This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.
[6-1] When Told To Smile
Kris bounced along the castle, wearing her finest blouse, her best hair, and her widest smile.
She offered it to everyone who passed and threw in a complementary wave to sweeten the deal. For each "Hello!" and "How ya' doing?" she gave to a passing League employee, after the initial bout of surprise, they returned a jubilant echo. Not fully satisfied with her own enthusiasm, Kris even tried tugging her cheeks apart so everybody could see her teeth.
Her skips carried her down the regal halls of the Sinnoh League, not to any place in particular, though she let a few ideas ricochet inside her skull. After balancing on the tip of one foot, she bolted to her right towards the Training Hall. She hadn't had a good fight in weeks!
The next person she gave her pearly whites had more to trade than just a smile and wave. Aaron froze in his tracks, and after a few seconds, cocked his head almost ninety degrees to one side. He was a college-aged guy, round-faced, with a single strand of his lime hair extended like it was prepared to receive a signal.
At first, he didn't respond at all. His vision shot past her, and she was unfortunately reminded of the stampede of footsteps that came to halt behind her.
Four armed men trailed at the exact distance of three meters. She heard their surveillance no matter where she was, no matter what she was doing. Ever since her brother up and vanished, the Sinnoh League decided what she needed: a whole caravan of muscle and Pokémon and guns to make sure she went nowhere. Her legs were tied with rope, and she had to drag herself down the halls by her biceps alone.
"Are you doing okay, kid?" Aaron eventually asked. That was kind of rude, given that he wasn't far from being a kid himself. The Elite Four's resident baby.
"Of course!" she said.
After focusing some energy in her core, she threw her arms out wide to take in the entirety of the castle. Stretching felt nice, she had to admit, after being curled up for so long. She'd seen him do the same gesture in public battles, and he nodded approvingly when he noticed.
"It's just…" He pivoted his head in a semicircle, placing his head parallel to his shoulders in the other direction. "I hadn't seen you smile in a while."
"What, do you not like it?"
"No! No, I like it. It's beautiful. Keep smiling," he said, holding out a thumbs up and finally returning the expression himself.
He laughed, with a little less effort than she'd want, and wished her well. He walked through the cabal of security, keeping his shoulders tucked in. She kept moving, but not before trying to will her posse into evaporating by shooting a deathly glare their way. That failed, unfortunately, so she picked up her pace and tried to tune them out.
The Training Hall had at least one empty spot that Aaron left behind, so now was her perfect chance to slot in. She raced down the hall to beat whomever and whatever could take the spot before she could settle in and throw down.
And boy, was she glad she got there when she did. Aside from the now-vacant lot, every single other space was occupied and ablaze with high-level battles. Suited League employees toured the perimeter, writing notes on the performance of each of the combatants.
She didn't recognize a few—they were obviously powerful Trainers from somewhere, one using a tropical-looking bird Pokémon with a long, color-striped beak—but a large majority of the parties present were the same faces that punctuated her old weekend visits to Sinnoh.
Bertha, tactful and reserved, ordered an Earthquake from her Hippowdon. The blunt claws on its hind legs sunk into the earth, anchoring it like a load-bearing machine, and it smashed with its forelegs to fracture the battlefield.
Gardenia's Tangrowth, meanwhile, chose an intimate method of persuasion, and squeezed the air from a Lickilicky trapped within its constricting vines. For such a polite lady, the grappling style was like the whiplash from a Power Whip. Kris hoped the ref called that match soon while the detainee still had some lungs left.
Perhaps most surprisingly was Dr. Rowan, who remained inert while League peons swarmed around him. His eyes were focused intently on the battles at hand, his head never moving, but his eyes always watching. Maybe he wasn't impressed by the display, as he pulled out a pocket watch and glanced at it a few seconds longer than was necessary to read it.
Kris decided he was the best option to ask. "Finally getting those Champion evals underway?"
He hummed to confirm. "We have deferred yearly audits for most Trainers scheduled in the upcoming weeks to make room. As much as I do not entertain the idea of abuses flying under the radar, I would hazard that this is more important."
Numerous League employees stopped by him to report findings, making it clear he was assigned to coordinate these assessments. It made sense, given that he probably had more battle knowledge than most people in the room combined.
"Are you going to receive an audit?" she asked. "You were Champion once."
"I'm nearly seventy," he said.
"Alder's pushing it too."
"And he was planning to retire. Before this, anyway." Rowan checked his watch again, grumbled under his breath, and barked at the suits to switch out one of the matches. "I do hope we can narrow down some options soon, but it seems they are not happy with the early results."
"They?" she asked.
"I am the primary scout, and I've been asked to refer Trainers I originally gifted Starter Pokémon to in order to expand our horizons. But after that, my candidates must be vetted by both the Viceroy and him." Rowan stashed away his watch and pointed across the hall, where a familiar man was currently locked in battle behind a luminescent energy field. Steven Stone stood patiently beside his Metagross, anticipating the next attack from his opponent. "Oberon Terminus himself appointed him, because he believed he was most comparable to Dr. Masuta."
"Is it okay that he's away from his Region?"
"He's actually polling higher than usual in Hoenn. They see his international assistance as heroic."
Kris saw him throw his arm forward, and though she couldn't feel the results of battle, she could certainly imagine the impact when the Metagross drilled its iron fist through the opponent. "He's not approved anyone yet?"
The man's only response was to take in a breath, hoping to find whatever air was left in the vortex of bureaucratic inefficiency. Was this really what they'd been arguing about for weeks? Kris let herself focus on Stone's battle, a beautiful massacre. It must have been the auditee's final Pokémon, because once it fell limp on the ground, the energy field vanished in a flash of light, and he called for someone else to be sent in. He didn't even bother to address his Pokémon's damage before declaring it ready for another battle.
She supposed Stone was looking for someone like her mother. He'd battled her countless times—and lost every single one, at least on his official record—so he'd know what feeling he was searching for. He hadn't found it yet. She wasn't quite sure he ever could. The thought made her expression waver, but she quickly pulled her cheeks back into place.
Dr. Rowan turned his attention to her. He said, "You're smiling."
"Glad you noticed!" she said. "Well, I'm gonna use the vacancy here, just to shave the rust off."
Kris broke away and nimbly twirled through the bodies until her feet scattered the dust on the open battle space. She was a bit glad Bertha was occupied because Kris wouldn't be wise to challenge her Hippowdon on a terrain so malleable. After hopping twice on each foot, Kris clapped her hands, and the field erupted from the perimeter to meet the ceiling. Her guards ended up trapped inside, and they took up posts at the corners of the rectangular battlefield.
Her ears were closed off from the outside. It was always an odd feeling for all ambient sounds to suddenly cease, but it was just a liminal feeling—it would get real noisy, real soon.
She threw five capsules, which burst open into her own personal lightshow. Each ball laid open on the ground before the materializing Pokémon. Her Heliolisk, Leo, was currently shedding down to his waist like a Scrafty, and he flared his neck frill to absorb the strong overhead lamps in the training room. Appearing beside him was her Zweilous, Rei. Her endlessly delayed evolution caused Kris no shortage of headaches, as did the snapping arguments between the Zweilous's two heads.
Her Seviper seemed immediately annoyed by the state of her tail and offered it to her Haxorus, to sharpen on his tusks. Eve and Axe, respectively, seemed much closer than her other Pokémon, and she wasn't too certain if there was something more scandalous going on between the two. The Haxorus was happy to offer her service as a whetstone, and her Seviper curled around one of his legs as he scraped the wear from her tail blade.
Lastly, presented right before her, her trusted partner Zara appeared. The Charizard's tail flame burned taller than her body as she approached Kris, who coughed away a puff of smoke from the Pokémon's nostrils, not allowing it to interrupt her smile.
"Ready to do some training?" she asked. "It's been a, uhh, a hot minute since I last brought you guys out. But it's all good now!"
She wasn't one to blatantly show favoritism, but for now she wanted something a bit comfortable. Kris ordered all but Zara to sit behind her while they rolled out some practice exercises. Maybe a simple reaction test to make sure her Charizard was processing orders in good time.
However, when she turned her eyes to the empty battlefield, she found that it wasn't so. A magenta suit stood like a bruise on the sand.
Weapons were raised from the glowing corners when each of her guards reacted appropriately to an unknown intruder. Kris's heart skipped knowing the man was seconds from losing chunks of brain matter. However, the guards relaxed when they realized who he was.
"H-hey, Dr. Furutre," she said. "I didn't even hear the field fall."
The man held an open book in one hand and motioned to the golden Pokémon hovering beside him with the other. The creature manipulated a pair of floating spoons with its hands. "Ah, but it did not."
Oh, right. Teleport. Real nice of him to barge in without asking. She was fully expecting to do solo exercises, but hell, having someone to actually practice against would be great!
"Just so you know, unless you're here to do stretches on the sidelines, I'm gonna go all out on you," she said.
"Don't you always?" The man pushed up his glasses.
Shortly after, his Bronzong appeared from its digital prison to stare down Zara with that lifeless, unmoving face. Seemed an odd choice, since his Alakazam was right there. Oh well.
It and her other Pokémon moved to the sidelines. Axe sat with Eve curled in his lap to continue his treatment, while Leo and Rei eagerly anticipated their own turns in battle. Leo had to jump out of range when one of Rei's heads snapped at him.
Kris didn't bother waiting for a ref. They were both high-level Trainers, and they'd fought plenty of times before, so they knew the drill. She swiped her arm to her side in a command gesture. "Zara, Dragon Dance."
With rhythmic motions of her arms and wings, Zara siphoned energy from the earth, which circled her body as crimson wisps. They slipped between her scales, causing her muscles to ripple within and a similarly colored aura to distort the air around her. Her claws sharpened. Her tail flame fired so hot an imperceptible blue burned at its center. And then she waited.
Despite the Type advantage, or rather because of it, Kris couldn't make a move. Lucian wasn't the type of Trainer to make this decision without a plan. And he was still sniffing the dried paper aroma of that book rather than stashing it away to pay attention to the battle, meaning he was confident and no doubt cooking something.
"Yayoi, Extrasensory," he ordered.
Bronzong didn't move, but the force hit Zara all the same. Her muscles were forcibly flexed in the opposite directions, and her neck snapped to the side. Worse still, the mist she had previously absorbed seeped back out, condensing on her skin as a dark fluid. She'd lost the power boost immediately.
Kris grit her teeth. Since her opponent had effectively infinite range attack, there was no purpose in trying to keep her distance. "Zara, cross the field and use Flamethrower!"
Her partner was in the air before her order finished crossing her lips. Smoke exploded from her snout when she planted a flamethrower directly in the floating bell's inert face.
"Payback," said Lucian.
Though she couldn't see the exchange, she could make out the hundreds of black blades that ripped through the smoke cloud in her direction. Kris put up a hand to shield her face, only for the projectiles to dissipate before they reached her.
Payback was meant to be used in retaliation—its damage was magnified because Lucian's Bronzong had reacted to an attack, allowing it's cells to transform the kinetic damage into usable energy. He had waited to draw her in, and she still couldn't see past the shrouded field that the exchanged had produced. Lucian was definitely playing her. She had to take a safer route.
"Fly to the roof and use your wings to clear the area—" A spark at her back caused her to jump. Somehow, during battle, she'd backed all the way to the barrier.
Her partner still fulfilled the command, and with one massive beat, the smoke was sent rushing past Lucian and his Bronzong. Another Extrasensory tore through Zara's body and she faltered, having to correct her flight balance with alternating beats of her wings.
This was getting nowhere. She held up Zara's Poké Ball to recall her. Another Pokémon might disrupt Lucian's plan, and Zara couldn't be the best option anyway. Maybe Leo, with Heliolisk's resistance to Steel, but he hadn't even used Gyro Ball or something. Rei didn't have a great Type advantage but had comparably brutal attack strength. Maybe she could try to learn Uproar on the fly. That was discovered to be Sound-type, so it would be effective, and it wasn't too dissimilar a move from the Outrage she already knew.
Lucian's raised hand, however, stopped her. Kris called Zara to land back on their side of the field. She asked, "Something up?"
"I'm not sure it's best to continue this battle," he said, striding past his Pokémon and coughing through the lingering smoke. He finally put away his novel, sipping the small book into the body of his long coat. "Practice needs to be constructive for the both of us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She got all fired up to train for the first time in... a while, and now he was just going to back out?
He stared from behind his glasses. "You rarely battle so defensively."
"So? You obviously had something up your sleeve, it was in my best interests to play it safe. Why would you match types up like that?"
"Heatproof."
Her smile didn't falter, but she couldn't find anything to say. He took this as his cue to explain.
"You've fought my Bronzong numerous times before. Even though it's biologically classified as Steel, in practice, its ability nullifies a would-be weakness. I simply chose Bronzong to offset your overwhelming offense with natural defense," he said.
"I just forgot. Whatever," she said. "So, you didn't have anything planned?"
"I was going to set up Stealth Rocks and then switch, but when I noticed your hesitation, I realized I could pepper you with Extrasensory from afar with minimal cost." He turned away from her and back to his Pokémon, who despite taking the Flamethrower, was still in strong condition. "I came to this battle as spontaneously as you did. You… simply imagined the odds were stacked against you and acted accordingly."
According to the buzz that just vanished from her skull, he'd read her. If she knew it was completely voluntary, she'd tell him to shove it, but for the moment she kept her mouth sealed and distracted herself by spectating the adjacent battles beyond the barrier.
Steven Stone had just finished another fight with barely a scuff to the hull of his Metagross—he was sweeping through opponents like they were nothing, nowhere near satisfied in the process of finding a new Champion. She considered, for only a moment, about requesting an audit, but the thought left her head before she knew it was there. Kris shook her head. Keep up the smile. Keep up the smile.
Lucian offered his hand. "Would you like to speak to me?"
No, she didn't. All she wanted to do was flash her wide grin, so that's what she did. "No thanks. I'll be fine!"
"My offer is still open," he said. "Whenever you may need it."
Calling upon his Alakazam once again, he vanished. The dimension between the barriers was once again mute.
She would have continued her training, but it just didn't seem that much fun right about now after that big disappointment. Oh well. She worked in a little practice with Zara, and a little practice was just one step to a lot of practice, right? The World Trial would be hers in no time. She recalled her Pokémon despite a wave of disappointed responses, promising they'd get their own practice time very, very soon.
Kris clapped to make the barrier vanish. The sudden burst of noise overwhelmed her, and she forced herself through the crowd once again to return to where she really wanted to be right now. The footsteps pursued her, pounding in her ears, as she returned to her "home" and pulled the glass door shut behind her. She tugged hard, knowing it was no substitute for the lock that had been removed by the International Police.
Her smile fell.
She discarded her shoes and her capsules, tossing them absentmindedly to the couch. Inside her room, she savored the texture of the rug beneath her feet and reminded herself—for the seventh or eighth time—to text Ciel and thank him. She paused once at the heavy black box sitting on her ornate bedside table, ignoring the urge in her mind to slip off the cover and peer at what had been left behind.
Kris laid back in her bed and stared at the mural at the top of her canopy bed.
It was a beautiful white etching of curves and flourishes. She couldn't keep her eyes off it.