Chapter Text
“Cynthia.” He paused. “Hello.”
Cyrus had been tweaking his new solar panels at his little workshop in the back of the glorified hovel he called a house in Veilstone. Of course, the idea that it was a hovel came from his commander, Jupiter. To him, it was a workspace like any other. And in this one at least he was glad to have running water and electricity.
He didn’t even have time to protest as the visitor pushed past him and barged into his living space, kicking off her low heels in the entryway as she did so. She was wearing a sleeveless black dress that reminded him of what she was wearing when he first met her, and she was clutching a large bottle of sake on one hand and her purse on the other. She smelled vaguely of alcohol.
“Bit of a dump, isn’t it?” She asked him, point blank, as she settled on his couch. Or rather, threw herself down there.
“So this is what you ditched our little adventure to go to? This little shack?”
“It’s functional. Protects me from the elements, and allows me to work.”
“You’d rather do this than accompany me in this wonderful Pokémon journey?”
“I… uh…”
“Don’t answer that.” She sighed.
Cynthia had a sour look on her face. She still wore those black ribbons on either side of her hair, Cyrus noted. Her hair had also gotten longer, and she still kept that fringe covering her left eye. She set down her purse (black, naturally, as was everything else she owned), and took the bottle to show it to him.
“So, you’re just going to let me drink this all by myself? It’s bad manners to let a lady drink by herself you know. Even you, mr. Robot Spaceman, should know that.”
“You’re not old enough to be carrying that. Much less to be drinking it.”
“And you’re not old enough to be renting a place by yourself. How did you even get this past the authorities?”
Cyrus sighed.
“I suppose I should get a pair of glasses then.”
“Yes. Maybe you should.”
So he went to the little kitchenette area where he prepared his meals. Well, he called them meals. They had all the properties of meals: they had taste, texture, and they fulfilled his caloric intake necessities, while being as cheap as possible. Jupiter had called them “spaceman food.” She didn’t like them, and would occasionally drop by and cook him something she felt was more “proper.”
Cyrus grabbed the mug resting on top of the counter with his (rancid) coffee he had prepared in the morning still in it, threw it out in the sink, and rinsed it. He then grabbed the single other piece of glassware he owned, something Jupiter had brought from her own apartment and would use when she’d occasionally have meetings with him about the future of their burgeoning little business, Galactic Energy.
It was an odd glass, he thought. A fluted little number, with a stem he felt was very impractical for both storage and usage. Jupiter liked it however, so he kept it as clean and intact as he could.
After grabbing the glasses, he set them down on the low table in the living area. He then stood by the table, as Cynthia looked over him. She had this odd look on her face, he noted. Her cheeks were also redder than usual, no doubt from the consumption of alcohol. Why would she be drinking?
“Aren’t you gonna sit down Mr. Spaceman?”
“Oh. Should I?”
She deadpanned. “Yes, you should.”
“Alright.” And so he took a seat next to her.
The odd look continued on her face. If Cyrus had been a more attentive, socially well-adjusted person, he’d probably notice how thick the tension in the room was.
Cynthia wordlessly poured from her large sake bottle, filling both the flute and Cyrus’s mug to completion. She then wordlessly handed the mug to him.
He starred at it. Cyrus never drank anything alcoholic before. He even avoided sugary carbonated beverages, preferring coffee and tap water instead. All those other drinks struck him as very impractical.
“Aren’t you gonna drink it Mr. Spaceman?”
“Should I?”
She deadpanned, again. “Yes, you should.”
“Alright.” So he took a sip.
It… burnt. Very unpleasant. He couldn’t help the noise that escaped his mouth as he did so, nor could he help but grimace.
At that Cynthia cracked a little smile.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” He paused. “It makes me wonder why you’d go through the trouble of buying this, seeing as you’re still underage.”
“I didn’t. Swiped it off a party I was in earlier.”
“Oh? You were at a party.”
“Yes I was Cyrus. At the Pokémon League. You know, for the championship?”
“Ah.” He paused again. “That. It was always your goal after all.”
“Yes Cyrus. Yes it was.”
“So I assume you won.”
“I did.” Her little smile didn’t falter. If anything it looked too small, too diminutive to contain the joy she seemed to be radiating. Even Cyrus had an inkling about that.
He had taken a break earlier in the day to gaze at the small television he got from Jupiter. It was a small CRT set, that he had jury rigged to receive the digital signal all Sinnoh TV stations broadcast with in the present. TV sets were a distraction from work, Cyrus always thought, but he couldn’t help but tinker with this one. He had always loved tinkering with machines, especially old ones, giving them his personal touches, making them work better, after all.
The program on all the networks was the League Final. He had been drawn to the League programming for days now, watching it religiously whenever they came on during the mornings and afternoons. Cyrus wasn’t a big fan of this sort of thing, but he felt he had to watch this.
The announcers were loud and obnoxious, so Cyrus tuned them out. All he saw in the small screen was Cynthia. His old travel partner, that he had ditched a couple months ago.
He forgot who she was battling, some psychic wunderkind the announcers couldn’t get enough of. From their babbling he gathered that Cynthia was the underdog in this particular match. She was also much younger than anyone who had come this far in the tournament.
And of course he saw her triumph. She was fierce, commanding, her Pokémon outclassed her adversary’s in every way. He had known all that though. In the time they were together, he had seen the sheer force of will she carried with her.
The weird girl who only wore black. Who was such a pain to wake up in the mornings when they had to canvass a whole route for a specific Pokémon for their Pokédexes to scan. Who loved sweet poffins even though they were Pokémon food. Who had stubbornly carried a Pokémon egg with them for most of their journey, nursing it all the while, until it hatched into a Togepi. Who had awkwardly mended his sprained ankle when they almost slipped and fell off the cliffs in Route 209. Who he had to hug close to his chest when they were caught on the slopes of Mt. Coronet by a freak snowstorm and only had a hollowed out tree stump for cover. Who-
“Hey. Hey. Heyyyyy! Earth to Spaceman!”
Cyrus was jolted from his thoughts by Cynthia. She was still smiling.
“You still space out like this huh? You’d even space out while walking! Good thing Golbat saved you that one time or you’d have walked straight into a tree!”
She was giggling now, and the atmosphere felt a bit more… relaxed. Cyrus even found himself bringing the mug bag to his lips and taking another sip. It tasted worse than the first time.
“Haha, you should see the face you make when you drink that!” Cynthia was still in the middle of a fit of giggling.
Cyrus decided to steer the conversation away from all the ribbing.
“So uh… you were at a party?”
Cynthia stopped laughing. Her smile returned however.
“Yeah. At the League. After I won and they gave me the big trophy they invited me to stay the night at their building. They had this whole party prepared in honour of the new Champion. They all thought it was going to be the other guy, so they had an open bar and all the sponsors were there.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No.” She smiled wide. “It wasn’t. It was me!”
“Congratulations. Cynthia.”
“Aww, even sourpuss mr. Robot Spaceman here is congratulating me! What a day!”
Her smile was making Cyrus… uncomfortable. No, not uncomfortable. Hot. He felt an odd heat rising from the middle of his chest. It was making his face feel a little hot.
“So. D’you see me on tv Cyrus?”
Thankfully Cynthia decided to keep talking and dispel the odd thoughts running through Cyrus’s head.
“I did.”
“So.” She paused. “How did I look?”
“Determined. Strong. Uh…”
“No silly. How did I *look*? Did I look good on tv?”
“I… I wouldn’t know. You can see my tv is pretty small.”
“So it is.” She seemed a little disappointed at the response.
So the silence took over again. Only the noises of suburban Veilstone could be heard. Cynthia sipped out of her flute, and Cyrus was looking down on his mug. All he saw was his face reflected back at him.
Cyrus took a long swig. It was awful. Simply the worst. How did people like this stuff?
Before he’d realised he was asking her the question that was on his mind since she showed up at his front door.
“Cynthia. How did you find me?”
That odd look returned to her face.
“Well, I contacted Professor Rowan. You’re still talking to him right?”
“Infrequently. Through the mail. So he told you where I was living?”
“Yes, it took some prodding. He asked some questions about what happened.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Nothing too prying though. So he told me where you were living. And I came here.”
“All the way from the League?”
“Yeah. Couldn’t stand being at that party any longer. It was full of old men!”
“Professor Rowan is an old man, yet you never had a problem with him.”
“It was different, okay? It was weird. They were all drinking and talking. Talking about things I didn’t know. Money, mostly. It wasn’t fun.”
She sighed.
“Plus after a while and a couple drinks they all sorta… began leering at me. When they thought I wasn’t looking? It was uncomfortable. They even convinced me to drink too and they all laughed when I didn’t like it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She set down her glass. “So I decided to come here!”
“Oh.” The question he wanted to ask was burning a hole in the back of his tongue.
Cynthia looked a bit… expectant too. She picked her glass up again and started fooling around with it, as the silence became ever heavier on his shoulders.
So he went for it again.
“Why?”
She had that odd look on her face again. Cynthia starred straight at him.
“Because I wanted to. Silly. Silly mr. Robot Spaceman!”
Because she wanted to. Cyrus should have known. If there was one thing in the world that was as indomitable as it was mysterious it was Cynthia’s will. She didn’t budge back when they first met at his little hideout in the Sunnyshore Lighthouse. She didn’t budge back at the library in Canalave. She didn’t budge when recruiting him to go on a Pokémon journey with her.
And now her will had made her the Champion of Sinnoh. A lofty position. The position of her dreams. Cyrus felt… odd. Warm. Warm inside. He had read about this in the few fiction works he’d deigned to peruse, maybe it was some sort of… pride? That his partner had come so far. All on her own.
All on her own.
“So mr. Spaceman. I’ve been meaning to ask…” She was playing with a lock of her hair now.
“So, what have you been doing all this time?”
He should have expected that. The answer would need to be good. Here she was, halfway across Sinnoh, in the middle of the night, showing up to his doorstep amid her biggest triumph. And she wanted an answer.
Well why did he leave her on her journey and decamped to Veilstone?
He had been trying not to think about it since he did it. Cyrus also didn’t just leave her, he left Professor Rowan and his Pokédex project incomplete. He had since returned the device via the mail, but he had to admit he did not hold up his end of the bargain when they both promised the professor he and Cynthia would build a comprehensive record of all Sinnoh’s Pokémon for him.
Not thinking about it had been easy, admittedly. He had been busy. Very busy. With his meagre earnings from Pokémon battling he had been able to somewhat sustain himself after by all accounts running away from both home and boarding school in Canalave City. That money wasn’t going to last forever however.
So he had to work. He first took up handyman jobs that came his way, sleeping at a bar some kind soul had been willing to let him squat at.
That person was Jupiter. Well, not Jupiter back then. She had been going by another name, one she was only happy enough to ditch since they’d struck up their partnership.
He started to tinker at the bar, fixing light fixtures, having a look at the taps, tweaking the breakers so they’d consume less power. Soon, she noticed how resourceful he was, and told him about how he could make it in the city if he’d only managed to go beyond just fixing things for others but instead making things himself.
That was how Galactic Energy started. Just the two of them, the backroom of the bar, and a new dynamo design for the Valley Windworks project on Western Sinnoh. Jupiter had assured him she would handle all the sales talk and meetings, so he could focus on his design. And explaining it to her. In a way she would understand and be able to relay to others. Which was admittedly harder than the actual inventing.
They didn’t get the contract (it was too big for them, Jupiter had told him) but they were still good (or so Jupiter had told him). The publicity was good, and soon Cyrus was making a living selling his design for a new more efficient breaker box at what used to be Jupiter’s old bar, now turned storefront and office.
It had even allowed him to rent the house/shack he was currently living in, by himself. Of course Jupiter had to do all the actual paperwork, since she was the adult. But it was his. His space. His workshop. His little corner of the city, where he would build outwards. Where he would build a better world.
So how would he convey this to Cynthia.
She was still looking at him, with a mix of that odd look from before and some sort of expectancy. She didn’t bust him out of his reverie this time.
“I’ve been keeping busy. Couldn’t set foot in Sunnyshore Cynthia. At least not yet.”
“Why?”
“I have… a lot of history there.”
“We first met there, didn’t we?”
“Yes.” He conceded. “But it’s not just that. You do remember how I’d often be bandaged up when you barged into my little hideout?”
“Hey, you gave me an open invitation after a while if I recall correctly!”
“Quite.” He almost smiled at her interjection. She had been so insistent on being with him during her (in her words) boring vacations to the seaside resort, that eventually he just relented and told her it was fine to keep bothering him.
After he told her off numerous times. And she just shrugged those off and kept coming anyway.
“But you do remember the bandages.”
Her voice was so small when she answered. “I do.”
“Well, I assume you know why I had to wear them.”
“Yes. You told me about the kids bullying you. Those little wretched assholes!”
Cyrus was surprised by her outburst. “Language, Cynthia.”
“Why am I the one mad here and not you?!”
“I’ve long grown past the need to be angry. Regardless, it wasn’t just the kids. It was also my parents.”
“Oh.” She was surprised. In all the years she had known him, he never spoke a word about his parents. Especially odd considering how Cynthia would blabber on and on about her own. She cringed internally a bit about that.
“But was all that so bad that you didn’t want to go back? Even with me? Just temporarily?”
Cynthia then proceeded to chug all the sake in her flute. She then completed her question.
“And to just disappear one day leaving me with that little letter?”