Legal Disclaimer: I own neither FF XIII nor pokemon.

Readers,

This is a response for the FangRai February Tumblr prompt #10: In which Fang and Lightning are Pokemon trainers, running around taming the beasties of Pulse.

Only point of main importance before you read is to know that Odin is his own special pokemon that I created in my head for this-all others mentioned, including Bahamut-are actual pokemon from the current gargantuan pokedex.

Now, please read and enjoy this rather crack-tastic prompt!

~Logos Minus Pity

The Very Best

Still only in her early twenties, she was already a living legend among the region and beyond, and her story was one that every up and coming trainer knew by heart.

It was the story of a young girl from the nearly unknown sleepy seaside village of Bodhum in Cocoon. It was the story of that same girl who had set out to catch and train her pokémon, and to become a trainer for the history books themselves. She had made her way through the eight gyms of Cocoon, systematically defeating each leader and gaining all of the badges to grant her entrance to the Indigo Plateau. However, once there, she—like so many others before her—had been unable to defeat the monstrously hard Elite Four. But she had not been deterred. She had moved on to the second region which the Indigo Plateau oversaw, to the Archylte Steppes of Gran Pulse, and there she had performed the same feat: eight gyms, eight badges. At only the tender age of sixteen, she had returned to the Indigo Plateau, and had thundered through the Elite Four; Yuna and her psychic pokémon, Jecht the dark trainer, Sazh and his flames, and Kimahri of the rocks and sands. Each one of them had fallen before her renewed might, forced to concede their defeat before the young woman.

Yet just as she was to be crowned as Champion, as the single greatest trainer in both lands, the unimaginable happened. Her rival, the one person whom she had fought on and off throughout all of her journeys, arrived and performed the same feat, decimating the Elite Four with a team of dragon pokémon the likes of which had never been seen. It was there, atop the Indigo Plateau, that the legendary battle was waged between the two rivals to decide who would wear the true crown of victory.

It was said that the battle between the two longtime competing trainers had lasted for eight hours, so strong were their pokémon and their wills to be called the best and greatest in the land. They were equals, matched in almost every way. But in the end, when they were both down to their last pokémon and the sun was threatening to sink below the horizon, she had prevailed, and her rival had, at long last, fallen before her. She had retained her newly won crown and laurels.

And since that fateful day, Lightning Farron had been well and truly named The Very Best, for she had never lost a single challenge in the nearly seven years since she had been deemed "Champion".

No one—ever—had managed to do what she had done.

And no one ever would.

The Indigo Plateau had been her home for almost seven years now. Located in the high mountain plains by the base of Cocoon, it really was the best of both regions, caught halfway between the heavens of floating Cocoon and the rich earth of the Archylte Steppes on Gran Pulse, giving a generous view of both regions that it ruled over.

The Champion's Quarters had the best view, even on the Plateau.

Her nearly palatial compound was lavish, filled with every material need that any and every champion could ever want. This was because, in large part, a person's time as resident Champion of the League was not expected to be particularly long, which is why they were extended every courtesy and service while still Champion.

Lightning had changed that somewhat.

The longest sitting Champion prior to her had been for only a mere three years. Lightning had by and far outdone anyone in the history of the Pokémon League for their region, so it was only expected that the staff had to become used to her mannerisms and persona.

By her way of thinking, all of the fine garnishes and services that came with her station were kind, yes, but they were unnecessary. She was neither made of porcelain nor some secret princess. She was a trainer, still, a woman who had worked her with blood, sweat, and tears from being a slip of a girl into the strong and confident woman she was now. Becoming a champion didn't happen by sitting in a gold-gilded dining room all day, looking at the paintings of her predecessors; it came from simple, hard work.

She had no need of the extravagant quarters and the maid service that was at her beck and call; she hadn't needed it since the first night she had fallen asleep here, and she still did not need it now. Thankfully, the maids had long since learned to respect the eccentricities of her privacy. They let her be, for the most part, no doubt awaiting the day that someone would finally overthrow her reign and they would have a more reasonable master to cater to.

It appeared they would be a long time in waiting.

Yet again feeling the familiar sensation of claustrophobia beginning to overwhelm her, Lightning purposefully and rapidly exited through the back of her small mansion, out into her private training grounds.

Outside, the choking sensation faded again. This was her place, her sole refuge in an elevated city where visitors only came with hopes of watching her fall. On this small grassy meadow atop a sheer cliff face, she could maintain some measure of rest and respite. No one was to disturb her here—not the maids, not even her colleagues in the Elite Four.

She took her usual spot on the very edge of the cliff, letting her feet dangle off of the edge as she watched the sun change from yellow to orange while it dipped toward the western edge of Archylte Steppes below.

At nearly four thousand feet up here at the plateau, most people would balk at sitting on the cliff edge, but Lightning knew no fear. The potential drop meant nothing to her. Should she slip or fall, her aerodactyl was at her side, to carry her on wings of stone that would defy both gravity and death.

Fear was not a word a champion could know, or afford to know.

While the five pokéballs that she kept hooked around her belt remained obediently quiet, the sixth that she always kept looped around her neck, resting over her heart, moved, and the pokémon set itself free, suddenly towering over her left side.

But that was Odin. His pokéball was a formality more than anything, a place for him to keep his massive form when there was not proper space indoors for him. Out here in the fresh mountain air, there was room enough for him to be free and to stretch his electrical equine form. His snout dipped and he nuzzled his golden nose into Lightning's hair, snorting lightly. Light patted him and leaned into the touch, relishing the comfort.

He was her first pokémon, and her oldest and truest friend. It was Odin who had chosen her, not the other way around, that fateful day ten years ago on the sands of Bodhum Beach. When the electric-type pokémon of nearly legendary rarity had charged along the beach at her, stopping only when—she was still convinced—he had allowed her to "catch" him, it had started her on the path of a lifetime down the Pokémon League.

She didn't regret a single moment of it either, but she couldn't lie to herself and say that it hadn't lost some of its luster in the past seven years.

There had been good times, for certain. The high level matches, the training, even the being called on by the police to help them catch and overthrow the masterminds of a pokémon smuggling ring. And after each adventure and match, she had her home on the Indigo Plateau to return to, and she had the only other individuals who could even hold a candle to her and Odin's strength—the Elite Four—at her side to commiserate and support her.

But, at the same time, she wasn't part of the Elite Four, and that understanding hung upon her just as heavily as her title. She was separate from them, different, and that gap had widened and grown more pronounced in the past few years. Even the Elite Four came and went, Lightning still remained.

A flash of movement in the distance caught her peripheral, and she glanced over at the looming shadow that was crossing the mountains and making its way toward the Indigo Plateau. After a moment, Lightning turned back away toward her previous view of the sunset.

It seemed that her long-time rival was visiting the Elite Four again, but she couldn't bring herself to care less.

It felt like ages since Fang was last at the Indigo Plateau, but she still knew the massive training facility like the back of her hand; it wasn't like they had done any noteworthy renovations since she had stepped down three years earlier, and the place still looked the exact same as when she had last visited about a year ago.

She might not be a member of the Elite Four anymore, but her face was still well-known and recognized, and the guards and officials quickly bowed their heads to her and let her through the gates and checkpoints that other trainers would have to present badges to get through.

For a girl who grew up in such a tiny village, she had risen to impressive heights.

Oerba had always been a small settlement, barely larger than, say, Bodhum, if the comparison were to be made. But while Bodhum hung in the floating region of Cocoon, Oerba rested alongside one of the great lakes of the northern Steppes. Oerba also had a much, much older history of pokémon trainers than the previously unheard of Bodhum.

It was the ancient home of dragon trainers. Generation after generation of Yuns had lived in the village, passing on the difficult art of training dragon-type pokémon, and of harnessing their awesome power and potential. And Oerba Yun Fang was one of the greatest dragon trainers of her generation. Her grandfather was the leader of the clan, and had been the respected Grandmaster Dragon Trainer for the last thirty years.

When she lost to Lightning Farron and bowed her head in defeat before her superior rival, the only instinct left in her was to return home. But she had been offered a place among the Elite Four instead, to take the position that Kimahri was going to retire from. Even for someone who could only be counted as "second-best", it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it had not been a wasted one.

Her four years with the Elite Four had turned out to be more fun than what she could have ever predicted. There were more changes in their ranks—Yuna left, Sahz took one year off in there—but they were always the same tightly knit group, sharing embarrassing stories over dinner just as much as looking out for one another as friends, even while they all grew stronger and more capable as trainers—though perhaps none of them quite so capable as their resident champion.

At the end of the day, however, she was a dragon trainer, and after a visit to see her grandfather several years in to her residency as one of the Elite Four, her blood had suddenly called out to her with an intense urge to go back home and to the clan. That call had not faded when she returned to the Indigo Plateau, and so after only four rambunctious and glorious years of being one of the most dreaded trainers in both Gran Pulse and Cocoon, she put in her resignation and decided to go back home.

While she had not regretted it—and how could she not, for in three years time she had revitalized the Oerba dragon gym, collected even more dragon pokémon, and was well on her way to following in her grandfather's footsteps—it had not made leaving the Indigo Plateau any easier. She was leaving another family behind by returning to Oerba, one that included the Champion just as much as the Elite Four.

When Fang had accepted her role as one of the Elite Four, her epic rivalry with Lightning had been forced to change. They were no longer competitors, they were teammates of a sort now, working to support the very same system that had allowed them to excel and prosper at pokémon training.

So after leaving the Indigo Plateau, she had tried hard to keep in touch not only with her friends still in the Elite Four, but with Lightning, too.

Light hadn't needed to say anything for Fang to sense the unspoken disappointment that they were at long last parting ways. In the four years while Fang had been living on the Indigo Plateau, the antagonistic relationship between her and the Champion had lessened and relaxed into an easy, friendly connection, and it didn't take much for her see the that Lightning would in fact be missing her about as much what she would miss Lightning.

She had visited the Plateau multiple times during her first year away, and had even gotten a surprise visit back in Oerba from the Champion once, come to "inspect" the revitalization of the Oerba gym. As Fang's time became more consumed with her training and her new duties as a gym leader, her visits had understandably thinned, but she continued to exchange letters and occasional calls with her old pals in the Elite Four just as much as Lightning. Within the past year, though, even that communication with the Pokémon League Champion had slowed to a stagnant trickle.

Farron had never been the most forthcoming of individuals—her relatively cold demeanor saw to that—but it had been gradually morphing into some else.

The legendary champion was growing more than just reclusive; she was becoming unhealthily distant, and even Sazh had become worried enough in the last few months that he had decided to write to Fang for her advice, having exhausted all of his other options and attempts. No one would begrudge a pokémon celebrity like Lightning her time to herself, but there were metaphorical walls that had been put into place within the past year that showed no sign of coming down.

Fang suspected those walls had been a long time in building, and she berated herself for having been too busy to have noticed them earlier. She would change that now though. She might not be a rock or ground specialist, but dragon trainers knew a thing or two about force. It was time to kick her rival's butt back into gear.

Fang charged into the Champion's Quarters without any preamble or introductions. She was a current gym leader and a former member of the Elite Four, and she could do as she pleased unless the Champion wanted to try and teach her lesson otherwise—which Fang would be all to happy to accept. But the stealthy woman was not to be found in the waiting room, the Hall of Fame, nor even in her own bedroom as Fang tore through the veritable mansion.

At this point, one of the maids came forward and worriedly insisted that the Champion was in her private training grounds, and not to be disturbed. Fang blatantly ignored the warning and walked right through the back doors, absentmindedly allowing Bahamut back out of his pokéball at the same time. Rivals were supposed to push each other's boundaries—it was how they got to grow stronger. No simple "Do Not Disturb" sign was going to dissuade her.

She marched through the orange-lit meadow, toward the very edge of the cliff and meadow where Lightning sat, her outline emblazoned by the setting sun, and Odin at her side.

Damn horse, thought Fang, though it was with a degree of affection. Had it not been for his impossibly fast and lucky attack using Extreme Speed, Bahamut would have won that bout, and Fang would have had her name engraved in the Hall of Fame instead.

It was Odin who turned and whinnied at Fang and Bahamut, stomping his hooves and scattering small static bolts of electricity in greeting.

There was no forthcoming "hello", or even an agressive "get out" from the stoic strawberry-haired woman next to him, though, not even when Fang walked all the way until they were only a few small steps apart. She said nothing, silently daring Lightning to act first.

"I see Bahamut reached his final evolution stage," she noted at last, glancing sideways briefly.

That had happened well over a year ago, and Fang was proud of it. He had come such a long way from when she first raised him as a bagon, and now he was a fully grown salamance, able to the rule the skies with her atop his back. Her grandfather was the only other living trainer with a salamance, making Fang the possessor of a pokémon of nearly legendary status.

Dragon pokémon were notoriously hard to raise and train, but Fang had a full team of her favorite scaly creatures tucked in her belt. Her little deino, her dragonair and fraxture, her garchomp and flygon, and her precious and long-time companion, Bahamut, the most noble and majestic of them all.

Fang held her chin high. "And I think it suits him well. There isn't anyone we couldn't take down now, including you and your walking thunderstorm here."

The look on in Odin's eyes was downright offended by the insinuation, but there was no such response from his master. "Good for you, then."

It wasn't meant to be belittling, but the apathetic way in which the words were spoken brought the dragon gym leader's anger roaring into life.

"Is that it then?" Fang challenged, letting some fire bleed into to her voice. She deliberately baited the Champion, trying to get rise—to get something—out of her. "This is what the big, bad, legendary Champion of the League has to offer? Maybe it's about time I finally challenged you again and rightfully took the title of "the best" from you."

Lightning shrugged, still looking off into the sunset. "You could try, if you think it would prove anything."

Fang ground her teeth, feeling her temper simmer, but now realizing that the normal tactics by which she had interacted with Lightning for years had been outgrown. "Some fun you are. I liked you better back in the old days."

"Contrary to the way you act, Fang, it's not all fun and games. You should know that by now just as well as I do."

Fang brushed away the lightest of frowns as soon as she felt it touch her lips. This was no good. "And why can't it be fun and games? Isn't that what it's always been, I thought?"

Lightning made a dismissive sound in her throat. "Things were simpler back then, Fang. We were kids. It's not the same now."

"How do you mean, things were simpler?" Fang encouraged, not understanding what Lightning was trying to say, but not willing to let the issue go while the Champion was willing to talk.

The muscles in her jaw worked visibly. "It…it was basic, then. Explore, discover, fight…build a team, earn badges, and find new matches. But that was all it amounted to. I was young then, and I completed what I set out to do. And I'm still here. I'm still the Champion. But I'm also an adult now, just like you, Fang. You have your village, your clan, and your own gym. You know the time and dedication it takes. I am the Champion and face of the Pokemon League. I am the final challenge for every aspiring trainer in our regions. This is my place."

Fang seized on that, taking one step closer, and further reducing the limited space that remained between her and the seated trainer.

"And what if you aren't happy here? What if the same exhilaration and thrill that brought you this far is gone now?"

"Well, what then, Fang?" mimicked Lightning back, clearly seeming displeased with all of the probing and rhetorical questions.

Fang felt her sharp gaze soften, matching her voice as she spoke again. It was all so simple to her. "Then why not leave it all behind?"

"Because I can't."

It was said as a simple statement, almost as a fact, with no bite or feeling behind, and Fang wanted to pull her hair in frustration. What had happened to the energetic and determined girl that she had first met nearly ten years? That version of Lightning, for all that she had been younger, had been filled with a pulsing desire to win and to grow; it had shown in the strong bond with her pokémon, it had shown in her sharp eyes and her equivalently sharp tongue as Fang had taunted and challenged her every step of the way. They had been equals in those days. Fang and Bahamut had won as many fights against Lightning and her Odin just as she had lost. The score had been caught at a standstill, until they reached the Indigo Plateau. It was here, almost seven years ago, that Lightning had seized the ultimate victory from Fang, and trampled on her dreams by doing so.

If the glory that day had been beyond measure for Lightning Farron, the hurt and disappointment had been just as crushing for Fang. All of her hopes and expectations were thwarted in a single, impossibly perfect attack launched by Odin; when Bahamut had crumpled to the ground knocked out, Fang dropped to her knees after him, drained and empty, defeated at last.

She hadn't known what to do after that. Train more? For what cause? Perhaps she could come back and beat Lightning, but that victory would no longer hold the same sweetness, because Lightning was now, and always, the first and best. At a loss, Fang had collected her things, and would have left back to Oerba, to lick her wounds and try to find some semblance of pride again. But, for her, the unexpected had happened.

Almost against her will initially, she accepted the role, and joined the Elite Four, and the rest…well, the rest, as they would say, was history.

But it was that history that had shaped and molded the present.

Fang realized that the calm tones in which Lightning had been speaking had slowly given way to something else that was present beneath the never-changing stony exterior, and when she recognized what it was, she felt an ache in her chest. Hidden beneath all of the icy walls her old rival had built around herself was a surge of loneliness and desire. Fang had known the same, and she saw through it in a heartbeat. She might be the greatest Pokémon League Champion of all time, but Lightning was tired of it. She had lived on the Indigo Plateau for seven years, and defeated usurper after usurper, with even the best trainers providing little challenge to her. The role of a Champion was never meant to last this long, and it had slowly but surely drained all of the joy that Light had once taken in it. Fang may have been one of the Elite Four, but it wasn't quite the same; she had three other people to share in her burdens and victories, and now she had a gym and an entire village behind her. But for Lightning Farron…with every victory she had added on, her throne had become even higher, and Fang realized now that not only had it made it harder for people to reach the Champion, but it had made it harder for the Champion to reach back down.

Maybe being at the very top wasn't all that people cracked it out to be.

"I can't just leave, Fang."

And finally, finally, she saw the glint of some familiar emotion in the Champion's face. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly with her lips barely pursed, and Fang felt her muscles tighten in familiar anticipation as she caught the oh-so-familiar signs of foolhardy stubbornness from the Bodhum native. It made her want to whoop in victory. It might only be the barest glint, but it was still a glint of the Lightning she had known and fought against, and that was the Lightning she was searching for. This she could deal with.

"Why not?" she said, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows as she looked down toward the Champion. "Why not just go and—"

"And just what would I do?" Lightning argued back now, her voice becoming heated with some unnamed emotion. "Go back to my home town and nurture a gym like you have? Bodhum already has a gym in the making—that's been the recent project of Serah and her husband. I can't just take that away from them, and I refuse to simply give up on my training to retire to a seaside village for the rest of my life."

Fang sighed, now exasperated. "I wasn't talking about being a gym leader, Light! Besides, I don't think that's for you, anyway. I meant what you said before, about exploring and traveling. There are plenty more regions beyond the League here, you know. Why not take off to those places—new pokémon, new people, new trainers and places. What's to stop you?"

"I can't just leave this place because I feel like it and go off on my own gallivanting around!"

Back to that misplaced sense of duty again. Champions weren't required to stick around if they didn't want to—that's what the Elite Four were here for, not that Light would take exception to that; Fang knew her stubbornness better than anyone. So she countered instead with the most simplistic and tangential response that she could think of.

"Then let's leave together."

At this, Lightning's eyes popped wide open, surprise written all over her face as she stared upward.

"But…Oerba…you have a gym don't you Fang? And what about training under your grandfather…?"

Fang waved away the concern. They were valid points, but Lightning only knew the half of it. "Grandfather is very much still alive and kicking, and seems unlikely to pass on the title of "Grandmaster Dragon Trainer" for many more years yet. And as for the gym…yes, I've been helping with that, but I'm not really the full-time leader, otherwise no one would ever get a badge." That got a twitch of a smile from the Champion. "Kain has been doing a lot of the work and training lately, and I think it's a good time for him to take full charge from me and to understand what it means to run a gym."

Plus after three years back at home, she was getting that familiar old itch again; it was that same urge that had made her leave home in the first place all those years ago to embark on the Pokémon League. Perhaps it was high time for her to give in to her wanderlust again.

It had been fun back then, traveling through Cocoon and Pulse, collecting badges and periodically testing herself against Lightning, each one of them trying to outdo the other. The rivalry between the two of them had long since passed its prime, but to travel beyond the league, exploring new lands and discovering new pokémon with not a rival at her side, but a trusted partner and more…that...that Fang knew she could do. The question now was, could Lightning?

Fang held out one hand to Lightning, and gestured with the other toward Bahamut—their clear ride out of this place. "Come with me, Light. Let's go."

There was a very long silence as Lightning stared up at Fang, and at what was being offered.

And then…

"Odin, return!" She commanded, and the electric-type horse retreated into the pokéball that Light kept hung around her neck. Then she turned to look at Fang, and for the first time in a great many years, a smile of true and undeniable excitement broke her features and the cage of apathy that she had fallen into. She grabbed her former-rival's hand and allowed the dragon-trainer to haul her upright and close. "Let's go, Fang. You and me."

She had been the very best in all the realms for seven years; it had been a glorious run, but it had been lonely at the top. Now it was time to move on to something even better, and this time she wouldn't be alone.