Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Every one of Cyrus' breaths crackled audibly in his chest, reaching Saturn's ears even from where he sat across the room. He bit at his nails, his gaze darting to the door, to the clock, the the window. The lights from the marina lit the room pale green through the cracks in the plywood obscuring the glass, deepening the sickly hollows of Cyrus' face. Above the bobbing lights of the boats, a thick crescent moon hung pale but resolute in the dark sky.

“Saturn?” A voice sounded, clear and quiet, its identity disguised in a whisper.
Saturn stood and tip-toed to the kitchen, the floorboards creaking under him in open defiance of his caution. He'd have to be more careful. This place had been dangerously old even when he'd been a kid, probably condemned or about to be. Nothing was sure.

“Saturn?” the voice came again, clearer. "This better not be a trap."

“Mars?” He rounded the corner and paused in the doorway to the kitchen. Mars squinted at him, crouched awkwardly in the windowsill. At the sight of him, she extricated herself, revealing a large backpack rumpling the fabric of her dress.

“Where is he?” Mars demanded, looking around as though Cyrus might be lurking in the shadows.

“Sleeping. I told you, he's sick.”

“I want to see him.”

Saturn tossed his head. She'd have to learn to respect his authority if they wanted any hope of success. “Did you bring what I asked?”

Mars spared a moment to glare at him before shrugging off the backpack. She unloaded her cargo onto the rickety wooden table: non-perishables, medicines, instant coffee, toiletries, water, even a first-aid kit. “I told the cashier I was preparing for a snowstorm.”

“Not here, right?” Saturn spared a moment to search her face before falling on the supplies, squinting in the darkness. Cyrus had gone without treatment for far too long.

Mars’ eyes glinted in the moonlight as she rolled them. “Obviously not here. I came from Hearthome?”

“Hearthome?” Saturn paused in his search for a thermometer, his hand stilling over the latches of the first aid kit. “What were you doing there?”

“None of your business.” Mars crossed her arms, shifting her weight between her feet. “Can't I at least see him?”

“He's sleeping.”

“I won't make a sound.”

Saturn huffed and threw open the first aid kit. “Wait a moment.” He bent nearly double, straining his eyes to make sense of the packaging within. Painkillers, scissors, bandagages— aha. A temporal thermometer. Perfect. “Alright, come on.”

True to her word, Mars fell silent as they broached the guestroom where Saturn had dragged his master two days prior. At the sound of Cyrus’ labored breathing, she gave Saturn a curious look, but he only pressed a finger to his lips and crept closer to the bed. Mars followed him silently; even her tread was lighter than his, her breathing nearly inaudible.
After pulling the plastic from the battery compartment, Saturn pressed the thermometer gently to Cyrus’ temple.
39.7.

Saturn huffed, the aborted beginning of a heavy sigh. In his sleep, Cyrus coughed and wheezed, his breath coming in strained whistles for a few heart-stopping moments.

When it passed, Saturn led Mars back to the kitchen. She sat at the table, her chin in her palm, face grave. “What's wrong with him? Why can't he breathe?”

“I think it's pneumonia. He's… he keeps waking up in the night. He can't even… I mean—” Saturn cut himself off. The particulars of the strange, intimate moments he had shared with Cyrus were his alone. And Cyrus would probably prefer discretion, or at least a strict adherence to the facts. Still, the truth of his panic and despair welled up on his tongue like blood from a cut. Saturn swallowed hard and did not speak.

Mars let her breath out slowly, almost laughing. “I thought he was dead. When that— that monster took him away, I really— She straightened suddenly, shaking her head. “Is Jupiter coming?”

Saturn shrugged. “I called her. She said she'd come.”

“Right.” Mars sat back in her chair, casting an uneasy glance at the long-neglected kitchenette. "What is this place, anyway? Don't tell me it's one of your childhood haunts; that's the first place the feds will look."

Saturn shuddered. He wasn't an idiot; of course coming back to his hometown had not been the smartest move. But what else was he supposed to do? Cyrus needed shelter, and Saturn, well... He'd done his best.

"Saturn," Mars pressed. "Tell me it's not."

Saturn shook his head. "It's just an old hotel. The Harbor Inn." She didn't need to know how many drunken nights he'd spent here, playing spin the bottle while his more amorous friends broke in the beds.

"And you're sure it's safe?"

"As safe as it can be, given the circumstances." Saturn ran a hand through his hair, only just managing to not roll his eyes. Did she think he was stupid? That he hadn't made the best possible decision? She wasn't the one who had had dragged Cyrus like a broken doll because he'd been too close to death to even stand up on his own. Who had kept vigil in the night, cradling Cyrus' head and covering his mouth to keep him from calling out in his feverish sleep.

"And there's not, like, asbestos in the walls?" Mars stuck her hands into the pile on the table, dragging forth a container of something that rattled.

She held it out to Saturn, and he extended his hand automatically. She shook a few small, pill-shaped objects into his palm "No, there's no asbestos... What is this?"

"Chocolate." Mars tossed a handful into her mouth. "Is there asbestos?"

"No." Saturn stared at the little chocolate pellets in his palm.

"Buuut?"

"It's just a rumor." For lack of anything else to do with it, Saturn paused to eat the chocolate Mars had given him. Unable to risk going out, neither he nor Cyrus had eaten in the last two days. The chocolate tasted artifical on his tongue, nauseatingly sweet. "Apparently, a sailor came to stay at this inn one night. An explorer, I guess. He had just come from some far-off island, and— Well, the rumor is that he went somewhere he shouldn't have, and he caught the attention of a spirit. It followed him here, to the inn. When night fell, he went to sleep and never woke up."

"Uh-huh..." Mars arched her brows. "You mean he died?"

"No, I mean he went to sleep. And he stayed asleep, gradually growing weaker and weaker, until he died. They say the spirit never left, and it lurks in the shadows, waiting to claim its next victim."

"Urgh." Mars shuddered.

"Oh, it gets worse." Saturn sighed and put his head on his hand. What a life, having nothing better to do but tell ghost stories while waiting for the feds to kick down the door. "Apparently, every night on the new moon, a guest would disappear from their bed, never to be seen again." When Mars turned to look out the window, he scoffed. “It's still practically a quarter moon. And besides, it's just a ghost story.”

“You're not even a little creeped out?”
Saturn fixed her with a glare, his nerves fraught. “We have real problems to worry about.”

—

Jupiter arrived hours later, crawling in through the kitchen window just as Mars had done. She came toting camping supplies, unrepentant about rushing into Cyrus’ sickroom amid the sounds of his coughing.

Saturn only just beat her there, falling to his knees by the bedside. Cyrus clung to him, gasping for breaths between coughs that would not abate.

Jupiter did not gasp as Mars had done, nor did she rush to intervene. She simply watched. Once Cyrus had finished coughing and fallen back to sleep, she fixed Saturn with a bold, unimpressed stare. "That cough sounds like a death sentence."

Saturn, though not normally given to violence, could have slapped her. “Shut up. Did you bring what I asked for?”

“A lot of good it'll do you.” She led the way back to the kitchen, unloading her backpack on the old, peeling countertop while Saturn closed the window and drew the blinds again. A bit of eerie green light leaked through from the marina, making stripes on the wall. “How did you find this dump, anyway?”

“Never mind that,” Saturn said coldly. “This inn has been abandoned as long as you've been alive. No one will come.”

“Saturn.” Jupiter set a camp stove down with a thud. “I thought you were smarter than this. If you don't get Master Cyrus to a doctor, arrest will be the least of his concerns.”

Saturn leveled a glare at her. “I told you he was ill.”

“Yes, ill, not on his deathbed.”

“Are you going to leave, then?”

Jupiter was quiet for a long moment, her teeth bared. Finally, she sighed and threw up her hands. “I don't want him to die, Saturn. But you can't seriously—”

“Prepare for the worst if you must,” Saturn interrupted hotly, “but at least do me the favor of expecting the best.”

—

Saturn took one final shift watching over Cyrus, half-dozing in a chair only to rouse when Cyrus would wake to cough and cough and cough.

When the light of dawn coaxed Saturn's eyes open, he found Cyrus lying awake, though flat against the pillows. He looked terribly gaunt in the semi-darkness. Saturn bit his thumbnail. They'd have to get some food into him, and quickly.
"Saturn," Cyrus said gravely.

Saturn straightened in his chair, blinking the sleep from his eyes. “Master Cyrus?”

“Stop this.” Cyrus’ voice came only as a hoarse whisper, his breathing wet and labored. “Give this up… This sentimentality... will get you... killed."

“You're delirious,” Saturn said firmly, taking Cyrus’ hand where it rested on the covers. “You had faith in something, Master Cyrus. That means something, even if I don't understand it. I want— I want to show you what loyalty means."

“Saturn—” For a moment, Cyrus’ voice, though raspy and weak, took on its usual commanding qualities. He had to stop and cough, falling just short of the choking fits that had plagued him all through the night. Saturn spoke over him, voice rising: “I'll show you, Master Cyrus. The world hasn't seen the last of Team Galactic!”

Chapter Text

So he's dead?" Saturn bit his lip, his gaze falling to Jupiter's boots, which doubled snd coalesced sickeningly in front of his eyes.

At the edge of his vision, Jupiter shrugged. "I told you what I know."

"So he's dead," Saturn pressed, grasping for certainty that slipped between his fingers like water.

Jupiter raised her palms, a quick, violent gesture. "What do you want me to say? He disappeared. I don't know if the shadow killed him. I don't know what was on the other side of that portal. The Champion went after him, and she's not dead; I saw her on live TV."

"But—"

"Listen! I risked my ass coming here to warn you. I don't know why Interpol hasn't raided the place yet, but it could happen any minute, so don't expect me to stand around all day giving interviews." She huffed and turned away from him, the toe of her boot dragging on the linoleum. "There's no Team Galactic without Master Cyrus. No offense." A half-step away. "Mars and I are keeping our phones, but..."

"I know," Saturn said bitterly, swallowing hard against the ache on his tongue.

"Goodbye, Jupiter."

He didn't wait for a response before turning on his heel and striding away. Tears blurred his vision, returning stubbornly no matter how many times he wiped his eyes.

Muscle memory brought him to his quarters. Like a sullen teenager, he threw himself down onto his bed as the first sob rocked him. His rage burned in his face. Crying like a child...! All his beliefs fracturing along their weaknesses without Master Cyrus' reassurances to fortify them. A victim of his howling, wounded, wretched human spirit— vague and incomplete, as Cyrus would remind him. This was his final failure. He had never understood Cyrus, and now he never would.

Pulsing light drew Saturn to wakefulness. He kept his eyes closed for a moment, breathing through the headache pinching at his temples. He'd cried himself to sleep like a petulant child.

A rainbow of lights thrummed gently just beyond his eyelids, gentle imperatives pushing on him: Act. Love. Claim.

Blue, pink, yellow.

Red.

Saturn opened his eyes. In front of him, the Lake Guardians hovered. The combined efforts of their intense power throbbed behind his eyes. Act. Love. Claim. Beneath it all, and undercurrent of wounded-feral rage his brain couldn't translate into words.

"I— I'm sorry," Saturn gasped. If they were back for revenge, they had earned it. The memory of their cries echoing in the laboratory still sent ripples of nausea through his stomach when it sneaked up on him in quiet moments. Though he had no psychic powers of his own, he pushed back as hard as he could, throwing everything into one thought, one feeling: Remorse.

The Guardians advanced on him, and pain and pressure exploded in his head: Atone. Die.

Saturn's vision whited out.

Damp grass under his knees. Blood chilling under his nose. Vertigo.

Saturn fell forward onto his palms and vomited, icy air filling his mouth during the ragged gasps that followed. His head throbbed at the flex of his jaw. He fell back and opened his eyes, his vision full with the dark drying blood on his trembling fingers.

The waning quarter moon had yet enough presence in the sky to light the scene as he looked around. All around him, tall meadow grass swayed in the sweet mountain breeze. Farther off in the distance, water trickled as it flowed. Patches of frozen snow glinted here and there among the claustrophobic press of the dark fir trees.

Following the lush slap of water on water, Saturn walked to the stream and crouched at its edge. His boots kept a sure hold on the mossy rocks just as his insulated jumpsuit kept the worst of the mountain chill from his skin.

Still, the water numbed his hands and stung his face as he washed the blood from his lips and chin. The Lake Guardians had disappeared, leaving him alone in this forest.

It was obviously a Route; though the grassy path had grown long, it lay down under the influence of human activity. Someone had been here, if not exactly recently.

Saturn rose and followed the tracks.
The Guardians had brought him here for a reason— his head pulsed with the word and the rage that accompanied it: Atone.
Whatever that meant. Likely they meant for him to die here, cold and alone, his brain screaming with the memories of his perversion of the natural order.

Saturn walked on.

What else could he do?

Beyond the jagged mouth of a cave, swirling fog turned to water on Saturn's face. He lingered near the entrance and waited for his eyes to adjust. Something more than the frigid air chilled him; an innate danger pricked his brain stem.

And... a presence.

A second breath pattern emerged from the darkness, heavier than Saturn's own, ragged, colored with clipped, guttural moans.

Against his better judgment, Saturn whispered into the darkness: "Hello?"
No response.

Carefully, Saturn released Bronzor from its Ball, closing his eyes against the stab of light. Intuiting his plan, Bronzor angled itself, slowly reflecting the light of the moon round the cave. The watery spotlight roved and moved, until it finally landed on the body.

Cyrus lay slumped against the cave wall, his body canted awkwardly to the side. Feathers peeked out from tears in his jumpsuit, especially from a large gash near the elbow of his left arm. His breaths came fast and shallow.

"M-Master?" Saturn's breath caught. "Master Cyrus, can you hear me?"

Cyrus didn't say a word. Forcing in a deep, tremulous breath, Saturn edged closer. He could handle this; he just had to keep his head. A lifetime in Sinnoh had certainly exposed him to enough wilderness survival education to know what to do.

Kneeling, Saturn tapped Cyrus on the shoulder. "Are you alright? Can you hear me? Cyrus? Can you hear me?"

For a moment, Cyrus' lips moved soundlessly. Saturn leaned in until the icy breaths ghosted across his cheek. "Jiisan? S'cold..."

Saturn pressed his hand to Cyrus' forehead and winced. Cold. Freezing. And not a tremor passing through Cyrus' body. Dammit, he needed to act, not just sit here assessing!

His own breath escaped him in unstable bursts, sending tendrils of fog spiraling into the ether. He slowed in with force of will, calming himself. Cyrus hadn't made him lieutenant for nothing. He had to handle this or Cyrus would die.

Biting his lip, Saturn freed Kadabra from his Ball. The LED flare made Cyrus groan and turn his head away, which was something. At least he was responsive, if not oriented. "Sorry," Saturn whispered. "Kadabra, I need you to do something for me. I know it's not what you're used to. Do you remember where you evolved?"

Despite everything, Saturn's chest swelled with the memory. His little Abra beaming at him from the riverside off Route 218. "I need you to Teleport us there. Can you do it?"

In response, Kadabra blinked out of existence and reappeared a few feet away. When Saturn spotted him, he repeated the exercise and returned to Saturn's side.

"Good." Saturn recalled Bronzong and rested a hand on Cyrus' shoulder. "Let's go."

—

Canalave had always been a sleepy town. Most of the action came from the marina and usually only involved sailors getting into fights or the handful of local burnouts vandalizing the boardwalk. Saturn breathed a sigh of relief when the foggy cave gave way to a dark and empty street. Even on the water, the air was much warmer, and beside him, Cyrus had already begun to shiver.

Saturn knelt beside him. "Master Cyrus, if you can understand me, I need you to put your arm around me. We're going to stand, alright?"

"J-jiisan... It h-hurts..."

"What hurts?" Saturn drew back. He'd positioned himself on Cyrus' left side, where his jumpsuit had torn so badly. Even now, a few handfuls of down caught the breeze and drifted off toward the water. Saturn leaned in, squinting, but the streetlights only revealed more feathers. Gingerly, Saturn took Cyrus' arm.
Cyrus hissed, baring his teeth. A tear streaked from his eyes, gleaming silver on his cheek. "Who are you?" He shifted away, raising his good arm to ward Saturn off.

"No, don't." Saturn switched sides and caught Cyrus' right arm, forcing himself under it before Cyrus could decide to hit him.

"Oh," Cyrus sad sadly. "Father."

"Stand up and come with me," Saturn said, doing his best to look around without losing hold of Cyrus. The streets wouldn't stay abandoned forever. For all he knew, alarms were waking residents all over Canalave to get them ready for the workday.

"Yes, s-s-sir," Cyrus slurred.

"Now." Grunting, Saturn hauled the two of them up. Even with Cyrus trying his best, Saturn took the brunt of the weight. Keeping their balance was an active endeavor, made slightly easier by the motion of walking. Indicating with his head for Kadabra to return, Saturn set to work hauling Cyrus to the back side of the Harbor Inn.

The thin strip of land separating the hotel from the marina was barely enough for one person to creep along, and that if they were careful and leaned against the siding. The dirt sloped heavily toward the rock seawall, which towered above the lapping waves at a slant. A fall would drop a body directly onto the rocks.
Sighing, Saturn left Cyrus prostrate on the grass and crept toward the back window, as he had so many times as a teenager.

"F-Father?" Cyrus called.

Saturn flinched.

"I'm s-sorry! I'm sorry! I d-didn't m-mean to make you l-leave. Should I g-get up?"

"Be quiet!" Saturn hissed, for a moment pressing his forehead into the weather-beaten siding. What did he think he was doing? His heart hammered in his chest, his breathing speeding up to accommodate it, until sparkling black vignetted his vision. He had no handle on this situation, none whatsoever, and he was going to fall into the fucking harbor and Cyrus would die of exposure.

That thought alone was enough to sober Saturn. He thumped his forehead against the siding to bring himself back to reality, and continued his sideways shuffle to the window. Opening it was a simple matter of pushing up the sash, since the lock had long since been destroyed by some fellow delinquent.

Saturn propped the window open with a stick that had been placed there for exactly that purpose and made his way back to Cyrus. Determined not to panic now, he took Cyrus by the ankles and dragged him along the narrow strip of grass. This was utter insanity. Cyrus would probably rather have died than see himself subjected to such indignities, but— Well, according to the Team Galactic bylaws, Saturn was in charge. He was in charge, dammit; this was his call. So he dragged his master on the ground like a child with a toy, gritting his teeth against the cries of pain Cyrus loosed when his apparently injured arm touched the rocks.
Under the window, Cyrus began to cough. It was a short fit, but a bad one that had him spitting in the grass and wincing.

Saturn held fast to his ankles. "Cyrus, if you have any strength left, if you can hear me at all, I need you to sit up."

"S-S-Saturn?" Cyrus was shivering worse than ever now, and thank goodness. His body was trying to warm itself up.

"You're incapacitated," Saturn said with as much calm as he could force into his voice. "I'm in charge. Sit up and grab the window sill."

"Tired..." Cyrus' head rolled in the grass. Saturn squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers aching front his death grip on Cyrus' boots. "Jiisan w-was here?"

"Shit!" Saturn ground his teeth and sighed.
This, for some reason, stirred Cyrus into motion. Though his whole body trembled with the effort, he got himself up with a painful effort and gripped the windowsill with his right hand. Saturn got under him and shoved. The resulting clamor made his heart speed up, which really shouldn't have been possible. Somehow, his body found a way. His chest ached, but he wasted no time recovering. He all but flew through the window, carefully lowering the stick to the grass before easing it shut.

He dismounted from the countertop carefully. Cyrus had obviously fallen. It would have been impossible for him to keep his balance.

A hysterical laugh escaped Saturn's chest. He'd shoved Cyrus in headfirst. What if he'd died?

A low groan from the floor drew him back to reality. "N-nobody— Nnh... Nobody w-will come looking f-for me. Better... t'just kill me..."

Fighting the urge to scream, Saturn took Cyrus' ankles once again and dragged him over the dusty floorboards. He could only hope that an errant nail didn't catch Cyrus' back and bleed him.

Saturn's back and forearms ached, but he held tight and kept walking, tugging Cyrus along. He just needed to get Cyrus into a bed. That was all.

Cyrus started coughing again, the force of them curling his body up. He coughed long and wet, curling on his side once Saturn got him into a bedroom. An ancient, dusty rug bunched up underneath him, and Cyrus dug his fingers into the material as his whole body shuddered.

"Stay here," Saturn said, turning to the closet. Finding an blanket, he shook it out as best as he could and spread it over Cyrus where he lay on the rug. "Get into bed if you can. I'll be right back."

Practically running, he returned to the kitchen and began to dig through the cabinets. Sure enough, some high schoolers had had the foresight to leave a few party cups behind. Finding the one that smelled the least like alcohol, Saturn took it and climbed out the window.

He hurried to the marina, going just slow enough to ensure he didn't trip and fall to his death... or draw unwanted attention to himself, which could have been a very different kind of death sentence. Every instinct told him to run, but he didn't. He walked, his knuckles white around the cup.

He rinsed it as best as he could at the marina's water fountain, then filled it to the brim and set off back to the Harbor Inn.

Cyrus had gotten himself into the bed, by some miracle, and appeared to be asleep despite the violent shudders running through him.

"Cyrus? Master Cyrus?" Saturn leaned over him.

Like lightning, Cyrus shot an arm out and squeezed his wrist. "Kill me," he demanded in his familiar tone of grave imperative. "There's n-nothing I can g-give you."

"Sh, sh. Drink this." Saturn brought the cup to Cyrus' lips. "Just drink."

Cyrus drank, though he stopped too soon for Saturn's taste. Saturn set the cup on the bedside table.

In low light, the white of Cyrus' boots seemed to glow. Saturn knelt at the foot of the bed and pulled them off by the heels. Chunks of dirt and gravel fell from the soles, clattering onto the hardwood, and brown dust made his fingers skid across the leather. Had Cyrus traversed that whole cave system by himself? How had he gotten there? Jupiter had been very clear about the rip in space-time— a portal, she'd said.

Shaking his head, Saturn got to his feet and arranged the covers over Cyrus, who coughed intermittently. "Please try to sleep. There's water on the nightstand for you. Call me if you need anything." For a moment, the absurd urge to squeeze Cyrus' hand nearly overwhelmed him. He made fists instead. "It's— It's Saturn, by the way. It's just the two of us. You're safe."

Cyrus made no reply.

After burying Cyrus under every blanket he could find (save one, which he kept for himself), Saturn carried the suite's desk chair to Cyrus' bedside and arranged himself in it. Spring nights in Sinnoh still got bitterly cold, but between the building's insulation, the blanket, and his good down jumpsuit, Saturn found nothing to complain of. With a sigh, he propped his feet on the edge of Cyrus' bed and closed his eyes.

Cyrus coughed all night long.

Chapter Text

Cyrus' fever continued to climb as the morning crawled toward afternoon. His coughing grew harsher and more frequent. If it wasn't pneumonia, then it was definitely some sort of infection in his chest, and a bad one.

Saturn ran a hand down his face, the floorboards creaking as he paced up and down the hall. Three days in the dry dust of the Harbor Inn and he was already about to chew his leg off.
His eyes roved over the graffiti hacked into the walls, knife gouges and cigarette burns.

"Hey." Appearing from one of the guestrooms, Mars eased up to him with a bunch of rugs bundled up in her arms. A scrap of cloth, tied at the back, hid most of her face.

Saturn stopped his pacing and pressed his back to the wall to let her pass. "What are you doing?"

Somewhere in the distance, Cyrus' choking coughs sounded.

"This place has a blind spot," Mars said, the corners of her eyes tightening. "If you go out the back window and immediately turn right, nobody can see you but the boats, and there aren't any out right now."

Saturn bit his lip. No use picking a fight, even if it was a stupid risk to take. The ocean never dtayed empty for long. "And the rugs?"

"I'm shaking the dust out. I don't know if you've noticed, but this place is disgusting."

Anger flared in Saturn's chest and dissipated just as suddenly. With an almighty sigh, he rested his head on the wall and blinked at the ceiling. "Here," he said weakly, his words punctuated by more of Cyrus' coughing. "Let me help."
Mars bristled. "Was that an order, Lieutenant?"

"No, no." Saturn sighed again, the ghost of that morning's cold instant coffee washing over his tongue. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, I was kidding." Mars indicated the kitchenette with her head. "Grab a mask and open the window for me, okay?" This will go faster with two of us."

—

The Harbor Inn was not particularly large, but Jupiter somehow managed to make herself scarce until 3:00, when she summoned them to the kitchenette for yet another meal of shelf-stable food. A styrofoam cup noodles container steamed on the counter, smelling perplexingly of mint tea.

"Where have you been?" Saturn asked, taking the plate of crackers and canned fish she offered him.

Jupiter passed her eyes right over him, turning to pass a plate to Mars. "I don't like cleaning."

"And I do?"

"Glad to hear it." She smirked, cutting Saturn off when he opened his mouth to reply: "Come on." She took the two remaining plates and the noodle cup and turned toward Cyrus' room.

With a glance at Mars, Saturn followed.
The sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, revealing all the dust motes in the air.

Saturn stopped short and put a hand to his brow. "That's bright!"

"Sit... at the opposite... wall." Cyrus. His voice came weak, his words broken up by shallow gasps for air.

"Master Cyrus!" Saturn hurried in, quick to press his back to the wall to get a better view. Irritated starbursts still danced in his vision, but the flashes weren't quite enough to obscure the figure of Cyrus sitting up in bed, one hand pressed to his chest.

"You're awake?!" Mars added joyfully.

"It won't last," Jupiter said in a warning tone.

Saturn turned to glare at her, but he kept his mouth shut. Every blink cleared his vision a little more, and the sight before him was not exactly a pleasant one. Cyrus had just been a few short steps away from death's door, and he didn't look much better for all Saturn's efforts— so pale he looked gray, shivering, his hair stuck to his face with sweat... Not to mention the ragged breathing.

"Team Galactic... is disbanded," Cyrus said firmly, letting out his breath in a wet exhale. "If I need... your assistance again... I will call upon it." He ducked his head to the side and coughed, long and wet and choking, until Saturn rose and struck him firmly between the shoulder blades.

"You're incapacitated," Saturn said, just as firmly. "The bylaws clearly—"

"Damn the bylaws!" Cyrus burst out. He curled forward on himself, pressing a fist to his forehead, chest heaving. "You can't help me with this."

"Well, you need someone's help," Jupiter cut in. "With all due respect, Master Cyrus, you're only awake right now because I poured an inadvisable amount of baby aspirin down your throat." She jerked her head at the nightstand, where a medicine dropper lay next to a bottle of liquid medicine.

"Why are you fighting us on this, anyway?" Mars asked, quiet and cautious. "We stood by you, and we'll stay by you."

"I... Yes..." Cyrus fell back against the pillows, blinking hard. "I'm not thinking straight."

Jupiter straightened. "You made us Commanders because you trusted us. Hold onto that. When you're well again, we'll do whatever you ask. You know that."

"Yes..." Cyrus murmured, though he still looked troubled. He flicked his eyes to Saturn. "I defer to your judgment."

Saturn nodded shortly. "You- your arm," he said, cursing himself for stammering.
For just a second, Cyrus' face darkened. He cast baleful looks at each of them in turn, only recovering his composure after a visible effort. "You'll need to help me with the jumpsuit," he said to Saturn.

"Eat first," Jupiter said. Then, after a dark look of her own, she added, "If that's what you think is right, Commander Saturn."
"You're right." The little plate of fish and crackers Jupiter had set aside for him looked like a feast, especially after so long without food. Breakfast this morning could have been a thousand years ago.

They ate in a silence filled sporadically by Mars' attempts at conversation with Jupiter. Cyrus didn't say a word, and Saturn stuttered so badly when he tried to contribute, he eventually gave up. As second-in-command, he wasn't even a pale imitation of Cyrus' cool eloquence. What Cyrus was capable of doing with his words, Saturn could only dream about.
Cyrus ate little, but he drank the tea Jupiter had brought him without even a raise of his eyebrows at the unusual container. Even in his condition, he had probably guessed at the details of their dire circumstances.

At last, Jupiter got to her feet, carelessly casting her empty paper plate in Mars' direction. "Can anyone do better than my basic first aid training?"

A prolonged silence followed.

"I know how to make a tourniquet, if it comes to that," Saturn said to his knees. Useless again.

"Right." Jupiter looked like she was fighting to not roll her eyes. She smiled with faux-sweetness. "Can you please help Master Cyrus get undressed while I get the supplies ready?"

"What should I do?" Mars asked, springing to her feet, her cheeks approaching the same vivid red as her hair.
Saturn hastened to answer before Jupiter could usurp him again: "You can— You— You can help Jupiter."

Mars and Jupiter flounced out, leaving Saturn to unzip Cyrus jumpsuit and pull it down, to the waist, apologizing when his shaky hands made contact with Cyrus' skin.

Cyrus bore the whole thing in silence, the rhythm of his breathing serving as Saturn's only indication of his discomfort.

It picked up when Saturn approached the left sleeve. He got the jumpsuit down to just above the gash, and then Cyrus started breathing so rapidly it sounded like he might pass out.

"Am I hurting you?" Saturn asked, like the idiot that he was.

"Do what you need to do," Cyrus said faintly.

More gently now, Saturn kept pushing the sleeve down. He encountered some resistance at the elbow, where the exposed down peeked out, and had to slide his fingers in to separate the nylon from a sticky mix of feathers and blood which had matted to Cyrus' skin. A wave of dizziness passed over him and he swallowed hard, not allowing himself to close his eyes. It was just blood. Blood and plasma and down. No matter how grotesque the mixture looked, it was nothing he hadn't seen before.

The textures under his fingertips changed grotesquely, making him salivate dangerously no matter what he told himself— wet feathers, the crumbled edges of scabs, hot and swollen bruises.

By the time he got Cyrus' arm free from the sleeve, Saturn's fingers were streaked with maroon at the tips, and sticky.

He occupied himself throwing a blanket over Cyrus to cover his chest, trying not to stare as he did so.

He saw anyway.

Under his jumpsuit, Cyrus had a stocky build that suggested muscles, or at least an underlying sturdyness. Without all the padding, the truth stood out in the graceful arcs of jutting bones and taut skin. Hard living had left him teetering on the edge of underweight.

Saturn closed his eyes and refocused them on Cyrus' exposed arm, where scabs studded the pale flesh like raw garnets. White down feathers stuck out here and there in the dried blood, and bruises spanned the skin between them. Saturn frowned, studying the uniform pattern. "Master, did something... bite you?"

Cyrus didn't answer, his face drawn and his eyes closed.

"I told you" —Jupiter stomped in with her ames full of medical supplies; she must have been waiting at the door— "that shadowy Pokémon dragged him away."

"Giratina," Cyrus said hoarsely. He opened his eyes and studied his injury with his customary blank expression. "It had teeth in its beak."

Saturn tried not to make a face, but his nose wrinkled of its own accord, the corners of his mouth drawing down. A massive shadowy monster, many-legged and beaked? He'd rather take his chances with the Lake Guardians. At least they'd probably have the decency to just melt his brain and get it over with.

"Here," Jupiter said, nudging Saturn out of the way with her leg, "let me work."
Somehow, he didnt hate the contact.

"Where's Mars?"

"Right here." Mars came around him to stand by Jupiter's side, brandishing a flashlight and directing the beam toward Cyrus' arm. The light revealed new dimension to the scabs, new color in the bruises. Saturn swallowed hard. Mars squeaked. "I, um. I couldn't find the batteries."

Jupiter heaved a sigh and dropped all the medical supplies on the mattress, where they landed in a heap. "Well, I have good news and bad news. Everything is healing, nothing is bleeding, and I don't see any signs of infection. But if any of these needed stitches, it's way too late for that now. They might scar."

Saturn stared at the wounds. Cyrus' whole arm, from just below his deltoid to just above his wrist, was just a mess of scabs and bruises and dried fluids. "How can you tell all that?"

"Infection has a smell," Jupiter said blandly.

"How do you know that?" Mars asked, making a face. The beam of the flashlight wobbled as she lifted her head to look at Jupiter.

"I have some experience with hospice care," Jupiter said, her face just as cold and expressionless as Cyrus'. "Anyway, there's nothing I can do except get these feathers out and wrap the scabs so they don't tear off."

"Oh—" Saturn hurriedly slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling his gag but not entirely stifling it.

"That was a little, uh, visceral," Mars said, wincing.

"You get used to it," Jupiter said flatly.

Cyrus shifted on the bed, which creaked, drawing all their eyes to him. "Saturn will do it."

Saturn flinched. "I'm sorry?"
Cyrus didn't say a word.

"Master," Jupiter said hurriedly, raising her hand like she wanted to press it to Cyrus' temple, "Saturn has command of Team Galactic."

Saturn sank his teeth into his tongue. What was his life? 25 short years washed over him like the lap of the water against the boardwalk. School in Canalave, sky-high test scores, the cramped sensation of being the biggest Magikarp in the smallest pond. Burnout, alcohol, the arrival of his supposed destiny on Cyrus' open palm. And now this. En pointe on a cliffs edge, staring down these... these strangers; two compatriots and his savior. He had no right to any of this. He owed his position to an affinity for chemistry and nothing more.

The cough —which Saturn realized in violent retrospect that Cyrus must have been fighting this whole time— consumed him then. Cyrus lost himself to it, and the increasingly desperate blows Saturn delivered to his shoulder blades only didn't seem to help.

It tapered rather than stopped, and Saturn closed his eyes, his palm burning with Cyrus' fever. "Give us the room," he said, in a distant voice that came to his ears as though from someone else. "I'll do it."

Saturn pressed a wet rag to one of the small, white feathers pinned to Cyrus' skin by dried blood and... and saliva, probably, and plasma and sweat and mud. His stomach turned over. He held the rag in place.

"Saturn," Cyrus said, his voice slightly too grave to be confrontational, "what are you doing?"

Saturn lifted the rag and tugged at the feather, refusing to lift his eyes from it. The first answer that sprung to his lips, 'I have no idea,' would not be acceptable. Cyrus had chosen him as second-in-command; he needed to prove he deserved it. "I'm keeping Team Galactic alive." The feather came loose from the mess on Cyrus' arm; Saturn set it on the mattress and moved on to the next.

"Jupiter came back. She told me what happened, and I..." Atone. Die. "I found you."

"You could have turned me in and bargained for your freedom."
"I don't want my freedom." Another blood-stained feather for the pile. "I want to stay with you."

Saturn chanced a glance up. Cyrus' features remained cold, but faint lines had appeared under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. Disgust.

"You're like me," Saturn said quickly, and returned his attention to Cyrus' arm. "Smarter than everyone else, always trying to do more. I mean, you're better with machines and I'm better with chemistry, but it's all the same. Everyone thought I was a freak until I stopped going to brain bowls and started sneaking my dad's whiskey."

"This... devotion... of yours," Cyrus said carefully. His breaths wheezed between every word. "It doesn't make you strong."

"Oh, I know." More feathers in the pile. It was starting to look like Saturn had plucked a shiny Chatot. "But once we achieve your new world, it won't be a problem, right?"

Cyrus was quiet for a long moment while Saturn continued to pick down feathers out of the dried blood. They'd have to find a way to repair Cyrus' jumpsuit, or he'd keep shedding feathers like this.

"Do you know why I never told you the details of my plan?" Cyrus asked at last.
Saturn shook his head. That very question had plagued him once he'd finally realized what was happening, those long few days ago at the old headquarters. He hadn't had time to dwell on it since... Well, everything.

"Because you... were willing to do what I asked. Without question."

Saturn sank back on his heels, fighting the smile that wanted to bloom across his face. It wasn't some defect after all, not some flaw that Cyrus had spied and accounted for. "Team Galactic is everything I have, sir." He brushed the bloodied feathers into a wastebasket and reach for the roll of bandages. "I'm not like Jupiter and Mars. I don't want anything but this."

Cyrus didn't say a word.

Chapter Text

By nightfall, the effects of Jupiter's careful tending had completely worn off. Cyrus fell asleep not long after lunch, and stayed asleep through sunset. The moonless night oppressed the Harbor Inn from all sides, and even the lights from the marina seemed paler than they had before.

The inn had five beds in total, including the little cot behind the reception desk, but Saturn still preferred his armchair in Cyrus' room. He needed the rasping rush of Cyrus' breath or he couldn't sleep.

Saturn crept along the cave, wincing when his foot came down hard on something. A pale hand, nearly luminous in the darkness. Cyrus lay still, curled up on the damp earth. Saturn pressed his fingertips to the icy neck. No pulse.

A roaring, ember-eyed shadow took Cyrus by the arm and shook him. Somewhere beneath the roaring came the gut-wrenching snap of shattering bone. Cyrus screamed.

"Saturn, wake up!" Mother. He stirred. "Saturn! You can't sleep through the first day of school!"

"Saturn, wake up!"

Someone else was shouting, but the sound of his name and a shocking sting against his cheek kept his attention anchored firmly inward. His heart pounded and he stared without seeing. Mother would come in any second and flip the lights on and hustle him off to another day of torture. But the room was all wrong. "What... what?"

Cyrus' voice rang out, low and raspy from all the coughing he'd been doing. "Darkrai! Darkrai!"

"You were talking in your sleep," someone else said.

Saturn felt his cheek. "Who hit me?"

"I'm sorry!" Cyrus again. The back of Saturn's neck prickled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't touch that— don't!"

He sounded so young. Saturn swallowed down a surge of nausea. "What's going on?"

He blinked, and finally made sense of Mars hovering above him. Her face was just a smudge. Only the contour of her upturned nose gave him any clue. "I don't know," she said. "We just woke up and heard you both yelling. We couldn't get you to wake up."

"Darkrai!" Cyrus shouted, like he was being tortured, and that was all the information he had.

"He's being too loud," Saturn whispered.

"You think I don't know that?" Jupiter. She must have been by the bed. "He won't wake up!"

"His fever?"

"It's too dark; I can't find the thermometer. But he doesn't feel that hot."

"Saturn," Mars said urgently. She fumbled across his body until she found his hand, and squeezed it in both of her own. "That— that story."

"What story?"

"The one you told me!" Her voice was urgent, her hands tense. "That sailor, the one who... who went to sleep and never woke up."

Saturn's stomach lurched. Cold sweat made his palm slick against Mars', so he pulled his hand away. "That's ridiculous. It's just a dumb ghost story the upperclassmen told us to try to scare us." His voice went flatter and quieter as he spoke, as the truth crept in. It wasn't just the upperclassmen, though. The sailors said it, too, and the librarians.

On the bed, Cyrus groaned and struggled. "I hate you!"

Saturn put his face in his hands. "Oh, fuck."

Jupiter must have gotten her hands on the thermometer, because a beep sounded, followed by a dull green light. "Well, I don't think it's the fever."

"Then..." What had all the fiest aid and wilderness survival manuals said? Of all the problems you encountered in the wilds of Sinnoh, hallucinations typically weren't among them. "Is he dehydrated?"

"Yes," Jupiter snapped. "That's not what this is."

"Well, it's not a ghost!"

"Says who?" Jupiter rounded on him, displaced air swishing across his face.

"Just because you can't see it— don't understand it—"

"Jupiter," Mars whispered.

"He wasn't there! He didn't see—"

Cyrus interrupted them with another groan, one that wanted to be a yell. He was holding it back, even in his sleep. "You won't break me this way. I will never yield."

"Look at the facts," Mars said hurriedly. "What's happening here matches up exactly with the story you told me.

"Guardians!" The oath slipped put before Saturn could stop it, and he had to swallow a hysterical laugh. The Guardians weren't going to help him, not ever. Reality shuddered and fell into its new context heavily, leaving Saturn's entire worldview juddering with the aftershocks. So the monster from his childhood ghost stories was apparently real, and apparently killing the only person in the world he gave a damn about.

"It's not the monster from Spear Pillar, is it?" Jupiter asked, her voice wobbling in a way Saturn had never heard before.

"No," Mars said. "Right, Saturn?"

"I don't think so." Saturn took a breath and ran his hands through his hair. All of Sinnoh's myths and legends had a home in the Canalave Library. Canalave was steeped in them, though not in the same way Celestic was. In Celestic, people had lived them. But here, people passed them around like anecdotes at a party; Dialga and Heatran were as much small talk fodder as they were figures in dense academic papers that no one bothered to read. They weren't real things, just concepts. Explanations superstitious old Sinnohans had made up to explain scary things like volcanoes and aging.

Cyrus whimpered.

Saturn shot to his feet. "Stay here with him. We need a plan."

He found a tiny flashlight in the camping supplies. The beam dimmed visibly upon entering Cyrus' room. Saturn swallowed. It was tangingble, reproducible. He could wave it back and forth over the doorway and watch the light waver.

Maybe there really was something more to this than the lingering effects of hypothermia...

Sighing, he came in properly and joined Jupiter and Mars on the empty side of the queen bed where Cyrus lay twitching and murmuring still. Just so he could say he tried it, Saturn shone the flashlight on Cyrus' face and reached over to shake his good shoulder.

Nothing.

Saturn turned back to Jupiter and Mars and propped the flashlight between his knees. It cast an awkward light and distorted their faces, but it was better than sitting around in the pitch black. Something in the room was dampening the light.

"Well?" Jupiter demanded.

Saturn forced himself to not shy away from her, and only half because leaning back would make him plant his hands directly on Cyrus' legs. "There are plenty of Pokémon that can cause bad dreams. How do we know this isn't the result of a Hypno infestation?"

Jupiter said, with great restraint, "Are you stupid?"

Saturn put up his hands. "Let's just talk this through, okay? We have time."

"Here," Mars interjected. "Because Hypno aren't that strong or that subtle. We'd have heard its cry by now. Not to mention that it probably would have attacked sooner than now. This attack came on the first night of the new moon, just loke the story you told me. Hypno aren't associated with the new moon."

"And Sinnoh's legends aren't based on ordinary Pokémon like Hypno," Saturn agreed. "Jupiter, you're really sure that dehydration can't cause this?"

Jupiter shook her head. She looked murderous. "He's not delirious," she said firmly. "He's asleep. Look, you can see his eyes twitch."

Saturn didn't look. "Okay." He clicked his tongue. A brief glance at his watch showed that it was a little after 4:00 in the morning. It weighed on him; he didn't feel like he'd slept at all. "Someone needs to go to the library tomorrow."

"I'm staying here," Jupiter said immediately.

Saturn nodded. "I do want to go, but I don't have any other clothes."

"I have cash," Mars said. "Let me go out first. We can do this."

"Why the library, anyway?" Jupiter asked, sounding exactly as exhausted as Saturn felt.

Saturn shrugged. "I don't have any other leads."

They kept vigil by Cyrus' bedside, woken intermittently by his shouting.

Chapter Text

Mars left early and came back with a shopping bag full of cheap, outdoorsy clothes. Saturn took it and slunk off to the lobby to get changed.

People in town avoided the Harbor Inn, but it wasn't exactly secluded. Out of the way, sure, but the noises of the street still filtered in through the gaps in the plywood covering the broken windows.

Saturn stripped completely, peeling off his jumpsuit with great care. It had kept him safe and warm for a long time. The insignia on the chest tied him to Cyrus, to Jupiter and Mars, to all their compatriots now scattered across Sinnoh and beyond.
He stepped into a new pair of boxers, his cheeks heating involuntarily. Mars had thought of everything. The cold raised goosebumps across Saturn's ribs. He changed quickly, ducking into layers— thermal tights, sweats, undershirt, quarter zip, puffer coat. All of it nondescript and practical. Mars had gotten him ready to run.

Anonymity was freedom, especially here. Saturn combed his hair into his face with his fingers. He'd always worn it short growing up; hopefully this would be enough.

—

"We shouldn't talk to the librarians," Saturn said, just before they reached the heavy glass doors that opened into the library. He wrapped his fingers around the metal handle and yanked it open with a familiar ache down his side. It used to take him two arms and a power stance to get this door open. He'd been in high school the day he'd realized he only needed one now, and good backwards step.

"I may not be a chemistry genius," Mars said, stepping through, "but that doesn't mean I'm stupid." She'd put her hair up, and Saturn's eyes inexplicably caught on the nape of her neck, where a few freckles lay scattered among the fine, red hairs.

The door shut slowly behind them, closing them in the sunny lobby, with its large windows and tile floor. Saturn looked at her sideways. "I don't think you're stupid."

She smiled, angry. "Then why are you always talking down to me?"

"I'm not—" Saturn caught himself before he could raise his voice. He strode into the library with unfeigned confidence, heading for the staircase in the back. "I just want us to be on the same page."

Mars huffed and went quiet. She fell a little behind Saturn on the stairs up to the third floor, and didn't speak again until they had reached the mythology section.

"So you think Master— Uh, you think he was saying 'Darkrai'?"

Saturn paused. "What do you know about that?"

"What, about Darkrai?" Mars shrugged. "It's just something my mom used to warn me about when I stayed out past dark. She used to tell me Darkrai was going to take me to his island."

"That's what they told us, too." Saturn studied the spines in front of him.

"But nobody ever linked Darkrai to the Harbor Inn?"

Saturn shrugged. Most of the books were compendiums with stupidly vague titles: 'Myths and Legends of Sinnoh'; 'Sinnoh: Lore and Legends.' "I kind of had better things to do than sit around and listen to a bunch of old wives' tales."

"Science experiments in the basement?" Mars asked wryly, pulling out one of the vaguely-titled books.

"That's where I kept my whiskey distillery." Saturn pulled out a book too, and another, until he had a heavy stack in his arms.

"You did not."

Saturn shrugged, careful to keep his face blank. The distillery had been a teenage fantasy, the kind that ended with his bullies bowing until their foreheads touched the floor, but Mars didn't need to know that.

"You didn't," Mars decided. She pulled out a few more books and turned away.

Mars led him through the empty floor to a set of armchairs by an electric fireplace. They settled in to read.

Saturn leafed through his stack with growing exasperation. Anthropologists, archeologists, historians... They just made things up. Picking through bits of history and constructing narratives, always with the heavy use noncommital language. 'May have,' 'could be.' It wasn't science, it was make-believe.

After a long, excruciating while, Mars popped her head up. "Hey, is there an Eldritch family in town?"

Saturn closed his book with a little too much verve, wincing at the heavy thump that rang out across the floor. "Eldritch?"

"Eldritch," Mars repeated. "This is an account from an old sailor named Eldritch. It mentions Darkrai's island, and the nightmares, and something about a feather? Says he lived in what is now Canalave City."

Saturn pulled his teeth over his lip. "I know an Eldritch. His older son went to school with my brother."

"Is he a sailor?"

"Yes. And..." And his younger son had gotten sick a while back, gone to sleep and wouldn't wake up. He'd been dying. Saturn's mother had brought them enough nikujaga to feed an army.

Mars snapped her fingers. "And what?"
"What exactly does that book say?" Saturn demanded, coming over to peer over Mars' shoulder.

She didn't push him off or shy away, though it was the closest they'd ever gotten. She smelled inevitably like dust. "I don't know; it's written all old-timey."

Saturn scanned the pages, then forced himself to read them slower. The passage was taken from a diary, the account of a voyage this Eldritch had taken after his wife had fallen ill... Restless sleep, nightmares, calling out a name he dared not repeat.

"I can't make sense of this," Mars huffed. "What's with the feather?"

Saturn scanned the pages, furrowing his brow as the account rang truer and truer with every line. "Eldritch had a dream of his own. It says he sailed to an island where the crescent moon gave him an enchanted feather that cured his wife's illness."

Mars made a skeptical little sound. "The moon gave him a feather?"

With a heavy sigh, Saturn pulled his hands over his face and through his hair. They didn't have time for this. Cyrus was—

Oh.

"Cyrus is dying," Saturn said quietly.

Mars turned, raising her hand like she wanted to slap him. "Don't say that."

"No, I mean—" Saturn squeezed his eyes shut for a moment of reprieve. If only he could disappear into the black and the quiet, just for a moment. One second of peace. "This is stupid. We're playing it safe." Cyrus hadn't played it safe, not ever. He hadn't wasted his time researching the Lake Guardians; he blown up a fucking lake. Saturn, like usual, was being an idiot. "We're wasting time."

Mars, to her credit, got to her feet immediately. "You stay here and keep reading. I'll go find this Eldritch."

"No!" It was a good plan, a sensible one, something Cyrus would do, but he couldn't just abandon Mars.

"What, you think I'll mess it up? I'm an Admin too, you know." Mars crossed her arms, looking for all the world like she wanted Purugly to take a bite out of something sensitive. "I am capable of doing things by myself. I got you those clothes, didn't I?"

Saturn shook his head, feebly constructing an argument from the scraps of logic not torn apart by fear and hunger. "It'll be safer if we go to together. I can show you the way."

Mars looked at him for a long moment, squinting at him like he was an equation that didn't quite add up. "Fine," she said at last.

—

The cold air bit, even through the sun washing out the streets. Saturn squinted, keeping to the extreme side of the path despite the lack of shadows. The fresh ocean air smelled like home, and the instinctively feeling of comfort that followed made him want to take a scalpel to his own chest. He hated this place.

Mars walked beside him, just a half-step behind, her little red ponytail bobbing. "You know," she said, breaking the silence that had surrounded them since the library, "you could have just ordered me to do whatever you wanted. You could have made me stay back at the library, even."

Saturn took a deep breath, seawater and gasoline. "I'm not very good at giving orders."

"You know Cyrus only chose you as lieutenant because you're good at math."

The breeze slipped down the collar of Saturn's jacket. He zipped it to the top and let his fingers fall to the blank space on his chest where the Team Galactic logo should have been. The spot in his mind where his anger should have been was just as empty. "I know."

Mars laughed and nudged him. "You're being too nice. Jupiter's going to eat you alive."

For some reason, the inage of Cyrus' injured arm flashed in Saturn's mind, red and wet. Eaten alive... He blinked the image away, staring at the small paving stone courtyard behind Eldritch's house. "I can handle Jupiter. I can— I can handle everything."

To prove his point, he picked up his pace and knocked decisively on the front door despite the pit that opened into his stomach. He stifled the urge to run away, walled in as he was by Mars on one side and the canal on the other. Eldritch's boat bumped gently against the walkway fenders. Saturn forced himself to face the door.

He could handle this.

Eldritch himself answered the door and promptly froze, his expression fading to surprise. "Shōhei?"

Saturn carefully did not flinch. "Yes. May I come in?"

Eldritch's eyes moved slowly over his face before falling onto Mars. He looked at them both in dawning mistrust before checking himself and smiling. "Does your mother know you're back?"

"Yes," Saturn said, smiling also. "May we come in?"

Eldritch stepped back, pulling the door open. "Come to the kitchen; I'll make tea."

"Thank you." The words sounded thin; Saturn had to force them up the increasingly narrow passage of his throat.

He paused to take his shoes off and caught sight of Mars' feet. "Oh, and this is my friend—"

"Hana," Mars said easily. "Nice to meet you." The anxiety scraping at Saturn's insides seemed to be his affliction alone; she smiled sunnily and patted his arm, making no attempts to hide the way she looked around on her way to the kitchen. Saturn kept his head down and followed her.

"Did your mother send you?" Eldritch asked, looking like he already knew the answer.

"Ah, no," Saturn said delicately, seating himself at the table.

Mars took the liberty of charging in: "We need to know what you know about Darkrai."

Eldritch turned away from the stove, his eyes widening. "Is it happening again?"

"Our friend fell asleep and won't wake up," Mars said. "He's having nightmares. Can you help us?"

Eldritch turned, not to Mars, but to Saturn. "Who's this friend, Shōhei?"

"I— N-no one. Just a friend."

"You know they're showing your picture on TV. Both of you, and a few others. You're wanted for questioning. They're saying you built a bomb."

"Look—" Mars started, but Saturn squeezed her knee under the table.
Master Cyrus knew the value of a façade. He was direct when he needed to be, and indirect when the situation called for it. He would understand.

Saturn closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. "He m-made us..."

Releasing Mars' leg, brought his hand up to his head and dug his nails into his hairline, anything to induce a few tears to his eyes. "I didn't— I thought it was a job with an energy company; I—" Tears swam in Saturn's eyes. He looked at Eldritch, swallowing hard. "He said he'd hurt my family if I tried to quit."

Beside him, Mars went very, very still.

Eldritch crumbled. He circled the table and put his hands on Saturn's shoulders.

"Who's your friend, Shōhei?"

"It's him." Saturn affected a sob, which was disconcertingly easy, like his body couldn't tell the difference between real and fake tears. Another shuddering sob followed, and his heart jolted— It couldn't. He sniffed and wiped his eyes, only for a fresh deluge to wet his cheeks. "It's Cyrus— Eldritch, I— If he dies, no one will b-believe me! I need your help."

"Shōhei, Shōhei." Eldritch rubbed his shoulders.

Saturn pushed for the killing strike, his mind calm even as his body hustled toward hysterics. "I'm scared to go home... I'm s-sorry I lied, b-but my mother... I d-don't want her to see... I'm scared."

Through the veil of tears blurring his eyes, Saturn caught the movement of Mars putting her head down on the table, burying her face in her arms.

"I'll help you," Eldritch said, patting Saturn on the back. "Take a deep breath."

Saturn took a great, shuddering inhale and wiped his eyes. "What do I have to do?" he asked, a little too eagerly.

Eldritch let go of him and took a sharp step backward. "You'll need to go to Fullmoon Island. I can take you. There's a Pokémon there that shares its feathers with those who need them. It's better to go by nightfall."

Saturn nodded, remembering to sniffle and wiped his eyes. "Could you..." He hesitated despite himself. This was it. "Could you meet us at the marina? By the Harbor Inn?"

For a moment, Eldritch didn't say a word. He looked at Saturn for a long time, sad and weary and pained all at once. "When was the last time you ate?"

Mars tapped his foot with her own. "We're alright," she said, with a perfect timbre of naïve optimism. "You can make instant noodles with cold water and they almost taste the same."

Eldritch put his face in his hands. "Oh, Shōhei." He sighed. "You were such a good kid... Such a bright future ahead of you..." Shaking himself, he turned to the fridge. "Stay here and have some lunch."

"Thank you, sir," Saturn mumbled, shooting Mars a curious look.

She winked at him. "That's really nice of you, Mr Eldritch."

Eldritch just shook his head, looking so tired that Saturn almost felt bad. "You really should go see your family. Both of you."

"We will," Saturn lied. "When this is all over, we will."

—

Jupiter wasted no time tearing into the leftovers. Cyrus' plaintive moans made nausea dance in Saturn's stomach, but Jupiter seemed to have no such problem. She ate like she was afraid someone might steal the food from her if she hesitated, impatiently motioning for Saturn and Mars to get on with the story whenever they paused for too long.

When they finished, she put her chopsticks down and raised her eyebrows. "You cried?"

"It was a tactical maneuever," Saturn said, his cheeks warming.

"And telling your friend where to send the Feds, that was a tactical maneuver, too?"
Saturn closed his eyes. In the bed, Cyrus gasped like someone had stabbed him, his breath leaving his mouth in a slow whimper. "I had to, Jupiter. Master Cyrus isn't just going to wake up. We need this feather."

"I'd like to know how exactly a feather is going to help," Jupiter grumbled, adjusting the wet rag she'd draped across Cyrus' forehead.

"I don't know," Saturn said, looking away. Cyrus had always been pale and thin, but he looked ruined now, wasted and spent. "But it will."

"Master Cyrus can help us when he wakes up," Mars added. "Eldritch is going to have the police waiting at the docs, so we just have to make sure we don't reach the docks."

"Sure, if the fever hasn't cooked his brain by then," Jupiter grumbled.

Saturn shot to his feet. "It's going to be fine," he said firmly, and then stalked out of the room before Jupiter's pessimism could kill him.

He was going to figure this out. Not just for Cyrus, but for all of them.

Chapter Text

How hard could it really be to steal a boat? The smaller ones bobbing in the marina looked pretty easy to handle, and it wasn't like there would be anything to hit out in the open ocean. The only trouble would be making it to port before Interpol got wind that something was up.

Sighing, Saturn took his forehead away from the dusty plywood. His fingers rested on Toxicroak's Poké Ball. He hadn't seen any of his Pokémon in days. What was the point? If he spilled his guts, Mars or Jupiter might overhear and hold it over him. Or worse, he just might lose it. The fear kept pushing at him, trying to get its claws into him. Dwelling on it would just give it purchase.

Leaning forward again, Saturn pressed his face to hold in the plywood and watched the sun play on the water. Nightfall couldn't come fast enough.

Cyrus' room got dark well before the rest of the inn. The feeble glow of sunset stopped at the suite's windowsill. When the light disappeared, he whined and showed his teeth.

Saturn's footfalls creaked on the floorboards. Cyrus moaned and cowered, curling his knees up and hiding his face behind his forearms. "Don't... don't..."

"Has he been like this all day?" Saturn whispered.

Jupiter glared at him. "Nope, only since you came in and scared him."

"Well, I need to talk to you," Saturn snapped. "I don't want anyone staying behind on this mission."

"That's ridiculous—"

"You don't get to talk to me like that." Saturn postured up, cold and angry. "My authority is Master Cyrus' authority, and I say we're all going together."

Jupiter swallowed hard. "Fine. You want to take a sick man on the open ocean at night, fine."

"I do," Saturn said firmly. "And I need your help figuring out how we're going to get him out of here. We can't use the front door."

"How did you get him in?"

Saturn winced. "In a manner I'd rather not repeat."

Jupiter was quiet for a moment, breathing deeply over the rasp of Cyrus' own labored gasps. "Don't you have a Bronzor? Couldn't it just levitate him?"

Saturn shook his head. "Its not strong enough." He bit his lip. "Kadabra, maybe..." If only the thought had occurred to him earlier, he might have spared Cyrus an unpleasant fall. 

"He really shouldn't be moved," Jupiter said after a pause. "He needs to rest."

"He's not resting," Saturn shot back. He rubbed his nose, sighing heavily. Cyrus may have been sleeping, but he wasn't resting. Nightmares weren't restful. "Whatever this is, it's not normal sleep."

Jupiter shook her head. "Why would Darkrai target Master Cyrus?"

Saturn shrugged. "Maybe it's a coincidence. Or maybe your mission at Spear Pillar woke something up."

Jupiter shuddered and shot him a baleful look. "I think we did," she said, softer than the look on her face would have indicated. "It was so angry. But it wasn't this. It wasn't a nightmare."

"There's a lot out there we don't understand," Saturn said. Incomplete records kept by unqualified historians, inferior intellects struggling to make sense of what they had seen. Even Jupiter, who was relatively sharp, couldn't explain what had happened at Spear Pillar. Shadows and malice. That was nothing to go off. "Master Cyrus' ambitions could have repercussions."

"We need him," Jupiter said, and fixed Saturn with a glare. "This feather thing had better fix him."

"Or you'll kill me," Saturn said wearily. "I know."

"That, or something else will."

—

At midnight, a yellow flash lit up the kitchen. Saturn went to the window, blinking purple stars out of his eyes. The marina was a ways off, so Eldritch had anchored at the base of the high rock retainer separating the soil and the foundation of the Harbor Inn from the ocean.

Saturn sent Bronzor over with instructions to keep Eldritch where he was, silently cursing himself for not working out communications. They couldn't keep flashing lights at each other; everyone would see. People spent the night in their boats all the time; some people even lived in them. They were going to have to be quick.

Thankfully, Kadabra had the strength to move Cyrus a short distance. The sight of him prone on the deck, alone but for Eldritch's dubious sympathies, made Saturn's stomach drop. He kept pace with the boat as Eldritch steered it toward the marina, knocking the sides perilously against other sailors' bumpers.

Saturn boarded last, sparing a glance at Cyrus' shadowy figure in the dark as he headed to the cabin where Eldritch sat. "How long is the trip?" he asked, forgetting to look fragile and bullied until Eldritch looked up, alarmed. Saturn widened his eyes apologetically.

The look Eldritch gave him in reply was long and sad. "A few hours," he said at last.

Saturn nodded, and turned to go, but Eldortch stopped with a sharp, urgent "Shōhei."

"What is it?" Saturn asked, trying not to sound annoyed. Every second they spent here was a second Cyrus got worse.

"That man... that's really Cyrus? The leader of Team Galactic?"

They peered through the cabinets windows together. Cyrus coughed violently, Mars and Jupiter holding him steady by the shoulders. "That's him," Saturn said, closing his eyes. Cyrus should never look this way, frail and... and dying and totally helpless.

"He made you build a bomb?"

"Yes."

"He made you hurt those Pokémon?"

For a moment, Saturn's heart froze. Then it began to beat double-time, pumping ice water through his veins.

Atone. Die.

But Eldritch couldn't have meant the Lake Guardians; how would he know— No. No, of course not. He meant the Pokémon at Lake Valor.

Saturn took a breath. "Yes."

"He's dangerous."

"He's going to die if we don't help him," Saturn said. Unbidden tears made his vision swim. He forced his words out. "Interpol won't believe a word I say if Master Cyrus isn't alive to corroborate. I— I don't care what happens to him after that. He's sick. He'll probably die in prison." Saturn swallowed hard. How could he say something like that? How could he conceive it?

On the deck, Cyrus coughed and coughed, and Saturn... Saturn knew. Because he had to. Because he hadn't yet reached Cyrus' level of enlightenment, and loyalty was all he had to fill the gap where that cold certainty should have gone. For Cyrus, he would say anything, be anything. For Cyrus, he would do anything

Eldritch sighed, so long and so deep it must have come from the very bottom of his lungs. "You'd better bring him into the cabin, then. It'll get cold on the deck."

It did get cold on the deck. Saturn huddled with Mars and Jupiter, unrepentant and surprisingly not awkward about needing the body heat. He'd ordered them to stay away from Cyrus to avoid compromising his lie. Jupiter had given up arguing when her chattering teeth impaired her ability to speak.

So they huddled, and they shivered, until the very first glow of approaching daylight illuminated the dark shape on a landmass on the horizon.

It wasn't yet sunrise, and the blue glow of the sky offered little by which to make out the details. The sharp smell of pine whisped past occasionally on the breeze, and Saturn shuddered. This place was not the quiet mountain spring where the Lake Guardians had dropped him, but it was eerily similar. The air had the same fresh quality of a place not often touched by human influence. These wild places, sequestered from industry and interference, touched him somewhere deep.

Eldritch slowed the boat to a crawl as they pulled up parallel to the island and began to go around it. The push of forested land gave way to a small natural harbor, like the hollow of a crescent moon.

A little dock extended timidly into the shallows, so small Saturn had to squint to make it out.

"He really did it," Mars breathed, her head still pressed to Saturn's collarbone.
Jupiter raised her head from Mars' shoulder and gave Saturn a cautious, appreciative look. "That's one point for your sailor. Assuming we make it to land."

The boat stalled just then, rising on the crest of a wave and dropping sickeningly.

They all let go of each other and stumbled, and a long shadow stretched across the deck.

Eldritch loosed several muffled swears from inside the cabin and opened the door. "What is that?"

The shadow crept along the deck. Sayurn walked his eyes along it, backward, ducking to peer through the cabinets windows. A pair of black scarecrow legs met his vision. Cold, he followed them up to a single red eye. A predator's eye. No malice, only hunger.

In the cabin, Cyrus shouted and shouted, his voice hoarse but somehow persisting. "Darkrai... Darkrai!"

The Lake Guardians hadn't spoken to Saturn. Their imperatives had come into his head like thoughts, silent intrusions into his own cognition. His head hadn't had room for the excess, and it had hurt.

Darkrai, though.

Darkrai had a voice. A rasping, nightmare hiss that spread across the deck, cold as the night breeze. "Go no farther."

It happened like they had coordinated it. Once twitch of the fingers, one unified sound. Toxicroak, Skuntank, and Purugly appeared on the deck, ready to fight.

"What's going on?" Eldritch demanded from the cabin. "Shōhei, I can't see anything; it's all gone black."

"You will go no farther."

"We need to get to the island!" Saturn shouted, unsure whether he was pleading with Eldritch or Darkrai.

"The day will not come. The moon will not rise."

"Enough of this!" Mars barked. "Purugly, Slash."

"Skuntank, Flamethrower!"

Saturn floated to the edge of the deck, leaning hard on the railing as Eldritch's tossed in the water. The battle had begun, but it wouldn't... This thing— Darkrai, it was ancient. It had lived here for generations, hunted and killed for generations. It would take a Champion to subdue, or that obnoxious prodigy who'd been so invested in Team Galactic's business. Their efforts, whether two or three, would not get them through Darkrai.

Saturn put a foot on the railing.

Jupiter and Mars continued to call their attacks. The cabin door slammed. Even with Eldritch's help, it was hopeless.

Someone had to get to that island.

Someone had to get that feather.

Saturn put his other foot on the railing and jumped.

Chapter Text

Like all the cold weather guides had warned, the shock of cold water make Saturn gasp and stiffen up. For one horrifying moment, he couldn't move. A wave pushed him under the water and his locked muscles quivered uselessly and the cold sank in.

It wore off after a moment, though the water was so much colder here than it was off the coast of Canalave. He hadn't thought that was possible, not without chunks of ice in the water. But it didn't matter. He swam.

It had been a while. His front crawl had gotten sloppy. But the waves had a tendency to push toward land, and he would have ended up there even if he'd been floating on his back. Quicker than he'd expected, he tumbled to the rocky shore and caught his breath, trying not think the about the possibility of freezing to death before he even got the chance to attempt the swim back.

A gentle moonlight glow beckoned him from the woods.

Saturn ran.

All logic left him, all thoughts of supplication and gentleness. He just. Ran. His own breaths became waves in his ears, double time against the drag of the water across the rocks. "I need help!"
Damp sand gave way to solid ground, the

sky choked out by the towering press of pine trees. The moonlight glow beckoned. Saturn hurtled toward it, his ears and fingers aching with cold. He kept stumbling, dirt and pine needles clinging to his wet knees, to his palms.
High grass, then a clearing. And in it.. In it...

A beautiful, luminous Pokémon floated just above the grass. Eyes of deep purple glimmered, imparting such a sense of serenity that Saturn's heartbeat slowed despite all the cold and exertion. But it was a serenity he couldn't afford, and adrenaline soon forced it out.

"Please, I— I need your help." The name entered his mind like he'd always known. "Cresselia, p-please."

Cresselia cooed and inclined its head. Saturn stepped closer. A dainty purple hand plucked a feather from the Pokémon's breast.

Saturn took it.

In his wet palm, the shimmering feather turned dirty and stringy, delicate whisps of keratin cracking. But it continued to gleam, almost glow, and Cressia cooed again, instilling Saturn with another wave of serene certainty that it would all work out.

For a brief, blissful moment, he knew it would. Never mind the tossing of the ocean, never mind the current he had to swim against to get back to the boat. Never mind Darkrai's ancient power. Everything would be fine.

He took a step back and the feeling faded. "Thank you, Cresselia. I won't forget this."

Another step backwards. Cresselia nodded again, its eyes full of warmth and understanding. Saturn turned and ran.

He hadn't noticed the run-down little dock when he'd washed up on the beach, but he ran straight at it now. The wet wood *seemed* reasonably solid at a glance, and a glance was all he had time for before he was skidding to a stop at the edge of the forest. A small shrine sat innocuously among the trees, nothing more than a wooden hut and a stone altar covered in moss. Saturn hesitated. He had nothing to give. Nothing on him but his Poké Balls and the feather clutched in his palm.

Almost automatically, he raised a hand and yanked out a stand of hair. The violent tremors of his cold-wracked body made it difficult, but he managed to slip the strand into a crack in the wood before dashing off again. Straight toward the dock, his feet thumping hollowly on the old wood. Then back into the waves.
They carried him up and slammed him down, forcing his head under the water. Conditions had gotten worse. The tide pushed against him, and swimming was all the more difficult with one hand clenched in a fist around Cresselia's gift. But failure was simply not an option, so Saturn kicked and struggled, fighting for every inch of progress back toward Eldritch's boat.

He was flagging, though, and quickly. Too much of his energy was stolen by the cold. Saturn's lungs burned, and all his muscles pulsed with the ache of poison. He couldn't stop. Resting would mean losing ground he simply couldn't afford to lose.

And even so, Eldritch's boat looked no closer. Try as he might to put his head down and push, Saturn...

Oh.

A wave struck him in the face like a physical blow, forcing salt spray into the back of his throat, making him cough.

He...

Saturn's arms wouldn't move. His legs worked slowly, slowly, the waves pushing him backward.

Away from the boat.

Toward the island.

Saturn was failing.

Even his scream of frustration came out as a mere whine, his body too overworked to muster the air needed to cry out. Saturn put his head down and pushed again, furious. He would die here, then. He would expend every last ounce of his energy fighting his way back to Cyrus. Back to Jupiter and Mars. Back to Team Galactic. Because there was no life without them. There was no waking up on the shore of Cresselia's island and starting anew. No life after.

It was this, or it was nothing.

—

Some of the Sinnoh League just didn't know when to stop. Lucian sighed and pushed his glasses up, scanning the room for Dawn.

She was nowhere to be found. And still, even without its guest of honor, the party continued.

It wasn't in full swing any more; little groups had formed here and there across the ballroom. Aaron a self-proclaimed a 'closer' was still, somehow, drinking, laughing with Flint near the dance floor. Cynthia, inexhaustible Cynthia, had finally found a seat, and sat listening while Fantina talked animatedly, her voice rising above the music.

"It's been a while since we've had a party this good." Byron. Lucian turned to face him, unable to keep from raising his eyebrows at the glass of wine Byron offered him. Byron laughed his hearty laugh. "Courtesy of the bartender. He said there was one pour left in the bottle, and Sinnoh knows I didn't want it."

Lucian took it and tried to smile. 'Sinnoh knows.' An old-fashioned oath, not entirely unbefitting the Canalave Gym Leader. It came with a profound sense of déjà vu. "Well— Thank you." 

Byron shrugged. "Looks like things are winding down, huh?"

A shock of cold made Lucian shudder. He tipped sideways as the floor seemed to fall out from under him.

"Lucian?"

Lucian shook himself. "S-sorry." He blinked hard, but the image of a roiling ocean refused to abate. It moved sickeningly beneath him like he was soaring over it, bare skin whipped by the bitter wind. "I'm— Sorry, excuse me—" Somewhere far away, his knees buckled and locked. Wine sloshed onto his hand.

"Okay." He could barely hear Byron over the whipping wind. "We're going to go and sit down. Then you can tell me what's wrong."
Taste of iron. Smell of the ocean. The old, familiar warmth of a bleeding nose.

Azelf looked down at the body in the water. A soul's cry, a tremendous show of willpower had expanded its domain and drawn it here. Another consciousness rubbed up against its own, so faint as to be nearly insignificant, so Azelf ignored it.

The boy, the one they had sent to atone, was dying. That was the nature of the world. Azelf had been the one to insist that the boy might live, to trust in the will of his soul to rewrite the will of another. And here he was, trying. He couldn't die. Not like this.

That was the nature of Azelf.

Saturn's head dipped below the water. When he raised it again, the boat was neaer. Too near to be the result of his feeble efforts in the water or the shove and pull of the waves. He took a shallow breath between splashes of salt water in his face and kicked with his legs, watching. Eldritch's boat was... moving closer.

On deck, only Purugly and Jupiter were moving. An odd combination, but not one that Saturn had time to dwell on as the boat surged ever closer. What was happening? He craned his neck, trying to look over his shoulder at the island in case Cresselia had intervened somehow, but a flash of blue overhead caught his eye. Azelf!

Saturn rose from the water and dropped onto the deck just as Jupiter and Purugly collapsed mid-move, like they'd just. Stopped.

All the pale shadows on the deck darkened and stretched toward Saturn. He dived for the cabin and clapped his hand on Cyrus' chest, which burned under him. A faint glow emanated from beneath Saturn's palm. He raised it. Cresselia's feather turned black and fell away in ashy particles.

The frantic rush of Cyrus' breathing immediately ceased. Saturn fell back, dizzy. "Master Cyrus?"
"Saturn?"

"Oh—!" Losing himself entirely, Saturn flung himself forward onto Cyrus' chest, tears streaming down his face. Hitching sobs stole his words; all he could do was cling and stammer and sob. "M-Master Cyrus...  You— You're a-alive!"

Deep, whistling coughs wracked Cyrus' frame, jostling Saturn, who couldn't help but cling on tighter.

Voices rose from inside and outside the cabin: Eldritch, Jupiter, and Mars all overlapped, demanding to know what was going. But it was Cyrus who got Saturn's attention, his voice low and wrecked and still full of his usual gravitas. "What happened?"

Saturn walked the tightrope of a many-layered lie as best as he could while freezing to death. He'd stripped out of his wet clothes and let Eldritch wrap him in some spare blankets, but it wasn't nearly enough. He couldn't stop shaking, even with Jupiter and Mars' jackets layered on him and all five of them crammed into the ship's tiny cabin.

"I, uh— Forced Eldritch to— to help us," Saturn said weakly.
Cyrus squinted, surprisingly acute for a man who had, until recently, also been dying. His breathing had taken on an awful whistle, and he could barely raise his head, but he tracked Saturn with eyes full of intelligence. "How..." His breath dragged, in an out, heavy as iron chains.

"How do you know... Interpol won't be waiting..."

Saturn caught his gaze and held it. "He promised."

"I promised," Eldritch echoed, not sounding even slightly intimidated. "Saturn is a good kid. And smart. You'll face justice one day, Cyrus. You don't own him."

"Is that... what you think?" For a moment, the flatness of Cyrus' expression teetered toward a smirk. Just for a second before it vanished into impassivity. "Saturn. Mars. Jupiter."

Saturn tried to flinch. "Y-yes?" Mars and Jupiter echoed him.

"I have no doubt Interpol will... be waiting... at the docks... You have leverage. Use it."

"What?" Jupiter.
"You can't mean that!" Saturn blurted, and then slapped a hand over his mouth.

Mars looked at him. "What— what?" Her eyes were wide, in not so much confusion as disbelief. She needed someone to say it.

Saturn obliged her. "Master Cyrus, you can't want us to turn you in."

"You'll do exactly that." Cyrus coughed, long and deep, his brow creasing with a pain he couldn't quite hide. Tears sparkled in his lashes when he raised his head to give Saturn a significant look. Some passing glimmer turned his irises red for a moment, and something iron flashed beneath the veneer of infirmity. "Tell them everything I... forced you to do. That's... an order."

Saturn let Mars and Jupiter protest for a moment before he raised a hand to silence them. "I understand, Master. We'll do as you say."

—

They played their parts well in the darkness of the docks. Cyrus best of all, of course. Even so, the sting of his words echoed in Saturn's head throughout the lengthy interrogation in the warmth of his hospital bed. "They're fools. I made their meager power my own, nothing more. You don't really think someone of my capabilities needed lieutenants." Even his breathing had evened out.

But he was still weak. One of the officers had made him kneel to cuff him and Cyrus had simply collapsed, his head striking the wooden dock with a gut-wrenching sound.

But that... that was over; it was over now.
Saturn sat back in his chair, closing his eyes. There was still the matter of what to do with the Galactic Headquarters while he waited for Cyrus to execute his plan. Because he did have a plan. He didn't do anything randomly. This had all been for

something.

It was only a matter of time until Saturn found out what.