Goolix
Pokémon Trainer
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Cyrus returns from the Distortion World half-dead, silent, prepared to accept any punishment. Cynthia thought she'd feel relief at his trial, but as she watches him refuse to defend himself, she questions whether this is justice or self-annihilation. She has always believed that every living being has a place in the world. Now she has to decide whether that belief includes him.
A special thanks to @Flyg0n for beta-ing!
~
Note: If you note a raised number next to a word, that means there's a footnote. You can scroll down to the bottom to see what note I have on it. This is entirely optional! The footnotes are there for words that may be unfamiliar and to clarify quotes. Unfortunately you can't click on them yet, so you'll have to scroll down and then back up.
SOTERIOLOGY¹
They’d found him half dead, limbs slack under his own uncarryable weight.
This was the call Cynthia had received one peaceful Sunday, in the middle of green tea, in her garden, as the sun retired. Looker – even now he refused to use his given name with her – told her they’d found him by Sendoff Spring. He had put up no resistance. Clothes torn, skin cut, breath shallow, apparently attempting to drink water from the lake.
Just like that, the failed demiurge² became another organism at the hospital.
She’d thought he’d died. The Distortion World was antithetical to life. That he’d apparently survived as many months as he did was a miracle. His Pokemon were in bad state, but they'd been kept alive by the animating technology of Pokeballs. They were placed in police custody immediately. His body was plugged into machines, the saddest version of his fantasy.
It should have felt like vindication to see such a monstrous human finally face the law. The reality was different. She suddenly felt out of phase with the waveform of this world. She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she’d found herself stuck on his last words, his assertion that people only delude themselves into thinking they’re happy. It was so abnormal that at the time she’d dismissed it as deluded ravings. The passage of time erased the urgency of the moment, but the words persisted. “People who only think they’re happy.”³ How could he have reached her age and not think that anyone could really be happy?
The sensation returned when she was called to his trial.
A small room of light-colored wood, something that could have accommodated an amateur vocal group. She had to leave her Pokemon at the Pokeball Check, so she was unaccompanied. People she didn’t recognize filled the seats. Looker, she did recognize, and he sat in front of her.
The defendant sat in the front row. All she saw of his head was slate blue, deflated from its usual spike to a limp, fluffy mop.
The judge arrived swathed in black. The lump of fabric nestled atop the podium. Introductions were given, and then the various crimes of the defendant were listed.
Kidnapping.
Pokemon theft.
Environmental destruction.
The defendant’s gaze was unclear, but it seemed aimed at some unspecified point on the floor. The prosecution made an impassioned argument detailing the threat the defendant posed if allowed to remain free. The defendant had no lawyer. The judge asked about this state of affairs. Did the defendant aim to represent himself? The defendant stated that there was no need for a lawyer. He acknowledged what he had done.
This seemed to please the judge, who thanked the defendant for not wasting his time. Perhaps they could even move forward to sentencing.
It happened so quickly. She’d hoped for some grandiose speech, the ruthless defiance which had formed her last image of him. Instead he’d rejected his right to legal counsel and confessed to his crimes immediately. She laughed at herself for the words that formed in her head – “he’s not in his right mind.” As if he’d ever been!
Without the human machine he’d formed around him, the one that had transformed him from unknown malcontent to a man referred to as “Master,” he was at the mercy of the older, more established social machinery. He'd lost all will to fight to live. This court was a mere formality wherein all the parties confirmed the disposability of the defendant. The defendant included.
“You’re only hoping, deluding yourself that you are happy and safe.”
His old words needled into her brain again. She remembered what it was she’d told the brave young woman who had faced Giratina: "Don’t listen to his lies. The world awaited your birth. The world awaited everyone’s birth. There is a place for everyone in it."⁴
It was something her grandmother had taught her.
It sounded like sentimental nonsense when she first heard it. Her parents had died and her last living relative was an old woman in a town far from civilization. The idea of a ‘place’ in the world had sounded like nonsense to her then. What place did this world have for her when it took her parents from her? What kind of place was it? A sob story? Or a warning?
Even when she yelled, even when she told her she would never understand, even when she called her a bag of bones waiting to die, her grandmother didn’t push her away.
One day, Cynthia had found an abandoned, deformed Starly in the forest. She cradled its small, warm body, careful to protect the twisted neck, and took it home. When she tried to feed it milk-dipped bread, the Starly pecked at her fingers, and she ran off afraid into the forest. By the time she came back, it had died. She blamed herself with all the force a child’s self-centeredness can take. Her grandmother had told her it wasn’t her fault. She gave a dying young Pokemon warmth and peace. It didn’t know any better, so it tried to protect itself. But what she did had value even if the Pokemon didn’t understand, even if Cynthia couldn’t save its life. She asked if maybe the Starly wasn’t supposed to stay alive. Grandma said that choice was not up to her.
A silly memory. The man in handcuffs behind the desk was not innocent. The organization he founded and led had caused substantial harm. His attempt to reset the world and core the spirit out of every living being was too grand and abstract to grasp, even for her who saw him drag two deities from slits in the sky. Easier to see was the lake he had drained of water, the gods he electrocuted to extract their gems, and the multiple people his associates had threatened in his name. She could easily justify throwing him in a box and leaving him to spend the rest of his natural life quarantined from society. What compassion did he deserve when he spat on the very concept? What pity did he show the people he hurt?
These were the words her brain thought, but they were solely cognitive. Seeing the young man hunched over, wounded, another thought came to her, that this was simply a different way for him to remove himself from the world. He’d tried to create a new world and migrate everyone to it. He’d then tried to stay in the inhospitable distortion world, where he must have thought of every possible way to make his plan work. And when that failed, he must have tried to stay, starving himself out of existence, until the desperation of the body drove him out. Now his final, mundane exile could be executed, and he can confirm what he'd always thought: he did not belong in this world.
She was brought out of her thoughts by the judge's question: is there any reason this man should not be kept in captivity?
She rose. “Your honor,” she found herself saying, “I believe that Cyrus can be rehabilitated.”
She felt every eye in the room fall on her. Almost every eye. The judge, the prosecutor, Looker, all looked at her with stunned eyes. The defendant only turned his head vaguely in her direction.
The judge frowned at the break in procedure. “Champion, you know better than most in this room how dangerous this man is.”
Her pulse was overwhelming her. Was there any good reason to help this man over any other criminal? (She knew him. She'd defeated him. She wasn’t afraid of him. If he could change, she was the only person who could midwife this transformation.)
“He is dangerous,” she began. “But I believe he is not beyond salvation. I believe he can change.”
“Cynthia,” said the judge, “I respect you and your judgment. I simply do not understand it at this moment.”
“The world awaited your birth. Not only yours, either. All the Pokémon and people were born because they have a part in the world.”
If she truly believed this, if she truly believed what her grandmother taught her, she could not make an exception for him.
“If you respect my judgment, then let me put it on the line. I will be responsible for his rehabilitation.” (What was she doing?) “This man has spent his life trying to exit human existence. Letting him hide is not paying his debt to society. He needs to repair what he’s done wrong.”
The second hand on the clock ticked audibly five times. The judge’s brow knit together in concern. “Champion,” he began, “I want to make sure I understand. Are you offering to personally oversee the confinement and rehabilitation of the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think you can handle this?”
“I'm not intimidated by him. I don't believe the story he tells about himself. He is now in a position without a team and with fewer means.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then I fail. He will return to conventional imprisonment.”
Cyrus’s eyes were on hers now. His mouth was an inscrutable line, and his eyes were partially obscured by his severe brow. What he was thinking or feeling was beyond her, and frankly not her responsibility at the moment.
Opposing counsel had sat there slack-jawed before recovering. “Your honor, this is highly irregular.”
“Yes, it is. But… I am not inclined to discard the judgment of our Champion. She’s not ignorant of the situation, even if her confidence seems overstated. I will consult on this. Counsel, Champion, Interpol Agent, my chambers. Everyone else, take a break.”
The gavel was banged and the court adjourned. The bailiff motioned for Cynthia to cross the bar. She stood and walked there, passing by the seated defendant, who didn’t seem to register her presence.
The judge’s chambers were small, full of books, a mahogany desk, and now featuring the presence of the prosecutor and Looker. The judge sat behind the desk, hands steepled.
The prosecutor began speaking as soon as they'd all convened. “Your Honor, I cannot object enough to the irregularity and danger of this. What precedent are we setting if we allow this to go forward?”
“Enough. Champion, I would like you to explain precisely what plan you have to rehabilitate the man who attempted to cosmically lobotomize all of Sinnoh.”
She took a deep breath. “His entire adult life has been spent in an organization that grew around him, holding him as the center of its universe. He needs to learn to be an orbiting body, not the sun⁵."
“That’s very nice, but where, precisely? I want details.”
“Celestic Town.”
“The place where he attempted to destroy a mural?”
“Yes. He can begin his rehabilitation by serving the people of Celestic Town. It’s a small town where everybody knows each other. He won’t be able to go two paces without a neighbor alerting us. My grandmother lives there, too. She’s a respected authority in town.”
“Is your grandmother volunteering to do this, or…?”
“I will be present for all of it. I have a home there with a guest unit. My grandmother is right next door. He can live in the guest unit. My Pokemon will watch him. He won’t go anywhere without an escort.”
“Cynthia,” interjected Looker, “won’t he be in danger there, too? I mean… won’t the people of the town resent him? Someone might try something.”
“I don’t think anyone in that town would. And if they did, they’d be facing down my team, me, and my grandmother. I’m not letting bodily harm come to anyone. And of course, the court is free to check as often as it sees necessary. If you think he needs any psychiatric care as well, we will take him.”
“I see,” said the judge. “A very interesting proposal.”
“He can’t ever pay the world back for his crimes,” she said. “But confining him isn’t pay back. He’s caused serious harm. He should give back to the places he hurt.”
“Mhm. I’ve heard enough. Let me think on this. I shall see you all again next week.”
She exited the chamber, feeling winded of a sudden. The weight of the commitment she’d made settled in her lungs. Hoping to avoid anyone, she headed for the water fountains. She finished drinking when Looker appeared over her.
“I can’t say I expected that,” he said.
“Don’t start.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” She stopped. “Nobody seemed willing to defend him. Not even him. That seemed wrong.”
“You don’t think that he knows what he did was wrong?”
“I don’t know that. I just don’t think I can be honest with myself if I let him erase himself again. He’s a human being. In some twisted way, he thought he was helping everyone. If he can still think about that, maybe he’s not too far gone.”
She waited for Looker to mention the obvious counter-evidence to him being too far gone, but found only silence. He stooped to drink water.
“Do you know how we found him?”
She hadn’t stopped to ask herself this. “I don’t know; did some hiker find him?”
“Yes. But the hiker didn’t find him by chance. He said a Crobat appeared out of nowhere and began to tug at his clothes. He sent out his Golem to knock it out, but the Crobat refused to attack the Golem. It just shrieked, fluttered about, and kept trying to tug at his clothes. The Golem stood down. The man realized that this Crobat was trying to show him something.”
Cynthia blinked. “And that Crobat…”
“…was Cyrus’s Crobat,” continued Looker. “It could have escaped him and lived life in the wild. It could have found a Pokemon Center and hid there, as sanctuary for Pokemon escaping bad trainers. Instead it risked a Rock Throw to the face and dragged a man to save his…” Looker paused. “Friend?”
Neither of them said anything.
“So no,” he said. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Not entirely.”
She laughed humorlessly.
The time between the two court sessions seemed to groan and stretch endlessly. Cynthia had told her grandmother about this, who listened in silence. She'd expected a scolding. Some small part of her hoped for confirmation she'd done the right thing. Instead her grandmother said nothing for a long time. And then: "Cynthia, I'm proud of the person you are. But you always make things difficult for yourself." She switched then to discussion of logistics, security, preparation, all the concrete things that announced that she was not willing to share her feelings any further.
At last, the court date came. The faces she'd seen before flowed together back into the room. Cynthia felt her hands shake as she sat back on the hard, blonde wood.
The judge opened: “After consultation, the court has decided to allow a conditional release for the defendant. He will be remanded into the champion’s custody. He will see a court-appointed psychiatrist regularly. He will be expected to cooperate with any reparative tasks that the Champion and the court see fit. The Champion is to provide a weekly summary of his status and progress. If he attempts to escape, if he shows an unwillingness to cooperate with the state, if he refuses psychiatric examination, he will be detained and returned to prison. The Champion will have shared responsibility for any crimes he may commit.”
Cynthia sighed in awful relief. It was a burden. But the burden was the possibility of a human life not being wasted.
“Defendant,” said the judge, “do you understand the conditions being offered to you?”
“I do,” said Cyrus.
“Do you accept them?”
He paused, and for a moment Cynthia wondered if he was so wedded to self-erasure that he’d rather waste in prison than attempt to rejoin the world. But:
“I do,” he said.
“Very well. You will be remanded into the Champion’s custody. And I want to make something very clear – you are being offered, through no merit of your own, an extraordinary opportunity. You will not receive a second one. Session adjourned.”
The prosecutor shot Cynthia a look that was both resentful and confused before picking up the legal documents and heading out. The bailiff approached Cyrus and brought him to Cynthia. He was taller than the bailiff, and yet months in the Distortion World had stolen his intimidating factor. He was much thinner than she remembered, with a faint blue shadow on his jaw from an orderly’s electric razor shave. He didn’t quite make eye contact with her, though he did look in her direction.
“We’re making preparations for a vehicle to take him to the location you specified,” explained the bailiff. “I can’t just leave him like this for now.”
“Understood,” said Cynthia.
One uncomfortable elevator trip to the ground floor later, Cynthia was able to recover her beloved Garchomp from security. The indigo dragon materialized outside the courthouse and grunted in delight at seeing Cynthia. She then noticed the blue-haired man behind and growled.
“Don’t worry, Garchomp, he’s with me,” said Cynthia. Garchomp lowered her claw but still growled. “It’s complicated. He’s… going to be around a lot.”
Garchomp snorted a cloud of hot breath into his face before withdrawing into her ball.
They waited for the car. It was then that Cyrus asked his first question of her: “Why are you doing this?”
“Because your despair has had enough victims.”
He didn’t respond.
The vehicle arrived. Cynthia was asked to sit in front while the bailiff escorted Cyrus to the back seat.
“Where to?” asked the driver.
“Celestic Town,” said Cynthia. The driver nodded and entered the stream of traffic.
A few minutes in to the ride, Cyrus asked another question, this one in a quieter voice: “How are my Pokemon?”
Cynthia angled her head back to see him through the grate. “They were in bad shape, but they're all alive and well now. The League is taking care of them. You won’t be able to see them for a while, of course. But… you should know that your Crobat saved your life. If it hadn’t broken out of its ball and found someone, you would have died.”
He didn’t say anything in response. He turned his head to the window. Her neck hurt now from looking, and she faced forward again.
Was he capable of being saved?
Was she saving him?
Was she damning both of them?
The muffled hum of traffic provided no answers.
A special thanks to @Flyg0n for beta-ing!
~
Note: If you note a raised number next to a word, that means there's a footnote. You can scroll down to the bottom to see what note I have on it. This is entirely optional! The footnotes are there for words that may be unfamiliar and to clarify quotes. Unfortunately you can't click on them yet, so you'll have to scroll down and then back up.
SOTERIOLOGY¹
They’d found him half dead, limbs slack under his own uncarryable weight.
This was the call Cynthia had received one peaceful Sunday, in the middle of green tea, in her garden, as the sun retired. Looker – even now he refused to use his given name with her – told her they’d found him by Sendoff Spring. He had put up no resistance. Clothes torn, skin cut, breath shallow, apparently attempting to drink water from the lake.
Just like that, the failed demiurge² became another organism at the hospital.
She’d thought he’d died. The Distortion World was antithetical to life. That he’d apparently survived as many months as he did was a miracle. His Pokemon were in bad state, but they'd been kept alive by the animating technology of Pokeballs. They were placed in police custody immediately. His body was plugged into machines, the saddest version of his fantasy.
It should have felt like vindication to see such a monstrous human finally face the law. The reality was different. She suddenly felt out of phase with the waveform of this world. She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she’d found herself stuck on his last words, his assertion that people only delude themselves into thinking they’re happy. It was so abnormal that at the time she’d dismissed it as deluded ravings. The passage of time erased the urgency of the moment, but the words persisted. “People who only think they’re happy.”³ How could he have reached her age and not think that anyone could really be happy?
The sensation returned when she was called to his trial.
A small room of light-colored wood, something that could have accommodated an amateur vocal group. She had to leave her Pokemon at the Pokeball Check, so she was unaccompanied. People she didn’t recognize filled the seats. Looker, she did recognize, and he sat in front of her.
The defendant sat in the front row. All she saw of his head was slate blue, deflated from its usual spike to a limp, fluffy mop.
The judge arrived swathed in black. The lump of fabric nestled atop the podium. Introductions were given, and then the various crimes of the defendant were listed.
Kidnapping.
Pokemon theft.
Environmental destruction.
The defendant’s gaze was unclear, but it seemed aimed at some unspecified point on the floor. The prosecution made an impassioned argument detailing the threat the defendant posed if allowed to remain free. The defendant had no lawyer. The judge asked about this state of affairs. Did the defendant aim to represent himself? The defendant stated that there was no need for a lawyer. He acknowledged what he had done.
This seemed to please the judge, who thanked the defendant for not wasting his time. Perhaps they could even move forward to sentencing.
It happened so quickly. She’d hoped for some grandiose speech, the ruthless defiance which had formed her last image of him. Instead he’d rejected his right to legal counsel and confessed to his crimes immediately. She laughed at herself for the words that formed in her head – “he’s not in his right mind.” As if he’d ever been!
Without the human machine he’d formed around him, the one that had transformed him from unknown malcontent to a man referred to as “Master,” he was at the mercy of the older, more established social machinery. He'd lost all will to fight to live. This court was a mere formality wherein all the parties confirmed the disposability of the defendant. The defendant included.
“You’re only hoping, deluding yourself that you are happy and safe.”
His old words needled into her brain again. She remembered what it was she’d told the brave young woman who had faced Giratina: "Don’t listen to his lies. The world awaited your birth. The world awaited everyone’s birth. There is a place for everyone in it."⁴
It was something her grandmother had taught her.
It sounded like sentimental nonsense when she first heard it. Her parents had died and her last living relative was an old woman in a town far from civilization. The idea of a ‘place’ in the world had sounded like nonsense to her then. What place did this world have for her when it took her parents from her? What kind of place was it? A sob story? Or a warning?
Even when she yelled, even when she told her she would never understand, even when she called her a bag of bones waiting to die, her grandmother didn’t push her away.
One day, Cynthia had found an abandoned, deformed Starly in the forest. She cradled its small, warm body, careful to protect the twisted neck, and took it home. When she tried to feed it milk-dipped bread, the Starly pecked at her fingers, and she ran off afraid into the forest. By the time she came back, it had died. She blamed herself with all the force a child’s self-centeredness can take. Her grandmother had told her it wasn’t her fault. She gave a dying young Pokemon warmth and peace. It didn’t know any better, so it tried to protect itself. But what she did had value even if the Pokemon didn’t understand, even if Cynthia couldn’t save its life. She asked if maybe the Starly wasn’t supposed to stay alive. Grandma said that choice was not up to her.
A silly memory. The man in handcuffs behind the desk was not innocent. The organization he founded and led had caused substantial harm. His attempt to reset the world and core the spirit out of every living being was too grand and abstract to grasp, even for her who saw him drag two deities from slits in the sky. Easier to see was the lake he had drained of water, the gods he electrocuted to extract their gems, and the multiple people his associates had threatened in his name. She could easily justify throwing him in a box and leaving him to spend the rest of his natural life quarantined from society. What compassion did he deserve when he spat on the very concept? What pity did he show the people he hurt?
These were the words her brain thought, but they were solely cognitive. Seeing the young man hunched over, wounded, another thought came to her, that this was simply a different way for him to remove himself from the world. He’d tried to create a new world and migrate everyone to it. He’d then tried to stay in the inhospitable distortion world, where he must have thought of every possible way to make his plan work. And when that failed, he must have tried to stay, starving himself out of existence, until the desperation of the body drove him out. Now his final, mundane exile could be executed, and he can confirm what he'd always thought: he did not belong in this world.
She was brought out of her thoughts by the judge's question: is there any reason this man should not be kept in captivity?
She rose. “Your honor,” she found herself saying, “I believe that Cyrus can be rehabilitated.”
She felt every eye in the room fall on her. Almost every eye. The judge, the prosecutor, Looker, all looked at her with stunned eyes. The defendant only turned his head vaguely in her direction.
The judge frowned at the break in procedure. “Champion, you know better than most in this room how dangerous this man is.”
Her pulse was overwhelming her. Was there any good reason to help this man over any other criminal? (She knew him. She'd defeated him. She wasn’t afraid of him. If he could change, she was the only person who could midwife this transformation.)
“He is dangerous,” she began. “But I believe he is not beyond salvation. I believe he can change.”
“Cynthia,” said the judge, “I respect you and your judgment. I simply do not understand it at this moment.”
“The world awaited your birth. Not only yours, either. All the Pokémon and people were born because they have a part in the world.”
If she truly believed this, if she truly believed what her grandmother taught her, she could not make an exception for him.
“If you respect my judgment, then let me put it on the line. I will be responsible for his rehabilitation.” (What was she doing?) “This man has spent his life trying to exit human existence. Letting him hide is not paying his debt to society. He needs to repair what he’s done wrong.”
The second hand on the clock ticked audibly five times. The judge’s brow knit together in concern. “Champion,” he began, “I want to make sure I understand. Are you offering to personally oversee the confinement and rehabilitation of the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think you can handle this?”
“I'm not intimidated by him. I don't believe the story he tells about himself. He is now in a position without a team and with fewer means.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then I fail. He will return to conventional imprisonment.”
Cyrus’s eyes were on hers now. His mouth was an inscrutable line, and his eyes were partially obscured by his severe brow. What he was thinking or feeling was beyond her, and frankly not her responsibility at the moment.
Opposing counsel had sat there slack-jawed before recovering. “Your honor, this is highly irregular.”
“Yes, it is. But… I am not inclined to discard the judgment of our Champion. She’s not ignorant of the situation, even if her confidence seems overstated. I will consult on this. Counsel, Champion, Interpol Agent, my chambers. Everyone else, take a break.”
The gavel was banged and the court adjourned. The bailiff motioned for Cynthia to cross the bar. She stood and walked there, passing by the seated defendant, who didn’t seem to register her presence.
The judge’s chambers were small, full of books, a mahogany desk, and now featuring the presence of the prosecutor and Looker. The judge sat behind the desk, hands steepled.
The prosecutor began speaking as soon as they'd all convened. “Your Honor, I cannot object enough to the irregularity and danger of this. What precedent are we setting if we allow this to go forward?”
“Enough. Champion, I would like you to explain precisely what plan you have to rehabilitate the man who attempted to cosmically lobotomize all of Sinnoh.”
She took a deep breath. “His entire adult life has been spent in an organization that grew around him, holding him as the center of its universe. He needs to learn to be an orbiting body, not the sun⁵."
“That’s very nice, but where, precisely? I want details.”
“Celestic Town.”
“The place where he attempted to destroy a mural?”
“Yes. He can begin his rehabilitation by serving the people of Celestic Town. It’s a small town where everybody knows each other. He won’t be able to go two paces without a neighbor alerting us. My grandmother lives there, too. She’s a respected authority in town.”
“Is your grandmother volunteering to do this, or…?”
“I will be present for all of it. I have a home there with a guest unit. My grandmother is right next door. He can live in the guest unit. My Pokemon will watch him. He won’t go anywhere without an escort.”
“Cynthia,” interjected Looker, “won’t he be in danger there, too? I mean… won’t the people of the town resent him? Someone might try something.”
“I don’t think anyone in that town would. And if they did, they’d be facing down my team, me, and my grandmother. I’m not letting bodily harm come to anyone. And of course, the court is free to check as often as it sees necessary. If you think he needs any psychiatric care as well, we will take him.”
“I see,” said the judge. “A very interesting proposal.”
“He can’t ever pay the world back for his crimes,” she said. “But confining him isn’t pay back. He’s caused serious harm. He should give back to the places he hurt.”
“Mhm. I’ve heard enough. Let me think on this. I shall see you all again next week.”
She exited the chamber, feeling winded of a sudden. The weight of the commitment she’d made settled in her lungs. Hoping to avoid anyone, she headed for the water fountains. She finished drinking when Looker appeared over her.
“I can’t say I expected that,” he said.
“Don’t start.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” She stopped. “Nobody seemed willing to defend him. Not even him. That seemed wrong.”
“You don’t think that he knows what he did was wrong?”
“I don’t know that. I just don’t think I can be honest with myself if I let him erase himself again. He’s a human being. In some twisted way, he thought he was helping everyone. If he can still think about that, maybe he’s not too far gone.”
She waited for Looker to mention the obvious counter-evidence to him being too far gone, but found only silence. He stooped to drink water.
“Do you know how we found him?”
She hadn’t stopped to ask herself this. “I don’t know; did some hiker find him?”
“Yes. But the hiker didn’t find him by chance. He said a Crobat appeared out of nowhere and began to tug at his clothes. He sent out his Golem to knock it out, but the Crobat refused to attack the Golem. It just shrieked, fluttered about, and kept trying to tug at his clothes. The Golem stood down. The man realized that this Crobat was trying to show him something.”
Cynthia blinked. “And that Crobat…”
“…was Cyrus’s Crobat,” continued Looker. “It could have escaped him and lived life in the wild. It could have found a Pokemon Center and hid there, as sanctuary for Pokemon escaping bad trainers. Instead it risked a Rock Throw to the face and dragged a man to save his…” Looker paused. “Friend?”
Neither of them said anything.
“So no,” he said. “I don’t think you’re crazy. Not entirely.”
She laughed humorlessly.
The time between the two court sessions seemed to groan and stretch endlessly. Cynthia had told her grandmother about this, who listened in silence. She'd expected a scolding. Some small part of her hoped for confirmation she'd done the right thing. Instead her grandmother said nothing for a long time. And then: "Cynthia, I'm proud of the person you are. But you always make things difficult for yourself." She switched then to discussion of logistics, security, preparation, all the concrete things that announced that she was not willing to share her feelings any further.
At last, the court date came. The faces she'd seen before flowed together back into the room. Cynthia felt her hands shake as she sat back on the hard, blonde wood.
The judge opened: “After consultation, the court has decided to allow a conditional release for the defendant. He will be remanded into the champion’s custody. He will see a court-appointed psychiatrist regularly. He will be expected to cooperate with any reparative tasks that the Champion and the court see fit. The Champion is to provide a weekly summary of his status and progress. If he attempts to escape, if he shows an unwillingness to cooperate with the state, if he refuses psychiatric examination, he will be detained and returned to prison. The Champion will have shared responsibility for any crimes he may commit.”
Cynthia sighed in awful relief. It was a burden. But the burden was the possibility of a human life not being wasted.
“Defendant,” said the judge, “do you understand the conditions being offered to you?”
“I do,” said Cyrus.
“Do you accept them?”
He paused, and for a moment Cynthia wondered if he was so wedded to self-erasure that he’d rather waste in prison than attempt to rejoin the world. But:
“I do,” he said.
“Very well. You will be remanded into the Champion’s custody. And I want to make something very clear – you are being offered, through no merit of your own, an extraordinary opportunity. You will not receive a second one. Session adjourned.”
The prosecutor shot Cynthia a look that was both resentful and confused before picking up the legal documents and heading out. The bailiff approached Cyrus and brought him to Cynthia. He was taller than the bailiff, and yet months in the Distortion World had stolen his intimidating factor. He was much thinner than she remembered, with a faint blue shadow on his jaw from an orderly’s electric razor shave. He didn’t quite make eye contact with her, though he did look in her direction.
“We’re making preparations for a vehicle to take him to the location you specified,” explained the bailiff. “I can’t just leave him like this for now.”
“Understood,” said Cynthia.
One uncomfortable elevator trip to the ground floor later, Cynthia was able to recover her beloved Garchomp from security. The indigo dragon materialized outside the courthouse and grunted in delight at seeing Cynthia. She then noticed the blue-haired man behind and growled.
“Don’t worry, Garchomp, he’s with me,” said Cynthia. Garchomp lowered her claw but still growled. “It’s complicated. He’s… going to be around a lot.”
Garchomp snorted a cloud of hot breath into his face before withdrawing into her ball.
They waited for the car. It was then that Cyrus asked his first question of her: “Why are you doing this?”
“Because your despair has had enough victims.”
He didn’t respond.
The vehicle arrived. Cynthia was asked to sit in front while the bailiff escorted Cyrus to the back seat.
“Where to?” asked the driver.
“Celestic Town,” said Cynthia. The driver nodded and entered the stream of traffic.
A few minutes in to the ride, Cyrus asked another question, this one in a quieter voice: “How are my Pokemon?”
Cynthia angled her head back to see him through the grate. “They were in bad shape, but they're all alive and well now. The League is taking care of them. You won’t be able to see them for a while, of course. But… you should know that your Crobat saved your life. If it hadn’t broken out of its ball and found someone, you would have died.”
He didn’t say anything in response. He turned his head to the window. Her neck hurt now from looking, and she faced forward again.
Was he capable of being saved?
Was she saving him?
Was she damning both of them?
The muffled hum of traffic provided no answers.
1. Soteriology - the study of religious doctrines of salvation; questions like 'who goes to heaven? who goes to hell? what kind of judgment awaits you?'
2. Demiurge - In Gnosticism, the demiurge is a powerful but lesser creator being, often portrayed as ignorant or malicious: a false god who mistakes himself for the highest power.
3. For context, the original full quote:
4. For context, the original full quote:
5. Fun fact: Cyrus and Cynthia have a sun/moon motif. His Japanese name 'Akagi' is a surname, and the relevant part is 'aka', meaning red (associated with the sun in japan). Cynthia is 'Shirona', a made up name with 'shiro' in it (obviously moon-colored).
'Cyrus' is a Greek/Persian name associated with the sun. The solar motif appears in other languages as well.
'Cynthia' is a Greek name and "in Greek mythology, Kynthos (Cynthus) is a mountain on the sacred island of Delos, famously known as the birthplace of Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt" and "because of this mythological connection, the name "Cynthia" became heavily associated with the moon."
2. Demiurge - In Gnosticism, the demiurge is a powerful but lesser creator being, often portrayed as ignorant or malicious: a false god who mistakes himself for the highest power.
3. For context, the original full quote:
4. For context, the original full quote:
5. Fun fact: Cyrus and Cynthia have a sun/moon motif. His Japanese name 'Akagi' is a surname, and the relevant part is 'aka', meaning red (associated with the sun in japan). Cynthia is 'Shirona', a made up name with 'shiro' in it (obviously moon-colored).
'Cyrus' is a Greek/Persian name associated with the sun. The solar motif appears in other languages as well.
'Cynthia' is a Greek name and "in Greek mythology, Kynthos (Cynthus) is a mountain on the sacred island of Delos, famously known as the birthplace of Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt" and "because of this mythological connection, the name "Cynthia" became heavily associated with the moon."
Cynthia's parents being dead is totally made up, but I'm pretty sure they're never mentioned in the game. I think I read a headcanon once that she was raised by her grandmother and found Celestic Town to be confining, which I thought was a fun take on her character!
Considered tagging this whump but not sure it truly qualifies
Considered tagging this whump but not sure it truly qualifies
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