handle, gripping tightly, and he began to twist. Saber stared at his shaking hand as it cranked downward until it stopped. All he had to do was push.

Saber let the handle free and it swung back upright. He said, "Okay, just know that I'm here. Not that I'll be going anywhere."

She didn't verbally recognize his offer, and he knew that was all he could get. It wasn't the first time he attempted to talk since it happened.

Saber stepped through the darkened suite to take his position on the couch, where he spilled his mother's gifts across the coffee table like a dealt hand. He pinned his elbows to the table's surface and held his head in his hands. As he rubbed his forehead, he saw the documents in the gaps between his fingers.

His Pokétch buzzed with the alarm he'd set. Regardless of the company he offered his sister, he didn't actually have time to look through them at the moment.

The door swung open behind him. It was the agent, who had taken up post outside alongside his comrade assigned to Kris. "Hey, it's about time."

"I told you I don't need a reminder," said Saber. He pushed off the couch and stumbled to his room on the other side of the suite.

The walls were matte black, and all the furniture was a similarly colored expensive wood. A neat stack of unpacked boxes lied in the corner that he'd scheduled to get to tomorrow. For the time being, however, he eyed his best suit hanging on a temporary clothing rack.

He'd sent out for dry-cleaning and had rehearsed his lines. This was potentially the most important meeting of his life, and one that would decide the future of the Sinnoh Region.

Today, he was going to be a leader.

I actually love the scene of Saber and Kris standing on the opposite sides of the door. I think it has just the right amount of awkward tension to it to feel very emotional for both sides. In general, this volume has some peak lines that I'm a fan of, so it was really enjoyable to write it.

Volume 3, Part 3 is Heir to the Throne, and I'll see you there someday.