This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.
[5-1] Stand
A cadaver slept in Kris's bed.
Its arm hung limp over the precipice. A chill grasped the body and crushed its muscles, starting at the toes and fingers and climbing the veins like a virus venturing from its transmission wound. It had seeped through the window glass, permeated about the floor, and slithered up the thick, wooden bed frame until it located its host.
The room slept in cardboard boxes. The walls, though garnished with decorative molding from its ages as a castle, were barren, and the bookshelves framing both the headboard and foot of the canopy bed were empty. Dust veiled the wood's deep color.
The body peeled itself mechanically from the stone bedding. She dangled her legs off the bed, hands on her knees and her weak breaths crystalized in the air. She was moving, but she wasn't living.
She stumbled from the bed on stiff legs and approached the tall, arched window. The white light streaming in revealed the swarms of dust winding about the room. The wall clock—one of few things she already fished from the boxes—was broken. The hour hand ticked in vain, never advancing despite each step it took, so the only real time it told was that it was fourteen minutes of something.
A city hid behind the fogged glass and within a pale tundra. She could only make out a few towers within the expanse. An even deeper chill seized her, and she pulled the curtains closed to guard what warmth remained.
A real cadaver might have decomposed in the time it took to clothe herself. Rather than turning on the lights, she fumbled around the room and the assorted baggage until her entire body was draped in something or other. Then she slipped out the door into the commons of the suite.
It was too bright. She waved a few lamps off on the way to the couch. There wasn't much of a reason to sit there, as there wasn't anything important on schedule. The day was free. Leaning back against the hard leather cushions, she found the remote and clicked on the display. To see what the world was thinking, she told herself.
The first image she saw was herself, looking very much more alive.
"Welcome back to A Trainer's Day! Today's special focuses on two Trainers who captured the attention and emotions of many, the children of the late Cynthia and Lance Masuta," said a well-dressed and well-endowed woman into a microphone. She sat with one leg over the other and her hands gently in her lap. "According to your knowledge, Roxi, this is the longest stretch of time Christine Masuta hasn't made a public appearance. Is that right?"
Saber took her place on the screen behind them. The other head, a similarly bourgeois woman, said, "That's right, Kinsey. Not at college, or at the League buildings, or in any competitions. However, her brother has stepped up, and recently appeared in a Sinnoh League Audience to the amazement of its participants."
"It's most likely she's taking time for herself, right?" asked Kinsey.
"Most likely. We believe it's best to let her have space. I completely understand, after all that's happened. Though, her fans out there have sent in tons of support to our show and are wondering when she'll be able to—" The woman was cut off by something offscreen. She coughed and collected. "A-anyway, we're wishing her the best. The world can certainly wait for its biggest stars."
Kinsey seemed to get fired up as the graphics of the show shifted. The banners became jagged, primary colors, announcing hot news. "Let's follow up on the Sebastian Masuta story. It seems like Saber is back in the saddle for the time being. Roxi, what do you expect of—"
Kris pressed hard on the channel button, and once the screen flashed, she slipped off the back panel, dumped the batteries on the floor, and cast it aside. She laid her head on the couch, cushioned by her arms, and lifted her feet off the cold floor again.
The cadaver closed its eyes, wondering why it woke in the first place.
"—incident was stopped by a foreigner from Johto, reportedly on his way to the Pokémon League. He gave these comments after touching down in Hearthome City."
Her eyes struggled to keep out the light, but the voice on the TV drew her back from the dead. Kris raised her neck slightly, seeing the image at an imperfect angle that was worse than the actual cinematography. The viewport was buried behind dozens of other reporters clamoring for attention as the person spoke.
A head of blond hair jutted from within the crowd, and green flashed between the wall of shoulders. And that voice.
Kris raised herself up, supported on her straining elbow. Her bangs fell around her eyes.
She asked herself, "Ciel?"
As he approached the Sinnoh League, it shrank. He almost felt like he would never reach it, like it was retreating over the horizon each meter closer he moved. His boot eventually found the first stair of the massive forecourt, yet the building at the top seemed the same size it had been when he first witnessed it from the city below the waterfall. He could still hear the crashing flow behind him.
Snow tumbled down the steps as he ascended to the gates of a sad heaven. After seeing Lance's majesty in person, rising like an ancient monolith over the tiny planet, he expected League branches to be grander monuments. Was the Sinnoh League really so… dispiriting?
"I w-wanna," started Laina, heaving, "I wanna stop."
He was halfway up the covered staircase when she said this. Accepting without another thought, he kicked some snow to the side and planted himself down, not even caring how icy and wet it felt under him. He rested his head in his hands.
His sister didn't even bother clearing a spot and slammed her rear down in the snow. "I usually gotta pout more before you do things."
"I'm tense and I need to relax, I think." He cupped a heavy, clouded breath in his palms. "I don't even know what happened yesterday."
"You, umm, stopped a bad guy," she said.
"But I barely know why I did it. I barely even remember doing it, it was just so… I don't know." His heart was racing, and hadn't stopped since the flight, not helped by the call he made home to attempt to explain himself. His mother had not taken it well. Laina stirred snow into the air by kicking her feet back and forth off the steps. "You're surprisingly okay with this. Aren't you scared?"
"Nuh-uh. I'm not scared at all," she said, refusing to meet his eye.
Ciel's lips curled, then he pulled a notebook from his bag. He twirled a pencil between his fingers only to fail to match the graceful movement with his actual handwriting. Smudged scrapings explored the page from their gate at the top right corner. For some reason, he felt like writing in Johtoan. He hadn't done so in a while, and he could feel the unsteadiness in his rusted hand, but eventually his strokes blanketed the page. He held it up to his sister.
"Can you read what this says?" he asked.
She narrowed her eyes at it and tried to repeat it in the same language. "'I'—no, 'we… found the'… I guess that'd be 'Pokémon League'. And then, 'plan to… talk at, no, about…' what's this one?"
"It's 'Gym Challenge'," he said.
"What writing is that?"
"Different script. It's a loan word."
"Agh! This is so hard. This language sucks," she said, clenching her fist. Despite her words, she snatched the notebook from him to focus on it more intensely. She whispered it to herself, confident to conquer the task laid out for her. "'Snow'… something something 'together on' and then, oh! That's the date. 'Sunday, September 11th.' Then… 'Laina is a… dumb…'"
Her eyes snapped to him. Before he could bust out in laughter, the notebook soared and printed its shape on his cheek, then found a home in a mound of snow. Ciel chuckled as he rubbed his face.
"Definitely worth it," he said. Her face was turned red to match her already rosy nose and ears. It was like that Unovan Pokémon. What was it? Throh?
Her teeth, despite her efforts, shined through the furious mask. He flashed his own, infectious enough to mold her rosy cheeks into a full-blown smile. Goodness, he loved to see her smile.
It wasn't just anybody's smile he wanted to clad with the iron of his fame—well, it was anyone he cared about. But there was one shining face that was permanently drawn on his hippocampus, and each time he saw it in reality, it etched itself deeper.
Hers was the smile he protected when they were young and haunted by a glass monster.
Hers was the smile that kept him hiking throughout Johto even after nearly drowning in his own failures.
Hers was the smile that drove his passion—and his rage—in even the most dire of circumstance.
He wished, however, that he didn't need to face that circumstance so often. When that man in Canalave had drawn a knife, it wasn't the first time he felt his life, or his sister's, in true danger.
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.
A horrible woman had appeared and held him prisoner to his own fear somewhere in the backstreets of Goldenrod. She said it was because he spoke to Cynthia about a trip he and some friends took to the Ruins of Alph, which was a dream he barely recalled. There had been someone deep in the Ruins, in a place he wasn't even sure was real, and that encounter left him with a target on his back. She had been working with the Rockets, so she said, but they hadn't found a trace of her once their organization was dismantled.
"We'll be keeping an eye on you, your parents, and even that adorable little sister of yours, just to make sure you stay in line."
Sister. The one word made his vision flash red.
Every time he thought about that day, his hand went unconsciously to his throat to dig at the mark she'd left with her blade. The memory would slip away over time, only to straighten his neck hairs every few weeks when it suddenly returned to torment him. He couldn't forget the threat against his sister, not when the woman had shown herself a second time and reinforced that she was, and maybe still is, watching.
The past few days, the memory refused to fade. It was fresh, it was ripe to swallow, and he didn't have the strength of mind to refuse even as his body fought crises in the present.
He just wanted it to vanish.
But if he forgot, she'd be in danger too.
"Hey, what's the matter?" Laina asked. Her face was right in front of him now, having crossed the distance amidst his thoughts. "If you're still down like you were in Canalave, no sir! Get a move on!"
She dragged herself to her feet and leapt up the stairs. The size of the staircase forced her to bound with her combined strength just to reach each next step. Ciel wrote a few more notes for later and then stashed the journal so he could follow her. He carved through the snow, passing her easily with his longer legs, which only spurred her into a competitive fury as they raced to the front doors of the Sinnoh League.
"We're gonna need to find whatever executive official manages the Gym Challenge," he said as he ascended higher and higher.
His sister, dedicated to racing him to apotheosis, broke into a full sprint. A snowstorm kicked up in her wake, leaving him coughing within a white cloud. When it cleared, his sister was standing at the massive wooden door that separated them from the government of the Sinnoh Region.
"No." Laina's hand was flat against the door.
"What do you mean 'no'?" he asked, trying to swallow the snow melting in his throat.
"We'll talk to the big man," she said. "The President. The Vice-guy!"
"The Viceroy," said Ciel.
"I know what I mean!"
Ciel felt a serenity overtake him. She was fired up, which, ironically, let him ground himself—or at least anchored him like a kite threatening to float away. "I'm sure you do."
"You took an opportunity with those reporters. So I'm gonna take this opportunity and see just what those big League guys are up to if I'm gonna take their jobs one day!"
Ciel met her at the door, contained within a tall, stone portico. He craned his neck up to follow the wood up to where it met the ceiling. He'd think it was imposing if a twelve-year-old hadn't stormed the gates like one-girl-army. He, too, placed his hand on the door. He chose to believe its cold wasn't creeping up his arm. They were the ones bringing warmth to a cold monument.
Together, they pushed. The Sinnoh League swallowed them whole.
Hello again! Took a bit of a hiatus to finish up some things (really the first time I've had to do a full "hiatus" aside from my breaks between stories), but I should be back for the foreseeable future. That said, I think I'll refrain from giving predicted release dates from now on because I actively failed to meet that date for all four previous chapters, and I'd much rather just give progress updates on the series page. I yearn for the days when I was writing Anew that I got some 50% to 75% of the chapters up on time.
Next time is Part 2: Walk. See you someday.