Chapter Seventy: Confessions



Terra's POV



It's twilight on Mt. Moon Square. The waning moon is not quite full anymore, but still shines brightly. The Clefairy and Cleffa rustle in the underbrush. Lightmites flit through the air.



Nothing has changed.



Everything has changed.



Shu is gone.



I feel like my heart has dropped into my stomach and is slowly being dissolved by digestive fluid. Not Shu. Not the kid. He had nothing but love for people. He never would have hurt anybody.



Why Shu?



When things got tough in my world, I'd always want to boot up a Pokemon game. No matter what happened, in the games or the manga or the anime, the heroes would always prevail, the villains would be vanquished, and nothing really bad would ever last.



I arrive here, and it's every bit as messed up as our own world. Only with firebreathing, dogfighting superpets, which makes it even worse. Every dream I've ever had of living in the Pokemon world has now firmly been shattered.



Karen had wanted to try to revive Shu. She'd taken Ho-Oh from the Masked Man, or more accurately, from what Lugia had left of the Masked Man. (Will was particularly ticked off that Karen had let his Lugia devour a human.) But Ho-Oh's essence was too corrupted, so Will wouldn't allow it. "The zombies that Ho-Oh created were exactly that -- zombies," he'd argued. "They had no emotions to feel. They simply followed orders. Would Shu want to be revived as something like that?"



That, Karen couldn't answer. So we all went home. We carried Shu's body with us, because he deserved a proper resting place. If Team Rocket found the body, who knows what they'd do with it. Experiments, possibly.



Then, when we got home, we got worse news.



Gladion had lost one of the rescuees.



(Is that even a word? Rescuees? My spell check doesn't accept it, but I can't think of anything else to use. Ah well. We have more important things to worry about.)



Gladion had lost one of the rescuees, and he's really been beating himself up over it. It was one of the kids, the little kids, the kids that were going to be the future Striaton gym leaders. Cress. The quake that had destroyed Pokemon Tower had carried over to the Distortion World, and it had taken Cress with it. That was all Gladion would say on the matter, but it's clear that he blames himself for what happened.



We won... but we lost.



But we gained, too. Hau and Rui are now with us, as are the other two Striaton brothers. And they aren't the only ones. After Will used the Full Restore to break Aurora and Philippe out of the ice, the two mutants realized pretty quickly that going back to Team Rocket would mean either suicide or reprogramming, so they went with us.



The prisoners, of course, haven't had their minds wiped of their capture in the Seafoam Islands, because Team Rocket hadn't figured on them escaping. Still, with Ho-Oh's aura corrupted, we can't form the feather charms necessary to protect us all from time paradoxes, so going back in time to prevent Team Rocket from ever getting their hands on time travel in the first place would probably doom a few of our timelines in the process, causing a time paradox that TWERP and the region itself might not be able to bounce back from.



At this rate, we may need to summon Dialga as well as Palkia, just to keep everything from going pear-shaped. Only, guess who was the only one of us who knew how to summon a member of the Creation Trio?



Shu.



And now he's gone.



---



Gladion's POV



Stupid.



Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.



I lost a four-year-old kid to some dark shadow that probably ate him. All because I yelled at my Golbat to stop evolving. Cress's death wasn't just tragic, it was preventable.



What is wrong with me?



All my words against Terra have come back to bite me in the butt. "If you don't learn how to think like your Pokemon, you'll never know how to train them. You keep that in mind.



All Bartok wanted was to help us. And I took that away from him.



I took that away from Cress.



And now he's gone.



If Ilima was here, he'd probably try to tell me it wasn't my fault. But Ilima isn't here. He was taken -- stolen by the same freak who murdered Shu. He's probably being experimented on right now, or worse. And there's nothing I can do about it.



Stupid me. Stupid trainer. Stupid, useless trainer.



I'm still not strong enough.



All of Ilima's friends have tried to tell me that it wasn't my fault, that they're here for me if I need them. But I need to be alone. It's what I deserve, at least. So I'm holed up in my bunk, leaned up against my faithful Silvally, crying my eyes out.



Nobody comes to bother me. Nobody's that stupid, anyway.



Until somebody knocks on my door.



"Go away," I mutter a bit too loudly -- or maybe not loudly enough.



"Gladion?" a voice asks.



Oh shit.



It's Cyan.



I quickly pick myself up off my cot, not sure if I can managed to make my legs move me towards the door. "Cyan?" I ask in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"



The door creaks open a little. "Will said you needed some emotional support."



That jackass? "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. What?"



"I know you two have been sniping at each other, but Will's concerned about you. Losing your best friend, losing Shu, and what happened with that kid. He's worried that you're going to commit suicide."



He should be so lucky, considering what I'm going to do to him for this. But I don't see very many options. "Come in," I say reluctantly. "Not that I can stop a girl that can put a pickaxe through the door."



Cyan comes in. Her hair is a mess, which tells me she hasn't brushed it since the planet tried to drop a building on it. "Are you okay?"



"Let's see. System diagnostics... I stopped my Golbat from evolving, leaving a small child to fall to his doom and get eaten by a grue. My best friend has been captured and is no doubt being tortured by the wickedest organization on the planet. And I'm clearly in so bad a mental state that my second-worst enemy has decided to send you to make sure I haven't self-destructed. I don't know, I guess I'm fine. Why do you ask?"



"Do you need a hug?"



The part of me that processes physical affection says YES, yes I need a hug. The part of me that processes social interactions, however, has gone AFK without a replacement, leaving the control center of my brain woefully understaffed. So I sort of stand there like a Substitute doll and wonder when my body will start working again.



After a few moments, Silvally, sensing that it is the duty of the trusty dog-griffin-chimera thing to set things right, gently pushes me towards Cyan with his head. I stumble, finding myself in her embrace. She's dirty and sweaty, although not nearly as much as she is after a round of mining before she washes up.



But right now, I don't care.



After spending longer crying on her shoulder than I'd like to admit, I let her lead me back to my cot so I can collapse in relative safety. I actually feel better about her being here before she washes up, because... I don't know? Because she's a wreck, and so am I, even if it's in different ways. I guess we have something in common.



"So," Cyan says slowly. "Will's your... second-worst enemy? Who's the first?"



Actually, Will is probably my third worst, but one of those enemies is Lance, who's Cyan's father, and it would be extremely awkward to say so now. "Dude named Guzma out there in the future. He's... done things." Things I'd rather not talk about, although I don't say that out loud.



"What kind of things?"



Damn, I should have said it out loud. "Things involving women twice his age that just so happen to be my mother and have a habit of leaving their doors unlocked to traumatize their children."



"WHAT?"



I take a deep breath. "He and my mom... were a thing. I won't disturb you with the details. Let's just say that I don't know if I was asexual before I walked in on them, but seeing them like that removed all doubt."



"Oh." Cyan isn't sure how to process this, but she puts her hand on my shoulder. "I... I'm so sorry you had to see that."



"And it's even worse because the guy's a total sleaze. He's slept with women half my mom's age. And when I tried to tell her that, she got angry and sent me to my room to stew. The only person I could talk to about this was Ilima, and the idiot decided to go send his Smeargle out with a body camera and gather proof of what's been going on."



Cyan blinks. "Um... 'proof'? What kind of 'proof,' exactly?"



"The kind of proof that gets him punched in the chest for taking videos of things that he shouldn't be taking videos of. I mean, I hate Guzma as much as anybody, but THAT was an entirely uncalled for breach of personal privacy."



"Wait. Ilima took videos... of WHAT?"



"Exactly. Boy, did I tear into him over that one." I sigh. "Turns out Mew aren't nearly as discreet regarding the facts of life as humans are. Considering that much of their culture revolves around creating new forms of life, they're fairly celebratory of procreation. Which is what makes an asexual Mew kind of a pariah in their culture."



There's an awkward silence.



"So, um..." Cyan says nervously. "You two were close?"



"He was the brother I never had. Complete with annoying the bejeebers out of me half the time and being basically inescapable." I sigh. "I miss him already."



"If anyone can escape Team Rocket, it's Ilima," Cyan reassures me.



"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." I pause. "But I don't know if anyone can escape Team Rocket. I shudder to think what poor Cap must be going through right now."



"We're going to rescue him, right? Skye will send his ghosts to discover where he is, and we'll stage another raid and bring him back."



"And lose more lives in the process, thus further demoralizing us, and probably get more of our Pokemon friends captured. We're KIDS, dammit!" I slam my fist on the mattress, my hand uncontrollably shaking. "Nobody should place the fate of the world in the hands of a bunch of teenagers! What was Cap even thinking?"



Cyan mulls this over a bit. "I think he was thinking that there was no one he'd trust this to more than you."



Well, that was the biggest load of crap I'd ever heard. "Trust me? Seriously? Have you MET me?" (Not the brightest thing to say to a girl I'm trying to impress, except that right now, it's far too late for that.) "I can't handle anything right! I can't even talk to people without my hand twitching! Do you have any idea how hard it is to just sit here and talk to you, like... like... a normal person? You don't even know me at all!"



Cyan blinks. "Um..."



"I'm autistic, Cyan. None of us ever talk about it, but it's a thing. Normal things like talking to people, social situations -- they elude me. And that's what gets my hand shaking when it happens." I lean up against Silvally, who nuzzles my arm with his head. "I know a lot of people like to talk about neurodiversity and accepting having different strengths... but I still feel broken. And I don't know how to get better, or if I ever will. Being with Ilima... he knew what I was thinking, even when I couldn't say it myself. Him being there helped me feel like... like I could do things I couldn't do without him. He made me feel complete."



Cyan nods solemnly. "I... I think I get what you mean. It's like that with me and Miller, although to be honest, it's Miller that feels incomplete. I was going to evolve him into a Gallade, but he suddenly evolved on his own before I could get him to the Dawn Stone. I think he's been depressed about it ever since."



Well, that explains a lot. "Is that why he wears a Dawn Stone on a chain around his neck?"



"Yeah. I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse, but he doesn't want to take it off. Heaven knows why."



Huh. "I think we've all got our own share of weirdness," I admit. "At least Cap enjoys finding weird people and adding them to our posse. Hell if I know why, but he does."



Cyan adjusts her seat on the cot. "As long as we're talking about weird things about everybody... my maternal grandfather was a Machoke."



What? "WHAT?"



She blushes, and I realize that was pretty rude of me. "I'm sorry... but how is that possible?"



"I don't know how it happened. Nobody in my family really talks about it, and biologically speaking, I really don't want to know. But it's where my physical strength comes from, and I think it's what's attracted my father to my mother. My mother didn't like how people treated Pokemon differently than other people, probably because of... well, her heritage. You know how people can be around anyone different than them."



Somehow in the back of my head this feels insulting. "Hey! There are plenty of good people out there. It's just that the bad ones stick out more. They get at you and get at you and you can't seem to avoid them no matter where you go. History is full of them, and we'd have a lot less history if they weren't going around oppressing people and causing wars and whatnot. But most of them never even get that far because they're too busy stepping on other people's backs to realize that those other people could have given them a hand up and raised them both to a higher level."



Cyan giggles. "Maybe you should be a writer. Or a poet. Once we're all done with this saving the world thing, of course. When you go back to your own timeline."



And that's the problem, I realize. I'll never go back to my timeline. Cyan doesn't realize the consequences of changing history. There will be no human civilization in Ultra Space to go back to. There will be no Lusamine, no Lillie, no Guzma, not that anyone will miss him. No Silvally, no Ultra Pokemon.



And there will be no Gladion either.



I'm about to say this, not really knowing how, when Hau suddenly bursts into my room. "Guys!"



I look up in alarm. "Hau?! If I've told you once, I've--"



"Ilima's back!"



"What?"



I realize then that Hau looks panicked. "He's back, but he's... not well."