In Orre, a rainbow glowed above a tower, and an age of shadow ended.
In Johto, a tower fell in rainbow flames, and three new lives began.
Wes has never believed in second chances, but perhaps in a place as strange as Johto, anything is possible.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: This is a one-shot I wrote for Snagged! A Pokémon Colosseum Anniversary Zine, a zine celebrating Pokémon Colosseum's 20th anniversary. Definitely worth checking out--if you haven't already seen it, the art piece HelloYellow17 did for it is stunning!
There weren't even any guards, nothing but a couple of warning signs and a rusted-out fence. Wes would have preferred more security, really. Better chance that he'd have the place to himself.
Well, technically he'd never have that, with Rui following him. But by this point she hardly counted.
"We don't have to do this here, you know," she said for what had to be the hundredth time. "They won’t care. It's not like this is their home." She was already ducking through the fence after him, her words hushed. The remains of the tower loomed overhead, deep shadows pooling in its empty windows, broken beams bone-white under the moon.
Wes didn't reply, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he walked straight up to the building's ancient wooden doors. They’d been nailed shut with boards that looked nearly as ancient, but they still held. It was Umbreon, flickering in and out of shadow, who found the easy way in, a low and empty window, the bars across it long since splintered away.
"Do we really have to go inside?" Rui asked, still in that near-whisper. "Why not let them out here? You know they're only going to run off."
"Probably," Wes said. Three pokéballs clacked together beneath his fingers, deep in his pocket. "This is where they belong, though. We've come all this way. We might as well do things properly."
There was something almost familiar about the tower. Not the humid night air, no, or the sound of crickets from the grass. Wes still wasn't over how green Johto was, so much so that even the air smelled different, like all the plants around him were breathing out at once.
But this broken-down building, the graffiti carved into its boards, the odd bright-colored scrap of rubbish blown into a corner--those were familiar enough. Wes knew neglect. It was strange to think that creatures like the ones in his pocket would ever come from such a decrepit place as this.
Inside, the light from Umbreon's rings showed broken furniture and hole-scored floorboards in stark relief. Wes thought he could hear someone murmuring far off, perhaps in some alcove he couldn't see, and tensed. He still kept a knife with him, of course, not to mention Umbreon and Espeon and a few of the others who hadn't wanted to leave. Despite how much he told himself he was scarier than anything that could be hiding in this darkness, his body remembered the old days.
The murmuring noise came again, closer. Umbreon growled, fur bristling, and a moment later a huge grin swam at Wes out of the gloom. The smile split open in a spectral laugh, an overlong tongue flapping grotesquely, and Wes relaxed when he realized, oh, yeah, a gastly, wasn't it? He didn't even need to signal for Umbreon to chase it off.
That was something else Wes hadn't gotten used to. So many pokémon. Pokémon everywhere. Living with humans, living in the wild. Cramming every free corner, even a tumbledown ruin like this.
"Well, we're inside now," Rui said. "Shall we get this over with?"
"What? You're not afraid of ghosts, are you?"
"I'm afraid of breaking my neck when the floor goes out from under me."
"Umbreon'll keep an eye out for you." Wes ventured further into the room, boots ringing hollow on what he had to admit felt like rickety floorboards.
"What are you looking for?" Rui asked. Her footsteps sounded behind him. Of course. She was never not going to follow.
"I'll know it when I see it."
There were other people here. No voices, but now and again a shadow-shape, the glow of a cigarette--too high off the ground to be a magmar, now that Wes had seen and gotten over his surprise at finding those roaming around here. If Rui noticed anything, she gave no sign. Wes still wasn't sure whether she'd learned to see danger the way he had.
The tower wasn't large, now that all but a couple of floors had disintegrated into ash. Not much space to search. About the only way to go was down, putting altogether too much faith in the rickety ladder leaned against the edge of a hole in the floor that gaped into darkness.
"You can't be serious," Rui muttered as Wes started down. She knew he was serious.
Even before his eyes adjusted, Wes knew he'd found the right place. The basement smelled earthy, almost rotten, a scent that reminded Wes of the Relic Stone. Here there were no green things growing, none of the water that ran like blood through Agate Village, but there was the same feeling of something ancient, something of a different time.
His PDA lit up the remains of an altar, probably restored sometime after the building burned but since fallen back into disuse. It was draped in dark, rotting fabric, the wall behind adorned with the shredded remains of tapestries. Here and there stars gleamed where the holes in the floor overhead lined up with the holes in the tower's walls.
Rui could feel it too, of course. "This is the place," she said. Wes pulled the pokéballs from his pocket and released them all at once by way of reply.
The flash of light was blinding, and Wes cursed himself for not closing his eyes before pulling a stunt like that. He had to school himself not to flinch and only stand there, blinking furiously until the basement resolved around him again. Stand there despite the overwhelming presence of the pokémon, the smoky scent that filled the air around Entei, the fizz of sparks through Raikou's fur, the gentle breeze that stirred whereve Suicune passed. Wes couldn't hear Umbreon, but he knew the dark-type would be at his side. Not ready to fight, not when he'd had to accept these pokémon as teammates already, but always alert, as prepared for trouble as Wes.
As his vision returned Wes found the pokémon shaking off disorientation, blinking around at the dark of the basement, shifting on their huge paws. They'd instinctively bunched in a half-circle, but surely they knew this place. They must be able to smell that they were back in Johto, in their old home, exactly as Wes had promised them.
They were wary now, but at least they could be wary. Their eyes were free of the deadened gleam that could at any moment blossom into mindless anger, and now they would be free, too, of the machines that had bound them. The pokémon watched as Wes dropped the pokéballs in the dirt and stomped them into shards. They might not understand modern technology if they really were hundreds of years old, but even they had to know what that meant.
"Good luck out there," Rui said. She raised a hesitant hand up to Entei. The big fire-type gave it a wary look but didn't make any move to resist when she stretched up to pat the side of its neck.
Wes grinned while the other two eyed him uneasily. "No, you know me. I'm not big on the mushy stuff. I'm just here to say goodbye."
Umbreon stood out in front of him, rings glowing on and off. His tail was straight up in the air, and he didn't make any sound that Wes could hear, but for a moment Suicune bent down to sniff at him, something that no doubt meant a lot to a pokémon. Wes had been working with these three for months, but still he felt he barely understood them, knew as much from the partial fragments of stories he'd heard as he'd learned from personal experience. He didn't know whether they'd really been so different from the rest of his team or if he'd kept them at a greater distance, afraid of their reputation and the extent of their power.
Suicune raised its head again, pointing its snout towards the stars peeking through the ruined ceiling. It called out in its high, wild voice, and the other two raised their heads as well, listening, finding who-knew-what in that strange noise. Then Suicune charged, traveling so fast Wes had to brace himself so the wind of its passage didn’t bowl him over. Raikou shot past on the other side, then Entei, and then the basement was abruptly cold and still again, Wes' coat flapping back to rest, clouds of dust settling gently to the floor.
Rui lowered the hands she'd put up to shield herself. "I told you they were going to run off."
"I know." Wes stayed where he was, looking up at the ruined altar, the dark shadows that had once been tapestries behind it.
"That's the last of them," Rui said from behind him. "It's really over, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"What now?"
She'd asked that before, too. Oh, more than once. More than a dozen times. Soon enough Wes was actually going to have to come up with an answer. "Do you want to go back?" Rui prompted after a moment. By now she was used to prompting.
"I don't know." Umbreon was looking up at Wes now, too, red eyes calm but intent. Wes leaned down so that the pokémon could jump up into his arms.
"Don't try to distract me with cuteness," Rui said while Wes scratched behind Umbreon's ears. "You've got to decide at some point. There aren't any more shadow pokémon to release. You don't have that excuse anymore."
"I'll figure it out." And before Rui could say what was clearly on her mind, "Soon. I promise."
Everything in Johto was strange. In the first week they were here Wes had spent hours sitting under the awning of the Goldenrod Pokémon Center, watching rain fall. So much water, so much green. It wasn't his world.
But after the rain ended the sky had glowed with rainbows. Wes had only ever seen a single one before, when the huge bird had circled Realgam Tower, crying triumph across the desert. Another pokémon that belonged here but had ended up in Orre somehow. And now Wes had made the reverse journey, followed the arc of that rainbow back to the great bird's roost.
Orre was where Wes had always lived. Where he belonged.
Or maybe where he belonged was a choice now. Maybe Wes could stay here and learn what it was like to live without looking over his shoulder.
Or maybe he'd never stop looking, stop watching, in this place with too many trees. At least the desert provided no cover for whatever might be stalking you.
Wes set Umbreon down again and flicked a berry from his pocket up above the pokémon's snout. They just grew everywhere around here, wild, for anyone to take. Umbreon snatched the berry easily and gulped it down without even chewing.
"And what are you going to do?" Wes asked Rui.
She crossed her arms and gave him a mock-stern frown. "Well, what I'm going to do right now is go back to the Pokémon Center, wash off all the dust I picked up from traipsing around in a building that's condemned, and then go to bed like a normal person."
Wes smiled into her disapproval. "Sounds like a plan. Let's get going, then." He turned back to the ladder. Hopefully it would take their weight for the climb back up. Rui would never let him hear the end of it otherwise.
She was still following him after they'd gone up and out and were under the stars again, on their way back to Ecruteak City. And that, at last, felt like something Wes could trust.
In Johto, a tower fell in rainbow flames, and three new lives began.
Wes has never believed in second chances, but perhaps in a place as strange as Johto, anything is possible.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: This is a one-shot I wrote for Snagged! A Pokémon Colosseum Anniversary Zine, a zine celebrating Pokémon Colosseum's 20th anniversary. Definitely worth checking out--if you haven't already seen it, the art piece HelloYellow17 did for it is stunning!
Peregrine
There weren't even any guards, nothing but a couple of warning signs and a rusted-out fence. Wes would have preferred more security, really. Better chance that he'd have the place to himself.
Well, technically he'd never have that, with Rui following him. But by this point she hardly counted.
"We don't have to do this here, you know," she said for what had to be the hundredth time. "They won’t care. It's not like this is their home." She was already ducking through the fence after him, her words hushed. The remains of the tower loomed overhead, deep shadows pooling in its empty windows, broken beams bone-white under the moon.
Wes didn't reply, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he walked straight up to the building's ancient wooden doors. They’d been nailed shut with boards that looked nearly as ancient, but they still held. It was Umbreon, flickering in and out of shadow, who found the easy way in, a low and empty window, the bars across it long since splintered away.
"Do we really have to go inside?" Rui asked, still in that near-whisper. "Why not let them out here? You know they're only going to run off."
"Probably," Wes said. Three pokéballs clacked together beneath his fingers, deep in his pocket. "This is where they belong, though. We've come all this way. We might as well do things properly."
There was something almost familiar about the tower. Not the humid night air, no, or the sound of crickets from the grass. Wes still wasn't over how green Johto was, so much so that even the air smelled different, like all the plants around him were breathing out at once.
But this broken-down building, the graffiti carved into its boards, the odd bright-colored scrap of rubbish blown into a corner--those were familiar enough. Wes knew neglect. It was strange to think that creatures like the ones in his pocket would ever come from such a decrepit place as this.
Inside, the light from Umbreon's rings showed broken furniture and hole-scored floorboards in stark relief. Wes thought he could hear someone murmuring far off, perhaps in some alcove he couldn't see, and tensed. He still kept a knife with him, of course, not to mention Umbreon and Espeon and a few of the others who hadn't wanted to leave. Despite how much he told himself he was scarier than anything that could be hiding in this darkness, his body remembered the old days.
The murmuring noise came again, closer. Umbreon growled, fur bristling, and a moment later a huge grin swam at Wes out of the gloom. The smile split open in a spectral laugh, an overlong tongue flapping grotesquely, and Wes relaxed when he realized, oh, yeah, a gastly, wasn't it? He didn't even need to signal for Umbreon to chase it off.
That was something else Wes hadn't gotten used to. So many pokémon. Pokémon everywhere. Living with humans, living in the wild. Cramming every free corner, even a tumbledown ruin like this.
"Well, we're inside now," Rui said. "Shall we get this over with?"
"What? You're not afraid of ghosts, are you?"
"I'm afraid of breaking my neck when the floor goes out from under me."
"Umbreon'll keep an eye out for you." Wes ventured further into the room, boots ringing hollow on what he had to admit felt like rickety floorboards.
"What are you looking for?" Rui asked. Her footsteps sounded behind him. Of course. She was never not going to follow.
"I'll know it when I see it."
There were other people here. No voices, but now and again a shadow-shape, the glow of a cigarette--too high off the ground to be a magmar, now that Wes had seen and gotten over his surprise at finding those roaming around here. If Rui noticed anything, she gave no sign. Wes still wasn't sure whether she'd learned to see danger the way he had.
The tower wasn't large, now that all but a couple of floors had disintegrated into ash. Not much space to search. About the only way to go was down, putting altogether too much faith in the rickety ladder leaned against the edge of a hole in the floor that gaped into darkness.
"You can't be serious," Rui muttered as Wes started down. She knew he was serious.
Even before his eyes adjusted, Wes knew he'd found the right place. The basement smelled earthy, almost rotten, a scent that reminded Wes of the Relic Stone. Here there were no green things growing, none of the water that ran like blood through Agate Village, but there was the same feeling of something ancient, something of a different time.
His PDA lit up the remains of an altar, probably restored sometime after the building burned but since fallen back into disuse. It was draped in dark, rotting fabric, the wall behind adorned with the shredded remains of tapestries. Here and there stars gleamed where the holes in the floor overhead lined up with the holes in the tower's walls.
Rui could feel it too, of course. "This is the place," she said. Wes pulled the pokéballs from his pocket and released them all at once by way of reply.
The flash of light was blinding, and Wes cursed himself for not closing his eyes before pulling a stunt like that. He had to school himself not to flinch and only stand there, blinking furiously until the basement resolved around him again. Stand there despite the overwhelming presence of the pokémon, the smoky scent that filled the air around Entei, the fizz of sparks through Raikou's fur, the gentle breeze that stirred whereve Suicune passed. Wes couldn't hear Umbreon, but he knew the dark-type would be at his side. Not ready to fight, not when he'd had to accept these pokémon as teammates already, but always alert, as prepared for trouble as Wes.
As his vision returned Wes found the pokémon shaking off disorientation, blinking around at the dark of the basement, shifting on their huge paws. They'd instinctively bunched in a half-circle, but surely they knew this place. They must be able to smell that they were back in Johto, in their old home, exactly as Wes had promised them.
They were wary now, but at least they could be wary. Their eyes were free of the deadened gleam that could at any moment blossom into mindless anger, and now they would be free, too, of the machines that had bound them. The pokémon watched as Wes dropped the pokéballs in the dirt and stomped them into shards. They might not understand modern technology if they really were hundreds of years old, but even they had to know what that meant.
"Good luck out there," Rui said. She raised a hesitant hand up to Entei. The big fire-type gave it a wary look but didn't make any move to resist when she stretched up to pat the side of its neck.
Wes grinned while the other two eyed him uneasily. "No, you know me. I'm not big on the mushy stuff. I'm just here to say goodbye."
Umbreon stood out in front of him, rings glowing on and off. His tail was straight up in the air, and he didn't make any sound that Wes could hear, but for a moment Suicune bent down to sniff at him, something that no doubt meant a lot to a pokémon. Wes had been working with these three for months, but still he felt he barely understood them, knew as much from the partial fragments of stories he'd heard as he'd learned from personal experience. He didn't know whether they'd really been so different from the rest of his team or if he'd kept them at a greater distance, afraid of their reputation and the extent of their power.
Suicune raised its head again, pointing its snout towards the stars peeking through the ruined ceiling. It called out in its high, wild voice, and the other two raised their heads as well, listening, finding who-knew-what in that strange noise. Then Suicune charged, traveling so fast Wes had to brace himself so the wind of its passage didn’t bowl him over. Raikou shot past on the other side, then Entei, and then the basement was abruptly cold and still again, Wes' coat flapping back to rest, clouds of dust settling gently to the floor.
Rui lowered the hands she'd put up to shield herself. "I told you they were going to run off."
"I know." Wes stayed where he was, looking up at the ruined altar, the dark shadows that had once been tapestries behind it.
"That's the last of them," Rui said from behind him. "It's really over, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"What now?"
She'd asked that before, too. Oh, more than once. More than a dozen times. Soon enough Wes was actually going to have to come up with an answer. "Do you want to go back?" Rui prompted after a moment. By now she was used to prompting.
"I don't know." Umbreon was looking up at Wes now, too, red eyes calm but intent. Wes leaned down so that the pokémon could jump up into his arms.
"Don't try to distract me with cuteness," Rui said while Wes scratched behind Umbreon's ears. "You've got to decide at some point. There aren't any more shadow pokémon to release. You don't have that excuse anymore."
"I'll figure it out." And before Rui could say what was clearly on her mind, "Soon. I promise."
Everything in Johto was strange. In the first week they were here Wes had spent hours sitting under the awning of the Goldenrod Pokémon Center, watching rain fall. So much water, so much green. It wasn't his world.
But after the rain ended the sky had glowed with rainbows. Wes had only ever seen a single one before, when the huge bird had circled Realgam Tower, crying triumph across the desert. Another pokémon that belonged here but had ended up in Orre somehow. And now Wes had made the reverse journey, followed the arc of that rainbow back to the great bird's roost.
Orre was where Wes had always lived. Where he belonged.
Or maybe where he belonged was a choice now. Maybe Wes could stay here and learn what it was like to live without looking over his shoulder.
Or maybe he'd never stop looking, stop watching, in this place with too many trees. At least the desert provided no cover for whatever might be stalking you.
Wes set Umbreon down again and flicked a berry from his pocket up above the pokémon's snout. They just grew everywhere around here, wild, for anyone to take. Umbreon snatched the berry easily and gulped it down without even chewing.
"And what are you going to do?" Wes asked Rui.
She crossed her arms and gave him a mock-stern frown. "Well, what I'm going to do right now is go back to the Pokémon Center, wash off all the dust I picked up from traipsing around in a building that's condemned, and then go to bed like a normal person."
Wes smiled into her disapproval. "Sounds like a plan. Let's get going, then." He turned back to the ladder. Hopefully it would take their weight for the climb back up. Rui would never let him hear the end of it otherwise.
She was still following him after they'd gone up and out and were under the stars again, on their way back to Ecruteak City. And that, at last, felt like something Wes could trust.
