A/N: I fixed the problem with Selena's Pokemon, she does only have six. Thanks for the support guys- we just reached 70 chapters! If I'd have stuck to a nine chapter format per Gym Leader, well then the story would have only two more chapters in this fanfic before it would all be over. Of course, we've kind of broken away from tradition here from Selena's arc and will continue to do so.
Ash had five Badges now. Which was one Badge too much for him. But he would have to think about what he'd do with Selena's Badge later. Now that it had come up he realized that he had no idea what it was called, it was in the shape of a small crimson feather and like all the other Badges shone with an arcane, pearly light from deep within.
All that he wanted to do now was to go to sleep. He was just so tired… and even the ground seemed like a nice place to nod off for several hours or days right now.
But he snapped himself out of that. He had things to do. As a matter of fact, the more he thought about it, he realized that he had actually made very little headway in solving his problems. There were still a large number of things to be sorted out.
"What do we do with Selena?" Ash wondered out loud. She was just staring blankly at the floor- she hadn't made any threatening moves or anything, but Ash was still worried that she could be dangerous.
Gregor's Gengar's head grew bigger until its head was round and it drew a finger across the neck of this head with its hand.
"We can't kill her!" Ash said.
I think you're right about that, we actually physically probably can't, I'm getting crazy vibes from her- the same I get from those Badges of yours, Hoopa said.
"Hoopa- could you trap her in some sort of- I don't know, dimensional prison or something? You managed to take a castle away once, right?" Ash asked.
Hmm… I don't know. If she starts fighting it, I might not be able to do it, Hoopa said.
"Yeah, and if she does fight it, I won't be able to use the Badge's powers against her anymore- I have too many of them," Ash said.
In response to this Gregor's Gengar walked up to Selena. Ash was afraid for a moment that it was going to kill her, but instead, its eyes glowed a deep red color and Selena collapsed to the floor. Her chest was moving- so she was alive. Ash recognized the attack now. Hypnosis. Selena was asleep.
"Come on, let's get back to Arthur and free the Elite Four," Ash said. As he left however, he realized that there was something else that he needed to do. His friends were probably wondering where he was and- oh no, he had almost completely forgotten about the people who were attacking his lands! And then there was the whole deal with Selena's minions gathered outside the ships.
"My problems never seem to end, do they…" Ash said. "Hey- Gengar, do you have some way of contacting Gregor from here?"
Gengar shook his head.
"Oh, okay then," Ash said and cast one last glance at Selena.
She was still asleep alright… but there was something wrong. Her face was contorted and she wasn't smiling. And she seemed to be shaking a little even in her sleep.
As if she was having a nightmare.
Ash rubbed his head. The excess number of Badges was making his head hurt and he had kind of taken it for granted how much better he felt having only four of them.
Ash flew on his Charizard back to Jenkins, and made sure to wave Selena's Badge around so that everyone knew that he was in charge now.
"Where's Lady Selena?" Jenkins asked.
Ash was kind of used to people kowtowing before him once he had won a Badge, but none of Selena's former soldiers did. A few of them made light bows, but most of them still looked as miserable as ever and didn't seem to want to even acknowledge his presence.
"Asleep," Ash said. "I think she's gonna be asleep for a long, long, time."
Jenkins didn't seem to understand what Ash was saying and seemed to want to know more, but then let it go. "I see."
"I need your help," Ash commanded- it was not an actual request. "You have communication devices, right? I need you to restore all communication lines back in my territories. And I want you to help me make a phone call to Ponyta City so I can tell everyone where I am. And I want you to tell all your units to get out of my land and stop terrorizing my people. And for that matter, you're all gonnna need to leave. It isn't safe here for anyone."
"Our communication devices will not function this close to the island," Jenkins said. "We must move the ships backwards a bit, away from the coast, and then you can make a phone call. But I should tell you that even if you do order our other troops to withdraw- they will most likely ignore such orders."
"Whaddya mean?" Ash asked angrily. "I've won! I have Selena's Badge now! All of you have to do what I say! That's how it's been! That's how it is! That's how it will be now!"
"Forgive me, but I was not talking of myself," Jenkins said. "I will go along with whatever you say, but the others… many of them are far too devoted to Lady Selena. Despite her minor flaws she was an administrator like no other… many of the soldiers for that matter will believe that you will have them executed anyway and will want to cause as much destruction as possible. They will not surrender."
Ash screamed at Jenkins. He couldn't believe it- the whole situation was ridiculous. "If you don't do this… I'll- I'll-"
"Pardon me again," Jenkins said. "You are free to threaten me as you wish… but that will not get many of the others to cooperate."
Ash grabbed Jenkins by his shirt collar. Ash's head was bursting with rage. This was the man mostly responsible for all those deaths he had had to endure. And he was now telling him, even after he had won, that those desecrators on his soil would still be there?
When Ash would later look back at that moment, he would have trouble recalling what it was exactly that he was about to do to Jenkins. Because before he could formulate any sort of idea, his Pikachu once again bit hard into his ankle.
"Aah!" Ash said and whipped down to look at his Pikachu.
"Pika pii pi," Pikachu said. Ash was still angry- but Ash saw something in Pikachu's eyes that he had never seen before.
Fear.
His Pikachu was afraid. Okay, that had happened before- but it was directed at Ash.
His Pikachu, his partner, his friend, was now scared of him.
Ash let go of Jenkins and then it occurred to him what he was doing. He then instantly felt a huge torrent of shame- if this kept up like this, he was going to end up a Gym Leader just like Selena. Yes, being angry at Jenkins was justified- but he realized that he wasn't getting mad at Jenkins for what Jenkins had done.
No, he was getting mad that he had demanded something from Jenkins and Jenkins was unable to do it, and this enraged Ash as it was apparent that Ash couldn't do anything about it. Like he was some spoiled child. Or a despot. And what had he been going to do to Jenkins anyway? Whip him? Punch him? Vaporize him? Threaten to do any one or all of the above?
And what really frightened Ash was that there was a tiny, nasty part inside of him that had enjoyed doing that. It had felt good- being able to take out his frustrations on someone who he knew couldn't retaliate. Ash tried justifying himself in his head. He was tired, after all. And it didn't help that the world was quite literally coming to an end all around him. And he had a feeling that it had something to do with the Badges- he didn't like having too many of them. They had a way of messing with your thoughts.
But even with all those considerations, he knew he couldn't excuse himself for that kind of behavior. If his mother had seen him doing something like this, she would have been horrified.
"I- I'm sorry," Ash said to Jenkins. "I- uh, lost my cool there for a second."
Jenkins fixed his clothes. "Ah, no matter, uh, Lord Ketchum. I uh, think now would be a good time to get everybody back on the ships then." He then shouted at the top of his lungs. "Everyone! Back to the ships!"
Most of the people didn't respond. "Uh, you must see, most of them are devastated and think the world's coming to an end… I apologize for their noncompliance, milord."
"Just get this done quick," Ash said, remembering that Arthur was still frozen in ice somewhere, and that His Majesty would still be looking for him. "I have other things to do, y'know."
"All right, you laggards," Jenkins shouted even louder and clapped his hands together. "You already heard my orders once- make me repeat them one more time and you can kiss all hope of seeing your families again goodbye. Now everyone! Get back on the ships! We are leaving!"
It was an empty threat, but it did produce some response from the people gathered there. They slowly shuffled themselves towards the ships. A few of them shot dirty looks at Ash- which surprised him. Man, these guys really didn't know how to take losing gracefully, did they?
Then again, most of them weren't directed at him, but rather Jenkins. A few people even spat on the ground close to Jenkins, and Jenkins began playing with his collar nervously.
"Could I perhaps ask yet another favor of you milord?" Jenkins asked. He looked worried.
"What?" Ash asked as the two of them also moved towards the ships. They were the last ones about to board.
"If you have to leave somewhere, please take me with you," Jenkins said. "My comrades-in-arms seem to see me as a traitor and will not see me kindly… left alone without your protection, I think it is quite likely that I will be killed by them."
Ash snorted. "As if. They'd never dare to hurt you if you were working for me-" Ash then stopped as he pondered that apparently that wasn't true anymore. "Do they hate you that much that they'd risk being punished by me?"
Jenkins shrugged. "I do not know. But they don't seem to look upon me kindly even though I have saved all their lives by helping you. I think at least some of them would have preferred to go down with Selena though they would not admit it to anyone but themselves…"
As Ash let Jenkins guide him through the ship, he couldn't but help but notice the high tech machinery and clean surroundings of the ship. Of course, he had been inside before in order to get to Selena, but those weren't the things on his mind then.
After a few stairways and turns the mental map that he was making of the ship in his head was nothing more than a few squiggles like a small kindergartner's drawing. He would have to trust that Jenkins could lead him out. It occurred to him that Jenkins could be leading him into a trap- but he was more than confident with his powers that he could get out of almost anything that the man could throw at him. He had taken on Selena. What were some of her officers by comparison?
He was lead to a large room filled with people who were working on computers. And the room was as big as an auditorium and there were hundreds of screens flashing with information.
It occurred to Ash that just this room probably cost far, far, more money than the villagers of a place like Vanessa's domain would earn in several lifetimes. Was this why Selena's soldiers were so loyal to her? It was clear that they were far richer- and apparently far more free to use Pokemon than most of the other citizens of Galea. If Ash hadn't know better he wouldn't have thought that the citizens of the other domains in Galea belonged to the same country as Selena's. Some were better off than the others- Linnea's and Wade's people were as a rule better off than most everyone else, but it was clear that Sleena's people had it the best in all of Galea. Well, of course he didn't know how good His Majesty's people had it given that he hadn't really seen many of them, but he highly doubted they were as well off as these people.
Come to think of it, he had always found it weird that the eight segments of Galea were so different. Their natural borders were a bit too unnatural and the people and practices were so different it was hard to believe that all the people lived on the same continent at times.
The ship began moving and Ash began observing the workers around him. A few of them cast glances in his direction before looking away quickly. Ash nearly dozed off on his feet several times before forcing himself to snap awake- and he couldn't help but impatiently tap his finger on his wrist as he thought that it was necessary to free Arthur and the others as well.
"Sir," Jenkins said, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I have contacted our troops and relayed your orders for them to retreat to Constantinople."
"Good," Ash said.
"Uh, the problem is that the majority of them have simply destroyed their communication devices and any means we have of tracking them," Jenkins said. "And as for contacting your allies, sir, this person named ah, Gulliver is unavailable but we have managed to establish contact with one of Lord Wade's telephone aides. I believe that Lord Wade will be able to talk to you in about fifteen minutes or so."
A total of an hour passed however until Wade finally showed up on a large screen. He had dark crescents under his eyes and looked ever more tired than Ash felt. But he smiled on seeing Ash though.
"Oh, good to see that they were not lying," Wade said. "I see that you are well, Ash, good to know."
Ash explained to Wade what had happened.
"You did it? You really beat Selena?" Wade asked incredulously.
"Yeah, she challenged me and I had a lot of help," Ash said. "But it was pretty close anyway. Now, what I need you to do is relay all this info to Gulliver and the others. I'm guessing that they've smashed most of their communication devices so it might be hard to get to them, but try sending the message by old-fashioned means. I don't want them to worry too much."
"It'll be done," Wade said.
"Wade," Ash said. "The whole agreement you had is over… right? So can you tell me what happened?"
"I should start at the beginning then," Wade said. "Though the story is so complex I really do not where to begin… all right then, let us start with the very beginning of things in the first place. Do you know the legend of how Galea came to be?"
Ash gave Wade a blank look.
"Well… um, you see, we were able to separate Galea from the rest of the world only because Galea is already technically separate from the rest of the world," Wade said.
"I don't get it," Ash said.
"As you know, Lord Arceus created the universe," Wade said. "And later on the earth, the land, the sea, etc. all came into being. But Galea was Lord Arceus' last creation. It was made separately from the rest of the universe, though of course it was still one earth- I-I actually must profess to not completely understand this bit myself. One thousand arms were used by Lord Arceus to make the universe as you may know, but it is said that he grew eight extra arms to make Galea. And that is why some statues show him with a thousand arms and others with a thousand and eight- but there is another reason for that. Lord Arceus created each of the segments of Galea separately. Now, there are various versions on what happened next depending on who you believe, but the one that I was always taught is that Lord Arceus created each part of Galea on a separate day. And when He was finished on the last day, he was imprisoned by people somehow… I do not know why they did so- some people say they feared Lord Arceus, or that they wanted his power. But regardless of the why- after imprisoning Him, they tore off eight of his arms. And those eight arms fell to the ground and transformed into small, bright, shining, stones. One of which I am wearing right now."
A cold drop of sweat slid down Ash's neck as the implications of what Wade was saying hit him. "You mean to say that the Badges…. that they…"
Wade nodded. "Where did you think they get their powers from? The Badges are -each and every single one of them- arms of Lord Arceus which were brutally separated from Him by the people of Galea."
A feeling of revulsion immediately came over Ash as he glanced over at his own Badges.
A/N: Thanks for reading everyone!
