Marley had rushed to his room in order to make the phone call to Selena.

"What happened?" she asked after coming on to answer the phone five minutes later. "I was in the middle of giving a lecture."

"Oh I just wanted to have tea and have a nice chat about the weather," Marley snarled sarcastically. "Did it ever occur to you the fact that if I was actually taking the effort to call you of all people, it would definitely be about something important?"

"Get to the point already," she said.

"You were right about the storm," Marley said. "It appeared to carry a boy and his Pokemon here. The boy's name is Ash and he has currently challenged me to a Gym Battle."

"Oh dear," Selena said. "There's not really much I can do now. Or anyone for that matter. If you had asked for soldiers earlier-"

"Then you all would've said no- don't act all generous now," Marley said. "And that's not why I called. I know I have to battle the boy, that isn't the problem. What is the problem is that he had a machine, and it appeared to be giving him advice regarding the rules of the Gyms. And the voice it spoke in was that of the Elite Four, as if they were all talking together."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely," Marley said. He was sure he was not the only one of the Gym Leaders who occasionally had nightmares that the Elite Four were coming after him, not that he'd ever ask, of course.

"Hmm," Selena said. "That does tell us something at least, about this Ash person. Whoever made that device, or modified it, has either had the Elite Four actually say those words, though we know that's impossible, or had recorded enough of their voices to manipulate them to say almost anything."

"Is that possible?"

"Yes," Selena said. "But you would need quite a lot of recordings, meaning that the person was with the Elite Four for quite some time. Also, we know that the person who has orchestrated this must have some idea of the spatial-temporal barrier surrounding Galea."

"The barrier is maintained by His Majesty, the Eighth Gym Leader, and Emperor, is it not?" Marley asked.

"Actually, I also manage it to some extent," she said. "But one of the others could have also figured something out."

"You suspect… that one of us did this?" Marley asked.

"When you think about it, it seems to be the only logical conclusion," Selena said. "If we look for people who had contact with all of the Four Heavenly Kings, it would of course, be us, and for someone who knows the rules so well and about the barrier, very few people besides us fit in. After all, we hunted down the Elite Four's relatives and anyone who could have been loyal to them."

"Not all of them," Marley said. "If I remember correctly, we were never able to capture Emily's sister, or Arthur's apprentice. And what of their secretary?"

"He defected and joined us, don't you remember? His name was Alan Lazar," Selena said. "And it is true that they're both missing and I couldn't find them, but I have a hard time believing that they could've done something like this. Most likely, it was another Gym Leader."

"The Accord doesn't forbid this?"

"No," Selena said. "We never thought it was necessary, because obviously, why would someone do something that would threaten their rule?"

"Then it wasn't one of us," Marley declared confidently.

Selena shook her head.

"Stop patronizing me, woman! I am not one of your students, and this is not a classroom," Marley said. "If you have an answer, spit it out!"

"There's no need to be so rude," Selena said, barely restraining her own anger. "I meant Wade, the fifth Gym Leader. If I remember correctly, he always had a guilty conscience about us betraying the Elite Four."

Marley paused for a minute. That was right, and Wade had opposed many of their other ideas later on, including the ban on selling of Pokeballs and catching Pokemon by unauthorized personnel. He had a reputation, far and wide, as being a fair and just Gym Leader.

"Guilty enough to do this?" Marley asked.

"It's not like I know for sure," Selena muttered. "But his territory is the ocean, and his Badge lets him manipulate it, and his territory is very close to the border. Is it possible that he figured out some way to manipulate it with the barrier weakening?"

"Then shouldn't His Majesty be doing something?"

"No need to shout," Selena said. "As for His Majesty," the word, as always was spit from her lips as if it were poison, "is probably, as usual, busy admiring his own reflection in the mirror or devoting a poem to the love of his life- himself -to care about anything. And you know how hard it is sending him a message. Was that all you wanted?"

"No, I also wanted to confirm some things about the rules," Marley said.

"You have your book. It was supposed to be mandatory reading," Selena said.

"Right, you do realize that you're probably the only one who has read this thing?" Marley asked, lifting up his own very dusty, very heavy, tome. "Now, I've asked the boy to wait for some time so I can challenge him later. What other rules should I know of?"

"Well, you are in your rights to ask for a delay," Selena said. "I mean, if the Gym Leader was in the middle of something important, it would've been impertinent to ask him to leave in the middle of a business meeting or funeral, so you can delay it by up to one week, or a month in case the realm's in danger."

"And I'm not allowed to kill the challenger, yes?" Marley asked.

"I thought you'd know that."

"I do!"

"Well, yes, you can't kill him, and neither can your servants, and for that matter if you notice anyone trying to do so, you have to try and stop them," Selena said. "And you can't take away or injure his Pokemon outside of a fair battle, though you're always welcome to use your…. special rule against him. You also can't take any of his family or friends or anyone else for that matter related to him hostage until you win. A draw, however, means that you win."

"If I win, am I similarly supposed to show mercy to him?"

"No," Selena said. "If you win, he can't challenge you again for another three days, in which you are free to crush his head. I'm assuming, of course, that you're confident that you can win?"

Marley gulped. "I am almost certain in that regard… though I am out of practice and have, ah, slightly neglected training my Pokemon as of late. Which is why I also wanted to request that you give me one of your Pokemon, only for the battle of course, so that my victory is assured. I do not know of the boy's strengths, you see."

Selena flatly said, "No. I'm afraid that my Pokemon are far too valuable and that I spend far too much time into training them for someone like you to use them."

Marley snarled. "You don't realize do you, that this boy is a problem for all of us? He probably thinks that we unfairly overthrew the Four Heavenly Kings, and thanks to that oath His Majesty made us swear in the Accord, none of us can even tell him or anyone else who does not already know why we did what we did and why it was so necessary, or even regarding the calamity thirty-two years ago, with the exception of His Majesty himself. What if he does defeat me then? He will not be satisfied with only my domain, and will move on to the others, and perhaps even reach yours thinking he's some sort of avenging angel instead of someone destroying years of hard work. And I highly doubt His Majesty will bother taking his head out from where it's lodged in the clouds to tell the boy himself."

"I am more than capable of defending myself," Selena said. "And you need to stop acting so scared of a mere boy. And for that matter, there are things you can do to help you. You can have at most five of your servants fight him first, as Gym Trainers, to see if he is worthy enough- so that a Gym Leader wouldn't be inundated with requests to fight, of course- and so delay him or at least find out about his capabilities."

"And what if you aren't?" Marley asked. "What if I fail? Then he will become a Gym Leader, and you will not even be able to kill him then."

Selena smiled. "A Gym Leader is difficult to kill, yes, but not impossible. Haven't you read about the assassination of the Heiro Dynasty?"

"That does not matter! That was in an earlier age! The truce prevents us from killing or imprisoning a Gym Leader," Marley said. "If he becomes one, that means that none of us will be able to assassinate him."

"Then do make sure to win," Selena said.

"What kind of a response it that! And don't you- don't you dare- she cut the call already," Marley muttered.

As such, in sequence, he called the rest of the Gym Leaders he knew, asking for some stronger Pokemon, but was met with the same response.


Everyone knows what it feels like to think that something's watching you.

Selena had been feeling it for the last thirty-two years. The other Gym Leaders might have called her paranoid, but her mind would never- it could never- rest easy. She had decided to give her students the rest of the class off so she could concentrate on other things.

Namely, on what had been bugging her for so many years. She couldn't shake off the feeling that she had missed something those many years ago, that the Elite Four had a backup plan. Back in the day they had been very influential; surely they would've tried something, had some sort of contingency plan or something ready when they realized they were doomed.

And as always, as she sat alone in her office, her instinct, honed over so many years she couldn't even count them anymore, told her that someone… or something was spying on her.

And as always, she could find nothing there. There were not even any cameras she could detect, and her domain was the hub of technology in Galea.

"Get me a Porygon Z," she said to an aide after a while.

A/N: I know a Pokemon fanfic isn't very exciting with a lot of talking, but there will be a lot of talking... though next time, Ash will begin his battle. Thanks for reading, and do review if you liked.