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First Shots

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"That couldn't have been real, right?" said Rowan.

They stood behind the Chairman's balcony as the last sound of Bronze's voice had left them. No one had moved through the span of silence; they had stood, looking at the recording of the boy, as if waiting. But now Bronze was quiet, his eyes darting over the faces around him, as if searching for special vibrations only he could perceive.

One Aredian stood and shouted, "Hail, Bronze Tercano!"

A thousand others joined him and the Aredians gave the cry right back. The rising thud of applause began to impress itself in the vibrating floor before it actually reached Bronze's ears. At least half the crowd lurched and stood, shouting deliriously. Revan's body was taken away by drones, unnoticed. The people were screaming his name, chanting it: "BRONZE...BRONZE...BRONZE!" The din was enormous, and Tess thought of the rock concerts she had seen recordings of. This was what it would be like if Ruby himself had descended from the performance stage to shake hands with the crowd.

Tess saw a young man holding his son up over his head so the kid could see. An old Logarian with a large, puckered burn scar on one side of his face was waving a sign that read: LIVE FREE OR DIE. An achingly beautiful girl of maybe eighteen was waving a chunk of watermelon, and pink juice was running down her tanned arm. It was all mass confusion and roaring and shouting. Excitement was humming through the crowd like a series of high-voltage electrical cables. Gold got up and left the executive box, bolting down toward the stadium entrance.

They know that this is what they always wanted, thought Tess. This is the return of the king. We've ridden through the gates like conquerors.

Bronze tried to act the part but seemed overwhelmed. There were cramps in his legs from standing so long. His knees popped like dud firecrackers and his back hurt. Then in the lowest row, a man in a tan trenchcoat stood up.

Time seemed frozen, the applause went on and on even though heads were turning, necks were craning; someone screamed through the applause and still it went on; someone had screamed because there was a man in the stadium and the man was holding a rifle and this was something that wasn't supposed to happen.

The man put a rifle to his shoulder. Bronze stared up into the stadium gallery and their eyes locked together in a perfect sort of understanding, and he only ducked at the same instant the man fired. The rifle's roar was loud, filling the place, and the slug made a huge head-sized crater in the arena, peeling it back to the bare, wet underdirt. Green grass flew. Another shot fired but struck a cam drone, and the robot made a monstrous whine of feedback that suddenly ended in a guttural, low-key buzzing as it fell, ruined.

The man pumped another cartridge into the chamber and prepared the fire again. The crowd had started to move, panicky as cattle. They all drove into the nearest center aisle. The people who had been standing at the rear escaped easily, but then a bottleneck of cursing, screaming men and women formed in the double doorway. Bronze sent out Electavire but for an instant he was dead in the rifle's plasma scope.

The man brought the rifle down, and for another instant Bronze knew he was dead. Then a flying object grooved the assassin's neck, knocking him backward, and the man's own shot went wild into the air—a hoverlamp above the stadium dissolved in a tinkling rain of glass. Thin screams drifted up from above. Blood poured down and across the assassin's shoulder and chest. An Aredian from the third row had thrown his knife. The desert-man moved with surprising swiftness and hurled another crystal dagger, whizzing by the assassin's head but causing him to whirl towards the aisle in alarm.

Two soldiers shot the man then, one high in the chest, driving him back against the seats and bouncing him off it, the second into the left side of his midsection, spinning him around into the gallery railing. He was dimly aware he had lost the rifle. It had fallen over the wall and discharged point-blank into the stadium pit. His waist smashed against the railing, causing the ray shields to activate. The shock forced his upper thighs to crash into the balustrade and he was falling. The stadium turned over twice before his eyes and then there was a splintering crash as he struck the turf at a bad angle, breaking his back and both legs.

He opened his mouth to scream, but what came out was a great gush of blood. Hands were on him, not gentle. They were turning him over. Soldiers from the arena pit's elevators, an Aredian, and Bronze were there. Bronze was the one who had turned him over.

Bronze got down on his knees above the man. "Are you from the Alliance? No sense lying. You've had the course."

The man nodded.

"But you waited for me to finish."

The man nodded again.

"So the main fleet is coming?"

"Yes," the man whispered.

Bronze got up abruptly, and with the last bit of his strength, the man reached out and grasped his ankle. It was only for a second; Bronze pulled free easily. But it was long enough to make the Aredian yell and stab the assassin through the throat. His eyes turned blank like dead batteries.

"Get these people out," he said to the soldiers, putting himself in the range of the cam drones to show the people watching that was still alive. "The League's been suspended. More likely than not they'll die horribly if they stay in the stadium."

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"Who permitted this to happen... " Rowan began in a rising voice, but stopped; the vibrations he caught in his words were the dangerous panic of the cornered. He looked around the Chairman's box, seeing only frightened, grave, or resigned faces.

"We don't have to believe it!" Oak's voice had the flat, insistent sound of an effort to maintain a trance. "Nobody's ever said it before! It's just one boy! We don't have to believe it!"

"Oh, buck up and stop acting like our enemies," said Yanase. "Take it easy. Bronze has won the battle."

"Why is he so sure he's right?" babbled the Chairman. Clear beads of sweat had formed between his chin and lips. "Who is he to go against the whole world, against everything ever said for centuries and centuries? Who is he to know? Nobody can be sure! Nobody can know what's right! There isn't any right!"

"Shut up!" yelled Oak, hardly making himself heard over the sound of the enraged Rororians. The assassin was being carried away. "What are you trying to say?"

"Tell the broadcasters to expunge the recording!" the Chairman screamed, leaping from a pace to a frantic run. "It will make the public think we authorized that speech! Send guardsmen into the communications room and arrest every traitorous technician!"

"You damn fool, do you want the public to think we didn't?" said Rowan, a lattice of veins sticking out at his temples. "Broadcasts as usual! Take their eyes off the League! Tell them to go on with whatever programs they'd scheduled for this hour! No special announcements, no explanations! Tell them to go on as if nothing had happened!"

Half a dozen Association morale conditioners went scurrying off toward telephones.

"Muzzle the commentators! Don't allow them to comment! Send word to every station in the country! Let the public wonder! Don't let them think that we're worried! Don't let them think that it's important!"

"No!" screamed the Chairman. "No, no, no! We can't give people the impression that we're endorsing that speech! It's horrible, horrible, horrible!" The man was not in tears, but his voice had the undignified sound of an adult sobbing with helpless rage.

"Who's said anything about endorsing it?" said Yanase.

"It's horrible! It's immoral! It's selfish, heartless, ruthless! It's the most vicious speech ever made! It...it will make people demand to rule themselves!"

"It's only a speech," said Yanase, not too firmly, "and a speech that I'm tempted to agree with, if the Association's leadership is going to be acting like scared children."

"Hold on!" said Bill, his voice tentatively helpful. "What are we worrying about? It seems that people of nobler spiritual nature, you know what I mean, people of, well, of mystical insight..." He paused, as if waiting to be slapped, but no one moved, so he repeated firmly, "Yes, of mystical insight, won't go for that speech. Logic isn't everything, after all."

"The workingmen won't go for it," said Steven Stone, a bit more helpfully. "He didn't sound like a friend of labor."

"The women of the country won't go for it," declared Wicke. "It is, I believe, an established fact that we women don't go for that stuff about the mind and war. Women have finer feelings. You can count on the women."

"You can count on the scientists," said Professor Juniper. They were all pressing forward, suddenly eager to speak, as if they had found a subject they could handle with assurance. "Scientists know better than to believe in this Arceus hypothesis. He's no friend of the scientists."

"He's no friend of anybody," said Rowan, recapturing a shade of confidence at the sudden realization, "except maybe of radical nationalists. Yanase is right. Let's not make a fuss about the speech. It was too intellectual. Much too intellectual for the common man. It will have no effect. People are too dumb to understand it."

"You fools!" It was Yanase's voice, but it had the quality of the voice they had heard from bronze. They whirled to her before she had time to step forward into the center of the group. As she stepped forward, her face frightened them, because it was devoid of fear.

"We're through. Don't you see that you're through? What else do you need, after what you've heard? Give up and get out of the way. Leave the Rorians free to exist." The Chairman was looking at her, neither objecting nor moving. "You're still alive. You're able to understand. It isn't possible that you haven't understood. There's nothing you can now pretend to hope, to want or gain or grab or reach. There's nothing but destruction ahead, the world's and your own. Give up and get out."

"Really, Yanase," said Mr. Berlitz, "I hadn't though you would side with him so quickly..."

"You wish to live, don't you? Get out of the way, if you want a chance. Let those who can, take over. He knows what to do. You don't. He is able to rule Roria. You aren't. You know the truth, all of you, and so do I, and so does every man who's heard Bronze Tercano! What else are you waiting for? For proof? He's given it to you. For facts? They're all around you. How many corpses do you intend to pile up before you renounce it; your guns, your power, your controls and the whole of your miserable government here? Give it up, if you want to live. They will kill you if you don't! Give it up, if there's anything left in your mind that's still able to want yourself to remain alive!"

So savage was the cry of hatred that they drew away from the Chairman, as if he had given voice to the terror within them. His face looked as they feared theirs would in the depths of dementia.

"Don't listen to her!" he screamed. "It's his life or ours. We must kill him. We must leave no stone unturned till we break him and destroy him! If he lives, he'll destroy all of us! If he lives, we can't!"

"Kill him, you damn fool?" said Steven Stone. "We need him!"

"I don't understand you, Mr. Stone," said Wicke stiffly.

"Oh, you theoretical intellectuals!" said Steven Stone with exasperation. "What are you all gaping at? It's simple. Whoever Bronze Tercano is, he's a man of action. Besides, he's got a pressure group: he's cornered all the men of brains and the Rorian radicals. He knows what to do. We'll approach him and he'll tell us. He'll tell us what to do. He'll make things work. He'll pull us out of the hole. He'll run the government for us. We'll make a good deal with him. Oh, we'll have to compromise, we'll have to make a few concessions to him, and big businesses won't like it, but what the hell! Do you know any other way out?"

"But his ideas are...!"

"Who cares about his ideas?"

"Mr. Stone," said Yanase cooly, "I'm afraid Bronze is not a boy open to a deal."

"There's no such thing," said Steven Stone.

Yanase looked down at the stadium, seeing the soldiers shepherd the people out, saw Aredians smash down doors and doorposts to make the exodus easier, saw Bronze talking with the legionary officers in the arena pit. It was eerily quiet, a mass retreat too organized for its own good. The people were smiling and talking in strong voices, but not shouting, speaking in the tone reserved for clandestine plans that members of an embattled resistance make when a liberating army has arrived on their occupied shores. She wondered what was going on the the other executive boxes. The Rorian Gym leaders would be in a civil war, Ryan's king's men versus Aaron's loyalists. And what of the Pokedex Holders? Even she did not know where their loyalties lay after Bronze had given his speech at the banquet. What of her daughters?

"The Chairman wishes it to be known," said Rowan over the official broadcast, "that there is no cause for alarm. He urges the public not to draw any hasty conclusions. We must preserve our discipline, our morale, our unity and our sense of broad-minded tolerance. The unconventional speech, which some of you might have heard on the radio and seen on the television at the Rorian League last night, was a thought-provoking contribution to our pool of ideas on world problems. We must consider it soberly, avoiding the extremes of total condemnation or of reckless agreement. We must regard it as one viewpoint out of many in our democratic forum of public opinion, which, as today has proved, is open to all. The truth, says Professor Samuel Oak, has many facets. We must remain impartial."

"They'll never swallow that," said Steven Stone.

"It's the best we can do," said Rowan. He sighed, and slumped in a chair. "We're in danger, aren't we?"

"Yes," said Yanase, "but not from Bronze Tercano."

A silence fell where they were all aware of the cold that had been haunting them for the past day. There was a faint humming sound coming from above the roof. They looked to the east, and began to evacuate.

...

A report from Cheshema:

The flames went up to the sky and devoured a Pokemon Center, seen by people who watched a trembling red glow on the eastern horizon, made by the flames that went up to devour a farm; and the glow was not reflected by the windows of a street in the slum quarter, where the twisting red tongues were reflections of the flames that went up to devour a factory. Nobody mentioned, next morning, that those flames had not been set off by chance and that the owners of the three places had vanished. Neighbors observed it without comment and without astonishment. A few homes were found abandoned in random comers across the town, some left locked, shuttered and empty, others open and gutted of all movable goods, but people watched it in silence.

Report from Anthien:

A speaker at a political meeting in the city square was beaten up and had to escape by scurrying down dark alleys. His silent audience had come to sudden life when he had shouted that the cause of all their troubles was their selfish concern with their own troubles.

Report from Brimber:

"You goddamn monsters!" screamed a woman in the midst of a crowded movie theater that was playing the live chaos at the League, breaking into sudden, hysterical sobs; and the audience showed no sign of astonishment, as if she were screaming for them all. "They tried to murder him!"

"There is no cause for alarm," said more official broadcasts. "The Chairman wishes it to be known that he is willing to negotiate with Bonze Tercano for the purpose of devising ways and means to achieve a speedy solution of our problems. The Chairman urges the people to be patient. We must not worry, we must not doubt, we must not lose heart."

Report from Aredia City:

The attendants of a hospital showed no astonishment when a man was brought in, beaten up by his elder brother, who had supported him all his life: the younger man had screamed at the elder, accusing him of insanity and greed, just as the attendants of another hospital in showed no astonishment at the case of a woman who came in with a fractured jaw: she had been slapped in the face by a total stranger, who had heard her ordering her five-year-old son to stop watching the League broadcast, shouting about the insane boy that had killed someone and ought to have been finished off.

Report from Castelia City:

A clone of Jonathan Rowell Cypress created much surprise when he turned water into blood, then brought that blood back to water; cast fire down from the gloomy day's clouds, and summoned vipers that grew to the size of oil tankers, his words amplified without the use of any microphones, loud but not excessive, urging the faithful to awaken and serve their lord. Across the city and region, the thousands of dormant Eclipse sympathizers awoken with a taste for jihad.

Report from Kanto:

When Eclipse skirmishers broke into a factory, killed the foremen, and destroyed the machinery in a fit of blood-rage, nothing was done. Arrests were futile, the jails were full, the arresting officers winked at their prisoners and let them escape on their way to prison; men were going through the motions prescribed for the moment, with no thought of the moment to follow. No action could be taken when mobs of people attacked warehouses on the outskirts of cities. On the doors of abandoned houses, on the gates of crumbling factories, on the walls of government buildings, there appeared, once in a while, traced in chalk, in paint, in blood, the curving mark which was the sign of the Eclipse Alliance.

Report from Roria:

Through the frozen nights, over dying cities, knocking in vain at unanswering windows, beating on unechoing walls, rising above the roofs of lightless buildings and the skeletal girders of mines, the plea went on crying through space, cryinigng to the stationary motion of the stars, to the heatless fire of their twinkling: "Can you hear us, Bronze Tercano? Can you hear us?"

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The first explosion came just as cloudy noon began to settle over the stadium. The blast caught a few venturesome revelers outside the pleasure gardens, passing on their way to a party where (it was promised) some actors would perform an ancient drama about a king who slew his children. After the violent events of the last hour: one contestant dead and another attempted assassin dispatched; it had taken some courage for the revelers to emerge from the relative safety of their quarters. Stories of death and injury to innocent bystanders circulated all through the stadium. Here it was again, more fuel for the cautious.

None of the victims and survivors would have appreciated Gold's observation that innocent bystanders were in relatively short supply.

His acute senses detected the explosion and located it. With an instant fury which he was later to regret, he shouted over a comlink for his mercenaries and commanded them to "wipe out the threat."

On immediate reflection, the sensation of fury itself fascinated him. It had been so long since he had felt even mild anger. Frustration, and irritation; these had been his limits. But now, at a threat to the League and Crystal, fury!

Reflection caused him to modify his initial command, but not before some mercenaries had raced from him, their most violent desires released by what they had seen in their commander.

"The Lord is furious!" some of them shouted. "Hail, Emperor!"

The second blast caught some of the soldiers emerging into the garden plaza, limiting the spread of Gold's modified command and igniting more violence. The third explosion, located near the first one, sent Gold himself into action. He leaped onto a maintenance hoverpallet with his Sunflora and the cart like a berserk juggernaut, hurling him toward the action.

Gold emerged at the edge of the plaza to find a scene of chaos lighted by thousands of free-floating Morelull released by his soldiers. The center of the plaza had been shattered, leaving only the plazteel base intact beneath the paved surface. Broken pieces of masonry lay all around, mixed with dead and wounded. In the direction of the seashore, directly across the plaza from him, there was a wild surging of combat.

"Where are they coming from?" bellowed Gold.

A guard captain came racing across the plaza to his side where she reported through panting breaths: "They're coming from some landing crafts by the beach, sir!"

"What is happening over there?" demanded Gold, pointing at the battle in the gardens.

"The Eclipse rebels are attacking the stadium, sir. They have explosives."

Even as she spoke, another blast erupted in front of the garden's shattered facade. He saw bodies twisting in the air, arching outward and falling at the perimeter of a bright flash which left an orange afterimage, studded with black dots.

With no thought of consequences, Gold shifted the cart onto suspensors and sent it bulleting across the plaza—a hurtling behemoth that sucked Morelull into its wake. At the battle's edge, he arched over his own defenders and plunged into the attackers' flank, aware only then of lasguns that sent livid blue arcs leaping toward him. He felt his cart thudding into flesh, scattering bodies all around. He gave a cry of yee-haw! and began to cut apart orange-and-black bodies.

The cart spilled him directly in front of the garden's old fountain, rolling him off onto a hard surface as it struck the rubble there. He felt lasgun beams whizz past him and strike his Sunflora's durable body, then felt the internal surge of heat as battle-rage came. Instinct tucked his face deep into a protective balaclava and moved the pool cue into his hands. His training and Pokemon took over, arching and flailing, rolling the cart like an insane wheel, attacks lashing out on all sides.

Blood lubricated the garden. Blood was buffered water onto Gold's Typhlosion's body, but death released the water. The Pokemon's flailing body slipped and slithered in it, the water igniting blue smoke from every flexion place where it slipped over the fire-creature's skin. This filled Typhlosion with water-agony which ignited more violence in the great flailing body.

At Gold's first lashing out, the perimeter of soldiers fell back. An alert captain saw the opportunity now presented. He shouted above the battle noise:

"Pick off the stragglers!"

The ranks of guardian women rushed forward.

It was bloody play among the Eclipse soldiers and Rorians for a few minutes, blades thrusting in the merciless light of the Morelull, the dancing of lasgun arcs, even hands chopping and toes digging into vulnerable flesh. Gold's mercenaries left no survivors.

Gold rolled beyond the bloody mush, barely able to think through the waves of rage. He moved its cart and it drifted toward the stadium, tipping perilously on damaged suspensors. Slowly, he stabilized the trembling cart and gave it a command to return to the gates. He had not the mind to send out a radio sweep that would establish the necessary contact points for his rampaging mercenaries. By then the damage had been done: corpses all over the garden quarter, some Eclipse troopers and their Pokemon, and some only-suspected Eclipse troopers.

The captain arrived presently, her dark uniform stained and dusty, evidence of gore still on her boots. She was a tall, bone-thin woman with age lines which gave her aquiline features an air of powerful dignity. It was the first time she had seen a Pokedex Holder kill. The seeds of a terrible dependency were being born: if disaster threatens, Gold will come. A terrible death machine awaited in the wings, awaiting her summons.

"Where did the attackers get lasguns?" he asked.

"From their own stores, sir," said the captain, "probably made in their own manufactures."

"So they made their landing by explosives and laser weapons?"

"Stealth and laser weapons, sir. The sea guard was careless."

At that moment four shafts of black smoke shot into the sky and stood abnormally still for a while, like a solemn memorial obelisk, then wavered and swept back and forth across the sky, like a searchlight sending some undecipherable message, then went out as abruptly as it had come. A series of whining booms like streamer fireworks followed. Gold and the captain pushed through an ablated line of hedges, seeing four husks of Eclipse landing ships lying ruined on the beach, burning out with a glow pulsating dying life. Two charred skeletons clad in the ragged shreds of orange uniforms lay with dented lasguns in their hands, an Association-controlled Hydreigon floating over them, its three jaws emitting soot and fumes, its hide covered in small burn marks. The broken guns looked as if they had been grabbed by the barrel and twisted.

The Hydreigon leered at Gold and returned to its demolition company. "This is only a scouting force," said Gold. "Suicidally brave, but they were only supposed to peck at us. Once the people are clear we'll need defensive lines around the stadium and inside it. They'll try to attack from every angle."

"Is the island small enough for them to enclose us with their limited forces?" said the captain, though Gold sensed that she believed the answer was yes.

"They'll try," said Gold. "Not one of us can say what monsters we'll have to fight. And captain, my forces and I will be taking orders from Bronze Tercano. You ought to do so."

"What does he have to offer?"

"Captain, Bronze Tercano is the only man here who understands what is going on."

...

"They are coming," said Cobalion grimly. He turned to flesh-form for a moment, looking to the east, and then vanished into the otherworld. "We've soldiers to command, Bronze. Take my orders, if you'll hear."

Cobalion's orders, relayed through Bronze, had been for the watchdog fleet to be ready to fight, pointing their strongest guns to the east. In the stands, the Chairman was radioing the fleet and the Association's standing armies around the island, while attempting to flee the stadium himself. Yanase's report of the skirmish in the seaward gardens had nearly broken him, filling his mind with the enormous horror that he was cornered. "Reinforcements! Reinforcements!" he shrieked. "Spare no expense or equipment! All loyal officers, meet me and my staff at the entrance!"

No one bothered to follow him but Rowan.

"You have no loyal officers, you ass!" said Rowan, muscling beside the Chairman as they ran down a maintenance passage, trying to avoid the Aredians who were looking to apprehend them. Rowan struck his head on a pipe, roared in pain, and then grabbed the Chairman, shaking his shoulders like a bottle full of some mixture that refused to be absorbed. "You've no servants! They're all on his side! You've been couped! Staged! You're a nothing!"

"But I don't know what to do," cried the Chairman. A pipe hissed behind him and he screamed. A hanging glowglobe flashed red and he screamed again.

"We find Tercano, surrender ourselves, and hear his terms," said Rowan. "Come on, man! Think! You've lost, and it's time to let Bronze take over."

"Now you're on first-name relations with him, eh?" roared the Chairman.

"That's beside any point. We have to secure a stable transfer of power."

"But what are we to do? We can't just quit and leave the country without any competent government at all. I shudder to think what would happen. With the kind of social elements now on the loose...why, Rowan, it's all I can do to keep them in line or we'd have plunder and bloody murder in broad daylight. I don't know what's got into people, but they just don't seem to be civilized anymore. We can't quit at a time like this. We can neither quit nor run things any longer. What are we to do, Rowan?"

"Tercano will fix it. He'll start decontrolling, removing taxes and regulations and things. Don't you know that this is an opportunity for us to make a new powerbase inside Tercano's system?" Rowan's face was frantic, his eyes glistening with passion in the passage's dim light. "But tell me: did you order that assassin?"

"No, no! I'd thought Revan would take care of the issue, but the man with the rifle wasn't my idea."

"If Tercano had died, we'd have been torn apart," said Rowan in disgust. He slapped the Chairman. It was not a hard blow, but the Chairman weighed hardly a hundred and twenty pounds. The man stumbled backwards, hit his head on a rusted pipe and went down. Rowan watched him lie moaning, his stomach clotted with tension, wishing the pitiful fool would get over it and run before a death commando found them. But fear of being followed did not seem fully real, as no fear could be real to him now. He wondered whether the unnatural lightness of his body was a state of tension or relaxation; his body seemed drawn so tightly that he felt as if it were reduced to a single attribute: to the power of motion; his mind seemed inaccessibly relaxed and reasonable, like a motor set to the automatic control of an absolute no longer to be questioned.

He drew a hiss of breath through his teeth, saw that the Chairman had slipped from a state of useless half-consciousness to sleep. Well, the little madman could sleep as well as he liked. Rowan would need all his faculties to meet what was coming. Leaving the crumpled form behind, Rowan of Sinnoh packed up and ran.

...

Bronze was realizing the difficulties of evacuating a hundred thousand people, and ordering an army corp that seemed only partially loyal. What began as confusion and disbelief in the non-Rorian citizens was quickly resolving into panic. People were running in every direction, no one sure which way to go, but certain that everyone they passed was going the wrong way. The crowd was beginning to surge out of the giant stadium doors and out onto the larger island, skirting around the ruined seaward gardens when they saw the fallout from the skirmish; people were pouring down flights of stairs in the hotel district, flooding out into parking lots, and the marina docks were bowing from the weight of people trying to wheedle their way onto a boat or submarine.

Most were grabbing hovercars or just running. The queue at the island's airstrip was building faster than the planes could take off. The terminal was filled with all sorts of bargaining, exchanges of money and fistfights, as polite discourse crumbled. There were officials who refused to allow anyone but their own party onboard, and others who opened their planes to as many people as they could carry. It was a true test of a man's integrity.

"Twenty-eight cruise ships are inbound, m'lord," said an arsames commander to Bronze, who was sitting cross-legged on Magenzone by open egg-pods that led into the arena and out of it. "They'll dock in the half hour and get most of the crowds away."

"Can we spare any frigates?" said Bronze. The stadium was emptying fast; the only people left were the greater part of the soldiers and Gym Leaders, helping the old and disabled get out from the upper rows. Steelix and Charizard were getting people out, climbing or flying over the stadium's walls and dropping them safely on the outer lawn.

"Your servant advises to conserve them for an attack, m'lord."

Bronze stopped, realizing for the first time that he was in charge of an army. He had the power to use strong-arm methods, if it was needed. Though he had seen and done things that most men would hardly whisper of, and could cooly kill if it was needed, he had no experience in leading a military coup. Many of the generals he had talked to seemed like Rorian patriots, but how many of the others could he depend on?

"Commander, what have I done to deserve your loyalty?" he asked.

The arsames looked at him dazedly at first, and then smiled. "You're the emperor, aren't you? It's the way things ought to be."

"I'm no emperor without a crown and kingdom," said Bronze. He strained, was able to remember this man's name: Hawat, it was. It was so unlike him to have to try to remember names. "The army is still with you and the generals, Hawat." Then he lied. "This is no coup."

"M'lord, you've done plenty for us," said Hawat. "If any honest man had to follow that shriveled pear in a suit or you, they'd take ye quicker than you could say knife. We'll stand together, sir."

"Thanks," said Bronze, stepping off Magenzone and taking the elevator to the executive booth. He took with him two radios, one for Commander Rombur, one of Gold's old war buddies he had met, and the other for General Bashar Mohaim, a fifty-year-old Logarian with most of his face chewed off by one stray Pokemon attack or another. Two soldiers and one League worker stepped aside to let him inside the elevator before them, bowing awkwardly, as if they weren't sure Bronze's position required it. He put them at ease, feeling embarrassed (so it seemed) like a humble man who has gotten too much validation for his own good.

"Keep yourself and your unit safe, commander," he called back, internally impatient and wanting to make the trip quick. He had to get to the executive boxes to see Moon and Tess, to summon a last council among the generals and Pokedex Holders before battle. "Shoot straight and true."

Before the doors closed, two of Antarah's elite warriors took positions around Bronze, their knives drawn. Both were a fearsome seven feet tall with plowman's muscles, eyes shadowed in hoods; but under the cloak's brim a shining fire could be seen in their corneas. Bronze studied the men; tall as giants, flat-featured, one with a pale scar across half his left cheek. They seemed uneasy. Perhaps Antarah and Ryan had given them orders to personally protect him, and the assassin's attempt was too close for their comfort.

These men will die for me, he thought. They'll throw themselves into enemy fire to buy me another second of life. Maybe they wouldn't kill themselves if I ordered it, but that point is not far off. Such loyal men have a way of dying by violence.

"These city people are being herded to safety, m'lord," said one.

"Sand rats," the other scoffed. "I never knew a city man that could be trusted completely."

"I was a city man myself once," said Bronze.

The Aredian stiffened. His face grew dark with blood. "Tar-Tercano knows I did not mean..."

"I know what you meant, king's man. But the test of a man isn't what you think he'll do. It's what he actually does. Many of these city people have Logairand and Aredian blood. It's just that they haven't yet learned how to escape their bondage. We'll teach them."

The Aredian nodded, spoke in a rueful tone: "The habits of a lifetime, Tar-Tercano. On the windswept plains we learned to despise the men of the communities."

"The Alliance and the Association's foreign legions have played have played into our hands all over Roria, men," declared Bronze. "They grabbed some city women for their sport, decorated their battle standards with the heads of the men who objected. And they've built up a fever of hate among people who otherwise would've looked on the coming battle as no more than a great inconvenience . . . and the possibility of exchanging one set of masters for another. Our enemies recruit for us."

"The city people in the crowd did seem eager," said the first Aredian.

"Their hate is fresh and clear," said Bronze grimly. "That's why we use them as shock troops."

"The slaughter among them will be fearful," the second Aredian said. The first nodded in agreement.

"I told them the odds," said Bronze. "They know every Eclipse man they kill will be one less for us. You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. Roria is awakening."

...

The crowd of a few dozen in the wide corridor behind the executive booth radiated that pack feeling Tess had sensed the day Bronze rode the Steelic. There was murmuring nervousness in the voices. Little cliques gathered like knots among the robes. The Pokedex Holders, the Tercanos, and the loyal Gym Leaders were there, not all of them from Roria; and Bronze's Aredian and Rorian officers were feeling rankled at the possibility of a sudden attack from the east, a blow for which they would fail to contain if they were also in the business of evacuating the people.

"We do not have full control of the air," said Bronze to the crowd. "We're being sabotaged by unfriendly spiritual forces. And we must not become dependent upon our infantry, despite its quality, nor use any frigates to evacuate the people before the sea liners arrive. Both fuel and aircraft must be saved for the time of maximum effort."

Antarah waited with a small group of his own at the other end of the room. There was a feeling of inevitable dignity about him, the way he stood without talking.

We must not lose that man, thought Robert. Bronze's plan must work. Anything else would be highest tragedy.

She strode down to Bronze and a way was made for her. The young men drew back from Bronze as she came up to him, and she found herself momentarily dismayed by the new deference they paid him. "All men beneath your position covet your station," went the old saying. But she found no covetousness in these faces. They were held at a distance by the religious ferment around Bronze's leadership. That part of the Plan, at least, had worked.

Bronze looked at her. "It's time," she said.

One of Commander Rombur's companions, bolder than the others, glanced across at General Mohaim and said: "Are you going to call him out, Emperor? Now's the time for sure. They'll think you a coward if you..."

"Who dares call me coward?" demanded Bronze. His hand flashed to his knife hilt.

Bated silence came over the group, spreading out into the crowd. Bronze raised his voice: "You think it's time I called out the general and changed the leadership of the troops!" Before they could respond, he hurled his voice at them in anger: "Do you think the Emperor of Logaria that stupid?"

He's accepting the religious mantle, thought Lily. He must not do it!

"It's the way of all rebellions!" someone shouted.

Bronze spoke dryly, probing the emotional undercurrents. "Ways change."

An angry voice lifted from a corner of the passage: "We'll say what's to change!" There were scattered shouts of agreement through the throng.

"As you wish," said Bronze.

And Tess heard the subtle intonations as he used the powers of the kingship, hearing some of Cobalion's power in his voice. "You will say," he agreed. "But first you will hear my say."

Antarah moved along the wall, his bearded face impassive. "That is the way among us, too," he said. "The voice of any Aredian may be heard in Council. Bronze Southstar is an Aredian."

"The good of the tribe, that is the most important thing, eh?" asked Bronze.

Still with that flat-voiced dignity, Antarah said: "Thus our steps are guided."

Presently, Bronze said: "Do the generals or the Gym Leaders rule all this? They say themselves that they do not. Do the Aredians rule? Even Antarah has done my bidding on occasion, and my mother and father, great sages, the wisest of the wise, listen to me and honor me."

There was shuffling silence among the crowd.

"So," said Bronze. "Does King Ryan rule?" He pointed down to Ryan. "Antarah and all the other troop leaders ask his advice in almost every major decision. You know this. He has walked the sand and leads many raids against Association and Alliance alike. But does he hold the arch-kingship of Logaria? Was he ever permitted to challenge it in ancient days?"

"Those are called ancient days for a reason," one of the main voices of opposition said.

"The ancient days survive," said Bronze.

Frowns creased the foreheads of those Bronze could see, but still there were angry murmurs. This is a dangerous way to do it, thought Yellow, but she remembered the speech and what it implied. And she saw Bronze's intent: Go right to the depth of the leadership's uncertainty, dispose of that, and all the rest must follow.

"No man among you recognizes leadership without a violent change from combat, is it so?" asked Bronze.

"That's the way!" someone shouted.

"What's our goal?" said Bronze. "To unseat Cypress, the Anti-Arceus and Beast, and remake our nation into a place where we may raise our families in happiness amidst an abundance of wealth: is this our goal?"

"Hard tasks need hard ways," an Aredian shouted.

"Do you smash your knife before a battle?" demanded Bronze "I say this as fact, not meaning it as boast or challenge: there isn't a man here, Antarah and Mohaim included, who could stand against me in single combat. They know it and so do you. Not because I am larger or older than they, but because God is on my side and heavenly warriors surround me. You can see Cobalion for yourself."

Again, the angry mutters lifted from the crowd.

"All of you have seen me fight with Pokemon outside of a practice floor," said Bronze. "You know this isn't idle boast. I say it because it's fact known to us all, and I'd be foolish not to see it for myself. I began training in these ways earlier than you did and my parents were tougher than any teachers you've ever seen. How else do you think I bested the Gym Leaders and defied the Alliance at an age when your boys are still fighting only mock battles?"

From his neck he took a cord and removed the Bronze Brick from it, holding the relic aloft.

"This was my father's signet to me," he said. "I swore to myself never to bear it openly again until I was ready to lead my troops over all of Roria and claim it as my rightful kingdom." He put the Brick in his palm and clenched his fist.

Utter stillness gripped the room.

"Who rules here?" cried Bronze. He raised his fist. "I rule here! I rule on every square inch of Logaria! This is my fief and demesne whether Cypress or the false Chairman says yea or nay! Arceus gave the kingship to my forefathers and it comes to me through my father!"

Bronze lifted himself onto his toes, settled back to his heels. He studied the crowd, feeling their temper.

Almost, he thought.

"There are men here who will hold positions of importance in Roria when I claim those imperial rights which are mine," said Bronze. "Ruby is one of those men. Not because I wish to bribe him! Not out of gratitude, though I'm one of many in the world who owe him life for life. No! But because he's wise and strong. Ryan will receive gifts as well. Why? Because he governs this troop by his own intelligence and not just by rules. Do you think me stupid? Do you think I'll cut off my right arm and leave it bloody on the floor of this cavern just to provide you with a circus?"

Bronze swept a hard gaze across the throng. "Who is there here to say I'm not the rightful ruler in the South? Must I prove it by leaving every Aredian tribe in the desert, or every brave unit in the military, without a leader?"

Beside Bronze, Mohaim stirred and looked at him questioningly.

"Will I subtract from our strength when we need it most?" asked Bronze. "I am your ruler, and I say to you that it is time we stopped killing off our best men and started killing our real enemies: the Alliance!"

In one blurred motion, Antarah had his knife out and pointed over the heads of the throng. "Long live Emperor Tar-Tercano!" he shouted.

A deafening roar filled the room, echoed and re-echoed. They were cheering and chanting: "Ya! Ya hya chouhada! Tar-Tercano! Tar-Tercano! Tar-Tercano! Ya hya chouhada! Ya hya Logaria!"

Long live the fighters of Logaria, indeed, thought Bronze. The scene that he and his mother had cooked up between them had worked as they planned.

The tumult died slowly. When silence was restored, Bronze faced Ryan and said: "Kneel, Ryan."

Ryan dropped to his knees on the floor.

"Hand me your knife," said Bronze.

Ryan obeyed.

This was not as we planned it, thought Lily.

"Repeat after me, Ryan," said Bronze, and he called up the words of ancient investiture as had been used by all the old Logarian emperors before him. "I, Ryan, Lord of Aredia, take this knife from the hands of my Emperor."

"I, Ryan, Lord of Aredia, take this knife from the hands of my Emperor," said Ryan, and accepted the blade from Bronze.

"Where my Emperor commands, there shall I place this blade," said Bronze.

Ryan repeated the words, speaking slowly and solemnly.

"I dedicate this blade to the cause of my Emperor and of Logaria, and the death of their enemies for as long as our blood shall flow," said Bronze.

Ryan repeated it after him.

"Kiss the blade," ordered Bronze. "The King of Kings in Logaria accepts your vassalage.

Bronze obeyed, then, in the Aredian manner, kissed Bronze's knife arm. At a nod from Bronze, he sheathed the blade and got to his feet.

A sighing whisper of awe passed through the crowd, and Tess heard the words: "The prophecy...the return of the king that we live to see!"

"Ryan leads the tribe of the Aredians," said Bronze, "and Mohaim and Rombur lead the military. Let no man mistake that. They command with my voice. What they tell you, it is as though I told you."

Wise, thought Robert. The commander must lose no face among those who should obey him.

Bronze lowered his voice and said: "Mohaim, I want picket scouts out to the east and messengers sent to summon every reinforcement that can be reached. When you've sent them, bring Hawat, Yazda, Sinaz, and two other lieutenants of your own choosing and line them up for battle. Send dispatch to Gold of Johto and tell him to take charge of the northern defense. Take no more than thirty minutes."

Bronze nodded for his parents, Tess, and Moon to accompany him. He led the way down and through the throng toward the central passage and the lower chambers. As Bronze pressed through the crowd, hands reached out to touch him. Voices called out to him.

"My knife goes where the generals command it, Tar-Tercano! Let us fight soon, Tar-Tercano! Let us wet our fields with the blood of Djinn's men!"

Feeling the emotions of the throng, Lily sensed the fighting edge of these people. We are taking them at the crest, she thought. They could not be more ready.

.

.

.

"Will you look at the size of that thing!" whispered Silver.

Lance lay beside him in a slit of sea cliff high on the island's eastern rim, eye fixed to the collector of an Aredian telescope. The oil lens was focused on a single frigate lighter exposed in the sky above them. The tall western face of the ship glistened in the flat light of the sun, but the shadow side still showed small yellow portholes from illuminated lights. Beyond the ship, a contingent of skycopters lay cold and gleaming in the noon's light.

"Eclipse picket fighter," said Lance. "It's getting data for the rest of the fleet before they jump out of Otherspace."

From his position squatting at Silver's left, Giovanni said: "I count nine levels to that ship alone. Must be quite a few Eclipse troops in there."

"Five legions," said Silver.

"It grows too clear as the fog lessens," hissed Lance. "We like it not, your exposing yourself, Silver. Let us go back into the rocks now."

"I'm perfectly safe here," said Silver.

"That ship mounts projectile weapons," said Giovanni.

"They can't see us," said Silver. "Even if they did, they wouldn't waste a shot on a lone and unidentified trio."

"They might try a sortie by skycoper," said Lance. "If they see us."

"Let them," said Silver. "Your Dragonite have plenty of skycopters to burn today."

He took one final look around through the telescope, studying the western sea behind him with its tall cruise liners coming to port, the gleaming metal hutment of the stadium, the frenzied maritime city, the frigates of the Association soldiers. The lens tipped down, and he saw the few dozen smuggler gunboats hidden in the cove, some colorless or bearing flecked red Team Rocket signs. On the northeastern island's deserted cliffs was a crowd of a thousand Rocket veterans, called out of retirement or exile by Giovanni's summons, combined with Silver's arms smugglers from the Rorian deserts. He saw the unloaded ammunition crates that had been carried by Machamp from the secret bay and onto the island's plateau. Then he slid backward around a scarp of rock. A Rocket guardsman took his place at the telescope.

"Our dragons have been released low on the rim and are on their way to the ship," said Lance. "The rocket launchers and other projectile weapons are in place. The people are deployed as you ordered. It was all routine."

"If our plans conflict with Tercano's, then we'll be caught in the crossfire," said Giovanni. "He won't stop us once we start firing on Eclipse ships, but we're uncoordinated. The Alliance might be able to get a bearing on a weakness if we're distracted."

"He knows where we are," said Silver. "The emissions from our communications equipment can be detected by the frigate sensors. And like you said, he won't stop us. We'll focus on the north while his firepower goes to the east, if he has the mind to do so."

Lance stared at the men on the cliff flat. He scowled. "It glooms me much to think on all the poor Eclipse souls we'll dispatch unshriven."

"You speak like an Arcean," chuckled Giovanni.

"I was put into Arceus's service after I fought against him," said Lance. And he thought: Yes, let them occupy their minds with small talk before we test ourselves against the force the Djinn has. He looked to the hazy ship and back to Giovanni, finding that the old warrior had resumed a brooding scowl.

"Worry saps the strength," murmured Lance. "You told me that once, Giovanni."

"My chief worry is atomics," said Giovanni. "We know Cypress has them, though in this proximity he'll annihilate both his forces and ours. But they must use them underwater, create a tidal wave..."

"They've no Pokemon that couldn't do that already, father," said Silver. "Those craven up there won't use atomics against us. They don't dare, and for the same reason that they cannot risk them destroying Bronze Tercano."

"Why do you think they don't want him dead?" said Giovanni. "Didn't they send a gunman that was foiled?"

"I've thought they want something from him, something on his person," said Silver. "If they wanted him dead, they ought to have set ten thousand bombs from their armories to detonate in the ridges of Aredia or the Frostveil Mountains. He's got something they won't risk destroying."

"If you believe they knew where Bronze was long enough to act, then I'd agree with you," said Lance. "But he moves fast."

"Moves fast!" barked Silver. "It's fear, not how quickly Tercano scurries over the southern world that keeps the Alliance from hurling atomics at him. They've many dark servants and spies that make Bronze's whereabouts and ours clear enough."

"It's too fine a point," said Giovanni.

"The hair-splitters in the Alliance will welcome any point to excuse their failures, I'll warrant," said Silver. "Let's talk no more about it."

"No talk, let's fight," said Lance. "Any of you object to my dragons blowing up that picket ship?"

Silver shook his head. "Do it now."

Lance whistled.

It seemed that a full second passed before they felt the ground beneath them ripple and shake. A rumbling sound was added to the sea's roar. Ghostly blue light streaked from Lance's underwater Dragonair in torpedo-thin lines, shooting out the sea before in before colliding with the frigate's underbelly. A crackle of energy from the impact swept over the ship's hull, the static charge within the wall of thunder destroying every external shield generator on the Eclipse craft.

The shields failed total and the ship bloomed into flame and shrapnel. The Dragonair surfaced, their bodies twining together like a scaly corkscrew, and shot out more beams from their horns at the skycopters. In rapid succession, the other 'copters detonated, their portable shield generators overloading or their fuel ignited by the timed explosions. The shock waves combined, swirling the debris into a soup of metal vapor and expanding gases. For a few moments, the sight was as bright as a new sun. Then it gradually dissipated and faded as the rubble fell into the sea.

"More will come," said Lance, "but my Dragonair are going to summon a great-great-grandfather of a thunderstorm to throw at the enemy. Give me time."

"No time!" said Giovanni, looking to the east. "They're here."

Silver looked at saw a cloud moving from the east, a real cloud. He felt the sting of icy rain on his cheeks. And further away, the scream of ships decelerating began to get louder.

...

Giratina roused ten demons with a sweep of his wing, and they gathered at his side in an instant.

"Come," he said, "let us finish this business."

Giratina's wings clapped downward, and he shot into the air, his ten rogues following him like a regal honor guard. High above, the cloud stretched across the sky like an oppressive, light-blocking shroud, its shadow falling over the island. As Giratina the Cruel sailed over Seafarer's Island in a high arc, he could look up and see the myriads of yellow eyes and the red swords waving in salute, crying out in harsh tongues like birds of prey. He waved his own clawed tentacles back, and they cried out jubilantly, their numberless swords bristling downward like a wind-stirred, inverted field of crimson wheat. They filled the air with sulfur.

The cloud formed a complete enclosure around the island. Cobalion and his company found themselves trapped under a thick, impenetrable tent of demons. The spiritual darkness became deep and oppressive. It was difficult to breathe. The steady drone of the wings seemed to permeate everything.

Suddenly Keldeo whispered, "They're descending!"

They all looked up and could see the ceiling of demons, that boiling red and yellow tinted blanket of black, starting to settle downward, coming closer and closer to the stadium. They had already swarmed the Association frigates and soon the rest of the fighters would be buried in the advance.

Zeraora held a golden trumpet in his hand, gripping it very tightly, every muscle and every tendon tensed.

"Get ready!" Cobalion ordered.