It was hard to forget a man like Lysandre. Maybe it was the bright red plumes of hair that sparked off from his fresh face. That had been the first thing she had noticed about him. He looked sharp, with spikes and tufts of hair and fur that made him seem imposing and larger then life. It was all an illusion. She had seen him at his lowest, like a Pyroar soaked in water, with a flattened and unimposing mane. Without all his looks and flare (puns aside), he was just a man that had been worn from the world. He had been hurt, and it cracked something inside of him. A wound that wouldn't heal. A thorn in his paw, that made him ferocious and bitter.
It had taken her awhile to find him. Longer then she cared to admit. She didn't tell the others, though she had no doubts they were curious as to why she had been so distant and aloof as of late. It wasn't done intentionally. Her friends were such social creatures in comparison to her. Around them, she felt like something wild, a savage in human clothes. She would rather be left alone to her own devices. Not to say that she didn't enjoy their company...but they seemed to constantly crave her presence, and sometimes it was hard to muster the energy to go along with it.
She had found the lost man along Route 17. Two years after her ascension to Champion, and two years after his defeat at her hands. When she had found him, it was such a depressing sight that she wished to forget it. He was huddled in some snowed in cave, with nothing but a lone fire and scavenged supplies to keep him sustained. His cheekbones were more pronounced, sharp and rigid. There was little youth to him, no fat or suppleness...not even muscle. Lysandre, for all his talk of beauty and glamor...really let himself go.
It was her fault, in many ways. She tore the carpet out from under his feet, right when he had been so close to obtaining his...goal. She still felt a sickness from the pit of her stomach. His plan felt like a twisted joke. He had been so desperate that he felt the need to resort to such measure, and it made her burn with an angry heat. She wanted to take him and shake him. Wanted to slap him furiously...but when she saw him, she knew that wouldn't be happening. Porter had never been the strongest, but at the moment, she felt as if a mere slap from her hand could make his face cave like soft snow.
He was asleep when she found him, surrounded by whatever belongings he had scavenged. She wondered if they were from his personal estate before it was searched by the Police...or maybe from his labs before they were ransacked. Either way, she still couldn't help but wonder why he would sit out here, so far off and alone from the world, in the middle of winter. Route 17 was dangerous when travelers strayed from the roads or from the Mamoswine that usually plowed through the heavy weather...and he was far off path. Deep in the mountain ranges, a place that was more of a graveyard then a tourist attraction. Had he planed on dying here? Rotting away in some cave like an ancient relic?
She had kindled the fire to keep it burning, using a bottle of lighter fluid that she always kept on hand when she traveled. The little flame grew to an acceptable size, one that would actually keep him warm.
...There was silence again, besides the soft sounds of his breathing and the roars of the icy storm brewing outside.
She slowly slid off the trenchcoat she had brought with her, laying it out by the fire and resting the round orbs of her pokeballs in front of her. They would appreciate the heat. Her Salamance, Warren, was probably frustrated at having to fly through a snow storm to track this man down. She didn't blame the Dragon, nor did she blame the rest of her team for feeling this was a stupid endeavor.
It had been a guilty conscience that brought her out here, Sycamore's words echoing in the corners of her mind. She was no longer the Professor's pupil, but she still respected him...and the incident with Team Flare troubled him. The troubling had slowly spread to her as well, even though Lysandre had betrayed her. She hadn't been as close with the man as Sycamore had been...but she felt closer to him than she had felt with her friends.
She had lasted two years before the guilt had finally come to a climax, until she couldn't take it anymore. Porter wanted release from her thoughts, needed to know if the manipulative bastard was dead in the ground or still caught in his despair as she had left him. She felt guilty for overthrowing the king, felt shame when she had broken his crown...even if it was for the right purpose.
When he had just been Lysandre to her, rather then the leader of Team Flare, they had socialized.
Well, maybe socialized wasn't the proper word. He usually carried any sort of conversation between the two of them, but talking with him felt natural. It wasn't forced, like it had been with Calem or Shauna. They had talked often, over the Holo-Clips that he had invented.
Sometimes it was about Kalos, sometimes it was about the Poke'Dex...and sometimes, it was about Mega Evolution. Maybe over time, it bled onto a personal level. She had opened up first, talked about her often blunt behavior. It wasn't in great detail, she was still a very private person, but maybe he cracked a bit as well. They started to slowly agree with one another. The talks never lasted for more then ten or twenty minutes at a time...and they could often be weeks between each other, but they were simple things that she could handle. Not like when it came to other people, when it became a crippling struggle to maintain interest or to interest them in turn.
They would drink at his Cafe, enjoying warm coffee and simple chitchat. It was a rare occurrence, but sometimes she would wandered back into the city of Lumiose and it would have been pointless to talk through the Holo-Clip when he was only a minute's walk away. Those had been simple times, times that had helped her grow, and she slowly had to admit that he played a small factor in the person she was now. Enough to justify her coming out here, in her mind. Pay respects to someone she had tolerated and respected, even if he had spurred her in his own way.
She had sat by the fire, not budging for quite a period of time.
He awoke, groggy and exhausted despite his rest. The man had stared at her with unfocused eyes, murmuring a soft "Are you there?" In a voice so strained it pained her ears. "Are you real?" He tried again when she didn't respond.
"Yes." She spoke softly, trying to find her voice past the lump in her throat.
It took him time to react. He sat himself up from the bedroll he had been encased in, staring at her as if she was lying to him. Silence passed between the two of them, before she finally flicked her gaze back to the fire, hands folded in front of her. What was there to say? I'm sorry I stopped you from activating a weapon of mass destruction by abusing a Legendary Pokemon and almost committing mass genocide?
…Do people normally apologize for that?
His hair was damp, slicked back with either grease or sweat. Not only did he appear malnourished, but in poor hygiene as well. This was the same man who meticulously picked at his clothes when he noticed even the smallest hair out of place.
"Why are you here?" Ah, there he was again. His voice was regulated and controlled, staring at her from across the fire with that hard gaze. He was bristling, like a small pokemon backed into a corner. The man looked like a high flight risk, fidgeting even though he was sitting upright. She tried to give a small smile to alleviate the tension...but to him, maybe he mistook the curve of her lips for something feral. Porter wasn't surprised. The last time they fought, it had been a long and bitter conflict...and in that rush of energy, she wasn't very sportsman like. The battle was more of a brawl, a crime scene, and the power of a Legendary was enough to drive the strongest person drunk with power.
She had been brutal, a monster.
But so had he.
It was the sort of thing that nobody would ever be able to understand, no matter how hard they tried it. It was something that had to be experienced, that desperate rush of adrenaline that reduced them to two humans wailing and punching each other in a corner while their pokemon fought for them. It was almost funny, knowing that two strong figures were so desperate that they engaged in something as barbaric as a fist fight.
...He still had a scar on the side of his jaw, from when she had slashed at him with her nails. It made her feel heavy, and the Champion had to remind herself to draw in a small breath of air to her lungs.
"I found out you were alive."
"And being the hero, you felt some moral obligation to save me? Is that it? Wanted to come up here and give me some hope for the world? Make yourself feel better?" The controlled tone wavered, and she could feel the bitterness behind it. He still believed what he was doing had been right. Stubborn man.
"Fuck you." Felt good to say that. A hero? Is that really what she was?
Well, she did stop him from destroying everything. That was kinda hero-tier, wasn't it? "I don't need to sit here and preach about what's right and wrong. Either way I look at it, you're still an ass. Except, now you're just sitting out here waiting on frostbite to sneak up on you."
She leaned herself back, still keeping up the little speech. Maybe it was time for her to be long winded. "I'm just surprised that the man across from me is so distraught that he's just given up. With me, if something doesn't work right, I at least try to find another route to take. Not just shut down."
He just stared at her, hands clenched tightly. She heard his knuckles pop. "If you had any pride, you would have tried something different." She spat out.
"Only to have you waltz up on my doorstep and destroy all my hard work again?"
"Maybe if you came up with a better method then killing off everything, I wouldn't have to. Murder is a coward's solution. It's when you can't deal with something that you would rather erase it then just buck up and face it." She only received a sharp, bitter laugh in return.
"Serena Porter, trying to be a insightful. You're about as inspiring as a..." His train of thought was interrupted, and he leans his head into his hands, rubbing at his temples furiously.
Porter felt herself bristle at the mentioning of her first name, but seeing him in the state he was in only roused pity. It was enough to make her tuck away her frustration...for now. She rose to her feet and made a slow approach towards the weak man. He had paused, head still in his hands. Did he think she was going to strike him?
She got down onto her knee in front of his bedroll. "Lysandre. Look at me."
"Leave me."
"Look at me."
"I said-" He raised a hand and swung it forward...and she caught his wrist, holding it in tight grasp. The man tried to pull himself away, but in his state, he was practically helpless. His skin was hot and feverish, and there was the scent of heavy liquor that clung to him. The mighty Lysandre, reduced to a man at the bottom of a bottle. Her chest ached. Her fault. Had she been wiser, maybe things could have ended differently.
She grasped the harsh angles of his chin and made him look at her. This was the closest they had been to each other without trying to tear each other apart. With her other hand, she pressed it flat against his forehead. "You have a fever." He gave a low growl in return.
"I don't need your help. You just want to play the role Sycamore gave you." She kept the hand there, ignoring him completely. "I don't need your pity, and I don't need your help. You've done your job. Leave me. Go back to your filthy little world and watch it crumble, but I won't go back to it. I refuse. You can wallow in guilt for not saving me, I don't care."
At this point, his words felt like rambling. She had no reply for him, because he was right. She was here to save him, to help him. Get him off of rock bottom. Make him a better man, like what he could have been. But she was only met with silence as a response.
If he was going to be stubborn, then so would she.
"When's the last time you ate? Last time you had something to drink, alcohol aside?" He tried to pull away, but she pinched her fingers on his chin tightly. He couldn't even break away from that. "I'm not going anywhere, so you might as well go along with this. It'll make everything less difficult." He was silent again.
She looked around at his supplies...and saw a polite row of pokeballs nestled at the foot of his bedroll. She was struck with an answer immediately. "You've been giving your food to your pokemon, haven't you? Whatever is left over is yours...they came first."
He stiffened like a rod. Bingo.
Even at the end of his rope, he gave whatever he had to them. Hard to believe this was the same man that would have killed off all pokemon without hesitation for his aspirations of a better world.
She pulled herself away from him. "I'll be right back, okay? Not like you can go anywhere, anyways." The Champion approached the fire, baring her back to him.
Serena Porter grasped her trench coat and threw it over her shoulders, fastening her team on the belt around her waste. "Warren. We're leaving." There was a hiss of release from her waist, her loyal dragon awaiting her outside the cave, looking disgruntled by the cold. She didn't spare Lysandre another glance. The Champion didn't care if he would spite her for this, but he was now her responsibility. Whether he liked it or not.