Chapter Seventy Seven: Falling

Alaska wasn't quite sure how they made it out of the city. She had been distracted, unfocussed, her mind having gone blind in her confusion. Fuchsia had disappeared, replaced by images of Darwin, Venusaur, Leaf, Viridian City, Gideon and Janine, all flashing across her eyes at once. She had ended up stumbling alongside Sandy, barely able to stand.

Several hours had passed since they'd left the gym. She still felt dizzy, and her thoughts were yet to quiet down, but she was calm. Sitting in a wicker chair gazing across what was surely the most beautiful place in Kanto, Alaska was able to let go, relax and think.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine… for now. You?" If anyone walked onto Diancie Meadows and saw the two of them, they might assume Sandy was the one suffering. The blonde had draped herself across a swinging seat that had seen better days, and had spent several hours now rocking slowly back and forth as the wind blew in from the sea.

"I've had better days. I was really wanting to try that sushi place."

"You could always ask Bertram to order some. They probably deliver for people like him." Sandy murmured something in response, and Alaska left the conversation there, knowing that whatever was troubling her friend, it wasn't sushi.

"More iced tea, my darlings?" As though his ears were burning, Bertram Henry swooped out of the back door, accompanied by a whooshing sound that seemed to accompany him everywhere he went. Alaska wasn't sure why, but she put it down to his clothes: bright blue pants, lemon yellow shirt adorned with an orange polka dot scarf, Alaska finally understood what people meant by a 'loud outfit'.

"Why not?" Bertram delicately poured the light orange liquid into her glass from the ridiculously large jug in his hands. Alaska could feel him watching her silently as the liquid cascaded between them, his lips pursed as he looked her up and down. She wasn't sure if he judging her expression, her clothes or just her herself, but Alaska felt uncomfortable to have this stranger, as kind as he was, gazing down at her.

"Now, will you two be staying for dinner?" He asked as he finished, walking across to top up Sandy's half empty glass. A slight rattle followed him, and Alaska found the dyed green tail of a Furfrou in her face as Bertram's companion followed loyally after him. "I was just planning on throwing together a potato salad for myself, but since I've got guests might as well make something bigger!" He let out a high giggle that had an air of falseness to it; though he had been nothing but warm and hospitable since they'd arrived, Alaska knew the wealthy breeder was a bit put out by their unannounced arrival.

Alaska had completely forgotten about Looker's suggestion to stay there. It had been Sandy who had filed the address away in her mind, it had been Sandy who had dragged her friend like a confused drunk through the streets of Fuchsia. If it had been Alaska's decision, she probably would have broken into one of those abandoned houses and slumped into some dark corner and let all the chaos consume her.

Instead they had ended up here: Diancie Meadows, the biggest breeding farm for Kalos Pokémon in the world. Given past experiences, staying with another wealthy person would have been Alaska's last choice, but having ended up here, she had to admit it made a pretty fine refuge.

The farmhouse was a three storey wooden building, painted a dark pink with the natural oak colour exposed at the beams. It was far back in the property, right at the top of the hill so they overlooked not only Route 15 below but the whole south-east coast. The sea looked like a mural from up here, while Fuchsia resembled a picturesque seaside town, no signs of decay and abandonment from here. She knew it sounded like a travel show cliché, but Alaska could not deny it was truly breath-taking being here.

"It really is an amazing view, isn't it?" Bertram sank himself down into the wicker chair opposite Alaska, gazing out at his property with the jug in hand.

"I am not one to blow smoke up anyone's ass, but this is easily the most beautiful place I have been to on my journey." Wide green fields drowning in flowers; golden brick driveway snaking quietly up the hill; a view you could spend your whole life staring at; this was exactly what Alaska needed. Away from Darwin, away from Leaf and Janine, away from anyone who knew them; it was simply perfect.

"Thank you Alaska, I've heard it's not easy to get a compliment from you so I shall wear that one with pride," Bertram said teasingly. His voice was rich but soft, a trace of his old Kalosi accent making his voice slightly high.

"I've worked hard to maintain these grounds, and I like to think I have done a good job. They were going to turn this into a bunch of apartment buildings when they began to revolutionise Fuchsia. Imagine this view being blocked by a bunch of carbon copied brick cubes, that street below filled with cars and shops on either side."

"More people could have appreciated this scene," Alaska pointed out. Bertram chuckled and sipped his tea, stroking the gelled green fur of his companion.

"The exclusivity of a view is what makes it so special. Not everyone can climb to the top of Mt Silver or Coronet, but when they do, they can appreciate it even more knowing that they are now part of an exclusive club. If these acres had been filled by property, this sight would just be common and meaningless. No one would appreciate this if everyone could come and see it." Alaska had to appreciate that point of view, and she stared contemplatively out to the ocean, sipping quietly on the iced tea.

"Have you seen many Kalos Pokémon before?"

"No, very few actually."

"Ah, well then, you are in for a treat when my assistant Camille brings them back from their evening walk. You will forget we are on a farm; seeing them together in this place, it's like they are roaming the wild." Bertram spoke with such magnitude that it drew Alaska in, his enchanting accent of a lost word causing her to forget everything and simply focus on him. He clearly was a storyteller, this bright little man living high above everyone else, and Alaska found him fascinating.

"What made you want to breed Pokémon?"

"It was a necessity. Someone had to," Bertram said simply, his enthusiasm dissipating slightly. "Enough about me; tell me about you, darling. I've heard such rumours and flickers of tales about you, but I never thought I would ever meet you; the Great Alaska Acevedo, in the flesh!"

"Barely." Alaska forced a smile, not wanting to be rude to her guest, but as the attention turned back to her, the heaviness of her situation returned. She saw Bertram looking at her with a look of sympathy barely disguising his obvious curiosity. "It's been a hard road getting here, that's all."

"Oh yes, of course; the stories, all you've been through, my gosh, it's like you're trapped in a book! Our tragic hero, fighting against the villains threatening to destroy our land. It's like something out of a fairy tale."

"Yeah, except it's not my story, is it?" Alaska replied bitterly. "I have no say in what's going on. I am just being led along; if this is a story, my plot's already been set out for me, I am just meant to obediently follow along and save the day."

Bertram didn't reply immediately, instead stirring his glass while gazing down at Furfrou. Alaska paused to glare back at them, thinking bitterly that she'd come across another person offering to help her but unable to stop themselves from judging her actions.

"I do hope you aren't just obediently going along. That would be dreadfully boring if you were."

"Trust me, I haven't been. I acted out at first, but that only seemed to make things worse. I tried standing up for myself, and that didn't work. I've tried making pledges to myself and vowed to change my ways, but people still don't seem to care. I've already waxed lyrical about all of this, I've had so many conversations about what I should do, what I shouldn't be doing, what I want to do, but at the end of the day, nothing seems to have changed. I'm willing to face off against Buzz and Gideon, but apparently I need to do it in the right way, I need to let go of what I want and just bend over backwards. None of them are the ones with a fucking prophecy hanging over them, none of them are the ones who actually 'have' to fight at the end of the day. Just because they've been through it before doesn't mean we're on the same level, and I just. I… FUCK!" Alaska had slammed her hand down in annoyance, completely forgetting the glass in her hand. She jumped up as iced tea splashed all over her, while shards of glass dripped onto her seat.

"Please don't smash the glassware, I'm rather fond of it," Bertram said drolly, gazing at the mess with amused annoyance. Alaska instantly felt ashamed and began picking the broken shards up, refusing to meet Sandy's eye as her face went red.

"Sorry, I shouldn't be bothering you with all this. We're guests, you aren't even involved in all this."

"No worries, my dear; I could eat up gossip all day long, and the apocalyptic variety is my favourite kind." Bertram didn't say anything as Alaska scooped up the shards and took them inside. She returned with a cloth and began to dab at the growing stain. As she sat on the deck, resting on her knees as she tried to clean up her mess, Alaska struggled to block out thoughts of Darwin. She had found herself in this position earlier; that morning, she had been staring at her own vomit; tonight, it was only a spilt drink, but either way, Alaska had had an awful day. And if I don't start getting people on my side, this won't be the last of them.

"I don't know if you want my advice, since I'm not 'even involved' in all of this, but from where I'm sitting, you've clearly been talking about the wrong things." Alaska dropped the cloth and turned to Bertram, who had not moved at all through this whole process. She wasn't sure if this man was helpful or just nosey and bored, but there was a knowing tone in his voice she couldn't ignore.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this may just be me, but you seem to be focussing a lot on the people involved, the lessons they've tried to give you. Perhaps your attention should pay more attention to other parts of this story."

"Like… the prophecy?"

"Yes, the prophecy… the trope of every heroic journey, is it not?" Bertram smirked. Alaska grimaced; first the fortune teller, then Charlotte's prophecy, it definitely felt like she was in some tragic YA novel that was overdoing its quirky hook. "There are more of them in our world than perhaps you realise. There was one about Kalos, Looker told me once."

"Really? Why didn't someone stop what happened then?" Even as the words left her mouth, Alaska knew she was being foolish. Her mind went back to something Leaf had said during their argument, about people not taking them seriously. Bertram's face lost its youthful glow once more, and suddenly the mood on the deck felt tense.

"Do you know a lot about what happened to Kalos?"

"Um… a little bit, but when they talk about that night, they tend to talk about what happened in Sevii." Alaska felt ashamed to admit it, but when she glanced back at Sandy, she saw her friend looked just as curious.

February 27th was a day of national mourning, that night was spoken about every year, but Alaska barely understood what had happened. She thinks part of the mystery. Out of nowhere, an advanced militia had appeared south of Kalos. They had attacked the region at large, and when the residents fought back, with help from their neighbours, they had all been slaughtered. It had taken the interference of the legendaries to defeat the mysterious army, but all of Kalos had been destroyed in the process and left uninhabitable.

"Typical," Bertram scoffed, and he muttered something in Kalosi to Furfrou, who growled and nodded. "Sevii had it bad, yes, but nothing like what happened to Kalos." With a dramatic sigh, he finished off his drink and placed it to one side, and then turned his gaze out to the ocean, as though looking across the horizon for his fallen homeland.

"I was 22 when it happened. I was still living at home because I had no reason to leave. My family enjoyed a high life in Kalos. Lumiose City, the City of Light; people always say it was the grandest place on earth. Sure, Castelia City is big, but it lacks elegance. Lumiose was beauty around every corner, crowded without being stifling, busy without getting tiresome. Everything about that city just worked. It was, without a doubt, perfect.

"My parents were rich; my father a bank manager, my mother had simply been born that way, I forget what her parents did. Our home was beautiful; a three storey town house, typical Lumiose style. The gym challenge had begun but it hadn't really picked up when I was a kid, so I stayed in school, went to university, but it was then I knew I wanted to do showcases. I had always been rich and knew I always would be, and performing with Pokémon was what I wanted to do instead.

"Of course, I didn't get much of a chance to live my dream. I was given a Fennekin for my birthday that year, and we had been training for a few months when the army appeared. I can't recall how we first heard about it, but the news quickly spread, and fear ran with it. Of course, being rich, my family never thought it would affect us, we trusted in the government and the army to protect us: we had Pokémon, what could possibly go wrong?

"We had dinner the night they struck. It was a few days after they had appeared. Even then, we were still pretending like everything would be alright, and the four of us, my parents, my sister and I, we mutually agreed to take part in a charade. My mother pretended it was just another family dinner, but hanging over us was the idea that it would be our last one in case everything went wrong. And, of course, it did.

"We were just about to start the main course when we heard the first explosion. It was just a bang in the distance, but we knew what that meant. Running to the top storey window, we saw smoke in the distance, not sure quite what had been hit or where it had come from. Then there was a second bang and we saw the flash, only a few streets away. That was when we realised they had planes – not like the ones we had; these were sleek, magnificent machines. Despite myself, I began to admire their beauty, and that was when the house opposite the street exploded."

As he spoke, Alaska's mind went back to all the explosions she had lived through, all the ones she had started. She thought mostly of Vermillion, the horror she had felt as the entire city began to crack apart. Even with all she had experienced, she could not imagine living through what had happened in Kalos, how effortlessly the whole region had been torn down.

"Our windows shattered, we were blinded by the light," Bertram continued quietly. "My sister was cut up by the glass, but we had no time to treat her. My mother had packed a bag or two despite her denial, and we grabbed them and simply ran outside. By then, the whole city was on fire. We knew then that the army must have failed. I only found out later just how easily they had defeated them – thousands of soldiers, thousands more Pokémon, all eighteen species starter Pokémon pushed to extinction. And that was only the beginning; as soon as the army had fallen, they had begun to strike at the region. I don't know why they attacked us. No one does. They simply did. Personally, I think if these people did come from another world like people say, they simply got spooked by our fire breathing, earth shaking animals and fought back in instinct. I almost can't blame them… I just wish they hadn't been so violent.

"As we ran through the city, my father got lost in the crowd. There were so many people about, and with the streets quickly disappearing, we had all become crammed together. My mother became hysterical when we realised he was missing. She tried to run back the way we had come, but another bomb was dropped and we were thrown a few metres by the explosion. When I stirred, the entire street had disappeared, just a giant gaping hole. I was so frightened I reached for my PokeBall, ready to arm myself in case we ran across the army. Yet it wasn't there…" Sandy gasped, but Bertram carried on unperturbed.

"We hid just outside the city for half an hour as the entire region was slowly torn apart. My mother had lost one of her bags during the run, and we were all starving and cold and tired. I could have just lain right there and died, it would have been easier, quite frankly. Then the bombs started to stop, and after a few minutes we got up, wondering if it was all over. But no, different monsters had taken their place: the legendaries had arrived to save us. I have seen some of the footage, they did look grand, but at the time I only felt uncertain what it actually meant for us. But then swarms of Abra and Ralts began showing up all over the place, and as I watched Latios and Latias take down a two dozen of those beautiful planes with one attack each, some tiny Pokémon grabbed our hands and took us away." At the mention of her absent guardian, Alaska felt voices stir in the back of her head, whispered screams and confused shouting that she knew had nothing to do with her.

"There was a giant ship that picked us all up, something Unovian I think. Less than a million of us had survived, and we were all shoved onto that boat like cattle. While we waited for the rest of the world to decide what to do with us, we just had to sit there and endure our suffering in darkness. It was only after we got off that we learnt Kalos had been decimated, that Groudon has put it back beneath the ocean. Those who had been injured were stuck with us, and infection and disease spread. My sister was one of the thousands who died on that boat. I remember sitting beside her for hours and not realising she was dead, lost in my own thoughts, scarred enough by the fact my country had been destroyed.

"My mother and I survived, barely, and after a fortnight we were sent off to Sevii. That was the first any of us learnt that they too had suffered that night, though under entirely different circumstances. The people in charge had decided they'd repopulate the islands with Kalos, replace the dead in one place with the living from the other. We were set up in a prefabricated box disguised as a small house, and as an able-bodied young male, I was one of thousands put to work rebuilding all the war-damaged properties around the islands.

"Really, that was the part of it all I hated the most. I never wanted to be a builder. Don't get me wrong, I certainly appreciated the type of man I was working alongside – I definitely have a preference for sweat glistened muscles after all that – but it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to perform, I wanted to take part in showcases, I didn't want to be a tough man. To be torn out of my home was one thing, but to lose everything and be turned into something I wasn't, I couldn't accept that.

"Unfortunately, I had my mother to contend with." Bertram rolled his eyes as he said that, and Alaska noted a touch of disgust in his voice. "You see, she was a woman with very high expectations but a spectacularly low set of talents with which to achieve them. Already shaken by the death of my sister and father, my mother found it extremely difficult to get through the day. She was asked to help at the temporary school they'd set up, doing lunches and that, but even that she struggled to achieve. Yet she wasn't going to let that stop her. She had become accustomed to her lifestyle in Kalos, and she wasn't going to let anyone take that away from her. The only profession she thought could help her achieve her goals was the one job no one in Sevii had considered: sex."

"You mean… she became a prostitute?"

"Oh, god no! My mother, a whore? Please! She was far too good for that. No, she simply became a pimp; I was her means to an end." He stopped for a second, smiling over his glass at the two of them, and Alaska realised her jaw had dropped without her noticing. "Like I said, she didn't have a variety of talents, and charming a man was on the long list of things she wasn't capable of. She suggested the idea to me, then forced me into it, arranging meetings with the various men she came across. Everyone was so stressed and shaken back then, and with no time or energy to arrange dates, sex quickly became a powerful commodity."

Bertram paused there, refilling his drink after several minutes of non-stop talking. Alaska was too speechless to say anything; she had been stunned silent by the waves his story moved through. She wasn't sure quite what to make of his life, what to say that would in any way relate to all he had been through. But as she struggled to think of something, the bitter, angry side of her moved to the foreground, and before she could stop herself, words were pouring out.

"Is this one of those situations where you've told me your story to make me feel better about my own?" She heard a sharp intake of breath behind her, and could almost feel Sandy's eyes boring into her. However, Bertram merely chuckled as he finished sipping at his drink.

"Not in the slightest. Why would I want to make you feel bad?" He said with a smirk and a wink. "From one bitch to another, that was one of the better times of my life. I have two loves in my life; men and money. I never let my mother know, but I wasn't going to turn down being fucked every night by a group of mostly beautiful men. I learnt things about myself, I learnt things about love and humanity, about cruelty and kindness. And, at the end of it all, it brought me my dream." And he moved his arms around, looking at the farm.

"You brought this view with prostitution money?"

"Oh yes," Bertram said with relish. "This view, this house, that chair you were sitting on, it was all paid for without me having to lift a single finger. Well, actually, some people did like it that way." He winked again, and Alaska couldn't help but snort with laughter. "I was brought up here in my last few months as a sex worker. When I saw this view, I knew this was what my life had been leading towards. I couldn't just let some greedy developers take that away from me. I paid double for the farm without even knowing what I'd do with it, but someone suggested Pokémon to me. I had I never wanted to go on a journey or whatever, so cliché, but with so few Kalos Pokémon in the wild, I saw it as a money making opportunity. So, in the end, I got back the lifestyle I was used to. I didn't choose for my region to blow up, I didn't choose to live here, I didn't choose to be a whore, but I made it work for me."

As those words hit her, Alaska felt the smile fall off her face, and within seconds it had become a scowl. "So you have been trying to teach me something. Am I supposed to take that lesson and apply it to my own life? I mean, I know Gideon was down in that bunker for five years, he's bound to have some things he's got to work out, but I don't think that's his goal here."

"Don't be vulgar, dear, that's not what I'm implying at all," Bertram tutted, staring at her scoldingly. "The lesson is that that was how my life turned out. Your life started differently and will end differently, but right now, our lives have been destined to intersect at this point in time, and now here we both are. No one prophesised we would meet, yet it has happened, and it was always going to. Both are paths have been decided for us already; the only difference between you and me is that you know where things are going."

For the first time since Bertram had started, Alaska was confused. "What do you mean?" The camp man shrugged, taking a long gulp of his drink as his eyes flickered towards the trees creeping along the edges of his property.

"It's hard to explain. I've been thinking about this a lot, ever since I ended up in Sevii with my left hand clutching my mother and my right hand holding my sister's ashes. Prophecy isn't just something that happens to champions and heroes. We are all born into circumstances, we are all born into situations we had no choice in and we have to live with. Rich, poor, gay, straight, brown, white, male, female; you don't get to pick what you're born with. When you come into this world, there are already thousands of years of history that will affect what happens to you next. You are just born into an exact time and place, and stumble through life trying to make the best of what happens.

"Even when we start talking about the big prophecies some ghost carved into rocks thousands of years ago, they don't just affect one person or a few people: they affect everyone. I don't even know why we bother differentiating these things with labels; what's a prophecy to you is real life for someone else. I told you the Fall of Kalos had been predicted. That meant that everyone born in that country, everyone living there, we were all born into a prophecy, our lives were all gearing up towards that moment. Look at yourself – you're from Viridian, aren't you? Red, Leaf, Blue, they had their prophecy, and once Giovanni set his Ground types loose on your city, their prophecy became a part of your life."

"All your prophecy means is that you know where you're going, but you don't know how to get there, you don't know what happens when you get there, you don't know what you do after it's over, if you make it out alive. You have to make your decisions just as much as Leaf, Red, Looker, all of them will make theirs, and you have to make the right decisions as they will affect everyone.

"If I can give you one piece of advice, it's that this situation you're in, it's not about losing or about them winning. If only focus on how to best them, you are never going to win. That's not what life is about, and that isn't how you're going to beat Gideon. Now, do you want some more tea, or should I get cracking on dinner?"

Without thought, Alaska grabbed the jug from his outstretched hands and took a huge gulp. She wondered fleetingly how deluded she must look, but given her mind had been failing all day, Alaska really didn't care. Things were suddenly starting to make sense, everything from today falling into place, and she needed something to distract her before she became overwhelmed once more.

"Alrighty then, I suppose I was going to move onto cider at some point anyway," Bertram huffed, clearly not realising the wealth of information he had just dumped on her. "Sandy, if you would like to leave your friend to do… whatever¸ would you come help me with – oh, look, there's Camille with the Pokémon."

Alaska looked in the direction Bertram was pointing. There was movement by the trees on his right, and she could see darkened figures moving around the undergrowth, coming towards them. For a second, she felt afraid, but then, as the sun faded beneath the horizon, emitting one last brilliant burst of orange glow across Kanto, something truly magical happened.

Alaska had never seen so many Pokémon at once. Emerging from the shadows of the trees, a swarm of Kalos Pokémon crossed the sunset-lit fields, moving as one pack through the flowers. An Avalugg thudded across the grass, a mix of Bergmite, Bunnelby, Pumpkaboo and Espurr riding on its surface. Honedge and Phantump floated behind them all, Dedenne and Pancham running underneath. A rainbow of Vivillon soared above them, joined by Noibat, Fletchling and Fletchinder. And the starters; Chespin, Fennekin, Froakie, dozens of them running, playing, jumping behind their handles. The further the sun set, the more they just became shadows being guided through the gardens, yet it was still one of the most unexpectedly stunning things Alaska had ever witnessed.

"There's so many of them," she whispered, and Bertram quietly nodded.

"They are beautiful, but hauntingly so. Some of these could very well be the last of their kind. There are only two other farms in the world, two that have actually survived and stand a chance at carrying on for now. Between us, we have at least two healthy bloodlines of each species. We all used to compete but I can see now how much we need each other." Those last words felt pointed, and Alaska had to fight back tears as she looked the stony faced breeder in the eyes.

"You asked earlier why I did this? So Kalos could live on; if they cannot dance on her shores and through her mountains and fields, I will ensure her children live on throughout the world. I didn't ask for this, I didn't plan for this, but it's just how my life turned out, and I wouldn't look back." He stopped there, and though he had not spoken angrily, his voice still as a soft and effeminate as before, his words still felt like blows on Alaska; they slammed into her, hitting her across the head, but she felt no pain – she simply saw sense.

"I need to go." Alaska got to her feet to make the announcement, lunging for her bag before Sandy had enough noticed what she had said.

"Where? Why? Alaska, you're not going to try and run off on me again."

"No, of course not, no. I just… my Pokémon… I need to do something, I need to say something, but I need to say it to all of them. I know what I need to do." Alaska smiled at Sandy, but couldn't bring herself to hug her, not yet anyway. Instead, she turned back to Bertram. "Thank you for letting us stay here, and for…" Bertram simply raised a hand and smiled.

"No need, my dear. Just stop those monsters; that's all you have to do to." He looked at her kindly for a moment before turning back to his Pokémon. "You, me, them, we're all the same, aren't we? Survivors."

With a short nod, Alaska turned and set off down the driveway. The breeder's words were still sinking in, but as she walked, Alaska knew that Bertram had given her the missing pieces to the infinite jigsaw in her head, and as she walked she let them fall into place.