my attempt at making sense of the total exceptionalism player character always gets (other than the fact that, well, it's a children's game about saving the world...). I mean, you can't win through brute force with a meganium. and also because Silver's daddy issues are ridiculously fun to play with!
He is standing in the carved chambers of Victory Road, watching his typhlosion, the pokémon that is supposed to be his strongest, fall to a pigtailed little girl's meganium. A meganium defeating his prized typhlosion. It's so absurd he might even laugh at the very idea of it if said meganium belonged to anyone else. Anyone but Lyra.
"I guess it wasn't just luck that's gotten you this far," he manages to sneer.
His typhlosion hits the ground at last, a dull thump that causes a flurry of dust to sweep into his eyes. He rubs it out and pulls out a pokéball, prepares to recall the fainted pokémon.
"You're right. It wasn't," says Lyra evenly as she walks up to her meganium and applies a full restore to its burn. The one burn that his typhlosion managed to inflict before it was cut down by the meganium. Said creature nuzzles her affectionately and she pats its neck, not looking at Silver.
He pauses for a moment, feels his blood rush up to his head, although it's with a resigned sort of fervor. After all, he's used to it now, the sensation of losing, he realizes almost dispassionately; and after a while the anger has simply distilled into cold bitterness.
But—then again, it's Lyra, and he feels a certain obligation to respond rudely, to sound as though he is truly angry about the loss.
So, as cuttingly as he can manage: "Right, that whole 'love for your pokémon' thing again, I suppose you're going to say."
Lyra finishes her disgusting cuddle-fest with her meganium and, to Silver's surprise, recalls the lumbering pokémon. After all, doesn't she usually keep that thing, or one of those other disgustingly coddled pets she calls her pokémon (never mind the fact that they always beat yours, a sly voice murmurs but he ignores it), out with her?
And then she turns and looks at him, and he starts in even more surprise, because her eyes—
"No," she says.
—are cold and calculated.
Silver stares. "What," he says.
"What I have and what you don't," she states, "is not love for my pokémon. It is not warmth. It is not even really friendship. It is strategy."
"I have strategy," starts Silver, a little insulted, but she waves a hand and he falls silent. Then immediately feels displeased at this sudden acquiescence, this almost involuntary obedience of his. Because, what the fuck. Since when has she been the one to call the shots like that? Since when has she had this, this—confident ease?
"No. I mean it, you really don't have strategy," Lyra says. And looks… amused?
He bristles even more at this, but again holds his silence. Simply because he is interested in what she has to say, because as usual he's humoring her insolence, he tells himself firmly. Certainly it's not because she's actually right.
Certainly it's not because he's seen those same cold eyes on another face. One that engenders in him as much fury (as much fear) as does Lyra's.
"Your one strategy is to hit me with your most powerful attacks and to use type advantages against me," Lyra explains coolly, crossing her arms. "That's why you always lose. Because a true battler, a true strategist knows her weaknesses and how to compensate for them.
"But you're also a poor strategist because you do not know how to inspire loyalty in your pokémon."
This is the first time he's heard her say so much. And that's when he realizes that maybe she's the one humoring him. Maybe she always has been.
Utterly lost, Silver just gapes for a moment before remembering to slap an arrogant expression back into place. "That just sounds like the usual 'loving your pokémon' crap to me," he sneers.
"Then you're an idiot," she replies flatly. Silver glares at her but is too startled by her sudden bluntness to take any real offense. "I feed my pokémon, I give them shelter, I help them get stronger, and most importantly I treat them with respect. They are useful allies, but only because I make them want to fight for me by earning their loyalty. And that's half the battle, because once you earn something's loyalty, it will fight for you. This is not contingent on love. All of this is basic strategy. It is common sense. Clearly you lack it."
She turns away without another word, walks down the last few feet of Victory Road and out of sight. He is left to stare silently, empty pokéball still in hand, at the collapsed form of his typhlosion.