27.
Red Sky Ʌnd Ʌ Synonym For Nonsense
Ingo wasn't human, The Kkai informed him, but that hardly helped him understand what a human was.
Ingo looked human. He could move and speak like a human. He was found nearly frozen in the snow wearing clothes — a tattered black-and-brown striped flared greatcoat and trousers and boots and a black leather cap with fluff coming out of a tear in the top. But as far as he could tell, humans did not possess the strength to tear hundred-foot-tall fir trees out of the earth and fling them around to make space. Humans had exactly ten fingers — five on each hand as long as frostbite hadn't rotted any away. Their spines spread like notched curving links straight down their backs — not that smooth, zig-zagging thing that slithered beneath his tunic and sometimes emerged from his skin to taste the cold.
Humans had eyebrows. Ingo did not.
"Tell me your nature, O Foundling of Ice. What are we to call you? And please be precise," the too-young and terribly thin Kkai had said. She hadn't been afraid of him when he appeared suddenly just outside her settlement in the Alabaster Icelands. She was just tired. Defeated. Annoyed by a rival Clan leader's latest threat on her life penned in telescopic prose and curling into ashes in the brazier of her yurt.
"I am an agent," Ingo told her. "I am from The Original One."
Ingo knew this for sure. It was one of a very few things he knew for sure.
Yet somehow this answer had rocked the Pearl Clan to their core, and from "Foundling of Ice" he was now respected as a witness of "Almighty Sinnoh."
Ingo didn't know this for sure.
It was pitch-dark in the caverns of Mount Coronet. Some time ago, there had been torches and sconces to light the way through their winding depths, but it was the Diamond Clan's job to maintain them, so of course they were never maintained. Ingo trundled along one of these passageways, deep within the mountain. He had never needed torches anyway to see in the dark. His eyes were like two silver disks — large and unblinking. He knew how the caverns were, and he knew where to step, all while gripping the back of the cursed young woman's jacket in a hand with seven bony fingers and holding her aloft.
"This one, in Spiritomb's domain, at midnight, by summoning a peculiar power, wields the ability to alter Almighty Sinnoh's spacE, because she is in grave danger," he muttered to himself. "I, in this cave, now, by my superior sight, can observe she has no eyebrows. Surely she cannot be anything like myself, can she? One who has seen beyond this realm? One who can vaguely remember the face of The Original One?"
He brought her so close that his long, crooked nose was pressed right up against her forehead. Cyllene didn't stir. She hadn't stirred ever since the chain around her wrist had finished bleeding and she fell limp against his coat. Lady Sneasler had remained uninterested. Only a sleepwalker could quench her bloodlust.
Clearly this one was not a sleepwalker.
"Still, this one remains in my presence, at present, within my seven-fingered grip, making no motion to suggest she would struggle, suggesting she must be quite comfortable," Ingo observed. "This sudden acute proximity is surely a sign from Almighty Sinnoh Herself. I shall keep this one very close, until she is ready to show me her nature again."
Saying this, he quickened his speed and descended fully into Lady Sneasler's cavern. The Noble Pokémon was asleep curled up in her nest of moss and feathers. Her nightly golden glow had gone and she was her slender gray self again, save for six long claws caked in the blood of all the sleepwalkers she'd slain.
The iron-sulfur stench proved Sneasler had been quite busy.
The red light filtering in through cracks in the rocky ceiling suggested she would soon be quite busy again.
Cyllene found she was expecting nonsense. Which might have been growth for her, she thought, if she didn't have to constantly deal with it all.
She awoke in a dark, damp cave, after what felt like a full and healthy night's sleep. No strange dreams. No fantastic visions. No monstrous voices in her head. No burning feeling in her fingers, nor any soreness or tightness to suggest she was growing.
She felt… human… more or less.
It was enough to make her scream.
"AC-CURSED! AC-CURSED! AC… ACCURS…"
"Oh, for cryin' out loud, woman, shut," whined Ginter, who was anxiously throwing bits of grass into the campfire beside her.
Cyllene squeaked in her throat and stared moon-eyed up at his familiar haggard face, marred by a fresh, deep cut above the lip. His eyes were drooping. His shoulders were slumped. His long, thin face was shaved, but already sprouting gray stubble again.
"In the future there's also 'Frick.' 'Frickin' A.' Or you could try the ever-useful 'dammit.' Or 'goddammit.' 'Shit.' 'Bullshit,' which is a synonym for nonsense. There's 'fuck,' too, but I don't like that one as much. It's very strong, and impolite coming out the mouth of a Gym Lead…"
He trailed off and refused to look at her. Instead he stared intently into the weak orange coals.
"WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS!?" Cyllene screeched.
Ginter frowned deeper. "I'm asking the same thing, Captain Survey. No matter where I go, there you are. You'd follow me back to Sunyshore City if I knew how to get there, and probably crash in the same goddamn bed."
"Bullshit," said Cyllene.
"Frickin' A."
"Fuck."
"Fuck indeed, if that's how you feel about it."
"About what?"
"About fuck-all."
Ginter flicked both of his kimono sleeves toward the fire to emphasize. Stalactites dripped from above and steamed when they sank into flickering coals. Cyllene seemed to shrink. She shivered in her jacket and squeezed her toes, finally summoning the strength to push herself up and peer all around her. Only one foot was still in its sandal. The other was lost wherever Spiritomb haunted.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"Don't know, don't care," Ginter grunted. "I told Abra to find you. It couldn't. Should've just stayed lying in that hot field waiting for you to come collect my carcass."
"Abra's here!?"
This had her perking up. Ginter nodded and pressed Abra's Poké Ball into her hands. "When it decides to show up, it's quite nifty for fetching you things," he said. "Except for blue-haired witches."
She scoffed and scooted closer to him. Her tense neck relaxed in the warmth. Luxio's golden eyes glinted on Ginter's other side, blinking slowly.
"I can't be everywhere at once, Ginter. If I told you I've been lost in other dimensions of Space and Time, then you'd have to grant me grace."
"Have you?"
He looked at her now, with a hint of suspicion. Or… was it intrigue? Either way, Ginter-or-Volkner was back to his cantankerous self, and at this point, Cyllene couldn't blame him.
"What do you mean you were lying in a hot field?" she asked. "Did you try running away from the village again?"
"I didn't try anything! I got banished from the village because Kamado figured out I wasn't a real Ginkgo Man! And you weren't there to stop him! He said you were busy!"
"Well, I have been busy!"
"In other dimensions!?"
"In my own head, at least! I don't know what's wrong with me! I can't focus on anything anymore!"
Sheepishly, she held the wrist with the Red Chain behind her back, and joined him in glaring daggers at the flames. Then she remembered seeing faces in fires past and focused instead on the nearest slime-coated stalagmite.
"Kamado banished you," she repeated. "What did he say? Did he tell you to leave and not come back?"
"Well, he sought me out and tried to stab me in the chest with a sword, and when I got smart with him, then he decided to show mercy and have Ress and Zisu escort me out the gates with everyone watching."
"And then what, leave you for dead in the wilds?"
"No, then the plan was for Zisu to disembowel me and let the wild Pokémon feast on my carcass! But when she got me alone, she wouldn't do it. She told me she couldn't be the one to do it. And I asked, 'Well, what the frick does that mean? Does someone else have to do it?' Does it matter who does it, or should an old coot just die when his medicine runs out and his heart quits working?' And at that point she got all weird about it and just told me if she saw my face again, she'd have to kill me. So all I could do was tip my nonexistent cap at her and walk into the Fieldlands until my old knobby knees gave out."
Cyllene stiffened at the story. A storm of anger flared up in her chest. Anger, anxiety — she didn't want to name it. She wished she couldn't feel anything. She wished she was still asleep.
Zisu knows about the ship coming. She's not stupid. She's holding out until she knows she can get her babies to safety. And now she's got the death of an innocent old man on her conscience too…
"I tried to tell the village they're just shooting themselves in the foot. I'm bound by a promise I made my whole life ago to protect this land from disaster. Even if they don't know who I really am, can they deny my awesome power!? I showed what I'm capable of! And I did it with what I had at the time! Now, if I were young, if I were Volkner…"
Ginter's voice cracked, and he stretched out his right leg to stir the dying coals with his boot. Luxio's eyes flashed brighter. The Pokémon purred and nuzzled his mane into the crook of his master's neck. Ginter shivered, then flinched at the hot blue sparks that went racing up the shadow of his beard like they hurt.
"Not even your Commander would show me any respect. He didn't want to look at me. In my time, if you meet someone like me, you look at him and shake his hand and you welcome him."
"You said you didn't want to change the future."
"I didn't ask to be stranded in the past!"
He coughed, then, and it echoed off into the dripping darkness. Luxio gave him a serious nod and then sat upright so the old man could lean on him for support.
"I'm so happy to see you again, Cyllene," he whispered. "I'm sorry I always look like a piece of crap."
Cyllene shrugged, reaching out to squeeze his nearest shoulder. "I think you're very strong, actually," she said. "I don't know what the future is like, but I imagine it's cozy, if not perfect. A lot less bloodshed and backstabbing, at least."
He laughed softly, and gave her a brave and honest smile.
"You know, in some ways, I know it all turns out good because of you."
She raised her nonexistent eyebrows. "What's that supposed to mean, coot? I have to save the world for you?"
"Would you?"
Ginter was only smiling at her wider, gazing fondly into her pale blue eyes, until his lip made a tiny squick noise and the scabbing on the cut popped apart. The narrow line instantly welled with fresh blood.
The smile dropped. Ginter wriggled out of Cyllene's hold on his shoulder and wiped his face with his forearm until everything was smeared with red. Then he grimaced and growled and ran his other hand roughly through Luxio's mane until sparks were jumping over his skin and fraying his hair and stinging him.
"FRICK EVERYTHING!" he roared into the depths of the cave. He was up on his feet, now, kicking the coals and scattering them until they started to fade into faint yellow remnants of light.
"Hey, don't wander off."
He was stomping off anyway with Luxio following. His boot-steps splashed in puddles and battered slimy rocks, growing louder and fainter as he fled.
Cyllene popped open Abra's Poké Ball and hugged the creature tightly when it appeared. It did its best to hug her back, trilling quietly.
"VOLKNER!" she cried.
"Your world isn't ready for Volkner," came his melancholy voice from somewhere already much deeper in the cave.
"Abra, can you sense him? I don't want him to slip and kill himself."
Abra curled its claws around its ears as if to say Ginter's thoughts were thunderous. In the dying heat of the embers, its golden eyes opened, and a magenta glow surrounded its whole body. Moments later, a second and third glow were tugged back out of the darkness. Ginter and Luxio squirmed where they levitated just above Cyllene's head.
"PUT ME DOWN, WOMAN! YOUR UNTRAINED PSYCHIC IS GONNA STEAMROLL MY ORGANS!"
"Your organs make the best noises, though."
"WHAT!?"
"Put them down gently, Abra."
"If we don't wander around, then how are we going to get out of the cave?" Ginter growled, struggling enough in the psychic aura to hang upside down. The blood of his lip ran in a stream down over his forehead and into his hair.
Cyllene just shook her head. "Take us all out of the cave."
Abra wagged its tail. The world whirled and morphed and suddenly the air was fresh and clean and cool and covered in a thick, chilling layer of snow?
Cyllene blinked, climbing to her knees. She blinked again. She looked at Ginter, who was wrestling his pack away from Abra and his pant leg back from Luxio. Ginter froze, blinking also, then stole a worried glance back at Cyllene.
If she had to guess, it was probably morning. Enough brassy light was reaching the ground to let her see the rocky ledge she now kneeled upon. But the morning was cold. Too cold, even for the warning winds of early autumn. Cyllene scrambled to her feet and looked straight up. Snow shifted in the folds of her jacket. Tiny flakes collected in her hair and melted, stinging, on her hands.
If it was morning now, the sky had transformed overnight.
Stars flickered black and silver. Clouds were nonexistent. Stretched tight and tearing in places like a too-thin canvas was a glowing sky, dyed completely the color of freshly-spilled blood. It squirmed and pulsed, like something, (or more than one something,) was on the other side of it, clawing and thrashing and fighting to get out. Straight up above and way too close was the sky wound — too hot and white to observe directly.
Cyllene could only blink in shock. She shuddered and followed the threads of green and blue lightning that sank under their own weight and glittered until they fell to the mountain as snow. A huge red sun floated low in the east, surrounded by a hissing ocean vapor. Toward the west and Jubilife, a pure white moon was also rising.
A full moon. Not due for at least another week, yet present at once.
"We're near the summit of Mount Coronet. That limestone peak up there is the Temple of Sinnoh," she said, bracing herself against the nearest rocky ledge. "Abra! Get us somewhere safer!"
Abra was far below, trying to fly up through a frigid wintry wind. Ginter managed to reach out and grab one of its arms, wrenching it inward until it fell forwards on top of him into a snowbank. Cyllene ran to them and repeated the command. But Abra refused to move. It only trembled and squealed, clutching its ears with its claws and gnashing its teeth.
Ginter sat up, cradling the creature to his chest. "This must be the furthest it could carry us. Psychic-types can sometimes lose their powers when they're stressed."
"That's your fault! You were the one who called Abra 'untrained!'" Cyllene retorted.
"Well, it is untrained if it can't keep its mind at ease!"
"I can't keep my mind at ease half the time! How can you expect Abra to!?"
"Then you both need training!"
"Who's going to train us!?"
"Well, I know a guy, but he's in the fricking future!"
Cyllene took her partner and hugged it in her own arms. A freezing wind whipped up, and she was forced to take a seat beside Ginter, staring out at the wider world soaked in a snowy haze of gray static. In seconds, both her feet were covered in another inch of white.
"Force of habit," Ginter coughed. "Sorry."
"Force of habit?"
A great shiver wracked the old man's body. He hacked some more, suddenly bending over and exploding in a forceful sneeze. Dark, congealed blood splattered all over the blinding snow. Luxio leaned in, but Ginter shoved him away this time, preferring to remain free of static.
"I used to be something called a Gym Leader," he groaned. "It was my job to test the ability of other Pokémon trainers by facing them in battle. If you haven't guessed already, I had quite the ego about it."
Cyllene's teeth chattered. "How's your ego feeling now?"
"Kind of shitty. Thank you for asking."
"You're welcome."
Abra was clawing into her chest. Its tail was curling the same way it had when she'd first found it injured in the Alabaster Forest.
"You can't be cold-blooded," she said. "You have fur. What's gotten into you? Can't you teleport us to the base of the mountain at least?"
Ginter was sitting on his hands to warm them. At least until he realized under his rump was a block of solid ice. He balled them into fists and shoved them between his legs, forcing himself to stifle another cough.
Then he put a hand on his stomach and started to moan.
"I'm going to stop you from dying every day, AREN'T I!?" Cyllene screeched.
Quickly she withdrew Abra into its Poké Ball, then took Ginter's hand and squeezed until he was forced to look at her. There was something off about his face. The snow collecting on his eyebrows and beard had all sloughed off. Through the brassy-red light it was plain to see that all his hair was growing. The beard was sprouting and lengthening. The frazzled nest was thickening and tangling and sparking. The skin around his eyes was beginning to droop as more wrinkles bunched up in the corners. His nose was growing from a thin point to a swollen, pockmarked wedge.
"You're… aging," she breathed. "I'm not doing this, I swear. Your curse must be afflicting you again!"
Ginter could only gape at her, unable to speak as his mind was drawn too quickly into its own future. Both arms were in an iron grip around his middle, and he was jerking, bent in half in the snow. His beard was now a fuzzy salt-and-pepper snarl waggling over his chest and it was fascinating.
It was dreadful, but it was fascinating.
It was fascinating until Cyllene realized, mere seconds and over a decade later, that if Ginter died of sudden old age of all things, she'd be left completely alone in the Hisuian waste.
"Okay, don't panic. I really am a witch. I can… turn you into something else," she said, slipping up the sleeves of his kimono top and gripping around what little muscle was melting off the bones as they wasted. "No, you're too weak. I could…"
She spied the burgundy snow, mixed together with the thrashing of the boots, and remembered the morning before. Blood in a teapot. Blood on a mirror. Blood slowly retreating back into a chain from whence it came. The chain becoming shiny and silver, then rusty and bloody again.
"That must be the nature of my powers! I can warp both space and time!"
Cyllene squeezed her left hand into a fist, trying to draw on that wild energy within. Immediately she stumbled, falling right on top of Ginter. She could feel his skin squirming beneath the fabric — flesh pulling and changing as he coughed and wheezed.
I'm weak. I haven't eaten anything since yesterday. And my mind… I feel…
[Do not fɅll Ʌsleep, Cyllene. He hɅs gɅined bɅck enough power to mɅke night and dɅy one. He hunts for you eVen with the Red ChɅin protecting you from His wrɅth. He knows your potentiɅl. He will clɅim you and then deVour you.]
The voice spoke from a fiery flash in the snow. Or maybe it came from the blood. Or the thrashing sky. It seemed very distant and tired, muted by the metal suddenly moving and bleeding around Cyllene's wrist.
[For now, let me lend you some of my strength. I Ʌm losing the wɅr. I am weɅry. I cɅnnot speɅk to you long… I Ʌm sorry you are fɅced with this terrible burden…]
A tremendous heat suddenly surged throughout Cyllene's body. It originated in her gut. Or perhaps in her chest. That anger from before. The knowledge of her powers. Her will to help Ginter escape his accursed untimely fate. Cyllene's pale blue eyes darkened to crimson. That tightness came over her muscles again. The feeling that her body was limited. That she was capable of so much more than she could even begin to comprehend…
"You're the one who keeps following me Ʌround and getting me in trouble. Who Ʌre you!?" she demanded, climbing to her feet and flicking her wrist toward the old man expiring in the snow. Under the light of the bloodied sky, the Red Chain glistened and grew. It snaked outward and flew around Ginter's stomach like a long, glowing lasso, then squeezed in tight. Her wrist then snapped upward, and it snapped straight with a clink!
[I Ʌm Ʌ friend who liVed and breɅthed before the uniVerse wɅs mɅde. SolVe the riddle I gɅVe you, and you shɅll leɅrn my nɅme…]
"StɅbilize his Ʌge," Cyllene told the delicate threads of red lancing off her fingers and slithering up and over Ginter's body. "Stop the distortion. ReVerse the flow of Time Ʌs it Ʌfflicts him."
She gasped, pitching forward once more. The chain pulled her forward, toward the transforming body. The heat in her bones kept her on her feet. It was the heat of stars and darkness, of Space unseen and Time unlived. It pulsed evenly with the thunder of her heartbeat. The Red Chain flickered bright vermilion like the sun, then silver like the moon. Ginter's skin began to soften again. The joints unknotted. The beard retreated. The nose shrank. The eyes reclaimed their blue-lightning sparkle.
When he was at last the way she knew him from before, she released the spell, letting the Red Chain drop lifelessly into a clinking pile over Ginter's chest. He began to stir, blinking confusedly and staring at his hands, then rubbing his stomach in wonder.
"What's the burden?" Cyllene tried to ask, though her words were slurred with tiredness, and her legs were wobbling. "Why do I have these powers? I don't understand…"
[You will,] said the voice in her head, anxious and fading. [You must. Or this world will ceɅse to exist…]
"Bullshit," Cyllene yawned.
Below her, Ginter smirked.
"Where the hell did you learn that one from?"
She looked at him. The voice in her head had given her just enough strength to keep standing. Her mind was picking through cobwebs again. Memories didn't make sense. She wasn't standing in a blue room full of waxy blue paper. Or… in a dark place somewhere up high… full of thunder and lightning that made her heart race more than it usually did…
The elevator is going to ding. The elevator dinged…
"Cyllene," Ginter said, shaking her. "Luxio, Thunder Fang at the ready."
"I'm awake!" Cyllene scoffed, and looked him straight in the eye. Ginter was smirking at her.
"You said 'bullshit!' he laughed. "Did I teach you that? I don't remember!"
"You… you did… today. Earlier. You don't… Accursed, if I only reverse your age, then I reverse your memories too. I'm glad I didn't try making you any younger."
"What did you do?"
Cyllene stuttered, but there was no time to properly respond. A familiar dark, gnarled shape suddenly appeared between them without noise or warning. In the harsh red light, Cyllene could now see it fully. It was the creature which had directed her to transform adamaN the previous night.
Not a creature. A man. Albeit a very lanky and bony one, with translucent skin and unblinking eyes of silver and seven fingers on each hand. In one of these hands, he clutched what looked like a purple-black stone tablet. The other pinched the brim of his leather cap, which he tipped respectfully at Cyllene.
"It is true," he said. "This one, nearly atop Mount Coronet, in what feels like morning, used a peculiar Red Chain to reverse a curse of timE upon her odd companion because she felt so moved. I have observed this in what should be considered intrigue or dismay, though I lack the organs required to fulfill the sensation of emotion."
Ginter's smirk cracked even wider, until the gash above his lip reopened and he started bleeding down his neck again.
"Who are you supposed to be?" the old man asked. "And where are we, anyway?"
"Don't know, don't care," Cyllene said.
"I am what is called The Foundling of Ice," said The Foundling of Ice. "But do feel free to call me Ingo. I do not mind a strange woman becoming familiar."
Cyllene noticed the magenta circle embroidered into his tunic and let out a sigh of relief. "You're the one I've been looking for," she said. "iridA said you can interpret visions."
"That is what The Kkai says," said Ingo. "But I know very little. Come. I have used the power of the Dread Plate to sap your Abra's psychic powers. Know also that I can run at the speed of the wind and see behind objects and in the dark. You cannot escape me. You will follow."
His tone of voice was even, but still managed to carry some hint of heavy authority. Ginter puffed his chest and stepped between Ingo and Cyllene, the bloody smirk falling.
"She doesn't have to follow you anywhere."
"And if I take this one and run at the speed of the wind off this mountain, and you follow, then I will survive, and you will not," said Ingo matter-of-factly.
A wall of wintry wind surged up behind him, almost like he had summoned it with his cold white stare.
"Come," said Ingo again. "If you have been looking for me, then I have been waiting."
where something seems to float and not fall...
~N~
THAT'S RIGHT. ZERO NOBLES DEFEATED. IT'S RED SKY TIME. AND INGO IS CREEPY.
Was listening to "Red Sky (battle theme)" while writing the last part of this and thinking, "Wow, this is pretty much the Anthill theme from Bugdom."
Ingo's poetic form is the "Six Honest Serving Men" — explaining a situation with What, Who, Where, How, When, and Why. I thought it would befit his regular thoroughness, since so far he's the character most diverged from canon for this story.
Published by Syntax-N on Fanfiction . Net and by scrivenernoodz on AO3 November 19th, 2023. Thanks for reading! Do not repost.
