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Castelia City, two days later
Often, the greater our ignorance about something, the greater our resistance to change.
Emrett Dialogues, compiled works
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Steven Stone measured the minutes it took to walk all the way to the two thrones in the open-air keep. You had time to be cowed by the looming combat mechs, time to be stared down by the bulkhead guns of the ballista frigates. Any tendency toward resentment would be squeezed out of you by the sheer power that focused on your person.
You might start the long march with dignity, but by the end, you were nothing but a gnat.
Cypress and Emrett had surely intended for this in selecting their headquarters. Around the two thrones of wrought iron, there were various attendants and robots, but not a single Pokemon. Clones, some of them. Steven marked out Ghetsis and Colress, and other men in Team Eclipse livery with sheathed electrablades at their waists and lasbeam blasters in their hands. The flickering of a ray shield marked the space around the two thrones that was protected.
The combat mechs behind Steven stopped, and he halted as well. He saw others around him: Juniper, still looking youthful after that damnable life extension treatment; a few skittish dignitaries from Kalos and Unova; several captured Association diplomats, and a single Galarian-looking man in the faded remains of a Dojo uniform.
The last one had come from the Isle of Armor, no doubt. But how?
"Greetings, my friends," Cypress boomed, covered in the finery of state robes, a golden scepter in his hand that he must have taken from a museum somewhere. "I will not tarry. The world is under the control of the New Eclipse Alliance, and you are the instruments I will use to rebuild it. You have been captured and are now prisoners of war."
"You're Jonathan Cypress, and his lackey Emrett," Steven growled, feeling hope leave him. "We can't help you. You have control of the world. It's over."
"You lie," Emrett hissed. "Our rule is not secure. The Association fleet remains at Galar, and we do not have enough frigates to match them, at least without ray shields or Pokemon. The people remain rebellious, and Tercano will try to defeat us with the power of the spiritual realm. We must not underestimate him. That is why I am requesting that you, Steven Stone, commission all intact Devon Corporation factories to begin immediate production of combat mechs, of the same model you see around you. Also, we require fuel refineries to be put online again. These ships cannot run forever."
"Now?" Steven sputtered. "To do so would take months of planning and work! I would need new specs, new molds-"
"We will wait," Cypress interjected. "If it can be done, it will be done. Surely you don't want us to hook you up to a T-Probe?"
"Those were just Jihad propaganda!"
"Find out," Emrett said. "We have some...interesting things that we brought from our laboratory. Thousands of clones are being generated and filled with beneficial ego-memories. These soldiers, Ghetsis, and Colress were proof of concept. We erased some of their more troublesome memories with a T-Probe, just as we might do to you. Our rule must be secure for the New Eclipse Order."
"I don't understand," Juniper said. "The original Eclipse Alliance was formed in order to create a new universe, one where Pokemon would be free of their instincts and humans severed from limiting moral boundaries. You aren't consistent! Why the brute force? Why the disdain for what Pokemon you hurt and kill? What is this supposed to be?"
"Our priorities have changed, my lady," Cypress said. "In ego-space, we ruminated on our failure. No doubt that our true souls are rotting in Heol, but we have come back with new insight into the nature of our rule. You miss the fact that this is a spiritual thing. Under Eternatus, we are three: the Father, Son, and Spirit. Some would call us the Dark Lord, the Anti-Arceus, and the False Prophet. We are the Unholy Trinity."
"And now I tell you why we no longer adhere to our previous beliefs: they were no longer applicable. Arceus will not allow a new creation to be made. Eternatus is wiser than his fallen master, the Mbelekoro that we served in the past. We must only control the world. We now seek power only for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the tyrannies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites."
"Slavery is freedom," Emrett chortled. "This is a thing that we must enforce among the masses. We will not kill them all, of course. Eternatus will find the best and most submissive members of the race and breed them like cattle. From then we will have control over all bloodlines. Eventually, humanity will be annihilated and replaced by machines alone, with us at the apex of the pecking order in cybernetic bodies, ready to take our legions to spread the Darkness over other universes."
"You can't do this!" Steven cried. "Something will always stop you in the end. You don't have control over matter! What about entropy?"
"We control matter because we control the mind," Cypress said. "How does one man assert power over the over? By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred."
Steven found himself lost in the horror of what this man was saying. The human race would not be annihilated in a sudden cataclysm before the creation of a new world. It would be enslaved, and then gradually made into a mockery and destroyed under the iron boot of the Dark Lord.
"Yes, I can see it now," Emrett breathed. "In our world, there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy: everything. Eternatus tells us this. In the future, there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes milk from a Miltank. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a trainer license. We shall abolish the orgasm. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward us. There will be no love, except the love of the Dark Lord. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need for science."
Steven found that he wished to melt into the ground and disappear, but could not. "What of Pokemon?" he breathed. "What will you do to them?"
"Oh, terrible, terrible things, I'm sure," Cypress said, as if bored. "All our old talk about opposition to Pokemon battles and harm against the sorry creatures was merely a way to get people on board with our schemes. You cannot seriously believe that I and Emrett were sincere about anything we said." He laughed. "Pokemon are nothing to me. They are a shallow reflection of the greatness of Man. They shall provide grunt labor that Man or Robot-kind cannot do, and then will be summarily annihilated, every last foul breed. Can you imagine the beauty of it?"
"I don't care!" Juniper spat. "In the end, we'll beat you like last time. Sooner or later people and Pokemon will come together and tear you to pieces. I know that you'll fail! There is something in the universe, I don't know, some kind of spirit, some principle, that you will never overcome."
"Do you believe in Arceus as God, Juniper?" Emrett asked, amused.
"Not really."
"Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?"
"I don't know. The bond between humans and Pokemon. The spirit of Man."
"And do you consider yourself a human?"
"Yes."
"Then you are alone. You are outside history; you are non-existent. You are the last fighter, the final guardian of the human soul. We have the Dark Powers on our side. Without the White Fire, you are nothing, woman. Call to Arceus! He won't save you!"
Emrett lifted a finger, and a robot activated as if by thought, and launched a jet of fire from an arm at Juniper. She screamed, and then exploded in a mess of charred flesh. Mercifully quick.
"Now you see that your fight is hopeless, that Pokemon will not help you, that Arceus is absent, that Tercano has no power to defeat us, even if he does manage to put up a good show of flea-bites in the military conflict that is sure to come. Steven, I hope you will take my orders into consideration."
Cypress addressed the man in the Dojo uniform. "Eternatus tells me that Avery is your name. We did not capture you; rather, you came to Castelia of your own accord. Speak of why."
"I knew you would be here," Avery breathed. "I have been endowed with certain powers of mind and body. Although I do not possess the desired trait of telepathic thought-trans, my abilities will be valuable to the New Eclipse Order."
"Explain your function as an asset," Emrett asked.
Avery then spoke of how he had been looked down upon his whole life for his inferior physical abilities, shunned by his family, and subject to mistreatment and humiliation at the Training Dojo. Now that Henry Sword had received Kubfu, his hopes had been dashed. Avery offered his undying fealty to Eternatus and the New Eclipse Order in exchange for the prospect of being put into a robot body to live forever.
"You would be an effective weapon on the front of psychic warfare with Tessa Woodhall and her Bibliographers," Cypress said. "Such a procedure of implanting your brain into a canister to be connected to a robotic body would be risky, but perhaps we can do so with dark science, thoughtrode implants, and other secrets and marvels of biochemistry that Eternatus knows of. Avery, you are promoted to the rank of Admin in the New Eclipse Order."
"Thank you, my lord," Avery said, bowing. "But how can you trust me? Are you not worried that I would betray you?"
"Not in the slightest," Emrett said. "My truthsense tells me that you speak no lie. Eternatus would warn us if you plotted over time. For assurance, once we implant you into a robotic body, we will put a failsafe trigger into your neural chemistry: if one of us does not give a specialized signal to your brain canister once a year, you will be terminated."
"Thank you, my lord."
Cypress laughed, descending from his throne and discarding his robe. "I have business in the Crown Tundra, Emrett. Oversee the reconstruction efforts."
"Where will you go, friend?"
Not master, or lord, Steven thought as he was escorted away by Cypress's security bots. Friend. The old dichotomy of Cypress ordering Emrett around has been discarded. The Eclipse Lord is too much the mastermind not to notice that slip.
"This is a battle of three fronts, Emrett," Cypress said, walking away to a shuttle parked by the remains of a building. "We have the advantage in the military aspect of things. Avery will be a great boon in the psychic battlefield against the Bibliographers; our clones will help us in this as well. On the spiritual front, we have a foothold against the light spirits: our demons are rallying under a new Dark Lord. But our foes have Mewtwo and the Swords of Justice; soon the Two Princes might be found. Old alliances must be renewed. I head for the Dyna Tree to summon the Three."
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Crown Tundra
Like minds do not always blend. They can be an explosive mixture.
-the Rorian Whip, second revision
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The expedition party was a curious bunch.
Bronze had deigned that Henry and Casey should come with him, with Moon, Jake, and Tess following behind. Pearl had been recruited by Peony, who had also brought his daughter along. Bede and the other Gym Challengers thought that they might be able to provide valuable information, while Leon and Raihan would aid with their battling skills in the event that things went ill.
The others were doing all they could to keep civilization intact. Bibliographers were pouring in from Roria to aid in the war effort, while a fresh battalion of Swordmasters had been summoned. Many Pokedex Holders were appealing to terrified crowds to stand and fight, and Green was leading small assaults on machine-occupied cities over the world. Emerald was conveying a meeting with the Priesthood in Wyndon, brought there by Lusamine's spacefolder craft. Some of Tess's friends from outside the universe were conspiring to send an emergency weapons package to the defenders, full of advanced and magical technology.
More frigates were coming from Roria, and assembling into a larger fleet. The Vengeance Fleet.
But it would all be for nothing unless they found the Two Princes.
"We're about two kilometers into the Path to the Peak," Peony said, standing on the edge of a frozen hill, atop his Copperajah. "We've got about nine more to go until we reach the Crown Shrine."
"We know that something's going on over there," Pearl grumbled, sitting on Bronze's Steelix. "If Lusamine said that she can't fold space to get there due to some kind of 'net.' We're standing on packed, hardly navigable snow, while winds full of icy shrapnel blow at three hundred kilometers an hour above us! I can't believe that people live out here in the wastes. Bronze, haven't you been down here before?"
"Never. I have had no business here." Bronze said. "And I see why. The wastes swallow up all life except for the hardiest breeds of Pokemon. We can't even navigate with speeders or transports in the flux winds!"
"It would have taken us weeks to get here without our Pokemon," Hop said. "Even though everything is falling apart, at least we still have time to see the Frosmoth. What immaculate wings!"
"I couldn't care less about Frosmoth at a time like this!" Jake snarled. "What I'm concerned with is if Mewtwo will be able to live up to its promise to bring Latios and Latias into the war. And your older brother gives me the shivers, Hop! It's as if he's got two minds in one head."
It was true. Leon and Raihan seemed to be possessed. They would look at something, turn away, and then look at it again as if they had never seen it before. Sometimes they would glance at a piece of technology with wonder, and then turn away, dispassionate. Both spoke with peculiar accents and used an archaic manner of speech, foreign even to Bronze. An ego-memory had taken both of them, but not wholly.
"Verily, the world has changed much in my absence from errantry," Ego-Adaman said through Raihan's mouth, resting on his Flygon. "But I deem this a good thing, for weapons come with other machines, and valor first needs strength, and then a blade. Long in the past have I wandered by roads forgotten, seeking the strange and uncouth, of which many have heard, but few knew where they lay. Even now that I return from the grave, a mere memory, I see that the strength of Hisui has not been fully diminished." He glanced at Moon. "You have the blood of the Men of the North-kingdom in your veins, unsullied by those of lesser broods."
"But those 'lesser broods' do more than the Men of Hisui in these times," Tess said from one of Steelix's links. "You are not one to lecture us, Adaman. You killed yourself by casting your body off the Heavensward Lookout in despair."
"This is false. I let myself fall upon my own blade," Ego-Adaman said. "I see that legend had changed the tale of my death. No, I set the pommel of my blade in the ground, and said aloud after I had sent my Pokemon into the wild, 'Hail, Mormakil, Iron of Death! Thou alone now remains with me! But what lord or loyalty doest thou know, save the hand that wieldeth thee? From no blood will thou shrink! Wilt thou take Adaman? Wilt thou slay me swiftly?'"
"And you expected an answer?" Leon said while on his Charizard, speaking without Rei's influence. "Did you think your sword would talk to you?"
"It was a blessed blade, forged by the smith-lords of the Diamond Clan before ever a ship went for Logaria," Ego-Adaman said. "And I do not lie when I say that in a cold voice the blade rang in answer: 'Yea, I will drink thy blood, that may I forget the blood of all those ye hath slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly.' And then I cast myself on the point of the sword, and the black blade took my life; there my memory ends."
"When we found his body," Ego-Rei said, taking over Leon's consciousness. "We buried it atop the Heavensward Lookout, in a high mound where he had fallen, and the shards of his blade were set beside him. And then the Hisuians carved in the runes of Hisui: 'ADAMAN BORAMBER DAGNIR MORMAKIL,' Adaman, Master of Fate, Bearer of Mormakil.' And we called his tomb Talbor, the Stone of the Hapless."
Ego-Adaman looked to the head of the Steelix, and saw Bronze there with Moon. "That is a great one. I would follow him as a brother, captain, or king. He is the one named Bronze Tercano, is he not?"
Without receiving an answer, Ego-Adaman cried out. "Hail, Bronze Tercano! Greetings from past years and lands. I, Adaman, ask for an audience."
Bronze turned. "Well met. But I now wish to be alone with my wife and think about the coming battle, which I hope that you will also have a share in."
"I know why you seek solitude," Ego-Adaman said, ignoring Bronze's wish. "You suffer; I see it even though I have only seen you for an instant. Are you sure that you do not suffer needlessly? There are other ways to heal your torment that the path you have set before you. I know of ways to escape this world."
"Your words would seem good, but for the warning of my heart," Bronze said, wary. "I will not leave, not yet. A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a shortcut to meet it. I will not walk backward in life, not since the Voice of the Original One has come to me."
"Then you know of what method I speak," Ego-Adaman said.
"I do. Yet I see no way to find it. For now, it is best that it stay hidden."
"As you wish," Ego-Adaman said, letting Raihan return to consciousness.
This one is garrulous, but deep, Bronze thought. The Hisuian mindset. What I worry about is this cult the others have told me about. I thought that I had eradicated them all, but now another one is learned of, at this time? Why do I suspect treachery?
"I hate fighting," Casey presently said. "I know that Pokemon battles are fine, but that was just play-war. Now people are really dying, and there isn't anything I can do."
"Everyone is afraid before a battle," Pearl said. "War must be, though, while we defend our lives against evil. But we shouldn't love the bright sword for its sharpness, or the battle for its blood, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the glory of a warrior. We should love only what they defend. I defend my son because I love him. That is why I sent him to Wyndon. Don't be afraid, not now. In this hour, with friends near and danger far, I do not think that any evil will endure."
Praise from the praise-worthy is beyond all rewards, Leon thought. "We can only come to the morning through darkness."
Moon slid down Steelix's links, seeing that an open vale was nearing ahead, with a large snow flat at the far end, only visible through paragoggles. "We'll be entering another nest of peril soon. And Casey, there are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep. Terrible purpose is one of these things. Some people call being a Pokdex Holder a gift. It's an affliction. It sets out the path of your life for you, and there's nothing else that can be done to stop it but ride with the river of predestination."
"If you know that this happens to Pokedex Holders," Henry said, raising his voice. "Then why did your husband let Magnolia give us Pokedexes? Tell me!"
"We were overconfident," Moon replied. "We thought our enemies vanquished forever and evil routed. But we did not look for what was to come. I am so, so, terribly sorry. There is no comfort about our mistakes that I can give you, for no comfort exists to stay such pain in the Circles of the World. Soon a choice will come for me, my husband, and all Pokedex Holders...but not now. Not now."
"Together we'll take the road that leads from the West,"
"And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest."
"Oh! That was poetry!" Marnie said. "Are you going to start something so close to the end of this journey?"
"Well, I like it," Peonia said. "And anyway, I'm sitting on the back of a Steelix, covered in thermigear, talking with Pokedex Holders, the Chairman of the Pokemon Association, the Champion, a Gym Leader, a human-computer, a Swordmaster, my dad, and two people from the past. The world has ended, and we're looking for a shield that may be in the hands of a devil-worshipping cult. Things can't get any stranger."
"Experience dictates that they can," Jake said.
"There is a very high chance of things becoming stranger," Tess added.
"It might become a stranger world as we speak," Bede said. "We've arrived."
Steelix halted the end of the great valley. There was a stronghold there, a ruined castle with shattered panes of glass dotting its length. A great tree, dead and frosted, stood before its entrance. It was ruined, but there was an incalculable air of habitation about it that made Bronze analyze his surroundings with additional scrutiny.
"And here we are!" Peony said. "Tread carefully. We don't know what to expect here."