A Ballad for Icarus - A Historical Pokemon Quest

Here's a drawing by a friend of mine, thank you again

[X] The Dark King, whose name will forever be synonymous with the desecration of bonds.
[X] ...the Loving.

###

You open your eyes to a world full of softness. Though you expect pain, your body feels light. Even the burns on your hands have stopped throbbing. Your head is lying on something soft and comfortable, which makes the whole cave experience somewhat tolerable.

You're not sure if you prefer this to pain, though. Pain is how you know you're alive. Yet as your eyes get used to the darkness, you find yourself staring up not at the Elysian fields or your grandmother, but Sophia, who is stroking your hair as she hums. She must've waited for you to wake up, rings under her eyes telling of her tiredness.

"You—" you begin, but your throat protests. It's sore, more so than the rest of your body, and for the first time in a while you find yourself speechless as Sophia looks down at you, her eyes lightning up like stars.

"You're awake," she says, in such heavy relief that the words take all the tension from her body. She slumps forward, pressing you down harder onto her thighs. "I'm so glad, you weren't breathing, your heart slowed down so much…"

There are no fungi here, but there's light. You try to look around, but with Sophia's iron grip on your head, you can't turn. You feel something hit your cheek, hot and damp, like harsh summer rain.

"We almost died," she says. Again is left unspoken. Once again, Wilhelm's actions have led you into a situation where death was around every corner. Once again, you fight against a foe that was out to kill you. Once again—No.

"This time nobody got hurt," you say, reaching out to cup her cheek. Maybe if you can calm her down you can free your head from her grip. "I'd see that as a win, right?"

"You got hurt," she says. You blink. You don't really feel hurt at all, if anything you feel like you could take on anything right now. Whatever possessed you at that moment left no marks and no wounds.

Only slight aches, something behind your eyes hurts slightly, but you can't quite call it 'pain'.

"Sophia," you say, your voice warm. "I'm okay, I promise."

Her face turns red from all the crying, but she obliges you nevertheless, letting go of your head and allowing you to sit up properly. You find yourself staring at… a burning tail. The Guardian sits there, its flame warming you and the others.

You reach over for your sword, but find it's not wrapped at your hip anymore. The Guardian growls at you, and your glare makes it… cower?

"It's not gonna fight us," Ray says. You glance over to the side where Ray is leaning against the battered Tauros. There's some bandages around it now, though it's still unconscious from the beating it must have received. "It lost, so now it won't fight us."

"Sure," you say, doubt marring your voice. "It just tried turning us to ash so forgive me if I have my doubts."

The Guardian opens its maw and says something. It's… not something you understand, but somehow its feelings come through.

"You, err," Ray says, helpfully. "Sorry, that word's hard. The first syllable is ancient Elysian and means Lizard, but… superlative? What kind of language superlatives nouns?"

The Guardian turns to her and says something again, moving its hands as if that helps with the translation. Ray frowns, then nods, then frowns again, then looks like she swallowed something sour.

"Okay, lets just move on, Superlative Lizard, second syllable is… liquid? Sap?" she asks. Charizard roars loudly. "Fuck off, I didn't skip any classes your accent's just shit!"

"Ladies," you say, shaking your head. You feel a bit off, but Sophia's hand on your shoulder makes it easy to keep focus. "You're both pretty, please, just translate the gist of it, I don't need a literal translation."

Charizard grunts, then repeats its earlier sentence.

"You, Lizard-superlative Liquid-or-Sap," Ray says. "Ancient Pact, something something, an apology for thinking we were grave robbers. It says you bested it in combat, so now it'll listen to you until your pilgrimage ends."

"Pilgrimage?" you ask, frowning. "I suppose that's what people would do when they come down here, but… I don't think I've got a Pokeball for you ready."

"No Pokeball," Ray says. Charizard nods. "Its life is bound to the Tomb. It'll die when it leaves, so think of it as a guest."

"A guest," you say, your voice dry. Of course, a guest, about 12 feet tall and very much the reason for Sophia's emotional state. You shake your head. "Fine then, we need all hands on deck when we go after Wilhelm."

You stand up, dusting yourself off before turning around and giving Sophia a hand. She takes it, standing up next to you, still somewhat shaken but nonetheless ready to carry on.

Inana and Perun are with Spring and Winter, holding something of a conversation while Gumi sits with Ray, yawning widely in boredom. You sigh, trying to come up with a plan isn't working out. Your brain is too jumbled.

Charizard makes another attempt to speak, and Ray rolls her eyes. "There's no way I'm translating that."

Okay, enough. You clap your hands together. "I can't think, it's too loud. So everyone just, be quiet, please."

You take a deep breath. The path forward is open, you have a powerful ally at your side. But something about the situation still stinks, there's no way Wilhelm sent you down here without some purpose. With the power of that staff, he likely could have killed you considering Ray's story.

While your body is fine, your brain is fried. Physical exhaustion would be preferable to the fog in front of your eyes that seems to form whenever you try to have a coherent thought. Something pokes you in the side, and you frown. "Not now, Skiddle—"

You blink the fog away. The darkness around you grows cold and distant, and you find your hand pushing Inana away before you pull it back so fast, your head starts spinning. Inana looks at you confused, then shrugs before pointing down towards the door that they had blasted open earlier.

"Sorry, yes," you say. Sophia gives you a look you can't place. Even Ray seems tense, as if those few seconds of silence had revealed something more. "Winter over there has been leading us up to go kick Wilhelm's ass."

Inana says something while raising her arms wide. The Guardian stirs at her words, looking irritated. You can't quite make out what she's trying to tell you, pain behind your eyes flaring up as you give it a try.

"Okay, at this point I'm done with the cave diving," you say, rubbing the bridge of your nose. "Everyone, we're getting out of here. Winter, good job so far."

Winter smiles up at you, her tail wagging back and forth as she walks up to Sophia and holds her club up.

"We'll let the Guardian lead us the rest of the way," you say. Charizard gives a slow nod, still looking somewhat miffed at its door being destroyed. Nevertheless, it did not actually say anything more when the smaller Pokemon decided to jump on its back and let it carry them. Inana and Perun look at you to join them, but you shake your head, it does not look like a comfortable ride at all.

Spring, who seems still a bit wary of Winter, decides to stay with Sophia, who has calmed down somewhat.

"There's a good chance we'll have to fight that man again," Sophia says, frowning. "If he hasn't already succeeded at what he wants to do, how are we going to make sure we can win this time?"

"I feel it in my bones," you say. It sounds like a joke, but you are not lying. Headaches aside, right now you feel like you can take on any foe, so why should Wilhelm be any different? "And because I think he needs us alive for something, which is why he hasn't killed us when he had the chance."

"Not that it matters," Ray says, her jaw tense as she bites down on her cheek. "We're getting that staff back."

The group moves on.

###

The path is boring once more, and so you find yourself trying to hold a conversation with Ray while Winter is distracting Sophia, who is still very uncomfortable with Charizard walking in front of you all.

"Ray," you say. She looks up at you, matching the speed of your steps to keep up with you. "How much do you know about history?"

"Depends on what history, what period, what geography," Ray says. "I've spent most of my childhood in the priest's library, so I know quite a few things about history related to the gods."

"All of them?"

"Most of them." She nods. "Maybe not that much about the ones far in the east on different continents, there's one story I know about four beasts of ruin. It's related to the birthplace of the three beasts worshipped in Sol—"

"I'd love to hear about that one day," you say, nodding. "But I wanted to be a bit more specific."

She smiles softly, and gives you a nod to continue.

"There's some stories I've never learned more about," you say. Your grandmother told many, yet time with her was so finite. Even if you asked a billion questions, she tried to answer them all, and yet— "Ray, what can you tell me of the Dark King?"

"Mythologically speaking, he's the counterpart to the first king of Sol," Ray says, sounding like a textbook. "Historically speaking, he's a warlord who held the attention of a powerful deity and challenged the status quo of the continent until the establishment of the four kingdoms."

"I know that much," you say. Sophia nods, no doubt also educated in the history of Gildera and Sol as any good knight should be. "I meant more information that's not filtered by years of historical retellings."

"That's more complicated," she says. "It's hard to explain short, too. The truth is that information about that time is very sparse because people tried very hard to erase that man's name, and worse, they succeeded."

You can't imagine a worse fate, to be forgotten so deliberately that nobody knows your name anymore. Though his actions, from the perspective of those who live a thousand years after his deeds, are reprehensible, you cannot truly see a difference between him and the invasions of Sol into Gildera in an attempt to take the rest of the continent for itself.

"If you ask anyone for a name other than 'Dark King', they'll call him 'Betrayer'. We do not know who or what he betrayed, some say he betrayed mankind, some say he betrayed a God. Whatever the case, his name will forever be synonymous with the desecration of bonds. There is a claim that the Royal Family of Gildera descended from him, though that's long disputed."

You imagine so, even if it were true they'd not admit it freely.

"Gildera suffers his punishment all the same," you say. The people live free, yet their world is limited by mountains and their vision is hindered by trees and clouds. "A sin so heavy that a thousand years of exile could not repay it."

"That's one of those things that you'd need more education on," Ray says. You raise an eyebrow. "I don't mean to say you're stupid, I'm saying that's a thing people are still arguing about to this day. Did Kael draw the mountains up to trap the Union and their descendants, or did he draw a line in the sand to protect the very same from the wrath of the continent they nearly burned down?"

Your feet stop as you ponder the question. A perspective you've never considered before, yet something that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. With the power of the Sun, Kael could have carved more than mountains into the earth.

"I do believe in sin," Ray says. "I believe in the world beyond."

She draws light into the air with her fingers, electricity dancing like fairies across the cave.

"And I still believe in magic, and as a person who everyone admires, whose name is synonymous with the belief of a better world, I do not believe Kael's intention was to punish the Union, or the Kingdoms that sprang from it. I believe he wanted an end to suffering, and pain, and bloodshed."

"I'm sorry," you say, blinking away a vision of a world far in the past. It's her turn to stop and raise an eyebrow, so you must answer: "I'm sorry for my words when we first met. I should not have cast doubt on your faith, Ray."

She snorts. "That's ages ago, and there's nothing to be sorry about."

"No, there is," you say, shaking your head. "I'm impulsive and judgmental, even when I know that people's motivations run much deeper than what I can see. You believe in something greater than you, and judging you for how you live it is shameful."

She does not respond, instead looking away from you. You think you made her angry, the tips of her ears lightning up in furious red.

"It's fine," she mumbles, and with the knowledge that she's not angry at you, you smile, continuing forward and further up into the tomb.

"I've got my own questions," Sophia says, coming between you and Ray with a heavy step, pushing both of you apart. Ray rolls her eyes, and you change the speed of your walk slightly to give them both more space. "You said the Guardian has a name for Aria, right?"

"Yeah, though I really can't place the word. I was okay at languages, not great." Ray raises both her arms and swings them back and forth. "It's like— chrysalis. If it said caterpillar-superlative it'd translate to butterfly."

"So what'd be the superlative of lizard?" Sophia asks. Ray shrugs.

"I don't know," she says. "A lizard doesn't become anything, really. It might be a reference to a lizard-like Pokemon that we don't know, which evolved into something else."

Charizard says something.

Ray blinks. "Okay, good guess then. Something that was normal, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Considering it's an overgrown fire lizard, maybe that's what he's saying to you."

"Liquid or sap," you say, frowning. "Maybe it means blood? Kin?"

Charizard nods. The sentence it said becomes slightly more coherent.

"Well, whatever energy came from you when you were kicking its ass, it definitely left an impression," Ray says. She gives you a smirk. "Maybe it thinks you're its mommy."

"Your sense of humor needs work," you say, your voice dry. "Nevertheless, I don't know what I did. I just got too angry, and too scared, and too annoyed to do nothing."

"That makes a lot of sense," Sophia says. You turn your head to her. "If you don't know what kind of energy runs through you, you can't use it. So it must've been a reflex, right? Involuntary, something that just comes natural to you when you're in a stressful situation."

"Adrenaline is good at that." Ray snaps her fingers. "If it comes out when you're fighting, that can help narrow it down, though we're not really in a position to experiment."

You hold your hand up, glaring at your palm. No fire, no electricity. Nothing that can be drawn from the air or come from the ground. Whatever lies inside, whatever your calling is, it's all you.

It's always been you.

So you clench a fist and carry on. "We'll figure it out when I kick that bastard's ass again."

"Yes," Sophia says, her own hands clenched in front of her chest.

"Hear, hear," Ray says, putting her hands behind her head and continuing forward. "I'm getting hungry, though."

So are you.

###

The tomb changes once again.

Your hand traces the murals, the fungal growth thins out more and more. Your vision gets used to the darker surroundings fast, and what you can't make out, the Guardian lights up without you saying a word.

It's after a walk held in silence that you can feel something strange. Air, a soft breeze that makes all hair on the back of your neck stand straight. A smell that you've had to smell before when you were in that brothel—

It comes from a wall. No, from between it, you see a small cut across one of the murals, raising your hand to stop the group. You look up at Charizard. "Open this."

The Guardian does not seem very happy, but obliged your demand anyway. Its claws dig into the secret doorway, knocking debris and dust off the wall. The door starts moving, opening wide enough for the smell to increase. Even Sophia and Ray begin holding their nose. It's not just the smell of the brothel, but also of rot, and vermin, and all the things that make your stomach churn.

You must press on, so you do. Charizard follows you, its tail swinging around to touch candles that are near the walls. The room gets brighter and brighter.

"A dungeon?" you ask, frowning. Metal bars, cages in various sizes, a door which must be the normal way inside. It looks worn down and abandoned, like most of the tomb, but the smell tells you something else.

"Here," Sophia calls out. You turn your head and find her at the far wall, next to a well-preserved corpse. "She's alive."

You rush forward, your knees scraping against the ground as you take hold of the woman chained to the wall. You've seen her before, and even if you haven't, the smell alone would've told you who she was.

Debora looks awful. Sunken eyes and cheeks, bruises all over her arms and legs. She has been held here for a while, and though she has been kept alive, her comfort was far from the minds of whoever put her here. If you had to guess, it was Wilhelm, though from what you've learned about Olympia, it's not guaranteed.

You take one of the potions. She's not badly injured, but what's wrong with her won't be done with some miracle cure out of a bottle. You have to get her up to Justus as fast as possible.

The potion does its work. Her complexion improves slightly, though none of the bruises show any sign of improvement.

"Debora," you call out her name, but she does not stir. "Debora, we're here to help."

"No need to bother," Ray says. She sniffs the air, the pungent smell making her turn slightly green. "This is some sedative at work, the air smells of it. She won't wake up unless you stimulate it out of her."

"And how'd we do that?" Sophia asks, clearly unhappy with Ray's dismissive tone.

Ray smiles, clapping her hands together. Electricity gathers at her fingertips. "All you had to do was ask."

"Ray," you say, your voice even. "We're not turning her in for the bounty."

"I never said I was gonna," Ray says, shrugging. "And with everything going on above us, I feel like some gold isn't my main concern. I can help, so let me help."

You nod, standing up and taking a few steps backwards. Sophia joins you, watching as Ray approaches Debora. You hold your hand up quickly.

"Wait," you say, looking at Charizard. "Break the chains, first."

Charizard does, cheered on by Inana. Perun's eyes are fixed on Ray's hands, his frills clapping together above him as electricity jumps between them. Is it trying to copy her? It'd be a cute sight if you weren't so tense right now. The chains shatter at the weakest link, and Debora's arms slump down to the ground.

Ray continues her work. She puts one hand on Debora's chest, and another on the woman's forehead. The glow of the electricity is not very intense, though you imagine it'll be painful either way.

"Wake up, Debbie," Ray says, her voice low. You don't think anyone but you heard her. "Come on."

The lightning flashes for a moment, and Debora jerks upwards, bashing her back against the wall as she tries to get away from Ray. Her eyes are wide and panicked, growing even more frantic as she catches sight of Charizard's angry mug.

"Welcome back," Ray says. Debora's panic slowly washes away, exhaustion taking over, her eyes half-lidded and unfocused. Ray slaps her cheeks softly. "Come on, no time for another nap, or I'll leave you here."
"You've always had terrible bedside manners, Ray," Debora says. Her voice is distant and weak. "I imagine a prince would get me, but I guess you'll have to do."

Ray smiles softly, nodding at you. You join, grabbing the woman under her knees and shoulders to lift her up and bring her over to one of the half-broken chairs strewn across the room.

"Now that's more like it," Debora says. "Well, looks wise, but you're a bit soft down there—"

You nearly drop her when Sophia slams the chair she pulled from the floor so hard that it shatters. You blink, and Sophia looks somewhat embarrassed by the move before picking up another chair.

"Not that one," Sophia says, trying to laugh it off. You nod, slowly setting Debora on the chair and holding onto it to stop it from wobbling.

"Thank you," Debora says, ignoring the last few seconds. "If you could tell me what's going on, that'd be nice."

You need to learn that from her. The way panic and fear is cut away until you can stay calm even in a situation like this, it'd be invaluable—

"Of course," you say. You try to keep it short, but the story does take longer than you want. The last few days since her disappearance had been busy, after all, but now that she has been found there should be a way to pay off the guards. Even if they deserve not a single coin. "We've found the secret entrance and got knocked down a few floors by Wilhelm."

She does react at the name. Her hand moves to her head, fury in her eyes.

"I guess I can repay the favor," Debora says, her broken fingernails drawing a white line over her cheek as she lowers her hand. "That man was in and out of the high priest's office in the last few weeks. I heard them speak whenever I was in the bedroom."

"You can spare us from that part," Ray says. Sophia nods, crossing her arms. Debora gives them both a wide smile.

"Talking about what?" you ask. You have a feeling that trying to keep the conversation on topic will be a difficult task.

"Promises of power," Debora says. "Wilhelm told Agamemnon that he could become a God."
"Blasphemy, great," Ray says, rolling her eyes. "I imagine he was very interested—"

"He wasn't," Debora says. Ray looks annoyed, but says nothing, letting the woman continue. "Though that man's faults were many, he was not that mad. So when Wilhelm realized sweet words won't get him anywhere, he killed him, then took me down here."

That's a slight escalation from his earlier behavior, then again, though they share name and face, and even that Tauros, it's still hard to believe that this is the same Wilhelm as the one you've met and fought in Wallburg.

"Why did he take you?" you ask. For a moment you can see that fear in her eyes again. That moment of realization of a fate that would have befallen her if you had not come down here and found her. "Debora?"

"Sacrifice," she says, swallowing a lump in her throat. "He's trying to summon something big, something dangerous. My time in the priest's school was brief so I couldn't make out most of it, but before he put me here I saw writings about how the demon was sealed. It took seven souls, seven lives, seven priests of Raikou."

"You went to the priest's school?" Sophia asks. You give her a look and she raises her hands, taking a step back. "Sorry, okay, seven sacrifices to seal a demon— wait, seal?"

"Seal, not kill?" Ray asks, just as confused. "The demi-god is still alive? It's not dead at all?"

The panic in her voice makes the alarm bells in your own head ring louder. The idea of bringing a dead demi-god back to life is ridiculous, even if you thought that might be a possibility he was pursuing.

But breaking a seal on something using a legendary artifact sounds a lot more reasonable.

"That's why he kept us alive," you say, frowning. "That's… four here, he'd need three more."

"He has them," Debora says, pointing at the dark cell. You strain your eyes, looking inside. You can make out two men chained to the wall, one of them wearing a rather fancy guard's uniform. "Them plus us is six, then he is the seventh."

"You think he'd sacrifice himself?" you ask.

"Yes," Ray says, her teeth clenched. "Zealots are worse than blasphemers, you can convince them to do anything for a spark of divinity."

"I think he's willing to do anything, including murdering a high priest and kidnapping the Centurion in one of the holiest cities in Sol," Debora says, nodding at Ray. "And if it unleashes whatever Raikou sealed here, all of Olympia will be leveled."

You feel that chill again. Your dislike for Wilhelm grows stronger, but that's so minor in the face of such an adversity.

Charizard roars. The sound makes the bones inside of your rattle, and you glare up at it, growling back. "What is wrong with you?"

"It's angry," Ray says, her own emotions bleeding into her voice. "The Guardians are probably meant to prevent something like this. The path would be blocked by them without the staff, which he has in his possession."

"Okay," you say, crossing your arms. "To be perfectly honest with you, this goes over my head for the most part. I don't think it changes our plan at all, we're out to kick his ass, take the staff back, and get Debora to her people."

"That's… true," Sophia says. She does not look happy with the prospect of being a human sacrifice. Spring is patting her on the back with its vines, while Winter looks a bit confused at what's going on. Inana grunts, confident she can take whatever comes your way.

You clench your fist over your chest.

The truth is often simple. A mad man follows a mad plan.

The world above is in danger and the only thing that can stop a devastation that will drag tens of thousands people into their death is you. And you will never ask why it is you, you will never care that it is your lot in life.

Maybe your path is so difficult because your calling is higher.

You are Aria, Revolutionary. Aria, Wise. Aria, Hero-in-Training.

You love this world, and the path ahead of you, the magic of life.

So you will believe in magic, just like Ray does.

The situation up top is going to become troublesome very fast and you have to focus on how to approach the fight. Whoever is not fighting with you will aid Sophia and Ray.

[ ] Press forward with Inana.

[ ] Press forward with Perun.

###

AN: No drawing this time, sorry.