Disclaimer: I have no right to profit from Pokémon, so I don't.

Inspired by Farla's fic, "2 B a Master", this story suggests how the Earth badge could work, drawing from Game, Movie, and Cartoon continuities, although it's slightly AU, as it doesn't really fit any of the canon storylines. While the Earth Badge is portrayed here as a cruel, inhumane device, I wouldn't label this as an anti-trainer fic. Just… an extrapolation. Meh. Thanks are owed to Farla, for inspiring this fic, and, since it relies on her ideas, giving me permission to write it.

Defenders of the Badge

Part One: Nor Iron Bars a Cage

"Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty."

Verse 4, "To Althea From Prison" ~ Richard Lovelace

Silence coils around the bars of our cells.

They look empty, spartan, menacing. They are our freedom and security. They are as much freedom as we could possibly have in a Gym, especially this one. Far more pleasant than a simple Pokéball – or free space. These cages prevent us from powerlessly answering the call of a thousand shiny emblems – shaped like a leaf, in two different shades of green.

These badges control all of us. Obedience is nothing to us; it is the perfection of slavery that we want. We yearn to defend them. We don't have wills while their secret frequencies fill the air.

Slavery. Will. I can only think those words now, in the silent time when the badges are locked below in the vaults. It is night-time. We never see the sun, but we can always tell its risings and settings, for at those times the badges are brought up, or locked away.

How could a trainer understand that iron bars represent freedom and protection to us, while we dread Pokéballs? Trainers just don't. Only Giovanni does, and.. he uses the knowledge well.

Knowing, for instance, that his Badge is one of the most powerful tools of Pokémon control in Kanto, and knowing that Pokémon in Pokéballs are especially susceptible to Badge frequencies, (as those Pokémon are in the form of energy, which is disrupted by electromagnetic waves) he keeps us in physical form, but caged. The iron bars keep us away from the badges. They protect our sanity…

Giovanni is cunning. He protects our sanity for the simple reason that we will use it to serve the badges in battle. It's not like he needs to inspire us to co-operate with him, after all.

v v v

We are the defenders of the badge.

Our daily routine begins when the Gym staff start their work, or when Giovanni's helicopter lands overhead. That wakes us up. The badges are brought up from their underground vault, to a special anteroom that leads off Giovanni's balcony. At this point, we 'wake up' differently.

We are brought breakfast and we eat it carefully. We eat only for the purpose of taking in energy; the only taste we would notice in our food, now, is the taste of poison. It makes things easier for the gym staff, since they don't have to consider the flavour.

And the rest of our day... We are brought to a small habitat in the centre of the gym and we begin our training. We have trainers to direct us - their only challenge is making sure that we don't over-do our efforts. Occasionally, we need so badly to be nearer to the badges that we will break away and run to the edge of the habitat - then our reason reminds us that we will 'serve' the badges best by training.

There is a break for lunch. The trainers are changed throughout the day, and so are our activities. For each activity we complete, we feel fierce pride and relief - but we worry that our efforts won't be adequate. And we keep going.

We do our best but we grieve that our best may not be enough. We know that the pressure we put on our bodies is nowhere near the pressure that the badges put on our mind; that however we try, we cannot fully answer the 'needs' of the badges.

If Giovanni is Challenged for the Badge, we are brought back to our cells again - because it drives us wild to know that the badges are in 'danger' and that we can't protect them. We have to wait blindly, following the challenge-battle by the amount of 'danger' that the badges radiate. It is the only time of day that we see our cells as prisons.

And when the badges are locked away and we are released from our spells, we sit in silence and we thank the Pokégods for our cells.

v v v

Once the badges are locked underground, we sit dazed and our thoughts return to us. It's as if a totally new mind emerges from under our convictions, and until our memories return, we struggle with our identities and our personalities. Is the Badge our God? Is the badge a tool of brainwashing? Are we mad or wrong to think any of these thoughts?

It is an agonising struggle. It can last for half an hour or the whole night, depending on our condition and how much we've been in thrall to the badge.

Pokémon that have been too long in this gym, eventually stop struggling. Their nights are the same as their days, only emptier, and they follow the call of the badge even when it isn't calling. They can't think against the badge, and as a result, they stop thinking entirely.

Others, who struggle too hard against the siren-song of the Badge, lose their minds differently. The questioning, bitter mind of the night separates itself from the desperately eager, blind mind of the day, and each becomes more and more polarised. These Pokémon are terrified by the blankness in their memories - (at night, they can't remember the day, and during the day, they can't remember the night) - and their inability to understand what they are doing. They lose themselves to panic and blindness.

And yet it's bitterly ironic that these Pokémon, even before they become completely mad, are no use to Giovanni. Although in both cases they're totally controlled by the badges - totally broken - it's this fact that makes them useless to him. Giovanni needs for there to be a questioning mind behind the mind that serves him. He needs for there to be a hate in us, for the badges, as much as he needs us to love them. It is the balance between love and hate that makes us such perfect fighters - devoted, but calculating - and it is our mental war that he feeds on. He wants us breaking, but not broken.

Some say Giovanni is evil, even if they don't know about Team Rocket. It would be impossible for him not to be, with the Badges under his command. If power corrupts, by logic, he must be rotten throughout. Well, he is. And he knows the meaning of power - how to use it precisely, to get what he wants. Nothing is more powerful - or more dangerous - than a creature that knows exactly what it wants.

But, maybe because it serves his own goals, he takes pity on the deranged Pokémon who have been broken by the badge. He doesn't take them away from the gym. Imagine the effect on a Pokémon that has become completely broken to the Badge - being removed completely from its effect? Worse than torture. Worse than insanity. No, Giovanni shoots them. Quickly, without ceremony.

That's their release.

v v v

Although we are free at night, the Badge still influences us. After all, it's only locked underground, not far away - and we are Ground Pokémon.

So we are glad we have iron bars, which keep us from wandering towards the badges, and spending the night slumped as close to them as possible. Which would rapidly destroy our selves.

The badges compel us to sleep too, although, after a day of driven exercise, we choose it anyway. But those who try to stay wakeful, defying the Badge, find themselves fighting more than weariness. If they succeed, they end up using the Badge to punish themselves, the next day, when they push themselves into collapse with the desperation of their training.

They die quickly too.

But for some of the night, after my mental struggle is over, I stay awake; thinking of how to thwart the badges. So do several of the others. We spend our waking, questioning time, thinking of how to escape the badges' trap.

And during the day, we use our minds to think how best to serve the Badge. We know that these contradictions will make us go mad faster, but until we do go mad, there is no way we will stop thinking. Even if the very act of thinking helps Giovanni... helps the Badge control us.

v v v

How powerful the badges are.

They take Giovanni's wishes, and impose them on us, so smoothly, that when they're controlling us it feels like the Badge's wishes are our own.

Just one badge can completely dominate the minds of a team of six Pokémon, even if their trainer is a pushover. What kind of effect do you think nearly a thousand, under the control of Giovanni, would have on his Pokémon?

Through the badges, Giovanni gives the basic command 'fight defend' – and to us, that translates 'protect and keep the Badge in the gym'. It works too well. Because we, ourselves, figure out how to do that in the best way, and then we do everything we can to carry that out.

In a way, the Badge control method must teach Giovanni some self-control, too. If he made the command too strong, we would kill in Gym battles in our desperation; if he reacted too angrily to the loss of a badge, again, someone would die. Not a very good situation for a gymleader.

And so he sharpens his control, and focusses the control of the Badge.

You might wonder why we keep trying, then, to get loose of the Earth Badge's control. But it's a choice between that or going mad. And if we give up the struggle, we go mad faster. Or die.

And so we struggle, forever against the Badge that we defend.

~Thanks Farla!