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[attr="class","itemcolname"]divination event

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[attr="class","itemcoltexttit"]MYSTIC POKEMON 1

[attr="class","itemcoltext"]You find yourself in the AKALA OUTSKIRTS of ALOLA. Here, a Xatu stands by the cliffside, rooted in place. It is clear that it has been here for a long time, perhaps for many days and nights.[break][break]

Its vacant eyes continuously track the sun... until all of you arrive.[break][break]

Psychically, it casts a vision of your past or future to your minds. Is it accurate? Truthful? Real or false? It is hard to shake the unnerving feeling as the Alolan winds whip past you.

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]導通抵抗

[attr="class","skullbody"]Urk. Had he said too much? Was Priam onto his intentions? Or was he voicing his own dissent, a quiet, private observation in the depths of the unknown?[break][break]

To assume either safety or agreement was dangerous. For all he knew, Priam was just pointing out the obvious.[break][break]

"Its why people come here, too," Isaac said, hoping to couch his own doubts behind profound words. "World's a mess these days. Feels like everyone's trying to find a way to handle it, one way or another."[break][break]

It just so happened "one way" got most of the population hating your guts, and "the other" made you public enemy number one of a dangerous terrorist organization.[break][break]

"What do you make of it all?"[break][break]

Yet now another being looked down upon them; the bird of judgment, the past to one side and the future to another. Isaac looked first at the Xatu quizzically, then to Priam as he acknowledged it like an old friend. "Been here before?" he asked, wondering just what he was supposed to do with this "challenge."

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]導通抵抗

[attr="class","skullbody"]"Nah, nah. This guy's not trying to jump us. Y'know, unlike everything else here." When the friendliest face Isaac had encountered was somehow Father Winter, it was clear things tended to get a little dicey in the simulation. "No need for us to change that."[break][break]

If Xatu wasn't here to fight, what was it here for? The first question actually asked by the group was quick to illuminate that fact. Interest sparked in the Xatu's eye as it turned ever so slightly, casting him in the psychic light of the eye that once was. Of course. It wasn't a threat! It was an oracle![break][break]

Briefly, Isaac wondered if he should split the Xatu's attention. Should he look forward while Priam looked back? In a vacuum, it seemed like a smart bet. Priam would see one piece of the puzzle, and Isaac would see the other half. It would also be much more useful information for a man whose life was on the cusp of turning upside down. There was just one problem with that plan.[break][break]

Isaac refused to believe in a fate that he didn't make.[break][break]

Nuts to some pre-determined future. Nuts to prophecy. Nuts to taking the easy way out. Instead, Isaac stood by Priam's side. May the past at least hold clues to building a brighter future.

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[attr="class","itemcolname"]divination event

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[attr="class","itemcoltexttit"]MYSTIC POKEMON 1-A

[attr="class","itemcoltext"]A meaningful memory pulled from your past is played out in your head. It's vivid and real feeling as if it were in ULTRA HD 4K. You take some time to catalog every detail and every scent as if it they were new discoveries. Like the forgotten voice of a lost loved one, the scent of an old childhood bakery... all epiphanies of specifics.[break][break]

However, you're still uncertain whether this is an accurate snapshot of your past...

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]導通抵抗

[attr="class","skullbody"]Go back.[break][break]

Galar. An impressionist painting masquerading as a dream masquerading as a memory. Hazy lines knit together in the shape of people, finding solace in each other's love for twenty years that melted into yesterday. Daughters whose faces he could no longer recall, a love whose location he could no longer tell, a sworn brother whose safety he could no longer ensure.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

The Championship Assessment. He had conquered six of Hoenn's strongest gyms, proven himself by every concievable metric, seen significant growth as a person. Despite that, his heart was uncertain, not yet forged in the fires of his kingdom. Perhaps he would have passed. He was far too busy fleeing to know, same as it ever was.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

The unspeakable act he committed at his master's behest. They said the first kill was always the hardest. The idea of adding a second to his list made him want to vomit. Sometiems, the common wisdom was wrong. Through his bile he found conviction, but at what cost? The life of a man whose end was already written?[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

The decay of the Fiorelli Floristry, and with it any chance he had of finding a normal life. The grudge seared into his mind by a woman he once considered a friend erupted through his brain, a splitting headache laced with whispers that may or may not have been his own. He was unsure which possibility scared him more.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

The Border, where for the second time in Isaac's life he had died. The crushing grip of a Golurk had spelled his end. The love and loyalty of his friends, his team, and his own stubborn ghost ensured that he'd make it back. A part of Isaac wondered if he was truly still alive.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

Dewford. He didn't know what he wanted from his life, but he knew he never wanted this. For Rocket to claim the very realm he now stood within had been an unexpected surprise. He wouldn't know. He was too busy doing what he should have back on Mt. Pyre, escorting the lost and the damned to safety while he could.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

A brother's coronation, surrounded by the four horsemen of the apocalypse. War. Death. Pestilence. Worst among them all, cowardice. Isaac wished he had said something while he could. What words he did have reached him now, far too late.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

A child's body, limp and weak in his arms. Mauville City, a protest in the wake of the incoming meteor. Mauville Gym, where his attempts at preparing a friend only ruined them. It had all been his fault.[break][break]

Go back.[break][break]

The night of the meteor's descent. He expected to hear the labored breaths that haunted his every nightmare. Instead, Kiryu lay before him, serene as a sleeping newborn. Her eyes were closed. Her smile was serene. Even as the side of his face where he once had an eye pulsed with pain, Isaac wanted to stay here forever.[break][break]

Then she spoke.[break][break]

"Go back."[break][break]

A dance with the devil as monsters surrounded him on all sides.[break][break]

A clash with an angel, who despite everything believed he could be good.[break][break]

A runaway experiment, the score between them never settled.[break][break]

A digital world, where Isaac learned his surrender would only bring his demise.[break][break]

A failed intervention, where the Rocket he sought to stop was the first to see his potential and insisted he follow.[break][break]

Five years of exile, his spark left behind on the roadside day after day until there was nothing left.[break][break]

His eighteenth birthday, where no law could hold him back. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and yet he still found it preferable to staying a single day longer. A pair of soulful blue eyes stared back at him, knit with worry and yet ready to follow him into the crucible. Once more, they spoke.[break][break]

"Go back, to the beginning."[break][break]

The sacrifice of dream after unfilled dream. What did they matter anymore? He'd never be the one to fill them.[break][break]

Argument after argument, desperate attempts at being noticed giving way to the rage that it would never come.[break][break]

The incident on Mt. Chimney that broke the only person who mattered to him and forever changed everything.[break][break]

The slow, dawning realization that a father's love was conditional at best, especially when he had a replacement lined up.[break][break]

The blissful ignorance before he knew that to be true, back when he had been lucky enough to receive it.[break]

Dark, hazy, before his mind, body, and even soul were formed. The knowledge that the man he refused to call father was, in fact, not. Who had been? If Isaac was being honest, he neither knew nor cared.[break][break]

The Isaac of the past looked down the road he had walked. He looked down the road he would walk. He then turned to those blue eyes that, to this day, he still mourned. "We're almost there," he said, voice quiet and soft. "There's just a little more I'm gonna do. But I'm gonna finally make you proud."[break][break]

A tight hug, strong as steel and sturdy as stone, cut his thought off. In that moment, Isaac knew he always had.[break][break]

He wanted so badly to linger on this last memory, maybe for the rest of his life. Yet, as the Xatu turned his gaze away, Isaac found himself settling back into his present. Just a bit further. He was almost there.[break][break]

He wasn't the only one troubled. Priam turned to Isaac, voice filled with shaky conviction. Isaac returned it with a smile born from the same place. "That's the spirit," he said, trying his best to be the pillar of strength Kiryu had once been. "What's on your mind?"

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[attr="class","skulltitle"]導通抵抗

[attr="class","skullbody"]Those earliest days lingered in the back of Isaac's mind. He always justified it as going with the flow. It was easier than admitting he'd given up. The fact that he'd done more in one month than he had in five years both impressed and disgusted him.[break][break]

"Damn right it does."[break][break]

Time was ticking down. Unlike Naomi Sato, with whom he had all the time in the world to draw their adventure to a close, Isaac knew he and Priam would soon be booted out. All they had left within them was a few final words, an offer couched within them.[break][break]

Time was ticking down for Isaac, too. With each passing dsy, Caleb Harcourt grew closer and closer. With each passing day, the danger he faced grew worse and worse. He couldn't linger, and yet until he found Caleb he had no option but to do so. All the while, he tried to make peace with himself and his path forward.[break][break]

Fuck it. What was one more item on his bucket list?[break][break]

"I'm in," Isaac said, grin mischievous and sharklike. "Just give me the where and when, and I'm there."

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