33.
Distortion, Pt. I
One second she was on top of a great ice block, a chill in her bones and a lightning bolt threatening to pierce her heart. Then it was the dry and grassy waste of the Fieldlands. Then it was the deep, dark, rocky ruin of a quarry beneath Mount Coronet, where the ancestors of the Diamond Clan hewed rock to honor time, and the ancestors of the Pearl Clan did the same to make space.
Where they landed again, a forest had appeared.
Time and Space had broken for a half-mile radius. Cyllene could feel it. It was a pressure just beneath her fingertips. A pain behind her eyelids. An unbearable aching in her mind — like smoke after lightning — the searing hot scarlet afterglow of the universe bursting into being and tearing her body apart.
Sparks. Blue paper. Pressure. Growing.
Freedom.
Chains.
She sat up in what was at once a vast and towering woods, the highest trunks still wavering beneath a purplish dome of lightning crackling above. Clumps of red berries were bubbling too quickly out of curling green stems. Bark strained and split where tree trunks swelled. The earth beneath her buckled — sand and sediment rippling and racing in subtle summer breezes.
Abra whimpered, clutching its ears and waggling its tail at the inconsistencies of the Space around it. Cyllene clicked open its Poké Ball and watched it disappear inside. It was no use trying when the next jump would no doubt dump them in the ocean.
Ginter moaned beside her. His body was curled up, twitching in pain. His beard was turning white again. His hands were like shriveled claws, scratching at his chest. Reddish static flickered brightly at the corners of his clothes.
"Just get old and die already," Cyllene barked at him. Her own pulse was still throbbing in every part of her. Her lungs felt empty. A weak gurgling slid down through her innards, and her mind suddenly felt heavy as stone.
"END ME AND SEE HOW UNFAIR IT ALL IS!" she screeched.
Ginter let out a sharp cry as he started to age even faster. Taking a deep breath, Cyllene told the Red Chain to curl itself around her knuckles. She punched him hard in the stomach, pressing molten metal into him until his limbs began to slacken and the smallest spark came back into his eyes.
"You… have become more impulsive… and unhinged… than I was at the peak of my power," he whispered.
"You're going to die soon too, so it doesn't matter," she cut. "No one's going to care when I'm dead. They won't say I was pretty, or dedicate anything to me."
The old man sat up shakily, taking in their surroundings. The woods were even thicker now. A great maple suddenly burst up out of the ground between them, stretching up to the sky like an arrow and spreading its fresh, green branches with the sound of squelching sap.
Cyllene sat herself against it, sinking back into her mental haze. Her hands were shaking. Hands that were still large enough to be someone else's. Her wrists were lumpy and swirling two varied shades of pale white where the now-atrophied muscles connected.
She pressed her fingertips together, disgustedly intrigued at how intensely these changed hands could feel things. Shrink, she thought, and all at once pain flared up in every little knuckle and bone. Her hands shook faster, throbbing, bubbling, flesh writhing and rippling and then folding down into itself until it appeared as though no transformation had taken place at all.
"Shapeshifting," came Ginter's rasp. "You can shapeshift and hear things that aren't there."
Cyllene wanted to bang her head against the tree trunk, but stopped to close her eyes and breathe instead. Her body felt like it was in knots. Her stomach rumbled again — out of hunger, not some deep, unseen mutation — and she gave her old friend the calmest look she'd been able to muster the past two horrifying days.
Which wasn't saying much.
"It's not… 'shapeshifting.' Why would you give it a cutesy name like that? Like it's normal? Like it's something anyone could do?"
"I'm not saying anyone could do it. You're special."
That twinge of inclination was rising in the back of her mind. Annoyance turned energy. Energy turned pure magic potential.
"You just keep lying, don't you, Gym Leader Volkner? You're lying when you could be helping. Or were you never told how to deal with Hisui's doom once it was unleashed?"
Ginter grimaced at her continued complaints. "Look, if you want my help, then at least stop hiding the Red Chain behind your back and let me see it. I'm not going to punish you when your powers saved both our carcasses from that dickless hobgoblin up on the mountain."
He looked pathetic as he said this. One hand was permanently fixed to his heart, and now the other reached for the chain on her wrist. She offered it to him, first timidly, then splaying all her fingers out and letting the chain swing free in its most primitive, unclasped form. As soon as the bloodied links passed over his fingers, his blue eyes widened in stark recognition.
"Now, this has to be…"
Ginter tore down one side of what remained of his trousers and showed her. There, snaking around his thin left thigh, was an ancient scar made of several reddish puckered bits of skin.
His lips were jerking oddly, not understanding it anymore than she did.
"You're right," he said. "This chain is mine. I used to keep it attached to my pants to help hold all my old Poké Balls in my back pocket. It was a completely ordinary wallet chain. Not magical in the slightest. I told you I destroyed all my other clothes except my favorite jacket, so if you found it in my jacket, that's because I put it in there for safekeeping and forgot about it."
Cyllene's open palm tensed. She glared at him with terrible suspicion, and he flinched when he saw her eyes flash red.
"How did it burn you?" she asked.
Ginter slapped the ground in frustration. "I don't remember! I was already hurt when I first came to my senses by that river. It's my own blood staining the jacket. It's probably my blood dripping all over your sleeve right now, too. Just… made fresh again, however you're doing that. Manipulating the flow of time."
"But your memories couldn't have been erased. You aged forward when the lightning struck you. Not backward."
"How can you find any logic in it!? My whole being was wrenched from its rightful timeline! I'm soldered back together scrambled! And you… you…"
Suddenly he huffed and tore the Red Chain away from her entirely. The wet blood froze as soon as it left her hands. Ginter dangled it in front of his face, shaking off bits of rust and blackened, rubbery clots.
"It's not even the chain itself, is it? It must be my blood! Blood magic! Whatever Rei said when he called you a witch! Cyllene, I've gotten all mixed up in Time, and you're using my blood to bend reality!"
This theory made Cyllene even more cross.
"You're still lying, coot! Ingo said the Red Chain is an artifact from the beginning of the universe! Why do you have it when you're from the future!?"
"And could we trust the Warden from hell!? Forget whatever cosmic bullshit he told you! You're the one who's been lying to me! Or at least withholding the truth!"
"Almighty Sinnoh won't even tell me what the truth is."
"THEN LET'S FIND OUT THE TRUTH TOGETHER! MAKE ME YOUNG AGAIN!"
The twisting of the growing woods around them was deafened by his voice. The lightning at the center of the growing purple storm of distortion crackled even brighter, and when he stood suddenly, walking stick tumbling out of his grasp, he seemed to become as strong and imposing as a rocky cliff battered by the waves.
Cyllene turned her eyes to the ground. Ginter gripped the "wallet chain" in his right fist, where it swung completely powerless.
"If I'd known this chain could keep me from aging… If I'd known you could give me my old—my young body back—!"
"I only just learned I could do things like that!" she forced.
"And you weren't going to tell me."
"I don't want to hurt you."
He spread his arms wide. "I think I can handle a little stomachache, Captain Spitfire."
"No, you don't understand. I could turn back time and restore your youth, but you wouldn't remember anything that's happened in the past fifty years. You'd forget me. You'd forget everything about being here!"
The old man's temper flashed even brighter. "Why would you care if I forgot all about being clumsy with battles and in pain all the time and unable to aim my piss properly!?"
"Because I…"
Cyllene couldn't say anything more. The past few hours — that invasive kiss — had made everything so much more difficult. How was she to admit he was her best friend now? When he'd wanted more, and she was fifty years and centuries behind in understanding?
She got up from beneath the aged maple and was about to run when a root snapped up too quickly and tripped her. Cyllene stumbled down onto living earth, more roots scraping her wrists and tearing at her leggings. Once more, Ginter was at her side, though he didn't offer his hand, and she had to scramble up by tugging at his shirt until she got a good hold on his arm.
"You're just being nice because somehow you're in love with me and it's weird!" she spat. "Creepy old man! Do you think I can't take care of myself!?"
Ginter jerked his arm away and she faceplanted again. "You're the one who won't shut up about wanting to die. I thought I could change that."
"It's not about wanting to die. It's about the inevitable. Death is easier to fantasize about than love. I don't know anything about being in love!"
"Well... neither do I," Ginter said too softly to hear.
Cyllene had managed to climb to her knees. Pitifully, she smacked him in the knee, and he calmly stepped backwards, groaning a bit as he leaned against the maple and dangled the Red Chain before her.
"I've run out of medicine," he admitted. "I dropped my last pill in that cave, and Ingo stole me before I could recover it. The next time my heart fails, I'll be gone, and then it'll be up to you whether you reverse time and watch me die again. I'm at your mercy, Cy. I forget who owes whom a favor."
Something like golden sunlight flickered through the gloom — an apparition, perhaps, conjured by the bubble of stolen time beneath the lightning. All of his face was illuminated, haggard as he was. He was frowning at her. Shoulders slumped and idle hand perched on his waist as if expecting her to make a decision quickly.
"And if you're going to turn me into anything, it had better be Electric so I can jump myself," he added with a terrible smirk.
Green leaves shimmered above with a freshness Cyllene hadn't seen in ages. She wished she could tear them off and rub them on her cheeks — feel the coolness of dew on her neck, and drink rain where it fell from an unburdened sky.
Her whole body tensed as she grasped the chain and she shakily rose to her feet.
"I… have a plan," she said. "A crazy plan."
"Jump me."
"I'm not making you Electric."
She placed her right hand in the center of his paunch, and pressed in firmly when he wriggled. Her gaze lingered on the glorious green above them, creeping downward as the tree grew ever older and stronger.
"We're both going to transform, and you have to make sure I finish the spell, okay? No matter how strange it feels. Even if I scream."
Ginter's stomach was already rumbling and rippling beneath the shirt and her palm. He braced himself against the tree trunk and flashed one mighty look of betrayal.
And then cocked his head in wonder.
"Why would you be the only one screaming?"
A shiver wracked Cyllene's entire body. She bit her lower lip and was just beginning to chew before her own abdomen erupted in gurgling torment.
"Well, I'm starving, and iridA said eating veggies can put your head back on straight. So I'm turning us into…"
Ginter made a noise like he was choking. A white, slippery substance was dribbling out the corner of his lips, stretching low and thickening into a coil of shimmering silk.
"Go on," he burbled, wiping a sheer coat of slime off on his sleeve. "I mean it."
~N~
IT'S GETTING SPICY. (Or as the Germans would say, it's GIVING spicy!)
There's this story called "Curse of the Fuzzy" on AO3 and you should read it. Cool bug transformation.
Published by scrivenernoodz on FFN and AO3 March 11th, 2024. Please don't repost. Please do review!
