Chapter Three: Natural Disasters and Ancient Scripts

Zhao Fang was momentarily stunned. What was this? Had Cynthia been so eager to destroy all evidence the moment he returned?

Before he could drop to the ground, however, a white figure caught him—it was Togekiss, and Cynthia was sitting in front, flying rapidly forward.

"What happened?" Zhao Fang asked, bewildered. Had he arrived in a world on the brink of destruction? Or had Team Rainbow Rocket finally stepped out to stir up trouble?

"Mount Coronet seemed to shake just now; it seems a section is collapsing," Cynthia said, glancing back at him. Zhao Fang’s mouth twitched. He turned his head to look, only to realize that the site of the temple had been swallowed by dust, with a deafening roar echoing in the air.

Zhao Fang felt a wave of panic. Could this have something to do with the Giratina he had just touched?

He remembered that after touching Giratina, he seemed to have been teleported away. But before that, the secret chamber housing the altar had begun to shake and tremble violently, with stones even falling from the ceiling. It looked like the chamber was collapsing, which meant he was indeed the person directly responsible for the accident.

"Where were you teleported to?" Cynthia didn't ask why the temple began to collapse the moment he returned, but instead posed a different question.

"I... I was teleported to a strange room with an altar. There was nothing on it, except for a piece of paper. But as soon as I picked it up, it turned to ash." Zhao Fang hesitated before reciting the explanation he had prepared.

Giratina’s scale was a dangerous object; he had seen its description mention immense energy and the peril of world destruction. Though he didn't know why it carried such a threat, he felt it was best to be cautious.

"Oh? Do you remember the characters on it?" Cynthia’s interest was piqued, and she asked eagerly.

Zhao Fang prepared to describe the characters he had seen, but he found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't recall their true form. When he opened his mouth, he couldn't express them, yet as soon as he gave up, the characters appeared clearly in his mind again.

"I'm sorry, I don't seem to be able to say it out loud," Zhao Fang replied with a frown. These characters, much like the runes, seemed to possess a strange interference ability.

Cynthia nodded and didn't press further, instead having Togekiss turn around to look behind them.

"Cynthia, where is Yuka?" Zhao Fang looked around curiously, noting her absence.

"I sent Yuka to notify the League to handle the collapse of the Mount Coronet area," Cynthia replied calmly.

"Eh? Then why were you still at that temple?" Zhao Fang was even more curious. He remembered seeing her the moment he emerged.

"I brought you from Hoenn to the Sinnoh region; I must be responsible for your safety." Cynthia said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Zhao Fang’s jaw dropped. He truly hadn't expected that answer. Cynthia was a Champion; having a Champion risk her life to wait for him made him feel that perhaps this crisis wasn't so unacceptable after all.

Soon, Zhao Fang followed Cynthia back to Snowpoint City. The streets were filled with busy crowds; the League had received the news from Yuka and was mobilizing all nearby trainers to deal with the Mount Coronet collapse.

"Will this accident cause any casualties?" Zhao Fang asked, worriedly watching the hurried trainers on the street. If anyone died because of him, that would truly be...

"No, why would you think that? The collapse likely just triggered an avalanche. The League has safety measures for the settlements near Mount Coronet, and the wild Pokémon will be fine as well. It’s just that the forests will need to be replanted; most of these trainers are going to clear the snow and help with reforestation." Cynthia looked at him strangely, but then, as if realizing something, she couldn't help but smile.

Zhao Fang finally breathed a sigh of relief. He followed Cynthia to a house overflowing with books, where she picked out several volumes and asked him to identify the characters.

Zhao Fang took out the characters he had copied down near the altar. As expected of a brilliant historian, Cynthia frowned, pen in hand, and managed to translate the sentence quite quickly.

"Hmm... 'Witness the covenant and the land of the future, seizing the power of heaven to bestow the power of gods?' You certainly visited an incredible place," Cynthia remarked, looking at the paper in surprise. But Zhao Fang didn't hear her; he was busy looking at a book.

It was an ancient dictionary of sorts, containing the script used in long-lost eras. Zhao Fang felt these characters were identical to the ones in his mind, but whenever he tried to compare them, the ones in his memory blurred again.

"Did you find it?" Cynthia asked, standing curiously behind him.

"No... it seems as soon as I start looking, those characters become unclear again." Zhao Fang scratched his head, frustrated. These characters were too bizarre—what exactly was hidden within them?

"Hmm... my grandmother once said that there was an ancient method to make someone remember something, but prevent them from speaking of it or searching for it. Perhaps that is your situation." Cynthia mused for a moment before offering an explanation.

She also gave him a way to solve the problem: stop trying to force the memory of the characters and instead study ancient scripts diligently, then find a way to comprehend them himself later. However, she warned that this would be a difficult task.

Fortunately, she gave him her own notes on learning these ancient languages. According to Cynthia, her favorite thing to do while traveling was to learn something new; it expanded her knowledge and improved her cognitive abilities, which was a great help in Pokémon battles.

After telling Zhao Fang to stay there for a while, Cynthia hurried off, as the disaster still required her assistance. Zhao Fang began his painful life of study.

The ancient script of the Pokémon world was something else—it reminded Zhao Fang of learning English in his past life, perhaps even harder. But in order to understand the message in his mind, he had to add this to his to-do list.

He studied until the sky turned dark, only seeing Cynthia and Yuka walk in with smiles on their faces. Seeing their expressions, Zhao Fang breathed a sigh of relief. As long as Cynthia was smiling, it proved that the situation wasn't grave.