Chapter Text
Augustine had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.
Slumped over his desk like a beached Wailmer on the shores of Cyllage City, one hand buried in his dark curls and the other gripping a pile of administrative paperwork awaiting his signature as a Pokémon Professor — the Kalos bureaucracy, what a nightmare! — his thoughts spun aimlessly in his mind, with no hope of reaching a satisfying conclusion.
Augustine kept replaying, over and over again, the disturbing scene from the past few days. Was there any way for him to fix the situation somehow? Nothing was less certain. But perhaps it wasn’t that serious, right? What had happened… there was no real reason to sound the alarm, was there? No, of course not! He just needed to calm down.
He sighed, exhausted. Twisting his mind around had become far too easy lately. Much too easy.
Through one of the lab’s windows, the sounds of laughing children, Pokémon cries, and adults chatting on café terraces filled the streets of Lumiose. A perfectly ordinary day in the capital, with no worries or regrets in sight. Life carried on outside, with its little mishaps and bursts of madness. That normalcy felt almost painful to him — not that he had the energy to dwell on it.
Was he worrying for nothing? To meddle in someone else’s life — even that of a close friend — would be inappropriate. Should he wait for his friend to reach out to him first? But if he waited, who could say that sign would ever come? That friend wasn’t the kind to ask for help, not even when he’d hit rock bottom. When you spend enough time around someone, you start noticing the warning signs of familiar behavior patterns, often before the person themselves does. And that was precisely the problem: his friend wasn’t doing well.
“Professor?” called a small, distant voice, like something out of a dream. Augustine ignored it. Great, now his brain was making him hear things! He could be odd, sure, but not that odd. He wasn’t going crazy.
Back to the Mareep at hand. Was it really his place to confront his friend? That question came back to him often. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t worried about how that hypothetical confrontation might go. Afraid, him? He wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. Completely!
Still, if a friend started saying strange things, wasn’t it up to the person who knew him best to step in? Probably. But what exactly could he do? He didn’t have the keys he needed to open up the field of possible actions and any good researcher (yes, surprisingly, he had studied; passion mixed with eccentric obsession can take you far) knows that one must ab-so-lute-ly keep that field open, according to the scientific method. Or so Professor Rowan used to claim. But if his friend refused help? If no door opened at all? What could he do, other than wallow somewhere, drowning in doubt and guilt? He blamed himself: he had no right — absolutely no right — to give up and let those close to him fall apart. If he was capable of anything, then he ought to act!
“Professor…?” A second small voice came again, closer this time. Augustine ignored it just like the one before. Wonderful, now he was hearing several voices. Another thing to add to his growing list of problems.
By Arceus! He was going to lose his mind. Why was dealing with people so hard? Why couldn’t he force himself to act? Why couldn’t he ever make his stupid body move when it needed to, say the right words, know when to help — just be there? The Pokémon Professor knew the answer: he was useless. A coward! Was he worrying over nothing? He didn’t even know anymore! Maybe yes… maybe no… maybe he was just imagining things and his friend was perfectly fine! Augustine felt the urge to smack his head against the wall, if only to knock some order into his ridiculous thoughts. The pain of a lump couldn’t be worse than the headache he had now.
“Professor—” Those two voices again! Honestly, he didn’t have time for this. Later. Come back later!
Thinking about it, he and Lysandre — yes, that was the man at the center of his worries — weren’t really friends. Not in the usual sense, at least. Their bond was more like that of colleagues. Colleagues who had shared countless studies, experiments, and enriching debates, making them equals in each other’s eyes. Still, given how their paths had crossed over the years, Augustine hoped he counted among Lysandre’s trusted companions.
So, as a colleague, an equal, a “trusted companion”… could he help? Or rather, should he? And honestly, what was the meaning of friendship, anyway? From a strictly scientific standpoint, friendship occurs when two brains recognize pleasant behavioral patterns in one another, releasing oxytocin, dopamine, and an obscene amount of other chemicals that lead to the body’s general anxiety response — the true malady of the century, and one Augustine knew all too well. Yet, if he focused on the practical side of friendship, knowing full well he was not the type to rely entirely on the experimental principles of his peers…
Oh great. There he went, derailing again. Fantastic.
“PROFESSOR SYCAMORE!”
The two voices echoed so loudly against the office walls that the man being addressed jumped and nearly fell out of his chair, sending pens, papers, and various other objects flying. Augustine straightened up hastily, finding himself face-to-face with his assistants, Dexio and Sina. Ah, so that was where the voices were coming from! He wasn’t crazy after all. What a relief!
He would have appreciated this reassuring discovery much more had the expressions on their faces not looked so serious.
Realizing the mess he was in, he offered them his most dazzling smile. One of those he kept for emergencies, to avoid being questioned when he was obviously guilty of something.
“Dexio, Sina! Mes amis ! How happy I am to see you!”
This little trick had helped him out of many unpleasant confrontations in the past, and it worked just as well today. Who could say no to the angelic face of a charming researcher?
Apparently, his assistants could.
Having endured their mentor’s mood swings for so long, the inseparable duo had long since learned to tell the difference between the Professor’s falsely innocent expression and that of a truly worried man. One didn’t need to be a renowned intellectual to know which category he fell into right now.
The young woman shot him an exasperated look while her companion pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Professor, we’ve been trying to get your attention for a good five minutes,” she sighed.
“And you haven’t reacted to anything we’ve said for, oh, about three quarters of an hour,” added the blond-haired boy.
Ah… Augustine realized. That explains it.
His smile stiffened, stretching painfully at the corners. He exhaled, darkly amused at his own behavior. How foolish of him to think he could fool his students in his current state! Revealing his façade of lies right now was as easy as stripping a newborn zorua of its disguise.
“Forgive me, I didn’t…” Hear you? Listen? See you? Pay attention the way he should since he was locked in his own anxieties? He let the sentence trail off before pulling himself together, pushing away the hint of pity he thought he saw in his apprentices’ eyes. “Anyway… What can I do for you?”
The two exchanged a quick glance, brows furrowed.
“You’re the one,” Sina explained, “who asked us to bring you our progress on our research. Remember? The one about Fairy-type Pokémon.”
To illustrate her point, she held out the neatly decorated folder in her hands. Its shiny pink cover, adorned with carefully drawn golden lettering, practically lit up the room.
“As planned, like every start of the week,” Dexio confirmed. “As you've always planned, at this exact time…”
Augustine looked at them one by one. Sina, then Dexio. Dexio, then the folder. The folder, then Sina. Exasperated with himself, he shrugged, pretending it was a simple lapse of memory.
“Ah, yes! Where was my head?” he said. “Just set it here, that’ll be perfect. Wait, no. I’ll take it, don’t trouble yourselves.”
The duo narrowed their eyes in a mix of suspicion and uncertainty. As if he were the kind of person to forget something he had asked for himself… Still, they let him proceed as he began to walk toward them.
One thing was certain: his assistants were not fooled, and they had noticed his distress. Hard not to, when his absentmindedness had led to a chronic inability to focus on anything. But exhausted as he was, he preferred not to add another layer of worry. His neurons were already working overtime.
His knees buckled under his weight the moment he took a single step.
“Professor!” they cried in unison.
Augustine nearly collapsed, saved only by Dexio’s quick reflexes. The boy grabbed his arm before he could hit the laboratory floor. Sina, her folder now forgotten, tossed into some dark corner, looked utterly frantic.
“Sweet mother of Mew! You’re going to end up killing yourself!”
He wanted to laugh. The sound died behind his lips. “I’m fine. I’m fine…” he repeated on loop, pushing away his student’s hands with only the faintest resistance. He didn’t want to become a source of anxiety for others.
“You’re ‘fine’?!” the young girl burst out. “Professor, we just watched you come this close to fainting!” She pointed sharply at her classmate. “Quick, Dexio, let’s get him to his chair. Before he finds some excuse to slip through our fingers.”
Before he could protest, they had him seated again in a matter of seconds, back in the spot he’d been occupying just minutes earlier, surrounded by his familiar clutter. The furniture creaked under his weight, creaked again when he tried — and failed — to stand back up, Sina gently pressing his shoulder to keep him in place.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re staying right there, Professor.” Her tone was sharp, yet her eye held worry. “Tell me, have you slept lately?”
He wanted to fire back, with something clever, eloquent, false, purely to reassure them, but gave up, his trembling fingers meeting his forehead, which felt burning hot to the touch. A shiver crawled up his spine. Nothing was going the way he wanted. Not at all.
“Well, I mean… I may have missed two or three nights.” he admitted, in what he thought was a light tone. The small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth did nothing to help his case. Quite the opposite.
“Two or three nights?!” Dexio choked, so severe that for a moment Augustine thought he was the student and not the professor. “You’re completely irresponsible! At this point it’s suicide!”
“What could have gotten you into such a state, Professor?” Sina asked. Her voice was calmer now, bordering on a whisper, as though she feared shattering something fragile within him.
Yes — what, or who, had shaken him so deeply?
He didn’t know what to answer. Where to begin? The story would be too long, too pitiful to deserve being shared. He felt pathetic. Dead weight on the shoulders of innocent assistants, all because of an incident that wasn’t even worth a Litwick. His eyes closed. Outside, Kalos was enjoying a sunny, beautiful day, unaware of the suffering of its assigned professor. The contrast didn’t escape him.
Seeing his silence, the young girl let her arms fall, distress written across every part of her face. If the intellectual known for talking for hours on end became reserved, the problem was serious. She grabbed a full water bottle — the one her companion had retrieved from one of the room’s poorly organized shelves — and handed it to him, not missing a quick exchange of nods with Dexio, the meaning of which only they knew.
Compelled to drink, and not knowing what else to do in this stalemate, Augustine placed the bottle’s opening to his lips. The liquid slid slowly down his throat. The water was lukewarm, but surprisingly, it hit him like an icy slap. His eyes widened: his jaw felt like crumpled paper, dry and rough. How had he not noticed how thirsty he was? Anyone else would’ve been unable to utter a single word!
Had he really neglected himself this much? The question no longer needed asking.
The black-haired man finished the bottle in one go, avoiding the eyes of the other two, ashamed of his own foolishness. He who never wanted to bother anyone was now the king of fools, crowned with his own failures. Why was he so… himself? He set the empty bottle down, the crinkled plastic breaking the silence.
“Thank you…” he finally breathed, lifting his eyes at last toward his students. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”
His voice cracked on the last syllable, like an old scratched record repeating the same tune. The assistants, both of them, were struck head-on by the sight: Never would they have imagined they’d one day witness the collapse of Kalos’s famous Pokémon Professor, who always seemed flamboyant, charming, and cheerful whenever he appeared in public. It just went to show : appearances were a poor measure of truth.
They weighed their words carefully, searching for a gentle way to approach Augustine, their hearts aching at the sight of their mentor’s wide grey-blue eyes.
“Professor,” Dexio began cautiously, one hand resting on the desk, “you don’t need to justify yourself for this. We should be the ones apologizing. You’re human. Even though we sometimes forget that, with how hard you work. You have the right to feel unwell.”
He let out a laugh. Joyless. “Human, human… a particularly stupid human, yes!”
“Oh, no!” Sina cut in sharply, following Dexio’s lead. “If you start speaking badly of yourself, where will the world end up?” She folded her arms. “You’re the most empathetic, the most intelligent, the kindest person we know. You’re always helping others, whether it’s with research, studies, Pokémon battles, or just everyday problems, even if it means taking care of yourself last. You’re constantly thinking about others. Always others first. You’re not stupid… just… just exhausted! What you do is exhausting! Anyone else would’ve had a burnout already! You need to rest!”
Augustine felt his breath catch. Empathetic, intelligent, kind. Is that how they saw him? His chest tightened with emotion. He hadn’t considered — had never considered — the impact he could have on others.
He had never considered himself someone charismatic. Certainly not the way Cynthia had been, for example, back when they studied together under Professor Rowan. It was no coincidence that she had become the Sinnoh League Champion while he had become a professor. It took formidable shoulders to bear such a title. Shoulders he was convinced he didn’t have. He had never held a very flattering opinion of himself. If he did anything, it was because he believed it was simply the right thing to do, and out of love for the world, for people, and for the creatures inhabiting it. Not to be admired. In fact, he didn’t want to be admired.
And yet, here they were, holding up to him, without evasion, the very mirror he had never been able to face: that of a man who, despite his clumsiness and his anxieties, mattered to others.
He looked down at his fingers, thin and tense, intertwined around the wooden edge of the desk as though he feared this realization might burn him. Now he was afraid to live. To be. He inhaled, trembling. Exhaled, the breath half strangled. What good was admiration if he couldn’t save the ones he cared about? He was no role model. He never would be, not in this lifetime.
He pushed aside his musings. He didn’t want to think about them. Not today. He knew he couldn’t escape them forever, but he would keep running for as long as he could.
“Sina is right, you know,” said the blond boy, pulling him from his thoughts. “You must be tired beyond exhaustion. No one can keep up a lifestyle like that.” His voice held something almost brotherly—or rather, childlike without truly being childish. The tone children use toward the parental figures in their lives when they don’t seem well. “You know what, Professor?” he continued. “We’ve got something to propose. Here’s what we’re going to do: we’ll take care of everything for a week, and you, you’ll rest. We’ll handle things so well you won’t have anything left to worry about.”
“Yes!” the young girl agreed enthusiastically. “You’ll be able to sleep, eat, breathe, think about what’s bothering you and everything else! Without someone knocking at your door every ten minutes for a signature, an authorization, or whatever! We’ll handle it, we promise.”
“Exactly!” Dexio added, placing his hands on his hips. “And if you try to protest, I’m sure we can make an arrangement with the League to keep you out of the labs. Not that you’d be able to get much done anyway if you keep nearly fainting like that…”
The professor blinked, caught off guard. Their words were meant to be humorous, but their expressions suggested the opposite. A week away from the laboratory? Without his files, his colleagues, his pending experiments, all the structure that allowed him to distract himself (though it hardly worked) from the obsessive case of his friend? The dull panic crawling up proved that he didn’t agree with this idea at all, no matter how beneficial it might be for his health.
“A… a whole week? You two are insane, I can’t possibly—”
“Professor.” Sina interrupted, so firmly that he fell silent. “You can’t afford not to. You’re no longer effective in this state. And you know it. We can handle your work for you, but we can’t manage your personal relationships.”
“How did you—” he began to protest, stunned.
How had she known that the source of his misery was someone? If she knew that, then it stood to reason that she and Dexio knew who that someone was. How could that be? He had said nothing! And he had plenty of other friends besides Lysandre, thank you very much!
…Actually, that wasn’t true. Most of his acquaintances either lived far away or no longer saw him. Still, that wasn’t the point!
The duo didn’t give him the time to dwell on it. Efficient, he had to admit, at steering him away from the thoughts gnawing at his mind, even if only for a moment.
“Your week off starts now, Professor,” the young girl announced, her warm skin glowing in the sunlight filtering through the windows. “We’re taking command of this place! We’ll get you settled on the couch for a while, warn the people on the first floor to leave you alone… but you’d better actually take care of yourself!”
“And absolutely no tricks. Real rest. No work,” Dexio instructed. “With a few hours of sleep behind you, you’ll be able to see everything with fresh eyes, guaranteed!”
Augustine let a crooked smile pull at his weary features as they gently guided him toward a comfortable black couch in the corner of the room. Usually he was the one who let others use the couch when they were too exhausted to make it home after pulling an all-nighter at work. He even kept blankets and other comforting items around just in case. Now he had been bested! Those two, what schemers!
Still, when he felt the soft wool settle against his aching limbs, he listened to his body’s wishes and let himself sink into the cushions. He felt somewhat ashamed to be in this position, he, the adult, usually responsible for his assistants. What must he look like, swallowed by an oversized blanket way too heavy for him ? Certainly nothing impressive.
But he was relieved to know he could sometimes say stop. Stop to the world, stop to the violent pace existence demands. Even if this stop had been forced upon him by two companions watching over him with care.
He flushed when he saw their slightly amused expressions.
“I can never thank you enough…” he confessed. “You’re the best assistants I could ever dream of having.”
“And you’re the best Pokémon Professor the world has ever known!” the blond boy grinned.
“Come on, let’s go! Let’s give him the rest he’s been waiting for.” Sina pointed to the door. “Remember, professor: Rest. Up.”
“Yes, of course.” He chuckled softly. Just a few laughs. Barely audible. Only a few seconds. But they helped. Tremendously.
He was glad to count them among those close to him. He could already see their bright futures unfolding on the horizon. They would become great trainers and great researchers. The black-haired man truly hoped he would be there to witness it.
He waved to them until they disappeared completely from the office. And so, Augustine was alone again in the room. Alone, surrounded by blankets and cushions.
He sank deeper into the cushions, his thoughts instantly reclaiming control over his reason. He wouldn’t be able to sleep — forgive me, dear assistants — and his lack of rest did nothing to improve the situation: the professor was reduced to a mere spectator of his own worries. This soft fortress had something cruel about it, in truth. He was obligated, despite himself, to think about the events of the past few days. And their possible consequences.
Lysandre… what is going on in your head, mon ami? he lamented.
His eyes half-closed, the gray ceiling he stared at without truly seeing seemed to mock his internal complaints.
It had all begun the way one of those strange days begins. The kind one recounts as though it had seized their destiny without them realizing it. Those dramatic days that start like all the others, promising an ordinary routine, almost boring, yet in their final hours twisting a man’s future until he can no longer recognized his own habits in the mirror. A day promising nothing catastrophic, a day holding the potential to become so in just a few words.
It had been a beautiful day. Exactly like today. Augustine had woken up on the right foot, made good progress (a rare event) on Mega Evolution, after all, it remained his main field of research, and then headed to Café Lysandre, as he always did whenever he was about to passionately share his latest findings. Since they were both responsible for innovations in their respective fields, their discussions were often pleasant.
The café, bearing its founder’s name, was a reflection of him. The red walls embodied the passion of the entrepreneur behind the country’s most famous laboratories. The ambiance was lively, mirroring the fiery eagerness of the man with flaming hair when he grew fond of a topic. The drinks were reputed to be delicious, and the aroma of freshly ground beans constantly filled the room with a scent that had become familiar, associated with the wealthy figure whom Augustine suspected of knowing a few secret ingredients that allowed his employees to produce the best espresso in all of Lumiose.
He still remembered the crystalline chime of the bell as he stepped inside. How the staff, accustomed to seeing him, greeted him while continuing to serve the other customers. How some voices fell silent when Lysandre invited him to their usual table, away from prying eyes. “The walls have ears,” claimed a saying. Unless that too was a quote from his friend.
The café was a gathering place for intellectuals, scientists, celebrities, and the leading actors of Kalosian society, an esteemed elite, never short on information or imagination when it came to making themselves known. Yet even they were compelled to acknowledge Lysandre’s presence whenever he entered a room. The towering redhead was the most active philanthropist of the era, going from charity balls to social-improvement initiatives, from high-class meetings to press conferences and sought-after media events.
His influence stretched across the entire region. Moreover, he was the creator of the Holo Caster, a technological marvel allowing anyone in the world to contact one another through holograms, no matter where they were. If that wasn’t proof of good intentions, the professor had no idea what would be.
When Lysandre spoke, people fell silent. When Lysandre walked, people made room. When Lysandre smiled, people bowed in gratitude.
His unmatched charisma was what had earned him his place in Kalos. He lacked no allies, quite the contrary. So when Lysandre invited you to his table? You could only comply, admiration stretching across your face.
Augustine did not remember the small talk they exchanged, nor the taste of his drink. Only its color: deep black, surrendering all light to darkness. But he did recall how the coffees had followed one after another, naturally, swallowed in a single breath without regard for the passage of time. Debating everything and nothing. Laughing, fuming, complaining, lamenting… It felt good to be listened to.
That was when things went wrong.
The hours had slipped away, vanished, turning the blue sky into an orange tapestry. They were the only two left; the baristas had already gone home. The natural light traced the contours of Lysandre’s black and crimson designer clothes, in contrast to Augustine’s simple cobalt shirt, which he wore nearly every day without much thought.
The contrast between them had always struck the black-haired man. His friend looked as though he had stepped out of a painting worthy of display in the Lumiose Museum: not a single lock of his fiery mane strayed from its intended place. Not an accessory was pinned where it shouldn’t be. A perfect appearance, fitting for someone who boasted of being a direct descendant of the ancient kings, even if such information held little importance in the modern era.
The professor could have been his complete parallel. He was chaos — a clumsy sketch scribbled in the margins of a middle-class student’s notebook, too eager to learn so he could explore a world whose beauty he never grew tired of. A world he had, in the end, never truly seen. He had stopped at the edges of what he knew, out of pure, simple fear as he grew older. The energy of a child receiving their first Pokémon was not the same as that of an adult burdened with responsibility, painfully aware of his poor skills as a trainer, forced to give up on his dreams — but never mind that. He was disordered order, a button in another buttonhole, a fragment of the universe that no longer fit back into its original place, an integrated outsider unsure whether he should be proud of his path or oblivious to the loss of his way.
That difference had brought them together in the past. It was where they found their strength, their ability to understand one another, their “camaraderie,” if one could call it that.
Today, Augustine no longer knew if that was still the case.
A shadow had fallen over Lysandre’s face. His icy irises fixed upon the cups forgotten by the previous occupants of the neighboring tables. Augustine hadn’t understood what he saw in them. They were only cups, a simple oversight from rushed customers. Yet the haunted way his friend observed this lack of organization gnawed at him. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Lysandre behave… fastidious, he’d say. But this time, something was different. That mere disorder seemed to embody a wound he refused to let heal, now that he thought back on it.
“This is exactly what drives me to despair,” he had murmured, setting his umpteenth cup on the table.
“What is?” Augustine had replied, bewildered.
“Humanity.”
The word cracked through the air. He was used to Lysandre saying strange things without giving context beforehand. Still, a shiver had run through him at that single word and all its implications.
The expression of the “Visionary” was frozen, but his gaze burned with a devouring flame that would have incinerated everything in its path, had it escaped.
“Look around you,” he had said, gesturing toward the deserted café. “People consume, then leave, indifferent. They use, use, and use again to the marrow, over and over. They take, steal, soil, then forget. They touch what is beautiful and leave waste behind them. They’re convinced they love the world even as they destroy it bit by bit. This reality irritates me. And yet, everyone applauds because they call it ‘living.’”
Augustine had assumed it was sudden exhaustion. It happened often, after all. A release after intense stress was common, especially in his position.
“People live, mon ami,” he had tried, with a reassuring smile. “It’s normal to leave traces of their passage. Of our passage. We, too, will end up dirtying the places we visit. It’s even what makes us human!”
He had emphasized the last word with a cheerful flourish, thinking it would easily draw Lysandre back to the surface of his gloom. If they were going to philosophize, they might as well do it positively, right?
A dry, almost mocking laugh had answered him.
“Human? You speak as though it were a virtue.”
Disturbed, the professor had tilted his head, brow furrowed. “Yes? You love humanity too. Otherwise you wouldn’t organize so many endeavors for its benefit.”
The redhead had laughed louder, his shoulders shaking with an emotion Augustine couldn’t name. Despair? Something told him they were no longer in the realm of philosophy, if they had ever been. The concrete called for action. Lysandre had always been the kind of man to act immediately. For the better.
“That is precisely the problem,” he had continued. “My actions have proven to me that no matter what decisions are made, Man remains the same.” His tone grew sharp. “People destroy what they love. The cycle is absolute. They want a better world, yet they kill without remorse. They want healthier nature, yet abandon its ecosystem as soon as they settle. They want better technology, yet refuse to share resources once obtained. My friend, have you truly observed humanity without your veil of optimism?”
Augustine was taken aback. He no longer recognized the person he had known. For the first time, it was horror — not fear — that gripped him. Had Lysandre’s ego been bruised so deeply that he was losing hope, unable to see his progress influencing the world on a large scale? Barely leaving a notch in the machine’s gears?
“Lys…”
“No. Let me finish!” he had snapped, refusing to let him speak. “I can’t turn away from the truth anymore. Every time I do, it feels like lying. Lying to myself.” He tensed, his nails digging into his own skin, the pain transferring physically. “You are a good man, it’s an admirable trait. But your kindness blinds you. I can no longer afford to be blinded.”
Augustine hadn’t known whether he should respond, or whether he even had the right to. He had known his friend’s ardor. He had appreciated it, admired it, hoped one day to honor it. But, in that moment, it left him cold with dread and with an abnormal impression of anger that he preferred not to acknowledge. It was just a bad moment, everything would sort itself out, right? He could help him through it, right?
Yet, despite all his good intentions, a dark foreboding had blossomed in his soul.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, yes, but with more than that. It is a road everyone walks long before they realize it. Lysandre, however, strode straight down, steady, head held high.
“I can understand your frustration,” the professor had spoken, “but… isn’t hating the world a bit excessive? Its flaws are what make it beautiful, aren’t they?”
And then, Lysandre had stood up, towering above him. Augustine expected a scowl, a hint of displeasure, a flicker of annoyance — the expression he usually wore when they disagreed before ultimately accepting each other’s opinions. A return to routine. A sign this confrontation was temporary. That they would go back to their initial state, unchanged in their bond.
Instead, a terribly sorrowful rictus had split his face in two, like a guillotine falling on a condemned man’s neck. The expression of a man without hope, indulgent in a horribly disconcerting way, lamenting the childish thoughts of his interlocutor. The pained version of a loved one, laughing softly at the tears of someone who simply doesn’t understand.
“You misunderstand me. I love this world,” he had whispered. His voice had lost all hardness, and yet it was all the worse this way. His silhouette stood stark in the cold air of the once-warm place of conviviality. “What I lament is what we have made of it. Tell me, do you know the second law of thermodynamics?”
Discord sprouted in Augustine’s mind. The more minutes passed, the less he knew where to turn. Was this the madness poets spoke of in their texts? A failure to distinguish imagination from reality? Ideal from feasible? The threat of ordinary disillusionment made monstrous because it wore a familiar face?
He knew the second law, though it wasn’t part of his research. He simply didn’t see what place it had in this conversation.
“In an isolated system, global entropy can only increase,” he recited, worry etched into every line of his face. Where was he going with this?
“Precisely!” Lysandre exclaimed, his smile widening. “Every ordered system progresses inexorably toward its predetermined end. A chaos advancing on a calculable path. The end, our end, is self-constructed. Our end is ourselves!” He lifted his hands toward the sky, as he often did before launching into one of his grand speeches. “We live in a society built on isolation; is it not logical that this law applies? Everything points to it: loss of identity, normalized violence, exponentially growing populations unable to live from their own resources, social death… Humanity is the origin of its own entropy.”
The man with dark curls was taken aback. There was truth in the tirade. Humanity had committed many wrongs, and would continue to do so. History was cyclical; its echoes travelled through the ages, bad behaviors transcending eras. But the way he expressed it… Augustine couldn’t help but see a dark shift he hurried to forget.
“I love this world,” Lysandre said. “More than all the riches anyone could desire in a lifetime. But humans have corrupted it to the core. Kalos has seen its ancient beauty decline under the relentless assaults of its contemporaries. It needs a guide, someone to restore what can still be saved. Some are chosen, and must act. I am willing to make that sacrifice. A sacrifice for a world of beauty, a perfect world. I will repair this world as its chosen one, tearing out its rot at the root.”
Suddenly, he turned away, apparently convinced he had explained himself enough. Shocked by his final words, the professor rose and grabbed his sleeve. He couldn’t possibly have said what he’d just said, right? Augustine must have misheard.
“Wait! What do you mean by that? At least let me walk you home!”
His grip had tightened around the quality fabric. It wrinkled, wrinkled beneath his fingers, its perfect pressing fading. You’re not in any state to go home alone! he would have screamed, powerless. But no sound came out. When someone says “repair the world,” is it the same as “save it”? He had no idea. “His friend” didn’t seem interested in dwelling on that nuance.
Lysandre had wrapped each letter in cotton. Then urged him to let go with a single look.
Softening the words hadn’t changed their brutality.
“You understood me perfectly, Sycamore.”
He had taken a few steps forward, inspecting the damage done to his jacket. His back was rigid, military. A soldier in a war beyond him, marching toward a battle whose final outcome he already knew.
Lysandre cast a glance over his shoulder.
“I fear what the world will do to you, mon ami. Unless it broke you long ago already.” His eyes, those ice-blue eyes, were empty. Abyssal. “On that note, I wish you safe travels. We will meet again soon, when Kalos is restored to the sublime.”
And he had crossed the door, disappearing into the twilight-soaked streets of the capital. The bell chiming with the toll of a funeral knell.
And Augustine — always Augustine — remained alone.
He tore himself away from his memories. He blinked. Once, twice. The images faded, the environment of his office redrawing itself. He remembered where he was. The lab, the gray ceiling, the cluttered shelves. Ah, yes. His mind had carried him far away. How surprising…
The professor needed to clear his head; there was no other solution, or else who knew what he might be capable of? He was exhausted, unable to bear facing his own powerlessness any longer. His incompetence. Everything he was not and had failed to be for those he cherished.
He slipped toward the first papers he found, stacked haphazardly near the couch. If he couldn’t sleep, he could read! Reading was restful, it counted as a break!
The stapled pages bent between his fingers as he turned them. The black-haired man was surprised to recognize the text in question.
The title at the top of the page was short, leaving no mistake : The Legends of Kalos.
Its author was an elderly historian named Madame Toinette, specializing in Kalosian folklore — or more precisely, who had specialized in it. Apparently, her life had ended the night after submitting her manuscript, making it the last she ever wrote. If Augustine was supposed to interpret any sign from that, it was a rather unwelcome one.
The reason for her sending it was as simple as the title. Unfortunately, the folklore of their region no longer interested many people these days. So, as a last resort, and struggling to find funds to continue her work, the historian had decided to contact the well-known professor of Mega Evolution, thinking that a man with such a strong reputation in scientific circles might be passionate about such a complex subject.
A pity he was only reading it post-mortem. Between his repeated failures in his own field of study and his personal troubles, he hadn’t had time to focus on anything. For all he knew, he might soon end up in her situation as well, unable to finance his own projects.
Augustine shook his head, skipping the preface, an assortment of polite formulas and scholarly remarks written in a style from another century, in black ink (who even writes theses in ink these days?). The rest appeared mainly to be references to texts from Ancient Kalos, taken from the historic buildings of Shalour, translated into modern Kalosian.
This interested him, but not more than that: every child already knew what was told here, albeit in a slightly more formal, academic form. A great war — aptly named the Great Kalos War — broke out 3,000 years ago between two neighboring kingdoms. The king ruling Kalos at the time mobilized every Pokémon he could find, forming the most destructive army in the region’s history. The dead numbered in the thousands on both sides, humans and Pokémon alike. Even today, archaeologists occasionally uncover the buried remains of victims from the conflict, making it difficult to estimate the exact toll.
Among the casualties was the Kalosian king’s favorite Pokémon. Chronicles describe the monarch’s descent into madness as he retrieved the body of his beloved creature, wrapped in a small box no larger than a jewelry case. Yet the historical records end there, as grim as they are. Scholars continue to debate what became of the sovereign afterward. All that is known is that Kalos emerged victorious, somehow. At what cost? Nothing had been found. Some speculate it was due to an innovation, others a military strategy beyond comparison. But these theories could not be verified. It’s as if everything had been obliterated, leaving future generations unable to learn the truth. The king’s fate is perhaps the most mysterious of all. He, too, seems to have vanished from the annals, leaving no trace after that war. To make matters worse, few in modern Kalos are captivated by this war beyond the mandatory lessons taught in schools. Most of the population cling far more strongly to the Kalosian Revolution, which ended that dynasty.
However, legend holds that the king of the Great War, mad with grief and rage, succeeded in inventing a weapon. A weapon more powerful, more devastating than any ever made. A weapon made entirely of crystal, capable of granting immortality or annihilating entire civilizations, to whoever possessed it. Using the life force of others to power the machine, the monarch is said to have granted eternal life to himself and his companion. Once accomplished, he allegedly turned the weapon against those who had dared harm his Pokémon. Blood, tears, ruins. The king destroyed everything in his path, leaving no chance of survival for his enemies. But the Pokémon, horrified by the consequences of its newfound eternity, abandoned him, unable to bear witnessing the monstrous acts of the man they had once known.
The sovereign, realizing the full extent of his crime, was overwhelmed by his own monstrosity. Flowering plains turned into fields of white ash, ancient forests ripped from their gnarled roots, families torn apart by the loss of loved ones… The king supposedly went into exile, hiding the weapon so that no one could ever find or use it again. So it would be forgotten, lost in the labyrinth of memory. Since then, it is said, the former ruler of Kalos wanders, incapable of dying, desperately searching for his cherished Pokémon and trying to atone for his sins, condemned to drown in his guilt while forever watching over a world he himself helped destroy.
No one knew whether the story was true or not. Personally, Augustine did not believe it. It all seemed fantastical to him. What man would go so far, merely to repair a loss?
Still, he could appreciate the passion of fellow scholars for their chosen subjects, and he admired the nuanced writing of Madame Toinette, capable of conveying a gentle melancholy across the ages. He regretted never having known her in life. She must have been a wise woman, capable of teaching him many things.
Yet Augustine’s gray-blue eyes were already reading the note, almost invisible at the bottom of the page, catching his attention.
[The One Who Gives and The One Who Takes were key actors in the Great War. Eternal and Immutable, they are the two sides of the same coin. Beginning and renewal. End and restart. Life and death feeding off one another. See more, page 44.]
Augustine frowned. The sentence ended abruptly, cut off by a trembling hand. The last words frayed into a streak of smudged, dry, and frantic ink. The One Who Gives ? The One Who Takes ? He had never heard those titles. Who could they be? Deities? And how could they have played a role in the war? Without waiting, the black-haired man turned the pages to reach the indicated spot.
The text in this section was even more erratic. The writing resembled a personal journal, full of vague remarks and spontaneous reflections. Surely the historian hadn’t had time to finalize her work and was offering hints to her reader, hoping he would be intrigued enough to assist her, thus creating more questions than answers. Lack of funds, lack of time, lack of resources. The needs were many, and she had died taking her research to the grave.
[I recently discovered ancient remnants of the passage of The One Who Gives and The One Who Takes, and everything points to the possibility that they are Pokémon! These primordial beings of Kalos rule over life and death; this is not insignificant! I truly believe I can prove their existence to our society! If I succeed, the scientific world will have to reevaluate everything it thinks it knows about Kalos’ founding myths.
A dawn stag, bearer of light and hope. A shadowed corvid of silence, draped in the shrouds of souls. Both lie dormant, awaiting their hour. When Man arrogates divine rights, the true divine awakens. One of the two reclaims what is owed. They advance side by side. Entities of necessity.
But these two gods cannot operate alone. Each needs a bridge. An intermediary. An exceptional being sharing their power. A bearer. A rider.]
The word seemed scrawled, underlined repeatedly in a feverish gesture, until the paper tore. The ink spread as though Madame Toinette had written in a rush, or had been driven by a consuming inspiration.
His fingers clenched the paper as he continued reading. He was captivated. Captivated by what was being told. It was thrilling! Who would have thought such a legend existed?
[So far, I have mainly found signs of The One Who Takes. Perhaps he is a more visible, more active element than his counterpart. No matter, the important thing is that I am convinced of the reality of these myths! I promise to shed light on all of this!
The bearer of the corvid’s mark will become the witness of decline and the guardian of the threshold to the other world. He is neither savior nor jailer. He is a messenger first and foremost. At least, that’s what I could find, which isn’t much. Do you know how long it takes to translate texts in ancient Kalosian that no one wants to read anymore just to find a tiny bit of information? No? Not at all! Who is he? How is he chosen? What are his powers? What is his purpose? I don’t know and I cannot know! Blast! There are ruins in the Forêt de Brocéliande. I would love to explore more deeply! If there is anything to discover about The One Who Takes and the rider, it’s in the Forêt de Brocéliande! Perhaps it could even change the entire destiny of Kalos! If anyone is reading this, come to the Forêt de Brocéliande! Hurry!]
The text ended there. Not a single word more. The hurry was highlighted and circled in red.
Augustine took a deep breath. He had almost forgotten to breathe, so absorbed was he in the subject, erasing all other thoughts. Well then! He knew exactly what he could do instead of thinking about the one-he-shall-not-name, sleeping, or brooding over his problems! Who would have thought he could be kept in suspense like this?
Pokémon capable of giving life and death? Riders? Ruins? As a Pokémon Professor, he could not let this pass. The opportunity was perfect. He wasn’t sure how true the legends were, but at least it would allow him to break the inertia that had gripped him for days. This wasn’t escapism… no, he refused to see it that way. Nor was it avoidance of his problems and responsibilities. Of course not! It was just…uh…a redirection! Yes! A redirection of his energy! A healthy and productive refocusing of himself. Not an escape. Not like those he usually took, like the worst of cowards.
The Forêt de Brocéliande was only a few hours west of Lumiose. So close! With a bit of luck, he might even find clues about Mega Evolution in these old fables, regardless of their veracity. He could leave immediately!
Madame Toinette had provided a map on which she had marked the location of the remnants, pinned with a round label. The place probably hadn’t been visited for centuries; perhaps no one had ever found it besides the historian.
Augustine sprang to his feet, leaving the warmth of the couch. His head spun. He grabbed the armrests to steady himself, his heart racing. He was fine. Perfectly fine. Everything was as it should be. A small expedition wouldn’t hurt him.
He grabbed his satchel, left on the coat rack near the elevator leading to the building’s various floors. The worn brown leather was soft. It tenderly reminded him of his years as an apprentice under Rowan. He had never replaced it, out of nostalgia or a desire to return to simpler days, time would tell. The professor stuffed the historian’s map, his holo-caster, a flashlight, and, after a brief hesitation, some empty pokéballs inside.
He was still a mediocre trainer, but it was better to be prepared for anything. If a wild Pokémon attacked, who knew! Even though he had no partner (ironic for a Pokémon Professor), that detail wouldn’t stop him. After all, his job remained that of a researcher, and researchers only needed a notebook and a bit of courage to advance. At least, until the elevator whisked him swiftly down to the ground floor.
With unsteady steps, he crossed the deserted laboratory reception. The outside light, a brilliant orange filtering through the evening air, shone like a border between the imaginary and the real. Dexio and Sina hadn’t lied when they said they would tell his colleagues to leave him alone. Everyone had gone, abandoning test instruments, tubes, machines, computers, and so on. Augustine wouldn’t have been surprised to hear later that the duo had literally kicked them out. He would have been deeply moved if he didn’t feel as though he were betraying them now, cutting short their efforts.
Stopping, he wondered if it might be wise to call them—or at least leave a message. But as he continued walking, he quickly dismissed the thought before it could settle in his mind. Call them? To say what? That he was off to hunt legends deep in a forest? They would rush to pin him to his bed, claiming he needed to take care of himself. No way. They had their methods; he had his. His curiosity, a blazing flame, burned too strongly within him—and this burn was far preferable to the bitter flame of regret.
So Augustine Sycamore, the sole Pokémon Professor of Kalos, director of the Lumiose City Laboratory, and respected Mega Evolution scientist, ignored the warning signs of the catastrophe looming on the horizon, just as he had thousands of times before and would do again, boarding the first train he found heading west.
The landscapes flew by for a good two and a half hours. The concrete city crowned with its tower of light gave way to golden wheat fields grazed by Tauros. Sparse pines with verdant needles were followed by mountain chains capped with eternal snow. The train stopped at a station lost between two major hubs. Needless to say, no one except him got off. People probably didn’t even know the stop existed; it was so dilapidated it barely clung to its makeshift pillars.
From the station, a short walk was required, about twenty minutes, take it or leave it. And during those long twenty minutes, Augustine felt as if he had stepped outside all modern civilization. Humanity’s mark hadn’t reached nature as much as it had elsewhere. Roads didn’t exist, left to their natural state of earth and mud. Cities no longer existed, leaving only distant villages, rustic points on a canvas of orange-blue fading to black, dusted with luminous stars. It was like stepping back in time, a past worthy of the pastoral illustrations of old poems by classical authors with complicated names.
Yet the forest brought a whole different atmosphere.
He stopped at the edge of the woods, observing the vastness of the Forêt de Brocéliande. An infinity of trees of every kind stretched before him, their leaves intertwining to form an opaque barrier, hiding their secrets from sight and sound. Weeping Willows with drooping hats, White Poplars with trunks scarred like countless eyes, challenging him to enter their lair, massive Oaks crushing the roots of their neighbors with hammering weight. And the Sycamore trees… slender and twisted, veins beneath bark like a patchwork of pale stains.
A gust of wind rushed through the canopy’s shadow where he stood. He shivered. He looked down at his dust-covered shoes, then back up into the darkness from which the groans of nature emerged. In the end, he regretted not bringing at least one pokémon with him, but he would manage without. It was just a forest, nothing too dangerous! Grasping his flashlight, he crossed the clear line of moss separating the meadow from the forest of countless mysteries. Then he went in. Went deeper still, the ground less firm, never tread by human feet.
“Even the chirping of bird Pokémon fades here,” Augustine thought aloud. “Fascinating!”
Thinking back, the Forêt de Brocéliande had always been a place of mysticism, though little explored. A place so vast and singular had to untie tongues, giving rise to myths to explain what could not be explained — or had not yet been elucidated by some pompous academic armed with logical arguments. When humanity could not be satisfied with what it sensed, failing to reach satisfying conclusions, it invented, embodying the pleasures of dreams that became stories.
One of Augustine’s favorites was the tale of the Knights of Aegislash. It was said that around a round table, a king blessed by the famed sword pokémon gathered twelve knights, exceptional trainers from the most prosperous regions of their world. Each swore never to separate until they had recovered a magical artifact granting ultimate power to its possessor. Unfortunately, none of the knights knew what the artifact looked like. So they swore never to harm or wrong others, following a principle of equality among themselves during their quest. Men and women alike, they promised mercy to anyone who asked, never to fight in pointless quarrels, to respect the honor of their own, and to remain loyal to their sovereign. Their journey led to numerous adventures, each more extravagant and perilous than the last. But as with any tale, tragedy was inevitable. The thirteen friends killed each other, driven by selfishness and greed. They forgot their noble promises, abandoning principles and values, envious of others’ possessions. No one knew what triggered the conflict, as the versions of the legend differed. However, the outcome was the same: the monarch and his knights died by their own hands.
The professor didn’t know why he enjoyed the story so much. After all, it was rather morbid. Perhaps, as a child, he had been captivated by the idea of a chivalrous odyssey worthy of the best novels — a tale of friendship, even if it ended badly. As a kid, everyone liked that, didn’t they?
Was having had a friend once more enviable than never having one at all? Even if that friend causes you pain?
He shook his head. No, he didn’t want to think about that. Anyway, he had just arrived at the location marked on the map.
Emerging into a wide clearing, Augustine felt his breath catch. The trees formed a dome above him, stained-glass colors shifting in the falling night. Their membranes of ivy and ferns galloped over the ground, dotted with scarlet flowers like drops of blood. The sweet scent of the plants was omnipresent, overwhelmingly intoxicating.
But that was not the reason for his shock.
It was the ruins. The ruins of a castle.
Built from white stones, the palace was overrun by the red of flowers. They looked like scars, unable to heal. Having not witnessed its youth for centuries, the remains were shattered into pieces. It would have been impossible to distinguish what had once been the ballroom from the dungeons. Destroyed tables and chairs lay scattered in the grass. That they had survived the passage of time was a miracle.
He chuckled. He who had thought of a childhood legend, now found himself in a place worthy of it. And he would likely be among the first to explore it properly! To whom had this fortress belonged? Who knew what surprises it might hold?
The deafening silence was broken by the sound of his steps. Entering the ruins, he focused on what he saw. Traces of “The One Who Takes”… where could they be? He needed to hurry; the place was enormous! He couldn’t explore it all in one night. Augustine shone his flashlight on the walls. Illegible arabesques spread across the surfaces. Yes, he could start there.
Walking along the colorless stones, he mentally noted the unknown symbols. Some were iconographic, resembling scripts he had learned to read in Sinnoh, when his teaching companion had been obsessed with the myths of her region. Apparently, he had inherited some of that, he thought fondly. The old boards of the floor groaned under his weight, step by step. That pointed sign? It must be a crown, meaning “the leader.” The spiral? “The fall.” The spike surmounted by a wave? Either “ascent” or “drowning.” The meaning of the complete phrase would have to be verified once he got home, but he was proud to see that his efforts were paying off.
Suddenly, he stopped. The professor had reached the end, at the far end of the corridor he was following. His fingers brushed against a decorated fresco, the dark pigmentation slightly flaking. Shining the beam of his light on it, his jaw dropped. There it was! This was what he had been looking for!
The painting stretched across the entire wall, from left to right. His current theory was that it was one of those pictorial representations kept in the reception halls of ancient nobility. Ones that could still be found in Kalos’s historical monuments attracting tourists, capable of holding hundreds of people and Pokémon at once. The excessively colossal proportions of the ceiling reinforced his idea: the statue of the Golurk from the Chaydeuvre Palace could have been stored here.
Augustine looked at the beginning of the fresco, at the far left. If he was right, it told a story, read from one side to the other, as old peoples often did when engraving their tales on temple and tomb walls.
The first scene depicted a battle. Villagers, warriors, men and women in armor, mounted on monstrous pokémons, broke the defensive lines of an invisible enemy or were crushed by them. Petals had adhered where blood splatters should have been. A man in golden armor charged alongside another with ink-black long hair, disproportionately tall. The one in golden armor had an Aegislash at his waist. Sinister scratches ran across the black-haired man. In the background, the blurry figure of a blue stag watched the battle from afar, its antlers haloed with dawn. Near it, a black bird spread its wings, bathing in the glow of an indiscreet moon. It looked directly at the man in golden armor.
The One Who Gives. The One Who Takes. So they were really Pokémon! Madame Toinette had been right! he marveled. She had said they played a role in the Great Kalos War; the battle depicted here must be one of those battles from 3,000 years ago. And the black-haired man—the king of the Great War!
But who could the man in golden armor be? Nothing in history suggested that the king of Kalos fought alongside anyone. An ally? The Aegislash reminded him of the legend of the monarch and the twelve knights… but that was just a myth. Yet, if the two deities were real and not merely an artistic flourish, it would be another true legend. Perhaps even the myth of the mad sovereign’s immortality was true!
Augustine lacked information. He continued his exploration, reading the rest of the fresco.
Where the first part was relatively well-preserved, the second deteriorated visibly. The king of the Great War had… white hair? Or had the paint completely flaked off? He was moving away, leaving a field of destruction. The tale of his wandering? Only his back was visible. But the man in golden armor continued to fight. Except this time, it was no longer his enemies he struck. Twelve knights were his victims. They screamed as his sword-pokémon fell upon their bodies. Their wounds blackened and rotted. Yet they continued fighting, among themselves or against him. The One Who Takes mirrored the movements of the golden knight in the foreground, the two inseparable. A tear ran through the mouth of the god of death. The One Who Gives was no longer present.
The betrayal of the Round Table, realized the professor. But this power… and The One Who Takes? Could it be that…
He found his answer in the final act of the fresco, at the far left. This ultimate stage of the story was even more damaged. Barely visible, the figures could no longer be distinguished individually. A jumble of hands, arms, legs, and faded clothing frozen in cold stone. The only recognizable figures were The One Who Takes and the man in golden armor, centered on the mural.
However, the man was no longer golden. He and the deity stood, one behind the other, making clear the threat they represented. True to previous depictions, The One Who Takes had its wings widely spread, shadows tearing across the painted sky. Its figure covered almost the entire rest of the fresco, a cloak of darkness seeming to engulf everything it touched, accentuated by centuries of soot. And the man… the man who had worn a knight’s helmet until now, no longer did. His armor gone, his mid-length black curls fluttered in a drawn wind. His dark cobalt clothing was cracked with ash-gray, as were the painted veins pulsing with wild energy. And his face… His face was no longer a face. It had been hollowed, erased in the wall, eroded. Yet his eyes — two brush-stroked gray-blue spots — pierced through him.
Augustine ran his fingers over the crevices of this non-face, this senseless absence. The stone was cold, rough, almost damp under his touch. Dead matter.
Why… why did the knight in golden armor… the king of the Round Table… look like him?
He stumbled backward. His shoes produced a horrific crack on the rotting wood. A strange intuition pierced his neck, whispering that this mythical figure truly resembled him. With a little concentration, he could even place the features of his own face there, the features he had seen a thousand times. He grasped his chin, closing his eyes. How was this possible? It was unbelievable! He had to go home now and take notes—
The floor gave way beneath Augustine’s feet.
The boards, in a deplorable state, snapped cleanly, taking their unsuspecting prey with them. They had waited a long time — oh, how they had waited! — for him to let his guard down, leaning on the wood that threatened to splinter at the slightest pressure. The professor let out a horrible scream as he fell. He fell. He fell. He fell. Falling endlessly into the deep darkness. There was no up or down, only the violent descent, the air in his lungs crushed. No handholds, no way to stop. The poor black-haired professor was at the mercy of gravity.
He landed harshly meters below, his breath knocked out. His body cramped with pain, his ribs torturing him. Great, he must have broken some. Lying on a bed of sharp stones, his back likely began to bleed, the sensation of viscous liquid running across his shoulder blades, staining his shirt, was unmistakable. He hoped, at least, that his wounds wouldn’t be fatal here, alone, separated from everyone.
It took painful effort for Augustine to rise. Blood continued to flow. His ribs insisted he stop. But he could not wait forever; he did not intend to die here! He cursed his lack of attention regarding the state of the castle and, perhaps a bit, his recklessness about his physical condition when he had decided to venture into the forest. He could now see the consequences, but he preferred to reserve personal reproaches for later. The imperative was to get out.
Groping forward, he retrieved his satchel, which had flown far from him, grimacing as he bent to pick it up. Luckily, all his belongings were intact. Brandishing his Holo-caster, he entered his position and immediately contacted the authorities, hoping that his message would be received. He crossed his fingers that he would be retrieved intact. Dexio and Sina would also receive the message, but that mattered little now. They would, rightly, have cause to be angry. He had acted foolishly, after all.
Having done that, he analyzed his surroundings. It was a sort of cavern, a natural antechamber of stalactites and rocky formations. The palace must have been built just above. Surely, it had served as a wine cellar, a secret gathering place, a dungeon, a treasure hideaway, or other locations useful to a noble who somehow wanted a grotto directly beneath his important living spaces. From below, the professor could see the hole he had fallen through, far too high to climb back up, the rocky walls too slippery, and his body too exhausted to manage on its own.
He had really messed everything up this time, hadn’t he? He laughed nervously. Augustine Sycamore, in all his glory!
The laugh — painful, of course, otherwise it wouldn’t be funny — echoed through the cavern. It multiplied, returning its sonic brilliance to its owner. “Grim” would have been an understatement.
Well, what could he do? Rescue would take forever to arrive, and without outside contact, he could easily starve before being found. After a brief deliberation, he opted to progress deeper into the cave. If he were lucky, an exit would present itself, making everyone’s work easier.
Augustine gritted his teeth. Sweat glued his hair to his scalp, his limbs trembled. The mere act of walking tore agonized cries from him. He was a researcher; he knew well that walking with broken ribs was the worst idea. But if he did nothing, he could well be abandoned. That was like choosing between the plague and cholera.
Using his flashlight, flickering weakly from the impact of his fall, he moved slowly. Eventually, he reached a smaller rocky chamber.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw inside.
A round table, broken in two, lay there, surrounded by 13 chairs. The chairs had been overturned, shattered, their backs slashed by sharp blades. It was the stone statue of an Aegislash that had cleaved the table. Who could have brought a statue to a place like this? He wanted to ask to no one in particular. But the question died before it could leave his lips, at the sight of the other statues surrounding it.
All were frozen in mid-action. Their mouths twisted, their eyes radiating hatred, shields raised, swords ready to strike. Some had already fallen, embedded in the necks of their frozen rock adversaries, who barked insults that never escaped their sculpted mouths.
That wasn’t the most disturbing part. Where these 12 statues (where was the king?) battled, other statues were present, far more modern. From all eras up to the present day, these sculptures shared the same horror. They shielded themselves with their hands in vain, curled in despair, their scalps tearing under their own fingers’ assault.
Their eyes all pointed in the same direction.
Every single one.
Augustine could have turned back. Oh, he could have! And he should have! Statues this sinister would drive anyone to flee instantly. Unfortunately, he was not just anyone. And being not just anyone drove people like him to neglect themselves unknowingly, or to not care. His curiosity was ravenous, too much for his own good.
An… egg. That was what they were staring at. No, thought the professor… more like a cocoon. A black cocoon, with some gray spots. What kind of Pokémon could produce such a thing? He was confident he knew most pokémon in the Pokédex, but none came to mind that made a cocoon like this. Red energy escaped from it, curling like smoke.
He should leave. He really should leave. This cocoon spelled nothing good. Statues, an increasing pressure in the air… something was amiss.
Yet, his body moved on its own, driven by a strange adrenaline. He forgot the pain, forgot why he had come. Forgot his purpose. His sense of self. His palm closed the distance between him and the cocoon.
Barely touched, the cocoon opened.
What happened next sealed his fate. Unless it had already been sealed long before his birth.
The pressure increased, again and again, growing ever stronger. Augustine felt oppressed. His nails clawed at his torso, gasping as the air became scarce. His chest convulsed. What…
The cocoon expanded, revealing wings of terrifying gigantism. Red-and-black Y-shaped wings, veined with rivers of obsidian. A beak, then a tail covered in dark blades. Wings tipped with claws of nothingness, pressing the unfortunate like overripe fruit, then four pointed horns, ready to tear flesh. A collar of gray fur encircled the neck like a comet’s trail, absolute and annihilating, followed by two talons capable of cutting through entire armies.
And two eyes. Two immense azure eyes, reflecting the professor’s blue-gray eyes. Mirror to mirror.
He was already a dead man.
“Yveltal.”
The name forced itself into his mind. The One Who Takes.
The beast let out a cry that made the cavern walls vibrate. Augustine tried to grasp its head but could not. Pain. Pain. Pain! Such unbearable pain! Why did it hurt so much? He would have done anything to stop this suffocation. His mind frayed, taking with it the last remnants of his sanity. If he could have run, he would have. But he remained rooted, a bittersweet madness finding its way into his heart.
The repeated cries transformed into words within him. Thousands of voices, men and women, rushing through his brain, struggling to process the signals he received.
“You have finally awakened me, little heart,” said the corvid mortals called Death, “I have waited for you all these years. For millennia I slumbered, dreaming of your arrival. Rider, my chosen, centuries I have begged for your presence in my domain.”
The voice, unreal and breathless, seeped into his bones in a profoundly unsettling way. Insidious; resistance was futile. The Reaper always claims its due. And now, the Reaper rejoiced.
“Little heart,” continued the god, “let your solitude fill mine! Carry me, and I will carry you. You will never be alone again.”
His back burned all at once, radiating down his spine. A hoarse moan escaped his throat. He tried to tear off his shirt, but his arm froze. He was not whatever this is! Not its rider! He was not…
But nothing moved, nothing emerged. His head spun. He felt himself falter. Something stretched inside him, as if two invisible fingers were pulling the very fibers of his being from his ribcage.
Yveltal lowered its red-and-black head, its beak brushing Augustine’s cheek. But delirious, he did not care. This creature could kill him. Let it!
It — they did not. A cold warmth emanated from the deity, almost curiosity in these winter moons that had witnessed the beginning and end of all things. When the professor wavered, Yveltal caught him, holding him with a talon.
“You belong to me as I belong to you. That is the pact...” A smile, without mouth, lips, or form, appeared, almost tenderly. “Come now, little heart, your time will not come. Your friends await. They cannot lose you. Go.”
Augustine felt the ground recede beneath him. Or perhaps he was lifted. An explosion of sound, then nothing but beyond comprehension. The statues, the cavern, the entire castle vanished as Yveltal spread into the skies. Everything was only a warped night, red and black, like an eyelid closing. Nothing obeyed him anymore. He was so tired…
What had he done ?
“Sleep. I will guide you.”
And he obeyed, the voice now beautiful. Protective, maternal, making him forget whom he trusted, stealing the last thread of consciousness he had left. He was cradled, his pain turning into pleasant warmth, as if dressing a dying person on their final day. The world contracted, merging into forms indistinct through half-closed eyes. His pulse slowed, mirroring the pokémon’s.
Then he fell again, but this time the fall was controlled. He lay on a bed of grass, the air perfumed with moss and earth. He was no longer in the cavern. No longer among the ruins. He was at the edge of the Forêt de Broceliande. The very place where he had hesitated before entering. At the boundary between worlds.
One of the pokéballs from his bag rolled to the ground, and the god entered it with a tilt of its head. Leaving no trace of its passage.
In the distance, sirens and cries could be heard.
“Professor! Professor!”
“Professor, are you alright?”
“Oh no!”
But he no longer heard them. He finally slept. The blurry world transformed into a world of shadow, carrying its most faithful dreamer along.
In an isolated system, global entropy can only increase.
Today, entropy had found its champion and master.