Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

White was never his color.

From the instant he was born, he lived and breathed white. The Paradise never learned kindness. Sure, they sheltered and fed. They taught such valuable lessons. And shouldn’t he be grateful, really, for being raised in such a beautiful place?

Besides, who would care for the poor, innocent Pokemon? What would his mother return to? When his sister retrieved the cure for that Ultra Beast’s toxin, her Paradise needed to be there for her. What joy it would bring! It could creak on a while longer, until its queen returned to the throne.

So he stayed, out of obligation. In familiar halls, a familiar cage. The bars were breaking in all directions. People knew some of what happened. Rumors were spreading—some painfully close to the truth. Without his mother’s charisma, the Paradise would eventually burn. But he was the next best thing.

As a child, he thought vampires weren’t real. After all, they came from regional stories about large Golbat. Yet even then, the Paradise was happily fed by his blood. It kept sucking even under Team Skull’s banner. And now—for its Pokemon—he let it feed.

“Look how happy the Pokemon are! Even the ones who we must keep forever. It’s because of my love. Isn’t that the most important thing—love for Pokemon? Yes, they’re so beautiful. Don’t you agree?”

He often strolled past the elevator. He went up. He went down. Four floors felt like forty. Yet, he could still remember that damn spot. The squeals of the third Type: Null, begging for help, begging for him. His mother’s Bewear, delivering a nice, tight hug. Hey kids! Did you know? Bewear can squash spines! A silly little anecdote, until he heard vertebrate snap. He watched light leave the eyes of a Pokemon for the first time. And his mother spoke, in a voice like ice.

“What beautiful blood from such an ugly creature.”

Of course, the mother who would return wasn’t the same monster who left. He should hold out for her ghost. Everything could go back to normal. Wicke said that when he had a stressful day, and he believed her. Even the lowly grunts told him a hundred other variations.

As if he needed a reminder he was just a replacement.

One night, these thoughts yanked him into the waking world. He lay on a bed dressed in white. His personal PC sat on the dresser next to him. Both were white, of course. The only dot of color in the room came from his clothes. His wrinkled, torn hoodie served as pajamas, because old habits died hard.

He stared at the walls of his pure-white room for about an hour. They rippled into motel walls. Team Skull’s vicious words. The stench of his clothing. Claws dangerously close to his flesh. And in the end? It was just an extension of the bubble that slowly sapped his airflow.

Wicke wasn’t there for him then. She was never there for him.

His sister? She grew and changed on her adventure. But she was allowed the freedom of an adventure?

The new Champion? They would never understand. They had the world on a platter. Had he ever seen them lose?

His mother? She would come back. She would take over.

“My beautiful Paradise…I made it all on my own…”

And he’d be kicked back to the dirt…if he was lucky.

Maybe he was damned from birth. Perhaps he was destined for the Distortion World the moment he died. But that was no reason to deny himself real air while he still lived. The World of Pokemon was bigger than this cage—hell, bigger than the islands. It was time to go on a real journey.

He collected PokeBalls automatically. They lived at the foot of his dresser next to his bag. It was a bad habit from the motel days. He should have learned the first time some Team Skull grunts stole them as a prank. But he wasn’t good at learning.

Or anything, really, but being ugly.

First was Umbreon, who he was forced to leave home when he first fled. He would not make the same mistake twice. Especially when his poor Pokemon’s wails still felt so fresh.

“An Umbreon? I see. I suppose that’s…fine, as an evolution. But Espeon has such a gorgeous gem. And Sylveon’s beautiful ribbons are famous the world over! Even Glaceon has such a lovely shining white coat. Eevee have so many possibilities. Why did you choose that one?”

He gathered Lucario, Crobat, Zoroark, Porygon-Z—all Pokemon he acquired on his initial foray into the world. He stuffed their PokeBalls into his bag. They’d be safe there. He owed them that much.

He took Silvally’s PokeBall last. He named their kind, as the Champion cheerfully learned from their Rotom Dex. But he was anonymous there. The Champion only knew because of their prior meetings. Years down the line, no-one would care for trivia.

In exchange, he gave the Champion the last surviving Type: Null. Because anywhere was safer than a lab basement. Any sound was better than a Pokemon’s distress in the early morning hours, when white peered through sleepy fog. Looking back, he shouldn’t have given the poor thing to such an ignorant Trainer.

“When they battle, their Pokemon shine bright! What a dazzlingly beautiful Trainer! Unlike you.”

Umbreon, Lucario, Crobat, Zoroark, Porygon-Z…Silvally. That was six. The rest of his Pokemon were stored on his PC. With luck, he could retrieve them. But the PC was tangled in the wires of this wicked Galvantula’s web. He might never see those Pokemon again. So he placed his hand to the screen—a final goodbye.

He wandered his room, searching for his shoes and earrings. As he moved, he threw together a loose plan. His destination was simple—Melemele Island. Specifically, Hau'oli City. A boat from the Paradise didn’t have enough fuel to go far, far away. He just had to hope it was too late for anyone to spot him.

Buried amongst the tourist traps and cheap malasada shops was his ticket out of the region. He wasn’t sure which place he was headed to. All he had were a list of dangers. Orre? Out of the question, after that Shadow Pokemon nonsense. Galar? Something about its bread and circuses made him queasy. Kanto? He didn’t want to risk seeing his mother. Maybe somewhere small. But what region was smaller than Alola?

The answer came like a squeeze from a Bewear. Kitakami. He learned of it from one of the many journals he read to prepare for his ill-fitting job. It was only easily accessible from Paldea or Johto. It wasn’t worth visiting Kanto’s twin. So Paldea was his next stop. Then Kitakami, deep in Oni Mountain. Then…then…

Well, as long as no human bothered him, he’d be alright.

He stepped out of his room, into white dyed grey. Imaginary tendrils of ice seeped from the walls in every room of this damn manor. Everyone knew what his mother hid upstairs. They cleaned that mess up, of course, with a nice little story about an abusive Trainer in Sinnoh. Oh yes. They cleaned up very well. They left no spots on the ever-white walls.

“You helped them with that speech, didn’t you? You did an excellent job. Why, if I closed my eyes, I could even pretend you’re beautiful!”

Clenching Silvally’s PokeBall, he darted out of the mansion. Two grunts waited outside—one a man, the other a woman. They stopped stargazing at the sound of his footsteps. Both swiveled towards him. They took one look at his face, and they knew.

“Where are you going, Master?” asked the man.

“I need a boat to Melemele Island,” he said.

“At this hour?” the woman asked.

“It’s not your business,” he snarled.

“But Master,” the man said. “We need you. Here. As long as it takes.”

Two PokeBalls were thrown. Two Stufful punched at the air. Mere imitations of his mother’s control. Without thinking, he sent Silvally to join them. The following battle was so un-noteworthy that a history book wouldn’t bother cramming it in as a footnote. He only had to order a single attack, blink, and the Stufful were down.

The grunts nodded to each other. The woman grabbed a walkie talkie. The man charged towards him. This idiot thought he could take him down with his bare hands? After he survived Guzma? If he had the strength, he would have laughed. He stalked forward, but a grunt from Silvally stopped him.

Silvally wanted to protect him. Should he deny the poor Pokemon a simple wish?

“Crush Claw,” he ordered.

His voice was soft. The unspoken command was clear—this man is not worth killing. Silvally rushed to met the grunt. They knocked him aside with a swipe of their paw. The grunt whined like a child denied a malasada.

He left the grunt and his friend in his shadow. Silvally automatically followed—as worried as they were obedient. They gave their Trainer a hollow whimper.

“We’re leaving,” he said, his voice raw. “This time, we’re not coming back.”

As he expected, there were more grunts. They tossed Pokemon at him in twos and threes. None stood a chance against Silvally. Shreds of his pity hugged the poor Yungoos and Stufful. Leaving them was his greatest regret. But he could only save a few Pokemon. He already made his choices.

The docks were eerily quiet. He had Lucario’s PokeBall in his free hand, just in case. Silvally’s ragged breathing cued him in to his Pokemon’s exhaustion. He used a pre-packed Hyper Potion, but he didn’t have many more. It was stupid not to bring more items. But they were buyable. Replaceable. Use a Potion and throw it away.

He boarded the nearest boat. Silvally followed him, claws scraping the metal floor. Water sloshed in his ears. He closed his eyes, remembering his last boat ride out of this nightmare. His mother’s eyes bored into his brain. They carried only disgust. He wasn’t beautiful, and ugly things didn’t have the right to live. His every breath soiled her Paradise.

He revved up the engine. Footsteps pierced the roaring waves and scent of gasoline. Wicke came running down the docks, arms extended towards him. She was speaking—begging, really—though her words were swallowed by the engine starting. She was the closest thing he had to a mother. But second place wasn’t enough.

He forced the boat forward. Water and anger exploded behind him. Silvally looked back one last time. Then, they joined their Trainer in looking at the open sea. Wicke’s voice cut past the boat, the waves, and his own hideous defenses.

“Come back!” Wicke shouted. “I can’t run the Paradise all by myself! Think of your sister and mother! What about the Pokemon? What will they do without you?”

He stalled the boat. A hundred lab cells containing three hundred Pokemon flashed through his mind. He heard their squeals. At any moment, a Pokemon sleeping peacefully could become a lab technician’s toy. Wasn’t it his mother’s job to stop that? And his sister had grown so much. When they came back, they could make this place a real Paradise. He had to hold on, just a bit longer.

And yet…

“You know, sometimes I wonder if you’d be more beautiful if you were born a girl. But this is the hand Arceus dealt me, I suppose.”

“I’ll dress you in white. Isn’t a lovely color? Oh no—you can’t wear the black shirt. It’s too ugly. Let your mother handle all those silly things.”

“What a foolish mother I am, letting you keep that haircut! Don’t worry—I’ll fix it. Now just hold still.”

“You remind me of someone…hm. I can’t remember the name. But he looked just like you when he was angry. He was just as hideous.”

“Listen to your mother. I’ll make you beautiful.”

…he did not belong here.

His hands gripped the controls so tightly that they left indents. What ugly markings. But they were necessary. Ugliness had some place out there, didn’t it? He powered the boat up again, taking it deep into the night. Silvally howled, and he found himself joining them.

Gladion would never be beautiful. But in a few hours, he’d finally be home.

Chapter Text

Gladion expected Kitakami to be quiet. One, maybe two sleepy towns to pass through. Then, he was safely in the mountains. And he was mostly right.

Something disturbed the idyllic peace of the land. People behaved erratically, flapping their arms, possessed by neurotoxin. At every turn, they tried to grab Gladion. At every turn, he fled. The horde clawed at his sides, trying to pull him into its gravity.

"Why can't you be more like your sister? So sweet, so obedient, so beautiful?"

Gladion found only two Trainers who were not effected. One was so much like the Champion—quiet, with leagues of talent bubbling within. According to their purple-haired companion, they were also a Champion of some sort. Like Gladion’s sister, this boy evolved. But he evolved wrong. With every fiber of his being, he was trying to set things right.

"You know I can get you another Eevee? There’s so many around the Paradise. A shame—so many Trainers think they know how to care for one. Just because they’re cute. But in my loving arms, they thrive. Some evolved, even, into Sylveon. Espeon. Are you listening?”

Gladion wanted to walk on. But his gut could not ignore two sets of pleading eyes. So he and his Pokemon fought as hard as they could. They cleared away the Pokemon of countless possessed people. These poor defeated souls fell into a daze. Perhaps their cure was in Kanto.

The trio eventually cornered the source of the neurotoxin. It was so small, and cried like a child. But Gladion knew not to underestimate any Pokemon, even if it seemed harmless. Perhaps this Pokemon would evolve into a mighty lion one day. Then, it would sail into the stars, spreading its mochi across entire regions…

Gladion distracted the mob for the young Champion. Somehow, he always got tangled up with Champions. The other boy threw everything he had at the people he grew up with. He was no slouch. His Incineroar was an Alolan breed. It showed in his fighting style. The other Pokemon—Gladion never saw one, but the Trainer called him “Hydrapple"—was a twisting mass of serpents stored in a fruit. Beauty with viciousness stored deep within.

Even here, he could not escape his mother.

But together with the other boy, he kept the mob at bay. The Champion caught the cause using a cheap imitation of a Beast Ball. Like a fog in morning, the mania faded. Ordinary people apologized for less than ordinary actions. His skill was recognized, even past the neurotoxin.

And just like that, Gladion was a hero.

Heroes cannot escape their own laurels. The Champion bore the brunt of it, since they did most of the work. They were praised for their battle skill—incredible, dazzling, beautiful. Meanwhile, Gladion and his ally—Kieran, his name was Kieran—cleaned up the mess the neurotoxin left behind. They did not know a moment’s rest until all was back where it should be, and all was beautiful.

Kieran left the next morning. It was in a bit of a hurry. Gladion caught the name of his destination. “Blueberry Academy” taught him well. But a school seemed so pushy, so loud. It was staffed with too many people. Even if Gladion could learn a thing or two, he couldn’t go back.

So he watched Kieran leave, in the shadow of his sister.

Gladion prepared to resume his mountain journey. Unfortunately, that girl Nemona was obsessed with him. She saw him fight through the neurotoxin. Even with three Trainers trying to hold her back, she asked for a battle. Once, it was three in the afternoon. Another time, it was three in the morning. She was the second most relentless woman he ever met.

“Pokemon just get hurt in battles. I don’t understand why you have to watch those brutal things all the time. Now turn the television off, and come care for the Corsola. You can watch later. Oh, my dear child. Would your mother ever lie to you?”

Eventually—just to sleep—Gladion gave in. Nemona and her friends led him to a grassy field just outside the town. The young Champion set up camp. Then, they sat on the grass. With a friend on either side and eyes like glass, they watched. Maybe they were intently taking notes. Maybe they were a world away, past the depths of a wormhole.

The two Trainers knocked each other’s Pokemon out one by one in rapid succession. Soon, it was down to only two—Silvally and Pawmot. Nemona used the mysterious power of the land. Energy crawled up her arm, past her arm brace. It solidified into crystal the color of golden resolve.

Nemona didn’t care. That was just what this power did. The more one used it, the more they wore it. “Terastallization” was their pride as much as their pain.

Terastallization was so similar to a Z-Ring's power. Gladion tried that magic once he got a Z-Ring of his own. But its wonder belonged to the Alolan people. Gladion was never an Alolan. His grandfather was a Kalosian parasite. He couldn’t speak any island’s local dialect until he met Hau. And yet, she dared to think…

“Alola is our home. But one day, we’ll reach past it. Beyond the stars. There are worlds beyond your understanding. Pokemon live in all of them. And every last one needs my love.”

Gladion lost himself to that moment. He was outside the mansion, overlooking the ocean. Umbreon was still an Eevee, then, and he was a very stupid child.

Pawmot surged in close. His small but mighty fists rained upon Silvally. It was only then that Gladion realized he forgot to put a memory into the RKS System. Silvally thudded to the ground. Gladion tried not to blink. He didn’t want to see blood.

Gritting his teeth, Gladion recalled his Silvally. He didn’t cry, because crying was beneath a strong Trainer like himself. But he had to get to the Pokemon Center. As he retreated, Nemona grabbed his arm. Rubber and lightly crushed crystal begged him to stay.

"That was amazing!” Nemona shouted "You're amazing! I want to battle you again and again!"

"But I lost," Gladion pointed out.

“You're just like my friend," Nemona said. "You'll dust yourself off and bounce back stronger. That's the Gladion I can't wait to battle! When you heal your Pokemon—”

“Give him a rest, Nemona,” one of her friends said, exasperated. What was his name? Oh. Arven. “I have plenty of Potions and Revives. Not as many as my little buddy, of course. I don’t know where they get them. But here.”

Arven opened his backpack and extracted enough medicine for the next thousand years. Gladion scooped it up, staring at it. If this was Team Skull, he’d swear it was a prank. Good things never came without a thousand asterisks. A fee here, a condition there. But today, they came free.

“When you’re done healing up, why not stay for a picnic?” Arven suggested. “I make the best sandwiches in all of Paldea! Okay, not the best. But really darn good ones!”

It was either out of shock or gratefulness that Gladion stuck around. Once he healed his Pokemon, he let them wander free. The other Trainers did the same. The girl named Penny unleashed six different evolutions of Eevee. Six different possibilities. One was an Umbreon.

The young Champion—as Champions always did—had something special. One, two, three, four, five, six—seven Pokemon. Their extra team member was a large lizard with scarlet scales. Their name was ”Koraidon”. No-one wanted to discuss where they came from.

Koraidon had the personality of a hyperactive toddler. First, they guzzled sandwiches out of their Trainer’s hand. Then—with a curious sniff—they gained an interest in Silvally. The lizard barreled Silvally to the dirt. Silvally’s crest grew wide. But they detected no hostility. Gladion could tell in how playful their returning shove was. Before long, the two Pokemon were joyfully wrestling through the field.

There was something strange about Koraidon. Gladion only felt the same powerful aura around Silvally. His mother whispered in his ear about the lizard’s garish colors. But for once, he could not string her words into a sentence. She was a feeling, a memory.

Gladion released her into the wind.