While trainers across Hoenn panicked over the possibility of a suspension from international tournaments or even an armed intervention from Kanto, two envoys met high above the Contest Hall in neutral Slateport City – Winona on her Altaria, Drake on his Salamence. Three days of furious messages back and forth accomplished only a relucant agreement to send them to this meeting place for negotiation; anything more would have to be done here.
"Well, they won't let us have a war, but we can do the next best thing," Drake said.
"What do you mean?" a confused Winona asked.
"The International Pokemon League requires us to have a battle or they dissolve our League, but it says nothing about the format. And we're already preparing for a civil war – I'm sure you are too - so let's make this a grand old Warlord Battle, like in the days of Ransei!"
"If you pick the battle, I pick the location. I'll accept your challenge, but it'll be on my home turf – we're fighting this in Fortree City," Winona declared.
"Fine by me," Drake answered. "But in case you were trying something, let's put this in writing. This is a Warlord Battle, four-on-four, and there is to be no involving the locals on either side."
Winona nodded. "I completely agree. And as proof of our commitment to protect the residents, any damage inflicted on noncombatants in the battle will be repaid out of League coffers – whoever wins this. And if you try to take hostages, consider the match a forfeit."
"Deal."
"A Warlord Battle? Winona, you should've just demanded I fight them one-by-one like a proper Elite Four match! You gave Drake everything he wanted!" Steven protested.
"Four on four's better than four on one in succession," Winona answered. "I don't see the issue."
"Have you ever thought to consider why they teamed up on me all at once in the middle of the night?" Steven asked. "One on one, my pokemon can handle anything any of them have. Giving me three teammates is a price Drake gladly paid so the four of them can take out my Metagross at once."
"Sorry," Winona said. "So who will be our four?"
"You and me, obviously. And Wallace and Wattson volunteered to fill out the ranks – seems like the rest of them, even though they voted for you at the summit, were reluctant to get involved at all." Steven said.
"So just the first two volunteers... are you worried about type advantages?" Winona questioned.
"They didn't give me a fair fight last time. So now that the gym leaders and Kanto gave me one, I don't want to do anything to take advantage of the circumstances. Besides, I think the matchup's in our favor anyway."
"How exactly do warlord battles work?" Winona asked. "I mean, I've read about the basics in history books, but I've never fought in one, so I'm not entirely clear on the rules – I had thought they died out."
"You offered without even reading up on that?!" an exasperated Steven shouted. "The Chronicle of Ransei should be available in most libraries, and I know my dad has a copy lying around home somewhere if you struggle. Take a look and get to practicing, 'cause we don't have much time to figure this out."
Warlord Battles, although obscure in the modern era, were an important bridge between the world's legacy of actual war and the pokemon battles so popular today. This ritualized form of combat originated as a way to let warlords continue fighting after Ransei's unification, in order to let them keep their skills sharp and stem the boredom of peace. These battles were fought in open-air arenas the size of cities – or, more often, and to the alternate chagrin or excitement of their inhabitants, through actual cities, between teams of up to six trainers who commanded only one pokemon each.
Cooperation, teamwork, and positioning were vital in Warlord Battles, for pokemon could as easily retreat and support their allies from a distance as join the fray, unlike in modern battlefields, which are small enough that it is rare for a pokemon to ever be out of range. (Unless, of course, said pokemon is in its pokeball.) A proper triple battlefield, which is somewhat wider, does make it difficult to attack across corners, but triple battles are so unpopular that most indoor matches are fought in what are technically double arenas. A skilled warlord would exploit the terrain available to them, using the need for movement to lay traps, and a few expert tacticians managed to win amazing comebacks by hiding, hitting, and running despite their teammates being long defeated; these strategies, despite attempted comparisons to Rotation Battles, have no true parallels in the modern game.
Contrary to popular belief, Warlord Battles did not fall out of favor because of any damage they caused to the cities often used as battlefields; if nothing else, the fact that no government of Ransei sided with the common people or merchants against the warlord class should be sufficient to debunk this myth. Indeed, warlord battles were often the main attractions of festivals; they were popular events which saw whole towns line the streets to watch. Governments of the age were aware of the damage pokemon could do in urban environments, and would compensate those whose houses or shops were too badly damaged and at times ban fire pokemon from these competitions.
What caused their decline of warlord battles was the fact that once Ransei entered into a period of prolonged peace, new generations of warlords considered the extensive positioning and racing across town not a callback to the wars they could no longer fight, but a waste of time and energy. Later generations created variants that shrank the battlefield – first multi, triple, and rotation battles, which did preserve at least some of the teamwork of old while eliminating the endless chases, then finally double and single matches, which required so few pokemon, and were so easy to join in, that pokemon battles rose to new heights in popularity among the people who could claim no connection to Ransei's military aristocracy. And when these people started winning championships, many wondered why they allowed an aristocracy with pokemon fewer and weaker than their own to rule over them at all.
Winona had gone into the negotiations intent on having the battle in Fortree City, for she wanted to use this match to showcase Fortree to Hoenn. An event like this would be watched by even more people than the annual Pokemon League, for the stakes were the same, and the circumstances surrounding them – and, indeed, the format – were far more interesting. As TV cameras arrived throughout the city to show the match, setting up in secret base after secret base and giving overhead shots of the treehouse architecture, Winona was elated that Drake had proposed a Warlord Battle – it was her chance to show all of Hoenn, not just those visiting for this match, that Fortree City was not the bandit capital they had so long hated.
A part of her feared that pokemon flying and racing through the city in combat would bring back memories of Hoenn's age of war, or that the Elite Four would follow up a victory with an outright conquest – but this was also her chance to show Fortree that Hoenn had changed, and that even the worst power struggles would be settled in honest competition. And, it must be said, all the tourists and journalists flooding into Fortree were also doing a lot for the local economy, and she hoped they would bridge the divide between this settlement and the rest of Hoenn on a personal level.
But all those thoughts soon faded into the background. The stakes of this match could not be higher; defeat could destroy both her hard work in bringing Hoenn and Fortree together and her dreams of becoming a Gym Leader. And Winona had a battle to win!
The four trainers representing the Hoenn League gathered in front of the prospective Fortree City Gym as they saw the signal flare that marked the match's beginning. Winona flew high in the clouds on her Altaria above the other three, hoping to camouflage herself while still scouting for foes. Wattson rode his Manectric like some kind of sheepdog cavalry; Steven stood dangerously atop his Metagross, hands-free. Only Wallace declined to ride his pokemon, for Milotic, while excellent for water transport, had enough trouble slithering across land when it needed only pull its own weight.
(Winona had suggested Wallace bring Walrein into this contest; much to her chagrin, he had declined, noting that everyone else brought their star pokemon.)
No pokemon appeared in Winona's sights as she flew ahead of the group – which stayed packed closely together – but the further her Altaria flew, the fiercer the winds became, until her legs lost their grip on her pokemon and she had to desperately grab onto its cloudy, fluffy wing to prevent a fall, and it felt like her helmet would come loose next. It was like flying through a...
"Hurricane!" Winona shouted in recognition, but her Altaria only answered with a quizzical chirp. "No, not you. You Roost!"
In the heyday of Warlord Battles, pokemon typically learned a single technique, two at most, and support moves were all but unheard of. But this was not a matter of rules, but of the military doctrine of the era – which prized constant attack over defense – and of the way pokemon were trained to do one move as well as possible, instead of splitting their efforts between many techniques – albeit restricted in League matches to four, all which must be registered with officials before the match's beginning.
Winona's choice of technique was desperate, unorthodox, and legal – although on the verge of falling as she was, she would have ordered it even if it weren't.
"Which direction is it coming from?" Wallace asked, and Winona reached out and pointed – but between her swirling fingers and her own uncertainty about the Hurricane's point of origin, the information she gave was useless. Although her Altaria seemed fine mentally – and after it landed, it seemed to mostly recover physically - Winona wondered if she had been confused by the attack. She had heard of Hurricanes scrambling brains in the middle of pokemon battles, and shouldn't it have been easier to tell which direction the attack had come from? Then again, she couldn't see the pokemon using it.
Worse, the four pokemon, assembled closely together, were a perfect target for an area attack. Wallace, Wattson, and Steven all saw the Salamence using Draco Meteor on them, but were not fast enough to scatter in time, and a disoriented Altaria had no time to watch the other half of the sky. Drake had scored a direct hit on all four of his opponents, and only Metagross' steel body mitigated any of the damage; Altaria seemed worse for wear from that shot than the Hurricane. The fierce wind soon became a freezing one, as Haley's Glalie emerged from behind a tree to spit ice at the team; only the pokemon shields of Milotic and Metagross protected Winona's badly wounded Altaria from fainting. Sidney's Absol took advantage of Metagross' distraction to slash through it like a burglar at night, reappearing on the opposite side of the Gym Leaders' party.
"I'm sorry, guys. They surrounded us," Winona said, struggling with the barrage, and both Wallace and Steven cast glances of disappointment her way.
"Don't worry about it," Wattson reassured, seeming more like a kindly father than the jolly but unserious man Winona knew. "I picked this formation for a reason; surrounded is just another way to say four on one! Manectric, Wild Charge that Absol!"
The yellow sheepdog crackled and encased its entire body with electricity; its staticy furs rubbed against each other as it rammed into the Disaster Pokemon in a blur of yellow and white. Wallace's Milotic followed it up with a perfectly placed Ice Beam, avoiding Manectric's fur to freeze the Absol's black, scythe-shaped horn.
Metagross would not attack, having been shaken up badly from Absol's technique. "Recover!" Steven ordered, and his pokemon complied, regenerating about half of the crack Absol had left in its steel frame.
Winona was encouraged by the idea that she hadn't cost them the match already, but she couldn't help but notice that they had all chosen to target Absol – and that Glalie was way too close for to her Altaria for comfort. And if her foes were all in the area, perhaps a loud enough voice could make them all sleep through the match. "Sing!"
A beautiful, siren voice echoed throughout the city of Fortree, and many of the residents found their eyes begin to droop, but fought through it to stay awake. Then again, humans have always had a remarkable resistance to pokemon techniques.
Haley's Glalie shut its cavernous blue eyes, much to the chagrin of its trainer, who was dressed in a light blue winter coat and warm pants far more suited for Glalie's own climate than Fortree's subtropical forest. She raced to wake her pokemon, while Drake and his Salamence descended towards the Gym Leaders but soon slowed up to avoid Altaria's lullaby.
Finch and his pokemon remained far from the front; whatever it had done, it was not an attack, and Winona couldn't even see it from this far away.
"What's with you, Winona? That Absol barely survived the turn, and it's the most dangerous pokemon they have!" a furious Steven shouted at her.
"I didn't want Glalie to finish off my pokemon... and probably do a number on yours," Winona answered. "If Altaria did its job right, we'll have all but finished the match by the time it wakes up."
"I could've done that this round." Steven answered. "No choice then. Bullet Punch!"
The steel X across Metagross' face opened to fire a barrage of tiny bullets from where most pokemon keep a nose, each hitting Absol (despite their small size) with the force of a boxer's jab. The Disaster Pokemon crumpled to the ground and Sidney returned it to his pokeball, marking the first knockout of the match.
Wattson and Wallace did not share Steven's disappointment with Altaria's song – or perhaps they had thought Steven had said enough, and that Glalie was still the best target. Despite Haley's continued attempts to shake and rouse her pokemon, Milotic fired a Scald the Glalie's way, the steaming water beginning to melt the ice pokemon – and the water that covered it, added to the warming of Glalie's own icy body, left it a perfect conductor for Manectric's Thunderbolt.
It can be difficult for a pokemon trainer to tell the difference between a sleeping pokemon and a fainted one, and many a young or desperate trainer has lost their pokemon or left them seriously injured when they failed to distinguish the two. Elite Four Haley was not young, and although she was desperate to hold onto power, she recognized the shift in the shape of her pokemon's eyes from narrowed to crossed and recalled her defeated pokemon accordingly.
Altaria again roosted, and then a disoriented, shaken, but not beaten Winona hopped back onto her pokemon; she couldn't see where Salamence and her fourth foe had retreated. She flew low through the treetops above her party, hoping her foes would struggle in the dense forest full of rope bridges she had mastered and give her a chance for some kind of sneak attack.
She had also naively expected – or perhaps simply hoped – that her foes would avoid area attacks for fears of compensating her for property damage. But the League's coffers were deep, and the cost of replacing a few rope bridges or even a treehouse in a city they had never respected meant nothing weighed against the fate of Hoenn.
The second Hurricane hit Winona and her Altaria if anything harder than the first – for she could see Finch and his Pidgeot in the distance this time, they struck from much closer range, and the branches, logs and ropes that slammed into her back and her pokemon's wings hurt all the more. But Winona would not sink to his level – and even if she had wanted to do so at this point in the match, she had prepared for the battle with fear of damaging the city in mind.
"It's what you get for holding a battle in a forest-city, stupid girl," Finch taunted, noting his opponent's glare. "I didn't play dirty; you could've flown into an open clearing even here. Didn't you build a flying gym?"
"Perhaps your Pidgeot doesn't have the aim to hit the right target from here," Winona shot back. "But my Altaria does. Moonblast!" The moon hung high in the sky this afternoon, visible behind the clouds even in daylight – and it grew more and more visible, and brighter and brighter, until a column of pink light engulfed the long-haired bird and nearly toppled its rider.
Winona was watching her pokemon's attack – a direct hit, if far from a decisive one – with awe. She was not watching below her, as an outraged blue dragon with red wings rose her way, and did not see Drake and his Salamence flying towards her Altaria like a missile until the two of them felt the impact. Altaria fainted instantly; dragons always struggled with other dragons, and it had already taken many hits this match. Winona might have also been knocked out or worse on the crash landing, if not for the soft fluff of her Altaria's wings, which shielded her head from impact as her pokemon plummeted from the sky.
Winona hadn't yet noticed that the people of Fortree had already gathered on the forest floor below her to cheer her pokemon on, or that, while instinctively clinging to her pokemon's wing for a soft landing, she had narrowly missed the inflatable mat said crowd had set up in case of her fall.
Not present in said crowd – or anywhere she could see – were Wallace, Wattson, Steven and their pokemon. Taking to the air had been a mistake this time, and Drake and Finch had lured her into an unwitting 2-on-1. Warlord battles weren't easy to master. Winona wanted to apologize to them for her pokemon's poor performance, but the crowd led Winona not to her teammates – still legally in battle, albeit not all that near their opponents at this point – but to the Secret Base Guild, where much of the city had gathered to party, watch the television broadcast of the match, and occasionally look out the window or race onto the bridges when the combatants got close enough.
The trainers – her neighbors now, nearly all of whom she had battled – introduced her as a guest of honor, but Winona shrank away from the spotlight. On any other day she'd have loved seeing how many trainers she'd won over – Veteran Anthony and Secret Base Expert Basil, the ones to introduce her and now cheering her teammates on, foremost among them – but instead she was constantly sneaking glances at the television even when introduced to a round of applause, and her eyes were firmly glued to the match she had set up and been eliminated from once she could take a seat.
She wouldn't watch the television broadcast very long – there was a lot of announcing and speculation, although she could barely hear it over the crowd, and a few more aerial shots of Fortree. The television showed some aerial views of Salamence and Pidgeot, flying together in a wide enough formation that when they landed it would surely be on opposite sides of their foes, and some ground-based ones of Manectric, Milotic, and Metagross, walking closely together at a much slower speed while scanning the skies.
And then Salamence dropped out of the sky, and the treehouse of the Secret Base Guild begin to shake. It wouldn't topple the treehouse – grass resisted ground attacks, after all – but it meant the match was close enough for Winona to pop out a window and watch it in person from one of the tree's thick branches, resisting the temptation to fly down and get a closer look, lest she get her team disqualified for switching pokemon. The heat was sudden and sweltering as the ground opened, and although the attacks enveloped the battlefield, Milotic shrugged off heat and earthquake alike, and Manectric's fur provided enough of a barrier to barely withstand the combination. The same could not be said of Steven's already wounded Metagross, who was flipped over by Salamence's Earthquake and could not right itself with Pidgeot's heat wave assailing its steel frame.
"Well, at least it was a fair fight this time," a dejected Steven said, and the champion recalled his pokemon.
"And this fight's not over!" Wallace shouted, pointing to the Salamence that had finished its Earthquake and risen back into the sky. "This is a Warlord Battle, and it's not over until all pokemon are defeated! Milotic, Ice Beam!" A tiny, narrow beam ripped through the air, flying so quickly it pierced both the Salamence's red wings before melting, and Salamence let out a roar of agony and plummeted to the ground.
"That's right, Finch!" an angry Wattson shouted the Pidgeot's way. "And this is for everyone you hurt in Sea Mauville! Manectric, Thunder!" The attack that struck Pidgeot looked like a lightning bolt in reverse, rising from the ground to the sky to envelop and electrocute the bird, and left its trainer more than a little shocked as well.
Both of the Elite Four's flying pokemon were returned to their pokeballs by their last two representatives, and Winona summoned her Swellow and flew down to celebrate with her friends: the people of Fortree City, her two close allies among the Gym Leaders, and the newly reinstated champion!
Wallace would follow up his Milotic's performance in the Warlord Battle, where it outlasted Steven's Metagross, by winning the first Hoenn League after the defeat of the Elite Four. However, he turned down the champion's position, stating that after defeating Juan at Winona's behest he ought to at least spend some time as a Gym Leader.
Finch would, after touring the Fortree City Gym, regret his leading role in the coup. Winona seemed competent, Fortree's people less dangerous than he feared, and he was glad that aspiring young trainers would have a flying gym to practice at. He had considered challenging Winona for the gym, but declined – not because he feared defeat, but because he feared he might win, and if he did he had no hope of successfully ruling Fortree no matter how strong his pokemon. He would retire after the next League tournament, despite placing in the top four.
Picnicker Ashley would return before long to Winona's Gym with a pair of Swablu, and ask to be taken on as her first assistant. Winona would gladly accept, and some of her friends would soon join her, although it would be many years until any of her apprentices made a real impact on the League.
Much of what Simon feared for the world his children would grow up in came to pass, and he would not live long enough to protect them. His children would inherit his Gym before most received their trainers' license, and although the situation of twin gym leaders was irregular, Winona pushed successfully for this exception as a means to test trainers on Double Battles; their youth was easier to make an exception for, given that their psychic skill exceeded even that of their father.
Team Aqua and Magma would grow ever more dangerous in power, and the scars from the so-called Fortree Incident would make it hard for the League to coordinate effective action. Wallace and Winona would grow much closer, then, after winding up on opposite sides too often in League politics, bitterly apart.
Groudon and Kyogre would be revived.
But the Gym Leaders would ultimately band together, and two pokedex holders – one the student of Wallace, the other of Winona – would bring about their reconciliation and rescue Hoenn from catastrophe once more.