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Part IV
Level 80
—How many students will you be taking?
—We're starting small for now, that is, relative to the Academy's eventual size, so about eighty in the first few months. That's after all our dojo assistants have finished training, which with the current heads and staff makes over a hundred—because we're teaching both humans and Pokémon, and we need staff to accommodate both. Once they've mastered the Academy's method of teaching, and once we have a few mentors to help them, maybe those who've been students for a while, we'll start accepting more. Hopefully, by the first anniversary, we'll have two or three hundred students attending. But even then we'd have the lowest student-teacher ratio of any major school in Johto.
—Still, a hundred is a lot for a new dojo—even a super-dojo like the Academy, I suppose.
—We prefer to think of it as a school, or college—a place where both humans and Pokémon can come to learn, and where each learns about the other. It sounds like a lot, but we have eighteen dojos: one for every type. There's sparring, yes, but really the dojos are more spaces for health and exercise, and meeting other people. The Tower's primarily a living space for Pokémon and humans. Battling is a minority of what we do; our mentors are there to give guidance, not drills.
—Given that, then, what do you say to those who say that, without promoting strict discipline, without a sort of theme to unify round, like regular gyms, any students won't have a chance at the tournament?
—I'd say it does have a theme, a very strong one. The Goldenrod Academy will be the first institution in the world where both trainer and Pokémon are enrolled on an equal standing, both trained by people they can speak to. We believe that when humans and Pokémon grow up in tandem, thinking independently but working together, the relationship between them is at its best—the best battlers, if they want to battle, but more importantly the closest friendships. It's a mutual understanding and respect for the other that brings us closer together, and that's best achieved by understanding the other's experiences, either as a trainer learning about the feelings and needs of Pokémon, or as a Pokémon learning about humans and human thinking. That's why we forbid Poké balls, because it removes Pokémon, we feel, from the sort of experience a human has. That's one case where we don't try to give humans a taste of a Pokémon's experience!
("She was very nice," Runa said.)
Lily was, he thought, very nice. All the celebrities in Goldenrod were, all the media, and the people too, since the day: Runa Pondelore, just four months after the victory in Ever Grande, an instrumental part in saving Hoenn and the world (so David told them, though all reports gave him the largest credit)—a girl, they thought, who might found such a school anywhere she wanted, buy a great tower in Castelia City, or Lumiose, already had the property in Saffron to do it—and yet she chose Goldenrod, built up a whole abandoned sector of the city, and even named it after them as well. And she did very respectably in the Silver Conference, they said, those three and a half years ago, and she had trained David, and was a war veteran, and still only nineteen. At the very least, it was a boon to the city, clearing out the abandoned railroad areas where only Meowth and Ratatta had lived, and setting up a park and tourist area, new shops and apartments (all part of her parents' plan for Johto, what they had to accept), altogether adding hundreds of billions of yen to the city's value, and more new habitats than they displaced. And beyond that—who knew? they said. Perhaps Runa's school would even amount to something, and wouldn't just be her parents indulging her; perhaps it would become a great thing, a new philosophy of training. If anyone could do it, they said, it was a Pondelore.
But Runa, he saw (she let go his hand; he ducked off the service elevator), felt something was lacking. He could not say what, for rarely could he see her thinking, his little power blinded by his own view of her, colouring all impressions, but he knew that she felt it, something amiss—something, he imagined, that she wanted in life. Perhaps some human, he thought—some boy—and so his claws began to itch; but she couldn't care less about them, never showed any interest, though she was nineteen, and such feelings, presumably, would come along eventually. (But even Lance had no children; was married to his dragons, he said, and laughed, who winced at his humour.)
It was five years since they met, five years to the month, and Game Corner had hardly changed. Mr. Game put prizes in the cages now, put up a sign which said, Don't touch the glass. The window where once Gaia's image had been, drawing in greedy trainers, now claimed the largest collection of technical machines in Johto after the Goldenrod Department Store: there they lay arranged by type. He could see a mark in the glass, not quite polished away, where the feeding tray had been. And it was absurd, he felt, but he couldn't help it—he looked at her.
—Oh. If you like.
He ought not. He wouldn't go.
—Go ahead, Shadow. It's fine.
He would, just for a moment. He sat in the corner.
He was too tall, even sitting, had to bend over, but that was it—the screen, the table, about as he remembered. Still to this day a screen from straight ahead felt slightly overwhelming. As Leo and Ken took it all as granted (eyes glued far too close, Gaia said), born into human society and never knowing other than Runa's warmth, still he felt a bit foreign, still only seeing humans as like through glass. And not that they were bad memories, in the Corner—the Dratini were never exactly cruel, and there was Gaia—but now the polished glass, the seam in the back where once his compartment had been, made his skin creep. The lack of any sound or movement seemed to suggest that the place was never meant to hold Pokémon (which was true), that it was a little sterile game room, third door from the block corner (not strictly a corner, then), with nothing to distinguish it. So Mr. Game strove to differ, put up the pictures—a whole wall nearly covered by him and Gaia, as if to say he got them started! He turned white when Runa entered; didn't say a word as that Dragonite squeezed in the door. Mr. Game had greyer hair now, another line on his face; otherwise everything was the same. She saw his eyes wander over the same places.
—If you want a hint?
He did; he looked at the floor. She leaned over, pressed against his knee.
—The top two rows are both full, all ones and a Voltorb, so you don't need to look there. This column, too. Only in this area are there any numbers. So less than half the board, really. If you imagine the rest are gone and it's just those twelve, you see it's much easier.
It was on level two that he struck the orb—small children had gotten further, given a free go by Mr. Game as their parents looked at the catalogues, examined the Pokémon—irrevocable proof that he wasn't clever, if after a year in the Corner this sort of thing wasn't clear to him. Of course Runa would deny it; and anyway, even if he wasn't clever at Flip, wasn't he clever, she would say, if she knew, at other kinds of thinking? Many trainers took their Pokémon on walks down the promenade, as they did now, relieved of the stress of a radio interview, and they were only like pets or little children: Runa was the only one, holding his hand as she looked at them, who really thought of him as independent, only with her because he chose to be, and didn't that, she'd say, that ability in choosing, put him ahead in thinking of most other mon, or even many humans for that matter? But that was very absorbed to think. (Still, he squeezed her hand, and she looked, though he did not.)
At times he felt that he evolved in body, grew stronger with training, but that in mind lately he regressed. His peak, it seemed, was the point of becoming a Dragonite—and since then he began to drift slowly backward, so that as each of the others came—though he would never trade them for anything, loved them all—once Runa chose Hestia, received Ken and Émilie and Leo, even David … looking back on it, he felt, he began to regress from the ways she always wanted; allowed himself to think less independently; let himself start to slip from Runa, all through a sort of corpulence of spirit. An independent Shadow, she always wanted, with his own will; and now that such partway things as growing strong or proving himself in battle now stood far behind them, it showed up very clearly that he was not independent, had done nothing in all his years with her, but formed his entire psyche as a vessel containing Runa. And that would be fine—he never needed more, he felt, looking across the ocean—except that that lack was itself the problem, and more than that, it was becoming clear to Runa. And that, he felt, was a part cause of her feeling, this feeling that something was lacking. For if Shadow wasn't happy, she thought, what did that make her, as his guardian?
It was his fault then, he felt—but not entirely, for he knew as well the source of this feeling of drift. It wasn't family itself, which was an example; nor fighting Omega, though that too was one: it was the sense of mission looming (and earlier, too, when they trained for the Silver Conference, but then it was with a clear knowledge of the end, a date, and nothing like as important)—of mission and fate directing them, forcing even Runa to suspend her dreams. Mission, as he meant it, as he would define it if Torus or David asked what was this absurd thing he was thinking, was simply the term for why so many dreams held dearly died unnoticed, all put aside for some greater purpose, perhaps all at once, perhaps for a time at first yet never taken up again. In more technical terms—for they would use that against him, Torus or Mewtwo arguing—it was what came about through opposing dreams, where one squashed the other: the Leader dreamed of controlling the world, and so Runa and uncountable others had to hang up their dreams to oppose his—and that hangup, he'd say, explaining for Gaia, who would understand, was mission. It was why people grew old and gave up their dreams, calling them silly and childish—and that was the end of their dreams; it took on a sense of nobility, so that those who'd done it might feel better. And it was, he agreed: to raise a family or the like was better, say, than cuddling up in a cave with Runa. So at first he'd felt it, with the team, fostering a new family; then Team Omega, the war; then the one-time task of raising David, where everything was put aside. It was selfish to want Runa while others needed him, mission said; it was criminal, really a direct harm to everyone, to only think about her when others mattered. When the war ended, he felt, for a moment, that perhaps now mission was over, that nothing was pressing, only time together now. But as Steven Stone said,
—You know, as titles go, 'Teacher of David' isn't bad. Seems to me that's more particular to an academy than being some champion or other.
The Academy was a wonderful thing, of course, a sign of Runa's genius, the real beginning of her dream, which for the rest of her life would see her helping Pokémon in ways no human ever had—wonderful. And yet—and it was selfish even to feel it, but there it was—once the war had ended, once the Academy, long since approved by the City of Goldenrod, and with not a little of her parents' influence and connection, began construction proper—once David decided that he would stay in Castelia, and all the others, as if they drew up simultaneously, took up ways of contributing, of teaching or building toward their dreams, each associated in some way with the Academy—their home, he felt, their family, began to drift apart. Having at last the time to be a family, the closest years were already spent; and now what filled the space was mission, for the greater purpose of the Academy, and so Runa continued in being busy, meeting people, giving radio interviews.
—It's not a nursery. That would be missing the point completely. It's not to leave your Pokémon behind in intensive training. The point is to teach Pokémon to think independently, to better understand how humans think, and to teach trainers how to better understand the thoughts and needs of Pokémon.
She never changed her view of Pokémon, never accepted that there may be some fundamental difference between them and humans. Suppose she asked him directly: Do you think we're the same? In mind, Torus said, David said, they were close enough that the differences between them were accounted for by body. But in actions, he thought, in mindsets, how they differed! Perhaps it was all upbringing, as Runa said, in which case her work was just the thing to close the distance—but how hopeless it seemed, how painful, just to ask the average mon on the street! Lily brought in her Smeargle, Smea-Smea (and that was a name which did no help to character) for all the Pokémon listening, she said, which both she and Runa thought delightful, although one was more amused than the other. And it was a joke; it was virtually an argument against Runa, he felt, for how such Pokémon fell short of her description.
—[So, um—and to everyone listening, this isn't exactly, anyway … is … is Runa a good trainer?]
—[Oh! She's … really wonderful. I'm not just saying that because, you know. She just really understand Pokémon, and, and wants us to be the best we can. If not for her I don't know where I'd be.]
—[Right, um—]
—[She really cares about Pokémon, more than anything. That's why she started the Academy.]
—[—yeah. She's rich, isn't she?]
—[Her … her family's rich.]
—[So she can get anything her Pokémon want, right? Like if you want a scarf, she'll just buy it?]
He didn't understand other Pokémon, he decided; nor humans, he thought (he crossed the promenade with Runa, turning away from the shore), but that was expected. Whatever they said, humans had a unique faculty for organisation, not in the individual sense, as any team of battlers showed that a Pokémon might have that, but in the general, in society, the building of stories and worlds and shared communities, growing as body grew; and some, the gifted few, had that understanding on top of it which set them off from all other creatures. Runa was mostly grown up, now—just a little taller than when he met her, nearly the same voice, the same face, only a little more formed, he thought, a little more perhaps like Manda—and as she grew her character took on depths which, no matter how the psychic changed, he would never fully know. It was the Omega war that changed her: a formative experience, he said, as humans went through, greater than evolution; and that was when the real and final Runa began to emerge, the one whose full abilities began to flower. She used to ask their opinion on every matter, whether such a thing or other was what they wanted; now she took more for granted, trusted her own understanding, which was not to say that she cared less for them and their wants but that, as really was true, infant Pokémon with next to no knowledge were not the fittest to choose their direction. Raising the team from the view of a teacher as well as guardian taught her something about proper care, about what was a fair thing to ask, and a fair thing to expect, which the war, she said, had taught her plainly. It was bad guardianship, she now said, adjusting her philosophy, only to give a Pokémon what they wanted, or for human trainers to start too young. Humans were irresponsible, everyone agreed, who wanted children when they were her age first entering Johto, still children themselves, so who were they to educate free-thinking Pokémon, those who ran ball-first in every rustling patch of grass? Either they ended up slaves to a trainer (she never used the word, only once when she got excited), or they sat in a computer, or grew spoiled—in any case a poor education. They wouldn't grow well, and their dreams would be stagnant. So Rita turned out, Dyna reported, turned vegetable on a sofa because she only had all she wanted—what might have happened to herself, Runa said, if she didn't have some sort of pressure. It was the precise opposite of proper care that she gave Rita, Runa said, who turned out so because, when they met, Runa was just a child, and didn't really know what she was doing. So she apologised to Clair in Castelia, who saw all of it in advance, Runa said, and what a child she used to be.
"But that's how everyone feels, I'm sure," Runa said. "In five years I'll call myself an idiot now, thinking I'm ready to start the Academy."
It was early summer, and the sea air was just turning warm. That was the best thing about Goldenrod, about Castelia: the sea, and the skyline. Saffron was too scented, too still; Ecruteak at this time of year was still cold in the mountains, and why, he wondered, did he ever really fancy it? Without a climate of clean air over water, flowers and pollen became too much. From Goldenrod it was an hour to the Whirl Islands with Runa, if she liked, if they decided on a picnic; a few hours on the Magnet Train to another region; and soon, perhaps in a year and a half or so, the last segments of the western extension would be complete, and then it was a day's trip to Rinshin City in Hoenn, and from there to her family's estate within an hour, if she wanted. But travel, Runa said, as Manda had mentioned it, didn't much interest her lately.
(She touched his hand and said, "Let's get off the main street." They turned off; she took his arm in hers.)
Unquestionably he had softened, let Runa come closer. Something happened between them when he held her on the field in Ever Grande, when they felt how nearly they lost the other—and the others, of course, but he couldn't deny her primacy over them, rotten in a parent, noble in a love. To lose her, she knew, would be like death to him, and him to her; given which they had no business, surely, in not letting the other closer. But closer, he felt, was not more open, as if they held hands and a pact was made, which began and ended: As we are bound together … but respecting always boundaries. She held his arm; his heart beat faster and maintained. He did not quit worrying—still had his neuroses, of course, his flush around her, though it came less frequently, less often in how he looked or said things—it was only easier to be near her now, three years a Dragonite, without being struck by impossible fantasies, only enjoying her company. But that was hardly falling out of love, he said, explaining it to Gaia, who didn't speak. She affected him no less than the day she picked him up; still his skin grew warm wherever she touched, made him jump if he wasn't expecting it; still the worries came on that, if she was away, some trouble might occur against which he couldn't help her—or, more rotten still, that she wasn't thinking about him, didn't notice his absence, so that his throat felt as if he swallowed ice. No. He was quite in love. He grew more calloused, was all, and the feeling shot inward, his nature completing its motion; the proof of which was that the simple thought, the notion itself, that he might fall out of love with Runa, that he would cease to hold her highest of all things, was most terrifying of all: for then he'd be dead, incapable of feeling. The draconic nature, which forever fixed on things, had fixed on her. So to soften, to let Runa closer, exposed himself to greater pain than ever; but not to feel it, or to hold himself aloof, was far worse, for it meant that he didn't love her.
Gaia knew all about that, of course. She took being mellow, relaxed, to the level of an art, but she wasn't happy, nor healthy at all. She pretended that she didn't love him, that her nature moved on, but still she hoped (took that kiss he'd promised after Ever Grande, and all the feeling still was there) that he might yet love her, perhaps in far future years, had thoughts of the sort which he heard every week now. So he said she must forget him, that Caelus was a brilliant Dragonite, who loved her. And she only looked at him, folded her arms, and said,
—I'm sorry, I think you're confused—which of us has the hopeless feelings they haven't gotten over?
but she hated him for it! he felt, thought it rotten to suggest that she could simply forget him, as if her feelings meant nothing, even as she pretended the same. Whatever her dream was—to teach, she said, at the Academy, but she didn't know—still he interrupted it, breaking in. So she appeared relaxed, put on a disguise that fooled everyone; yet she brooded, felt hollowed out—like a shell bell, she thought, she drew what she could, but as her natural tendency was not to act, little came by the way to fill her. Why didn't he simply her that he had this ability, could hear enough of her thinking to know that she was lying? As his friend, she had a right to know. But she would slap him; say she never wanted him near again, looking inside her.
Perhaps it was a mistake to train the power, he thought, whatever Mewtwo said; and by now it seemed to grow on its own accord, whether he wanted it or not—couldn't help seeing now how he affected Gaia, her skin in particular (there was Game Corner across the street: there were the pictures), saw her worries, and couldn't say a thing, whereas without, at least he would be ignorant of her feelings for him, and would believe her lies. And her thoughts about colour—that surprised him. Everyone expected great things from her, Runa's green Dragonite, as if that alone made a difference, whereas to him they only looked and thought, Oh, the one from Ever Grande; Oh, going out again for a walk with Runa. It wasn't fair, Gaia felt; if he failed perhaps a little more, she thought—; and she knew, rationally, that he would never change, but once or twice he caught her thinking, perhaps, if Runa rejected him, perhaps if he had nowhere else to go … No, they could never know he heard people's thinking. He oughtn't speak; he'd bungle any possible explanation. After that absurd project of practising human speech which proved only the distance between him and Runa, after the psychic ability only made him a rotten friend to Gaia, he may as well say nothing at all.
—Why doesn't Shadow sign us off?
—What do you say, Shadow?
—… Nite.
And then there was that incident over writing—still he felt sick just to think about it! Just once he left it out as he fetched a drink, his little scratchpad (for Leonardo's kanji succeeded, now legible even to humans, though his thinking they could not make sense of, and they tended after a page to turn into drawings)—came back to find Runa looking at it, trying to see what it was. He dropped the jug; sticky juice fell on every surface. Don't worry, she said, helping to clean it. Of course she understood it at once, that pad. He stuffed it in a bin, abandoned the project; and later, watering the plants in her temporary office, oh! There it was under a little glass paperweight. Another time she had laid out notes for the manifesto, the academy mission statement, and there it was—some old scraps, she said, trying to stuff them away. But those were them: the sodden papers from which she read in the Dark Cave, that night he slept in her bag. And she blushed, admitted she thought it was sweet, how he saved them, that she didn't throw them away, even if it was long obsolete in her writings, for he made them seem important.
(They turned back onto the promenade. A vendor, taking advantage of the beach and early summer, had set up on the corner. Runa asked if he would like some ice cream: she would buy some ice cream, she said, as she knew that he wanted it but did not say. He stood at the corner and waited.)
It was incidents like that, he thought, that would destroy him. These wild hopes that perhaps she really felt something for him, when she touched his arm, when she kept a useless thing only because it was connected to him somehow, only undid what the thinking part of him tried building. Once he used to argue, told himself that there wasn't the slightest chance she loved him: a microscopic probability, one in many thousands: all her signs of warmth were only fondness and family, born by the very quality, her feelings about Pokémon, which placed her above all humans. Then came along David, and the psychic power: then he knew it was impossible. She was very fond, as he knew, wonderfully fond of Pokémon, thought more of them than humans in contradiction with her own belief in equality. But every time she thought of him—and it was difficult to tell, so close to him that his own feelings leached into the thing, the sort of double connection psychics described—it was rational; it was arguing. She didn't appear to suspect that he loved her, but she worried; felt that his fears were too persistent and strong; didn't want to touch him without warning, in case he recoiled. Wasn't it proof he was rotten, he thought, to plunge into her mind, abuse what ought to be sacrosanct? (They could never know.) But she examined his moods, tried to work out his thinking, threw her not into exasperation, he thought, but sadness at his timidity, because, she saw, only sometimes was he uncomfortable, when nothing was about to occupy or distract him, in which cases she could sit beside him. Did he love Gaia? she wondered. She didn't know, though she noticed that he didn't shrink from her, even if he didn't look thrilled when Gaia held him. And Runa hated that she couldn't understand him, that she didn't know how to soothe. He tore her up; he abused her, as ever. It was always the case, he suspected, that he caused her pain, but only now with the psychic did he know for certain. Why didn't the others tell him? he thought, Torus and David who ostensibly cared, but let Runa suffer all the while. They only thought that he was a part of their club, now, didn't need help as he would figure out on his own what to do. But mind, he knew, seeing it now and then around him even in strangers, often separated into very different kinds of thinking; and the part that excited as she held the papers, the scratchpad, were nothing to do with cool reasoning. It wasn't love, only warmth and family, and pride at his accomplishments, she imagined, even after everything still her favourite; which only made it worse, as he stood and waited, seeing her smile as she looked at him.
("Here you are—mint chocolate," she said, giving him the tub and a little cloth for holding. She would fill her cup's worth in a minute, she said, as they continued past the corner.)
For she did feel pride, he thought, at his accomplishments, even though she didn't think of them as products of her teaching. In every instance, when he caught her thinking of the future, of the Academy, its influence, the changing condition of Pokémon—in all he figured somehow, was on her mind, somehow always part of it. He was the proof, she felt, of all she believed in, that even a timid mon might grow so much in strength (she remembered her talk with Torus in Silver Town, the fable of the Pokémon and the picnic) that, overcoming his nature, he could be a champion if he wanted it. And Gaia was there as well, and all the family—it was only that he figured first, standing closest beside her. And that, he felt, was the great impasse: now it was impossible to move. The old plan (the full extent of rot, he imagined) was to safely reveal himself, somehow produce a chain of events where his full view of her became clear without any bad reaction, but rather instead with her feeling honoured, her own Pokémon loving her dearly; now he knew the extent of her feelings, and how far she would go not to see him hurt. All of it remained as he thought a long time ago: she would want the best for him and say, though it hurt her terribly, though it would feel like it destroyed him, that he must move on, and forget her. She would only live for eighty years, perhaps, at which time he'd be ruined, a life like a husk, with yet two hundred to brood: so he must start to move beyond her, as soon as possible. No. He couldn't tell Runa. Any motion was only to satisfy himself, as she suffered in any case. He must take her hand and endure, for eighty years: that was to show that he really loved her, that he wanted her to be happy.
(The plastic spoon snapped as she pressed it in. "Oh," she said, smiling. She pressed the tip in, shaved a scoop from the corner, touched the ice cream with her hand.)
And if he were like Gaia, he thought, he might do it, as well; but chance had given him a constitution and nature such that, he knew, his time was running short. Years passed, and his reserves, which had grown, began now to decay in proportion. Like a ball rolling along a wide metal plane, it began easiest—a little Dratini in a cage, knowing nothing of love—and then the plane began to narrow, and the ball to waver. He grew in power to right himself, yes, at first little gusts to keep the ball centred, increasing to powerful directed fans; yet the plane continued to narrow, to the width of the ball, to a narrow strip, and finally, he felt, to a razor edge. It was technically possible to keep it up forever, the opposing fans forcing the ball to stay and roll, but it was unstable, liable to fall at the slightest slip; and then how did the sweat of years' effort keeping up the fans help him? It only served to extremise his condition, as Torus may say. One day he'd be unable to take it any longer, the ball slipping from his grip, and he would fall gibbering to the ground, in fear of which failure he felt himself contracting inward, beating the fans to excess till the ball barely kept the smallest grip. He wore away; began to dry up; the gelatinous brain (so the show put it) began to wither and shrink. Without some great release, he felt, some great scene with Runa actually jumping onto him as he slept and kissing him between the eyes, the pressure would never quit entirely.
For that was how humans felt it also, he thought, that touch was as important to humans in love as in Pokémon, if those thoughts he received with their indistinct imagery were any indication. (This was Silver Street, he saw, not long to the Academy.) Oh, why didn't he let them pass, he thought, not feel the need to look deeper? They had visited the Castelia Central Library, and as Ken and Leo would not have left the manga aisles if even a trail of macarons lead away from it, he felt free to wander, and presently came—some subconscious desire, perhaps—to find himself in Science, then Medicine. There was a very thick book he saw: Fischer's Anatomy, 10th Edition. In Pokémon, the sensations, as he understood them, entirely appeared in mind and touch, the warmness of the skin—humans were very different. The closed doors were for a reason, he understood: there was rough action involved, special organs. He shut the book, flung it away—nearly broke it on a desk as someone nearby yelped, and Runa had to apologise, found him just as the Jenny considered calling on her family. So clothing made sense, now, and a hundred taboos, as the Lugia said. Pokémon could never love humans as humans expected—it was not even possible for Runa to love him as was natural to her. Torus said some humans did feel that way toward Pokémon, that they did love, but as Pokémon lacked any trace of this biology, as they could not connect as humans wanted, in what the book only referred to attaining climax, such humans had to go without and would always feel lacking. Perhaps it was as all those songs and dramas had suggested, that humans had a drive they sought to satisfy. In Pokémon there was a want to get close, to kiss, perhaps, and feel warmth spread right through one's body, turn utterly still with peace and settling (that night with Runa in the cave, he thought), and then perhaps just as before in the morning, but for that length, at peace: so any Pokémon seemed able share it, affected in part by egg groups. With humans there was touch, which did excite, but that was not the source of the drive: that came down to organs, things mon were lacking, and without whose rhythmic actions (that was when he threw the book) there was, not to say no love, but no release that really satisfied—rather the passions would pent up and destroy them, perhaps, as he sometimes felt himself, a repeated touch without at last some thorough covering being not enough for anything but further excitation. At any rate, if humans and Pokémon touched their own kinds as they usually touched the other, it would seem as if they wanted to cross-breed constantly, he an ascetic by comparison; but to Runa, to hold a Pokémon was nothing—to kiss was nothing. With Runa, it was possible that he could kiss her shoulder and she would not even make the connection.
("Quick," Runa said: the lights were flashing.)
So why should just the sight of her walking excite him like that? the way she held her cup? A biological response, he knew, wanting to hold her, as if he were ready to breed. If the feeling of warmth could actually affected one's temperature, the tub would all melt before they crossed the road. Now they were in the crossing island, as the vehicles went on, all of the people packed around them. Of course they knew who she was. An older man said that she was good for Goldenrod, that this part of the city had been half abandoned, but now people were returning thanks to her family. And the Academy was a beautiful, aesthetic building, he said, and a boon to the city, and was she heading there now? When would it open? He would send his grandson. Of course everyone was very nice. Runa took his arm, and they crossed.
(The cream that she had touched at the corner now collapsed and folded into the middle. He would give it to Ken.)
Aesthetics, David said—that was a nice word—his love was aesthetic, in the proper sense. In philosophy it meant ideas of the good and beautiful, or the sublime, whatever that was: it acted like reason, but at its heart it was feeling. He might say that humans were the most loveworthy species as they were the most universally talented, or the most adaptable, or that as the most independently minded species their judgement was the greatest honour when given to another—so a hundred reasons he may give, but they wouldn't be the source of that attraction. It was not her philosophy that threw him into love, for he did not know her; it was not her appearance, for by human standards, he supposed, she was quite normal (her sister Manda claimed more in that, stood taller with the sort of angular features that people called striking), and hair was only a particular like of his. (And what were those, some hair and some legs? He felt sick every time he remembered it, now—the tub bent as he squeezed it—those girls from the Kimono hall, and how they affected him, and how he rationalised his feelings! What was his excuse for noticing the Mewtwo girl? Nothing good, whatever it was.) No, he thought, such things were not the sources of aesthetic love, such qualities as numbers might mark on a chart … It was that Runa could walk into Game Corner and, without knowing anyone, offer to raise them for the rest of her life—and then did. That was the sublime, if anything was; that was what he felt the first day in the Corner. That was what made his love at least partly aesthetic, as David said, being for her mind and not her vessel, as bodies seemed now that minds began to stand out separately. (It helped, of course, that the vessel was lovely.) Next to her, a figure like Manda was repulsive: a distortion of everything great in Runa, tempered only by their growing up together, it seemed. There wasn't a bit of the mind in Manda, he felt—some mind! he thought, that wasn't fair but diminished Pokémon, and lacked through overspecialising the expansiveness of Runa's. Many minds understood things only by categories, chopping things up, believing as like a fact that all Pokémon of a certain group would be a certain way because, this group, defined by this impression … Manda was one of that sort. She looked across the table, as Runa sat, as Red sat, scarcely once seeing Runa's dragon, as she thought him, as if she knew all about his attraction, saying that her Pokémon would do this or that. Nero was exactly good enough for her, he felt, as disciplinarian in thinking. She didn't say that the Academy would fail, but what was more demeaning, she so doubted that it would ever be a force to alter trends in training that she didn't even bother to criticise it; and if it did so become, he knew, then she feared for the future, as trainers and Pokémon fell out of the only order she recognised. And it would be Runa's fault, Manda felt, if anything changed, for Runa was selfish, and wanted her way—that was Manda's thinking, as he saw in her. She hadn't once visited the Academy, hadn't seen the site since it was a hole in the ground, and they were no worse, he felt, for being without that particular champion to visit.
And not to say that it wasn't very splendid, he thought, as they passed the corner—all this park and construction, a new city block, for Runa!—and not to say either that she wasn't happy with it, turning an entire dead corner of the city into some of the finest, but it was not, he felt, what Runa imagined, some giant project extending far beyond her, beyond Pokémon, just to make back the Pondelores' money and more. For it began as just that, a construction project: some two years earlier, with the champions' backing, her parents agreed to help finance a school for Runa's method, with appropriate developments to make back their money; and as the war went on, as Runa was occupied, they consulted their people, drew up plans, persuaded the Goldenrod City council, which, he imagined, was not too difficult—yet this was the excuse they offered Runa, why the whole thing had to be large. The term, he heard, was gentrification: replacing old with new, and flushing out the detritus—that was how money begot money, he thought, the most profitable things being only possible with wealth. The Pondelores bought an enormous area, what had been the rails and warehouses for the old train network in upper Goldenrod, turned derelict since the Magnet Rail: then an army of Machoke tore down everything, and Gurdurr paved the roads, extensions of the city plan; in a great block in the centre, Excadrill dug up the ground to a depth of some hundred and fifty feet, which, by the expertise of Water- and Grass-type Pokémon, was within a few months a grand park sunken in cliffs, with all the metal foundations of a tower at one end, and a Pokémon reserve extending nearly to the city limits in the other. Why sunken? he said. It allowed for more privacy, Runa explained, and dens in the walls for mon (shops too, she added), for they had displaced enough urban wilders, tearing up the old railways, that anyone would feel bad, as Runa did, who even took some as assistants at the Academy, like that Flygon who'd been hiding amongst the construction Pokémon who blinked and went
—Uh, uh!—
before accepting the offer. It would be a lovely place, he was sure, for all of them; from one raised corner a river produced, flowing down into the centre; what had been all abandoned warehouses, railway tracks full of weeds and dank burrows, became one of the greenest and most attractive parts of Goldenrod—and from there, he knew, the Pondelores' project really began, residential complexes being built all around it, close-fitting towers with balconies and everything, and expensive shops and restaurants and malls on the street. Even if it was expensive, he thought, and not everyone who'd left returned again and found a home, wasn't it better built up than as dirt and rails? like Cianwood City, he remembered, against the wild beach. Anyhow, the people of Goldenrod appreciated it—revived a whole part of the city, that man said. The Ever Grande Conference had been liberated, David having every accolade in the world heaped upon him, and so Runa too by proxy; and in the heights of public grace, it did not surprise him (surprised him a little, that Runa didn't argue) when the Pondelores themselves arrived; gave their conference, publicly supporting Runa's project; took part in the official groundbreaking on a patch of soil put in place for the purpose; took the train to Saffron City a few hours later.
So the Academy Tower began, on the one side to stand shining over the new Campus Plaza like a shield, now a quarter-way built (another few panes, he saw, they'd installed since that morning) with a waterworks river soon to surround it, and on the other, three staggered cylindrical shapes nearly down to the park, set apart by long balconies covered in green. It wasn't yet half built, but the lower bulk of it below the street was done, and the park, and the bridges to the curved white steps of the upper lobby, continuous with that leaving into the park, so that one could walk right through and think it nearly ready for opening, only wonder why the escalators weren't working. (Runa let go his hand, crossing the plaza intersection.) And the tower—for this was the problem—once finished above would have space for living, a few hundred people or more, as they needed a space for mentors to live, many of whom would be Pokémon, and the Pokémon students, and possibly staff—administration, and facilities, maintenance for the grounds and tower, all of which took, he was shocked to hear, literally hundreds of contracted staff and Pokémon … It was all far, far more than she expected, he knew. He looked at her; for really her parents now forced her, in a way, to take part in the family business, to take part in managing finance and a hundred other things she never wanted, with meetings and training and staff to help her: everything she wanted to escape. Torus took the bulk of it—oh, what would they do without Torus!—but even so, her parents insisted, for, in human law, even an Alakazam was property. Even if she escaped most of it, in the end, only oversaw the growth of the Pokémon, still it was as if her family reminded her that she needed their consent, without which she had nothing, that it was only on their terms that she accomplished things. But on the other hand, it took her off the hook completely, if she were only confirmed as devoted to Pokémon; for now the family's future either fell to her brother Surya or to some prodigy of business her parents chose, while she and Manda remained apart.
—A question a lot of listeners have sent in, since you've said there'll be students living on-site, is how people will pay for it. Judging from the first businesses that have opened near the park, it seems living costs are higher than a trainer's stipend. But you've also said this will be a registered non-profit school. I assume it's not only trainers of means who'll be able to come to the Academy? Because there are some, you know—
—Yes, I—
—They say, if your school's about equality …
—I know, and I agree with them, so, you know, I'm glad to clear this up. Every trainer gets a stipend, which is meant to support them while they're training. So, if they're training at the Academy, and the Academy is housing them, obviously the stipend's purpose is to support that—which, you're right, even with full enrolment wouldn't be enough to cover costs, as it is, just as it's not enough for living in Goldenrod. The Academy is also a Pokémon Centre, so the Diet contributes as well, but still, this only covers that portion. Now there are a few ways to make it work. One is to take only wealthy students, which, of course, isn't an option. I don't need to say that the best trainers can and have come from just about any background. And then how could we be taking Pokémon students? There's no stipend given to Pokémon, and they'll need dorms and catering, and the rest of it, just like human trainers. Then there's endowment, that is, bankrolling by wealthy donors or students, which stinks for several reasons, and isn't very likely given our campus doesn't do the sorts of things a university would. Then there's means testing, with bursaries for those from lower incomes; yet given the number of students, and the number of Pokémon, and the minimum threshold we'd need to be sure that a student from any circumstance might come, this amounts to fleecing a fraction of students to support the rest, which creates a difference between those who ought to be equal participants. Which leaves the last option—and this is where, I have to say, my family has been very generous: since they own all of the surrounding stores and apartments, they take a part of every lease and use it to subsidise the Academy, and its students, essentially eating the costs, which right now is the only way it stands up financially. And let's not go and shed many tears for them—they're still making a profit, just a smaller one, so that it's decades instead of years to break even—but let's also not pretend that this isn't making a sacrifice for others. They've also seen that, as part of the lease, all relevant businesses offer discounts to Academy people. The result, I think, as far as possible, is an environment for learning in the middle of a modern metropolis with a minimum of other concerns, so that humans and Pokémon alike can concentrate on learning about and connecting with the other.
But Runa, he thought, passing through the entrance arch behind her and into the street-level Pokémon Centre, hated to think about money, and was less ashamed that she didn't have to worry about it like others than angry that her parents brought her into it.
Why did they all have to look? he thought, every Gurdurr and Conkeldurr watching as they passed. Yes, it was Runa: yes, her big Dragonite. But Runa smiled, said a few things to them, and the construction people: it was not an act. They were helping, after all, so why shouldn't he feel warmly? They watched, he saw, when they thought Runa wouldn't notice. In the park he once saw a pack of children who looked at him from behind a tree; a Psyduck sat at the pond, looking up with confusion: a psychic Dragonite, perhaps she saw. His mind was like a beacon broadcasting for miles in every direction, only amplified by the power, every psychic in Goldenrod hearing. There were thousands of them, probably: they tended to like urban areas, somehow found the mix of voices calming, as if they proved nothing really mattered, all these urgent wants and feelings around them being nothing. What a joke he had to seem! Runa's Dragonite, who loved his trainer … No doubt it was an open secret to the whole dojo, Ken or another letting it slip, only unsaid for pity or principle, all knowing it would be his end eventually. Sometimes they looked, and, he felt, wasn't it likely they knew? At least his family would still speak to him, if Runa wanted him to leave: Ken and Leo would grab his legs and refuse to let go; Émilie would weep and beg Runa; David would take him in and say, Oh, mum—for David thought his love adorable, always said they were like his parents and parents ought to be together. But did he really understand it, how it felt to be in love? He saw it in others, but that was not the same as feeling for oneself; as Torus said, he was a worse judge of what others felt than they themselves, just as to hear someone's voice was not the same as to feel it vibrating inside. Could a psychic even fall in love, he wondered, when they could see at once some other mind and never first build some fantastic image? At any rate they were not so innocent as Torus made out. Once a psychic, a Meditite, took one look at him, then Runa, and burst out laughing—did not shut up until he imagined in graphic detail tripping and squashing it flat. So much for the psychic understanding of minds, then; so much for finding the connection natural.
—[You overestimate psychics.] (Torus said it often, every time he came.) [A small fraction of psychics in a city would hear you. A small fraction of those would take notice. Those who took notice would do nothing. That your thoughts will be less interesting than many around you is a reliable assumption. You may find, if your power continues to develop, that human feeling often exceeds your own.]
Perhaps that was why they liked cities, he thought, stepping after Runa onto the escalator circuit, heading down—like a babbling stream, cities made the perfect place in which to flush away all the rude, outward thinkers passing by, those random Gurdurr and Dragonite.
[continues in next]