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Author note: How Yellow started:
A cheerful, naive, and loving girl with strange powers that defeated many villains and has an incredible love for Pokemon.
How Yellow is doing:
A crazy witch in the middle of nowhere with schizophrenia. :(
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Viridian Forest
We can learn much from those who came before us. The most valuable legacy our predecessors can leave us is the knowledge of how to avoid the same deadly mistakes.
-Chairman Bronze Tercano, private journals
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The robed secondary walked with a Gothitelle at his right, a small watcheye scouting out the dense growths. A holographic image of Chairman Bronze Tercano accompanied the small party, projected out of the watcheye's ocular receptor. Although only seldom by nature's changing course did the Grand Bashar wish for counsel in faraway Viridian, now he felt that his need was great.
Through the secondary's psychic navigation, the group penetrated all of Viridian Forest's spells of bewilderment and confusion. Such measures were necessary for those who wished to hold an audience with the Wise-woman of Viridian Forest. I still will never understand what madness drove her here!
"We are close, sir," the secondary said. "I can sense her presence...and what an aura! Is it true that she used to be a Pokedex Holder, and that you knew her?"
"I do not deny it," Bronze said, the watcheye transmitting his words for him as the semi-translucent micropixels in his body moved forward into the foliage. "I met her once, but now she has gone beyond my help. She wished this, and I must let her remain in Viridian. This forest is protected by a power older than most that still remain in the world; it is a place for things that wish to remain unchanged and undisturbed as they live and stay stagnant. She will live longer than my Moon, the most adept Psychic, and even our great-great-grandchildren. Such is her curse and blessing."
The woods opened into a fair, sunlit lawn, with a small pond in the middle and a thatch hut beside it. In contrast to the smart uniform of the psychic secondary and the advanced technology of the watcheye, the clearing was a reminder of times almost forgotten. Of Elder Days, the secondary thought. The blessing of Viridian Forest around this woman has kept her only a millimeter over womanhood for over fifty-two years, and she is unlikely to age any more for a long while.
Many Pokemon native to Viridian slept all about in the grass, and the secondary felt as though he heard a singing coming from over the forest and tickling his ears with its melody. It was a hidden place so green and fair and wrapped with inscrutable secrets that it was a wonder that the Gothitelle did not go mad from the piercing aura.
Sitting cross-legged in the open hut was a young woman, thin, blonde as summer wheat, and with eyes covered in the darkness within the dwelling, set so far apart from the warm realm outside her home. She wore a traditional linen robe, and her hair was braided in many locks with reed strings. She held her head in a stiff-necked rigidity that did not befit her seeming youth, and a Raticate ambled about her feet, chittering nervously at the presence of the new arrivals.
"For what purpose might I aid you?"
When she spoke, her voice conveyed crackling penetration, a compelling force that demanded a response from deep within you. At that moment the secondary realized that she was older than she appeared, far, far older. What Pokedex Holder could have become such a witch?
"Yellow of Viridian Forest," Bronze said. "I have had strange dreams as of late, and this Gothitelle has much to interpret. We await your answer, Wise-woman."
Yellow started chanting in a voice that had surely once commanded many Pokemon, and pointed her thin hand at the watcheye. "I have seen! I have seen your doom, Bronze Tercano! Abandon certainty! That is life's greatest command. That is what survival is about! You think you will succeed in your endeavors, but in the end, your empire will be covered in dust! Dust will cover you!"
Lifting her chin, Yellow began to shout, eyes glimmering golden. "I mean to disturb you, old companion! The Typhoon Struggle fast approaches. Har Meggedon! Ragna Rok! Dagor Dagorath! The Last Battle! I will tell you both myth and dream, thought of Pokemon and thought of Men! I am a prophet in these times. I am the physician that delivers a child and announces that it has been born. As such, I am the mortician who pronounces a person as dead. Does this not \frighten you, Tercano? It should shake your soul!"
With a cry, Yellow lept to her feet and grasped the Gothitelle's head with both hands. A soft light filled the air, and then Yellow fell back into a sitting position, new wisdom in her eyes.
"Now I truly mean to disturb you!" Yellow shouted. "Gothitelle sees nothing but ashes! Ashes, and a new dark lord that we thought we had done away with! You citizens in your homes, you are chaplains to the self-satisfied! This mediocrity, inertia, and self-destruction will be the death of you! What government is real if it carries no risk with it? What power is real if it has fear, Tercano?"
Tears were now in Yellow's eyes. "You risked everything! We risked everything! All of us paid the price! And look at the world that we have protected again and again: a civilization that tries to do away with us! Bronze Tercano, your final defeat is at hand! Doom, doom, doom, and dust! This I see: absolute prediction is certainty. Certainty is death!"
Bronze felt a terrible dagger of fear enter his heart, but Yellow continued, now raising her arms in benediction. "I have messages for many people! The first is for you, Bronze Tercano! Hear this and be warned: You, who hold the salvation of Man in your power, have sold your Ambition for an empty purse in the position of Chairman! Turn back from your apostate ways and remember your Ideals!"
The Bashar's vision flashed red. How dare she!
"My second message," Yellow continued, "is for Tessa Woodhall, the Bibliographer, who believes that she can translate the power of the nature of the world into the language of Men! This is my warning: Do not follow a strict code of rules, a dangerous creation. It will turn upon you and drive you into the Grave! You cannot predict what I see with your incomplete set of data. No Pokemon can, not even a Gothitelle."
Yellow's voice dropped to a rambling murmur. "How can I express the inexpressible? I used to be able to fight, to run, to battle. Now I cannot do much but sit and say the word of Arceus. Chaos! No consistency without help! I seek absolute prediction and the reading of Pokemon's mind, but this causes more disorder."
Her voice rose again. "My third message is for Chairman Rose of Macro Cosmos! Rose, hear my words upon the wind! Humiliation and defeat together is a thing that no person can forget or recover from! Flee and run to the shadows with no evil purpose while there is still time!"
What is she saying? Bronze wondered. Is she talking about Rose's eventual defeat at our hands? And how does she know all this?
"My fourth message is for Henry Sword!" she cried. "Henry! You were taught to believe that loyalty buys loyalty! Ohh, Henry, do not believe this, for it does not account for bribery by whatever may pass for currency! Henry! Take your blades and do what best you may do in these dark times! Holiness has been replaced by perdition in this world! The Tree of Darkness still grows! A dark lord will rise again, and he was only less evil than the one that came before him in that he served another and not himself! Woe, woe, woe!"
"What of my dreams?" Bronze asked.
"You saw a fortress and a serpent that did twist and burn with heat," Yellow said, bowing her head as if in prayer. "That fortress, that ancient bastion, is your empire, Bronze Tercano! It will be shattered, not wholly destroyed at first, but will burn into debris if the Dread Enemy to come rises to victory. That serpent is the Dread Enemy, and the two horns atop its head are two men that are both dead and have suffered mortal wounds; they will seem to be healed, and the whole world will wonder and some will follow the serpent. Ai! Ai! Pokemon have not a place in their minds! Blessed be the Firstborn! Gloria! Aglar na Arceus!"
Yellow then threw her head back and gave a final cry. "Thus it is said! Those that wish for the coming of spring dew will bring a deluge that shall drown them, and he that is the Deceiver will rise in a form returned. The heretics shall not escape their doom by the powers of science or reason! I warn the worldly-wise! The fire on the cliff shall burn them as it spreads. They who have learned the lessons of self-deception will fall to that own deception. The blood of an innocent can not be easily cleansed away! This is my word. Let no mouth open to gainsay it."
The Wise-woman fell in a dead faint. Her powers still tire her, Bronze thought. And what powers they are! She has learned a little foresight as well as the reading of the minds of Pokemon and healing. But she possesses not the Secret Fire that can be used to encipher the universe...her words of doom might yet be averted!
But as Bronze deactivated the hologram and looked among the assembly gathered at the Wyndon outpost, his face was dark with fear.
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Galarian Wild
It is highly dishonorable to fight a challenger half-heartedly.
-Gym Leader axiom
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"Is something wrong, Sword?"
Henry broke out of his deep repose, leaning over the moving Magnolia RV's table, careful not to knock over the teacup before him. "Oh, I was just thinking about Bede. I feel sorry about what happened to him; I never hated him, after all."
"His fate is just," Magnolia said, leaving the automatic wheel for a time. She had no issue with using standard nonsentient models to drive without her behind the windshield. "Bede has misused his authority as a trainer endorsed by the Chairman of Macro Cosmos to spout abuse and unfounded slander, and he even attacked you out of spite. Even if he had not destroyed the ruins, I am afraid that the most likely scenario is that he would continue to sin and sin until some other crime ousted him from the Challenge. Even Rose does not want him continuing to aid his mission to gather Wishing Stars."
"I don't know about that," Henry said. "Chairman Rose gave him a Pokemon and an agenda in the first place. Does this not make him somewhat culpable for Bede's actions? Why did Bronze not see that? I would guess that Rose is the one who inflamed Bede's heart with lies or half-truths."
Chairman Tercano was rather compliant with the entire ordeal, Magnolia thought. Why wouldn't he try to find some esoteric loophole somewhere to take down Rose, a man who he seems to detest? Or has he already found an easier way to do this?
"Judging from Rose's words," Casey said. "Bede was an orphan. By some chance, Rose was reminded of himself when he was younger when he met Bede. A least he was given a chance for a brighter future in the League or under Rose's stewardship...but he seemed to take that chance away from him unbelievably quickly! Why wouldn't Rose litigate in Bede's favor?"
"Rose said that gathering the Wishing Stars was a way to protect Galar's future," Henry said. "Everything about it in the current era and far into the unknown reaches of time. But Rose said that Bede had no love for Galar, and he was unfit to protect it! What gives Rose such authority to deal out judgment and death?"
"You are awfully harsh on Chairman Rose," Magnolia said. "Chairman Bronze shares many of his characteristics, but you do not seem to examine his flaws with the same scrutiny that you do to Rose."
Henry sighed. "He is charismatic, an impeccable orator who speaks the Kantoian language far more eloquently than I do; he also says many good things and lives up to his promises. But he strikes me as the kind of man that does what he pleases out of the public eye."
"The same could be said for Chairman Bronze."
"Chairman Bronze is a different sort of case altogether. The Rorian people love him; they have put all their faith in him. What else but religious fervor could motivate volunteers to become Rorian Commandos? It's a cult, Magnolia! People pray to the Grand Bashar with Arceus, they include him in their pleas, they bless buildings in his name, they make love after entreating on his title! That kind of power tends to isolate those who hold it, and they lose touch with reality and lose sight of their original objectives. That has not happened to Chairman Bronze. He is a hero of the past; a Pokedex Holder. While commanding a blind devotion through the strength of his personality, he hates his own authority, he hates being seen as some damnable godhead. Rose would love that sort of thing."
"But Rose has done many good things, and he is indeed sincere in his love for Galar," Magnolia replied. "When he was involved in the development of the Dynamax Band, he often said to me that he would do anything to protect Galar and the world: no matter how bizarre or risky. Macro Cosmos does support Galar, so it is hard to believe that all that Rose says is talk. I do think that he might have gone wrong in assuming that Bede would act similar to him, despite their common backgrounds."
"Yes, how would Bede even know what was expected?" Marvin asked, having played no part in the counsel until then. "I sort of pity Bede...but I don't feel too sorry for him getting what he deserved. Will we ever know why Rose turned on his student so quickly? There are problems and questions that have no answers. None. Nothing can be done."
Magnolia's Sinistea and Polteageist jumped onto the table and refilled everyone's empty cups, and it occurred to Marvin that he never had heard the story behind the elderly professor catching her Pokemon. "Professor, when exactly did you capture those two?"
"Oh, it was a long while ago," Magnolia said. "I was driving around with Opal, and you won't believe what I did. The autonavigation was off, so I happened to crash right around this area by ramming into a sharp curve! Silly old me. While the autonav was getting us back on the road, I just found both those Pokemon in the kitchen sink! I kept them around, and here we are today."
A lens atop the RV's plasma television flashed, and a larger-than-life holographic image of Tessa Woodhall filled the room. Casey spilled her tea over the plaz table in shock. "Miss Woodhall? What are you doing here? How did you gain control of our projector?"
"We can and we have," Tess said. "But listen carefully! After days of extensive calculations, both by Pokemon and machines, it has been determined that one of your missing Pokemon is likely to be somewhere in a circular radius of three-point-nine miles. I would have sent in our operatives already, but the Chaos Factor has determined that you have arrived at this place before I could even lift a finger to do anything but tell you of your good fortune."
In this, she has revealed that the Association is tracking us and has full control over our wire-connected RV, Henry thought. She must have assumed that we already knew.
"Now," the image said. "I have calculated from watcheye footage and supralogical prediction that the Pokemon is likely to be a Toxtricity. Do what you will in finding it, Pokedex Holders."
Tess then repeated the Bibiolgrapher's Creed before vanishing. "It is by Willpower alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the power of the Library that my thoughts acquire speed, our minds expand, and that expansion becomes a warning. It is by Willpower alone that I set my mind in motion."
Magnolia shut down the autonav and ordered the three out of the RV. Casey ran into the darkness of the late night, while Henry gathered a selection of Poke Balls for the hunt.
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Author note: In the comics that I am adapting, Casey finding her Pokemon is just a coincidence that happens every so often. The addition of Tess's abilities and the backing of the Association makes finding her Pokemon a lot more feasible.
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The Great Wild
There are many degrees of sight and many degrees of blindness. What senses do we lack that we cannot see another world all around us?
-Emrett Dialogues, compiled works
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Henry had been waiting for two hours, sending the Vikavolt drone to follow Casey over the wilds. No sign of Tera, Casey's lost Toxtricity, had yet been found. I must remain until the very end of this hunt!
...
Darkness encircled Casey, a cool night wind rustling through the tall ferns. There was a sadness to the silence, a growing gloom to the sheer spirit of the unknown. Even with the Vikavolt drone tailing her and several capable Pokemon by her side, Casey couldn't help but feel uneasy...
A fluttering motion! Something darted before Casey: a single Dreepy, scarred. "Are you hurt?" Casey said. "I should use a Potion on you, little guy! Seen a Toxiricity around here by any chance?"
Thrm-thrm-thrm. Thrm-thrm-thrm.
Casey heard a thumping, bass-like sound. An old bit of knowledge was recalled, the noise bringing up a multitude of embedded mental memories. It was the unmistakable vocalization of friction-fueled fire: the sound of a Toxtricity's internal organs biologically generating electricity. "Sword!" Casey yelled into her comlink. "Toxtricity don't live around these parts, right? I think I might have found Tera!"
"Good, I'll fly in the direction of the noise," Henry said. "These speakerpatches are rubbish, though. I can hardly navigate by sound, but I'll do the best I can."
Casey went about toward the noise in the dark, and her glowlight came across a standing mushroom covered in rubbery gills, growing out of a hollow by a great tree. Such massive fungi grew in Galar due to the presence of the Tachyonic Particles and gave off a soft glow when moved. Touching or consuming a part of these mushrooms could cause prescient visions or hallucinations, usually to the horror and shock of the one who ate them.
Scorbunny shook the bioluminescent fungi, and some of the spores got into Casey's nose. As a soft light filled the forest, she sneezed, once, twice, wiping at her face to clear them away.
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Then everything was gone. She had never experienced or wanted to be in the mental state she was now entering. She saw the future: a looming shape beating a war-drum on her subconscious, ancestral memories of people and Pokemon long past shouting at her until their voices diluted into an incoherent buzzing. And now she felt as though she was running...from what?
She felt the clear sights and sounds and smells of the vision burned bright in her mind. A blasted sky, pillars of smoke rising from the Earth. Boiling seas chocked with flotsam. Bodies everywhere. She was in a burrow, knowing that the killer machines would be there soon, the smell of blood and death, the cowering humans and Pokemon with her aware that they could not escape...everywhere she looked it would be the same: no escape anywhere from the rising tide of metal death, while all the time the mechanical monsters approached, nearer and nearer and nearer...louder...louder...louder!
Thrm-thrm-thrm. Thrm-thrm-thrm.
Casey screamed. The low pulsing of the approaching Toxtricity's elecro-heart had sounded like the thrumming of machine rotors and spinning durasteel blades, sharp enough to cut through even the iron hides of Pokemon. The Dreepy with her flew away in fear, but not due to its own prescient visions. A Toxtricity had leaped out of the dark, running after its smaller quarry.
Tera!
The terror of the vision faded away, and she saw what her Pokemon was doing. "It's that habit of yours! You got angry when picking on that Dreepy, but it escaped and now you feel as though you have something to prove to it!"
"Casey," Henry said. "You found Tera, alright. Command it to return to you! Also, I heard you screaming! Is everything okay?
"That won't work, Henry!" Casey said, the memory of the sudden vision fading away. "Its eyes are all glazed over and it's covered in acidic sweat! It always goes crazy whenever its own toxic sweat burns its skin! The angrier it gets, the more it sweats, and so on. It's only got tunnel vision, nothing I say will matter!"
Why hasn't Tera defeated Dreepy yet? Casey thought. It's one of the weakest Pokemon in Galar! Even though the attacks Tera is using should only be half as effective against a Ghost and Dragon-type, there still must be...
A rustle passed through the leave-covered boughs, and another being cut through the air, slashing an arc across Tera's beating electro-heart. Drakloak! The Dreepy's caretaker is capable of flying at speeds of over two hundred kilometers per hour! Tera would never calm down if this fight keeps up!
The massive mushroom dimmed, the energy-intensive cycle of bioluminescent stopping. "Henry, it's better we stay in the dark! The low light level will work in Tera's favor! Turn the lights on your drone off!"
Henry obliged, and night fell. The Drakloak turned in the dark and saw the flaming twin-peaked crest of Tera as a lit flame, and it rushed to its opponents turned back for another blow.
The Drakloak flew...
...and Tera turned and roared such a howl that the trees vibrated and shook. The Drakloak turned in terror but rammed into a great oak. It fell unconscious, and the smaller Dreepy slithered into the night.
I see! Henry thought. Drakloak perceives Tera, which causes it to attack, confident of its victory. But as the Pokemon approaches, Tera uses a counter-move. Casey must have taught it these strategies when it was just a Toxel.
Tera kicked the body of the Drakloak around for sport until Casey commanded it to stop. To her surprise, the Pokemon obliged. "Wait, now you notice me?"
"Hey...you pretended not to just so you could show off by winning alone!"
"Are you shy because you haven't seen me for a while?" Casey squealed. "Troublemaker! Acting all cool and tough, not changing a bit even in the wild!"
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Empires aren't concerned with love; it's too disordered. They prefer despotism. Too much freedom breeds chaos. We can't have that, can we? And how do you make despotism lovable?
-Emrett Dialogues, compiled works
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"The girl found another one of her Pokemon," Tess said. "Three more to go. Should we direct more of our resources into helping her?"
"No," Bronze replied. "She needs the incentive to stay in the League. I suppose we could have found them all by now...but there is a fine art of helping just enough to actually produce beneficial results and helping so much that you lose the beneficial part of a relationship. If Henry Sword and Casey Shield are eliminated, we lose our special authority under the Rorian Convention to audit the League, and by extension, Macro Cosmos."
"I wonder what would happen if they found our we were using them."
"I think they already know."