Gotten awfully busy so chapter are slowing down a bit!

Arc I, The Plate of Space

Chapter Seven:

The Sound on the Train

"Aurelio...is there truly a point to all of this equipment?"

"Of course there is!" said Aurelio, scowling. He lifted his large black bag from the day before and tossed it in my direction, assuming that I would catch it. When I didn't, and the bag went skidding on the floor, he stopped with his hands on his hips. "What, seriously?"

"You threw it at me!"

I noticed that his hands were paler than the rest of his arms, which were lean and bronze. He had been wearing gloves all of the previous day, but now that I could see his fingers I could tell that the skin there was more polished than I had expected. The nails were clean and the bones were straight. For a man who dabbled in a profession that spent much time in the field and dirt, Aurelio must not have spent most of his career digging.

I could tell by his exhaustion, not in the joints but in his eyes. They were red-rimmed and unable to focus. He often stretched his neck, and even when he stood, his body tilted forward too much, as if he had spent most of his days curled up beneath the sun, the weight of the summer heat pressing on him as he studied his books.

"How many books do you have?" I asked, half-curious and half-irritated.

Last night, during the commotion, I had not noticed how many old journals and maps lined the the crumbling baseboards. There were no bookshelves, only piles upon piles of dust-coated paper along each wall. Some of them, I observed, had not been touched in years, and had fallen victim to the days when the wind blew in the sand; their gritty glazes were permanently caked on, and the notes and research they hid within were therefore unreachable.

"A lot," he said, chuckling. "But I'm not bringing all of them. The seventh-gen..." When he referred to his family tree, he had started naming the steps to his line by their generation, with the grandfather who met me being the first-generation and Aurelio being the ninth-generation. "...bought this shack because a lot of his research kept bringing him to this area. We eventually scoured the area and found out that this land was useless to us, but we still hang out in here when we're passing by."

I picked up one book and beheld its cover. Upon it, there was a golden globe, surrounded by intricate spiraling designs.

"We're getting to Rustboro City by train?" I asked, setting down the book.

"Yeah. Do you know what a train is?"

Aurelio had swiftly figured out that my vocabulary was scant.

"Yes," I said, nudging back the urge to roll my eyes. I had seen trains far and often. They were incredibly difficult to miss, with how they plowed through the earth like a giant serpentine monster, black clouds billowing from their crests. "Are they uncomfortable?"

"Not at all." Aurelio peered at me from behind his glasses. "You're not afraid of them, are you?"

"Honestly," I said, scoffing.

He walked past me and held out his arm, where I hung his backpack by the straps. Grinning, he said, "You know, for an eternal being who has watched human civilization grow since its birth….you've got a lot to learn about sarcasm."

Trains were more intimidating in person.

I stared up at the massive assortment of machinery, awed by its unification. I could hear individual gears turning. When the burgundy red beast let loose a shower of steam from its head, an ear-piercing whistle came from within, and I flinched, nearly dropping what I had been helping Aurelio carry.

He snorted. "Come on, let's get on."

"I did not know these steel prisons would have such comfortable seating," I mentioned once we had settled into our stations. Aurelio was hoisting his bags onto an overhead carry. I looked out the window, hoping to not remember the tiny town in which we had been noticed in a bazaar. Chances were I would never recall the name of this place, and I was fine with that. "I'm surprised that nobody came looking for us last night."

"The people of this town are used to seeing strange things," said Aurelio, collapsing into his seat. "The surrounding area is heavily infested with Pokémon — the mysterious kind. At first, I wasn't all that worried that the residents had noticed your Alterstone transformation. Some Pokémon around here have interesting shape-changing abilities. And then I saw that note."

How funny. It seems you only have two arms.

I turned over the message in my head. "Do you think they are after my stone?"

"Could be a way of announcing the messenger knows who you are," said Aurelio. His face was expressionless, but by his voice I could tell that he was perturbed. "Can't tell if they're after the Alterstone, or maybe even after you. If they wanted either that badly, wouldn't they have just confronted you in the shack? Why leave a note?"

"If I were not Arceus, I would certainly not confront it in a shack," I said.

The train lurched. I faced the window, my dark human fingers on the glass, watching as the unnamed town began to roll past me and away into the distance. Soon, we had travelled further into the desert, where there was nothing but golden hills of sand. The more we advanced, the larger the hills became, until I started to become anxious at the thought of the dunes spilling onto us.

Nearly half an hour had passed in silence before I turned to Aurelio again. He was sitting with his legs crossed, writing in his journal again.

"What do you write in there?" I asked.

He looked up. "Hm?"

I pointed at his journal. "You're always writing in there. What do you put?"

Aurelio hesitated for a minute. Then he held it up, pages open to me, so that I could see the microscopic handwriting and drawings he had scribbled. "I am the first of my family...and probably the first in all the world...to interact with you like this," he said sheepishly. "Don't you think that it's sort of, you know, my responsibility to document all of it?"

I pursed my lips. "You'll be sharing it with your family, then."

"I'm not sure, yet," he said, which startled me. I hadn't expected his uncertainty. He saw my expression, sighed, and closed his journal. "Look, Arceus. Despite what you may think, you're not just some research project for us. You're everything to us. Sacred. The ninth-generation saw something in your eyes when he found the immortal dimension."

Probably irritation.

"When I have children, I'll show them these," he continued. "But neither my father nor the fathers before him got this far. I mean, I didn't do anything special to warrant your appearance. So maybe I'll try to think of it as divine intervention. And that's why I want to keep it — these experiences — to myself. Because you are that sacred."

I leaned back, hands in my lap. I stared at him for a long time. Even when his eyes rose to meet mine, and they would hastily flitter back down to his fidgeting legs, I saw the glint of golden fire. This was not a man whose soul fretted. This man was brave and strong. I had seen enough of humankind sail through the generations — the wars they fought, the cities they built, and the love that they shared — to recognize this one simple trait by looking at a pair of beautiful, well-set eyes: the trait of power.

"I think that one day," I began, "you'll learn that I am not as divine as your family has led itself to believe."

Suddenly, the train came to a screeching halt. Aurelio and I stumbled to regain our balance, our ears ringing. Bags from overhead carriers went spilling into the aisle. Other passengers stood up, adjusting their hats and coats, looking positively befuddled.

"That was too urgent for comfort," muttered Aurelio.

A flash of blue caught my attention. Latios — unmistakably Latios — vaulted over one of the seats further down the carriage. He saluted at me and nodded at Aurelio.

"Too urgent for comfort," he repeated, grinning.

Then he sprinted away.

End of Chapter Seven