Chương 426: Epilogue II

The Battle Frontier was a sweltering hell Cecilia wished on no other. Summer-like temperature all year long, a blazing sun that felt like it desired to crush you under its weight, and air so thick with moisture it clung to the inside of her throat, burning with each breath. According to Cynthia, it would get worse the further north one went, the source of all this heat centering around Stark Mountain, an active volcano.

Cecilia knew it must have been the result of a Pokemon—one that must have been mighty powerful to alter such a large landmass' climate. Stark Mountain loomed tall in the distance like a bastardized version of Coronet, spewing darkened ash against the bright sky. If one ventured too close to the volcano, they would need to have assistance breathing, either through a Pokemon or a specialized ventilator.

Even from here, on the southern tip of the island in the Resort Area, one could see the ground itself change all the way up north, where lush greenery gave way to cracked obsidian. Or at least she imagined it. It was all dark or pale to her.

"Kept you waiting?" Cecilia had grown used to seeing Cynthia outside of work, by now—so much so that she had grown comfortable just being in her presence, if such a thing was even possible. However… Seeing the Champion eagerly lick her vanilla ice cream cone while handing Cecilia hers with the brightest of smiles on her face still threw the Unovan for a loop. Cecilia grabbed the ice cream and enjoyed the cold chocolate flavor settling in her mouth.

Cynthia had forgone her usual black coat, opting to just wear easy to move in shorts and a t-shirt. By the Legendaries her legs were long, even if both were nearly the same height.

"The folks in there wanted to give it to me for free, so I had to convince them to let me pay," Cynthia explained nonchalantly. It was not every day employees at a luxury ice cream shop would meet their Champion, so that reaction was an expected one.

"Then I had to take about twenty pictures and I got lost in a conversation with an acquaintance I recognized—it was this whole thing." The Champion was in a good mood, that much was for certain. She was not all smiles, but there was a certain radiance to her not usually present. Her body moved freely and with eagerness as if she'd been unshackled from her duties. She lowered her own cone and afforded Togekiss a lick. The fairy chirped in such a pure way it made Cecilia's lips quirk up.

The three shared a moment of silence as they usually did when the evenings got long in Cynthia's office, but the Unovan had tried to get better at filling those. She wanted to be more… personable.

"Do you come here often?" Her words stumbled slightly, but she kept going as if nothing happened.

"To the Frontier, I mean." Cynthia looked around.

"Not the resort. Usually I meet with my Frontier Brains once per month for a report, which sometimes involves me Teleporting to a prepared office in Frontier City." Cecilia had done her reading; she understood that despite its official name, the city to their west was nicknamed the Battle Area by the swathes of trainers with eight badges that visited every year.

"I rarely experience it like this. It takes me back to my younger days. Travel these days is so stale. Teleporting, flying, more teleporting…" Cecilia shaded her eyes from the sun with a hand.

"Does that mean we won't be flying or teleporting to route 225?" She knew that was where one of Sinnoh's few Spiritomb lay, but not exactly where.

"We'll be walking," Cynthia said— what?!

"No Pokemon to shield ourselves, either. We'll be doing this the old fashioned way." In this heat?! Cecilia wanted to protest. She'd already imagined Slowking's cool bubble protecting her from the elements. Before she could, however, a couple and their young son asked the Champion for a picture—a request she eagerly acquiesced. It was so odd to see her so interested in strangers. The way she asked about their lives was not empty, but in a manner that felt nearly ravenous.

People loved talking about themselves, especially to a Champion, and Cynthia was an excellent listener. Cynthia bent down and patted the child on the shoulder. The little boy who might have been ten or eleven blushed.

"I'm sorry, we have to get going—we have quite a busy week ahead of us." Cecilia balked at the thought of such a journey taking only a week.

"It was an excellent time meeting you three." She gently looked at the child.

"I'm sure you'll be a wonderful fireman one day." Having scarfed down the rest of her ice cream, Cecilia grabbed a pen and small notebook, and began taking notes. How to seem interested in strangers? No, how to be interested in strangers. #1 thing to study! Observe more.

"Are you attempting to copy me?" Cynthia asked with an amused inflection.

"No, I'm just trying to jot some things down."

"Why don't I loop you in with the next person, then? Introduce you." Surely enough, not even two minutes later, a lone woman in her thirties had the courage to approach. When Cynthia linked her in, Cecilia spent what must have been a little too long staring, because the woman looked uncomfortable. Like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin.

Perhaps it was the intense stare with Cecilia's own blank eyes staring straight into hers, or the way she might have taken a step too close with her scarred visage in full view, or the way she loomed over her with her tall stature—"Have you been to this resort often?" Cecilia asked after introducing herself.

"My understanding is that this is the only area open to tourists."

"Um… I…" Cynthia soon stepped in and sent the woman on her way.

"You have a lot to learn, I'm afraid. Much of it will be indispensable in politics, no matter how many facts and statistics you know." Cynthia tapped the side of her head.

"Knowledge is meaningless if you can't put it to good use, even if your Pokemon were strong enough to take the Championship. A country is forged in a great deal of agreements and connections." Given what had happened to Iris once she so much as tasted power, that much was obvious. The Unovan would have let this beat her up, once. Allowed it to cloud her mind and forced her gaze downward, propelling her into an endless cycle of self-pity and wishing for grand things she could not attain as she was now.

Instead, having so much to learn filled her with a sense of excitement.

"I don't suppose you can help," she said, already knowing the answer.

"We came here to see if you could handle a Spiritomb, not to teach you social skills. That is your path to walk." Togekiss patted the Unovan on the back with a wing and chirped.

"Now, let's get going, shall we? Up north."

"Do we really have to just bear the brunt of the heat?" Cynthia's face grew serious as if she were back at the Lily, surrounded by a dozen aides.

"A Spiritomb is no easy task. This one, especially, is an old one. Older than mine." Cecilia noticed a stir in the Champion's pocket.

"You will trudge through jungle and ash-covered mountains, feel the sun beat down on you until your thoughts scatter like soot in the wind. You'll be sleep-deprived, overheated, and short of breath, and by the time we reach route 225, you'll feel exhausted physically and mentally. That's before you even see it." Cynthia turned, her gaze sharp as flint.

"If you can stay yourself through all that—if you can keep hold of your mind, then I will allow you to gaze upon them." To witness that sick haze oozing out of the keystone like cosmic dust thick with a hundred and eight memories. Regrets she'd never lived. Grief that clawed at her ribs as if it belonged there. Names she didn't know caught in her throat like smoke. Faces she'd never seen, screaming just beneath the surface, begging for meaning or mercy or out of anger or sorrow and a dozen other emotions at once.

A Spiritomb was a collective of minds, an amalgamation of pain that lashed out at all who would get close, but the keystone Cynthia carried with her at all times was proof they could heal. Once upon a time, she'd wanted the ghost for something as immature as power. In Solaceon, Grace had recounted how Cynthia's Spiritomb had so easily managed to break Shiftry's mind to allow Lucario to finish him off. Back then, she'd just seen Abel in Hearthome; she had been eager to latch onto anything that whispered strength.

No longer. Spiritomb, she understood, is an opportunity to grow and afford kindness where she had been given none in her girlhood until she had been capable of nothing but lashing out at what she did not understand and curse others for having what she did not. They were similar, or at the very least she hoped they would be.

"I understand," Cecilia calmly said.

"Then into the jungle we go, Cecilia." — Torturous would be an accurate word for what followed. Up here, the heat had a way of wrapping itself around you, gripping your very soul like it owned you. A slow, mind-numbing pressure that returned the thinking process down to its barest mechanics. It dulled her thoughts to their barest functions: one foot in front of the other, again and again, like a machine running on fumes. Sweat poured down her back, her forehead, her arms and legs in steady, relentless sheets.

The undergrowth was thick like Eterna, making it difficult to find her footing, and the incessant buzzing of the wildlife coated her brain in a fog. Every part of her ached. Her backpack felt heavier than it actually was, the straps digging into her shoulders as if they were made of lead. Her boots squelched with sweat. Her shirt clung to her skin in a way that felt suffocating. Cecilia reached for her water bottle, squeezed—nothing. Already empty besides a few drops trickling down her tongue.

It took her three seconds to realize that nothing was satiating her thirst, and the gap in knowledge made her trip on a particularly thick plant. She would have fallen face-first into the ground had Cynthia not grabbed her.

"T—thanks," Cecilia stuttered. Her vision was blurring at the edges. Togekiss, who had applied a small psychic film around his skin to not feel the heat, supported her from behind.

"Thank you too, Togekiss."

"Let's take a break," the Champion said.

"Here's another water." The Unovan downed the entire flask in a few seconds and sat on a rock Togekiss raised from the earth with an exhausted sigh, resting a hand on her Pokeballs for reassurance. Cynthia, for her part, seemed right as rain, if as sweaty as she was and breathing slightly harshly. They were suffering through the same conditions, but her mental strength was a world's away. There were, Cecilia realized, more than the facet of Pokemon to being a trainer.

It was not simply about how well you could train them, but how well you could stand alongside them. Strip away the psychic barriers, the artificial cooling or heat, the little and large ways Cecilia's partners had helped them that she had taken for granted, and she was in truth ridiculously weak.

"I seem…" Cecilia closed her eyes and allowed her exhausted lungs to inhale more air.

"to have a lot of catching up to do." This was going to be tougher than Coronet, in a way. In that mountain that touched the sky, she'd had all of her Pokemon to keep her going and Maeve's Infernape to help with the cold. Even when Regice's influence crept too far, when the cold turned brutal and unforgiving, it had only lasted a few hours. This was going to take a week. A marathon instead of a sprint.

"Funny thing about trainers." Cynthia stayed standing upright, though she sipped on water from time to time.

"They start out ready to brave the elements. Campfire kits, tents, rations, manuals on what berries are edible to humans. Everything they think they'll need to conquer the wild. And for a while, they do. They push through storms and bad maps, bruises and bug bites. Though I suppose these days, maps are on your phones." She chuckled, stretching her arms and shoulders.

"But then their Pokemon get stronger, and they stop needing to tough it out. They get a teammate who can fly or Teleport, and they only sleep in cities." She paused for a moment.

"I'm not too old-fashioned. I am not here to judge, nor to change the ways of the masses. This has been going on far before my time, and it will continue to be the case forever. Convenience is king." There was something wistful in her eyes. A certain nostalgia, perhaps? Cecilia was bad at feelings. There was a chitter on one of the trees to their right—an Ariados crawled up the bark, with one of the striped structures on its back missing. An old scar from a battle.

There were plenty of fresher battle wounds covering its body. The arachnid glared at them for a few seconds, but was immediately smothered in hugs from Cynthia's Togekiss, who wove together thin threads of Life Dew that healed the spider's newer wounds. The Ariados, who had tried to inject poison past Togekiss' skin-tight barrier, found itself barraged by an array of questions from its new 'friend.' It… gave in, not that Cecilia could understand what was being said.

Cynthia smiled as she observed her Pokemon at work.

"Once in a while, I think it's nice to strip all of that down."

"All of what?" Cecilia asked.

"Everything. It hurts, doesn't it?" Madness in her eyes, or at least a glimpse of it.

"That pain. That's what makes you realize you're still human. Flesh, bone, and sinew ready to one day unravel. I find myself needing that reminder every so often. Perhaps this will serve you well, one day." Cecilia grabbed her notebook, turning a few pages to a new section. Do not forget to walk the earth that has raised you. Allow its authority to humble you, to strip you down to what is real. Let the pain remind you: you are not untouchable. You are not above the world, only a part of it. Was that a little extra?

Whatever, she enjoyed it.

"I recall a day when I'd just become the Champion a few months back and I grew frustrated with the lack of instantaneous progress," Cynthia said, launching into one of her stories. Cecilia leaned forward, tapping pen against paper excitedly.

"Ah, young spontaneity. I ran off for a few days and made myself scarce; I flew to Coronet and entered the caverns to center myself. I used no Pokemon beside those who would aid me in the wild, just my own skills and will to live—Bertha threw a fit. Times like these allow me to think…" She continued until the break was done. — It never stopped being difficult. Day after day, Cecilia trudged through endless jungle and under the heavy, scorching sun.

One could not so easily remedy their lack of mental and physical determination and strength, but the Unovan found solace in her work. Even under such crushing circumstances, having to sleep in this terrible heat and uncomfortableness, she found refuge in the little things. The countless stories Cynthia had for her about her childhood, each crazier than the last.

To Cecilia—and she would guess, to the vast majority of the population—Cynthia was a well-adjusted, serious individual, but some of these tales had her questioning the mental acuity she might have had when she was a teenager. Her journey was nothing but throwing herself into danger over and over again. In her latest story, she had gone and challenged the domain holder in charge of Floaroma and its surroundings with six badges to her name. Six badges!

"I'd guessed the condition around Floaroma had been brought by a domain holder. The way the snow never seems to stick and the flowers bloom all year long," Cynthia had said as if she hadn't made an insane assumption, "and given that the city seemed rather peaceful, I figured they would be reasonable! So I tracked her down within two weeks." Tracked her down, how? Each story the Champion spun had Cecilia on the edge of her seat. Always. So she'd desperately asked what had happened.

"She's a Lilligant that is quite old. So old that even her form differs from her contemporaries," she'd explained.

"But we had quite a good rapport, and she offered me a spar. She utterly wiped the floor with me! It was so refreshing!" She'd laughed like a maniac, then, reminiscing about more innocent days.

"I still go there once a year to let her stay in shape. With a team of six, I beat her nearly every time, these days. Her duties lie not primarily in battle, but in a vow she made long ago to never let her land's beauty die out." That must have been why new development was so difficult in that town. Its population was practically stagnant, and prices were astonishingly high.

"The world allows her to be somewhat strong to protect it—" Cecilia ignored Cynthia's definition of 'somewhat' "—but most of her skills lay in growing different flowers. She taught my Roserade most of what she knows." Yes. Journeying with Cynthia Collins meant hearing things like that on a daily basis. World shattering knowledge every time she opened her mouth and decided to say something about herself and her life.

"Being a Champion isn't just about connecting with your constituents, but with the Pokemon in your country too. You won't enjoy every presence, because they are people," she'd said.

"You wouldn't like every human you'd meet, either. But it's a necessary thing. It's all a game of inches, in the end. Every bit of support counts." Cecilia was beginning to understand her mentor, even if she was merely scratching the surface of her peerless mind and skill. It is as she had told the Unovan in her office during the Conference—one had to act on the world, not just flow along with the highs and lows of the tide.

Cynthia Collins had gotten where she was because of her unmatched curiosity that was seemingly never satiated. Victory or loss, pain or pleasure, she would seek out answers. She was the kind of person who would walk into a storm just to learn how the thunder felt against her skin. — A break in the jungle's monotony came when they reached the craggy hills of route 228. The dense canopy gave way to open sky, and with it, the suffocating humidity eased—though the heat still clung stubbornly to the air.

The ground rose and fell in uneven ridges of rock and scorched dirt, dotted with the occasional tuft of dry grass or stubborn tree clinging to the hillside. Jagged outcroppings jutted from the cliffs like broken teeth, and narrow ledges forced them to tread carefully. Up north, closer to the wilderness of the volcano, routes were less-maintained and far more treacherous.

Despite what Cecilia had heard about Pokemon's aggressiveness on the Frontier, none dared to attack despite the fact that Togekiss radiated not one ounce of danger. The fairy's kindness was nearly physical. The dry, sharp wind that prickled her finally found them here, sweeping across the open slopes and stinging Cecilia's sweat-slicked skin. It was something to help her keep her thoughts straight. A reminder that they'd climbed above the worst of the jungle's grip, if only for a while.

When they reached a wooden bridge connecting two cliffsides, Cynthia motioned at her to stop so they could take a break, whistling to her Togekiss flying overhead amidst a flock of Staraptor, Staravia, and Starly.

"I can keep going," Cecilia said, almost in a daze.

"We're making good progress." Cynthia shook her head, wind whipping her hair.

"No. This is a good moment to stop. Look at your legs." The Unovan stared down and realized that they were shaking uncontrollably from the strain.

"Pushing yourself is important; I myself practice a kind of calculated recklessness rarely seen. But one has to know their limits if they want to make it past twenty. Here." She grabbed Cecilia by the shoulder, dragging her close, and pointed at the bridge.

"What do you notice?" The sudden touch immediately sobered Cecilia up, and she ignored the way her skin burned at Cynthia's fingertips. That bridge she'd barely paid attention to was far narrower than she'd first believed, and damaged; it was barely more than a strip of weathered wood and fraying rope. Now that she was looking, really looking, she saw how the planks bowed in the middle, warped from years of battering sunlight, some cracked outright.

"You weren't paying attention," Cynthia said—not in a scolding way, but an understanding tone.

"Picture, for a moment, that you were here without me." Cecilia was desperate to retort by saying that one of her Pokemon would have alerted her, or that she never would have been in this situation in the first place because Slowking would have kept her mind astute, but that was not within the parameters of the exercise. What if she'd just come out of a fierce battle, and her entire team was unconscious? What if they'd been separated?

"I suppose I would have died," she mumbled. Cecilia uneasily glanced at a faded sign spelling out 'beware of rock slides.' Cynthia let go of the girl's shoulder and smiled.

"It's annoying, isn't it? To be constrained to not using your Pokemon." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She just nodded, having decided long ago that she would stay true to herself. One could value a lesson despite finding it aggravating.

"I really had no idea. About the bridge. I just followed."

"Drink more water."

"Heat is so treacherous," Cecilia continued complaining, opening the flask to drink.

"In Coronet, it was the whisper of a dream. Uncomfortable, but comfortable at the same time. Like I was being lulled to sleep. Here, it feels so much more solid. Vivid. It makes me see and miss things. Ugh." The Unovan paused at the crest of a ridge, squinting against the sun. In the far distance, she could just make out the ash-streaked silhouette of Stark Mountain, its plume ever-present.

"Let's talk about Spiritomb," Cynthia said.

"I found mine in an old well south of Solaceon by pure chance, and I had Ruth and Mathilda to help me when I started out. For the most part," she added with a hint of a smirk. This was all old information Cecilia had already known, but it was obviously leading somewhere.

"Yours, should you get them to join you, sits amidst the ruins of a city destroyed by Mount Stark erupting nearly four thousand years ago, give or take a century. That eruption wiped out every human living on the Frontier, but their ruins remained." Four thousand years? Should these ruins have lasted this long, then? Nature should have reclaimed its place and broken down any structures in such a large period of time.

"Have you interacted with it before?"

"I've briefly had mine speak with them a decade ago or so when I was cataloguing every Spiritomb in the region for future Champions," she explained.

"As I said, they are old. Stalwart in their ways and vengeful. There is a reason I have not made you practice withstanding my Spiritomb—besides the fact that it would defeat the point if it worked—no two Spiritomb are the same." Cecilia wiped sweat off her brow and blinked.

"You mean… personality wise?"

"I mean in the ways they destroy you," Cynthia said.

"We don't know how people made them; that knowledge has been lost to time, thank the Legendaries, and even mine won't say," Her keystone groaned in her pocket, "but beside the fact that it involved one hundred and eight souls, we theorize that methods might have differed wildly.

That means that while my Spiritomb slowly narrows in on your fears and makes you hear the things you want to hear the least in a perfect recreation of your biggest fears—" another stir in her pocket, more violent this time, "—yes, that is a gross oversimplification. This one is different." Part of Cecilia wondered what it was that Cynthia heard when she first began to learn how to work with her ghost. What weaknesses a woman like her could have?

When they first met in Floaroma after the incident at Valley Windworks, she had believed the Champion to be infallible. A near deity who could get whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and who had never suffered a day as she had. These were the naive thoughts of a girl she no longer was, and Cecilia knew better, now. Just not what they were.

"You won't tell me in what way they differ?"

"Obviously not. Someone who ought to own a Spiritomb without getting everyone in the vicinity and themselves killed should be able to stand up to them alone, and to get them through their own merit. I, however, believe you have what it takes, and I've told you enough about the species to give you all you need." Pride swelled up in Cecilia's chest.

"Thank you, Cynthia."

"And don't worry. Should you start to die or be irreversibly turned into a vegetable, I'll intervene and get you out of there." Ah. Very reassuring. — Seaside Route 226 was a respite from the mental fatigue brought by the heat, and following it came a hamlet without an official name, dubbed a staging point for expansion further north within the next few decades, but nicknamed the 'Survival Area' by the few trainers who frequented the place.

The League Headquarters dwarfed every other building—sleek, angular, and all glass, catching the sunlight like a blade. It stood like an island of modernity surrounded by more rustic dwellings: wood-and-stone cabins with slanted roofs and patched walls bleached by salt and sun. They would not stay here long, but Cynthia used this respite to allow Cecilia to see her team for more than what amounted to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Champion just needed to take care of some business.

She gently caressed Lehmhart's leg while the ghost patted her head with a single, giant finger. Toxicroak clung to her arm, following wherever she walked and worryingly asking her about the heat. Out here, her Dry Skin made her suffer the most, and she had to routinely go back into her Pokeball when things got too unbearable.

Talonflame had forgone exploring this new land to remain with Cecilia, instead deciding to chatter away while they bonded about their excitement to get to Unova and the new sights she would see there. Cecilia promised to let her have more days to fly off and see things on her own whenever she wished. After all, she would always come back. Slowking and Scizor mumbled to themselves, planning on how to accommodate their potential new teammate. Hydreigon barged in and growled, wings flaring to his side.

"I agree," Cecilia said with a nod.

"They'll be tough, but there's no reason to approach them with hostility in mind. They're hurt, and they'll be lashing out. We must welcome them with open arms." Zolst smiled and nodded in agreement, revealing menacing rows of teeth with pride. Scizor rolled his eyes and chittered at the dragon. There is no harm in discussing, Slowking said.

"You've already conditioned yourselves to see them as an enemy or a wild beast to be tamed. They're not stupid, they'll see the suspicion emanating from you." Alas, asking them to change their entire outlook when they were this overprotective would be tough.

"Just promise me you'll try?" Scizor stared at her intensely, but huffed out a metallic laugh, hitting Slowking in the back so harshly the psychic groaned and complained.

"You each embody a part of what I want to be," she explained, grabbing onto Lehmhart's finger.

"But we must all strive to better ourselves and open our hearts to kindness as equal parts of a whole. Never one without the other—" Her phone rang. She'd expected it to be Chase checking in on her again, but the name instead read 'Professor Juniper.' Suddenly struck by a bout of anxiety she settled by taking a few deep breaths, Cecilia answered.

"... is not indestructible, it's just very, very hard to break," Juniper said, causing Cecilia's brows to crease. Had she called her on accident?

"You can literally look this stuff up, man." Another muffled voice spoke.

"But looking things up is boring, Professor! Oshawott really wants to know if we could break his shell! Um, scalchop! We've been trying over and over as an experiment —""Ugh, that little blue weirdo! Do you realize how abnormal it is for an Oshawott to not think of their shell like a third limb? I knew you'd fit well together —" Juniper paused.

"Oh! Cecilia, you answered! I'm sorry, I've been calling you for the last few hours."

"It's no issue. More importantly, isn't it…" she looked up at the sky and counted in her head.

"seven in the evening for you? Still at the lab?" Juniper snorted.

"I always work OT. Gotta prove myself, or I won't get any grants! Not that I get those, anyway! Bahaha!" Her laugh was a wild, unrefined thing, in somewhat of a charming way.

"I was calling to say, my wife will be coming to pick you up at Striaton International Airport when you land on the 12th. Then she'll drive you to Nuvema, and we can all have a welcome party for ya at the lab. Something small with the kids." A welcome party? For her? Oh, Arceus, she'd have to put all of what she'd learned to good use.

"Can I go to Striaton? Please, please, please, please, professor? I'll behave!"

"Absolutely not, Hilbert. You're staying where I can see you for as long as possible," Juniper scolded.

"I'd sooner let a pack of Purloin rummage through my jewelry box than have you give Fennel a migraine while you're on the highway because you wanted to let a Lillipup cross the road or something."

"But what if it's a really small and cute baby and its parents are waiting on the other side and it's too scared to go and —""Go home, Hilbert! Shouldn't you be eating dinner with your mother by now?!" Cecilia heard a door open.

"See you tomorrow, Professor! Oshawott and I will be coming with more questions — ow! Don't be embarrassed, you have questions too, Osha! You — ow, ow, darn, okay! You know, you should only hit people if you really need to save someone; I'll teach you all about it…" his voice faded into the background. There was a long sigh.

"This kid is going to be the death of me, I swear. Brilliant, but so exhausting, even for me. He didn't even close my door! Hopefully Cheren keeps him safe; he's just been so busy training with his Snivy every day to 'get ahead' while Hilbert's been messing around every day with his starter," she said.

"Ah, the party. We'll also go through a thorough analysis of your Pokemon the day afterward, yadda yadda. Spiritomb too, if you're willing." Cecilia grimaced. That was the real morsel that had allowed her to nab this job, not that she needed Spiritomb to work.

"That'll probably need to wait. Things will most likely be… rocky. I'm on my way to get them right now."

"Oh. Sorry to bother you, then! With Cynthia there, I'm sure it'll be done in a jiffy." Cecilia clenched a fist.

"She's just helping me locate them," she whispered, "but trust me, Professor. I'll save them no matter what."

"Save? Um, whatever you say, kid. I'm a little worried, but I hope things go well for you — and by extension, for the lab. I'll get out of your hair, okay? Be careful. Take care."

"See you soon, Professor Juniper." — Route 225 was not as densely packed with thick trees as the southeastern coast of the Frontier, nor was it as mountainous as its inner highlands. It was instead a dangerous mix of the two. The route in its entirety sat in a long valley bisected by a mountain that eventually joined the massive volcano further to the north. The air was acrid one moment, then wet the next, as if the land couldn't decide whether to suffocate you with smoke or steam.

You could quite literally see the blend in the air, mixing and clinging to every surface. Breathing here felt as if Cecilia was inhaling through fabric. It was a strange, dangerous environment any Pokemon not native to these lands would have struggled with. Six hours, she had trudged through this route like mud, the full might of the sun piercing through the canopy. Her skin felt like sandpaper. It was coarse and constantly itching and peeling.

Air normally so refreshing to her lungs was irritating and made her cough, something she hadn't been able to shake for the last day. Her thoughts came slow, as if she were drawing them through a straw. No matter how much water she drank, her lips were constantly drained of their moisture. Yet, Cecilia pushed on, tracing the Champion's every step. Cynthia had refused to entertain any notions that they would take a break, instead having decided to push her further and further.

Another river to cross, its waters scorching to the touch as if she'd stepped into a jacuzzi; another clearing to wade through, where the sun's full might hit her like a hammer, nearly rending her consciousness in two; another hill to climb with her own two hands until her skin felt like it might peel off because of the heat-soaked rocks; another bridge to cross where her legs nearly gave out. One could feel strangely peaceful in these times.

Pain began to blend together and fade in the background of her mind besides when she was occasionally spoken to and snapped out of her daze. She had become an amorphous mass of determination with one goal: to advance as long as needed to reach those ruins, to reach out a hand torn apart by days of travel and offer warmth where there was none. She'd had so little to give, yet understood that any amount might be enough to save a hundred and eight souls that had never felt the love of friendship.

"There." A single finger pointed forward, and Cecilia had to shake her head and blink to stop seeing double. She got the sweat out of her eyes with grimy fingers and noticed a hazy blur of grays. At first, there was only motion, like leaves flowing in the wind, but the more she squinted and focused, the more the shapes and angles grew solid. The ruins lay ahead, half-sunken into the earth, swallowed by ash and time. What little remained was barely recognizable as a city.

There were just fragments of foundations, the outlines of streets long buried, and the crumbling bases of walls.

"Lehmhart wouldn't like seeing this," Cecilia whispered before coughing into a fist.

"The decay. It's his biggest fear."

"It's a good thing that you'll be the only one doing this, then. Follow me," Cynthia said. With a confident stride of her long legs, she continued forward, unabashed by the ruins around her. Cecilia did not care much for them, nor the history of this place. The Unovan was much more interested in affairs that had a stake in the present and the future. She was not Grace, and that was fine. For all intents and purposes, this was simply an area lost to time.

Cecilia followed Cynthia, only occasionally casting a short glance here and there and the occasional wonder of what it had been like, seeing Stark Mountain split open and swallow the sky. Cynthia led her to a cavern's entrance, dug into the side of a hill and warded off with strange symbols she couldn't read, but still felt so familiar, as if they were on the tip of her tongue or a dream half remembered.

It wasn't large—barely tall enough for a person of her stature to walk through upright—and it radiated a quiet, oppressive weight that was nearly hypnotic, as if she could see shapes dancing in the dark. Cynthia's keystone stirred on her hip, letting out a low, ghastly groan. Togekiss landed at their side and nuzzled the Spiritomb with their forehead. They were here.

Cynthia allowed Roserade out of her Pokeball, and the grass type poked Cecilia's back, planting a flower down to her bloodstream to track how she was doing inside and potentially defend her at a distance. She did not know how Cynthia's Pokemon fought outside of well-regulated battles.

"You will enter this cave," Cynthia announced.

"And you will come out with a Spiritomb, or without. There will be no second chances with me if you fail. Feel free to take as much time as you need before you go in." The Unovan approached the entrance in silence and touched its edges— scorching —it burns her hand as if she'd doused it in oil and lit it on fire. She pulled back with a yelp and stared at her palm. There was nothing but the peeling skin, bruises, and small cuts she'd gotten this past week.

Hesitantly, she reached out to feel at the wall around the passageway, feeling instead a natural, dull burn she'd come to expect. Uncomfortable, impossible to touch for more than a few seconds at a time, but not that inferno.

"This heat, it's…" she turned back to Cynthia.

"It's not because of the sun." The Champion said nothing. She stared, arms crossed, and remained in place as if she were a statue. Cecilia gulped, adjusting her collar uncomfortably. The silent treatment, then. Very well. Still, this made little sense. Ghosts usually radiated cold; that drop in temperature that accompanied their presence was synonymous with their arrival, even if a well-trained specimen usually masked that side of them to not make themselves too obvious.

That, and a dozen different thoughts percolated in her mind, half to buy herself some time to be mentally ready, half to desperately attempt to understand what she was about to go through. There was, however, no self-doubt about her determination. Gone were the days where her life, her entire existence, felt like one big malaise as if she'd been walking under this heat for sixteen long years. Her path was not clear yet, but she'd found a flashlight to grasp onto.

A little bit of light, a little bit of optimism, and some Arceus damned perseverance. There was only the hope that she would be enough to save lives today. Cecilia was ready. Wordlessly, she entered the cave— — She walks barefoot over burning coals. The tunnel narrows as she moves forward; it forms a contour around her body. Heat radiates from the walls. It burns. Her sweat evaporates before it can drip. She ducks lower. Crawls when she has to. The rock presses in from all sides.

Knees on stone, palms scraping dust. When her skin touches stone, it scorches her to the bone. Fire. She screams, but cannot hear herself. She sees things in the shadows. Flickers of illusions. Family members. Mark, Clarence, Amy. Insects. Rage fills her. It slithers inside of her through every pore. She resonates. Eyes rolled to the back of her skull, she relives memories of yore. Her very soul is dragged back to the past. She pictures things she has not seen, too. Her poor mother, beaten. Choked. Sobbing.

A sickened laugh fills the cavern. She is getting closer. An undetermined amount of time passes. When she reaches the chamber, her body is nothing but malformed, smoldered flesh and muscle. She has been stripped of her own self. She stares down at her arms and sees skin peeled back in uneven patches, flayed and hanging in strands, revealing the sinew beneath. Her forearms are corded with muscle, some fibers clean and taut, others torn like frayed rope.

Something in her throat must have given, because nothing but a sick, wet gurgle comes out when she speaks. Thick and dark veins pulse around the burning, exposed meat. Meat. She is meat. No one important. A creature meant to rage and kill and hurt and maim and hunt those who had, have, and will hurt her. The chamber is dark as pitch, like staring at the blackened firmament during a moonless night. Despite this, there is something she can see.

A stone of blackened obsidian whose contour she somehow makes out, sitting in on an elevated pedestal. Its surface is matte and lifeless; cracked in some places, almost uneven. She pauses for a second, trying to remember why she has come here for— A torrent of smoke bursts from the dark stone. Suddenly, countless voices call out in unison. MEAT. She collapses on her knees. Her burned, exposed body is showered in a burning agony that renders her unable to even move.

Every twitch of her body, every breath she draws, every beat of her heart is a fresh wave of pain for her nerves which have been stripped raw. She is nothing. She is a corpse left to decay and feed what would come after— Lehmhart. The way his hand feels, the way his music sounds, his softness and empathy comes rushing back. She gasps, still writhing against the floor. She—Cecilia—tries to blink. She cannot. Her ears still ring from those voices. If… that person…

Cynthia's Spiritomb is a cacophony of disunited, raspy tones, this one is unified in its loudness. The booming voice is enough to shatter her mind. Make her forget. Make her want to forget. Cynthia's is a sickly, slow-acting, ghastly trail of smoke that would slowly find your weakness; this one is an earthquake of rage whose essence spins around the room like a storm and envelops her. ALLOW US IN. LET US IN. GIVE UP. RAGE. RAGE!

Each word strikes Cecilia as if she's growing used to telepathy all over again, but worse, and instead of a headache, her entire body burned with each syllable. Every time she closes and opens her eyes, she hallucinates somewhere new. Her father's office and its faint smell of wood, her mother's empty stares forward as she held her hand, Mark's promises that never panned out. But this is not her first time experiencing visions of the past, and it is no longer the chink in her armor. A Spiritomb is not a battler.

She is willing to bet that the only one capable of such in the entire world is Cynthia's. It is a weapon of mass destruction meant to target a wide amount of people's emotions. To render them useless for the real army to cut through them like scythes through wheat. This is all an illusion of agony, just like Azelf's mind. The ache is not real.

She may not be able to speak, she may believe she is just a sack of meat, a worm doomed to die achieving nothing but crying and obsessing over those who wronged her, but she is more than that.

"Spiritomb," she hacks out. She can speak. She simply has to believe beyond hate.

"My name is—" SILENCE, voices ring out in unison.

"—Cecilia," she finishes.

"Though I suppose… you already… knew that. With how you've seen some of my… worst memories." The maelstrom of ghostly energy picks up speed, swarming around her like miasma. Cecilia hears protests, vile insults, threats to her puny little life. She is called a puppet, a worm, worthless, a waste of air, a failure—she is force fed rage until she gags and pukes on the very ground she lies on. Another cacophony rings out with far too many voices to parse through, but the gist of what they say is simple.

WE WILL TRAP YOU HERE UNTIL YOU STARVE.

"No, you will not." Slowly. Ever so slowly, she gets up. A mere finger moves at first, then she gains the force to press a palm against the scorching rock below. She cries with every shift in direction, every movement her body makes, but she pushes on for them. Painstakingly, Cecilia Obel takes a stand for who she wants to be. She takes a step, hand outstretched... Spiritomb flinches. They actually flinch. She can tell, because the miasma recoils away from her and freezes for a moment.

"You're the one at a disadvantage here, Spiritomb," Cecilia rasps out with a thin smile.

"But worry not. I wish you no harm—" LIAR! The force of the reply slams into her like a wave; her outstretched hand is knocked aside, and pain tears through her shoulder, sharp and immediate. Flesh is stripped off her hand where only a skeleton remains.

"I have banished my demons and won over rage months ago," she says, more confidently than she expected.

"I care not for my father, or my brother, or Amy Saunier, or any who have wronged me." Spiritomb rages; their keystone shakes against its pedestal. YOU STILL THINK ABOUT THEM. THEY FILL YOUR MIND IN THE DARKEST OF NIGHTS. YOU WANT THEM GONE! DREAMS. NIGHTMARES. YOU WISH YOU COULD RID THE WORLD OF THEM.

"I never claimed to be—" she winces as her face burns, "perfect. It still lingers, sometimes, but nowhere near enough of it to drive me. I've abandoned ideas of confronting them again. I have opened my heart to hope." For a few moments, there is silence amidst the burning cavern. WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE TO DISTURB US? Spiritomb finally asks.

"I want to lay you to rest," she says. Some of the souls laugh in bewilderment, some rage and scream at her, some just stare amidst the swirling smoke surrounding her. A Spiritomb, Cynthia had explained, is an amalgamation of souls. One slowly has to start winning over each spirit one by one until a majority is willing to work with you to even begin to cooperate on the smallest of things. ARROGANCE.

"I'm only a girl," the Unovan says with a wince.

"Nothing special about me. Not since I died. Besides having overdosed on ghostly energy once to resuscitate myself." That got their curiosity going. They must have been too enraged to notice that she was one of them, or perhaps they simply hadn't cared. A few more laughs rang out at the morbid humor, though the vast majority of them are still seething.

There are whispers of how strange it is, how she can still function through the pain, of how her mind hasn't simply broken like the few who have stumbled upon this place beforehand and died at their pedestal hating.

"It's not something I'm proud of, but I digress. I want to help you, Spiritomb. I was consumed by rage once, something that nearly made me lose everything, and it was nowhere as near what you suffer through every day. I was a puddle, and you're an ocean." She gestured with her wounded hands.

"But I can't help but feel a commonality between us. More so now that I've met you." AND IF WE REFUSE?

"Then I'll be on my way and never disturb you again. Let's just have a conversation and break the ice." Funnily enough, considering how hot it is, the ice has already been broken long ago and melted into water. The Unovan giggles at her own joke and sits on the barren stones. Slowking's terrible humor must be infecting her.

"I'm sorry for what must have happened to you all to be made into this. I'd like to hear more about it, if you're all okay with that." They convened between themselves for a long while, occasionally fighting amongst themselves with blasts of rage and exploding smoke. Meanwhile, Cecilia patiently tapped her feet against the scorching floor, wondering if Cynthia would worry and come to get her eventually. Hopefully, she would not.

Eventually, the room's temperature returns to normal: hot, uncomfortable, but manageable. Before she knows it, her flesh is back and she is healed of any illusionary injuries she might have had. The obsidian stone begins to tremble, a low vibration that passes through the ground and into her knees. Then, with a slow exhale of haze, something slips out of the crack. A disc-like face emerges from the surface, flat and almost translucent, like a sheet of glass suspended in smoke.

Spiraling eyes spin lazily across it, unfocused at first, then locking onto her with sudden precision. A wide, jagged mouth forms next, stretching across the face in a snarl that never quite settles into one shape. This Spiritomb wears the face of anger, and they wear it well. Looking at them for too long makes the sensation mirror across her heart. LET US TALK, STRANGE PAIN SPONGE, they boomed out as one.

"Thank you." Cecilia grabs her notebook. The edges of the pages had been soaked with sweat.

"I'm bad at talking to people, but may I start by asking for your names? If you remember?" The disc stops spinning. That is the first time they have ever been asked that question. HASINAW, a woman says. ZENI, someone else speaks. SEL. YUSHKEP. They keep coming, each eager to speak out their names into the world for the first time in thousands of years. The majority of them do remember—but many decide to pick new names to fill that void. Cecilia feels fulfilled.

— That very night, Cecilia hobbled out of the cave without a keystone added to her arsenal. Physically, she'd gotten away with only a few extra cuts that needed disinfecting and a sprained shoulder, but mentally, she was swamped. Exhausted beyond compare and unable to think. She collapsed on Togekiss and slept away the next ten hours—with Cynthia deciding that she was finally owed refuge from the heat.

The Champion having spent her assigned week with her, returned to the Lily, and Cecilia told her she would spend her last few days in Sinnoh wandering the land and taking it all in. She, of course, lied. Spiritomb had said they wouldn't mind if she came back to chat some more. She was back in those ruins the very next day, and the next, and the next, taking charge of her own destiny and acting on the world instead of being told what to do.

She braved the heat on her lonesome, tracked down the ruins within a few hours, and every single bit of time she had left was spent chatting with Spiritomb about herself, and her Pokemon. Equals. Seven parts of a whole she hoped to make a hundred and fifteen. Of course, Cynthia must have known, but she did not stop her even once. On the 11th of August, Cecilia emerged from the cavern with an obsidian keystone in her palm and missed her plane. That had been the easy part.

She'd have to apologize to Professor Juniper for being late by a day. A/N: One final epilogue.