There was a great deal Celebi had told Nobunaga, when it had traveled back to request his assistance. And having brought unification and the first blossoming of peace back to Ransei, he felt a duty to to oblige. There was also a great deal Celebi had not told Nobunaga – could not, for over four hundred years of changes were beyond its own ability to summarize.
For one, the map. The site where he had landed, now called Ilex Forest, was known in Nobunaga's time as Chrysalia, and it was one of the region's larger cities; today, although the wildlife remained similar, it was a peaceful forest where not a brick remained. It was not an area of particular importance to Nobunaga; his capital was in far-off Dragnor, but he had marched his army there because it was the one spot where Celebi could send others through time.
The nearest regional center according to his map was Azalea Town, but given the threat Kyogre posed, he wanted a single, grand demonstration of his power which would eliminate all resistance throughout modern Ransei. And for that, he didn't want some remote town full of Slowpoke, with barely a strong trainer to beat, let alone an army. (Though Celebi had said something about them not having proper armies anymore.) In other words, Oda Nobunaga needed to take Goldenrod.
A couple hours' march later, one hundred ninety-nine trainers clad in Sengoku-era armor arrived at the entrance to Goldenrod City.
"There are no walls."
"How do we attack a city with no walls? Do we just march in and sack the buildings?" Another muttered, and a few ran into the city prepared to do just that.
Nobunaga's Garchomp loudly stomped his foot to halt the chaos in the ranks, snapping his trainer, who had been staring at the Radio Tower in awe, back to attention as well. "There is to be no looting. We can take what we like after we have taken my new capital!"
"But where do we go?"
"There's no castle. Apparently, cities in modern Ransei are... not run, but in a way led by people called gym leaders, and in this town it's a woman called Whitney who specializes in normal pokemon. So find the gym, surround it, and demand her surrender!"
As Nobunaga's forces marched towards the gym, he noticed countless civilians with pokeballs on their belts fleeing the same way. It seemed bizarre, almost impossible; they were in another time, and Celebi assured them they knew nothing of war, so how had they coordinated it so well?
It was only when sound filled the air that he understood – not one sound, but one message sent from many tiny points. He didn't understand the sorcery in those small listening devices, nor their connection to the tall tower he had admired. Didn't know that radios were the one device whose power had not been taken for the attack because of their military necessity, didn't know that on an ordinary day the streets would be shining with lights. But he did understand that he was in for a fight!
By the time his pokemon army of the past arrived, a makeshift barricade had already been set up around the Goldenrod City Gym.
"Earthquake!" He called out. Twelve electric pokemon climbed onto birds for protection, and Garchomp, Shingen's Rhyperior, Keiji's Bastiodon, and a bunch of Excadrill and Krookodile and Gigalith owned by trainers lost to history stomped their feet in unison, shaking the unarmored defenders of Goldenrod and toppling the barricades.
The gym itself stood: the building had been made sturdy enough for pokemon battles, and its engineers had erred on the side of caution in making it resistant to all possible attacks. Whitney exited the gym at this point, riding on her Miltank, an old sword – probably a family heirloom - in hand.
"This doesn't have to end with bloodshed. If you want to challenge me, we can do it with a one on one gym match!"
Nobunaga laughed. "You'd want that, wouldn't you? I don't think you have either the numbers or the power to win if we fight the old-fashioned way!"
"I've learned a thing or two from the archives," Nobunaga wondered how she had been informed of his approach, and marveled at her reading speed, but also questioned how much she could have really learned. "Everyone, Rollout!"
A collection of round pokemon of every color and type, most not owned by Whitney's apprentices but by people from around the city, rolled like an avalanche out the gym and into Nobunaga's column of soldiers.
"Bodyguard!" Nobunaga shouted, and every rock or steel pokemon in his army pushed their flesh-bodied teammates down and leaped into the way to break the avalanche. One hundred ninety-nine pokemon raised their claws or fists or whatever else they had, and one hundred ninety-nine soldiers drew their swords, and together Nobunaga's army charged.
There would be no people or pokemon hacked down by Nobunaga's forces in this battle; in fact, he had ordered his soldiers to avoid killing or permanently maiming their foes. It was for this reason that his army had solely been equipped with swords for this battle, eschewing the arquebuses that normally formed the basis of his military strategy. But there were none in Goldenrod's hastily assembled self-defense force who knew that fact, and the ancient army's superior (now doubled) numbers, willingness to draw blood, and targeting of humans as well as pokemon sent over half their opponents fleeing in terror.
As the ranks broke, Nobunaga calmly stood, watching the battle as his Garchomp slashed its way through enemy pokemon. "You must surrender," he commanded Whitney.
"I surrender," Whitney answered as she held an enormous white tissue in the air, then when the fighting stopped, used it to try in vain to dry her tears.
"This has happened before, Jasmine," Blaine was trying to be warm and fatherly, but the old eccentric had no children, and although he was burning, he always seemed to lack a touch of that human warmth.
The crying girl – yes, a child prodigy, master of steel pokemon at an astonishingly young age, but at this point nothing more than a weeping little girl who had lost everything – nodded. At least this time, she responded.
The great army of Johto had gone away; few, whether involved in that battle or otherwise, had perished in the tsunami, but there was no food, no shelter, no possessions, and no power for countless people who had called that city home.
Jasmine had a responsibility to lead them to safety, as they never tired of reminding her, but she had been hit as hard as anyone.
The soldiers took to blaming one another. Maybe Surge's plan was a terrible idea. Maybe it was Maxie's poor leadership, or maybe Erika's. Or maybe it was the fact that, no matter who they tried to blame, they had no leadership at all.
News had arrived – messages on a flock of Spearow, far too numerous to be suppressed even if anyone wanted to. The message was bizarre; the fact that radio confirmed it and the messages came from some very respectable people meant that it had to be taken seriously. Somehow, an army from the past had taken Goldenrod. Worse, there was no shortage of soldiers filing out to join up with him: the Hoenn exiles stayed loyal to Maxie, and Maxie stayed loyal to this strange assembly of gym leaders, each who carried their own cadre of apprentices. But they and the pokedex holders together barely numbered one hundred trainers: half the size of Nobunaga's force when he took Goldenrod, and in times like this people would march behind whatever banner could save them from flooding, so Nobunaga's would grow larger still.
"Maybe it's time to cut our losses and try to overthrow Nobunaga later," a discouraged junior trainer said, echoing the thoughts of many.
"I won't give up," Jasmine said through tears, to the surprise of the assembled camp of leaders. "The lighthouse had a few history books. And we all know why Ho-oh's been gone for so long, and what drove it anyway. It hurts and it's horrible, but we have to fight back. And to do that, we need a leader – not a shogun, but a hero, a champion. Someone who treats people and pokemon with kindness, yet someone strong enough to win over or fight even the gods."
Jasmine needed to say no more, and Ho-oh sung out in approval. There was only one person alive who fit that description, and those words of praise and Ho-oh's loud call had reinvigorated a despondent crowd. The vote was unanimous, for despite their small numbers and recent defeat, they had one person remarkable enough to give them hope.
In that moment, the remaining trainers-turned-soldiers truly believed that Red of Pallet Town could save Johto.
Even among a people who have lost all martial vigor, resistance is not difficult to carry out when one possesses popular support. An army can take land easily: the hard part is holding it.
Yet for a people lost to literal darkness, amidst refugees from an approaching enemy intent on sinking their homeland, there was simply no appetite for a popular resistance of any sort. Red tried sending carrier Pidgey to powerful trainers unaffiliated with the League, but many were intercepted and only a small percentage of those messages which were delivered bothered to write back. When Nobunaga took Goldenrod, he also took its Radio Tower, and rather than broadcasting messages for the resistance it broadcast propaganda about Nobunaga's benevolent rule and how he was Johto's only hope.
By the time the first day of darkness passed, Nobunaga already ruled all of southern Johto. Red's army had arrived in Ecruteak, garrisoning a city stirred to fight by Ho-oh's return, and from there, through Cianwood and Blackthorn, a supply and communication line to Kanto was kept open. (The fact that all three of these cities were inland certainly helped morale and loyalty for Red's forces, as well.) Nobunaga had sent a foray under Tokugawa in that direction, but faced with skilled trainers prepared to resist and civilians willing to wield swords and send out pokemon alike, he had retreated.
There would be no battle yet. Nobunaga had no idea when Team Aqua would return, and Celebi had warned him well about the threat they posed; he had no need to subjugate inland cities at a time like this. His army, used to one battle a month at most, had been dramatically fatigued by the day of near-constant marching, although at least this time there were decent roads.
What he needed was not more land, at the moment, although it certainly wouldn't hurt. He was extremely tempted to march through the Tohjo Falls and take Pallet; perhaps with his hometown held hostage, Red would surrender. But first, he had to turn his conquered subjects into a fighting force.
For one, arming them. There was ore in Union Cave, but it was not being exploited at the moment and indeed there were few miners in the region, all who came from abroad. There were plenty of men and women capable of fighting, but all of them let their pokemon fight their battles. He needed soldiers. He needed to train soldiers. He needed to pay soldiers – amazingly, Johto had functioned for all these years without any system of taxation! And he needed to stop people from traveling from city to city as a means of escape the duties he would impose – either to fight, or to produce war material for those who would, either by raising powerful pokemon, supplying food to the massively growing population, or working in the mines.
Many would refer to Nobunaga's legal reforms as serfdom, a term used widely from the moment they were enacted. Yet some, including Nobunaga himself, said this term was colored by bias simply because he had come from the past. They spoke in terms of conscription, self-defense, and a temporary militarization, and pointed to many parallels from before the Sengoku era to demonstrate that he was not simply importing his own social system to the present.
Yet few were convinced, and many grumbled that had they known, they would have listened to Red and fought back. Indeed, this criticism was echoed silently by two of Nobunaga's own subordinates; the high-ranking vassal Akechi Mitsuhide, and Nobunaga's own sister Oichi...
"So why have you called me here? Sex or treason?" It was an odd letter Akechi Mitsuhide had received for this rendezvous – nothing more than a "please come to this secluded part of Goldenrod at ten o'clock pm." A message like this could mean one of two things. And Mitsuhide wasn't sure which Oichi wanted. She had never shown any interest in him, and it was an odd location for a midnight romp, but to betray her own brother...
"Treason," Oichi said somberly. "If you must call it that."
"Do you have others?" Mitsuhide asked. "Or is the plan just to infiltrate his bedchambers, have Wigglytuff sing and Lapras to finish him off?"
Oichi looked horrified by the suggestion. "Of course not! I don't want to kill my brother!"
"Then how do you propose to stop him?" Mitsuhide half-asked, half-shouted. "The people hate him. He's reduced half of Johto to serfdom, thrown centuries of progress away... and if we do turn on him now, how are we supposed to defeat Team Aqua?"
Oichi smiled. "There's a reason I came to you, and it's not just because I know you'd betray him. Celebi lied to us."
"There is no Team Aqua?"
"Not that. Nobunaga isn't our only hope, because Ho-oh and Celebi aren't the only two legends left. You've done it before. The god of ice, Articuno, will listen to the lord of Nixtorm – his once and future trainer!"
Mitsuhide's normally stoic face lit up at the thought. He would have a double type advantage against Garchomp that way. All he'd need to do was fire a well-placed ice beam in the chaos, and they could win this war without dooming Johto to the horrors of the past.
Oda Nobunaga had never battled Team Aqua, but he understood piracy well enough to keep a coastal watch. As Mitsuhide and Oichi made their way towards the harbor, both disguised in modern clothing, they continued to discuss their plan is whispered tones.
"Lapras can probably make it there in seven hours if I push it hard. If we succeed, I'm confident we can be back in time, as long as we make it past the guard. Articuno's fast, after all. If we fail..."
"Don't worry about the guard," Oichi said with a smile. "I've made a few arrangements."
"You bribed them?" He whispered, as they approached the shore.
"Oichi-sama, as my lord's sister you may come and go as you please." Chosokabe Motochika said, greeting the two. "But I don't see what Akechi Mitsuhide will be doing in Kanto. Unless he plans to capture Articuno..."
"Was my payment not enough?" Oichi asked through gritted teeth.
"I'll gladly enrich myself, but there is no payment good enough to make me betray Nobunaga," Motochika answered with a laugh.
"I have no intention to betray Nobunaga. Articuno is being captured because we are at war with an extraordinarily powerful enemy," Mitsuhide lied.
"Very well. Show me your letter of permission and you may go."
"I don't have it in writing. Do you want me to wake Nobunaga? I fear he may not be pleased..." Mitsuhide threatened.
"He will not be, indeed," Motochika retorted, calling his bluff.
"We have no choice. Wigglytuff, Sing!" Oichi shouted, opening her pokeball to summon a pinkish-white, rabbit-eared balloon whose beautiful lullaby sent Mitsuhide and Motochika alike into a deep sleep. Oichi proceeded to drop an Awakening into her co-conspirator's mouth. Groggily, Mitsuhide sat up, summoned his Lapras, showed it a map, and ordered it to ferry them to Seafoam in Kanto, and the tall-necked water-pokmon obediently nodded. Awakenings, as any trainer knows, are an item designed to rouse pokemon, not humans; no sooner had Mitsuhide climbed onto Lapras' shell and the pokemon made it into the water then did the warlord drift back off to sleep.
Akechi Mitsuhide woke hours later to the sight of Oichi struggling to keep her eyes open: together, they had already crossed the Tohjo Falls and made their way past the volcanic ruins of Cinnabar Island. It was not much later that the vast network of caves in whose deepest cavern Articuno was rumored to dwell came into view.
"Have a map of this part?" Oichi joked, to be answered with Mitsuhide's stern expression; he had no such map, and the caverns looked so vast from the outside that it seemed that he could be trapped there forever.
What he did not expect to see was Articuno waiting for him at the entrance. "It's been a long time." The great bird of ice spoke, its voice shaking the walls.
"What have you been doing?"
"This war, or these centuries?" A somber tone had crept into Articuno's voice.
"Just the war," Mitsuhide answered. "I fear we do not have time for such lengthy stories..."
"Aqua won't attack before I even finish my story. Or did you mean..." understanding flashed across the blue bird's pointed face. "So you didn't tell your master? You won't make it back in time. Even I can't fly that fast." There was something deeply unnerving about the way Articuno had said your master. If he was a traitor, what loyalty did that pokemon owe him? "Nonetheless, I will spare you the tale of generations, and only show you what returning to me would mean leaving behind."
With Articuno, flying low to the ground, leading the way, and Oichi following, Mitsuhide walked into Seafoam. But what he saw was not the vast network of caverns the maps displayed, but a vast subterranean city, filled with people and pokemon alike.
"Refugees," Mitsuhide noted. "From... Hoenn?"
The great bird nodded. "Even the League couldn't get everyone out. And in time, they gave up. Yet people always fight on, even if it means cramming six people onto a Wailmer into the middle of the ocean."
"You lead them here?"
"Myself, Zapdos, and Moltres. Lugia did the same in the Whirl Islands. Mewtwo in the Unknown Dungeon – imagine that, a dungeon of the free! And there are still people left, making their way out... though not many."
"Why here? Why now? Why don't they let anyone know?" Mitsuhide asked, a rare tear running down his face.
"Because the world gave up on them. Can you ask me to give up on them too?"
"I can not," Mitsuhide said, falling to his knees. "But I must. If only for a single battle. I can not let the horrors that ruled Ransei rule the world again. I can not let these refugees in caves be the only free people in all of Kanto and Johto, nor can these caves hold those who would come if Aqua triumphed."
"And Red?" Articuno asked. Was it an excuse, or was it a test?
"The man who even Ho-oh believes in." Mitsuhide noted. "Yet he has not stopped Nobunaga yet, nor convinced me he can."
"You are as wise and righteous as ever, my lord. I should not have tested you." Articuno said, dipping its head in a vow of obedience as Mitsuhide lifted his pokeball, and Mitsuhide spoke words he had spoken so often, but which Articuno had not heard from his lips in centuries.
"Articuno, return!"
They met at the gates of Ecruteak this time, as contemptuous of each other as they had ever been, but striking the other down would not undo the plans the other had set into motion. The rainbow phoenix and the fairy of time. Ho-Oh and Celebi.
"So Articuno has returned. If we all band together against Kyogre..." Ho-oh spoke, trying to find hope – together, they could beat Kyogre and Nobunaga alike.
"The others will not join. This is the age of mortals, and we're not talking about helping trainers. Only Mewtwo and Articuno had them, and Kenshin can't get to the Unknown Dungeon..."
"Are you asking for safe passage?"
Celebi shook its tiny head. "No. Much has happened in the past hundreds of years. Mewtwo will not fight, trainer or no trainer; I'd rather have Gallade on our side."
"Then why are you here?" Ho-oh asked. "Half of Johto has slipped back into feudalism. Are you so lost in the past that you consider that a victory?"
Celebi smiled. "And we have an army now – not your rabble who can't even hold Johto. You're welcome, even though I've come all this way for no thank you."
It took every ounce of willpower Ho-oh had not to burn Celebi to a crisp, a task from which the fire bird only refrained because grass pokemon such as Celebi were strong against water pokemon such as Kyogre. Instead, it covered itself with flames and menacingly flapped its wings as it spoke.
"Johto will be saved. From Kyogre, and from you!"