Happy as Can Be

This was my Yuletide fic, originally for CooperKid248, now here for the rest of you. The prompt was to write about the team leaders or the kid protagonists being as happy as they possibly can be; Cyrus seemed like the most interesting choice, as someone who would be pretty unhappy about being happy, so I wrote about him. No warnings to speak of, so let's get on with things, shall we?

There was someone else here.

Cyrus had no idea how long it had been since he last saw another human being. Without time, he had been stuck in the moment of his arrival since he first set foot in this world; it could have been five seconds or five years back on Earth, and nothing here would have changed, not even Cyrus himself. For a while he'd been able to track some kind of personal time with his watch, but after a while it had started to get faster and faster, and then, shortly after the hands had started to grind with the strain, they'd both fallen off to rattle around under the glass.

After that, there'd been nothing. Not even thirst or fatigue; he hadn't slept since he arrived. (His pokémon had, a little. Or he thought so, anyway.) There had been absolutely nothing at all except uncounted hours of wandering through the uncompromising emptiness, watching the islands shift and change.

But now there was someone else here. Cyrus could see them, a tiny upright speck leaping from island to island in the distance. Moving hesitantly, unaware of how difficult it was to fall here, or else distrustful of it. And yes, it was difficult to tell from this far away, but that had to be human, didn't it? Too tall for his weavile, if his weavile was still here. And the way they moved … yes. Definitely human.

Cyrus stared. Between the two of them, the fragmented landscape stretched away, shards of barren land hanging at uncanny angles in the featureless blue of the void.

“Well,” he said. His voice sounded strange in his ears; he wasn't sure when he'd last spoken. Yesterday, perhaps. If that was a concept that made sense any more. “Not alone after all.”

He stood there for a moment, watching. The distant figure kept moving. Figures, rather: there was another one with them, he was fairly sure, taller and more confident in their jumps. Which made it obvious who these people were, as if he hadn't worked it out already. Who else could it be? It wasn't as if this place saw a lot of through traffic.

“Humour,” he muttered, grimacing. “How perfectly vacuous.”

A soft squeak: Bat, looking at him with bright, curious eyes. Cyrus looked back without feeling.

“You can do what you like,” he told him. “It is of no concern to me.”

The crobat hovered there for a moment, his four wings beating in a complicated rhythm, then zoomed off over the edge of the island towards the distant figures. He paused, looking back hopefully; Cyrus stared past him, at a withered tree on the next island along, and eventually Bat turned away again to forge on through the emptiness.

“Hmph,” said Cyrus, watching him dwindle to a purple dot. “You too?” Then, annoyed at himself for caring: “For the best, I suppose.”

He turned away and started to make his way to the next island. If he could see the newcomers, they could probably see him too, and much as Cyrus hated to admit it, Bat would almost certainly lead them straight here. To have any chance of keeping his distance, he had to get moving, now.

Something roared, far off behind him. Strange, muted, oddly glutinous: Giratina, coming to see who it was that had found their way in here this time. Or recognising its partner, he supposed. Apparently even gods made friends.

*

It had been difficult. Yes, he'd survived, and really it hadn't taken any particular effort on his part, no frantic search for food or water – but it had been difficult all the same. The isolation did not overly bother him; Cyrus had always felt alone, even when he stood before the entire assembled might of Team Galactic, and to be alone without other people was much the same to him as to be alone with them. But he had not come here entirely without company, and his pokémon had hated it all from the very start: Bird had flown off during the battle against Dawn, fleeing through the portal back to Sinnoh without even glancing at her infernape.

It stung, honestly. Cyrus was proud of his prowess, of the results that he had achieved as a trainer without resorting to sentimental notions of partnership; he supposed honchkrow were known for their independent streak, but he truly had expected better of Bird. And of himself, frankly. A pokémon can only be as effective as the one who directs it, after all.

The others were no better. He recalled those first few hours here, when he and his team had caught their breath in the shadow of a withered forest that helped to hide the terrifying emptiness around them. Snake had raised his head from his coils, those huge eyes full of piscine fury, and struck at Cyrus for the first time in years; he'd missed, perhaps deliberately, but it was enough to make Cyrus fall down in fear, and the next thing he knew the gyarados had surged past and over the lip of the island.

That was the second. Cyrus had seen Snake once more, swimming through a pool of water that hung over his head like a ceiling of mirrored glass, and then never again. Back then at that moment, though, he'd picked himself up, feeling the weight of his team's collective gaze, and smoothed his rumpled jacket.

“What are you staring at?” he'd snapped, shaken and hating himself for it. “Get yourselves together.”

Dog pulled back his lips, smoke hissing from between his fangs. Cyrus glared at him, but all he did was growl and run a coarse tongue over the cuts on his flank. He'd been the third to leave, as soon as he'd got his strength back; Cyrus had come back to the forest from a walk to find the earth steaming and the trees smouldering, and Ermine looking slightly burnt.

“He's gone, then?” he had asked. Ermine had swiped petulantly at a fallen branch, leaving a trail of ice along the bark, and folded his forelegs in imitation of Cyrus. “Hmph. Foolishness. Misplaced loyalty is not to be commended. If he wants to go, let him.”

He had spoken out of anger, and like all emotional utterances, it had borne ill fruit. Ermine had stayed a while – perhaps even a long while; some time after Cyrus' watch broke, at least – but he too had gone. Giratina had flown by overhead, as indifferent to the man beneath it as an elephant to the ants it tramples, and when Cyrus finally found the strength to tear his eyes away the little weavile had disappeared. Home, perhaps, if Giratina was weak enough to pity him. Or else somewhere deeper in the Distortion World, to eke out some lonely existence far from the man who had trapped him here.

Which left just Bat, of course. The one pokémon Cyrus would have chosen to leave, if it had been down to him. The one that had, against all his training, decided that Cyrus was not just a master but a partner and a friend – that had, infuriatingly, taken to him well enough that he had actually evolved. Well enough, too, that despite his fear, despite the way he had started firing blades of air into trees for boredom, he had not left Cyrus' side since he first opened his eyes after the knockout blow from Dawn's gastrodon.

Hence his flying off towards Dawn now, as she returned. To lead her back to Cyrus, to try and … save his partner.

*

Excitable squeaking. The crunch of boots hitting earth.

Cyrus drew in a breath, squared his shoulders, and turned.

“Eek!” squealed Bat, swooping back to his side, eyes brighter than they had been in ages.

“Yes,” said Cyrus. “Hello.”

He was not looking at Bat. Nor were the two people standing at the other end of the island.

“Hello, Cyrus,” replied Cynthia, placing one hand casually on her hip. “You look well.”

“Hi!” cried Dawn, with that childish enthusiasm that Cyrus found so endlessly exasperating. “I'm really glad we found you!”

Cyrus clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat.

“Is that so,” he said. “Well. I'm sorry for your wasted trip.”

Cynthia gave him a hard look. Not for the first time, he caught himself wishing that she wasn't so much taller than him; he tried to dismiss it as a product of base animal wariness, but for whatever reason he couldn't quite make it stick.

“Charming,” she said. “Be polite, would you? Dawn went to a lot of effort to track you down.”

“Yeah!” said Dawn, bobbing in excitement. “I was thinking, you know, since I left you here? That like I really shouldn't have done that. And I know you said you wanted to stay and figure out how to, you know, do your new world thing? But I don't think you can do that here. Or anything, even. So I thought I should come get you.”

Cyrus listened, marvelling at the sound of her voice. Silence for so long that his own voice seemed foreign in his ears, and now here was a child who just would. Not. Shut up.

Bat gave a happy little squeak and glanced across at Cyrus, but fortunately Dawn kept talking and Cyrus was able to pretend he hadn't noticed.

“So I asked Ms Cynthia if there was a way to come find you,” she continued, blithely unaware of the way Cyrus was looking at her, “and she helped me find some stuff in the records, and―”

“And you found a way back here, yes,” Cyrus interrupted, unable to stand it any longer. “I think I get the―”

“So I assisted our new Champion in navigating a place called Turnback Cave,” said Cynthia, with a quelling look. “A place where the League has long observed spacetime anomalies. It seems the Distortion World lies in unusually close proximity to our own there, such that – with the aid of Dawn's partner, Giratina – we were able to pass through the veil in pursuit of you.”

Dawn beamed. Cyrus wondered if she had heard any of what Cynthia was actually saying: the request for respect, the implicit threat. A Champion, and partner to a creature that stretched the very definition of animal.

He sighed.

“So what does that make you?” he asked, unwilling to be baited.

“Champion Regent,” replied Cynthia. “Dawn has a talent, as I'm sure you know. She holds the battles, I do … the rest.” Her voice was sharp enough to draw blood, though Dawn seemed as oblivious as ever. Was this supposed to be some kind of good cop, bad cop routine? An innocent child on one hand, a three-time winner of the World Championship on the other?

“Right,” said Dawn. “That's right.”

She smiled again. Bat squeaked and twirled in midair, head over heels. One of those crobat exuberances that people found so charming, and Cyrus so maddening.

“So you can come home now,” Dawn went on. “'Cause it's kind of awful here, and even if you still want to destroy the world I don't think you should stay here.”

She gave him an earnest look across the shard of blasted plain. Cyrus despised that about her. That combination of childish naïveté and massive, skilful power. Someone who knew nothing about anything should not have been capable of forcing a grown man to his knees at her feet.

“I'd like you to think about your answer,” said Cynthia, one eyebrow raised. “I know you'd rather be above – what is it you said? – vacuous sentiment, right, but you have your pride. For now.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she said, her face as unreadable as the smile of the sphinx, and Cyrus felt his heart quicken with anger, though he could not tell if it was directed at her or at himself. “Make a decision, Cyrus.”

He closed his eyes. He could feel Dawn's gaze on his face, hear the whisper of Bat's wings as they whirled around his body.

Cynthia was right. He did have pride. Why else would someone stay in a place like this, after being so comprehensively defeated?

“All right,” he said, and the words could not have hurt more if they had trailed fish-hooks to tangle in his lips. “All right, I'll come.”

*

There was something awful about Giratina's attention. Its indifference had been bothering Cyrus for a long time, but now he was remembering what it was like to have that thing look at you – what it had been like when it had forced its way out through the skin of reality on the Spear Pillar to capture him – and he was not particularly enjoying the experience. It hung in the air, far too large and unnervingly, impossibly still, and made those grotesque muted noises as Dawn chattered up in its general direction.

“So yeah,” she said. “I think we're ready now? Oh, and could you maybe put us back at the entrance, please? That cave was really weird and hard to get through.”

Giratina made a sound like a freshly-plucked heart being dropped into a bucket in another room. At Cyrus' side, Bat chittered nervously and flew several yards back.

“Thank you!” cried Dawn. “Okay, everybody stand back!”

“Yes, Cyrus,” said Cynthia, stepping away from the edge of the island. “Step back.”

Cyrus had not spoken since agreeing to go with them, and though some weak part of him dearly wanted to snap at her, he refused to break his silence now. He took a step back, and watched as Giratina shook itself back into motion, rearing up to curl its clawlike wings around itself. It lowered its head―

―and when Cyrus could see again, there was a hole in the world, hanging there just off the edge of the island.

He stared. The hole swirled slowly on its axis, trailing its darkness in the air around it. He had half expected to be able to see something through it, sunlight or the shadows of this cave or something like that, but there was nothing at all but that bilious, bottomless dark.

Bat fluttered out from behind his back, squeaking nervously to himself. Honestly, Cyrus was surprised he hadn't dived straight back into his ball.

“Thank you!” said Dawn again. “Cyrus? Do you wanna go first? You must be pretty eager to get out of here!”

Cyrus looked from the hole to her and back again. In his mind's eye, he saw the seething blackness that had consumed him atop the Spear Pillar, saw Dawn's wide eyes watching him as he disappeared, but like Cynthia said, he had his pride. Weakness or not, he was not about to reveal himself to her.

“Why don't you go first, Dawn,” said Cynthia, with a careful kind of casualness. “We'll be right behind you.”

Dawn noticed something then; Cyrus could see it in her face, a kind of uncertainty, as if in recognition of something that she could not understand.

“Okay,” she said, a little hesitant. “Okay, uh … see you in a minute. Talk to you later!” she added, to Giratina, and as it squelched its response she jumped into the hole and vanished.

“She's not an idiot, you know,” said Cynthia, frowning. “She's a kid, that's all.”

Cyrus remained silent. He wasn't sure what he would have said, but he was reasonably certain that Cynthia would have seen in it some reason to dislike him.

“Cute.” Cynthia sighed. “Just get in the portal, Cyrus. I want you ahead of me.”

*

For a long moment, there was nothing, so completely and totally that Cyrus was half convinced he had died―

―and then his feet met earth, and there was, unequivocally, something.

It was the light he noticed first: that special glow that only sunlight can give, turning leaves to stained glass and water to sheets of sapphire; he raised his hands and saw the light gleam through the tips of his nails, and almost wept. But then he breathed in, smelled the earth and the pollen and the thousand tiny scents of spring, and the whole of the valley seemed to open up before him in one breathtaking moment.

A gentle breeze. Birdsong. Blue skies, and clouds, and vivid green grass sloping down towards a glimmering lake. Bat shot out from behind him, climbing skyward with a joyous screech, and as Cyrus watched he felt something within him tremble violently into life.

Vacuous sentiment, he thought weakly. Vacuous …

Dear God, it was good to be back.

“Nicer than where you were hanging out, huh?” said Dawn, from the lakeside.

“I …” Cyrus trailed off, unable to decide how he meant to finish the sentence. It was the light, he thought. The smell of flowers. Something appealing to his lizard hindbrain. Yes. Yes, that was definitely what it was.

“Thought as much,” said Cynthia, stepping from nowhere to join him. “I know I'm glad to be back, and I was only there half an hour.” A sly, sideways glance. “Careful not to trip over your jaw, Cyrus.”

He closed his mouth hurriedly, busying himself in watching Bat spiral around against the unearthly incandescence of the sky.

“Funny, isn't it,” Cynthia continued. “You'd have destroyed this.”

“No,” he replied. “No, I would have kept the landscape. The trees have not sinned.”

“The trees have not sinned,” she repeated. “Wow. I should get that on a t-shirt.” Humour, presumably. Cyrus didn't think he'd ever actually seen Cynthia wear anything that wasn't unmarked black. “Anyway―”

“―that's not what she meant,” finished Dawn.

“Right.” Cynthia smiled in an I told you she wasn't an idiot kind of way. “Like I said, Cyrus, this was Dawn's idea.”

“Yeah.” Dawn walked up the slope towards them, her eyes serious. “You felt it, right? When we came back.” Bat swooped down low over her head, squeaking his excitement, and back into his usual spot hovering at Cyrus' shoulder. “Like he did,” added Dawn. “You know. I mean, Giratina's great and all, but this is home.”

Cyrus tried to look away from her, he really did. But there was something about those eyes, that deadly serious look. Had she ever looked like this before? Surely he would have remembered if she had. What could have changed a child like that?

“And like you nearly destroyed that,” Dawn told him. “That as well.”

Ah. Yes. Perhaps Cyrus had an idea what could have changed a child like that after all.

“Yes,” he said. “I … I suppose I did.”

This was guilt, he supposed. An entirely unproductive emotion, which served mainly to reinforce one's sense of obligation to others who would hold you back from achieving your potential. And which he was currently experiencing with an intensity that, frankly, was a little harder to dismiss than he would have liked.

Dawn sighed.

“I dunno,” she said. “Like aren't you happy now?”

It was a good question. Too good, if anything. Rather annoying, if Cyrus was honest.

Bat adjusted his wings and brought himself around Cyrus' shoulder, peering up into his face, and faced with this combined assault there was just nothing else he could do.

“Yes,” he admitted, reluctantly. “But that doesn't mean …”

“Doesn't have to mean anything,” said Cynthia. “Neither of us are expecting you to change your tune. Not right away, maybe not ever. But …”

She raised a hand, gesturing at the sky, the valley, the trees in the distance. Her ring caught the light, flashing red and silver on her finger.

“But it's spring,” she said. “And even if I'm about to arrest you, which for the record I am, I don't think you deserve to spend eternity without seeing that again.”

Arrest him. Well, Cyrus supposed he had expected that, if he'd expected anything. He'd tried to unmake all of reality, for one. And then there was what his people had done in Eterna. And the windworks. And … well, honestly in quite a lot of places. Galactic had broken a lot of laws and hurt a lot of people in the pursuit of Cyrus' great dream, when you counted it all up, and he suspected that claiming it had been done for the greater good wouldn't actually wash in court.

And yet somehow, standing here by this glorious lake with grass beneath his feet and the smells of spring in his nose, he almost didn't even care.

“Hmph,” he said. “That is – I mean to say – which is …”

“Cyrus.” Dawn smiled. It didn't look much like a child's smile to Cyrus, although he had to admit he didn't have a lot of experience by which to judge. “It's okay.”

“Eek,” agreed Bat, pressing his velvety nose against Cyrus' cheek. “Ee-eek.”

Cyrus scowled.

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean,” he said icily.

“Sure you don't,” said Cynthia, with a grin and a shake of her head. “Come on. It's a two-mile hike back to the road. We have people waiting with a car.”

“No garchomp or togekiss for the Champion?” asked Cyrus. It felt a little cattier than he would have liked of himself, but today containing his emotions seemed to be something of a lost cause.

“The idea was raised,” replied Cynthia. “But, well.”

She glanced at Dawn.

“I thought you probably had enough of floating around in the void,” said Dawn. “Besides, it's a really nice day. We should totally walk it.”

She moved towards him, and for a moment Cyrus thought she was actually going to hold out a hand, but fortunately for all concerned she seemed to have the good sense to know this was a bad idea, and stopped a good two paces away instead.

“C'mon,” she said. “Race you!”

“I am not going to―”

She laughed, making him feel foolish for not seeing the joke, and turned away to skip off around the shoreline, releasing her infernape as she went. It shook itself out and fell into step beside her without missing a beat, cheerful as a new-fledged starly.

Cyrus watched them go. He couldn't quite put his finger on why, but it was much harder than it should have been to look away.

“She's going to do great things,” said Cynthia, stepping forward. “You can tell, right?” A hand on his shoulder. Stronger grip than he expected. “Let's go,” she said. “Enjoy your sinless trees, Cyrus.”

He looked at her, but couldn't read her face.