Chapter 42
Part 2
My name is Scythe. I have another name, but it's irrelevant right now.
Someone is following us.
It has been six days since the start of our expedition. Yesterday, we entered this zone which Prince called the Cedar Stone Crossing. Why it is called that I don't know; the stones here look nothing like cedar. But that is also irrelevant. It's a rock Pokémon habitat which makes a decent shelter from the elements; it would even protect us from the Watchers except that they don't come this far north. It reminds me vaguely of a place I once knew called the Shattered Plateau. Once we pass through this place, the path to Zerferia will lay just ahead.
There has been a distinct change in the wind since we entered this place. It smells different. I know there is someone tracking us, less than half a day behind us, though I cannot tell who or what it is. I cannot even tell how fast it is approaching.
I ask myself what else Arceus could throw at me that he hasn't already burdened me with.
For two reasons, I cannot reveal I know of their presence. For one reason, I would lose the element of surprise. I can feign ignorance well enough to draw them closer, then try to learn of their means and motives. Unless Enigma is onto me in some way I cannot comprehend, The five of us should be enough to beat them in a battle if that's what it will come to.
Second, I would destroy my own cover. And I need my cover because it's all I have left.
Both Prince and Arceus have thoroughly destroyed all of my plans. My first plan died when the tower appeared and Alakazam ordered me to accompany Char to this godforsaken place. My second plan died when Prince refused to leave me alone. My third came crashing down when the Watchers attacked and left me no opportunity to leave with only Char. And my latest working idea was destroyed by Prince's ploy to hide the true location of the tower from me the entire time.
I discuss the matter with my daydreams, and they tell me I only have one more option. It is a danger and a risk to myself and to all of these Pokémon in my care, but it is all which remains on this disastrous journey.
Prince… I am an idiot for underestimating him. He was one of my closest partners for nearly a decade. I should have expected he would have known how to trick me if he put his mind to it. Instead, I had hoped we would not have encountered him at all. My hopes were too high.
He will be a difficult opponent to take down.
And I… I am so exhausted... My focus dwindles to dust… Rarely have I ever been put to the test as I have been so recently, carrying the burden of Char... I do not know how much longer I can continue this ruse of sanity, this… this mask I wear. Already it has slipped in moments of anger.
I wonder, why was I chosen to play guardian to this human? What spiritual entity deemed me suitable for this job? Was it Char who chose me? Is it because of my humility, which comes only from my shame? Or because of my experience, which comes only from having been a tool of the Master? Is it because of my ability to sense the Call, which comes only from my insanity?
Or could it be that I am the only one who would have been willing to believe in his power, and to bring him this far? Perhaps he should have chosen Prince instead. Then again, Prince is still a weakling. He has learned nothing from having ruined Lily's life, it seems. He would not have been able to make the call I made on the night the Watchers attacked, and it may have cost Char his life.
He would not have been able to sense that we are now being tracked by some Pokémon.
Nevertheless, I am now Char's guardian. I brought him into my division, I raised him, and I will not reject my duty to him. He is the answer to the prayers of many Pokémon. He is also a human. I will not turn my back on him.
I serve him to the best of my ability, but it seems that every waking day my best is no longer good enough.
Blast it all! Blast this wretched, godforsaken quest! Blast the timing of the Call. Blast Arceus who thinks this is all just a joke he can play on me.
Char doesn't even know that his Call didn't summon the Temporal Tower. I don't think I have the heart to tell him. I had made some simple observations while I have been here, observations of when Prince supposedly discovered its location and I began to piece together his ploy to drag us here. It's obvious the tower existed long before I found Char. Prince couldn't have possibly crafted his plan in less than a month, deceiving both Lucario, the sentries, and everyone else who may have stumbled upon it on a chance trip up north. It couldn't have happened. It was all a happy coincidence to Prince. He knew of the tower before he knew of Char. When he heard of Char's existence, he knew it was his one and only chance to defeat the ghosts of his past and fulfill what his ill-fated Silver Division had failed to accomplish.
Thus… it is unlikely we will accomplish anything of significance on this blasted trip. By some fortunate twist of fate, Char might win the heart of Dialga as I and all of the living resistance have hoped… that is a hope that burns doubly so in my own heart…
But fate has never been that kind to me, and I know well enough that it is not going to start any moment soon. I know Dialga will not be spellbound by the Call, unless by some happenstance Char activates it again at the tower's spire. Dialga likely does not even know that we will be coming. He may just turn his divine rage upon us for trespassing and banish us from his home. And so, I must expect—expect and assume—that life will carry on as normal the day after we descend the Temporal Tower. And so… my plan carries on.
What plan? What plan?? I… I'm running out of time to answer that question. Even my daydreams lately have little to offer me.
These Pokémon I must usher to the time dragon… none of them know what is expected of me. Char has tried to sympathize with me, but I have hidden the true gravity of this situation even from him.
It's Adiel's doing.
He wants me. He wants me dead, to be exact. But he wants me to die with my throat between his own claws, after he has tortured me and drained the last of my energy. He's anticipated that satisfaction from the moment I tried to rescue him from the Master's fortress, but failed.
I've also anticipated this duel between the two of us. I knew it was coming for years, and I've tried to prepare for it. The only reason we've yet to confront one another is simple:
He doesn't think he can beat me. And I, I'm not so sure of the outcome myself.
But now… he's clearly resolved his heart. Now he thinks he knows how the battle will turn. He's ready to take me on, at a time when I am anything but ready. Perhaps my stealing of his own personal Bulbasaur servant was the last straw. Perhaps he is only trying to insult me by killing me before I can fulfill my promise to Shander and take back Basin Canyon. He doesn't even care about Basin Canyon anymore. He's going to harass us on the day we get the sons of Jahzara back where they deserve to be, perhaps try to slay some of my teammates as a welcoming gift, but then he will clear away and leave them alone. He's already made that quite clear to me.
I don't know why, of all times, he chose now. But he's going to try to lure me out into the open so he can battle me to the death.
This ploy of his… he made a couple mistakes, a couple silly assumptions of the type he's known to make, when he moved into Iron Town. That's when I solved this riddle of his. He's moving into my territory, threatening me with his leverage over the garden I claim to tend… He's parked his troops beside several cities which he knows I protect.
And he's going to threaten to siege and raze them, one by one, until I show my face and meet his challenge.
It's a trap. I'm not stupid. The duel would not be without strings attached. He's engineering some advantage over me. Perhaps he has decided he doesn't even want to duel me, but capture me and hand me off to Enigma to tease me until I beg to die.
But I don't think he knows that I've caught on yet. I don't think he knows I've deciphered his ploy even before he issued his ultimatum. And as long as he doesn't know, there still remains hope that I can trump his plan with one of my own. But between my promises to Char, and my promises to Shander, all of my plans have been torn down. And I am left without any option at all…
I've got to be in four places at once. It's the only way I will have a chance.
I don't know how this is going to work. I will have to improvise my way through these up and coming weeks. But it all starts here and now.
My plan… I must let no Pokémon know of it. Adiel will be watching in some form. He is always watching. And even when he is not watching, he knows how to extract information from sources who were. So… I must let no Pokémon… not a soul on this earth, not Prince, not Char... know of what I am about to do.
…Even if it means I must knock them out and leave them behind here in Zerferia.
Prince is too clever. If I leave him awake, or perhaps even alive, he would interfere. He would find some way to meddle with my affairs, and it would be hopeless to try to explain the situation to him. It is one of the only things I am assured of: somehow, some way, Prince must be removed from the picture.
…Without Prince, does my precious payload stand the slightest chance of surviving in Zerferia—lost, alone, guided by no one?
Or… will his flame go out?
Only time will tell.
There is a fallback. There is one tiny fallback I have managed to implement while no one was looking. It is foolish, dangerous, and possibly disastrous. But it is a hope I cling to. It is unexpected, even by my standards, so no one could possibly predict it. And I cannot afford to have it discovered yet.
That is my cover. That is why I cannot spring a surprise trap on our faceless follower. So I follow Prince through this hallway of stones, keeping a watchful eye over my shoulder, ceaselessly asking my daydreams about my next course of action until they respond.
Around noon, we met with some resistance. Wild Geodude. I hung back to let Prince handle them; his martial arts give him an advantage over these creatures. Char tried to help him, taking it in as a training session. Saura helped with his plant-like attacks which the rock creatures also abhor.
I dared not join the battle, not when such a perfect distraction had claimed our team. Instead, I hid myself in the shadows, poised to attack our unseen follower.
I did not see them, but I still felt them. I knew they were there. I realized I didn't even know if they were stalking us, so much as trying to catch up with us. Was this a messenger? Had we forgotten something of importance back at the Emerald Division?
They would surely catch up with us if we nested in these crags this very night, which seems to be Prince's intention. Either I must convince him to forgo sleep and keep going, buying me some more time…
…or I must face them.
I decide upon something.
A simple bait-and-switch ploy would work, as long as the bait was left in the dark. It should disorient the target enough to corner them. Provided they do not command an elemental affinity that can obliterate me, it would be the simplest, safest solution.
We take a rest beneath an overhanging rock formation. It provides good shade, at least until the sun goes down. Then, it becomes dark. Not a star shines in the sky; Rayquaza's clouds block them all out. Only the howl of the wind through the crags and the screeching of Zubat is proof that an outside world exists in the shadows beyond the light cast by our two fire Pokémon.
…That is, for our mysterious follower. I, a Scyther, can see in the dark. And the dark is the perfect opportunity to strike.
I make small talk with the children as I consider my plan. I wonder if our follower also rests for the night, or if they push through the shadows to find us. I consider who I will call upon to help me. Char would be ideal, as his flame is the most attention-grabbing. However, I do not think it would be wise to put him on the front line when even I do not know what lies in the shadows. He is my payload. Risking his life is out of the question, at least until our mission is proven futile.
Instead, I choose Ray, the most experienced and powerful member of Char's team. I know he is willing to trust me even on a level greater than Char does. He generally worships me. In fact, he muscled his way onto Char's team to further his hopes of joining mine. His desire to claim a position on Team Remorse has always impressed me, and it's clear he has the skill and the strength to serve under my command. Most of my team already knows that I am planning to accept his application a few years down the line.
But I know that it is not I whom Ray worships. It is the memory of his brother, Rautzen, who was my teammate and partner for over a decade. It is Rautzen who raised him as a father would, telling him stories about my team and I and all the challenges we faced. And so I became a legend in his mind, and his heart became dead set on living up to his brother's legacy and taking his place among my ranks.
Rautzen was a spectacular Pokémon and friend. He treated us the same way he would describe us in his stories to little Ray. He treated us as though we were the mythological heroes which Legend always sung about when his tongue still graced the halls of the Gold Division. His very presence was electric; whenever he spoke, our morale would rise, and we would remember the standards we had set for ourselves and chase them with newfound vigor. And his energy was limitless; I remember how could assign him to patrol the perimeter of our outposts for a week on end, and by the time he was relieved, he would still have that same smile spread across his face, and the same spring in his step, as though it had taken nothing away from him whatsoever.
He affected me in ways I cannot change.
And now Ray… Ray wants to take his place. And while I know how much he deserves what he desires, I fear the day I welcome him to my table.
I keep no secrets from my team. Well, that is a lie. There is one secret I keep from everyone. It is something I learned while I was in the highest ranks of the Master's service. It is… something which I do not focus on very often. It is something the world is not ready to know.
But besides that, I tell my team everything I know, and I ask them to do the same. That is my policy, and that is what makes Team Remorse solid and effective. We operate as one.
And I… I dread the day when I will no longer be allowed to keep the secret from Ray about what really happened to his brother.
We have some policies regarding recruitment, you see. One of them states that a Pokémon who has a personal reason to fight against the Master is a good recruit. It is the reason I allowed Saura into the base in the first place; the Master had targeted him personally, and then his family, and we were his refuge.
I am also an example of that rule.
There is another rule… the reverse side of the first, I should say… which we do not mention very often. It states that a Pokémon who does not have a personal reason to fight against the master is likely to defect to the Master's side if they are presented with temptation. And a Pokémon who defects from our side to the Master's side will not return to ours again. In all of the history of the Resistance, this has never been disproven.
And the traitors have been our most dangerous enemies in the war. They know of our plans, or strengths and weaknesses, and our internal workings. They… are the enemies… we cannot afford to have.
Rautzen fell for the temptation.
He tried to return to us, but as a traitor. As a double agent. He was planning to leak our plans to Tallarak, a powerful general of the enemy's—A general whom I once commanded, in fact—while maintaining the guise that he was on our side.
I could not hesitate in my decision…
I ordered Daemon to kill him.
"I need you to do me a favor," I hissed to Ray, trying not to attract the attention of the others. "Can you come with me?"
He sensed I was trying to be secretive, so he nodded attentively and followed. Once in the shadows, I issued my order.
"I need you to walk in that direction," I told him. "Maintain a normal walking pace. Will you do that for me?"
"Uh, sure," he replied. "Am I looking for something?"
"No, nothing," I told him. "Just walk, until I tell you to stop. Ignore the wild Pokémon if you find any; if you are attacked, I will assist you. But go."
"Alright, whatever you say," he said with a shrug, then began to scamper down the rocky hallway to retrace the steps we had spent the day making. The soft glow from his fur helped him to see his way.
I admired his unquestioning obedience. The stripes of a true soldier. The same stripes which Rautzen had.
I took to the air, landing atop the surface of the gorge. I could not fly the whole way; my wings produce a sound that would strike terror into the hearts of many Pokémon and give away my position. So, I prowl atop the cliff's edge, remaining just far enough back to be invisible to any Pokémon who would be looking in my direction. And I followed Ray, keeping my eyes peeled for the intruder who had to be somewhere… somewhere close…
Of course, I barely had any evidence of the intruder's presence in the first place. Only my instincts, hinted at it, and I trusted them. There was something about the air. Perhaps a scent. Perhaps a disturbance in the atmosphere. Perhaps an aura that my subconscious would pick up. Perhaps echoes of a cry in the wind. But it roused the hunter in me, and I could not ignore it.
Now, I would see if my instincts were telling the truth.
Ray stopped. He froze in his tracks, as though he'd stopped at the edge of a bottomless pit and was hesitating to plunge himself into it. I winced. He was looking at something. Something obscured by rocks.
"Scythe!" he suddenly called, his voice breaking the silence and ringing down the rocky canyon. "Scythe… you're never going to believe this!"
I was irritated by Ray's audacity to break our stealth, but I would not judge him until I saw for myself the judgment call he had made. So, I progressed a little farther down the rim until I could get a good view of what Ray was watching.
And Ray was right. I did not believe it. Arceus had played another trick on me, it seemed, because I would have never predicted this particular Pokémon to have followed us all the way here…
Surrounded by a makeshift shelter of rocks, and sleeping soundly, was a Bayleef.
Lily.