Pokemon Brick Bronze: Return of the Shadow

by 2b2tEternalLegend

After two thousand years, the Dark Lord has escaped his prison, amassing evil forces to destroy the world. His parents kidnapped, Bronze Tercano sets out on a journey to defeat Team Eclipse, a sinister organization with demonic backing. Only Bronze, his friends, and the Pokedex Holders can stop this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a modern world dominated by science. (IN-DEV)

29. Shuffle

.

.

.

Shuffle

Two weeks later

.

Every ending has a highpoint. In the climax, Arceus spares no one and all may find an easy grave. Death comes even for the best of us; let it come for the rest of us.

It is the year of Our Lord two thousand and fifty-five, thought Bronze, and I am sixteen years old. It is one day from the League.

His eyes darted from side to side in their sockets like small, trapped beasts. There was a holosecreen in the League-provided hotel room and he watched it for a while. Two islands off the coast of Ransei had joined the Alliance and been bombed by robot planes. The World Chairman had a cold but it wasn't considered serious. And a Rorian in Silvent had gone berserk and shot fourteen people. The weather forecast was for rain, snow flurries in southern Roria. The Alolan Islands were in flames along with all the countryside of Unova. At the bottom of the news screen was a red causality counter: one hundred thousand for the Eclipse Alliance and twice that many for the Association. The war had not moved an inch.

Of good thoughts, he prayed.

Roria brewed darkly with contention, and the demons walked its streets and country roads and entered its homes like a trace memory of evil. Whole families stopped talking to one another after a son or daughter or father or mother called the Alliance liberators and others called them butchers. Aether Paradise sunk ten whole feet into the ocean when an Alliance raider sabotaged an internal ballast tank. The damage was repaired but the protests and fires on the artificial island only continued to spread. Workers for the Devon Corporation's Rorian branch found themselves out of a job when dozens of warehouses and refineries were closed in response to Eclipse attacks. One of the unemployed swarms shot up a gas station, a stray bullet making a flammable gusher of fuel burst from its tank, causing a forest fire that consumed thousands of acres. Association mercenaries and thuggish security teams accosted men and women at banks, parks, and even their own driveways, dragging them away to the local station to be subjected (with many lewd jokes made afterward) to probe searches. Video footage of one mass slaughter or another always found its way onto people's phones and televisions.

Good deeds.

And the League was still going on, people murmured. In the middle of all this chaos, the League was being held. They would all watch it, one family after another vowed. Something would happen there that they wouldn't miss for the world.

Good words.

It was shameful, some said, that the League should exploit their land. They needed no more soft-footed outsiders to pollute the region. The ones that ruled them were enough. But even these would watch the League all the same.

Of Arceus Elyon.

War was brewing in the dark hearts of the people. Old men sharpened their knives, while young men came to blows. Gangs sprung up like weeds and fought either side like it was joyous fun, and the town militias took cruel revenge. In the south, more Rorians burned Association police stations than Alliance goons. A twenty-year-old came to his estanged father's doorstep with a bloodied knife in one hand and the head of an Eclipse mercenary hanging by the hair in the other. Hundreds died daily in mass suicides. The Alliance's sorcerers and prophets were winning over thousands of adherents every day, equipping them with weapons and Pokemon before whisking them away to embedded outposts hidden in the ass end of nowhere. Association military forces were hemmed down, killing Eclipse soldiers and raiding bases by the dozens, but there was always another outpost for them to flee to.

I look to the sky. Far away I see the shine...

Taverns, barber shops, and every living room in the world were full of talk. Hundreds of thousands converted, convinced by the alien phenomena in the sky and the troubles at hand that the world would not last another year. Men were getting alright with God, and that was fine with Bronze. The Pokedex Holders waited, Ruby and Gold wondered what Bronze was planning, how the war would come to end. Yanase found the Chairman asleep at his desk during a noon meeting, packets of drugs huddled around his arms. Jake's murder of dozens of Eclipse soldiers had been wordlessly forgiven and his training began again, this time with Beheeyem to support Emrett and pull his arguments to coherency from the sludge of spiritual predation. Every other Rorian knew a friend, or friend of a friend, who had seen some creature (no longer at night and in the woods, it seemed) looking like a hideous demon or glorious angel. Psychics, natural and learned, suffered from vivid benders that came nightly. Even sparse dreamers were having dreams so strong that their brainwaves went off the charts on EEG readers.

...of all the stars in the sky; night, you reign.

And the people in Roria were angry. This month did not feel right to anyone: one farmer down near Chesema had a Miltank bloating on him while another had a tractor with a burned-out magneto that no one seemed to have in stock; and though neither farmer was in any way responsible for the other's problems, they still got into a fight about it. The store clerks working today were having trouble counting change and were getting into very uncomfortable discussions with the customers whose change they were trying to count. Every business owner had no desire but to get out of his or her business and think about how to survive, because no matter what it was, it was doomed to fail sooner or later. Many wives were nervous and wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, they didn't know where; their husbands would load the kids into all the self-driving cars, then the wives wouldn't want to go anymore, then the kids would get into fights in the cars, then their parents would get into fights, and then the families would go nowhere while the cars remained parked in all those driveways with screams coming through their windows and their horns honking. Monday had been sunny, but when anyone had set up a lawnchair, the chair either ripped through under their owners' bottoms or just plain couldn't be found; the streets were hectic with frantic drivers driving with no destination in mind; the dogs, those ever vigilant dogs of Roria, were barking and howling and whining again, this time with their fur bristling, their tails up, and their faces toward the north.

Dawn, I summon you. Lord, show mercy.

There were many pointing their faces to the north. Here a college administrator, there a post office employee, over here a family of potters and weavers, over there an insurance salesman. All over the continent, certain people who knew a certain destiny and a certain sympathetic spiritual vibration stood silently, as if worshiping, their faces toward the north.

Show me the sun. Let the South rise again.

There was a sense, inarticulate but very much there, that things had gone amiss this season. It was the closing of the age; it was also the closing of the peace. For it is here, the Great Age's last conflict will shortly begin; it is from here that the blood will begin to flow. In one day, no more, the world as it had been will be swept away. It started here. From his charnel halls, the Djinn called out in a beast's voice.

Give me light, Arceus. Give me my destiny.

A rumor of a different kind was mixed with the dark tales of dread and woe and bad tidings (which the government said everyone must bear responsibly). A young contender had entered the League, it was said, and he was the heir to Logaria. How this ever got out to the public was probably started by the knowledgeable Gold and Ruby, and was helped by the Aredians, though the Gym Leaders living inside Roria and outside of it had a fair bit to say about Bronze Tercano. A week after the boy had defeated Brynn at Crescent Island, he was the contestant that got the most notice, most discussion, most media coverage, most bets, and pretty much every scrap of attention. Old men and women alike who knew the old tales prayed for deliverance to come, prayed for the return of the king, wondering if the Rorians were rising once again. Arceus was silent on this possibility, which to the vast majority of faithful was an answer in itself.

Even the Chairman himself found that he was muttering some old lines: The king will come unto his own/His halls shall echo golden of songs of yore re-sung.

I am the heir of Tar-Elrosi. God, give me my strength.

That day, while Bronze sat brooding in his room, Cobalion had been out managing the war effort. The demons had gained dreadful cunning and were nearly unstoppable when not constantly repelled, taking enfleshed form and attacking the vulnerable with a rare kind of diabolic energy seen only once every few millenium. But these were little more than rogue actors pecking at individual souls and trying to strain the frontiers. Both sides were pulling back and organizing for their largest clash yet.

I am the hope of Tar-Silmathrim. God, show me the truth.

They were all there, Cobalion saw, the invisible princes and barons of Hell gathered around the League stadium, waiting for tomorrow. The stadium itself was impressive: a hundred thousand seats in a horse racer's oval, and an arena of green and white turf, open to the heavens. The thousand or so executive chairs were higher than all the others, near the control room covered in curved, glittering plaz that sparked and glinted in the red sun. Neither Cobalion nor Bronze was hardly overwhelmed by it; the god had, after all, been in the Great Hall of Atun-Kaah (the Hall of the Kings, it had been called) and had even waited there with the Golden Company and made counsel for the fate of the world, in the days of the Legends of Arceus when the world left behind the era of shadowed antiquity and turned into a new summer. There had been trappings of Logarian silk and Hisuian jewels, without any plain white plaz to speak of. The dress of the lords and ladies had been richer, the music and oration had been fuller, and the company of older and nobler lines grew closer and closer together as they stretched back toward Tar-Elrosi, the First Emperor, he of the white horse and unifying sword.

Logaria has fallen, but it will rise again. God, give me willpower.

Darkrai floated above the Associaton flagpole that overlooked the private seating boxes, his gamemaster's seat of power, looking out over the arena with his leering red eyes as his hordes of attending spirits gathered around him. His black arms rippled, his expansive black wings rising behind him like a royal train, his crystal white hair gleaming and glittering in the sun. He too looked toward the east.

There is one god, there is one empire. God, make me desire faith.

The eastern horizon looked like a huge hive of hideous black insects. Several layers of ruthless warriors hovered almost stationary in a vast dome of defense over the rising sun, swords drawn, yellow eyes peering across the Earth. Deep within this shell, demons of all shapes, sizes, and strengths darted about in a boiling mass of activity. As Cobalion dropped closer, he noted a concentration of black spirits around a large frigate docked by an island. The Djinn is there, he thought, banking away and returning to the demons around the stadium.

I am the successor to the South-kingdom. God, give me courage.

Darkrai had folded his wings in regal, capelike fashion and stood with an intimidating air of royalty and might, his eyes and hair flashing impressively. His red eyes studied carefully the orderly ranks of demons lined up all around him. These were spirits from the principality levels, princes themselves of their own nations, peoples, tribes. Some were from Roria, some were from the North, several were from other planets. All were invincible and all were horrible. Cobalion noted their tremendous size and formidable appearance; they all matched him for size and ferocity, and he doubted he would ever venture to challenge any of them till the battle was hot. To defeat one of them was a great honor indeed.

"Hail, Cobalion," said a gargling voice from behind Darkrai.

I am the son of Robert Tercano, chief of Logaria. God, give me righteousness.

Giratina's shadow was there. It was forbidden to speak his true name. He was one of the few majesties intimate with the Djinn himself, a vicious global tyrant responsible over the centuries for subtly moving the will of the Djinn forward, even while imprisoned in the Distortion World. Now he had returned unfleshed, but weighing on the stadium like a huge, lumbering cloud of hateful thought. The ghastly shadow rose from his place, and its huge form filled that part of the red sky. The evil that emanated from him could be felt everywhere, almost like an extension of his body. Its bulk was grotesque and heavy. His golden joints flashed brilliantly from his neck, chest, arms; his big black wings draped his body like a royal robe and trailed along in smoky streamers.

I am Bronze, Emperor of Logaria. I am good, noble, and strong.

"I who have never yet seen your face in this, our adventure, now show you mine!" said Giratina. "Behold it, you and your warriors! For today I place this face forever in your memory as the face of him who vanquished you, a servant of the Great Djinn!"

Arceus, let Jake return to me. He was my friend, just and loyal.

Beside Cobalion, waiting in the grandstands, was a small, picked force of angels, tasked with guarding Tess, the Tercanos, and the heir-to-be. Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, Zeraora, Cresselia, Landorus, Victini, Meloetta, and even Xerneas (or the faint shadow of his living spirit; Xerneas had been resting and was more like a tree than a god). All were there together, gathered for this moment, gathered to listen to this long-awaited oration, the returning challenge to the Host of Heaven.

Let Tess cry my pardon for the wrong I have done.

Giratina continued, "Today I place the name of the Djinn, Lord of the Earth and Giver of Freedom, forever in your memory as the name of him who remains bold and stands undefeated! Dialga and Palkia, captains of the Host of Heaven, will you dare to show your face to me? I think not! Will you even dare to assail me? I think not! Will you and your motley little band of highwaymen dare to stand in the path of the powers of the air?" Giratina threw in a derisive chuckle. "I think not!"

My God, if it be possible, let this holy jihad pass from me. But your will be done, not my own.

He paused for effect, and allowed himself a mocking grin. "I give you leave, Hosts of Heaven, to withdraw yourself, to spare yourself the anguish awaiting you at my hand! I grant to you and to your warriors now the occasion to turn away, for I do pronounce that the battle's decision is made already!" Giratina then pointed his clawed tails toward the eastern horizon and said, "Look to the east! There is the outcome clearly written!"

My God, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.

At first the cloud had been only a distant fingertip of blackness poking up over the horizon; it could have been a raincloud, or factory smoke, or a distant, haze-darkened mountain appearing suddenly. But then, as it drew nearer, its borders expanded outward like the slowly emerging edge of a blunt arrowhead stretching slowly and surely across the horizon like a dark shroud, like a steadily rising tide of blackness blocking out the sky. At first, one direct glance could contain it all; in just a few minutes, the eyes had to sweep back and forth, from one end of the horizon to the other.

Arceus, have mercy. Amen.

Darkrai put a black trumpet to his face, and deep and hoarse horns were rung from the whole Shadowed army. Bronze shivered in his chamber. Dogs barked and strained at their collars till their necks were rubbed raw and shredded. Flocks of Psyduck screeched in agony as their migraines intensified tenfold, and then turned into relieved silence as the trees and buildings around them were blasted away by a tidal current of released psychic disturbance. Clouds appeared and darkened the sun, then started to pour cold rain as the demon horde passed over the stadium proper.

"Not since the War of Wrath," said Cresselia quietly to Victini in her tinkling, pearl voice.

"They were there," said Landorus, "every one of them, and now they're back. Look at the front ranks, flying multiple layers over, under, and within."

"Yes," said Virizion, observing. "Still the same style of assault."

A new voice said into their minds, "Well, so far, Cobalion, your plan is working very well. They've all come out of hiding on the day before battle, and in countless numbers."

It was Rayquaza. He was expected.

Cobalion answered, "And hopefully they are planning on a rout when the Alliance forces arrive."

"At least your old rival Enamorus is, so you may hear it boast.

Cobalion only smiled and said, "My commander, the Shadowed boast with or without reason."

"What of the Djinn?"

"By the shape of the cloud, I would say he precedes it by just a few miles. They will need him."

"Still in the body of Cypress?"

"That would be my guess, sir."

Terrakion looked carefully at the approaching cloud, now a deep, inky black and spread like a canopy across the sky. The deep, rumbling drone of the wings was just becoming audible.

"How do we stand?" asked Meloetta.

Cobalion answered, "Prepared."

Then, as the sound of the wings grew louder and the shadow of the cloud began to fall across the fields and farmlands beyond the stadium, a reddish tint began to spread through the cloud as if it were burning from within. Then the entire roof of the sky was black and dancing with specks of crimson light.

"They've drawn their swords," said Rayquaza.

.

.

.

"I want all the Rorian legions moved around the stadium," the Chairman had said a day ago. "Thirty thousand men, enough to dissuade anything but the most determined assault. If Cypress comes after us with his strongest assets, we'll destroy their leadership and cripple their fighting ability all at once!"

"Sir, this may be a feint," Yanase had said in the war room. "Cypress and Emrett use others as their tools, but they also do not want to fight at all, if they can help it. While our armies are around the stadium to make the visitors feel comfortable, the Eclipse legions will wreak havoc in cities that we have left unguarded."

"It will only be for three days or four," said the Chairman. "And the League is where this is all coming to a resolution. Finally, it's going to be the hell over. Don't deny that I'm right. This shit will stop, and either way, I'll be able to finally sleep for a whole night."

Then he looked up at her, shriveled, filled with long, ruinous years of weariness and abuse. He looked no more professional than an ordinary street vagrant, save for his dirty suit with sweat stains under its armpits the size of pizza pans. She was filled with a silly pity, a pity that was thankfully transient. What she would do next was like being cruel to a dying man, slapping him on the hospice bed.

"I tried, Yanase, right? That's what counts?"

"You tried," she said. Walking to his desk he handed him a crumpled sheet of paper. with twenty signatures signed below a statement in plain black type. "But it's only to Arceus to command victory. Please accept the resignation of Oak, Rowan, Birch, my daughter, and myself from your service. The other regional professors and Gym Leaders have declared you an enemy of the people and request your resignation."

He looked up and saw the ever-ethereal sparkling in her eyes, wishing he could make love with her. How was it that a Hisuian woman had such flaxen blonde hair? He felt like a solitary puff of dusty air, everlastingly tired, but always aroused at the most inappropriate times. The statement had sounded serious enough, but he wouldn't believe it, not till the League was over. "Will you move the Rorian legions to the stadium, then?"

"It's already being done," said Yanase coldly. "You put in the order before consulting us about it. Although I don't see how you would appreciate this information, most of the officials who wrote those signatures are willing to enter talks with Bronze Tercano. They see him replacing you as a viable solution to our current crisis of leadership. There's no way that boy could lose an election in Roria."

"When if I trounce the democratic process and don't step down?"

"Well, the people or Roria don't want a democracy right now. They want someone who will do what they want without anything to stop him. But they'll take your obstinance as another excuse to go full berserker. And even before that, the Chairman in Sinnoh has a thousand soldiers ready to march on Anthien."

"So he'll become Rowan's puppet," said the Chairman, slumping and closing his eyes in a stupor, feeling crushed by an overwhelming sensation that what was done was done. "Just as you and I counseled against."

"No doubt that's what the electors would like," said Yanase, turning to the door. The airlock whooshed open but she didn't leave at first. "I think Bronze has outplayed all of us, though."

"He'll die tomorrow," said the man who was no longer a Chairman. "We'll all die tomorrow. Something is going to happen that he can't control, dammit."

And Yanase did not deny it, because it was true. Something would happen at the League that neither she, the remnant Hisuians, or anyone in the world would miss.

"The days of the Association are fading," said Yanase. "In Roria, they're over entirely. You wanted to protect it, but you wanted to protect it at any cost. Now the favor of God has passed from you to the king Bronze Tercano. Pack up your things. I'm sure Bronze will give you amnesty if you ask for it."

The ex-Chairman sat there for a moment, nonplussed, frustrated, afraid. His thoughts swam about like a school of frightened fish. He forgot why he was even in the war room.

Man, you've had it. What makes you think you're not just as dispensable as anyone else the Association considers a commodity, a tool, a pawn? And, let's face it. You are a pawn! The big interests have got their claws in you, and when Tercano busts their guts open with a bloodied sword, you're going to be the one to take their fall. He'll tag you on for a huge corruption case. You'll get nothing less than a concrete cell. You're dead if you don't start looking out for Number One, eh? Better crawl to Tercano after he wins the League.

Yanase had left, leaving the ex-Chairman to sit, stewing in his own bleached thoughts. He considered regret, prison, options, suicide.

...

In the unseen cloud, the myriads of demons were haughty, wild, drunk with the anticipation of victory, of slaughter, of unprecedented power and glory. Below them, the stadium was a mere toy, such a tiny little hamlet in such a vast countryside that made the planet Earth. Layer upon layer of spirits droned steadily forward, and myriads of yellow and violet eyes peered down at the prize. The place was heavily guarded, but they would have the victory. Their soldiers would do killing-work well.

A series of harsh screeches came from the front ranks of the cloud: the generals were calling out orders. Immediately the demon commanders on the fringes of the cloud relayed the orders to the swarms behind each of them, and as the commanders flew out from the cloud and began to drop downward, followed by their countless squadrons, the edges of the cloud began to wilt and stretch toward the ground.

"They're lowering their perimeter," said Virizion.

"Yes," said Victini with fascination. "As usual, they intend to contain the stadium on all sides before actually descending into it."

"That's for tomorrow," said Rayquaza.

"Aye," said Terrakion. "The people will be divided between those held prisoner by fear and those without it. It's our responsibility to protect the saints."

As they watched, the edges of the cloud dropped like black curtains that gradually wrapped around Seafarer's Island; demons were slipping into place like bricks in a wall. Every sword-hilt was clutched, every eye was wary.

"Cypress and Emrett?" Rayquaza asked a messenger.

"They are moving into place, along with the Eclipse fleet," the messenger answered, a fresh-eyed brightling only a hundred years old. "The Association won't see them arriving with all these demons gumming up their scanners."

"So it's ending tomorrow," said Zeraora.

"Around four or five," said Cobalion. "The League will be ramped up by then."

"I'm suspicious of the perfection of this moment," said Cresselia, the dark descending across her face as the demons blotted out the last of the sunlight. "It's too clear. Everyone is going to be lined up on one side or the other, right where the fight is going to happen. The battle will fall and we are forbidden to warn them."

"What is to come will not be so neat," said Cobalion darkly, "especially the ending. Enjoy the simplicity of the fight while you all can. History will advance ten thousand years tomorrow, but as for now, all is calm. There are still homes on Earth that know peace, and families that will enjoy a good night of sleep."

"If I had my way, we would end the Djinn and his dogs right now," said Landorus.

"Aye, that would be good indeed. But then we would have to destroy the Children also."

"Would that be so bad?"

"Yes, very," said Cobalion. "Hold the lines and get the saints praying. We'll need more warriors for the battle. Keep the military officers and their men safe, and don't let harm come to any arrivals if you can. Terrakion and Virizion, guard the Pokedex Holders."

"Then where are you headed?" asked Meloetta.

"To Bronze and Tess. There are some final things I must counsel them about. And when the Pokedex Holders come, Bronze needs to meet one in particular."

"Who and why?" said Virizion, hearing the human life in her old liege-friend's voice. She knew that emotion Cobalion was experiencing, but had never felt it. Cobalion, she supposed, was beginning to feel the most things out of all of them.

"Arceus has said it," told Cobalion. "He will, anyway; He always does. If Arceus should overrule my opinion, so it will be; in the meantime, Virizion, I am sad that Bronze may soon have to let go of his boyish chastity. But even when he was a boy he never seemed like one."

.

.

.

Bronze was sitting on the chamber's levitating pallet that served as a table and portable bed, one arm resting on his thigh and holding his Pokedex, while the other one, grasping Charizard's Poke Ball, was near his face. The past two weeks after coming to Seafarer's Island had been a pampered blur marked by lucid spots, filled with memories encapsulated like bubbles. The Association-provided luxuries were a giant change from the spareness of the wild, wandering paths through forests, mountain clefts, caves, seas, beaches, jungles; his memories had compressed into a line of unthinking growth in his muscle memory. These isolated islands of remembrance were full of strategy learned, laughter, grim consideration, and even defeats taken.

Cobalion had been fighting Bronze's Pokemon personally, and while the boy never came close to winning, he was getting better. Yesterday, during a spar on the enormous open-air training grounds, Steelix had managed to hit Cobalion on the flank with its tail: a trivial injury, the only evidence of which was a grunt and a period where Cobalion's breathing was quicker and rougher, followed by a wicked riposte of half a dozen sword-strikes to Steelix's joints. Still, it was the best he had ever done: it took skill to even harm a creature that had been fighting for a time so long that it made Bronze's three thousand years of ancestry look young indeed.

He had not seen the other challengers, but he knew their number, which was nine. The turnout had been small, mainly because the number of challengers had slowed to an abysmal crawl since the war had begun, turning the roads unsafe, and secondly, because many skillful Rorians did not even dream of participating. Each had their own quarters and training grounds, as far from each other as possible on the island. Before Steelix had struck Cobalion, he had worried about them, wondering about the masters of sixty years or hulking beaters of boys he would be facing under the eyes of millions. After the fateful blow, he was confident enough to spit in their faces. Not that he would, but his fear was gone.

When Cobalion and Tess entered the room only seconds removed from each other, his first words were, "I think the Chairman may be trying to assassinate me."

"What?" said Cobalion, worried at the boy's gravity. "There is no such plan. I have heard he has considered it, but Yanase always makes him stop. Why do you say such a thing?"

"And we took precautions," interrupted Tess. "I get extra food from town so you can eat it, catch fish from the sea, had Magenzone test your drinks..."

"I think he wants me dead," said Bronze.

"Too late for that," said Robert, stepping in with Lily. "You're more popular than Black of Unova." He looked at the time, sighed. "Well, if we're going to talk about tomorrow, we'll do it now."

"The League isn't going to go as planned, that's obvious," said Tess. She hesitated, and then said, "Bronze, you wouldn't betray us, would you?"

"In what way?" His face was impassive, but she heard a slight eagerness in his voice, and what was most worrying was that he had not denied it.

"Let us die or be captured," she began, grasped for more, and found nothing. "Yes. Say I'm taken and put in a cell with Jake, and you can see it all through a handy little camera. Cypress grows fangs and batwings, all nasty, you get it, and says that you can either choose to save yourself and let us die, or exchange your life for us."

"I clinically diagnose your hypothesis as bullshit," said Robert calmly.

"Why would you say such a thing?" said Lily, much less calmly.

That instant she understood something that her intuition had been gradually suggesting over the past month: that Lily disliked her. Here was no vengeful witch or hateful stepmother whose voice was so full of venom that it became caressing. There was, like the smile of the Un-Cypress, nothing deeper than face value. On the possessed creature's face it had been basic, absolute evil, here it was...what? This was a practical woman, as deeply good as Tess's own mother was, who loved her son and feared she had lost him forever for a long time. Even more, she had been wondering if her boy had caused this girl he had been traveling with, the lass he carried around like a mistress in an Aredian king's harem and who was surely going to gravy in her brains with girlish love, to lose her maidenhood. These thoughts went unanswered because they were never asked, and deeper still was the question of whether Tess had been seducing him or not. Again, it was not complex womanly spite, not a deep-graven web of poison that an envious old woman would weave because of Tess's still-youthful skin or hair or eyes. The emotion was very faint shades of disgust, the feeling that had come to define Rorian society and all the political right. Lily certainly had frowned at the girls that went near Bronze, if he ever bothered to notice or care. And there would have been no shortage of those swooning town dames. He was attractive in his serious way, handsome like a stern prince, Tess thought, then realized her cheeks were shining like glossed hubcaps.

"I don't know," said Tess after a pause. "That I still don't trust him? That subconsciously—"

"Is this ology-of-the-psyche?" said Cobalion. "The cabala I have heard Bronze and the earthly doctors speak of?"

"Yes, I guess it is."

"It's shit," said Robert dismissively. "Mudpies of the mind. Thoughts in these times either mean nothing or everything, and when they mean everything, they almost always come as messages from Arceus." He gazed at Tess shrewdly. "But not all messages are sent by friends."

"Something or someone is screwing with my head? Is that what you mean?"

"No man can say for sure, Tess," said Bronze. "Your question's not a foolish one. I have already played the betrayer more than once, to my shame. I betrayed the safety of you and Jake when I had your company on my journey. Yes, I brought you along to enjoy the safety my presence provided, but it would have been better for you to have been sent far south, out of the reach of the Alliance and the troubles that followed. I was arrogant and did not see the death that followed me. But I think those days are over. We are one, a new Golden Company, chosen by God to fulfill the prophecies of old. If I betray any one of you, even our Pokemon, perhaps, I betray myself. Why do you ask?"

"But you'd never betray the quest."

"Renounce the kingship? No, Tess. Not that, not ever. I'm willing to endure much for that. The reason why I vowed never to do the bidding of the Alliance, even to save my parent's lives, was because they would have me rather let them die."

"I don't deny it," said Robert.

"Nor I," said Lily.

"That's your answer, Tess," said Bronze. "But I won't let you die. That I promise. The kings of old served their own purposes, but I have a Heavenly Father who can save the people of Roria whether by me or you. If it's my life for any of the people in this room, then I'll make the bargain. I'm too young to fear death. The events our quest has set in motion will carry on now, with or without me."

"So you don't care if you live or die?" said Tess, feeling a queasiness in the pit of her stomach. He was so hard when he spoke of such things, talking about throwing his life away for little old her. She wished that Cobalion would break in and put all of this morbid talk to rights, but the archon was silent. It was left to Tessa Woodhall to turn his heavy stones of words into pieces light enough to bear, all while she had the pounding agony of fearful anticipation in every joint and crevice of her body.

"No, I care," said Bronze, shrugging. "It isn't good to be fatalist, especially with the end on top of us. There are many things I still wish to experience, people I want to meet, deeds I must do. But life will come or leave if Arceus wills it."

"Funny," said Tess. She did not smile. "Weeks ago I thought I'd explode if I waited any longer for the end to come. Now I want it put off. There's so much to do that I can't decide what to spend any time on."

"I don't think it's funny at all," said Lily, "and you're wrong. We've done all we can. Go train more with your Pokemon, if it pleases you, but don't dwell on the battle to come. The peril is in our road. We'll get there in time. No need to live in trouble until trouble comes."

"Your family would have made a fortune writing these sayings for college seminars, Bronze," said Tess, sitting beside him on the levitating pallet. She had hoped for a chuckle, but he only acknowledged her presence with a quick glance, as if he didn't want to think about it.

"Imagine how good it would be to be like the rest of the world," she continued. "Just ordinary people who know that things have gone wrong, and don't have a clue on how to fix them, but still can have a good night of sleep. We've got to live with the anticipation."

"It keeps us alive and on our guard," said Cobalion, "and it may not only be your nerves that are making you afraid. There is an ill-favored mist on the outside air."

"Are the demons here, Cobalion?" asked Bronze, his face still closed.

"All of them," said Cobalion, remembering the winged horde that had swung like a hell-woven tarp over the arena. "Millions on millions. They've encircled the entire stadium and intend to attack tomorrow. All of our foes are there, Giratina, Darkrai, even Enamorus."

"Didn't you kill the demon Enamorus?" said Robert. "I remember reading that part of the Legends when I was thirteen."

"So my adventures had a way of drawing you in?" said Cobalion lightly.

"And you stayed up well past midnight reading and fell asleep the next day under your whittling tutor's eye," said Lily. "I remember seeing you during archery with a huge blue mark on your forehead."

"Aye, the bastard whacked me till my gourd was black and blue and purple and all the colors of the rainbow," said Robert, grinning and touching his brow. "After lessons, I went and played demons versus angels with the other young whelps. It was really just pretend Pokemon battling, but my idea put a fresh spin on it." He laughed. "I'd never thought that in my old age, I would see the real war in the heavens."

Tess decided to picture a young Robert, and failed. It was like she could never think up Quentin when he was young, or Quentin when he was in the military, or Quentin crying.

"You're not even fifty," said Lily. "But pray tell, Cobalion. How is it that these monsters are returning?"

"The battle where I ended it was a very long time ago," said Cobalion. Bronze noticed a faint twitching in his forelegs, as if remembering some immersion into icy and intolerable water. "The world has moved on since then. It, and others like it, has returned from the blackness of the Abyss at the Djinn's call."

"I had thought Giratina was sealed away a very long time ago," said Bronze.

"The Djinn has gotten him free, it wasn't my business to ask how," said Cobalion. "All of the commanders are hovering above the flagpole. At least Yveltal isn't there. Only Xerneas could ever hope to subdue the Gloomweaver, but the Djinn could never control it even in the days of his strength. All the forces of Arceus and the White are preparing to answer the challenge of the Shadowed. There will be a great battle in the heavenly and high places as well as the earthly and lowly."

"Who are we to fight in the lower, earthly regions?" said Tess, feeling vaguely insulted that she inhabited a place that Cobalion considered, at least in the heavenly hierarchy, as low and dirt-stained.

"The Gym Leaders, the Pokedex Holders, the military, the Aredians, the followers of the true king, and all who at the League would resist evil will meet the full power of the Eclipse Alliance. Already a hundred and twenty gunships muster in the east for war. They have thousands upon thousands of soldiers, clones, bots, demons, monsters, Pokemon. They'll buy the time the Djinn needs to bring the end."

"So now we talk about the how," said Robert. "What's it about the stadium that will allow the Enemy to make the new world? Does it have magic in it or some other thingummy?"

"Pride," said Cobalion. "That is mostly it. Before he destroys himself, he wants to see his foes scream. The Dark Lord was never levelheaded. He understands wars and nations and grand shows, not a simple private ceremony that would allow him to enter the nexus of creation unobserved. Also, Bronze will be there, and so the Brick will be there. How much he truly needs it is impossible to know, but with the lack of effort he's put into actually getting it from us, it makes me suspect a contingency. The Djinn always has a way of skirting around one-sided equations. The intervention of Dialga and Palkia, and the revelation of the Alliance's rotten heart to the world at Anthien, saved us: it pushed them to war, which made them clumsy and unpopular. This war was his backup plan."

"But how is he going to get to the place of power, physically?" said Lily. "You already explained it a while ago, but I'm still lost."

"I think he always had the power of world-walking," said Cobalion, "and with what dark technology he's gotten access to, there might be many ways. With one so wise as the Djinn, reaching a single universe or another couldn't be very hard if his mind and resources were set on it. Already, using only the mundane technology we here possess and the Pokemon that live alongside us, the race of men can break the spaces of the worlds (which were originally quarantine spaces) and spread to realities that would be otherwise unreachable. Bronze went to one and mingled in the ecosystems of beings beyond ordinary conception. The how is too simple, in my eyes, for us to spend very much time debating it, though I am curious about what form the gateway to Beulah will take."

"Big and bright, if pride is the Djinn's great fault," said Bronze. He moved his hand through his hair, the shanks that had grown to a wild neck-length in the outback now cut neatly.

"Yes, very bright indeed. Huge, definitely. Perhaps some kind of great, sucking wormhole above the stadium. We need not wait long to see."

"If only Jake was here to see it," said Tess. She paused as a dismaying realization came to her: what Jake had done to give Bronze's parents time to escape had probably necessitated his execution. "Or is he...?" The question fell into silence.

"No, not dead," said Cobalion. "He is alive, and I think unharmed, though I would be wrong to say he might not be unchanged. I think this change will be for the worst. It would be folly to think that our enemies will be themselves foolish. We do not. But it is not folly to have hope that he might be able to recover, though now all under the Djinn's shadow is black to me, for his strength has become very vast. So let hope be our own shield against the eyes of the Enemy! Never forget that he is very wise, and broods on everything as it is necessitated by the greatness of his concern. Yet even after long years, the only measure he knows is power, desire for power, and love for it; such is his tool that he uses to bend and break all souls. It has never, ever entered his thought that any could refuse power, no matter how finely sweetened the offer. He has underestimated Jake already, and if he has still resisted, then the Enemy's plans for him may be put out of reckoning."

"Is there anything we can do?" said Tess. "Anything but wait?"

"The Pokdex Holders will be coming shortly," said Cobalion, "so you might as well make friends. Stick to your faith, grow with your Pokemon, and laugh as you can. Fear no vengeful darkness in the grim morrow. Remember that Arceus is good and powerful to save."

"I'd better laugh," said Tess grimly. "After what I'm bound to see tomorrow, I doubt I'll laugh much again."

"Now look who's heavy-hearted," said Bronze. He stood up and stretched. "It was very wise of you to ask of me if I was willing to betray us. I think it hardly possible. But you must watch me all the same. I bear watching, as you well know."

"I trust you," said Tess, and the very awkwardness with which she spoke lent her words sincerity. Bronze looked touched, almost shaken, and Tess wondered how she ever could have thought this boy-man an emotionless robot. He did have deep feelings that surfaced when the time was right, if only she could look for them.

"Well, I'm excited," said Bronze. His ever-painful lower back popped out of joint and he winced. "Better than being fucking nervous."

Tess felt a cough that couldn't be cough, sneezes that couldn't be sneezed, and above all, a choking noise that she couldn't allow them to hear. She held her breath for a moment to see what Bronze would do, and realized that she was being looked at from all sides like a woman who had just admitted she had a serious but pitiable disease. No, that wasn't right. They were looking at her as if she had just committed a terrible gaff in the house parlor. She had been frozen silent.

"Bronze," she said, loosing her tongue with some preliminary stuttering, "that's the first time I've heard you swear like that."

"I'm surprised it shocked you so much," said Bronze with a wide and firm smile. "But maybe that's foolish of me. I'll admit, when I started this quest I was the sort of toff university fellow who would have stuck to his drawing-room language. Things changed, and now I want to talk like the ordinary people I intend to be ruling. Maybe it is the language of the uneducated, but I should be comfortable with speaking in either way. The military won't listen to a boy with no practical sense, you know. Making long-winded speeches can be considerably challenging and also a welcome exercise of those wide and cautiously diverse intellectual abilities that I, ah, have been trying to ferment, but regrettably—"

"You're doing it again." She began to giggle. She put her hands to her mouth, but it did no good. Bronze continued to smile back at her, tentatively, cautiously. He probably thinks I'm mad...and I am! I am!

"Sorry," she muttered.

"To hell with sorry," said Bronze. "Arceus works and the world moves on."

"Aye, thee speaketh straight and true, Bronze," said Lily. "We're in God's hands, but that doesn't mean we ought to roll up like snails."

"You talk like the ancient priests, mother."

"Well, I'd like to count myself as one of them. I wonder what will happen with the Pokedex Holders, Cobalion."

"I see opportunity but also the seeds of future hate," said Cobalion. "Many forces are working their will with man these days, and though not all are trying to divide, we all know that evil things are working to break the bonds of our trust. Tread carefully."

"So do you intend to tell them?" said Robert to Bronze. "Make them pick a side?"

"Yes," said Bronze, "but I hope to be a little gentler than when I tried it in Murkwater. Want to watch the Association frigates undock while we're waiting?"

"You scheming jackknife, I'm in," said Tess, lying down and accommodating the length of the pallet. Lily's eyes flashed disapprovingly, as if she had imagined Bronze and Tess stretching out on the same bed, albeit at different times, as something indecent. "If I weren't so dead tired all of a sudden, I'd even go with you." She closed her eyes and said no more.

.

.

.

SHUFFLE:

Moon Berlitz

.

Moon thought her fear would close her mind up like a startled hand. There was something fundamentally aslant about the stadium grounds, as if the atmosphere was thicker than it had any right to be. She felt very cold. Yet the sun was hotter than ever, almost impossibly hot for the time of year in Roria. It was very still too, so still that she could hear the movements of a small Natu that was hopping along the path that led to the League grounds. The path led to an arch-shaped sliding door which allowed visitors to enter the facility's security checkpoint. The bird hopped onto the threshold of that door, and onto a soldier's foot. That was another thing: there were too many soldiers. She had never seen so many gunpowder weapons in her life, oddly antique in their simple brutality.

For now, Moon saw that the Natu was fluttering about, looking as lost and lonely as an abandoned toy bike. The Pokemon seemed worried, its big glossy eyes looking up at the sky, staring to the east with uneasy chirps. Its wings flapped, and with a nervous jitter, it flew the length of the lawn and into a hedge of primly-cut rosebushes. There were many gardens, pools (water features, she remembered they were called, what a silly name), and huge fountains that took so many gallons of water to keep running that they could have only been built by generous Association builders with no conception of spending ceilings.

That bird gets it. Something's rotten in the state of Roria.

It was warm enough with the burning tropical sun and the sea breeze, but she had no compulsion to take her coat off. It wouldn't have suited her character, and she might have turned into a chunk of ice without it. When they entered the foyer, the coat-and-cloak collecter by the front desk looked as if he had seen little traffic. Whatever thing that chilled her was becoming very frightening indeed. There was witch's business at the heart of civilization and all of patriotism, spiritual crookery that spiraled up beyond the comfortable, testable reaches of science and into chaos.

No, there was nothing right with the world, and nothing right with the things she had seen and the assignments that she had been forced to take. Platinum understood. Yanase understood. Her father understood. Even Diamond and Pearl got it; they had to deal with the Alliance's grasping plots in Sinnoh. They had been occupied on that front for over a month since the battle at Anthien, but had been willing to return south for the League along with all the Pokedex Holders. Platinum had told her about the trip and Moon was ready to go, although now didn't think she would have gone if she had known about the wrongness that this place made her feel.

Like a cold tarp, she thought. A tarp with screaming mouths and wings flapping out freezing wind.

The Dex Holders had been arriving piecemeal, taking different entrances at different times. Yanase and Mr. Berlitz had taken the west gate only an hour ago, though Moon couldn't imagine how the Alliance or any other devils would miss their coming. She and Platinum had taken a separate transport, and since Platinum was old enough to drive and do most other things, including buying a red whine. Moon had gotten herself some water at the shuttle drink station, but by the time they arrived, she had already taken several cautious sips of wine at Platinum's allowance. She was disappointed at the results; in her younger days, she had pictured the wine her parents drank at dinner parties as tasting energetically sweet, with an immediate and dizzying intoxicating effect. It was, in reality, very dull; years of sampling berry mixtures and other medicines had built up a considerable resistance.

She and big sis had a good time of it, till now. Now, the cold bit past her coat and straight into her collagen. She went through the motions of state security while Platinum got their executive seats and hotel room checked in, smiling at their receptionist, a man who had slicked the remaining bits of his hair with some sort of gleaming grease and his monocle now lying on the snow-white breast of a houseman's jacket. While walking to the elevator that led to the hotels, she saw the receptionist give a big, swarthy man in tan fatigues and a brimmed hat a nod. The man in the hat returned it.

While looking through the lobby and out the plastiglass windows that looked out to the arena green, she caught a young gent in an Unovan tuxedo staring at her and Platinum. Nothing to judge him on: seeing two pureblooded Hisuians was always a shock, and Moon herself beginning to make boys trip around her. Platinum was the kind of handsome woman, no pretty nonsense about it; an about-eighteen-year-old who made boys from thirteen to twenty-five warmly think that she was like their mother, and men from thirty to forty that she was like their wife. The older girl had stopped wearing a cutesy skirt about two years back, choosing to change into medieval Hisuian garb, though she always let her hair stay free and never bound it up with hairpins, traditional chopstick-like things that looked as big as meat skewers.

An elderly bellhop as old as a caricature of Death took their few bags (packed light and full of the essentials: mixing tools and poisoned arrows for Moon, pellet stunners and Hisuian talismans for Platinum) and they descended to the first sublevel. They said nothing on the ride down, standing still and listening to the whoosh of the elevator's magnetic engine.

She feels it too, thought Moon, not willing to turn her head and see her sister's face.

The ride was thankfully brief. The doors opened onto a hallway flanked by keypad-locked hotel doors at even lengths, staring across from each other like hospital rooms. The tension faded when they saw the hallway widen, and then turn into a pair of double doors open wide, seeing about half a roomful of people standing about, too far away to make out, but presumably with crystal punch-cups in their hands, talking and taking little bits of food from the trays which were circulating.

"Are we late?" she asked, thinking out the words one by one so as not to stutter. Her tongue had been subtly encased in ice on the ride down, like a driveway slick with water frozen during the harsh Sinnohian winter. But here she was, shivering madly in a land that would never know a snowflake.

"Not at all," said Platinum. "All the others have arrived, though that doesn't mean we have something to worry about."

Ah, sister, but there is something big to worry about. Very big indeed, if someone could tell me what exactly it is.

"So everyone's going to be there," said Moon. "What about Sun? I can't imagine him loafing over here from Alola."

"He's here, alright," said Platinum. "All of them are expected except Silver."

"I don't know much about Silver."

"Gold says that he's off fighting a war in the southern deserts. Against the Alliance, I think. Everyone but him is going to be there."

"When was the last time we got together like this?" said Moon. They were halfway to the doors by now. "There wasn't a big gathering of all the Pokedex Holders since the fight at the Battle Tower, when Emerald got his act together, or when..."

She paused, remembering that the impromptu gathering at Anthien might not be a casual topic. They hadn't even talked about it since the first bone-terrifying days. So Platinum surprised her by saying:

"Yes, we were met at Anthien. But there had been no time for pleasant conversation then. I thank Arceus in my prayers that you were not there to see that man's devilish smile. It sounds horribly cliche, but that was what it was." Platinum shivered from something more than the place's cold. "That day will stick with me as long as I live. It showed me that the gods were not asleep."

"Arceus has been getting a lot of thanks these days," said Moon. Last Thursday, outside the Berlitz Manor in Sandgem Town, she had been handed a thin magazine by a balding man with a modest paunch. He was wearing a cardboard sign strapped to his shoulders with the words REPENT, THY SINNER, AND SEE YOUR SORROWS CAST AWAY written in neat bright blue letters. The packet, all of seventeen pages long, talked about a complex relationship between the lights in the sky, an obscure prophecy in the Hisuian Coda (the sort of controversial verse or chapter that Moon assumed both atheists and people like the man thought the church had never noticed before), and the Eclipse Alliance's secret conspiracy to create an international cabal of Pokemon-hybrid finance managers. From there, it was straight to Anti-Arceus. She thanked him and had kept the magazine, though the decision had been made with the attitude of a forensic investigator collecting particularly alarming evidence rather than an intrigued and potential believer. The packet was still in the bottom of her suitcase.

"We of all people know that He deserves it," said Platinum with a laugh.

"Will that Rorian boy be here?" asked Moon. It seemed that Bronze Tercano was one of the things troubling her parents' minds. Whenever she tried to figure out what he was about, Platinum hardly ever gave her a useful answer.

He's enigmatic, that's what I know, Platinum had said. He's to Logaria what we are to Hisui: the last remnants.

"Yes, he and all his entourage," said Platinum. "This is his League to fight in and his region to command. I expect to introduce him to you."

They were right by the doors and ready to do the hard work of talking. Platinum had time for just one narrow-eyed glance toward Moon: Everything. Every name, every face...every nuance. Especially those.

...

The first person to greet them was Jeb Runner, the Association's Executive of League Security (Moon suspected the title had been made up special for their visit). He was easily five inches taller than Platinum, who was considered tall even for a Hisuian, and his skin was pale as candlewax. Not unhealthy-looking; just pale. Wings of iron-gray hair floated away from either side of his head, gossamer as cobwebs. The top of his skull was completely bald. Balanced on his whelk of a nose was a pince-nez.

"My ladies!" he said, when the introductions had been made. He had the smooth, sadly sincere voice of a politician or an undertaker. "Welcome to Roria! To Seafarer's Island! And to the League, our humble stadium!"

"If this is humble, I should wonder at the palace your folk might build," said Moon. It was a mild enough remark, more pleasantry than witticism (she ordinarily left the wit to Platinum), but Jeb laughed hard. So did Gold, standing hard by the doors.

"Come, girls!" said Gold in a punch-drunk voice, when he apparently felt he had expressed enough amusement. "Diamond and Pearl await with impatience, I'm sure."

"Shall I conduct them, Master Gold, or..." said Jeb.

"Nay, nay, you mustn't trouble yourself with so many other guests to attend," said Platinum. She curtseyed to Jeb and his staffers, and although she still smiled and although the smile looked completely genuine to Moon, she thought: She's unhappy about something, all the same. Desperately so, I think.

The room, almost but not quite grand enough to be a hall, was circular, its paneled walls decorated by paintings (most quite bad) of previous Chairmans. On a raised stand to the right of the doors leading into the dining area, four grinning guitarists in jackets and Orreian sombreros were playing something that sounded like a waltz with pepper on it. In the center of the floor was a table supporting two cut-glass punchbowls, one vast and grand, the other smaller and plainer. A white-jacketed fellow in charge of the dipping-out operations was another of the Chairman's soldiers. There were enough seats around the spruce table to fit all the Pokedex Holders and many more. Surrounding the table were eight smaller, round platforms with padded seats set around them.

Several of the Pokedex Holders were wearing sashes of various colors, but Moon didn't feel too out of place in her plain silk dress and black overcoat. For every Blue and Red wearing a sash, she saw three others wearing the sort of dowdy, box-tailed coats that she associated with stockmen at church, and she saw several others (the younger men, for the most part) who weren't wearing anything formal at all. Some of the women wore jewelry (though nothing so expensive as Platinum's ancient Hisuian earrings), and Green looked as if she'd missed many meals, but they also wore clothes Moon recognized as something wearable back in Sinnoh.

Before they had time to talk to anyone else, Gold next caught the eye of the guitar player standing at the center of the musicians. He stopped playing; so did the others. The Pokedex Holders looked that way, then back to the center of the room when Gold began speaking. There was nothing ridiculous about his voice when he put it to use as he now did: it was carrying and pleasant.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my friends," he said. "I would ask you to help me in welcoming two of our old friends, fine young women who have dared great distances and many perils on behalf of the Pokedex Holders, and in the service of order and peace. May you sit among us?"

"Aye, so you may, and with thanks," said Platinum. There was laughter and fresh applause at her imitated Rorian accent.

Gold raised his cup. Everyone else in the room followed suit; crystal gleamed like starpoints in the light of the chandeliers. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Moon and Platinum Berlitz of Sinnoh! May their days be long upon the earth. So say the Pokedex Holders!"

"SO SAY WE ALL!" they thundered back.

...

After the applause had died, Moon split off from Platinum and sat next to Sun and Gold. "Say, Moon," said Sun, "might we present you to our new guest from Roria?"

"Aye, you may!" cried Gold in a strong, high voice. "Indeed you may, we've been waiting with impatience, great impatience, for this moment! Excited I am indeed to have Moon Berlitz and Bronze Tercano meet!" He outstretched his hand and pointed to a far corner of the room.

In the shadows where the chandelier's lights did not reach, a boy was talking with Yellow, Ruby and Sapphire, not one of the four laughing at all. They seemed to be deep in thought. She could make out little of his man-shape, but by faint light she saw that he was young indeed, close to her own age on one side or the other. His clothes were those of a working trainer, although old. His skin was lighter than an Aredian's, but not by much, and the darkness made him seem tanner.

"Oh, TERCANO!" bellowed Gold. "We've new guests!"

The boy's hands suddenly dropped to his belt, and then he turned slowly, thoughtfully, and walked over with unconscious grace. Ruby and Sapphire followed him. His eyes, brown, steady, sane, were alive and full of terrible and tenacious vitality. He wore dark clothes of some homespun material; the shirt, its sleeves rolled up, was a black faded almost to gray, the pants something that looked like blue jeans. Poke Ball belts crossed his waist, but the magnetic notches were vacant except for five capture devices. Moon felt her feelings of disorientation and sharp cold suddenly supplanted by a slight warmth. She saw that he was handsome, in a way that jagged against his youth.

"Bronze Tercano, at your service," he said, then doffed his Pokedex, extended a foot on one bootheel, and bowed in the Logarian fashion.

Such absurd courtliness startled her out of her fear and into a laugh. She thought it would likely offend him, but he smiled instead. A good smile, honest and artless, its inner part lined with even teeth, but his eyes were filled with a consuming fire, as if he were angry and didn't know it.

She stood and dropped him a little curtsey, holding out one side of her dress. "Moon Berlitz, at yours."

Bronze continued to bow and said gravely: "Might I recline briefly at your feet, my lady? Your beauty has loosened my knees. I'm sure a few moments spent looking up at your profile from below, with the back of my head on these cool tiles, would put me right."

They all laughed at that, even Ruby and Sun. Moon blushed and slapped the back of Bronze's hand. The boy stood up with a grin and took a seat with Gold on the right hand and Moon and the left, across from Ruby and twice removed from Sun. Platinum saw this foolery and hurried to the table with Pearl beside her, with cheeks a color too pretty and red to have been caused by makeup. Yellow took the last seat.

"Pretty speech and lovely sentiments," said Bronze to the table, "but that doesn't change that it's getting on with the afternoon, and there's much to be done."

He said this all with a calm thoughtfulness that she liked, and then realized at once: He feels it too! He feels it clearer than anyone! And he KNOWS what it's about! It's like Father said: 'The world is full of spirits, Moon, good and bad. And don't mention it to anyone else on the offhand unless you find that they've had experiences of the same sort themselves. What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say, even their looks, will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open, Moon.'

"Much to eat, if that's what you mean," she said, hoping she wouldn't stutter.

"No, m'lady," said Bronze softly. "This is no time for feasting."

She looked at Bronze with a mixture of amusement and irritation. The thought that crossed her mind was If he calls me m'lady again, as though I were a schoolteacher or his doddery old great aunt, I'm going to take a cloth napkin and swat him with it.

"Was your trip difficult?" asked Gold. "Did you have adventures and experience perils after I left you to wander after Flouruma? We would hear all the details at dinner, since we have so few communications from you. Or none at all." His eager, slightly fatuous smile faded; his brows drew together. "Did you encounter patrols of the Alliance?"

"No," said Bronze, "only a small probe over the Summer Sea, seen on the boat ride from Murkwater to this island. I have company that can take care of such things quietly. We had no threat from the Eclipse men." He looked over Ruby's shoulder at a blank patch on the wall. Or maybe it wasn't blank; if there was any warmth flowing in the room, it was coming from that part of the room, even though there were no thermal vents in sight.

"Eclipse men!" said Gold, and his upper lip lifted in a smile that made him look doglike. "Eclipse men, indeed!"

"We would have Gold and all the Pokedex Holders at this table hear Bronze's words, every single one," said Ruby gravely. Moon noticed the tremor in his voice.

"Will this only be between us?" said Sun. He was examining Bronze with a thoroughness that was almost insolent.

"Nonsense," said Gold looking pleased all the same as he knocked back a glass of punch. "He'll tell everyone at the great feast later today. We're all in this together, boy. Jonathan Rowell Cypress is but one bad straw in a field of wrongheadedness these days. The world's moved on from Hisui and Logaria, some say. Damn! So it has, I'll admit, and a good piece down the road to hell is where it's moved on to. We need to return to the old days. Our job is to hold the hay out of the furnace as well as we can, as long as we can. For the sake of our children even more than for that of our own honor. The Alliance must be stopped. We will announce the return of the king!"

"Anything we among the Pokedex Holders can do to help this boy is our responsibility," said Ruby. "Red, Blue, Green, Crystal, Yellow, any or all. You'll meet them tonight, their friends and girlfriends, and you need only ask. We may be different, but we're all Pokedex Holders, and strong for your cause all the same."

"Well spoken," said Pearl quietly.

"The loyalty of each Pokdex Holder would be more than ten thousand talents of gold, such as the ancient kings would have desired," said Bronze. His eyes seemed sad and furious at once, but were hard to read, even when he turned so Moon could see them: blazing islands of speculation that she could not decipher. "But I do not think all will receive me so kindly as Gold and Ruby and Yellow have done. We have suffered much and would all die for each other. The end is falling on us."

"Better save it for the dinner," said Yellow. "We're speaking of changes and we have so little time to think of it."

"I will say openly, without hesitation even in the heart of its domain, that the days of the Association in Roria have gone down into the shadow," said Bronze. She sensed truth in those brown eyes. "Renovation must be made. New fires will be lit. Logaria again will be made whole."

"When the king comes back," said Platinum. "Some good that cannot be achieved, or some evil that cannot be amended."

There was a heaviness in Moon's belly, though it had nothing to do with the chill; it was as if the punch and the soup and the single beef-strip she had eaten for politeness' sake had all lumped together in her stomach. "I beg pardon?" she said. "Are you the heir to Logaria that was spoken of?"

"Yes," said Bronze, looking at her and smiling. "So I am indeed. My line reaches back to the Elder Days, through the shadow of the War of Wrath, and out to glory and nightfall. Tar-Silmathrim was my line's ancient sire, who was born in Atun-Kaah before its fall; and my farthest forefather was Tar-Elrosi, son of Cambyses. My ancestors have seen three ages in the South of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories. I may be an heir to a kingdom, but I will surely be the last. Either we succeed or Logaria dies with us. And is it not also true, Moon, that you and all of House Berlitz are the heirs to the North-kingdom of Hisui?"

"Where did you hear such a thing?" She couldn't help but marvel at the archaism. North-kingdom. He said North-kingdom.

"Not all lore that came from Hisui has been forgotten in the south," said Bronze, "and it was said among us that those descended from Rei Berlitz, the Plate-bearer, still ruled Hisui as its High Elders. But that is no longer so."

"We still hold the old titles, and the respect of the Hisuians who still live," said Moon proudly.

"Yes, the world would be less fair if all the bloodlines of the Hisuians had withered away, or else they had gone down into the grave," said Bronze. "The flame of the North is not extinguished yet, though it glows faintly. But I would like to hear from you, Moon, the tale of House Berlitz."

"Call me Miss Berlitz, if you hear," said Moon.

"Yes, I hear," said Bronze, his smile becoming a grin. "I beg the pardon of all your mothers and fathers."

Moon wondered if a man could really drive you mad, literally insane. She wouldn't have believed so before today, but now everything had changed. "The tale is a long story that can only be spoken in the old style," she said. Her smile felt cold and false on her face.

"I would be willing to hear your skill in the high speech," said Bronze. "More than just willing, indeed. You have a good voice."

"Oh, stop!"

For a moment he said nothing, but she could see the look in his eyes well enough to know that he found her fair as well. And although this disquieted her, perhaps because Platinum was so close, she was also glad. Then he said, "You look well enough up to the task. Let us hear the tale of Hisui from a Hisuian."

And when she began, he put his hand on his chin to listen.

...

SHUFFLE

...

They all held attention when Moon recounted the long tale of the race of Hisui. They became the herald of Adaman and marched with the Great Host. They were at the Battle of Dor Daedeloth before the Iron Gate of the Enemy, where the Logarians and Hisuians had the mastery: they beheld the last combat on the plain of the Iron Hell, where Tar-Adunakor died, and Iridia fell, and Adaman's sword was broken; but the Enemy himself was overthrown, and Tar-Haurgon slew the Tyranitar-chieftain that had ended the life his father, taking the title of King of Kings in Logaria for his own.

I have walked arm in arm in the Temple of Evil with Rei, whispered Cobalion as the story went on. I stood with Berothrim while he was tempted in the Forest of Great Fear. I have been in the fiery wastes with Kamado, Iscan, Iridia. I slew two thousand with Adaman at the Battle of Atun-Kaah while he blew his great horn, and was waylaid with Akari and Lian while the wild wolves attacked in the Forest of Knives. I wept with Cyllene. And the world moved on.

What am I feeling about this girl? thought Bronze. It's warm, and different than any kind of attraction I've felt before. I feel a need to act foolish around her.

Mayhap it's love, boy, replied Cobalion.

Not such a thing, he thought right back at him. I'll not see love in every passing wind and shadow. It's an old tune, love at first sight, and everybody knows it.

Mayhap better if you're right, Cobalion's voice returned. For if it's God sending this, it'll come like a wind, and your plans will stand before it no more than a house in a cyclone.

"After the War of the Plate, Hisui reached its height," said Moon, "and this included all of Sinnoh, even the cold regions beyond the Mountains of Coronet, and the lands west of the Firth of Adamant, beyond which lay Johto and Kanto. On the slopes of the Mountains Cyllene planted many gardens that were green and quiet, where no Men went; but Pokemon dwelt, and still dwell, in the south side of the Mountains, especially in those parts near the Sea of Easternesse, where we have mines that are still in use. Near the haven of Prelude Beach was Jubilife City, which of old housed the Elders of Hisui, and some say they dwell there still, until the Last Days set upon the Earth. In the days of the Elders, most of the Hisuians that still lingered on Earth dwelt in Jubilife, or in the seaward lands of Sinnoh. If any now remain they are few..."

Bronze felt as though he was being carried away. When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned another part of the Hnau-Erebol-et-Elohim, the most important part for all those who live on Earth. It was love. Something older than humanity: did not Arceus say what He made was good? More ancient than the desert: when Tor and Embla walked in love there had been no desert. More lengthy than Logaria: it was stronger than his divine right. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly a thing he had been awaiting all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his studies and in his books, in the battles and in the silence of the desert.

It was the purest part of the language of the gods. It required no explanation, just as God needs none as He travels through endless time. What Bronze felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But he knew that they had not understood the Erebol-et-Elohim as he did. Moon understood it because she was part of the faith, and that made it easier for both of them to await the other's coming. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand of He who evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

ARCS:

So were Bronze Tercano and Moon Berlitz met in the land of Roria, near the end of the last great age of men: so were they met and so were they doomed.

ARCS.

...

"Pardon me," said Bronze politely, and walked to the catering table.

He walked over to the tables full of trays, and piled bits of cheese onto his plate in the dozens. He had forgotten his punch cup and could not refill it, but he did not care. His eye was held by Moon Berlitz: the dress, the white skin; and most of all her hair, which was unbound tonight and fell to her neck like a shimmering veil of dark midnight. He wanted her, suddenly and completely, with a desperate depth of feeling that felt like sickness. Everything he was and everything he had come for, it seemed, was secondary to her.

Her eyes (they were gray, he knew) were looking at him. Her regard was beating on his skin like a soft wing. He had heard of drowning in a woman's eyes in some poems or stories, and thought it ridiculous. He still thought it ridiculous, but understood it was perfectly possible, nonetheless. Bronze, hoping his face did not give away the fact that his heart was pounding like a hammer, tried to finish restocking his plate. Distantly, he could feel the specter of Cobalion saying something. More clearly he could smell mingled perfumes, the oil from the lamps on the walls, the aroma of the distant ocean. And he thought, for no reason at all, Oh, I am dying. I am dying.

Take hold of yourself, Bronze of Logaria! Cobalion yelled. Stop this foolishness, for your father's sake. Take hold!

He returned. Cobalion was the only control he needed. He had thrown away the plate and his hands had locked like a rigid corpse. The palms were turning pale. Who had ever heard of a pale Logarian? His loins felt filled with liquid lead. He needed Tess, he needed Robert, he needed Lily, and above all he needed Jake. Jake would put him firmly back in his senses. There was no time for such things he felt. Accursed stroke of desire! Surely, surely there was no greater trap than love.

...

SHUFFLE

...

Platinum's part of the tale was not yet done, and there was no escape to dinner. The table at the center of the room had been moved aside and when the guests came back that way, like a tide that has surged as high as it can and now ebbs, they formed two adjacent circles at the direction of a sprightly little redhaired man whom Gold later dubbed Jeb Runner's Minister of Fun.

The boy-girl, boy-girl, boy-girl circling was accomplished with much laughter and some difficulty, and then the guitarists struck up a tune on Hisuian lyra and kaval flutes. This proved to be a simple sort of reel. The circles revolved in opposite directions, all holding hands, until the music stopped for a moment. Then the couple created at the place where the two circles touched danced at the center of the female partner's circle, while everyone else clapped and cheered.

The Orreian lead musician managed this old and clearly well-loved tradition (back in his region, at least) with a keen eye to the ridiculous, stopping his fellow guitarist-cowboys in order to create the most amusing couples: tall Crystal-short Emerald, grim Blue-ferocious Sapphire, older Green-younger Sun, to many breathless cackles and roars of approval.

Then, just when Bronze was thinking this stupid dance would never end, the music stopped and he found himself facing Moon Berlitz.

For a moment he could do nothing but stare at her, feeling that his eyes must burst from their sockets, feeling that he could move neither of his hobbled feet. Then she raised her arms, the music began, the circle (this one included Pearl and the watchful, narrowly smiling Platinum) applauded, and he led her into the dance.

At first, as he spun her through a figure (his feet moved with all their usual grace and precision, numb or not), he felt like a man made of glass. Then he became aware of her body touching his, and the rustle of her dress, and he was all too human again.

She moved closer for just a moment, and when she spoke, her breath tickled in his ear. "Thank you for your discretion and your propriety," she whispered.

He pulled back from her a little and at the same time twirled her, his hand against the small of her back, palm resting on cool satin, fingers touching warm skin. Her feet followed his with never a pause or stutter; they moved with perfect grace, unafraid of his great and booted bone-stompers even in her flimsy silk slippers.

"I can be less discreet, if you like," he said.

"Why do you speak so?" she whispered.

The music stopped before he could answer, although how he might have answered, he had no idea. She curtseyed and he bowed, while those surrounding them clapped and whistled. They went back to their places, to their separate circles, and the flutes began again. Bronze felt his hands grasped on either side and began to turn with the circle once more.

...

The call for early dinner went out. Bronze was seated near the end of the center table, between Gold, Moon, and the rather morose X. Gold had been handy with the punch; now, as soup was brought to table, he set about proving himself equally adept with the ale. Bronze had to carefully separate him and Crystal to ensure that Moon was seated beside him, though he would rather have been at the high seat at the end, if X had not already taken it.

Things weren't good with the world, Gold had been reasoning to everyone who would listen, but they were going to get worse, much worse, unless something drastic happened. They all had to pull together, that was the ticket: rich and poor, great and small, while pulling could still do some good. And then he seconded Ruby, telling Bronze again that whatever he and his friends wanted, whatever they needed, they had only to name it.

Moon kept her own silence until they were a minute or two into the meal, and then asked the questions that had been on her mind. She had planned to ask hers after he had begun asking his, and it irked her to be the one to break the silence, but in the end her curiosity was too much.

"Where do you come from, Bronze, and what brings you to this part of the world...if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not at all," he said, looking up at her with a smile. "I'm glad to talk and was only trying to think how to begin. Talk's not a specialty of mine." Then what is, Bronze Tercano? she wondered. And she wondered very much, for on his belt was the sheath of a curved knife. It didn't have to be for killing, but she remembered how swiftly his hands had dropped instinctively toward his belt when he had been surprised.

"I come from the south of Roria. I have an idea you probably guessed that much on your own. We have our own way of talking."

"Yes. Where's your home?"

"Mitis Town, though my descent comes from Rosecove City."

"Not Anthien or something larger?" she asked, detesting the hint of a girlish gush she heard in her voice. And more than just a hint, mayhap.

"No," he said with a laugh. "Nothing so grand as Anthien. Only Mitis, a village forty or so leagues south of Silvent. Smaller than Rosecove, I reckon, though my heart is ever with Atun-Kaah, the lost City of Caves, and our old capitol."

Leagues! thought Moon. He said leagues!

"And what brings you to take on the League, then? May you tell?"

"Why not? I've come with two of my friends, Tessa Woodhall of Rosecove, and Cobalion of Deep Heaven. My mother and father accompanied me from Crescent Island onwards. And I'd tell you of why I want to fight, but I plan to tell everybody in the stadium tomorrow. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise." She heard no lightness in his voice now. "I have a score to settle with the Eclipse Alliance. Their business has grown serious."

"You speak as though the Alliance were after you. They're just bandits, surely, frosting their thefts and murders with talk of 'rights' and 'equality'?"

Bronze shrugged, and she thought for a moment that would be his only comment on the matter, but then he said, reluctantly: "It was once so, perhaps. Jonathan Cypress was an ordinary man, even a very intelligent one. A great physicist. Had Yanase Berlitz on toast and drank a pint of Laventon's blood for breakfast. Cypress invented the empath machine and discovered interuniversal portals. Someone I might have even admired. But times have changed: at some point the scientist became a fanatic, and the fanatic became a devil, and now the devil would become a ruler in the name of the Great Djinn." He paused, then added gravely, "I have had many battles with Cypress's men."

"Have you killed any of them?" said Moon.

"I have and will kill boys and girls, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said Bronze. He didn't say this as if he were boasting, nor as if he were sorry, nor as if he were angry. He merely said it. "And I will kill Jonathan Rowell Cypress."

"But Cypress could be thousands of miles away right now," said Crystal.

"Yes," he said. The sound was strangely pleasing to her ear. "But the wind of war is blowing in this direction." He turned to Moon again and smiled. Once more it softened his hard good looks, and made him seem no more than a child, up too late after his bedtime. "But I don't think we'll see Cypress tonight, do you?"

She smiled back. "If we did, Bronze, would you protect me from him?"

"No doubt," he said, still smiling, "but I should do so with greater enthusiasm, I think, if you were to let me call you by the name your father gave you."

"Then, in the interests of my own safety, you may do so. And I suppose I must continue to call you Bronze, in those same interests."

"Both wise and prettily put," he said. "I—" Then, sitting up as he was with his face turned up to her, Moon's new friend tipped over in his seat and almost fell. She laughed merrily. She liked him, yes, so she did. And what harm could there be in it? He was only a boy, after all. When he smiled, she could see he was only a year or two removed from jumping in haystacks.

"I'm usually not clumsy," he said. "I hope I didn't startle you."

If you're not showing your divine right, your truest self, then don't bother with her, he heard Cobalion say. You did it with Tess on first sight, but not her? Stop acting like an oaf!

"Not at all," she said, and returned to the previous topic. It interested her greatly. "So you and your friends have come to the League to be mysterious, haven't you?"

"If you think my strange, then say it," said Bronze. "I come to make the Association leave Roria. There's not much Association in Association these days. That's part of the reason Cypress's gone on as long as he has; that's what has allowed his ambitions to grow. He's come a far way from the professor who began as a Djinn worshipper in the north, and he'll come farther yet if the war effort isn't revitalized. I will tell the people of Roria all that they need to understand about the plan of the Enemy."

"What has been hidden shall be spoken openly to many," said Yellow. "And Roria will awaken."

"I can't imagine that something like that would be allowed to get out on television," said X.

"We've a plan to deal with that," said Gold. "No Association keyboard-pounder or government Porygon is going to stop us from getting the world to know that change is coming."

"You never seemed one to care about such high and mighty things, Gold," said Crystal.

"Aye, Crys," said Gold, with a stern face that would be easy to mistake for indifference. "Bronze's needs are not my needs. I don't care about a kingship, or the devil, or anything else about Hisui and Logaria. I know enough to understand where he's shooting from, but that ain't part of my road to take. I stand with Bronze because he is a valiant man and is committed to the doom of the Alliance. As all of us should."

"Never mind Gold's loose mouth," said Bronze. "But if you be my friends, listen. This is important."

His smile dropped away, and she saw again, as she had for a moment or two before, the man he'd been before too many more years had passed. The hard face, the concentrated eyes, the merciless mouth. It was a frightening face, in a way, a frightening prospect, and she felt that there was a depth to him that had not yet been revealed.

"Let the boy speak. Tercano has been through dangers that even we hardly can conceive," said Yellow, rising from her seat at the stroke of four. Ruby and Gold gave her a hear-hear while Sapphire and Platinum clapped eagerly. Sun grinned and swallowed a cheese burrito. Moon herself nibbled at bits of green; she had not the stomach to touch anything better. The chill, fainter and stronger at times, had ruined her appetite, and there was another thing making her body churn.

"A good Pokedex Holder as any of us, that I can say rightfully," said Sapphire. "Ye saw how he stood against the enemy at Anthien. Let him speak his course in peace!"

"Yes," said Pearl. "Let him say what he wants."

Bronze stood and found that the room was looking at them. He was expected to give some sort of speech (like the 'few good worlds' in the Murkwater tavern), thanking them for coming and how glad he was to be among the order of the Pokedex Holders. But the world had moved on since then.

"Et tu, Brute?" thought Cobalion. "Do not fall, Bronze."

...

"I am Bronze Tercano. I am a man who loves his life. I am a man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. You have heard it said that this is an age of crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. Well, I believe that the sins of men are destroying the world, but that isn't something we can deal with.

"I am Bronze Tercano, and I do not come to beg for any man's pity. But if you have help, then promise to give it, whatever it is; for my people dearly need it. Through centuries of scourges and disasters brought about by the evil in men's hearts, the Rorians have remained, her allies always like a splintered staff of reed that cuts the hand of whoever leans upon it. I will never ask another man to live for my sake. That is not what I am saying.

"I need your help, because I intend to overthrow the Association. There are no microphones or cameras in this room that I have not already dealt with, nor any scheming, oily little men which I fear. If you speak of this I will ensure that it does not get out. Many of you are employees of the Association yourself, and that I understand your concern. I wish only to overthrow it, not dismantle it. The people of Roria will govern themselves. Don't let your rage come out because of your confusion, spark by unquenchable spark, but rather consider WHY I would do such a thing.

"WHY is that I love freedom. WHY is that the government is corrupt. WHY is that I want to protect those I love from the Alliance, a foe against which the Association has been no help. WHY I can explain endlessly. In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this word to those who are its worst. In the name of the values you hold and the God who keeps you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. You may not consider yourself Arcean, but you swim in a sea of Arcean morality and do not see it, as a fish in water does not know what water is; and being noble, you held Arceus in love, though you did not know that He was Lord, and so He has sent me as a sign of his love.

"I must save my words for tomorrow. But if it enters your mind that I have no merit, know that I am a Pokedex Holder as much as any of you. My Pokedex was given to me by Jonathan Rowell Cypress, a corrupted creature being devoured in the slow fires of hopeless damnation. Does that diminish the claim? Yes, unquestionably. But WHY does that matter? Our enemies do not care. If the Eclipse Alliance is to be destroyed, it will have its leadership amputated, its factories and war machines deprived of the best of its slaves. With the Djinn and his pawns gone, the Alliance falls to a level of impotent chaos, like the mystic-ridden nations of the ancient West, and dissolve into starving robber gangs fighting to rob one another: when the advocates of Alliance perish with their final ideal, then and on that day we will have victory.

"I do not need to be Pokedex Holder to be Emperor of Logaria. I do not need you to help me win. God is on my side. I am a fanatic, I am dangerous, I am the avenging power of Arceus. I have come to cause the rising and falling of many. This I tell you because you are my friends, and I do not want there to be secrets between us, but open and clear intention. Any of you who love me will have no greater friend and brother. Those who oppose me will have no greater foe. That is my warning to the enemies of God and the Empire, and not you only.

"You stand at the tip of a knife. Any step will cause you to fall to either side. You have fought bravely against the Djinn, friends. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration amid the cold death of modernity, but seek a new order on Earth of which you have tried to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. Who are you fighting? It is not something that you can defeat without me. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, and it might be yours. Be proud of what you might do. You are Pokedex Holders, and that is reason enough. I cry your pardon and help."

"There is a good future you are capable of winning. It requires a struggle; so does any good value. All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal, whether for Arceus or not. Do you wish to continue the battle of your present or do you wish to fight for my world? Do you wish to continue a struggle that consists of clinging to precarious ledges in a sliding descent to the abyss, a struggle where the hardships you endure are irreversible and the victories you win bring you closer to destruction? Or do you wish to undertake a struggle that consists of rising from ledge to ledge in a steady ascent to the top, a struggle where the hardships are investments in your future, and the victories bring you irreversibly closer to the world of your moral ideal, and should you die without reaching full sunlight, you will die on a level touched by its rays? Such is the choice before you. Let your mind and your love of God decide.

"To win victory requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, a sundering with the doctrine that man is a material man who exists for the glory of himself. Fight for the value of your person and titles. Fight for the virtue of your dignity. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his image that Elyon made. Fight for God and combat. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that your inheritance as Arceans is the Kingdom of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

"These words are for you all alone. I will give them to no one else. Join me or not, I will accept any choice you make without bitterness and acrimony. Because the men and women gathered before me are capable of making such a decision, abstaining is not a proper nor brave course. That is all. Thank you."

.

.

.

Time slows, eats itself, stews on itself, rots. For what seemed the hundredth time, silence fell after Bronze's words were finished.

Oh God, I love him, though Moon.

Crystal was the first to stand and reply. "If you're going to worship anything, worship life, every bleeding bit of it. Not this god you speak of. No child is afraid of nature or dying; it is your fear of men that will enslave the Rorians. I live in a world of responsible beings, as coherent and objective as facts; the guarantee of their character will be a system of existence where objective reality is the standard of the judge, not any divine right of kings. Your virtues, Bronze, I agree with it, but your vices I do not. The Association is here to stay."

She went to the far side of the table across from Bronze. "If you would not have this delusional boy and his band of savages take over society," she said fiercely, "stand with me."

Yellow jumped it and stood beside Bronze. "And if you would keep the world free and restore natural law, join us!"

This is the awe-inspiring universe of Magic I offer," said Bronze. "There are no building blocks to existence, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here, the screen of the magi: Imagination! In the mythic story-lore that I draw my heritage, you learn what it means to be the Children of God. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos, a sub-creator in Arceus's own creation. Take the dogma of your high calling!"

Three more stood like jacks in boxes; Gold, Ruby, and Sapphire. They joined Yellow. After a moment Platinum and Pearl left their seats, dragging Diamond along. With the high and sad faces of martyrs, they shook hands with Bronze. Moon found herself rising, quaking, not understanding what had happened and what force was compelling her, and stopped walking once she was near Platinum. She tried to avoid Bronze's eyes.

"You can't be serious!" said Black. "We don't even know what he's talking about!"

"It needs faith," said Pearl. "What reason do you have not to join, even if you don't understand it?"

"There's no need for blind obedience," said Bronze. "I intend to reveal everything else tomorrow. But your faithful pledge will be remembered, not only in this life but the next."

"He thinks he's God's messenger," Green growled. "He thinks he's some prophet!"

"I am," said Bronze, "and I am also the King of Kings in Logaria, King of Roria, King of Totality, King of the World and Solar System. But I haven't earned any of those titles yet: what is a king with no kingdom? Find adventure and understand what our order was always meant to be: the vanguard of the armies of Arceus against evil."

"Why, Platinum?" said Red. "Why did you do it? What's so special about this boy?"

"I once heard a tale of a man who was heir to the throne of a great kingdom," said Platinum. "he lived as a ranger and fought his destiny to sit on a throne, but in his blood, he was a king. I also knew the story of a man who was the king of a small kingdom, it was very small and his throne very humble but he and his people were all brave and worthy conquerors. And I knew of a man who sat on a magnificent throne of a big and majestic kingdom, but he was not a king at all, he was only a cowardly steward. If you are not a king, though you sit on the king's throne and drape yourself in many fine robes of silk and velvet, you are still not the king and you will never be one. Bronze's actions will speak for him. If he is the true heir to Logaria, he will conquer."

"Just because he is playing you superbly doesn't mean he will be a better ruler than the Associaton," protested White.

"But how could he not?" said Platinum. "Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead, even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison. The problems of monarchy, I think, are far lighter than those a managerial, democratic state causes."

"What's on the other side of that choice for me?" X asked Bronze quietly. "Go on and tell me. If you can tell me, maybe I'll come. But if you lie, I'll know."

"Maybe death and sorrow," said Bronze. "But before that happens, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I want you to join me on a quest. Of course, all will probably end in death, death for all of us in some strange place. But if we should win through..." His eyes gleamed. "If we win through, Xavier, you'll see something beyond all the beliefs of all your dreams: the reunited kingdom of Logaria. If that doesn't sound glamorous enough, I don't know how to persuade you except by appealing to your humanity."

"I won't do it," said X. He got up and walked to Crystal. Y, Green, Blue, Black, and White followed him. Red looked at Bronze and turned away, taking his place beside Crystal. Emerald seemed to be considering both sides, and then went to the anti-monarchists. Soon only Sun was left.

He smiled, and said, "Sure, I'll bite." Then he got up and went to Bronze, slapping him on the back. "So this is how the line is drawn."

...

"Thank you for considering," said Bronze to the room. He lifted his hand and they all saw it: a great crown woven of silver, a crown which issued a great light that illumined Bronze alone and left all else dark. He stood before them seeming now tall beyond measurement, and powerful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. A pitiless light of history rested in the holy blaze. It had a strangely divine quality, luminous as it was.

Then he let his hand down, and the crown faded, and he laughed softly. He had shrunken, now a mere boy in ragged traveling clothes, a boy who only had to shave once a week.

"For those of you who still are suspicious of me," he said, "may God grant you the wisdom to see the path of the future and all the wonders it holds tomorrow. My only warning is to be ready for battle. Thank you for listening."

"Flame bright, flee night!" said Platinum, and she raised a toast for Bronze's company. Bronze drank to the power and mercy of Arceus. Gold drank to a good day and a valiant nightfall. Moon looked at her own cup of punch. Was it shaking now in her hands? She made a point of holding it still, but she couldn't help staring a moment at the space above Bronze's head, looking for the crown. What, indeed, did his hair look like grown out?

"This'll catch up to us," said Emerald to the company, "or all of you, at least."

"What reason do you have to doubt me?" said Bronze. "I do not doubt you think your choice good, but what is it that I am lacking?"

For the first time Moon thought she heard a darker tone, perhaps annoyance, maybe anger.

"I don't think that having a king will do any region right," said Red. "It isn't anything about you, Bronze. You're fine. But I know enough about history to know that monarchy makes dictatorships."

"Well, the people want a monarchy," said Bronze. "They want me to be the head of an independent and passionate government. We offer freedom for the intellectual sphere as well as all economical aspects. I myself don't want this democracy or parliament or party business that has soured the life of the whole world with its politics. The Rorians and I don't want politics. We want competence, order, and decency."

"Sooner or later you'll say that you are the government," said Crystal. She had sat down again and was making an admirable job of finishing her meal.

"Nonsense," said Ruby. "We'll be here to knock him down to size, if anything goes wrong. We're all reformers with good motives, see here, and I don't see how this can go wrong if we make a constitution."

"No, not a constitution," said Bronze immediately. "Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny. They're organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations. I, however, am only human."

"What could possibly go wrong with this government?" said Green, rolling her eyes.

"Many things," said Bronze, "but I'll see to it that God is on my side."

"How convenient," said Blue. "This Arceus you say you represent says only what you will. Perhaps it is only a strawman you make in your desire to enchain others to your power."

"You do not ask the sun if it exists or not," said Bronze, "nor do you beg it for mercy when you doubt its power to save or slay. Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government? One only I can use."

"Don't deceive yourself," said Blue. "The truth is that you are fighting for tyranny, not liberty."

"And don't pretend that you really care," said Bronze. "Tyranny is not something I am capable of committing. There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences."

"The sun sets, then, on the days we have known," said Moon. "Will they be missed?"

"And for better or worse they must change," said Bronze. "But all the things that have been leave their mark. The past is no further away than your pillow."

.

.

.

RE-SHUFFLE

.

.

.

There came a time in the night when neither Bronze nor Moon could not be found. Both had gone outside and were passing the Association tanks that had been parked on the path beside the green lawn, illumined by the stadium's tired white lights and the stars. Cobalion watched them carefully.

They were near the largest of the durasteel monsters, and Moon was glad for Bronze's presence, even if his silence was a little irritating. She had always found machines of war, with their skeletal forests of gantries, suggestions of insecurity among the elites who required their presence, and the square-jawed and brutal operators oppressive. The tank and warship piolets were out having a last night of fun in town before the League; they had seen only half a dozen people in the past hour. Most of the steel killers had become outdated long since, and there was neither the parts, the need, nor the understanding among the elite to repair them. And those models that did still labor along in mass-production lines—nineteen variations out of about two hundred still in official use—could be pierced and annihilated with targeted lasers. But they were steady, enduring hardship after hardship, the supplies of Association fusion power inside them seemingly inexhaustible. The warbling of a frigate came from overhead, its engine and hull lights shut off to confuse guided rockets sent by Eclipse guerillas.

Moon saw the Bronze seemed to be fascinated with the old tanks. What's so interesting about them, Bronze? she thought a trifle crossly—it was the lateness of the hour and the residue of her stirred-up emotions, she supposed. Filthy old things have been killing men for a century or more, and I've been smelling the stink their wars leave behind my whole life.

"What does thou see?" she asked, expecting him to turn back to her. Instead his back remained in her face.

"I'm beginning to see them by the tanks," said Bronze. "I could feel them clearer than others ever since an early age, but now I know what they look like. There are millions around here."

"That's why it's so cold, isn't it?" said Moon. She knew, and he knew, that something was wrong. Why, then, did she feel so nervous about admitting it?

"Yes. Even in ninety-degree heat. The humidity is bad, too. Many people are going to feel the cold and think they're going insane."

They turned away from the line of tanks and the stadium, going over the lawn to the gardens. A wooden bench lay against a brick wall, the stone mortar drowned out in a haze of creeping ivy. A single iron lamp cast a faint and soft light that gave them enough visibility to see each other, leaving the black shapes of trees and hedges as ominous bulks in the distance. The nightly creatures made soft, shurring noises from around the artificial pools. The starlight rained down on them as it has on young men and women since time's first hour, and once Moon looked up and saw a meteor flash overhead, a brief and brilliant orange streak across the vault of heaven, fighting its way through space as if breaching a great shadow, a primeval terror with branching wings that stretched from north to south.

Sitting on the bench, they kept their silence for a while. Aside from the garden's sounds, the land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of people's feet or voices. Far above the sea in the north, the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above the dark form of a frigate, Bronze saw a star twinkle for a while. Moon heard a sound infinitely more sinister, one that never failed to produce a scutter of gooseflesh up her back: a low, atonal noise, like the warble of a siren being turned by a man without much longer to live.

"Are they what I think they are?" she asked at length.

"Demons," he said, and pointed back at the entrance to the garden, a place where the cobblestone path wound under a trestle of black iron. He perceived two hulking forms in the middle of some debate, and from their massive, spine-covered arms and poisonous words he could tell they were demons who specialized in hate: planting, aggravating, and spreading it, using their crushing arms and venomous quills to constrict and poison the love out of anyone. "The Dark Lord has summoned his forces to the stadium for tomorrow."

"I know you, Moon," he whispered. "We've sat upon a ledge above the sea while I soothed your fears. We've caressed in the dark of the night. We've..." He found himself losing focus, tried to shake his head, stumbled forward.

She lurched forward to steady him, and before she could let herself think about what she was doing, she put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on the mouth. The kiss was brief but not sisterly. He stood up in his seat like a man in a dream, looked at the entrance to the garden for a moment as if he didn't know what in the world they were, and then looked back at her. She could see him working to clear his mind and emotions. She liked him for it. And she was very glad she had done it.

Not like Tess's kiss, he thought. That put things right. Now I want more.

"I see us giving love to each other in a time of storms," he said. "If I could but have your love before I pass forever under the wings of the Shadow, I would be content. When the end does come I hope to face it. My reason says that the end has come, and we live in the Last Days before Arceus returns, and therefore we should be held in readiness for doom. But my heart does not say that." And he kissed her brow, as softly and unasking as a blooming flower reaching for the sun.

"Then what does it say?"

"That love has come to me, love that no reason or scheme of mine can deny. I don't want to be a part of history. I just want to be loved. I've heard enough sad histories of kings and messiahs. Why should I need special powers to forecast ruins and falls of my own like all those others?"

"But that won't stop you," said Moon bitterly.

"No, never."

"Then don't speak riddles and tell me if you love me."

He put a palm against her cheek. "I have been so prophecy-rich and so life-poor, and that has shown in the past. But you understand everything I speak of. There is no need to school you on demons nor the end times as I might need to with other women. You take things as they are. Arceus has put you in my path. You interrupt my destiny. Yes, I love you. I love thee. As the psalmist wrote, I love more than the gold and jewels that are fair in the hand. And if you would have it so, Moon, I would love you even more. Rather I ask, Moon, do you not love me, or will you not?"

"If you love me, then love me." There was a small, rueful smile on her face. "We're too young, I suppose. Little more than children ourselves."

He leaned forward and looked up the black sky. What she said might be true, but it didn't matter. Truth was sometimes not the same as reality, this was one of the certainties that lived in the hollow, cavey place at the center of his divided nature. That he could rise above both and willingly embrace the insanity of romance was a gift from God. All else in his nature felt humorless about the prospect of love on the eve of battle, and, perhaps more important, without metaphor. That they were too young to be parents? What of that? If he had planted a seed, Arceus would make it grow.

"We hardly know each other," she said.

Now it was Bronze's turn to smile. "You are wrong, I think, beyond even the words of the god-tongue to tell. I love you. Even in these few hours, I have lived eternity with you. And we still have eternity, beloved."

"You might have it. I only have now."

"But eternity is now. We are living in eternity. Already I have thought you glad, sorrowful, and beautiful beyond understanding. But now, if I had known you, without any interruption, for tent thousand eons, and were the worshipful Queen of the Universe at the right hand of the Father, I would still love you the way I love you now. Moon, do you not love me?"

Now he saw faint tears on her cheeks. He tried to brush them away, but she turned her head.

"It's too fast," she said. "Have you heard of the curse of Cyllene and Berothrim?"

"That they were of different races, she the longer-lived by thrice his years? How at the last she begged him to remain with her, even though it be beyond even the power of the gods to extend his life?"

"Even love does not change that I am a Hisuian and you are not. Being what I am, Bronze, of the North-line unmingled, do you not see what will happen? What would happen to us? I will live long. Must I live with the knowledge that you will die long before me, and our children also?"

"I love you even more," said Bronze. He pulled her against him, stroked her hair. "You are already planning far ahead."

"Do not laugh at my worry."

"I have no interest in repeating ancient tragedies," he said. "Let Cyllene and Berothrim and all their kindred be damned if they come between you and me. I may struggle and fail and fall, but history does not repeat. It may rhyme, but each cycle has its own new thing. I;ve learned that from God Himself. And that makes me think that Arceus does not wish to repeat the same doomed union. Things will be different."

"Then you only have hope!" she cried.

"And I will live on hope, as I always have done. I told you that I loved you," he said, and for the first time his voice had come unanchored a little, wavering in his throat. She was alarmed to see that there were tears standing in his eyes. "There was more. Something more."

"Bronze, I don't want to—" She turned blindly for escape. He took her shoulder and turned her back. It wasn't a harsh touch, but there was an inexorability to it that was dreadful. She looked helplessly up into his face, saw that he was young and far from home, and suddenly understood she could not stand against him for long. She wanted him so badly that she ached with it. She would have given a year of her life just to be able to put her palms on his cheeks and feel his skin.

"You are afraid, Moon?" he said.

"Yes," she whispered. "With all my heart I am."

"I am afraid for my friend Jake in the same way, too." He held her by both shoulders now. One eye overbrimmed; one tear drew a silver line down his cheek.

"Is he hurt?"

"No, but something happened with him and the Alliance. Damn! How can I talk about it when I don't even know how to think about what happened? In a way, he might be dead."

"Bronze, that's terrible."

"Shame and love and hope, that's what I feel. But he might be gone. They might have torn out his brain and put a new one in. Even my parents don't know—"

"Stop it!" she cried, pulling back from his hands. Inside her, everything was suddenly in motion, all the mooring-lines and buckles and clamps she'd been using to hold herself together seeming to melt at once. "Stop it, just stop it, I can't listen to you talk about this!"

She groped out at the bench's armrest for purchase, but now the whole world was wet prisms. She began to sob. She felt his hands on her shoulders, turning her again, and she did not resist them.

"I'm so ashamed," she said. "I'm so ashamed and so frightened and I'm sorry for me and Platinum and mother and father. I've forgotten Arceus's face and...and..."

And I'll never be able to find it again, she wanted to say, but she didn't have to say anything. He stopped her mouth with his kisses. At first she just let herself be kissed...and then she was kissing him back, kissing him almost furiously. She wiped the wetness from beneath his eyes with soft little sweeps of her thumbs, then slipped her palms up his cheeks as she had longed to do. The feeling was exquisite; even the soft rasp of the stubble close to the skin was exquisite. She slid her arms around his neck, her open mouth on his, holding him and kissing him as hard as she could, kissing him there under the watchful and scornful eyes of Cobalion and the demons he held at bay, kissing him at the eve of the end.

They were the best kisses of his whole life, and never forgotten: the yielding pliancy of her lips and the strong shape of her teeth under them, urgent and not shy in the least; the fragrance of her breath, the sweet line of her body pressed against his. He slipped a hand up to her left breast, squeezed it gently, and felt her heart speeding under it. His other hand went to her hair and combed along the side of it, silk at her temple. He never forgot its texture.

Then she was sitting away from him, her face flaming with blush and passion, one hand going to her lips, which he had kissed until they were swollen. A little trickle of blood ran from the corner of the lower one. Her eyes, wide on his, her bosom rising and falling as if she had just run a race. And between them a current that was like nothing he had ever felt in his life. It ran like a river and shook like a fever.

Not very Arcean of you, though Cobalion. Bronze was so out of reckoning that he didn't register the fact that Cobalion must have been grinning.

"No more," she said in a trembling voice. "No more, please. If you really do love me, don't let me dishonor myself. Let me wait till my mother and father..."

But they would approve. he was the sort of boy that they would like. That fact made her feel worse and better all at once.

"I would wait forever," he said calmly, "and do anything for you but stand away and watch you go with another man."

"Then if you love me, go away from me. Please, Bronze!"

"Another kiss."

She stepped forward at once, raising her face trustingly up to his, and he understood he could do whatever he wanted with her. She was, at least for the moment, no longer her own mistress; she might consequently be his. He could do to her what Jake might wish to do with Tess, if that was his fancy.

The thought broke his passion apart, turned it into coals that fell in a bright shower, winking out one by one in a dark bewilderment. How could he fall in love with this girl, any girl, in a world where such evils of the heart seemed necessary, and might even be repeated?

Yet he did love her.

Instead of the passionate kiss he wanted, he placed his lips lightly on the corner of her mouth where the little rill of blood flowed. He kissed, tasting salt like the taste of his own tears. He closed his eyes and shivered when her hand stroked the hair at the nape of his neck.

"This is strange," he said. "I can survive adventure, but love is harder."

She laughed and sobbed at that. "This is our secret, Bronze."

"For now. I won't do anything that might stain you. Your mother and father ought to understand."

"More hope," she said. "Would you have everything between us be based on hope?"

"Indeed," he said, kissing her again.

"Thank you for not...not taking what you could," she said. "I'll remember you always. How it was to be kissed by you. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, I think. Like heaven and earth all wrapped up together."

"It was sweet," he whispered, "and you were the sweetest of all."

"Should we go back now?"

Yes, Cobalion thought at him, and he perceived in the word a tone that suggested a wide smile.

"Yes," he said. He stood, tottered, suddenly not wanting to let go. She got up and held him steady.

"I see that you are the strong one," he laughed.

"Always," she said.