𝕬𝖘𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓
ACT TWO - DUST OF DREAMS
Chapter 18- The Man that Time Forgot
Delia Ketchum saw double.
It was like two different realities superimposed on one another, both so very similar yet utterly different, clashing against each other. Once her mind regained enough coherence to understand what she was truly seeing, the pain kicked in.
Memories flowed back like a gushing river. She could finally remember. The Galar expedition. Cyrus. His wiseassery. His snarky attitude. His frighteningly intelligent mind once the mirthful, comedic mask was cast off. Cyrus Pym, the right-hand of Samuel Oak— Delia Ketchum, the right-hand of Samuel Oak— Cyrus Pym, the right-hand—
Delia grit her teeth as a wave of pain washed over her. Two different people. Two different memories. Two different lives. Both true, and yet—
She saw herself joining the Parthenon by accepting Samuel's offer— no, Cyrus's offer— no Samuel, no Cyrus—
Delia painfully grabbed fistfuls of her own hair. The confusion was overwhelming.
She walked across the lawn, hand-in-hand with— no, with nobody; she was a researcher who only wanted to research and nothing else— she spoke at length about how she wanted to have a child as she writhed in bed with ecstasy, Cyrus pushing her into the throes of pleasure again and again and again—
…
…
"Our child… he'll have your hair and my eyes." She let him spoon against her. "We'll name him Ash."
"And what if it's the other way around?"
"Hmm?" Delia moaned, feeling him push deeper inside her.
"My eyes and your hair. Will you call him Red then?"
"Red?" she mused. "Red Ketchum?"
"Not Pym?"
She laughed as he kissed her earlobe. "Red Pym is a horrible name."
Cyrus grinned. "Horrible? I'll show you horrible." He dove into her neck, causing her to erupt into voracious laughter.
…
…
No, no, nononono—
Delia screamed.
…
…
"What am I going to tell him? That he reminds me of my own mistakes? That I fucked some guy who I can't even remember and now I have to take care of a child?"
"Delia—" Felina began.
"Don't Delia me," she raged, her voice filled with self-loathing. "You have no idea what the years have been like for me. Every time I see him, I'm reminded of what happened to me. All my memories of that time are gone, Felina. This was basically rape! I— I didn't want a child, and I certainly wasn't ready to be a mother. I wanted to work and fulfill my passion, and instead I got— I got this!"
…
…
"…Cyrus?" A lonely tear trickled down her left cheek.
The man slowly undid her bindings and allowed her to relax.
"Cyrus," she breathed again.
"I'm here, Delia," he— Cyrus —replied, his face mere inches away from hers after all these years. He leaned in and softly nuzzled her hair out of place as he always did.
"You— you left me. Made me forget." Anger, contempt, and more than a little wanting dominated her tone. "You bastard! How could you do that to me? After everything we shared, you threw me away just like that?!"
"I am going to spend an eternity making it up to you," Cyrus answered, his tone husky.
Delia's chest heaved with angry breaths as she lay face-to-face with her ex-beau, their noses practically touching. The loneliness, the utter nauseating self-conflict over her own son, the blind hatred for the man that did this to her, the realization of what had truly happened— it all overtook her.
And then she looked up at his face. Cyrus's face.
There was but a second of hesitation before animalistic passion triumphed over her conflicted feelings as she threw herself into the man's arms and kissed him. Hard.
Cyrus broke away from her long enough to tear open his shirt and push her back into the silk sheets.
All the while, a pair of colorless eyes stared at them from the wall.
"Sir, we have a complication."
Samuel Oak suppressed a twitch at his junior's assessment. "Pardon me, gentlemen," he addressed the group he was speaking with— a duo of business magnates, an associate from the Aether Foundation, and representatives of a famous NGO from Hoenn. "But I'll have to see to this immediately. Please continue to enjoy the party."
Without waiting for a response, he silently followed the junior researcher to the elevators and punched in the lower level button, where all the computing equipment operating the Birth Pod had been painstakingly set up. For obvious reasons, the entire zone had been screened off from everyone— save for authorized Parthenon staff —and was guarded by a combination of ghost, psychic, and dark-types.
Oak stood in front of the outer entrance, closing his eyes as the dense, purplish fumes of extremely weakened gastly passed through him. The sheer motion gave him shivers, but it was necessary. Ghostly energies, referred to as SEF in the scientific community, dispersed any psychic phenomena that may be affecting staff going in and out of the workplace. After all, it would not do to have a psychically enthralled entity to walk through the front door and sabotage everything.
Compared to that, a bit of shivering was a small price to pay.
"I thought we'd already performed last-minute checks," he murmured.
"We did, sir." The junior looked a little disconcerted. "But this… this didn't show up in any of the checks. The Birth Pod's energy levels are fluctuating rapidly."
"Then stabilize it," Oak replied, wondering why the young man brought him down for something so rudimentary.
"Well, that's just it sir. The Pod is absorbing power and releasing it in large, random bursts, but the pipes aren't built for fluctuations of this magnitude."
"How large?"
"Half of an Empyrean unit."
Oak shot his junior a dry stare. "Our machine is more than capable of handling—"
"Each."
Blood rapidly drained from the professor's face as he broke into a coughing fit. Half of an empyrean, each? With fourteen pipes leading to the Birthing Pod, constantly feeding it energy, that translated to…
"Seven empyrean units of unstable energy," Oak swallowed. "That much energy could liquify everything in a half-mile radius." The Pewter City Museum, and everything around it, would be vaporized in an instant. Not even bones would be left.
Was this the event Agatha foresaw?
Not for the first time, he began to wonder what the hell was taking Delia so damn long. Getting to the hotel and collecting the pokémon shouldn't have taken more than forty minutes, yet it had already been two hours. Had something happened to her? Was she having trouble getting Red's team out of the ranch because of the added security?
Fires to put out no matter where he turned…
He looked back at the one in front of him. "What does the technical team have to say about it?"
"We're trying to develop an algorithm to smoothen the process. You know, adjust the machine's input and output to keep the power surges from becoming too erratic. But the sheer volume is…" the researcher trailed off.
"Alright, here's what we'll do," Oak commanded. "Open outlets into the psychic ward outside. Use it to strengthen the ward. Worst comes to worst, we deal with psychic oversaturation. Get the dark-types readied for emergency and the electivire group pour more electricity into the machines. We need to do everything in our power to control our energy levels. We cannot afford to let this get out of control."
"I understand, sir."
"Good," Oak sighed, feeling a headache creeping just around the corner. "Keep me posted."
Delia sighed with contentment as she bonelessly collapsed on top of her lover. They both laid there in a sweaty and sticky mess as she paused to catch her breath. Once she'd cooled down, she pushed herself up in an attempt to roll over onto the bed, but Cyrus firmly grasped her arms and pulled her back onto his chest. Laying a gentle hand on her head, he made her listen to the constant, rhythmic beats of his heart as he caressed her hair.
She let him.
There was a primal reassurance in being so intimately held. A bone-deep security granted from the simple brush of a human hand. A silent, instinctual affirmation that someone else, someone close to you, wanted to be touching you.
And to Delia, that in itself meant the world.
"You have no idea how much I've missed this," Cyrus smiled.
Of course, she was still rather miffed about the whole thing.
"I wouldn't know," Delia sourly spat. "Because somebody made me forget everything."
"Do you really think that I somehow managed to delete all impressions of myself? Not just from your mind, but from every person that ever knew me, along with documents, images, signatures? Tell me, do you remember seeing Cyrus Pym anywhere?"
That stopped her short. "Pym… You were in Pallet, weren't you? A few months ago? Samuel was pondering over your name, but even he couldn't connect the dots." She gave him a strange look. "What happened to you?"
Cyrus swallowed. "A curse."
"What kind of curse?"
"Knowledge."
Delia pushed herself off of him and sat up. She immediately missed his warmth. "Explain."
Cyrus sat up too, leaning against the headboard. "Suffice to say, Reality itself ignores my existence. Any and all information related to Cyrus Pym is automatically removed from the world itself. Spoken words, written documents, memories. Everything."
Delia's jaw dropped. "How?"
"It doesn't matter."
"The 'how' always matters."
He gave her a side-eyed grimace. "You won't back down about this, will you?"
"When have I ever?"
Cyrus paused for a moment, before audibly sighing. "Fine. It's a long and complex story, one with a variety of different characters, and I'd advise you not to get too attached to any of them. It all began fifteen years ago." He reached out and took the stone necklace hanging around her neck into his palm, lightly brushing his thumb over it. "Soon after I figured out the truth behind this little relic."
The ranch-style cottage had always been his private sanctuary.
Samuel might have had his entire laboratory set up in the upper grasslands, but for Cyrus, the three-bedroom home surrounded by his little garden and apple trees… It was his haven. His home to return to and study. His happy place.
And in a couple weeks, it'd be the place he and Delia could call their own.
Their little home in Pallet.
Even so, part of him wanted to keep his personal library, the one hidden in the basement, away from Delia's prying eyes. The woman had a good eye for research, but this… this was too dangerous. Too deadly. Too malicious.
No, he would solve this mystery by himself. He had to, before it was—
His eyes widened in fear, and he looked around at the shadows in the room.
"Give me time," he whispered. "I'll find it. I'll open it. I'll— I'll—"
Cyrus, utterly sleep-deprived, collapsed at his desk, surrounded by ceiling-high bookshelves that sagged under the weight of countless religious tomes. If anyone saw him in this state, they'd think he had lost his mind.
…They wouldn't be entirely wrong.
Strewn across the surface, a half-dozen obscure religious texts lay open, filled from beginning to end with sticky notes. Behind him, popped open on wooden stands, were heavy tomes, all of them concerning a single topic.
Genesis. The Great Beginning.
An accomplished linguist, Cyrus had studied the different variations of Genesis stories prevalent all over the known world. From academic commentary on the nature of Life and Universe as the Unovans legends foretold, to the primeval Tree of Life hidden in the depths of the Rota Kingdom, he knew them all front-to-back. For him to study them again would be like a research scholar brushing up on their arithmetic. But that was exactly what Cyrus had been doing this past week, and the notepad on his desk looked like it was assaulted by a torrent of wild, hand-scrawled notes so messy he could barely read them anymore.
Lunacy. That was what this was.
And yet, this lunacy was more dear to him than anything else.
His journey had started from the myths of the Titan-at-World's-End that the philosophers of Hoenn waxed lyrical about. Sagas of the Might-of-the-Ocean, legends of the mythical World-Eater, stories of how the Eighteen-Armed God created Heaven and Earth and erected the Sky Pillar to bind Reality from the Great Dirge— there were so many more. With every continent and every religion, there was always a new tale, a new manuscript that spoke of forgotten beings whose very presences tugged on the fabric of Reality itself.
For his entire life, Cyrus had ignored these myths as nonsensical ramblings.
Until he had seen it for himself.
"If only I could undo it all," he cursed.
But he could not. For what had been seen could not be unseen.
The bells had rung, and would not be unrung.
The images stuck to his mind like glue, never diminishing in depth, never fading in strength. Stuck to him as an ever-present memory that drove his mind into the very abyss to which the images owed their existence.
Just like the delusional words that lay written before him on paper.
The phantasma of the night only exists to teach, but none may understand their words. Terror and despair are all that exist for those who have no bodies yet bear teeth and eyes that gleam in shadow.
Separate yourself from creation and its ceaseless yammerings. In life, it serves no function. In death, it becomes food for those that dwell beneath. Take yourself apart, embrace your fear, and dive into the abyss below.
The more he studied these… papers, the more he realized that it wasn't the commentary of a lunatic or the ramblings of a madman. No, this was a path. A map. Only one with the mindset and propensity to comprehend it possibly could, while those who suffered from the disease they called 'rationality' would see nothing but gibberish.
But not him.
Never him.
Not after… that.
Terror and Despair are all that exist—
He'd finally understood what it meant. He had sought out Terror. He had sought out Despair. He had bound them to himself. He had bound himself to them.
A single, sinister crimson eye opened in the darkness. A pair of malicious purple eyes soon followed.
Duskull and gastly.
Terror and Despair indeed.
"Just a little more…"
The shadows stirred.
—have no bodies but bear teeth and eyes that gleam in shadow.
And with that came the third ingredient.
Shadow.
Rather, a specific shadow.
One that he was searching for.
One that held the secrets to EVERYTHING he was working on.
One that he had yet to capture. To meet with. To be one with. To… become it.
Separate yourself from creation—
Creation. Light. Energy. Matter. Existence. Reality. To be. He was Cyrus. But to achieve what he wanted, he would have to be Not-him? To take the concept of denial to such an extreme that it would erase everything part of the Creation system called Cyrus Pym? How would he be both Cyrus and Not-Cyrus? To be, yet not to be? A state of absolute dichotomy, of absolute conflict, yet broken away from the Rule of Duality that pervaded the universe.
Like a shadow— in the shape of an object, yet not it.
In the shape of Cyrus, yet not himself.
Cyrus's shadow.
Could he— could he really—
—and its ceaseless yammerings.
If no one were to talk about him, would he be there? If he did not exist— had never existed —then people would not talk of him. He would be an existence that has had no existence since the beginning, yet existed. But how?!
It boggled his mind.
Yet he could not stop.
It is only when you have lost yourself in the wasteland of unending nothingness, that you will be free.
Freedom.
Free from existence. Free from his name. Free from reality. Free from memory. Free from the Reality bound away from the Void. Free to become the Man Who Refused to Die.
The shadows stirred faster. The knife he would use to cut through reality would be transparent. One could not stain the shadows, for they were intangible. And yet, they were there. They always were. And with those shadows, he would— he would—
Only then can you take.
He would take it. He would tear it away. He would snatch away everything that came before him. He would tear open the Sky Pillar, shatter the crimson chains of Space and Time, and tear open the very Gates that held beyond them ████████
Devour everything.
The shadows were now transcending. He could see it— the dark, sinister eyes in the abyss as shapes that should not exist, as they tore open the fabric of Reality and came for him.
To drag him in with them.
Into Distortion itself.
That which was, and yet was not.
To a state where he would be, and not be.
Be Eternatus.
Delia stared down at her stone necklace with equal parts disbelief and revulsion. "You're telling me that this caused all of that?"
She had already taken it off and was holding it loosely in one hand. Looking at the strange etching on its surface— notably called the Unown script by Atsushi Shirona —she frowned. "I've been wearing the crap that threw my life into a mess all this time?" Her fingers clenched around it.
Cyrus gently took her hand and kissed it. "It did nothing," he assured her. "If anything this trinket is the key."
Delia eyed him strangely. "You make it sound like you had more than one of these."
He laughed. "One? More like hundreds, each with its own meanings and concepts. Its own… secrets."
"To what?"
"To everything."
Her frown deepened. "I don't get it."
"The Baetylus," Cyrus reverently breathed. "The fabled House of God. Shirona's writings and the undecipherable Unown script are the secret to everything." His expression turned nearly fanatical, his hands tightly clenching Delia's arms as he spoke. "Only by understanding the Unown can one progress past the Great Beyond. To hear the whispers from the Great Dirge and—"
"Cyrus!"
"What?!" he snapped back.
"You're hurting me."
That brought him to a pause. His hands automatically loosened. "I'm sorry. I…"
"It's okay," she huffed, rubbing her arms. "What are you doing this all for anyway?"
His lips twisted into a sly grin. "You wouldn't understand."
"Then make me. You made me remember, now take responsibility and help me understand."
"Delia," Cyrus carefully spoke, holding her by the arms— gently this time, "you are a diligent woman who gives nothing less than her best. But you have always been one to follow the rules set by the League and its pesky, restrictive standards."
"That has always been Parthenon's mission," Delia retorted. "To help the League make the world a better place."
"I live beyond your mission," Cyrus authoritatively replied, climbing out of bed. "I have my own organization, one whose aims are beyond the League's close-mindedness. One can only train pokémon and foolishly try to bridge the ever-increasing rift for so long before the divide tears it apart. Even Team Rocket is merely a means to an end. As are the Venatori. You remember Hunter J, don't you?"
A shiver went through Delia. Hunter J was a person she really didn't want to think about. Ever.
"Even the Hunters work for us. For me. Together, we have the power to destroy the greatest threat to humanity's potential." His voice lowered to an ominous whisper. "The legendaries."
She looked at him with incredulity and more than a little fear. "All this, and you still don't realize you're in the wrong?"
"Am I?" Something terrible shone in his eyes. "Think, Delia. Think. You are a scientist. You understand the laws of nature. All things must age. All things die. In the end, our sun will burn out. Our universe will grow cold and perish. All except for the legendaries, who are immortal. Unchanging titans who can destroy civilizations on a whim. But instead, what do we do?" Veins throbbed in his forehead as he clenched his fists. "We pray. We worship them and put them on high pedestals, seeking to imitate their powers. We, who can become the greatest power in the universe, seek to become a pale shadow of these beasts." He evenly met her gaze. "They say Team Rocket is evil. And yet, the organization is doing something your League will never accomplish. It is trying to save the world, and it is willing to destroy itself to make that happen."
Delia's throat went dry. She could see it happening. Whatever crackpot plan Team Rocket had conjured up, it had the potential to cause irreparable harm to Parthenon and the League. And given what was being achieved tonight at the event, even the slightest disturbance could have incalculably disastrous results.
But Cyrus saw nothing wrong with it.
Such was the tragedy of the human condition. No one wanted to be corrupted by power when they first sought it. They had noble reasons for doing it. They steadfastly refused to misuse or abuse it, and scoffed at the idea of succumbing to its wiles. Good, decent people set out on the high road, eager to gain power without letting it change their ideals.
But it always happened.
History was chock full of examples. As a rule, people were not good at handling power. The second one started to think they were better at controlling power than anyone else, they had already taken the first step.
"Cyrus," she whispered, "what have you done?"
"I think you mean, what will I do?" A thin smile formed on his face. "Tonight, we will shake the world to its very foundations. We will tear down the Kanto administration and land a great blow to all existing governments. Tonight, the Indigo League will come to a collapse. And this is just the beginning."
Delia's lip quivered. This wasn't the Cyrus she had fallen in love with. This… this was something else entirely.
"You've gone mad."
Cyrus tilted his head. "Have I?"
"Look at where you are. You kidnapped me. You're affiliated with Team Rocket, a criminal organization. You're about to destroy my— our life's work at the Parthenon. Whatever you believe you're accomplishing, it's wrong. It's— you've become this—"
"Become what?" he frostily asked.
"This monster! You've become a monster. You attacked me, tied me up, and bruised me. And now, you're planning on destroying an entire city. Why, Cyrus?" she pleaded. "Why?"
"It's simple, Delia," Cyrus smiled. It was sharper than a razor's edge. "Because if you want something done well, you should do it yourself."
Mewtwo was being born.
The Birth Pod was constantly pulsating with power, its trunk-sized cord-like pipes vibrating at periodic intervals like a mechanical heartbeat. Even though the entire structure was encompassed with a very thick layer of some protective polymer, Red could hear a deep thrum emanating from whatever was inside. He had the eerie sense that he was peering into the cage of an incarcerated beast.
According to the old man, the noise came from the vast array of centrifugal fans, heat sinks, and liquid coolant pumps required to keep the Birth Pod from overheating.
Drag-thump!
Drag-thump!
Yet the eeriness would not abate. Red was almost certain that he was the only one who could hear it, seeing as how Fuji gave no impression of being able to hear it. But the throbbing continued, ringing inside his ears— no, his head. It was like it was his own heart that was beating—
His nails dug into his palms, nearly drawing blood. The pain acted like a temporary respite and made him drop that line of thought.
They're just cells. The cells that make up that creature were used to save my life. That's all there is to it.
But he knew it was wishful thinking. The Law of Contagion stated that once two entities have been in physical or spiritual contact, a bond was formed between them. Any psychic pokémon, or person skilled in the psychic arts or basic psychometry, could affirm that for themselves.
Of course, such bonds were imperceptible unless they had strong foundations.
Like his own bond with Mia.
Even now, as he stood there several miles away from his sister, he could feel a soft, inquisitive hum in the back of his mind that wasn't a part of his own thoughts. It was a bundle of concern that dug into his consciousness, as if trying to understand exactly what made him uncomfortable. And, as he actively focused on it, the foray only increased in its efforts.
Apparently, his little sister had no qualms over getting caught. Instead, now that her attempt was spotted, she wasted no time going full throttle.
The thought made him smile.
But soon, Red began to think of the Mew cells once more. According to Fuji, the human body was an antiquated piece of living technology compared to them. And while an alakazam was an apex psychic-type, its physical constitution was not too far away from humans. Save for the bulbous tail.
Two different species. An alakazam and a human. And both had the cells in them.
No, both contained cells extracted from the same source. One of them would have the mind, and possibly the mental prowess of an alakazam— an immensely powerful psychic that utterly lacked physical strength. The other was himself, a human with a decent mind, but a physical body capable of Aura production.
Drag-thump!
How did that work when merged with cells that had the potential to become anything?
It boggled the mind.
Drag—
As Mia's little foray shifted gears, Red could feel the foreign intrusion thin out and change tracks. The gardevoir was a curious little thing, and once she got the scent of something that spiked her interest, she followed it around with the passion of a skitty following a ball of yarn. And for the life of him, he wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.
Knowing my luck, it's probably—
He felt a tug at his consciousness, motioning him to move. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. He wasn't sure what Mia intended exactly, but he felt her change tracks and—
Vanish?
What was happening? Somehow, Mia's little foray was getting thinner and thinner by the second, until it was completely gone. Meanwhile, he himself was being pulled and pulled and pulled—
Drag-thump!
Drag—
He widened his eyes.
—Thump!
The word 'don't' came out a bit too late as Red felt himself getting closer to the Birth Pod.
…
No, not the pod. He was getting closer to it.
To Mewtwo.
Red tried to speak, to control his body as his surroundings began to blur and fade away—
Until all that remained was light.
Editor: Solo Starfish, the best goddamn starfish the world has ever seen.
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