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Ballonlea Stadium
Some lies are easier to believe than the truth.
-Emrett Dialogues, compiled works
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Henry Sword walked into a small anteroom before the arena entrance, where an old crone awaited him. At the end of a vaulted hall, in the half-light of the suspensor lamp, Henry could see Opal's thin shape only a few strides ahead of him. She was a witch's incarnate-white hair like balled spiderwebs, eyes glittering like jewels, an umbrella covered in psychedelic imagery in her gnarled claw.
"It's you, Henry Sword," Opal wheezed. "You've got just as far as I expected you would, you sly little rascal! But slyness is something you will need in this Challenge! You are lacking in the color pink...and I have some questions for you?"
Henry's fists clenched "What kind of questions?"
"Simple things, boy!" Opal said, a predatory look filling her features. "I have observed you in battle, lad. But the battle is merely one axis of the test. I hope that you have been taught the ways of observing. I see the signs of Magnolia's teaching in you! My test is crisis and observation. I hope you will pass well: but hope clouds observation."
"Let's get on with it, then."
Opal thrummed her hands on her cane and then asked the first question. "Why did the Galarian people ban thinking machines?"
Simple. "To set us free."
"Free, boy? Explain!"
"We realized that once Men or Pokemon turned their natural duties over to machines to set them free, that would only permit the machines or other Men with machines to enslave them. The Tercano Accords took away a crutch on the Galarian people. It forced minds to develop. Schools have been made to train human talents. Have you ever heard of Bibilographers, Miss Opal, or Rorian Commandos that can fight Pokemon unaided?"
"I have, lad. Now, for the second question. How old am I? Sixteen? Or ninety-eight?"
What game is this old witch playing?
"Eighty-eight."
Opal showed no signs of appeasement or displeasure. "Very well. For the final question...is suffering a necessary part of the condition of Men and Pokemon? What would a being that had never suffered look or act like? Would you consider them having a soul?"
"Necessary? I think not, but it exists; people need hard times to develop integrity. I cannot picture a thing without suffering but a blank imprint: a canvas devoid of the bright color of Knowledge, Emotion, and Willpower. These make the soul; a thing that has not suffered is not yet a person."
"All three make spirit!" Opal clucked. "But I think that such a view of the spirit is limited. What Arceus had intended for good, the Enemy twisted and wasted. Knowledge can be made into dark omniscience for wicked purposes. Emotion can be used to inflame the heart, even the greatest of these, which is Love. But is Love an emotion? That is a conversation for another time. Willpower is needed for wickedness. All combined can even make virtue; all the great sinners need this for their sin to be greater. What was Volo without his cunning, or Lysandre without his compassion?"
"Then what is missing?" Henry asked. "The Hisuians who made the quandary would have surely recognized this."
"They considered Wisdom to be a part of Knowledge. It is not. I would rather have you be wise than knowledgable, boy. I will tell you how you did after I battle a trainer that arrived before you...leave to the lobby."
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"What's wrong, Henry?" Marvin asked, seeing the Pokedex Holder leaving the anteroom before the arena. "What did Opal say?"
"Oh, I have to wait for another Challenger to finish. Care to join me in training now that I've got some free time?"
"Hey, Henry!"
Hop, in full Gym Challenger livery, ran over to Henry from the crowd. "Henry, you're after me, right? Did you do the test as well? My questions were...have humans reached their final state of spiritual evolution, how old Opal was, and what is the biggest waste of human potential is."
"The second question for me was also how old Opal was. I said ninety-eight."
Hop stepped back in alarm. "I said sixteen! Wait, don't you know never to ask a lady her age? Or did you just not want to be contrary? Did you think being sensitive was some kind of trick?"
"We will both know the answer soon. And you need to get ready for the battle, friend!"
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"Look at Opal's Alcremie, Woodhall," Bronze said from the executive box as Hop fought against the old witch. "That is no ordinary Pokemon. Milo's Eldegloss, Nessa's Drednaw, Kabu's Centiscorch, Allister's Gengar...well, I suppose Bea's Machamp. That hag will Gigantimax Alcremie at the first opportunity..."
"Gigantamax Alcremie fires swarms of missiles made of sheer cream," Tess computed. "Henry will have his Sirfetch'd cut through it. Although there is one outcome that I am concerned about. Opal will decrease his Pokemon's strength and endurance with a nanite swarm. She is displeased with one of his answers on the test she gave him."
Bronze watched Henry and Marvin train outside the Stadium, seeing that Sobble had evolved into a Drizzile. "Perhaps if Albans was here to train those two, they would get farther along the path of expertise...or Blue.* Unfortunate what happened to him, isn't it?"
"It is," Tess lamented. "I do wish we could have found him. As for Jake, he is otherwise occupied at this time." She gestured to the Rorian Commando that filled Jake's post in his absence. "That girl...she is committed! I still think that her chances of becoming a Commando or Templar are far too low to account for."
"Stranger things have happened," Bronze mused. "I wonder how they are doing.
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*Blue is MALE in the Legends Canon!
Stow-on-Side, private training quarters
I have gone through enough hardship to the point which I do not believe in the concept of infinite resources.
-Chairman Bronze Tercano, private journals
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Bea sat down where she had just finished her pre-training pull-ups, testing the firmness of the bar. One more day of this exclusive training, she thought. She looked around the room. He won't return for a very long while.
The idea of her trainer's departure was suddenly more real to her than ever before. She recalled a thing that he had told her once, about a skilled person being the sum of many things-the exercises, the intelligence, the deft care, the devotion, the mental endurance, the fear of Death...that unknown sum called skill, a vague summation without any sense of the actual word. And she wondered: Am I skilled?
The door across from Bea banged open and Jake Albans lurched in, carrying a handful of weapons and Poke Balls. Jake kicked the door shut with one heel. "You come to play games, I know. This will be our last training session for a very long time.."
Bea watched the man set himself in motion, veer back to the training table filled with weapons, saw the pulsesword sheathed at his side. Jake dropped his weapons on the exercise table and lied them up-the rapiers, the electrablades, the antique projectile weapons, the pellet stunners, the suspension belts. The inkvine scar across his jaw rippled as he turned, casting a smile at Bea.
"So you didn't even say good morning to me, you imp," Jake said. "What barb will you have today? Or will you put aside your usually cutting remarks and try to go at me with a weapon like a big girl?"
Bea grinned. Of all her many instructors, she liked Jake the best outside of her family karate masters. She knew the man's moods and humors, and thought of him more as a friend than a hired swordmaster.
Jake swung the pulsesword sheath and a belt of Poke Balls off his waist. "Well, if you won't talk, you won't."
"That thing couldn't fry a single combat mech or Porygon," Bea said, eyeing the pulsesword. "Do you come prepared to cut butter at training time?"
"So, it's sass for our elders today!" Jake said. "Have you forgotten what it was like when I had you sleep in beds of sand back at the Swordmaster's School back in Roria?" He drew a pulsesword, consciously passing over the Poke Balls on the table. "Then, let's fight!"
Bea's eyes went wide in mock surprise. "So! It was your wicked hand that ordered that torment! Guard yourself today master, guard yourself!" She grabbed an electrablade, cut it through the air. "Today, I'm fired up for revenge!"
She snapped up the crackling rapier, feinted fast and whipped it back up in time for a slow thrust that passed through the pulsesword's shield-guard. Jake watched the action and turned at the last moment to avoid having the blade pierce his chest. "Speed, excellent," he said. "But that is normal for a woman. And you were wide open for an underhand counter with a curved tip."
Bea stepped back, chastised. Jake lifted a Poke Ball from the table and showed Bea the training Scyther within it. "If you ever go in the field without a Pokemon of your own, those blades commanded by an enemy will let out your life's blood! You're an apt pupil, none better, but I've warned you not even in training do you let a man inside your guard with death in his hand."
"I'm sorry, Albans."
"You aren't sorry enough!"
Jake activated his pulsesword, crouched low with it outthrust in his left hand, another rapier posed high in his right. "Now I say guard yourself!" He leaped high to one side, then pressed forward with a furious attack.
Bea fell back, parrying. What's gotten into Jake? she asked herself. He isn't faking this! She moved her left hand, and dropped a dagger into her palm from its wrist sheath. "You have need for an extra blade, eh?" Jake grunted.
Around the room they fought-thrust and parry, feint and counter-feint. Bea continued to step back, but now she directed her retreat to the exercise table. If I can turn him beside the table, I'll show him a trick, Bea thought. One more step, Albans.
Jake took the step.
Bea directed a parry downward, saw Jake's pulsesword catch and embed itself in the table. Bea flung herself aside, thrust high with an electrablade and came in across Jake's neckline. She stopped the blade an inch above his jugular.
"Is this what you were talking about?" Bea said, smirking.
"Look down, girl," Jake said, panting.
Bea obeyed, and saw Jake's rapier thrust under the table's edge, almost touching Bea's midriff.
"We would have both died," Jake said. "But I'll admit that you fought well when pressed to it. And yes, the way I came at you, I would have at least drawn some of your blood. If I was trying to kill you, the Poke Ball that contains your Machamp could be opened in two-point-one seconds. But if you had fought one iota beneath your abilities, I would have scratched you a good one, given you a scar you would remember. I won't have my star pupil dying to the first Pokemon-toting tramp that comes along."
Bea sheathed her wrist blade again and leaned on the table to catch her breath. "I deserved that, Albans. But it would have angered the League if you had really hurt me. I wouldn't want you lectured or punished for my failings."
"As to that," Jake said. "It was my failing, too. And you shouldn't worry about a training scar or two. You're lucky you have so few from me...you remember the other swordmasters in Roria. They look like patchwork quilts. As for the League, old Bronze wouldn't punish me for trying to make a first-class Rorian Commando. At least I explained the fallacy behind the training/combat thing that you grew toward before I leave."
Bea nodded. Not a single woman had ever completed the Rorian Commando training, and she hoped to be the first. She looked at Jake's scar and remembered the tale that it had been put there by fighting a monster that had come through a Way-a portal to another universe, twenty years ago. Always a reminder of anomalous beings and magic, things you can never quite train for. In becoming an elite warrior she would not only protect the Association from threats in the world but also from threats outside it.
"Now, I really do have to get back to trailing Tercano around," Jake said. "You practice hand-to-hand with the training dummies, and order the Porygon to try as hard as it can! I won't have you slacking off in my absence."
"Of course not!" Bea said. "One day, I hope you will train Allister. He has some...social issues."
How bluntly she speaks her mind now! "I have experience with such people," Jake said as he gathered his weapons to leave. "I was once one of them! But we ought to go slow with Allister. Those Ghost-types have rotted his brains, and I probably would have him running for the hills after the first day..."
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Author note: Not sure why I wrote this. It just ambled onto the screen. Setup and payoff for why Bea is good at things, I guess?
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Ballonlea Stadium
Skilled people are well-trained fruit trees, full of abilities and controlled feelings grafted onto a person, waiting for someone else to come along and pick them.
-Rorian Commando axiom
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Henry entered the arena, with Opal leering at him from the midmost point. "When I asked you how old I was, you said ninety-eight, correct?"
"Yes," Henry said, giving a mirthless smile. "It's incorrect, isn't it?" Opal grinned, leathery gums parting to reveal plastic-looking teeth. "No, it's quite correct. I am ninety-eight. But still, it was a faithless response. Haven't you ever heard of a noble lie, boy? For your insensitivity to the female race, I will lower your Sirfetch'd's strength and stamina!"
An invisible nanite swarm activated, injecting a genetically-tailored cloud of toxin into Lancelot. It would be known down to the hour and minute when the effects subsided, but their effects would last for a long while until an antidote would be administered. "Now you have learned your lesson," Opal said. "My first Pokemon is Weezing! Begin!"
Another regional form that I haven't seen! Marvin thought. I guess that it is both a Poison and Fairy-type!"
Lancelot bolted ahead, prepared to use Steel Wing, but the attack was not as effective as Henry had expected. Wheezing managed to strike Lancelot with an agonizing Sludge Bomb before it was defeated by another strike. My Pokemon's attack is suffering! Curse my tendency toward honesty!
"The strength of your moves and your Type advantage pulled you through," Opal said, calling back her unconscious Pokemon. "You are lucky not to have been poisoned, either. But your poor little Pokemon is in such pain...it must be awful not to be able to fight at your whole potential for a Pokemon so proud! Togekiss, you're next!"
Henry switched Lancelot out with Steeler. He withdrew his main fighting force! Tess thought. He intends to battle Alcremie with it, I suppose. Wait, that means...!
"Double Edge!" Opal rasped.
The flinty glare returned to Henry's eyes. "Rock Slide!" The ground uprooted itself, and Togekiss fell under the rain of plaz rocks, defeated immediately. One after the other! Marvin thought. This is almost too simple...
"It truly is no wonder that you have made it this far!" Opal said. "But I cannot just let you win. I have a duty to uphold." She now stood directly across from Henry. "Now, you answered my question earlier correctly, but I still punished you. Even if you answer correctly, you can be rewarded for how you answer: just as in life. Can you use your wit to find a victory even amidst such absurdity? I'm not just testing your talent in battle-I am testing if you are human."
"What do you mean, human?" Henry said, switching out his Pokemon for Sirfetch'd again. "Last I checked, I'm not some Ditto walking around!"
"No, no, no!" Opal cried. "Think of it this way: A animal will gnaw off its own leg to escape a trap. That is a primitive sort of trick. But a human...and human would endure the pain, play dead until the hunter came to retrieve him, and then kill the hunter to remove a threat to its own kind. That kind of wit is necessary to become a true human; you must control your impulses!"
"Why go so far?"
"I am a predator, Henry Sword," Opal said. "I sort through people to improve the breeding stock. And there is a very cruel element in winning that true humans will be able to resist. Winners don't just get praise or adoration or ceremony. They still are exposed to slander, libel, misdirected inquiry, idolization, resentment, jealousy, envy, and the burden of terrible purpose."
Terrible purpose...is that what Chairman Bronze has? Or does Rose have it as well?
"If you can't take that burden on your shoulders," Opal said. "You will reject it, or ignore and fend it off, you will never be able to stand on top. Show me, Henry Sword! Are you a true human? Will you be able to go so far as to continue this challenge?"
Opal sent out Alcremie. "Gigantimax!"
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The constant fall of great men is written in too many legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it.
-excerpt from a rally by Bronze Tercano
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Alcremie was now a hundred-foot-tall pastry, reaching for the arena ceiling. "Take a barrage of hundred-calorie missiles!" Opal yelled.
Gooey bursts of subsonic batter emerged from the Alcremie's body, raining thousands of projectiles down on the arena which Sirfetch'd swiftly evaded. Opal ordered Alcremie to increase the size of its strikes, the sugary chunks edging on ever closer to Lancelot as it scrambled. "How sweetly naive, thinking that being quick will save you!" Opal cackled. "Even sweeter than Alcremie's cream!"
With a moist splat, one of Alcremie's missiles hit Lancelot, sending flying cream spraying into the protective ray shields around the bleachers. Lancelot emerged, its pride wounded and dripping with batter. "No matter how fast you scurry, little ant, you will never escape my largest strikes!"
Henry activated his Dynamax Band, and Lancelot grew to a height that could equal the Alcremie, the batter falling in short streams off its body as it grew. "That's what I like to see!" Opal said. "Don't try to get through just based on superficially human wit...go at things with Ambition! This will be a fight worthy of my departure, indeed, indeed..."
Departure?
Opal gestured to a flying Rotom drone. "You there, Drone Rotom! Come here for a moment..."
The fused Pokemon extended a speakerpatch to Opal, who then made her announcement.
"I, Opal, Ballonlea City's Gym Leader, am thinking about retiring after this League Tournament! I will quit all this business about battles and philosophical nonsense and go back to being a normal girl in my reclining years!"
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Bronze blinked. "That is most unexpected. Now I have to find another Gym Leader for Ballonlea! Who, at this time?"
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"Max Steel Spike!"
The cruel barbs burst out of the plaz floor and cut into Alcremie's soft body, the displaced batter quickly reforming. Very effective...Marvin thought. But it lacks the power to finish this match with Lancelot's power reduced! Alcremie is still unfazed!
"G-Max Finale, again!" Opal commanded. The sugary pellets hit Lancelot again and again, and with their unpredictable lines of fire, the noble shield and blade of the Pokemon could only block about half of them. Alcremie is healing itself whenever it uses that move! The base attack must be...Draining Kiss.
"Max Knuckle!"
The tachyon-based attack hit Alcremie, hardly fazing it. "Trying to recover your attack power over worrying over how powerful the move actually is?" Opal laughed. "You are desperate! Why bother, young human? You have two more Pokemon! My defeat is as sure as the rising of the sun! Or do you want to prove that you can get through this battle alone? Please, attack! I have other challengers waiting, you know."
She is trying to bait me. "Lancelot, show them what you learned."
Opal ordered the final attack. "G-Max Finale!"
Lancelot raised its sword and shield in a final stand against the ceaseless barrage. Now, it no longer saw them as attacks on itself to be blocked. They were daggers of terror in the hands of a great enemy, one who would seek to destroy the races of Men and Pokemon. Now, channel that drive! Use it!
Not a single attack hit Lancelot in the flurry of parries.
"You memorized the missile paths after the second attack to know when and where to counter?" Opal mused, addressing the Dynamaxed Lancelot. "Impressive. You are a worthy follower of this young human..."
Alcremie shrunk, the Galar Particles having expended their charge. After another Steel Spike attack, the battle was over. "Alcremie is unable to battle! Challenger Henry Sword wins!"
"Curious..." Opal said, eyeing her defeated Pokemon. "I understand that Alcremie was down to its normal levels of strength, but it likely would not have been defeated in one blow! Is your Sirfetch'd holding onto something?"
Opal noticed a dark band tied around Sirfetch's leek hilt: an Expert Belt. "That is one way to increase its power..." Opal said, her eyes narrowing. "Those rules, saying that challengers don't have to announce their items before the battle...damn them! Unfortunately..."
"...you fail, Henry Sword."
Henry was about to object until Opal conceded the match by sending back her Pokemon. "Oh, it's just a matter of my tastes. Don't mind what I said, you passed the Gym Battle. Good work, young human. I hope you live."
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Most Men go through their lives unchallenged, except at the final moment.
-Emrett Dialogues, compiled works
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Bede was released from civil custody by the Macro Cosmos mercenaries and sent out the doors of the Power Plant. Putting the letter entrusted to him by Opal in his pocket as a rumpled mess, Bede considered his options: lawlessness, Opal's invitation, private custody, running to Chairman Bronze, or suicide. All were not favorable.
Rumble.
A sound came from deep within the Earth.
Rumble.
"It's coming from the Energy Plant!"