Chapter V: The Supreme Rulers
31st Cycle, Flying-Type Month (December), 1190 AAD
Wang Jie Academy, Uptown Prefecture
Deep within the empire was a university founded by the Grand Historian, Wang Jie. Within a lecture hall sat eleven pokemon at their desks. They faced a large window along the eastern wall. Through it, they saw a chanting crowd of older alumni in a courtyard. The alumni gathered all their old exams and hurled them into a pit of coals as part of a campus tradition. It was exciting but none of the eleven could watch it. If they were too distracted, their teacher would punish them. Quick Laoshi was a kind man, although rough around the edges. A respected professor on all things regarding culture, he was entrusted with teaching the offspring of the highest-ranking families.
Amongst these children was Her Royal Highness, younger sister of Her Royal Majesty.
The oshawott glanced longingly at the ritual outside. She wished her calligraphy was amongst the burned papers. Quick Laoshi hung her page above the hall's entrance, right with all the pages the rest of the class wrote. It lulled nervously from side to side like a toddler who needed to pee but was too shy to say, due to a faint draft blowing through the gaps in the door. The six-year-old had watched her paper 'dance' as she returned her inkstone to a drawer, and watched it dance as all the brushes were rinsed in a great big bucket of water. She watched it even now. Her's was the only page to be possessed.
Toni sighed a shivering sigh. On her desk was a set of cloths, wooden sticks, and a jar of glue half-opened. This was all for a simple crafts project, the final one of the year. They were to make a model boat-float to set in the river. The final illustration promised a grand, castle-like warship, decorated with glistening gold calligraphy, and topped with a bright candle. All her other classmates had made beautiful, faithful recreations of the ship, and by were now adding finishing touches. Meanwhile Toni had barely glued two sticks together.
How could the oshawott ever take the throne? How was she to build a nation if she could not build a children's crafts project? A lack of dexterity was not even an excuse she could use; the sewaddle-slave, Pobby, built his only with his mouth. As time passed, Quick Laoshi glanced up from his own desk to check on his students. Three times he looked, three times had Toni made virtually no progress. He slammed his materials down on his desk. His massive shadow swallowed her up.
"Venerable Toni," he whispered, "what do you plan, to send this toy to the shipyards for repair?—Arg! Your glue is drying out! Surely you must hurry or you'll disgrace Her Lateness!"
Toni fought off the quivering in her lips, whimpering, "I need a priest."
"Never fear, once we all say our Promise, we shall go to Ecstasy River! The priest will be there." Quick Laoshi then rested his bottom on the straw mat. "We have no time to place sacrifices in this one, unfortunately, but we can recover it."
The two worked together to bring her ship back to life up. Later, a small gong was smacked in the courtyard. This indicated that one stint—about an hour and a half—remained until the Solar New Year. He told his class to carry their boats to the courtyard. As was routine, they took preassigned spots, showed by numbered stones in the grass. Toni stood at the field's front and center. They were the earliest class to arrive and so had to wait for the older students to gather.
"Toni," from a whisper at her left, "you don't remember do you?"
It was better not to reply to the purrloin. Toni did not care what anyone said, she loved Qinfeng Amalaki like her own sister. However, it always unnerved her that the dark type was so eager to pick apart her fears. Toni got back at her by tugging Qinfeng's belt sideways. The feline took great pride in her jade-and-salmon hanfu, so Toni believed this would shut her up. It did not.
"He's going to call you to front. We'll all be listening," she teased.
"Students, shut your mouths!" Quick Laoshi shouted.
Toni snickered faintly, then steeled herself. She knew first there was to be a long speech from the Grand Historian, Wang Jie. Everyone welcomed the old conkledurr with shouts and primal cries. He trundled his way with both his rocks, to a large standing platform made of etched bronze.
"Soon we will mark the 20th year of our land's founding," he said. "I recall when the principles of this nation were the 'delusions of loser heretics'." His smile went dark and his tone more serious.
"One of the changes we asked of the Shaolin was for every lock on every school door to be removed. No one should be denied education—no one. I proposed to them a system based on the aliens'. It is so perfect it could be almost mathematical. In two years even the horse boy can learn his arithmetic, create a store, and bring up his family from poverty. Or he could continue, whereby year five we all study the same fundamentals as every great emperor had, and perhaps after his examinations he becomes a treasured general. There is no limitation to our success but our own willingness to work! They of course, kept their claws out, and we know the ending of their story."
"Many of you carry large bags under your eyes, so who is to say you have not worked hard? Let us celebrate now, and then celebrate again in the stands for our kin who will attend the Senior League. Let us cheer them on when they burn their papers and dawn their costumes!" He then quoted a verse from religious text. " 'The Dragon smiles, we lift our face, the tongue joins His chorus!'."
Finishing the quote, he continued, "You all are certainly more eager to leave than listen to me." There was a guilty cheering; it ended quickly. "Her Royal Highness, may you help us with our Promise?"
"Yes I can, sifu."
Qinfeng smacked Toni on the back. "Good luck!"
Toni fumbled a folded note from under her scalchop as she approached the stand. The poor starter could barely read her own handwriting. The exact transcript of her speech was known even to the uneducated, however. The Promise of the Tusayo started as the creed for the army and priests. It expanded into a near-exact equivalent of a national anthem. The only difference was that the piece could not be sung alone: either Her Majesty or Her Highness had to say parts of it.
Her Highness breathed deeply, cleared her throat, and clapped, an order for them to begin speaking.
Promise of the Tusayo!
"Greetings, Our Empress, may your soul outlast the stars!
We see trembling eyes from afar, just beyond our mighty walls!
See his teeth jitter? The jowls snarl?
Could his blood be of pure intent?
This soldier's life is yours!"
"My samurai, may your souls outlast the stars,
If his soul screams of hate,
If he dares threaten our prayerful union,
Send his blood to the factories, so it may become ink.
We unite thousands as one."
"Our Empress, may your soul outlast the stars!
The priests carry water, and the farmers grow their share,
Here the predators and their prey frolic alike,
They cheer from our mountains:
'No matter how we live, we all must die!' "
"My samurai, may your souls outlast the stars,
We ally to reward our companions.
We train to be reincarnated as ghosts.
To see our comrades once again.
This is the promise of the Tusayo!"
All the teachers scrambled to collect their classes and hurry them out. Each set their boats in a different river so anyone, anywhere could watch them sail. Wang Jie went with the classes who passed two levels of examination. Meanwhile, Quick Laoshi went with his class alone. His was the only class that was so young.
BokBok Town, Uptown Prefecture
A flock of murcrow exploded from out the trees of BokBok Town. In fact, the entire city seemed to be facing imminent collapse. Hordes of frightened pokemon raced through or over the gates. A wretched, stinking fog crawled over the town's protective walls, a hint of what had happened just seconds ago.
Quick Laoshi unfortunately agreed to meet the priest at its front gate since it was a landmark for Ecstasy River. Instead of going near the crowds, he corralled his children downstream. As the students whispered with worry, a trio of burmy crept out from the cavity of a rotten tree trunk. The three believed there was one other slave in the class: Yim the spinarak. His specie was often forced to make silk. When the burmy tried to trick him, the spinarak string shot them. The three were bound to the tree they came out from.
"Laoshi! These suspicious ones tried to get me to drink the river water!"
Quick Laoshi roared from the depth of his stomach. The trio quickly explained themselves. "To drink, so his silk is no good, and he is not a slave any longer!"
"Half-brains!" The pangoro yelled. "Our poor Yim will be sacrificed if his health stoops too low!" Quick Laoshi then took his students a little further upstream, lamenting, "if only the priest were here, he could tell us all about the poisons some of the village idiots dump in the river around this time!"
"Indeed, if only he were here. He could explain that they are why we drink boiled water." Mud and grass stained the bottom of Priest Glut's robes. He had strolled a long while this night, holding his oar tight, and his tighter. "Apologies, Your Highness, and all else. Line up and place your boats along the shore."
BokBok Town fell apart barely a li from them; so everyone did so with haste. Toni focused intensely on the priest's demeanor. His face was stoic, motions calm and practiced as he lit the candles on the boats and set them in the river. Surely, he should be worried, she thought. She told this to Qinfeng, but the purloin remarked: "Now that's paranoid, even for you."
Shouting stole everyone's attention. There was a struggle at the town's front gate. Though they did not wear their uniforms tonight, Toni recognized two of the pokemon to be Imperial Guards. The heliolisk and machoke restrained an odd looking pokemon, one with the red and peach of a spinda, the body shape of a riolu, and the viscousness of a constipated poochyena.
"W-Why is there a mienfoo here?!" Toni shouted. "Those thing should all be DEAD!" Intense whispers swept through the class. As they all confirmed the sighting, a mixture of emotions rose from them. Priest Glut, meanwhile, remained stoic. Toni pointed harshly at her teacher. "Where is my sister?!"
"She will have my head if I say!"
"So will I if you don't tell me!"
"Er, she is somewhere along that beach she likes! Please, Your Highness-"
"Too bad! We are all going!"
Samurai's Beach
The sandy coastline laid dotted with dozens of poles, targets, and other items for training. Toni followed the empress' scent up to a forgotten village set on a tall hill. It hid deep into the coastline, shielding itself from view with lush vines and bushes set upon its walls. The truth was the three-hundred-year structure wished to appear young and beautiful, but its brickwork was all but. The Shaolin maintained the village according to instructions on bronze plates, but the Old War came, and the instructions were lost. The previous empress knew her craftsmen were not skilled enough to repair it. She decided to kill the village slowly by turning it into a military outpost. All the bedding, cribs, plates, were torn out the mouths of its homes. They were replaced with spinning blades and iron weights. As the years passed, the village struggled to hold against the battering the recruits gave it. At any point, the entire thing could roll off the hillside.
Knowing this, Her Highness felt sick to the stomach. A rhythmic, 'Clack!'…'Clack!' echoed within. Her Majesty repeatedly slammed her forearms against a support column made of solid marble, grimacing with the pain each hit rippled through her bristling muscle. This was a small part of the intense training she would endure for life.
The village's front gate was open. The class hung in tense silence as Toni snuck in. The echoes stopped. Then, Toni came back crying. Her Majesty had snapped Toni up by the ear and carried her all the way back. She tossed the troublesome oshawott into the dusty soil, a horrible sight for the whole class. Toni stumbled back up. Punishment was always quick and ugly. It was how the generals raised Her Majesty. It was how Her Majesty raised her.
"Listen!" The empress aggressively commanded. "The ninja has been locked in chains! He will be buried up to the neck and questioned in a few cycles. Laoshi, take your class back to celebrate like you should be doing!" The pangoro bowed deeply, working quickly. Toni tried to join him but was gripped by the shoulder. "Hold still!"
Empress Quqi Erimo brushed the dirt out Toni's fur, then wiped the oshawott's tears with a cloth from a pocket in her armour. Her first name was the English word, 'cookie', just in Chinese phonetics. The word both belied her true nature as well as perfectly explaining it. Just as the sweet confectioneries could be tough or soft, salty or sweet, she could be as well. "Why did you force me to hurt you? I warned you many times that you do not know where you can step in there! You could have killed up both!"
"I was concerned!"
"Everyone who speaks to me carries this same worry." She shook her head. "How was class?"
"Good." She said sheepishly.
"And your speech? You did very well, right?"
"They clapped!"
"Hmph." Her Majesty walked past her. She strolled back down the hillside, her sister quickly joining. "Tonight I had my scare, too, little wott'. I was here when the news came to me about the ninja. The Conspiracy told me he ran through BokBok." She clenched a fist. "Did you see him?"
"Your guards dragged him out!"
"Well, I will reward them, then! The Royal Starling's message hopefully has spread to the daiymos and prefects. It is vital that the mienfoo does not come to harm."
"Why?!"
The dewott had rolled her shoulders, perhaps churning her thoughts, but ultimately, she never answered. She looked over her left shoulder. They were still high enough on the hill to see over the city walls, just barely. Hundreds flooded the beaches, boat-gazing. There were thousands of tiny orange candles rocking in the ocean, a lantern festival of the water. This was the one time of year where everyone could say they were out with family, though Her Majesty didn't allow herself to indulge much on the thought.
"They look like their having much fun," Toni remarked, "but I understand if you have to continue training."
Suddenly the little sister felt the ground leave her feet. Empress Quqi lifted her up and held her against her chest plate. "I can not keep you away forever," she smiled softly. "Lets go join them."
—
Kyogre's Beach
It bothered Her Highness, at times, to have to cross through a gate just to go to the beach, but there was a vital need for the city walls. Officially, they were the Four Walls of the World, a doomsday-grade protection against Kyogre's wraith. Over sixteen centuries, and tens of thousands of workers, went into the first inner wall's creation. The second set was started under the Emperor Seng-E in year 216 AAD, built in less than half the time due to improved construction techniques. The only thing the titanic duo of walls could not protect against were incompetent gate guards, much to Empress Quqi's chagrin.
Just eleven gates were made in these walls. This strained river traffic at times, though crossing any given gate was simple at least. The sisters walked through the Southern Gate. That was it. Each gate looked more complicated, of course, but they were just two sluice gates with a river flowing through, and footpaths. As the sisters crossed, they watched the floats flow down the final stretch of Ecstasy River, through the beach, and into the open ocean.
Toni searched through the crowds. Many pokemon from the Water Kingdom came to help celebrate. She hunted for one such pokemon, a psyduck she befriended whilst swimming.
"Te-Te!" She shouted, dashing towards him. "How have you been?"
Upon seeing her, he made a delighted, rumbling quack of sorts. "Why if is not the Most Exalted and her treasured sister! I've been better…" He said, hands massaging his temples. Before Toni called him, Te Lei took part in a small game in which various riddles were hung from a series of poles. A player picked a random riddle and tried to tell the host the answer. "Class was killing me! Learning too much again! I chose this game to calm myself down but…"
Empress Quqi nodded respectfully, though the second she spotted him her eyes locked onto a number of wet paper slips laid on his beak. "Those stickers, where did you get them? I'd love to decorate my shells with some."
"Oh, er, thanks! There was a stantler couple handing them out from their antlers, sweet pair! Hold on, I'll try to remember where I saw them…" He pressed his temples as if trying to squeeze together the gap between his few brain cells. The sand under their flippers shifted as his headache intensified into a reality-bending migraine.
"Nevermind!" They both exclaimed.
"Arg! I'm sorry!" Upon removing his hands from his head, he looked shocked! "Oh right, I had a riddle! Princess Toni, could you help me solve it? 'What is soft and round yet hard and sharp?' "
She replied instantly. "Nothing like that exists! Right?"
"Professor Yang told me I was stuck thinking in three dimensions when I said that. He advised me to think about…fortifications? I remember those…thingies that do…things, but it says 'Food' on the back of this card. My answer is not technically edible! I'm smart enough, I know it! If only I could just think!"
As the riddle game was but a few chi away, the coordinator went to assist the trio. The middle-aged medicham painted his face blue and yellow, the nations lucky colors symbolizing the sun and the ocean. "Your Royal Majesty, Your Royal Highness, and Te Lei!"
"Philosopher Yang Xiangfa." Quqi aggressively patted Toni. The younger girl bowed and repeated the name as well. The psyduck, meanwhile, had spaced out, suddenly quacking when he came to.
Professor Yang spoke with slight concern. "Now what is this about an unsolvable riddle? That one is tricky but is actually very simple if you use the four fortitudes of thinking!"
Te Lei spoke up. " 'What is soft and round, yet hard and sharp?' I want to say the…thingies….one of those things in the myths? It shifts into other pokemon, but if I ate one I'd get sick, but I can eat it! How's that?"
Professor Yang held the psyduck's shoulder. "Maybe this riddle is not for everyone! Yes, no one has been able to answer it, but Her Majesty is wise in all ways! If he may ask, Her Majesty, what are the proper fortitudes before one can deeply think?"
They all turned their eyes to her. "Professor, I respect your inclination to elucidate, but sharing questions from any civil exam is strictly forbidden, even if it is at the third level," she said with a deep sigh. "You will take down your riddles immediately."
"Yes, Your Majesty." He lumbered sorrowfully to his game, taking everything down. Each riddle would have to be inspected, the revealed questions rewritten, a process involving Grand Historian Wang and talks with the imperial printing presses. Cutting her losses, she decided to explain the riddle if only for her little sister's sake.
"The answer is the dumpling. Two days before the New Year, the Water Kingdom gives me a finger-sized conch shell, which I then give to a chef I've picked to stuff into a random dumpling."
Toni hopped excited. "That rumor is true?! Te-Te, who do you think will talk to WaterCrown Jing?"
"…Dittos, that it! They're dittos!" He pumped a fist.
"Great job!" Toni cheered.
Interruption.
All ears in the nearby area caught the metal sound of a gong four kilometers away. The New Year marched closer. Her Majesty cut the adventure short. "Sorry, Philosopher Yang, Te Lei, we must get going!"
"We at the Water Kingdom wish you great tidings!"
"May your stars shine brightly!" Professor Yang added.
Toni feared her time with her sister had been cut up. However, Empress Quqi did not take a quick route to the Twentieth Founding Festival. She chose to walk to Uptown, where the festival started. This trip spanned halfway across the country, granting them both plenty of time to speak in private. Toni was sure thankful for it. She rarely got to hold her older sister's hand, especially for so long. Away from the celebrations, the forest around them was black, the grass cool and crunchy. The star's sprinkled the navy sky. There were no cars, no light pollution, no evidence of modernity, just them and the moonlight.
The oshawott still worried about the pain Te Lei was in. She understood it to be natural for his specie but it was very unpleasant to watch. "Sister, how much is an oracle bone?"
"One life."
She ducked her head, a sorry expression on her face. "I want to know if Te-Te is going to ever get better."
The empress looked ahead, posture as firm as a well-built man. "They do not believe in our divinations. Besides," she smirked, "doesn't Qinfeng pay everything for you because you do not know how?"
"I need to practice buying for myself before you leave for war!"
The dewott gave a respectful humph. "Why should we pay, Your Highness? We own everything."
"Tyranny is one mind in a thousand bodies," she recited excitedly. "We must…cut…it…erhh, at the uhh…"
"You are sounding like Te."
"Cut it down," she continued, "at the…base?"
"At the stem, with a steady blade. Say it with me," and so they did. "Tyranny is one mind in a thousand bodies. We must cut it at the stem with a steady blade, even if its holder's hands quake with grief!" The empress added, "Our mother had said this. Do not forget!"
"Yes, sister!"
Suddenly, that same gong rung twice. The pair preemptively looked at the sky. A yellow star shot high up and exploded. Another followed, and soon a blooming bouquet of fireworks graced the skies just as the floats did the water. Voices cheered, their combined strength spanning kilometers to reach them.
A faint whisper, "Happy New Year", as if their mother was alive once again.
Her Majesty had stopped temporarily. A quick clench of her fist, and she continued marching. Toni stumbled behind her, dragged by Quqi's iron grasp.
"We're anyway late, we should stay and look a little longer!" Toni said.
"We'd become ancient waiting for your little longer! Let's be brave and attend the parade for our people's sake!" Empress Quqi retrieved a small whistle from her pocket and blew it. Within minutes the Royal Starling flew to them with a litter clutched in his talons. Soon the two were in Uptown and so the festival started.