Chapter Text
Tensions flared. In a great bespeckled void of dust and starlight clashed two titans. They snarled, swiped, and bellowed at one another, their collisions sending great, fleeting sparks across the inky blackness around them. Their squabbling only contributed to greater cracks. Widening ones. Terrifying ones. A great, furious rorschach—angry stains of cobalt, fuschia, and titanium white like blinding stars—bleached the heavens.
Dialga reared and swiped at their fellow titan, fending back Palkia’s impatient strikes only to be pushed back a league from the force. They looked for another opening to attack. Another opening to grow closer. To take control of the situation. To do something that wasn’t pacing or floating around in endless, mindless circles. So it had been for some time yet. Dialga ducked low as Palkia flew at them, the two butting heads.
“You!” Palkia’s thunderous roar rang out amongst the void like a crack of lightning. Their breath billowed against Dialga’s muzzle. They snarled. “Brethren! Tell me of this calamity!” The demand was a farce; a distraction. Palkia reached out with their clasping talons and raked them across Dialga’s chest: Dragon Claw.
No blood wept. Dialga only sneered. They had each inflicted numerous wounds upon one another. So it usually went when their solitary domains occasionally interwove with one another. “Me?” They bared their fangs, stretched their throat, and let out a deafening roar, one that forced Palkia back, the other titan wincing as Dialga forced their domain to take shape. The moment it appeared, it fizzled out. So it had been for a long time yet. “I know nothing of this!” they told Palkia staunchly, the spines along their flank bristling. The breath in their lungs burned. Though their wounds bled not, Dialga could still feel them aching. They could see similar ones on Palkia’s hide, the glow of the rifts within their domain casting sinister shadows on their forms. Dialga raised one clawed leg to point at them. “Would you not think this affects my realm as well?”
“Foolishness! It spreads from yours! Only yours! The Spatial Realm is stable!”
“Then prove your claim!” It had been a simple command. Dialga waited for Palkia to either do so or they would dissolve back into mindless violence. When the latter didn’t, Dialga felt their shaky breaths rattle in their throat. They could feel the gems in their vessel grow hot. The time for violence had come and gone, and Dialga knew it. So it had been before. So it would be until the inevitable heat death of the universe at the whim of The Original One. Dialga’s thoughts wandered to that exact topic, and they lowered their head, carefully eyeing Palkia who had begun to circle them in their silence. “...The Original One is silent now.”
“So It is.”
“And this destruction is spreading. Far too many tears. Far too many rips.”
Palkia’s eyes narrowed. They burned hot like molten lead, the titan floating higher on their motionless, sweeping wings; wings that had been torn into slivers. Wings that glowed from the light of hundreds of thousands of spatial and temporal rifts that were only increasing in number by the nanosecond. And yet Palkia remained, claws flexing, muscles twitching, teeth grinding… but they moved little. “...And your keys?”
“...My keys?”
“Yes, brethren. Your keys,” Palkia growled. They lifted their chin. “Surely, the destruction must spread from your realm; from your lack of influence. Your realm hosts more chaos than mine,” they pointed out. One curved claw glowed cyan from the light of the striking temporal rifts; temporal rifts that outnumbered the spatial rifts by far. Palkia’s wings twitched. “Where are your keys?” they asked softly. Smugly. Brows too lax. Voice too high. “Where are they to patch the damage? To guard your existence?”
At the question, Dialga let out a deep, irritated sigh. The violence may have ended but the debate had not. And all Dialga could do was remember. Their keys. Their vessels. Their servants. And the longer they remained floating in that great void, the more Dialga could feel a hollow pit in their being that hadn’t been there mere seconds ago. They could feel it: the loss of a key. One of their keys. Perhaps a few given the sheer amount of rifts that had come into being. Dialga shut their eyes. “They exist,” they murmured, “but there are less of them than I last remember. I feel them less. I hear them less.” Dialga shuddered. “The cause for such is unknown to me.”
Palkia’s sneer slowly dropped from their face. They averted their gaze and frowned. One of their clawed hands rose to rest against a gem embedded into their shoulder. “...The Original One is reaping them then, are they not?”
“That is the only thing I can be sure of,” Dialga responded. “My keys… They are quiet… They are still. I sense them within my being no longer, gone from my soul to become the barest of existence once more.” It was more of a statement than a confession. Keys died as they were used. Keys were mortals unlike Dialga and their brethren. Mortals spent a pitiful amount of time in Dialga’s domain before becoming enveloped in The Original One’s domain as all things were fated to do. Dialga knew it. And they knew that Palkia knew it, too. “ I can only believe that they have returned to The Original One, nevermore to be as they once were.”
“Then create another,” Palkia proposed. Their suggestion was met with a wall of cutting silence.
“That… is not an easy process,” Dialga argued sullenly. “You know this well, you of all to be making such an asinine suggestion. What mortal could willingly choose to shed their autonomy? Would choose to shed their autonomy?” Dialga emphasized. It was an ugly thing to do; it was an even uglier thing to reshape one of The Original One’s vessels. To steal one and make it theirs forever. Dialga let the idea wallow. They had done it countless times before in order to keep their domain functional. Mortals were expendable and limitless, but the consequences for doing so—for reaping a soul that did not belong to them—forever lived in their immortal consciousness as well. Dialga knew The Original One would forgive them. Dialga also knew that their keys would not. “To live forever?” they repeated aloud, almost as if asking themself the question. To feel its weight. “To toil forever? To serve forever?”
This time, Palkia was quiet for a long, long moment. They too shut their eyes as if deep in concentration. As if remembering something unpleasant. “Then… give them something to toil for in the name of something holy. Mortals are such… fleeting things: they wither as soon as they bloom. Starlight to dust. Light to darkness.” Palkia scowled. “Such is the reason I rarely visit their domain. The Original One favors them. It finds them… humorous. I harbor no such beliefs. You know this.” They then clicked their tongue. “Take a mortal of your liking and make them your new key. Give a mortal a longer life that means something greater than themselves.”
“The Original One would disagree. Our making of keys already disturbs the separation between us gods and Its mortal beings.”
“The Original One is unknowing and unfeeling,” Palkia spat back with an obvious air of impatience. “You and I both know this. Do not gift It with the same traits It has bequeathed upon humanity and our lesser forms in extension.” Palkia swung their head around to observe the growing rifts around them once more. They flexed their claws. “If you wish to keep this spread of catastrophe under control, then you must wield another key; several more if your need is so dire.”
Dialga saw sense in the matter. Knew it was the only conclusion to make. True, time was Dialga’s domain, but they couldn’t cover every nanosecond themself. They needed help. Desperately. And in a knowing sense, Dialga knew that Palkia was in the same situation, only too proud to admit it. Still, Dialga hung their head. “One more should do.”
“Then pick one. Just one... There are already so many of them.” Palkia turned and then paused. When they spoke next, their voice echoed only to the void. “Nobody will notice the difference; the lack thereof.”
“And you? What will you do?”
Palkia gave an affronted sniff. “The Spatial Realm need not another mindless mortal. Mind your domain and I will mind mine.” With one last scalding glance tossed over their shoulder, Palkia started forward, gliding out of the zone where The Spatial Realm meshed with The Temporal Realm until their great figure became dissolved in fuchsia.
Dialga watched them go. They were brethren fated to rule separate domains for as long as existence existed. They were created not to feel. Not to panic or to feel fear or disgust. And yet, as Dialga’s domain solidified around them and as the fuchsia of their brethren’s domain fizzled into nothing, they sought to pull at their remaining keys’ strings: to feel their life essence. To reassure themself that nothing was amiss. The birth and death of keys was normal. Dialga did not grieve loss like mortals did, but they felt the loss all the same. A hollow emptiness. A bite. A wound. Many. “One will do,” Dialga muttered under their breath. “Just one.”
It was a sentencing. Dialga turned to their domain and let the cobalt light wash over them, feeling their domain shift and stretch as the god pulled at The Temporal Realm’s fabric. Dialga could access the mortal realm through snippets of time and so they picked a section at random, dreading the task at hand.
The birth and death of keys was normal. It was taking advantage of The Original One’s vessels. Giving them purpose when their allotted time to exist as a separate consciousness ended. Keys were extensions of their gods. They toiled for a higher purpose. They burned bright and fast and fizzled out just as quickly. Replaceable. And yet Dialga remembered all of their keys, those both living and those reabsorbed back into The Original One. And as Dialga entered into the realm of mortals, they remembered that, in creating a key, they were also defiling one of The Original One’s vessels.
So they searched. They dipped low into the place where The Original One’s subjects toiled, feeling their pulses eddy and flow. Dialga could feel their pulls on The Temporal Realm. When one came into existence. When one passed out of it. When one was on the brink of either. Plenty they found at the end of their existences and yet Dialga passed them over. Keys were best when they were naive and willing. Moldable. Full of life and energy. Unburdened by knowledge: the youth. Replaceable. Plentiful.
And then, they sensed it: the pull of a dying mortal. Dialga grew closer to the space, peering out at their soon-to-be-vessel from the eyes of a mortal construct: a clock tower. Mortal youth. The sky darkened. The sun sat low on the horizon, bleeding red in the final traces of evening as thick, swirling clouds hurried to fill in the gaps. Rain drove against the pavement of that mortal dwelling pooling on dry, dusty stone. Leaves were tossed in the wind. Dialga watched as two children skipped along a stony channel filled with brackish floodwater.
They held hands. Their bright, colorful clothing was darkened by the rain and yet they moved with evident glee and laughter, kicking up grit and splashing through puddles. The artificial lights sputtered and dimmed. Dialga felt the pull at their realm strengthen. One would die, and they would get their key. It didn’t make Dialga’s task any less egregious.
“H-hey! Come back! You’re too close!” One of the children grabbed on tighter, taking a careful step back as the water in the flood channel splashed higher, nearly showering them both.
“Nuh-uh! This one doesn’t ever fill up!” argued the second child. “I’ve never seen it come this high!” They freed up their hand, grabbing onto a metal pole that dangled over the swirling waters. Their eyes sparkled. “Besides, it’s not even raining all that hard! It’ll probably stop in a few minutes!”
“It’s still too dangerous!”
Dialga watched the one at the water’s edge closer. They felt a stronger tug on The Temporal Realm. A quick glance again at the murky water and the debris it carried told the god exactly how they would come to gain their new key. A key would need to be brave and resilient. A key would need to have no fear. And Dialga watched expectantly as the water channel filled higher and higher still. As the dark water lapped at the edges, a wave of dark spray cascaded over the children standing at the edge.
Their smiles dropped. Their eyes widened. The one standing nearest the edge flinched, their mouth opened in one silent cry as they attempted to scramble away, the bulk of a new wave catching them and pulling them in. But before they could disappear beneath the waves, they were caught and held back.
The other child had caught them, one arm grasping fervently onto the pole while the other was burrowed into their peer’s clothes. “Gotcha!”
“Help! Get me out of here! I can’t swim! I’ll drown!”
“I’m… trying! Stop moving!”
The first child struggled back to the ladder, held firmly by the second who eased down to help lift them out. The first child collapsed onto the concrete platform, weak and shivering, forced further by the second child who had let go of the ladder. Only for a second wave to catch them. To pull at the pack on their back. For a large, round object to knock away their grip on the pole and leave them weightless for a fraction of a second. And then, the second disappeared under the water.
Dialga felt the fabric of their realm shift and fold. Not the one they had wanted, but a key was a key. They would take what they were given. They paid no attention to the sobbing child sprinting to try and catch up, instead willing themself to follow the flow of the water for as long as the current carried Dialga’s newest vessel, and carry them the water did. At last when the waters ebbed into a large reservoir did Dialga slow, willing themself down to the churning surface.
It was a pitiable sight. Dialga sighted a scrap of colorful fabric drifting amongst debris, floating over to where trees and mortal rubbish had accumulated on the surface of the water. Beneath that waterlogged pile was the child. Still. Lifeless. Drowned. Dialga reached forward their neck and took hold of the tiny scrap, dragging them out and laying them gently upon the sloped concrete bank. No time passed; no time ever did when keys were being forged. Silently, quietly, Dialga pulled at the fabric of their domain and, using it, they called upon the section of it that had belonged to the child before them. Dialga grasped it. Felt it ebb and flow. They pulled that snipped ribbon of time forth and with great care, they reconnected it into their own personal infinite span of time. The gems on their hide glowed. The child twitched.
“Come, spirit,” Dialga murmured. The glow in their gems strengthened and sputtered like a flame flickering to life. “I give you a new purpose and a new vessel. I call you mine, wielder of my essence, and forge you into my key, sworn to serve until death do you part.” Dialga watched as the child’s body twitched once more. Key forgings didn’t always work, and Dialga suspected that that may have been the case when the child’s original body grew frighteningly still. A key without its true vessel had no hope of survival. But the glow remained. The child’s body convulsed. The flame remained burning: a sign of life but a weak one. Dialga hoped that they might still take the other child instead, but they sighed. A key was a key. They could only hope that the new one didn’t break immediately. It would be a waste of an investment. “Come now,” they muttered, turning. Dialga lifted off the ground and readied themself to return to The Temporal Realm with their new key in tow. “Come into your new life as my servant and forget all that you have ever known, for your new life begins now.”