Chapter 254: Sinnoh Mythology! The True Gods!
The Sinnoh region — a land steeped in countless myths and legends.
Canalave City, a shimmering, sunlit port town. Canalave was distinctive — the whole city was split in two by a canal, giving it an exotic, storybook charm.
Stepping off the plane, Mammon's group caught their first glimpse of the city's skyline.
"So this is Caitlin's home region. It's got real character, doesn't it," Kagura said, glancing around with genuine curiosity. She'd always been interested in this region — after all, it was Caitlin's homeland.
"Yeah... it's been a while since I've been back." Caitlin's fine golden hair drifted in the light breeze, her eyes clouding faintly. Setting foot on Sinnoh soil again stirred something complicated in her. How to put it — a feeling of everything looking the same and yet nothing feeling quite the same. In truth, she'd only been away a little over half a year, but so much had happened since — her whole mindset had shifted so dramatically in that time.
"Gladion, go round up the organization members and head to Jubilife City. Buy up a few buildings there," Mammon instructed. As a precaution, Rocket members were of course entering Sinnoh in staggered groups, and Jubilife — Sinnoh's largest city — was the obvious place to set up shop.
"Understood," Gladion nodded.
"Let's go take a proper look around, then."
Take a proper look around — but Mammon's actual destination was already set: Canalave's famous library.
Canalave Library, one of the city's signature landmarks, held a wealth of texts on Sinnoh mythology. The three of them made their way there.
"In the beginning, there was only the churning of chaos — everything mixed together as one. At its center, an egg appeared. When it fell, from within it was born the Original One. The Original One brought forth two aspects of itself, and so time began to flow, and space began to expand. It then bore three lives from its own body. When the two aspects prayed, so-called 'matter' was born. When the three lives prayed, so-called 'spirit' was born. Having created the world, the Original One fell into an eternal slumber."
Mammon read the passage quietly aloud from a book titled The Original Story, with Kagura and Caitlin seated across from him.
"Pff~ Are all of Sinnoh's legends this over-the-top?" Kagura closed the book in front of her — titled Sinnoh Mythology — feeling like this region was simply too much. Back home in Hoenn, the myths topped out at Groudon and Kyogre feuding, with people praying for Rayquaza to descend and save Hoenn from ruin. And here Sinnoh's mythology just casually claimed to be the literal creation of the universe?! That was absurdly over the top!
"It's not fiction, though," Mammon said, closing the book, smiling.
Kagura blinked at that, and Caitlin looked over at him, startled too.
"Mammon, you're not saying this is actually true?" Kagura picked up The Original Story again, asking sharply. What did this book actually claim? Simply put — a being emerged from primordial chaos, created two aspects of itself and three separate lives, the aspects then created "matter," the lives created "spirit," and after creating the world, the original being fell asleep.
That was literally the creation of the universe!! Was that actually real?
"No need to be that shocked. It's true, as it happens," Mammon said with a small laugh, glancing at Caitlin.
Kagura sucked in a sharp breath. She didn't doubt Mammon's word for a second — if Mammon said it, it had to be true.
"Caitlin, do you know the legendary Pokémon of Sinnoh mythology?" Mammon asked her.
"The legendary Lake Guardians — Uxie gave humanity 'knowledge,' Mesprit gave humanity 'emotion,' Azelf gave humanity 'willpower,'" Caitlin recited, after a moment's thought. Thanks to her old close friend Cynthia's love of mythology, Caitlin genuinely knew a fair amount about Sinnoh's legends. "And then there are two legendary Mythical Pokémon — Palkia, who governs space; legend says when Palkia's lungs breathe, space itself settles into stillness. And Dialga, who governs time — when Dialga's heart beats, time itself flows forward. Though in the modern era, no one's ever actually laid eyes on either of them. Cynthia mentioned that, per her research, Dialga and Palkia are believed to dwell within the rifts of space-time itself," Caitlin said slowly.
"Whoa~!" Kagura felt like she'd seen plenty in her time, but even this was a bit much. "Isn't that basically just... gods?" she said, voicing the thought.
Truthfully, though the Meteorite Clan revered "Lord Dragon-God" Rayquaza, Kagura understood deep down that Rayquaza was, at the end of the day, just an incredibly powerful Pokémon — not a literal deity. The same went for the rest of the legendaries — Zekrom, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Kyurem, and so on — none of them were true gods, technically speaking. It was just humanity's natural reverence and hunger for something to believe in that led people to give these powerful Pokémon divine titles — Lugia's own worshippers called it the "Sea God," after all, but was Lugia actually a god?
But what Caitlin was describing — Pokémon that dwelled within the very rifts of space and time, whose every action rippled through the fabric of reality itself — could those really not be gods?
"Strictly speaking, they genuinely are true 'gods.' No question about it," Mammon said, nodding. Technically, Pokémon didn't have a formal category called "gods" per se — the closest official designations were Legendary Pokémon and Mythical Pokémon. Sure, Legendaries could carry terrifying power and abilities, but at the end of the day, they were still Pokémon.
But a handful of them really were different.
Arceus, "the Alpaca," went without saying — the origin of everything, the source from which the universe and the world itself sprang. And beyond that, there was the "Creation Trio" representing "matter": Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina. Those three carried the official designation "Mythical Pokémon" — well, the closest thing to a formal, shared title among them, anyway. The Creation Trio represented space, time, and antimatter respectively, and their ontological standing sat impossibly, absurdly high. If anything ever went wrong with Palkia or Dialga, the entire world — even parallel worlds — would be dragged into the fallout; the anime's Journeys arc had actually shown exactly that scenario play out.
The Lake Guardians, meanwhile — also counted among the "six original deities" at the world's founding — could honestly just... be quietly buried and forgotten. In terms of cosmic standing, the Lake Guardians, representing "spirit," genuinely weren't ranked low at all — but in terms of raw power? Frankly, they were kind of weak sauce. Which raised an interesting point: standing didn't necessarily correlate with actual strength.
Compared to the Lake Guardians, the "Mythical Pokémon" trio operated on an entirely different level. Palkia's raw power was formidable, and Giratina especially so. Sure, in its movie it got ambushed by a human and nearly killed, but Giratina's actual combat strength was genuinely outstanding. It had dragged Dialga bodily into the Distortion World and beaten it senseless — Dialga hadn't even dared fight back, focused entirely on just trying to escape. And in the Arceus movie, both Dialga and Palkia got nearly snuffed out in a few exchanges by the corrupted Alpaca, while Giratina had held out considerably longer against the same threat — the gap in performance spoke for itself. Granted, it might partly be because the two dragons of time and space were missing their Origin Orbs at the time, so they weren't operating at full strength. But regardless, even accounting for their Origin Forme potential, Mammon still figured the two brothers probably fell short of Giratina overall. And in the Hoopa movie, Giratina had tanked a full Extreme Speed strike — no wait, sorry, an Extreme Speed dive attack from Black Rayquaza with zero visible damage; sure, Flying-type moves weren't especially effective against Giratina to begin with, but it hadn't even flinched. That alone suggested Giratina's real strength was, at minimum, on par with Black Rayquaza.
But compared to that trio of "Mythical Pokémon," the Lake Guardians weren't just a little behind — they were quite a bit behind. And yet, standing was standing regardless: Team Galactic had specifically hunted down the Lake Guardians precisely to extract their power, using it to forge the red chain that bound time and space together, controlling the summoned Dialga and Palkia through it. Which showed the Lake Guardians' power, while genuinely inferior to the Creation Trio, wasn't actually that far behind either — maybe they'd just gone soft, sitting comfortable and unbothered since the dawn of creation, never having a reason to actually use their full strength. Who could say, really.
"Incredible~ So, Caitlin, do you know what that 'Original One' actually is?" Kagura's shock quickly gave way to burning curiosity. Who wouldn't want to know the origin of the world itself? Who exactly created it — Kagura was genuinely dying to know.
"That, I'm... not sure about." Caitlin thought it over carefully, then shook her head. "Though it might be the Sinnoh Deity, perhaps?"
"The Sinnoh Deity?" Kagura tilted her head, puzzled. What connection did that have to the region itself?
"Right — back when Sinnoh was still called the Verity region, legend holds that the Sinnoh Deity created the land. The people of the Shinto Clan, to honor the Sinnoh Deity, built the Sinnoh Temple at the foot of Mt. Coronet," Caitlin explained. "Though the temple was destroyed a very long time ago, reduced to ruins — what's now known as Spear Pillar. As for what kind of Pokémon the Sinnoh Deity actually was, I don't know either."
"I see," Kagura said, a little disappointed.
"Caitlin, I have a question. Have you ever heard of Michina Town?" Mammon asked, after a thoughtful pause.
Michina — the setting of the Arceus movie.
"Michina? I think I've heard of it — there's supposed to be some well-preserved ruins there, if I remember right," Caitlin said, recalling what she knew. Michina Town held ruins thousands of years old, remarkably intact, which gave the town at least a modest reputation.
"So Michina actually exists. Which means... could the situation from the movie actually be playing out there? Or not?" Mammon fell into thought at the confirmation. Don't tell me I'm going to have to find some way to fight Arceus. That would genuinely be a tall order. No, no, wait — better to think positive. Maybe Michina existed, but none of the movie's actual events had happened there. And besides, with Dialga around, worst case, a quick jaunt through space-time wouldn't exactly be out of reach.
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