Cerise
Author's Note: Inspired by Suzume. Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Pokémon franchise.
Summary:
An Earthquake to shake the world. A family, shaken, fishes for its resolve.
"And when you catch this Pokémon, what then?"
"This Pokémon can't be caught. Only locked back up. You read the stories."
"A Master Ball might disagree with you there. Goh told me they can capture any Pokémon, including the legendary ones."
"Why are you following me?" Parker knew why, but was ashamed he needed his sister's voice nonetheless.
"You can't close the portals to the Reverse World by yourself!"
That wasn't why.
"I've done this by myself since Dad handed off the role. It's my obligation as the male heir in the Cerise bloodline. You wouldn't understand, Chloe! You're a girl!"
"I understand you feel guilty about releasing the Meowstic from their Ancient Poké Balls. If they were still inside, Giratina wouldn't be free, and the Kanto region…The whole world wouldn't be at risk of disaster!"
"It isn't Giratina!"
"What?"
"The stories! They mixed them up! Giratina isn't the Deity Rampaging Beneath the Mud! It's Whiscash!"
"Whiscash?"
"How our family has patrolled from our end for generations, Giratina patrols the Reverse World to keep it and ours in balance. Whiscash, trapped in the Reverse World, thrashes to break out."
"And if it does, it'll destroy the world with a massive Earthquake…" Chloe grabbed her chin. "Did Giratina show you?"
Parker bit his bottom lip.
"Hear me out. I miss Mom too."
"Don't, Chloe. You weren't there. You couldn't begin to –"
"She's dead, Parker! We can't bring her back!"
"You think I don't know that? I went through the portal to the cemetery on the other side to see Mom and it all fell apart! I released the Meowstic from their Ancient Poké Balls! It's because of me the Psychic Terrain around Whiscash collapsed!"
"You couldn't have known removing the Ancient Poké Balls from their resting place would undo the seal."
"I knew BETTER! I knew what Dad taught me! The living are forbidden from entering the Reverse World! It was my duty to ensure the portal remained closed, and I gave in to temptation to go searching for Mom!"
Parker's condemnations, aimed more toward himself than Chloe, weren't half as devastating as the lurching vibrations that suddenly shook the air.
Tumultuous. Laced with lightning. The creak of the door beyond which awaited the destiny of all living creatures, a keen of finality. A din of denouement. The door blasted off its figurative hinges, spewing forth the marshy, vague profile of an immense Pokémon. Clinging darkness swimming across grass, trees, buildings, people, and Pokémon alike. Everything between. Flocks of Flying-types in disarray over the destructive overhang invisible to most humans.
Recounted about. Recorded. Painted in Smeargle fluid on Trevenant wood.
The Deity Rampaging Beneath the Mud.
The neighbour the dead lived next to in the distorted panorama behind mirrors and mortality. Human spirits. Ghost Cubone and mother Marowak.
What if that happy face was the face you saw when you met your maker? Not the Pokémon that shaped the universe with its 1,000 arms, but this doofy-faced catfish?
There is no rhyme to this. There is no reason.
It is fear and frenzy, utter and absolute.
"Whiscash! It's coming through!" Parker yelled.
"That's Whiscash? It's enormous!"
Fathoms, fathoms larger than those of regular-sized Whiscash in their world, the age-old Whiscash's whiskers wormed down to Pokémon Tower.
"Parker!"
Chloe's brother lobbed the two Ancient Poké Balls in his possession, double-handed. "Go!"
The Meowstic he'd accidentally unbound appeared. A white Meowstic and a blue Meowstic.
"Psychic Terrain!"
He wasn't their Trainer. They didn't obey.
Whiscash's main body crested within the rift. Its shadow fell upon Lavender Town, and if its central mass did so too, the crash would, as Chloe mentioned, trigger an Earthquake capable of destroying the world.
"No, no, no, no, not now! Meowstic, use Psychic Terrain!"
The Meowstic continued ignoring him. Seemingly due to Parker's desperation, a separate Pokémon arrived via another portal (this one open-and-shut).
"GIRATINA?"
The now six-legged Pokémon rammed its bulk into Whiscash, impeding Whiscash's escape.
"Giratina is…helping us?" Chloe and Eevee had identical expressions of surprise.
"It's forcing Whiscash back through the portal! C'mon, Meowstic! This is our chance! Psychic Terrain!"
Again, they rejected Parker's commands. But they did respond to Giratina's emergence, adopting their true forms in purple and blue light!
"W-what?"
"The Meowstic! They were Palkia and Dialga?"
Palkia and Dialga joined Giratina in ramming Whiscash. Palkia used its powers to slowly widen the rends in space Whiscash was pushing through, while not allowing it to gain ground. Dialga, in turn, used its powers to subtly affect the flow of time, carefully impelling Whiscash in the other direction.
The endeavours of Palkia and Dialga, side by side with Giratina's brute force, halted Whiscash's descent.
"This could work!" Parker hurled a Poké Ball that actually belonged to him. "Golurk, Flash Cannon!"
"Eevee!" Chloe threw in her support, her partner Copycatting the Flash Cannon.
The silver beams reburied Whiscash's whiskers in the Reverse World. They moved in from either side of the legendary trio, and eventually, the beams and the legendary trio had shoved Whiscash's main body enough the legendary trio themselves sank into the portal.
"Parker! Close it!"
"O divine Arceus who dwells in the secret space of this land…You have long protected us for generations…Your mountains and rivers…that we have long called our own…I return them to you!"
An afterimage of Arceus' wheel corporealized over the portal, shrinking upon Giratina, Palkia, Dialga, and the borders of the portal itself. Compacting till there was nothing where the portal once was, the shadow blotting out Lavender Town dispelled in an instant.
Chloe collected Eevee and embraced Parker. "We did it!"
"We did?" Parker lifted his fingers to touch the clear sky. "Mom…"
To the Reverse World the Deity Rampaging Beneath the Mud was confined anew. Ever thrashing. Ever quaking the earth with its inextinguishable rage.
And the Cerises would preserve their practices, closing portals as they opened.
Ever vigilant.
Ever after.