Chapter Text
He saw himself sitting on a lake. Flat out sitting on the water, which reflected the clear blue sky.
"Been long?"
"What is going on," he replied flatly, staring at his doppelgänger, who moved to a crouched posture, sitting on his heels. They looked the same, except the other guy was dressed in a loose, off-white formal shirt and worn navy jeans. "Nothing. We're stuck here and you're way overdue for your appointment."
"Appointment?"
"With reality, obviously."
"So I've been...knocked out this whole time...?"
"Well?"
".........."
"I'm probably in a hospital right now, aren't I?" he sighed.
"Yup."
"Hopefully not in Aether."
"I don't know. I'm you, remember? I can't see if you can't open your eyes."
"Why are we having this conversation?"
"Oh, so you finally said 'we'," the other guy blinked, combing a hand through his hair.
"So....I'm not supposed to call us 'we'...?"
"Of course not. It means you're dissociating. Not a great sign."
"Dissociating?" That doesn't sound right.
"Yeah. I'm supposed to be this...other you. The one that had a slightly better life."
"....I'll just...get going, then. You said I had an appointment again?"
"Reality. It's that way."
The other boy pointed to the bottom of the lake. "Don't worry. It won't be cold if you don't want it to be. We're in your head, remember?"
He wordlessly leapt inside, swimming to the bottom.
He had a feeling reality would be cold, regardless of what he wanted.
**************************************************
Ironically, he was greeted by white as soon as he opened his eyes.
Again? Really?
He couldn't stand up, feeling sore and nauseous, and white was all he could observe in his surroundings. It was burning into his vision and it made his head hurt. He looked around, seeing that he was in a hospital of some kind-the whole place smelled of bleach and disinfectant.
His body felt numb.
Wait, wasn't that strange?
He had a reasonably thick blanket draped over him, and he realised that he also had a wet cloth (soaked in hot water?) on his forehead. And yet...he felt as if he'd been lying on a sheet of ice. The oxygen mask he was wearing made his mouth and cheeks feel a little cold, but the rest of his body? Absolute zero. He couldn't move at all, let alone think properly.
Then the memories hit him.
The poison. The blood. Nihilego. The Ultra Wormhole. Null actually evolving.
"...the venom hasn't drained fully out of his system yet-"
"....yes, rehabilitation sounds best-"
"Are you sure it's anaphylaxis?"
"Yes....we'll interrogate him about it later when he's conscious."
"OH, HELL-"
He heard the sound of a chair falling down and a pained yelp from his left, but he was too tired to move, which was irrational-he had been resting for...how long? Anyway, the chair squeaked again protestingly as he heard the voice speak again.
"So. Um, hey. Are you, like, actually awake, 'cause-"
Recognition came too late. "Hau."
Even if he hadn't been wearing the oxygen mask, his voice probably sounded the most broken he had ever heard it, because the other boy became dead silent. For a while, he focused on moving, slowly clenching and unclenching his fingers, feeling the IV connected to his wrist, moving his head slightly to the side to see Hau's face, mouth in a grim line. Even though he had a dark complexion, his face was clearly paler.
"What. Happened," he rasped, coughing. "Feel nauseous."
Incorrect. It's "I'm feeling nauseous." he heard Lusamine correct him in his head.
Shut up already.
"Hau...?"
"It's been three months."
He leapt out of bed, ripping the IVs out and the mask off, the heart monitor blaring as he sat up violently and glared at the other boy, who was now standing up in fright.
"Three?!" he screeched incoherently. "C-calm down, Gladion!" Hau tried, waving his arms as he backed up a bit. "They said for you not to get too aggravated, otherwise the aftereffects of the venom might double o-or something like that.."
"Venom-?!"
"From the Nihilego. The one that attacked you in Aether."
"I-I know that!" he countered. "B-but why? What happened after that? To Lillie? She's okay, right?! And Moon? They're fine, right?"
"Um, yeah," Hau blinked. "They're fine. Oh and you probably want...to know what happened while you were...knocked out."
"Lusamine," Gladion snarled, remembering their chat. "Remind me to kill her once she crawls out of the Wormhole again."
"I don't have to. She's here. In the next ward."
Oh.
Oh.
"What?"
"Gah, I'm such a jerk!" Hau hissed, clapping his hands over his mouth, quickly changing the topic. "S-so, after the whole thing happened, you, uh, kinda collapsed?" he winced, "And your eyes turned into this freaky purple colour. You fainted, but your eyes, were, uh, still wide open and just....purple. And you were coughing too, and blood was coming out of your mouth..."
Gladion paled, slowly lifting a nearby paper cup to drink some water. His hand was trembling violently. "It was...the venom."
"Lillie looked like she was going to faint," he whispered. "She just...broke down. Moon's Bewear had to carry you out of the pla-Arceus, are you okay?"
"Fine!" Gladion got out, choking on the water. "Moon's what?! A Bewear carried me?!"
"Not many options that time," the Alolan replied, looking somehow embarrassed and grave at the same time. "But Moon's stronger. Trust me. There's a reason that Bewear's so well-trained. I don't even think Gramps's is as obedient as hers."
"Okay, can we just talk about what happened?"
"Yeah. Um. Sorry. So Miss Wicke got you admitted into one of the hospital wards in Aether, and she tried ringing up one of her old friends or something to help in your treatment after a few weeks. Apparently, you stayed in the ICU for around seventeen days before your condition fully stabilised."
"I could hear some people talking about it. While I was asleep."
"Really? So that 'hearing things when you're in a coma' thing was true?"
"They said I needed rehab. It was....anaphylaxis...? But how-"
"What does that mean? You're right, those people mentioned it. And I couldn't get in touch with Moon that time, so I never got to know what it was."
The blond boy sighed. Hau was a bit ignorant at times, and a bit too happy-go-lucky, but he wasn't stupid.
"Hau. What happens when a person first gets stung by an Ariados?"
The other boy tapped his lips with his finger, brows creased. "....It depends. Nothing but the usual, for most people. But if a person's very unlucky, then they'll develop an allergy to the sting. And the next time they're stung, and they don't get proper aid, then they......."
He trailed off, and then paused. "That's what it is, isn't it?"
Gladion put the paper cup down, and nodded. "I don't know how. How I got such a severe aversion to Nihilego venom. My best guess is that I've already been infected once when I was younger.."
"Wait, Lusamine can't be that h-"
"She can," Gladion clenched his fist.
His head felt like it was going to shatter. "My stomach hurts," he coughed, as he grabbed the sheets for balance and felt the world around him sway in a hypnotic dance now that the adrenaline was out of his system.
Stumbling to a nearby basin, he vomited out all the liquid toxin in his body, and he noticed most of it was either a sick shade of purple or thick crimson blood. The room swayed, along with the white light-too bright- and his body gave way and slumped to the floor.
You have a death wish, Gladion Aether. Then why don't you just up and die right now?
Threads of poison levitated before him and formed the shape of the Ultra Beast's body as it wrapped two tentacles around his throat and violently slammed him down onto the tiles, again and again and Lusamine's laugh echoed everywhere
Everywhere-
A pair of arms looped under his shoulders and pulled him up hard; he saw a familiar face and green hair pulled into a spiky ponytail.
"Hau, what are you doing here?"
******************************************************
"Is this really necessary?"
"We would prefer if you minimized the complaints, Master Gladion. After all, we are doing this for your own good."
Colress withdrew the needle, gaining an ample supply of blood from the lymph node. Walking over to the bench, he emptied its contents into a round flask and set the syringe aside.
"For his own good.." Right. More like for research purposes. He just felt like a guinea pig in this overly white room.
"When will the reaction test results come out?" he slurred, flexing his fingers. Arceus, where was Lillie? He sat up slowly, running his nails over his arms; an inherited habit from the venom. "Grimsley said that you and Miss Wicke were working on it."
The Unovan scientist tapped his chin. "Did he really say that? Well, actually, it would take about three days to fully analyze. After all, Symbiont is an Ultra Beast. Any compounds it produces are far too complex to be decoded so quickly."
"That, and I was messing with you."
A new voice came from the doorframe, the source being a worn, pale man with black hair wearing a white Kantonian yukata and a black scarf, a Liepard purring contentedly by his side. "The Battle Tree got boring after a bit. Admittedly, getting beaten at least thrice in a row by the same person chafes your morale a bit. The winners take all, and there's nothing left for the loser."
"Ah, speak of Giratina," Colress said airily, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Alolan Champion giving you trouble?"
"Who else?" the Dark-type trainer sighed. "Actually, it's her, and Cynthia, and Red, and Blue, and-"
"Do not mind his rambling," Colress said to the confused boy. "He's merely, er, venting. When you specialize in Psychic, Ghost, Dark, or Fairy types, the aura that your partners emit does affect you to a certain extent. Some trainers even can understand and feel their emotions. In this case, Grimsley launched into a bad mood when he saw you because of Drapion's influence."
Gladion realised that he had been silent for a bit too long. "Wait, but I didn't-"
"You did not harm Drapion in any way. It's just that he doesn't enjoy using moves or poison on people, especially young children. Even if it was for a small toxin reaction test, he was a bit miffed by the thought of having to sting you. I do admit that you have trained him well, Grimsley. Right upto his full potential!"
"Wait, how do you know about the whole aura thing? Aren't you a Steel fan?" Grimsley laughed, sitting on a nearby stool and playfully flipping an old golden coin. "By the way, right on the money. As much as the old me would hate to say this, when it comes to knowledge, there's very little reliance on chance. No fun. I'm the kind of person who likes hard chances that I might lose."
"So.." Gladion pieced the puzzle together. "You used Drapion's venom because of its type, didn't you?"
"Of course. How did you figure out? Have you learned Typing Studies, Composition and Functions?" Colress asked. The Dark user in the background buried his face in his palms, clearly confused by all the technical talk.
"Yeah. Lu-Mother-made me study that subject in a lot of detail when she was preparing for me to become the next Aether President. And the occasional lapses in my memory because of the venom hasn't exactly dulled my previous knowledge."
"Fascinating," the blond man stated. The black-haired man sitting near the wall looked Gladion dead in the eye; so did his Liepard. "Hey, I never got to ask, but......You okay? After all that?"
"What?" Gladion blurted out, but a few seconds later, he realised what Grimsley was talking about.
"I...I don't know. It's been three years. Almost four, since I, uh, ran away. But I can say that life was actually worse outside than in Aether-at Aether, I didn't starve-but the thing is, at least there was nobody pushing me into anything for a while after I left. So it was better, in that aspect. There's a lot of instances where...either life was better than the other...I can't. Can't.....decide."
He took in a deep breath, recalling every single nightmare he had ever since he had been infected. Strangely, it wasn't painful so much as it was plain numb.
The venom's neurotoxins also had this apparent desensitizing effect on one's emotions, similar to drugs, and he was aware that he would probably never feel again. At least from a heartfelt perspective. Not for a long time. "I know she's here too. But I just..don't. I don't want to visit her. Because I'm scared. I'm scared that she'll stick needles in me or yell at me or-"
"Deep breaths," Colress reminded him, gently holding his shoulder. "In through your nose and out through your mouth."
"No, let him finish," Grimsley grimaced, his Liepard looking troubled, obviously sensing the trouble the boy was feeling inside. "He needs to get this off his chest."
Gladion continued, "Sometimes-only sometimes, okay?-I feel like....killing her. Killing Lusamine, or doing something. Like...I've imagined just pushing her down the stairs whenever she yelled at me or punished me. I know it sounds insane and you might assume that I'm unstable o-or something. But I also know that she's a monster, and I don't want to become that."
He gasped deeply, putting his head in his hands. "I know that I'm not-not normal, or perfectly sane, but I'm not. I'm not Lusamine. I don't want to be."
"Kid, you should get some rest," the Dark-type Trainer said smoothly, patting him on his back. "Miss Wicke and your sister might be away for a bit longer regarding Solgaleo's recovery and Necrozma, but they'll be back in a few hours. We'll also administer you some calming pills after your daily meds if you want."
"Thanks" should have been what he said. Instead, what came out was "What flavour?"
"What flavour," Colress and Grimsley burst out laughing. "There's only Nomel and Kelpsy Berry. Choose," the scientist offered.
"Nomel flavoured calming pills? Arceus hates us."
The three Trainers in the room laughed heartily, momentarily quelling the dour air.
However, the mauve-haired lady standing at the door was only noticed by Colress, who immediately dropped his smile and narrowed his eyes. That topic can be moved onto later.
She pursed her lips, nodded and left quietly.
****************************************************************
He woke up to feel a hand holding his own.
"Lillie?" he murmured, silently squeezing back. Apparently, both her and Moon had visited him quite a few times, along with Hau, but due to the toxins' effects, his memories on those times were skewed beyond belief and therefore inaccessible. At this point, he was used to it. "What time is it?"
She pushed a few strands of hair behind her ear. "Around 5 p.m. I got you some granola bars in case you were hungry."
"Thanks," he whispered, sitting up and accepting the food. It was dark chocolate and raspberry flavoured, and he immediately took a liking to it. It was much better than instant ramen or one too many PokeBeans. Looking around, his Pokemon were still asleep. "So you're a Trainer now?"
Lillie winced, and he took that as a sign that she had already told him, but he had forgotten yet again. "I'm sorry, that was-"
"Mother's worse," she replied quietly, a few tears shining in her eyes. "She hardly remembers what I told her in Ultra Space all those months ago. And sometimes, she acts very nice one second, and the next, she's like....like before."
"Gladion, if you're going to apologise, you don't need to. Back then, you were actually going to take me along with you, but I was the one who declined. It's not your fault that I stayed behind with her." She was looking at him with so much exhaustion and pity and love and it made his heart bleed.
Her brother was nearly driven to tears. "How many times have I said that?" His voice broke, not wanting to hear the answer. "How many times have you heard an apology from me that I don't even remember?"
Lillie held herself, her delicate frame shaking. "Too many times to count, Gladi," she cried out before embracing him, weeping tears worth all the apologies he wished he could have said to her.
He wasn't sure he could remember all of them.