Chapter Text
Victini hopped into the volcano at the top of Cinnabar Island.
Within its rocky caverns, a towering figure glowing in flames regarded its presence. Victini, too, regarded it with curious eyes, making out a snout and two dark eyes.
To it, the little orange-white creature bowed. The flaming creature nodded. It leaned forward, opening its arms.
And so, Victini started to glow.
Victini, the Victory Pokemon, said to ensure victory for whoever it fights with. Of course, this was not true. If it had truly possessed that level of conceptual power, it wouldn’t be allowed to roam about as freely as it did now. It was merely that getting to hold and wield the Eternal Flame as it did, did wonders for its ability to increase morale and win its battles.
And boy, did it love winning.
With its body now white-hot, it leaped into its brethren’s arms.
The inert volcano became a cauldron. Eyes, glowing. Plumes and plumes of dark, heavy smoke, emerging from the brim, rising up and up into the sky…
The outcome did not matter. Mew knew as much, Arceus knew as much, and now he knew as much, too.
There was always only going to be one winner, Arceus, or Gold. One would live, and the other woefully subsumed. And as far as the universe was concerned, neither option made a difference. The supreme authority was to fuse with the Symbol of Life; the galaxy inches closer to convergence; matters such as souls and consciousnesses were trivial.
And yet… and yet…
He had to win.
There were those who supported him. People and Pokémon alike who dared to go against the ancient almighty creator of their galaxy, this creator, who wanted to live as much as he did.
He understood now what the twin Deoxys must have felt. Their struggle meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, and yet they struggled. Because of that, Red stood by his side, looking up at the darkening sky with him.
Green stood at his other side, with his eyes closed, his pendant in his hand.
The small, pristine shard was coalescing into his palm once more. This time, it gathered inside the heart of his teardrop pendant, iridescent, containing multitudes.
A tiny piece, all things considered, but the sheer effort Green had put into it was anything but. With Arceus beginning to awaken, and their time running out, this shard would not make a difference, for there were other ways he could grow strong, and an old shard alone could not propel him to Symbol-hood.
But this piece represented far more than itself. It represented reunion. It represented the love that Green had painstakingly preserved in his heart. It represented the end of this journey.
Which was why it was exactly what they needed.
Green nodded at him, and he smiled back.
The cliff edge seemed impossibly high and yet achingly insufficient. Would they survive? And if not, could they die, on their own terms?
Green gave him the shard. Gold wore it. He didn’t have to do anything but let its core seep into the skin of his chest. He felt something swell inside of him, something he couldn’t contain, a burgeoning and a growth and an— evolution.
A beacon, shot into the air, an uncontrollable aurora. This was birth — a birth of something beginning to become anew.
He raised his arms, and his wings. He leapt off the edge.
This was his debut on the stage.
The progenitor of Pokémon, the creature of peace and jubilee, the body of the Jewel...
The Symbol of Life.
He shot up past the edge, his wings driving him higher, high up into the clouds. Behind him, morphing to attack, the orange-blue fighter jumped into the air. Until the smog-filled sky became the cloudy grey floor, not yet at the edge of the world, but peeking at it through the whispers of clouds above…
He soared. He could not sense the world’s god in the vicinity, and frankly, he was prepared not to. Did Arceus have a reason to avoid him? No, not really, not with their sheer gap in advantage. Did It have a reason to prepare, though? Absolutely. And he may very well be caught off guard.
There was no way Arceus wouldn’t have known. But if there was no reason for It to not appear at all…
Red, with his mind’s eye.
“I see It.”
A gaze spread from the other end of the mountain range, and an absolute voice bellowed clear.
“YOUR ATTEMPTS.”
The voice knocked the wind out of his sails, still, even now. With all his chest, he laboured to shout,
“Figures. You scared?”
More gazes, more imperial presences. The Creation Trio by Its side, prone to Its whims. More than that. Another, a massive serpent, coiling its way towards them.
“YOUR HUBRIS WILL BE YOUR DEATH.”
Gold raised his head to its gaze and smirked. “Try me.”
The stars glittered beyond the skies. A little speck from each of them, taken and reincarnated within asteroids and debris, pushing them into the orbit of the earth.
Red lunged forth, sweeping his limbs forward into the shape of a lance. Streaks of white-hot plasma gathered on the edges of his blades, barrelling towards the arrowed tip of Rayquaza’s snout as he made his Dragon Ascent—
The resulting explosion knocked back the both of them. The air grew heavy and impossibly fast Rayquaza glowed, exploding in shards of old skin. Golden streams flew and circled from his body, now bulkier, now with a pincer-like head. Yet, it traversed the winds as easily as before.
The skies roared.
The Dragon masters knew Draco Meteor, and Gold knew this. A rainfall of flames, flames and horribly heavy meteors fell into their sky, and, heaving his with his entire being, Gold threw them, and they hurtled towards his targets.
The sheer might of that power could not be ignored. He saw Arceus pause, and he saw the Creation trio open their jaws. Time rippled, space tore apart. The meteors turned to smithereens, but they could not tear them all. Enough of it littered their bodies that it stopped them, for long enough. Rayquaza tumbled.
Red, too, took the hit, but began to absorb it into his own skin. The dragons, Dialgia and Palkia, guided by the currents, rushed towards Gold. He raised a barrier that could barely be seen with the naked eye, points of light, again and again. Would it be enough?
The shattered bits and pieces of meteor began to slow down, freezing in midair for just a second, before accelerating in uniform in a spiral storm. Red opened an arm; in the crack, a Pokéball encased within. He threw it, like a bullet. From the crack, a light shone.
From the light, Green launched himself forth, forming a sword that plunged into the wings on Palkia’s back. He let go, and then materialised another sword, threw it on the back of Its neck, then sliced as hard as he could. The sword skidded, barely digging into its metallic body, but it left a gash. With a palm, he struck downwards, right at Its wound.
More cracks. Pieces shattered off of Its skin. It howled, and it struggled, and then it forced itself forward still. Arceus’ orders, he realised. He had to disable Palkia entirely. And he only had time for one.
Again, the swords, this time pinning its wings. They struggled to move, yet, Palkia still flew. Some sort of innate flying ability, which made sense given Its massive body. Not good news for him.
Another sword — sharper in the mind, sharper in front of him. He plunged it down into the gash as deep as he could. Again, a howl. Not enough to debilitate Palkia. Green grit his teeth.
He grabbed at something in his cloak. A flower of swords bloomed in front of Its path. Clang. The impact was enough to send Green flying off Its back. He fell as far as the smog lay — a flash of brown — rising back up on the back of his Pidgeot.
Dialgia unsheathed Its claws, slashing against the spherical shield. It tore through the fabric, but it wasn’t quite enough to pierce through into flesh. From within the sphere, a bright light emerged; a series of Hyper Beams focused to a point.
It was enough to hold It back, for a few seconds. Gold tried to blink out of the way, but Its body swerved, impossibly swift. Then, a great mace flew, hitting Dialgia on the chin. Green held the remnants of a shattered orb. Once an ancient artefact passed down for generations, destroyed in a second.
Giratina emerged silently from the darkness behind Gold.
The air changed. The shadows enveloped a husk of a soul, fizzling into nothingness. Something that had fulfilled the exact role that Gold was supposed to play in that interaction, nothing but points of pseudo-light. Gold emerged elsewhere, his arms sparkling.
He saw three small creatures, tails twirling in a circle, the combined psychic energy emanating a odd, red glow.
“No,” he mouthed. But it was only logical. He opened his palms and shot a beam. They shielded themselves from the blast, only being pushed away.
Three birds emerged from the smoke.
Green recognised them. He recognised the blank look in its eyes, like mere puppets. Team Rocket tried to control them once. Now, something else.
Red released bolts from his fingertips. They hit, but they didn’t seem to affect the birds nearly as much as they should have. Gold shot moonbeams from his arms, blocking out the airspace.
Then, from one side, a golden orange sunset of wings. From the other, a living hurricane. Both charged to meet in the middle, letting out great beams of wind and fire.
“Nuh-uh. Not on my watch!”
From a gap in time, Celebi had emerged. She didn’t emerge alone. She grabbed onto the shoulders of a dark, elongated body, hair blowing wildly in the wind and a very familiar mask.
“How did you—” His wings glowed and he had blinked out of the way. “Pryce?!”
Celebi made a face of concentration, swerving the Mask of Ice aside like a pilot. Mask of Ice seemed to have said something, but the howling of the wind made it impossible to hear.
Two beams entered two portals. A second later, they shot out in opposite directions, back where they came from. The two flying beasts dodged quickly, but stiffly, flying towards her in symmetrical paths.
Mask of Ice expanded its body. Now, listening closely, Gold could make out the stilted, robotic speech he knew all too well.
“Come… Obey. Me.”
Celebi teleported out of the way. Ho-oh and Lugia criss-crossed. They’d been controlled once before — far lesser than the control that had taken over them right now, but it must have counted for something, right? Celebi hoped she was right.
“A...ttack.”
Mid-path, Ho-oh opened its beak to charge an attack. Like clockwork, the winds gathered in gusts within Lugia’s mouth shortly after. They paused for a second too long. The attacks fizzled out in great trails of energy; they moved, their former trainer be damned, an onslaught of attacks continued, this time used against Celebi and the Mask of Ice.
Gold rode through the harsh winds. Closer. At points, Red joined his side, acting as his shield; at others, Green distracted his enemies, cracking at their defenses with barrage after barrage of attacks. Dodged, deflected, redirected. If this was a battle of attrition, they would surely lose. Yet, they couldn’t simply run away.
Gold let out a yell.
Tens of powerful beams shot out from his body, bending at angles to strike at his closest assailants mercilessly, again, then again. He could knock them out of commission, he could. He filled the air with an odd, celestial energy, tearing the battlefield asunder. He felt his breaths in his throat, he felt his mind squeeze from the heat. But this was only temporary. Closer, and closer.
A deathly scream. Gold didn’t need to turn or look. Green had his heart ripped out by a claw, amongst many others pinning him in place. He could still fight for a while, as long as he could keep the rest of his blood in him; tearing free, an explosion of flesh and feathers, not Green’s, but his assailants, who tumbled with Green still in tow — Rayquaza’s sharp pincers and arrow-like head, pierced through Red’s waist. He struggled to free himself — Celebi, the escape artist, who had only so many paths in time and that many short-range teleports left —
He met the gaze of Arceus. The distance between them was still too far, but the eyes, he saw. It was near impossible to read the emotions of God. Still, facing him now in the sky, Gold could see it. It was the closest thing to indifference.
A deep peace and the blaring of alarms. The sound of a brass horn pulling down a note. Gold resisted with all his willpower and could only feel it floating away.
Arceus, who had created the human, the three guardians of the spirit. Because Gold was still human. Because the Symbol still had a soul.
The gap was simply and profoundly insurmountable.
Willpower, knowledge, emotion. Ripping, tearing from his soul. On his body, wrapped around and emerging from his skin, a serrated red band appeared, glowing.
It broke into three.
Just like that, Gold had died. His body reacted as if it had been shot with lightning, spasming, unable to resist the backlash. Dead. It flopped over, held only by the blur of deep blood-red at its waist.
The red band, broken as it was, was spinning.
Like a doll, the body stretched out its spine, facing upright once more. A machine stared into red-green eyes. It lifted a finger.
It pulled down on its lower lid and stuck out its tongue.
The cosmos themselves had darkened. A deep poison seeped from the many fragments of rock, which turned to flesh and chitin. From beyond, a voice, small in size but large in spirit, echoed.
“HAHAHAHAHA!!”
A blood-red worm coiled around the skies. Its mouth, visible by its sheer size, deep purple claws oozing with matter. The movement of its massive body created cracks and echoes in the air. It did not have the capability to laugh, however. The grating laugh came from another source.
On an unknown, shadowy steed, wielding a large staff which aimed a shot at a worm beastling, Hoopa grinned and made a flourish with his one free arm.
“Congratulations!” he cried. “I shall celebrate your ascent!”
Green wanted to yell at him: ’Your idea of a celebration is a goddamn worm?!’
Arceus lifted Its head and roared.
It was difficult to trick. It really had been Gold fighting, he really had died. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t still win.
A Red Chain, an artificial Red Chain. Within it, it could trap a body, moulding it to the master’s will. The chain had broken by itself, shockingly easily. It had been intentional. Three sections, one for each part of the human spirit. Now, a broken vessel, but a functional one. How could such a thing have even remotely been engineered?
It didn’t matter. Arceus still had to claim the body of the Symbol for Itself.
And now, a world-ending eldritch monstrosity had been released and unleashed, minutes from destroying eons of work.
Arceus had little choice but to redirect Dialgia and Palkia towards the terrifying entity. It could handle the rogue Symbol by Itself. Countless shots of light emanated from Its body, firing again and again at the flesh machine. Impossible to dodge, the blasts hit again and again. Holes appeared in its wings, flesh had turned into concentrated points of celestial light. Yet, it barely reacted at all, continuing to barrel at Arceus at breakneck speeds.
Neon-blood red light filled the sky, hot enough to overtake the rapid winds. It could have killed a human many times over, but Gold’s body had become the embodiment of a concept that had automatically circumvented the blast, and most of Its other opponents had temporarily hidden or teleported away. Arceus bore the brunt of the attack.
The Red Chain, already broken, burst forth, swooping into Arceus without restraint. The body grabbed onto the armor shielding most of Its face. The Red Chain spun and spun again, stretching to bind both bodies together.
Arceus resisted immediately. For the first time in a while, It materialised the Plates into reality once more, turning them to liquid tools to break Its chains, pushing, warping, combusting, imploding, clawing. But the chain was already broken; force flowed through the gaps and rivers, and as the chains were pushed out, snapped, even shattered, they bounced back into place.
That was when from within the chains, a familiar voice began to resonate.
“You know, I can help you achieve your goal. Just be a part of me and I’ll eventually get all the symbols for you."
No response. Did it not warrant one? Arceus did not stop trying to break through.
"Well, it was worth a shot. I am serious, though. You’re screwed anyway."
Controlling the controller. The chain shone bright. Even if it could not reign control, it could still break up the existing one. Nothing happened at first — then, Rayquaza roared, fury raging in its heart.
It ignored the strange human-like alien Pokémon, and now it charged at the far more immediate threat. Bit by bit, then all at once, the legendary Pokémon regained their senses, and many began to run away.
Hoopa stretched out his arms, and his golden bangle became two hyperspace hoops. He pulled out two artifacts. Rusted metal, one resembling a sword and the other a shield. “Always gotta have a fail-safe on hand. Come get it, you dogs!”
In the midst of it, Arceus continued to fight against the bidding of Its restraints. It began to regain Its strength. The chain already gripped tight.
“That’s kinda sad… In the very end, when you’re alone and at the brink of defeat, no one is coming to help you.”
Two beasts claimed their weapons and raised them up high, transforming into great warriors. Whoever remained could still protect themselves and fight back — another sword and shield, Red and Green, cutting down the infant worms that wriggled and formed and littered the skies. A ball of fire, then a ball of wind to create an explosive blast — Celebi still held onto her old foe and friend, working together to help suppress the foreign beast.
“You know, I’ve always wondered why you couldn’t absorb the Archetypes.”
Gold waited. When Arceus did not answer, he scoffed and carried on.
“Always assumed it was because you were just a will with no body. But that’s not true, because the Plates you made are your body. No reason why it should work any differently when even Magearna could accomodate one. Then, it hit me. Why do they call you the will of the Original One, not the soul?
“I just think it’s a little pathetic if your soul hasn’t recovered by now after all that sleeping. All this jumping through loops to regain your strength. You can’t absorb any Archetypes or any regular souls for that matter. Because your soul is simply incomplete. Am I right?"
Arceus thrashed about.
“Stop moving.”
Another burst of light, lassoing the bull.
“Nothing to say?”
It still did not answer. But in those glassy, opaque eyes, there could have even been a hint of pain.
“Then listen to me, damnit. Emotion. Knowledge. Willpower. That’s what you’ve made those for. Three elements of the spirit, which you tried to split apart to stop me. But when the Original One split apart, you were incomplete. And the will — will to live and become whole again — that was the strongest. You didn’t have the knowledge to bring back your former self, which explains the trial and error. And who knows what happened to your emotions, but you clearly don’t give a damn about anyone else.”
“The thing is, you must have thought of regaining your soul by restoring the other two parts, right? I think you tried. That’s why you gave that human the Jewel of Life and the plates. Then he betrayed you.”
Arceus roared. Perhaps Gold was wrong after all — It did still feel emotion.
“Anger. Devastation. Coldness, distrust, useless pain. So you sworn off all these useless feelings. Heh. Looks like you’re a lot more human than we all gave you credit for.
“Anyway, this is all just me guessing. Could be wrong.”
“I...”
“WILL...”
“NOT... BE...”
Shit. Even in this state, Arceus was a force to be reckoned with. This was the will of a primordial being. Its body was breaking apart, Its control over its own body waning, but still holding, still unrelenting. The will would not disappear, not even now.
There was no way he could maintain this for all eternity. It would require a wasteful amount of firepower.
Luckily for Gold, that wasn’t the plan.
His body, which had remained mostly still until now, began to move. An arm reached into its face, then deeper, and deeper.
He reached out towards the shining centre within the shards of the God’s body.
Something penetrated the fog of smoke.
The storm had been unbelievably intense. Region-wide lightning of unseen colours had peeked through, and something else kept booming and cracking within. Now, the darkness, shielding the brightest of lights. Another rumbling.
Then, a bright thing shot through the clouds, rocketing towards the ground.
Some dared not look up even if they wanted to. Some did, despite all warnings not to. They saw something like an iridescent, crystalline prism hurtling down from the atmosphere.
Screams emerged from the locked houses down below.
“Dad?”
“No, honey, don’t.”
“Dad? What is it?”
“…looks like it’ll land outside Kanto. Don’t worry, kiddo. Don’t worry.”
Between the two regions, somewhere in the vicinity of the Tohjo Falls and Mt. Silver, something akin to a meteor strike would soon fall. The impact could very well wipe out everything too close to it.
Again, emerging from the layer of smoke, large airborne Pokémon dived downwards all at once. They had to pierce the air faster, they had to form a barrier, a net, something to slow it down.
When it landed, there was an echoing boom.
It took days for the smokescreen to clear up.
It didn’t take that long for investigations to reach the crash site, of course. A nameless mountain, neither the tallest or the widest or nearly as interesting as some if its peers, one of many in the mountain range. The massive crystalline prism was, despite what it appeared to be, fairly opaque from afar.
Initial investigations could only be done from a great distance due to the sheer number of legendary Pokémon present, performing a ritual never before seen or documented, circling the prism with levels of energy that made it far too hazardous to approach. This alone was enough for years of paperwork and decades of study. When the air cleared, when researchers came to check the crystal prism, they found that the summit of the mountain had been sealed off with an incredible weave of powers.
The mountain, initially labelled by its metrics such as height, latitude and longitude, had now finally been blessed with a name fitting of the event.
“I can’t believe they decided to name it Mt. Crystal,” complained a certain twin-tailed girl.
Silver folded his arms and sighed. Welcome to the club, he thought.
It was only right that the Pokédex Owners made a trek to the top of the mountain. If not for curiosity’s sake (hell, there were many who were very curious, and only a few were daring enough to come in person), then simply as an activity that shared some sort of tenuous weight.
When they reached the seal, they let out sighs. Disconnected, and yet like one continuous heave.
Blue stepped forward first.
The barrier was almost invisible but extremely palpable. She could feel it thrum in her chest, ringing in her ears. Her stomach churned, threatening to empty itself. Yet, she could not help but raise her hand, placing it on the barrier itself.
Painful at first, but then, slowly prickling into warmth. It spread, enveloping not just Blue, but her fellow friends as well.
Instinctively, she knew to step through the barrier. It let her. The other side of the world seemed to cease to exist.
The others followed suit, appearing like stepping out from water. They kept moving, moving through the rest of the mountain as if it was just another trek. Except this one, the team quickly noticed, had a severe lack of Pokémon hiding and roaming about.
The way up was eerily quiet.
At the top, where it should have been skies and views of the surrounding mountains, was a reverberating dome, a carved out crater, and the prism lodged into the very centre.
Next to the prism, a figure with a long cape stood up and looked towards them.
“Green!”
Blue began to run. When she got to him, he confusedly opened his arms. She tackled him in a hug.
Green barely even flinched, but it didn’t make him any less stunned. After a second, he hugged her back.
“I’m taken, by the way.”
She paused, then laughed. “Yeah, we know that, idiot.”
She stepped away, turning to look at the prism. It was massive from this close, nearly as wide as a building. The material was translucent and refracted light, but she could make out something near its centre, still moving.
She wasn’t the only one looking.
They saw Gold. It wasn’t accurate to say that they were surprised about that; they figured as much. It was how he looked like now, with his wings and rings and something like robes, sitting cross-legged, or perhaps floating.
“This…” She wanted to ask what happened. She felt that it wouldn’t be the wisest thing to ask.
Green nodded. “We made it.”
Gold was unmoving. It was the undecipherable, magical elements on his body that were constantly shifting.
Green looked on. He let out a small smile, the kind of smile you made when you thought no one else was looking.
"He’s fought a difficult battle," he said. "Don’t worry, he’s just resting.”
She nodded. She had more questions — there had always been questions in her mind, and there would always be more. In this moment, though, when faced with the choice to start asking or simply stay in the moment; even if the former needn’t be futile after all, she chose the latter.
Recently, it had gotten easier to simply accept.
“I’m afraid this is the last time I will let you into this place.”
“What,” she muttered. She still couldn’t hide her shock, even if it made sense in hindsight. This was an exception, even for exceptions.
“If we needed it,” said Silver, “If there was an emergency that made it necessary to call you, would you respond to our call?”
A pause.
“Don’t count on it,” he answered. “But yes. Unfortunately, you still won’t be able to enter this place again. From today onwards, this mountain will be impassable by any and all means. One day, Gold will awaken… and that is when the barrier will disappear. Until then, I will stay by his side.”
“You’re not going to come visit us?” asked Yellow.
Green was silent for a while.
“I did promise you guys we’d all go on a trip somewhere one day, didn’t I?”
Despite everything, Blue and Yellow both let out a smile.
“Once in a while, I will transmit messages through the barrier. I can promise at least that, too.”
Crystal stood as close to the prism as she could.
“I won’t forgive you for making them name the mountain after this,” she spoke. “For that, you better come out of this alive.”
One by one, the Pokédex Owners said their goodbyes. Green said his own. It all felt incredibly mundane for the situation. And when they left, Green stood in silence for a long time.
Then, he sat down next to the amber.
He didn’t know what would happen to Gold.
Would he wake up, changed by memories of the galaxy, the birth and death of stars and the creation of life itself? Would he turn into a monster, having watched civilisations fall one after another; would he one day develop a morbid desire of felling one himself? Or would he just be the same old Gold, just with colder smile?
He didn’t know. All he knew was that Gold would wake up. It was a fact of life, of reality itself.
And until that day arrived…
"I will stay. I will watch over him.”
And then, Green closed his eyes.
The rest of the world continued without them. And they will, for quite some time.