A/N: We're finally back! Thanks for all the patience guys.

Jenkins had to say that he was pretty relieved on seeing Selena. As in, he had been expecting her condition to deteriorate and expected to see someone who hadn't showered in three days, had those 'crazy red eyes' and would talk only in incomplete sentences.

Instead, Selena was wearing an old traditional outfit used by the old gym leaders of Constantinople when they were about to declare war (okay, this part was slightly weird given that it had fallen out of fashion around five hundred years ago… but it wasn't that strange) and was clearly well-groomed and when she saw him, said in a nice, level tone, "Nice to see that you finally decided to show up."

"Forgive me, Milady, I was delayed a bit," Jenkins said. Despite her flat tone, Jenkins had enough experience working with her to recognize that this wasn't a good day for her. She seemed to have been sleeping better though as the dark circles around her eyes were lighter today. "Err… what has happened?"

"I had a talk with the boy," Selena said. "Apparently he has decided to not hand the Badges over to me. He isn't going to make this easy."

"I don't understand," Jenkins said. "Didn't the child say that he only wanted to return to his homeland? We can make that happen-"

"Are you so naïve?" Selena interjected. "Do you think that he would be ready to just hand over and lose so much power?"

"I suppose not," Jenkins said.

Selena sighed. "And with that we have a new problem on our hands- what to do regarding the boy. He is not a true threat- he poses no challenge to me during a battle. But he does have six Badges with him. We need to secure our backs before we set off for His Majesty. Which is why I want to divide our forces and send half of them to invade his territory to keep him busy."

Jenkins blinked. "Divide half of our forces?" He tried to not sound too shocked- he thought it was dangerous to irritate Selena any further after that whole psychiatrist deal. "Milady, His Majesty's forces may be smaller compared to ours but they are not nonexistent, and they will be fighting on their own ground. Would it really be wise to split our power in half?"

"His Majesty is weak," Selena spat out. "He is nothing but a speed block on my path to power. As long as I can defeat him in a Pokemon battle, it won't matter. And I have enough trained soldiers to set his territory ablaze… he'll be forced to challenge me in order to stop the carnage we will inflict on them. And even if he does not, well, I am still more than a match for him even if I have to play by his special rule."

"But Milady," Jenkins said, "for now, the boy doesn't have any reason to attack us. But if we send a large force into his territory, he'll choose to attack us just to retaliate. And he has six Badges with him in total, and the only one that we have will be gone in a struggle against His Majesty. Not to mention that the soldiers we have are strong, but not nearly enough to defeat either Wade or the boy. They'll be killed…"

"He will attack me no matter what I do," Selena said. "That is a foregone conclusion. He is convinced of the righteousness of his cause to such an extent that he will not be content to just sit there and wait for what I do. He could be moving towards Constantinople as we speak." Selena then leaned forward and asked for a map of Galea to be brought before her and began examining it. "But there is one thing that I have learned about the boy is that he seems to care about his subjects." She then traced her finger around the ocean that surrounded most of the continent of Galea and which separated it from the island to the north. "As such, we can send a tenth of our force to go and delay Wade- they will each challenge him to a Gym Battle. I doubt that any of them can win, but they will delay him for a while during which time the others will make their way all around Galea on their ships. They shall then disembark and begin sowing seeds of terror all around- the boy will not know what hit him or where he has to be… he cannot be everywhere all at once and our agents can simply retreat when they know that he is coming."

"Milady, but those soldiers that will fight Wade or who might be forced to fight the boy… they'll die," Jenkins said. "We can't send so many people as cannon fodder."

Selena shrugged. "I highly doubt that they will be killed. The boy has not even ended the lives of any of those idiots- and here I was hoping that he would at least have beheaded Freyja… now that would have been a bright spot on an otherwise bleak few weeks."

"Wade will have no reservations regarding that," Jenkins said.

Again, Selena shrugged. "Most probably the boy has asked Wade to also spare the lives of those who will fight against him, but then again… well yes, some people may die, but I suppose that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make. Anyway, what is a war if you do not lose a few soldiers?"

Jenkins had no answer to that… or at least nothing that wouldn't see him executed. He was very glad he had gotten his wife out of being drafted. He just nodded. "But Milady, are forces would be spread thin if we tried attacking everywhere all at once."

"They do not need to be strong," Selena said. "Those fools- Marley, Thomdolt, Freyja, Vanessa, and even Linnea apparently followed my suggestion to the letter when I said that they should restrict the training of Pokemon in their territories so that their positions would be safe. Oh, it made them safe for the time being of course but they forgot to keep their skills sharp and look what happened to them. Most of the continent, unlike Constantinople has no real Pokemon Trainers and with our Pokemon even a small number of soldiers would easily overcome them," Selena said.

Jenkins stared at the map for a few minutes before he said, "What if the boy chooses to invade Constantinople while we are away? He may conclude that it would be the only viable possibility if we overwhelm him with our numbers and attack him everywhere."

"Highly unlikely, he would want to defend his land. But even if he does, I do not see the problem. He did not harm the residents of any place he invaded before, and even if he does, what of it?" Selena asked.

"People change," Jenkins said. "And if Wade or someone else entrusted to attack us, well then, it would be a whole different story. They could burn Constantinople to the ground- and all the progress that we've made all these years would be lost."

Selena shrugged. "I do not care. I think you might, Mr. Jenkins, but I can always rebuild Constantinople when I am sure that all of Galea is once again in my sway. I can always repopulate it. Those things aren't difficult at all to accomplish."

Jenkins tried hard to not think about all of Constantinople being razed and its people slaughtered- with his family among them. He had to think of something… some way to convince Selena not to leave the city defenseless.

"Milady, if you don't mind, I do have an alternative suggestions," Jenkins said. Selena didn't say anything, so Jenkins continued. "Why do we simply not first attack the boy? You could take his Badges with ease and then with the rest of Galea under our sway we could attack His Majesty when we feel ready. His Majesty is unlikely to attack us while we would be away- he will be far to busy trying to ready his defenses."

"It would take too much time," Selena said.

"I assure you, Milady, that with our full force and scouts operating we could find him with ease- the whole thing could be finished in under three days if you simply would give the command. We would then have our backs safe and it would only be a matter of time before you finish off His Majesty," Jenkins said.

A strange expression fell over Selena's face. "That is possible…" she said in an odd voice. She blinked as if she had just woken up. "Why did I not think of it then…?" she trailed off.

It was then that the weirdest thing happened to Jenkins.

First of all, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped and he felt a chill. Sure, the air conditioning was on, but the room seemed to become even colder, as if he was standing in a walk-in refrigerator.

But that wasn't the oddest thing. No, what was weird was the sudden feeling that he was being watched, as if there was someone else in the room. Sure, Selena and her other attendants were in the room, but right then he felt that there was someone… or something else in the room with them.

Jenkins grabbed a chair and sat down… he was feeling nauseous now and wasn't sure that he could stand on his feet. He felt his mouth completely dry up and something deep down, something extremely primal within him seemed to urge him to run away from the place as fast as possible.

Despite the cool temperature, sweat beaded his face and his hands felt cold and clammy. What in Arceus' name was going on?

He looked around- the other people seemed to have noticed the cold surge but were otherwise unaffected and were carrying out their duties as if nothing at all had happened.

Selena still seemed to be lost in some sort of dream and Jenkins caught her nodding now and then as if someone was whispering something in her ear and she was agreeing with whoever- or whateverr it was.

But Jenkins knew for a fact that Selena wasn't wearing an earpiece.

Jenkins considered himself to be a man of science. He had assumed the same for most of Constantinople- the masses had long since risen above petty superstition.

But even he, during that moment, a man who never paid more than lip service to the cults that worshiped Arceus found himself praying. There was just something… well, unnatural about the whole thing.

Was this how Selena was feeling all the time? Did this mean that he was going insane too?

But it doesn't work like that, he reasoned. Insanity wasn't a transmissible disease… though he had heard of a few villages in Linnea's domain getting ill due to some fungus and mass hysteria being spread everywhere. But the Badge would've protected Selena. And she didn't like mushrooms anyway, nobody likes mushrooms after all-

"We cannot wait," Selena finally said while looking as if she had come out of some deep trance, interrupting Jenkins' thought process.

Jenkins found his voice hoarse and difficult to speak. "Didn't you feel it, Milady?"

"Feel what?" Selena asked.

"The-I-it was cold and we- you, uh," Jenkins said, not sure how to describe his experience.

"I do not have time for you to lose your head," Selena snapped. "I have waited far too long to see His Majesty toppled. I am not about to lose even further time by trying to get at the boy first."

"Milady, you've spent thirty-two years attempting to topple His Majesty," Jenkins said. "What difference is a few days? Or a week at most?"

Selena frowned again. "Yes, that is true but…"

Jenkins felt a cold sensation in his gut and his tongue seemed to shrivel up and he found it suddenly difficult to breathe as if he was being gagged. The feeling was fleeting but enough to make him realized that it maybe it wasn't that Selena was sick… was there actually something, or someone that was doing this?

"But I do not wish to wait another second," Selena said finally. "Yes, I have to defeat His Majesty. I have to do it as soon as possible. Only then will I be able to sleep… and finally be able to rest…" She trailed off, whispering things in a low tone that Jenkins couldn't hear.

Jenkins wiped the sweat off his brow. Now, this wasn't good. This was the sort of thing that he had been afraid of, but whatever it was that was happening to Selena was quickly shaken off.

"I have made my decision final. We will send half of the fleet to attack the boy, and the rest of the half will move towards His Majesty," Selena said.

Jenkins sighed- at this point he knew better than to argue. He could only hope that things would all turn out alright in the end.


The sun was still stuck motionless in the sky as it had been for several days even though it was currently near sunset right now.

Jenkins surveyed the vast fleet surrounding him one last time. The basic unit was a modern day steel ship with a few being capable of functioning as submarines also. The ships were built for about eighty people each and there were over two thousand of them scattered in the waves.

He had learned later on in the day that Brennus, a colleague that he personally disliked had now been made Selena's left-hand-man. It was a position that he didn't envy given that Brennus would be leading the assault on the boy while he and Selena would move forwards to engage His Majesty.

They had left the shores of Constantinople half an hour ago. Thousands of people who were left in the city had swarmed near the harbor in order to see them off, and Jenkins had had a last tearful goodbye with his family.

The harbor was but a small line on the horizon now, and the island to the north of Galea would soon be visible.

Selena, who was aboard a different ship named the Lady Mallory had sent the signal for half of the fleet to separate and go towards Wade's domain and to sow havoc on the rest of the continent.

As the island fast approached, several things ran through Jenkins' head, not the least of which was that he had learned that apparently Selena had been working on some top-secret weapon or something else of the sort which even he hadn't been privy to, and it was currently being carried on the Lady Mallory.

He had his own problems of course- namely that several of the artillery pieces that they had commissioned from Thomdolt weren't working anymore, which of course made Selena livid and had her cursing the man for several hours.

It was while he was appraising one of them that he felt the boat he was on suddenly lurch towards one side.