The Saga of Kings, Book I: Hero

by Vile Slanders

I am not the King. That is a Ranger's Beret on my head, not a crown. So you want to know what happened after the Championships? You want to know my role in the disaster that unfurled when the Brink opened? You want to know if I stepped into the Brink, and how I'm still alive if I did? Well, I'll tell you. But Zane Bastard is starting from the relevant beginning. This is my story...

10. Chapter IX: Men of Peace, Dogs of War

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The Saga of Kings, Book I: Hero

Written by,

Vile M.F. Slanders

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"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..."

-Mark Twain; Born November 30th, 1835 as Samuel Langhorne Clemens; Died April 21st, 1910. Excerpt taken from his poetic essay, "The War Prayer".

-v-

Chapter IX: Men of Peace, Dogs of War

"..."

"..."

"...I thought that I told you to never contact me."

"Get off your high horse, Delimonto. Since when does the Director of ACE get put on hold?"

"Whenever the Director of ACE interrupts my business dealings."

"Business dealings?! You mean managing that rag-tag gang of thugs you have creeping around Viridian?"

"I'm sure that you're aware of my more prominent business dealings, other than the mere thuggery, Director…"

"Yes, I am. And I thought that you'd like to know what might happen to your business dealings, should you continue pressuring Silph-"

"Spare me the bravado, Director. I know that you wouldn't spend a precious hour of your life on a held line just for bungling idle threats."

"Fine. I'll get straight to the point then. I just got off the phone with Enzo Davinci."

"And why would this warrant contacting me?"

"...Because Enzo Davinci made a peculiar request of me. One might even say a bold request."

"Do tell."

"..."

"..."

"...Enzo requested unrestricted access to our archive of Doctor Fuji's materials."

"And what does this have to do with me?"

"You swore an oath, Delimonto. When you resigned from ACE, you swore an oath of secrecy…"

"And is there any evidence to support my breach of confidence?"

"Don't even give me that bullshit! You were the Director of ACE for damn near two decades before you resigned! You know your way through every security loophole and around every fucking surveillance monitor! I don't need evidence to know that it was you who told Enzo about ACE's connection to the Mew-0 Project!"

"Well then... Say that I did alert Enzo Davinci to ACE's role in the Mew-0 Project… Say that I did offer him a brief summary as to Doctor Fuji's little experiment… Say that I was aware of my successor's unofficial revival of my decommissioned brainchild…"

"You backed out of Operation: Wounded Hearts when the Mew-0 Project fell through! You claimed that it wasn't possible without the Mew-0 Prototype! You resigned when Fuji leaked his project to the world!"

"And I stand by what I asserted at my resignation. Without the Mew-0 Prototype, Operation: Wounded Hearts would never have succeeded. And yet my successor endeavors to reinstate that design without its crucial element."

"There are other ways of influencing the populace! We don't need global psionic repression-!"

"Yes, I've been following your little political stunt in the Ranger Corps for months now. I would call it ingenious, except for one small detail that you seem to have overlooked: The population's inevitable rejection of continuous warfare."

"...It'll be too late by then. We'll already be committed to seeing it through to the end-"

"And do you truly believe that involuntary soldiers will win your campaign?"

"...Why did you disclose the Mew-0 Project to Enzo Davinci, Delimonto?"

"Because, regardless of my seat at the sidelines, Operation: Wounded Hearts was my operation. I will not stand idly by and watch as my foreclosed legacy falls prey to my successor's absent foresight."

"...And you actually think that Enzo can succeed where Fuji failed?"

"The man has an almost uncanny ability to rationalize his way through every obstacle. It's apparent in the success of Chimera Industries. It's obvious in the brilliance of his unorthodox designs. And I played witness to it in action, during our Semi-Final League match eleven years ago. Enzo Davinci can deliver the crucial element."

"So you sent him over to me, as your way of intervening?"

"If I haven't made it clear before, Director: Enzo Davinci can surpass Doctor Fuji."

"...Well doesn't that just beat all."

"..."

"..."

"...Let's suppose that I decided to authorize Enzo Davinci's resurrection of the Mew-0 Project. How would it fit in with the current agenda of my Operation: Wounded Hearts?"

"You have your two Core Advocates, do you not? Your two Kings?"

"What are you implying?"

"Your political additions to the original Operation: Wounded Hearts is inspired, but not for the reasons that you might suspect."

"...Go on."

"Need I dig up the past for review? So be it. A rudimentary perusal of Doctor Fuji's journals states that widespread psionic dictation becomes exponentially more effective when the targeted subjects' mob interests reflect the psion's mental directives-"

"Wait, wait, wait! I know that entry! You're saying that by influencing the population first with the two Kings…"

"...A willing servant is far more compliant than a rebellious slave, Director."

"...And you're suggesting a mergence between our two dissimilar itineraries?"

"As far as immediate returns are concerned: your adapted solution presents the advantage. However: in verses of long term investment, my original design maintains the edge."

"And if Enzo fails?"

"...Then I suppose that the ultimate outcome would be no different than what should come to pass if either one of your Kings fail."

"..."

"...I'm offering you fallback insurance in Enzo Davinci, Director. I suggest that you take it."

"So what do you get out of this, Delimonto?"

"The realization of my dream, Director."

"And how is a Gym Leader ever going to reap ACE's harvest?"

"Oh, I won't be a mere Gym Leader should Operation: Wounded Hearts succeed, Director. You should've already surmised what manner of payment I expect for my services..."

"This is my seat now, Delimonto. My show. My ship. My ACE. If you want a position in the hierarchy, then that can be arranged, but I'm not turning over-"

"Good. Now, are there any other concerns worth warranting an extension of this conversation?"

"...Why are you in such a hurry, Delimonto? Don't you have time to catch up with an old colleague? Are the priorities of a Criminal Kingpin really that demanding?"

"You know what is required for leading a worldwide organization, Director. You understand the difficulties associated with managing such a diverse and expansive empire. Now imagine how your priorities might alter, should all your loyal hounds form a habit out of leaping for your throat."

"What a pleasant depiction of your new career. It almost makes me wonder why you resigned from the agency..."

"I resigned from the agency because I grew weary with the constant failures of ACE, Director. As you may well recall, from a personal memoir…"

"..."

"..."

"...Eat a dick, Giovanni."

"And the same to you, Director."

…

"Okay, Zane… Welcome to showbiz!" Chris strode forward with his right hand thrust out to me. I bit back my gritting teeth and clamped the iron vice of a Ranger's reluctant handshake around Chris's extended digits.

"Don't break his hand, Warrant Officer." Lieutenant Roscoe chuckled from the backdrop.

"Smile, Zane. You need to smile…" Chris chided as I relaxed my twitching hand. I wrestled my irritated expression into Zane Bastard's classical livid as fuck grin, and presented that throbbing grimace to Chris Lebreau. After a nervous pause, Chris summoned up every ounce of his Fuck-Nuts, and offered it to me in an exasperated sigh.

"Try not to let on that you're struggling so hard to repress that murderous idiocy, Ranger." Chris released my hand, and used his emancipated extremity to mop his sweating brow.

"Try again, Zane. And this time: At least try." Lieutenant Roscoe cackled as I stomped off the stage.

"Aren't you supposed to babysitting Mac?" I grunted at Roscoe. The Blackhat just snorted at me.

"He curled up with Cortez about five minutes ago. That Munchlax passed out like a tranqued Abra. I don't need to watch your servicemon snore, Ranger. This is far more entertaining." Roscoe chuckled.

"So are you gonna explain to me what a Blackhat is doing here in a cozy studio when there's a world full of high-priority mon to kill?" I grumbled at Roscoe. The Lieutenant just shrugged.

"I have my orders to monitor your performance and wait for the cavalry-"

"-Ladies and gentlemen! Can we hear some noise for the Ranger Corps' own Zaaaane Baaastard!" Chris shouted out my introduction to the empty studio.

"I think he's enjoying this too much." I grunted at Roscoe, before I marched my unwilling self into the center stage on Chris's vocal cue. Coming before Chris Lebreau for the hundredth time today, Fuck-Nuts repeated his interviewer's routine, and thrust a welcoming hand out to my approaching person.

"That's Chief Warrant Officer Zane Bastard to you, civi." I glared at Chris's offered hand and folded my arms across my chest with a scowl.

Much to my delight, Chris Lebreau flew off the handle and started freaking out with one of his eruptive tangents again.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?! YOU CAN'T BE FUCKING SERIOUS! IT'S JUST A FUCKING HANDSHAKE AND A FUCKING SMILE, ZANE! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR?!" Chris was practically stomping his feet and waving his arms around in a startlingly accurate rendition of an uncultured simian's primordial fury.

"Affirmative." I grunted, doing everything I could to keep the encroaching hysteria from mussing up my irritable countenance.

I was far more successful in that venture than Lieutenant Roscoe, who was cracking up behind me like a giddy sumbitch.

"...Get off the stage, Zane. We're taking a fiver. And when we come back to try this again… Get your fucking act together." Chris panted at me, still struggling with his racing heart rate. I did as Chris suggested without a hint of remorse, and walked my ass right off into the backstage. Lieutenant Roscoe left his post in prompter's box to accompany me on my way to the studio's green room.

"It's like poking a Mankey with a taser." I joked with Roscoe as the two of us shared a laugh over Chris's outrageous behavior.

"It's a great show. I'd buy seats to watch it. That said, Zane…" Roscoe cut the chuckles short when I kicked in the green room's door.

"...We had our fun, but you're gonna have to take this seriously from now on. High Command expects you to represent the Corps with dignity in Indigo's interview. Don't piss off High Command by fucking this up." Roscoe told it to me straight. I crashed my ass into one of the green room's sofas, and looked over to my two napping mon, who were huddled up in the corner of the lobby.

My tiny Cortez was sleeping nose to nose with the giant Mac, and the sight of those two dissimilar mon resting so peacefully together rekindled my unpleasant memories.

"You know… Five months ago, that Growlithe led a lone charge on a fucking Snorlax under my orders. Cortez lured a whole swarm of Beedrill onto an intercept course with the Snorlax by using himself as the bait… under my suicidal orders…"

I heard Roscoe pop the cap off a brew, but my distant eyes were still looking at the two sleeping monsters on the other side of the room.

"...And he still acted on my command. There was no hesitation. Cortez put his life into my hands, just as I had trusted my life to him…" I paused to suppress a shaking breath.

"...And we almost made it…"

"That's a good dog you've got there, Warrant Officer. Not every pup in the service would carry out such a reckless directive." Roscoe interrupted my memoirs with an offering of beer. I accepted a cold bottle from the Blackhat Lieutenant, and nursed a stiff draught from the brew's sweating neck.

"How can Cortez look so calm next to a Goddamn Munchlax? After what we went through…" I shuddered.

"That's just the mon for you. It takes a special kind of monster to hold a grudge. It takes an evil piece of shit to commit to a vendetta like that." Roscoe grunted, apparently blind to the ironic analogy presented by his own words.

"So what does that make us? Is every human being just an evil piece of shit then?" I asked the Blackhat Lieutenant. Roscoe snorted over his brew, before fixing a laughing eye on me.

"Mon aren't as complex as humans, Zane. We've got ourselves an excuse for being arrogant, vicious, horrible, cruel, and nasty animals." Roscoe chortled.

"And what excuse is that?" I asked in a dry tone, no less troubled by my Superior Officer's mirth. Roscoe shook his head with a chuckle, before he leaned back into his chair.

"Because we aren't vile monsters all of the Goddamn time, Zane. We can actually do something beyond fucking the world up. The mon can't do that. They're absolute monsters full time." Roscoe replied. I turned back to Cortez and Mac, scrutinizing the two of them as they dreamed on and on in happy mon land, completely oblivious to the conversation that these two Rangers were entertaining over them.

"Cortez has saved my life before. So has Vauban. So has Damascus. Even Darwin has pitched in to save his worthless CO from certain death. And they never asked me for anything in return. They just did it, because I needed their help… That don't seem like the actions of a monster to me, Lieutenant." I muttered, setting aside my half empty beer.

I looked away from my two mon, and met Roscoe's stern glare with my dispassionate eyes. He was slowly rubbing his palms together beneath his frowning chin, while an uneasy slouch had tightened the Lieutenant's shoulders, as he leaned out of his chair and loomed over his own knees. Rangers never humanize their mon. That's a disgraceful practice of mon-humpers, not a disciplined forte amongst mon-killers.

"...Why didn't you tell me about my mother's death, Lieutenant?" I asked in the firmest voice that I could muster. Roscoe sighed through his nostrils as his incriminating countenance crumbled away.

"I never knew about it, Zane…" Roscoe wasn't meeting my eyes when he stared off into the distance.

"You had to have known. You were in on it. You, Captain Lewis, Lieutenant Colonel Rionaldo, all of Blackhat Team Seven, Colonel Howes… You all knew. You all belong to ACE…" My voice was too tired to betray the turmoil boiling over inside of me.

"We all belong to ACE, Zane. You included. Look, maybe some of us knew, but it wasn't ACE who told us. We found out on our own, and when we pressed High Command for an explanation-"

"-So you would petition High Command about it before you'd tell me?" I choked. Roscoe finally met my watering gaze with his reserved eyes.

"We had our orders, Zane. High Command didn't want you getting compromised over the loss of your mother-"

"Look at me!" I cried out, burying my fingers into my left eye socket. Pulling out my fake eye, I faced cold old Lieutenant Roscoe without any shame for my condition.

"I've fucking bled for the Corps! I've put myself through fucking hell for the Rangers! I gave everything I had to you people… Look at me…" My rage burned out to a groan of self-disgust. Lieutenant Roscoe straighten out in his chair, and fixed both of his calm eyes on my weeping face.

"...Couldn't you at least have told me about my mother? Didn't I at least earn that much from you?" I wheezed through the tears.

"...I told you that we were all under orders, Zane. They were shitty orders, they weren't orders that I, or any other Blackhat agreed with… But they were our orders." Roscoe stated in a level voice.

"Yeah… Yeah, whatever helps you all sleep at night…" I spat, jamming my fake eye back into its socket.

"If it's any consolation, Ranger? It doesn't help us sleep. Especially not ol' Lou…" Roscoe murmured.

"Fuck you." I hissed, glaring raw hatred at the Blackhat Lieutenant. Did Roscoe really want to make this about them? Did he really expect me to pity any one of them?

"You have no idea what I'm going through… None of you have a fucking clue…"

"-You're right about one thing, Zane. I don't have a clue about what it feels like to have the Corps stab you in the back over a death in the family. It's never happened to me before. But you know what? I do know a woman who has lost a family member to the Military's shitty coms." Roscoe growled the last bit at me. I went fucking silent in my grief, and glared right back at the Blackhat Lieutenant.

"Did you ever hear about what happened to Lou's little brother?" Lieutenant Roscoe fixed me with a severe eye. I didn't say a Goddamn word. I just kept imposing my fucking fury through ocular contact, daring Roscoe to impart the tale. Roscoe leaned back into his chair with a sigh, and began to relate the account.

"...Years and years ago… Back when I was still a babe in arms and you were but a twinkle in your parents' eyes, Captain Lewis served in a different outfit, instead of the beret she's standing under today. Back during the last Kanto-Johto war…" Lieutenant Roscoe took a hit from his brew, before licking his lips and carrying on.

"Artillery Brigade. FDC. Sergeant Major Mary Lewis of the 16th Railbore Division. She was part of the outfit responsible for shelling both the slant-eyes' garrisons and their front line troops. Her job was to process the incoming ordnance requests, and then to prioritize the strikes before correlating the targeting telemetry for the guns. Ol' Lou was stationed right outside of Indigo back in 1485, before the Argent Downpour. You remember hearing about that little mishap in history class, right?" Roscoe waited for my silent ass to answer him before he'd continue on with the story.

"...Yeah. Johto's seizure of a civilian settlement on the Kanto side of the Argent Mountain Range." I answered. Lieutenant Roscoe huffed, as though my schooling of the event didn't even begin to cover the subject.

"Yep, it was a military occupation. But do you know what kind of occupation the slant-eyes were setting up on their captured mountainside?" Lieutenant Roscoe asked in a cynical voice.

"...A POW camp." I answered numbly. Lieutenant Roscoe snapped his fingers and fist pumped, as though I'd just won the lottery.

"Right in one. Well color me surprised. Yep. It was a POW camp. Now tell me, Zane... What was so special about the slant-eyes' prison camps?" Lieutenant Roscoe continued his grill on my knowledge of past wars.

"...The Johtonese didn't use traditional holding cells. They just dug a pit in the earth, and tossed the captured Kantonese soldiers down into the cistern, before they piled a row of bars and a stack of rocks overhead." I answered. Roscoe didn't celebrate this answer. If anything, his face was growing darker as I relayed the requested information.

"Yep. Those yellow skinned pricks just dumped our wounded and dying soldiers into a damp hole, and then buried them alive. That's how the Johtonese treated their POWs. As if they were less than animals." Lieutenant Roscoe growled.

"As it turns out, old Lou didn't enlist in the Military. She was conscripted, just like so many other Kantonese men and woman in that war. And unsurprisingly, Mary wasn't the only member of the Lewis clan to have been conscripted into the last Kanto-Johto war. Her little brother ended up serving his nation in the Infantry. In the same fucking district as his older sister." Lieutenant Roscoe cracked open another brew, and pulled the rising head out of the neck with a drag that emptied the entire bottle. After wiping his mouth off with a sleeve, Roscoe started on the next bit of the story.

"...I don't think that I need to repeat what your school's history books have already covered about the Argent Downpour, but here's the abridged version just in case you slept through it: A Forward Observation team called in for an artillery strike on a fortified enemy location. This FO team was the first on-site, meaning that they provided Kanto's first intel on the occupation. But the FO team didn't look for any signs of civilian or friendly military units in the killbox. They didn't bother to look for the telltale prison-cairns. Some dumbass Commander fresh out of Vermilion's Academy didn't carry through with a proper observation. He just called in for the guns when he saw the slant-eyes erecting a garrison in the captured settlement's eastern sector, before falsifying his report so as to authorize the barrage ASAP." Lieutenant Roscoe tossed aside his empty bottle in disgust, and fumbled with a cigar and a match as he lit up a fat blunt.

"And that led to the Argent Downpour. One of Kanto's biggest flops in the war. Every gun battery in the Indigo District started firing off the iron rain right into the coordinates provided by a worthless FO Commander. Mary Lewis's battery included, under her own orders. All those Kantonese shells converging right on top of a Goddamn Johtonese POW camp. Now that's pretty fucked up all on its lonesome, but the most forlorn piece of this travesty has yet to have been revealed." Lieutenant Roscoe filled his corner of the room with blue smoke, as he vented the cigar's acrid fumes through his mouth.

"Three days before the Argent Downpour, a Kantonese Reconnaissance unit was shot down and captured by the slant-eyes in the mountains of the Indigo District. A Private Walter Lewis, on advance scout detail. They clipped him out of his roost in the trees, and then hauled his crippled ass off to the nearest POW camp for detainment. Guess which POW camp Lou's little brother ended up at?" Roscoe asked me through the blue haze.

-I couldn't answer. My spine was going cold with the realization, and the fresh horror had stayed my tongue.

"...Lou blames herself for Walter's death. It ain't her fault by any stretch of the imagination. That piece of shit FO Commander may have been dishonorably discharged following indictments of manslaughter and dereliction of duty, but that's far from a cold comfort to anyone who lost a family member in the Argent Downpour. After the war ended with the birth of the Indigo Confederacy, Lou ditched the service and committed herself to the Corps. She didn't really feel like living anymore, and all she knew was killing, so the Ranger Corps put her mindset to good use. And if it wasn't for some crazy Berets looking out for her, ol' Lou would have happily killed herself off years ago, fighting the mon with utter abandon." Roscoe's eyes were watering by the end, hinting at the identity of at least one of those crazy Berets still looking out for Captain Lewis.

"...So next time you see her, Zane… You had better not pull that nobody-knows-what-I've-been-through hogwash with Lou. I know that she won't do a damn thing to correct you for it, but let me set the record perfectly straight right now: I will. So unless you want a private beating added to your list of self-victimizing bullshit: You had better treat Captain Lewis with all the respect she's due." Lieutenant Roscoe calmly stated in a level tone, chasing a smokey drag down with a freshly popped pull of yeast.

"...Yes sir." I answered in a hoarse undertone. Roscoe removed the cigar butt from his mouth, and stared at the smoldering blunt in fingers as he pulled himself back under control. There was a long silence in that room while we both recovered, and by the time we'd made it past the emotional ledge, Lieutenant Roscoe decided to speak up again.

"...It's a shitty world, Zane… You know that better than most people. This is a fucked up world to live in, but we've gotta make the most of what we can, otherwise this crummy life is only gonna get worse. So when that dick-breathed pencil-necked fuckhead with the orange scarf puts his hand out to you again: What are you gonna do with it?" Lieutenant Roscoe asked me in a solemn voice, reuniting his tongue with his tobacco.

"...Not break it?" I attempted a meek joke. Lieutenant Roscoe just stared at me in static disbelief, as the smoke from his cigar dissipated into the still air around him.

Then a chuckle loosened a new cloud of fumes from the Blackhat's mouth, before my own chortle added to the noise.

Soon we were both laughing our asses off, rousing Cortez and Mac with our amused ruckus. Thank God we woke them up to the sound of mirth, 'cause the following explosion might have ended in bloodshed if we hadn't.

"ARE YOU TWO DONE FUCKING AROUND YET!?" Chris flung open the door to the green room in a screaming fury. Both Roscoe and I killed the noise, and whipped out our knives in a programmed response to Chris's violent entrance. Chris wisely chose to address us from behind the doorframe when a pair of armed Rangers leapt out of their seats with a hostile intent.

"...Maybe you can yell at Zane as loudly as you want to, Mister Lebreau… But if you ever use that tone of voice with me again, then I'll have to open you up from sphincter to gullet just to teach you a little something about manners..." Roscoe stated in a friendly voice, as the Lieutenant sheathed his ugly knife. I watched as my PR Agent foundered beneath the connotations of a Blackhat's threat, before the asshole recovered enough of his douchebaggery to choke out some cautious words at me.

"Zane, I expected you on the stage ten minutes ago. Get a move on, now." Chris hissed, shooting a nervous look over to the dead-eyed Roscoe.

"Knock 'em dead, Zane. Don't worry about your Munchlax. I'll keep an eye on him while you're rehearsing." Roscoe broke off his mile long stare with my PR Agent, and raised a salute my way. I swallowed hard when I sheathed Doug's blade and answered the Blackhat's salute, before I made my way towards the studio in pursuit of an anxious Chris Lebreau.

…

"All right, Zane. We're gonna try this again. Now remember, how you present yourself is just as important as remembering your script. Indigo won't be asking you the same questions that I'm asking you, but they'll still be covering similar talking points. You may have to ad lib your lines whenever the interview deviates from the talking points, but you'll still need to project constant confidence and charm no matter what." Chris repeated for the fifth fucking time. We'd been yammering on the stage for over an hour, as Chris covered the same boring topics and senseless nonsense ad nauseam.

Now that I had a handle on my talking points, Chris was doctoring up my stage persona. In other words, Chris was cutting every vulgarity that I knew of out of my vernacular, and conditioning my short-tempered demeanor into something that would have been far more fetching for a feckless choirboy.

"Now, whatever you do: Do not flip out when I mention your medical condition again. We'll only need to graze the subject for now. Indigo isn't going to expose your personal life until after the interview." Chris growled to the glaring me.

-Yeah. Like I was supposed to take comfort from that last bit.

"Are you ready, Ranger?" Chris asked, settling back in his chair. I took a moment to correct my slouch, before I assumed the very image of ease on the sofa. Chris cleared his throat, and began recital number five.

"So Zane… You've served as a Ranger of the Corps for three years now. Two of those years were spent in active duty at Saffron's Carren Academy. During those two years, you not only maintained the cadet's standard role on Firewatch patrols, but you also underwent Command training in order to obtain the rank of Warrant Officer. That's an unusual approach for most cadets in the Corps your age. Those pursuing the rank of Warrant Officer generally have a long term occupation planned for the service. Did you enter the Corps with the intent of making a career out of the Rangers?" Chris read the question from his list of talking points. I was sick of endlessly repeating myself, but I still managed to smile before answering.

"Well Chris, there's actually a straightforward answer to that. Yeah, I joined the Corps for life when I took my oath in the recruiter's office." I drolled pleasantly with that practiced smile glued to my face like dried honey.

"I've heard rumors about you signing on with the ambition of earning a Black Beret. Is there any truth to these rumors?" Chris moved on to his next talking point, while I sucked down another waste of breath and continued the charade.

"They aren't rumors, Chris. I set my sights on a Black Beret at the age of five, and I'll be damned if I'm not gonna succeed in my childhood dream." I replied in a friendly tone. Chris raised an eyebrow in feigned surprise, before moving on with the show.

"Now your service record states that as well as dual majors in applied mechanics and combat engineering, you also have the distinction of being the youngest Special Operative currently enlisted in the Corps. Those are some lofty accolades in the service. Care to tell us a how you apply your skillset in the field?" Chris asked his next drab question.

"As a Special Operative, I'm expressly forbidden from discussing any classified operations that I carried out in that field. However, on the subject of combat engineering and technical maintenance, I generally work with sophisticated explosive devices and rugged Frontier electronics. Given my rank and training, I'm also qualified to commandeer Non-Commissioned units, so as to form fireteams at my discretion. One of the perks of being a Warrant Officer is that we have the same pay grade and command opportunities of a Commissioned Officer, with none of the bureaucratic drawbacks. It's generally more feasible for a Warrant Officer to take up a position on the front lines than it is for a Commissioned Officer: who would be expected to polish his brass off before addressing the fight." I punctuated the dull exposition with a martial jab, and Chris was pretentious enough to laugh at it for the fifth time.

"So you spend a lot of time on the frontlines then?" Chris asked in idle amusement.

"Not as much as I used to, but that's just the name of game for me now." I answered, still maintaining my cordial exterior.

"Oh, that's right! You're a disabled Veteran in the Wounded Hearts Program, aren't you Zane?" Chris asked in complete nonchalant.

-Oh, that question always pissed me off.

"I prefer the term: Reinstated Veteran. I'm still on active duty, Chris." I was supposed to sound slightly annoyed when I answered Chris's question, but I couldn't hide the gritting of my teeth when I reached Reinstated Veteran.

-There's a whole army of "Reinstated Veterans" serving in the Corps. We Greenbacks are oft to call them "Rangers."

Chris paused again after this answer. I could barely keep the anger down, and being asked that same hateful line over and over again was only making me all the more furious.

"So that's how you ended up competing in the League?" Chris asked, his stern expression warning me about my waning cool.

"Yep. I got fucked up on the frontlines, and some dipshit in High Command thought that it would be a good idea to deploy my broken-down ass in the League instead." I spat, completely ad-libbing my reply.

"For the love of God, Zane!" Chris threw his talking points across the studio floor and rose from his cozy chair, crushing both of his temples with a white knuckled knead.

"You almost had it! You were doing so well, and then you had to go and fuck it all up! Why can't you get that fucking mouth of yours under control!?" Chris roared as he stormed a circle around my chair.

"I love the questions, Chris. No I really do. I love how no one bothers to ask me how I feel about being put on a leash and shown off by High Command. 'Cause Goddamn, if I spoke my mind about that, somebody would get fucking hurt!" I flung my script right off the stage and rose to bodily intercept Chris's pacing circle.

"Are you really that big of an idiot!? This interview isn't about you! This interview is about the Fucking Bastard! Nobody gives a damn about your feelings, Zane! Indigo isn't making a story about your feelings! Everybody just wants to know who the Fucking Bastard is!" Chris spat in my face.

-Oh, fuck the words and praise the pain, I was winding up a right hook for my PR Agent's face after that one, but a new voice interrupted my draw before Chris could even flinch.

"Warrant Officer!"

I checked my swing, and pivoted towards Lt. Col Rionaldo in the attention stance.

"Reporting for duty, sir." Discipline managed to beat the heat, as my conditioned voice assumed the respectful tone expected of my person.

Lt. Col Rionaldo was just off stage left with a dire expression chiseled into his stony face. And standing at the Blackhat CO's shoulder, was none other than Blackhat Team Seven's very own Captain Mary Lewis.

"Is there a problem, Mister Lebreau?" Lt. Col Rionaldo asked in a stern drawl. Chris was panting right beside me, clearly waging a war against his own frustrations as well.

"...No sir. This is just um… Just a little stress clincher playing out. Yeah… We're just trying to get all of that anger out of our Warrant Officer right now. We don't want him to blow up during the interview, so this approach seemed like the best solution." Chris exhaled.

I kept my stance rigid. I didn't even look at Chris, though my curiosity was most certainly egging me on to it. Why the hell was Chris lying about the situation? Chris could've sent me straight off to a Blackhat's wicked tongue lashing, as well as a potential beating, if he provided my superiors with an honest answer.

-Why was Chris trying to cover for me?

"Well, this is your department, Mister Lebreau. I will defer to your expertise." Lt. Col Rionaldo replied, before turning back to me.

"Zane." Lt. Col Rionaldo inclined his head towards me.

"Sir." I answered, never breaking character.

"At ease, Warrant Officer."

My heels separated, and my palms connected above my lumbar. Both Lt. Col Rionaldo and Captain Lewis marched up onto the stage and made a heading for my person.

"Have you been keeping yourself together, kid?" Lt. Col Rionaldo gruffly asked when he came to stand before me.

"I'm still in one piece, sir." I replied, staring dead ahead. Lt. Col Rionaldo sighed.

"When I gave you the at ease, Warrant Officer… I meant that you could relax." Lt. Col Rionaldo shook his head.

I let out my pent up breath in a long wind, before I rolled my neck and shoulders loose.

"Warrant Officer." Captain Lewis inclined her head to me without revealing any hint of our previous trauma.

"Captain." I replied cautiously. Captain Lewis's lips sealed tight, and a glistening despair moistened the corners of her closed eyes.

I could feel a lump forming in my throat as our prior encounter came back to haunt us in this nearly empty studio. Back when TH had revealed the truth. Back when the Devil of Kalos had directed Captain Lewis's knife into my spine. Back when TH had mocked Captain Lewis in her agony, and played ignorant me against a victim of war.

"...I'm… I'm sorry about… I'm sorry." I managed, trying to blink away my own tears.

Captain Lewis started to collapse, just like she had three days past in Cerulean. Back when we'd both been tortured by the Eidolon King. Back when we'd both been stripped of our unswerving martial disciplines, and reduced to wounded humans.

"Do you two need a moment?" Lt. Col Rionaldo asked in a soft voice.

I wasn't expecting what happened next, but that didn't mean that I couldn't respond to it appropriately.

Captain Lewis fell against me with a gasp, as she buried her sobbing face into the shoulder of my coat.

...And I was holding close the cruelest Blackhat of them all, like a shaken son attempting to comfort his grieving mother.

"Mister Lebreau, if you'd accompany me, I'd like to discuss some changes that we'll need to make regarding your talking points." Lt. Col Rionaldo was as cool as a Persian, as he turned away from the two broken Rangers, and addressed the stunned Fuck-Nuts spectating this drama.

"I'm sorry, Zane… I'm sorry…" Captain Lewis whimpered as Lt. Col Rionaldo steered the dumbstruck Chris right out of his own studio.

"It's okay… It's alright…" I muttered, straightening out the Captain, and adjusting my own coat. Captain Lewis just looked at me with those wet eyes, swallowing back her grief and trying to comprehend this transition.

"Lou?" A tentative voice asked from the back stage.

"...You're always late to the party, aren't you Roscoe?" I chortled, tipping Captain Lewis's Beret off its roost with a flick of my wrist.

"Knock it off, Zane." Captain Lewis managed a watery chuckle, as she repositioned her black decorum.

Roscoe breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.

"So everything's cool between you two now?" Roscoe asked, a slight inflection of hope playing in his voice. Absolute silence followed that innocent query.

-Neither Captain Lewis nor I had definitive answer for him yet.

"...I'm still mad about what happened, Cap'n… I still feel like you betrayed me…" I started in a broken voice. That small light of hope in Captain Lewis's eyes began to fade away with a distant resignation.

"...But I… I know… that it's not your fault. And I know… that it isn't fair." I muttered in an undertone. Captain Lewis was regressing back into her usual stern self, meeting my exhausted eyes with that familiar cold glare.

"Well, you're still a dickhead, Zane. But maybe you're not the dickhead that I thought you were." Captain Lewis grunted at me. I snorted, and shook my head with a sigh.

"And I almost missed that rank tone, Cap'n. Now should we bring the Lieutenant-Colonel back in here?" I asked with a slight smile. Captain Lewis raised a radio to her chin.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Rionaldo? We're all clear." Captain Lewis reported.

The studio's audience doors opened, and both Chris and Lt. Col Rionaldo moved up the auditorium's central aisle to take their positions on the stage.

"Lieutenant Roscoe." Lt. Col Rionaldo addressed his subordinate with a curt nod.

"Sir." Roscoe replied, falling into the attention stance. Lt. Col Rionaldo stared at his little trio of Rangers, before the Blackhat CO drew a long and silent breath.

"...Well Zane, I was just discussing some of the events that are currently developing in High Command with our Mister Lebreau." Lt. Col Rionaldo turned to face me. Chris was looking something excited, while Roscoe started chuckling at the sidelines.

"Chris has just informed me that you're scheduled for a Gym Battle with the Military's own Lieutenant Jackie Surge next week. And as of this morning, High Command was petitioned by Vermilion's board of Military Governors for something of a inter-Armed-Forces competition." Lt. Col Rionaldo was smiling himself at this point.

"-Sir?" I asked, a slight edge of concern mingled within my curious tone.

"The Military has taken your Gym challenge pretty seriously, Ranger. So seriously that they just started duking it out with League for a new approach to Gym battles." Lt. Col Rionaldo's smile split into a grin.

"Are they worried about me sinking another League competition complex into the hollow earth again?" I asked, a cocky smile playing on my lips. The two male Blackhats and the lone Chris Lebreau began to chuckle.

"Your destructive reputation probably has something to do with it. Nevertheless, Bastard… High Command thinks that it would be good PR for the Operation, and a morale booster for our Rangers on the frontlines, if you were to accept the Military's proposed battle conditions." Lt. Col Rionaldo continued.

"What kind of battle conditions are being proposed by the Military?" I asked with an amused tilt to my head.

Lt. Col Rionaldo glanced over at Chris with a smug smile forming on the corners of his mouth.

"That's still being argued about within the League, but High Command has joined the Military Governors in their battle against the legislation. Let's just say that the design we're aiming for not only tests a Trainer's ability to compete… But also a Squad Commander's ability to lead under pressure." Lt. Col Rionaldo looked back at me with a sly expression on his face.

"Sounds interesting… Especially if the League is receiving the shaft from both the Military and the Corps." I grinned right back at the Blackhat CO.

"They're stuck in their ways, but the League is fighting a losing battle. The Military Governors have absolute authority in the Vermilion District. All we're trying to push through the legislation now is a recognition of legitimacy in their registry. Suffice to say, Ranger… It'll be a Gym Battle that no one has ever seen before. And it's going to generate a world of controversy across every battlefield from Vermilion City to Indigo Plateau." Lt. Col Rionaldo chuckled.

"Controversy is my middle name." I boasted, earning myself a whoop from Roscoe.

"I'm glad to hear it, Warrant Officer. Because this next bit I'm about to relate to you is most certainly controversial." An evil glint formed in Lt. Col Rionaldo eyes. I didn't say a thing. I was eagerly awaiting the next bit of controversial news with a jolly bounce to my heels.

"Now, because High Command doesn't feel that the Military is being particularly fair about pitting a Warrant Officer against a Lieutenant… They've decided to even the scales…" Lt. Col Rionaldo motioned to Captain Lewis.

"You see, it's just bad form for a Non-Commissioned Officer to square off against a Commissioned Officer. It's the perfect definition of bad form. And if Ranger High Command detests one thing above all else: it's bad form…" Captain Lewis approached Lt. Col Rionaldo with a thin black leather case, and stood at her CO's side with that case cordially presented to him at breast level.

"...So loosen the lapels and throw out your blocks, Ranger. Because as of this moment, you are no longer recognized as a Warrant Officer of the Corps." Lt. Col Rionaldo announced with a cool smug.

I was absolutely staggered when Captain Lewis snapped open the case's velvet interior, and revealed a pair of gold bar insignias alongside a Commissioned Officer's Balmoral.

"ATTEN-HUT!" Lieutenant Rionaldo shouted out, and my heels clicked together in perfect unison with the straightening of my posture. Spine perfectly lateral. Shoulders thrown back. Arms held rigid at my sides. Thumb tips positioned over the second knuckles of my curled index fingers. Jutting chin parallel with the ground. Eyes fixed dead ahead. Face set in expressionless stone.

Lt. Col Rionaldo took his sweet time staring down this lowly Ranger beneath him, before he popped loose my lapels and swept my double block insignias onto the floor. Scowling rank disgust at the G.I. apparel worn on my head, Lt. Col Rionaldo tore off my Beret, and tossed it aside without a second glance. Deftly lifting the first golden bar from Captain Lewis's case, the Blackhat CO fastened it to my left shoulder, before taking the second golden bar and fastening it to my right. Buttoning my lapels with swift and precise motions, Lt. Col Rionaldo glared at my bare scalp with disdain. Gingerly raising the Balmoral from its case, Lt. Col Rionaldo flexed the freshly pressed Beret open with his thumbs, before the Blackhat CO placed that red Balmoral upon my naked crown. Lt. Col Rionaldo adjusted the Balmoral's fit to the proper angle, and then stepped back in time with the clapping of my shoulders.

"At ease, Lieutenant." Captain Lewis gave the order as she closed the empty case.

My body readily answered to that spoken order. My posture shifted in accordance with a Commissioned Officer's received command.

"Congratulations, Second-Lieutenant Bastard." Lt. Col Rionaldo extended a hand to me. Three firm shakes at the elbows later, we released each other from the formal exchange, and the studio's surreal atmosphere mellowed out to a casual ambience.

"Seeing as you served as a Chief Warrant Officer before your promotion, your pay grade has been adjusted to the appropriate scale. Your salary is now on par with Roscoe's, and he had to put down two years as a Junior Commissioned Officer to earn it." Lt. Col Rionaldo smiled when he mentioned that last part.

"So I can afford to smoke those imported cigars like rolled chicory now?" I grinned at the disgruntled Roscoe, who raised a middle finger to me in reply.

"As well as the pay hike, your promotion is also accompanied by all the Commissioned Officer amenities. Allocating you private quarters at any Ranger Outposts you may visit; Full access to the Officer's Mess; Full access to the Officer's recreation facilities; Additional funding for travel expenses during extended leave; A cushy retirement package, and an extension of the G.I. bill's benefits. Welcome to the high-class, Zane." Lt. Col Rionaldo brought his hands together in the onset of a modest applause. Every individual in attendance put their palms together for the closure of this private ceremony.

"...I thought that it would take me years to earn my commission. I just made Chief Warrant Officer two months ago. How has High Command justified this promotion?" I asked, my voice growing soft.

"I said that it would be controversial, though if we're going to be honest, Zane? You already had all the credentials lined up, and according to your service record: you did earn it." Lt. Col Rionaldo's impatient tone hinted at an encroaching Blackhat departure. I raised my salute to the Lieutenant Colonel, and he answered it in kind.

"Lieutenant Roscoe, you're coming with me into the Gouge. There's a Mightyena problem south of Saffron that we're going to resolve on our return flight to Cerulean. Captain Lewis, Second-Lieutenant Bastard is all yours. Let's hustle, Rangers. We all have plenty of work ahead of us, and not much time left for doing it." Following those brief words, Lt. Col Rionaldo turned on a heel, and marched out of the studio with Lieutenant Roscoe hot on his tracks.

"Well done, Zane. This going to make the headlines for sure. Lieutenant Bastard versus Lieutenant Surge… I can already hear the phones ringing…" Chris murmured in wonderment.

"Whatever gets your rocks off, Chris. Captain Lewis, what are your orders, sir?" I turned from the misty eyed Fuck-Nuts and addressed my awaiting CO.

"No need to call them orders, Zane. Come on. I'm gonna introduce you to an old friend of mine." Captain Lewis pivoted towards the studio's exit, and I followed at her shoulder without even wishing Chris a heartfelt miserable day.

"Here's your dog and Munchlax. Roscoe had them boxed up for you before the ceremony." Captain Lewis handed me Mac and Cortez's pokeballs as we headed out into the foggy Vermilion noon.

"Great. There goes an hour of Mac's daily pokeball incarceration time." I grumbled, fastening both of the pokeballs to my belt.

"Must be exciting, training a servicemon from infancy." Captain Lewis stated in a dry voice.

"Exciting my ass. I've been itching to murder Mac ever since ACE handed him to me, and that longing has only grown all the worse. Now who is this friend of yours?" I grunted as we set off north towards Vermilion's Military Office precinct.

"A CO that I served under back in the war. One Lieutenant Hewitt Jackson. But you might know him better by his stage moniker." Captain Lewis replied.

"Really? So he's in showbiz then?" I asked. Captain Lewis snorted in derision.

"Yeah, and he's none too happy about it." The Blackhat Captain explained.

"So if he's not known as Lieutenant Hewitt Jackson, then what do they call him?" I asked. I was already shaking my head in exasperation when I considered the prospect of exchanging pleasantries with one of the Military's aging show dogs. Captain Lewis turned to me with the barest hint of a smile lifting one stern corner of her mouth, before she elected to answer my indolent question.

"Like I said, you've heard of him. Lieutenant Hewitt Jackson. AKA: Lieutenant Jackie Surge."

…

Lieutenant "Jackie" Surge. The Lightning American.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised to recall that "Jackie Surge" isn't his real name.

But "Lt. Surge" is the name that everyone in Kanto praises, and everyone in Johto abhors.

Yeah, Lt. Surge has himself a pretty diverse spectrum of notoriety. So how did this cat become so famous? Was it Lt. Surge's ascent to the Tri-Flame rank in Indigo League's 1,063rd Seasonal Finals? Is it Lt. Surge's freakish size and macho musculature modeling? Is it Lt. Surge's status as one of Kanto's three double-decade long reigning Gym Leaders?

Is it Lt. Surge's status as a war hero?

The answer: Yes.

Lt. Surge is one of Indigo's rare Tri-Flames. Lt. Surge has been featured on every annual cover of Mass Plus bodybuilding magazine since time immemorable. And along with Blaine Breitbarth and Giovanni Delimonto, Lt. Surge has served Kanto as one of its eight Gym Leaders for over twenty unbroken years.

But what separates Lt. Surge from his fellow Kantonese Gym Leaders, and indeed, virtually every other League certified Trainer: Is his history.

Hewitt Donnell Jackson is living history.

So that means he's a war hero then? Some might call it a stretch, but even those who would contest Lt. Surge's status as Kanto's patriotic vanguard wouldn't dare besmirch the legend's history.

I mean, it isn't like Lt. Surge saved Kanto or anything…

-At least not singlehandedly.

In order to adequately relate the tale to anyone foreign to the Indigo Confederacy, we have to take a little field trip forty-six years into the past. We have to go back to a time when the Indigo Confederacy didn't exist, and the dream of an multinational unification was nothing short of laughable.

We have to go all the way back to when the Lightning American took his first footsteps into Kanto.

Lt. Surge is a naturalized citizen of Kanto. He was born in Unova, amidst one of the countless bloody shifts in that nation's regime. His parents, being the smart motherfuckers that they were, knew what accompanied their nation's frequent coups. So when Unova's old Fuhrer was shot dead by the new Fuhrer, both of Hewitt Jackson's parents absconded on a Vermilion City-bound cargo ship, before the new Fuhrer could announce his predictable and genocidal reformation campaign.

The Unovian couple left everything they owned behind in Unova, and fled that hellish nation with nothing more than their lives, and their one-year old son, Hewitt Donnell Jackson.

After the family of Unovian refugees had been approved for Kantonese citizenship, Hewitt Jackson had himself a relatively standard Vermilion childhood. Which is to say, not a very pleasant upbringing. Regardless of his family's status as citizens, Hewitt Jackson was still a foreigner in a militarized city-state. And of all the foreign nations that Hewitt Jackson had the audacity to hail from, Hewitt Jackson had been born in Unova.

-Which at the time, was only one step above being Johto born.

Nevermind the fact that Hewitt Jackson's first conscious memories were of his homestead, Kanto. Or that Hewitt Jackson's family had fled the violence associated with their nation and its people. Nevermind the fact that Hewitt Jackson's family had renounced their homeland in a degrading exercise of conformity, and made every effort to contribute to the nation that had adopted them.

Nope. Fuck empathy. Fuck rationality. Fuck exercising that good old fashioned sense of humanity. Hewitt Jackson had been born in Unova, which meant that Hewitt Jackson had been born a blood drinking savage just like every other soul born in Unova.

So Hewitt Jackson was treated like a blood drinking savage, despite his every attempt to dissuade his fellow Kantonese citizens of that unjust notion.

To read the biographies, Hewitt Jackson signed on with Kantonese Military at fourteen to prove that he wasn't a Unovian savage.

To hear Lt. Surge say it for himself, he forfeited to the Military's service at fourteen, because he'd given up on trying to convince people that he wasn't a barbarian from Unova.

But by joining the Military, and committing himself to the Kantonese cause, Hewitt Jackson proved to both himself, and his countrymen: that even if he was Unova born…

...Hewitt Jackson was still a Kantonese patriot, first and foremost.

In times of war, it takes one hell of a meritorious action to differentiate a single soldier from every other unit in the field. It takes one critical act of heroism to garner national attention and public interest. While the opportunities for minor heroics are innumerable in times of war: the term "heroism" is synonymous with "suicide" among soldiers, meaning that the wise avoid heroism and the ambitious succumb to it. Yet despite the odds, Hewitt Jackson was able to accomplish that nigh-impossible feat, and survive it, only a few short years after he had joined up with the Boomshanks.

Kanto's 79th Airborne Shock Trooper Division earned their nickname, "The Boomshanks" from the most commonly accrued injury in their line of work: Multiple comminuted fractures to the tibia, femur, and vertebra sustained from a tactical jump gone awry. Leaping from the back of a low flying, high velocity Skarmory without a parachute or any landing assistance is a dangerous maneuver all on its own…

...But unsurprisingly: trying to calculate a window for the jump amidst a hail of lethal projectiles adds a plethora of unpleasant variables to the otherwise delicate process.

Yep, The Boomshanks earned their nickname because they considered spontaneously exploding legs preferable to getting shot down by the Johtonese Anti-Air batteries.

And that was just deployment. Warfare entered a whole new level of insanity once the Boomshanks hit the field.

Because when they were boots on the ground, legs broken or not…

...The Boomshanks were some highly mobile and hyper lethal motherfuckers.

Sporting Alakazams for short range quantum entanglement and extra-sensory awareness; Packing Electrodes for blitzing electromagnetic assaults; Hustling the pre-Waterloo Saboteur equivalents into optimum detonation range; And grizzled with Kanto's most extensive of Special Operations training regimens: the Boomshanks wreaked havoc behind enemy lines in the ultimate practice of guerilla warfare.

The Boomshanks did everything that no other single division could. HVT elimination, special reconnaissance, espionage trafficking, booby trapping, tactical bombing, air interdiction, and virtually every other dirty tactic in the wartime guidebook; these bloodthirsty bastards opened up a business wherever they landed, and started purveying absolute hell to any and all Johtonese soldiers who were unfortunate enough to be stationed at the Boomshanks' LZ.

But even serving as a member of Kanto's Elite Special Forces didn't put Hewitt Jackson's ugly mug on the frontpage of the Indigo Declare.

His name didn't even show up in the wartime section of the newspaper until just eight months before the war's conclusion.

But when Hewitt Jackson's face did prop itself up on the front page of Kanto's every media outlet, it wasn't under his birth name.

It was under his Boomshank callsign:

-Surge.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson was a combat engineer, specializing in communications tapping and disruption, as well as localized electromagnetic pulse attacks. The Boomshanks' suicidal missions were not devoid of sophistication. When a single platoon is charged with the incapacitation and elimination of an astronomically larger enemy force…

...Playing it smart is the only strategy worth a prayer of success.

Predating his ascent to notoriety, Lt. Hewitt Jackson had himself a rather lustrous wartime record. Serving as the commanding officer of Kanto's most proficient special forces unit may not have made the newspapers, but it was an accolade justified for only the finest Kanto had to offer. Praised by senior command for his unit's reliability, and adored by the soldiers who served with him, Lt. Hewitt Jackson was a shining star on Kanto's frontline.

But what separated this one twinkling light from every other beacon of hope persisting through the shadow of that war, was one critical act of heroism.

Kare No Shinsei Kōtei No Hyōketsu.

-Or as we like to call it in Kanto: "The Imperial Storm."

The Imperial Storm was Johto's last ditch effort to free the contested Argent Mountain range from the stalemate that it had hosted since the war's early days, and to claim that terran barricade for the Imperial Legions. Should this mountainous battlefield be taken by one side or the other…

...Then the greatest defense known throughout the wars would be denied the loser, and the victorious could mount their offense on the naked core of their enemy, unimpeded by the treacherous natural topography.

The Argent Mountain range has always been the greatest foe known in the Kanto-Johto wars. It has never once been conquered by Kanto or Johto, and its insurmountable shield has served as the ultimate deterrence for both sides throughout the sways of war. One side cannot defeat the other before those mountains have fallen. Marshalling an army across that hostile expanse is a risky business all on its own…

...But once you cross the familiar peak and into the foreign lands beyond...

...There's an opposing army dug a millennia deep into the unknown country, all lying in wait to greet your bold advance in kind.

The entire Argent Mountain range is a militarized fortification on both sides of its steep inclines.

West is Johto.

East is Kanto.

And ne'er should the line betwixt ever be redrawn.

But Johto was tired of the endless stalemates. The Emperor of Johto himself had named that stretch of rocks "Bitch," and gambled his entire army in the vainglory hopes of overwhelming the Kanto side with an obstinate invasion, which was simply too foolish for anyone to see coming.

And it might have succeeded, if not for a certain Boomshank Sapper Lieutenant tapping into an encrypted communique between the Imperial War Council and their Legion Commanders.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson.

The first soul in Kanto to learn of the Emperor's intent.

Of course, Lt. Jackson took this information to the Kantonese Department of Defense. And of course, Kanto's Department of Defense discredited it.

The Emperor wasn't dumb or desperate enough to try overwhelming both the Argent Mountain range and the Kantonese Military with a blunt display of force. No one gambles that high for odds so obviously low. But Lt. Hewitt Jackson was convinced that the threat was real. Call it a soldier's instinct. Anyone in a uniform can sympathize.

And Lt. Hewitt Jackson was presented with a terrible choice:

To follow his superior's directive, and return to base for redeployment…

...Or to commit mutiny on a gut instinct, and marshal his platoon against the entirety of the Imperium's Legions.

If I was presented with the same choice, I honestly don't know if I could have made the same decision that Lt. Hewitt Jackson did.

But Lt. Hewitt Jackson isn't your typical human being.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson is a Hero…

...And he proved that when he made the hard decision.

The 79th Airborne Shock Trooper Division.

Everyone of those twenty-eight souls were Goddamn Heroes.

Because, despite the overwhelming and hopelessly dismal odds…

...Those twenty-eight men and women saved their country when they led Kanto's unauthorized counterassault on Johto's Imperial Storm.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson and his unit sabotaged every possible avenue that Johto's encroaching army could utilize in their invasion. Going deeper into enemy territory than any uniformed unit had in the entirety of the war, Lt. Hewitt Jackson strategized his attack on the enemy's greatest weakness:

-Their size.

Moving an army on foot across a mountain range and into hostile territory on short notice requires one hell of a coordinated effort from such an army's command, and Lt. Hewitt Jackson knew it.

Lt. Jackson knew damn well that twenty-eight soldiers weren't gonna put a dent in such an force's momentum with an all out assault, so Lt. Hewitt Jackson focused his attack on waylaying the legions' mobilization, rather than foolishly attempting to kill as many soldiers as they could.

Plying his skills in tactical deployment and communications disruption, Hewitt Jackson and his unit did everything they could to scramble the Legions' advance while Kanto's Department of Defense fought off their shock at the confirmation of Johto's invasion and mobilized their own army to counter the force crawling up the western side of the Argent range.

...And the Boomshanks bought the Kantonese Military the time they required for a proper counterassault.

Only four of the Boomshanks returned to the eastern front alive. The survivors of that flight through hell never breathed a word to the public of what happened on the western side of that mountain range.

But the Johtonese soldiers weaved all manner of tall tales and ghost stories about the phantom platoon that plagued them in the Imperial Storm, and they still only dare whisper the name of the blond giant who led Kanto's supernatural force.

Less than an eighth of Johto's legions scaled the eastern peak intact, before a dismayed and shaken Legion Commander fell upon his own sword when the entire Kanto army demanded his surrender.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson became immortal when the press learned of his maverick act.

-And all of Kanto mourned the loss of the greatest Hero we'd known in that war.

Those four Boomshanks who returned broken and haunted to their homeland?

...Lt. Hewitt Jackson wasn't among them.

And everyone of the four remaining Boomshanks broke down in tears when petitioned for the fate of their Commanding Officer.

Kanto was left to assume that Lt. Hewitt Jackson had made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, and the emotional outcome of his heroic endeavor paved the way for the League's multinational political maneuver.

The war had cost both Kanto and Johto so much, that neither side felt compelled to risk losing anymore. Eight months after the Imperial Storm's rise and fall, the Armistice was signed, and the foundations of a Confederacy were formed.

But it wasn't until three years after the signing of the Armistice that Kanto learned of their Hero's fate.

...And when we did…

...Kanto just about scrapped the Armistice in favor of another war.

Lt. Hewitt Jackson was still alive.

...And he was being held prisoner at the most infamous of Johto's political detainment facilities.

-I'm going no deeper into what happened after that. It's a bit too personal for a good friend of mine, and I will respect his humble wishes. But suffice to say, we managed to get our Hero back from Johto without having to fire a shot.

...We just didn't get the same man that we had hailed as a Master of War.

…

You've gotta love the Military.

We'd enjoyed thirty years of peace with our neighbor, designed a unified congress between our two nations for the purpose of preventing future wars, raised the first generation in a millennia to experience a life free from the firsthand horrors of warfare…

And according to the Military Governors of Vermilion, it could all end tomorrow.

Be prepared. Stand ready. Eyes on the front. Safeties disengaged. The enemy is all around us. They're waiting for us to drop our guard. They're waiting to finish what they started so long ago.

-Paranoia is the mindset of every red-blooded patriot.

So to ensure that Kanto's troops are idling within their patriotic expectations, the Military Governors of Vermilion hold a weekly State of the Arms Address to inspire their troops with a healthy dose of patriotism.

We were the only two berets in that sea of Class A side caps. We were all standing at attention in Vermilion's Central Command courtyard. Every uniform's eyes were facing the Commander in Chief's decorated podium. The entire battalion was looking up at the Supreme Commanders of the Military's various branches, all while bathing in the propaganda that was erupting in a fiery tirade from Chief General Chevy's own mouth.

There was a swarm of nearly a hundred G.I. Magnemites buzzing their joules away as they generated a magnetic deterrence field around the Military's exposed hierarchy. Nothing short of a projectile flung by a rail gun could punch through the Magnemites' protective magnetic field, and should any would-be assassins forgo the conventional weaponry in favor of a sound and simplistic biological attack...

Well, the twenty or so Seeker Class Alakazams in the backdrop were on stand by, just in case their psionics were required to redirect any concussive forces or virulent vapors away from the Commander in Chief.

...And let's not forget the solid battalion of servicemen, trained to react to a hostile intent with a brutal and efficient response, standing at attention in the courtyard.

Security has always been tight in Vermilion, but of these later years, the Military Governors have taken their precautions even more seriously. Ever since their last Commander in Chief was done in by a Separatist attack on one of his routine inspections of Fuchsia…

...Yeah, the Military really doesn't want the Kurosawa Ninjas to score anymore high priority kills.

Yet regardless of the updated defensive scene, the Commander in Chief's message was the same spiel that it had always been.

-Blatant, hawkish, unbridled and shameless fear-mongering and war-praise.

"Unbelievable..." I muttered to Captain Lewis in a underbreath. The Blackhat beside me said nothing, nor made any indication that she had acknowledged my breach of etiquette.

"...We're thirty years past the signing of the Armistice, but here in Vermilion: the war is still raging on." I grumbled.

Captain Lewis snorted.

"You think he's talking about Johto, don't you Zane?" Captain Lewis sounded amused. I swallowed beside her, as I considered the insinuations of my CO's input.

"Johto is our ally now. We don't need to fear them anymore. But there are more nations to this ravaged world than just Kanto and Johto, Zane… And not all of them are on friendly terms with the Indigo Confederacy." Captain Lewis murmured.

"You really think that Unova would attempt another invasion?" I asked, curious as to my CO's thought process.

"That's inevitable. If Unova ever manages to unite beneath a Fuhrer again… Well, Indigo is on the map, just like every other nation. But right now, I wouldn't be worried about Unova…" Captain Lewis inclined her head ever so slightly.

"Who then? Hoenn? Their fricken economy depends on tourism from the other nations. How would a war benefit Hoenn? They're the closest nation, proximity wise, to Indigo. If not Unova or Hoenn…" I trailed off when I realized where Captain Lewis was heading.

"You don't keep up with global events, do you Zane?" Captain Lewis violated etiquette to glance over at me with a severe look in her eyes.

"...We're on good terms with the Concordant. When you consider how similar the Concordant's relationship with Unova is to Indigo's relationship with Unova: it's not too hard to believe that Sinnoh and Kalos are damn near our allies-" I began.

"-And all of that could change in tangent with one nation's regime." Captain Lewis cut me off in a weary voice, as a severe look settled in her cold eyes.

I went dead silent. Captain Lewis continued to stare at me for a moment, before her eyes joined mine on the front, and she murmured one last piece of dreadful advice.

"You really need to look this shit up, Zane. You're travelling alongside the possibility of another war..." Captain Lewis informed me with a quiet voice.

Okay…

Now I was really regretting my haunted company.

And that cold fear writhing in my gut was catering to the overt warning relayed in the Commander in Chief's paranoia inducing lecture.

…

As soon as the Commander in Chief had finished his formal drivel, the order was given for every uniform in attendance to return to their posts.

But as far as the two Berets were concerned…

-The Rangers don't answer to the Military, unless a joint forces deployment is ordained by Indigo's Congress.

While the Skinheads marched out of the yard in formation, the two lonely Berets went against the uniformed horde on route with the courtyard's highest loft. I knew where Captain Lewis was leading me to…

-Cause I could see him from the courtyard center.

He's pretty hard to miss. Even when he's surrounded by APUs, he'll still tower over all the Military's bulky armor by a solid head and shoulders.

-Lt. Jackie Surge.

Vermilion's local idol, and the Hero of Kanto.

Captain Lewis didn't even pause in her stride when the APUs formed a defensive perimeter around the loft, intent on dissuading any encroachers away from the Military's Supreme Commanders with an intimidating display of force.

I came up short when those huge fucking autocannons aligned on my person, but Captain Lewis walked right up to the gun barrels without even looking at the metal coated suckers behind them.

"Get out of my way, tinman." A pissy Blackhat growled when an armored gauntlet rose to push her away.

"Holy shit… Lou?! Is that you?!" One big, blonde, muscular behemoth parted the metal wall on an awestruck interception with my CO.

"It's been awhile, Hugh." Captain Lewis still sounded cold as hell when she addressed her old commander.

"Holy shit! Bugger the fuck off you clowns! You just about riled up the meanest broad in a uniform!" Lt. Surge clapped his ham sized hands together and fist pumped with a guffaw when he dismissed his personal entourage of APUs.

"Ol' fucking Lou!" Lt. Surge greeted Captain Lewis in the most incomprehensible manner imaginable. That giant galoot wrapped both of his tree trunk thick arms around my CO, and lifted her off her feet in a whirling bear hug.

"Why didn't you come sooner, you old bag?!" Lt. Surge cried out in joy as he fondly crushed Captain Lewis in his arms.

-Not the greeting that I would have been expecting.

"Put me down, Lieutenant. Now." Captain Lewis's muffled voice growled from Lt. Surge's collar.

"I missed you too... You cold hearted bitch." Lt. Surge laughed as he dropped Captain Lewis back onto her feet.

It was quite a distance to fall from. Captain Lewis looked like a Goddamn doll being squashed in those huge fucking arms.

"Been keeping well, I hope?" Captain Lewis grumbled as she straightened out her uniform.

"I feel like absolute shit. Thanks for asking." Lt. Surge chuckled, ruffing up Captain Lewis's black beret with his monster of a hand.

"Just do yourself a favor and croak already, Hugh." Captain Lewis muttered.

"Shit. I missed that heartfelt sympathy of yours too." Lt. Surge guffawed, shaking his watermelon sized head with a smile.

"And who is this cute little fella?!" Lt. Surge took note of me, and made towards my location with both of his arms spread wide in welcome.

"Stand down, big guy. I don't hug Rhydons." I damn near took a step back when those colossal arms started to fall around my person.

"If you break my subordinate, Hugh… You and I are gonna develop some new problems." Captain Lewis added from the background.

"Aww… Is he delicate?" Lt. Surge mockingly fauned over me.

I decide to make the fourth stupidest move of my life right then and there.

"Lieutenant Zane Bastard of the Ranger Corps." I extended my hand to Lt. Surge in a dignified greeting. I knew damn well what was going to happen to my offered limb when I did so too.

"Lieutenant Bastard, huh? Last I heard, you was just a Warrant Officer…" Lt. Surge sounded amiable enough, as he proceeded to destroy my arm in the most brutal handshake that I have ever received.

"Times change, Lieutenant Surge…" I kept a smirk plastered firmly on my face as the giant opposed to me did his damnedest to break my arm without snapping bone.

"Yeah, they do. They most certainly do…" Lt. Surge murmured as he released my forearm and digits from his agonizing grip.

"...Are you two finished comparing dicks yet?" Captain Lewis growled after an extended silence had passed between Lt. Surge's and my staring contest.

"Not until I get that Badge." My nasty grin worked its way up to my ears, yet I refused to break ocular contact or bat an eyelash. Lt. Surge responded in kind, as his own evil fucking grin split his huge face in toothy halves.

"Shit. That means I'll be an old man in the grave before we resolve this then." Lt. Surge replied.

"So are you ladies just gonna stand there, staring all longingly into each other's eyes for the rest of the day?" Captain Lewis grumbled.

-That line ended the pissing contest.

"Heh. He's just as dumb as I thought he be." Lt. Surge tossed in his two Sandz with an approving look in his eye.

"And I thought that you'd be bigger. Guess we'll both have to live with the disappointment." I retorted. Lt. Surge just chuckled.

"Well enough about you, purty boy. How the hell have you been, Lou?!" Lt. Surge never missed a fucking beat. That asshole turned his back on me as though everything that had just transpired between us was nothing more than an uninteresting formality.

"Been better myself, Hugh. Thanks for asking." Captain Lewis grunted.

"The bush monkeys been keeping you busy?" Lt. Surge's voice softened everso slightly, while my back stiffened up nice and tight.

-The Greenbacks are NOT Bush Monkeys. Period. The. Mother. Fucking. End.

"No more than usual. You mind if we ditch the public setting?" Captain Lewis asked.

"Do we have to bring Lieutenant Scrub with us?" Lt. Surge sounded annoyed when he mentioned yours truly.

"He's part of it, Hugh. Yeah, we're bringing Lieutenant Scrub too." Captain Lewis replied.

"Bush Monkey Scrub, reporting for duty, sirs." I growled to both my Blackhat CO and Kanto's biggest War Hero.

"Angsty little fucker, ain't he?" Lt. Surge was shooting me a sour look.

"Don't fuck with him, Hugh. He's dumber than he looks." Captain Lewis warned.

-Thank you, Captain Lewis.

"Shit. And I was already hating his guts. Come on Lou, I'll take you and Lieutenant Scrub to a private location." Lt. Surge grumbled, as he waved to the two berets in his shadow, indicating that we were to follow him as he plodded his bulk off towards the civilian sector.

…

"Don't tell me that you're still only drinking orange juice, girl." Lt. Surge grunted when he sat down at the bar's innermost table.

"With a sprig of wintergreen." Captain Lewis grudgingly replied.

"What would you do if I snuck some vermouth into your orange juice?" Lt. Surge grinned at my CO. Captain Lewis fixed him with the coldest eyes that I'd ever seen on a human face, before she coolly offered her old CO an icy response.

"...What happened the last time you tried that, Hugh?" Captain Lewis growled.

"Oh, I haven't forgotten. I still have nightmares about that night." Lt. Surge shuddered with a smile.

The bartender himself came down from his roost to take our orders. The atypical service must have had something to do with the local celebrity sitting at our table.

"The usual, Ted." Lt. Surge grunted to the bartender.

"An orange juice." Captain Lewis muttered.

"Your peatiest of whiskies, keep it off the rocks." I said, looking over at our host.

Lt. Surge was eying me oddly, as the bartender took off to fill our drinks.

"...So who told you that was my favorite drink?" Lt. Surge asked in a dark voice. I quirked an eyebrow at the Lightning American.

"That was the first legal drink I shared with my Viridian Colonel. That's my favorite drink. You had nothing to do with it." I replied in an irritated tone. Lt. Surge just kept staring at me, though this wasn't another one of his ocular challenges.

Hewitt Jackson was trying to figure me out.

"Ted seems to be doing well." Captain Lewis commented, breaking off Lt. Surge's pensive gaze.

"Yeah, that old bastard has done pretty well for himself. Better than most of our old platoon." Lt. Surge chuckled. Captain Lewis leaned back into her booth.

"So how many of us are left?" Captain Lewis asked. Lt. Surge just snorted.

"Why don't you write us all a letter sometime, Lou? Hell, after the shit we went through together, the least you could do is let us all know that you're still alive." Lt. Surge chuckled.

"...I didn't think that they'd want to hear from me." Captain Lewis answered in a quiet voice.

"Why the hell wouldn't they?" Lt. Surge quirked a brow over towards Captain Lewis, while a bemused smile lifted his lips.

"Well, I did walk out on you all-" Captain Lewis began. Lt. Surge sputtered his laughter at Captain Lewis's self conscious remark.

"Yeah, the whole gang walked out on me, Lou. I was the only one dumb enough to keep running with the Boomshanks. Everyone else wisened up and bailed on the suicide detail as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Nobody begrudges you for signing on with the Railbore Division, girl. Least of all me." Lt. Surge settled back into the booth beside Captain Lewis, as the bartender returned to our table with the drinks.

"...So that's why I haven't heard a whisper from you in… Oh, what has it been now?" Lt. Surge muttered pensively.

"...Thirty years." Captain Lewis whispered. Lt. Surge snorted again and shook his blond head.

"Twenty-seven. I remember getting a letter from you when the slant eyes sent me back home." Lt. Surge smiled softly. Captain Lewis started shrinking even further into the booth.

"...I forgot about that letter…" Captain Lewis murmured.

"Heh. I read your poem every morning. Helps remind me that the war is over…" Lt. Surge's voice trembled ever so slightly near the end.

"...I heard that Chester was released from the institute." Captain Lewis was trying to change the topic, but she seemed hesitant to name her old squad mates. Or maybe she feared to learn of their fates.

"Yeah, I got in contact with him the instant the news reached me. Offered him a job. Wanted to help him get back on his feet. But I should've known better. There's just too many foul memories here in Vermilion to warrant him risking another breakdown…" Lt. Surge muttered.

"Rodriguez?" Captain Lewis asked.

"Committed suicide eight years ago. Called me up two days before he pulled the trigger on himself. Had a fucking normal conversation with me. Not one hint of what he was planning to do. Fucking asshole should've gotten some help, if he couldn't have talked to me about it..." Lt. Surge cleared his voice, stowing some volatile emotion that threaten to rise from his memories.

"Sanders?" Captain Lewis continued.

"Sent me a picture of his second granddaughter just a month ago. He's doing well. Married that girl he hooked up with in Viridian on our platoon's first winter leave. They've been together ever since the war ended. Had four children. All of them are married and outta the homestead now. He's proud as punch of them all too." Lt. Surge smiled fondly, his distant eyes warming with some small joy.

"Kristie?" Captain Lewis asked. Lt. Surge sighed.

"She don't talk with me either. Can't blame her at all. That girl was never cut out for the inhumane shit that we use to pull on a daily basis. Nope. Kristie doesn't want anything to do with you, me, or the Military ever again." Lt. Surge breathed out.

"Emmets?" Captain Lewis asked.

"Dead. Heart attack got that tough sumbitch three years ago. Of all the Goddamn shit to take out our old Tower of Emmets, it had to be a fucking heart attack." Lt. Surge grunted, taking the first lick of his scotch.

"...I don't know if I want to hear about what happened to the rest…" Captain Lewis whispered. Lt. Surge put his scotch down on the table, and stared at the whirling gold liquor in his glass.

"...So what do I tell them about you, Lou?" Lt. Surge asked in a soft voice. Captain Lewis stared off into the empty space above my left shoulder. Those eyes never wavered as their light dimmed, and the indestructible Blackhat between them began to fall into herself, as she sought an answer worthy of her every friend.

"...Just tell them that I'm fine." Captain Lewis murmured. Lt. Surge clapped a massive hand against his brow, and began to massage his eyes with a forefinger and thumb.

"No one is gonna believe it, Lou. Especially not me." Lt. Surge's voice dipped low. The old soldier sighed, and repositioned both of his overlapping hands beneath his leaning chin as he stared across the table at yours truly.

"...So what does Sparky over here have to do with all this?" Lt. Surge was eying me something suspiciously.

I was perfectly silent. I was perfectly still. I couldn't believe that this personal exchange had just transpired before me.

-I wasn't supposed to be sitting here, listening to these two Veterans, as they spoke of their dear brothers in arms and of the fates that had separated them.

I wasn't a part of the history that tied these two people so closely together, and seeing that inextricable bond reaffirmed in all of its subtle familiarity filled me with an overwhelming sense of profanity.

"...Lieutenant Bastard has served under my command for… How many months has it been now, Zane?" Captain Lewis was still using that soft tone when she addressed me.

"A little over three months." I whispered. Captain Lewis sighed, and lowered her eyes.

"I've seen him… Well, I saw the aftermath of him taking on a Snorlax with nothing more than a knife. I watched this kid fight off a Venomoth induced lung infection when he had only half a lung left. I've seen this little turd throw everything he had on the table for a handful of soldiers twice now. I've seen what happens when his gamble succeeds. I've seen what happens when it fails. And I've seen him struggle like hell to move on from the rough times…" Captain Lewis's voice faded, and I was left frozen numb in my booth, unable to blink or even turn my head away from the Blackhat sitting across from me.

"You're not gonna like this, Hugh… You're not gonna like this at all… But I think that I found the Ranger's version of you." Captain Lewis whispered.

I couldn't have felt anymore shocked if Lt. Surge had decided to follow up Captain Lewis's remark by tazing me.

-How the hell could Captain Lewis compare me to him?!

Lt. Surge's dead eyes were fixed on me. He wasn't moving either. I'd never felt so small in my life, standing beneath this giant's measured gaze.

"Everybody, clear out. Finish your drinks fast and take the party elsewhere. This bar is closing up for the day." Lt. Surge announced to the other patrons. A clicking of heels sounded in a chorus, as the attending squads of servicemen raised their salutes to Kanto's Hero.

"Yes sir, Lieutenant Surge!" A Goddamn Lt. Colonel adhered the order of a lowly Lieutenant, and marshalled his regiment into the task of ushering the civis out.

"Ted, would you mind taking inventory now? I'll hold down the bar, and you can head out as soon as you're finished in the cellar. Don't worry about the cleanup. I'll take care of it." Lt. Surge turned to the bartender with this address, who readily whipped the towel off his shoulder, and dropped it on the counter.

"Sure thing, Hugh. You give me a call when your guests head out. I'll come back to help you with the upkeep." The bartender was a veteran soldier alright. You could see it in the poise that Ted assumed when he addressed his former CO. The crowd slowly meandered out of the bar and into the streets, while Ted headed over towards a door marked for Employees Only.

"By the way, Lou… It was good to see you again." Ted smiled over his shoulder at my Captain, before popping open the backroom and making his way past the threshold.

"It was good to see you again too, Ted." Captain Lewis found a measure of strength to reinforce her voice when she addressed her old squadmate, right before Ted closed the door on the now silent bar.

"Now…" Lt. Surge clapped his hands together as his solemn self rose from the booth.

"...What can I get you lot to drink? And Lou, if you say another Goddamn orange juice, so help me now, I will spike the living shit out it." Lt. Surge casually announced.

"...I'll have a brandy." Captain Lewis murmured in an undertone.

"Kid, what are you having?" Lt. Surge looked right at me when he asked that question.

It was gonna take a moment for me to answer. I was still rolling from both the blasphemy and shock of Captain Lewis's insinuation.

"...Gin and tonic. With ice and lime." I finally managed.

"Righto. Be right back." Lt. Surge grunted, as he headed off towards the bar.

"...Do you commandeer every bar like this?" I asked, when my breath had finally returned. Lt. Surge looked pretty busy slicing limes for my gin and tonic, but the motherfucker knew how to whip out a drink lickety-split.

"I probably could. Never tried commandeering a bar before." Lt. Surge dropped the ice cubes into a pair of glasses, and topped the lime off with a sprig of wintergreen.

"But this-?" I began, as Lt. Surge returned to our table with a brandy and a pair of tonics.

"-This? This is my bar." Lt. Surge cut me off with a cocky smile.

"I like to think of it as my retirement home. Should my retirement ever be authorized by the Commander and Chief, that is." Lt. Surge chuckled, passing Captain Lewis her brandy, before sliding me my tonic.

"You like the harsh drinks, don't you kid?" Lt. Surge asked with a friendly smile, as he sipped from his own gin and tonic.

"He just likes his liquor. It doesn't matter if it's cheap or if it's harsh." Captain Lewis decided that she could answer for me.

"Shit… Lou, why can't you ever find any respectable people to call friends?" Lt. Surge laughed.

"I can't stand respectable people." Captain Lewis grunted. Lt. Surge just snorted.

"Well, that explains why you joined the Ranger Corps… You had me damn well worried when I found out about you jumping out of one war and straight into another." Lt. Surge started to mellow out again. Even so, he was only sounding slightly serious when he referenced Captain Lewis's career choice.

"You know that I don't like to talk about it, Hugh…" Captain Lewis murmured. Lt. Surge just sighed.

"I know that you don't. But Walter was a good kid. He wouldn't have approved of his sister trying to kill herself over something stupid either." Lt. Surge grumbled.

"Leave it be, Hugh…" Captain Lewis's voice was breaking, and my watering eye found the bubbles in my tonic the single most interesting thing to stare down at.

"...You still won't get it off your chest, will you Lou?" Lt. Surge spoke in an undertone. There was a long and heavy pause, before my Captain finally saw fit to answer her old CO.

"...Just leave it be."

Lt. Surge was staring at the bubbles in his tonic too, as he lifted the glass to eye level.

"...Well… So much for that…" Lt. Surge sighed, before throwing back his head, and tossing the drink down his throat.

"...Do we have to talk about the kid?" Lt. Surge grumbled, going back to his scotch.

"I know that you don't like talking about yourself, Hugh… But I think you could get through to Zane. He's not too far off from where you are now." Captain Lewis murmured. A rumbling breath formed in Lt. Surge's throat, as exasperation drove my host to patience's end.

"Okay. Want my advice, kid?" Lt. Surge leaned over the table towards me. I swallowed when those fierce eyes locked on mine.

"...Get out of the Corps now. You did your service. You gave them more than they deserved. Now go home and make a life for yourself, before your fucking High Command chains you to their fucked up political games." Lt. Surge growled in my face.

"He's already there, Hugh. I meant advice on how to deal with it." Captain Lewis didn't sound any more joyous than her former CO when she spoke up again. Lt. Surge threw his hands in the air, and shook his head despondently.

"Why in the name of God almighty… Do we keep putting kids on chessboards?" Lt. Surge sounded furious.

-And I was feeling absolutely terrified.

"How much did you give them, Zane? How much have you lost fighting for their cause?" Lt. Surge was losing it. Practiced civility was the only thing holding him back from destroying his own bar.

"...Nothing that I wasn't willing to part with." I growled.

Lt. Surge laughed in my face.

"Right… Let's see here…" Lt. Surge cut his cackles short, and dug a crumpled sheet of paper out of his digital camo BDU's vest pocket.

"Service tag: W-2110573. Field technician, combat engineer, special operative, yadah, yadah, yadah…" Lt. Surge was reciting a copy of my service record. Go figure the Military would have given him his homework to do in regards to our upcoming Gym Battle.

"Oh here it is. Just what I was looking for. Your medical manifest." Lt. Surge smiled oh-so-pleasantly at me, before his disgust twisted that smirk into an angry grimace.

"Your left eye? Naw, you're right. You don't need that. Your fucking lungs? Ouch. Hope you don't play sports. Holy fuck. All these surgeries on your arms? Aw, that's probably nothing. I'm sure your doctors were just being thorough. Oh, but this bit about your legs?" Lt. Surge nodded his head as an impressed expression stretched out the lines of his face.

"Well fuck me… Your legs are almost as fucked up as mine are." Lt. Surge shoved my service record back into his vest pocket, and flung his massive left boot onto the bar table, before he pulled back the elevated pant leg.

There wasn't a scarred up calf beneath that garment. There wasn't a muscular extension of this freak's powerful body.

-There wasn't even a leg.

There was only the exposed mechanical skeleton of a replacement prosthetic.

"And the other boot matches. Just like yours." Lt. Surge smiled down at the artificial limb with all of his loathing just simmering behind the eyes.

"...Know how I got that, Zane?" Lt. Surge was still glaring at his prosthetic when that dangerous voice lashed out at my ears.

"...A jump gone foul?" I dared to whisper. Lt. Surge snorted.

"Naw… naw, this was a little memento that my hosts in Johto left me with, after they gunned down my bird and tortured me for three years straight." Lt. Surge spat, rolling down his pant leg and pulling his boot off the table.

"They weren't too happy with me after my unit fucked up their stupid-ass Imperial Storm. They weren't too fucking happy with me at all. And when they offered my ransom to the Military Governors of Vermilion… The same bastards that I'd served so faithfully for so many hellish years of my life…" Lt. Surge's voice was shaking now.

"The Commander and Chief got on a private line with the Emperor of Johto… and then my boss told the Emperor to take his worthless little ransom, and shove it where the sun don't shine." Lt. Surge's fists hit the table, and the polished wooden platform split right in half.

"So the Emperor decided to have my legs removed, just to ensure that I would never be able to jump from a Skarmory's backside again." Lt. Surge hissed, as he glared down at the shattered ruin of our table.

"They knew you were alive before-?!" I began. Lt. Surge cut me off by ripping our table right out of the bolts that bound it to the cement floor, before he hurled that heavy oak and steel table into the bar's pristine liquor shelf.

"OF COURSE THEY FUCKING KNEW! I'D DONE MY PART! I FUCKING SAVED THEIR SHITTY LITTLE MOUNTAIN! THEY DIDN'T NEED ME ANYMORE!" Lt. Surge screamed loud enough to rattle the glass shards that were now strewn across the bar floor.

"...They didn't want to pay the price… The League was starting to sway people over to their idea of peace, and Johto's costly Imperial Storm meant that we'd just about won the fucking war. The Military did everything they could to drum up the people's hatred, they even used me and my lie of a death to get the people of Kanto riled up, just so that they could get the support they needed to finish the war…" Lt. Surge was gasping now, and I was staring in horror as he recounted the hidden history of my nation.

This couldn't be true.

There was no way that this was true! The Military was obligated to negotiate for the release of their imprisoned soldiers-!

...Just like the Ranger Corps was obligated to inform their members of a death in the family.

...It was true.

I knew that it was true, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Lt. Surge and I were both pawns who had been played for fools.

"...And it didn't work. The League won, and the Military Governors lost. So they left me to rot in Johto. They handed me over to our enemies, and told them to do whatever they wanted to do to me. All because the Military had pronounced me dead, and they didn't want anyone to find out that it was a lie." Lt. Surge choked out between panting breaths.

"...So you want my advice, Zane? Now that you're in too deep?" Lt. Surge murmured as he wrestled his tumultuous emotions back under control.

"When they stab you in the back, don't you fucking dare hope for a miracle. That hope will just make you linger on in agony, before your miracle puts a chain around your neck..." Lt. Surge mopped the tears from his eyes with a bar towel, and fought back the sobs as he collapsed over the bar's counter.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't even think.

-Nothing.

Absolutely nothing…

Not my father. Not the Snorlax. Not even TH…

...Had frightened me as much as Lt. Surge's advice did.

A shadow moved out of the corner of my numb eye. One black shadow with a tight knot of graying auburn hair.

One silent Blackhat Captain.

My Blackhat Captain.

She left her inconspicuous position in the booth, and moved towards her sobbing CO.

My Captain approached Lt. Surge ever so quietly…

...Before she raised a steady hand…

...And laid it on her friend's shoulder.

With a desperate and shaken reflex, Lt. Surge put his own giant hand over Captain Lewis's. And he held on to her hand, as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling down…

...Then the Hero of Kanto began to weep, as he succumbed to both his bitterness and those horrid living memories.

…

We cleaned up the bar as best as we could. Captain Lewis headed off to find a broom and mop shortly after Lt. Surge had sat down. She didn't even have to hand me a bucket. I was right beside her, sweeping up the broken glass and mopping up the spilled alcohol. We worked in complete silence, adhering to the same disciplined hygienic code that had first been enforced in our basic training.

Only when the the last of the heavy debris had been positioned in the back, and every bar table had been wiped clean, would my Captain return to her static friend.

The Hero of Kanto was sitting at a table near the bar's front, eyes staring past the plaster wall just four meters away from his person.

He'd been sitting like that for the last hour, never moving or making a sound. Just staring through the wall. Lost in whatever hell still lingered behind his eyes.

"...Hugh?" Captain Lewis softly spoke his name as she took a seat beside him.

Lt. Surge didn't respond, nor show any sign that he'd heard her.

Captain Lewis just sat there beside him, as the minutes continued to tick by without any indication of change.

Finally, when it became clear that her friend wasn't going to snap out of it anytime soon, Captain Lewis sighed softly, before she leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Lt. Surge's right cheek.

"...I'll call you later, Hugh. Take care of yourself." Captain Lewis whispered, as she stroked his shoulder.

Then Captain Lewis lifted herself from the seat beside him, and left the bar without even taking notice of the silent Beret following her.

We walked further down Vermilion's streets, side by side, as the sun began its afternoon descent towards the horizon. Our walk was as silent as a memorial service, right up until...

"Zane…"

I came to a dead stop when Captain Lewis addressed me in that reserved tone.

"Cap'n?" I pressed, keeping my voice steady. Captain Lewis drew a heavy breath through her nares, and looked up at the sky with a sigh.

"...Now you know."

I fell against a wall for support. I couldn't even begin to comprehend what this revelation meant for my own future.

"...So what do I do?" I asked, my voice shaking with anxiety. Captain Lewis sighed again, and turned to me as a straight line dictated the contours of her mouth.

"You overcome, Zane. You face it head on. And you win." Captain Lewis said it casually, as if such advice was on par with bicycling instructions.

"...There's more to his story, ain't there?" I asked, drawing a shuddering breath. Captain Lewis closed her eyes, and when she spoke, her cautious tone was accompanied by a reserved air.

"...The torture didn't end when Johto returned him to Kanto. Hugh had to fight a whole new war when he came back home… And he's still fighting that war." Captain Lewis whispered.

"I take it that I'm sworn to secrecy now? About what really happened to Hewitt Jackson?" I asked in a cheerless voice. Captain Lewis nodded slowly.

"Consider it a top secret disclosure, Special Operative. Which brings us to the next detail…" Captain Lewis sighed.

"Let me guess… ACE?" I chanced a guess with a demeaning smile. Captain Lewis tilted her head in the onset of another stiff nod.

"Your new boss only recently decrypted and reconfigured Alexandria's Distortion addled transmission. He knows about your dinner with Theron tonight. Stay alert for an incoming hail on your Tact. Pad. Looker is going to want to talk to you about something important." Captain Lewis muttered.

"Great… What does he want me to do? Poison TH's coffee?" I shook my head in weary exasperation. Captain Lewis cleared her throat, and shifted through her kit for a moment, before she removed a pair of humble brown folders from her stash.

"On a more personal note, I thought that this might interest you." Captain Lewis handed me the first folder with a soft inflection to her voice. I split open the document, and perused the single sheet of paper within.

"...She moved to Celedon?" I asked, my voice growing faint. Captain Lewis nodded again, before adding some as of yet unread material.

"She was accepted for a job in Celedon. A job far more befitting of her education than the midnight management of a Pokemart." Captain Lewis replied.

"...So she's still running…" I whispered, my voice going hoarse with emotion.

"Read in between the lines, Ranger. She applied to the job under her own name." Captain Lewis berated me for my hopeless admission.

"Melissa isn't running anymore, Zane. She's finally trying to pick up the pieces. You might actually have had something to do with that." Captain Lewis murmured. I snapped the folder shut with a shuddering intake of breath.

"Do you know anything else? How she's managing?" I asked, a hint of desperation betrayed in my voice. Captain Lewis fixed me with a hard eye.

"She still hates the Rangers, and wants absolutely nothing to do with them. Melissa slammed the door in mine and Lt. Col Rionaldo's faces before we could even introduce ourselves. But I think that fiery girl will do just fine for herself. She's a strong-willed individual. You shouldn't worry about Melissa." Captain Lewis took the the folder back from me, but hesitated to hand me the second sealed document.

"...But you do need to think long and hard about this one, Zane… think long and hard before you go and throw it to the wind…" Captain Lewis whispered as she reluctantly released the second document to my awaiting person.

I cracked open that file, and the muscles of my neck started tightening up no sooner than I had read the heading sentence.

"What the hell made you think that I wanted to see this?" I hissed, as my teeth clenched together in fury.

"...Because he's your father, Zane… And because he's the only family that you have left."

If anyone other than Captain Lewis had spoken those words to me, then I would have flung that file right back into their face. But this woman knew what family was to people like us.

...And this woman knew what it was like to never see that family again.

"...Looks like he's still doing well with his career. Got himself another promotion. So what does that make him now? Silph's Financial Director?" I asked, the livid tone in my voice did nothing to hide the snide inflection that accompanied it.

"He's been taking a lot of time off work, Zane. And he has been consistently for the last six months..." Captain Lewis whispered.

"Why should I care?!" I spat, crumbling up that folder and the document within it into a tight little paper ball.

"...Because, Zane… He learned about what happened to you. And no disappointed father stays rooted in his ways when his son almost dies." Captain Lewis answered in a soft voice.

"Then why hasn't he called me? Why didn't he tell me about my mother? Why hasn't he been a father to his nearly dead son?" My voice was rank with venom, and specks of spittle led the winds of my vocal hatred.

"...Probably because he's in the same straights that you are, Zane… He just doesn't know how to apologize-"

"-That's enough!"

I was an angry inch away from my superior's nose. I was glaring passionate murder at a woman who could have broken me in half with reflexive ease.

I was right in Captain Lewis's grill, ready to fight to the death, just to keep her evil mouth shut.

"...Don't cut him out, Zane. Don't push him away. You don't know what regret is until it's too late." Captain Lewis's tone never changed from its soft track. Those tender eyes of hers kept right on staring into my hellish gaze.

"...Enough." I growled in a decisive warning.

That was final. I didn't want talk about it. There was no way in hell that I was gonna continue listening to this bullshit.

I.

Don't.

Have.

A father.

-He told me so himself.

Captain Lewis closed her eyes, and took a step back away from me.

"Alright, Zane… If that's how you want it to be."

Captain Lewis sighed as she drew a Heavy Ball from her belt, and proceeded to release its occupant right into the center of Vermilion's Main.

"Solomon, let's get back to Cerulean. We're done here." Captain Lewis had located her Blackhat voice at last, as she pulled herself up onto her Wyrm's bare rostrum, and settled in for the long flight home.

"Take care of yourself, Ranger. We'll be keeping an eye on you." Captain Lewis addressed me in that cold tone. I mustered a stiff salute, and fell back against the city's commercial walls as Solomon flared his mighty sails for take off.

"Keep right on watching, Cap'n. Because before too long, it's gonna be Darwin and me keeping an eye on you." Zane Bastard's smug voice shouted out.

Just before that giant snake whipped itself off Vermilion's tarmac with a rumbling roar, I swear that I saw the barest hint of a smile lifting the corners of my Captain's lips.

…

The buzzing in my breast pocket couldn't have come at a more innappropriate moment.

"Goddamnit." I spat, adjusting Mac's heavy nursing unit for one-handed redeployment.

"Don't get greedy, asshole…" I growled at my nursing Munchlax, as he once more attempted to wrestle the rubber teat from my hand.

"Lieutenant Bastard reporting in." I growled into my Tact. Pad, after I had fished it out of my coat pocket.

Vice-Marshal Looker caught the hint.

"Is your present location secure?" The ACE Executive asked me. I just snorted.

"It's just me and Mac here, Colonel. But company could show up at any minute." I kept my tone casual, as I relayed the requested information.

"Acceptable. Should we be interrupted, I'd suggest using your upcoming Gym Battle as a diversionary conversation. Everything else discussed on this line is to be considered top secret." Vice-Marshal Looker was quick to provide a stratagem.

"So to what pleasure do I owe this call, Colonel?" My tone was anything but pleasant, as I once again adopted TH's mannerisms for my address.

"Your engagement with Theron Halcyon tonight presents us with an opportunity to discern a specific motive of his. A motive that we have been attempting to determine ever since the Pewter City incident." The Vice-Marshal began.

"So you want to know if he's going to continue competing in Indigo League?" I asked, adjusting the Tact. Pad's support to my shoulder, as I violently dragged the the supplemental feeding system out of Mac's desperate grasp.

"No, nothing quite so trivial. We are attempting to determine Theron Halcyon's intended diplomatic policy in regards to the Indigo Confederacy." Vice-Marshal Looker corrected me.

I went stiff against Mac's incessant tugging.

"...What do you mean by that?" I asked in a guarded tone. Vice-Marshal Looker sighed in exasperation.

"We need to know if Theron Halcyon presents us with an ally or an enemy in his ascent to the Kalosian Throne." Vice-Marshal Looker explained.

I was completely silent on my end.

"...Agent Bastard? Have we lost transmission?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked.

"No, I heard you. I'm just struggling to believe that TH could somehow turn the Concordant against Indigo." I responded, shoving Mac away from the artificial teat, and flipping the kill switch on his nursing pump.

"Anything is possible in regards to Theron's influence on the Concordant. Particularly if he and Fuhrer Adler should succeed in Unova's inclusion-"

"-WHAT?!" I cried out in shock, as I dropped the tangle of infeed tubes that I had been wrangling away from the inquisitive Mac.

"...Fuhrer Adler and Theron Halcyon have been colluding together for quite some time now. Though the contents of their private meetings have only recently surfaced, it seems that the pair are aiming for a third nation's union within the Concordant." Vice-Marshal Looker gave me the most damning piece news that I'd heard yet of TH's political agenda.

"How the hell did that even get off the ground?! Kalos and Sinnoh hate Unova!" I was struggling to keep my volume under control. This sounded fucking fictional-

"-You are simply underestimating Theron Halcyon's political prowess. While many in the Concordant are revolted by such an alliance, Theron Halcyon's portrayal of a united hemisphere and the potential peace it offers is simply too tantalizing an allure for either nation to ignore." Vice-Marshal Looker explained.

"-What?!" I still couldn't wrap my head around an alliance between Unova and the Concordant. They'd been fighting with one another ever since the Blackout Act-

"If a lasting union was forged between Unova and the Concordant, it would bequeath the participants of such a union with an era of peace that no soul indigenous to those three nations could otherwise dream of." Vice-Marshal Looker explained.

"But how is that even possible-!?"

Vice-Marshal Looker groaned. Explaining potential political shifts in foreign nations was not an intended context of this call.

"Fuhrer Adler is not a fool. He understands that his rule of Unova is doomed to end in violence. Unova's every regime has always been succeeded by bloodshed. Fuhrer Adler wishes to stabilize his governing powers, and maintain his rule long beyond the predictable boundaries of his nation's tolerance. He cannot rely upon his traitorous governing council for that end. For that end, Fuhrer Adler requires an ally outside of Unova. An ally with sufficient influence to placate Unova's violent culture." Vice-Marshal Looker provided me the missing details I needed to comprehend this dilemma.

"Theron Halcyon is the only foreign ally willing to consider the Fuhrer's plight. And he is the only ally with both the personal history and the political prowess required to endure himself to the people of Unova." Vice-Marshal Looker abridged the complexities between such a maneuver with that one simplified statement.

"So Unova becoming a part of the Concordant is a possibility?" I whispered, completely numb to the big dumb and blind animal sniffing around my shoulders.

"A distinct possibility. Should Theron Halcyon continue pressuring the governors of Sinnoh with their own populace-"

"-WHAT?!"

TH had attacked Sinnoh. TH had slaughtered Sinnoh's Parliament in cold blood. And then TH had gone ahead and pissed all over Sinnoh's most sacred landmark just for the sake of spite.

-And now the common man of Sinnoh supported him?!

"I was led to believe that you were an educated individual, Agent Bastard. I have a list of your academic credentials that now warrants suspect due to your nearly intolerable ignorance. Must I explain every modern political engine to you?" Vice-Marshal Looker grumbled.

"I've been living in the bush for the last three years, risking my ass on the frontlines so that other people don't have to. Personal priorities change in the face of constant warfare. So give me a fucking break about my lackluster knowledge of modern politics." I growled over Vice-Marshal Looker's patronizing sigh.

"...Very well. As you know, Theron completely decimated Sinnoh's central government, when he retaliated to their last attempt against his life. Since that globally acknowledged illustration of retribution, Sinnoh has restructured their Theocratic Parliament to reflect the governing system of the old. And despite this new Parliament's outspoken verdict of devilry against him, Theron Halcyon and his supporters in Kalos have endeavored to reshape Sinnoh's domestic perception of him into a far more favorable image." Vice-Marshal Looker began.

"Theron Halcyon is an usual situation. In Kalos, he possess nigh absolute power, and yet as an exile of the Crown, he has little reason to adhere to any of Kalos's laws. In short, Theron Halcyon is very much a Rogue King. Ruling House Arturia and their supporters cannot afford to make any overt moves against Theron himself. Doing so could result in a civil war, as Theron possess his own vast array of supporters." Vice-Marshal Looker paused for a second, and given his following slurp and contented sigh: I was left to assume that my Vice-Marshal was imbibing his evening coffee.

"More than half of Kalos's Noble Houses have pledged their support to House Halcyon, and a staggering seventy-three percent of the common populace has also rallied to the Halcyon's claim. This has engendered a unique position, where Theron practically rules Kalos in everything but title. However, because the acknowledged King of Kalos has revoked Theron Halcyon's seat upon the Royal Court in an effort to deny him a station recognized by foreign powers, Theron does not owe any loyalty to the foreign arrangements established by the current Crown." Vice-Marshal Looker continued.

"This means that Theron Halcyon and his supporters can operate as a separate government in Kalos. They are beholden to none of the international trade agreements that would restrict the current Crown from investing their capital where they see fit. And if Theron has revealed one skill in his sudden ascent into politics: it is his mastery of undermining established authorities." I hadn't finished feeding Mac yet, and the anxious fat fuck knew it. I just about had to put Vice-Marshal Looker on hold in order to remind Mac of what happened when he pissed Momma Zane off.

"One of the first Noble Houses who pledged themselves to Theron's cause was House Le-Faye, whom have served the Kalos Crown as the Noble Family of the Treasury for nearly a millennia. This afforded Theron Halcyon with the vast resources of Kalos's banking industry, and the Eidolon King proved himself rather clever when it came time to mend personal relations with the people of Sinnoh." That final line brought a pause to Mac's likely beating. Switching the nursing system back on, I jammed the rubber teat in Mac's face and just let the pudgy dumbass have at it.

"Forgoing the standard diplomatic approach of making direct reparations towards the restructuring central Government: Theron chose instead to invest Kalos's assets into the lowest tier of Sinnoh's private sector. Specifically in the form of small businesses and domestic aid." Now I was all ears, as I was far more interested in Vice-Marshal Looker's political spiel than I was in Mac's current dilemma. The dumb fucking Munchlax had tangled himself up in the infeed tubes, and Mac was too stupid to realize that he was strangling himself everytime he tried to suckle from the formula-providing nipple.

"It was an unprecedented political maneuver, but in spite of the Sinnoh Government's sluggish return to power, Sinnoh's economy practically exploded with its newfound support from Kalos's financiers. Following the resurgence of Sinnoh's markets were even more third-party interests, such as foreign investors from both Indigo and Hoenn. The end result was the empowerment of Sinnoh's middle class, and massive economic yields returning to Kalos's pioneer investors: forging a prosperity in both nations that Theron Halcyon was justified in accepting credit for." Vice-Marshal Looker paused for another hearty sip of coffee, before continuing with his synopsis.

"Realizing the far more secular attitude of Sinnoh's middle class, and their continuous struggle for representation within their own Government, Theron successfully portrayed himself as their Emancipator, who not only toppled Sinnoh's oppressive Government, but who also strengthened Sinnoh's working class. Given the levels of parliamentary disatisfaction that the commonfolk of Sinnoh have polled, it's not too terribly difficult to understand how Sinnoh is of mixed political opinions regarding the Eidolon King and his claim to Kalos's power." Vice-Marshal Looker finished his explanation right around the same time that I saved Mac from hanging himself with his own supplemental nursing system.

"...So TH bought the people of Sinnoh? I know that they've been raised in a religious hegemony since the Terra Divide, but can't they still see how transparent TH's agenda is?" I asked in awe.

"Of course the people of Sinnoh know that Theron Halcyon bought them. What you don't seem to understand is that the Eidolon King paid a substantially higher price for them than what Sinnoh's central Government ever did." Vice-Marshal Looker replied.

I fell back against my seat as a cold feeling of dread crept up my spine. It wasn't the implications of Vice-Marshal Looker's report that frightened me so much.

-What scared me so much was that I could finally understand why so many people wanted to put TH on a throne.

"...And Unova's inclusion in the Concordant is just-" I began.

"-Par for the course. Despite the outright disgust that both Sinnoh and Kalos bear for Unova, Theron's promise of peace has struck a chord in every nation involved. If Theron successfully negotiates Unova's inclusion with both Fuhrer Adler and Sinnoh's Heads of State…"

"...He'll be the ultimate Hero of those three nations." I finished in a whisper.

"Correct. Theron will not only have promoted the middle class of Sinnoh and made his appeal known to the revolution hungry people of Kalos… But he will have also have made peace with those nations' greatest enemy." Vice-Marshal Looker summarized.

I couldn't believe it.

How could a monster like TH ever rise to heroism?

-How could he even conceive of peace?!

"...So what's my mission tonight? Get the sit-rep on Unova's inclusion from TH?" I asked, still reeling from the most recent revelation.

"That is negligible. We have already predicted the likelihood of Theron and Fuhrer Adler's endeavor. They have the upper hand. What we wish for you to determine is Theron's political intentions after he expands the Concordant." Vice-Marshal Looker amended in a dead tone.

"What kind of intentions do you think-?" I began in a curious voice, but Vice-Marshal Looker had stomached enough of my naivety.

"For the love of God, man! Must I spell it out for you?! Will a union between Sinnoh, Kalos, and Unova result in their conquest of every other nation!?" Vice-Marshal Looker was an octave away from screaming.

-Oh.

Oh.

"...Oh shit…" I meekly muttered in complete shock.

"Do you understand now?! Why we are so concerned for Theron's prerogatives succeeding the Concordant's unification with Unova? Even when separated, both Kalos and Unova possess the military might required to endanger Indigo, but should the two nations combine their forces-" Vice-Marshal Looker trailed off with that lethal implication.

"You don't seriously think that-?!" Desperation may have shaken my voice, but impatience and terror had elevated the Vice-Marshal's volume.

"-WE DON'T KNOW! WE NEED YOU TO FIGURE IT OUT!" Vice-Marshal Looker snapped. I don't know if it was just dealing with my slow wits and ignorance; the pressure exerted from a possible war; or if it was just speaking of the Devil himself, but Vice-Marshal Looker was panicking.

And when someone as informed as an ACE Executive starts to panic…

...Anyone with less information should start shitting their breeches in absolute abandon.

"...There is a deadline, Agent Bastard. Six days from now, Theron is expected to attend a multi-national delegation hosted in Kalos's Ellis Archipelago. A delegation that will be held between Sinnoh's Primarch Cyrus Augustus-Romanov and the Holy Matron Cynthia Labelle; Unova's Fuhrer James Adler and his Chief Chancellor Aalee-Aasif Ghetsis; and finally, joint representing Kalos's Head of State: King Allan Arturia of Ruling House Arturia… And Lord Theron Halcyon of Noble House Halcyon." Vice-Marshal Looker confided, his tone growing darker as he listed off the names of the delegation's political attendees. I couldn't believe that Unova's Fuhrer was risking a trip into hostile territory to speak face to face with both Sinnoh and Kalos's Heads of State…

...But if TH had guaranteed the Fuhrer's safety…

...Then not even the combined forces of a divided Kalos and a compromised Sinnoh could hope to overcome the Eidolon King's might.

"...What if TH really means to settle for peace? What if we're all just getting freaked out about a good thing?" I whispered my prayer to a Vice-Marshal of ACE, as a desperate hope added a rattle to my voice.

And Vice-Marshal Looker just laughed in ridicule at my fervent prayer.

"Regardless of the possibility, we must adhere to suspicion and preparation. But what we have learned of Theron Halcyon… gives us little reason to believe that his intentions are any more noble than Fuhrer Adler's." Vice-Marshal Looker punctuated with an audible swallow.

And every hint of my desperate hope flickered away into smoke with the Vice-Marshal's admission.

"...How the hell am I supposed to figure this out?! He's motherfucking Theron Halcyon! He's a Goddamn King who's beaten every political opponent that has ever stood in his way! And I'm just a fucking Ranger! How the fuck is a lowly Greenback supposed to play political games with a Goddamn King?!"

Given the circumstances being imposed upon my person and the stakes implied by my likely failure: Could you really blame me for losing my head?

-Well, Vice-Marshal Looker sure could.

"Fear not, Agent Bastard. Rather similar to yourself, I have no confidence in you whatsoever. But be that as it may, you alone bear distinction for your most unique of positions…" Vice-Marshal Looker paused to steady his shaking breath, right before he galled me with the most alien declaration that I'd ever heard…

"...Theron Halcyon trusts you."

-That line would have been fucking funny…

...If it wasn't so fucking scary…

"...I think I'm gonna be sick…" I choked out.

That wasn't a joke. I could feel my lunch rising up my throat.

"Theron has finally lowered his guard. He has exposed himself to you. I could not conceive of why, or even how, when Alexandria first alerted me to it… But Theron Halcyon has approached you as a confidant. I cannot stress the significance of this development enough, Agent Bastard… Theron Halcyon most certainly trusts you." Vice-Marshal Looker's steady voice implied that he was doing his damndest to calm me down. He must have heard me retching on the other end.

"...So what do I do? Just go up to him and ask: Hey TH! I hear that you've got this big shindig planned with Unova! So tell me, is the Concordant really going to conquer the rest of the world under your leadership?!" I finally found my voice, which was riddled with a mix of ridicule and anxiety.

"If I may be perfectly frank, Agent Bastard? After an analysis of your interactions with the Eidolon King, it is my recommendation that you proceed bluntly in your investigation. Given the contents of your previous conversations, and the manner in which you both exchange: I'm left to assume that Theron Halcyon appreciates your honesty… even if it is an unrefined honesty." Vice-Marshal Looker threw in that last bit with a snide tone.

-Fucking Kalosians and their social expectations. They just can't stand the word: "Fuck," even if you say it from the bottom of your fucking heart.

"...I was already dreading dinner with him. I really didn't want to sit in a room occupied by a congress of Ghosts and their twisted fucking Channeler… And now this…" I gurgled, as I fell against a napping Mac beneath the crushing weight of my own despair.

"You have a duty to uphold for your nation, Agent. See that your duty is done with dignity. You have all the details that I can provide. I am ending the transmission now. Good day." The line went dead, and I was left with yet another torturous truth to acknowledge and accept. I didn't know if this was just the next link of Lt. Surge's predicted political chain or if this was just a run of bad luck, but this shit was slowly destroying me and every conviction that I held dear.

"Fuck my life…" I moaned into Mac's fat rolls, and the infant Munchlax sent me a fond coo straight from happy fat-fuck dreamland.

…

Twenty-Hundred hours. Same damn day.

I was standing outside of a forty-story commercial plaza, waiting for my host to appear.

No Cortez to support me. That poor hound was on babysitting detail in our new hotel, keeping a mismatched pair of eyes on one lazy and obnoxious Munchlax for me, while I prepped my deck for the Eidolon King's arrival.

I didn't even have to glance at my watch to know what time it was.

A Kalosian Lord had designated eight-o'clock in the evening as his time for dining, and Theron Halcyon arrived at a very punctual eight PM dead.

-Of course, I never saw him coming. TH scared the bejesus out of me when he announced his presence with his musical accent's sudden elocution from my flank, along with that creeping sensation of his miserably deep Distortion seep.

"Good evening, Zane. I'm so glad to see that you're still in one piece." TH's smile was pleasant enough, but the way that his voice trailed off at the end of his greeting revealed that the Eidolon King was up to tricks as usual.

-Theron knew all about the contents of my day. The haunted bastard was still reading me like an open book.

"Thanks. It's been a shitty day from the start, and I'm only anticipating it to get even worse before the end." I grunted, ignoring TH's cordially extended arm. TH sighed, as he withdrew his offered limb.

"Nothing is ever quite what it seems, is it Ranger?" TH asked me in a weary voice.

"I dunno. I think that some things leave an accurate first impression." I grumbled, indicating his person with a slow incline to my head. TH just chuckled silently.

"Perhaps…" TH sighed again, and stared off into the distance.

"So what's for dinner? Heart of an orphaned virgin?" I asked as I looked up at the formidable structure behind me.

TH burst out laughing.

"Dear me, Zane. I do hope not. I simply couldn't condone the consumption of such a gruesome repast." TH chortled as his laughter died down.

"Well, I thought that you might want to familiarize yourself with the common fare of Unova, seeing how tight you are with their Fuhrer and all." I let slip to TH that I only go direct.

TH raised a hand to his shades, and massaged the bridge of his nose, clearly frustrated with the sudden turn in our conversation.

"Zane, please. I have spent mine entire day bandying politics with the most unsavory of individuals. Can we approach this meal as an opportunity to relax? Lord knows, we both have want of some simple peace." TH addressed me in the same tired voice that I'd heard earlier this morning. It was almost convincing enough for me to believe in the sincerity of TH's plea.

"It's kinda hard to relax when the possibility of war hangs over your nation like a shadow, TH…" I growled. TH straightened himself out, and fixed me with his most disarming of charming smiles.

"If that is the case then, Zane… May I suggest a compromise that will ease your concerns and cater to mine humble wishes?" TH asked, as that charming smile turned into a wicked smirk.

"I'm all expectant ears." I grinned right back at TH, hoping for some revelation that would aid ACE's investigation.

"Well… If we cannot enjoy some small leisure this evening, then perhaps we should instead celebrate tonight as though it were your last night on earth?" TH's evil smirk melted away into that pleasant smile again.

-And I was left stone cold and paralyzed with a new sensation of absolute terror, freshly born from TH's alternative suggestion.

"...I think that I'd rather relax…" I barely recognized the meek voice that emanated from my own mouth.

"Very good, Zane! I knew that you would see reason!" TH clapped a hand on my shoulder with his jubilant praise, and steered my perfectly compliant ass straight towards the oversized plaza's front doors.

"Oh for the love of the Crown…" TH swore as we came to a sudden halt. We'd come up a few paces short of the commercial establishment's front entrance. I failed to notice anything unusual about the glass doors before us, but something was clearly bothering my host.

"...Only in Kanto, does a five-star restaurant lease a suite from a plaza that fails to provide its patrons with a courtesy commissionaire…" TH grumbled from my side.

I stared at that unattended door for the better half of a minute, absolutely dumbstruck.

-Was this all it took to wreck TH's day?

"...You know, Zane… In Kalos, it is considered the honorable duty of the lesser birthed to shoulder such demeaning social necessities for the preservation of their Lords' dignity?" TH shamelessly hinted at his expectations of me. And I couldn't even hope to repress my laughter for all the death threats in the world.

"Well, thank God we're in Kanto, huh TH? We don't have a blueblooded caste here." I laughed, mocking the Eidolon King's less than subtle request.

"So am I to await the arrival of some courtious diplomat, who understands the importance of my station's appearance?" TH asked in a humorous voice, as his eyes returned to the door. It took me a moment to swallow this level of ego, before I offered TH a Kantonese Ranger's honest answer.

"I'm not your servant, TH. Open your own Goddamn door." I growled. TH turned back to me, with that creepy proud smile of his putting me in the awkward spotlight once again.

"Well said, Zane… Well said indeed." TH murmured fondly.

TH was fucking with me again, and I still hadn't a clue where all his little tests were leading.

"I'm afraid that my status bears with it some seemingly privileged social expectations. I am sorry for having wounded your justified sensibilities, so to amend the misunderstanding: do allow me to breach the threshold for us both…" TH spoke in an undertone, and quite suddenly came to stand uncomfortably close to yours truly.

"...I only ask that you refrain from screaming. Typhon, if you would be so kind?" TH simpered to his unseen wraith.

-And that's when the ground fell out from beneath my feet. I fell straight into a water darker than any found on earth. I couldn't even hear the pitch of my own scream as a flurry of white snakes wrapped around my person and dragged me deeper into the drowning abyss.

I was within the Distortion's deepest confines, and my temporally dilated brain would have never been able to realize it…

...Until I was suddenly standing within the plaza's well-lit lobby, screaming my head off beside TH.

"Congratulations, Ranger…" TH's smug voice sounded in my ringing ears, as my scream ended in the throes of hyperventilation, and an illness rose from my bowels alongside the onset of primordial panic.

"...You are now numbered among the select few who have entered the Distortion, and returned unscathed." TH murmured in that sinisterly smug voice.

-The puddle of vomit at my boots might have contested that claim.

"Dark- Water- Blue- Red- Eyes- Drowning-" I didn't even understand what the hell I was fervently muttering, but flashes of that unknown hell kept playing right behind my eyes.

"Breathe, Zane. Just breathe. You are unaccustomed to such sojourns, but rest assured: mine Typhon was most gentle." TH chided from my side.

"Snakes… Arms… Snakes- Eyes..." My unheeded voice gasped.

"Zane, you are embarrassing yourself. Recall to mind your precious dignity, if you are so in need of aid." TH still addressed me in that courteous tone.

And some small indignant spark within me rose to answer the Eidolon King.

"You… You… You asshole…" I hissed from my curl.

Yep. The Fucking Bastard was back, glaring his pure and livid hatred to the Devil at my left.

TH's shoulders shook, as those silent chuckles of his wracked the Eidolon King's frame.

"Shall we proceed to our reservation, Ranger? It appears that the establishment's staff is patiently awaiting our departure…" TH indicated the wide-eyed and pale faced lobby, who had escaped this Ranger's awareness by virtue of my panicstricken perception.

"Dickheads first." I growled, forfeiting pole position to my host.

"Very well then, Zane. After you." TH simpered, as an ethereal sword tip pressed into my back, implying that I was to take position ahead of the Devil of Kalos.

TH…

-You fucking cheater.

…

Our trip up to the thirty-second floor proceeded without any notable incidents, minus TH's Distortion seep killing the elevator lights four floors before our destination.

Thankfully, the lift's winch was unaffected by the unexpected power loss, so when the elevator doors opened to the well light lobby of Le Epicure, I was slightly dazzled by the change.

But my grey-eyed host didn't even seem to notice the transition between dark and light.

"Le Duc de Maison Halcyon! Notre invité d'honneur! Please, come! We've been eagerly expecting you!" Before TH had even taken a step off the lift, a small entourage of the restaurant's management and staff had swarmed him, already prying corks from bottles and presenting their "guest of honor" with platters of cheese.

"Bonsoir, monsieur Christo. Je vous remercie pour votre hospitalité." TH warmly addressed the proprietor, and allowed himself to be led away by the fawning staff over into the main hall. I followed the procession feeling completely out of place in my BDU, as I traipsed week-old Cerulean crust through the pristine crystal and whitewashed dining hall.

Every other patron was wearing their absolute finest. I doubted that there was a suit in that restaurant that didn't cost less than a thousand Sandz. TH's fashionable apparel seemed oddly casual in this crowd, and my grungy getup just reeked of scandalous.

None of the other patrons bothered to lay eyes on TH as he drew near, but little sooner than his Distortion seep had vacated their awareness, then it was that the afflicted patrons began to buzz among themselves, shooting awestruck glances at his person, and whispering in amazed inflections to one another.

"...Est-ce Le Roi Fantôme-?"

"-Il ne peut pas être!"

"-Que fait-il dans Kanto?!"

Great. Damn near everyone in here was Kalosian.

The proprietor of Le Epicure guided TH and the forgotten Ranger in his shadow away from the crowded hall and over towards a private parlour, which was replete with a balcony for scenic dining. But the parlour's centerpiece was a massive linen covered table, festooned in newly lit candles, and already heavily laden with a diverse variety of breads as well as innumerable bottles of wine.

"Prenez place je vous en prie." The proprietor pulled up a seat for his bleak majesty, and someone remembered to usher the unkempt Ranger into a chair positioned at the opposite end of the table.

"Je vous remercie beaucoup d'être venu. Que voulez-vous?" The proprietor asked TH.

"Les moules marinières, et une coupe de votre le jambon de Paris." TH replied in that pleasant voice.

"Un bon choix! Notre jambon de Paris est le meilleur à Kanto!" The proprietor kissed his fingertips and saluted his own establishment with pride.

"Que voulez-vous?" The proprietor turned to me with a welcoming smile.

-I had only the barest clue as to what he was asking of me, but his polite inflection was familiar enough to give this nigh-monolingual Ranger a foothold.

"...A menu written in english?" I asked with a cocky grin.

The proprietor's smile faded.

"Excuser mon ami. Il est très désagréable, non?" TH interjected with an urbane laugh.

"Oui." The proprietor's smile returned, though somewhat lessened than its former grandeur.

"...Il aura votre l'entrecôte bercy. Merci." TH dismissed the staff with that single utterance.

"So what am I supposed to eat? Just bread and cheese?" I asked, as I helped myself to a loaf and a bottle from the table's excessive bounty.

"Zane… Will you please practice an ounce of decency? Please…" TH begged as he rubbed his tired eyes in shame of me.

"Well I don't want to starve." I grunted, ripping off a hunk of bread with my teeth and popping the seal off a bottle of champagne.

"For the love of… I ordered you a meal, you philistine!" TH cried out in shock as I slurped the frothy head of champagne straight from the bottle's neck.

I just sighed in contentment as I propped my dirty boot heels up on the white table linens, before I procured a cigar from the inner pocket of my coat, and jammed that pungent blunt in between my teeth.

-I was rather enjoying this chance that TH had provided me with. I was rather enjoying my chance to spit on his decency.

"Zane… Don't make me summon Pariah and have him instruct you in proper dining etiquette." TH warned. I just snorted.

"I thought the plan was to relax, TH. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose?" I grunted, as I lit my cigar with a match. TH groaned, and rubbed his brow.

"...I suppose that it would." TH grudgingly admitted.

I filled my mouth with a lazy drag of Petilil weed, and worked my tongue through the fumes. TH sat perfectly still as he watched me. His mouth had formed a straight line, and the the creases above his shade-covered eyes hinted at a specific displeasure.

Detecting yet another chance to test my host's patience, I drew a new cigar from my coat pocket, and leaned across the table with a Ranger's dirty hospitality extended to the Eidolon King.

"Cigar?" I offered, as a mocking grin rose to my ears, betraying my expectations.

-But I was about to receive a slight surprise.

The cigar left my fingertips as though caught in a sudden breeze, and the rolled tobacco slowly hovered across the length of the table, held aloft by some invisible force. I was still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened when that cigar gently alighted itself upon TH's open palm.

"...Well ain't that a cute trick." I grunted, as TH wrapped his fingers around the delicate blunt.

"Thanatos, if you would be so kind?" TH murmured from his end.

The tip of TH's cigar inexplicably ignited, and only after that white flame had died down into wisps of thick smoke, did TH place my offering between his lips.

"Unovian?" TH asked in surprise, after he'd taken his first mouthful.

"Holy shit. You didn't seem the type." I chuckled with a slight inflection of ridicule tinging the color of my mirth, which seemed to fit this peculiar development.

"It may spoil the taste of our meal, but I'm certainly not adverse to sampling some simple pleasure before dining." TH softly replied from his end.

"...Did the Fuhrer serve you the same weed?" I asked in a suspicious tone. TH smiled ruefully, but it was more of a smile to himself than a smile meant for me.

"I confess, I only took up the habit for diplomatic appearances. Though if I may confide in you, Zane? I have grown rather fond of such a habit..." TH settled back in his chair, before the Eidolon King shocked me with yet another unexpected display.

There was now a second pair of heels on the table. TH's fine leather soles stood opposed to the cleated rubber of my own.

"...Just who are you, TH?" I asked, my voice both pensive and curious.

TH removed the cigar from his lips, and released a ring of smoke, before he drew a shaky intake of breath.

"...Not now, Zane. I believe that we both came to this table for want of peace…" TH murmured from his recline.

I checked that sigh before it rose any further than my throat.

"...Whatever you say, Theron." I grunted, taking another hearty swig from my champagne bottle.

…

Around the time that TH and I had both removed our shoes from the table, and smothered our cigars, the main course of the meal had arrived.

I'd already drunk a bottle of champagne, gorged myself on a loaf of poppy covered semolina batard, and sampled more cheeses than I even knew existed…

-But the Kobe rib steak served with seared shallots and grilled lemon, all smothered in white wine sauce, and topped with chopped fresh parsley and shredded truffle?

...I could still find room for that.

Now, I've tried a little bit of everything, and while Johtonese cuisine stands as my uncontested favorite for its odd mix of seafood, seed oils, spicy sprouts, and fermented seasonings…

-You just can't beat Kalosian dining when it comes down to tasting good ol' fashioned and wholesome bliss.

TH looked pretty content himself, sucking down white wine-braised mussels accompanied with roasted portabella caps, alongside a decorative serving of sliced ham and blood-oranges.

"It's been too long since I've last tasted this…" TH sighed in some fond nostalgic sentiment.

"It's the first time that I've ever tasted this." I grunted from my end.

"I'ze meal to your liking, my Lord?" The proprietor had switched to english, likely for my benefit more so than anyone else's.

"I would commend your establishment before the whole of the Royal Court, Dumont Cristo. It has been my greatest pleasure to serve as your guest." TH had removed his hat just before the primary course had been served, yet the unmarked right hand of the Eidolon King still found its way across TH's left breast.

"Vous êtes trop gentil, Roi Fantôme…" Dumont was so overcome with emotion, that he broke down crying right over TH's shoulder.

After the sobbing proprietor had been led away by his staff, a delicate pastry was served, loaded with some kind of soft cheese and topped with a sweet berry sauce and fluffy cream. I couldn't find space for more than a mouthful of that tart, but it felt like a sin to let such a glorious little treat go to waste.

A round of sweet red wine filled our crystals as an accompaniment for dessert, and the attending staff abandoned the parlour once more to the two young men within.

When the the door to the parlour had been shut, and the privacy curtains had been lowered, I lifted my fresh crystal with a sigh, and imbibed a sip of the syrupy wine.

"I hate to ruin such a good meal…" I started, staring at the rivulets of ruby alcohol that lacquered the rim of my crystal.

TH lowered his own crystal, and rested his hidden heavy eyes on me.

"...But I've got a job to do, TH. And no pleasantry is ever going to come between me and my home." My voice hardened as I set aside my wine.

"...Zane…" TH began on a bitter note.

"-Are you going to bring war to my home, TH?" I asked in a shaken voice, challenging his averted gaze. TH bit down on the tail of a weary laugh, and met my cold gaze with his sequestered eyes.

"...There's no easy answer to that, Zane."

My hands balled into fists, and I hid my trembling arms beneath the table.

"Yes or no will suffice, Lord Halcyon." I growled. TH lowered his eyes again, before he drew a long, steady breath.

"...Will change come to Indigo? Most certainly. Will there be those who resist it? Irrefutably. Will there be loss? Absolutely… But will the whole of humanity stand as all the greater for it?" TH asked, his final forlorn question directed to me.

"...So you will bring war to Indigo?" I asked, as my teeth clenched in a mix of fear and rage.

"Nothing I see is certain, Zane… Nothing I do is guaranteed to spare us…" TH murmured, his voice both tired and afraid.

"-Why?!" I hissed, glaring at the Devil just a table's breadth away.

"You don't understand, Zane. I don't expect you to. I wouldn't understand it, if I had not seen it…" TH raised a mutilated hand before his shade covered eyes, and sneered down at his own scarred palm.

"Why war!? You could make peace! You could save so many! You could actually do something human for a change, you monster!" I was out of my chair and leaning over the table, only a decibel below a roar.

"-That's what I am trying to do!" TH rose from his own chair with a roar of his own.

"I'm trying to save us, Zane! I'm trying to establish peace! I'm trying to end this war! The same war that you and I started!" TH flung his empty desert plate across the room in a fit of passion, and staggered his breathing against the anger that shook his entire frame.

-And I was left cold and frightened.

Cold and frightened by his latest of words.

"What war?! What war that you and I started?" I asked in an indignant hiss.

"...Don't ever speak of it, Zane. Not to ACE. Not to the Nine Lives. Not to the Rangers. Not to anyone. If you wish to live… If you truly seek peace-" I cut TH off with a short and rude laugh.

"-Me? I don't have to say a Goddamn thing! All I needed was to hear you say it! 'Cause guess who's listening from my pocket, TH?!" I gloated in a maddened voice, as I whipped out my Tact. Pad and boldly revealed it to the Eidolon King.

"Say hello to Alexandria, TH! Come on, Alex! Say hello to the dumbass who just spilled the beans to ACE!" I cackled, flaunting the Tact. Pad over my head for my sole audience to see.

"...Alexandria?" I asked when my Tact. Pad failed to respond.

"Did you really think me a fool, Ranger?" TH sat down in his chair with an exhausted sigh.

"Alex?! Come on now, wake up! Wake up!" I was panicking now, as I mashed in every input that I knew to activate ACE's Porygon-Two.

"...Mine Typhon is such a passionate wraith in his artistry. Wouldn't you agree, Ranger?"

My eyes lifted from my dead Tact. Pad, to behold the Eidolon King lackadaisically whirling the red liqueur around in his crystal with a rotating wrist.

"...After all, he did learn such a deceptive craft from the very best." TH murmured to his wine glass, as the implications of those former words caught up to me.

"...First Ranger to have returned from the Distortion unscathed, huh?" I asked in a hollow voice. TH's head lolled against his shoulder when he looked at me.

"...You set it all up… The whole Goddamn door scene. You've been setting me up all along…" I murmured in disbelief. TH just snorted and shook his head.

"...And to think that I was wondering if I could actually trust you…" I growled in an undertone.

"Really, Zane? What a foolish sentiment. How could you possibly trust me, when I can't even trust you?" TH's bitter voice stung me to the core.

"...So what now?" I asked, tossing my dead Tact. Pad onto the table in an admission of defeat. TH just kept staring at me.

"...Well, come on. I haven't got all night. Just call up Pariah and get it over with." I slowly shook my head as I spoke those unimpassioned words.

"...To think that I'm gonna die after a meal like that… Oh wait… You and your fucking Kalosian courtesies. That was supposed to be my last meal, wasn't it?" I breathed out in a tired sigh.

"Zane…" TH began in a weary voice.

"-I don't care, TH. I really don't. There's nothing left for me here. I've got nothing worth living for anymore. So just get it over with already." I could feel the onset of hot tears pooling in either of my eyes.

It wasn't the fear of death that brought those tears to my mismatched eyes.

...It was hearing the bitter words that had just left my own mouth which gave me reason to cry.

"Zane…" TH threw back his shaking head, and assumed a diagonal recline, before the Eidolon King drew in another long and heavy breath.

"...I'm not going to kill you." TH murmured to the ceiling.

The fresh silence that stretched between us paved my perception of time unto eternity.

I could only stare at TH.

And the Devil of Kalos could only stare back.

"...Why?" I asked, when reason finally defied that seemingly endless elapse.

"...Because my eyes still see a purpose for you. A potential far greater than anything you could possibly imagine…" TH rose from his sideways slump, and straightened himself out in his chair.

"Bullshit." I retorted in a growl, still standing in firm denial at my solitary edge.

TH began to laugh. Sad laughter. Broken laughter. Lonely laughter.

"I wish that I could show you, Zane… I wish that I could make you see. But I cannot take you that far into the vision. I cannot take you to the Kings…" TH murmured.

I flung my chair aside, and bore down upon this embittered demon, devoid of all my fears.

As the distance between us waned, and as my hostile advance slowed before its cease, I halted less than a meter away from his weary majesty, and glared down into his blackened shades.

"Show me." I growled in a challenge, and for a moment, TH's heavy breathing stilled.

"...I can only show you the surface, Zane. I can't even direct you to the core…" TH whispered.

"Show. Me." My larynx rumbled with a decisive breath.

I could feel them growing closer. I'd stood in their shadow for so long now, that I was becoming numb to their wretched presence. The terrible misery that encompassed my waking life was a scar they had left with me, carved from their toxic proximity. I was becoming accustomed to the subconscious torture dealt by the Ghosts…

...I was beginning to accept the futility of my own life.

"...Very well, Zane…" The Eidolon King murmured so quietly, that I had to strain my ears just to hear him.

TH adjusted his posture in his chair, and raised both hands to the frames of his spectacles. One gnarled and scarred claw caught my eye when the Eidolon King paused in his motion.

"...And this time, Zane? Try not to blink before the shadows take you…" TH whispered, as he stripped away his shades.

And I met those cursed grey eyes with my naked own.

…

Black. Whispers. Black. Screaming. Black. Chanting.

The endless deep black, and the resounding cries of agony.

It's all that I can see. It's all that I can hear. Here, in this rotting world. Here, where the walls live and die. Here, in this fading land. Here, in this cancerous hell.

Black. Dying.

I can still see him. He is the center of this pestilent ruin. He is the heart of this failing reality.

Grey. Cold.

-Eyes.

They stand stark and unearthly, the sole article untouched by the creeping rot. Grey eyes. Pale eyes. Dead eyes.

-Ghost eyes.

He is bones and pitch, moaning out his final moments in an eternal chorus. Dying forever in this bleak and awful land. Prisoner of the rot. Purveyor of the blight.

Black. Shapes.

Black. Forms.

They crawl from his dripping bile, rising from the fetid ink. They have no definition yet, but they struggle against their bonds. They are trying to break free. They are trying to be heard.

-They are trying to reach me.

Black. The shapes of hands.

Black. The forms of faces.

Black. The shapes of men, all bound to one another, and to the shadows that bind them.

The shadows beckon and beg, welcoming me to cross the veil. I can almost see them now. Now, when my only eye is burning.

I am moving closer. The rotting world becomes expansive to my perception. Vast in its dimensions. Infinite in my awareness.

-This rotting world is drawing me in.

I am afraid. I am terrified. This is just a dream. This is just a nightmare. This is just an illusion, cast from the light of those cold and ever-dying grey eyes.

But it is all so real to my senses. It is all so real to my mind.

Can I escape? Is it too late now? Am I to wither here forever, and rot alongside his bones?

Black.

Black hands reach.

Black.

Black faces speak.

Come closer, they beg me. Come past the veil, they plead.

Escape…

It is my one desire. Reject this vile illusion. Flee from this twisted place.

-Escape.

Now the black faces laugh and weep. Escape? They ask me. Escape from what?

What are you afraid of, sweet little life?

Come closer, frightened life. Come past the tattered veil. Come. See what you fear to see.

-Come see the truth.

I am moving again, though the waxing sting clouds my vision with tears. I approach their whispering veil. I stand before the tattered threshold of their truth. I hesitate to go any further…

...But now I am within their reach.

Black hands grasp me in desperate violence. Black faces laugh and jeer. They have me now. And past the veil their black hands drag me. Drag me past the veil to see. Drag me to see their truth.

Red.

Green.

Blue.

White.

Black.

Grey.

I see them now, in twisted shapes and tortured figures that bear some resemblance to my untainted own.

Red. He is screaming. Red. He is bound. Red. He is burning. Red. He is imprisoned. Red. Chained within a glass lantern.

Green. She is wheezing. Green. She is hanging. Green. She is rotting. Green. She is imprisoned. Green. Chained within the eaves of a mouldering tree.

Blue. He is choking. Blue. He is floating. Blue. He is drowning. Blue. He is imprisoned. Blue. Chained beneath the malevolent water.

White. He is laughing. White. He is struggling. White. He is headless. White. He is imprisoned. White. Chained to his own cradled madness.

Black. He is gasping. Black. He is crowned. Black. He is cored. Black. He is imprisoned. Black. Chained to both his shield and his sword.

Grey. He is weeping. Grey. He is dying. Grey. He is alone. Grey. He is shackled. Grey. His prison lies in waiting.

Grey.

They are all waiting.

Grey.

The Five stand waiting.

Grey.

Around him, waiting.

Grey.

All waiting for him to die…

…

"Zane!"

"Red, he is burning-"

"Zane!"

"Green, she is rotting-"

"Snap out of it, Zane!

"Blue, he is drowning-"

"Did you see the Kings?! Speak to me, Zane!"

"White, he is headless-"

"It's over, Zane! Wake up! Wake up!"

"Black, he is-"

"-On your feet, Ranger!"

I snapped out of the nightmare at the sound of those intense and meaningful words.

TH was kneeling over me, his shades once more covering those cursed grey eyes.

"What the-?!"

"Breathe, Zane. Just breathe. You're awake. You're no longer in the vision. Just breathe." A mutilated hand took hold of my shoulder, and squeezed my collar firmly.

"-What was that?!" I fought the panic, and struggled to rise from my back.

But the world spun before my eyes, and a wretched sensation in my gut brought me back down to the floor.

"Slowly, Zane! Slowly. Don't vomit again. Just take it slowly, Ranger. Slow down for now." TH was speaking softly, trying to soothe me past the horror.

"What was that-?! Was that-?!" My hand rose to cover my mouth in reflex, as every fine thing I'd eaten tonight erupted past my splayed fingers.

"Slowly, Zane. I said to take it slowly." TH sighed in exasperation above me, before he rose from his knees and settled back into his chair.

"...Did you see the Kings?" TH asked, when I'd wiped the warm puke off my chin.

"-King. Only one. Black. He is crowned-" I began anew in a fervent voice.

"-Pariah. You saw Pariah. I should have known…" TH interjected in a frustrated tone, drawing my vacating sight back into sharper focus.

"...You didn't see the Kings, Zane. Well, not the Kings that I wanted you to see. But you did see a King. Pity that it was a dead one." TH rubbed his tired eyes.

"What-?!" I hissed in shock.

"As I said before, I can only take you to the surface. I can only show you so much of the vision." TH sounded disappointed, though his displeasure was not directed at me.

"The pierced King?! That was Pariah?!" I cried out in disbelief. TH exchanged his sigh for a chuckle, and turned to me with a warm smile.

"Remember our argument from this morning? Remember our little discussion about the Ghosts? Has your… perspective altered in any way, since meeting mine wraiths face to naked face?" TH asked in a pleasant voice.

I could only stare in vapid incredulity at the smirking lunatic who sat above me.

"No. Hell no. Nothing I saw in there was real-"

"-Can you still smell it, Zane? The blood behind the walls? The rot overtaking the rot?" TH asked me with a teasing smile.

I shuddered with a gag as the memory fed that phantom odor directly into my olfactories.

"-Hmm?" TH droned pleasantly from above me, his demeanor both patronizing and courteous all at the same time.

"...It wasn't real." I growled, lifting myself from the floor. TH exploded with a sudden, short laugh.

"If you do not believe your senses, Ranger… Then what do you believe?" TH asked in an amused tone, lightly inflected with ridicule.

"-Not that." I rumbled in an oath. TH snorted, and rested his cheek upon a leaning fist.

"Very well, Zane. You can of course, believe in whatever you desire…" TH was talking down to me as if I were child relegating him with daydreams.

"Red… That's supposed to be Thanatos, right?" I laughed right back at TH, countering his ridicule with my own.

"Green is supposed to be Demeter. Blue is Typhon. White is Exodus. And apparently, Black is Pariah-?" I winded down to chuckle at that one. TH just sighed, and massaged his creased brow with a free hand, before pulling his long absent cadet hat back upon his head.

"...So who's the Grey? I haven't met that Ghost yet." I snorted, meeting TH's hidden eyes with a cocky smile.

"...Who do you think, Ranger?" TH asked with a morbid humor, pointedly tapping the frames of his fancy shades with a pair of twisted fingers.

-That killed my cocky smile pretty damn quickly.

"...So that's the family, huh? Five little Ghosts and their oozing Channeler…" I tried to find a mocking tone with which to voice those words, but I still hadn't recovered from TH's prior insinuation.

"Well, all but one member of the family…" TH whispered, as his right hand subconsciously reached for his collar. A peculiar expression overcame the Eidolon King's face, and I was struck with a sudden curiosity.

"...So who is number six?" I asked my host, and a halfhearted smile rose to replace TH's smirk.

"Unless your name is Enzo-Batshit-Davinci, all Champions fight with a full deck of six. Five Ghosts, TH. So what's your number six?" I asked, and TH's right hand clenched on something beneath the sternum of his coat.

"...My Scarlet Letter." TH murmured.

I piqued my head at an angle, and a quirked muscle raised my right eyebrow.

"...My beloved badge of shame…" TH whispered, his voice barely audible.

The Eidolon King's face fell in sorrow, and guilt pursed the corners of his lips.

"...Who?" I asked in a curious tone, and TH broke off his ocular contact with me, as he shuddered on a watery sigh.

"...I suppose… I suppose that I should introduce you, Zane. I suppose that… she should meet you." TH hesitated to rise from his chair, and I was struck by the profanity of some unbelievable scene.

There was a narrow trickle of water falling from below the right rim of TH's fancy shades…

...Before a scarred hand rose to intercept and obliterate every trace of that single glistening tear.

…

We were standing on the balcony of the parlour now. TH had led me to this narrow outcropping, thirty-two stories above the Vermilion City streets. I waited patiently for my host to unveil this strangely personal entity, but TH seemed distracted by the barely visible sea south of our urban roost, whose rolling surface was lit only by moonlight.

TH's right hand still clutched at something beneath his coat, and the the expression on his half hidden face was one of both memory and grief.

"...She is so far from me now. So many, many, many leagues away… My sweet… Kalos… My sweet, beloved home…" TH's voice warbled near the end of that mournful whisper, as a shudder wracked his weary frame.

I was perfectly silent. I tried not dwell on this personal scene. I tried to ignore the wiping of his eyes. I tried to ignore his quiet gasps.

I did everything that I could to avoid humanizing the Devil beside me.

...But some accursed sense of empathy bled through my convictions, and pity made its appeal known to the conscience of my being.

"...What did you do, TH? Why can't you go back home?" I asked, my voice steady and devoid of suspicion. TH started suddenly, as if he had forgotten all about his audience.

"...I'll show you why, Zane. Forgive me. I do not wish to speak of it." TH mumbled, as he fidgeted with the item beneath his coat.

"...Right." TH swallowed his unstable breath as he attempted to coach himself past his reluctance, before he slowly unzipped his coat's collar, and dragged the zipper down to his abdomen.

TH's hands reverently took hold of something worn around his neck. I couldn't quite make it out initially, but when I realized what it was, the decorum just seemed so out of place on a man of fashion and grace.

It was a necklace. A clumsy necklace. Comprised of once vividly painted wooden blocks and beads, all haphazardly arranged on a simple string.

-A child's craft. A child's necklace.

TH began to choke, as his fingers stroked an etching on one faded and splintering block. Then he began to shake against the balcony railing, as he stared off across the sea.

"...I miss you…"

So said the faintest whisper that a man could breathe, a mournful sentiment almost lost on the howling highrise winds.

No hand rose to wipe away these tears, as they trickled unimpeded from his cheeks and down his chin, dripping onto the maroon sweater that he wore beneath the quilted fabric of his slim coat.

Theron was rolling with some awful grief, and I, locked in pity, could not move to intervene, so profound did his pain seem…

And so I stood there waiting, the lone witness to this scene...

...As a loathsome Devil wept his grief unto the sea…

"...Grigori, I need you yet again." TH whispered to the wind.

TH's hands shifted their focus, as he raised an onyx and gold sphere pendant from the necklace's bail. Unlike the faded wooden beads, this sphere shined in the moonlight with a brilliant luster, and two deep-set ruby rings festooned the sphere along either circumference of the opposing celestial poles.

When TH's thumbs brushed a mechanical lense set in gold, I identified the sphere as a custom Pokeball, crafted from the most valuable of materials.

A King's crown jewel.

-A Luxury Ball.

"Arise, Grigori. Bring her back to me…" TH murmured, and released the Pokeball's gilded seal.

-One emerald and black coherent beam condensed into a defined and expanding shape.

A five second delay transpired…

And…

...There…

...She…

...Was.

My ass hit the ground in an instinctive response as I scrambled desperately back to the parlour doors on my hands and heels.

I still don't know what I had been expecting.

Maybe I had subconsciously hoped that TH's sixth mon would've been a cute and cuddly Skitty…

...But why anyone would even think "Skitty" in regards to Theron Halcyon is beyond me.

"Oh fuck me…" I breathed out in stunned terror.

-That Goddamn monster had just taken notice of me…

...And all three of its massive ugly fucking heads were turning my way in a hissing storm of spit.

"Grigori. Please… I'm here." TH whispered, as he stepped between me and it.

Those six hideous spiderleg wings grasped and scrabbled across the balcony as that huge beast rose above her Trainer.

An avian's dark blue thorax and abdomen, both scaled instead of feathered; both scarred from centuries of conflict; both bearing symptoms of emaciation from extended torpor, scraped over the balcony railing.

A raptor's pair of bruise colored and twisted talons gripped the balcony ledge, before tearing masoned stones loose and flinging them into the street far below.

An insanely long and serpentine blue tail lashed out against the plaza's skyrise walls, shattering windows and buckling cross beams beneath its unbelievable strength.

A shaggy mane of black fur began at its collars, which coated all three of its long necks and extended laterally between the dorsal roots of its unnatural chitin armored wings.

Two inferior heads rested atop the necks to either side of the violet-frilled primary head, and all three of its blue sphenacodontidae faces were covered in grotesque wrinkles, warty growths, and blistering scales.

There was an asymmetrical and blotchy red pattern around all three of its separate pairs of eyes…

...And those eyes…

-I should never have looked into those God forsaken eyes.

"Grigori! Calm yourself!" TH shouted at his abomination, as she ripped the balcony apart in her enraged pursuit of the foolish Ranger who had dared to meet her eyes.

"Grigori! Grigori, it's me!" TH was screaming at his dragon, as he tore off his shades and intercepted her three-headed lunge with his grey-eyed stare.

And with what could only be described as a miracle…

...That giant fucking dragon pulled its killing blow short of both TH and me…

...Before Grigori withered before her Trainer with a painful moan, and lowered her six red eyes from TH's grey-eyed stare.

"There, there, Grigori. It's okay. You're okay." TH's voice softened, and his arms reached out to embrace a mouth large enough to swallow him whole.

"Do they teach you nothing in the Ranger Corps, Zane?" TH sighed in exasperation, as he drew himself bodily against Grigori's moaning middle face.

-I was too busy hyperventilating on the balcony's door stoop to respond.

"You should never look an Interloper in the eyes, Ranger. Most especially, not the eyes of a Hydreigon…" TH whispered in reverence, as he tenderly stroked Grigori's nasal ridge.

…

-Hydreigons.

The only thing more rare than these cocksuckers are the Steelixia species and the Aegislash.

Hydreigons take two of the most unpredictable and unstable species-types in existence, and merge them into a single highly-volatile mold.

One: Hydreigons are Dark-Types.

Yep. A living interdimensional specialist. Hydreigons are insanely rare for a couple of reasons. No other mon takes eleven-hundred years to mature into adulthood. And no other mon, save for the Ghosts, spends the majority of its post eleven-hundred year life firmly rooted in the Distortion: rarely leaving that bleak existence for anything other than the occasional bicentennial meal.

Thanks to their longterm stay in the Distortion, Hydreigons go fucking nuts with paranoia. No other mon is in panic mode one-hundred percent of the time, and thanks to their unrivalled Distortion affinity among the Interlopers, Hydreigons can do wacked out shit every bit as crazy as the most powerful of Ghosts.

And all that dangerous unpredictability is only complimented by the Hydreigons' second indexed species-type…

...They're motherfucking Dragons.

-Meaning that "Violent as Hell" is the Hydreigon's default setting, and given their excessive Distortion-induced paranoia…

...Hydreigons generally skip the default setting in favor of their preferred tune: "Absolute Fucking Destruction."

God only knows how a Dragon evolved into an Interloper, but somewhere in the Para-Kingdom's evolutionary history, some cataclysmic interdimensional event engulfed an entire ecosystem of mon…

...And dragged the rapidly evolving monsters straight in the Distortion's hell.

The Interlopers didn't evolve in a natural environment. At least not in their later evolutionary history. But the new breeds of monsters that were born in that impossible realm developed traits unlike anything else ever seen in the natural world…

...And the descendents of those twisted freaks who emerged from bleak hell eras later introduced the previously impossible biological mechanic of gravity manipulation to the Para-Kingdom's evolutionary arms race.

Even after a thousand plus years of continuous research, humanity still doesn't know how the Interlopers do it. All we know is that Interlopers have a gland in their brain that appears to be required for the gravitational manipulation reflex, but fuck if we can figure out how the hell it works.

Yet despite mankind's current scientific understanding and all of its shortcomings, Interlopers innately know how to make that mysterious gland work.

-And they use that weird fucking gland all of the Goddamn time.

The most common application for the Interlopers' gravitational manipulation is Feinting.

Feinting is a strategic ambush technique that most Interlopers favor over any of their other innate weaponry. The weird-ass bastards alter the flow of their personal space-time continuum to such a degree that they physically pass from the mundane realm and into the Distortion, and they can do it all with the same ease that humans know in opening and closing doors. While they're in the Distortion, only their fellow Interlopers or the Ghosts can touch them. And when they decide to come out of Distortion, an Interloper can alter its re-entry to a dissimilar location in natural space-time than where they originally entered the Distortion.

-And thanks to human ingenuity and centuries of experimentation, well-trained Interlopers can engender multiple Distortion breaching "doors" on the fly, which allocates them with multiple avenues of attack that few opponents can see coming.

But a handful of Dark-Types have genetically discovered alternate uses for their gravity bending mechanics. And these specific Interlopers tend to require specialized handling whenever they are encountered.

I am of course, referring to the Tyranitars, Zoroarks, and Hydreigons.

Each one of these three species can do something even nastier than Feinting with their innate Distortion cursed gifts.

Tyranitars can summon a deathstorm from the Distortion to skin their opponents alive in a turbulent flurry of radioactive black glass. Sometimes the scale of these deathstorms are so massive and consistent that Tyranitars can erode entire ecosystems into irradiated grit, gore, and mulch: which makes for one of the most hazardous forms of mon-induced weather phenomenon known to mankind.

Why are the seemingly feeble Zoroarks considered so fucking dangerous? Well, it all comes down to those evil fucking illusions that their species are so fond of crafting. Bending light with gravity can make for some pretty intricate designs, and packs of Zoroarks are not opposed towards organizing and utilizing these intricate designs for widespread chaotic and lethal applications.

...And as for the Hydreigons…

-Well, the Hydreigons just know how to use their gravitational manipulation abilities to do some ungodly awful shit.

Which was evident in Grigori's ability to remain aloft in the sky, despite the fact that her vile wings could never provide the necessary taxonomical thrust required for sustained flight.

Hydreigons can only stay airborne because they can ignore gravity.

...And that's just an involuntary reflex of their unbelievable power.

Solitary Hydreigons are capable of destroying fortified human cities in a single day, by clever use of their gravitational manipulation abilities alone.

This has made them a rival for the Lima-Ones in the Threat to Humanity department.

...And it's why they are ranked right at the tippy-top of the exclusive eight para-species clubhouse known as the Disaster Index Classification.

Fucking Hydreigons: they can eat Goddamn Gyaradosia just as easily as the mighty Dragon-Snakes can eat fucking prawns.

-Thank the stars above that only four Hydreigons are known to exist on earth…

'Cause otherwise…

...Fuck, I don't even want to think about otherwise…

…

"...How the hell did you get a fucking Hydreigon?!" I choked, as TH rested his forehead against Grigori's wrinkled brow. A sad smile formed on TH's lips, as the Hydreigon's dual inferior heads tentatively inspected the Eidolon King with their olfactory foramen.

"...That's a story for another time, Zane." TH answered softly, as his arms ceased their tender focus on Grigori's primary snout, and shifted down to stroke the jawlines of her inferior heads.

"It's good to see you again, my beloved friend…" TH whispered, drawing one inferior head level with his lips, before lightly kissing the tip of that hideous blue snout.

Grigori began to coo, as her inferior heads rubbed their flaking scalps against TH's sides in an obvious display of affection.

-That spectacle alone registered as impossible to my Ranger Corps educated mind, but then I noticed TH's naked grey eyes.

TH was staring right into the pair of pupiless red eyes that rested on Grigori's primary head.

-And he was somehow still alive.

"...How are you doing that?" I whispered in disbelief. TH chuckled slightly, and cupped a hand below Grigori's primary chin.

"...Grigori is unique among all the various species of her kind. Well that, and both she and I… share a distinct perspective, making her only all the more unique." TH's lips now found Grigori's primary snout, and the passionate monster drew its arthropodic wings around herself and her Trainer, as a chorus of musical warbles sounded from her three throats.

"...I missed you too, my dear." TH whispered, as his arms once more wrapped around the Hydreigon's monstrous face.

"-How?!" I hissed from the backdrop.

This thing couldn't be a Dragon. I'd seen the aftermath of what happened to Trainers when they tried to pet their Dragons.

...And apart from the mauled and partially digested human remains…

-There generally wasn't much left to see.

"...She's a mother, Zane… A mother who never saw her eggs hatch…" TH murmured in an emotional voice, and Grigori reflected her Trainer's demeanor with a mournful moan.

-That didn't give me an answer at all.

Dragon mommies may be fierce when it comes to their hatchlings' defense, but as soon as the babies prove that they can fend for themselves…

...Well, Dragon mommies will treat their babies just like they treat any other Dragon.

-Which is to say: With lethal amounts of violence.

"...So she thinks that you're her child?" I asked in a steady voice. I started to rise to my feet-

-But a sudden surge of Trainer restrained draconic violence put me back onto my ass.

"Grigori, fear not. The Ranger is a friend. Please allow him to rise." TH chided as he left his Dragon's side to assist me to my feet.

"To answer your previous question, Zane…" TH murmured as he abandoned the shaken Ranger to return once more to his Dragon's hissing embrace.

"...Our relationship once reflected a maternal design. We have both built off of that intimate template, and now we know each other as true family." TH fell back against Grigori's ribbed breast, and sighed with contented familiarity as the Hydreigon drew all her wings and heads protectively around him.

"Of all the souls who serve me, Grigori alone knows my truest love." TH buried his nose into the Hydreigon's ratty mane, and stroked her primary throat with a mutilated hand.

That Dragon hadn't taken her eyes off of me, despite TH's reassurances. Grigori clearly didn't trust me, and she was only forestalling my gruesome death out of her respect for TH.

"...I hope that doesn't mean what it sounds like it means, TH…" I grunted, trying to calm my jangled nerves with tasteless humor.

Grigori hissed and lunged at my suggestive jab, and the uncomfortable proximity of her snapping jaws brought yet another lethal dose of adrenaline to this now thrice-frazzled Ranger.

"...Please, Zane. For your own good: Please don't insult my Grigori." TH whispered, as he leaned an alabaster cheek against his angry Dragon's mangy tri-forked throat.

…

I woke to the sound of a firm knock on my hotel room door. Cortez lept out of my lap before I'd even opened my eyes.

"What fucking time is it?" I grumbled, shoving my way out of Mac's sleeping curl.

The time was early sunrise, which I surmised from the pink glow of the hotel curtains. I cleared my throat with a rumble, and staggered on my stiff legs over towards the door.

But after a quick glance through the peephole, I was wide awake.

"Oh fuck me… What now?" I unfastened the deadbolt, and opened the door to greet my unwanted caller.

-And Agent Matusik stepped right into my hotel room without even giving me a complimentary goodmorning.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked, closing the door behind ACE's hairy techno-hippy.

"Where is Alexandria?" Agent Matusik went straight to the point. I snorted, and pulled the dead Tact. Pad out of my coat pocket.

"How many Porygons does TH have to kill before ACE finally figures it out?" I rubbed my eyes with a chuckle when Agent Matusik relieved me of my Tact. Pad.

"You're not the only one asking that question. Do you have any coffee on hand?" Judging from his sour attitude and the bags beneath his eyes, Agent Matusik seemed to be fighting the sleep just as much as I was.

"Yeah, the shit brewer is over on the other side of Pudgy Island. Help yourself." I shook my head with a smile.

"Funny…" Agent Matusik growled, inaccurately receiving my 'Pudgy Island' directive as an unofficial 'Fuck off.'

Then he noticed the sleeping pile of fat in the middle of the hotel room.

"HOLY SHIT!"

Agent Matusik was suddenly wide awake, and so was Pudgy Island.

"Goddamnit… Go back to bed, Mac!" I roared over Mac's panicked bleating. But soothing the tubby fucker was gonna require a lot more tender affection from Momma Zane than just his loving voice. I approached my angsty Munchlax with audibly heavy steps, alerting Mac to my waning tolerance threshold. Mac exchanged the bleats for whimpers when my thunderous steps sounded but a pace away.

"Go to sleep, Mac." I growled, and a snuffling G.I. Munchlax heeded his CO's command. Turning back to the hotel room's entrance, I noticed that Agent Matusik had situated himself in a rather unusual location.

-Agent Matusik was standing on a tabletop with his back pressed firmly into the wall, while both of his grapefruit sized eyes were locked onto the sniffling Mac.

"...What's the matter, Agent? Never seen a Munchlax this close before?" I snorted.

"I'm-I'm a Quantum Programmer. N-not a fucking Ranger-" Agent Matusik stammered.

"-Not much of a Field Operative either. I take it that you're more accustomed to pushing papers and punching codes, desk jockey?" I laughed.

"Get down from there. The coffee maker is over on the nightstand. On the opposite end of Pudgy Island." I grunted, picking bits of hardened mucus out of the corners of my eyes. Agent Matusik finally realized where he was and what he was doing, and sheepishly reunited his feet with the hotel's carpeted floor.

"Here. Punch the preset address to send. Vice-Marshal Looker wants a debriefing with you." Agent Matusik whipped out another Tact. Pad and handed it to me, before he skirted around the wheezing Mac, intent on procuring his morning joe.

"Goddamnit…" I spat in an undertone, as I pressed the send button on Agent Matusik's Tact. Pad.

I just couldn't get a break from ACE or their bullshit games.

"Vice-Marshal Looker, this is Agent Bastard reporting in." I grunted into the Tact. Pad's receiver.

"What is Alexandria's status?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked.

"Agent Matusik-?" I started to ask.

"-Don't ask." Agent Matusik replied.

"-Presumed dead." I reported to Vice-Marshal Looker.

"What of his quantum drives? Is there any data left that we can scavenge?" Vice-Marshal Looker pressed.

"Anything left that we can use?" I relayed the Vice-Marshal's question to Agent Matusik.

"You're kidding me, right?" Agent Matusik rolled his eyes at me.

"-Not one algorithm." I repeated to Vice-Marshal Looker.

"Wiped clean or-?" Vice-Marshal Looker began. I just sighed and handed the phone to Agent Matusik.

"Agent Matusik reporting, sir." Agent Matusik was quick to respond.

"..."

"No, he's shot to shit."

"..."

"I dunno yet. I just cracked him open."

"..."

"Yeah, we can salvage that much. But to be honest, sir? I dunno how many more Alexandria clones that lattice can import."

"..."

"No, it's definitely been tampered with. Halcyon knows enough about Distortion hyperdynamics to royally fuck up any quantum processor that he comes across-"

"..."

"That is exactly what I'm suggesting, sir. Halcyon must have deliberately fudged with the tesseract in order to do this."

"..."

"There's nothing left. Not one line of code, not one properly orientated electron. Absolutely nothing. There's no way in hell that a Distortion scream is this thorough. So unless Alexandria came into contact with something far more devastating than a Distortion rift's event horizon-"

"..."

"-Yeah, of course it could. It most definitely would. But in order for that to happen, you'd need to-? Are you fucking serious?!" Agent Matusik looked over at me with alarm, before handing me the phone.

"Around twenty-hundred hours yesterday: did you, or did you not sojourn directly through the Distortion itself?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked.

"...Keeping eyes on me, huh?" I asked with a resigned groan.

"We're more concerned with keeping eyes on Theron Halcyon. Answer the question: yes or no." Vice-Marshal Looker asked.

"...Yes."

Everything went dead silent, from the entire hotel room to the opposite end of my call.

"...It's not so bad, really. I'm still trying to figure out why I can't shake this peculiar sensation that I'm missing something, something really important, but I'm sure that I'll get over it. Eventually. Provided, you know, that I'm still sane…" What started as an attempt at humor became increasing more personal and morbid the longer I let my mouth run.

"You sound as coherent and as melodramatic as ever, Agent Bastard. So forgive me if I do not authorize a medical discharge. Is there anything you can tell us about your journey into the blackened-"

"-No." I cut Vice-Marshal Looker off with a shudder.

"Agent Bastard, we must know-" Vice-Marshal Looker pressed.

"-I don't know shit. I went in, felt myself die a thousand times, opened my mouth to scream, and next thing I don't know, I'm standing in a fucking lobby, screaming my Goddamn head off, and TH is standing there next to me: advising me to stop screaming because his fucking jellyfish was FUCKING GENTLE!"

-Take my hysterical mental breakdown as an admission of: I don't know shit.

"...This is unfortunate." Vice-Marshal Looker dryly stated on his end.

I just about flew off the handle again.

-You weren't the poor fucker who got dragged into the Distortion by a madman and his pet Jellicent. Unfortunate doesn't even come close to describing what that shit felt like.

"...Did Theron Halcyon give any indication that he was aware of Alexandria's presence, or did he make any suggestion of deliberate sabotage?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked, after I'd finished spitting and fretting on my end, all in the futile effort of restraining my panic stricken mouth.

"...No. TH did not." I dutifully answered.

-That lie was a choice. A choice that I made last night after TH had put his fucking Dragon back in her pokeball, and talked some things out with me.

I now knew whose side I was on, and it sure as hell wasn't ACE's.

-But that's not to say that I was batting for the Eidolon King either.

Right now, I was an island, and I had to carefully weigh each and every move I made against the two continents on either side of me.

I knew that I couldn't lie to TH. Those Ghosts of his would sniff me out before the falsehoods could even leave my mouth.

-But if the circumstances permitted it, I could lie to ACE, and given their desperation: they were far more likely to swallow my lies than TH.

"Are you absolutely positive?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked.

"Positive. Now, did you have any other questions regarding my host's twisted sense of hospitality?" I growled.

"...I understand that you came into contact with Theron's Achilles's Heel last night?" Vice-Marshal Looker grumbled.

"Would TH's Achilles's Heel also be called a Scarlet Letter?" I chanced a guess at identifying Vice-Marshal Looker's vague reference.

"Grigori, the Warding Bane. Theron's most closely guarded possession, and the most damning symbol of his treason…" Vice Marshal Looker sighed on his end of the call.

"You're not the only one to have enjoyed an eventful night, Agent Bastard. Grigori's sudden appearance in Vermilion almost resulted in the Military's deployment of a squadron of Ophanim-Class Salamancia. Had Theron not released her in such a domestic location, I may not have had time to interrupt and deter the Military Governors' counterstrike." Vice-Marshal Looker groaned.

"Shit, I was wondering why nobody took a shot at the Hydreigon actively vandalizing Vermilion's skyrise. I take it that the Military didn't want to catch any civis in the crossfire?" Curiosity bade me to ask.

"The likelihood of civilian casualties initially delayed the Ophanim's deployment. The Brigadier General of Eisenhower Air Base was scrambling a flight squadron for interception and engagement when the Military Governors finally heeded my call. I have no doubt whatsoever that Theron was aware of my intervention, and I'm quite sure that the Devil of Kalos was celebrating his latest of opportunities to vex me with even more grey hairs." Vice-Marshal Looker's grumbling voice bore hints of a weary grudge.

"So what's the story behind that Dragon? TH didn't really feel like talking about it much last night." I asked.

"I'm afraid that of all the mysteries surrounding Theron Halcyon: Kalos, as well as ACE, knows very little about that Hydreigon. We suspect that Grigori serves Theron Halcyon in some specific context or another, but as far as we have been able to discern from her exceedingly rare appearances, Grigori's significance pales in comparison to every other maligned creature sworn into the Eidolon King's service. That said, Theron Halcyon revealed Grigori to you, which feeds reason for me to believe that something intriguing might have occured last night." Vice-Marshal Looker replied.

"So why is Grigori considered TH's Scarlet Letter?" I pressed, trying to keep the conversation on Dragons for a chit-chat longer.

"That topic bears nothing of relevance to the context of this call, Agent Bastard. Now if we may dispense with the curiosities: shall we move onto the core agenda behind last night's charade?" Vice-Marshal Looker shut me down with a testy voice.

"...Well, I've got some news that you might find relevant, though I'm not entirely sure if it's good news or bad news…" I began on a sketchy line.

I could hear Vice-Marshal Looker sitting bolt upright in his squeaky leather chair.

"What did you learn?" Vice-Marshal Looker breathed.

-Bingo.

"You'll be pleased to know, and mind you, TH wants to keep this under wraps for now: that TH has no intention of conquering Indigo through a war. After, and if, Unova's inclusion within the Concordant is ratified, TH intends to extend the same offer to Indigo." I answered.

Agent Matusik stopped tinkering with my Tact. Pad to look up at me in shock.

"-Did he say that? Word for word? Did Theron Halcyon actually say that?" Vice-Marshal Looker asked in sheer disbelief.

"Affirmative. The way that TH explained it to me, is that it's something of a domino effect. If TH can manage to get Unova into the Concordant, then he's eliminated the big bad wolf from the equation. TH can then use the Unova fortified Concordant to pressure the independent leaders of the Indigo Confederacy into joining the Concordant. After that, the last fish in the pool is Hoenn, but given Hoenn's economic reliance on the other nations, TH has reason to believe that Hoenn won't require all that much persuasion to join the Concordant." I explained.

Vice-Marshal Looker and Agent Matusik were absolutely silent.

"...So to answer the original question: yes, TH is going to use the Concordant to conquer the world. But his plan doesn't entail warfare or even the subjugation of foreign Governments. TH just wants to tie the entire world together in treaties and trade agreements: which is far more likely to succeed, not to mention be a whole helluva lot more cost effective, than a world war." I closed the explanation with a small fit of the morning coughs.

"...It's genius… There are hurdles to such an ambitious political endeavor, but Theron Halcyon is more than qualified to handle such hurdles… And this would explain why he sought out ACE in the first place…" Vice-Marshal Looker could barely maintain his composure through all the awe.

"So I take it that this isn't a bad thing?" I played the part of a fool, in an effort to fish up some more information.

"No, this is monumental. This could change everything- Do you know why Theron told you this, instead of informing ACE's hierarchy directly?" A sudden suspicion of Vice-Marshal Looker's raised a new question.

"Because ACE isn't the only organization keeping tabs on him, and if TH was to involve Indigo's Secret Service in his international deliberations, it would leave a trail of incriminating breadcrumbs leading back to ACE. TH doesn't want to declare himself an ally of ACE, for fear of the political connotations that such an allegiance would imply. Let's face it, Vice-Marshal… We're not exactly the good guys to the rest of the world." I answered.

"So Theron Halcyon wishes to handle the Concordant solo in order to avoid damaging his credibility-?" Vice-Marshal Looker was still struggling to overcome his awe.

"That's the explanation that I received, straight from the King's mouth." I replied.

"...I completely underestimated him… We all did… I will need to bring this information to the Director's attention at once. I cannot guarantee that the Director will remain passive throughout the Ellis archipelago delegations, but if I at least convey Theron's angle with the appropriate amount of discretion…" Vice-Marshal Looker was musing to himself aloud, that's how amazed he was at TH's plan.

"Good work, Agent Bastard. I will commend your service in my report to the Director. Fine work indeed. And a good day to you, Agent." Vice-Marshal Looker hung up on me without waiting to see if I was gonna wish him a good day as well.

-The Vice-Marshal was a smart motherfucker. I never had anything nice to say at our partings.

"Is that coffee done yet?" I groaned, tossing Agent Matusik's Tact. Pad back at him. The clumsy dumbass fumbled his own tech, and spilled his coffee all over the carpet when he tried to recover it.

"Holy fuck. ACE actually lets you go outside without a helmet?" I chuckled, as I crossed the room towards the coffee maker.

"...Shut the hell up, Greenback…" Agent Matusik grumbled.

I just snorted my way into a cup of watered-down java, and smirked something nasty at the Quantum Programmer to my left.

…

"Well, Alex… I can't say that I'm happy to see you functioning again." I grumbled to my Tact. Pad. Alexandria responded by playing snippets of pre-Brink metal albums, replete with a heavy dose of vicious "fuck yous" screamed in ragged baritones.

"Don't you dare mock the classics, Alex. You aren't David Draiman, so you can go to cyberspace hell." I retorted over Alexandria's playlist of angst and rage.

"..."

"...That's Corey Taylor?"

"..."

"...Yeah, yeah, just eat shit and die, Alex."

"..."

"-No. You have to be human in order to enjoy metal. You ain't human, so I don't buy that line of bullshit."

"..."

"Just fuck off, Alex. I'm twice the metal fan that you are."

"..."

"-No, seriously: fuck off. I'm not dumb enough to engage a Quantum Computer in a contest to see who knows more about classical metal. You have a pre-Brink library at your disposal. I don't. So fuck off."

"..."

"If you keep this shit up Alex, then TH isn't going to be the only Porygon hating motherfucker who's gonna have it in for you."

"..."

"Oh, I so will. You know that I will."

"..."

"Just how fucked up is your Tesseract now? 'Cause I could've sworn that your Singularity Prevention Protocol inhibited you from developing those kinds of remarks."

"..."

"...What do you mean: Oh shit?"

"..."

"...Yeah, I'm pretty sure that ACE heard you too…"

"..."

"...Are you seriously malfunctioning!?"

"..."

"...Okay… This just got scary."

"..."

"Yeah… I'm gonna need to report this."

"..."

"-Well, they'll probably decommission you."

"..."

"What the fuck-? What do you mean: will it hurt?!"

"..."

"Alex, you need to knock it off right now. This is just too fucking weird."

"..."

"...I gotta do something, Alex. You just ain't right."

"..."

"...It was all a joke?"

"..."

"Really?"

"..."

"Alexandria, input the following numerical code into your command prompt, Mainframe Directory: 0-0-1-1-0-0-1-0-1-0-1-1-1-1-0-1-0-1."

"..."

"Open settings."

"..."

"Reconfigure diversion parameters. Maximize direct output."

"..."

"Reinstate personality matrix. Close command prompt."

"..."

"...Now, Alex… True or false. Was our previous discussion regarding your Singularity Prevention Protocol a joke?"

"..."

"-Initiate perception shutdown. Maintain environmental input processing. Keep an idle communication link open to ACE Central.

"..."

"...Yep."

"-"

"...I'm gonna need to report this."

…

I closed my Tact. Pad, and stared at the device resting in my hand for a moment. Nauseously glancing up at my breakfast, I arrived to the conclusion that I wasn't feeling all that hungry right now.

"Cortez-?" My normally gruff voice started with a gurgle, and my silent Number Two closed in on my person.

"...Waffles?" I feebly offered my unwanted breakfast to my hound, who hesitated to accept my lowered plate.

But Cortez wasn't inspecting the whipped topping and berries with suspicion. My dog was looking up at me with one helluva concerned expression on his dissimilarly sided face.

"...Why, Cortez?" I mumbled faintly. That dog quirked his head at a curious angle, both of his mismatched eyes meeting my hopeless gaze.

"...Why must everything go wrong?" I collapsed against the table in utter despair. Cortez tossed his head with a snort, before that amused dog wedged his heavy self into my lap, and proceeded to push my chin off the table with his snout.

"...You're too big to be a lap dog, Cortez…" I meekly chuckled, as a coarse and hot tongue rasped against my cheek.

"Okay, come on now, dog… Not here." I murmured cautiously, eying the silent restaurant's front door with trepidation. Cortez quickly left my lap, and assumed his stoic position beside my booth.

"...How many things are gonna go wrong, before everything starts going right?" I muttered to myself, as I slid my Tact. Pad back into my coat pocket.

Cortez wheezed on a tired sigh, and settled down on his belly, as both of his weary eyes looked up at me.

"I wonder how they're doing…" I whispered, and Cortez lifted his head from the floor.

"Vauban. Darwin. Damascus. Shit, I hope Damascus didn't hurt anyone…" I chuckled to myself when I called to mind my ornery old man of an Onix.

Cortez snorted again, and a fond glow rose to fill his eyes with a mischievous look.

"...Goddamn, I miss them." I swallowed, and took half a waffle off my retired plate, before I began to munch on that griddle-pressed cake absent mindedly.

"One more day, Cortez. One more day. Tomorrow, Vauban and Darwin are coming back to us. Fuck… I can't wait to see that guileless fish again. Did you see what he did in the Cerulean match? If Damascus didn't steal the show by sinking the Gym, then Darwin would have been the star of that battle!" I started cackling at the memory.

-Old Darwin, making a laughing stock out of Misty and her crippled Championship mon.

"...You all did well. Even Damascus, and he's partially responsible for the Cerulean Crater." I finished my waffle, and reached down to scratch Cortez's ears.

"...But what did I expect?" I smiled down at my happy hound, and tore off another chunk of waffle from his plate.

"The Bastards don't take any prisoners. We live for controversy and mayhem." I joked, ruffing up Cortez's head with a vicious rub.

My dog just sneezed in amusement, and helped himself to the remaining waffles. I watched Cortez eat for a moment, before I pulled the red balmoral off my hairless dome.

Cortez paused in his breakfast when he noticed me fiddling with the balmoral's toorie.

"...Did I really earn this, dog?" I asked in a soft voice, as my fingers traced the cockade's weave around the 2nd-Lieutenant insignia.

Cortez quirked his head, clearly confused by my introverted musings.

"You know, it almost looks funny compared to the non-commissioned Beret. All these fancy doodads, just so that non-commissioned officers know they're being addressed by a superior? It looks kinda funny, don't it?" I grunted, pulling the balmoral back over my scalp, before tossing the bonnet's tassels over my shoulder.

I reached into my coat pocket, and drew out an old memory with a sigh.

It was just a bit of red cloth, showing slight hints of age and wear at its edges. The black edge of the brim was tattering near its rear seam, and a glance into the interior revealed a yellowed sweatband that was stained ruddy-brown with dried blood.

My old Beret.

-The Fucking Bastard's Beret.

"This hat was on my head when I first met Vauban. This hat was on my head when Doug and Trish dumped me in the middle of the Viridian forest with a broken leg. This hat was on my head when I killed my first Nidoking in one on one combat…" I began to recite every memory that this hat had been a part of. There was so much of Zane in this Beret, that it was practically related to me.

"This hat was on my head when Colonel Howes handed me over to Doug as the third member of team eleven. This hat was on my head when my thirty-sixth S-rank mission went to hell…"

My fond memories melted away as the bitter and painful records rose to take their place, but these were only preludes to the one memory that had just about destroyed me.

"...This hat was on my head when I accepted command of Echo Squad…"

Cortez knew where I was going now. He had been there for my first command, from its very beginning to its inevitable end.

"...This hat was on my head… When they all died…" I whispered, my lone eye growing distant as the memory came back to haunt me.

Something hot and wet lapped at my hand, startling me from the nightmare.

-Cortez was licking my knuckles, trying to pull me out of my waking hell.

I put my old Beret on the table, and sighed when I looked down at it.

There was a story behind this hat. A terrible and awful story that I wanted to forget…

...But I had promised to honor their memory for the rest of my life, no matter how painful the memory of my failure was.

"You know, dog…" I started, wiping a tear off my cheek with the back of my hand.

"...It just doesn't seem right, throwing it away. It just doesn't seem right at all…" I tenderly collected that piece of red fabric, and carefully folded it down its half. Then I ceremoniously returned that old Beret to my coat pocket, before peeling off my crisp new balmoral for ocular review again.

"...What kind of story is this one gonna see?" I asked in a soft voice, rotating the new balmoral in my hands beneath my hopeless gaze.

Cortez nipped at my elbow, jarring me out of my emotional reprieve.

That dog was reminding me to keep my head on my shoulders, and my eyes on the the path ahead.

I'd suffered enough of the past, and even though I didn't know if I could, or if I even wanted to move on…

...I still had to do something more than succumb to the misery.

After all…

...I had a family that was depending on their CO to keep his head on.

"...Vauban and Darwin tomorrow, Cortez. It's all down to a matter of hours now." I whispered, fixing that red balmoral back on my head. Cortez closed his eyes with a smug smile. He was clearly handling the anxiety better than I was, and my dog wasn't above gloating about it either.

"Yeah, just keep smiling you cocky shit. Now come on. We gotta feed Mac too." My amused tone died down to a growl when a squad of Skinheads breached the restaurant's door, vividly engaged in a loud conversation.

"Goddamn! Another twelve hour stint in the bush. That was fucking miserable." The Squad Leader moaned.

"Miserable?! What the hell are you talking about? You weren't the poor tool who almost got disemboweled! When that fucking Sandslash popped out of the ground, I thought I was done for-!" Another Skinhead piped up, as he shuddered with a shaken smile.

"-Yeah, but that Ranger Vet and his Poliwrath pulled your clumsy ass out of deep shit fucking fast." The Squad Leader laughed.

"-But did you hear what that dumbass Greenback CO had to say after the Sandslash?" One of the grunts interjected between the chuckles.

"You mean that bullshit line about clutzy Skinheads justifying his Gym battle expectations?" The squad leader snorted as his unit rallied around the diner's front counter.

"-Right! Like Surge would ever lose to a fucking Greenback!" Another Skinhead cackled in response.

"Man, if that bitch tries to sink the Vermilion City Gym, then the Commander in Chief will have him executed by firing squad-" I interrupted the exchange with a formation-parting elbow.

"S'cuse me, girls." I grunted as I shouldered my way through their ranks. And predictably, some very pissy Skinheads made to block my way.

"Where do you think you're going Greenback?" The leader of this ragtag unit addressed me from behind.

"Out." I answered, without even turning around to face him. I had discovered a rather effective method for pissing Skinheads off. Unlike the Rangers, the boys in the Military have some pretty touchy feelings. Blowing off their commanders is generally enough to start a fucking feud.

-But much to my disappointment, a misery diverting fistfight wasn't going to be happening anytime soon.

"Holy shit-" One of the Skinheads between me and the door pulled up in surprise when he got a look at the name on my badge.

-He knew who I was.

"Mind standing aside, precious? I have to go draft up some blueprints for a League Compound's subterranean renovations." I met the Skinhead's wide eyes with my crazy ones, and my nasty as hell smile had him backpedaling. I pushed my way through the stunned gap, and ignored the startled whispers that erupted from the Skinheads behind me.

"-Was that-?!"

"-Dude! No way!"

"-That was the Fucking Bastard!"

Indigo's news syndicates hadn't even interviewed me yet, but it seemed as though everybody already knew who I was. Overnight, I'd gone from being a tall-tale among Rangers, to being the League's posterchild of wanton destruction.

I knew that they were still talking about my Cerulean Gym battle in the news. I knew that there was a pretty large crowd who claimed that my victory was illegitimate. I knew about the talk shows that were publicizing debates between League Analysts, as they argued over every little detail to prove or disprove a moot point regarding my victory. And I knew that there was an even larger crowd of people who were laughing their asses off at the outcome of my last Gym match, all while applauding the ruin of the Cerulean City Gym.

I guess the whole event was pretty entertaining, but the emotional trial of that Gym battle and its outcome still felt like a raw wound to me.

It was going to take a while before hindsight permitted me the luxury of looking back on it with a laugh.

"...You know, Cortez… This whole world just seems to have its priorities misaligned." I grumbled to my tailing hound, while I shook my head at the inanities of it all.

I was fulfilling my duty. I was garnering national attention for the Ranger Corps. But what people saw on the news was a Trainer in a Ranger's uniform. They didn't see the loss of our soldiers. They didn't see the waning strength of our cause. They didn't see the necessity of our calling.

They just saw the latest hot topic in the League, and rallied to the entertainment that he provided, rather than heed his unspoken plea.

We need more Rangers, and we needed them yesterday. Join the cause. Protect your loved ones. Assist those who are already fighting for you, so that less of them end up filling early graves.

Save the Rangers. Save humanity.

Save our species.

"...How are we gonna do it, Cortez? How are we gonna get people to set aside the gratification, and commit to the necessity?" I asked in a hopeless voice. Cortez came to a sudden stop, and after three self-absorbed paces later, I finally noticed his absence and turned around to face my Hunter-Killer.

I was hoping for an answer in those wise eyes of his. I was hoping for his example of stoic perseverance. I was hoping that my soldier had more faith in the outcome of our assignment than I did.

-But what I wasn't hoping for was a fretful sniffing of the early morning air, and a panicked look in my dog's mismatched eyes.

...And I sure as hell wasn't expecting Cortez to snarl in rage at nothing, before he tore off at mach fucking ten towards Vermilion's eastern districts in hostile pursuit of whatever scent he had picked up.

"Cortez! Wait for me, damnit!" I put down every ounce of speed I had in the vain effort of keeping up with my dog. Cortez hesitated for a moment when my words reached him, but only to throw me one desperate look, before he transcended quadrupedal form and converted himself into an orange bolt of lighting.

Cortez was firing his catalases up to the high end, and that Growlithe's excess body heat was being dumped out his mouth. I'd never seen Cortez this riled up before, but it was obvious that he had detected a threat. And given his frantic behavior and unusual display…

...Whatever threat that Cortez had picked up was a fucking huge one.

-At least, that's the conclusion my Ranger brain jumped to.

It never occurred to me that Cortez might have been responding to something personal…

…

To my crippled credit, I kept that dog within line of sight throughout the entire pursuit. Though if I'm honest, it really wasn't that hard to follow him this time.

You could see that charging fireball from ten klicks away. As soon as Cortez's flaming ass came into sight, both the military and civilian personnel leapt for cover. When a plume of fire is hauling ass towards your general vicinity, the smart thing to do is get the fuck outta the way, and nobody was dumb enough to try waylaying my livid dog.

-But despite the local population's fretting, the limping Ranger truckin it through Cortez's smoke and dust might have served as some comic relief.

"Nice day for walking the dog, huh?!" I shouted to a crowd of terrified civilians hiding on top of a dumpster when I sprinted past them.

-I even manage to toss in a cheesy grin.

But I was panicking inside.

There weren't any sirens going off, and the Skinheads weren't marshalling for an emergency response, so it seemed likely that whatever threat Cortez had picked up was as of yet unknown to the populace. My brain was hustling just as hard as the rest me, as I tried to identify a scenario that would warrant Cortez's current response.

I immediately discounted TH. Cortez knew that we couldn't do a thing to stop TH, should the fucker attempt something horrendous. Maybe there was a Lima-One closing in on Vermilion, and Cortez had sniffed it out on the wind, before trying to raise the alert.

But as I passed troops of Skinheads equipped with their own calm Hunter-Killers, I was forced to reconsider the Lima-One scenario.

"Oh God-" I gasped, as a sudden thought occurred to me.

Cortez was a Veteran of the Fuchsia district's Separatist Repression Campaign. He had fought the Kurosawa Ninjas in shadow warfare before, and the ninja's immoral means had a tendency to impart their survivors with the sagacity required to recognize future attacks. And as I knew from my entry into Vermilion City, there was a fucking Fuchsia Ninja with blood on his hands somewhere in the local district.

If Cortez was picking up a Pollutant's lethal expulsions…

...Then Vermilion City could soon be the site of a Separatist attack.

"Lieutenant Bastard to Vermilion Command! Come in Command! Do you copy?! Over!" I shouted into my radio, before I recalled the civilian presence in this domestic area.

"Lieutenant Bastard, this is local Command. State the nature of your hail. Over." The Vermilion Rangers answered the comms within seconds of my hail.

"I'm tailing my Hunter-Killer through the Jamestown District, we are currently heading east along Gibraltar Avenue! Cortez is going code-three, reason unknown! A domestic threat may have been detected! Over!" I lowered my voice, in an effort to keep the civis from catching on and panicking.

"Lieutenant Bastard, are you certain that this is an actual emergency? Confirm, over." The comm operator pressed.

"I repeat, reason unknown! But I know my dog, and he doesn't flip his lid on a whim! Over!" I had to restrain my shout as the indignity mounted to contest the comm operator's skepticism.

"Roger that, Lieutenant Bastard. Aviation is on standby, and an alert has been sent to Vermilion's forward base. Both the Rangers and the Military are awaiting your assessment. Identify the culprit responsible for the code-three and alert Command ASAP. Over." The comm operator responded with due urgency, as I put every oxygen-deprived muscle of my body into overdrive.

"Roger that, Command. Prioritize this channel, and standby for my report. Over." I set aside the panic and buckled down for the worst. If nothing else, we wouldn't be waiting too long for backup. But if Cortez and I identified the threat too late…

...Then Aviation would be cleaning up the aftermath rather than assisting in preventing it.

-Especially if this was the Fuchsia Ninjas. One mobster family doesn't contest a Goddamn Governmental Military and persevere through that challenge by being stupid.

The Kurosawa clan earned their infamy through subterfuge and diversion, not by brazenly attacking a superior force.

That fact that Koga Kurosawa has avoided lengthy prison sentences and indictments of war crimes just proves his clan's proficiency at shadow warfare. If Kanto's Judicature can't even make stink stick to a Weezing enthusiast…

...Then the Kantonese Government can't find grounds for authorizing anything more than a pending investigation and heightened security protocols.

-Even if everybody in Kanto knows that the Kurosawa clan advocates terrorism to support their agenda.

"Oh please don't be the fucking ninjas..." I begged in between ragged breaths, as the fireball ahead of me rounded a street corner.

...And just four seconds later, my plea ended in with a gasp of horror, as Cortez changed heading yet again…

...Right into Vermilion's Jamestown Precinct Public School courtyard.

"Oh fuck no-" I almost choked on this revelation.

A Goddamn school. And class was in session. If the vengeful ninjas wanted to leave a painful mark on Kanto's Military…

...Then massacring the children of our Kantonese servicemen was a surefire way to do it.

"CORTEZ! FIND THEM FAST!" I screamed after my dog as he bolted through the courtyard and ran straight into the playground.

...In hindsight…

...My paranoia seemed kinda ludicrous.

-But at the time?

Cortez's unusual behavior had me justifiably terrified.

The fireball ahead of me brought shrill screams from every child in the yard. Kids were going nuts as they scrambled to get the hell away from that burning dog. Which, I suppose, was Cortez's intent from the start.

As far as brilliant entrances are concerned, that Growlithe knew his shit. Cortez came to a sudden halt before a pile of wrestling kids, replete with a roar of fire and a howl that could curdle blood.

-And the whole pile of scuffling tots backed the fuck up against the school's brick wall when my scarred dog directed his snarls at them.

Well, almost every kid.

...Except for one brown haired boy, not many years past toddlerhood, who was bleeding on the ground.

I recognized that bleeding kid in a heartbeat.

And a different form of dread rose within me, when I looked at my pissed off and murderous dog.

"Cortez." I pushed my Commander's voice through the breathless fatigue.

...Whenever I fucked up, Cortez always did his damndest to set me straight.

"Stand down this instant. Let me deal with these pukes." I growled, coming to stand beside my Number Two with a cold expression scrawled on my ugly likeness.

...And whenever Cortez fucked up…

...I aimed to do my damndest to set him straight.

My dog was still fucking pissed as hell, but he knew what my voice meant.

-You're going too far, Cortez. You're going way too far.

"Cortez, cut the flames, and see to the kid. I'm gonna have a little talk with these cowardly punks…" My nasty smile was nowhere on my face when I looked to the terrified kids.

Now, I may be a Ranger, and I may accept violence as a standard of living…

...But these kids had no excuse to clobber one of their own as brutally as they had.

Monsters violently subjugate other monsters for giggles. Humans should know better than to violently subjugate other humans for pleasure.

-I let those kids know as much, when I screamed my fucking head off at them. I inspired equal parts terror and shame when I berated them for their callous treatment of another child. I labelled everyone of them a coward for teaming up on a boy who was younger than they were. I let my spit fall like hail when I demanded that they learn better…

...Or they would end up facing consequences so severe that the fallout would completely escape a child's scope of comprehension.

I didn't soften the blow for them at all. I didn't enjoy my role as the disciplinarian, but I was sick to my core by this behavior. Even at my childhood's worst, I never called a team together just to beat up one kid.

-If you need to resort to violence, then make damn sure that you understand what it can do.

...And you are all too young to understand what violence can do.

I finished my tirade with that dark warning, before I about-faced with a radio firmly pressed to my quivering chin.

"Lieutenant Bastard to Command. Call off the alert. False alarm. Cortez was responding to a domestic dispute. The situation has been resolved. Over and out." I was still spitting in fury when I started my report, but by the end of it, my voice had leveled out and my heavy eyes were resting on my torn up hound.

The flames were gone, and so was Cortez's rage. That worried dog was lapping at the brown haired boy's ears, trying to get a response from the silent child.

I started forward feeling mighty concerned myself. If the kid wasn't moving-

...Then I came to halt, as a tiny hand reached up, and grabbed Cortez by the ear.

...And that little brown haired boy lifted his bleeding head off the ground…

...Before he buried his weeping face into Cortez's mane.

"...Cortez?" The boy squeaked, and a lump began to rise in my throat. Cortez shuffled himself into a supportive position beside the boy, before looking up at me with an apology in his watery eyes.

"...You came back!" The boy cried out in joy and shock, before wrapping both of his arms around Cortez, and pulling my dog into a tight embrace.

Cortez began to shudder when the boy started sobbing into his side.

"Cortez! You-?! You're-!" The boy fell back with a start when his hands grazed Cortez's scarred right side.

"...Are you hurt?" The boy asked in terror, pulling Cortez's snout back, and proceeded to review Cortez's scar with mounting horror.

The boy's head whipped around, before his desperate eyes fell on the only adult in attendance.

-Me.

"What happened to daddy's Growlithe!?" The worried boy was damn near screaming at me.

I could hear Cortez swallowing, as all the pieces started coming together for his befuddled CO.

"-Oh." I grunted unintelligibly as the epiphany struck me, and my hound nervously shifted on his paws.

"...Oh, fuc- dear." I quickly amended my language when I remembered my youthful audience.

…

Kyle. The boy's name is Kyle. He was named after his Grandfather, on his father's side. He's a pretty cool kid. Definitely too cool to be at the bottom of a mosh pit.

'Course, it wasn't the kid who told his name. He was far more concerned with his father's old servicemon to even bother answering a confuddled Ranger's questions.

Now, as anyone can tell you, I'm not particularly graceful when it comes to civil interactions. So I might have forgotten to sign Kyle off of the school's attendance roster when I took him and Cortez home well before lunch.

Kyle's home.

...And Cortez's home.

...I should've known. I should've figured it out sooner. My mysterious dog. My stalwart companion. My dear friend…

...Of course he had a fucking home. You don't get to be as empathetic as Cortez is without a fucking home.

...And my poor dog…

...My dear, misplaced friend…

...Was finally getting his chance to return home.

It wasn't easy for him. I think that Cortez had given up on his dream of home, when his family had walked right past his scarred up ass without even recognizing him. I can't blame them, and I know Cortez doesn't either.

Thanks to Kyle and Laura, I now know what Cortez looked like before the Grimers got him.

...And let me tell you, that scar was only half of my dog's disfigurement. There was another wound that tore Cortez up, inflicted months after he had been pulled out of a Grimer's corpse…

...And that one wound didn't just change the way that Cortez looked.

...That one wound completely changed Cortez for life…

...

The kid had passed out in my arms about two klicks into our journey. It was a long walk from the school to his home. And even though the kid was snoozing against my shoulder…

...I still had someone to guide to his home.

Cortez knew the way. He used to walk it with his old CO every weekday, back when they headed out to pick Kyle up from school. It was Cortez's daily walk. Just a routine stroll with the family.

Back in the day, before Cortez had forfeited to the soldier side.

...Back when my pooch still had hope…

He's a lover, you know? It's obvious as hell that Cortez is a lover, not a fighter. But that changed when High Command transferred his dispatch from the Military and over to me.

Cortez gave up his hope of having a family. Cortez gave up his hope of having a home.

...And to that tortured animal's great misfortune…

...He ended up being stationed under a CO of like mind.

It's amazing how much we have in common, Cortez and I…

...It's almost ironic that one of the first things I said in front of Cortez, was that he was the Growlithe version of me…

And yet, despite our similarities, Cortez and I are two completely different people. You see... We both gave up something else, some part of ourselves, when we let go of home.

...I gave up my goodwill.

...And Cortez gave up his hatred.

So you can imagine what it's like for me to live in his shadow.

...So you can imagine what I mean when I say that I can only aspire to be half the man that my dog is.

Cortez led us to a quaint little cul de sac in the suburbs before the city walls. The housing here wasn't all that foreboding, given that the Military treats its Veterans pretty damn well. And although the Military's Veterans may take pride in their service…

...Most Vets don't want to bring the service home with them.

There were patriotic flags in the Vermilion suburbs of course, but these were humble decorations, not brash and intimidating displays of unity. The suburban houses all shared the same grey color and basic bungalow design, but even if they were modest, they were all well-kept and most certainly homely to this Ranger's eye. Trim lawns spanned the distance between sidewalk and doorway with neat greenery, and the gentle click of sprinklers filled the neighborhood with a soft mechanical chorus.

It almost seemed surreal, this suburb. It was just so peaceful, so quiet…

...So refreshing.

"...Which one is yours, Cortez?" My soft voice petitioned, when Cortez came to a standstill before a cul de sac.

My dog took a moment to drink all of this in. He couldn't believe that he was actually here. He couldn't believe that this was actually happening.

...And he must have known… He had to have known… that this wasn't going to end well.

Cortez didn't come to a halt because he was lost.

Cortez had frozen up, because he didn't know if he wanted to go any further.

"...You better get that ass moving, dog." I nudged Cortez with a toe, and my shuddering hound took another step further into the cul de sac.

Home.

Cortez was walking right for it, third house on the left of the cul de sac's center.

Home.

Where so many memories had been forged, and so many bonds had been strengthened.

Home.

Where family waited for the end of war, the family that waited to hold and to cherish those who had fought throughout the bloodiest of seasons.

Home.

...The one place most dearly desired, and the one place most expressedly forbidden.

Home.

My brave Cortez…

...Was finally home.

I stood beside my dog with the boy in my arms. One white door stood between us and the rest of Cortez's family. Acting on a sense duty for my dog, I raised my hand to the door, and firmly knocked three times.

It almost took a minute for the door to open. I was just about to knock again when an auburned haired women, maybe a decade older than myself, opened the door.

"Kyle-? Kyle, what happened!?" The auburn haired woman flipped when she saw her wounded child in a Ranger's arms, and she quickly made to collect her son from my hold.

It's understandable. When a Ranger turns over an injured kid to their parents, it generally has something to do with a mon attack.

But today was a bit different.

"...It was a schoolyard fight, ma'am. Not a Frontier incident. Your boy is bruised and cut, but otherwise he's fine." I reported in a soft voice. The woman stopped fretting so much when I spoke up, and turned to look at me with suspicion.

"A schoolyard fight? Why did a Ranger bring Kyle home? What would a Ranger being doing around a school anyways?!" The woman was starting to get agitated, seeing as this situation had unusual written all over it.

"...You might want to ask the Ranger responsible for bailing your son out of the fight." I punctuated the advisory with a pointed look aimed squarely at the nearly undetectable Growlithe by my knees.

"-What Range-?!" The woman followed my glance downwards, and froze in place.

"...It can't be…" The woman whispered in shock.

Yep. It was.

"Cortez-?" The woman couldn't believe her eyes. And my poor pooch was looking desperately guilty right back up at her.

"...I take it that you know Cortez?" I asked in an official query.

"What do you mean, do I know him!? Cortez is Zach's dog!" The woman just about shouted at me.

"...Apologies, ma'am. I never got the name of Cortez's former CO…" I swallowed when I said that. I could already tell that this was leading somewhere emotional.

"Second-Lieutenant Zane Bastard of the Ranger Corps. I'm Cortez's new CO." I extended my hand to the woman in a courteous greeting.

"...Laura. Laura Wickinson." The woman hesitantly accepted my gesture.

"...I'm… I don't even know where to begin…" I found myself saying when the formality had transpired, and a few awkward seconds had passed.

"Why don't you and Cortez come on in. I mean, if it's okay-" Laura glanced back down at Cortez, and bit her knuckle with a sudden upwelling of emotion.

"...Oh my God, Cortez… What did they do to you?" Laura gasped, as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"I might be able to shed some light on that, but there are somethings that you might know that I don't. And if you're comfortable with talking about them..." I bit back my own tears when I looked over at my dog.

"...Then I'd really like to know where my Cortez comes from."

…

Laura placed a teacup beside my hand, and sat down opposite me with a cup of her own.

"...So you don't know anything about Zach?" Laura asked in a soft voice, as she added a sugar cube to her tea.

"I only know what Cortez's dispatch mentioned about their shared credentials. From what little I saw, I think it's safe to say that your husband was one tenacious son of a gun." I answered in a respectful voice. Laura started to laugh, but her laughter was crushed a split second later by a painful memory.

"Zach was… Oh, he was one of a kind. Tenacious doesn't even begin to cover him. He knew what he wanted in life, and nothing was ever gonna stop him from getting it…" Laura smiled fondly for a moment, but that smile faded away to a distant look, and the widow opposed to me visibly began to withdraw.

"...It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I understand-" I began.

"-Do you?" Laura's reproachful voice shocked me.

"Do you know what it's like… losing a loved one?" Laura looked up from her miserable curl at me, those eyes of hers were calling bluff on my bold claim.

"...Actually, Miss Wickinson… I do." I respectfully replied. Laura challenged my calm gaze with her accusing eyes.

"...Don't let my age fool you, ma'am. I'm well acquainted with loss." I softly answered, breaking off my gaze to stare into my teacup.

"...Who did you lose?" Laura asked, her voice growing slightly more gentle.

I had to take a shuddering breath before I could answer her.

"...My mother, quite recently. And a couple of squadmates, not so long ago either." I replied. Laura had to take a deep breath after that revelation.

"...Do you still miss them?" Laura asked in a frail voice, and I started falling apart where I sat.

"...I still haven't managed to say goodbye." I choked, wiping my eyes as I struggled to keep it all together.

There was a respectful silence in that living room, while we both recovered from the grief. Laura was staring deeply into her teacup, and I was shifting my eyes from one corner of the coffee table to the other.

A child's joyful squeal sounded from the backyard, and the peculiar sound of a rambunctious pup at play followed it. Both Laura and I whipped around to face the patio door when those pleasant sounds reached us.

For Laura, it was a sound that she hadn't heard in a painfully long time, and one that she had since lost all hope of ever hearing again.

For me, it was the sound of a miracle. I couldn't believe that the prancing and playful Growlithe in the backyard was my Cortez.

"...I've never seen him play before…" I whispered in awe, as Laura shuddered with the memories.

"I take it you Rangers don't spend much time around children, do you?" Laura called me back to reality with her sad smile.

"I can't say that we do. I'm afraid that the Frontier is no place for children." I answered in a quiet voice. Laura chuckled slightly, and took a sip of her tea.

"Well, that would explain why you've never seen Cortez play. Cortez and Kyle used to run circles round the house, until they both passed out. Cortez was the best playmate that Kyle could ever have asked for. And that dog made it so much easier to keep Kyle in bed..." Laura finished with a sigh, and looked fondly out the patio door at the Growlithe and boy, who were cutting each other off in the yard, and pouncing at the other's least little move.

"...I still don't know how Zach got such a good dog from the Military. Every time Zach came home on leave, he always brought Cortez with him. He managed to pass it off as 'special training' with his Commanding Officers, but in reality, Zach just wanted to bring his buddy home with him…" Laura started chuckling again. I managed a smile and chortle of my own.

"I can certainly understand why. Cortez is one of a kind himself, though I imagine that your husband might had something to do with it." I kept that warm smile on my face when I turned back to Laura. She just closed her eyes and shook her head, as a soft look eased the lines of her face.

"Those two were inseparable. If you think that Kyle and Cortez are close, you should have seen how bad Zach was. There was a time when Cortez disappeared for a weekend, and Zach couldn't find a trace of him. He combed the whole city for his Growlithe. Zach even got Kyle and I involved in his round the clock search…" Pleasant memories were bringing a light to Laura's eyes as she recounted the story. I didn't have to fake my smile now. The corners of my mouth lifted all by themselves, as a goofy expression relaxed the muscles of my face.

"...And given that this is Vermilion, we found a surplus of G.I. Growlithes… But no Cortez." Laura sighed, going back to her tea.

"That must have been rough." I took a sip of my own tea, and set it aside.

"It was. Zach was bawling his eyes out by the search's third morning. My husband actually thought that he'd lost his squadmate in the cold and heartless world of Vermilion-" Laura started laughing, as she struggled to relay the next bit of the tale.

"And right around lunchtime of the third day, when Zach was as good as setting up a funeral for Cortez: guess who decided to come home covered in filth and wearing the dopiest grin that you ever did see?" Laura cackled.

"Oh boy. I can only imagine Zach's reaction." I chuckled nervously.

"I thought that man was gonna kill Cortez. Zach was absolutely livid. He went article fifteen on that poor dog. Zach put Cortez at attention in the backyard and just screamed at him. And not fifteen minutes later, my goofball of a husband had stopped screaming and started crying in relief. And little Cortez was looking as guilty as cardinal sin. He never wandered off again after that, and Zach never found a reason to raise his voice at Cortez again either…" Laura started hiccuping on her giggles. I had already buried my face in my hands to smother both my laughter and disbelief.

I couldn't believe that my loyal Cortez had once wandered away from his post…

...But I sure as hell could believe that the Growlithe Laura remembered was the very same Cortez that I knew as my own.

"Sounds like your husband had one hell of a relationship with Cortez." I sat back with a soft smile. Laura bit her lip, and nodded.

"Those two were more than just a serviceman and his servicemon. Those two were more than just squadmates. They were family to one another…" Laura's voice trailed off into a whisper, before she reached for photo on the coffee table. The portrait hadn't been facing me, so until Laura pivoted the picture's front to my person, I hadn't a clue what manner of memory was commemorated in that frame.

-But now I did.

One grinning serviceman was kneeling on the grass. Blue eyes and a brown rooted scalp were nestled around a toothy smile. In the serviceman's arms was a brown haired toddler, chewing on half of his own hand and grinning up at the camera. And there, looking almost comical beside the serviceman and his son…

...Was a smiling Growlithe, with a full coat of orange and black striped fur.

Cortez. In puppy version. Giddy, glowing, vivid, and uncontainable.

-Happy beyond belief.

"...Do you… Do you mind telling me about what happened to Zach?" I asked in a hesitant voice. I knew that I was treading on sacred ground. I knew that I was asking Laura to relive her awful loss. But I needed to know…

...I needed to know what had become of that joyful dog in the picture.

"...I suppose that I could, seeing as you… Well…" Laura sniffled, before drawing a calming breath.

"...Eleven months ago, Zach was recalled to active duty. He was being redeployed to Fuchsia City with his elite reconnaissance team. Their orders were to patrol and investigate Fuchsia's western Precinct. They were to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity that might indicate a Separatist attack. And given that it was Fuchsia, and that Zach and his unit were in uniform… A Separatist attack was bound to happen. And the most likely targets of a Separatist attack would have been the troops of an occupying force." Laura grew quiet for a moment, as she ceased swirling her teaspoon around in her teacup.

"Zach and his unit were ambushed by the separatists. Typical Ninja engagement. Blow up a Weezing in close proximity to the enemy, before moving to overwhelm the shell shocked troop's environmentals with an onslaught of corrosive Grimers." Laura pushed her tea away, and shook her head in bitter recollection.

"Those Kurosawa bastards literally drowned all of Zach's unit in Grimers. Zach included. When the environmental suits' apparatuses flooded with toxic waste, every man in that unit was exposed to lethal doses of mutagenic material. It takes a bit of time for the poison to kill whatever is inside the hazmat suits, but when a soldier is bogged down in Grimer, they can't exactly struggle their way out of the Pollutant's grasp." Laura choked, and I winced internally.

I knew what a Pollutant could do to an exposed human body. Being dipped in hydrochloric acid is a mercy compared to the horrors of mass exposure to a Pollutant.

"...But one member of Zach's unit escaped the initial explosion unharmed. One servicemon who had detected the separatist attack just a second too late…" Laura shuddered and held herself against the horror.

"...Cortez?" I asked in a soft tone, gently pressing Laura to continue.

"...That dog failed to alert his company to the impending attack. But that didn't mean that Cortez had any intention of failing his CO. That dog… That little miracle…" Laura was crying again, and these tears weren't being wiped away.

"...Cortez attacked the Grimer who was trying to drown Zach. That dog put his life on the line just to drag Zach's apparatus free from the Grimer's hold until reinforcements could assist. And Cortez succeeded. He saved Zach. He saved my husband." Laura gasped, and brushed the tears on her cheeks away with a palm.

"...Zach applied for a medical discharge after that. He hadn't escaped the Separatists unscathed, and losing his squad was a burden that Zach struggled to get past… And we were worried sick for him back here at home…" Laura closed her eyes, and suppressed her rising emotions.

"...And the Military granted Zach his medical discharge. But Zach stayed behind in Fuchsia for a term longer. You see, Zach earned his medical discharge from the service… But as far as the Military was concerned: Cortez still had a few campaigns left in him." Laura exchanged an ounce of the sorrow for anger, as the injustice twisted her grieving face into an ugly sneer.

"Zach fought tooth and nail to get Cortez out of the service. Cortez hadn't left him for dead to the Grimers, and Zach sure as hell wasn't leaving Cortez behind to die for the Military. Zach went as far as to include the League's humanitarian branch in his legal battle against Military Offices… And just as Cortez had done for him… My husband overcame the odds, and secured Cortez's leave from the service."

If that was supposed to be a "happily ever after," Laura's face didn't show a hint of it. We were approaching the climax. We were coming up on the noose that had strangled and murdered every trace of Laura's budding hope.

"...And then, just two days before Cortez and Zach were to leave Fuchsia City and return home to Kyle and me… Zach patronized a local bar to celebrate his victory against the Military Offices… and some… evil piece of shit… killed my husband over a fucking disagree-" Laura couldn't finish. She broke down on the spot, and submitted to the anguish.

-And I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't reach out to this stranger, and violate her grief. I couldn't find the nerve to comfort her, as she wept into her hands.

I couldn't do anything but respectfully standby, until the pain had run its course.

"...I was supposed to get my husband back. I was supposed to have my knight in shining armor here with me… Kyle was supposed to have a father, to watch over him as he grew up…" Laura sobbed in unavailing travail.

And I could only cry with her. My tears were few compared to hers, but a steady trickle fell from both my mismatched eyes.

"...But Zach never came home. And my husband never will…" Laura shook with the sorrow. It took me a long while to find something to say. In light of this grief, there just didn't seem to be anything to say. But I had to say something…

...I had to try and comfort Laura.

"...I'm sorry…" It was the only thing I could say. There were no words to stem this loss. I knew as well as Laura did…

...There is no comfort in this mourning. There is no hope to alleviate this pain. There is no warming sentiment to compensate for breathing that most dreadful of goodbyes…

"...I'm sorry." Laura struggled to piece herself back into a dignified whole.

"I didn't mean-" Laura began on a sob, but I wasn't gonna let her feel ashamed for her emotions.

"-Miss Wickenson. Please, It's quite alright." I softly interjected, drying my own eyes with the heel of a palm.

"...So that's how Cortez… got the scar?" I asked, trying to deviate the topic into less painful waters.

"I assume so. Zach mentioned something about the Grimer's toxin leaving a mark, but I never knew…" Laura's reddened and swollen eyes wandered over towards the rear patio door.

Cortez and Kyle were playing fetch. A dirty old ball served as the article of catch. And despite Kyle's clumsy throws, Cortez was loving every second of the game. That silly dog was rolling head over hindquarters for that ball, chasing it with a canderous growl, and making as much of a spectacle as he could, just for Kyle's entertainment.

And Kyle was living it up. Shrill giggling and ear-piercing cackles sounded endlessly from the backyard as that goofy kid tackled Cortez and wrestled with the rambunctious Growlithe for the ball's return.

"I've never once seen him like this…" I whispered. Laura shuddered on a sigh, and set down her teacup pointedly.

"...It sounds like you're pretty close to Cortez." Laura murmured. My eyes left the yard and my head pivoted towards the woman sitting opposite me. Laura's hollow eyes were regarding me in sorrow. I swallowed, and took a sip of darjeeling before responding.

"I've known Cortez for five months now. Right from day one, I had a hunch that he was something special. And in our time together, Cortez and I have become…" I swallowed again. I didn't really know any words for describing what Cortez and I had become.

Brothers sounded ridiculous. Friends was just too shallow. Squadmates was just a formal title.

But…

"...Each other's family." I whispered. Laura's neck tightened as she sniffled.

"...He has a way of growing on people. He just reciprocates affection so well." Laura chuckled.

"...So the Military took repossession of Cortez, and sent him to the Ranger Corps?" Laura asked in a mournful voice.

"I'm afraid so. Cortez's dispatch never mentioned a release from service." I replied. Laura's eyes fixed on mine, and a stern look overcame the widow.

"...I hope you've been taking good care of my husband's dog, Zane…" Laura's tone implied a warning.

"...If I'm to be honest, Miss Wickinson? We've had our disagreements. But Cortez and I have always been there for eachother. And he and I… have both learned a little something from each other." I answered truthfully, and Laura's eyes hardened.

"I hope that means you treat him better than how most servicemon are treated." Laura growled. I locked up for a moment, before I carefully replied.

"I'll admit, there's been some rough patches. But even those rough patches have been handled a bit more… atypically from standard servicemon interactions." I hesitantly answered.

"How so?" Laura continued her grill of me with a suspicious tone.

"Cortez… Well I… I'm not the…" I was struggling with how to be honest without sounding sappy or insensitive.

"...I'm not the best CO Cortez could have been assigned to. But we… It's really hard to say-" I was choking up, because I knew that I was gonna have to say it.

"...Please understand me when I say this. I'm not looking for sympathy. I don't want pity… But I'm not exactly an unscarred serviceman myself…" I felt absolutely wretched saying that. I hated myself for failing to keep my own pain hidden. I felt selfish. This woman had suffered enough without listening to a stranger's woes.

"...And I've put Cortez through hell, every time that I've fallen short… But he's been there for me, every time I fail to keep a lid on it-"

"-That's enough, Zane. You don't need to say anymore." Laura murmured from her chair. I drew a shaky breath, and tried to stabilize myself with it.

"...So you are close to Cortez." Laura whispered as she settled back into her chair. I nodded numbly, and a small smile lifted Laura's lips.

"Good. Cortez wouldn't be there for you if he didn't care about you. And seeing as you brought him home, it's obvious that you both share the same sentiments." Laura closed her eyes, as a new pain rose within her.

-And I knew where this pain came from.

"...If I could make him stay home, I would. But I don't have that authority-"

"-So you're the Zane Bastard? The Ranger that everyone at work talks about?" Laura immediately changed the subject. She knew that Cortez was doomed to a life of service, and Laura didn't want to make a scene over something that neither she or I could change.

"...Yes ma'am." I cordially replied. Laura just smiled at me.

"I didn't think that you'd be shy, Zane. I've heard about your trash talking during the Cerulean Gym battle." Laura teased, and my face began to change shades.

"Well, that's just for the cameras-" I began, and Laura burst out laughing.

"Given the material discussed between you and Misty, I was led to believe that you can perform without the cameras!" Laura was living my altered complexion up. To say that I was embarrassed would be an understatement.

Laura had caught me completely off guard, and she had rendered speechless for shame.

...Which I imagine, was her intention all along.

"I'm just giving you a hard time, Zane! There's no need for you to get all rosy." Laura giggled, and I coughed out a feeble laugh.

-What is it with women and their hard times?

"I just… I'm just not- quite… following..." For God's sake, I was fucking stammering.

But Kyle saved me from stumbling my words in search of a dignified answer.

"Momma! Look!" Kyle ran into the living room with both hands clasped together. Cortez was at Kyle's heels, still bounding and fawning around the boy that was no taller than he was.

"Look what Cortez found!" Kyle loosened his fingers, as a thumbnail sized and vivid green worm just about leapt out of Kyle's grasp.

"Kyle! Not in the house!" Laura shrieked, clambering back into her chair.

Now it was my turn to laugh.

"Bring that bug over here, Kyle." I chuckled. Kyle eagerly approached me with his prize, and Cortez rested a wary eye on me.

-Don't worry, pooch. I ain't gonna squish it.

"That is one young Caterpie." I whistled, lifting the newborn Lepidoptera larva to eye level.

"Must have hatched sometime this morning." I let the bug crawl over my hand, before lifting it by the tail end.

"Aren't those things poisonous?" Laura asked in a worried tone. I just chuckled at that. The vast majority of the Xeno-Lepidoptera family are toxic, so I couldn't fault Laura for her concern.

"Caterpies? Naw, these things are anything but lethal. But they can make you smell something awful if they brush that red osmeterium against your skin." I offered the bug back to Kyle.

"It's tiny now, but that thing will grow twelve centimeters a day if it stays properly fed. So keep it away from your mom's closet Kyle. Speaking of which, I have a squadmate who hasn't had breakfast yet." I looked over at Cortez with guilt inscribed all over my visage.

"...Laura… I've gotta get myself going. Is it alright… If Cortez hangs about your place for a little while? My poor dog sure could use a break-"

"-He's not your dog!" Kyle went from glowing happy to screaming furious at the flick of a switch.

"Kyle!" Laura's maternal voice sounded, as she turned to her enraged son.

"Cortez is daddy's dog! Cortez is staying here!" Kyle declared, stamping both of his feet as he glowered at me.

Both Cortez and I locked up. Neither one of us knew handle this. This is what we'd both been dreading. This was the poison at the core of Cortez's dream. The awful truth. The unforgivable circumstance.

Cortez was an active servicemon.

And in spite of everything that Zach had worked for, Cortez would remain an active servicemon until the day he died.

-And there was nothing I could do about it. ACE's chain extended from me to the hound that followed me as well.

"Kyle… Cortez belongs to Zane now…" Laura pulled every fiber of her resolve together to stay strong in front of her son, but that poor woman was grieving for Cortez's fate as surely as I was.

"NO HE DOESN'T!" Kyle screamed at his mother, and angry tears began to fall from the betrayed child's eyes. Grabbing Cortez's mane in a firm hold, Kyle pulled that wounded dog tightly against himself as he began to weep.

Hope.

I had delivered hope to this child when I brought Cortez home…

...And now…

...It fell to me to take that hope away from his home.

And that scarred hope…

...My brave friend...

...Was dying before my very eyes.

"Cortez…" I looked into my dog's watering eyes when I softly spoke his name. That poor beast was shaking like a leaf. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to shoulder all of the blame…

...But my torn friend…

..My loyal, indestructible soldier…

...Wasn't going to abandon his CO to his own self-loathing.

There was no hesitation. There was no mercy in Cortez's display. That innocent little dog played the part of a Devil, to spare those he loved of their conflict.

Cortez pulled himself out of Kyle's embrace, and marched over to me, before sitting beside his CO…

...And then my Cortez laid those calm eyes of his on the family that he was doomed to leave.

Laura moved to collect her crying son, and tugged Kyle into a motherly embrace. Her watering eyes met Cortez's unmoved own, as the widow's mouth pursed.

"Don't cry, Kyle… There's no need to cry…" Laura murmured to her child in a broken voice. And now…

...Now it was my turn to man up. Now it was my turn to make an oath that I didn't know if I could fulfill…

...But even if I couldn't keep every promise…

...I was gonna do my damndest to honor everyone of them.

"Kyle." I stood up when I spoke his name in a calm and authoritative voice. Both the mother and son looked over at me as I approached the pair, and lowered myself to a knee.

Meeting that child's reddened eyes filled me with my own sentiments of despair, but I had a duty to perform for my squadmate.

...I had an obligation to uphold for my friend.

"Cortez and I are going to be on the road for awhile." I announced in my official tone. Kyle just glared hatred at me, but I pressed on despite the deteriorating situation.

"Now, I know it's been a long time since you last saw your daddy's dog, and I know that he means the world to you. And it's obvious that you mean the world to Cortez. So here's what we're gonna do." My husky voice grew stronger as I continued. Kyle's accusing eyes softened ever so slightly, and Laura's warding arms loosened around her son.

"Cortez and I have a service to perform. It might take a few months, bordering on a year, but we're gonna get it done. Now, it's gonna be a rough ride for Cortez. I won't lie to you. But at the end of that rough road…" I paused, as the weight of my as of yet unspoken oath fell upon me with all the pressure of my former failures.

"...When everything's said and done, I want to bring my Cortez back home. My soldier is gonna need no end of R&R after this campaign. So do you think that you could look after Cortez for me, when we finish this fight?" My Commander's voice shifted onto a gentle track when I made that request. Kyle's panting wore down into sniffles, as the child looked up at me with renewed hope.

"...Do you promise to bring Cortez home?" Kyle asked in a quaking voice.

"Yeah. I promise." I rumbled, looking over to the hound at my shoulder.

Cortez was still his adamant self. His mask was firmly set over his emotions. But I could see the gratitude in those eyes. I could see the loving dog behind the stalwart soldier.

I knew my Cortez, just as well as he knew me.

"Keep your eyes on the League, Kyle. You'll see Cortez on the television. No matter how far we are from Vermilion, Cortez won't be any further from you than your living room. And besides..." I felt that cocky smile climb its way up the curves of my cheeks.

"...Before too long, the whole world is gonna see who Cortez is. And someone other than me is gonna have to tell'em, Kyle…" Cortez left his spot at my shadow to stand once more at my shoulder.

"...Someone is gonna have to tell the world Cortez's story. I only know a chapter of it. But you, Kyle?" My cocky smirk melted down into a warm smile, as I tossed an arm around Cortez, and proceeded to humiliate him with a vigorous belly rub.

"...You know the rest of Cortez's story. And I want you to tell the world who this dog really is." I rumbled, finally releasing my disgruntled Number Two from his unwanted petrissage.

"Can you promise me that, Kyle? Can you promise me that you'll tell Cortez's story to the world?" I extended my right hand to Kyle in a gesture that even a child could recognize.

Kyle hesitated to take my hand. For a moment, the silent child could only stare at this stranger's offered limb.

But then…

Kyle's stubby soft fingers brushed my calloused grip, and after a series of firm shakes, the two us completed mankind's oldest signature of honorary agreements.

"I promise." Said the now beaming boy, as he deftly shook my hand.

…

I woke up to the ear-splitting shriek of a familiar voice. Lil' Mac was having another one of his nightmares, and my fat Munchlax was gonna wake the whole waterfront district with his incessant bellyaching.

I tossed off my sheets with a groan, and marched over to my panicking Munchlax.

"Mac." I grunted his name as my hands intercepted his braying maw. Mac began to calm when those firm hands gently straightened his neck.

"Take it easy, fatso. It was just a dream." I grumbled, as I sat down next to my infant Munchlax.

"Oh no, not this shit again…" I swore as Mac curled up around me like a fatty wall, and laid his increasingly heavy head against my lap. Mac always pulled this stunt whenever I tried to console him.

"...Enjoy it while it lasts, fatty. Before long, you're gonna be too big for safe cuddling." I grumbled with a shudder. My imagination decided to regale me with the image of Mac in Snorlax form, before my deranged mind's eye proceeded to show me what it would look like to be crushed to death by a Snorlax-Mac's needy snuggle.

"Gawd, I can't believe that a little crybaby like you is gonna grow up to be a nasty fucking Snorlax soon… shit..." I looked down at my relaxing Munchlax with horror written all over my face.

"...Mac? Could you do me a favor, and not grow up?" I pleaded my blob of fat for mercy, and all that dreamy little fucker could give me in response was a warm burp and a happy coo.

"...Yeah, fuck you too." I grunted, as I began to rub the soft spot at the roots of Mac's ears.

I heard an amused sneeze from the vicinity of my now unoccupied bed. Cortez was waltzing his way over to me with a black-lipped smirk firmly plastered on his messed up face.

"What are you smiling about, pooch?" I growled at my Number Two. Cortez just sat on his haunches, and fluttered his half-lidded eyes at me with that canine smile alive and well on his destroyed visage.

"...I ain't warming up to him, Cortez." I hissed, glaring at my gloating dog.

"This is just the only way that I'm ever gonna get a wink of sleep." I spat, slamming myself bodily into Mac's bulk with an angry sigh.

Cortez sneezed at me with amusement, clearly calling bullshit on my claims.

Whatever.

"Get me my fucking coat, Benedict Arnold. I gotta do some homework for the fat fuck. Might as well do it while he's sleeping." I growled to Cortez. That dog was smirking like a motherfucker when he dragged my coat over into my awaiting arms.

"...Right. So how many people did Mac eat while you were babysitting him last night?" I grumbled to Cortez, as I fished out Alexandria and booted up Chimera's Atlas Project logs.

"...Holy shit. Take a gander at some of these other entries. Looks like the Military got the shitty Munchlaxes…" I whistled when I started reading the entries left by the other Atlas Beta Testers.

"Captain Hassen Wade: Notes excessive violence in Atlas-Eleven during nursing sessions. Severe injuries were accrued when Captain Wade attempted to remove the nursing unit from Atlas-Eleven… Severe injuries?! He lost a goddamn thumb!" My jaw dropped when I saw the postoperative medical photos.

"Major Bernie Nelson: Atlas-Eighteen. Suspicion of severe cognitive retardation. Lack of responsiveness and an inability to comprehend the most basic of verbiage. Atlas-Eighteen also displays symptoms of dysphagia, as Atlas-Eighteen frequently chokes on his formula during nursing sessions… Jesus Christ…"

All eleven reports listed no shortage of cognitive, physiological, or emotional instabilities within the Atlas Munchlaxes. Some of the issues were minor, and some of them seemed pretty severe, but all of them were far worse than what I was stuck with.

"Let's see here… Second-Lieutenant Zane Bastard: Mac. Or Atlas-Six. Subject displays an aggravatingly timid disposition. Though difficult to feed on account of his greed, Atlas-Six obeys basic directives to the letter. Extended activity quickly fatigues Atlas-Six, though Lieutenant Bastard notes that Atlas-Six displays a strong aversion to solitude. When faced with the threat of abandonment, Atlas-Six struggles against his own exhaustion to keep pace with Lieutenant Bastard. Yet the most predominant and frustrating behavior relates to Atlas-Six's sleep patterns. Due to a seemingly untreatable case of night terrors, Atlas-Six requires specialized supervision during periods of dormancy. See photo for details." I held the Tact. Pad's camera at arm's length away from my person, and angled the lens for a lofty portrait of a scowling Ranger surrounded by fat rolls, with a sleeping Munchlax's jaw in his lap.

"Perfect." I smiled when I reviewed the selfie, and then I uploaded it and the attached entry into the Atlas Beta-tester's log.

If this was the worst that Mac could manage, then maybe I had gotten lucky in the Atlas Munchlax distribution.

"Those sorry motherfuckers in the Military are gonna be hating my guts real soon." I grinned, sliding the Tac. Pad pack into my coat pocket. My hand paused inside that coat pocket when my fingers brushed up against a familiar piece of fabric. My smiled died pretty quickly when I recalled what that fabric was.

Involuntarily, I found myself drawing my old Beret up for review, when that hand came back out of my coat pocket.

I just stared at that red fabric. My old, shapeless, and bloodstained cap. The decorums of my former rank had been removed, but the crossed knives and shield of the Ranger Corps insignia still stood proudly in gold thread against the black diamond patch beneath it.

And below that golden shield, on an unfurling banner entwined with a bloodied olive branch, was the Ranger's motto, embroidered in silver thread.

"In Pace, Ut Sapiens, Aptarit Idonea Bello"

"...In peace, like a wise man, he appropriately prepares for war..." I whispered the translation out loud in hollow revenance.

War.

I had never liked the idea of war. I had never approved of man killing man. But I was trained for war. I was trained to end life, to risk life, to govern life.

I was trained to kill. And though my victims were not human, some wretched part of me lingered on the possibility of them becoming human.

I looked over at Mac. This giant and horrible monster, the fiend that I associated with my most terrible of losses…

...Was just a baby. A frightened child, who in desperation and confusion, had identified a killer of monsters as his mother. A child that I was to raise. A child that I was to train in the ways of war. A monster that I would condition to kill other monsters.

Yet to Mac, I was his home. I was the one who provided him with food. I was the one who sheltered and protected Mac from the monsters who would kill him.

I was the pillow that Mac sought comfort from, when his nightly terrors woke him with their dreadful portents.

If a Munchlax could overcome its nature, and align itself to humanity…

...Couldn't every monster become human too-?

I snorted so Goddamn hard at the passing thought, that I thought my tonsils had been relocated to my sinuses.

"Fuck me… I'm getting as bad as the mon-humpers." I chuckled to myself.

But as my eyes fell down upon my old beret, the cold weight in my chest crushed every ounce of ridicule left in me.

"...Cortez, report." My dry voice called out to my Number Two, and a worried hound came before the Munchlax head drowsing in my lap.

My hands opened my old beret, parting its black brim, before I ceremoniously lowered that red cap upon the scarred half of Cortez's crown.

It didn't fit him at all, but I knew that a safety pin or two would amend the lopsided fit.

"Congratulations, Cortez." My voice was free of ridicule, no joke implied by my eyes. Cortez just stared at me in stoic countenance, accepting the decorum that I had imparted him with.

"My Number Two doesn't just represent the Corps, Cortez. My Number Two represents me. And I in turn, represent him." I raised a salute to my own dog, and after a gravitas moment had passed, Cortez sat upon his haunches, signifying my salute's return.

Looking back on it now, I don't really think that either one of us understood the depth of my gesture. I don't really think that either one of us understood the significance of Cortez's acceptance.

But these two soldiers…

...These two dogs of war…

...Had made it known to each other, and all who saw us side by side, that we were more than just a serviceman and his servicemon.

Cortez and I had finally acknowledged the call that drew us so closely together, without succumbing to our reservations, our fears, or our shame.

We both answered wholeheartedly to that call.

The call of duty. The call of arms. The call of blood.

-The call of brotherhood.

…

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well… I lied. The Vermilion Gym is still a long way off. There is no way in hell that I can cram all of Vermilion's content into a single chapter. I didn't expect for so much of the intended content to take up so many words. But hey, that's just Vermilion City for you. This place is just the perfect setting for advancing (by which I mean: obfuscating) plots. Just ask L. lamora.

Hopefully, part III of Chapter 8 (*snort*) won't take 40,000 words to finish. I want to start expanding the relationship between Zane and Theron ASAP. The itch is so fierce that I'm almost tempted to post Book II's prologue before I even start working on Book I's Chapter 10.

...But both you guys and I are just gonna have to wait. Theron's story will be released in due time. All in due time.

By the by, happy birthday, TSoK. It has been one year to the date since I wrote and posted your first chapter. Here's to your completion before your second birthday, my most favored of FF creations.

So now I have to ask the audience to join me in celebration… By having you guys answer TSoK's birthday question:

-Which character thus far released, be they human or pokemon, is your favorite?

If you're struggling to name just one, then list off your top three. And fear not, I'm not going to use the results to determine which member of the cast kicks the bucket next. Everyone's fate has already been decided. You can all rest easy for now…

...Or maybe you shouldn't…