Original Fiction: The Tales of Adrienne L'Ange

Obviously, this has its inspiration in Les Miserables - I was trying to create a Neo-Victorian steampunk persona, and every time I tried to imagine her she always ended up being a revolutionary of some sort, so I let her go where she wanted to.


I. Unassuming

The bustle of high society all about,
Clacking of hooves and boots on cobblestone.
Her ears are deaf to the din in the air
As she walks the streets alone -
Goal clear in her mind, book and quill in her satchel,
Head up, eyes hard.
A thinker with a mission,
Nothing more dangerous, always on guard.
A student, they thought, a woman no less,
And paid her no heed - She'll abandon these fancies,
They thought - but soon would reassess.
The world bustled around her, never ceasing its din;
They know not her goal,
Nor would they ever.

II. Misery

No enemies she had,
Save the one called Misery,
Ever-present enemy of all.
She looked on it with anger each day,
She who had always
Been above it
And drawn in by it
In her quest to end it.
The world she read and wrote of
In her books was her
Sanctuary - one she longed
To bring out of the minds of men
And into solid form.
The world she dreamed of -
Would fight for -
Would not care, however,
If she rose or fell.
The world would rejoice
To receive into its bosom
One more troupe of
Schoolboys and schoolgirls,
A blood sacrifice of
Hopeless idealists.

III. Silent Language

"Lovely evening, Miss L'Ange, is it not?
Still engrossed in your silly studies these days?"
The young gentleman advanced,
As if her corset and curves alone made her fair game.
"Lovely evening indeed." Her voice was cold,
Clashing with the lace fan fluttering
Before her face in her clenched left hand.
'Leave me!' it shrieked.
The hint was not taken, it was never taken.
Meaningless one-sided chatter continued,
A waste of precious time.
The fan snapped shut,
Revealing steely eyes.
"A good night to you, sir!"
The dagger-sharp voice bit.
"I beg your pardon,
But more important matters
Are at hand!"

IV. Frost and Flame

Ice dulled her fire
As the news was delivered.
The students parted before her
As she stood,
Departing without a word.
The steam-clouded alleys
Frosted in her wake,
As if they knew her mission
And dared not hinder her.
She knew it would have
Happened eventually -
Ignorant minds feared
What they understood not.
Hand clasped around the guilty's throat,
Pistol to his temple,
She seemed less a lady, more an angel.
"You killed my brother. Now go to him."
Flame-red life scattered over frost
As equivalent exchange took its course.

V. Goddess

"Adrienne-Athena the wise, ever-virgin,"
She could hear a voice dear to her tease,
If only in her mind and memory.
"Ready to lead man into battle for a new dawn!"
Quill scratched across paper desperately,
Scrawling words that had fallen on
Deaf ears far too many times.
'I am not a goddess,
One who admired me so.
I am a woman, human,
Weak as only a human can be.'
Silent tears shimmered in candlelight
As the words burned,
For the words could never be said,
The tears never be seen,
For the sake of
The ironic defeat of
Misery.

Gakuen Pokemon: Chapter 6 - The Oracle

(Insert witty author's note here)

______________________________________________________________________________

"DJ, bro, you're late!  Were you in the infirmary again?"

"How's Duce?  He and that girl have been there for two days now, right?"

"Didn't the nurse say it was some kind of weird radio waves that knocked them out or something?"

DJ shrugged at the questions from his classmates.  "That's what she said, at least."

"That's so weird," a Raikou sophomore pondered.  "Then again, I guess if radio signals can put Pokémon to sleep, they can do the same to humans."

Radio signal my butt, DJ scoffed in his mind, turning back to his Pokémon Nation History assignment.  Radio waves couldn't put someone in a nearly comatose state for no apparent reason, cause mental anguish or physical harm.  Nor could they put voices into one's head.

Something's not right.

'...Leoh - '

WOULD YOU SHUT UP?!

______________________________________________________________________________

Duce's eyes flew open - only to be met by solid white paneling above.  What - it had only been night a few minutes ago, and he was outside -

Then he realized.

I guess that...whatever it was got the better of me after all, he thought, his mind still barely coherent.  The nest of blankets he felt like he was in felt too nice...he was just about to let pure mental exhaustion drag him under again, eyes slowly slipping closed, before he heard a sudden voice address him.

"Oh, Mr. Kazuhira, you're awake!  How are you feeling?"

I was feeling FINE until you had to go and wake me up...

He expended the energy necessary to reopen his eyes and turn his head to face the voice.  There stood the school's head nurse, unsurprisingly known only as Joy.

"Not so great," Duce managed to get out.

"I'm not surprised - that sudden stimulus seemed to take quite a toll on your friends, but you especially."

Friends - oh, Arceus damn it!  He turned back to Joy, attempting to sit up and failing miserably.

"Aria Higure...how is she?"

The nurse smiled.  "Aria is resting even as we speak.  She regained consciousness about twenty-four hours after you three arrived, then fell straight back asleep, the poor dear."

"Three...?"

"Oh, you didn't know?  That red-headed boy - Honda, wasn't it? - apparently sensed the same stimulus as you and Miss Higure did, and it knocked him clean out as well.  He was the first to wake, about twelve hours after you got here - he certainly has stamina!"

Duce blinked.  "And...how long have I been out?"

"Almost forty hours, honey.  I was starting to worry about you, to be honest...your vital signs seemed normal, but you just weren't waking up.  I suppose that's nothing to worry about now, but you should still rest for a bit longer.  I don't want you up and about until I'm sure you're alright.  We'll talk more about it later, alright?"

"No argument there," Duce sighed.  He leaned back and closed his eyes, but there was no way he was sleeping now.

__________________________________________________________________________

"Where am I?"  Aria's voice seemed to echo off of nothing.  Strangely enough, the only thing she could see in the encroaching darkness was her own body.  Not expecting a response, she was surprised when one came.

'Dark Void.'

"W-where...where is that?"

'Your dreams.'

No matter how hard she looked, darkness was all that surrounded her - the voice seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere.

"Who are you?"

'Your nightmare.  All of your nightmares.'

"What are you doing in my dreams?  Why?"

'Warning you.'

"Warning me...more like terrifying me!  G-get out of my head!"

'No.'

Noiselessly, Aria's eyes fluttered open - oh, light, sweet light.  Strange words to be going through her mind, for normally she loved the dark...but not that dark.  Glancing around, she realized that she was still in one of the beds of the student infirmary, on the third floor of the Student Center, she knew well.  A speck of grey and black against the white of the room prompted her to turn her head slightly to observe -

"Morning, sleeping beauty," Duce teased, putting the Sociology textbook he had been picking apart with a highlighter back in his bag.  He was in the same clothing as he had been wearing on the trip, implying that he hadn't yet been back to his dorm.  "Well, more like afternoon, really."

"Mm," she mumbled, yawning once before smiling at him.  "Hey...how long was I asleep?"

"Almost 12 hours, according to Ms. Joy," Duce replied.  "I was still out the first time you woke up - you regained consciousness for a few minutes after about 24 hours, then slept like the dead - I'm jealous, really.  I just came to a few hours ago and being unconscious for two days isn't exactly restful," he grimaced.

Aria laughed a bit weakly.  "A copious amount of sleep isn't all it's cracked up to be - I'm still tired."  She began to sit up in the bed, taking the blanket with her when she realized that she was clad in only a camisole.  "You're feeling better, though?"

Her boyfriend - it still felt a bit surreal and yet so natural to call him that - replied, "Yeah.  Still a bit weak, but I can function."

With a slight frown, Aria asked, "What even...happened to you?"

"I honestly don't know," Duce sighed, shaking his head.  "I just saw you fall and dove for you without thinking, and then - gah, I heard this shrieking or high-frequency screeching, all these images I couldn't latch onto rushed through my head so fast it hurt, everything started spinning, and then nothing...what about you?"

"Well, I was talking to DJ, and then whatever I was saying just got...lost.  I heard whispers, not any particular words, just whispering voices...it felt like I was getting hit with an audible Sleep Powder attack or something.  Whatever it was just drug me under.  I guess...Joy said something about the same thing happening to Les, huh?"

Duce nodded.  "He was released earlier than me.  When I asked him about it, he said that it felt like something slammed into him - something solid - and the pain reaction probably blacked him out.  But DJ said that there was nothing there...and that Joy also told him that all of this was caused by radio waves."

"Oh, that's a bunch of Tauros crap," Aria muttered.  "This isn't...normal, is it?  I mean..." she trailed off.

"Go on," Duce prompted.  "What are you thinking?"

"My nightmares...your hallucinations, if I can call them that...and now all of this.  This all started this semester, almost immediately after we got to school.  There has to be something causing all of it..."

"If you're right - the year's not even half over.  It's only going to get worse."

"Dear Arceus above," Aria groaned, pressing a hand to her temple.  "Famous last words!"

______________________________________________________________________________

"Okay," Les repeated for perhaps the fourth time, trying to make sense of DJ's story as they sat in the lounge of their dorm building.  "The voices told you WHAT now?!"

DJ shrugged.  "Just a bunch of choppy words!  Evil, chaos, destruction, danger, warning...and just today I heard something else before I managed to block them out.  It sounded something like lay...lay-oh - "  Sudden realization flashed across his face as his brown eyes widened.  "That's it!"

"What?  What's it?!"

"Those old ruins on Yami Island!  I explored them once when I was a freshman - we call them Leohta, the Ruins of Light."

Les blinked.  "O-okay...why would the voices be trying to tell you about the ruins?"

"I don't know...but we're gonna find out!"

__________________________________________________________________________

Two days later, things had calmed down to their usual pace.  Duce and Aria had joined Les in resuming their classes, and everything was normal.  If one counted constant talk of the incident, more frequent hallucinations, nightmares, unusual feats of endurance, Absol sightings and unexplained schizophrenia to be normal.

"DJ," Aria sighed, "even if the little voices in your head said the word Leohta and you think it's referring to the ruins, we can't go!  Student access has been blocked to the island on grounds of instability in the structures."  The four were currently in a tucked-away clearing of Trinity Woods, far enough away that no one would hear their conversation aside from wild Pokémon and their own.

"They've always warned us that the ruins are dangerous," Duce noted.  "Why would they start blocking even going to Yami Island now?"

"I don't know!" Aria wailed.  "As much as they tell the prefects, they don't tell us everything.  I did ask the Dark One - I mean Deputy Headmaster Hamilton about this, and all he gave me was the instability reason with no explanation..."

"That's just stupid!" Les fumed.  "I say we go anyway, if it'll help us figure out what the crap is going on!"

"I agree with the ginger," DJ nodded.  "The last time I ignored those voices, even for a minute, you guys ended up lethargic for two days.  The truth hurts, but they could be helpful.  And I hate to think of what might happen if we ignore them this time."

"But - but - " Aria began to protest, but was cut off by Duce.

"Maybe breaking a rule for once will be good for you, Ari," he teased.  "When do we go and how?"

Aria sighed, but then conceded.  "I don't know...I mean, sure, Yami is connected to Central by a bridge like the rest of the smaller islands, but it'll be actually getting over it that will present a problem.  Last I checked, there were a few Growlithe patrolling the bridge to make sure students didn't try to get over."

"We can take those out easily!" Les protested.

"We could," the prefect agreed, "but the poor babies are just doing their job!  Hurting them for the sake of breaking a rule would make us no better than criminals!"

Les didn't cease his stream of ideas.  "We could swim then - "

"NO," DJ asserted quickly.  "No way, no how!"

"We could fly over on Dragonite and Hydreigon," Duce suggested.

"We'd definitely be spotted then!"

After the last idea, everyone seemed to be at their wit's end - until Duce smiled with sudden mental revelation.  "Got it!"

__________________________________________________________________________

"Um," Aria began to ask nervously, clutching onto Duce's hand like a Pinsir, "are you sure this is going to work?"

"Teddiursa," Dolce cried nervously, digging its claws into its Trainer's long-sleeved uniform shirt.

"Well, no, I'm not," Duce admitted, glancing at his Alakazam.  "That's why we're practicing...he's never teleported more people than me before.  We should be fine, though - the worst that could happen is that we end up in the wrong spot."

"That's comforting," she sighed.  The two underclassmen, however, seemed a bit more excited at the prospect of finally being on the traveling end of a Teleport move.

"Let's do this!" Les cried, grabbing onto Aria's free arm to continue the line - she glanced quickly at him, as if not sure whether to accept the current situation or regard him as one would an unwelcome Bug Pokémon.

DJ casually grabbed one sleeve of Les's uniform jacket, completing the chain.  "Let's get this show on the road, bro!"

"Alright."  Duce closed his eyes as he felt his Pokémon open a psychic link between them, focusing on an image of Yami Island he recalled from a visit to the ruins the previous year.  "Alakazam...Teleport!"

The rush was familiar to Duce but unexpected by the others - they automatically tightened their grip on each other as the warping space took hold - and it was over as quickly as it had started.

"Agh, dang it!"

Aria opened her tightly closed eyes at the sound of Duce's frustration - and then didn't even attempt to contain her laughter.  The four of them and Alakazam were piled atop one another in an out-of-order bathroom stall - and judging by the nature of the graffiti on the walls, it was one of the girls' bathrooms.

"Okay, this is not even REMOTELY funny!" Les cried from where he was stuck at the bottom of the Herdier-pile.

As soon as a girl's voice sounded from outside, all of them were instantly on edge.  "Gah!"  Duce squeezed his eyes shut.  "Try it again!  Teleport!"

Now that they knew what to expect, the second warp wasn't nearly as disorienting.  Unfortunately, this attempt hadn't succeeded either, seeing as they had ended up in a large, narrow room equipped with a conference table, couches and a refrigerator - which a perky blonde professor was currently shuffling through.

"I-I think we're in the Teachers' Lounge, guys," Les stammered.  The professor looked up at this - she blinked in surprise, then smiled.

"Hey there, Aria!  How're you doing?"

Aria laughed nervously.  "H-hey, Professor Graves.  Sorry about this, we kind of had a little...training accident."  She gestured to Duce's Alakazam, who by now seemed straight-up embarrassed.

Professor Graves laughed.  "No worries, you four!  Just don't let Hamilton catch you in here if any more accidents like this happen.  And no teleporting into the girls' bathroom, boys!"

The males of the group glanced at each other in horror, before DJ broke out into nervous chuckles.  "Hehe," he nearly sweatdropped, "of course not!"

"Teleport!"

Apparently, Duce had already been prepping for the third shot - this time, they found themselves in total darkness.

"Uh, g-guys?" Aria's voice cried out with an echo.  "A-are you there?!"

"Right here, Ari."  Duce's voice echoed as well, and she felt him grab her hand.  "I've got you."

"Um, WHERE ARE WE?!" Les panicked, nobody seeing him flail around in the dark.

"Let's find out!" DJ said.  "Anyone's Pokémon know Flash?"

"Alakazam!"  Duce's Psychic type lit up the surrounding area with a surreal glow - revealing shimmering black-and-violet rock walls and the forms of the Trainers and their Pokémon.

"Phew," Aria sighed, cuddling the frightened Dolce into her chest with her free arm.

"Wait," Duce observed as he looked about the shimmering cavern.  "I've been here before.  This is...Duskstone Cave, on the southern end of Yami!"

"We made it?!"  Les seemed overjoyed that his teleporting days were over.  "AW, YEAH!"

Aria spoke up, "I've been here, too - the way out is just up ahead, and the ruins aren't too far away from there.  And for the record, I've been completely against this from the start and if we get caught I'm saying you guys kidnapped me."

"Alright then, whatever you say," DJ laughed.  "C'mon, let's go!  I want to figure out what's going on!"

Aria's sense of direction turned out to be correct, for soon the mouth of the cave came into view and the students were stepping out into natural light - what little of it reached the ground through the thick trees that swathed the island.

"This place sure lives up to its name," Les observed.  "Is it always this dark here?"

"Oh, you haven't seen dark until you've been on this island at night," Duce said as he returned Alakazam.  "And speaking of dark, we probably don't want to be here until then.  Let's go on."

The thick forest was indeed only dimly lit, and the paths were twisting and difficult to navigate.  Duce and Aria, and to some degree DJ, had navigated these woods before, but the search still wasn't easy.  The occasional Bug Pokémon skittered across the ground, Bird Pokémon alighted in the rustling trees.

"Wait..." Les trailed off with sudden realization.  "D-didn't...didn't the school handbook say there were supposed to be ghosts on this island?"

"Only Ghost Pokémon," Aria brushed his worry off.  "Nothing to be afraid of!  Even if they were, I have two Dark-types, so we'll be able to overpower any creepies we meet - huh?"

As if on cue, a flickering violet flame appeared in the distance on the dusky path - and seemed to be getting closer to them faster than they were walking towards it.

"What is that?" Duce asked, peering towards the spot of luminescence.

"A-a ghost?!"  Les immediately scrambled to hide behind DJ, who eyed him with mild annoyance.

"Bro," the Dragon Tamer sighed, "that's a Litwick!  You're from Unova, you've seen them before!"

"Huh - oh, right," Les sweatdropped.  "I have.  But...only in a tower full of DEAD POKEMON!"

"Oh, hush it, guys!" Aria chided, eyes still on the ghostly-flame-turned-Pokémon.  Now that it was closer, its chibi white candle-like body and golden eyes were in clear view.  It smiled at the trainers, its flame flickering as it jumped up and down and gestured with its stumpy arms.

"Lit, Litwick!" it cried.

"It looks like," Duce observed, "it wants us to follow it."

"Oh, no," DJ warned, "bad idea!  You follow a Litwick, it leeches off your life force!"

Aria thought for a minute, then reached into her bag to pull out a Dusk Ball.  To the others' surprise, she didn't release anything from it, instead addressing her Teddiursa.  "Dolce, are you up for a little battle?"

"Ursa!" Dolce cried, jumping from its Trainer's hold and onto the ground.

"Ari, what are you - "

"Shadow Claw!"

"Teddi-URSA!"  Dolce's small claws suddenly extended with deep violet shadows, and it lunged forward on its stumpy legs and slashed the unsuspecting Litwick into the air.

"Litwiiii - !"

Before it had even hit the ground, Aria had thrown the Ball in her hand.  "Poké Ball, go!"  The Candle Pokémon was instantly morphed into a stream of red energy that was sucked into the deep-green-and-red sphere, which fell to the ground, shook only once, then sealed with a click.

"You...caught it."  Les blinked, then began freaking.  "Now we're carrying the soul-sucking ghost around with us?!"

"Oh, Litwick doesn't suck out souls," DJ consoled him.  "That's just its evolved form."

"Well, that's comforting!"

During the conversation, Aria had already sent out her newly-caught Pokémon and knelt down to its level, letting go of Duce's hand for a moment.

"I'm sorry about that," she smiled at the bewildered Ghost-type.  "I'll be more than happy to let you go after this, but I need you to show us the way to the ruins without hurting us.  Can you do that?"

"Lit...Litwick?"  Litwick seemed confused at the question, as if it were being asked to deny its very nature.  Aria sighed, conceding, after a moment.

"Alright...but only a little, and only from me.  Otherwise, I'll have to send you back into your Poké Ball.  Agreed?"

"Litwick!"  The Candle Pokémon jumped up and down, then gestured down the path.  "Lit, Litwick!"

Duce and Aria's hands locked again as the four began to follow Litwick down the darker-still path.  "Did you just agree to let Litwick use your energy?" Duce asked, incredulous.  When Aria nodded, he questioned further, "Why?"

The Suicune merely shrugged.  "Sometimes Pokémon-Trainer relationships have to be symbiosis.  A ghost Pokémon in Johto feeds off its Trainer's fear for energy sometimes - I don't see how this is any different.  Besides, it was either this or let us all get lost and drained."

"I know - but - "

"Remember our deal?" Aria eyed him with a cheeky smile.  Duce sighed, conceding.

"No more worrying.  Right."

"How can you NOT be worried that we have a GHOST guiding us?!"  Les didn't seem to be relenting.  "Why would you even - ?!"

"Because shut up~!" Aria sang.

__________________________________________________________________________

"This place is...old."

"No kidding, DJ," Duce chuckled, watching Aria's Litwick do a hopping little dance of triumph.

"No, seriously," DJ asserted, gazing out over the ruined labyrinth shrouded in trees before them.  The crumbling walls, columns and halls, only a few chambers of which were still standing, seemed to be made of grey-violet hued stone, some parts catching the orange light of the early evening sun in an eerie way.  "It's...older than we know.  Full of...memory, and - "

He had to pause for a moment to scrunch his eyes shut with a grunt.  His face softened a minute later, and his eyes opened noiselessly.

"...and anger."

"Voices again?" Les asked, and DJ nodded in confirmation.

"They're louder now...more frantic.  It's scaring the crap out of me."

"Maybe we'll finally figure out what's causing them," Duce said, gesturing towards the broken stone pathway that led into the mass of buildings.  "Should we split up?  It shouldn't be that dangerous to investigate alone if we each keep a Pokémon out."

Aria nodded.  "That'd probably be the most efficient way, at least - there are about five different chambers...let's each take one, meet back up here and explore the last one together?"

The group agreed on this - they set off to the cardinal corners of the ruins alone, not realizing that the number one rule in exploration of creepy places is never to split up...

__________________________________________________________________________

"Litwick - "  Aria's voice echoed off the stone walls of the small stand-alone chamber she had entered.  "Can you brighten it up in here?"

"Lit!"  The Candle Pokémon consented, the purple flame on its head flaring to cast more eerie light into the already foreboding room - Aria felt her fingers twitch as the tiniest bit of strength waned from her body.  She didn't pay it much heed, instead slowly walking the perimeter of the room, arms crossed and intently studying the markings that seemed to line every inch of the walls.  As aforementioned, she had been to these ruins before, but remembered them differently - was her mind playing tricks on her?

"What are these?" she muttered, tracing the tips of her fingers over a set of engravings that she knew hadn't been there last year.  Almost immediately, she let out a short shriek and stumbled back - the markings had become frost-bitingly cold not a second after she touched them, and were now beginning to glow with an eerie violet-black light.  Even Litwick and Dolce looked surprise, hopping or clamoring behind their Trainer to hide.

When the glow had faded at last, none of the three could take their eyes off of the result.

"W-what in the Distortion World - ?!"

The markings had changed, completely altered from their original cryptic appearance.  They now formed clear letter-like shapes, ones that Aria recognized as the mysterious Pokémon called Unown, native to her home region and often told of in old myths.  Beneath them was a still faintly glowing symbol that seemed to be a circle with a crescent moon overlaying it on one side - the Unown themselves spelled out:

"W-what does this even - AGH!"  The deep violet glow flared again, this time enveloping the chamber - but a shadow began to form in the center of the light.  A black, humanoid-and-yet-not-shaped void coming towards her -

On instinct, Aria whimpered and backed away, closing her eyes as if that would make everything disappear.  Dolce and Litwick huddled close together behind their human shield, not daring to part.

"This is why I chose to bond to you.  Your fear keeps me here.  Do you not comprehend my kin's message?  Neither you nor I am evil.  Now look upon me."

The so-called Sylph of Corruption was indeed frightened - but opened her eyes.

__________________________________________________________________________

"Espeon," Duce addressed his Pokémon, "can you light this up?"

"Es," the Psychic-type obeyed, the cabochon on its forehead glimmering with a gentle light bright enough to see by.

The first thing Duce noticed in the small chamber was the strange image etched into the stone floor - a large circle of sorts in the center of the room, marked with complex runes that he unfortunately hadn't studied in any of his history classes.  Reserved for the Researcher students, he guessed.  He began to step further into the enclosure, but after a pause, skirted around the circle.

He traced his fingers over the letter-like designs on the back wall - these, he recognized easily.  Unown, an elusive Psychic-type Pokémon often found in environments like this.  He couldn't recall ever seeing them in the areas of the ruins that he had previously explored, but perhaps he just hadn't been to this particular structure yet...

"These were used as a writing system to the first humans," Duce mused aloud.  "So...they've got to say somethi - huh?!"

He jumped back a step as the etched figure of Unown lit up with a radiant magenta glow - and then began to reform.  His first instinct was to run, but instead he simply observed cautiously.  Psychic phenomena was nothing new to him, thankfully.

The luminescence faded - left behind was a new formation of the Unown:

 

Beneath it was a softly glowing symbol, the universal sign of Psychic-types - an eye - surrounded by sun rays.  He managed to decipher the message, regarding it with trepidation.  "...what?"

So caught up in decoding the cryptic phrase, he barely noticed when a faint shimmering mist appeared behind him and began taking on form - only a faint shing sound and a sudden feeling of being watched alerted him that something was wrong.  Ever so slowly, he diverted his attention from the Unown to look behind him and almost instantly regretted it.

"Y-you...how...?!"

Standing before him, perfectly stoic and calm, was a boy almost his exact age, perhaps a bit older.  Brown eyes spoke of confidence and experience almost beyond his years - messy black hair was hidden under a crimson baseball cap - a matching vest covered his upper half while fair hands were stuffed into the pockets of dark blue jeans.  Duce knew that a Pikachu should be perched on his shoulder or padding along at his feet, but for some reason wasn't.

Simply looking at him, ever silent, was the Trainer Duce had sworn he would surpass.

The Knight of Mind's eyes flashed with unspeakable anger for a moment, but then calmed when he realized the ridiculousness of the situation.  "You're...you're not real."

"But your memories are real."  The sprite-like voice that came from everywhere and yet nowhere definitely didn't belong to the illusionary Trainer.  "Your dream as well as your past is real - and that is why I am here."

"Who are you, then?"

__________________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately, Les had no such Pokémon that knew Flash - he had to resort to the flashlight that was conveniently in his backpack to illuminate his area of investigation.

"This is really freaking weird, Serperior," the boy mused, shining the beam of light around.  "The writing in this place is completely different from the ruins in Unova - huh?"

The Grass Snake Pokémon slithered around the perimeter of the small structure curiously, paying no heed as its Trainer crouched down and traced his fingers over the circle etched into the violet-grey stone of the floor.  His brow furrowed in concentration as he racked his memory for the meaning of the complex designs marked within its boundaries.

"This is...it looks like the internal mechanisms of a...Capture Disk?  Yeah, that has to be it, it matches that diagram in my textbook almost exactly.  But...something's missing...or changed or - AGH!"

He jerked his hand back when the circle began to glow - and immediately the light faded.

But the other light didn't.

Serperior immediately darted back over to Les and coiled itself defensively as the strange runes on the walls shone brightly and seemed to change their order - when it finally faded, another symbol was left behind beneath them - a shape that was quite distinctly a sword.  Above them, the letter-like runes spelled out:

"Okay.  WHAT THE HECK?!"

"We have a lot in common, you and I!"

"What the ACTUAL HECK?! Who - WHAT are - you?!"

The cheerful voice's source became more apparent, taking shape from the remnants of the glowing light of the runes on the wall.  A horse-like shape, a blade-like shadow apparent on its forehead...

"One who wants to be a great warrior someday.  You wish to be great too, right?  That's why I chose you."

The Heir of Willpower dropped his guard at the strange being's words.

"I do...?"

"Then let me help you!"

__________________________________________________________________________

'You are in the right place...'

"Oh, so you're using complete sentences now?"

DJ's Emboar easily lit the chamber in flickering light with its natural flame - the voices hadn't ceased or lessened in volume since he had entered the ruins, but now they seemed to be calming, their desperation quelling.

'Listen...'

"I AM!"

He made his way to the far wall, where in prominently-sized runes a message already awaited, faintly glowing and contrasting with the firelight.

 

Beneath them, a magnificently carved dragon stood guard with outstretched wings.

"...Is this what you wanted me to listen to?"

'Yes.'

"So what the heck does it mean?!"

'You must discover in due time...'

"Dear Arceus above, you're the most useless mysterious voices I've ever heard...not to mention the only ones."

The Seer of Legends facepalmed briefly, but soon returned to tracing the letters absentmindedly as the voices continued their incessant chatter.

Monsters of the mind...

__________________________________________________________________________

The four seemed to arrive at the central chamber at the same time.  The sun was setting behind the trees - night was coming and the woods were almost completely dark.

For a moment, all they could do was look at each other.

DJ spoke first.

"I think - "

Les cut him off.

"So did anyone else see a freaking Legendary?!"