A/N: A full guide to various words from the story and their pronunciations is available on my profile. Check it out if you so desire! The prelude to this story is titled "Fractured Unity" and can also be accessed by visiting my profile page or simply searching.
Sinful Eyes and Sincere Hope
Christian Feyera, the man whose past had remained a cloudy enigma until this very moment, found himself gazing into the beautiful red cherry eyes of the same Gardevoir. Two long years separated them from locking eyes. Distance separated their gaze from reunion. Time presided as their cleaver, splitting them apart throughout the months that followed Operation Semblance. Yet time was not the enemy. For time was merely the means rather than an end in itself. The enemy had been within the entire time. Tears fell. Hearts broke. Ambitions of freedom and love shattered, while nothing seemed able to endure. And yet those eyes remained unchanged. For there was still something there. Something recognizable. The familiarity was far greater than anything else he had ever felt prior to this climatic moment.
Gasping, Feyera fell backwards. The sheer shock, the inexplicable nature of the entire string of events…his mind just couldn't take it. He slipped and fell away from her, stumbling back. His rear planted down on the wet ground. For such a short fall, it actually hurt. He felt pain from shock in his lower back. He lay there, not at rest, but in tremendous cognitive dissonance. As his tense muscles relaxed, he saw that he had been sitting down next to the Gardevoir. How could it have been this way? The researcher, the Rockets, and the two Gardevoir. Was this slew of events really his own? Why? What had he done to deserve this? How did he wind up working as a Pokemon researcher in such a despicable setting? Evercrest? Cipher? Team Rocket? There had to be something more to the story he thought.
Kneeling down, her arms outstretched to help him back up, but he denied her, shaking his head frantically back and forth in panic. It was all far too much. She was a Pokemon. And who was he? What was he? Boggling questions such as these made his head turn faster on its axis. Squinting his eyes because his head's vigorous turning made him dizzy, Feyera continued to gawk in awe. The entire situation made him dizzy. It all had to be a dream; it couldn't have been real.
"Christian…" He heard the Gardevoir say as her hand touched his knee. As she did so, the young man's frantic reaction ceased. Would she make this okay? Could she?
Gardevoir? He asked. The wind was very quiet. The entire meadow had been stilled. He wasn't even sure what time it was. Based upon the pale grey overcast, it must have been sometime during the day.
"Yes. Sana," she said. "Short for Sanaria. That's me." The Gardevoir smiled, pointed at herself almost comically, and silently laughed. That mild laugh consoled his spirit.
"Sa—What just happened?" He asked feeling slightly groggy, but mostly distraught that the dream had ended so abruptly. He rubbed his head, feeling as though he had just woken up by a cacophonous noise disrupting his sleep. That…what was that? He projected.
"It was a potent Hypnosis." Sana wobbled her head to and fro with a lighthearted expression. "Dreams we have tend to reveal parts of our past. Minds are typically highly creative though. They like to entertain us. Sometimes they even play sneaky tricks. But as our type discovered long ago, you can in fact supersede the creative embellishments and filter out an actual memory through the dream by using the right dosage of Hypnosis."
Feyera immediately recalled Fredrick Irving's explanation of Hypnosis. The similarity was uncanny. Only this time, a Gardevoir had done it to him rather than a Hypno. He had to say that of the two, he did prefer the latter even if both memories contained unpleasantness; the conclusion of the memory awoken by Sana was so radically different. Especially the ending.
What? Wait so that was all a memory? How did you get me to…? Feyera asked, hoping to secure a possible answer as to how the Gardevoir even knocked him out in the first place. The last thing he remembered prior to the dream was her hugging him.
"Sometimes the details aren't exact…" She took a deep exhale. "But if you are still struggling to accept some aspect then I can explain it to you aga—"
No…Sana I mean, he couldn't quite grip the proper words. He was trying to question why he had felt the way he did when she held him before in the meadow and at the end of the dream-memory. Was it something she had done to him? A spell? Something to calm the nerves? Maybe why could not approach it. It was captivating. I wasn't sure what you did. How did you…?
She batted her eyes, mildly taken aback by the comment. "Oh. You mean when I hugged you?"
Feyera nodded.
"I…well…I…" Sana murmured a feeble sigh, fighting some internal struggle. "…I tried my best to get you to an appropriate state of mind considering that I know a little bit about you already."
He rocked his head back and forth, mildly irritated. Yeah from wiping my mind that time. What am I thinking? You must be an expert. I'm lucky I can even babble out a sentence, let alone walk.
Sana smiled, revealing her flippancy. "I knew how to do it. You were in my arms during it. I didn't let any harm befall you. Look, you're fine." But soon her frivolous grin turned somewhat unpleasant. "You have no idea what type of pain you were in. You probably could not even remember it all. Gardevoir can typically sense the feelings of those around them, so when someone is hurt, we empathize with them to a certain degree. But after I had approached you and saw…when I saw what I saw, I-it was like seeing Sephiteos suffer. I don't know how else to explain it to you."
I am…I mean…I'm not what you think I am. Referring to past, he was but a mosquito charging at an elephant. He had no idea what he was. But he knew what he didn't want to be. I'm not—
She forced a smile and lightheartedly tapped his knee with her palm, leaning forward as she did so. "It's okay. I wasn't who you thought I was either."
He pushed his elbows back and arched his neck up off the ground slowly. You're right. You weren't who I thought you'd be. Not at all. I wasn't even close. That's the biggest problem. Who you are…What you are…Gardevoir?
"What I am is the key to what you are. Who I am is just a testament to how important our connection is." Her sharp response startled him. He didn't want to truly be so "connected". It made him anxious, fearful even. A Pokemon? Connected to him? What did that even mean? It had begun to all sink in and fester as serious anxiety, which did not go unnoticed by Sana.
I don't know. It is just too much. He fought the urge to start panicking again. I wasn't ready. I couldn't have been ready for this. All of this…
"You were never ready." The Gardevoir pointed at his chest shard, aglow and as crimson as her own. "It wasn't your choice to be impaled by the rocket."
Perfect opportunity. Feyera immediately retorted, It WAS me however. It was my choice. I did it. I'm not Seph. His memories of Sephiteos involved an external perspective during the dream memory. Sephiteos was his experiment after all. Christian Feyera's experimentation. He was sure of it. Feyera was a human first and foremost. But then a darker thought came to mind: how much the Gardevoir thought he was Seph. Or at least some derivative of Seph. Be it through the Gardevoir qualities observable on his torso or his psyonic powers. Such aspects came from Sephiteos. But that didn't make him a Gardevoir. Nor did it make him part-Gardevoir. Even if it did, what would that accomplish? Absolutely nothing. The real thorny implication came from him being perceived by Sana as part-Sephiteos. Quickly he dismissed the idea. I cannot be Sephiteos. I'll never be Seph. I'm not your…ya know…partner. He was extremely uncomfortable saying this. Feeling the beads of sweat on his forehead assured Sana of where he stood. Why had his mind even gone there?
"I know." She smiled. He wasn't sure of what to make of the slight grin. "You call yourself Edge, dontcha? Even though your real name is Christian Feyera? It's rather…unusual for a person to have multiple identities."
"Y-Yeah but…" He didn't know where this was going, but at least she wasn't pushing on anything concerning what his mind had been so eager to recently dismiss. It was bad enough that she made him feel this way. The discomfort of not knowing what he was had been amplified by his uncertainty of who she saw him as. She hadn't killed him in vengeance. Something made her save him. Whether or not it was intentional and for what purpose was anyone's guess.
The young Gardevoir continued, "But if you think about it…that name makes a lot of sense since you adopted it when you first used your psyonic powers. Edge…" She said the name and murmured a nearly inaudible sound. The noise reminded Feyera of the murmurs made by young children. Completely foreign and yet natural enough to distinguish as familiar tones. "…Edge Feyera…using his Gardevoir powers. It was in Pewter City, right? Never before though, correct?"
Feyera had a million questions to fire off at this charged question. Why did the powers take so long to manifest? How come he never used them back at Prevoy's? Was that part of the memory wipe? Had his memory loss been so debilitating that he they were suppressed, dormant even, for two long years following the incident. What had changed? What was the spark? Was it because of Pokemon? Why so violent? Why so volatile?
"Yes." Feyera shrugged. Never before. You must've really swept through my memories. You did a fine job. Sarcasm was one of the first things he turned to when attempting to cope with something so far out of his league.
She looked a little bit downtrodden by his derision. "I'm not sure if that's the case. I couldn't rid you of who you are."
Who he was? He always saw it as a development. A change. An alteration. Something he was subjugated to over time. Sure, there was the red shard of Gardevoir anatomy, but that could have been anything right? It had been a large necklace one day, a battle scar the next, and most of the time: a fragment of suicidal Electrode shrapnel. Even if its physicality remained a constant since the Sanctum Robbery, it had not glowed or gleamed outside of direct sunshine until recently. Nor had it been an easily manipulated part of him. Of course, it was sensitive. That had always been the case. He had the bad memories of him being kicked there by Brad's fully extended pronged boot. How that had hurt and driven him into a frenzy. Then the belligerent man at Luxaira Casino. But the sensations given to him could not be topped by two particular incidents: Haunter in the Pokemon Tower, and Sana's own shard against his. Words could not describe either phenomenon. What he felt was just pure unadulterated emotion—almost enough for him to experience a cognitive meltdown. The former primal fear and the latter something far different than anything he had ever known could exist on this earth.
He felt like his eyes were racing back and forth in their sockets, but that couldn't be the case. Sana was staring at him the entire time in tranquility. And she still said nothing.
As his psyonic powers expanded, he had gone through increasingly larger changes, culminating in his eyes. The evidence was clear as day surrounding his irises in the limbic ring. For their green attributes were locked into a permanent svelte ring of light. And when he utilized even the most acute psyonics, both eyes would become coated in a rich scarlet aura.
It wasn't always this way. It truly wasn't. That was all the young trainer could say in response to Sana's concerned gaze. Back in Pallet town, he wasn't able to do any of this. Either that or he just didn't know how. The thought of him serving coffee at Prevoy's with the ability to read people's thoughts, emotions, and fears frightened him. Thankfully, he hadn't figured out how to do it until his Pokemon quest begun. Or perhaps he didn't remember how to do it until he met Brucie. Was there something primordial about his first interaction with Pokemon in two years? He recalled feeling as though everything changed that day. His ambitions shifted. Feyera overcame a fear he had, quite possibly a fear held by him since before Evercrest. The first walk he took with Charmander changed everything for the young man.
"It wasn't always that way for Seph either." Sana staidly spoke breaking the silence, "That serum changed him. I know. And you remember now too."
Feyera froze upon hearing this. His hand nervously grasped at the meadow's thick grass. It was still slightly wet from either dew or the recent tropical rain shower. Tugging at it, he thought about how he himself might have been affected by Progenitor. He did have the symptoms after all. Even if he wanted to believe that he was fully human, his limbic rings suggested otherwise, broadcasting the abnormality with their steady golden hue.
How did I even remember the Progenitor Procedure? It seems to be impossible.
She raised an eyebrow, lifted off her kneeling position, and gently sat down. "You…you remember it? That's…that means…"
Feyera didn't want it though, so he stopped her mid-thought. That means I remember being present for the operation. As a researcher. Not as Seph. He knew this wasn't the truth; for he had specifically remembered the experience of a cold operating table beneath him, the large needle drilling into his ocular cavity, the fever, and the delirium. He felt the razor sharp blade slicing into his eye while he was helpless to do anything but watch. The entire recollection, a beset assault, though distant, resonated with him; not as an experience he had been a part of, but as an experience that had been a part of him. The occasional blurry vision and uncomfortable stinging remained a testament to how grisly the procedure had been. Progenitor should have never found its way to human eyes no matter how many evolutionary advantages it gave. And yet here he was, staring at his own green irises haloed in goldenrod being reflected by Sana's clear cherry eyes. The thought sickened him. He felt slightly woozy.
Sana changed the subject, while sitting up straighter than before. "The Hypnosis, were you okay with it? I know that I didn't ask you. I just assumed…you wanted answers so badly. Did it hurt?"
Far from it. Upon awakening, he wanted nothing more than to be still and absorb the various sensations coursing through his mind. Yet the rush of adrenaline and the shock of seeing Sana holding him forced him back. For starters, her Hypnosis had put him in a much deeper trance. While in it, he had remembered nearly every detail of the events coinciding with the Kanto Sanctum Robbery two years back. Impressive considering his obdurate amnesia. In fact, it was as if he had actually relived the entire experience over again.
Fredrick's Hypno had used a similar method of Hypnosis to reawaken the dreadful memories of the Progenitor Procedure in dream form during his stay in Celadon City; however, the Hypnosis utilized seemed rather crude. It only gave him sensations of the Procedure. The figures were mostly obscure. He couldn't even tell who was in his dream. Never mind match their faces with their names. Everything about Progenitor was focused around the operation and moments leading up to its climatic execution. In comparison, nothing had been as radically vivid as the dream memory he had just come out of. No ordinary dream could possibly be that influential. Especially the ending of the dream when Sana consoled him.
It didn't hurt. At least, it stopped hurting. The dream wasn't as bad as witnessing Progenitor's administration. Both times I felt like I was there though. I knew that was me in the dream…err…memory.
"So you remember when you injected the serum into Sephiteos?" Sana asked, fully knowing she had unwillingly erased many of the memories predating the Progenitor Procedure, which took place several months prior to the Pokemon Sanctum Robbery itself.
Bits and pieces. Here and there, I see things. Remember a few details every once in a while. Feyera was not sure just how far he could push this denial. He didn't want the Gardevoir thinking he was some type of new replacement for Sephiteos. To be honest, he didn't know where she stood.
"Christian?" she said slouching over towards him. Furtive, perhaps, but not unseen by Feyera.
"Yes?" He said, speaking to her through his lips rather than his mind. His voice cracked slightly but she seemed to understand him just fine.
Leaning on her outstretched hands, the Gardevoir looked down, almost ashamed. "My Hypnosis. I did it for you. I wanted to help; give you what you were looking for. It didn't hurt you did it? You can be honest with me."
He thought about after he had fallen from the cliff. Of course, it hurt. The excruciating agony of that iniquitous shard was so unbearable she needed to intervene and save him from losing his mind. Obviously, she was looking for approval for what she had done seemingly sporadically. It wasn't like she asked him if he was alright with her placing him into a dream memory shortly after they had met here on Chrono Island.
"I wanted to remember what happened and you helped me to achieve that goal. There's nothing else that needs to be said." Feyera wasn't trying to make it sound like a business transaction had taken place, but his poor choice in words made it sound highly impersonal.
"I told you I'm sorry." Her neatly folded legs quivered from under her gown. "I was only trying to help. It's my fault for clearing your mind, but what else could I have done? The agony you felt in the dream—when I came to you on the shore—that was only a fraction of how it truly felt to be in that circumstance."
Feyera sat all the way up again, because his back and neck were beginning to grow stiff from the awkward position he had been in. His retreat from her was rather thoughtless actually, but he was slightly repelled from being swept into a dream memory without her warning him. Mildly offended even. But then again he was upset about how everything had turned out. For some reason he longed for someone or something to blame. Even after all of his desperate pleas for answers and truth, he had not heard what he wanted to hear.
The Pokemon tilted her head slightly as if she was trying to hear him think.
But what did he honestly expect anyway though? Sana to be Sabrina the Psychic Gym Leader of Saffron City? Lorelei of the Elite Four to be some secret human Psychic falling in love with him? It was all so absurd in retrospect. What were those desires even based off of? Loneliness? Pathetic. Those teenage fantasies were long over. Isn't the truth what he had wanted? Isn't the truth what he had fought so hard for? Truth had Feyera questioning whether or not ignorance would be a better option. As he had heard all too often: ignorance is bliss. And to a degree, the ex-researcher finally understood such a statement.
The real world had been thrust upon him; literally upon his chest. Lorelei and Sabrina were not interested in him. He was just chasing around decoys the entire time. One of which was set up by Sana. His expectations for who, and more importantly what, Sana actually was were seriously flawed and lacking rationality. He told himself that at least he wasn't drawn to who she was.
Aside from defogging his past and understanding an imposed interest in some fanaticized dream girl, he had little left to fight for. The quest for his answers seemed to have drawn to a climatic close. But what had the journey actually brought him? Answers he didn't want to hear. Answers that pushed him further out of the envelope of humanity's acceptance. He was a criminal, not a victim. A ruthless researcher driven to do good only when it aided him in the end. Guilt and self-interest paved his seeking of absolution. He couldn't have even nobly obtained his powers. Feyera did nothing to earn what was given to him. In fact, he had only functioned to take away what others had in this bizarre situation. Never receiving forgiveness from Sephiteos ended in tragedy. Their tragedy. Sana's tragedy. Feyera's tragedy.
The wind gusted up. Small rustling in the grass caused a few of the taller blades to tickle the back of his neck.
And his psyonic powers, deriving from a Gardevoir rather than a human mutation, moved him further away from being a part of mankind. Sometimes people would display a brief unnatural power. Although rare, it was relatively understood that these people were not gods; they just had a more advanced brain and neural emitters. Scientists, to a certain degree, could even study them. Feyera wondered if Cipher had even tried to graft, psyonics for instance, on people. Why couldn't they have been the ones to do this to him? It would be easier if he could blame an external source. Owning up to responsibility was never one of Feyera's strong suits.
The young man reached down into his pocket and clutched his old tattered wallet, sliding out his Pokemon trainer's license from the see-through external slot with a firm grip. He looked down at his photograph. Taken maybe four months ago, he had grown up significantly since getting the card notarized by the Pokemon League. The journey itself had been enough to give him a few grey hairs. He wanted to laugh at the man in the picture's innocent smile. His shaggy amber hair. His pristine emerald eyes. His eagerness to explore and be amongst Pokemon. The hope he had of finding a future beyond simple research. He had gotten his wish. In fact, he had it all along. It was all just too unreal. The entire time, feral imprints of a Pokemon were left upon his seemingly unblemished visage.
Sana kept her hand on his knee, seeing the card being drawn with her observant eyes. She carefully watched the young man play with the identification, turning it about in his hands and rubbing its rim against his palms. It had a scrape on it crossing out "Christian", something he had done on a while ago. Amid the juggling, Feyera dropped the card and it landed tilted against his chest shard face-up, supported by a slight wrinkle in his off-white buttoned shirt underneath his unzipped black bomber jacket. The Gardevoir waited for the man to pick it up. But he just lay there, staring up into space pretending not to notice anything.
Sana nervously reached out with the hand not placed on Feyera's knee for the license. The trainer didn't even acknowledge her meager advance. He saw her, but his mind was light years away from this world. Her hand fretfully brushed against his shard as she clutched the card with her two fingers and opposable thumb. This Feyera could not ignore, and his focus returned momentarily to the situation present in front of him. He hated the sensitivity, but he adored the sensation. Whatever it did to him wasn't natural. There was nothing capable of replicating the foreign feeling when her skin met his own. Although not intense enough to drive him to eudemonia, it reminded him of how he felt when she hugged him. The brief stir of unified wholesomeness echoed through an action most would qualify as trivial. It wasn't quite as potent as when her perfectly matching crimson crescent had caressed his own in their embrace. Yet having her hand grace against his core seemed to at least make him introspective. This meditative moment of sublime peace blossomed into genuine warmth.
Feyera desperately tried to keep a stern face. Still, Sana had set off a series of fireworks through his physical receptors. He looked utterly lost, enraptured even, and yet half of his face remained determined to deny the sensation. But she did not laugh at his contorted expression. Perhaps Sana was uncertain of what he was experiencing right now. Although perceptive, Psychic Pokemon did not know everything.
She gingerly removed her hand from Feyera's shard and everything seemed to return back to normal. The saturated colors retreated from his visual field. Sana raised the identification card and looked quizzically at it. Curiously, she held it up to her face between her large cherry eyes. The fading daylight illuminated the light cyan watermarks.
She chuckled softly to herself, "You still look the same."
"Not really. Look at my eyes. Here," he picked up one of his hands from the ground and pointed at the small identification photograph, "No rings of light. And that was recent."
At this, the Gardevoir arched her neck back and grinned exposing her teeth through her small mouth. "I didn't mean your body. I meant you still have the same disposition. Besides," Sana took Feyera's license and elevated it slightly so that his pointed finger now aimed at his chest in the picture, "You still have that."
Christian Feyera lowered his gaze to where she had just so adroitly brushed against. All he had left was his body, but even that wasn't fully human. From his eyes to his chest shard, the young trainer couldn't blend into a crowd without being singled out. He'd never be the obscure one who just slipped out of people's minds; his presence alone would bring questions to other astute people. No sense in hiding. He peered down at his scarred elbows where Haunter had swiped at him with Shadow Claw. The maroon marks against his pale beige skin signified he was able to survive the atrocity in the Pokemon Tower. If these psyonic powers did not belong to him, if they were not given to him, there would have been no way for him to have gotten past even the first Gym. But did he prefer this to death?
He was semi-laying down ever since falling back from the Gardevoir's embrace. Sana still had her hand on his knee. She recoiled as he brought his legs up to his chest and squatted. He wrapped his arms around his bent legs and felt his chest shard slide between them. While not the most comfortable position, it did cover the metal horn. He may have passed for having an abnormal scar or even an amulet before, but when he was near Sana it was unmistakably a part of Gardevoir anatomy. There was no concealing it. From its razor thin crescent shape splitting his chest in two, to the glossy reflective opalescence; it was a replica to Sana's own. And a perfect one at that. Too perfect considering that it changed the way he felt. He wasn't just taciturn about its presence. He was far more disturbed by how it made him…feel. Was this what it was like to be a Gardevoir? Had this been how they as a species went through their lives? Was this what it was like to sense feelings and emotion? Would it always be this way for him? Did it have to remain this way?
"This was not the best thing you could have done for—I mean to me," Feyera said to Sana as he continued to conceal not only his worry, but also his own Gardevoir shard. He almost wished she had not done anything at all to save him. It would have been better to have just died that night from the torture. He wouldn't have to worry about anything then. Fizzling out of existence meant no more stupefaction. While perhaps not the most pleasant thought, it was how he honestly felt. No changing that. Sana continued to gaze at his balled up form, focusing her attention on the piece he was so shamefully shielding. She might have been perplexed, but she could know.
Who was he hiding the faultless ruby shard from though? His Pokemon were all in their Pokeballs. They already knew about it though. They had accepted it as a part of him. Sort of in the same manner which you would accept someone with a tattoo or a scar. It was always just a part of who he was. A true facet since the conclusion of Operation Semblance. Sometimes it did peculiar things, like glimmer, but strange occurrences were Edge Feyera in a nutshell. He wasn't normal. Far from it! His Pokemon knew about his aberration the moment he started talking to them. Trainers couldn't hold entire conversations with their Pokemon. A few battle commands here and there, a unified sense of victory, and perhaps some bonding over meals were the extent of most people's relationship with their Pokemon. Not Feyera though. His Pokemon had personalities. They had discussions. Deep and meaningful ones. And when he battled, he could command them more fluidly than even the trainers best in tune with their Pokemon. Granted, this had been because he was 'siphoning' them through acute Psychic mind-control according to Sana, but it still made him a worthy opponent. According to the Gardevoir, siphoning just made his Pokemon slightly weaker on their own. But why would that matter? So long as he was in command of them, he could work with their limitations by pushing the mental conjoinment limits of his own. And he was getting better at it. He already had five Kanto Pokemon League Gym Badges. They all neatly sat pegged into his wallet's exterior on the opposite flap of the slot where his identification card normally went.
That chapter of his life was very distant now, as were many avenues once fancied by the young man. In fact, Feyera recalled when he first set off to complete the Pokedex for Professor Oak barely three fortnights ago. Feigning death, he was liberated of such a task. Then there was the Gym Challenge he undertook. Why was he even going after the League Badges? To serenade Lorelei? She hadn't even been interested in him! Her evident shock on the yacht was more than enough information for Feyera to deduce where she stood concerning him. It was all just a stupid feeling: inauthentic nonsensical desire. She was a tease. The whole contraption of a mysterious angel visiting him in his dreams turned out to be a lie. Sana didn't exist the way he imagined her. He felt wronged. And also a little frightened. For he would have never thought a Pokemon could influence his behavior so seamlessly. Especially behavior originating from such a crude dimension—lust. He couldn't be sure of anything now. In lieu of appeasing Lorelei, there must have been something else driving him to win and earn his Gym Badges, yet that remained elusive to the young trainer.
His arms quivered from the bicep muscles downwards as he tightened their hold around his pulled-in legs. He must have looked ridiculous in this fetal position. Upon his left wrist was the thick black and jade tartan Reilken Mercurius bracelet given to him by Fredrick Irving. Its fairly bulky construction was deceiving, for although snuggly grasping his thin wrist and granting it an additional two inch diameter, it was nearly weightless. Feyera still couldn't figure out why the International Police Agent had given him the relic. Something about protection. But Fredrick had a RAIL firearm. And Pokemon. And influence over the International Police Agency. Fredrick was a true leader. Paternal in all ways. What did Feyera have in comparison? Psyonics? Not even his brief gravitational manipulation could counter the L3 RAIL's ion beam capable of punching through Rhydonhide. Speaking of psyonics, he really had hardly used them since last seeing Fredrick. The most recent stunt was in the Pokemon Tower against Haunter's diabolic manifestation. That was a good thing, it meant being further away from a possible meltdown. Or so he thought.
The dream memory made it seem as though the Reilken Mercurius dissolved into Delta-two's, or rather Sephiteos', body prior to assimilating into the Gardevoir's bloodstream. And while the spire dissolved, he wasn't sure as to what happened to the silvery ringed base. Was this all that was left of the relic following the traumatic event?
Fredrick had been able to locate the much more tame Mercury Relic here in the Southern Sea according to his radio message. The International Police Agent even delivered it to Feyera on the coastline north of Fuschia City. The material was so much more docile now and it had lost all amorphous attributes. All the chaotic volatility had seemingly vanished and now he looked upon a very plain looking object deprived of its sheen, its color, and its power. The small green squares checkered about the circumference were the only details worth mentioning. That and the vice-like-grip it used to attach itself to his body. As if it weren't enough to impart Gardevoir parts of Sephiteos onto him, the drained relic persisted in its commandeering over his life by returning to his possession through a peculiar series of events.
Feyera didn't want to call it a fusion. It wasn't. His body, his memories were still his own. If anything, he had adapted per se some of the dying Gardevoir's attributes. Somehow. It was just too crazy. Science couldn't explain it. He thought about the unforgettable scene atop Penta Island's Peak now burned into his memory by Sana's Hypnosis. Concerning the stifling fluid that had spewed out of Delta-two, he questioned where it had made contact with him. Did the Pokemon's blood mixed with Mercurius do all of this? Seemed highly probable all things considered. In the dream-memory, the warm coating goo was definitely all over his chest, he could almost recall the sensation of it searing through his clothing and into his flesh. That would certainly explain the crimson shard ejecting itself from his sternum. Perhaps some had splattered on his face during the plummet and caused Progenitor to infiltrate his eyes. But it just did not add up. Why did the shard emerge immediately afterwards and Progenitor not until very recently?
Strange circumstances aside, Pokemon genetic coding was far different from that of humans. Certain Pokemon could typically breed with other species within their so-called "Egg Group" because they shared a closer common ancestor. However, the process became a much more intricate task when trying to graft a certain aspect of one Pokemon onto another. Even though complex, it would be possible under very specific and rare set of conditions. That's what Evercrest had been all about! Yet the jump from Pokemon to human would be further than anything thought possible. It was the genetic equivalent to shooting the moon. He was a scientist; he knew how these things worked. Things like this didn't just happen. Yet he was reluctant to blame the event on the unknown. Magic and ancient relics were about as real as God.
But here he was, a man possessing the traits of a Gardevoir. No matter how he approached the issue his mind could not grasp the entirety of its causes, nor the implications of its end result. The only thing Feyera knew for sure was that it was impossible to relax now that he knew what he did. The Progenitor EX wasn't grafted onto Christian Feyera by who he thought. It wasn't the Rockets and their chaotic vengeance. Nor was it Cipher with their highly advanced—although macabre—technology. It was him all along, it was the man whose selfish hands had clutched the Reilken Mercurius in its primal form. It had been Chris Feyera. He did this to himself. Now he had to live with it, or find a way out. He looked up at the dull sky, its abated color starch contrast to the embellished tapestry witnessed when he had first encountered Sana.
Crossing one foot over the other, his black leather Alterieno boots made a distinct rubbing nose as their taut material overlapped. The Gardevoir's head snapped down to follow the noise and Feyera fretfully shrugged. She really was ardent. Seeing her observant face made him nervous, so he began to subconsciously wiggle his feet, making more of the noise as if he had intended create a background sound all along. With lips puckered as if he had just eaten a lemon, he continued to look upwards at the grey sky. The clouds blotted out the sun, but the rays did manage to penetrate through along the horizon, probably far off the island's actual landmass. Chrono Island, or Penta Isle as the Rockets called it, was not a large island. In fact, none of the tropical islands of the Sevii Archipelago were particularly large save Quest Island and Fortune Island in the southwest.
Gardevoir also followed his lead, turning her gaze upwards as well. He was glad that she wasn't staring at him any longer. Comfort continued to escape him however. Feeling timid, the shard on his chest seemingly grew larger and more noticeable in his mind's eye. He questioned why. Was he embarrassed? The flowery meadow was empty and devoid of sentient life. Was he subconsciously hiding the crimson shard from himself? Even if he kept it buried beyond visual range, he still felt it. The nerves, encased within and extending to its delicate base where it met flesh, did not simply turn off when it was out of sight. He had object-permanence after all. It was still very much there and very much him.
Was he bothered by the fact that he could be compromised as a human being? Perhaps a little. It wasn't like he had an identification card saying he was human. The closest thing to that was his trainer ID. Although he sincerely felt human deep down, on the outside he wasn't sure of what other people would think. Would they be kind like Fredrick and Fuji? Or would they see his power and try to use and study him like the Rockets and Ein of Cipher? He was still a person; no one could take that genuine feeling away from him, not even if his body resembled another being. He was very self-conscious.
He thought about how he had averted attention before. No one would question him unless they saw his eyes aglow, and that shard had been mistaken for many other things in the past. The problem arose with being near an actual Gardevoir. It made the similarities blatantly obvious. Any Slowpoke could put two on top of two. More so, Feyera felt strained in the sense that such an ingrained part of him was so similar to Sana. He could get by as just a strange person if it weren't for her. No one would make the connection unless they saw them together. If he wanted to remain independent from external judgment, there was a simple solution: keep away from Sana.
Her expression dampened. She wondered why he was being so negative. True she had done something that could have given him permanent brain damage, but that had not happened. And even if it had consequences, she had done it out of compassion. She did not want to have to see him go through that agonizing transmutation. It was impossible to bear for him and for her. Reluctantly, she handed him back his trainer's card.
"My—sponsorship was only out of care. You would have died otherwise. Your mind would have broke from the physical punishment."
"Yeah well maybe that would have been better." His own sense of responsibility was merging with the impending consequences of being involved in the Rockets. However, it did not end there. He also had to own up to being a crucial antagonist in both these Gardevoir's lives. And now he found himself bound in more than one way.
"Especially after all I did as 'Doctor Feyera' to you and Seph," he said. Referring to himself in the third person seemed strange at first but it certainly got the point across. He was dissatisfied with the way things had turned out and was quite willing to make a dramatic scene about it. According to the dream, he did everything to try to earn Sephiteos' forgiveness. The youthful male Gardevoir, Delta-two, had adamantly denied forgiveness to Feyera. The Pokemon had done more than it could have ever done to him while living. While in life it could transfer a guilty conscious over to Christan via instancing, in his death, Sephiteos remained commandeering in all aspects of Feyera's life. Whether he liked it or not, Sephiteos had imparted onto him. Somehow. The Gardevoir he had abused was now very much present in his life. The irony was cruel and stung more than Feyera cared to admit.
"You keep saying that you did it. Maybe a part of you did, but what if it's not the whole entire picture."
"Of course it is. I was the green-eyed researcher. I still am. I'll always be Christian Feyera, even if I was somebody else beforehand. There's nothing you or your mate could have done to change that," Feyera cringed as he said those words. He didn't want to be trapped in this foreign world. He had so much to look forward to. His journey with Pokemon. His future as a recovering researcher. All of this would be forfeited if he were to acknowledge the Gardevoir. He wouldn't be able to turn back knowing that he had a part of Sephiteos imprinted onto him. But if she only knew that he would never be her mate then perhaps he could get past such an emotional obstacle.
"I didn't want this, Sana. I don't want this. You know that."
"I know it's hard, but you have to deal with it; you're not alone. Keep that in mind."
"Gardevoir…I mean, Sana, I'm alone. I'm Edge Feyera...because I was Doctor Feyera. It was my fault. I should have been more conscientious in my youth. I did wrong. I joined an organization that destroyed the lives of many. I did so willingly. But there is no undoing what I did. I'll never be anything more than your partner's murderer. The sooner you come to terms with this the better off we'll both be." Feyera said as coldly as he possibly could. There was no use in giving her false hope. He was not Sephiteos. He'd never be her Seph. That much he was sure of amid all the confusion. "I don't belong here. I gotta move on from here."
At this, she was totally quiet. Nothing was said at all as the amber flowers and soft lavender buds surrounding their alcove rustled. Nothing could be said. The two just sat and listened to the meadow leaves blow in the tropical breeze that had begun to lift up some stray pollen in the field.
She continued to stare at where the sun would have been if the thick clouds had not concealed the radiant sphere of fire. Steadily, softly she rose to her feet. It was immaculate to witness. Feyera saw her raise her pole thin leg and press down on the soil, slightly imbedding the tip of her foot into the spongy ground. From there she pushed up and stood above him, towering over his condensed frame. Her eyes took a quick look down at him and she forced a plain gaze, unwilling to expose how he had just made her feel. The gown she wore rigidly formed her figure, and she pressed down on the dress' hem as it blew in the coastal air.
"I'm sorry. Christian...I guess this is it then. I don't know what else you want me to do."
He stared at the Gardevoir and his eyes grew tired. "I…Sana, you don't need to do anything. You've done enough. It's over now. I know what happened to me. Thanks."
"Y-You're not going to listen to anything else I have to say?"
He shook his head solemnly. "Sana, what else is there? I've done what you asked me to do. I came here, I heard your story. I apologized; I even relived the events of two years ago. However, I remain unchanged. I still need to find a way to deal with myself," Feyera said. He spoke truth. With the recent internal turmoil he had been put into, he was confident no one would want to be around him.
"But do you truly want to go at it alone?" Sana softly brought her hand to her temple and rubbed the area under her hair anxiously.
Feyera nodded and bowed his head down, resting his shallow chin upon the crimson Gardevoir horn on his chest. Although narrowly coming to an edge, it was not sharp. The material reminded him of a mixture of metal and cartilage. It was as inflexible and glossy as a lustrous transition metal, yet as sensitive and organic as his own flesh. Even if he could not feel the horn's rim, he still felt the slight pressure on his sternum and ribs when his smooth chin leaned on the piece.
He would not be alone. He had his Pokemon. They would be with him. "I have my friends Sana. They've been with me through thick and thin. Don't worry."
"Christian."
"Sana…this is my fault. Fate's set its claw upon me. I have the rest of my life to live out the consequences. I'd be better off staying away from those I've hurt already. I'm destructive. I'm…"
She then did something strange. Rather than walk away, she stepped closer to him. Her dress blew behind her in the southern wind. Feyera continued to keep his eyes focused on the sky, until she walked into his sight. Her head appeared above him looking down on his somber expression. "I can help you out if you want."
What did she want in return? "How? How are you going to help me out?"
Sana looked him dead in the eyes, hardly bending over as she did so. "I already told you. If you don't want to go at it alone, I'm here."
"What can you do?" Although he knew the answer. She had some way of consoling him. That was obvious. But there could always be more.
"I can protect you."
"Sure, as a Pokemon. Right, of course you can. Can you protect me from myself though?" Feyera asked.
She outstretched both of her slender arms, "I—I think so."
Feyera opened up and placed his hands on her own. She then helped him up off the meadow's floor. "I know that there is a way to fix this. There has to be a way to rectify everything."
"There will be. You don't need to worry about that now. Believe what you can, and do not be discouraged by those who believe less. You'll be okay, I know it."
She was only marginally shorter than he was. Although human, physiological similarities existed. Gardevoir had similar proportionality to human beings concerning their torso, legs, arms, and head. They were just a lot more narrow. Almost like a frail person. But Sana's billowing gown did much to increase her presence. Feyera wondered what it was even made of. He thought about this and a few other Gardevoir related questions, but decided to can it in lieu of asking her about his fate.
"How do you know these things Sana?" Feyera thought about when he tried to utilize his psyonics at Luxaira Casino. "Psychic Pokemon have their limitations. They don't know everything."
Her serious expression changed and she squeezed both his hands. "They know what's important."
Hearing this made him acknowledge her effort to try. What else could go wrong? He botched up enough lives already. Especially his own.
"Fine."
Sana exhaled in relief. She seemed eager to talk with him more, but the day was fading. Although the sunset could not be seen through the overcast, he felt the day's wearing on him through an internal clock.
"Let's talk it over some more at length after you get some rest."
"Okay, but where do we sleep?"
"There's a cave with a small alcove off to the east. It's not much of a hike from here."
"Caves? On Chrono Island?" That didn't quite make sense, but the Gardevoir seemed much more familiar with this area than he was. He gave her a nod and she pulled him forward through the once beautiful meadow, now devoid of color. Together, they walked towards the hilly region beyond the meadow.
Later that evening, Christian Feyera sat up suddenly, the shadows of the moon's light in the midnight air bounced along the cave's dark walls. He still was not fully awake, but he felt as if something was amiss. He was full of energy even though he had been exhausted from the long day. It was a bizarre sensation for the young man.
"Sana?" he looked over to where the Pokemon was before, but saw nothing. Groaning, he stood up, and his head started spinning. The walls seemed to be closing in on him. Dizzy, his arms instinctively grasped his throbbing head.
He stumbled out towards the mouth of the cave he had been taking refuge in with Sana. It wasn't too far away, and with the impending darkness she insisted that it was a safe place to go. He let her lead him here and was surprised by the cave's size. It was unusual for a place such as this devoid of tectonic activity. He just hoped that they would be the only inhabitants.
"Oh you're awake!" Sana said, pretending to be startled by Christian's sudden appearance before her.
His vision was very distorted, but eventually he was able to see the young Gardevoir clearly.
"Yeah, I'm awake…Couldn't sleep," Feyera said as he sat down next to her to her left, "what about you? What are you doing up this late?"
Sana laughed, "Gardevoir tend to have very fast metabolism so sleep is more of a luxury than anything else. It's much different living in the wild."
"You say that as if you knew what urban life was all about," Christian said sarcastically.
"Well, we might not have the buildings and skyscrapers like humans do, but we certainly have our own small communities of organized species. I sometimes miss it. But when I met Seph, I knew that all I ever wanted was to be together with him. Even if that meant leaving our fellow species," Sana smiled as the frolicking silver moonlight gently caressed her face.
"That sounds like a big decision. Do you ever think back upon the choices you've made and wonder if things would have turned out differently?" Feyera asked. He thought about the numerous mistakes he had made. The times where he had been inadequate. The times where he had indulged in his power. The times where he had sinned.
"I noticed you're always concerned with the 'what-ifs' and 'what would be best'. I don't know, to me pondering about those superlatives can be draining. I look to the future and not to the past. If I were to look to the past then I would become boggled in despair that Sephiteos and I chose to live our lives with one another rather than stay in the safe confines of our community. After all, by leaving the order and venturing on our own as a pair, we inadvertently allowed for all of this…" She looked at Christian's figure. Her eyes moved about his frame indiscreetly.
"Are you angry at me?" Feyera asked. The question was getting old, but he still felt as if it couldn't hurt to make sure. Perhaps now that they weren't in that gorgeous meadow she'd be more honest and less idealistic.
"If you had asked me that many months past I would have rendered you helpless in a psyonic prison," she grinned noticing Feyera's apparent distress, "It hurt at first; comprehending the past. I'm not perfect at it, but I can sense the future at times, and when I do I see great promise in you, Mister Feyera. How could I hate? I still feel the dormant energies of Seph radiating from your very essence."
Promise in him? The absurdity of looking at the circumstances from the perspective of the past; he had never quite realized how trapping such a concept actually was until now.
"Promise? In me? You're not angry that I not only inflicted terrible pain on but also killed your spouse?" Christian asked.
"I used to be bitter. I won't lie to you, Christian. But I was overcome with compassion. I learned of you at the bottom of that cliff. It was strange: half of you had killed half of you. Somehow, it seemed to be impossible. I had lost the one most important to me in physical form. Yet I knew you were still very much alive, Seph, as I had discovered. You somehow lived, and I believe that love endures all hardships," Sana said.
"I don't think it was you who did…this…to me though," Feyera smoothly replied running his hand through his thick light-amber hair.
"Then what could it have been?" Sana asked, focused entirely on his eyes.
"Reilken Mercurius. This," Feyera pointed to the bracelet on his left wrist. Without warning, she reached over him and clutched it with her hands. Startled, Feyera recoiled, not wanting her to accidentally brush against his torso's emotional conduit again.
"R-Relax, I'm just looking at it."The Gardevoir said, perhaps a little embarrassed that she alarmed him.
He wasn't sure whether or not to extend his arm so she could observe it in her own territory. It didn't matter though, she already had her elbows leaning on his knees. Slightly compromised, he let her rotate the armlet without saying a word. After she had begun to skirt her fingers around the black device's green-checkered perimeter he had to say something. The proximity was getting to be a little much.
"This was given to me by a man by the name of Fredrick. It was from before I challenged the Fuchsia City Gym," Christian said, but his mind wandered back to his starter Pokemon, Brucie who had become victim to Weezing's permanent Toxic. "Before my Pokemon partner became infected with Toxic."
This got the Gardevoir's attention. Sana glanced up at him, still holding onto his left hand with both of hers, and slightly closed the eye closer to him as it gave off a dull crimson aura. Reading his concern, Sana quickly replied, "He will be alright. It's because his body couldn't handle the poison."
Was she blaming him again for siphoning? He didn't stand a chance as a trainer without resorting to it. It may have weakened Brucie's immune system, but how else could he fluidly command his Pokemon? Edge had the incredible boon of being able to communicate with his Pokemon over their emotional tethers. While this might seem to be a fragile and subtle approach to formulate a connection, a Gardevoir's skill with such aspects of consciousness was unmatchable. Edge discovered this for himself when he was able to synchronize his mind completely with the minds of his Pokemon so flawlessly in the heat of combat that it became hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Sana told him that it was his ability of Synchronize in its purest form. Such a strategy, when employed correctly, won him Pokemon battles even when he was outmatched. He tilted his hand nervously, and Sana looked back at it predictably.
"He'll live though right? That's what matters."
She rocked his hand back and forth. "He's already been through the worst of it. You just need to keep medicating him with the antidote periodically. And avoid the…well you know."
Somehow, her carefully chosen words soothed his thoughts. Her unrestricted access to his heart helped him in times like these, but it also consoled Sana. She knew that Christian had been given a terrible burden, one that no one should have to tackle alone. Sure, he had his Pokemon, but they were not as well tuned into the intricate workings of his rapidly altering mind. She was desperately trying to figure out exactly what was occurring, but the truth remained very cryptic even to her Psychic abilities. At the very least, she wanted to help to curb "Edge's" potential for ruthless behavior. That would be an accomplishment.
For it seemed when he tapped into some of the more potent Gardevoir abilities, his body would begin to destroy itself at a rapid rate. As a member of that species of Pokemon, he could freely use such abilities, but in his current form, the consequences proved disastrous.
Sana knew however that these miraculous psyonic powers gifted to him had indeed saved him before. In Cerulean, on the S.S. Anne, and in Lavender Town, Feyera had told her everything. By confiding these details in her, she felt a great deal of responsibility to help him avoid the deadly consequences of over-expending his abilities. Still she worried for him. It was obvious.
"Do you remember this object from two years back?"
"Reilken Mercurius," Sana spoke softly. Her mummers following telepathy seemed to become more predictable when she was saying certain words. Perhaps the Gardevoir was even trying to pronounce them. "I do not know much about it, Christian."
The nighttime wind began to pick up. His hair blew in the balmy midnight air.
"I don't either. I still am curious as to why Fredrick chose to give it to me," Feyera's thoughts raced back to Fredrick Irving of the Kanto International Police Force.
"Maybe he trusts you. Humans do that right?" She questioned not out of ignorance, but rather play.
"Haha you'd be surprised to know that not many do. Especially when it comes to powerful ancient relics made out of rare earth metals. Greed's a bit of a challenge to overcome."
"You're possessive over things?"
"Materialistic tendencies run rampant amid us. Fame, fortune, et cetera." He thought about Silph Incorporated. He wondered if she understood. Could a Gardevoir understand human nature? Did they even have materialism in their lives? "Sana…Material objects are another way to exert influence and power over others. In doing so, a man can become a tamer of the universe. The objects are extensions of ourselves. Furthermore, it is considered a good thing to achieve power. For more power asserts control and control postpones death."
"We're possessive too then. No one wants to die silly."
"No. I mean…ah never mind." He couldn't explain the concept. Was she innocent to it all? Or had there just been a misunderstanding?
"So why don't you tell me more about your friend Fredrick."
"Oh yes. Right. Plenty of people like to take advantage of others and their gifts. But not Fredrick. He's kind, compassionate even. I could never tell him this, but sometimes I see him as…as my father," Feyera said not exactly trying to display a little bit of vulnerability.
"Maybe you can introduce me to him one day. He sounds like a nice person. I'd like to meet your people friends."
Feyera had thought about this. It would be nice to have a friend he could talk to about all of this.
"To be honest Sana, I have no idea where Fredrick even is now. He's a busy man working for the International Police." His actual father was apparently really busy too, but had never put forth the effort to contact him. At least Fredrick wanted to help him.
The Gardevoir "You don't know where he is?"
"We have radios to help us find each other," Feyera took out the small communicator from his denim jeans left pocket using his free hand. Seeing something new, Sana was keen to examine the piece.
"What does this do?" she excitedly toyed around with the black transmitter.
Feyera smiled. He didn't need to give her a big explanation. "It let's me talk to people I can't see. That way I can be in touch over distance. By carrying one you can speak to your friends who also have one by sharing the same frequency."
"So when you're lonely you use it? To hear your friends?"
Feyera laughed, and sat back upwards, closer to her. "Hah, I never thought of using it for that. Usually we use these things to tell each other quick messages and meeting points."
"But not have conversations? Do you ever do it to just hear their voice? What if you want to tell someone that you miss them? What if you need to tell someone something special?"
"Well, you see it's tricky. There is a lot of static since the technology isn't perfected. Most human technology derives from before the Terminal War. We don't know how to make everything as perfect as our distant ancestors, but we're getting there…slowly."
She held the small device in her hand and placed it adjacent to his chest shard, right above his heart. Do you think it's like us?
Feyera raised a brow, "What do you mean?"
"It can let you talk to someone from far away. That's what this does." She pushed up and pointed at her horn. "And you have one too!"
He felt the glossy part protruding from his sternum bone, about three inches outwards. Earlier that evening, Sana had tried to explain the process to him, but it did not really make any sense. Eventually, the Gardevoir had watered it down to, "the crest on your chest resonates with my own and because of that, we can communicate over great distance". He was still unsure of how this all even worked; for he had found himself trapped in a world in which he had little command over. How humorous. He had all the powers of the most prestigious Psychic Pokemon and could still not adequately understand the reason for his own existence.
"Does it still hurt?" Sana asked him as he tenderly held the crescent-shaped thin protrusion. The back of their hands met.
"Not as much as I remember it. Before it would be in pain all too frequently. I became worried when it hurt even when I did not employ my psyonics. In Fuchsia City, I thought it was infected around the baseline. I applied antibiotics since I was under the impression that it was a foreign characteristic of me. Recently however…" he trailed off. He felt his mind being read. No. Not just his mind, but also his very essence. It was as if someone had overlapped his being with that of another gentle being. He felt like the invisible force enveloping him was analyzing all of his current sensations.
"Not as much," she smiled gleefully, "Yes the heart. Your heart. Or shard, horn, or crest. It's an anatomical part of the Ralts line of evolution. You humans would compare it to a heart or a core. It is the source of many of our Psychic abilities and is linked directly to our cerebral cortex via a neuron track lined with a multitude of blood vessels. This neural network is fascinating as it can send the precise amount of blood and electrical signals needed in both the mind and the core of our biological structure".
Christian stared blankly at her, perhaps since he was still startled by being completely vulnerable to her mental ambitions.
"But what I am getting at is once it bonds to the heart of another then the two are able to share a special link transcending space. It's like being a part of the other Gardevoir. If you stray too far, there might be degrees of discomfort," She looked down at the dust beneath their legs as they sat together.
"How do you know so much about yourselves? As a Gardevoir, I mean," Feyera asked fascinated.
"We just know. We're in tune to how our bodies operate. What did you think? We cut ourselves open to find out what's on the inside?" Sana started laughing at how preposterous this notion would be.
Feyera appreciated her laughter but all the while, he felt very out of place.
Sensing this, she stopped her bright laughter and quickly responded, "Oh right…humans do that. I forgot."
Christian could sense that she felt upset about inadvertently making him feel uncomfortable. He forced a small smile and shook his head, "I don't think anyone will ever be able to find out just how I work ever since Semblance without cutting me apart."
Sana sighed full of relief that Feyera was using humor to offset his own insecurities. "A helpful tool to be sure," she thought to herself.
Still, she was not convinced that he was being completely transparent to her. True he had told her much, but she could not escape the feeling that maybe there were still memories anchored to his essence deriving from Christian Feyera. Would such dormant memories ever even be exposed to Feyera? And if they were, would he have the courage to tell her?
"Any other memories? Or are you still facing difficulty?"
"To be honest, I don't even know what types of memories I should be looking for," was Christian's response.
"The emotionally meaningful ones will be the easiest to access. I must warn you though, Gardevoir memories will always be more difficult to recall than your human recollections. As I said earlier, we are forward-looking creatures. When you dwell too long in the past, you can become paralyzed by the idea that things could have been different. It is almost as if we relive the past each time we think about it. But his memories are there…embedded in your essence, Chris," she said.
They made unbroken eye contact for several moments.
The annexed self-essence brought about great challenges for the young man. She could see it in his eyes. They were rich crimson with swirls of soft very faint emerald hues. In the center of their stormy amalgamation, were ebony pupils not unlike her own.
The dissipating green was certainly a part of Christian Feyera. She remembered that night two years back. The rocket who had tried to take the life of her spouse had such brilliant green eyes. She knew why she remembered this detail. She recalled it because it was bizarre; how could something so pure could contain the potential for such wretched malice? She recalled the details but refused to become trapped by them. This was surprisingly easier to do than she remembered it being in the past. After all, she was with him now.
How it was such a faint aspect of his colored eyes confused her. Green, the original color, had been overtaken by the same scarlet present in her irises. There was only one other difference separating them from having a mirror image as they starred at each other.
She remembered when Sephiteos had escaped from the Rocket's experimental lab on this very island. His eyes were different. The humans had done something malicious to him. He was treated as an experiment. Their endeavors to graft this aspect of Dark-type Pokemon onto a Psychic-type were a radical success. Revolutionary even. Defying their nature, Seph was able to see into the beyond by exerting this power granted to him. However, the pain inflicted upon him was beyond comprehensible.
She recalled her mate from using nearly all of his energy to inhibit her from employing empathy upon escaping the Evercrest research facility on top of Penta Cliff. To allow her to do so would be to allow her to feel his extreme pain as if it were her own. It would be best if he never shared the memories of being operated upon.
Still, the time she saw her mate's eyes in altered form was very brief. For Seph was being pursued by one of the scientists that had administered the Progenitor Serum: none other than Feyera whom she leaned next to right now.
Fate had an interesting way of twisting outcomes.
The constant flux of melding his own human traits with another being was not only a mental obstacle, but also a physical one. Especially since it had been a Gardevoir. Feyera blinked, breaking their extended stare. If he was placed into this body, a body with aspects of Delta-two, then one day would he be brought out of it? It was a burning question.
"Sana," Christian said rubbing his face with his free hand.
"Yes?" She tried to respond without sounding dreamy.
"Am I an abomination?" Feyera asked her, all the while thinking about what Haunter had told him in the Pokemon Tower.
Sana thought hard about this. He could see her mind frantically working. She wanted to give him an answer to ease his mind. "No." She paused for a few seconds. Briefly breaking and looking at the earth below them, she then returned her gaze to his. "Everything in nature is a circle. Everything that comes to be comes out of what it was once not. Look at the petals of the flower. When they die, they fall, but in the springtime, they are reborn in the bud. Eventually this bud blooms into a majestic flower even more tremendous than the one which preceded it. Do you know why we consider the new beauty to be more majestic than the old?"
Feyera scratched his head, "No, why?"
"Because it has survived death. It has overcome an obstacle, and persevered through it. If something living becomes dead, perhaps something dead can become living. If you live in nature, everything you see is just a cycle of movement where one contrary flows into another," Sana said. She sincerely hoped this perspective would help him.
"I…survived death?" Feyera continued to look at her face and became lost by the two whirlpools which were her drawing eyes. Their characteristics charmed him.
"Twice technically. That fall would have killed both of you. Maybe that is why Haunter was so angry at you. You had escaped the claws of death as both a human and a Pokemon," She spoke with conviction.
"Still, how does that explain my current state of being? What am I exactly? Is there even a word for it?" Anxiously, he gripped her hand even tighter.
"I have a theory."
Feyera pawed his chin, "Go for it."
"Souls are different from bodies. Bodies are visible; we can see that they have a lot of different parts. You see," Sana looked down at her own figure, "a body is a manifestation of intricate parts spread out over space and time. Souls don't typically have parts, they are not composite things. Sometimes you can get a sense of the soul through the eyes—which are the windows to the soul. The soul holds all of these parts together into one living organism. The soul is indivisible. Pure identity. Self-unity. Bodies can fall apart, because they're made of parts. But the soul can't fall apart..."
He didn't believe it. Her explanation was too riddled with the way she felt about Sephiteos. If an ancient relic was able to do this to him, by defying all laws of reason, then obviously the opposite could be done. He knew she wanted him to accept it to a degree; he did not want to create confrontation though. "What about my brain? My memories, do they not have a place in this schematic you've constructed?" Feyera asked. "Souls sound unscientific!"
"The soul is something more than mere brain activity, Feyera. You know that. You are thinking about the soul as if it were some type of sticky glue. I suppose that is an acceptable opinion considering that you have two converged souls. Even if they are one, then the body is dependent on the soul and not the other way around. The soul's a harmony now, based upon the instruments playing it. Your soul enlivens your body. And if you were to take the soul out of the body...the body will die," Sana said. Her eyes were trapped in his again, "Life belongs to a soul."
"Then what about my body? I don't know what I am to do any longer! This is all me, all Christian, except for this! I am not depressed about it because I am no longer in pain. Who is to say that it won't start up again though?" Christian was talking about the cognitive meltdowns resulting in bodily destruction.
"I…I…can only help you with certain aspects. Together, maybe we can find a way for you to command it. Although it would seem that the sheer unprecedented nature of your existence has caused your body to begin deteriorating…" her voice trailed off.
Christian's face was filled with concern, "Will it kill me? Do you know?" The thought of the crystal taking over him through Edge worried him.
"I've never seen anything like this. It is completely foreign to me," Sana took in a deep breath, her hands hovering just above his heart. "But I promise I won't abandon you. Now that you are here however…"
"Wait before you go on, why here? Why now? What was the reason for all of this?" the young trainer asked.
She grinned, "You read my mind. Just now. Faintly, but I felt it. I was just getting to that. Do you remember how you felt after you earned your very first Gym Badge?"
"Terrible. I lost a close friend, Lawrence my Pidgey. He was the first Pokemon I caught as a new trainer. I'll never forget the friend I lost that day. I also destroyed Brock's Gym inadvertently by losing control of my psyonic powers," for a brief moment Christian relived the event and shuddered as his emotions tried to possess him. These negative emotions of inadequacy and guilt did not seem to be as persuasive as they usually were. Did Sana have something to do with that?
"But what did you gain from subsequent badges? I know the feeling since I am reading your mind just say it to me," Sana said.
"Err…self-respect. Pleasure even. For me and my teammates," Feyera stammered, very wary of having his thoughts and emotions completely spread out and available.
"That's right. It is something primal. Humans don't understand it. Perhaps they have a tainted idea of what it is with their sense of duels using their petty firearms, although it is just not the same as a Pokemon battle," the Gardevoir said. "When you put everything on the line in competition…it is just so…exhilarating," strangely, Christian knew the exact feeling Sana was describing. "A Gym Badge is more than a piece of the past. It is a symbol for triumph. The victor recalls the tribulations he faced in the past and remembers the most emotional of moments. Furthermore, you use this sense of progress to further your desire for accomplishment. You feel the pull of contest more than most because of Seph, Christian".
Feyera wasn't convinced by her rational but it was the best theory yet. "Why the Soul Badge though? Were you trying to be funny or something?" Feyera asked.
She started laughing as her face grew beet red from blushing. "Hahaha! I never thought of it in those terms, but now that you mention it, I suppose there was some deeper meaning to the entire series of events that took place. I needed to convince you to come here. I knew you had a small romantic interest in Lorelei, so don't try to hide that. It was how I first made contact with you."
Mister Feyera began to blush as well, a little embarrassed.
"She was on this very island at the time, due to her home island, Floe Isle being only a few nautical miles east of here. So I devised a plan. Using this," Sana clutched his chest, "I communed with you in your dreams to inflame your passions under the guise of Lorelei and motivate you to travel to Fuchsia. I knew that you would be experiencing the aphrodisiac effects from earning Gym Badges as well. You are fortunate to be able to be both Pokemon and trainer. It means you can issue Gym Challenges and fight with your friends through your mental and emotional connections. After the battle is won, the thrill of triumph is not only your Pokemon, but yours as well. In a more primal sense than any human could possibly understand. But in any event, by briefly entering her mind and using Psychic close to the southern sea, I telepathically controlled her to deliverer you here."
"I know she was upset about her boat being destroyed," Edge said, "What was the urgency behind getting me here?"
"I wanted to be with you now that you understood more about yourself. You couldn't expect me to confront you with all of this information prior to it manifesting itself in the way that it has. I anticipated this day for such a long time and my patience was at its end. How I longed for the day to come. I did not know when, but I knew it would happen eventually. Even after inadvertently clearing a large amount of your memories in order to reduce the pain, I somehow just knew it would come back. And then I felt it," Sana sensitively spoke.
"Felt what?" asked the trainer.
"Your power. Through the crest," she replied, "It was beginning to be unlocked through your use of Gardevoir abilities. Amazingly, it would seem, you were able to overcome a myriad of obstacles without totally losing yourself to the corruption of power."
Edge thought about when the power was at its worst. How cruel he had become. Feasting on negative emotions allowed for nearly limitless potential, but at a terrible price. He thought of the rocket, Brad. He thought of how he had nearly lost more than his life that evening on the S.S. Anne. He shamefully looked down, avoiding her gaze.
"Hey," Sana nudged him with her cheek. Oddly the three white clippings on her face were exceedingly soft. Their yielding texture reminded him of ear cartilage. "It's going to be okay. You're safe now. What did I tell you before? I'll protect you."
"Can you protect me from myself?" Edge wanted to know for sure.
She smiled nervously, "I will. But you need to remain by my side. I cannot guarantee anything if you leave my sphere of influence."
At this, Edge exhaled as if a large burden was removed from his back.
"Now I must ask you if you are ready to hear what I am going to ask of you," said the Gardevoir with a determined look on her face.
"Of course but first…what about Lorelei? Will she be okay?" asked Feyera.
Sana rolled her large eyes and let out a soft growl, "Of course she'll be fine. She's an Elite Four member after all. They are the best trainers. I mean…not HER specifically, but those she associates with," Sana was careful in choosing her words.
"Well, won't she be looking for me? I'm sure I gave her quite a fright by just appearing to her after the boat crashed in the coastal storm. Plus she couldn't remember anything due to your little Psychic-commandeering of her body," Edge muttered.
"I suppose…" the Gardevoir did not seem to be pleased, "What did you have in mind?"
"Well it has been hours since I saw her last. I mean after we met, I just totally forgot. There were so many things on my mind. But we have to make sure she's alright. Maybe we should check out the crash site?"
"Would you like to go now?" The Gardevoir asked him as the sky started to become pale from the impending morning.
"No…it can wait. Like you said, she's a member of the Elite Four. How about we go once it is daylight?" Edge suggested.
He did not need to see her face to know that she approved. She placed an arm behind his neck, held him close, and began to doze off in the balmy morning breeze.
"Wasn't there something you wanted to ask me?" Feyera questioned the drowsy Gardevoir.
She didn't seem to be disturbed by his question. He heard a subtle yawn.
"It can wait until tomorrow. I just want this moment to last."