Chương 424: Chapter 347 - Turning Point VI

If one is to speak of promises—those curious arrangements of words and will that bind people across time—then one might speak of a promise made not long ago, in the fleeting span of months, between two girls. It was simple in its terms, but heavy in its weight: they would survive at all costs through trial and tribulation to face each other at the Conference. Yes, the promise heralded a fight, but it was not just about the battle; it was also something else. Something more.

A pact that promised that they would live to see the summer. Grace Pastel and Cecilia Obel saved the world, ironically nearly destroying themselves in the process. They emerged from the experience changed for better or for worse, and Team Galactic had been scattered like ash to the wind. And yet, one battle remains. It waits not to decide the fate of the world, but to hopefully tie together all that has been unraveled. The two teenagers stare at each other as they wait for it to commence, eager for the fight.

The arena itself is a dry lakebed. Its surface is pale and cracked, the color of old bone, with jagged lines spiderwebbing outward in every direction. The ground is brittle underfoot, as though one careless step might send the whole thing collapsing into dust. Faint traces of water remain in shallow depressions, and worn-down stone pillars are scattered across the field, some tall, some broken. Cecilia's body feels confined, even in the looseness of her gray tunic and dark trousers.

She coils with tension as if preparing for a blow. Sweat traces a slow path down her face, and her fingers twitch restlessly around her first Pokeball as her lips curve upward in anticipation. Excitement practically spills out of Grace, yet she desperately tries to get in character—still herself, but perhaps something heralding more innocent days. Softer eyes, a more relaxed demeanor, a timid smile that remains ravenous despite her best efforts.

They wear their eagerness in different ways, but the feeling is the same, and it hums between the two like a taut string waiting to snap. Here they are, in the midst of the largest and most consequential tournament of the year. They'd met a year ago in the most random of ways, nearly sparking conflict. Their relationship had taken shape after shape. At the beginning came friendship. It was tentative at first, then certain. From friendship grew love, and from love, a kind of dependence that bordered on ruin.

They became each other's refuge, each other's vice, each other's drug, and when it all fell apart, they were left as nothing more than broken shards of glass capable of hurting those around them who were left to pick up the pieces. The referee announces the start of the battle, but like the swelling audience, he may as well not exist. Both girls' arms snap forward; they wordlessly release their Pokemon. For a moment, Grace is somewhere else.

She pictures their first encounter: Togetic facing Fletchling under a pale sky. She can smell the sweet scent of Floaroma's endless flowers, feel the chill of autumn wind blowing in her hair. She is no one. A first-year trainer looking to make a name for herself, a helpless girl with a crush on someone who seems a world away and who always looks past her. Bygone times could be so addicting if one let them; they always beckoned in your ear in the darkest of nights, asking what if so and so had been different.

Grace Pastel looks to the past, and Togekiss materializes in the air with a sing-song cry. The flying type's fur shimmers under the summer sun, where she sparkles like glitter. Her first child—her baby. Her everything who had known her when she was a scared city girl terrified of harm befalling her. Cecilia looks to the future. She sees herself one, five, ten years from now with everything she has to deal with behind her.

It steadies her fraying nerves, makes her stand up straighter, more confidently, and it allows her to look far ahead. It is the ultimate high that gives the illusion of certainty, and one she will have to be careful not to chase. A desk inside a high rise with all of Castelia below her, where she stands as Gym Leader; A clipboard in hand atop Mount Vertress, advising an Elite Four member with practiced ease; a brief, glorious moment atop the Draconic Throne as Champion herself.

That is the thing about the future: unlike the past, it is a tentative thing. Uncertain, unfocused, a puff of smoke. One can dream as big as they want without putting the effort in. Golurk emerges from his Pokeball a stalwart figure that seems larger than life. First on one knee, the automaton rises to his feet, each movement smooth and deliberate like Cecilia desires to be. The ground sinks slightly under his weight; however, it solidifies when Golurk orders it to do so. The referee slashes his hand down.

This was, is, and will be for everything. The battle begins.

"Lehmhart sets the stage for those who will come after," Cecilia solemnly starts. Music spills out of the construct in ghostly waves. Like an ominous wind, it presses against any who would hear its folly unprotected. So much is its weight that it makes the entire ground vibrate and bend under the beautiful melody. Through the shifting of its inner workings—low grinding gears, the rhythmic pulse of pistons, the hum of ancient mechanisms moving in concert—a song is created.

Yet Togekiss' domain is the sky, and a barrier isolating for sound is made in a flash to counter. The fairy circles high above. Missile-like artefacts of stone peel off the lakebed and follow her every move, each is large as she and as sharp as a honed spike. Words continue to leave Cecilia's mouth.

"His shell is iron made manifest." Golurk's clay armor glimmers with a metallic sheen. The Unovan thinks forward, always forward, to every machination Grace could trap her with, but their opponent already takes action.

"S—slam them down on his head!" Grace yells with uncertainty. Cecilia remembers this is how she used to speak in her first few battles; she has seen the recording of her battle against Roark. Grace is inexperienced. She doesn't yet know what can work and what won't, which commands carry importance and which ones are little more than noise. She is grasping at instincts that haven't fully formed, hoping they'll be enough, but she will grow quickly. To Golurk's right stands one of the pillars littering the lakebed.

Order and narration flow from Cecilia's mouth, and the ghost picks it up, splitting it in two over his knee. As dust and shards of stone cloud his surroundings, the first of Togekiss' missiles catches fire. Then another. And another. They slam into Lehmhart, but the automaton stands true. Both of Golurk's arms rumble, flying upward like jet engines and still carrying the two broken stones.

"He wishes so dearly he did not stand alone. He wants a future to fight for. Friends. Family. Poltergeist!" the Unovan says. Ghostly abominations crawl out of cracks left by Golurk's wind and possess the two pillars. They split further and further aided by Golurk's arms—Togekiss tries to slow things down, but if there is one thing the fairy has rarely faced, it is fighting an opponent capable of juggling as many tasks as she is.

"Never alone will he face life's troubles again." Togekiss tries to wrest control of the stones from Golurk through Ancient Power, but his friends remain by his side. Grace realizes something as her daughter fights to dodge and counter every Shadow Ball that the possessed shard of rocks throw at her, burning away the hungry souls that risked clipping her wings with her Dazzling Gleams. They have lost control of the skies. She steadies her excitement and bites her inner cheek so hard it burns raw.

She's nervous, but excitement at the passion for battle sneaks up on her like a Kecleon. Her inexperienced mind races to find a solution—she did not expect to be caught off-guard so quickly. This is a story, yes; in fact, it might as well be the climax. But it is also a battle. A fight in the mud for a knife that spells your devastating doom or your glorious victory. Character or not, she is well to remember this.

The Poltergeists flicker out like candles in the wind when Togekiss' light singes them; they scream and scream and scream as the object that binds them to this world can no longer hold onto them. They try to overwhelm her, but only few make it to her barrier and begin to eat at it. Grace rubs at her wrist, her Meltan, and her teeth flash for a split second before she catches herself. She plans to evolve this battle—to change in the span of minutes instead of months—but not so soon.

"Light him on fire!" Grace tries. The flames catch slowly at first, as if unsure whether something so ancient and clay-bound can truly burn. Then, it takes. It licks up the Golurk's body in long, deliberate tongues, casting its towering frame in hues of orange and blue. It does not hurt him much, not yet at least, but it will remain constant.

"Now concentrate your wind." There is another wind that permeates the battlefield other than Golurk's hymn of machinery he somehow makes sound like an orchestra. A wordless one borne of belief that Togekiss brings with her whenever she goes. It is always so subtle it is nearly silent, but then it gathers around Golurk in concentrated hues of pastel pink that feeds the flames. In another story, Grace tells herself, this would have been a good representation of the fire that now burns in her heart.

This attack is not without cost, however. Togekiss' barrier breaks down with a wordless scream and souls crawl across her body, staining it with their negativity. Another Dazzling Gleam bursts out of her, but it fails to expel every ghost and more are on their way. They leave a trail of sickly purple as she flies, whispering horrible things in her mind that beckon distortion, leading her toward— Grace's eyes focus. Toward one of Golurk's hovering fists.

Cecilia's own shimmer with hope as would two lonely pale stars in the night sky. They had been lying here in waiting, hovering in the air. A Dynamic Punch capable of shattering the little fairy's body should it make full contact. The fist closes and shines bright white, illuminating the entire field in its awesome glow, and flies to meet its mark. Like a lighthouse steers wayward ships home, the souls direct Togekiss as a mere suggestion she believes to be her own.

Grace yells as her daughter slowly turns toward the arm. They are on a collision course that almost feels set. Grace smirks and recalls Togekiss at the last possible second right before impact. They got her quicker than expected. She rolls her shoulders and rubs the side of her neck. How grand, she thinks, for Cecilia's Golurk to catch them so. She must have predicted this. Known that Grace would lead with her first Pokemon and used this tactic to counter them.

Meanwhile, she had believed that maybe Cecilia would match her. That they would recount their journey together and parse through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Cecilia Obel is her own person, even now. It is a toxic—albeit not entirely unfounded—belief that this entire battle revolves around her relationship with Grace that made the blond teenager believe she would lead with Talonflame. The fire type has the advantage in the air, or at least that is what Grace thought Cecilia believed.

For as much as Grace has changed and wants for Cecilia to move on, there remains an infinitesimal part of her that thinks she could have made Cecilia sing to the tune of her own song. That she would mirror her own intentions. Grace grabs her next Pokeball and faces the remaining Poltergeists. Golurk still burns, even if the fire is less intense, but the pink flames cling to him stubbornly, and the edges of his body have begun to melt like candle wax.

The ghost's arms return to his body just shy enough of the flames, able to still serve their original function. The girl's face grows a little more stern, for she has now brushed close to death and injury, but there is something else. A nascent thirst for violence that would only grow in time. Yes, Cecilia tells herself. I know you, Grace Pastel. Now send out your next Pokemon and let us spar some more. Let this moment last an eternity. The girls' eyes meet; thirty seconds have gone by.

The embodiment of a living mountain spews out of the Pokeball, and her roar shakes the foundation of the very ground Golurk stands on. She, too, sinks deeper in, breaking the earth with her weight until she solidifies it enough to stand on. Darkness spews out of every crag in her armor and oozes throughout the battlefield, sending the Poltergeists reeling. The golem's wind and song bounce off the mountain like it is an immutable wall. The Unovan's face falls.

Has she misread Grace—no, she is piecing their journey together and her progression as a person, looking to the past, recounting every tale and retracing every step. That was why she had come dressed in the outfit they had met in, why her face is now so guiltless. So why did she release Tyranitar and not Jellicent, her second Pokemon? No matter. It is not like she has time to think on it. Grace has already let her Tyranitar loose, and the rock type gathers water from shallow pools to Surf on.

At first, it is but a trickle, but from a single drop, the mightiest of rivers can form. The liquid seeps through the cracks in the ground, and Tyranitar mounts a massive slab of stone, riding it with impossible speed as the water surges beneath her.

"Golurk steadies himself and prepares to strike at a distance with Hammer Arm," Cecilia narrates. He follows her every word, once again sending his limbs away. The glow is less than Dynamic Punch, but pressure ripples in waves as they fly toward Tyranitar. Grace laughs and grins like a child does discovering candy for the first time. She knows how it feels to win, now. To see her opponents broken at her feet.

"Dark Pulse, Sweetheart!" Black, undulating beams shoot out of Tyranitar. They shimmer at the edges with absence—void given form, humming with the low, guttural sound of the mountain's muffled roars. The air distorts in their path, warping like heat haze under a sunless sky. Cecilia screams; Golurk's eyes shine brighter, the music swells, and every Poltergeist throws itself at the advancing Tyranitar.

They helplessly bounce off of her like pebbles thrown upon a brick wall, and they are unable to assail her mind, but it is naught but a distraction. The automaton's arms dodge the first Dark Pulse, then the next, and the next—but then one gets hit. Its engine stumbles like it is catching its breath, and it collapses against the lakebed. The second? Grace knows there is no time to intercept.

"Iron Def—" she stops herself when she sees the confidence in her youngest's back. There is no more tension in her stance, no fear in her shoulders. Only excitement.

"Crunch!" What is it that makes children so wondrous? The purity of their curiosity. The unfiltered need to know, to touch, to feel everything the world has to offer and to absorb all the information like a sponge. Put the average adult next to a Hydreigon, and they will scream, cry, run, freeze, or perhaps beg for mercy. A child, proven they are young enough, will look up at the dragon and tilt their head in awe. They might reach out a hand, not to strike or shield themselves, but simply to understand.

To feel the texture of scaled skin, to ask—without words—what are you? Can we play? Tyranitar—Sweetheart—is a fierce Pokemon, an apex predator, and also, some might forget, a toddler. This is the second leg of Grace's journey. She unearths the pleasure of violence, of winning, and it is where anything seems possible. She doesn't know her limits—she has not even begun to understand the complexities of the world.

She believes she can unseat Cynthia and become Champion in a year, despite not even knowing why she would want to. She believes she can delve into Coronet, saving Cecilia from her doom even though she would be going against one of the most powerful families in Unova. She believes that she can convince an agonized Turtonator who has lost everything that she can heal his heart and will burn half her body for it. She is brave and foolish and hurt. Sometimes, that bravery—that trust—pays off.

So when Tyranitar's darkened, endless teeth sink into the side of the arm, catching it mid-air before she can bear the brunt of the Hammer Arm's impact, there is no surprise. All she thinks is, 'of course I can do that.' The Surf hits Golurk at full force, extinguishing the flames around him, and then Tyranitar does what she does best. Her claws find heated softened clay and tear through it with ease. She drives him back, dragging his weight across the flooded ground as if he were nothing but a lump of rock.

He kicks, clumsily and off-balance; he collapses the earth beneath with a stomp, causing them to sink. It is no use. Cecilia lets him fall, watching the violent display to the end. She is mildly unsettled. How can she not be? To have gotten the Pokemon order wrong means that she no longer knows Grace as well as she thought she did. Still, Cecilia does not let this shake her. She steels herself, recalls Golurk, and clears her throat.

"Lehmhart may have fallen, but his influence lingers," the Unovan says as all the Poltergeists crawl back into Distortion. Even now, his music permeates the battlefield.

"His love and kindness will ripple for time immemorial." For those who come after. What a nice thought. Beyond the obvious glance into the distant future, it is also the sentiment that history is not moved by a singular Great Man, but by the countless, unseen hands that keep the wheels turning. From the smallest village to the world itself, you are naught but a cog in a well-oiled machine. Stories are just that. Stories. To move the world itself, you need influence. Reach. People.

This runs counter to everything her opponent holds true; this is the antithesis of Grace's understanding of the world. Cecilia Obel is a newborn. She barely has anyone left to cut out, and only one that she can call herself truly close to other than her Pokemon. The Unovan grabs the next cog in the machine.

"Golurk was meant to fall," she announces, "given that he was The Foresight To Think Ahead." Something smaller emerges from the crimson light. Red claws drip with poison that bubbles on contact with the damp earth, eating shallow pits into the stone. Her frame is lean, all sinew and sharp lines, and her yellow eyes pierce into the large Tyranitar as her throat swells with a croak. The music does not affect Toxicroak, not because of her typing, but because of Lehmhart's care.

"Toxicroak walks a treaded path," she quickly says. While Tyranitar had beaten Golurk handily, he had still helped them some. Cracks on her armor had formed around her jaw. Sand spills out of every crevice inside of her, darkened and silent, letting only whispers of Lehmhart's music through. In a moment, the Sandstorm has swarmed the entire battlefield.

"She stands vigilant, poised to strike at any moment." She scans the arena, unable to see anything. She can't even see Grace on the opposite platform. Can Toxicroak even hear her? Remembering the voice lessons Temperance taught her, Cecilia yells as loudly as she can.

"Pursuit!" For a few long, aching seconds that stretch into eternity, nothing happens. The sandstorm rages, pelting at the barrier in front of Cecilia like rain on a window. Even in her monochrome vision, the world beyond is grainy, blurred, and indistinct. It makes her feel an agonizing absence. Everything is so quiet it feels disconcerting. Wrong. Fighting a Tyranitar should be all screaming and terror, but it is not.

They tame the darkness of caves, the sandstorm and sand dunes of the deserts, and they ambush their prey, overwhelming them until they are dead before they can even fight. They are true apex predators—rulers of their environment. The Unovan allows herself to smile. Toxicroak, weak as she was when the Unovan found her, was only so in strength and not in spirit. It was her, after all, who had tried to fight against Abel to save her friend Wooper from being kidnapped, even when she was hopelessly outmatched.

"But once in a while, something has the Audacity To Fight Back." Pursuit, Cecilia has found, is a peculiar move. It can be used to disturb a Pokeball's energy, making it easier to hit before it is recalled, but it can also be used to track. Not in the way one tracks footprints or scent, but through motion itself—through intention. It latches onto the thread of an escape, the barest twitch of momentum, and so, it can be used to sense movement.

Of course, in a Tyranitar's tailor-made environment, it might be too much to ask, but with a Dark Gem… The sandstorm wanes, allowing her to peer through for a moment, and she nearly gasps. There are two impacts. The familiar soothing glow of a Drain Punch blooms against Tyranitar's abdomen. The light seeps into her plating, and a spiderweb of fine fractures spreads across the green armor. Thin, branching lines that shimmer with residual energy before settling into stillness. She's been hit. Truly hit.

Pain flashes across her face, her breaths are heavy, and she struggles to stand up straight. And then the second impact comes. Beneath Toxicroak, the earth shakes with terrible force. A sudden, upward shock splits the ground open, and jagged stone spears erupt from below. Soil and steam explode into the air as the battlefield bucks beneath the two creatures' weight. Grab her, Grace yells, and Tyranitar does so, using the Earthquake to her advantage.

Toxicroak is stronger than she looks, but she can't possibly break out of Tyranitar's hold should Cecilia order it. Yet, the Unovan stays calm. Hands neatly folded behind her back, she watches as bright flames bulge in the goliath's throat. For once, she is silent and lets the action speak for itself. The fire swallows Toxicroak whole; it engulfs her with a roar that would burn any man to smithereens.

It floods from the creature's jaws in a chaotic torrent without care, and behind Tyranitar is an unrestrained smile. The fire is Grace, and Grace is joy. Cecilia smiles back.

"Toxicroak takes her Revenge." The fire ripples like water, and a limb covered in burns bursts through the blaze. Unlike Hammer Arm or Focus Punch, this one neither glows nor howls with power. It does not warp the air or make it heavier. It is sharp, deliberate, and quiet, just like its wielder. Toxicroak, Cecilia knows, has never been one to be flashy. It is not meant to impress. It is meant to land. The fist punctures Tyranitar's stomach like a blade finding its sheath in one smooth motion.

The entire ordeal lasts one to two seconds at best, but Cecilia knows that it must have felt like an eternity to her companion. Toxicroak slumps soon afterward, collapsing as the flames dissipate. Tyranitar stumbles, blood pours out of her wound, the sandstorm stops completely, she gasps and— Remains standing, even in the sunken ground. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things. Her next Pokemon would swiftly deal with her.

Cecilia knew coming into this that Tyranitar would be the single, biggest problem to her team, and now she has been dealt with, if at a great cost. That is not to mean that she is doing fine, however. Cecilia knows she is behind. Grace knows it, too. She wipes the sweat on her hands off her jeans and licks her lips.

She had not expected Toxicroak to be capable of staying conscious long enough to strike when besieged by such a close-range Flamethrower, especially with her Dry Skin, but she is still in a good position to complete her story first.

"You did great, Sweetie," she praises, but her daughter is too weak to respond. She considers recalling her, but decides not to—not when there is a chance she could land a hit on whoever Cecilia sends out next. Right now, it appears she is waiting to weaken Tyranitar as much as she can. Ah. Grace feels her thoughts racing; she considers every possibility as she always does when there is even an ounce of respite.

While half of her imagines what she will do against every Pokemon her opponent might send, she narrows in on a previous thought—finishing her story first. She cannot gauge what tale Cecilia is weaving so far, but feels the need to cut her off. She believes Cecilia already knows hers, but perhaps not what it is meant to say. Face me. Look at me—every part of me that you've seen. That, and something else— No more time. Cecilia releases her next choice.

The psychic rises with no effort at all, lifted by something unseen and a flicker of his wrist. In the air, he remains perfectly still with his hands behind his back, mirroring his trainer. Tyranitar offers a weak roar of defiance scraped from the bottom of her lungs, but Slowking's eyes scan the field with a calm sigh. There is no urgency in him. He does not attempt to escape or rush to the fight; he is instead above it all, literally and figuratively.

"Dark Pulse." Grace tries to hope that it will land. The darkened rings tighten in Tyranitar's mouth, and she lets the beam out with a muffled grunt; Slowking simply floats out of the way and counters with Water Cutter. The current bends and divides into a dozen different jets that twist and turn, then convert directly on Tyranitar's wound. Her eyes roll into the back of her skull, and she falls without a word.

New experiences allowed the Grace of old to savor the delicacy of battle—of the thrill of being steps away from victory or defeat, to be on either side of a knife's edge. Freedom away from her parents made them not realize who she was becoming, and her friends were too inexperienced with life or preoccupied with their own affairs to notice until it was too late. The only time Grace remembers the audience is to honor her parents, friends, therapist, and girlfriend who have pulled her from the brink.

But for now, she must look back and become cruel. Cecilia stares at the dragon who faces her with a breath held tight in her chest. The air around the creature simmers and shakes. White-hot flames leak from his snout that burn the very essence of the earth, and water evaporates around him in seconds. His tail scrapes the fragile ground, leaving black streaks in its wake. There is no familiar roar, no posturing, no Flamethrower up at the sky, but a calm stare up at Slowking.

Turtonator is the promise of something violent. He moves slowly, deliberately, dragging his bulk like a siege engine given consciousness. Jagged spines rise from his shell, designed to maim and scorch whoever would dare strike. Cecilia begins to understand Grace's aims, now. Where she herself seeks meaning in fragments—six reflections of a self still forming—Grace wants her entire team to reflect her journey as a whole. She understands what each Pokemon she has used represents.

Disturbed by the remnants of Golurk's song, Turtonator squints and shakes his head in discomfort. The ground beneath him, already weakened by heat and weight, sinks slightly, and he stumbles a little. His very own presence can be a terrifying one, but he seems uncomfortable. As if his very existence is an uneven, ugly thing. This is it, the Unovan thinks. An opportunity to equalize— Grace glares, points up at Slowking, and slips into a grin. Cecilia flinches at the familiar sight.

"Get up there and cripple him," Grace says savagely. She has learned to enjoy violence; it is new, fresh, liberating, and most of all, it makes her believe she is just so powerful. Such a potent lie for a child to fall to. Turtonator slams his tail against his shell, and it erupts. The blast scorches the earth beneath him in a violent bloom, sending up shards of stone and a cloud of smoke thick enough to blot out his silhouette for a single moment. He emerges from the smoke in an upward arc.

It is not graceful, but it need not be. Turtonator doesn't ascend so much as detonate his way skyward, each burst from his shell an exhale of fury too dense to stay bound to the earth. Young cruelty is a wild thing. It does not strategize. It does not hesitate. It takes the most direct path to its destination, and whatever stands in the way is collateral.

"Slowking evades and clips Turtonator's wings with Disable," Cecilia quickly narrates. The psychic's eyes dull for a moment, and the next time Turtonator slams his shell, nothing but a pathetic gout of fire sputters out. Better cut off the TE at the source than constantly evade, especially when Slowking is slow in the air, she thinks.

"He follows through," Cecilia murmurs, "and seals away the fire entirely." Turtonator collapses back to earth with an ear-shattering crash. He immediately scrambles up as Cecilia orders more attacks at a distance, retreating into his shell just in time to hide away from more Water Cutters. They strike like thin and merciless whips, slicing into his armor with sharp, wet cracks.

He endures it only long enough to build momentum, then scuttles away in a blur of motion, spinning low to the ground in a Rapid Spin that throws up grit and steam in his wake. Occasionally, he tries to retaliate. Dragon Pulses lack in their usual fiery luster and wash helplessly against Slowking's barrier without leaving so much as a crack; Scale Shots burst from his shell like shrapnel, but they are far too scattered to land at range.

The dragon's mastery of Rock Tomb finds itself too lacking to reach that high as well, and without the sun overhead, Solar Beam proves slow and cumbersome enough to simply dodge. He is a beast, yes, as is Grace, but they have been caged, and should Grace be unable to fulfill his narrative, then her entire battle plan would fall apart. Without fire, Turtonator is naught but a child raging at what he cannot control.

Finally, he roars, shaking his head at the incessant music that disturbs his concentration that might just break him out of this disable, and suddenly, cruelty appears a lot more childish than it did at first. No longer will this have the narrative punch Grace desires. Slowking does not laugh, nor does he mock. He would rather execute. He has done well to cut off the dragon's fire, but they need more to take him down. Turtonator are coldblooded creatures that are not fit for frigidity.

Ordinarily, he would burn hot enough to stave off the cold with his sheer presence. But now, robbed of his inner blaze, they can bring him down through temperature alone. Grace is frustrated—how can she not be? Their wings have been clipped. They can endure, yes, for Slowking was never built for swift destruction, but endurance means nothing when all roads lead to a slow, quiet loss. She seethes, jaw clenched and knuckles white, her gaze fixed on Cecilia with enough anger for her head to spin.

Her enemy pays her no mind as if she does not exist. Grace hates this feeling. Hates the stillness. Hates the helplessness that wraps around her like cold iron. She would make them all pay the long price. She commands ruin, holds devastation that is capable of killing anyone in her path, yet once that is taken away, she is nothing but a girl. Only Grace Pastel.

It is in moments like these that she closes her eyes and remembers that red-haired woman toying with her, haunting her nightmares—"It is never good to get lost in your own head," Cecilia whispers. This battle, she speaks partially to herself. It is a comforting way of taking stock of everything she must change.

"That is why, Slowking knows, one needs the Acumen To Take A Step Back." Another barrage of blades of water strike at Turtonator's shell. Cracks keep spreading, and the dragon groans in pain.

"To sleep on things before making a rash decision, to take stock of your options, and maybe, just maybe, to not be so serious all the time." —and Grace sinks deeper into the pit. Break out of the cage. A joke is told by Slowking and Cecilia. Laughter rings around Grace's ears, but it grows deformed and twisted. Snowflakes begin to fall onto the lakebed. Break out of the cage. Water spun from Slowking's will hits the ground and turns to ice in seconds, webbing over the terrain in gleaming veins.

A low, creeping fog follows, curling around the broken pillars and stretching across the arena like a shroud. Break out of the cage. A groan escapes Turtonator. He tries to stand, but slips onto the ice and cannot even get back on his feet. With what little remains of his strength, he looks back at his trainer, unconsciousness calling. She has been silent for so long—why? Was she not a warrior who commanded his respect, his leader to follow in battle? His fire had been taken away, but where is hers?

But then, for a moment, his eyes meet hers, and that is all he needs to feel reassurance. A cornered beast is a creature stripped of all but instinct and the desperate will to live. It has nothing left to lose. And so it lashes out, desperate for survival, clawing and biting at anything that moves. There is something almost pitiful in the way it fights. It is wild and aimless, driven more by fear than fury. Yet, even in its despair, it remains dangerous.

"Shell Smash!" Grace's throat hurts because of the force of her words; her fingernails dig into her palm. With the last of his energy, Turtonator cracks his shell open right down the middle with a splitting, explosive sound, and Slowking gasps; the psychic's eyes lose their dull grey color, and the dragon's fire roars back to life. The thread has been cut. Disable, at its most complex form, is capable of cutting off the very lifeblood of a Pokemon's capabilities, but it is a punishing, complex technique.

The sudden burst of energy surging from Turtonator overwhelms Slowking's deep concentration entirely like a controlled blaze growing wild in an instant. Flames pour from the breach in Turtonator's shell, licking up the brittle air and painting the cold fog in shades of molten white gold. He is a star born from rebellion, from the refusal to stand down, from what makes him a dragon—but he is a weak one. His light flickers as much as it burns, his breath is ragged, his footing is uneven.

And yet, that is what makes it beautiful. Not because he will solve everything, but because he dares to exist and defy their fate at all.

"Slowking cuts off the beast's flames again!" The surge of panic in her voice is like music to Grace's ears.

"He flies up and—""Get up there and drag that little worm back to the ground! Supernova!" Grace screams with a feral grin. It is her first time giving this order, but her partner understands immediately. He has all the tools at his disposal. This time, there is no stopping them. Turtonator blurs in a mess of flame and color, washing away the snow around the arena. He leaves behind a trail of gouging flames that burn with the determination to live as its fuel.

Countless detonations burst beneath his shell in rapid succession, so many so fast that it appears as one continuous explosion. Calm and composed as always, Slowking's wrist flicks up—but in barely two seconds, the gap has already closed. The drake tears through the air in a spiral of fire, and when he reaches the psychic, it is like a dying star hurled against a mirror. The first barrier shatters on impact, bursting in a wave of colorless light. The second groans under the pressure, but is destroyed all the same.

The third bends, warping like heat-blurred glass. And then it is burned to smithereens. With a tired, satisfied grin, Turtonator latches onto Slowking, and they begin to sink like a falling star. The psychic's pained groans are obscured by the roar of the flames, but despite this, he manages to gather his thoughts and assault Turtonator's brain. Blood seeps from his eyes and instantly evaporates, but the dragon refuses to let go.

He glows brighter, burns stronger, bites into the Slowking's throat with burning fangs, becomes a hypnotizing sight until— Ah. He lets go. He tumbles down, crashes into the lakebed with an impact that splits the earth. The ground caves beneath him, brittle and sun-bleached, and for one terrible second, everything holds still. Grace holds her breath. Then the explosion comes. It is deafening, all-consuming; it is a sound that feels too large and encompasses the entire stadium and beyond.

Fire blossoms outward in a blinding sphere and turns the cracked earth of the arena into jagged ruin. Both girls shield their eyes, but the brightness pierces their eyelids as if they aren't even there. Stone pillars crumble where they stand, collapsing as the shockwave ripples out from the crater. Turtonator's aspirations crumble, and he is left a smoldering ruin, his body broken and shattered. Only unconsciousness spares him an agony his body cannot endure. Grace glances up and sees Slowking, burned, but living.

He floats unsteadily in the sky without his usual poise. Chunks of his pale pink hide are scorched raw, blistered and peeling where fire had licked too long. The Shellder crown fused to his skull is smeared with soot and blood, some of it his, some of it not. He lets out wet, raspy coughs, and with each breath, a trail of smoke hitches from his throat. One arm hangs limp at his side, trembling, useless; blood runs slow and steady from the deep gash along the side of his neck.

His eyes are glassy, half-lidded, but the light in them has not gone out. He is a sorry sight, mangled beyond the pale, yet his mental fortitude keeps him standing. Surprisingly, there is no rage that consumes her. Instead it is something cold that comes from the depths of her mind, thoughts her current self is now desperate to keep hidden. She's tried to bury them, the part of herself that thinks in absolutes, in costs and consequences, that every deal has a winner and a loser, but she lets them surface now.

Just this once. This time, Grace does not wait. Not for the thirty seconds granted, not for the smoke to clear, not for the ache to settle. There is no mercy in battle. In one smooth motion, Turtonator is recalled and no warmth is given to the dragon that so desperately fought in her name. There is no time for pleasantries when they have a fight to win. Victory or defeat, after all, is the difference between survival or death.

Cecilia wipes the sweat off the back of her neck and takes the small opportunity to breathe. She understands that Grace is trying to reminisce on their journey, their time together, so she already knows that only one Pokemon would fit her narrative next. A creature of the depths emerges, ancient, bloated, and still. It floats without movement slightly above ground like a corpse forgotten in the ocean.

Red, lidless eyes pierce through the dust and flames still ravaging the arena after Turtonator's explosion, and a soft, pleasant series of whistles and clicks spread through the battlefield. The sound feels far too charming to come from such a monster, yet it is also slightly distorted, as if it had come from deep below the waves. Cruelty has multiple facets.

When one discovers how much power they truly wield at their fingertips and use it for any means they desire, it can feel like a high rarely ever reached by anything else. Power is a drug, but it is also a means to an end, and tolerance for it builds quickly. Adrenaline-pumping fights soon become cold and calculated—you clear your mind and try to find the most efficient way to kill, because twisting the knife for the fiftieth time just isn't fun anymore. Sadism withers and soon gives way to apathy.

Jellicent has spent decades embodying that emotion. He lay in wait, months at a time, conserving his energy, and struck at whatever he could drain and kill. Back then, time had just been another tide to wait out. Grace whispers something, and the ghost dissolves into mist that spreads throughout the entire arena. Not even Lehmhart's music disturbs the sea monster; he seems at home in it and its ghostly whispers.

"Slowking deftly lands back on the ground and cuts off water." That last word is said with bite. Already, the pink-skinned psychic drops down to earth. His eyes flash grey, and— Another whisper from Grace, and Jellicent's eyes within the fog dim. Slowking's own widen, and an uncharacteristic rage takes hold of him. Water surges from his mouth in a high-pressure torrent, smashing into the stone below with such force that the ground splinters apart.

Shards of shattered rock levitate around him, caught mid-air in the grasp of his Psychic, and without a pause, he flings them forward. They helplessly penetrate the mist and fly through without causing any harm.

"Slowking focuses," Cecilia tries.

"He focuses." He does not; he has been overwhelmed by anger and the urge to fight. Taunt, the Unovan realizes. Her partner would grow accustomed to it if given enough time, but did they have that? The mist envelops Slowking, remaining thin enough to see him through, but then it enters him. It crawls through his nostrils, mouth, and even eyelids.

For a heartbeat, terror grips Cecilia—she remembers the many times Grace has told her that this was the most efficient way Jellicent had of killing—but she remembers it is nothing but a battle. Cecilia shakes it off just as Slowking convulses, his body arching as thin strands of violet smoke begin to seep from his pores. They whisper out of him like pressurized steam from a cracked pipe. The monster is boiling Slowking from the inside and hitting him with a Hex. Cecilia stops herself from clicking her tongue.

Take a step back. Take a step back. Unlike Grace, her own Pokemon are but facets of the personality she wishes to have. While her having recalled Togekiss had essentially killed her narrative purpose in the fight and so effectively rendered her unusable, Cecilia's plan was not so convoluted. She recalls Slowking before the damage grows irreversible, a beam of red light rescuing him just as he gets down on one knee. He is badly hurt, but perhaps a Slack Off as soon as he reappears may salvage this.

What now, she asks herself. To fight this version of Grace is to meet her at her worst, at her most ruthless, at her most difficult to battle. Oh, they had done terrible things together, hadn't they? Snuffed enough lives between the two of them to have potentially affected thousands of people—their families and friends. Some of these were warranted. Self-defense cases where it was truly her or her opponent—but others? Blinded by the rage of Justin's death, the Unovan had not tried to spare them like Grace had.

She hadn't even tried. The idea of revenge always feels so good. Once upon a time, Cecilia wanted to hurt her father for hurting her, to beat her brother and take the Championship away from him for leaving her behind and for saving their father's skin, to kill Jupiter and as many Galactic grunts for taking Justin away from her. Revenge consumes a person's mind and turns them into a machine capable of only caring for a single thing: the rush you would get once you finally got what you wanted.

But the pain always remains. It is what has made her lose her friends, what made her lash out and use people, what made her not realize that she almost lost her dear Pokemon she cherishes so much her heart feels full whenever she is in their presence. She'd done so much wrong. Fingers clasp around the metal of a Pokeball. She remembers meeting her first Pokemon for the first time, that feisty little Deino that tried to scarf down everything that would get near him as if it were food.

He had nearly chewed her hand when she tried to let him smell her. While Talonflame came close, he had known her the longest. What Cecilia finds beautiful about the way she is battling is that none of her Pokemon changed themselves to fit what she needed to showcase what she hopes to become in the future. The truth of it all is, she has seen them, fought with them, experienced everything with them, and now they each embody a part of what she wants to become. She wants them to be the sum of her parts.

When one thinks of a Hydreigon, they think of the embodiment of rage—a three-headed hydra that would blast anything encroaching too close to its territory and leave its corpse still scorched with draconic burns as a warning. In Unova, they are seen as antonyms to civilization. Tales are woven about them to scare children to force them to behave; they are the beasts that lurk in the darkness, high up mountains, ready to sink their teeth into your flimsy flesh.

One might think, then, that Zolst represents a streamlined, focused anger that Cecilia could control, one she could direct at those who deserved it. If she is to be honest with herself, Cecilia is tired of being angry, and there is another facet to Unova's most famous dragon. Hydreigon are also revered for the way they carve through the world without flinching. They are creatures of conviction who rarely doubt themselves, and for that, humans across Unova have looked upon them with awe.

They adorn old regional flags and war emblems, their three heads painted in bold strokes beside swords and laurels. A child with a temper might be nicknamed little Deino as a sign of affection. In old towns, folk still recite sayings like ' All three heads must sleep before a Hydreigon rests,' spoken about relentless people who can't relax until every task or worry is settled. Cecilia summons her dearest Zolst with a deep breath, and he responds in kind.

He emerges with a calm exhale and his wings stretched wide, his silhouette cutting against the smoldering crater beneath him. Ash and dust stir at his arrival, drawn upward in loose spirals that scatter across the battlefield. His heads do not snap at the air, begging to be let loose against an enemy; they stand at attention, eyes narrowing at Jellicent, who had reformed himself and drifted back to Grace's side of the arena.

"You've been with me since the beginning, seen me change the most. Down south, you learned just as I did." Somehow, the music swells with her words. She tries to hold her voice steady, but it breaks. What the three Gengar who had killed her and remade her anew had taught her was not only that she was a fellow ghost who had so far left no mark, but this.

Despite the terror one has wrought in the past, despite how they can be perceived, "is there anything sweeter than—" Jellicent moves—Grace must have whispered something.

"—the Heart To Be Remembered Fondly." The ghost lunges in a jet of compressed water, then vanishes into vapor halfway through, his body slipping back into the fog like he was never there. Here they come, the ultimate foe. The want to do good against the want to hurt.

"Zolst stands perfectly still." Not one head moves even an inch. Only his wings are a continuous shift of motion. Cecilia can see her starter's breaths—the temperature is plummeting.

"He gathers electricity in two mouths and draconic energy in the other." The left head crackles first, sparks coiling along its fangs like threads of golden wire pulled too tight. Cecilia imagines Temperance's lessons, the way her voice strains when the Unovan makes—made mistakes. Then, the second, its electricity wilder, freer; it expands with a flash and blooms like the laughter of a child running downhill.

Cecilia blinks and sees Ari's booming smile and lust for freedom, of Lehmhart and Zolst taking him to fly like he wished so dearly. From the central head, the glow builds—deeper, slower, a heartbeat of draconic force gathering behind gritted teeth. Within a second, the three energies gather in front of all heads and mix together with a delicate balance that had blown up in their faces hundreds of times. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Yet, this time.

"Stormsurge." This time, it flies. Turquoise lightning, almost alive in the way it is shaped like a drake's maw, in the way it lets loose a roar that makes her inner ears rumble, in the way it spreads and forms teeth and a body and—Grace's eyes widen. She hasn't seen Hydreigon do this before, not even in the battles she has studied, but she is no longer that child who gets caught off-guard by a hidden technique every Gym Battle, that little girl whose legs shake at the sight of the unexpected.

She barely has time to whisper to Jellicent.

"Scatter. Lure the electricity—" The mist divides like the tide withdrawing. Tendrils of vapor twist and peel away from his core, unspooling like silk caught in a sudden wind. Some race low along the ground, curling around rocks and craters, while others rise upward and thread into the sky like climbing smoke. A bit of himself remains and liquefies the moment the electricity hits and directs it away, but it is a breathing, living thing, infused by the draconic urge to conquer and rule. It doesn't lash out. No.

It swarms them and coils through the fog with a dull hum, freezing him in space. Fighting Jellicent is a headache. Even Grace herself can and has admitted that. She'd even made him leave a little bit of mist close to her so she could speak to him through the barrier instead of a real, tangible part of him that can be blown away as Byron had done to her. They have, however, found a way to make the damage stick.

As Jellicent reforms slowly, like a clump of cells knitting themselves back together, his red eyes flicker and the turquoise electricity fries him again. He tries once more, only to get the same results; the ghost lets out a wordless, frustrated scream that makes the temperature plummet into the negatives. Grace's mind races with a hundred ideas at once within seconds.

Recover doesn't work he can hurt us he can kill us we can't enter him think think think what can I do can we stall with Protect can I make him run wild with Taunt even though he's a dark type can I pressurize Hydro Pump strongly enough to pierce his scales what about Night Shade bombings ice ice ice use ice— The stream is never-ending, and she does not panic. This version of her has managed to cut off that weakening emotion like a rotting limb.

It is the kind of thought process that lets her torture an overworked Gym Leader in need of help, that lets her kill a hostage just to get to their assailant, that lets her cut into a man's legs and watch him get mentally tortured until he takes his own life. So once more, as Cecilia wastes her time with pretty words and descriptive narration and Hydreigon gathers his strength, Grace asks herself: what does the girl want? To kill— To win at all costs.

She does not even think about the battle as a whole, just about the current fight in front of her, because that is the essence of survival. To put one foot in front of the other before worrying about your destination. She has it. She whispers a series of orders so quickly she can barely pronounce the words. It has been eleven seconds since Stormsurge hit Jellicent. Something begins to gather in the crater.

"... so once again, call upon those who lay the path for you. Draconic Remembrance!" The world darkens, not with the familiar void of Darkness, but with the familiar chill of ghosts, and it is not Jellicent's doing. The sea monster spills out into the world and expands into a blast of salty frost as Lehmhart's song beats the last of its notes. Like the final part of a song played on a piano, but somehow stretching and stretching forever until it surrounds and disorients her.

Grace cannot believe Hydreigon can push, pull, and command ghosts—even with help—but she has no time to worry about it. From little cracks in the air crawl cold, purple horrors, each malformed and lined with countless eyes, teeth and tentacles. They scream, but their voice is drowned out by the music. Jellicent doesn't have time to make them look right. They fly in an arc like a barrage of missiles as the world itself goes turquoise.

Zolst rises to meet them; one head shoots it out of the sky with Dark Pulse while the others continue to tame the lingering ghostly energy in the air; however it is only one head, and dozens of Night Shades. Some land, and when they do, they coat Hydreigon in ice and turn him sluggish just as they'd done to Turtonator. Jellicent reforms as a gaping maw below the floor and swallows Zolst whole until he is blown apart by another darkened blast and has to retreat. Everything is but a distraction.

Grace covers her ears and smiles as she keeps whispering orders. That is the thing with grand attacks—they need time and concentration. Theirs would be grand, too. Each part of Jellicent which had been blown up slithers across the ground like Ekans lurking in the undergrowth. They circle the crater's edge, dig through the cragged earth, and leave behind trails of frost that glitter like glass. They all gather back to their objective all along. The final Night Shade is a true giant.

It towers inside the crater, tentacles flowing like kelp in the sea, its body moving as if it floats in water only it can feel. Ghostly mist clings to its form, pulsing in waves, and above it, countless red eyes blink open, one by one, in silent rhythm. Then, the real Jellicent arrives—no longer whole, smaller, and severely weakened due to Recover being cut off—but enough. He slips into the giant's chest, and the mist welcomes him.

His body unravels into tendrils of fog that weave through the tentacles, the bulbous head, and the eyes until he is spread thin. The clone straightens. The frost deepens. The blinking stops, and resumes, this time with all eyes in unison. A single, deep whistle reverberates through the arena, this time possible to hear through the music. The Night Shade lives.

"Zolst focuses; he knows he can do this—he has worked too hard and come too far to fail now," Cecilia says warmly, and somehow, that is all that is needed. Grace scoffs in disbelief, but they are in too deep to stop now. Hydreigon steadies in the air, wings held wide, and all heads seem to smile. Little purple dots light up all over the arena like stars through thick smoke.

"Hydro Pump," Grace whispers. The sheer amount of water that gathers in front of the abomination's mouth would be enough to fill the massive crater twice-over. It coils and churns in the air, thick with pressure, glinting with frost. The dots flash. The music swells. Then they start to detonate. Not all at once—no, they go in rhythm with the music, like a heartbeat unraveling, a chain of turquoise draconic fire snapping into place around Zolst.

Each blast hangs in the air after it bursts, suspended by ghostly energy—glowing, spinning, waiting. They refuse to fade; they are a continuous cacophony of explosions. Still, the Hydro Pump fires. It crashes through the arena like a tidal wave that would drown and wash away anything in its path. Hydreigon's two heads roar for the first time, their eyes flash, but their paltry hold over water—one of their weakest elements—renders this attempt no better than trying to empty a lake with nothing but a cup.

He tries to get out of the way, but it follows him and hits the dragon at full force. The explosions hit the shade, chewing at its edges at first, and then unraveling its entire structure exponentially. Segments of the Night Shade's vast form collapse inwards like dried skin, arms drooping and vanishing into black mist, the crown crumbling like coral dried in the sun.

For a moment, there is only the sound of rushing water and the shimmer of detonations flaring behind it, then even that goes quiet, and Lehmhart's song finally ends. Jellicent is nothing but a puddle on the floor, if even that. He has rarely been weakened this badly, and there are naught but slivers of him left scattered all over the battlefield. He has traced a ravine in the arena with his Hydro Pump, from the crater all the way to the edge at Cecilia's platform.

His Night Shade is gone, only leaving the faintest trace it has ever existed in the form of lingering miasma in the air. Everything is flooded with only a few remaining pillars rising above the surface; the water still churns and churns, creating large waves that wash harmlessly against the barrier. Something else lingers in the air, fading, darkened nuclei that her opponent had detonated.

Hydreigon remains afloat, coughing water out of his lungs through all of his mouths and barely hovering in the air above the water. His chest is caved in, nearly all his scales have been peeled off, and he barely hovers in the air. His eyes flicker, still with a smile on his face, and he stares Grace down from below as if to taunt her. Grace understands him. Good triumphs over evil eventually, he hacks out. Fortune favors the kindhearted. Grace scoffs. It doesn't. It clearly doesn't.

Throughout history, tyrants have ruled swathes of territory, criminals have wrought untold pain upon the earth, people like Backlot and Mars and countless others have managed to live their lives undisturbed until she put a knife to their throat and made them stop. She hurt them like they hurt others, like they hurt her. Yet, the words stick with her. She finishes recalling Jellicent and thinks as she bites her lip. She remembers a time—a time where she would go out of her way to do good, even for strangers.

She helped the girl who now faces her despite barely knowing her and her having threatened her in a bathroom stall, befriending her without any advantages. She helped a Larvitar who had lost her mother, adopting her as her own. She helped Turtonator while he grieved for his trainer, scarring her own body to reach his heart. Through the silence, Grace laughs, surprising even herself. A moral lesson? From a Hydreigon? Arceus bless him, he may not be right, but Grace wants to believe him.

She is a monster, but he reaches out regardless and gives her a chance to rekindle her humanity. The teenager affectionately rubs the metallic bracelet around her wrist and finally remembers who she is; she has scared even herself, sinking back into a way of thinking that had made her nearly lose everything. She must learn how to be a person again, and she knows who best would help her write that story.

"... yet, their presence still lingers," Cecilia finishes, wide-eyed and lips hurting from smiling. Zolst has performed beyond her wildest expectations. They've practiced eight of these hybrid techniques—carefully mixing and matching Type Energy, measuring out just enough of each to avoid collapse. Precision over power. Art over instinct. And all of it is only possible thanks to Temperance's patient guidance.

Yet much like hopes of becoming a full-fledged person, he is a flailing newborn learning to walk in this department. It takes a lot out of him, and he can't use a third.

"You feel it in the air, don't you?" Here is the thing about ghosts: they remember. They last an eternity and will think, feel, experience until the world itself unravels and withers. It is written into the world that ghosts are harbingers of negativity. Sorrow, anger, envy, regret, on and on, and on and on. One might sometimes wonder, then—most of the time children learning about their dear world in class—if ghosts can ever truly be happy. Cecilia spreads her arms open.

"Unbridled joy!" Of course, they can! The spirits laugh and laugh as they swirl around Hydreigon, their forms bright and fluid, glowing a vibrant turquoise. They hold onto this world without a ghost type's guidance by clinging to the draconic energy lingering in the air like a lifeline, and she will need them for the rest of this battle. She has helped them see the world again, helped them listen to music and had Lehmhart converse with them, and so they would pay her back in kind.

Was being remembered fondly not wonderful? Did it not fill your heart with happiness to the point of overflowing into your body and altering your own behavior? The way you stood a little taller, breathed a little deeper, smiled without meaning to? Did it not soften the way you moved, loosen your hands, draw your shoulders back as if you were being held by something unseen? Cecilia can scant remember a time she has been this joyful. Finally, Grace's eyes meet hers again, and she releases her next Pokemon.

The red beam strikes above a half-submerged pillar and brings forth another automaton, built at the hand of Man to serve, protect, kill if need be, and little else. It floats just above the stone, limbs splayed at its sides with geometric precision, its shell a faded clay hue, polished smooth by time. Claydol sluggishly opens its eyes, blinking and analyzing its surroundings as it floats higher and announces its presence.

"Enemy detected: Draconis Tricephalus," it chimes for all to hear, its outer voice cold and unfeeling.

"Commencing defense protocols." And so, another bout begins. Hydreigon and Cecilia now know that the dragon can rush in without risking the immense danger Jellicent poses, and she wastes no time narrating him that way. Severely wounded but undeterred, Hydreigon descends from above like a meteor given life, his six wings tucked close, his three heads laughing with glee. Grace can feel it too—what remains in the air—but Claydol cannot, at least not yet.

Around the psychic, gallons upon gallons of water rise in shifting, transparent cubes levitated by its will. It hurls them in front of Hydreigon, who blasts them away with Dark Pulses, but the liquid serves as a good enough disturbance to shield them from the dragon's eyes. It all collapses down in a waterfall that refracts the arena's turquoise light into chaotic scatterings across its psychic walls.

"Teleport and Rock Tomb," Grace orders, eyes unblinking. Her voice is still stilted. Cold. Masked by the noise of the water. When Hydreigon passes through the cascading waters, he meets nothing to sink his teeth into or blast away with energy. Instead, above him, sinks rocks as large as he is, still wet from their submersion in the makeshift sea. The first strikes Hydreigon's shoulder and sends him careening sideways, wings scrambling for lift in the humid air.

The second glances off his tail, but the third— Claydol loses control of the third when one of the faded lights explodes at its side. Even now, the influence of those who have come before remains in Cecilia's favor. Hydreigon has already recovered and hits the psychic with a Dark Pulse from below, and for a moment, things already seem lost. Grace knows that Claydol is at a disadvantage, but she believes it will pull through. That is the thing with love and trust: it is often nonsensical in nature.

It defies calculation, it allows people to throw themselves into hopeless odds not because they expect to win, but because they cannot imagine doing anything else. This entire year, through every up and down, through becoming a monster, killing dozens, hurting hundreds, she has not once not trusted her dear children.

"Alert: Energy levels critical. Operating at 47% capacity," Claydol blares; their voice is accompanied by flashes of red and continuous alarms. For a moment, there is a break. It has not been agreed-upon beforehand, but neither trainer orders their Pokemon to strike. Claydol floats above, listing off warnings, and Hydreigon flies below and remains conscious by a thread.

"How robotic," Cecilia notes. The Unovan wipes sweat off her forehead and can't stop herself from smiling.

"I know you can do better than that." She did not mean in terms of battle abilities, but humanity.

"You're better than me at it, after all. Both of you." Grace has touched so many lives, changed the fate of many for the better. Cecilia wants that for herself. She wants to matter. A pause. Grace breathes heavily into her microphone and leans against her knees.

"Will you teach me?" she asks.

"Your emotions have been sanded off," she declares.

"With mine, I am learning as you are, Grace." Cecilia's face shines.

"You're good, deep down. I tried to embody you, to make myself into someone you'd like, but after a long, long year, I realized that I'd rather try my best at being myself. Whatever that means." The blonde blinks.

"And you want that person—you—to be good."

"Who would not? It's tiresome, being so… lackadaisical about myself and what I can, and cannot do." The desire to do good. For Grace, it had never truly gone away—just been warped into a parody of itself until she would unironically deliver men to be tortured to death in the name of justice. It had been 'good' because she had wanted it to be, but that was, and is, not how this works. Being good, as Denzel once said, is hard, sometimes thankless work.

Aliyah had told her that it always began by trying your hardest, that burning desire in your heart to improve.

"I want it," Grace breathed out.

"Our paths might differ, but that's okay. We're okay."

"Then let us begin once again." The Unovan's smile never leaves her face. She inhales loudly, and her voice changes, growing more commanding and deeper.

"Hydreigon keeps battering away with Dark Pulse; he is relentless, never allowing any respite," Cecilia says. Grace's voice brims with hope.

"Intercept with one of your hands! Keep moving and avoid the explosions!" Claydol's arm jerks outward. One of its floating turret-hands disconnects from its body, swings in front of the incoming Dark Pulse just as it detonates, and the impact rocks the air, swallowing the space in black light and draconic heat. The hand cracks down the middle, scorched and trembling, but it holds. Just barely, but another one of Hydreigon's belated explosions rocks the psychic's very core. It must act now. It. It. It.

Dehumanizing your enemies—or even yourself—makes it easier for you to kill them. But behind every pair of eyes is something that dreams. Something that hopes. Something that lives. Grace opens her mouth not to give another order, but to remind her Claydol—and by extension, herself—that she is a human girl just like everyone else.

"Cassianus!" she yells. They dreamt in the past, too. Hushed ideas of their favorite song, color, joke, or story. Of their favorite part of Lakhutia's castle, and even that the King's crown might look good on them if they could try it on one day—blasphemous thoughts. Cassianus' eyes flash, and the psychic is gone, Teleporting faster than they ever had before. Hydreigon scans the length and width of the battlefield, using his three heads to sweep the arena, but his opponent has disappeared.

Something foams under the water. Neither Grace, Cecilia, or Hydreigon notices it at first. The water pulls outward, drawn into something deeper, a light that rises and spreads through the entire sea, then concentrates into a single point. A wide blast of plasma tears upward, and in an instant, everyone recognizes it. Hyper Beam. The water splits around it, flung outward in violent sheets as the beam carves through the air and hits the arena's shield's ceiling.

It is a torrent of blinding light tinged with gold and red, so hot it warps the air around it; steam explodes upward in thick plumes that superheat the air. It hits Hydreigon head-on and keeps going, swallowing him whole. The beam holds for a few seconds, but by the end, the dragon is an unconscious mess of peeled scales and burned flesh; the ghosts under his joyful thrall finally retreat and the turquoise that tints the air recedes all at once.

Grace doesn't understand—well, she understands, just she does not know how. Never had they used that move together before, never had Cassianus given even an inkling of being able to use Hyper Beam. From the raging, burning sea emerges the psychic, untouched by the water thanks to a body-tight barrier they had encased themselves in just as they Teleported.

"That was scary," they say with a few blinks.

"Ow." Grace laughs, eyes still wide.

"You can't feel physical pain, silly."

"Don't take this away from me." She wants to ask how, but she will not get that answer until the battle ends. Within every Claydol, carved into their biomechanical innards as inscriptions no one remembers how to read, rests the innate knowledge to use Hyper Beam. Few Pokemon hold this privilege, but they are one of them, and unlike their biological counterparts, when they grow powerful enough, experienced enough, and the situation is desperate enough to call for it, it triggers like a memory in waiting.

Cassianus whispers in Grace's head while Cecilia recalls her Hydreigon, something only the blonde can hear. Are you having fun, my King? The question snaps her out of her character-driven daze for what feels like the first time this entire battle. She blinks, not knowing what to say. Lakhutia's Kings always thought about a glorious past or their future legacies and would forget what was right in front of them.

It's important to live in the moment, the psychic adds, their voice accompanied by the turbulent waves below and the roar of the crowd she finally remembers. Do not forget the present. After a short pause, she nods and is wrested back to earth. She feels like herself again—because she can become herself again. She had gone through every transformation she had undergone and was now free to look the present in the eyes. No grin splits her face in that moment, nor does she laugh, or show any excitement.

A sudden calm overtakes her, and everything seems slow enough to make this battle last forever. She sticks out her tongue and licks her upper lip, inhales slowly through her nose, and swallows. Tingles reverberate across her skin. She is as focused now as the time she faced down Saturn and his grunts and won, but no one will die at the end of this battle, win or lose. The sun will keep rising every day, the earth will keep spinning around it, and one day, this will all be memory. But today? Today is happening now.

Yes. She is having the time of her life. Cecilia can barely believe it. She clasps Zolst's Pokeball within her palm and thanks him for his help. She thought she had Grace dead to rights, trapped within a cage of her own making—her laser focus on the linearity of her story. Time, after all, only flows in one direction, and Claydol is the perfect representation for a girl trying to learn how to be a person again.

Not that she could have done much good with Tangrowth in this environment anyway—though she is the one who flooded the arena in the first place and— The Unovan shakes her head and rolls her shoulders. She cannot get caught in Grace's rhythm, otherwise she has already lost. Much of the water has been lost to Hyper Beam's sheer heat, but the field is still akin to a shallower sea, where landbound Pokemon would do nothing but flounder.

She knows Grace is in the same position as well, so if she manages to take down this Claydol… Cecilia smiles thinly, and realizes there is only one option.

"There comes a certain freedom with clarity one gets when they take flight." With less than thirty seconds, she speaks quickly.

"When you are high in the sky and everything seems so small. Your doubts, your past, the voices telling you to stay grounded all vanish. Up there, it's just you, the wind, and the Freedom To Try Something New." The Pokeball tears open with a high, bombastic cry, and from its light tears forth a blaze of crimson and fire. Wings outstretched, Talonflame screams into the sky with untold joy to be able to fly again.

The heat trailing her feathers warps the air behind her, leaving streaks of flickering gold in her wake as she climbs higher and higher, until the psychic ceiling itself groans under the force of her ascent. Her flight seems so fluid, so free; she has wings and eyes Cecilia only wishes she could have, the ability to see and fly over the horizon whenever she wishes. Once upon a time, a deep fear used to permeate in the Unovan's head.

Talonflame had, and has always been an independent mind, flying away and exploring for hours at a time—and more recently, days. Terror used to rock Cecilia's mind each time her little bird would fly off; the thought that she might just not come back would haunt her, seizing the moment to free herself from her earthly shackles. Just like her brother had done to her back in their childhood the moment he began his journey. After all, who would bother staying with her? The Unovan snaps her fingers and points forward.

"Talonflame outruns sound itself and sends an array of feathers to pierce Claydol!" A shockwave tears through the arena as Talonflame speeds up, a stream of Tailwind that feels more like a Heatwave at her back and Agility in her blood. Behind her, she leaves a trail of flaming feathers sharpened with Steel Wing—but they are different than usual. Faster than usual, as if the psychic energy from Agility remains within them.

They do not rush toward Claydol all at once, casting a wide net to force the ground type to widen its psychic focus.

"Barrier! Keep them close!" Grace orders—"Talonflame uses Secret Power!" The water below them rises in a single, sinuous line. It slithers upward from the lake below like a snake, undulating with a hypnotic rhythm as it climbs toward Talonflame's beak. As Claydol takes the feathers for themselves and sends them back toward the fire type, the water threads itself in front of her mouth with a silent snap of tension, and forms itself into a ring. With a screech, she releases the Water Pulse.

It is, however, not only weak, but slow. As much as Temperance has helped, a fire type working with water can only progress so quickly. However.

"She hones her claws, and launches into a Brave Blitz that radiates like the sun." Already, she had already been moving. Cecilia's Pokemon have gotten used to acting as she speaks, and Talonflame is as astute as they come. She folds her wings tight against her body, dives, and becomes a comet. White fire erupts across her feathers; the heat shimmers, blinding and pure, and every beat of her wings feeds it—not that they are visible.

Within an instant, she is high in the sky, and the next, she is right about to ram into Claydol with enough momentum to break through steel. Grace doesn't have the time to speak, given that she has barely opened her mouth, but Claydol reacts. The speed of sound is plenty of time to think. They have already run through the options.

Teleporting is too slow, especially given their energy reserves after that Hyper Beam; barriers might have worked should they have formed at least ten, but it is too late for this; no, there only remains one option. The psychic understands that this offensive move is to disorient them enough to let the Water Pulse hit them, at which point their body would give away at contact with said liquid. To be alive, to be a person, is to take destiny by your own hands and to swim against the current.

Cassianus embraces the impact, allowing Talonflame to ram into them like a bullet, but when the bird tries to break away, she finds her body held fast. Cass has to act quickly; they can't keep Talonflame pinned for long. Mud gushes from the Claydol's body, splattering over Cecilia's embodiment of freedom. It cools rapidly, hardening into stone and locking both Pokemon in a single, unmoving mass that still leaves bits of their bodies exposed. Then, they fall. And fall. And fall. Who would blink first?

While the sea has again lowered, either through Talonflame's Heatwave or naturally seeping into the porous dry lakebed, both Pokemon sinking here would spell their end—but Cecilia believes that maybe, just maybe, she can make this work. Claydol is weaker to water than Talonflame, being unable to even feel the patter of rain without being severely weakened. All she would have to do was wait five, maybe ten seconds, and she would be able to recall her Pokemon and have the clear advantage to win—"Break away!"

Grace says, licking her lip. This is where Cecilia was mistaken. This was not a play for Claydol to take Talonflame down with them, but a way to finish her off in one fell swoop. They are alive; like in every creature that dots the earth, they hold the burning desire to live, and will go down kicking and screaming instead of lying there and accepting it. The solid mass of rock breaks in half, and Cassianus manages to hover right above the waves while Talonflame falls and sinks below the sea.

The Unovan wastes no time and recalls her, though this battle, she realizes, has just gotten a lot more difficult.

"I told you that you were good at this," Cecilia chides.

"I had no idea this was coming." Grace stretches, breathing a sigh of relief.

"I didn't either, at first. I just went along with the flow." Claydol lets out a cheery sound effect and lets out a synthesized,"surprise!" Their voice crackles like the sound of an old radio. The Unovan has no choice. Scizor would get destroyed in this environment, and she knows it. Part of her still can barely believe Claydol is giving her this much trouble—it was all of Grace's other Pokemon she worried about. She closes her eyes and imagines, tastes victory for a moment, and all the jubilation it would involve.

Finally being able to move on, to face the world with her back straight, chest puffed out, and a confident smile as she learned to be more than she ever hoped she would be. Then, she sends out Slowking. The pink psychic type sinks into the water immediately, and she orders him to use Slack Off. He is in a terrible state, still burned and mangled beyond recognition, but if they could use the water as a shield…

"He's weak!" Grace calls out.

"Into the water, too! Hound him—speak into my mind if something goes wrong!" she quickly adds. She is correct. If Slowking were healthy enough to act, he might have been able to challenge Claydol's psychic abilities, and most likely overpowered them to poke holes into their protective bubble—at the very least, he would have forced them to stay on the defensive and neutralized all of their offensive options while underwater. But now?

Neither Cecilia nor Grace can perceive what is happening underwater; they miss the sudden burst of searing earth erupting underwater, forced up through artificial geothermal vents borne of Claydol's nascent will. Smoke, ash, heat, and mud surge upward beneath Slowking, the explosion jarring him awake and tearing him out of his Slack Off. He has, however, recovered enough to offer some resistance. He raises his good arm, eyes flashing grey, and attempts to Disable Claydol's psychic abilities.

Cassianus stalls for a moment, but rebukes him without hesitation. Behind them rises great pillars of earth and mud, solidified until they go above-water and act as miniature islands—and when Cecilia sees them poking out of the fading sea, she realizes her mistake. Enough, she thinks. Enough. She has come too far to lose control like this, and she would not go gently. Cecilia's hand hovers over her dear Slowking's Pokeball, but it does not grab it. No, instead, she decides to employ everything she's learned.

Taking a step back, and looking at the situation as a whole; attempting a strategy she would never do in a new and fresh take; the ability to think beyond this one match, and to look ahead. Ahead. Ahead. Ever further ahead. She shall reach for the stars and grab them, or she would have nothing at all. Luckily for her, Slowking finally comes through. A sudden frost spreads outward from his hand, locking the water around Claydol in a jagged prison of ice and is now primed to defeat his rival in a battle of the minds.

The ground type floats up like an iceberg, and those precious dozens of seconds it took until they broke out is all it takes. Cassianus' barrier folds and bends by the time they break out of the ice and plunge back into the deep; all of their efforts are spent staying dry. For all both psychics pride themselves as barrier experts, Slowking has been honing his skill far more consistently and for longer than Cassianus.

With both Pokemon exhausted, it is a slow and sloppy duel that ends in Claydol's defeat, their biomechanical brain fried from so much invasive activity. Grace is so proud of them. So, so proud; and yet there is much to be done. Even now, after Cassianus' defeat, stone and mud still fills the water, and it slowly seeps deeper into the earth. The sea is now shallower than it has ever been, with dozens of pillars raised like islands dotting an ocean.

It reminds her of the battle with Barry Lane, the fight that showed her how deep the gulf was when it came to her improvising skills. She has come far, since then. She is human again, able to feel and empathize even for those who have wronged her, able to give second chances and turn the other cheek when she can. If Grace Pastel has one wish, it is that by the end of her life, her name might be sung from shore to shore.

Across the hills of Shinwa and the rolling fields of Kalos and all of Solante, through the hungering sands of Orre and the wartorn continent of Ransei, even to the isolated settlements of the ranger-run regions far to the south, and the isolated settlements without master that dot this earth. Few in history have achieved such a feat, but whether evil or good, they were all extraordinary. But that is the future, is it not? Grace inhales sharply through her teeth; the air feels warm and soothing.

She thinks: what can I do right now, and the answer comes instantly. She wants to cap off her story, and she wants to have fun doing it. The teen grabs her next Pokemon, who appears with a flash of gold. The aspiring hero—the one who had pulled her from the brink of monstrosity—who emerges on one of the islands and crackles with barely contained energy. Muscles coil beneath a hide striped like storm clouds, and arcs of blue electricity dance across his body with each breath he takes.

Electivire slams a fist into a palm, creating a thunderclap, and points a single finger in the air, letting the audience's cheers bask over him.

"Honey, you show off! Your opponent's Slowking underwater, though I'm not sure you want to go for a swim!" Grace laughs, clapping her hands.

"Electric Swift!" Electivire summons a set of stars that spin around him, collecting electricity until he launches them forward. Each one far too quick for anyone but Talonflame to dodge, and Slowking is a sitting duck wherever he is. Unfortunately for them, the sea having so much sediment and dirt means that it isn't a great conductor and she believes they probably can't just fry him out of the water. They need a needle and thread, not a hammer.

The stars, for their part, easily manage to track Slowking in the muddy water. As Cecilia guesses through her narration, he raises a hand and raises a barrier, but he does not know he has already lost. Electivire whirrs like an engine, and Grace asks, "you found him?" He is electricity, feels it wherever it goes. The needle and thread had not been Swift, but this.

"Then use Lightning Bolt!" Storm clouds gather above the hero's head, and lightning strikes down into his waiting hand, coalescing into a jagged, crackling lance of pure power. He barely seems to wait to aim—he doesn't need to. Grace watches, heart pounding, grinning like a girl half her age. Isn't my family just so damn cool? With a childlike scream, he hurls the lance into the lake. It pierces the surface with a hiss, and then the world beneath explodes with light.

Electricity branches out in every direction, illuminating the depths in a web of searing brilliance. The water slows the bolt down, but barely, and when it reaches Slowking, it shatters his barrier and pierces his gut. Cecilia calls out for him a few times—but she hears nothing but a faint whisper in her head as she grabs the psychic's Pokeball. Your eyes… are looking… far away, my Lady. Very far away. Beyond your horizon. You might miss the— The voice cuts off. He has fallen unconscious.

As there is no response from him for thirty seconds, the referee calls for her to recall him and release her next Pokeball. He is gone, but his words stick with her. What was he going to say? What could she miss? Was it not great to aspire to be… to be…

"Hey. Cecilia." Grace snaps the Unovan out of her thoughts.

"You look stressed out." She blinks, realizing Grace speaks the truth. She wipes her moist palms on her clothes, places a hand over her somehow still slow-beating heart, and smiles. When did she start getting anxious…?

"Battle's far from over," Grace adds.

"It'd be a shame if one of us stopped having fun."

"I'm afraid you're right," Cecilia says—though calling it 'far from over' is a big stretch. They're in the endgame now. Two options lay in front of her, but only one makes sense. Her only choice is to send out Talonflame into the fray again. Her final Pokemon cannot match Electivire in terms of speed, and he has experience when it comes to navigating this type of terrain. Talonflame's wings are the only thing capable of outrunning the sheer speed of Electivire's attacks—for a time. The choice is made quickly.

"Thank you for letting me know I was being stupid," the Unovan says, Pokeball in hand.

"Talonflame emerges from her Pokeball, crimson against crimson—" Cecilia swallows her next words when a brilliant blue flash explodes out of Electivire's hands.

"Me First!" In the same instant, the fiery predator screams out a Thunder of her own, shrieking as the attack tears through the air. The twin bolts collide mid-flight with a deafening crack, the explosion shaking the battlefield. The charge in the air is so intense that her feathers puff up, crackling with static.

"She bathes the world in heat, ridding it of its water!" Each beat of Talonflame's wings brings with it scorching heat that turns the sea to vapor. Even with Agility and Tailwind, they can barely dodge Electivire's attacks. Swift and Thunders tear across the sky, and he uses both attacks expertly. The stars corner her slowly, swarming around her, until she has to use Me First to not get hit by a Thunder.

"Again! Again! Again!" Grace exclaims with sheer delight. With each strike, she throws her hand forth as if she is the one throwing out Thunders, and not her Pokemon. Once, twice, thrice, this happens again and again until— "Eat up!" Cecilia's eyes widen when Electivire's electricity suddenly disappears as soon as the cycle repeats and Talonflame sends a Thunder hurtling his way. The bolt crashes into his chest with blinding force, and he harmlessly absorbs the lightning.

Muscles twitch, veins pulse with raw power, and his eyes burn brighter than before. The Unovan gulps. She messed up. Before she can force Talonflame to flee back into her Pokeball, utilizing her final switch, a Thunder falls so fast it doesn't even register. There is no buildup, no warning crackle in the air. Just a thin line of light, sharp and silent, connecting Electivire's body to the sky and then to her Pokemon in a single blink. It is so quick that Cecilia sees it before sound can catch up.

The Unovan moistens her lips, yet no panic takes hold of her. Cecilia scans the arena and takes a deep breath. The sea is now shallow enough to have retreated fully into the crater save for some stubborn puddles, the entire battlefield is shrouded in warm, humid vapor, and the islands Claydol had raised are now thick pillars jutting out of the earth unnaturally. She thanks Talonflame for her service and recalls her quickly. The lakebed isn't dry anymore. It has taken a beating, but it has been fed, too.

Water has seeped into every crack, and the churned-up sediment has settled across the basin in a thick, dark layer. The kind that plants would grow from eventually. The kind that sticks to boots and skin. The kind that remembers what it's like to be alive. The land could support life again. Certainly not soon, and never in the same form, but perhaps one day. Cecilia pauses for a moment, and not to think of strategy.

That road is already set in front of her with no further options, and she believes—truly believes—that her Pokemon will pull through. Slowking's words have stuck with her, even now. She lets her final Pokemon's Pokeball rest in her hand, and brings it against her forehead. The metal feels cold against her, but permeates with a certain warmth nonetheless. She's doing it again, looking too far away instead of right in front of her.

Wanting to jump up the entire set of stairs instead of climbing it step by step as she did every few days to visit Cynthia. It is this mindset that made her crash and burn these past two months, losing all of her friends in the process save for Chase and Louis. She is endlessly thankful for their presence.

"Focus not your entire width on what you will be tomorrow; remember what you are today," she murmurs to herself. The microphone picks it up, but she does not care.

"Scizor is the oldest in our merry band—" Lehmhart does not count, given that his sapience is a few months old.

"He was born in Eterna Forest's outer ring, where the Pokemon are fierce enough to scare away most children but are, in the grand scheme of things, nothing. Weak." She's out of time. The Unovan releases Scizor, who—even though she cannot tell—gleams with a radiant red. He lands lightly, wings thrumming with energy, his polished crimson shell catching the light through the fog in a way that makes him seem almost ethereal.

For a moment, she believes Electivire will attack and that she will have to continue when there is a lull in the fight, but they do not. Grace tells him to wait, and he does, arms crossed and tails brightly swaying in the thin fog. Cecilia mouths a thank you, though remains unsure of if Grace can see it, and continues.

"From the day he was born, he has fought for survival, fought to get stronger, and of course, he has failed. Who hasn't?" Scizor's wings beat with reticence, and the Unovan smiles fondly. His dream is to beat what sleeps at Eterna's center, and he has often taken fights he could not win in hopes of getting stronger.

"But his will is ironclad, so he gets up, again and again, as is your duty once you are born into this world. With every failure comes the opportunity to grow and learn. He has the Discipline To Try Again."

"Get up in his face and Fire Punch!" Grace screams as soon as they finish. Cecilia guffaws. She couldn't wait even one more second, could she? Electivire turns into living lightning, snaking across the arena and around the pillars Claydol had raised. They could, however, use these to their advantage as well.

"Scizor—" No time.

"Agility and Swords Dance!" Scizor doesn't hesitate. His body loosens, motion flowing like the wind as he kicks off the ground and jets backward, wings screaming with speed. As he moves, his arms rise and cross in an awkward dance because there is simply no time. If they are to beat Electivire, they will have to give everything to their offense. Electivire's hand catches fire and reaches out, grabbing Scizor by the throat.

"Thunder!"

"Bullet Punch into Fury Cutter!" Cecilia screams. The flurry is so quick it appears as a blur endlessly slamming into Electivire's chest; the final hit is a cut that cuts a deep wound across his chest. The electric type groans in pain and lets go while Scizor blasts him with a bright, high-pitched Flash Cannon coming right out of both his claws. Electivire covers his face and grunts, digging in his heels, and by the time he can see clearly again, Scizor is gone.

Cecilia can see him, skulking behind a pillar, but Electivire and Grace cannot. They'd nearly lost right then and there. Try again.

"Hiding I see! We'll find you!" Grace quips.

"In your fucking dreams, Grace!" She swears, but she is all smiles and expectation.

"Just you wait, we'll get you!"

"Ha! Honey, take down those pillars!" The pillars shatter. Electivire barrels through them like a force of nature, twin tails glowing, each swing sending stone flying. Dust and debris choke the air. Scizor darts from pillar to pillar, flickering into view with a flash of red for a heartbeat before vanishing again. Flash. Scizor reappears— barely.

A gleam of metal, a hiss of air, and he strikes; claws wielding an even more powerful double Fury Cutter crash into Electivire's side in a flurry too fast to follow, but Electivire does not only move fast, he thinks fast. He twists with a growl, grabs hold of one of Scizor's arms mid-strike, and slams a Hammer Arm into the steel-type's chest. The Fury Cutter only grazes him, and Scizor is sent back skipping over the ground like a ragdoll. Try again.

"Get up! Get up! You can do it—" Scizor listens to her immediately, ignoring the cracks spread across his chest.

"Now—""Stick close and we'll win!" Grace interrupts. Electivire is relentless in his pursuit, never leaving them a second to breathe. He is a constant opponent from which there could be no respite. Cecilia is sweating bullets, but she has to time this just right. Wait. Her head spins. Wait. Her eyes are wide open. Now.

"U-Turn!" Scizor swerves around Electivire with a sudden burst of speed from his wings and slams a claw onto his back. No respite. Another burst of Flash Cannon, this time wide and short-range, flies out of the claw and burns the electric type's back before he backhands Scizor with all his weight and his arm sizzling with flame. The impact rings out like a cannon; Scizor is flung through the air, limbs flailing, but he stabilizes himself and lands on his feet.

The electricity constantly coiling around Electivire seems to slow Scizor down. Static Shield. Try again.

"Bulldoze them!"

"Up—""Radiant Leap and give 'em a big old hug!" The Bulldoze call is a trap. Scizor is already airborne when Electivire surges into lightning again, leaping up with such force that the ground caves beneath him. At such a close distance, Cecilia's mouth can't react. It just can't. But Scizor can. Electivire clasps him tightly as they fly through the air in an arc, but the steel type slams his head clad with iron into the would-be-hero's own. They tumble, spinning out of control.

Then— crash —they slam into a pillar, shattering its base in a hail of dust and rock. The structure groans, begins to fall, but both Pokemon leap away before they can be hit. Electivire and Scizor stare each other down, the former with his bloodsoaked fur and the latter with his body fried and fractured, split in a fine lattice. Sparks still dance across Scizor's carapace, crawling through the damage like insects. His limbs twitch from residual voltage.

It is difficult to have the momentum when Electivire is faster than eyes can follow, but as always. Try again.

"Didn't get a Fury Cutter off this time, huh?" Grace teases. She is having so much fun. Cecilia rolls her eyes to humor her.

"We'll get you. You think you can just keep coming at us and do the same thing over and over? It's getting old, try something new!"

"I guess you're right. You two are trickier than I thought—" the blonde's eyes focus again.

"—Railgun!" Shattered stone levitates around Electivire, and within a second, they are electrified at the tip of his fingers. He shoots them as if his hand is a gun, and six of them lodge themselves within Scizor's cracked armor.

"Now!" Grace yells. Electivire's arm pulls back sharply as though tugging on an invisible rope. And Scizor moves. He's dragged through the air, helplessly reeled in by the charge buried inside him. The ironclad bug knows there is no fighting this, and so he embraces the risks and decides to go on the offense— Which is exactly in line with Cecilia's thoughts.

"Aim for the legs!"

"Jump!" Grace counters. Another Fury Cutter goes wide as Scizor passes underneath the soaring Electivire, the slice passing through nothing but air and wet earth, but the steel type doesn't stop. His momentum carries him forward, claws dragging sparks from the ruined ground, wings flaring with a burst of speed. He twists, plants a foot, and launches himself straight up. One claw reaches out—sharp, focused— and strikes. It catches Electivire's leg mid-air—or would have had he not put up a Protect right away.

He spins in tight, claw gleaming white-hot from a charging Flash Cannon, and fires straight into Electivire's barrier, using the opportunity to jump back and purge the stones out of him. Again and again, this exchange is done. They trade blows for what feels like forever, yet barely lasts two minutes in truth. Electivire is the one pressing forward, driving the rhythm with wild, thunder-fed momentum.

He moves like a storm barely held together, fists sparking with electricity and flame, each step crashing into the ground with enough force to leave shallow craters behind. Scizor is fast—but not faster. Not now. He's on the back foot, ducking and weaving, his claws raised more to shield than strike. A haymaker arcs through the air and clips Scizor's side, sending him spinning.

Electivire is on him before he lands, grabbing at his leg, dragging him through the mud and slamming him into a pillar hard enough to crack its base. Scizor scrapes free and retaliates with a sharp Fury Cutter across the ribs, leaving a sibling to his previous cut. Each order from both teens is feverish now, spoken without breath, driven more by instinct than strategy. They cut each other off without care, shouting over one another, leaning hard against the barrier as if willing themselves into the fight.

They get lost in the pace of battle, the ever quickening flurry of blows, the raw rhythm of movement and impact, the sound of fists meeting steel and steel striking back. Everything becomes a blur of motion and heat and noise. There is no room for thought anymore. Only reaction. Only momentum. Scizor is exhausted; only one choice remains now. They have waited this long, been on the backfoot this long, and it just feels right now.

"Let us throw everything at them!" Cecilia closes a fist as she yells. Scizor's wings begin to buzz and blur, and a Tailwind blows at his back. He rushes forward with unprecedented speed— faster than he had ever been in this battle. His body screams for release; he pushes himself so much his carapace starts overheating—a fire sparks, and it begins to melt, yet he pushes on, because when one fails, they try again. For a moment, for an instant, with the Bullet Punch to carry him further, he is as fast as Electivire.

The electric type reacts, because he always does. He explodes with a Discharge that lights the battlefield in a wash of crackling white and blue lightning. Scizor doesn't stop. He can't stop. He's like a bullet already fired; there's no turning, no slowing, until it hits something. Electricity tears across his frame, crawls into the cracks of his armor and boils beneath the surface, but he keeps going, claws drawn back, every step another piece of himself given up.

He is going to hit, or he is going to break trying. Well. The hit never comes. Scizor collapses mid-charge, his body giving out all at once. One leg locks, the other buckles, and he crashes into the ground at Electivire's feet with a heavy, scraping thud. Steam hisses off his back where the electricity cooked straight through the plating. His claws twitch once in defiance, then fall still.

"Get up!" Cecilia orders—not maliciously. She simply cannot comprehend that Scizor has fallen, that he is out of tries to give. She blinks for a few seconds, recalls Scizor when she realizes he has lost consciousness, and her hand goes to her next Pokemon… Her next Pokemon? She doesn't have any. The battle is over.

"Scizor is unable to battle! Grace Pastel takes the win 4-6!" the referee says. It sinks in now, and it hits her like a bucket of cold water to the face. Until she had met Temperance, battling was enjoyable, yes, but also a means to an end—it accomplished the nebulous goal that is 'getting stronger' even though it is but smoke and mirrors. Refining her craft was elating now, but never has she fought someone to have made her get lost in the joyful frenzy of battle.

Cecilia ignores the cheers and blinks the tears forming away. She doesn't understand why she is crying, exactly. It is not sadness, nor is it joy, but something else. Perhaps it is simply the finality of it all finally settling into her bones. Grace's legs tremble as she stares down at Electivire. Instead of celebrating or basking under the audience's cheers, he looks back at her in silence and nods, offering a thumbs up. He knows how important this was, and how important it will be.

She mouths a thank you, voice caught somewhere between breath and feeling, and recalls him. Her steps down the metallic stairs are slow, careful. The adrenaline still pumping in her veins makes everything feel slow and surreal. Meltan slides up her arm, perches on her shoulder, and wraps its little hands in her hair.

"I forgot to…" she trails off. She had bungled up her final message meant to come with Honey because she had been so caught up in the delirium of the fight. Meltan cries out again as if to tell her not to fret.

"Huh." Her steps feel strangely light as she goes to meet Cecilia down the side of the arena—a formality amongst opponents. This battle has not lasted long, in the grand scheme of things—Grace certainly has faced longer trials—but it feels like a lifetime has passed. The blonde looks up at her ex-girlfriend when they meet, into her pale, blank eyes which still leak tears, then offers a hand. Cecilia smiles and shakes it, and the tension melts away.

"It seems like I did not win narratively or as a matter of fact," the Unovan laments.

"It is your complete and total victory. Congratulations, Grace." She clears her throat.

"I wanted to win, of course—every cell in my body screamed for a win, but I wanted to at least force you to send your Togekiss out again."

"I…" Grace stops for a moment.

"I would have wanted to. That was the plan from the start, to show that little girl who set off from Jubilife was still in here, you know?" she points at her heart. Cecilia's eyes widen, and she throws her head out, barking out a laugh.

"It's—all arbitrary anyway!" Grace quickly adds.

"It was fun, wasn't it? That's what matters, in the end." Cecilia knows she wants to spare her feelings, but as she says none of it matters.

"Agreed. I've rarely felt so alive." She has lost, but it doesn't feel that way.

"There's a lot I forgot to say, y'know." Grace hugs herself. The microphones are off, now; they are free to talk undisturbed.

"Like… my dad explained it to me. And Temperance." Cecilia winces, imagining how the coordinator must have chewed Grace out.

"I'm sorry for ruining your sense of trust and I was supposed to go into this whole thing where—""It's okay," Cecilia says.

"It's okay. We all live with the cards we are dealt with, and I'm tired of just wallowing in self pity. Go and be happy." She had said it before back in Canalave and meant it then too, but today, she speaks without burden. Her body feels light.

"I'll work and better myself, brick by brick, day by day. It's important to remember—""The present," Grace adds at the same time as her. Laughter is shared.

"But still, I'm sorry. I'll always be sorry." A short pause lingers.

"You're leaving for Unova soon, then?"

"Now that I lost, all that remains is my promise with Cynthia once the Conference ends." Cecilia would be leaving sooner than Grace is.

"I cannot lie, I'm… excited. So many new opportunities—and my co-workers seem amenable to having a tall, creepy girl added to the team. Yes, it'll be a nice time." Grace giggles, then looks at the battlefield at their side. Her smile falters for a second, growing sad.

"I really liked your battling and your message, Cecilia. I—I hope this helped you. And that this doesn't sound too pretentious. And this is goodbye, then—""It's goodbye," Cecilia confirms quietly, "for now. I need a clean break and a fresh start, but one day, if you're in need of help or an old face to keep you company, I can be of service." She tilts her head, and her lips quirk up.

"Though I'm not exactly known to give good advice."

"If I'm not intruding when the time comes, I'll take you up on that," Grace says before looking down at her feet.

"Then, uh. See you later?" she asks tentatively.

"See you later." If one is to speak of promises—those quiet, unfinished shapes that linger between people—then one might speak of a parting that came not with bitterness, but with the warmth of a connection still shared. It was not clean, nor easy, but it was needed. Between two girls who had hurt each other, knowingly or not; between two girls who had healed in equal measure. They did not know when or how they would meet again, but simply that the thread between them had not been completely cut.

It has merely been stretched thin, and hopefully one day, somewhere down the line, they would find each other once more. Not as lovers, but maybe as kindred souls who had shared the weight of the world together. One might even eventually call it a friendship. A/N: Sorry for the wait, everyone. When I started writing I Will Touch the Skies at the end of 2022, this battle was one of the clearest pictures I had in my mind.

Of course, the way it was written, what goes on during it, and the outcome of the fight aren't the same as what I envisioned that December, and it went through many iterations in the two and a half years I've been thinking about it, but the structure always remained the same. At the core of what I wanted to write is the exploration of what being Chosen to save the world can do to a teenager's mind.

It did not matter what form it took—Grace and Cecilia were always going to break up, and they were always going to face each other at the Conference as the penultimate battle closing off their character arc. Of course, whether I stuck the landing or not weighs heavily on my mind as I write this, and it's part of the reason this took so long to come out.

Sure, I was burned out of writing Pokemon in general (writing so much in so little time will do that to someone at some point), I had a really busy semester in university, but really, it was also difficult to open the google doc and start to write. You always put it off, you know? Oh, I'll do it tomorrow, then the day after that, and then suddenly it's been three months and you haven't even started. I started, eventually.

It was hard; I must have deleted like five drafts of this because I couldn't accurately put on paper what vision I had in my mind. In the end I decided an omniscient narrator like what I had used in the 'Time and—' chapter would work best, and once I broke through that barrier, the words began to flow again. I'm sure this chapter will have lost a lot of its impact given that it's been months since I updated, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless. Thank you to those who come back and read this.