Lived for more than three thousand years.
A titan standing four meters tall.
The first king of Kalos.
Any one of those titles would be enough to make someone a legend.
But all three belong to a single man, AZ.
Long ago, over three millennia ago, the Kalos region was torn apart by war.
Amid the chaos stood AZ, the king who once ruled his land with wisdom and compassion.
But even kings can bleed, and even legends can break.
In that brutal war, AZ lost his most beloved companion, his Pokémon, Floette.
Grief consumed him.
His heart, once vast as the sky, collapsed inward like a dying star.
He wanted revenge, not for glory, not for power, but for the unbearable loneliness of losing the one soul who had always stayed by his side.
So he turned against the world.
To end the war and destroy his enemies, AZ created a terrible weapon, the Ultimate Weapon.
Its devastating power annihilated entire armies in a single blast, ending the war in an instant.
And with victory came silence.
Kalos was unified under his rule, and AZ became its first king.
But peace brought him no comfort.
The emptiness in his heart only deepened.
He couldn't let go of Floette.
Desperate, AZ used the same Ultimate Weapon again, this time, not to destroy, but to resurrect.
He sacrificed countless Pokémon, pouring their energy into the machine, and somehow… his beloved Floette returned.
But the cost was unbearable.
The weapon's power cursed AZ with eternal life.
Floette, revived by unnatural means, changed as well; her petals shimmered with eternal light, the mark of a Pokémon that should no longer exist.
Eternal Flower Floette.
When she learned that her rebirth had come at the cost of so many others, Floette's joy turned to sorrow.
Without a word, she left him.
And AZ, who had conquered the world, was left with nothing.
Eternal life brought him no joy, only endless guilt.
Centuries passed, and the once-mighty king became a wandering ghost, carrying the weight of his sins through time itself.
"Silver…"
Sam's voice broke the silence of the ancient ruin.
He lifted a hand toward the iron gate in front of him.
"Lili!"
Silver cried out and sent a razor-sharp Air Cutter slicing through the gate.
The iron groaned, twisted, and collapsed with a clang that echoed through the stone halls.
Sam stepped through the broken doorway and approached the man sitting motionless in the dim light.
AZ.
"AZ…" Sam called softly.
No response.
The giant didn't even flinch.
His long, unkempt hair and tattered cloak made him look less like a king and more like a withered relic of time.
For a long moment, Sam just stood there, staring.
This man… this living monument of guilt and sorrow.
Back when Sam had only known this story from the anime, AZ was just a tragic character to him, a symbol of loss and redemption.
But now, standing face to face with the real thing, the weight of those three thousand years hit differently.
Maybe it was because Sam wasn't the same person anymore.
He wasn't just some fan watching from another world.
He was here. Living it.
And maybe, because of her, because of Cynthia, he finally understood what it meant to love someone so deeply that losing them would tear your soul apart.
He took a quiet breath and crouched beside AZ.
"Although your Floette left you," Sam began softly, "you've still shared more than three thousand sunsets with her. The same sky. The same evening wind. You've both watched the same dawns break, even if from different places."
His words seemed to linger in the air, fragile and sincere.
"You've never really been apart, not completely. In a way, you've always been together."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, AZ stirred.
His enormous frame trembled slightly, and his dull, clouded eyes shifted toward Sam.
It was faint, but it was a response.
Encouraged, Sam continued.
"Your Floette was a gentle soul. She wouldn't want you to keep suffering like this. Somewhere out there, she's probably still watching over the world, helping flowers bloom and healing what's broken, just like her kind always does."
The air felt heavy, charged with something ancient and mournful.
Sam could almost feel the pulse of three thousand years of grief pressing against his chest.
He didn't speak again. He just stayed there, beside the fallen king, in the dim silence of that forgotten hall, two souls separated by time but bound by loss.
For the first time in centuries, AZ's eyes softened.
Not much, but enough for Sam to see it.
A flicker of warmth behind the endless sorrow.
And somewhere far above, sunlight filtered through the cracks in the ruined ceiling, casting a soft golden glow over the two of them, like the gentle touch of an eternal flower.
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