Synergy

"No… no, no, no, this can't be happening."

I dropped to my hands and knees, staring at the floor and curling my fingers against it. There was no way that I could lose again. It wasn't just the first time, as if that hadn't been embarrassing enough. It wasn't even the second or third. This was my sixth time losing, the sixth time that the Invincible Lyra had been defeated.

"Go home, kid. I think you're done."

The click of Will's shoes as he walked towards me were like successive punches, and I winced with every step as he approached. Finally, he stopped in front of me, his black shoes all I could see in my peripherals as I continued to look at the floor. He knelt not a second later, his magenta pants entering my line of vision. And then, finally, a hand.

"I don't understand," I muttered, more to myself than to him, and he retracted his hand when I never took it. "I've been training so hard… I've never lost a single battle before I took the conference challenge. There is absolutely no way that I could lose so many times to the weakest member of the Elite Four."

"Excuse me?"

I finally looked up, and Will crossed his arms. With the mask obscuring his eyes, I couldn't tell what he was doing, but it was obvious enough that he was annoyed with me. He didn't exactly have a reason to be bothered, though—it was a well-known fact that he was the weakest of the Elite Four, hence why he was in the first room. There was no excuse as to why I couldn't defeat him, therefore, and it was a complete embarrassment that I couldn't.

Especially considering everything that I had done. I defeated eight gym leaders in Johto, took on Team Rocket by myself and defeated them, faced the legendary Pokémon Ho-oh… This should have been child's play for me. So why, after all that I had done, couldn't I beat him? Was I such a failure after all?

"I know who you are," Will said, watching—or at least I assumed so—as I pushed myself back to my feet. "Everyone in the Johto has been talking about you. You're the girl who stopped Team Rocket quite recently. Lance knows the boy who stopped them three years ago, and he's been saying that you're even stronger. Admittedly, at your current level, you should be able to defeat me and the rest of the Elite Four. But you can't. Why is that?"

"I need to train more. I won't lose again," I responded, as if that was the right answer. But the thing was, I had been training—every time that I lost, I went home and trained some more, and my Pokémon were strong. And if Will could admit that I should be able to win, then why couldn't I? What was wrong?

Will huffed, shaking his head and putting two fingers to his forehead. "If you can't figure it out, then you're not going to win. Don't come back until you've got it."

And with that, he waved me off, disappearing through the doors behind him that led somewhere I might never know. I stood planted for a moment as the lights shut off around me, and I thought for a second that his words might make more sense in the darkness. Except they didn't, and they wouldn't, and I just didn't really understand what he wanted me to do.

"Absolutely pathetic. After I went to all of that work to get you the badge." Clair sighed, and I narrowed my eyes at her. Yeah, all the work she went to so I wouldn't get the badge. "You're making me feel guilty about having given it to you. If you can't even defeat the Elite Four, then there is no way in hell that you'd defeat my cousin."

I rubbed my temples, wondering why I went to Clair in the first place. Oh, but I knew why I came—she was the strongest gym leader in Johto, after all. I just didn't really know why I thought she would battle me again. I just sort of felt that she had an obligation to battle me again considering that she went to such great lengths not to give me her badge.

I wasn't asking for help, though. There was no way that I needed help from someone who lost to me. That was taking a step backwards. If I wanted to move forward, it had to be through my own efforts. The only reason I was even bothering to ask Clair to battle me was to ease my mind that I could still do this.

"Don't come back until you beat them, you hear me?" Clair demanded, and I fought off the urge to hit her. And why was everyone so obsessed with banning me from places until I could win? "Oh, before you go… could you bring this to Falkner at the Violet City Gym? I owe him one, but I haven't been able to get down there lately."

"Why would I want—"

"Just take it." She grabbed my hand, forcing something hard and sharp into it, and turned away from me. "Tell him that it's a Flying Gem. They're really rare, and I went to a lot of effort to find one for him. They don't even exist in Johto. So, tell him that, okay? Make sure that he feels really guilty about it."

I rolled my eyes, looking down at the sparkling gem she gave to me. It was so clear that I could see through it, my palm distorted beneath it. Pocketing it, I rolled my eyes once more for good measure and stormed out of her gym. This was such a waste of time—and now I had to go run errands for her, too.

"Whatever," I murmured bitterly as I climbed on my Togekiss's back. By the time I was up in the air, I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.

It had been a long time since I had been in Violet. I supposed that I ought to visit my mom, since she was just a couple of towns over, but I didn't want to go back yet—not when I couldn't even defeat the weakest Elite Four member.

Of course, it was after I thought this that I realized that I was banning myself from my own house now, too. Was there nowhere I could go anymore?

It had been even longer since I had been in the Violet City Gym, though. The last time I had seen Falkner… well, it had to be our battle when I first starting training. I could only imagine what he thought of me then. I was weak, a newbie trainer with no talent at all, but I won somehow. Now, I was finally someone worth battling. Or, at least, I thought I was. I could absolutely pulverize Falkner now, though, and that was really all that would matter to him.

When I walked into his gym, the first thing I noticed was that it was a little cleaner. It had been a little gross when I challenged him, understandably since he trained birds, so it had probably been scrubbed quite recently. Other than the cleanliness, nothing had really changed. The rafters still looked as rickety as ever before—clearly no one had talked with him about safety precautions yet.

"Is that Lyra down there?"

I squinted my eyes to see where the voice came from, and when I saw Falkner waving from right above me, I waved back. It was courtesy, really, that kept me cordial with him, even if I hadn't spoken with him in a long time. There was no point in talking down to him, despite the fact that he was the weakest gym leader. Poor guy. I wondered if he even knew or, if he did, cared.

I stepped onto the makeshift lift, which really was just as flimsy as that sounded, and shot up into the rafters. Falkner took my hand as I wobbled off of the lift, shaking it once I stabilized myself in front of him. I vaguely remembered that he had been quite serious when I met him, but here he was grinning like the complete opposite of the man I thought I knew. Maybe that had just been so long ago that the memories manipulated themselves into something else.

"Good to see you! I heard that you beat eight gym leaders. Taking the Elite Four challenge now, are you?" he asked, dropping my hand and moving his own to his hips.

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm just here to drop off something from Clair. She said that it's called a Flying Gem. And something about how it's not available in Johto, and she went to a lot of effort to get it for you. Or something," I said, reaching into my pocket and holding the shining gem towards him. When he took it, I backed onto the lift again. "I'll see you later."

"Thanks. And good luck with the Elite Four. They're a tough group, so if you need any help, I'm sure the gym leaders, myself included, would be more than willing to give you some pointers," he said with a quick wave, and I couldn't stop myself from bursting out laughing. It was so adorable when he raised his eyebrows, as if he didn't know what was so funny.

I smiled at him, pitying him a little for his naïveté. "I don't think I need any pointers from you guys," I told him, rolling my eyes and reaching for the lever to go down. But his confused expression stopped me. Did he really not get it? "Oh, come on. You couldn't even beat me. And if I can't beat them, what makes you think you could help me? I don't need help."

I really reached for the lever this time, but by the time I got down, Falkner was already on the ground floor with his Pidgeotto beside him. This time, he didn't appear confused at all—instead, the contortion of his face indicated a rage burning with him, his eyebrows furrowed to make his eyes narrow, his lips pressed thin.

"You're joking with me, right?"

I just continued to smile. Oh, he was so adorable. "About what? You're the weakest gym leader in Johto. Like you could help me."

"Wow, okay." He sighed, running a hand through his overly long bangs. "Just so you know, I make accommodations for the trainers challenging me. I've been training for years longer than you—I was a trainer here when my dad ran the gym. If I used my real team, I could probably wipe the floor with you. But you can continue to call me the 'weakest gym leader in Johto.'"

How sad—it seemed I touched a nerve. It was too bad that he was completely delusional. I was well aware that the gym leaders used different teams for different trainers depending on their abilities. The Violet City Gym happened to be my first stop, so Falkner used low-level Pokémon. But I was also aware of the fact that Clair was regarded, by more than just me, as the strongest leader. And if I could beat her, there was no way that Falkner could be me.

It was simple transitional logic. "If A is less than B and B is less than C, then A has to be less than C." Easy.

"Feel free to keep dreaming, buddy," I said, turning to walk out the door, but Pidgeotto blocked it before I could get outside.

"I don't need to defend myself to you," he began, and I rolled my eyes, "but I will have you know that I am good friends with Janine in Kanto, whose dad happens to be Koga of the Elite Four. And I am well-aware that you have been struggling to beat Will. So, I think it may be time that you stop being so pompous and start accepting help when it is offered to you—rather than insulting the person offering it."

Pompous? I wasn't pompous. Sure of myself, yes. Confident, yes. But those were healthy characteristics to have, were they not? There was no point in even fighting if you didn't think you could win—that was not only disrespectful to yourself, but it was disrespectful to your Pokémon and everyone who believed in you, too. So, yeah, of course I would be confident.

I could win. Even Will said I could. I just needed to figure out why I couldn't right now.

And I didn't need Falkner's help with that.

"Thanks for the pep talk. But, like I said, I don't need help," I told him, waving him off. I smiled and turned towards the door, but I paused, looking back and pointing at the gem he still held in his grasp. "Just so you know, you can only use that once. It shatters as soon as you use it, and only the first flying-type attack you use is boosted. Don't screw it up."

"If you keep up that attitude, you're going to continue losing," he shouted at me as I walked out the door, but I just smiled and shook my head.

"Will."

I put my hands on my hips as I entered his arena, smiling at the masked man. I was quite sure that I had figured out why I couldn't win; none of my Pokémon had the type-advantage on his psychic-types. But I also had to remember that Koga used poison-types, Bruno used fighting, and Karen used dark. So, I revamped my entire team, and I was positive that I could win now. In fact, there was no possible way I could lose.

Unfortunately, Will didn't agree.

"You're not ready yet." He folded his hands together, the magenta sleeves of his shirt rolling back to his elbows. "I told you to return only when you've figured out why you can't win, and you haven't figured that out yet. I won't battle you."

"Are you kidding me?" I demanded, my hat bouncing on my head as I leaned towards him. "I came all this way just for you to reject my challenge? How do you know that I won't win."

"Because you haven't learned anything," he responded calmly, and despite his cool demeanor, I could feel myself burning up. My hands had already begun to shake, and I curled my fingers into my palms. "You'll never win until you figure out why you're losing. It's all up here for you." He tapped his temple with his finger, and I narrowed my eyes.

That didn't even make sense! What the hell did he want me to do?

I stomped out of the room before he could speak another word, sure that I might detonate if he said anything else. The nurse waved to me as I passed her desk, but I continued forward, right to the entrance I had come through not minutes ago. I didn't even care that this was completely embarrassing anymore. I just wanted to win.

But I didn't understand. I was so sure that I could win this time. I studied this time, researched the match up of my Pokémon against his based on statistics and move bases, boosted the EVs of my party, taught each of my team members a perfect range of moves. So why, after all that I had done to prepare, wasn't I ready?

I was starting to sound like Silver… I was starting to feel like him. The frustration he must have felt at his inability to win…

Damn it.

He was really making me do this, wasn't he?

"Togekiss," I ordered, releasing it into the sky, "take me to Violet."

I knew what to expect walking into Falkner's gym. He was going to laugh at me for returning, and I wouldn't be surprised if he made me get on my knees and beg for him to help me. And, at that point, I would just turn around and leave because I didn't need anyone's help so desperately that I was willing to forgo my pride.

Except it never went the way I expected it to go, at least not recently. That wasn't to say that Falkner appeared pleased at my arrival, nor was he smug about knowing that I would return. He was curt with me as I walked along the rafters towards him, maneuvering my way along the one-foot-wide beams. Somehow it seemed easier before.

"What do you want, Lyra?" he asked, no greeting other than this. I hopped over a particularly nasty—and recent—pile of bird droppings, nearly losing my footing as I landed. But I settled myself, and when I looked back up at Falkner, he had his hand outstretched towards me. Noticing that I saw, he quickly let his arm fall back to his side.

I brushed my hands off on my shorts, as if that made the fact that I almost fell a little better. "I'm accepting your offer."

He raised his eyebrows, and it was then that I expected the laugh. Instead, he just crossed his arms, his eyebrows furrowed. I thought for a second that he might say no, and when he began to shake his head, I almost turned around. But the no never came, and he smiled a little bit—more to himself than to me.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he said quietly, and then he sighed. "All right, fine. You want me to help you? Say it."

"Huh?"

He put his hands on his hips, the smile now a little twisted. "I want you to ask me for help."

"I am…" I muttered, but he shook his head subtly enough that maybe it was just my imagination. But I rolled my eyes, wondering if I was about to sacrifice my pride despite my assertion that I would never do that to myself. "All right, but this is completely stupid. Can you help me beat the Elite Four?"

He put a hand behind his ear, leaning towards me. "I'm sorry, I couldn't quite catch that."

"Will you help me beat the Elite Four?" I shouted, just to get him to stop acting like a little asshole punk, and the laugh I expected finally came. "You're a jerk, you know that? This is really hard for me, you know? I can't… I can't just ask people for help. I've never needed it before. I've always… just done my own thing."

Falkner nodded, his face solemn once more. I liked that better—the smile annoyed me, and with his hair covering his one eye just so, it seemed like he was better off as someone serious. Either way, of course, he bothered me.

"Sorry, but that was just a test. Unfortunately for you, you're going to need a lot of work. Your problem isn't something that training can fix," he explained, walking swiftly across the rafters towards me, as if there wasn't a fifty-foot drop beneath us. "You're the problem, Lyra. Step number one—you need to accept that it's you, not your Pokémon."

"But—"

"No. It's you. Do you have any idea why?" he asked, and I shook my head.

No, I had no clue why. I had won so many battles up until this point. So why, all of a sudden, couldn't I win anymore? And if it was me, not my Pokémon, then… hell, what did that even mean? I wasn't the one doing the battling. Sure, I gave the orders, but they had been just as good as always. It was my Pokémon who kept losing…

"Your Pokémon can't bring out their best abilities with your current attitude. You're so sure that you can win that you are completely obscuring yourself from the true realities of battle. Knowing this, your Pokémon try to make adjustments for your inabilities but cannot successfully do so," he explained. How did he know all of this? "You're pompous, Lyra. There's a difference between confidence and egocentricity. You overestimate the extent of what you can actually do."

"I—"

The truth was, I had nothing to say to that. Falkner didn't know anything. Except… except it made sense. I hated to admit it, but it did. Because I was so sure that I could win all the time. And that was the change. I wasn't always like this. Before I fought Team Rocket, I was scared all the time. I always feared losing because there was so much riding on my victory.

And once it was all over, well, winning didn't matter that much anymore. So, I expected it. I won when it mattered, so I had to win when it didn't. I knew I would, and I did. Until I was close to the top…

"I need you to do something for me, Lyra." Falkner pointed to a spot on the rafters, just a couple of feet over from where I stood. "Stand right here and face perpendicularly to me."

I moved hesitantly, standing as he told me and staring at him. "What now?"

"Fall back."

"Fall back?" I demanded, looking behind me where there was absolutely nothing but the drop. My stomach must have dropped over the edge already. "If I fall back, then—"

"Fall back," he repeated, his tone stern. I stared at him, unmoving, and he shook his head expectantly. "Well, can you do this or not?"

"No, no, of course I can't!" I cried.

He grinned, the twist of his lips slightly malicious. "But you will."

I screamed as he pushed me, falling backwards off the rafters. I was sure, so sure, that I was going to die right here. I didn't think for a second that Falkner was so angry about how I treated him that he wanted to kill me, but I didn't really know him. Who knew that he had such an evil bone within him, somewhere hidden behind his hair.

Except I never hit the ground. Instead, something clung to my shoulders and pulled me back up, so suddenly that I thought I might throw up at the lurch. And when my feet landed back on the rafters, I wobbled dangerously, and Falkner pulled me against him to stop me from falling again. He helped me sit down, my heart still beating so furiously that it might as well just pop out of me. I was breathing so hard that I couldn't even hear him as he whispered something to the Pidgeot that had caught me when I fell.

"Wha—wh—why?" I shouted, looking at him as he sat beside me, moving over enough that I wouldn't be able to whack him. Or strangle him. "I—can't believe—you just did that—to me! I—I'm going to—to absolutely kill you!"

"Were you scared?" he asked, and I wiped away the tears that started rolling down my cheeks. I didn't know when I started crying, but the tears were falling in quick succession. I couldn't even glance his way anymore—this was so embarrassing. "Lyra, look at me. I'm sorry I did that to you. I'm really sorry. But were you scared?"

"What are you—"

"Were you scared?"

I stared at him with wide eyes, and the sinking sensation in my stomach indicated that, yes, I was still scared. Not of him necessarily. I was well-aware now that he wouldn't have let me gotten hurt. I just wasn't sure that his tactics were the most ethical. Who knew that Falkner was such a sadistic teacher? Certainly not me.

"Yes. Yes, Falkner, I was scared. From the moment you asked me to fall backwards, I was scared, all right?" I told him, and he seemed to relax. "And when you pushed me back, I thought I was going to die. I literally thought that you were trying to kill me. So, yeah, I was scared. Are you happy? Got your revenge, have you?"

"Revenge's got nothing to do with it." He swung his legs back and forth, and I kept my tucked against the wooden rafters, sure that if I fell again, I would hang on somehow. When he noticed, he smiled at me. "You were scared, but you lived. And it's not so scary now that you've done it, right? But that doesn't mean you wouldn't be scared to do it again."

"Get away from me," I hissed, and he laughed, throwing his head back so I could see the eye behind his bangs.

When he stopped laughing, he stared ahead of him at the wall, and there was something so soft about his gaze. "My dad taught me that being scared makes you stronger. That's why I fight up on these rafters. I still get a little nervous about walking on them even though I know my birds will catch me."

I stared at the wall, too, expecting to see something grand, but I couldn't figure it out. "I don't get it."

"Why don't you apply that to your way of thinking? You've become so used to winning that you've become numb." He shrugged, as if it was so obvious. "Isn't uncertainty more exciting? You don't know if you're going to win—hell, you could lose. But if you lose, it's an opportunity for you to get better. If you win, there is always another battle that you might lose. Being hopeful but remaining humble produces better results."

"It's kind of like synergy," I said, something clicking in my head. I continued to stare ahead, but I could see Falkner turn to face me in my peripherals. "The combination of the two produces results greater than either individually, even when maxed out." I looked at Falkner now, frowning. "And I wasn't at all humble. I'm so sorry for what I said to you before. About being the weakest gym leader in Johto."

He shrugged, smiling in spite of the somber atmosphere saturating the room now. And, suddenly, it seemed to suit him. "When you become the champion, come visit me," he said, holding his hand out towards me. And I laughed, grabbing it and giving it three quick pumps.

"Someday," I agreed.

I almost forgot what being nervous felt like. I didn't like the way my breaths were a little too short, and the queasiness of my stomach made me uncomfortable, even though I knew that it would be over soon. I had walked down this hall enough that I didn't need to be nervous anymore, but for the first time at the Indigo Plateau, I knew that I could lose again.

When I walked into Will's room, he smiled at me, and I lifted a hand to wave. Had I been mean to him, too?

"I think I'm ready," I told him, and he rubbed his chin.

"You think you're ready?" he repeated, and I nodded. He laughed, the cackle fitting him perfectly. I wondered what he looked like behind that mask. "Well, that tells me that you are ready, my dear. I look forward to this. Let's both give it all we've got, yes?"

Everything… the sum of all the parts—the sum of everything I had: good and bad—would be greatest. So, I grabbed a red-and-white ball from my bag and threw it into the air, letting the synergy take over.

Author's Note: Oh, man. This was actually pretty rough to write. No idea why, haha. I'm not sure I really got into it until towards the end. Hopefully it turned out all right?

I think next up is a new lengthy fanfic starring our good ol' friends Lyra and Morty (a far more likeable Lyra than this one, I can assure you). It'll be in Morty's POV (and why I do that to myself, I don't know). I'm still working on a title. It should be up… at some point.

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