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Quiet. Not even a breeze to rustle leaves and remind the two souls standing before a lonely tomb that the world still turned. The brilliant green of the overgrown grasses that grew around the once splendid, now crumbling castle was a stark contrast to the dull gray of the stone. The partly cloudy sky cast different pieces of the structure in shade, while other sections glistened and glittered in the sun.
Rosa absently scratched the zoroark beside her behind the ear, but maintained a silent vigil over the gravestone before her. A low whine, sad and lonely, met her ears and tugged at her heartstrings. It had been a few years and still the memory stung.
The confidence he wore on his face that day never burned away. Arms outstretched, defiant before the inevitable as a dragon bore down upon someone N had sworn to protect.
Rosa dug in her bag and removed a lighter and a box of cigarettes. It wasn't quite a habit; she only smoked when was she was stressed out or depressed, and being here always made her feel a bit of both.
"Ain't ya a little young to be smoking?" said a teasing voice. She knew this old joke. It stopped being applicable years ago. Rosa brought the lit cigarette to her lips and turned towards the source - it was Hilda. She grinned, then took a drag and exhaled a plume of smoke in the approaching Trainer's face.
"Aren't you a little old to be caring about what other people do?" she replied. Hilda smiled and then dug around in Rosa's bag to help herself to a cigarette herself. "Hey! At least ask."
"What for, you always say yes," replied Hilda, waving the comment off. She pulled a battered old metal lighter featuring the faded image of a heatmor from one of the oversized pockets on her ridiculous shorts and fell silent as she lit the stick and took a few puffs.
N's zoroark padded over to Hilda and rubbed his head against her shoulder. She threw an arm around the fox and laid her head atop his. "I know, me too."
Rosa crossed her arms and frowned, staring down at the immaculate granite headstone between them. It bore a simple epitaph:
A friend to all.
"You ever wonder-" she began.
"If he really thought he'd stop Kyurem with a move like that?" asked Hilda. "We've been over this."
"It was just so… childish."
"Child-like."
"Whatever," said Rosa, waving the correction aside.
"It matters, you know," said Hilda, looking at her friend with her face set. "Kind of a lot. You saw how Zekrom reacted to his body when we finally beat Kyurem out of it."
"Yeah… Alright, sorry. I just don't like thinking about things that way," mumbled Rosa, contemplating the cigarette in her hand. She licked her thumb and forefinger and put it out, then blew on it twice, confirmed it was put out, and stuck it back in the pack.
"Nothing wrong with innocence."
"He died thinking standing in front your friend with your arms out is enough to make a fucking dragon not kill you when it screams you to death."
"Like I said," said Hilda, her tone firm, "Nothing wrong with innocence. If that's what he thought, then good on him. Everyone should be so lucky."
Rosa frowned. "You call that luck?"
Her friend threw her gaze skyward, the cigarette dangling from her lips nearly spent. "You ever look at all the people that died during our fight with Ghetsis?"
"Not really. They were just gang members weren't they? Plasma, but basically just gang members," said Rosa, shrugging.
"Yeah. I wonder how many of them died without anything to believe in."
"Does it…really matter? They died just the same." Rosa crouched down and polished the headstone on N's grave with a stretched out sleeve from her sweater, though it hardly needed it. "Most of them were probably just in it for money anyway. Money or power or any of the usual things people get wrapped up in that life for."
"So why'd you stick around after N died? You coulda run," asked Hilda.
Rosa looked back at her and frowned as she watched her friend finish the cigarette and toss it into a pouch at her side. "He was my friend. Our friend. How was I not going to do something about the fact his own godsdamned father killed him? Or let it happen, anyway." She stood up and cocked her head. "Wouldn't you agree?"
Hilda considered her for a moment, then reached forward and snatched at the hem of her blouse. Rosa backed up before she could grasp it properly and said, annoyed, "What are you doing?"
"You can see a tiny bit of that scar you got. Wanted to make a point."
"Make what point?"
Hilda pulled her vest half off and tugged at one of the shoulders of her tank top, revealing the puncture scars trailing from her beside her clavicle to just above her breast. A long, thin scar ran down the length of her neck. Bullets and claws. All things considered, she got off easy. Rosa reflexively put a hand over her abdomen and suppressed a shiver. "That we tried to help, got fucked up and kept trying anyway. That you believed in something, even when everything seemed like it didn't make sense to. Why the fuck else would you be here as often as I am?"
N's zoroark stepped away from Hilda and crouched down to study his late friend's grave, but remained silent all the while.
"Faith and hope don't keep your ear drums from rupturing or your organs from bursting," mumbled Rosa, watching N's zoroark and frowning. Streaks of green - the same curious green that defined N's bizarre hair - ran through the red and black mane of the fox, but they never stayed for longer than a few seconds.
She couldn't remember the last time he'd actually disguised himself. A pang of sorrow flared in her stomach.
"What else do you got when you're staring death in the eyes?" asked Hilda.
"Nothing. It's that or nothing, I guess."
"What would you rather have?"
Rosa felt herself fly back to a cold, dark place. Alone with a horrible gash in her abdomen and her panting serperior. He was fast, strong and agile. And he'd been fighting desperately to keep her from dying for so long she knew he'd die before she did. What would she have then, if that happened?
Death laid beyond his arched back and vicious snarl. Beyond the flurry of sharp vines and powerful tail slams. But it sat beside her as well, staring down at her as the pool of blood around her widened and her extremities began to cool. The cold silence of her own thoughts pressed themselves forward in the memory.
"If Serperior had died… I wouldn't have had anything. Everyone else was already too hurt to help."
"Really?"
"I mean, yeah. Sending anyone else out - they'd just die. Why throw their lives away too? That'd be the end for me, I guess. At least they'd live."
"So if something was coming at Serperior and you saw it- if Kyurem was staring him down, let's say. Would you do it? Stand there in front of that monster and let whatever happens roll? 'Cos if it was Emboar…" Hilda grinned up at the sky. "Ride or die, y'know?" A shadow crossed her face. "He was the last one standing for me too. And he really shouldn't have been standing after a while."
"It wouldn't do anything to stop it," said Hilda, shrugging.
"Well no shit, Rosa, it's not like I don't know that. But I'd still do it. You wouldn't?"
"Of course I'd do it."
"But you know it wouldn't work," said Hilda, her tone now singsong.
"It's that or nothing," said a voice so familiar it made the two of them jump. They both looked to its source - N's zoroark had partially transformed, and now bore the head of his departed friend and the body of a fox. "That's all anything comes down to, in the end. Something or nothing." The illusion dissipated the second he fell silent, and the fox returned to his quiet mourning.
Rosa was lost for words, but Hilda, her eyes shining, nodded. "That's right," she said, her voice betraying a bit of a quiver, "Why would you ever stand by and…" She paused and took a deep breath, her voice even now but much lower. "...just do nothing?"