L exhaled walking towards Mable’s lab. Zygarde padded alongside him. He’d been confused when Zygarde reappeared, but he’d been quick to figure out that one couldn’t fully contain Zygarde’s being even with a Master ball. He stepped inside the lab and he couldn’t help but remember that it’d been thirty years since what he’d attempted all those years ago at Geosenge.
The technology was strange, beyond what he fully understood even if once he’d been a tech CEO and inventor. He headed to the teleporter, where an elevator had once been. There was a trio of pads, orange, blue and green. Mabel had ripped them from the old flare base.
He stepped onto the blue pad and suddenly he was in her office. He stepped in and waved towards Mable, she’d put on some weight, her hair was now a blue gray in her fifties. But even time hadn’t softened her.
“Your late. It’s best to remember not everyone has three thousand years.” She spat out sharply. L stepped back raising his hands as his eye drifted to a cardboard box on her desk.
“Sorry Professor.” L murmured as Mabel sighed and pushed the box forward.
“The last Professor…” She began far softer. L knew of the last professor, Augustine Sycamore or something of the like. Lovely gray blue eyes like a storm about to break, hair like a Corviknight’s feathers. He’d died a few months ago of a heart attack at age sixty five. Genetically prone to heart issues his brain supplied. “He left everything to the lab…”
“No family?” L asked. Mabel shook her head.
“No, he had a falling out with his old research partner six years ago, became a bit of a recluse after Geosenge…” She explained. “That was really all he had left…”. L looked down a pang of guilt shot through his chest. “But.” Mabel began again. “He wrote letters, he never sent them as he assumed that he was writing to a dead man,” She exhaled. “, Better to receive them later rather than never.” L looked into the box, it was overflowing with letters and it was no small box.
“Oh my…”. L didn’t ever bother to count.
“This, is just the first five hundred.” L looked at Mable. “He wrote constantly and practically from the day itself… there’s well over two thousand more.” L exhaled as he picked up the box.
“I’ll be back for the next batch in two weeks.” He stated and Mable nodded.
That night L pulled the first letter out from the box. It was the oldest, dated a week after Geosenge. He exhaled before removing the yellowed paper from the envelope flinching as it crinkled not wanting the nearly thirty year old paper to tear. Papers, it was several pages, front and back.
It felt rude to read these words intended to be kept private, yet every single letter was written for him. Over two thousand letters written for him. L didn’t know what kind of emotions would lead a person to write biweekly for thirty years to a man they should hate, a man who was by all reasons dead. Even more so when the only thing that stopped him was death.
Swallowing he began to read. It was formal at first, but it was clear that the professor hadn’t been happy with it, many words scratched out if not whole sentences. But than it cracked— right at the bottom of the first page…
‘I should have told you that I loved you! What kind of idiot was I to never confess. Maybe you’d have let me in than and I could have helped. Team flare was never the answer Mon amour.’ L read those words again and again and again.
Than he moved on, there was still several more pages to read. After that it was heartfelt and equally as heartbroken. Zygarde nuzzled its way between L’s arm and his chest licking the man’s tears whenever they fell.
Over the next two weeks L kept reading the letters, all trepidation from the first letter gone. He read of August’s brief affair with a woman named Grace— which had crashed and burned just four months later and Sycamore declared that they’d never speak again. About a hundred or so letters they were on speaking terms again. A year off speaking terms. How kind he was.
He should have remembered him.
86 years 3 months - Sycamore’s birthday, March 30th
L walked into the Lumiose Graveyard. Looking around one couldn’t tell that it had been a wild zone. He was holding a bouquet of flowers, all a lovely shade of blue that had been Sycamore’s favorite. He’d remembered it long ago.
He placed the flowers on Sycamore’s grave and sat down next to it. He noted that Sycamore’s grave was more worn.
“You’re looking a little worn.” L began softly. “I will have to see about getting you a new one Mon noyé Rattata.” He looked away exhaling. “Apparently the new major is my great great great nephew…” That was odd. Seeing a man who he should never have met. “His names Francis, definitely a genius I’d say. Reminds me of a better version of myself, the one you knew.” L continued. “I’ll have to keep a close eye on him, we both know the story of what was going on with me.” He sighed. “You think as a man of a hundred fifty eight would know what to do huh? I guess this is how AZ felt watching me.” L looked down, messing with the fluff of his collar. “Or any family member by the time he was decidedly past his natural life span. It’s odd at best as Francis is actually my spitting image. Genuinely that's weird. The only difference is that he’s shorter with curly hair. He even has the Pyroar. Granted his Pyroar, Dilligence, is an alpha Pyroar… and shiny.” L added. “I’ve also have taken up writing to you.”
A Lampent with blue eyes poked its head out from behind the grave watching L. They’d been listening to L’s rambling.
“Granted it’s not as constant as yours were Mon beau Rattata.” The Lampent huffed it’s flame sparking. They hated the nickname. “With so many years left… I’ve taken to burning the letters I write.” The Lampent knew. It’s how they’d woken up. L pulled out a stack of letters and placed them on the grave. “For you alone my dear.” Slowly L stood up and left. The Lampent than burned the letters watching them shrivel up as the smoke carried his words for the man he loved most.
96 years six months - Sycamore’s death anniversary
L stormed into the Graveyard, for once without flowers. Yet Zygarde at his heels once more. He’d come by later with the flowers regardless. He plopped down at the grave as the Lampent floated over before settling in his lap. “You know what happened with Francis?” Lysandre spat exasperated. The Lampent looked up at him blinking. “That damned man went behind my back, repaired Ange which I didn’t even think was possible and tried to catch Floette! Why if she weren’t such a smart pokemon with the help of some kids and Zygarde he’d have succeeded.” L huffed as Zygarde laid down head on his knee. The legendary received a scratch under the chin.” The shiny lampent chimed as it blinked. It had a tone that suggested it was an ‘I told you so’ or ‘now you know how I feel’.
“Oh hush you weren’t even wax when I set off the ultimate weapon.” The Lampent chimed again brushing one of its metal arms against L’s cheek as if in a caress.
Zygarde whined at the Lampent’s actions.
“I think my bloodline is cursed…” L admitted with a huff. Slowly he reached into his jacket and pulled out a stack of envelopes placing it at the foot of the grave. “For you alone my dear.” Once L and Zygarde left the Lampent burned the letters and almost sighed as they shriveled into ash.
L walked into the Graveyard, Zygarde by his side. L sat down placing a bouquet of flowers at Sycamore’s grave and a crown of eternal flowers on the stone itself. “How are you Mon coeur? I do hope the soil is warmer than the air. …Granted with how many flowers there are around here I’m certain it must help.” L laughed looking at the small bed of flowers he’d been accidentally cultivating. It was all flowers save for where the Lampent had been burning them. Currently the Lampent was resting there clinging to one of the letters that L knew that they had been burning. L didn’t question how something that had been burnt to ash twenty years ago could be un-burnt.
L exhaled as he tended to the long since abandoned Graveyard, now it was Floette’s Garden and what a beautiful garden. The Chandelure drifted over chiming so L moved to his loves grave. His name was so long forgotten that not even the stone had it anymore. If he had the time and memory L knew he’d have to replace it again.
“Augustine.” L briefly recalled as his eyes fluttered shut and he drifted off.
When L woke up he found a man asleep on him. Slowly L sat up, his eyes struggling to focus on the man. He could see curls, dark where they hadn’t grayed. Slowly the sleeping man woke up stretching that told L two things that he somehow hadn’t noticed earlier. 1. The man was see through. 2. He was very much blue like L was seeing him through a blue window.
“Good morning Lys!” The ghost exclaimed hugging L tightly. He was warmed by the sun.
L slowly hugged back. “Good morning Mon coeur.”
“It’s been three thousand years hasn’t it?” Augustine asked softly.