prophecy controlled amonniad series four

by pauline companion cavalry

Sometimes, one event can shape the coarse of your life. Alexander, his newly-appointed seer Aristander, and their fellow Hellenic League members are about to experience this first hand, and some of them won't see the end result.

PROPHECY CONTROLLED

(Amonniad Series Four)

CHAPTER ONE NOTES: I don't have to say much about this chapter. It takes place about a month after the events of History Retactics. I know this series happens in a short time frame, but I assure you, this will take longer to finish. The episode of Companions is real and everything said or written is real word for word.

1: Get Back to Things

I sat on the floor at Ash's house. I hadn't been there since about four months ago when I went to a party there, so it was nice to be back. I was watching Companions along with my big group of friends. Companions is this series about the people here in the Hellenic League, especially Alexander and Hephaistion. It's not a normal documentary series however; Adam Usnitch, the producer and main cameraman for the show, gets messed with a lot. He's constantly falling off things, saying things he would never say without persuasion, and of course, getting his camera stolen. Typical Macedonians working with the typical guy from Arizona.

Anyway, we were watching the episode where he was filming me finishing History Retactics. Though it was a rerun, more than a month old, we never got tired of watching any of the episodes, especially this one. When everyone had read the new book, they had all agreed that it was the best one in the series to date. "This is so cool!" critiqued Hephaistion. "I can't believe this; you even got the intelligence about Kleitis dying. I love it!"

"Me too," agreed Pikachu, glancing at Ash's TV again. "Who knew that you could come up with something so, so," "Hard to describe?" offered Darius. He knew he hadn't been much of an influence in the third book, but he was happy. He had gotten his chance before. "Sure, that works."

"Oh my gods, I wasn't sure if you could make something as epic as The Power Misused, but I guess I was proved wrong. That was one of the best things I've ever read!" Let me explain. Getting a good review of anything from Alexander was a good sign because what he has said and what he will say in this organization was and is what goes. "I am officially kicking Christopher Paolini off my favorite authors list!" he declared, not caring that Aria Alphis, who was sitting next to him, still liked the Inheritance Cycle author even after finding out about the Eragon movie they had made and after rereading the trilogy to discover how bad it actually was.

"Does he mean it?" asked Triana, glancing at Darius from across the couch. When she saw the look on his face, she knew. Yes, he meant it. "Wait," Cam held up a hand. "It's on again."

The group watched the TV intently. We all wanted to see how Usnitch did this part. "Anything you have to say to the people who are watching?" he asked me.

"Nothing," I replied, "except this: thank you for filming all my progress during the past few months. This is getting more fun to do every day. And," I said, looking at who sat behind me, "that is because of my awesome editing team."

"Wait," Carn said, "doesn't Odysseus edit for you?"

"He does, but a certain someone always hacks his computer and brings the files to you guys. You guys read it and since I get multiple opinions, you make the writing even better."

"So doing that was worth it?" asked Alexander, locking eyes with me.

"Sure but-" "You did that?" gasped Triana. "I thought, I thought, uh, something else like, like, Ilium copied it and lost the original."

"That is like him," he mused, looking straight into Usnitch's camera, "and Odysseus if you're watching, I, I, am the one who's been hacking your computer to get the `supposedly classified` files of this book series! Yes, it's me! Not Cam, not A7 who works for me, certainly not Carn, me!"

"And," the Macedonian said, talking over his own recording, "is where Usnitch cut off his filming."

"I'm just wondering," said Adam, "what did you say when I turned the camera off?"

"Oh, some big speech about how awesome my tactics are and all that." Alexander didn't seem to care that he was being filmed right now, and maybe we should have told him. "Dude," I ventured, preparing for the long list of questions ahead, "we're being filmed right now. You're admitting this to the world or at least the United States at large."

I thought he would start yelling in Macedonian and throw Adam and I out. His temper has improved significantly considering how he was when he was in his late twenties and early thirties, but he could be angered at the smallest things. He would start ranting on and on about it with some pretty damn good arguments against the thing mixed in. But this time, he just stared. "And to think," he said in fascination or was that sarcasm, "I thought you just copied me."

"We do," I said, "but not as much. I don't write screwed-up histories like another certain someone who Aristotle knows."

"Don't say that about Aristotle's nephew!" he protested. "What if he hears?"

"Well, now that he knows the facts, he doesn't really like him anymore," said Aria. "Wow Tracey, what are you going to do now?"

"I'm working on my fourth book, Prophecy Controlled right now," I told them.

"But how?" asked Alexander, looking at me.

"I'm going to write down this conversation and I'm using it for the first chapter of this book."

"So, it'll be like everything we do and say will be recorded, even when we don't want it to. But feel free!"

"I didn't think you would say that," I informed him, "but how does it feel to know that what we're saying now will be in a book?"

"It seems pretty cool, funny, and creepy. And violent, seeing what I do all the time."

"Take his word," Adam advised me. "He means it."

"You know," Aria continued, "I did notice that you were having lots of trouble coming up with ideas for the third book during the past month. What happened?"

"Maybe it's 'cause I ended the third book too well," I said. "There are some issues that need to be settled like Calesthenes and Leonardo da Vinci and all, but not much else. I'm kind of sad that it will all be over in just a couple of weeks," I confessed. "I really love writing books about you guys, you know that. That's mostly why I'm not telling Odysseus about the computer."

"You're not?" Alexander asked disbelieving. He knew if Odysseus found out that someone was messing with him, he would want to find out who it was and fast. "Of course not," I responded.

"You're worth much more than that Greek, even if he is from your favorite book, anyway," added Aria gently, putting an arm around Alexander.

Ever since they had met last year out on the streets in Pallet, well, it was love at first sight. He liked Aria since she liked his rough and unfinished, yet smooth personality that showed up at times. He didn't like luxuries most of the time; he liked things to be hard for him, something that offered a challenge, just like her. Aria liked this about Alexander. When she found out who he really was back in February 2009, she had sworn that she would try to make how long she could spend with him the best few years, months, weeks, or possibly days, the best of his life. She was easy-going and she could tolerate all the things he did and she even thought they made him unique and different from all the other guys she could have seen and had seen ever.

She wasn't like most girls; she didn't care about how he looked, what he said, where he took her and what they did and Alexander felt the same way about Aria. Everyone who had ever seen them together could tell that they were very close. They had been through a lot since last year.

People also wondered why they were still dating, it was because if you had a couple like this, it was like them to do this kind of thing. They wouldn't have ever met if they hadn't met in the park and struck up a conversation. And before you knew it, Alexander and Aria were as famous a duo as Brad and Angelina, but without the scandal. They openly admitted that they were dating whenever they got media attention; they didn't care. They wanted everyone to know and a way of doing this was to go on obvious dates.

About every two weeks on Friday or Saturday, Alexander and Aria would go somewhere together. Whether it was Starbux or Sushi Boat, it was always somewhere everyone expected. They went to unexpected places too; several times, they went to Laser Quest to play with their friends and they would be on a team together. They would go shooting at the shooting gallery or they would go train a few miles out of town in the forest for an afternoon.

And, the strangest and coolest thing was that if anyone saw them and said, `hey it's Alexria!` they didn't mind. On the contrary, they welcomed the attention. "Yes," Aria would state clearly and loudly, "we're back again! Is this getting surprising? Because if it is, you're new to this. We don't keep secrets like this, we tell them to everyone within earshot!"

"That's right!" Alexander would back Aria up, "like how earlier today I saw that there were some historians who were fighting over when I fought the battle of Issos!"

"Why?" Aria would ask.

"'Cause we, especially I, am worthy of being fought over, and 'cause we're awesome!" Everyone within earshot would laugh and then leave them alone.

This is the world that I had been invited to when I met Alexander and now I'm part of it. But now, let's see some more action from a different point of view.

CHAPTER TWO NOTES: This is the first chapter where it switches perspectives. I managed to get all parts of the story. How I received all of this you may ask? I was invited to watch and take notes. Hope you enjoy. To all who know about their unique relationship, Aria and Alexander say `Hi world!`

2: Two Meet

I saw the couple, the god and the demigod, leave Ash's house almost at six. They were obviously going to spend lots of time together this time. They beckoned me and I followed. We didn't go to some local restaurant, but we had to drive a ways from town. Aria had taken the wheel. I know what you might be thinking: these two were going to drive, talk in a couple-ish kind of way, playing romantic music in the background. It was the complete opposite. We didn't take our time driving-Aria swerved into the Carpool Lane. They didn't talk about how they looked or any love gossip, they cut each other off a lot, trying to say what they had been waiting to tell the other for the past two weeks. Most of the time, it was news or things they heard on the radio or off the street. And, to make things even more like them, they didn't go to 96.5 Koit and listen to love songs and hold hands. They did things very very unlike that.

On this Friday night, as soon as everyone was buckled up, Alexander reached over and turned on and turned up an All American Rejects CD he had burned. Then, the talking began. "Did you hear about what's happening with Ash and Dawn?"

"No? What kind of thing is going on?"

"Ash and Dawn go to the same school now-" "Hold up. How did it get like this?"

"Ash is going to Class Collect Middle and High School and Dawn heard and she begged her dad to transfer there."

"Now what?" Alexander asked eagerly.

"They're in the same classes and they sit at the same table and are on the same team for stuff in PE. It's like this for every period."

"Anything else?"

"Oh, and they're eating together three days a week."

"No way! Why only three days? Why not all five?"

"They give each other breathing space."

"But still, that's totally like them, they don't, like, imitate what Brock and Nurse Joy do at all!"

"But Aria remember? Brock doesn't have a girlfriend! He'll never have a girlfriend! He wasn't destined-" "to get a girlfriend," Aria finished. "I know. But Alex, what do they do?"

"Well," Alexander was talking faster and faster and it was making it hard for me to take note of his words, "they never ever reject what the other person says unless it's really stupid."

"Like what don't they reject?"

"Ash suggested for them to take the Extras class during the summer if possible and-" "What did Dawn say?"

"Well, she loved the idea and they're signing up. The class starts the first week in June and runs all the way through July."

Their conversation continued like this until they reached a fork in the road. Aria turned right onto a smaller street, then left onto a dirt road. Then, she opened the car door and the trunk; there was a picnic basket and two backpacks inside.

The couple swung the backpacks onto their backs and held the basket between them. Trying to stay out of the way, I followed behind. "Don't be silly," said Aria, handing me a backpack as well, "come on. If you're just going to take notes, it's not worth coming at all!"

"Where are we going?" I asked as we started to walk on a small trail that wound through the forest.

"Oh you'll see and you'll love it. A lot."

We had to walk a couple miles on the trail and when it ended, our trio stopped in a sizable clearing. There were a couple stone tables sitting side by side. There was a cabin close by with solar panels attached to the roof. Or were those sculptures someone had carved into the wood? I couldn't tell. There was a fire pit behind the cabin. It looked like someone's summer cabin, but it looked like it was being used. "Who uses this place?" I wondered out loud as Aria set the picnic basket on one of the tables. "Who does this belong too?"

"Us of course!" she laughed and helped Alexander and I remove our packs, "we built this place last year over the summer. We used a little money and some hard work to make this. We go here about every six weeks just to get away from it all, you know."

"Kind of like Philip's summer palace, if he had one," Alexander explained, opening their basket. There were olives, cheese, and panini bread, but no lamb. "We don't really feel like having meat tonight," the Macedonian at Aria's side explained. "Not that we're vegetarians, we just want snack foods tonight. Come on help us!"

The three of us baked the bread over the fire and instead of piling it high with food, we just ate the bread how it was, still hot and covered in grill marks. Aria took soda cans out of her pack and we toasted Alexander's godship, of course. No talking interrupted the crunching of the bread, the squish of the olives as their juices were being sucked out. I was wondering if we were going back to Pallet now, but Alexander grabbed my arm saying, "Wait up. We don't just eat here. We spend the night here."

"Really?" I widened my eyes at him.

"Really." He smiled, pointing at the cabin. "Let's unpack, everyone." When I walked inside, I didn't see any beds. Or bunks. Or anything that was what I thought a camping cabin was supposed to be like. There were just bundles of cloth and boxes stacked against the wall.

We all took up a couple boxes and we opened them up outside. I gasped; there were massive pieces of cloth like the walls of a tent, and really long poles whose function I was unsure of.

Then, I opened up one of the boxes-there were some gold plates, gilded knives, and lots more gold. "What, what is all this?" I stammered, looking at all the finery.

"We're pitching a tent." was Alexander's simple reply. "Can you just get all the walls up please? I'll explain."

I didn't want to argue, so I did so. When we were done, we had pitched a tent that was about thirty feet square. The long poles, I realized, were the columns supporting it and while rummaging through the stuff, I had found a huge gold and silver box. It was large enough for someone to lie inside and it looked like a bathtub, a really ornate and valuable bathtub. And it was a bathtub. It was the same one that Alexander had received after the battle of Issos. _So much gold for one _person. I thought.

"Check it out." Alexander swept his arm around the tent as Aria and I entered. "Welcome, honored guests. Tell me, who are you and where are you from? What do you do for a living, for I see red and white balls hanging from your belts."

We played along for we knew he was a king at heart and that he still knew what that involved. "I am Tracey Esteron," I said, prostrating myself. I showed him my Vaporeon, "and I am a pokemon trainer."

"I am Aria Alphis," Aria said, showing her Flarion's pokeball and her blue poketch to him, "and I am a pokemon coordinator. Coordinators use their pokemon to win battles and to make presentations that are visually appealing. We win contest ribbons and after we win five of them, we get to go to the Grand Festival."

"Interesting," he commented. "Please sit down and enjoy a place at my fire."

Alexander's notes: This is where I let Alexander take over with the writing. By the way, he uses almost no apostrophes at all. I tried to convince him to use them and he refused. Oh well. He said he wanted to keep it like the past him.

These strangers, sitting around my fire, they seem like people of good birth. Why would they be here if they were going to do me a misdeed? I am taking a chance, of course, but I have done this before.

The one named Tracey told me that she is a daughter of Apollo. Amazing! She is related to one of the Muses then! I want to know how life is like being a demigod; they must be able to do some things us mortals are unable to do. Like cracking rocks open with lyres like Orpheus. But, I also know that Apollo is the god of poetry, so what Tracey has told me about her writing books makes sense.

Tracey has a traveling companion with her named Aria and she tells me that she is a pokemon trainer and coordinator. She had explained all of the practices of trainers and coordinators to me as soon as she saw my gaze land on the red and white sphere clutched in her hand. She told me that pokemon are creatures with abilities that a normal animal does not have and that in some ways, they can mimic the gods. They use `pokemon moves` to defend themselves like the Fire Spin attack she showed me, using her Flarion. She explained that every pokemon has a set of statistics for HP, Health Points, Attack, Defense, Speed, and Special Attack and Special Defense and every time a pokemon wants to use one of its moves, it uses some of these stats.

I understood most of the terms well, but I did not comprehend what Special Attack and Defense were. I found out that these statistics are used for Special moves., moves that raise or lower these stats in the user or opponent. They are used to do moves that do not make physical contact, like normal attacking and defending moves.

I take all this knowledge in, every little bit of it. But, I want to know more, much more-where did pokemon come from, how many varieties are there, how does one get one? During the night, I may come up with even more questions that become even more specific. However, I know that no matter how curious I may be, I must respect the rules of hospitality. I will feed and rest my guests today and feed and rest them only. Tomorrow, I will ask the questions I desire.

Tracey claims that she is using the words I say now to write another book. I really want to know what it is about and how it involves me, but as I have said before, I must acknowledge hospitality rules. These travelers may be very tired from hundreds of miles of journeying across tough terrane and for all I know, women cannot normally do this kind of thing without a male escort. They have both told me that with their pokemon, they can defend themselves and when I inquired of their travels as you should do when you receive a guest, myself included, they informed me that they did not have to travel very far and that they just needed a place to lodge, eat, and train in for a couple days. I am unsure of what kind of training they mean, but I think I know: pokemon training.

I lie in bed now, thinking of all these questions and their possible answers. I am not quite certain of what I can do to help them, for I can tell that they do not have too much experience, but I can tell them what moves could go together and tactical things.

Aria's Notes: It's Aria's turn to do her part. She will be writing this section in her point of view.

I was astonished to see how large that pavilion was-and that was just a small part of it, for Alexander didn't use all of it for his quarters. There was gold, gold, silver, malachite, and yes, more gold sheathing everything. He acted like this was normal, which of course it was and he told Tracey and I everything we wanted to know about where, why, and how he got each of the items. It seemed like he was used to this too, seeing how many envoys he had received before.

As for his behavior tonight? I wasn't really surprised that he would do this. He obviously knew that we knew that during his conquests, he had been the ruler of thousands and thousands of people. He still knew of the formalities that it entailed to show that the Macedonians weren't so corrupt and barbaric after all. Tracey is still wondering why he did it: maybe because he wanted to explain where he got the stuff, maybe because no matter how informal he is now, the manners and ways of a world ruler were still in him, it was just that he didn't use them... until tonight. He wanted to show us what he could do and what he used to do for only about six or seven years. Though he hadn't ruled for very long, he had enjoyed every moment that wasn't filled with planning, fighting, marching, meeting envoys, or later, dealing with mutinies. I know that when he's given luxuries occasionally, he appreciates it greatly, but he never wants to live a life of ease. I know this much of him, but I also know much, much, more.

CHAPTER THREE NOTES: If you haven't watched the anime Reign the Conqueror, you won't understand why this chapter is here at all. Let me explain. I only know about all of this because of the parody Reign the Conqueror abridged. It's a lot stranger than the actual one, but it follows the same storyline. An important prophecy is pronounced at the beginning of the first episode and though this is in an anime, it will become more than an anime. You might be asking, how does an anime have any connection with Alexander? I have no idea, only the story will tell.

Sorry if this is a spoiler, but the only part of this story that is and ever will be in connection with Reign the Conqueror is the prophecy and that's all. Hope you enjoy. Oh, and the various quotes found in this chapter and from now on are from the parody and are the property of these respective people: Herosha Arimata, Tokyopop, and whoever else helped make the book and the anime own them. Therefore, they also belong to the people who made the parody. No copyright infringement was intended, I used the quotes to support the plot and give some background information.

3: Know Don't Tell (to anyone but one)

At some time in December of last year, Alexander and I were browsing YouTube, looking for more videos to praise. Then, we clicked on one called `Reign the Conqueror Abridged Episode 01.` We weren't sure why it was on the list of results for whatever we typed in, but we ignored this and clicked play. It was probably the funniest thing we had ever watched thus far or probably ever will. We listened intently to the introduction:

`Long ago, there was a prophecy foretold.`

`I will not allow this Olympias!"

`Destined to destroy-` `Why did she have to choose out of so many? So many good, so many bad? She planned to give birth to this of all things? As my burly man legs as my witness, this! ends! now!` `The abridged world.`

`Aah! Burly man legs, why have you forsaken me?`

`Now, my Alexander, rise, and let your abridged series, bring the world to its knees!`

None of us knew what that meant in real life, but someone had already figured out what would happen at the end of the series. `The world ends in this parody. First one so far. And probably the only one so far. And it has to do with me, even if it's in parody form. But we've found out, anything in any video we watch that involves me could be important," foretold Alexander. `We must listen with care.` When I heard of this anecdote, I didn't think that these few sentences, especially the last one, would be as important as any other he had said that day or any moment of the videos Alexander and I watched any way life-changing. But now, I, primarily Tracey, know better.

There is another pair of moments that I still remember and ones that I immediately memorized as soon as Aria told me of them. It was in Episode 05. We didn't think a fifth episode would ever be made, but lo and behold, we were wrong. In this episode, Alexander is talking to Diogenes, Athens's philosopher. Aria told me all of their conversation and I took notes on the whole. However, only two parts will be used for the sake of clarification and understanding of what I am trying to say.

`Alexander, negotiation less your concern is, concern with self, be it. Yes?`

`Yes, I've been feeling rather conflicted, like I don't know who I am or what I want. What is ailing me?`

`Character development. Endure it all protagonists must.

`But I'm Alexander, I don't need character development.`

`Mm, but why also a great king have it?`

`Years ago my mother prophesied that my abridged series would `bring the world to its knees.` First off, what is an abridged series?`

`Is not like merely a chain of events that occur or happen make you, like a series, and a shorter time happening, like abridged it was, argo, abridged series.`

`And is mine going to destroy the world?`

`Depends on you it does.`

`But I do seem to be in a destroy everything or burn everything that lives kind of mood.`

`The same kind of mood that Thebes brought down, interesting.`

`But can I not fulfill this prophecy; what if I don't want to destroy the world? Where would I put my stuff once I conquer it?`

`Nope, God's prophecy absolute. Your second question has one answer. Yet Alexander, does a cloth not consist of many destroyed but uncut strings? Can someone get burned without being inflamed..."

...`Too late to tell on any of them.`

`Things may be destroyed even if not literally cut or burned, you, whose abridged series one of destruction is, may also one of creation be. Remember that, you will.`

At the time, I was confused at why Aria had told me of these passages from the anime parody, but two things make me certain that our theory is true. One is that I have watched all five episodes, plus a sixth new one that has been made recently by myself. I finally know why Alexander loves it so much-there's logic, no logic, blood, violence, cuss words, music, and much more. It's quick and witty in its own bloody, almost historically accurate kind of way. If you know the real history, you know and can tell how closely the events in the anime are linked to the same events that happened in real life. This is the first reason why we think that our theory is true.

The second is that I have been claimed and I have been named a daughter of Apollo, which means I can possibly see the future through my dreams. Oracles in the past have been able to do this, but demigods can as well. We have dreams that post-dict the past, see what our foes and friends are doing, and occasionally for oracles and children of Apollo especially, tell the future. I have experienced this several times. Once, I predicted the comeback of Alexander's squires and how they died of his vengeance. Also, I experienced this when I foresaw, something even more astonishing. At the time, I thought this possibility was so unlikely, that I couldn't have done it. The Fates had told Alexander themselves that he could choose his own path. But I also remembered that they said that as soon as he chose a path, he would end up like everyone else. He would live with a destiny and nothing but a miracle would alter his fate.

I didn't think I had set him on his path. But I did. I foretold Alexander's Reign the Conqueror prophecy coming true. Not in the anime parody, but in real life.

I knew this as soon as I started watching the episodes. He will destroy the world. The question is, when, how, and why?

CHAPTER FOUR NOTES: Now Alexander expresses how he feels about his most recent power upgrades. There's a part where he mentions Reign the Conqueror Abridged and again, it belongs to the original author, the anime makers, and the owner of the parody. Here it is.

4: My Sword, My Shield, My Mind

Control. This is the word that describes me no matter what I feel. Control. No matter how little of it I have, I know that it's there. This assures me that in any situation, I can turn it to my advantage. All of my upgrades in ability have guaranteed control, especially the two most recent ones-Aristotle's spell and Zeus declaring me a god.

Zeus's declaration was heartening; he trusted me with so much power. He told me of my abilities, but the one that still appeals to me is that a tiny part of me will still be mortal. It makes me feel like my friends and my former self. But I wasn't to be. He said that `only a strike from Chronos's scythe or an attack from all the gods could kill you.` But think of how unlikely any of these possibilities are. Chronos will not rise for probably thousands and thousands of years. He is still weak. And the gods, striking me down? Please, that is a dim possibility. They know that I have worshiped them all for years, ever since I first heard of them when I was little. I was devoted to them and whenever something beneficial happened, I thanked them with as much sacrifice as needed, and a lot of the time, much more than was needed. This is not the upgrade, no matter how surprising it may be, that I enjoyed the most. Aristotle's upgrade, my teacher's power upgrade, this upgrade, is the one that I take advantage of the most.

Aristotle's deed was done back in February. The Hellenic League was fighting Team Rocket's soldiers, out in the forests near Veridian City. There were twenty five of us and over one hundred of them. The Team Rocket numbers did not include pokemon, which would double it. With pokemon, we had about sixty. Even with them still outnumbered three to one. I was in the thick of the fighting, even killing about ten of the enemy, but even with my efforts, we were being driven back towards our camp. All our supplies were there and if we could not stop the push, we would be slaughtered.

That is when Aristotle, sword in hand and suffering from a stab wound in his thigh, came up to me. He pulled at my sword arm and at first I whirled on him. I could only see his eyes, his gray eyes through the slits of his helmet, but I knew it was him and I could tell it was important. I signed to him to rearm himself and we left the battlefield.

The Team Rocket soldiers jeered at us and shouted curses, they would send troops after us to kill us. We ignored these taunts. Our side was different. Half of them cried out in dismay. `No Alexander! We need you in the fight! You are our best!` The other half shouted, `Aristotle and Alexander will save us! Upgrade Aristotle! Upgrade! Back in camp!` Aristotle locked eyes with me, and I immediately knew what he would do-I would be powered up, again.

We walked through the many tents in camp until we arrived at one I thought was his own. But it turned out to be a, what? A hospital tent? There was a cot lying in the middle of the floor, with wires and metal bands attached to it. There was a power generator on the floor off to the side. A monitor next to the bed was hooked up to one of the larger bands, close to where someone's head would lie, beeping softly. Aristotle led me to the cot and he told me to lie down. `What for?` I asked, eyeing the bands.

`These bands go around your limbs," he explained. `They will help channel the energy into you. They will also keep you from thrashing during the process.`

`Process?` I repeated. `What kind of process? What will you do to me?`

`Oh,` he said, smiling slightly, `just a little power adjustment. You've been through this kind of thing before, so it shouldn't be painful for you. You need to be asleep in order for it to work, though. Do you have a pokemon that can sleep you?`

`Yes I do," I replied. `Go, Espeon!` I cried, swinging `my arm in an inverted arc, releasing the psychick pokemon. She looked at me, then Aristotle, then the cot. She understood at once.

I lay down, putting my arms and legs through the wrist and ankle bands. Aristotle secured the one around my neck and the two around my chest. `What is the monitor for?` I asked, gesturing at it with my head.

`That's to keep track of your heart beat and other things like that," my past teacher answered. `It also says how much energy I channeled into you and how much we have to go. This will take about twenty minutes. Are you ready?`

`As much as I will ever be with you doing this," I said. `Espeon, Hypnosis,` I commanded. Espeon stared down at me, not believing what she was doing, but she followed my orders. I felt my eyelids closing and I just saw blackness before me. But just because I could not see, did not mean I was completely unaware of what was happening; I heard everything. That is how I can recount it here. I heard Aristotle recite a spell. And a rather interesting and long one, at that.

`Oh Alexander,

spawn of Zeus,

you will have more power

than you could ever imagine.

Only one power will suffice

not movement without touching

not control without persuading

not burning without a torch

no, you will have Greek.

They say words are not actions

in your case they will be

say `crack` a crack forms

say `recover` and it will happen

say `shatter` and it will break

your enemies will no nothing

and you will be all-knowing

do you have a sword that never dulls?

a shield that dazzles its opponents to death?

no, you will have Greek.

In speech or in thoughts

it will devastate

it will save

your own will praise you

their wounds healed by you

they will cry your name in joy

or as a paean.

As for your enemies

they will fear you

your name your sword your shield your mind.

Your name is a curse for them

your voice a living torture

your appearance the equivalent

to winning battle impossibility;

your sword the end to hopes

of victories of flee

of success

of theirs and it will be the best for you.

Your shield,

reflects anything and everything

swords and spears

arrows and darts

javelins and bullets

but only one weapon matters

nay, it is not your sword

your shield? your mind?

no, it is your Greek.

Think any word at all

any event not in English

not in any language that we know

do it in

your language of power

not any modern language

no, it is your Greek.

Do all of this

with your brilliant mind

your conquering mind

your win battles mind

the mind that has never thought of

tactics and ideas

all of war and conquest

all of yours, of only you.

With your golden hair

with indescribable grace

not straight not curly

but waving like water

and energy waves

your eyes of different colors

of dark brown like chocolate

that is sweet but can yet be bitter.

The dark brown eye

hales in comparison

to the blue gray eye

the one all fighting men fear

with the blue

so clear

so shiny like sapphire

reflecting the light

like a living jewel

the gray

so dark so imposing

your gaze sucking away any light

Alexandros Alexander the powerful name

Alexandros is not Latin

no, this is your Greek.

Use this Greek to blast the enemy

with energy with their own

shatter weapons

break battle lines

make men flee

horses bolt

arrows fly the wrong way

swords go at their wielders

your wrath unstoppable even by the gods.

Show it now

show it here

in this battle of importance

for the Hellenic League

even with no sword

even with no shield

even with no talking

absolutely no speaking

you can fight

you will fight

when you use your ultimate weapon.

Use your obliterator's voice

your world conqueror's voice

your Macedonian voice

for this alone

use it now Alexander!

rise now Alexander!

use your power Alexander!

Use your Greek!`

I was still shocked at how damn long that spell was. That was all I was thinking when I felt my body moving. My arms moved from side to side and my shoulders started to roll though it hurt. _Damn, I thought. _Why the _hell am I moving? Aristotle told me not _to. Stop, I commanded my arms. But they did not. They just kept moving. Then, my legs did the same, kicking and writhing like I was having a tantrum. _Shit, I cursed inwardly. How come I have no control over my own limbs? This is weird. Is he moving _me.

Finally, there was the pain, the stinging in my arms, my legs, my chest, everywhere. I kept moving though it hurt. _Won't you on behalf of Persephone's hideous dress she only wears in Hades, stop moving _yourself! I swore more violently, but I did not think Aristotle heard. Then, I just thought with all my might, stop! Now! And somehow, it worked. The pain stopped, completely. I felt, normal, but, but, what was it? Numb? No, I felt normal but for this feeling. Then I figured it out-it was the feeling of this new power. Or at least what it first felt like right after I got it. I remembered that as soon as Aristotle had stopped speaking, I had started thrashing. _Thank the gods there were these bands, I thought. Otherwise I would have broken _bones.

Next, I felt that I could move freely; the bands were gone. Tentatively, I sat up and opened my eyes and looked down at my body. I was not six foot four anymore, I was, what? Six inches taller! `What," I stammered, `what the _hell did you do to me?` Aristotle shuddered at the sound of my voice. Was the part of the spell that said that my voice was torture true? Or was he just astonished at what he did to me?

`I," he stammered back, sweat slowly forming on his face, `I, made you the most powerful fighter. Ever. In history. Past, present, and future. You can now use this ability in battle.`

`Right now?` I questioned innocently, like a child asking if they could use their clay to make a project right after getting it.

`Of course," Aristotle chuckled and helped me off the cot. `Let's go.`

As soon as I stood up, I felt different; my legs felt different. They felt stronger, lighter, light as a feather. I took a step, an effortless step. I did a palm strike with both of my hands experimentally; it felt like I wasn't doing anything. Or call it doing something effortlessly. The two of us walked outside into the light and I could tell that I was definitely taller. We headed out of camp towards the fighting.

First, we saw two groups fighting in close combat. Then, I saw a man face me. He took one look at my face and then screamed, cutting through the din of battle. `No! Not him! Anyone but him! I will not fight him!` There were angry shouts for him to stop being a bastard and to fight. And he did so. He ran at me with gun and sword drawn. I couldn't evade him, so I just did the one thing possible that would test my powers and that would set an example for my side and Team Rocket's. I charged.

I knew that even though I was in superior fighting condition, I was scared to death. _What if the spell didn't _work? I thought fearfully. The man came at me with his sword first by slashing down at my arm. I remembered that my sword was now part of me. I shouted, `Ēlektron!` The sword unsheathed itself from my arm, its double blade glittering evilly in the light filtering down from the trees. I took one look at my weapon, and then I slashed in reply. The Team Rocket member screamed as the sword hit his sword arm; it started to bleed. He stabbed at my shield, but the tip bounced off and broke off.

He then dropped his sword and reached for his gun. It had bullets in it, but I was unsure of how many. He pointed it at me and fired off a five-second burst. I could see the bullets, all five of them. Five in five wasn't bad. I dove down to the ground as they sailed over my head. My sword cut through his greaves like a knife through butter. He screamed again and he fired down at my head. _No! I thought, terrified. _The spell can't possibly protect me _now! Apparently, I was dead wrong. I put up my shield as soon as the burst came-this one was twice as long as the first and I saw the man pull the trigger once more. _He's out of bullets? Already? Why the _hell would you have only fifteen bullets in a gun for such a long _fight? The bullets bounced harmlessly off my shield, the shield of Achilles. They landed on one side of my body. I touched them gingerly with my hand. They were perfectly normal, still their usual shape. _Can I? Yes I _can. I took the bullets in my left fist and I stood up to face my opponent.

I could see the fear in his face. He didn't want to fight me, he did it for the sake of his comrades. I knew I couldn't be merciful. `If I fall to you, Alexander," he gulped when he said my name, `do what you want with my body. I don't care if you bury me with honor or leave me to be gnawed at by the kites and dogs. Just know I will die for the sake of my fellows. I am not a bad person, I swear on the Styx. I was forced into this. I will die with honor. Your newly found powers may be the death to our organization, but they just might help you find a place that excepts you. Do what you must, then.` I didn't want to kill the man: he seemed like one of honor, one who had seen a lot in his life. I didn't want to take that away, but he was doing this of his own free will. So, I did what he asked. With the bullets clenched in my fist, I pointed at him. `Belas toxon! Shoot the bow!` I screamed. The bullets flew out of my hand faster than the man's gun had. They hit him squarely in the chest and the man's face showed pain, but not excruciating pain. Just normal pricked a finger pain. Then, his face relaxed into an expression of calm. With just enough strength to do so, he lay prostrated at my feet. Then, he was still.

I gave him a modest burial, putting his body in a cedar coffin, burying it at the base of a tree. I did not bother to adorn the site with any ornaments, for I wanted to keep it simple for his sake. The man got his wish. I found out his name when I looked at the back of his Team Rocket shirt before I buried him. It said Adrian Rogers. I have to thank you, Adrian. Your sacrifice has helped me realize what I can do.

After the burial, I was unsure and remain unsure of what to do with all this power, all this intense power. However, soon after going back to Pallet, I watched Reign the Conqueror Abridged again to relax my mind. I was watching the part of the first episode where Alexander, Ptolemy, Kleitis, Philotas, and Hephaistion are fighting a talking man-eating horse named Mr. Edipus. After the fight where Alexander beats the crap out of the horse, Kleitis says `Such power. Is this what it means to be charisnicmatic?` I have to answer, `Yes it does Kleitis, yes it does.`

I have also watched the part of the episode with the prophecy. And I know I will fulfill it. I will destroy the world when someone compares me to the anime me three times. For sure. And no one from Team Rocket will be spared.

CHAPTER FIVE NOTES: This is in Leonardo's point of view. He was following behind Jessie, James, Meowth, and Calesthenes and he saw and heard everything they did. Sebrina had put cameras inside the gym and on Team Rocket's stuff to find out what they were saying too.

5: My Alliance, his Alliance

I turned onto the next road, following the white car. I'd been doing this for the past two hours and I could tell that the driver in front of me wasn't very happy. "James, stop thrashing!" Meowth complained as James tried to move to get a better view of outside.

"I want to see where we are," James countered, jabbing a finger at Meowth.

"We'll be in Saffron City soon," Calesthenes reassured, smiling as he watched the two argue in the back seat. _Good thing I am above such things. He thought smugly. Greeks are the rightful rulers of the world, not Macedonians. I should have corrupted Alexander earlier. Oh _well. "Relax Mr. Squirmy," Jessie calmed James as she drove through the gates of Saffron City. "I have our lodging established already. Come on."

They opened their doors, stepped out onto the main street, and turned, heading for the Saffron City gym. I followed and hid behind a row of cars as James knocked on the huge doors. A tall girl with long black hair answered it. "Hello James. I see you have brought your friends with you?" She eyed Jessie, Meowth, and Calesthenes.

"Yes I have," he replied. "Can you just get us to the place that we're staying at please?"

"Sure Jamasin," she said sarcastically. She led the group to the back of the gym and opened a door. There was a long hallway with three doors leading off of it. "This room is mine," she pointed, "the room at the left is Calesthenes's and Jessie's and the one at the right is for James and Meowth. I'll help you unpack."

Jessie flopped down on the bed. "It's so damn hard to drive you guys around," she commented. "But it's worth it. We'll be able to get help from this gym leader. She has a powerful Cadabra; maybe after we're done with getting her on our side, we can take her pokemon just for kicks."

"That's not really, like, what you do when you're trying to make a proper alliance," said Meowth.

"Obviously," Jessie scoffed. "We shouldn't have to pay attention to these rules," she said. "I don't care for hospitality rules. But all I know is is that I'm thankful to Sebrina for giving us a free place to stay. We didn't even have to steal anything."

"I agree," Meowth confirmed. "I want to take a nap. Wake me up when it's time for dinner, will you?" he said, curling up on the floor and Jessie stretched out her length on the bed.

James and Calesthenes were doing much the same thing. "At least Jessie hasn't decided to double cross our host," Calesthenes noticed as he removed his backpack and placed it on the floor. "I actually don't feel like doing anything bad here."

"Really?" James raised an eyebrow. "We're Team Rocket. We're supposed to do bad stuff."

"Well, I'm Greek and I'm used to not harming my host," he defended. "I want to settle in and stay here for a while before we tell Sebrina about our offer."

"Forget staying here for a while," James said suddenly, "we only need to stay here about three days. That's all we'll need. We'll ask her once and give her time to think about it and if she is still unsure of what she'll do, we'll threaten her."

"Good idea," said the Greek historian.

"For once," James agreed, lying down on the bed with a yawn. "Wake me up when Jessie and Meowth scream for food, will you?"

"No problem." Team Rocket and their comrade were asleep and content, but four other people were even more content with what they saw, heard, and what Sebrina had done. And no one but Sebrina would expect what would happen next.

I walked around to the back of the Saffron City gym to a plain red door. I slipped a hand into my pocket and pressed my Vulpix's pokeball to a circular dent in the door. It opened at once. "Come on," I said, gesturing at the hall beyond.

"How does that door work?" asked Annie, cradling her Abra's pokeball in her arms.

"It scans for a Hellenic League member's DNA," I explained. "Any of you guys would have been able to open that door, but I did it to show you how it's done. I love Alexander's lock ideas." I sighed, remembering the blueprints that I had gotten just three days before back in Sorulian City. "Come on," I said again, and Jack, Annie, and Lisa followed me in.

Sebrina was waiting for us and when she saw me, she smiled. "Hey!" she exclaimed, high fiving me. "I was waiting for you! Not for long, though. Team Rocket got here yesterday. I waited a day to see what they would do, as your commander has asked."

"Of course," said Lisa, "you would follow his orders. What is Team Rocket doing in your gym, anyway?"

"They said they needed a place to stay. I think they're planning something and I even heard that they're going to try to make an alliance with me and steal my Cadabra," Sebrina reported. Jack took notes on the conversation as it happened.

"I heard," Annie said, stepping to the front beside me, "that they're going to go to Pallet after this. But they're gonna stay here for a while, maybe a week or more. You can do a lot in a week. They might be planning something, as you said, Sebrina. What if they know about, about-" Annie trailed off, a scared expression on her face.

"What is it?" Sebrina asked gently. "Who does it involve?"

Annie hesitated, then answered, "Alexander and Reign the Conqueror."

"Reign the Conqueror?" Sebrina repeated, confused.

"Reign the Conqueror is an anime that makes an alternate history of Alexander's campaign," Jack explained. "There's a prophecy in it that says that Alexander's going to destroy the world once he conquers it."

"That can't be good," I remarked. "Not again. Not another end of the world thing. Not now!"

"Sadly," sighed Annie, "it's happening again. Basically, the person we thought would most unlikely destroy the world will destroy the world?"

"Pretty much," confirmed Sebrina. "Come on in. There's a room back here that i've prepared for you," "I'll get your bags. I don't think it is advisable to go to the front of the gym or to even leave this part of the gym at all. You might have to stay here for a week."

"That's okay," said Jack.

"We'll be monitoring our intelligence anyway," said Annie. "Let's go."

Sebrina opened another door that went off the hall. Once everyone chose beds and unpacked their things, we sat down and had a long talk about what we had found out. "If Sebrina is going to make this alliance," Lisa predicted, "then we'll have a pretty damn powerful person not on our side."

"She has the sense not to, though," Jack said. "She's been through a lot since she got released from that spell she was in a few years ago. She's in her right mind."

"What do you think she'll do when Team Rocket gives her the offer?" I asked Annie. We all knew that though Annie was only eight, she knew a lot and she was wiser and more mature than her years showed. "Oh, she'll probably either refuse at first mentioning or she'll pretend to think it over while she tells us about the offer. We shouldn't ask anything yet, however. Even we have to follow hospitality rules. First, Sebrina feeds us dinner tonight, and then we ask her about the alliance, if it's already been asked about."

After dinner that night, we were all ready to sleep late and start late the next day. But Jack brought up something important. "Don't we have to send Alexander our daily report?" he asked as we all climbed into bed.

"Oh yeah!" we all exclaimed, Annie racing to my laptop set up on the desk. She logged into her Video Chat account and typed in the contact name `Macedon's commander.` The screen went black for a few seconds, then an image flickered onto the screen. Alexander was sitting at his desk with a pad of paper and a pen, ready to take notes. "So," he began, "what happened today, Annie?"

"Not much," she replied. "We just found out that Team Rocket is staying here, as you expected. They are planning on making a partnership with Sebrina."

"I expected as much," Alexander confirmed, scribbling a note. "And what else has happened?"

"We found out," I reported, "that Team Rocket will be staying here only three days, not a week, not including yesterday. They came here on Thursday, so they'll likely ask Sebrina tomorrow. I don't know why it would be so soon, but they probably want to get to Pallet really quickly. For what, I don't know. Hopefully, it doesn't have to do with, the prophecy."

"You know of the prophecy?" our leader asked in surprise.

"Yes," I said, "we found out about it from Jack. If they know about it, well, that can't be good news."

"You're right. Anything else you will want to add?"

"We'll stay here and we'll leave on the same day that Team Rocket does," I said.

"Good. You guys get some sleep. Tomorrow night, you report back to me. And earlier too."

"Yes sir," we answered and Annie logged out of the Video Chat application.

Jessie, James, Meowth, and Calesthenes finished eating lunch. "For once," James said with relief, "we don't have to work' hard for a meal!"

"What do you guys have to do?" asked Calesthenes.

"Just the usual," said Jessie, "steal it and then argue over who gets the largest share. Barbaric yes, but we didn't get much money, okay? Let's get back to the gym. I think I know what we're going to do."

"Are we going to ask the gym leader to pledge allegiance today?" asked Meowth.

"Oh yes," said Jessie.

"And this time," said James with an evil smile, "she can't refuse."

"Oh Sebrina," Jessie sang as she knocked on Sebrina's room door. "I have something to ask you. Something very important." Sebrina opened the door and frowned at Jessie's happy expression. "What is it?"

"Oh, it has to do with where your loyalties lie," Calesthenes answered slyly.

"What loyalties?" Sebrina repeated.

"We just, well, we've been having some organization problems," said Meowth. "We're lacking members. So, we were thinking that such an intelligent, resourceful, and skillful trainer like yourself would oblige to joining us. You don't even have to do it permanently. Just for a couple weeks. This is a one time offer, though."

"So you better choose now," James pressured Sebrina. "We'll give you ten minutes to think it over. We'll be back later." And with that, James closed the door.

_Perfect. Thought Sebrina with satisfaction. What Leonardo said was true. I'll refuse and then, we'll see how powerful Team Rocket really _is. Sebrina walked to the back of her room and pressed her Cadabra's pokeball to where the lock would be. It opened, revealing another hall. She walked down it and knocked softly on a door. Jack answered. "They gave you the offer?" he asked.

"Yes they did," Sebrina replied. "Lets gear up for a fight. I'm obviously never going to their side. Get ready to use that Squirtel of yours."

"Okay. Come on!" Jack called. "let's go. It's time."

The group waited in Sebrina's room, waiting for the knock on the door. Five minutes were left until it would come, then three, then rat-tat-tat. "Have you made your decision?" James called.

"Oh yes I have," Sebrina said confidently, "say hello to your newest group of antagonists!" she exclaimed, flinging the door open. She revealed the pokeballs in our hand.

"You are not going to get Sebrina so easily!" Jack shouted. "Squirtel, go! Calder Spin!"

"Siviper Poison Tail!" Jessie attacked in response and they began to clash at close quarters. Squirtel's Calder Spin attack made Siviper begin to bleed. "Wrap now!" Siviper started to wrap around Squirtel. Squirtel screamed in pain as it fainted.

"Zigzagoon, go!" called Lisa. "Tri Attack!" The move brought down Siviper at once using its freezing aspect. "Arbock!" Jessie yelled. "Wrap!"

"Abra, go! Amnesia Kinesis, Slash!" The trio of attacks struck down Arbock as well.

"Cacnea, go!" James called. "Pin Missile!"

"Cadabra," said Sebrina, "Psybeam then Psychick!" Cacnea became confused, then its Special Defense statistic was lowered by twenty percent. Now its special moves would be weaker. "Needle Arm!" James commanded. Cacnea swung its spike-filled arm at Cadabra. Unfortunately, Cadabra wasn't fast enough to dodge the blow and it fainted.

Now, it was my turn. "Vulpix I choose you!" I shouted. Vulpix came into the room, ready to fight for its fallen comrades. "Fury Swipes!" Meowth yelled as he ran at Vulpix. "Charm, now," I said calmly. Meowth winced as his attack stat was lowered by almost half. "Scratch!" he replied with the normal type move. Vulpix jumped back to avoid Meowth's claws. He then tackled Vulpix and tore at its arms. They began bleeding, but Vulpix didn't seem to be harmed. "Fire Spin!" Meowth yelped as he got hit directly by the attack; because of it, he couldn't go back into a pokeball.

Then, something strange happened. Meowth suddenly clutched at his leg and fell over, unconscious. "Not again!" Jessie and James yelled. "I thought he would be fine by now! Not even a month's recovery time was enough!"

"Apparently not," said Calesthenes, who had been watching quietly behind the trio of TR members. "Vulpix's attack seems very powerful. I think we get the picture, do you think?" he asked Jessie and James.

"I guess we have," said Jessie. "We'll tell you where we're going to go to make it easy: we're going to Pallet. We have some business to take care of."

"Come on, then," Calesthenes said to them, including the paralyzed Meowth, "I know what to do. Magnitite, Teleport." and they disappeared.

"Do you think they went to Pallet?" asked Jack.

"I don't know," said Sebrina. "But they're not the only ones who can get places fast. Cadabra, go! Teleport!" And the Hellenic League supporters departed as well, not sure of what would happen next, unaware of anything.

CHAPTER SIX NOTES: Finally, everyone is back in Pallet and we'll see what happens when everyone finds out about the prophecy. Will it be fulfilled? Was having this be in my point of view worth it? Will it be the end of the world? You'll have to read on to find out. We mention RTCA again so what we said belongs to its respective owners.

6: Reunite Inform Reality

"Alexander," I heard Olympias call, "someone's at the door. It's Leonardo-" "Say no more," her son replied, running downstairs, excited. _Leonardo's back! He thought, high on enthusiasm. This is probably for something important, either something happened to Misty or, _or. He stopped his happy train of thought. _Oh. It's about, the prophecy. No matter, I have to rise to whatever occasion they _bring. "Hey Tracey," he said to me. "Can you open the door?"

"Sure," Sebrina stood in the doorway with a wide grin on her face. "Thank the gods we're out of that car." she said, "At least we teleported half way here. But we had to drive the rest of the way and I thought I would lose my ability to move my legs!"

"Sebrina!" I shouted and I smiled back. "Why are you here?"

"Well," she summarized what had happened, "I refused Team Rocket's offer, so I'm here. Guys," she said over her shoulder, "we're here." The other four Hellenic League members sprinted up the driveway to meet Sebrina and I. "We're here at last!" yelled Leonardo. "Keep that position," he told me, "want to draw." He immediately began to sketch us. "Wow," I muttered. "That's, Leonardo da Vinci?"

"Yes," Sebrina said, laughing. "Kind of reminds me of an artist who's high, he's that hyper all the time. I'll explain what happened after we unpack."

"And you need to be introduced to, you know," added Lisa.

"I never thought I would see the day," Sebrina said dreamily, "that I would meet, him." She gestured at Alexander's back.

"Don't be shy," Leonardo coaxed. "Think of him like me except not Italian and, a lot more hyper."

"Sure," Sebrina said tentatively and we introduced Sebrina. I guess I had to do the honors. "Sebrina, meet Alexander Amon, the pokemon trainer of pokemon trainers-" "Alexander the Great?" she interjected.

"Yeah. Ask him any question, anything at all about his campaign and he'll answer with no hesitation."

"Okay," Sebrina asked, "when you visited Cyrus's tomb, what was its state?"

"It was basically robbed," Alexander answered. "All the gold was gone and the bones had spilled out of the coffin."

"You were right," Sebrina told me. "He is Alexander the Great. Awesome!" she suddenly yelled. "I love your work! Ever since I've gone back to school, I've been all over the textbooks looking for stuff about you! And now, I get to meet you! Yes! Wait until the girls back home hear this!"

She paused and Alexander took this opportunity to stop her. "Wow," he said in astonishment. "Sebrina, calm down. Why aren't you at school? Did you, like, drop out?"

"No," she answered, barely containing her excitement, "it's just that being gym leader and all, it's hard to go to school because you're always busy. I'm really behind; but, the cool thing is that I'm taking this Aristotelean style class at my high school. Well, a combination of a middle and high school and anyone can sign up. I love it. It's where I can talk about history and not sound like a geek."

"What do you learn about?" Lisa asked curiously.

"Stuff from all subjects, but after we do it the normal way, we compare it to how it was back two thousand years ago in Greece," Sebrina explained. "We do it in Aristotle's style, so we walk around the block and talk as we go. It's fun. And sometimes, the teacher assigns us to take certain roles, like Aristotle's prize students. I've been you several times and strangely, the person who's Hephaistion ironically's my friend. Not hard to act out that, but I heard about how you do rhetoric, and, damn, it's hard to copy. Impossible to copy actually."

"We thought as much," Jack laughed. "Have you seen him talk in a debate? You get kicked out in the first minute. You just can't argue with him, it is useless."

"He says so from experience." Lisa sighed. "We're still wondering why it's impossible to do debates when you're around, but I don't think we'll find out any time soon."

"Wait," Alexander cut Lisa off before she could make a theory, "why are you guys here?"

Lisa's face turned serious. "It's about, the prophecy."

As soon as Lisa said prophecy, the atmosphere in the room suddenly turned ice cold. "You mean," Sebrina said, "the Reign the Conqueror one?"

"Yeah," I said. "We have to get the others to come here. They have to know about this too. And get ready for the insanity to ensue," I warned Sebrina, Jack, Annie, Lisa, and Leonardo.

"We're ready," they said in unison. "It's time."

We all gathered in Alexander's room and we weren't alone-Pikachu, Ash, Pauline, Odysseus, Athena,, Aria, Hephaistion, Azelf, and Darius were there too. We all gathered around in a circle on the floor, waiting for the meeting to begin. "Okay," Alexander began, "have you all watched the anime Reign the Conqueror?"

Everyone nodded in agreement. "And did you all watch the first episode?"

"Of course," Pauline said, "obviously or we wouldn't know why this series was made in the first place."

"Does anyone know of the prophecy that is mentioned at the beginning?"

"Yes. `Now my Alexander, rise, and let your abridged series bring the world to its knees.`" Darius recited the lines of Olympias. "Very, dark way to start off a new series, huh?"

"I guess," Annie mused, "but that's not the point. Alexander, why did you bring us here, anyway? I know that you would only summon us if the problem was of great importance."

"I know where this is going," Odysseus predicted with an anxious look, "let me guess-the prophecy is real and it will soon be fulfilled."

Everyone glanced at each other, at Alexander, or at the floor. "I mean," Odysseus continued, "do we know what will happen when it is fulfilled? Anything at all?"

That's when I replied, "I do and so does Aria."

Aria hesitated before she began. "I loved Reign the Conqueror at first watch, but as soon as I heard the prophecy, I started to get anxious. I knew that anything that involves Alexander could be important, no matter how small it might be. So, I watched each episode with care, especially the first one. Then, I began to make connections with the parody and our world. They said something about `Slaves build the Pyramids. Slaves build the Parthenon. Slaves built America.` When I heard that, I knew that the prophecy would come true here. Tracey has something even more important to say, though. Take it away."

I did. "As you may know, I'm a daughter of Apollo. I have been able to foresee the future a couple times. But, while I was asleep for twelve hours straight one weekend back in February, I had a dream. It started with you Alexander, sitting here. You were watching Reign the Conqueror and you turned it off and said, `Good thing they made this prophecy since I will fulfill it. The world's destruction does not depend upon me, but on my fellows for when they compare the real me to the anime me three times, well. It will begin. The renewal will begin.`

It flashed forward to a scene with us sitting here in the exact same group and in the exact same orientation that we're in now. Then," I gulped, scared of what to say next, but I knew I had to go on, "I saw someone speak, I wasn't sure who but after they said it, Alexander began talking again. This time he said, `You can save yourselves now, join me and help me fulfill this prophecy. Or, you can continue your crusade. I can just kill you now so you won't have to face what will happen next.` Afterwards, this room exploded and Azelf teleported us out of it.

We ended up in City Hall, met Aria's dad, and told him about the prophecy. We hid in one of the rooms, but we were found and this time, we teleported somewhere else. The scene changed showing brief images, where Pikachu is speaking to a huge crowd of men, where we're standing in front of a temple, where we're standing near a small river, and where we were fighting on a plain. The next solid scene was where we were in a big city, I don't know where. I was speaking to a crowd this time. And then, it showed groups of people following us across another river and us encamped on another plain. This group was in an underground cavern with the roof blown off to show the sky and we were all lying against the wall. And finally," I finished, "it showed us standing in phalanx formation with our swords drawn and pointing forward."

Everybody glanced at the floor all at once, probably with the same thought. "So," Athena said slowly, "when we compare these two people three times, what will happen?"

"I don't know," I said, sighing. "Foreseeing the future is tricky stuff. Maybe it won't happen like this or not at all. But, in case, we don't compare the anime Alexander with the real one."

"Okay," Pauline agreed. "But how deeply do we have to compare them? I mean if this was the anime, one of us, probably Leonardo, would be like Philotas, being beaten up all the time. That's Carn's role in real life, not Philotas's. Plus, did you notice that they use no apostrophes at all in that anime, Alexander especially? It's really annoying and the real Alexander overuses them." We all saw Pauline wince as she realized what she did. "No!" she yelled in dismay. "Why? I didn't mean it! Why Fates why!"

"I don't know," Pikachu said panicked, "but don't worry. As long as we don't talk about the anime, we'll be fine."

"Yeah," we all agreed, muttering words of consent.

"Just wondering," Hephaistion asked, who hadn't spoken until then, "how come they say `Russian Submersible Alexander` in the first three episodes? They didn't have them! It's like parts of our technology were there in ancient Macedonia! And the part with Diogenes? Completely unlike the Alexander we all know, except for the part where it's like `quick Philotas what are those non-family people you have affection for?` Awkward and another thing. Dude, get a life. We all have one!"

We all laughed when we heard the quote. "It's true!" Azelf realized, "he doesn't have a life. Yet, anyway."

"Even I could understand the joke," Pauline cracked up before she continued, "he does have friends, he just doesn't consider them friends. I also heard that he covered Philotas's mouth. Funny!" We all snickered again, but then we stopped. "What did I," Pauline said quietly, then shouted, "What's going on! It's happening! Tracey, you didn't say who had said the three mentions, but I know now! First it was me, then it was Hephaistion and I just added comments onto the second one! No!"

"No!" Hephaistion yelled too. "The end of the world will happen almost as soon as we compare again! Don't everyone! Don't be like us!" they shouted together.

"We'll try," Darius whimpered. "This is insane. We've already gotten two thirds of the way towards starting the prophecy. Shit," he whimpered again.

"Why does this have to happen?" Odysseus asked.

"Only the gods know," Lisa sighed, "and Athena, even you probably don't know the reason."

"You're right," Athena said and she sighed too as she found out this fact. "No one knows his fate, not even the Fates. They don't control his destiny. Only he does. And you know what else?" she said, perking up, "the anime Alexander doesn't appreciate the gods like how the real one does. Has the anime one sacrificed to Zeus? Heracles? To me? No! Even when they built statues of us, it's just to show that Philip was a god. Upstart," she muttered. "Sure Alexander's a god now, but he doesn't go around showing it off. He still worships us like he's still a demigod, even still a mortal." She paused to continue, but she just stared in horror with her mouth open. When she shut it, a revelation coursed through the room. We all felt it and we had all been dreading it.

"I," Leonardo stammered. "It," stuttered Jack and Annie. "can't be," Azelf stumbled.

"It is!" Pauline said with alarm.

"It's done!" everyone yelled together. "No! It's fulfilled! This is the end of us all!"

We waited for the room to burst into flames like what I had said, but nothing happened. It was like the prophecy would happen in an unspectacular way. Then, we heard a rustle of clothes as someone stood up and walked towards the window. We all turned to see. It was Alexander.

He turned to face us and he smiled in a creepy `I will comply with the prophecy` kind of way. "You know," he said in his Macedonian accent, "I could take you down now so you won't have to see what will happen next, but I will give you a choice. You can join me and help fulfill this prophecy, you can become my prisoners, or, you know what will happen if you fight. Ēlektron!" he cried and his sword appeared, surrounded in lightning. "What will you choose?"

_I should decide. Pauline thought. I was the one who started all this, I should choose even if we get killed from _it. I saw Pauline put up her thumb, her forefinger, and her middle finger, three fingers, the third choice. "We'll fight for it!" she yelled, standing. We agreed with yells of approval or various war paeans.

Alexander chuckled in his accent, and it seemed that even Pauline could see his expectant smile. "If you wish," he said, gathering more energy around his sword and charging at us. _Here it is. I brooded. Part of the prophecy will be _fulfilled. "Run!" Pauline yelled as she unsheathed her cane and swiped at the sword in front of her. She grabbed my arm and we sprinted for our lives. The conqueror, our enemy, Alexander, slashed at us violently and we reached the door just in time. We couldn't get much farther, however. The door wasn't there; it was in flames. We turned to the window, but Alexander was guarding it. So, we drew our swords and charged at our captor with vigor. `Fight for our lives` is the line from Knights of Cydonia by Muse, and it was now true.

CHAPTER SEVEN NOTES: The rest of this book will keep switching from my opinion, Alexander's opinion, and Pikachu's opinion. Chapters unless noted will first be in my point of view, then Alexander's. In this case, first it will be my point of view, then Pikachu's, then mine. There will be much more swearing, violence, and death and blood in the rest of this book, so I'm sorry and we're all sorry if it disturbs you. That's why there's a warning in this story's initial notes. And that's why all swear words are underlined so you can skip over them. And, now, here's our struggle for survival.

7: Command, the First City, and the Crossing

"This is madness!" Pauline shouted. "This! Is! Sparta! Stupid 300 movie that I love so much!"

"Uh we have other problems," I said nervously. "Look, if the door is in flames, we can't go through without teleporting and Azelf is, no!" I yelled and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Azelf had two daggers in her hand and she was fighting Alexander head on, dodging his blows and even landing some of her own. "This is for even watching Reign the Conqueror in the first place! This is for taking Aristotle's upgrade offer! And this is for, just because!" she screamed, aiming some powerful slashes at Alexander's arm.

He parried them all with ease. "I didn't think this would happen," Azelf's trainer said with a sigh, "but unfortunately, it was not to be." He slashed his sword down at lightning speed and put a gash in Azelf's head. She fainted, but she was just strong enough to use her teleporting ability, barely avoiding Alexander's sword as it swung down again. We heard an angry scream as we disappeared. I swear I heard these words as we vanished: "You will be like Darius! I will find you! I will obliterate you and the existence of any force you may have! You will not escape me!" We reappeared in the lobby of City Hall. Then, Azelf collapsed.

Hephaistion exhaled with relief. "Okay," he panted, "that was a rush. But if this is what today will be like, I can't imagine what the next few weeks will be like."

"I don't even think we have a week to live," Odysseus remarked grimly.

"Prophecies like this usually take a week to come true," Darius said, "so we have a week to stop Alexander. And if we don't?" he mimicked a sword slashing at the air around them. "Your dad's the mayor right?" he asked Aria.

"Sure, but I don't know what he'll think."

"Just tell him everything and fast," Ash ordered, "or we'll get found again."

"Oh you don't go alone," Athena said, gesturing at all of us, "We have to come too."

"Yeah!" we assented, and we followed Aria down the hall. Aria knocked on a door and waited, tense. A tall man with a lot of gray hair and kind brown eyes answered it. "Aria, what?" he started, but then saw her face and the fainted Azelf. "Let me guess? Bad?"

"Really bad," she replied. "Dad, this is an emergency. It has to do with-" she didn't say the name for fear of it being cursed or something.

"Who, Rae?" Aria's dad asked.

"Also. Alex. Alexander," she said, glancing around them. Then, taking a deep breath, she explained to her father about the prophecy. We all added in details when needed.

He stared at us in disbelief. "Aria, this can't be true," he said. "I mean, Alexander's not that crazy. He's in his right mind. Or at least I think he is."

"Dad, you don't know him. I do, Hephaistion and Azelf do. But, even Zeus doesn't know what he's capable of. He's so unpredictable. One moment he's loyal to you and another moment, he has an army after you. What should we do?"

"I don't know much about this anime," Mr. Alphis said, "but all I know is, if that show is causing you bad luck, don't watch it and if you must watch it, do it only when it's absolutely necessary. But, I have to send two of my officials with you so I know what you're doing."

"Sure," Aria agreed.

"They're in my office. I'll introduce you." He opened his office door and we followed in.

A man and a woman were standing in front of a large desk. Both of them had dark skin like Darius. The man had black spiky hair and green eyes and the woman had auburn hair and blue eyes. They smiled at us. "I'm Aaron," the man said, "and I'm Alana," said the woman.

"Alana," the mayor said grimly, "this is serious. It has to do with, what?"

"The prophecy," I said.

Aaron and Alana looked at each other. "It can't be," Aaron faltered.

"The prophecy." Alana was unsettled by the news, "It can't be the Reign the Conqueror one, can it?"

"Apparently it is," I replied, smiling soberly. "Alana, Aaron, what exactly do you do?"

"We're both military experts," Aaron said. "We specifically know about Alexander's tactics. We'll be of a big help. Now, let's get down to business," he commenced, "where will we-was But before he could finish his sentence, the lights went out and the building began to shake. "Earthquake!" he yelled and we all dove under the desk. We could hear pieces of the ceiling fall on top of it.

I felt Pauline's hands explore the floor, looking for something to hold on to. She touched my right arm. I could hear her other hand find someone else's arm too. "Tracey, Ash, thanks for not recoiling."

"Um, I can't feel you," Ash said. "I'm in front of you, not beside you." "But if I'm not touching you," the visually impaired pokemon trainer said, "then who is it?" She squeezed my arm and whispered, "Tracey, this guy's arm has something long and metal close to it. I think it's attached to it and ouch! Its edge is sharp! And it's, moving?"

"I think what you're feeling is is, a," I trailed off, then my spine began to tingle and my heart leapt with fear. "That's not anyone we know, is it?" I said apprehensively.

"Oh yes it is," answered a smooth accent that emphasized the consonants and lengthened its vowels, just like, l1... "No!" Pauline screamed. "It can't be you! Get off!" Pauline crouched down and struck at Alexander's arm. He whacked her in the elbow with his arm-sword in response. "_Shit," she cursed. "Get out! He's here!" she yelled again.

She pulled at Ash's legs and we all crawled out from under the table as fast as we could to find three things were different. One was that the ceiling was collapsed, another was that someone was lying on the floor with a piece of ceiling on top of them that made a gash in their chest, and a third was that Alexander was getting up off the floor with a trickle of Pauline's blood on his sword. "Just wanted to warn your new recruits of what I can do," the conqueror warned, glancing at Aaron. "But too bad that Alana wasn't so lucky." We all looked at the body under the ceiling section. It was Alana. Though she was weak, she was able to slide out from under the ceiling and she handed Pauline her belt; it had a dagger and two pokeballs on it. "I feel that you have a lot of training potential," she whispered. "Take them. You'll need it since you're an obvious target. All of you should know that even though I didn't help that much, I still think that I assisted you in your quest. Now, Hades, take me." She closed her eyes and she never spoke again.

Darius removed a tapestry from the wall with a picture of the battle of Carannea on it and wrapped it around Alana. We all blessed her with our highest honors, and Aria used Flarion's Fire Spin attack to burn the shroud. _So this is what war is like. Ash thought, brooding over the body. How can someone get used to it? But if this is what the next week will be like, might as well get used to this happening a lot _more. Alexander was gone, but his poketch lay on the ground as if he didn't think it was important enough for him to wear it anymore. Annie picked it up and placed it on her wrist. She gazed down at it in wonder; its gold rim, its blue-gray alpha, its slick design. "Should I?" she asked Jack.

"Sure," he said encouragingly. "You picked it up, I guess you get to keep it. But we can divide the pokemon among ourselves. We'll give them back when this war ends, if we live."

Annie nodded her approval and she swung her arm in an upside down arc like she had seen Alexander do. "Come on out, everyone!" she called. Tertwig, Milotic, Exeggcute, Espeon, Pachirisu, Andalexrae, and the newest pokemon, Bronzor, emerged. "I'll take Tertwig as my own for now."

"I call Milotic!" Jack said. "Espeon's mine," Lisa took Espeon and transferred her into a pokeball. "Exeggcute!" Pikachu cried and he stored the pokemon in a pokeball of his own. "Pachirisu, you can come with me," Hephaistion said gently, picking up the electric type. "Bronzor, return," said Aaron.

"And Andalexrae," Azelf said, "you can partner up with me. I already have a pokemon of my own. Mime Jr. advance! You can stay pokeballless like Pikachu. Let's get out of here."

"But wait," Ash cut in, "who's going to lead us? Well, Alexander, he used to do that. Now that he's on his own, who will lead us now?"

"We can," a male voice answered from a corner. We all spun around to find A26 and everyone else standing behind us, sarissas still in their hands. "Let me guess," he said, "prophecy?"

"Right," Pikachu remarked. "How did you get here?"

"Unimportant," he replied. "Pikachu, you can lead us and I can be your second in command." The sixteen-inch tall pokemon stared up at the inspirer of the battle of Gaugamela in awe and shock. "Me?"

"You are a son of Zeus, so you can help us by being able to match Alexander's abilities to some extent. Come on. I know where we could go first." The Gaugamelan Alexander gestured at the broken ceiling and we felt ourselves being teleported again. We materialized in a place that we had never seen before. There was a big stone building with many floors in front of us. We were standing in a rose garden outside one of its rooms. But I saw no electrical cables, no power lines, no sign of modern technology anywhere. "Where? Are? We?" Jack wondered as he looked at the building in front of them.

"It's the royal palace at Pella," A7 answered with a smirk. "Where did you think we were? Babylon?"

"No," Jack said in a small voice, "it's just that, we're in a modern world where there is electricity and computers and, cars. There isn't any of that here."

"Well," Hephaistion explained, "Macedon isn't exactly the most developed country, I mean, republic, in the world, so buildings like this still exist. And I'm surprised that this palace is still standing since it was built like back in 400 BC-was "Potion," someone moaned. I couldn't believe it; we had forgotten about Azelf! Her wound had stopped bleeding and she was pallid from loss of blood. "Oh Zeus _damn it!" Pauline swore. "We forgot about Azelf! Your gash! We have to get inside!" Pauline found the door and she pushed it open. She gasped as the door swung open. "The smell, the sound," she whispered.

"What is it?" A19 queried.

"It's just, it smells like old stone, but also like new stone. It sounds like, servants and horses neighing and, drilling men?" she stopped her list of sensations. "Why are there drilling men here anyway?"

"Don't know," Aria mused, taking Azelf in her arms. "But let's get inside before this gash gets worse."

Pauline was right-the first sensation that hit me was the scent, the scent of two-thousand-year-old stone. Then, as we stepped in, I heard a full clatter like hammers hitting the marble floor. That was our feet, putting our own mark on this historical site. A26 opened a door and we stepped into a somewhat familiar room. There was a bed about five feet long like Ash's but it was a lot lower. The marble floor was yellow like old parchment, but still shiny and showing signs that it had been walked upon recently. Another bed lay close by, one made for an adult. Who slept here? "Does it seem familiar?" A8 posed to us.

"Where are we?" Pauline asked Ash.

"We're in, um, someone's bedroom. We're standing on a yellow marble floor and the bed is just like mine. The view, well, we're looking down on a drilling field, I think."

"This description seems familiar," Pauline commented. "It's just like Alexander's room in Fire from Heaven."

"That's because it is my room, exactly like how it is from Fire from Heaven," A7 confirmed. "I can't believe we're actually back home!" he said happily. "We got our wish. And plus, you guys get to see it! Let's give you a tour!"

"As much as we want to check out this place," Pikachu said, "We can't. We can't waste time. And we need to get to a place where Azelf can get her wound taken care of. Is there a hospital anywhere?"

"Well," Ash said, opening the door, "I think I know where we can go: Olympias's room."

We followed Ash around the corner past an Apollo statue on a green plinth, just like Fire from Heaven. We walked until we arrived in a small indoor courtyard. We headed up the stairs and straight up to the door, with its fancy door latch. Aria reached up and unlatched the door and we stepped inside.

It was just like how Mary Renault had described it. The royal bed, the fireplace... "The loose stone by the hearth!" A7 realized. "How about we look under there?" He lifted the stone from its niche and found a group of small phials. He looked through them until he found the potion he needed. He opened it and poured the contents of it onto the wound. The gash slowly started to heal and at last, it closed. Aria took a second vial and tipped its dark liquid into Azelf's mouth. Her face turned from surprise to relief; the second phial was filled with an energizing potion. "Thanks," she said, bowing slightly.

"I'm not worthy of the bowing part, but I'm thankful. Let's get outside. I want to find someone."

We found ourselves on a big square field with the tracks of many men and horses in the ground. Sheds and stables bordered the field. And in the middle, there was a group of about two hundred men with helmets on their heads, shields overlapped, and sarissas in their hands. I saw who was leading them and I gasped. "Ach, Achi, Achilles?" I said, not sure what else I could say.

"Yes!" A13 screamed, running to meet the fellow Greek. "I didn't think this would happen! I finally hmhmhm!" He got cut off as Azelf covered his mouth. "Look," she said firmly, "as excited as you might be to meet Achilles no, don't shout again, we need to get him into this too. We need a, an, army."

"We have a commander," I said, glancing at Pikachu, "but we need Macedonian approval in order for him to take his position."

"That'll be easy!" Achilles assured and he removed a walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the TALK button. "Everyone form up and march here!" he commanded. "We have a special and important thing to tell all of you. And please Ptolemy, make sure you get this to Perminion, Perdiccas, and Crateros, will you? They'll be here momentarily," he told us, releasing his hold on the walkie-talkie and replacing it on his belt. "Pikachu, you will have to speak to the men."

Pikachu's face became terrified. "How many are there?"

"Oh about forty four thousand thousand. Including all you guys in the Hellenic League and all of yours and the men's pokemon, about forty seven thousand."

"How the _hell will I be able to make a speech momentarily with no prompting at all?" Pikachu screamed. "I need someone who can show me in minutes how a good speech should go and how, specifically, to give a speech to an army!" He continued like this, screaming and not knowing his problems' solution was standing next to him.

"Pikachu!" A26 raised a hand, "stop! I know who can help you! I will help you! Just calm down!"

"Yeah," Aaron encouraged, picking up Pikachu,, "do what he says! Do you want to have a good following?"

Pikachu stopped screaming and gazed at the military expert and the brilliant tactician in surprise, then understanding. "How will you help me?" he asked.

"Just remember what I said before the battle of Gaugamela," A26 said, putting Pikachu down. "And I said that just in time too," he remarked, pointing. Columns of men marched towards us, armed and looking for their commander.

"How will the men be able to see me?" the electric type questioned. "I'm too _damn short."

"How about?" Pauline mused, "Wait! Four words guys: stand on a sarissa!"

Achilles gave Aaron four of the eighteen-foot-tall poles and he attached them to some planks he had found, making a small and high dais. Aaron put on some eight foot spears between two of the sarissas at six inch intervals, making a ladder. I climbed up the rungs and I stood on the dais. The men grew quiet at once as soon as they saw me. I stared back, waiting for the right moment. Then, on that Tuesday afternoon in Pella, I began.

"Fellow Macedonians! Allies! Pokemon! We are all gathered here not to conquer the Persians; nay, on the contrary, I have a Persian ally, Darius Ackisan, here with me today." The crowd began muttering. "I know this may sound strange, for one of our enemies to be on our side, but Darius has changed. He is now one of us. He is also fighting for our three causes: stopping, saving, and survival.

On stopping: we are facing an enemy that has traversed this country before, maybe even this very field before. An enemy that has won battles for all of us and has won the hearts, minds, and loyalty of almost all of us entirely if not in part. He has invented the tactics that are being used in Iraq and Iran right now to defend the United States, where he was resurrected. However, because of the prophecy from the anime Reign the Conqueror, he is also using these same tactics to destroy the world. When you are in this army, each of you individually as well as all of us collectively will use our skills to stop his advance, for his final battle will be inevitable."

I paused to allow the men and pokemon to take this all in; they knew if you were talking about Alexander, even without the mentioning of his name. Probably almost all of them had served under him the first time. Even if they hadn't served him, they knew his tactics well. And by the expressions on the majority of their faces, I could tell that they were possibly aware of the prophecy too. _I'll save all the deep stuff about the prophecy for last. I thought. Let's _continue.

"On saving: we are doing this for the whole of the world, even the parts where there are no people. Everyone is counting upon our efforts to keep the world in tact, especially the big major cities like Washington D.C., Beijing, Tokyo, and many more. If anything at all happens to those cities, not just the country that they are located in will be affected, but the world will be affected too. Six and a half billion people and many many pokemon are relying on us to keep this prophecy from taking innocent lives." _It's going well. I thought optimistically. I'm almost to the scary part, though. But I know what I must _do.

"And at last, on survival. As I have said, the enemy we face already knows the lands we are going to travel on. Though he may have the same amount of men and same weapons as us, he possesses abilities that a mortal can only dream of having. He can use ancient Greek as a spell-making language to work magic on us. He can run for hundreds of miles with no need for rest as fast as if not faster than a jet. He has a sword that is hidden in his arm and when he uses a certain Greek word, it springs from its biological sheath, so from wrist onward, it is nothing but six feet of solid bronze mixed with iron. This sword can cut through anything and its blows move quicker than most eyes can see and it can also shoot lightning like an ancient gun.

And this is just what he can do normally when not in battle; he can foresee any tactic that you will use, his mind's capacity is that enormous. When angered, he can use a pokemon move that drains one's stats down to one and it takes weeks to recover from its affects. He can break weapons with his bare hands and guns explode when he is around. If he wishes, he can make batteries and anything electronic lose their power within fifty miles of him, so communication via email will be impossible. His lightning ability can also be done long range, so at any time while we are marching, he can make lightning bolts reign down from the sky. He can cause earthquakes and if he were to set fire to our camp, we would not be able to extinguish it.

"His persuasion is the worst-just hearing his voice makes it hard for you to stay loyal to your cause. But it's his face that is probably the most intimidating. His eyes are different colors, as you know. I am unafraid of his dark brown eye, but his blue gray eye? This eye is the eye that he uses to burn holes in enemy fortifications. According to pokemon trainer legend, this is how he managed to bring down Tyre'-he melted the walls. If he looked at you, you would want to run for your life at once." I watched the men and I saw only three reactions: shock at who we were fighting from the younger soldiers, awe from our various allies, and pure terror on the faces of the veterans. They couldn't believe that their inspiring, powerful, persuasive leader had turned into, into, what his daimon was. Powerful, persuasive, undeniable. But I saw this look on everyone's faces for they all knew that though some of the army was made up of demigods, they were no match for him.

This was where I turned the tides. "Though our foe may have abilities that we do not," I said, "he does not have this special group of people that you may have heard of. This group is the most highly trained force of fighters I know. They are copies of Alexander, yes, but they are anything but like him. They are the Diadochi!" I gestured at the group of about twenty five alike figures behind me and they all came to be in front of me and below me, facing the crowd. The men cheered and clapped their approval. "They have all trained long and hard, not knowing that they would need their skills for this mission. But they will not lead you!" I shouted. "I will! I, Pikachu Ketchum, son of Zeus and of Theban and Macedonian Descent! The Pikachu that made my egg belonged to Epeminondas and the Ditto was Archelaos's. So, I have the royal blood of Macedon as well as that of Thebes's finest general in me! So now, my fellow Macedonians and now fellow Hellenic League members, will you follow me or not!" I said this, knowing they would immediately want to follow if they heard me say something so compelling and simple. I hoped there would be immediate applause; but there was just silence. Pure silence like an empty room, like a city at night.

Then, something broke the silence. A shout of "Long live Minondass!" and the cheers started up. "Long live Minondass! Long live Minondass! Lead us!" and I answered "Yes! That is why I stand here today! To declare myself the new Captain-general of the Hellenic League! And now, remember, `No one's gonna take me alive! It's time that someone made things right! You and I must fight for our lives! You and I must fight to survive!`" The men began to sing the lyrics of Knights of Cydonia by Muse. "Today, we cross into Asia!" I yelled as I climbed down to the ground.

"That was amazing!" Odysseus praised, wiping tears from his eyes. "I didn't know that you had that kind of oration talent in you!"

"Well," I blushed, "I just took his advice." I gestured at A26, "he told me what to do and I did it."

"That is how you follow orders," Odysseus said, "but now, you will be giving the orders. You have to give out the positions of who will be your commanders, first."

"How about I write it out for you?" I said, and I shouted to the men, "your commanders' positions will be appointed later today. Now, someone please get me a tablet and a stylos!

TUESDAY MAY 11 2010 COMMAND POSITIONS

This is my first day being commander of this army. And one of my first duties is to appoint my generals. So, here they are. Total forces: 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry

Hephaistion Furissa: 1300 Companion Cavalry, Ash Ketchem: 1300 Companion Cavalry, Athena Brazion: 1000 light Macedonian cavalry, Azelf: 1000 light Macedonian cavalry, Tertwig: 1000 light allied Greek cavalry, Milotic: 1000 light allied Greek cavalry, Exeggcute: 200 special cavalry, Espeon: 200 special cavalry. total cavalry: 2600+1000+1000+1000+1000+200+200 = 7000

Odysseus Ilium: 500 Agriane javelineers, Telemachus Ilium: 500 Agriane javelineers, Evee Ketchem: 1000 trainer archers, Bidoof Ketchem: 1000 trainer archers, Jack: 1000 pokemon archers, Annie: 1000 pokemon archers, Misty Decodan and Dawn Ketchem: 1500 Thracian darters, May Sayallis: 500 pokeball slingers. Total projectile infantry: 1000+2000+2000+1500+500 = 7000

Ptolemy Laeggis: 3000 phalanx infantry, Perdiccas Testit: 3000 phalanx infantry, Crateros: 3000 phalanx infantry, Kanis: 3000 phalanx infantry, Darius Ackisan: 3000 hoplite infantry, Tracey Esteron: 3000 hoplite infantry, Achilles Allin: 3000 hoplite infantry, Aria Alphis: 3000 allied Greek infantry, Triana Melson: 3000 allied Greek infantry, Leonardo da Vinci: 3000 pokemon phalanx infantry, Lisa: 3000 pokemon phalanx infantry, Perminion Seeit: All of the left wing, Chingling Ketchem: 50 scouts, Gaugamelan Alexander: 26 Diadochi. Total infantry: 7000+33000+50+26 = 40086. 7000 plus 40086 equals 47086 total

I watched Pikachu board our trireme, excited. "I can't believe we're actually doing this," I said with awe as I followed our commander to the bow of the ship.

"I can't believe it either," he replied, gesturing at the captain. "We won't need our fleet for much, just for getting to Asia. When you're done manning these ships, you'll be in Perdiccas's battalion."

"Yes sir!" he answered. "When will you give the signal?"

"Move out!" Pikachu responded, yelling into the microphone. I watched the generals slowly pass on this order to the other ships. The ships sluggishly began to move. We left the dock near Alexanddropalis and we moved around mainland Greece into the _Hellespont, the waterway between Europe and Asia. _Here we go, Pikachu thought excitedly. We're going to the Persian Empire all over again! We're not conquering it, however. We're going to protect it; and I'll be the commander this _time.

Our oarsman and pokemon were working their hardest, so we got to the shore near sunset. In Alexanderian style, Pikachu threw a spear into the dirt before we arrived on shore. He leapt off the ship onto land even before the ship stopped moving. He placed a pokeball on a bronze tripod where the spear had landed and signed his name. "Here we are!" he yelled. "We're in Asia! Just like Alexander had done! Victory will be ours!" The men cheered and disembarked.

The Gaugamelan Alexander, who was his second in command, came up beside us and clapped us on the shoulders. "Now that is what I'm talking about!" he commended. "We crossed into Asia without anything going wrong! Now that's just like what A20 did right there! What you going to do now: set up camp, give a pep talk?"

"I'm going down to where Troy is," Pikachu said.

A26 was first confused, then understanding. "You want to, you know?"

"I do," he replied. "Tracey, Pauline, Ash, and Hephaistion will come too. We'll do it tonight. You'll be in my position while I'm gone. We're out!"

The five of us took up our hiking sticks and we headed down the coast. The sun was setting overhead. I didn't think the town would still exist, but by Agamemnon, it was there. "Look Sire!" I pointed to the town about two miles in front of us. "It's still here!"

"Let's do this quickly then!" Pikachu ordered and we helped to carry him the two miles to Troy. It was just a group of houses around a small central square. In the middle of the square, there was... "A temple!" Hephaistion noticed. "Just like Tracey's vision! Let's go in!" We filed into the temple and we gasped when we saw what the deity was; it was Athena! "Welcome," a male youth said to us, bowing. He had short brown hair and skin of the same shade. His eyes were a pale hazel. "What have you come here for?"

"I am going to stop a prophecy that could destroy the world," Pikachu said confidently. "Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated and will be rewarded."

"I cannot take any gifts," said the youth, "but I can give you something. My assistant will show you." He signed to a girl about fifteen years old who was behind the statue of Athena. She looked like the boy, but for her hair, which was dark red. She had a set of armor in her arms-a helmet with a silver spike curving to the front, a cuirass with a pokeball logo on the front and back, greaves that fit his legs, and, no sword or shield? "Where is the sword and shield?" Pikachu asked.

"Right here!" The girl brought the other two pieces of armor out from behind her back with a flourish. The sword was a four foot long double edged blade. There was a hand and a half hilt so Pikachu could strike blows with both hands on the sword as well as one.

But the shield was what Pikachu liked; it was about two and a half feet in diameter and it was just a bronze circle painted black with a yellow Pi in the center. He slipped his arms through the two shoulder straps, one per arm and he fastened it around his neck too. He took the sword and started to swing it; it was balanced perfectly in his hand. "Thank you!" he was gratified that these two servants to Athena had given him the armor that he would need. "For your service, you will be rewarded sets of armor of your own, I'll have my blacksmiths make two."

"We appreciate the offer," said the girl, "and we would love to come. I'm Netosha III and this is my brother, Crick III. Netosha and Crick are what our friends used to call us, at least before they learned our Greek names."

"What are they?" I asked.

"Mine's Netosanes," explained Netosha, "and mine's Cricktus."

"Why do you still use those kinds of roman numeral things anyway?" Pauline asked curiously.

"It's because we're not exactly that modern, so it's still used here. We can go with you back to your camp. And who," Netosha asked, "are we honored to be serving under?"

"I," Pikachu said boldly, "I am the commander of this army and if you may call me this, Alexander's vanquisher!"

Netosha and Crick grinned and bowed. "We are honored," they declared.

"Let's go!" Ash said. We led Netosha and Crick out of the temple and we headed back to camp to rest for the night. Day one had gone as, if not better, than we had planned. But what would happen tomorrow? None of us knew and none of us expected that battles were just around the corner.

Leonardo da Vinci, notebook 101 page 3 (decoded)

At the beginning of every log, I will say the same thing. I will keep saying that this could be my last log. I can never tell what will happen one minute from now, let alone a day from now. So, I'm going to try to make a narrative of what I am doing each day in case I die and they need to find a record of this weeks' events.

I'm very excited that I have a significant command in this army. I command a battalion of pokemon phalanx infantry in the center. I get to be part of the main infantry body, the sarissa phalanx. I've already figured out how to teach pokemon to use sarissas: you tell them just to touch the thick end that they hold on to and that they only touch the thin end with the blade when I'm around. It works.

CHAPTER EIGHT NOTES: Alexander's first, I'm second, and Pikachu's third. We found out about what Alexander was doing and saying by using some of Chingling's scouts like Leonardo. He got information out of Peerclis, one of Alexander's new and uncorrupted squires.

8: A Fight Riverside

My new squire, Peerclis, entered my tent and gave his daily report. "Sire, your suspicions were correct. The Hellenic League is encamped near Troy and they are marching towards our camp site as we speak. You have made it easy for them to find us. Now, we can wait."

"That is fine Peerclis," I replied smoothly, "you may go. I need to charge." The squire exited with a nervous look. He knew what I meant. Even I get tired, and instead of resting in bed every night, I lay in a bath of hot water with my clothes on. I do this every night when I am supposed to be sleep. Being in the water is not even the strangest part: in addition to this, I put my arms and legs into iron bands and electrical currents flow into them and thus, into me. This current recharges my energy supply while I am sleeping, when I use the least amount of energy. This way, I will be prepared for battle any day, any time. Even if someone tried to assassinate me in my sleep, I would be prepared for a fight and they would be dead before you could say parry the blow!

You may be asking what I use this energy for: one is for normal tasks. But, I use it for battle too. I use it to fight with my sword, run supersonic, and, to use my most lethal weapon: to make my lightning. This lightning is as powerful as it it is in nature, even more so at times. It can melt anything; but, I still think my favorite weapon is my sword. This sword is made of both bronze and iron, the base being iron and the rest being bronze. It may seem primitive compared to the weapons I used two thousand years ago, and those of today, but this bronze is reinforced with the fact that I am wielding it.

You might also be wondering why I am making this so easy for my foe. Should I not be hiding my forces where he cannot find them instead of making myself seen? I am not worried about getting discovered. I have tactics that even Aaron and Hephaistion can not anticipate. I will be even more cunning and unpredictable than before. It is a good thing I am charging right now too, for the Hellenic League is on its way here. They know that I will redo my battles in places I have been before and they have read up on them all. But, they do not know what else will happen.

I will not use my whole army, as they think. No, I will use only myself and about 500 lightly armed infantry, cavalry, archers, and javelineers. I will attempt to kill their commander, or at least their generals. I am not aiming to kill their whole force, just who leads them; only _then will I offer peace. If they refuse this, then they will have to taste my lightning bolts. Tonight, I charge and tomorrow, I beat the crap out of them all. And I will do all of this with absolutely no regrets as my mortal mind is not leading me on this reconquest. It has lost its hold over me. My daimon has taken over now. It feels no pity and offers virtually no peace. It needs nonstop war.

I will enjoy and do enjoy this prospect, for I did not get this glorious chance the first time I fought my way across half the world. No, my men wanted to stop conquest. But now, I have men who are eager to help me. These new men are enthusiastic, for they were supposed to serve in Iraq and Iran. They are serving under me, a much worthier task than fighting in a nearly decade long war, do you think? I am letting my daimon guide me now. I will fight with abandon that only I can have. I know I must do that. With pleasure.

"Kanis," Pikachu asked, "what report do you have for me?"

"Sire, you were right. This march isn't hard, it's just that the road isn't well maintained. We can't stay on route how you want without getting off the road."

"Get my engineers over here at once!" I heard Pikachu say. "We have to discuss how we can fix the road!" With a wave and "Yes Sire!" Kanis rode away.

Pikachu smiled, satisfied. "I'm actually starting to like this," he said, reaching over and holding onto the edge of my shield as he walked. "What do you think of all this?" he asked us, "like me leading you and all?"

"Well," Darius said, "I think it's pretty cool. You're showing all of us that you can lead an army on your own." Darius's dark brown eyes shone with pride. "And to think," he said, "just last year you were a normal Pikachu. Now, you're leading a Macedonian army through Asia!"

"And you have the best as your second in command," A26 purred as he marched behind Pikachu. "I feel so alive being on the road again. I feel like I've gotten a chance to redeem myself for all the bad things I did. How far have we marched like this, anyway?" he suddenly asked.

"About," Pikachu said, counting on his fingers, "five miles per hour, so, twenty miles so far."

"We've been marching for more than three hours?" Ash complained. "My legs are killing me!"

"Ash, you may be my trainer, but we're in a war and I can't take your complaining!" Pikachu rebuked. "You're lucky that I know you and that I can tolerate this or else I would have reduced your rank. Now, do what you're told and ooh!" he interrupted himself, "we're here! The River Granicus! Marching all night was worth it!"

He was right; I could see that the small river with a tall and almost vertical opposite bank was about five miles away. "We have less than an hour to go, Ash!" he encouraged his trainer with a prod in the shoulder with his sword. "We'll be there in, no time?" he said. "Oh Philotas!" he yelled. "He, got here before us! Run!"

"Run!" Pauline shouted behind her, passing the order down the column. We sped up and reached the bank of the river in less than forty five minutes and as soon as we stopped marching, we set up camp, pitching Pikachu's tent and having a war council where we stood. "We have to see what he'll do," Hephaistion suggested. "Maybe he'll offer terms-" but he was stopped by the sound of marching men and trotting horses. "He's not offering terms," Aria said. "How large is his force?"

"From the sound of it," Pauline cocked her ear toward the tent flap, listening, "about one thousand infantry and, less than half of his companion cavalry. And, approximately half of his javelineers."

"Thank you," Pikachu praised. "Let's get out there and arm the men."

"How many do we need?" I asked.

"Half of Ptolemy's battalion, half of Aria's battalion, the Diadochi, Ash's Companions, and Odysseus's javelineers. And we'll use half of Tracey's hoplite infantry as a back-up. Move out!"

"Affirmative Sire!" A26 said, and we moved out of the tent to see that clear, sunny day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but I felt that this would be a major fight.

I helped Pikachu into his armor, being his Master in Arms as well as a battalion commander. "Ready?" he asked me and all present.

I nodded slightly as I put his helm on his head. "I don't know," I said serenely. "This just seems so, improbable, that we're fighting in a real battle. Let's get out there."

"Are you nervous?" Darius asked Pauline. She was a hoplite and she was with me.

"I'm really, really, scared," she replied, uneasy. "It's just that, I've admired Alexander since the middle of sixth grade, so I've known him for almost one and a half years. I thought he wouldn't do this, but lo and behold, he's doing it. I just want to get him back to how he was when I met him." She drew her sword and strapped on her shield. "Come on! Let's show him!"

This was where my memory became a blur. The only things I saw were my sword, Pikachu's black shield moving up and down, the only tactile sensation that of my sword cutting through limbs and breast plates and helmets. Pauline was fighting close by, stabbing and slashing, making it look like her blindness wouldn't affect her ability to fight. The enemy troops kept coming at us with swords drawn. Pauline screamed as she got a gash in her sword arm, her left arm, and another in her left shoulder. Pikachu had some cuts on his face and there was an arrow in his right shoulder too. We thought this battle wouldn't end until night fell, but then Alexander's troops began to withdraw. First the left, then the center, went backing up. "Don't stretch!" Pikachu commanded Aria and Ptolemy. "He's using the Oblique Order! He wants us to come up so he can surge back up and kill us all!"

"No!" I argued. "He's actually withdrawing. They're already in his camp, look! Only his Companions are left and even half of those are gone! Bring our forces in as well!"

"Okay!" he agreed. "Retreat!" Pikachu hollered. "Bring back exactly how many troops he has and, he's alone except for his javelineers? What the hell? Odysseus, bring your people up here, Laeggis, Alphis, get your people out of here!"

We did so and we formed up into a smaller phalanx. We charged at Alexander and his force, Odysseus yelling "Fire!" The javelins went flying in both directions. People by the dozen died on Alexander's side and before we knew it, half of his present javelineers were gone.

Things were getting even stranger. The two hundred fifty remaining javelineers suddenly threw all their javelins down in front of a small group of men. One javelineer refused to surrender his weapons. One figure, much taller than the rest, grabbed the man, wrenching his spears from his hands and breaking his wrists. He dislocated his arms, bending the elbows back the opposite way and throwing him down onto the ground. "Oindril!" he yelled in fury. "I told you! You follow my orders without question and without question you follow my order to give up your arms!"

"Well," I heard the man say smugly, "I'm beyond your control Alex-" "It's ALEXANDER!" the tall man screamed. "You want to have your own way? Your way is this!" He tackled Oindril and began beating him with every part of his body: hands, elbows, knees, feet, and sword. But, these blows didn't seem to do very much damage. The shorter man stabbed his remaining short spear into the taller's breast. Blood, nay, something shinier than blood, flowed from the wound and down the cuirass. "Oh shit!" Ash yelled. "The tall man's, him!"

"Who's that?" Pauline was desperate to know.

"The Great!" Pikachu answered simply and he sprinted at Alexander, sword drawn. Alexander turned away from his work on the stubborn, condemned Oindril and he gave us a secretive smile. "I did not know that you elected Pikachu to be your commander!" he said in genuine surprise. "I thought you would choose someone like Tracey!"

"I don't have the skill," I said smoothly, aiming a javelin at him, "but I do know how to kill people!" I threw the javelin and it hit home, its tip making a new gash in the conqueror's chest. Since the spear had been thrown at point blank, it should have killed him, seeing that the other wound he had received just minutes before was, gone? I was still staring at where the wound had been when I felt a pain in my right side. I fell over, clutching at my thigh.

Ash grabbed Tracey and started running towards our camp. "No need!" a girl shouted. "Cadabra, Teleport!" I turned to see Sebrina wearing a helm and a bundle of javelins strapped to her side. Tracey vanished. "Thanks," Ash panted.

"Don't mention it," Sebrina replied. "We have to wait! Look what's happening! Almost all his javelineers are dead! We're all fighting him now. Get in there and no not Pauline! Zeus damn it!" Sebrina cursed. "Ash, by all the gods help her! She has some pretty bad wounds!"

Ash grabbed Pauline and I helped her to back up. "Pikachu," she whispered, "what will I do? Where will you take me?"

"Hospital tents," Sebrina replied. "Darius and Tracey are already there, so you won't be alone."

"Sure," Pauline replied.

"Teleport!" Sebrina said again. I watched Pauline vanish too. _We have already lost some of our best soldiers. I thought sadly. But I'll have to fight _him. "Nasty Plot!" I screamed, improving my Special Defense forty percent.

Alexander approached me with another creepy smile. "So," he said smoothly, "it's you. The descendant of Epeminondas." He did mock respect, bowing. "Oh, I surrender my forces to a would-be ally. Sure that'll happen! I'll show you!" He suddenly shouted angrily, grabbing me by the arms. "You're going to die, Minondass! I will make it easy for you-" I cut Alexander off by stabbing my sword into his left shoulder and into the side of his neck. Alexander snarled and he bared his teeth. When in the name of Absol did he get his teeth filed? I saw him lean down and I felt myself writhing in his grip. I felt great pain in my right arm and everything went black.

The last things I heard were a collective shout of "No!" from our side, another shout of "Yes!" from my assailant, and one of "Teleport!" from Sebrina. Then, I became unaware of every sensation.

"That's it," a female voice cooed, and I felt someone stroke my hand. "Pikachu, Minondass, that's fine. Breathe in, breathe out. Stay as still as possible."

"Where," I gulped. "Where am I?"

"We brought you in," Athena said gently. "We won the battle!"

My heart almost stopped with the thrill-winning a battle against Alexander! Not Alexander, we won against, Alexander. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Athena asked me.

"Kind of," I answered, "if you're considering this to be a bitter-sweet victory."

"I'm thinking of that," Pauline said from the cot beside me. Her arms and her shoulder were in bandages, but otherwise, she was okay. "I'm thinking the sweet part is that one: you've learned how to command in battle and two: we won our first battle. The bitter parts, one: Alexander's wounds made him stronger and two: since he lost a battle, he'll want to kill us even more than before."

I looked over at Tracey; her blonde hair wasn't tied back like it usually was, it hung down to her shoulders. Her blue eyes glimmered like polished granite under a bright light. I thought about how similar she looked to, Alexander. He looked so much like a child of Athena before, but he ended up being a child of the most powerful Olympian, Zeus. _I may be a child of Zeus as well, I thought, but how can I ever beat him? He's given me so much knowledge, but yet, he has injured most of my friends. Well, at least I don't _have. I stopped and looked down at my right arm. Where Alexander had used the attack Cut Down, there was a fresh scar in the shape of a capital A. I rubbed a finger against it gingerly, feeling how clearly it showed on my skin. "Look at this!" I told everyone. "It's my first war scar! Darius, come look!"

The Persian king came up to my cot and bowed before taking a look at the scar. "Whoa," he said in amazement. "How did you get that?"

"Alexander used Cut Down on me," I said proudly. Then, I turned serious. "Is there a way to, you know, take it off? I'm officially branded as one of his enemies. Anyone would know who I was from this scar."

"Sire!" Tracey yelled at me. "You cannot remove a first war scar! You would be a disgrace to the men!"

"It is an honor to be wounded by such a worthy opponent!" Pauline told me.

"Wounded you may be," Aria said, standing from her cot to face me, "but when this is all over, you could say `I survived the most powerful pokemon move known and done by Alexander at that!` Do you not want this honor, Sire? Do you want to be like us? We have all received wounds from him, but they do not compare to yours!"

I thought for a moment. Then, to please her and everyone in the tent, and deciding that it was an honor, I said, "Sure! I accept this token of war with gratitude! From now on, even when I wear armor, I will let this scar be seen! I want the world to know who I am and who I am fighting! Pikachu Ketchem, son of Zeus, successor to Epeminondas of Thebes and Archelaos of Macedon, and the world's first pokemon commander!" We cheered and the physicians continued their work, heartened by my words.

Leonardo da Vinci, notebook 101, page 4 (decoded)

This may be my last log. I can't predict what will happen one minute from now, let alone tomorrow. Today was probably one of the coolest and scariest of my life. When we finished marching, we ended up at the river Granicus. Almost right after we struck camp, we fought a battle with about five thousand of our forces. Three fourths of Alexander's javelineers died in the fighting along with about one thousand more of his infantry. We only lost about fifty of our own and Pikachu will burn their shrouds tonight.

He also got wounded today. He had scars all over his body, but on his arms, legs, and face especially. He got Cut Down used on him and he is recovering now. I bet he'll be out of the hospital tent after I finish this log. His scar is in the shape of a capital A. It is his first major wound!

I'm proud that I even have a command at all, commanding pokemon phalanx infantry! I wasn't called to fight, but I heard about what happened from Tracey and Darius. From how things are going, I think I know where the next battle will be: Issos, the plain between a river and the mountains.

MAY 12 2010, BATTLE OF GRANICUS THOUGHTS

My only thought on this battle: terrifying. I was scared when I saw Alexander's army-about six thousand men bent on killing us. Leonardo has said five thousand, but he doesn't know the truth, it's six thousand. I fought one-on-one with Alexander. I feared as much would happen, and even with my training, I wasn't able to hold my own.

On the other hand, I was excited to lead the army. We didn't use our whole force, but it was a good start, using one fifth of it. It was exhilarating to lead the charge, my sword take Alexander's men to Hades. I am a little guilty of doing this, for I know these men were forced into this, but this is war. I'll have to do this more over the course of the week.

Leonardo's intelligence, being one of the scouts, has told me that Alexander's heading for Issos. After I bury our dead, I will tell the troops to march there at the double. I'll face you again Alexander, and I'll win, again!

CHAPTER NINE NOTES: The next chapters will be like chapter eight. To Issos.

9: A Tied Battle

Satisfaction. I feel this right now. Satisfaction. Satisfaction that my suspicions were correct. Satisfaction that my battle plan has worked. Pikachu, no, Minondass, has shown what he can do in war. He has shown me that he has sufficient knowledge of my tactics, probably from Aaron. He knows how to handle his men. But he is too confident in his abilities, for he has not won, I have!

I hoped that him not knowing what my forces were would confuse him. I am unsure of what he did to find out this information, but it does not worry me. Oh Minondass, if only you could see the expression on my face now. I do not despise you fully for trying to fight me, I admit that. You can hold your own and I have seen so. You can deploy your forces well and I have seen so. This and this alone, I admire you for doing, even if you are fighting me. But Minondass, if only you could know what I think of now, below the surface of my mind. Beyond the brilliance I am still known for, there is, my alternate mind. That of my daimon. It normally does not show itself unless I am in danger or if I am angered beyond imagining possible. But now, it shows itself more often. My mortal mind has taken hold once more, but I do not know how long this will last. It could lose its guidance over me at any moment, even...

It is great to do this again. To see that another battle is won by me, to see another confused and overconfident enemy, made so by me. I am reminded of how it was back before India. India. Pah! I am still wondering why in the name of Hector's defiled corpse I went there. To extend my empire, yes. But why, why! did the men not want to go farther? Why! They had known me for more than a decade and some of them even more than that! They knew I would want to go farther and they should have embraced it, not run from it like Darius from the battle of Issos! Instead of shouting `We want to go home!` they should have shouted `We want to go farther!`

I love this new campaign. I am very glad to have men who are eager to serve under me. I have told them of the prophecy and they fear me. They think that if they defy an order, I will send them to the Hellenic League to be crushed by me. But yet, they also love me. They understand me and my tactics. They know of my love for war and just the feel of marching onto the field of battle.

Why didn't I use my whole force? Because, well, I knew that it was not necessary. I want the Hellenic League to think that I will have a series of small battles and then, one big decisive one. That is what I will do. Only at the final battle will I use the whole of my army. At last, you might ask this: `when will my mortal mind take over again?` No one knows, not even the gods or the Fates. I will let my daimon's control over me run its course. But all I know is, I will feel that my mortal mind is back in control when this week is up. Or when I have taken down this Macedonian pretender! Issos, begin!

"We are gathered here today," Minondass said, "to honor those who have fallen in this battle. These people have served with valor, cunning, and with the knowledge that they might not make it back to camp alive. In the style of ancient Greece, we will burn the shroud and body for each person that has gone in our service. However, instead of being different, the shrouds will all be the same. This is done not to show how similar they are, but how no matter where we may have come from and what we did before we came here, we are all part of this one league: the Hellenic League.

Our emblem, two swords in a circle, is embroidered into each shroud to show how they all served under us to the best of their ability. They will all be burned here by the ritual specialists of this army, Netosanes and Cricktus." When their names were called, Netosanes and Cricktus headed to the base of the dais and bowed deeply. "We are honored," Netosha raised her voice, "to do this service for our fallen comrades. They will be given a common tomb like the Sacred Band. Torchic rise!" she voiced.

"Lileep go!" Cricktus selected his pokemon.

"Torchic Sacred Fire!" "Lileep Mimic!" The fire began around the pokemon, then it spread to the pile of bodies beside me. I watched as the fire grew in intensity, turning the bodies to ashes right before my eyes. It didn't take long for them to burn: as soon as they were turned to cinders, Minondass had the generals help him put them into a big urn. He placed the urn into a stone tomb made very quickly thanks to our rock type trainers. He turned to us again and said, "This may be our first loss, but think about what you have all done. For those who have fought, you have done so valiantly! Alexander, would be proud of all of you! However, we do not have the privilege of his presence."

"What about the Diadochi?" a man reminded him.

"Yes of course!" he remembered. "The Diadochi! They were a vital part of this battle. They helped to get the withdrawal to begin. You guys will be awarded your proper honors when this war ends, if it ends. Now," he concluded, "get back to your posts and get some sleep. We march at midnight." The men yelled their approval and left the sacrifice area that had been pegged out in front of Minondass's tent. "Come on," he commanded. "Let's get some sleep."

That night was stirring with sound: the sound of horses being led around, the sound of excited men, the sound of weapons getting strapped onto mens' backs. "Hedaroy advance!" Minondass yelled. "Aristander, get up here!"

"Aristander?" I asked, confused.

"You!" he said, laughing. "We're doing it in honor of the Telmisian seer. I bet you're part of Aristander's bloodline. Pauline, Ash, Hephaistion, all of you, get into the Royal Guard!"

"Yes Sire!" we answered and we went to the front of the column. "Cricktus! Netosanes! You too!"

"We're here Sire!" the two attendants of Athena came to Minondass's side. "Follow the torches!" Pikachu told us. "Only follow the torches! Diadochi, you last! March!" I heard the electric type commander order. We were on the move again.

It wouldn't take very long to get to our destination. Minondass had hired some pilots to carry most of our kit on their planes to Issos. _Thank the gods that we found working planes, I thought with relief, feeling my light pack bump against my back. All we're carrying are our pokeballs, our arms, and our _canteens. Our pace got a lot quicker this way-instead of going four miles per hour, we went twice that in ninety minutes. We were panting from the effort, though we were speed-walking, not running. Pikachu had some engineers smooth out and make new roads, as we went south faster and faster.

We had covered thirty miles in five hours. I couldn't believe we had done it. But Sire decided that we needed to go much, much, faster. "Everyone!" he boomed into his microphone, "return every pokemon except those who can do the Teleport back to their pokeballs! I will teleport the army to Issos. Do it when I give the signal!" There was a chorus of "Yes Sire!" as the order was followed. "Prepare yourselves!" he directed. "And now, Group Teleport!" The whole army held its breath, the ground vanishing beneath our feet.

The first thing that I saw was the river. It was small and with a moderate current. It was blowing to the army's left. To the right and in front of us, the mountains ringed the plain. It got thinner as it went north; we were on the southern part, its widest part. We set up camp at once, the tents being pitched where we stood. We met in my tent like the day before. "This time," I reported, "we have gotten here first. Now, we can take the initiative and start the battle ourselves. And I know what to do too."

"Will we use our whole force now?" Azelf questioned.

"No," I answered smoothly. "We will use two battalions of hoplites and half of our light Macedonian and Greek cavalry. We will also use Leonardo's battalion of pokemon phalanx infantry."

"Finally!" Leonardo thanked me, clapping his hands in excitement and gratitude. "It's my turn!"

"We'll use May's pokeball slingers and the javelineers. And," I finished, "all of our Thracian darters."

"Why so many projectile people?" Pauline asked me. "Can't you just use all of the phalanx?"

"We could," I said, "but I want to inflict as much damage as I can without using much sarissa infantry. That is for close quarter work and I don't want the phalanx to loose its shape. Alexander would want that."

"So," Hephaistion summarized, "you're using mostly light cavalry, infantry, and projectile people."

"Yeah," I confirmed. "That's-" "Wait!" A26 interrupted, "what if you _want to do the sword-and-shield thing?"

"Okay," I said, "we'll use Perdiccas's battalion and Kanis's battalion for that. We'll be prepared for it."

"we'll have about twelve thousand men in total," Ash said.

"Yeah," I said again. "Chingling, get your scouts out to the plain so we can level it and look for Alexander! And possibly see what forces he has!"

"Yes Sire!" Chingling replied and she ran out. "Stay here," I gestured at the generals, "in case we'll have to fight again. It could happen at any time."

"Don't you have to sacrifice to check for omens?" Tracey wondered. "You didn't do that last time."

"Oh yeah!" I called to mind. "Get Netosanes and Cricktus!" She ran out too.

Within minutes, we were in front of the tent. We sacrificed a lamb using poison. It died almost instantly and we cut it open to burn its entrails. I watched in fascination. "What does this mean?" I asked, pointing to the lungs. One was barely burned and still pink and the other one was black and scorched, though they'd been on the fire for the same amount of time.

"It means," Tracey said, "that the victory will be a tie."

"A literal tie as well as a figurative one," Cricktus added.

"Even if it's only a figurative or literal one," Netosanes said, "it will still be bitter-sweet. Prepare yourself, Sire."

"I will," I replied. "Let's get to the center of camp, in case we need to form up."

It was almost noon when the horn sounded. "Sire!" Bidoof announced, "Alexander is entering the plain at its northern part. He has two battalions of his phalanx, one battalion of hoplites, his Companions, two thousand of a mix of his light Greek and Macedonian cavalry, his javelineers, and his archers."

"It's almost the same as my force," I noticed at once. "but with less projectile people and hoplites. Is he planning on fighting with the sword-and-shield tactic?"

"Probably," Bidoof said. "Will you ask the men to form up now?" I answered with the order "Form up!"

My suspicions about our enemy were true-there they were: the Companions at the right, the phalanx in the middle, his cavalry the back of the right and the whole of the left wing, his archers and javelineers on the extreme left and right. If he had hoplites, they were in the very back. I did the same, but I put my projectile infantry everywhere, mostly on the wings. I knew that shooting at heavy sarissa infantry would be useless, seeing how overlapped the shields were.

I took my place at the right as a Macedonian commander's right, and Tracey handed me my armor: the greaves, the cuirass, the helm, and last, my shield and sword. My left arm was incased in a metal exoskeleton that would bend as my arm did. But my right arm, that I left bare, showing the A-shaped scar that I had received. That way if I died, everyone would know who they had killed. "Ready to engage again?" Kanis asked me before going to his post.

"Sure," I said reassuringly, "and even if I die, and I might damn well die, Ash or A26 will take my place. And now," I said, raising my voice, "start the war paean!"

The sound of sarissas banging on shields made the beat as people in the back of the army played flutes and began singing a war song. The phalanx marched forward at a pace a little faster than a walk. Their boots marched in time to the music and it sounded like the soldiers were making a tempo of their own-that of conquest. The cavalry, horses neighing and riders encouraging their mounts, trotted along side them. "Speed it up a little!" I commanded. The music got faster and louder; then, the phalanx ran forward as fast as their formation would allow, their rhythmic steps vanishing and turning into a stampede of overlapped shields. My cavalry galloped at the double, making an even louder din. "For Minondass!" they all cried, and the Hellenic League's second battle began.

Swords clashed once more. My left arm's armor began to flex as someone shot arrows at it. I parried someone's blade and I stabbed into their breast plate. The sword worked like a charm; it killed the person and they didn't even realize what had happened. The hoplites and projectile infantry were doing their job, making serious casualties with their arrows and darts. There was a cavalry battle in both right wings and a light infantry fight in the center between the armies. Archers and slingers were fighting at the edges of the battlefield.

As for the phalanxes, they were trying to destroy each other and that wasn't working out very well. I heard a voice blare from the enemy right wing: "PHALANX RETREAT! HOPLITES STAY!" The voice that had given the command didn't pronounced the word phalanx phai-lanks, but fal-inks, putting stress on the X, but making it sound like a K or a CK. I knew that voice too well and I hoped I wouldn't have to hear it again so soon. But I was hearing it: it was Alexander, calling for a, retreat? _What the hell? I thought in confusion. _Is he retreating like last _time?

Apparently yes-the only infantry that was left was his hoplites, javelineers, and archers. His only cavalry was his Companions and less than half of his light cavalry. Their force turned into a smaller shape to accommodate the change. "COMPANIONS, HALF OF YOU AND THE REST OF THE CAVALRY, RETREAT AS WELL!" Why would he bring back his companions?

It only took seconds of looking for me to find out. Alexander had gotten new javelineers to replace the ones we had killed and they weren't just carrying javelins, but bows as well. The archers were carrying javelins as well as bows. He was prepared to have a long range missile confrontation, I realized. But why would he? They won't do much damage. Then, I found out the hard way. Two words: lightning bolts.

An archer left the ranks and approached the right wing, holding his bow and javelins out in front of him. He knelt at the feet of Alexander and said something. The fellow Macedonian commander nodded and he took the javelins and arrows in his hands. He signaled the rest of the archers and javelineers to do the same. None of them even had a thought about keeping them. As far as I could see, they had been told of what happened to the javelineer from last time. A whole army's worth of javelins and a shed's worth of arrows were deposited at Alexander's feet. Then, the projectile infantry filed into phalanx formation and went behind him. "What happens now?" Darius whispered to me.

"Prepare for shield suicide and to run," I said, and I waited to find my suspicions were confirmed.

Using my own shield and attempting to protect myself was the only thing I did; not attacking, just defending. And as for my own bodyguard, they were running for their lives, trying to avoid the bolts. The only thing I saw coming from the enemy side was the white bolts streaking at us, especially me. They looked like pieces of the sky that a mortal had somehow harnessed for war. But we weren't fighting a mortal, but a god, a full-fledged god. No demigod could compete and even Athena and Zeus couldn't stop the electrical problems the pilots had experienced on the way here. It seemed that no one could control him. Not even the Fates could determine what would happen or what he would do even though he had chosen a path. If he was beyond their control, us subjugating him was impossible. But I only realized this after the fight, the only thing I thought of and the only thing my men thought of was very primaeval and instinctive, something we all do when we want to get away from something unfamiliar and deadly. Run!

Everyone knew what my next order would be and they did so. We grabbed each others' weapons and we yanked them off, only keeping our shields. The bolts got closer, striking down fifty of our own. It happened again, about one hundred seventy five more dying at the mercy of the bolts. The helmets and shields melted on contact and the melting metal as well as the lightning was what killed them. "Archers, javelineers, darters, return fire!" I called on my archers, hoping they would have the sense to respond. They did: arrows and darts reigned down upon the reduced enemy force. They all reflected off an invisible wall and came back at us at ten times their original speed. Most of the darts ended up taking down who shot them.

"Shit!" someone yelled. "The shield of Achilles! It can deflect anything and the larger the object or the more objects launched at it, the larger the area of protection! We have to slow down so we have a bigger chance of killing people!"

"We've already done that!" Ptolemy said, pointing. "The archers, they're dead! Or they have fled!" He was right: the archers' bows and the javelineers' slings lay in piles along the field behind Alexander. There were no bodies. "We have to do the same," I replied to the fellow general. "Retreat! Shields at close order!" We gathered into groups, put shields over our heads, and ran towards our camp. I thought the bolts would continue, sheering our force in half. Here we go, I waited with a feeling of expectancy, it's time. But it didn't happen. The bolts had stopped, just as fast as they had started. I glanced over: Alexander was gone, but a track of footprints led from his post to his camp. I didn't bother following them. I didn't want to. "Come on," I said, taking Pauline's hand. "Let's go."

"Did we win?" she asked.

"We didn't win or lose," I answered. "We won, seeing that we had less casualties, but we lost too," I said, sighing, "seeing that we didn't prepare for the lightning thing. We did end up needing our phalanx infantry. Good thing you suggested that. Let's get back to camp. Darius is there and I want to see him."

We walked back to the hospital tents and sat down on the floor beside Darius's cot. He had two arrows in him, one in each of his arms and a gash in his left thigh. Pauline had similar upper bodily injuries, except there was a gash in her left upper arm as well. I reached for a bottle of sanitizer and I squirted some on her gash and on her arrow wounds. I took a cloth bandage, dipped it in water, and wrapped it around her gash. She breathed out as her pain was alleviated. "Thank you Sire," she told me.

"Don't mention it," I said modestly. "I would have done it for any of you." I took some adhesive bandages and I pressed them onto her arrow wounds next. "I just want this war to end," I said, becoming serious and sad. "And I know that I have only three or four more days to go, it's just that I would fight with no hesitation if this war was against Team Rocket, seeing that they're all bad. But against Alexander," I stopped, apprehensive and not wanting to get my second trainer worried, "it's so much harder. He, just seems so harmless, prophecy-fulfilling wise. He's in his right mind and he would usually have the sense not to give in to this. But, when he told us about his daimon, I got less certain of his state of mind. On the surface, he seems normal. I mean not normal in the usual sense, but, content with what he has. He has strong desire. And a lot of it, a lot more than one person can take, let alone able to resist its hold on oneself. I just hope he'll get back to normal as soon as this week's over. And if he does not, I'm optimistic that he'll take Team Rocket and scare them out of their minds, if not obliterate them."

It was true: this war was adrenalin-filled and I was delighted that I was elected the Captain-General of the army. It was so stunning to lead the men across the Hellespont into Asia, to lead my friends to Troy, to lead the men in battle at Granicus and Issos. "However, it was also a sobering fact that I had to fight the most successful, most famous, most brilliant conqueror and the one who's held the most territory in power on his own. And who was I? A pokemon to two trainers and an admirer to Alexander. A mere follower.

But then I realized who I was descended from! I am sprung from the Pikachu of Epeminondas, a prize of war taken from the battle of Leuctra. The Ditto that helped make the egg was that of Archelaos, a king of Macedon. I am of Theban and Macedonian blood. If I couldn't stop the prophecy and lead the war to the best of my ability, I would parish with ease. Ash and Hephaistion would take my place if this happened, but I am still scared of the fact that I could die at any time. Don't think like that, I told myself. The week's almost half over and soon, we'll be back in Pallet playing basketball at the park. But even if we don't go back to pallet, I just want to go somewhere where I can rest the men. And me. Very very soon.

"You really want to go back to Pallet, you know?" I started: Darius had sat up in bed and he had laid his hand on my arm. "If you're doing it right now, I'm thinking about it too."

I shrugged. "You could say so. Actually, you're right. I want to rest somewhere safe and familiar, if it's even possible that there's a safe and familiar place in the world that's not Team Rocket infested."

"I know where," Darius said suddenly, his face turning startled and excited, "ten letters: Alexandria! We can go there and rest for two days! Tell this to the men tonight after the burial."

"You're right!" I said cheerfully, registering the place from how many times Alexander had talked so passionately about it. "It's in Egypt, so we can keep a good eye on things in Asia. I've always wanted to go there! I'll tell the men tonight! For now," I advised him, "stay here and regain your strength until I come back here and get you. And," I added, looking at Tracey, who was sleeping, "tell Tracey I say hi."

"Sure Sire!" he perked up and lay back down, happy he had gotten a chance to talk to me.

Leonardo da Vinci, notebook 101, page 5 (decoded)

This could be my last log. I can not predict what will happen one minute from now, let alone what will happen tomorrow. I was in the fighting at last! Heading my one thousand pokemon phalanx infantry, I was one of the more than six thousand people who fought in the center. I can only remember that I killed about thirty of the enemy phalanx with my own hands. Some got trampled by the cavalry and by their own when they retreated. Pikachu, I mean Minondass, had sent some hoplites and archers to kill off the retreating people. He's getting better at handling his men, I have to admit. I'm very proud of him as if I shouldn't be already, seeing that he's leading me.

I'm very nervous about what will happen now. Alexander did what we wanted him to do, exactly like how we wanted it. It seems that he has inside information to refer to, or he just knows us so well he doesn't have to work hard. I was expecting as much, though. I am lying here in the hospital tent again, having a clerk write down what I want in my journal. I have received more gashes to my arms and face and I even broke the left part of my collar bone. That's being treated right now and thanks to the healing pokemon, it's almost back to normal. I have told the clerk, who Minondass has just declared as my own, that if I should die, he should give this journal to him or to any person who's present. When he or she gets the journal, he will tell the receiver to give it to him in turn.

I heard that Minondass wants to take a break. Speaking of this possibility, I heard that we are going to Alexandria next! Alexandria! The first of many, the place that I have recently dreamt of visiting! I want to see the fruits of Alexander's labor. We're going to skip over so much land, though: over Gordium, Tyre, many more places he had been to before. We're also going over a lot more potential battle sites that he, as well as we, could use. I'm relieved, however: I get a break from fighting and marching since we're teleporting there again. I get to see one of my favorite cities (besides Florence and Rome of course), and I get to go somewhere where I know there is no Team Rocket presence. They aren't interested in Alexandria, I guess. I have one more thing to say. I have to tell Sire something. Thank you Pikachu Ketchem, thank you Epeminondas, thank you Minondass, thank you Sire, for this golden opportunity.

MAY 13, 2010, BATTLE OF ISSOS AND BREAK THOUGHTS

This battle wasn't terrifying like the last one. It was, actually, exciting. I knew what to expect: fighting, planning, recovering from my wounds. I knew I would see men clashing and fighting for their commanders, my own men and Alexander's doing so. And plus, having time of my own before a battle happened as well.

I wasn't sure what I would do when I got here, seeing that I had arrived before Alexander. But, I ended up using my time wisely. I called a war council with all my generals. I had enough time to make my battle plan before Alexander got here. I took control of the situation and it felt really good. I felt like I could turn the tides of this battle, maybe even the whole war, with just a command from my lips.

But I also know that with this excitement, there is an overwhelming feeling of wanting a break. I really, really want to go somewhere where I can relax. I'm already tired, not of war, obviously, it's action-packed, but I am, as a matter of fact, just physically tired. I haven't been getting much sleep. But I know there are only two things I can do. I am either going to rest or I'm going to march to Tyre as fast as the army and I can.

There is a small possibility that I will go to tyre, seeing that it is another ideal battle site. I don't want to go to Tyre, though. I'm feeling that this war will not finish in four battles, for I know that the last battle will be sometime at the end of the week. It will end in three battles-that of the Granicus, that of Issos, the one that has just finished, and the final battle. Aristander has said to the army that the final battle's location will be revealed soon after a confusing thing happens.

On the other hand, no matter how much I want to go to Tyre, there is a great chance that I will not go there, but to Alexandria. Oh, the first and grandest Alexandria! Alexandria, the city that I have always wanted to go to. I just like how Alexander got the idea for it; he was probably walking out on the beach on this awesome site of a city relaxing, and he thinks almost randomly, "This is perfect! Need to found a city! Now!" That's the Alexander we all know and love. And sadly, this random and brilliant Alexander is the Alexander that should be fighting on our side right now. But I know that even without the Alexander we all love, I know I can still count on that want-to-found-a-city feeling still being here, thanks to the Diadochi. You guys are awesome: you keep me sane when I can't think of tactics, you keep me company when I'm alone, and you are great at guarding my person, by the way. A24, prepare to go to Alexandria, Egypt, again. This one is the first of the seventy or more Alexandrias you founded, in case you forgot. To Egypt! To the first Alexandria! To my favorite city, Leonardo's favorite city, and the army's soon-to-be favorite city.

CHAPTER TEN NOTES: There will be much more of Alexander's, Minondass's, my, and Leonardo's perspectives in this chapter. But there will be a lot more of all our perspectives though, so expect a lot more words. Also, if you've never been to Alexandria, what I'm saying driving wise is pretty much true. We were driving around there and this is the only time we did so. And, this is where Athena shows her dirty side, the side that almost no one sees. She really hates drivers who don't follow the rules of the road and she actually breaks many of the rules in the end herself, seeing that she was so mad at the other people. Here's our two day stay in Alexandria and here's a shocking and real twist along with it.

10: Seeing, Getting, Draining

The army formed up to do drills today once again. It was much, much smaller, seeing what the Hellenic League had done to it. I am still not worried, however. I will not need very many men in the final battle. And it is coming up soon.

No! Can't, stop, hands from fidgeting keyboard! Have, to, get location to Pikachu before I...

You can never win a mental fight against me, mortal. I am glad that your ability to fight has weakened, seeing how your victory was halved thanks to the Hellenic League.

It has not been made a half victory! I have won fare and square with good tactics! You would not know the stuff, seeing that you just shoot lightning bolts at whatever you want and...

Ah, you are still thinking that? Do not do that anymore, now. Good thing I have let you stay up until now, otherwise you would have lost this battle permanently.

Well, think about who we are fighting inside: not Pikachu, not Ash, not Hephaistion, not Aria, but Alexander the Great! He is the most famous, brilliant, successful, and the most to hold so much territory on his own in history. He is not like any normal warrior. He is supposed to be better than the others...

Of course I would not be worse, or else I would not be here. You, you, have rhetorical skill, my similar partner, friend, enemy. You have fought with brains, but with no brawn. You are just like Athens's orators when Demosthenes was giving speeches against me; they persuaded a lot of people, but they did not persuade me.

You will not even think of doing it! You are...

Not that like you? Of course! If I was like you, then I would not be like how I am now. Powerful, undeniable, unconquerable!

You can never use words like that with such certainty! It is not possible! You can not just use such words with no proof of them through your deeds! You have to earn...

I am beyond such rules! I am beyond your control, the gods' control! Athena fights for the Hellenic League and even she can not match me! I am not controlled by the Fates either! They have told me that I can choose my destiny, and so I...

You have not chosen your fate, you have chosen a path: you chose to fulfill the prophecy!

For once, I let you finish. But only once, my similar friend, only this once. What you have said is true, yes, that I have chosen of my own free will to fulfill the prophecy. I have chosen my fate and I have excepted it as my fate. Part of it involves...

Winning this fight against me?

Yes. Very much so. You are a worthy opponent, but not a very strong one. You talk and you talk, but you can not act. You cannot fight. And, I will end your reign now, quickly and painlessly.

You will not even...

Killiteen!

Now, Alexander, it is just you and me. I will be the one guiding you, not the mortal mind that has just submitted to me. You will get all you desire. The power, the power, and even more of the power.

What is the first piece of advice you will give me, then?

You should not move your force to the location you want to go to tonight, but you should do it on Monday morning.

Why?

Because, you will have time to carry out the plan I have made.

What does it involve?

Alexander, very simple: you will merely lie in this bath. You will even eat your meals and give your war councils from this bath. However, I recommend that you do not give a war council or even let anyone get their request to see you granted. You will know what to do when the time comes.

What do you mean? How long will you be guiding me?

Oh, until my little plan, I mean, our little plan, gets to its second to last stage.

When will this be?

It takes place right after your forces arrive to where you wish to go. And after you fight, of course.

And what will I do in this bath, again?

Oh, you will charge of course. You will find that the electrical currents running through these metal bands have doubled in voltage.

Thank you for telling me. Where will the final battle be?

I will tell you tomorrow.

What else will you tell me now?

The current, doubled as it is, is not enough to sustain us. You need more power. Much more.

How will I get it?

That, I will also explain tomorrow. Get some sleep now, Alexander.

"Wow!" I shouted with delight as we appeared in front of the city. "It's massive! And it's, breezy! How?"

"It's because Alexander designed the city so that when a wind blows, it will blow through the city to cool it down." Minondass explained this feature to me and all of his generals as we walked towards the huge collection of lights. "Where are we staying?" Perminion asked us.

"There's an apartment building where I've arranged us to stay," he replied. "Come on. It's as hot as Hades out here! I need to take a cold bath." We all needed to do that, so the army, in its about thirty divisions, went down the two main streets to a building with the Hellenic League logo on its front door. There were nine more such buildings on the same small street. _At least we don't have to hear the _traffic, I thought with relief as I carried our supreme commander up the stairs to the top floor where we would be staying. _I heard about how hard it is to drive here, and I'm getting anxious for the time when and if we do have to _drive. But I put these worries aside and I set our commander on a chair, sat on the floor beside him, and started to remove his heavy armor. "So," he said, lifting his helmet off himself, "Who's going to stay in my apartment with me? It has room for eight people including me."

"I want to stay!" I volunteered. "How about you, Ash?"

"Sure!" he agreed. "Don't be surprised if I don't talk much, okay?"

"Okay," Pikachu said eagerly, happy his two trainers could come with him. "Hephaistion? Athena?"

"Yeah!" they said enthusiastically. "Netosha? Crick?"

"_Hell yes!" the two siblings claimed their spots in the apartment together. "How about Pauline?"

"I want to stay here," she told us as she came in, setting her cane on the floor.

"That's everybody," he said, counting out the seven of us and ading one, which was himself, confirming that there were eight people. "Unpack your stuff, everyone. Later like after lunch, we'll go see the city and its sites."

The people staying in our apartment went out to see the city, as Minondass had promised. It was hot outside, so we decided to wear the Greek attire-chitons and sandals, instead of shorts. We were technically representing the reincarnation of the ancient Hellenic League, so it was fitting. Supporters of our cause lined the streets in the thousands, chanting our names. It was beautiful: the view of the Mediterranean Sea, the cloudless sky, everything but the fact that we had decided to drive through Alexandria. We had found this out the hard way.

We did know that driving rules were different here, but we didn't know how different. When we got our rental car and were about to head into one of the lanes, we discovered there weren't any. It was just a street, with no lanes, no traffic lights, no stop signs, nothing. For the most part, we just followed along with what the other drivers were doing. But, we also found out that this could be summarized in two words: reckless driving.

Athena had to take the brunt of all this, seeing that she was driving us around. As soon as we pulled onto the road, someone sped in front of us and honked their horn at us for no reason. "What are we doing wrong?" I asked Athena.

"I don't know," she said truthfully, trying to swerve around the cars. "I've never driven in a place so crazy. It's worse than New York. Hey!" She yelled at a random driver who was stalled in the middle of the road. "Why the _hell are you sitting there, you! This is a street, not a parking lot!"

"I don't even want to know what's going on," Hephaistion said, gripping the back of the seat in front of him tight. He got car sick really easy and we had forgotten that too.

"Thank the gods you can't see what's happening. You really don't want to _shit!" Athena stopped her sentence as she swore at another driver, who had crashed into the rear of our car. There was no damage, but it was still scary. "What the _hell is going on in this city?"

"It's not America, remember," Crick pointed out, "there are different driving ideals here in Egypt."

"I know," Athena said, exasperated as she veered to avoid hitting a person crossing the street, "it's just that, even in New York, where there are crazy drivers, at least they stay crazy within their lane, you know. Philotas you!" she screamed as she saw that there was a row of idling cars blocking the road. "In the name of Homer and his screwed up version of clarification, what are we going to do?"

"Before you cuss us to death," Netosha cut in, "I have a suggestion: how about we just ditch driving altogether?"

The goddess of wisdom thought briefly, then became her old happy self as she parked the car haphazardly near the curb. "Forget driving," she muttered, "we can walk everywhere, though it's so hot out here. I think I know where we can go, though. There's a public computer lab where we can hook up our laptops. Sire," she directed at Minondass, "you can look at the latest report from the scouts while we're there. Come on."

Athena led us down the street to a white building. It had columns and a familiar design on the roof: a frieze, a strip of sculpture around the top of the wall. "There's a lot of columns and a frieze on this building," I whispered to Pauline, who was walking along side me, grasping my arm.

"Why does this design seem so," she said to us, trailing off.

"Greek?" Athena filled in. "Yeah, I wondered at that too, but you had better come inside. It's amazing!"

"You've been here before?" Crick wondered curiously.

"As a matter of fact I have, back when this place was run by the Ptolemys. They had a public museum where people could study and show off inventions. This building is the modern equivalent to that same museum." She opened the door and we stepped inside to find, a, knowledge paradise!

The first things I saw were the computers, stationed on the perimeter of the room. There were hundreds of them, each desk with both a Mac and a PC. There were printers and huge stacks of paper between the desks. Maps and charts of every kind papered the walls and it seemed that a copy of each one lay beside each computer. In the middle of the room, there were boxes and boxes of parts, parts that could be used to build anything: screws, bolts, nuts, washers, hammers and pliers and every kind of tool imaginable. I saw someone come out of a room with a sword and a whetstone in their hand and I guessed that there was a weapons room here as well. Racks of scrolls, books, and CDS lined the walls between the desks. But the thing that amazed me were the statues.

They were at the center, the corners, and flanks of all the doors of the room. The museum was the size of a football stadium, so having this many statues didn't surprise me. It was just, who the statues were portraying shocked me. And Tracey and everyone else. The statues were all of people we could recognize merely by their height and form: Azelf, Hephaistion, myself. But the detail surprised me. The marble was tinted just like in life, the proportions that in life, and the eyes, the eyes the exact same color as in life. I looked at a statue of myself just to see how similar the statue was to me: it was me, quadruped but biped in walking, and with a light skin tone. But my statue's eyes, they were the same keen ultramarine eyes. I had never seen such a bright shade of blue before, except in the eyes of... "Alexander," I whispered longingly.

"What?" Hephaistion said, frowning. "Sire, is something wrong?"

"No," I said, looking away from my statue, "it's just that, look!" I pointed over outside. "Go out there and tell me if that statue seems familiar! Really familiar."

We all went outside and looked at the first sculpture. It was, beautiful in a kind of terrifying way. It was like I was looking at who I had to face in two days: the same height, more than a foot taller than in previous historical fact, the proportions were perfect and this made this statue more lifelike than the rest. The light pale stone the statue was made of, which matched the coloring in real life exactly. The armor, which was the same as the set I had seen so many times, was fitted on the statue to the last millimeter. But this wasn't what made the statue, so, true to life; no, it was the eyes.

"Oh, my gods," Athena gasped. She was looking above my head at something. "It's, him!" I craned my neck up to see what she was staring at.

I could see why she was petrified with the statue's realness. The features of the face were fine: high cheek bones, a long, straight nose, a forehead prominent when compared to the rest of the face. A small, but powerful jaw and a short, jutting chin. But the eyes, back always to the eyes.

The dark brown eye was like how it was in real life, brown as the so many chocolate bars we had eaten last year over the summer. It, however, also had a dark quality that made it almost black. It had just enough brown pigment to be called brown. If I could name it, it would be called Deep Brown, for when I looked into that eye, it seemed like even when it was blazing with anger, it could just as easily look pleased and content.

This eye, deep and knowing as it was, didn't even compare to the, other eye. The blue gray eye. Just as I had seen it three months ago, before all this stuff started, it was unique and cool; but just like three months ago, it was, menacing. The blue, so clear, so stunning, just like the waters of the lagoon at Pella. But the gray, the gray: that was at the total end of the color spectrum. It was dark and it seemed that the light hitting it was absorbed at once by it. It wasn't just dark, but it was, shiny? No, fiery. And to my eyes, which were wide at this site, fiery with rage. It was like the eyes together were saying, just like Mary Renault had done in her book Funeral Games, `Well?` But to me, they weren't just saying that; they were saying `Well, Minondass, we meet again? Still fighting, eh? It's not worth it; just surrender...` "Can we go inside now?" I whispered to the group of us.

"Sure," Tracey said. "But why, Sire?"

"I don't need to explain, you already know." I tried to look confident as we went back inside, and as I stepped away, I swear I could feel the statue's burning eyes on my back. I was afraid to say or think the name nowadays, but now I did. _Alexander, I thought, I just saw your _daimon.

I sat down at a computer with a lot of relief. "Let's see," I mused, "what's your user name, Athena?"

"AthensIsMine," she said proudly. "My password's AmonBeGone! Fitting, huh?"

"Yeah," I laughed as I logged in so I could use the computer.

"Let's see," the goddess dictated the instructions to me, "go to the Desktop and click the app League Look. Click the default given when it asks you `search for?` The default's, him."

I clicked on the icon and I watched as the computer flicked from picture to picture, from Pallet, to Pella, to Issos, and to, a place by a big river. "Those images are in chronological order," Athena said. "That picture's the most recent one, probably a couple hours old. New pictures are taken every half hour."

"Where is this place?" Tracey asked. She had been silent until now.

"It's probably-was "Wait!" Pauline said, putting her hand on my arm. "Notice how these pictures are from Alexander's route the first time?"

"You're right!" Crick and Netosha cried. They had been watching silently too, until now. They screamed, "Euphrates! Tigris! Euphrates! Battle field!"

"What?" Ash finally talked. "What did you say?"

"Euphrates!" Crick said.

"Tigris!" Pauline added.

"Euphrates again," Hephaistion repeated.

"And, finally," I finished, knowing full well what they meant by their almost spontaneous shout, "Euphrates. Four words: Alexander. Going. To. Gaugamela!"

"That's where he's going now!" Athena became aware of this fact. "Gaugamela!" She pronounced it like it was tabooed like we did with Alexander's name. "He's there now! Or he's marching there as we speak!"

"But remember," I said, "I came here to relax. Or at least, to have one day to relax. But evidently, this would never be possible. Tomorrow, even though it will make my break short," I concluded, closing the app after looking at the pictures again, "we will ask for support from the Alexandrians. They have been hospitable enough to allow the army to stay here. Might as well give them something in return and let them fight. Come on. Let's rest up and tomorrow, someone, not me since I've given my share of speeches, will give the speech."

"I want to do it!" Tracey volunteered, and I nodded with approval.

That night wasn't very eventful, we just slept. I was excited with the prospect that I might be able to enroll some Egyptians in my army. With this happy thought, I fell asleep.

Leonardo da Vinci, notebook 101, page 6 (decoded)

This might be my last log. I can never ever predict what will happen one minute from now let alone what will happen tomorrow.

But today, I don't need to predict, I know what will happen to us, anyway. Four words: Tracey, gives, a, speech. She will give Minondass's speech.

He did this not to look like a coward, it's just that he wants to have a break from speaking. And also, Tracey volunteered of her own self determination to become less nervous about talking in front of people. There's one more reason: she's never given a speech in front of us before, so that will be a new thing we can look forward to.

I don't have much else to say about today. But if you're all wondering how Jack, Lisa, and Annie are doing, they're doing well. They're staying with me in an apartment across the hall from Pikachu, I mean, Minondass. He's told us to call him that as much as possible; he's hoping it will catch on. I think it's working in a way; we call him by both names. We will hear the speech with him tomorrow.

In addition to this, all I know is, on Saturday and on every remaining night that the army and I have left, I will have much more to say, if I get to logging at all. Pikachu, come on, log, and talk.

MAY 14, 2010, ALEXANDRIA THOUGHTS, DAY ONE

Today was awesome! I'm finally in my favorite city of favorite cities! Alexandria! Awesome! Like no other! Extra cool! X, impossible to find a word for. A place where Team Rocket doesn't dominate. Not like other cities in any way. Driving is impossible here. Really, just awesome that this city was founded at all. I hope we can come here after the war. Alexandria!

Yes, random, but I'm just so happy that we're finally here. If only Alexander could see it. He would be crying for the whole time. Oh, good times. But it was kinda ruined seeing that I saw a statue of him that was exactly like him. I mean, it was so lifelike that I was expecting it to, I don't know, move, like to start smacking Hephaistion. I don't know. Right after seeing it, I was so scared, but now that it's nighttime and after the incident, I feel so much better.

Tomorrow, Tracey is going to give a persuasive speech to try to convince the locals to come with us. We have to fill up about two hundred positions, seeing that some people died at the Granicus and at Issos. If it doesn't work, then I can go to Pallet for help; they're forever loyal to us. I want to prepare for the battle of Gaugamela. Sorry, the second battle of Gaugamela. I'm ready. We're all ready. Leonardo and I won't be logging for the rest of the week; we'll be too busy. But, we'll be preparing so we won't have time to log anyway. We're ready, Alexander! Give us all you've got!

Oh Saturday, the last day of the week. And the last Saturday of the Hellenic League's existence if our plan does work out. This will not take long, Alexander. We will merely see where we are and what we can do now.

So, we are about to cross the Euphrates a second time. It will not be very hard, since I have done it before. The only things we are carrying are our arms, our canteens, and our tents and nothing more.

Yes, we are ahead of schedule, in fact. I expected that we would be here tomorrow. But enough small talk. I will tell you how to get the energy needed to sustain us.

How?

Power draining. You have the ability to take away the electrical power from everything within a fifty mile radius, likely even more. You just need to exploit this ability. It will only take five minutes to complete, but I want to wait.

Why wait? Why not do it right now?

Well, we both want to see how Minondass is doing currently, do we? I know that he is pleading support from the Alexandrians. We should let him do this, at least; and I, as well as you, want to see how he copes with the draining.

When will we begin the draining process?

Oh, when his little Aristander gives her speech. We will strike at their core: their communication lines. Without electricity, getting messages everywhere quickly will be impossible.

When will Aristander give her speech?

Oh, it will happen momentarily. As soon as it is over they will find that the city and the whole of Asia, Africa, and Europe will be how it used to: with there being no way to move besides with forced marches. That will wear them down and when they get to Gaugamela, that is when I will leave you. I have made a strong enough impact on you; you will know what to do when the time comes. Now, we wait.

"Come on Tracey," I whispered to myself, staring up at the blonde-haired girl up at the podium. She stood straight and sturdy, not able to be moved by anyone or anything. She was our only chance at getting support.

_I can't let Epeminondas down, I thought, calming myself and emptying my mind of all emotion and of all actions but for giving the speech. This is not just for me, and for Minondass but for the whole of the Hellenic League, for the whole world, for if we fail, we will not have enough people who can help with our cause! Do it Tracey, do it for your sire _Aristander! And so I did.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Hellenic League members! Alexandrians! Assorted listeners! You may not know why I am here and let alone who I am, and I will tell you. I am Tracey Esteron, daughter of Apollo and one of the descendants of Aristander! Aristander was Alexander the Great's seer!" When I said Alexander the Great, the crowd cheered and clapped vigorously. They apparently knew much about the one who founded their city. "Well," I said, "he is not what he seems, for if you have seen him in pictures, on video, or even in person, you would think he would not be the one to give in so easily to temptation and to choosing a path."

I paused. "But he has, my friends, he has. Have you heard of the anime or book Reign the Conqueror?" The crowd nodded and muttered their recognition. "Well, this prophecy is not just a plot twist to get more people reading or watching, but it is real! Yes, as crazy as this might sound, this prophecy is real!"

The crowd whispered some more, this time in confusion, and for a few of them, understanding. "As you may know, we, the Hellenic League, have been traveling across the world in order to stop this prophecy, for Alexander is fulfilling it as we speak! And do you know what will happen when this prophecy is fulfilled?" I heard someone in the back of the crowd shout, "No! not that! He would not!" and I answered with a wry smile, for I had said the same. "But alas, it is. He has given in to his daimon and it is leading him now. He is on our side no longer, or if he is on our side, he is doing it on his own.

You may want to know why this prophecy is so momentous, and I will tell you. It is so momentous for when we compared the anime Alexander with the real one three times four days ago, well, that is when he got the desire to-was I stopped: I didn't want to make our situation worse, but I needed to, "the desire to destroy the world. He will destroy the world to fulfill the prognostication that the anime makers had foretold of.

As for Alexander's travels, he is on his way to Gaugamela right now. Gaugamela is also known as the Camel's Hump. He is going to set his troops and battle line there. We will be marching there next. We came here to rest, for we are all tired. We have never fought in a war like this before and our bodies are not trained for it. Thanks to our lack of training, we have lost two hundred of our own best fighters. And this lack of troops is the second reason why we have come."

I watched the faces, which had two expressions, both of them extreme. About a third of the people looked skeptical, frowning at me with dissatisfaction, wanting more information. `This can not be true,` they were probably thinking. `She could not have traveled here so fast! To travel from Greece to Egypt would take weeks.` And then, there was the remaining two thirds of the people, who all showed understanding of what we needed and fear at who we were fighting. `We can help,` They thought, `but fighting against him, impossible!`

"You may think that I can not be who I say I am," I conflicted with the faces of the nonbelievers, "but you will believe me when you see this!" I pulled up the right leg of my jeans up beyond the knee, put my leg up on the podium, and showed the long scar on my thigh to the crowd. They were shocked at what they saw and most showed sympathy too. "I got this when Alexander stabbed me here," I explained, putting my hand on the scar. "You can not get a wound like this in any other way but in war!"

Now the crowd was into it, I could tell. Time to ask them for help. "Alexandrians! Everyone in the army thanks you for your willingness to let us stay here! This is greatly appreciated. But we need to ask another favor from you. Alexander has killed off two hundred of our best men as I have mentioned before and we have not had time to replace them. I am here to plead for you to come forward and take their positions. Your pay will be good and as for your positions, you can decide on it for yourselves. You will know what to do when you meet our commander.

But, I can not give a good argument now as every moment I speak is another moment we could use on the march. So, residents of the first Alexandria," I begged, "those who wish to follow us, please come forward now! For the world!"

There was no hesitation at all: more than two hundred people came forward, more like one thousand than two hundred. "Excellent!" I yelled with delight. "Now, you will meet us back here early tomorrow morning and-was The microphone suddenly gave a long beep as it ran out of power. "Just do as I have said!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "Do it! Please!"

While saying the last few sentences of my speech, I had noticed that the roar of traffic that had masked my words a little before had stopped. There was no sound of the cars that should be passing by the plaza we had chosen as our gathering place. "Oh no," I said fearfully. "It can't be." As if in reply, there was a deafening zapping noise that seemed to come from everything around us. Lights in windows and the few traffic lights that I hadn't noticed before shut off, most of their glass filaments shattering after it happened. "What's going on!" I yelled above the clamor.

"Power drain!" Pikachu rejoined with dismay and terror. "Everyone in the army and our new recruits, get out of the city fast and meet where you will be most visible! And that is the monument outside of town! Run!"

The plaza was chaos: people scrambled away from the sidewalk as others sprinted away from the plaza and out of the city. Cars sat where they had been parked, but thank the gods that they were parked somewhere decent for the most part. Yells of awareness of what had just occurred ran through the city on the wind like Hermes's flying sandals and just as fast. "He's done it!" someone bellowed. "The Hellenic League! They can't get out of here!"

"We are and will get out of here!" Minondass screamed in response. "If you want to help, come with us! Meet me at the monument that looks like a scale model of the lighthouse that used to be here! Its base is square, middle octagonal, top cylindrical! Twenty five miles south out of town! Bribe someone if you need to get a ride! Alexander's daimon has struck again!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN NOTES: Chaotic is the only way to describe the first part of this chapter. Chaotic. It switches from my opinion to Minondass's opinion. You will be able to tell the difference between the perspectives very easily. Alexander's perspective's not featured in this chapter very much for once. You'll see tons of him later.

11: Gaugamela Round Two

"Sire!" I hollered as I saw Minondass run for his life towards the monument, which was still about twenty miles away. He had managed to go the first five miles himself. "Sire!" I yelled again and I got him into my backpack. He nodded slightly and we ran for the monument together. "I thought," he panted, "he wouldn't dare-" "Get us here?" I finished. "We all thought that. But I guess he just thinks of Alexandria as a city like any other now."

"Where's Leonardo? Lisa? Jack? Annie? Pauline?" Minondass uttered the list of names, taking a short gasping breath between each one.

"They're behind us." I pointed at the group of soldiers running behind us, one holding onto Leonardo's arm. "Are we there yet?" I heard Pauline ask Leonardo.

"Almost," he replied gently. "Tracey's just right here." He stopped beside me and gestured for the others to do so as well. "Did you hear the, buzzing sound thing?" he attempted to describe the sound.

"Yeah," Minondass answered, hoisting himself out of my backpack onto Leonardo's shoulder. "Did you find out what it was?"

"Too soon," Annie replied. Sweat was dripping off her face from the strain of the flight from the city. "I was in the middle of watching the latest scout video and, it just stopped. The computer broke into little bits!"

"I was there to see it," Jack reinforced his sister's claim. "The zapping sound came from everything electrical and most of the computers in the city exploded like ours did. Even the cars lost all of their gasoline. The gas just disappeared; and the batteries, they're all burned to cinders inside the engines."

I thought over what Jack was saying. "So," I said, "there's a way for Alexander to control the electrical flow in stuff."

"Yeah," Lisa verified. "And how things are going, I'm guessing that the closer we get to Gaugamela, the faster it takes for electrical circuits to be overwhelmed."

"Consider the size of this area as well," Leonardo talked as we walked briskly along. "Assume that this power drain area is a circle. If it is, then we're at the edge of it, seeing that we were the first to experience this. As we go towards the center of the circle, which is Gaugamela, the smaller the chance our communication lines will stay connected. And, probably about five or six miles away from Gaugamela, when it counts the most, we'll be isolated and our lines will shut down altogether."

"So let's take advantage of the communication lines while they're still working," Minondass advised. "Let's's get to the monument."

Step. Step. Breathe in. Breathe out. The only things I did were run and breathe, no talking, no thinking, just moving. All we needed and wanted to do: get away from Alexandria. We, especially I, figured that Alexandria would be a safe house, seeing that Alexander still had a great love for it. But it would seem that his daimon just considered it as another place where he could control us remotely. _I just hoped that he would leave us alone, I agonized over this paradox. Alexandria is his favorite city in the world besides Pella and Pallet, and now, he's considering that the more closely linked the place is to him, the more he has to hate _it. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Pauline's voice. "Minondass, we're here. Sire. We're here. The army's here."

I shook Minondass out of his revery as we approached the monument. It was just like how he had described: square on the bottom, octagonal in the middle, cylindrical on the top. It was exotic, yet familiar, like a small skyscraper. If this is how the lighthouse is like for us when it's not full sized, it must have been a wondrous sight to behold when it was over 300 feet tall. Anyone who would have seen it would think that this city was made by, well, someone who was one of a kind. And they were right in a way. "How did the army get here and still stay in formation?" I asked Minondass.

"No idea," he pondered over it. "At least we didn't lose our new recruits."

"And they already have a position for themselves worked out: they're all together. Good," Lisa was relieved. "We didn't get anyone killed in flight. Now what will we do?"

"I'll tell the army what's happened."

"We know Sire!" The army, which had formed up in front of the group of us, now spoke as an even bigger group. "We know of, the draining, Sire. No need to waste time."

"I admire you for your ability to take in knowledge," Minondass responded graciously. "Then you must know as well as I do that the final battle will be at Gaugamela." The army fell still. "Most of you did not know this fact, but the scouts, the generals, and the Diadochi do. I will tell you what we know: Alexander is on his way to Gaugamela right now. He made it intentionally easy for my scouts to find him and I'm guessing that he is unworried of being found. He wants us to follow him! And, we will give him what he wants!"

"Why, Sire, would you think of such a thing?" a man in the Greek cavalry shouted. "You do not want to give in to the enemy, you want to fight him!"

"Very true," I reacted to his argument, knowing that just two weeks ago, I would have said the same. "But, just because we give in at the march, does not mean we give up at the field. I will put all of our forces into the final battle. I have some surprises that I have prearranged. You will find out what these things are very soon." And I called once again, "Group Teleport! To Gaugamela!"

I held a war council after the mid day meal on Monday. Sunday was just a marching day nothing more. It was unimportant compared to today. All the generals and my seers gathered in my tent. Our council was not very long. "How will we organize our forces?" Lisa asked me right off the bat. She was eager to get onto the field, and I knew that.

"We will take a page out of Alexander's book," I said. "Give me a diptych and I will show you what I have in mind."

GAUGAMELAN BATTLE PLAN. Front to rear, left to right.

Extreme Left Wing Odysseus's javelineers. half of the pokemon archers. Half of the trainer archers. Half of the Thracian darters. 500 light cavalry.

Left Wing Perminion's guards' brigade. Leonardo's pokemon phalanx infantry. Azelf's Macedonian cavalry. Darius's hoplite battalion.

Center May's pokeball slingers. Netosha and Crick's Alexandrite special infantry. Ptolemy's battalion. Perdiccas's battalion. Crateros's battalion. Kanis's battalion. Tracey's hoplite battalion. Tertwig's cavalry. Milotic's cavalry. Exeggcute's special cavalry. Espeon's special cavalry.

Right Wing My Royal Guard. The Diadochi. Ash's Companion cavalry. Hephaistion's Companion cavalry. Lisa's pokemon phalanx infantry. Athena's Macedonian cavalry. Achilles's hoplite infantry.

Extreme Right Wing Telemachus's javelineers. Half of the pokemon archers. Half of the trainer archers. Half of the Thracian darters. 500 light cavalry.

"What are the Alexandrites?" Netosha said exactly what I had wanted her to say.

"Netosha, Crick, I appoint you two to be the commanders of the Alexandrites. They are our Alexandrian infantry and they are some of our best. They will replace the two hundred we lost and they do so very nicely."

The two religious attendants of mine stared with wide eyes. "We are not worthy of this Sire," Netosha protested. "We have only fought in the phalanx. We may be two of your bodyguards, but on the field, we are common footmen."

"Netosha's right," Crick added. "We have not known you for very long. And plus, our vows do not allow us to take a command unless declared so by a fellow demigod."

I raised my eyebrows. "I am a demigod, a son of Zeus, am I not? I am a child of the most powerful Olympian. So, I have the right to make you commanders. And," I pointed at Athena, "she does too."

"My lady," they prostrated themselves before the divinity. Athena waved a hand dismissively. "You don't need to do that, though I respect the fact that you know the proper procedures. I allow you to serve under Minondass." and she blessed the two of them.

"Let's get out there!" I ordered the generals, and we exited the tent and went to our posts. This final battle, is the one that counts, for if we lose this one, Alexander will kill us all with ease. We were all thinking that, mainly myself. I was battling Alexander; no, Alexander. The Great. My generals and I control the army and the fate of us all.

I had brought my left wing back so the army was a trapezoid and first to the right wing and the center, then to the left, I commanded "Charge! For Pallet!"

"For Pallet!" was the war paean, and we fell on Alexander's wings. The second battle of Gaugamela had begun.

Crack. _Damn. My shield! Someone had thrown a javelin at my shield and it cracked down the middle. Even when they're coated in bronze, how can the hoplite shields break so easy? I gestured at my Master in Arms, a soldier named Adasanes and he handed me a new shield. He hadn't been wounded so far, strangely. It was like everyone was ignoring him. But I, I was getting slashed at every few seconds and a lot of the time, I had to fight multiple opponents. My sword had wedges in its edge from clashing edge on edge with other swordsman. "Give me a new sword," I told Adasanes.

He took a double bladed sword from out behind his back. It was painted green and blue on its blades and its hilt was silver. "Oh, Adds," I crooned, "You got me my favorite sword? I didn't think you would remember it!"

"Well I did," he said, parrying a scimitar and stabbing at his assailant. "How come I haven't been injured much yet, Tracey?"

"It's 'cause you have no symbol or anything on your armor or your weapons that identify you. I don't either but I'm getting ouch!" I yelped as a dagger slashed at my sword arm, my right arm. "Good thing I can fight with both hands. No one has figured out that my left hand is my dominant hand," I said slyly. "Come on. Let's get out in the front where the action is."

Adasanes and I ran past dueling pairs or groups of men and pokemon and I even saw that some of the best swordsman in Alexander's army were being sent to where we were. "Vaporeon, go!" I yelled. "Sharpen then Water Spout!" First, Vaporeon's attack stat was raised by twenty percent then it attacked with a water type move where the higher the user's health points, the more damage it caused. Since Vaporeon had one hundred and forty health points and considering that Alexander's pokemon only had less than half this, it caused a lot of damage to our opponents.

"Umbreon, Assurance!" Adasanes commanded. The dark type pokemon did a move that was doubled in power since the other pokemon had already been damaged in that turn. Several dozen enemy pokemon archers fainted and they got recalled into their pokeballs. We continued running, trying to find Minondass.

The battle continued like this for, for, hours. It was nonstop fighting and no one called the order to retreat and no one thought of doing so. However, we lost two hundred of our javelineers when they got trampled by the enemy Companions. But, I also noticed another thing: no gap opened up in anyone's battle line. Either because of their design or since the gaps closed up so fast.

And you know what else didn't make sense to me? That Alexander had let us get through his army so easily. No gaps had formed in his line, but the individual units of the army were spaced unnaturally far from each other. It seemed so illogical; even the phalanx wasn't tightly formed up. The purpose of the phalanx was to get tight and close and to move forward with no spaces, and yet, that was just what was occurring. The phalanx had broken apart a long time ago and now, there was cavalry mixed in there too. Basically, the foe's center and our center were fighting at half close quarters and half archer range, seeing that there were archers in our center. It was strange to me.

When it came to the cavalry on the flanks of the two armies, the same thing was going on: the enemy units were spaced far apart, we were getting in, and where there was a gap, there was brutal close quarters combat. The archers on the wings of Alexander's army and ours were firing volley after volley of darts and javelins and arrows and we were inflicting serious casualties on the foe. It was just like the cavalry except at long range.

It all just wasn't right to me. Why the hell would you do so bad at guarding yourself? The aim of having units close together was to prevent this and yet, we were slowly, man by man, breaking Alexander's seemingly invincible army into pieces with a force that had been together for only a week. There had to be a reason why Alexander was letting this happen. And I was correct; there was a reason.

"Phalanx, allied Greek infantry, pokemon infantry, allied Greek Cavalry, retreat!" Minondass boomed. "Retreat! Retreat and guard yourselves! Javelineers, archers, darters, slingers, light Macedonian cavalry, hoplites, Companions, stay! That's an order!" The men did as they were told, though they did reluctantly: Minondass could clearly tell that they all wanted to kill every last man on the adversary's side. They turned and overlapped shields with each other, whether their partner was part of the phalanx or not. No one went after the men who were falling back. No one. Why the hell is he doing this? We all knew that every man, on our side or not was wondering this. But then, we discovered why retreat was allowed. For words: let the force die.

Only about ten thousand of our forces were left on the field and the foe had about the same left. The same forces were left, too: archers, javelineers, light infantry and cavalry. As I watched, half of the remaining cavalry and infantry turned and ran. "Archers fire!" Jack, Annie, Evee, and Bidoof directed. Arrows reigned down like rain onto the backs of the retreating men. Many of them died after one or two arrows struck them. Everyone else followed, dropping their weapons, turning, and running without even guarding themselves. Why? How is this war? At last, we got a request from our combatant. He called, "Come now, Minondass! You might as well bring your force back too!"

I glanced at my generals; the men they commanded had retreated, but they had all stayed. They all nodded their acceptance. "All of you!" I shouted, "go back to camp. If we do not make it back,, make your leader's Master in Arms your commanders. I approve them all! I will fight this with my best generals alone! Ptolemy, Perminion, Perdiccas, Kanis, Odysseus, Telemachus, leave as well. You are too good for us to loose and besides, if I die, any of you will be able to take my place."

Then, I turned back to Alexander. "What do you propose? Will you take us as your prisoners?"

"You could say so," the Macedonian responded indirectly. "Actually, you have been in my clutches longer than you have realized. Did you notice that I had not laid anything down on the field, like spikes or snares?"

I nodded. "Yes. You were planning on killing us with just your forces?"

"No," he chuckled. "Call it two words: a cavern." and as he said this, the ground below us collapsed with a deafening crash.

We all, even I, screamed in terror, though I was not supposed to show fear. That was for only being in front of the men; these were the generals we were talking about. They didn't mind at all.

But we didn't just scream in fear, but what was going on: we were trapped in an underground cavern with only us and no back up, with Alexander. "See?" he told us. "Now, it's just us. Elektron!" Alexander's sword flashed into view and it pointed at me. "Bring it on. I am prepared."

"So are we!" Tracey yelled bravely. We formed up into a phalanx and we charged.

CHAPTER TWELVE NOTES: Some very sad things happen in this chapter. We're fighting during the whole thing, obviously. It's not switching between my perspective and Minondass's anymore, it's my turn to have the whole chapter. If you want to find out what kind of sad thing will happen, read on.

12: Take out, Bring On

Clang. The sword slammed into my own blade. I parried it and tried to land a blow, but it was swept aside with a flick of the tip of the other sword. Blue and green met silver.

"Come on Tracey!" Minondass yelled. "Go for the head! The head!"

I followed his advice and aimed an underhand cut for the jaw. Again, the sword was blocked by a much faster blade. It performed my own move and I felt the cold edge on my face. "Philotas this." I swore as I blocked another slash that was aimed at my eyes. "Is this the best you got?" I screamed, finally getting a successful stab under the shield and into the right shoulder, just below the collarbone.

Ichor, gold, shiny, gods' ichor, flowed from the wound and I withdrew my sword before the tip could melt. The blows came faster and faster, all at my head. "Thanks for the advice!" I blamed my commander.

"Who knew that you would both follow it?" he retorted. "Left!" He warned me as the enemy blade came under my shield like how I had and plunged its tip into my left shoulder. He had inflicted the same wound that I had on him again.

I never thought of this sword as, Alexander's blade during all this, just, the other blade. I was afraid to think the name, knowing that its holder was just a few feet away. "How did I get at your sword point?" I wondered as I deflected the said sword again.

"Because you initiated the fight. You might as well be the first to die." And as he said die, he stabbed the sword into the dented spot above my chest and at the bottom and center of my sternum with a crunch. Blood flowed down my breast plate and I realized then that seeing my own blood made my stomach turn. "Refresh," I said, recovering from the cut. "Bind!" I yelled and Alexander fell onto his back. He wouldn't be able to escape from the move. "Heal Block!" I added. Now he wouldn't be able to recover to full health for five turns. But he just complied and he didn't even bother to fight back, which wasn't like him.

However, when it came to the fighting back part, he had waited until the right time: he stood, still not able to move, and spun in circles. Rapid Spin. _Damn! Now, he was out of my Bind attack, but he still wouldn't be able to recover HP. Then, he raised a palm and pointed at the sky above. "Weather Ball!"

What does that do again? Oh, the attack's type would change with the weather. And, it was clear for now, so any move can be used.

But during my meditation I felt something against and ripping at my shield. He had used Thunder Wave and it caused paralysis immediately. I fell, unable to move as Alexander aimed his hand at me again. The attack Night Slash, a dark type move, hit me in the head and I fainted. I couldn't move and I couldn't see what was going on, but I could still hear what was happening around me.

"Tracey!" Minondass yelled. "Does anyone know how to heal her?"

"Get her to use Refresh!" Ash yelled from somewhere behind me. "But if she can't, get Exeggcute to use Aromatherapy." I felt the grass type move's affect on my body. My stats began to rise. "Andalexrae, Safeguard!" Azelf said. This would prevent us from having status conditions.

"You're not the only person who can do critical hit moves!" The dark type pokemon ran at its trainer and performed Night Slash too.

We all hoped that our enemy would fall again. But this time, he used Tackle on Andalexrae and he went flying back. "How the?" I muttered, feeling that I could move again. I stood up.

"Anger Point," Minondass explained. "Power raises if you get hit by a critical hit move. Shock Wave!" he retaliated with a move that wouldn't miss. So, the beam of electrical energy hit Alexander directly, but he stepped forward and used Block. "So," he said, smiling coldly, "fleeing isn't one of the things you can do, huh?"

"Cadabra Teleport!" Sebrina, though she didn't command a force, was well respected so she was included in the list of generals. Her Cadabra got Pikachu out of the Block attack. "Psybeam! Imprison!" The combination of the pokemon's and the trainer's attacks caused some significant damage: first confusion, then not being able to use moves that we already knew, which were a _damn lot of moves. Sebrina slammed into him and he lay on the ground face up again. "This is fun!" she shouted as she removed Alexander's cuirass and held it up in triumph. "Yes!" and with that, she teleported it back to camp.

Alexander stood once more. "What is it now?" I asked Darius.

"Limber, prevents paralysis. But Tracey, how the _hell can he have two abilities?"

"Maybe," Pauline said, "his ability changes to our moves. Call it Formation!"

"He's the only one who knows it and though we know that he knows it, we can't figure out which ability he'll use."

"_Shit!" Athena cussed. "It's my turn to cause some damage. Electrofoil!" A beam of energy shot from Athena's clenched hands and it hit dead center on Alexander's shield; he flinched as all his stats were lowered by forty percent.

"Counter!" was his reply. Athena yelped as he used the move that Azelf had discovered. He struck back with two times more power. "Feint Attack!" Athena fell to the ground just like how I had and Sebrina teleported her out of the cavern.

"How is this possible?" Minondass yelled in dismay.

"Hades if I know," I said, "but Ash, you get in there now!"

"Starapter, Aerial Ace then Wing Attack!" The two flying type moves caused more damage.

"Slash!" Starapter dodged the blow and used Peck repeatedly. Alexander received some head trauma from it. "Luster Purge!" Starapter's Special Defense was lowered by twenty percent.

"Aeroblast!" Ash yelled. A twister of air came flying at the Macedonian like, what it said, an arrow fired by high air pressure.

"Mist Ball! Double Team!" Mist ball lowered Starapter's Special Attack stat by twenty percent as well and Double Team raised Alexander's evasiveness. Now, there was a physical as well as an illusional Alexander. We couldn't tell which was which.

"Defog!" Annie negated the evasiveness-raising move with one that would lower it.

"Metal Sound!" Aaron contributed a move of his own. He hadn't been in the previous fights very much and now he got his chance.

Now with a Special Attack stat that was less than half, Alexander used Doom Desire. In two turns, Annie, Ash, and Aaron would get damage, but none of them knew that. "Starapter return. Frustration!" Ash lunged and ripped at Alexander's exposed ribs. Ichor fell down his chest and it touched Ash's hands. He yelled in shooting pain.

"Ash," Alexander smiled, "do you want to stay in this fight? You have known Minondass longer than anyone. I was planning on taking out his seer Aristander, but you will do. Cut Down!"

I saw Alexander sink his teeth into Ash's cuirass and shield, breaking a hole in them and then cutting into his flesh. Ash fell back, blood rushing from the gash.

My heart sank: we, especially Minondass and I, admired Ash for his courage, his brains, and even his naiveness sometimes. To see him get struck down like this made us dismayed and now, our chances of winning were dire. "Ash!" we all yelled and we rushed forward and looked him over. His gash wasn't large or bleeding very much, but he was rigid, like Meowth had been a month ago. His eyes were rolled back and the whites were showing. "Get me back to camp," he whispered. "Just know that you guys didn't have to suffer this. And, get Aaron and Pauline back to camp; I'm thinking they're not going to last very long here."

"Teleport," Sebrina said and the two people Ash requested to be taken off the battle field disappeared.

"Deeply weaken if not paralyze Alexander for me, will you?" he asked of us again.

"Sure," we said in unison, and Sebrina swept Ash off the battle field too.

Then, there was a moment of silence. Completely lacking sound and movement, the screams of fallen comrades, the flash of sword on sword. We were all aware of it, even Alexander was. Probably, some part of his daimon, still knew when to stop fighting.

I stared around at the cavern: the blood dripping off the combatants, the short breaths of our fighters, the distant calls of men from both camps. I wondered what our men thought now: Where is Minondass? He should be back. We don't want him to go without us there to see. Come back!

And as for Alexander's men: We are fighting against Team Rocket, but why do we have to fight such a worthy opponent? We should be with Minondass! But if Alexander dies, we will still grieve for him.

I thought about Ash's request; was it even possible? Could Alexander be beaten? Even when Alexander didn't know that he was a demigod back two thousand years ago, he was unbeaten in battle and in deeds. It still applied now: we had to recall more than three of our fighters and he was still unscathed. Could one person beat him? No. Could a pair do so? Maybe.

"Jack, Annie?" I cut through the silence. "Will you?"

"Sure!" Jack said. "It'll be just like pokemon battling, except harder. Helping Hand!" Annie's moves would be more powerful now. They stepped forward, shields overlapped, and they drew their swords. They slashed at the shield of Achilles together.

It was like my fight, but quicker and with two people instead of one. Using the lower part of his blade, Alexander blocked Jack's blade and stabbed at Annie. She parried it and wrapped her arm around the sword. She bent it back and cut Alexander's right arm. The sword came back and plunged through her breast plate and into her ribs. She fell at once.

Sebrina got Annie out of the cavern; but, Jack was alone. He slashed and stabbed, parried and even used his sword to cut the straps of Alexander's shield. The shield came off and it went flying out of the cavern through the opening that we had created.

He did it! I was rejoicing at Jack's success, but it was short-lived. Jack got a slash to his neck at his throat. None of us had been injured like that yet and now, Jack was the first. He dropped his blade and fell on his side. Alexander speared him through the neck and Jack was still like his sister.

"Oh by Philotas and his bad luck!" Athena was the one who was swearing nowadays. "How the _hell do we have such bad fortune?"

"It's not bad luck," I said, "it's just the fact that we don't have enough people! Now Darius is fighting and look!" I pointed at the Persian. Though he matched Alexander's speed, he didn't know as many blows. He got skewered in his arms and legs and now, his sword arm was quivering. He could barely fend off the lightning fast strikes of the Macedonian sword. His fate was just like mine: he got spiked in the bottom and center of his sternum. He was knocked to the ground just like our comrades and he was taken away from the vault.

It was now just Minondass, Leonardo, Lisa, Athena, Sebrina, Aria, and I. Oh, and Alexander.

"See how many of your partners are injured or dead? You should see what I will do to you now."

"We are prepared!" Minondass proclaimed. "Give us all you've got!"

Alexander smirked at the Theban. "If you wish, if you do not die first."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN NOTES: More people get wounded really bad or possibly die here. I was one of the few who didn't get another mortal wound. Good thing too or else I would be in the hospital while writing this book. Warning: To all pokemon lovers, trainers, and all pokemon; if you still can't believe and are disturbed by the affects of the moves Alexander has done so far, what he will do here will make you even more disturbed. But you shouldn't be surprised. Read on, if you want to see how we do and if we survive, for the chapter and for the rest of the story.

13: The Unmatched Move Set

Flash! Light illuminated the cavern as a wave of power slammed into all of us. Our swords went flying everywhere and we felt ourselves hit the wall. What was that? Was that even a move? It was Athena's definition of `a weak move.` It wasn't exactly weak, but it would do. We were against the wall and Alexander was on his head. He looked dazed, the first affect of any of our moves that we had seen had happened so randomly. "What the _hell was that?" I wondered.

"I call it Forget Pulse. Likely to cause confusion and the trainer's party receives one eighth of the damage taken. Not bad, huh?"

"Rand-" I was stopped by another move: this time, I felt my stats lower once more. "What is this move?" I asked the goddess.

"It drains more Hp the longer the amount of time you've been attacked. Now you'll barely feel it."

"Yeah," I said. "I feel like half my stats are gone. "Wish," I said. Now, I just had to hold out for one turn, which I really doubted.

For once, I wasn't the one who was getting used as a human punching bag: it was Leonardo's turn for that. "Magma Storm!" he attacked with a move that none of us could escape from: flames filled the cavern and I could feel it on my armor.

Alexander was in the midst of it and it looked like he was getting burned really bad. They covered him from head to toe. "Mimic!" Alexander used Leonardo's move and more fire filled the room. "Fire Spin!"

"I hate you!" was the Florentine's response. "Now I can't get out of here!"

"Wait!" Minondass intervened. "Evee, Baton Pass!"

"Mimic!" Now that Leonardo had used Evee's move, he could escape. "Guillotine!" He jumped over the fire and brought an arm down towards Alexander's head. He got a direct hit, but he just used his Formation ability with Anger Point and he used Surf. The flames extinguished and we got soaking wet.

"Psycho Cut!" Leonardo dodged the attack and used Lock On, assuring his next move would hit. But he just got struck with another psychick type move, Hypnosis. Leonardo dropped to the ground like so many people had before him.

Alexander stepped up to the prone figure, sword in hand, but Lisa came to his aid. She drew a dagger and stabbed the Macedonian in the left side of his sword arm, the first of us to do so. Alexander didn't seem to care; he was so busy with his prey. "Leonardo," he spoke over the sleeping body, "I still admire you for your courage, your brains, your will to fight. I hoped you would not be on Minondass's side, for you would have been in my Companions, the highest position in the army. You would have been my engineer, my best. You could have built me siege craft, new weapons, weapons that could be used against him." He pointed his sword at Minondass. "I will give you the chance to change sides, Leonardo. You could be a hero, you could be even more famous than you are now. So," he finished, turning Leonardo over on his back with his foot, "what do you say?"

The Florentine artist slowly opened his eyes and raised a hand, as if he would get Alexander to shake it in submission. He did so with his other hand and then he leapt rapidly to his feet, bringing his hands together and swinging his arms in an arc. Da Vise!

"For Florence!" was his war acclamation. The clear beams of energy raced towards Alexander, but they reflected off the move Protect. A Focus Punch was aimed at Leonardo and he sprawled again. "You want to serve Minondass? You should be brought down like him. Cut Down!" The move hit Leonardo in his sword arm, his left arm. He turned incapacitated like so many of our comrades had previously.

May, Misty, and Dawn, who had been unengaged for the whole of the fight, sprinted to pick up Leonardo. They brought him to Sebrina and he was brought back to camp. They drew their bows and fired again and again until their quivers were empty, but their arrows reflected off Protect too and they hit their archers, going through their light shields and into their arms and legs. Misty was the first to fall, bow clattering to the ground and toppling onto her back. Dawn and May reached for their swords and just like Jack and Annie before them, they disregarded their wounds and stabbed at Alexander's legs, aiming for the flesh right next to his greaves. The ichor melted the tips of the blades, so they directed the swords' edges up towards his neck, cutting the flesh on either side of his throat. But before they could get their daggers deeper into his flesh, there was a flash and a blast of energy knocked May and Dawn unconscious.

The blast was trained on us next; before we could react or put up a barrier, we all flew ten feet up into the air and crashed into the opposite wall. It happened. That blast of energy. What move is this?

As if to answer my question, Sebrina moaned, "Power Blast. Damages your whole party and halves their stats and power of their moves for the duration of the battle. Normal type move. It's only been talked about in legend, and I didn't think it was true. We're doomed."

"Where did you hear of it?" I asked, panic stricken.

"It was in a prophecy, as all of the news is around here. It said that whoever could use Power Blast could only be rivaled by a god. This prophecy was pronounced two thousand years ago by a trainer from Persepalus. They said that their city was destroyed by this move. I don't want to know what else is in his move set. But I guess I'll have to battle him. Without Cadabra."

"Role Play!" Now, Sebrina could copy Alexander's ability, but how would that work out? "Drain Glance!"

"That's the stat draining move!" I warned Sebrina. "Do you know any moves that increase your stats?"

"Sharpen! Harden! Charm! Captivate!" Now they were even, seeing that Alexander's Special Attack and normal Attack stats were lowered by forty percent each. But he didn't even bother using another attacking move, he ran in a zigzag pattern away from Sebrina. "What's that move?" I asked Athena once more.

"I'm guessing it's a move that raises speed. And by a _damn lot, too. His speed stat was low until now. I think it's doubled. Either that's Agility or something else. Call it Double It: doubles user's Speed. Sebrina, look out! Night Shade!" A beam of dark energy slammed into Sebrina's back and she stumbled, but she did not fall. She was a dark type, so she wasn't affected. "Miracle Eye! No immunity to psychic type moves, huh?" she taunted. "Speaking of Psychic type moves, Psy Wave!"

"Retaliation!" Alexander slammed his arms into Sebrina and she shuddered.

"Power doubles if user was hit first," Athena whispered. "I don't want to know what'll happen next."

But there was one more new move in Alexander's move set: "Shock Bolt!" he cried in Macedonian, but strangely, we could understand it. A sphere, then a long beam, of electrical energy crashed into Sebrina and it sizzled round her. She lay motionless, covered in electrical burns. How would we get our wounded back to camp now?

Minondass had been watching the battle, silent. And now, he whispered almost inaudibly, "Drain Glance. Cut Down. Double it. Retaliation. Shock Bolt. Power Blast. These six moves have cost us our generals!"

"Now, will you surrender? I have not even given you half of what I have got. Minondass, Tracey look at who is left." And so I did: Athena, Lisa, Aria, Minondass, and I were the only ones remaining. Four girls and one guy, but the gender ratio mattered none to us, it was just that there were five of us left. Out of the fifteen or more there were just two or three hours ago. But we had forgotten about one more person: the Gaugamelan Alexander, who was sitting on the edge of the cavern, twenty feet above us.

"Is it too late for me to come down from here?" he called.

We all stared in, fascination, and, confusion. "How the _hell did you get up there?" Athena asked in bewilderment.

"Well, I was the only one who didn't fall in. So, I waited here and I thought, I'm going to talk and show myself when they needed it. And so I have." He dropped from the top of the wall with ease and he landed lightly beside me. "Who knew that I would be needed so late in the battle?" he said, almost to himself. "I expected you to look for me when Ash went down. But I guess I was wrong."

He turned to his future self. "You might as well fulfill the prophecy. Us fighting is useless. And as much as we want to fight, almost all our forces are gone. You-" "Wait!" Aria yelled. She looked distressed. "I thought, when I found you, that you would never, ever, do this. I thought I would be able to meet someone who could comply with my needs and still be themselves. But, this reminds me of when-" She stopped, then began singing her sorrow, her regret.

"I remember years ago

Someone told me I should take

Caution when it comes to love,

I did, I did.

And you were strong and I was not

My illusion, my mistake,

I was careless I forgot

I did, and now,

All is done there is nothing to say,

You have gone now so effortlessly,

You have won you can go ahead tell them

Tell them all I know now,

Shout it from the rooftops,

Write it on the skyline,

All we had is gone now,

Tell them I was happy,

And my heart is broken,

All my scars are open,

Tell them what I hoped would be

Impossible."

We all knew the song and we all knew what it was about: about what happened if you thought you got the perfect person, and found out that something had gone wrong. Very wrong. That had happened to Aria: she had thought she had found her soul mate, the person she could rely on to always be at her side. She thought she had found a match made in heaven, or in our case,, a match made in Elysium; they had been through a lot of life or death situations together, and Aria had thought, just thought, that she had changed him for the better, that he had altered his personality entirely. She even had a feeling that Hades had allowed Alexander to come back so he could make a new name for himself. _I didn't impact him, just put another side of him to the front, aria thought despondently. He's still how he was before. All I've done, trying to change him, was for _nothing.

"Look," Aria said firmly, "I still admire you for, all you did and all you have done. You united the world with the Greek ideal, you spread Western civilization to Asia and Europe, therefore to America. You've brought the Olympians back to the limelight and you've ended all the misconceptions of Macedonia once and for all.

You have exploited parts of our friends' character that wouldn't have been exposed otherwise. You have exposed all of us to be excellent fighters in battle. You have shown us that Minondass, I mean Pikachu, is an excellent leader, that pokemon can fend for themselves and that they can unify other pokemon and trainers alike to form a cohesive, well trained, disciplined, fighting force.

However, you have also discovered all of the prophecies made about you: the Reign the Conqueror one, Sebrina's Persepalan one, and more. You've made much of our force die at your army's hands. You've critically injured our generals, you even possibly killed Leonardo da Vinci, who you admire almost as much as Achilles. How can I still respect you, even love you through all that?"

"You know how they say `love conquers all?"`

"Yes."

"Well, I am doing this for my love of unity. That is why I hate Team Rocket, they have disunited the people. Destroying them like this, that is part of getting the people united. Aria, I am doing this for you, so we will not have to mix our relationship with fighting. That is one good reason why I am doing this. I am guilty for having to kill so many of our best soldiers, I really am. However, I know that none of them match you when compared to you.

Aria, I am sorry for this happening to you, I thought you would not join the rebellion, that you would side with me. We all want to see Team Rocket destroyed, especially you and I.

The move I will do will ensure that all of the Team Rocket members will, leave us alone. They may die, yes, but think about what they do when they are not capturing innocent pokemon. Most of them are of good birth, but are criminals or specifically here in Iraq and Iran, members of the Talaban. In the United States and most of the world at large, we all want the war to end. I might as well do that for the soldiers who have had to leave their families to serve the country."

"Okay," Aria answered. "But, Alexander, how are you going to kill them?"

Alexander looked at her affectionately and smiled deceitfully at Athena, Lisa, Minondass, the Gaugamelan Alexander, and I. "Put any wound you wish on me once more, and I will show you."

"We will do it!" Minondass made known. "Aria, Tracey, Lisa, Athena, Alskander, charge!"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN NOTES: This is the second to last chapter with fighting. It's not really fighting, it's watching stuff get destroyed, actually. You'll see the affects of what happens here later in the next chapter.

14: Alexandros Killiteen

For the third time, our swords clashed with that of Alexander. But, we didn't have to do it for long. Minondass was the one to inflict the wound, the only wound needed. He aimed his sword at Alexander's face and he gave him a shallow cut across the cheekbone. Just like how he had when Bagoas saw him in The Persian Boy.

But we continued to clash, however. Crack! Slam! Whoosh. Air whooshed past the blades as they spun in the air like dancers of war: their only purpose was to cause pain, but that didn't mean that they had to. The hits were, for show, you could call it. We would do it until Alexander wanted to do, his Team Rocket destroying move. And this, too, didn't take very long to occur.

Alexander stopped parrying our blows and he began to rest more. He stood, sword pointing in front of him, eyes closed, as if he were in deep thought. We didn't interrupt these fits, no matter how much we wanted to. We knew what it meant: soon, he would want the move to be done. I wonder how long we'll have to have, this sham fight. When will we get to see the Team Rocket members' blood soak the ground where we stood? Evidently, that time was right now.

"Now," Alexander raised his voice, "how do you wish to see it: in the air or on the ground?"

"In the air, when you're charging, if you please," Minondass replied calmly. Although we, especially him, were all scared, we wanted to see what the move would look like and what it would do.

Alexander smiled a smile we saw when he talked to us about his battles, his `I'll tell you anything you want!` smile, his `Hurry let's get out there!` smile. I didn't think he would do it now, considering that his daimon was controlling him now. But, he did flash that brilliant smile once more. "It took, what, four or five days, to get enough energy for this move," he said, "but it seems that I waited too long, I have energy to spare. Probably by the time I'm done talking, I'll be ready."

"Wait!" I interrupted, "you're talking with-I mean-earlier, all day, you've been talking, like, with no apostrophes. And now, you're, you're, talking with them!"

"Well, the major fighting part is over. The serious part is pretty much done. Now," he smiled again; this time, his `watch now` smile, "you get a front row seat to what should have happened as soon as Team Rocket took over!"

Alexander raised his arms above his head and we rose along with him. We flew high into the sky, hundreds of feet over the cavern that we had been trapped in. The plain spread out below me: the expanse of rocky flatness, the wide river to one side, the hills opposite it. I could see both camps: the one of Alexander expectant and quiet, and ours... I could hear the yells, the yells of grief, the yells of dismay and dread and loss. "MINONDASS!" I heard the screams of alarm, "where are you! Is Alexander dead? Please tell us! Come back! Please!" My heart, Minondass's heart, our hearts, sank into the ground far below: my men! Our men! They're calling for me! They're calling for us! When will we see them again? "Army of Minondass, son of Zeus!" Alexander boomed from our position, hovering over our camp.

The men all looked up, not believing who they were seeing or hearing. "No! _Hell has come from, Hades!" a man from the Slingers yelled, not caring that his two words were the same. Similar cries of appall rang out.

Alexander silenced the man with a gesture of his hand. "I am not here to kill you, I swear! I am here, merely to show you what surrender means. It does not mean your destruction, no. It is your enemy's, our enemy's destruction."

"Isn't our enemy you?" an Archer asked.

"Yes, but not anymore. We have officially joined forces. But we will not fight. No, you will watch the downfall of the ones who have brought all of us together, Team Rocket!"

As Alexander shouted `Rocket!` he shot a beam of power into the air and then made it cascade down onto the crowd of men, like rain to show a god's power. "You will all come up here with your generals and me, and we will witness their ruination by me! So, who will come up with me!"

"Bring me!" a Greek cavalryman cried enthusiastically.

"Bring me up!" another person cried.

"And up there so will be I!" a third individual volunteered.

The cries became louder and louder until Alexander complied, raising the whole army into the sky. The enemy camp suddenly swarmed with life as the soldiers exited their tents and rose to join us. Now, about eighty thousand people were suspended in midair.

I could see Alexander's body begin to glow with power. "Do you know, or want to know, what my move is called?" Alexander said to us.

I yelled "Yes! Yes!" and the fighters agreed.

Alexander smiled a third time. This was his `I have a plan` smile. "I call it Alexandros Killiteen." We stared at the shining Macedonian conqueror in fascination and fear. "You will see it now, here. This move will destroy every building that Team Rocket has ever been in. The people will not die, just the buildings disintegrated. Since members are all over the world, this move's affects will be felt world-wide. Are you ready, to see the dawning of my new reign?"

The words `new reign` frightened me, but they were true. Alexander would be ruling, again. "Yes!" I began with the first call of approval. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" the yells continued.

"Okay then; Alexander chuckled, spreading his arms and legs wide, making a star-shape. And, shouting louder than I had ever heard him shout, louder than a plane's engine, louder than my ears should have been able to take, "ALEXANDROS KILLITEEN!"

Crash! I could hear the energy emit from him like a nuclear bomb blast just twenty feet away from me. I couldn't hear anymore, but I could still see. The energy was bright and shimmering like water with an electric charge in it. It came forth in waves, in quantities I didn't think one single person could make in such a short period of time and in such austere conditions. This sight amazed me and horrified me. I could see the energy waves radiate from Alexander and wash over the surrounding towns. Buildings crumbled like sand castles exposed to water. People stared up at us, but none of their faces showed fear. In fact they showed expectancy and some even whooped with happiness. "Long live Alexander!" they praised. "Long live Alexander! Down with Team Rocket!"

"See what I can do?" Alexander asked us. "I did not want to kill you, but Team Rocket. They will not die, but at least they will not have a place to go. No one would let them stay in their house or office building willingly. Now, let us go to Egypt." Alexander waved his hand and all eighty thousand of us disappeared.

This time, we were flying over, a familiar city: Alexandria! It looked, exactly like how we had left it, and the electricity was even back, cars zipping down the streets as crazily as they had before. _At least this place is the _same, I thought with relief.

But then, I looked down at the center of the city, where the two main streets intersected. I gasped: there was a statue of, Alexander, just like the one we had seen at the museum! It was on a pedestal that was three feet high and standing around the pedestal, as large as in life, there were representations of Minondass, Netosha, Crick, myself, Ash, Hephaistion, Darius, Odysseus and his son, and all eight of Alexander's pokemon. It was beautiful, not terrifying like how it was before. Now I knew how it was like to, to see this deity.

And I wasn't the only one who was staring: there were hundreds of hundreds of people congregated around the statue, praying. It looked like what Minondass told me what happened when he had seen the statue of Alexander at the Pallet town pokemon contest three months ago. People knelt, sat cross-legged, or prostrated themselves, lying facedown in reverence. Maybe we could come back here, after the war during the summer. It would be even hotter than it is now, but I don't care. Alexander, he would love it.

We teleported to Turkey next, which had formally been where the Greek-Asian cities were, like Ephesus and Troy. It was just like Alexandria: there were a couple buildings that had turned to rubble here and there, but nothing that would catch much attention. When will we get to see the real destruction? And we would see it very soon, right after we saw the rest of Europe.

We were looking down on Italy now, specifically Florence. From what I saw, only structures in the outskirts of the city were affected. But we didn't spend time being stationary over the metropolis, we were flying away from it, flying towards other cities like Venice and Rome. In Rome, about one fourth of the buildings were destroyed. People had gathered around Julius Caesar's tomb and someone held up a sign that said:

DOWN WITH JESSIE and JAMES, UP WITH ALEXANDER!

I smiled when I saw it: it was true. Rome had had a larger empire, but it took a hoard of officials to take care of it, not one person. Minondass waved to the people and the cheers redoubled. It was time to go to Alexander's home Macedon, and his first enemy's country which he still loved more than anything else in the world, (maybe besides Alexandria and Pallet), Greece.

We were over Athens now, and, and, half the city was in ruins. There were buildings that were turned to rubble everywhere and people marched in the streets, chanting paeans of joy and of outrage of what had just happened. We had been staring down at the city for a few minutes and no one had figured it out yet, that Alexander had done this. Until someone looked up and saw us. "Zeus _damn you!" they yelled. "Go to Hades for what you have done!"

"Soon," Alexander answered, "Team Rocket will go there, my friend. Consider this a small step in the process. But we must be going now." And so we did.

The next place we went to was Australia. We were looking down on Sidney, Australia's capital. It was like Rome, with about one fifth instead of one fourth of its buildings destroyed. And also like Rome, people had gathered around the city's most famous landmark, the Opera House, which so many people went to see. Crowds of every ethnicity lined the streets surrounding it and people were waving flags and holding signs like the sign we had seen in Rome. As we glanced down at the people a little more, they began cheering, with slogans like, "Team Rocket's Persepalan!"

We had a brief look at Panama, with almost no signs of the attack's affects at all. Rheo was still thriving, with people running around in the streets, like usual. People still played volleyball on the beaches and life was normal.

The last place we would go to before going, wherever Alexander saw fit, was Iraq and Iran.

"Now," Alexander spoke to us, the first time we had heard him speak in the four hours we had been teleporting around the world, "see what I have made of the war zone!" I looked down, and I caught my breath; Baghdad was, completely destroyed.

No building within a fifty mile radius, if not more, around Baghdad was standing. And as far as I could see, there were piles of disintegrated concrete and stone and splintered wood. But, I saw no people. It was a ghost town, or if you could call it, a ghost country. It looked like everyone had either died or, left? Where the _hell could they have gone? You're talking about hundreds of thousands of people, gone!

"You may be wondering, where I will take you now," Alexander said. "I am taking you back to Pallet. Time to go home."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN NOTES: We're finally back in Pallet, after eight chapters of traveling and fighting. However, there are still fighting parts. And finally, we see a Team Rocket route! At last! But will Calesthenes be brought to justice at last? Read on to find out!

15: Return and Massacre

Complete. That was what I thought when I saw Pallet Town. Complete! We had come full circle, we were back to where it had all began. No buildings were in ruins, no fires blazed, no protesters were on any of the streets, chanting. Seeing that we had been traveling all day, twilight was setting in. The sun was setting, and the street lights were flickering on all across the city.

But, there were no cars driving through its streets, no people walking or eating or training in the park. Only the lights remained, showing that there were still inhabitants somewhere. It looked like this when I looked at the industrial and work districts around town, silent and abandoned.

But then I looked at the residential areas and I was surprised. They were still how they usually were, light in the windows, probably from people cooking dinner. I could see a person's TV go on in a living room on the east side of town. But, as I scanned farther and farther south, I saw less and less signs of life. Less lights were on in the southern part of town, where the Hellenic League members all lived. This sight, however, wasn't the one that shocked, no, frightened me; it was Sorulian Street, where Ash, Alexander, and I lived.

The street lights on our street were turned off. Cars weren't in the driveways, they were in the parking lot at the end of the street that we all shared. I saw no one outdoors, not even at Professor Oak's lab, where pokemon always frolicked around his place. But the lack of lights, that was what frightened me; no street lights were on, no lights shone in the windows, and actually, all the windows had their shudders closed. The peepholes on the doors were covered with black paper from the outside, and I guessed it was like this on the inside too.

How did Pallet become like this? Our street... it's so lively most of the time, and now... the black paper? What's that for. Then I knew. Wait, black's the color of, mourning. Who are they mourning?

Then I figured it out: the residents on our street were mourning Minondass, mourning Pauline, mourning me. They all thought we had perished, trying to stop the prophecy. They didn't know that the prophecy wouldn't destroy Pallet, but they were prepared for it.

Most of all, they were mourning, Alexander. Virtually everyone in town knew him, by sight and by actually talking to him and he was always involved in what happened around here. He knew the mayor and the police chief personally, so he knew about all the kinds of technology they used.

However, out of all the things I knew the residents were grieving for was the fact that he had given himself to his daimon. Everybody was aware of its presence but they didn't know what it could do. They all thought, that, he was so harmless, that he couldn't be, so, destructive. But they were all proved wrong: he had given to his daimon, he had chosen to fulfill this prophecy that was so devastating that no one even knew what it would do. We all wanted the old, devious, a little too proud of his accomplishments Alexander that we had grown to be led by, and loved so much. We wanted him to turn back into this person, now. I wanted this and we all wanted this; however, we would have to wait a little longer. Why, you might ask? Well, I saw a red-haired man come out from behind a car. His gun was drawn and pointed up at Alexander. He had an expectant smile on his face. And I registered immediately, by Alexander's expression of hatred and rage, who it was and we all figured it out too. Calesthenes.

I felt myself lower down to the ground and Alexander motioned to all of our men and they all left. The generals were the only ones who stayed. The armys' soldiers filed away from the city, going farther south into the forest. Here comes the killing part. "Oh, Alexander," Calesthenes sneered. "I didn't think you would come so late. It's not like you to do-"

Before Calesthenes could finish his sentence, his gun broke apart in his hands. Alexander was on top of him, his sword at his neck, it as well as his whole body, glowed blue with power again. "I could kill you quick now," he snarled, "but I want to hear how you came here."

"Well," the historian wasn't at all afraid of the sword at his throat and he sighed, "Team Rocket managed to find a person with most of, but not all of, my DNA. They took this person and they put the memories of what happened back in the day into them. I am very fortunate that they didn't mess up and try to make me multiple times. It would have taken too long and besides, you would have wondered if Kleitis had had a companion."

"How did you get Kleitis?"

"Oh, much how like they got me back. The Team Rocket lab guys had left us in Snowpoint City and Jessie and James and Meowth found us both there. They knew that we had a lot of potential as two of their recruits, so they took us in. We found out about you from them. And that was how I got into all this.

As for the prophecy? I watched the first six episodes as you did and so did the original trio. They did not mention it directly, but they did slip it somehow to Sebrina and your friends. So, I merely took advantage of it and Jessie, James, and Meowth waited here until they heard of you fulfilling the prophecy. I knew that you would want to return, and that you would return, so I waited here as well."

"And so did we!" three voices shouted in agreement. Jessie, James, and Meowth got out of the white car that Leonardo had saw just a week before, and the one that Calesthenes had hid behind. "Time to facilitate your surrender! Or death!" Meowth said and he pulled a grenade launcher from behind his back. He looked fine, for his leg had healed enough for him to stand and carry heavy loads.

The grenade flew at Alexander. "Duck!" I yelled, but he simply, put up his shield. Somehow, he'd gotten it back. Or maybe it had been there the whole time, it was just that I hadn't seen it until now. The grenade reflected off its smooth silver surface and it hit the car that the four had been hiding behind. It exploded into a ball of fire, but it was, strangely, put out at once.

"What will happen now?" James said, mockingly. "It's not like the energy will _shit!" he yelled. A wave of energy streamed from Alexander's sword and it slammed into the four of them. They went flying over the wreckage of the car and into a wall with so much force that it crumbled. The path they had flown over had been gouged into the concrete. "Thank the gods he's doing that! And not to us!" Minondass said in amazement. "Good luck TR."

"Come on out everyone!" Jessie called, sending out Arbock, Siviper, and Dustox, a bug and poison type pokemon. "Poison tail! Wrap! Poison Sting!" The trio of attacks hit Alexander directly, but using the ability Formation with Poison Heal, he had fully healed though he had been poisoned. He grabbed Siviper and Arbock and they shuddered: Rough Skin, another ability, caused damage on contact. He used Retaliation and the three pokemon fainted at once.

"Cacnea, go!" James said next.

"Pinsir, you too!" Darius stepped forward and sent out his own pokemon. "Pin Missile!" Spikes reigned down on James's Cacnea and it got several stab wounds from them. "Needle Arm!" Cacnea's spike-covered arm came at Pinsir, but it jumped over the move and used Fury Cutter. Each blow increased in power as it hit Cacnea in the head. "Finish it with Signal Beam!" Darius said and a beam of green energy smashed into Cacnea and it collapsed like its three comrades.

"Use it on those trainers as well!" The beam came around and hit Jessie and James and as they flew up into the sky, they screamed, "looks like we're never coming-" but they were stopped when they slammed into the pavement. Their backs snapped with the force and they lay still.

"You forgot about me!" Meowth teased. "Taunt!" When did Meowth learn that? He only knows Fury Swipes and Scratch! But the attack did what it was supposed to do: Alexander froze as he figured out what Taunt did. He lunged at Meowth and I could tell he was trying to raise his stats with Double It, but he couldn't. He screamed in frustration and every window in town shattered. Then, he decided to go along with what Meowth did and he used Shock Bolt. Meowth fell onto his back and he could barely keep up the attack. "Want to stay moving?" Alexander said unusually calm, leaning over the pokemon. "but too bad. You will not get this chance. Two more hits with Cut Down will kill you."

"Scratch!" Meowth responded and he put some scratches on Alexander's bare face.

"Fine!" he yelled. "Don't want to take my offer of surrender? Here's the price for it!" He lunged at Meowth again, out of Taunt seeing that Meowth was so weak, and he tore at Meowth's head. He inflicted two gashes to his neck and at last, the normal type pokemon went limp and would never rise again.

I looked at the battle field: Jessie and James had suffered from Darius's Signal Beam and Meowth was cut down, literally. Now, Calesthenes was left to live or to die.

"I will give you an offer," Calesthenes posed. Alexander stared at him with a burning intensity in his eyes. "What offer?"

"All you need to do is to exit from the Hellenic League. You will join us and we will elect you to become our leader. You can even reform us and make our organization a good one instead of bad.

Or, you can stay like this and possibly kill your friends. They will only die if you request that they need to. They can join us if they please.

So, what Alexander. What will you choose?"

Oh no, not this. Anything but this. Philotas him! In his state, Alexander won't choose what's right and he knows that. He knows he wants to fulfill the prophecy and wants to have power. But he also knows that he might want to keep us alive and that we're useful too. We would never go with him. What will he choose: us or him?

And, I got the answer I wished: sword point for Calesthenes. "I would never! Ever! Join you! You are unworthy of me! You could and would never follow my orders! So," he said more quietly and boldly and creepily, "I will go with them." He pointed with his right hand at Minondass, Leonardo, Darius, and all of us. "Calesthenes, prepare to die."

The only thing I saw was the flurry of movement. First, the flash of the zigzag in Double it, then Retaliation as Calesthenes was made unable to flee, Drain Glance which lowered his stats. But, the last three attacks I saw: first, Power Blast directed in one wave of energy at that small spot on the pavement. Calesthenes shook as it hit him and though the energy was only pointed at him, the surrounding concrete began to crack and finally, fall apart. Nevertheless, Alexander was just getting started: the two most powerful attacks of all came last.

Shock Bolt: a ball, then a beam, of energy from Alexander split Calesthenes's armor down the middle and it splintered the bones in his legs and arms. He shuddered with the pain as his remaining muscles, his torso muscles, strained against the paralysis. But at last, came Cut Down. Alexander thrust himself at the Greek historian and they tumbled onto the broken street together. Calesthenes took a dagger and stabbed Alexander in the throat, but this made no affect, only made him angrier. I saw the Macedonian go for his neck and at last, the bite at the breast bone, like Ash, but with no armor there to provide some vain protection. Calesthenes writhed on the ground as he felt the pain of the blow and that of being finally defeated, and he at last, like so many had in the past week, fell still.

"He," Pauline whispered in disbelief; though she didn't see what happened, she knew what the sounds meant. "killed them. Team Rocket's gone. Without their leaders, they'll just turn themselves-" "Actually," I said, "no. There are planes flying over Pallet! Like, thousands of them!"

"There are one million TR members up there!" Aria yelled. "I know that, since there are eighty groups of one hundred planes, one group per street! And, there are twenty rows of five guns on each plane, pointed down at, yours truly."

Pewsk! Blam! Bullets reigned down on us and we lay on the ground, trying not to get hit. But one person didn't want to, nay, need to, do so; Alexander stood and he raised his shield and every single one of the millions of bullets reflected off and they cut into the metal of the planes. Some even went through the windows and I heard a couple hundred screams of pain. A man directed a grenade launcher at Alexander, but it shattered in his hands, the grenade blowing up the plane.

Man after man pointed rifles, handguns, more grenade launchers, at the tall Macedonian and every time, their bullets and their grenades deflected off the shield of Achilles. And every single grenade hit the plane it came from, and, slowly, one group of one hundred twenty five at a time, Alexander was defeating an army of one million with just his shield. Then, a man actually tried a new tactic, he flew the plane towards the air space above the street and the other planes did the same. They were hoping that if Alexander would reflect their weapons again, the debris would fall on top of us. And I thought this would happen too, as I lay on the ground, listening.

But, the exact opposite occurred: he didn't bother to put up his shield; but the ammunition kept coming. Alexander stood up to his full six foot ten height and he raised his arms up, hands pointing at the reduced fleet of planes. Only half of them were left now, but how would he take out all of them? And I got my answer.

"Double It! Drain Glance! Retaliation! Cut Down! Shock Bolt! Power Blast!" All six moves flew up at the planes and they began melting with the huge amounts of power. More desperate bullets came at the unprotected Macedonian, but he didn't care. Oh _shit. He's going to do it, to the planes, and we're going to die! Please, just to the planes please! And he did.

"Alexandros Killiteen!" I heard the explosion, saw the flash of light, even from lying on the ground. But, I could also feel the energy. It ripped at my remaining armor and it flew off of me as the straps tore. Alexander's destructive energy flowed from him for the second time, but like the other time, we weren't the target; no, it was the planes this time. The aircraft crashed into each other as their navigational instruments, then their engines failed. Tens of hundreds of them fell from the sky and hit the concrete with a smash, metal flying in all directions and their passengers getting crushed by the weight. Each one got this fate: failure, fall, smash. It was amazing, but grewsome, as the Team Rocket bodies got turned to pulp.

He didn't seem to be phased by any of the carnage. On the contrary, I could hear Alexander laughing. A kind of, love of violent mastery, kind of laugh, as if he was enjoying the sight of his plan coming into fruition. It reminded me of what happened before the battle of Gaugamela, Alexander being satisfied with what Darius had done and no one else knew what he was content with until it was over. And I did too: he did this as a show of strength, to show what would happen if anyone else opposed him.

But just as quickly as it started, the flow of energy, the laughter, it stopped. It was silent; no smashing of metal, no sound of mens' screams of agony. It simply went silent. "I think it's safe to stand," I murmured. "The sounds have stopped."

We stood gingerly, careful not to step on the pieces of broken aircraft that were strewn everywhere. But there was one body lying in the street, eyes rolled back, pallid, weak, and heart barely beating. It was not a Team Rocket member, for their bodies were all covered in blood and wounds and shrapnel. No, this body was of, of...

"Alexander!" we yelled in unison. "Why would the gods be like this? Why Fates why!"

"We need to get him to a place where he can recover," I said frantically.

"Aristotle!" Pauline said. "He did the original upgrade, get him to do it again!"

"All we have to do," said Netosha, who had walked out from the forest and was standing beside me, "is to find him."

"And," added Crick, "get him to do the upgrade again. But not as an upgrade, but for revival."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN NOTES: We get a lot of things resolved here. Not much else to say. But, if you didn't read the chapter notes of any of the previous chapters and you only read this one, you'll find out what happened previously here.

16: Love, War, Reformation

"How will we find that guy!" Netosha said. "This place is huge!"

"Besides, there aren't enough of us!" Odysseus pointed out.

"And if we do have enough people, I'm betting that electricity's been affected. Cell phones and radios will be useless. How will we find him?" Telemachus, who almost never spoke, did now.

A slow smile crept across Minondass's face. "How about," he said, "the Diadochi?"

As soon as he said Diadochi, twenty seven figures in armor and one with their head wrapped in a bandage came to our aid. They had been waiting in one of the few cars that hadn't blown up. "What you need?" the man with a bandage around his head said. "Oh, you might ask, `How did I get this?` I got it from a stray bullet. It's out now, but the scar's still there."

"Geeskander," Minondass said, "can you find Aristotle? We need to-" he pointed at the figure on the ground.

He nodded. "Oh, he's right here! Arrotle!" he yelled, "come on! To Professor Oak's lab!"

A gray-eyed man approached them with a heavy pack on his back. "Do we have to, do this again?" he panted.

"Pretty much," Pauline said. "Let's get over there! I don't know how long Alexander will be, alive, or, like this. Let's just hope it's still standing."

We headed down the block to Professor Oak's lab. Its door was blown off its hinges from the impact of the attack Alexander had used. We rushed in and we found the professor's bed. "Sevander, can you find Samuel?"

"Sure. Professor Oak!" the seven year old shouted. "Where are you?"

The tall, short-bearded man came running in from outside, dripping with sweat. "What is it?"

"Alexander's, ill? No, weak. Terribly weak. From what he did, his move-" "Alexandros Killiteen?" the professor said.

"Yes. But how did you know?"

"I heard the yell. And the explosion. And the crashing planes. Is he weak from the move?"

"Yes!" A7 said urgently. "Lay him down!"

We lifted Alexander's still form onto the bed and Aristotle lifted off his pack. There was a monitor, metal bands, and a generator in it. He plugged the monitor into the wall socket and the largest band to the monitor. We fastened the largest band around Alexander's neck. We connected up the rest of the bands to his arms, legs, and torso. "Now what do we do?" I asked.

"You just let Aristotle recite a spell; that'll put the energy from the generator into him. It doesn't need to be connected up to anywhere, it just has to be there!" Telemachus told me quickly.

"I'll provide the spell!" Aristotle said. "Repeat after me." And so we did.

"Oh Alexander

spawn of philip

and of Zeus

you have received more power

than you could ever imagine

yes, it is your sword

yes it is your shield

yes it is your mind

but the only one that matters?

is your Greek.

You have used it against us

but now it will save us

speak it and we will rejoice;

to heal your wound will we use pokemon moves?

will we use normal spells?

no, we will use Greek.

Most of us do not know

how it is like to live in Pella

but being there to command has made our leader

Minondass who he is today;

but how did he get there?

how did we fight?

it was because of your Greek.

Our best men died you see

they sacrifice their lives

to ensure that the prophecy would not endanger

those not involved;

however, they also died

to be recorded in the passage of history

as those in the first

pokemon commanded army;

did we fight for the United States?

did we fight for pokemon?

was this army's origin of ours?

no, its origin is Greek.

What you have done with all this power?

you have killed our own

but you have defeated the long ruling antagonists

those who are against legal training of pokemon

Team Rocket and Calesthenes Oraudis;

they do not respect

the rights of pokemon

that they are citizens of this nation

that they deserve position in an office

a quick and easy trial

punishment suited to their actions;

rights to their lives

rights to have a legal trainer

and rights to have property

and the right of free speech;

where have these ideas come?

from England, yes

from France, yes

democracy rule by trainers and pokemon

that is Greek.

We have spelled out what pokemon can do

now we will say

what is needed of you

you must save yourself

for we are not worthy

and as we do not have the power;

this power for war

will now heal the chief commander

the one who has led us

since hearing your feared loved name;

regain your powers

Alexander!

Rise once again

like you did before Aristotle

Alexander!

show us your presence

Alexander!

Use your Greek!

At once, the iron bands around the limp body began to arc with electricity. The monitor, which showed Alexander's heart rate, slowly began to rise. The sheets over the body shifted ever so slightly. What the _hell is going on? I knew Aristotle, Geeskander, Minondass, and I were all thinking this. And we soon found out.

Snap! The first band, around Alexander's left ankle, broke in two and flew off onto the floor. Snap! The second ankle band came free like its pair. Crack! The restraints around the knees came undone as well. Band after band detached themselves from the body they were supposed to keep still.

Like the lower half of his body, the arms soon came free. Lifting a hand, Alexander waved at Aristotle weakly, before his hand dropped down to the bed again. Aristotle's gray eyes shone with, surprise? The love of being recognized? I didn't know. But all of us, especially Minondass and I, were hopeful. Any movement done by him, anything like this at all, meant the spell worked to some extent. And we were about to see a lot more.

"Triana! Cam! Carn!" Sevander said. "You missed the spell."

"Wait! What happened? Is he dead? Is he responding to ohwwww! Okay you hit me in the face with a pokeball? This is no time for hurting me!"

"Not me," Sevander said innocently. "Geeskander?"

"I'm not that desperate," he said coolly.

"You haven't figured it out have you?" a voice sounded, surprised and sarcastic. We looked around the room: everyone's mouths were shut. Except for that of the person lying on the bed, who had sat up and was staring at us with, astonishment and the `I swear, I've been here before!` look. I knew who had hit Carn. And who had spoken.

"Alexander!" we shouted in delight. "You're alive!"

"Well," he said, smiling and standing. "At least I can't be blamed for killing you guys, huh?"

"Well," Carn turned sober, "we discovered that Jack and Annie. As soon as they came back to camp, they, requested to come here. They weren't affected by, you know what, but they were at the hospital, they, didn't make it."

I saw Alexander stare at Carn, unconvinced. "Jack and Annie, they can't be, gone."

"Well, their wounds weren't life threatening, but they told the doctors to leave them alone. They wanted to see Hermes unaided."

"I've, I've never heard of something like this. To die of not fatal wounds. And to die so willingly. They were so young. But, have you burned their shrouds, yet?"

"No," Cam replied. "They're in the center of town. Their shrouds are already near where the fire is supposed to be. All we have to do is light them. Come on." And he led us out of the room.

Jack and Annie lay side by side, both of them together on the same burial shroud. It was black and white, with a pattern of the globe, marked with the places where they had gone. It was the world on a light and dark background. Their eyes were closed and their weapons lay at their sides. "Netosha! Crick! Aristander!" Minondass called. "Come forward!"

"Aristander? Is he here?" Alexander asked one of those strange questions that only he could ask.

"No," I laughed, "it's me. Minondass is calling me that as I am his seer. Also, he thinks that I'm a part of his bloodline."

"Makes sense, with your accurate ability to see the future," Crick pointed out.

"Who are Netosha and Crick?" Alexander inquired.

"Netosha and Crick are two servants to Athena we met at Troy."

"You went there?" the Macedonian asked again.

"Yeah. Minondass got his armor from there, just like you."

"Are you going to burn this shroud, or will I?"

"We will both do it," Minondass answered. "Netosha, Crick, send out your pokemon!"

"Torchic!" "Lileep!" "Sacred Fire!" "Mimic!" Flames, for the second time engulfed the corpses. But they weren't of hundreds of common soldiers; they were of two very brave and young fighters. I stared, sadly, as the bodies turned back to what Persepalus had been: ashes.

It only took a minute and before I knew it, it was finished. Just a pile of cremains, the cremated bodies, were left sitting on the funeral pyre. Netosha, Crick, Minondass, Alexander, and I came forward and lifted the ashes into a cedar coffin. Alexander placed this coffin in a larger one, made of solid gold. On the lid, it said:

HERE LIE TWO OF THE YOUNGEST HELLENIC LEAGUE FIGHTERS. THEY HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES IN ORDER, IN THEIR MINDS, TO END THE _HELLANDRIC WAR. THEY WILL BE HONORED BY ALL MEMBERS, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

"What is the _Hellandric War?" I asked.

"Our war," Minondass explained. "_Hellandric combines Hellenic and Alexander into one word. Just like they kind of did the Peloponnesian War. When you have a war, you name it after who's involved, like what we did or after where its major battle was fought."

"Ash would love to know why the name is so weird," Professor Oak said. He had followed behind us almost silently. He wanted to be out of the way. "Speaking of Ash, where is he?"

Netosha became sullen. "He's, at the hospital, specifically in the Trainer Rehabilitation Center. Cut Down paralyzed his arms, both of his legs, and everything but his neck. Come on. I can show you."

We headed west to where the police station, fire department, and hospital were located. They were all on the same street so it wouldn't take a long time for a patient to get treatment. I headed into the lobby of the hospital and walked up to the front desk. "Can I see Ash Ketchum please?"

The nurse, who was not Nurse Joy, nodded. "Come on down, then. He's on this floor. Down the hall to the end, to the left."

We did as she had said and we entered the ward. Ash was alone except for a second man in the bed at the other side of the room. Ash was lying on his back, a thin white sheet over him. His chest was wrapped in bandages and his eyes were closed. However, his breathing was regular and I was relieved that he wasn't on life support. I pulled up a chair, sat beside Ash, and touched him on his right arm. He stirred, then, he opened his eyes and sighed at seeing my face. "Tracey!" he said in reassurance. "Your blue eyes stayed that way, huh? Not injured, as far as I can see?"

"Kind of weird you're saying that when, you're, you know," I replied sadly. "How are you feeling."

Ash sat up and held my arm for support. "There's some pain in my chest, but nothing normal pain medications can't alleviate. But, even though it doesn't hurt very much, I can't move my arms. Every time I try to bend my elbow-" he showed me, "it won't do it. It doesn't cause me pain when I do it but, it's annoying. I tried to move my wrist, my shoulder, and the joints in my fingers earlier too. The same thing happened."

"How about your legs?" Samuel wondered. "Can you move them?"

"Well," he thought for a moment, "I could move my ankle joints, my toes, and my knees. But, the, big ball and socket joint, the hip, that's immobile. Everything else followed not too far afterward. I was able to walk to this room myself, but I could only move my lower legs. To walk, I swing my knees forward, one leg at a time. Like this." Leaning on my arm, Ash stood up unsteadily and tried to show us how he managed walking. I was glad he could have walked at all. But walking without the use of his hips must have been hard for him. "It was almost impossible to do any of this without my hips, as even when walking like this, you need the joint. I actually had to half knee-swing, half hop on crutches to get here."

I helped Ash lie on the floor and I tried to comfort him. "Think about it this way: at least you don't have an arrow in your shin!"

"Where did you get that from?" he said at first, then figured it out. "Oh! Alexander and that shin thing! That had to hurt! Permanent dent in his shin for life!"

"Hey!" Alexander said defensively. "I got used to the fact that my legs weren't the same! At least yours look the same!"

We all cracked up. "I'm surprised that you're even back to normal!" Ash was genuinely surprised and relieved like how I had been just recently. "We're still alive! And you don't want to kill us."

"I wasn't in my right mind then. And some people still think I'm not in `any right mind! Like Aaron!" Alexander perked up at once when he remembered the historian. "Do you know where he is?"

"Uh," Ash brightened as well. "He's okay, but he's back at City Hall, back at his job. He's trying to reestablish cell phone service around here."

"How long will you be here?" Pauline asked.

Ash turned sad. "Until the end of the summer at the best. At the worst, until the middle of the autumn."

"Who's the other guy?" I asked.

Ash sighed. "Just one of the members of the Diadochi that died," he said. "It's A8. Hermes already took him along with A9, A11, A14 through 17, A19, A21, A25, A27, A28, and A30 through A32."

Alexander gawked at Ash. "How did, they?"

"Well," Ash said, "they said that it was their destiny to come back to help you, but they also said that not all of them would live through it. Only the ones who made a big impact would live. As for how it happened, it was because they were weak."

"Can I see him, please?"

Ash slid on his back over to the bed and took the sheet off of it. A8 was lying on his back like Ash, but unlike Ash, I didn't see him breathing. His eyes were closed and he was wrapped in a blue shroud. His hands were folded across his chest and from below them, I saw the gash just below his heart. It was small, only about an inch long and less than a quarter of an inch in width, but it was deep. I could have stuck my thumb into that gash and that wouldn't even be half its depth. The arrow that had inflicted the wound lay at the eight year old's side in his hand.

I took a gold coin out of my pocket and placed it under the boy's tongue. The Greeks always buried their dead with a coin to pay Charon, the ferryman who brought the dead from our world to Hades. Alexander had given several of these gold coins to me back in April, `just in case.` I was glad he had done so, for we would have to do this to about twelve more people.

With Ash on our heels, we went up to the next floor, which was marked Not Life-Threatening, Needing Operation. We went from ward to ward, finding the bodies of the Diadochi and placing my gold coins in their mouths. After doing the last one, we took all of them and we placed them in a giant coffin together. "Wait," I said. "Can't we embalm them?"

"Sure," Minondass said. "There's a guy who does that across town. I'll give them to him tomorrow. Tuesday."

"Minondass," Pauline said, "it's already tomorrow. It is Tuesday! We've been up all night. Also, didn't they say that the prophecy would be fulfilled on Tuesday?"

"Yeah. But the Alexandros Killiteen thing happened yesterday."

"Maybe we'll hear the results today."

"Here it from where?" Netosha asked.

"We'll have to wait," Alexander said. "But, we have to get the whole of the Hellenic League together. We meet in the center of town."

Later that afternoon, we went to the center of town and William Alphis was waiting for us. The whole town was gathered there, but Mr. Alphis told us not to show ourselves yet, only when he told us to. And so I heard him give his briefing to the whole of Pallet Town.

"Residents of Pallet Town! Hellenic League army members! On Monday May 17, 2010, a prophecy, foretold 11 years ago by the author Herosha Arimata, who wrote Reign the Conqueror, was fulfilled. This book was the basis for the anime of the same name. Some of our citizens and all of the Hellenic League, managed to find out about this anime and they have watched it.

However, this anime may seem fake and it could never be real in any way, but alas, you are naive. Alexander has fulfilled this prophecy." I heard mutters of uncertainty and from some, dismay. It was just like Alexandria, but these people, they all knew us. They had all seen us at one time or another, especially Alexander. They all thought, like how I had, that he wouldn't give in to temptations of power so easily. But, they had been wrong; they hadn't fought him, they hadn't seen men die for real and not just on war TV shows, they didn't fight in the _Hellandric War. Only we had, and only we knew the truth. The mayor was trying to tell the truth to the people.

He continued. "Alexander, as you know or not, is extremely benevolent most of the time. He is easy to talk to and he makes friends very easily. That even I got into his circle of friends amazed me, for I am not of such a high status as him.

Having said that, there is also a side of Alexander that only a, I should say, unlucky few, have seen; his exhausted good temper side, the side that burned Persepalus, Thebes, and Tyre, to the ground. This side is what Tracey, Aria, and more have seen for the past week. They have seen what happens when Alexander gives into temptations of power: his daimon, which thrives on these kinds of things take over. It was controlling him during the past week. He was the one who destroyed so many of the buildings around the world. You know what that phenomenon is called, I know that and we all know that, but we don't want to admit it. Is anyone brave enough to say it aloud?"

"I am!" Minondass stepped out in front and shouted loud so all could hear, "Alexandros Killiteen!" The crowd shuddered as they heard the name of the move. "This move is what destroyed Team Rocket's bases world-wide! This move is what has shut down electricity in a quarter of the world's cities! This move is what has finally, after over 20 years of domination, doing hateful crimes against pokemon, brought down Team Rocket!" The crowd, realizing what this meant, stood up and clapped and cheered with joy. A lot of the pokemon jumped up and down. "Yes!" Minondass cried, "it is a joyous day! But we should also think of what it took to get here.

I fought in three major battles over the course of four days. I was given the biggest responsibility I've ever been given, being the Captain-General of this army. And plus, I had to deal with the loss of 200 of my best men, who sacrificed their lives in the hopes that this prophecy wouldn't endanger the lives of innocent people. I grieve at their loss, especially that of the loss of Jack and Annie." Everyone gasped together as they discovered another grim fact: that Jack and Annie, from Magic Tree House, had fought and died as well.

"I watched one of my best soldiers, nay, my commander, bring down an army of one million men single-handedly! Yes, as many as there were in Darius's army at the battle of Gaugamela, brought down by one man! And, despite the fact that he is straight out of prophecy-fulfilling mode, he is here in full health and back to normal. Alexander? Netosha? Crick? Aristander?"

They came forward, each waving to the crowd. "_Hello Pallet!" Netosha and Crick shouted. "Happy to be here! We, you might be wondering, are the ones who armed Minondass for his battles!"

Someone shouted in question, "Minondass?"

"Me!" Minondass replied. "My sire far back was a Pikachu that belonged to the Theban general, Epeminondass. So, I'm using his name! And as for Aristander, her real name is Tracey Esteron. She thinks and I personally think, that she is a descendant of the real Aristander, Alexander's seer."

"Hey," Alexander said, "did you guys have any weird omens around the time of the battle of Gaugamela?"

"No," I said. "Just the fact that there was a lunar eclipse."

"A lunar eclipse!" Alexander repeated. "I had a solar eclipse! Why didn't you say this? It meant that you would win! You guys had a good omen and you didn't even know!"

"Awesome!" Mr. Alphis exclaimed. "That eclipse meant then that though the prophecy was fulfilled, you would make a quick recovery!"

"Nah," Alexander was honest, "just the fact that I would recover at all."

"Speaking of you, where are the rest of the Diadochi?" I asked.

"Oh, they're here," Alexander beckoned to someone behind him. "Guys, it's time to distinguish each of you from me! The first Hellenic League Naming ceremony!"

Giving the names to the guys was really fun. And, all the names were original. A7 was called Sevander, from his age; A10 was called Demskander, because of his work on Demosthenes; A13 was called Treachis, because he was taught by Aristotle starting then. A18 was Corander, for the battle of Caranea; A20 was Crossandder, since he crossed into Asia when Alexander was 20. A22 was named Slashander because of cutting the Gordian Knot, and as for A23, we called him Iskander, because of, the battle of Issos.

A24 was dubbed Oraclis, seeing that he had visited Siwah in that year, A29 was called Gelscus, for the battle of the Gelum. A33 was hard to name, but we decided on Difyus, since he had defied the orders of the Babylonian priests to stay out of Babylon.

And at last, the hardest one to name of all: A26. We couldn't figure out a suitable name for him, one that would clearly say who he was and what he had done. But then, Aria said, "How about we just use Geeskander? We called him that earlier."

"Sure!" Sevander was pleased and everyone else nodded. "It sounds really cool! And plus, Leonardo would love it!"

"I am loving it!" Leonardo's voice came from behind me. "I was here the whole time!"

"And, on behalf of all of us here in this town," Mr. Alphis proclaimed, "I officially declare you, Leonardo da Vinci, the chief Architecture and Art Director!"

"Thank you!" Leonardo was so happy and he ran towards City Hall, ready for work.

"And lastly, Alexander Alae Amon," the mayor said, "I give you and Minondass, as well as Tracey, Netosha, and Crick, the key to the city!"

"Are you serious?" Alexander was not believing; it couldn't be for him; he didn't deserve such an honor!

"Of course, Alskander!" the mayor used Alexander's honored Persian name. "And, I heard that Darius is out of the hospital and on his way to your house."

"I've gotta get there!" Alexander whistled to us. "Come on! Let's go back!"

"Already here!" Philip and Olympias came running down the isle between the people and they embraced their son. "Oh," Philip was crying, "I'm so proud of what you have done! I don't have to worry about people robbing Samuel of his pokemon!"

"And," Olympias added, "I can officially leave you in charge at our house and on vacation."

"Really?"

"Yes!" the two of them said.

"Where can I go?"

"Well," I said, "you can't exactly go anywhere yet, seeing that Ash needs to get better."

"Yeah," Alexander said, sighing, "but when he does, I don't wonna go anywhere anyway."

"Why?" Aria asked him.

"Since I don't know what'll happen this summer. I need to prepare for that! But, yes! Yes! Ye-" "Alexander," we all said in unison, "calm down. Just relax. We can do that when we're all ready. And, it's a new thing for us, so we'll all be preparing."

"And," Pauline said, "as you've said a long time ago, `there is nothing impossible for him who will try.`"