Chapter Seven: No Longer Human
Is everything alright—?
Aiden wasn't sure what to think of his thoughts, but he had far more pressing issues to take care of. He was lucky he'd convinced Yan to go to bed earlier, because if he knew one thing, it was that he wouldn't want her to see him in this state.
She'd see him in the morning either way. He didn't know why he was bothering so much about it.
His brain felt like there were dozens of Durant gnawing on each nerve and Arceus, it was number than it should have felt. There as no white-hot fire as he had expected; instead, all he could feel was a layer of frost starting to crawl over his body.
It took several long seconds before he was aware of his surroundings again. The world blinked back at him through lapses of black dots over his vision. He was already starting to forget the exact details of the herb shop he was standing in.
Why is it happening so fast? Is Lacia rushing?
Aiden took a long, deep breath, knowing that it would be long since he could take such a breath again, and tried to sit down as best as he could.
With shaky eyes, he glanced down as his hands. It wasn't the fact that they felt cold and clammy—they'd felt that way as soon as he'd stepped into the human world as a ghost—but the fact that their degrading had sped up from some measly light flickering at their fingertips.
A hard ball of saliva sat in his throat as they faded in and out of sight a few more times before settling on a semi-solid form. It wasn't as stable as he liked it to be; he could see the floor through the paleness of his skin if he squinted, but it would last him for a few minutes.
Some part of his mind—a part that could still function and wasn't being swallowed by the haze of numbness that the rest of his body seemed to be stuck in—tittered at him with a vague scolding.
I screwed up. I screwed up. He shot a glare at the floor as if it had wronged him, flinching at the effort it took to contort his face into such a shape, and fought back the tears pricking at the back of his eyes. I actually trusted her.
He'd known ever since the events in their past life that something was wrong with Lacia. There had been something off about her prescence ever since he'd seen her past self in the dirty alleyway, and he was starting to piece together the bits of clues that he'd been unwilling to realise for the past two weeks.
Perhaps he'd wanted to be blind to them. Perhaps he'd tried to ignore them for the longest time because he thought that he could save his friends and his brother.
He should have seen it coming. He had, in actual fact, but he had never tried to act on it.
Aiden had always chose to stay naive for a reason; he knew that he would never be able to make decisions once he knew the truth, so he'd try to not know what was going on even when the truth was right before his eyes.
But that was a trick that wouldn't work for him anymore.
He closed his eyes, trying to ignore how his body was fading, and drifted into a restless sleep.
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"You look terrible."
Aiden didn't even have the energy to be offended at the statement—and besides, he had to agree with the figure above him. He peered at the lake below him; his eyes were downcast and circled by grey, and he was as pale as he'd suspected.
"Is this a dream or am I back here?" he mumbled back. His retinas had been starting to fail him, but his vision was a little clearer now, and his head was starting to spin a little less.
Lacia raised an eyebrow. "I managed to drag your spirit back to Heaven for a while," she answered. He cursed at himself for only recognising the smug tone in her voice now. "So you've started to figure out what's going on?"
"Just a little." He let his gaze wander to meet her dark eyes, but he was unable to look at her face for longer than a few seconds. "I suspect, but I don't know anything solid. Are you going to tell me?"
"Thirty days are almost over," the woman replied in an offhanded way. Her eyes stayed on his face for as long as he kept his on the ground. "I have to admit that I could not foresee this. Arceus has his ways that even I cannot get around."
He remained silent, waiting for her to speak again, and the apology in her words wasn't as sincere as he'd liked it to be.
"I'm sorry." Lacia stifled a small laugh. "I ended up using you to get what I wanted. I pretended to care about your friends when I didn't, but I guess you know that."
"As I said, I suspected." Aiden tried his best to keep calm, but a newfound surge of terror prevented him from doing so. "But what do you want? What are you planning to even achieve from this when you're already dead?"
Her lips curved into a smile, and she took her gaze off him for a second to watch a Butterfree's spirit land on her for a second before flying away. "It's not entirely for myself," she murmured. "Then again, that's what I try to tell myself. I'm doing this for a friend of mine."
"Please stop beating around the bush," he muttered. "Just tell me what's going on."
"You know, that expression doesn't really suit you," she mused, causing him to glance up for a moment and blink in confusion. "I was just thinking—you never get angry, do you? You look a bit more like your brother when you do, now that I think about it."
His eyes narrowed, and it was all he could do to bite back an unhappy reply. "Look, I just want to know what's going on."
"And I'm just pointing out an observation," she retorted. "You do seem more like Avis when you scowl like that."
They sat in silence for a few more moments before Lacia spoke again.
"I meant what I said when I told you I was doing it for a friend," she stated. "I'm sure you remember me asking you to stop Avis from going into Terminus Cave—well, it failed, but no matter. The legendary Pokemon Zygarde resides there."
"Zygarde?" he asked. No wonder the witch had been going on about it when they'd gone to Yan's past life. "What does it have to do with anything?"
She let out a sigh. "Zygarde is the friend I'm referring to," she admitted, and that caused his eyes to widen in shock. "Legendaries get lonely at some point. Most of them never die, you know, and a lot of them are confined to carrying out their duties without the privilege of talking to anyone."
His stomach twisted. For all the fame Legendaries received, they never seemed to benefit from it. More than that, however, he didn't like where the conversation was going; Lacia seemed to know more about him than he was comfortable with and—
"At this point, I can tell what you're thinking," she commented. "It's the whole reason why I approached you in the first place. You befriended Zygarde too, didn't you?"
He flinched at it, and the smile she gave him didn't do anything to lighten the situation. "Alright, I'll tell you what's going on. Zygarde is someone who, as a guardian of the earth, thrives on interaction with those he protects. That's why he chooses to make friends for generation after generation."
"And you were one of them...?" Aiden trailed off, knowing that she was about to explain it.
"The first," she nodded. "I was his first friend. Zygarde keeps his calm well, but he values his human companions far more than his temper."
He had a gut feeling that he knew what he was going on. The knight, however, took a deep breath, clenching his fists and letting them fall to his sides. Of course he was going to remain oblivious for as long as he could.
"The mystery attacks were by him," Lacia confirmed. "The cause of them were right under your nose the whole time. Congratulations."
Aiden reeled back as if he'd been hit—a thousand questions were running through his mind, and he didn't have enough time to ask all of them. "But why?" he asked. "Isn't Zygarde supposed to guard the earth? Why would he—"
"He lost his temper." The woman shrugged in response. "It's kind of like how some people get when their family members die. To him, his human friends were his only form of family. It's never as severe as this, but I guess Zygarde must have had enough."
"Aren't I his friend?" he pressed, knowing that it wasn't the most important issue, but it was the only one he could think to ask of. "Then shouldn't it be fine for now, at least?"
That seemed to trigger something in his companion, and she stiffened in a rare display of emotion.
"And how long do you think Zygarde will take to trust another human with all his heart?" she hissed. "I know that it took the one before you almost four years. It's not easy to befriend him. You may have known him for two years, and he may have started to trust you, but it's not enough to quell his rampage."
"So when will it stop, then?" He had given up on trying to sound polite; it was exhausting even attempting it in his current state, and he didn't know if Lacia was deserving of it right then. "Even if you want your plan to succeed, what's going to happen?"
Her expression was icy. "I haven't finished," she uttered. "I'd appreciate it if you'd shut up for a moment."
"The thing is, Legendaries aren't supposed to make human friends. It's just not supposed to happen." She was careful to watch out for the surprise in his expression. "They're made for their job."
The knot in Aiden's stomach twisted further as she continued.
"Zygarde didn't listen, as you can see." The tension on her face and given way to a small, fond, smile. "Arceus had me killed to teach him a lesson, but he didn't learn and continued to make friends with other humans. Of course, Arceus cuts off their lives because they've sinned, and he's been trying to make Zygarde stop through this method."
"How does Arceus not know about this?" Aiden murmured. "And if that was true, wouldn't he be the one to stop me from going back?"
She clutched her fan, toying with the ends of the object as she debated her words for the next second. "I'm not fully sure of his plans," she admitted. "But now that Zygarde has started to go wild, he would have changed his plans. After all, you're the most recent one he started to interact with—Arceus values the peace of the world over Zygarde's issues."
"Then what are you trying to stop him for?" He couldn't help the question—he was genuinely confused about the whole matter. "If he wants to protect the world, then isn't that the right thing?"
"Because I don't give a shit about this screwed-up world," she scowled. "It's not going to be destroyed by Zygarde alone—and besides, I'm dead. I'm doing this so that Zygarde won't get his hopes up about the cycle being broken. He's had so many of his friends die; if you're brought back and you're killed again, then he's going to snap."
If it were a different situation, Aiden would have called her concern for the Pokemon sweet, but it wasn't a different situation and the fact that she was willing to sacrifice the world for one Legendary's emotions didn't make sense.
"But if the world's in danger, then wouldn't Zygarde be in danger too?" he asked. "You're going about this the wrong way."
"Arceus is going about it the wrong way," she corrected with a terse snap. "I regret ever choosing to serve him. All he does is hurt the Legendaries and punish those who try to do something reasonable."
Both of them held the stare for a while, but Lacia broke the momentary silence by leaning back and sighing yet again.
"Whatever. How should this change in the first place?" she muttered. "Most of what I said was true, though—if my plan succeeds, your brother will live for a while more. You won't have to replace him. Weren't you always looking out for him?"
His breath hitched at the accusation, and the woman shot him another saccharine smile as she stood up, the edges of her robes dampened by the water that had sloshed around her ankles.
"You betrayed me," he whispered. "I thought you were doing this for—"
"You were the one who chose to trust me," she replied. "You never change, do you? I would tell you to be less naive, but I guess it doesn't matter now. Everything'll all end in a few days' time, and you won't even know what happened."
Aiden stared at the ground with dull eyes. It seemed like a chore to even move his lips. "So what you said at first was also true?"
"What? That?" She tried her best to hide her sneer with her fan. "Yes. Your entire existence will fade from this universe. You won't be able to see, hear or feel anything anywhere. It's sort of a true death."
There was more silence for a while before she stepped back.
"Well, I'll be sending you back to the human world now. You seem to enjoy it there, don't you?" Lacia had already turned to walk away. "Goodbye for the last time, hopefully. You weren't much to me in the first place."
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ayeeee chapter for best cinnamon roll ;D
not much to say merp merp
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