A.N.: Welcome to my first pokémon story! I've read a few realistic pokémon AUs and loved them, and was inspired to write something in the same vein. It takes place in gameverse Unova though the plot doesn't really follow canon and there are a few original elements to it? Hope you like it.

Prologue

A hero's life; a villain's death

Touko

Some humans share a bond with pokémon that the rest of us struggle to understand. It is so strong they form something akin to a symbiote; a relationship where they act as a single entity, superseding any other attachments they may have. These special humans are known as Favored, and their pokémon become powerful beyond the limitations of their species.

Throughout the ages, Favored ones have risen to positions of great fame and power. You've heard of them; the twin heroes said to have created the very land we stand on; the sealer who sealed Regigigas in Hoenn to prevent the titan from destroying the world; and more recently, Red, the revolutionary who has drowned the whole of Kanto in fire, ice and lightning, and disappeared without a trace.

There is more to the Favor than simply an aptitude with pokémon. Favored ones, without exception, sometime in their lifetime, meet a being of unfathomable power, an ancient pokémon from a lost era. The results of that meeting vary, but most often the Favored and the Ancient form a bond and bring about historical change.

N is Reshiram's chosen, but Reshiram is not the only legend whose awakening is near.

You're Favoured, too - you are the one destined to awaken Reshiram's twin, Zekrom.

Touko dove and landed on her shoulder, grunting. The vortex of fire whooshed above her, washing heat over her back, but her armour protected her from the worst of it. She rolled to her feet.

She hadn't even been the target of the Flamethrower attack, she'd just been in the way. The flames continued along their intended path and engulfed a Galvantula and the rider mounted on it - one of Burgh's gym trainers. The giant yellow spider reared, screeching in pain, catapulting its trainer off. The woman landed screaming and thrashing on the ground. After only a few seconds, the screaming stopped, and trainer and pokémon were a motionless pile of flames. The stench of cooked flesh brought tears to Touko's eyes.

The enemy Heatmor grunted and straightened. It was a large beast, tall as a man but much heavier, with a thick hide covered in short brown fur and licks of fire sparking around its mouth. The trainer commanding it, a young man in Team Plasma's grey armour, scanned the battlefield for his next target. His eyes landed on Touko.

Shit.

"Emolga!"

The squirrel emerged from her pokéball in a black and yellow blur. She burst with electricity that zapped Heatmor across the side. Touko clipped the empty pokéball back to her belt, palmed her knife and rushed in. She'd never battled a Heatmor, but it looked heavy; she hoped it was slow.

Unlike most people, Touko's idea of training involved fighting alongside her pokémon, improving her own skill in battle as much as her partners'. It meant she often ended up directly in the path of attacks, yes, and she got hurt. But it also meant that she knew her pokémon's abilities like she knew her own body, on an instinctual level as well as an intellectual one. And in turn her pokémon could often tell what she was going to do before she did it and move to match.

There was a reason humans didn't participate in battles, they said. Pokémon were sturdier, they could take more punishment and healed a lot faster than fragile human bodies. They could be put into safe stasis inside a pokéball, while if she got a bad cut and bled out, nothing was going to save her.

To be honest, Touko could see the logic, but it just didn't feel natural to just... stand back. Her partners were fighting, so she fought with them. It was as simple as that.

They called her crazy. But they also called her the best trainer in Unova.

Heatmor spun at the last moment. The tip of Touko's knife drew a thin red line on the beast's striped belly, but its hide was too thick to be penetrated with mere human strength. Its triangular claw swung around and clipped her in the jaw, making her see stars. She reeled back as the taste of metal flooded her mouth.

"Fire Lash! Rip her apart!" The Plasma shouted from behind Heatmor, where he stood safely out of harm's way. He was used to the normal way of battling, where pokémon were at the front and trainers stood back. It was the legacy of peacetime, of regulation matches with rules, limitations and safety nets. Even Team Plasma, with all their preaching about equality, struggled to get rid of old habits.

Heatmor's fiery tongue shot out; Touko lifted her arm and it wrapped around her armguard, melting leather and metal down to the skin. Pain seared up to her elbow, but it only lasted a second as Emolga fell like a bullet from the sky and slammed into Heatmor's side. Knocked off-balance, Heatmor screeched and retracted its tongue.

"Fry that squirrel," the Plasma ordered.

"Double Team!" Touko hissed through the pain.

Emolga landed on the ground, then took to the air again just in time to avoid getting incinerated. Touko moved away, taking advantage of the distraction. Both Heatmor and the Plasma were ignoring her in favour of her pokémon. But this was not a regulation match; this was war.

She ran at the Plasma, grip steady on her knife. He wouldn't see her coming, but Heatmor with its superior instincts was a different story.

(Emolga's timing had to be perfect.)

Emolga's Flash lit up the battlefield just as she closed the distance to the Plasma and drove her knife under his armpit, between the plates of his armour, up into his lung. Her victim's face was illuminated in stark white light, a frozen snapshot of a startled expression. Pupils narrowed in pain, mouth twisted into a grimace, the bony prominences of his cheekbones highlighted like a skull's. The flash faded, and with it, his cheeks rounded out and his eyes regained their color. Younger than her. Much younger. A teenager. The realization caused her grip on the knife to slacken.

"You won't win," the boy wheezed. "The King…" He coughed, blood and spittle landing on Touko's cheek. "The King is invincible."

A child. Hands trembling, she withdrew the knife and slashed across his throat. His body slumped to the ground, where he lay staring up at the sky with glassy eyes.

Her stomach roiled with nausea.

A child.

He died for you, N.

Rage prickled behind her eyes.

Heatmor's furious roar snapped her out of her daze. Emolga's Flash had momentarily blinded it, but now it was out for revenge. She spun around and got ready to deal with the pokémon - dangerous for its fury, but easier to outsmart now that it lacked a partner to direct it.

There is no time to stop and think in war. There are no nurses with Chansey standing at the ready to heal your pokémon in between rounds. There are no managers shoving files in your face with information about your next opponent. There is no opportunity to strategize as one fight is followed by the next - and the next and the next.

It is heart-pounding to the point of exhaustion, of despair. But at the same time -

At the same time, when you can't plan ahead around an opponent's known weakness, when decisions are made in the heat of battle with nothing informing them but instinct, that's when a trainer's worth truly shines. Touko had enjoyed the tournaments, but there was always calculated about them, something controlled and fake. War is raw, the essence of battling stripped down to the bones. Emolga and her move like a single entity, tearing through the battlefield like a fork of lightning.

She hates the killing, but she doesn't hesitate, and where they advance the Plasmas fold like cards.

"Cheren!"

His flight goggles were cracked, and he was dusty and sweaty, with his dark bangs clinging to his forehead. Lines of strain tightened around his eyes, reflecting the grim determination Touko felt, and a dark blood patch stained his armour just above the knee. A far cry from his usual neat, well-groomed self. At least he was still standing.

"Touko. You're here."

She'd made her way inside the castle after fighting through the courtyard, and found him in a hallway littered with rubble. Off to the side, Cheren's Serperior was taking small bites out of a Marill carcass, while a few yards away a human-shaped corpse lay on the ground, shrivelled and shrunken like someone had sucked all the water out of it.

Touko averted her eyes. "Glad you're alright. I thought you were with the flyers?"

"Last minute reassignment." He glanced at Serperior and sighed. "Where's the rest of Team Zekrom? Weren't they supposed to be with you?"

"We got separated outside." Team Zekrom had been made up of dragon-type trainers. Their mission had been to escort her through the battlefield until she reached N. But in the chaos of the fighting, she had lost them. "It doesn't change the plan. I have to find N. It's the only way to end this."

"Agreed."

Cheren recalled Serperior and they continued through the castle together. This was the League castle, the seat of power in Unova and the home to the Elite Four, on the top of Mount Nimbus. N's forces had captured it a month ago to use it as a base of operations from which to plan their invasion of the rest of Unova.

Rather than wait for N to make his move, the combined Gyms had decided to launch an attack on the castle to reconquer it. Gym trainers and Plasmas were battling in the corridors and hallways and all over the mountainside. The forces were evenly matched, and neither side would surrender until a clear winner became apparent.

It was the first and final open battle over Unova. If the Gyms lost, there would be no one left to stop N from invading the entire continent. But Team Plasma's dedication to its leader was fanatical, bordering on religious; if the combined Gym forces managed to defeat N, Team Plasma would surrender.

For some reason, everybody thought Touko was the only one that stood a chance.

And maybe it was true. Maybe it had to be her. But she wasn't fighting for Unova.

She was fighting because N wanted to break the bond between humans and pokémon. Between her and her pokémon. And Touko would rather die than live in a world without her partners.

They felt the same, too.

That was why they fought N.

At first glance the room appeared empty. It was dark, having no windows, and Touko blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust. A set of stairs at the other end of the room continued the climb up the central castle tower. She walked towards them, but she'd only taken one step when Emolga tensed on her shoulder.

Three shadowy shapes detached themselves from the wall, their movement liquid-sleek. They slid into position in front of the stairs, blocking her way. More wraith than human, they all had the same bone-white hair and sunken dead eyes, and all wore masks that covered the lower half of their faces. Black armour crawled over every inch of their skin. They didn't speak. They rarely did, preferring to let their poison-drenched blades speak for them.

"The Shadow Triad," Touko hissed.

They were infamous throughout Unova as N's personal bodyguards and assassins, three powerful trainers as merciless and lethal as the Dark-type pokémon they commanded. Touko's most recent encounter with them had involved waking up at midnight with a knife pressed to her throat and a cold whisper in her ear promising to flay her alive. They had spared her back then, but she had a feeling today their orders were different.

Cheren stepped in front of her. "I can do this alone. You've got bigger fish to fry."

The Triad's pokémon emerged from the shadows in the same manner as their masters. Two Bisharp dropped from the ceiling into a crouch without so much as a sound; Touko spotted a third one in the corner of the room, its scythes glinting in the darkness. Behind the Triad, a larger shape emerged, a canine taller than a human, with a crescent-shaped horn on its head. Its eyes glowed a demonic red. Absol. She'd heard of the species, but never actually faced one. They were extremely rare even in their native Hoenn, where they were believed to be bringers of disaster and calamity.

Cheren was good, but he couldn't take them alone. "I'm not leaving you behind. We'll fight together."

"You can't afford to spend your pokémon's strength here. You still have to deal with N."

Touko hesitated.

"Go," Cheren insisted, looking back at her. "I've got this, trust me."

She read what he meant in his eyes. It has to be you. He'd always been too proud to say it, even when it became obvious that their childhood rivalry had become one-sided.

Touko set her jaw. "I'll give you an opening. When you're done here you're coming to help with the dragon."

"Or you finish first, and come help me down here."

"Race you?"

His weight shifted, smirk shaping his lips. "It's on."

The Triad and their pokémon were still, waiting for them to make the first move. Touko ran straight at them. When Absol jumped to meet her, she threw her arm over her eyes. "Flash!"

The back of her eyelids burned red as Emolga jumped from her shoulder and erupted in blinding light. Touko crossed the room and raced up the stairs as chaos erupted behind her.

"I never wanted this."

N stood alone against the windows of coloured glass at the back of the throne room, blue and green and red fragments forming a jigsaw around him. The shards of multicoloured light wove around his dark silhouette like a kaleidoscope and traced jagged reflections on the stone floor. In her battle-weary state Touko couldn't help thinking that he was beautiful.

He wore his usual civilian clothes, the white jacket and cap, and showed no signs of having engaged in battle. He'd been watching from up here the whole time while the people below died. It should have made her angry, but it didn't. He looked like he was as tired of the fighting as she felt.

"I didn't want a war. I wanted to do it without violence. I thought the Elite Four would cooperate, that I could make them understand. With them on my side, the rest of Unova would follow peacefully... But they did not see. They refused to help. It's all because of you."

Touko's hand had been inching towards her pokéball belt, but his accusation caught her off-guard. "What?"

N turned. His usually serene grey eyes were hard like steel. "They thought you would awaken Zekrom. The only reason they opposed me was because they believed you could win. Do you understand? The Elite Four, the gym Leaders, everyone believes you're chosen by destiny as I am, the only one that can match me. Even I was convinced. It was part of the formula; to change the world, first I had to defeat you."

His voice, though quiet, reverberated in the empty room. Something was off. He was different from the last time she saw him. He radiated an intensity that chilled her insides.

"But you're not!" he snapped. "I was wrong. I gave you the time and the resources, and despite that you haven't awakened Zekrom. And if you can't stop me, no one can! Why, then, all this fighting, all this pointless suffering?"

She could see an aura behind him, rising from his shoulders like a coat of white flames. She blinked, but the white shadow was still there. What in the world?

It was hard to explain, but somehow, she knew that it was related to his summoning Reshiram. It had turned him into something more than a human. And she didn't have Zekrom; not that it made a difference. He had to be stopped.

"People and pokémon love each other, we need each other, and for as long as you're trying to break that bond, we will never stop fighting you."

"The bond hurts pokémon!" He took a deep breath. "We never have agreed and we never will. It doesn't matter. You only have two options, Touko. Turn around, tell your armies to surrender. Or you can stand and fight a hopeless battle, and I'll win this war anyway." Then, softly, "I don't want to hurt you."

She remembered him as he was back then, in Accumula, younger and more open and wanting to learn about the world. For all his intelligence and curiosity, there were many things he'd never understood. The bond was one of them. The bond especially.

Touko released all her pokémon at once. A sleek Leavanny, fragile but deadly, who sharpened her leafy scythes against each other in preparation. Gigalith, a giant of blue rock, Touko's largest and toughest pokémon, virtually indestructible. Red veins of hardened quartz ran through her body, coalescing in razor-sharp crystals at her shoulders and head. Reuniclus, Touko's Psychic, hovered at her back. He was the only one of her pokémon who did not like battling - but was willing to do so, to protect her. And finally, Samurott, her first and oldest partner, a veteran of a thousand battles whose blue fur was criss-crossed with scars. He lowered his head, pointing his horn at N in challenge.

Emolga jumped from Touko's shoulder and landed on Samurott's back, not wanting to be left out.

Very few people ever trained more than one or two pokémon at a time. Bringing up a team of five to their last evolutionary stages was unheard of, but she wasn't called the best in Unova for nothing. Touko grinned, the weariness in her bones fading away as her pokémon's battlelust coursed through her veins. Save for Emolga, she'd avoided using them in the fighting, conserving their energy for precisely this moment. "We'll take the hopeless battle, thank you."

N lowered his cap, hiding his expression. "So be it. You have all chosen your fate." He thrust his arm out to the side. "Reshiram!"

The glass windows behind him exploded in a waterfall of light and coloured shards. Cracks spread through the ceiling. Rocks and columns crumbled down. Reuniclus immediately created a Reflect shield over Touko's team.

When the collapse was over, Touko looked up.

One half of the ceiling was gone, leaving the tower open to the elements. Reshiram's body took up the newly-cleared space, the twilight sky lit on fire behind it. Its pure white scales shone periwinkle when they caught the last rays of the sun. Two magnificent white wings extended from its back, their shadow curving over the throne room. Its mane was a flare of white flames, running in rivulets along its body and coalescing in its tail, where scaly ribbons of flesh generated more white fire.

The fighting in the courtyard and the walls below paused as, like Touko, trainers of Unova and Plasma soldiers alike froze at the sight of the legendary dragon perched at the top of the castle. The entire battlefield held its breath, anticipating the extraordinary battle that was about to take place.

One exhale.

"Now! We blast it off this fucking castle!"

The power herb on Leavanny's necklace burned out with the last rays of the setting sun, providing the energy for a searing Solar Beam. Wott braced himself for Hydro Canon. Emolga shot out her own Thunderbolt, the electricity merging with the torrent of water and solar energy and lighting it up with a bright blue glow. The combined attack headed straight for the dragon's chest.

In return Reshiram spewed out a purple beam of draconian energy from its mouth. The two beams met in the middle, equal in power at first, until the Dragon Breath started inching forwards.

Not enough.

Touko raised her hand towards Reshiram and flipped her palm down, commanding her psychic silently.

Like a puppet on strings, Reuniclus reached out with a gelatinous appendage and mimicked the motion. Gravity, trainer and pokemon thought in unison. The power of the Dragon Breath waned as the dragon's muscles fought against the invisible force trying to flatten it to the ground.

"Gigalith, ram it!"

Gigalith was slow, but once she built momentum, there was no stopping her sheer mass. And pinned down by Gravity, Reshiram couldn't dodge. The rock behemoth slammed against its side, a Giga Impact powerful enough to knock Reshiram off-balance. Its Dragon Breath veered toward the sky, where it blasted a hole through the pink twilight clouds.

Encountering no resistance, the fused beam of Wott's Hydro Canon, Emolga's Thunderbolt and Leavanny's Solar Beam hit Reshiram square in the side, making it rear back, howling in pain; it nearly toppled off the tower. N cried out his Ancient's name.

Touko grinned ferociously. So legends did bleed. He was just a pokémon after all.

The victory was short-lived.

With a furious roar, Reshiram regained its balance and raised a massive claw, coated in white and purple flames, and slammed it down on Gigalith. The rock pokémon withstood the impact, even as the floor under her body cracked from the pressure.

Reshiram lowered its head to Gigalith's level and opened its mouth wide.

"No! Thunderbolt!"

Emolga's lightning attacks could hurt Reshiram when combined and directed by Samurott's water, but on their own they were little more than mosquito bites, and Touko could only watch helplessly as Gigalith was engulfed by another Dragon Breath.

She'd seen Gigalith take Hyper Beams straight on and get back up as if it was nothing. Fire Blasts rolled off her rocky body like sand. She could withstand even Leavanny's Solar Beam and Wott's Hydro Cannon. She was a wall, impenetrable, her blue carapace hard as diamond. As a tiny Roggenrola the stubborn ass hadn't hesitated to jump in the path of attacks, to take the hit for her allies. That pokémon was the toughest bitch Touko had ever met.

When the Dragon Breath ended, Gigalith was nothing but chunks of rubble under Reshiram's claw.

A blue rock fragment rolled to a stop at Touko's feet. She placed a hand on Samurott for balance.

"Stop fighting me!" N shouted.

Something within Touko snapped. She pointed at him, loss and hatred blackening her mind. Psychic. She could sense Reuniclus's reluctance, but she thought of Gigalith and rage surged. She couldn't tell if it was hers or Reuniclus's, shared through their mental bond. She didn't care.

Touko had been the target of a Psychic attack, once. Caitlin had insisted that before one wielded the most terrible power of a Psychic pokémon, one had to experience it in her own flesh. It had been agony - like someone was carving out the inside of her skull with a spoon. If it wasn't stopped, Psychic destroyed its targets, killing them in the way of their own worst nightmares.

Touko had sworn, after the three days she took to recover from Caitlin's demonstration, that she'd never use it. It was not a weapon for battling, it was a tool for torture and a cruel way to end someone's life. The price was steep, as well; unlike other attacks of its type, Psychic drew on the user's own emotional suffering, and Touko had been wary of what that would do to her psyche.

Turns out when you're drowning in vengeful wrath all your reservations go out the window.

N cried out and clutched at his head, falling to one knee. His nails dug into his scalp with enough force to draw blood. Touko watched as he howled, bruises forming along his jaw and cheekbones. Good. Let him feel pain. He'd crushed Gigalith like crumpling paper.

She heard someone laugh. Oh, wait, it was her.

Reshiram stepped in front of its trainer, interrupting Reuniclus's line of sight, and N's screams softened to a quiet wail.

The dragon's pupils were narrowed in fury, its nostrils flared. Its mane turned dark red, a shadow that extended to the rest of its body like a coat of pulsating red and violet energy. The demonic shroud bled into Reshiram's pupils, turning them a deep crimson, like blood. Fear burned away Touko's hysteria. "Wott, Aqua Ring!" Light Screen! Water swirled around Touko and her pokémon forming a protective sphere, but Reuniclus, still recovering from his first use of Psychic, was too slow to react.

Reshiram opened its jaws, revealing the fire brewing inside its mouth. She only had time for a surprised exclamation before the monster spewed out a vortex of brilliant blue fire. It was brighter than any Fire Blast and she shut her eyes and covered her face on instinct.

The attack passed in a flare of scalding heat.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. A thick and cloying stench of burnt flesh, so heavy she choked on it. Every breath was wet and burning. She pushed herself up to a kneeling position, blinking the tears out of her eyes.

Bits of a cool jelly-like substance covered her arms and slid between her burnt fingers. What was that?

Oh.

In the last moment, Reuniclus had draped himself over her to protect her from the worst of the fire, and now there were pieces of him in her hair. She brought her trembling hands up to her face, watching his remains drip on the ground.

Her chest rattled, the trapped sobs unable to escape.

She looked up to see a large smoking carcass lying before her. Her legs didn't seem to be working, so she dragged herself to it with her arms. The stench was strongest there. "Wott, hey, come on, buddy." His fur, once a deep, royal blue, was now black and grey and red where his insides were leaking, popping and bubbling as they fried themselves in his own fat. Touko swallowed against the knot squeezing her throat. "You're a water type, this is nothing to you."

The Aqua Ring hadn't been enough. He'd tried to shield her with his body, and like Reuniclus, he had paid the ultimate price. "Wott!" she cried, reaching for him.

She was a little girl again, meeting her first pokémon. His fur used to be so beautiful and soft and they'd slept curled up together, sharing their warmth under the starlight.

He'd been a brave little Oshawott from the start of their journey. Belligerent and eager for a fight, a tiny adrenaline junkie, just like she was. She remembered how they'd sought out battles against wild pokémon and trainers alike, eager for opportunities to test themselves with naive enthusiasm.

Through her tears she saw a pile of blackened roots on the ground that was all that remained of Leavanny. What had she been thinking, bringing a bug-type to fight a fire dragon? She should have- but Leavanny had refused to be left behind.

Alder had called it a symbiote. A bond between two species so strong that one could not survive without the other. Touko understood, now. The part of her soul that had been linked to her pokémon was dead, leaving a shrivelled husk behind, and the husk wanted to follow.

The sound of someone limping closer made her look up. N's once pristine white jacket was smeared with dirt and soot, and his face was bruised in the oddest places, in the corners of his mouth, over the bridge of his nose and in front of his ears. Blood dribbled down his nose and chin and he wiped it with his arm.

"I didn't want this," he said, his voice breaking. He took another step closer, but suddenly stopped. A weight landed on Touko's shoulder.

Emolga growled at N, showing her fangs. The flying squirrel hadn't been caught in the Fusion Flare, as she had been in the air when Reshiram attacked. She was exhausted, her tiny body trembling from having emptied out all its stores of electricity. Her fur was lined with tracks of soot. Despite that, Touko's youngest and weakest pokémon still hissed and spat, ready to defend her trainer with what little strength she had left.

"Thank you," Touko said, smiling through her tears. "I've lost everyone… but not you. Thank you."

The loss was still too great, but she took some comfort in knowing that she wasn't alone. She wasn't the last.

Emolga, her newest and youngest, would live. You have to live, for all of us. "Return."

Emolga disappeared in a flash of red light, and Touko brought the pokéball to her lips and breathed. Goodbye, little one.

N watched silently, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I didn't want to hurt any of you," he repeated. "Why did you fight me?"

Touko ran her fingers over Samurott's burnt fur. "I've told you before. You want to separate us, but a life where I'm not with them is not worth living. Your world, this world, I can't live in it."

"No, you - you could live! They could have lived! Just -"

She met his eyes. "Let me join them."

N's breath hitched.

"Heartwrenching, truly. Granting her wish would only be merciful, son."

A man stepped out from behind a pile of rubble, followed by a sleek Liepard that slithered around his legs. He wore armour, grey and white in Team Plasma's colours, his long pale hair tied back in a low ponytail. He looked completely different from the last time Touko had seen him dressed in his ceremonial regalia, but she recognized him regardless. Ghetsis.

N was arrogant and uncompromising, but at least he was earnest; he fought for others, he believed in his cause. Ghetsis, on the other hand, was just a power-hungry crone, duplicitous and manipulative.

Not like it mattered anymore. In her apathy Touko didn't even question when he had arrived or how he had gotten up here. There was only one thing that mattered now, and it was joining her pokémon. Finishing this thing once and for all.

"It's time to end it, son," Ghetsis insisted, his voice smooth and almost gentle. "Your enemy is beaten. Deal the final blow."

Touko looked up at N expectantly, but he didn't move. Reshiram loomed behind him waiting for the order, not nearly half as conflicted about ending her life.

"Kill her," Ghetsis repeated, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice. "It is the only way to bring forth the new world."

It was inevitable that it would end like this. The fate that connected Touko and N was made of tangled threads pulling in opposite directions. In many ways they were kindred spirits, pitted against each other by destiny, or luck, or coincidence. They had remained in balanced tension for a long time, but in the end, one of them had to win.

N shut his eyes. "No," he said, grimacing.

"Son-"

"I said no." When his eyes opened they shone with otherworldly power. "There will be no more death today."

He walked to the edge of the destroyed room and looked down at the rest of the castle, where people and pokémon waited with bated breath for the victor to emerge. The wind buffeted his long hair and lifted the hem of his jacket. Reshiram went to stand next to him, and N placed his hand on the dragon's leg; the two of them cut an imposing sight, white against the red sky. He looked like a leader. Like a king.

Reshiram let out a deafening roar that rolled over the battlefield. The few combatants still fighting stopped and looked up in unison, obeying a command they could not resist.

"TRAINERS OF UNOVA," N said. There was a strange double quality to his voice, an echo in the same tone as Reshiram's roar. "YOUR HERO IS BEATEN. YOU HAVE NO HOPE OF VICTORY. RECALL YOUR POKEMON AND SURRENDER, AND NO FURTHER HARM WILL COME TO ANY OF YOU."

Behind him, Reshiram spread its wings and roared again, tendrils of blue fire arching from its body. When the thunderous sound passed the silence was absolute. Then, one by one, the Unovan trainers recalled their pokémon in flashes of light. One by one, N's enemies knelt before him.

(He breathed in. It was over. The killing, the pain, the infernal carnage that he'd never wanted, it was finally over. He'd be able to build a new world, one where pokémon would never again be forced to slaughter their brethren like on this day. Never again, he swore to himself.

As their foes surrendered, the soldiers of Team Plasma erupted in cheers, rapidly rising in volume to a euphoric cacophony.)

Ghetsis's hand, spindly and cold, clamped down on Touko's shoulder. The pressure of his nails dug into her muscles even through her leather armour. His voice was a slimy whisper in her ear. "Ah, my son. Brave, determined, compassionate. The perfect hero to rule over Unova. I made him that way, you know. My greatest creation."

She didn't reply or try to move. There was no point.

"But still. Despite that, or maybe because of it, he's always struggled handling emotions of a more... personal nature. He lets it blind him to the greater good." His hold tightened. "You see, you poor girl, you are the hero as well, the second one, and even without your Ancient and your other pokémon, you are too big a threat."

Pain bloomed between her shoulderblades. Touko looked down at the steel blade protruding from the center of her chest.

Finally, she thought distantly.

"It looks like you get your wish after all, Hero of Unova," Ghetsis whispered in her ear. He twisted the long knife, but she didn't feel it. She'd already gone numb.

She looked up just as N turned away from the crowd. His steel-grey eyes widened and he raised his hand. His lips formed her name, but it was drowned out by the cheering.

And that was how Touko died, surrounded by her friends' corpses as her enemies celebrated their victory.

Emolga's pokéball, which she'd been clutching in her hand all this time, rolled onto the floor with a dull thump.

A.N So. Yep. That's the prologue. The story will follow the protagonists of W2/B2... in a world where N wins at the end of B/W.

Did you like it? Is there anything you didn't like? I appreciate concrit, so please tell me where you think this chapter can be improved :)