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.

30. SOS

There is a scene of an injury with blood in this chapter.

-:-

CHAPTER 29: S.O.S.

-:-

Sinnoh's Snowpoint City and its surrounding areas, more often than not, found themselves under the wintry weather that gave the community its name. The blizzard that gripped the city that day was a little heavier than Snowpoint itself usually saw; typically, the worst weather was instead out on Route 217 to the southwest. Still, it wasn't a particularly abnormal squall either, so Snowpoint's residents paid little mind to it. They simply closed themselves up in their homes to stay warm and ride it out until conditions improved, as they typically did when particularly inclement weather hit the city.

The storm outside of the Chiaki family home was at least matched, if not exceeded, by the tempest raging within it. Amanda, her eyes then bright and undamaged, sat in her wheelchair at the window of the room she shared with Matt and watched the snow. Matt himself, meanwhile, had his ear to the room's door as it stood slightly ajar. Two other voices, one male and one female, could be heard from beyond the threshold, their heated arguing permeating the house with their rage.

"They're really going at it this time, aren't they?" Amanda sadly asked her brother, crossing her hands on the red, crocheted blanket covering her lap.

"That sure is an understatement if I've ever heard one," Matt confirmed, blanching at the volume of the fight. "Dad thinks Mom stole his work and submitted it to that research group she's a part of. Again."

"Why can't they just submit their work together, like anyone else would? All the big schools out there would tell them that. I mean, Grandpa went to Hammerlocke University and teaches at Rustboro now, right? He would know better than anyone."

"But Dad doesn't want to hear it from him, remember." Having had enough of their parents' arguing, Matt shut the door and crossed the room to join Amanda at the window. "I guess we just gotta wait for them to burn all that steam out, as always. Don't you worry, Amanda, I'm here for you. You don't have to rely on them."

"Thank you," she replied, reaching up and joining her frail hand with his own.

~:~

Clouds had begun to gather in the time since Matt, Amanda, Olivia, Anabel and Nekou departed Mahogany Town en route to Blackthorn City. Despite that, the late afternoon sky remained clear enough to allow the sun to shine down on them as they hiked through the Ice Path. Its rays glistened on the snowdrifts that covered much of the stony terrain.

There was little conversation among the group as they made their trek. Things were still just too raw, too uneasy, for casual chatter to feel comfortable. Olivia marched along ahead of the others, leading them as she had been doing since leaving Mahogany. Likewise, Matt, Anabel and Amanda clustered together, accompanied by Amanda's Arcanine acting as her seeing-eye Pokémon like usual.

Nekou continued following behind, lost in her feelings of shame over everything that had happened earlier in the day. Between the trauma of reliving her confinement and guilt over those she cared about seeing her fully under Alter-Nekou's grip, relief seemed as distant as it could possibly be. She instinctively knew comfort wouldn't come at the bottom of a bottle or the end of a feast like it usually did. And why even try turning to Matt, after things got out of hand the last time? Alter-Nekou's poisonous words had stuck with her, and it was hard not to concede the demon's point that Matt would surely find her repulsive. So why not just clam up completely?

That awkward silence reigned over the group until Amanda's Arcanine cut his faithful trotting short. He turned to the left and moved to protect her, digging his paws into the cold earth as he vigilantly stood over her.

"Arcanine?" she questioned, reaching up to run her hand through his fur. "What is it?"

He answered by lowering his head and growling, making plain not only to Amanda but the others that there was something amiss. They closed ranks around Amanda and Arcanine in response to his warning and listened carefully for any sign of what the source of his agitation might be. What soon met their ears was the sound of metal striking against metal, followed shortly by the chattering of many voices in unison.

"You hear that?" Matt asked the others, staring in the direction of the noise, the same as Arcanine.

"Yes, I do," Anabel answered from behind her scarf. "I don't think it's very far away either, whatever it is."

"And I'm going to check it out," Olivia declared, fearlessly marching off toward the escalating racket.

Anabel thought about trying to stop her, but the obvious foolishness of such an endeavor just made her chuckle to herself instead. There was no stopping her, Anabel realized. How could there be? As she followed Olivia with the others, she thought back to her own past. She'd preferred the company of books for quite a while, but by the time she was Olivia's age the traveling bug had bitten, and nothing could slow her insatiable need to see what, to that point, she'd only read about. So, she came to appreciate, of course Olivia would jump at such an opportunity, no matter the possible risks. She was only taking after her mother.

"What happened to those days?" Anabel wondered.

She didn't have much of a chance to pursue that line of thought, for once she, Matt, Amanda and Nekou caught up to Olivia, her daughter raised a finger in a gesture for silence.

"Look," Olivia urged them, directing their attention around the rocks they'd concealed themselves behind.

If one had asked any of the group what it was they expected to see, none of them would have given the correct answer.

Around that bend was the clan of Pawniard that had hassled them previously, in Ilex Forest and on Route 29 before that. So much had happened since those incidents that they had faded from the group's memories, but the sight of the armored humanoid Pokémon brought them back to mind. Ten of them stood around a pair of Bisharp, their elder, evolved forms locked in what appeared to be a fierce battle.

"What is it?" Amanda asked.

"It's that gang of Pawniard and Bisharp we've run into a couple times before," Matt answered, though something about the situation troubled him. "Wasn't there only one Bisharp before, though?" Furrowing his brow, he started to doubt what he recalled. "And why are they fighting?"

Olivia, seeking an answer to at least one of Matt's questions, pointed her Pokédex at one of the two Bisharp. The one she'd selected had a visible scratch cut into his helmet, an injury that Matt and Nekou found strangely familiar even if they couldn't quite figure out why.

"Bisharp, the Sword Blade Pokémon," the device explained. "Type is Dark and Steel. Evolved form of Pawniard. It leads a group of Pawniard. It battles to become the boss, but will be driven from the group if it loses. No matter how strong the Bisharp, it's said that if the blade on its head is chipped, it will retire from its position as the boss. "

"Will be driven from the group if it loses…" Olivia repeated.

While watching the battle between the two Bisharp, the group took some time to think about what Olivia's Pokédex had told them. One of the Bisharp, the one with the spotless, undamaged helmet, jumped up and sliced the air with her arm, flinging an Air Slash at her opponent. The other Bisharp countered with Psycho Cut, his purple energy blades shredding her white ones and being sliced apart in turn.

Holding her eyes closed to focus her mind, Anabel said, "I think something happened to their leader. I can feel it in their hearts." Covering her mouth with her hand and opening her eyes, she continued, speculating, "If something happened to their leader, those two Bisharp must have evolved to fight each other for the position of the new leader. Only one can win… the other, well, you heard what will happen."

The brawl a short distance away helped illustrate Anabel's theory. When the Bisharp with the blemished helmet took a Power-Up Punch to the face from his rival, the Pawniard around them broke into a flurry of piercing cheers, the same reaction they had to the two blows he struck upon her in retaliation.

"They're not favoring either side over the other," Matt observed. "Anabel, I think you're right. This looks like some sort of ritual that's a part of who they are. But, if that's the case… what happened to their original leader? Was it really just that the blade on its head got chipped?"

There wasn't much time for pondering such questions. Another uproar from the Pawniard pulled their attention back to the fight, which appeared to have taken a turn. The group watched from their vantage point as the pristine-armored Bisharp landed several more punches, driving her opponent back. Breathing heavily, the one with the damaged helmet could feel himself growing unsteady on his feet. He wavered, trying to regain his composure, but before he could he found himself on the receiving end of one final salvo from his rival. She sprinted at him with her head down, the axe blade in her skull glittering like silvery steel. Her Iron Head collided with his chest, knocking what little breath he'd gathered right back out of his lungs. He had no chance to recover before she hit him squarely in the chin with an uppercut that, fueled by the numerous Power-Up Punches she'd landed earlier in the fight, lifted him several feet into the air.

Matt, Anabel, Olivia and Nekou cringed at the sight of the devastatingly mighty blow, and its metallic crunching sound made Amanda flinch as well. When the male Bisharp finally fell back to the ground, he stayed down, and the Pawniard swarmed to acclaim their new leader. She repaid their adoration by gently touching their helmets before launching into a lengthy monologue in their own unique language.

"What do you think they're saying?" Olivia wondered, barely speaking above a whisper.

"Hmm… Anabel, you said you thought something happened to their leader before we got here?"

"Yes, that is correct," Anabel said, confirming Amanda's memory.

"Then, now that they've got a new boss, maybe that Bisharp is rallying the Pawniard to go deal with whatever happened?"

"That makes sense to me," Matt concurred. He'd kept watching the Pokémon while Anabel and Amanda conversed, and by then, the Bisharp had finished her speech and was leading the clan away. As Olivia's Pokédex described, the Bisharp with the damaged helmet was left behind by his former compatriots.

As the exiled Bisharp sat back up, feelings of sympathy for him rose to the surface of Matt's mind. He, too, knew what being cut off from those he thought he could trust was like. Oh, did he ever. It was one of the biggest reasons for where he'd ended up where he was in the present, after all. And thanks to that, he just couldn't turn his back on the Bisharp.

"I can't leave it behind in this state," he told Amanda and the others. Stepping out from behind the rocks, he approached the Pokémon, his movements tentative. "Bisharp, are you feeling alright?"

Upon hearing Matt addressing him, the Bisharp sprang to his feet and made an about-face. The pair's gazes met each other, and it didn't take long for it to become clear that the Bisharp remembered him. An initial wide-eyed look of surprise soon gave way to bitterness and anger, the Bisharp brandishing his arm blades while ranting on at length. Matt could only imagine what sort of harsh words he would be hearing if Bisharp could speak human language.

"Matt, what's happening?" Amanda called out to him, only able to hear Bisharp's complaining. Her speaking up alerted the Dark-and-Steel-type Pokémon to the rest of the group, which only made him even more animated in airing his grievances. Seeing this, Arcanine nudged Amanda toward Anabel and left her side, bounding toward Matt instead.

"Arcanine, no," Matt urged, extending an arm to stop him before returning to address Bisharp. "I know you remember us, Bisharp… well, some of us, anyway. Things haven't been going so well for you, and I can see you're hurt…"

True to what Matt said, Bisharp was injured and fighting just to stay standing. He didn't want Matt or any of the other humans accosting him to know that, though, so he masked it to the best of his ability. He couldn't keep the facade up for long, however, and his legs buckled.

"Sharp…" he spat, realizing his weakness had been revealed.

"He's angry because someone took away the Bisharp he followed before," Anabel intuited, holding Amanda's hand as they, Olivia and Nekou joined Matt. "If I'm understanding what he's trying to say, they were familiar, too."

"Familiar…?" Matt paused, giving himself a chance to consider this information. What or who would be something the Bisharp would call familiar? Obviously, their paths had only crossed twice before, so he could have been referring to something outside of those times. But still, their previous encounters seemed like a promising place to start, given how upset Bisharp had become at seeing Matt and his entourage. So what had happened in their past meetings? Their first interaction on Route 29, the one that set the tone for the sort of rivalry their respective groups shared, had involved Olivia accidentally being injured and Matt defeating the clan's leader with his Seismitoad. That explained the ill will between them, but besides Bunny and Dante, Matt couldn't remember anyone else of note being there, so it didn't make much sense for that to be the time, then. So, what about Ilex Forest?

That was when a memory struck Matt that sent a harsh chill through his already cold body. Ilex Forest was where he and Bisharp's clan both ran headlong into Cassy. Meaning, Polaris.

"I think Polaris is here on the Ice Path…" Matt whispered, "...and they're the ones who took the leader Bisharp away."

This revelation, even if Matt wasn't certain about it, unnerved Olivia, Anabel and Nekou in different ways. For Nekou, they were the last ones she wanted to encounter that day. The torture Colress and Archer inflicted upon her was bad enough. But for Anabel and Olivia, Polaris's presence posed a different sort of visceral concern.

"If Polaris is here, did Rich send them?" Anabel silently wondered, her lip quivering behind her scarf. "Does he know they're here at the same time we are?"

Olivia subconsciously took a step back, closer to her mother. "Well, if Polaris is here, then we'll just destroy them again," she declared, a slight quiver tainting her attempt at projecting confidence. "We did that once today, so we'll do it again."

Anabel adjusted her sunglasses and glanced over at her daughter. "You're trying to convince yourself just as much as the rest of us, I know…"

"Matt, if Polaris is here, we can't just sit still," Amanda pointed out.

"You're right," he agreed, snapping out of his daze. Reaching into his bag, he retrieved a bottle of Revival Herb solution and again drew nearer to Bisharp. The Pokémon raised his blades in a sign of wariness, so Matt paused, opened the bottle and held it out toward him. "This herb is very bitter, but it will heal your injuries. Polaris is looking for us, too. If you join up with us you might be able to get your revenge."

Sensing Bisharp's hesitation, Amanda chimed in, "There's no way to go back and undo what's already happened, unfortunately. Your pack has already left you, but if you come with us, you can consider all of us your new one."

There was truth to the humans' words, Bisharp thought, but at the same time the generosity of their offer surprised him. In his species' society, to be the losing side of a contest for leadership was a mark of dishonor. Not just the embarrassing kind, either, but the sort of shame that would turn one of his kind from a pack hunter into a solitary warrior, fighting on alone for the rest of their life. Even though he'd only just evolved, it was knowledge hard-wired into him. Sometimes a renegade, exiled Bisharp might be able to redeem themselves by seizing control of another Bisharp's clan, but that opportunity was a rare one. Yet there were these humans who seemingly understood his kind's nature standing right in front of him, fully aware of his disgrace and still offering to take him in.

He couldn't help but snicker to himself. They really were strange creatures, the humans. But if they were willing to look past his failure and give him both what he lost and what he wanted out of the future, why should he refuse?

With a sweeping motion, Bisharp snatched the bottle of Revival Herb from Matt and downed the entire potion in a single gulp. Its terrible bitterness made him shudder, but if he was going to take his revenge on those who had stolen his leader and ultimately his old life away from him, he couldn't falter from a mere drink. And true to Matt's word, within seconds of swallowing the solution, Bisharp could feel his physical injuries vanishing.

Feeling fresh and reinvigorated, Bisharp jumped toward Matt and waved his arm at the latter's bag. "Bisharp!" he demanded, gesturing insistently at where he'd seen the Revival Herb come from.

Somehow understanding what the Pokémon wanted, Matt produced a Poké Ball. As he expected, Bisharp's eyes lit up at the sight of it. "Alright, then, consider yourself a part of our family, I suppose."

With that, Matt tapped the sphere against Bisharp's head. It popped open and transformed him into a red light that condensed inside the sphere, then the ball snapped shut. After trembling in Matt's hand for a few moments, it stopped and pinged, the red bulb at its center turning white.

"Consider yourself a part of our family," Matt repeated to the ball and the newly-caught Bisharp contained within, "Jeremiah."

~:~

Matt and Amanda might have been building a sort of family in the present, but in their past, what they had was crumbling, and he couldn't resist blaming himself for it. His letters to their grandfather, after all, were the reason Sutter traveled all the way from Rustboro City to Snowpoint. Little had Matt expected that their grandfather's arrival would only provoke yet another fight, this one between Sutter and their father.

"You don't get to come here and act like this!" Charon fumed. If he had inherited Sutter's tall, powerful build, he would have physically ejected the older man from their home, but his diminutive, gnarled shape didn't grant him the strength to do so. The best he could manage was blocking Sutter from entering beyond the house's foyer. "You abandoned your family for your work, so you don't get to come back and beg for forgiveness now!"

"I don't expect you to forgive me, Charon," Sutter said remorsefully. There was no disputing Charon's position, to be fair; he had indeed neglected his own family in his younger years. The call of the world was just too strong for him to settle down back then, so Charon was absent from his father for many of his most formative years. But the passage of time changed Sutter's heart, and now, he believed it didn't have to be that way for yet another generation. Looking over to his grandchildren, who were silently watching the argument from nearby. "All I ask is that we make peace for the benefit of Matt and Amanda. I came because I learned about Fumika always being away from here for her work with the Celestic Historical Society. These kids deserve better than what I gave you."

Charon's selfish nature blinded him to the point Sutter was trying to make, however. All he could see was how it would affect him. "So you came back to take even more away from me, is that it?"

"No, I-"

"I don't want to hear a single word about it!" Charon shouted, cutting off Sutter's protest. "You chose to chase your dreams like a young fool your entire life. Your die is cast. I choose to keep both feet planted firmly in reality, and this space is not one whose reality you get to shape. Now get out!"

Sutter refused to comply with Charon's order at first, resulting in a standoff where neither was willing to budge. Father and son tried to stare each other down, Charon not backing down even in the face of the great height difference between them. Matt and Amanda again had no choice but to watch.

"I wish there was something I could do…" Matt thought, his hold on his sister's hand tightening. The more he considered what he was seeing, the more he came to look down upon his own efforts. "Did I really think Dad would just be okay with Grandpa coming here? What's wrong with me? Just because Mom's never here anymore, I really thought he'd just put aside his problems?"

Finally, the stalemate between Charon and Sutter ended, with the older man turning away. Sutter caught a glimpse of his grandchildren as he faced the house's front door, and their expressions of dismay upset him even more than his own son's anger. He wanted to help them, he truly did. Not being able to fulfill their wishes was barely any different to him than the mistakes he'd made with Charon, but at the same time, he didn't presently possess the necessary power to overrule Charon's decisions for them. If he could have gone back in time just once, as he often enjoyed considering while reading literature on the subject, he would have used it not to visit some bygone era but simply to right the wrongs of his own parenting, hoping that it would lead to better futures for Charon, Matt and Amanda all at once. That proved he had changed, since in his younger years he wouldn't have said that, yet there was absolutely no way he could convince Charon of it.

"I can't tell you what to do, Charon," he said, his voice tainted with barely-contained anguish. "But I'm not going to stop corresponding with Matt and Amanda either, and if they ever ask me for anything, I'm coming back here."

Charon sighed, his childhood memories leaving him skeptical. "I'll believe that when I see it. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a promise like that, I'd be rich. You just left me to struggle with the leftover pieces."

"One day, I hope I can redeem myself." To all of you, he chose not to say. On that note, Sutter opened the door, plucked a Poké Ball from his heavy trench coat, and tossed it out into the cold air. From its confines emerged a towering elephant Pokémon, her green, gold-laced skin giving off a bright glimmer. "Copperajah, wait there a second."

After Copperajah trumpeted her acknowledgment of Sutter's request, the old man faced Matt and Amanda again.

"I promise you two, I will be there for you whenever you need me. Let us keep up our correspondence, and you're welcome to visit me in Rustboro City whenever you wish. Oh, and I brought a gift for you."

Sutter pulled a thick, leather-bound book from the weathered traveling bag slung over his shoulder and passed it to Matt. The tome's elaborate cover illustration of trees, snow, a castle and many living creatures was accompanied by its title, written in equally elegant letters.

"The Prince and the Soul-Heart," Matt read off it.

"That is a copy that I acquired many years ago in Kalos. It's very precious," Sutter made clear to the siblings. "But that is why I want you two to have it. I hope that it will interest you as much as it did me."

"Thanks, Grandpa!" Amanda beamed, the gift having brought up her mood. Somehow, even though it was a simple gesture, Sutter's generosity reminded her that there was a wide world beyond the four walls she knew.

Amanda's broad smile helped Sutter to understand her feelings, so he affirmed it with a cheerful expression of his own. If there was nothing else he could do for his grandchildren at that moment, he could give them someone to believe in. Someone who served as proof of what was waiting for them in life, a beacon of light motivating them to keep working at escaping their circumstances.

"Life is an adventure, never forget that," he told them. "But to embark on that adventure, you always have to keep moving forward. Always strive to be at least a little further down that road tomorrow than you are today."

Having said all he felt he needed to, Sutter went outside and climbed onto Copperajah's back, the Steel-type Pokémon boosting him with her trunk. Matt and Amanda watched them depart, but didn't have long before Charon came over and shut the door.

"He wasted his life obsessing over the past, and your mother's doing the same. So very foolish of them both. You two should listen to me and pursue the path of science instead. Be the ones who build the future." Turning his back on Matt and Amanda, Charon added, "And throw that book away."

"I'll do it in a minute," Matt replied.

Or so he claimed. Seeing Charon leaving the room without as much as a second look at them, Matt instead slipped the book to Amanda.

"Hide it under your blanket until we get back to our room," he whispered in her ear. "He'll think we got rid of it, but we'll find somewhere to put it."

"I was thinking the same thing," she said back. "Which one of us read the other's mind?"

~:~

The sky above the Ice Path was nearly completely filled with clouds, choking out the waning light of the daytime sun. Matt, Amanda, Anabel, Olivia and Nekou, recognizing the signs of impending bad weather, pressed on with a newfound sense of urgency. If there was any way that their decision to journey all the way to Blackthorn City that day could somehow go more wrong, it would be to get caught in a snowstorm while trying to evade Polaris. They still had no idea which of Polaris's agents were present, or how many of them there were, but they all saw their best case scenario was to slip away and never encounter the cult's members at all.

That didn't mean there weren't other potential roadblocks that could come up, though. The Swinub that crossed their path was only one of the possibilities, but all things considered, Matt saw an opportunity. He'd brought the Crabrawler he caught on Route 38, the one that hit him in the head and stole a plate of pastries, for a reason. And it was for that reason that said Pokémon was Matt's choice to engage the wild Swinub.

"Edmund, Brick Break!" he called out as his Crabrawler was pushed back by the Swinub's Headbutt, her latest move in their now minutes-long clash.

Recovering his composure, Edmund dug his legs into the ground. Piles of soil formed behind them as his backward momentum stopped, which he then used as springboards to leap at Swinub from. He was met with a gust of snow and wind from his challenger, but by putting his claws up, he guarded his face from the biting cold. Edmund's drive helped him push through Swinub's Powder Snow and deliver a forceful punch straight to her nose.

Squealing, Swinub flipped onto her back, where she remained for just long enough to make Edmund's victory apparent. He raised his boxing glove-like claws into the air in victory while Swinub scampered away, disappearing into a crack between two nearby rocks. Edmund paid her no mind. He was too busy celebrating to care, but in the middle of his cheering, he was disrupted when bright light suddenly erupted from his body.

"It's evolving?" Olivia asked, gasping in surprise at the sight. "But why here? Why now of all times?"

Edmund's shape changed right before their eyes. His once-diminutive height more than doubled, and the growth spurt hit his arms as well, causing them to lengthen dramatically. When he emerged from the veil of light, he had become a true heavyweight, his bulky frame covered in shaggy white fur. His chest and abdomen were adorned with blue patches where the fur was absent, giving those areas a muscular appearance. A chilly gust of wind blew through the tufts of yellow fur sticking up out of his head, and he raised his powerful arms up again, bellowing a cry of triumph.

"Crabrawler evolves into Crabominable because of the cold environment around it, Olivia," Amanda revealed to her, pointing a finger into the air. "I bet that's why my brother brought it here."

"You bet," Matt confirmed. "Olivia, check it out in your Pokédex and you'll see."

That was a thought that had already occurred to the girl, and her hand was already deep in her pocket to retrieve the device.

"Crabominable, the Woolly Crab Pokémon," it related when she pointed it at Edmund. "Type is Fighting and Ice. Evolved form of Crabrawler. "It aimed for the top but got lost and ended up on a snowy mountain. Being forced to endure the cold, this Pokémon evolved and grew fur. It just throws punches indiscriminately. In times of desperation, it can lop off its own pincers and fire them like rockets."

"Well, that sure sounds like a sight," Olivia remarked as she put the Pokédex away again.

~:~

Even while Matt and Amanda secreted Sutter's book away and kept up their correspondence with him, they still had to maintain appearances with Charon. That meant putting on the charade of following what he called the path of science, all to convince him that they weren't being swayed by their grandfather. It was their faking interest in Charon's plans that placed them in their father's garage that day. That terrible, fateful day they did not yet know would change the course of their lives.

There was machinery strewn from one end of the garage to the other, with each device connected to the rest of the system via a network of thick, heavy cables. The entire arrangement was constructed to funnel power into a single machine at the core of the mechanism, a tall, bulb-shaped glass container with a Rotom floating within. While it could see Charon walking around outside the tank, Rotom couldn't quite hear what he was saying or to who, and poked tentatively at the glass with one of its plasma arms.

"Everything appears to be in place," Charon told Matt and Amanda, who were waiting nearby. "Are you certain the cables are all firmly connected?"

"I double checked every last one," Matt replied. As he spoke, he touched Amanda's hand. "They're set."

Understanding Matt's contact as a pre-arranged signal to play up their false interest in Charon's scheme, Amanda hastily added, "And I made sure to triple check them! You never know what another pair of eyes might catch."

"She's the best at spotting little details like that." The entire routine was so well rehearsed that even Amanda's casual snark was part of it, so Matt had no trouble downplaying it as if it were more sincere than it was. Her existing mischievous streak made putting on the act even easier, so it truly appeared as if they were as invested as Charon himself was. "Nothing escapes those eyes."

Suspecting nothing amiss with his childrens' behavior, and nothing to suggest their true disinterest in what he was up to, Charon laughed. "Rotom's ability to enter and exit motors is remarkable, to say nothing of the way it learns and forgets certain moves when doing so. It requires extensive observation and analysis. What we must do first is understand what heights its electrical energy can reach in each of its forms. My experiment to inject electricity into Rotom's body will illuminate the truth, and they will recognize me as the great scientific genius Charon!"

While Charon descended into another fit of gleeful cackling, Matt and Amanda's voices couldn't reach his ears, so they were able to mumble to each other. "His experiment," Matt whispered, exasperated.

"And that horrible pun, plus the great scientific genius?" Amanda replied, her mindset similar to that of her brother. "Spare me. I can't wait to just be done with this."

Ignorant of Matt and Amanda's exchange, Charon set about activating the machines. A low hum filled the room in response to his commands, and the devices' control panels glowed in a rainbow of colors. The lights overhead flickered off from their power being diverted, the primary source of illumination in the garage becoming the gleam radiating from Rotom's container.

"It has begun," Charon uttered. "Raise the electricity flow by twenty percent, and then we should be ready to launch."

Matt and Amanda nervously glanced at each other. They'd both seen Charon's ego cloud his judgment and lead him to do irrational things before, but at the same time, keeping up their act was important. If they didn't comply, it would likely evoke Charon's anger and aim it squarely upon them. Both siblings suspected the same chain of events would come next: he'd blame Sutter for their disloyalty, completely cut off their ability to contact him, and then force them to work on the experiment. Neither of them thought they had much of a choice in cooperating, so when Matt adjusted the dial that controlled the amount of electricity flowing to the center of the array, he gulped and silently prayed he wouldn't regret his compliance.

A meter on the panel in front of Charon conveyed the increase in power to him, much to his delight. "That's just what I needed!" he exclaimed. "It's time. Prepare the injector…"

An antenna descended from the top of the container to hang directly over its occupant's head. Rotom looked nervously up at it, fearful of what it might do, and shivered.

"...and fire!"

Charon slammed his fist down on the biggest button sitting before him, a red circle that matched his clenched hand in size. As soon as he did, the tip of the antenna gave off a spark, and no more than a couple of seconds later, discharged a flood of electricity into the container. The capsule's shape guided all of the voltage into Rotom, causing the Pokémon to scream out in pain.

Rotom's suffering piled on top of their existing doubts about the project, which only grew with the increasingly blinding light in the garage, and neither Matt nor Amanda could keep up their act any longer. "Dad, stop!" Amanda shouted to Charon. "You're hurting it!"

"No great scientific discovery has ever been made without sacrifice!" Charon retorted. "Turn it up another ten percent!"

"Great, he's totally off the rails," Matt thought before voicing his own objection. "This doesn't look right already, and if we turn it up, who knows what'll happen? You gotta pull the plug!"

"Hmph, of course I can't rely on you children. Your grandfather has made you soft. Move." Shoving Matt away from the output control, Charon seized the dial and applied the increase himself, causing Rotom to scream even louder. "This is what must be done! When this system is complete, every utility company in Sinnoh… no, in the world will be beating down my door to purchase it! Altru Inc., Macro Cosmos, the Angel Corporation, Devon, even the fools running Silph will pay top dollar for my invention!"

By that point, the amount of light flooding from Rotom and the container left Matt and Amanda feeling as if they were standing next to the sun. Much of the garage was lost in the brilliant yet oppressive radiance, and Rotom's increasingly ear-splitting cries turned their stomachs as much as the glow hurt their eyes.

But they could see as far as where their father was now standing, and when he put his hand on the dial to turn up the output even further, both their hearts practically stopped.

"No, stop!" they cried out together. "Don't!"

Unfortunately, their plea fell on deaf ears. Charon twisted the dial again, and the light accordingly grew even further, overwhelming what little there was left that could be seen. If they had been standing next to the sun prior to that, Charon's actions had pushed them into its all-consuming fire.

Little did they know that they would not emerge from those flames the same people they were going in.

Rotom's agonized screaming reached a crescendo before it abruptly ceased. Time seemed to stop in the subsequent moments of relative peace, but that reprieve was cruelly temporary. Rotom could no longer retain the enormous amounts of power it had absorbed and released it in a single violent burst, causing the machine it was trapped in to explode. Matt, Amanda and Charon all screamed as they were blown away by the blast, which flung shards of glass and metal around the garage.

Matt barely had a chance to process the accident before he heard Amanda shrieking nearby. "Matt! It hurts!"

"Amanda, stay there, it'll be fine!" At first, when Matt looked, he thought Amanda had been injured when the explosion threw her from her wheelchair, which was lying on its side next to her. He stumbled over to her side, righted the wheelchair, and leaned down with the intent to help her up. "Come here, Amanda, let me get you up."

"No, that's not-"

Amanda had been covering her face with her hands, and when Matt moved them away, he froze. What he discovered underneath made his mouth fall open in horror. It was possibly the most terrifying thing he had seen in his life to that point.

Her eyes, the sources of the exceptional sight that they had been talking up literally minutes earlier, had been slashed up by the flying fragments of glass. Blood from the many cuts mixed with tears and streamed down her face. It was on her hands, too, a fact Matt didn't realize until well after he had already touched it.

"A-Amanda…" he gasped, his grip on her hands reflexively tightening.

"Matt, I can't see you!" she cried. "I can't see anything! Where are you?!"

"You can't-" The truth behind Amanda's words didn't sink into Matt's mind right away, but when it did, he pulled her into a tight embrace. "I'm right here, Amanda. I'm not going anywhere."

With his sister sobbing into his shoulder, Matt turned toward their father, hoping that in spite of all the ill will between them, there would be some sort of concern. Something. Anything that would indicate Charon cared about what had happened to his daughter.

Matt was disappointed but not surprised to see Charon running in the opposite direction, away from them and toward the shattered machine, instead.

"No! No! No! What is going on?" Rotom was lying at the center of the destruction and breathing heavily, but Charon ignored it, too. He instead opened a door on the side of the broken device to retrieve a partially melted circuit board. "Gah, what a mess… it'll take forever to rebuild all of this!"

If Matt had been able to think more clearly, he wouldn't have held Amanda even more tightly against himself, but his judgment was too clouded. Charon beyond the mangled wreckage of his machine, it was clear as day that he didn't care at all about the explosion's fallout, and it made his blood boil. "Why don't you think about someone other than yourself and something other than money for once? Can you not even turn around and look at what your selfishness did?!"

"Matt…" Amanda whimpered, nestling herself as securely in his arms as she could. "What's happening to me?"

"Don't be afraid, I'll get you help," he promised her, standing and guiding her to sit back in her wheelchair. "I'll always protect you… even if nobody else will."

~:~

Night increasingly descended upon the Ice Path, with the cloud cover only helping the darkness take hold of the area. There was still enough visibility for the group to continue their trek, but it had never been more apparent that their time was running out.

Matt, especially, couldn't help but take note of the way fate seemed to be stacking the deck against them. While he walked with Amanda at the head of the group and looked at a map of the Ice Path on his S-Gear, he took note of the cards they had been dealt. Not only was it growing darker as they went, the twin threats of the impending snow and Polaris's presence continued to hang over their heads.

"There is one silver lining," he said out loud, his half-complete remark leaving his companions somewhat confused, since they hadn't heard his thoughts. "If this map is right, and there's no reason for me to think it's not, we haven't got much further to go. Blackthorn's not far ahead as long as we keep going."

"What a relief," Olivia sighed. She was growing exhausted from the sheer number of things that happened over the course of the day, to the point where she felt like her arms and legs were held back by weights. A twinge of regret entered her mind, and with it came the question of whether it would have been a better choice to stay at Mahogany Town's Pokémon Center for the night. Olivia discounted that idea as quickly as she entertained it, though, for if they had stayed put it would have only forced her to address her anger there and then. She just didn't feel ready for it yet.

The group's relative peace was unexpectedly broken by a phone loudly ringing. Olivia's hand went to her pocket before she realized that it was her mother's phone, not her own that was going off.

"Sorry about that," Anabel said as she retrieved the item from inside her jacket and brought it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Oh, Anabel, you are there!" It was Monroe, speaking with audible worry in his voice. "Listen, did you find Olivia yet? Her photo updates stopped after she said she was looking for the mysterious Pokémon on Route 43, and-"

"Monroe, calm down. She's with us," Anabel told him. "We're almost to Blackthorn City now."

"I'm glad to hear that." Receiving this news made Monroe exhale and relax. "As long as she's okay."

Outside of the others' view, Olivia frowned. She'd heard Anabel identify who was on the other end of the line, but even though he had been nice to her before, there was too much else on her mind at the time. "I don't wanna talk to anyone right now, Mom…" she thought, shoving her hands deeply into her pockets. "Just hang up, end that conversa-"

There turned out not to be any need for Anabel to end the conversation on her own, for a sudden Flash Cannon attack cut off the group's progress by striking the ground in front of Matt and Amanda and causing an explosion that made them retreat back several feet. Its source was a Cryogonal, which slowly floated toward them as it growled in its strange, distorted voice.

"I have to go," Anabel quickly said to Monroe. Before putting her phone away, she urged him, "Don't worry about Olivia, she's safe."

"That voice, I've heard it before!" Amanda exclaimed, cautiously backing away from the noise. "It's a Cryogonal… the same one Zinzolin attacked me and my students with?"

"I don't think so. Zinzolin was arrested by the International Police," Matt reminded his sister, taking a Poké Ball out of his bag as he spoke. "This one's probably wild… maybe it was drawn to us by Anabel's phone ringing. Regardless of that, I'll take care of it. George, make your mark!"

A buffalo Pokémon with a brown hide emerged from the sphere, much to the bewilderment of Nekou and Olivia. Never in all the time they'd spent with Matt had he ever even let on that he had such a Pokémon among his collection, so when had he captured it?

"Since when did you have a Bouffalant?" Nekou asked him, finding her voice.

"I caught him on Route 38 on the way to Mahogany from Olivine," Matt replied, surprising himself with how easy he found it to talk to Nekou in the moment. Were his fears about approaching her overblown?

Unfortunately, that question had to wait, as Cryogonal didn't. The snowflake launched a light-blue beam of ice that froze the water droplets in the surrounding air as it twisted toward George. In response, he lowered his head and allowed the ray to strike one of his horns, directing some of the cold into the black afro his horns protruded from beneath.

"Well done, George!" Matt called to him in encouragement. "Now, hit back with Smart Strike!"

George dug into the ground with one of his hooves and bellowed at the prismatic snowflake while his horns took on a silvery sheen. Using the earth below his feet as a springboard, he charged at and stabbed Cryogonal with his horn, chipping the Ice-type Pokémon's frozen body and making it flip over backwards in mid-air. Despite that injury, Cryogonal wasn't ready to give up. It leveraged the momentum from George's Smart Strike to begin spinning on its own volition, pulling moisture from the atmosphere to form a ring of water around itself.

"Counter that with Wild Charge!"

Pivoting without stopping his sprint, George rushed Cryogonal anew, this time with his body cloaked in a veil of golden, sparking electricity. Cryogonal lashed to face him and released its Water Pulse, only for him to stampede straight through the liquid and crash into its mirror-like face. Stray energy left over from Wild Charge sparked through the water droplets surrounding the Pokémon as the force of the collision separated them.

"We shouldn't be too far from winning this, George," Matt said to him, earning a snort of approval in response.

Cryogonal, meanwhile, still refused to go down even though the severe blows it had suffered were taking their toll. After shakily righting itself, it glared at George, and its blue, glowing eyes briefly shined even brighter. Shimmering white spheres encircled it, soon transforming into rugged, brown stones giving off a purple aura. With a shrill yet still distorted shriek, Cryogonal twisted around, sending its projectiles flying at its opponent.

"I didn't expect it to use Ancient Power…" Matt muttered to himself. Pointing his open hand forward, he directed, "George, break through those with Close Combat!"

George snorted, his breath coming out as a small cloud of vapor. Cryogonal was actually starting to annoy him. They had only been fighting for a short time, but it was enough for him to try to gauge his nemesis's strength. Smart Strike and Wild Charge together should have been enough to win the day, and yet Cryogonal insisted on staying in the fight. What would it take to knock the Ice-type Pokémon out already? As he sprinted in Cryogonal's direction, smashing the stones away one by one with his horns, he resolved to find its weak point. And not only that, he was determined to find it immediately.

When he finally broke through the onslaught of rocks, George jumped up, his leg muscles granting him agility that caught Cryogonal off guard. Taking advantage of his opponent's embattled state, George battered it with repeated strikes from both his horns and hooves. Unable to muster the strength to fight back while enduring the bombardment, Cryogonal descended into giving off a pained gurgling noise, every blow bringing it closer to the ground.

"Let's finish this now, George! Head Charge!"

Red light erupted from the center of George's afro, and with one final bellow, he smashed his head downward into Cryogonal's face. The force he put into the blow drove both Pokémon into the ground, but only he could rise back up following the crash. Cryogonal, its fragile body having taken more than it could handle, lay still in a shallow crater.

"Everything I've read tells me Cryogonal aren't exactly known for their physical fortitude," Nekou commented from the back of the group, "so this isn't very surprising."

"As I thought." His battle having reached an end, Matt retrieved a yellow-and-black Ultra Ball from his bag. "Well done, George. I'm very happy with what you've shown me."

George replied to the compliment with a satisfied moo while Matt tossed the Ultra Ball over his head, where it fell against the unconscious Cryogonal. A flash of light and three quick tilts later, the sphere gave off the signature ping that indicated a successful capture.

"So that's two today," Amanda cheerfully noted. "You named the Bisharp Jeremiah, what do you think you'll call this one?"

"Let's see…" he said as he walked over and picked up the ball. "You know, I guess Victor sounds good."

"I like it," Olivia remarked.

~:~

If fate liked to stack the deck against Matt in the present, in the past it disposed of all pretense and refused to even deal any cards in the first place. That was certainly the feeling the biting, vicious winds gave off as he and Amanda rode out into the vast, bleak snow fields of Route 217.

"I'm such a fool," he mentally berated himself, squinting behind the heavy ski goggles he wore to guard his eyes. His face stung from the lashing chill it was subject to. "How could I have thought this would work?"

His plans had accounted for everything, or at least he believed they did, but their being trapped in the near-whiteout conditions laid bare how naive he had been. It had all started the fateful day of Charon's reckless experiment. Something had snapped in Matt's mind that day, when he saw undeniable proof Charon had not an ounce of concern for either of them in his heart. Matt had to bring Amanda to Snowpoint's hospital by himself, and by the time they finally left after what felt like an eternity, the damage had been done. The injury to Amanda's eyes had destroyed her vision and left her blind. There was little the hospital could do besides remove the remaining glass shards, cover her eyes in a wrap of gauze and provide medication to prevent infection.

That was when Matt, recalling Sutter riding away from their home on his Copperajah, began plotting their escape. His plan was to get as far away from Snowpoint City as possible before contacting Sutter in the hopes of being able to live in Rustboro City with him. But with no ability to get a ticket for the S.S. Spiral to the Battle Zone, their only option was to head south to Route 217. His Rhyhorn, Anton, would be their mount; the Ground-and-Rock-type's stout, sturdy body would be strong enough to carry them and all the supplies they'd gathered for the trip.

Matt had gone out of his way to make sure to secure all the supplies he thought they would need, too. They each donned multiple layers of heavy clothing and thick jackets to cover their bodies, with scarves, goggles and knit hats added for their faces and heads. He filled his huge backpack with as much food, water and medicine as he could without attracting Charon's attention, leaving barely an inch of space when combined with all the tools he gathered.

He thought he had everything, but there was one fatal miscalculation that didn't dawn on him right away. It wasn't until they were out in the blizzard and Anton's stamina gave out that he realized it.

"I'm such an idiot!" Matt cursed himself as he slid off Anton and guided Amanda to do the same. Sitting in the snow, they leaned back against the Rhyhorn and faced what seemed to be inevitable. "Copperajah's a Steel-type Pokémon, of course Grandpa could ride it in the snow! How did I not remember Anton's a Ground-type? That he's weak to ice and snow?!"

"Matt? What are we gonna do now?" Amanda pushed herself against both Matt and Anton as much as she could, in a vain attempt to find some warmth.

Matt didn't answer, instead pulling his sister close and wrapping his arms around her. How could he tell her what he knew was about to happen? Especially when it was entirely his own fault. The driving cold felt more persistent than ever as he succumbed to his own self-loathing for his naivete. As malicious as it was, was Charon's neglect really bad enough to warrant taking such a reckless gamble with their lives? No, he couldn't think that way. It was that neglect that robbed Amanda of her sight in the first place. But it wasn't their fault. It wasn't their fault, he kept telling himself as his own sight started to blur. The last thing he could think before closing his eyes was a hope that in whatever world he would next wake up in, Amanda would be there too and he could apologize for failing to keep his promise to protect her.

-:-

When Matt snapped awake some time later, he was hit by an immediate sense of confusion at what greeted him. Still thinking he had succumbed to the storm, when he sat up and discovered he was inside a huge tent and covered with a heavy blanket, he blurted out, "The afterlife is like camping?"

Sitting next to him, Amanda laughed at the absurd thing he'd said, and her reaction helped bring some clarity into his mind. It obviously wasn't the afterlife, and on top of that Amanda was alright. He thanked all of whatever luck he had for that much. But for those things to be true, it meant they somehow had been saved from the blizzard and brought to the protection of the tent. Had someone else been out there with them the entire time?

"I see you've come around."

The sound of a quiet, unfamiliar voice made Matt shake his head and finally take stock of his surroundings. He was already aware of Amanda's presence next to him, but he hadn't noticed that she'd removed her hat and goggles, nor that she was holding a cup of hot tea. Their equipment was piled neatly in one corner of the tent, diagonally opposite the lantern giving the space light.

As for the question of who had rescued them, that answer came in the form of the tall, thin young man sharing the tent with them, sitting next to a high-tech electronic heating unit. Matt was unable to avoid staring while trying to get a read on him. His slicked-back blue hair suggested youth, but his sunken face and the dark bags around his eyes gave him a cold, intimidating presence, one more befitting of a harsh headmaster whose life experiences informed his manner. All in all, Matt couldn't make sense of it. Something in his gut told him that he, Amanda and the man couldn't have been too far apart in age, but just enough seemed off to throw that theory into doubt.

"Are you going to continue staring, or will you take the gift being given to you?"

The strange man's second question broke Matt from his trance, leading him to realize that Amanda was holding a second cup of tea in his direction. Her aim wasn't quite exact, but it was still close enough to be within arm's reach. Just the first sip of the hot liquid helped him finally kick the deadly cold still gripping his body, and the warmth inside the enclosure hit him all at once.

"An old local specialty of my hometown, Sunyshore City." The man's voice remained remarkably even to the point of nearly being emotionless, keeping Matt torn over whether to trust him or not. "Your sister enjoyed it. I hope you do too."

"It is good…" Matt hesitatingly said, "...but who are you and where are we? How did you find us out in that storm?"

"My name is Cyrus," their rescuer revealed, his pitch finally starting to change as he opened up to them. "I work at a firm in Veilstone City, but my true passion is Sinnoh's history. I was on my way back to my Lake Acuity base camp when my Sneasel came across you two and your Rhyhorn. That is where we are now."

"I owe you some thanks for that, then… wait, you mentioned Anton, my Rhyhorn. Where is he?"

Cyrus watched Matt flail around searching for Anton's Poké Ball for a moment before answering him. "I found Rhyhorn's Poké Ball on you, so I took the step of sending it back inside. Here." Pulling the sphere from inside his own coat, Cyrus tossed it to Matt. "I have been speaking to Amanda while awaiting your awakening, but I did not wish to get into serious matters without both of you. Now, you must tell me, why were you even trying to navigate that blizzard?"

At first, Matt shivered under Cyrus's intense glare. But what would be the harm in talking things out with him? He had rescued Matt and Amanda from the storm, and he genuinely appeared to be more than interested in listening to their story, so why not tell him?

Still, Matt didn't have it in him to open up right away. To stall for time, he instead joked aloud, "Where would I even get started?" Turning to Amanda, he asked her, "What did you already tell him?"

"Oh, I was just talking about Grandpa and how he's always on our side," she replied. Perhaps it was because of her inability to see him, Matt reasoned, but Amanda's cheerful mood made plain that Cyrus didn't intimidate her at all.

"Yes, Amanda was telling me that you two are the grandchildren of the great Professor Sutter Chiaki," Cyrus elaborated, "a man who I deeply respect. His work has made much about our world's past available to us in the present. And I believe that we must make use of the past in order to save our future." Something in Cyrus's tone shifted, making him sound almost as if he was pleading with his guests. "I sense powerful spirits in the two of you. Something drove you to take your lives into your own hands and go out into that blizzard. I must learn what it is."

"Powerful… spirits?" Matt didn't understand what Cyrus was going on about, but in his tired mind, it sounded enough like a compliment for him not to worry. "Well, like I said… where do I even begin?"

"Tell him about Mom and Dad," Amanda urged her brother, nudging him in the side.

The moment those words hit Cyrus's ears, he leaned forward, his interest in their story becoming even more intense. "It is because of your mother and father that you gambled with your lives in such a way?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Matt admitted. Resigning himself to recounting their story, he slumped where he sat, fixating on the ground in front of him. For a fleeting moment, the weight of what was in his mind nearly made him wish to be out in the storm again, as irrational as that thought was. "Our mother was obsessed with history too, to the point where she wanted to marry into the Chiaki family. You can probably guess how well that went. She was always looking to fill some sort of void in her life. I don't understand what that means, but she just couldn't find whatever it was she wanted that would make her happy… things only went downhill further when we came along. They were fighting all the time, and our mother started to throw in the towel. She was around less and less, spending more time on her work with the Celestic Historical Society."

"I still remember the last time we saw her," Amanda interjected, her cheer melting away to reveal a great sense of sadness underneath. "It started out just like any other day, but the arguing got going earlier than usual, and it got uglier than usual, too." As he watched her speak, Matt could see Amanda trying to blink even under the gauze. "She was going on a long trip to another region with the Historical Society to conduct research into Dialga and Palkia maybe being seen in places other than Sinnoh, and Dad, to say he was mad would be an understatement."

Gripped by the distress those memories brought on, Matt took a deep breath before continuing, "Furious, more like it. Even that feels like it isn't quite right. But whatever word you want to use, Amanda and I watched them fight it out to the point where we both knew we were the reason for them getting into it so bad. I don't think… I don't think Dad wanted to be left with us, and…" Matt had begun trembling all over without noticing it. He badly felt like crying, but fought the urge with every bit of his being. If he were to break down, what effect would that have had on Amanda? "Yeah, we both watched her leave, and that was the last time either of us saw her. She never came back. I think… I think at first we convinced ourselves she would, even though we knew better. Dad didn't care. He barely ever talked about her again after that… at some point, we just stopped pretending what we knew to be true was anything else."

"How terrible." Despite his lack of emotion, both Matt and Amanda could somehow tell Cyrus meant what he said. "That is not what the relationship between parent and child should be like. But allow me to ask for clarification on one thing. You said you both saw your mother leave. Amanda, were you not always blind?"

"Oh…" Amanda was clearly shaken by the subject of her injury being brought up so directly. "Oh, no… not always. It's… it's recent. Dad always told us to pursue the path of science over the path of history, because Grandpa made his own mistakes when Dad was our age… Matt and I, we had to go along with it to fool him. He made us help him with an experiment involving electricity that went wrong, and there was an explosion that… it destroyed my eyes. That was the last straw… he didn't care what happened to me, so Matt and I decided to leave."

Cyrus did not reply right away. Instead, he looked down at his hand, opening and closing it several times before finally speaking. "What happened to the two of you is disgraceful. I, too, did not satisfy my parents' expectations for me. And as someone who follows the paths of both science and history, I am disgusted that people would do such things in their names. It is the flawed, incomplete human spirit that drives us to harm each other. I believe we must do something about that in order to bring about a peaceful world." Much to Matt's surprise, Cyrus's features seemingly softened when he turned to face them. "I have studied under your grandfather in the past. I am at Lake Acuity to conduct a survey meant to see if the underwater caves said to exist here actually do. Stay with me, and when I return to Veilstone City in a few days, I will help you get in touch with Professor Chiaki and together, we will arrange something for you."

Matt still found Cyrus strange and off-putting, but when he finally showed emotion and smiled at them, Matt decided to go with Amanda's judgment and trust him. He was showing them understanding and offering a way out from their problem, so what harm could come of it?

Little could Matt or Amanda ever anticipate the truly evil plans for them lurking behind that smile, forming in Cyrus's mind even that far back in time.

~:~

"The latest report says it's going to start snowing soon," Matt announced to the others, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized the information on the S-Gear's screen. Even though years had passed since he and Amanda had to be rescued from the storm, and both of them were more capable of handling themselves than they were at that time, some of the memories of that day still lingered in the back of his mind. The deadly chill that gripped him in that blizzard made him shiver in the present, despite being nothing but a trick of memory. "We can't still be up here in the dark when that starts."

"We won't be," Olivia boldly declared. She also was reading information from the screen of her Pokégear. "According to this map, all we have to do is get through the next pass we're coming to, then head down a short trail and we're at Blackthorn."

"That's good to know. I think we all need a rest after the day we've had…" Even while he voiced his concern for Olivia's well-being, Matt kept quiet about the equal concern he harbored for Nekou. Her distant behavior and almost unbroken silence since leaving Mahogany Town was something he recognized as deeply out of character for her. Given what had happened to her in the Guanosine Base, it wasn't surprising that she was in distress, but he still had little idea of what to say or do. That feeling of helplessness ate at him even further along with the cold.

But on the other hand, Blackthorn City and the opportunity it presented were near. They would have to take some downtime there, if for no other reason than to rest after everything that had happened since Olivine, and that was where he saw his chance coming. He resolved to himself that he couldn't just keep ignoring the obvious signs something was wrong, knowing that if he did, the tension would tear the group apart at the seams.

Anabel's feelings about the matter were much the same. As she and Olivia followed Matt and Amanda into the gloom of the clearing, she watched her daughter from behind the warmth of her scarf. "I wonder what she's thinking right now?" Anabel wondered, though looking at Olivia's bitter expression and stiff, heavy gait certainly gave her some ideas. They would have to clear the air between them before the next Gym battle, Anabel reasoned, otherwise Olivia risked becoming overly frustrated in the middle of the match and having another seizure, just like when she faced Helena. That meant the time Anabel had to make amends was limited. If she didn't act before the battle, encouraging Olivia to take some downtime afterward would only appear to be repeating the mistake that led her to run away in the first place. "I won't do that again," she promised herself.

All they had to do was get through the pass and descend to the city on the last stretch of the trail through the Ice Path, but the day was not yet done testing them.

The group was not far into the pass when its gloom was abruptly illuminated by a ring of powerful floodlights on metal poles. Matt, Olivia, Nekou and Anabel all had to shield their eyes until they adjusted to the sudden brightness, while Arcanine signalled Amanda to halt. The Fire-type canine Pokémon lowered himself into a battle-ready pose and growled viciously as a ring of people fanned out to surround them, all wearing the same white, blue and black uniforms and visors that identified them as Polaris members.

"I should have figured we'd get ambushed right at the very end…" Anabel lamented. "We couldn't have our luck hold out the whole way."

"It's about time you made it here. I couldn't have accounted for the delays you faced, so it's been a bit of a waiting game."

The voice that greeted the group elicited an almost instinctive reaction from Matt and Amanda after they heard it. Amanda recoiled away from its source and held her cane up in front of herself for some degree of protection, while Matt grabbed her free arm and pulled her closer to him.

"Of course it had to be you…" Matt bristled, what composure he had evaporating nearly instantly. "Of course it's you, Mother… why wouldn't Polaris send you after we destroyed that base?"

Across the clearing, Mercury was sitting on a stone with her arms crossed, her fur coat shielding her from the chilly winds. Aside from the way she was seated, her children couldn't get a feel for exactly what she was thinking seeing them again. Was there some part of her that was actually happy, or was every trace of that lost under the influence of Polaris and their mission? Her manner of speaking wasn't giving them any hints, and her Braviary mask concealed her face enough that Matt couldn't read her expressions.

Nekou, on the other hand, had her typical personality pulled back to the surface, however temporary the change was. Cocking an eyebrow, she loudly jabbed, "Have you just been sitting here in the dark waiting for us?"

"I don't know what it is you want, Mom, but you're not getting it," Amanda warned her through clenched teeth. "I'm sure Polaris sent you because this is personal now."

"... Amanda, you do know your brother's been spending time around Team Rocket, right?" Mercury asked, casually turning her hand upward. "I'd hate to see you get swept up in this without knowing…"

"I should ask you the same thing!" Whereas Mercury's presence had Matt sufficiently subdued, Amanda became angry, her fury only growing from their mother's attempt to drive a wedge between them. "How can you even say something like that? I've heard all the arguments, and with the stakes being what they are, I'm quite happy with the side I've chosen for myself. I made that choice of my own free will, nobody tricked me into anything! Can you say the same thing for yourself, being one of Polaris's leaders?"

"That's how it's going to be, then." Amanda's confident, assertive words rattled Mercury, but she did her best to conceal it. Remaining outwardly level, Mercury rose from where she was sitting and took a single step toward her children and their companions. "Matt, Amanda, as much as this pains me to say, the die hasn't been cast yet. You can still walk away from this, if seeing me is really hurting you so badly. Return Genesect to me and I'll leave. That is why I was sent here."

"So you could just have that maniac Colress experiment on it some more?" Matt shot back, clutching his bag's shoulder strap with a trembling hand. "I've seen what happens to the subjects of his experiments first hand. If I can stop even one more of them from happening, I will!"

"In other words, the answer's no!" Amanda forcefully added. "You're the last person who could make us do something like that!"

Since Nekou was standing behind the others, they couldn't see the way her eyes went wide at Matt and Amanda's shared promise. She wasn't sure if they were referring to what Colress had done to her or what he did to Giovanni and Genesect instead, but the mere possibility that they were willing to help her instead of fleeing from what she'd become under Alter-Nekou's control left her stunned.

Mercury, on the other hand, clearly saw Nekou's expression and understood its meaning. Scowling at it, she put her hand on her chin and said, "I had hoped you'd be more understanding, but it doesn't surprise me that you won't cooperate. That die actually has been cast after all…"

"Understanding? You wanted us to be understanding?!" Matt backed even further away from their mother and wrapped his arms around his midsection, struggling to process the confrontation. "There really is nothing in your head but Polaris' propaganda, is there? You're completely delusional if you thought there was even a chance we'd side with you or what you're doing!"

Matt's words wounded Mercury in ways he never could have imagined. Her eyes twitching behind her mask, she conceded, "I thought a lot about how this would go, when we finally met again… I truly hoped we could make amends, that I could show you I only did what I did because it was all for you. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe my delusion was that you two would be able to recognize reality and see that Polaris is the only future any of us have. So be it, if you can't see reason on your own, I shall have to help you find it."

From inside her heavy coat, Mercury produced three spheres. The Great Ball and Net Ball from earlier were among them, now joined by a camouflage-patterned Safari Ball she hadn't possessed in the past. When she threw them, her Electivire and Pelipper materialized from the former pair as they had before. It was the Pokémon that emerged from the Safari Ball, however, that caught Matt and the others completely by surprise.

It was a Bisharp. And as soon as she appeared, one of the Poké Balls in Matt's bag responded to her presence, shaking before bursting open on its own. The light from within it erupted from Matt's bag on its own, giving shape to Jeremiah, the Bisharp he'd caught himself that day.

"Sharp! Sharp!" Jeremiah clamored, frantically waving his arm at his counterpart standing between Mercury's Electivire and Pelipper.

"That's Jeremiah, right?" Amanda asked Matt. "Why does he sound so upset?"

"Mom's got a Bisharp of her own," he replied, his stare fixated on their mother's Pokémon, "and I think it's the one that Polaris took away."

"That's the feeling I get," Anabel said in agreement, her voice shaky. Even though the ring of Mercury's soldiers hadn't moved at all, she perceived them to be closing in, giving her a sense of claustrophobia that subconsciously drove her to stand just a little bit closer to Olivia.

Bitterly laughing, Matt tilted his head back to look at the dark, cloudy sky, throwing the bangs that hung near his right eye back with it. Every argument he and Amanda witnessed, every cold shoulder, all of it until the day Mercury left them with Charon for good came to a boil in his mind. "Because of course. Of course you're the one who broke up those Pawniard's clan! It's what you do!"

"I didn't do anything to-"

"That's exactly the problem!" Amanda fiercely interrupted, beating the ground with her cane. "You didn't do anything but fight with Dad and think about yourself, and then you bailed and left us with him!"

"And I'm trying to make that right as we speak!" Mercury protested. "Look, I'll keep my word. If seeing me has the two of you this upset, give me Genesect and I'll leave."

"You call this trying to make things right? Taking us hostage with a bunch of your other brainwashed people backing you up?" Matt straightened his head up in a single, snapping motion, and as he did so, he snatched a Dive Ball from his bag and opened it. Patrick, his Seismitoad, appeared at Jeremiah's side, and Amanda's Arcanine promptly joined the pair. "You really haven't changed at all."

Anabel, Olivia and Nekou, meanwhile, huddled behind Matt and Amanda to decide what their own best course of action would be. "Should we join in on this?" Olivia asked her mother and her friend.

"I don't know, to be honest," Anabel replied, holding her chin with one of her gloved hands. "With all of us working together, we could probably take down Mercury herself pretty easily, but look at her subordinates… they aren't making any move right now. If we get involved, that may change, and if it does I don't know if we'll win. We can't know without knowing what kind of Pokémon they have, or how many."

"Plus, this isn't our fight…" Nekou quietly added, facing away from the others. "Matt and Amanda were right when they said Polaris sent her because it's personal. She's not here for me, she's here for them… this is something that's been brewing for longer than any of us have known each other, and we have no right to interfere…"

Anabel and Olivia glanced at each other. The same question was on both of their minds - they'd both seen how passive and quiet Nekou was for the entire duration of the hike, and they both recognized how out of character it was for her. So when she spoke in such a way, they had to wonder exactly what was wrong. Her condition after succumbing to Alter-Nekou's influence earlier in the day didn't provide an answer that was sufficiently satisfying to either of them. Ariana's death was surely still affecting her as well, they reasoned, but some piece of the puzzle still felt like it was missing.

They didn't have much time to ponder the subject, for the tension between Matt, Amanda and Mercury soon exploded. "Arcanine, use Wild Charge on Pelipper!" Amanda called out, pointing forward with her cane.

Arcanine tore toward Pelipper, his fur crackling and sparking with electricity. The pelican Pokémon, well aware of the severe threat the Electric-type move posed against a Water-and-Flying-type like herself, beat of her wings in an attempt to escape upward into the air. Arcanine leaped after her, determined to catch his prey, but Electivire jumped in between them before he could reach her. When Arcanine collided with Electivire, the latter's Motor Drive ability drained the electricity from Arcanine's coat, the sparks doing nothing other than energizing Electivire's muscles.

"It's our turn!" Mercury declared. "Pelipper, hit Arcanine with Soak! Electivire, use Electric Terrain!"

Electivire wasted no time in exploiting his newfound agility from his Motor Drive, diving back down and driving his fist into the earth. The surrounding ground became imbued with an electrical pulse, the surge of power shorting out the floodlights circling the clearing and causing them to burst into flame. As the floodlights burned, their light combined with the golden glow emanating from the energized soil and cast an eerie glow over the entire battlefield.

But beyond any intimidation value, the Electivire's move meant Pelipper now had a clear shot at Arcanine. She sprayed a shower of water over her enemy, and by the time he landed on solid ground, his fur was completely saturated. He growled and shook fiercely in an attempt to shed the water, but no matter how much splashed on the dirt around him, there always seemed to be more that clung to his coat like metal filings on a magnet.

"Arcanine, watch out!" Amanda urgently warned him. Soak passing on the usual weaknesses of Water-type Pokémon was one of the many situations their extensive training had prepared them for, but both Amanda and Arcanine could tell how dire their situation was. Mercury wouldn't have called for it without being ready to exploit it, and Electivire's use of Electric Terrain only made his Electric-type attacks even more potent.

"Patrick, protect Arcanine!" Matt frantically ordered.

Mercury flashed a slight grin as she watched the Seismitoad make his way toward Arcanine. "You have no idea what I'm about to do, do you? Thankfully, this won't take long, and then you'll-"

The radiance of the energized ground and burning floodlights glimmered off something in the darkness beyond the clearing, cutting off Mercury's thoughts. Her grin faded as she tried to make sense of it, but she never got the chance to even venture a guess, as a Pawniard emerged from the murk and jumped one of her soldiers, latching onto him with her arm blades. Nine more soon followed, each one shrieking the same battle cry before attacking. Their new leader Bisharp arrived right after, carrying herself with a cool, levelheaded sense of composure as she commanded her gang.

The scene devolved into chaos as those in Mercury's troop who hadn't been attacked sent out a multitude of their own Pokémon - all revived from fossils, such as Kabuto, Omanyte, Cranidos, Shieldon and others - to drive the Pawniard away from their comrades. Mercury could do nothing to stem the whirlwind of confusion as fights broke out all around her, unwilling to take her mind off her own purpose for being there.

"What's happening now?!" Amanda questioned, pulling closer to her brother in response to the cacophony of the fighting around her. "What did Mom do?"

"Mom didn't do anything… this time, anyway. It's the Pawniard from earlier! They're attacking her henchmen!"

That news calmed Amanda down. "Well, in that case, it sounds like that's to our benefit. Now it's just us and her… no one else."

"You said it," Matt agreed, hunching slightly forward with his arms hanging at his sides. "Let's do this."

Outside of Matt's notice, Jeremiah and the Bisharp who had driven him from the clan locked eyes. They shared no words in their language, but the curt nod the clan's leader gave him said everything. Even though he was no longer a part of their group, Jeremiah understood his rival was entrusting him to take on their former boss. The current one couldn't, since one of Mercury's soldiers sent a dark-plumed Farfetch'd carrying a huge, heavy leek to confront her. Jeremiah was the only one left who could defend his clan's honor.

"If you think they'll stop what I came here to do, you're mistaken," Mercury pledged to her son and daughter. A wintry wind blew tiny licks of fire from the burning floodlights as it ruffled through the clothes and hair of those in the clearing. "Bisharp, X-Scissor!"

Said former boss didn't share the sentiment, however. She hesitated to attack her former underlings, instead looking back over her shoulder for clarification from her trainer on what to do.

Unfortunately for her, no such clarity would be coming.

"You won't cooperate with me against them? Fine… I didn't want it to come to this, but I guess I have no choice but to use this thing."

Sighing, Mercury pulled up her left sleeve, revealing an armband an inch or two from her wrist. When she turned her limb over, Matt could see a sliver of glowing rock set into it.

"That's a Meteonite shard, isn't it?" he demanded of her. "What are you doing with that?"

"You were right when you called Colress a maniac, but his mind is second to none," she flatly replied. "This is just another of his inventions."

As brief as Mercury's explanation of the device was, it gave her all the time she needed for it to fully power up. A flare of the Meteonite's energy burst out of it and drifted over Mercury's Bisharp, sinking into the Dark-and-Steel-type Pokémon's body. She fell limp for a moment, but recovered and slowly turned to face her foes with eyes full of red light. Any and all signs of the reluctance she had mere moments earlier vanished as she bared her blades for battle.

"That's more like it. Now, Pelipper, use Soak on Seismitoad! Bisharp, you back Pelipper up!"

"Patrick, jump up and dodge it!" Matt countered.

Patrick had been helping Arcanine move away from Mercury's Pokémon, but when Matt's direction came for him to prioritize himself, he changed gears. He crouched to build up strength in his legs, but Mercury's Bisharp got behind him and grabbed his arms before he could make the leap, keeping him on the ground. He managed to pull his right arm from Bisharp's grip, but was unable to fully free himself before the glob of water Pelipper spat up washed over him.

Growing desperate from the sight of Mercury's team's coordinated assault, Matt pleaded, "Jeremiah, I know that's your clan's old leader, but you have to stop her and help turn this around! Low Sweep!"

The weight of the responsibility placed upon him by the new clan boss only served to spur Jeremiah further into action. Even though his target was the Bisharp he'd served practically his entire life, those past loyalties no longer mattered. He was the one who lost, who was exiled, who was taken in by the humans. Matt and the others were his clan now, but for one last goodbye to his past life, he eagerly would fight for his old family's honor. It wasn't their former leader's choice to be taken away and used as Mercury's plaything, but she couldn't be allowed to claim a victory over their kind. As Jeremiah dashed forward with the intent to knock her legs out from under her, that resolution fueled his determination.

Unfortunately for him, Mercury's strategy was already in place. "If that's the best you can do, there's no way you can stand in the way of what's coming. Let this be a lesson to you. Electivire, Rising Voltage!"

Everything Mercury had done was building to that moment. Hitting Patrick and Arcanine with Soak, drawing Jeremiah in close to the others, all of it paid off when Electivire plugged his two tails into the ground and sent a charge through them. Mercury's Bisharp released Patrick and jumped away from him only seconds before a tremendous eruption of electricity exploded from the earth, shattering the terrain as it sent a huge, brightly shining beacon into the sky. Jeremiah, Patrick and Arcanine all howled in agony as they were consumed by the vortex, the latter two suffering even moreso from the effects of Soak.

"Rising Voltage only gets stronger under the effects of Electric Terrain!" Anabel alerted Matt and Amanda, pulling her sunglasses down to protect her eyes.

"How do we get around that?" Amanda asked her brother, a bead of sweat rolling down her cheek. "Mom's running circles around us!"

"I don't know…" Matt admitted. Inhaling sharply, he stomped his boot into the dirt and bitterly repeated, "I don't know! The only idea I've got for where to start is that we have to be as coordinated as she is!"

-:-

In contrast to the chaos unfolding just up the trail in the Ice Path, it was seemingly just another ordinary night in Blackthorn City. While the residents of the peaceful, remote city went about their lives, Renzo was again consulting with his master, the Gym Leader Clair. Her office at Blackthorn Gym, like much of the rest of the building, had a medieval appearance with stone-patterned walls bearing tapestries of many different Dragon-type Pokémon and symbols associated with the creatures, such as her Rising Badge.

"The elder of my clan has informed me he wants you to progress to the next stage of your training," Clair told Renzo as he stood before her at her desk. "This will be the final trial you must pass before he'll certify your work as complete."

"And then I'll be able to get a Dratini, like everyone who passes the trials of the Dragon's Den?"

Although Renzo's question was earnest and clear, Clair narrowed her eyes back. "You shouldn't focus on one thing so much. You need to recognize all of your Pokémon have gained great strength since you started training here with me."

"Clair…" Renzo slammed his hands down on the desk before he could catch himself. "I'm sorry, Master. I have never been anything but honest with you. From the day we met, I was clear that there is only one path I can follow. No matter how strong my Pokémon get, if I can't get a Dragonite like those raised by the Dragon Clan, all our efforts mean nothing. You must understand that by now!"

Facing away from her student, Clair remarked, "Yet the one thing you won't tell me is why. Why exactly you're so stubbornly determined to get one of our Dratini, and who your loved one you lost was. Why you won't let me see what you look like under that scarf."

"Because I must be able to claim my rightful place in the world, and I have to do it with the favorite Pokémon of the one I lost! I have to show those two who took everything from me that they can't just ignore me, ignore the past like it never happened! If I can't get that Dratini… if you or anyone knew who I am… then I can't get what I've waited my entire life for. I won't give that up, not now."

"It's talk like that that you'll have to stop if you're going to pass the trial," Clair warned him. "Regardless, it's out of my hands. Anabel and Olivia will be here tomorrow for Olivia's challenge of Blackthorn Gym. I do not know what links them to your past, but your trial shall be a test to see if you can face that past and overcome it."

Taken aback by the news, Renzo slouched into one of the chairs behind him as he tried to absorb what he'd been told. "Olivia must wait until the Pokémon League… only the biggest stage will do for putting that usurper in her place." Snapping his fist closed, Renzo continued, "But Anabel… the day I've waited so long for is finally here…"

Observing Renzo as he got wrapped up in his obsessions, Clair's own expression darkened. "Renzo, you have a good heart deep down. I know that. But will you be able to see that this isn't a test of power? Whatever happened in your past, you must be able to face it and move on…"

An awkward silence settled in between the Gym Leader and her pupil, but it didn't last long. One of Clair's other apprentices, a young woman dressed in a red jacket, a black skirt and matching kneesocks who wore her purple hair in a bun, came barreling through the door, making both Clair and Renzo jump in their respective seats.

"Leader Clair!" she gasped, trying to catch her breath. "There's trouble!"

"What is it, Fran?" Clair asked, her concern immediately spiking. "You don't usually get this worked up."

"Something's… something's going on just outside the city, on the Ice Path," the trainer explained while holding her chest and panting. "There's a group of trainers fighting with multiple Polaris members on the trail, and several fires are burning…"

"What?" Clair jumped to her feet, nearly knocking her chair over in her haste. "If they're close to the city, there's the possibility their fighting will come here. I must go and halt it."

"Master, wait," Renzo interrupted. "Fran, describe them to me. Is the Battle Frontier's Commissioner there? What about a girl who looks a lot like a younger version of her?"

"How did you know?" Fran replied, blinking in confusion. "Commissioner Mistbloom's there, and so is a girl who resembles her. They're with this guy in a tattered blue coat, a black-haired woman, and-"

"I don't care about the others." Turning back to Clair, Renzo demanded, "Master, allow me to go! I have a score to settle with Polaris, too, and this is a perfect opportunity to show Anabel what she's in for tomorrow!"

Clair crossed her arms. She'd be lying to herself if she tried to say she had no reservations about sending Renzo into the fray, but on the other hand, he had undoubtedly grown stronger. He was a far cry from the traveler who'd shown up and tried to enter the Dragon's Den with a Gurdurr, a Cottonee, a Drowzee and no Badges to his name. She believed he'd be up to the challenge of going head-to-head against Polaris, but his stability had her concerned. His single-minded obsession with his goals threatened to take him down a dark path she could only hope he wouldn't fall to.

Still, one thing a teacher had to do was give their student credit where credit was due. "Fine, you may go. I'll warn you now, though. If you encounter any trouble, you are to call for me without hesitation."

"Polaris will be no match for me," Renzo swore. "They will see me. They all will see me."

-:-

"Arcanine, Psychic Fangs!"

Matt and Amanda both knew Mercury had to be prevented from having Electivire use Rising Voltage again. The consensus they arrived at as the best way to do so was to pin her Pokémon down with a fast, sustained charge, and Amanda took the lead by ordering Arcanine forth. He bolted toward Electivire with his gleaming fangs bared, intent on paying the Electric-type back for what Rising Voltage had done.

Mercury's Bisharp jumped in front of Electivire to shield him. No matter how much strength Arcanine put into his bite, if Psychic Fangs made contact with a Dark-type Pokémon like Bisharp, it would amount to nothing. Such a stalemate would still leave Arcanine open to Electivire and Pelipper, though, so Matt had to act to shake things up.

"Jeremiah, use Low Sweep!" he cried out, sweeping his right arm in front of himself. "Patrick, help him out!"

Jeremiah and Patrick exchanged looks, conveying their trust in each other despite having just met each other that day. They both had the same read on the situation they were in. A frontal assault of the sort Arcanine was waging would be too easy for Mercury's Pokémon to repel. Their decision, therefore, was not to attack from the front but from above. Patrick brought his hands together, providing a springboard from which Jeremiah leaped high into the air. Small embers nicked at the Bisharp with the scratched helmet as he sailed over Arcanine, somersaulted and pitched downward, aiming his heel squarely at his once-leader. The sound of metal striking metal rang through the clearing when Jeremiah collided with her, shoving her out of Arcanine's path. Electivire was left vulnerable while the two Bisharp indiscriminately slashed at each other, tumbling to a stop near one of the burning floodlights.

With nothing left to stop him, Arcanine bit through Electivire's fur and into his arm. The Thunderbolt Pokémon roared, at first from the pain but his cry quickly transitioned into a bellow of rage. There was simply no way he would allow Arcanine to turn the tables against him, so he lunged with his free arm, pushing his attacker away with Body Slam. Some of Electivire's yellow fur went with Arcanine when he lost his grip, scattering around its owner's feet.

"Very good, Electivire," Mercury praised him. "Now, Pelipper, follow that up with Seed Bomb!"

Pelipper lifted about a foot off the ground, the beat of her wings blowing away some of the dirt encircling her. Once airborne, she opened her bill and spat a barrage of small, glowing green seeds. The projectiles battered Arcanine with tiny but stinging detonations that only became more potent from Soak's continuing hold on him, making him howl as he was driven further back.

Meanwhile, the two Bisharp kept up their scuffle, tumbling over each other in the cold soil. Jeremiah's arms grew wreathed in a shining green aura as he tried to drive them into his ex-leader's body, but before either of his blows could land, she hardened her metal armor to protect herself. Her quick use of Iron Defense left Jeremiah's Dual Chop to clang off her with nearly no effect, and while he was stunned, she knocked him away by kicking him in the abdomen. Now free, she sprang to her feet and started dashing back into the fray.

"Bisharp, hit that Seismitoad with Poison Jab!" Mercury called out, pointing squarely at Patrick.

"You've still got the upper hand, Patrick!" Matt countered. "Drain Punch!"

Mercury's Bisharp landed the first blow, stabbing her arm into Patrick's stomach as a purple, bubbling poison coated it. A croak pushed itself out of Patrick's throat, though the blow was far from enough to stagger him. He swung his fist down to strike Bisharp on the top of her helmet, a small flicker of green light leaving the point of contact and merging with his hand. She felt the force of his punch much more than he had felt her Poison Jab, but with the influence of the Meteonite shard filling her head, the pain never fully connected with her senses.

Patrick weaved out of the way of her next stab, an act she repaid when she dodged his next punch. By that point both of them had shaken off what they felt from the initial strikes, and their duel became one between evenly-matched fighters. Every punch, every jab, every dodge, each of them were able to keep up perfectly with the other. The chaos going on around them melted away, their shared concentration on fighting each other all but forming a ring around the pair.

With Patrick handling Jeremiah's counterpart, combating Mercury's other Pokémon fell to him and Arcanine. Amanda's Fire-type companion scampered over to Jeremiah's side, having recovered from Pelipper's Seed Bomb barrage, and lowered himself so the Bisharp could get on his back. Electivire and Pelipper braced themselves as their two adversaries rode towards them.

"Pelipper, Aerial Ace! Electivire, Rising Voltage!"

Matt, Amanda and their Pokémon all acknowledged that Mercury's strongest weapon had to be stopped. Pelipper positioned herself to play interference in their efforts, lifting into the air and swooping down toward Arcanine and Jeremiah. The latter responded by leaping off his makeshift mount, leaving the pelican to slice the empty space between them, and aimed another of his somersaulting kicks at Electivire's head.

Little did they suspect that the Aerial Ace was a decoy and Mercury was luring them into a trap. Pelipper had done nothing more than convincing them they had a clear shot at Electivire after dodging her attack.

"There it is, Electivire!" the Chromosome exclaimed, grinning as she watched her plan come to fruition. "Electroweb!"

Abruptly changing course, Electivire pulled his tails from the ground and pointed his left hand at Jeremiah and Arcanine as they approached him, casting electrified threads over them from his fingers. The pair fell to the ground writhing and shrieking in pain from the Electric-Type's current, their din distracting Patrick enough to leave him open for Mercury's Bisharp to bash him in the face with Poison Jab.

"No!" Matt gasped in dismay. He had thought things were going well, that he and Amanda finally had a shot at turning the situation around. All that came crashing down with their three Pokémon being subdued in one fell swoop. "How much more are you going to put us through?" he muttered under his breath.

"What happened?" Amanda frantically asked.. "What did she do?!"

While Matt summarized the current state of affairs for his sister, Olivia sidled up to Anabel and whispered, "Now has to be when we get involved. I'm not waiting anymore."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Anabel concurred, surreptitiously fetching an Ultra Ball from within her coat.

Before either of them could act, Mercury cut their window off by seizing upon her own. "All the obstacles are cleared, Electivire. Use Rising Voltage for real!"

From Matt's point of view, time might as well have stopped when the words 'Rising Voltage' left Mercury's mouth. His mind was starting to fray under all the stress of what was happening, from being confronted by their mother in the first place to how easily she was shrugging off their efforts at resistance, and he could no longer see a way out. Amanda was no better off. The way she'd trained herself to battle without her sense of sight demanded strict, disciplined concentration, and Mercury's presence plus the obvious panic she could hear in Matt's voice threw her off.

What Mercury did next surprised them both, but in hindsight, it shouldn't have.

"Electivire, wait." He had plugged his tails into the glowing terrain by then, but upon her request, he paused. "Why do you two have to be so disobedient when I only asked for you to return Genesect?" she bitterly scolded Matt and Amanda. Crossing her arms and grimacing, she added, "And after I helped motivate you to escape from Charon, no less."

"No…" Matt found his strength abandoning him in response to Mercury's clear attempt at manipulation. He felt as if his heart was stopping, and his legs buckled as he gripped the sides of his head and yelled, "No! How can you… after everything we went through… how can you say something like that?! Get out of my head!"

"You know what you have to do to make me go away," Mercury offered, sticking her hand out towards him in a symbolic gesture. "It's not the outcome I wanted, but again, if you return Genesect, this all ends."

"Is there no depth you won't sink to?!" Aware of how her brother was rattled to the bone, Amanda stepped forth to confront their mother even more forcefully. Stabbing one end of her cane into the dirt while holding the other so tightly her knuckles turned white, Amanda couldn't stop her emotions from boiling over once she got going. Everything she'd witnessed over the years and bottled up inside herself came bubbling up like a geyser about to erupt. "I can't even begin to fathom the nerve you have to say that. You didn't do a thing to get us out of there! You left us there, and that's why we're like this! Telling yourself you did good by abandoning us, when it just made it harder for us to strike out on our own… it was our hard work and our Pokémon's that got us here! Not you!"

Amanda's outburst made Mercury recoil. "Do you want me to say I made mistakes? Is that what you want to hear?" she snapped, her wide eyes communicating a clear sense of genuine distress. "Fine, I made mistakes! I made a lot of them! I expect this from Matt, but Amanda… I expected better of you. Has all the time you've spent with your brother turned you into the same cynical-?"

"It doesn't matter what you think of me!" Amanda furiously interrupted. "I'm the person I am because of the choices I made for myself! As if I would be forced into anyone's mold, let alone yours, after you turned your back on us! It was Matt and I against Dad, against the world that you threw us into, and all we could do was rely on each other until Grandpa helped us! That was how we built what we have, and nobody, especially not you, will take all of that away!"

Mercury had no capacity to worry about anything but what Amanda was saying to her. "I'm not the one who's trying to take anything away from you!" she protested, gesturing at the fires around them and the continued fighting between her henchmen and the Bisharp Clan. "You two are smart enough to look at this world and see it coming apart at the seams! Just look at everything that's happening. What you built won't survive what's coming!"

"And who's responsible for that?" Amanda retorted. "Polaris! The cult you're part of!"

Mercury grimaced, feeling her heart sink in her chest. "I can see why you'd think that, but Amanda, I'm begging you. I need you to understand. Polaris are the only ones who can save us from what's coming!" Amanda laughed loudly and scornfully at her mother's claim, but still, Mercury pressed on. She had to. From what she'd learned from Polaris, not doing so would render all of her sacrifices pointless. "That's why I'm here, really. If I could convince the two of you to see reason, if you would just join me in Polaris, then we can all be saved. I can finally make up for all the mistakes I made. We can be a family again! That's all I've ever wanted!"

As the dispute escalated, Nekou observed from behind the others, hanging her head and peeking from between her bangs. Watching Mercury trying to force a wedge between Matt and Amanda while playing on their wishes, even if she meant what she was saying on some level, prodded at Nekou's memories of Ariana. "So this is what they had to deal with, right in the flesh… Maman made me everything I am, but she abandoned them to make their own way…"

"You had your chance to be a family with us, and chose not to."

Matt finally managed to find his voice, but when he added to Amanda's words, it was weak, trembling. "You say all you ever wanted was us being a family again… that's rich considering you're the one who walked out on us. But let me humor you for a minute and just assume you're telling the truth right now… if you only ever wanted Amanda and I to join Polaris so we could be a family again, does that mean you were a member from the beginning yourself? Did you join the Celestic Historical Society because of them?"

A lull set in, and even though Matt was almost certain he knew what the answer was going to be, he still wished that said lull lasted forever.

"Formally?" she answered, closing her eyes behind the shield of her mask. "Not from the very beginning, no. They were always the ones running the Celestic Historical Society, though, so even before I knew about Polaris, they saw every letter of my work. When they finally did approach me, they gave me the recognition I dreamed of, and in time… I kept up my research and in time I came to realize what Polaris teaches is the truth. I have waited for so, so long to tell you two everything. To tell you of the reckoning that's coming for this world. For you to be saved the same way I was, all so we can be together again in the new world that's yet to come…"

"You ramble on and on about a new world and all, but that's just Team Galactic's propaganda talking!" Amanda shouted back, disregarding the plea their mother had issued. "Polaris, Team Galactic… do you even know who's controlling you anymore? Did you really think we'd forget what you helped Dad and Cyrus do?"

"That's right, you've got far more to account for than just being brainwashed by a cult. You were brainwashed by two," Matt sullenly noted. "You talk on about helping us escape from Charon but then you go and work with him in Team Galactic… all this noble-sounding nonsense you're giving us, it's all lies, isn't it? You can't spin Team Galactic into a positive thing! You must have known what Cyrus wanted Dad to do to Amanda!"

Sighing, Mercury said, "Now, let me just clarify one thing, first. You're right when you say I can't put a positive spin on Team Galactic. I didn't know what they were really after when I first joined them… Polaris opened my eyes to that, too. When I learned what Cyrus was really after, that he wanted to erase everything that makes us human, I became Polaris's spy in Team Galactic, to destroy them from within." Mercury put her hand on her hip and sighed. "Now, about Project Cortex. I'm sure that's what you were referring to? Not only do I know about it, I know you found out about it. You found out about it and escaped from Team Galactic's reach to protect Amanda, I know all about that. Haven't you ever asked yourself who leaked Project Cortex's existence to you, though?"

Matt instantly understood what Mercury was implying. Stunned by the mere suggestion of it, he backed away in horror. "No… that can't…"

"You realize it now, don't you?" Mercury insisted, nodding her head to confirm the dreadful truth that was dawning on him. "I told you, I've been trying to save you two all along. The fact I leaked Project Cortex to you so you could protect Amanda from Cyrus and Charon… that alone should prove my intentions."

The worst thing Matt could think, the only thing he could think, was also an admission he hated having to make. Mercury was telling the truth, at least in her own way. If she'd revealed what Cyrus planned for Amanda to him, it had helped him protect Amanda even if leaking that information also fulfilled Polaris's goals. There was just no way to deny that.

Matt collapsed to his hands and knees, unable to stand with the weight of everything he'd believed crashing down on him. His fingers trembled in the dirt as doubt consumed every inch of his mind. There were two events that served as the central foundation for his belief that he and Amanda had cut their strings and broken free from Mercury and Charon. One was their escape from Snowpoint City as children, when Cyrus saved them from the blizzard on Route 217. The other, when Matt found out about Project Cortex and rebelled against Cyrus to save Amanda from the fate Team Galactic's boss had planned for her. Mercury, Charon, Cyrus… they'd broken free from so many people in pursuit of their own fates, and yet, Matt was faced with an incontrovertible reality now, that their escape was just part of one of their manipulators' plans itself. The world as he knew it really was coming apart at the seams, as Mercury had perhaps unwittingly put it. All this time, they'd never really escaped.

He failed to notice Amanda making her way over to him until she poked him in the side with her cane. Herself shaken by Mercury's revelation, she lowered herself down to embrace her brother, seeking comfort in an effort to comfort him. "Matt, I promise you, we did all of it ourselves… she didn't do anything for us…"

"But she did, Amanda! She did!" Matt exclaimed, his despair consuming him. "If she hadn't tipped me off about what Cyrus planned to do, I would never have been able to protect you from him! I'm the one who didn't do anything!"

Behind the siblings, Anabel adjusted her tie and exhaled, a puff of vapor passing from her lips as she steeled her nerves. "It's definitely time to get off the sidelines," she said to Olivia.

"Now you're speaking my language," Olivia agreed, producing a Poké Ball to match the Ultra Ball her mother held.

Unlike their previous attempt to interfere, however, Mercury spotted them preparing to send their Pokémon out. With her henchmen still stuck dealing with the Bisharp Clan, she grit her teeth, realizing she had to deal with Matt and Amanda's allies on her own. "This affair isn't for any of you to interfere with!" she hissed, put further on edge by the threat the pair posed. "I can't let them slip through my fingers again… Electivire, do it for real this time. Rising Volt-"

"Camerupt, Earth Power!"

Shimmering golden light erupted from the terrain anew, that much matched what Mercury expected, but what she hadn't anticipated was it erupting from under Electivire. He'd already plugged his tails into the ground before the rupture came, and that positioning left him completely open and vulnerable to the ambush. He roared as he lost his footing on the crumbling earth, the energy uncontrollably sapping him of his energy until he collapsed.

"What was that?!" Mercury shouted in dismay, frantically looking around for the source of the attack. "Since when do any of you have a-"

"It wasn't them. It was me."

Anabel, Olivia, and even Matt and Amanda despite their mental states in that moment, froze in shock as Renzo strolled into the clearing, his Camerupt at his side. There wasn't any fear or apprehension in the way either of them were carrying themselves. They held their heads high, a supreme, overwhelming display of confidence that even Mercury had to acknowledge.

If she had been able to think more clearly, Mercury would have ordered an immediate attack. The combined pressure of trying to persuade Matt and Amanda to accept her motives, holding Anabel and Olivia at bay only compounded when combined with Renzo's sudden appearance, leaving her off balance. All she could manage was to sputter, "And who are you?!"

"My name is Renzo Milos, and I have a message for your leader, the one you call Father," Renzo thundered. "When you go back to wherever you came from, you will tell him my name and that I know who he is. I demand an audience with him, at long last. I'm coming for him."

"Then you too should join Polaris," Mercury advised the young man. "You can't just walk up and ask for a face-to-face with him…"

"Oh, I know I can't. He's hidden himself away too well for that to be possible." Renzo pulled a Poké Ball and an Ultra Ball from within his poncho with one hand and adjusted the scarf covering his mouth with the other. "No, let me illustrate for you exactly why I am going to get an audience with him."

To back his threat up, Renzo tossed the two spheres, giving form to two unusual Pokémon. One was a humanoid with a bulbous red nose and long, muscular arms disproportionate to his tiny feet. He held a concrete pillar in each of his hands, helping himself stay balanced. The other Pokémon had a disc-shaped, metallic body covered in spikes, yellow eyes, and three smaller spike pods connected to her by green vines.

Before taking any further action, Renzo paused to make sure Anabel and Olivia were watching. Mercury and her team might have been his targets in the heat of the moment, but the mother and daughter were his true captive audience. Satisfied that Anabel and Olivia were indeed observing, he gestured to Mercury's henchmen, who were still caught up with the Pawniard attacking them, and asked his Pokémon, "See those people with their Pokémon over there? Take them out! Take them all out! Conkeldurr, Mach Punch! Ferrothorn, Gyro Ball!"

Neither of the two Pokémon seemed particularly agile at first glance, so when they shot toward Mercury's followers like bullets, Matt and Olivia couldn't stifle their gasps of surprise. The Bisharp leading the clan, meanwhile, finished off the Farfetch'd she'd been fighting with, sending his feathers flying by slicing into him with Air Slash. Now free to give orders to her subjects again, she barked a command for them to back off and let Conkeldurr and Ferrothorn do their work.

And work they did.

Conkeldurr stormed through the crowd of fossil Pokémon, delivering fast, powerful punches to any of them he could reach. Much of the army couldn't stand against even a single blow from the powerfully-built Fighting-type, and they fell before the eyes of their stunned trainers, who were helpless to stop Conkeldurr's rampage. Those who were spared, whether by managing to weather a strike or being out of Conkeldurr's reach, didn't get a reprieve from their fates for long. Ferrothorn followed closely behind her teammate to clean up what he missed, stretching out her vines as far as they would go while she spun like a top. Every Pokémon still standing got caught up in her whirling frenzy, suffering whiplash when they were thrown back out.

"I can't… I can't believe…" Mercury was left nearly speechless by how fast events turned against her. She truly believed she had been close to accomplishing not only her assignment but her true goal as well. Matt and Amanda had been broken down, she only had to get them to see reason. And yet all of that collapsed in an instant when Renzo arrived. He'd upended her advantages so thoroughly that she struggled to believe it. Furious, she turned her full attention to him and roared, "You won't get away with this!"

"Will I or won't I?" he replied, flashing a cocky grin under his scarf even though she couldn't see it.

"I'll see to it that you meet your end right here on the Ice Path! Pelipper, Aerial Ace! Bisharp, use Lash Out!"

Camerupt had taken Electivire down with a single Earth Power, but that was when she had the benefit of surprise. Now she was a known quantity in the battle, and not only that, Pelipper and Bisharp held the numbers advantage. Even in the face of all of that, though, neither Camerupt nor her trainer showed or felt any fear. Why would they? They still held a trump card, one that Mercury would never see coming.

Renzo might have been obsessed with proving himself, but he also wasn't above exploiting the strength of others to get what he wanted, and with Mercury so distracted by him, she had no idea Arcanine, Jeremiah and Patrick were all barreling toward her Pokémon. Arcanine, his fur giving off a dazzling shower of sparks, was the first of the three to break through. His momentum didn't weaken at all when he slammed into Pelipper, and he kept running until he smashed her into a nearby rock. All the electricity that remained from his Wild Charge burst loose into the air, and Pelipper let out a single faltering squawk before falling down.

Bisharp, meanwhile, took notice of their oncoming attackers when Arcanine tackled her teammate. She jumped over Jeremiah's first attempt to drive his heel into her leg, only to land with but a fraction of a second to dodge Patrick's fist. The Seismitoad's Drain Punch sailed over her by mere centimeters when she bent backward. She was left immobile by this maneuver, however, and despite the window of opportunity being brief, Jeremiah took it. He got behind her and swept her legs out from under her with a broad kick, grounding her and leaving her wide open for Patrick to hammer her into the earth with one last Drain Punch.

"So have you had enough yet?" Renzo taunted Mercury as he slowly advanced on her with his arms spread. "Go ahead, admit you're beat. Go back home to Father and tell him what I told you."

Mercury clenched her teeth and looked around at the devastation around her. It certainly wasn't the sort of devastation she'd wanted or expected, that much was for sure. Her eyes darted from Electivire, Pelipper and Bisharp to her henchmen, who without their Pokémon were being directly harassed by the Pawniard, before finally settling on Matt and Amanda. The pair had not moved from where her revelations had left them. In fact, it soon became apparent to her that Arcanine, Jeremiah and Patrick had all acted on their own volition to help Renzo finish her off in the absence of any direction from their trainers.

That was the point that got Mercury's stomach to turn. In truth, while she had been sent to retrieve Genesect, she didn't really care all that much about the mission itself. From her point of view, getting Genesect back was nothing more than a means to an end. While waiting for Matt and Amanda to show up, she'd decided that if she would be able to convince him to give the mythical Pokémon up, she'd also be able to persuade him and Amanda to see Polaris the way she did. If he was willing to give Genesect up, he'd also be open minded to Polaris' salvation, or so she thought.

Of course, all of that was ruined. Renzo's interference had robbed her of all her leverage right when she thought they were in her grasp. Now there was no chance she'd be able to get through to them.

Wordlessly cursing Renzo for dashing her hopes, she called her fallen Pokémon back to their Poké Balls and yelled to her subordinates, "It's a wash! Retreat!"

Mercury didn't have to tell her men twice, they were more than happy to get away from the nicking, jabbing arms of the Pawniard. The clan's leader wasn't done with them, though, so as the Polaris members fled into the brush, she barked an order for her Pawniard followers to give chase.

The leader Bisharp didn't immediately join her clan, however. She instead crossed the clearing in the opposite direction, toward where Patrick was helping Jeremiah stay standing. Both of Matt's Pokémon were exhausted by the ordeal they'd gone through, and even though Jeremiah was brand new to the team, his new allies already considered him at home among them. The boss Bisharp had to chuckle to herself when she saw just how quickly he'd found a new pack to live with.

Amanda's Arcanine snarled at her when she approached, still perceiving danger even in Mercury's absence, but Bisharp waved him off. Jeremiah straightened up when she approached, but when they were just feet apart, she stopped. The two Bisharp, having been both rivals and then comrades-in-arms that same day, stared at each other.

Jeremiah found himself surprised by his former clan's leader handing him a carefully-sliced Sitrus Berry that had been tucked under one of the curved blades on her torso. The gesture, though simplistic, had great significance only they understood. In their culture, after a successful hunt or any other combat, the Bisharp leading a pack of Pawniard would distribute food amongst them all, but Jeremiah, as an exile, was no longer entitled to such spoils. That the boss would still include him, even for one last time, finally made him feel at peace with his new path in life. He accepted the berry and crossed arm blades with his fellow, parting with her - and his past - on good terms.

In the time it took Bisharp to dart off into the forest after her clan, Conkeldurr and Ferrothorn made their way back over to Renzo. "Very good work," he told them and Camerupt before recalling them one by one. Once that task was done, he exhaled and adjusted his scarf to make sure it still covered his face. "It's not time yet," he thought, "I can't have everything I've planned go awry because of an accident."

Renzo walked toward Anabel and Olivia, passing by Matt and Amanda on the way. They were still muttering to each other about Mercury and what her revelations meant for the two of them. It wasn't anything of any concern to him. No, what really mattered, the only things that mattered at all, lay with the mother and daughter in front of him.

"Thank you," Anabel said to him when she noticed Olivia pout and turn away. "I know Matt and Amanda also-"

"I have no need for gratitude for anyone, least of all either of you," he bluntly interrupted her, glaring down his nose at the pair. "This is not a favor, Anabel Mistbloom. Polaris won't take what's rightfully mine away from me. I've been undergoing intense training with Blackthorn City's Gym Leader, Clair, specifically for this day. Tomorrow will be the final trial I must pass."

"And why are you telling us this?" Olivia grumbled. "You disappear for so long and come back just to brag about how hard you trained?"

"Silence yourself, Olivia. You're not my target, not yet." Jabbing a finger at Anabel, Renzo declared, "My trial is to face and overcome my past, and that means tomorrow, we are having a Full Battle, Anabel. You against me, one on one. You will be made to see me for what I really am."

Anabel grimaced, taken aback by Renzo's bizarre ranting. "I don't even know who you are… but don't think I'll go easy on you."

"I never expected you would, after everything. But you will know who I am in due time…"

-:-

The doors to Father's office deep in Polaris's underground temple slid open, allowing Colress entrance into the vast chamber. He'd been summoned just as he and Archer arrived at the complex, and he had been determined to look the part. Gone were the burned lab coat and cracked visor from earlier in the day, both replaced with new copies to freshen up his appearance. Beyond that, even Colress knew that an audience with Polaris's leader meant dropping his usual flippant attitude. He did his best to stay composed, but as he walked down the path leading to Father's desk, he couldn't help but marvel at his surroundings. His visor glistened in the light given off by the double helix statues, while the gray floor gave off a cold, clinical feeling that nevertheless appealed to Colress's senses by giving him the image of a laboratory or factory. And that was without even taking into account the office's crowning feature, the gigantic aquarium. Just looking at it brought back memories of the family trips to Kalos he'd taken as a child, of staring up at the tanks in Ambrette Aquarium and taking in the spectacular view of the sea life.

"I see you're impressed by my aquarium," Father said to him as the scientist drew near to his desk. "It's only natural. Life did originate in the ocean, after all."

"Of course. It's quite fitting," Colress replied, pushing back one of his signature grins. His urge to smile faded and he paused to adjust his visor when he noticed the two of them weren't alone. Finansielle was there too, wearing her mask and sitting on the right side of Father's desk, seemingly waiting for Colress to arrive. "Ah, Lady Finansielle. I did not expect your company today. It's quite an honor to stand in the presence of you both."

"Oh, you can drop the formalities, Colress," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "We all know how you normally are. It's almost more disturbing to see you try acting normal. Almost."

Colress couldn't stifle a laugh at Finansielle's playful jabbing. "If you want me to stop being on my best behavior and instead give you the behavior that's best for you, asking is all you have to do," he teased back, pointing at his own head. "Gotta keep this brain firing on all cylinders!"

"That's exactly what I need from you," Finansielle purred. To anyone else it would have sounded menacing, but Colress's ego flared even more strongly from her words. "Oh, before we get started, Mercury just contacted us. They couldn't get Genesect back."

"An irrelevant loss in the end," Colress discounted the news, casually shrugging. "I would have liked to have that prototype back to play around with some more, but my research is at such a stage that I don't need it. With that out of the way… why don't you tell me what I really owe the honor of being here to?"

"Why, it's not much… just Polaris's entire purpose." Finansielle took a moment to push herself up from her seat on the desk and face Colress, the gap in their conversation serving to pique his interest even more. "Listen to me, Colress. Somewhere in deep space, there exists a creature unlike anything in this world. The Tenganists…" Finansielle's voice involuntarily turned bitter as she said their name, but she quickly recovered her composure, leaving Colress to think little of it. "The Tenganists call this creature the Forbidden Beast. It was born at the beginning of time and has survived ever since in the primordial darkness beyond the stars. Though it has taken eons for the Forbidden Beast to find this planet, it will be here soon."

"This Forbidden Beast sounds like quite the monster. I'd love to get my hands on it!" Colress exclaimed in glee. "If it's as powerful as you make it sound, what could it want with this insignificant little space rock, though? There's a whole wide universe out there. What have we got that it could want so badly?"

"The Forbidden Beast has been exploring time and space for eternity, sending its creation, Dark Matter, through the Ultra Wormholes to search for the one thing it lacks," she elaborated. "It has been searching every planet it can find to track down the life-giving light that pours endlessly from the body of the Radiant One, who was born at the same time as the Forbidden Beast. The Forbidden Beast hungers for that light, you see. Upon obtaining the Radiant One's light for itself, the Forbidden Beast will evolve into a perfect lifeform, and humanity will reach the apex of evolution alongside it, an existence beyond such concepts as life or death. There will be unchanging eternity for mankind, and your work will be the key that helps us unlock that gate, Colress."

Having been listening to Finansielle's story with rapturous attention, Colress couldn't keep a lid on his passion for long. An ancient, primordial creature no other human had ever seen before, one that had the potential to become a perfect lifeform, no less, and he had the ability to help it reach that state? He knew exactly who the Radiant One was, so even if the Forbidden Beast's identity was currently a mystery to him, it didn't matter. All he had to do was bring the two together. Then he would draw out the absolute true potential of not only both Pokémon but humanity as well, making both groups perfect in one fell swoop. It was a dream come true.

"If I am to be Polaris's tool in achieving this magnificent goal, you may use me as you wish!" Colress proclaimed, directing his delight up at the ceiling as he spread his arms wide. "The Forbidden Beast, the Radiant One, Dark Matter, whatever it takes, I will be the one to do it! I am the only one who can do it! I will show you and the world perfection!"

END of CHAPTER 29