the road to hell was paved with good intentions
-or, how she meant well and ruled with an iron fist.
Her region is corrupt.
She learns of this in her travels, when nothing can be done about blankly programmed thieves who blatantly break the law. She learns of this when Cyrus flaunts his headquarters, located in one of the richest parts of Veilstone. She learns of this when the authorities are oh-so-slow to react, and she cries.
Someday, she swears, she will change this for the better.
.
It is a sad world when the Champion is attacked and kept from dealing with the problems in her own region by the very people that are to protect and support her. Cynthia has her hands tied with Team Galactic by the lawyers, the lobbyists, the bureaucrats who don't allow her to simply storm the large, clear building used as a base for criminal activities. She is allowed to play with her powerful monsters and dig deep into myths everyone's forgotten about, but that is the extent of her reach.
Dawn is not held back by such political ties. Dawn is a young child with the gods watching over her, with the talent and the will to push through.
And she does. She pushes and pushes until she breaks Team Galactic.
.
But she may have – maybe – just a bit – broken herself as well while pushing them out.
Oh well. She's still golden.
.
Cynthia smiles when her garchomp falls, a real, genuine smile. At the same time, she looks sad.
"This position comes with a great, heavy responsibility," she tells the girl with dark hair as they walk down the halls of the Sinnoh League. Her tall black heels click and the sound reverberates on the hard surfaces of the long hall.
The girl shrugs slightly but does not speak. She is crowned Champion, and given all the titles.
Dawn allows for six days of lull and peace after her coronation. Six days for people to fall into the belief that there is another pretty figurehead, a delicate doll that doesn't move with lots of names.
On the seventh day, she steps up and turns the region upside-down.
Sinnoh burns with the purifying fire of her golden-armoured monkey, and the blood-red glow is like the ripple of a thousand flags, waving in revolution to an old, archaic age. Waving in salutation to a new age. A golden age.
.
Saturn is given another chance – or so it seems. That is what he tells everyone who will listen, that he was given an opportunity, was shown the other cheek. He runs the company and manages the affairs within the corporation of Galactic – no longer a cover-up for criminal activities – and becomes a dog for the side of the law.
People talk about the forgiving nature of the new Champion. Benevolence is her policy.
They conveniently forget that Cyrus had four Commanders at his side. They conveniently don't notice – or ignore outright – the frantic light the blue-haired man has in his flitting eyes, the tense shoulders and the desperate, terrified body language he shows, always seeking approval from an unseen watcher.
This is his life. Live as a prisoner, a creature situated in a zoo to be constantly scrutinized. It is not much of a life, but it is better than what awaits him should he not cooperate.
(He has seen the pictures of the other three and really, the menagerie prison is the better alternative by far, even if it strangles him, even if he walks on an edge thinner than the sharpest of blades feeling like he will slip and tumble and get cut up)
Saturn wears his name from his Galactic Commander days like a blazing scarlet letter, a sign of his shame. He does not change his uniform or hairstyle. Repentance? A show of it, for sure.
He will feel what they tell him to feel. It's not too different from Team Galactic, he rationalizes in fear as he lives another day.
.
Veilstone and Eterna are the focuses of her initial purges. Scores, hundreds of corrupt police and officials are rooted out, exposed publically, humiliated and sentenced. Once convicted, there is no appeal, no changing of the verdict. Every last found case is guilty, and the gavel's fall is like a gunshot to end a life.
The purges move further – Snowpoint, for being so isolated; Pastoria, because the lax security is a disgrace; Canalave, in case the ports are compromised; Hearthome, because the Galactic Invasion of Coronet took place close to the city; Jubilife, because it is the center of all media-related activity in Sinnoh; even Sunyshore, because Cyrus came from the golden city, didn't he?
The numbers reach past a thousand before the champion smiles into the gleaming camera and says that she hopes she did a good enough job. She adds a promise to the end of the press conference – she will stand immediately if there is danger in Sinnoh.
.
Gym Leaders are encouraged to step up to dangers threatening their region, and not just their cities. If they feel that they can't get the time out of their busy schedule, then they train men and women to do better jobs on the police force.
For the first time in its history, the Sinnoh Police Force becomes competent. There are well-organized, intelligent people at the top of the organization, all performing their parts in the grand orchestra and coming together in a magnificently polished symphony of efficiency.
Murders are solved faster. Robberies become less frequent. Justice is served out far more frequently. Underground organizations are rooted out and vaporized. Crime rate drops like a dead insect.
No one ever questions just what happens to the villains of the story. To the public, they are the faceless, two-dimensional creatures of fairytales. They lack presence; they lack realism. There is a wall that blocks the criminals from the masses, and the wall keeps the public from humanizing the evil. There is no story told in the name of the wrongdoers – only reports and clean efficiency, and the promise that Sinnoh is safe.
And it is safe. It is clean, it is efficient, it is safe.
.
There must never be a repeat of Team Galactic, not within Sinnoh, not while a breath remains within her body, not while she remains Champion.
Dawn signs the papers that allow the vaporization of a confirmed group of criminals. They are a liability, a poisonous seed that may grow into a sick tree bearing venomous fruit that will rot the land.
Sterilize, cleanse, purify.
.
Cyrus was a charming man, despite his apathetic nature. He could attract the weak-willed and make them support his cause. He was the sun of the system that was Team Galactic, the center of the orbit that held every one of the planets and meteors.
Without the star, there is nothing for its followers to orbit around. Nothing except the sun, the real sun.
She thanks her mother one day, in the kitchen, for everything. Before her childhood, before her being raised, there was her conception, her birth and her naming.
Dawn. What a poetically ironic name.
.
Professor Rowan, initially, approved of what she did. Sinnoh has always been the Northern Region; the Land of Ice and Iron; Steel-hearted and Iron-fisted. There is ruthlessness in their bloods, cold utilitarianism in their hearts.
But eventually, the old man falters. Eventually, he starts to disapprove and speak against what she is doing.
He is an old man, from a generation that is dying out. He becomes a number, a statistic.
She attends his funeral with gracidea flowers and sheds a few tears while giving a perfect speech with deliberate shakes of tears and rough patches in her voice.
.
Barry is a fiery hothead, but he is loyal, of that there is no doubt. He is valuable, for he is talented, and he is useful. He is compliant and enthusiastic – what more could she have possibly asked for?
"You're my best friend," she tells him and it's not far from the truth.
He beams back, and his energy seems to double. He is inspirational – the children see the golden-haired boy and they want to be like him, almost as much as they want to be the blue-haired girl. They want to be heroes, and to the heroes the hearts go.
When he talks about his friend and how Sinnoh has become safer, the effects are exactly as she desired them to be.
.
Lucas is a smart boy. He just never had a chance to realize it, really. The professor meant well, but he'd always been such an overwhelming figure, and his father had only really seized upon the fears brought by that intimidating man to bear down harsh judgements upon his son.
But when opportunities came, well, he grew like a sapling showered in ample sunlight.
"You'll be regional professor," she said, and it was a promise.
Lucas is a smart boy – he knows. He is smarter than the masses that she has wrapped around her little finger, he sees the dots and connects the lines to create a picture of the truth, the real truth.
But see, he's smart. He's ambitious. He knows.
So he follows her devoutly because she had the power, and the best way to survive this is with her, not against her. He supports her policies from his inherited position in the council of academics, he voices her words from an authoritative stance, he chooses and supports those with the right mindsets as well as the potential and nurtures them to one and one goal only. He keeps an eye out for potential allies, potential threats, and the list of names flies by little birds to her hands.
It is a shame how so many talented trainers meet unfortunate accidents on the way to Victory Road, on the way to their next gyms.
.
"You're quite the girl, aren't you?" Cyrus asks her in her dreams. The real Cyrus only showed emotion when his suppressed anger exploded, back in the Distortion World. Her dreamed Cyrus is sarcastic, sardonic and ironic.
She replies to him, because why not? He is the least of her threats. "Am I?" she asks him.
Cyrus snorts – and for every dream where she talks to him, her memory of the stoic man is replaced a bit by her characterization of her former nemesis. "Don't be daft. You've got your finger in every pie – coordinating, training, politics, business, environment, et cetera. Every pie."
He looks at her. Did he have ice blue eyes and long white hair before? Her memory of him is vague, and he is no longer important, not anymore, not in the grand scheme of things. "You're quite the girl," he says, and his mouth stretches into a jagged red line. "All the strings lead to your hand, doesn't it?"
This might be a nightmare. But he sounds gruffly approving, and while she doesn't need approval from her enemies, it's nice to be appreciated.
.
Generations of Sinnoh grow up knowing only Dawn as their champion, and they worship her. She is the queen, the empress, the leader, the guardian. She has transcended mortality in their minds. To them, she might as well be a legendary – only, she is tangible, she is real and she is always there, with the promise to watch and protect, to serve Sinnoh.
She is Cresselia, warding away the fears of nightmares; she is Shaymin, to whom they are grateful for; she is Heatran, warming them up in the dread of harsh coldness.
When she dies, the region is united in grief for months, and there is chaos everywhere.
.
It isn't until ten years after her death that people begin to break out of the spell she's cast, and even then they find it hard to believe.