Endless

Part 4 - Fury

I should probably wait. Going to the Capital is reckless. It feels too soon. Like there's more I could find out. But I could spend a lifetime chasing rumours, piecing together an ever-changing puzzle, and still know nothing of the reality. I need to see it for myself. It's the only way I will really know.

I owe it to her to see this through.

The city recedes slowly behind me. I should be heading home after everything that has happened but it would feel wrong to take even a single step back. I have to keep pushing forward. I have to finish this. No matter the cost.

My hand lingers in the empty space on my belt. Where her pokeball had rested. My first.

The guards hadn't said a thing when I pushed my way out through the gate. They'd seen the blood stains but hesitated when they should have stopped me. Only a fool would chase another man through the desert. Why strain your own resources keeping a prisoner alive if someone was so willing to punish themselves by travelling through the Devil's plains.

The desert is not meant for us. The great war pushed us into this arid place where the least radiation litters the landscape. The stories have become muddled over the years but they all agree on one point. Humanity did this to themselves and we are now reaping the toxic seeds we sowed. Everything I've done so far, why I have travelled so hard, has been to learn these stories. To pick the truths from the exaggerations and lies. I don't know if it's enough, but I have to move forward. The capital will have answers. Answers I need even if they aren't the ones I want.

Fear. The great motivator. Humanities fear of what it could not control. They all claimed it was a sensible precaution, a sound reasoning, but it had been foolish. They feared the Legendaries' incredible power. They couldn't hope to control them, so instead, they killed them. Every last one. They were too powerful for regular weapons and our Pokemon worshipped them as gods, so mankind had to find another way to destroy the most awesome of creatures. In the end, they found a way. The Legendaries' strength hadn't been enough to protect them from nuclear warheads.

The people thought that would be the end of it. Rain hellfire down upon the most powerful creatures on the planet, kill millions of innocents in the pursuit of absolute control, then carry on like nothing had happened. It was reckless. The Legendary that had caused it all, the one that had started the widespread fear, survived the attacks. Its only companion didn't. Its companion had always kept the most powerful Legendary from humanity's path. It had always been an ambassador for peace. And it died at our hand. There was no limit to the depth of the Legendary's rage. Its raw power was inescapable, insurmountable, and filled with blind fury. It seized all the warheads on the planet, every stockpile, and unleashed them upon humankind. It ravaged the earth, wiping out all the people it could find.

The people fled. They hid where no-one would care to look, where they thought they could be safe, but the monster found them and killed them without mercy. The greatest minds worked on another weapon. A different kind of weapon. A weapon of peace. It could have saved us all if they had found it in the beginning, but only on the brink of extinction could mankind have the capacity to garner peace without destruction.

Many of the stories say that the Legendary was killed in a last ditch effort by the armies of man. Some say that people killed it with their weapons of steel and fire, bullets and bombs. Others say that it was killed by Pokemon who feared for humankind and so stood up to a god to defend us. Yet in a small village, similar to my own where the people were kind and welcomed me as family, I heard a different story. Whispered to me through the dry lips of a man who'd lived through the world's destruction; so old that his skin felt like parchment where he rested his withered hand on my arm.

"The creature was terrible. It killed without mercy, though any who managed to escape its wrath always spoke of a deep sadness in the monster. It did not delight in killing. It believed the deaths were necessary. It believed that humans had only the capacity to destroy. So it killed us, any humans that it could find, in order to save the earth."

"But how was it stopped, elder?"  I asked.

"The armies believed that might was the only way, that a final stand would be enough, but they were fools and all fell to the creature. It was the scientists in the end. The greatest engineers of our time. They created something, the first and only of its kind, capable of stopping the monster. The Masterball."

"Masterball?"

"A pokeball with the power to imprison any creature. Unlike the regular pokeballs, in which a Pokemon stays due to its respect and love for its master, the Masterball traps the creature against its will, keeping it forever locked away. The scientists lured the beast to the Capital, where buildings still stood and there were dark corners in which to hide. They sacrificed themselves, fighting the beast and waiting for an opportunity to strike. It cost them their lives, but they did it. The creature was caught and remains in the Masterball, hidden away somewhere in the Capital."

So I walk toward the city, feet scraping in scorching sand as my pack weighs heavy on my shoulders and loss weighs heavy on my heart. I move forward on the dying promises of an old man, who still had the spark of life glittering in his clouded eyes, following a story that gives me the hope to drive on.

The world has changed now. Humanity clings on a fraying lifeline, hope slowly suffocating from a roaring flame to a glowing ember buried beneath the ash of our failures. These trials have tempered us. There are those who have darkness in their hearts, who would take everything from a man and laugh in the face of his sorrow, but I believe there is a greater number of us who follow the light, who are good and have learned to be kind to one another. I carry the dying hope of humanity with me and with it, I will convince a vengeful god to save us.