Up in the cerulean sky, flocks of cotton-winged Swablu sang heavenly songs as they flapped by with their majestic melodies graciously trailing a crested altaria; their leader, carrying their clouded flaps with the strong and wise gust provided by its powerful wings that were like a tempest of nimbus clouds.

  Their compass in their wondrous migration to the warmer regions of Sinnoh, past the dividing mountain range.

  Down on the ground, Lucas trudged through the thick snow covering the grass. The sound of slush crunching underfoot rang in his ears. It was still winter.

  "Hey, loser!"

  Lucas's head, which had been hanging low like a wilted flower the entire time, lifted to see his friend jumping up and down with no chill.

  "Hurry up! We're going to the Professor's lab! Oh—and we're going to the lake!" Barry's loud voice blared in Lucas's ears like an Exploud on full volume.

  Lucas rolled his eyes, wondering why Barry had to be so loud at 9 AM. "Cool, but why are we going to the lake? We can just go straight to Sandgem, you know... see the professor and his pretty assistant..." He stopped in front of the jittery blonde boy after his long walk.

  "I guess you really are slow. That's okay, not everyone can keep up with my lightning-fast thinking," Barry said, shrugging with pride. "Lucas, we're going to catch the legendary Pokémon!"

  “Are you crazy?” Lucas shook his head. “Dude, I know you're not into all that mythological stuff, but you're smart enough to know you're not about to catch a legendary Pokémon. I may have lost to you and all, and you're better than me—but you can't be serious. You probably have a higher chance of dying than doing that…”

  “Okay, Mr. Historical, maybe not you—but we definitely can! Right, Twinleaf?” The Turtwig snapped its jaws in agreement. Of course they could. Of course they would. Who would stop them?

  “We're talking about a legendary Pokémon, Barry. Cynthia’s not catching one of those things—your dad's not catching one of those!”

  Barry shook his head in revolted disappointment. “This is why you're never gonna get anywhere, Lucas. You don't have balls! Stop being such a bitch and dream.”

  “Dude, I get that, but—”

  “Then let's go now, you sissy!”

  The fire in Barry's eyes was too much, bright and orange. Lucas was powerless in the face of it. It was ludicrous; the whole idea. A fantasy. But then again…

  “Fine… what's wrong with trying?” The way he said it, the belief fueling his words made it somehow feasible. What if they did catch Mesprit? Imagine that!

  Lucas pulled out a Poké Ball from his pocket and pressed the button to let out a tweeting bird covered in royal blue plumage. Unfortunately, Azure wasn't in any sort of friendly mood. The second his webbed yellow feet touched down on the frosty floor and his blue eyes caught the stupid green turtle sitting at Barry's feet, the only thing Azure's blue eyes were seeing was red!

  “Azure, stop! What are you doing?” Lucas cried. But who was Lucas to tell him what to do? Nobody! That's why he charged on relentlessly, Pounding the turtle with his big bird's head!

  “What the hell! Lucas, get your stupid Piplup under control! (＃?Д?)?”

  “I'm trying! Azure, come on! Stop this—”

  “Screw it! Twinleaf, Leafage!”

  “Wait, what?”

  Faster than Lucas could think, a flurry of potent leaves furiously ravaged the raging Piplup and sent it crashing into the snowy grass! But that didn't mean anything to the Piplup! Even battered and on the brink of passing out, the only thing on Azure's mind was vengeance! Like a zombie, he picked himself up and charged on without thought!

  “Twinleaf, Superpower—”

  “Azure, return!”

  Right then, in a flash of urgent blue light, the crazed penguin was sucked back into its Poké Ball. Lucas's hands trembled, the Poké Ball clutched tightly in his hand as if the Piplup was gonna break out. His heart a drumming bank of adrenaline. What the heck was that?

  “Pretty brave of your Piplup to charge straight in after it got its ass absolutely annihilated yesterday!” Barry scoffed in a breath of cold fog. “Nah. Actually, that was plain stupid. Really stupid. Nothing but a suicide attempt. Looks like you've got yourself a sore loser on your hands, Lucas.”

  “Sorry… I—”

  “You gotta get your Pokémon under control. If you can't control them, if you don't get them to obey you, you're not supposed to be a trainer at all!”

  Lucas felt a torrential wave of shame smack his entire body. How embarrassing. It was like his voice was on mute the entire time; Azure didn't listen to a single thing he said! Plus, he looked crazy! Like he was out for blood. He was supposed to control that? How? Who the heck could get something like that under control? A virgin trainer like him?

  Don't be stupid. That's insane!

  How on Earth was Piplup the only choice? Why the hell did he choose something so… rabid?

  “Hey!”

  Barry's voice struck his ears like lightning, zapping him right out of his trance.

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  “Are you coming or not? Don't waste my time. Unless you're a scared little Purloin!”

  It was time to go. Not long after treading the grassy Route 201, full of annoying chirping Starlies, they arrived.

  There the boys were. An opening between a large cluster of evergreen trees.

  “Lake Verity…” Lucas said in a voice tinged with nostalgia, “To think this is where we're gonna catch our first Pokémon… other than Azure and Twinleaf, of course...”

  “You mean where I'm gonna catch my first Pokémon, first come first served! Come on, Twinleaf!” Fast as thought, Barry bolted into the forest, his verdant partner trailing behind him.

  “That's not fair!” Lucas cried, chasing after him into a corridor lined with tall viridian trees that almost blocked out the sun with their webs of needle leaves.

  When he reached the other side, the sunlight engulfed his eyes like a white flame, revealing a silvery pan of water surrounded by perfect snow-tipped greenery.

  “Twinleaf, you were supposed to block him off! (＃￣З￣)” Barry groaned.

  “Hey, you cheated!” Lucas pointed at the blonde with a frustrated finger, only to be met with a simple shrug from Barry digging into his ear.

  “Whatever, let's just get to… who's that?”

  The two boys panned their gazes at a strange man standing in the middle of a patch of grass with his eyes hopelessly fixated on the lake.

  “Hey! Who are you?” Barry burst, throwing an impatient stick of verbal dynamite at the stranger… only to be met with a silent, desolate gaze from his dead eyes.

  “Do not engage.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Uhh… Barry...?”

  Barry turned to see Lucas pointing a trembling finger at the trees behind them. All the blood in his body felt like it weighed a ton extra, sinking to the bottom of his soles.

  Sunken into the darkness of the trees, a pair of morbid blood eyes were frozen on the pair of helpless boys and the little Turtwig. Suddenly it felt like an unseen hand was gripping Lucas's heart in its palm and another pair was holding his ankles in place.

  They’d made a mistake.

  “Do not be afraid…” fall foliage coldly crunched under his feet as he made his way toward them. “I haven't given her any commands to act. She is harmless. They both are..."

  Still and stiff, as if dead, its entire body remained frozen. It didn't even look like it was breathing. Its canary beak pointed at them like a knife threatening to drill into their scalps. Its talons, razor claws, it could use to latch onto your skin and tear into your veins. Of all the Pokémon he could've run into that day, a Honchkrow was definitely not on Lucas's wishlist. They were going to die.

  Barry struggled to turn his stiffening neck at the man. Where had all his strength gone? This wasn't the time to be scared; he looked like an idiot!

  “Who are you? I… I won't ask you again!” he yelled.

  “Dude, chill out.” Lucas suggested in a quaky voice, unable to pull himself together.

  “Shut up! I'm not scared like you! Do you hear me? I'm not… scared…”

  Then he saw it. Fear sinking its fanged glare into his eyes from the corner of his eye. A horned four-legged devil burning the memory of mortality into his heart.

  “Meaning is often the spirit pulled out of our words…” the man said.

  His voice… his voice sounded clinically void yet accentuated by spiritless charisma.

  Of course, the sound of one's voice is likely your least concern when a demonic Houndoom is eating away your spirit and all your strength by merely standing there.

  Twinleaf used the pathetic resin of his residual strength to shuffle his stumpy legs a meaningless inch backward. Away from the misery of this bipedal deliverer of infernal demise.

  “But fear is merely just another sick joke integrated into our beings. Just like all emotions.”

  His hair was like a crown of pale blue icicles, with arctic eyes that sent frosted shivers up and down Lucas's spine. It wasn't that he was particularly tall, nor was it that he looked physically imposing. In fact, his skin latched tightly onto his cheekbones in a morbid way and he bore black crescents under his eyes, as if he was exhausted but spurred on by... something—rather, everything about him filled Lucas's spirit with an inexplicable dread. Dread that felt all too familiar. Dread that he was crying internally to escape from.

  “My name is Cyrus.”

  Barry mouthlessly pointed at the gilded emblem sewn where his heart was. “You're… you're part of Team Galactic! You're a criminal!”

  “That I am. My ambition necessitates it. You see, there are some things in this world you cannot realize when constrained by the bindings of society's warped ideals…” He squeezed his fist as if trying to strangle the air. “Tell me, are either of you familiar with the legends surrounding the spirit of this lake?”

  “No… but who the hell cares about historical mumbo jumbo? Dad says that stuff's a bunch of fairytales that people who wanna act like they know everything use to make people do what they want!”

  “And you believe what your father says?”

  “Of course!” Barry piped.

  “I see…” Cyrus said. “And you, young man?”

  Lucas's eyes were full of uncertainty, the avian nightmare’s eyes still drowning his mind in inky thoughts. “Well…”

  “His father's dead!” Barry spouted in bloated words like a Wailord. “Unless you meant all that other nonsense about legends, then Lucas knows all about that stuff!”

  Cyrus picked up the boy's expression once his friend's explosive words popped in the air. What an interesting dynamic they had. Of course, his interest lay in the silent one…

  “Is that true?”

  Lucas's fingers found their way to the scarf around his neck. “Yes… h-he was a ranger. He died on duty…”

  “Forgive me, but that's not what I meant by that question,” Cyrus said. “Tell me what you know about the spirit of this lake. Your friend seems to be under the impression that you're clued in on the matter.”

  “Well… the legends say when Mesprit was born, humans began to feel emotions for the first time. It's said that without it… without Mesprit, the world would lose all its spirit. All traces of emotion.”

  Silence fell between the three of them, save for the faint whispers of frostbitten wind lacing the trees and grass, and the not-so-distant whirring chirping of Starlies.

  Perhaps it was then that he had made up his mind.

  “Imagine such a world… one void of strife and fear. A world free of stress and anguish. A paradise. Excuse me, I shall be on my way. Perhaps… we will meet again. When the time is right. 8B, C5; Let us take our leave.”

  Like zombies, the Honchkrow and the Houndoom broke out of their deathly stillness and followed their master, disappearing into the trees.

  Swamped in denied yet still paralysing fear, Barry clapped his face between his hands, the sting would surely bring him back to his senses! No more of this lack of will, what was he doing? This wasn't something his dad would he proud of, not this useless immobility!

  “Quick, Twinleaf—we have to go after him, Lucas! That's a criminal—we can't let him… Lucas? Hey! What are you… HEY!”

  Nothing. Null. Void. Empty were Lucas's eyes, the usual youthful and nervous glint of his eyes had been sapped away, his irises dead and gray. Stiller than a tree under stagnant wind was his body.

  He was gone.