Okay, so, I kind of lied. The battle isn't ending this chapter. Hell, it's not getting any further this chapter than where we left off last time, to be honest. But don't worry. Something much, MUCH more important is going to be revealed. We'll not only see what pokemon Caelia has, but why it's so special. And, most importantly of all, we'll finally get to see what, exactly, the Phantom is aiming for. This may not be the conclusion to the finals that people wanted, but it's a whole lot more important than that.
KedharS: Throw stones nothing, Cynthia would empty a full AR-15 clip into the wall of her glass house and then reload two more times.
MikySP: It's not… EXACTLY a cheat. And don't feel too bad for Cynthia, she plays dirty tricks all the time herself.
Rosealine gold: It's a little longer than that. It's coming soon, I promise, but not as soon as I thought.
Kunoichi69: Interesting thought. A spooky pokemon is a pretty good guess. But it's a little more complicated than that.
Pokemonking0924: You are definitely in for quite a surprise, yes.
Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Actually we're taking a slight break from the climax. This is the "villain boasting about his evil plans before the final battle" part of the climax.
JoshGamerV: Yeah. Shaw is a pretty bad dude. Considering we've only seen him like once I think it's fair to say, yeah, bad dude. Don't worry, the secrets behind Anja Karzat and the characters' connection to it will become clear eventually.
Aquahaze675: All of those things are wrong, it's something a little different.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 398
"Gotta say, for a viewing party this is pretty bland," Sylvia said. They were all seated in a small, cramped room in the Sandbox watching the match on a large television screen. And by "all" that meant Richard Valon, herself, and K. Not exactly a big crowd. "And K's the only other guy here? Not Lana or anyone else? What's with that? And you don't even have popcorn? What's a viewing party without popcorn slathered in barbeque sauce?"
"Lana is otherwise occupied," Valon replied diplomatically, not removing his eyes from the screen. "She was not involved with this little project."
"Folks don't understand the importance of it," K agreed. He flashed Sylvia a derisive smirk. "Not that you know anything either, Sylvia. But you like surprises, don't you?"
"And that's what this is?" Sylvia asked, letting the issue wash past her without conflict. "I know you gave Caelia a special pokemon, I wonder what it could be~"
"You didn't sneak a peek?" Valon asked, glancing briefly at her.
"Where would the fun be in that?" Sylvia snorted, rolling her eyes.
"…Well in that case, this should be interesting indeed," Valon said, returning to look at the screen. "Today isn't just our last day of the semester. It's also the first day of a very special project."
"The Pokemon Instrumentality project?" Sylvia asked.
"This is serious!" K snapped, glaring at her.
"I don't 'do' serious," Sylvia chirped, Specter laughing in agreement.
"What I gave Caelia… is the product of our research into creating the ultimate pokemon," Valon explained. "Normal pokemon, well… to someone of my vision they just can't cut it. Science can do a much better job. Even right now, traditional firearms have the power to kill a good portion of pokemon in existence. Science proves itself superior to pokemon at every turn. So with science, we can create pokemon unmatched by any other."
Sylvia sighed. So that's what this was.
"That's it?" She asked, unable and unwilling to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Do you know how many people try to 'build the better pokemon' in a lab like children playing with Legos? Talk about boring and predictable."
"No, no, nothing so… pedestrian," Valon assured her with a smile that lacked even a base level of assurance. "Why design a perfect pokemon when you can turn a pokemon into a perfect pokemon?"
Now Sylvia was intrigued.
"Oh?"
"Just watch, Sylvia. This is the byproduct of my research, it deserves a fair showing, at the very least," Valon said, gesturing towards the television screen where Misato was streaming the fight. "And we've just reached the climax."
On the battlefield itself, the shadows parted to reveal a pokemon floating above the field. It had a round body that was a pale white, almost translucent, with curled extensions sticking out of the bottom like a chandelier, each appendage tipped in shimmering ghostly purple fire. A large stream of fire emanated out of its round head, and two yellow eyes stared dully out at the battlefield. "Chandelure," the pokemon bellowed.
Caelia stared at her final pokemon in silence, not making much of a note of it at all.
"So Caelia's final pokemon is a Chandelure!" Lila said. "Will that be enough to take on two pokemon with type advantages?"
"I'm not sure, Lila," Darla said. "Chandelure have a powerful special attack stat, but will that be enough to win?"
Blake looked at the pokemon floating in front of him. It looked strong, but he felt it should still be possible for them to win.
"Elaina, that pokemon looks pretty tough, but I still think we can- Elaina?" While Blake was speaking with her, he heard a soft thump. He turned to see Elaina had fallen to her hands and knees. She was shaking terribly. He couldn't see his face to be sure, but it looked like she was scared out of her wits.
"What's his?" Lila gasped. "One of the trainers has collapsed in the middle of the battle!"
"Huh? What's going on? Is she okay?" Darla wondered.
"Elaina?" Blake cried, kneeling down next to her. He put a hand on her shoulder, which was enough to snap her out of whatever weird state she was in.
The scream she gave out was the second clue that something was very, very wrong.
"That pokemon… how… it's not…!" The tone of her voice carried nothing but pure horror. "What's wrong with it?!"
Blake blinked in confusion and took another look at the Chandelure floating in front of them. It looked like a normal Chandelure to him. Cynthia took a look as well. Nothing seemed off.
"It-it's normal, what… what do you mean?"
"It's not, it… it's horrid, disgusting!" Elaina wailed.
Meanwhile, in the viewer box that Olivia had arranged, everyone was looking at Elaina's breakdown in confusion.
"Why's she acting like that?" Sango wondered.
"That's just a normal Chandelure, right?" Callie said, tilting her head to the side. Movement to her left caught her attention, and Julia's too. The tank holding Pearl had slipped from Kitty's fingers and landed in the wet grass, and Kitty followed after it. She fell to her knees in a coughing fit, pressing her hands to her mouth. Her skin was deathly pale and the look in her eyes was horrid and empty.
"Kitty!" Julia shouted, jumping from her seat and catching the small girl before she collapsed completely. Kitty continued her coughing fit, and it quickly got even worse. Vomit burst out of her mouth and past her hands as she hacked up her lunch on the grass, nausea rolling violently over her.
"Is she okay?" Ayame shouted. "Is it a side effect from before?!"
"Kitty, Kitty, talk to me!" Julia urged, shaking her friend as gently as possible. "What's wrong?"
"That pokemon!" Kitty wailed, her eyes filled with tears as she cried through her vomit. "It… it's awful… can't… can't you see it?"
"What pokemon? The Chandelure?" Julia glanced up, but from this distance the ghost pokemon looked like any other pokemon.
"That aura… it's… a horrible miasma of darkness… I can't… *urgh* it's just… just looking at it is… what happened to that *blurf* pokemon, I don't… aaargh! Too much… *glurg*"
Another wave of vomiting started, Julia rubbing Kitty on her back as got sick all over the lawn. Kitty wasn't the only member of the audience having a hard time, either.
"What's wrong with it? What's wrong with it? Why does it… that aura… it's the worst thing I've ever seen!" In the Commander's private box, Keya had fallen from his chair, the small boy crying through clenched eyes.
"Hey, are you alright?" Tommy asked, reaching out to his colleague, but the short kid swatted his hand away.
Maddi was stunned. The way that Keya was acting, why was he… what was wrong? It didn't make any sense.
The Commander was the first one to confront him, confused.
"Keya, what's going on here?" He barked. Whatever was happening to make such a sweet boy like Keya break down it had to be something important. "What's wrong?"
"…It's not… it's not possible…" Vic's voice was barely above a whisper, but it still silenced everyone. Even Kaya. Maddi glanced at her incredulously. Normally, Vic was cold and implacable. Even when she was angry, there was a tinge of controlled menace in her voice that sent shivers down people's spines. But that wasn't what any of them were hearing right now. They were hearing something from Victoria they had never heard in her voice before.
Fear.
Vic's tone was shaky, and she was trembling. Her skin was chalk white and she stared ahead with a vacant gaze, her normally sharp eyes bulging in what could only be described as dread.
"Vic, what's going on?" Alden snapped.
"That… it's worse than I ever could have imagined…" Vic held her hand over her mouth and resisted the urge to throw up. "That horrid black aura… my mom said it was awful to look at but… but it… I never could have dreamed it would be like this…"
"What? What's wrong?" Alden demanded.
"It's not possible…" Vic wasn't hearing a word out of his mouth, or anyone else's. The horrid sight of the Chandelure oozing an odious miasma had encapsulated all her senses, and was bombarding her with wave after wave of revulsion. It couldn't be here. One of them couldn't be here. It just wasn't possible.
"It can't be," she kept repeating, shaking her head in denial as though that could somehow dispel the horrific sight before her eyes into nothing more than a fantasy.
"What, Vic?" Alden demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. It didn't seem to have any effect. She was still babbling in shock.
"It can't be… my father got them all… they always said they got them all… so how… how is it… how?!" Her hollow tone cracked and broke as the emotions she'd been trying to bury came bursting free in a scream, "HOW IS A SHADOW POKEMON HERE?!"
"…So that's it? Just a Chandelure?" Sylvia asked, raising her eyebrow and staring at the pokemon on the screen. "I mean, yeah, Chandelure are pretty strong and all, but come on, when you said 'the ultimate pokemon' I was expecting, well… something a little more impressive, I guess? It looks like any other Chandelure."
K snorted.
"Apparently you aren't as special as you think you are," he cackled. Sylvia shot him a dirty look.
"Now, K, she's right, in a sense," Valon said. "To the common eye, that Chandelure looks no different from any other. Not even you or I can see it as anything else. But I assure you, Sylvia, that pokemon is the first step in our creation of the ultimate pokemon."
Sylvia raised her eyebrow.
"Normal pokemon are certainly quite powerful," Valon said. "But they're so… individual. That was the thinking that went behind the creation of 'Shadow Pokemon' in the first place."
"My, how edgy," Sylvia smirked. Valon didn't seem to mind her disrespectful tone. K minded quite a lot.
"Do you have any idea what a breakthrough this is?!" K demanded. "Shadow Pokemon are-! They're just-!"
"Let me explain," Valon said, glancing away from the screen and smiling diplomatically at Sylvia. "A normal pokemon has thoughts, feelings, wants, desires. Pokemon are just like humans, really. Easily controlled so long as you give them what they desire. But that is such a tiresome process. That's why I began undertaking this little endeavor. What if you could create a pokemon without all those things?"
Sylvia blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"Shadow Pokemon have been stripped of their emotions," Valon explained. "Indeed, once upon a time, that Chandelure was no different from any other Chandelure. But just like other Chandelure, other pokemon, it had things that it wanted. Feelings, worries, details that made it unsuited for the purposes of being a weapon. So through the process of science, we developed a way to, I believe it is called, 'close the door of its heart'. Stripped of everything it once was, we have transformed an ordinary pokemon into the ultimate pokemon."
Sylvia nodded slowly. She understood now. "…When you say 'the ultimate pokemon' you don't mean a pokemon that's better than any other."
"Not at all," Valon smiled. It was the most genuine smile she'd seen on the man. He was legitimately happy to be talking about this. "The ultimate pokemon isn't a pokemon that will never lose a fight, or a pokemon with higher stats than any other. The ultimate pokemon is a pokemon that is obedient. A pokemon that will follow all orders without question. That is the ideal of the ultimate pokemon I strive for. Think of Misato."
Sylvia raised her eyebrow.
"When I first saw her, I fell in love with her immediately," Valon said. "I simply had to have her. So I made her mine. She is my ideal. The ultimate human. Perfect in every way. A tool that will follow orders without question, can that be called anything but perfect?"
"That's not to say that Shadow Pokemon aren't powerful, either," K added. "By removing all those excess emotions that get in the way, we've been able to turn it into the ultimate fighting machine. It is stronger than normal pokemon by miles, completely obedient to whoever is training it, and best of all, it's only one of many."
Sylvia blinked. Now that was intriguing.
"What do you mean?"
"The beauty of Shadow Pokemon is that they aren't unique," Valon explained. "Other scientists have created the 'ultimate pokemon' as a single prototype. You hear the stories. A single 'ultimate pokemon' destroying a lab in Kanto, researchers in Alola creating three 'ultimate pokemon', even talk of an 'army' of ancient 'ultimate pokemon' in Unova that number a whole… five? Ridiculous."
Valon spread out his arms and leaned back in his chair.
"The strength of a gun as a weapon isn't just in its destructive power. It's how easy it is to mass produce. In the Orre Region, a good many years ago, a group by the name of Cipher pioneered the technology to create Shadow Pokemon. But due to some interferences, they were stopped, and their plans were foiled. But the research remained. And now, thanks to funding from certain sources, I have been able to replicate what they created. …No, I've taken their work to levels that no one would have even dreamed possible. Like I said, that Chandelure was once just an ordinary pokemon. But with the power of science, we were able to turn it into the ultimate fighting machine. Imagine a dozen pokemon, just like it. A hundred. A thousand. A solid army of pokemon, blindly loyal to their controllers, stronger than any pokemon who might think to stand in their way. Any one of your pokemon that you wish, you could transform it to be far stronger than it could ever grow to be on its own, just with a simple push of a button."
Sylvia glanced up at Specter. The ghost pokemon glanced back at her. Neither said a word.
Valon returned his attention to the screen.
"Shadow pokemon are unmatched in terms of power. In truth, Cipher should have one decades ago. But unfortunately, there was a snag."
"A snag?"
"A literal snag," Valon replied. He chuckled. Apparently it was a joke, one that Sylvia didn't understand. But she could see by the look in his eyes. He was showing emotion, real, raw emotion for maybe the first time Sylvia had seen. Staring at the ghost pokemon on the screen was bringing something out of him that nothing else had.
Sylvia wondered if he was maybe getting hard.
"As you said, Shadow Pokemon, on their surface, look indistinguishable from normal pokemon," Valon said. "To the common person, anyway. But there are certain people who can see them for what they are."
Sylvia's eyes widened in dawning realization. "Harmonia users."
"Cipher's records spoke of a girl, capable of seeing the aura of Shadow Pokemon," K explained. "They were trying to capture her in order to study that power, but ironically it seems she might have had a hand in destroying them, ha!
"From what we know of it, harmonia allows a person to connect to the hearts of pokemon," Valon said. "Because of that, it must be that they are able to see that Shadow Pokemon's hearts are closed, and dark. Look at her."
Valon pointed towards the screen at Elaina, collapsed on the ground.
"She can see that Shadow Pokemon for what it really is… I wonder what that must be like. Certainly not a pleasant sight, I'm sure."
"The real issue is that those harmonia users that can see Shadow Pokemon, they might try and purify them," K explained. "Purifying-"
"Let me guess," Sylvia interrupted. She didn't need the details, she could already paint a pretty decent picture with what she'd been given. If it was possible to turn a pokemon into a Shadow Pokemon, there had to be a way to turn them back. According to Valon and K, Shadow Pokemon were used by this strange organization called "Cipher" more than twenty years ago. But, well, until now, Sylvia had never heard of anything called a "Shadow Pokemon" before. That meant one of three things. Either all the Shadow Pokemon were locked up somewhere out of sight, they had all been killed, or for some reason they were no longer Shadow Pokemon. If it was the first, then there would not be a need to rely on research notes to reproduce the process. The second was likely, but Sylvia didn't really want to go there. That left option three.
"There's a way to turn Shadow Pokemon back into normal, isn't there?"
"There was. Once." Valon said, turning back to her and chuckling. "Some people at a lab in Orre developed a machine that would allow for the purification of Shadow Pokemon."
"And?"
"Well, where do you think I got all the notes from?" Valon asked, raising an eyebrow. "Now that lab is fulfilling… other purposes."
Sylvia didn't need to be the genius she was to know what THAT meant.
"So if there's no way to turn them back, then what's the problem?"
"That lab was established AFTER the fall of Cipher," Valon said. "…The first time, anyway," he added with a mutter. "Their notes described them trying to replicate a more… natural process through the means of science. Which means that there must be a way to purify Shadow Pokemon that doesn't involve the use of purification chambers."
"And you think it's tied to harmonia?"
"Exactly," K said.
"No, not at all," Valon replied. K turned to look at his boss, his mouth dropping open in surprise. Sylvia smiled at that.
"That harmonia girl from 25 years ago, she was certainly involved," Valon explained, "but I don't believe she was the one to purify the Shadow Pokemon herself. If she was, then there was no need to develop the lab and its technology in the first place, not if she could just purify them all by herself. No… there was something else… some other source capable of purifying Shadow Pokemon all on its own."
K looked confused, but Sylvia wasn't. Valon wasn't as in the dark as he was letting on. She wasn't stupid enough to believe that even for a second. While she certainly hadn't expected THIS to be what he was planning, what he had spent all this time in his labs tinkering away on, she knew for damn sure he wouldn't be the kind of reckless fool who would debut his research so publicly unless he knew EXACTLY what risks were out there. Valon was a snake. More than that, he was a coward. She had seen it in his eyes the moment she had met him. It was why he needed Misato as his trusty right hand, because she would never move beyond what was expected of her. It was why he took so much care in manipulating those around him to act how he wanted them to act, because he was too much of a coward to risk someone doing something outside of his plans. Such a meticulous coward, making sure that everything was exactly the way it had to be, so that he wouldn't have to confront a reality in which things DIDN'T go as he planned. Of course someone like that would want a pokemon that was an emotionless, loyal soldier.
With that in mind, Sylvia had a fairly good guess of what that "other source" of purification was. K may have been an idiot in the dark, but Valon wasn't fooling her for a second.
"Huh? Then why are we doing this? I thought we were testing if a harmonia user could purify a Shadow Pokemon?" K asked.
"No, this battle right now…" Valon swiveled his chair back to the monitor and steepled his fingers together contemplatively, a thin smile like that of a snake spreading across his lips. "It's simply to test the strength of our Shadow Pokemon. There was nothing in Cipher's records of that girl fighting herself. It was a boy who defeated Cipher. But harmonia is a different power. A tool that only a handful of people possess, capable of boosting pokemon to match the strength of Shadow Pokemon."
Before Sylvia's watchful eyes, a cold, almost… heh… "shadowy" look passed over Valon's pale face.
"I want to see with my own eyes just how capable a Shadow Pokemon is of standing up against a harmonia user. And Elaina is the strongest around," he explained. "This is a test run, of sorts. To see if that awesome power of harmonia can be overcome by the power of science."
By your power, you mean, Sylvia silently added. Shadow Pokemon… quite an intriguing concept. Not something I would have thought of. So by giving that pokeball to Caelia, whichever team made it to the finals, Elaina or Kitty would be fighting against it. So that was the plan all this time… not a bad gambit, I'll give him that. Still… I wonder just what this Shadow Pokemon of his is capable of…
Sylvia leaned back in her chair and watched the battle begin onscreen. The Phantom did promise that it would be interesting, and Sylvia wanted to see just how interesting a battle between two incredible powers such as those would result in.
And so it's been revealed. The Phantom has been creating Shadow Pokemon. Starting here, the second half of the school year, after winter break, will be dedicated towards the war escalating around this threat. Now, show of hands, who expected Shadow Pokemon to EVER make an appearance here? And don't worry, the battle will actually resume next chapter. I'm sure it will be fine.