Greenflower is doing a good thing for the world as usual with her beta-ing! Thanks for the reviews, I still do read each one and clap and giggle like a little girl when I receive them in my inbox. I hope I did a good job answering a lot of your questions. Keep them coming, I love to hear your ideas about the legend and everything.

In Ruins

Chapter 20

The steam in the bath house that evening, which usually swirled around the open pipes and puddles of hot spring water like a heavy mist, was so agitated by the onset of cold that it swarmed the room with the appearance of clouds. They were so thick and white that as soon as Satoshi slid shut the door behind him, he lost all sight and sense of the cedar-beamed ceilings and walls of the bath house to an impermeable veil.

"Shigeru," he ventured, "Can you see anything?"

"No," came the unseen reply. "Not that it matters. I know where everything is in here anyway."

Satoshi was less confident. He squinted, and found that could make out his friend's shape, almost more shadow than anything else. His footsteps across the floor, which came in a series of wet slaps, were much clearer. When he listened, there was the familiar, quiet fsshh of water streaming from the bamboo pipes in the bathing corners across the room.

Guided by so little, he held his hands in front of him and made his way to the nearest faucet where he bathed himself in silence.

When he finished washing out the last of the soap from his hair, he was startled when Shigeru walked past him and, instead of continuing out of the door, stepped into the pool and enveloped himself in the water and the thick, rolling clouds that hung above it.

Satoshi stepped out back from his stream of water and shivered as the cold drafts of air pricked at his skin. Shigeru had, he decided quickly, made a good choice to change their routine and spend time soaking in the water, instead of just using it to clean off.

He joined Shigeru and sank down a little more than an arm's length away from him. With a sigh of contentment, he settled his back against the worn and slick wood that framed the sides of the pool. It was strange how the warmth from the water seemed to seep into him. Relaxed, he closed his eyes and began to drift in the peaceful fold of the water. It was after some time that he was startled back to consciousness by Shigeru's voice, a break in the unlifting fog.

"Satoshi," he said abruptly, and Satoshi opened his eyes. His thoughtlessness still trailed in his mind like vines wrapped around trellises, and he struggled to clear them.

"Yeah?" he asked, his voice coming out lower than usual. "What's up?"

"I wanted to ask you something."

He let out a 'hmm,' but felt that Shigeru somehow expected more.

"Go for it," he said.

"How do you know the world is real?"

Satoshi was taken aback by the abruptness of the question, paired with the evident indifference in Shigeru's voice. He shrugged his shoulders and watched the water ripple out as a result of the movement. "I don't know," he said. "Because you feel it, I guess."

"In that case," Shigeru answered, "What does it mean if you feel things that aren't there?"

"Uh..."

"Is it still real?" Shigeru continued. "Or does that just mean that you aren't part of reality?"

Satoshi opened his eyes. He was unsurprised that the steam absconded his vision of Shigeru.

"I've never really thought about it. I usually don't question the stuff around me like that," he answered slowly.

"Not even recently?"

"No," he told Shigeru, "Not recently. Not ever. Why, have you been? Questioning it, I mean."

Shigeru was extremely frank. "Of course I am. My leg isn't hurting me anymore."

Satoshi stared.

"I don't get how that's connected," he said bluntly, and Shigeru cracked a smirk that didn't reach his eyes.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Shigeru stated. "Don't take that the wrong way. It's not that you're dumb, it's just... How could I expect you to understand something you never felt?"

"I can always try," suggested Satoshi, even as he felt a strange blend of hope and hesitation. "Maybe if you told me I could understand it."

"All right," said Shigeru. He looked at Satoshi for a fleeting moment, then fixed his eyes on something in between the water and the white steam, and began.

"I've had problems with my leg ever since I was attacked in the Temple. That was a few years ago. But then we came to Alph - this Alph - and for a month, I didn't feel any pain at all. I could walk normally, run normally, do everything with my legs exactly the same as anyone else all the time. However... after the illusion of Foster attacked me, I felt pain again. It wasn't illusory, either; it felt as bad as anything I'd ever felt before. But now I'm not feeling any pain anymore. Why? What does that mean? Was any part of that experience in the Temple real? And if part of it wasn't, then... what about everything else? To be honest, Satoshi, all the things that have been going on since we arrived at Alph have been in direct opposition to the reality that I've known my entire life. So, doesn't it make sense that I would at least consider the theory that this world - this Alph - isn't real?"

Satoshi tried to let the thought settle in around him, but it didn't latch on. He couldn't even fix his eyes on Shigeru, and see what he was thinking; and it was so frustrating that finally he burst out, "Shigeru, where are you?"

"I'm somewhere to your left, I think," came his reply. Satoshi inched through the undulating steam until he could see Shigeru resting his head on his arms. His hopes of being able to read Shigeru's meaning from his posture was immediately dashed. He was - at least as far as Satoshi could tell - inexplicably relaxed and open, in spite of having just stated an absurd and impossible theory. Satoshi stood transfixed as ripples of water splashed against his stomach, and he tried to speak.

"I thought," he said slowly, "that you thought we were transported to the ancient civilization of Alph by the earthquake. That we traveled through time. Not across... worlds, or something."

"Of course that's what I said when we'd first arrived. But I changed my mind; it was all too easy to figure out that this world wasn't the past, and that it wasn't even real. In fact, I've known it for weeks now."

"No way. Everything feels perfectly real to me here. I don't know anything about your leg, but, I feel real," Satoshi stated. "Besides, this has to be the past. All the buildings are shaped like the ones that were from the Ruins. And there's no electricity. And they don't have a pokemon league, or pokeballs, or anything, and-"

"Why are you so attached to the idea that we traveled back a thousand years in time? Don't you realize that it's unlikely as anything else?" With that, Shigeru lifted his head and met Satoshi's eyes with a gaze so sharp that it cut straight through the steam like a knife through cotton, and buried in. "I'm not saying that this world isn't 'real,' but you have to at least consider that maybe it's not what you think it is. In fact, there's really no way that his place could be the past. Everyone speaks the way we're used to speaking, in the same language, with the same expressions and accents. Plus, we recognize so many people that we know. They have the same ages, the same personalities, even have the same names as our friends - and that can't be historically accurate. And... and Foster. It wasn't some copy, it was the same person as the one that both of us knew from the future, or wherever we came from. Since he's not part of the legend, it doesn't make sense that he'd arrive here. Does it? No, of course not, so... I just can't believe my old theory anymore. This place - wherever it is - has got to be something that isn't history."

"So what if it's not the past," Satoshi managed to say at last. "I don't think that changes anything."

"Why not?"

Satoshi replied earnestly, "Because I still think that this place is completely real. It's not like, like there's other possibilities which could explain how we've been here for an entire month. We're eating and sleeping and stuff just like we would anywhere else, so it's not like we're in some totally different world!"

"But if we were brought here by the Unown -"

"You mean the Protectors?" Satoshi interjected.

"- then almost anything is possible. Research has shown that they have the power to send people across space and into what seem to be new dimensions. It's been theorized that they don't even understand the concept of time because most of the time, they exist outside of it. And if that's true, whether we're here either for a day or a month wouldn't even matter. I bet that we only need to be here long enough for the Unown to be satisfied. And for that, they'll give us as long as we need."

"As long as we need for what?"

"To fulfill the requirements of the legend, duh," said Shigeru. "Don't tell me you forgot about it."

"I hadn't!" protested Satoshi.

Shigeru held out a hand in a gesture of peace. "The point is that you weren't doing anything to get it accomplished, and neither was I. It was just easier to put the legend from our minds than to deal with it, I guess."

"It wasn't just that," Satoshi insisted. "Everyone told us that we weren't supposed to do anything to solve it."

"Everyone was also telling us that the legend was the only reason that we were here. It's been over a month since we arrived, and it's time we re-prioritize. You know that."

Satoshi was unable to resist pouting. "No, I don't. I don't see why we have to change anything."

"Because I think today made it really clear to me that Alph is changing, and that we're the impetus - I mean, we're the cause of all the change here. Our actions are important."

"But we haven't been doing anything!"

"Exactly," said Shigeru. He turned to Satoshi completely and said with fervor, "That's the problem. Because we're not acting, everything in Alph is shifting, forcing us to change."

Satoshi shook his head. "No, it's not."

"It's not?" Shigeru challenged. "Then what about our being suddenly called up to the Temple? What happened to me in there? And, how, over the past two weeks people have started acting different around us, like they're desperate? Tano's really accelerated our training recently. And just think about the girls. You didn't talk to Haruka yesterday, so I guess you wouldn't know about her, but you've definitely noticed that Hikari was acting crazy. She even tried to make a move on you last night."

"Yeah, she did and- Woah, wait a second. You said something about Haruka."

Shigeru pursed his lips. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Satoshi pursued, "She didn't bring us breakfast this morning. Hey, did you do something?"

"I said nothing happened!"

With that said, Shigeru turned from the wall and folded his arms in defiance. Satoshi copied him without thinking.

"Fine," he said. "You don't have to tell me about Haruka. I don't think you're right about this, anyway. Those things you mentioned could be explained by all sorts of stuff besides us 'not existing in reality.' It's just coincidence, that's all."

"But you have to admit that an alternative is possible," said Shigeru. "That this world isn't what you thought it is."

"No. The way you're talking, you're making it sound like the whole world is focused around us."

"I know that," said Shigeru. "That's what I'm trying to make it sound like."

Satoshi felt his voice sharpen as it escaped his throat.

"The whole world, Shigeru?" he asked. "Don't you think that's just slightly self-centered?"

"No, I don't. Because I think this world isn't just a fake reality, Satoshi. I think it was created for us. I think that we're in an illusion," said Shigeru, his voice coming from a place both close and somehow far away.

An illusion. The words rung in Satoshi's brain, fighting for him to reject them. An illusion created for us. He focused on the water and the wall and his fingers - all things that seemed very real - and tried to calm the suddenly painful beating of his heart inside his chest.

"You think this is caused by the Protectors? Like Foster was, except... everything?"

Shigeru nodded solemnly. But for all his firmness, Satoshi could only shake his head with equal certainty.

"No," he said, resolute, "It's not an illusion. The Unown wouldn't do that, Shigeru."

"I don't see they wouldn't."

"Because if this place is an illusion, then it means that the legend can't be real. And why would the Unown make up a legend? It seems kind of unfair, bring us here, making us do something for absolutely no reason. Pokemon aren't that manipulative. They're not... they're not bad. They're not evil."

"But you agreed with me that the Protectors aren't doing their 'job' of keeping Alph safe. You told me before I even suggested it that Foster was an illusion caused by the Protectors just to hurt me."

"Okay, that was really weird but... maybe it was a kind of fluke. It doesn't mean they have to be evil. After all, you can be a good person and sometimes make mistakes!"

"Sure there is. And there's also a difference between making mistakes sometimes, and consistently failing to look out for the interests of others," he said. "Being unable to empathize is about as close as anyone can get to being evil." And at this, Shigeru diverted the conversation on a hairpin turn yet again. "How much do you know about the Greenfield incident, Satoshi?"

"For one thing, I was there," Satoshi answered curtly, once he had gained his bearings. "So I know a lot, actually. Thanks."

"Right," said Shigeru, drawling out his response. "And exactly how much time did you spend observing or thinkingabout what was happening around you?"

Satoshi could feel the heat rising from the water to his cheeks.

"...None," he admitted. "I was trying to save my mom, trying to save Molly... and I was busy, okay? I had a lot to think about."

Shigeru nodded gracefully. "Of course you did. And it's no different from how you are now. So listen and think now to what I'm going to tell you. The academic community learned a lot about Unown from the Greenfield incident. We learned that they can create sophisticated illusions - visions and false realities so intense that they will completely immerse people in them. We also discovered that they will interact with people, and it seems to give them pleasure to do so; they're not totally anti-social. But after making that initial contact, they stay at a distance.

"It's not clear why the Hale family was the center of so much attention from the Unown. Both of Molly's parents had been taken by the Unown at different points in time, and at different sites. It has been theorized that the Hale family has a unique, perhaps genetic, connection to the Unown."

"I guess that makes sense," said Satoshi. "I knew about Professor Hale and Molly's abduction, but I didn't know that Mrs. Hale was taken by the Unown, too."

"Actually, her abduction mirrored Professor Hale's in several ways. While she was researching an old building, she spontaneously vanished - she was tossed into several alternate dimensions which seemed to resemble outer space and were filled with the Unown. Now, when Molly interacted with the Unown, the abduction was only spiritual. She remained in the same physical world, but she used the Unown to modify it to her wishes. She asked them to create a strange crystal world around her like the fairy books she'd read as a child, and they did. So her situation was quite different. They manipulated her mind-"

"No, wait."

Satoshi felt struck with sudden certainty that Shigeru was wrong. It was so obvious, he wondered how no one had noticed it while they were speaking about it before. "The Unown," he told Shigeru with certainty, "were trying to help Molly."

"Sorry, but were you listening? The Unown were manipulating her by using her memories-"

"Molly wanted to be with her family. That's why they stole my mom and created Entei. They were making her a new family because they knew that's what she wanted, right? So maybe, when the Unown abducted Professor Hale and his wife, they might have done it for a similar reason. Maybe they just sensed that the Hales wanted to know more about them," Satoshi looked to Shigeru. "Maybe the Unown were trying to help the Hales get what they wanted."

"While that's possible," Shigeru replied, "They still manipulated Molly to believe things that weren't true, and that's troubling because Molly didn't even really care about the Unown when she was five years old. Her parents didn't talk to her about their jobs or anything. So how did the Unown get to her in the first place? Molly confirmed that she did communicate with them before they created the incident, but we still don't know how she called out to them, or why they had appeared, or why they answered to her like they did."

"So even if we were abducted by the Unown, we don't have enough information to say anything for certain," Satoshi reasoned.

"It's all speculation," Shigeru admitted. "But I think there's enough evidence to support my theory that the Unown brought us into an elaborate illusion."

"You said that Molly called out to the Unown, right? So which of us called out to the Unown?"

"Neither of us, as far as I know," said Shigeru.

"Then," Satoshi concluded, "we can't be in an illusion. After all, the Unown would have to take out our memories or whatever to give us what we wanted. So your theory's gotta be wrong somewhere."

Shigeru allowed only the word "maybe," to slip from his lips before he straightened, and stretched his arms above his head with a drawn-out sigh.

"My fingers are more wrinkled than Tano's," he said almost idly. Satoshi felt immeasurably relieved that Shigeru was done ready to put aside the troubling topic of illusions for the moment.

"Really? Wow. I can't even see my own fingers in this fog. Let's get out of here," he said. "You know, I could eat both of our dinners right now."

Shigeru stood and waded towards the steps leading out of the pool. "Well, maybe we'll be in luck and Haruka will have brought our food while we were gone," he suggested. Satoshi was happy to follow him while chiming in agreement.

Flat bread and millet sandwiches didn't quite reach the level of culinary prominence to which Shigeru had grown accustomed as a child. They weren't even as good as the gruel he'd been forced to eat while working on-site at the ruins as a teenager. But that horrible gruel, at least, had had the most basic of spices and sometimes (generally, on Tuesdays) the cafeteria even produced hamburgers that had come from cans and gave him the satisfaction of a protein fix even if the taste left much to be desired. Flat bread, which otherwise had the consistency of sandstone, had no redeeming qualities. Shigeru knew that. But when he arrived at Tano's after trudging through six inches of snow in sandals and socks, shivering and still hungry after skipping two meals, he was struck with the certainty that no food had ever looked more appetizing in his entire life.

Satoshi was no different. "Tano," he cried out as soon as he saw the meal, "Is this for our breakfasts?"

His outburst complete, he ran to the side of the table and with great restraint, resisted consuming the food as soon as it was in his sight. His hands were trembling over the plate and he seemed to be salivating, but this was, for him, a valiant feat of self-control. Shigeru, not seeing Tano in the immediate vicinity, forced the thought of the flat bread from his mind with effort. He then took a seat on a floor mat and tenderly began removing his ice-encrusted sandals and socks to reveal his moist and reddened toes.

Satoshi looked over at Shigeru in confusion. "What are you doing down there? Aren't you hungry?" he asked.

Shigeru rolled his eyes. "Of course I am. But my stomach can wait. Frostbite won't."

"I think you're exaggerating," Satoshi said baldly, but glanced at his footwear all the same. They were in a similar condition to Shigeru's, a possibly even worse.

Erstwhile, a shadow passed under the curtain door, grabbing Shigeru's attention. The weave pattern waved, and was lifted from the corner as Tano entered the room at a slow shuffle. His clothing hadn't changed but for the addition of a scarf, and his smile - if it were something that could be worn - was also modified, like a lamp that had been dimmed by a shade.

"Boys," he said, his voice creaky as always, "Good morning. Do eat, do eat."

Satoshi needed no further encouragement before he stuffed the first of the bread pockets into his mouth. Shigeru regarded his mentor with curiosity, however.

"This is for us, then?"

"Yes," said Tano, already busying himself in the corner of the room with a pile of wood that required him to bend at an angle he obviously wasn't supposed to be going in. "I've already had my breakfast."

"Oh? We usually have our breakfast before starting work, too," Shigeru mentioned, and watched Tano's face carefully. The old man seemed placid.

"Usually happens to exclude today, right?"

"...No."

"Then you really shouldn't look the gift horse in the mouth," said Tano.

"This is so good," interjected Satoshi, wiping crumbles from the crease between his chin and lower lip. "Tano, thank you. So much."

Tano waved his thin-as-paper hand in both pleasure and dismissal.

"Shigeru," he said. "You should make sure to eat as well."

"I will as soon as I finish warming up my toes. But don't get me wrong, I am hungry. I didn't have dinner last night, or breakfast this morning. But I can wait a few minutes."

"Endurance is an important character attribute," Tano agreed, and placed two small pieces of wood onto the fire.

Shigeru glanced at Satoshi, who seemed to only be listening to him and Tano out of one ear, if he was paying attention at all. His eyes were on the meal, in any case.

"Out of curiosity," he said to Shigeru with an affected lightness, "Have you seen Haruka around lately?"

"No," said Tano. He leaned on his cane and licked the bottom of his thin, dry lips. "It's as if she's disappeared."

"That's the impression I got as well," Shigeru said confidingly, and frowned down at his feet.