Chapter 202: The White Dragon Awakens! I've Seen Your Truth!
Mammon's response to Reshiram had been entirely internal — no sound in the physical world.
After sending it, he noticed the telepathy had gone quiet.
He looked over at Touko and Nora. Both of them had their eyes closed, presumably answering the same question in their own way.
This white dragon is still agonizing over the decision even now?
Well then.
Mammon considered for a moment, walked to the edge of the top floor, and produced the Cherish Ball.
"Mmrroohh~"
Kyogre's low, resonant call rolled across the sky. Clouds piled up rapidly overhead — the cheerful clear blue of moments ago replaced with the heavy grey of incoming rain.
The first drops began to fall.
Kyogre's passive weather effect. Drizzle activating, building toward something heavier.
He'd said he'd make Reshiram's exit dignified with Origin Pulse. He was a man who followed through.
"Hey, why did it suddenly get dark—"
The shift woke Nora out of her focus. She blinked at the newly overcast sky, confused.
"I thought I heard something. Was that a Pokémon?"
"Kyogre — flood the tower. The dragon must be somewhere inside."
Mammon wasn't trying to be cruel about it — drowning an entire area just to force a legendary out wasn't the approach. But flooding one specific old tower was entirely manageable.
He'd walked through the whole thing on the way up and hadn't spotted anything unusual — no glowing stone, no sealed chamber. Which meant Reshiram was almost certainly below ground level.
"Mmrroohh~" Kyogre adjusted its position and prepared to redirect water into the tower's base.
And then the whole structure trembled.
"What—"
"What's happening—"
"Is the tower moving?!"
Nora and Touko jolted to their feet. Elesa startled visibly. Stone dust sifted down from the ceiling in thin curtains.
Yes — the tower was vibrating, and the vibrations were intensifying.
"Out. Everyone out."
Mammon released Dark Mewtwo immediately. Dark Mewtwo's psychic field gathered everyone present and lifted them clear of the tower entirely, setting them down on the grass outside.
From there, it was unmistakable — the entire tower was shaking. Like something inside it had decided to leave.
"What is that?"
Touko had spotted Kyogre hovering at the edge of the tower's range. She looked like she'd temporarily lost the ability to form thoughts.
"Look up—!"
Nora's voice cracked, her arm pointing skyward.
A point of red light had broken from somewhere deep in the tower's base. It rose — fast, cutting straight up through the heart of the structure — and emerged above the tower's crown in a blazing red glow, vivid against the grey rain sky.
"The Dragon Stone."
Mammon watched the flame-bright stone ascending, the corner of his mouth lifting.
A thousand years ago, when its physical form had been destroyed, this was what Reshiram had become — the Light Stone, sealed away while time moved on. And now it was gathering itself back together, pulling flame and form from whatever deep reservoir of will it had been keeping.
Reshiram and Zekrom were unusual among legendaries in exactly this way — they'd never been born as ordinary creatures. They'd split from the original Unova dragon in answer to the concepts of truth and ideals. What was left of that original form became Kyurem, hollow and empty because its essential content had already departed.
That was why Kyurem's body had always been incomplete: Reshiram and Zekrom weren't just Pokémon — they were the original dragon's truth and ideals, given separate form. Their physical bodies were something they manifested themselves, not something they required to exist. Destroy the body — the Dragon Stone remained. The Dragon Stone was all that mattered.
In that sense, they were not so different from Deoxys.
The flame around the Light Stone burned higher, brighter, hotter. In the heart of the fire, something was taking shape.
Something was coming back.
"~"
A dragon's cry — not heavy, not thunderous, but something lighter, cleaner, almost melodic.
Two pure white wings spread against the dark sky.
The Dragon of Truth — Reshiram — awakened and stood tall.
"That's... Reshiram. The legendary..."
Touko's voice came out barely above a breath.
"It's — it's beautiful??"
Nora looked like she was approximately three seconds from expressing her feelings more physically. She could not look away.
That was the thing about Reshiram. It was simply gorgeous.
Pure white from crest to tail — something between a swan and a western dragon in shape, all flowing lines and clean angles. Its eyes were a deep, gem-bright blue. Its face had the clean, sculpted quality of a white wolf, with long cloud-like mane that flowed from the back of its head. Its entire coat was pure white, immaculate and soft-looking even after the rain.
And it stood there above the tower's crown in the grey downpour — completely still, completely apart from its surroundings — like something that had arrived from a different order of existence.
"It's beautiful..." Even Elesa had lost her composure slightly.
For all the black dragon's raw authority, the white dragon's beauty was something else. The setting wasn't hurting it either — the gloom of the rain, the ancient tower, the way the light caught those blue eyes—
"I'll be honest. The face on this one is genuinely something else."
Mammon clicked his tongue appreciatively.
Before anyone commented on fighting power — the cold, regal beauty alone was considerable. In a world where Milotic from the third generation and Diancie from the sixth were both called "the most beautiful Pokémon in the world," it genuinely seemed unfair that the twin-tailed white dragon wasn't at least in the conversation.
"~"
Reshiram's call came again — lighter than most dragon cries, almost musical.
Its blue gaze swept briefly to Kyogre, then it spread its wings and flew toward them.
Kyogre made no move to stop it. The rain eased, beginning to thin.
"Oh! It's coming toward us—!"
Nora, vibrating slightly, was very aware of what was currently airborne in their direction.
Reshiram descended and landed on the still-damp grass in front of them, its white coat utterly unruffled by the rain. One of the advantages of being a fire dragon — water didn't tend to linger.
It walked forward, unhurried. Its gaze had been fixed from the beginning.
On Mammon.
"Is it... going to him?" Touko watched, feeling a complicated mixture of emotions.
Some envy, yes. But also — honestly, she couldn't quite resent it. She hadn't been able to answer Reshiram's question. Not really. Not in a way that felt true.
Truth. For where she was right now, that question was still too hard.
"I felt your truth."
The voice arrived without warning — androgynous, clear, direct. Not private this time. Caitlin heard it. Elesa heard it. Everyone did.
Nora startled — this was the voice. The one that had been interrupting her sleep for days.
Obviously. Obviously it had been Reshiram.
Mammon raised an eyebrow, holding the white dragon's gaze with a small, easy smile.
Reshiram walked closer. Very close. Its head lowered until the two of them were almost at a level, and for a moment the deep blue of those eyes held only Mammon's reflection.
"I have seen the true world you carry within you. Mammon — on the path you walk to build it, I will walk beside you!"
It was the Dragon of Truth. It sought only the most complete bearer of truth it could find, and when it found them—
It helped them defeat the Dragon of Ideals and its champion.
...Reshiram just recognized Mammon.
Nora watched the scene and tried to untangle how she felt about it. She'd wanted this. But looking at what was actually in front of her—
The image settled into something she couldn't quite dismiss. The young man in black facing the white dragon. The ancient crumbling tower. The deep blue lake in the distance. The rain-bright grass. Everything framing everything else perfectly.
It was the kind of scene people wrote songs about.
Elsewhere.
N was feeding one of the wild Pokémon nearby, his expression warm in the way that only happened in moments like this — the smile of someone who genuinely meant it.
"N."
A low telepathic voice, directly in his mind.
"What is it, Zekrom?"
"I can sense it. The white dragon has awakened."
They were born from the same source. That bond had never entirely closed — each could feel the other, somewhere in the background of their awareness, and Zekrom had just felt the shift that meant Reshiram had remade itself and stepped back into the world.
Which meant Reshiram had found its champion.
"...I see."
Something went quiet in N's eyes again.
The Hero of Truth had appeared.
Truthfully — he wasn't glad.
Team Plasma was already in a difficult position. Rocket and the League were both circling. And now there was a Hero of Truth in play, with an unknown alignment.
If they stood against him too—
Please don't get in the way of my ideals.
He held the thought quietly.
He also knew it might be unavoidable. Two dragon-chosen heroes, two dragons born from the same original — contact wasn't optional. It was eventual. The conflict between the black and white dragons had begun over two thousand years ago and hadn't been resolved in all that time.
But he hoped.
If it comes to it—
N's gaze steadied.
"—then I'll simply defeat you too!"
Whatever it cost. He would not let anyone stop what he was building.
Not anyone.
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