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Don’t Look Back

Maximus’s love was encased in concrete. Pitted surfaces serrated by careful brushstrokes along the casket’s exterior, bent down toward the floor and flowing like waterfalls in the quiet tomb. No pleasantries. No light. Only something perverted could exist in a place like this, unsanctimonious and hiding.

Caked-on dust fell from the walls with each rattle. Decades-old mortar falling out from between neatly laid bricks, jostling the casket’s contents like kernels on a steel pan. Dust and residue and long-forgotten breaths.

One brick fell, crashing haphazardly onto the cold, hard floor. It collapsed into a heap of scattered crumbs. A hole poked from its place, a ray of yellow-orange light piercing the gloom. Landing perfectly atop the casket’s head, illuminating the epithet thereon: CERES.

A little eye poked through, gazed upon the splendor of a pitch-dark room, then bent back. “Yep,” he said, his voice muffled through the concrete. “This is definitely it.”

More jostling. More rustling. The Machop got to work once more, shoving his wedge between the bricks, then hammering it with a closed fist. The bricks shivered and slid, breaking apart at the bottom, before disintegrating inward. The ray of light grew wide, accompanied by feverish grunts.

“Do you really have to do this?” Colm asked. He waited behind the little Machop, arms crossed, a finger held pensively upon his lip. “This method is quite slow. Can’t you just kick it down?”

The Machop wiped sweat from his brow, replied: “That’s not safe.”

“This isn’t a load-bearing wall,” Colm insisted. He was serious. “And the Key is basically indestructible. Just knock it down.” Pause. “Please.”

With a roll of his eyes, the Machop relented. “Fine,” he said, and turned toward the brick. “But if something inside gets damaged, don’t blame it on me.”

“I would never,” Colm replied, even though he absolutely would. He then sat down upon a decrepit bed, a plume of dust rising from its rough, browned sheets, and watched. A tiny portion of fabric rubbed between his violet fingertips. Dirt tickled his sinuses.

Maximus had ordered him here. Through forest and stream and sunshine, Colm and his soldiers trudged. Through a rich neighborhood, across paved streets, covered in mud and detritus, their visages only seen through hastily drawn curtains. Crudely griping and yelling and bickering.

Something was here. And while Maximus had referred to it as a Key, Colm knew never to trust his word. A tiny artifact of great power, hidden away aside a miniature mausoleum. The Kecleon had never known Maximus to have a flair for the dramatic; much the contrary, in fact. But of course, Colm supposed, everyone hid their worst habits. Especially in high governance.

With bated breath, the Machop then leaned backward, pulling his fist into a tight little ball, and careened it squarely into the brick. The ground shook. Dust clouded from the Fighting type’s fist.

Thwump.

A solid chunk fell inward, crashed against the hard floor. The Machop then pulled away, covering his face, and coughed. He shook his sore, red knuckles.

With a condescending smile, Colm reassured: “Good job. Just one more. Go on.”

“You know how much this hurts?” the Machop grumbled. His face was pressed into a screwy frown. “Even for someone like me, breaking through cinderblocks isn’t easy.”

The Kecleon rolled his eyes, prodded: “Then evolve. Don’t you Fighting types usually do that?” He picked at his cuticles, not even gracing the Machop with a glance. “If I could evolve, I would’ve done so at the first opportunity.”

The Machop bit his tongue; if he could, he would’ve punched a hole through the Kecleon’s smug grin. But he instead mustered his courage, grimacing, and reeled his fist back. Another punch, like a comet, flew across the dust-streaked air, and collided squarely with the brick. Disintegrating into rubble, it streaked the cold ground. A ray of electric sunshine shone like a spotlight into the dinky mausoleum, no larger than a walk-in closet.

“Done,” the Machop said, and motioned inward. “Now, it’s your turn.”

Colm took no offense to his tone, replied: “Of course. Thank you.” And, daintily, he stepped over the knee-high concrete barrier. His fingertips grazed the cold stone as he steadied himself; and then, he was in.

Nothing was left but to find the Key. The Kecleon took one tentative step after another, his shoulders nearly grazing the walls. Little piles of dust crunched and shifted under his feet. And there, only a few steps in, was the shrine. A coffin carved into white stone. Long-decayed flowers and organic matter wilted over its surface, staining it brown.

And there, in the midst of it all, was a shimmering tablet. Black, glossy, its words handily carved, inlaid with aurum. Colm could hardly bring his gaze away from it. Transfixed, he stepped forward once again, outheld his hands, and –

Clatter.

Colm’s foot hit something. Hard, and dry, and sizable. Looking for only a brief moment, a flash of white appeared in his peripheral vision. Rocks. Bones, maybe. He looked away.

“You okay?” the Machop called. He shoved his nosy face into the hole, not-so-secretly happy to see Colm disconcerted. “You drop something?”

Colm was breathless as he replied: “I’m fine.” He then moved his foot, kicked the object to the side, as he tried to convince himself of it. Anxiety stabbed his stomach like an icicle.

“I’m fine.”

The Kecleon then extended his greedy hands toward the tablet, picked it up, and examined it by the light of a distant bulb. A language which Colm had never seen; and yet, he found himself inextricably drawn to the inlay. Latent energy pulsed against his palms. An electric heartbeat.

The Kecleon then hurriedly withdrew himself from the cold tomb, wrapping the Key in a scratchy cloth, and shoved it in his satchel. As he hung his foot over the brick once more, the Machop asked: “You find everything alright?”

“Yes,” Colm replied. Anxious sweat wafted from his frame. Something about that room had deeply disturbed him; like he wasn’t meant to see it at all. As absurd as it sounded, it felt like something was watching him.

So, not knowing exactly why, the Kecleon turned to the Machop and ordered: “Seal that back up. Now.”

The Machop was taken aback, but his loyalty quickly got the better of him. He sighed exhaustedly, then affirmed: “Sure. I’ll get right to it, sir.” And he bent down, began to replace the bricks with new, fresh-baked ones. One by one, stacked on one another, sealed by a thin layer of mortar. Little rays of light, stretching into the mausoleum, severed.

“Oh! One more thing,” the Machop called. Colm was caught awkwardly in the doorway, hovering, wishing desperately to leave.

Looking over his shoulder, sweating, the Machop probed: “How’s the monster? Is she in her room?”

Colm nodded, not even meeting his gaze. He breathed: “The asset is fine. Resting in its room, like always.” Pause. “It’s always in there when I come to visit.”

Then, Colm left. His feet slapping against the cold ground, he trudged past the dormitories and sick beds, making a beeline for one particular door. Impulsive, anxiety-ridden thoughts pounded against his aching skull. The subtle hummm of the Key tickling his palms.

“Madeline,” he called. His form was a mere shadow in the doorway. “I have something to show you.”

She glanced upward from her meal with an excitable smile. A stuffed toy – a Snivy – tumbled from her lap. Chocolate smeared across her grinning lips. She let out a few excited squeaks, extended an arm. Colm did not reciprocate.

“I take it you’ve been enjoying the candy,” the Kecleon said. His voice was deadpan, like he didn’t expect much. He then brandished the Key, turned it toward Madeline, and asked: “Hey. Tell me… have you ever seen this?”

In only an instant, Madeline was entranced by the thing. She slowly moved her brown-stained hands from the chocolate bar, putting it to the side, as she stood and neared the tablet. With an ironclad grip, she held her plush against her stomach. Those big, black eyes transfixed by the tablet’s shimmering inlay.

“Do you know what this is?” Colm asked. His voice was gentle. “Have you ever seen it before?”

But obviously, she hadn’t. She’d never felt something like it before, either. Her pudgy fingers grazed the glossy stone as awed breaths fell from her mouth. She liked the way it vibrated against her fingers.

With a squeal, Madeline then lurched forward, wrapped her arms around Colm’s shoulders. The two were locked in a begrudging hug; Colm completely stiff, the Key stuffed against his chest, while Madeline squeezed and contentedly hummed. Her breath invaded the poor Kecleon’s nostrils, made him nauseous. A mixture of soft, human skin and furred flesh tickled his scales.

“Thank you,” Colm muttered, intent not to upset her. Disgust welled in his stomach, threatened to lurch out; he then gently shook her off, stepped backward, and took a breath. Madeline’s touchiness had always perturbed him.

From his pocket, Colm then removed a scant few monochrome photos, wilted and folded from travel. Madeline watched with giddy trepidation.

Taking in a deep breath, regaining his composure, the Kecleon flipped them outward. And he said: “Okay, Madeline. I need you to focus on me, alright? See these Pokémon?” He shook the photos. Four of them – a Lucario, a Meowscarada, a Sylveon, and a Cinderace.

“These Pokémon are dangerous,” Colm confided. His tone was grave; Madeline’s smile fell. “They’re mean people, Madeline. And soon, they’re going to be coming here. They want to hurt us.” He pointed toward the plush toy. “They want to hurt your baby, Madeline. You don’t want that, do you?”

Instinctively, the Raichu gripped her plush harder. Strained breaths billowed from her second face, puffing hot air backward like an exhaust pipe. Her fur stood on-edge; and she whimpered: “Baby?”

“That’s what they want,” Colm affirmed. He watched as Madeline eyed each of the photos in turn, her jaw jittering and chewing. “But we’re not gonna let them take your baby, right? We’re gonna catch them, and we’re gonna fight back.” Colm smiled. “We’re gonna make sure you and your baby stay safe. But you need to make sure to listen to me, okay? Can you do that?”

The monster nodded. Her eyes were glazed with concern now, her gaze wet. She assented: “Buh. Buh.” Shuffled her foot nervously against the floor, swiveling in a little pool of dust. Truthfully, it was as much as Colm could hope for.

He then silently replaced his photos, shoving them inside his pocket. A sly smirk glowered upon Colm’s cheeks. But just as soon as it’d arrived, it fled; replaced by an inquisitive head tilt, a closed fist.

“Tell me… how much do you understand me, really?” Colm asked. His tone was flat. “Do you understand when I tell you things? Or am I wasting my time?”

Madeline didn’t reply. She stared at him, her lips quietly muttering, as if she spoke a language of her own. A silent, august prayer.

Frustration made Colm sigh, flick his gaze to the walls. Smeared with geometric shapes, black and brown. A big sun, below which faces stood. Faces only Madeline remembered.

“Come on,” Colm begged. “You met Akiva, didn’t you? Back when you were children?” Colm bit his lip, aware of the scandal such a question might raise. “What can you tell me about her? Is she really as powerful as she says she is?”

But if Madeline were aware of Akiva, she didn’t show it. Her lips mumbled all the same, her gaze flitting nervously from the wall, to the floor, to Colm. She hugged her plush closer, drawing it to her breast, as if to feed it; another hand petted slowly across its head.

Like always, Colm was left with little to discuss. No matter how much he prodded, Madeline never seemed to speak coherently. There was, however, a silver lining to her condition; she was the perfect confidante.

“The soldiers outside completely lack discipline,” Colm confided. He leaned casually against the doorframe, his hands hanging loose against his sides. “And news is, back home, Akiva is having trouble maintaining her duties. They might just have to sack her.” He laughed. “I just hope they don’t dump her responsibilities onto me. I’m busy enough as-is. Haha.”

His smile, his laugh, then tapered off. Despite his openness, Madeline could never truly connect with him. Just smiling, looking, breathing. Colm always yearned for more; for someone to share in the insanity he’d curated. Someone who was on his level.

“I just don’t know what to do with you,” Colm said, absently. To no one.

Madeline watched as he marched into the hall.

— — —

Waist-high ferns washed over wind-rippled fur. Moonlight threw itself against their squinted eyes, flashed across the blue-lit path, and swallowed them up. Four writhing bodies, careening through a dense pine forest. Thin needles pricked at their feet.

At the front, predictably, was Rubrum – that middle-aged Lucario, still as spry as a pup – carrying a limp body, draped over his arms like a bloody curtain. Deep red and seeping. Its nose was crooked and snotty, bent awkwardly toward the waning moon, its scaly exterior bruised and beaten. Two limp vines still lolled from the sheathes along its back, trailing along the wet grass.

The lot of them crashed into their camp like a swarm of insects, rapidly disseminating and fumbling supplies. Rubrum kneeled down by the long-doused fire, laying the sputtering corpse upon a mound of soft dirt. Helpless, he watched as the blood dribbled from the Snivy’s lips. His eyelids fluttered.

“What the fuck did that monster do to him?” Maestro asked. Breathless, he gathered a mound of gauze, stooped in the mouth of his tent. Dirt stained the front of his mask, caked along the edges. Adrenaline made his hands shake.

_“Is he moving? Is he breathing?” _

Rubrum could hardly respond. He placed his paw gently above Sid’s mouth, felt for air; but hardly anything came out, save for little iron-tinged breaths. Sid’s chest spasmed and sputtered, pumping globs of coagulated blood from his throat, flailing against his tongue and then sinking into the void of his stomach.

“He’s inhaling blood!” Rubrum called. Motioning for Asher, he yelled: “Hold him on his side! Now!!”

And so the pair of them – one grizzled Lucario, and a scar-skinned Cinderace – flipped the tiny Snivy. A torrent of blood-soaked mucus shot from his lungs, mixed the detritus into a dark paste. But even so, Sid couldn’t draw clear breaths; tiny coughs wracked his weakened body, his limbs and neck bobbing against the cold air.

“Fuck, we don’t have time for this,” Maestro yelled. He gazed around the wood, his hands at-ready, as he looked for humanoids amidst the boughs. Breaths condensated against the inside of his mask. “We need to go now. There’s no telling who followed us here! We’re not safe.”

Fey, his face scrunched with stress, barked back: “Not without Sid. We can’t leave him behind.”

“Fuck, I told you I should’ve burned the door down!” Asher yelled. He held his warm paw steady against Sid’s back, feeling the last spasms of his diaphragm. “Maestro’s right, we gotta move him before–”

“We can’t move him!” Rubrum exclaimed. His eyes wet and desperate, he then leveled with Sid’s face. And as calmly and quickly as he could, he said: “Sid. Hey, Sid. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

Sid didn’t last long enough to answer. His head suddenly wrenched backward, a wretch-cough thundering from his tiny lips, before his arms began to twitch. Blood swelled within his cracked skull, pounding down on his soft brain; the neurons within began to asphyxiate and rip. Screaming, they sent electrical impulses within his well-wrought spine, one last-ditch effort before giving up; and so the Snivy coughed and convulsed, his neck red and strained, his tail whipping violently against the ground. Even his vines, hitherto limp, spasmed and swung, gripping mindlessly at the night air.

“Fucking hold him down!” Rubrum screamed. It took all his strength just to maintain his grip on Sid’s torso. “_He’s seizing! Hold! Him! Down!” _

And so, with gritted teeth, Asher grasped at Sid’s vines, held them steady; Fey gripped his legs, while Maestro kept watch on the perimeter. An Energy Ball glowed impatiently in his outstretched paw.

“We really need to go!” Maestro exclaimed. “If he’s a goner, then–”

“–We’re not leaving anyone behind!” Fey yelled. His ribbons wrapped tightly around the moribund Snivy. “We’re not letting anyone else die! We can’t!” Frantic tears made his big eyes wet. “I’m not losing anyone again!”

But Sid was nearly gone. Those strong convulsions soon gave way to faint twitching, the residual choking of a dying man. Blood had already pooled within his lungs, oozed out in a thick sludge over his tongue. His head felt very, very, very hot.

And from within Sid’s skull, he saw nearly nothing. Dark figures encroached around his body, light as a feather, poking and prodding, holding him tightly. But there wasn’t any pain. All the suffering which once plagued him, all the doubt and worry and sadness. It was all becoming a memory, now.

From behind them, rising near the tree cover, was a miasma. Cloudy and dark and familiar, threatening to drift into the Snivy’s orifices. Drifting closer, closer, closer. Grimm. Sid couldn’t even say his name anymore. But his eyes betrayed it – opened wide in one final show of recognition. His beloved was here.

Rubrum deftly flipped the boy onto his back, placed his palms above his heart, and laid his full weight down.

Crack. One rib. Crack. Crack. Two more. With wide eyes, Rubrum thrust his paw into the Snivy’s chest, manually pumping the boy’s heart.

“Please!” Rubrum shouted. “Stay with me, Sid. Stay with me! Please!”

And to the side, the others watched. In deafening silence, filled only with the grunts of a desperate animal, they saw the life leave him. Sweat pooled on Rubrum’s brow. A frightened scowl heralded the inevitable.

“Come on!” Rubrum yelled. “Sid, come on! Answer me!

Answer me!”

— — —

Ninjask buzzed in snow-capped trees. Perforated by the clacking of chalk, and the soft brush of a blackboard eraser. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee. Entire days passed by outside the classroom window. Sid watched the day melt into night, then back. Eons of loss.

“It’s all too much,” Sid muttered. His ass curled against an uncomfortable wooden chair. His legs dangled above an off-white tile floor. And he looked ahead, toward the blackboard, toward the love of his life. Voices in the void.

Sid said: “I don’t think I could lose anything else.” He shook his head in exhaustion. Light careened over his face in waves, shifting in-time with the rising sun. His eyes were heavy.

Grimm smirked. Like a lecturer, he stood in front of a wooden bureau. Dust flew before his face. He asked: “How much have you lost, Sid?”

“Everything,” the Snivy replied. Sadness weighed in his stare. Just like he’d always wanted, Grimm spoke to him, one last time. One final chance to say goodbye.

How should he feel? What should he say? Sid didn’t know. Waves of emotion passed through him, wracked him, as he tried to put himself to words. But nothing seemed to fit. He just stared, with trembling lips, until he vomited: “You abandoned me.” Contorting and spewed, breaths bent into a strange oblong shape. Deep sadness burgeoned in his gut, filled up the rest of him, and spilled out.

“Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for leaving me behind.” He sniffled, echoed through the empty classroom. Sunset orange glazed his face, danced along his abdomen. “I devoted my life to you. I loved you. I loved you more than anything.”

Sadness choked his heart. Sweat beaded on his palms. And tenderly, through tear-beaded eyes, leaning over the desk, he asked: “Grimm… why did you leave? You knew how much you meant to me, so… why?”

Grimm glowered. Unmoving, staring, a marionette. In that gravely, familiar voice, he replied: “Sid… I gave you all the time I could.”

“And yet it was so little,” Sid said. “You and I were supposed to raise a family some day, do you remember? We were supposed to have a future. There was so much. And when you died, you took it all away.” He breathed heavy. “You were the only family I’ve ever really had. Am I supposed to just move on? Find someone else?” He looked askance, whispered: “You know I could never do that, right?”

Grimm touted a knowing smile. A warm, empathetic smile. Even in Sid’s worst moments, he was acutely reminded of that face. Coming between the rows of desks, extending his arms like a saint, the Gengar asked: “Sid… would you rather have died with me?”

The sun passed below the horizon, those last dim flecks of yellow-orange settling across Grimm’s miasma-tinged mien. And subtly, moonglow began to illuminate the white speckled tile, washing blue and grey over the desktops. A melancholic expanse. Sid took a deep breath.

“I just don’t want to live without you,” Sid admitted. He squirmed against his own words, like they would burst from his skin. Something rotten bubbling up from his lungs, disbelief at his own sadness. “A–and if that means we both die, then… that’s fine. I can accept that.”

The Gengar took a step forward. The school rocked around him, teetering like a ship. The floor creaked and shifted, the roof bubbling like a stew. Little bits of drywall and brick and mortar collapsing onto themselves, morphing into a melange of color and light. Drips of cerebrospinal fluid breaking through and pooling.

“I love you,” Grimm said. Those same words Sid had heard thousands of times before, uttered with fading breaths. “I hoped my sacrifice would show you that.”

Sid slammed his hands down on the desk, stood atop the chair, and yelled: “I don’t care about your intentions!” Eyes shut, he clawed at his head, raking those blood-stained leaves across his nape. “What’s the point is this – all of this – if I can’t enjoy it with you? I gave you everything!” He sobbed: “Because I love you!”

Grimm simply replied: “But the world you’re building… it’s just not meant for us.”

“Then what’s it meant for_?”_ Sid snapped. “If it’s not meant for us, then why… why have we done all this? What was the damn point?”

In reply, Grimm pointed out the window. There, dancing outside the glass, were thousands of faces, bodies, writhing and dancing and kissing and dying. More lives than Sid had the capacity to understand. Millions of memories, each as precious and varied as his own. Entire flavors of sentiment which Sid had never felt, connections he’d never made, skies he’d never seen. Thousands of years’ worth.

“Think of all the Pokémon we’ll save,” Grimm said. Sid’s eyes glowed with electrostatic, slack-jawed, staring into the void. “Think about all the memories they’ll make, because of us. The love they’ll share. So, so much… isn’t that worth it?”

Frightened tears welled below Sid’s violet-bagged eyes. Somewhere in the darkness, in the infinite expanse of possibility, Grimm had found him. For a brief few years, they explored the world together as fledglings. Sid believed it’d last forever.

“But you’re more than just a memory,” Sid said. “You’re everything to me.”

Grimm then touched Sid’s chin, tilted it upward. Sid saw a beautiful night sky. Thousands of lives, twinkling against the star-lit backdrop. Entire lineages strung along rows of hydrogen giants, meticulously composed.

“Your heart has room for more than just me,” Grimm confided. His frame blended into the void of space. “You will find love again, and you will lose it again. Each as beautiful and unique as the last… this is the way of things, dear.”

Sid shook his head, muttered: “No… no. Please, I–I can’t. I’m not strong enough.”

The battered Snivy felt himself melting into that familiar smile, that familiar smell. Grimm took him in his arms, those tender arms, and cooed: “Sid… you are stronger than you could’ve ever imagined.” His vision was cutting out now, replaced by a deep, warm void. The last few stars began to twinkle and snuff.

“Do you know why I love you, Sid?”

Starlight was inside the Snivy’s chest. It danced and crackled like embers. Dejectedly, he admitted: “No. I’ve never known.” He sniffled. Nothingness filled his nose and dribbled down his throat. “I’m terrible. I’ve always been terrible.”

Grimm held the boy tight. He’d always wished Sid would be gentler with himself; that he could see himself through his beloved’s adoring eyes.

“I love every single part of you. Even when you don’t,” Grimm confided. Sid no longer felt the chair beneath his feet. Enveloping him, the Gengar whispered: “Before you, I had never met such a selfless Pokémon. So carefree, so beautiful, and yet so gentle… I never knew anyone like it.”

The Snivy chuckled, his lungs clogged with sludge, his eyes watering. “I thought the same thing of you,” he said. “When you shared with me your last…

“...oran berry in the back alley…”

“...swimming in you, our flesh touching.” Grimm and Sid relished in each other, entwining as their physical forms melted away. Laughing and touching. Lost in memories.

“You were always the first to ruin a serious moment with a joke, you know…”

“Oh yeah? As if you didn’t encourage me.”

“Seven years of driving each other insane…”

“Are you kidding me? You’re the only thing keeping me sane.”

“Haha, I hate you.”

“Well, I hate you even more.”

Something shifted in Sid’s chest. A great pounding, like a door being knocked down. And as if it were nothing at all, Sid said: “My heart isn’t beating.”

Grimm replied: “You’re dying.”

_“Finally.” _

The Gengar’s tendrils then pulled away, like a warm blanket lifted from a feverish body. Sid reached out his stubby arms, only to graze the edge of the mist; and Grimm said: “I’m sorry, my love… you can’t die. Not yet. Not here.”

“But–”

“You have to save them.” Grimm poked Sid’s chest; light seeped out, like liquid from a sponge. “I gave my life for theirs. That was my decision. The last wish I ever imparted.” Grimm’s eyes burned like stars. “Now, it’s your job to honor it.”

Sid was silent for a moment; gazing into twin red giants, his heart struggled to contract. His outline dissolved into a sea of light, spilling from his flesh. One last stop before the void. And desperately, with a non-existent mouth, he asked: “I’ll see you again though, right? This… this isn’t the end, is it?”

The world swam. No one spoke. Grimm didn’t dare.

Sid leaned into nothingness, whispered: “Please tell me this isn’t the end, Grimm. Please. I–I need to know this isn’t the end.”

And patiently, with a wry grin, Grimm replied:

“My love… it’s only the beginning.”

— — —

Maestro came close, laid a tender hand upon Rubrum’s shoulder. He said: “Professor, I think he’s…”

But he didn’t need to finish that thought. It was evident to everyone. The Snivy was limp. Laid atop a pile of fresh green-brown clover, gazing upward at the rising sun, beckoning from the treetops. His eyes saw nothing.

Rubrum’s shoulder blades rippled with each futile pump. Crouched over a Pokémon a third his size, hammering away at his little chest with steel palms. The sight was absurd. But Maestro could hardly tear the Lucario away.

“Please,” Rubrum begged. As if the corpse would listen to him, as if its soft flesh would bend and breathe. His legs cramped from squatting. Hoarse, breathless, Rubrum begged: “P–please, Sid. Please. Not you too. Open your eyes, please…”

And just then, Rubrum felt it. Something sticky, warm, oozing from underneath his palm. At first, Rubrum assumed he’d pushed his hands into the Snivy’s chest cavity; but upon pulling back, he realized it. What laid below him wasn’t blood, or viscera; it was a glowing, gelatinous substance. Coating Rubrum’s palm in a thin film, dripping off and rejoining. A big patch of it, stretching outward from Sid’s heart like a rash.

With wide eyes, Asher muttered: “What the…?”

White static reflected in Rubrum’s glasses, sat upon his wrinkled nose, adorning a begrudged smile. His chest fluttered, his voice cracked, as he announced to the rest: “I think Sid is… evolving.”

Maestro shot quick glances between the Professor and the corpse, now emitting a sizable glow. Lifting up his mask, his jaw slack, he yammered: “But how? Isn’t he…?”

The rash grew. It spread upward from Sid’s heart, visibly pulsating and glowing through his veins. That latent power which laid dormant within him for so long. Thousands of millions of cells breaking down their walls and joining, organelles and all, into a primordial soup of nucleotides and proteins and lipids. Like sludge, Sid’s glittering flesh dripped onto the ground.

“How is this possible?” Maestro asked. “I–is this good?”

But no one knew. Rubrum backed away, transfixed by the utter beauty of it, and replied: “Evolution has been tested as a medical treatment in Augusta. But results were inconclusive.” He shook his head. “It isn’t very well-studied. I…I don’t know.”

Butting his nose between Rubrum’s legs, Fey chirped: “Well, should we hold him down? Is he going to start seizing again?”

“No,” Rubrum replied. He laid a gentle pat atop the Sylveon’s head, rubbed between his eyes. His voice was dry and fatigued. “Right now, his body is dissolving into fundamental parts. If we touch him, we might interrupt.”

“So we just have to… watch?” Maestro asked. Obviously, he wasn’t pleased to realize his helplessness. “How long is this going to take? What happens if the evolution fails?”

To that, Rubrum had little answer. During his time at the Academy, he’d hardly researched evolution as a medicinal practice; but indeed, among the far-flung populations of Illumina, it was a sparsely practiced home remedy. By some, it was rumored to bring the moribund back from death’s door; but of course, the circumstances were so rare that empirical study was nearly impossible.

Rubrum frowned. Far more often, medically induced evolution failed, its recipients rendered into piles of protein-filled biomatter. All it took was one vital organ failing to reform. Brown-red-green sludge, spread across a pure white sick bed, crusted onto the sheets…

“We have to help somehow,” Fey protested. Despite his ignorance, his voice brimmed with foolhardy confidence. “Can he hear us? Maybe we could talk to him. Let him know we’re here.”

Asher, however, was nonplussed by the idea. Gripping Fey by his haunches, he tugged the reluctant Sylveon back onto his hindquarters, seated squarely within the Cinderace’s lap. “I think it’s best if we leave him be,” Asher said. “We don’t want to crowd him.”

And so, the four tattered soldiers rubbernecked. Stood awkwardly over Sid’s body, now gelatinous, shining iridescent white. Nutrient-rich cells, unspecialized and fused, pushed their way through Sid’s carotid arteries. Two spindles of white, just barely glowing through his pale green skin. His chest had been rendered a cavity of white static, burgeoning with flecks of red and green and blue. Like an ocean, tiny waves rippled across the surface.

Rubrum didn’t even realize he’d grabbed Maestro’s paw. His legs weak with anxiety, his eyes glued to the Snivy’s quaking chest. Long away, a Hoothoot howled toward the sky. The tree cover shook and showered leaves upon the glade. The sanitarium burned.

“Come on,” Rubrum whispered. He bit his lip, his palms sweating. “Come on, Sid. Come on…”

Like dye in water, a splash of white, luminescent liquid permeated Sid’s eye; spreading like a virus, it subsumed his glazed-over cornea, ate it all up, filling the entire socket, before creeping along the bridge of his broken nose, slithering from tooth to tooth. Half his face, utterly consumed and melting. Skin and bone undifferentiated.

Crack. Solid bone, flowing like liquid. Crack, crack. A moan shot from Sid’s mouth, gargling, like he was underwater. And his neck, wrenched to and fro, snaked along the grass, forcibly ejected from his body. Longer.

“He’s getting bigger,” Fey said, awestruck. “I’ve… never seen it from the outside before.”

Absently, Asher said: “I don’t even know what a Snivy evolves into.”

Like snot, white ooze leaked from Sid’s one remaining nostril, until that, too, was subsumed. Just a single eyeball, shaking and red, surrounded by a pile of white-hot mush. Sid could hardly form a coherent thought anymore. His experience was rendered an incomplete slurry of shape and sensation. A shooting pain in his right arm – or where his right arm used to be – supplanted by absolute warmth, absolute calm. Monochrome boughs and leaves swayed overhead. Somewhere, it sounded like someone was cracking acorns.

Smack. Crack. Crack.

“His spine is rearranging now,” Rubrum muttered. In gentle circles, he rubbed his thumb along Maestro’s paw. The Meowscarada gave him a squeeze.

Two arms, broken and extended. They inched over the grass, ten little liquid fingers gripping at the dirt, pulling themselves outward. Sid’s shoulders ripped apart from one another with a thunderous crack, parting like a bird’s wings. Sharp edges of Sid’s ribcage poked from beneath a frothing sea of white, reaching out to the sky, and then submerged once more. The subtle slosh-slosh of internal organs.

Like an arrowhead, a pointed nose then emerged from the sea of white; behind it, a globular skull, and two eyes, wide-open, waiting for their eyelids to form. Two glowing flaps parting in the middle with a tongue between, gasping.

A tentative smile spread across Rubrum’s sweat-laden lips. Holding Maestro’s paw tight, he said: “Arceus… he’s actually doing it.” A nervous chuckle. “Look, he’s reforming.”

Sid’s first breath was a deep, raspy baritone. In, then out. One big gulp of cold morning air, christening his new lungs. Like a Magikarp floundering on a dock, his arms shook, his lips puckering. Born again.

Leaves then began to sprout from his long, thick tail; just buds at first, then blooming out like flower petals, unfurling and glistening with moisture. His toes visibly curled. A strange, absent sigh fell from his lips.

“He’s regaining color,” Rubrum said. He shook his head in disbelief, giddy with excitement. “Just a little bit more. Just a little more…”

And just as quickly as the rash was onset, it began to secede. A thick white film peeling itself away from Sid’s right eye, revealing moist, untouched flesh underneath; a stunning viridian, hung above the mint flesh of his maw.

“Look at his nose,” Fey said. “It’s not crooked anymore.”

Next, Sid’s chest. The iridescent film ebbed in waves, contracting like a muscle above Sid’s heart. Sucking itself inward, leaving behind thin patches of moisture; tugging itself gently off of Sid’s little fingers and toes, still curled like a hatchling’s. The slop slapped and churned.

Soon enough, the undifferentiated mass had retracted itself from Sid’s flesh. Squirming over itself like a living organism, it fumbled and sputtered and glowed; and then, having accomplished its purpose, it retreated inside Sid’s chest, pummeling through an aperture no larger than a pinprick.

Then, nothing. No one moved. No one spoke. Four intent bodies, gathered round a shallow-breathed Servine. Watching as a gelatinous mass traveled around below Sid’s flesh, assumedly rebuilding his vital organs.

“Is he… okay?” Asher asked, his voice quiet and reverent. Internally, he wondered if his own evolution had looked like this. He then turned to Fey, spoke: “Maybe we should, you know, move him now–”

Then, Sid sat up. Much too quickly, like his spine had been pulled taut with a string; and from his gaping jaw flew a torrent of coagulated blood, spewing in chunks from his spasming lungs. Big balls of it, splatters of half-dried essence, forcefully ejected in a spastic cough.

Worse yet, Asher sat directly in the line of fire. Just as the Cinderace opened his mouth to speak, a splatter of maroon washed across his face, pelted his poor tongue. From his forehead down to his chin, the scarified rabbit dripped with blood. Gagging, he spat the chunks onto the grass, dropping pitifully to his hands and knees. Red-tinged saliva hung unceremoniously from his lips. And in the most pathetic voice he’d ever mustered, Asher said:

“Ouuuuuuuugggghhhhhhh.” A deep breath, and then: ““O–okay. Okay, yeah. I… I might’ve deserved that.”

His protests hardly shifted anyone’s focus. The others still watched intently as the former corpse miraculously opened his eyes, took in the sunrise for the first time; sharp air pummeled past his bloody teeth, entered his nasal passages, and filled him up. He shivered.

“Sid?” Rubrum asked. He was tender, laying a soft paw upon the Servine’s newly broadened shoulder. “Sid, can you see us?”

And indeed, Sid could. He turned toward Rubrum, awkwardly licking his lips, and cleared his throat. Several mouthfuls of phlegm flowed down his esophagus. His tongue felt strange inside his new mouth, like it didn’t quite fit right.

But nonetheless, Sid spoke. He breathed deep, rubbed his temples, and smiled. And with an exhausted chuckle, he said:

“It is so fucking cold.”

Immediately, the poor Servine was swarmed with exhaustive affections. Rubrum practically jumped onto him, wrapped his arms around Sid’s shoulders, crying out in joy; Maestro did much the same, ruffling the Servine’s head, petting the leaves upon his back. Fey erupted into giddy laugh-crying, burying his head into Sid’s chest with palpable relief. And Sid welcomed them all, touching their fur with new fingers. They felt different. They smelled different. Even the colors of the morning sun were set alight with new life.

Asher swiped blood from his face, then watched with a tight-lipped smile. For the first time in a while, his cotton-tail wagged.

— — —

A small quartz prism hung from Maximus’s window. Dangling on a thin thread, it gently turned amidst the currents of the air, shining an eternal rainbow upon the dank office’s walls. The century-old wallpaper seemed to greet the light like an old friend; fading together, slowly, into a wine-dark hue.

Maximus was working. This was not unusual. He was, however, sat in an unusual spot – to the side of his grand bureau, upon a smaller, lesser desk. Precariously balanced upon four thin legs, the sickly thing looked like it might fall apart any second; no doubt, it’d been tugged from some obscure attic, lugged down a few flights of stairs, and plopped there. The Alakazam hardly had any room for his legs underneath.

And in his usual spot sat, predictably, the one who’d taken such delectable pleasure in torturing him. Alvin reclined peacefully in Maximus’s plush chair, wrote upon Maximus’s desk. He even used Maximus’s stationery. The good kind, thick and durable. It even had his name embossed on top.

The Alakazam carefully dabbed his quill within the tiny well of ink, skirted the tip around the well’s edge, and began once more to write. His hand, stained black with ink, slaved across the page with all the enthusiasm of a ragged servant.

From the corner of his eye, Maximus watched for Alvin’s movements. Often, the Raichu would emote at nothing. A full-hearted smile, a tilt of his head. Enough to entertain himself given the absolute drivel he was forced to perform. But each time he’d move, Maximus tensed, if only a little.

The telephone rang just as the sun rose above the horizon. Beautiful orange light spilled through the dark curtains and graced the hardwood. The Raichu then fingered the receiver, gently lifted it to his chubby cheek, and listened. He stared off into the distance. A playful smile never left his lips.

Naturally, Maximus was intrigued. A whining voice spoke over the phone, just barely inaudible. Hurried and scared. Alvin gave a slight nod, but did not otherwise acknowledge the caller; and after only a few seconds, the Raichu calmly replaced the receiver.

The instant Alvin recused himself, Maximus knew. The realization made his chest grow cold. And so, like a schoolchild pestering a teacher, he mustered a breath and asked: “Update from Colm?”

Alvin nodded, went right back to writing. Without lifting his gaze, in a disinterested tone, he said: “An update from his soldiers. Colm is dead.”

Maximus drew in a deep breath, then let it go. Dust particles danced in the disturbed air. Tinnitus made his ears ring. Only the quiet scrawl of a pen’s nib disturbed it – no doubt placed upon his own stationery. Commandeered.

“It looks like they set the whole place on fire,” Alvin admitted. He tongued his cheek, playfully running his tongue along his sharp molars. “They can’t find a body.”

“And the child?”

Alvin smirked, replied: “Like I said, they can’t find a body.”

The Alakazam gave an absent nod. His long, bony fingers lightly twirled the shimmering strands of his mustache. They fell limply across his palm, the gentlest touch he’d felt in a century. And he breathed: “It’s always a shame when the children die.”

“Hardly a child,” Alvin chided. He sucked idly on his cheek, like they were wasting their breaths. His little nubby fingers just barely clung to the thick fountain pen in his grasp. Blue-black ink spewed from its tip and smeared along his hand. “Besides, that thing’s been alive for forty years. Death was a mercy.”

Maximus concluded: “I only wish I’d ended things sooner.”

The words left a stain on his lips. Petty notions of mercy and clemency were below him; and yet, he yearned for them all the same. A sort of wrong impulse, wracking his needle-sharp mind. A weapon with no direction. He turned it inward.

The beast’s breath shook. Maximus had been avoiding the subject, since it brought him such shame; but he could avoid it no longer. So he took a breath, tracing his eyes along the edges of his puny desk. He asked: “I assume the Key’s been taken?”

“Yes,” Alvin answered. “Once again, your subordinates have failed.” He cleared his throat, smacked his lips. He didn’t even give Maximus an errant glance. “Another stain on our legacy.”

Another. That word lingered in Maximus’s skull. Another stain. Another failure. More and more and more shit, piled up until it blocked out the sun, leaving him in the cold. The weight of his failures piled high. Aching on his poor lumbar. Bending and warping. Names, gone and unuttered.

Slowly, Maximus bent downward, as if supplicating; and then, he found it. A smooth, green, cold bottle. Unmarked, like the rest.

He raised it to the desk, hovered his long, brown fingernails over its rim; and with a tiny hiss, the cork safely popped. Floated by an invisible hand, it fell like a feather into the wastebasket. The glass met Maximus’s lips like an old friend. Big, greedy gulps. One bitter swallow after another. It made his throat burn.

“You know,” Alvin mocked, “most people tend to sip wine. From a glass?”

The Alakazam gave no response. Having drank half the bottle, he slammed the thing back onto the desk. His elbows fell limply alongside it, his head dunking and swaying, red-tinged liquid lingering on his furred lips. He licked them clean.

He then coughed, and asked: “Is the mausoleum gone?”

Alvin shrugged, replied: “Yeah, it’s gone.”

Maximus nodded, his eyes wide, his lips pursed. His addled mind struggled to catch up with his tongue as he blathered: “There might still be a way to disable the Key. Change the Spear’s programming. We can speak to the Beginning–”

“I think you’ve done enough,” Alvin sniped. He lifted his eyes from the page, a task of monumental effort; dark rings underneath, hanging like curtains. His usual smile supplanted by a tight-lipped scowl, a scrunched nose. Those eyes narrowed and piercing.

With his breath reeking, Maximus pushed: “If I could just speak to Him–”

“Stop.” Alvin raised his hand. His eyelids fluttered. “Please, save us the embarrassment.” He inhaled sharply, raised his shoulders. “Your insistence on drawing out your own suffering is second-to-none. It’s infuriating.”

“I–I…”

“If we could’ve patched this vulnerability, we would’ve done it long ago.” Alvin’s tone was grave. A rare occasion for him. Venom dripped from his words, long-sweltering frustration rendered concrete. “But I think you already know how vulnerable we are.” He inhaled. “If it were up to me, I’d have you strung and hanged for treason. But you already know that, right?”

Indeed, Alvin made no secret of his disdain. Maximus had long suffered it. Hanging his head low, the Alakazam spoke: “Alvin, I’ve apologized.”

“An apology isn’t enough!” Alvin barked. He slammed his pen onto the desk, his chubby face ruined with frustration. Two rosy cheeks, distorted and furious. “You took our future and ruined it for your own selfish gain. You… you stole the Key. By all accounts, you are a traitor.” The Raichu’s mien softened, entertained by the absurdity of it all. “And yet here you are, breathing the same air as me. For an entire century, no less. It’s absolutely asinine.”

Warily, Maximus contended: “I never intended to sabotage our mission.”

“Then what did you intend?”

“I–it wasn’t just my decision.”

Alvin’s temper flared: “Bullshit.”

“Ceres–”

“Take responsibility.” Alvin said those words with unconcealed hatred. Looking down on a man twice as tall as him. Scowling and gnashing his little teeth. “You’re the only one who had access to the Key. Arceus knows why the Beginning has spared you. And yet you’ve never once – never once – admitted it was your fault.”

Quietly, Maximus whispered: “You don’t understand. She compelled me.”

“Who? Tomoe?” Alvin asked. He waved the comment away. “What a crock of shit. It’s no one’s fault but your own.”

To that, Maximus had nothing to say. The words hung in his gut, infiltrating him. That same scorn, that same anger, internalized for one hundred long years.

“I’ll atone,” Maximus reassured. He stared at his own reflection, distorted by the glass bottle. His visage warped and frowned. “I’ll make this better. I’ll save everyone.”

Alvin said: “I should hope so.” He puckered his lips, anxiously wringing his hands, and glanced out the window. The right words struggled to coalesce. How could one broach such a nauseating topic? And eventually, he said: “With Colm’s death, we’re officially on the defensive. I trust you remember His orders.”

Maximus nodded, gave a big huff. “I do,” he admitted. The words dripped with shame. “You’ll be returning to Lookout Island, then.”

“That’s correct.” The Raichu calmly laid his pen onto the desk, as if he weren’t berating his subordinate moments before; and he added: “I’ll be taking Invi with me. And I’ll need a contingent, of course.” A laugh. “I’m not carrying his sick bed myself.”

At this, Maximus was surprised. Truthfully, he hadn’t given that piece of trash a thought in quite a long time. Last he heard, the Victini had just gotten his ventilator removed. According to the nurses, anesthesia was deliberately denied. His screams permeated the entire recovery ward.

“Invi?” Maximus echoed. “Did the Beginning order you to…?”

Alvin smirked. “Of course not,” he replied. His eyes were aglow with sadistic indulgences. “At this point, the Beginning hardly considers him an asset. Taking him along is my decision. He’ll stand guard on the island. Under my boot.” A little chuckle. “Right where he belongs.”

Maximus raised an eyebrow. He prodded: “If Invi truly is a defensive asset, shouldn’t he remain here? With the other hybrids?” He tapped his fingers along the desk’s edge. “I’m worried about our ability to control the others. It’d be best to have one with some autonomy. Just in case…”

Alvin then stood from his seat, brushed himself off. Just as it’d always been, his anger returned to a passive simmer. Tiny bubbles of frustration and annoyance, betraying an ocean of hatred. With a sharp tongue, the Raichu replied: “Am I supposed to pay for your incompetence? Again?”

“I just don’t understand what you have to gain,” Maximus contended. “Rubrum will be headed here in a matter of days. We need every weapon in our arsenal, primed.”

“Then prime your weapons.”

“What if it’s not enough?” Maximus looked around, as if seeking support; but he was alone. His tone was solemn, resolute. A soldier, hard-spoken, with an egg on his face. “These rebels have thwarted every single thing we’ve thrown their way. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that our success is not guaranteed.”

As he spoke, Alvin calmly walked around the room’s perimeter, neared the coat rack, and slipped his arm into the sleeves.

“We need to protect the capital at all costs,” Maximus contended. He let out an exhausted sigh. “Truthfully, I would’ve liked to have you stay behind, as well. Who knows when they will infiltrate our border? Perhaps they already have.”

Alvin was silent for a moment. He closed his coat methodically, pressing every wooden button through a slick fabric hole. On his face, a pensive frown. Obviously, he wished to escape Maximus’s presence as quickly as possible. So, mustering enough bravado to hide his immense displeasure, he asked: “Maximus, are you afraid of these Pokémon?”

“Would that be so unreasonable?" Maximus confided. “They’ve surmounted impossible obstacles. They run and hide like insects. They’ve assassinated our entire governing Board. Is that not a cause for panic?”

Alvin nodded, replied: “The truth is, Maximus, none of this would have happened if you’d done your fucking job.” His tone was placid, as if the words meant nothing at all. Casual cruelty, sung like poetry. The Raichu spat: “Honestly, it’s been an utter and complete dishonor humoring your doddering whims. Where is the old Maximus? Where is the fearless man I once knew? The one who fought so valiantly?” He chuckled. “If you truly cannot manage suppressing a four-man rebellion, then you should be stripped of your position and left in an Intermediary Zone.” He shot an errant glance toward the old giant, flashed a toothy smirk.

“Kill them, or don’t bother speaking to us again. Are we clear?”

The resultant silence was deafening. Instinctively, Maximus’s brain sharpened itself like a knife; had anyone else made such a threat, he would’ve carved their mind like a tin can. Rage burgeoned from his withered heart and made his hands clench; swallowing a glob of bitter saliva, staring upward like a schoolchild, the ancient Alakazam was stripped bare of his pride. And in a miniscule voice, he choked:

“Okay.”

“I’m glad we have an understanding,” Alvin affirmed. He then checked his clock, looked out the window.

“And, just so you know… Colm’s camp was poisoned. They’re all laid up.”

Maximus asked: “What? How?”

“Well…”

— — —

Akiva wiped sweat from her brow with a soft microfiber rag. Her dressing room reeked of hair spray and antiseptic; bathed in warm sunlight, leaking from a grand window at the front. White carpet, white drapes, white sheets. Everything pure as snow, everything in its place.

There was a monster in Akiva’s mirror. Perfectly manicured, and disastrously presentable. Not one hair out of place; not one cuticle untouched. Two dark, sunken eyes. Laugh lines where there was once soft, tender flesh. Even her smile, aped toward the glass, didn’t seem like hers. Disembodied and strange.

The door opened with a click; Akiva didn’t bother to look at the intruder. She already knew.

“Maximus,” she greeted. Her voice betrayed no intonation, no warmth. A cold and bitter welcoming. “It’s good to see you. Is everything alright?”

Click. The dressing room’s door locked behind him. Dread pierced Akiva’s heart, made her breathing unsteady. Sweat pooled under her armpits, permeating her once-white dress. Intently, she watched the mirror’s reflection; Maximus met her gaze there, his face saddened and anxious. Two unwilling participants, locked in a battle of decorum.

Akiva then turned, stared at the silent monolith; and breaking her facade, she asked, curtly: “Why are you here?”

Maximus only shook his head. Stooped over himself, his back curved into a permanent hunch. Years of desk work rendered him crooked and decrepit. And yet, within his eyes shone an innocent yearning; around Akiva, especially so. One last vestige of purity within a rotting enterprise.

“Did you lose a satchel of your pills?” Maximus asked. His voice was quiet and weak, as if he regretted asking.

The old man’s gaze bored into Akiva’s skull; she made no show of discomfort. But internally, she wracked herself. Intense anxiety made her lips quiver, her hands curl into loose fists. And, taking a deep breath in, then out, she answered: “I–I’m unsure. I don’t believe so. Why?”

Maximus did not answer. He instead stepped closer, looking upward at his daughter with frantic desperation, hoping she’d clear everything up, and asked: “Did you lose a satchel of your pills in Renasca?”

Such a pointed question would not be asked without merit. Akiva knew this; and furthermore, she could surmise why Maximus would ask. Last Akiva saw that satchel, it was pressed into Fey’s ribbons. Carried away with a tight-lipped grin. What he did with it, she didn’t know.

So Akiva ground her jaw, replied: “No, I didn’t.” She patted her side, a half-full sack of little white pills. “I kept them all on me. At all times. Just as instructed.”

“Even when you fled?” Maximus prodded. He tapped long-nailed fingers. “Is there no possibility you dropped some in the woods?”

Tension gripped Akiva’s chest, made her stiff. She shot her glance to the side, pinching white fabric between her forefinger and thumb. And with her voice stuck in her throat, she lied: “Now that I think about it, I might have lost a few pills while I ran away.” A pregnant pause, then: “Why are you asking?”

Maximus was struck with a profound grief. It made his breath catch, his stomach churn. The fact was this: he knew Akiva was lying. He knew someone had supplied those pills to Rubrum. He knew Akiva could not have escaped the rebels alone. And yet, he’d always forced himself to believe her. He had to.

Customarily, the punishment for treason would be death. But as Maximus stared into his daughter’s fine-glossed eyes, he could not bring himself to condemn her. She was the only family he had left. Iris, Kane, Ceres, the lot of them – the family he’d lived with for his entire life – were dead. He couldn’t lose another. Never again.

With an empathetic frown, Maximus stepped forward. That invisible gap, forever held between the pair of them, coming undone. Akiva didn’t protest. She didn’t move. After all, if Maximus truly intended to harm her, he could’ve done so from any distance. And so in silence, with great mourning, Maximus approached. Akiva smelled the booze on his breath.

The gargantuan Alakazam then weakly uplifted his arm, wordless, and gently traced his fingertip along Akiva’s forehead. Each second stretching far too long. Each breath caught in a milieu of anxiety, sadness, and stress.

Maximus had never once shown care for Akiva’s feelings. And yet today, Akiva did not resist; for once, she desired for Maximus to see the world from her eyes. Together, they drifted. Two lithe bodies, eyes closed, dreaming together.

Akiva’s mind met him like a gut punch. Swirling and undulating against itself, like waves on the ocean, Maximus felt it all rush by. Entire cumulus clouds, hundreds of stories high, thundering and sparking, with myriad memories within. Millions of cannibalized experiences, stripped bare from the infirm, the rebellious, the defiant. Tragedies and miracles. Entire lives, cut apart at the seams, blurry and misshapen and loud. Whipping around Akiva’s central nervous system like a planet’s rings.

Maximus was used to such a terrible sight. He, too, had eaten others’ dreams. More than Akiva could ever hope to consume. Familiar voices tickled his ears.

_“How much do you remember from them?” Fey asked. _

_And Akiva whispered: “Everything. I remember all of it.” She sniffled, then breathed: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” _

And so he raised his finger, cut through the fog like a scalpel. Akiva twitched and gasped as the seams of her conscious mind split open, a little aperture beaming through the endless night. Maximus stroked her hair, just like he had forty years before, when she was a child...

And wordlessly, Maximus watched. Akiva’s memories were laid plain to see. Fey, that poor Sylveon, folded and sleeping upon Akiva’s lap; and Akiva above him, eating his mind. Starting with his most delicious memories, and then working her way down to the bone. And all the while, Akiva savored it; because, in her heart, she envied him. She desired his confidence, his fearlessness. The ever-elusive assurance that he was doing the right thing. And if she couldn’t obtain it herself, she could taste it. She could consume it.

Rain-soaked recollections flashing by, one after the next. Fey and Akiva speaking in a moonlit glade, staring each other in the eye. Predator and prey, talking for the first time. Akiva slandering Maximus’s name, scrambling Iris’s brains, decapitating her own soldiers. Big pools of crimson-black blood, spilled onto the dew-kissed grass. Gut-wrenching pain echoed through Maximus; with tear-glistened eyes, he watched as Akiva and Fey spoke.

_ “Akiva… do you remember where I had my first kiss?” _

The Alakazam was plunged underwater; all the gaps between Akiva and himself, filled with sadness.

_“So, do you still think I’m a monster?” Akiva asked. “Do you think I’m a killer?” _

_And Fey replied: “No. I don’t know what you are. But…” He smacked his lips. “Maybe I’d like to know. Maybe I could listen.” _

A simple gesture which Maximus had never once extended. Words which Maximus had never spoken, and yet Fey provided with ease. Two hearts, connected by a thin, spindling thread. The connection Akiva had always craved.

These rebels – these insects – poisoned his daughter’s mind. Promises of friendship and alliance, cracking open the girl’s steel-clad heart. Maximus chastised himself for not recognizing it sooner – that, among all of them, Akiva was the most easily misdirected. The weakest.

“I know you must think I’m a monster, Akiva,” Maximus said. “And I know you’ve always resented me… but if I’d been in your life, I only ever would’ve hurt you.” Fleshy, rotted guts poured from his mind. “I knew it from the start. For both you and Cassius. My… my presence would’ve just made things worse. I would’ve only caused you pain. I had to keep you away from me. It was the only way to keep you safe. To fulfill our dream. Our species’s dream. Do you understand?"

Akiva bent her head, whispered: “Maximus… it doesn’t matter.” Pause, inhale. For the first time, Maximus felt her hatred. Gushing and red and raw.

“The truth is… you’re the one who’s hurt me the most.”

Grief then crashed over Maximus’s heart, submerging his most vulnerable parts. Splitting open like fissures, long gashes along his back, his chest. A quake to rock the heavens. It careened through Akiva’s mindscape, through the mountains of memories and death, and came back.

“All I’ve ever wanted was peace,” Akiva bellowed. “But you’ve never understood that. Not once.”

Tar-black sludge covered Maximus’s body, weighed him down. Wave after wave of shared anguish. For all the senseless violence, all the death, all the suffering they’d left in their wake. Forty years of wine-tinged dreams. Crippled hopes of endless dominion. The horror that, for all their conflict, the two of them had always desired the same thing.

Peace.

“I–I only did this because I love you. All of it,” Maximus gushed. He paused, held Akiva’s hands in his own. One ray of light amidst an infested mindscape. He couldn’t back down. Not now. Not when so much had already been sacrificed.

“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were exceptional,” he said. “I knew you were instrumental in His plan. I knew that it was our destiny to build a new world together. I’ve always had that hope.”

His smile hid sharp incisors. His grip was firm and cloying. And his eyes, watery and intent, bored into Akiva’s hesitant gaze. Slouched forward in supplication, Maximus begged for the Gardevoir’s approval. A lowly, terrible man, kneeling at the altar of a goddess. Just like he had done for Ceres.

Behind them, Iris released a battle cry. She ordered her troops to fire upon the rebels; balls of fire and darkness whizzed by their heads, striking Maestro in the side. Helpless and squirming like Wurmple, the animals were thrown against the grass. The groans and yelps of the moribund.

“Your hope is lined with corpses,” Akiva said. For the first time, she stood tall. She spoke with confidence. Those eyes like rose quartz, glistening from within the rain. “I’ve shown you my memories, and that’s all you have to say? That I’m destined to help your plans?”

“You’ve always had a soft heart,” Maximus cooed. Genuine love welled in his core, small and withered and terrified. Big eyes, gazing upward. “I’ve always admired that about you. You cradle the hope of thousands in your hands. And yet, you’ve never shied away from responsibility. Not until now.”

Akiva’s mien faltered. Taking a deep breath, quivering in her chest, she said: “The only reason I obeyed your orders… is because you scare me.”

Then, the rain stopped. Hung in the air like tiny diamonds, glistening and refracting the torchlight from the forest’s periphery. Still bodies lining the grassy knoll, Iris mid-yelp. Fourteen glowing bulbs, shining down upon the pair of them like spotlights. The once-chilly breeze stilled and frozen, only moved by Akiva’s breaths.

From the wet grass, Maximus lifted himself. That tenderness faded away, replaced with solemnity. Determination in the face of suffering. And he spoke: “Akiva, please understand… those vermin cannot achieve true unity. Not like the Beginning can.” A condescending smile. “Don’t forget, they’ve killed tens of our soldiers. Their hands are stained, too. What kind of peace is that?”

“How dare you lecture me about peace? You’ve slaughtered thousands,” Akiva shot back. “You don’t want peace. You want conquest.”

The Alakazam frowned, whispered: “If this is truly what you think of me… then you have never once known me.”

“And I’m better for it.”

Their faces were alit. Only a few feet away, Iris’s Inferno resumed. A column of purifying fire, rising up toward the sky. Heat spewed from Iris’s maw like vomit. The treetops recoiled in horror, watching as their leaves burnt up and flew into the clouds; and there below, within the Inferno, was a lone Pokémon, rendered a little black outline amidst the flame. A smudge. Rain pattering against the flames and rising again.

Wordlessly, Maximus traced his hand along Akiva’s wrist, gently grasped her finger. Naturally, she recoiled at his touch; but the Alakazam was unabated. Maximus then raised her finger, soft and slender, to touch his forehead; he closed his eyes, bent his head low. His breaths were slow and deep.

“Maximus?” Akiva asked. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Disbelief made her breaths shrill. She continued: “What are you…?”

“Please,” the old man affirmed. His words slipped out in a gravelly whisper. “I want to show you my memories. Please.”

Akiva hesitated. In this moment, Maximus was left totally defenseless; should she have wanted, she could’ve evaporated his mind then and there. Swept it all clean, from top to bottom, razed and burned. All of his memories, all of his feelings, gone.

She bit her lip. If she truly intended to turn her back on the Board, this was her chance. She could end the war here and now. She could save thousands – no, millions of lives. She could welcome Rubrum into the capital by nightfall. It could all be done.

“Y–you’re wide open,” Akiva choked. She bit her lip. “Are you sure? I’ve never… no one has ever…”

But Maximus insisted. The most well-guarded mind in Augusta, cracked wide. And with half-lidded eyes, he begged: “If I truly deserve to die, Akiva, then kill me.” He took a deep breath. “Otherwise, please. If only for a moment… see this world through my eyes. Please.”

For a few seconds, the pair of them stared. Wishing for the moment to end, wishing for the other to back down. But neither did. They were too far gone.

“Okay,” Akiva whispered.

Her finger then gently sliced through his psyche. Maximus let out a subtle, pained hum; and then, the Gardevoir stepped inside. Into the dark-colored smoke, into the warmth of his cranial cavity. Spongy and wet. Filled top-to-bottom with maroon-tinged mist.

Like a hurricane, the expanse stretched on for miles. Millions upon millions of memories, stretching across centuries. Home-grown and devoured alike, swirling against themselves, flying around the eye of the storm.

“I was happy,” Maximus said, “to be recognized.” His voice came from everywhere at once. Awestruck, Akiva watched as the first memory coagulated. There upon the stage, her father wore an uncharacteristic smile, waving from a podium, addressing the nation for the first time. Blank faces stared back from the crowd, smudged and contorted, human and Pokémon alike. A hopeful people, tired from ages of strife. Long-gone and unknown.

Maximus continued: “When the Beginning first contacted me, I was young. And foolish.” The memory of it mustered a smile to his lips. His face lost in reverie. “I cannot explain to you how lucky I felt to be picked out of the crowd. How wonderful it was to feel needed.”

Red-violet curtains swished behind young Maximus’s back. With an outstretched palm, he welcomed the newcomer onto the stage – a slim, dark-skinned human. Sharp brown eyes peeked from a curtain of messy curled hair. Soft, thin fingers burgeoned from a shimmering white robe; on its front, two concentric circles. She appeared to float to the podium, gently stroking along young Maximus’s back as she passed by, and froze there, mouth agape. Grinning.

The Alakazam asked: “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Yeah, she is,” Akiva replied.

“I’ve replayed this memory thousands of times.” He puckered his lips, looked down, and nodded. “It’s how I’d like to remember Ceres. Happy, and beautiful.”

Akiva sighed, said: “It’s funny… I’ve heard so much about her. And yet, I think this is the first time I’ve seen her face.”

To which Maximus replied: “Her face is only for me, now.”

Just as quickly as Ceres had entered, she retreated. The memory playing in reverse, as she speedily retreated behind the curtains. Smoke spilling along the floor, into the crowd, choking the view. As if pulled away by an invisible string, the entire memory was yanked backward into a milky fog, melting.

“We’re drifting now,” Maximus said. Stood completely still, and yet the world turned around the pair of them. Vaulted hundreds of feet into the air, then plunged down through a thick, grey cloud. Like neon signs, fragmented memories and sensations poked from the murk. Akiva watched with bated breath.

“The years passed uneventfully,” Maximus confided. And indeed, they did; on both sides, Pokémon rejoiced. Maximus spent rote days in his lab, slaving over aurum. Kane – ever the entrepreneur – haggled with passersby on the street. Iris, slack-jawed, was offered the opportunity to see a legendary Pokémon for the first time.

The giant said: “We didn’t know it, but the decisions we made here would shape the nation to come. Granted, we were never alone; as we came to power, the Beginning proved a formidable ally. He always seemed to know what the masses needed before we did.” He laughed at the absurdity of it all, smoke disappearing down his gaping throat. “Had I known what He was, I might not have followed Him. Now, of course, I realize… I was drawing upon wisdom that didn’t belong to me. It didn’t belong to any of us. And yet, it still shaped us.”

Akiva couldn’t tear her eyes away. Everywhere she looked, she saw Ceres. Her eyes, her flesh, her lips. A gargantuan mind, rendered a shrine to one woman. She made speeches, wrote incessantly. That hand always busy upon the page, signing her name in cutesy swoops and curves. Her voice ringing like a song.

“Notice how they all pass by,” Maximus said. And indeed, they did; countless Pokémon, young and old, skilled and stupid, passing through the Grand Augustan Hall. Hardly leaving a mark, most of them. Although some – that tiny, miniscule few – changed history. A domineering Infernape, standing tall, his flames burning a furious cerulean; a Palafin, tall, proud, and charitable; a Tinkaton, whose mind would shape this world.

Maximus admitted, curtly: “They all died.” The notion saddened him for only a moment before his tone shifted back. “But death is the natural way of things… the state we all must return to. The same as before we were born. I know that, now.”

For just a moment, Akiva considered striking him down then and there. His defenses were still lowered. His voice callous and jaded and pained. But instead, with clenched fists, she simply replied: “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Maximus waved away the consolation. To his sides, the offices emptied. Swatches of Pokémon entering and leaving, each a little smaller than the last. “I’ve come to terms with it all… these Pokémon dedicating their lives to the Beginning. I celebrate them for it.” His eyes were empty, staring out into the void. “Even if no one else remembers them… I keep their flames alive.”

The smoke rumbled and spit. From below Akiva’s feet, a grand white bulb emerged; metallic and shining, pointing upwards towards the sky. Tens of meters in diameter, gargantuan in its proportion, rising. And yet, the bulb had no bottom; just a long, snow-shite shaft. The monolith towered into the clouds.

“At first, we were told that the Spear would unify all Pokémon.” Maximus was embarrassed to remember such details, but spoke nonetheless. “The way He explained it, aurum would combine the consciousnesses of all living creatures. We would become one species, one mind, under Arceus. Joy everlasting.”

The Spear’s base came into view now; a tawny platform, consisting of cold, polished steel. And upon it, swept to its side, was a control panel.

“I never thought of it as a weapon… I had always thought of it as a tool of peace. But that day, I saw something different.”

An Alakazam and a human, stood side-by-side. Smiling at one another, holding each other’s hands, and inserting dual keys into the console’s front. Resigned to the fate of becoming one, stripped of their individual barriers. In their own way, they would achieve godhood.

“We were happy to let ourselves go. If it meant that we could prevent all war, all poverty, all strife… who wouldn’t sacrifice themselves?” He shook his head. “It was a worthy endeavor… and she deserved all the time I could give.”

Ceres and Maximus looked each other in the eye, took a deep breath. In only a moment, they’d become something greater. Something new.

Their keys then turned with a tiny click. And within only a few instants, sparks alit along their arms, their necks; the pair of them spasmed as the power of aurum coursed through their veins, lit their eyes like bulbs. Two bodies, utterly overwhelmed with psychic power. Smiling wide.

“It was the happiest moment of my life,” Maximus confided. He could hardly bring himself to look upon the scene. “The complete and utter trust I had. The happiness we shared. In that moment, I felt all of Illumina become one. The burden of individuality, the burden of loneliness, lifted.”

In the distance, beyond the clouds and seas, a continent’s worth of souls resonated in perfect harmony. Thousands of pillars of light stretched beyond the cloud barrier, piercing the atmosphere, and pummeled the darkness of space. Voices of innocent Pokémon and humans alike permeated the air; screaming, laughter, as they all fell to the ground, eyes wide. The entire planet’s thoughts filling their puny psyches. Melding into one coagulated mass, tossing and churning.

In Grand City, hundreds of cars crashed into one another. Renascan farmers fell face-first into their fields. Children crumpled into little shaking masses in Augustan playgrounds. Nurseries full of quivering eggs. Carpenters fell onto their sawblades. The elderly, slumped in retirement homes and plush chairs, seizing to radio static. Laughing manically.

Akiva covered her mouth, cowered in horror. She asked: “You… did this? Everyone really…?”

Maximus nodded, watching as his body was wracked with spasms. And above them, lined up all along the rafters, scientists and managers and journalists did the same; mouths agape, crackling voices singing into the still air, while the Spear glowed and pulsated. Gargantuan, bass-tone throbs permeated the planet to its core, shaking the magma to and fro. The trees, the flowers, the fungi in the soil – all swaying in unison, uncontrollably joining the universal dance.

“This is the power of aurum,” Maximus explained. Even now, he was struck with profound sadness. “It links the hearts of all life… resonates with it. And once we’ve tapped into the hearts of this world, we can use their energy for anything.”

Towards the Spear’s tip, rays of light flew. From every direction, every continent and village and cabin, the spirits of Pokémon were sucked into the Spear’s head. All the hopes and dreams this world had ever known were absorbed, cannibalized, as the Spear’s surface became superheated. A bright white, overtaking everything.

“Arceus, no,” Akiva choked. The births and deaths of countless individuals flashed before her eyes. The voices in her head were nothing but a whisper now; a tidal wave of consciousness drifted over the skies like a blanket, coloring them a perfect, shimmering blue. No more clouds. No boundaries, no limits.

Maximus gazed upon this sight with nostalgia; the last vestige of purity he’d ever grasped. The moment his innocence was ripped away.

“I knew the Spear would hurt people,” he admitted. “I knew the world didn’t want to be joined like this… but it was a small price to pay for unity. To end all suffering.”

The screams congregated into a hellish symphony. The entire world, smiling at once. Their bodies rendered conduits, their arms outstretched and flapping like wings, their voices joining seamlessly into a billion-part harmony.

“In that final moment,” Maximus admitted, “I felt it. True happiness. True contentment. Oneness with my beloved. Now and forever.”

Then, the Spear began to tilt, lowering itself onto a forty-five degree angle. Sparks flew from its sides, forming hoops of supercharged electricity; and at its base, the two pilots still stood. White-knuckling the controls, gritting their teeth, and shaking.

“I knew the Spear’s true purpose, of course,” Maximus confided. “It would act as a missile… the most dangerous missile this world has ever seen.” He chuckled. “How foolish I was to never tell Ceres… I always thought, once this test fire was finished, she’d come around.”

With glowing eyes, the young Maximus’s face morphed into manic determination. Fixing the sights on Kyogre’s location, many kilometers away, the console glowed indigo across his face.

“Ceres was supposed to cooperate,” Maximus said.

A shadow, swimming just under the surface of the ocean. Surrounded by schools of Remoraid and Luvdisc, entire families of Pokémon who thrived under Kyogre’s almighty watch.

“If we could kill a legendary Pokémon… imagine what we could do next time.” He smiled. “We could ensure the continuation of our species. Eliminate any and all threats. Indefinitely.”

The human’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened, but no noise emerged over the cacophony; she looked left, right, only to be met with spasming, euphoric bodies. Desperately, she looked to Maximus for reassurance, for comfort; but he didn’t look back.

“If I had looked her in the eyes, would she still have done it?” Maximus shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll never know.”

The Spear was primed now. Circles of light traveled up and down the Spear, lapping over each other, colliding and sparking; a ball of pure light coalesced upon its tip, swelling, swirling over itself in a supercharged plasma.

“All I know is…”

Maximus frowned.

“...if the world ended that day, I think I’d have been happier.”

Ceres let out a pained yelp; her hair puffed out, standing straight with electricity, as she fingers struggled to grasp the control stick. Clenching and shaking, white dress flowing in the wind, her hand jerked the controls to the left. A single word flew from her parched lips:

“No!”

And like a limb-jerk, the Spear threw itself to the side. A great metallic screech rang out as its pneumatic systems struggled to keep the length steady. But by the time Maximus attempted to swing it back, the damage was done; the ammunition was primed. Nothing could be done.

The young Maximus shot a terrified glance toward Ceres, then back toward the console; there, on the screen, was the Spear’s new target: a patch of land on the northern coast, sparsely populated.

Then, it erupted. Pluming into the sky like a mushroom, a huge cloud of light-smoke billowed over the land, settling over the sky in concentric rings. And up above it all, through the exosphere and into space, was the glimmering missile. For only a few moments, things were still; the ball of light hung there in nothingness, blotting out the stars.

Then, it fell. Turning on its own, the orb honed in on the coast, and let itself go.

“That was the moment everything changed,” Maximus said.

Careening through the stratosphere like a meteor, the ball grew and grew. Dipping back below the cloud cover, stretching into the distance, every sapient being watched in tandem as their doom approached.

And then, it touched down; a giant pillar of white emerged from the ground there, quiet. Five, ten seconds of awed silence as they collectively realized the northern coast had disappeared. One billion psyches struggling to disentangle themselves, just in time to witness a world-ending shockwave. Tens of tsunamis churned along the coasts.

The young Maximus then turned, looked Ceres in the eye. And, with a wide-eyed frown, he asked:

“What the fuck did you do?”

The explosion could be heard all the way in Grand City. Nearly every piece of glass on the continent broke; shattering over tile floors and writhing, giggling bodies.

“On that day, ten million people died,” Maximus explained. “They fell from their windows, smashed their heads on cement sidewalks. Patients choked in their hospital beds. In Palucia, lumberjacks were crushed under falling logs. Every Flying type fell from the skies in a death spiral. A mass death event unlike any other.”

The giant sighed, shook his head. “Of course, we explained it away as a meteor. In all the newspapers, all the radio broadcasts. In the history books, it’s written that a projectile from outer space caused a temporary restriction in our electromagnetic fields. A mass seizing event, worldwide…”

But Akiva hardly listened. Horror gripped her heart; she pulled her arms to her chest, covered her mouth, and swayed. That Alakazam’s jaw yammered on and on, spewing endless justifications. Endless platitudes. It disgusted her.

“Th–this is the future Arceus wants…?” Akiva whispered. Disbelief made her voice quiver, her eyelids flutter. “This is what I’ve been fighting for?”

Maximus stepped toward her, reassured: “Oh no, no. This was only a test firing.” A warm smile graced his chapped lips. “Next time will be our final victory. The day we’ve always craved. Complete and utter unity.”

“But thousands of Pokémon will die…”

“...And even more will be born.” Maximus tilted his head; behind him, his younger self was dragged away from the blinking console, kicking and punching. Ceres, too, was constrained. A Conkeldurr grabbed at her shoulders, hooked them under, and dragged her from the platform. Screaming and kicking, she shouted for her beloved.

“Get off me! Maximus, help! Help!”

Not deigning the memory with even a glance, Maximus simply said: “I can’t stand this part.”

Fog nibbled at the scene’s periphery. From the top down, the Spear collapsed into a waterfall of wispy strands; like paint, white globs dripped and fell from the sides. The console’s surface blew into the wind like chalk dust, the platforms and Pokémon disappearing into the air like soot. Soon enough, Maximus and Akiva were alone once more. Two Pokémon, standing awkwardly in the violet-black expanse.

And then, Maximus asked: “Do you… want to know what happened next?”

The Gardevoir was struck with dread. She was equal measures repulsed and intrigued by the notion; but, mustering her courage, she gave a hesitant nod.

“Yes,” she said. “I… I need to know.”

Akiva expected another scene to coalesce out of the fog; but none came. Instead, Maximus stepped close, touched a finger to his head.

“The Beginning does not suffer insubordination,” he said. “You know that. I hardly need to explain.”

Silence ensued. Maximus didn’t know how to explain himself. He certainly couldn’t show the memory directly; but he couldn’t leave it omitted, either. A wrinkled brow betrayed his frustration.

“The Beginning sentenced Ceres to death,” the old man breathed. “I begged Him otherwise, of course, but His decision was firm.”

Akiva asked: “So she…?”

Maximus nodded, continued: “Yes. Usually, this duty is carried out by a designated executioner; but in this case, He granted my wish.”

The Alakazam looked askance. He could hardly bring himself to say it.

“The Beginning… He gave me the opportunity to end her life myself. As a reward, for my continued loyalty.”

Akiva recoiled, asked: “As a… reward?”

“Yes,” Maximus replied. He gave an uncharacteristic, awkward smile. “You must understand. If anyone were to do the honor of–”

“So you killed her?” Akiva asked. She nodded, jerking her head forward, as if she didn’t believe it. “You killed your wife?”

Words struggled to form upon Maximus’s lips. The void was quiet, save for the crackling of his throat.

“No,” he admitted. “Her physical form may be gone, but she’s still here.” He scratched thoughtfully along his temple. “I ate her dreams. All her memories, I still have them.”

Horror burgeoned within Akiva’s chest. She felt her breath catch, her feet instinctually stepping backward. She breathed: “No.”

“It’s true,” Maximus insisted. “I couldn’t let her die. It was the only way she could live.” His voice was hurried, defensive. “We talked it over, and she agreed. There was no other way–”

Akiva interrupted: “So you killed your wife and took all her memories?” Her mouth was aghast. “Y–you killed her. You’re sick!”

“No,” Maximus shot back. “You must understand, eating others’ memories… it’s a noble endeavor.”

“Noble?” Akiva spat. “So, what, when you made me eat memories, that was noble?” She was manic with exasperation. Nausea welled in her throat. “Are we supposed to be proud of this? Eating other people? And all those Pokémon you made me cannibalize… are they alive, too?”

“No, no–”

“No! Fuck! You!” Akiva threw her hands in the air, then let them tumble to her sides. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “I was a child! You told me that we were doing them a service, that they were dreaming. You told me it didn’t hurt.”

Maximus replied: “And I never lied to you. All these Pokémon… in a way, they’re alive.” He fumbled over himself. “Imagine the lives they would’ve lived had we not intervened. Crime, poverty, sickness. They would’ve died careless deaths one way or another. Isn’t it better that we preserve them, in their entirety?”

Akiva eyed the old man’s face. Hatred deepened the grooves on her pale flesh. She said: “If these people are still alive, then why don’t we visit their families? Why do we let them assume these Pokémon are dead?”

The Alakazam scowled. "Well, those other Pokémon aren’t related to our mission.”

“Which is?”

“The alleviation of all suffering,” Maximus insisted, and leaned forward. “Tell me, what’s worse. Trapping a hardened criminal in perpetuity, until the moment of their death? Allowing those on death row to die without anyone to remember them?” He scoffed. “Even Ceres asked for me to consume her. So she could live on, forever.” He shook his head. “If someone is to be an executioner, they should remember the lives they take.”

Akiva barked: “So Ceres is still alive, yeah? What does she think about making an eight-year-old kill a woman in her deathbed?”

Maximus insisted: “These skills take time. I had to get you started early–”

“–what, in case you pass away?” She pointed at his abdomen. “In case your liver explodes?”

The old man huffed, tilted his head, and said: “We all must make sacrifices for the sake of governance. That includes you.”

“Right,” Akiva breathed. “And my sacrifice was living fifty lifetimes before the age of fifteen. Father of the fucking century.” She could do nothing but laugh. “These people are dead, Maximus. They died the moment we took their futures away.”

“They still have futures,” Maximus insisted. His voice was unexpectedly tender. “Ceres’s future is with me now. Same as all the others. Their consciousnesses have combined with mine. We are one. We’re making a new future, together.”

The Gardevoir took another step back, said: “And yet, you’re still the same as ever.” She shook her head, gritting her teeth. “Keeping your victims’ memories doesn’t make you a better person. You’re not acting on their behalf. You’re still the same selfish man you’ve always been.”

Maximus closed the distance between them, bellowed: “Sometimes, liberation takes a shape no one can recognize. These Pokémon are happier than they’ve ever been. They can no longer feel lonely. They can no longer feel sadness. It is the closest we have come to complete emancipation.”

Meeting his intense gaze, Akiva said: “Then why not kill me?”

Thin clouds swirled around the pair of them, lapped at their ankles. It swished and pooled around their feet, cold to the touch. White and milky and prehensile, reaching out with tiny, thread-like appendages.

Maximus admitted: “I don’t want to kill you.”

“But I’m a traitor,” Akiva insisted. Fury drove her forward. “And traitors are killed, right? So, if I’ll really live on in your memories, you should have no problem eating me, right?”

Maximus hung his shoulders low, said: “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” Akiva barked, and wafted toward herself. “I gave Fey the poison. I allowed the Key to fall into their hands. I’m the one who let Colm die.” She motioned outward, as if placing something down. And with puckered lips, she said: “There. I admit it. And you have my memories to verify it. I foiled our fool-proof plan. Again. And I don’t regret it.” She chuckled. “I’d do it again, and again, again. Just to make sure you never disappoint Ceres again, you fucking coward.”

The tendrils stopped lapping. The clouds stopped moving. Above the two of them, sunlight broke through the pitch-dark mindspace. Like an egg’s shell breaking, the void opened up.

Suddenly, Akiva awoke to her dressing room. Standing in that same awkward position, Maximus’s finger pressed against her forehead. A sunlight-laden breeze shot through the window and soiled the snow-white carpet. Her toes sank into the plush fibers.

Maximus removed his finger from Akiva’s head, let it sink to his side. Defeat glazed his eyes, which traced lazily over Akiva’s face. And he said: “I think you’ve made yourself clear.”

“Right,” the Gardevoir replied. In vain, she attempted to ignore the anxious pit in her stomach. Keeping her upper lip stiff, marinating in the tense air, nodding and clenching her fists, she said: “What now?”

Truthfully, the giant didn’t know. He knew that he could never kill Akiva; that much was decided before he approached. But the responsibility of defending the capital weighed heavy on his shoulders. Given the opportunity, Akiva would storm the city right alongside Rubrum. The idea of it saddened him.

“If you won’t stay by my side,” Maximus said, “then you’ll be detained until this is all over.”

Akiva pursed her lips, shook her head. While she was relieved to have evaded a death sentence, she wasn’t eager to enter a prison cell. She silently cursed herself for not having escaped Maximus’s clutches earlier; truthfully, it was foolish of her to return from Renasca at all. Without her presence, Rubrum would have a much, much harder time infiltrating city walls.

Dejectedly, the Gardevoir asked: “Maximus… even if all this goes according to plan, what will you do?” She pursed her lips, shook her head. “You’re planning to destroy everything. How do you plan to rebuild?”

Maximus shrugged, admitted: “I don’t know.” He paused for a moment, thought a bit, and added: “I’ve… been advised to release the hybrids. And I plan to take that advice. You’ll be safer in a prison cell.”

Akiva’s eyes widened a bit. “Those things?” she spat. “Are you serious? They’ll kill as many citizens as they’ll save.”

But Maximus simply replied: “It’s worth it.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not like you have a vote in it, anyhow. As of today, you are officially relieved of your duties as Chairwoman of Faith.”

“Good,” Akiva said, with a sort of exhaustive chuckle. “I’ve lost my faith. What’s a title to me now?”

The two of them stood there, neither willing to move. When they opened that door, reality would resume.

Warily, the Alakazam said: “I love you.”

Akiva just pushed past.

Don’t Look Back Maximus’s love was encased in concrete. Pitted surfaces serrated by careful brushstrokes along the casket’s exterior, bent down toward the floor and flowing like waterfalls in the quiet tomb. No pleasantries. No light. Only something perverted could exist in a place like this, unsanctimonious and hiding. Caked-on dust fell from the walls with each rattle. Decades-old mortar falling out from between neatly laid bricks, jostling the casket’s contents like kernels on a steel pan. Dust and residue and long-forgotten breaths. One brick fell, crashing haphazardly onto the cold, hard floor. It collapsed into a heap of scattered crumbs. A hole poked from its place, a ray of yellow-orange light piercing the gloom. Landing perfectly atop the casket’s head, illuminating the epithet thereon: CERES. A little eye poked through, gazed upon the splendor of a pitch-dark room, then bent back. “Yep,” he said, his voice muffled through the concrete. “This is definitely it.” More jostling. More rustling. The Machop got to work once more, shoving his wedge between the bricks, then hammering it with a closed fist. The bricks shivered and slid, breaking apart at the bottom, before disintegrating inward. The ray of light grew wide, accompanied by feverish grunts. “Do you really have to do this?” Colm asked. He waited behind the little Machop, arms crossed, a finger held pensively upon his lip. “This method is quite slow. Can’t you just kick it down?” The Machop wiped sweat from his brow, replied: “That’s not safe.” “This isn’t a load-bearing wall,” Colm insisted. He was serious. “And the Key is basically indestructible. Just knock it down.” Pause. “Please.” With a roll of his eyes, the Machop relented. “Fine,” he said, and turned toward the brick. “But if something inside gets damaged, don’t blame it on me.” “I would never,” Colm replied, even though he absolutely would. He then sat down upon a decrepit bed, a plume of dust rising from its rough, browned sheets, and watched. A tiny portion of fabric rubbed between his violet fingertips. Dirt tickled his sinuses. Maximus had ordered him here. Through forest and stream and sunshine, Colm and his soldiers trudged. Through a rich neighborhood, across paved streets, covered in mud and detritus, their visages only seen through hastily drawn curtains. Crudely griping and yelling and bickering. Something was here. And while Maximus had referred to it as a Key, Colm knew never to trust his word. A tiny artifact of great power, hidden away aside a miniature mausoleum. The Kecleon had never known Maximus to have a flair for the dramatic; much the contrary, in fact. But of course, Colm supposed, everyone hid their worst habits. Especially in high governance. With bated breath, the Machop then leaned backward, pulling his fist into a tight little ball, and careened it squarely into the brick. The ground shook. Dust clouded from the Fighting type’s fist. Thwump. A solid chunk fell inward, crashed against the hard floor. The Machop then pulled away, covering his face, and coughed. He shook his sore, red knuckles. With a condescending smile, Colm reassured: “Good job. Just one more. Go on.” “You know how much this hurts?” the Machop grumbled. His face was pressed into a screwy frown. “Even for someone like me, breaking through cinderblocks isn’t easy.” The Kecleon rolled his eyes, prodded: “Then evolve. Don’t you Fighting types usually do that?” He picked at his cuticles, not even gracing the Machop with a glance. “If I could evolve, I would’ve done so at the first opportunity.” The Machop bit his tongue; if he could, he would’ve punched a hole through the Kecleon’s smug grin. But he instead mustered his courage, grimacing, and reeled his fist back. Another punch, like a comet, flew across the dust-streaked air, and collided squarely with the brick. Disintegrating into rubble, it streaked the cold ground. A ray of electric sunshine shone like a spotlight into the dinky mausoleum, no larger than a walk-in closet. “Done,” the Machop said, and motioned inward. “Now, it’s your turn.” Colm took no offense to his tone, replied: “Of course. Thank you.” And, daintily, he stepped over the knee-high concrete barrier. His fingertips grazed the cold stone as he steadied himself; and then, he was in. Nothing was left but to find the Key. The Kecleon took one tentative step after another, his shoulders nearly grazing the walls. Little piles of dust crunched and shifted under his feet. And there, only a few steps in, was the shrine. A coffin carved into white stone. Long-decayed flowers and organic matter wilted over its surface, staining it brown. And there, in the midst of it all, was a shimmering tablet. Black, glossy, its words handily carved, inlaid with aurum. Colm could hardly bring his gaze away from it. Transfixed, he stepped forward once again, outheld his hands, and – Clatter. Colm’s foot hit something. Hard, and dry, and sizable. Looking for only a brief moment, a flash of white appeared in his peripheral vision. Rocks. Bones, maybe. He looked away. “You okay?” the Machop called. He shoved his nosy face into the hole, not-so-secretly happy to see Colm disconcerted. “You drop something?” Colm was breathless as he replied: “I’m fine.” He then moved his foot, kicked the object to the side, as he tried to convince himself of it. Anxiety stabbed his stomach like an icicle. “I’m fine.” The Kecleon then extended his greedy hands toward the tablet, picked it up, and examined it by the light of a distant bulb. A language which Colm had never seen; and yet, he found himself inextricably drawn to the inlay. Latent energy pulsed against his palms. An electric heartbeat. The Kecleon then hurriedly withdrew himself from the cold tomb, wrapping the Key in a scratchy cloth, and shoved it in his satchel. As he hung his foot over the brick once more, the Machop asked: “You find everything alright?” “Yes,” Colm replied. Anxious sweat wafted from his frame. Something about that room had deeply disturbed him; like he wasn’t meant to see it at all. As absurd as it sounded, it felt like something was watching him. So, not knowing exactly why, the Kecleon turned to the Machop and ordered: “Seal that back up. Now.” The Machop was taken aback, but his loyalty quickly got the better of him. He sighed exhaustedly, then affirmed: “Sure. I’ll get right to it, sir.” And he bent down, began to replace the bricks with new, fresh-baked ones. One by one, stacked on one another, sealed by a thin layer of mortar. Little rays of light, stretching into the mausoleum, severed. “Oh! One more thing,” the Machop called. Colm was caught awkwardly in the doorway, hovering, wishing desperately to leave. Looking over his shoulder, sweating, the Machop probed: “How’s the monster? Is she in her room?” Colm nodded, not even meeting his gaze. He breathed: “The asset is fine. Resting in its room, like always.” Pause. “It’s always in there when I come to visit.” Then, Colm left. His feet slapping against the cold ground, he trudged past the dormitories and sick beds, making a beeline for one particular door. Impulsive, anxiety-ridden thoughts pounded against his aching skull. The subtle hummm of the Key tickling his palms. “Madeline,” he called. His form was a mere shadow in the doorway. “I have something to show you.” She glanced upward from her meal with an excitable smile. A stuffed toy – a Snivy – tumbled from her lap. Chocolate smeared across her grinning lips. She let out a few excited squeaks, extended an arm. Colm did not reciprocate. “I take it you’ve been enjoying the candy,” the Kecleon said. His voice was deadpan, like he didn’t expect much. He then brandished the Key, turned it toward Madeline, and asked: “Hey. Tell me… have you ever seen this?” In only an instant, Madeline was entranced by the thing. She slowly moved her brown-stained hands from the chocolate bar, putting it to the side, as she stood and neared the tablet. With an ironclad grip, she held her plush against her stomach. Those big, black eyes transfixed by the tablet’s shimmering inlay. “Do you know what this is?” Colm asked. His voice was gentle. “Have you ever seen it before?” But obviously, she hadn’t. She’d never felt something like it before, either. Her pudgy fingers grazed the glossy stone as awed breaths fell from her mouth. She liked the way it vibrated against her fingers. With a squeal, Madeline then lurched forward, wrapped her arms around Colm’s shoulders. The two were locked in a begrudging hug; Colm completely stiff, the Key stuffed against his chest, while Madeline squeezed and contentedly hummed. Her breath invaded the poor Kecleon’s nostrils, made him nauseous. A mixture of soft, human skin and furred flesh tickled his scales. “Thank you,” Colm muttered, intent not to upset her. Disgust welled in his stomach, threatened to lurch out; he then gently shook her off, stepped backward, and took a breath. Madeline’s touchiness had always perturbed him. From his pocket, Colm then removed a scant few monochrome photos, wilted and folded from travel. Madeline watched with giddy trepidation. Taking in a deep breath, regaining his composure, the Kecleon flipped them outward. And he said: “Okay, Madeline. I need you to focus on me, alright? See these Pokémon?” He shook the photos. Four of them – a Lucario, a Meowscarada, a Sylveon, and a Cinderace. “These Pokémon are dangerous,” Colm confided. His tone was grave; Madeline’s smile fell. “They’re mean people, Madeline. And soon, they’re going to be coming here. They want to hurt us.” He pointed toward the plush toy. “They want to hurt your baby, Madeline. You don’t want that, do you?” Instinctively, the Raichu gripped her plush harder. Strained breaths billowed from her second face, puffing hot air backward like an exhaust pipe. Her fur stood on-edge; and she whimpered: “Baby?” “That’s what they want,” Colm affirmed. He watched as Madeline eyed each of the photos in turn, her jaw jittering and chewing. “But we’re not gonna let them take your baby, right? We’re gonna catch them, and we’re gonna fight back.” Colm smiled. “We’re gonna make sure you and your baby stay safe. But you need to make sure to listen to me, okay? Can you do that?” The monster nodded. Her eyes were glazed with concern now, her gaze wet. She assented: “Buh. Buh.” Shuffled her foot nervously against the floor, swiveling in a little pool of dust. Truthfully, it was as much as Colm could hope for. He then silently replaced his photos, shoving them inside his pocket. A sly smirk glowered upon Colm’s cheeks. But just as soon as it’d arrived, it fled; replaced by an inquisitive head tilt, a closed fist. “Tell me… how much do you understand me, really?” Colm asked. His tone was flat. “Do you understand when I tell you things? Or am I wasting my time?” Madeline didn’t reply. She stared at him, her lips quietly muttering, as if she spoke a language of her own. A silent, august prayer. Frustration made Colm sigh, flick his gaze to the walls. Smeared with geometric shapes, black and brown. A big sun, below which faces stood. Faces only Madeline remembered. “Come on,” Colm begged. “You met Akiva, didn’t you? Back when you were children?” Colm bit his lip, aware of the scandal such a question might raise. “What can you tell me about her? Is she really as powerful as she says she is?” But if Madeline were aware of Akiva, she didn’t show it. Her lips mumbled all the same, her gaze flitting nervously from the wall, to the floor, to Colm. She hugged her plush closer, drawing it to her breast, as if to feed it; another hand petted slowly across its head. Like always, Colm was left with little to discuss. No matter how much he prodded, Madeline never seemed to speak coherently. There was, however, a silver lining to her condition; she was the perfect confidante. “The soldiers outside completely lack discipline,” Colm confided. He leaned casually against the doorframe, his hands hanging loose against his sides. “And news is, back home, Akiva is having trouble maintaining her duties. They might just have to sack her.” He laughed. “I just hope they don’t dump her responsibilities onto me. I’m busy enough as-is. Haha.” His smile, his laugh, then tapered off. Despite his openness, Madeline could never truly connect with him. Just smiling, looking, breathing. Colm always yearned for more; for someone to share in the insanity he’d curated. Someone who was on his level. “I just don’t know what to do with you,” Colm said, absently. To no one. Madeline watched as he marched into the hall. — — — Waist-high ferns washed over wind-rippled fur. Moonlight threw itself against their squinted eyes, flashed across the blue-lit path, and swallowed them up. Four writhing bodies, careening through a dense pine forest. Thin needles pricked at their feet. At the front, predictably, was Rubrum – that middle-aged Lucario, still as spry as a pup – carrying a limp body, draped over his arms like a bloody curtain. Deep red and seeping. Its nose was crooked and snotty, bent awkwardly toward the waning moon, its scaly exterior bruised and beaten. Two limp vines still lolled from the sheathes along its back, trailing along the wet grass. The lot of them crashed into their camp like a swarm of insects, rapidly disseminating and fumbling supplies. Rubrum kneeled down by the long-doused fire, laying the sputtering corpse upon a mound of soft dirt. Helpless, he watched as the blood dribbled from the Snivy’s lips. His eyelids fluttered. “What the fuck did that monster do to him?” Maestro asked. Breathless, he gathered a mound of gauze, stooped in the mouth of his tent. Dirt stained the front of his mask, caked along the edges. Adrenaline made his hands shake. “Is he moving? Is he breathing?” Rubrum could hardly respond. He placed his paw gently above Sid’s mouth, felt for air; but hardly anything came out, save for little iron-tinged breaths. Sid’s chest spasmed and sputtered, pumping globs of coagulated blood from his throat, flailing against his tongue and then sinking into the void of his stomach. “He’s inhaling blood!” Rubrum called. Motioning for Asher, he yelled: “Hold him on his side! Now!!” And so the pair of them – one grizzled Lucario, and a scar-skinned Cinderace – flipped the tiny Snivy. A torrent of blood-soaked mucus shot from his lungs, mixed the detritus into a dark paste. But even so, Sid couldn’t draw clear breaths; tiny coughs wracked his weakened body, his limbs and neck bobbing against the cold air. “Fuck, we don’t have time for this,” Maestro yelled. He gazed around the wood, his hands at-ready, as he looked for humanoids amidst the boughs. Breaths condensated against the inside of his mask. “We need to go now. There’s no telling who followed us here! We’re not safe.” Fey, his face scrunched with stress, barked back: “Not without Sid. We can’t leave him behind.” “Fuck, I told you I should’ve burned the door down!” Asher yelled. He held his warm paw steady against Sid’s back, feeling the last spasms of his diaphragm. “Maestro’s right, we gotta move him before–” “We can’t move him!” Rubrum exclaimed. His eyes wet and desperate, he then leveled with Sid’s face. And as calmly and quickly as he could, he said: “Sid. Hey, Sid. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” Sid didn’t last long enough to answer. His head suddenly wrenched backward, a wretch-cough thundering from his tiny lips, before his arms began to twitch. Blood swelled within his cracked skull, pounding down on his soft brain; the neurons within began to asphyxiate and rip. Screaming, they sent electrical impulses within his well-wrought spine, one last-ditch effort before giving up; and so the Snivy coughed and convulsed, his neck red and strained, his tail whipping violently against the ground. Even his vines, hitherto limp, spasmed and swung, gripping mindlessly at the night air. “Fucking hold him down!” Rubrum screamed. It took all his strength just to maintain his grip on Sid’s torso. “He’s seizing! Hold! Him! Down!” And so, with gritted teeth, Asher grasped at Sid’s vines, held them steady; Fey gripped his legs, while Maestro kept watch on the perimeter. An Energy Ball glowed impatiently in his outstretched paw. “We really need to go!” Maestro exclaimed. “If he’s a goner, then–” “–We’re not leaving anyone behind!” Fey yelled. His ribbons wrapped tightly around the moribund Snivy. “We’re not letting anyone else die! We can’t!” Frantic tears made his big eyes wet. “I’m not losing anyone again!” But Sid was nearly gone. Those strong convulsions soon gave way to faint twitching, the residual choking of a dying man. Blood had already pooled within his lungs, oozed out in a thick sludge over his tongue. His head felt very, very, very hot. And from within Sid’s skull, he saw nearly nothing. Dark figures encroached around his body, light as a feather, poking and prodding, holding him tightly. But there wasn’t any pain. All the suffering which once plagued him, all the doubt and worry and sadness. It was all becoming a memory, now. From behind them, rising near the tree cover, was a miasma. Cloudy and dark and familiar, threatening to drift into the Snivy’s orifices. Drifting closer, closer, closer. Grimm. Sid couldn’t even say his name anymore. But his eyes betrayed it – opened wide in one final show of recognition. His beloved was here. Rubrum deftly flipped the boy onto his back, placed his palms above his heart, and laid his full weight down. Crack. One rib. Crack. Crack. Two more. With wide eyes, Rubrum thrust his paw into the Snivy’s chest, manually pumping the boy’s heart. “Please!” Rubrum shouted. “Stay with me, Sid. Stay with me! Please!” And to the side, the others watched. In deafening silence, filled only with the grunts of a desperate animal, they saw the life leave him. Sweat pooled on Rubrum’s brow. A frightened scowl heralded the inevitable. “Come on!” Rubrum yelled. “Sid, come on! Answer me! Answer me!” — — — Ninjask buzzed in snow-capped trees. Perforated by the clacking of chalk, and the soft brush of a blackboard eraser. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee. Entire days passed by outside the classroom window. Sid watched the day melt into night, then back. Eons of loss. “It’s all too much,” Sid muttered. His ass curled against an uncomfortable wooden chair. His legs dangled above an off-white tile floor. And he looked ahead, toward the blackboard, toward the love of his life. Voices in the void. Sid said: “I don’t think I could lose anything else.” He shook his head in exhaustion. Light careened over his face in waves, shifting in-time with the rising sun. His eyes were heavy. Grimm smirked. Like a lecturer, he stood in front of a wooden bureau. Dust flew before his face. He asked: “How much have you lost, Sid?” “Everything,” the Snivy replied. Sadness weighed in his stare. Just like he’d always wanted, Grimm spoke to him, one last time. One final chance to say goodbye. How should he feel? What should he say? Sid didn’t know. Waves of emotion passed through him, wracked him, as he tried to put himself to words. But nothing seemed to fit. He just stared, with trembling lips, until he vomited: “You abandoned me.” Contorting and spewed, breaths bent into a strange oblong shape. Deep sadness burgeoned in his gut, filled up the rest of him, and spilled out. “Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for leaving me behind.” He sniffled, echoed through the empty classroom. Sunset orange glazed his face, danced along his abdomen. “I devoted my life to you. I loved you. I loved you more than anything.” Sadness choked his heart. Sweat beaded on his palms. And tenderly, through tear-beaded eyes, leaning over the desk, he asked: “Grimm… why did you leave? You knew how much you meant to me, so… why?” Grimm glowered. Unmoving, staring, a marionette. In that gravely, familiar voice, he replied: “Sid… I gave you all the time I could.” “And yet it was so little,” Sid said. “You and I were supposed to raise a family some day, do you remember? We were supposed to have a future. There was so much. And when you died, you took it all away.” He breathed heavy. “You were the only family I’ve ever really had. Am I supposed to just move on? Find someone else?” He looked askance, whispered: “You know I could never do that, right?” Grimm touted a knowing smile. A warm, empathetic smile. Even in Sid’s worst moments, he was acutely reminded of that face. Coming between the rows of desks, extending his arms like a saint, the Gengar asked: “Sid… would you rather have died with me?” The sun passed below the horizon, those last dim flecks of yellow-orange settling across Grimm’s miasma-tinged mien. And subtly, moonglow began to illuminate the white speckled tile, washing blue and grey over the desktops. A melancholic expanse. Sid took a deep breath. “I just don’t want to live without you,” Sid admitted. He squirmed against his own words, like they would burst from his skin. Something rotten bubbling up from his lungs, disbelief at his own sadness. “A–and if that means we both die, then… that’s fine. I can accept that.” The Gengar took a step forward. The school rocked around him, teetering like a ship. The floor creaked and shifted, the roof bubbling like a stew. Little bits of drywall and brick and mortar collapsing onto themselves, morphing into a melange of color and light. Drips of cerebrospinal fluid breaking through and pooling. “I love you,” Grimm said. Those same words Sid had heard thousands of times before, uttered with fading breaths. “I hoped my sacrifice would show you that.” Sid slammed his hands down on the desk, stood atop the chair, and yelled: “I don’t care about your intentions!” Eyes shut, he clawed at his head, raking those blood-stained leaves across his nape. “What’s the point is this – all of this – if I can’t enjoy it with you? I gave you everything!” He sobbed: “Because I love you!” Grimm simply replied: “But the world you’re building… it’s just not meant for us.” “Then what’s it meant for?” Sid snapped. “If it’s not meant for us, then why… why have we done all this? What was the damn point?” In reply, Grimm pointed out the window. There, dancing outside the glass, were thousands of faces, bodies, writhing and dancing and kissing and dying. More lives than Sid had the capacity to understand. Millions of memories, each as precious and varied as his own. Entire flavors of sentiment which Sid had never felt, connections he’d never made, skies he’d never seen. Thousands of years’ worth. “Think of all the Pokémon we’ll save,” Grimm said. Sid’s eyes glowed with electrostatic, slack-jawed, staring into the void. “Think about all the memories they’ll make, because of us. The love they’ll share. So, so much… isn’t that worth it?” Frightened tears welled below Sid’s violet-bagged eyes. Somewhere in the darkness, in the infinite expanse of possibility, Grimm had found him. For a brief few years, they explored the world together as fledglings. Sid believed it’d last forever. “But you’re more than just a memory,” Sid said. “You’re everything to me.” Grimm then touched Sid’s chin, tilted it upward. Sid saw a beautiful night sky. Thousands of lives, twinkling against the star-lit backdrop. Entire lineages strung along rows of hydrogen giants, meticulously composed. “Your heart has room for more than just me,” Grimm confided. His frame blended into the void of space. “You will find love again, and you will lose it again. Each as beautiful and unique as the last… this is the way of things, dear.” Sid shook his head, muttered: “No… no. Please, I–I can’t. I’m not strong enough.” The battered Snivy felt himself melting into that familiar smile, that familiar smell. Grimm took him in his arms, those tender arms, and cooed: “Sid… you are stronger than you could’ve ever imagined.” His vision was cutting out now, replaced by a deep, warm void. The last few stars began to twinkle and snuff. “Do you know why I love you, Sid?” Starlight was inside the Snivy’s chest. It danced and crackled like embers. Dejectedly, he admitted: “No. I’ve never known.” He sniffled. Nothingness filled his nose and dribbled down his throat. “I’m terrible. I’ve always been terrible.” Grimm held the boy tight. He’d always wished Sid would be gentler with himself; that he could see himself through his beloved’s adoring eyes. “I love every single part of you. Even when you don’t,” Grimm confided. Sid no longer felt the chair beneath his feet. Enveloping him, the Gengar whispered: “Before you, I had never met such a selfless Pokémon. So carefree, so beautiful, and yet so gentle… I never knew anyone like it.” The Snivy chuckled, his lungs clogged with sludge, his eyes watering. “I thought the same thing of you,” he said. “When you shared with me your last… “...oran berry in the back alley…” “...swimming in you, our flesh touching.” Grimm and Sid relished in each other, entwining as their physical forms melted away. Laughing and touching. Lost in memories. “You were always the first to ruin a serious moment with a joke, you know…” “Oh yeah? As if you didn’t encourage me.” “Seven years of driving each other insane…” “Are you kidding me? You’re the only thing keeping me sane.” “Haha, I hate you.” “Well, I hate you even more.” Something shifted in Sid’s chest. A great pounding, like a door being knocked down. And as if it were nothing at all, Sid said: “My heart isn’t beating.” Grimm replied: “You’re dying.” “Finally.” The Gengar’s tendrils then pulled away, like a warm blanket lifted from a feverish body. Sid reached out his stubby arms, only to graze the edge of the mist; and Grimm said: “I’m sorry, my love… you can’t die. Not yet. Not here.” “But–” “You have to save them.” Grimm poked Sid’s chest; light seeped out, like liquid from a sponge. “I gave my life for theirs. That was my decision. The last wish I ever imparted.” Grimm’s eyes burned like stars. “Now, it’s your job to honor it.” Sid was silent for a moment; gazing into twin red giants, his heart struggled to contract. His outline dissolved into a sea of light, spilling from his flesh. One last stop before the void. And desperately, with a non-existent mouth, he asked: “I’ll see you again though, right? This… this isn’t the end, is it?” The world swam. No one spoke. Grimm didn’t dare. Sid leaned into nothingness, whispered: “Please tell me this isn’t the end, Grimm. Please. I–I need to know this isn’t the end.” And patiently, with a wry grin, Grimm replied: “My love… it’s only the beginning.” — — — Maestro came close, laid a tender hand upon Rubrum’s shoulder. He said: “Professor, I think he’s…” But he didn’t need to finish that thought. It was evident to everyone. The Snivy was limp. Laid atop a pile of fresh green-brown clover, gazing upward at the rising sun, beckoning from the treetops. His eyes saw nothing. Rubrum’s shoulder blades rippled with each futile pump. Crouched over a Pokémon a third his size, hammering away at his little chest with steel palms. The sight was absurd. But Maestro could hardly tear the Lucario away. “Please,” Rubrum begged. As if the corpse would listen to him, as if its soft flesh would bend and breathe. His legs cramped from squatting. Hoarse, breathless, Rubrum begged: “P–please, Sid. Please. Not you too. Open your eyes, please…” And just then, Rubrum felt it. Something sticky, warm, oozing from underneath his palm. At first, Rubrum assumed he’d pushed his hands into the Snivy’s chest cavity; but upon pulling back, he realized it. What laid below him wasn’t blood, or viscera; it was a glowing, gelatinous substance. Coating Rubrum’s palm in a thin film, dripping off and rejoining. A big patch of it, stretching outward from Sid’s heart like a rash. With wide eyes, Asher muttered: “What the…?” White static reflected in Rubrum’s glasses, sat upon his wrinkled nose, adorning a begrudged smile. His chest fluttered, his voice cracked, as he announced to the rest: “I think Sid is… evolving.” Maestro shot quick glances between the Professor and the corpse, now emitting a sizable glow. Lifting up his mask, his jaw slack, he yammered: “But how? Isn’t he…?” The rash grew. It spread upward from Sid’s heart, visibly pulsating and glowing through his veins. That latent power which laid dormant within him for so long. Thousands of millions of cells breaking down their walls and joining, organelles and all, into a primordial soup of nucleotides and proteins and lipids. Like sludge, Sid’s glittering flesh dripped onto the ground. “How is this possible?” Maestro asked. “I–is this good?” But no one knew. Rubrum backed away, transfixed by the utter beauty of it, and replied: “Evolution has been tested as a medical treatment in Augusta. But results were inconclusive.” He shook his head. “It isn’t very well-studied. I…I don’t know.” Butting his nose between Rubrum’s legs, Fey chirped: “Well, should we hold him down? Is he going to start seizing again?” “No,” Rubrum replied. He laid a gentle pat atop the Sylveon’s head, rubbed between his eyes. His voice was dry and fatigued. “Right now, his body is dissolving into fundamental parts. If we touch him, we might interrupt.” “So we just have to… watch?” Maestro asked. Obviously, he wasn’t pleased to realize his helplessness. “How long is this going to take? What happens if the evolution fails?” To that, Rubrum had little answer. During his time at the Academy, he’d hardly researched evolution as a medicinal practice; but indeed, among the far-flung populations of Illumina, it was a sparsely practiced home remedy. By some, it was rumored to bring the moribund back from death’s door; but of course, the circumstances were so rare that empirical study was nearly impossible. Rubrum frowned. Far more often, medically induced evolution failed, its recipients rendered into piles of protein-filled biomatter. All it took was one vital organ failing to reform. Brown-red-green sludge, spread across a pure white sick bed, crusted onto the sheets… “We have to help somehow,” Fey protested. Despite his ignorance, his voice brimmed with foolhardy confidence. “Can he hear us? Maybe we could talk to him. Let him know we’re here.” Asher, however, was nonplussed by the idea. Gripping Fey by his haunches, he tugged the reluctant Sylveon back onto his hindquarters, seated squarely within the Cinderace’s lap. “I think it’s best if we leave him be,” Asher said. “We don’t want to crowd him.” And so, the four tattered soldiers rubbernecked. Stood awkwardly over Sid’s body, now gelatinous, shining iridescent white. Nutrient-rich cells, unspecialized and fused, pushed their way through Sid’s carotid arteries. Two spindles of white, just barely glowing through his pale green skin. His chest had been rendered a cavity of white static, burgeoning with flecks of red and green and blue. Like an ocean, tiny waves rippled across the surface. Rubrum didn’t even realize he’d grabbed Maestro’s paw. His legs weak with anxiety, his eyes glued to the Snivy’s quaking chest. Long away, a Hoothoot howled toward the sky. The tree cover shook and showered leaves upon the glade. The sanitarium burned. “Come on,” Rubrum whispered. He bit his lip, his palms sweating. “Come on, Sid. Come on…” Like dye in water, a splash of white, luminescent liquid permeated Sid’s eye; spreading like a virus, it subsumed his glazed-over cornea, ate it all up, filling the entire socket, before creeping along the bridge of his broken nose, slithering from tooth to tooth. Half his face, utterly consumed and melting. Skin and bone undifferentiated. Crack. Solid bone, flowing like liquid. Crack, crack. A moan shot from Sid’s mouth, gargling, like he was underwater. And his neck, wrenched to and fro, snaked along the grass, forcibly ejected from his body. Longer. “He’s getting bigger,” Fey said, awestruck. “I’ve… never seen it from the outside before.” Absently, Asher said: “I don’t even know what a Snivy evolves into.” Like snot, white ooze leaked from Sid’s one remaining nostril, until that, too, was subsumed. Just a single eyeball, shaking and red, surrounded by a pile of white-hot mush. Sid could hardly form a coherent thought anymore. His experience was rendered an incomplete slurry of shape and sensation. A shooting pain in his right arm – or where his right arm used to be – supplanted by absolute warmth, absolute calm. Monochrome boughs and leaves swayed overhead. Somewhere, it sounded like someone was cracking acorns. Smack. Crack. Crack. “His spine is rearranging now,” Rubrum muttered. In gentle circles, he rubbed his thumb along Maestro’s paw. The Meowscarada gave him a squeeze. Two arms, broken and extended. They inched over the grass, ten little liquid fingers gripping at the dirt, pulling themselves outward. Sid’s shoulders ripped apart from one another with a thunderous crack, parting like a bird’s wings. Sharp edges of Sid’s ribcage poked from beneath a frothing sea of white, reaching out to the sky, and then submerged once more. The subtle slosh-slosh of internal organs. Like an arrowhead, a pointed nose then emerged from the sea of white; behind it, a globular skull, and two eyes, wide-open, waiting for their eyelids to form. Two glowing flaps parting in the middle with a tongue between, gasping. A tentative smile spread across Rubrum’s sweat-laden lips. Holding Maestro’s paw tight, he said: “Arceus… he’s actually doing it.” A nervous chuckle. “Look, he’s reforming.” Sid’s first breath was a deep, raspy baritone. In, then out. One big gulp of cold morning air, christening his new lungs. Like a Magikarp floundering on a dock, his arms shook, his lips puckering. Born again. Leaves then began to sprout from his long, thick tail; just buds at first, then blooming out like flower petals, unfurling and glistening with moisture. His toes visibly curled. A strange, absent sigh fell from his lips. “He’s regaining color,” Rubrum said. He shook his head in disbelief, giddy with excitement. “Just a little bit more. Just a little more…” And just as quickly as the rash was onset, it began to secede. A thick white film peeling itself away from Sid’s right eye, revealing moist, untouched flesh underneath; a stunning viridian, hung above the mint flesh of his maw. “Look at his nose,” Fey said. “It’s not crooked anymore.” Next, Sid’s chest. The iridescent film ebbed in waves, contracting like a muscle above Sid’s heart. Sucking itself inward, leaving behind thin patches of moisture; tugging itself gently off of Sid’s little fingers and toes, still curled like a hatchling’s. The slop slapped and churned. Soon enough, the undifferentiated mass had retracted itself from Sid’s flesh. Squirming over itself like a living organism, it fumbled and sputtered and glowed; and then, having accomplished its purpose, it retreated inside Sid’s chest, pummeling through an aperture no larger than a pinprick. Then, nothing. No one moved. No one spoke. Four intent bodies, gathered round a shallow-breathed Servine. Watching as a gelatinous mass traveled around below Sid’s flesh, assumedly rebuilding his vital organs. “Is he… okay?” Asher asked, his voice quiet and reverent. Internally, he wondered if his own evolution had looked like this. He then turned to Fey, spoke: “Maybe we should, you know, move him now–” Then, Sid sat up. Much too quickly, like his spine had been pulled taut with a string; and from his gaping jaw flew a torrent of coagulated blood, spewing in chunks from his spasming lungs. Big balls of it, splatters of half-dried essence, forcefully ejected in a spastic cough. Worse yet, Asher sat directly in the line of fire. Just as the Cinderace opened his mouth to speak, a splatter of maroon washed across his face, pelted his poor tongue. From his forehead down to his chin, the scarified rabbit dripped with blood. Gagging, he spat the chunks onto the grass, dropping pitifully to his hands and knees. Red-tinged saliva hung unceremoniously from his lips. And in the most pathetic voice he’d ever mustered, Asher said: “Ouuuuuuuugggghhhhhhh.” A deep breath, and then: ““O–okay. Okay, yeah. I… I might’ve deserved that.” His protests hardly shifted anyone’s focus. The others still watched intently as the former corpse miraculously opened his eyes, took in the sunrise for the first time; sharp air pummeled past his bloody teeth, entered his nasal passages, and filled him up. He shivered. “Sid?” Rubrum asked. He was tender, laying a soft paw upon the Servine’s newly broadened shoulder. “Sid, can you see us?” And indeed, Sid could. He turned toward Rubrum, awkwardly licking his lips, and cleared his throat. Several mouthfuls of phlegm flowed down his esophagus. His tongue felt strange inside his new mouth, like it didn’t quite fit right. But nonetheless, Sid spoke. He breathed deep, rubbed his temples, and smiled. And with an exhausted chuckle, he said: “It is so fucking cold.” Immediately, the poor Servine was swarmed with exhaustive affections. Rubrum practically jumped onto him, wrapped his arms around Sid’s shoulders, crying out in joy; Maestro did much the same, ruffling the Servine’s head, petting the leaves upon his back. Fey erupted into giddy laugh-crying, burying his head into Sid’s chest with palpable relief. And Sid welcomed them all, touching their fur with new fingers. They felt different. They smelled different. Even the colors of the morning sun were set alight with new life. Asher swiped blood from his face, then watched with a tight-lipped smile. For the first time in a while, his cotton-tail wagged. — — — A small quartz prism hung from Maximus’s window. Dangling on a thin thread, it gently turned amidst the currents of the air, shining an eternal rainbow upon the dank office’s walls. The century-old wallpaper seemed to greet the light like an old friend; fading together, slowly, into a wine-dark hue. Maximus was working. This was not unusual. He was, however, sat in an unusual spot – to the side of his grand bureau, upon a smaller, lesser desk. Precariously balanced upon four thin legs, the sickly thing looked like it might fall apart any second; no doubt, it’d been tugged from some obscure attic, lugged down a few flights of stairs, and plopped there. The Alakazam hardly had any room for his legs underneath. And in his usual spot sat, predictably, the one who’d taken such delectable pleasure in torturing him. Alvin reclined peacefully in Maximus’s plush chair, wrote upon Maximus’s desk. He even used Maximus’s stationery. The good kind, thick and durable. It even had his name embossed on top. The Alakazam carefully dabbed his quill within the tiny well of ink, skirted the tip around the well’s edge, and began once more to write. His hand, stained black with ink, slaved across the page with all the enthusiasm of a ragged servant. From the corner of his eye, Maximus watched for Alvin’s movements. Often, the Raichu would emote at nothing. A full-hearted smile, a tilt of his head. Enough to entertain himself given the absolute drivel he was forced to perform. But each time he’d move, Maximus tensed, if only a little. The telephone rang just as the sun rose above the horizon. Beautiful orange light spilled through the dark curtains and graced the hardwood. The Raichu then fingered the receiver, gently lifted it to his chubby cheek, and listened. He stared off into the distance. A playful smile never left his lips. Naturally, Maximus was intrigued. A whining voice spoke over the phone, just barely inaudible. Hurried and scared. Alvin gave a slight nod, but did not otherwise acknowledge the caller; and after only a few seconds, the Raichu calmly replaced the receiver. The instant Alvin recused himself, Maximus knew. The realization made his chest grow cold. And so, like a schoolchild pestering a teacher, he mustered a breath and asked: “Update from Colm?” Alvin nodded, went right back to writing. Without lifting his gaze, in a disinterested tone, he said: “An update from his soldiers. Colm is dead.” Maximus drew in a deep breath, then let it go. Dust particles danced in the disturbed air. Tinnitus made his ears ring. Only the quiet scrawl of a pen’s nib disturbed it – no doubt placed upon his own stationery. Commandeered. “It looks like they set the whole place on fire,” Alvin admitted. He tongued his cheek, playfully running his tongue along his sharp molars. “They can’t find a body.” “And the child?” Alvin smirked, replied: “Like I said, they can’t find a body.” The Alakazam gave an absent nod. His long, bony fingers lightly twirled the shimmering strands of his mustache. They fell limply across his palm, the gentlest touch he’d felt in a century. And he breathed: “It’s always a shame when the children die.” “Hardly a child,” Alvin chided. He sucked idly on his cheek, like they were wasting their breaths. His little nubby fingers just barely clung to the thick fountain pen in his grasp. Blue-black ink spewed from its tip and smeared along his hand. “Besides, that thing’s been alive for forty years. Death was a mercy.” Maximus concluded: “I only wish I’d ended things sooner.” The words left a stain on his lips. Petty notions of mercy and clemency were below him; and yet, he yearned for them all the same. A sort of wrong impulse, wracking his needle-sharp mind. A weapon with no direction. He turned it inward. The beast’s breath shook. Maximus had been avoiding the subject, since it brought him such shame; but he could avoid it no longer. So he took a breath, tracing his eyes along the edges of his puny desk. He asked: “I assume the Key’s been taken?” “Yes,” Alvin answered. “Once again, your subordinates have failed.” He cleared his throat, smacked his lips. He didn’t even give Maximus an errant glance. “Another stain on our legacy.” Another. That word lingered in Maximus’s skull. Another stain. Another failure. More and more and more shit, piled up until it blocked out the sun, leaving him in the cold. The weight of his failures piled high. Aching on his poor lumbar. Bending and warping. Names, gone and unuttered. Slowly, Maximus bent downward, as if supplicating; and then, he found it. A smooth, green, cold bottle. Unmarked, like the rest. He raised it to the desk, hovered his long, brown fingernails over its rim; and with a tiny hiss, the cork safely popped. Floated by an invisible hand, it fell like a feather into the wastebasket. The glass met Maximus’s lips like an old friend. Big, greedy gulps. One bitter swallow after another. It made his throat burn. “You know,” Alvin mocked, “most people tend to sip wine. From a glass?” The Alakazam gave no response. Having drank half the bottle, he slammed the thing back onto the desk. His elbows fell limply alongside it, his head dunking and swaying, red-tinged liquid lingering on his furred lips. He licked them clean. He then coughed, and asked: “Is the mausoleum gone?” Alvin shrugged, replied: “Yeah, it’s gone.” Maximus nodded, his eyes wide, his lips pursed. His addled mind struggled to catch up with his tongue as he blathered: “There might still be a way to disable the Key. Change the Spear’s programming. We can speak to the Beginning–” “I think you’ve done enough,” Alvin sniped. He lifted his eyes from the page, a task of monumental effort; dark rings underneath, hanging like curtains. His usual smile supplanted by a tight-lipped scowl, a scrunched nose. Those eyes narrowed and piercing. With his breath reeking, Maximus pushed: “If I could just speak to Him–” “Stop.” Alvin raised his hand. His eyelids fluttered. “Please, save us the embarrassment.” He inhaled sharply, raised his shoulders. “Your insistence on drawing out your own suffering is second-to-none. It’s infuriating.” “I–I…” “If we could’ve patched this vulnerability, we would’ve done it long ago.” Alvin’s tone was grave. A rare occasion for him. Venom dripped from his words, long-sweltering frustration rendered concrete. “But I think you already know how vulnerable we are.” He inhaled. “If it were up to me, I’d have you strung and hanged for treason. But you already know that, right?” Indeed, Alvin made no secret of his disdain. Maximus had long suffered it. Hanging his head low, the Alakazam spoke: “Alvin, I’ve apologized.” “An apology isn’t enough!” Alvin barked. He slammed his pen onto the desk, his chubby face ruined with frustration. Two rosy cheeks, distorted and furious. “You took our future and ruined it for your own selfish gain. You… you stole the Key. By all accounts, you are a traitor.” The Raichu’s mien softened, entertained by the absurdity of it all. “And yet here you are, breathing the same air as me. For an entire century, no less. It’s absolutely asinine.” Warily, Maximus contended: “I never intended to sabotage our mission.” “Then what did you intend?” “I–it wasn’t just my decision.” Alvin’s temper flared: “Bullshit.” “Ceres–” “Take responsibility.” Alvin said those words with unconcealed hatred. Looking down on a man twice as tall as him. Scowling and gnashing his little teeth. “You’re the only one who had access to the Key. Arceus knows why the Beginning has spared you. And yet you’ve never once – never once – admitted it was your fault.” Quietly, Maximus whispered: “You don’t understand. She compelled me.” “Who? Tomoe?” Alvin asked. He waved the comment away. “What a crock of shit. It’s no one’s fault but your own.” To that, Maximus had nothing to say. The words hung in his gut, infiltrating him. That same scorn, that same anger, internalized for one hundred long years. “I’ll atone,” Maximus reassured. He stared at his own reflection, distorted by the glass bottle. His visage warped and frowned. “I’ll make this better. I’ll save everyone.” Alvin said: “I should hope so.” He puckered his lips, anxiously wringing his hands, and glanced out the window. The right words struggled to coalesce. How could one broach such a nauseating topic? And eventually, he said: “With Colm’s death, we’re officially on the defensive. I trust you remember His orders.” Maximus nodded, gave a big huff. “I do,” he admitted. The words dripped with shame. “You’ll be returning to Lookout Island, then.” “That’s correct.” The Raichu calmly laid his pen onto the desk, as if he weren’t berating his subordinate moments before; and he added: “I’ll be taking Invi with me. And I’ll need a contingent, of course.” A laugh. “I’m not carrying his sick bed myself.” At this, Maximus was surprised. Truthfully, he hadn’t given that piece of trash a thought in quite a long time. Last he heard, the Victini had just gotten his ventilator removed. According to the nurses, anesthesia was deliberately denied. His screams permeated the entire recovery ward. “Invi?” Maximus echoed. “Did the Beginning order you to…?” Alvin smirked. “Of course not,” he replied. His eyes were aglow with sadistic indulgences. “At this point, the Beginning hardly considers him an asset. Taking him along is my decision. He’ll stand guard on the island. Under my boot.” A little chuckle. “Right where he belongs.” Maximus raised an eyebrow. He prodded: “If Invi truly is a defensive asset, shouldn’t he remain here? With the other hybrids?” He tapped his fingers along the desk’s edge. “I’m worried about our ability to control the others. It’d be best to have one with some autonomy. Just in case…” Alvin then stood from his seat, brushed himself off. Just as it’d always been, his anger returned to a passive simmer. Tiny bubbles of frustration and annoyance, betraying an ocean of hatred. With a sharp tongue, the Raichu replied: “Am I supposed to pay for your incompetence? Again?” “I just don’t understand what you have to gain,” Maximus contended. “Rubrum will be headed here in a matter of days. We need every weapon in our arsenal, primed.” “Then prime your weapons.” “What if it’s not enough?” Maximus looked around, as if seeking support; but he was alone. His tone was solemn, resolute. A soldier, hard-spoken, with an egg on his face. “These rebels have thwarted every single thing we’ve thrown their way. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that our success is not guaranteed.” As he spoke, Alvin calmly walked around the room’s perimeter, neared the coat rack, and slipped his arm into the sleeves. “We need to protect the capital at all costs,” Maximus contended. He let out an exhausted sigh. “Truthfully, I would’ve liked to have you stay behind, as well. Who knows when they will infiltrate our border? Perhaps they already have.” Alvin was silent for a moment. He closed his coat methodically, pressing every wooden button through a slick fabric hole. On his face, a pensive frown. Obviously, he wished to escape Maximus’s presence as quickly as possible. So, mustering enough bravado to hide his immense displeasure, he asked: “Maximus, are you afraid of these Pokémon?” “Would that be so unreasonable?" Maximus confided. “They’ve surmounted impossible obstacles. They run and hide like insects. They’ve assassinated our entire governing Board. Is that not a cause for panic?” Alvin nodded, replied: “The truth is, Maximus, none of this would have happened if you’d done your fucking job.” His tone was placid, as if the words meant nothing at all. Casual cruelty, sung like poetry. The Raichu spat: “Honestly, it’s been an utter and complete dishonor humoring your doddering whims. Where is the old Maximus? Where is the fearless man I once knew? The one who fought so valiantly?” He chuckled. “If you truly cannot manage suppressing a four-man rebellion, then you should be stripped of your position and left in an Intermediary Zone.” He shot an errant glance toward the old giant, flashed a toothy smirk. “Kill them, or don’t bother speaking to us again. Are we clear?” The resultant silence was deafening. Instinctively, Maximus’s brain sharpened itself like a knife; had anyone else made such a threat, he would’ve carved their mind like a tin can. Rage burgeoned from his withered heart and made his hands clench; swallowing a glob of bitter saliva, staring upward like a schoolchild, the ancient Alakazam was stripped bare of his pride. And in a miniscule voice, he choked: “Okay.” “I’m glad we have an understanding,” Alvin affirmed. He then checked his clock, looked out the window. “And, just so you know… Colm’s camp was poisoned. They’re all laid up.” Maximus asked: “What? How?” “Well…” — — — Akiva wiped sweat from her brow with a soft microfiber rag. Her dressing room reeked of hair spray and antiseptic; bathed in warm sunlight, leaking from a grand window at the front. White carpet, white drapes, white sheets. Everything pure as snow, everything in its place. There was a monster in Akiva’s mirror. Perfectly manicured, and disastrously presentable. Not one hair out of place; not one cuticle untouched. Two dark, sunken eyes. Laugh lines where there was once soft, tender flesh. Even her smile, aped toward the glass, didn’t seem like hers. Disembodied and strange. The door opened with a click; Akiva didn’t bother to look at the intruder. She already knew. “Maximus,” she greeted. Her voice betrayed no intonation, no warmth. A cold and bitter welcoming. “It’s good to see you. Is everything alright?” Click. The dressing room’s door locked behind him. Dread pierced Akiva’s heart, made her breathing unsteady. Sweat pooled under her armpits, permeating her once-white dress. Intently, she watched the mirror’s reflection; Maximus met her gaze there, his face saddened and anxious. Two unwilling participants, locked in a battle of decorum. Akiva then turned, stared at the silent monolith; and breaking her facade, she asked, curtly: “Why are you here?” Maximus only shook his head. Stooped over himself, his back curved into a permanent hunch. Years of desk work rendered him crooked and decrepit. And yet, within his eyes shone an innocent yearning; around Akiva, especially so. One last vestige of purity within a rotting enterprise. “Did you lose a satchel of your pills?” Maximus asked. His voice was quiet and weak, as if he regretted asking. The old man’s gaze bored into Akiva’s skull; she made no show of discomfort. But internally, she wracked herself. Intense anxiety made her lips quiver, her hands curl into loose fists. And, taking a deep breath in, then out, she answered: “I–I’m unsure. I don’t believe so. Why?” Maximus did not answer. He instead stepped closer, looking upward at his daughter with frantic desperation, hoping she’d clear everything up, and asked: “Did you lose a satchel of your pills in Renasca?” Such a pointed question would not be asked without merit. Akiva knew this; and furthermore, she could surmise why Maximus would ask. Last Akiva saw that satchel, it was pressed into Fey’s ribbons. Carried away with a tight-lipped grin. What he did with it, she didn’t know. So Akiva ground her jaw, replied: “No, I didn’t.” She patted her side, a half-full sack of little white pills. “I kept them all on me. At all times. Just as instructed.” “Even when you fled?” Maximus prodded. He tapped long-nailed fingers. “Is there no possibility you dropped some in the woods?” Tension gripped Akiva’s chest, made her stiff. She shot her glance to the side, pinching white fabric between her forefinger and thumb. And with her voice stuck in her throat, she lied: “Now that I think about it, I might have lost a few pills while I ran away.” A pregnant pause, then: “Why are you asking?” Maximus was struck with a profound grief. It made his breath catch, his stomach churn. The fact was this: he knew Akiva was lying. He knew someone had supplied those pills to Rubrum. He knew Akiva could not have escaped the rebels alone. And yet, he’d always forced himself to believe her. He had to. Customarily, the punishment for treason would be death. But as Maximus stared into his daughter’s fine-glossed eyes, he could not bring himself to condemn her. She was the only family he had left. Iris, Kane, Ceres, the lot of them – the family he’d lived with for his entire life – were dead. He couldn’t lose another. Never again. With an empathetic frown, Maximus stepped forward. That invisible gap, forever held between the pair of them, coming undone. Akiva didn’t protest. She didn’t move. After all, if Maximus truly intended to harm her, he could’ve done so from any distance. And so in silence, with great mourning, Maximus approached. Akiva smelled the booze on his breath. The gargantuan Alakazam then weakly uplifted his arm, wordless, and gently traced his fingertip along Akiva’s forehead. Each second stretching far too long. Each breath caught in a milieu of anxiety, sadness, and stress. Maximus had never once shown care for Akiva’s feelings. And yet today, Akiva did not resist; for once, she desired for Maximus to see the world from her eyes. Together, they drifted. Two lithe bodies, eyes closed, dreaming together. Akiva’s mind met him like a gut punch. Swirling and undulating against itself, like waves on the ocean, Maximus felt it all rush by. Entire cumulus clouds, hundreds of stories high, thundering and sparking, with myriad memories within. Millions of cannibalized experiences, stripped bare from the infirm, the rebellious, the defiant. Tragedies and miracles. Entire lives, cut apart at the seams, blurry and misshapen and loud. Whipping around Akiva’s central nervous system like a planet’s rings. Maximus was used to such a terrible sight. He, too, had eaten others’ dreams. More than Akiva could ever hope to consume. Familiar voices tickled his ears. “How much do you remember from them?” Fey asked. And Akiva whispered: “Everything. I remember all of it.” She sniffled, then breathed: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” And so he raised his finger, cut through the fog like a scalpel. Akiva twitched and gasped as the seams of her conscious mind split open, a little aperture beaming through the endless night. Maximus stroked her hair, just like he had forty years before, when she was a child... And wordlessly, Maximus watched. Akiva’s memories were laid plain to see. Fey, that poor Sylveon, folded and sleeping upon Akiva’s lap; and Akiva above him, eating his mind. Starting with his most delicious memories, and then working her way down to the bone. And all the while, Akiva savored it; because, in her heart, she envied him. She desired his confidence, his fearlessness. The ever-elusive assurance that he was doing the right thing. And if she couldn’t obtain it herself, she could taste it. She could consume it. Rain-soaked recollections flashing by, one after the next. Fey and Akiva speaking in a moonlit glade, staring each other in the eye. Predator and prey, talking for the first time. Akiva slandering Maximus’s name, scrambling Iris’s brains, decapitating her own soldiers. Big pools of crimson-black blood, spilled onto the dew-kissed grass. Gut-wrenching pain echoed through Maximus; with tear-glistened eyes, he watched as Akiva and Fey spoke. “Akiva… do you remember where I had my first kiss?” The Alakazam was plunged underwater; all the gaps between Akiva and himself, filled with sadness. “So, do you still think I’m a monster?” Akiva asked. “Do you think I’m a killer?” And Fey replied: “No. I don’t know what you are. But…” He smacked his lips. “Maybe I’d like to know. Maybe I could listen.” A simple gesture which Maximus had never once extended. Words which Maximus had never spoken, and yet Fey provided with ease. Two hearts, connected by a thin, spindling thread. The connection Akiva had always craved. These rebels – these insects – poisoned his daughter’s mind. Promises of friendship and alliance, cracking open the girl’s steel-clad heart. Maximus chastised himself for not recognizing it sooner – that, among all of them, Akiva was the most easily misdirected. The weakest. “I know you must think I’m a monster, Akiva,” Maximus said. “And I know you’ve always resented me… but if I’d been in your life, I only ever would’ve hurt you.” Fleshy, rotted guts poured from his mind. “I knew it from the start. For both you and Cassius. My… my presence would’ve just made things worse. I would’ve only caused you pain. I had to keep you away from me. It was the only way to keep you safe. To fulfill our dream. Our species’s dream. Do you understand?" Akiva bent her head, whispered: “Maximus… it doesn’t matter.” Pause, inhale. For the first time, Maximus felt her hatred. Gushing and red and raw. “The truth is… you’re the one who’s hurt me the most.” Grief then crashed over Maximus’s heart, submerging his most vulnerable parts. Splitting open like fissures, long gashes along his back, his chest. A quake to rock the heavens. It careened through Akiva’s mindscape, through the mountains of memories and death, and came back. “All I’ve ever wanted was peace,” Akiva bellowed. “But you’ve never understood that. Not once.” Tar-black sludge covered Maximus’s body, weighed him down. Wave after wave of shared anguish. For all the senseless violence, all the death, all the suffering they’d left in their wake. Forty years of wine-tinged dreams. Crippled hopes of endless dominion. The horror that, for all their conflict, the two of them had always desired the same thing. Peace. “I–I only did this because I love you. All of it,” Maximus gushed. He paused, held Akiva’s hands in his own. One ray of light amidst an infested mindscape. He couldn’t back down. Not now. Not when so much had already been sacrificed. “From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were exceptional,” he said. “I knew you were instrumental in His plan. I knew that it was our destiny to build a new world together. I’ve always had that hope.” His smile hid sharp incisors. His grip was firm and cloying. And his eyes, watery and intent, bored into Akiva’s hesitant gaze. Slouched forward in supplication, Maximus begged for the Gardevoir’s approval. A lowly, terrible man, kneeling at the altar of a goddess. Just like he had done for Ceres. Behind them, Iris released a battle cry. She ordered her troops to fire upon the rebels; balls of fire and darkness whizzed by their heads, striking Maestro in the side. Helpless and squirming like Wurmple, the animals were thrown against the grass. The groans and yelps of the moribund. “Your hope is lined with corpses,” Akiva said. For the first time, she stood tall. She spoke with confidence. Those eyes like rose quartz, glistening from within the rain. “I’ve shown you my memories, and that’s all you have to say? That I’m destined to help your plans?” “You’ve always had a soft heart,” Maximus cooed. Genuine love welled in his core, small and withered and terrified. Big eyes, gazing upward. “I’ve always admired that about you. You cradle the hope of thousands in your hands. And yet, you’ve never shied away from responsibility. Not until now.” Akiva’s mien faltered. Taking a deep breath, quivering in her chest, she said: “The only reason I obeyed your orders… is because you scare me.” Then, the rain stopped. Hung in the air like tiny diamonds, glistening and refracting the torchlight from the forest’s periphery. Still bodies lining the grassy knoll, Iris mid-yelp. Fourteen glowing bulbs, shining down upon the pair of them like spotlights. The once-chilly breeze stilled and frozen, only moved by Akiva’s breaths. From the wet grass, Maximus lifted himself. That tenderness faded away, replaced with solemnity. Determination in the face of suffering. And he spoke: “Akiva, please understand… those vermin cannot achieve true unity. Not like the Beginning can.” A condescending smile. “Don’t forget, they’ve killed tens of our soldiers. Their hands are stained, too. What kind of peace is that?” “How dare you lecture me about peace? You’ve slaughtered thousands,” Akiva shot back. “You don’t want peace. You want conquest.” The Alakazam frowned, whispered: “If this is truly what you think of me… then you have never once known me.” “And I’m better for it.” Their faces were alit. Only a few feet away, Iris’s Inferno resumed. A column of purifying fire, rising up toward the sky. Heat spewed from Iris’s maw like vomit. The treetops recoiled in horror, watching as their leaves burnt up and flew into the clouds; and there below, within the Inferno, was a lone Pokémon, rendered a little black outline amidst the flame. A smudge. Rain pattering against the flames and rising again. Wordlessly, Maximus traced his hand along Akiva’s wrist, gently grasped her finger. Naturally, she recoiled at his touch; but the Alakazam was unabated. Maximus then raised her finger, soft and slender, to touch his forehead; he closed his eyes, bent his head low. His breaths were slow and deep. “Maximus?” Akiva asked. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Disbelief made her breaths shrill. She continued: “What are you…?” “Please,” the old man affirmed. His words slipped out in a gravelly whisper. “I want to show you my memories. Please.” Akiva hesitated. In this moment, Maximus was left totally defenseless; should she have wanted, she could’ve evaporated his mind then and there. Swept it all clean, from top to bottom, razed and burned. All of his memories, all of his feelings, gone. She bit her lip. If she truly intended to turn her back on the Board, this was her chance. She could end the war here and now. She could save thousands – no, millions of lives. She could welcome Rubrum into the capital by nightfall. It could all be done. “Y–you’re wide open,” Akiva choked. She bit her lip. “Are you sure? I’ve never… no one has ever…” But Maximus insisted. The most well-guarded mind in Augusta, cracked wide. And with half-lidded eyes, he begged: “If I truly deserve to die, Akiva, then kill me.” He took a deep breath. “Otherwise, please. If only for a moment… see this world through my eyes. Please.” For a few seconds, the pair of them stared. Wishing for the moment to end, wishing for the other to back down. But neither did. They were too far gone. “Okay,” Akiva whispered. Her finger then gently sliced through his psyche. Maximus let out a subtle, pained hum; and then, the Gardevoir stepped inside. Into the dark-colored smoke, into the warmth of his cranial cavity. Spongy and wet. Filled top-to-bottom with maroon-tinged mist. Like a hurricane, the expanse stretched on for miles. Millions upon millions of memories, stretching across centuries. Home-grown and devoured alike, swirling against themselves, flying around the eye of the storm. “I was happy,” Maximus said, “to be recognized.” His voice came from everywhere at once. Awestruck, Akiva watched as the first memory coagulated. There upon the stage, her father wore an uncharacteristic smile, waving from a podium, addressing the nation for the first time. Blank faces stared back from the crowd, smudged and contorted, human and Pokémon alike. A hopeful people, tired from ages of strife. Long-gone and unknown. Maximus continued: “When the Beginning first contacted me, I was young. And foolish.” The memory of it mustered a smile to his lips. His face lost in reverie. “I cannot explain to you how lucky I felt to be picked out of the crowd. How wonderful it was to feel needed.” Red-violet curtains swished behind young Maximus’s back. With an outstretched palm, he welcomed the newcomer onto the stage – a slim, dark-skinned human. Sharp brown eyes peeked from a curtain of messy curled hair. Soft, thin fingers burgeoned from a shimmering white robe; on its front, two concentric circles. She appeared to float to the podium, gently stroking along young Maximus’s back as she passed by, and froze there, mouth agape. Grinning. The Alakazam asked: “Isn’t she beautiful?” “Yeah, she is,” Akiva replied. “I’ve replayed this memory thousands of times.” He puckered his lips, looked down, and nodded. “It’s how I’d like to remember Ceres. Happy, and beautiful.” Akiva sighed, said: “It’s funny… I’ve heard so much about her. And yet, I think this is the first time I’ve seen her face.” To which Maximus replied: “Her face is only for me, now.” Just as quickly as Ceres had entered, she retreated. The memory playing in reverse, as she speedily retreated behind the curtains. Smoke spilling along the floor, into the crowd, choking the view. As if pulled away by an invisible string, the entire memory was yanked backward into a milky fog, melting. “We’re drifting now,” Maximus said. Stood completely still, and yet the world turned around the pair of them. Vaulted hundreds of feet into the air, then plunged down through a thick, grey cloud. Like neon signs, fragmented memories and sensations poked from the murk. Akiva watched with bated breath. “The years passed uneventfully,” Maximus confided. And indeed, they did; on both sides, Pokémon rejoiced. Maximus spent rote days in his lab, slaving over aurum. Kane – ever the entrepreneur – haggled with passersby on the street. Iris, slack-jawed, was offered the opportunity to see a legendary Pokémon for the first time. The giant said: “We didn’t know it, but the decisions we made here would shape the nation to come. Granted, we were never alone; as we came to power, the Beginning proved a formidable ally. He always seemed to know what the masses needed before we did.” He laughed at the absurdity of it all, smoke disappearing down his gaping throat. “Had I known what He was, I might not have followed Him. Now, of course, I realize… I was drawing upon wisdom that didn’t belong to me. It didn’t belong to any of us. And yet, it still shaped us.” Akiva couldn’t tear her eyes away. Everywhere she looked, she saw Ceres. Her eyes, her flesh, her lips. A gargantuan mind, rendered a shrine to one woman. She made speeches, wrote incessantly. That hand always busy upon the page, signing her name in cutesy swoops and curves. Her voice ringing like a song. “Notice how they all pass by,” Maximus said. And indeed, they did; countless Pokémon, young and old, skilled and stupid, passing through the Grand Augustan Hall. Hardly leaving a mark, most of them. Although some – that tiny, miniscule few – changed history. A domineering Infernape, standing tall, his flames burning a furious cerulean; a Palafin, tall, proud, and charitable; a Tinkaton, whose mind would shape this world. Maximus admitted, curtly: “They all died.” The notion saddened him for only a moment before his tone shifted back. “But death is the natural way of things… the state we all must return to. The same as before we were born. I know that, now.” For just a moment, Akiva considered striking him down then and there. His defenses were still lowered. His voice callous and jaded and pained. But instead, with clenched fists, she simply replied: “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be.” Maximus waved away the consolation. To his sides, the offices emptied. Swatches of Pokémon entering and leaving, each a little smaller than the last. “I’ve come to terms with it all… these Pokémon dedicating their lives to the Beginning. I celebrate them for it.” His eyes were empty, staring out into the void. “Even if no one else remembers them… I keep their flames alive.” The smoke rumbled and spit. From below Akiva’s feet, a grand white bulb emerged; metallic and shining, pointing upwards towards the sky. Tens of meters in diameter, gargantuan in its proportion, rising. And yet, the bulb had no bottom; just a long, snow-shite shaft. The monolith towered into the clouds. “At first, we were told that the Spear would unify all Pokémon.” Maximus was embarrassed to remember such details, but spoke nonetheless. “The way He explained it, aurum would combine the consciousnesses of all living creatures. We would become one species, one mind, under Arceus. Joy everlasting.” The Spear’s base came into view now; a tawny platform, consisting of cold, polished steel. And upon it, swept to its side, was a control panel. “I never thought of it as a weapon… I had always thought of it as a tool of peace. But that day, I saw something different.” An Alakazam and a human, stood side-by-side. Smiling at one another, holding each other’s hands, and inserting dual keys into the console’s front. Resigned to the fate of becoming one, stripped of their individual barriers. In their own way, they would achieve godhood. “We were happy to let ourselves go. If it meant that we could prevent all war, all poverty, all strife… who wouldn’t sacrifice themselves?” He shook his head. “It was a worthy endeavor… and she deserved all the time I could give.” Ceres and Maximus looked each other in the eye, took a deep breath. In only a moment, they’d become something greater. Something new. Their keys then turned with a tiny click. And within only a few instants, sparks alit along their arms, their necks; the pair of them spasmed as the power of aurum coursed through their veins, lit their eyes like bulbs. Two bodies, utterly overwhelmed with psychic power. Smiling wide. “It was the happiest moment of my life,” Maximus confided. He could hardly bring himself to look upon the scene. “The complete and utter trust I had. The happiness we shared. In that moment, I felt all of Illumina become one. The burden of individuality, the burden of loneliness, lifted.” In the distance, beyond the clouds and seas, a continent’s worth of souls resonated in perfect harmony. Thousands of pillars of light stretched beyond the cloud barrier, piercing the atmosphere, and pummeled the darkness of space. Voices of innocent Pokémon and humans alike permeated the air; screaming, laughter, as they all fell to the ground, eyes wide. The entire planet’s thoughts filling their puny psyches. Melding into one coagulated mass, tossing and churning. In Grand City, hundreds of cars crashed into one another. Renascan farmers fell face-first into their fields. Children crumpled into little shaking masses in Augustan playgrounds. Nurseries full of quivering eggs. Carpenters fell onto their sawblades. The elderly, slumped in retirement homes and plush chairs, seizing to radio static. Laughing manically. Akiva covered her mouth, cowered in horror. She asked: “You… did this? Everyone really…?” Maximus nodded, watching as his body was wracked with spasms. And above them, lined up all along the rafters, scientists and managers and journalists did the same; mouths agape, crackling voices singing into the still air, while the Spear glowed and pulsated. Gargantuan, bass-tone throbs permeated the planet to its core, shaking the magma to and fro. The trees, the flowers, the fungi in the soil – all swaying in unison, uncontrollably joining the universal dance. “This is the power of aurum,” Maximus explained. Even now, he was struck with profound sadness. “It links the hearts of all life… resonates with it. And once we’ve tapped into the hearts of this world, we can use their energy for anything.” Towards the Spear’s tip, rays of light flew. From every direction, every continent and village and cabin, the spirits of Pokémon were sucked into the Spear’s head. All the hopes and dreams this world had ever known were absorbed, cannibalized, as the Spear’s surface became superheated. A bright white, overtaking everything. “Arceus, no,” Akiva choked. The births and deaths of countless individuals flashed before her eyes. The voices in her head were nothing but a whisper now; a tidal wave of consciousness drifted over the skies like a blanket, coloring them a perfect, shimmering blue. No more clouds. No boundaries, no limits. Maximus gazed upon this sight with nostalgia; the last vestige of purity he’d ever grasped. The moment his innocence was ripped away. “I knew the Spear would hurt people,” he admitted. “I knew the world didn’t want to be joined like this… but it was a small price to pay for unity. To end all suffering.” The screams congregated into a hellish symphony. The entire world, smiling at once. Their bodies rendered conduits, their arms outstretched and flapping like wings, their voices joining seamlessly into a billion-part harmony. “In that final moment,” Maximus admitted, “I felt it. True happiness. True contentment. Oneness with my beloved. Now and forever.” Then, the Spear began to tilt, lowering itself onto a forty-five degree angle. Sparks flew from its sides, forming hoops of supercharged electricity; and at its base, the two pilots still stood. White-knuckling the controls, gritting their teeth, and shaking. “I knew the Spear’s true purpose, of course,” Maximus confided. “It would act as a missile… the most dangerous missile this world has ever seen.” He chuckled. “How foolish I was to never tell Ceres… I always thought, once this test fire was finished, she’d come around.” With glowing eyes, the young Maximus’s face morphed into manic determination. Fixing the sights on Kyogre’s location, many kilometers away, the console glowed indigo across his face. “Ceres was supposed to cooperate,” Maximus said. A shadow, swimming just under the surface of the ocean. Surrounded by schools of Remoraid and Luvdisc, entire families of Pokémon who thrived under Kyogre’s almighty watch. “If we could kill a legendary Pokémon… imagine what we could do next time.” He smiled. “We could ensure the continuation of our species. Eliminate any and all threats. Indefinitely.” The human’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened, but no noise emerged over the cacophony; she looked left, right, only to be met with spasming, euphoric bodies. Desperately, she looked to Maximus for reassurance, for comfort; but he didn’t look back. “If I had looked her in the eyes, would she still have done it?” Maximus shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll never know.” The Spear was primed now. Circles of light traveled up and down the Spear, lapping over each other, colliding and sparking; a ball of pure light coalesced upon its tip, swelling, swirling over itself in a supercharged plasma. “All I know is…” Maximus frowned. “...if the world ended that day, I think I’d have been happier.” Ceres let out a pained yelp; her hair puffed out, standing straight with electricity, as she fingers struggled to grasp the control stick. Clenching and shaking, white dress flowing in the wind, her hand jerked the controls to the left. A single word flew from her parched lips: “No!” And like a limb-jerk, the Spear threw itself to the side. A great metallic screech rang out as its pneumatic systems struggled to keep the length steady. But by the time Maximus attempted to swing it back, the damage was done; the ammunition was primed. Nothing could be done. The young Maximus shot a terrified glance toward Ceres, then back toward the console; there, on the screen, was the Spear’s new target: a patch of land on the northern coast, sparsely populated. Then, it erupted. Pluming into the sky like a mushroom, a huge cloud of light-smoke billowed over the land, settling over the sky in concentric rings. And up above it all, through the exosphere and into space, was the glimmering missile. For only a few moments, things were still; the ball of light hung there in nothingness, blotting out the stars. Then, it fell. Turning on its own, the orb honed in on the coast, and let itself go. “That was the moment everything changed,” Maximus said. Careening through the stratosphere like a meteor, the ball grew and grew. Dipping back below the cloud cover, stretching into the distance, every sapient being watched in tandem as their doom approached. And then, it touched down; a giant pillar of white emerged from the ground there, quiet. Five, ten seconds of awed silence as they collectively realized the northern coast had disappeared. One billion psyches struggling to disentangle themselves, just in time to witness a world-ending shockwave. Tens of tsunamis churned along the coasts. The young Maximus then turned, looked Ceres in the eye. And, with a wide-eyed frown, he asked: “What the fuck did you do?” The explosion could be heard all the way in Grand City. Nearly every piece of glass on the continent broke; shattering over tile floors and writhing, giggling bodies. “On that day, ten million people died,” Maximus explained. “They fell from their windows, smashed their heads on cement sidewalks. Patients choked in their hospital beds. In Palucia, lumberjacks were crushed under falling logs. Every Flying type fell from the skies in a death spiral. A mass death event unlike any other.” The giant sighed, shook his head. “Of course, we explained it away as a meteor. In all the newspapers, all the radio broadcasts. In the history books, it’s written that a projectile from outer space caused a temporary restriction in our electromagnetic fields. A mass seizing event, worldwide…” But Akiva hardly listened. Horror gripped her heart; she pulled her arms to her chest, covered her mouth, and swayed. That Alakazam’s jaw yammered on and on, spewing endless justifications. Endless platitudes. It disgusted her. “Th–this is the future Arceus wants…?” Akiva whispered. Disbelief made her voice quiver, her eyelids flutter. “This is what I’ve been fighting for?” Maximus stepped toward her, reassured: “Oh no, no. This was only a test firing.” A warm smile graced his chapped lips. “Next time will be our final victory. The day we’ve always craved. Complete and utter unity.” “But thousands of Pokémon will die…” “...And even more will be born.” Maximus tilted his head; behind him, his younger self was dragged away from the blinking console, kicking and punching. Ceres, too, was constrained. A Conkeldurr grabbed at her shoulders, hooked them under, and dragged her from the platform. Screaming and kicking, she shouted for her beloved. “Get off me! Maximus, help! Help!” Not deigning the memory with even a glance, Maximus simply said: “I can’t stand this part.” Fog nibbled at the scene’s periphery. From the top down, the Spear collapsed into a waterfall of wispy strands; like paint, white globs dripped and fell from the sides. The console’s surface blew into the wind like chalk dust, the platforms and Pokémon disappearing into the air like soot. Soon enough, Maximus and Akiva were alone once more. Two Pokémon, standing awkwardly in the violet-black expanse. And then, Maximus asked: “Do you… want to know what happened next?” The Gardevoir was struck with dread. She was equal measures repulsed and intrigued by the notion; but, mustering her courage, she gave a hesitant nod. “Yes,” she said. “I… I need to know.” Akiva expected another scene to coalesce out of the fog; but none came. Instead, Maximus stepped close, touched a finger to his head. “The Beginning does not suffer insubordination,” he said. “You know that. I hardly need to explain.” Silence ensued. Maximus didn’t know how to explain himself. He certainly couldn’t show the memory directly; but he couldn’t leave it omitted, either. A wrinkled brow betrayed his frustration. “The Beginning sentenced Ceres to death,” the old man breathed. “I begged Him otherwise, of course, but His decision was firm.” Akiva asked: “So she…?” Maximus nodded, continued: “Yes. Usually, this duty is carried out by a designated executioner; but in this case, He granted my wish.” The Alakazam looked askance. He could hardly bring himself to say it. “The Beginning… He gave me the opportunity to end her life myself. As a reward, for my continued loyalty.” Akiva recoiled, asked: “As a… reward?” “Yes,” Maximus replied. He gave an uncharacteristic, awkward smile. “You must understand. If anyone were to do the honor of–” “So you killed her?” Akiva asked. She nodded, jerking her head forward, as if she didn’t believe it. “You killed your wife?” Words struggled to form upon Maximus’s lips. The void was quiet, save for the crackling of his throat. “No,” he admitted. “Her physical form may be gone, but she’s still here.” He scratched thoughtfully along his temple. “I ate her dreams. All her memories, I still have them.” Horror burgeoned within Akiva’s chest. She felt her breath catch, her feet instinctually stepping backward. She breathed: “No.” “It’s true,” Maximus insisted. “I couldn’t let her die. It was the only way she could live.” His voice was hurried, defensive. “We talked it over, and she agreed. There was no other way–” Akiva interrupted: “So you killed your wife and took all her memories?” Her mouth was aghast. “Y–you killed her. You’re sick!” “No,” Maximus shot back. “You must understand, eating others’ memories… it’s a noble endeavor.” “Noble?” Akiva spat. “So, what, when you made me eat memories, that was noble?” She was manic with exasperation. Nausea welled in her throat. “Are we supposed to be proud of this? Eating other people? And all those Pokémon you made me cannibalize… are they alive, too?” “No, no–” “No! Fuck! You!” Akiva threw her hands in the air, then let them tumble to her sides. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “I was a child! You told me that we were doing them a service, that they were dreaming. You told me it didn’t hurt.” Maximus replied: “And I never lied to you. All these Pokémon… in a way, they’re alive.” He fumbled over himself. “Imagine the lives they would’ve lived had we not intervened. Crime, poverty, sickness. They would’ve died careless deaths one way or another. Isn’t it better that we preserve them, in their entirety?” Akiva eyed the old man’s face. Hatred deepened the grooves on her pale flesh. She said: “If these people are still alive, then why don’t we visit their families? Why do we let them assume these Pokémon are dead?” The Alakazam scowled. "Well, those other Pokémon aren’t related to our mission.” “Which is?” “The alleviation of all suffering,” Maximus insisted, and leaned forward. “Tell me, what’s worse. Trapping a hardened criminal in perpetuity, until the moment of their death? Allowing those on death row to die without anyone to remember them?” He scoffed. “Even Ceres asked for me to consume her. So she could live on, forever.” He shook his head. “If someone is to be an executioner, they should remember the lives they take.” Akiva barked: “So Ceres is still alive, yeah? What does she think about making an eight-year-old kill a woman in her deathbed?” Maximus insisted: “These skills take time. I had to get you started early–” “–what, in case you pass away?” She pointed at his abdomen. “In case your liver explodes?” The old man huffed, tilted his head, and said: “We all must make sacrifices for the sake of governance. That includes you.” “Right,” Akiva breathed. “And my sacrifice was living fifty lifetimes before the age of fifteen. Father of the fucking century.” She could do nothing but laugh. “These people are dead, Maximus. They died the moment we took their futures away.” “They still have futures,” Maximus insisted. His voice was unexpectedly tender. “Ceres’s future is with me now. Same as all the others. Their consciousnesses have combined with mine. We are one. We’re making a new future, together.” The Gardevoir took another step back, said: “And yet, you’re still the same as ever.” She shook her head, gritting her teeth. “Keeping your victims’ memories doesn’t make you a better person. You’re not acting on their behalf. You’re still the same selfish man you’ve always been.” Maximus closed the distance between them, bellowed: “Sometimes, liberation takes a shape no one can recognize. These Pokémon are happier than they’ve ever been. They can no longer feel lonely. They can no longer feel sadness. It is the closest we have come to complete emancipation.” Meeting his intense gaze, Akiva said: “Then why not kill me?” Thin clouds swirled around the pair of them, lapped at their ankles. It swished and pooled around their feet, cold to the touch. White and milky and prehensile, reaching out with tiny, thread-like appendages. Maximus admitted: “I don’t want to kill you.” “But I’m a traitor,” Akiva insisted. Fury drove her forward. “And traitors are killed, right? So, if I’ll really live on in your memories, you should have no problem eating me, right?” Maximus hung his shoulders low, said: “It’s not like that.” “Then what’s it like?” Akiva barked, and wafted toward herself. “I gave Fey the poison. I allowed the Key to fall into their hands. I’m the one who let Colm die.” She motioned outward, as if placing something down. And with puckered lips, she said: “There. I admit it. And you have my memories to verify it. I foiled our fool-proof plan. Again. And I don’t regret it.” She chuckled. “I’d do it again, and again, again. Just to make sure you never disappoint Ceres again, you fucking coward.” The tendrils stopped lapping. The clouds stopped moving. Above the two of them, sunlight broke through the pitch-dark mindspace. Like an egg’s shell breaking, the void opened up. Suddenly, Akiva awoke to her dressing room. Standing in that same awkward position, Maximus’s finger pressed against her forehead. A sunlight-laden breeze shot through the window and soiled the snow-white carpet. Her toes sank into the plush fibers. Maximus removed his finger from Akiva’s head, let it sink to his side. Defeat glazed his eyes, which traced lazily over Akiva’s face. And he said: “I think you’ve made yourself clear.” “Right,” the Gardevoir replied. In vain, she attempted to ignore the anxious pit in her stomach. Keeping her upper lip stiff, marinating in the tense air, nodding and clenching her fists, she said: “What now?” Truthfully, the giant didn’t know. He knew that he could never kill Akiva; that much was decided before he approached. But the responsibility of defending the capital weighed heavy on his shoulders. Given the opportunity, Akiva would storm the city right alongside Rubrum. The idea of it saddened him. “If you won’t stay by my side,” Maximus said, “then you’ll be detained until this is all over.” Akiva pursed her lips, shook her head. While she was relieved to have evaded a death sentence, she wasn’t eager to enter a prison cell. She silently cursed herself for not having escaped Maximus’s clutches earlier; truthfully, it was foolish of her to return from Renasca at all. Without her presence, Rubrum would have a much, much harder time infiltrating city walls. Dejectedly, the Gardevoir asked: “Maximus… even if all this goes according to plan, what will you do?” She pursed her lips, shook her head. “You’re planning to destroy everything. How do you plan to rebuild?” Maximus shrugged, admitted: “I don’t know.” He paused for a moment, thought a bit, and added: “I’ve… been advised to release the hybrids. And I plan to take that advice. You’ll be safer in a prison cell.” Akiva’s eyes widened a bit. “Those things?” she spat. “Are you serious? They’ll kill as many citizens as they’ll save.” But Maximus simply replied: “It’s worth it.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not like you have a vote in it, anyhow. As of today, you are officially relieved of your duties as Chairwoman of Faith.” “Good,” Akiva said, with a sort of exhaustive chuckle. “I’ve lost my faith. What’s a title to me now?” The two of them stood there, neither willing to move. When they opened that door, reality would resume. Warily, the Alakazam said: “I love you.” Akiva just pushed past.