Harmonia | Pokémon Fanfiction

18 | Do Something

Music in media: Do Something by Eagles

13 January, Thursday, 7 p.m. | Winter

A cold shower didn't do much to wash away the bugs on Icosa's mind and skin, but being more transparent with Rae (she had awoken by the time Icosa returned to Fennel's apartment with Lenora) did them both a power of good. Icosa didn't think she would understand his intentions. Still, he apologised for his rashness.

Over dinner, Lenora filled the group in on her findings, pre-empted by the terrible news of the fake Relic Crown in her hands. With any luck, the real one might be with the Shadow Triad who might still be in Castelia Sewers. She then spoke of the peculiar dust she found in Chilchil's Poké Ball — the dust, even now, accumulating inside the capture tool and his fur — which now had a name: Grit Dust, or Sable Effort, a fancier term that cropped up in the ancient times dating back to the Hisuian era. This was in line with the "time perversion" (again, coined by the beloved Professor Juniper. It appeared she was dead set against this crisis and framed every part of it as the most perverse thing in the world, more ill than the Ruination Quartet sealed in the shrines across Paldea.) likely occurring throughout Unova, the past collapsing into the present.

What of Alder's dream of his old Volcarona, burning like the sun, enveloped in darkness and a chime? It was related to ancient times when Volcarona was believed to be the sacred guardian of truth. During her research, Lenora found out over time the phrase "everything under the sun" replaced the phrase "everything within Volcarona", grown obsolete after Hisuian times, its origin dating back to The Great Volcarona who served the first King of Unova as the soothsayer. Back in those days, a group of Bronzong would gather above the King and broadcast his words to the whole of Unova, hence a bellowing chime was often associated with truth. Word spread of a Pokémon of the moon, though its existence was shrouded in mystery, thought to be illusory, elusive. Perhaps the darkness meant the uprising of this very Pokémon.

Fennel thought Lenora probably hit the mark with her research and complimented her on her efforts, adding that the dream was at once ominous and auspicious.

"Well, there is a Volcarona where the Relic Castle was," muttered Professor Juniper. "The only way through would be..."

"Castelia Sewers," Cheren completed her sentence.

Lenora looked across the table to her friends' faces. While she believed in empirical evidence, the timing was too coincidental for her to see any other angle besides an omnipotent force stringing the region along. She turned inwards and wondered if it was by her choice or someone else's she went to the Abyssal Ruins and retrieved the Relic Crown.

"There's something else," said Lenora, "Nacrene City's music is affected. I don't know how to describe it. But the important thing is, there are no side effects."

Of course she left out the part where she cleaned up the museum with Hawes and reconciled with each other in the process, as if all that cleaning on home grounds was really decluttering the space between them. They didn't have to know that. They didn't have to know she and Hawes kissed for minutes on end after he tripped on the slippery, soapy floor and pulled her by the apron such that they both tumbled on the tiles, soap covering them all over as their lips and tongues met, not quite the struggle for dominance as romance novels often put it, but a physical apology and plea for forgiveness, a stripping down of walls, to be normal and next to normal when in each other's presence.

Icosa caught her blushing and guessed what happened. When he refused to answer Rae what made him loosen up, he gave her the excuse that he was simply relieved she was fine. Amanita had later pestered him for the truth, but he kept his lips sealed. It wasn't something that children would understand. Well, he certainly did not when he was a child.