After that confusing chapter, why don't we switch back to Layke. Yes. That will definitely not make things more confusing.
OMG—nah no worries, we get busy sometimes. I'm happy you liked the chapter! And yeah, you'd be right to think that we're getting close to the climax (of arc 1 that is! Though it most likely will be the longest arc, so you're right in that regard I suppose).
Chapter 9: Dreamlike
Commander Saturn
"Mars, where are we going?"
Her words flow like honey, slowly and steadily and sweetly succumbing to my question. "Just a little farther. Dear Cyrus told me he has pinpointed the location where the three underground caverns connect."
"They... connect?"
Her quiet, loping laugh bounces across the dark, damp walls. "Yes. Well—At the location equidistant to the three lake caverns, there is an area within the catacombs of Mount Cornet." She stretches, the red rings around her arm swishing with the motion and making red lights dance in stripes up the ceiling. "You do not understand how momentous this is for our organization, Saturn." The shiver inexplicably collapses down my back when she says it, her eyes flashing back to snipe me in the hazy red-tinted darkness.
I remember, once, years and years ago, Niri and I snuck into the lake cavern by our hometown. We found—Well, I'm not completely sure what we found. We found something, something that glowed and danced in its tiny cavern home, like the red rings except less sinister, more white, and then that something smacked us into the walls and stole our memories of the event.
Now apparently there's three of them, and apparently we need to find all three of them.
"We once attempted to sneak explosives into the caverns and... ah... bait the beasts out of their protective chambers." I flinch. Vaguely, so vaguely I recall seeing the destruction from behind the comfort of a television screen. Rocks falling, desolation laid waste, just like in Roark's gym. Why does everything connect back to that horrible moment. "They, however, remained elusive, and now seem to refuse to show themselves to anyone. There has been no incidence of a beast's appearance since.
"But it is believed by our beloved leader that the catacombs shall reveal their hiding-spot to us. Then we shall finally succeed." She stops suddenly; I run straight into her. Mars's skin is cold, colder than the cavern's atmosphere. The impending silence is frightfully still. We're the only ones in this corridor. No grunts, no slack-brained pawns in spacey getup following us. "You recall the, ah, Mercury, and Venus, that I told you of earlier, yes?" Her head snaps back to me as she moves ahead.
Then her lips curl into a thin, red-laced grin. "Have ever you heard the folktale of a creature named Shaymin? Shaymin, the harbinger of nature's wrath, would have saved us a great many years and a great many steps in the wrong direction, had she cooperated. But I suppose Mercury and Venus's failure would eventually become our guise of a gift.
"I am Cyrus's most-trusted commander, after all. Not that there is much competition concerning Jupiter, and Keebae is but a small-minded child."
Our feet crackle against slick, sharp rocks that threaten to cut despite the thick soles of our Galactic-grade boots. There are these ridiculous yellow Gs on the buckles of the otherwise space-gray boots, and it is simultaneously the best and the worst fashion decision I have ever seen. Moments like those, like the stupid buckles on the boots, remind me to focus on the present.
I don't know how they did it, but my pokemon have been fully evolved to torterra and golem: a continent-looking turtle and the rock monster to end all rock monsters. They've padded out my team with this toxic teal frog thing, toxicroak, as well as a couple of its pre-evolved croagunk lackeys and this overpowered spiritomb thing that won't even listen to me. Apparently, I'm important now.
You'd think if I was this important, my pokemon would freaking talk to me. I wish I could understand them, hear their voices, telling me what I need to do, like...
But it's only a bitter fragment of a forgotten wish now.
Finally, the cavern shoots downwards, and Mars reluctantly snags my hand to keep the both of us steady. We step slow and sure through the tunnel, and once we reach the bottom—landing in a cold puddle that soaks our boots—it expands to reveal an enclosed clearing with a small pedestal in its center.
Mars crouches in front of it, her fingers rubbing along the smooth edges and triangular base.
A voice erupts from the tunnel on the cavern's opposing entrance. "As man-made as it looks, legend states that the godlike beings which crafted this region formed the base with one sole purpose." The clack of heeled boots follows; I peer into the shadows of the other opening and catch a pale face of high cheekbones and full, purple-lined lips. Dark violet hair bounces at her head in three buns, and her suit clings to her generous figure. "Mars, get your hands off of the thing. They'll smell you before you've successfully incited fear."
Flushing across her pearlescent face, Mars jumps up and backs off. Her hands form fists behind her back. With the other woman's sharp onyx eyes upon me, I move to Mars's side. When her incisive brow flares, I stutter to a start. "Uh... h-hi. I'm the new commander. Sa...Saturn."
Her lips purse. "Saturn." Her heels clack across the rock; then her hand is on my head and ruffling my carefully-gelled cerulean hair into a nice little hurricane of disaster. "Refer to me as Commander Jupiter. Ah... or Jupiter. That's a lot of syllables." Her nose wrinkles somewhere above my head. "I don't say the full thing often. We leave that to the grunts."
Returning to Mars, she snaps, "Get those bracelets off of your wrist." When she doesn't move, Jupiter grabs her arm and tugs them off herself. "You are quite the little nuisance."
"Dear Cyrus said—"
Jupiter flares her black hole gaze. "I don't freaking care what dear Cyrus said. These things smell like you, and so does the pedestal, so now they're aware to your scent. Now." She turns heel, facing the platform with the three bracelets jingling in her palm. "Release your pokemon, commanders, and stand very tall and menacing-like. And—Yes—And surround the platform with your pokemon to ensure little to no escape." With her words, charged, floating in the air, Mars and I drop our poke balls to the ground and snap at our reluctant pokemon to ring the area. They're quiet, dismissive, heads bowed in obeisance to the undying Galactic will. Or maybe they just know they have no other choice.
Turt's eyes flash when he faces me and slowly, slowly crawls to his spot behind the screeching purple ball of spiritomb. In that moment, his eyes are bright, thick with emotion, almost human. It shocks me so badly that I raise my voice: "Get over there." And he does. And that's all.
Something deep inside of me is crying. I can't figure out why.
Jupiter's fingers curl around my gently shaking shoulder. "Hey, chill out." Then her voice lowers; then her lips dip around my ear—and I realize, with a jolt, it's to keep Mars from hearing. "I thought I would throw up the first time I did it too. Eventually you just figure out that it's what you have to do. It's that... or Cyrus turns you into one of his grunts and steals your mind away.
"His creepy chain doesn't stop for anyone, bud. Not even Sinnoh's Champion."
My stomach clenches.
The Champion, I almost ask, but then I think of Mars and my head starts to spin. I can't even be honest with my fellow commanders, now can I?
Keebae. Her name practically burns down my throat. Keebae told me to be honest with her. Keebae told me what happened to Mercury and Venus when Mars just teased me the information. Keebae told me to be careful.
Dang, where's the girl when you really freaking need a friend?
Jupiter snaps me back to attention. "I said relax, Saturn." Saturn. "Now let's get this going already." A part of me wonders, softly asking my dumb self if I still actually want to be Saturn. "Now I'm going to put the chains here on the pedestal, and the second the light fills the room, we have to attack. If you're slow, I will tell Cyrus."
Cyrus. Cyrus's dream. His voice, quietly sharp and full of authority, the sort of voice that plunges you into its mind-numbing depths and compels you closer, ever closer, begins to overflow me. Just the thought of it is enough to succumb to his will.
I don't even know what it is yet, his dream. He won't tell any of us.
I have hope, though. Hope that his dream will make this world better.
We're just lucky Mars found remnants of her old red chain stuck to her arm. Lucky there was three of them, three little chain-links, perfectly enough to... do whatever it is we're doing.
Jupiter kneels, careful not to touch the pedestal, then clinks the three little red bracelets down in a row. They seem to shudder with a bright, carnal power, then dissolve into something hot and vile and utterly red—but I can't tell what it is because then the light is blinding.
Jupiter's sharp, rich voice is all I can hear: "GET THE BEASTS AND PIN THEM DOWN."
There's nothing else to be done. Cyrus's harsh gray gaze fills my line of sight until I swear I go blind from it.
Screaming through the light, I fight for my pokemon's attention, fight for their undying loyalty, fffffffight for their actions, for the unrelenting sound of their bodies crashing into the pedestal and overcoming the golden hues of light.
I scream until my voice is raw, until my ears are numb, until my hands, outstretched, have clenched into fists and my nails have cut through the skin on my palms.
I scream until I can't any longer.
Then I open my eyes, and through the light I see a child. The child's in a grungy tee and ratty old shorts, not because his family is particularly poor but because these were his favorite clothes, and it was all he ever wanted to wear. His skin is brown, and his eyes are bright blue, and his hair's this wavy, choppy cerulean.
He's asking me why, again and again, ceaseless, why, but I just shake my head.
I don't know why.
He's got skinned knees and a missing tooth and flared red cheeks, and these big eyes that seek to devour everything. And his hand—his hand is holding someone else's, someone else's chunky little tan kid hand with these freckles that I know and this long dark hair that I know and braids and a smile and a laugh that I know, that I know, that I know all too well.
They're giggling and running around and falling over and being kids, and then all of a sudden the light gets brighter, and kid-me is gone, but kid-Niri approaches that light, and her eyes go white, and her mouth falls open, and then it all dissolves into the form of a twin-tailed creature small enough to be the old stuffed clefairy from my childhood. I couldn't sleep at night without it in my arms.
The pokemon has this weird yellow cap about its head, and now it's the one asking hey, Layke, why. And I just shake my head harder as the tears blind my gaze and I find the strength in my shredded lungs to yell at Turt and to yell at the spiritomb and to yell at the toxicroak to grab it.
Their fingers and hooves and feet slip around the creature, nailing it to the pedestal, and then I watch through a blurry lens as Jupiter's pale hands scoop up one of the rings and slip it around the creature's neck. Uxie, it whispers, shuddering, like a name, like a promise, before it falls silent and still.
I look over to watch the rest of the pokemon grasp the two other stuffed-animal-shaped creatures and slide the rings around their necks.
Mars, somewhere beyond their heads, claps her hands together and cries, "Oh, thank goodness Cyrus knew what to do with our remains of the red chain. What a shame we couldn't trust the scientists after all."
"We can't trust anyone, you know," Jupiter smirks. Her violet lips split into a laugh, and it makes my heart shudder the way her eyes slit over to me.
I open my mouth, but then I close it.
My pokemon have already returned to their poke balls like the deed forced them into hiding. Shaking all over, I crouch down and start plucking them and returning them to my belt. But then I keep dropping them, and they keep slipping from my sweat-slick fingers, and it's almost like I don't want to pick them up.
Again and again I try to pick up Turt's stupid poke ball, and then suddenly a deep and sage voice explodes from the ball: WHY, again and again and again WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
Shuddering, I hurl him at the cavern ground.
Then I swallow. Then I smear the scowl across my lips, and I crunch his ball into my fist. Then I return the ball to my belt, soon followed by the others, and then I sit on the ground and release a very low, very long sigh.
Everything is quiet. For now, everything is quiet.
Across the room, Mars and Jupiter finish stuffing the creatures into bulging scratchy hemp sacks. Mars reaches out to toss one my way, but Jupiter's hand snaps around it. Her eyes sink into me, and they duck away, but her voice says, "I don't trust him enough to carry something this important."
"Ah. I think he more than proved himself, Jupiter."
Jupiter's lips smear together. "I don't care."
"I'll tell Cy—"
A stark grin snaps across her face. "Go ahead. Do it. I still don't care." She hefts the two bags over her shoulder.
I want to ask her why she's being so nice to me, but I can't even stand up.
As the commanders begin to shuffle up the corridor, I struggle to get my freaking feet under me. While I'm sitting there, scrabbling on the dirt, I catch the sharp relief of Galactic boots on rock. With a wince, I shove to my feet and try to follow after it, only the boots are too fast and I'm far too spent to follow.
But the wave of bright white hair burns ahead of me like a flag, alongside her receding form. Her wrist glows with the affirmative blue of a bracelet.
She disappears down the second entrance, the one Jupiter had come and met us from.
"Saturn?" Mars's call. "What did you see?"
I turn slowly, struggling to face them.
In the very edge of my vision, Jupiter offers the slightest shake of her head.
I cough into my fist. "I thought I saw a pokemon." Keebae. "It was nothing." Keebae. "Let's go." Why was Keebae sneaking around... and where in the world is she going now.
Niri
Things have been more interesting.
I'm perched at the edge of Volky's bed while Flint holds his hands and retells the tale of the horrible things we saw on the camera. They're gazing into each other's stupid lovestruck eyes, and my stomach just gets tighter and tighter each time I look over. I keep expecting to ruin something romantic, like a kiss, like, I don't know, like something I wouldn't flipping know anything about.
Lup keeps chirruping in my pocket. Gee, Niri, I don't think they need you over here right now.
Yeah, I know. I close my eyes, sigh. I know, bud.
Then why are you still here?
My hands fold under the weight of my head. I don't know. I don't know where to go.
This would be less awkward if Lucaro wouldn't absolutely refuse to speak, but, well, here we are.
"It was terrifying, Volkner, like..." Flint pauses mid-breath. There's this soft sound, like he's stroking Volkner's cheek or something. "Like the worst thing I've ever seen. Right, Niri?"
Suddenly my face is burning up all over again. "Right." Promptly I stand, and then I'm stomping out the door and slamming it shut behind me. My back crashes against the wall, where I slide to the ground and groan into my folded-up knees. Then I pick myself back up because evidently I am still not as far away as I'd like to be, and I charge my blustery, flaming way out of the Floaroma Town Pokemon Center.
Once I've left it all behind me, I find myself a quiet little flowery meadow—not very hard to do in a town such as Floaroma. Then I sit myself in the dirt and I sigh, and I sigh again, and I close my eyes and rest my head in a hand. His braid has tied itself around my finger, I don't know when, but I feel it and it makes it hard to breathe once more.
The dusky sky blankets me in a cool wind. Before I've even reached my poke ball, Lup has entered the space in front of me. His goofy prinplup face, like an awkward adolescent's, cocks at me. I didn't think you'd take me so literally. That was a pretty awkward escape.
Yeah. I groan. You talk like I don't know that, you freaking flightless bird.
Penguin, actually.
I scowl around my snigger. Shut up.
Lup shrugs. I can also do this. He unceremoniously turns and spews a fast-popping array of bubbles through the darkened field. As they sail through the night, they are overcome by the light of the moon, and their pops explode with the fury of fireworks.
Wow, my hero, I mutter, rolling my eyes. Lup, the master prinplup.
He rests his flipper on his hip like the most dramatic bird-child to ever exist. Yes, precisely. He flips his head. Not much of a scene.
Lowering my head, I squeeze my eyes back shut and murmur, Well, thanks anyways, bud. Everything is still going totally and completely wrong, but, well... I don't know how to finish that statement, so I just let it hang, a bitter fragment of my wishes.
"But things will be alright soon."
Flinching, I shout, "LUCARO, YOU SCARED THE FREAKIN—" I turn in place, scooting on the dirt, to stare up at the lucario. "I did not realize you followed me."
"Well, I..." He flushes purple across his snout. "First I had to make up an excuse for you. Then Volkner wanted to know why I talked, and I, ah, I told him a very slight lie, because he and his very strong boyfriend made me slightly uncomfortable."
I snort. "Oh, tell me about it, buddy." When I pat the dirt next to me, he graciously sits down. There's a telltale tail-thumping behind him. To the raise of my brows, he flushes harder, half-covering his face with a paw.
We're staring at each other. His amber eyes, flush with feeling, have attached to me, and I can make out little Niris inside of them gazing back into him. "Lucaro, I..." I look away. My heart crunches in my chest, another shattered hope. "I don't know what to do... Y-You heard what we're up against. The Champion's outright missing, probably kidnapped by Team stupid Galactic, and the rest of the elites aren't on our side. Apparently most of the gym leaders have gone stupid or also missing... and then Roark's just a kid. I...
"What can we do?"
Lucaro opens his mouth; he cuts himself off when his eyes flare blue. "W-Wait... Why is she..." Abruptly he grasps my wrist and throws the both of us to our feet. "We need to go." And then we're running, inexplicably we're running, and as I struggle to keep up, my prinplup dances around my feet and emits loud honking sounds of annoyance. I eventually manage to find my poke ball and return him to it before he collapses of fatigue. What a loser.
Then my hair's whipped back by the harsh wind and the air cools about our skin and leaves us breathless, panting, and Lucaro's eyes merely get brighter and brighter and brighter, the color of lost wishing-stars nearly burnt into the horizon.
Through trees and up a hill and past a few more houses: then we're back to where we started.
Keebae's encircling her tree stump, throwing her hand up into the air, the one with the brightly-glowing bracelet. Over and over again, with her panting, raspy voice, she says, "Where are you, wheeerrrrrre are you...
Then she looks up and jolts, clasping her bracelet with her other hand. "Oh it finally worked. Um." She coughs into her fist, breathing heavily. "Hi."
Lucaro blinks, eyes swirling with a disconnectedness. "Why... are you here, Keebae?"
She's in her Galactic garb again, giant boots, giant gray clothes with weird G insignias in the elbows of the shirt. "Jupiter told me to come with her. I was supposed to be in my room, that's what Dad said, Stay in your room, Keebae, but Jupiter found me and said, No, you're coming with me." Frantically she throws her gaze into us, her narrow, her dark eyes bright and wider than I've ever seen them.
"Now you need to come with me, because I think I know what Dad wants and I think I think I think I know what he's gonna do to us.
"And I'm scared. I'm really scared, Niri."
Her sullen exterior has been washed away by her distressed tears. She now wraps her thin, frail brown hands around my own and tugs me forward. "This way, this way, please."
"Wait I..." I left my steel bar, my gigantic clunky protection, in the room with Volkner and Flint. "I don't have every—"
Lucaro taps me with it. I snag it from him, mutter a thanks under my breath. It's cold and reassuring in my grip, and I have no idea how I didn't notice him with it before.
The sudden desperation of the moment had just been so—sudden. I needed out, and then I needed answers, and now I guess I have both. Both. It hits me in the stomach, first a punch of realization, then softer, gentler, reassuring, a hug all over my body.
Shaking my head, I ask, "Lucaro and I found some really strong trainers earlier. Shouldn't we—?"
"NO WE NEED TO GO NOW." Keebae breaks off just to cough, then tugs me forward one more time. "Now. We gotta go now." She doesn't even stop to finish her sentences, just gets up and starts running.
She's like a ghost: so thin, her hair so white, her clothes so big and baggy, sucking in gulps of air as they shift to her body's motions.
A ghostly little promise in disguise—that's what she is. A promise. A very long, two or three times broken, poorly followed promise.
Lucaro and I lock eyes, evidently without a better plan, and we hurtle across the shadowy plain after her.
