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Level 45

So according to Clair, he thought, he would always be worthless.

And being Master of the Dragon Tamer Clan, a title which could not be more terrifying, was there anything that she didn't know about dragons? With one glance, he had felt, she left nothing unexamined in him; even saw his love for Runa, perhaps, and didn't speak so as only to bring her harm, some retribution for what she said defending him. He never saw Runa so angry! He was brilliant, she said, a dedicated battler—caking on praise to cover up the rot. But Clair saw through everything: nothing escaped a Dragon Master.

Perhaps he was only being morbid, as Gaia said. Morbidity was about sickness and disease in things, the dictionary said, but also about appearance, as when Tanwen now described him, both of them, she said, pointing to Gaia's new body, so that Gaia leered down at her, now some eighteen inches taller, and no doubt twice as powerful. When Runa returned from the shops and saw them … But scenes like that were not why the team rotted. They were signs of rot, not the cause itself. Runa, for all the horrid things Tanwen or Rita said, was not to blame, nor her philosophy, which after all was so refined (she and Torus had discussions over single words now, minor sentences, not sections or paragraphs)—though Tanwen certainly helped things along. With the Conference only a few months away, she began to feel they were short on training, which was her way of saying that Runa favoured them, favoured her dragons, and didn't throw it all into one Typhlosion who had some more rightful claim, and so she grew more and more demonstrative, made herself out at as the only one trying. Perhaps, as Tanwen said, the team was not perfectly balanced, but how did that surprise her now? It was no surprise that a sixth never approached them with every wilder seeing her as a future companion. What with her and all the pressure mounting upon them, now Dyna withdrew even further from battling; said that they covered electricity enough, that she wasn't really needed, for which she fell into arguing with Tanwen. Torus only stayed near Runa; spoke less and less to the others; shut him out of so much as approaching. But that was for the team, and Runa's philosophy. And then there was Rita.

—We'll probably visit Hoenn after the tournament. You'd like to see it, wouldn't you?

—Tales.

—I'm sure you'd like it. But if you want to keep travelling after that—

—Nine.

Then Rita had turned her red eyes at Runa, as if to say that she was very slow. For Rita was a mistake, Dyna said, not even to tease her, and no one could disagree: everybody knew that Rita shouldn't be there, was never meant to be picked, and only represented a failure of Runa's judgement. And Rita looked at them and said, —O, why should I care what you think? will any of you live to a thousand? The whole façade cracked and there was nothing behind it: what appeared to be a self-absorbed but doubting Pokémon (all the warmth and effort taken from Runa, all the hours), only afraid, as he was, of stepping up and amounting to something, turned out to be hollow, rotted out by vanity. Runa turned away and, so he saw, began to wipe her eye, left them for over an hour—wanted to be alone, wanted to be away from her Pokémon! —You should have been a Bulbasaur, Tanwen had said, spitting at Rita; —She should have gone home for real Pokémon; we should have been six from the start. And perhaps she was right, he thought: everything would have been different with one more like Gaia, one who did not only try to get advantage.

But if Rita was the aberration in Runa's plan, he thought, Tanwen was the intrinsic failure. Her dream was to be champion, and top of the team; —Where's my dream? she said. Stuck to four who, if they took even the smallest attention, committed in her mind an injustice, Tanwen felt there was no possible way to effect it. So she argued with Rita; argued with Dyna; argued with Gaia who had firmly displaced her, left her to struggle for third, and soon he'd be evolving also, they said. And wasn't that the real reason that Tanwen was angry, and that made her speak as she did? For she would never be first on the team now, they knew; but that would be the team at fault, Tanwen suggested, and certainly not herself.

—You know if we fail at Silver Town, and after all this it's been for nothing, it's not my fault if I have to explore my options. If Runa won't change, it's not my fault.

Explore her options, he thought, as if Tanwen wanted a refund on a faulty trainer! Dyna slapped her; Tanwen grabbed her head and flung her into the lake, would have struck anyone who spoke, he imagined, seeing her eyes, if Torus hadn't teleported ahead of Runa and Gaia to interrupt her. Then when Runa was next away, Gaia laid her hand on Tanwen and explained how, if she ever felt a need in future to cool down, there'd be several Surfs and Waterfalls to accommodate her. (And Gaia changed as well. She didn't say much about how it felt to be a Dragonite, only that it was odd having limbs, that she found it easier to concentrate; yet she was more reserved, a little less relaxed, sometimes went hours now without talking, as they walked or exercised, and rarely began a conversation. But then he would catch a look at her, when she was alone with Dyna or Runa, and she was herself again; and sometimes he saw her looking at him, and she turned away, as if she didn't mean to interrupt.) After that, Tanwen kept to verbal abuse, sometimes kept away entirely so as not to argue; and wasn't that a wretched state the team had come to, where some avoided others to avoid battling amongst themselves? And of those who bothered her, he knew, it was him she hated most: he who most stole from her Runa's time, who, like an Exeggutor's dullest head who had to have things explained repeatedly, most slowed them down, sucked their energies, and now—what was unforgivable—after all Runa's attention nearly grew to be competitive, at least by the record of spars. No one else had drive like Tanwen; no one worked harder to win, it was true; and still Runa embraced a sleepy Ampharos and a hair-sniffing Dragonair as equals, and that was intolerable to her.

(Gaia gave a touch to say she was turning in, and looked at him before ducking into the lobby. Runa continued to read.)

It would be easy to call Tanwen, then, the source of their troubles—too vain, too narcissistic, driving the team apart with her ambition—easy enough for that; so why, they would say, was he the cause of failure and not her? Because he was—what was it? some word in that documentary on the Pondelores in Kalos—the catalyst, yes, that which being present caused others to affect each other. Tanwen wanted attention proportional to merit, and he became a sodden counterbalance, pulling against her. Dyna's best use was electricity, and by training his, he enabled her to fall out, and if not for his example, possibly Rita wouldn't have kept out at all. Gaia would not always be at odds to defend him, if he were different, and Torus—how much energy did he waste just to watch him? No, he thought: the signs were obvious. It was that his nature, his genetics, was all junk. So Clair had said as much herself in the Dragon's Den.

—She's just some old trainer, Shadow. She doesn't know you at all.

Clair had heard that they were in Blackthorn, and summoned her, as presumably the Dragon Master had a right and expectation to do of of anyone who trained dragons—and Runa nearly ignored it, said they might get the last badge in another place. What did it matter, Runa said, what some Dragon Master thought? Clair had a reputation for being hard; she followed the pondelorian style, he had read. And that Clair believed dragons were the greatest type, Runa said, was wrong—the opposite, she explained, to loving all Pokémon equally, which was what a leader of training ought to teach. Perhaps that was a part of why Runa did it, to defend her view, and criticise a bad if yet popular philosophy. So she took him and Gaia to the Dragon's Den; a place, he thought, which smelt familiar, struck a few old memories perhaps, not the pagoda or the trainers, but the darkness, the waters. Had he really been born there, in one of the connected tunnels? So Clair thought.

She had knelt on a pad between two braziers, and saw straight through him, he felt, by her sense for dragons, the foremost expert after Lance: she saw his whole character—his history, his neuroses—and found it wanting. That was her judgement: wanting, and that Runa was less for keeping him.

—You raised them together?

—They were together when we met, yes.

She didn't say he started training later than Gaia; never let her hand off his neck, having some idea, he believed, how a Pokémon must feel to be judged on technical quality. Clair saw things in him which Runa only guessed, things even Torus could not have seen.

—He is older than her. He must be, to be so much longer. Pale skin marks a cave-born, like ours. (She addressed Runa, he felt, as like a pupil who hadn't mastered the basic conditions.) I suppose he has greater resistance to ice and fire? It's what I thought. Some of the tunnels in the Den connect with the Ice Path. There have been reports of dragons interbreeding with new arrivals there, other-region Pokémon who escaped the Mount Silver Safari Zone, Walrein and the like. In some cases—we don't know how—their abilities have begun inheriting. In principle, Thick Fat isn't the worst ability for a dragon. But Walrein are built to carry it—Dragonair, not so much. It's a problem we'll have to look into.

That was his story, he thought, in a few sentences. Gaia looked at him as if to say, Didn't I tell you? It really was a condition. But as if this was better! It only meant he was irreparable, had some sort of mutation, was bound to be pallid and fat forever. Before it might have been only his lack of control, something that, with enough improvement, a better character may correct … now he would never compare to Gaia. And Clair said that she, the shiny Dragonite, was very well, that she was sturdy, had the multichromatic scale, like oil on water, which, even as she lost her pink and gold, appeared to him in a way even more beautiful. It was possible she could become a champion, Clair said, with a matching team behind her.

—You have potential, Runa. Dragons rarely thrive so well with a trainer. Evolving them in a matter of months isn't a common feat. But a mature dragon trainer won't divide her efforts between such unequal measures. She isn't afraid to test her dragons' powers, and push them where they're lacking. You need to cultivate discipline.

Runa did not go into her philosophy, but perhaps she ought—it might have avoided all that followed. Instead she only disagreed, and said wouldn't force her Pokémon; and soon, Clair began to lose her calm.

—Dragons are sacred and noble creatures, Runa, who possess a power superior to all others. They deserve a trainer whose will and focus matches theirs, not one who'll let them spoil rotten. I saw at once, the way she walked, that you indulge your Pokémon, that never in your life have you pushed them hard. Well, with two dragons in your team, that can get you seven badges … maybe even a few rounds into the Silver Conference. Then you'll hit a wall. The gyms, Runa, are to weed out the untalented; the championships are to weed out the pretenders. There's no such thing as a champion who isn't willing to sacrifice for her Pokémon. Until your Dragonair overcomes his nature—until you push him to overcome his fears—I cannot imagine you'll win a tournament. As for this one, it's probably too late. I recommend you to wait another year.

The trainer at the door had said that Clair was not in the same school as the old Master: he would have said that nature and strength were not important, that all Pokémon were equal in their own way, and so dragons deserved the same as others; but ever since Clair, things had changed, and everything was dragons and discipline. Still Runa might have let it all pass, had already let worse go against herself from articles in the press; but as Clair attacked him directly, Runa lost her temper—and then the whole thing fell apart, all on his account.

—He's twice the size he should be.

—You said yourself it's his ability!

—You didn't know that before I told you. But you thought it didn't matter when, for all you knew, your lack of discipline crippled him.

—He's not crippled. That's a horrible thing to say.

—He looks like he'd faint if I touched him.

—I'd have thought most things would faint if you touched them.

Why did she do it? why harm herself, he thought, start an argument with a gym leader, someone with all sorts of connections and influence, just the sort of thing one wanted when forming a new school of training, only to defend him before her? Runa hadn't looked at him, but never let her arm off him, either, as Clair delivered her judgements.

—It's not a dragon's fault if he's raised poorly: it's the trainer's. I see your Dragonair and think of what he could become if disciplined, if only he were cultivated properly. You see him and think you'll pet him, and hold him, carry him around until he can hardly throw a Tail for lack of practice, and somehow in the end he's wonderful. Do you understand me? I'm not talking about his physical condition—that's simple to fix. I'm talking about his will. Dragons are the apex Pokémon of this planet, just short of legendaries in their potential and powers, and to let one … atrophy … is amongst the saddest things I know.

("Don't worry about it, Shadow," Runa said, stroking his head. "Why don't you go to bed?" But he couldn't. She continued reading. She had only read, he saw, a couple pages.)

It was only to defend him that Runa answered; she was too fond, unreservedly so—never let go of him, not for a second. And Runa had never made such a scene before as that: it was appalling, monstrous—not that Runa was in the wrong, but how she let herself open to abuse! how she ruined her own chances! For mistaking his want to let it go as want of protection, she then had decided that, as the whole bridge was on fire anyway, she'd speak without reservation:

—I think it's pretty magical that you can judge so easily when you don't know a thing about him. You don't know how far he's grown and what he's accomplished. You don't know what his dreams are and how hard he's struggled to get them. Shadow and Gaia are the strongest Pokémon I know, and they've done it without being slaves to some master. They're proof that a Pokémon's accomplishments come from themselves, not from their trainer. If you won't acknowledge them, then look away—some people will never admit it. But don't try and tell them they're doing it wrongly. We'll get our badge somewhere else.

And at that (how it made him nearly sick!) Clair only smiled, and said:

—I was once fifteen years old. I used to think I knew it all, that what my elders thought, being shown up as less than certain, wasn't a thing to pay attention to. Then I grew up and realised that not only had I as uncertain a grasp of things as them, but a less informed one. I haven't mentioned your family, Runa, nor your wealth, in reaching some judgement. I've given you the benefit of my opinion on the qualities you present here alone. And I admit, my impression may be wrong. Fortunately, there's a simple test. I challenge you for the Rising Badge, right now, in the waters of the Dragon's Den. Two on two—no items, no retreat.

Gaia would have battled on the spot, the way she curled her arms and snorted. But Runa refused—had to ask her team first, she said, and decide who wanted to fight. Then Clair did lose her temper; she meant it for him and Gaia, he knew, that her own veteran Dragonite might crush Gaia and the defective Dragonair under an Outrage. She threatened Runa, said she would be ejected from the League if she refused a gym challenge, all her badges become bits of metal; but Runa said Clair had to give the opportunity: it wouldn't pass the Johto League Authority, she said, forcing battle without a full team to choose from, and hadn't Clair had trouble with them before? The bridge, he thought, was burnt entirely.

When they returned, Runa said he didn't have to fight. For Clair only meant to injure him, she said, to try and make a point, even if she lost the battle. But didn't it prove just the same thing if Runa pulled him out of the battle, he thought, as though he wasn't good enough? It was his fault, he said—he ought to, to defend Runa. But one look at Runa was enough to see that she didn't want him in the Den. It was giving Clair what she wanted to put him in, Gaia said. She deserved a stomp, and would be ready for him, so why not stay out and confound her? Clair's Dragonite was ranked fifth in the world, so he oughtn't come. Tanwen and Torus volunteered; Tanwen assented on grounds of typing. They would leave for the Den in the morning.

It was hardly two months past midsummer, he knew, and already there was a bite in the mountain air. Soon no one would want to lay out by the lakeside, waiting out the day as they did now for Runa. Why did they fight in the Den and not the gym? Something about presence, Runa said, that Clair wanted. Gym leaders thrived on status, she said, for lacking often the ability to become champions yet having wanted nothing more all their lives, they gained satisfaction by lording over some cult of disciples. And then in a moment Runa apologised, and said she was being unfair.

—She's being a teenager, Dyna said. I saw all that lot on the roads. She'll get over it.

Runa was always warm with them, but to other humans … The press one always had to be careful with, of course, check their manners, but with trainers, those who mistreated Pokémon, Runa could show a temper, didn't think before speaking. Add to that her protectiveness of them, of him especially, and it became a weakness—a vulnerability, rather, as she and Gaia and Torus went to battle for his sake, putting herself at risk. He ought to be there; ought to have insisted, he knew. Was there a better argument, Tanwen said, that Runa lacked discipline as Clair said? She began arguing as soon as Runa left; abused all others' judgement and characters; explained why everything was failing, for they didn't follow her.

"[And what about ice?]" she said. Dyna folded her arms; Rita lay on her basking rock. "[You saw her after she evolved. How's that going to work in the tournament? Have you forgotten Jeanmarie?]"

She was being unfair—it wasn't Gaia's fault that she evolved in the Ice Path. The ice only affected her because she felt it all at once. But it was always a mistake to talk when Tanwen argued, and reason quit her thinking.

"[Everyone in the League has fairies,]" Tanwen said. "[It's ridiculous putting everything on her! And what kind of team doesn't have a dragon counter? This should have been an easy pick to battle Clair. We should have got a fairy or ice-type months ago, or a dark, trained up in all the gyms. And where are we? It's three months to the tournament, and we're still one short, and with two half-measures it's as good as four. Or what are you two adding that I blinked and missed?]"

"[Wow,]" Dyna said, touching her cheeks—"[it's like you're evolving even dumber. Like every team has ice and we do just fine. Gaia's the sweeper. You wanna fight dragons and stuff? Start sweeping. Otherwise shush up and help her!]"

"[What a shame I'm not a Blaziken, you're saying,]" Tanwen said, "[so I can only run about and pass her the baton?]"

"[Hey, yeah!]" Dyna said, looking interested. "[Can we still go swap you for a new one?]"

"[Of course we expect this from a C-list Ampharos,]" Tanwen said, and Dyna bristled: she didn't care about the rankings, he knew, or that she didn't make the top two-hundred Ampharos, except when Tanwen mentioned it. "[We all know you've committed to waste like Rita. That's fine. We weren't using you, anyway: one TM and you were redundant.]"

"[Same's for you,]" Dyna said.

And Tanwen said, "[None of them have Blast Burn! They don't have Eruption!]" and he buried his head in his coil again. It had been a wonderful thing, Gaia evolving, increased the team's strength enormously, yet now it only fuelled these divisions, Tanwen's want, her feeling that she became finally redundant, forever a minor cog in the team. That and the papers that Tanwen found, he thought, when she rifled through Runa's bag in the Mahogany City hotel, found the Hoenn estate's record of breeding, presented it to Dyna and Rita.

—It's not whether I'm better: I am. This proves it.

—I don't know what this stuff means.

—The thirty-ones mean perfect. There are five of them. (She threw the papers onto the bed, as if everything was decided.)

—O Tanwen, what's that little number? Under speed. It is saying you're very slow, dear?

"[You're such a narsonist,]" Dyna said, and behind her he saw Rita resist speaking. "[You notice when you aren't battling, when it's all fish and beaches, but you forget that practically all the time you've always been her starter. Gaia only evolved in the Ice Path 'cause you burned out and she had to take over, so don't big up your stupid powers!]"

Tanwen said, "[This from one who wants to quit the team, who's already let two dragons take her place. You want to go as much as Rita—admit it.]"

And Dyna sparked and said, "[Maybe I do! Maybe if Runa lets them take over that's not a bad thing! Then you can have your fairy and your ice you can get all lordy with, and I don't have to be 'round you!]"

What was it that Dyna said about battling, he thought, all that time ago? That she did it for Runa, who deserved it, and such was her way of paying back. But what use was it to leave and retire, to live in some field in Hoenn? It was her old dream, to get peace—one lost so long as Tanwen and the tournament pressed them all forward. But then Dyna's dream failed even with Runa, and Tanwen's also, and Rita's until she left them; and as Runa's dream was to help in theirs, by necessity hers failed as well. And how was it that everything failed, when no other trainer in the world did so much for her Pokémon?

"[So you agree,]" Tanwen said, smiling, placing her arms on her waist, "[that the team has bad composition. Well, that can only be down to one person. What do you say, Shadow?]" She turned to him. "[Wouldn't you agree this is all Runa's fault? Any time she wanted she could fly to Hoenn and pick out any one of thousands of willing Pokémon to balance the team; but she won't, so the team stays defective, and there's that broken heart out there who'll never join us. Isn't that Runa's failure, killing dreams? Or are you going to let Torus answer for you, just like you let him battle?]"

He wanted to speak, didn't know what he'd say; but Dyna said, "[Shut up!]" at Tanwen and flung some sort of clod she'd made from soil. "[The only mistake Runa ever made was picking you. If you're so hot why'd you faint four times already?]"

That was a mistake to say, he thought, as Tanwen began to bristle. But if they fought— Was it up to him to stop them? There wasn't Gaia or Torus or Runa to calm them. What would Runa think if she returned and found they'd knocked each other out, and he did nothing to stop it?

Tanwen said, "[The Silver Conference is in ninety days. How do you think we'll look with big fat ones across the table? Gaia losses: one. Shadow and Torus: one. Dyna: zero, didn't battle. Runa: one. End of round one. That's a champion's record, right there. You think we'll make it when Runa puts everything into Gaia, and Manda has the best Ice-user in the world? Well, you go ahead—I don't need it. Runa says she gives us liberty. I may just go and take it.]"

She didn't mean it, he thought; she was just talking wildly; Gaia said she only talked of leaving as a threat. On her rock in the sun, Rita tossed her tails and sighed, as if in pleasure for the heat. "[O, do,]" she said. "[That would be a show: Divas Gone Wild. I do hope it airs in Hoenn. We'll see if you can forage a Chesto berry without burning the forest down.]"

"[And you can shut up,]" Tanwen said—"[you've no business talking. You should have been an Oddish, in that forest.]" And now Rita had that look, that fire in her eyes, as when she was preparing for a battle of insults, which would remove attention from Dyna but protract the argument however long, and he could not bear it any longer: he turned and slipped into the lake. If they would keep from attacking one another, he thought, it was better that Runa saw him waiting on the rocks; and if they fought, well, wasn't he away when it happened?

Poor Runa! he thought. It wasn't her fault, as Tanwen said—there were only bad natures all around her. Was it an indictment of all Pokémon that one so kind could become a trainer, form a philosophy which raised them to the level of humans or higher, dedicate herself to the dreams of Pokémon, and then see the whole thing blow up in her face because Pokémon, it seemed, didn't know how to be free? Wilders had liberty, but how far did that get them? Given any chance they took to trainers, to direction, everything humans provided. Now Runa gave up decisions to them, to do as they liked, and how did they respond? Tanwen felt at odds; Dyna felt at odds; all of them were in a way being held up in the air by Runa and, as though she pressed them to fly before evolving, as though he were a Dratini suspended in the air, the nausea flooded in, and yet to fall, to disappoint—

It was getting worse, he felt, this want for Runa. As perhaps one who couldn't breathe underwater felt as they came up for air, and just a few more times in a long swim made the difference between coping and drowning, so it was with his feelings. As like one who developed an appetite for something came to want more of it—like an addict, he thought, of sweets or lemonade, the sort of sugars that at first were an occasional perk but eventually became necessary just to keep from shaking between meals—as a touch from Runa begot want of another, so he felt a growing pain when outside her company, despite their never being closer.

Of course there were causes and reasons for that. (A Poliwag looked up from her Salveyo weed as he passed.) In Saffron City, with Runa gone for one day, the prospect of her separating really began. The Dark Cave was worse, of course, being so sudden, even if she arrived after just the one night of waiting. Those were episodes which, taken alone, he might have recovered from—that is, if not for her similar feeling, her anxiety for him, which impressed the fear, left him perfectly desperate to be near. The thought of losing them, she said, was her greatest nightmare. (He should not have gone after her bag, she said, yet she kissed them both many times, held them very close, took a week off just to be thankful and relax in Violet City, returning at once and forgetting the camp.) Ever since then the thought of Runa separating for any length or reason felt like plunging into ice water, into the frozen lake of the Path, the surface any moment sealing over him. He would do nothing but wait on her, if he could, never leave her side; and Runa was not against his keeping close, he felt, even his remaining like a Dratini on a sunchair, waiting for his human, which only made it all the more impossible.

Naturally none of it was that bad—the Dark Cave and so on. However he may feel in the moment, he would not actually destroy himself if Runa did not appear (in a couple hours, she said, and back from the Den). As Runa said, over and over, it didn't matter if they lost a battle; her only sadness would be for the pain they suffered, their disappointment; she only asked—for she knew him too well—that he didn't blame himself. That he had a crippling lack of proportion, he already knew. Runa would want him to go more than a moment without thinking of her, for the sake of his own peaceful thinking; so it wouldn't harm him to build a reserve, and try to go a minute without thinking of her. But still, he knew, she felt in a way similarly—worrying sick when they were separated, hiring that Pidgeot trainer to get her and Torus to the Dark Cave sooner, leaving the others in the hotel in Violet City. It delighted her that he kept the notes, took the purpose just as he hoped, as a sign that he cared, even if they were quite redundant. After that he became shameless, kept scraps and things to bring to Runa that she may enjoy them or explain: a newspaper clipping, the caption referring to dragons; a little feather that, as she explained what species it came from, she might happen to fondle his own. For she knew that he was curious about human things, and with that excuse he might watch her even in mundane acts: using her phone, brushing her hair, sitting and reading so that sometimes she laid her hand on him, even though he no longer fit in her lap. (Her glasses no longer fit his head.) It had to be small, of course—none of that head-on-his-middle business that Torus noticed. In the early summer she slept in the open air with them, read until it was dark and, most nights, fell asleep beside him, often with her hair against him; a dozen times or more used him as a pillow; five times actually laid part of his tail over her; and once (it tingled again, every time he remembered), in the middle of the night, as she turned over, kissed him on the cheek, and then went to sleep again.

But the whole of late summer now, towards the tournament, was short of such moments; and now, he felt, it was as if his skin was bubbling up, and every part of him growing colder—the appetite of an excited sickness, he thought. (He ought to think of Runa less, build up his resistance.) Beyond that his diet varied with degree of feeling: first binging on fruit when he felt Runa absent (he looked just the same, Gaia said), and then, in compensation, allowing himself only water and raw vegetables, anything to starve his senses and improve for Runa. But if it was as Clair said … and how did Gaia put it?

—Look, if it's true, it means there's nothing wrong with you. It means you're perfectly fit.

The Thick Fat ability (and how was that an ability?) would explain why eating less did nothing to make him thinner, why fire and ice so little affected him, taking once so many Flamethrowers from Tanwen that she accused him of hiding Occa berries in his cheeks. For a dragon, Clair said, yes, it was an advantage; Gaia said the only thing worse than ice on her skin was frost on her wings, so if Clair was right, she said, there wasn't a Dragonite in the world who'd be hardier against ice than him. Which would be true, he thought, rising out of the water, if by then he could not even fly.

The gym stood on rock overlooking the lake, with flats and faces which no one could reach but the sort of basking Pokémon in the distance: here he would lie out and wait, watching the Dragon Den's entrance across the waters. Humans basked as well, made a thing of it, enjoyed the scenery. The mountains, Runa had said, were lovely and green, surely the most beautiful in all Johto, though she preferred beaches. For him, neither had any colour: a city, a street, was far more interesting than some empty strip of nature. Humans were the opposite: they thought a forest and lake more beautiful than a great glass Goldenrod tower; or a dappled street in Ecruteak, the Bell Tower in the distance; the smell of maple Kalos waffles, fresh from a stall on Olivine beach, melting through the cream as Runa ran back to them with bare feet, smiling and twisting her arm to stop the little trail running down it. (But he must avoid thinking of Runa: he must build a reserve.) The lake, he thought; the mountains. There was something about the air that smelled familiar, something in the water he tasted. Perhaps it was true, what Clair said, that he came from the Dragon's Den, or more likely (as he recalled not a thing about wood, had never seen a tree or flower beyond Mr. Game's bonsai and vases before leaving the Corner) one of the connecting rivers, toward the Ice Path. It was always cold, he remembered—and there were Spheal! That was it: he once saw a horde of Spheal, before the Corner, or one at least, for he said at the time, What's that? And were there humans as well? Oh, why was his memory so poor? He only remembered Mr. Game's prize catcher, balling him with a single Thunder Wave. But did he touch him in the process? Mr. Game never touched them in all the time, put in food through a slot. Was Runa the first human he ever touched?

Perhaps, he thought, Torus heard such thinking from the Den. He turned over. An Alakazam would not be distracted in battle, would he? Still they hardly spoke after a year and a half since the Corner, though Torus spoke to Runa all the time. (They were in a league above him.) But Torus was the sort of companion she deserved, being so clever.

Suppose that they didn't win the tournament, he thought. (It was absurd, really, to think they had a chance.) Suppose Runa saw them lose, as most trainers did, in the first or second round, all fainted one after the other. It would not mean that she was wrong: the Alakazam endorsed her, all the proof she needed. But there was Tanwen, saying their composition was weak: fire, psychic, electric, and two dragons. But what was missing? If Tanwen knew anything, he thought, it was battling.

—We want fire, ice, water, electric, ground, and a ghost or dark or fairy.

Without those types, or were they attacks? she said any team would fail. That was how Manda won: Apollo and sometimes Nero for fire (Nero was more to soften and test them, often fainting just to snatch an advantage); Diana for electricity; Jeanmarie for water and ice (they were attacks); Apollo for ground by earthquakes, the same as Gaia—the strength of dragons being that they could cover many types, even if not as powerfully. Then Manda always transferred two from Hoenn to make up six, drawn from close to a dozen well-trained auxiliaries, changing to fit her competition. That was tactics, Tanwen said: that was the sort of resource Runa had available, if she wanted.

But battling, Runa said, was only to grow. There were no numbers, no types—only individuals; which sort of talk repulsed a born battler like Tanwen, he thought: —It's a bunch of flowers, she said. And that was horrible, her own Pokémon not believing in her—her first, that was, since losing her older team (still no hint of that, he thought, in anything Runa said). Why should Runa get the team which fought amongst itself? Even teams of all wilders did better; coming together suddenly, in short order they applied to battle and took a real pride in their humans; and here Tanwen denounced her, and Dyna lost interest, and Rita did nothing at all. It was not her philosophy at fault, no: it was nature's fault, that Pokémon must fight to grow properly, had to battle and harm one another, for humans didn't need it. Nobody was born to fight. Nature follows experience. (That was a correction on Runa's draft, experience overwriting nurture.) Was it really that, he asked Torus, all down to experience? Torus only said it was a difficult matter. Alakazam reached such a state of understanding that they saw things which escaped every other, things which even he perhaps could not explain in a natural lifetime to another Pokémon. Was that why he didn't answer the question, that it was too difficult? So it must be, to philosophise about the many, for Runa's process was scattered; there were notes all about; the whole thing needed, she said, the connecting thread, what perhaps she felt but didn't yet see, and she didn't want Torus's help in it, for to explain too much at once, Runa said, was to ruin another's discovery. (Perhaps that was why Torus never explained it.) An Alakazam was the sort of mind one wanted about if they needed to change the world, but not, perhaps, if one wanted to be original, or it would only be following a lead. She had to develop that ability, Runa said; she couldn't lead a school without training herself. Then there would be nothing to stop her philosophy. He would watch her change all of human thinking in a stroke, and, as if Runa now stood up and touched his neck, ready to strike into the Den's mouth, ready to advance her mission, he raised his head. But the water lapped against the rock, and somewhere in the mountains a Spearow cried. He lay out again; for to rely on any but herself, he thought, on such Pokémon as him, when in the entire world only Runa—oh! there was a flash on the water. And there, as he turned to look, there was Torus sitting cross-legged behind him on the rock!

In a moment Torus raised his spoons and moved them outward from his body, as if expanding the edge of a sphere, and a green light passed over his body, shining on the edges of his skin, so that what appeared to be marks from battle began to fade away: the recover, wiping out all injury. Oh, he thought, but Gaia had to hurt all over! had to be getting potions from Runa right now, as Torus left to report. But why stop for him? To Torus his mind must be repulsive, some geyser shooting scum for miles, visible to any psychic, though Torus only sat, as if to say he was immune to such simple thinking—But here he was, he thought, thinking only of himself as they had just finished battle!

"[Did … did you win?]" he said.

Split for length (and cliffhanger!)—scene continues in next part