Music in media: Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden

13 January, Thursday, 8 p.m. | Winter

In the midst of wrapping her mind over the fact that she was exploring the ruins of an ancient city over 2500 years old, Rae started to wonder why a Volcarona would inhabit a place invaded by sand and quicksand. The clay walls and pillars were stacked with cobweb cracks and the slightest tremors sent a gust of sand circling around the space. While the sand on the ground was golden brown, the grains billowing about bore a vivid orange, ember-like also in its scent.

"We're almost there," said Lenora upon feeling the rising heat. She, like everyone else, grew indisposed by the minute, as if the Volcarona's presence was akin to a black hole sun, robbing them of vigour yet gifting them accursed heat at the same time. Harsh environments like the desert were nothing new to her, having gone to archaeology sites all around the world, but the basement of Relic Castle took things to another level.

Icosa was the most displeased. It didn't help that Cheren pestered him to trudge ahead despite the boy's sighs. But it made sense because Cheren was nothing but stagnant, a full-grown adult who's past the age of journeying Trainer and so very mature. Icosa wished Cheren could be less serious about life and morals and all that righteous rigid Granbullshit, be a bit like his professor who currently tiptoed and walked barefoot in fear of sand getting into her high heels. Why would someone wear high heels in a desert anyway?

"Almost..." Lenora mumbled in encouragement. She was surprised to see Rae approach the zone with awe and without complaint, brushing her hand across the clay walls, her mouth stuck in the shape of an 'o' which sometimes twitched at the edges to give away to a millisecond smile. Her Pokémon shared her enthusiasm. In fact, Lenora started to think about why only Rae's Pokémon were out of their Poké Balls. She supposed all of them Unovans and their Pokémon were too used to all these sceneries to give a hoot. For that, she envied Rae. Was it too late to rekindle that interest and curiosity for all familiar things and people?

Impoverished fervour hung on her mind restlessly till they reached a set of clay doors with runes and hieroglyphs etched into them, the same ones she saw in Abyssal Ruins. Relic Castle was, after all, said to be the domain of the King of Truth, a once-prosperous village full of creators and gold. Time's relentless ravages whittled it down to the desert sands, leaving only the King's proud castle peeking out into the horizon for eons.

"The king's words will resound from the heights to all below." Icosa swiped his fingers across the dusty doorframe. The doors were unique with their Volcarona-shaped knobs, these tiny carved creatures each bearing a gilded ring (they still retained their lustre) in their mouths. "Truth is thus born in the heavens, and ideals on earth. Foolish ideals spring skyward, only to crumble against truth's word."

"You've grown poetic since we last met," Lenora remarked as she held the rings in her hands and pushed the doors open. A searing sandstorm rushed towards them as if they were fresh prey for the taking.

"Shauntal's words, not mine!" Icosa hollered over the roaring sands. Squinting his eyes, he adjusted to the harsh environment and made out a figure amid the chipped pillars of ascending height from the middle to the sides on which stood ancient vases and oblong bronze mirrors. It appeared to be a silhouette of a flower in bloom.

"That's... Volcarona?" Cheren gritted his teeth. "It's not like Overqwil, I hope!"

"Definitely not," cried Professor Juniper as she crept towards the middle of the room. "But its leaf-like wings and scales are golden with black spots! Emerald eyes! Amethyst abdomen!"

Besides its unique colour palette, it was, thankfully, a Volcarona, still large and moth-like with four small feet. The horn-like structure on each side of its face was rendered golden too, matching its scales. The fuzz on its upper body remained smoky white and tangled.

The greatest surprise was perhaps the sandstorm. To Lenora's knowledge of the Pokémon, Volcarona releases burning scales that seize oxygen in the surrounding air from its wings to engulf the battlefield in a sea of fire. Volcarona's flames are said to provide a replacement for the sun when the atmosphere is dark with volcanic ash, and some legends claim that it hatched from a cocoon of raging flames to save people and Pokémon in freezing climates. It was feared as the rage of the sun by ancient people, and it was even worshiped as a deity of fire in some places where they even referred to it as the embodiment of the sun. Volcarona's shrine in Relic Castle remained as a testament to the respect it commanded, but she sure didn't expect a living Volcarona after all these years.

Could this be related to Alder's dream somehow?

"Are those cushions?" Rae pointed at the white squares before the Volcarona.

"I suppose if it's a shrine, we could pray and see what comes out of it," said Professor Juniper. "Huh... There are five cushions, one for each of us."

It was Rae's first time praying to a Pokémon which wasn't considered mythical or legendary. While the Sun Pokémon was unlike Ho-Oh and Lugia, the two Pokémon she often prayed to at home, it held a great significance to Unovan history and had, as Lenora said earlier, the reputation of being the King's soothsayer. What truths will be told on the relic grounds tonight? Rae wished to know. Her three Pokémon settled down comfortably in front of her and followed her as she kowtowed.

Hushed voices scattered in the sand as they prayed for an answer, an end to the musical crisis — perversion, Professor Juniper corrected them. For minutes the rush of sand and wind and the rise of hair and sleeves and hems droned throughout the room. Then a sturdy voice, crackling like thunder—

"In meeting Obstruction, innovate. Thereafter, in Pushing Upward, ascend."

Eight heads rose in unison at the Volcarona.

"It spoke!" Rae blinked.

"Incredible!" Lenora broke into a smile. But this answer only left her with more questions, questions she believed Professor Juniper would think of too.

Cheren was speechless. Icosa frowned at the cryptic response.

The Volcarona spoke once more. "When Penetrating, seek to Permeate. Wind over wind, after uncertainty and wandering, come home. Look at your footsteps, Advance Cautiously."

Icosa caught at once the irrelevance of this additional message to the first. Yet, for some unknown reason, it felt directed at him, all this drivel. It reminded him of something acrid, something burning in the night. The most nonsensical part of it? "Come home," said the Sun Pokémon, who supposedly knew everything in its domain.

His was a drifting home. Left to his own devices at a tender age, he travelled across Unova. His past followed him like scrub and lallang on skin, as if he was stuck in that field of wretched smell the whole of his life, no matter how many times he scrubbed himself clean with soap water, no matter how many times he drowned himself in total silence, no matter how many routes and towns and cities he fled to. Even when he reached the edge of Unova, Aspertia City, his past found a way.

Did he twitch? Did he let slip any ounce of emotion that might betray him? He hoped he didn't. Rae mustn't know he had a rough childhood. At least hers was a good life.

"Icosa?" Rae brushed a finger across a tuft of hair and he recoiled. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing... I should leave."

"Where will you go this late at night?" Lenora frowned as Icosa got up and headed for the doors.

He didn't bother turning back or waving a hand, even if it was a conciliatory gesture, albeit comforting, as he said he would make his way for Nimbasa City ahead of them.

"I'll go after him," mumbled Rae. Before she could make a move, Cheren grabbed her by the sleeve. "Hey!"

"Hey? Yeah, hey!" Cheren raised his voice. "You're my guest. I can't have you running into danger again and again." He scrunched up his face and sighed. These four days had certainly been eventful and felt way longer than they did. It must be the pain of taking care of an esteemed guest who just had to be a kiddo, he told himself. So what if she was a Normal-type specialist and child prodigy? She was still a child, first and foremost. So he made sure she remembered this. "And you're just a kid! You probably can't tell, but Icosa needs his space."

"Cheren!" Lenora gasped. "Let Rae go to him. It can't hurt."

"She could've died today because we left her with murderers. Because we aren't hospitable enough!"

"We?" Lenora coughed. "You mean you?"

The sizzling tension in the air irked Professor Juniper. "Let her go, Cheren. She's seen more of the world than you did."

"It doesn't work that way, professor." Cheren screamed at the empty air and scratched his throat. This room was Arceus-level asphyxiating, truly a black hole sun of a shrine! "We're adults. She's a child. We have more experience than she does. Yeah, we only know Unova. And she only knows Johto. She's a foreigner here. All the more she shouldn't go!"

Cheren's words stung. Rae recalled her first day in Unova when she received those weird stares, when Lenora was ill-treated because of the colour of her skin. Foreigner. Another word for different. Or, as the passport would have it, she was an alien.

"That's enough. Rae will go," said Lenora, staring at Volcarona, then the doors.

Rae took it as her cue to leave despite Cheren's protests. It was well within reason to be protective of her, but those were excuses, she felt. She didn't come here to be sheltered by an adult who thought he knew it all.

She found a way out, clay steps that led to the desert grounds, guarded by four Zen Darmanitan. The music had been restored to its entrancing self, but it seemed the Darmanitan did not revert. Or was this their original form? Rae didn't know now. Her idea of Unovan history was murky at best, and it only grew murkier.

She made her way across the harsh Desert Resort which wasn't a resort at all, battling Ruin Maniacs, Hikers and Picnickers, the last of which made her ponder the limits of humanity. It had been a while since she was approached by Trainers on the road. She was grateful for the sense of familiarity they provided.

Soon she reached Nimbasa City. The music did not meet any changes, only that it was played at a Shuckle's pace and crescendoed and decrescendoed on a whim. Judging from the clubs and hyperactive crowds in the streets, the city had a bustling nightlife, which wasn't what she expected to be the side effect of the music. It felt disconcerting to be in the crowd of thousands. She whipped her head left and right, high and low, and dashed her way here and there or bludgeoned her way through the throng, mumbling apology after apology, till she saw from afar a green-haired boy queuing up for the Rondez-View Ferris Wheel at the amusement park, which, again, was a surprise. She didn't think the amusement park would still be open.

She got over to his side and Noko-Noko prodded his elbow with his head. He turned around and blinked at her. She could tell he was trying to hold his composure.

"You're the girl in the news." His voice was more soothing than she remembered. And he spoke too quickly. Having noticed that, she realised Icosa had a change of clothes, wearing a white mid-sleeved shirt with a black undershirt and had a strange golden cube hung to his hip and a blue-ringed black planet pendant and grey eyes and...

"I'm sorry. I mistook you for someone else." Rae fixed her eyes on his long tea green hair tied into a fluffy ponytail. She should have seen that earlier. Icosa had short, wavy hair. But he was about Icosa's height, which was a little confusing in her state.

"You seem anxious. Your Pokémon are telling me you're worried for a friend."

"You can hear what they're saying?"

"Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is N and I can hear the voices of Pokémon." N reached his hand out to Rae. His touch was warm. "Come with me. A Ferris Wheel ride will do you some wonders."