Saturn sighed; he figured Cyrus would refuse a doctor’s visit, but at least he’s being somewhat civil about it. “I’m glad you agree, Cyrus. Let’s take you inside.”
He walked to Cyrus’ side, offering him some help to get into the base. It was difficult seeing his boss like this; so devoid of…everything. Saturn was used to seeing him be emotionless and distant, but now even his health was failing…the executive had a nagging fear that he wouldn’t be around much longer. Something he didn’t want to think about, in all honesty.
They made it to the door when Saturn detached himself from Cyrus to open it and let him inside. “I think it would be best for you to go straight to bed, even though you must have work to finish. Myself or Mars can do it for you, if you’d like?”
Cyrus let his blue-haired commander help him back into Galactic's base, all the while silently contemplating the future. At the rate things were going, Cyrus wouldn't even have time to research becoming a god, considering all the work he currently had to deal with. That is, unless he could somehow get some help with that. However, Cyrus hadn't really told anybody about what exactly he was planning to once again try to enact from behind the scenes, even his commanders.
Would they still support Cyrus if he shared this with them? Mars probably would, as long as Cyrus could decieve her into thinking that she'd be taken into the New World he was planning on making. Jupiter would most likely be in with Cyrus' plans, but he hadn't talked to her in a while, so that may not even be certain. Saturn... Cyrus wasn't quite sure how Saturn would react to hearing that Cyrus was up to his old ambitions, and now certainly wasn't the time to ask.
Besides, even if Cyrus did get his commanders on board, he'd still have to somehow trick the other regional leaders into helping, or at least not interferring with his plan, and that would be a task and a half. Also, taking over the region alone (despite him appearing to take a back seat in the ordeal) had surely gained him plenty of new enemies, and gaining more power would certainly not make his number of enemies any less.
Before Cyrus knew it, Saturn was waiting for Cyrus to enter the base with the door held open.
"Yes, I think I'll head to bed. I wasn't working on anything too urgent, so I don't think having somebody else finishing if for me will be necessary." With that, Cyrus headed to the sleeping quarters to rest.
Despite the fact that she didn’t enjoy it as much as Hoenn, Courtney did find it in herself to enjoy Sinnoh’s innate winter climates. However, her opinions didn’t matter; only Maxie’s orders mattered. The Team Magma boss had ordered her to go to Sinnoh, as a way for scouting. Courtney knew that information on other regions’ takeovers was essential to maintaining the order that they had worked so hard to attain.
For now, however, she would have to deal with gathering information. She saw Galactic grunts stationed around harbors, as well as airports to other regions. It was as the Magma grunts had reported; a complete takeover.
At night, Courtney was in one of the cities that she had forgotten the name of; it had been so long since she had visited any other region from Sinnoh. Now, she was in an alleyway.
Of course, she saw a crazy man check a garbage can. How perfectly surprising was it to see that uncivilized people were not in Hoenn- not. However, when the man stared at her, everything locked into recognition.
That man was Cyrus, leader of Team Galactic. Recently, she had gotten reports that he was growing uneasy from his control. Of course, he probably wouldn’t know her; she only recognized him from Maxie’s description.
"I am Courtney, a Magma Administrator under Maxie. You don’t need to worry about me, Mr. Cyrus." She absolutely refused to call him “Sir,” or any other kind of title. That only belonged to Maxie, and she didn’t care if he was a deity; it would still be the same.
What was a Team Magma Admin doing snooping around Sinnoh this early in the morning? Even worse, what it word got out that Cyrus was hallucinating things? People would assume he was doing illegal drugs, or at the very least unfit to hold a position of power. Well, at least a member of Magma was better than a mebmer of the resistance seeing him like this. Still, he needed to make up an excuse as to what he was doing outside next to a trash can.
"Courtney...I think I've heard your name mentioned before. If you're wondering what I was doing, I had just stepped outside for some air after having trouble sleeping. I then heard some noise coming from the alleyway, and was just checking to make sure nobody was hiding in one of these alleyways, we've had trouble with that before."
The halluciantions seem to have stopped, at least for now, but the headache had not, and Cyrus was starting to get a bit nauseous, which was also generally a result of drinking too many drinks to keep himself awake. Hopefully this meeting wouldn't last too long. Still, Cyrus was curious what Courtney was doing out here at this early time.
"Mind if I ask what brings you here? Were you looking to talk to a member of Galactic?" Cyrus doubted she was here simply for the sights, even if the view of Mount Coronet was rather spectacular at this time of year.
While his story seemed too good to be true, Saturn had no proof for a counterpoint.
But he saw a silhouette…? If anyone was in the alley, they would have been caught. There is, after all, only one way out, so Saturn surely would have seen them fleeing. Hm.
"I don’t want to be prying at you, but I’m sure those energy drinks you constantly down aren’t helping your case much." He tried to put as much empathy into those words as he could, even though he knew that such an emotion wouldn’t reach Cyrus like it would if it were Mars or Jupiter.
"But, if you are feeling this ill, it would be beneficial to see a doctor." Saturn picked up an apple core from the ground and tossed it into the trash can Cyrus had been leaning on. "I know you’re not in the public eye much, but if this ‘rebel’ group catches wind of you being ill, they may see it as a weakness."
He put his hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, gesturing back to the entrance of their new base. “It’s late. You should be getting rest, although I doubt you’ll listen to me on that.” Saturn sighed, looking down. “We can’t afford to lose you…again, Cyrus. It would be severely detrimental to everything we’ve worked on thus far.”
"No, I know that I didn't see a person from a rebel group, I meant that I didn't recognize you at first in the dim light." Well, there's also the fact that Cyrus couldn't tell if had been hallucinating again or not at that point, but he wasn't going to share the fact he had been seeing things with Saturn yet if he could avoid it.
As for the energy drinks, Cyrus realized that Saturn must have a point. The fact that he had consumed nothing but them for at least the last twenty-four hours must be at least part of the reason Cyrus was feeling so awful now. Still, he wasn't ready to give them up entirely, but maybe enough was enough for the night.
"I probably just need to sleep, that's all. Thank you for your concern, but I'm sure I'll be better after sleeping for a few hours." There was no need to be seeing a doctor, even the hallucinations were surely just a sign that Cyrus needed more sleep.
Still, he couldn't help but wonder what those words he had been hearing in his head meant. It seemed as if someone had been trying to communicate to him that he had done something wrong and was going to pay for it.
Forget about that, it was obviously a lack of sleep and nothing more. The prospect of something trying to communicate with him like that was ridiculous at best. Besides, who had Cyrus crossed that was capable of talking to him like that? Well, there was Giratina, but it was locked in the Distortion World, there was no way it could possibly communicate to him now, especially since it didn't talk in the first place.
"…Ah, it’s me, sir." Saturn looked at his leader; the one who helped him realize a new life, staring into a trash can. The executive furrowed his brow, moving closer to Cyrus, who seemed to be radiating…something.
"I heard commotion out here from my office and came to investigate. I’m relieved to see that it’s only you, sir." But…was he relived? Cyrus wasn’t typically the type to do this sort of thing. Usually a grunt was sent to take out the trash, let alone root through it….oh, well. He had only been out of the distortion world a short time, and was probably still in the process of getting back to a state of normalcy.
Moving closer, he could see that Cyrus looked feverish. Maybe he was getting sick? Or maybe it was those damn energy drinks he has to stay focused. Saturn wants to lecture him; tell him that those things will kill him much faster than actually help him. Despite this, Saturn was in no place to be lecturing his own boss. Especially when he seemed so…distant.
Taking another step closer, he looked up at Cyrus with a worried expression. “Are you alright, Cyrus?”
"Saturn..." Cyrus froze in place, trying to come up with an explanation of exactly why he was outside digging through a trash can that didn't involve the fact that he was hearing voices and hallucinating. That would most likely only result in Cyrus having to go see a doctor and have his head examined, and that was the last thing Cyrus needed at the moment.
"I'm... I'll be fine Saturn. I stepped outside of my office for some cooler air and to wait off a headache, when I realized that I must be in worse shape than I had originally thought. I ran to the nearest trash can, but was interrupted by a Ratatta jumping out of it. I was trying to put the trash back in the can, and then you walked in the alleyway. All I saw was a silhouette, I didn't know who it was standing there... could have been a rebel for all I knew."
As Cyrus sheepishly told his fabricated story, he realized that he really did feel nauseous. Even so, he doubted that his story would hold much water, but it was at least worth a try.
Hmm, that was an idea. Controlling Arceus, if he could just find a way to locate it, would take a Red Chain approximately 5 times stronger than one of the ones he had used for Dialga and Palkia. That sounded reasonable enough. With the Lake Trio recaptured, the extraction of the crystals would take... ten years. No, that calculation had to be off, it only took a few hours last time. What could be... oh, right, it would be a longer process partially due to the fact that the lake guardians had been used a few years ago. Still, maybe...
No, that would be too predictable, Cyrus needed to go with something completely new. Maybe controlling a legendary wasn't the way to go, but rather draining its power into himself? Cyrus began researching that for a bit, and it seemed that only a god could handle that much power inside of it, so that one was a catch-22. Unless there was some sort of process that could gradually allow him to take that much power... wait, wouldn't that take years, though? He'd be dead by then, and the Pokemon he was draining power from would surely break free even sooner than that. Unless...
Okay, there was that headache again. Maybe it was time to stop and continue this planning later... nah. This was the first time in a week that Cyrus finally was getting to working on his plans and not his duties ruling Sinnoh, he'd be an idiot not to take this chance while everyone else was presumably sleeping.
Cyrus pulled out a bottle of painkiller pills labeled "maximum strength" from his desk, shook a few out, and took them with a small bottle of his custom-tailored energy drink. That should be enough to deal with the headache, now to get back to work.
However, as Cyrus continued trying to work, it just got harder and harder to concentrate. Odd, because Cyrus had never had that problem before. The pills didn't seem to be working, either, for once, the headache was even worse than it had been before. Cyrus could also swear he heard somebody talking, but that was ridiculous, the long hallway outside of Cyrus' office should be empty except for a patrolling grunt, and the window to the outside world was shut tight. Maybe Cyrus really did need a break. He saved his notes and shut off the computer he was using.
It was rather cold outside, especially considering the time of year, but Cyrus didn't mind. It had been hot and stuffy indoors ever since Cyrus had moved buildings, since he hadn't had time to contact his subordinates to put in better air conditioning units. To be honest, he really didn't have time for much anymore, as even his plan to remake the universe had been put on hold by his new duties.
Cyrus stepped into the alleyway, his hand on his Honchkrow's Pokeball should anybody try to attack him. However, there seemed to be nobody there, either. More peculiar than that, Cyrus could finally tell what the voices were saying, or at least catch a few words.
"...gone back on your promise ... watching you ... lied to the wrong... can't escape!"
It was at this moment that Cyrus finally realized that the voices weren't really coming from an outside source, but rather from inside his own head. What was going on? What were the voices even telling him? He concentrated harder on listening.
"...know where you are ... shouldn't have done that ... not listening ... Cyrus!"
It was at that moment that Cyrus detected what looked like movement out of the corner of his eye. Spinning around, he found himself staring into the glowing red eyes of a figure seemingly crouched in the back of the alleyway.
"Whatever you are, get over here, or I'll go over there and drag you out myself." Cyrus now pulled Honchkrow's Pokeball off of his belt, and walked closer to the red-eyed thing in the alleyway. Whether it had to do with the voices he was hearing or not, Cyrus was going to get to the bottom of what was going on and that was final.
However, as he neared the thing, the shape of it seemed to change and become smaller, and the red eyes stopped glowing. Upon finally approaching it, Cyrus found himself staring at a Ratatta no larger than his shoe perched upon a trash bin and frozen in place.
Cyrus put Honchkrow's Pokeball back on his belt and shooed the rat off the bin, sending it running out of the alleyway the way Cyrus had come in. Hmm, maybe the thing he had seen was hiding it the trash bin? Cyrus decided to check, as he wasn't yet wanting to believe that he had gone mad, even if the evidence was seemingly piling up to that conclusion.
Carefully poking around in the garbage bin revealed nothing but trash, so Cyrus slowly let the conclusion sink in. He was going insane.
...Or was he? It was true, he hadn't slept in far too long, maybe that was the reason for the hallucinations? It couldn't just be the fact that he had been to the Distortion World doing this, or it would have effected him before. That was it, Cyrus was going to go back inside and get some sleep.
Before he could get out of the alleyway, however, he once again caught a figure out of the corner of his eye, but this time he was quite sure that it wasn't a hallucination or a Pokemon.
"Who's there?" Cyrus turned around to face towards the figure, icy stare now fixed on the approaching form.
((Hi, all! I'm trying to come up with an idea for an open starter now, but feel free to message me for an interaction if you've got an idea or want me to come up with a thread idea. I look forward to being in this group!))
