Chapter Text
The Storm
"ＳＩＬＥＮＣＥ!"
Cyrus cry rings out, -the sound nearly swallowed by the realms overbearing emptiness, yet echoing louder and louder through their skulls until it seemed as though their eardrums might burst.
Cythnia curses under her breath, eyes still narrowed. -She spares a quick glance at Dawn; the girl's eyes are locked on Cyrus with a mix of fear and determination.
While she held no doubt the girl would fight until the bitter end, she was starting to tremble. Cynthia tightens her grip, her arm keeping Dawn as steady on her feet as they could manage upon their wobbling patch of 'land'.
Cyrus was also shaking; not from exhaustion, but from unmanageable fury.
Her boots dig a little deeper into the dirt, keeping Dawn firmly behind her.
"You blather too much!" he snarls; "That's how you justify 'spirit' as something worthwhile!?" His disbelief radiates from his stance, as though the very idea of hope and harmony were toxic to his very core.
Cythnia supposed that at this point in her once-friend's life, they might be.
"Your delusions may work on children," he spits, clearly hoping to strike a nerve; -Cynthia can feel Dawn's hands clenching, and she hopes the girl can feel how much she believes in her-
"Delusions?" she repeats; her arm aching from holding Dawn so close. -But with how unstable this inexplicable world is, she doesn't dare let the girl go.
"Yes, delusions," Cyrus carries on; he hunches over, a little out of breath, -giving Cynthia hope that exhaustion was finally catching up to him.
Perhaps if he tired himself out... she thinks.
"'Hope' is just for humans to convince themselves that their pathetic little lives are happy and safe!"
"𝘏𝘦'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘯𝘦..." Dawn murmurs; -the insult is quiet, but it's monumental coming from the sweet-hearted girl. That even a child could see how far Cyrus had fallen...
Cynthia might've laughed, if two worlds weren't hanging in the balance.
"It's because your spirit is broken," Dawn continues, speaking up; the girl shivers, -and Cynthia feels a strange pride as the girl finds her voice.
Dawn manages to stand a little taller; having just braved the a god, the man before her feels smaller. "-You're filled with rage and hate and frustration!"
"Enough-"
Cyrus' order cuts through the air like a scyther's blade.
For a moment, -that could have been a second, a minute, an hour, or literal eternity- there is more deafening silence. Their expressions, equally unwavering, hold multitudes of emotions barely held at bay. A young Dawn, clinging to her side, strengthens Cynthia's resolve.
They could not give up here.
She could not give up here.
Dawn, and the future, needed her, -to be right. To be strong, to be resolute.
Her fingers hover over her Lucario's ultraball.
Waiting.
Daring.
Even on her last two pokemon, she and her team were a force to reckoned with.
And Cyrus knew it.
Dawn sucks in a breath, gripping her tighter.
....
....
The silence seems to hurt Cyrus the most. His scowl deepens into disgust.
"...It is clear we will never see eye to eye."
It's not a change of heart, or even a passing feign of an apology, but Cynthia can't say she's surprised by her once-friend's bitter stubbornness.
"That is... a way to put it," she supposes.
"Are you... done then?" Dawn asks carefully, -and though her voice is youthful, it doesn't sound at all from a place of naivety, though Cynthia knows Cyrus would claim differently.
It came from a tired place.
A place of regretting what had come to pass.
"We're done," Cynthia answers firmly. Her eyes still locked on Cyrus', threatening on no uncertain terms what was to happen if he persisted.
Defeat etches into the man's face, souring him further.
"...For now," he replies; at his sides, his knuckles turn bone white as he clenches them. His expression turns sinister. "But I will promise you this: I will break the secrets of the world. And with that knowledge, I will make a perfect and complete world of my own. And when I do, you two will awaken in that world, and know it as my creation."
"Killing everything won't fix you or make your ugly feelings go away," Dawn replies, her voice eerily calm. Cynthia spares her another glance; her shoulders relax a little, catching the understanding in Dawn's eyes.
"-Even if you made a new world, you'd still be stuck with yourself; only love can mend hate," the girl finishes. "And I don't think you'd love yourself enough to fix that."
Her remark strikes him, -Cynthia can see it in the widening of his eyes and the tremble in the single step back he takes.
"A world without spirit is just an empty void," Cynthia adds, more to reaffirm Dawn than to add salt to Cyrus' wounds. Her Spirittomb shifts within its Duskball, rattling her belt softly. "-Even the dead leave feelings behind."
The flash of acknowledgement in Cyrus' eyes is truly frightening; for though he did not say it aloud, the clear desperation within him longed for that void.
"Why not finish me then. Stop me," he baits.
"Cynthia..." Dawn mewls, a small, sad protest.
"I can. If I must," she warns; Dawn's plea cracking it's way through her heart. "Are you going to make me?"
A sick sort-of smile starts to spread across his face.
"-Ending me in front of her would prove a valuable lesson, no?" he laughs.
Her body aches.
"It's time for you to leave," Cynthia warns, raising Lucario's ball. "This is your only warning. Get lost. Now."
The ultimatum is clear.
Cyrus doesn't huff or snarl, -he gets turns, and slinks away.
The Distorted Realm warps around him with every step he takes.
And in only a moment (-a Second? -An hour? -a Life?)
He is gone.
Cynthia lowers Lucario's ball, feeling the various aches in her body.
Dawn looks up at her, her bright eyes so terribly concerned.
"Your face..."
Cynthia feels the stinging again as Dawn mentions it, -her hair whipping fine cuts along her cheeks as the Realm breaks down without its god.
Dawn reaches up, wiping her cheek, as she carries the old god's capsule in the other.
Cynthia gently grabs the caressing wrist, and holds it between them.
-It looked far too small, to be carrying such burdens.
But that was the way of their world.
The world they just fought to save.
She lifts her gaze to meet Dawn's, steel-gray meeting slate-blue.
Slowly, the young hero shifts in her grasp. As (moments?) tick by, their battle stance softens as they remain holding each other.
As the battle-high begins to fade, Cynthia searches her heart-
...What could she say, after everything they'd just witnessed?
Everything they'd just done.
Dawn's eyes start to glisten.
She pulls the girl to her for a proper hug, one Dawn melts into immediately. The girl buries her face into Cynthia's chest; she feels Dawn's tears before they start.
"...Since we can feel Sadness, we can feel Joy," she offers. -Slowly, but surely.
The girl nods a little, smearing tears and face-glitter across her skin.
She smiles at that, as the girl pulls away.
"Sorry I..."
She runs a hand down Dawn's hair, picking her words choice by choice:
"When Anger rises, Compassion is born."
Dawn watches her, rubs the tears from her face, and slowly takes her hand.
A little Warmth returns to both of them, -Cynthia is rewarded with a smile.
The stumble a little, as the 'ground' shifts beneath them, reminding her that they were on borrowed 'time'.
She looks from Dawn, to the barley-formed world ripping itself apart around them.
They needed to leave.
Her eyes drift to the void-glowing hole where Giratina had ripped non-existence apart.
'Legends stated that this pokemon exists on the other side of our own world-'
...Would the portal work?
A little voice inside herself forced her to push down any doubts; it had to work because she needed it to work.
They didn't have another choice.
Dawn catches her working out their logistics, and squeezes her hand.
She smiles brightly. -Bright enough to outshine the fear gnawing away at every fiber of her soul.
"Let's go home. The portal Giratina used to get here should also be able to take us back."
Dawn nods.
"Makes sense to me," she agrees.
Cynthia pauses; not out of a change of heart, but from the way Dawn's hand clutches the monster-god's ball tightly against her vest.
She carefully takes Dawn's hands in her own; she needed to impart the gravity of the situation to her, -but by Arceus, she didn't want the tender hearted girl buckling from the cruelty of fate.
Dawn's eyes grow wide, -with fear? -apprehension? Cynthia can't tell, nor does she feel comfortable prying.
"-When we get back, I'd like you to keep Giratina a secret. It may take me a few months to stamp out the last of Cyrus' groupies," she explains, apology slipping into the way she holds Dawn's hands in her own. "I'll keep a fake capsule on me, -hopefully, any would-be copy-cats will target me and the phony instead."
The breath Dawn holds peters out.
"That'd be okay," she agrees.
Cythnia offers her another smile, squeezing her hands for good measure. -The tactile comfort was grounding, in this un-place.
"Home then," she urges, "Do you need me to carry you?"
"...Please?" relief washes over Dawn's eyes.
Ignoring the protest in her own muscles, Cynthia scoops the younger girl into her arms; -thankfully, she'd spent years holding her Gibble as a young trainer, and Dawn's weight was less overbearing than that, even in their current state.
-It was probably safer this way anyway...
She didn't trust this reality not to separate them...
The young girl wraps her arms around her neck, and Cynthia pretends not to see the hint of a blush on Dawn's cheeks.
Okay, well. She notices a little: chuckling to herself, thankful for the small sign that Dawn hadn't been terribly broken somehow, by 'all' of everything...
And maybe, just maybe, that (she) was okay too.
"What's so funny?" Dawn murmurs, nestling her face in Cynthia's neck-lining fur.
"...I feel like a Dragon with a Princess, carrying you like this," she giggles.
Dawn squeaks, burying her face deeper into her collar.
Feeling lighter despite her aching body, Cynthia walks towards the portal, -blindly hoping the Realm around them would form the 'land' they needed to cross.
Step by step, -and one particularly ankle-shattering leap down, they make it.
When they reach it, Cynthia's lungs are on fire, but she doesn't dare put Dawn down.
-A decision that proves both their salvation and their undoing, as the forgotten god's roar tears through the portal.
"But-" Dawn shrieks, as Cynthia drops to her knees; "I caught It-it cant-!!"
-Dark shadows whip out, as strands of fracturing reality splinter apart-
-As they are pulled into the portal,
Blinding white light, searing reds, and void-filled Nothingness overtake them. . .
It's painful, -more painful than Dawn or Cynthia can stand.
And then, there is Nothing.
A Quiet, Forever, Nothing.
Cynthia briefly wonders if Cyrus somehow won, but her thoughts evade her even as she tries to focus...
There is weight in her arms. A voice in her ear.
A light.
.
.
.