Whisper-wind Comb

[Weazel]

The Dewott leaned forward, resting his arm on the barrier as he tried to get a closer look at just what was going on up inside the temple. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the second Koa put his hand against the barrier too. Was it being impeded same as he was? Could it be impeded in such a fashion? His attention was quickly dragged back to the scene in front of him.

Portals in the sky, ringed by red chains. The void in his stomach, the place where shadow gathered, gnawed at his insides as he watched it. He didn’t need to ask what was going on to know it was bad. He was watching a world on the precipice of its end.

"Try... get out of there. Ignore-"

He glanced back at the storm behind him. The world beyond this peak might as well not exist. He clenched his fist, and looked back at the human standing beside him.

“You know, Koa, once upon a time, I was in a situation not unlike this one,” he said, more to the human than to the Electrike. For him, there hadn’t been a happy ending that day. “Koa… When you were confronted by the end of your world on the summit of Mt. Coronet, what did you do?”

 

[Tetra]

“You know, Koa, once upon a time, I was in a situation not unlike this one. Koa… When you were confronted by the end of your world on the summit of Mt. Coronet, what did you do?”

"Nothing..." The wind howled, and it was impossible to tell if the words had come from the Electrike Koa or the human one next to Archie. But the bitter shame in his words was plain.

"...please... it's not real..."

Whose voice was that? The sight before Archie shifted and distorted again. Now he could see silhouettes of pokemon within the portals, bound by the chains. Their forms were hazy and indistinct but enough to recognize vaguely, to know these had to be some kind of legendary pokemon. Before them, the scene seemed to grow still, briefly frozen in time, like someone had hit pause on a show. A man, a boy, and chains.

Beside Archie, both Koa's gaze was fixed on the figure of the leader...

 

[Weazel]

“Nothing, huh?” The Dewott hummed. There was no judgment to his tone. If anything, Archie sounded almost wistful.

He leaned back on his heels, paws in his coat pockets, and looked up at those portals again. The shapes within were ensnared by the red chains. He didn’t know these Pokemon specifically; he probably didn’t need to.

“As for me, I ran,” he said, the chuckled, bitterly. “I guess that makes me a coward. There was nothing I could have done, but… Thinking about that last day still fills me with shame. Sometimes I wonder, if I could go back and do it all again, what would I do differently?”

He glanced up at the human beside him, “How about you? Would you do things different, the second time around?”

 

[Tetra]

Pressure. Chains tightened and the enslaved legends thrashed and cried out noiselessly. Movement from the figures. Voices. Indistinct, muffled. In the background a crackling murmur. Was that the TV from earlier?

Beside Archie, Koa seemed stuck, caught in some war between emotions. Strangely, he appeared younger now. Or perhaps, he had always been? "Can't... st... him. N... gh. Why..." The words were distorted. Hard to hear. Had he heard Archie or was it just a phatasm like before? His gaze was fixated on the scene playing out. On the figure at the head of it all. of all the figures, his was the clearest.

"Archie... -ungeon... tricking us... -.. playing games. -find...way out..."
If he'd heard anything of what Archie said, it was hard to tell. The voice sounded confident, but was it a mask?​

How much was real or memory or trick? Dungeon deception or a vision? The scene felt like a movie still, playing towards some inevitable end. The pressure was almost smothering, no longer just pressing down but ever so slightly pulling. Like standing at the lip of a yawning slope, the world bending towards one singular point.

That figure...

He turned around, hands folded behind him, studying, his gaze glossing over Archie to land on Koa. For a moment, it felt as time and space came to standstill. His gaze cold and analytical, evaluating Koa. Then he reached out with his hand and beckoned to him.

 

[Weazel]

It was starting to seem almost like the whole thing was breaking down around him. The crackling static-y noise went well with the snow that hemmed him in. Like he was trapped in the middle of an old analog broadcast. Koa wanted him to find a way out, so the Dewott reached out again, and felt the barrier between him and the temple. The only way forward was blocked, he couldn’t go back the way he came either. The only thing left to him was to watch.

“It’s okay if you’re scared,” Archie said, looking over to the now younger looking human beside him. He traced the boy’s vision to the man at the center of it all. The one standing before the chained and thrashing Legendaries. There was nothing behind that man’s eyes. The Dewott pushed on the barrier again.

“Seems like he wants you to join him,” he said. “Did you?”