18

[3:32 AM. Cianwood City Hospital. Cianwood City. Earlier that morning.]

Octavius rolled over in his sleep.

When the nurses found him sprawled out on the beach, they had panicked, thinking the old man dead. But he would not die. For three days he had pleaded to be let out, to return to his position, but they would have none of it. "I'm the Champion of the Pokemon League!" he would say. Even after he had convinced them, they still kept their vigil.

But now he saw their wisdom. Sporadically throughout the day he would feel his chest tighten, usually after he was allowed to stand and walk around. "It's your heart, sir," the doctors told him. "Do you have any preexisting condition we should know about?"

Octavius never thought that that would be the thing to take him down. His entire life he had known about it, like a shadow following him, but he never acknowledged it. He kept it to himself, telling no one, not even Santiago.

Santiago.

Santiago had been the one to carry him into the hospital. He felt the pain of the cloaked man's assault just as clearly as he had seen the impotence on his friend's face. He had told him it was a trap. Santiago stayed with him, for a while, until he said he had to return to Indigo Plateau. Octavius understood. He was simply doing all that he had ever asked of him. He was proud. The young boy he had met those long years ago in Pewter City was now a man.

"Perhaps it's time to pass the torch on. He'd make a great Champion," he said to the whirring and beeping of the machines that softly illuminated his room. "I'm getting too old for this."

Now you know how I felt, a lifetime ago.

Octavius sat up slowly in bed. "Master Sobi."

The faint image of a kindly old woman adorned in plain red hemmed white robes fluttered into view. Translucent, she sat softly next to him on the bed.

Getting old is never as easy as you thought it would be.

"You made it look so easy."

She smiled. Easy? No. Growing old is the hardest thing anyone will ever do. The best we can do is make it look graceful. What is time but the penultimate companion and the ultimate partner?

"Time…" He looked to the pocket watch that rested on his bed side table, cracked and burnt. "We never have enough of it."

We have just as much time as we need.

He gave a half cough, half chuckle. "I would have liked more time with you, old friend."

The feeling is mutual. When I met you, all starry eyed and brazen, I thought I saw a bit of myself in you. It was like pulling back the curtain of my own past. Surely your boy inspires just as much sentiment in you?

"I'd like to think I wasn't always that serious."

But that's what drew me to you. In you, I could see a determination wrought from the highest mountain. In you, I could see a heart unconquerable.

"Funny that you mention that."

When our healers identified the arrhythmia in your heart, I always imagined you would somehow overcome it; that it would be your greatest stepping stone. When you were told, that is when your fascination with time began.

"Some might call it a death wish."

And others would call it a life wish.

"That doesn't make sense."

Fascination with death is the greatest celebration of life. You of all people, chronicler, know the value of a single life.

"There's not much more I think this old boulder can do, I'm afraid."

Except become that old boulder.

"Excuse me."

In time immemorial, the eighteen sages of Pokemon perfected their powers over thousands of years of bonding with their companions. Through years of training and trust, they became embodiments of their respective elements.

"I've heard this bedtime story before, Master."

Then perhaps you might understand that it is more than a bedtime story. We sages are the unbroken line of trainers stretching back to the dawn of time. Your line is the broken link. The world became too connected, too modern for the legacy of the Sages. We cut our ties to the world. When you pass, your apprentice will be the last of the Sages' legacy.

"A nostalgic thought. And a shame you never condoned my research into the subject."

We are a closed people.

"Perhaps it was for the best. No telling how you and the others would react to all this."

The world needs your vision, Octavius.

"I don't think there's much more for me to see, Master."

Then you will wait until your eyes are fit to see and your heart is fit to beat.

"I'm listening."

You must achieve perfection—Rock Perfection.

"How do you propose I do what no trainer has done since the time of stories?"

That is up to you, my friend.

The specter of his old master began to fade. Instantly, he felt the onset of a fever strike him as the apparition dissipated.

"Master!"

The pain returned to his chest and he gripped uselessly at his hospital gown. He doubled over and struggled to touch the ghostly woman.

I always preferred it when you called it me Sobi.

He gave one last futile lunge and the woman disappeared. He faught back screams as the pain washed over him; it beat like a discordant drum—each strained pump of his heart sent erratic jolts of agony throughout his body, from his center to his extremities. He gave in and cried out, but it was much too late; everyone was asleep and his whimpers for help were much too weak.

He crashed back into his bed, damp with his sweat. Each breath was a titanic labor; each breath was a monumental hurdle. Time seemed to stand still. He tried to keep calm, utilizing the breathing strategies Master Sobi had taught him, but no amount of inner calm could soothe the pain. He could not steady his breath while each breath sent daggers of pain throughout his body.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

As he slipped away, he remembered the lesson Master Sobi had always beat into him:

[6:12 PM. ?. ?. Decades ago.]

Octavius slammed back into the stone wall behind him. His Shieldon looked back at its master.

"You're slipping up," Sobi said. "The length of our exercise should not affect how you perform."

The young Octavius struggled to stand. His body was covered in a wide assortment of purble bruises and scrapes. He stared defiantly at his master who stood next to her Rhyperior with a stern, maternal look in her eyes.

"Again. Get up. We're doing it again."

"I'm getting up."

"No, you're losing. Get up like you mean to win. Don't get up like you mean to walk away."

"I don't see what you're trying to do here. It just looks like you're using me a punching bag. I'm tired of it."

"Hardship breeds bonds between trainer and pokemon. If you cannot understand this, you are welcome to leave."

"Jeez, I'm not gonna leave. You sound like Master Rago when you talk like this. I hate Master Rago."

Sobi smiled. "If that hot-head can wrap his mind the concepts I am trying fruitlessly to impart on you, young Avi, then surely you can learn."

"Don't call me that." A fire kindled in his eyes.

"Don't what? Call you Avi? Do you not like that? Does it make you angry, Avi?"

Octavius clenched his fists. He wiped the dust from his robes and his Shieldon moved towards him. "I said, don't call me that."

"I will call you whatever I please, Avi. There's little someone so easily moved as you could do to me."

"Stop treating me like a kid."

"Then stop acting like one!"

The boy charged with his Shieldon in tow. He moved to strike the woman and his Shieldon struck the Rhyperior. Master Sobi effortlessly caught the punch with a lazy hand, and the Shieldon bounced uselessly of the stone wall of a pokemon.

"Have you learned nothing from me? An all out attack is effortlessly deflected by even the paltriest defense." She struck him in the stomach and he went flying. Octavius would not be defeated. He stood once more and panted through the pain in his gut.

"How can I beat you if I can't hit you?"

"Precisely. You must be a stone in a river, oblivious and unflinching to the current. I am the stone and you are no river. I will withstand you until the end of days."

"Then I won't move."

"Oh?"

"If you will not be moved, then I will not move."

She smiled. "You're learning."

[3:51 AM. Cianwood City Hospital. Cianwood City. Decades later.]

Octavius clutched at his bed sheets.

"…then I will not move."

He willed himself to freeze. He let the pain crash over him like a river.

"I am the rock, you are the river."

He let his body go limp, embracing the pain. He was stronger than the pain. He was the master. Through his agony, he allowed himself to focus. Channeling all his resolve, he forced himself to remain motionless.

Like a stone in the river.

He felt his body begin to calcify. It was an unnerving sensation at first, but he ignored it. He crossed his hands over his chest as if to hold in the pain. His calcification continued. Where there was once a searing sensation, there was now a cool pressure. He felt the calcification begin to creep up his body, from his toes to his neck. With each new stone that grew over his body, he felt the clinching in his chest subside. A smile cracked his old face before the stones ensconced his body. He had done.

He had achieved Rock Perfection.

In the morning, when the first nurse would come in to wake him up and take him to breakfast, all there would be to find would be a large stone where Octavius rested.