Cyllene watches the young man, and he watches right back.
There’s a caution in his amber eyes, eyes much too old for the sixteen year old who bears them. He watches her like she’s the enemy. Watches her like he’s waiting for her to lash out. Watches her like she’s a ghost.
Even if she wanted to, his beast of a Pikachu would kill her before she had the chance.
At first glance, Cyllene had been sure the boy had a Raichu draped over his shoulders. A Raichu that looked so at home wrapped around this human. The beast was massive, and dwarfed Akari’s Pikachu as if it was a Pichu. The two didn’t even seem to be the same species.
This Pikachu was a hulking, narrow-eyed, scarred thing, battle wounds worn like the stars Cyllene so seldomly bequeathed. Old, odd red scars burned a long-healed pattern into its flesh, circles with branching lines situated on its forehead and stomach. The fur on its tail had been worn away over time, now a razor’s edge raised in warning.
Its cheeks sparked red with cursed lightning.
The boy wasn’t much better.
His flimsy clothes did nothing to hide the array of old injuries; lacerations, burns, gouges, bites, and a particularly harsh lichtenberg figure that carved through his right palm and up his arm.
How could this boy bear all the brutality of Pokémon and still treat this monstrous Pikachu as a brother? How could he be so calm with Laventon’s three research subjects so lovingly wrapped around his legs, or cradled in his arms?
Cyndaquil’s flames could erupt without warning, scorching the boy’s leg in seconds.
Oshawott could take its scalchop and slash through his achilles tendon, crippling him without a thought.
Rowlet was so close to his throat, it could tear through the skin and muscle and vasculature and there’d be no time to save him.
Instead of fear, the boy's cautious expression would deepen to sadness when he looked at them. Standing there like these beasts were old friends.
He stood there like his life wasn’t in the hands of others.
This boy falls from the sky, no word on his origins or how he came to be here, just that he had Fallen from Heaven’s Fracture.
This was an omen, she knew. An omen for better or for worse, and it was up to her to decide if Jubilife Village’s fate would rest on his shoulders. Give this Fallen free range over her home and risk the sky’s wrath? Or cast him out, and risk forsaking the cure so mercifully proffered?
In the end, she could only test him.
And in the end, she could only show Ashura his new home.
