Chapter Text
Cynthia is… struggling.
Struggling is the understatement of the year, actually. She’s suffocating under the stiff weight of, to put it lightly, her responsibility. Ever since she found out that Cyrus had shown up on Pasio, she’d been working tirelessly to stop another Spear Pillar disaster from happening—and while she’d been mostly successful at that, she then had the pleasure of finding out that he’d somehow formed a bond with Darkrai of all Pokemon and was forcing everyone into a simulation of literal nothingness.
So yeah, it makes sense as to why she’d ended up feeling more stressed than relieved.
It’s not exactly the Champions’ job to try and stop troublemakers in their region—in fact, she knows that most Champions simply hadn’t been in a position to do so when such a situation arose—but she had been, and it was no excuse for her near failure to stop Team Galactic back in Sinnoh. She’d waved it off dismissively as a small group of idiots causing trouble and hadn’t seen the bigger picture until it’d been too late. She’d failed as a friend, she reminds herself bitterly, having never realized exactly what Cyrus had disappeared off to for years when he’d fought so grievously for where she stood. She’d been the reason why Team Galactic was ever even formed, because she never managed to show Cyrus the light he’d been seeking and he’d stopped trying after she turned away from him—and Arceus knows just how much of a toll the whole Distortion World debacle had taken on her.
She’s poring over a paper about time distortions when she lets out a yawn loud enough for her Garchomp—currently curled up on her rug—to lift her head and give Cynthia an unamused look.
“I’m not going to sleep,” she says, knowing exactly what her Garchomp had been implying. “It’s way too early for that, and I’m not that tired.”
Her Garchomp chuffs, clearly not satisfied with her answer.
“Besides,” she continues, turning her attention back to her laptop, “I need to do this. Not just for me, but for Pasio.”
And she does. If Giovanni and Cyrus are both on Pasio, then there’s a very good chance that all of the villainous team leaders are. And if Cyrus had been able to convince Palkia and Darkrai to help him, then… She shudders, her mind drifting to Diantha’s horror when she’d found out Lysandre almost wiped out most of humankind in her absence.
Frankly, she’s exhausted and—not that she’ll ever admit it out loud—terrified. She’s Cynthia—she’s not supposed to be scared. In fact, she’s supposedly scary. She’s heard the rumors, the stories of the intimidatingly strong Sinnoh Champion and her merciless Garchomp that circulate around all of Pasio.
But that’s just the thing.
She knows that she’s more than capable of defeating any troublemaker—every rumor always has some semblance of truth, after all, and her strength is no lie. She’d been able to take down Palkia with just her Kommo-o, who is by far the least experienced Pokemon on her team. But if she’s entirely out of the loop when the crime is being committed, then who will stop them?
(Certainly not the International Police, she muses, if Looker was anything to judge by. While Looker was exceptional at infiltrating those teams, she’s pretty sure his Croagunk would probably topple over if Cyrus’ Houndoom so much as glanced at it, never mind his Palkia.)
She sighs, then moves her laptop to the middle of the table. Maybe she just needs a short break, she reasons—she’d been at it all morning, ever since Diantha had left to go film for the day.
Cynthia sucks in a breath, her heart pounding loudly as she realizes she’s back at Spear Pillar, staring Cyrus down as he stands at the very edge. This time, thankfully, she doesn’t find Palkia and Dialga in red chains, screaming in agony.
Except when she looks around, her breath hitches. Across the temple and as far as she can see on the mountainside, Team Galactic grunts and kind-hearted Pokemon trainers lie on the ground—and then her heart drops into her stomach when she recognizes the white hat and unmistakable dark blue hair of a face-down figure. She stumbles over to her, the panic setting her entire body alight as she reaches over to her wrist, hands trembling uncontrollably as she does so.
The world spins when she feels a pulse.
She can feel Cyrus watching her, ever scrutinizing her every movement—and it becomes obvious when his eyes flicker down that she’s been clutching Dawn’s arm too tightly. She lets go and stands, but not before seeing Lucas right beside her—and Arceus, what had Cyrus done this time? Scrambling over, she checks his pulse, too—and it’s there, thankfully.
She’s not sure what she would’ve done to Cyrus if it wasn’t.
Cynthia and Cyrus alone seem to be the only ones conscious, as far as she can tell, and she’d prefer it that way. She’d been unsure of whether she’d triumph over him or not last time, but that’s because she was in a base crawling with Team Galactic grunts. Now they were on an even playing field, and she knows she has the upper hand—and based on Cyrus’ scowl, he knows it, too.
“Cyrus,” she says finally, being careful to stand directly in front of Dawn’s unconscious body. “Stop this at once.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m thinking,” he says after a moment.
“About what?”
“About how you robbed me of everything I wanted.”
She tries to ignore the way her guilt stabs her in the gut. “Cyrus—”
“You knew,” he accuses. “You knew what I wanted, and you still fought me for it.”
“You knew I had to!”
“Of course you did.” His voice drips with sarcasm.
Just as she opens her mouth to retort, something dark flies past her so quickly that her eyes don't register what it is, and suddenly Cyrus has lost his balance. On pure instinct, Cynthia races forwards and manages to grab his hand just as his feet lose their perch on the ground below—and to her horror, only an inky black void surrounds all of Mount Coronet.
That’s when the screaming begins—and gods, she wants to scream, too, when she looks behind her and sees that both Dawn and Lucas are nowhere to be seen. And that’s when she realizes that all the unconscious people around them must’ve fallen into the void.
If she doesn’t find those people quickly, Darkrai will kill them—and she has no intention of letting all of those people die due to Cyrus' stupidity.
She stares back into the black canyon. She has no idea where it leads to, and she doesn’t intend to let either of them find out. Her hands are gripping him with all her strength, but he’s slipping anyway—and Arceus, she can’t pull him up, try as she might.
“You’ll fall with me,” Cyrus says and it almost sounds like a challenge. “Just let go, you’ll never make it out of here with me.”
“Don’t let go,” she begs him. “Don’t ever let go. I won’t fail you.”
He laughs, his tone dry and sardonic. “You already did.”
“No,” she whispers. “Please, don’t do this.”
“ You did this,” he replies, and he looks almost smug. “This is all your fault, Cynthia.”
She screams when he releases his grip and falls into the murky black below.
“Cynthia! Cynthia! I’m here, I’m here—wake up, it’s just a bad dream— ”
She blinks away the tears forming in her eyes to another pair of eyes watching her intently with concern. She’s vaguely aware of Diantha’s hand on her shoulder drawing slow comforting circles with her thumb despite just how disoriented and off-balance she feels.
Impressively, she’s even more exhausted than before her nap.
“Diantha,” Cynthia says quietly, wiping her eyes. She has no idea where she should start even explaining— “Wait, what are you doing here?”
Diantha smiles gently. “I had the day off,” she says. “I wanted to surprise you, so I went out and got some gourmet cupcakes. Palentine’s Day is coming up soon and everyone’s baking desserts to prepare.”
She gestures to the box on Cynthia’s desk before looking back at Cynthia with a concerned frown.
“But when I came back, you were asleep at your desk. You were sleeping quietly at first, so I was going to move you to our bed, but then you started screaming.”
“I’m sorry.”
Diantha’s eyebrows furrow. “Don’t be sorry. I know that you have nightmares,” she says softly. “And even if you don’t really talk about it, I know what you went through. I can’t pretend to understand fully, but I can at least listen.”
Cynthia sighs. She thought she’d hidden it so well.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Diantha reassures her. “But just know I’m always here for you if you’re ever ready.”
She doesn’t know what it is that ultimately leads her to cave—perhaps it’s Diantha’s bright eyes, offering all the love in the world to her in that moment, or her own bottled-up emotions screaming for release all at once, but she relents.
“Cyrus deciding to remake our world was my fault,” Cynthia says.
Diantha gives her a look. “What?”
She doesn’t know if she even has the strength to continue. Even just admitting that was difficult.
“Explain why it was your fault?” Diantha amends.
Cynthia sighs again. “Look, Diantha, I just had a dream where I just let Cyrus fall off of Mount Coronet into a dark void created by Darkrai.”
Diantha nods slowly, but doesn’t say anything.
“It’s a metaphor, somehow,” Cynthia says frantically. “We were childhood friends, but I ended up becoming the Champion and he left and I made almost no effort to find where he’d disappeared to and if I’d just gone and found him and talked some sense into him literally none of the events of Spear Pillar would’ve happened!” She’s buried her face into her hands to stop herself from crying in front of Diantha, but all she’s succeeded in doing is making her voice completely muffled. The tears still fall into her palms despite everything. “And now it’s up to me to make sure that never happens again but I already failed once.”
It’s silent afterwards aside from Cynthia’s own sniffling, and it stays that way long enough that she’s opening her mouth to try and take it all back when Diantha finally responds.
“Cynthia.”
Everything halts.
“It’s okay, Cynthia.”
She pries her hands away from her face begrudgingly, and Diantha smiles lightly as the other woman hands her a tissue.
“My darling, you know that isn’t your fault.”
She wants to argue, but she knows that it won’t fix anything—especially not when Diantha is currently the level-headed one between the two.
“What Cyrus needed, and what he needs now, is a therapist. Not a kid who couldn’t understand what he was going through.”
“I left him,” Cynthia protests weakly, slowly wiping her eyes and her hands.
“No,” Diantha responds firmly. “He left you. He disappeared. And while yes, it’s terrible that he turned out the way he did, he was never your responsibility.”
It makes sense, she supposes. Now that she thinks about it with a more stress-free mind, she… can’t really think of any other way she would have searched for him at the time.
“And as for Team Galactic,” Diantha continues. “You’ve told me before that they were especially deceptive at first glance. And if anything, I certainly know you, and you are not fooled very easily.”
“But I should—”
“—have known better? Cynthia, just because you’ve fought gods and won does not mean you are one yourself. You can’t fix everything and that’s perfectly okay.”
Cynthia opens her mouth, then hesitates. A fresh wave of tears stream down her face.
You can’t fix everything and that’s perfectly okay.
It lifts something from her chest, and she’s left—almost relieved, she thinks? But there’s still an ache, something so inherently broken that she’s left picking up the pieces. And yet, as she slowly meets Diantha’s eyes again, she realizes that Diantha’s holding all of them before her.
“You’re very good at taking care of me,” she mumbles eventually, leaning into Diantha.
“I know. A very pretty woman told me that once.”
Cynthia smiles and she knows that Diantha must be too.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Diantha hums in acknowledgment, pulling her into a tight hug. “Of course, my dear.”
That night, when Cyrus tells her to let go, she does.
When the fear flashes over his eyes for a split second, she doesn’t let herself feel bad.
It’s the first real good night’s sleep she’s gotten in months.