Lance led Ash down a starkly lit hallway, white, sterile and painfully clean save for the sickening feel of corruption radiating from the walls. Most might only sense a faint unease, the prickle of anxiety upon their neck and a strange stirring in their gut, but Ash saw deeper than most.

Distortion laced the stone corridor, bleeding through the physical with ease, but did not touch the braziers of aurelian flame which hung upon the walls in strange contrast to the modernity of the facility.

Ash saw them for what they were, felt their essence as if they were his own. The Feather upon his chest burned brighter, the rainbow briefly drowned out by molten gold.

"Hello, Chinatsu," Ash said quietly, briefly torn from his dark thoughts as he traced his fingers through the dancing fires. They only warmed him, stirring his blood, and banished a bit of the chill which had bitten deep into his soul with Lance's revelation. "I've been meaning to come down to your grotto."

The flames burned bright, imparting their acknowledgement, and for a moment Ash felt silken fur beneath his fingertips.

Lance winced at the display, no doubt well-aware that Chinatsu's essence may have given him a bit more of a bite. Talk about holding grudges…

"Chinatsu emerges here every day to open a new rift," Lance said quietly. His shoulders were still tense beneath his cape. The flame embedded in his wrist cast him in firelight. "The Distortion shrouds this place. When we realized the Rockets had such a powerful psychic at their command—"

Mewtwo snarled in the back of Ash's mind.

"—we knew that we had to create a facility for high-value prisoners and data. I doubt it would stand up to direct inspection from something like Mewtwo—

It doesn't!

Mewtwo seemed genuinely offended, sour at the fact such a secret had gone beneath his nose.

"—but it proved its value again and again. We've kept a few prisoners here still just in case, but Giovanni is its main denizen," Lance said. He came to a pause as they approached the door at the end of the bright hallway, staring for a long moment at the golden flame which flickered above. The man's face twisted suddenly as he was bathed in the torch's flickering light. "What am I doing?"

"What?"

"I…this is my burden to bear," Lance said, turning to face Ash. He looked older in that moment, the visage of the twenty eight year old he was buried entirely beneath the stresses of his mantle. His face contorted into a full grimace. "I've carried so much hate, Ash—it's gotten the best of me. Steven would kill me if he knew about this. I never should have brought you here!"

"Lance, I thought Giovanni was dead," Ash said flatly. "I thought he was behind me. Now I need to see what he's become. There's not a world where I can rest until I do. Not a time, either."

Lance hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Very well. But the responsibility of life and death…that shouldn't be yours to bear. Do you understand me?"

Drake Lance was slowly falling away, replaced by the warm man that Ash knew his mentor to be. The roaring dragon remembered his human mind, though the cinders of his fury were still plain as day. Ash loved him for that.

Ash was still lost in thought, still angry, still full of hate and curiosity and a dozen other things. Lance might take solace in knowing his bitterest enemy was laid down in a hospital bed, a shadow of his former self.

But Ash's own monster was just behind that door. And based on the flood of emotions blazing across his bond with Mewtwo—fury, the deepest hate, a trickle of fear, and the sense of feeling terribly small—Ash wasn't the only one.

Ash took a deep breath, steeling himself. "I'm ready."

Lance looked down upon him, a frown on his lips, but finally nodded. "Would you like me to come in with you?"

"Please," Ash said tightly. His fingers curled into fists. "Just…tell me what happened, okay?"

"I will. Just…get ready. Take a breath."

Lance patted him reassuringly on his shoulder, opened the door, and guided him into the hospital room. It was blindingly white, but Ash couldn't focus on that, not when he nearly wretched upon entering.

"Agh!" Ash stumbled back. His stomach churned, his skin crawled, and the Feather went mute upon his chest for an instant before Ash's own will brought it raging back to sear away the miasma which clung to him like a Sludge Bomb. He snarled for a moment as power filled him, banishing the achingly familiar corruption that sought to suffocate him. "What is that?"

Even Lance's mighty visage seemed to crumple for a moment in the face of the darkness which collapsed upon them. For all the hospital's blinding whiteness, the shadow which filled its air and essence left the physical light a shallow thing.

Ash couldn't see here. Not with his soul.

Mewtwo's connection flitted out of existence for an instant before it returned with a roaring azure vengeance, tearing through the darkness like a knife through butter.

For a moment Ash thought it was Chinatsu's portals to an alien world, the mechanism by which she'd shrouded this location from the most dangerous of prying eyes. But the sheer weight of the force, the foul tinge upon his tongue and the black whisper in his ears and the blight upon their spirits…this was beyond Chinatsu.

Hauntingly similar to—

"Terrible, isn't it?" Lance smiled grimly, carefully ushering Ash forward with a sturdy hand upon his shoulder. They stepped into the hospital room together. "Like nothing we've ever encountered before. Even Agatha could barely stand it."

Before them laid a barren hospital room, utterly silent save for the steady beeping of monitors and a clinic's worth of medical equipment. There was a bed with cotton sheets draped over a shriveled form. For a moment Ash barely recognized it as human, but his stomach turned as he realized just what—who—he was looking at.

Details were scarce from this distance, but Lance's presence bolstered him.

"What is it?" Ash whispered. Every step closer made the room feel darker, more twisted. Less tangible. Every breath was labored, but Ash couldn't tell if that was from his own anxiety or the tangible dread which rolled out from Giovanni's prone body. "That power…"

Lance strode forward. "I'd hoped you'd know," he admitted, before peeling back the cloth covering Giovanni's half-corpse. Ash hissed at the sight of his nightmare, wishing at once to step back and leave and to run forward and throttle the bastard who'd taken so much from his mother, from Sam, from Gary and Daisy, from Seeker, from Silver, from Infernus…the list went on forever.

Had Giovanni ever known how to do anything but take? All he'd ever done was hurt others, to siphon off the world's light to brighten his own.

And look what it had earned him!

"He looks so small" Ash said faintly as Lance extended his hand to him, flickering with golden flame. He took his place by Lance's side, more grateful than ever for his mentor, and stared down at Giovanni. "I thought he was bigger."

The bastard's skin was paler than Ash remembered, once tan, now layered with white scar tissue and what seemed like poorly-healed burns. His flesh was marked with indentations and what seemed like gouges from whatever explosion had damaged him.

"When we found him, there were third and fourth-degree burns covering a good eighty percent of his body. Evidence gathered by investigators suggested the presence of a psychic blast which released the equivalent of over one hundred kilotons of TNT," Lance said quietly, waving a hand over the once-powerful man's ruined body. Ash didn't have to guess who was responsible. "It flattened the forest for miles around and nearly annihilated the Rocket HQ. Giovanni was point-blank from the epicenter of the blast. There's no physical way for him to have survived. Being anything but a carbon shadow is impossible."

Mewtwo's fury boiled in Ash's breast, urging him to reach down and choke the scant life remaining in Giovanni out. To squeeze tight and watch his eyes roll back in his head—

Ash mastered himself and breathed. Bruiser nodded approvingly, a rock solid presence who eased the storm roiling in Ash.

Nidoking hissed, his horn leaking venom, and Ash could see from the coiled fury in his trembling limbs that it took all he had not to take the tip of his horn and pierce Giovanni's throat. Ash almost wanted to let him do it.

He released his entire team then, needing their support above all else. Their presence was a balm.

"How is he alive, then?"

It would be so much easier if Giovanni were dead rather than this pathetic wreck. His chest just barely rose and fell, propelled by medical machinery, and Ash could barely feel anything from him, just the shadow which radiated from his ravaged flesh like a physical thing.

"Now that's the question," Lance murmured drily. For a second there was something satisfied in his eyes as he glowered down at Giovanni, some hint of the Drake which soon vanished in the face of the Champion's warmth. "We just barely managed to keep him alive. His body has been trying to die for a year now. Thank Mew for Ditto cells, eh? Most of our treatments are corroded away almost instantly. They're stubborn enough to stick around and make a difference."

Ash nodded dully, peering down again at Giovanni's blank face. There was no pain there, no hatred, none of the stern strength the man had exuded in life. Just emptiness. He was a shell, a shallow vessel with nothing to fill it.

Lance tugged the white bedsheets covering Giovanni's chest down a bit, revealing his sunken chest. In life Giovanni had been a powerfully built man, clearly taking pride in his own physical prowess, but now he was almost a skeleton.

But Ash sucked in a breath as the corruption redoubled, bleeding out in pungent waves that made a Mind Breaker seem calm and kind. His eyes widened as Lance revealed a thing stitched into Giovanni's side, not-black and billowing and unreal and agonizing to look upon as if every atom in Ash wished to reject it.

Dazed staggered backwards.

Nidoking raised the Moon Stone (which he had begun to wear in a small pouch around his neck) as if to ward off the darkness, but it was like a single distant star in the face of the entire night sky.

Gloam took a deep, rattling breath and grinned as if he'd just been drugged.

Lotus' one green eye immediately hid back within its keystone.

"Our medicine explains Giovanni's survival," Lance said, then jabbed a finger at the foul cloth embedded in Giovanni's side. The flame upon his wrist was extinguished. "But this is why he's anything more than dust in the wind."

Mewtwo's fury was such that Ash was surprised his own eyes weren't glowing azure. It filled his veins, tempting him to violence, begging him to end the one who had tormented them both, but Ash was unswayed.

Ash reached out to touch it, wishing nothing more than to taste its foul essence and find the answers he sought, but Lance warned him away with a shake of his head. "I watched that thing unmake a scalpel we used to try to dig it out. One second it was there, the next it was gone, corroded to nothingness."

That was enough for Ash to pull his hand back.

"A SPECTER and her Aegislash were brave enough to try to cut it out themselves. Aegislash's blade could never quite make it—a nifty little trick that Agatha called Distortional Asymptote. I'm pretty sure she was working it into a technique before…" Lance fell silent. "It didn't work."

"I fought the Harbinger. It's the strongest presence I've ever felt beyond the Ghosts of Lavender and Pyre," Ash said. Lance listened quietly. "This feels like them. Stronger, even. Not as broad, maybe, but its depth…how did he survive being exposed to this, let alone having it implanted? How did the League never detect this?!"

Even Tabitha's strategy of shrouding himself with Dusk Stones was essentially suicide in the long-term. The cancer risk from even minor artifacts which carried Distortion was massive, let alone all the other health complications which came from constant exposure to the alien energy.

Ghost and dark-type specialists often took precautions, but even then they would be frequently scanned just in case. They had to be careful. Just being around ghosts or dark-types wouldn't normally be dangerous, but constant immersion or physical contact was a risky activity in the long run.

Much of Lotus' dark power was hidden away when the Spiritomb rested within its keystone. Even then, most trainers probably wouldn't risk carrying the keystone on their person. Ash was just a bit of a special case.

"It wasn't always like that," Lance said, waving his hand at the noxious black cloth-thing. It seemed almost alive, rippling with intent that nearly left them bowling over. "It's unlike anything we've ever seen—it only solidified once we detected its presence beneath Giovanni's skin and Agatha came to poke at it."

That little tidbit nearly brought a smile to Ash's face despite the circumstances.

"She thought it was a powerful ghost at first. Some one-of-a-kind spirit that Giovanni had taken into himself in order to shroud his thoughts and provide a resistance to psychic abilities," Lance said. "There are stories of such things crawling out of the Dark World. But it's something else. Something more."

Ash watched the cloth as it seemed to quiver in Giovanni's taut skin, interwoven with his flesh. It pulsated like a great big boil just waiting to burst.

"It's been uncooperative in terms of experimentation," Lance admitted. "Agatha, Morty, Fantina, Sidney, Phoebe…not one of them could make heads or tails of it, although Agatha had a few theories. To be honest, half the reason we've fought so hard to keep Giovanni alive for so long is to keep it contained. We don't know what it will do when he dies—his Persian had a few strands in his body, but they leapt into Giovanni's when he succumbed to his injuries—but it seems content to stay with him for now."

"He should be more tumor than man," Ash said flatly. "Scratch that, he should be dead. Most people couldn't even be conscious around this much Distortion, let alone function with it implanted. It must have been a safeguard for Mewtwo…but it just raises more questions than answers. What is it? Where did he acquire it? How did he walk around for at least a year with something like that?"

Lance frowned, idly rubbing the shiny Pokéball that belonged to Dreepy. It never liked to be out around Ash or his team. "We haven't been able to find out much, but we have determined that it has some sort of awareness. It was previously enmeshed throughout Giovanni's entire body, spread out through countless threads until it coalesced."

Silence.

"It's an anomaly," Lance said at last. "It breaks the rules. Do you know what the doctors said? It provides minimal long-term health risks for Giovanni. Something as strong as that. It's like it's tame. Placid. It isn't trying to infect external tissues like Distortion ordinarily does, and the cells in its immediate proximity are so ruined that they just die off rather than mutate. Almost as if there's intent behind it, a will not to mindlessly kill off its host. It's unlike anything else we've seen."

The Indigo Champion glanced away for a moment as Ash digested what he'd just heard.

"Poor Agatha…she stormed out of the room when she heard," Lance said hoarsely, a moment of pain flickering across his sharp features. "I can't imagine what must have been going through her head."

"I think I know," Ash said quietly, then stared down at the roiling black cloth once more. Part of him wanted to ignore Giovanni entirely in favor of this new mystery, to not spend another second giving that foul man the time of day, but his eyes kept flickering to Giovanni's face.

Lance didn't miss that. He never did.

"Would you like a moment?"

"...Yeah."

Lance patted his back briefly. "I'll be outside if you need me," he promised. "Neither the earth nor sea nor sky above will move me."

Ash just smiled gratefully as Lance stepped out, his long cape brushing the floor where he went, and then turned silently back to Giovanni's wraithish form. His team crowded around him, pressing tight, and they all found themselves lost in their thoughts.

He reached out to trace the dark fibers, perhaps wishing to distract himself, and reached out. Something about the sickly shadow was so familiar that it compelled him to peer deeper. To find out just what had saved Giovanni from his deserved fate.

A thread of a thread of a thread.

A sliver of the greatest shadow.

An infinite void.

Ash gasped as he came away. For a moment he saw rotting teeth, pallid flesh, and an oddly bright eye.

"Tobias," Ash wheezed, though the sense of betrayal inside burned hot. Fire's sparks danced from his fingers as he reached closer, perhaps a subconscious desire to shed light made manifest, and the blackness coiled around the threads was banished for an instant to reveal rotten red, the same as that ratty old cloak that the wreck of a man still wore.

The stink clinging to Giovanni was the same as what enveloped Tobias' shambling body. Not quite as strong, not quite as all-consuming, but it was the same at its source. The inkiest shadow in the darkest night, something foul and alien.

Half-developed plans formulated quickly in Ash's head. Plans to check for whichever medical facilities that Tobias had entered on Ash's suggestion, plans to track him, plans to demand the truth…but that would all come later.

For now Ash exhaled, let the sting fall away, and embraced his team.

They reflected together.

Giovanni the breaker of things.

Giovanni the taker of lives.

Giovanni the architect of misery.

"So toxic even Distortion seems tame in comparison," Ash half-snarled, though the moment of black humor brought a sour smile to his lips. "I almost wish I could wake you up. There are so many things you owe us. So much you owe the world. Yet here you are taking a nap!"

His fists clenched. Would Lance think less of Ash if he punched Giovanni in his sallow face?

Ash thought so, even if Lance would undoubtedly say that the traitor deserved it.

All the old hurts reared their ugly heads.

Ash remembered the boy who had first stepped foot from Pallet Town with Jon and Amelia. He'd had a bright smile on his face, eager to explore the beautiful world and see its every corner. He'd been so blessedly naive.

That was the same boy who had been buried by a Muk, haunted by nightmares of Pierce's casual cruelty, and who had slid down the deck of the St. Anne into frigid waters.

The same boy who had hardened and retreated into his anger like a suit of armor.

The same boy who had drank so deeply (so willingly) of that venom that it still called for Ash to end the monster before him.

For a moment Ash was that boy again, the boy who forgot how to be human, and he rose. He glared hatefully at Giovanni, curses upon his lips, and his team watched and waited to see the choice he made.

Nidoking urged blood, as would Infernus (if Ash had been mad enough to release him in here).

Bruiser made no motion to stop Ash, but he and Seeker watched with a startling intensity, weighing Ash's every twitch.

But it was the brush of lavender which braved the darkness to coil around his wrist which stopped him.

Ash gasped as Lotus manifested despite the spirit's fear. A shroud of lavender fog and one hundred and eight eyes wove around Ash like a comforting cloak, settling against his skin.

Spiritomb was a maelstrom hammered into a single foundation: apathy. The soul-scourge, the emptiness of the void, the embodiment of despair. Nihilism made manifest. It scooped, it took, it emptied, it devoured!

But in this moment Lotus showed its truest face, the face that it chose.

It did not steal away Ash's wrath, but softened it.

It did not leave him hollow, but filled the wounds of his hurt.

It did not take, it soothed.

Ash fell back to his knees, clutching the rails of Giovanni's bed, and squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears filled them. He clutched onto Lotus' keystone like a lifeline as dozens of fragment-voices whispered to him, urging this way and that, brushing his soul with blunted claws.

"Thank you, Lotus," Ash rasped, injecting all the love he could into their bond. Lotus' gaseous form stilled at that, frozen in a way entirely different from its normal rigidity. "For reminding me of who I want to be."

He rose without wrath this time, a great clarity filling him as if he'd just channeled the North Wind.

Oh, there was anger. There always would be.

"You deserve the worst," Ash said softly, laying a hand upon Giovanni's chest. The bones were soft, nearly brittle. Half-decayed just like the rest of the former Gym Leader. "For what you put the world through."

All the people hurt and killed by Giovanni's greed and lust for power flickered through Ash's mind.

Sam deserved his family and a home untarnished by blood.

His mother deserved a man who would cherish her, not try to chain her.

Silver deserved a father, a family who would raise him up and not tear him down.

Ash…he didn't even know what he deserved.

"And you…" Ash said quietly, still shrouded in Lotus' mist. "You don't deserve my anger. You don't deserve anything from me."

He rose, turned to leave—

No!

Ash gasped as the psychic shockwave rattled his mind, leaving the world hazy and spinning as they all collapsed. The cold embers shook off their frigid castings, revealing the true depths of the blaze beneath, and Ash grit his teeth and used all his strength to stand.

And then Ash turned, gasped, and fell to his knees again, sick to his stomach at the sight which greeted him.

For a moment he saw double as the connection flared brighter than it had in over a year: there was the boy and there was the Legend. There was the mortal and there was the god. There was the healed and there was the hurt.

Mewtwo's shape was something which had haunted his nightmares from the moment he had seen the Legendary suspended over the frigid waters as the St. Anne collapsed into the depths. That silhouette had followed him for over a year, matched only by the fury of those burning blue eyes.

Ash would never forget that long, whipping tail, nor the uncannily human torso. The neural tube which connected Mewtwo's spine to the base of his skull, the bony ridge of his chest plate…and now he was here.

The power flooding from Mewtwo was worse than Ash remembered. He'd felt it day in and day out since they'd forged their connection, a steady trickle through his mind and soul, but the great ocean was stirred into a fury now, whipping and lashing and twisting the world in its image.

Everything vibrated, energized with Mewtwo's appearance.

Liquids roiled. Giovanni's limp body thrashed, though Ash didn't think Mewtwo had exerted any power upon it…yet. The dark fragment fled within the man's flesh, dissipating into countless threads coated in obfuscating blackness.

Nidoking twitched against the psychic power that imprisoned him. Venom leaked from his horn.

You cannot forgive him for all of us. His sins cannot be absolved so easily!

The air itself was filled with a psychic haze, the sheer might radiating from Mewtwo enough to command the entire room. Would Lance bring the door crashing down? All of Indigo must have been in a panic…if Mewtwo even allowed them to realize what was going on, Ash realized dimly.

Psychics really could be terrifying.

Dread filled him as Mewtwo stared hatefully down at Giovanni's feeble half-corpse, sneering, distinctly human, and Ash's team all fought against the force that crushed them to the floor. Was it consciously done, Ash wondered, or was it just a result of Mewtwo's mere arrival?

Another presence materialized by Mewtwo, flitting into reality with a sense of elegance that would've left Will flustered, and the room was bathed in scorching heat that somehow did not harm them all. Ash gaped at the sight of Infernus, though he knew his friend was securely in his Pokéball—

Realization struck Ash as the not-Infernus spared him a soft smile that was totally foreign on his face. His molten feet did not sear the white tiles he stood upon, guarded by his own psychic potential. Ash drank the clone up curiously, ignoring the rattle of Infernus' Pokéball on his belt.

This not-Infernus was a little more delicately built than the original, lacking Infernus' many scars and the sense of danger that radiated from. No Magmortar was slender, but this one's muscles weren't so hardened nor well-trained. He lacked that brutal element which elevated Infernus above his physical capabilities.

Mewtwo whirled upon the Magmortar with a furious glare—for a moment Ash thought that he would atomize the blazing creature—but softened after a moment. At the very least it bought them a little longer before Mewtwo took his vengeance.

Greetings…I don't believe we met last time. I was still nascent within my pod. My name is Born-of-Fire.

The voice was soft, crisp…refined. Not what Ash would expect from the original Infernus, certainly. There was far less guttural snarling and rabid war cries than Ash anticipated if Infernus ever managed to develop telepathy.

"Ash," he said with a grunt. Every breath was a struggle. "You don't sound like I expected."

My gene-father and I may share the same nature, but our nurture was rather different, I expect. My psychic gifts have flourished in my birthplace. I've been fortunate enough to grow up with a connection to all. To the world, to my brothers and sisters. Don't think I'm not up for a good scrap, however!

The Magmortar gave a mock jab with his cannon, spitting out a little flare of rippling flame, and smiled.

Born-of-Fire's new grin reminded Ash a little more of the original. It vanished as he reached out a clawed cannon to rest against Mewtwo's gaunt shoulder. The touch didn't burn Mewtwo, naturally, but did attract a sideways glance.

Father, consider your actions. You have already won. Look at him! A ruined wreck. Imagine his suffering if he could see himself now. Is that not enough?

The icy light spilling from Mewtwo's eyes bathed the entire room with their rage. It matched the ferocity in Nidoking's entire bearing.

It will never be enough.

Born-of-Fire went quiet for a moment, seemingly disappointed, and Mewtwo's telepathic snarl rippled through their minds like an explosion.

Enough! I do not forgive. Not him.

Power sufficient to annihilate all of Mt. Silver gathered, layered again and again like a storm condensed into a raindrop, and Mewtwo outstretched his hand—

"You're right," Ash said, standing tall despite the crushing weight of Mewtwo's anger. Dread and hate filled him as well, seeing the subject of his nightmares right in front of him, but he mastered it. Forced it aside. "Giovanni doesn't deserve forgiveness. But we're not his only creations. We aren't the only ones who get a say."

Some of the light faded.

Born-of-Fire's eyes burned blue as he sent some pleading telepathic message to Mewtwo, though it wasn't shared with the rest of them.

Mewtwo's neck craned so he could stare at Ash, though he knew that the artificial Legend's awareness had every single one of his cells pegged already. All Ash knew was that one second it was them, then the next second Silver appeared in front of them with a sandwich clutched in his hands.

Silver's jaw dropped at the sudden disruption, though barely a second passed before his legs turned to jelly and he collapsed to the floor. Ash inclined his head at Gloam, who dashed over and helped to break some of the psychic power crushing his half-brother.

"Easy," Ash said as he knelt down at Silver's side. His team was still frozen in place, save Gloam (no doubt because Mewtwo knew a dozen attacks would be headed his way the moment they were released) but he was grateful that Mewtwo at least allowed that mercy. "You're okay."

Silver dropped his sandwich, although Born-of-Fire was considerate enough to catch it in a psychic grip. Infernus probably would have incinerated it.

"Where am I?!" Silver gasped, eyes flitting madly between Ash, his team, Mewtwo, and Born-of-fire. The boy's hand clutched Ash's wrist for support. Ash pulled him to his feet, wrapping an arm around him so that Silver could remain standing. "What is—"

He went silent at the sight of Giovanni and paler still.

"A secret League facility," Ash said. "I just learned about it myself. Giovanni survived, Silver. This is where they've been keeping him."

Silver gaped, looking very small and very overwhelmed all of a sudden.

Mewtwo looked between Ash and Silver. His too-human mouth twisted into a grimace.

The sons of Giovanni all together at long last.

His words were reserved for Ash alone, it seemed, as Silver didn't start frothing at the mouth or fall twitching into a seizure. Ash remembered just how badly Mewtwo's telepathy had carved through his mind in those early days.

Born-of-Fire's eyes flashed.

The sons of Giovanni all together at long last.

Silver's breath hitched. "What…?"

Realization struck Ash like a lightning bolt as Born-of-Fire winked at him, chuckling into his thoughts. Mewtwo had elected to use Born-of-Fire as a herald, allowing him to speak for the Legend.

Silver would have been ruined otherwise.

Mewtwo's terrible gaze fell upon Silver. Silver wasn't particularly subtle in trying to hide behind Ash, not that it would have done him much good. Ash met Mewtwo's eyes evenly, unfaltering.

Here you are, Silver. Here is the man who took so much from you, who demeaned you at every turn, and made your worth what he demanded it to be. Now, 'Silver Medal', your brother chose forgiveness. What will you choose?

Born-of-Fire repeated Mewtwo's words.

Silver's teeth would have gnashed at the cruel name if he weren't so utterly terrified. Ash was certain by now that Lance wasn't even aware of this intrusion, that Mewtwo had wiped awareness of his appearance from every mind for miles.

Despite it all—the horrors that Ash remembered, the snap of Fergus' arm ringing in his mind, the great ocean that would have snuffed his mind out like a spark—Ash didn't feel as if they were in true danger.

Mewtwo hadn't come for them, after all.

Silver sucked in a rattling breath and took a trembling step towards Giovanni's body. Ash half-carried him there, supporting the boy's weight to guide him to the man's side.

"Father…" Silver's face twisted into a rictus of fury as his fists balled. This pale shadow of Giovanni seemed to infuriate him, and Ash blinked as Silver slammed one of his fists into Giovanni's thin chest, sending several of the monitors frantically beeping for a moment. "Look at how weak you've become. All that talk and this is what you get for it? All those lessons, wasted."

Whatever anger filled Silver drifted away as quickly as it had come. After a moment, the boy simply looked tired as he turned back towards Mewtwo. Silver was plainly afraid, terribly afraid, but even that was insufficient. Silver couldn't truly know how much danger he was in right now.

All it would take was an errant thought from Mewtwo and the boy would be unmade.

"I heard stories about you," Silver said, not quite meeting Mewtwo's eyes. He was afraid. Ash felt Silver's fingers curling around his wrist like a vice. "Whispers. They said Giovanni had made a monster."

Do you think I am a monster?

Silver glanced from Mewtwo to Ash to his own hands after Born-of-Fire relayed Mewtwo's message. "I think Giovanni made plenty of monsters."

Mewtwo's mouth twisted into something resembling a smile.

"So he chose 'forgiveness'," Silver said, nodding at Ash. He still seemed utterly overwhelmed, but whatever training Giovanni had put him through seemed to help him ground himself. His mask was fragile, but it was there. "What about you?"

I will deliver justice. He will rue every waking moment.

Something vicious glinted in Silver's eyes. Something Ash didn't like.

Something that was mirrored in Mewtwo's own visage.

"That man is the lowest of the low," Ash cut in quietly. "Are you going to let him control you even now? When he's comatose in a hospital bed and you're walking around on your own two feet?"

Mewtwo and Silver whirled on Ash. The psychic pressure upon him redoubled as Mewtwo's direct attention fell upon him, but Ash did not falter.

"You never lived with him!" Silver retorted, practically spitting at Ash. "You grew up safe and sheltered in cozy little Pallet—Will told me all about it. A nice crib for the golden boy, doting mother and all. Don't you dare talk about what he deserves."

A frown tugged at Ash's lips. Mild hurt scratched at him. "Will told you that?"

Silver flinched. "I wheedled it out of him," he muttered. Was that shame? "I just wanted to know. He didn't even realize I was tricking him."

Enough. Make your decision, Silver.

Would the Mewtwo of a year ago even deign to call Silver by name? Ash doubted it. The realization made him hesitate for the briefest instant.

"Let me say something," Ash interrupted, ignoring the annoyance which flashed through his connection with Mewtwo and the pleased smile across Born-of-Fire's face. He jabbed a finger at Giovanni's limp body. This would be so much easier if he were just a corpse… "He deserves everything that Mewtwo would do to him."

Mewtwo blinked. The psychic sea in the room shifted. Silver stared at Ash with wide eyes, though he mouthed 'Mewtwo' surreptitiously. He was a smart boy. No doubt he was putting the pieces together.

"You're right. I didn't live with him," Ash admitted. "I only really met him once. But he's cast a shadow over my entire life, even before I knew all the terrible things he'd done. You faced it all. You deserve revenge. But you know what?"

Ash took a step closer to Silver, forcing the boy to look him in the eyes. There was so much hidden in Silver's gaze: fear, anger, hurt. And if Ash cocked his head and squinted, perhaps there was a little hope there as well.

Hope for a rope out of the pit he was in.

"I want to be more than Giovanni's son," Ash said, gripping Silver's shoulder. His eyes flitted over to meet Mewtwo's, though it was like staring into the brilliance of a star. "Don't you?"

Silver's breath hitched.

Born-of-Fire smiled, though Nidoking's fury was melted by a strange mix of pride and utter sourness as he glared daggers at Mewtwo's bony chest, no doubt imagining thrusting his horn through the Legend's sternum.

Mewtwo's tail thrashed violently enough to crack like a whip.

Enough! I am done with words! I will take him to New Island. I will rend him down to the barest atom and restitch him to do it again. Time will abandon him. Death is a mercy he will never know!

"Take him."

Ash's eyes bugged out. "Silver—!"

Even Mewtwo paused.

Silver scowled down at Giovanni, but there was something softer there now. Something young. He wrapped his fingers around Giovanni's barren sleeve, though hissed at the darkness which no doubt repulsed him.

"Take him with you," Silver repeated, ignoring Ash. "You're right—he would crave death if he could see himself right now. He'd beg for it. Don't give it to him. But…don't hurt him anymore," Silver said, his voice cracking. For once he looked like the boy he was. "Please. I know what he is…but he was still my father. Even if he was the worst one I could have asked for."

Born-of-Fire's eyes flashed. Ash watched Mewtwo warily even as his team coiled tight, awaiting the Legend's decision. For all the courtesy of offering Silver even a modicum of influence, it was no secret that Mewtwo's decision was the only one that mattered.

Ash waited for the mercurial temperament to rise, for Mewtwo to make his will and his will alone a reality—

Very well.

With a hint of a psychic snarl, Mewtwo pressed his will down upon Giovanni. A psychic haze surrounded him, coating the man in what looked like an azure skin, and Ash hissed as the red threads burst from Giovanni's flesh in a rush of darkness, vanishing in a flit of shadow before Mewtwo could obliterate them.

Mewtwo's mouth twisted into a scowl before he and Giovanni vanished. Ash stared blankly at the empty space. How the hell was he supposed to explain this to Lance?

Somehow this was cosmic payback for being grateful that he wasn't the one to explain 'Rattata' and Joey's disappearance to the public…

So long! Tell old Infernus I said hello, won't you? It's a shame we don't get to meet face to face this time around, but probably for the best.

Born-of-Fire casually tossed Silver's sandwich back to him with telekinesis, waved at the team (Lairon warbled back and Tangrowth snuck one vine over to wrap around him), and flitted out of existence with psychic skill that would have left Dazed envious. No doubt the ambient power left by Mewtwo assisted with the jump.

Dazed stared at the empty space as if something terribly wrong had just happened, though Nidoking was more interested in snarling and stomping in the space where Mewtwo had stood.

Silver stared blankly at his sandwich. "Ash?"

"Yes?" Ash barely paid attention to his brother. His thoughts were still a maelstrom. All he could do was look unblinkingly at the empty hospital bed. Giovanni had been right there. It almost seemed like a dream now.

"What the hell just happened?"

Ash wished he had an answer to give.

XX

Lance was…less than pleased when he barged into the room and found Ash, Silver, and no Giovanni to be found. He wasn't angry at them—and Lance was quick to simmer down when he saw Silver quailing at his initial explosion—but Fire flickered insistently when Lance heard what had happened.

Silver was quickly bundled away back to the Plateau (after Ash invited him again to come and watch the battles with him)

"How could I be so stupid?" Lance bemoaned while Dragonite awkwardly patted his back. "I knew Mewtwo had a link to you. I should have anticipated this…"

Ash felt his spirits plummet at Lance's clear distress. He was honestly a bit surprised that Mewtwo even allowed him to speak of their bond, but all the fury which had consumed Mewtwo was now replaced with a bone-deep satisfaction.

"Was there anything left to gain from Giovanni?"

"No," Lance admitted, tugging at the collar of his cape. "We hoped to study the anomaly further, but even Agatha couldn't make any sense of it. Karen's wonderful, but she hasn't made headway in a long time. We'd plumbed everything useful from his body and mind. What little bits of it we could glean, anyways."

Ash had to write a painstakingly detailed report (easier than it should have been thanks to the countless repetitions that Steven had him practice) going over every single second that Mewtwo had been present. Technically the League couldn't trust a single word he said about this, but Mewtwo didn't bother guiding his hand this time.

Not when Mewtwo had just claimed his greatest trophy.

Karen was kind enough to spar with him after, though even she'd been a bit taken aback at the sheer ferocity that Ash and his friends unleashed upon her team. Could anyone blame them? They had a lot to work through.

Seeing Mewtwo again sparked all the darkest memories back to life. Even without the casual malice that had exuded from the Legend the last time they met in person, Ash couldn't escape the memories and fleeting images that darted through his thoughts every time he blinked.

The St. Anne sinking, the sea bathed azure.

Lance and Saph broken, seconds away from being obliterated by the armor-clad creature.

Trainers tossed overboard as a horrific storm wracked them, forcing Ash and Torrent into the sea once more.

Valiant Moltres drowned, ready to be puppeted by Mew's shadow.

Clone pitted against progenitor, ending with a beam of light through Ash's chest.

Every single one reared up whenever the thought of Mewtwo's hard eyes or whipping tail breached the wall Ash tried to build.

Karen knew Ash too well—she'd let him bring the battlefield down, then took him out to lunch and let Ash vomit the whole experience out, nodding and listening just as she always did. She'd kept him busy after that, assigning him task after task to ensure the Silver Conference ran smoothly and that Ash didn't have too much time to think.

That's how the next few days passed. Ash saw little of his friends, though he was sure to pop in every time they had a battle, although his team would stop by to drill Jon, Amelia, and Gary relentlessly. Sometimes he could burn an hour or two to lose himself in their training, but most of the time Ash needed more than they could offer.

Will and Karen took the brunt of it, but even Lance carved time out of his busy schedule to let Ash whet his edge against the strongest of them all. That was when Ash felt the most liberated, as if he were soaring closer and closer to the peak he'd been chasing all his life.

It was strange to realize that Will and Karen didn't just use kid gloves with them anymore. They fought seriously, pushing themselves to the limit as well as Ash. That wasn't to say that either Ash or his fellow Masters showed every card they had, but Will and Karen seemed to enjoy testing themselves just as much as Ash did.

They'd looked at him with new eyes since he'd returned from Hoenn. Since he'd faced down Zinnia, really.

Ash wasn't a trainee to them anymore.

Lance's Dragonite trio would still shred through Ash's team, but even he began to cycle more of his other teammates in so that they could get a work out. Ash was still working on strategies to counter Lance's absurdly potent speed, yet his teammates had the firepower and tactics to at least make Champion-level fighters have to put in effort.

The days when Magnus the Charizard or Dragonite could just shred through Ash's entire team at once were long past them. If Ash and his family were overjoyed, Lance looked about ready to cry—Ash was pretty sure Lance had cried when Oz tore Dov from the heavens once with a Lightning Bolt after a dazzling light display which blinded the great dragon, although the Indigo Champion had snuffled and said it was just the sun in his eyes.

They all politely ignored the fact that it was dusk.

Escape after escape gave Ash time to process things on his own. As much as Giovanni consumed his thoughts (damn that man!), Ash spent almost as much time thinking about those rotten red threads coated in the most noxious shadow in existence.

Tobias.

The mystery ate at Ash, a maelstrom that constantly drew his thoughts inward. There was a link there, that was to be certain, and it left Ash questioning every meeting he'd had with Tobias. Greenfield, that little spot in the Fortree territory…

They were going to have words the next time their paths crossed. Ash had already sent Steven a request to cross-reference a few things, not to mention begin tracking any of the hospitals or other institutions Tobias had frequented at Ash's urging, but the Ever Grande League was still a mess.

Steven and his handpicked task force was the wrathful fist purging Magma from existence—he'd torn through several installations with the scraps from the small facility located near Mt. Chimney, although they were quickly hiding underground to avoid the League's direct attention—but tensions with Aqua were at an all time high.

Between Zinnia's false flag operation and Durand's affiliation with Aqua, the archipelago was at a boiling point. Glacia and Phoebe were working overtime to calm things down. Drake had personally stepped in to defuse a tense situation that had almost come to blows between Aqua and the League, the former Champion the only one with enough clout to force Aqua to back down.

Ash had to imagine they'd hogtied Sidney and dumped him in a random closet in Ever Grande. No way he would ever be involved with anything diplomatic.

Although Steven had mentioned in a letter that the Ever Grande Elite Four had carved out a bit more training time recently. Ash couldn't imagine why…

Ash still felt a little pang whenever he thought of Hoenn, though it was softened whenever Flannery informed him of her recent trip to Alola. It always left him drifting in a lonely direction, so Nidoking or Torrent or Dazed often dragged him back. Lotus would nudge him every now and then as well, doing its best to cleanse Ash of whatever burden he carried.

His instincts always screamed at Ash to ward off Lotus' influence, to burn away the power with Fire, but Lotus' efforts were a far cry from the hollowing scoop it had once used to shrive him clean of will and purpose. Lotus sought to heal now, almost like a Distorted North Wind, although those efforts seemed to utterly exhaust the Spiritomb.

Perhaps Suicune had found its most unexpected acolyte in a Spiritomb whom hadn't felt the breeze for countless centuries.

Bruiser and Ash always made time to sit with Lotus for a while after that in companionable silence. More and more of the team joined them in their supportive vigil now—Tangrowth, Seeker, and Lairon were regulars, but almost all had joined them at some point or another.

It warmed his heart to see the team continuing to embrace Lotus in full. Lotus had earned their appreciation in the wake of Zinnia's attack, but as the months passed by it became increasingly obvious that the Spiritomb truly was one of the family.

Productivity could only take one so far, however. For all that Ash wanted to keep moving and think about the whole mess with Giovanni in little bite-sized pieces, his team needed rest. So did Ash, to be honest.

That was what brought Ash and Dazed to the box with Will as they watched Jon face down against Kris, the blue-haired trainer from New Bark Town who had made a meteoric splash in the Silver Conference to land in the Top 32. Ash had tracked her battles constantly, curious to see just how far she would rise, and she'd done commendably—her last battle had been a bit closer, but she'd still comfortably led up until the end.

Koga was a good sport about the bet too, unlike Falkner and Bugsy.

"Your friend is more refined than he was last year," Will chirped, telekinetically spinning his cane to amuse Lairon. "I think poor Kris' journey ends here!"

Did Will mean to rhyme? Ash could never be sure.

Ash nodded along—Kris fought with all she had, testing her Noctowl and Ampharos in an attempt to bring down Jon's Charizard, but the fire-type was brutally powerful. Faster than Noctowl and able to make a rudimentary Air Lens to block the worst of Ampharos' accurate electrical blasts, Charizard was poised to single handedly run through Kris' team.

Charizard had taken a few hits so far, but he seemed indomitable as he bathed the Silver Stadium's battlefield in hot flame. Ampharos whipped out various defensive techniques to buy time and open up more opportunities to strike, but the desperate look in Kris' eyes told the world that she was just fighting against the inevitable.

"She's done well," Ash said, idly tapping the arm of his plush chair. Lairon was too entranced with Will's tricks to pay much attention to the battle, but both Torrent and Dazed watched Jon and Kris' moves raptly. "Kris' aggression has carried her far—she doesn't have quite as much finesse as I'd expect for a trainer in the Top 32, but she has the right instinct and intuition to compensate. That's not much use against Jon, though."

"Indeed! This is what I love about the Conferences. Such promise shines in every bright young star, but they are still so perfectly incomplete! They've come such a long way, haven't they? Yet they remain half-cut gems. We are so fortunate to see this special stage in their own journey as they test themselves and see what directions they must still grow."

Ash nodded slowly. The level of competition faced by trainers in the Conference acted as a mirror in many ways. So many of these trainers stood head and shoulders above their peers, always the biggest fish in a dozen small ponds, and this might be the first time they faced equals.

There was little to gain in facing those weaker than you. Just as Jon realized how his house of cards would buckle when faced with greater strength or Amelia saw her clever strategies and plots blown aside by Grey's Hydreigon, these trainers would finally have a chance to push themselves to that next level.

"What did you see in us?" Ash gestured to the battlefield. "Back in the Indigo Conference, I mean."

Will smiled behind his mask even as Charizard came crashing down in a Flare Blitz masked by a Smokescreen to finish off Ampharos with a massive explosion that shook the arena. The crowd cheered at the sight of a great crater left behind.

"Strength beyond your experience, though you tempered it well. The depth of a lake with the width of a river—your team fought magnificently," Will said, pausing to clap for Dazed and Torrent, "but that is why Michael was your better then. He had the opposite flaw, but the diversity of his team and their experiences offered him the edge."

Ash inclined his head. "Well, I'd say the past year has helped patch that issue up."

Will's cane ceased spinning, then shot at Dazed with little warning. The man beamed as it slowed to a crawl, suspended utterly in time rather than simply trapped in a psychic shell. Dazed wasn't amused as she took a slight step to the side, unfroze the cane, and allowed it to fling forward into the window.

"Yes, I would say you've corrected that imbalance!" Will chuckled. His cane burned with purple light and flew back into his hand. "Your Mastery is well-earned. You've paid for every scrap of it, haven't you? It's been a joy to watch you and your partners grow! What a change a year can make."

The fond smile upon Will's face told Ash that his friend wasn't just talking about their skill in battle.

"I must admit," Will began, brandishing his cane with another theatrical flourish, "Dazed has been your friend whose growth I've followed with the most interest. She's grown into a magnificent specimen of psychic potential! Space and time themselves bend at your beck and call now!" He laughed, offering Dazed an elegant bow. The Hypno took the compliment with grace, sharing an eye-smile with the Psychic Master.

Thank you, Kindly Harlequin. Though I can hardly claim all the credit. Friend-Trainer has been by my side every step of this path, and I would never have untangled the mysteries of the Adamant Stream without his assistance.

The Hypno admitted sheepishly, looking down as she polished her pendulum.

"Aha! My own specialties lie more in spatial manipulation, but to delve into the mysteries of the Adamant Stream so young…you do a service to psychics everywhere."

"We've worked hard on it. All we have to steal is a single moment to turn the tide of battle."

I sometimes worry it has come at the cost of my natural potential.

Dazed said, her eyes turning down in a slight frown.

My own natural proclivity for the mental arts has gone comparatively untapped.

"I see," Will nodded. "It's hardly unprecedented for a psychic to develop along a different path. I know of a Hypno in Vermillion that acts as a League teleporter. Samuel Oak has turned his Alakazam into quite the accomplished duelist. I can even point to my own team! Spatial manipulation is hardly the specialty of Slowbro, yet my own friend is quite the deft hand at it!"

Will beamed so brightly that Ash couldn't help but grin back.

"Natural talents are all well and good, but the path you've tread has paid its own rewards! You've reached heights few ever ascend to. So what if you followed another path to do so? Perhaps it was the path you were meant to follow all along. After all—"

"The Adamant Stream flows ever onward," Ash finished, chuckling.

"Precisely! I'm so glad that there's another man of culture in the Plateau! Normally I have to swing by Saffron for such stimulating conversation. "

A great blast of heat and light jerked their attention to the battlefield. Ash lit up.

He knew what that was.

Kris' Typhlosion had been a savage foe throughout the Silver Conference. Another rookie's team had been utterly crushed by him, blasted to smithereens by Typhlosion's ferocity and Kris' unrelenting strategies. Even more experienced competitors had been utterly overwhelmed.

It was the up-and-comer's most stalwart companion.

Alas, Charizard knew Blast Burn…a semblance of it, anyways. An ocean of fire came blasting down with incredible force, swallowing Typhlosion up and letting it feel the bite of flame for the first time.

Seconds later and it was all over. Kris gaped, though it wasn't long before her jaw clenched and she recalled Typhlosion before marching off the field with her chin held high.

"What was that?"

Ash grinned as a guttural roar raised up from a nearby box, counting down the seconds before Blaine came barging into his and Will's section with Ninetales striding elegantly behind him. The old man stank of vodka (as per usual) and wore the ugliest expression that Ash had ever seen upon his wrinkled face.

Blaine was red. Even his slick bald head was as bright as a tomato. A vein bulged threateningly in his temple, poised to burst. "Did you see that pathetic excuse for a Blast Burn?"

"Yes."

"Don't smirk at me!" Blaine sneered, jabbing his finger down at Ash. "You know that boy, don't you?"

Ash nodded, glad that Blaine had actually shown up when Ash invited him. Not that the old man had much else on his agenda…

"Then you're a sorry excuse for a friend!" Blaine roared loudly enough to make Will jump. The old man stalked closer, glowering down at Ash. "A good friend would've told him to forget he'd ever 'learned' Blast Burn! Whatever "Master" taught him should be disgusted with themselves."

Ninetales brushed against Blaine's leg and licked at his hand. Blaine took a breath, though he still looked as if he'd just smelled something terrible.

"That stupid boy should've known I would wring his neck for butchering a perfectly good technique like that. It's disgusting! I've never seen such a sorry excuse for an attack, all sloppy and splattering everywhere. A Flareon's piss is more dangerous—and don't ask!"

Ash's smile grew wider and wider as Blaine grew more irritated with every passing second. He hadn't expected his plan to work this well, to be honest. But Ash wasn't about to complain!

"Are you going to sit there complaining or are you going to do something about it?"

Blaine's face twisted into a scowl as his rage flipped from hot to cold.

"Don't think I can't see what you're doing, boy. But you're right. I am going to do something about it."

With that ominous statement, Blaine stalked right back out of the box with Ninetales trotting at his heels.

The Cinnabar Gym Leader turned back to Ash one last time.

"How attached are you to your friend staying in one piece?"

Ash waved a hand. "I can work with two pieces. Maybe three."

Blaine grunted something indecipherable, shook his head, and no doubt left to do something nefarious.

"Well, that went better than expected!" Will grinned. One of the menus laying on a side table burned with purple power and levitated over to Will's waiting hand. "Now, how shall we celebrate a successful scheme? Karen will be so proud! Hmm, the chocolate eclair looks simply marvelous…and look! This one even has a bit of gold leaf added for Lairon."

Ash reached down to pat Lairon's shiny head. "Hear that, buddy? You're going to be eating in style!"

Lairon's stubby tail wagged furiously.

XX

The Silver Stadium was a strange place at night.

Kenopsia was the word which fit the empty arena best, Ash thought. That unsettling sensation of a normally bustling place left vacant and empty, robbed of the vitality which normally filled it. All the chipper flesh scraped away to reveal the bones of steel beams and rounded rows of seating.

But there was a beating heart at its center, one which shone all the brighter without the teeming life to spark around it; a great silver brazier filled more space than it should, a golden flame spilling from its smooth edges. The sun to Chinatsu's aurelian torch.

It was overkill to have an Elite Four member—even a trainee—standing vigil over the Flame of Moltres in the Silver Stadium. Who cared enough to bother? Whatever pranksters braved League security to hose it down with a water-type would find that mundane water wouldn't even reach Moltres' symbol without boiling away.

Symbolism played an important part in the League, though. Moltres' flame was their own mandate of heaven, the founding myth central to Indigo. Not many put much stock in those stories anymore (although Ash knew better), but the Flame of Moltres was still a precious part of the Indigo League's heritage.

Fire burned in his breast, warm and comforting and familiar. It thawed the Ice which crowned the mountaintop above, banishing the cold just as a torch cast away the encroaching void. The trickle of golden fire blazed defiantly as a cold wind smashed spitefully upon it from on high, spitting in the face of Articuno's displeasure.

Ash smiled.

That was how it always was, wasn't it? The darkest night might press in, but just the barest trace of light would be enough to sear it away.

Light might sputter out. Fire might fade. Lightning may cease its racing current.

Ice was inevitable. That was the truth that Ash knew from the truths he had devoured. One day in the far, far future the stars would go black and cold, the universe would turn dark, and the only energy which remained would be the tiny traces spat forth by the emptiness of the black holes.

And then those would fade as well—the only sources of life, of energy, of warmth would be the Legends themselves in that dark future, fonts of infinity that they were.

Ice would reign forevermore in the natural course of the universe, waxing eternal. That was the simple truth.

That didn't mean they couldn't forestall it, that they couldn't embrace the light while it still remained. Moltres still shone, Zapdos still raged, and Articuno must remain patient for around a hundred trillion years yet. Articuno hadn't even begun to wait in the grand scheme of things.

Ash traced his fingers through the golden flames—they did not harm him, could not—and relished the heat in his veins. They reminded him that he was alive, banished the frigidity of Mewtwo's depressive thoughts that had become more emergent in the last few days, and filled him with comfort and passion and life.

"Agatha must have hated this," Ash called out to Gloam as the Weavile raced laps around the Silver Stadium—he flickered forth with preternatural speed, carried forth by ripples of Distortion which twisted space-time, and made a full loop in around thirty seconds or so. He panted, but seemed to be having a fantastic night. Hunt-the-Sneasel had paid off in spades. "The Flame of Moltres must have been scorching to her. Not to mention the boredom…"

But just as Ash began to complain, he sensed a whisper in his ears as one of the Misdreavus watching over the stadium (and doing the vast majority of the work, admittedly) manifested beside him and warned him of an intruder. Plume screeched a moment later. She'd be terribly upset when Ash told her that she was a few moments late, although she certainly wasn't at her best in the night.

Gloam yowled, piercing the night, but Ash shushed him even as Lotus peeked one green eye out from his waist. He folded his arms as he leaned against the silver brazier, enjoying the lick of golden fire against his skin as the Flame of Moltres dripped from the container.

Seeker perched atop the League box, nearly invisible in the night, and Ash grinned as he saw her full majesty unveiled as her wings flared.

Ash's brows rose as a slight figure stalked into the arena, lost and hesitant and a little furious. She was unquestionably feminine, a bright yellow cap reflecting Moltres' light as her teal hair shone, and she seemed a bit afraid as she broke into the stadium and strode out onto the empty field.

Perhaps she wrestled with the same strange sensations that Ash felt, that uncanny emptiness in a place normally so bustling. But Ash knew what she felt in that moment: emptiness, loss, the struggle of realizing you had failed.

Kris had come so far, fought so hard, but in the end it had all come to naught. Her fierce team had fallen short in the face of Jon. Her struggles had carried her to the Top 32 and no farther. Prodigious by any standard, but not to Kris' own expectations.

Everything that Ash had struggled with in the wake of the Indigo Conference Finals was reflected in Kris now.

The girl no doubt turned every move of their battle over in her mind, debating every command and every mistake, and peered up at the moon for a long moment before turning up to the brazier which contained the Flame of Moltres. Her eyes widened at Ash's silhouette plastered ahead of the fire, gaping.

"Dazed?"

Yes, Friend-Trainer?

"Teleport her up here, please. I'd like to talk to her."

Dazed nodded, smiling with her eyes, and easily teleported down to the battlefield. Kris barely had a moment to flinch before space-time twisted again and both the Hypno, the Hitmontop, and the girl appeared right in front of Ash. Hitmontop spun wildly, trying to kick frantically at Ash, but Dazed froze it with a flash of her eyes.

"Ah! What the—"

"Kris Marina," Ash said calmly, leaning back into the golden flame which curled around his shoulders like a fiery mantle. She gaped, one hand on her Typhlosion's Pokéball (Ash assumed at least, based on the Cyndaquil sticker plastered on its top) but didn't release her teammate. "New Bark Town. Obtained all but the Rising Badge. Top 32—projected to make it to the Top 16. Lost to Jon Lindon 1-3."

Kris sucked in a breath. "You…you know me?"

"There are a lot of eyes on you," Ash said, reclining back into the flame. Kris stared, the fires reflecting brilliantly in her light eyes. "You've made a splash."

"Not as much of a splash as you. You're…you're Ash Ketchum!"

"You've made a splash," Ash said easily. "You've carved your way to glory."

"I just wanted to be a good trainer," Kris said, biting her lip. She was shaking. "I just wanted to do right by my team!"

"And that's why you've made it so far."

"Not as far as you."

"You don't have to come as far as me," Ash said, looking pointedly at her. "Comparison is the thief of joy. Do your best, fight your hardest, and be content with that. I'll never forgive you if you spend your life comparing your spark to others."

"I don't even know you!" Kris despaired, seeming as if she wished that wasn't the truth. "Why would I care?"

Ash smiled.

"You do care. And that's why I'm telling you this: push yourself as far as you can. That's all that matters. Crush your obstacles. Rise your highest—you lost once. Use it as fuel."

Kris hesitated. "He—Jonathan Lindon—crushed me. Swatted me aside like a Zubat!"

"And what's wrong with Zubat?" Ash cut in sharply. Seeker chattered in agreement, screeching from her seat and flitting inches away from Kris' head, and the girl flinched.

"Nothing!" She waved her hands frantically. "Just an example, that's all."

"Good," Ash said, satisfied. "Jon is strong. He's worked hard for that. Jon deserved that win—he beat you fair and square. But you pushed back. You stood your ground. That's what I respect. You have the talent. You have the attitude. And to be honest? You'll grow past him if you keep on this path. I think you have that fire—"

"Damn right I do!" Kris' chest puffed up. "First Jon, then that prick Oak, then you, then Lance! Just wait, Elite Four Ash. We're coming for you!"

Ash's smile grew feral. "Good. That's what I'm waiting for. Don't disappoint me, Kris. If you stay here…I'll never forgive you. I want to see you as a Master one day. I want to see you as one of my Elite Four. Don't give up the fight."

Kris stiffened. She looked at Ash with wide eyes, trembling. "You think…?"

"I know." Ash could see the blaze in her, the passion, the eagerness to push past the limits which had taken her to the Silver Conference. Most trainers would consider achieving the Top 32 as the culmination of their career, the farthest they would ever grasp.

Kris saw it as a failure.

She snapped into a faux salute, mesmerized by the flames trickling down Ash's clothes and flesh. So did her Hitmontop, much to Ash and Dazed's amusement. Seeker still seemed rather offended, chattering furiously down at Kris from her vantage point atop the Silver Stadium.

"I won't let you down, sir!"

He made a face even as Dazed mentally snickered at him. "Call me Ash."

Kris beamed, the first questions formed, and Ash found a long, long discussion taking place.

He couldn't be happier.

XX

"Ash, how has your year been?"

The question was almost as awkward as the asker himself, though Ash wasn't one to talk. Uncle Spencer was a kind man, though, and stood in steady partnership with his mother as they guarded Molly (who got along famously with Will, and Koga (the big softy) already doted on her like a second daughter) as she wandered around yapping at the Gym Leaders.

Ash indulged Molly, always entertaining her questions and strange familiarity, but just the sight of her put him a little on edge. He never let it show, but Will and Karen knew him well enough to pick up on it. Will diverted some of Molly's eager attention away and Karen guarded him like a grumpy mother Dewgong.

He didn't miss his mom's secret smiles at that.

Some of the Silver Gym Leaders were a little wary around Molly as well, mostly the younger ones. Whitney in particular shot her skeptical glances whenever the tiny girl wasn't looking. It was her territory that had been almost subsumed by the Unown's crystal, after all.

The tablet weighed around Ash's neck now like an anchor. All that power, all that potential…all confined in a single bit of stone.

Sabrina had popped in to check on both Molly and Ash's mother. Molly practically tackled the mighty psychic, earning the flicker of a smile. She and his mother chatted politely, a warmth to them both that eased some of Ash's worries as he turned back to Spencer.

"Good," Ash said, clearing his throat and offering an attempt at a smile. Spencer looked just as uncomfortable as he did, even after Ash's mom not-so-subtly motioned for Uncle Spencer to relax. "Challenging."

Uncle Spencer winced at that. What did it, Ash wondered: was it the plague of instability in Hoenn, the rogue Dragon Master's attempt to atomize him and his family, Fino's funeral, or any of the other fifty things that had happened this year? "Yes, your mother told me. I'm very—"

The conversation continued with both Ash and Uncle Spencer putting their feet into their own mouths again and again, an unspoken shadow hanging over them. Lairon awkwardly levitated away to sit by Will and Molly instead, who instantly perked up and began to shower attention (and bits of metal scrap that Ash had passed her early) onto the steel-type.

It wasn't too long before Ash desperately sought to focus on the battle down below instead, trading little comments and observations with Karen. Occasionally Molly would plop into his lap and ask him to explain things to her. That proved easier for Ash to wrestle with, falling into walking the little girl through the strategies and strengths of both Amelia and her opponent in the Top 16, a quick-witted trainer from Azalea who had performed admirably.

"See Amelia's Raichu giving ground? That's all a feint. I've seen that little guy take a Hammer Arm from our friend's Rhyperior and still limp off. He's tougher than he looks and twice as stubborn. Her opponent should pick up on that—the Swift from earlier didn't do much more than scratch him."

Molly's nose wrinkled up as she focused. The girl could be a little hyperactive, but when it came to battling she seemed determined to soak up Ash's every word like a sponge. "So what should she do? Her Sandslash is going to get hurt!"

"She shouldn't chase. Sandslash is best up close, but it has ranged options as well. Objectively, Sandslash should have an advantage pursuing Raichu into that rock field they made, but fighting up close is really the only option Raichu has. His electrical attacks won't do much at range."

"So why's she going in?"

"The heat of battle," Ash said simply, eying the teenager facing down Amelia. He felt the panic in her, the certainty of Top 16 being past her limits, that she was facing down the most terrifying opponent in the whole competition… "She's panicking, hoping she can end this quickly. The eyes on you can make you stupid, leaning too cautious or too aggressive."

Molly gasped when Ash said 'stupid', earning a roll of his eyes. Will made a show of seeming similarly appalled, slapping his white-gloved hand over his mouth, though his Jynx seemed a little exasperated by the whole thing.

While Ash remained intent on the battle (as was Seeker, who wrapped around the back of his chair to peer over his shoulder), he was careful to remain observant of the box. It was interesting—not to mention a little uncomfortable—to see two different worlds collide.

Uncle Spencer was familiar enough with most Gym Leaders and the Elite Four. He had maintained a prominent position in Johto's academic community for ages, growing even more relevant as the threat of the Legends waxed, and post-Greenfield had seen Uncle Spencer and the League growing more familiar than either side would like.

He was respectful, polite to a fault, but there was a clear thread of worry every time Spencer spoke with Leaders (especially Whitney) or Will. The Psychic Master himself subtly mirrored Spencer's discomfort, but Ash thought it a sign of Will's enormous strength of character that he didn't allow his own traumatic experiences at Greenfield to reign over his interactions with Spencer or Molly.

As for his mother…

Torrent had taken it upon himself to levitate by her side, a constant anchor, and Gloam had curled around her shoulders just as he normally did with Ash. Delia Ketchum was a well-known name to all of the Indigo League at this point—while she hadn't spoken much with many of the Silver Leaders, the Kanto side had come to be quite familiar.

His team were her shield just as they were Ash's.

She got along quite famously with the Elite Four, who had come to know her quite well thanks to her visits to the Plateau and their shared time in the hospital after Zinnia's attack. Karen and Will treated her with the utmost grace, and Ash was fairly sure that Koga had asked his mother for a few tips on how to help Janine navigate 'teenage girl' issues.

Just as he should! She was the best mom in the world—Ash had a small army ready to fight for her honor if needed.

Even Lance dragged himself out of his office more often as the Silver Conference progressed—conversations between the Indigo Champion and his mother were always fraught with unspoken tension, although it seemed to fade more and more each time they met.

Lance was a busy man, however, especially as the Conference filtered out the best and the brightest from those who weren't ready for the highest stages.

Ash had written up reports on every candidate who seemed promising for ACE acquisition, though he didn't think any of the competitors seemed quite right for an Elite Four offer at this point.

That wasn't going into his other goals. He'd put in overtime trying to set up the pieces correctly for when the Conference was over, however. He'd need to ask to borrow Metagross to help him keep all the details straight eventually, although Steven would probably take the opportunity to foist Claydol off on him instead.

"You look a little lost," his mother's soft voice came in from behind him. Seeker chirped happily, flapping her lower wings, and Ash turned around with a smile. "What are you thinking about?"

"Well, I'm certainly not worried about Amelia," Ash said drily, looking down where Raichu had pummeled her opponent's hapless Sandslash into submission. Raichu could be just as sadistic as his trainer sometimes. "She has the situation well in hand."

His mother leaned over his chair and chuckled as Raichu showed just how far he had come in the past year. Amelia seemed to tower over her opponent with her arms folded across her chest and her long brown hair dancing in the wind which exploded outwards with each blow. "Oh my! I know you've helped train them, but Amelia really has come into her own, hasn't she?"

"I just helped give them something to push against. They would've gotten here on their own sooner or later."

"Probably on the later side of things," Karen cut in, her eyes sharp and approving as she watched the battle progress. Amelia wasted no time in dismantling her foe, making a trainer who made it to the Top 16 seem like an amateur. "But I won't deny that your little friends are all talented. She's a vicious little thing, isn't she?"

"Agatha would've loved her."

Karen's smile turned a little brittle, though marked by a fond gleam in her eye. They'd visited Agatha's memorial together a few times. Gengar never let them wallow in sadness for too long before zapping them with a weak Distortion blast to get them to go off and actually make something of their lives.

His mother's warm hand rested on his shoulder and squeezed.

Ash hesitated, ensured no one else was listening, and leaned back.

"Silver's been avoiding me," he said quietly, though he hadn't been brave enough to talk to his mother about Giovanni. Let alone everything else that happened. How to explain Mewtwo popping in? Especially given the increasing dissatisfaction coming across their bond, that hint of emptiness. Disappointment. "I've invited him to watch a match with me a few times…"

His mother's lips pursed as she leaned in close. "You've done all you can to keep him safe, Ashy. But living here must be so difficult for him…Silver must feel trapped, pinned between a rock and a hard place. He might be afraid. If you do want to build that relationship, then perhaps you should try meeting him on his terms."

Karen nodded sagely as if that had been her idea in the first place, although she made no secret of the fact that she wasn't especially fond of the grumpy boy.

Ash's brow furrowed. "His terms?"

"What does he like?" His mother said gently. "Not everyone loves battling like you do, sweetheart. Maybe Silver's seen enough fighting in his life."

His face twisted up at that. It took just a few moments for the idea to even click. "But…he's good at it."

"The kid needs about ten times as much therapy as he's currently getting," Karen said. "But I think Delia's right, Ash. You've fought for survival before, but most of the time it's just because you love it. Don't forget that you're a little crazy, Ash. We all have to be. Not everyone is like us."

Ash barked out a laugh at that, reclining into Seeker as she clutched him close, and acknowledged the point.

"Doesn't like fighting," Ash scoffed, shaking his head. "I can't think of anything he would like! Except for complaining. He likes to do that."

His mother shook her head in fond exasperation. "Have you asked him?"

Ash's silence said it all. Most of his and Silver's conversations revolved around training, Team Rocket, Giovanni, Silver's safety…actually, most of them ended in at least a light argument. They were more for business than pleasure, partially because Silver seemed ready to bite Ash's head off at the soonest opportunity.

"Try that," his mother urged. "The poor boy's been through so much. I think he must be very lonely, Ash. He wants a friend. If you want to be that for him—"

"I'll try meeting him on his terms," Ash said, hiding his grumble. Why couldn't Silver just love the war drums in his ears and the pounding of blood through his veins like a normal person? That one always had to be difficult. "Thanks, mom."

She just smiled down at him, then perked up as the crowd went wild. They all watched eagerly as Raichu finished off the last of their opponent's team with a spectacular blast of electricity that would have done Oz proud.

"Incredible! After falling in the preliminary matches in her previous Indigo Conference, Amelia Franklin now advances to the Top 8 in a stunning 1-3 victory! How far will this remarkable trainer from Pallet Town go? The competition only grows fiercer from here, but this trainer seems ready to push to the end!"

Amelia raised her hand high in victory, Raichu matching her upraised fist with his paw and sparking tail, and Ash cheered with all the rest.

Koga watched intently.

XX

Wind shouldn't flow in the deep places of Mt. Silver, those secret vaults of the League sequestered away from the world for a thousand years.

Chinatsu's grotto didn't follow such rules.

Blue flames flickered like little flowers, scattered through the air of the great cavern through glittering sapphires, and a comforting heat flowed all around. Not the scorching blaze of a wildfire (or Infernus) or the dry rush of volcanic fury, but the gentleness of a campfire on a cold winter night.

Such a flame could be roused to great fury. Such a flame could sear flesh if it came too close.

But that was not its purpose.

Nidoking plodded along behind Ash through the winding stone tunnels behind Lance's office. Their teacher hadn't exactly been excited to allow Ash down here—he'd been on edge ever since the encounter with Mewtwo and the loss of Giovanni, a reminder that Mewtwo was perfectly happy to exercise his power—but had reluctantly acknowledged that it was better for Ash to come check in on Chinatsu than Lance himself.

As Ash had said earlier, Chinatsu could hold quite the grudge. She'd certainly had plenty of time to stew over it while she rested here guarding the Plateau and her brother-in-arm's tomb.

They had followed the tunnel hidden in Lance's office without hesitation, familiar with its layout by now, and traced their fingers and claws against the stony walls. Indigo Plateau's illusions didn't mislead him anymore. Not when Ash was one of its sworn protectors.

Viridian's emerald plant.

Vermillion's golden star.

Pewter's simple octagon.

Cerulean's rain drop.

All the vaunted symbols of the Indigo territories had passed him by, carved an age ago, and seemed to shepherd Ash and his companion along until they had emerged in the great grotto, peaceful and eternal.

Chinatsu's Will-O-Wisps hovered all around, some motionless while others flitted around like little flying-types, and they quivered at Ash's approach. Yet Ash and Nidoking's eyes settled upon a more prominent fixture of the serene sanctuary.

Taimu's statue rose like a titan atop a slab of marble, his sapphire eyes gleaming in unison with the brilliance of Chinatsu's scattered body, and was joined by the mighty form of Shinobu. But there was another here now, a great chiseled form hewn by time and battle into an indomitable wall of armored might.

For a moment Ash mistook it as a new statue.

Then he smiled and dipped his head.

"Mamoru," Ash acknowledged. The grumpy old Rhydon's eyes softened at the sight of him and offered a nod in return. He kept forgetting how truly enormous Mamoru was—Nidoking had grown taller and broader throughout their time in Hoenn, now reaching around seven feet in height after their time in the past, but Mamoru was a true giant.

He couldn't imagine the expressions of the poor warriors who faced the great Rhydon upon the battlefield.

"Lance wasn't certain if you were still here or not," Ash said. Mamoru snorted, pensively adjusting one of the Everstones anchored to his chest. The League symbols etched into his armor mirrored those on the rock walls that Ash had passed earlier. "It's good to see you."

Mamoru grunted back, rumbling like a landslide, and the stone of Mt. Silver trembled in response. As the ripples reached Ash, he felt Mamoru's relief, the pain of returning to this cherished place without his beloved brother, the joy of reunion with Chinatsu…

More than that, Ash felt acceptance.

"Akemi would be so happy to see you now," Ash said quietly. "Perhaps you should go see her when this is all finished. She's still in the Lavender Tower. Part of her, anyways. Enough of her. Even her shade is more substantial than most people who still cling to life."

Mamoru reeled, a brief flicker of pain washing over his old eyes, and for a moment Ash felt the pressing weight of a millennium upon his shoulders.

"I spoke to her recently. Well, forty years ago," Ash said distractedly. Mamoru briefly gaped at him as if Ash had sprouted a second head, his confusion swimming through the stone. The blue flames stirred, swirling together and coalescing into a golden Ninetales with a blazing Feather of Moltres upon her spine.

Chinatsu stared wondrously at him, sitting on her haunches like a golden queen as her tails swam behind her, flicking at the tips.

Taimu's sapphire eyes seemed to sparkle brighter as his team was reunited beneath his statue once more: proud Chinatsu, mighty Mamoru, and the bones of heroic Shinobu. Even now Ash could feel the sheer purpose embedded in the bones buried beneath the plinth, the weight within them.

"Ash Ketchum…thank you for your assistance," Chinatsu's voice cracked through the peaceful air of the grotto, stirring its waters. Warmth flowed from her. "You…you have reminded us of a great deal. Of a light long forgotten."

He ignored Chinatsu for a moment, striding past her and Mamoru to kneel before Taimu's great statue. Nidoking joined him; neither Chinatsu nor Mamoru appeared offended, seeming to think that it was only natural for Ash to pay his respects to the First.

And Ash did.

But what he truly grasped for was the little ember he felt buried beneath the marble. His eyes traced the plaque of gold soldered to the plinth and his tongue formed the same words they had the first time that Ash had visited this sacred place.

"Interred here are the remains of Shinobu, Greatest of his kind and Terror to the Unjust. He died in my service in the Battle of Mt. Silver. Mighty Shinobu died to the Drake of Blackthorn's partner, but with his sacrifice slew the Beast of Blackthorn and brought victory to the Brothers and Sisters of Kanto. May his name live forever in the stars."

The great Tauros' statue felt almost alive then, coursing with memory, and Ash smiled up at the fierce warrior.

"He's still here," Ash marveled, laying his hand against the Tauros' stone snout. He felt purpose here, the dying intent to preserve his brother's dream, and it was interred within the stone. This statue would not crumble. Not so long as this little memory burned on.

Chinatsu's crisp voice materialized from thin air.

"I have preserved this one ember, fostering it beyond when my brother's echo should have dispersed back to the world from whence it came. A piece of him persists. Your eyes have grown keen since we last met, Ash Ketchum."

Ash turned and met Chinatsu's ruby eyes. "I've simply learned to look."

One of her tails swayed. Her ears flicked.

"I hear the crackling of flame in your footsteps. The singing of a frozen lake. The crack of thunder. The song of a hurricane and frigid blood. All familiar, all ringing like the bells of Ecruteak."

Chinatsu's nose twitched.

"But now…you smell of strange things: Sea salt and sipped-abyss, the molten heart of a volcano, the stink of decaying desires. All which you have invited into yourself! Are you mad, Ash Ketchum?"

Nidoking snorted, rising from his respectful position, and glared daggers at Chinatsu, pawing at the stone. Mamoru simply grunted, eyes locked upon Taimu's visage. He seemed uncaring of the sudden tension.

Ash's lips curled up into a smile as he rose alongside Nidoking, unbothered by Chinatsu's sudden vehemence.

"It's not the first time you've felt them all, is it?"

"No. I wondered when I felt the first touch of the Brands upon you a year ago, though you are much changed from the little boy who first came stumbling into my abode. So different, so frail, but I wondered. Fae laughter echoes around you now, the scent of aged moss and a ringing chord."

"Celebi decided to send me on a trip," Ash said drily. "I felt you pursuing me. I wasn't sure how happy you'd be to run into a walking disaster—I didn't want to come to blows. That seemed like a poor way to end my vacation."

Chinatsu was silent for a moment as her ruby eyes blinked. Several of her tails swayed to some unheard song.

"A vacation? I thought you were a threat," Chinatsu admitted. "I have slain Champions for less. When I felt cataclysm-in-flesh, I imagined my brother's legacy threatened. I would have acted hastily."

Ash smiled. Part of him wished nothing more than to have tested himself against the Chinatsu of old, but it would never have been worth the risk. Not when she fought to kill. At least Mamoru seemed more humored by the challenges than anything, like a grumpy old man rolling out of bed to pummel an obnoxious kid barging into his house.

Which was basically exactly what happened on Ash's meeting with the hulking Rhydon in Fuschia, admittedly.

He reached down to brush affectionately against the grain of Lotus' keystone, chuckling as a trickle of lavender fog entwined around his fingers, but suddenly felt the full weight of Chinatsu's attention upon them.

Nidoking stiffened.

"Abomination! I have heard tales of its ilk," Chinatsu hissed, tails splayed high now. Tension filled her muscles. "Have you brought it to be purged, Ash Ketchum? The Golden Flame would delight in searing its corruption from the world."

Ash's eyes turned cold as ice.

Infernus' Pokéball trembled.

His fingers twitched, ready to snare her golden fires and tear the Feather from her spine, but Mamoru's chuff made him pause.

Mamoru stepped down from the plinth. Every footstep echoed like an earthquake. Stone trembled. Mt. Silver itself seemed to embrace Mamoru—he had left his mark here, a long-forgotten monarch returned to take his throne. The Silver Lady and her fellows couldn't hope to fully mantle such a titan.

The great Rhydon grunted once, stilling Chinatsu, and peered down at the keystone hanging from Ash's hip. He rumbled and raised his claws as if beckoning Lotus forth.

Slowly but surely, Lotus emerged.

Chinatsu's Feather dimmed slightly, though the golden flame soon surged to run down her spine, and for a moment she and Mamoru both reeled at the grasp of apathy and despair incarnate.

But Lotus' shadow was not as harsh as it once was, its edges softened by love and care. The grip of despair which clenched around Chinatsu and Mamoru's hearts eased intentionally, though both the First's old companions seemed ready to lie down and submit to its call still.

They had persisted for a millennium now, but they had never lived.

Ancient purpose drove them, but it had grown hollow without the light of their beloved Taimu.

If it weren't for the decaying flowers placed in reverence at Taimu's feet, Ash thought they might have succumbed entirely to Lotus' power, even this gentler version. How they must have wanted to lay down their weary heads…

Mamoru recovered first, a soft snarl coming to his lips as he jerked from his stupor. His tail swayed and Mt. Silver rumbled. He stared into Lotus' lavender form for a long while, drinking in the nature of the Spiritomb—kintsugi, Ash thought, what was broken fixed with gold—and bowed his head.

Something passed between Lotus and Mamoru. A lone tendril carrying several burning green eyes extended from the keystone to brush against Mamoru, pressing against the Rhydon's forehead like a gentle finger, and Mamoru's shoulders heaved as three fat tears dripped from his ancient eyes.

They landed upon the stone, staining it darker, and Mamoru's stern visage twisted into a lonely smile for the first time that Ash could remember.

Mt. Silver trembled with what Ash thought was gratitude.

Mamoru hesitated for one moment, then stood tall and proud like the warrior he was. For an instant, Ash saw him as he might have been, when the Rhydon heard his brother's last, unspoken words: a king standing the test of time, a regal guardian, the jewel of Indigo.

A Mamoru that grew beyond what he was at Taimu's side.

The immortal will of the First.

And in this moment, Mamoru cast off the shackles which had chained him for nigh upon a thousand years.

His claws raised and the Everstones adorning his armored carapace clattered to the ground.

Chinatsu reared up, tails frantically waving in every direction as her entire body blazed gold. She dove for the Everstones, attempting to press them back to Mamoru's chest in a terrible panic, and the grotto shone with a fiery mix of gold and the blinding white of evolution.

Ash shuddered as power filled the air, practically humming, radiating through the grotto and seeping deeply into the stones of Mt. Silver itself. The greatest of the Ore Mountains quaked as their master ascended—for a brief instant the thin influence of Ice seeping through the mount was broken by the figurative earthquake, shattered by a rocky will, and Ash fought the urge to cackle.

Lance was probably fighting the urge to vomit right now, Ash thought. All of Silver Town must be able to feel the reverberations wracking the mountain as Mamoru's power swelled and waxed like the growing silver of a full moon.

He released his team as swiftly as he could, hoping they could capture at least a glimpse of Mamoru's transformation—it proceeded swiftly, eagerly, the centuries of build-up exploding outwards in a rapid burst of motion and growth.

Mamoru's form broadened even further, stretching immensely until his immense bulk seemed almost unreal, and his body lengthened until he was a towering titan three feet taller than he was as a 'mere' Rhydon. The haze of white power did its work quickly, remaking and reforging Mamoru's old body like an artist who had been waiting far, far too long to practice their craft.

Blade-like protrusions exploded back from his elbows. His hide darkened to a pitch black. Even the layers of orange armor stacked upon Mamoru's new carapace grew so heavy that they turned a bloody red, then fully blackened until they seemed seamless with the rest of Mamoru's hide.

Three blunt claws extended from Mamoru's immense hands, grasping with unfamiliar anatomy, and his horn stretched another six inches and thickened until it looked dangerous enough to carve through the King Under the Mountain's solid armor.

A great tail capped with a bludgeon swayed experimentally, seeming mighty enough to kill a lesser Rhyperior with a single swipe, and when it touched the ground it caused the stone to ripple like water.

"Brother! It is not too late—take the stones!" Chinatsu's power levitated the Everstones up to Mamoru yet again, but his mace-like tail flickered forth and shattered them, casting their splinters into the gentle streams to be discarded and forgotten. Mamoru roared as he embraced freedom, embraced change, freed himself from his self-imposed prison. "Brother, please! Remember—"

Mt. Silver quaked.

Ice was shattered again.

Ash dipped his head to the king reborn, as did Nidoking and Torrent. Dazed's eyes twitched into a smile, Gloam yowled even as the mountain roared around them, and Oz watched with envy as her coat crackled, her thick fingers grasping out as if to take the power for herself.

Tangrowth snuck a few snaking vines over, though Dazed froze them in the Adamant Stream so that they slowed to a crawl. That was fascinating enough to temporarily distract him from the appearance of a new friend.

Lairon looked up at Mamoru with utter awe.

White light faded and only Mamoru remained.

Mt. Silver seemed to twitch with his every breath: stones rattled, dust fell, and the whole mountain felt alive, made organic and breathing alongside its sovereign. Mamoru's influence ranged far and wide, his potential uncapped, and he stood now a giant unbowed.

Chinatsu collapsed as golden fires raged through her fur.

"Brother…what have you become?"

Mamoru seemed young again as he smiled down at Chinatsu, kneeling before her and outstretching one truly massive hand to brush against her delicate form. She leaned into it, fire leaping to embrace Mamoru, and he gently grasped the Ninetales and pulled her into his cradling grasp.

The Ninetales was lost, broken, a thousand years of certainty discarded.

Peace, hope, burned in Mamoru's fresh gaze. He spun, nearly taking Bruiser's head off as his tail swung (although even Bruiser grunted and staggered back an inch as he caught the bludgeon), and Mamoru stared into the sapphire eyes of Taimu's ancient statue.

They were the same height now.

Mamoru's bearing softened. He grunted something, bowed his head so that the very tip of his horn brushed gently against Taimu's stone forehead, and paid his respects.

The truly massive Rhyperior glanced down at his carapace, grunted in dissatisfaction as he realized that evolution had wiped his carved badge symbols clean, but shook off his annoyance.

Ash remembered Taimu's unsaid last words, the hope he had for his brothers and sister, his dream of a better tomorrow.

"He would be so proud to see you now."

Nothing else needed to be said.

Mamoru chuffed, swinging his tail, flexing his new arms, and stared at himself in the reflection of Chinatsu's pools with wonder. Chinatsu slid from his grasp and staggered away, slinking past Mamoru to stare at him as if her entire world had been upended.

"You have changed," Chinatsu's voice echoed throughout the cavern, befuddled. Little pieces of her split off as Will-O-Wisps, as if she couldn't maintain her solid form. "You are born anew."

Mamoru spoke through the stone, through Mt. Silver. They all felt the steady grind of his spirit, the smoothed edges of his craggy will, and the new eyes with which he saw the world.

He had embodied stubbornness for so long, trapped in the moment of Taimu's long-past death, and now that mold had been broken. The nature he'd personified was shaken off like an outgrown exoskeleton.

But even as Mamoru communed with his sister, speaking through the stone as she did flame, they all felt the grotto change.

Warm waters slowed to a crawl, then froze over entirely.

Air thickened and grew sharp and bitter in their lungs.

Frost blossomed like winter roses throughout the stone, crawling across the floor like a rising tide, and gnawed at their feet.

A frigid wind swept from nowhere, sculpting unfrozen water into an ice sculpture, and they all balked as the sculpture stepped forward. Frozen flesh solidified. Fine features emerged from unhewn ice. Long hair swept past the newcomer's shoulders.

Thin sheets of ice wrapped around the feminine form, settling into a plain white robe. A barbed feather shaped of ice and wind and stillness sprouted from her chest to her throat, manifesting from nowhere, embedded deeply within her skin. It seemed truly part of her, woven into her flesh and bone, almost as if the rest of her sprouted more from the Feather than it did from her.

Her skin was white as snow and her hair black as night.

Her features were cold, sharp, and utterly dispassionate.

She exhaled.

Her breath was bitter winter, swallowing them all, and Ash felt the power devour Chinatsu. The Ninetales, proud and bright and golden, was a fading torch standing before an all-encompassing blizzard.

Ice grew strong in his spirit. Ash felt his emotions bleed away, replaced by cold logic and a glaze of hoarfrost over such trivialities as mercy and compassion. Such were only hindrances in the grand calculus of the universe, marching ever onward to the end.

But Ash exhaled, casting it aside.

That was not who he chose to be.

Haukea, the lone Daughter of Winter, stepped from the frozen waters of the grotto with her pale arms outstretched in greeting to her old companions

Chinatsu's hackles rose, her Feather muted to embers, and seemed ready to hiss at Haukea. Mamoru just cocked his head at the ice woman and grunted, ignoring the frost settling upon his rocky hide.

An icy flame reared to life in the back of Ash's mind, curious at this new intruder.

Long has your spirit remained in Lord Winter's embrace, comrade.

Haukea's voice was not a physical thing. Simple words could not impart her full message. Wind whipped across them like a winter gale, flaying them bare with every soul-scribed word. Gloam watched in awe—Torrent's scarlet eyes were narrowed, filled with the dispassion of Ice, and Infernus quivered, shining brighter than ever in the face of such a natural foe.

The Daughter of Winter expressed herself through the world, through the creeping mist and jagged ice. Through the carving winds and jagged icicles.

I thought you lost to the settling rime. Well done.

There was more warmth in Haukea's even words than Ash would have expected as she fixed Mamoru with a long stare. That is to say, there was a tiny drop. More than zero was enough to qualify.

She was more Concept than flesh, Ash felt, and her nature washed over the grotto like a winter storm. Her influence was a steady, crawling thing, an inevitable advance that stole the heat from their breaths and bones.

His team had all experienced the real thing, however, and did not quail.

Chinatsu stepped forward, flames dancing all about her. The frost did not touch her, shrinking away with her every move. Indignance colored her words, broken pride tantamount, but Haukea did not falter in the face of her rebuke.

"You step upon my domain without invitation, Daughter of Winter."

Haukea did not smile, but Ash felt a vicious amusement rise in the grotto. He watched and waited, unburdened by her presence, though he kept a careful eye on his team.

It is my Lord who rests at the peak of this mountain. You dwell in the shadow of Lord Winter, remaining kindled at the pleasure of my master. But why extinguish your spark? You have done well, my vassal-cousin. You have honored my Lord above all else.

Chinatsu's ruby eyes sharpened.

Haukea continued, stepping closer, smothering Chinatsu's heat. Her skin was so cold that water vapor solidified and clung to her marble-like skin. If she touched an ordinary human's skin then they would blister and flash-freeze beneath her fingertips.

Her voluminous white robes seemed to spread out like Articuno's wings as she stood tall over Chinatsu, chastising the thousand-year old Ninetales like a foolish little sister.

You bear the Golden Feather on your back, but you have served Lord Winter as faithfully as I have. Have you not remained frozen in your misery for a millennium? Have you not held Indigo and its Champions in an icy grip?

Haukea paused, freezing Chinatsu in her tracks as the golden Ninetales reeled.

Have you changed?

.

Ash winced at that, feeling Ice's influence dominate the Feather for a moment while Moltres' power quailed. Gloam looked utterly delighted, perfectly content in the frigid cold which ensnared the chamber as he watched the Daughter of Winter rebuke Chinatsu.

There was a vicious smirk on his face, something harsh and predatory in a way that revealed the worst of a Weavile's natural instincts.

Mamoru grunted, shaking his head at Haukea, and the priestess turned away to face Taimu and Shinobu's statues. They were untouched by the cold, perhaps warded by Shinobu's lingering will, and for a moment Ash swore that a flicker of something danced across the icy woman's face.

Your dream lies preserved, Champion Taimu.

Haukea raised a cold hand to brush against the statue's hard stone. Whatever protections shielded it from her failed now. Taimu's sapphire eyes were covered in frosty cataracts.

The Indigo League has stood for a thousand years, cast in stone. As promised. Fire's spark preserved in Ice.

Ash stepped forward once it was clear that Chinatsu had nothing more to say to Articuno's favorite. Haukea dominated the room, her influence malign and harsh and bereft of warmth, but she turned to face him as he neared.

The blistering cold wafting from her flesh did not bother him. Haukea seemed the perfect heat sink, draining the heat and energy of the room wherever she walked, but Ash stood immune. Gloam's eyes were sharpened to those of a predator as he watched over Ash, claws ready to reave frozen skin and bone.

"I met one of your daughters in the Ice Path," Ash said, meeting Haukea's flat gaze. Her eyes seemed human at first glance, but the longer he peered into them the more of the truth he saw: a white glow within, the soul of a winter storm, the daughter of the fiercest blizzard. "You have Articuno's eyes."

Haukea twitched at that. The feather embedded in her throat seemed to barb more fiercely into her white flesh. Not a drop of blood seeped from the wound. She was inhumanly still, more like a statue than a person.

Ash cocked his head at her, fascinated. The cold seeped through his skin, seeking to freeze his blood and sap the vitality from his body, but it was a comfort to him. Part of him just as much as the touch of flame or the tingle of electricity was.

You would name my Lord? Confine the Cold Wings to such a limiting form?

Ice filled him. His breath came out as heavy white fog. Ash abandoned his warmth, shed his humanity like an unneeded skin. Became what he needed to be at this moment.

Words were unnecessary.

Yet Ash wanted to use them.

All the ice, all the frost, all the gnawing cold…it was part of him, an extension of himself. Inorganic tissues and limbs and cells. Mediums through which his spirit might express itself into the world.

Ice ran through to his core. He felt the Winter Woman before him and the great shard of Articuno which roosted upon Mt. Silver's peak. The scar on his cheek ached, but such pain was irrelevant.

Ash reached out and grasped Haukea's white hand. She gasped, though Ash suspected that it had been a long time since she'd truly needed to breathe.

He felt the Ice within her rise up, trying to crush him with all the glacial inevitability he expected of it. But he had not succumbed to the fullness of Ice before, and he would not succumb to a facet of it today.

She was warm, almost scalding him, and he watched with detached curiosity as her pale fingers turned black and frostbitten in his grip.

I stared your Lord in the face. I devoured Ice and emerged myself. Earth and Sea battered my soul. I resisted Desire's temptations and gave back to it in return. I will call Articuno whatever I please.

He released her.

Haukea's frostbitten fingers detached, only to swiftly be made anew as new ice flowed from the rest of her flesh. Chinatsu, Mamoru, and Ash's team watched with idle curiosity. All were tense, but Haukea's presence wasn't quite so dominant as before. Mewtwo's icy flame, entirely different from the cold summoned forth by Haukea's presence, bled a vicious little stab of approval.

Ash cast Ice aside, grimacing as it faded away and the warmth of humanity was restored, and looked at Haukea again. "The League has stood a thousand years. With any luck, it'll last a thousand more. Wouldn't that be a good thing, Elite Four Haukea?"

The winter winds carved against his skin.

It has been a long time since I bore that title.

"From my perspective, maybe," Ash said, glancing at Chinatsu. She'd said Haukea had been born ages before her own grandmother. It was difficult to imagine how unfathomably ancient the Winter Woman was. She made the Ghost of Lavender seem young. "Not so long from yours, I expect."

Haukea stared at him, the mists coiling around Ash like a noose. How long had it been since she'd talked to anyone but a subordinate? Even Chinatsu was wary of her, and it was easy to imagine her regarding Champions as churlish children.

She was dangerous. There was no doubt about that. Power flowed through her freely. Haukea was a vessel more than anything else, an incarnation of Ice with little more than a vestigial mask and fading spark of humanity left to conceal her true nature.

And Ice adored her. Ash felt it, the full weight of Articuno's power. Who was she to thaw Articuno's frigid heart?

Moltres seemed content to spread its flame wherever and whenever it liked. Chinatsu, Lance, Ash…all received a Golden Feather as a mark of its influence. Ash couldn't imagine distant, aloof Zapdos ever granting a Feather as anything but an accident.

But Articuno?

Something told Ash that only one had ever been so favored as to receive its barbed Feather.

Haukea's stare scoured deeper than the physical. Ash felt as if the cold razor of her gaze peeled back flesh and bone to reveal the deepest parts of himself. He felt naked beneath her unfeeling eyes.

You are an unnatural thing. Monstrous.

Ash scoffed alongside Nidoking. As if she was one to talk!

You roam the world devouring all you wish, staring recklessly into every abyss you can find. Your Aura is ravenous: you hunger for knowledge, for power, for everything that is above your station. You would take all of Creation for your own.

His jaw clenched. "And you would freeze it whole."

Wind howled.

The White Wings will encompass all in time. We are still awash in the afterbirth of reality. Its earliest wails still ring. Heat, light, energy, motion…they will all fade. A blessed chill, a cold-embraced expanse, will remain. My Lord's song will echo throughout eternity until the very end. As it has, so it shall.

Infernus sneered at that, stepping forward. The frost didn't dare touch him. He burned hotter than Haukea's cold. A puff of black smoke billowed around them, wafting into Haukea's face. She barely even twitched.

Ash wondered if she even remembered what it was like to be human.

Haukea's blizzard-filled eyes set upon Infernus. The room's temperature plummeted. Only Infernus and Chinatsu's heat shielded his team from Haukea's icy presence.

Icicles sharpened as Haukea raised her white hand in acknowledgement.

The one who mantled Fire. Fire is soft, inviting complacency, yet such a feat deserves recognition. But know this, Infernus-Who-Was-Fire: Lord Winter would not succumb to mortal will so easily.

Infernus sneered, glaring at Haukea's barbed Feather as though he would rip it off. Winter storm and fire incarnate pitted against one another…oh, what Ash would do to see that!

"Except that Articuno did."

That earned a proper scowl from her. Ash counted that as progress—it was the first sign of emotion he'd seen from the Winter Woman.

You are as mortal as I am.

Now it was Ash's turn to make a face.

"Why are you here?" Ash said quietly. "Why now?"

Haukea's flesh was less a part of her than the wind and cold which sank deep into their skin. Ash felt its ancient intent burrow into his very spirit. Haukea spread her arms wide, her white sleeves falling to her shoulders as gravity took hold.

The bones of the earth wake. The bloody abyss and the parasites suckling upon it stir. Humanity is soft now. They have forgotten the Walk of Winter. I will rise again to remind them.

"You're helping them?" Ash blurted out. His eyes narrowed as he recalled the first of Haukea's influence he'd encountered, one of the Firstborn Jynx. "I met your emissary in the Ice Path, you know. I saw what you did to those girls—what you made them into."

I made them more. Not all have the potential to become one of Winter's daughters. Yet all of humanity might learn to walk in the shadow of the White Wings. The Walk of Winter will teach them the strength that they have forgotten.

Her cold grew more oppressive, swirling fiercely for a moment before going terribly still. Infernus' might filled the grotto, burning hotter than natural, and Chinatsu's flames spun just as madly as Haukea's mists.

Mamoru was still too busy inspecting the new holes in his palms; a normal Rhyperior was liable to occasionally launch Geodude by mistake. Mamoru? He looked ready to fire off a Golem.

We need not be pitted against one another, Storm-Tamer. I offer sanctuary. I seek the preservation of Champion Taimu's legacy as much as you do. You think me a monster? I was his monster. And humanity flourished for it—the catalytic, transformative blaze of Fire settling into the stability of Ice. You know as well as I that there is a balance to be found between Fire, Ice, and Lightning.

Chinatsu grimaced at that, though Mamoru sagely nodded. It was still bizarre to see him so young. Mamoru was still a craggy titan, his age apparent, but it was as if he'd utterly cast off the weight of the past few centuries to discover the fresh stone lying beneath.

Haukea lowered her arms. The wind stilled. The cold retreated.

Consider my words, Ash Ketchum. The world changes. I shall preserve what I can…and I will remind the people of lessons long forgotten.

Her lips twitched in what might have been a smile as the Winter Woman regarded Chinatsu and Mamoru.

The Champion of Champions would be proud.

And with that, Haukea vanished in a rush of winter wind.

Chinatsu's red eyes narrowed to slits as the Feather upon her spine exploded with fury, banishing all the remnants of Haukea's influence and melting away all hints of her wretched ice. Even still, the proud Ninetales was lower than Ash had seen her in any of their previous encounters.
"She's wrong," Ash glanced at the memorial, and at the dead flowers laid out before it. He smiled at the golden vulpine. "You have changed."

Chinatsu inclined her head in an appreciative nod to Ash, silent for the moment as she contemplated her next words.

"Ever proud, ever certain. The Daughter of Winter is unrelenting even after a millennium."

"I think she'd be unrelenting after a year," Ash grunted. "Unchanging. Unceasing. Inevitable. But it falls to Fire to stop winter in its tracks, eh?"

Chinatsu's tails swayed as she cocked her head at Ash, her ruby eyes fixated upon the Feather.

"Indeed. The smallest ember fights off the decay for a little longer…and a spark of light keeps the darkness at bay. You have proven to be a font of light, Ash Ketchum."
A bittersweet heat filled him. She sounded like Fino.

Nidoking offered a dry chuckle, nodding.

Chinatsu rose, shaking off the chill of Haukea's drowning presence.

"The chill of stagnation has clung to this grotto for too long. If nothing else, the Daughter of Winter is correct regarding that. But I reject her truth! I reject her icy words. Fill your heart with Fire, Ash Ketchum, and embrace the moment. Embrace the challenge ahead—it is the nature of warmth to dissipate and disperse, but that does not mean one must yield to the inevitable."

"Especially not to one like Haukea."

"Indeed…" Chinatsu trailed off. Her eyes flitted to Mamoru, who flexed as Ash followed her gaze. "Rise to the challenge, Elite Four Ash. Make our Champion proud."

He knew she wasn't talking about Lance.

And as Chinatsu's words faded into the chilled air of the grotto, Mamoru lowered his gaze to Ash expectantly. Something seemed to pass over the mighty Rhyperior's expression, conflict fading into the certainty of acknowledgement, and he raised his claws, bidding Ash to stand tall.

Thump. Mamoru's mace-like tail tapped the stone of the grotto in challenge.

Ash and his team exchanged glances for a moment, then he and Infernus locked eyes.

They knew exactly what the other was thinking.

Ash's breath hitched. "Mamoru! We accept your challenge."

Mamoru outright smiled as he flicked his mighty tail once more and bade them to follow.

As Ash followed Mamoru out of the grotto, the voice of the Feather-Bearer behind him rang out.

"Ash Ketchum," the words hung in the air, warmth coloring them like the embers of a bonfire. "I have known you destined for the Champion's Mantle ever since first we met. But now I find myself eagerly anticipating it."

XX

The Top 16 matches heralded the true beginning of the Silver Conference: six-on-six battles fought between the best trainers that Johto had to offer.

Gary and Diamond absolutely butchered their opponents with terrible ferocity, channeling Sidney's strategies in a flurry of raw aggression to which there was no defense. Not by their foe, anyways. Alakazam was beaten after cutting down two of the girl's fighters, only succumbing to a nimble Gengar, and Diamond plowed through it, a Heracross, sharp-eyed Noctowl, and nigh-impenetrable Forretress to secure the win.

He didn't even gloat afterwards, apparently deeming the competition below his notice. Gary had offered only the briefest wave to the Elite Four box before recalling Diamond and marching out of the arena. Clair tried to get a parting shot in, but was quickly pulled into conversation with Daisy—who gave the Gym Leader a stern look and a wag of her finger—before she could.

Jon faced more of a challenge, battling one of the Conference favorites. Harrison and his Blaziken were a formidable duo and the rest of his team were no slouches themselves, fighting with a methodical bent that Ash admired. They were a clever bunch, though not prone to traps so much as applying a fluid intelligence to work around whatever Jon could throw at them.

It wasn't enough.

Ash had cheered for Jon when his friend won 4-6. Harrison could have easily gone to the Top 8, though Jon had the edge—Charizard had wrapped Blaziken up in a Seismic Toss and brought the mighty fighter crashing back down to earth to finish him off, and from there Jon had steadily whittled down Harrison's remaining fighter.

He'd marked Harrison as a potential recruit for ACE, however. The man was a formidable trainer and a rather pleasant man, stopping to shake Jon's hand and thank him for a fantastic battle before they went their separate ways.

As for Amelia…well, she was the first of them to battle in the Top 8.

"Yeah, go Politoed!" Jon pumped his fist, screaming madly from the private box that Ash had secured for him. "You're a beast! Crush that wimpy Nidoking—uh, no offense."

Nidoking's horn dripped a single bead of venom with rather impressive intentionality as he snorted at Jon, who quailed.

As for the Nidoking Jon referred to, he snarled as he spat a spray of Poison Stings right into Politoed's fragile skin, though the water-type flung a wall of water up to intercept them. A single barb pricked Politoed's skin, but it would take a long time to take effect—Joshua Brooks was a clever trainer, however, and had set up several plans for this eventuality.

His Nidoking (Rex, Ash remembered) was truly ferocious, setting off trap after trap as he pressured Politoed to step backwards, but Politoed seemed to dance around them with unerring grace. Yet every trap set off damaged him just a tad, testing the water-type's defenses, and Nidoking's every motion seemed formed with incredible intent.

Each step pushed Politoed into their next trap. Every blow angled Politoed near where Rex and Brooks desired. Every moment brought them closer to victory…and yet Politoed played them just as well. Traps lost their effect, poison was diluted into harmlessness, and even as Rex slowly pinned Politoed in, Politoed drew every last drop of strength out of his foe.

Rex had already single handedly defeated Amelia's Yanma, though the speedy insect had left plenty of marks and done some legwork in dismantling a number of the traps that the Nidoking had set up for future opponents, and so it was with one final rush of earth and venom that he came crashing into Politoed when he had finally boxed the elusive water-type in.

Yet even as Rex's long horn came perilously close to piercing Politoed's skin—and Ash saw the fear in the fighter's eyes at that prospect—the water-type's gaze flashed a brilliant azure as a flare of psychic energy lulled the Nidoking into a hypnotic state.

"So that's what you two were working on," Ash said quietly to Dazed, who nodded tersely, eyes locked on the scene. Politoed wasn't an exceptional psychic by any means, but the Hypnosis was geared to be less intrusive than most: rather than an utter takeover of an opponent's mind, it was designed to simply dull their senses and leave them open to attack.

Master-level fighters would shred it in a heartbeat, but it worked well at this level of competition. Mental attacks as a whole were well-guarded against in the highest tiers of combat (much for the same reason that Ash had invested so much time and energy into specializing against Distortion) but they still had their uses.

They had trained Dazed's mental abilities further and further since meeting the Warden who oversaw Hoenn's most secure prison, though Ash and Dazed had chosen to optimize her Elemental Synthesis and Remote Teleportation as their most significant training investments.

Steven's psychics were most adept with physical and spatial manipulation such as those techniques, and Dazed's natural aptitude for the mental arts would make it easier to push further with independent training. Ash fully intended to explore those aspects of her training once they'd developed a stronger baseline, but for now Hypnosis was too brittle a blade for Master-level combat.

Ideal when the perfect circumstances came up in battle, but it wasn't something they could lean on.

But against Josh Brooks…

Rex was swift to break the Hypnosis when his trainer whistled a high, clear note—clearly a signal they'd developed as a stimulus in case of mental attack—and brought his horn down to put an end to the fight, but it offered Politoed one single second to act.

Hyper Voice rattled Rex, the frequency attuned specifically to target his species (that was one nasty trick that Amelia had unveiled in their training), and left him reeling…but he was quick to exhibit some very simple earth manipulation that impressed Ash.

Rather than attacking Politoed with the feeble surge of earth, it leapt into Nidoking's ears, packing them and taking the edge off. Politoed had but a single moment to try to break his Ice Punch off and leap away before Nidoking lunged at him with surprising speed.

Politoed screeched as the venom-packed horn pierced his shoulder, but a single command from Amelia ensured he wouldn't go down alone. His eyes flashed blue again as he accessed his burgeoning psychic abilities, scraping the earth from Rex's sensitive ears even as the sickly discordant notes of a Perish Song exploded from Politoed's throat.

And that was that.

Brooks and Amelia had traded fighter after fighter, weaving plots and sabotage and planting knife after knife in one another's backs, but in the end it was Rex who fell. Raichu (who had done approximately nothing at all besides hiding from the Nidoking in the minutes after Politoed was defeated) raised a proud paw up to greet the cheering crowd.

Raichu bowed and waved, flicking his long tail to send a cascade of sparks dancing through the air, then joined Amelia in offering up a respectful nod to Brooks as the boy raised his hand in salute to the victors.

The sting of defeat was apparent on Brooks' face even as Jon cheered at Ash's side, but the boy looked admiringly at Amelia and the evidence of their heated battle.

In that admiration, in the pure love of competition rather than in simple victory, Ash saw a kindred spirit.

Amelia beamed back at Brooks, drunk on her victory and ascension to the Top 4—past the true measure of the elite, Ash thought—and soaked up the adoration of the crowd as they cheered her on to new heights.

Ash would swing by to congratulate her later. But for now…

"I'll see you in a bit, Jon. Grab whatever food you want before you leave the box—it's all on me. Dazed?"

Jon was too caught off guard to say much, but his eyes lit up (and Rhyperior's, not to mention Charizard's) at the mention of free food.

Ash had the distinct feeling that even he was going to notice the dent in his wallet after all this. But such thoughts didn't linger long as he recalled his teammates and Dazed whisked him away in a wrinkle of space-time, leaving the box behind.

It was painfully nostalgic to reappear in one of the League locker rooms where the challengers prepared for their matches. They were subtly different, accented in streaks of silver rather than indigo, but Ash took a deep breath of the chilled air as he recalled his time in the Indigo Conference.

His first taste of the highest levels of competition felt as if it had come to a close a full decade ago rather than a mere year. How time flew…

Footsteps.

Ash folded his arms, waiting patiently, and took a bit of delight in the sheer surprise on Josh Brooks' face as he stepped into the locker room and stopped in his tracks.

"Ash!" The specialist's eyes shone. "I…uh, didn't expect you here. What—"

"I came to congratulate you on your battle," Ash said, wasting no time in stepping forward and shaking Brooks' limp hand. He'd run into Brooks a few times outside of battling now, but the specialist always seemed a little bewildered by Ash's attention. "You pushed Amelia to the edge—well done!"

"Did you see her?" Brooks gushed, waving one hand while the other lovingly brushed against the row of Pokéballs on his waist. "She was a monster! I've never faced anyone so savage, so cunning…she tore me apart."

Ash grinned, remembering Brooks' Arbok blinding Venusaur with Toxic-infused Scale Shots before sinking its savage fangs into the grass-type's throat to end the bout. "I seem to remember you paying her back in kind."

Brooks colored. "Well…I wasn't going to make it easy for her. Not against one of the Pallet Four!" The boy finished with a starstruck gaze. "She saw through every one of my tricks. Trying to gain a foothold against her was like climbing up a Muk's back! Did you see when—"

He was all too happy to bask in Brooks' praise of Amelia. Brooks painstakingly dissected every moment of their fight, every individual step in the great dance, and outright glowed as he and Ash slowly trailed into various stories of their journeys.

Joshua Brooks was a dogged contender, one who had pushed himself to his limits and sought every challenge that Johto had to offer. He'd ventured up to Rota for a time, though had missed Jon and Amelia (apparently he'd been inspired by a televised conference they'd entered), and even earned the Rising Badge after repeated challenges to Clair.

"You earned the Rising Badge?" Ash's eyebrows rose. "I've heard Clair has been…"

"Oh, she's been horrible!" Brooks sounded all too delighted by that simple fact. "Leader Clair creamed us early on, and she just got stronger and stronger every time we came back. But every time she was forced to bare a little more of that strength, we held onto it like a lifeline. She was brutal, relentless, and didn't have an ounce of compassion—she broke us every time, challenging us to remake ourselves stronger."

Ash's lips curled up into a smile, recalling similar sentiments from Jon and Amelia. Even Gary, though the boy was loath to admit it. Clair was the hammer and their will was the anvil: trainers of lesser character would balk at the unyielding blows she dealt, rattled away from their dreams, but those made of sterner stuff only used it as fuel.

They chatted for a little longer, growing more at ease with each passing moment, but it wouldn't be long before the next bout started. Someone else needed this space, so Ash reluctantly shook Brooks' hand one last time.

"It's been good catching up," Ash said honestly. "But time's running short. I'd love to stay and chat, but there's someone else wanting to speak with you."

Dazed's eyes flashed even as Brooks' brow furrowed in obvious confusion.

Contact has been established.

Psychics were just phenomenal for dramatic effect. It was no wonder Will had so much fun!

Ash would savor the look on Brooks' face when Koga teleported in alongside a stern-faced Alakazam for the rest of the night. It took less than a second for the boy to recognize his idol—or one of them, anyways.

Perhaps Koga hadn't rushed to the rank of Master as prodigies like Lance or Cynthia had, but he was famous for a reason. The Poison Master of Indigo was known as a deft hand even for a Master, dealing fierce blows with pinpoint precision.

To face Koga was to face a virulent miasma eager to swallow its foes whole, masking every intent in a shroud of wicked deception and manipulation which obscured every feint and death-blow in one.

Karen and Will both bore marks of his tutelage, though contrasted their mentor in opposite directions. Whereas Karen was a little more savage than Koga, preferring misdirection purely as a mask to gut her foes, Will found a love for the game: weaving a web of playful deceit, a joyful bout in which his team always held the best cards.

Needless to say, Brooks' jaw was practically on the floor.

"Elite Four Koga!" The boy wheezed so fiercely that Ash feared he was about to hyperventilate. Koga's lips twitched as Ash reached out to steady Brooks. "You…I'm honored, sir! I've watched you for years! Your match against Bruno…it was magnificent! I heard stories of the Fuschian Spear—and I've been trying to get it working for a year now!—but the way you just effortlessly took down Machamp was inspiring—"

"Breathe."

Koga's curt command was heeded instantly, though it wasn't delivered unkindly.

"Yessir!"

"It's nice to meet you, young man," Koga said, tilting his head. "I've been tracking your progress for some time."

Brooks made a sound somewhere between a squeak and a groan. Then it keeled off into some frequency that humans weren't designed to hear, though Alakazam's mustache twitched in irritation.

"You have acquitted yourself well in several well-publicized tournaments, not to mention your previous performance in the Indigo Conference, falling only to an unprecedented and truly formidable opponent" Koga said, his eyes flitting briefly over to Ash. Brooks swayed on his feet. Were those tears in his eyes? Ash couldn't blame him—that was about how he'd felt when he first met Lance. "And now Top 8 in your second year…you've attracted my attention, Joshua."

Koga met Ash and Dazed's eyes and tilted his head towards the exit, clearly wishing to continue the conversation with Brooks a bit more privately. Ash nodded, waved at Brooks as he stepped away, but still trained his ears intently upon Koga's next words.

"In light of your accomplishments—and upon the personal recommendations of numerous League personnel—I would like to extend an offer of apprenticeship. You have great potential, and I believe it to be my duty to see it nurtured…"

Ash grinned, hoping that Brooks wouldn't just pass out, and half-expected to hear a thud before he stepped out of the locker room.

He has restrained himself. Barely.

Well, Ash just had to hope now that Brooks wouldn't have any hard feelings towards Amelia once all the adrenaline settled.

That might make things a wee bit awkward going forward.

XX

"It's peaceful here, isn't it?"

Sam's voice broke the heavy silence upon the hilltop where Agatha's grave rested. A shadow darkened as Gengar manifested briefly to offer their old friend a wave. Apparently Gengar hadn't held quite so much of a grudge as its mistress had…or perhaps it had simply thawed in Orre.

"Almost too peaceful," Ash said wistfully, eyes trained upon the little picture of him, Sam, and little Aggie all grinning together (at least once Gengar had unshrouded it for their viewing). Forty years for them, mere months for him. It might have been a mere prank for Celebi, but it had irreversibly changed their lives forever. "She'd be bored to tears sitting up here."

Gengar chuckled at that.

"Perhaps," Sam said, grunting as he came to sit by Ash before Agatha's small shrine. Sometimes it was hard to see the little boy in the old man, but then Sam would open his mouth and all Ash could see was bright-eyed Sammy. "She was always a spitfire, but in the end…I think she would have enjoyed a little rest."

Inferno limped up to Sam's side, still bearing a few poorly healed wounds from his last bout with Infernus. To any other fighter they might well have been debilitating—one of his wings bore a great slash through it, his flank had a stab wound, and one of his horns looked as if it had been dipped in lava.

Knowing Infernus, it probably had. Ash could personally validate that Infernus hadn't emerged from their last duel looking any better.

"A little rest and she'll be back. A part of her memory, at least."

Ash never dared to venture too close to the cane embedded in the hard, cold soil of this little foothill of Mt. Silver. He feared what his touch might do to this last little vestige of Agatha, this trace of the darkness that had been her very soul.

It was a seed stained with Agatha's essence. She would love to be birthed anew here, Ash thought, bathed in wind and cold and the harshest soils. But for all Agatha relished in hardship and the path less taken, Ash knew it would be the warmth of the family she had chosen that would feed her ghost the most.

Indigo Plateau was more her home than Lavender ever was, and so was the League more her family than those bound to her by blood could ever claim to be.

"One day," Sam said, trailing off as he stared at what might become a little Phantump one day. "You know, I always have the strangest feeling whenever I look at that old cane."

Ash hummed in response, lost in thought. "Oh?"

"I always feel as if it's about to uproot itself and come smack me in the nose," Sam said, frowning. "It's the damnedest thing!"

Gengar snickered. Ash swore the cane twitched in the hard soil at Sam's comment. But that must have been his imagination…right?

"I wish she were here now," Sam sighed, grunting again as he tried to get his old bones comfortable. "She would have adored hearing about this Ever Grande Challenge of yours, you know! No doubt she'd be coaching you through every opponent…and probably sharing a few of your strategies with them as well. Agatha always liked to keep things interesting."

Ash snorted before resting his hand upon Lotus' keystone, relishing the slight brush of lavender fog against his fingertips. It was nice of Lotus to say hello. "No doubt about it."

"Are you ready, Ash?" Sam's eyes found his. "You hardly have more than a week to prepare. The Silver Conference will wind down soon enough, you'll be back in Hoenn, and four Masters await you. But I'd like to think I know you rather well at this point. What are you planning?"

Ash grinned, releasing Gloam so that the Weavile could sit purring in his lip. His wicked claws caught the pale light which spilled past the frigid veil above Mt. Silver.

"My plan? I'm going to systematically make sure Sidney regrets every conversation we've ever had," Ash said flatly, stroking Gloam's thick fur happily at the thought of sweet, delicious payback. "Sidney won't make it easy for me. I know that. But he's given me all the motivation I could ask for. I also owe Karen that much for the stunt Zoroark pulled."

Sam chuckled at that. "Well, I suspect the whole world will be rooting for you in that match," he said jovially. "But let's say you make it past Savage Sidney. What of the rest?"

"Steven's already told me that they've been preparing for me," Ash said brightly even as Gloam hissed with pleasure. "For us! Isn't it wonderful? We've had a month to train, to prepare, to be at our best…and so have they! They know we're coming for them!"

"Sidney, Phoebe, and Glacia are all superb trainers," Sam said, chuckling at Ash's raw excitement. "But old Drake…oh, the anticipation is terrible! Couldn't you have had your jaunt to the past a few months later? I wouldn't have minded knowing the outcome of that particular match."

Sam's eyes drifted to the old photo of Agatha with Drake and Blaine. A broad smile twisted across the One-Ringed Oak's face.

"Oh, I do hope you're ready, Ash. Though after our match, I rather hope they're ready as well. You aren't the same boy who stepped onto Hoenn's shores a year ago."

Ash beamed at that, and for a long while they sat and chattered about this and that. Mt. Silver loomed above, capped by Ice itself and the blizzard manifested by its white stain, but he found himself fixated upon the fortress of Indigo Plateau standing firm and resilient in its face.

The world may test them all, but it was their duty to be even more unyielding.

And with that…

Ash tested the limits of Mewtwo's control. His tongue moved. Words spilled out, words that he expected to have been strangled in their infancy.

"Giovanni got what he deserved."

Sam stiffened. A terrible stillness fell over him. "So I heard."

Ash was silent for a moment. "You knew he was alive?"

"Lance informed me once I took my place in SCRY," Sam said tightly. "I'd known some limited information before regarding the destruction of the Rocket HQ, but even my position didn't entitle me to the full picture until necessity reared its head. Lance informed me personally—were it not for the connection with Mewtwo, not to mention the Distorted anomaly, I never would've known at all."

Sam's bitterness was unveiled in full then, a specter of the One-Ringed Oak who had almost single handedly broken Team Rocket manifested, and he was made a far cry from the kindly boy with a microscope who Ash had come to hold so dear.

"You never said anything."

A flicker of shame passed over Sam's face. Inferno grumbled, spitting a plume of black smoke flecked with cerulean embers. "I'm truly sorry, Ash. Vows of confidentiality wouldn't have bound me, nor would promises to Lance. Not for this. But I feared…eavesdroppers. One particular eavesdropper, in fact, who ended up doing exactly what I anticipated when it found out Giovanni was still alive."

Sam reached out and lightly tapped Ash on the forehead with a pointed look.

Icy blue coals roared to life in Ash's head, indignant, and Ash gaped at Sam. "You knew?"

"Suspected," Sam corrected, appearing very tired. "Alakazam was unable to confirm my suspicions—"

Knowing Mewtwo, the Legend had just passively edited out Alakazam's memories of the attempts, Ash thought.

"—but it was plain that there was some sort of bond. You've made a habit of collecting foreign influences, as we saw exhibited in our experiments with the elemental stones, and Alakazam informed me of the psychic inferno spilling out from you the moment you returned to Pallet from New Island."

Sam appeared sheepish for a moment. "I'd already formulated my suspicions of Mewtwo's continued influence by the time you left for the Indigo Conference, and once Lance informed me of the psychic possession inflicted upon you during the meeting with himself and President Goodshow…well, it was a fairly solid piece of supporting evidence."

Ash blinked. If the irritation in the blue flame was anything to go by, Mewtwo was probably rifling through all of Sam's memories as they spoke.

His foot started itching terribly, and Ash thought it might be the pettiest revenge Mewtwo had ever inflicted on him. But at least it wasn't a stopped heart again.

"Oh," Ash said after a moment. He hesitated. "Is there anything else?"

"That's all," Sam sighed. "I'm truly sorry for hiding it from you, Ash, particularly given that the asset," that single word was colder than anything that Ash had heard from him, "was taken anyways. We were barely even able to extract anything useful…a good deal of information, sure, but I had hoped for more."

No doubt Sam had been particularly invested in studying the Distortional anomaly. Ash could only imagine the hopes that had been riding on it, both for the League to have some slight measure of protection against Mewtwo's infinite perception and perhaps even for old Agatha…

"Tell me," Sam said, looking into Ash's eyes. But somehow Ash knew that it wasn't him that Sam was talking to. "Is he suffering?"

Cold satisfaction—yet ringing strangely hollow—welled up in Ash's chest.

"Yes."

Ash's voice was not entirely his own then.

Sam knew it, but simply nodded with a faraway look in his eyes. "Very well, then. That is…sufficient."

Mewtwo's cold influence drifted away, almost eager to abandon Ash, and left Ash and Sam alone with Agatha's grave and its silent protector. Winds howled. Ice seeped in. For a time everything shrank away as they maintained their quiet vigil, lost in thoughts.

It was Sam who interrupted their brooding.

"For all that I despise that man, I will never be able to hate him wholly," Sam said, looking at Ash fondly. "I hope he's being shown the same courtesy he treated the world to…but he's proof enough that the blackest pits can still give rise to the brightest lights."

Cold embers flickered once to a brilliant azure, stilled, and faded away.

"His sins are his own, Ash. Never doubt that. Be brilliant. Shine as brightly as you wish, be the guiding star for the next generation if that is what you choose…but remember this: your responsibilities are many, but that burden is not yours. You're not indebted to the world for his mistakes."

Ash swallowed a sudden lump in his throat, the promise he'd made before the Indigo Conference rising up like an ocean tide in the back of his thoughts. He'd sworn to rebuild all that Giovanni had broken, to be the antithesis of the selfish and single-minded power he pursued.

It was like a chain around his shoulders now, binding and irrevocable.

But not to Sam. The old man clapped Ash on the shoulder even as Inferno peered down regretfully at Agatha's grave. It was perhaps the first emotion beyond annoyance, bad-tempered rage, and gleeful bloodlust that Ash had seen from the Charizard since they'd returned from the past.

"Apologies if I overstepped," Sam said, smiling tiredly down at Ash. "Forgive an old friend for that, will you? I lived a half-life for a long while, you know. Existing, stagnant, unliving. Oh, how Agatha must have loathed me for wasting the years away! She reminded me of that down in Orre, kindly opening my eyes to the shadow I had become. I wouldn't see you make that same mistake—service is a mantle to be chosen, not a yoke to be inherited."

Sam rose, offering a hand to Ash, hauling him up with one easy motion.

"You think I'm crumbling into dust, but there's life in me yet!" Sam chuckled. "I hope you look this good in your fifties."

"Fifties?" Ash wrinkled his nose, blinking away all the emotions Sam's words had dragged to the surface. "I can't even imagine Lance that old, let alone me."

Sam cracked a smile. "Oh, give it time! I remember being a boy, you know. The years pass by like autumn leaves."

"I remember you being a boy too," Ash snarked. "That was what…a month ago? If that. You've aged poorly."

"Maybe for you," Sam grumbled. "The years have been rather kind to Ash Ketchum, haven't they? I'm certain that Gary knows a few reporters who would love to get their grubby little hands a few of the pictures I've saved from the past. Can you imagine the conspiracy theorists?"

Ash wrinkled his nose, looking at Sam as if he were a new (old) man. Everything about Sam in that moment reminded him of Gary. "The acorn didn't fall too far from the oak tree, did it?"

It was Sammy that grinned back—for a moment Ash imagined Sam young and bright and unscarred by the world, innocent in his ambitions and the experiments that would change the world.

"No, no he did not," Sam chuckled, then shook his head wearily. "Goodness, I need to have a talk with that boy! With both of them, honestly."

Ash thought of Gary's sour mood, of Daisy, of Clair… "No offense, but they're both a mess."

"Don't I know it?" Sam massaged his temples, seeming his age again. He cast a lingering look at "I haven't been a good grandfather, Ash. Too lost in my own regrets. Too lost in what was and what might have been. But time is a precious thing. I won't let another minute slip through my fingers. Never again."

Ash nodded, smiling softly at Sam. "The adamant stream—"

"Flows ever onward," Sam said with a shake of his head. "Or so I've heard a dozen times from a certain young man."

Ash grinned as Gloam burrowed into his lap.

"Gary's off on a rampage, Daisy is spinning some plot involving Clair as a rehabilitation project…these children!" Sam said. "They'll be the death of me."

His brows rose at that. "Rehabilitation project?"

"You'll have to ask Daisy," Sam said with a wave of his hand. "She calls it 'rehabilitation'. Given Clair's general attitude, I think it's just 'habilitation'. Those two have been glued at the hip, but I daresay poor Clair doesn't quite know what she's gotten into."

'Poor Clair' had likely never been uttered in the history of her life. Except maybe in regards when compared to Lance.

"I think it's been good for Gary to have you all here together," Ash said, peering up at Mt. Silver's peak. Its frigid crown was heavy, the peak capped with snow and howling winds and all that which Haukea manifested. "He's softening a bit…although that still leaves him somewhere between a Cacturne, a Sharpedo, and a Sandslash. Maybe a Geodude for good measure."

Sam barked out a laugh, tapped a button on a device hidden within his lab coat, and passed Ash a cup of steaming green tea that was swift to banish the chill descending upon the Ore Mountains.

"To prickly grandsons!" Sam raised his teacup.

"To grumpy redheads!" Ash matched him.

"To your victories!"

"To beating Sidney black and blue!"

That earned an outright laugh from Sam, and they relaxed even further as he and Ash beamed at one another. Gloam leapt up to Ash's shoulder, signing at him in a flurry of white claws, and Ash snorted as he deciphered his friend's message. Karen's Weavile had been tutoring them both during their stays in the Plateau.

"To people who bet on me!"

Sam sniggered again, mantling Sammy once more, but it faded as Inferno's fiery gaze turned solemn. The mighty Charizard turned his head down as they faced Agatha's memorial, her cane shuddering just a twitch, and their mood grew sober.

"To old friends."

Ash peered back at Mt. Silver, lowering his gaze to the mighty fortress of Indigo Plateau, and reflected on all that had changed there this month.

He had been reborn in the past.

Mamoru had unshackled himself from the weight of one thousand years.

Chinatsu had thawed at long last.

"To new beginnings."

They toasted, they drank, and embraced all that was to come.

A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay! Real life has been coming after me with a sledgehammer for the last few months. We're going to see a third section of the Silver Conference to wrap things up and conclude quite a few side plots! Thank you all so much for your patience :) I'm going to be hard at work to get through the Silver Conference. Then back to Hoenn!

Also…I'm still shooting for my twelve chapters this year. Wish me luck!