Chapter Text
Crystal awoke on the day she'd always known she'd meet her new companion. A Ralts whom she would nickname Rinne.
"My promised day..." She whispered as she threw off her blankets telekinetically and stood. Her Pokephone 40, which doubled as her Pokemon League Trainer's License and pokedex, beeped with a notification. No number. Yet the name said Rinne. It read...
This is it. This is the day I come home for the first time. I'm happy! Are you happy, too?!
A psychic text message. Expected as the rest of the day, yet nice to see. Crystal got dressed and walked downstairs, looking through the door to her mom's bedroom as she passed by to shoot her a gentle smile. Crystal's mom slept with a smile on her face, but Crystal liked to think that such expressions still meant something, even if the person couldn't see.
Visions of the future were normally not easy for her. Even for the most gifted psychics and mystics, time had a foggy quality to it that was hard to see through. Yet this day had always been clear in her mind. Every event. Every word spoken. Every person she'd meet. This was a day of no surprises. She wasn't meeting a new friend. She was reuniting with an old one.
She glided through the bustling streets of Iridescent Village. She knew it was Iridescent Village... her history teacher had taught her that it had once matched that name long ago. Now while it had never quite gained the skyscrapers of a true city, and still thankfully held the touch of nature, huge sections of forests behind houses, open fields surrounding houses, it's population had grown beyond the title of 'village...'
Yes, she loved her home town, but she lived for the occasional visits to the Diamond City department store. She may have been quiet, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy shopping for clothes as much as the next girl.
Much like some psychic pokemon, she'd relied on her telekinetic abilities for long enough that her muscles had grown frail and she'd long since had to use telekinesis to assist them. It was something league trainers often admonished her for, but...
It had strengthened her talents greatly. What was the harm exactly?
A flicker, a vision of herself in a machine similar to a wheelchair, moving by telekinesis.
Would it really be so awful if she could still function? Her psychic skills let her forgo the sweat, the stickiness, and the huffing and puffing that using only her body brought... Why did she need muscle when training her psychic abilities allowed her to lift far more without strain? So she could be like her rival, Darian?
Speaking of him, this was about where he was supposed to show up today, and of course he did. Right on schedule.
"Well, if it isn't the town zombie!" Darian commented.
Crystal just stared at him. Why respond to barbs that had long since lost their spike?
"Hello? Ugh... Even more of a zombie than usual today..."
She wasn't sure if she should just move on... Maybe it was good she didn't know everything that would happen every day. This was making her afraid to break from the script...
"Well, I got a machop today! I'm sure it'll beat whatever dumb brainy smarty you get."
Brainy smarty... Did that even count as an insult? Crystal ignored him as she always had in her visions of this moment. She simply waited for him to finish.
"Ugh... just don't get your spooky magic on me!"
He walked away. He'd always been like that... But she also knew he didn't hate her. He was scared of her... Just as fighting pokemon feared psychic pokemon, the jock boy feared power that came purely from mind.
She continued toward the mountain lab... A strange place where psychic, ghost, and some types of fighting pokemon gathered. It had been taught in history class that it was a temple ages ago, but scientists had wished to study the phenomenon reported there, and so now, scientists, priests and mystics tried to coexist there. With... limited success.
Crystal walked into the cavernous entrance, seeing the natural beauty of the mountain marred by machines was always a bit painful... Though the scientists and engineers at least had the sense to disguise most of the tech as much as they could. It wasn't quite enough, and Crystal had to wonder how many of the pokemon who lived there had been disrupted.
"No, Professor Blackthorn, I'm afraid I can't approve of your putting devices into the central altar. We don't know what we may be warping or shifting," She heard the town elder, Myros, say.
The elder of Iridiscent Village. It was a village in name only, at least in her fourteen years... From what she'd been taught in history, the elder position used to be something that had a lot more authority. Now it was mostly just the oldest person in town living in the mountain lab and temple...
"But think about what we could learn! All safety measures have been taken. The energies that flow through this place are known to us," Argued Professor Blackthorn. "We merely wish to observe them at the center of it all!"
Elder Myros sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't like your request... But your irreverence for the powers involved has not endangered this town yet... Fine, place your machine at the center and prove your empty, mechanistic views of the universe correct!"
I stepped forward, knowing I'd be asked.
"Ah, Crystal! Excellent timing, the pokemon here are soothed by your presence!" Professor Blackthorn clapped his hands, "Would you mind walking with me? I don't want to get attacked under this mountain."
Crystal smiled back, speaking her line simply, "I don't mind at all." She looked to Elder Myros, "If it hurts the pokemon, I'll blast the machine, alright?"
Elder Myros chuckled, and Professor Blackthorn blanched. "That won't happen! We've made certain, so... I suppose it's an acceptable loss on the offchance it does," Professor Blackthorn sighed.
Crystal knew it wouldn't hurt them anyway... But it would wake something ancient. Powerful. Something people went lifetimes searching for and never found, and Crystal was blessed to not only witness it this day, but to know she was going to witness it.
It was calling her. She didn't know the ancient, mythical pokemon's name, but she heard its song, one that vibrated through the star shaped amethyst embedded in her forehead. A psychic focus she'd been inexplicably born with...
And so she led the way into the darkness. Pokemon indeed had always been soothed by the aura she radiated, they felt safe in her presence. The cavern shrunk tighter into a tunnel with every step, but she'd walked this path more times than she could count. She knew the steps by heart. The song grew louder. More rhapsodius. As they followed the path long since carved out for her into a massive cavern, steps led up to an obsidian altar surrounded by amethyst spires.
"Amazing!" Professor Blackthorn stared at the spires, apparently speechless. She couldn't blame him. The song echoed through the spires, lighting a different one up with each note. She walked up the stairs without a word, warmth welling up within at the fact of finally seeing this in person.
'You're here! I was waiting!' Rinne called out telepathically from where she sat on the altar. She floated toward Crystal and landed in her arms. Crystal had to keep a field around her muscles even for something as light as Rinne. She hadn't truly registered it in her visions...
Was this the cost of letting her body atrophy, then? The way that Rinne's touch felt so very distant, her flesh long since numbed by her detachment from flesh? It didn't seem worth it until Rinne's mind touched hers, and she felt Rinne's warmth directly. Peaceful. Loving. 'You do feel like home,' Rinne thought to her.
Professor Blackthorn rushed to the altar, drawing her attention as he set up his machine. "Yes! Yes! This is... what?! What are these readings?!"
His excitement drained away, leaving fear and awe. The song echoed louder as he robotically turned the device on. It reached a crescendo, now echoing through the entire mountain.
The altar and crystals, the plateau on which they stood began to rumble. Even knowing what was going to happen, she couldn't quell her heartbeat. She hugged Rinne tighter.
'It'll be okay,' Rinne soothed. But Rinne was trembling, too.
It erupted. The plateau tore itself from the mountain. She fell, landing painfully on her butt as they were forced to the ground. A blue field poured out above as they shot through the mountaintop with a deafening crash. Crystal drew rasping breaths.
"I don't die here! I don't! I don't!" she shouted frantically.
The plateau began to crack and crumble, the spires shifted positions, forming vaguely into wings. They would fall. It was up to her to save the professor, and Rinne. The Obsidian altar burst from the plateau next. It became the bird's body. It's song rang through the sky. And they fell along with rubble.
Wind rushed past her head. She had to focus. She closed her eyes. A rock smacked her cheek. She tried again, her ears aching. Finally, she slowed their fall.
Crystal opened her eyes, looking down at the entire league below, the mostly untouched island of Sapphira in the west... the department store at the center of Diamond City at the center of the league... This view was incredible every time... Professor Blackthorn was muttering panicked words.
'That was scary...' Rinne clung to her.
The three slowly floated to the ground thanks to her telekinesis, Crystal breathed in and out deeply, trying to quell the panic she'd felt. Crystal landed on her feet, Rinne in her arms, and Professor Blackthorn was laid down on the ground. He slowly got to his feet, eyes wide as he too tried to breathe it all in.
After a long silence, he spoke up, "Well. I'm glad I asked you... who would've ever guessed that the altar was a dormant pokemon?! That was unlike anything I'd ever seen! Crystal! Thank you for saving my life! I owe you everything. Moreover... I have to report these findings, what readings I picked up... The scanner! Where is it?!"
"I doubt it survived..." Crystal deadpanned.
"Yes, I fear you're right... Fortunately, the findings were saved to the cloud. But that device was not the easiest thing to fund... Still, I'm sure I'll be able to build another when I send them what I've discovered!"
Crystal looked up at the sky... The song, though it had faded from their surroundings, still echoed to her within her crystal. She had to wonder if she would hear it her entire life. It seemed that this strange new pokemon wasn't done with her yet.