Chapter 45
Battling into the Hall of FameA fated meeting with the Life Pokémon, Xerneas, and the spirit of my father, King Damos Valliere Bellarose, set me on a life-changing path that uncovered my and Mom's ties to the real Kalos Royal Family. It was revealed that I was the Light of Hope, and my uncle was the leader of Team Flare. Their impending tyranny will throw all of Kalos into an age of war and suffering which only I can stop. With my friends and family by my side, I had a prophecy to fulfill and a kingdom to reclaim.
But first, per popular request, there was just one last thing to do at Professor Sycamore's Pokémon Summer Camp…
Professor Sycamore and Mom stepped up to us as all the campers waited for them on the beach. "Good morning, campers!" the former began with a breath of relief. "What a day yesterday, huh? To think we'd all meet not only a Legendary Pokémon, but a human who can Mega Evolve herself, and the last king of Kalos. Unfortunately, because of them, we are left with a tie for first place between several Teams! So we're going to have one final challenge: winner take all… this will be a three-on-three Pokémon Team Battle!"
The rest of the campers seemed ecstatic about the idea, especially Tierno, Shauna, Trevor and us.
"Let me run through the rules for you," Mom began. "For each Team Battle, each Trainer will have the use of one Pokémon, and only one, so choose carefully. The battle will be decided when all three Pokémon from one team are unable to continue. This competition will work like a tournament, and as usual the top three teams will win points. This will be our final camp event, so everyone do your best and have fun!"
The Professor looked to me and my friends. "Team Froakie, or should I say Team Bellerose. You have four Trainers in your group, so one of you will have to sit out of this competition. Who's it going to be?" And Cocoa and I raised our hands. After yesterday's presentation, it did not seem fair for us to compete. "Brianna and Cocoa, sitting out for Team Bellerose. Everyone else, take a moment to strategize, and we'll get started…"
Several battles took place that day. Some Teams triumphed over the rest, others barely made it through the challenge, and others still were defeated close to the end. Ultimately, though, our team and Team Squirtle made it to the finals.
"I can see why everyone likes Team Battles so much. It's exciting," Brock stated.
"So much fun," Bonnie added.
"Too bad Brianna and Cocoa had to stay out of this, though," Misty commented.
I did not mind at all. It was fun to spectate the Team Battles with Bonnie and Dedenne. Though I think some of the campers were a little distracted. After all, it is not every day they got to meet a princess… even if it was not quite official yet…
But I digress. At long last, it was time for the final battle. "Alright!" Mom began. "For Team Squirtle, we have Tierno and Squirtle, Shauna and Bulbasaur, and Trevor and Charmander! For Team Bellerose, we have Ash and Pikachu, Serena and Fennekin, and Clemont and Chespin!"
"This is it!" The Professor added. "For entry into the Camp Hall of Fame, Trainers ready… BEGIN!"
Ash Serena Clemont VS Tierno Shauna Trevor
Pikachu Fennekin Chespin VS Squirtle Bulbasaur Charmander
BATTLE BEGIN!
Ash made the first call. "Pikachu, use Quick Attack!" the Mouse Pokémon charged ahead.
"Not so fast!" Trevor shouted. "Charmander, use Flamethrower!" Charmander opened his mouth and breathed a stream of flames toward the yellow one.
"Fennekin!" Serena shouted. "Protect Pikachu with Flamethrower!" The Fox Pokémon did the same as Chamander and cancelled out the move, saving the Quick Attacking Pikachu. Talk about fighting fire with fire…
"Rapid Spin on Pikachu! Let's go!" Tierno stated. Squirtle retracted into his shell and spun rapidly. As he did so, he struck Pikachu with full force, knocking him into the sea. "Now, use Water Gun on Fennekin!" The Tiny Shell Pokémon spewed a stream of water at Fennekin, surprising Serena.
"They sure don't waste a step," Cocoa commented. "All that dancing really improved their speed."
Then Clemont made his call. "Chespin, use Vine Whip on Squirtle!" Chespin tried, but Tierno repelled the attack with a spin.
"Use Flame Burst on Chespin!" Trevor called out. Charmander shot a fireball at Chespin, landing a direct hit. After the strike, small embers hit Pikachu, since he was next to Chespin.
"What just happened?" Squishy asked.
Then Brock explained. "Flame Burst causes damage not only to its target, but to any Pokémon standing adjacent to it."
"Now, Razor Leaf!" Shauna called. Bulbasaur flew a tornado of leaves the opposing team, damaging all three Pokémon.
I was growing a little concerned. It was obvious that they were trying to finish this before any more moves could be made. Squirtle's rhythmic dancing made it hard to land attacks, while at the same time allowed themselves to mound their own attacks. It looked like my friends did not know what to do next.
"Bulbasaur, stand by for Solar Beam!" The Seed Pokémon began charging her attack.
"Okay, Tierno, we gotta buy her some time to charge!" Trevor stated.
"Gotcha!" Tierno replied and turned to Squirtle. "Little buddy, Aqua Tail on Fennekin! Let's Rock!"
The Tiny Shell Pokémon charged toward the Fox, his tail liquifying.
"Fennekin! Use Hidden Power!" Serena replied. Fennekin tried to counter with her move, but to no avail. The Aqua Tail mowed through the Hidden Power and slammed down on Fennekin, knocking out her HP. "Fennekin! No!"
"Fennekin is unable to battle!" Mom shouted. "Serena is out of the battle!"
"Sorry, boys," Serena apologized as she recalled Fennekin into her Poké Ball. "You're on your own..."
"Flamethrower!" Trevor shouted. Charmander launched his attack at Pikachu. The good news was Pikachu dodged it at Ash's command.
The bad news… "All charged up! Bulbasaur! Use Solar Beam on Pikachu!" Bulbasaur fired her Solar Beam at the ground where Pikachu was going to land, making it seemingly impossible to dodge.
More good news… "Chespin! Use Wine Whip!" Chespin used his vines to catch Pikachu, making Bulbasaur miss. This surprised everyone, myself included.
"Pikachu! Thunderbolt on Charmander!" The Mouse Pokémon fired the attack on Charmander, landing a direct hit and knocking it out of the competition.
"Charmander is unable to battle to continue!" the professor declared as Charmander was recalled into his Poké Ball. "Trevor is out of the battle!"
"We'll avenge you, Trevs!" Tierno shouted. "Rapid Spin!" Squirtle retreated into his shell and spun at the opposing Pokémon at full speed.
"Time to wrap this up, Ash!" Clemont stated. "Vine Whip!"
"Electro Ball!" An orb of electricity formed on Pikachu's tail, after Chespin let go of him.
"Squirtle! Dodge it quick!" But it was too late. Chespin's Vine Whip grinded Squirtle into the sand.
Meanwhile, the Electro Ball curved away from Squirtle and slammed into Bulbasaur, surprising her Trainer. "Bulbasaur is unable to continue! Shauna is out of this battle!" Mom shouted.
"Nice combo, guys!" Tierno stated, "But we're not done yet! Aqua Tail!" Squirtle waved its watery tail and tried to slam Pikachu.
But the Mouse Pokémon dodged with a large jump. "Now you're done. Thunderbolt!" Pikachu zapped Squirtle with a super effective move and finished him off. Squirtle could not do any more.
The Professor blew his whistle. "And that's it! Team Bellerose wins the tournament and secures their spot in the Camp Hall of Fame!"
The other campers started cheering louder than before. Misty, Brock, Bonnie, Cocoa and I ran to our friends. "Hall of Fame! Hall of Fame! Yay!" Squishy chanted. "You guys were awesome!"
Serena looked to her partner, who she recently released from her Poké Ball. "But Fennekin…"
"Don't worry about it, Serena," Misty assured her. "Yesterday's defeat is tomorrow's victory, we Gym Leaders always say." That made her feel a lot better.
It was high noon. A small ceremonial podium was set at the sand overlooking the sea. Campers gothered on both sides of the path as made our way to claim our prize. Per request, Mom, Brock and Misty joined us for the photo.
The Professor stepped up to us with a series of medals in his arm. "What an amazing turnout!" he began, "Everyone here has come to celebrate your achievements. I'd like to present you with these replicas of the Honor of Kalos for your entering the Camp Hall of Fame!" He then focused on me and Cocoa. "When I gave you your starter Pokémon, I knew you had a certain je ne sais quoi. But nothing could prepare me for how proud I am of you. On behalf of the entire Kalos region, I'd like to wish you the best of luck in your quest! Find the Pure Hearts, defeat Team Flare, and reclaim your father's kingdom!"
I blushed a little as everyone cheered for us. We all stood tall and proud with smiles on faces. But that was short lived when… "Guys. Look." Cocoa pointed past the audience.
Behind them came AZ. He slowly walked across the sand, as everyone else stepped aside, murmuring about him. Once he got close enough, I could tell he was looking directly at me. "I'm challenging you to battle with me," he said gruffly. "I want to see what the gods see in you…"
*AZ's POV*
All people know the story of the Ultimate Weapon… a man and his beloved Pokémon… an age of war that took the Pokémon… a live-giving machine that was transformed into one of destruction and death… Most of what the princess of Kalos spoke of was true. But there was more to the story. I shall set the scene…
Using the Ultimate Weapon required the life force of many people and Pokémon… Floette learned this nearly immediately. She knew about the Weapon's power, and the sacrifices needed to unlock it. She surveyed the area around us: charred, broken trees and plant lay, shells of their former selves. The land had been baked a grayish tint, and the bodies of lifeless pokémon were strewn throughout the area like dolls.
I hoped Floette would understand everything I had done was for her betterment. But she began to cry. I tried to encompass her into my arms, but she started to float away… beyond my reach.
"Floette! Come back! Please!" I said, in shock after what had just transpired.
But She continued to fly, higher than even I could reach. I could not believe it… I had revived it so we could be together once again… I fell to my knees, weeping in sorrow…
What had I done…?
After several hours, there was the sound of footsteps walking towards me. I dried my eyes and looked to the south.
An oracle from a nearby village came had approached. Her two Meowstic accompanied her. She stared for a brief moment… then she spoke… "The precious few people and Pokémon who survived have left this land. I too will be leaving this land soon…"
I whimpered as I heard this. "I'm... so sorry. I-I-I was so angry, and... I-I never…" I then looked to the Ultimate Weapon in the distance. "That accursed machine… may it never be used again!"
"It will be used again," the oracle stated. "There is a prophecy… A descendant of your brother will bring forth two kings, born of the same womb. One of them shall use the Ultimate Weapon to destroy all things. The other shall rise against him and force the Ultimate Weapon to destroy itself.
'The first will survive to seek out and consume the ones with the deep green eyes and bring about a new age… the age of chaos. Through the other, the ones who will stand against the chaos. A maiden who would become the Light of Hope, and those who walk alongside her, and the last of the deep green eyes. Throughout the land, the maiden would seek out the Pure Hearts, and through them, she will seal away the chaos, and order will reign once more.'
My stomach dropped at the thought of my monster of a machine used to destroy all things. I clutched the key to the Ultimate Weapon my hand. "Arceus forbid! I won't let that happen!" I held up the key up. "Nobody can use the Ultimate Weapon without this! I'll keep this where no one can find me again!"
I turned around and began to find a good place to hide. However, a few steps into my journey, I heard the oracle's voice one last time… "One often finds his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it…" I just shook it off and forged on.
The world had changed since then. Much that once was became lost… History became legend… legend became myth… and for three thousand years, the story of the Ultimate Weapon was forgotten by most everyone.
I was in the Lapidarian Highlands at the time… I had become a mere shell of a man… A man condemned to wander forever by the light of the weapon…
That was when it happened…
From all around me… men and women dressed in red filled the highlands, like a swarm of Beedrill chasing off an intruder. I knew they served the one the oracle spoke of. I ran for the valley, hoping to evade their capture, but it was already too late. They had used the power of a Skorupi to subdue me and carried my body to where their master waited… in an underground base where the Ultimate Weapon stood.
They sealed me away in a cage of steel and electricity. If I were to touch any one bar, I would be, as they told me, 'barbecued alive.'
But I was not alone. With me was a young woman. Black hair, white clothes, blue eyes. I looked down to see that she was pregnant. The sight sickened me, to think that these savages would hold such a helpless woman hostage.
After several hours, I was confronted by the master of this organization, accompanied by his closest minions. Unlike the others, his clothes were a dark grey. Only his hair and beard were a flame red, and styled in the image of a Pyroar's mane.
"Lydos..." the woman muttered.
I kept my distance from the man, keeping the key out of his reach. He simply stared at me for a moment. "...so you are the one who made the Ultimate Weapon. Intriguing…" He then looked up toward the ceiling. "The Ultimate Weapon's flower has finally bloomed above the soil. As we speak, it draws its energy from the beast of destruction, just as the days of yore." He then looked back to me. "It is finally time. Hand over that key, so that we may purge this world..."
But I only moved further away. "Never!"
He turned to one of his henchwomen. "Open the cage, and leave us be. I'll deal with him myself." The four did as directed and left.
I stood up, ready to do what was necessary to keep this world alive. "It should not be used. Everything will vanish again. Do you want to know eternal pain…like I do?
He stared for a moment… and then laughed a bitter, empty sound. My eyes widened. This was not the man the others left with me This was not his voice. There was… something else…
"You believe I know not what this machine will do?" he asked. "Do you comprehend the powers you FORGED? The power I was BORN into?"
"This aura…" I muttered to myself.
"Where do you think the darkness goes to hide from Arceus' precious light? Who do you think stood against Him?" As he was speaking, I pressed myself up against a corner. "The power you created, I possess a thousand fold… a power withheld from me as I remain in this body."
"STAY BACK!" I shouted as I threw out a Poké Ball, summoning Golurk.
The man raised a hand to Golurk, and a wave of dark power flowed over Golurk. In less than an instant, Golurk had fallen to its knees, subdued.
"You are NOTHING compared to it! You are NOTHING compared to ME!" He dashed to me and grabbed me by the neck, holding me up as he seemed to float by this dark power. "YOU CLAIM TO KNOW ETERNAL PAIN!? I SHALL SHOW YOU TRUE SUFFERING AS I ALL THINGS FROM THE FACE OF THIS WORLD!"
"What… are you…?" I gasped.
The man chuckled as he took my key and dropped me. "I… am a Renegade." He then sealed the cage upon me once again and left me to rot.
I collected myself as I crawled into a fetal position. "This is all my fault," I murmured. "I should have destroyed this gods-forsaken machine when I had the chance."
After what seemed like hours, the cage opened once again. The man at the controls was different from the others. He was accompanied by a Gallade. "Damos!" the woman breathed happily. She stood quickly and embraced the man. I could easily tell that this woman was the man's wife.
"Are you the Renegade's brother?" I asked as I got up.
"I was…" he replied.
"He has the key. He's about to use the Ultimate Weapon to destroy all life. We need to stop him now."
But before we could do anything, the sound of a scream made the brother and I jump. We looked to see his wife fell to her knees, holding her stomach. "I-It's time!" she declared through the pain.
The man and I helped her up, and then the man stepped back. "You need to get out of here now! Save my wife and child!"
"You are the one who must run. You will not survive if you succeed. You will be destroyed!"
"I know…" he sighed. "But I can't call myself a king if I don't put my people first… much less my own family." He then turned to his partner. "Gallade, for my last order to you as your Trainer, please escort them all somewhere far away… where they'll be safe." Gallade nodded and began to take our hands… but not before the man gave his wife a farewell kiss.
Apparently, the man's Gallade knew Teleport. In a literal flash, we were away from the base of the Ultimate Weapon, and in a large cluster of islands called Hoenn. Fortunately, we were not far away from a hospital, to which I carried the woman to be cared for.
As the medical experts tended to the woman, I waited outside. A bright light came from the north… one I recognized out of fear. It quickly rose up to several thousand feet above the heavens, only to fall back down to where it came from. The Gallade beside me fell to his knees, as though he had felt a sharp pain. I could see it in his eyes.
His Trainer had saved the world… but at the expense of his own life. Gallade was obviously heartbroken: a feeling I know all too well. I watched as Gallade left for the wild in the north, and then a wave of light struck pulsed from the point of the Ultimate Weapon.
The last thing I remember from that day was hearing the child's crying from the window. I never saw the child myself that day. In fact, I never saw the child until the week of the Professor's Summer Camp, when she tried to comfort me… she thought I left the next day, but in truth, I never left. I had been watching the whole time, seeing if she was the child the oracle spoke of. When I saw her father and Xerneas battle with her, I knew she was the one…
The one who would free me of my legacy...
*Brainna's POV*
The battle was very short. In the end, I defeated Golurk with no trouble. I looked up and smiled at AZ, giving him a nod.
As he retrieved Golurk into his Poké Ball, AZ managed to put up a small smile and nod back. "Thank you very much for battling with me. Now I finally feel free... Free from all of my sorrow - the part of me that built the Ultimate Weapon..."
"Look!" Bonnie cried, pointing up at the sky.
Everyone looked up toward the sky. A tiny speck was slowly floating down. Closer and closer to where we were. AZ blinked before gasping softly. "Can it...be?" he whispered. The speck soon turned into a silhouette. The silhouette was then revealed to be a Floette holding a particular red and black flower.
AZ could not prevent the ungraceful dropping of his jaw as he looked at Floette, like he was Questioning if he was dreaming. He tried to grasp her with his large, rugged, bulky hands, but he fell on his knees in shock, unable to do so. But they looked at each other in eye level. It did not look like he could comprehend her return, but I could both see and feel the joy that was literally radiating from him.
"Floette..." he said once the Pokémon was hovering above his hands. Tears rolled down AZ's cheek as he smiled and he held his beloved Pokémon close to his face. "It's been 3,000 years..."
I watched the reunion with a smile on his face. "His Pokemon must have been waiting all this time..." Mom said as she walked up and stood beside me. She placed one hand above her heart as happy tears watered her eyes. "Waiting for you to return to the man you once were. The man who loved Pokémon with all his heart." I nodded in agreement and smiled. Yes, Floette had been waiting, in a way, for the AZ she loved to return. Now, he was back, and they could finally be happy again, just like before.
When I started my journey, I never would have guessed that I would become a princess… or a superhero… but sometimes, life has better plans for people. The thing is, my father wanted to help a lot of people, and now, for him, that is exactly what I am going to do. AZ and Floette would be among the first of many.
I am Brianna Bellerose, Princess of Kalos. I and my partner Cocoa work together to find the Pure Hearts and save my father's kingdom… no, save the world from my Uncle Lydos, the leader of Team Flare. We continue our journey as a Trainer and partner, along with our friends, and waiting for us out there besides the Pure Hearts are adventures as numerous as the living beings that inhabit our world. And the name of all these incredible creatures…?
We call them Pokémon.
End of Book X