NSO Chapter 50
2 days remaining.
I don't own Pokemon.
本篇章带有中文字幕。英文翻译在括号内。[This chapter contains Chinese words. English translations are enclosed within these brackets.]
The utility belt was hung on the corner of his bed. He'd received it from Dialga two days ago, and he was elated when he first set paws on it. It was like meeting an old friend again.
So why had he left it behind yesterday? Why was he weighing it in his paws now, the thoughts of not putting it on even a possibility?
It was comfortable. It was made exactly like how it was on Earth.
Zenith opened the belt's pockets and overturned it, dumping its contents onto the sheets. Scraps of paper with illegible scribbles. Coins of various sizes. Dirt and lint. A flower petal.
A flower petal? He couldn't believe it, but there it sat in his palm. No longer velvety soft, its colour withered into a dry brown, crumpled and wrinkled into a thousand folds. And yet, it was still a petal. One of the countless petals that fell off rose heads as they struck his face, the pain when their thorny stalks dug into his skin matching the unbridled fury of—
Zenith clenched his paw into a fist.
Some Pokemon on Earth may be better off forgetting about him.
The other items were swept into a drawer of the cupboard. The petal was shoved under the bed without a second glance. He had no use for them anymore, especially since—as everyone kept reminding him— he was a Champion. It was due time to start acting like one.
Zenith clipped the lighter belt around his waist and stepped onto the teleporter.
…
The Recreation room slowly appeared in his vision, but the view was immediately obscured. Ingredients shot past the teleporters, surrounded in a pink glow. A packet of sugar beaned him in the snout and exploded.
"What are you just standing there for? Clean it up!" Someone yelled at a stunned Zenith. The kitchen was a Psychic whirlwind, and in the eye of the storm was Solaire. Baking trays, tools and the ingredients circled around the Espeon while she floated from device to device. It was a spectacle of how she managed to coordinate wildly different tasks. Eggs were beaten, moulds were filled, ovens were set, and cupcakes were frosted, all while an angry stare drilled into the forehead ring of a stunned Zenith.
"Do I really need to do everything for you? Ugh." Zenith's paws scrabbled for the floor as a pink glow lifted him slightly into the air. It combed through his bristled fur, extracting the tiny grains of sugar off the Umbreon and the floor. That precision in that action alone was incredible, and that Solaire's attention was barely diverted to do so… Zenith's awed face met the ground when he was dropped like a sack of bricks.
"Honestly." Solaire directed the swirling mass of sugar into a waste bin, simultaneously wrapping up the many components of her baking. The pink glow imploded on the Espeon, objects slipping out of her Psychic hold back into their respective spots in the kitchen. The only things that remained were five trays of cupcakes lined in a neat row on the table.
Zenith stood back up. Solaire hovered over him, paws on her hips.
"Looks like anyone's a Champion these days, huh? Listen," she sneered. "The rest may have warmed up to you, but you're going to have to prove to me you're Champion material. So far, I. Am. Not. Impressed."
Yeah, yeah. Nothing I haven't heard before.
"Well, maybe you need to hear it more times then!" Solaire floated to the beanbags with a harrumph, a few levitating cupcakes in tow.
Wait, what? She can read my thoughts?
"Zenith." The Umbreon felt a feathered presence beside him. "Morning."
"Oh. Uh, morning, Son Dan-O." He wilted slightly under her cold stare.
"So," The Decidueye pulled up a chair at the kitchen table. Zenith followed her lead, taking a seat for himself and selecting a cupcake. The dessert's base was moist and spongy, topped with a swirl of brown icing and rainbow sprinkles. The expected taste of chocolate filled his mouth at his first bite, rich and creamy.
"How are you doing so far?" Son Dan-O pecked at the cupcake she turned in her fingers.
"Okay, I guess."
She traced his distracted gaze past her to the mountain of beanbags, where a purple ear poked out.
"Don't mind Solaire. She doesn't mean much of the things she says. I hope."
The ear twitched.
"She's the youngest here until you came along, but you'd think she's been here for at least a century. You'll fit in soon enough. The Halls have that effect on Pokemon."
Zenith took another bite. "I know. The Halls are great. Everyone here's great. I'm not uncomfortable about that. It's just…"
"Everything else?"
"Yeah. The… the…" Words clogged up in the Umbreon's throat as more Champions teleported into the room. Breakfast was located on the table he sat at, so all he could offer was a feeble wave at the newcomers and awkward silence at the dropped conversation.
Son Dan-O polished off her cupcake and relinquished her seat to Gigi. The Golem looked sleep-deprived, with dark eye bags and a grumpy expression that replaced her usual friendly demeanour. The sugar content in these cupcakes was enough to perk her up with just a taste, but Zenith could not continue to stomach the sweetness of his own. He placed the half-eaten treat in the bin and stepped aside so Clara could take his spot at the table.
Void was snoring on the couch again. Solaire had made a windowless beanbag cave that she enclosed herself inside. Reina, Gigi and Clara were chatting over breakfast. Son Dan-O was preening her wings.
Zenith felt awkward. Most of the space in the room had been filled up, and he didn't know what exactly to do here. There was still time before his scheduled meeting with Son Dan-O, but she was still occupied. Maybe he could sit in a corner?
Something vibrated on his waist. The telecommunicator clipped to his utility belt buzzed with a message.
Son Dan-O: If you want, you can head to the Garden first. I'll be with you in a bit.
…
Zenith was sitting at the edge of the lily pond when she found him. He dabbed the pond surface with a paw, watching plant stems sway back and forth with the water ripples. Dan-O's head joined Zenith's in the clear reflection of pond water.
"Poll-E approached me yesterday."
He nodded, staring out across the body of water.
"Come on. I want to show you something." A feathered hand rest on his shoulder, gentle yet firm with intent. Zenith let the hand pull him away from the lilies and back into the hedge mazes of the Garden.
"So, what's on your mind?"
"The Erasure removes my existence from Earth entirely, right?"
"Well, it removes the memories of you in the minds of Pokemon."
"It still has the same result, though. I won't exist in the lives of the Pokemon I care about. The memories I've had with them are gone."
"But you still have those memories. You know that they are still alive and well on Earth."
"I–uh– that's true."
Zenith was steered right again. The leafy walls were all curved in that direction, and the ground was getting steeper. He had a feeling that they were at the very edges of the Garden, the outermost petals of the rose this place resembled.
"I guess it's just that I still want some Pokemon to remember me. Is that selfish to want?"
"Not at all. Is it fair that you want some Pokemon to forget you forever?"
"No…t at all." Zenith sighed. "I'm not proud of that."
"We all have things we regret. You should really give your Past-Life a rewatch. Hindsight is 20/20. Here we are," Dan-O stopped Zenith at the bottom of a spiral slope they had been descending. They were standing before a cave with a boulder blocking off the entrance. "This is Cave Clairvoyance."
The Decidueye pressed a palm against the boulder for a few seconds. A glowing blue imprint was left behind when the hand was removed, slowly fading back into the dull grey of the rock face.
"I think all Champions have access to this place, but no one really goes here." With a rumble, the boulder rolled aside. A stone stairway was revealed behind it that led the duo further down below the grassy Garden floor.
"But I think you'll find this place interesting."
The cave system sank deeper and deeper. Zenith's night vision worked better now that his mechanical eye had been removed for the time being. He didn't need it for long, however. The steep stairway levelled out into a flat stone floor. Darkness was broken by small dots of blue in the distance. More dots populated the cave walls the further they ventured, and when Dan-O picked one up, he saw that they weren't just dots. They were flowers she cupped in her palm, with black petals curling around a blue orb centred in the flower head.
"镜花水月…" The Decidueye murmured to herself. "I mean, 镜花 is what I call them. Mirror Flowers. They let you see a Pokemon on Earth for a short period of time. Here." She passed one to him. It was heavier than expected for its small size. "It reacts to the first Pokemon you think of."
The orb's glass-like surface glimmered once it touched his paw. Its light started to shine brighter and brighter, brilliant blue turning into a blinding white…
…
"Welcome to Servine Elevens, how may I serve you today?" Kelli's voice was monotone in her welcome, tilting her head as little as she needed to look at the customer, as per company mandates.
"Oh, I'm just looking around." Kelli's eye twitched at the response, a crack on her expressionless face that hinted at the range of emotions rippling underneath. She caught a glimpse of a two-pronged tail flicking lazily in the air, following the body it was attached to behind a shelf.
Kelli averted her eyes back down to the cashier's tabletop, under which she had hidden a magazine. However, she could not help but feel her ears angle this way and that, just for a hint at where this newcomer could be. She forced those pricked ears back down; redirected her eyes back to the worn pages of that magazine.
"Excuse me."
Kelli jumped. The Espeon was right in front of her, holding up a price label.
"The shelves were out of this flavour of chips, could you help me take a look in the back?"
She stared at him. He smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry for asking, but it's my favourite flavour, so…"
She stared at him until a look of recognition dawned on her face. "Oh. Right." She swiped the label from his paw, eyes scanning across the words while reading none of them. "I'll go check in the back. Just… just give me a minute."
Kelli raced into a storage closet, turning the small lock in the door. Her heart was racing, her breaths shallower. Deep breaths broke down into uncontrollable, ragged heaves as tears squeezed their way past her defences.
She finally collapsed on the closet floor. She could feel her cold tears soak into her fur and chill her skin.
Tears still welled up at the corners of her shut eyes.
A whimper escaped her lips.
There came a knock from outside the door.
…
Zenith gasped. His head felt like it had been submerged in water, pulled back out into the darkness of Cave Clairvoyance. Zenith stumbled backwards for balance, the now-lightless orb shattering on the floor.
"小心 [Careful]! 差点儿撞到了你的头 [You almost hit your head]…" Dan-O gripped his shoulders, steadying the Umbreon while his legs trembled. "Are you okay?"
"I… I think so." Spots of light still danced in and out of his vision. "I just didn't expect things to be so…" Zenith blinked a few more times. He could still picture that storage room, full of stacked boxes. "…vivid."
"So, what was it like? How do you feel?"
"I feel… numb. Tingly." He stretched the toes on his hind paws, feeling the twinge of muscles that had been strained for too long.
"That makes sense. You were standing with your face in the flower for a few minutes, after all." Son Dan-O watched Zenith methodically stretch out each one of his legs. He was playing for time, she noted, with the way his eye seemed to be trained on nothing in particular, but constantly flicked back to the cavern walls.
"That experience…" She watched him take a trepid step forward, closer to the dots on the cave walls. She did not move.
"It was…" He was bolder now, probably noticing the lack of pushback at the initial action. He took a larger step. She did not move.
"...it was…" He no longer looked back at her, making a slow walk to another glowing dot.
"...it was…"
"How was it, Zenith?" The Decidueye gripped his outstretched paw, stopping it from touching another Mirror Flower. "Let's about it for a while. Shall we?" That was not a question. Her single hand on him forced the Umbreon back down onto his hindquarters, away from the sparkling wall.
"I…" He avoided her gaze while he talked. "I saw my mom. She was just doing her job and she… she…" Zenith paused to take in a breath. "She was crying. I've never seen her cry before."
"I…and I…" His head drooped. "I know it's because of me."
"Well, yes." Zenith thought he would have flinched at the matter-of-fact delivery, but her words just drove home what he already knew.
"It's always hard when a loved one leaves you…or when you leave them.
But I guess to you, nothing's really changed, has it? 你好幸运 [You're a lucky guy], Zenith. You've been brought past death. You're able to train with Legendaries and Mythical Pokemon, and you now have a way to check in on your loved ones, to see how much anguish and grief they're in right now…"
"Okay, I get it!" Zenith exploded. "I should be happy about the Erasure! I should be happy that my mom and Cleo and all those I love will be happy again, because all I do now is make them suffer!"
Zenith curled himself up even tighter.
"I didn't ask to be drugged, or kidnapped, or killed! I had an ordinary life before all that, and now—and now…"
"She didn't ask to be stood up either."
"WHY do you KEEP bringing that up?!" He nearly screamed at the Decidueye. "It was a mistake, I didn't mean to—"
"It meant a lot to her."
"W-what?"
"She held out hope for you, Zenith, time and time again. And on that night, it was the last straw that broke her. You two had that fight, but did you ever consider what happened after?"
"I don't… I didn't. What happened?"
Dan-O shrugged. "Like you, your Past-Life doesn't focus on it that much. Especially since you moved on just half a year later.
Both kinds of memories about you exist within different Pokemon, and the Erasure wipes all. Perhaps the lives of those after the Erasure… may… be…?" The Decidueye faltered, interrupting her sentence with an exasperated sigh. "他妈的。[Damn it.]"
"Better?"
"I do not know." Another sigh. "To be honest, most of us here can't understand your predicament, and that includes me. I ran from my family. Ran from my dad. I left my brothers behind. An adolescent girl that found herself fighting for the Imperial Army, selling my body in another way besides prostitution or becoming a concubine.
I missed my brothers greatly, but as the years went on, after the nationwide wars I fought… I gave up on the hope that I would see them again. I didn't even want to know if they were alive when I was first brought into the Halls, because regardless of the answer… " Dan-O fidgeted with the drawstrings on her hoodie. "I abandoned them."
The two of them sat quietly in the cave. At some point, a dark green disc case was slipped in front of the Umbreon, with the words "孙单雄 [Son Dan-O]" written neatly on the cover. He'd picked it up and slotted it into one of his belt pockets.
"Zenith."
One voice shook the entire cave. Dialga. The Legendary filled up the entire cavern, towering over the two Champions. There was a low rumble in his voice that the enclosed space amplified, one Zenith had never heard before. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?"
"It was my idea to bring him here." Son Dan-O was on her feet instantly, shielding the Umbreon from his mentor's fierce glare behind a spread wing. "I bear full responsibility. A-apologies." She could not meet Dialga's stern glower and in the next moment, the Temporal Pokemon had vanished from Cave Clairvoyance along with Zenith.
…
"What have I told you before? How much did I drill into you that you have to let the mortal plane go? It distracts you from your training, from reaching the fullest potential I'm trying to help you achieve here!"
Zenith sat on the corner of his bed, head hung low before the raging Legendary.
Son Dan-O has a point.
"All this effort I have put in to hone your skills, and you waste it all in one Spatial Petal. Allowing you to see Earth again outside of a mission? I need to have to talk to Darkai personally about that Decidueye."
Mom was miserable remembering me. Cleo… I can't bear to think about what Cleo could have gone through.
"What exactly is it on Earth that holds such sway over your emotions and decisions? I do not understand. Would you like to shed some light on the matter? Anything at all?"
Right now, the main source of their problems stems from me. After the Erasure…
"Fine. You are forbidden to enter Cave Clairvoyance until I say otherwise. Hopefully, this foolishness wears off after the Erasure."
The Erasure could put their lives right again. They'd be unburdened. Happy again.
"You have to start taking being a Champion more seriously, Zenith Schroff. Just because I do not snap does not mean there is no limit to how much nonsense I can tolerate. Do I make myself clear?"
"Clear, Dialga," He murmured.