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Arc I, The Plate of Space

Chapter Twenty-One:

The Crystal Tower

In a pulsing flash of light, I stumbled onto a different seashore.

The skies were ash silver. In the distance, I heard the roll winter winds coming. Standing up straighter, I covered my arms and shivered, knowing that I was far from my companions' warmth. I had not felt this lonesome since before I created man and Pokémon kind.

Sudden exhaustion hit me. I leaned against a rocky wall and rested my head against a patch of arctic moss. Panting, I cursed myself, "This is what you get. You put yourself in this situation. Get yourself out."

When had flipping the Alterstone become so tiring? I had barely teleported the entire distance over the ocean. I might have fallen into the water, too drained to stay afloat.

I slid down, pulling my legs to my chest. Sweat beaded at my temples.

I could have stayed there forever, listening to the melody of the surf. But behind me, there was a crystal mountain, and inside, my Plate. The white gravel was cold under my thighs and neither my body nor my heart would find warmth again if I resigned myself to this life of idleness.

I stared miserably at the Alterstone.

What have you done? it seemed to ask me.

I gazed at my lonely reflection. Something terrible.

The face that I saw in the azure mirror was not one that I recognized. It was the face of a phony creator, who sold its power and soul to humanity, and whose selfishness had doomed the universe to perish. But this face was no longer mine. I wanted to be born anew, to erase the masks of my past.

The Alterstone glittered. What will you do?

I took a deep, trembling breath, filling myself with frigid air. Something good for once.

The crystal mountain loomed over me, like a prismatic eclipse of the sun. When I had stood upon these waters and raised this mountain with my magic, I had left it as a sign: There are great powers beyond our understanding. It was supposed to be beautiful and marvelous. But now it was nothing but an experiment, an excavation site, a prison in which Luce held my Plate hostage.

I walked around the island. It took nearly an hour. I could have flown or swam, but my energy was waning, and I needed the time for myself.

I eventually reached the entrance. A chilling breeze swept across the island, covering me in a flurry of soft, white flakes. The mountain stretched into the air like a colorful pyramid, and even though I had been the one who built it, I still stood in its iridescent shadow, truly awed by what I had done.

"Nice job, boss!"

"It really is spectacular, Arceus."

There was a makeshift path which had been constructed by the humans for easier access. All around the mountain, I saw abandoned tents and tables. Maps fluttered underneath stacks of frosted books. There were destroyed teacups, broken upon impact with the ground, and the other scattered remains of life and activity. I had walked into a ghost town.

The Crystal Towers project had been abandoned long before I reached the mortal dimension.

The makeshift path led into a dark tunnel. Outside, by myself, the wind groaned. The tents flapped.

"Don't be such a wuss."

"Come on. Let's go in — together."

I exhaled. "Okay."

I ran my fingers along the crystal walls, smooth and polished. My dark skin glowed under a rainbows of greens, lavenders, and beryls. When I looked up, all I saw was cavernous blackness, and when I faced forward, the narrow tunnels seemed to stretch onward forever. I had always liked imagining that my precious Alterstone looked similar on the inside.

These walls sang a melancholic dirge. It spoke to me. I stopped, releasing a warbling sigh.

"Hotter...hotter...oh, you're almost here, Arceus, but not quite."

My soft brush upon the walls became a clenched fist. "Luce."

"You're here alone," said Luce, his voice eerily close.

"I've always worked alone."

Luce snickered. I could almost feel his breath behind my ears. "You've never been truly alone," he remarked. "Not even when you were born from nothing. Not when there were no stars, no planets, no galaxies, and definitely no mortal life. I've always been beside you, waiting for our time together again. It's been so long…"

I hurried down the passage, seeking the source of his voice. I didn't know how to navigate these tunnels, but I could follow the aura of my Plate. When I came to a dead end, I spun on my heel and went the opposite way, keen to finally meet this mysterious presence face-to-face.

"Oops, you're getting colder."

But the connection between me and my Plate was scorching. I hadn't felt this heated in millenia. I knew that I was becoming closer for every second spent. I raced the other Arceus in the crystal mirror, avoiding at all costs my own eyes. They were hooked on me, as accusing as could be.

"So tell me, Original One, if you were the light born into the universe…"

My heart was throbbing. The path steeply angled uphill, and I surged into the path, driving myself up with what strength I could muster.

"...meant to bring life, unity, and balance…"

At the end of the slope, there stood gaping a black tunnel. The air was glacial inside. I had to wade through thick water, lightly thickened by the breakable layer of ice on top. Even though my surroundings were frigid, my spirit seemed to be ignited. The fiery lifeline I had with my Plate pulled me with all its force, calling me, begging to be brought to full power again.

"...who do you suppose was meant to bring death…"

My clothes weighing me down, I left the water and ran into a huge room with a dome-like ceiling. The crystals above hung down like nature's chandeliers, sparkling and spinning in the light. Behind the dome, the literal cap of the mountain, the boreal sunlight shined down through the gems and into the room. The floor sparkled with millions of pearly flecks.

"...chaos…"

The Catacombs of Arceus. They had never been some dingy, muddy room. Just as I had carefully constructed my palace in the immortal dimension, I had made this place splendid. Hundreds of old relics were gathered along the curvature of the chamber, old toys of mine I had gathered. Anyone who had access to this place would be as close to the heavens, literally and metaphorically, as earth would allow.

"...and disequilibrium?"

Luce stood below the dome, his pale skin bathed in luminous dapples.

In stature, he stood much smaller and slimmer than me. He resembled a child, hardly in adolescence, with expressive eyes and a tight, smirking mouth. Had I not known better, I would have sought to protect him in my arms. He looked so lonely by himself in this vast chamber.

He smiled. "Hi, Arceus."

I felt off. "Hello, Luce."

"I imagine you have questions."

"I..."

I was burning, and I wanted to fight. But he stood there innocently, his hands in the pockets of his dark shorts. He truly did resemble a helpless child. Anybody with a remote sense of paternal or maternal instinct would have rushed to his side and led him by the hand from the mountain. How could I bring myself to hurt him for my Plate?

Close your eyes and feel the aura he emits. Does that feel innocent to you?

"I didn't come here to talk." I slid my eyes across the room, seeking a sign of Grimmwolfe, Philippa, or anyone else except for my abandoned treasures and the demon child before me. "Where is my Plate?"

Luce spread his arms welcomingly. "All in good time," he replied. "You see, I know you very well. Better than, perhaps, you know yourself. But you know nothing about me. As it turns out, you have no idea who I am. Don't you want to learn? Where I came from, what I seek?"

"None of it," I snapped. I did want to know. But long monologues made for bad confrontation.

His eyes marginally narrowed. That sinister smile of his was fixed in place. "One thing I can reveal about you," he said, slowly lowering his arms, "is that you're selfish. You took our immortality for yourself, leaving me with this wasting form. And this…"

He waved his fingers in the air, drawing a vertical, glowing line alongside him. I watched with horror as he split the fabric of space and pushed his hand into the cosmic void. Then he pulled out the Plate of Space, its orchid-glass thin and delicate. When it came into contact with the light, it was almost blinding.

"Its power weakens," he said thoughtfully. "Care to explain that?"

You took our immortality for yourself. OUR immortality.

I was stumped.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

"Oh, so you do have questions!" said Luce gleefully, like a toddler given a figurine for his birthday. "Then let's play a game! I'll answer one for each one that you answer. We would get to know each other so much better that way. Plus, we have so much to catch up on. It's been years. Well, billions of them, really."

"I'll not play your foolish game!"

The excitement in Luce's eyes dissipated. "You will," he said. But he still smiled.

The chamber began to tremble. Diamond shards fell from the dome, rolling like tinsel marbles around my feet. Then he held my Plate out, pressing his nails into it. I held my breath. The surface cracked slightly, sending a reverberating pain to my chest. I fell to my knee, feeling like my strength had been whisked away. Like of part of me was being ripped out.

"Play my game, or I will shatter it," he said. "No normal human could break these. But I can."

"So you're not human," I said, teeth gritting.

All at once, the earthquake ceased and the room stabilized.

"That's more like it!" Luce chirped. "To answer your question, of course I'm human! Just like how you're a Pokémon. Except you're not normal, and neither am I. All the secrets you hide — your powers, your legends, even the enigmas of your own heart — all of mine are as abysmal and mysterious as yours."

I beheld with great fright the one and only creature in the universe that I had not created.

He was not mine.

End of Chapter Twenty-One