Not So Ordinary

by BTJE

Meet Zenith, an ordinary Umbreon that's living his normal life in Kingdra High... until a Vaporeon called Cleo comes along, revealing a huge secret. How will he cope?

53. Chapter 52

NSO Chapter 52

One day rema—ZENITH! WAKE UP!

"Huh? What?!" That shout into his mind instantly jolted said Umbreon awake. He tried to sit up, but the bed he had just been lying on, the messy blankets he had strewn about during his slumber were suddenly tiny below him. Before he could process his legs dangling freely under him, the hold on his nape tossed Zenith higher in the air. He flailed his paws wildly while he plummeted back down, hopefully, able to find a way to right himself…

Poompf. Zenith fell onto his bed.

"Aaaaand he fails the first trial!" He knew that haughty voice.

"Solaire…? How did you… what time is it?"

He was lifted from his bed again by the scruff and overturned to lie on his back in midair, cradled in Psychic like a baby. The Espeon floated above him, twirling his utility belt in circles through the air.

"Slow reflexes, Zenith. A Champion must be ready for anything. ANYTHING." The support that kept Zenith airborne was gone immediately, however this time he managed to twist his body back around to land properly on his paws.

"Good. As for what's going on…"

I never asked that question…

"Quiet! Welcome to Solaire's Sufferings! If I have to introduce you to the Recreation Room today…"

…I already know about the Recreation Room…

"Stop interrupting me!" Solaire put a paw to her mouth for a small polite cough after her outburst. "You're not getting to the Rec. Room so easily today! In order to do so, you'll have to succeed in Solaire's Sufferings! A series of strenuous struggles (for you) against Solaire (that's me) to see and sede superiority!"

"I… huh… what?" He blinked at the floating Psychic-type.

"Come on, Zenith. It's a simple competition concept. Keep up."

"You got this, Zenith!" A ring portal opened up silently in his ceiling, where the faces of Reina and Clara looked down on the Eeveelutions.

The Salazzle cheered, giving the air a small punch. "We'll be rooting for you!"

The Alolan Raichu clutched the ring she had created, obscuring the bottom half of her face and body. "Sorry. She insisted I let her enter your room."

"I-It's not like I needed her help getting in here!" Solaire squeaked. " I just wanted a crowd around to witness your eventual defeat at my paws!"

Yeah, right.

"Why, you… Stop badmouthing me in your thoughts, you coward!" A bristling, indignant Solaire raised her paw clenched into a fist and Zenith himself rise as well. Pink glows had already enveloped his feet and raced up the rest of his body. With another swipe of her paw, he hurtled through the air, bracing himself for the impact when he finally hit his room's… walls?

Zenith tumbled and rolled across a dusty stone floor. His room was gone, and with it, the light from the living quarter's fluorescent lamps. A sharp transition from a brightly, almost blindingly lit place into one completely devoid of it. Solaire was nowhere to be found. It was just him in this dark cave and this… singular checkout machine?

The library.

"Took you long enough." Solaire's voice was amplified within this tiny space. She had appeared out of thin air next to Zenith, taking visible delight in startling the Umbreon.

"I've tasked Reina to hide your utility belt somewhere in the Library."

"You did WH–" His first instinct was to reach to his hips, and as sure as the dread that settled in the pit of his belly, his prized possession was gone.

"First one to find it wins this round! Also, ImayyynothavetoldMaganzawe'redoingthis…stay stealthy! OkaythreetwooneGO!" The Espeon dove down that square-shaped hole in the floor, leaving Zenith scrambling down the stairway after her.

The Library was as pitch quiet as it was pitch black. There were no torches lit up like the last time he'd paid a visit here, possibly due to their unannounced entrance into the facility. Zenith stood on the platform at the end of the stairway, watching the pinkish glow zoom below him and out behind piles of books.

The platform wasn't moving either. Maganza probably pulled the chains that lowered it too. Feeling the seconds of inaction—and his chances of winning back his belt—slip away from him, Zenith grabbed onto one of the four large chains attached to the corner of the platform. The large iron links of the chain were rough and rusty with age, metal flaking into the air when the Umbreon clambered down them. The trail of smoke and iron chips billowed onto the floor on his arrival, while his paws were also caked with the stuff. They left a dirty trail of prints behind him as he raced off into the thick of the Library.

Shelves everywhere, texts galore, and everything was shrouded in the dark. Zenith ran down the aisles; occasionally he caught hints of a pink glow zooming past an adjacent shelf, and that spurred him to keep on going. The place was huge, like all its sister facilities in these Halls. Trying to find a black utility belt amidst all these shadows?

So this is how I start the day. The thought occurred to him while he squeezed his body in between two shelves, peering into the space behind books to see if he had any luck. Nope.

A wild Swanna chase. What am I doing? I should just—

"Keep losing!" He could feel Solaire's paws grip his tail and yank him out of the bookshelf. She swirled around the sputtering Umbreon wiping cobwebs from his face, knowing that the dust cloud she kicked up was not doing him any favours. "I already found the belt by the way, which means I won! But, uh…"

A larger hand wrapped around his hind leg. Zenith was pulled into the air yet again, this time by Maganza. She dangled him upside-down in the musty air to meet her red unblinking stare. Her perpetually stretched grin. Maybe it was the lack of torches, but the air around him had now dropped to a much, much chillier temperature.

"…she has it."

Indeed she did. His utility belt was in the clutches of another shadowy hand, and the crushing grip around it probably meant she wasn't going to give it up so easily.

He raised a paw in a hesitant greeting. "Uh, hi, MaganzaaaaAAAH!"

Solaire dodged a Zenith hurtling through the air at her.

"You've got this, Zenith! You beat her once! I think."

The Umbreon smashed into a shelf. The books tumbling down on him were psychically grabbed and tossed aside; the same Psychic energy lifted him back onto his paws.

"Ignore the fact that she's in her element and all. I'm rooting for you!"

Zenith raced towards Maganza. He leapt in an arc over one of her arms racing towards him, Dark Pulse charged in his mouth.

"Why not… just…" He fired it off towards Maganza's face, jumping aside to target the hand where his belt lay. "…help me?!"

"I could, but it's called Solaire's Sufferings, not Solaire's suffering. There's a difference. You got this, though!"

The Pulse exploded with a blast of black smoke, or perhaps the dust disturbed was just that thick. Two more arms shot out of the smoke diagonally, crisscrossing in an 'X' and slamming down on the ground where he once stood.

Zenith coughed. The air was getting too thick with dust. There had to be a way to get rid of it, and the unnerving feeling that the eyes watching him were getting closer…

He could see the purple-black spikes of his sphere shoot out in all directions, his paw sinking into and rupturing its surface slightly at the impact of slamming a new Dark Pulse against the ground. He stood up, looking at the dust particles shift from the waves of energy slowly travelling outwards through the air from a slower detonation. Now there was room to breathe, but there were still a lot of impurities remaining. He could sift through the obscuring cloud, using what was left of his breath to find who he was looking for, or…

A pair of red eyes shone.

…or he could let it find him.

He sidestepped the hand reaching out from the smoke and delivered a crushing bite to its wide wrist. It recoiled instantly, the full explosion that cleared the entire location of dust with a BOOM. There she was, in her terrifying glory, Maganza. A hand had retracted back into her shadowy outlines, the bottom right one. It left the Cofagrigus looking a little lopsided, but menacing nonetheless. There was no further reaction from her at his counterattack, just the two opponents eyeing each other down, waiting for someone to make the next move.

"What? No!" Maganza dropped the belt at Zenith's feet, Solaire's objections completely ignored. "He has to take it from you!"

The Cofagrigus gave a slow blink at the Umbreon before racing past him at frightening speeds, tending to the books and the bookshelves he had knocked over in the 'fight.' Solaire drifted down next to Zenith, her twin tails still lashing in irritation. He noticed that she still kept a wide berth from Maganza as he did.

"You know what? Fine! I'm sure the others will perform better than how you did!" She spat at the large silhouette that disappeared into the shadows.

"Others? Solaire, how many did y-aaagh." Zenith's accusing glare turned into a jolt of surprise. The atmosphere had changed again with its surroundings, a bone-chilling temperature of the Library now a complete 180 with blazing hot heat coming from the fires of a nearby forge. He was at a wooden workbench, blueprints and stationery laid out neatly all over the surprisingly undamaged surface.

"This is…"

"The Armoury! Where a Champion's weapon is forged in the embers of hot coals! …Or in the steel-cold claws of machinery, I suppose."

There she was now, so high up in the air that she looked like a speck against the domed metal ceiling. Her words rang clear and loud though, either through reverberations or some magical utilisation of those psychic abilities.

"Zenith. Creator of, eh, passable inventions back on Earth. Let's put your skills to the test, shall we, and see how you do against…"

A drumroll and a pink spotlight illuminated the workbench directly next to Zenith's to reveal… a single chair.

"What?!" A starburst of bright pink light was Solaire's teleportation entrance above the empty workspace, the tools and pencils on the bench floating into the air around her personal psychic orbit when she dropped down closer. "Where. Is. Void?!"

There was a low rumble as Gigi rolled down the aisle of the Armoury, stopping next to Zenith's seat.

"Well, I tried to keep her in here, but she said she had something to do and, uh…"

"Great. That's just great!" The entire facility shook as a shockwave blasted from the Espeon's Psychic silhouette, rushing over every surface. For a moment, everything was covered in a thick pink outline, vibrating wildly in place, Pokemon not excluded. There was constricting pressure from all sides, exerted on every inch of Zenith's body all at once. His feet were rooted to the ground, his body locked in place for a single, excruciatingly discomforting second. And then it passed, leaving the Umbreon collapsed on the dirty cobblestone floor, gasping as his lungs refilled themselves again. While Gigi rushed to his side to help stand again, the Espeon seemed oblivious to what she had caused her fellow Champion. She had returned to her previous spot high in the air, doing small circles without once looking below her.

"Are you alright? I know you don't have a shell to protect you…"

"I'm fine…" Zenith felt woozy. That was the protection a supposed Psychic-type immunity offered?

"I got it! Get up." Everything was placed back in its original positions through Psychic, including a standing Zenith lifted and plopped back into his chair.

"Since a certain Noivern didn't show, I'll show you a little compassion in this suffering… Just kidding. You'll be facing off against HER instead!" A paw was jabbed in the direction of the Golem, who only had a moment to jump in surprise before being lifted into the adjacent workbench. She glanced nervously at Zenith, who returned her uncertain gaze.

"Every Champion needs a weapon. You'll get to practise with the others', of course, but your skill with your own should be second to none. It's something that's yours, reflecting and complementing your role within this team. As for you, Zenith… my expectations for you aren't high." The Espeon waved his blank expression away. "Don't worry, they never were. Just make a weapon that holds up to Gigi's standards. That's all. Go!"

Zenith was pushed back in his seat a little as the Psychic energy holding him relented, flailing his front legs and clawing his own pawhold on the table to retain his balance. Ignoring the smug look of the Espeon that watched it all happen, he picked up a pencil and looked at the blank blueprint. This didn't have to be like his eye all over again. There was something he had in mind for a long time, a weapon he had been planning to build since that boxing glove in his garage. In fact, it was the same thing he had left behind and had planned to get back on… on that day…

"Whatcha got there, Zenith~?" A sing-songy voice floated into his ear. Its tone was sweet, but Zenith knew better by now to notice the amount of mockery it disguised.

"Just, uh, a sword." He slid the paper to his right a little so the Espeon could peer over his shoulder. She ignored the gesture, of course, and descended onto his table instead. She reminded him of a stuck-up Purugly with the way she walked on the tabletop and all over his sketch.

"Interesting. If I remember correctly (and I always do), that's the sword you planned to make back on Earth? With trash from the Junkyard?"

Solaire pointed at a spot on his plans. He'd drawn a hollow cylinder as one of the parts, cut in half down its length. The length of a discarded metal soft drink can.

"Yeah, but I don't see—"

"Does a dinky sword you planned to fashion out of boxes of scraps sound like Champion standard, Zenith? Did you plan it to be compact so it's mission-friendly, or am I going to see you carrying that giant blade throughout our operations?"

…She made a good point. "Well, no, but I thought—"

"Nuh-uh! No thinking of that!" She spoke and moved fast, not allowing the Umbreon a chance to get a word in edgewise as his blueprint was crumpled into a ball and hurled halfway across the Armoury. "Find something new! Something Champion-worthy! Not you-worthy. Ick."

A fresh sheet of paper slid before him.

"You HAVE to think bigger! You're no longer in Kansas anymore, Zenith."

"Where's-? Never mind, fine…"

Zenith picked up a pencil again and drummed it against the worktable. Champion-worthy, huh? That term didn't spark any sort of inspiration in him. The Golem beside him, however, seemed to be full of it. She had returned to her bench with a colourless grenade casing in hand, into which a large handful of tiny ball bearings was poured. She shook it once, then set it aside on the table, attention now focused on another aspect of her weapon.

Might as well ask. Zenith sketched a rudimentary rectangle. "Uh, Gigi?"

"Yes, Zenith?"

"What weapons do the other Champions have?"

"Well, we're all pretty diverse in terms of our tools. Some of us do have weapons, like my grenades, Clara her concoctions and Void has all sorts of sharp blades. They help us excel in what we're good at, but some of us just use weapons as a secondary backup to our main skills or abilities. Like Dan-O, for example. She uses her own arrows and bow, but she owns a retractable 枪 (spear) if she has to resort to close-range combat."

"Ah." The rectangle looked cruder in retrospect.

"It's complicated," Gigi poured a powder into the shell mould that Zenith recognised as polyethene. "Don't take what Solaire says too seriously. Anything you make is Champion worthy, well, cause you're a Champion. My advice is to create one that centres around aiding the way you fight, first and foremost. You'll need it soon, just in case our mission goes awry later."

"Our…mission?"

"Gigi!"

"Oh! I… I thought he knew about today's-"

"He doesn't! Just– ugh." A pink barrier rose into existence from the ground to the ceiling, dividing the room neatly into two. Zenith could see the two Champions converse, lips moving and jaws wide open in protest, but not a single sound was being channelled through the Psychic wall. He looked away when Solaire started to flit around Gigi, giving the Golem little baps on the snout with the back of her tail.

The urgency seemed to spur something within the Umbreon. Today. His first actual mission as a Champion. Any doubts he had about his role as a literal emissary of the Legendaries would be settled then and there on the field, where he had to prove himself to his teammates and his mentor that he deserved a spot alongside them.

"No pressure," He muttered under his breath, relieved that there was no snarky remark that followed. Although, he wondered if his spirits would be dampened if there had been one either way. Something was different now, with the way his mind churned with a newfound agency. That rectangle seemed to be the same length as his forearm, just short of his forepaw. The criticism about a bulky blade had stuck itself between the creases of his brain since it had been uttered too, and it had been a constant bother in his ideation… until now.

Pieces were slowly clicking together, both in his mind and on the large monitor of the Assembler he'd used to create his eye before. White strips of leather, an assortment of metal parts and plating fell into the gravity field of the machine, mechanical arms slowly picking out pieces from the swirling mess in the middle and joining them together one by one.

"Bracelets? That's an interesting choice~"

"Bracers, Solaire. I think they'll help."

"What they are right now is slow to make, that's what." She sat on top of the machine, her body shaking as she sat atop the whirring machine. She gave the glass casing a few taps. "How much longer will this take?"

"Uh…" He stared at the machine's loading bar, still far from completion. "A few more hours?"

"Uuuugh. Screw that. Let's just…" Solaire hopped down from her perch to stand next to Zenith. The white glow of her pupils filled her entire eye sockets as her body stiffened, facing the Assembler. Zenith jumped at an ear-piercing screech of crying metal, the arms of the Assembler straining to carry out their programmed movements against the forced constraints of a Psychic. Red rectangle popups were appearing on the monitor screen almost every second detailing numerous problems, and the blaring that followed each notification echoed in the small air-conditioned space. Amidst all the noise and chaos, and the Golem rushing into the room, Zenith couldn't deny the speed his gear was forming up in the Assembler. There was no need for any rotations or limitations with the number of arms working at once. Every piece moved autonomously through Psychic control, piloting itself through the air to fit in the right spot without the need to be grabbed first.

"Solaire! Don't play with the equipment!"

"I–" The Espeon's concentration was visibly broken at Gigi's loud shout. The whites of her eyes widened, their bright glow gone. The inflow of warnings stopped immediately as the arms were free to move again, claws rotating in place for a few seconds as if to recalibrate themselves on the progress made. Once they started moving again, the Assembler back to full functionality without interferences, and the progress bar on the monitor leapt up from a 5% to a 67% completion status.

Solaire pressed her paws to her temple, shaking her head. "I'm not playing! I was just…"

"Work with the machine, not against it. That's how you don't break things."

"Hurrrhh… fine." To Zenith's surprise, the Espeon relented to her teammate and sat down sloppily on the pristine white floor. Her eyes lit up white again, but only the materials in the Assembler lit up this time. The arms kept trucking along at their own pace, while the areas they had not reached yet constructed themselves with pieces moved by Solaire's rapid-fire mind. The progress bar increased smoothly instead of a crawl, and soon enough…

Your product has been completed! Your product has been completed!

It was a lot less jarring when he knew it was coming. The glass casing retracted back into the pillar below, and Zenith picked up the pair of bracers floating in the gravity field. The semi-thick armour plating that surrounded the bracers was white and smooth to the touch, akin to the sturdy walls of the Halls. Beneath it was black kevlar padding that provided comfort to his forearms when wearing the weapons, with the additional protection provided to any underlying circuitry sandwiched between the tough fabric layers. There were no rivets or buckles for straps on the plating, just thin lines engraved into the surface that traced its perimeter. Zenith put one bracer on, and as it was pulled perfectly up to the end of his forearm, there was a click from within. Both ends tightened around the limb to hold it in place. Blue streaks ran up the lines from his wrist to his armpit.

"See? Nothing's broken!" Solaire sprang back into the air with a little spin.

Gigi sighed. Zenith thought he caught a hint of exasperation.

"WELL…" The Espeon gave her tail a little flick as if to wave away the directed emotion. "Zenith's got his weapon. Gigi, what about yours?"

"The shell's still baking in the furnace. It'll take a couple more hours to finish." The Golem shrugged.

"Never mind then. Void wasn't even here, it's not even an actual Suffering. On to the next station!"

There was a soft bampf, and Solaire disappeared in a shower of pink sparkles. Zenith realised that he had not been teleported along, and still remained in the Armoury with Gigi. He stood there awkwardly, waiting for a transport that never came in the next few minutes.

"So, uh… Sorry that Solaire dragged you into all of this."

"Huh?!" Gigi jumped a little; Zenith noticed her unfocused eyes locking onto him upon his sentence. "O-oh, it's alright. We all know how Solaire is. She means well most of the time. I mean, she did tell us in advance about your… trials so she could use our facilities."

"You knew about this?"

"Uh…" She shuffled her feet. "I did, but I didn't think I was going to be participating, you know? I only lent her the location. But everything turned out alright…" Gigi laid a palm on the Assembler gingerly. "... mostly alright,"

"Yeah…" Zenith tried to readjust his bracers to fill up the time in between them, but he ended up reverting them back to their original, comfier position. "What… will the mission be easy?"

"I, um… I can't say for sure until the briefing, but you'll have all of us there to help out if—"

"Whoops! Totally forgot you for a second there!"

Zenith could feel the wetness of fresh dew soak into the fur of his butt. The blades of squashed grass tickled his pads when he stood back up by a set of large ornate gates, framed on both sides by tall thick hedge walls.

"Welcome to the Garden again! And again! And again…you know what? The third time's the charm, right?" Solaire talked down to him from her perch upon the top arch of the gates. She was nothing more than a pink speck again from that height, but her voice still rang clear in his ears.

"You've been brought here three different times, including today. Each time by three different Champions, who have, and will, traverse different sections with you! Time to put that knowledge to the test with a simple Suffering premise: Capture the Flag against…!"

Solaire leapt off the gate, doing a little mid-air backflip and landing daintily on her paws next to Zenith.

"... me!" She looked visibly excited, rocking back and forth on her metacarpal pads, tail lashing back and forth. "We will use any means necessary to navigate to the flag, which is in the centre of the maze…"

The Espeon looked up at the hedge mazes, and Zenith followed along too but saw nothing out of the ordinary besides the leaves swaying in an imaginary breeze.

"I said, the flag is in the CENTRE of the maze!"

A pink flag on a metal pole popped up in the far distance.

"Right. Then the one who grabs the flag and makes it back here again with it wins! Simple." However, her tone and that smile suggested anything but.

Well, it wasn't like he had a choice. He shook any creeping tiredness out of his paws and legs, and the lines of the bracers lit up again in that same blue as his rings when he shook them along with his forearms. There was a low hum from them, and the uncertainty of the potential hidden within his own weapons amped the Umbreon up a little too. He knew their function, of course, being their inventor, but their capabilities had not yet been explored. Did he even really know how–

"Go!" Zenith's legs moved faster than his mind at the command on his right, pounding the grass and keeping pace with Solaire until the large hedge wall bore down on them. It split their path into two, left or right. Zenith skidded to the left, his peripheral vision catching a pink blur racing up the side of the wall.

Duh. Why didn't I–ugh.

Zenith looked at the nearest hedge wall with his next breath. The exposed leaves were too small, the outer vines too thin to grab. He could reach in and grab the girthier stems and roots that would support his weight, but it seemed arm deep. Unless he was to be climbing while wading through a neck's worth of plants, he needed something to help him grab on.

He had something.

An arm pump down sent a translucent blue sheen running across the gleaming white surface, and the motion back up had two blades shoot out of both sides of each bracer where his wrist would be. He knew the blades had to be hard light constructs manifested from the weapon itself, the source drawn from his own blue bioluminescence. They were curved as were they when pictured in his mind, a pick extending perpendicular to the end of the blade. They'd do.

Zenith gasped. He gripped a vine, and a slight tilt of his wrist carved the pick through foliage until it struck something firm enough for his second paw to hook onto the wall too. His hind legs kicked for temporary footholds, weak vines snapped and dirt spilt off the walls when his claws dug deep into them. Pawhold by pawhold, the Umbreon pulled himself up onto the top of the wall, where Solaire was already zooming way ahead of him. Leaves scattered when he pushed off from this wall to the next one, the blades fading back into thin air in trails of lingering blue pixels behind him that disappeared quickly in the bright sunlight.

His claws dug into the thick roots that lined the tops of these walls for a brief moment before the momentum caught up again and carried him off to the next rectangular block of vegetation. The bracers were activated and deactivated at will too to help cling onto particularly thin surfaces, or branches too thick for his claws to sink into. The distance between the two Eeveelutions was getting shorter, but Zenith realised his breath was too. This place was huge, and what the body considered the 'peak' of his short life did not enjoy the distance just to reach the flag. Grunting, he shoved thoughts of the rundown back to the entrance out of his mind and kept jumping, ignoring the increasing heaviness of his landings. He could not afford to slip up now figuratively or literally, especially in front of Solaire.

He was soaring through the air, the next wall coming up fast and a Dark Pulse in his paws.

She'd probably never let him hear the end of it.

Boom. Solaire looked over for a second at the sudden explosion, and a spherical hole devoid of leaves created in one of the walls. A shadow flashed over and past her; she smiled at the silhouette framed in the eternal white light of an unseeable sky.

Zenith's fingertips grasped onto the pole and yanked it out of the shrubs it had been planted in. He'd transfer it to his mouth to grip it on the way back, but his mouth was wide agape, the effort expended prevalent behind every single heavy pant he breathed out. His opponent hovered just a few metres away. She flicked her tail while staring at the winded Umbreon who stared back, his grip tightening on the flag at a slight tug on the other end.

"Worth a shot. Speaking of which, you'd better get back fast, befoooaaarrrr…"

The flag was no longer in his paws, the rough rusted metal of the pole scraped against his pads as it was pushed violently out of his hand. Zenith scrambled to get the flag spinning arcs in the air…

And that was when he noticed the arrow that pierced the pole. A red arrowhead with a beautiful brown fletching, mottled with the faintest of white spots. And the second arrow that split the first in two before his very eyes, pushing the flag even further out of his grasp.

Time resumed flow, and he caught the rest of Solaire's previously slurred sentence. "…rrr DDDan-O catches you."

Zenith dived down the wall after the plummeting flag, right as a wave of arrows soared over it. Grabbing the objective, he jammed one end of the metal rod into the wall, bracers lighting up to add twin blades to his slowed rate of descent.

A figure leapt above the wall into view, feathers spread out in an arc like a pointed cape. A flap of her wings and tips disengaged themselves in the form of thin, pointed arrows. She did a pirouette in mid-air, scooping up all of her weaponry in one hand before striking a new pose. Her left hand grabbed a string of her leaf hoodie, pulling the tensile cord as far as her arm could extend. The right gripped the bundle of arrows she'd swiped so effortlessly, nocking all of them on the string with similar ease. One eye of hers was closed, and there was no hint of expression on the uncovered portions of her face. Just pure cold precision.

Zenith gulped.

Hind paws were jammed into the hedge wall for an instant abrupt stop, breaking off branches and scraping his hocks with the splintered and pointy ends. Zenith grit his teeth and pushed through the scrapes and pain, leaping from the wall he clung to a lower point on an adjacent wall, right before two arrows impaled the leaves where his heart and head used to be positioned. The steady rain of arrows from above forced the flag into the Umbreon's mouth as all points of contact were necessary to keep evading, and forced him back down to the ground—back into the maze.

He was running and turning and running and turning. The rustles from the top of the walls kept up with his pace, and the whistles of new arrows fired kept Zenith constantly on his toes. He dodged one arrow after another, which embedded itself in the dirt around the weaving Umbreon with a twang. Zenith grabbed the edge of two intersecting walls and made another sharp turn around the corner, an arrow sinking into the leaves between the narrow gaps of his paws. The pole was starting to get slippery in his mouth from drool and the condensation of his pants. This didn't seem to be getting anywhere. He had to regain his bearings while he still believed that Dan-O probably wouldn't wound him too badly.

The pole landed on the grass with a soft thump, discarded to one side. Dew scattered everywhere in a fine mist as Zenith swept his feet around to face his opponent, gathering whatever breath he still had. He could see an arrow headed his way, travelling fast even through slowed time. Even as it moved, Zenith could see the Decidueye chasing him bring another arrow to her chest, closing the remaining window of opportunity at an alarming quickness. Generating a small Shadow Ball in the palm of his paw, he threw it at the projectile hurtling towards him. The ball curved in an arc and struck the arrowhead on its blunt side, knocking it away… to reveal a second one perfectly hidden behind the first.

Wha–

Bam. The two Ghost-type attacks collided head-on in a massive release of spirit energy that a breathless Zenith barely had time to react to. He crossed his arms over his face in an X, a hemispherical light construct expanding from the outwards face of the bracers to form a shield, but his surprise and the blast added to his weak footing on an already unstable floor. The Umbreon was launched backwards, smashing through a wall and splaying out across a new section of the Garden. His paws dropped down to his sides, shields vanishing.

The white sky looked lovely, and the grass he'd flattened was so soft…

An arrow whistled above his head. Time to get up.

His paws felt around for something to pull him up from the ground. Two lush leafy walls intersected each other above his head in a corner he'd landed in. And all around him were plants, a field of flowers all in full bloom, with six white petals surrounding a pink trumpet that sprouted from the middle.

Pink Daffodils. Genus Narcissus.

No. Why…?

Zenith's vision skewed. They were everywhere, growing on stalks that were tall and long enough to dwarf his standing height. The huge flower heads bent their stems a little with their size, and they all seemed pointed at him, looming over him in the sea of pink and white he was caught in the middle of. Swept away in the rushing inescapable tide of white and pink to be pulled under by a powerful current that hid underneath the deceptively beautiful surf–

Wh-huh?!

His stunned body was yoinked back into the air until he reached the side of the Espeon who had him by the scruff.

"Looked like you needed a paw… is what I'd say if I were nice. Thanks for the flag!"

She dropped him off onto the top of another wall, levitating the strewn flag next to her. Another waggle in front of the processing Umbreon for good measure, and it soared off towards the Garden gates with the Espeon. His chance to prove himself to her—to everyone—slipping with each second.

Twang.

Growling, Zenith raced off again after Solaire. He couldn't believe he'd… never mind. He gave a quick shake of his head. He was here now.

An arrow whizzed dangerously close to his cheek.

Here, as everyone kept telling him. Where champions weren't made, but already existed.

His paws were pounding, his breaths were far from deep. Sweat dripped and ran down his fur, leaving paw prints behind that burned through the flora. The arrows kept flying, now a hailstorm in quantity that all targeted the Umbreon. He dashed and deflected and sliced in honeyed time, blades littering splinters down onto the Garden floor while he continued to bound their walls. Inching closer to what he'd lost to his Psychic counterpart, closer to the pink fabric that waved wildly in the wind, in just a few more leaps away…

He jumped, eyes on the flag…

"Aaaaand she crosses the finish line, leaving her competitor spluttering and in. The. Dust!" Solaire sped past the gates, landing gently back onto the grass beneath the gates. Zenith followed shortly behind, sliding down the hedge wall to meet the prancing Espeon. She had been further than he'd expected, and his jump… he definitely heard Solaire snicker when he was stuck in the brambles.

"The Umbreon, lost, drags himself to the finish line." Zenith ignored the taunting narration. He mustered enough energy to walk two more steps, catching up to the gates before plopping onto his rear. Solaire circled his hunched-over, panting body while he recovered. She had the flagpole held in her mouth, using her psychic abilities to instead make the flag wave and ripple around her.

"So, Zenith! How does it feel to fall to Solaire, and know your inferior place beneath my paws~?" Her voice was still loud and clear even past the pipe.

"I… I just lost one trial… out of three," Zenith managed to gasp out between heaves. His body certainly felt inferior, compared to the Espeon and the Decidueye that landed next to both of them. Dan-O didn't even look the least bothered when she folded her wings to her chest, as if she hadn't just chased Zenith halfway through the Gardens.

"And there's plenty more to go!" She trotted up to the Umbreon, waving the flag in front of his face. "Prepare yourself, Zenith, for you'll be going through Sufferings worse than this!"

"Why-?"

BANG!

Dialga's entrance was hard to ignore. The entire facility rocked as the enormous being appeared at its gates out of thin air, radiating a visible aura of thick black and space-blue lines around its silhouette. The lines rolled over everything in a short radius around Dialga, and much like Solaire's Psychic, affected all–except Pokemon– it touched. Plants wilted and decomposed and sprouted strongly again. Flowers closed back into their buds and opened in full bloom once more. Dots of brown rust formed on the pristine iron surface of the Garden gates and flaked off, disintegrating into nothing before they even hit the floor.

"Zenith. You're late. Again. And I find you in the Garden? Not planning to enter Cave Clairvoyance, I hope."

"No, Dialga. I was just doing something with Solaire and I forgot..."

"Something? What have you two done to result in such tardiness?" Dialga's eyes flickered from his Eeveelution Champion to the next, lingering especially long on the pink flag that lay at Solaire's feet. Now that it had stopped moving, Zenith saw that there was actually a well-painted self-portrait of the Espeon on the cloth. Its expression encapsulated her arrogant and teasing personality perfectly, traits that had vanished instantly upon sight of the Legendary alongside whatever confidence she had displayed earlier. This was a meek Solaire now that stared at her paws, afraid to meet the gaze of Zenith's mentor.

"Playing childish games. You should know better than to utilise time like this, Solaire."

"Sorry, Dialga." Not even a witty remark or a side-eye.

"You know what day it is, don't you?"

"Yes, Dialga. His sixth day here, Dialga."

"And you know what he will be doing today."

"Yes, Dialga. His… his first actual mission as a team, Dialga."

"So. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me why you would hold him up today of all days, or would you like me to put in a word about you to Mewtwo?"

"N-no, Dialga. Sorry, Dialga."

"I don't want to hear your apologies, Solaire." The grass around the Espeon's feet burst into life, their blades getting longer and thicker, snaking over entering and everywhere in their frenzied growth. This included the Psychic-type herself, who stiffened as the grass twined up her still limbs and body.

"I want you to-"

"Dialga, she was just trying-"

"I— Zenith. Right." Dialga looked back down at his Champion. "Best not waste any more time. Let us go."

"You've been getting in a spot of trouble since you entered, Zenith. I hope this doesn't carry over to your performance on the field."

They were back in the Gym.

"It won't." He scampered to catch up with his mentor's huge strides.

"And yet you seem to have forgotten your telecommunicator already."

"I, uh…" Zenith rummaged through his belt, panic growing with each pocket that turned up empty until he heard a low rumble above him. Dialga was laughing.

"I'm just messing with you. Here it is." The Temporal Pokemon teleported the black device atop Zenith's head. "But always know where your communicator is located. It is crucial in all aspects of Champion life. You do not want to know what happens when you lose yours."

The Umbreon winced as the telecommunicator dropped onto his forehead, and Dialga was already gone by the time he pocketed it. The glass door of the training room had already slid up, and Dialga was back behind the control panel.

"If you haven't realised already, you have an upcoming mission. It is my duty to prepare you for it, so you don't fumble out there on Earth."

A few more button presses and a faceless quadruped bot leapt out from the wall tiles. It didn't seem active, but Zenith felt his fur stand on end.

"I see you made a weapon. Do you know how to use it?"

He clenched and unclenched his clammy paws, bracers lighting up with a low hum. So this was what Solaire had in mind.

"A little."

"Good." Another button was pressed and the robot leapt at him, knives extended. Zenith countered its eight blades with two new ones of his own, a flat blue triangular spike from each bracer that clashed with the robot's in the middle.

It's just a bot it's just a bot…

Zenith pushed one arm up, driving the blades he was holding back into the air, and the robot's forelimbs along with them. Its underbelly was exposed, plenty of potential 'x's revealed in a time-slowed state… but Zenith wanted this over with fast.

It was almost satisfying how easily the blade glided through the neck. Almost.

The lopped-off head thumped on the floor. Fluids sprayed out from both ends of sliced wires and tubes as the rest of the body collapsed too.

"Good. Now, not every opponent is the same. Some have value, information hidden from us that we need to stop more of their plans."

Three more bots appeared to stand around the body of their deactivated comrade. One had a bright yellow triangle danger sign plastered on its forehead.

"Obviously, you can't eliminate high-profile targets when you get the identification that they are."

All three attacked him at once while Dialga spoke. Zenith kicked up the body of the fallen robot, which bought him a few seconds as a frenzy of blades tore through the airborne obstacle.

"You have to ensure that they remain alive after the dust settles."

"Living. Still breathing."

"Not necessary in one piece."

"The rest? Take them out."

Dialga's booming voice echoed throughout the enclosed cubed Gym and rang in his ears. Still ringing, even though the Legendary had stopped speaking— and the Champion had stopped moving alongside this absence.

Zenith's chest heaved. Blood oozed from all the places the blades had nicked him. He was sure a piece of his ear was gone with the way it stung.

The voice had beat in his head with overwhelming intensity, forcing its way into the Umbreon's head as his sole focus that washed out everything else in a blur.

Remains of the robots lay scattered all over the floor, pieces as numerous and small as the red droplets splattering on the same white tiles. Just one bot had been left as a whole. The marked one. He vaguely remembered dancing around its claws while he sliced off the others'. With its buddies gone now, it was singing a completely different tune.

"Well done. Interrogation will be carried out by the other Champions. You will know how to properly do so in due time."

Zenith took one step closer. It scrambled away, backing itself into a corner. A small growl of gnashing gears echoed behind its faceplate. Although its haunches were raised and claws extended, it did not look the least bit threatening.

"After we extract the required information, we can not let the target escape. Understand?"

They're just. Bots.

Oil seeped from the gash in the robot's neck. It shuddered for a second, then collapsed.

"Good. Gather in the Meeting Room in an hour for your mission briefing. Do not be late."

Zenith heard the glass pane between him and his mentor slide down, but when he turned to look, the Legendary was already gone.

There were no thoughts in his head when he stumbled out of the Gym back into the Halls, where another wave of exhaustion brought him to his knees. That training was more intense than he remembered. Why couldn't he remember? He was still dripping from his many wounds, but none of their causes he could recall.

Right. Wounds. Medic is… that… way?

Zenith looked down the corridors swimming in his half-lidded vision. How injured was he? The Umbreon tried to move his neck, but a sharp twinge of pain from his shoulders halted any attempts to check further. At least his arms only hurt slightly less to move. His telecommunicator was gingerly drawn out of its utility belt pocket, sore pads still stinging as he thumbed the screen at the first sign of a contact.

Zenith: Gym

The device slipped out of his palm. It clattered onto the floor, and the rest of his flank followed suit. The Umbreon knew he had been in worse spots before, but his body was inexplicably tuckered out beyond anything he had felt before. And with a mission coming up in possibly an hour…

He just had to wait for whoever he messaged to arrive.

If they even received it.

Or if they bothered to arrive.

How long had it been? Five minutes.

Maybe he could drag himself to the Medic.

"Maybe you should."

Really? Of all Pokemon…

"Yeah, just your luck, huh? Trust me, I'm not too pleased about this either." Solaire picked up the Umbreon with Psychic, toting him and his dropped items behind her. He was truly a pathetic sight, limp on the floor like a wet rug before she picked him up. What had Dialga even done to him this time? It was even worse than those pictures Reina showed them that one time.

"solaire..?" His words were a whisper out the corner of his mouth, but the Espeon's ears angled towards him.

"thank… you..." Even now, her Psychic was exerting pressure on the open wounds all over his body to stop the further flow of blood.

He caught her white pupils flick towards him as fast as she averted them after.

"Yeah. You'd better."

…

Zenith opened his eyes groggily. Looking around, he realised he had been sat on an operating table in the Infirmary, with Mew staring at him expectantly.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake." Mew spoke first, floating around the Umbreon to inspect him once more.

"Huh…? What? …c-cleo?" Zenith pushed himself up on the table, trying to shake off a feeling of déjà vu.

"Nope, doofus." Another pink figure dropped down from the operating lights mounted above. It landed on the other end of the table, the weight shift bouncing Zenith a little into the air. "She didn't save you, did she?"

The Espeon licked her paws with closed eyes, ignoring Zenith's annoyed glower at her.

"Anyways, we're almost on time. I'll just telepo–"

"Why, Solaire?"

"What?"

"Why do you antagonise me so much?"

"I-I've been trying so hard to adjust to this place. Be the Champion you wanted me to prove myself as. But all you do is keep messing with me. Saying I'm not worthy in the slightest. Telling me that I'll never be able to stand beside you guys. Even then you still… you still keep reminding me of the life I had before."

A worked-up Zenith had dropped down from the table, turning to confront the nonchalantly sitting Espeon. She gave a small shake of her head as he raged, though she was sure the Umbreon never noticed it.

"Well, answer me this, Zenith. Why do you want to become a Champion?"

"B-because I was given the role. Because I got another shot at life. Cause–"

"Well, is that what Dialga told you?"

Solaire leapt off the table, making it a point to use Zenith's forehead as a bounce pad before hitting the floor.

"'Cause that's not why I became one." She could elaborate, but she had no time left. Or fucks to give, to him or her language.

"Zenith."

Said Umbreon flinched at his mentor's call. Here he was, back again after a week.

"Welcome," Dialga continued. "I see Solaire brought you here safely. And on time. Good."

"Of course, Dialga." The Espeon had already taken her place alongside the other Champions around the Meeting Room table, all stone-faced while they waited out the exchange. Well, those that had expressions were emotionless. Maganza was as silent and inactive as usual, and Poll-E looked out of the loop with loading circles for eyes.

"Take a seat, Zenith, Since it is your first official mission, Arceus will be here shortly to conduct the briefing. I would love to stay," Dialga's eyes flicked to the door. "But I have other business to attend to. Remember your training, Zenith." The Temporal Pokemon whisked out of the room, that voice faintly echoing down the Halls that Dialga strode down… but still clear as ever in Zenith's head.

Do not disappoint me.

Zenith took the free seat next to Reina. Now that the Legendary was gone, the tension in the room had been ;lifted tremendously. Champions were making small talk to their adjacent tablemates, including his own.

"So… how'd it go? The Sufferings, I mean. Dan-O told us that Dialga showed up halfway?" The Alolan Raichu's eyes sparkled in anticipation of new gossip.

"They were, okay," Zenith rubbed his head with a paw. "And yeah, Dialga showed up. He…" Solaire avoided meeting his sidelong glances. She was trailing a finger aimlessly on the table, while her tail wrote more invisible words on the pristine surface. "I was late, so he just took me away for training."

"Nothing else happened, though."

"Riiiight." Clara draped herself over his right shoulder. "We all know Solaire's a sweetheart deep down. You suuuure she didn't do more in that Garden– I'm kidding! Kidding!" The Salazzle raised both arms in mock surrender as she was hoisted into the air by the tail, the cold stare of Solaire burning into everyone who dared stare back. "It was a joke! Unless…"

"Nothing happened, Clara. Solaire just beat me in every challenge she made. Ask Dan-O." Zenith directed the conversation towards the Decidueye, who looked startled at having her name dropped so suddenly. She pulled her hoodie back over ruffled feathers and gave a nod as curt as her reply.

"Reina. You wanted to give Zenith the introduction."

"R-right," The Electric/ Psychic-type straightened up in her seat. "Poll-E may say that Arceus usually gives us the rundown on missions, but she's just scaring you. She's the one that normally briefs us. Arceus just comes and coaches us through all our first times. To be honest, we'll do most of your coaching on the field to. Arceus is…a formality."

"A welcome formality I hope, Reina?"

"Arceus! A-A-Arceus-!" She jumped, a portal opening and swallowing the top half of her shocked expression. Zenith didn't see where it led, but Reina pulled herself back out of the ring instantly, closing it back to stand at attention with everyone in respect for the Alpha Pokemon. Zenith wasn't sure how a circular table had a head, but the empty space where Arceus stood sure felt like the place. A simple nod and everyone sat back down, at ease.

"Greetings, everyone. Zenith, I hope you have settled into your life as a Champion?"

"Y-yes, Arceus."

"Good. Welcome to your first official brief. I will be conducting, as is tradition, while. all future missions will be conducted and supervised by Poll-E. I am, as Reina said–" The Alolan Raichu literally sunk lower in her seat. "–but a formality. To walk every Champion through their first official mission at the end of their first week."

Arceus's golden hoof tapped the meeting table. Its white surface lit up glowing orange, red lines spreading out from various points to project a shoddy warehouse. It rotated slowly, like a half-finished three-dimensional model viewed through rendering software, down to the visible polygons that the red lines traced out to form the whole building.

"Located in the industrial complex of Virbank City, we have tracked Pokemon using this sole storehouse to harbour illegal shipments of weapons and important scientific equipment. They receive and send out their cargo through the sea, and today, the ships for both purposes are docking in at a nearby harbour."

Two freight ships appeared from the offside of the table, travelling towards the warehouse. A model of the environment had expanded from the base of the structure too. More buildings with smokestacks, roads outlined with tall grass, all elevated above sea level on a monmade platform of cobbled rocks and sand. Jutting out from the platform was a single port that Zenith watched both ships dock at at the same time.

"You will be teleported into Virbank Complex five minutes before the estimated arrival of both ships, right here." A blue dot blinked in the depths of a secluded alley.

"You cannot let the exchange of supplies take place tonight. Incapacitate any Pokemon on-site and on board, search for and relay any information about and stored on the two ships. That will be your requirements for this mission. End of mission brief." Arceus stepped away from the table. "All Champions are to meet in the Teleportation Room in full, prepared attire in five minutes. Dismissed."

Upon the command, a ringed portal opened on the floor behind Zenith's chair, and he was not the only one. The Champions descended into their assigned portals without hesitation, and Zenith was about to lower himself into his own when he hesitated at a change in the air. Rather, a minute shift in the aura that Arceus radiated, now being directed at him. He could sense Arceus wanted to speak to him, that the Umbreon had the Legendary's full attention milliseconds before a single word had been uttered.

"Zenith. A moment of your time."

"Yes, Arceus?"

"It has come to my attention that you do not possess any sort of tactical or combat-ready attire suitable for your missions."

"Y-yes, Arceus. All I have are my weapons…" Zenith raised his arms to his chest level weakly, suddenly feeling a lot more naked under such a powerful gaze. Well, a lot more exposed and susceptible to enemy fire should be his worry. "What am I supposed to…?"

"Worry not, Zenith. In the past, I have aided Champions in creating their personal protective armour. However, in this case, Poll-E would like to present a design of her own."

The Porygon-Z snapped out of her loading mode. She opened digital eyes, both of which were glowing bright blue and projecting a rotating hologram not unlike what the meeting table had done. This time, Zenith could spy a rough model of a quadruped, but the detail was in the body armour the model was wearing.

"Gigi told me how long you took just creating your eye and bracers, so it was in the interest of time, really. I hope you don't mind."

"Uh, not at all…"

"Tremendous. Keep a wide berth, Zenith, Poll-E." Arceus seemed to pluck the hologram out of the thin air in front of Poll-E, and enlarged the model until it had the same size and dimensions as the Umbreon it was based on. With both Champions huddled in a corner of the Meeting Room, they watched with wide eyes as light enveloped the translucent model in a series of glistening flashes. The light was getting brighter, so bright that it even threatened to shine through Zenith's clenched eyes– until the intensity suddenly dropped a notch. He cracked open an eye…

Poll-E had a 'Connection Lost' symbol in the black rings of her eyes, and Zenith wondered if she had seen this process before. Tens of hundreds, more arms than he could possibly count snaked out from the cross-like wheel protruding from Arceus' body, the four green jewels attached to each tip of the X glowing brightly. The light had turned yellow, glistening, and he could see the back of the uncountable hands, their palms pressed facing inwards towards the hologram that pushed and compressed the ball of golden light. Thin beams were escaping through the tiny cracks between the fingers as they strained to force the ball smaller, the hands slowly moulding themselves into shape around the model.

FWOOM.

The hands were gone. The blue light of the holographic quadruped faded away with Arceus' light, and a few pieces of clothing were left behind. His personal protective equipment. Fully physically realised, and seemingly made of the same white material that the Halls were constructed so commonly with. It made sense that Arceus had a hoof in creating this place, the correlation had just never crossed the Umbreon's mind.

Zenith picked the pieces up one at a time. The body armour was surprisingly light in his paws, yet consisted of reinforced hard-plate segments that overlapped one another around the entire piece for mobility and protection, sleeves, back and all. Wearing and clipping the armour on, a lining of kevlar cushioned his skin against the plates, all the way up his neck to the bottom of his chin, while joints had rings of ballistic nylon added to them. His pants were made of the same flexible materials, with fewer protective plates that covered his thighs and knees. Clips were available along the waistline for his utility belt to be clipped on, and more zippered pockets could be found between the gaps of plating on his chest. There was even a handle on his back like those found on K-9 vests.

"Time for the final finish! I put real effort into this, you know," Poll-E held out the last piece of his attire, and it was as light as the other parts despite a significant bulk. A full-face helmet, more akin to a motorcyclist's. There were holes in the top for his ears, which were the only things uncovered alongside his tail.

Zenith looked at his reflection in the mirrored visor until a pair of blue oblong arms joined to grip his shoulders. "You can appreciate my work fully later. Time to get to the Teleportation Room!" Poll-E pushed the Umbreon towards the teleportation pad in the room, who stammered to thank the Alpha Pokemon while he was led away. From the corner of his eye, Zenith could see Arceus give him a small nod before white light covered his entire vision again…

…And Arceus was already in the Teleportation Room once it faded. Of course. Everyone else had assembled already in their various gear, each one with apparent differences that made them as unique as the Pokemon that donned them. Like Solaire, who wore a full body jumpsuit, probably similar to the one he had under his armour, but her white protective plates were arranged differently on the black clothing: non-overlapping and standalone to wrap around her joints, back and sides like an external skeleton. A white face mask dangled from a strap around her neck, which bounced against her armoured chest as she tilted her head, pupils flicking from the Umbreon's head to paws.

"Nice outfit. Clearly it wasn't made by you." With a swish of her tail, she sauntered away.

"Thanks, Solaire." Those two words were feeling drier in his mouth each time he said them. He repositioned his focus elsewhere, the marble block map in the centre of the room. Gigi was looking at the projected landscape, scrolling in the air to take a closer look at the rows of large chunky buildings that filled Virbank Complex. Zenith joined her side to look at the huge network of stairs and scaffolds that connected the vast number of buildings.

"That's the one." The Golem pointed to a building outside Virbank Complex, closest to the right of the entrance. "And that's the port." Said port was located inside the Complex, furthest southeast corner of the area.

"They're… quite far from each other." Zenith traced the route with his eyes. One giant road from the entrance was paved in a straight line under all the midair walkways. They'd have to veer off to the left at the end, tread through tall grass and hop over a railing to get to the port.

"Which is why we'll be going in groups," Dan-O pulled on the drawstrings of a new white hoodie to close over her face and beak. There was a visible, slightly protruding visor when the hoodie was fully drawn, where four eye-slits lay slanting diagonal towards her beak–two on each side. "Zenith, you'll be going with Void and Maganza to silence the warehouse." The Decidueye turned, her X-engraved gorget and compact pauldrons flexing slightly. "Solaire, Clara and I will hold off the shipments. Reina and Gigi will manage transport between the two zones."

Polle-E floated up to the marble table. "And I'll be in your walls, er, the Halls." She blinked at Zenith. "Supervising everything you do from up here and helping out whenever I'm needed during your missions!" She spread her hands, and a multitude of blue screens appeared at its tips. Zenith could see vitals, perspective cameras, and glimpses of much more before something gripped him by the handles installed in the back of his suit. Void carried the Umbreon towards the circular line of teleporters, grabbing the helmet from Zenith's paws and shoving it onto his head.

"Come on, let's go!" The Noivern tossed Zenith onto a pad with ease, watching his stunned face get wiped away in a beam of light. She turned around to grin back at the seven remaining Champions, not one who reciprocated her semi-gleeful expression.

"...what?"

…

The transition from Halls to the alleyway was as clear as night and day– literally. Zenith could feel the rough gravel beneath his paws, he could hear the echoes of his panicked panting from a sudden teleportation, but even with his night vision, the helmet rendered him almost blind in pitch darkness— only for a moment, however. The visor lit up inside with a light flash of blue, and the once obscuring darkness started to disappear into a full clear field of vision. It was like he had a fishbowl over his head, especially with how paragraphs of tiny text scrolled over the curved glass, reminiscent of when he first received his mechanical eye.

Wait. His left eye. He'd given it to Poll-E, and… he must've gotten used to how the world looked in the past two days to realise it was gone. Did he need it for the mission? If he did, how was he supposed to…?

A dim pillar of light was forming on top of a nearby dumpster, and Void was in its place once it faded away. An unworn hood was left draped over her back, a small part of her entire outfit that was vastly different from his. Sure, there was still plating around her vital organs and shoulders, but armour was limited compared to the many straps and buckles scattered and installed into her much more fabric-exposed outfit. It clung tightly to the Noivern's body when she moved, moving minimally and combining with silent clawsteps when she landed on the ground that subtly emphasised her sneakier, deadlier origins.

The disk she placed on her face expanded over her snout and covered everything below her eyes. They squinted at the Umbreon, resignation evident even in those narrowed yellow orbs. She gave a huge sigh, and Zenith jumped when he could hear it loud and clear in his ears.

"Come here, Zenith. Take off your helmet." A claw halfheartedly beckoned him closer, while another hand rummaged in one of her breast pouches.

"You wouldn't believe how they reacted up there, heh." Void drew out the item she was looking for, rolling it between her fingers. "All that for an eye… Come on, chin up." With the helmet gone, her claws squeezed his cheeks and forced his face upwards to look at her, though she made sure it wasn't for very long.

"Gah!" Void let go of a stumbling Zenith, who reeled back even further from the force. The Noivern certainly adopted a different approach than Clara's. Rougher, with the way she slammed his eye back in, but the Umbreon couldn't deny that it was still as precise as her fellow Champion.

There were certainly more sentences that ran down his peripheral again, more functions reaching [100%] that he could not make out through a blurry, blinking vision.

[Recalibration complete. Repl-eye-cement Ver. 1.1 fully operational.]

"Hurry." Void picked up the Umbreon again, forcing the helmet back onto his head. "Looks like we'll have to meet Maganza there. Hold on…!" With a flick of her wrist, she tossed Zenith into the air. She thoroughly enjoyed his look of bewilderment before she spread her wings, one stroke downwards and there was no trace of the two ever having been in the alleyway, save for the rustling of litter, scattering at a sudden strong breeze.

Without his Gift, Zenith would have probably lost it at the overwhelming amounts of stimuli that he was experiencing all at once. The spin that Void added to his body as she threw him upwards, eerily similar to how Solaire tossed him this morning that activated his Gift in the first place. The claws that hooked into the straps on his back. The rush of the ground spiralling smaller under his paws. The fact that his gear had changed colour entirely. Everything that flashed in his visor since it lit up. Vitals. Circles that bloomed across his vision, magnifying everything in their area. A small progress bar that filled up in the top left corner, labelled: [Syncing with Repl-Eye-cement… 100%], and once it did; ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray, aura, soundwaves… the view of the shrinking complex below changed rapidly in shapes and colours as his visor cycled through all sorts of different visions.

He felt nauseous.

[Sync complete. Applicable functions now available.]

With a few more wingbeats, Void landed on the curved roof of the warehouse. She set the Umbreon down gently, using a claw on his shoulder to steady his woozy, weak staggering from falling off the building.

"Damn. She beat us here." A skylight in the roof had been pried open. "We have to catch up." Wrapping her tail around his waist, Void held the still-dizzy Zenith above the ground when she leapt down into the building.

…

"We're here." Dan-O perched atop a distillation tower overlooking the port. Clara peered down at the scenery on all fours, and Solaire floated behind the two of them to cover their backs. The Psychic around her body was trapped beneath her clothes, the black fabric dimming the pink glow. The Decidueye's eyes tracked an incoming ship, and the Pokemon loading crates into an already docked vessel.

"The mission has started. Be sure to use your code names, everybody."

…

Zenith heard Void's soft grunt in response to the instruction. Her tail remained stable when coiled around and holding him high, and she still managed a silent landing even with the extra effort. They'd dropped on an overhead bridge crane. There were more narrow and yellow girder bridges spanning the entire length of the warehouse, high enough to connect to the highest platforms in the place. There were three storeys of airborne platforms in total, attached to all sides of this building in a squarish ring and all connected by a singular set of metal stairs.

"Head down. Find cover. Fast." The bridge provided little cover with thin rod railings lining each side. Void's knuckles rapped on the forehead of his helmet twice and then she was gone.

Fudgefudgefudgefudge

Zenith scrambled to his feet. This place had to be crawling with Pokemon. He ran across the bridge, wincing every time he felt himself land heavily on each pawstep. He knew sounds were delayed in this state, but that didn't stop his heart from beating so fast as he sprinted the remaining distance to the platform, sliding beside a crate to his left and pressing his back against the walls. Was he still exposed? The crate covered one side of his flank, but he could still see a shadowy figure strolling around on his other. A Beartic who donned basic military body armour, and a standard assault rifle wielded in their paws. With his night vision returned and fully functioning, Zenith noticed the Pokemon stop in their tracks, their eyes dilating at the sight of a… collapsed body. In fact, the half of the platform Zenith could see was littered with a trail of fallen Pokemon, slumped lifelessly in various poses on the floor.

What..?

It looked like the same surprise was evident on the Beartic's face. With the rifle pointed front, they advanced forward slowly towards the limp body. Zenith shuffled closer to the crate as the bright cone from their muzzle flashlight crept closer, illuminating the place and casting pitch-black shadows behind the Ice-type's large frame.

The shadows were growing longer, creeping across the floor, up the walls and covering the ceiling in ways that clearly defied the laws of physics.

A winged hand swiped out from the shadow on the floor, sinking into the bare calf and yanking the leg forward. The Beartic opened his mouth as he fell, but another arm shot out from the darkness above. Three red claws clamped the maw shut, yanking their head up in a swift jerk as the rest of the body went down. Their weapon dropped soundlessly into a shadowy pit on the floor, which dispersed and moved towards the ceiling in a burst of black dots, gathering to form a patch big enough from Void to descend from. Her other hand grabbed the body by the loose skin of their back before it hit the floor, and a jagged tail squeezed tight around the neck of the guard.

There was barely any struggle. Void let go of another limp body; her tail only released from the guard at the last second so there was no sound. As she pulled the rifle out of the shadows to place it atop a pile of crates, her large ears twitched once. The Noivern's face snapped towards her hidden Champion, body already halfway into the shadows on the ground, but–

"Hey!" Zenith startled at his own shadow, suddenly cast in front of him. Another burly silhouette barked words at him behind the blinding glare of a flashlight.

"Who are you!?" They jabbed the muzzle of their rifle closer and closer at the Umbreon, who was crawling backwards on his behind at this looming figure. Incoherent thoughts were racing through his mind, all masked and unusable from the pounding of his heart that deafened all. "State your business!"

Should he run? Fight? Fighting would cause too much noise. The Pokemon was already shouting. Was that someone else shouting in his ear? He needed a plan. What plan? He had absolutely nothing right now.

The guard touched something clipped to his chest pocket. "We've got a–"

The shadows burst to life once more. The guard, an Ursaring, staggered backwards as massive hands smashed into his side with palms wide. They clamped down on his muzzle and wrapped their long, flexible arms around his body, limbs and neck, muffling screams behind his shadow bindings when two sharp snaps were heard from his wrists. One more forceful smash into the warehouse walls and Ursaring toppled over on his knees, rifle fell into the hold of a pair of red claws; Void had appeared next to Zenith at some point during the brutal spectacle.

"Good job, Pneuma." The Noivern flicked the flashlight off. "Now everyone's going to know we're here."

"Pneuma? You mean..?" Zenith looked around. He could see the heat signatures of the disposed Ursaring, and the parts of Void's body that weren't covered by her armour, but…

The Cofagrigus stepped out of the shadows. She seemed to don no armour or difference from her normal self in the Halls, except for a slight golden shimmer that rippled across her body.

She gave off no heat whatsoever. She might as well be invisible in his thermal vision.

"...Maganza?" The Ghost-type blinked slowly at him.

"Yeah, that's her code. Mine's Silence. Yours is…Clock. Clockwork. Whatever." Void's tone grew sharper, more alert as her ears pricked again. "They know we're here."

"They do." Poll-E spoke in the Champions' ears. Enraged, louder yelling could now be heard coming from the lower levels of the warehouse. "There's no other choice but go hard and fast, Champs. Each of you get one level to clear."

"Roger that, Curie!" Void vaulted over the safety railing of the floor, putting on her hood and disappearing mid-plummet into the shadows. "Taking first. Pneuma, take the second. Clock, third. Go!"

The Cofagrigus wasted no time climbing down. With all four hands planted on the platform, she lifted her bulky body high into the air and hurled it downwards. Maganza smashed through the flimsy metal floor to the lower levels, grabbing and dragging Zenith down along with her.

There were flashes and shouting and gunfire and shrapnels of metal chips in his vision. A surprised grunt and rattle of accidental gunfire. His back connected against something solid; Maganza had hurled him at a guard on his floor.

Go.

The Umbreon spurred into action, eliciting another cry of pain from the Pokemon as his tensed hind legs delivered a powerful uppercut. He was back in the Gym again, where the turrets were everywhere and the projectiles were monocolor this time. Not like he had to worry. They ricocheted off his armour plating and helmet. Sparks flew and lit up his next target's face, contorted in pain after he slid between their legs, sharp edges slicing through their Achilles tendons. Those glowing blades left behind a luminous afterglow, two trails of blue that danced from Pokemon to Pokemon in the darkness. He targeted the wrists, ankles, closing large distances and protecting exposed parts from bullets in slowed time.

Last one.

It was a Flygon, who had abandoned their weapons and was trying to make a panicked retreat in the hole of the skylight. They could get out and potentially alert more.

Don't let him get away.

The plates on Zenith's shoulders and thighs slid up, revealing his intensely glowing rings. They added one more trail behind the Umbreon as he ran up and along the wall, taking advantage of the lax gravity to steady himself.

Can't let him get away. Not today.

He pushed off.

"G-gah!?" The Flygon exclaimed in shock and pain when a blue blur smashed into their belly. Their wings stopped moving, stunned, and they started to topple in mid-air. They tried to right, themself, but the– the thing that had a persistent grip on their body..

Zenith crawled his way up to the small of the Flygon's back, unsheathing his blades. Those thin, rhombus wings were flapping uselessly in the rushing air, held to the body by an even thinner stem. One clean nick and–

A pair of leathered wings closed around Zenith from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. He was tackled off the Flygon, who spiralled down and crashed into a tower of crates, all of which smashed into smithereens and splinters at the impact.

Void and Zenith rolled across the floor, the Noivern tossing him out of her binding clutches.

"What are you doing?!" She spat at the Umbreon.

"Curie said incapacitate, not cripple! And why are you so…" Void tapped the noggin of the dizzy Flygon with the butt of her kunai, knocking them out cold. "Why're you so slow? Pneuma and I already cleared our floors and you still wanted to show off with that Flygon?"

Zenith struggled back up to his paws. The blades slid back into his bracers. What was that..?

"I-I…. I'm sorry."

Void's side-eye lingered on him a second more. "You'd better be. Curie, the warehouse is silent. How's things at the port?"

"A fight's breaking out on both ships. Parabola will bring you and Clock over to assist soon."

"Here!" Reina popped out of a wall. She wore the basic black bodysuit with lightweight armour, while her face was half-hidden behind a black mask around her eyes. A magician's mask, with intricate gold outlines adorning the edges. The eye holes were covered with milky white lenses, and the entire mask moved with an eerie flexibility with the top half of her face as she spoke. The Alolan Raichu beckoned to the duo that sped towards her, widening the ring in the wall to quickly accommodate the new occupants— not like they'd need to stay in it for long.

Gone was the eerie silence and musty atmosphere of the warehouse. Salty sea air, more shouting and even more hectic sounds of gunfire rang in Zenith's ears. They'd been delivered just a ways away from the fight, above it to be exact. He and Void peered over the railings of the foremast platform, observing the battle below.

"We're on the departing ship! Help the rest out and get to the navigation bridge!" Zenith looked up instinctively at the giant funnel and main mast of the container ship, separated by a deck filled with hundreds of 40-foot rectangular containers and swarming with Pokemon. swarmThe bridge should be close to those parts. He heard Void acknowledge their new directives with a curt roger, and the two Champions leapt down to join the fight.

Zenith landed running, bursts of time-slowed sprints barreling through opposing guards and flinging them off the containers they kept watch from. Their cries of shock and surprise quickly turned into shouts of rage and redirected attention at the blue blur; more bullets whizzed over his head and more Pokemon in front were turning. With their cocked rifles in his direction, they were left vulnerable to Void's ambushes, the Noivern bursting out from the moon cast shadows and dragging more into the dark as she dove between patches of darkness.

The Umbreon leapt from each container to the next, racing towards the largest brawl that had broken out on the main deck. Pokemon were flying out in every way imaginable, thrown at such force outwards that Zenith had to dodge the hurtling bodies the closer he got. There she was—Son Dan-O, a whirlwind of green against the opposing swarm of guards that tried to pin her down, though getting their hands on her was the first impossible hurdle.

"Go–!" The Decidueye shot an arrow between Zenith's ears; a guard creeping up behind the Umbreon was sent flying off the boat from the impact to their chest. Her arms were tipped with scale-like arrangements of leaf blades, and they were sharp enough to slice the body armour of their enemies in half to a swift toppling jab to their midriff, courtesy of the blunt end of her spear. "Bridge! Now!" Another volley of arrows cleared a path through the crowd for a moment, but it was enough for Dan-O to see the blue blur streak through it and away towards said location.

Zenith's panting echoed inside his helmet. This ship was huge, and even at night with the cool ocean breeze, he could feel sweat pooling and heat blazing between his gear and his fur. The battle raged around him, a turbulent chaos that seemed to have forgotten about him in its constant mania. Bodies were being tossed into the air on his right, bowled over by a hurtling ball. On the left, more were flung overboard encased in bright pink glows. Leaping up flights of stairs, he thought he could see rings open and close all over the battlefield, sending Champions to and away from the ship.

"Z- I mean, Clo! Get up here!" A hand gripped his paw and pulled the Umbreon up the remaining portion of the spiralling stairwell. The palm transferred to his side and pressed his flank against the walls of a long narrow corridor. At the end was a watertight bulkhead door, a quick glimpse given to him before being blotted out by a figure dropping from the ceiling.

"The door to the bridge is right there," Clara flushed to one side so Zenith could see as they walked towards it. The Salazzle donned a ventilated gas mask in addition to the usual body armour, and there were satchels strapped tightly on the base of her tail by belts and buckles. "We need to enter, take out anyone inside, and then let Poll-E hook herself up to the ship's mainframe," Quick fingers slipped beneath the cover of a satchel to retrieve a small vial of bright green from its depths. Clara popped its lid open with a tap against the bulkhead's hinges, poised to pour its contents. "Ready?"

"Ready, uh…"

"Blight. Alright…" Clara dripped the liquid on the hinges, watching it eat through the thick paint and metal easily. She pressed a palm to the top half of the door. "Let's—"

BWAAAAAAAAAMP!

The horn sent waves rumbling through the floor; large engines of the freighter roared back to life. The entire ship lurched as the massive vehicle whirred into action. All unsecured items were sliding backwards, a wooden crate flew past Zenith's face before tumbling down the staircase he just climbed. Constructs of an ice axe head allowed Zenith to cling to the tilting ship walls from his gauntlets, while Clara had no problem attaching herself firmly to the steel surfaces opposite to his.

"Blight!" A ring opened up between the two Champions. Dan-O glowered at the pair. The Decidueye seemed to have already arrived at the navigation bridge of the other cargo ship, judging from the flashing control panels that Reina worked in the background, her mouth moving in words that they could not hear. "What are you… What are you two waiting for? Get in there and stop that ship!"

"R-right!" Reapplying her touch on the bulkhead, Clara looked back at Zenith, who gave a small nod. "On it!"

A small tug on the loosened door was enough to let gravity do the rest; Zenith felt his balance shift and an opportunity arise as the ship slowly reoriented itself. Taking a new breath of salty sea air, he zipped past the toppling plate of steel and into the bridge, blades at the ready.

Make a plan. Cargo ship bridge has two to four crew members average. Should be armed the same way as the rest. Take two down, clear path for Clara.

Dust barely stirred as he skid on the floor, turning to position himself better to take down the two Pokemon he spied at each side of the opening doorway. And the two standing behind each of them. And the four in each corner of the room. Ten in total, laser-aided scopes all directed at an entrance Clara was about to lose cover to.

Shoot.

…

Maganza could hear a new burst of gunfire, faint in the distance. She could hear the growing thuds of combat boots on tarmac, the answer of reinforcements to static from the warehouse. There was information to be gleaned from these noises, but the silence, external and internal, guided her better. It led her in all she did, all she would do, all those she'd face, and all that she knew.

She could hear the shouts of her teammates in her telecommunicator, set to the lowest volume. Their stories she knew. All but one blue ring that glowed in the darkness of the plainest day. The pup had bands to stretch, to grow, to bend, to break—if he let them.

She could hear the plumes of rust escape into the air when her hands gripped the metal railings, hoisting her up higher and higher. Those teeth parted the smallest gap, and uttered the softest whisper.

"An actor changes to suit a script; a script changes to suit the actor."

…

"I see him-gah!" A guard cried out in pain as a helmeted head rammed into his stomach, their legs swept from underneath them by the rest of the barreling body. Flashlights from multiple sources cut towards the injured comrade, lighting up the flash of a black tail that disappeared into thick smoke before their bullets could.

Zenith slinked around the feet of his enemies, hoping that his heavy breathing wouldn't be picked up through his helmet. How is this not over yet? He had run his pads raw, and his muscles burned as much as his nostrils. The acrid smoke mingled with the scent of gunpowder to form an even noxious concoction, but he shouldn't be complaining. He had frozen up, run out of breath in a room of vigilant armed guards. If Clara hadn't thrown those smoke bombs… The Umbreon focused on his next target to ambush. Arceus bless this helmet and its thermal imagery—he acknowledged the validity of that statement—and the fact that all ten of his opponents had visible heat signatures. The Salazzle by his side, however, was not only cold-blooded in nature. Bodies were reeling back from an attacker invisible to Zenith's visor, hands dropped their weapons to grasp at something around their neck, screams turned blood-curdling after the sounds of glass breaking and liquid splattering on flesh and fur. Clara seemed to be handling herself more than proficiently even though she was outnumbered.

Did she even need my help, or was she trying to–

"Got you–Aargh!" A fat, four-fingered hand closed around his shoulder and met instant retaliation. Zenith stabbed the palm that was almost the size of his face, digging the blade into and beneath the leather gloves before yanking it forward. The rest of the Electivire followed, dragged past the Umbreon through the smoke until the large frame collided with something solid. A control console handled the weight of the body collapsing on it well, but it fared far worse against the electricity that spurted from the Thunderbolt Pokemon's wound alongside blood. Screens flickered and fuses blew, there were hisses and pops of electronics underneath the metal casing as arcs of yellow energy streaked across the console.

"Nonono! Blight!" Said Salazzle turned to the subject of Poll-E's worry, her tail whipping the last guard across the face and out for the count. She bounded over to the wounded Electric-type with another vial, its contents congealed into a thick foam around their hand on exposure to air to form an insulated lining. Zenith could only stand knee deep in unconscious bodies as she heaved another off the console, taking a step back to assess the damage.

"Curie, how're we looking?" Clara fished her telecommunicator out of a satchel and faced it towards the electronics. A hologram of the Porygon-Z popped out from the screen, glitching and flitting around to examine closely. He knew she saw the dents, the stray bullet holes and blade wounds, even more so the gashes across the entire console, singed with blackened marks by his mistake.

"Ugh… that was the navigation console." Zenith looked away. How was such a monotone voice able to convey such disappointment? "I think a port's still working. Hook me up, and I'll see if anything's still salvageable. Zenith, try to stop the autopilot."

"Sure." There was only one button to hit. He watched Clara fiddle with the console, and stared out from the bridge windows at piles of unconscious bodies that littered the deck. He'd taken out, like, what? Four or five out of the entire mass. Even less so on the bridge. None on the other ship. This wasn't how he'd planned to perform on his first official mission. Maybe he-

"Clockwork." Clara stepped beside him. They could see everything from this height. "Doing okay? I didn't expect you to rush in there that fast."

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry about the console. I didn't mean to…"

"Look alive, Champions." Void's voice crackled across all of their headsets. "We have to buy Curie time. Para, get Clock to the Warehouse. Now. We've got reinforcements."

"I thought Pneuma had—"

"More guys. New weapons. GO!"

Clara drew an extended hand back as a ring opened up between the two of them again, obscuring the Umbreon with a circle of new, darker scenery. It closed as instantly as it opened, and he was gone.

…

Beams of flame and ice and poison, attacks of every type joined bullets in the myriad of projectiles aimed at all intruders in the space. Gigi shrugged them all off in her tucked cannonball form, scattering Pokemon as she ploughed through bunched-up groups. Maganza swung from platform to platform nimbly, dodging attacks impressively while she grabbed attackers hiding out on higher storeys, throwing them back down to the ground floor.

They were doing so well. Him? He was running for his life. Not a single Dark Pulse or Shadow Ball came to him. The Umbreon knew he had to reorient himself, adapt to the battlefield, but there was no time to stop. There was always a new thing to dodge, a new thing to weave under. Where were the thoughts to fight when there was so much to flee from?

There were grenades now, whose explosions left aftershocks stronger than any of his moves. They knocked the wind out of his lungs, and sent waves that shook him to his core. He'd run too close to one, and suddenly the ground was no longer under his feet, the world no longer the right side up.

Get up. Run.

He was back on his paws, but things were seeping into a mind muffled to the world. By only running, he was dragging the team behind. By not fighting, he was slowing them down so their enemies had a chance to keep up.

That's not true.

The mission would've been over already if it weren't for him. If he did more.

I don't know that.

A stream of fire cut short as shadowy hands snapped their jaws shut. He ran through the fading cinders. Solarie was right. He wasn't ready. Void was right. He didn't know what he was doing.

No. She can't be right. That's not right.

The pounding in his ears was getting faster. Frantic. His heart, his heaves… and something else. Paws, but not his. An ever growing presence behind him, chasing him down. It was closing in. Their pawbeats drummed harder, closer, mixing into the cacophony in his bursting head.

That's ENOUGH!

The pawbeats stopped for just a second and so did his. Muscles seized, Zenith turned and took a wide slash at the pursuer. He had to take a stand. He had to prove himself, to contribute. He had aimed for the chest. He had…

He had…

oh Arceus what had he done

There was an Absol, mid-leap, fangs bared. Female. A knife in her slackening claws. Her narrowed eyes widening in the shock of retaliation. An expression of slow understanding as the thin line from her chin to horn turned red, as the halves of her face started to peel apart.

He couldn't breathe. Time couldn't resume. Time wouldn't resume. He stared at her and she stared back, until she could stare no more.

"Hey, Clockhead!" A dulled voice. He was yanked backwards by the handle in his armour. "Mercury's—" A pink barrier was raised from the ground to protect him and the speaker from a new round of bullets. "Mercury's done! We gotta go! What are you… damn." The voice dimmed. "Didn't expect it to be this chapter."

"Huh..?"

"Never mind. The rest are waiting, so, apologies…" Directing the barrier around and above them, Solaire lifted Zenith off the ground in a spherical bubble.

A crowd was gathering around where he'd collapsed, rifles blazing at the two of them.

…

"…and I made sure their autopilot was dead. Local authorities should spot and investigate in the morning. Couldn't gather anything from it, though. That ship came from a place not on any of our maps. Last known location was…" Poll-E pointed at the holographic map on the table, at an ocean expanse on the far left of Kalos. "Here. Like it popped into existence."

"Are you sure?" Reina asked. "There's nothing but water in that spot. No islands, not even close to any major land masses."

"Yes. I thought it was corrupted data from a damaged console, but Dan-O took down the other ship before they could wipe their coordinates. They've got the same location. No radios either." Lines of text scrolled in the Porygon-Z's pupils. "They've got no other documents on board."

"Something could've popped up there recently then. We could go there to check," Clara piped up. "A scout party of two. I can swim and Maganza,.. I don't think she breathes."

"Fat chance," Void laughed. The Noivern had already stripped out of her combat gear, pieces of it lay around the Meeting Room. "Arceus will never allow it when they can just check themself. Best to just ask 'em when we next meet. In the meantime…" She yawned.

"In the meantime," Dan-O took control of the conversation. "We keep training. Like always. Next time we're sent out there, we have to find out more about where they're coming from." Her piece delivered, the Decidueye grabbed her bow from the table and strode out of the room. She did pause for a moment in the process of opening the door, half-frozen in thought. "I'll try to get Arceus to check it out."

"Thanks, darling!" Void called out coyly after Dan-O, who silently retorted with a flipped bird and departed.

"So, Zenith? How do you feel about your first mission?" Gigi rolled up to the Umbreon, who had stayed silent throughout the extraction and debrief. He stirred a little to the additional presence by his side.

"Oh. I think it's fine, I'm learning a lot about what really happens on the field…"

"Yeah, yeah. Nothing we all haven't been through before," Solaire interjected, pushing her way in between him and the Golem. "First fight, got carried. Boring stuff. Blah blah blah. Now is this meeting over or what?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Void had taken over Magana's and Dan-O's empty seats, combining them with her own as a makeshift couch to lay on, hands behind her head, though her large yellow eyes glimmered with interest. "Why? Planning to go so soon, Solaire?"

"No, I–!" Solaire squeaked. Her voice cracked, and she bristled angrily at the stifled chuckles from her peers.

"I am," Reina floated over to Poll-E, tugging on a blue hand to drag the rest of her along. "You'd better be a good eating buddy," The Alolan Raichu waved her paw to open up a ring to the Bar, ignoring any protests as she shoved her struggling android captive through the portal. "B-but dramaaaa–"

"You sure you're okay, Zenith? Anything you want to talk about that happened on Earth?" Clara leaned across the table. "Like Solaire said, we've all been through this. We're probably the best people who can help out. Probably the only people."

"I don't think I did the best I could out there today." Zenith flumped his upper half on the table. The gauntlets felt too tight around his forearms, but he couldn't bring himself to unstrap them. There was a splotch of dull red on the white material and he picked at it. "I screwed up too much in the bridge and the warehouse." He could see the eyes of those with him at the time avert as he spoke.

"Well, uh, we all screwed up on our first runs too." Clara tried to keep the exchange alive after a momentary silence. Void seemed to have passed out on the chairs. The patch of red refused to come out even when he used his claws. "And plus, missions have been getting harder as the years pass. It's been a while since we've had a fight that intense, right?"

"R-right! Plus, I think you did great! It's not as bad as what Solaire did on her first mission. She–"

"And I think you had your chance on the first day," Solaire shot back at Gigi. She grabbed Zenith by the armour handle on his back, pulling him upright and out of his seat. Sorry. "We're done here. Can't let two Eeveelutions talk in peace…"The Espeon paused at the silent thought-apology she'd sent into the Golem's head for a second, and one second was the most she cared to spend on it. Lifting herself and the Dark-type off the ground, she teleported them out of the room with a flick of her ear.

…

"Solaire, I am not in the mood for another… where did you take me? My room?" Zenith peered around the spotless cube, the neatly made fold-down bed and ceiling-high cupboard. He knew that Champions didn't need sleep, but the sight of this familiar layout after such a long day made him weak at the knees.

"No. This is my room." Solaire spoke matter-of-factly. She did not block the Umbreon's path from the bed he stumbled towards, watching him sink into a sloppy sit on her floor with his forehead pressed against her mattress. Quite the sight, and not a pretty one. Her Psychic was gentler now when she pushed him back to sit down on the carpeted floor, his head lifted up to face her. "Now talk."

"I murdered someone." The word didn't sound as foreign in his mouth as before. Zenith unbuckled the bloodstained gauntlet and slid it across the ground. It really was too tight. "How long does it take before I feel okay about it…?"

Solaire sat down across from him, slouched against her bed frame. "That Absol was a casualty of war. She will be mourned, but don't forget what she fought for. What we fight against." She looked at him for his reaction, and of course it hadn't changed on hearing that stock speech. Mewtwo was never one for compassion. She got up and padded closer to the Umbreon, pressing her flank against his armour as she sat back down again. "I figured. That's the official response, anyway. She reminded you of her, didn't she?" She tugged telepathically on the straps of the other bracer, and he lifted his arm to let her undo the weapon.

"Yeah. I feel like I shouldn't be so hung up about her, with Cleo, but…" He hunched over, raising his paws in resignation.

"Well, you shouldn't. And you're not. She was someone you knew, and murdering her likeness won't help, even if it was a Nidoking."

"Well, if it was a Nidoking…"

"Oh~? You're telling me-?" Her expression was more than smug.

"He made my life hell till Cleo came along. Even after! I think he— he'd deserve it."

"Then you should know that the people we fight? The places we've been? They torment Pokemon beyond what you could imagine, Zenith. Tall buildings with no windows, built like prisons on the outside and in. Their victims aren't even aware till it's too late— and the sadists relish everything they do. They have to pay, lives for lives if they must!" The Espeon was getting worked up, pacing around the room in small circles with that angry lashing tail.

"That's why I became a Champion. And if you want to have another chance to see Cleo again, you need to be damn good at what you need to do." Solaire looked up from her rant. Zenith blinked back at her, squished inside a pink rectangular model of a building, surrounded by square walls and barbed wire. "Whoops." She let him go. A pinker blush spread across her muzzle, and he tried his best to avoid seeing—or thinking—about it.

"I guess you're right. About everything." Even Cleo.

"Of course! She's been your character motivation since the beginning. You'd better not lose sight of her, or I swear I'll really make you suffer." Zenith batted the finger wagging in his face. Solaire did make things sound so simple to accomplish, even with all the hurdles could possibly think of in the way. There was also the tiny problem of worldwide memory erasure.

"Hey." She touched her nose to his shoulder. "You'll get there. I didn't start out all great and powerful either. I–" The Espeon gave a quick glance over her shoulder, even though the door had stayed shut the entire time. "I… almost blew up a busload of people on my first mission."

"You what?!"

"Relax! Almost. The others got everyone out before it did anyway," She shuffled her feet nervously at recounting such an embarrassing mistake. "It took me a long time to get this Champion stuff down. Lots of missions. Your turn will come… and don't think I'll be less harsh on you when you do!" There was the Solaire he knew. "Now get your stuff and get outta here, dummy. Take this."

…

Zenith held opposite corners of the pink disc case in his paws, twirling it on his bed. His gear had been returned and safely tucked away into the cupboard.

One hour remaining.

One more hour, and that would be it. The world would forget his face, his memory, his existence as a whole. Nothing else would be fundamentally changed. HIs family and friends would go on with their lives like usual. Happier, hopefully, without knowledge and aftermath of the tragedy that he had enabled.

He sighed. He couldn't even send them a text before it happened, or even see them. Maybe it was for the best. A message left on read or an oblivious, familiar face would probably break his heart.

He sure broke Cleo's heart. At least that would be fixed.

The telecommunicator on his desk beeped.

Dialga: So, how did it go?

Zenith: Not bad for my first, I think. I accidentally killed someone.

Dialga: In the heat of battle, I assume.

His fingers twitched over the keyboard.

Zenith: Yeah.

Dialga: It happens. Do you need someone to talk to about it?

The Umbreon pictured a similarly-sized Dialga sitting at the corner of his bed. That thought got a small smile out of him.

Zenith: No need. I…

Zenith: I know why it had to happen.

Dialga: Good. I have no place for uncertainty in the future. You really have grown since your timid days back on Earth. Even though you are separated from that Vaporeon now, I do appreciate the spine she grew in you since your meeting. You are now a Champion, and I think she would be as proud as I am to see you flourish as one.

Zenith: Thanks, Dialga.

He turned the screen off and wiped the tears from both his eyes. He knew that Champions didn't have to sleep, so this was going to be his last slumber ever.

Besides, he didn't want to be awake for this anyway.

Five seconds remaining.

Four seconds remaining.

Three seconds remaining.

Two seconds remaining.

I don't own Pokemon.

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As of today [Date: CONF], Earth [Assigned S/N: REDACTED] and its living inhabitants [Population: CONF] are no longer aware of the existence of one [1] Zenith Schroff. This is normal. Do not be alarmed by any unfamiliar changes in the continuum.