The sun was well and truly dipping into the horizon when Astra and her grandfather finally left the Village. Astra held a box in her arms, the negligible weight pressing down on her as though all of Hoenn were contained within. Her grandfather only carried with him a grim silence.
No conversation was had as they trekked through this ill-travelled section of forest. Astra had never gone this way, and dearly wished she would have never had to. Alas, the world was not made of hopes and dreams, and soon enough, the two found themselves at the lip of a vast, dessicated crater.
Inside the crater, an immeasurable quantity of lifeless sand stretched out into the far distance. The horizon itself was barely visible, a sickeningly familiar dome-shaped haze occluding their vision with opaque shades of bruise-yellow. Along the higher reaches of the pit where the sand did not reach were endless stretches of unnaturally smooth stone, reminding Astra of the tunnel Steven had made in the Granite Caves.
"It looked just like this," Astra said tonelessly, staring out into the murk. "The sky above the forest in Rustboro. Like an injury that hadn't broken skin. Enough to cause pain, but not enough to bleed."
Her grandfather's mental shielding was far too robust and practiced for any emotion to seep through. His guilty flinch more than made up for it.
"There is nothing I can do to change what has been done," he said, head bowed. "But I can help you avert what may come here and now."
They descended into the sands, a short teleport moving them past the sloping walls in an instant. Astra shivered as her legs sank into the unnaturally chilly grains. She quickly flexed her power and compressed small patches of sand where she walked, holding them together just enough to trod on. Idly, she wished she had brought her shoes.
She looked around, blankly staring across the endless basin. The sun couldn't penetrate the haze very well, and at moments she thought she could sense...something. Not with her powers, but through some tiny voice at the back of her mind, insisting that there was a hidden observer in the mire.
"This is..." Astra trailed off, swallowing. She looked to her grandfather. "Where were they?"
"At the center," he replied, softly.
They walked. The walls behind them retreated, eventually becoming a smear against the horizon, the sands stretching out in all directions and the sky dulling into brackish mud as the sun continued to set.
"It's so big," Astra murmured. "How did the humans miss this? Surely the ward can't cover something so obvious."
"It seems to act especially aggressive in the forests near here," her grandfather replied, shrugging. "I've...shied away from thinking of this place too often."
He looked up, eyes tracing unseen figures in the distance. "It was the central den of the Alpha Mightyena, before it turned into this barren scar. There must have been hundreds of Poochyena here at the apex, even a few lesser Mightyena. Stars know what they had been eating before they turned their fangs on us. Raiding the outlying villagers, picking off those of our people who sought to live in solitude as much as could be allowed... When a force of them rushed the more settled edges, I cannot say how many perished, but it numbered in the dozens."
"They couldn't teleport away?" Astra asked.
Her grandfather shook his head. "Not everyone can teleport swiftly, or in the face of danger. It is a complex skill, no matter how easy it comes to us or those Abra. Remember, I am an Elder partially because I can use techniques like telekinesis or illusions efficiently and with precision. Your father was just as good, and your mother was a natural genius. You had their talent and my teachings guiding you. They...did not. When the Poochyena attacked, it was a tragedy and loss beyond anything we had ever experienced in all our time. When the Alpha struck, it was..."
He trailed off, unable or unwilling to voice the outcome.
"And so my parents had to solve it." Astra concluded. Her grandfather sighed.
"There is more between the two points, but...yes. Something had to be done. Plans were conceived, battles were fought, but in the end it came down to those three. Your parents and the Alpha. They went to face the beast down in the heart of its den. Your father would strike blow after blow upon it, keeping its attention while your mother would draw upon the orb's power to finish it off.
"But at the fateful moment...none could say what truly happened. They went alone, insistent that any other Kirlia would only further complicate the matter. As we drew the colossal pack the Mightyena had accrued around itself away, we felt it. A fountain of power unlike any we had ever felt before. The sound of splintering glass. A roar, a scream, an outburst of fury and despair.
"And then a colossal black sphere erupted from where they had been. It enveloped all of where this scar is now, swirling and pulsing erratically, before collapsing in on itself with nary a whisper but for the rushing wind.
"This crater was all that was left," he concluded, halting in place. "Naught remained but sterile sand and a stained sky. In the center, the shriveled body of a colossal Mightyena, already turning to dust. The Ancestor's orb, one section seemingly shattered. And...them.
"My son. His wife. Your parents. Whole, but...gone."
He was silent for a time. Astra looked down at the box in her hands, eyes tracing the odd carvings inscribed upon it. What was she supposed to feel, right now? Grief? Rage? Was it supposed to be so...empty?
"Sometimes I wonder if their inexplicable lack of damage was some cruel gift of the world," her grandfather continued, breaking the quiet. "An apology for taking them, to let us release their embers instead of condemning their dust to the sands. We let their cinders fly free that night, in fires so pure they turned blue. I remember holding you then, your egg still so fragile in my hands.
"And now we stand here, to help you harness the same thing that led to their end." He huffed grimly. "Perhaps that is why I forgot. Despite arguing so much for you to have this failsafe, even having verified its use by my own hands...part of me could not bear to see you actually use it. The mind is an odd thing; one's thoughts can decide on an action, but the deeper will below can alter and change it without one's notice."
"Are you done yet?" Astra asked, quietly. She could hear the startled hitch in her grandfather's breath, and she looked up to meet his shocked eyes.
"I hate this," she declared, a soft roil churning through her gut. "I hate this so much. I love you, and I always will, but not teaching me how to use this before I left? It was the worst thing you have ever done to me. This history lesson? The memories, the story, the explanation? Maybe it could be interesting, but right now I don't care." Astra threw the box down, the wood thunking quietly as it hit the sand. "What I care about is having to deal with this. I don't know what it felt like when you 'tested' it, but for me it was awful.
"I was furious at everyone! Everything!" she screamed, wildly swiping her arm out. "I felt like I could have blasted Norman or Steven apart right then and there and be happy about it! If I had been aiming even a quarter-turn to the left, I would have vaporized Rustboro.
"That feeling, that dark, giddy, vengeful hate... it wasn't right," Astra clutched at her chest, trembling. "Every time I think back to it, it feels like I'm suffocating. And the world just won't stop reminding me about it.
"The blast I made—it would have been so easy for it to have murdered someone, and I am so grateful that it didn't. But it still caused chaos in the human world. Collapsing tunnels, disrupted travel—all of Rustboro felt like an anxious, fearful wreck the entire time I was there. Even that moron from Aqua could only do what he did because of my mistake," she whispered, eyes blurry. "The Exploud nearly killed May, and she still fractured a rib! It keeps coming up, even in passing—people talking about it on the TV, arguments in Roxanne's classroom, complaints in Dewford's town hall leading into murderous hate fugues—"
"By my cinders," her grandfather said, horrified. He reached out, hand trembling. "Astra, I—"
Astra batted it away with a snarl. "No! Shut up!" she yelled, tears streaming down her face. "Maybe I was being stupid by testing it but it's all your fault for not teaching me in the first place! If you had then May wouldn't have gotten hurt and Peeko wouldn't have gotten birdnapped, and—and—!"
She screamed, vocally, the first use of her physical voice since that first meeting with May. The sound sent her grandfather toppling in shock and echoed through the sands, dampened by the murky air.
"Why didn't you!?" she screeched, advancing on her downed grandfather even as her voice continued to rage on. "Why!? You forgot!? WHY DID YOU—WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE JUST—!?"
Astra's arm reared back, fist clenched—
And then she just stopped, staring at her half-swung punch in horror. Had she just been about to...?
She collapsed to the sands, spots of water steadily staining her coat.
"Why couldn't you have just..." she whispered, wetly. She curled up, pressing her face into her knees and just existed for a moment, expelling paralyzing anger and wretched misery with every choking sniffle.
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There was silence. Then, a shift. A weight settled next to her; distant, but still close enough. It was broadcasting; sorrow, love, warmth, regret—a beacon of care and apology. There was no doubt it was sincere.
But she already knew her grandfather cared.
It just...wasn't enough.
"I'm sorry, Astra," he said.
It took her some time. But, eventually, she did lift her head, blinking away the last of her sobs.
"I know," she replied, sniffing. She felt...better. Not good, but...like her thoughts could breathe a bit more easily. "I know. I still love you," she said, because that would always be true. "But, I don't think I like you very much, right now."
Pain filled the air. Astra turned and saw him seated next to her, face twisted into anguish. She had thought that such a face would make her feel guilty. Or, she had feared, satisfied. Instead she was just tired.
"I understand," her grandfather said, quiet and solemn and regretful. "If there is anything I can do—"
"How about you get me out of this awful place?" Astra huffed. She flicked a wrist and lifted the wooden box out of the sand. "I don't like it here. Show me how to use this thing so we can leave."
He nodded. "Very well. Take it out, first. We'll go from there."
Astra pulled the box onto her lap, taking another moment to peer at the strange, curly carvings adorning it. It reminded her of smoke, or maybe clouds. Unlatching it, the container opened—and she hesitated, staring down at the rough brown cloth wrapped around the artifact. Then she gently removed that final barrier, leaving the cloth inside the box and setting them both aside.
She examined the obsidian sphere in her hands, eyes tracing the winding purple helix embedded in the center and the shattered third of the surface. Though cracked, that portion still felt impossibly smooth as her fingers traced over it. What light remained in the sky seemed to shy away from the orb, an aura of darkness reaching out to eat away at everything nearby.
Astra gulped, then looked to her grandfather. "Alright, what do I do...now?" she paused, blinking at the blank look on her grandfather's face.
He was silent for a moment, eyes fixated on the sphere, before he seemed to come to his senses, shaking his head a bit. "Right. Well, when I tested it, nothing unusual happened, so..."
He trailed off. Astra frowned.
"Grandpa, I'm not asking about how you felt, I'm asking how I should use it," she stressed.
He blinked, head swaying a bit. "Right! Right, my apologies. What you need to do is... You need to... I..."
He trailed off again, staring blankly at the orb.
Unease churned in Astra's stomach. Something wasn't right here.
"Grandpa?" she questioned, reaching over to shake his shoulder. "Grandpa!"
"Yes!" he blurted, eyes wide. His mouth dropped open, hanging loosely as he spoke. "You have to—! You just—nothing unusual will happen, so—" He paused, and, for just a moment, seemed to come back to himself. His brow furrowed, eyes still peering beyond the orb, into nothingness.
"How did I...?"
Then his face fell, going completely empty. Astra stared, horrified. "Grandpa!" she yelled, shaking him again. "What's going on? Do you—did you forget again, or something?" she asked, grasping at shadows. "Or—are you using the orb now, somehow? What is it doing to you?"
A voice. From him. From her. From the sand and from the murk.
Astra's grandfather stared through her, then his eyes rolled up and he fell over, unconscious.
Astra didn't move.
"None of them have. They simply think they did."
The voice echoed again, and Astra found her gaze drifting to the artifact in her lap. threw the orb far away, scrambling back—
"Too decrepit. Too rigid. They would not have survived."
The sphere shined, darkly.
"But you, my dear descendant…fortune smiles upon us both."
Astra ran—
Astra ran—
Astra screamed—
"What do you want?" Astra whispered.
"A second chance. Or perhaps a third."
Darkness crept up Astra's skin like spilled ink, dyeing her coat an obsidian black.
"Haste was my error, and we dwell in the aftermath of my second greatest mistake."
Astra did nothing.
"I will not err again. My dearest descendant, I beseech thee: walk this world. See the folly of humankind. Their cruelty, their empty promises, their greed and selfishness. The falsehoods behind every happy facade, the ignorance behind every foolish agenda.
"And then grow strong enough to crush them all."
The shadows engulfed her whole, and then Astra stopped thinking at all.
"Know that I love you. Know that I will guide your way.
"Know that I will never leave your side, lest this pale hope shatters.
"Oh Astra mine. My second heir, anointed where the first fell...
"One day, the shadow will rise, and the derelict light will fracture.
"We will be freed from conflict, allowed to thrive eternally.
"Liberation will again be ours, and under our true sky...
"We can bury the false dreams of yore...
"...Only...
"...
"...This is our only choice.
"My little star, who covets the sky...
"Seek strength. Seek adversity.
"The rest will follow."
But none of this was anything unusual. Was it now?
Hey.
Can you...
...Hear me?
...
Regardless.
Can I...
...Ask you...
...A question?
Tell me this.
And tell me true.
Does this world deserve your scorn?
?
In the desert, Astra familiarized herself with the Heartshade Fulcrum.
Calmed by the lack of any unusual happenings, both she and the elderly Kirlia accompanying her returned home.
After attending to various sundry matters, she decided to turn in early.
Astra went to bed, and dreamed of nothing at all.
...
...
...
...
...?
Hm?
Oh, hey. Sorry, did something happen? Sorry, I've got a bit of a headache.
Eh, it's probably nothing.
...
Say, when's the last time we had a got dang pokemon battle? Feels like years. Astra should spend some time with her team soon, I think.
See you then.
...Oh!
There are a couple gifts for us all, right here.
Enjoy the music.
