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Crown Tundra, Three-Point-Pass Outskirts

I stand here in the midst of chaos.

There is no victory to celebrate. No first day of spring. No songs to sing. Merely widows and lost children and dead Pokemon and trainers. Am I left with ashes?

Perhaps it could be considered another ordinary day.

But what it is might be old and new at once. Moon, in this ever-expanding multiverse, this vast cosmos, this world of horrors and love, (oh, that mystic force that binds the stars!) I have only three words to say at the time that we leave for hither shores.

Not yet do we depart, but these words are something more true than our despair.

I...love...you.

-Chairman Bronze Tercano, final journals

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"I have become a vegetarian."

After proclaiming his new change in sensibilities, Hop stumbled out of the shuttle and vomited again on the tundra snow. Bronze exited through the bay doors, and saw hundreds of running soldiers set up a crude perimeter around the structure of cliffs that were Three-Point-Pass. A combat ballista loomed over the natural feature, plasma cannon unveiled.

"Vegetarianism is for weaklings," Jake said, adjusting a thermal mask over his face as he entered the biting cold. "But I see why you no longer want to eat meat, young pup. That was combat with the anomalous, and certainly not the weakest I've ever seen. We survived because of your valor, our Pokemon, and perhaps the aid of Henry's Elohim. Few of the less-skilled would have come out of that battle alive."

"We should get back to Freezington and deliver the Rusted Shield," Moon said. "Why have we stopped? And if the weather is anything to count on, that ballista shouldn't have been able to get through the static-charged clouds without short-circuiting."

"I thought that we should make sure that no Nalikians escaped," Tess answered. "That is why I had us leave the shuttle. And although I no longer dwell in such things, it is my end calculation that the young ones should enjoy the explosion."

A transmission came through Bronze's comlink, giving a summary report. "Ready to fire, Grand Bashar. We came from Wyndon after your signal and found that this area had been occupied by enemies. The weather appears to have cleared up for us to get here. Permission to launch a blast into the enemy stronghold?"

"Fire away." Bronze grinned. "May Arceus give your cannon power!"

The massive underhanging gun fired with sudden violence, a jet flare the color of purple. Glaring orange light filled the tundra, bright as the shrouded sun, etching the company's shadows on the snow. In one sweeping motion, Bronze had Moon and Tess's arms in his hands, hurling them to the ground while the others did the same. They lay sprawled in the cold powder as the heat of a pseudo-atomic blast rushed over them, burning their hair.

When they sat up and brushed themselves off, Three-Point-Pass was gone. Nothing but a black crater remained.

"Thus ends the Cult of Nalikia," Tess said, and then spoke no more.

...

Soon, cheering came over Bronze's comlink, and, curiously enough, from farther away in the tundra, near a scraggly pine forest. Both the Association soldiers were celebrating, along with a contingent of southern tribesmen dressed in furs, standing with a huge Mamoswine.

"That blast seems to have attracted attention, Chairman," Peony said. "Why don't we go and meet our primitive friends?"

"I don't like the look of that Mamoswine," Pearl said. "It's feral, not like Diamond's." He glanced again at the smoldering ruins. "Bronze, do you wish for my chandler pistol? It looked like the charge in yours had been depleted."

"Keep your weapon, Pearl. You and your Pokemon are a shield for me enough."

Henry saw the way that the praise took effect, how Pearl moved closer to Bronze. Such a sure hand Tercano has with his friends.

The tribesmen had crossed the brief distance, hoods thrown back from pale faces. The furs on their robes hung in tassels, mussed and long. Leon and Raihan took up the duties of translation, taking alternating roles. It had been found that Ego-Adaman was better at conveying the subtleties of Kantoian speech into primitive Galarian, and Ego-Rei had an inverse skill.

"We had waited on the borders of the domain of our foes for a day," one of the men said. "But we were too afraid to go further. Now we see that the Nalikia are destroyed by your weapons. May the Father of the Indefinite Roads of Time, Dialga, bless you and your kin."

The tribesman looked at Bede's loose thermal gloves, and commented on them with a curious expression that Ego-Rei found difficult to translate. "You spend heat like a madman, young master! Secure your gloves."

Bede did so, red-faced from both the cold-flush and embarrassment. Peonia giggled, something that Bede found to be a cause to flush an even deeper shade of scarlet. Peony and Bronze glanced at each other, and exchanged a wordless sign of affirmation at what they both mutually knew.

"Thrice may you be blessed," Bronze said, speaking in the Rorian fashion. "The people of Aelfric's clan who pay homage to Calyrex Tor-Oyarsa will forever be friends of the Pokemon Association, the Logarian Empire, and the people of Roria for their aid. Your lands will be made safe and unspoiled and your people kept unharmed. There is much of this place that we wish to know of after we have destroyed a great threat that seeks to bring to ruin all peoples, not just us or you."

"Cayrex Tor-Oyarsa will be pleased to meet you," the tribesman said, guileless in his suggestion. "Although the Lord of Harvests has not brought green spring to this land in generations, the new rise of the Shaderider will spurn him to act. We espied it flying from the ruin of the pass only a little while ago. If you come with us to the Crown Shrine, Calyrex will greet you."

"Why did we not see Calyrex before?" Bronze asked. "Also, I have not mentioned that Davgon, one of you, was slain by the Nalikia." He showed them the Reins of Unity. "What we gave to him was not lost. I do not know of how mourning is treated among your people, but I am sad that I lost a friend to the fleshcrafters."

"It was a worthy end," the tribesman said. "I am Davgon's brother, Kalevi. No other end would have been better for him than to have guided our saviors over the wastes to the stronghold of our foes. He has returned to Arceus. Now I must talk of Calyrex. He was not there when you came, but now he is here now. It is simple as that."

"Why didn't you tell us earlier that he might have been there?"

"There was no reason to. Calyrex is his own being and if we told you when he might not do it because of that."

Another message came across Bronze's comlink, this time sent from Wyndon. It was Crystal, somehow having obtained clearance to access the warship's comchannel feeds. "Crystal?" Bronze said. "What is this? Was there another attack on Wyndon?"

"No, not from Cypress." Her voice caught in what was either a shaky pause or a failure in the hardwire signal networks to pierce the static storms that covered the Crown Tundra. "I've been trying to contact you for hours! Emerald is dead. He was killed by his own priests once he attempted to convince the assembly that you weren't Arceus's chosen prophet."

Emerald...gone! That damnable priesthood! They feared for their own power more than they feared the public outcry that would have surely arisen after the Preacher had been slain.

Pearl had a hard expression, while Moon simply shook her head. "We were speaking of good deaths just now. Was it a worthy end?"

"Yes!" Crystal said. "The people revolted. Bronze, I think Emerald tried to discredit the Priesthood. There is no longer any religious parasite attached to your name! You're free! But did you find-"

A garble of static billowed out of the comlink, startling the tribesmen and cutting off the dispatch.

"Free." Bronze considered what that word implied. It was fortunate that the Priesthood had been destroyed, but still, the only acceptable future screamed at him from every direction.

Disengage...disengage...disengage...

"And the Pokedex Holders are now one less," Jake said. "We have lost many, too many."

"We need more answers," Casey said. "Why was Henry brought to the Isle of Armor? Who brought the Rusted Sword and Shield to different locations? Where are Zacian and Zamazenta? We have to find them to have even a slim chance of annihilating Eternatus!"

She speaks of annihilation, Henry thought. This isn't the Casey I know. She was always one for mercy, but this foe in her mind does not deserve any. Eternatus is still a dark besmirchment on the moon, healing its wounds. But when will it recover?

"If you want answers, then we go to Calyrex," Marnie said. "It likely knows many things, and we might even find an ally."

"The weather seems to be permitting for speeder travel," Peony said. "That shouldn't be possible, but Arceus knows why these things happen. Kalevi, would you and your people like to travel on a shuttle?"

"We find that strange," Kalevi said. "And our Mamoswine will not fit inside. It does not have one of your shrinking balls to hold it in. Some of us will not like riding in a metal beast."

"Your storage problem can be addressed," Tess said. "And I think you will find the experience enjoyable."

"Gugui arribo," Kalevi said, which Leon translated to "the thing has been written in salt." They had agreed to come.

"Now we come one step closer to victory," Peony said. "And while we travel, Bede, there is something I want to talk about with you, relating to my daughter."

Bede stuttered, before Bronze added to Peony's thinly-veiled threat. "I will be the mediator in this case. It is impossible to reach the position that I have ascended to in life without understanding what moves men and women together. You do not want me to take Peony's side in this debate."

Peonia grinned. "I'm sure he wouldn't, sir."

"Of course," Bronze said, entering the Association shuttle, half-joking. "And wipe that smile off your face! That's an order!"

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Castelia City, Neo Eclipse Base Prime

Of pain, you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world is so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain, there are no heroes.

Emrett Dialogues, compiled works (excerpt from On Pain)

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Red awoke in sterile light, wondering if he was even Red.

There were memories...the cloning tank, the rapid growth, and whatever demonic nastiness that had soaked into his pores and given him total recollection. He could see tiny suspensor bulbs above him, his eyes uncovered. His hands were securely bonded to a surgical cart with krimskell fiber ties.

Ego-Red blinked his eyes and adjusted to the harsh brilliance of the lamps. With an odd sense of displacement, he looked around him as much as he could. The neat, durasteel-walled room was almost bare of furnishings, except for a chair, the gurney, an ominous-looking machine covered in needles and tubes, and another wicked-looking probe device with clamps attached to it.

A door slid open, and Ego-Red heard motion. Three beings came into his field of vision; one was a man that walked with pinching steps that made him look both effeminate and dangerous at once, black elven hair flowing down to his shoulders. He had the face of an inquisitor, someone who would not be moved by suffering, a single-purpose type of man that could create pain without a change in expression.

There was an evil-looking Ampharos and another man, with close-cropped blond hair set above a very bored face. Bored, bored, bored! This one clearly had other things to do, people and Pokemon to oversee. Glasses covered large amber eyes, on a head jutting out of a white laboratory coat.

Both of these men looked familiar to Ego-Red, along with the insignias on their clothes.

The thin man was clearly in charge, the official observer and torturer. What did they want with him?

"See how he holds himself, Colress?" the thin man said. "The cloning procedure was a success, along with yours. Silence will not break him. We are wasting our own time and do not have time for such childish tactics."

Colress nodded. "You are right, Lord Emrett. But I do not give the orders around here. You removed some of my own memories with this very T-Probe. I wonder what I could have learned that would have-"

"Irrelevant," Emrett said. "Now, let's get to business!"

Ego-Red remembered both men now. The amoral Team Plasma scientist, and the Eclipse sorcerer and psychological mastermind. But both were dead!

The Ampharos swung the heavy T-Probe over Red's head. He looked at the hood of the thing as they brought it over him. There was no symbol that he recognized on it.

Emrett and Colress began releasing the spindly clamps and attached them to Ego-Red's scalp. Once they finished attaching the contacts, Colress swung the probe's console into a position where Emrett could also watch the display. The probe's screen was concealed from Ego-Red.

"You may begin," Emrett said. "We aren't just erasing memories, we need to create new ones. I wonder how Tercano will react when he meets this particular clone."

Colress touched a button on the screen.

Ego-Red heard himself grunt with pain. Nothing had prepared him for this much agony. They must have turned that demon machine to maximum power for the first attempt! No question about it! Excruciating! Inescapable! Agony shivered through his entire body, threatening to blot out his consciousness. Could anything shield him from this?

The pain gradually diminished and went away, leaving only shivering memories, naked in the dark, raw and ready to be flayed.

Again!

Now he imagined his thoughts slipping away. Surely, there must be no greater pain. Every ability he had ever learned, trainer and Association-based, Bibliographer and Swordmaster, was called into play to prevent him from begging for mercy.

Once more the agony receded and surged back.

"Enough!"

That was Emrett. Ego-Red felt the pain recede, as though every nerve were being removed from his body, pulled out like the threads of remembered trauma. He could not remember anything but his training. He couldn't speak. He didn't know how to speak.

"We've got enough out," Emrett said. "Now it's time we put new information in. I've prepared the datapacket. Give him the maximum."

Colress adjusted something on the console, and pressed another button.

The burning that surged through Red told him that the previous levels had indeed been lower. With the new pain came an odd clarity. He remembered things that he had done and liked that his old self, if it had ever existed, never remembered. And then...he realized that all of that pain was happening to someone else. He accepted the sensation. He knew and was thankful.

Emrett's voice intruded. "I think we're losing him. Better see what happened."

All was stillness, profound quiet.

Am I still alive?

"Wait, he talked!" Colress said.

No, I didn't.

Ego-Red felt his past awareness being blocked off by the machine, but he understood what had happened amid the swirling of his new memories. The whole spectrum of his senses had been copied on this "T-Probe" and identified, tagged for Emrett to call up when needed.

I don't understand who I am. But I know that I love these people.

Emrett grinned. "I think our little experiment worked."

Reborn, Ego-Red looked at the faces of the people that he now remembered as his trainers and comrades...and was overwhelmed by a storm of faces that he knew were his enemies. Bronze, Green, Yellow...everyone his old ego-self thought was his friend. Now his foes were allies, and his allies his enemies. Strangely, this no longer bothered Ego-Red one bit.

"Look!"

The three sets of eyes stared back at Ego-Red, two humans, and one Pokemon. Colress was reaching for something on the console. His fingers were moving so slowly! It would take a week for them to reach their destination.

Ego-Red explored the bindings, and found that he could unravel them. No need to hurry. They loosened and then flew apart. Colress's hand was not even a fourth of the way to the console.

The three sets of eyes showed faint surprise.

Ego-Red released himself from the tangle of contacts. Pop! The clamps fell away from his head. He had only one projection in his awakened mind: I am moving at incredible speed.

Now he was off the gurney. The Ampharos began to charge up for attack, definite shock and fear in its eyes. Ego-Red doubted that it even saw the hand that broke its neck. Colress reached for a small bulge in one of his pockets. Ego-Red hit Colress in the torso. He would not be able to reach the Poke Ball. How slowly he fell!

Emrett was moving just a bit faster! His left foot came up to where Ego-Red had been a fraction of a second before, his right hand going to a Poke Ball. Still too slow! Ego-Red threw Emrett's head back, the throat exposed for a paralyzing blow.

The Ampharos was dead. Ego-Red looked at his hand, and found that the skin had been partially scraped off from contact with the Pokemon's skin.

Colress was paralyzed, and Emrett along with him. It seemed that Emrett was the only one capable of speaking.

"You knew every move before we made it," Emrett rasped. "What has happened?"

"It seems that the agony of the probe and the memory transfusion has heightened my natural abilities," Ego-Red said, returning to the normal time-beat. "I apologize for your injuries. I saw you about to attack me and I had to take defensive measures. It seems that you have made a valuable ally."

"Ally?"

"Yes. Despite my suspicions that they were not my original memories, I will follow my prime directive to aid the New Eclipse Order."

Four combat mechs and an Eclipse soldier entered the room, and saw Ego-Red standing above the fallen bodies of the other three. They ran forward, and Ego-Red knew that he would defeat them easily. Emrett shouted for them to stop.

"No one lays a hand on Scarlet," Emrett said, giving Ego-Red a new title. "This one will be a fine warrior on our side! Attend to my injuries!"

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Crown Shrine

I think of the pilgrims that flock to Anthien City in my name. They seem to come for something that I cannot understand, listening for secret truths that I cannot hear. They gain something that is denied to me, something mysteriously healing. They search, and what worries me the most is that they seem to find what they look for.

-Chairman Bronze Tercano, private journals

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Bronze walked in the snow-churned mud before the Shrine, disembarking from the Association shuttle. The static snowstorms had increased in severity, requiring the ballista ship to leave for Wyndon, and the shuttle to deactivate.

It would have to be scrapped, of course. Tess hoped to one day educate the southern tribesmen in advanced technology and modern living...within acceptable parameters of intrusion. Furthermore, they had a war to fight.

"The Vengeance Fleet is complete, Bronze," Moon had said. "All our strength has been amassed. We will head out for Castelia City once we return."

"That might be in a while," Bronze replied. "Without Zacian and Zamazenta, our efforts will surely fail. Send out raiding parties and sorties to keep our foes occupied. I doubt that our attacks will convince them to pack up and leave, however."

The conversation with Bede had been more interesting.

...

"Love needs no guarantees, especially for one as young as you," Bronze had said. "I myself would never consider 'being in love' as a prerequisite for courting or marriage, but if you want to give joy and damn the consequences, then I will call that emotion love. If love even is an emotion, not an action. My advice would be to know Peonia better. Perhaps you might even think: 'What? Oh! I thought that no one but myself thought such a thing.'"

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Peony said.

"Even amidst war?" Bronze argued. "Perhaps that should be encouraged."

"I cannot have my daughter put her back to a door!"

"The universe has many doors."

Peony turned to Bede, glaring. "Remember, this will not be about you two choosing each other, but me choosing one for you. If we all live through the following weeks and months, and you go into a relationship, then I will ask you every day if you have been dealing uprightly with my daughter."

"This is a requirement that I would recommend as well," Bronze said. "But something happened in the Isle of Armor that made me realize that my counsel might be worthless, full of humanistic drivel. In Arceus, there is no hunger that needs to be filled, but only plenty that desires to give. The Original One, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order to further love and perfect them. All relationships should have this element."

"What should you know about young love?" Bede said. "I never liked you for your politics, Tercano, but you are also too old. Perhaps you look fifty, but your soul is ancient. I would rather listen to Peony."

"Then Peonia is not for you," Bronze said. "Moon will tell you that I was in hot spirits enough when we first met, and I know of a few things that will surprise you. I specialize in gift-love, not need-love. I have already determined that your love is not a need-love, although it has not yet become a gift-love."

"More useless trite!"

"Not trite," Peony said. "I see what he means. This is different from friendship. Need-love would say: 'I can't live without this woman.' Gift-love would be different."

"Yes," Bronze said. "With gift-love, you could say as the blessed souls say in the Divine Tragedy, 'here comes one to augment our love.' For this love would not divide or take away, but mutually compliment. Those who cannot conceive of gift-love as anything other than a veneer for need-love reveal the fact that they have never experienced gift-love. But it's Peony that you really have a need-love for, in a different way, hm?"

"You will not speak of Rose!"

"Oh, I will," Bronze said, scowling. "It is a need-love of Storge, as the Kalosi say. But this need bears hope. Humans use the most unfortunate idiom when we speak of a lustful man prowling the streets, saying that he 'wants a woman.' Strictly speaking, a woman is exactly what he does not want. He wants a temporary pleasure for which the woman is only a necessary apparatus. How much he cares for the woman can be gauged by his attitude after he is finished with her. This can be prevented entirely between you and Peonia by your mutual Storge for Peony."

"I thought you were always more machine-minded, Tercano," Bede said. "What is this about?"

"He is the opposite of machine-mindedness," Peony said. "I once destroyed machines in his name."

"Yes, I value the minds of humans or Pokemon more than any thinking machine," Bronze said. "Because of this, I am informed on the matters of love." He paused, and then continued. "I have reached a conclusion on the matter, and I think it will be a good one if Peony approves. Bede, you must simply learn to love Peonia with a full gift-love before this relationship progresses further."

"That's what I would think," Peony agreed. "This is all happening too quickly and in too strange of a time. You will have to wait!"

"And I have another warning!" Bronze interjected, before Bede could reply. "Do not let your love and happiness depend solely on a person that you might lose: Peonia. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for one that will never pass away. All that is not eternal is eternally out of date."

...

The southern tribesmen led the company through the Crown Shrine, full of light and revelry at the news of the defeat of the Nalikia. There was a great statue of Calyrex erected in the central chamber, with an offering of Porotugo berries and Vanilluxe ice crystals.

"They say that it is an offering before Calyrex reveals himself," Leon translated. "They wish to say some things before that happens. I will translate as best as I may..."

The whole of the tribe began to chant and sing what they would, but Kalevi's voice rose above the others.

"The floating lands and the firm lands," he said, "the air and the curtains at the gates of Deep Heaven, the seas and the Holy Mountain, the rivers above and the rivers of under-land, the fire, the fish, the birds, the beasts, the Pokemon, and the others of the waves whom yet you know not; all these Arceus puts into your hand from this day forth as far as you live in time and farther."

"My word as a Man henceforth is nothing, Arceus: your word is law unchangeable and the very son of the Multiversal Voice. In all that circle which this world runs about the Sun, you are the Original One. Enjoy it well, great one! Give names to all creatures, guide all natures to perfection. Strengthen the feebler, lighten the darker, love all. Hail and be glad, oh one and all, Elyon Tor-Oyarsa, the Lord, the Crown, Hakhama and Nahash, Baru and Baru'ah, Ask and Embla, Yatsur and Yatsurah, dear to Elyon. Blessed be He!"

"Blessed be He!"

At that cry, Bronze understood what was to happen. About the statue there came a sudden greening of foliage, and a warm wind coursed through the Shrine. Next, he perceived that there was an oddity in the torchlight, and the air as well as in the shallow luminance.

Then, as blood pricked in his veins and the strange and yet familiar sense of being diminished coursed through him, he knew he was in the presence of Calyrex. He stood still. It was not for him to speak.