Interlude 2
The Indigo League Headquarters were located in the center of the large, infamous mountain range known as Victory Road, which ran north to south, coast to coast, neatly bisecting its two halves, Kanto and Johto, into two separate yet distinct wholes. The League had been built in that spot for that exact reason - being in the center of both nations, a part of both and yet apart from both. There was significance to that. Intentionality. Poetry.
It was also annoying as all get out. Victory Road was not easily traversable - that was sort of the point, in so far as the League Conference was concerned - and though they'd built a roadway leading there a few decades past, it was still far removed from the rest of modern society and made the repeated trips one needed to make there if one were the Champion a tedious and boring affair.
At least this time, Ethan hadn't had to make the trip alone. The League had sent him a driver, so he was comfortable enough in the backseat of a spacious luxury vehicle, snacks and drinks provided, as the person behind the wheel wove them deftly through the mountainous roads of eastern Johto, but the trip was hours long and he'd have lost his mind if he'd been forced to make it alone. Accompanying him today were Hilda, the one-time Champion of the Unova League, and his childhood friend Lyra, who had been sent as Professor Elm's representative.
Technically speaking, Professor Elm didn't need to be represented at all, but it was tradition that if one country's League was hosting a conference with representatives from another country's League, that that nation's professor was typically invited along. Since the Indigo League had two professors, this meant that they typically took turns - or at least, they did until the League had split, but AJ hadn't technically taken over yet, so for now, that was a moot point. On the outside, this may look like a compromise of some kind, but Ethan knew that both labs hated the formalities and tended to look for any excuse to foist the job off on the other lab. This time, it was Elm's turn - which meant it was Lyra's turn, because Elm couldn't be bothered.
Lyra was ecstatic, however, and to be fair, she had every right to be. She had virtually no reason to be here and nothing to add, but it was a fairly bold demonstration on Elm's part of how highly he trusted and valued Lyra that he'd send her in his place. Ethan didn't want to bring up that he hadn't wanted to go in the first place and had probably completely forgotten about it already - no need to rain on Lyra's parade.
Kris, however, had been decidedly… less than ecstatic. When he'd called her the morning after the attack in Goldenrod and told her that he was heading to the League with Lyra and an ex-Unovan Champion, she'd jumped right out of bed - where she'd still been sleeping despite it being nearly noon - and began rummaging around for her pants, shouting about how she'd be there right behind him. He had to let her down as gently as he could when he told her she wouldn't be coming along. To say she'd been mad would be an understatement.
The thing is, it's not that he didn't want her to come along, it was just… You can't just tag along to meetings between Leagues like these. Kris was great, but she wasn't… Well, she wasn't a Champion, or a member of the Elite 4, or a Gym Leader, or a representative from a lab, or… really anyone particularly noteworthy, at least not in the sense that he could excuse her presence. Hilda was coming because she'd dealt with Team Plasma twice now, in Unova and in Johto, and potentially had a lot to add to the discussion - plus she was an ex-Champion. It wasn't the same.
Lyra had been acting fairly smug about the whole thing ever since she heard Kris shouting at Ethan during their call that morning. She kept smiling to herself or spontaneously humming like she was in the best of moods, to the delight of her Marill and the confusion of Hilda, who didn't really know her at all and kept shooting her confused looks from her seat to her right. Honestly, it was making things kind of awkward.
Perhaps the worst kept secret in New Bark Town was the enormous crush Lyra had on Ethan. Everybody knew. Ethan knew, and had known since they were kids, since before they'd even left on their journeys. The thing is, he liked Lyra - she was sweet, and funny, and smart, and his best friend… But that was all she was. He didn't have any interest in pursuing anything more and kept hoping she'd take the hint so they didn't have to have any awkward, potentially friendship-ruining conversations, but… Well, so far, no luck.
The ride, which had been a little tense from the get-go - though that was entirely due to the severity of the attack on Goldenrod and his and Hilda's concerns surrounding it - had devolved into silence only a few minutes into the trip, and even now, Ethan remained quiet, gazing out the window at the passing mountains. Lyra had tried a time or two to coax them into talking, but neither had really been in the mood. He supposed he did owe her a thanks, however - the weirdness of her giddiness over Kris's absence was enough to distract him over thoughts of Team Plasma. That was a silver lining of sorts. Right?
He glanced towards her when her Marill let out an indignant shout because Lyra wouldn't let her play on her tablet, then accidentally met Lyra's gaze and returned her beatific smile with one of his own that he really did try to make seem natural before returning his gaze out the window. If it seemed forced and fake, well… He'd feign car sickness.
She'd become more obvious in her affections ever since Kris had started hanging around with him. Though to be fair, she had sort of come out of nowhere.
Ethan had met Kris for the first time during the finals of the League Conference match that would eventually lead to him becoming the Champion. He'd never even heard of her before their match, but she was easily the toughest opponent he'd faced in his journeys up until that point, with a beast of a Feraligatr who seemed to be able to tank most of what came at him and pay it back with equal fervor. The match had come down to their last pokemon each, his Typhlosion just barely managing to overpower her Mismagius. He'd won, she'd lost.
He remembered shaking her hand after the match, caught up in the whirlwind that was the cheering from the stands and the flashing of cameras, and she looked equal parts pissed at having lost and exhilarated over the tight match. She thanked him for the fight - her voice tight, trying to reign in her disappointment and be professional in front of the roaring crowds, but then he was swept away by reporters and the excitement and the thrill of what was to come next, and the trainer named Kris disappeared from his mind entirely.
At least until a couple of weeks later, when he'd been at a bar in Goldenrod on a Saturday night, a few weeks before he was planning to set off on a months-long journey to prepare for his official challenge to the Elite 4.
He'd been sitting at the bar, snacking on some nuts, absently watching a baseball match as the team with the Electabuzz pattern - he didn't follow baseball so he didn't know their names - lost handily to a team whose mascot was a Starmie.
He wasn't drunk, but he was just tipsy enough to find the idea of an Electabuzz losing to a Starmie humorous, and it was right around that time that a mug was placed on the bar beside him with a bit too much force, the clack startling him enough to make him literally jump in his seat, and he turned to find the stool beside him being pulled out and Kris sitting down beside him.
And she just started talking to him. Casually. Like they'd known each other for years. Like them meeting up again that evening wasn't a random twist of fate but instead something planned, something they'd both intended on happening. Ethan wasn't shy, but he'd never met anyone as assertive and extroverted as Kris was. There was a sort of wildness about her, a sense of freedom. She was like a thunderstorm - beautiful and terrifying all at once.
Minutes turned into hours which somehow turned into him waking up in his apartment hung-over wearing only his socks and his hat. She was sleeping beside him.
And from that moment on, she was just… part of his life. She wasn't always around of course - after taking the title of Champion, he often found himself being sent all over the region, and she was still fully dedicated to journeying, meaning she'd often disappear to one place or another, sometimes for weeks or months on end. But she always came back. And he was always happier when she was there.
They weren't… dating. Or at least, neither of them had ever actually talked about it. Kris wasn't big into labels and Ethan honestly didn't care. But his mother had referred to her as his girlfriend once a few months after they'd officially met, and he hadn't had the guts to correct her. The fact that he'd never called her his girlfriend was probably a contributing factor in Lyra's continued attention.
Thankfully, it wasn't long after that that they arrived at their destination, and the trio and Lyra's Marill exited the vehicle, awkwardly stretching and shaking out their limbs after being trapped in the back of a car for the past four hours. He really needed to look into getting a private plane, or helicopter, or something - something like what Diantha had. It had always sounded so pretentious to him before he had the job, but now that he was constantly being whisked all over the country… Well, he could see the need.
League Headquarters had always seemed needlessly austere and stiff to Ethan. When you thought of the League, you thought of excitement, of epic battles and larger-than-life pokemon. And sure, the actual Stadium itself, which was several kilometers down the mountain, surrounded by a small town that mostly consisted of hotels and restaurants that thrived purely off of the few times a year when competitions were held, was all of that and more.
But the League Headquarters always felt somewhat disappointing to Ethan. He remembered being so excited to visit for the first time - and then getting there and realizing that it was basically a glorified office building full of boring men and women typing away at computers. Oh, it looked grand - massive marble staircase flanked with ornate statues of Nidoking and Nidoqueen leading to an opulent pair of darkly-lacquered double-doors set into a building that seemed to have been hewn out of the stone of the mountain itself, the building certainly made for a pretty picture for brochures and news articles and the like. But he'd rather be down at the Stadium itself if it were up to him.
There wasn't much room for conversation now as they were greeted by someone he didn't know - a receptionist? Secretary? Her name tag said 'Felicia', so a that, then - and were herded up the grand staircase and into the building proper.
The funny thing about being the Champion was that your average person thought you were the person in charge of running the League, except… Well, that's not how it worked at all. Imagine if any rando could suddenly take over the entire League and start changing the rules up just because they were good at battling. Being good at battling did not mean you had what it took to run and organize the entire League. You needed schooling for that. A different set of skills and wits. If being the Champion suddenly meant you were in charge of all of that, no one would want to do it.
Being Champion was more like being the star player on an internationally famous sports team. You were the face of it, you directly impacted whether your team succeeded or failed, you held all the notoriety and fame and brought in all the money - but there was a whole team of people behind the scenes who did most of the work. Organizing tournaments, setting up policy, managing gyms - the Champion assisted with these things, but they weren't in charge of it. The League was run by a bunch of boring business people and government officials, and while they would run ideas by him and Lance or come to them for endorsements or support, there was a pretty large gulf in the League itself between the battlers and the pencil pushers - and they both tended to look down their noses at each other. It made being here feel even more stifling than it already would have.
Inside, they were forced to shake hands and exchange greetings with several people who he barely knew, then, after riding an elevator up three stories and heading down two hallways and making a pitstop at the restroom, they had finally - finally - arrived at their destination.
The Conference Room - capital letters for this one, as it was the big one - was honestly a bit too lavish for Ethan's taste. It had clearly been furnished by Lance some years passed, and the man had always had a very… particular sense of style.
The walls were covered in rich, purple wallpaper with golden filigree, and the carpet was a deep scarlet - both Lance's favorite colors, as seen in his traditional Champion attire. The center of the room was taken up by a truly massive octagonal table of hand-carved mahogany, darkly lacquered and shining brilliantly beneath a ridiculously ornate golden chandelier, the arms of which seemed to be made up of tiny, twisting Dratinis. And to complete the dragon theme, there were ornate busts of Dragonite and Kingdra and Charizard lining the walls.
Ethan found himself wondering, as he pulled out a chair and took a seat, if he could convince AJ to redecorate now that Lance was retiring. He hoped so. He always felt so out-of-place here, like it was Lance's Conference Room, not the Conference Room meant for both Champions of the Indigo League.
Hilda and Lyra took seats on either side of him, facing the back wall. Currently, the wall matched the same color and design as the wallpaper that covered the rest of the room, but Ethan knew from previous experiences that the wall was actually one large screen, and once the call started, it would switch to showing the video image or images of the person or persons he was speaking to. Just above the wall, attached to the ceiling, was a small video camera, the techy kind that would automatically adjust its zoom to fit the number of people sitting at the table.
As they sat, Ethan slid his palm across the tabletop, and a hidden screen embedded in the table flickered to life. He typed a few things in, getting everything set up, then with a quick word to his companions to let them know it was starting, he sent the call.
There was a pause, then the screen that was the back wall winked on and Ethan found himself looking at the face of Unova's newest Champion, Iris.
She grinned her thousand-watt trademark grin and waved at him energetically through the camera.
"Ethan! Hiya! Long time!"
"Not that long," he said with a small chuckle. "We did just talk the other day."
Talking to Iris always made Ethan feel more relaxed. Part of this was due to her overly friendly personality - something which should maybe have seemed odd coming from a woman in her early thirties who unironically dressed in princess pink, yet somehow just seemed to work for her - but part of it was also because Iris had become the Champion shortly after he had, and both of them being the 'new kids on the block', so to speak, had made it easy to relate to one another.
Iris smiled again - her smiles always seemed so genuine, it was easy to see why she was so popular in Unova - and then her gaze flicked to take in the people sitting on either side of Ethan, and her eyes seemed to bug out.
At his side, Hilda winced and offered up a sheepish wave.
"Uh… Hey there, Iris-"
"Hilda?! Is that…?! Why are…?!" She spluttered for a moment, basically incoherent, before finishing with a dramatic, "You're alive!"
Hilda laughed softly, shaking her head with a smile that was equal parts sheepish and amused.
"Of course I'm alive. You didn't really think I was dead, did you?"
"Well, no, but… I mean, when you ghost me like that, what was I supposed to think? It's been ages! What are you doing in Johto?!"
"That, uh… That's kind of a long story. Now's not the time. Maybe we can talk about that later…?"
"Yeah, yeah," Iris said, rolling her eyes, though there was a playfulness there to show she wasn't really annoyed. "The others should be here in a second anyway and we'll have to get started, but after, you owe me a call."
"The others?" Ethan said, butting in. What others? He's set this call up between Johto and Unova exclusively. No one else had been invited.
Iris smacked herself in the forehead.
"Oh, shoot. That's right - Ethan, sorry, I meant to give you a heads-up, but things have been kinda crazy around here. We've got some more guests coming. I think they should be - oh, nevermind, here they are!"
And before Ethan could ask who she was talking about, the window showing Iris's video capture shrunk down a bit as several other windows began popping up across the wall - something that should not be happening, not unless you had specific clearance to just jump into an inter-league conference call - and one by one, they winked into life
All at once, Ethan found himself greeted by the faces of Cynthia, Steven, Leon, Diantha, and Geeta - as well as an older man he didn't recognize with salt-and-pepper hair and a long brown trench coat. What had started as a relatively small inter-league conference call had just become a full-on summit meeting. And he had not been not prepared.
He looked to Cynthia first - because everyone looked to Cynthia first, how could you not - and she smirked.
"Hey there, Golden Boy. Sorry for dropping in unannounced."
He smiled back weakly and tried his best to return her greeting without stammering.
He'd met Cynthia before - a few times, in fact - and while he'd managed to get past being starstruck in person, anyone would need a second if she just popped out at you out of nowhere. She was in her mid-to-late fifties now, her once famous golden hair now sporting a silvery sheen, but the lines on her face and the crinkles in her eyes only served to make her look weathered, not weak. Every ounce of her being exuded strength. There was a reason why she was considered the face of pokemon battling.
It still annoyed him when she called him 'Golden Boy', though.
He let his eyes scan the faces of his peers as they exchanged their typical pleasantries, with him and with one another. It was funny how this gathering of some of the most influential and powerful people in the world could sport so many disparate personalities.
Leon, Iris, and Cynthia were all smiles - Leon's confident and toothy, Iris's sweet and bubbly, Cynthia's crooked and sarcastic. Geeta nodded with detached politeness as though she were at a business meeting, whereas Diantha's nod seemed as though it came from a queen on high. Steven was barely paying attention, fiddling with something on his desk, as absent-minded as ever.
If Ethan was being honest with himself, despite having held the title of Champion of Johto for a few years now, he still felt a little out-of-place among his fellow Champions. This was because - at least until just recently - he'd been the youngest. At least in terms of age, though really, it was length of time in station that ought to matter most. It never seemed to, though, at least not to the press.
While no individual Champion was considered 'above' any of the others, with each of them holding the same station and authority in their collective alliance, there was still this sort of idea prevalent in the world that older Champions - that is, ones who'd held their title the longest - were given more respect and their actions and opinions carried more weight. And it was hard for him to shake that mindset, even now. It was like, subconsciously, he wanted to defer to their every opinion, despite him needing to stand up and represent Johto on his own merits.
The Champions could basically be divided into two groups - commonly called the 'Old Guard' and the 'New Guard'. The Old Guard were the well-known Champions, the ones who'd held their titles for decades and were famous the world over. Cynthia, Steven, Diantha, and, until recently, Lance. It was meeting these living legends that had taught Ethan that there was more to being Champion than beating the one who came before you. You couldn't just earn the title. You had to hold it. Prove that you could stand the test of time. Only then could you really claim that you were one of the best.
The New Guard were the Champions who had only won their titles in the last five years or so, which obviously included Ethan. The big name among them, the one who seemed destined to go the distance, who was the talk of the proverbial town, was Leon from Galar. It was speculated by many that he would rise to take Cynthia's place one day as the 'best of the best', and some thought that day wasn't far off. Other names among the New Guard aside from himself included AJ and Iris.
There were also technically two outliers within their international alliance - the Alola Region, who was still setting up their League and didn't have an official Champion just yet, and the Paldea Region, which… Well, they had a Champion - her name was Geeta, and she was nice enough. But she was also clearly not on the same level as the other Champions, usually losing in the first round whenever there was an Inter-League Charity Conference.
But Paldea did things a little differently than most. Their League wasn't a meritocracy - that is, the Champion wasn't the trainer who had overcome all obstacles and risen to the occasion. Instead, their Champion was elected. By the governing board who ran Naranja Academy - arguably the most famous and prestigious academy in the entire world, whose alumni included almost every big-name professor or doctor or researcher in the last few centuries. But it wasn't a school for battling, so the Paldea Region wasn't exactly known for producing top-tier Champions.
One of the big reasons that the New Guard was often given less respect came down to that question of longevity. Statistically, most Champions didn't hold their title for more than those first five years. There were a lot of reasons for why - lack of experience, inability to cope with the pressure, etc. - but the biggest seemed to be that Champions, on average, received more Challenge requests in their first five years than they did in any given year following that. This was because not every trainer who took first place in the League Conference went on to battle the Champion, and what deterred most of them was lack of confidence, usually inspired by the thought of having to face the active Champion.
But there was a big difference between battling Lance, the Dragon Master, who'd held the title of Champion for literal decades, and battling Ethan, random nobody from New Bark Town, who'd held the title for 3 years. Challengers who'd won at the League Conference years ago but never had the guts to face Lance, or who couldn't make it past the Elite 4 previously, would suddenly come crawling out of the woodwork when a new Champion took their seat.
"So," Ethan said brusquely once the pleasantries were over - honestly, having everyone's attention suddenly turn to him made him feel suddenly claustrophobic, but this was his meeting, after all, and he wasn't about to back down now - "to what do I owe the pleasure of… Well, all of you joining us."
Were they that interested in what had happened in Goldenrod? It was big news, to be sure - but they could have read about that in the paper, or just given him a call or shot him an email. All of them inviting themselves to his meeting with Iris with no warning felt a bit odd. Were they all just that bored?
Diantha quirked a brow.
"Has no one told him…?"
Iris laughed nervously and scratched the back of her head.
"Ahaha, sorry - I didn't have a chance. It was all so sudden-"
"Then let's get you up to speed," Cynthia interjected, suddenly all business. He knew she was just looking at her camera, but her piercing gaze seemed to tear straight through him. "Your attack on Goldenrod - it wasn't an isolated incident. There were several more this morning, stretched across nearly every other region in the alliance."
Ethan went still. There were multiple attacks? All just this morning?! How was this the first he was hearing about-! But no, of course - he'd spent the morning traveling to Victory Road, he hadn't been watching the news. He'd missed it.
Hilda sat forward, looking intense.
"Team Plasma launched attacks on multiple different regions, simultaneously? How? They don't have the manpower - and what would even be the point?"
"Not Team Plasma," Diantha corrected curtly. "The attacks were carried out by individuals sporting the names of multiple infamous criminal organizations, some of which have been thought to have been dead and buried for years, now suddenly revived."
"Both Sinnoh and Unova were hit by people claiming to be from Team Rocket," Iris said. "The police weren't able to detain anyone, but the damage was minimal - they showed up on Victory Island, which doesn't really have much of a population at all, so we're not sure what they were after. The attack didn't last long."
"They hit us in Snowpoint," Cynthia said, practically in a growl. "By the time I got there, the attack had already ended. Candice - the gym leader - ran the punks out of town without too much trouble, but some superficial damage was done to the front of Snowpoint Temple, an important cultural and historical site. Per the police, 'their motives are still unclear'."
She bit out that last bit with particular venom. The mysterious salt-and-pepper man who hadn't spoken up until this point shifted uncomfortably.
Ethan's fists had clenched on the tabletop. Team Rocket was back. He could still remember, vividly, the damage they'd done up at the Lake of Rage, the pokemon they'd abducted and abused in Mahogany Town. And now they'd left the Indigo League and started making messes Sinnoh and Unova? Why? Did they think they'd have a better chance over there?
"And that's not all," said Leon, chiming in. "We got a surprise visit, too - from a group calling themselves Team Magma, who I understand had some sort of gang war in Hoenn a few decades ago, is that right? They seem like a bunch of clowns to me, but that didn't stop them from tearing up my hometown of Postwick. Mostly just destroyed some crops, but they tried to set the Slumbering Weald ablaze for some reason. Luckily, my kid brother and his friend were in town and were able to stop them, but most of them got away."
"And we received the other half of the bumbling duo," Diantha added. "Team Aqua, or whatever they call themselves. They're an embarrassment - to society, to fashion sense, and to the art of pokemon battling. They tried to cause a fuss in Anistar, but were quickly trounced by our very own gym leader, Olympia, before they could do much more than startle a few people."
Ethan's jaw had actually fallen open. Not just Plasma and Rocket, but Aqua and Magma as well? Was the world going mad?!
His eyes flicked to Geeta, who still hadn't spoken, and she smiled a very polite and insincere sort of business smile.
"Our Academy received a visit from some people calling themselves Team Flare, but there wasn't so much an attack as a disturbance. They tried to break into the library and were escorted out by security. They also… may have attempted to kidnap one of our teachers, Professor Raifort, on her way home from school that day, but the attempt was thwarted by some of our students."
So that made five. All that was left was Hoenn.
There was a lull in the conversation, and after a few seconds, Steven glanced up from whatever it was he'd been working on.
"Hmm? Oh, yes - we had a visit as well. From Team Galactic. Not the friendlies of groups. There was a bit of a tussle out in Pacifilodge - small community, rather quaint. No one was terribly injured. I'd been in the area at the time, and… well, it ended rather quickly."
At that, he shrugged as if it hadn't been anything worth mentioning. The Galactic Grunts who had had to deal with his Metagross would probably beg to differ.
Ethan shook his head slowly, staring into nothing. This… This was madness. He had not been prepared to deal with this today.
"But why?" Lyra finally asked, speaking for the first time and breaking the silence. "Other than the fact that there were attacks, there don't appear to be any points of commonality. Was anyone able to determine what they were after?"
"No other areas were on the receiving end of nearly as much destruction as what you experienced in Goldenrod," Leon answered. "Most of what we had to deal with were basically small-time riots, and other than you and Steven, no other Champions were involved in ending the attacks. Most weren't even handled by Gym Leaders. They were all small-time - except for yours, which from the sounds of it, was quite a bit more intense."
"We can't even confirm that they are in fact working together," Diantha added. "Though it seems silly at this point to assume otherwise. To my knowledge - and please, do correct me if I am mistaken - but none of these attacks seemed to have been led by anyone we know to be or have been a leading member of any of these organizations. "
"Not that we know of," said the salt-and-pepper man. His voice was curt and rough, and he looked haggard, like he hadn't been getting proper sleep. "It's unfortunate that we didn't have more Champions on the scene - it's not anyone's fault, of course, and I'm grateful that none of the incidents were as bold as the one in Goldenrod, but we're lacking in reliable first-hand accounts. What witnesses we do have don't seem to know much about who these organizations even are. For now, we can't be certain who is in charge."
"Diantha's right, though," Hilda said. "They've got to be working together, right? I mean, there's no way that multiple debunked criminal organizations from the past all decided to revive themselves within a couple of days of one another and launch attacks on every region in the alliance by pure happenstance."
"Not every region."
Ethan turned as the door to the Conference Room swung open and in marched Lance followed closely by Professor Gary Oak. Gary Oak had come? Why? Wasn't it Elm's turn?
He was greeted by a chorus of hellos from the other Champions on the monitor. Lyra moved as though to give him her seat, but he waved her down and pulled out a chair on the other side of Hilda, Professor Oak taking the next seat down so there were now five of them facing the monitors. The camera zoomed out so that they were all included.
"Hey," Cynthia said loudly so as to be heard over the others,"what are you doing here, Lance? Shouldn't you be retired? And where's the new kid? I wanted to meet her."
From her tone, you could barely tell they'd just been talking about something as serious as what basically boiled down to multiple simultaneous international terrorist attacks. Then again, Cynthia didn't seem the type to be cowed by anything. A tsunami could be bearing down on her and she'd probably stand her ground and expect it to turn around. It probably would.
Lance shot Cynthia an exasperated smile.
"Two more weeks," he said, scooting his chair in closer to the table and touching it with his palm so that a screen pulled up for him to fiddle with. "After that, I have a reservation booked at a lovely spa and resort in the Orange Islands. As for Miss AJ, we… don't actually know where she is."
Here, he pulled a disgruntled face.
"I called her this morning, but didn't receive an answer. According to her mother, who's on my - er, Kanto's Elite Four, she left a note with her grandmother saying she was going on a trip and would be back soon. That's all we know."
Diantha scoffed.
"Don't tell me we've had another young Champion turn tail and flee."
Hilda stiffened in her chair and stared daggers at the older woman, but she affected not to notice.
"No," said Professor Oak quickly. "She's with my son and their other friend, Jade. He left me a note; apparently, they went off for one last hurrah before AJ officially takes over for Lance." Here, Ethan could see Cynthia and Leon nodding as though that made perfect sense to them. "Though I admit," he continued, "I don't know where they went or why they're not answering."
"They're on Mt. Silver," Ethan chimed in, and at Oak's surprised look, he continued. "They actually came to see me a couple days ago to petition for approval to go up there, since it's restricted - though AJ didn't actually need it, since she's an Indigo League Champion now herself. I've been up there before, too - the mountain does something wonky to radio signals. She probably never received any messages."
Gary Oak nodded thoughtfully, though Lance slapped the table lightly with his palm as though to signal that was the end of that and said, brusquely, "Regardless, she isn't here now, so let's focus on what needs doing. To correct one misconception that I heard as I walked in, not every region was subject to an unprovoked attack by a criminal organization. Kanto remains unaffected. There have been no reports or any organized criminal activity at this time."
That caught Ethan by surprise. Somehow, he hadn't even thought about Kanto, despite it being right next door.
"What about Alola?" Iris asked. "I know they don't have their own Champion yet, but they're part of the alliance now. Has anyone heard from them?"
"I gave Kukui a call this morning," Professor Oak said. "He says there's been nothing out of the ordinary so far, but he's got the island kahunas on high alert. Though, with their population being as small as it is, I can't help but feel like they would have noticed a group of strangers showing up out of nowhere."
"Ok then," Lyra said quickly, sitting up straight and trying not to stare at Professor Oak. He knew her well enough to know that she was trying to put on a good show for him so he'd think she was useful and impressive. "We've had multiple attacks in various regions, excluding Kanto and Alola, of varying degrees of severity. What's the common thread? What's the goal?"
At that, no one spoke. There was a pause during which Ethan could practically see the wheels turning in everyone's minds.
Finally, Steven spoke up, almost absent-mindedly.
"Perhaps, instead of looking for commonalities, we should instead be looking for outliers. Ethan, the attack on Goldenrod was not only the first, but also the most severe. Can you tell us more about it? Perhaps we can glean something from that."
So he did, giving a truncated account of the events, with Hilda occasionally chiming in with additional details. He was visiting with Hilda who had happened to be in the country to talk about the recent increase in Team Plasma activity in the region. Then, there'd been an explosion, and when they went to investigate, the city was under attack.
The damages were widespread and extensive. Multiple buildings set ablaze, shops or office buildings ransacked, millions worth of property damages, random civilians assaulted on the streets, dozens of people and pokemon hospitalized for injuries of varying degrees of severity.
But most of the damage seemed to be almost random, and it was his opinion that much of the attack had been a distraction meant to pull the police and Whitney's attention away from the true target of their attack - Goldenrod's Radio Tower.
"They destroyed the antenna on top of the building," Ethan said. "Radio signals are still out in much of central Johto, to my understanding, though they should be back up in a day or two. Other than just causing general mayhem and stealing some things from the Radio Tower, I don't know what the point of the attack was."
"What did they steal?"
"Just some technical components - transceivers and… Look, I'm not a radio or… mechanical engineering kinda guy, I don't really know what they are. But I have a list if you'd-"
But Steven was already nodding, somewhat impatiently, so Ethan pulled up his screen on the table again and began tapping on it. In a few seconds, he'd sent the report he'd been given along to everyone else.
While they looked it over, he added, "Team Rocket had targeted the Radio Tower once before, when I was just starting out as a trainer. But when they did it, it was reportedly because they were looking to contact their old leader, Giovanni, who had disappeared some time before. Seemed like a kind of desperate move at the time, but… Well, it is what it is. As far as I know, or knew, that was the end of it."
Steven was frowning down at the list of stolen goods as though he were trying to read a foreign language.
"Nothing here looks to be particularly worth stealing to me," he mumbled, almost to himself. "I don't see what the point would be… Well, unless you wanted to build your own radio tower and were too lazy to source the materials yourself, but why not? It would certainly be more circumspect. And why not just take over the Radio Tower again if your goal was to hijack the airwaves a second time?"
"Did you notice anything else in the attack?" Leon asked. "Anything at all? Even something minor could be the clue we need to unravel this mystery."
Ethan shook his head, glancing over at Hilda to see if she had anything else to say. She was scowling at the table, and for a moment, he thought she was reading the list over too, only her screen had dimmed due to lack of interaction. She was staring into space.
Iris seemed to have noticed as well, because she asked, "Hilda? You ok? You've been staring off into space for a while now."
Hilda's head jerked upright at the sound of her name, but her face remained concerned.
"No, it's just… Well, I mean… Iris, did you say there was an attack at Liberty Island?"
"Yup," she replied. "Very little damage, no real injuries sustained. Team Rocket didn't stick around for long. Not sure what they were after. Why do you ask?"
Hilda bit her lip, looking unsure, then sighed and shook her head.
"Look, this could be nothing, ok? But at the end of the attack, the antenna atop the Radio Tower broke and fell onto the street. I was forced to call out my Reshiram to catch it before killed everyone."
Ethan nodded along, the memory playing out in his head of that majestic pure-white creature rocketing into the air in a blaze of blue fire. Very few trainers in the world could claim to have seen, let alone actually caught, a legendary pokemon. And in the chaos of everything that had happened, he'd somehow forgotten that he was sitting right next to one of those lucky few.
"Someone had exited the Radio Tower then," Hilda continued. "He was this… older guy. Short, gray hair, funny glasses. He said something to me that I hadn't really paid attention to at the time, but…"
"What'd he say?"
Hilda shrugged uncomfortably. "That as long as I had 'that' - Reshiram - I'd be seeing them again."
She looked around. "I mean, I have a legendary pokemon and they're a gang of thieves, of course they'd say something like that. But if we're looking for potential points of commonality, then Iris, that attack on Liberty Island…"
Iris blinked, then opened her eyes in surprise.
"You think they're looking for legendary pokemon?"
It was Ethan's turn to frown. 'Looking for legendary pokemon' wasn't a realistic goal for anyone to have - especially not when they were talking about the potential union of multiple infamous crime syndicates. It was such an egregious waste of money and manpower, it made his head spin.
Lance seemed to be having similar thoughts, because he turned to Hilda with a skeptical set to his face as he said, "I'm not as familiar with the legends and myths of Unova, but even supposing there are stories about a legendary pokemon on this - Liberty Island? - Even so, it seems like this may be a stretch."
"Actually," Steven chimed in, looking thoughtful, "she may not be far off. Pacifilodge Town doesn't have any stories of its own, but it's the closest settlement to the tower where Rayquaza is said to appear."
"And Magma attacked the Slumbering Weald," Leon added. "If their goal had been to force the guardian deities from legends to appear, that would explain their strange behaviors."
"As far as I know," Professor Oak said, "every location that was attacked either has a legend associated with it, or is the closest location to one. The exception would be Naranja Academy, unless Miss Geeta knows something I don't."
All eyes turned to Geeta, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"There are no legends involving mythical pokemon in the Academy itself, no," she said. Then, after a moment, added, "Though the teacher who was nearly kidnapped is our history professor, and she's the foremost expert on the legendary pokemon in the region. Perhaps, if this is truly the reason, that is why they targeted her?"
"It would also potentially explain why Kanto was ignored," Ethan said, suddenly jumping on the bandwagon. "Kanto doesn't really have many stories of legendary pokemon, does it?"
"It doesn't explain Alola, though," Iris interjected. "They've got guardian deity pokemon out the wazoo, with some of the highest incidences of sightings in any region in the alliance. You'd think they'd try to start there first."
"Hold on," Lance said, raising his voice and holding up his hands to silence the back-and-forth. "We're making a great deal of assumptions here based purely off of what could honestly be a coincidence. Let's try to keep an open mind."
"I'm with Lance," Cynthia said. "Not that targeting legendaries is anything new, of course, but that doesn't explain why all of these organizations are striking in tandem now, or why they all randomly switched countries. Hilda, can you tell us anything else? Anything else that might stand out?"
But Hilda shook her head.
"Honestly, no. Other than that I didn't know who that guy was, despite him seemingly being the one in charge of the attack. I'd faced off with most of Team Plasma's leaders just a couple years ago, so I should have recognized him, meaning he's probably new. Other than that, all I know is he's a short, old man with funny orange glasses and he called himself Charon-"
Cynthia's hand slammed down on her desk so loudly that everyone in the call jumped.
"Charon? You sure about this, he said he was Charon?!"
"Uh, y-yeah. Why? Do you know him?"
But it was Mr. Salt-and-Pepper who spoke up.
"Charon - also known as Pluto, the head scientist of Team Galactic. He somehow managed to escape in the aftermath of the incident in Sinnoh a few years back. We never caught him."
Cynthia was snarling now.
"So he's with Plasma now, eh?"
Everyone stared at her for a moment, as though wondering if she was going to mega-evolve into some terrifying new creature and go on a rampage.
After a beat, Diantha said, "Well, I suppose this is evidence that the groups are indeed working together. Not that there was really any doubt."
"Yeah, but it still doesn't tell us what they're after," said Iris, and Leon shrugged.
"We'll figure it out when we figure it out. For now, I say we take the idea Hilda suggested and get our Elite Four and Gym Leaders organized to keep an eye on any areas with any myths or history involving legendary pokemon. Just to be safe."
"But we still don't know that that's actually what they're after," Geeta interjected, but Steven cut her off.
"Even if it's not, even if it's just a distraction, it can still inform us of where they're likely to strike next. Regardless, organizing our Leagues should be the obvious next step."
"In that case," Lance said, "and until we know more, I think Kanto should volunteer to send some of its Elite Four down to Alola. We have the fewest myths pertaining to legendaries, and Alola has some of the highest, at least in terms of density. If the legendaries are the targets, then we have less to fear than most.
"I could wish that AJ were here to assist, but… I'll send Bruno and Koga to back them up, and if AJ returns, I'll send her as well. WIth any luck, we'll be able to capture someone in one of these raids and we'll be able to figure out who's behind this and what their real motives are. For now, however… All we can do is prepare."
"And don't forget," Professor Oak chimed in as the Champions readied themselves to end the conference call. "If you know of any other trainers in your regions like Hilda who have captured a legendary pokemon, find them and offer them protection. There aren't many, but they'll probably be targeted soon."
Suddenly, Hilda let out a groan at his side, slumping forward and placing her head in her hands.
Ethan smiled sympathetically. The idea of having bodyguards clearly wasn't her idea of a good time.
"You probably don't need protection yourself, considering you're basically a Champion," he said. "And even if you do, you can just hang out with me for a bit. Unless you think I'm that annoying."
Hilda shook her head morosely.
"No, it's not… It's not that. I just…" She sighed again, then dragged her fingers down her face dramatically until they were only covering her mouth. She was staring up at Iris, who was looking back at her in confusion.
"I have to make a phone call. And Iris… You'll need to send someone out to Castella City. Someone with a lot of patience."
"Wait, I do?" she asked, looking more confused than ever. "Why? What's in Castella City?"
"My twin brother," Hilda grumped, pulling out her pokegear. "And the world's biggest brat. He's gonna need your protection."