A/N: chaosspeer, thanks. I tried to make it original, though I should admit that it is based off another book, though rather loosely called The Keys to the Kingdom and you might notice several similarities between it and this fanfic, but many will end there. It is also sort of based off of Pokemon Conquest in a way, I guess.
The thing about revolutions is that they're often overblown. While the revolutionaries may sing and write about reform and change, when the dust has settled one finds that no matter who wins, very little changes.
Mr. Jennings reflected on that. He had expected great change when a new ruler came, and had for the many decades served under Marley dreamed of how it would be.
It wasn't that Sir Ash was incompetent, he told himself, only that he was currently too young to handle things even during a good time. And this was certainly not a good period of time. Especially not with all the records gone.
They had gone to the old archives, or at least, Ash and Mr. Jennings went. Pikachu was enjoying being massaged and just generally being treated like a prince by the staff. Sir Ash had mistaken the archives for a garbage dump the first time and asked where the archives were supposed to be. The place had been made out of decorative wood but had gotten moldy over all those years and a section at the back was declared too unsafe to walk into.
At least half of the material in there was unreadable. Some of the records were useful, like one detailing various business transactions the region had done with other Gym Leaders, but most of the others were too outdated to be of any use to them.
There was something that piqued up Ash's interest thought. It was a sketch of what looked like a woman kneeling on the ground, with eight rays of light emanating from something that was held in front of her. It stood out as it wasn't moldy and seemed to be the only thing in the library properly taken care of. "What's that supposed to be?"
"Oh that?" Mr. Jennings asked. "That is merely a sketch of the first Champion, Sir Ash. I do believe Lord Marley purchased it himself for quite a sum to decorate the library some time ago. I guess it was the only thing he remembered to have ordered dusted regularly."
Ash looked at Mr. Jennings with a confused look. It was then that Mr. Jennings realized that just because every child in Galea knew about the first Champion, didn't meant that Sir Ash did. "Uh, well, the story goes that approximately three thousand years ago, Galea was in a constant state of war as the Gym Leaders fought each other and attempted to control more land and territory. Until a trainer came along, and over a period of over a decade, managed to defeat all eight and united the region under one rule. Legends say that she-"
"She?" Ash asked. The sketch obviously showed a woman, but Ash still felt the need to ask this.
"Why yes, it was definitely a woman," Mr. Jennings said. "Is that so hard to believe? Does where you come from have no female Trainers?"
"No," Ash said. "It's not like that. I mean, there are even pretty powerful ones like Cynthia."
"Well, anyway, what the Gym Badges are supposed to be and where they come from was always a mystery, but it is said that when all were united something happened, and so she became the first Elite Four Champion. There are hundreds of stories about her, but around fifteen hundred years ago she vanished from history, leading many to believe she has died. Since then, there has not been another Champion as far as I know. Of course, this Eighth Gym Leader, whoever he is, is truly arrogant going around calling himself 'His Majesty the Emperor' when that title is truly reserved only for the Elite Four Champion."
Even Ash, who wasn't that good with math, knew that something was up. "She seems to have lived way longer than she should have."
"All the Gym Leaders can, apparently," Mr. Jennings said. "A side effect of having the Badges, or at least I think so."
"By the way then," Ash said, "Selena mentioned the Elite Four, and my Pokedex only has four voices in it. What happened to the current Elite Four Champion? Or are there only four members in Galea?"
"No, there are the Elite Four- though I suppose maybe the Elite Five technically but everyone says Elite Four for some reason anyway, also had the Elite Four Champion with them, but as far as I remember after the first Champion left there had not been a single new one crowned for some reason. There were rumors a new one had been appointed just before the spatial-temporal barrier around Galea was formed, but that might have been just a rumor."
Mr. Jennings' phone began ringing. "Uh, excuse me, Sir Ash- let me take this call."
After fifteen seconds, he cut the phone. "Sir Ash, there is another phone call to you from the Gym Leaders. Apparently Thomdolt, and Linnea, the second and fourth Gym Leaders would like to talk to you."
"Can they do something like with that Porygon-Z again?" Ash asked.
Mr. Jennings frowned. "I do not know, Sir Ash. We have tried fixing the problems using a firewall, but as of now, they haven't been tested yet. It might be a risk."
"I- I think I'll hear them out," Ash said. "But have everything in our database backed up just in case."
"Already done," Mr. Jennings said. "Now, I think you might want to fly over there. They may be thieves, but they are still Gym Leaders, after all, and even Marley wouldn't keep them waiting unnecessarily long."
Ash flew over to his new room, where there was an assistant who had helped move another telephone inside, with two people on screen. One of them was a really tall person, and the other a moderately beautiful woman.
Ash sat down after checking to make sure there wasn't snot on his face (the thought always disturbed him for some reason) and sat down.
The tall person, who Ash guessed was Thomdolt, snorted. "Is that it? I knew he said child, but I was still expecting more."
"Must you always be so rude?" Linnea asked. "There's no need to talk like that, even to your enemies."
"Pah," Thomdolt said. "Speak plainly, or don't bother at all. Here's the deal child, you may have beaten Marley, but you will not last long if neither of us start selling you things. If you're at war with my domain, there will be no medicine, no metals for your forges or ships, and without Linnea there will be no grain for you people to eat. Not for long at least."
"We do grow crops though," Ash said, frowning.
"Only a token amount," Linnea said. "You will not last for longer than a few months without my help. And if you attempt to convert part of your forests into farmland, and accelerate growth using your Gym Badge, well, you'll displace a large amount of Pokemon, and even the Badges and the land have their limits as to how far they can go."
"We are offering a rather simple proposal though," Thomdolt said. "We can't fight you or challenge you, but you can do it to us, which is the annoying bit to us. So, we want you to sign the Accord, and make yourself like one of us and unable to challenge us and assuage our fears, and if you do so, we will continue trading with you."
"I can't agree to that," Ash said. "I just want to go home."
"Then starvation it is then," Linnea said. "Though I guess you in particular won't starve, but you don't strike me as the type of ruler that will allow his subjects to die due to food shortages. You will eventually realize that you'll have to give up."
"Or, I can defeat you," Ash said. "I challenge both of you to a Gym Battle!"
Thomdolt sneered. "Nice try child, but the rules governing the Badges were made before writing was invented, let alone computers. A challenge made over phone at this distance doesn't count. And you will not be able to defeat me anyway."
"We'll see about that," Ash retorted, sounding far more confident than he really felt.
Both Thomdolt and Linnea signed off at that.
Once Mr. Jennings got there, Ash told him what had happened.
"This is not good," Mr. Jennings said. "We won't last for long."
"Wait," Ash said. "If they produce stuff that we need, don't we also make something that they'd need to?"
"Uh, well, we mostly grow crops too cold for Linnea's region to accommodate, mainly to serve a bit of variety, and several hand-crafted products of the highest quality!" Mr. Jennings said with pride. "But I don't think any of them are necessarily essentials unfortunately," he said with considerably less enthusiasm.
"So, we're at war with them then?" Ash guessed.
"I suppose so," Mr. Jennings said. "Oh dear- we need to double the number of your food tasters then, Sir Ash."
"What for?" Ash asked. His food, Ash noticed, was already tasted before given to him, but he hadn't bothered asking about it before- though when he thought about it, it seemed strange if the Irresolute Badge could neutralize poisons.
"Do you not remember what I told you about Thomdolt?" Mr. Jennings asked.
Ash tried hard to remember. Mr. Jennings and other people coached him daily on matters of what happened in the rest of Galea and important things regarding the other Gym Leaders. "Didn't he win- by poisoning the older Gym Leader?"
"Yes, about thirty-four years ago Lady Falmouth had been found poisoned, and Thomdolt took over, later taking part in the rebellion against the Elite Four," Mr. Jennings said.
Ash frowned. "Wait, that doesn't fit with what Gulliver said when he mentioned honey changing to poison or something."
"The Badges can eliminate most poisons," Mr. Jennings said. "Save for two. One is made by a mixture of Arbok venom, Seviper venom, and Victreebel acid. As you can imagine, that smells and is easy to detect and no one would willingly ingest it. The other is some unknown formula used by Thomdolt which is much harder to notice as it is both tasteless and odorless."
"But he can't kill me, right?" Ash asked.
"True, but why take chances, after all , who knows if he's found a loophole?" Mr. Jennings said as if he was talking to a small, reluctant child. "And if Thomdolt survived, who says more people of the Assassins haven't? They would not be bound by such rules if they existed independently from him."
"Right. You said we wouldn't last long without food imports," Ash said. "Just how long?"
"I would need to do some inventory check to be sure, with the data gone and all. We can perhaps last longer if we accelerate our Miltank breeding program- I personally don't care for milk, but it will do," Mr. Jennings said. "And we can always turn over some land for more cultivation. But eventually we will have to strike at one of them." Mr. Jennings didn't mention the other option, letting enough people die to reduce the population so fewer mouths were there to feed, but he knew that neither he nor Ash would condone such an action. "Normally, we would have enough reserves to last three years, but Marley-"
"Was too lazy to bother doing so," Ash said, hearing it for almost the thousandth time since he had tried solving his region's problems.
"Indeed," Mr. Jennings said.
"So what's our best strategy for taking Thomdolt down then?" Ash asked.
"Merely give me some time, Sir, and I will get back to you with all these details," Mr. Jennings said.
A/N: Thanks for reading, as always, and do review if you like. I always thought that Ash, or at least, the Pokemon series seemed to be misogynistic in some manner or the other (with not many powerful Pokemon trainers, and with the female leads almost always doing Contests or things that didn't involve battling) so I wrote a bit hinting some of it.
Also, while I've been able to update once a week up till now, we will be going on hiatus for at least one week due to the real world getting in between. Thanks for being patient though!