Disclaimer: Don't own this. But it is a heck of a time.
A/N: Thank you to all of those who have read or reviewed. It means a lot.
Child of the Sun
Traveling on the path between consciousness and delusion is a painful experience to even the most sound of hearts and sanest of minds.
"Will he make it?"
"He must. He must."
To be aware that time went by around you, yet your mind refused to conform to the realm of reality. It is a danger, for it presents itself as a delight wrapped in the sheerest of good intentions. Alluring in its mindlessness and painlessness.
There is no guilt to be had in there. No struggle. No greed. No corruption. No more striving.
But I've seen things. Drew… Seen things you wouldn't believe. Confronted them. I've seen the virtues of morals, of good intentions… of good deeds… I've seen what they can achieve and I've seen their limitations. Seen what they cannot do. What they cannot change or rectify.
I opened my eyes to the world.
Deep blue eyes, bluest and truest and purest, inches away from my own, met my clouded, miles-away stare.
"Ash!" Serena whispered, voice whisper-thin yet elevated by pure, incontrollable emotion. "Hey! Guys! He's awake!"
Painless, scar-less – and ain't that a splendid wonder to behold – bodies set in motion outside the field of my vision. And then May and Oak too occupied the scope of my sight, taking up the darker edges with relieved smiles.
Grimmer relief was seldom seen on such welcomed faces.
"You stupid, stupid boy," Oak said, note of fondness unmistakable. "You stupid, stupid… brave, brave boy."
"I wasn't brave," I said, and the surprise on their faces mirrored my own, for my voice was stronger and clearer than it ought to be after the night I'd had. "Just stupid," I continued. "But I won't be next time. Next time I'll be brave. Brave and smart. That I promise you."
"Is it too much to ask for that there won't be a next time?" a voice said sarcastically from somewhere.
I blinked. "Clement? That you?"
"Of course," the voice answered, seemingly mildly annoyed by my surprise. "Who else could it be? One of us has to fly this thing."
Well. I'll be damned. Maybe I'd misjudged the courage of Clement, after all. Wait…
Flying?
"Fly what?" I asked, pushing off the hard surface beneath my busted ass.
Gentle hands pushed against my naked chest. They were soft and delicate and most definitely not Oak's.
They felt like the hands of heaven.
"You stay there now," Serena whispered. "Stay with me. Rest."
It was an order. A sweet, sweet order.
The sharpness of my mind left me. I looked down dumbfounded. Her hands were still on my chest. I blinked. Oh well – worse things had befallen me. I laid back down.
"We flying?" I slurred, and the strength of my voice had quite left me now.
May bent her head down next to Serena. The smile that grazed her features were the closest thing to loving I'd ever seen on her. It almost looked wrong. I chose not to pursuit that thought, for it almost broke my heart.
"We took Oak's helicopter immediately after your fall," she said, grasping my clammy hand within hers. "His Dragonite is close by, keeping watch for any danger."
"But… what about the League? What about Lance?" I paused, gasping for words and air in equal measures. At last, after seconds spent coughing hoarsely, they seemed to find each other in gentle unison. "The Elite Four? Surely someone has come out? One of the great cities of Kanto has been burned to the ground tonight." My voice died in uncertainty. Surely the air should be thick with helicopters, rescue teams, Pokémon of the League Officials. Surely Oak couldn't have simple flown to me, grabbed me of the broken streets, and then left the burning city unchallenged? "Someone must have come. Someone must have cared…"
"We were alone. We are alone," Oak said, looking out the window as if checking. His voice was stoic. Hiding his disappointment, his anger. "Up here, so far, we are alone. Nobody came."
I stared at the ceiling. "Fuck it," I whispered. "Fuck them. We don't need them."
"That's your assumption? Really? Looking at this…" Oak said, his anger bursting forth, brushing a hand against the mirror showcasing a world on fire. "Brilliant, Ash. Simply brilliant."
"Oh, would you please just shut up!" I said, almost snarled. "Put your condescending attitude where the sun doesn't shine!"
"Then stop making it so damn easy for me," Oak said. "If tonight has made anything glaringly clear, it is that you need help. We all do. There's no shame in that."
"Shame?"
"You need Lance's help," Oak said. "You need… the League."
I blinked, then coughed as laughter threatened to finish the job Riley started and smother me to eternal stillness. "I don't need those self-serving cowards – they had their chance. Tonight. They had their chance to fight."
"Show them. Show them a different path. Show them. Show them who they can be – through you. Show them your strength."
"You have just stated, as eloquently as ever, that my strength is not enough," I said.
"Not enough? Not enough!" Oak said, outraged. "Ash, you took a stand. Against all reason. You took a stand for all of us. You took a stand despite what the rest of us told you. You stood, inhumanly, against all, for all. And you were right." His face bent down to my face, close and intimate. "Your Aura – as magnificent and awe-inspiring as it is – has never been your strength."
He paused, waiting for my question, but I refused to make it that easy for him. He continued anyway.
"Your greatest strength has always been your bravery," he said. "Your heart. Show them that. Show them how brave you are. Show them how brave they can be. Something they can follow – even here… in our darkest hour."
"No," I said immediately. "Nice speech. No. Just no. I don't want that. I don't want the world to see me. They wouldn't understand. How could they? I don't want to be their leader in their darkest hour. They may need me right now, and I will fight – I won't be a poster boy. They may need me, but they will hunt me again when they don't – I don't want that. I don't."
"It won't come to that. Trust me. No. Trust them."
"Trust them? They haven't given me a single reason to trust them."
Oak paused, reached down and brushed away a strain of hair from my forehead. It was a simple gesture, yet it provided tremendous comfort in its simplicity. Oh how I longed for a world of such simplicity.
"I've often found," Oak began, hand brushing through my hair, "that faith, like love, is the purest form of courage, because it transcends your own control. You give your trust to someone without any guarantee that your heart or mind will be enriched by it. The only thing you can do is open your heart and have a little faith…"
"There's nothing more dangerous than giving your trust – your love – to someone. Once given, once revealed, it can never be taken back. I'm sorry, Oak – I'm sorry if I disappoint you. But I disagree. Love or faith given – with a complete absence of any indicator of success – is not courage or bravery, but stupidity. It was what I was tonight. Unfounded faith. I can't be that again. Not like this."
Oak wore a mask of blandness. Not revealing anything. But his hand wasn't in my hair anymore, and maybe that was answer enough.
"Then we're all lost," he said at last.
I said nothing to that, Drew...
"I closed my eyes and turned my back to him. To May and Serena, too, I guess. Pretended to sleep," I said, and threw the young man who I had tormented for the last couple of hours a look of indifference. "I'm still not sure if he was wrong or right. I must admit this still doesn't sit right with me. But, alas, I made a promise. A promise that must be held if I am to retain even the smallest measure of integrity."
"And that's important to you? Integrity, that is," Drew said, his hand toying with his greenish hair.
"I dunno – who gives a fuck?" I sighed and closed my eyes. "Seriously, Drew? You cannot gleam anything out of me with those questions? You need to start asking the right fucking questions. Like, is your hair dyed? I, like, need to know."
Drew didn't answer. He seemed like a man who had given up all his endeavors. Maybe it was just as well. I was getting rather bored of our current predicament. And I sensed the winds of changed had just turned my way.
A high-pitched sound broke the stillness of the room. A scratching sound followed and then a voice intoned a single order in which no emotion of affect could be found.
"Leave him."
"What?" I said, feigning shock, looking searchingly around the room. "No. I need to know, man! Is it dyed or natural? For if it's natural... well, then it's definitely unnatural."
Drew scrambled out, relieved beyond measure to finally be rid of my presence.
And then a presence of greatness swept into the room, his crimson cape bellowing behind him as he locked the door soundly, leaving the two of us alone.
The Crimson King rises, I thought, but then shot the troubled thought away as nonsense. My whole demeanor changed beneath my mask, and it took all of my considerable will not to tense every muscle fiber in my body, readying myself for a fight. My Suit - with no outer sign – tensed every mechanism of its considerable might for an upcoming struggle.
Power layouts ran down my visor, biofeedback of all kinds screamed through my eardrums, resonating my edginess.
I was battle ready.
"Remove your helmet... Ash Ketchum," Lance said as he sat down before me. "I wish to see your eyes as I speak with you."
The mask, despite my best wishes, removed the helmet from my face.
I played it off, of course; refusing to acknowledge – at least not to this prick before me – how little control I truly had over myself.
"I have so many questions, Ash," Lance said. "You're a marvel – an uncut diamond of Arceus itself. In some way I reckon you always have been. But I guess there's only one question that truly matters."
"Truly? Only the one?" I asked, slouching in my seat, acting cool and all kinds of apathetic.
"Well, maybe I'll stretch to two. Do you hate people?" Lance said, eyes narrowed and serious, head tilted in a manner that said he was studying me carefully. Like a master studying a favored pet when it did something most peculiar.
On that matter of the question, however, I didn't need to think much.
"No," I said, tasting the word and finding it true. "I just feel better when they're not around."
"Hmm…" Lance hummed. "You are contradictory in nature, aren't you?"
"Fuck you! We all are. Human nature is contradictory. But I find myself curious of what you make of me," I said, adopting a semi-serious countenance as I leaned forward over the table.
"It's like you are two different persons. The one in your… story and this one before me," Lance said. "One nihilistic and uncaring of, well, everything." He spread his hands as if in a lost for words – as if to say 'you know' without really knowing anything. "And then there's the guy, jumping off rooftops to save even a single life. One crying out against the pointlessness of the act that same one does."
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire," I said, almost whispered, before I could stop myself.
"Yes. Exactly," Lance answered. "One part faithful to the cause – no matter where that cause may take you – and one part cynical, damming the cause as meaningless. I can't get a read on you. It… is not something I am accustomed to."
"Poor you," I said, then sighed. Might as well drop the attitude – if only for a moment – and try to make something of this meeting. "People are just…" I paused, wondering if this was right. Ah, to hell with right. Just say your damn mind! At least you stood for something, then. "People are just occupying space… waiting for death… or something to drag them along in their existence… In a million years from now, our existence won't matter shit! At some level we realize that. We all do. So, without realizing what they are doing, they fill these moments – these moments of life… these moments of pain and laughter, of joy and despair – these moments between life and death that they never fully stop to consider, but always know… They fill these moments with whatever everybody else fills them with. Working, traveling, music, religion, fucking – when that's not the same thing – Saffron City, weight loss diets, weightlifting, jogging… fucking some more just to pass the time. And one day it all catches up to you and everything evaporates… it ceases to exist, to give meaning… if it has ever done so to begin with. And then people realize, as they lay in their deathbeds, that they were just scrambling for things to do whilst waiting for death to catch up with them. They were simply occupying a room… a breathless void in which time moves unseen… for the next vessel of delusions and contradictions, and that vessel then occupies that same void for the next vessel. And the next, and the next… and the next. Never attaining a deeper, more profound meaning. Because there's none."
"And yet – despite your obvious hostility – you continue to stand up for them. In a nutshell, the perfect contradiction, I'd say."
"Ah, you see, that's just the way I chose to occupy those empty spaces between this moment and the moment death swoops in to catch me. That's my programing. An involuntary compulsion."
"You care," Lance said, ignoring me. "You care so deeply your words seem to bleed off your wounds. A care, so selfless, so… sacrificial in nature, cannot be hidden in a veil of apathy. Not even in one such as yours."
"Well," I began, "I suppose someone has to give a damn in this god-awful world of lunatics and self-covering assholes."
Lance smiled. "You have a practiced apathy, Ash – I'll give you that. But I see through you. As most others do, if they get close enough to you."
"Now who's contradictory? And what, prey tell, do you see?"
"A young man haunted by loss and betrayal. By neglect. With the heart in the right place. But afraid to show it." Lance tilted his head again, studying me carefully like his pet monkey. "Afraid, yet the bravest man in the world. Because he realized that the world wouldn't understand his pain – his… path. You didn't come to this conclusion consciously – because you don't understand people well enough to conclude such, but your mind understood the need for self-preservation that your heart did not."
"What the fuck are you on about?" I asked.
"You fail to perceive the people around you for what they are, and not for what you want them to be. And as such you cannot hope to perceive the world in any kind of light that can grant you an understanding of its nature. It deludes you still."
"I've no idea what you're talking about," I said. "I'm not even joking; I genuinely can't see the point you're trying to make. If there is any."
"You see the people around you as you want them to be, or – worse yet – you perceive them through your own standards. Which are impossibly high and unattainable."
"You're talking about May, right? And Serena. And Clement. And…" I looked away, suddenly feeling awkward. "You know…"
"Yes," Lance said, almost compassionately. That compassion evaporated an instant later. "You cannot see them for what they truly are."
"They truly are…" I furrowed my brow in an interesting mixture of confusion and amusement.
Lance continued. "May's interested in yet another story – another front page scoop. She's always had a nose for that, hasn't she? And greatness, Ash Ketchum – greatness! – whether you like it or not… it has always oozed from you. Even back when you first started as a Journeyman you were something special. It was tangible. Like an invisible aura around you." Now he smiled at me, almost mockingly, like he knew the deep, dark secret of all my misery. "May's not in love with you, Ash. She's in love with the fame and fortune your future could promise her. One way or the other."
"One way or the other?" I asked, unsure whether I should be horrified or fascinated by the picture of reality he was presenting.
"Either as the childhood love of your life, and all the fame and coverage that could bring along… or as the journalist with the inside scoop."
"Right." I snorted, skepticism overpowering my somewhat irrational fright.
"Serena, then," Lance said, shouldering onwards on his path to convincing me. I wondered why this mattered so much to him. "Yeah. And Serena. Sweet, lovely, innocent Serena." Lance paused – with a ghastly relish bleeding of his every word. "Her love for you is nothing but an immature girl's fascination with the unknown. And her perfection is nothing but a distorted dream clouding your perception of who she truly is – and who she might be. She's not in love with you. You fascinate her. Fascination, Ash. Not love. And had you been just a little bit less extraordinary you would've seen that."
"So you're saying they're… that they're bad people?"
Lance slowly leaned his head back, looking to the ceiling as if I was but a child trying to understand something all too simple.
"No. No for god sake, no," Lance said, still looking up. Then he snapped his head back fast, not really looking at me as much as observing the spaces around the space I resided. "I'm saying you are a lost soul aching for affection. I'm saying they're real people, not fairytale princesses conceived by a lost man's dreams of his future. They are not perfect; they might not even be half-decent – or maybe they are. That's not the point. The point is this: they're people, Ash. People. Intricate. Complex. Vile and kind. Ugly and beautiful depending upon which light that shines upon them on any particular day. But you can't see that. You… you are too extraordinary to see it. Too out of this world. Too kind. Too compassionate. Too self-sacrificing. Too mad. Too much of everything to understand that the rest of us cannot live up to your values. Both the good and the bad. That's your limitation. That's why nobody followed you to Vermillion City. That's why you must come to my door begging. You cannot inspire people, because by the end of the day, you have no fucking clue how they tick. How they love. How fickle their love really is. Not burning and raving and ever-loyal like yours. People are inspired by other people in whom they can witness what they might be. And nobody can be like you; you're simply too great for the rest of us." Lance paused, taking a deep breath like his words had physically hurt him. "Now, tell me what happens next."
Anger. Boiling just beneath the surface. But I kept it in check. For now.
"You know what happens next."
"True," he said. "But I wanna hear it from you."
"You know," I said, almost whispered, placing my hands on the table and leaning towards him. He made a vague gesture of calmness at the door. "That was really a nice speech you gave there. Very nice. It left me all kinds of hot and bothered. If you wanna go down, you know, under the table – I promise you the suit will reveal the vital parts; it's quite flexible like that. Just be careful, all right? Yeah? It's been awhile for me. Has it been awhile for you, too, Lance? I promise not to tell anyone – which I'm sure the ones behind the mirror won't, either."
Lance sighed. "Your passive aggressiveness is really quite unbecoming. And crude."
"You have no clue what you're talking about, do you? No fucking clue."
"Why?" Lance asked. "Because I present you with the truth?"
"No. No. There is no truth to be had here. If there was even a shred of truth to what you're saying, Oak would have warned me."
"Would he?" Lance said, almost triumphantly. "Would he really risk alienating the only person he had left to love? Oak lost everything – his entire family – a long time ago; you were the only thing left in his life that gave him just a small measure of warmth. And hope. Would he really risk losing that over something so simple as the truth?"
I laughed. "You've talked to him, I see. Studied him, perhaps. But you never understood him. You just saw his pain and projected your own selfishness onto him. Your greed for control. For power. All the things that have kept you in inaction so far. You could never understand – for you yourself do not possess such courage. If Samuel Oak thought there was even the slightest possibility that I would inevitably end up hurt and betrayed, he would have thought to hell with his own happiness and risked everything for me… for my sanity… for my heart."
"You're the one projecting, Ash. Projecting your own courage onto those around you – those you deem worthy of it. We're not all so noble and self-sacrificing as you."
"I still fail to see your point."
"You're unaccountable. Your narrative is unreliable if you wanna uncover nothing but the truth, because you are incapable of observing things. You don't observe objectively. You just see it as you want to see it. And then that's how it is in your mind."
"So you say I'm lying."
"No. We could give you every test imaginable and it would reveal you tell the truth – but only because you believe it to be the truth. Not because it necessarily is the truth. You see?"
I shook my head. "Not at all." I frowned. "If you don't believe me… I cannot see why you want me to continue, then."
"Oh, I believe. Believe that when you tell me what happened, it is what happened. But I conclude differently from you. Let's just consider me interested for now, shall we? Please, Ash… please continue."
"All right."
We got back to Pallet Town. This is a week ago, I think. Charred remnants of a forestland met our eyes. Once upon a time, this was a thriving wilderness man had to conquer to meet the rest of civilization. Pallet Town, a small speck of nothing by the banks of the ocean, grew into existence as we approached the end of the land.
The air was tense between us. The sound of the roaring engine was a hound of eternity inside the cabinet, screaming, screaming, screaming. I was back in my Suit, being stitched back together faster than my birth-given biology could fathom. Before we touched down, I knew I'd be whole again – and operational.
Like a well-oiled machine.
Fuckin' Suit!
Fuck.
Serena had her hand in mine; I had hers in mine. The only part of my body currently not covered in the reptilian, grey, otherworldly skin of body armor. I no longer pretended to sleep.
May kept her distance, occasionally stealing glances that were more speculative than jealous in nature – as if she was drawing all kinds of conclusions based upon two hands linked.
I should have cared, but I was too fucked to give a damn.
We touched down a little while later and I got off the plane on my own two legs. Oh yeah. Not half an hour ago ever single of my two hundred and six bones were broken and now…
Everything perfectly aligned… and working.
I didn't twitch anymore, Lance, at the knowledge of the impossibility of it all. I was the suit now, for better or worse.
The suit is I. I am the suit. The Suit, dammit! With a capital S. We are the being. Inside. You know?
I am one with the Suit and the Suit is with me. Well, sometimes.
What happens next? Honestly. Not a whole lot. Oak had his plan, his idea of what I should do. I had no intention of it, though – no intention of ever showing up here.
But, like a rollercoaster, life happened. Twisting and bending in unimaginable ways. Yesterday – almost a week after the attack – I was out in the backyard, with the ocean view, training my ass off to escape the grim face of reality.
I won't be a bore – we both know training segments aren't nearly as glamorous or inspiring as the movies make 'em out to be.
But I was a total badass – I've wrestled with a Snorlax, eaten wholly the earth-shattering thunder of a Pikachu, quelled the tempestuous fires of a Charizard. Put to rest a mythical beast of legend.
All at the same time.
And I hadn't even had my breakfast yet.
Haha, too much?
The point? Serena interrupted me.
"Hey there – come down a sec and rest with me?"
I, drifting a couple of inches above ground with nothing but the strength of my intent and the memories of another man – another time – let the moment slip.
She stood still, caught in an autumn wind that still held the touch of a summer that had passed. Her violet summer dress, ending just above her knees and showcasing a fair amount of cleavage, promised me an afternoon of mind-numbing pleasantries.
The Suit, for once giving in to a basic human need, bled off my skin without command.
She smiled, though her eyes had gained a weary look.
"I didn't know you could fly…"
"Can't." I approached her slowly, enjoying the moment; it barely seemed real. She barely seemed real. "Floating. What you just saw is all you get."
But I have the memories to do it, Serena. I have the memories of another man, a crazy motherfucker, in a different time, flying against all the madness of the world in a bid of defiance – losing his soul but gaining a legend in the process.
Losing his soul inside the Suit. To the Suit.
And I can feel that man breaking through. Entering my mind. My thoughts. Emerge merged. One day two became one becomes three to become one again.
You understand, Lance?
"Did you play with your… monsters?" Serena asked, gesturing to the Snorlax snoring loudly and deeply, the Pikachu – my fucking Pikachu, the Pikachu of all Pikachu – gazing at us from atop its belly, and the Charizard lingering by the shadow of a tree behind me.
They all seemed a measure beyond exhaustion.
"They're Pokémon, Serena – both more wondrous and terrible than anything this world has to offer."
"Expect you."
She spoke it softly, but I heard it clear as day; I chose to ignore it.
"And we didn't play – we tested my strength. I… my powers grow still. I've seen the threshold of my potential, seen it in a dream, a memory… I've more to give. I've known this, at some level, ever since I first put on this damn thing. Only thing, the fucked thing – it doesn't scare me anymore."
"That's good… right?"
"No. I think the Suit won't let me have that fear, so it's blocking it from my mind. Altering me." I stopped before I let the river become a raging ocean that would sweep her sanity away with my own. Because some secrets cannot be accepted.
For some reason she smiled.
"Well, I don't know a whole lot about that, but I brought a blanket and some refreshments – lay with me."
Did she just say that?
"Yes, ma'am."
Does it hurt?
"Yeah." Lance nodded, almost eagerly so. "You're uniquely qualified to answer that question. You remember it, don't you? Dying."
I shrugged.
Does it hurt? Death. The heart decides. That little, persistent muscle of a heart finally giving up its constant beating – a lifetime of dull, almost mechanic limbering onwards, never stopping once, until finally it just becomes too much…
Does it hurt? Am I uniquely qualified to answer such a preposterously enormous question?
You're more perceptive than Drew, Lance. Yes. But the point seems to have eluded even you.
Sir Aaron Kalanovski, the greatest Guardian to have ever lived and last and first owner of this Suit… is dead. He's not the one wrestling for my soul and body.
Yes. I sense – sometimes even see – his memories. So it must be him, right? Inside of me.
No.
It's a conundrum.
He took the mantle, the Suit, not knowing the consequence, not knowing that a divine organism would slowly eat away at him.
Aaron didn't die of old age; he didn't even know he was dying – and when he finally died, he had long since lost his identity to the suit.
It is not Aaron's soul inside the Suit; it's the Suit. The Suit. It has taken his memories, warped and distorted them of all humanity – becoming obsessively single-minded. Taken his willingness to self-sacrifice, his courage, all of his strength and perfected its capabilities for whatever endgame it has.
Aaron struggled, I imagine, as I now struggle. Struggle to hold onto myself, to not suddenly wake up one day and be gone, or taking the passenger seat inside my own body.
Aaron lost that struggle long before his heart stopped beating.
Aaron never perceived his death, for he was too far gone when his time came. He was a deeply selfless man – perhaps the greatest this world will ever know.
And this piece of fuck took him away from us.
He never knew death; his memories stop at a certain point – everything else, all that were and all that might have been, is just empty space. He never knew death, Lance, and thus I know not.
So no, I'm not qualified in anyway to answer that question. I can speculate; I can draw conclusions based upon the evidence presented.
You wanna know what I think?
I think dying hurts a whole lot less than living does.
Have you ever seen someone die? Have you noticed how they, as they… linger in their final moments… how they change…
There's a peace I've never known or seen on any living face in their features. It doesn't matter how they died; however violent or peaceful they went, when they face death, when they realize that there's no way back, they see that it is not so bad.
Many fear death. And for good reasons. I mean, what's not to fear? After all, you don't know what it is, what it will do, what it even means.
But death, your death, it doesn't mean a damn to you. Your death is not yours. Once you're gone, once your life ends, you're not the one who'll miss it.
Deaths happen to the loved ones, to the ones you touched along the way – to the ones crying out for you.
So do not despair about death, Lance. Do not fear it. Do not, if you listen, even spare it but a single thought. It is not worth it… life though…
Life.
Life!
Life…
A life is worth a cosmos of thoughts.
Dying is the easiest part of a life. Actually living, Lance, that's the one most people struggle with.
We lay for while. Serena and I. No talking, gentle touches, nothing vulgar. Nothing you'd brag to the guys about, but something you'd cherish.
Something real.
The grass tickled my angles. It felt oddly comforting.
Pikachu, like a small child, lay in between us, nuzzled up against my chest. It was fast asleep, but Serena, not too fond of Pokémon, hesitated to touch the little guy.
"C'mon." I took her hand in mine and, tenderly, put it along the back of Pikachu. It hissed in pleasure.
"So cute… it's a wonder…" Serena marveled breathlessly. "Such power and danger inside such a small, lovable creature."
"That's no ordinary Pikachu, sweetheart."
"Nothing's ordinary anymore, is it?"
"I don't think I've ever known anything ordinary in my life."
"Well, you've known me, haven't you?" Serena asked, bracing herself on her elbow to look me in the eye. "I'm about as ordinary as they come compared to all this."
I laughed. "You're just about so ordinary it's extraordinary."
Serena frowned, gaining a cute little line beneath her right eye. "Thanks. I think."
"It's perhaps the greatest, most sincere compliment I've ever given."
She beamed.
"Well, in that case – thank you."
She laid back, her hand staying by Pikachu now, brushing against its soft fur.
"Ash, where is Garchomp?" Serena asked.
"Somewhere in the sky, I think," I said unconcernedly. "Licking its wounds."
"What happens now?" She seemed awfully tense all of a sudden. "What will you do next?"
"I dunno, to be perfectly honest. Trace him again, perhaps. My wounds are still healing."
"It's a wonder they healed at all."
"Yeah." A wonder. Fuck that. "Regroup, I guess. Wait for Riley to strike. He has proven himself smarter than me so far, hasn't he? I dunno…"
I paused, and Serena, to her credit, didn't try to deny my words or play to my ego. A Wingull drifted by lazily, almost wavering in the sun.
Like a child.
A child of the sun.
"We're all Children of the Sun, Serena – remember that, please. Please remember that."
"What do you mean?"
I licked my dry lips, watching the Wingull, in a fit of sudden, sheer fright, turn on its tail and take to the oceans. Flying crammed between the blues of the heaven and waters.
"You know, for once I think I know." I laughed, hard, almost madly. "I actually think I know what I'm trying to say."
"All right," Serena said slowly. Not afraid like most would in my presence, but confusedly. "Mind explaining it to me."
"I think, for a wonder, perhaps Oak was right."
"Why do you not call him Samuel? He considers you a son."
I ignored her question, taking it for what it was. Inconsequential. What I called Oak, I called him because I'd called him that, with the greatest of affection, for my entire life.
"I'm not enough, Serena – I was never meant to be. I'll fight for 'em, but without… without them behind me, with me, I will fall. I was never meant to do this on my own. We're all in this. Together. We're all children of the sun. The Children of the Sun. Don't you see! It's so clear!"
Don't mind the epiphany, Lance! I'm just blabbering nonsense at this point, stalling to examine the problem with this all too kind of a moment.
Why the sudden fear?
The Wingull, a little ways away by now, caught the edge of a new existence, and a light rivaling the rays of the sun manifested before our eyes.
"My God…" Serena, gob opened in an expression of beautiful disbelief, stared with awe. "It's evolving…"
"It's afraid," I said, leaving her arms – or letting go of her form, of her curves and kindness – and rising to my feet. My eyes looked anyway but at the scientific impossibility unfolding before us. "Why the sudden fear?"
"Wha…"
Why, Lance, why the sudden fear? Why did the Wingull, gliding so tranquilly across the open sky, suddenly flee in dread?
An explosion rocked Oak's farm, blasting half the house off its hinges and leaving the wall looking out over the ocean in dust and debris.
I was already in motion. Suit coalescing upon my body. Pale, human flesh became grey and indestructible in the blink of an eye, in the silence between one heartbeat and the next.
I was the Last Guardian.
I am the Last Guardian.
"ASH!"
"PIKACHU! YOU STAY ON HER, YOU HEAR ME?"
I waited not for confirmation. I was running. The world blurred as men descended out of the sky, helicopters of all shapes and sizes converged upon our location.
Screams of war arose.
The League!
My mind screamed at my carelessness. At the injustice of it all.
A man, built like a motherfucker on steroids – kinda like yours truly, eh, Lance – landed in front of me, spun upon the grassy field, and gained stride towards me.
Here was a man, Lance, trained to perfection in the ways of combat. And here he was, ready to use such skills to combat me with everything he had.
There was no confidence in his eyes. Only surprise. As he beheld my form descend upon him.
And sheer, muscle-freezing fear.
"No chance, fucker!" I yelled, backhanding him aside without slowing. I felt his fuckin' carcass – the pieces of it – splatter across the ocean and I heard Serena scream pure murder.
It was glorious!
Two more men, guns in hand, came out of the wall-less side of the building. There was a sigma on their shirts…
And it was not the League's.
It was bright red, running across the torso and impossible to miss.
It was Team Rocket.
My blood ran hard and hot like an infernos furnace. A red sheen coated the edges of my vision, blinding me to all methods of rationality. I felt the clammy touch of tears and sweat run like fire from my eyes.
My hands shook.
My fuckin' hands shook.
The Suit, combatting my emotion to gain control, to gain order, to show me the best, least confrontational route, clashed against the turmoil of my heart. Clashed against the humanity of my being.
It stood no chance.
I could see what it wanted. Fall back and assess. How many? Where? That kind of questions…
I jumped forty meters, turned in midair, and kicked 'em fuckers right in the torso with the soles of my feet.
They cleaved in half, bathing me in their blood, and my momentum took me right through them. I ducked and weaved, rolling with the fall.
I tried to come to a skidding stop, looking all imposing and cool. But a woman, lithe and fast, ran into my path and collided with me. A resounding snapping sound reverberated across the lawn, accompanied swiftly by a stifled scream of agony.
"Here's one for gender equality!" I yelled, pissed off that she'd ruined my stride, and smacked her across the face, cracking her neck to hell.
"Fuck!" a man, dressed entirely in grey, yelled from inside the building, where he stared dumbfounded at me. "It – it's here! The thing! THE FUCKING-"
"What was that?" Another man came limping outta the corridor that led to the professor's lab.
I stretched my hand out, palm outwards, barely sparring them a glance, and a blue ball suddenly filled the palm of my hand.
"Move," I whispered.
A third man came out of the corridor, panting and with a blanket of bruised purple skin covering his cheek. In his arms he carried one of Oak's contraptions.
"We got the professor – and the girl. And I don't wanna hear no shit about this! We're clearing the lab-"
"Roland, shut up! We got company."
He turned to me, watched me stupidly, remembered to breathe, and squealed in fright.
"Fuck!" He uttered, voice breaking, and raised his gun – as did his fellas – and fired.
I, comprehending their course of actions before they took it, bend my mind towards a broader form of Aura.
The bullets, little, everlasting pieces of iron – designed to kill, destined to end lives – travelled the space between us faster than the human eye can perceive reality.
The sphere of aura in my hand, wisps of smoky energy burning and running inside invisible strings, let loose a never-ending stream of pencil-thin tendrils of blue Aura. Every tendril, guided by my intent, lashed out like a lance and caught bullet after bullet in its web.
After ten seconds of non-stop shooting, the three men put down their guns, tips smoky, standing so still they could have looked dead on their feet.
I turned my palm upwards, showcasing the sphere, and if you looked hard enough you could just about see the small bullets burn like fireworks within.
"So… that happened," I said, tracking a fourth individual, a male, creeping along the wall outside to round around behind me.
"What – the fuck are you?" one of the men before me stammered.
My palm turned outwards again, pointing at them. "Where are there?"
"How did you even know we'd be here?"
"I know everything," I lied. Apparently there weren't here for me. What then? The professor? May? Both seemed unlikely. The answers eluded me, but for now it didn't matter. The fourth man was almost behind me now, almost in sight. "Where are they? Don't make me ask thrice!"
"Die, freak!"
The fourth man, his voice laced with a mixture of delicious trepidation and acrid jubilation, threw a grenade at my feet, and jumped for cover behind the wall again.
I sighed – really! – tripped impatiently on the balls of my feet, and, with nothing but a thought, conjured a globe of white light to encompass the grenade.
There was a soft – pop! – and my white glob of energy swelled as if on the edge of busting before settling back.
"You've got to be fucking me!" Roland uttered.
I bore of this. My other hand pointed at the wall, index finger extended right where I felt the man hide behind it, and a laser-thin lance of energy carved right through the wall.
There was a sputter of blood, like a fountain, spraying across the opening behind me, which was the only visual effect. But it was swiftly followed by the sound of torn throat, gurgling for air as it struggled to exhale its blood.
I never looked back during all this, keeping my eyes straight ahead at the three guys before me, whose eyes grew horrified as the fourth man stumbled out of his hide, fell to his knees, before finally placidly diving for the ground. Dead fuck.
"I asked. A fucking question!" I snarled.
"They took them to the choppers! To the woods!" Roland screamed, accent a broken caricature of English.
"Don't lie, human!"
"The professor! They took the professor to the woods."
"And the girl?"
"To the beach! It's the truth, I swear!"
Three beams, screaming from an abyss beyond the sights of men, left the tips of my fingers. Silencing them for eternity as swiftly as bullets of guns.
War is forever. Eternal. Everlasting.
Lance, you know, right? You never forget.
Never.
As their corpses fell to the floor, I beheld – through the walls of the house, no less – more men scattering across the fields of Oak range, running to and fro, planned chaos. In their hands they carried equipment. Oak's equipment.
The conundrum, their true intentions, didn't matter presently.
Oak and May were in danger. Where was Clement? Dead? Or maybe hiding…
Nothing mattered.
No matter.
Move, Ketchum!
Spurred by the unseen voice, the corpses of the three men still in free fall towards the ground, I spun upon the broken floor, hands filling with infernal lights, and set in motion for the beach.
I was gonna save them both. Starting with May.
It's a choice. The choice between one life and the other. It's the story of a life. Life is a road of choices made. And once made, once that choice is taken, you have chosen your road, your destiny, and then you cannot refuse it.
You can only forge yourself once.
There's a way back, of course, but it's not the same place you end up into. And there's no guarantee you'll make it in time.
It's a choice. And there are only wrong answers.
But I'm running. I'm making my choice and I'm running with it. Until the end. And that's all we can do. That's all it is.
It was a choice that led me here. Spurred on, perhaps, by misery and heartbreak – but it's a choice and it's mine and I'm running with it. Now the choice is yours, Lance. What to do now? Will you stand? For something? Something true for once…
Or will you leave me alone?
Whatever your answer is, know this…
I will stand alone if I must – that has always been my choice.
But at least I stand.
I was running upon a blue streak of defiance. Men scattered before me as I unleashed my fury in vitriolic clashes of power. Men – Pokémon-less men – died to my hand as I raced for the beach.
I hit the sand in seconds! My thighs burned with extortion – burning impossibly! – and I felt my heart rate rising beyond what it was capable of.
And there! In the distance, hovering mere feet above the ocean surface, a chopper was waiting for a small motorboat, which carried three burly men and May.
Fuck, there were too far out! I couldn't jump that far, I couldn't swim fast enough, and I was gonna lose her.
What? Flying…
Lance, I could barely hover mere minutes ago – what? You think it's that kinda story? Where the hero, suddenly in a situation of mortal danger, finds within himself the strength to exceed his own limitation in a single moment of inspiration?
Give me a fuckin' break! This is real life – not a stupid fantasy.
Like a true hero… I called for help.
"CHARIZARD!"
Those seconds, where I could see May sail away, knowing that Oak would do the same in the other direction, I knew a dread no man should ever know.
A failed choice.
And then an animalistic fury forked the air like thunder. Charizard, air borne and fast as fuck, threw itself at me. I, acting on pure instinct, jumped and grabbed ahold of its neck, propelling out over the ocean.
May, dragged along unwillingly, was being shoved into the chopper now, kicking and screaming, and slapped by one of the burly men.
As if amplified by the ravings of madness, I heard the slap like it was the first sound in a soundless world. It echoed, fueled by a red-hot burning behind my eyes, which shook the world around my being.
And then I realized something… I was holding back. Had been holding back. You see, I've been holding back my entire life, thinking I'd be the bigger man. That killing, taking lives, were below me.
I never killed when competing in the League. I'm the only Journeyman – ever – to win a League Tournament without killing. Why? Because I didn't have to, Lance. Because I was holding back.
Afterwards, I was holding back, too – even when going out on my vendetta against Team Rocket and the scum like them. I held back against, you, Lance, and your men, the monster threatening our borders, doing Riley's bidding.
Always keeping strings tight. Always… leaving just that little extra in the tank.
I saw fucking red! Thick blood, opaque and nasty, laid claim to my vision, the pounding of my raging heart became an all-consuming inferno. And I realized… so suddenly… that there was no reason to hold back any longer – against them.
Yes, Lance. I was, in that moment, fighting to kill, for the kill, in search of the kill. In chase of the thrill of the kill. I wasn't aiming to spare, not at all. These were all vile creatures who'd made their bed with the devil.
And now I was something worse than the devil.
Charizard folded its wings, diving like a missile towards the chopper. I slacked my hold, edging forwards, knowing – without knowing how that knowing was acquired – just what Charizard was planning. We fell and the world stood still, the chopper coming nearer every silent, everlasting second. I could see the whiteness in their eyes as they – the pilot, the three burly men, and May – all as one beheld me, surprised incredulity shared amongst the whole block.
Then the fear settled into their eyes – relieve on May's part. No doubt she'd think I was about to save her.
I was.
But I was also about to do something crazy.
No strings on me, baby!
"NOW!" I screamed, and Charizard let loose its giant wings, catching the torrents of air. I, deliberately not holding on, was jerked forward at inhuman speed, crashing through the cockpit and slamming the pilot through the door at the other side.
He died before he hit the waters.
May screamed like all fuckin' hell, the three burly men, though frightened, was spurred into action. The air inside the small, confined space of the helicopter was rendered by fists and grunts.
I mowed them down; I was the cat and they were the mice. I was playing with dinner again.
I grasped the first fist, seeing it coming before the man knew he'd throw it, rolling the dice already knowing… already seeing…
You see, we are but an infinite path of choices.
And this motherfucker just made the wrong one.
War is coming, Lance. Make your choice. Now.
The fist broke like a stick in my hand, and I pulled sideways, ripping it off his arm. Quick as a flash of light, I threw it like a ball into the face of one of the other men, breaking his nose. I turn on myself, thrusting me through the air by the fist-less arm of the first man. I cleared the air just above May's head, lying sideways in mid-air, performing gymnastics that should be impossible whilst the pilot-devoid chopper was crashing into an infinite sea of tears.
The suit is working for me. Scanning their faces. Scanning their bodies. Their movement patterns. Their training. Their walks of life. Their choices past made and their choices made henceforward.
I know, instantly, instinctually, what they have done, what they're doing in this moment, and what they'll do.
Knowing is my curse. My gift. Your salvation.
The third man, crammed in the middle, was frown forward, through the front screen, as the chopper hit the surface of the ocean.
At our velocity, the Suit was telling me, there was a two-second window of opportunity. A window in which the fall breaks upon the surface and the chopper remains above the ocean. Once those two seconds pass, the moment ceases to exist… we sink.
I grabbed May, raising my other hand, lights sizzling, blasting a beam of pure lights through the man's skull, and breaking the side of the chopper that was leaning upwards towards the heavens.
"Sorry!" I said, as I threw her through the hole, cringing as I heard her screams of outrage and Charizard's bellow, as the beast caught her.
Something was pricking on the side of my face, and as I turned, I noted that the last guy – the one with the broken nose – was shooting me repeatedly with his sidearm.
"Would you stop that?" I snarled, as we broke the surface, snapping his gun apart between my thumb and index finger. "It's annoying."
The waters were rising, and dread spurred the man away from me, going for the door beside him. I caught him around the waist, dragging him back to his seat.
"No! Fuck! Come on, man! We're gonna drown!"
"You are." There was a smile in my voice, vicious and cruel, that was unmistakable – even behind the mask. "I'm not. I'm like a Goldeen in water."
"Please – you can't do this, man!"
"We are but an infinite path of our choices."
"Stop this, please! Come on!" His voice descended into the throes of indiscernible nonsense. And I bore easily.
"And you made the wrong fucking choice, motherfucker."
I gave him no quick release. I held him still, watched his eyes as the waters rose above our heads. He tried to hold on, to his breath, to his hope – I held on. He deserved it. For what he had done, what he was doing, and what he would do. It's all there, Lance, discernable in the moments between heartbeats and thousands upon thousands of insignificant words we say unthinkingly to each other.
He drowned. I took my time, my relish – and I wasted a lifetime ebbing away, ebbing away…
"Locate Samuel Oak!"
The voice was metallic and not of this world.
It belonged to the suit.
The Suit.
I jumped as if possessed, through the roof, the pressure of the water not enough to stop me. I broke surface, and Charizard was waiting for me, as if expecting me – such was the bond between me and the Pokémon.
I'm, after all, a Pokémon Master.
"What took you?" May screamed.
"Go!" I yelled, ignoring her question. "Towards the crispy forest. Dump her over there, by the coast line."
"WHAT?" she shrieked.
We took flight, the air breaking upon us.
"What took you?" she asked again.
"I smote our enemy to ruins within the embrace of tears," I said, keeping eyes straight ahead – there was a coast up ahead and it was clear. "Drop her there, Charizard."
"I don't – I can't hear you. What are you saying, Ash?"
"I killed the fuckers!" I yelled over the inferno of noisy winds. "Just, you know, more eloquently put."
We let her go, as gently as possible, slowing just a tad, and then sped away towards the decayed forest.
As we flew across the fields, covering the ruins of Team Rocket's strike with our shadow, I noted that it was completely abandoned. I felt life – precious few. There was Clement, easily traceable now when the grounds were mostly abandoned and I didn't have to cipher through the different people. There was May at the beach, and there was Serena – with Pikachu – at the edge of the field.
And there was a life force, by the decayed woodlands, which was ebbing away, ebbing away…
Ebbing away eternally.
And then the dreaded voice sounded its dreadful message.
"Samuel Oak… located."
No. Please to God, no.
Charizard, sensing the turmoil of my heart, found a small measure of speed still left to give. And it gave it all. And I saw a body, small and broken upon the grounds, at the edges of the woodlands, as we drew near.
Tears… tears found my eyes a willing victim.
I let go of Charizard, fell through the air, and landed by his side a second later. He was smiling, painfully so with blood trickling from the edges like rivers, but smiling nonetheless.
Arms bent all wrong, he coughed and twitched… every muscle aching madly… he smiled.
"And then we end up in the inevitably, don't we, son?" he said.
"Oak…" I fell to my knees, cradling him in my arms. The Suit scanned his body with a cursory sort of glance. It told me what every sane soul already knew. "Samuel, it's – it's gonna be all right."
"Yes. You're right. You'll do all right."
"Stop it. Stop it – don't talk like that."
"I'm reminded of a poem. Somehow. I can't exactly remember it right now, but… I'm reminded of a poem…"
"Samuel… please…"
"There is a light inside of you, Ash. Something the world cannot touch. Because it is stronger."
"That's… that's not a poem, is it?"
"Call me Oak, Ash – you always have. I'm sorry." Tears moved freely, mingled with blood, along his pale cheek. "You have been through so much – and I see no end in sight. Not for you."
"You're not at fault."
"I could never protect you. I could never protect anyone. None that mattered to me. And you… you've been torn off this world once, across an ocean of pain, into a perfect, unforgiving loop of time. There's another man, of another time, of another world, inside of you, inside of that thing – I get that now. I get your struggle. The world won't. It will break upon you – and only you can mend it."
"I… cannot… see it." I couldn't see sense of his words. He was dying; wasn't he supposed to make sense in this final moment of his?
"Track down Lance; it's all you can do now. You're all they have left. It's on you now. You are the owner of the most adaptable machine the world has ever known – act accordingly, Ash Ketchum."
"I don't know if I can win." I didn't need to specify what I meant; he got me at last. Understood me. Completely. "It's too strong."
"What's it like?"
"It's like…" What was it like? "Seeing your reflection move, knowing you're standing still, waving at you, smiling at you, withholding knowledge, blasting raw noise through the synapsis of your brain. I can't see it. Where it starts, where it ends. What I'm fighting, where I'm fighting. It's there… in me. Always knocking. Unrelenting. Through memory. Through history. Through a perfect loop of infinite time."
"You must fight it!" he said, and his voice became raw with defiance old as the earth and fierce as the sun.
"I must. I must." I nodded. "You're dead, right?"
"I'm drawing my last breath, yes – it's easier than I thought it would be."
"It always is," I said. "Too easy sometimes."
Oak smiled. "Your life is your life… don't let be clubbed into dank submission…"
The pain in his smile vanished, the cough dissolved, the aching muscles became still, and – as my helmet slid off my face – Oak drew his last breath and closed his eyes.
There was an instant – in between moments that are indistinguishable to intellect, but perceivable with senses and an open heart – where his smile blossomed into something free.
I kissed his forehead, hoisted him gently unto Charizard, and flew him back to the range.
Samuel Oak was gone and the world had just lost a great man.
That was yesterday. I think. Time has become muddled. Memories mingled. Did he die? Yes. Yes he did. Was I at fault? What were their motives? Why were Team Rocket there?
"I think I should be applauded, really," I said. "For showing restrain."
"Restrain?" Lance blinked, scoffing at the notion. "You basically tore our defenses apart to get in. Our Hospital Wing has never been quite so busy."
"No deaths, though – that must count for something. And they wouldn't let me in." I laughed. "But I'm not talking about that."
"Then what?"
"Giovanni was here earlier. I must say every part of my being – even this damn piece of reptilian garments wanted the fucker dead. The urges were… intense."
"Enough with the damn rumors. Giovanni has been nothing but-"
"A fucking, back-stabbing bitch that deserves a good ol' cock-smashing. He rules the throne, Lance – the sooner you realize that, the sooner we can unite."
"You see, Ash, that's not how society works." Lance leaned in over the table, face-to-face, as if he had no idea to whom he was speaking. To what he was speaking. "Laws reside above and beyond all morals. You may have the moral high ground – which I still highly doubt – but Giovanni has never broken any laws."
"To hell with society!" I snapped, seizing his neck in a flash. Flicker-quick yet firmly, I raised my other hand to the door behind me and applied a constant stream of force, effectively locking it to the outside. Barely a second later the pounding started. "Society? A raving mad concoction to keep man from succumbing to his basic instincts. The fight! The raw, blood-pounding thrill of the chase! You need no longer for justification! The revolution is here! Society! Ha! What a scheme! A nebulous maze of rules, laws and morals meant to cage you to your pointless continuation – all so that those in power can keep their precious little order of things…"
"You think this… solves anything." Lance uttered through a throat on the point of breaking.
"Tear it all asunder is what the Suit would have me do. And, after speaking with you, I can understand its reasons. Perhaps I should just claim the throne for myself – to reshape ones reality in ones image."
"Dictatorship, Ash? Really?"
"What is democracy but chosen dictatorship?" I slammed his face into the table, breaking his nose. His screams of pain were like the choirs of angels, filling the room with a vague whiff of deliciousness. The sputter of blood running in line along the table was the masterpiece on my canvas. "Once the votes are cast, once you have chosen to whom you'll lay down your life – and the possibilities of said life – you have no power left but to follow. Like sheep. It's the illusion of power, Lance, an illusion of a say in your life."
"So what are you doing here?"
"We are all slaves to our programing. We all got what I like to call involuntary compulsions. That… whatever we're met with, whatever we must endure, we have a response that derives from a gene-deep reaction that originates from inside your fuckin' skull. I'm here as a retort to the universe. A giant fuck you to my programing! I'm a dreamer in search of self-actualization. I'm a man rooted deeply in pessimism in search of hope. I'm at the end of the line – there is no more rope to cling onto. I'm delivered unto thee eyes, wearing nothing but a defiant look and a dream. And life is a dream. A box opened long ago by Time when it got bored in its majestic lonesomeness. And Time, Lance, Time created death as the failsafe. The road outta this misery. Fuck that shit, too!"
There was a tear in my eye, lonesome and beautiful, and I was laid bare at last. No more otherworldly armor here, ladies and gents! Just a scarred, scared little boy at the end of misery, at the foot of the abyss, in a void of nothing but infinite Time!
"Your life is your life," I said, knowing it by heart, the words forever sealed inside my heart. "Don't let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is a light… somewhere. It may not be much light, but… it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can't beat death, but… you can beat death in life… sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight… in you."