Chapter 75:

Twilight of the Gods

"So you'll be participating as well?" Ash's voice came through the speakers.

"Duh, why wouldn't I? I already signed up," I answered. "Knighthood sounds kinda fun for a change."

"Well, then it seems we have to do a rematch." Ash must have been grinning, he sounded quite smug. "Assuming you'll get through the preliminary rounds."

"Are you underestimating my power?"

"Pika!" A yellow mouse interrupted the call, I heard some struggling happening on the other side of the line. It sounded like Ash tried to push Pikachu away from his Pokédex but failed.

"Uh, well Pikachu says he's looking forward to rematch your Ralts." Ash finally said, which was followed by a cry from Pikachu.

Luna rolled her eyes. {Tell him not to get too attached to his Pikachu.}

"Yeah, Luna is also very excited about it, she can't wait," I replied dryly. "Don't expect to OHKO Luna this time."

"OHKO?"

"Nevermind,' I shook my head. "Anyway, I expect to reach Eterna City pretty soon so I might actually catch you before Alamos Town."

"Well, see you when I see you." Ash said, "Good luck!"

"Yeah, see ya later." I ended the call with a single button press.

"Wait," Fay blinked confused when she saw I had ended the call. "I thought we were doing the Gym Challenge?"

"We are."

"Then what's this entire festival about? Since when is that part of the Gym challenge?" Fay sounded like she honestly didn't understand the concept.

{Tsk, simple side questing.} Luna explained.

"Exactly!" I knelt down and offered Luna a fist bump, she did a gracious pirouette and hit my fist with one of her own. "Like Luna said, yes we are doing the Gym Challenge but we can also have fun along the way, besides, a little extra challenge won't hurt right?"

"But what if we fail?" Fay asked hesitantly. "Won't our opponents have much more experience?"

I shrugged. "Then we'll lose but it doesn't hurt to try something new. Worst case scenario we go home with more experience."

{We'll win,} Luna said dismissively. {Our trainer will make sure of that.}

Sure, put all the pressure on me, although it was my duty as a trainer I guess.

I knelt down and smiled. "Don't you worry, the Sinnoh Knights Festival is not only about battling, it's also about having fun."

"I guess," Fay muttered. She shook her head and a passionate look crossed her face as she looked up at me. "But you must help me get stronger! I do not want to fail in front of an audience."

"Of course my Padawan," I patted Riolu on the head.

"Eh?" Fay muttered while trying to avoid my eyes, very cute.

The Sinnoh Knights Festival is an annual festival held in Alamos Town every year. The point of the festival is to celebrate the rich history of Sinnoh, something this region has surprisingly lots of. During the Festival, there would be history-themed plays, food, music, more food, and a lot of games which were probably based on the legends in Sinnoh.

During that week there was also a Pokémon tournament in which trainers fought for the title of being the Sinnoh Knight. A historical title that was once bestowed upon a legendary knight long, long ago, probably around the time Sinnoh was formed. Nowadays, it's a title granted to the winner of the tournament at the end of each year as a reward. For an entire year, that person can call himself the 'Sinnoh Knight'. Pretty neat if you ask me.

The tournament isn't purely just trainer battles though, there are supposed to be other challenges as well but I couldn't find online what the other challenges are supposed to be. Now all of that sounds pretty cool and chill, nothing too extraordinary, until you take a good look at the town where the festival takes place.

Alamos Town. AKA, the town where the Rise of Darkrai movie takes place. The same town where Dialga and Palkia decide to tear apart space and time in an attempt to off each other. According to my calculations or well... assumptions, Ash should arrive at the start of the week-long festival which hopefully kickstarts the events of the movie. I wasn't exactly sure why there was a festival, seeing how there wasn't one in the movies but it's probably something about this world being more detailed than the kid's anime.

Somewhere in all of this was a joke Fate could laugh at; for example, the flier that advertised the festival said there would be a 'surprise appearance'. It would be a “Legendary’ event that would be remembered for generations to come. Dialga, Palkia and Darkrai showing up during a festival to celebrate the legends of Sinnoh is just pitch black irony.

Of course, all of this was based on the assumption that the anime timeline was a reliable source of information. I hope it was, otherwise I would be fucked, not that I wasn't screwed right now but I would be slightly more screwed.

"Well, I guess it will be fun." Fay smiled up at me.

"Yup."

I hadn't found the courage to tell my two Pokémon everything I knew about the festival, especially the part about 2 legendaries coming by to wreck shit. Maybe it was the fear that they might not want to go or maybe it's just really hard to steer a conversation towards a death battle between two gods. They just assumed it was a fun festival.

Well, I have a few weeks to prepare anyway and there was this upcoming Gym battle with Gardenia that was also still on my schedule. I told myself I would reveal it later.

The sky above us was colored in a warm shade of orange and red, reserved for summer evenings. Long shadows were drawn out from the trees and gave them a mysterious and almost magical glow created by the sun rays. A warm breeze caused the leaves to sway, completing the perfect picture of an autumn forest, despite it not even being close to Fall.

"Okay, decision time, do we camp one more night outside, or are we gonna make a run for Floaroma Town?" I looked at my watch, "We might make it before dark but dinner will have to wait."

{We can camp outside another night.} Luna decided, {I feel a bit tired from training.}

Well, Telekinesis was draining Luna's internal battery.

Fay shrugged. "Both options are fine by me."

I concluded, "Alright, camping it is."

There was nothing for me to do in Floaroma Town, except maybe making some calls and getting more supplies. Floaroma Town wasn't that interesting to me, there wasn't a whole lot going on in that place except the flower business that was blooming, pun intended. Ash had just left Floaroma Town so there was no point in hurrying. I quickly checked the map before putting away the Pokédex in my backpack.

"Let's look for a place to set up camp." I yawned and stretched at the same time.

Luna nodded and we continued our way through the forest underneath the orange painted sky. After a minute of walking Fay suddenly spoke up. "Dust, I feel something weird."

"Good weird or bad weird?" I asked cautiously. There's a big difference between the two.

Fay closed her eyes to focus, she pushed her palms forward and her paw started to glow faintly with the blue flames flickering to life.

She surprised me by suddenly spinning to her left side and pointing in that direction. Her eyes snapped open, "There's an aura hotspot!"

She pointed in the western direction of Rosefort forest. Coincidentally that direction looked a bit more ominous than every other direction. It was hard to place what exactly made me feel that way, maybe it was the tree line being denser or the way that sunlight somehow didn’t reach through the canopy, making it look a bit creepy in my eyes. Although it could also just be long shadows caused by the descending sun that made it look like that.

"You sure?"

Fay nodded. "As sure as I can be."

Luna gave Fay a skeptical look. {I sense nothing.}

"I am definitely sure, 100 percent!" Fay insisted. "I feel a strong, positive, Aura coming from there."

"From the creepy murder forest," I asked, just in case.

"Yes, can we check it out?" Fay turned to me, and she seemed completely oblivious to my skepticism. "Please, maybe it might be a clue to fixing your Aura?"

"That would be nice," I admitted out loud, "You know what? Fuck it, I'm bored let's check it out."

I hoped that Fay might have been able to fix my shattered Aura but when she said that she could not even touch my Aura, let alone heal it, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. To be honest, I had no idea what Aura even was or what it meant to have a broken Aura but I wanted it healed ASAP. It might not hinder me much in my day to day life, but I still would rather be a person with regular aura, even if only to not look like a zombie to other Aura wielders.

Fay led the way, pushing through the bushes and through the dense forest. The sun started to touch the horizon behind us.

It only took a few steps to actually find what we were looking for. While I was distracted by the annoying smell of roses Fay pushed through a couple of berry bushes. She suddenly came to a halt. "This is it."

{What is this?} Luna peered ahead, not understanding what Fay was looking at.

In front of us was a big clearing in the forest with a strange stone structure in the center of it. The structure looked awfully familiar. It was made of gray brickstone and formed a large building with slanted roof and entrance in the front. The entire perimeter was surrounded by styleful iron fencing and had a little yard in the front of the strange building. One end of the building ended in a thin tower that rose above the treeline, although it was not that tall. Flowers had spread on all the walls and around the fence, a thick layer of flora buried the building like a green blanket with colorful flowers weaving in and out of the network of roots making the entire place look like it had been abandoned for years.

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"What is this place?" Fay asked, her eyes drawn to the building.

"It's a church," I muttered, a bit surprised. Apparently, there was a church in the middle of Rosefort forest. It had an early medieval European design, something I had never seen in this world before.

"There's a lot of Aura coming from here," Fay took a step towards the clearing. "But I've never seen a building like this."

{It's a church,} Luna said dismissively, {Eh, what is a church?}

Oh boy, how do I explain this to two Pokémon who have lived their entire lives in a forest?

"Well, people come to a church to exercise their beliefs, get married, die, and do their prayers."

"Prayers?" Fay tilted her head.

{Get married?} Luna squealed.

"Well yeah," I ignored Luna's red face. "People talk to their god of choice, their ancestors, or whatever they feel like. Although it's a one-way communication line."

"I want to pray!" Fay loudly announced, "This place. It brings me closer to her, I can feel it."

Luna gave me an intense look for no reason.

"Please Dust, can we go inside?" Fay asked, her eyes big and her tail happily wagging like a dog. How could I say no?

"Sure," I shrugged, inspecting the strange church, "But you do realize that you won't be able to speak to the ones you seek?"

Didn't want to be rash but it would be worse if Fay somehow gets the false hope of talking to her mom and finds out they don't appear like some hologram ghost, that would break her heart and I didn't want that to happen. "It's more personal preference, no proof it works."

Is there even an afterlife in this universe? People in this world still couldn't say.

Yes, there are ghost Pokémon but are those really the souls of the dead or just souls in a different form? There was still a lively debate whether the afterlife was real among scientists and the question still wasn't answered.

Religion wasn't a big part of the Pokémon universe and although lots of people view Legendary Pokémon as gods there aren't many active religious groups. It used to be different, seeing the amount of shrines and temples that are being found but nowadays science and social media caused people to see Pokémon as more down to earth creatures.

"I really want it." Fay closed her eyes and let out a sigh of resignation, "I know I won't see her but I feel like this is the right thing to do."

"Okay, then let's see if the door is actually open."

The gate that led to the church wasn't too fancy. Just a black colored fence that had marks of rust on the edges. With a simple push, I opened the gate and a loud creaking sound echoed throughout the yard.

"It looks like this place hasn't been visited much," I said while I studied the courtyard.

Stone statues of Pokémon decorated the courtyard, forming a big circle of pedestals. Miniature sized versions of Legendary Pokémon were placed on top of them but I couldn't be sure all of them represented Legendaries because most of them were partly destroyed or straight up missing. Now all that remained were statues I recognized as a big flying snake, a deer-like creature, a weird cat-looking Pokémon, and a bird with lightning rods as wings.

I stopped in front of the big wooden front door, half expecting it to be rotten and decaying like the rest of this building but to my surprise, I found it in pristine condition. The door was made of dark Oakwood and had metal strips running across it to provide more resistance. Two iron knobs had a bronze-colored chain wrapped around them with a lock holding both ends together.

"Should we knock?" I asked no one in particular as I was about to break in.

"I can break the chains," Fay offered.

"That won’t be necessary," a feminine voice came from behind us. Startled, I spun around and was met with the face of a girl that somehow, like everyone in this world, had managed to sneak up on me. Luckily it wasn't just me this time, Fay and Luna also did an almost comical spin in surprise.

Standing on the pathway that led to the door was a girl that looked like she had fallen from Heaven, and that is not a cheap pick up line. She had a pale, almost angelic face with yellow-golden colored eyes. She had long white flowing hair that almost seemed to shine in the light of the descending sun. Her face had something ageless about it, making it really hard to guess her age but if I had to pick an age I would say 20. She wore something I can only describe as a stylish white Kimono, like people in Japan used to wear. It had to be that or she was just wearing bathrobes. She had a basket filled with food tucked underneath her right arm; she was looking at me with a confused look.

Her appearance reminded me a bit of that girl from Nier Automata, though I couldn't recall who exactly.

"Uhm, can I help you?" The girl asked with a surprisingly gentle voice.

When my Pokémon and I kept staring at her she arched an eyebrow and asked in a more pressing way. "Is something wrong?"

I blinked, and then did it again before finding my voice. "Uh, hi."

You know that feeling when you try to pull something sneaky and someone catches you in the act and they just stare at you?I really felt like that right now.

"Hello?" The girl gave me a look that demanded answers.

What to say, what to say? Telling her I wasn't about to break in would surely reinforce any suspicions she already had. Maybe try telling the truth?

"Uhm, my Riolu wishes to pray inside. Are you by any chance, the priest, or cleric or something else?" I asked, dropping to silence at the end of the sentence.

The girl giggled, amused. "My name is Aurum, I am the shrine maiden."

Ah yeah, because this church definitely looks like a shrine, I've seen shrines and they usually don't look like a church, although I guess she might be right, after all a different world has different rules.

"If you could please move out of the way I can open the door." A small smirk made itself known on her lips. "With a key, not violence."

We did as she said and she fished a bronze, old looking key from her basket and she slid it inside the iron padlock.

"She's so pretty," Fay mumbled softly.

"Stay cautious," I whispered, although Fay was right.

"Her Aura, it's very good-natured," Fay drew her gaze away from the girl, "This entire place is drenched in positive Aura."

Well, holy places in this world often had that effect. My guess is that it's just the presence of Legendary Pokémon that causes those places to be infused with said energy.

The girl was finally done with unraveling the keychain and the iron shackles fell to the ground. With a soft push of the strange woman, the doors opened inwards.

"Come on in," She offered with a sleek smile as she knelt down to grab the basket and headed inside.

I followed her inside of the shrine that definitely looked like a church.

The inside was impressive and unimpressive at the same time, it was very simplistic in design with simple wooden benches aligned in rows facing towards a stage where someone could hold a speech. All the way in the back of the building there was some kind of altar, almost hidden away. Light shone through the dusty windows, casting rays that were distinctly visible because of all the dust that was flying around.

"There it is," Fay awed at the altar that didn't look that special to me. "Do you mind if I give it a try?"

I petted her on the head. "Go ahead."

And with those words, Fay disappeared.

Luna watched Fay walk away and started fidgeting with her weird dress, her red eyes filled with concern.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

Luna gave me a wary look, {Do you mind if I join Fay?}

"You're serious, aren't you?" I looked at my Kirlia. She seemed to be struggling with something, I could see that but I had no idea what.

{Nothing too big,} Luna tried to reassure me, {Things in the past. Fay might not be crazy at all.}

"You can go as well." I smiled, "Good luck."

{You sure?}

I rolled my eyes, "Why wouldn't I? Now go join Fay."

{Thanks} Luna gave my leg a quick hug before making her way to Fay, leaving me alone with my thoughts once again.

The girl had disappeared to some backroom to put away the food supplies, probably that or she was doing some satanic ritual; it was a possibility.

Being alone and not feeling like standing anymore, I decided to sit down on one of the wooden benches.

I rested my arm on the back and sat in silence, not feeling like doing anything but sitting and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere inside this place and closing my eyes.

A minute had passed this way when I heard someone sitting down next to me.

I opened my eyes, expecting to see Fay or Luna, instead, I saw the white-haired girl sitting down on the same bench as I, although on the other side, keeping a respectful distance.

"You don't feel like praying?" The girl asked, not accusingly but more like a genuine concern.

"Nah, I'm fine."

"Oh… okay," the girl seemed to be surprised by my answer, "If you feel like praying, you can take your time."

"I doubt it will work." I couldn't help but run my mouth.

Well, Arceus is most likely still asleep and that is assuming Arceus is actually as powerful as the myths said it was. Following the pattern other Legendary follow, Arceus must be one heck off a nightmare to fight and definitely wouldn't fall to an Ultra Ball.

"You don't believe in something bigger?" The girl pressed with a playful expression. What’s up with this girl?!

"Are you trying to convert me or something?" I smirked.

"Not at all," The girl hastily replied with a guilty expression, "I am just curious about your opinion, I assume you believe only in material science?"

"Not exactly," I watched the carvings on the wall. If you used your imagination you could see the outline of a Pokémon in the çenter with thin lines coming from it. "You could say Fate and I have a rough relationship."

"Fate and you?" The girl frowned, "You are starting to sound stranger every second."

"You are the shrine maid right?" I asked. "Does that mean you believe in the Creator Pokémon?"

The girl nodded, "Obviously, yes. Although I'd like the name 'Alpha' a bit more than the Creator Pokémon."

Yeah, people still hadn't figured out Arceus' name. Must be hard considering it had gone to sleep the moment the universe was created or at least if the lore holds true.

Apparently, my thinking face must have looked like I didn't believe her because she started to explain. "I know most people call the creation story a myth but I know there is more to it." She spoke with confidence and passion, there was no doubt she truly believed in Arceus.

"Well, I do believe there's more to it, the Alpha most likely does exist but I'm not sure I should pray to it."

"What? but why?" Genuine shock washed over her. I sighed, how do you explain nihilism without offending someone?

"Look, if I were to have superpowers, like being able to fly and save people, would you call me a God?"

She shook her head, "No, you would just be you but with more power."

"Exactly, multiply this a hundred times. I believe this being exists," named Arceus, "but I still believe that our mysterious creator can make mistakes and fuck up."

Arceus most likely brought me to this world and not a single one of my questions had been answered or explained. I had to start from zero and could have died a dozen times along the way. I made no illusions, whatever it was that brought me to this world had left me on my own. It made me feel bitter, more than I'd like to admit but just the thought of having something or someone watch over me without reacting or helping really pissed me off. Of course, maybe I am just a sore loser with too much hope and dreams. Eh, who cares.

Either Fate does look after me and I don't notice or she does not exist, either way, I get to feel miserable so in the end, it doesn't matter.

The white-haired girl nodded as if deep in thought. "I think I understand your viewpoint. Thanks for sharing it."

She gave me a serene smile.

"You're not offended?"

"Of course not, it is my duty to help people and I'd like to think this talk made your heart feel a bit less heavy."

She stood up and bowed, "Thank you for letting me understand you, I hope this conversation might lighten your heart a little."

Holy shit, she was right. It felt as if a weight had been lifted off my heart. Talking to someone about my position in this world, although in a roundabout way, it felt good to talk.

"When times are hard people come to this church for comfort," The girl folded her hands together.

"It's kind of empty here." I noticed.

"People will come when it's tough and the earth shakes, seeing where the world is heading I have a feeling more people will seek out this place."

"You can see the future?" Not impossible, just unlikely.

The girl chuckled a little and fixed her golden eyes on me. "The future is clouded in mysteries but even a blind person can see the pattern."

"What pattern?"

Her voice echoed throughout the empty church as she spoke; "The world is changing faster than ever, Legendary Pokémon that were once lost in history and myths now appear before us once again. Pokémon that have been locked up for eons are set free from their prisons. It won't be long before the Alpha will return as well."

Something was off about the way she spoke, I didn't realize what it was until much later when I realized I had never seen a person talk about the future with such certainty.

She shook her head, a sad look crossing her face. "More Legendary Pokémon than ever roam the Earth free and unbound, waiting for the finale like pieces on a board."

As she spoke, the temperature seemed to drop. "It's just like in the Legends and myths, a storm is coming. The Twilight of the Gods is upon us."

She smiled at me, a surprisingly dark and scary smile.

Fate, tell me why are all the pretty girls I meet crazy?