PARAGON

  Unknown Enemy Arc [5]

  Chapter 91 : Elegy

  Johto Region - North of Ecruteak City

  The sea belched as it closed behind them.

  Riley and N both held Ash up as they walked up the beach.

  “I told you I’m fine,” he groaned, his speech slurred.

  “Right, right,” Riley said dismissively.

  “I’ll take him, Riley,” Zinnia said, sliding Ash’s arm off of Riley’s shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Riley said, stretching.

  The entire journey across the seafloor had lasted about twenty-five hours, and dusk was descending in Johto now. The scent of sticky pine laced with spiced incense drifted from Ecruteak on seaward winds from just beyond the dark forest before them. Johto was a region frozen in time, even more rural than its big sister Kanto, and twinkling stars already peppered the sky above, undeterred by the light pollution of its more urban contemporaries.

  Ash had been awake the entire time, and Riley had performed his energizing rite multiple times to keep him that way, leaving him similarly exhausted.

  “Do we have a heading?” N asked, trudging up the wet sands of the beach. Spearow fluttered excitedly around him, but did not stray far. Despite her Lunar Wing, she seemed to have no intentions of returning to Paragon Island any more, and had already taken quite a shine to N.

  Riley pulled a pokéball off his belt and released its contents. A hulking Ursaluna coalesced in a flash of light and a snort of hot breath. “Ash said Johto’s northern coast should be lined with caves we can take refuge in. Find one for us please, Ursaluna.”

  Ursaluna grunted and jerked his head in several directions, before catching the scent of something and lumbering toward it.

  “Can’t we just check into a hotel?” Zinnia grumbled, jogging after him.

  “Not unless we want that Ditto to find us instantly,” Anabel said.

  Zinnia sighed and glanced at Anabel. “You want Cyclizar?”

  Sweat beaded Anabel’s forehead but she shook her head. “Let’s just go. Don’t wanna make a bigger scene than we already have.”

  As she said it, Sabrina waved her hand and the air around them shimmered with her violet psychic energy. “I’ve put up a thin illusion around us. Nothing should see or hear us unless we run right into them.”

  Luckily, they didn’t have to travel far. As Ash promised, the cliffside beside the beach was lined with pockmarks and depressions, and crusted with salt. Ursaluna led them to the mouth of a cave that could not easily be seen from the beach, and was far larger inside than its narrow entrance suggested.

  With a quiet thanks, Riley recalled him and ducked inside.

  It was dark and stank of seawater, but dry and shielded them from the wind.

  Pikachu jumped off Ash’s shoulder and the stripes on his back lit up, illuminating their surroundings.

  Ash collapsed onto the ground, leaning back on the cave wall.

  “Get some rest, Ash, we’ll hold things down,” Riley said.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  A dribble of blood leaked from his nostril, but he caught it on his finger.

  “You are not fine!” Zinnia yelped, jumping away from him before he could get any on her.

  Ash didn’t even seem to have heard her, his eyelids fluttering and his head bobbing.

  “We should all get some rest,” Anabel said. “We’ll be no good if we’re exhausted. I’ll take first watch.”

  N frowned, but there were bags under his eyes. “Are you sure?”

  Anabel nodded and released her Suicune, who curled up on the floor behind her.

  “I’ll take second watch,” Sabrina said, raising her hand.

  A low gurgling reverberated through the cave and all eyes turned toward its source. Zinnia grasped her stomach with an embarrassed blush and turned away with a bit too much gusto, settling in against a curve in the wall. It seemed even she was too tired to entertain the thought of sating herself now.

  “I can head into Ecruteak and get us food and such in the morning,” Riley offered. “I suspect you members of Paragon are the ones in the crosshairs.”

  After a long day of travel beneath the seas, sleep came easily to all of them. They spread out across the floor of the cave, their snores drowned out by the crashing of waves just outside.

  The next day

  “I wonder what the International Police is up to now,” Anabel mused. “We left quite a few assignments unfinished.”

  “They’ll have to deal with it,” Ash said. “This takes priority.”

  They sat around a smear of embers on the cave floor, courtesy of Anabel’s Magic, who’d shifted into a Flareon, eating prepared meals Riley and Sabrina had picked up from the nearby Ecruteak before anyone else had woken up. Sabrina had used her power to mask their presence, but they kept their hoods up all the same and paid for everything in cash. Luckily, Ecruteak wasn’t buzzing with trainers now; due to its northern locale, most trainers elected to take on Morty at the very beginning or very end of their circuit, so they were able to get their shopping done unmolested.

  “But what even is ‘this’ anyway?” Zinnia said. “We’re acting like criminals on the run.”

  “There is no such thing as an excess of caution when it comes to what was just attempted on us,” Riley said. “I agree with Ash. It was wise of us to evacuate so quickly. From here, hopefully beyond the imposter’s eye, we can formulate a counterattack.”

  “I’ll be pissed if this is all one big test from Cynthia or something,” Zinnia muttered.

  Riley glanced at Sabrina and Ash. “Sleeping in caves again. Remind you of Hisui?”

  They cracked thin smiles and Sabrina turned to the rest of the group.

  “What do we do first? How do we even find that Ditto again?”

  “Actually, I’d like to address this little one if you all don’t mind,” N said, holding up Spearow as she sat on his finger.

  It was the first time he’d spoken this morning.

  “We had some time to speak, and though she couldn’t tell me anything specific as far as Cynthia is concerned, I believe she does have something to tell us.”

  “What does that mean?” Zinnia questioned.

  N sighed, and the skin around his eyes crinkled. “As we suspected, Cynthia was responsible for implanting the two wings. She did this in a warm southern region.”

  “Alola,” Ash said. “Where Sylvester said she was apparently flying to often to meet with her…friend.”

  “Right. I thought the same. However, that wasn’t the only thing Cynthia did to Spearow.” N raised Spearow toward Ash. “I’d like a second opinion on Spearow’s…constitution…if you don’t mind, Ash.”

  He whispered a few words to the bird pokémon, and a moment later, she flapped into Ash’s lap, pecking at his breakfast.

  Pikachu’s ears drooped curiously as Ash stroked Spearow’s head, then her body. His brows furrowed, and he squeezed her ever so slightly. “Open up…” he muttered, coaxing her beak open. Peering inside, his frown only deepened.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Eventually, Spearow had had enough and flew back over to N, indulging in his meal with abandon.

  Ash stared at Spearow, then shifted his gaze to N. “Yeah, I think I see what you’re saying. Her body is…”

  “Not how it should be, right?”

  Zinnia sighed loudly. “Are you gonna keep us in suspense or tell us what’s going on?”

  “Is there something wrong with her?” Anabel asked.

  “The opposite.” N brushed her feathers absentmindedly. “Her body is far stronger than it should be for her size and age.”

  “Isn’t that just because she grew up in Rota and absorbed all that Aura or whatever?” Zinnia asked.

  N shook his head. “From what she described to me, it sounds like Cynthia fed her an exorbitant amount of supplements shortly before they parted.”

  Zinnia and Anabel both wrinkled their noses simultaneously.

  “This looks like the work of rare candies to me,” Ash added.

  “Rare candies?” Riley said.

  Anabel frowned. “Pokémon pharmaceuticals designed to enhance strength in a very short amount of time. They’re not illegal, but they can be lethal if they’re administered carelessly so they’re heavily regulated, hence the colloquial name. Wise trainers stay away from them since usually all they end up doing is forcing a pokémon into a body it isn’t used to.”

  “Cynthia did that to Spearow?” Sabrina said, disbelief lacing her tone.

  “That would explain how Spearow got to Paragon Island,” Ash said. “The flight from Alola to Sinnoh isn’t one she’d be able to make otherwise. That’s hundreds of miles.”

  “Smells like desperation,” Zinnia murmured. “Or something she came up with in a hurry.”

  “I mean…Spearow’s health is fine, right?” Anabel said. “So it wasn’t necessarily a rush job…”

  “Cynthia grew up with Sylvester, the breeder. She knows how to use pokémon supplements, and she knows how to use them quickly,” Zinnia countered.

  “If Sylvester saw this treatment of Spearow though, he’d be appalled,” N said quietly. “As if it was intentionally done to be noticed by him, or one of us.”

  A cold breath ran through Ash, icy fingers closing around his chest. “What about the wings?”

  N nodded. “I learned about them too. The Lunar Wing was attached only to guide Spearow back to Paragon Island. The other…is…” N took in a shaky breath. “…For us.” He swallowed. “It’s as you suspected, Anabel. This wing is indeed one of Darkrai’s. A Nightmare Wing, as it were.”

  “A Nightmare Wing…?” Anabel massaged her arm. “What does it do?”

  “Are you saying this was all just a bad dream?” Riley asked hopefully.

  N sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately not. Darkrai’s Nightmare Wing was responsible for concealing Spearow’s presence on the island.”

  Sabrina frowned. “Just one wing hid her presence that thoroughly? That shouldn’t be possible. Surely, I…I would’ve sensed her. Especially now.” She rubbed her wrist where her missing gauntlet once spun.

  “Yes, I suspect you would have,” N said in a low voice. “If Spearow were not so weak.”

  “Weak?” Ash said incredulously.

  “Yes. Despite the volume of Aura contained within her body and the rare candies Cynthia filled her with, her innate strength is quite low. She has never known battle. Easy enough to conceal with a single Nightmare Wing.”

  Ash studied Spearow as she flitted in circles around N. His assessment was true. She had practically no survival instincts. As if to prove it, she promptly tripped on a pebble and fell on her stomach. Chittering to herself, she got back up and kept prancing around.

  “I still don’t understand,” Zinnia sighed. “What is the point of all this?”

  N’s eyes tightened and his hand closed around the Light Stone, as if seeking its warmth and power.

  Ash could see the truth etched into N’s pained face, and he asked a question he knew N now had the answer to. “Why did Spearow appear when she did?”

  The corners of N’s mouth twitched. “The Nightmare Wing sensed despair. Our despair.” He raised his head to face the group. His eyes were gaunt, darkened by the shadows of the cave. “Why would Cynthia give Spearow a Nightmare Wing that would react to a surge of despair? Would she truly doom Spearow to a fate of eternal concealment, or did she know the Nightmare Wing’s spell would lift? In other words, did she expect a storm of despair on Paragon Island that would break the Nightmare Wing’s curse and reveal Spearow, presumably to whoever it was that felt such outsized despair?”

  In a small voice, he added, “Does anyone remember what we were talking about just before Spearow appeared before us?”

  Ash closed his eyes.

  While we were in Hisui…

  His hand closed into a fist.

  And when we got back, what did we do?

  His jaw tightened as his teeth ground together.

  Celebrate?

  Pikachu squeaked in concern on his shoulder, but Ash ignored him.

  Zinnia had asked why the imposter had proclaimed that Cynthia wouldn’t be Champion for much longer. It’d been easy enough to push any potential answers to that question from his mind till now, especially since he’d been so preoccupied with holding the ocean open as they crossed its depths. But now, the suffocating truth was staring him in the face, mocking his paltry attempt at prolonging the inevitable.

  “Cynthia is dead,” Zinnia said flatly.

  Her statement hung in the stale air, silent and repulsive.

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Riley said quietly, but it sounded more like consolation than confidence.

  “She knew she was going to die,” Anabel said, her voice hollow. It was as if she hadn’t even heard Riley. “She prepared Spearow to let us know.”

  Zinnia shot to her feet.

  “Zinnia?” N said, raising a hand toward her.

  Zinnia stomped over the fire and swept past them, marching toward the cave’s mouth. Spearow squawked in alarm as she brushed past N.

  “Zinnia!” Riley called.

  From within the cave, the sound of a pokéball opening could faintly be heard, and a moment later, something large landed on the sand. The flame shuddered as a gale of wind swept inside, then, there was silence.

  “She’ll be back,” Anabel eventually said. “She just needs some space.”

  Something burned inside of Ash, and if he was alone, he may have screamed. One hand clutched the other and he stared listlessly at the fire before him, grief wafting from him like smoke with every breath.

  “Sabrina?”

  Riley’s voice broke the silence and Ash glanced up.

  Her gauntlet roared around her wrist, gleaming with energy. Dark cracks split her face as she held a hand over her eyes. She trembled, and her lips were parted just enough that Ash could see her grinding her teeth together.

  Riley rose, and a whimper escaped Sabrina’s mouth. Violet light began to seep from the fissures in her face, and she wheezed.

  “Sabrina, listen. We’re all—“

  Ash pointed a finger at her and closed his eyes. A jolt of electricity zapped between them, and Sabrina seized up, before collapsing against the cave wall behind her. The cracks in her face sealed up and her gauntlet stilled.

  Riley frowned in surprise.

  “Sorry,” Ash mumbled. “She was going to bring the mountain down on us.”

  Anabel scowled at Ash but Ash ignored her. She crept closer to Sabrina to look her over and adjust her posture.

  “She’ll be fine,” Riley said. “Ash knows what he’s doing with the Electric Pla—“

  “She isn’t fine,” Anabel hissed. She fixed Ash with a glare. “I thought you loved her. How could you do this to her?”

  “Please,” N said, raising her voice just enough to assert authority. “Not between us, please.”

  Anabel snorted and refocused on Sabrina, laying her down in a more comfortable position.

  “I know I can’t ask you to suppress your feelings forever. But please at least listen to what I’m about to say.” N raised a hand, something tiny clutched in his fingers. “There was one other thing Cynthia seems to have left us.”

  Pikachu stepped forward and angled his glowing stripes at N’s hand.

  A minuscule shard of stone rested between his thumb and index finger.

  “I found this inside Spearow’s beak. It was causing quite a bit of discomfort for her and she could have easily spit it out, but she never did. This was the last thing Cynthia gave her before flying to Paragon Island.”

  “Spearow were once used as carrier pigeons," Ash droned. “They always find their way home, and they never lose a package entrusted to them.”

  “What is it?” Riley asked, peering closer.

  “Spearow doesn’t know. But it’s important enough that she crossed an ocean to get it back to us.”

  Ash squinted at the piece of stone. It looked entirely unremarkable, like it could’ve been chipped off of a cliff from anywhere in the world.

  “Riley, can you examine it with your Aura?” N asked.

  Riley’s eyes glowed, and soon, his brows furrowed. “It’s organic.”

  “This is?” N said, turning the stone in his fingers. “This rock?”

  “It seems to be. Perhaps from a rock-type pokémon.”

  A cold realization dawned on Ash at that moment. Zinnia’s declaration bounced through his mind with an agonizing cacophony, but he forced it away and swallowed, his throat dry. “It must be from her Spiritomb.”

  Spiritomb were bound to ghostly stones called Odd Keystones. Archeologists had found Odd Keystones before that did not contain Spiritomb within them, but once a Spiritomb was bound to one, the stone itself was supposed to be indestructible.

  “What are we supposed to do with it?” N asked.

  Ash shrugged. He was hardly in any mood to think right now. He was worried about Sabrina. He was worried about Zinnia. He was worried about Sylvester.

  And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even remember what his final conversation with Cynthia had been like. It’d been months ago at this point, but now, they’d never speak again.

  Anabel got up and strode deeper in the cave, disappearing behind a bend in a narrow tunnel. Like with Zinnia, no one followed her.

  Ash let his body fall backward and he closed his eyes, trying to ignore the reality that’d just fallen upon them. It felt like there were needles in his chest. Silently, he willed himself to fall asleep again, to escape the weight of this pain.

  And so that, like Sabrina, he would not bring the mountain above them down.

  Next - Chapter 92 : Last Assignment

  Sorry for the long delay. As you may have expected, I’ve been playing the new pokémon game, but it released at kind of a bad time as far as this fic is concerned since I’ve also been very busy at work these past several weeks. And on top of that, I was finding this chapter very difficult to write so those two things together didn’t give me much time to ponder on how to power through.

  That said, overall, I don’t think you’re missing too much if you don’t play Z-A, but I definitely appreciate how much they’ve been breaking the formula lately. On a side note, the events of the game are forcing me to reconsider/revise a couple minor plot points I had planned for much later on in this fic…

  With Thanksgiving coming up, it may be another few weeks before the next chapter again, unfortunately.