I arrived in Hearthome around 2 AM the next morning. I found a hotel downtown and slept there. I had another strange dream, this one more benevolent, but just as strange. I sat on a lake with man in a purple suit. We sat in velvet armchairs on the sand, with a lamp between us. There were no ambient sounds, nature being totally still around us. I could feel a presence beyond the man in the suit, somewhere in the trees beyond the forest. The man spent a while filing his nails. Neither of us said a word until he put the file away. He asked me if it was chilly. I told him it wasn't. He then asked me, why do you expect to find your answers in a laboratory?
"Sinnoh will not reveal its answers to you so easily," he told me. "You have to learn to listen to it. You have to learn to trust it when it speaks. Your mind is sharp, but the human brain is only wired to think in one way. You cannot hope to force your own reasoning on something much more ancient than the mind itself. Your friend has learned, and although not everyone can, I sense that you may be able to."
When I woke up the next morning, I looked out the window of my hotel room. Missy was stretched out on the foot of the bed. I was surprised to see her sleeping, since Bugs don't sleep much. She usually slept for two hours, three when she was really tired, so I assumed she would be up soon. My hotel was in the center of town. Hearthome was a gorgeous, kitschy town with brown mosaic streets and warmly-colored buildings. The glass dome of the Contest Hall stretched at the northern end of town, rising above the apartments and offices.
I thought a bit about my dream. Probably nothing, although it seemed pretty on-the-nose. I'd done research in a library and spent a day as a paleontologist. So far, my methods had been strictly scientific, and now I was having a dream telling me that I'm approaching it from the wrong angle? Was it an actual sign, or was my brain just trying to rationalize my uncertainty? I decided I should also ask Dawn if she knew anything about 'listening to the Sinnoh region,' but she never seemed all that into mysticism.
I heard the buzz of insect wings behind me, and turned to see Missy lazily hovering over the bed, her head cocking and looking around the room.
"What do you think?" I asked her. "Why don't we go see what this city has to offer?"
The lights in the Hearthome Cathedral were turned off, the dark stone interior lit through the painted glass windows. My footsteps were muffled by the red carpet under my shoes. I shared the Cathedral with only a few other people, whose heads sparsely dotted the rows of pews. None of them said a word. A woman sat at an organ in the far corner of the building, playing a gentle son on an organ, the bronze pipes of which covered the wall it sat against. She paid no mind to the people behind her, lost in the music she played.
I examined the stained glass windows as I passed them. They portrayed Pokémon and humans in abstract shapes and figures. In most of the windows, they lived together in harmony, though one portrayed a white human shape holding a sword and standing before a serpentine form. I sat at the end of the pews and wrote down my thoughts in my notepad. I'd spent a lot of time wondering about the relationship between humans and Pokémon. It's most likely that humans and Pokémon are separate from one another, taxonomically speaking. Though on the surface, we aren't very different from some Pokémon anatomically or behaviorally, the building blocks of our bodies are very different from one another, and tracing a most recent common ancestor has proven unsuccessful. As I touched on earlier, some Pokémon only evolve through friendship with humans. Science has been unable to explain why this is, or what the advantage could possibly be, or even how such a development could occur in the brief timespan that humans have existed. As I once heard Professor Rowan say, there are a lot of things we still don't know about Pokémon.
"I had a feeling I would run into you here." I spun around, surprised by the familiarity of the man's voice. Cyrus sat in the pew next to me. He looked much like he had when I last saw him, wearing a dark suit with a teal tie, the Galactic yellow 'G' pinned to his lapel. His face was difficult to discern in the dim chapel lights, but I could see the outlines of his grim expression.
"Oh. Hello, sir," I said. "I… can't say I expected to see you here."
"You shouldn't have" He stared ahead in silence for a moment, then said without turning back, "Sit."
I did, pulling my backpack from my shoulders and placing it at my feet. I was unsure of what to say to him, so I remained silent.
"Do you know why this chapel was built?" asked Cyrus, his voice a drone.
"It represents the bond between humans and Pokémon, right?"
"Essentially, yes. According to tradition, the ground Hearthome was built on was a meeting place for humans and Pokémon. It was a bridge, of sorts, between the two. This chapel was built to honor those who congregated at that place."
"That's fascinating," I said.
"It is certainly an interesting fable. There's something charming about how easily fooled we used to be."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there is no historical record of humans and Pokémon meeting here before there was a city."
"Regardless, the fable did a lot to shape the culture around here."
"Hm. It certainly did. But was it necessary? Do we really have any need for tradition?"
"I think it's a vital part of the human experience," I replied.
"The human experience should be separated from the collective, don't you think?"
"The collective?"
"Why do you let your time as a human be defined by the thoughts and judgments of others? Of some nebulous crowd you can never please?"
"Are you saying you don't?"
"I define my experience by what I do on my own. I have no time for the collective. This society isn't mine. I'm only concerned with history as I've experienced it, which began at my birth."
"I see." I scratched behind my ear before returning my hand to my lap. "Why do you run an energy company if you're only interested in yourself, then?" I paused. "I'm not trying to be vindictive. I'm legitimately curious."
He sighed quietly to himself. "I live on this planet, too," he answered. "And if I have to mobilize others to make the world a better place, then so be it."
"I guess you aren't hurting anyone in doing so."
He nodded, and I tried once again to read him, to see some trace of humanity etch itself into his features, but with no success. I couldn't read him, no matter how hard I tried.
"I'm about to do something,' he spoke. "Something that will change the world."
"Has Galactic made a breakthrough?"
"We have. It will be quite revolutionary. That is all I can be certain of." I wasn't sure what to take away from the statement. Either he'd solved the energy crisis, or he'd figured out the key to world domination. It wasn't helped by the fact that Cyrus was impossible to read. I tried not to worry too much about it. Even if my worst fears were right, there was nothing I could do to stop him.
"I'm glad to hear the fundraiser paid off," I finally decided to say.
He nodded in reply. "It has occupied my thoughts for the past few days," he said, drumming his fingers on the seat of the pew.
"If I didn't know any better—and please, excuse me if I'm out of line—I would say that you seem a bit nervous."
I'd hoped for a glare when he turned to look at me, a frown or even a hardened brow. But his expression didn't change. "I have no time to be nervous. Not when my work is as serious as it is."
"Right." I cleared my throat and didn't press the issue any further.
"What brings you so far from Twinleaf?" Cyrus asked a moment later.
"I'm studying mysticism, pretty much. Traveling across the region and trying to get in touch with the history of it all."
"I did something similar when I was a younger, different man," said Cyrus. "It did very little to satisfy my anxiety regarding the unknown. I sought answers to the questions of the beginning and after the end. The sorts of questions others do not like to dwell on."
"Everyone likes to think they think more about life's big questions than the people around them," I said.
"Maybe so. But I thought about those questions only because they haunted me. I set out on my journey in hopes they would be satisfied, and I failed to find an adequate answer."
"Do those questions still bother you?"
"No," he said firmly. I knew the conversation ended there, when he abruptly stood and said, "Don't let this conversation discourage you. I found my answer eventually."
"It didn't discourage me," I said.
"Did you ever tell me your name?" Cyrus asked.
"It's Lucas."
He closed his eyes and dipped his head. "Goodbye, Lucas," he said before disappearing down the aisle. After a few moments of contemplation, I left as well.
I went to the Pokémon Center and called the professor, who had picked up where I had left off with my Burmy observation.
"Hello, Lucas!" he said. "Have you been well?"
"I have. I'm calling you from the Hearthome City Pokémon Center."
"Hearthome, eh? Entering Contests?"
I laughed. "I considered it, actually. I'll be honest, though, my journey's gotten kind of… aimless? I'm not sure where to go. I'm considering Solaceon, since it's the nearest city, but I don't have much reason to go there. Any thoughts?"
"Yes, actually. If you head down towards Pastoria City, Dawn and I will be there tomorrow to study the Pokémon in the Great Marsh."
"Oh, really? What brings Dawn out there?"
"She's finally working on filling her Pokédex," he answered with a wink. "I think you would like the Marsh, Lucas." He turned to the Burmy hanging in front of him and wrote something on his clipboard. "There are a lot of Bug Types there. It seems like your kind of city."
"I'm not doing much else," I said. "I'll be there."
"There's a fair bit of natural history in the area as well. I don't think it would be a waste of your time. I'll see you there." He reached toward the screen, and the video ended.
