Operation GEAR: The Angel of Reckoning

by The Great Butler

A girl and her friends set out on a search for truth in a land torn apart by political and religious strife. However, they are unaware of what they are stepping into: the grasp of a terrifying, inescapable enemy that aims to bring down mankind's greatest achievement, the Pokemon League. Soon, the truth becomes clouded, and a desperate struggle for survival begins.

26. Eternal Flame

Just a small note before we get into the next chapter: starting now, the vaguely-defined "tablet" Matt has been using will be referred to by its formal name, the S-Gear. In more recent times it has been redeveloped into a device that mimics a Switch console, and is thus named with the S standing for both Switch and Silph, the "Gear" coming from "Pokégear," and the name overall being a reference to "C-Gear." Thank you to my friend Ren for assisting me in its development.

-:-

CHAPTER 25: Eternal Flame

-:-

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. A perfect, cleansing balance that flushed out old misgivings from the body and replaced them with newfound optimism.

For Anabel, her morning meditation on Olivine City's beach was a welcome relief. She'd taken up the practice around a year earlier on a recommendation from Amanda, but only tried it in fits and starts until more recently, when she began focusing more on committing to a routine. The multitude of events over the past several days weighed heavily on her, so the comforts of her meditation proved to be a welcome opportunity to clear her mind.

"Nice and quiet," Anabel thought as she sat on the sand with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. Indeed, the beach was nearly deserted that morning, aside from a small group of fishermen and two trainers having a battle between their Marowak and Heracross in the distance. It was a solitude she well appreciated as she meditated, her deep breaths ebbing and flowing like the waves lapping at the shore. A cool, gentle sea breeze washed over her, rustling her hair ever so slightly.

"Hey, Mom!"

As much as Anabel was enjoying her peace and quiet, there was one disruption she was waiting for. When she heard Olivia calling to her from where the beach and Olivine City transitioned into each other, she calmly stood up, brushed the sand from her legs and made her way to join her daughter.

"Good morning, Olivia," Anabel greeted her. "I apologize for going out so early without telling you, but I needed a little time for myself before doing anything today."

"Don't sweat it," Olivia replied, casually joining her arms behind her head. "Matt told me what you were up to."

Anabel followed Olivia's gesture to find Matt and Amanda waiting nearby, accompanied by the latter's ever-present Arcanine, and together they went to join their friends. Matt, who was leaning against the railing separating the beachside road from the sand and busy with his S-Gear, failed to notice the pair approach. It fell to Arcanine, who met them with a cheery bark, to alert the two siblings.

"Arcanine, what is it?" Amanda asked her loyal service Pokémon, tapping her cane against the ground as she turned.

"You're coming along with us to the Battle Submarine too, Amanda?" Anabel said in surprise.

"Oh, hi, Anabel." Matt's sister pivoted directly toward the source of the sound she heard. "That's right, I decided it would be nice to attend a Battle Frontier match today. We're all here together, so it feels quite nostalgic."

"In more ways than one," Anabel agreed, earning a nod from Amanda. "Nekou didn't come, though?"

"She had something come up with Ariana," Matt interjected. His voice was low and he didn't move from his place against the rail, nor lift his eyes from the S-Gear's screen. "That's what they told me, anyway."

The mood between the four quickly grew awkward. In truth, Olivia and Anabel had some idea what Nekou and Ariana were doing. Ariana had told them as much the previous night, after she walked in on their talk with Nekou. They knew that Team Rocket was engaged in some sort of mission against a Polaris base, just not where or when. Mother and daughter shared a knowing glance between themselves, both realizing that Matt knew just as little as they did.

Ultimately, it was Olivia who ended the impasse by creating an opportunity to dodge the subject. "It doesn't matter too much," she declared with an exaggerated shrug. "All the Battle Frontier matches are put on the Vs. Recorder service anyway, right? She'll get to see it. If Matt wins, maybe they'll even air it on tonight's Victory Station."

"You've got a point, Olivia." A drop of sweat rolled down Matt's face. The online Vs. Recorder service would put his battle before a big enough audience, but Victory Station - a new highlight program introduced with FlareNet's launch - would call a different level of global attention to it. He was already nervous enough, but for the sake of normalcy, he tried to tamp down the rising anxiety he felt. He gulped and pushed himself off the railing, stashing the S-Gear in his bag as he faced the others. "Let's get going to the harbor. That's where the Battle Submarine is."

-:-

Olivine Port was only a short trip from the beach, so it wasn't long before the dunes and sand-dusted streets gave way to concrete piers. Unlike the calm quiet of the beach, many people were coming and going throughout the harbor. A party of tourists from Kanto disembarking the just-arrived S.S. Aqua here, a group of sailors moving cargo from the numerous freighters dotting the docks there, along with many others visiting for their own myriad reasons. Within the crowds, Matt and Olivia found themselves looking at a map of the port on a holographic billboard while Anabel, Amanda and Arcanine stood behind them.

"You do know you have the Commissioner traveling with you, right?" Anabel teased Matt. She raised a knowing finger next to her sunglasses and added, "I can just tell you where the Battle Submarine is."

"No need," he answered, poking a finger into the hologram and making it flicker. "Found it… pier number nine."

"Let's get going, then!" Olivia exclaimed, running out in front of the others.

That was how the group set off once more, with Olivia excitedly leading them past the sales stalls that lined the harbor. On any other day they would have stopped to have a look at the wares being offered, and likely would have walked away with a sizable haul by the time they were done. The business at hand was simply more urgent, so none of them paid the stands any heed.

It wasn't long before they found their way to their destination. Pier number nine was near the end of the harbor, so even though a battle facility was located there, the crowds were noticeably thinner than they were elsewhere. When they arrived at the signpost identifying the dock, they were greeted by the sight of an enormous, metallic submersible moored there awaiting them.

"Wow, it's huge!" Olivia marveled, stepping onto the pier ahead of Anabel, Matt and Amanda.

"Not only is it a battle facility," Anabel elaborated, turning up her hand as she spoke proudly of the craft, "it's a fully functional submarine, outfitted for both indoor and outdoor battles and equipped with technology that has quite a unique effect on said battles. The Angel Corporation did an impressive job on it."

"You can say that again, Commissioner."

The new voice that pulled the group's attention away from the Battle Submarine belonged to a young man leaning on a pylon next to it. He pushed himself off the pylon and turned to face them with arms spread and a wide smile on his face, the shock of dark hair sticking out from under his yellow-and-black baseball cap shaking as he moved.

"Oh, hello, Ethan," Anabel greeted him, removing her sunglasses. "I apologize for not seeing you. Matt, this is Ethan, the Submarine Captain."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Matt said as he extended a hand to the Frontier Brain.

Ethan didn't hesitate to return the gesture, joining himself and Matt in a hearty handshake. "Same here! It's nice to finally meet you after everything I've heard."

"Everything you've heard?" Matt hesitatingly repeated. Ethan's comment caught him by surprise, and there were numerous ways to interpret it, so Matt found himself unable to determine exactly what it meant.

"The other Frontier Brains have told me about your challenges in search of Reshiram," Ethan replied. He broke the handshake so he could tap the screen of the blue Pokégear attached to the left sleeve of his red jacket. "You should have seen Lyra gushing about her battle with you. And of course, the familiar faces you brought along, they made me look forward to this, too."

That last comment truly caught Matt off guard. Of course Ethan would know Anabel, her being the head of the organization he worked for, but Amanda? "You know my sister?"

"It's only natural, silly," Amanda remarked, flashing a wry grin. "When I'm not teaching in Violet City, I live in Roséridge with Anabel, so I know a lot of the same people." Mentally, Amanda breathed an unspoken sigh of relief. "Now's not a good time for him to find out what I really do. There's enough stress already."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Turning away from his sister and back to Ethan, Matt asked, "Should we get this show on the road?"

"Sure. Let me fill you in on what we do at the Battle Submarine," Ethan explained, before putting his hands on his hips. "First, we sail out to a spot in the ocean where we surface for the match. Battles here are five-on-five Single Battles, but no switching is allowed, because it's the first to score three knockouts that wins. There is one other wrinkle that you should think about, though. The Battle Submarine has technology that allows us to invert type matchups and conduct what are known as Inverse Battles. In other words, all super-effective hits are not very effective, and vice versa. Be sure to remember that."

Matt blinked, somewhat apprehensive of what he was hearing. "I'll do my best… that's quite an unusual set of rules."

"You're not the first to say that, but people always enjoy it once they try it out." Ethan shrugged. "When I was picked to be a Frontier Brain, I traveled around the world and while I was in Unova, I discovered Inverse Battles. From my first battle, I knew right away that I wanted my facility to have them. But… that's not the only thing I found in Unova."

"What do you mean?" Matt questioned.

"While I was in Unova, I met a man who once allied himself with Reshiram. From speaking to him, I learned how one could encounter Reshiram themselves."

For Matt, when Ethan said he knew how to find Reshiram, it was as if the entire world fell away. The only thing left he could perceive was the sound of waves crashing into the pier. All his other faculties became consumed with the faces of those whose deaths he still had to make sense of. The tragedies set in motion, in his mind, by someone tipping Team Galactic off to the whereabouts of the Griseous Orb years prior. That was the truth he had to find, the truth that kept him going as long as he had.

"Matt?"

The sound of Amanda's voice, and the feeling of her nudging him, brought Matt back to reality. "We best get going, then," he said to Ethan.

"Alright, let's get you aboard and we'll set sail. While we're heading out to the battle site, you'll be briefed on my team so you can make preparations."

-:-

"Would one of you two fine officers explain to me exactly what we're all waiting around here for, already?"

From his point of view, Zinzolin had every reason to be annoyed. Mitsumi and Silva had bound his hands and ordered him to sit on a chair in their suite. No less than an hour had passed since then, and little had changed. Silva was preoccupied with a game on his phone, while Mitsumi stood out on the room's balcony, smoking as she blankly stared over the city. Zinzolin bore no desire to escape, but even if he had, Mitsumi left her Infernape to stand guard and keep him where he was.

"Just be patient," Silva dismissed, not taking his eyes off his phone. "Once our boss gets here, we'll go."

"Well, what's taking him so long?"

Instead of answering Zinzolin's persistent questioning, Silva sighed. "Hold on," the junior officer said, tapping his phone twice to pause the game. He then made his way toward the balcony, looking over his shoulder to ask, "Infernape, make sure he stays put."

Infernape responded with a fierce, sharp cry, and Zinzolin grimaced. "Can't they see I'm not trying to run? It's all a bit much."

Outside, Silva moved up next to Mitsumi and said, "He's getting a little antsy in there. What do you want to do?"

"Huh?" Mitsumi hadn't noticed her partner approach, so when he addressed her, she reflexively jumped. "Oh, nothing happened, it's just…" As the meaning of Silva's words sank in, she lowered her voice. "Well we can't just tell him Looker's coming back with Hoopa's ring," she quietly hissed. "He knows enough already. If he doesn't like it, tough break."

Just then, both agents' ears were met by a knocking on their room's door. Mitsumi snuffed out her cigarette and crossed the suite in an instant, moving with a dancer's precision. At the door, she pressed her back against the wall and demanded, "Who's there?"

"Mitsumi?" It was Looker's voice Mitsumi heard on the other side of the door, but even then, she only relaxed a tiny bit. "I am here."

"If you are Looker," she countered, "what's the password?"

Mitsumi could hear Zinzolin scoff behind her, but as much as it annoyed her, she refused to react.

"This is something you really are not having to do," Looker answered, "but since you have asked, Croagunk Seven Zeta."

The correct answer, much to Mitsumi's relief. She threw the door open and saluted her superior officer, pushing back a brief urge to embrace him. Looker returned her gesture with a warm smile, then glanced behind her to see Silva already rigidly saluting as well.

"Speak of the devil, eh?" Zinzolin joked after sharing a mutual glare of animosity with Looker.

"With you, I will deal later," Looker warned Ghetsis's lieutenant, focusing his attention more on his subordinates. "Is your report in a state of preparedness?"

"One hundred percent," Silva replied, giving a thumbs-up. "And then some."

"Most excellent. Making contact with the chief is what we must do now."

Before Looker could even step past Infernape, Mitsumi had already crossed the room again. She hit several keys on her laptop, then stood back as a window with the International Police emblem and a rotating, multicolor wheel came up on the screen. Silva and Looker promptly joined her in time for their chief to appear.

"Nanu," Looker addressed the man, whose wrinkled face and dark hair encroached upon by grey gave him an appearance beyond his years.

"It's been quite a long time, Looker," Nanu muttered in acknowledgement, regarding his subordinates with world-weary, red eyes. "How're you doing? Better than this old wretch, I'd hope."

Against his will, Looker stiffened up. He didn't turn around, but both Mitsumi and Silva saw his reaction to Nanu's question anyway. They glanced knowingly at each other, though neither was willing to press the issue first. All they knew was that something had happened to both men in the Alola region around two years earlier, while they were partnered on a mission neither ever wanted to talk about. Mitsumi and Silva had only been able to piece together that Nanu resigned from field duty immediately afterward, opting instead to take on a desk job that swiftly elevated him to the upper echelon of the International Police even as his work seemed ever-joyless and unappreciated.

"I have been better in the past than I am now," Looker answered, trying to be as vague as he could be. "There is much we must be discussing."

"I'm aware. The bigwigs ain't happy you lost those prisoners you were transporting." Nanu huffed in disgust. "Then again, we know what they think about the value of human life to begin with. They truly are terrible."

"Th-there's… much more than that we m-must talk about…" Looker stammered.

"Fine, fine." Nanu adjusted his necktie, whose blood-red color stood out against the black suit he was wearing. Shifting his attention to Looker's apprentices, he forced a lopsided, toothy grin and addressed them, "You there, kids. Tell me something that'll impress me."

"Sir!" Mitsumi hailed him, instinctively snapping to attention.

"Relax, girl," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "You ain't gotta be so formal around me."

"If you say so…" Though she relaxed slightly, Mitsumi wasn't entirely comfortable doing so. Nanu's demeanor always frustrated her, thanks to her adherence to what she saw as decorum. "Through the combined work of Silva and myself along with Looker's investigation, we have made strides in uncovering the conspiracy that connects Team Plasma, Team Rocket and the cult calling itself Polaris."

Nanu's false grin faded. "A conspiracy, eh? That's quite a word to throw around. Hope you've got some proof."

"We managed to capture Zinzolin, the former sage of Team Plasma," Silva revealed, stepping aside so Nanu could see their prisoner. "He's given us a lot of insight into how everything fits together. All of it will be in our report, of course."

"I would rather hear it from you in person." Leaning forward in his seat, Nanu continued, "The three of you, return to HQ. Bring the old man with you. I want to hear both your report and what he's got to say with my own ears."

"We'll be heading out on our way, then," Looker replied. Turning away from Nanu, he told Mitsumi and Silva, "Go and make the arrangements for our returning to Carmonte Island with haste."

"Right away, sir," Mitsumi said, saluting both of her superiors. As she headed out with Silva, she said to her Pokémon, "Infernape, stay here with Looker and make sure Zinzolin doesn't try anything."

With that, the two younger officers left the room. Once he heard the door close, Nanu asked Looker, "They gone?"

"They are," Looker confirmed.

"Listen, Looker... " All pretense of positive emotion had drained from Nanu's face, leaving his genuinely tired, sad feelings to take over. "You know I was opposed to you taking on apprentices again so soon. Hold 'em close and don't let 'em go. The International Police might see 'em as expendable, but we can't let someone be done in for our mistakes again. There can never be another Fuuka."

Had Mitsumi and Silva still been present, they wouldn't have recognized Looker with how solemn his own expression had become. "I'll promise you that one time or a thousand, however many times it takes. My error was the one that caused Fuuka to have to meet her end. I will… never do that again."

-:-

A fair amount of time passed since the Battle Submarine left port for the open ocean, where Matt and Ethan's battle would be held. The group split up soon after their departure; while Anabel took Olivia for a tour of the Battle Submarine's inner workings, Matt and Amanda were instead ushered into a small but stately wardroom with wood-grain paneling on the walls. They were informed by the crewman who escorted them that Ethan would be contacting them soon enough.

"I was waiting for you to reach Olivine," Amanda revealed to her brother as he sat at her side, fumbling through his bag. Her face reddened ever so slightly as a muted chuckle slipped from her mouth. "I've been thinking lately about all the things we used to do together a lot."

"Oh, I'm well aware," her brother deadpanned. "Everyone knows about the karaoke club now."

Amanda's chuckle turned into a full fledged but good-natured laugh at that. "Come on, you don't have to be so embarrassed. I had fun back then."

"That's true… and honestly, I've been thinking about those times a lot, too." Having found what he was searching his bag for, Matt withdrew his hand and opened it. There, laying in his palm, was a golden pin bearing the image of a space shuttle with a pair of majestic wings on its sides and a delta symbol beneath it. "Our trip to Mossdeep Space Center with the others when Delta-2 came back home… I feel like I haven't thought about that in years."

~:~

Mossdeep City, built on an island miles from the mainland of northeastern Hoenn, was the ideal place for launching rockets and space shuttles, thanks to its typically clear weather and stable winds. The Space Center itself was a multi-story building constructed atop a hill on the island's east coast, with a huge open space behind it to host the launchpad itself.

That bright, sunny day, Mossdeep Space Center was packed with visitors. The monitors lining its first-floor lobby told the tale, all of them playing the same video package welcoming back the crew of Delta-2 from a mission to a space station in orbit. Press from all over the world were present for the conference the crew and control personnel were slated to hold later that day, and that was also the reason why Matt, Amanda and the rest of their class were there.

Still, there was time before the press conference, so the class had fanned out around the lobby to see its sights. Matt and another young man, whose wild white hair swept over his right eye, were posing behind photo stands of astronauts set against a lunar backdrop, while Amanda sat next to them in her wheelchair and smiled. All three wore identical blue-and-white uniforms.

Once the automatic camera pointed at them snapped, Matt retrieved Amanda's wheelchair while their classmate collected their photograph.

"This still doesn't look right," he remarked to the siblings as he examined the image. "Amanda, you look like you're on the moon with no spacesuit, not even a helmet."

"C'mon, Viktor, it's not real space," Amanda teased back. "There's nothing wrong with it."

Their fellow student, Viktor, glanced at her, then back to the photo. "I'll give you a break on this one!" he declared, poking his finger at Amanda. "But when I go to space for real, you're wearing a helmet in any pictures you take with me afterward."

"If that's what it takes, Zero." Amanda could only hear Viktor chuckle at this, and was fully unaware that Matt even smiled at it. "That's what you always call yourself, Zero the astronaut. Commander Zero. You want it to be real, I guess I have to go all the way, right?"

"Outsmarted me again, huh?" Viktor admitted, playfully resigning himself to his so-called defeat.

Matt's smile only grew broader as he watched Amanda and Viktor joke with each other. "After everything we've been through, I'm glad to see her making friends so easily…" His reflection was interrupted by a sudden pang of hunger, so he interjected in the others' exchange, "Let's go grab something to snack on and then hit the souvenir shop."

~:~

"You're right…" Amanda said, "That trip was wonderful. It's where you bought that pin you've got, as I remember."

"That's correct," Matt replied. He attached the pin to the front of his coat, taking a moment to recall the last time he'd worn it. It had been during another period of high-stakes conflict in the far-off Lapidaria region, and things had worked out for the most part then. "Maybe it'll bring me good luck again…"

Almost as if the pin was responding to Matt's unspoken request for luck, at that exact moment a holographic projection of Ethan flicked on in front of him and Amanda. "Hey there!" the Frontier Brain greeted them. "How are you enjoying your trip so far?

"Hi, Ethan!" Amanda cheerfully responded, waving in the direction of his voice. "I think we're having a good time so far."

"Good to hear!" The hologram flickered when Ethan turned toward Matt. "How about you? Ready for your battle with me?"

"I think I'll feel better once we get it done, to be honest with you," Matt admitted, sighing."The trip has been pleasant, I just want to get to the business at hand."

"You're in luck if that's what you want, then. We're just about at our destination! It's time for you to see my team and make your preparations. I wish you the best of luck, and I'll see you on the other side!"

With his update on the status of the voyage finished, Ethan leaned forward to press a button Matt couldn't see from his side of the hologram. The projection itself soon changed, replacing Ethan's figure with icons and names representing the five Pokémon he would be utilizing. Three of them - Donphan, Hitmontop and Porygon-Z - were species Matt knew well, but rounding out the lineup were a pair that made him exhale in surprise. The more peculiar of the two had the appearance of a seaweed-covered anchor with a ship's wheel fastened to it.

"I've never seen that Dhelmise before," Matt verbally noted. The other, an arthropod Pokémon with three pairs of clawed arms and a heavily armored shell, he recognized on sight. "Golisopod…" he said to himself. For the second time that day his thoughts went back to what had happened in Lapidaria years earlier. "The wanderer who helped create La Ciudad Dorada had one, that's right."

Matt's hand found its way to his S-Gear, which he'd left sitting next to him on the bench. He picked the device up, activated its Pokédex, and pulled up the pages for Dhelmise and Golisopod.

"Dhelmise, the Sea Creeper Pokémon, the program recited in its robotic but friendly voice. "Type is Ghost and Grass. After a piece of seaweed merged with debris from a sunken ship, it was reborn as this Pokémon. Swinging its massive anchor, it can KO Wailord in a single blow. What appears to be green seaweed is actually its body.

Golisopod, the Hard Scale Pokémon. Type is Bug and Water. Evolved form of Wimpod. They live in sunken ships or in holes on the seabed. When Golisopod and Grapploct battle, the loser becomes the winner's meal. Golisopod will do anything to win, taking advantage of every opening and finishing opponents off with the small claws on its front legs."

"Hmm, how unusual," Matt muttered to himself, scratching his chin as he stared at the S-Gear's screen. "It's no surprise Golisopod is a Water-type, but Dhelmise isn't? There's clearly more than meets the eye when it comes to that one…"

"Do you have an idea of who you'll go with?" Amanda asked her brother.

"Yeah, I do." Matt lowered the S-Gear and glared straight ahead. "Truth be told, I already decided. This info just reinforced what I thought would be right. With what's at stake here…" Matt closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine standing before Reshiram in an undefined landscape. "Everything was leading to this, so I have to finish it the way it began."

Much to Matt's surprise, Amanda raised a hand to her mouth and giggled. It was the last reaction he'd expected from her, so he turned to her and asked, "What, Amanda?"

"Oh, nothing really," she coyly answered, laying her hands back down on her lap. Tilting her head back ever so slightly, she showed a smile Matt considered sweet and content. "I was just listening to you figuring out your strategy for this, and it made me think back to when we used to go to the Battle Tents back in Hoenn."

"I see what you mean," Matt acknowledged before turning away and covering his mouth. "I wish we could go back to those simpler times…" he thought, "...but then again, so much has happened since… I don't know if I'd make that trade, I just don't know…"

-:-

Clear, cloudless conditions greeted the Battle Submarine when it surfaced in the middle of the western Johto ocean. A giant hatch opened on the vessel's roof, allowing its full-size battlefield to rise into place. Matt and Ethan were already on their respective sides, while Anabel, Amanda and Olivia had taken their places in the audience seating at mid-court. A gentle sea breeze, carrying the scent of the salty waters, washed over them as they were bathed in the light of the sun hanging high above their heads.

A young woman clad in white-and-blue sailor garb stepped up opposite the spectators and announced, "This Battle Submarine match will now commence! Introducing the challenger, Matt of Snowpoint City!"

Matt could hear his sister and their two friends shouting words of encouragement, but he only acknowledged them with a slight wave before returning his focus to Ethan. Even though he knew them well and sincerely appreciated their support, he felt there was too much at stake to think about it too much. He felt his nerves starting to fray from being in front of even a familiar crowd and had to do everything he could to stay composed.

"And the Frontier Brain of the Battle Submarine," the judge continued, "Submarine Captain Ethan!"

Upon his introduction, Ethan took a strong, decisive step forward, his foot banging against the solid ground beneath it. "That's right!" he declared, jabbing his thumb against his chest. "I've got to live up to that title, so I hope you're ready to show me everything you brought against the others!"

"I only actually beat Dahlia," Matt offered, his voice carrying less resolve than he would have preferred, "so I'll have to bring double that. I have to… I can't lose this time. I can't…"

A pair of scoreboards were projected at the judge's sides. Each bore the face of a competitor in the battle, matching whose side each hologram was on. "And now for a review of the rules," she said. "This will be a Single Battle with no substitutions allowed. Each time a Pokémon is knocked out, the winner of that matchup will score a point, and both sides will change to new Pokémon. The first trainer to win three rounds out of five will be the winner. We will now activate the Inverse Field that reverses all type matchup effects."

At the judge's prompting, four pylons went up on the corners of the field. The pink light they radiated spread across the entire space between Matt and Ethan.

"I'll ask you one more time," Ethan called out to his challenger. "Are you ready to do this?"

The fact that Ethan kept pressing the subject of being ready left Matt rattled, even though he was sure the Frontier Brain was doing it for a good reason. "As ready as I'll ever be," he answered. "Let's just get this show on the road."

"That's what I wanted to hear." Ethan brandished an Ultra Ball, prompting Matt to do the same with a Dusk Ball he plucked from his bag. Both threw their respective spheres nearly simultaneously. "Dhelmise, let's do this!"

"Tanya, make your mark!"

Matt's Heatran and Ethan's Dhelmise emerged onto the glowing battlefield, the former from a burst of black light that contrasted the latter's dazzling entrance. Now that Dhelmise was in front of him, Matt could distinguish that the compass set into its wheel was actually an eye, or at least the closest thing such a bizarre creature had to one.

"The first round shall be Heatran versus Dhelmise!" Icons of the two Pokémon appeared on their respective sides' scoreboards as the referee raised both of her arms into the air. A moment later, she brought them swinging down and declared, "Let the battle begin!"

"Don't forget about the type reversal…" Matt's eyes flicked down to the glowing light at his feet, then back to the two Pokémon. "Grass and Ghost… Magma Storm and Dark Pulse won't work so well, so let's start with Dragon Pulse!"

"Dhelmise, weather it and use Solar Blade!"

Trusting its trainer's strategy, Dhelmise held fast against the rays of purple energy Tanya fired from her mouth. They scored a direct hit on Dhelmise's anchor, but seemed to have little effect aside from pushing the floating Pokémon back. Essentially unfazed by the strike, Dhelmise tilted to point its seaweed toward the sky, causing the enchanted vegetation to glow as it absorbed sunlight.

"That thing is tougher to crack than I expected…" Matt thought, clenching his teeth. "And if Solar Blade lands under these conditions, it's bad news…"

Off on the sidelines, Anabel adjusted her sunglasses and observed, "Matt started off strong, but he shouldn't underestimate how much can change in an Inverse Battle."

"He'll figure it out," Amanda expressed in confidence.

Just then, a bright flash burst from Dhelmise's body, pulling all attention to the Pokémon. Ethan thrust his finger forward and commanded, "That's it, Dhelmise! Go for it!"

Matt barely had time to react before he realized Dhelmise was moving in on Tanya far faster than he had expected. The way it moved startled him the most - it stretched its seaweed into a long chain-like shape to swing its anchor, in the process revealing that the seaweed was what connected its anchor and wheel in the first place. It swung the anchor around in a circle for two full revolutions to build up momentum, then aimed to batter Tanya over the head with the iron implement.

Panicking, Matt hastily said, "Hurry, protect yourself with Magma Storm!"

Even though it wasn't very potent, the tornado of fire that erupted skyward from Tanya's mouth still managed to blunt Dhelmise's speed. As a result, when the anchor hit Tanya's head, it only had enough force to knock her off her feet. She was hurt, of that there could be no doubt, but it wasn't the immediate knockout Matt feared. Dhelmise, meanwhile, had to pull its anchor back quickly before the flames could fully engulf it.

"Dhelmise gives me the creeps," Olivia confided in her mother and Amanda. "It's so weird."

"There are some stories about it in Alola that would give you nightmares…" Amanda revealed. "Trust me, you're better off not knowing."

"I'll take your word for it." A chill ran through Olivia's body as she turned back to the battle. As much as she tried not to, she couldn't help but imagine what horrors living, anchor-wielding seaweed could be capable of.

On the battlefield, Tanya pushed herself back up, catching her breath amidst a flurry of grunts and growls.

"Are you alright?" Matt asked her, earning an affirmative bark in reply. "Let's try something else, then. Flash Cannon!"

"I've got more tricks up my sleeve than that. Dhelmise, Phantom Force!"

Ethan's boast certainly had truth to it. Dhelmise phased into the ground and vanished, leaving Tanya's Flash Cannon to explode harmlessly against the floor Dhelmise once floated over.

"Agh!" Matt choked in dismay, unconsciously closing his fists. "Tanya, look out! It could be anywhere!"

Tanya didn't need to hear that twice. Even before Matt's warning, she was already watching the ground warily. She anticipated an attack from beneath her feet, so she focused special attention on them, lifting them one at a time in a search for any sign of danger.

Unfortunately for her, that was exactly what Dhelmise wanted. Ethan's seafaring Pokémon burst from the ether directly behind her at such close proximity that Matt couldn't warn her. Dhelmise hooked its anchor around Tanya's hind legs and flipped her over, leaving the Heatran to roar and helplessly flail her four limbs.

The one catch was that the act of overturning Tanya pointed her face directly at Dhelmise, even if she was upside down. "The silver lining," Matt mentally noted. He raised his arm and nearly called for Magma Storm, but remembered the Inverse Field in time to catch himself. "Flash Cannon!" he directed her instead.

Up to that point, Dhelmise had been capably warding off Tanya's attacks thanks to the distance it maintained between them. That defense couldn't work in close-quarters combat, so it had little choice but to bear the full brunt of the shimmering blast Tanya lashed out with.

"This is really getting good," Olivia remarked to Anabel and Amanda. She was so enraptured by the spectacle unfolding before her that she couldn't tear her eyes away from it, even for a second. "Neither of you tell him, but I hope this does air on the next Victory Station."

"My lips are sealed," Amanda playfully promised.

While the onlookers conversed, the battle hit a sort of lull. The detonation of Flash Cannon against Dhelmise's body created a huge plume of smoke, obstructing Matt and Ethan from seeing each other while also concealing the latter's Pokémon.

"Heatran's living up to its reputation," Ethan complimented his opponents. "When I was traveling in Sinnoh, I heard a lot of stories about them. Getting to battle one in the flesh like this is a real thrill, I gotta tell you! But still, I'm not going to just let you win. Dhelmise, use Liquidation to put some distance between you two!"

As soon as Ethan gave his command, Dhelmise tore out of the acrid cloud with its body wrapped in water and tackled Tanya. The blow pushed Tanya back on her feet, but thanks to the Inverse Field, she otherwise felt little impact from it. That didn't matter to Ethan, as damage wasn't the tactic he had in mind. Instead, Dhelmise used the water surrounding itself to slide across the field, comfortably separating itself from Tanya once again. Seeing the success of his strategy made Ethan lean forward and smile.

Still, he hadn't been secretive with what he was doing, and Matt picked up on it immediately. "Tanya, chase it! Don't let it get away!"

Tanya shook the water off her body and growled, a guttural sound that reverberated from deep within her. She then galloped after the fleeing Dhelmise, her cross-shaped feet making small splashes in the puddles it left in its wake.

Ethan seemed unconcerned by her pursuit, however, and that reaction unnerved Matt. He realized that something was wrong, but it was already too late.

"Just what I wanted," said the Frontier Brain, his grin widening. "Anchor Shot!"

In the blink of an eye, Dhelmise pivoted back to face Tanya. It tilted backward and shot out its anchor yet again, but instead of swinging it, this time Dhelmise launched it straight at its opponent. Tanya saw it coming and tried to stop, only to skid against the still-damp battlefield. Dhelmise's anchor crashed squarely into Tanya's head, the two metal surfaces colliding to produce a horrible, ear-splitting clang that made everyone on the field cringe. Matt recovered just in time to be surprised at what effect the attack had on his Pokémon. Tanya, despite her weight, had been pitched several feet into the air before crashing back down onto her stomach.

"What… just what was that move?" Matt wondered, feeling a sense of helplessness start to creep in. "How was it so strong?"

"Right now, it's just an ordinary attack," Ethan revealed while Dhelmise reeled its anchor back in. "If switching were allowed, that would have stopped you from doing so. But since you asked about how it was so strong… Dhelmise might not be a Steel-type Pokémon, but it has an ability called Steelworker. Thanks to that, all of Dhelmise's Steel-type moves are made stronger, as if it actually were Steel-type itself."

"Of course…" Matt muttered. Turning his attention back to Tanya, who was shakily getting back up, he thought, "And under the rules here, a Fire-and-Steel-type like Tanya will really be overwhelmed by such a thing. Between that and Solar Blade, I can't afford to waste any more time…" As Tanya and Dhelmise stared each other down, Matt mentally reviewed what had already happened, trying to find any possible weak point Ethan's Pokémon might have. Suddenly, what his S-Gear's Pokédex told him came back to his mind. "What appears to be green seaweed is actually its body… that means… the chain!" he realized. "It's not a chain at all, it's Dhelmise's true body! If we can get it to stretch out again…" Matt took a deep breath. Getting Dhelmise to stretch out its chain again would be easy, but it carried with it a significant risk - he'd have to provoke Dhelmise to use Solar Blade or Anchor Shot, the two moves most threatening to Tanya's well-being. He pondered the situation for a moment longer before resigning himself to the gamble he knew he and Tanya would have to take. "Tanya, it'll be tough, but go at Dhelmise again!"

Tanya's legs were starting to go weak, so she had only a fraction of her previous speed when she pressed toward Dhelmise once more. Nevertheless, Ethan felt driven to praise her courage. "You certainly have lived up to what I'd expect from a legendary Pokémon, Heatran… or Tanya, was it? It was a true honor to have such a fun battle with you." Sensing his imminent victory, he pushed his open right hand forward and called out, "Finish it with Anchor Shot!"

That was it, the opening Matt was hoping for. "Quick, Tanya, jump up and over the anchor!"

"What?" Ethan gasped in shock.

Using what strength she still had, Tanya managed to bound over Dhelmise's iron weapon. Her landing on its chain sent a spike of pain through its entire form and made the seaweed start losing its shape. What once had been a chain broke into a cluster of wildly flailing seaweed tendrils that wrapped around Tanya, trapping her alongside the anchor as Dhelmise reeled it back in.

"Now, Tanya, hit it point-blank with Flash Cannon!"

"You're just as close, Dhelmise!" Ethan countered. "Solar Blade!"

Tanya and Dhelmise both radiated bright light as they gathered strength for their last stands. Dhelmise's tangling seaweed was more luminous than the silvery sheen gathering in Tanya's mouth, but it was the Heatran who acted first, firing her Flash Cannon as soon as Dhelmise pulled her and its anchor in.

For a brief moment, it almost seemed like time had stopped, but that didn't last. The two attacks met to create the biggest blast of the battle so far. It swept across the Battle Submarine, hiding the two entangled Pokémon in a cloud of smoke and forcing their trainers, Olivia and Anabel to all shield their faces from the light laced into the spreading haze.

As the plume of smoke lifted, it revealed the two Pokémon, still locked together in combat. At first, it was unclear which had triumphed. Dhelmise's compass-like eye was turned in what resembled a pained expression, mimicking the much clearer look on Tanya's face. Tension hung in the air as both Matt and Ethan searched for any sign they had been the victor.

Finally, the Pokémon shifted, and Dhelmise's Solar Blade could be seen stabbed into Tanya's underside. Both collapsed, but Dhelmise floated right back up while Tanya remained prone on the ground.

"Heatran is unable to continue!" the referee announced. Behind her, Tanya's icon vanished from Matt's scoreboard while Dhelmise's shrank to fit in the corner of Ethan's. "The first round's winners are Ethan and Dhelmise!"

Matt heard her words, but as far as it mattered for him, she might as well have remained silent. He knew all too well what he was looking at. Opening the battle with Tanya had been a deliberate decision, built on the hope that starting with a legendary Pokémon would help him build early momentum he could carry into subsequent rounds. Yet, he now realized just how misguided that idea was. From the moment she was placed against Dhelmise, Matt concluded, her odds were already dismal. "I should have saved Tanya for closer to the end…" he berated himself as he shuffled toward her. "Not when she could end up against any of Ethan's Pokémon…"

At Tanya's side, Matt lowered himself to one knee and placed his right hand on her back while he fetched her Dusk Ball from his bag with the right. "I'm sorry, Tanya. I should have chosen your opponent more wisely, and my mistake led to this." After stroking her for a second, Matt sent her back into the sphere and slowly made his way back to his end of the field.

On the sidelines, Amanda tightened her grip on her cane. "He's not taking this too well, is he?"

"You know it," Anabel replied, crossing her arms and frowning.

"I was afraid you'd say that…" Amanda uncrossed her legs, only to cross them again nearly immediately. "When something he really wants to achieve gets put in front of him, he fixates on it so single-mindedly that he tends to miss the forest for the trees, so to speak. I bet he thought he'd be able to overwhelm Ethan right from the start and wrap this up quickly."

"Well done, Dhelmise. That was a good battle." Ethan recalled Dhelmise to its own Ultra Ball and put it away, then addressed Matt, who'd finally arrived back at the opposite end of the field. "You were closer to beating Dhelmise than you think. I'd bet that if Tanya would have held out just a little longer, we wouldn't have won."

"Close isn't good enough…" Matt already had his hand in his bag, feeling around for which Pokémon he wanted to select next. "I have to beat you. There's nothing more to it than that. If I can't, I'll never be able to find Reshiram."

"That is a hard road to walk," Ethan conceded, holding up a plain, red-and-white Poké Ball. "We're just getting started, though. Don't give up yet."

"You're right, you're right." Matt ran his gloved hand down the right side of his face, hoping to regain his composure and mount a comeback. Without even thinking, he dipped into his bag and went straight to a particular Poké Ball. It was almost as if the small orb had called to him.

"Alright, Sally, make your mark!"

"Donphan, you can do it!"

Once Sally appeared, Matt was able to unjam his thoughts. "Of course I would pick her for something this important…" he mused to himself. Ever since he first met Sally during his trip to Meteor Falls with his grandfather, she'd grown into one of his most consistent partners. She was a Bagon then, but still had the spirit that defined her as a Salamence in the present. Matt identified an interest in Sutter's archeological activity in her almost immediately upon their encounter, and that kept them bonded closely over the years.

The Donphan, however, was another story.

"Another poor matchup…" Matt contemplated as the two Pokémon warily circled each other. "I've got nothing that'll do much under this Inverse Field, and I'm sure he's well prepared for times just like this… if I'm to have a shot here, it'll have to be tactically."

On the other side of the field, Ethan regarded his opponents with a caution that he soon discarded. "If you won't go first, we will! Donphan, Earthquake!"

Donphan reared back and cut loose with a bellowing cry, then slammed his front legs down into the floor. The resultant tremor radiated across the arena, closing in on Sally in seconds.

"Hurry, fly up into the air!" Matt had all too strong an idea what effect the Inverse Field would have on a Flying-type's natural immunity to Ground-type moves. But if the move could never reach Sally in the first place, he reasoned, what could the inversion do? She ascended into the air with a mighty beat of her wings, and as Matt hoped, the seismic wave passed harmlessly beneath her. His optimism swelled, and he called up to her, "That's good, Sally! Stay up there and use Flamethrower!"

From her vantage point, Sally had the ability to strike Donphan no matter where he ran, and he knew it. Armed with that knowledge, he instead rolled up and let Sally's flames wash over him. He emerged from the fiery deluge covered in singe marks, and for a brief moment, his right foreleg gave out.

"Oh, a burn?" Anabel commented, raising her hand to her mouth in surprise. "I didn't expect that… it should even things out a little."

"Yeah, Mom, but look at Ethan," Olivia pointed out. "He doesn't look too worried."

True to Olivia's words, Ethan still stood firmly against Matt and Sally. He narrowed his eyes at Donphan getting burned; it was certainly an inconvenience, but not one he couldn't handle.

"Donphan, you feeling alright?" He asked his Pokémon, getting a weary but determined cry as an answer. "Alright, let's see how far we can go. Seed Bomb!"

"Oh no…" Matt thought, the confidence he had just started to feel already sinking. "I should have known he'd have something Sally's really weak to under this inverse rule…"

Donphan managed to catch Sally off guard when he spat several large seeds up at her. She tried to twist out of their trajectory, and even managed to dodge the first few, but the last three found their target. Despite Donphan being hobbled by his burn, the seeds still detonated with enough force to leave multiple wounds on Sally's body. She convulsed in the air and howled in pain, her cry echoing across the open ocean.

"No, it can't be going like this…" Matt uttered, his voice quiet and shaky. Losing the first round was one thing, but if his back was put to the proverbial wall, he couldn't imagine working up enough momentum for three straight wins. "I have to make a stand now," he concluded, hoping that such thoughts would help him turn the tables. "Sally, you burned Donphan, so let's keep dismantling its defenses! Dragon Rush!"

Small tongues of fire flicked from Sally's mouth as she shook off the last of Seed Bomb's impact. Once she had composed herself, she glared down at her foe and bellowed viciously, scattering more embers. She followed her display of power by dive-bombing toward Donphan, her body shrouded in a veil of purple energy that accentuated her draconic features.

"Donphan, shield yourself!"

Despite following his trainer's order and curling up, Donphan took a tremendous blow when Sally collided with him. He wasn't even weak to it, yet the force of the impact flung him backward until one of the Inverse Field generators stopped him. At that point, he slunk to the floor, while the energy radiating from the pylon briefly cracked and distorted. Sally, meanwhile, ascended once again and roared in a display of dominance.

"Whew, that Salamence really is something else…" Ethan said to himself while gazing up at her. Donphan re-entered his line of vision at that point, having pulled himself off the pillar and recovered. "Luckily for us, I think we've got a few tricks up our sleeve. Right, Donphan?" Donphan vocalizing his agreement led Ethan to hold out his hand and say, "Ice Shard!"

"Sally, block it with Flamethrower!" Matt reflexively countered.

A light-blue glow wrapped around Donphan's tusks, and the frigid energy flowing through them made its way to the Ground-type Pokémon's mouth. He reared back and bayed, allowing jagged chunks of ice to shoot from his maw. Sally met them with a jet of fire from her own mouth, and both attacks nullified each other in a dense cloud of steam.

Matt covered his mouth with his hand, puzzling over what was taking place. "Why would he even do that? An Ice-type move wouldn't work at all under these rules..."

Nevertheless, Ethan's voice cut through the fog, again calling out, "Ice Shard again!"

With the steam still hanging over the battlefield, Sally couldn't see the second wave of Ice Shards coming up at her. Several of them managed to make contact, but even though they nicked at her hide, Matt's calculation that she would barely feel it proved correct. The shards that missed their mark eventually fell back to the field and lodged themselves in the ground.

"This is going to be a shot in the dark," Matt observed, carefully watching the steam as it slowly faded. He couldn't yet discern Donphan's location, so anything he could tell Sally to do would be a guess, but he knew he couldn't wait to act. "Use Dragon Rush in the direction those Ice Shards came from!"

Sally dove straight into the cloud, dispelling it. Unfortunately for her and her trainer, Donphan was a few feet further to the left of where she thought he was, and she couldn't reorient herself in time. She barely managed to pull back and ascend instead of crashing into the empty floor.

"That's just what I hoped for," Ethan said with a smirk. "Donphan, it's your turn! Leap up and use Seed Bomb!"

Donphan curled him himself up again, leaving Matt and Sally confused. They both heard Ethan tell him to leap, so when he started rolling around the battlefield instead, they had no idea what to expect.

It was only when Donphan pivoted toward one of the Ice Shards stuck in the ground that they realized what he was doing.

"Sally, look out!" Matt cried up to her, but it was already too late. Donphan hit the fallen shard and used it as a ramp to pitch himself into the air.

Sally suddenly found herself eye-to-eye with the Ground-type Pokémon and unable to wait for Matt to call a move, so she did the first thing she could think of. When Donphan unrolled and opened his mouth, Sally mimicked the motion. He spit seeds at her while she shrieked loudly enough to send a physical soundwave back at him. Both Donphan's initial assault and Sally's Hyper Voice counter cleanly met their marks, and the two Pokémon plunged to the ground together.

"They're really going at it," Amanda pointed out after hearing Sally and Donphan crash down. She frowned, adding, "I can't imagine this'll go on much longer, but I also have no idea who will win…"

"I hear you on that," Olivia concurred, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. By that point, Sally and Donphan had pushed themselves back to their feet, but both were breathing heavily and showing the wounds of their struggle. "Whoever gets this is gonna be decided any minute now, calling it."

The same facts being mulled over by the spectators loomed large in the minds of Matt and Ethan, too. Neither harbored any delusion about how much longer Sally and Donphan would fight. It was only a matter of time before a decisive blow tilted the match one way or another, and that would certainly arrive soon.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Ethan's face. "I gotta be honest, I thought this wouldn't be close. After all, Seed Bomb and Earthquake… having the Inverse Field should have made them perfect counters against Salamence. But you and your Pokémon keep surprising me." Ethan slightly lowered his head and glared up at Matt, his eyes burning with determination. "As a Frontier Brain, I want to see my challengers pass me, but at the same time, I want to really make them work for it. Those are the kind of battles that are the most fun, you know?"

"Usually, I'd agree with you," Matt replied, "but to be honest I can't really think about that right now. So I'll just thank you for the compliment… and the best way to do that is to give you exactly the battle you want! Sally, use Flamethrower!"

Not to be deterred, Ethan pulled his right arm back and swept it in front of himself. "Donphan, dodge it and build up some speed!"

Donphan twirled away from Sally's attack, but only escaped by mere inches. That razor-thin margin made the difference between Flamethrower cutting him down and lighting a literal fire under him. He spun away with the heat at his tail, driving him to build momentum even faster than ever.

Matt immediately recognized the threat such an action posed. "If Donphan can get into the air like that again, it's over." An answer didn't present itself right away, however, so he and Sally were left watching Donphan with a growing sense of dread.

Suddenly, a realization clicked in Matt's mind.

"Sally, use Hydro Pump on the ground!"

Ethan couldn't help but inhale sharply when he saw what Matt had Sally doing. The torrent flooding from her mouth wasn't directly meant for Donphan, but when her movement on the newly-slickened surface grew erratic, the Frontier Brain instantly understood.

"Turning Dhelmise's water mobility trick against Donphan, huh?" Ethan tightened his fists, but the grin never left his face. He clearly was relishing the battle. "Clever, but don't think I'm through yet!"

"That would be the last thing I'd think," Matt responded, "so let's put this away, Sally! Flamethrower!"

"Keep dodging, Donphan!"

When he conceived of having Sally make the battlefield slick, Matt had a detailed plan of how he expected it to go. Donphan would lose control, spin out and crash, leaving him wide open for Sally to finish him off. It was a remarkably simple plan with a high chance of success.

Of course, that high chance of success couldn't come into play if things didn't unfold by Matt's expectations. There was one thing he failed to plan for that ultimately undermined everything else, a single question that his entire strategy hinged on.

What if Donphan never crashed at all?

In hindsight, Matt saw it was a possibility he shouldn't have missed, but it was already too late. Donphan had started leaning into the slippery ground beneath him, letting it carry him in a haphazard but controlled path, weaving between Sally's attacks. Flamethrower after Flamethrower rained down, but the Salamence's aim couldn't quite catch up with him.

"We're not going to get anywhere trying to snipe Donphan," Matt finally conceded. "We'll have to go for a direct knockout. Sally, Dragon Rush!"

Sally was a bit ahead of her trainer, having already accepted the futility of fighting at a distance. By the time his order came, she was already pulled back and getting ready to plunge at her opponent. Matt's words merely gave her final confirmation to dive, her body wrapped in the same purple energy as before.

Donphan kept rolling across the slick battlefield, however, even with Sally flying low in her pursuit of him. That, combined with Ethan's initial lack of a response, left Matt questioning what he was watching. His breathing grew shallow as he pondered just what kind of ambush Ethan was leading him into.

He didn't have to wait long for an answer. Ethan closed his right fist and punched through the air in front of himself, calling out for all to hear, "That's it, Donphan! Leap on its back and use Seed Bomb!"

Matt saw the trap close, but by the time he could choke out a response, Donphan had already unrolled and jumped up into the air. Sally started to pass beneath him, and he landed squarely on her back.

"Sally, get rid of it!" Matt finally managed to stammer, over the enraged roaring of his Pokémon. "Hurry!"

Ascending further above the Battle Submarine, Sally thrashed violently in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the Pokémon irritating her. Yet, despite the Salamence's best efforts and his own legs being less than suited for the task, Donphan held on. He spat a single seed into her back, and its detonation separated them anew, spiking Sally straight into the ground.

"Time to finish this, Donphan!" Ethan boomed, pointing straight to the sky. "Earthquake!"

Matt's thoughts completely short-circuited, and his mind went blank. "Hyper Voice!" he cried out, more as a reflex than anything else.

Sally turned her head up to see Donphan plummeting down toward her. She shrieked with every ounce of air in her lungs, but her sonic assault was no match for the force of gravity. Donphan fell right through the Hyper Voice and drove his forelegs straight into her, creating a seismic wave that surged across the Battle Submarine. Matt, Ethan, Anabel, Olivia, Amanda and the referee all had to shield their faces from it until it faded.

When they were able to return their attention to the two Pokémon, the sight of Sally's head flopping to the ground greeted them. She did not rise back up, and Donphan slunk off of her, only to promptly collapse himself.

"Both Pokémon have fainted," announced the judge, "but because Salamence was the first to faint, this round goes to Ethan and Donphan!"

Suddenly, Matt felt like he was no longer on the Battle Submarine. In fact, he no longer felt like he was anywhere at all. The sea breeze, the sound of the waves, Ethan talking as he called Donphan back, none of it registered. He could barely even perceive the tiny surges making his cybernetic hands twitch as he held up Sally's Poké Ball to recall her. He was sure he said something to comfort her, something congratulating her for her efforts, but what was it?

There was only one thing on his mind, and by shakily tilting his head, he could see the proof of it. Ethan's scoreboard now displayed both Dhelmise and Donphan next to the Frontier Brain's portrait. Matt's own portrait had no such icons. As far the Battle Submarine's challenge went, he was in the worst possible position. He would have to win all three of the next rounds in a row, and if he faltered just once, that would be it.

Glancing the other way, he caught notice of Amanda. His sister had joined Olivia in shouting words of encouragement to him that just barely failed to reach his ears. Suddenly, all he could think about was what they'd both just learned from Nekou and Ariana about their mother. Fumika, or Mercury as she was known, was a Polaris member probably for longer than they'd been alive. Did that mean all of the events that had happened to the two of them were meaningless whims of fate, carelessly pushed along by the designs of a cult that didn't care about them? The accident that claimed Amanda's vision? Their running away into a blizzard, nearly dying and being saved by Team Galactic's leader of all people? Was all of it really for nothing?

"No…" he whispered to himself, tremors running through his form. He found himself clutching an Ultra Ball, though he wasn't really sure how it got there. "I can't accept that… there has to be more to it than that…"

Ethan, meanwhile, was unsure of what to do. Matt was holding the Ultra Ball but making no effort to throw it, so the match had effectively stalled. Normally it would be the Frontier Brain's job to keep things going, but Ethan intuitively felt that waiting instead of tossing the Poké Ball in his own hand was the better choice. The way Matt was twitching and mumbling to himself while staring at the floor made that clear. Instead of sending out his own Pokémon, Ethan was considering calling for a time-out and asking Amanda for advice on what to do.

Suddenly, Matt's head snapped back up. "There has to be a meaning for everything we've gone through!" he yelled, giving Amanda pause. "I have to know the truth… it can't have all meant nothing!"

With that, Matt wound up and flung the sphere he held. It burst open to reveal his Rotom, Nikola, whose red plasma body presently inhabited a toaster oven.

"What Pokémon did he send out?" Amanda asked her two companions.

"Rotom," Anabel answered. "Heat Forme this time."

"Oh, I'm not surprised…" Amanda trailed off. Nikola was the Rotom who their father had been experimenting on when the accident that blinded her occurred. Matt had taken the Rotom into his care after the incident and rehabilitated it, but both siblings never forgot what took place. Those memories were exactly why Matt sent Nikola out at that moment, even if only Amanda fully realized it. Nikola had been at the center of something that could arguably be called a beginning in their story, and now, facing the end, Matt was bookending it.

Ethan, meanwhile, still remained unsure of what to make of Matt's actions. Since a Pokémon had come out to challenge him, however, there was really only one option for him to take. He tossed his Poké Ball up, caught it on its way down, and threw it forward with a twirling flair, sending his Hitmontop into the battle. The Fighting-type Pokémon materialized on the field and stretched his limbs, warming up for whatever Rotom would bring against him.

Unlike the previous round, Matt wasted no time in going on the attack. "Nikola, Thunderbolt!"

"Not so fast!" Ethan countered as electricity built up in Rotom's plasma. "Hitmontop, cut it off with Sucker Punch!"

Hitmontop was upon Nikola in a flash, his movements so swift that he practically couldn't be seen as he cut across the battlefield. He jabbed Nikola squarely in the front of its oven, making sparks shower out of the Rotom as it reeled. Nikola recovered from the blow within seconds, however, and met Hitmontop with an onslaught of lightning bolts from numerous points on its body. He took a direct shot to the chest from the first bolt, but even with the shock still working its way through his body, he managed to turn the force of the strike in his favor, somersaulting backward and around the subsequent electric blasts. He kept going until it was safe for him to land on the spike on his head and balance himself as his species was known to do.

The exchange between Nikola and Hitmontop had been relatively brief, but it allowed Matt to slow down and regain some hold on his bearings. Mulling over what moves Nikola knew led him to remember something he hadn't been able to take into account when he called upon the Electric-and-Fire-type Pokémon, and that in turn caused his hopes to swell unexpectedly.

"I wish I would have thought about this sooner, but now is better than nothing…" Flicking his hand in Ethan and Hitmontop's direction, Matt called out, "Dark Pulse!"

Ethan took an abrupt step back, and a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. He could feel the tide of the battle change in an instant, as for the first time, he was the one facing a poor type matchup with no good options for balancing the clash out.

"We'll just have to think defensively," Ethan encouraged his Pokémon. "Break that with Drill Run!"

A glint of dark light sparkled from Nikola's head, followed in short order by a beam of black rings. Hitmontop, aware of the danger he was in if he remained still, flipped himself toward Nikola and pitched himself into the air, then dove headfirst into the maelstrom of darkness. His spiralling motions helped to blunt the effect Dark Pulse had on him, even though the rings still badly stung as he drilled through them.

Matt, unwilling to let the opportunity go to waste, intervened with another command. "Nikola, get it from above with Shadow Ball!"

Even though Nikola cut its Dark Pulse short, there were still enough rings left to keep Hitmontop busy where he was. That gave Nikola time to take a higher vantage point, surging upward by pushing itself with an electromagnetic discharge from the legs of its oven. It then gave shape to a shadowy sphere between its two plasma hands, which the Rotom flung into its opponent. Hitmontop, trapped from both the front and above, ended up not only taking the full force of Shadow Ball but the remainder of Dark Pulse, too. He crashed to the ground with burn marks dotting his skin, unable to maintain his balance in the moment.

"I'm impressed…" Ethan complimented Matt and Nikola as the Rotom descended and Hitmontop got back up. He wiped his brow and elaborated, "I guess you knew Drill Run couldn't hurt Rotom, so you were able to be a bit more aggressive, huh?"

"Well, I didn't know for sure," Matt admitted with a shrug, "but I thought it still wouldn't affect Nikola. You were clear that the Inverse Field reverses type matchups but never said anything about abilities, so I thought Levitate would still work."

"You're thinking about the challenge in real time. As the Frontier Brain of this place, I couldn't ask for more." Making a fist, Ethan grinned and added, "But the one thing I can ask is for you to keep the pressure up, because I sure will! Hitmontop, give it a Mega Kick!"

Initially taking a runner's starting pose, Hitmontop sprinted in Nikola's direction until he built up enough speed, then flipped onto his head and spun to close the gap further. He did not get as close as he had before, however. Instead, once he had drawn within a few feet, he used his twirling momentum to stretch his right leg out and try to hit Nikola from a distance.

"Thunderbolt!" Matt answered back.

Hitmontop's Mega Kick did connect, but Nikola was ready. The Electric-and-Fire-type Pokémon absorbed as much of the blow as it could before grabbing its assailant's leg and unleashing a strong shock in retaliation.

"You can take it, Hitmontop! Sucker Punch!"

The sound of his trainer's voice helped Hitmontop center himself, even in the middle of being electrocuted. He tensed the muscles in his outstretched leg to pull the rest of his body along after it, and cocked his arm to ready a punch at the same time. When he could reach, he slugged Nikola squarely between the eyes, breaking Thunderbolt and separating them from each other.

"Nikola, I know you can do this," Matt reassured his Pokémon. "Give it another Thunderbolt!"

"Oh no you don't! Hitmontop, get behind it for another Sucker Punch!"

Even though he didn't outwardly show it, in his mind, Matt rejoiced when he saw Hitmontop somersaulting toward him. He had figured Ethan's next move wouldn't be another head-on assault, so he was ready for what he ended up facing.

"Alright, duck and dodge it, Nikola!" he called out.

Hitmontop had intended to merge his acrobatic motions with his attack, but when Nikola dropped to the ground, he was left to swing at empty air as he sailed harmlessly over his rival.

But Nikola wasn't done, not with just an evasive maneuver. Hitmontop was still overhead when it loosed another magnetic pulse from its legs and rocketed straight up, driving the point on its head right into Hitmontop's chest. The Fighting-type Pokémon wheezed painfully, but that soon morphed into a surprisingly high-pitched screech when Nikola finally released its Thunderbolt.

By the end of the barrage, Hitmontop was left singed and battered by his repeated clashes with Nikola, but still stubbornly refused to yield. He voiced what the humans nearby could only understand to be a challenge, urging Nikola on with a daring wave of his hand. Nikola, for its part, accepted eagerly, flashing the toothy smile associated widely with its kind.

"Looks like you've got more tricks up your sleeve than I thought," Ethan acknowledged. "Amanda, Lyra, they were all right… I'm having a blast here. Don't think we're going down quietly, though! Hitmontop, go for a Close Combat!"

Matt couldn't help but sharply inhale when he heard Ethan's order. "Hitmontop doesn't have any moves that'll affect you that much, Nikola…" he realized. "Do your best to weather Close Combat and then use Dark Pulse!"

Nikola could have tried to flee from Close Combat, but it trusted Matt enough to engage Hitmontop directly instead. Ethan's Pokémon had traversed the battlefield with a series of flips and started throwing a flurry of punches and kicks at the Rotom. Nikola leveraged its electromagnetism to stand firm against each blow, distracting itself from the injuries being inflicted upon it by focusing the dark energy in its head.

When it finally erupted, Nikola's Dark Pulse completely engulfed Hitmontop, hurling him across the arena. He didn't stop until he used his right foot, left knee and left hand to drag against the ground, checking his pace.

"Go back in and finish it off!" Ethan boomed, his voice taking on a harder, more aggressive edge. "Close Combat!"

"Nikola, try to outrun it and get in a Dark Pulse!"

Hitmontop lunged, using his leg muscles to propel himself, but Nikola took a different path than before to react. It bobbed back just enough for each swing Hitmontop took to breeze by. A growing frustration at his inability to land a hit simmered in Hitmontop's mind, leaving his punches to grow erratic as Nikola slowly led him around.

When Hitmontop's frustration finally reached a boil, he tried to leap over Nikola instead, only to leave the kind of opportunity the Rotom had been waiting for. Matt's longtime partner fired its Dark Pulse straight up into Hitmontop's torso, and the resulting explosion sent him spiraling back to the ground. He jumped right back to his feet, however, and rushed after Nikola anew.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Anabel and Olivia couldn't take their eyes off the two Pokémon and their relentless exchange. Nikola gracefully danced around almost every punch Hitmontop threw, but when one did connect, the Electric-and-Fire-type took the break in the rhythm to retaliate with a flurry of Thunderbolts. That reversed the roles, putting Hitmontop on defense as he used his great gymnastic skill to weave his way through the electric assault.

Next to them, Amanda fidgeted with her cane and sighed. It was barely above a murmur but Anabel and Olivia still heard it, pulling their attention away from Nikola and Hitmontop's spirited sparring.

"What's wrong, Amanda?" Anabel softly asked her.

"I'm worried about Matt, to be honest with you…" she confessed, turning away from the sounds of the two Pokémon trading blows. "When he gets fixated on something, he really gets stuck on it, at the cost of everything else. You two know how he is, but I've been watching it happen my entire life, and I feel like he's gotten worse in the last few years… this, here at the Battle Submarine? If you ask me, this is critical mass. He's put everything on getting answers from Reshiram. Should he fall short right when that goal feels within his grasp, I worry about how he'll take it. I just wish…" Amanda sighed again. "Team Galactic, Polaris, I wish all of it would just go away so our lives can be peaceful like they used to be back in Hoenn. So we can enjoy the things we used to share without it feeling like an obligation, not being tormented by them like he is here."

"I hear you there," Olivia quietly concurred, pressing her hand against the bench they sat on. "In the end I guess I want the same thing…"

Anabel looked down at her sullen daughter and frowned as well. "I'm so sorry, Olivia…" she thought, unable to put words to her feelings. "I'm sorry I let this get so out of control and wasn't there for you…"

Before the trio could converse further, a bright explosion and the sound of Hitmontop screaming brought their focus back to the battlefield. Nikola had just taken a direct body blow from Mega Kick, but in the process managed to grab hold of Hitmontop's leg with its plasma hands. It then unleashed a massive Thunderbolt, which created a bright beacon in the middle of the ocean as its energy forced the scream out of Hitmontop's throat. As the two Pokémon separated, both could be seen panting as they neared a point of exhaustion.

"Hitmontop, it's time for us to claim victory in the name of the Battle Submarine!" Ethan shouted, bringing his hand in front of his face before snapping it closed. "Close Combat!"

"Don't let it hit you, Nikola!" Matt urgently responded. "Dark Pulse!"

Hitmontop started running toward Nikola once more, but the length of his struggle with the Rotom had taken its toll on him, and he was just slightly less agile than he had been. That gave Nikola an opening, and the Electric-and-Fire-type Pokémon moved to seize its chance without delay. It tilted over and pointed the spike on its head at Hitmontop before launching the beam of dark energy, which cut him off from reaching his target when it hit. The impact sent him flipping backward through the air, but he managed to still land on his feet.

"Keep going, Hitmontop!" Despite Ethan's encouragement, however, Hitmontop fell to one knee instead of renewing his attack.

"Hitmontop flinched!" Anabel gasped, raising her hand to her mouth.

"Come on, Matt, Nikola!" Amanda cheered them on when she heard what had happened. "Turn this around! You can win this!"

His sister's support helped Matt to finally feel optimistic about the battle again. "Thank you, Amanda," he said with a smile. In front of him, Nikola sparked happily as well. "Maybe there's still a chance for us yet." A slight breeze swept over the battle, causing Matt's coat to flutter lightly behind him, and he yelled toward the sky, "Now, Nikola, you claim victory! Overheat!"

Nikola mimicked Matt's motions and screeched excitedly. The door on the front of its oven fell open, allowing a massive torrent of fire to surge out from within. Seconds before the flames consumed him, Hitmontop's expression changed from one of wide-eyed horror to one of peace. He closed his eyes and flashed a smile of concession, proud to have faced an opponent like Nikola in an honorable battle.

Once the fire dissipated, it left Hitmontop lying face-down in its wake. Unlike the many times before when the Fighting-type had quickly sprung onto its feet, this time he did not get back up.

"Hitmontop is unable to continue! The winners of the third round are Matt and Rotom!"

Its victory validated by the judge's call, Nikola buzzed over to Matt and circled his head, chattering excitedly all the while.

"Thank you so much, Nikola," he said to it, his face a reflection of the immense relief he felt. He peered over to his scoreboard, which now showed Nikola's image next to his own - an even more indisputable piece of proof of his victory over Hitmontop. "Thanks to your hard work, I've got a chance to turn this around."

"Roto!" Nikola happily exclaimed. It held out one of its plasma hands and shared a high-five with Matt, then zipped through the air to Amanda.

"Well, hello there, Nikola," she said with a playful giggle. Even though she couldn't see Nikola she knew it was there from the static she could feel around it, and held up her hand for a high-five of her own with the Rotom. Matt recalled it shortly after.

Ethan, meanwhile, was initially dumbfounded at his reversal of fortune but he quickly shook off his shock. He grinned as he recalled Hitmontop, feeling much the same way as his Pokémon did about the outcome. "To get to battle like this is just the best. Hitmontop, you did great. There's no shame in losing when you give it your all like that. Take a good rest." Ethan reached to his belt and exchanged Hitmontop's Poké Ball for another, then addressed Matt. "That was some comeback there."

"Thanks, I guess," Matt replied, nervously scratching the back of his own head. "Don't call it a comeback just yet, I'm still behind and you only need one more to win."

"That might be true, but don't sell yourself short. We're still far from done." Holding up the Poké Ball in his hand, Ethan then asked, "You ready to keep this going?"

"Oh, right…" Matt fumbled in his bag for a moment, initially unsure of which of his two remaining Pokémon he would select. Both were important to him, and both would be more than able to hold their own against whatever Ethan sent out. Factoring in the last two Pokémon on Ethan's team didn't help his decision at all, as the danger of being stuck in another type mismatch remained present no matter what he did. One Pokémon eventually won out in his mind, and he picked up its Poké Ball. He resolved that the other would be more useful if the match came down to sudden death.

"Alright, that's what I want to see," Ethan beamed. "Time to do this! Golisopod, let's go!"

"Agnetha, make your mark!"

As both Pokémon took shape on the field, Ethan's Golisopod towered over Matt's Ambipom. The insectoid creature spread her arms and roared up at the clear afternoon sky in an attempt to intimidate Agnetha, who instead braced herself against the deck with her two tails and tensed every muscle in her body in preparation for the battle to come. The armor covering Golisopod's body was riddled with chips and cracks, a testament to its battle-hardened nature.

Matt and Amanda, meanwhile, unknowingly shared similar recollections of their shared pasts with her. She was one of Matt's earliest Pokémon, having been caught as an Aipom at the Safari Zone not long after he and Amanda moved to Hoenn. In the present, both siblings remembered their trips to the Battle Tents in several of Hoenn's cities, more specifically that in Fallarbor Town. There, battles were judged by a number of criteria if they failed to end after a certain time limit, and even though he failed to win the overall competition Matt had managed to turn an entire battle around by winning three consecutive matches with Agnetha alone.

Recalling that memory made both Matt and Amanda begin to question the situation he was now in. Besides the fact that Agnetha had evolved since that day in the Battle Tent, how were the circumstances on the Battle Submarine really all that different? Agnetha wouldn't be finishing the fight on her own - both Matt and Ethan had one last Pokémon in reserve if it came down to the final round - but the reality still was that if Agnetha fell, the match was over. If they could pull out an unlikely victory when they were both younger, there was no reason they couldn't do it in the present too.

"It's really not that different at all," both Matt and Amanda simultaneously thought.

A gust of wind swept across the sea and over the Battle Submarine, snapping Matt out of his daydream with its briny scent. Much to his surprise, when he took time to regard Agnetha and Golisopod staring each other down, he was able to think about things with much more clarity. "Right, it's both Bug-type and Water-type… which means under the Inverse Field, the best bet would be… Ice Punch, go!"

Undeterred, Ethan simply said, "Golisopod, use First Impression."

Agnetha barely had a chance to roll the hand on her right tail into a fist before Golisopod was upon her, having crossed the length of the stadium in an instant. She paused only briefly to glare menacingly into Agnetha's eyes, then jabbed the Normal-type straight in the stomach, forcing a pained wheeze from her lungs.

"Yikes!" Olivia shrieked, recoiling from the sight in much the same way Matt himself did. "That was so fast I almost couldn't see it…"

"First Impression is like that," Amanda explained to her. "That move is faster than almost anything out there."

"That's right," Anabel added, "but it comes with a downside. It only works as the very first move a Pokémon performs when sent out. Try using it any other time, and you'll get nothing."

"I see…" Olivia turned back to the battle, her eyes wide with wonder at what was unfolding.

Meanwhile, Matt said to Agnetha as she recovered from the blow, "Be careful, it looks like that thing hits like a truck… but we can't win without fighting it, so… try to use Ice Punch again!"

"X-Scissor!"

Agnetha jumped into the air and somersaulted forward, aiming to strike Golisopod with both of her tails. Conversely, Golisopod crossed her own arms and tried to repel Agnetha with a crossed slash. The twin attacks largely nullified each other when they met, pushing the two Pokémon apart.

"Don't let up!" Ethan commanded. "Razor Shell!"

Golisopod grunted, her breath rustling the whiskers in front of her mouth. She reached towards her left arm, and the watery sword she drew from the armor on it absolutely dumbfounded both Matt and Olivia. It was gigantic, easily many times thicker than the Razor Shell Samurott could use. In fact, it was so large and heavy that Golisopod had to grip its hilt with both hands to wield it.

"Agnetha, get away from it!" Matt cried in panic as Golisopod hefted the immense blade over her head. "Use Seed Bomb if you can!"

The weight of the sword put a drag on Golisopod's movements, so Agnetha was able to spring back several feet unencumbered. She then spit a number of seeds at her foe, but Golisopod knocked them all down with a mighty swing of her weapon. Agnetha was just out of range for a direct it, but she got knocked down by the force of the wave kicked up when Golisopod's sword struck the ground.

"Drill Run!" Ethan ordered, pointing at Agnetha.

Before either Matt or Agnetha knew it, Golisopod's sword evaporated and she closed herself up in her armor. Much like Hitmontop before her, she took a spiralling dive at her opponent. Agnetha, lacking the protection Nikola had against Ground-type moves, was powerless to stop Golisopod from spearing her in the chest, the pain making her wail until she crashed into the ground near Ethan.

Gritting his teeth, Matt thought, "This is bad… Golisopod's attacks are too strong, and combining that with its armor, Agnetha can't get a hit in…" Upon further observation, however, he caught something he hadn't initially noticed - Golisopod's emergence from her armored cocoon was much slower than he thought it would be. "Wait a minute…"

"X-Scissor!" Ethan called to Golisopod, aiming to press his advantage while he still had it.

Golisopod roared again, letting loose with a deep, bloodthirsty battle cry that seemed to shake the air itself. She then rushed at Agnetha with her arms crossed and radiating a light green glow.

"Agnetha, don't worry," Matt reassured his Ambipom, seeing how she shrank back from the oncoming danger. "I've got an idea. For now, use Double Hit on the ground to get away!"

Buoyed by her trainer's words, Agnetha swung both her tails down into the floor, their impact propelling her upward and just out of Golisopod's reach. Once the Bug-and-Water-type Pokémon took her swing, Matt squinted and focused his attention on her.

As he expected, she didn't pull back out of her stance right away. She was still for only a fleeting moment, but it was enough.

"Agnetha!" Matt shouted to her as she landed. "I know what we have to do, so trust me!"

On the sidelines, Amanda chuckled to herself. Anabel and Olivia heard her, and even though she couldn't see them, she rightly figured they'd be wondering about her reaction. "Oh, that's just the kind of thing I wanted to hear out of him. It felt nostalgic."

"Makes sense," Anabel said.

Ethan, meanwhile, furrowed his brow as he regarded the two Pokémon and their standoff. "He knows what they have to do? Could he have noticed the flaw in Golisopod's fighting style? No… I can't act on that until I know for sure." Intending to test his theory, Ethan directed, "Golisopod, use Razor Shell!"

Matt and Agnetha didn't waver, even in the face of Golisopod unsheathing her tremendous water sword again. "Get in close, Agnetha! Trust me, this'll work!"

When he saw the Ambipom sprinting towards his Pokémon instead of away, even while Golisopod lifted the sword above her head, Ethan's eyebrow twitched. "I knew it, you saw our weakness. Time to show you one of our hidden strengths! Golisopod, show him your secret technique!"

Grunting an assent to Ethan's order, Golisopod carefully grasped the hilt of her sword with both hands. Instead of swinging it, she pulled on the weapon in opposite directions, and the immense blade split apart in its wielder's grasp. What had once been one great sword became two lighter, sleeker ones that no longer impeded their user's mobility.

"What?!" Matt gasped in horror, his reaction mimicked by Agnetha. She was so shocked, in fact, that she couldn't even think to stop running, even as she headed right into Golisopod's clutches.

"That's right," Ethan boasted, "and now I'll show you exactly what Golisopod's capable of! Razor Shell!"

Freed from the burden of her original weapon, Golisopod pulled back, preparing to swing her new swords in a crossing motion more like an X-Scissor than any other move.

Matt couldn't think straight anymore. All he knew was that if Golisopod's attack landed, it would likely spell the end of his potential comeback. As the twin blades drew nearer and nearer to their target, he blurted out the first thing that came into his head. "Agnetha, slide underneath them!"

Luckily for Matt and Agnetha, there was just barely enough time to put that plan into action. She dropped down and slid feet-first, missing Golisopod's slash by mere centimeters. Golisopod initially failed to realize she had missed, and then didn't notice right away where Agnetha had gone, but when but when she realized that the Ambipom was underneath her, her vicious growls turned to worry.

"It worked… somehow," Matt said, blinking in awe. "Agnetha, hurry and use Ice Punch!"

With Golisopod temporarily still, Agnetha had all the time she needed to bounce out of her slide and drive one of her cold-infused tails into Golisopod's underbelly, forcing a raspy breath out of her opponent. The lack of armor protecting that part of her body meant Golisopod bore the full brunt of the blow, and she fell over herself head-first, both of her Razor Shell swords slipping from her claws in the process. One clattered to the ground near its owner, while the other went spinning off several feet away.

Suddenly, another idea burst into Matt's consciousness, one that he instinctively knew he had to act on. "Agnetha, grab one of those swords for yourself!"

"Ah!" Ethan exclaimed, jolted by the way the battle's pace suddenly shifted. "Stop Ambipom with Drill Run!"

Golisopod huffed as she snatched up the blade closest to her, her breath again making her whiskers bristle. She then snapped herself up in her armor and threw a spiraling lunge in Agnetha's direction. The Ambipom had her back turned while she pursued the other sword, so she initially was unaware of the danger.

"Agnetha, behind you!" Matt warned, pointing forward. "Double Hit!"

By then having sensed Golisopod drawing near, Agnetha whipped around in a circle, allowing her tails to swing behind her. Her left tail simply bounced off of Golisopod's armor, but while that blow proved ineffective, her right was busy snatching up the fallen blade. Golisopod's armored cocoon quickly became a liability, leaving her unable to see her own sword being brandished against her. When Agnetha struck her with it, she got knocked completely out of her Drill Run and sent flying until she finally crumpled to her hands and knees.

"Most impressive…" Anabel observed, her hand absentmindedly wandering to a pin largely hidden in the folds of her scarf. "That's the sort of creativity I enjoy battling against myself."

It was an emotion Ethan shared. "Man, I'm just having a blast! I almost don't want it to end. That's how much fun I'm having seeing what you pull out next!" The Frontier Brain laughed, but then reached up and scratched the back of his head. "A good challenge is a good challenge, but I still gotta do everything I can to pull out a win. Golisopod, still good to go?"

Golisopod was still on her hands and knees catching her breath, but when Ethan spoke to her, she jumped right back to her feet as if nothing had happened. Both Matt and Agnetha could see the fire burning in her eyes, and if there was any doubt about her mood, the way she snarled at them cleared it up.

"Whoa... I'll take that as a yes," Ethan said, the slightest hint of astonishment infiltrating his voice. "You know what to do, then. Give it all you've got with Razor Shell!"

"Agnetha, you can match that!" Matt shot back. "Double Hit!"

To that point, the battle between Agnetha and Golisopod could best be called a struggle. Agnetha's agility helped her manage Golisopod's overwhelming might, but her opportunities to slip beneath the insect's armor and inflict much actual damage were limited. This left them much more evenly matched than it would seem to the naked eye, neither of them able to truly get a leg up on the other.

But when they abandoned all pretense and simply went at each other, it went from a struggle to a flat-out duel. Golisopod still had one of her Razor Shell swords, but Agnetha brandished the other against its creator using the hand on one of her tails. They clashed at the center of the field, casting a spray of mist over their trainers, the referee and the onlookers. Just when the two Pokémon appeared to have stalled each other out, Agnetha used her other tail to vault over Golisopod's head, then flipped in midair to strike Golisopod in the back.

The insectoid warrior stumbled, but regained her composure in short order and pivoted around to her opponent. A combination of frustration at Agnetha's persistence and her own growing weariness burned in Golisopod's every cell, forcing her eyes to twitch. Her anger was beginning to cloud her judgment, and she lunged again at Agnetha, recklessly swinging her Razor Shell at the Ambipom. Matt's Pokémon nevertheless managed to nimbly dance right at the edge of Golisopod's reach, twisting and swaying around both her and her onslaught. Each swing Golisopod took created a splash of water when it hit the floor, but Agnetha just shook the droplets out of her fur each time.

After a few bouts of sustained attacks with little effect, Golisopod finally had enough and decided to change her tactics. She reoriented her grip on her sword and switched to stabbing at Agnetha with it, an act that brought a marked - but not perfect - increase in her accuracy. Though she still could not land a direct blow on the Ambipom, the margins were closing in, a fact of which Agnetha was well aware. The Normal-type Pokémon swapped her stolen blade between her tail hands and drove both appendages simultaneously at Golisopod, who countered by thrusting both her sword and her free claw back.

Their clash brought the battle back to a state of stalemate. Agnetha pushed with all her might against Golisopod's claws, but she couldn't manage to gain any ground. Nor could Golisopod, not against the resistance Agnetha's tails put up.

Behind his Pokémon, Ethan could see how the pair were deadlocked. Instead of regarding the scene with concern as Matt was, though, he grinned broadly once again. "We've got just the solution for this situation. Isn't that right, Golisopod?"

"Gol!" she called back to her trainer, even while remaining focused on pressing back against Agnetha's defense.

"I thought so. Put your other arms to good use! X-Scissor!"

Even as she continued to bear down on Agnetha's two tails, Golisopod persistently slashed at her opponent's face using the claws on her four smaller arms. Every swipe sent Agnetha's purple-and-cream-colored fur flying, and Golisopod snickered at the simian all the while. She truly believed she had the Ambipom checkmated.

"Agnetha!" Matt shouted in dismay. "You have to try and es-"

Suddenly, Agnetha cut her trainer off mid-sentence by squeaking at him. He was taken aback by her show of defiance even as her face and chest got cut over and over.

"Agnetha, you're really sure you're alright?" he asked her.

Another squeak, and this one got Matt to understand what Agnetha was saying.

She had a plan.

"But what is it?" Matt wondered, doing his best to concentrate on the scene before him. "We're not making any headway against Golisopod, and those X-Scissors have to be taking their toll. What does she see that I don't?"

Luckily for Matt, a major clue soon presented itself when Golisopod's offense started flagging. Less fur was being scattered by each slash, and every strike grew accordingly slower and less forceful.

"That's right, Golisopod needs to rest between attacks!" he realized. Newly emboldened by this turn, he said to Agnetha, "Hang in there until it stops!"

"Ah!" Ethan gasped, recognizing the peril he and his Pokémon were in. "Golisopod, pull back!"

However, it was already too late. Golisopod stopped swiping at Agnetha altogether, and even though she kept up her pressure against Agnetha with her big arms, her smaller ones fell limp beneath her. That was when Agnetha gave Matt another verbal cue, this one accompanied by a telling shake of the tail she held the sword in.

"I've got you, Agnetha. I get it this time." Sweeping his arm in front of himself, Matt boomed, "Ice Punch!"

On Matt's command, a rush of cold energy surged through Agnetha's tail. When it reached the hand, it flowed into the blade and froze the weapon solid. Her plan now in place, Agnetha abruptly disengaged from her exchange with Golisopod, drew the now-frozen sword back, and plunged it directly into Golisopod's soft, unguarded underside.

All of Golisopod's breath left her body in an instant. She stumbled away from Agnetha while clutching where she'd been hit before falling onto her back. Her smaller arms initially kept twitching for a moment, but soon, she was still.

"Golisopod is unable to battle!" confirmed the judge. "The winners of the fourth round are Matt and Ambipom!"

Once the last syllable left the referee's mouth, the air went almost completely silent. The waves lapping gently against the sides of the Battle Submarine were the only thing that could be heard. Matt, in disbelief of the turn of events, looked over to the scoreboard to confirm that what he thought to be too good to be true was in fact real. Indeed, he had both Nikola and Agnetha next to his own image, while Ethan still had Dhelmise and Donphan next to his. The match was now officially tied, and there was only one thought that ended up in Matt's head. "I could… seriously still win this."

"That's right, you can do it!" Amanda's cheering was what made Matt realize he'd said his thoughts out loud, and his pale skin became tinged with the slightest shade of red.

Ethan, meanwhile, recalled Golisopod to her Poké Ball, then laughed heartily. "Have some more confidence in yourself! Listen to Amanda, she knows you've got a shot and I'd trust her judgment any day."

"Yeah…" Glancing to his sister and then back to Ethan, Matt exhaled. "Yeah, you guys are right. I'm just getting a little worn out. Agnetha, you did very w-"

Matt had retrieved and held up Agnetha's ball, but before he could call her back, she ran off the battlefield and planted herself next to Amanda.

"Agnetha?" Amanda wondered, initially unsure of who sat down until the Ambipom chattered and tapped a tail against her arm. "Joining us for the end, are you? I can't blame you, this is thrilling."

"I think I've had quite enough thrills for one day," Matt sighed as he put Agnetha's Poké Ball back in his bag and retrieved his fifth and final one. "But then again, there's still one more thrill left, isn't there?"

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Ethan replied, holding up the sphere containing his own final Pokémon. "There's nothing more for us to say to each other, really. The only question left is which of us comes away with a victory, and there's only one way to answer that. Ready to find out?"

Matt ran his hand through his hair. "I'll never be more ready than I am right now."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear." Unable to check his enthusiasm, Ethan wound up and flung the Poké Ball like a baseball. "Porygon-Z, let's go!" he yelled out, his declaration coming from so deep within his lungs that it was as if he wanted the whole ocean to hear it.

Matt knew he could never match that level of excitement, so he popped the sphere open in his hand instead of throwing it at all. "Anton, make your mark!"

Ethan's Porygon-Z was the first of the two Pokémon to materialize, hovering over the field and twitching subtly. It trained its yellow-and-black eyes on Matt's Rhyperior, Anton, as the latter took shape opposite it.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Amanda felt her breath catch in her throat. It was an instinct, a memory so deeply seated that it was practically written into her DNA, that aligned her thoughts with her brother's.

Anton had been there from the very beginning. The day Matt and Amanda fled their birthplace in Snowpoint City, dreaming that somewhere beyond the treacherous abyss of Route 217 lay a place for them, he was there. Then a Rhyhorn, Anton was the mount that carried them off into the blizzard that nearly claimed them. No paradise awaited them, though, but the clutches of the man who would become Team Galactic's leader. That was the day their stories, what had led them to the Battle Submarine, began. And that was why Amanda knew Matt had saved Anton for last - even moreso than with Nikola, he was making the beginning and the end into one.

"So Rhyperior's your last Pokémon… this should be an interesting match for sure." While he talked, Ethan started to remove his Pokégear from his left wrist, leaving Matt unsure of his intentions. He put the electronic device away in one pocket, then reached into the other, teasingly asking Matt, "How will you try to overcome us, I wonder? I want to see what sort of surprises you have in store for me… because I have a trick up my sleeve for you, too."

Much to the surprise of both Matt and Olivia, a heavy, white bracelet was what Ethan retrieved. When he attached it to his left arm, Matt could see that there was a gray crystal set into the bracelet's stone.

"Hey, Mom," Olivia whispered as she pulled on Anabel's arm, "isn't that…?"

"A Z-Ring like mine, yes," Anabel replied. She pulled her sleeve up slightly to show her black Z-Ring to her daughter. "His Z-Ring is different, obviously, but he also has a different Z-Crystal than I do."

Out on the battlefield, Matt had already pieced together the same information. "A Normalium-Z," he identified.

"That's right," Ethan said with a grin. "I got it on Melemele Island in Alola, while I was traveling the world… now watch as I show you the Battle Submarine's last line of defense!"

A shadow of the circular shape inside the crystal emerged when Ethan crossed his arms in front of himself. He then formed a diagonal line by pointing his right arm down and his left arm up, while a flare of energy erupted around him.

"Behold, the true might of the Battle Submarine's final guardian!" By bending his arms to strike a pose in the shape of the letter 'Z,' Ethan sent the energy he'd kicked up into Porygon-Z, who twitched wildly as it absorbed all the power. "Use Z-Conversion!" the Frontier Brain finally cried.

Porygon-Z screeched in an ear-splitting tone, causing the energy flare to intensify around it. For several long, tense seconds, Matt and Anton lost sight of their opponent within the plume. They had a cursory knowledge of Z-Moves from past adventures, but were unsure of what to expect from Porygon-Z's.

"Be careful, Anton," Matt urged his Rhyperior, the latter raising an arm to guard himself. "Anything could happen."

Indeed, Porygon-Z emerged when the energy dissipated shortly thereafter. Two changes immediately became apparent to most present - for one, Porygon-Z's body had taken on a light-blue color, and second, there was an aura radiating from it.

"Hm, I got Ice…" Ethan noted, though his upbeat mood swiftly returned. "It doesn't matter! With all its abilities strengthened, behold the Z that protects the Battle Submarine!"

"So it didn't just change your type, it made Porygon-Z stronger…" Matt repeated through gritted teeth. "Anton, use Avalanche! That should work!"

Anton wasted no time in following Matt's direction. He smashed his blocky fingers together, causing the water vapor in the air above Porygon-Z to chill and solidify. The chunks of ice fell and buried their newly-susceptible target, but Porygon-Z's aura helped it melt them away in short order.

"Right, that Z-Move enhanced its defenses, too…" Matt observed, cautiously watching the watery remains of Avalanche glistening in the sun as they dripped from Porygon-Z's body. "We still don't know what attacks it's capable of either, but it must have an Ice-type one for Conversion to change it into Ice…" he speculated.

"So you get how our moves work," Ethan said. "Honestly, I like it that way. Now we can cast aside all questions and fight this battle until the bitter end! Porygon-Z, try Conversion again!"

Porygon-Z buzzed and fell still, temporarily putting a stop to its usual twitching. A yellow flash blotted out the black rings in its eyes, and when they returned, its body retextured itself and adopted a similar golden hue.

Matt had no need for Ethan to explain what had happened. He could understand it on his own. "Electric!" he gasped, involuntarily recoiling at how his fortunes had changed. Under the Inverse Field's influence, Anton's might against Electric-types - both offensive and defensive - was turned on its ear. He could manage other options for attacking it, but the fact Conversion turned Porygon-Z into an Electric-type meant it knew a matching move, and that meant Anton was in just as much trouble as if it had stayed a Normal-type from the start. "We have to put an end to this now!" Matt urgently emphasized, balling his hands into fists. "Anton, give it everything you've got! Rock Wrecker!"

Anton brought his hands together and ejected tiny stones from the holes in both palms. The assorted pieces of gravel clustered together into a single mass that soon grew to a great size. Once the boulder fit snugly between his arms, Anton discharged more gravel to fire it at Porygon-Z like a missile, and it exploded into a massive cloud of earthy dust upon hitting its target.

Exhausted by the effort, Anton fell to one knee to catch his breath. Seeing this, Matt praised him, "That was a good shot, Anton. It should have done the j-"

Matt's jaw fell open when the dust started to clear. There, floating resolutely at the center of the cloud, was Porygon-Z. Its body was battered and covered in dirt, yet there it still stood, more than capable of continuing the fight.

"No…" Matt groaned, his arms falling limp at his sides as his strength left him. Just as fast as he'd managed to claw his way back to tying the match, victory - and all that came with it - again seemed to be slipping away. "I bet it all on Rock Wrecker, and it wasn't enough…"

"That was closer than you think. If I hadn't used Z-Conversion to strengthen Porygon-Z first, I think that might have been game over for me. But what's done is done. Now…" Ethan spun around and pumped his fist into the air. "...it's time to win this once and for all! Porygon-Z, show them what a Frontier Brain's Thunderbolt looks like!"

Sparks flew from Porygon-Z, its perpetually jerking movements building up energy within the virtual Pokémon's form. Matt harbored no doubt regarding just how massive its reserves of power were growing, but he couldn't see any good way to deal with the looming threat all that voltage posed.

Before Porygon-Z fired, Anton recovered from his exhaustion and stood back up. Matt still wasn't thinking clearly, but his Rhyperior's rise pulled some response out of him. "Smart Strike," he choked.

Anton lumbered forth with his horn glittering like well-polished metal, but even the most speed he could muster was far from sufficient to reach Porygon-Z in time. A bright flash burst from its body, an ominous herald of what would follow seconds later.

Porygon-Z screeched and went stiff, rigidly extending its arms and tail to their full lengths. Then, finally, an absolutely gigantic blast of electricity came roaring from every cell in Porygon-Z's being, cleaving the air like a hot knife through butter. There was no way a slow, heavy creature like Anton could ever have escaped from it. He was easily overwhelmed and swallowed up by the electric tsunami, remaining a mere silhouette in the surrounding humans' vision. Matt couldn't muster any sort of coherent response to this, only an incomprehensible vocalization that sounded as broken as his situation appeared.

"Dad's Porygon-Z never did anything like this…" Olivia marveled at the display before her.

"That's what Z-Moves really are capable of." Anabel glared in Matt's direction, and behind her sunglasses, she narrowed her eyes. "Is this really going to be the end?" she asked aloud, crossing her arms and frowning. "You've surprised me so many times before. Have you got some last card to play?"

Anabel's question, although rhetorical, brought Amanda to her feet. Half-cupping her mouth with her free hand, she cheered, "Come on, Matt, I know you can pull this off! Anton, you too! We survived the blizzard that day, and this is nothing compared to that! Go for it!"

Even while he was trapped within and being pushed back by the deluge of electricity, Anton could hear Amanda's words. They gave him a sense of clarity. When he thought back to the blizzard on Route 217, he no longer felt the voltage surging through him. Instead, the memory of that day sent a freezing chill down to his bones, the sensation as fresh as it had been when he actually lived through it.

Amanda was right, he realized. Porygon-Z's Thunderbolt, as strong as it was, was nowhere near some of the things they'd lived through together. Resolving to never surrender, Anton halted his backward momentum by decisively smashing his club-like tail into the ground, anchoring himself in place.

"A-Anton?" Matt stammered, the sound of his Rhyperior striking the ground helping him return to coherence. "What are you…?"

Anton glanced back over his shoulder, though whether he was directing his attention more to Matt or Amanda, they could not tell. He grunted softly to the siblings, his way of enunciating that they had nothing to worry about. And with that, he turned back to the continuing onslaught he faced, then did the very last thing anyone aboard the Battle Submarine expected.

He took a step forward, then another, and another after that, all shoving against the Thunderbolt.

"What?!" Ethan yelped. Everyone else shared similar surprise, but he was the only one to put it into words. "Porygon-Z, double your efforts! Don't let Rhyperior turn this around!"

Porygon-Z replied with a sharp yet buzzing "Pory!" as it focused all its strength on stopping Anton's advance, and initially, the new surge of power in its Thunderbolt managed to halt him. Even then, though, it was not for long. Anton's determination would not be denied, and once he acclimated himself to the heightened intensity of the assault he was enduring, he pressed onward anew. Step by step, each one labored by the oncoming storm but propelled by the sheer force of Anton's will.

"Anton, you don't have to…" Matt's hand found its way to the pin on his chest, the memento from their class trip to the Space Center. Running his fingers over its contours helped him calm himself. "You do have to do this, don't you?" he realized. "Everything we've gone through… if it just ended here, it would all be for nothing… we'd have pushed on this far and then never reached what has to be waiting for us on the other end…" As Anton forced his way ever closer to Porygon-Z, Matt peered over at his companions. All three of them had been brought to their feet, and while Amanda kept cheering, Olivia stood so fixated on the battle that Matt was sure she wasn't even blinking. "It's not just for me, is it? It's for all of them, too…" Matt couldn't help but start breathing deeply as the reality of the situation caught up with him. "Anton, are you… it's not just me, it's everyone. I need to see that, don't I?" It was then that Anton fully broke through the Thunderbolt, looming over Porygon-Z and roaring viciously at it. The gesture of intimidation worked as intended and Porygon-Z flinched, completely dumbfounded that all its power had failed to take Anton down. Seeing this, Matt thrust both of his arms toward them and called out, "That's it, Anton, now it's your turn! Give it a Smart Strike!"

"No!" For the first time, Ethan truly felt as if he had lost control of the battle. A certain part of him found it thrilling not to know what would happen, but as he watched Anton's horn lengthen and shine like metal, he was overcome by a singular urge not to lose. "Porygon-Z, Conversion! Hurry!"

Mere seconds before Anton swung, Porygon-Z's body retextured itself again, once more taking on the light-blue color indicative of the Ice-type. Anton stabbed it with his horn, but under the effect of the Inverse Field, his Steel-type move had little effect.

"Avalanche!" Matt ordered, refusing to back down.

"Conversion!"

Unable to find an opening to attack, Porygon-Z instead switched its type yet again. This time, it reverted to its typical colors and usual Normal-type. That gave it some measure of protection against the ice chunks Anton dropped onto it, but when it pulled itself from underneath them, both Matt and Ethan could see that it was growing worn. Its twitching had grown slower and less frequent, and its arms hung at its sides.

"That Rhyperior's ability must be Solid Rock… but there's no chance of victory if things keep up like this," Ethan concluded, steeling his nerves for a final clash. "We'll have to put everything on the line once and for all. Porygon-Z, use Tri Attack!"

With his arms outstretched and palms open, Matt thundered his final order up at the sky. "Rock Wrecker!"

Flames whipped up around Porygon-Z's left arm, electricity sparked from its right, and ice radiated from its tail. It launched all three elements into Anton's face and torso, but even though they combined into a Normal-type attack he was weak to in the Inverse Field, he refused to let it stop him. The boulder he shaped between his hands was even bigger than the one he'd used previously, and instead of launching it, he held it and smashed it down on his opponent's head. Its explosion swept over the entire submarine, forcing all present to shield their eyes from its dust as the wind it kicked up sent Matt's coat fluttering.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the grit in the air started to fade. As it became possible to see again, Matt, Ethan, Amanda, Anabel, Olivia, Agnetha and the referee all trained their eyes on Anton and Porygon-Z. The two Pokémon emerged from the cloud in much the same way they went in, with Anton standing over Porygon-Z and the Normal-type glaring fearlessly up at its nemesis.

But just when it seemed as if the battle would go on, Porygon-Z's strength gave out. It flopped to the ground, its voice electronically distorting and filling with static as it spasmed and then went still. On his side of the field, Matt felt his arms fall limp again. He stared dumbfounded at the scoreboard, unable to process what had happened even when Anton's image joined Nikola and Agnetha's on his screen.

"Porygon-Z is… unable to battle!" Even the referee was caught by surprise, and she had to take a second look at Ethan's Pokémon to confirm its status. "The winners of the fifth and final round are Matt and Rhyperior! With a score of three to two, the victor in this Battle Submarine match is Matt, the challenger!"

Before Matt knew it, Amanda was embracing him, while Agnetha had her tails wrapped around his leg. Agnetha must have guided Amanda to him, but when had they gotten there? His slippery grip on what was going on around him in that moment left him uncomfortable.

"That was amazing!" Amanda beamed, tightening her arms around her brother to the point of snapping him out of his daze. "You guys really did it!"

"Th-that's right… isn't it?" Matt stuttered, still overwhelmed by everything that had happened. He lowered a hand to pet Agnetha on the head, and when Anton lumbered over and smiled, he mimicked the gesture. "Agnetha, Anton… and Nikola, Sally and Tanya too… I couldn't have done it without you guys."

"Oh, this is absolutely going to be on Victory Station tonight," Olivia wryly said, having sauntered up alongside her mother.

Matt's pale skin reddened at Olivia's well-intentioned, complimentary teasing. He didn't know how to reply to it, so he wordlessly thanked his luck when Ethan joined the gathering.

"No shame in losing when the battle's as good as that," the Frontier Brain admitted, smiling profusely all the while. Porygon-Z, who was nestled in his arms, stirred to exchange a fiery glare with Anton. Ethan couldn't help but laugh when he saw it. "Aha, looks like this might not even be over yet! But we're gonna have to wait, Porygon-Z. There are other places he needs to go and people he needs to see." Porygon-Z grumbled at this, making a noise like the static of a broken television. "Sorry… I'll tell you what, though, I bet you'd like to see Matt and Amanda battle as much as I do."

"Why would you say that?" Matt wondered, his eyes darting between Ethan and Amanda.

Amanda's face flushed. She stiffened up, but so subtly that her brother couldn't notice. "Like I said this morning, living with Anabel puts me in her social circles, you know?" It wasn't a lie, at least.

Luckily for her, Matt accepted her excuse. "Oh yeah, that's right."

"Aaaanyway…" Ethan shrugged off his error. "Wait for me back in the room I had you in earlier. There is some other business I have to sort out, but when that's done, Reshiram. I promise."

-:-

Matt wasn't sure if the hours he felt pass by were real, or merely a trick of his mind driven by having to wait back in the wardroom. Amanda and Olivia both had plenty to say about his battle with Ethan, but as much as he tried to humor them, he found it a struggle to keep up with their conversation. Anabel, on the other hand, was an enigma. She just watched the others, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses even while the four of them were deep inside the Battle Submarine. He couldn't decipher what she was thinking even if he tried.

All the crosstalk stopped when the door to the wardroom finally opened and Ethan entered. "I see you guys have been busy. Sorry for making you wait."

"It's no big deal." Unlike Amanda's fudging to hide her true profession earlier, Matt's claim was more of an actual lie. It had taken everything he had just to sit still and not seek Ethan out during the interim, such was his impatience with a huge step toward his goal so close. "Let's just get going on it."

"Alright, I won't make you wait anymore." Matt cringed at how accurately Ethan had read him. While the Frontier Brain took a seat opposite his guests, Olivia and Amanda packed themselves between Matt and Anabel, who were both already sitting. "So… Reshiram. The Vast White Pokémon. One of the legendary Pokémon of Unova… that's where this starts. I told you I traveled all over the world when I was chosen to be a Frontier Brain, and while I was in Unova, I learned about Inverse Battles. That wasn't the only bit of knowledge I picked up there. During my travels, I found an isolated valley where some people were trying to live, even in spite of how rugged the land was."

"This sounds like a story my grandfather once told me," Matt ventured. "If I'm remembering correctly, they called themselves… the People of the Earth, I think?"

"Close," Ethan clarified, "People of the Vale. I met with those who led the People of the Vale in that region, and they told me that land was once their ancestral kingdom that they wished to restore to life. However, that wasn't the only interesting story they told me. One of them, a man named Damon, told me he once allied with Reshiram in his efforts to restore the Kingdom of the Vale." Leaning back, Ethan thought back to the events he was describing and could not suppress a gentle laugh. "You don't forget someone whose hair is half-black and half-white, so I'll never forget what he told me. Maybe in another universe he could have ended up Zekrom's ally instead? Who knows. But what matters is that he found Reshiram and he described to me exactly how he did it. The question I need to ask you is, what truth are you seeking Reshiram for?"

Matt responded reflexively, having gone over exactly this exchange in his head plenty of times in preparation. "I have to know who it is that tipped off Team Galactic… well, to be honest, Polaris… to the Griseous Orb being kept by La Ciudad Dorada's royal family. That was what set so much of this all into motion… and once that's done…" Matt slid his hand over to Amanda's and held it. "After that, I have to know what Amanda and I are here for. There has to be something for us outside of what Polaris has planned."

Once he finished describing his wishes, Matt turned his attention back to Ethan - only to be greeted by an inscrutable look from the Frontier Brain. It wasn't what he had anticipated at all, and it made him nervous. His breathing grew shallow as he tried to reason exactly what Ethan's expression conveyed.

Before he could solve the puzzle, though, Ethan spoke. "I don't understand," he said, his voice having grown deadly serious. "Those are good questions, but… what's the truth you're fighting for? What truth do you want to change the world with?"

"I think I'm the one who should be saying he doesn't understand," Matt countered. A feeling of dread was rising in his heart, but he did everything he could to ignore it. "I want to know the truth about those two things. Isn't that what I have to do?"

When Ethan sighed and turned away, Matt realized something terrible was taking place. He tightened his hold on Amanda's hand and started to rock back and forth, As much as he wanted to deny it he had a horrible feeling he knew exactly what was about to be said.

"I was afraid of this," Ethan uttered, facing the end of the room. "As soon as you said you wanted answers, I had a bad feeling I would have to be the one to tell you this… it doesn't work that way. Reshiram doesn't work that way. What Damon explained to me is that Reshiram assists those who have a truth they hold so dear to themselves that they would throw away everything to fight for it. Reshiram doesn't simply expose truth, it helps those who gave up everything for a truth to reshape the world according to it."

"Matt…?" Amanda softly addressed her brother when she felt his fingers tighten even further around her own.

She got no reply. As far as Matt was concerned, everything he knew had just come crashing down.

"No… it can't be… it just can't!" Spasms ran through his entire body, and his artificial left eye kept trembling behind his eyepiece. He could practically see everything he had, everything he had hoped for, shattering like glass right in front of him. Knowing why all the tragedies that happened had to happen? What the purpose of his and Amanda's lives were? Maybe being able to help Anabel and Olivia move on by understanding why they lost their loved one? Going to Kalos with Nekou to help her have real memories of the region instead of her nightmares? "I don't know anything… and if that means I'll never find Reshiram, then I never will know! It was all for nothing! Turning myself into a mechanical monster… fighting the Frontier Brains… pushing through to win just today… and not just that, both Amanda and I's entire lives! Rich and the others dying! None of it meant anything!"

There was significant crosstalk in the room even though none of it reached Matt's ears. He merely could tell that there was noise around him. Ethan, Amanda, Anabel and even Olivia could see plainly how he was taking the revelations and were trying to break through to him, hoping to do something, anything, to help him.

But, even as urgent as the subject matter those in the wardroom had been discussing were, things took an abrupt turn when a Battle Submarine crewman came barging in. "Captain Ethan! We have to-" He stopped to catch his breath. "We have to go back to port right now! There's an emergency!"

"An emergency?!" Ethan repeated, springing to his feet. "What sort of emergency? Is the Battle Submarine compromised?"

"No, there's a disaster at sea that could pose a danger to us. Here, look at this." The sailor produced an S-Gear of his own, activated its streaming television function, and turned it so Ethan and the others could see.

There, on the screen, was live footage of a huge, seaborne iron structure completely consumed in flames.

"Coming into the hour, we're continuing to monitor the breaking news off the coasts of Olivine City and Cianwood City," an unseen anchorman explained, "the massive explosion aboard the Altru Northstar oil platform in the Whirl Islands. As you can see, the entire facility is currently being consumed by fire, and we are unfortunately unable to confirm any statistics in relation to survivors or casualties. Currently, we are awaiting a statement on this disaster from President Gabriella Bouchard of the Angel Corporation, owners and operators of the Altru Northstar. Stay tuned all night to FlareNet for coverage of this breaking news as it unfolds."

END of CHAPTER 25