Ascension

ACT TWO - DUST OF DREAMS

Chapter 12 - Dragon Ascendant, Part 2

One hundred and seventeen people.

It was a surreal number. A hundred-and-seventeen. Gym leaders from Kanto and other regions, lords of old and influential clans, business titans, former Elite Four members— there were all kinds of important people, and then some. She could see Charles Goodshow himself talking to Steven Stone, the current Champion of Hoenn and heir to the multi-billion pokédollar Stone Investments. Alongside them were several others she recognized from the news. Bill McTavish, creator of the second generation Technical Machines. Dr. Akihabara, the well-known genius behind the Porygon Thaumaturgical Matrix. Dr. Fuji, international expert on cloning and collaborator in Parthenon's own research on MU cells.

Delia Ketchum sharply exhaled as her eyes moved from one delegate to the next.

They'd all begun to arrive the previous day, but she knew most of the real VVIPs— like Derrick Stone, owner of Devon Corp, and Ian McTavish, owner of Silph Co Industries —would only show up moments before the event began. And the less said about Champions from other regions, the better. There was no telling whether they'd even show up in person at all. People didn't always respond well to sudden and vague invitations like the ones Lance Wataru cast onto them. Including Lance himself, seeing as he wasn't here yet.

Then again, it wasn't every day one was invited to such a prestigious event, hosted personally by Samuel J. Oak. The man who helped shape the Kanto region as Champion. The man who revolutionized the study of Pokémon by becoming one of the world's foremost scientists. The man who mentored her son for the past several years while he was an aide at his ranch.

The man who was supposed to be here already.

Delia was fuming earlier today when she came across an envelope snugly resting atop her dining table. Apparently, the professor was away— with her son, no less —on a little rendezvous to a solitary mountaintop, and he had the audacity to leave nothing more than a little note explaining how she'd have to manage everything on his behalf until he returned.

It took her an hour of owlish blinks and stuttered noises before she fully digested that she'd been handed the reins of the biggest international event of the year, chock full of some of the most important people in the world.

They were all there to meet the great Samuel Oak.

And now, until he was back, they had to settle for her.

Bright flashes inundated the entire lobby as Delia found herself attacked by the attention of every single eye in the room. She held back every vitriolic curse that went through her mind, pasting a facsimile of a grin onto her face instead.

And just like that, bloodthirsty reporters began peppering her with all sorts of questions.

"Dr. Ketchum, will you be speaking for Professor Oak during this event?"

"No, I just—"

"Dr. Ketchum, what does it say about Professor Oak that he's missing for the very event he's supposed to be headlining?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons—"

"Dr. Ketchum, is there anything you can tell us about Parthenon's big secret before its reveal?"

Delia withheld a sigh as she debated between maintaining her formal countenance, massaging her brow, and just outright rolling her eyes. Not only did the reporters ask asinine and unanswerable questions, but they also gave her no time to answer, bombarding her with another equally ridiculous question just as she managed to eke out a few words.

"Dr. Ketchum, is it true that Pewter City received a bomb threat?"

Exactly like that. Turning towards the reporter who asked, she came face-to-face with May Hutton, an up-and-coming international reporter and daughter of the Norman Hutton of Hoenn. From what Delia remembered, the girl was about the same age as Red and currently making waves thanks to her sensational reporting style—

"—and that Professor Oak was seen driving around town with bomb disposal squads?"

—Which roughly translated into making mountains out of hills for a living. It was enough to make even a diglett jealous.

This time, Delia couldn't hold back the sigh that escaped her lips. "Please don't cultivate these kinds of rumors," she directed towards the charming young brunette, who flashed her a cheeky, knowing smile in response. Smudge-proof lipstick, she idly noted. "Professor Oak has recently found himself busy with some personal work, which is also why he's unfortunately been delayed—"

"What about the circulating rumors of a large dragonite appearing on the nearby Mount Karpachuka?"

There it was again. That burning desire to massage her aching brow. Delia opened her mouth, but then closed it again, unsure of how to even respond to a question like that. Allowing herself an embarrassed smile— friendly, but not enough to seem weak —she spoke up. "I'm afraid this is the first I'm hearing of this. Either way, let me assure you that Pewter City has received no bomb scares to the best of my knowledge. Thanks to the efforts of the League, we are all absolutely safe—"

BOOOM!

The sound from the sudden discharge crashed against her eardrums. It wasn't anything more severe than a full-blown speaker system blaring out next to your ear, but considering how far the event probably was from the actual site of the explosion, it spoke volumes about the sheer strength of what had just transpired.

May's lips twitched. "You were saying?"

Delia stared back, the patient, embarrassed smile never leaving her face. She glanced at the rest of the audience, from one stony face to the next. She swallowed as she averted her gaze.

"I— I better go and check if there are any new developments I was previously unaware of. Excuse me."

"But Dr. Ketchum, I have more questions—"

"Thank you, thank you, that will be all for now—" Delia wasn't having it as she quickly strode out of the lobby as fast as her legs could carry her without outright sprinting. With nobody else around, she finally gave in as she massaged her brow and let out a long, world-weary sigh.

She wasn't sure how much more of this… this abuse she could take, but one thing was clear.

"I'm really not getting paid enough for this shit."

"An explosion?!" Lance thundered, knocking his office chair to the floor as he rose to his feet. "What the hell is going on?"

The Ace-trainer on duty, and his personal aide, frantically flipped through his files and gulped. "W— well, earlier this week, Professor Oak filed permissions for trekking to Karpachuka Base. The record states the purpose of the visit to be an analysis of potentially dangerous scenarios conducted in an isolated environment. But he never elaborated on the level of danger involved or its exact circumstances."

Lance closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Obviously, it's something above Level Four to create an explosion of such magnitude." It was clear the old professor's years away from the political spectrum had left him bereft of the bureaucratic maneuvering and endless paperwork it involved. Between managing the affairs of the brother-nations of Kanto and Johto, and overseeing the internal affairs of his own clan, Lance had barely any time for himself and his team.

Compared to him, Samuel Oak seemed to have all the time in the world.

"What else do we know about this incident?"

The Ace-trainer held two fingers to his earpiece. "I just received word from the local rangers that a dragonite has been spotted in the vicinity."

He sharply glanced towards the Ace. "Samuel Oak's dragonite was spotted on the mountain?"

"It seems that way, sir."

He hummed as he tossed his prized dragonite's pokéball into the air, catching it as it fell and throwing it back up, repeating the motion all over again. Releasing his dragonite in front of a world audience, causing reverberating explosions— Lance Wataru recognized a show of power when he saw one. Just what was the old man playing at?

There was no way the wily professor would do something so byzantine without due reason. But try as he might, Lance couldn't figure out what his agenda was this time.

"Sir?"

Even after three decades of retirement from the League, the world knew and feared the legend of the Bogeyman. If terrorist agencies like Team Rocket found out about the MU cell research, they'd definitely plan some sort of incursion to acquire the ultra-rare resource for their own nefarious purposes. Was the sight of his dragonite soaring in the Pewter airspace Oak's way of reminding them he was still around?

Lance clenched his fingers around his pokéball. If that were the case, then perhaps two dragonites would burn the image deep into the minds of their enemies. As famous as Oak once was, he was no longer the champion of two regions. That honor belonged to him.

The other trainer of a dragonite.

"Sir?"

Samuel Oak was merely the host of the event. An ultra-famous event, sure, but a host nevertheless. The entire MU cell research demonstration was hosted by Kanto— under his own personal command —and every single officer patrolling the city and ensuring the safety of its denizens ultimately answered to him and him alone.

Driving to a restricted location, creating gigantic explosions, doing things behind the League's back— why was Oak so blatantly trespassing on his jurisdiction?

Lance idly wondered whether there was more than one underlying message to the man's anarchic display of power.

"Sir?"

And come to think of it, what was Pebbleman thinking, letting Oak do whatever he wanted in his backyard? Even if Lance himself was in town, that didn't change the fact that the gym leader was still in charge of Pewter. It wasn't as if he was the type to step on Pebbleman's toes and take command of the city just to demonstrate his own authority.

He was nice like that.

Lance suppressed the scowl threatening to overwhelm his face. Despite being taught from a young age that one should never allow their mood to dictate their actions, it was just too difficult not to get riled up by all the blatant challenges to his power. No dragon could ever let something like that slide.

"Sir?"

"Get me my cape," Lance barked to the Ace-trainer. "I don't care what kind of experiments the professor is conducting up there, but in light of upcoming events, the delegates' safety takes priority. I'll personally make my way to the mountaintop and bring Oak down from there."

"…Sir, you can't."

Lance turned a dangerous glare towards his aide, the unspoken action enough for the Ace-trainer to quickly elaborate on his statement.

"You announced that you would be heading to the Event today, and a horde of reporters are already outside your office door. If they're aware of Oak's dragonite on Karpachuka and they see you flying there on your very own…"

It didn't take a genius to finish the line of thought. With everything that was happening, the last thing Lance needed was for the League to look challenged. Especially by Kanto's Bogeyman.

He grit his teeth.

"Very well. Tell the reporters outside I'll be there in five minutes. In the meantime, send a chopper to the mountaintop, and make sure to get Oak and anyone he's there with down off the mountain. I don't want vicious rumors spreading around like in that Vermillion Harbor incident. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" his aide saluted, before rushing out the door.

Sighing, Lance dragged his palm down his weary face. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a battle intense enough to get his blood well and truly pumping. And now when one had been handed to him on a silver platter, he had no choice but to handle it diplomatically instead.

Fucking optics.

Lance glanced down at the pokéball in his hand.

…

He shook his head.

"Next time."

When it rained, it poured.

It was one of those old adages that the old man recycled over and over again. In fact, Red had probably heard that line more times out of the professor's mouth than any of his other little nuggets of wisdom. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought the man was a pessimist with a very skewed image of the world around him.

Then again, when you lived a life like Samuel Oak's and accomplished what he had, how else could you see the world if not from a skewed perspective? For the most part, people were born into the world, followed the rules, gained a little, gave a little, then died. End of story.

But men like Samuel Oak shaped the very world in their image, leaving an everlasting legacy in their wake.

The story he was currently listening to spoke of a very different Oak. A man who wasn't the soft-spoken, tranquil paragon of peace that he'd grown up with for the past decade. A man who preferred science and diplomacy as his primary tool to any obstacles he faced. A man who didn't embody the ideals of the venerable, kind-hearted Pokémon Professor.

This was the story of Samuel Oak the fighter. Or, as the world liked to call him, the Bogeyman.

"You went to war with the Wataru?" Red eagerly asked. Deep down, something told him that war wasn't something to be glorified. But this was the story of Kanto's Bogeyman being pitted against the strongest clan in the region. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get another opportunity to hear this ever again.

Professor Oak nodded as he glanced towards the horizon. "It began at Tohjo Falls, practically the Wataru clan's backyard. A well-sculpted terrain of swift, streaming water marking the boundary between Kanto and Johto."

Red knew all that. He might've had room for improvement when it came to instinctive battling, but he was a sucker for theory and information. Still, he couldn't find it within himself to tell the man he already knew some things. Knowing was one thing, but hearing these tidbits from the man himself as he narrated his story was something else entirely.

"And then?"

A mirthless chuckle escaped the old man's lips. "The entire place was dyed red. A once-beautiful setting was quickly splashed with cries of pain and bouts of barbaric violence."

His words conjured up a vivid mental image of a vicious storm gathering itself in the cloudy sky while a far more vicious battle was being waged below it. Lightning flashed down onto the battlefield and gouts of flame were thrown about like toys. The sound of thunder cracked in his ears as drums beating to dozens of different cadences clashed and rumbled in time with one another. Shouts and bellows rang out all over the place— shrieks of pain that sounded like they came from human vocal cords blended together with bellows and roars that definitely couldn't have.

Taken as a whole, the entire battlefield was like a wild symphony of huge, teeth-rattling, overwhelming creatures tearing away at one another, their adrenaline-filled bodies fighting for dominance.

Say what you would about the Wataru clan, but from Oak's description, it was clear that they knew how to battle with style.

"You know, I'm still having trouble believing you fought the entire clan all by yourself. I mean, I know you're you and all that, but it's still the Wataru clan. They had an entire army of dragons at their beck and call."

"And more," the old man amusedly added.

"More?" Red wheezed. What the hell could possibly be more than that?

"More," he confirmed. "The fact that the Wataru owned the sitting Champion was practically an open secret at that point. Every person of some import knew as much. You see, Red," Oak's tone automatically shifted into what he dubbed as the Professor's 'lecture voice', "true battles are scarcely ever fought on the battlefield. If you see a ferocious fight happening in front of your eyes, it means the real battle is happening elsewhere."

Red blinked at the old man. "What are you talking about? You just said the fight was in front of your eyes."

Oak just ruffled his hair fondly, much to his annoyance. "Some day, you'll likely understand, though I pray otherwise. The thing is, Kanto and Johto were different back then. There was a government loosely at the helm, but it mostly catered to the whims of the elite. The most powerful clans, along with anyone who could prove their own might in a test of battle. At the time, civilization was merely a decorative veneer painted over barbarism."

Red nodded, even though he didn't fully understand what he was being told. The old man's words were easy enough to comprehend, but something told him that there was a hidden significance to it— a truth that he wouldn't understand for quite some time to come.

That never stopped him before, though.

"Explain," Red adamantly ordered, crossing his arms.

Oak fondly chuckled. "Every clan wanted power over the rest, in Kanto and Johto specifically. But none could muster the strength to stand against the might of the entire Wataru clan. So they needed a banner. An excuse to combine their power, resources, and ingenuity to tear down the Wataru clan's supremacy. They wanted to put the foreigners in their place."

"Foreigners," Red muttered, but he was summarily ignored as Oak pushed on.

"I suppose in hindsight, I was just lucky back then. New and rising in the competitive circuit, but the younger generation found it easier to relate to me than the boorish image that Champions back then tried to portray. My friends and I were strong, charismatic, and well-backed. Agatha, for one, was the heiress of the Ainsworth clan."

He suddenly burst into snickers, probably at some random memory. Red bit back the urge to tell him that random spurts of emotion was a sign of dementia.

"As I was saying," Oak coughed, "anyone who says ghosts are scarier than humans have definitely never come across an Ainsworth."

Shivers crawled their way down Red's spine. Ghost pokémon were anathema in any regular conversation. People didn't just bring up that word in any random discussion. It was like an old myth of sorts— speak of the devil and he shall appear, and all that. Even now, the League had all but banned trainers from pursuing ghost-type pokémon. The reasons behind such prejudiced laws weren't exactly clear, but Red was never interested enough to pursue the subject any further.

Besides, he recognized the name all too well. Agatha Ainsworth, or as she was better known, Agatha of the Elite Four. Holder of the First. The Revenant. The Raven of Lavender Town.

She practically held as many monikers as there were ways to die.

Hell, there were people who believed she actually died and then came back to life, faintly tethered to reality just like the ghosts at her command. Others whispered that the real Agatha was long gone and some sort of horrifying, shapeshifting ghost now posed as her, maintaining a delicate but ultimately false façade.

The rumor mill never failed to churn out interesting conspiracies.

"When the skirmish between the Wataru and our team grew past acceptable limits, the sitting Champion, Marcus Tulo, added his own forces to augment the Wataru clan. One hundred Ace-trainers— all of them Low-Elite level and above, personally trained by the Champion and wielding strong and able pokemon —joined the fray. When other clans heard of the news, we managed to gain even more support. Bruno of the Northern Mountains and his tribes came forward, as did the shinobi of East Johto. And of course, the Ainsworth were already on our side thanks to Agatha."

It took all of Red's willpower not to let his jaw hit the floor. Clearly, he was right earlier when he guessed the old professor didn't go about this fight all alone. It would've been suicide, even for someone like him. But Agatha, Tulo, Bruno, hundreds of Ace-trainers, the entire Wataru clan…

Red gulped. Just hearing all those names in succession was enough to make his head spin.

Professor Oak turned towards him, and there was a foreign emotion in his eyes that he couldn't quite identify. It looked like a maudlin mix of sadness, nostalgia, and regret.

"What started as a skirmish between two entities soon drew in practically every powerful entity within the region. And once every big name in Kanto and Johto took sides and became embroiled in our little scuffle—"

Oak paused, flashing him a false smile.

"—It became an all-out war."

Samuel Oak sighed as he let the faint recollections of his past flow through his mind. He could vividly remember standing against Ghetsis, with Agatha's army of haunter keeping the former's dragons from entering into the fray. Dragons were strong against elemental pokémon, almost unfairly so. But against creatures of the Outside, they were just like any other creature.

Mortal.

Vulnerable.

Prey.

An army of dragonair was capable of rendering an entire forest to ruins. Moments of their wrath could topple whole cities. Their corrosive draconic flames were sure to give you a horrific, painful death.

It was all bliss compared to a single will-o-wisp from a gengar.

Koga had taken the northern flank. He and his army-killer of a muk had played the part of a defensive wall, with his muk extending outward like a spear, tainting whoever it touched and poisoning them with a chemical compound of its own creation— one that would instantly paralyze them and keep their muscles from functioning for several hours, if not days.

Bruno had secured the north-east, and it was almost amusing to recall how he did it single-handedly. Literally. Dozens of terrestrial pokémon— rock, ground, and fire types —could be seen being thrown left, right and center, with a maniacal bare-bodied man in the center, cackling as he picked up one enormous creature after another and flung them away like yesterday's garbage. Then again, with everything Bruno was capable of, including leveling a barrage of Aura Spheres at his opponents, it was easier to think of the man as a pokémon capable of human speech rather than an actual human.

"—d man? Old man?"

Oak shook his head, pulling himself out of his sea of memories. "Sorry, where was I?"

"You were talking about your fight becoming a war, and the choices you made."

The steel-haired professor tersely nodded. "I was young back then, my own confidence outstripping what talent and skill I possessed. Besides, I was the one in the right at the time. The Wataru were shamelessly trying to steal Dragonite from me and wanted to look magnanimous while doing it. But I had strong forces on my side. We had multiple counters for their so-called dragon army, and I thought nothing could go wrong."

His lips twisted into a half-formed sneer. "The war quickly disabused me of any such notions."

"No plan survives enemy contact?" Red offered.

"A bit of an overexaggerated statement, actually," Oak softly countered. "Whether a plan survives or not depends upon intelligence gathered on the enemy, the degree to which your plans include outmaneuvering the enemy's own plans, both your and your enemy's ego, and a healthy dose of luck. But more often than not, a plan built from solid reconnaissance and sound tactics will end up succeeding in real life. No, the truth was something far simpler. And more diabolical."

Oak squarely met his protégé's gaze, wondering whether the boy was ready to hear the truth. He knew the boy probably thought of war as a large-scale pokémon battle of some sort. But war was neither elegant nor glamorous. It was the belly of the best. A realm that was filled with nothing more than tragedy or suffering. A battlefield where honor and pride only served to prolong the cycle of pain. A situation where loss was the only inevitable outcome for either side.

There was so much more to the experience that perhaps no child was truly ready for. Even he, an Elite-level trainer who fought in the battle himself, was completely out of his depth at the time.

But if the Wataru clan would one day come for Red, as they did for himself, then ready or not, he'd have to know. He'd have to learn.

"We thought that the clan would succumb to the stereotype of their Wataru pride," the professor admitted. "Our plan had been devised around their dragon army, and it had worked perfectly. The problem was, the Wataru had taken that into account. Their dragons weren't their driving force."

He paused.

"They were the distraction."

"The— the what?" Red looked like he was about to choke, but he couldn't really blame the kid. Anyone who'd seen Lance on television knew that he exclusively battled with dragons, or draconic beings at the very least.

That was the thing about war. All bets were off.

To this day, Oak could clearly smell the wild, fierce odor wafting through the breeze. The creature's musk was a rotten mix of urine and decaying meat— an aerosol that hit one's hindbrain and wrecked their sense of balance. You couldn't help but quiver as your eardrums picked up the faint sounds of bones cracking as the vicious thing stalked across the battlefield.

And it was never alone.

It was no human. It was no monster. And it sure as hell never seemed like any real pokémon. It was large enough to make an angry Bruno seem like a little child throwing a tantrum. Its massive, fur-lined body boasted gnarly, muscular limbs made up of thousands of rope-like cords, each thicker than the roots of a citrus tree as they twisted and tied themselves into the creature's body to form appendages. There was this malicious aura clinging to the creature as it stalked into the battlefield, wrapping its hands around heads— both people and pokémon alike —and crushing them like one would a grapefruit.

"Grimmsnarl," Oak murmured, the very name of that beast sending violent shivers down his spine. "An eight-foot-tall, incomparably dangerous creature that could match a machamp blow for blow. Not to mention, use both dark energy and fairy powers at the same time."

Red's eyes had widened to saucers by this point.

Oak flashed him a grim smile, knowing full-well what sort of conclusions the boy's mind had likely jumped to.

It wasn't as if fairy-types could handle dark energy— or as researchers preferred to call it, energy from the Void —better than any other types. On the contrary, dark energy and its respective attacks tended to absorb elemental energy and aura into itself, deleting it from the world at large. Where that energy actually went was a mystery to this day. It just… vanished.

But fairy-based attacks didn't use aura or elemental energy, especially those involving kinetic forces exercised by graviton and anti-graviton planes. It was just physical force, plain and simple. It was why a fairy-type, in many ways, was the most efficient counter against a dark-type.

For one creature to have the ability to use both powers… it was staggering. The pokémon could hurl massive waves of kinetic force at its enemies while neutralizing any and all elemental attacks. It was both a sturdy shield as well as an offensive powerhouse, and overall an absolute monster on the battlefield.

"And… what?" Red asked, gulping. "Did Ghetsis have, like, three of them?"

"Dozen."

Red looked pained. "A dozen?"

Oak morbidly chuckled. "No, Red. Over three dozen."

This time, the boy couldn't help it. He took a step back, wiping the sweat off his brow. The members of his team were silent as well, hanging onto his every word like it was a lifeline. The skarmory in particular had an odd gleam in its eyes, and Oak couldn't help but wonder why that was.

Strange.

He glanced towards Dragonite, who looked conflicted between grabbing her offspring and maintaining her stoic face. She stared back at him, her eyes filled with pain and bitterness and sorrow. They were vestiges of powerful memories, ones that could never fade in a lifetime.

Sorry to remind you of this, old friend. But the boy needs to understand.

"What happened then?"

"Between the Ace-trainer squads and the dragons, our forces were already engaged. The grimmsnarl pack tilted the balance in the Wataru clan's favor." He let out another morbid chuckle. "I'm proud to say that I do not, in general, fear the concept of death. But back then, for a split second, I accepted the fact that I was going to die."

Red went silent. Obviously, he was waiting to hear what happened next, seeing as he was still alive. But there was a haunted gleam to his eyes that was missing from before— something that developed when one began to contemplate the realities of life and death.

Oak smiled sadly.

"Then Arcanine happened. A grimmsnarl is a powerful creature, terrifyingly so, but you can only do so much when half a ton of supernaturally powerful muscle hits you upside the head in a concentrated burst of energy."

He allowed himself an amused chuckle. Arcanine, as a species, didn't really do fear. Perhaps a human would call it stupidly brave, but if not for Arcanine leaping into the air and going ballistic against the pack, he wouldn't even be alive. Flamethrowers were useless— the pokemon's proficiency with dark energy took care of that. Fighting moves were useless, since a single dark pulse was able to drain the aura out of it.

But never let it be said that Arcanine needed any firepower to get his point across. Against that army of marching demons, he had become the sole guiding pillar of light. A beacon of strength, of vigor, of determination.

Even then, it hadn't been enough. Not in the slightest.

Judging from Red's expression, it was clear that his own face was betraying his inner feelings. Quickly averting his gaze, he took a moment to compose himself.

"Are you okay?" the kid asked, caution and worry flooding his features.

"Just some bad memories," he replied, sourness gripping his tongue. "Grimmsnarl is not a creature feared solely for its strength and ability, but also for its ruthlessness. They have no limits, they follow no man's call. Ultimately, they're bloodthirsty savages that only care for one thing above all."

He paused, exhaling heavily as he pushed the red and wet and horror out of his mind. "Massacre. They boast of an ability called Moxie, one that allows them to surpass their existing limits during a fight every time they kill. The more they slaughtered with their claws, the greater their power became."

"But that's—"

"Impossible, I know. There was a time when I thought the same as you. But since then, our researchers at Parthenon have studied the ability in great depth. Other pokémon like gyarados and salamence demonstrate the same ability, albeit not as commonly as grimmsnarl."

"So… how does it work?" he finally asked.

Oak snorted. By now, he had expected the kid to feel utter revulsion at the horrifying mental image he'd just painted. But instead, he ditched all of that just to sate his intellectual curiosity.

Just why was he so hell-bent on following the path of a trainer?

"Every living organism's body— humans included —is able to do amazing things. At the same time, it's also designed to protect it from, well, itself."

"What do you mean?" Red frowned.

Oak tilted his head in apology. With Red, it was always easy to forget he was talking to a fledgling trainer rather than a seasoned researcher, what with the way he asked probing questions and thought outside the box.

"Think of it like having mental inhibitors. Stops placed by your mind that forcibly keeps you from exercising your complete strength. Without them, the average person is actually three times stronger than they think they are. More so, if you add adrenaline to the mix."

"Why would our mind evolve to have something like that? Wouldn't having more strength be a better option?"

"More power isn't always better, Red," Oak wisely advised. "When you exercise strength you simply cannot handle, you end up tearing yourself apart. That's what those inhibitors are for. To keep you from injuring yourself."

"So each time a grimmsnarl kills, their inhibitors get weaker and weaker?"

"A rather crude way of putting it, but yes." He ignored the boy's scowl with practiced ease. "They become more brazen, more reckless, more prone to savagery. Pokémon under the influence of Moxie soon turn into bloodthirsty killers who can no longer tell the difference between friend and foe."

For a moment, Red looked as if he was trying to piece together a particularly complex puzzle, before his expression changed to that of sudden realization. "Is that why I don't feel any pain?"

Oak's brows furrowed. "Come again?"

"I feel no pain," the boy blithely repeated. "Wait, actually, that's not right. I do feel pain, only it's kind of muffled. There was this one time when I get a deep cut from one of Skarmory's metallic feather-blades—"

The professor bit back a sharp breath. Skarmory's exoskeleton was incredibly sharp, not to mention it slowed blood coagulation upon direct contact. To feel no pain would mean—

"Then there was that other time, when I got stung by that weedle—"

Oak was really starting to worry now.

"—Oh, and that ariados, and—"

"Alright, alright, I get it," Oak urged, holding up his hands in surrender. "Something is very wrong with your sensory reception. What I don't get is why I'm only hearing of this now."

Red looked at him with shifty eyes. "I, uh, I guess it just didn't seem worthwhile to mention it earlier."

"Red," Oak admonished, "you may be suffering from acute dermal or nervous damage and not even know of it. How can something like that be insignificant?"

"It all happened during the whole Viridian Forest incident, and you know what happened in there…" the boy trailed off. "But back to the question, is that similar to what you're saying?" His eyes widened. "Do I have Moxie?"

Oak was seriously torn between chastising the boy for his stupidity and wrapping him up in a safety blanket and taking him back to Pallet Town. Despite the fact that this problem didn't seem too important at first, he knew it extended beyond the Viridian debacle.

Due to the beginning of Red's journey, because of the… incident with the pikachu, the professor's first thought was that the boy's sensory receptors were damaged as far as pain sensitivity was concerned. At the time, he'd been so focused on getting his entire nervous system back into functioning order that such a side effect had escaped his notice.

But now that he thought about it, newer ideas flitted through his mind. A variety of seemingly random and unconnected incidents painted a different story when brought together.

Red survived being pumped with ariados venom, still functioning until his body had completely shut down. An injury from a skarmory feather could bleed a human dry, but the boy had shrugged it off as inconsequential. And finally, there was the entire 'Mia incident', and how the two of them were linked by some sort of metaphysical bond that he still didn't fully understand.

All in all, it painted a picture of incredibly good luck in the face of misfortune. But when the psychological symptoms were added in, it begged the question.

Just what the hell was wrong with Red Ketchum?

It wasn't just his senses going wonky or his mental inhibitors functioning strangely.

Apart from Mia's bond, his inhibitors, and his unfortunate encounter with electricity, there was one other thing unique to the boy, and Oak was torn between feeling exhilarated as a researcher and terrified as a friend and mentor.

The results of his experimental therapy.

Implanted extracts from something that could potentially be placed in the realms of the Legendaries themselves.

MU cells.

Cells that were arguably the most versatile in the world. Cells that could, by applying a bit of energy, transform into any creature's cell, humans included. Cells with DNA structures and attributes so complex that it made the entire human genome look primitive in comparison.

And Red's entire nervous system had been reconstructed with them.

"Hey, old man?"

One thing was for certain. When he got down from this mountain, he really, really needed to make a call. It was imminent that the boy—

"Do you hear that?"

The boy's interruption, combined with the sound of choppers closing in on them, finally wrestled his attention away from his inner thoughts. Oak squinted into the distance, before finally remembering where he was, the behemoth dragon idly lazing by his side, and the devastation that had taken place mere moments ago.

"Um, old man?"

"Yes, Red?"

"Do you think we're in trouble?"

Samuel Oak turned his gaze towards his pupil. Being as famous as he was certainly had its perks, but causing such large disturbances right before an international event was something the League would frown at, even if it was him.

And that wasn't taking into account the cape-crazed man-child in charge who seemed to harbor a one-sided grudge towards him.

"Of course not," Oak lied. "After all, I asked for permission first."

—Ariados impaled through the neck, mightyena's cranium crushed, pinsir's armor sizzling and melting—

Tap. Tap.

—Golem found unmoving with its shell punctured, taken captive by rangers and under observation of Brock Pebbleman—

Tap. Tap. Tap.

—Both hands severely fractured, body covered in third-degree burns, death by asphyxiation via smoke—

Tap. Ta—

"—ASSIDY!"

Cassidy's finger paused just above the wooden table, mere millimeters away from tapping on the knobby surface once more. Maintaining her stony silence, her lips thinned as she shifted her terrifying gaze towards the man who called her name.

"What do you want?"

SMACK!

She held a palm to her stinging cheek, her eyes wide.

Team Rocket's primary objective was getting the desired results. It was why despite never being the most serious operative, she managed to maintain her position within the organization and friendship with her superior officer, regardless of how absent-minded she seemed or how late she was to important briefings. But this time, things were apparently more serious.

Because never in her entire history within the organization had anyone ever hit her before.

"You're not my superior officer."

"But it is my job to make sure you know what you're doing for this upcoming operation. I know you're grieving, but if you're quite done we have more important things to get to."

"I understand," she hollowly replied.

Finding out that Travers died in Viridian Forest felt like ice water being dumped into her veins. She still remembered his laid-back attitude towards most things, one of the main reasons she got along with him so well. She remembered how relaxed he seemed until mere moments before the main battle was underway, when he'd jump in and emerge victorious against League forces, with his golem and ariados following at his heels. She remembered how he spent long nights massaging her tonsils, spontaneously kissing her deeply as he was complaining to her about how working for Namba was going to be a chore.

"They need me in a warehouse? Might as well throw a mightyena into a torchic coop."

A month had passed since the disastrous event, but she could still feel his fingers gliding through her hair, his palms massaging the inside of her thighs, his lips peppering little kisses along her neck. She remembered all the little things she shared with her companion like it was just yesterday.

Travers. A would-be Executive that Proton had placed under her command, who then proceeded to completely blow her away with his expertise and natural charm. He was the first person she had completely fallen head over heels with. Someone whose natural talents would eventually take him to the heights of their organization.

And she was expected to believe that such a man could die in a forest fire?

She'd poked around at the Pewter city hospital. The fire had put nearly a dozen rookie trainers in the hospital, with only a few admitted as severely injured. But Travers, a near-Elite-level trainer, was the one who ended up dead?

Cassidy clenched her fists tightly enough to draw blood. That League report was clearly doctored by someone to hide the truth. But it didn't matter. She'd soon find out. She'd drag the answers out of those League rangers as they begged and screamed—

"And what do you plan on doing about it?" Butch barked towards her, rubbing his hand.

About Oak? About Team Rocket? About their Collapse Protocol?

Cassidy didn't give a fuck about any of that. All she wanted was answers, but those could wait. First she needed that golem. Travers's golem. His masterpiece. Her head spun at just how many times the man had proudly boasted that his rocky behemoth would acquire fame and become associated with him, much like Proton and his own hydreigon. About how his lovable murder-machine would one day help him reach the level of Champion-class trainers.

Just like Proton himself.

And she wholeheartedly believed in him. That he would do it one day.

But now, Traver's magnum opus was in League custody. Trapped in confinement, away from where it could cause harm to anyone. Its pokéball, one which Travers had specifically gotten programmed to encourage its obeisance, was within the reach of a lazy League-appointed guard whose job was to make sure the hellish beast stayed imprisoned.

She'd know. She'd spent the last three weeks frantically snooping around Pewter City, scrounging up whatever details she could about what had transpired in the forest incident and its aftermath.

Fuck everything else. The moment Collapse Protocol was underway, she'd use the unleashed chaos to extract Travers's last living memory. She'd take the golem as her own and train it to a Champion-tier pokémon. She'd forge it into the magnum opus that Travers had always dreamt of.

No matter the cost.

She glanced up at Butch's sharp, questioning gaze. "What I plan to do about it," Cassidy replied, her tone carefully modulated to keep all of her roiling emotions out of it, "is absolutely nothing. I'll follow my role in the Protocol to a tee."

Butch stared at her. "…Right. Well, whatever you're really thinking, go ahead and put a lid on it. We already have one wild card in the form of Samuel Oak to deal with, and we can't handle any new complications. Is our team at Diglett Cave ready?"

"They are," Cassidy emotionlessly droned. "Just waiting for High Command's orders to begin the procedure."

He nodded. "Good. We only get one chance at this. Once the event begins, our inside man will send us the signal."

Her eyes frantically snapped towards him. "Inside the event? Who do we have?"

"Proton told me he's got it covered."

Cassidy slammed her hands on the rickety desk as she rose up. "Proton will be leading an entire flank on his own. I doubt he's in any position to manage every aspect of the operation. But I can—"

"We're Executives, Cassidy," Butch growled. "That means we follow orders. If Proton says we already have someone on the inside, then you better choke on it and move the hell on."

Cassidy glanced at Butch, murderous thoughts rising to the forefront of her mind. Her face quickly smoothening out, she quietly settled back into her chair without fanfare, her legs crossed and hands obediently rested on her lap.

"Of course, Butch."

She mirthlessly smiled.

"Not following orders would be catastrophic, after all."

Editor: Solo Starfish, the best goddamn starfish the world has ever seen.

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