Create a new version of paste:

																	Salted Earth

	Franco gasped for breath as he tore himself free of the mire and stood upright. The cold liquid earth pulled at his legs, encasing him up to his waist and enveloping him as he began to sink back into the depths. The barren marsh around him was dark and eerily silent, the only sounds that he could hear was his own shallow breathing and the gurgling of the shifting mud as he fought against it. A little voice echoed out to him, calling from afar as the mud bubbled and burst, coating Franco’s eyelids in blackness. He felt, rather than saw, an open hand extend towards him. Franco blindly reached out with both hands and held them tight around the stranger’s fingers as he felt his body pull free from the mud. With one hand, Franco wiped his caul from his eyes and looked up at the stranger. 

	“Welcome,” the stranger said. His voice was serene and delicate, yet sent a cold wave crawling across Franco’s bare skin. The stranger had short silver hair with tapered bangs. His eyes were a pale green, and his facial features were well-sculpted and youthful. He was a well-dressed man, wearing a flowing white tailcoat with gold embroidery, dark pants, and polished black dress shoes unblemished by the sludge around them. He delicately slipped his pale hand from Franco’s grip and motioned towards a raised path through the swamp.

	“Please,” he said, “take a minute to step out of the mud. I sincerely apologize for this. However, it should come right off.”

	Franco nodded and followed the man onto the pathway. He was naked, though unashamed. As he walked, the mud rolled down from his toned muscles like rainwater and returned to the mire pool below. “Thank you for your help,” he said.

	The opulent stranger nodded and took to Franco’s side with a light smile. “Thank you for accepting this invitation,” the stranger said. As they walked, small amber lights began to emerge from the darkness of the swamp, glowing faintly and twinkling like gentle stars beneath the bramble canopy overhead.

	“Where am I?”

	“For now, you may think of this as a dream. I will be asking you some questions.”

	“I am the sole master of my dreams. Tell me why.”

	The stranger smiled again. “It is simply my role to ask,” he replied. “For your benefit.”

	The two walked through the darkness in silence for a time, until at last they came to the base of a great gnarled tree bathed in a tender light shining from above. The pale green grass was untrimmed, and tall white lily flowers reached out of the tree’s twisting roots and towards the light. A pristine round table had been arranged on a small flat hilltop in front of the tree. A white porcelain tea set, gilded with impossible geometry and cloaked in rising steam, sat atop a white silk linen embroidered with gold. Two luxurious armchairs were arranged at the table. The stranger stepped forward with graceful strides and sat down with his back to the tree as Franco observed his surroundings. 

	“Now,” the stranger said as he rolled his palm towards the open seat, “let’s begin.”

	Franco took his place at the opposite end of the table and stared across at his host. The faces of the two men were expressionless, though calculating. Franco’s red irises scanned the green jewels across from him for any betrayal of intent, and found none. 

	“State your name, and occupation,” the stranger said.

	“I am Franco, Chief Security Officer for Macro Cosmos International and its subsidiaries.”

	“Though this wasn’t always so.”

	Franco shook his head. “No, before that, I worked for the Pokémon League in my homeland. The research the League was undertaking required utmost secrecy, and I was honored to be chosen to assist. I engineered a security system so advanced that no outsider could penetrate. The Zero Gate.” He inhaled deeply and smiled to himself. “I was so young, then.”

	The stranger listened attentively; his green eyes were unblinking as Franco spoke. “Where do you call home,” he asked.

	“A distant land called Paldea.”

	The stranger nodded. “And what is Paldea to you?”

	Franco closed his eyes and bowed his head as he reminisced on his homeland. “It is a beautiful place,” he finally said, “a land of tall mountains, deep canyons, and clear waters. The earth is rich, life flourishes in abundance, and provides for all.” The corners of his mouth began to twitch. “It is a land of squandered potential. Of forsaken culture and unobjected mediocrity. Its people have cast off its history, forgotten their dignity! What sickness could have overtaken them, that they would allow their land to become neglected, their cities isolated, their towns and villages swept away by the Paldean winds?” The tea set rattled as Franco leaned forward and slammed his fist down upon the table. “Centuries of history left behind! What happened to their honor? The pride they once felt for their family?”

	“Family,” the stranger rolled the word along his tongue as he clasped his hands within his lap. “How close are you to your family? What does that word mean to you?” 

	“It means everything to me,” Franco growled. “I would be nothing without my parents. They taught me the value of hard work, they taught me to seek excellence, always. To never settle for less than the very best. Their example meant the difference between becoming valedictorian and settling for quiet mediocrity like the rest of the chattel shackled to their comforts.” 

	Franco reached for the teapot on the table and looked towards his host. The stranger nodded, and Franco poured the pot’s contents into the cup nearest to him before setting it down no lighter than it was before. Franco lifted the cup between three fingers and held the misty green liquid close to his nose before leaning back in his seat and taking a sip. The tea was sweet on his tongue, and smelled of jasmine. “Strength is knowledge,” Franco said afterwards, “and there is knowledge in strength. But strength without knowledge is aimless, and knowledge without strength is impotent.” 

	The stranger nodded and poured himself a cup of tea as he continued to match Franco’s gaze. “From your standpoint, what are your strengths and weaknesses?”

	“Why do you need to know?”

	The stranger smiled with an impish grin that extended only to the edge of his lips. He took a slow sip from his cup and awaited Franco’s response. Franco pursed his lips and clasped his hands under his chin as he silently demanded satisfaction from the stranger. The amber glow of the will-o-wisps continued their deliberate waltz through the dark and still air as the two men sat locked in mute contention and eons passed in mere moments. 

	“You’re certainly persistent,” the stranger conceded. 

	Franco chuckled. “Too much depends on me to ever accept defeat,” he said. “I carry that mantra in everything I do. Even in a dream. I suppose that’s why I’ve always been drawn towards Fighting-Types.” He rested his elbow on the table’s edge. “Kindred spirits. The drive to always improve, to grow and perfect their art in the crucible of competition. I feel their determination, I resonate with their anger.”

	The stranger raised a curious eyebrow. “Their anger?”

	Franco nodded resolutely. “That’s correct: Anger. It is natural to be angry at the state of the world, to be angry at one’s own situation. That anger motivates us to enforce our will, to bring about the changes that will improve our lives and shatter the status quo that holds us back from our true potential. When a man encounters a wall he cannot overcome, he should be angry. He should rage against his limitations, and break through with newfound strength. Anger is the most powerful force for good this world has ever known.”

	The stranger took another sip from his cup and scoffed. “That sounds like a dangerous mindset.”
 	
 	“Not at all,” Franco said, “it’s a tool to be used like any other. A hammer destroys, but in capable hands, it also builds life-saving shelter. Anger is no different, to deny ourselves the right to feel angry is to cast off a piece of our own selves and accept domestication. The champion’s spirit that rises above is emboldened by that righteous anger.”

 	“What about love,” the stranger asked frankly. 

 	“What of it.”

	“Would love not also be a force for good?”

	“You say that as if anger and love are incompatible.” Franco took another sip from his cup. “When a man voluntarily goes to war, is it not out of a sense of love for his people and home? When he channels his hate towards the enemy, does he not do so in the hopes of seeing his family again? Does the father love his children any less because he had to punish them for misbehaving? When we clash against one another as rival athletes, is it not done for the love of the sport? The adoration of the masses? If we were motivated solely by greed, aren’t there other careers, more lucrative, more safe? When a man rages against the weight of a barbell, he honors his body and its gifts by sculpting it into a more perfect temple. This is a yoga, a way of realization. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

	The stranger nodded and finished the contents of his cup. Franco matched him and sighed.

	“Very illuminating,” the stranger mused with a slight smirk. “You know anger, but how well do you know love?”
Franco said nothing.
 
	The stranger cocked his head to the side. “Have you ever been in love?”
 
	“I have loved, and been loved,” Franco said flatly. 
 
	“What happened?”

	“That,” Franco paused and gently squeezed his cheekbones between his thumb and index finger, “remains to be seen, truthfully.”

	The stranger poured himself another cup of tea. After doing so, he leaned over the table and refilled Franco’s cup as well. “What’s she like?”
 
	Franco took a sip from his cup and held the porcelain against his lips for a lingering moment. “She is… remarkable, in her own way.” He set the cup down against his bare thigh. Even as steam rolled from its rounded sides, the porcelain was frigid against his skin. “Troublesome. Aggravating. Tantalizing,” Franco continued, “the only person I could truly call my equal. No matter how many times I have her in my hands, she always slips away into the night. We battle, fencing with wits time and time again.”

	Franco raised the cup to his lips again and set it back on the table’s edge. “I hate her,” he stated, “but I know her. And the feeling is mutual. She opposes my dreams and I can’t understand why. I can’t forgive her, but I can’t let her go either.”

	The stranger grinned. “Toreador,” he crowed, “Love! Love is waiting for you!”
 
 	Franco leaned back in his seat and laughed. “How fitting!”

	The two men shared that laugh, their merriment echoing deep into the void before being muffled and silenced by the stillness of the bog. 

	As their laughter faded, the stranger leaned in across the table and rested his chin against his knuckles. “Tell me,” he said, “in your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do?”

	Franco pressed his knuckle against his lips and pondered. “There’s no shortage of unforgivable crimes,” he said, “but to name one?” He paused. “Allowing an injustice to go unpunished.”

	The stranger raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

	“A beast acting heinously can, at the very least, be understood. Pitiful, lack of control, lack of imagination. But for a man to condone that beast, to make excuses for it and allow it to commit more unforgiveable crimes? That’s an evil that births more evil, an exponential rot that decays the souls of not just men but entire nations.”

	“You’re no saint, Franco,” the stranger said.

	“All these questions and you know nothing about me,” Franco said. “When I’ve completed my life’s work, my enemies will call me a tyrant. But after a few years, my people won’t be able to imagine life without me. History will call me a hero for my actions, and that is all that matters.”

	The stranger nodded and crossed a leg over his knee. “That will be all, thank you.”

	Franco shook his head. “No, I played your game, now it’s your turn to speak.”

	The stranger slouched in his seat and matched Franco’s glare. “I see,” he said, “so you have decided to stay a little longer? Very well. Then in exchange, allow me to formally introduce myself.” The stranger placed his hand over his chest and smiled. “My name is Raphael Cervantes,” he said, “I summoned you here, in exchange for something you desired. You will wake up, and find whatever object you sought in the palm of your hand. That, I shall guarantee.”

	“I’m not interested in gifts, I want information.”

	Raphael shrugged. “I suppose you must be tired from answering my questions,” he said, “so allow me to tell you a tale instead. It is about this place you find yourself in.”
 He stretched his arms out and gestured to the mire that surrounded them. “This is Caliz, the very heart of Furia. We currently sit in the lowest depths in the entire region. This specific location, surrounded in black mud and bereft of life, is a grave. A grave for three.”

	The mud retreated away from the great tree, unearthing a vast tangle of roots branching out in all directions. “You see, there were once five children. They all belonged to the same village, but were of different families. One of them was a little girl, daughter of the village chief. She was kind and accepting of others, yet she was also very naïve.”
 	
	Raphael clenched his fists as they rested on the table. “There was also a Pokémon. Long ago, it is said that this Pokémon had created Furia. It parted the seas, brought forth the land, sparked the embers of new life and called for the wind to spread it all across our homeland. It is then that the little girl's village was founded.”

	The amber will-o-wisps faded into the swamp. “Yet the Pokémon had tired from the act of creation, and thus fell to slumber. It entrusted to the village chief a sacred treasure in its own likeness. That treasure was said to be able to reawaken the Pokémon and restore its power. And yet it is said that the Pokémon would never awaken again.”

	The brambles overhead began to tighten and creak as the light shining over Raphael’s table was snuffed out. “Five children descended here, to the Pokémon’s resting place. The four other children had convinced the little girl to take the treasure in secret, hoping to reawaken their deity. Children are innocent, after all. Too much so. After all, it was not their plan to start with. Children are so very easy to deceive, especially by their own scheming parents.”

	In the dark, only Raphael’s pale green eyes could be seen. “Five children descended with the treasure, and four were thrown out. The little girl clutched onto the treasure so tightly, yet she had already been caught in the trap. She held and held and held even as the adults tried to tear it away. In the struggle, the treasure shattered into four. From the Pokémon's sleeping form split off the waters, the land, the flames, and the wind. The destruction wrought forth that day still scars the land even now, and the memories of the tragedy are buried deep within the heart of all Furians.”

	Franco steepled his fingers as he listened undeterred. “What of the girl,” he asked.

	“That little girl never made it out,” Raphael replied. “In the cataclysm, she had been buried here alone. She cursed the world and its people with all her heart as she died. She cursed the children who deceived her. She cursed the adults who stole from her. But more than anything, the little girl cursed herself.”

	Franco’s red eyes, accustomed to the low light, scanned the area. Across the table, a sharp grimace was contrasted against Raphael’s pale skin. “An unpleasant story, but I have no interest in fairy tales.”

	Raphael chuckled darkly. “Ah, I remember an old friend saying the same to me once before,” he said. “Twenty years ago, I had compiled this story together with her. We spent a long time gathering information, examining local stories, and filling in the blanks through speculation.”

	He paused and looked out into the bog. “How brutal the passing of time can be.”

	“I sympathize with you and your Paldea,” Raphael said, “What does Furia look like to you, as an outsider? To me, it is a collection of mistakes. Sins that have long since piled up so high that they blot out the sun. A history so drenched in blood and filth that it must be written anew. My old friend spent her life attempting to cleanse this place, bit by bit. She was a saint beyond all measure. Stronger than any other! And yet!”
 
	The malice in his voice set the hair on Franco’s neck at edge. “And yet. Even she met her end here in this accursed place. I'm sure that even in her final moments, she looked towards the future.” Raphael swept his forearm across the table’s top; the sound of shattering porcelain echoed across the swamp. “I can't accept it,” he said calmly, “I refuse to accept it.”
 
	“Without a future, we have nowhere to go,” Franco said.

	“Enough,” Raphael snarled, “I tire of this farce and you have already served your purpose. Now, there is one final duty for you to perform. Four years ago, two of the strongest trainers in this region fought here. During the battle, it seems that the beast sealed below began to awaken. It is that curse, the wretched corpse of a dead god, that took Arete from this world.”

	“And so you brought me here,” Franco stated.

	“I intend to correct that mistake,” Raphael said, “starting with you, otherworlder. The beast seeks a new form. Through its mud, it has already crawled through your memories and found a more fitting shape.” He laughed darkly and motioned behind Franco’s shoulder. “Turn around. I'm sure you're more familiar with that creature than I.”

	Franco sat up and turned around. There behind him, a massive disc levitated over the surrounding swamp like a planet floating in the depths of space. The disc was adorned with eighteen abstract and multicolored glyphs that morphed and shifted like the mirrors of a kaleidoscope. The disc began to glow with a piercing blue light that burned away the darkness of the swamp as it traced pentagons along the disc’s surface. It sprouted six cyan wings—three on each side—that whipped at the air around it, grasping towards Franco as the deafening sound of breaking glass rang out from the disc. 

	“I have no idea what that is,” Franco said. He turned back towards Raphael. The pale stranger’s seat was vacant.

	Looking back towards the disc, Franco tilted his head back and laughed. “Is that all you could muster,” he asked. He gazed upon the disc’s blue light and smiled. “This is my dream,” he said. As he spoke, he clad himself instantly in gleaming ceramic armor that shielded him from head to toe. He raised his right hand up while holding a pearl-white Pokéball and glowered at the disc. “You may be powerful. But in my dreams, I’m God.” 

	Franco threw the Pokéball high into the air. As it opened, the darkness of the mire came rushing in from all sides, smothering the disc’s light as it coalesced into a seething black void. From the flaring darkness, a pair of bright red eyes opened and glared at the disc that it now dwarfed. 

	“Annihilape, destroy it!”


																		***

	Franco awoke to near total darkness within his hotel room in Lacunosa. The dim orange glow of a street lamp bled through the hotel’s curtains, providing the only hint of light in the room. Laying on his left side, he became acutely aware of the needling sensation in his right arm as his senses returned to him. He pulled his arm back, brushing his fingers against a soft contour as he did so. The muscles in his body tensed as he rolled over and reached for the lamp on the nightstand. With a click, he tugged on the pull-switch and illuminated the room. He turned back and found himself face-to-face with a half-lidded pair of hazel eyes.

	“What are you doing here,” Franco snarled. His heart hammered in his chest as adrenaline coursed through his veins.

	“It’s bad luck to be outside after dark in this town,” Phos replied. From her position beneath the bed covers, only her neck and head were visible. “Old Unovan myth, you wouldn’t be interested.”

	“I’ve heard enough fairy tales for one night.” Franco rolled from the bed and began to walk towards his clothes carefully folded on the armchair in the corner of the room alongside his Pokéball belt. 

	Phos’s eyes darted downward as she watched him move. “Wait, Franco,” she said softly. He paused and glanced over his bare shoulder. “If we’re both here until morning, why don’t we call a truce for the night?”

	“A truce?”

	Phos smiled mischievously and slowly lowered the blanket from her shoulder. Her pale skin gleamed in the gentle lamplight. “I think we can find at least one thing we have in common right now.”