Chapter Text
Volo was very much out of his league.
When Tioga had asked him if he had wanted to come to the summit of legendary Pokemon with them, he had been rather on the fence about it. On the one hand, attending a summit of legendary Pokemon was an immense honor, and one that Tioga had told him had not been afforded to humans in centuries. It had happened frequently, once upon a time, when humans had pledged themselves to the worship of the legendary Pokemon, when shrines and memorials and all number of offerings had been gifted in their name, but now that the world was beginning to lean on science and technology the magic was gone and the summits had returned to being Pokemon-only.
“Will it be alright?” he had asked Tioga, fidgeting nervously. “That I come? Is that allowed?”
Tioga, eternally cavalier about anything that required any sort of formality, methodically and with an unusual amount of focus for someone of their persuasion scratching the skin off of an apple for seemingly no reason other than to have done it, said, “Of course it’s allowed. I already got my ass beat for being ‘unruly’ and ‘an affront to God and nature’. You think I’m trying to have that happen again?”
Volo didn’t point out that Tioga continued to be an affront to God and nature. Besides, that was what he liked about them. Instead, he said, “But I’m just a human.”
Tioga was not having this. They hooked a long piece of apple skin on one of their claws and ripped it off like something possessed; their subsequent scratches were far fiercer than they had been previously. “Just a human,” they said incredulously. “He is my entire heart and he thinks he’s just a human.” To him, they said, “Humans used to be invited all the time. Shrine priestesses and so on. I’ll bet you my brother and sister are going to bring Adaman and Irida.”
Volo was unsure what he thought of this. Adaman and Irida had not gotten under his skin the way that that damned Akari had, but he was sure they wouldn’t be thrilled to see him, and he could safely say he shared their sentiment. Still, it didn’t sound like the summit was going to be any sort of thing where he’d be forced to spend time with the other humans that might be invited, so in the end it felt like a net win. Besides, if Tioga went alone, it meant he would be separated from them for an amount of time, no matter how insignificant, and he didn’t like the thought of that at all.
He made his way across the room and lowered himself beside them, leaning into them and resting his head on their shoulder. He saw their hands still on the fruit, their ferocious claws pausing in their process of destruction. He loved them no matter their nature, but knowing he was one of the only beings able to calm them like this, even for a moment, warmed his heart. He gently wrapped his fingers around their wrist; they allowed him. His affection towards them felt like a solid thing — as if he could reach out, grasp at it, and materialize it in his hand. A lazy smile played on his face; he was powerless to stop it in their presence. He turned his head just slightly so that he was nosing at the groove of their neck, his smile pressed against their skin, flushed and warm.
“Of course I’ll go,” he said, and he could feel their anxious energy melt away into happiness as he said it. “You don’t even need to ask. Where you go, I’ll go. No matter what.” He lifted their hand off the apple and pressed the back of it to his lips. The juice from the apple had made it sticky — somehow, that only enhanced the feeling that this was here, and it was now, and it was real. Tioga had a taste, and he was tasting it; this was not a dream or a fantasy or a series of images he was experiencing before he left this mortal coil forever. He trailed his fingers across the gold-plated crescent moon braces that looped around the brown skin of their arms. Warm. Pleasantly so. He blinked up through his eyelashes at them, watching with satisfaction as their face flushed, those beautiful sunset eyes wide. That he could affect them like this still baffled him; he could not understand why a being as beautiful and captivating and divine as they were would care anything for him at all.
“Okay,” they squeaked, and his love for them rushed through his veins like sugar.
He stood now in the grandest, most majestic hall he had ever seen in his life.
This far outpaced the Temple of Sinnoh. The distance of the ceiling, so far overhead, told him that the Temple of Sinnoh could be stacked on itself fifteen or twenty times and still not reach the top. The walls of this strange building were splashed with vibrant colors he was certain he had never witnessed in his life; he tried to come up with a word for a color they were adjacent to and fell short. The columns and sconces holding torches burning with black flame and every other decoration Volo didn’t have a name for because he had never seen such fancy things were so bizarrely designed and shaped that one could not mistake any of them as architecture by a human. Only a being as different from humans as a Pokemon could have envisioned this decor. There were enormous ritual objects of some sort lining the walls — Volo could not even begin to guess what they were for, though he was sure they were commonplace to the beings that must come to this location frequently to meet.
He had materialized on what looked like a long platform. Under his feet was some kind of glazed stone he had never seen before. He clicked his heels against it experimentally — the sound should have echoed around the empty room, but instead remained localized to where he was standing. Farther down was another platform extending out a few feet, and then another, and then the platforms flattened out into a long, reflective floor that ended in the most massive and ornate door that Volo had ever seen. If he walked for half an hour he didn’t think he would have been able to make it from bottom to top.
No one was here, which was very confusing. Volo had expected, when Tioga had teleported the both of them here, to arrive in the midst of an audience of legendary Pokemon, all roaring and growling in some hidden language he wouldn’t be able to understand, and he would just wander around the summit building, a human that did not have a place in the realm of such powerful beings. Instead, he felt as if he had walked into a crypt — it was dead silent here, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that there had not been a single living soul inside for thousands of years.
With no warning at all, Irida appeared beside him. It was as if she had simply strode into existence, not there one moment, and there the next. She, like him, took a few seconds to glance around the enormity of the summit building, but unlike him, she had not arrived alone. She fixed those fiery eyes on him — so unusual, for one who was the handmaiden of an entity associated with water — and said, her mouth a thin line, “So you’re here.”
Okay. So maybe they were a little less than not thrilled to see him. Still, he could work with that. He had expected this sort of reaction once he had come out with his true intentions; to be given the reaction he had expected already was completely unsurprising. He rolled his eyes; aligned with Tioga, he felt untouchable and elevated. He was the treasured creature of a being that did belong here. He would not be made to feel like he was not. “I’m here,” he said mockingly. “Yes, believe it or not, I haven’t met my end in a fiery inferno of my own hubris. My relationship with my god is likely far beyond anything your gods could conceive of with a human.”
Adaman was there, suddenly, at his other side. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his coat — while he gave a low whistle at the grandeur of the palace, he otherwise remained half-lidded and easygoing, that laid-back Diamond Clan personality that Volo secretly despised. He had only ever respected Adaman when the man had gotten fired up in battle, or spoke reverentially about almighty Sinnoh. If a person didn’t have dreams and passion, what were they living for? A mediocre existence day to day? Volo couldn’t stomach the thought.
“Not Arceus anymore, I hear,” Adaman said, as coolly as if he was discussing the weather.
Volo shivered inwardly at the name. He still had not forgotten his encounter with it. If he lived a million years he would never forget the sensation of having an ice pick stabbing away at the inside of your own skull. He would never forget what it had felt like to hold all of the answers to everything he had ever wanted to know and then be unable to unspool that knowledge into a form that a human could comprehend.
He was about to answer when Adaman gave him a once-over with those lazy cat eyes and said, “Nice outfit.”
He hadn’t felt self-conscious about it until Adaman had said something. Not that he regretted wearing it — Tioga had suggested it, and he was more than happy to wear anything that his god asked him to. But by human standards … well, it was a little revealing. His halter top put his bare arms and shoulders on full display, and while he was wearing shorts, they obscenely violated the fingertip rule — they didn’t even come to mid-thigh. He had a light jacket with him, but he kept it off his shoulders, bunched up around his elbows. His mid-calf heels were his favorite part of the outfit — he didn’t know quite why he hadn’t thought to wear such a thing before now. He didn’t need the height, of course, but the sound of them clicking against the glazed floor was incredibly pleasant, and just by wearing them his confidence soared.
“Tioga chose it,” he said, and then, realizing that that made it sound like he would rather not be wearing it, he amended, “I approved it.” And finally, because he was Volo, “I see for you it was a ‘come as you are’ event.”
“I see you had to dress like a slut in order to get someone to stay with you once they saw your hideous true personality,” Irida fired back.
“Shaming me for my choice in clothing,” said Volo, rolling his eyes. “I can see why Palkia chose you as its handmaiden. You simply ooze with class.”
Irida was about to respond, and seemed truly upset at not being able to do so as a rift opened in space and time. This was far from the rift Giratina had clawed open above Mt. Coronet — that had been a desperate and angry thing. This rift was simply a slice in the fabric of reality, as neat as if someone had taken a sharp-edged knife and slit it like fabric. A series of things happened, but none of the humans could process any of them; they were movements that made no sense to beings unable to perform them. In their memories, there was only the rift opening, and then Tioga standing before them, looking incredibly abashed and scratching at the back of their neck in embarrassment.
“My heart,” Volo said immediately to them. He couldn’t help it. He was assaulted by the strength of his feelings. His hands came up to press against his chest, where his heartbeat was steadily drumming along, which was so very strange when Tioga, his true heart, was several feet away.
Irida blanched beside him. “God. You have pet names for each other. Seriously?”
Tioga stopped mid-scratch to narrow their eyes at Irida. It was all they needed to do — they were currently in their divine form, and being regarded by a fifty-foot-tall creature that could throw you across the room without even thinking about it was intimidating enough that Irida backed down. They returned their gaze to Volo and said, “Hi, my heart. Sorry for the hold-up. Traffic was abysmal. And by that I mean—” because they knew that quite a number of things they said were completely nonsensical, “—that I was caught up. Talking. To … certain people.”
As if on cue, two more rifts opened in reality, and two new beings appeared from them. Both were nearly the same height as Tioga — the one on the left, garbed all in blue and silver, was a few feet taller, and the one on the right, similarly dressed but trading blue for pink, was just a smidge shorter than them. Unlike Tioga, they exuded royalty; even though they looked human, they could never be mistaken as such, even if they hadn’t been enormous. Tioga emanated something, but that something did not quite have a name: It was easy to tell that they were something more, but what measure of more they were was difficult to discern. It was why he had been unsure of their true identity for so long.
They were also quite different from Tioga in another way — their fashion sense. While Tioga enjoyed the cowl-neck thing that left their arms bare, something he was sure must have come from another time, because it was so out of place in this one, the two new arrivals favored complex and elegant kimonos, each adorned with any number of ribbons and gemstones and images splashed across them must have told a story laid out in their entirety. Their geta made sounds against the floor as well, but this time, the sound echoed — Volo realized with a start that he was too small to make any lasting sound outside of a localized area. The things he had thought of as platforms were merely stairs for a much larger being. This building was made for colossal deities; he could never have hoped to affect it.
The being on the left fidgeted with a long navy braid intertwined with silvery fibers. Its fingers were long, elaborate things. “They are so diminutive. I didn’t realize. Is that you down there, little Adaman?”
Volo looked over — Adaman was nearly bent in half bowing. “Lord Dialga,” he said reverently.
“And I think that little thing over there is yours, Paru.” Dialga gestured at Irida, who was doing the same thing as Adaman, her headpiece dangerously close to falling off. “You told us they were little, Gira, but I didn’t think you meant exiguous. Is this size going to be small enough for them?”
This query cemented one of Volo’s theories — the divine form Tioga took was not at all their true size, and was merely as compact as they could get while still allowing their unbridled divinity to be displayed. He wondered at the limit of it; he knew Pokemon shrank to fit inside of their PokeBalls, but he hadn’t known that they could go the other way.
Tioga huffed the way one could only manage when dealing with siblings. “It’s a good size. ‘cause then you can do this — come along, my darling.”
Unsure of what Tioga was referring to, Volo stepped forward. In a series of movements he couldn’t quite follow, Tioga had lifted him so that he was positioned at the crook of their arm, his legs hanging off the inside edge, the bend of their upper arm supporting him on the left side. He gripped the material of their top tightly, but he needn’t have; his perch was much wider than he had been expecting, and he felt intensely safe and secure upon it. He supposed he should have felt a little insulted that he was being carried like a child, but Tioga wasn’t doing it to disrespect him. On the contrary — being held like this was not a closeness that anyone shared with their god except for him.
“And it’s not Gira anymore,” Tioga continued. “It’s Tioga. Remember I told you I like it better.”
“Ah,” said Palkia, “right.” Its voice, unlike Dialga’s, sounded like you could dip your hand into it and come away with beads of liquid on your fingertips. It was not decorous like Dialga’s, but you could not say it wasn’t cultivated. It fit into a strange groove somewhere off to the side. “You were telling us about that.”
Dialga was regarding the setup Tioga and Volo had adopted with enormous eyes. It was hovering one of those long, thin fingers dangerously close to Volo. “I cannot get over how miniscule you all a— oh.”
This abbreviated sentence was Tioga’s fault — seeing how close their sibling was getting to Volo, they had sunk their sharp teeth into Dialga’s finger. Volo was equal parts horrified and thrilled: horrified, of course, because he had heard the bone inside crunch, but thrilled because he loved seeing the ardency with which Tioga would protect him from even a perceived slight.
Dialga chuckled when it saw Volo’s face. “No need to be alarmed, little thing. I am quite adept in the field of recovery.”
“And,” said Palkia, “violence is not a behavior uncommon to Tioga. It is why our father excommunicated them.”
Tioga narrowed their eyes. “Dad’s not gonna be here, is it? ‘cause, man, if it is, I swear to God I’m OUTTIE.”
“Father will not be here,” Palkia said. “That being said, however, we are almost definitely going to be the last ones to arrive at the summit. If it pleases everyone, we should be on our way.”
The summit was actually taking place in the next room over, astoundingly. It was just some trick of the legendary Pokemon to cause no sound to escape the enormous, ornate door set into the wall that Tioga, Dialga, and Palkia had brought them through.
Just like when he had first arrived, Volo was overcome with awe. He had been expecting all the Pokemon to be in their natural forms and making their natural sounds; he hadn’t expected in the least to be able to understand them. But here they were, all in forms that looked human with callbacks to their Pokemon forms, just like the creation trio, and all of them speaking what might not actually be Japanese, but sounded that way through some arcane magic to Volo’s ears. The summit room itself was even larger than the last room, and Volo felt a certain vertigo looking up and seeing a ceiling so far away he could never hope to reach it. He wondered if it had been built that high out of necessity. What Pokemon could possibly have a form that enormous?
As the six of them made their way to their respective seats (such a human setup, Volo thought, these concentric benches with the names of each legendary Pokemon on placards on the benches in front of them), Volo’s gaze swept the room. He recognized some of the Pokemon from the legends he had studied fervently — there, Lugia, in a layered white-and-blue dress with blue headpieces that resembled its fins and the plates surrounding its eyes; there, Rayquaza, with olive-green hair tamed by interspersed beautiful golden hair decorations; over there, Mew, in an adorable little pink outfit that made it look like a grade schooler, its sakura-colored hair tied in a braid so long that it ended up resembling its tail. Beside it was what the placard labeled as “Mewtwo”, dressed in some sort of futuristic garb that caught the light at odd angles. It was holding Mew’s hand tightly, despite being more than twice Mew’s height. It looked incredibly nervous.
Volo tugged at the material of Tioga’s top. When they looked down at him, he mouthed, “Mew two?”
“Oh,” Tioga said quietly, “from your perspective, it hasn’t been born yet. This thing kinda takes place outside of time and space and, like, reality in general. So this is probably its first summit.” They rolled their eyes. “Not like I would know. I haven’t been welcome at this thing for like the last bajillion years on account of things like being too belligerent and stealing all the cheese cubes. Like it’s my fault they put the cheese cubes out and expect people not to eat them.”
While all of the legendaries were exhibiting some form of hushed conversation, a groan from behind the creation trio could be heard above it. “Great,” said the owner of this frustrated sound, “they let you back in here.”
Armed with uncontestable love for Tioga, Volo looked past them to see the offender. Up a level on the concentric benches sat what appeared to be a brother and sister duo: the male was a white-haired young adult with a triangular red ornament in his hair and a long blue scarf tied backwards around his neck, while the female was shockingly similar except that she was red everywhere he was blue, and vice versa. The brother appeared to be the type to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice, while the sister had her hands laid comfortingly on his arm, most likely to remind him not to throw himself over the bench and start a fight with another legendary at a summit meeting. “I’m so sorry for my brother,” she was saying remorsefully, seeing the hostility written all over Volo’s face. “It’s been a very long time since Giratina was at a summit. Rumors … ah … abounded.”
“Ain’t rumors if they’re true,” the brother hissed back.
This did not seem to faze Tioga. They barely even looked behind them as they said, “Knock it the fuck off, Latios. We have guests.”
Latios scowled. It was an expression that looked to have been created precisely to be on his face. “Humans, huh? Been forever since we had any of those. You bring that one as a snack for me?” He punctuated this by licking his lips and then flashing his sharp teeth directly at Volo, who wished very badly that his reaction had been one of fearlessness and not one of retreating further into the crook of Tioga’s arm.
“Latios, I’m serious. I’ll kick your flat ass from here to next century.”
It continued in this fashion until Tioga, Dialga, and Palkia had found their places mercifully about a quarter of the room away from Latios and his sister. All three of them took their seats and deposited their humans on the benches that rose up in front of them — Adaman and Irida were standing together and trying to hide their laughter at the scene that had just taken place but were failing miserably. His pride wounded, Volo turned his back to them and crossed his arms, which only succeeded in kickstarting another round of giggles from them. To drown out their childish behavior, he asked Tioga, “What on earth was that? Back there, with Latios?”
Tioga cast their eyes skyward and leaned forward so that their chin rested on the bench Volo was standing on. “It’s because I can kick his flat ass from here to next century. And he is so pressed about it.” They turned their head suddenly so that their right cheek was pressed against the cool material of the wood — or stone that looked like wood — or something else entirely — Volo wasn’t quite sure — and sighed. He could see the irritation in their eyes as they revisited the fact that it was likely none of the other legendaries actually wanted them here.
Dialga’s hand came over to place itself upon Tioga’s left knee, squeezing it in solidarity. “It’s alright,” it said, seeing its sibling’s distress. “You haven’t been able to be here to defend yourself, Gir. It’s no fault of yours, the things others will come up with.”
Volo, feeling courageous and lovestruck, glanced over his shoulder at Dialga and fixed it with a cool and steely look. “You were here, I assume. You could have defended them.”
On the other side of Dialga, Palkia gave him a blank look. “Why?”
“Wh— Why? Because they’re your sibling!” He turned halfway around now; he could not believe what he was hearing. It was unfathomable that you could enjoy this sort of relationship with someone and not want to defend their honor at every opportunity. His arms were crossed even more tightly; he didn’t care how blasphemous he might be considered, or how easily he could be dashed against the surface of the colossal bench he was standing on for his insolence. He only cared about the hurt in Tioga’s eyes that they tried desperately to keep hidden. It might have worked with everyone else, but Volo and Tioga shared the same heart. He knew them better than anyone — apparently, even better than their brother and sister. “Don’t you care about them? Doesn’t it pain you to hear the things said about them when they’re not around to witness it?”
Dialga and Palkia shared a bewildered expression. It had not even occurred to the two of them to defend Tioga. Volo felt insane — surely this wasn’t a ridiculous thing to ask. No, it wasn’t — he saw Adaman and Irida who, for all their animosity towards him, were gazing up at their gods as well, questions in their eyes. Humans had a tendency to humanize everything around them; it was surprising to them that the beings they worshiped had a moral backbone so different from their own, even though Pokemon were entirely different beings than humans.
“I hate to say it,” Adaman started, shoving his hands into his pockets once again, “but he’s kind of right.”
Irida could not even meet Palkia’s eyes — she had inclined her head and closed her own eyes, possibly in fear of seeing any disappointment in her in Palkia’s face. “That’s what the meaning of a clan is. To protect and defend your fellow members. And a family is even more intimate. If horrible things were being said about Tioga, regardless of if they were true, you probably should have said something to let the people saying it know it wasn’t okay.” She seemed to catch herself and amended, “That is, if I could be so bold to say such a thing.”
Volo turned back around to see Tioga. If they had been a little more human, he thought they might have had tears in their eyes at this unexpected defense by such unexpected people. As it was, their eyes were simultaneously a fiery orange sun and the culmination of such a star’s life as it ended, collapsing into a black hole. He could feel how intensely his own eyes shone with love — he took a few steps forward, placed his hands against their skin, and pressed a long, warm-hearted kiss to their forehead.
“You’re the nicest,” Tioga said miserably.
Volo smiled against their skin. “I love you so much, Tioga.”
Tioga’s index finger came up behind him to stroke his back. He curled pleasantly inside at the sensation. “I’d do anything for you, my heart.”
From across the room, raucous laughter exploded.
“OH MY GOD LMAO WAIT HOLD ON YOU’RE DATING THAT LITTLE GUY?? HOLY SHIT LMFAOOOO THIS IS FUCKING RICH”
With some measure of irritation, Volo looked back over his shoulder — half a room away, Latios was in hysterics, slamming his fist on the bench repeatedly. Latias had entirely given up trying to control him. She gave him a helpless shrug that telegraphed that there was really nothing else that could be done.
The conversations, and consequently Latios’s discordant laughter, came to a halt in what Volo considered the first charitable act of the evening. He followed the eyes of the other legendaries to see that a woman across the room had removed a golden fan resembling tail feathers from her mouth and was now regarding the summit as if they were schoolchildren and she was waiting for them to be silent. She really was something else. Volo was stunned by her beauty. The sunset-orange hikizuri kimono she was wearing pooled around her; her kushi was as golden as the sun and curled upward like the crest of a bird. Rainbow ribbons trailed outwards from some unknown source inside her clothing. Her makeup was of the fashion that Volo had only ever known stage performers or members of royal families to wear — all in all, she was a vision. Magnificence. Splendor.
Tioga had moved so that their chin was once again resting on the bench and their arms formed a pen around Volo, who, sensing that the summit was about to start, had adopted seiza. “That’s Ho-oh,” they said in a whisper. “I don’t blame you for staring. She’s very beautiful.”
Volo lifted one of his hands from his lap to brush the back of it against Tioga’s face. “She is,” he agreed, “but you’ll always be more beautiful to me.”
Beneath his hand he felt the warmth rising to Tioga’s face and settling just above their cheekbones. “Yeah?”
“Of course,” he assured them. “I’m exceptionally proud to be yours.”
Ho-oh was beginning to speak now; she did so regally, as everything she did seemed to be, without intention. Volo felt he was in the presence of a long-lived empress, one that had seen wars and times of peace and treaties and dynasties come and go. “Thank you all for coming,” she said in a lovely, fire-spun voice. “As is the case every time we meet, I am delighted to see new and returning faces. Mewtwo,” —here, the aforementioned Pokemon stiffened, and Mew set to work patting its face gently, comforting it in quiet coos and some private unintelligible language shared between the two of them — “we look forward to seeing you at future summits, and your presence is quite welcome here.” She turned and fixed her eyes on Tioga — Volo felt himself straighten as if someone had placed an iron pole against his spine, but Tioga didn’t move. They remained reminiscent of a bored schoolchild mere minutes from dozing off.
“Giratina,” said Ho-oh, “I am pleased to see you attending once more. Rest assured that I, at least, regretted your absence for so long terribly. I am positive that there are others who also share this sentiment.”
Tioga gave Ho-oh a casual salute — just a quick, flippant movement of two fingers from their forehead outwards. On anyone else it would have seemed insolence, but on Tioga no gesture would have seemed sincere but this one.
“I see,” said Ho-oh, “that you and your siblings have also decided to bring humans to this event. To the humans, I say: Attending is a great honor. You are much welcomed and your presence will go a long way towards closing the divide between our kind and yours.”
Volo glanced over at Adaman and Irida — they, too, had adopted seiza, and had respectfully inclined their heads toward Ho-oh. He followed suit.
“Moving along ... we will have two additional new guests with us today — one human, and one Pokemon. You will notice that the Original One — its name be praised — is not present.”
The whiplash that hit him was so sudden it felt a physical thing. Volo jerked his head back up and fixed Ho-oh with startled eyes; she was no longer looking at him, but he wouldn’t have been able to change his expression even if she was. Its name be praised? He would spend the rest of eternity cursing it for what it had done to him and the person he loved more than anything else in this world. Did she know its true nature? Did she know how it had told him to his face that it had no heart? Did anyone?
“That being said,” continued Ho-oh, “it has sent along a separate proxy than the one we are all familiar with. If I may introduce a new fragment of the Original One, its name be praised — Carnifex, and its guest …”
And here, Volo felt the monumental room spin around him, because what the fuck, what the fuck, what the FUCK,
“—Akari.”
