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They call her the Oracle.
The gift of a name isn’t given to many. Most are not deserving of such a unique designation, and offer nothing that would set them apart from what they are enough to justify such frivolous effort.
No, names and titles are reserved for only those who are special enough. And she, from among the rank and file of Master Dialga’s faithful, is certainly special.
They whisper of her in dark hallways and empty chambers, their murmured rumours echoing strangely in the shadowed spaces. A new vision, a new demand, a new warning, and always new orders. Most have never seen her form, but all of them have heard of her; one would be foolish indeed, after all, to disregard the words of Master Dialga’s most devoted servant, the one who guards the Master’s most precious treasures.
She is the one upon whom Master Dialga has chosen to bestow the most sacred Dimensional Scream, to keep an ever-watchful vigil over the blessed Gears of Time. And the Oracle does not waver in her duty. She is the guiding beacon who relays to them their Master Dialga’s will. She is its instrument to keep ruling for blessed eternity.
And her word is their command.
The heavy scent of damp rock is the first sensation that comes back to her; the second, the clammy chill that has settled deep into her fur. She stirs, minutely shaking out the long cascade of her mane to loosen muscles that have grown stiff from kneeling, but does not rise from her worshipful bow. There are eyes on her, she knows. She has called them here herself.
“I am our Master’s eyes and voice,” she begins the traditional speech. “And our Master has revealed to me a vision.” She breathes, recalling the images that had flashed before her dizzied sight more than once recently. “The sacred Time Gear at Fogbound Lake is under threat. A vulture will discover the hidden plateau and find our Master’s treasure there; it is a fool, and it does not realise its true value. It will only see a shiny bauble that its heart desires. Still, it will attempt to steal it, and succeed if no one is there to defend it.”
She straightens and turns towards her audience, slightly tilting her head; it is the first acknowledgement she has bestowed upon them. She cannot see them, of course; the strands of her mane are woven into a complicated pattern that drapes over her head like a regal veil, weighted down by heavy beads and golden ornaments. The purpose is twofold – it adds an air of mystery to the ruler’s revered Oracle, and it also serves the symbolic purpose of covering her eyes, blinding her to the world beyond her veil. Her only sight of value is her inner one, and all should know her holy purpose. Soft chimes resound around her as her jewellery shifts with the movement and settles again.
“Thus, you shall be there to guard the Time Gear,” she orders, her voice a dry, quiet rasp. “Protect our Master’s treasure at all cost.”
She sits up, extending a clawed hand with a graceful swoop that has been perfected through endless practice, and hears the answering shuffle of heavy feet as the other Pokémon slowly approaches. There’s the quiet scraping sound of someone bowing low before her, and then there’s a hesitant hand, cold and rough like the ground upon which she kneels, touching her own in reverent silence. Their grip firms a moment later, becoming nearly crushing, zeal and conviction bolstering their spirit at the traditional send-off.
“Go,” she hisses, and they do; they withdraw their hand, and then she hears their footsteps withdrawing as well. The coldness of their touch lingers though, seeping into her mind and once again drawing her senses inwards. There’s the resounding ringing of her mighty chamber doors being pulled open by the guards, but she barely hears them closing again; already, all sounds are growing muffled, and the swaying curtain of red and white that is blocking her vision swims before her eyes. She welcomes the sensation, and sinks once again into her pose of supplication, pressing her forearms against the cold cavern floor.
“Thank you for this gift to your faithful servant, Master Dialga,”, she intones, and allows reality to fall away from her.
The Scream tears through her as it always does; like a bolt of lightning, it sears her mind and deafens her senses. The agony is brief and familiar, a tearing sensation like her mind is being ripped from her body and thrown in free-fall forwards through deadened time, and the pain of it fills her with a stab of zealous fervour.
From the bleeding edges of her far-flung mind, she sees the same scenery that had greeted her in her previous visions – black waters, as still and lifeless as a mirror, covered by an unmoving blanket of fog. A faint, dull glow from the centre of the lake; a glimpse of a most holy relic. It is beautiful, in a strange, haunting way.
A swell of pride suffuses her scattered thoughts. She is the only one allowed to gaze upon the Time Gears so freely. It is her one and only purpose in life. She is truly blessed to be able to serve it so faithfully. Not all are so lucky.
One such unlucky fool descends upon the scene now; the same Mandibuzz she had seen before swoops down from the sky, searching for prey. The creature looks starved and half-mad. It casts its head around wildly, flapping in startled confusion as it is suddenly blinded by the fog, and it thrashes in the air until it is suddenly thrashing in the water instead, the unblemished surface never breaking even as it seems to swallow the bird whole. It sinks despite its best efforts, and that is the moment in which it spots the hidden glimmer from below; the Oracle watches tensely as it gives up its attempts to surface and instead angles its body to dive deeper, aiming to secure this new prize that has caught its attention.
In the previous visions, the vulture had eventually managed to make its way back to the shore, Time Gear in beak. With sodden feathers, it had rested there a while, and then flown off with its stolen treasure uninterrupted.
But the Oracle exists to change the future. And she knows she has succeeded once again.
In this new vision, the Pokémon that had left her chamber just moments prior now appears, sprinting from the vast cavern network below. It roars a war cry and leaps into the water, sinking instantly. Its body is made of rock, after all. It cannot swim. But it does not hesitate, for it is fulfilling her will and their Master’s. It knows its holy purpose.
It collides with the thief in a satisfying display of violence. Even underwater, a falling rock will crush a bird’s hollow bones; its beak gapes wide open in a silent scream, dark water rushing in to fill the empty hollow. It spasms, then seizes.
Dispassionately, the Oracle watches it drown. This enemy of her Master is no more.
Once again, she is victorious.
As the vision begins to fade, she sees her pawn gazing up at the still surface of the water, impossibly out of reach for someone of their type, and she sees the moment they accept their own death. They avert their eyes and turn to gaze upon the Time Gear instead, undisturbed upon its pedestal. Awe and reverence fill their expression, all fear and doubt chased away in an instant. Hindered by the water pressing down all around them, they arduously repeat the same gesture she had bestowed upon them just a moment ago in the present, when she had sealed their fate, as if to affirm their own fervent devotion to themselves one final time.
Then they open their mouth, a stream of bubbles escaping-
And with another burst of agony, the Oracle’s mind feels itself be torn free once again, and she is flung back in time, the dizzying weight of reality slamming her back into her body all at once.
She trembles only minutely, and shakes out her mane once more. The heavy golden ornaments jangle softly in the echoing silence of her chamber. She settles back down onto the cold floor, fixing her posture into another perfect kowtow, and prays, patiently awaiting the next vision her god will deign to grant her.
Her Lord’s faithful visit her unprompted, sometimes.
Most are satisfied with the duties they are assigned, but there are those who feel they lack purpose. It seems akin to blasphemy to her, to be dissatisfied with the duties Master Dialga has seen fit to bestow, but it is not her place to judge. More often than not, she can find some new use for these lost souls. Whether or not they will be happy with their new purpose is none of her concern.
It is no surprise, then, when she hears the low rumble of her chamber gates opening unannounced. It rouses her from the meditative trance she has fallen into during her prayers, passing the unwound time between the instances in which she is needed.
She sits up at the intrusion, holding herself with regal elegance. With no recent visions to shatter her concentration, she has transformed the room around her into a world of illusions. She knows her Master’s soldiers whisper reverent words about her changeable domain. It rarely appears the same way twice, and her visitors only get to see the barren walls of the original chamber when she knows that a Scream will come to tear away her focus, making her illusory realm impossible to maintain.
Whoever her current guest is, they are stepping into a scenery that has grown very familiar to her in her past few visions. She has crafted it painstakingly, down to the smallest detail. Instead of exiting the long hallway into an enclosed chamber like one would expect, her visitor must feel like they are walking out into open air, the door and rock walls mysteriously vanishing into a thick fog as they step across the threshold of her room. She hears their quiet gasp as they realise they are no longer standing on solid rock, but on the perfectly smooth surface of a lake instead, the water darkly reflecting their silhouette back at them instead of pulling them downwards into its depths.
She sits where the Time Gear should have been, in the very centre of the space, bathed in its eerily beautiful light, and she knows that she must look like a thing out of myth; she has made her form grow hazy around the edges, like she herself was born from the frozen fog around them, and her jewellery shimmers with an otherworldly radiance.
She projects the quiet rasp of her voice across the room, making it sound from all directions at once.
“What do you seek, visitor?”
The sharp intake of breath comes from much closer than she had anticipated. She hadn’t heard her guest move.
“I come seeking your wisdom, revered Oracle,” they answer, and their voice is surprisingly steady.
How amusing. Most of her visitors are too in awe of her to speak so plainly.
She tilts her bejewelled head, idly warping the sounds of jangling metal into the chiming of otherworldly bells. She makes the black water beneath her stir in resonance, perfectly concentric ripples of lightless liquid cascading outwards from her form.
She can hear her guest move this time, light on their feet as they take a wary step backwards, but when she makes no further move to threaten them, they seem to relax their guard again somewhat.
“For a long time now, I have been assigned to patrol the outer borders of our Master’s domain,” they continue, a defiant note creeping into their tone. “I have fulfilled my duty faithfully. But it is my belief that I would be more useful to our Master elsewhere.”
“You would question our Master’s will, then?” Her tone is carefully neutral, but the underlying threat should be obvious to any of the faithful. Evidently, it is not lost on this soldier either. She hears them hiss out an aborted breath.
“I would not presume to do such a thing,” they amend stiltedly. “I only wish to serve as dutifully as I can. The borders have been quiet lately; few hostile creatures are foolish enough to attempt to breach our Master’s realm. I am loath to sit idly by when I know I can be of better use somewhere else.”
She considers them, allowing the silence to stretch and stretch until it is tense and uncomfortable.
Layering another illusion over herself to remain visually unchanged, she reaches up and parts the long veil of her mane, gazing out at the soldier before her.
He is shorter than she had expected, not even evolved yet – even kneeling as she is, he only just comes up to her shoulder. Her visitor is just a simple Treecko, his posture tense with stubborn determination, but there is a wary glint in his narrowed eyes. Only the minute trembling of his balled fists gives away the fact that he must be terrified. Good. He seems to be well-aware of the thin ice he has dared to step onto with this demand of his, which is commendable. She does not humour fools who are ignorant of their own insignificance.
None of them, not even herself, are of any true importance. They are pawns to be used and discarded for their Master’s sake, and the sooner one accepts that fundamental truth of the world, the more likely they are to survive in it.
This little soldier seems quite eager to be used up. She has no reason to deny his wish.
She drops her hand, allowing the curtain of her hair to fall closed once more, and lets the additional layer of illusion fade from her.
“Very well. Come closer, then.”
If he is surprised by her sudden acceptance, he does not give it away by hesitating. Now that she knows to listen for them, she can hear his barely-audible footfalls as he steps towards her, halting just an arm’s length away.
She leans forwards, knowing that she looms over his slight form.
“Let us see, then, if Master Dialga has other plans for you,” she hisses, and lets all the illusions fall away, aware that they will be impossible to maintain should the Scream find her. She hears the Treecko stumble, disoriented by suddenly finding the glass surface of the lake replaced with uneven rock, and uses his distraction to snap out her hand, resting the tips of her claws against his exposed throat. He freezes at her touch, even though she isn’t applying much pressure, his prey instinct surely rousing and informing him that he has foolishly stepped into the lair of a much larger predator.
Like most things about her, it is a trick. She uses it only for her more unpredictable guests. It’s something akin to a physical illusion, to mask her own helplessness – if a visitor is too busy fearing for their own safety, they won’t even realise how vulnerable a target she is while she is caught in the throes of the Dimensional Scream.
After all, the guards stationed by the door wouldn’t be able to reach her in time if a visitor decided to take advantage of her dazed state to strike out against her. Someone who is rash enough to question their Master’s will might just be rash enough to rebel in greater ways. She would know – similar attempts have been made against her in the past. None of her would-be assassins lived to tell the tale, though.
She opens her mouth to begin her customary prayer to Master Dialga, when the dizzy spell slams into her with an unexpected abruptness and force she has never experienced before. She sways, her eyes rolling back into her head, and a rush of nausea floods her senses as she feels her mind get torn in two directions at once, both forwards and backwards in time somehow. She feels torn in two, the agony searing her down to her core and choking the air from her lungs.
No images greet her inner eye. She only hears a scream, filled with anguished desperation, and though the voice is a stranger’s, the overwhelming need to reassure and comfort them rises from within her. The swell of affection and fear that carries those feelings tilts her world sideways even more; she has never felt such emotions, and even her devotion to Master Dialga feels like a small, flickering candle compared to the surge of sheer love that rocks her to her core.
She can only make out a single screamed sentence before the agony whites out even her inner sight.
“DON’T LET GO!”
There’s a phantom sense of another pair of claws holding her own, some unseen force trying to pull them apart, and a horrific howling noise all around, and then she knows no more.
…………
……
…
Awareness comes back to her slowly, dark spots dancing before her eyes, and all sound feeling muffled, as if reaching her ears from far away. Dimly, she realises that she is lying on her side on the cold floor of her cavern. The perpetual dampness has soaked into her pale coat, a prickling numbness filling her limbs. Her mane, she notes, has parted somewhat in her fall, unveiling most of her face to the outside world – idly, she wonders what expressions she must have made as that vision tore through her, and if anyone had cared to see.
She feels like a stranger to herself, recalling the surge of alien emotion.
Slowly, the muffled sounds regain their clarity, and she realises that she is hearing raised voices. One of them has a sharp edge of distress to it that feels hauntingly reminiscent of the scream she had heard just moments before.
“Unhand me! I didn’t do anything!”
“Silence, traitor! I’ll only ask one more time, what have you done to the Lady Oracle?!”
“Let me go! Can’t you see that she needs help?!”
A hiss of air escapes from between her clenched teeth as she forces herself off the ground on trembling arms. Blinking the haze from her uncovered eyes, she studies the scene unfolding before her – one of her guards, a stern Dusclops who has served her faithfully for many frozen years, has the Treecko pinned to the floor underneath him, the shadows around the pair twitching with barely-restrained violence at his command.
“How dare you attack the Oracle?” he spits. “Don’t assume that you are leaving this place alive!”
The guest struggles against the bigger Pokémon in vain, his soft hands not finding any purchase on his captor’s semi-tangible flesh. A strange, sap-like liquid is pooling underneath his shoulders, and it takes her a moment to realise that he is bleeding from three deep scratches on his neck. Sluggishly, she tilts her head downwards to gaze at her own hands; sure enough, the tips of the claws she had held against his throat are dark with the same sticky substance. They must have caught on his skin when she had fallen.
She hadn’t intended to actually injure him. Something like regret churns in her gut.
“Silence. Both of you.” Her command comes out as a breathless gasp, and she doubles over, coughing drily. When she looks back up, they are both staring at her, frozen in place. She attempts to straighten her posture, though she can’t seem to quite banish the weak trembling from her limbs.
“Release him,” she orders hoarsely. “He speaks the truth. He did not attack me.”
Reluctantly, her guard loosens his grip on the guest, and shifts to allow him enough room to get up. He keeps looming next to him though, his single eye narrowed and clearly looking for any excuse to lash out once more.
The Treecko gets to his feet slowly, one hand pressed to his neck to stem the bleeding, his gaze twitching nervously from Dusclops to the flickering claws of shadow still surrounding him, and finally settling on her. His gaze is steely, despite his situation.
Something about his defiance, as blasphemous as it is, feels strangely endearing.
“I was simply… overwhelmed by the intensity of the vision Master Dialga bestowed upon me,” she says, though the words feel wrong in her mouth. She has never had a vision that felt this personal, and she is unsure what it means.
Treecko, though, doesn’t seem to share her trepidation. His eyes widen, the wariness suddenly replaced with hungry curiosity.
“I can’t say for certain what his purpose is meant to be, but I know that he is… special. Important. He shall remain here.” She sits up properly, finally feeling stable enough again to remain upright without the aid of her arms. She lowers her head, allowing her braided mane to conceal her face once more. In absence of the practiced regality she normally exudes so effortlessly, she weaves some of her illusion magic into her words to bolster her presence. Authority echoes in her next command.
“Treecko, until such a time that I can ascertain the role that fate intends for you, you shall remain here at my side as my personal guard.”
She can practically feel Dusclops stiffen at her words – he has long chased the honour of such a promotion. Hearing it bestowed upon a stranger of much lower status instead must surely sting. But of course, he would never dare to question her will, or their Master’s.
“Dusclops, see to it that his injuries get treated. I expect you to show him around the barracks, as well as educate him on his duties. That will be all. You are dismissed.”
A tense hush follows, in which both are clearly warring with the instinct to speak, but protocol wins out in the end, and they withdraw silently.
The Oracle manages to retain her straightened posture until she hears the heavy doors fall shut behind them, at which point she allows herself to slump to the floor in exhaustion, a rattling breath escaping her. Dimly studying the beaded curtain of red and white hair cascading down before her eyes, she trembles, feeling truly untethered for the first time in her long life.
Her Master’s faithful look to her for guidance – she has never failed to interpret an omen before. But she has never experienced an omen that left her this shaken, either. For all their sakes, she hopes she can keep her feet on the path fate has laid out for her.
With a trembling sigh, she allows her tired eyes to close, and wills herself to find comfort in familiar prayers. Somehow though, her steady mantra of devotion to Master Dialga feels a lot more hollow than it normally does.