The earth shook beneath Aggron’s feet as he loosed another volley of boulders at his opponent. The retaliatory earthquake sent him stumbling and threw off his aim. He steadied himself with his tail, dropping low to the ground on one arm, panting with the effort.
Across the battlefield stood another Aggron, scuff marks on its armor from where he’d landed a hit; but not enough to stagger it. The other Aggron let out a defiant roar, leveling its horns on him. They were longer, bigger, indicating this Aggron was older and stronger than him. Aggron paled for a moment, but remembered who he was, what he was capable of, who he was fighting for.
Aggron hazarded a glance over his shoulder at the trainer behind him. Steven stood in the trainer’s box, but the lights of the arena were blinding, and Aggron couldn’t make out the expression on his trainer’s face from where he stood. No matter, though. He knew his purpose, his place.
He was a
champion. Tested in the fires of battle, he proved himself strong and capable. He proved the naysayers wrong. His joke of a former trainer, the rest of his clutch, he had made it. He’d proved them all wrong.
The hard packed dirt beneath his claws was as comforting as a well-traveled cave. The Champion’s chamber at Ever Grande is a familiar place to Aggron. He’d fought here countless times over the years. This was his home, this was where he belonged. This was what he would
protect.
Aggron never saw the blow coming. In an instant, the other Aggron was upon him, the crown of its helm planted beneath his jaw. There was the feeling of an impact, and the lights went out.
---------
Steven had only been back at his temporary office for a handful of days, and already he was feeling miles better than he had in the hospital. The medical care in Kanto was nothing to scoff at, but being confined to a hospital bed meant there was nothing to distract him from his thoughts, his memories, spotty and fragmented as they were.
Here in the small office they’d supplied him at the Indigo Plateau, there were plenty of distractions. Paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. Damage reports and casualty numbers were somehow easier to stomach in black and white print. He hadn’t seen any of the devastation first-hand, what with being extracted from the rubble of the Cave of Origin barely clinging to consciousness. But the news reports, the aerial footage that scrolled endlessly on the hospital tv, the images of what was left of his home region were haunting enough for three lifetimes.
Relocating survivors, property loss totals climbing, the sheer loss of life—
Phoebe had been reduced to a shell of her former bubbly self. Tormented night and day by the spirits left in the wake of Kyogre and Groudon’s rampage. The only time he’d seen signs of life in her quarters was when Sidney would leave and return with her meals. Sidney himself was withdrawn, skinnier than Steven had ever seen him, with dark circles beneath his eyes. Steven was convinced Sidney didn’t eat anything himself, pouring all his being into taking care of Phoebe.
They were all that were left. Drake and Glacia were aboard Drake’s boat when it sank to the bottom of the raging sea. The three of them were all that were left to pick up the pieces. Try to understand what went wrong. Try to comprehend how it had happened under their watch. Try to process how they’d failed—
Steven realized he’d been squeezing the piece of paper in his hand into an unrecognizable mess when there was a knock on his door.
“Excuse me, Mr. Stone?” It was one of the Plateau’s administrative assistants. “Your press conference starts in five minutes.”
And suddenly, Steven wished he was back in that hospital bed with all of his heart.
---------
Aggron groaned as he awoke. Stars danced in his vision as he blinked muzzily. Where was he? What was he doing? Laying on the arena floor apparently. He grunted as he gathered his limbs beneath himself, prying himself up from the ground. Slowly, it came back to him. He was battling, he was supposed to be winning. What was he doing, then?
With a surge, he clambered to his feet, only to be greeted with the leering face of the other Aggron staring down at him.
It laughed, deep and gravelly. “You lost, little runt. I knew you’d never be the best of our quarry. Just like Garrett always knew.”
Aggron snarled defiantly, but any sharp comeback died on his tongue as the room spun. Suddenly, he was standing on the other side of the battlefield, facing the champion’s box. Shocked, Aggron whirled around to see the trainer behind him. No longer was it the familiar silver hair and pressed suit. Instead, a shock of brown hair greeted him, and piercing green eyes full of judgment.
“I should have given up on you back at that cave,” said Garrett. “I was planning on it, but then some goody-two-shoes said ‘oh no you can’t do that, look how much he loves you!’” His tone was sickenly mocking.
“You can’t teach size, and no amount of try-hard love is gonna make up for that. What a load of shit. Should have gone with my gut and tossed you back in that hole. Could have saved myself the trouble.”
Cowed, Aggron’s head snapped back and forth, first from Garrett, then to the Aggron standing over him, then to the shadowy trainer standing in the champion’s box. Garret was still speaking, his words stinging more than any blow could. How had he gotten here? He wasn’t Garrett’s pokemon? He was Steven’s and he was—
“Pathetic. All this time I spent, wasted—”
Aggron wheeled back around, a whine building in his throat. It wasn’t time wasted, he got to spend time outside his cave, he got to learn and grow and see new things. He got stronger, he—
Then, Garret’s words began to morph, like they were spoken by someone else. Aggron blinked, and suddenly Garret was gone. In his place stood Aggron’s rightful trainer, but the eyes he looked at Aggron with were the same. Piercing, judgmental, angry.
“—wasted. I could have had any pokemon I wanted,” said Steven, “any pokemon at all. And I wasted that choice on you.”
The strangled howl that Aggron let out was an ugly sound. He hadn’t— He
couldn’t—
Steven sighed heavily, bringing out a pokeball from his belt. Aggron’s tail curled under his legs, trying to make himself as small as possible. Shameful. He was shameful. But he would do better next time. He would. He could. He
had to—
The pokeball in Steven’s hand beeped twice, then sat open in his palm. Empty. No longer Aggron’s ball; Aggron no longer his pokemon. He dropped it to the floor like a discarded plaything. Aggron watched it rock back and forth with wide, terrified eyes.
“Maybe someone else will want you,” said Steven. And with that he turned on his heel and left. The massive doors of the champion’s arena slammed shut behind him.
The sound of cruel laughter reverberated across the chamber, piercing Aggron’s armor with ease.
“Hahaha!” Garrett crowed from the champion’s pedestal. “Looks like I chose right.” He patted the other Aggron’s arm with pride. “Now get out, loser. You have no place here.”
The clunk of a relay being thrown echoed through the space, and suddenly Aggron was pitched into darkness.
Gone. It was all gone. Slowly, he shrunk to the ground, curling his tail over his nose. He grasped his helm with both claws and held on for dear life. Not this. Not again. Not Steven. He was back in that hole in Granite Cave. Alone. Unloved. He wanted to sink into the earth. He wanted to disappear.
------
Steven was already sweating by the time he’d limped up to the podium. The assistant hovered just out of view at the side of the stage, holding his crutches with eyes full of pity. He’d looked at her in his office like a Deerling in headlights, and he was sure he was faring no better in front of the press.
He pressed his hands flat against the podium to try to ground himself. Several fingers on his left hand refused to obey; curled, quivering and weak. The nerve damage would be permanent, the doctors had said.
Not the only thing that would be gone permanently… He shook his head, wondering why the thought occurred to him.
The buzz in the room intensified with his racing heart, and then fell silent. It was deafening. They were waiting on him. Nothing but the sound of shutters rolling could be heard, and slowly he raised his eyes to the teleprompter and began to read.
“The events of three weeks ago marked a catastrophe in our region’s history, surpassed by no other. Citizens of Hoenn, I stand before you on this somber day on another region’s soil. The soil of our home washed away in a clash of legends, foretold only by ancient murals and ancient scriptures. I—”
Suddenly, Steven froze as an icy sensation washed over him. The sensation of a memory. A warning. He had known this would happen.
He had known. Had he known? But how? Why hadn’t he done something? His right hand curled so tight around the podium’s edge his nails sunk into the wood.
A name flashed through his mind.
Kimiko. His wide-eyed gaze flicked over to the assistant at the edge of the stage. Why did that name come to him? Was that her name?
Someone coughed in the dead air left by his sudden halt in his speech, and his attention whipped back to the room in front of him. The teleprompter was frantically rewinding once they realized he’d missed his queues.
“I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered, prying his hand loose from the podium and adjusting his too-tight collar with shaking fingers. “This is…”
He trailed off again, eyes wandering above the heads of the assembled media. The lights aimed at the stage were bright, and he flinched. After-images danced in his vision and he tried to blink them away. Suddenly he felt too hot, the room was suffocating, pressing down on him like a ton of rocks—
He gasped as another memory slammed into his consciousness. The tiny undersized image of six makeshift graves at the summit of Mt. Moon. He’d got the message on his phone when he was still in the hospital, a favor from the Pewter Gym Leader he’d befriended long before all this. There was no going back to Mt. Pyre for a proper burial, and he had no interest in laying his pokemon to rest in the tower in Lavender Town. And they were
gone—
The room spun around him, and he staggered forward into the podium. He’d known and he sent them all to their deaths. Pain shot up his leg as he tried to regain his balance. A reminder that he was still here, he was here and his partners
weren’t— They died because of
him.
“Please—” Steven choked out, raising a hand to shield his face from the cameras, “I can’t—”
A clamor rose in the assembled media, the shuffling of chairs and the suffocating press of bodies trying to get close to the stage. Microphones shoved forward, shutters clicked, the lights burned shamefully on the broken champion who lost his pokemon, his league, and his region.
Dully, Steven was aware of the assistant rushing to his side, trying to hold him upright and usher him away from the stage.
“Too soon…”
“He’s not ready…”
“...Never ready”
“What a tragedy…”
The murmurs swept over him, washing him under, he was drowning, falling.
Skarmory. Claydol. Armaldo. Cradily. Aggron. Metagross. They were all gone. Without them, he was nothing. Nothing. Living on was more painful than any injury he’d sustained. Without the distractions to save him, he reeled as the sorrow buried him like a rockslide.
He wished the earth had claimed him, too.
------
Aggron had no way of knowing how long he had laid there, curled up in a ball. The arena was empty. Garrett had left a long time ago, Steven even longer than that. There was no light, there was no sound; it was stiller than the depths of any cave.
At this point, he’d stopped feeling sorry for himself. His breath no longer shuddered in and out, the pathetic snuffling finally petering to a stop. There wasn’t anything he could do. He was never good enough no matter what he did, or how hard he tried. He was born insufficient, weak, inferior. This was his existence. A sequence doomed to repeat over and over again. He was numb to it by now.
But somewhere beneath the numbness burned something else. Something lit like a spark in the darkness. A fire burning inside his soul. He was mad. Angry.
Furious. Why was he trapped in this cycle? It was unfair. He shouldn’t be forced to live this over and over and over again. He had to do something about it. He could. He should.
It was one battle he lost. One battle! He deserved another chance! Steven always gave him another chance. Garrett, well, forget him, he was a nasty, nasty human. But Steven—
Aggron lifted his head and stared through the darkness at the closed arena doors. The doors Steven had stormed out of without looking back. As he stared, the fire in his belly burned brighter, and he picked himself up off the arena floor, never taking his eyes off those doors.
There was a clatter at his feet as his tail brushed against something on the ground. Aggron looked down at the open pokeball—
his pokeball— and the fire grew into an inferno. He’d caught himself once before, he could do it again. He could convince Steven to take him back, he was sure of it.
Aggron shook himself off, his armor rattling bright and loud in the empty space. He slapped the broken pokeball across the room with his tail and marched toward the doors. Lowering his head, he coiled back on his hind legs. Cycle be damned, he was going to
show them he was worth it. He was going to show them all.
And then he lunged with all his might.
---
Steven’s legs had given out, so the assistant had settled for helping him to sit against the base of the podium, half-hidden from the swarming press. League security had rushed out to keep the crowd under control.
“Back up!”
“Give him space!”
“No one is allowed on the stage!”
His chest heaved in and out with every breath, stars dancing at the edge of his vision. His good hand clamped around a fistful of his cravat and refused to let go. The poor assistant hovered at his side in a panic, fanning him with a stack of papers pulled from her bag. She’d tried to hand him a bottle of water, but his injured hand refused to cooperate, and she was far too flustered to try to tip it to the lips of a regional champion herself.
“Please, Mr. Stone. Let’s get you back to your office,” she practically begged, sending nervous glances over her shoulder for someone,
anyone, to come and help.
But her words fell on deaf ears. Steven was lost in his misery, staring off into the blank space of the stage’s backdrop. The Indigo League logo staring back at him, its reds and blues swirling together like the lake of lava, the monstrous tidal wave, the elements that buried Hoenn beneath a merciless onslaught. And what had he done? He’d run, deep into a cave he was forbidden to enter, with a half-cocked idea and an underprepared team. And who had paid the ultimate price of his folly? Everyone but him.
When the earth had rumbled beneath his feet in that cave, he had been prepared to give everything to stop Kyogre and Groudon. Wallace had been the same, risking his life to scale the Sky Tower despite the laws forbidding it. They’d both survived that day, but neither returned as the same person who had left.
The earth seemed to shake again where Steven sat, and he mirthlessly thought that maybe this time it would finish the job it started. But then he realized he wasn’t in Sootopolis, and he wasn’t in the Cave of Origin. Blinking himself back to the present, Steven found the assistant’s harrowed gaze locked onto the far doors of the assembly hall. A bone-rattling roar sounded from outside the hall, and Steven turned to follow the assistant’s stare just as the double doors exploded inward with the force of a freight train.
Blown clear from their hinges, the doors launched into the unsuspecting crowd of reporters. Steven scrambled to his feet, eyes wide with disbelieving horror. But as the doors carved through the crowd, there was no destruction left in their wake. Anything they struck vanished in a cloud of smoke, dark tendrils curling up toward the ceiling.
But that wasn’t the most remarkable thing.
Standing in the ruined doorway was Aggron, shoulders heaving and eyes wild. His massive head swung from side to side, scanning the room, looking for something.
Someone.
Steven gaped, speechless. Everything else faded into background noise. The assistant was gone. The reporters, gone. The stage, gone. The only things left were him and his partner. Alive. Standing right there in front of him.
“Aggron?” he asked, choking on the lump in his throat. Warmth prickled in the corners of his eyes, the return of tears long since spent. He couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t real. He was talking to an empty room, to a hallucination, to a ghost.
At his words, his partner’s frantic gaze snapped to him, and time ceased to exist.
The pain in Aggron’s eyes, the fear, it was there for an instant, and Steven’s heart clenched in his chest. Almost in slow motion, Steven reached out one shaking hand toward his partner. If he could just touch his steel armor, feel the rough hide beneath his fingers, he’d know this was real, that this was all just a bad dream.
Aggron let out a surprised grunt as he took in Steven’s outstretched hand. He froze for a second, fighting against the immediate and overwhelming desire to run straight for it. To nuzzle into that touch, to be wanted and loved. His hesitation was short-lived. He could tell right away, from the shock in his trainer’s eyes, this wasn’t that imposter who’d turned his back on him in the cold arena. This was the human he chose. The human he loved. But why did he look so haggard, so broken? What had happened? Where were they? Why hadn’t Aggron been there to protect him?
Aggron made it two steps toward the stage when the earth shook again, hard. There was a cracking, splintering sound, and both he and Steven immediately looked skyward.
For a moment, the room stilled and silence reigned. And then the ceiling caved in around them, burying them in an avalanche of rock and stone.
---
Pain.
That was the first thing that swept over Steven when he awoke. Immediate and overwhelming pain.
He gasped, choking on the air thick with dust. Each cough wracked his frame and he fought against the urge to black out again. So much pain.
And darkness. Everything was dark. And close. He could feel his own breath against his face. There was something pressing down on him, heavy, crushing—
His legs. He tried to move his legs and he couldn’t. His left arm, too. Trapped beneath something massive. Slabs of rock, the very earth itself—
The press conference— it was starting in five minutes!
Panic shot through the pain and he tried again to sit up, only to crack his head against something solid. Another warm rivulet joined the sticky feeling already matting one of his cheeks. Groudon— Kyogre— The Cave of Origin; he was in the cave and it collapsed—
He gasped again, more pain lancing up his spine as his chest heaved and heaved, straining to find life-giving oxygen. The ground trembled and trickles of dust rained down from the rock mere inches above his head. He held his breath, waiting for the rest of the rock to give way, but it held. By some small miracle, his vital organs found this one tiny pocket among the rubble. It was a blessing, and also a curse.
He was alive, but only just. How long had he been here? How many times had he woken up and passed out again? How much longer did he have?
Wasn’t he supposed to be somewhere else—an island or something?
His right hand clawed through the dirt, finding purchase at his hip. He could only feel three of his pokeball slots, and they were empty. More panic arced through him, calming only from the vivid memory of throwing all six as the boulders came tumbling down. Pokeballs were brittle. Pokemon made of steel and rock were much less so.
Maybe they’d made it. Maybe they survived. He grimaced as he shifted trying to reach the other three slots to make damn sure. His hip screamed in protest.
He let out a groan as his head fell back against the ground. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. Pain was no longer just a sensation; it was a flavor to taste, a sound to hear, a surface to cocoon himself in.
The hope that his team made it would have to be enough, because he had a feeling he was never going to know for sure. He swallowed, then coughed again. His throat was dry and cracked. He wasn’t going to make it. As long as everyone else could, though…
--
Heavy.
Something very, very heavy was pressing down on Aggron from all sides. He grunted and tried to move, only to find the tons of rock as unyielding as a steel plate. Well, unyielding to most, and he wasn’t most.
A deep growl built in Aggron’s throat as he strained against the boulders pinning him in. It built and built until it ripped free in a gutteral bellow. He shoved with all his might, overturning a slab the size of a dump truck from his back.
It crashed back to the earth with a resounding boom, shaking the rest of the rubble around him and throwing up a cloud of dust. He glanced around the gloom, wondering how he ended up here in this crumbled-in cave.
Wasn’t he somewhere with Steven—?
Yeah, they were. Or at least, they had been. But this wasn’t right. First he’d been in the champion’s arena, then some office or something, and now, a cave? A strange cave. The stone that surrounded him was familiar in composition, more like the stone from back home. So he wasn’t somewhere else, but also he was, and he wasn’t where he started. It was all so strange—
An unearthly cry echoed over the broken rock, coming from all directions at once, and Aggron’s snout went skyward on high alert. Something was out there, something else survived the collapse. Was it a foe? It certainly didn’t sound like any friend Aggron knew.
But wait, if they were fighting it, where was his trainer?
Where was Steven—?
Aggron whirled around, sniffing the air. Nothing stood out but dust and hot air, maybe a whiff of the sea. He sniffed again, more frantic. Steven had been there with him, he was sure of it. So where did he go—?
The tang of something metallic caught Aggron’s attention. Not steel, not iron… Copper. What smelled like copper? And was coming from beneath the rubble…
The harsh rattle of a cough came from the pile, and Aggron screeched in shock. He threw himself at the pile and began digging like his life depended on it. Boulders were tossed aside like they weighed nothing, dirt and debris flying as he tore into the mound, trying to unearth what he knew was buried at the bottom.
--
Steven squinted as more dust fell onto his face, sticking to the blood, making his eyes burn. He upturned his palm against the slab, trying to block the dust from falling. What a futile effort, if the pile really was settling. It wouldn’t stop the weight from crushing him completely.
Something shifted with a grinding sound, and Steven closed his eyes, waiting for the horrible end. But it never came. Instead, a gentle puff of air caressed his cheek, and his eyes shot open in surprise.
He breathed as deep as the pain would allow, and yes! Of all the incredible luck! It was fresh air! And perhaps the tiniest sliver of light. He reached up with his hand, trying to pry at the spot where his lifeline trickled in. The grinding sound continued, punctuated by low thumps and clunks.
Was it a rescue? Or maybe the pile was settling away from him? Either way, for the first time since he woke up, trapped at the bottom of the earth, a spark of hope ignited in his heart.
-
The pile was growing smaller, and Aggron’s frenzy had calmed somewhat. The memory of what Steven had taught him about cave rescues burned bright in his mind. He had to be careful, lest he disturb the rubble enough that it collapsed and harmed whoever was trapped beneath.
Gently, he picked up boulder after boulder, setting it aside so that it wouldn’t upset the precarious balance of the rest of the pile. He had to be getting close, he had to. Aggron kept working, breathing hard, grunting from effort, prying away slab after slab until—
Suddenly, the rock above Steven’s head shifted, and he flinched away, expecting it to come crashing down the last few inches, but it never did. Squinting up through the dust and dirt, he was face to face with his rescuer, clad in silver armor.
“Aggron—” his voice was hoarse, either from disuse or overuse, he couldn’t recall, “you’ve saved me again.” He reached one hand up and rested it against Aggron’s snout, willing all his gratitude into that one action. But Aggron heard him, or simply saw the tears cut two streaks through the bloody grime on his face, and understood.
Aggron leaned into Steven’s touch, uncaring for the bloody smear left on his armor. He didn’t care because Steven was here and alive and he’d found him and he didn’t leave him alone in that arena after all. He closed his eyes and keened a high pitched sound that sang over the broken rocks of the cave.
As his cry faded away into echoes, Aggron felt the hand slip away from his face, and his eyes snapped open in panic. Steven’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing. Alive, but still in danger. He had to get him out of here, get them both out of here, to wherever it was they had come from—
A moment of lucidity cut through Aggron’s mind. He knew where they had come from was a safe place, a place of healing. Shaymin, magical berries, a place for them to recover and regroup. He had to get Steven there and away from this nightmare.
Gingerly, Aggron pried back the rock that held Steven trapped. What lay underneath was a grisly sight. Aggron fidgeted, unsure of what he could do. He was all armor and claws, and humans were so frail, so powerless on their own. Yet they held power even they couldn’t comprehend. The power to give purpose to others, the power to give hope where there was none.
As gently as he could, Aggron scooped Steven into his arms and cradled his unconscious form against his chest. When he rose, the rubble all around him also began to shift. From the piles, five more forms rose, overturning rocks or tossing them aside with psychic powers.
“You guys—” Aggron looked at the faces of his teammates in shock. When had they gotten here? Had they been here the whole time? None of this was right. None of this made sense. But Steven felt real, he had weight in Aggron’s arms, he breathed and smiled and bled. It felt real, yet— “I don’t understand.”
“You’ve known this was all a dream,” said Metagross, eyes glowing with psychic hue.
“Even before Steven,” Claydol said, all of its eyes rolling down at the trainer cradled in Aggron’s arms.
“We’re not here, really,” said Armaldo with a shrug.
“None of this is really here,” said Cradily, waving at the cave with her tendrils.
“But you are. And Steven is.” said Skarmory, his yellow gaze burning bright. “You’re both real.”
“You can’t stay here within the dream,” said Metagross. Its eyes swept to its left where a red and black portal materialized. “You should return to reality. And never forget.”
“Forget?” asked Aggron. “Forget what?”
“That you are not alone,” chimed Claydol.
“You are not alone,” said Armaldo, fins twitching.
“You are not alone,” Cradily chirped.
“You are not alone,” Skarmory said with a sharp nod.
“You are not alone,” said Metagross. “And neither is he.”
Aggron looked down again at Steven, the voices of the others ringing in his ears. “You are not alone,” he rumbled, half to himself, half to the bundle in his arms.
Metagross nodded, shuffling to the side of the portal. “You should go,” it repeated.
Aggron picked his way over, careful not to jostle Steven too much. He nodded at each teammate as he passed them, and in turn they nodded back. Stopping in front of the portal, he regarded Metagross with a guarded stare.
“Don’t worry,” Metagross said. “Steven will be fine when you return. Anything that happened in the dream world will not pass over into the real world.”
Regarding his oldest friend, most powerful teammate, most trusted partner and self-appointed rival, Aggron gave a snort of recognition and nodded. He had one foot through the portal when he paused and turned back.
“It’s funny,” he said, looking down at the tiny, frail human nestled in his arms.
His human. “He thinks I saved him. Yet he’s saved me more than he will ever know.”
Metagross laughed, jaw cracking into a jack-o-lantern smile. “He might. Humans have a funny way of knowing things without realizing it. Now go. Keep fighting and never stop.”
A grin scrawled its way across Aggron’s face. “You know me too well,” he said, turning back toward the portal. “Whatever it takes, I’ll do it for him.”
As he stepped through, he felt Steven’s hand tighten around his arm, and he knew the same was true for him, too.