Steven’s heart raced in time with the landscape rushing by. He paid no mind to the scenery, unaware that he’d already passed through the Silver Ravine’s proper entrance. His mind was too busy tying itself in knots. The stress from everything had been building and building, and he thought he could handle it— just like he always could back in Hoenn— but he was wrong. The training match gone wrong had sent him to the edge. The
conversation with Archie had pushed him over it.
Like a landslide, the world was crumbling apart around him. The control he was so used to having had all but vanished. He’d been so blind. So foolish. To think anything here was the same. To think he was the same.
He needed somewhere dark. Quiet. Somewhere he could hide. And think. He didn’t need conversations or platitudes or friendships. He needed solitude and the only place he’d ever truly felt comfortable; in the cold, dark heart of the earth.
There, a gap in the wall of the ravine. A quick pulse of magnetism told him it was more than a superficial crack. Deep enough to prove interesting enough to explore, narrow, but just the right size for a Beldum to fit. The perfect place. He veered sharply right and squeezed through the opening.
The crevasse stayed narrow for most of its length, and as the walls scraped against his sides, Steven actually began to calm down for the first time since he left town. There was comfort to be found in the earth’s embrace. Gently, he readjusted his satchel so he wouldn’t get it caught as he floated further into the passage.
Maybe that’s what he needed. A day or two to focus on nothing but collecting. And if he emerged from the ravine with a bag full of rocks, maybe the weight there would offset the weight in his heart.
He slipped through the last of the narrow passage out into a larger chamber that only let a sliver of light down into its depths from above. As he looked around, suddenly he was struck with a longing so fierce he almost dropped to the ground.
What he wouldn’t give to have his team with him. Just one of them. Metagross. Aggron. Cradily.
Anyone. He needed their presence like he needed air to breathe. Like he needed gravity to keep him tethered to the ground. He missed them so badly, like a piece of him was gone, ripped away and left exposed, like an open wound. And not until now, in a place both foreign and achingly familiar, did their absence truly
hurt.
At first he thought coming here to Forlas without his identity was just what he needed. A place where none of the obligations tied to his name could drag him down, hold him captive, keep him from being the person he wanted to be. He didn’t have to be Steven Stone, Hoenn Champion and heir to the Devon Corporation. He could just be Steven, rock collector and adventurer. It sounded so freeing, his wildest dream come true.
How incredibly wrong he’d been.
Because without them, he was nothing. His pokemon, his title, his power. Without any of it he was an insignificant speck in the cosmos, unable to take action, protect the things and people he cared about; he was completely and utterly useless.
Useless.
A word he’d uttered to his own pokemon, his beloved partner. A word he unconditionally regretted ever having left his lips. A word that cut deep to his core, like a sword running him through.
He couldn’t have stopped the Night Captain’s blade even if he’d wanted to.
With a cry of frustration, Steven threw himself at the boulder in the center of the room. He bounced off it, hardly even leaving a mark on its surface. He stared at the spot in dismay.
Useless.
And now he was the very thing he hated. An embodiment of the word that stung and burned, even as he said it to his own starter. He was young then, immature, inexperienced. He hadn’t known better. But now? He
deserved it. Every searing inch of that blade
deserved to drive straight through him.
He abandoned the team when they needed him most. When Wes needed him most.
He needed to
pay for his mistakes, suffer the consequences he so casually levied unto others for his own follies.
The look on Koa’s face after the wagon incident. Jade’s expression when he’d failed as her teammate.
What had Betel told them? When they arrived in Forlas, they took the forms best suited for their souls? Well, Betel was right; a Beldum’s body suited him perfectly. He slammed into the boulder again with a dull thunk.
Useless.
And again.
Useless.
And again and again and again—
Steven drew back, reeling. He could feel every blow against his head. The room spun around him. And the boulder remained unyielding.
What kind of hero was he, anyway? Powehi had said his very presence in Forlas was destroying the fabric of the world. A derisive, half-delirious laugh crackled out of him.
He couldn’t even answer a call for help without failing.
Fine then.
Maybe this was the only thing he could do right.
He’d keep going until the rock broke.
Or he did.
He slammed into the boulder again. Over and over. Until his whole body ached. Until he couldn’t see straight.
Until steel buckled and cracked. Until the light of his eye went out.
Barely aware, he drew back to ram the boulder again, when a searing pain shot down his side. He cried out, but as his eye struggled to find the source of the pain, his shout morphed from a cry of pain to one of terror.
A limb had burst from his side, a fully formed arm of his species, except it was wreathed in a wretched purple flame that licked black at the edges. And it
burned. His whole left side was alight with a cold fire that seemed to stem from his very core.
What was happening!? Steven’s panic grew, clouded in exhaustion and fear. What—? Was he turning into a Shadow pokemon?
No— No he couldn’t! That meant he’d never see home again, never see his beloved partners again.
A Beldum’s panicked shriek echoed through the silent passages of the ravine. His body was no longer obeying. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
USELESS USELESS USELESS TO THE VERY END.
The arm moved on its own, lurching forward as he screeched in agony, dragging the rest of his body along with it.
Stop, stop, stop, stop!
And then the last of Steven’s energy gave out. His vision went white as the world around him disappeared in a blissful haze.
He awoke in a pile of rubble to the cool embrace of moonlight. His fist lay atop the base of a shattered boulder. The other arm sprawled out to his side awkwardly. He blinked once, twice.
Arms.
He had
arms.
Slowly, he flexed his claws, marveling at how he could
see them move. Observing them like they were the most glorious thing he’d laid eyes on. First one hand, then the other. The notch on a claw on either one. Just like his rings. He closed both hands into a fist, crunching up chunks of rock between his claws.
He had arms again. And he was
alive.
The rattling cry that escaped him sounded almost like a sob.
He was alive and he
evolved.
But the relief that first cradled him morphed to confusion.
Why? How? Of all people he would know how much time and effort went into raising a Beldum into a Metang, and the time he spent here in Forlas was short and spent poorly. So how had it happened? What had he done to earn this? He wasn’t even convinced he deser
ved to be he
re as a
Beldum—
Steven froze, his eyes darting to his left side in alarm. The Shadows. The limb he saw. But when he looked down, there were no dark flames, no phantom limb. Just a normal Metang arm. Had… had he imagined it, then?
He rolled his left arm to see the underside, and his eyes widened. The ragged-edged dark patch on his steel skin definitely wasn’t a figment of his imagination. A remnant of his previous form; even with a new body the Shadow Skorupi’s handiwork hadn’t been erased.
Or was it because he wasn’t truly free of Shadows himself? A permanent reminder of something that would be a part of him for as long as he remained in this world. Experimentally, he rested his other claw against the dark patch, something he’d never been able to do before. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t burn.
He pressed harder, giving it an experimental scrape. It didn’t buckle or flake. Some of the relief trickled back. Just a mark then. Still, he kept his hand over the spot like he was covering it from view. From who, it wasn’t clear; he was very much alone, but the shame crept up on him just the same.
The shame that maybe it was the Shadows that drove him to evolve.
Not like there was anything he could do about it now... His downcast eyes swept the cavern floor, searching for solace in the pale moonlight, only to find nothing but rubble and rocks. Wasn’t that what he came here for, though?
The contents of his satchel were scattered about, the bag itself shredded beyond repair during his evolution. A few berries and coins, but mostly rocks of various shapes and sizes. Out of habit, he reached out to scoop up the nearest rock. Then another, and another. He grabbed as many as he could reach from where he lay, cradling them between his arms like precious gems, and something in his heart
clenched.
It was sobering to see his few possessions strewn across the floor like refuse. They didn’t deserve that, not when they were the only things he’d cared to bring with him when he left town. The only things that identified him as, well,
him.
Steven Stone, rock collector and adventurer. Someone who would never allow his precious collection to be tossed around like that.
The only things that reminded him of the journey he’d been on thus far. The only things that proved he’d spent time and effort and visited different places and met different people—
Something in the pile caught his eye, and he reached down to pluck the rough-hewn amethyst out from the rest. The amethyst he wore to the Gala with Odette that night.
He turned it in his claw, the moonlight glinting dully off its facets. It wasn’t worth much in this state, and probably not worth much more even cut and polished. But he didn’t cherish it for its value. It reminded him of that night, of the way it matched her dress, of the way it marked the point of no return in their involvement in this world’s affairs.
His gaze fell back to the pile between his claws, but he didn’t put the amethyst back with the others.
People always asked him (and by people he meant Wallace more than anyone else) why he collected rocks. Why not just the gemstones and crystals that glittered in the light? The ones that caught everyone’s eye, that made them ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at their beauty. And he always explained the truth; that
every stone had their own story to tell, even the unpolished, unremarkable ones.
Maybe… Maybe that’s what he was. An unpolished, unremarkable stone.
He picked himself up off the ground, wobbling slightly as he rose. Rocks tumbled and clattered in his wake, and his eyes flicked towards the entrance of the cavern. He couldn’t fit through the way he came in, not with his new body.
Maybe that was for the best. Did he even deserve to rejoin the Wayfarers after running away? (Again.) There was no one here to wedge him out of the hole he’d gotten himself in this time.
His claws tightened around the amethyst. No. Gods, he’d been so foolish. No one had chased him off, he’d done it to himself. (Again.) Because he thought he’d had to. Because that’s what he was used to; he was the one people looked to and relied on, the one to shoulder the burden. And when it grew to be too much— But things were different here.
He wasn’t here because of the way he shined.
That night at the Gala. He was there with Odette, and Felin, and Ridley, and everyone. They’d done it together; toppled the corrupt mayor, taken on the Shadows, came here to help. All of them as a team.
He
couldn’t do things alone, he shouldn’t.
Hadn’t he already promised Wallace that, anyway?
Steven closed his eyes and turned his back on his ruined satchel and scattered rock collection and the too-small entrance. When he opened them again, he instead focused his attention to where the path stretched away into a shadowed slot canyon at the far end of the cavern. Had that path always been there or…?
No matter, it was the way he had to go, and he would take it. But, this time, maybe not all by himself.
‘Hey, Betel? Can you hear me? I could use your help getting out of here, if you don’t mind.’
Yes, Steven. I am with you.
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