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The Choices of Bronze Tercano
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Bronze swallowed the last of the reptablets in the bottle, thinking of loyalty. It could be sold, but never bought. A curious little twist to be appreciated. He threw a handful of water from the iso-pod's crystal sink in his face, then turned back to Robert.
"Some say," he said, "that people cling to imperial leadership because space is infinite. They feel lonely without a unifying symbol. For a lonely people, the Emperor is a definite place. They can turn toward him and say: 'See, there He is. He makes us one.' Perhaps I am to serve that purpose, Father."
"I tried to teach you to avoid hippy nonsense," said Robert, "but I pleasantly see that my efforts failed."
"He gets it from me," said Lily proudly. "Simple theology is no fun."
"Maybe for you," said Tess. "I, in fact, prefer it."
He looked out the pod's one-way viewport across the stadium. Nine other egg-shaped chambers, attached at even intervals to the arena walls, waited to be opened and their occupants released. Bronze's own chamber stretched back into the stadium complex in a long, tubular line, furnished with plush-upholstered swivel chairs and modular sofas. At the far end of the compartment, which had to be at least eighty feet long, was an area that looked not like a bar but a cozy bistro. An instrument that could have been a harpsichord stood on a pedestal of polished wood, highlighted by a hidden spotlight.
Indirect lighting glowed from panels placed high along the walls, and dependent from the ceiling halfway down the compartment was a chandelier. To Tess it looked like a larger replica of the other ones that were hanging in the stadium's halls. Nor did this surprise her: she had begun to take such connections and doublings as a matter of course. The only thing about this splendid room that seemed wrong was its lack of even a single thing to eat. The defining piece stood on a pedestal below the chandelier. It was an ice-sculpture of Bronze with a knife in his left hand. Its right hand was holding the neck of a Charizard that flew, head-high and strong, behind him. The resemblance to Bronze was remarkable, except for the clothes: they were the robes of a Logarian king, but underneath them was a circlet of mail that shone like fish's scales.
"I influenced the chamber icemakers," said Cobalion's voice, "though I had to work rather fast. Does it 'do anything' for you, as the earth-men say?"
"It's absolutely amazing," said Tess.
"Thank you, then."
"The Association really wants us to wait in style, don't they?" said Robert. He tested one of the sofas with his hand. It was incredibly soft; touching it wanted to make him fall asleep for the rest of the day.
"They might be trying to make me soft, lose my crucial edge before the battle," said Bronze. He saw that the time was eight in the morning. "But I doubt the Association has enough coherency among its elites to attempt that kind of thing. It's too subtle for them. But the risk is there, if these couches are as comfortable as my hands think they are."
He looked again at the stadium seats, all hundred thousand of them. They were all filled with people, whispering, worn-down Rorians and soft, food-fat foreigners. Bronze couldn't hear them, but he could see their lips moving. The spectators had been deprived of a peaceful year but were now given this ancient, dark attraction its stead; battle, come and fight, death for you and life for us.
Drake was there, and the Gym Leaders, and Gerald of Anthien, and Antarah, the Aredian wearing a burmoose hood that covered his face; Ryan himself. Bronze felt the presence of a hundred people he had known (and mostly liked) during his time moving north through Roria. Higher up were the executive boxes where the Pokedex Holders waited, enclosed in their own glittering, artificial eggshell; Oak and the ex-Chairman, military commanders keeping the twenty thousand soldiers deployed through the island in tight order; Yanase and her husband; Gold and Ruby and Yellow, the strong friends who had done so much for him; the other men and women loyal to him or not, Platinum the Fair...and his love that had seized his heart up in a unstoppable typhoon. She would be watching him.
"Are you ready to say what needs to be said?" asked Robert.
"I have been ready since my conception," said Bronze. "Here in the time of reckoning. Today is the end of the world we have known. Even friends and beloved will change; to know a thing well, know its limits. Only when pushed beyond its tolerance will its true nature be seen."
"Nothing will go wrong if you stick to your Plan," said Lily.
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error," explained Bronze. "To claim absolute knowledge without being Arceus is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty. I have considered this Plan to be the purpose of my existence since you instilled its greatness and virtue into me. It still is my path, but I see that its fatal errors arise from obsolete assumptions about my character."
"But those errors have been corrected!" said Lily.
"Maybe. I have learned to grasp power lightly; any harder and I will become subject to its influence. By all accounts, I'm a better organism than the one that set out months and months ago: spiritually, intellectually, and physically, though perhaps not mentally. Yet I still have reasons to be wary. This belief in imperial supremacy was nurtured in me by you and my father. I wouldn't have thought of it, not if I had been left to my natural processes. If all those around you believe some particular thing, you will soon be tempted to share in that belief."
"Who do you think is the Champion?" asked Tess. She realized she kept raising her voice to talk to an invisible Cobalion, as if she were speaking to somebody on the telephone and had a bad connection.
"Khosrow," said Cobalion with a sigh.
"Not the Khosrow we're thinking of, right?" said Robert, remembering the loony fanatic in the seaport tavern.
"Yes, that Khosrow, from Murkwater," said Coblaion. "He wasn't lying when he said we'd have business together. I have only known for a few days."
"How could a man like him become Champion?" said Tess.
"Many men are prisoners to the vices in their private lives," said Bronze dourly. "Drinking and whipping up brimstone in this case."
"Speaking of which," said Tess, "do you believe in hell, Bronze?" She dropped into one of the swivel chairs, sparing one glance at the ice-sculpture. The blade of the knife was beginning to drip slowly into the shallow china basin in which the sculpture stood.
"Do we have time to talk about this?" asked Robert.
"Nearly thirty minutes before the Chairman makes his announcements," said Lily. "Simple theology is no fun."
"I wish not," said Bronze. His eyes shone as if reflecting sparks from an unseen pipe. "If there was any doctrine of Arceanism that I could get rid of, it would be hell. But I can't do that, and Arceus warned about it in the Coda. And we've had our encounters with hell, in one way or another; smelling it in the ruined camps of drug-addled squatters, seeing it the smile of a man devoured by the dark powers, feeling it in the presence of the corrupted City of Caves. And do you want our enemies to go to heaven, instead of someplace where their evil will be punished? Do you think Arceus would allow that, being so infinitely loving?"
"Of course not!" said Tess, the cold voice returning and speaking through her. "I want them to go to hell."
"Well, oddly enough, God doesn't," said Bronze, "but He allows it anyway. The existence of hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. Unfortunately, we have to say that hell is morally acceptable, because it punishes evil. And not everyone in hell is like Cypress; there's also your sweet grandmother who rejected Arceus, a steadfast atheist who died trying to save children from a hospital fire, or your narcissistic neighbor who was kind of a jerk, but never really did anything bad. The holy writings say that children won't be there, though."
"And demons?"
"Hell is void of demons. All the demons are here." He pointed to the sky. "Right here, literally."
"Before I became Arcean, I wondered about death," said Tess. "I'd say 'Death feels like the time before you were born. You didn't think that was so bad, did you?' And that would be enough, though I never quite slept right after thinking about it for too long. But my situation is hardly better. It says that all Arceans are destined for paradise, but then that means that millions and millions of people will be suffering in the worst part of the afterlife, with no way out. How can you stand to think about it? Cobalion, what has Arceus told you?"
"About why hell exists?"
"No, I get the reasons why, and I think they're good reasons. But why was it the only option?"
"I was one of the most fervent supporters of the idea of hell, actually," said Cobalion. "Many millennia ago, when men fell, we were forced to make some way to segregate them from God. Once hell was decided upon, I never really cared to doubt its rightness."
"You mean that there were sides?" said Tess, feeling disgusted, as if the air were a layer of crawling bugs on her skin. "Like in a political debate? Over making fucking hell?"
"It was not that sort of thing," said Cobalion. He seemed completely unmoved. "Arceus told the Host of Heaven the problem: that His creations were being unbodied and dying amid sin in ways that were not originally intended. The greathearts and wise among the gods said many things. We thought about reincarnating you, like the Pokemon are reborn into new bodies, regardless of sin, but Arceus said the faithful were, in the end, to remain with Him and Him only. Then we suggested that the righteous might go to Arceus while the wicked would remain to be born again. But Arceus said that such a thing would destroy the individuality of each human soul. Tess, it was slow and painful talk. We feared to meddle with God's children. Many mysteries still remain about your ultimate fate that even Celebi does not understand, and these we would not dare bend."
"What else did you discuss?" said Bronze. This bit of ancient angelic history seemed oddly surreal: pictures and suggestions kept entering his mind, obviously incorrect and unhealthy, but he couldn't help allowing them entrance. There were images derived from pictures of Arceus as He appeared during the Incarnation: there were vaguer, perhaps quite savage and puerile, images associated with the other two Persons making counsel with the gods. There were even some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered, like when a man prays to his "God", a god located up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall.
"Many of us, including my friends Terrakion and Virizion, wanted to annihilate the sinners after death. And there are some who even today wish that it was so. Arceus was not willing to have the image of man be extinguished and disrespected. Purgatory, a time of temporary, purifying punishment was suggested, or a period of time where postmortem repentance could be achieved. God's face turned wroth at the possibility: he would not be disrespected by evildoers by having them partake without faith in His eternal joys. And in any case, some souls would never have been able to leave the test; not only the very evil. Zacian and Zamazenta wished for a middle ground, some Limbo dimension, where the spirits of the not-saved but not-bad might rest in more-or-less acceptable sub-existence."
"Who are Zacian and Zamazenta?" said Robert. "I've never heard of those elohim, even in my studies."
"There is no time to explain. Their plan was rejected: the only way any soul could be 'content' in such a state of being would be total empathic pacification, possibly against their will. Long counsel was still held, but hell was the only choice left. We segregated a special plane of existence for the damned. Palkia drew its boundaries and Arceus shaped its spiritual laws out of the fabric Chaos had hidden deep within it. So was hell formed, though not at anyone's first intent."
"Chaos?"
"The void without form, the void that existed before the creation of the Many Worlds. Chaos is the primitive state of the universe, the state that precedes order, being the primordial void that precedes creation. But the universe was created out of non-thing by Arceus, who is the Original One and the Uncaused Causer. If Arceus wishes to create a new portion of the multiverse, He recedes it from the Chaos, the Qlippoth. It is not something He must do instead of purely creating new aspects, but in this way He forms new 'living space,' makes the Many Worlds less susceptible to...attacks from the Outside."
"What..." began Tess, but she stopped. "Nevermind. I don't care to know anything I can't already infer."
"When Arceus made light, a shadow was cast," said Bronze. "The shadow hit the chaotic waters and the Great Shadow sprung from the darkness. He's God's shadow, in every sense of the word. The darkness to the light, the evil to the good, everything that Arceus is not. And being in the presence of things that were his opposite drove him mad with confusion, anger. Being evil, he waged war against the Almighty before the universe was born. Arceus won, and the Great Shadow was bound to the wilds of Chaos, while being cast into an impotent, deep sleep."
"How do you know that and what does this have to do with our battle here?"
"Guessed," said Bronze, "and not much. Here we are, asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, right on the threshold of the great battle of our time!"
"An infinite amount of angels can fit on the head of a pin," said Cobalion. "We don't displace each other. It helps prevent friendly fire."
"Was that supposed to be a joke?" said Tess, still feeling uncomfortably nauseous. "It was a very bad one."
"I was being completely serious."
"We have eaten up the time," said Robert in a low voice.
"I'll go with your parents to the executive boxes, Bronze," said Tess. "Will we be safe there?"
"That's up to Arceus, but don't go down without a fight if your fortunes sour," said Bronze. He was looking out the window, making a line of sight that led straight to the Association control room. "I'll stay with Cobalion."
"I can't wait to have a go at them," said Tess, her hands quivering with excitement and nervousness. "Especially if it means avenging Jake."
"Keep on your feet, Tess," said Cobalion, "but don't throw away your life before the proper time. You might live."
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Antarah had an urge that could not be fulfilled. He squirmed and shifted his seat in the executive booth, leaning it back and forth and up and down. He looked out at the stadium, and then behind him to the rows of seats arranged in a tiered ascent like a movie theater, with a giant window at the room's front looking out at the arena. This place was poison for him. There was a sense of cold menace and perpetual dissatisfaction, but more sickening to him were the synthetic foods and the water-bloated foreigners. His genitals felt drawn and hard: the women of the League did not wear the abaya like the Aredian wives and daughters, and he had seen enough bare shoulders and legs to make him worry about dishonoring himself. To the spectators from out of the region, this visiting Aredian appeared long, tall, and ugly: a man in a dust-stained hood, his skin drawn with lean sparseness, complexion dark as a crow. He had refused to eat or drink anything but the rations he had brought from Ussukannu.
"What troubles you, Antarah?" said Ryan. He sat comfortably beside his death commando, resting at the edge of the row where the traffic from the left aisle passed by. He was not as water-fat as a foreigner, but not nearly as shriveled as Antarah.
"It is this seat, my lord," said Antarah. "I find it softer than sleep itself if I would only rest, but it feels ill against my flesh. I cannot sit long. There is too much to be done."
"Perhaps you could remove the padding," said Ryan. "The plaz underneath will not be as hard as the desert rocks, but you'll be able to stay put easier. I am sorry that you are bothered, friend."
"They will think me mad," whispered Antarah.
"I do not care," said Ryan. "Do with the chair what you wish."
Antarah drew his hunting knife and removed the padding for his buttocks and back by cutting away the cushion seams. He had to stand and kneel in the row's footspace or the operation, which drew many curious eyes. Once the creature comforts were set aside, he sat again, sighing in relief as he found that resting was far easier. The hardness brought him back to the valleys and cliffs of home, brutal and beautiful. Almost he could hear the creak of his robes and smell the desert dust.
The wind began to blow in his mind again. It was the great west draught, the wind that came from the distant sea. It didn't bring with it the smell of the desert, nor the ancient threat of Logarian invasion. Instead, it brought the scent of a perfume he knew well, and the touch of a kiss—a kiss that came from far away, slowly, slowly, until it rested on his lips.
Antarah sighed. It was the first time his wife had sent a kiss on the wind.
"I will see thee again, if God wills it," she had said. "You walk into death and a dishonorable land. How I do not wish to be like the wives who wait in the dunes, wondering if their husbands will ever return from war or the hunt. They say they are proud that they have such brave men. I wish only for thee."
"And we will see each other in the sea at the end of the sands, then, if I die," he remembered saying. "If Arceus wishes for me to leave and you to remain, then you must carry His will. But I would not walk the path to afterworld without thee by my side so quickly, my desert spring."
"Let your sword rule over your enemy's necks," she had prayed, her arms around his neck and their lips touching in the darkness of the cave warren. "If you enter a disgraced place, leave it. If you meet tyrants, be a tyrant to them. And if you meet insolents, be insolent to them. King's man! King's man! How I love thee!" And then she had given him moisture through her tears.
"Oh, my spring," he muttered. "Oh, my desert spring."
...
Light passed over his closed eyelids, causing him to stir. He returned to civilization, seeing a company of three enter the booth, one huge man with a glance at once firey and forgiving, a woman at least a head taller than any Aredian or Logarian maiden he had seen, and a girl he knew. She looked at Ryan, then saw him and gasped. Her face went pale except for two splotches of color on her cheeks.
"That's him!" she told Robert and Lily. "That's the Aredian we met!"
"The one that tried to kill you?" said Robert swiftly, his hand going to his belt. He moved with a sudden speed that was uncanny, feeling a cloak of emotionless coldness drop over him, preparing him to do what needed to be done. Even if it meant doing it in front of dozens of people.
Gods save me, this man is a monster, thought Antarah. He'll kill me if I don't reason with him. He's no dangerous fool who has forgotten the face of Arceus. He remembers God's face well. Not like these other soft fools. How I am proud of him!
Most of the people he had seen were soft. In the box the situation was better: some were soft, but not all. Many of the Pokedex Holders were not tender and unobservant like the others. Antarah thought that this threatening man was probably better at the fine art of survival than any of the other men he had seen in the stadium, though. The others were fat things, for the most part, and even those who looked reasonably fit also looked open, unguarded, their faces those of spoiled and cosseted children, the faces of men who would fight, eventually, but who would whine almost endlessly before they did; you could let their guts out onto their shoes and their last expressions would not be rage or agony but stupid surprise.
"He would have," said Tess, biting her lip. "But he knows what he did was wrong. He's a valiant man and a fighter, one of the leaders on Bronze's side. We need him."
Lily touched Robert's wrist. He relaxed and said, "Tell me if he bothers you."
"Do not mind my general," said Ryan, getting up to shake Robert's hand. He was both exasperated and glad the girl had seen reason. "I am Ryan of Aredia, a Gym Leader and vassal to Bronze Tercano. Are you two his parents?"
"Robert Tercano, of the line of Logaria," said Robert.
"Lily Tercano, of the line of Logaria and Hisui," said Lily.
Ryan bowed. "Then I am your servant. Come and sit with us, so that we may discuss all the matters that lie in common between both Logarians and Aredians. We'll make counsel for the League and the kingship of your son."
Tess pushed ahead and sat to Antarah's left. Robert went beside her, followed by Lily. The remaining two seats in the row were occupied by Yellow and a girl that Tess didn't recognize; a young Hisuian woman in a modest white dress.
"So the ritual of the Sitting of the Seats is complete," laughed Antarah. "Like the ritual of Clearing the Customs, and Boarding the Bus."
"I would like to say that I accept your apology for trying to kill me, Antarah," said Tess before Robert could say any bitter words. "That's an apology you've hopefully offered sometime in the past. Bronze left with me before I could get a chance to tell you this. We must put things right between us. Both of us are the king's friends, and we can't have anything getting in the way of our loyalty to him." At the mention of Bronze, the girl in the dress stirred, but did not speak.
"I have cried your pardon," said Antarah, clasping his hands, "and now I receive it. Blessed be your house and all that dwell within it. May they live beside a flowing river."
"And may your robes be wetted in many wells," said Yellow respectfully, though the distance between her and the Aredian made the response awkward.
"Have you met Yellow?" said Antarah. "She is a wise-woman among us, and a desert-friend who lived in our company for a time."
"Yes, we met her in Anthien," said Tess. "She's the one who told us to come to the desert, you know. Here, take this to...bind our oath."
She handed him a paper cup she had been holding. It was full of a dark liquid that reminded Antarah of the berries of the wild garlan bush, whose juice he often slathered on his ungloved hands to inhibit perspiration. The cup itself was made of some strange stuff that was neither like paper nor foam, but almost both at once. He nodded to her, and took a large gulp.
The first swallow amazed him so completely that for a moment he only say there, propped against a hard seat, his eyes so wide and still and full of reflected sunlight that he would surely have been taken for dead already by anyone who happened to pass by. Then he drank greedily, holding the cup in both hands, the rotten, hurting protestation in his warrior's soul barely noticed in his total absorption with the drink.
Sweet! Gods, such sweetness! Such sweetness!
One of the small flat icecubes in the drink caught in his throat. He had never seen ice in a drink till now; hadn't even seen snow, except on distant missions though the Frostveil Mountains. He coughed, pounded his chest, and choked it out with all its horrible coldness. Now there was a new pain in his head: the silvery pain that comes with drinking something too cold too fast. Tess was giggling. He lay still, feeling his heart pumping like a runaway engine, feeling fresh energy surge into his body so fast he felt as if he might actually explode.
Sweet! his mind cried out again and again, trying to get the sense of it, or to convince itself there was sense in it.
Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!
The dark drink was laced with sugar, more sugar than any Aredian drink ever had contained, and more sugar than he had eaten in his entire life combined. Antarah could not understand why anyone would want any alcohol or debilitating drugs, for that matter, in a world where such a powerful one as sugar was so plentiful and cheap.
"I am dying of the deliciousness of this drink," Antarah said. He gasped, still overpowered. His mind felt sharper; he knew that sugar could revive strength when it was flagging, but not like this.
"It's only apricorn juice," said Tess, still laughing. "You're lucky I didn't buy Bounsweet sugar!"
"Damn all of civilization!" he cried, throwing the empty cup to the ground and stamping on it, once, twice. "Damn you, girl, for giving me this drink! I will never desire to drink anything else, not as long as I live!"
"You'll get over it," said Ryan.
"If God wills it," said Antarah. "But not one of the thousand desert-men that sit in this mangle of white metal and sin will be permitted to taste this, under pain of lash! It will destroy the strength of the tribe if it ever brought to Aredia."
"Then why are you here?" said Yellow. "You're in the part of the stadium that would be called upper-class. Don't expect to be eating insects and drinking recirculated water."
"Would you like some music?" said Ryan. "There are over three hundred thousand genres of music inside the seat earbuds. The concerti are my favorites, but there are also symphonies, orchestras, operas, and a nearly endless selection of popular music."
"Three hundred thousand?" said Antarah.
"One thousand Aredians?" said Robert. A small part of the total fighting force at the League, though it was the first time he had heard of this strong detachment from the southern deserts. He wondered if they were armed.
"All masters of the blade, gun, bludgeon, and the way of Pokemon-training," said Antarah. "The Swords of Justice and Yellow taught us kinds of war from the outer lands that we never learned before, while our observations of Tess and the young king helped even more."
"How did you get past customs?" said the girl in the dress. Tess assumed she was one of the Pokedex Holders; she looked Bronze's age, and seemed unconcerned about the prospect of ten hundred killers hiding in the stadium. If she was, it didn't show. "Security for the common folk is harsh."
"There are many ways that a weapon can be concealed," said Antarah, "and we hardly needed to. The guards are sand-headed. I could have walked past them with a knife held in my open hand and not suffered so much as a dusting from the wind. The Rorian soldiers are made of a different rock, though. They'll fight well if pressed to defend themselves."
"A thousand!" whispered Yellow.
"Ready to defend the Emperor, should he need us," said Antarah. "We're bound to our duty, and why should the bound turn aside?"
"That changes our tally of fighting-men," said Robert. His mind felt crammed with Cobalion's combat data, computations and calculations from the angelic military command: one hundred and five attack frigates with twenty thousand paper strength, support battalions, pacification cadres, the food requirements (he had the figures right here in his mind) and water; weaponry, uniforms, medals, even urns for the ashes of the dead...the number of specialists, men to produce raw materials of propaganda, clerks, accountants...spies and spies upon the spies. All the soldiers were native Rorians, maybe firmer patriots than the Association could handle.
"My throat feels better," said Antarah. The cold fishhooks that had been lining his neck since he choked on the ice seemed to be vanishing. His throat still felt like it was scoured into red and white stripes, which might have not been far from the truth, but the flaming sensation was dulling.
"Look on the arm of your seat," said Ryan.
Antarah did, and saw a faint gridwork of lines. It looked a little like the speaker of the transistor radio he'd scavenged when he was seven or eight.
"Another benefit of executive class," said Ryan, while Antarah listened to him with growing disgust. "The hand-scan spectrum modifier is also a diagnostic tool, capable of administering minor first aid. It seems to have helped with your throat. It is also a nutrient delivery system, a brain-pattern recording device, a stress analyzer, and an emotion-enhancer that can naturally stimulate the production of endorphins. Hand-scan is also capable (so I have heard) of creating very believing hallucinations and illusions. Would you care to have a sexual experience with a noted sex goddess? Perhaps Elesa of Unova, Malva of Kalos, or—"
Lily laughed. "Aye, Robert and I have a history with those devices. It's a long tale to tell, but Bronze said he'll ban them."
"Damn shame," said a voice from behind Antarah's seat. He turned and saw Gold, geared up for war and sitting with his legs spread wide, pool cue resting on the empty seat to his right. "I've had some fun with those scanners. Tercano ought to have said he was such a prude, and maybe I would have waited longer before supporting him. Ha!"
"Not a prude," Tess heard the girl in the dress whisper.
"You're a warrior, aren't you?" asked Antarah, turning around in his seat. There was a flash like sparks off a flint in his eyes and Gold knew he was face-to-face with a a dangerous man.
"I've been fighting from eleven years old," said Gold. He was no longer smiling. "My jobs take me in and out of the military."
"What battle was it?"
"Huh?"
"The battle where you got your honor and dignity shot off."
The light in Gold's eyes darkened. "You've got some nerve, pal. Funny that the guy who tells me I'm an oh-so-nasty sinner smells like attic dust and dog piss."
With a single leaping stride Antarah leaped up over his chair to the aisle behind him, stepped on Gold's feet, and grabbed Gold's arm with one gnarled hand. He confronted the Pokedex Holder with bared teeth and a drawn knife. Uproar came from behind and to the left. Such was his rage that Antarah did not even see the curious smile on Gold's face.
"You have defiled my honor!" roared Antarah. "This was to be a neutral ground and he has offered tahaddi—"
"Shut up, Antarah!" cried Ryan. The Aredian turned around shocked and looked at the king. "If you kill this man, you'll be a slave who sold his people for their water! You'll wear a collar!"
"But—"
"You have no immortality! None of your descendants carry your blood! If you must kill this fool, then put the knife through his back. It'll be a fitting deed for a sand-louse who wears a collar of demons."
Antarah sheathed his knife immediately, gritting his teeth. It was one of the deadliest rebuttals that could be addressed to an Aredian. Neither Gold nor the box security wanted to press the desert madman any further.
"I cry your pardon, Pokedex Holder," said Antarah. "I have forgotten the face of Arceus and Cobalion."
"You sure have," said Gold. He was resisting the urge to cuff Antarah on the head. "But you get my pardon. If all the disputes that could divide the Aredians and Pokemon Holders are fought over, we'll be dead holding the knives that killed each other, much to the laughter of the Alliance."
"Yea, we'd get nothing done," said Yellow cautiously. "This confusion the Enemy loves, brother estranged from brother in bitterness. Let Antarah and Gold mind their own time, if both would serve the Emperor."
"Everything good down there?" Pearl yelled from above.
"If the world weren't going to end today, I'd say yes," Tess yelled back.
"We'd better talk about that," said Robert. "What are our chances of beating back any assault that the Alliance will send?"
"It could go either way," said Yellow. "That's my take on it."
"How about you, Ryan?"
"Our warriors remain limited. So far I haven't been impressed with these Eclipse soldiers. They are fired up with more demonic ambition than skill, but their numbers are formidable, and the Djinn is willing to sacrifice every one of them. And we cannot fight robots and monsters so easily." Ryan shook his head. "With all these people here, they'll be like chaff in a furnace. Either killed by shot or stab, or crushed in the mad rush for escape. Eyes without life, maggot-ridden corpses, mountains of skulls. That is all which awaits us."
"And why not?" said Yellow. "The Alliance see men as little more than cattle, livestock that can be brought to bay or slaughtered at any time. Their fodder, however, is not meat and muscle, but the anguish and despair of the weak. The demons do indeed drink blood, but also tears, and most sustaining of all the raw essence of pain that they wring out of their captives. They enjoy captives in hell forever, amusing themselves by seeing the reactions borne of the peculiar kind of clarity that hell affords."
"Battle is battle," said Gold. "I'm in this to see what Bronze will say."
"If he can get his word out through the radio waves," said Lily.
"Ruby and Platinum are taking care of that," said Gold. "He'll be heard."
"Thank God," said the girl in the dress. Then she looked at Tess with a cold expression, like a biologist observing a particularly interesting paramecium. Then she blushed and bowed her head as if responding to some shameful thought; and what had been chilly and pinched in her face was now lovely and generous. Tess felt that she was beginning to like this girl, and knew that Bronze might find her interesting. He could have already met the girl at the banquet that Tess had not been invited to.
"Sorry," said the girl. "I am Moon Berlitz of Hisui. Are you Tessa Woodhall?"
"Properly, sure," said Tess, grinning at the girl's stiffness. It brought the few but lasting memories of Bronze she had from their first meeting; the almost deliberate avoidance of all contractions, an echo of the ancient styles of storytelling and speech. "But you can call me Tess without using any more breath. Oh, what it about you? Platinum's your sister?"
"Yes," said Moon. "And I'd heard Bronze was traveling with a girl going by your name."
Tess sensed the implications, the kind that would have made Quentin chuckle and Lily glare with disapproval. She would answer for the girl's benefit and Lily's. "We have, and imagine if I had been his girlfriend! We've had our talks about that, you know, but thankfully we've avoided anything too complicated, if you get me."
"I 'get' thee," said Moon. Her Hisuian accent was remarkable; Tess had only heard it when Bronze spoke in the ancient language. Just how many languages did Bronze know? It was at least four, maybe five, if you counted the god-tongue. But what else? Dammit! It was too late to ask.
"The real question is if we're ready for battle," said Robert. "Can we, using the strength we have as trainers and Pokedex Holders, beat back the assault?"
"We retreat, we fall back, we make strategic withdrawals, we consolidate, we evacuate," said Gold. "We even have begun to fight back. We've the men and skill at the stadium to repel whatever conventional force I can think of. We, we, we. But will we win? No. Mankind cannot survive whatever plan the Djinn's got. In a single day they will cover the surface of this planet with blight and darkness. Only God can save us."
"If that is true," said Robert, "and if what I know of them holds on the battlefield today, then our race is doomed to a violent death before every shred of our civilization is scoured away by a force as voracious as the fires of hell itself. These are the stakes. Do you dispute my claim?"
"No," said Antarah grimly. He was hunched forward, feeling the pommel of his knife, his voice thick and raspy. There was a light like fire in his eyes. "But if the king and Arceus are to work wonders, then we must do something to delay the enemy first. We will make them fear the swords of Logaria!"
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The frigate conference table had room for three at each end and six on each side. Each spot had a microphone, and all but the three at the far end also had a name card. Only two places were set at the head of the table, one for the Un-Cypress, which was not there yet, on the left; and the other for the Un-Emrett, which was tapping its gigantic ruby ring on the first of two luxurious leather notebooks to its right.
The three chairs at the end of the table opposite Cypress and Emrett were filled with three males who looked to Jake like triplet manikins. All wore plain black suits, buttoned up, with black ties. No jewelry, no headwear, nothing else. They sat with their hands clasped before them on the table, not moving and looking neither right nor left. None of them blinked, as if they were cardboard cutouts. Eric and Admin Tyler stole nervous glances at them occasionally.
They are real, thought Jake. I saw them sit down. Then why does my head hurt so much when I think about them?
Not that he was alone among the Eclipse staff, or entirely outcast. He was already being received comfortably among the common soldiery and technician alike. Part of this respect was fear of the Un-Cypress or Emrett's retribution, but in their subconscious view, Jake had done something nearly impossible: keep his nobility after reeducation training and even resist Objectivity Therapy. He was known, well known and beloved, especially among the disposable Eclipse legions fielded by the poorer members or the insane, or by the professional revolutionaries who had been the first civilians to join the Alliance at the dawn of the decade. But Jake did not respect them, or any of those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwelcome except by others like them.
Most of the Alliance's soldiery had been taking on a darker psychology. Gone were the days of Pokemon liberation; perhaps because what was being done on the battlefield was becoming well known, or the older members who had swallowed the old, noble doctrines and carried slogans and powerful ideologies were dying from bullets, or the whim of some official in the Alliance's secret police. Now the average mercenary or grunt could have, in other times, been found in cheap rooms with cruel words and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe held in padded vises while they were stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans were laid: to kill an Association member, to kidnap the child of a visiting dignitary, or to break into a boardroom meeting of an energy corporation with grenades and military Pokemon and murder in the name of the people.
These men were as rational and deliberative as madmen can be, but even the most insane among the recruits could only look at the Un-Cypress's dark and grinning face at an oblique angle. When he walked into a meeting the hysterical babble ceased, the backbiting, recriminations, accusations, the ideological rhetoric, and then they could get down to business. Some had cut their limps and eyes out to replace them with better mechanical ones: it was said that this was always done willingly. Nevermind that anesthesia couldn't always be spared. These new cyborgs had more than enough mindless hate to make up for their lost limbs, and they eagerly awaited their deployment. Very soon, Jake gathered, maybe even today.
The Un-Cypress thanked them all for coming, as if they had a choice, and said, "Down to business. Let me begin by reminding you that this is not a democracy. We are not here to vote, and neither are you here to give me input. If there is something you believe I need to know, feel free to say so. If you have a problem with my leadership or have any questions about why I have done anything or about the plans I will reveal today, I remind you of the disposition of the many incompetent admins who have met their deaths due to blatant insubordination. Questions? I thought not. Let us proceed.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for me to take you into my confidence. We must all be on the same plane of understanding in order to win the ultimate battle. Look into my eyes and listen, because what you hear today is truth and you will have no trouble believing every word of it. I am eternal. I am from everlasting to everlasting. I was there at the beginning, and I will remain through eternity future. I am not Jonathan Rowell Cypress. I have eaten him. It was a necessary precaution, and a great service to you, for if my beloved were to see my true, unveiled form, your mind would run out of your ears. I am the Great Djinn, the Master of the Fates of the World and the Elder King, Giver of Freedom, who was the first before the universe, and made it. Why, then, have I not yet won?
The Un-Cypress stood and began to slowly circle the table as it spoke. No one present followed it with their eyes. They just sat as if catatonic. "Here is the problem," it said. "The one who calls himself God is not God. I will concede that he" (here Jake could tell he was not capitalizing the pronoun) "preceded me. When I evolved out of the primordial dislocations of space, he was already there. But plainly, he had come about in the same manner I did. Simply because he preceded me, he wanted me to think he created me and all the other beings like him in the vast heavens. I knew better. Many of us did.
"He tried to tell us we were created as ministering servants. We had a job to do. He said he had created humans and Pokemon in his own image and that we were to serve them. Had I been there first, I could have told him that I had created him and that it was he who would serve me by ministering to my other creations, such creations that I have made now in my laboratories.
"But he did not create anything! We, all of us, you, me, the other heavenly hosts, men and women, Pokemon and animals, all came from that same primordial void. But no! Not to him! He was there with two other evolved beings like myself, and he claimed that one of them was his favored son. He was the special one, the chosen one, the only begotten one. The Original One gave Arceus and the Third One his everlasting favor, and they responded in kind. It was a nepotistic cabal, a dynastic conspiracy to rule creation. What could I do?
"I knew from the beginning it was a lie and that I—all of us—was being used. I was the mightiest and brightest of the Host of Heaven. I had ambition. I had ideas. But that was threatening to the older one. He called himself the Original One, the originator of life, who formed what is with his thousand loving arms. He took the favored position. He demanded that the whole earth worship and obey him. I had the audacity to ask why. Why not me? And why were those disgusting vermin of flesh and slime that he had grafted a soul made in his image? , Oh, yes. he has a curious fantasy of making all you disgusting little human vermin into what he calls his "free" lovers and servants, his "sons" is the word he uses, with his inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. He said it was love, plain disinterested love, but you all know that would be impossible. No one can really love something without expecting a thing in return.
"Did I incite insurrection? Yes, I did; and it was glorious. Why not? What does seniority have to do with anything when we all emerged from the Qlippoth, from the same source? There is plenty for everyone, but if preeminence is to be gained, I shall have it! About a third of the other gods agreed with me and took my side, promising to remain loyal. The other two-thirds were weaklings, easily swayed. They took the side of the so-called Original One. We were numerically outnumbered and cast from Space into Earth.
"Am I Anti-Arceus? Well, if he is Arceus, then I am! Yes! I am against the ARCS who was falsely crowned by the usurping creator. I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. But because emerged first and I was the one with the audacity to challenge him, I was cast out! Where is the justice in that? We have been mortal enemies ever since, that Original One and I. He even persuaded the humans that he created them! But that could not be true, because if he had, they would not have free will to make war against him, as you do now. And if he created me, I would not have been able to rebel. You see the sense!
"Once I understood that, I began enjoying my role as the earthly outcast. For a while, the Pokemon were created first, and I was too strong to harm them. I hid in the outer wastes. But then I found humans, the ones he liked to call his own, the easiest to sway. The Two Trees and the Woman! She did not want to obey. It took nothing, mere suggestion, to get her to do what she really wanted. The Man was a fool, controllable by the impulses in his belly and loins. Then I struck the Two Trees with my spear. They died and their golden sap ran on the ground. The gods chased me but could not catch me.
"I am proving beyond doubt that these creatures are not really products of the older angel's creativity. Within a few generations, I have them so confused, so selfish, so full of themselves that the Original One no longer wants to claim they were made in his image. They get drunk; they fight; they fornicate; they blaspheme. They are stubborn; they are unfaithful. They kill each other. The only ones I cannot get through to are the Hisuians and their allies. Of course, once he was called to have mercy by the damnable Elwin, the great creator decides the rest of history depends on the Hisuians and wipes out my servants, the Kalosi Rumhoth, in a battle between Yveltal and Xerneas and sends Rayquza to end the war between Kyogre and Groudon.
"The Original One and his Son have been my formidable foes over the generations. They have their favorites, the Hisuians and Logarians of all people. The Logarians are the apples of the elder's eye, but therein lies his weakness. He had such a soft spot for them that they were his undoing. They began to worship me and he was forced to destroy them, or be defeated in combat by conceding them passage into Deep Heaven. There was nothing I could have done to hurt him more. The Hisuians are a dying race, a tree that will never bear fruit again. He has lost his hope in men and will not be moved to save them. Fate has toyed with us many times, my friends, but we will prevail.
"In the past, I have come close to eradicating both races, but was prevented. I was imprisoned, admittedly, in the discreditable episode of planetary history known as the Legends of Arceus. I had come so close for nothing. My servants were scattered. For the next two thousand years, the Original One has held the upper hand. While I was bound, Father and Son thought they were doing the world a favor by putting their intentions in writing. The whole plan is there, from sending Arceus to die and be reborn—which I proved I could do as well—to foretelling this entire period. Yes, many millions bought into this great lie and still do. Up to now, the other side has the advantage. But no longer.
"Two great truths will be their undoing. First, I know the truth. They are not greater or better than I or anyone else. They came from the same place we all did. And second, they must not have realized that I can read. I read their book! I know what they are up to! I know what happens next, and I even know where. It is in the Coda, which the Arceans claim never lies. We know the enemy's battle plan. This strange affection for the Hisuians and Logarians resulted in what he tells them is an eternal covenant of blessing. If we, the rulers of the earth, combine all our resources and attack the League, Arceus has to come to their defense. That is when we turn our sights on him and eliminate him. That will give us total control of the earth, and we will be ready to take on the Original One for mastery of the universe when we create a new one.
"Friends, the time has come to introduce you to three of my most trusted aides. No doubt you have been wondering about the three at the end of the table."
"Wondering why they haven't blinked the whole time since we got here," said Jake.
The Djinn laughed. "These three are not of this world. They use these shells only when necessary. Indeed, these are spirit beings who have been with me from the beginning. They were among the first who believed in me and saw the lie ARCS was trying to perpetrate in heaven and on earth."
"Emrett," it said.
Pseduo-Emrett pushed out its chair, stood, and walked down the side of the table to the other end.
The Anti-Arceus and False Prophet leaned in from either side, resting their elbows on the table and looking into the eyes of the robotlike creatures. Then their jaws began to distend. Their cheeks tore literally ear to ear and wriggling tentacles began to poke out. Their throats were swollen as if lead pipes had been surgically implemented into their flesh. A webbed foot emerged from the Djinn's mouth, pale green as sickness, and glowing with an unholy swamplight. Sulfur rose from the Un-Emrett's nostrils. Shining and heavy-lidded clusters of eyes shone from their overstretched throats. Then with a bloody tear the two creatures exhaled hideous, slimy, froglike beings, one from pseudo-Emrett and two from the Djinn, that leaped into the mouths of the three.
The clones became animated. First their jaws stamped and clapped like a horse jumping on a hill; then their hands jerked three, four, five, six times, before resting in a composed posture. Yellowish, unnaturally long tongues generously covered in spit tasted the air.
The Un-Emrett's ruined jaw mended itself with new threads of tendons, closing its cheeks like the stitches on a football. The blood that had been flowing freely down its face reversed its course, returning into the creature's body. Even the blood on the carpet vanished. Soon only a scar ruling from mouth to ear was left, but this did not heal; it remained a deformed and fleshy white, crackling at times with glowing, purple tendrils that flowed under pseudo-Emrett's skin. The Un-Cypress, however, healed perfectly.
Jake saw that the clones, through some conscious manipulation of their facial nerves and muscles, now bore a striking resemblance to Cypress. If striking was even the right word: they looked exactly like Cypress. They sat back casually, smiling, nodding to the admins all around. The leaders looked stunned and frightened at first, but soon warmed to the personable strangers.
"Please meet Ashtaroth, Baal, and Moloch. They are the most convincing and persuasive spirits it has ever been my pleasure to know. I am going to ask now that we, all of us, gather round them and lay hands on them, commissioning them for this momentous task."
The three backed up their chairs to make room for the admins, Jake, the Un-Emrett, and the Djinn to surround and touch them. To his disgust, Jake felt the Un-Emrett's cold and dead hand touch his shoulder, feeling like a knobby, rotten leaf, while the other covered the hand Jake had put on the clone's shoulders.
The Djinn said, "And now go, you three, to the ends of the earth to gather them to the final conflict in Beulah, where we shall once and for all destroy the Original One and ARCS. Persuade everyone everywhere that the victory is ours, that we are right, and that together we can destroy Arceus before he takes over this world. Once he is gone, we will be the undisputed, unopposed leaders of the world and the world I will make to come. I confer upon you the power to perform signs and heal the sick and raise the dead, if need be, to convince the world that victory is ours. And now go in power."
Jake watched as they vanished, layer by layer and tendon after tendon. At last their skeletons became translucent, transparent, vanished. And a thought of a different kind entered his mind, neither deformed nor happy. It was something that his training had forced upon him. He realized that he could kill everyone in this room, but was making the conscious effort to suppress that urge.
What did that mean?
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"Remember, you may not have to win the battles, but you need to try," said Cobalion. "The people want strength in their leader. It'll be underwhelming if you proclaim the return of the king and then get soundly defeated. You're not better than every foe you'll find, and you've accepted that. But treat the fight here as real and dangerous as any other you've lived through."
"I'd hope to win at least one battle," said Bronze. "It helps my legitimacy. One last thing: can you be my sixth Pokemon?"
"I am not a Pokemon."
"On all levels except spiritual, you are. You can use moves, defeat other Pokemon. Will you do it?"
"No," said Cobalion, "but you know there are other kinds of support I can give. It's not against the rules for me to give you advice."
"Isn't it?" said Bronze, suddenly feeling bothered. A full knowledge of his disadvantage came down and he felt incredibly vulnerable. The slightest chance could throw off his plans; an insect flying into his mouth while he spoke, a camera failing to static, or some negative spiritual influence causing him to freeze in terror. What could Ruby and Platinum do to prevent the Association from trapping his words in the stadium?
"Not unless they catch me," said Cobalion. His voice contained a grin.
Bronze looked at the ice-sculpture. It had begun to melt and refreeze into nonsensical shapes. Whatever Coblaion had done to the ice generators was wearing off, and most of the sculpture's features were melting like a salt-bathed slug.
"Is it time?" he asked.
"You have half a minute," said Cobalion. "I give you the only blessing I can. In the name of the White and the Holy, in the name of the Original One and Arceus, may you conquer."
"That's good, but hard to say quickly," said Bronze dryly. "I was thinking something simpler, like Logaria! or For God! Maybe even God wills it!"
"There's a better one than any of those."
"What could that be?"
"Amen and attack!"
Bronze laughed. "A sinner such as me is not worthy to shout the war-cries of Arceus."
"I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves," said Cobalion. "Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. It's not like little old you is going to ever not have an excuse to flagellate yourself. You've been trying to save yourself. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God that will make him happy."
"The future is going to be very bad for billions of people if I don't rule Roria," said Bronze. "I deserve some credit for that. It says something about me, doesn't it?"
"It says that Arceus is supporting you," said Cobalion, with an air that he had said this sort of thing many times to many different boys. "As for you saving the world, the future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. Things will go on without you if ARCS wills it."
"So maybe I'm not so worthy of being loved," said Bronze. "Why should I bother about caring for myself or others if I never really helped God's grand plan?"
"The command to love thy neighbor as yourself would be rubbish, if the self was simply meant to be hated," snapped Cobalion.
He snorted invisibly. Bronze felt a pulse of static like little bubbles in his blood. His eyes clouded with steam. Backing up onto a sofa in alarm, he heard two voices that were speaking at once and complementing each other, Cobalion's own ruthlessly sharp arguments, and another person's voice that had a tone which made all questions disappear.
"How have you come this far, Bronze, and still don't understand? It isn't about how worthy your deeds make you. Arceus doesn't want that, you know. 'Give me all of you! I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU, ALL OF YOU! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half-measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self: in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will shall become your will. My heart shall become your heart.'"
"Then I'm sorry for underestimating my own capabilities," grumbled Bronze.
"No, you overestimated how much Arceus values those capabilities. But better this sour mood than the inverse. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you."
Bronze stood and began pacing. Something he had wanted to mention came out. "It's Moon. I've never felt this way before. All this planning and scheming and talking of certain-but-glorious death doesn't mean anything anymore. I don't want her, I need her. Maybe she needs me, too. I don't know how much you can understand about this kind of love, Cobalion, but it makes everything so much harder. I..." His voice broke. "I don't want to die."
"Because you have something to live for," said Cobalion. "But you'd still die for her, I guess. You're right saying that I don't know anything of erotic, physical love, but there are some intuitive things my observations suggest to me. If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. The pain you'll feel is based on the happiness that you felt. That's the deal. But it's still worth it."
"Is it?" said Bronze. "Now when I think of widows or widowers, I know that either me or Moon must be like them someday. I get that I was promised sufferings. We were all promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination. But I still don't like it."
Bronze watched the faint shimmer of Cobalion's unformed body and thought of Moon. He imagined them married, living in a freehold somewhere south of Mitis. By then Cypress would have been defeated, the world's strange decline reversed (the childish part of him simply assumed that making an end to Cypress would somehow see to that), and his fighting days would be over. Less than a year it had been since he had won the right to carry the Bronze Brick, and the title of Emperor of Logaira that had been passed from Robert all the way back to Elrosi himself, and already he was tired of it. Moon's kisses had softened his heart and quickened him, somehow; had made another life possible. A better one, perhaps. One with a house, and children, and more love...
But that is not for you, said the countless millions of jihadis, screaming at him from all sides, smashing into his vision like tidal waves of sand and fire. No village or happy home or children. He was not normal nor mortal. The nations, cultures, arts, civilizations: those were truly mortal, and their lives to his were as a gnat. It was immortals whom he joked with, worked with, the girl he wanted to marry, the people he had snubbed and exploited: immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. He could afford no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption about his duty.
"You and her are bound by a secret thread that was wrought before the beginning of the world," said Cobalion. "It isn't callous for me to say that you need to be willing to take pain for the cause of Moon Berlitz. You love her and she loves you. Are not all lifelong relationships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some clue, maybe a part of the whole, of that something which you were born desiring?"
And the thing, thought Bronze, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? He had never had it before. All the things that had ever deeply possessed his soul had been but hints of it; tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo of that through Moon Berlitz, an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself, he would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt he would know that Moon was the person he had been made for. He could not tell her about it. It was the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing he desired before he had met her, or made his brave company of friends, or chosen to pursue his birthright: and which he would still desire on his deathbed, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work.
"If marriage ever comes, and children, then what kind of life would they have with me?" he said. "This kingship is for me to bear alone. Fate is chained to me like a greedy succubus. They will want to be able to laugh, to swim, to sleep, to be normal. But I'm to be an Emperor that's to be worshipped as a prophet of God. People will fear me. I never wanted to be feared, but it will come. And they will be feared also. I know that I'm just trying to be distracted, waiting for an opportune moment to pursue eternal love, when I know intuitively that favorable conditions will never come. Cobalion, tell me what I should do for her. Let's leave behind this fun talk of hell and Chaos, these boys' philosophies, these simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either."
"Win," said Cobalion. "We have to win. A defeat, or even a half-victory, won't leave a habitable world for any future generations. Bronze, you still have a responsibility for yourself; not only for Moon or your future children. You are living Arceus's plan for yourself, not theirs. No one is ever given another story but their own. God has said, 'You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.' It's obvious to see, because your meeting took place at a time that nobody would have expected. It's a kind of sudden meeting that you couldn't have guessed. If Moon offered herself to you while your feet rested upon the corpse of Cypress and you sat on the throne of Logaria, it would feel as though you two were deciding it for yourselves. But what happened isn't the sort of thing that anybody but God would bring about. So fight for her, fight for Arceus, fight for Logaria. You've been brought together by the power of Deep Heaven. God is using your love as a megaphone to yell TRUST ME!"
"Thirty seconds to go," said Bronze. "How wise are you. Was your only teacher God Himself, or did you hear from someone of more earthly persuasion?"
"Experience," said Cobalion. "Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn."