#even hilda almost took bianca away from her | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cheswirls · 7 years ago

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this meta might be problematic but here we go anyway

a meta of touko/hilda, female bw protagonist, detailing the storyline, reactions, the building and breaking down of a persona, and other things.

i say meta but this actually might turn out to be more of a glorified headcanon post, jus so you’re aware.

also small note that will be mentioned further in a later post, i’m starting a small bw story collection soon called Match My Conditions. It’s a series of one-shots detailing some events in the bw games, and i’m really excited to be working on it! it’ll be in the fics page soon and, as previously stated, will have a proper post with more explanation.

onto the meta! under the cut bc it gets long.

starting out, it’s interesting to see the portrayal of touko people have put out there. for the most part, everyone is on agreement about a girl with a lot of power and passion. someone who is having a lot of fun on a journey, but also someone not afraid to kick your ass or stand up for people. has a general bab vibe, so to speak.

and so it’s also interesting to see that, although the representation of a colder side isn’t there as much as, say, leaf or dawn, we still get these views of touko as well.

[ snipped from this piece by this lovely artist. ]

everyone has their own opinions, and this post isn’t to make light of or callout any other interpretation. it’s simply to point out my own beliefs. for a “shell” character like the pokemon protags, everyone has a different approach in filling what kind of person they are. it’s always been cool to me to see touko’s interpretation having vastly the same things across the board, though, like everyone seems to agree on a few points of her personality and character.

initially, before the beginning of me replay through pokemon white a few weeks back, i held the impression that touko was someone not to be messed with, that she could adamantly fill the role of the “silent protag” through her journey. but as i played through white, this began to change.

let’s lead into that. first off, what exactly changed? she gained some emotional depth, and then first real one i’m placing on her in this post: she gained a perception of fear. the events in pokemon black and white are unlike any other games, and the story has a darker feel. playing through the plot, i could see certain moments where one would be wary, where one would be cautious, or concerned, or genuinely frightened. it’s how the story goes, when you’re dealing with what’s essentially a cult throughout your pokemon journey and getting caught up in their plots through pure circumstance.

team plasma, you first hear in aspertia city, wants to liberate pokemon, to free them. they hold a speech addressing the issue, encourage those gathered to think about it, then leave. it isn’t until striaton city’s dreamyard that you gather a vastly different ideal of team plasma, when they attack you and bianca and proclaim they would take your pokemon by force. you begin to grasp that not all is as it seems.

n is introduced between the two events. he’s older, talks fast, and is a little weird. he has his own set of ideals that almost mirror team plasma’s, but he’s uncertain of it all. he’s traveling through unova in order to find out if his ideals can really hold up, if what he’s been taught his entire life is what he is meant to accept and believe. he’s the anti-villain. not friendly, but not an enemy. not helpful or harmful, really. n claims to hear your pokemon, and challenges you to a battle so he can hear them more. strange, but you comply. at the end, n thanks you, and tells you and cheren he too is a pokemon trainer, though he intends to raise pokemon as friends than as partners or, even worse, tools for battle. he is an enigma, one that begins to appear more as your journey, dear touko, begins to unfold.

team plasma is relatively new, and not many know what to make of them. questioning npcs in the game reveals a variety of different opinions. bianca is the first you know to state her personal opinion when she runs to you and cheren with a young girl from the day care down the route you had been traveling. her pokemon was taken by team plasma members. touko and cheren run after them into wellspring cave and upon confronting the two plasma members, get threatened that their pokemon would be taken too, after being defeated in battle. after defeating them, though, two more follow, insisting the pokemon not be returned and them battling you and cheren. after defeating them, the former two give the pokemon to cheren, all four grunts spit out their ideals of how the pokemon is suffering under the young girl, and that the values of trainers are wrong. cheren immediately calls them out, calling it ludicrous, and you can’t help but agree, but also wonder why plasma thinks that in the first place. what evidence is there, after all?

the next big event to occur on the journey is after the nacrene gym battle: when team plasma attacks the nacrene museum and steals a pokemon fossil in the name of “good intentions”. good or no, they stole and they frightened people, as seen from questioning the npcs in the museum afterwards. this is their first real act of terror.

right outside the museum, n suddenly appears. the mysterious trainer you met and battled in aspertia once again wants to see how friendly touko and her pokemon are to each other. he challenges her, she wins, and he seems satisfied by their bond, but yet again questions if they were making the right choices. touko thinks it strange, that he was questioning the both of them. she also notes that n had different pokemon than in aspertia.

touko teams up with burgh, another gym leader, and ventures into a big forest west of nacrene to try and find team plasma. lenora, the gym leader, as well as cheren and bianca, touko’s friends, also set out to find the group of thieves. in the forest, you and burgh split up. you are alone. and you are forced through the maze of the forest, encountering [placeholder] team plasma members along the way. they also threaten to take your pokemon, or call for you to release them should they win, but mostly, they want to take them just like they took the fossil. at the end, you recover the fossil, and you and burgh return it to nacrene.

bianca had stayed behind to guard the museum, and it’s not unlikely to assume she wanted to stay separated from the conflict. you’ve faced at least ten team plasma members who had all threatened you that day, and you start to see the reasoning in bianca’s intentions. you can’t blame her, you realize.

next, in castelia city, bianca and a trainer named iris known to the city’s gym leader, burgh, catch up with you. bianca admits her pokemon were taken by team plasma. all of them, gone. castelia is a huge port city, with ships pulled up the citizens are calling mysterious and foreboding, and the threat of team plasma now rampant throughout the city. who knows where bianca’s pokemon are, or how far away those who took them now are. it’s a really scary thing, to grasp. you still have your pokemon, so it’s different. but bianca’s, they’re gone, and they might not be coming back.

iris agrees to guard bianca, and you and burgh once again set out separate ways to try and locate team plasma. but castelia is a metropolis, the biggest city in unova, and having to search through it is a daunting task.

at the end, you all gather to a building across from the gym, discovering several team plasma members inside, including ghetsis, the man from the rally before, and two of the “seven sages” of team plasma. after confrontation from touko, burgh, and iris combined, ghetsis hands over bianca’s pokemon. it is revealed they had also taken other trainer’s pokemon, too. ghetsis mentions trying to revive a dragon pokemon, and the entire party vanishes soon after. doesn’t leave, doesn’t walk out the front door, but zips completely out of existence. confusing, foreboding, but also, bianca is rejoicing over getting her pokemon back, so you don’t think much of it.

before leaving castelia, bianca confronts you for a battle, saying the trainer iris has been helping her become stronger. you think, not for the first time, that they should all be aiming for that, as to avoid the threat of team plasma’s force. without realizing it, the first tendrils of fear have taken root.

the journey is still a journey. you continue to nimbasa city, battle cheren along the way for fun, to see how far you have both come, and then get contacted by juniper. bianca does not pick up the call. juniper mentions she might be busy, but touko is uneasy. cheren mentions contacting her later, ensuring she was probably fine. still, cheren hadn’t been involved in the event to recover bianca’s pokemon. you both continue to the city, where juniper is waiting, but not without a little unease.

right inside the city, an older man is being confronted by two plasma members. they threaten him, saying they known he runs the day care you had passed before, and that he needed to hand over all the pokemon on his person. you bear witness to the event, and eventually they spot you, a trainer, watching. they threaten to battle you for “getting in their way” by playing spectacle, and after beating them, harass you a bit more on the immorality of training pokemon before taking their leave. the old man thanks you, and for that, touko thinks it had been worth it, to be dragged into involvement. still, to see team plasma so openly provoking someone in daylight, for the entire city to see, is something else.

after a little time recuperating in nimbasa, and reuniting with bianca, touko heads towards the amusement park and pokemon gym. before getting much further past the gates, though, she once again has an encouter with n, the mysterious stranger from before.

n mentions team plasma had been spotted in the area, and that they would get a better look from riding the ferris wheel as a vantage point. he pulls you along, leaving no room for incompliance, but the following revelation is another story. while in one of the ferris wheel carts, n tells you he is the “king” of team plasma. he says ghetsis asked him to lead the group and support their cause of pokemon liberation. the truth is shocking, but as you both descend, you realize it is indeed the truth. upon exiting, several team plasma grunts confront them, or, well, n, saying they had been looking for their “lord n”. before anything else can be said, n senses touko’s tensions upon the plasma members revealing themselves. he tells them it is his duty as their leader to let them escape, and battles touko as a distraction for them to do so.

after winning their battle, and noting n’s different use of pokemon again than from the previous encounters, touko starts to question why he owns pokemon despite supporting pokemon liberation. n claims he doesn’t own them and never has, that pokemon are his friends. he once again mentions he can hear them, what they are feeling and thinking. he admits his intentions, noting she is taking on unova’s gym challenge herself. he tells her he will become the strongest trainer in unova, defeat the champion, and then command everyone in the region to release, to “liberate”, their pokemon. touko feels a dead weight settle in her stomach. before she can comment on that, on the dread of his plan and the wrongness of it, a thought escapes her mouth different from those. she questions why team plasma, despite supporting pokemon liberation, owns pokemon. n doesn’t comment, only saying he will see her again, and that she had better be prepared and her convictions be strong, if she were to have any hope of stopping him.

he leaves after that, quickly, and touko finds herself chasing after him. however, upon arriving at the park’s doors, she discovers he is nowhere to be found. frustrated, as she hoped to question him more, she goes on to challenge the gym of nimbasa. as she enters the gym though, the pit in her stomach seems to grow, remembering n saying he would defeat the unova champion. did that mean he was obtaining badges too, just like her? and if so, how much time did she really have left?

after beating elesa and obtaining the badge, she mentions a block on the way to driftveil and offers to go ahead and help clear it. upon going after her, soon after leaving the gates of nimbasa, cheren confronts you. you both have the bolt badge, he says, and therefore should battle. after the battle, elesa confronts the both of you, voicing her admiration of the both of them helping the other by competing. they all continue towards the bridge separating driftveil from nimbasa, passing through a street with performers and live entertainment drawing crowds. before getting past them, one of the onlookers calls out to elesa, stopping the group. she introduces him as the champion. cheren remarks why the champion would be “goofing off” in a place like this, and the champion turns to introduce himself directly. he tells them his name is alder, and that cheren was quite the judgemental person now, hmm? touko, albeit mentally, can’t help but agree. it’s a more lighthearted thought, poking fun at cheren’s inherent nature, but her friend doesn’t see it that way, looking taken aback. alder continues to say he’s on a voyage, knowing every corner of unova as their champion of many, many years. cheren properly introduces himself, claiming it’s his goal to become champion. alder questions him further, asking him what happens after he becomes champion. cheren says that’s the end-goal, that there is nothing after being the best. alder unintentionally berates this by questioning him, asking if that was enough of a goal, and saying that in his travels, he’s help many people grow to love pokemon. he calls over a couple onlooking children and urges cheren and touko to battle against them, hoping to further their understanding. they oblige, and after winning, alder compliments the two young children, saying that though they didn’t win, they had fun. he turns back to cheren, saying if there are people pursuing strength, there are also people who are happy by just being with pokemon. he goes on to say that they hold different views of what being a champion is, but then encourages him to pursue his goal, as well as give it thought.

touko wonders what the point of riling cheren up like that was, but as alder’s final words leave him, she realizes. it’s not the matter of cheren’s conviction being called into question, but the reasoning itself behind his goal. he was trying to get cheren to realize being champion wasn’t just a stronghold title -suddenly she had a lot of respect for alder. elesa tells them they should move, that the drawbridge was just ahead, and cheren follows, but not after touko hears his leaving remark to himself, that the champion was just the strongest, and that was all there was to it. she frowns, wonders why he doesn’t get it, why he’s so stuck in his reasonings.

it dawns on her that n is the same way, stuck on his path but perhaps not seeing the full truth behind it. she turns to alder and he asks her to introduce herself as well. she states her name, opens her mouth to tell her n was coming to challenge him, and then pauses. alder waits, blinks, but after a few moments, speaks himself. he tells her how tremendous it is that people and pokemon, while being so different, can all acknowledge each other and be happy together. she nods, the words not clicking right. it was common sense, to her. but then . .

oh. well, maybe that was it. it was common sense, to her, but perhaps not to everyone. n certainly didn’t seem to understand both people and pokemon could co-exist. neither did the radicals of team plasma. instead of telling alder of n’s plot, she instead asks if he’s heard of team plasma. he smiles and tells her he has, but that there was nothing to come from a group like that and, as champion, he would ensure their faulty ideals would not become reality. though he has yet to encounter them himself, he has a duty to unova to uphold this belief. touko nods, and then finds herself moving on towards the bridge without word of n. there was no need, after all. she couldn’t imagine someone like alder being worried by such, and like he said, in the end, nothing would come of it. she also couldn’t imagine someone like him, someone who stood so firmly in his beliefs, would ever lose to someone like n, someone who tried to be firm, but underneath just seemed to conflicted.

she catches up with cheren, and he tells her elesa is contacting clay, driftveil’s gym leader, so the bridge can be lowered, allowing them to cross. she ends the call shortly, the bridge lowers in front of their eyes, and then she heard off, but not before warning them they’d have to get used to clay. cheren tells touko he would get stronger by being a trainer and winning battles, and then beat the champion. he continues toward the bridge before her, as she pauses to give thought to his words, but also holds back in sensing cheren might need time to himself.

they catch up at the end of the bridge, and upon entering driftveil, are confronted directly by clay. he tells them in all the ruckus of lowering the bridge, all the plasma members he and his team had gathered had escaped. both trainers are surprised at the news, but cheren immediately counters, asking how it was their fault team plasma escaped. clay tells him to spout whatever got him through it, but the fact was, they showed up and team plasma escaped. he tells them they should help look, and in return, after all of it was over, he’d allow them to challenge his gym.

clay takes off, presumably to search himself, and cheren grumbles to touko how it could possibly be their fault. touko considers this another side of cheren, just being brash, but then he remarks that they would’ve helped look for plasma even if he hadn’t practically ordered them to. touko realizes he was right. despite her conflictions, and despite everything with alder, she wouldn’t stop defending people from the threats team plasma presented, despite putting herself at risk in the process. she had to be confident. as cheren proclaims defeating them would help him grow stronger, she decides she has to be strong as well.

after spending time searching, touko finds herself on the south path of town, near what the workers there call the “cold storage”. as she’s about to enter, cheren calls to her. they agree to check the place together. upon entering, cheren states, “is there anything more important then strength, to a trainer?” then he admits he won’t understand by just thinking about it, and drops it. touko doesn’t mention it, but she thinks this might be something of a turning point for cheren, and that he might not have been as sure as he acted he was about his ideals being called into question. she wonders, briefly, if this was part of the growing thing her mom mentioned came with going on a journey. she wonders if she’ll have revelations of her own, further down the road.

they navigate inside until they’re faced with an open storage unit. touko thinks cheren is a bit more equipped for the cold than she is, but doesn’t voice her complaints as they both voice checking inside the container. inside, they’re both shocked to see plasma members huddled around a cloaked figure. touko recognizes the figure as being like the sages she had met in castelia city. as they complain amongst themselves of being cold, and cheren offers to escort them out, she readies herself. they didn’t know why plasma was here, in driftveil, after all. and there were so many, at least nine of them, against them two. they all catch drift that the two trainers were inside the container, and the sage immediately speaks out, claiming that pokemon were their king’s -n, touko realizes- friends, and that while they were there, they had to protect the pokemon. her breath catches as she perceives the notion as them having taken people’s pokemon again. he orders the others to drive them away. the reply is addressed to “zinzolin, of the seven sages”. touko notes this is the fourth sage of team plasma she has met, as the name isn’t of the three she had confronted in castelia. the members fan out, and cheren shouts for them to each take a side.

its hard work, but they both manage to defeat each member. upon winning against her last, the plasma member remarks to touko, that pokemon may look like they were having fun with trainers, but in actuality they were suffering. touko grows frustrated, lost to how they could possibly believe the ludicrous words flowing from their mouths. there was simply no truth behind it, yet they were all convinced.

then, clay comes with a group of workers from the cold storage and orders the arrest of all the plasma inside. as the workers lead them out, clay remarks to cheren and touko that they weren’t so bad! touko takes it as a sort of thanks. he tells them they could come challenge his gym any time, and then leaves. before they leave as well, cheren tells her team plasma’s ideal of separating people and pokemon is the same as pokemon not existing in their world. touko agrees, voicing how unachievable it was. cheren tells her conversing with that group was a waste of oxygen, as they won’t falter from their twisted ideals.

upon reaching the driftveil gym, touko realizes she’s arrived to a scene. cheren stands to the side, and she joins them to see ghetsis and a like of plasma confronting clay at the gym entrance. clay stood with zinzolin and a few other plasma members. ghetsis tells him he’s come to “pick up” the plasma clay holds in his care, and clay tells him how the group had been trying to steal others’ pokemon. touko winces, noting she hd been right. ghetsis, however, immediately denies this, saying they only freed pokemon from wicked, wrongdoing people. clay’s face hardened, and he admits that would be real nice, if it were true. tension fills the air, both cheren and touko frozen in place from the accusation. clay continues, saying he’s honest with his words despite them not being “pretty”, and although ghetsis speaks nice things, it sounds like he was lying. he asks ghetsis once more, what his point was. ghetsis’ reply chills touko to her core.

“team plasma has an interest in driftveil city. and we have many, many more members besides those who are here.”

it’s a threat if she’s ever heard one. beside her, cheren breathes out in disbelief. before them, clay tenses, pausing to think, then barks out. “i can’t tell if yer lyin’, but i suppose you’ve won this round.” he releases the plasma members, ordering ghetsis to take them and get out. ghetsis steps forward, the plasma beside clay going to him, and remarks that they would be seeing everyone gathered again somewhere. his eyes flick over to touko and cheren at this, and they find themselves even more frozen to the spot. plasma soon leaves, and clay hurries over, telling them he was sorry for letting them go after they had tracked them all down. he offers to cheer them all up with a battle, and then hurries inside the gym. cheren is the first to move, saying that although they avoided a fight in the city, it didn’t feel much like a win. he tells touko ghetsis didn’t seem like an ordinary person. they each take a moment to dwell on that remark, and then, cheren admits he’s going to train, really not wanting to lose to clay. he leaves soon after. touko enters the gym.

she’s still very shaken as she battles her way through the gym. she’d been threatened, directly, along with cheren and clay. clay was a gym leader, he could take care of himself and had backup available. but her and cheren? they were traveling, they were alone, and she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen should they be overcome by outstanding numbers once more, alone. ghetsis had said the seven sages were merely servants to the king, but thus far, it seemed to her ghetsis was more in command of team plasma than n was. as she confronted clay for a battle, she realized that this was the moment her fear became known to her. it had grown since castelia, since her confrontation with n, even since the scuffle in the cold storage. the embers had gathered into a flame, and now, a small fire.

she won, and clay gives her the badge. however, he also tells her he had a present, but that there had been word of a blockage at chargestone cave, the cave that led to mistralton city, and that he had to see what was wrong. he told her to meet him there, and after healing her party, she does. before she can get far out of the city, though, bianca catches up to her. upon her request, they have a battle. after touko wins, bianca tells her that though it’s been a while since they’ve battled, she can tell touko has grown strong. she also follows, saying that though she wasn’t that strong herself, she could see touko had become attuned to her pokemon. touko immediately stops her, telling her she believed bianca was plenty strong. as bianca begins to shake her head no, touko speaks again, saying there were also many different kinds of strengths. bianca didn’t deny that, but she didn’t say anything of it either. she simply told touko she had to see cheren too, and left. after a minute, touko continued towards chargestone cave.

her friends had created quite the dynamic. cheren claimed to be strong, wanted to be the strongest, while bianca claimed to be weak. where did that leave her, then? somewhere in the middle, she guessed. she hadn’t quite figured it out, yet.

upon reaching the cave, touko had to stop. a spiderweb covered the entrance, but it was more of a matter of peeling it away. she could see currents running through the spindles. clay soon came, told her it seemed to be the doing of an electric-type, galvantula. he didn’t know if there was a nest nearby, but he did know people were having problems because of it, and that it was the gym leader’s job to deal with such problems. he calls out krokorok to bat it aside, and because of its resistance to electricity, it does so with ease. he presents touko with a technical machine. he then tells her, he doesn’t know how good she really is based off of one pokemon battle, but that she should aspire to do the things she wants to do, “decide yer own limits!”, and then leaves. she tells herself to keep the words at heart, then ventures into the cave.

maybe ten paces in, before she can really appreciate the cave, a figure materializes right before touko. she jumps back, caught off guard at the figure’s black clothing and longer, white hair, but more at the sudden materialization. before she could get much further back, the figure reached out and grabbed her forearm, holding her there. she felt her heartbeat quicken, her face lose pallor, and after a couple beats, the figure simple says, “come”, turns, and leads her further into the cave. touko is shocked, yet follows with little choice, the grip on her arm tight. they don’t go far before the figure halts, and touko grounds her feet, refusing to be pulled further. she hears the figure’s next words, hears him say, “lorn n, i’ve brought the one you wanted”, and her breath leaves her.

the figure disappears, just like that, gone without a trace, and in front of her is n, turning to face her fully. she doesn’t know what kind of terrified expression she’s making, but n doesn’t comment on it, simply holds her gaze for a few silent moments. then, he opens his arms in a grand gesture before dropping them. he tells her that had been the shadow triad, that ghetsis had enlisted them into team plasma. she doesn’t reply, and after another moment, n turns to examine the cave. she can’t follow, eyes wide and still glued to his form. he tells her he likes chargestone cave. the formulas expressing electricity in the cave also defined its connection to pokemon. she didn’t get that part. perhaps because it was to do with math, or perhaps because her mind was still fuzzy. “if people did not exist, this would be an ideal place”, he tells her, and suddenly she snaps out of her reverie, forgets her plight. she forces out her next words before he can choose his own. “but we do exist,” she tells him. he looks at her, just out of the corners of his eyes, and then lets out a small laugh. “that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

she feels her face contorting again. humanity was not a-a problem! it was-

“you have been chosen, you know?” he turns once again to face her fully. touko loses track of her thoughts in the wake of his words. he asks if it was a surprise he had said that, and she nods minutely. “of course. such news should be a surprise.” she nods again, not quite getting it, but still just in surprise. chosen. chosen for what? and for why? she gets her answer sooner than she would’ve liked.

n tells her he told ghetsis about her and her friends. after, ghetsis used the shadow triad to find out about them. cheren, pursing the ideal of strength. bianca, realizing the sad truth that not everyone can become stronger. and her, not swayed either way -more of a neutral presence. her horror at having been investigated by “not an ordinary person” ghetsis cleared at those last words. after all, wasn’t she just thinking the same thing, along her way to chargestone cave?

n tells her that was apparently a good thing. he tells her team plasma would be waiting ahead, that ghetsis wants to see what kind of trainer she really was. and then, just like that, he walks off further into the cave. touko finds herself stuck, not able to move after him. ghetsis . . testing her? she was chosen? it was a good thing, that she was neutral in her friends’ struggles? all of this built up in her head. the small flame grew into a decent-sized one, and then fanned into a larger, more heated one. she was confused. good thing? chosen? being tested?

she looks up and over at what n had been seeing. before her was a glowing blue rock, the likes of which she didn’t know existed, and electric currents rippled from its surface. out past it, the cave was lit up with the same glowing rocks of various sizes, in the middle of floors, attached to walls and higher up places, and she could see layouts lower into the ground, as it the cave descended into further structure. she supposed it wasn’t impossible, that driftveil could be on a higher plane than mistralton, but that it could also just be sunk lower because that was the natural structure. she quite liked it, actually. the glowing blue light cast on everything was quite pretty, and it wasn’t as dark as any other cave she’d been in so far. it was different. and then she realized she had calmed herself down, quelled her raging thoughts, doused the flame into a medium. the fear was there, but it was no longer heightened, it was controlled. and then, she realized, she had a new conviction.

she could do this. she would take up the challenge. she could hold her own, and if team plasma tried anything, she would take them out, in this cave. cheren and bianca were in driftveil for the meantime. with this resolve, she told herself she’d rid team plasma’s presence in the cave before they could traverse through it. she would keep them safe. for now, she would play their game.

[just a small note, sorry to break the moment, i know the nature of this post has changed. the “you” i was addressing earlier on was referring to touko, but also the nature of her being a protag, the playable character, in the sense that touko also equals reader in a sense. i dunno if it will come up more, but if it does, now you know. also, the events have drawn closer and become more detailed because they’re of more importance. i started with plasma and continued with them because they’re the main focus of the first “half” -four gym badges- of the story, but as the story continues, other things come to fruition, such as cheren’s personal ideals, and become important as well. i guess you’ve noticed by now that this isn’t traditional meta either as i’m sorta narrating through some parts aha, sorry. it’s just my intention to grasp all the important details in certain parts. if i do add a writing tag, it’ll be addressed in the tags that it’s not real narrative writing, okay? hope you’re enjoying it so far! there’s a reason touko’s growing fear and apprehension has been so documented, its part of the persona thing, you’ll see in time!]

it doesn’t take her but a couple minutes of wandering before her name is called out from behind, and the dread begins to pile up rapidly once more. she turns and bianca is suddenly marching in front of her, to a crystal she was guessing was floating based on electrical impulses and the walls around either side of it. she smiles back, and mentions that the floating stones move when touched. “right, professor?” she adds.

touko lets herself exhale fully before spinning around, professor juniper already approaching from several paces back. oh no. oh no oh no oh no. no no no. this couldn’t be happening.

juniper remarks that it was nice to see touko. she says the cave was always charged with lots of electricity, and that the pokemon here liked it. in fact, the electric charge reacting against the stones was why some of them were floating, which was nice to know, very informative, but also they were here. they were both in the cave, and she had barely begin to traverse it, and team plasma was still ahead, and ghetsis had been investigating bianca along with her, and what if something happened to her while she was in the cave??? touko wouldn’t be able to live with herself, oh god, oh god what was she-

the controlled medium flame combusted, higher than it had ever been probably in her life, so high it must have licked the top of the chamber it resided in.

juniper continued, saying her father asked her to research klink, to help with her research on the origins of pokemon. she remarks since she was interested in this anyway, she didn’t bother, and that it was a lot of fun. touko paused in her mental struggle. this was something the professor had fun doing. then, she was suddenly gifted with a battle item. then she went back a few paces, saying she had to look closely around every area, especially the cave’s beginnings. bianca hummed, then backed up some to be closer to the professor. when touko raised a brow, she told her she was the professor’s bodyguard. she added that it probably wasn’t necessary, but that you had to protect important things. and touko . . felt calmer, all of a sudden. still very frightened, and worried, and almost sick to her stomach. but she had told bianca the girl was strong, and she still believed in such. and she would protect the professor, and hopefully they wouldn’t go too far in, they could get their data and be out, and things would be fine.

she decided to not mention things to bianca. for now, things were under control. no sense worrying her, or riling them both up. she thanked her friend, dipped into the crevice created by the pushed stone, and continued up her path.

three minutes. maybe just two, two minutes, and she heard juniper call out to her once more, asking if she found something. touko almost should’ve expected this, should’ve told herself to go find a klink herself and present it to the duo to avoid this, bit to was too late now. she stops and turns, letting the pair catch up, and shakes her head. then her relief came. juniper told her than were just about done with collecting data, spilled some about klink and research stuff. she’s not really listening, at this point, busy trying to catch bianca’s eye. perhaps now would be a good time to tell her. finally, juniper finishes, and bianca looks to touko, saying she wondered why beings such as amazing as pokemon stuck to their sides. touko had to take a moment to ponder that herself because, huh, what an interesting observation to make. in the end, she shrugged, the professor wished her luck in getting through the cave, and bianca did the same, promising they wouldn’t disturb her again because they probably had no reason to go further. she nodded, exchanged goodbyes, and went around the corner.

once out of sight, touko settled her nerves, told herself everything was working out fine, they would both be fine, yet her stoked flames of fear would not die down. she calmed herself best as she could, took a few deep breaths, then pushed herself off from the wall.

when she looked forward, the first she saw was the chasm several yards ahead of her, stretching down into a dark abyss, the ending unseeable. it was enough to make her turn away, clench at her weak stomach, take more deep breaths. she shook her head, looked down the path, and saw a bridge over the chasm. great. better, but not something she looked forward to. still, she made her way to it, convictions put in place.

she was at the edge of the bridge, which actually looked quite sturdy and safe, when something else occurred. the shadow triad, she should’ve expected to see all three when they appeared, but it caught her off guard so much she felt her knees grow weak. she’d only seen the one, but of course there were three, of course. one appeared in front of her, one behind, and one to her left, blocking the route she had just traversed down. she bubbled her mouth, legs shaking, refusing to admit she was as terrified as she was to them, yet they probably could see clear as day. once more, one of them simply said, “come”. she stood straight, tried to back to the right as she remembered what happened after those words the first time, but to no avail. the first grasped at her left arm, the second at her right, and with the third behind, they heaved her up and moved forward, marching across the bridge at quite a fast pace, and leaving her dangling between them, suddenly breathing, and a lot shallower than was normal.

they released her at the other side, and she stumbled a bit upon landing. wasting no time, one simply told her there were stairs ahead, and past them team plasma would be waiting. then, like last time, they all three vanished, just like that, right into thin air.

she felt her hands begin to shake first, as she raised them and gathered at her cheeks, settling there, cradling her own face. then her legs shook, knees giving out, and she was on the ground, trembling, tears spilling from her eyes and forehead wrinkled. her mouth opened, silent at first, and then released the pitiful sounds that came from crying, from breaking down, among the dim blue light of chargestone cave.

the first plasma member to spot her down in the lower level of the cave had words to shock her. tears dried and convictions set, albeit heavily nervous and wracked with suspicion and guilt -after all, they had been so close, and bianca had been so close to it all- touko marched on, determined to end it all. but the words of the plasma had her faltering in her march. “you were manipulated into coming here,” he told her, seeming surprised. she imagined her expression mirrored his. what a . . foreboding thing to say, and was it true? was she manipulated? was she being manipulated? and by whom? n? ghetsis? the whole of team plasma? her self-conceived notion that she had to protect everybody?

she wiped the floor with him and moved on to the next member, and then the next, and they all had nonsense to spout, how pokemon were beautiful because they were free from people, all this nonsense, and no, she was not being manipulated by the likes of team plasma, there was no way! one of them ahead now tells her she’s the one her lord n had taken an interest in. the words make her flinch, but she carries on. the last one tells her to show him her strength. she hopes he never forgets it.

there’s a staircase going up, and one going down. she feels like hyperventilating at this point, and on the notion she might have another breakdown, up definitely becomes her choice. she comes to a crossroads, and tried to see down each. the one on her left, when she looks down, has a sliver of green, sliding over a corner, and she catches her breath, waits a second to think, and then bolts towards it. “n!” she shouts, then rounds the corner to have him whip around to face her. she’s panting at this point, and he waits for her to slow her breathing, but even as this happens, the wildness to her eyes doesn’t dissipate. he speaks first, before she can ask what was really going on.

“many different values mix together, and the world becomes grey . .” he tells her. he tells her it is unforgivable, and that he will separate pokemon and people, making black and white clearly distinct. only then will pokemon become perfect, he tells her, and her mouth falls open slightly. she begins to shake her head, begins to do a lot of things, but he continues and shuts her up. he tells her that is his dream, the dream he must fulfill. then, he asks her if she has a dream. touko falters once more, opens her mouth, closes it, then decides, wordlessly, to nod her head. he smiles, bobs his own. “you have a dream . . that’s wonderful,” he says. “then i will learn just what kind of dream you have -in battle!”

she is tired, and she is panicked, and she is fearful. she sends out her pokemon, and he sends out his, and she catches on immediately. all four of those he battles alongside she had seen throughout her cave experience. they could all be found throughout the surrounding area. n had never used the same species of pokemon twice, and now she knew why. he befriended the pokemon in the surrounding area, and relied on their assistance, and then left them to their daily lives once more. n didn’t really own any pokemon. he called himself a trainer, and she had been confused by his notions, because he seemed so against trainers. but he wasn’t. he wasn’t really one. he didn’t really have pokemon to call his own. somehow, that made her really sad.

at the end, he tells her his friends getting hurt was what a pokemon battle was. and suddenly she wanted to scream, wanted to breate him, tell him he was wrong, tell him all of team plasma was wrong, that there was nothing behind their biased and blasphemous words. but his next sentence made her pause in such.

“tsk! why? is it impossible for me to win while feeling bad about being a trainer?”

her pulse began to slow, at least, a little bit, down to a normal pace. he didn’t understand, she told herself. it was like he had never been exposed to it all, to battle culture, to what really being a pokemon trainer was. and again, she felt overwhelming sadness. she opened her mouth to say, “yes, because the pokemon you battle with pick up on that”, to say, “you will never win, because your guilt makes the pokemon you battle with also feel a strange sense of guilt, of worthlessness, because you’re not relying on them properly”, to say, “n, you are not trusting your friends. that is why you cannot win.” she wanted to say these things, but before she could, he snapped out his next words, because he was always such a fast talker, and as he said them “as if i could pursue my ideals with something as meaningless as battle!”, she no longer felt herself pitying because of a difference in opinion, because he didn’t seem to understand. instead, she felt her blood boil, and her words left her mouth before they could be on her tongue.

“as if that could make me worthy to become friends with the legendary pokemon!” he snapped to thin air, arguing with himself somewhat, with his convictions, with something she couldn’t see. it didn’t matter. his words, once more, caught her off guard. the legendary pokemon. the legend- the dragons? zekrom? reshiram? what did they have to do with any of this? were- she sucked in a breath. did they have to do with team plasma’s plans? was that how n planned to beat alder?

“touko!”

touko turned to see bianca dashing up to her, and she cast a glance to n warily, suddenly wanting to hide him away. she stopped short of her and pumped a fist, proclaiming it was just a bit further to mistralton. from behind, she could see professor juniper approaching as well. she remarks on bianca’s good ears, saying she can’t believe bianca heard touko from that far away -had she been talking? she supposed she had, when she was battling, but other than that, n hadn’t let a word escape her, his own coming so fast. still, what were they doing here? they were supposed to be at the beginning of the cave. hopefully team plasma had cleared out before they ran into them. though, they didn’t look like they had encountered anyone strange, that is, until juniper looker over touko’s shoulder and asker who her friend was.

touko flinched, and as a response, the professor’s eyes flew wide, wondering what she had said wrong. from behind, n’s voice was clear as day. he addressed the professor, and so her eyes went to him, and then he asked what she was thinking. what was she thinking, putting pokemon into categories using arbitrary rules and thinking she truly understood them, and what did she have to say for herself? touko looked to the professor once more, and although she looked apprehensive, she did blink out of it and answer. “looks like you’re not my biggest fan,” she started, hoping to break tension. it didn’t quite work. still, she told him, their opinions differed, yes. his was understandable, and it differed from hers, which was equally understandable, and how about if all people get to decide for themselves how to relate to pokemon?

touko felt a noise in the back of her throat, maybe agreeing, she couldn’t be sure. she liked those words. n, however, did not. he said, she was saying he should just allow people to think whatever they want and treat pokemon however they want? he said, no matter whether they suffer? he said, very clearly, “i refuse to tolerate the existence of a world like that!” and then, right after, he huffed and turned around, and led himself ahead and seemingly out of the cave, if the increased lighting was what she thought it was, at a very fast pace.

they all watched, and then, after a few moments, juniper sighed. “well, i didn’t expect him to change his mind right away,” she told them. “but i hope he’ll spend a little time trying to understand how others feel.” she tells touko she’s going to collect a little more data, and goes the opposite way n did, back further into the cave. bianca goes after her, saying she was still her bodyguard, and then touko was alone, right at the edges of chargestone cave.

she waits a few moments, waits quietly, hears the noises of electricity running through the area, and then slowly turns her head towards where n ran off to, towards the entrance. in another couple seconds, she lunges forward, around the corner, stumbles badly down a set of steps she didn’t know was there, and hurtles herself towards the exit. when she looks up again, up from her feet and her hands on her knees as she tried to regain her breath, she sees a deep blue sky, the lights from a pokemon center close ahead, a plane descending in the west, and the beginnings of a city it had taken a bit of a struggle to reach.

on the road up into the city, touko meets cedric juniper and the gym leader, skyla. after introductions, and juniper’s parting, skyla states she saw a pokemon stuck on the top of celestial tower while flying, and is going to check on it. after considering, touko decides to go as well, not liking the idea of sitting around when a pokemon could be in danger. at the top, skyla tells her she has healed the pokemon, who had flown off after. she then encourages touko to ring the bell on top of the tower, saying her character would be reflected in the sound of the bell. after listening to the sound, skyla tells her she is a kind and strong person, according to the ringing, and then reintroduces herself as the mistralton gym leader.

after taking time to recuperate, touko goes to challenge the gym. after defeating skyla, the gym leader tells her she had to fight with her full strength for the first time in a while, and that made her happy. after giving her the badge, though, she has a piece of news. she tells touko that having flew over twist mountain, she saw what could have been team plasma heading towards icirrus, the city directly after. she remarks on what kind of people they could be, and then wishes touko luck on her travels. feeling a bit chilled at the news, touko departs from the gym. right outside, she spots n against the right of the gym’s hanger walls. spotting her as well, n comes to a complete stand and addresses her. he tells her that despite saying battles are for understanding each other better, trainers really use them to compete, hurting the pokemon in the process. he then says he was going to talk to her pokemon, following by stating he had been living with pokemon since birth, so talking with them was easier than conversing with people. somehow, touko sees the reasoning behind this, and even clearer, sees how it’s been justified by her encounters with n. she’s a bit shaken given their past meeting, but after her recent gym challenge, finds herself standing her ground. she nods and pulls out a pokemon she’d recently caught while on her way to celestial tower.

before he approaches, n tells her pokemon never tell lies, and that was why it was easier talking with them than with people. this is the more strange remarks she is used to hearing, but doesn’t comment on it. she supposes, actually, that it was true. after a seemingly one-sided conversation, n stands and tells her her pokemon trusts her, for some reason. it was a good thing. he tells her that if every person and pokemon cared for each other like her and her pokemon, there could be a future where pokemon wouldn’t have to be liberated from the people who only seek to use them. he doesn’t, however, tell her that wasn’t the case in the present, which she finds odd. maybe he was assuming she’d follow that on her own. he steps back a bit, then tells her ghetsis is using team plasma to search for stones holding the essence of the legendary pokemon, the light and dark stones. he tells her the dragons are awaiting the arrival of a hero to awaken from their slumber, and that he would awaken one of the legendaries and become friends with it, showing the world he was the new hero. that way, everyone would follow what he said! already, touko could see fault in his logic. he turns away from her, facing the runway, before she could remark, and shakes his head harshly, alarming her. touko takes a step toward him, raising a hand, but then he stops, and she freezes as well. he speaks next, telling her he hopes to change the world without using force, so that others would not resist, therefore hurting the pokemon in the process. he says she would understand, than pokemon were not just tools to be used.

he turns to face her after this declaration, and his eyes cast a kind of feeling she doesn’t recognize, at seeing her outstretched in a sort of comforting gesture. she begins to straighten under his gaze. he tells her that, as a result, even people and pokemon like her and her partners will be separated, and that it breaks his heart, just a little. touko finds her lips pursed, emotions welling up, but just as before, before she can do anything, say anything, n darts around her and heads out of the runway.

it takes her a second, but touko turns as well, slightly skipping on the puddles gathered, and breaks off at a fast pace to try and catch up. she calls out to n, but no reply comes. upon reaching the gates, she asks the guard there if he saw a taller person come through. the guard denies such, and she runs further into the city before stopping, convinced she wouldn’t be able to catch up. quietly, in the middle of the street, she speaks aloud to the air, perhaps hoping he was nearby and could hear. she tells the empty space that it didn’t have to be this way, that things weren’t as clear as he made it seem. then, she remarks about the legend of the dragons, and states that there was more than one hero in the tale. how did he hope to accomplish his vision without considering the other hero? she grew up in unova, she’d heard the legends just like everyone else, and she knew both heroes were meant to oppose each other. if it was n’s duty to become the hero to one of the dragons, then he should expect another to rise up and side with the other dragon, against him.

touko stops to breathe after that, what she had said catching up with her. before she could attract stares, everything that had been said to her over the past hour wells back up, and she darts towards the edge of the city, closer towards the route taking her to twist mountain. she isolates herself here, heals her team, and takes time to think. skyla had said team plasma was en route to icirrus, the city that lies past the mountain. but, she had to question, was it just another target for pokemon liberation as driftveil had been, or was it part of the bigger scheme of things, things like locating the stones n had spoken of?

after resting and making sure everyone was good to go, touko decides her next path would be to head towards icirrus and see what was lying in wait there, be it good or bad. she only had two more gym badges before the pokemon league, she was so close! and the next gym also was in icirrus city. her mind made up, she sets out towards the mountain.

upon arriving at the base of twist mountain, cheren challenges touko to a battle. after she wins, alder approaches them both. cheren comments to him that he was weak, therefore he lost, and that it bothered him that despite his loss it was considered a good battle for him. alder counters, saying he should just accept the compliment without other remarks. he asks him once more what he wants to do after becoming strong. cheren replies by saying that if he became strong and became the champion, his existence would have meaning. he wanted to prove that he was really living. alder says he reminded him of someone named marshal. he then says that wanting something is important, but that it was crucial to also do something with your newfound power. he leaves shortly after that, leaving cheren to think. he tells touko he doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with his power yet, but that first he wanted to be acknowledged for possessing such power. he claims that he would win his next battle with touko, and then sets off for the mountain’s entrance.

touko, meanwhile, takes another moment to think. having strength was a good thing, but also acting on it was good, and deciding what those actions would be seemed to be cheren’s next step. maybe, alder had intended for him to realize this all along, she thought. that he wanted strength, but he also wanted it for a reason, and that he needed to use his journey to discover it. she recalled n’s words about her neutral presence, and suddenly, she didn’t think that was a good thing. she was the in-between of cheren and bianca, but there had to be more she wanted, right? she set off on her journey for the experience and adventure, but now, what was she aiming for?

. . and then, she realized what she was doing now. embarking through a mountain to try and catch up to team plasma, to see what their motives were in the next city. was that her goal, in the end? to, maybe not stop overall, but dismantle team plasma’s schemes? and despite her worries, despite her fears, she was setting off to confront them yet again. was that what she was meant to do? and in that sense, was the next hero-

no. she was getting derailed. besides, there was no way that was true. derailed and delusional, then.

she catches sight of cheren soon inside twist mountain, but he isn’t alone. clay stands now before the pair of them. he tells them he was inspecting the mountain, then pauses to comment that the pair seemed a bit more rugged than when he last saw them. touko thinks back to all the things, dealing with bianca and the professor in chargestone, confronting team plasma and n and the shadow triad, and then her journey to celestial tower, skyla’s acknowledgement and gym battle, n’s words and her inner turmoil on such, all leading up to this. yes, she mentally decides, she has grown over the span of their last encounter.

he then asks if either had seen team plasma, stating that after the incident in driftveil, all the gym leaders met up and discussed the group. that in itself inspired a bit of awe in touko. all of unova’s gym leaders, banded together like that. it sure was something. he tells them that after, though, the team has seemed to disappear, like they’re in hiding, in waiting, and all they could do was wait for them to make a move. touko didn’t like it, but she supposed he was right. then he offhandedly said that it was none of their concern, and that they should just be enjoying their travels. touko recalls n saying she had been chosen, and while he didn’t specify, she had a pretty good idea of why. whether clay liked it or not, it was definitely her concern now. he tells them he’d be seeing them, and that they were free to train on “his mountain” for as long as they liked. as he leaves, cheren mentions to touko that twist mountain was known for some mining excursions, so of course clay would be involved. he also says he had been bracing himself, thinking clay was going to get them involved in the bother of team plasma again. as he leaves too, touko finds herself wishing cheren could be left out of this mess she’d gotten herself involved in. him and bianca, and everyone she cared about.

near the northern exit of the mountain, touko meets cheren again, but with a new presence. it’s with him in a state of exertion, and a plasma member backing up, making touko guess a battle had just taken place. as the member remarks that cheren was pretty strong, it confirmed her suspicions. she wastes no time in hurrying to his side. the member takes note, but still addresses cheren when he says that he is only strong because he’s controlling his pokemon. cheren takes another moment to regain his breath and then, in a more patented voice than she had heard since they started their journey, tells the plasma member that if they want to set pokemon free, they should start with their own. the plasma member looks highly disgruntled, but before he can reply, or leave cheren room to say more, another member in uniform enters from one of the exits, saying to the other that they had found what they were looking for, and were now headed for the tower.

touko recalls clay’s words about team plasma seemingly having disappeared. she supposed news of their excursions in chargestone hadn’t escaped the cave. now, however, they seemed to be making plans. she’s proved right when both members turn, and tell the pair team plasma has obtained the power to change the world and end humanity’s control over pokemon. the other states they had to use force in order to right the wrongs of the world, in direct opposite of what n told her in mistralton. they mentioned gathering around him, n, and then hurried off. touko immediately sets off to give chase, but then cheren threatens to collapse, and she halts herself, rushing back to his side.

she briefly wonders if n knew other members of team plasma were acting in deviance of his vision. then, cheren is apologizing, saying the event had taken a toll on him. he admits to her that he was going to stay on twist mountain for a while, and think about what champion alder asked him. after making sure he’s completely alright, touko decides to leave him to his thoughts, and hurries out of the mountain.

what greets her immediately is greenery -and cedric juniper. he approaches her, greets her, and then asks if she had heard of dragonspiral tower. she admits that she hadn’t, and he tells her he isn’t surprised. he goes on to say the tower was the oldest building in unova, and where stories say the legendary pokemon are said to be. he remarks that it lied just past icirrus, but that was all he knew of it. in fact, it’s all anyone knows, because no one had ever been inside. he tells her that he was off himself to have a look at it, that his daughter had wanted to for a while as well, unnerved that she didn’t know something about her home region. he bids her luck on her upcoming gym challenge, and then heads off towards the city.

touko takes a minute for the words to process, and then begins to slowly make connections. a tower, just past icirrus. a tower, like what the plasma members had mentioned heading toward, what skyla said about them approaching icirrus, about it being home to the legendary dragons, the same ones n was after. they had to be the same thing, she decided, and went dashing off towards the city.

before anything, she recalls n’s words of battling the champion. although she could see the tips of the tower looming over the city, she makes up her mind: the gym, and one step closer to battling the champion herself, comes first. upon arriving and making it through, the gym leader, brycen, tells her she appears ready to face a gym leader. she finds it odd, not him, but a leader in general. though, she supposes he’s not wrong. after winning and obtaining her badge, brycen remarks that he doesn’t know the true meaning of strength, despite having obtained it himself. she thinks of cheren, and suddenly, decides it would be okay if he didn’t get his answer right away. she winders how long brycen, a seasoned gym leader, has been wondering about his question of strength. she wonders how long cheren, too, will wonder.

with him on her mind, she finds herself not all surprised to see him right outside the gym when she exits. what catches her off guard, is that bianca was with him. he admits to her he’s been talking with bianca, and asks if something has changed in him since they left nuvema town. he isn’t sure whether he’s become stronger, or if just his pokemon have. bianca tells him to cheer up, that they were all together, and that that should be exciting! she tells touko she wants to visit the pokemon fan club in icirrus, and is really searching for what she wants and can do. touko backtracks and tells cheren that, see, they have all changed since leaving on their journeys. all of them are growing in their own way, are evolving, and admits that it was okay to not always know what to do. before she can say much else, brycen exits the gym in a march, stopping and demanding to know who was there.

bianca, a bit shocked, squeaks out her and cheren’s names. brycen ignores her, calling out loudly that he knew they were there, and that they should reveal themselves! bianca and cheren seem even more frightened, not to mention touko. was this the same person she had just met? overall, who was there? team plasma? or, or was it-

the three members of the shadow triad materialize themselves around their entire group. everyone is caught off guard, except for brycen. one of them remarks that it was impressive he had noticed them, beings of the shadows. another says their mission was to speak only with touko, but it looks like that couldn’t happen now. instinctively, she reaches out for bianca and cheren. she finds herself a bit surprised when cheren reaches for her as well, closing their distance, wary of these figures and their attention on his friend. remembering their last encounter with each other, how effortlessly they had lifted her, she was suddenly very glad her friends were at her side.

“ghetsis has a message for you: come to dragonspiral tower,” one says. “it is there that out lord n waits for you,” another tells her. she feels her breathing start to quicken at the mention of ghetsis. n, she knew of, having known of his plans with the legendary dragons and having connected them with the tower earlier. but ghetsis, that was daunting to think about. it made her question: just how much of team plasma would be there, backing n up? brycen angrily questions what was going on at dragonspiral tower, but the shadow triad disappears right after, cutting him off. bianca and cheren turn to face the gym leader, demanding answers he couldn’t give with their eyes. he did say, however, that he was off for dragonspiral tower. cheren tells him he’s going too, and the two set off. bianca turns to her, worried, but then says she has to head there as well, and hurries off after them. touko takes a breath to steady her heart, and then rushes off as well, determined to not let her friends take the brunt of what was soon to come.

on the way, at the edge of the city limits, touko catches up to bianca, and both are confronted by cedric juniper. he tells them the situation: a large group of plasma members had broken through the tower walls, and that brycen and cheren had gone after them, but . . he cut himself off, looking unsure. bianca asked what dragonspiral tower was, and he explains that the tower had stood tall since long before unova was founded. on the very top, the legendary dragon awaits the appearance of a person pursuing truth to appear. he asks if they were going to join the fight, saying it was admirable, but also very risky. bianca tells him there was no need to worry, than cheren and touko were strong and had taken on team plasma before. then, she admits to herself that she wasn’t very strong, and that it might be better for her to stay here and he his bodyguard. juniper thanks her, saying it made him feel a lot safer. touko stands her ground, saying she was heading up, and that it was her team plasma had called to go after them. the professor doesn’t know what to make of this, but tells her it was up to her then, to scale the tower and see what they were up to. he heals up her team for her, and the both of them wish touko luck. with that, she sets off towards the tower.

inside, a glassy floor plays perimeter to a glittering body of water. touko is surprised by the strangeness of it, but doesn’t question, instead hurrying around the edge and over to the set of stairs at the back. as soon as she reaches them, the tower tremors, forcing her to grasp at the slick walls by the stairs’ base. something was going on. on the next floor of the tower, cheren shouts at her from the next set of stairs, saying it was possible to walk along the room’s fallen columns. he turns to go on ahead, leaving her to scramble up the white marble and progress after him. the next floor is a maze she has little difficulty making it through, though it does tire her some. she shakes it off, telling herself she had to continue, had to do whatever it took!

on the next floor, she immediately bounds up another flight of stairs, shorter than the spiral she’d just climbed, and sees brycen and cheren confronting a mass of plasma members. brycen spies her and tells her they would hold them off, and cheren too tells her to continue up, remarking that there were a lot of them. touko does just that, dashing past and wishing them luck, yet has several members of team plasma herself to battle before reaching the next flight of stairs up. their remarks stay with her, about brycen and cheren being nuisances, and about beating down anyone who got in team plasma’s way, and about how they would do it all for lord n’s sake.

the next level is another maze, and several times throughout, more tremors happen, each more troubling than the last. touko loses her balance and falls to her knees several times, scraping them on the more rough flooring. still, he picks herself up and dashes up the next set of stairs, determined. immediately on the next floor, she’s knocked to her feet by the shaking, and it’s enough to tell that something is rampaging at the top of the tower.

she encounters more towards the center of the floor another of the sages, as seen from his flow-y robes. he proclaims that at last n would become the hero, and upon seeing her, commands the several plasma members around him to hold her off, for lord n’s sake. “everyone who isn’t team plasma is an enemy,” he says, as they surround touko. her fear spikes, thinking back to the other times she’d been outnumbered like this, and his flawed words bite into her mind, clawing around in there, threatening to take control. still, she manages to beat all of them in battle, and after the last asks why she tries to hard, they all step back, admitting defeat. she stands there, heart beating wildly and panting heavily, and takes a moment to think on the words. then, she tells them, it was so no one else would have to.

she breaks through and up the next set of stairs, and everything becomes dimmer, because the last floor has a giant hole in the roof, letting in the night time sky. through the dimness, she sees a sight she will never forget.

n stood amongst the broken pillars, staring up and before him, at the white dragon that stood, seeing all. she approaches, cautiously, and n turns to face her not long after, maybe a few yards away. she stops, and he asks what she thinks. how did she like the scene painted before her, of the appearance of the legendary dragon that would lead the way to a new world alongside the hero? as usual, he doesn’t wait for her to respond, stating that now, he and reshiram -ah, she thinks, that was the name of one of the legends indeed- would head to the pokemon league and defeat the champion, the last of battles that hurt pokemon, and that the world for pokemon alone was finally going to be a reality.

she thinks, oh, this was his plan. to challenge the might of the champion with the might of a legend. he wasn’t collecting the gym badges, as she had been. that had never been his goal. this was, reshiram was, standing right before them, and now, lifting itself into the air. touko is too shocked to tell him the faults, to tell him a world for pokemon alone would almost require the extinction of the human race. he turns, turns back to her from also watching reshiram, and she is drawn to the look in his eyes, daunting, foreboding. she hangs on to his every word as he tells her that is she ever hoped to stop him, she too had to become a hero, be recognized by the legend’s counterpart, zekrom, and then they would be even. only then would she have a chance of stopping him. she finds herself thinking, fleetingly, why had they never been even in the first place? and, what made them not even? was it n, for losing in their battles? was it her, for not truly being one with pokemon like he was? who was finally becoming even with the other, should she follow his will?

“if you want to protect the bonds between pokemon and people, you must search for zekrom,” he tells her. she feels the breath leave her body, as he finishes. nothing had been so daunting as this ever in her life. to be challenged by a recognized hero of truth and the legendary reshiram, and what’s more, to be recognized as the hero of ideals herself, and being told to find zekrom was a task she didn’t know for sure she could accomplish. even so, even if she obtained all eight badges and set out to confront n at the league, what could she do alone? he had thought about the other hero in the legend, he had very much so. then, she realized, she had been chosen to become the hero of ideals and become the catalyst for n’s plan. that was what he meant, back in chargestone cave. but something still didn’t make sense. why would he give her an option? why would he give her this chance? did . . did he truly believe in his convictions as he proclaimed he did, or, perhaps, was he silently begging for it all to be stopped?

before she can ask, always before she can ever get a proper word in, n breaks for the other side of the tower, where the walls and roof are completely torn off, and where reshiram swoops down to bring him into its arms, taking off into the sky, and leaving her there, fallen to her knees in astonishment, in awe, in horror.

it takes some time, but how much, she doesn’t know. a hand falls to her shoulder, shakes her out of her daze. she snaps her head up to see cheren, staring down at her in shock, then looking once more to the skies. his words feel heavy, like she’s underwater, when he asks behind her if “he” saw that? brycen, she realizes, slowly blinking, still in a slight daze. cheren asks why the legendary pokemon had flown off, and why with n? was he really the hero, he asked. and, did he really tell her, touko, to find the other legendary pokemon? his last words snap her more out of it, and she staggers to her feet, his hand falling from her shoulder. she breathes out a shuddering breath, finally looking away from him and towards the sky once more, and then, turns slowly to face both him and brycen. brycen is telling him to calm down, and telling them all they should go back. at cheren’s thin protests, brycen addresses them both in saying it was important to decide what happens next, rather than analyze what just occurred. his words spur her to finally move, to nod in agreement, and to slowly begin to descend the tower with them. but as the reach the end of the steps to the landing, she gasps and tenses up, causing both men to look back at her. with true fear in her eyes, she asks where ghetsis was, that he was the one who told her to come here. she tells them she hadn’t seen him on her ascent, but that surely he had to have been there. cheren tries to recall seeing the charismatic sage of team plasma, but it’s brycen who shakes his head no, that they hadn’t seen him, and that all of team plasma had cleared out once n and reshiram had departed the tower. cheren has to catch her before she fell, her legs growing weak, and they both ask what was wrong. she shakes her head, too frozen to speak, even while her inner turmoil continues to swell. it didn’t make sense. the members of team plasma would to anything for n, from what she had gathered. yet, so many also deferred to ghetsis, who seemed far more dangerous to her than n ever did. it was him that truly scared her, out of all other plasma members. it was him who told her to come here, yet couldn’t be found himself. it was him . . . . could it be him, pulling the strings as well? twisting n’s motives and ideals, making the others of team plasma believe a faulty perception of his? how else would n’s ideals and those of the members of team plasma she had met so directly oppose one another? and, if so, if she was right . . why? what purpose could ghetsis have in doing so?

before she could ponder more, cedric juniper’s voice reaches her ears, remarking about the appearance of the legendary pokemon. she discovers herself between brycen and cheren, both supporting her in their walk. bianca is looking at her nervously. cheren speaks next, saying the one called n, plasma’s boss, had apparently reawakened the legendary pokemon. he says n told touko to look for the other legendary, and then flew away. bianca breaks her gaze from touko to look at cheren with confusion. there are two legendary pokemon? she questions. another voice loudly breaks in, saying that there were indeed two. touko sucks in her breath, recognizing the tone, and brycen takes note. ho unhooks his arm from around her, helping her stand on her own, and cheren does the same. her eyes stay locked on the approaching alder. as cedric remarks how it had been a while, alder snaps at him, telling him there was no time for talk. he tells them, the blinding flash of fire from the top of the tower . . that that legendary pokemon had the power to destroy the world.

if it’s on team plasma’s side, he says, and team plasma tells everyone to release their pokemon . . that no matter whether it comes from fear or admiration, the world can’t help but change. it would truly become a world where people and pokemon were separated. now more serious, juniper tells alder that n, the one who reawakened reshiram, said to look for the other, zekrom. touko notes, he omits saying she was the addresse in those words. alder continues, saying that zekrom and reshiram both, they together devastated ancient unova in an instant, and that even knowing that, n still wanted to reawaken them?

“he doesn’t know, then,” touko tells him. all eyes snap to her, but she continues, despite the states. “n wouldn’t put the world of pokemon at risk like that. if that’s the truth, then he doesn’t know of it.” she pauses, only a moment, before adding, “he doesn’t seem to know a lot of things. he knows what seems convenient to his personal truths, but beyond that, everything seems hazy.” she lowers her gaze at their continued stares, remarking lastly, “at least, that’s what i’ve gathered, from our conversations.”

bianca is the first to break the silence, saying that wasn’t it dangerous, to bring a pokemon like that back? alder admits other pokemon would most likely not be able to stop it. that if they wanted to have any chance, despite the sour taste it left from “taking orders” from n, searching for the dragon, for the dark stone, might very well be their only option. they certainly couldn’t let team plasma reawaken both! and touko falters, because of course, how could she be so stupid, maybe they really were after the pair of legends, despite what n told her. why would he leave it to the dragons clashing, when he could befriend both and stop the world’s destruction? she bit down on her lip, regretting her earlier thoughts in the tower. n had thought through it, of course he had. he was the king of team plasma, after all, and it was his vision they were all dead-set on fulfilling.

alder admits that since he’d traveled all over unova, he had an idea of where the stone could be. he tells everyone he was heading to relic castle, and at that, cedric tells them all he was heading inside the tower to see if he could learn more. brycen offers to go with him, and the two depart. after watching, cheren admits to them all that he thinks he now understands: that being able to do something at a time like this -that was true strength. with that, him and alder set off, leaving touko and bianca alone once more.

it takes her a moment, lost in thought and confusion at her next move, but bianca’s words make touko’s head snap up to attention. “you’re bleeding,” she exclaims, rushing further to touko’s side. touko looks down, notices the bits of blood on the cold grass in front of her, and then remembers the dull throbbing of her lip. she smears her tongue over the would, holds a hand up, and shakes her head at bianca -she was okay. that doesn’t stop the girl from coming closer to examine herself, however, and only backing up when she’s sure touko is really alright. then, she admits this all has turned into a big ordeal. she admits to touko that she doesn’t know what to do. she asks if touko would go to relic castle, and after a moment, she confirms. bianca nods and tells her she’s heard it lies in the desert on route four, between castelia and nimbasa. touko thanks her, but pauses, thinking. she asks, then, is bianca going to go to the pokemon fan club, still?

bianca picks up on what touko is doing, but chooses not to comment. instead, she shrugs, wondering herself. maybe, she admits, but first she was going to the pokemon center, worried about her pokemon partners. she suddenly embraces touko, tight, and tells her to be safe. touko returns the gesture, tells her the same. soon after, they go their separate ways.

descending the first sandy flight of stairs in the relic castle, touko has to pause on the steps before she’s reached their end, a robed figure lingering near the bottom and turning to meet her. his name is ryoku, another of the seven sages, and he tells her ghetsis once more wants to test how much power she possesses. he moves aside to let her pass, sayng she must once again defeat the plasma members gathered. touko is still very tense, but finishes her descent and hugs the wall opposite as she passes the sage. the dead-end passage leads to another of the quicksand holes she’d seen before, and hesitantly, she makes her way down to the next section of the underground castle.

as she battles and makes her way to the next floor, the words of a plasma member catch her attention. he tells her that if all pokemon were released, there would be no winning or losing. he runs off further into the castle after that, leaving her to ponder the words. that couldn’t be right, though. if the world were as n wanted it, it would indeed be a loss for trainers and people’s bonds with pokemon everywhere.

she continues down, tolerates the lossy words of plasma members, and wonders where cheren and alder were. finally, down one last sandy pit, she lands roughly and finds herself staring quite far up at the higher ceiling. picking herself up, touko is surprised to see a much more open and larger area of the castle around her. what’s more, closer to the northern wall lies alder, and before him, ghetsis. the sound of another rough landing makes her look behind to see cheren stumbling to his feet. they lock eyes, come to stand together, and then look once more at the unveiling scene. alder catches sight and orders them to his side, to which they comply immediately. touko finds herself hesitant under the watchful gaze of ghetsis, and the flare of fear spikes yet again.

once they are gathered, ghetsis bumps in, proclaiming they were hard at work to resurrect zekrom, weren’t they? unfortunately for them, the dark stone wasn’t there in the relic castle. he then steps forward, another expression unveiled on his face, and touko unwillingly pushes back, only noticed by cheren, who casts her a wary glance. ghetsis congratulates her for being chosen by his king, n, and that is she truly desired a world continued as is, where people and pokemon lived side by side, she had to bring the other dragon-type legend and battle with n. otherwise, team plasma would steal all pokemon from people all over the world and release them. alder steps in then, commenting that would the pokemon who live with trainers actually want that? was the liberation they spoke of really just stealing pokemon from people?

ghetsis appears shocked, and says that champion alder, even though illness took your partner pokemon of many years, and you haven’t had a serious battle since, even though you ordered the elite four to protect the league and then left to wander unova alone, even though a champion like you wanted to protect the current world, one where people and pokemon lived together?

touko and cheren share a collective look, caught off guard at the story. it certainly didn’t match with the impression of alder they had gathered thus far. ghetsis continues, saying n would show the world he was stronger than a champion who keeps pokemon bound! that he would, as the new hero of unova and alongside the legendary reshiram, order the release of all pokemon! and that they had in turn prepared a special castle for the legend and the hero. touko and cheren share another look. an entire castle? and where?

alder proclaims that he won’t lose, and that he would protect the bonds of people and pokemon! ghetsis tells him n had no interest in alder, and that his victory against the current champion was already assured. alder bristles at this proclamation. so ghetsis had stayed behind just to make a fool of him, then? no, ghetsis tells him, he was here now out of kindness. yes, kindness, to make sure the champion doesn’t get hurt without a reason.

“granted, the moment when someone loses all hope . . i really do love to watch that moment,” ghetsis confesses, another array of emotions crossing his face. he bids them farewell and, still in shock over those last words, all three trainers stand and watch as he ascends the large flight of stairs to their left. cheren is the first to break the silence, asking alder what he planned to do now. alder, still bearing a grimace, tells him his only choice appeared to be to head to the league and prepare to battle n. though it bothered him to do exactly what ghetsis wanted, like they were all playing into his hands . . but, more importantly, what were they going to do about the dark stone?

touko didn’t know how, maybe it was the location or the words said once more, but she suddenly had a good idea. she mentions to both cheren and alder that maybe the dark stone wasn’t here, in the relic castle, because it had already been excavated. cheren seems confused, but alder’s eyes light up, immediately agreeing that could be a possibility. from there, they all head above ground. once again among the winds of the desert, alder admits aloud what n could possibly want from this. could he be trying to prove he was right by winning the battle of two dragons? there seemed to be too many holes in their plan. touko agreed, saying she had had similar thoughts. there were things they were missing, pieces and connections they weren’t making.

then, the xtransceiver starts ringing. touko picks it up to be met with professor juniper’s face, and she tells her to hurry to the museum in nacrene. touko relays the message to cheren and alder, who says she must have been right, that it sounded like something big was going down in the city. he claims he’s going ahead. once alone, cheren tells touko he was going to stay at the relic castle and look around more, that he didn’t want to believe what ghetsis had said. touko understands his frustrations, and wishes him luck before setting off for the city herself.

at the front of the museum stood both junipers, alder, and, surprisingly, bianca. professor juniper tells touko alder told her what was going on, and that it seemed touo had gotten caught up in something serious. touko shakes her head. “believe me,” she says. “i know.” soon after, lenora marches out of the museum entrance, hurrying over to the group. “is this it?” she questions, unearthing the stone from the cloth in her arms. she asks, was this really a dragon-type pokemon, this stone found in the desert? cedric juniper says it surely was, and that when he investigated dragonspiral tower, he found things dated to the same era as the dark stone. bianca admits they were lucky, that team plasma hadn’t noticed the stone during that other incident at the nacrene museum. touko agreed, and lenora thirded it, saying it was a very good point. it was clear to her now they stole the dragon skull in hopes of reviving the legendary dragon. but just imagine, if they had taken off with the real thing in its dormant form . .

she goes to give touko the stone, but alder interrupts them, addressing touko directly. he tells her that if she accepts the stone, she would be accepting the responsibility of the one to take n on, should anything happen to him. was she really okay with that?

touko purses her lips, thinking. after a few moments she admits that no, she wasn’t. that it was scary to think a champion such as him would lose, that such a possibility of a “last hope” existed. even so, she tells him it was her only option and, as fate would have it, seemed like her duty to accept, and so she must. alder, face hard, cracks a small smile at her words. he tells her he is proud of her determination, and that she had to remain strong and prepare herself in the face of these troubled times. he steps back, and lenora hands her the dark stone.

as she’s passing it over, lenora tells her it seems that if things don’t go as planned, touko would have to use the stone. that she would be the one to protect the true future of them and pokemon. “touko, we’re counting on you,” she admits. “please take care of yourself.”

it felt . . almost warm to the touch. touko is hesitant to let it go, but eventually, she slides it into her bag, holding both close to her chest. it is cedric who breaks the moment, then asking how it was they wake the dragon from the stone. the group mutters to themselves, an air of unsurity rising, and slowly threatening panic. then, lenora snaps to attention, turning to alder and telling him, well, they had them, right?

yes, alder admits with excitement lighting his tone, they had those two! he tells touko to head to opelucid city, saying the gym leader there uses dragon type pokemon. if anyone would know something, it would be the gym leader. he says he would go on ahead, and takes off on his pokemon in a hurry. once gone, the professor snaps her head up as well, saying that was right, if anyone would know something, it would be opelucid’s drayden! both junipers put their faith in that solution, but admit they were going to the lab to see if they could find a solution as well, departing from the group. lenora tells touko if they find anything, they would let her know first. and bianca, now closer to her friend, tells her opelucid was connected to icirrus through the tubeline bridge. touko thanks her and takes off shortly, only after realizing she had no idea what bianca’s next move would be, and that it troubled her.

at this point, the weight of the world seemed to settle heavily on touko’s form. it scared her, but also, it was a bit exciting as well. this was what she was meant to do, and whether her role could’ve been easily reversible was a question she couldn’t answer, she knew it was her role now in the present, and that she had to go through with it. she couldn’t be the scared little girl she’d been on her journey before. she had to harden herself to her selfish feelings, had to consider others before herself. with these thoughts, touko places a hard poker face on, determined to be the strong-willed one now.

it’s when she descends near the bridge and makes it to the entrance that she hears her name next. touko turns to see bianca running up to her, stopping several yards away upon seeing the girl’s determined expression. with a little hesitance, bianca tells her she’s been thinking about things, as she’s been traveling. things like what she can do with her life, nad what she truly wants to do. it would be cool to be a model like elesa, but researching pokemon like professor juniper would also be so cool, right? if that’s what she wanted to do, then she’d have to know a lot about pokemon. reaching into her bag, she pulls out a plain pokeball and holds it up for touko to clearly see. touko takes out her own pokemon in response, knowing bianca’s battle request before the girl told her herself.

bianca doesn’t seem sad when she loses. in fact, the first she says is that touko was amazing. then she quiets, gripping her hat hard with her hands, and touko can see the first signs of discomfort. she steps closer, wanting to be with bianca, but her next words make touko pause. in castelia city, bianca tells her, her precious pokemon were taken from her by team plasma. so, she really understood then! why it was so important to see that if team plasma liberates pokemon, there would be nothing but sad people. “touko!” she exclaims. “stop team plasma! don’t allow pokemon to be stolen from trainers who love them!” tears streaming down her face, she says she thinks that’s the truth, or the ideal, that touko had been pursuing. then she backs up, both literally and mentally, telling touko she’d come to make her feel more relaxed, but in the end, had only ramped both of them up. touko feels her new mask slipping, just then, eyes alighting with concern. boanca stumbles, shaking her head. “knowing you, you’ll definitely be fine!” she tells touko. for sure, totally fine! she guaranteed it! so, then . . she had to say goodbye, then.

and touko reaches out, grasps bianca’s shoulders, her own tears threatening to spill. she tells bianca this didn’t have to be the end, that she could come with her! come see opelucid, come see the new sights and meet this gym leader and this drayden, and get answers, together! they didn’t have to separate, touko tells her, and maybe she didn’t want to! maybe she needed someone with her, because it was hard, this was hard, to suddenly have the fate of the entire world pushed onto her!

as she further threatens to break down, bianca is completely caught off guard, having never realized touko’s internal struggle. but, as she tries to reassure her friend, she mentally finds her mind made up: she can’t go with her. there were certain things touko had to do alone, now, and though it broke her heart, this was one of them. after a few minutes of settling each other, she tells touko this, the girl just nodding, understanding. bianca wishes her luck -all the luck in the world!!- and says she’s heading back to icirrus. touko, in turn, heads to the foyer of the tubeline bridge.

it’s a different sort of bridge, with grating underneath and railroads below. there are people actively pacing the trek, and others stopping to chat. closer to the end, she spies a figure in the middle, standing there. it seems strange, but she doesn’t know what to make of it, her own flare of thoughts surfacing. she was still trying, vehemently so, to harden herself. what she shared with bianca back there was heartbreaking, yet nice, so nice . . but she couldn’t let it happen anymore. she was a protector of the world, now, and she had to let it show in her actions, her words, her appearance. she couldn’t be breaking down every other moment -wait, that actually kind of looked like someone she’d seen before, now that she was closer. actually-!

in a flash the shadow triad appeared around her, one behind and two on each side. she sucked in a breath, surprised, but immediately clenched her teeth together, let her eyes narrow. she asked them what they wanted. they asked for her to follow. and then, in the quick pace she was used to, she was marched to the figure she had recently identified as ghetsis.

the shadow triad blinks out of existence only to appear behind their leader, and ghetsis praises them without turning his eyes from touko, who also has a harsh glare locked on to him. excellent, he says, it seems she had found the dark stone. touko takes a hard step back, leans into a defensive position. one arm curls around her bag, and one eye darts to the shadow triad, as if they would swoop in and take it from her. ghetsis marches closer to one edge of the bridge, eyes still on her, and says it is his lord n’s thought that the two holders of the legendary pokemon should put their beliefs on the line to determine which was the true hero. touko bites back, saying there were originally two heroes in the first place, and that both had been correct in their own ways. ghetsis says that is why n’s thinking was unnecessary. from n’s infancy, ghetsis admits he had provided him with the education required for him to become the hero of legend -the hero of truth. and indeed, he had been acknowledged by the legendary reshiram. that his purpose was pure. and that the liberation of pokemon from which team plasma advocates is the separation of pokemon from foolish people! and that all trainers would become helpless to resist them! they -team plasma- alone would be able to use pokemon.

touko thinks, no, that wasn’t what n himself advocated for. that he wanted the complete separation of pokemon from people. she began to think once more, that ghetsis and n seemed to have separated ideals, just like n and the other members of team plasma. yet they all said they deferred to n, all except the shadow triad, who answered solely to ghetsis. he continues, saying that when his perfect plan was set into motion, all trainers in time, even the gym leaders and champion, will become unable to resist team plasma’s will. that under the influence of thousands, having a pokemon will be considered a bad thing. that even sad little bianca, whose pokemon were stolen is castelia, would be unable to resist public opinion and release their pokemon. that was the kind of world they would-

“don’t talk about her like that!” touko barks, taking a step forward. her teeth gritted, she forces her bag from her shoulders, wraps it tightly in her arms, against her chest, for better insurance. ghetsis steps forward as well, face growing dark. “you may have the stone,” he tells her, “but there is no chance at all that the legendary zekrom will accept you as the hero.” if she was not willing to hand over all her precious pokemon, then she had better search for some courage -because she was going to need it!

and then he was gone, along with the shadow triad. touko whipped around, spun in a circle, unsatisfied even though she knew they were completely gone, no lingering whatsoever to be determined. she clenched her bag tighter in her grasp, face lit with fury. what piece was she missing?! why was it still impossible to say ghetsis was pulling strings, was the true one behind team plasma’s whims? why couldn’t she say it with such surety, there had to be something she was missing, but what?

she calls alder, still shaken, to confirm his location in opelucid. then, she heads through the rest of the bridge, towards the city herself. right inside opelucid, she finds alder, but he quickly pulls her out of the street before she could utter a word. dragging her over, they come to stand behind a large crowd. from between the people, touko can make out the symbols of team plasma. from beside her, alder breathes out his own grievances, telling her ghetsis was such a liar, trying to con everyone with a desperate speech. she nods her head in agreement, and they both turn to listen, safely tucked out of sight.

ghetsis stood with a full row of plasma members at his back, and touko picked up his speech with him affirming that n and reshiram were of the same mind, and that they were heralding the return of the hero of unova, founder of the region. immediately she had to agree with alder’s comment again. there were two heroes, to start, and both had worked to found unova. ghetsis goes on to say that humans had much to learn from pokemon, and that their greatness should be acknowledged by everyone freeing them from oppression. the crowd swelled with these words -oppression? was it really happening? he, and team plasma, invite the crowd to join them as they work to free pokemon, and ends by asking the crowd to release their pokemon. with that, the plasma behind him gather their propaganda, and they all make their leave. touko hears the crowd swell again, some saying maybe they should release their pokemon, while others claim they’d be lonely without their pokemon. in the end, the crowd too disperses without any sole agreement being reached.

there are two people now left, gathered off to the side. the younger one turns to face her companion, remarking that the speech was off-the-charts strange. her elder companion says cooperation between people and pokemon was how unova was founded in the first place, and that if a pokemon didn’t want anything to do with humans, it would simply leave in the first place. that capturing a pokemon in a pokeball didn’t guarantee the capture of its heart.

as they continue, touko turns to alder, mentioning ghetsis had confronted her on the bridge. alder stiffens at her side, asking what was said, and so she retells him her plight. he shakes his head at the end, remarking that everything about them seemed to get stranger, to him. he tells her not to worry too much. then, he leads her over to the other two onlookers who were still around. he addresses them as iris and drayden, which catches touko off guard. iris, too, recognizes her, greeting alder and then her as “the girl who helped out in castelia”. touko nods as her greeting, and then drayden is speaking, asking what was wrong, what did alder need from them?

alder requests they tell him and touko about the legendary pokemon. iris asks him whether he means reshiram or zekrom, that there were two. drayden tags in, saying that ghetsis that was just here mentioned an n fellow who had captured reshiram. alder confirms this, and that n apparently told touko to search for zekrom. the two turned their eyes towards her then with sudden interest. drayden then asks for clarification: this n, he says, tends to set the legendary dragons on each other in battle to test his convictions? no no no, iris exclaims, not when the dragons get along so well! you’re right, alder tells her. people are the ones who make pokemon battle. after a second to clear the air, alder turns towards touko, telling her he was off to the pokemon league. “no”, he says, “i guess in this case i should say i’m ‘returning’ to the pokemon league. of course, i’ll defeat n!” he would teach him about the beauty of this world, where pokemon and trainers live together in harmony. he would also be awaiting her arrival, and told her once she had the opelucid badge, to come to the league. he bids farewell to drayden and iris, tells them he is counting on them, and then leaves.

as iris begins to get concerned, drayden assures her, saying that alder was the strongest trainer in all of unova. drayden tells touko to come to his home, and that he would do as alder asked and tell her about the dragons. he asks iris to show her the way, and then leaves. iris waves to him, and then tells touko they would stop by the pokemon center first. after, they head towards the middle of the city, all the way up to a smaller but taller building. as she’s marveling the architecture, iris tells her opelucid does things differently than the rest of the region. she can believe it, from the stone-paved streets she’s seen thus far, instead of the more modern roads she’s used to. inside, drayden explains, saying what she was holding was the dark stone. at this point touko realizes she still has her bag in her arms. she looks down, a small blush alighting her features, and carefully adjusts so the bag is on her back once more, the dark stone in her hands. he tells her that zekrom, who will likely awaken from the dark stone, and reshiram, who already has, were once the same pokemon. iris tells her that single dragon, along with the twin heroes, were the ones who founded unova. they trade off once more, drayden telling her that a day came that the twin heroes, made up of the truth-seeking older brother, and the ideal-driving younger brother, began an argument about which was right. the single dragon that had been with them split its body into two, and each sided with each brother. in pursuit of ideals, iris says, zekrom and the younger brother sought to usher in a new and better world, while reshiram, who sought truth, wanted to along with the older brother usher in a new world as well, one of good. drayden tells her that because the two were once the same entity, their battle raged on endlessly with neither being declared a winner in the duel. they simply exhausted themselves. in the end, the twin heroes proclaimed there was not one side that was right, and they ended their conflict. but, iris states, the sons of the twins started their battle again, and in an instant, all of unova was destroyed by lightning and fire. they, they disappeared! if people and pokemon continued to work hard together, then they didn’t have to worry about the world being destroyed again, though. “i mean, zekrom and reshiram worked hard for everyone and made a new region! so, it should be alright, i think,” iris tells her.

drayden agrees, saying that pokemon could not speak, and people could end up imposing their selfish thoughts on them, but that no matter what, people and pokemon believed in one another, needed each other, and would continue to live together. that’s why, iris says, she would never forgive team plasma for trying to separate people and pokemon. after a moment of silence, drayden lets out a laugh and apologizes for getting off topic at the end. touko shakes it off, seeing how passionate they were about the topic. drayden admits this is all they know, and that unfortunately, they didn’t know how to wake the legendary pokemon. touko feels disappointment thrum through her, but drayden wasn’t finished. he tells her he made a promise to alder, and that she had to win a badge at the opelucid gym. regarding this, he tells iris to await her challenge, to which the girl agrees. she tells touko, amidst her confusion, that she and drayden both were the opelucid gym leaders, and that she looked forward to her challenge.

iris heads out and drayden tells touko he needs to think, heading upstairs. touko leaves his home after thanking him, wanders around the city for a little, and then finds a place to sit and rest. her personal convictions were set, but she wanted to sort through what she knew of others, based on all her findings, and this new story of the unova legends. first, she starts with n. she knew he had apparently been living with pokemon his entire life, and that it was easier for him to communicate with them than people because of this. he’d also been educated under ghetsis since very young, all for him to acquire traits necessary for him to become the next hero of truth -something he’d apparently accomplished, seeing as reshiram was now on his side. it was n’s goal to liberate pokemon from people, claiming it would turn pokemon into perfect beings. he had yet to say how it would make people feel, or what the result of humans would be. touko’s guess was that he didn’t care, but it was also possible to assume he hadn’t thought about it. maybe both.

n was the so-called king of team plasma, and ghetsis was the one who had asked him to lead the group. that was the first catch, she kept in mind. if it was ghetsis’ idea to form and use team plasma, why have n lead at all? why not just use him? was it because the other plasma members responded well to such a charismatic leader? well, she couldn’t say that. n was awkward and strange. maybe, it was because his goals seemed so pure and intentional, that it was easy for people to fall alongside him, to want to help him. n was more than a figurehead, she told herself, but also, ghetsis was more than a follower. n’s plan was to become the strongest in unova and beat out the champion, alder, so that his commands for people to release their pokemon would be followed. yet, he didn’t want to use force to accomplish anything, saying it would make the people rebel. n didn’t, to her knowledge, own any pokemon of his own. since it was very easy for him to befriend pokemon, he relied on this around him to assist him in his endeavors. which lead to another thing: n could talk to pokemon. maybe not talk, but, communicate, and understand. it was incredible, and she believed it only because she’d beared witness to it several times. this was probably due to his close upbringing with pokemon. despite wanting to become a new sort of champion, n didn’t intend to collect gym badges and challenge the league by any conventional means. instead, he gained the trust of the legendary dragon, reshiram, and was planning on using the dragon to help assure his victory over alder. he believed touko was his compliment hero, the hero of ideals to his hero of truth, and was sure she would gain the trust of zekrom and come to challenge him for the fate of the bonds between pokemon and people. his current location was . . unknown, as was the rest of team plasma. in fact, she hadn’t seen him since he took off on reshiram atop dragonspiral tower, right after telling her to find zekrom and test her convictions against his.

this, she realized, was exactly as drayden and iris told her happened to the original heroes of truth and ideals. the twins were conflicted on who was right, and had battled to determine such. touko wondered if n knew of the legend himself. he must know some, she decided, to have the knowledge he’d demonstrated to her thus far. maybe he knew of the original twin heroes’ struggles, but not of their successors, whose fight had destroyed unova. perhaps that was why he didn’t seem to grasp the danger of this battle he was predicting.

n’s followers, known as team plasma, were a group of radical trainers that claimed to be for the liberation of pokemon from people. through what she’d witnessed, they weren’t above stealing pokemon from their trainers to accomplish this, and seemed to differ from n in that they often used force to get what they idealed. all of the members she’d seen owned pokemon, which also differed from n. they idolized him, but also, took orders from ghetsis, one of the “seven sages” of team plasma. each sage seemed to possess power over other members of team plasma, not doing much themselves besides commanding others. from what she could tell, all deferred back under ghetsis, who was under n. in fact, though all of team plasma seemed to be under n, there was only one real instance that she could recall seeing n and other members of team plasma together: at the nimbasa fairgrounds, when he battled with her in order to cover the escape of several plasma members. besides that, though they claimed n was their lord, their king, the plasma members seemed to operate solely under ghetsis’ orders.

ghetsis was the mysterious sage of team plasma she’d seen leading several rallies and speeches advertising team plasma’s will. he commanded the shadow triad, a trio of sly individuals she’d run into several times, and who seemed to be around to gather people to both ghetsis and n -but make no mistake, n had no control over the group, as the deferred solely to ghetsis. on this note, touko had no idea what they even thought if team plasma. they simply showed up, dragged her where she was supposed to be, according to ghetsis, and then left. she had no idea what kind of people they were in general, besides n’s comment in chargestone cave that they were good people who simply “owed” ghetsis. for a man who seemed to be behind n, ghetsis did a lot of things on his own. he seemed more of a leader to team plasma than n really did, to her. he was the one who seemed to delve out orders the most. though, n still considered ghetsis one of his followers. touko wasn’t sure if this notion was shared. ghetsis had admitted to her that he had educated n growing up, which sounded like the two had been together for some time. she wondered what their true relationship was, if ghetsis had known n since the latter was a child.

maybe she was thinking this through wrong, but n seemed to be more the figurehead leader of team plasma, with followers deferring to his ideals, and ghetsis more the in-charge leader, issuing out orders and constructing schemes. what she couldn’t figure out was if the two were working together. those of team plasma didn’t seem to share exactly what n’s personal truths were, like they had heard him through a filter. also, while it was clear that n had been asked by ghetsis to lead team plasma, it couldn’t be said who the original creator was, and whether it had been formed to fulfill n’s ideals, or if n was being used to gather followers for ghetsis’ personal schemes. she didn’t know what they could be, or even if they existed. really, they might be the same as n’s, just twisted. oh, she realized, or maybe, were n’s ideals really even his own? if ghetsis was in charge of his education, could he have manipulated n into thinking the things he now thought were right, were true? she couldn’t know for sure, not based on what she knew now. but, iris had also said the legendary dragons got along quite well, right? did n not know of this? surely if he did, he wouldn’t force them to battle against each other in order to test the convictions of humans? which begged the question: how much of unova’s legend did he truly know?

and the only real thing she was stumbling with: did ghetsis and n see each other as equals? did n know there was a chance of him being deceived by ghetsis? was ghetsis deceiving n in the first place? or, was he a follower content to follow? and was n truly a leader content to lead?

dusk was approaching. with her team healed and ready, she decides to stand and make her way to the gym. regardless of the holes in her knowledge, this entire thing would be drawing to a climax very soon. right now, it was her job to get her eighth and final badge. she wondered, briefly, if she should call up bianca and ask what kind of trainer iris was. she knew the two had worked together some back in castelia. yet, remembering their final conversation, touko decided to let her be, for now. there were some things she needed to do on her own.

outside the gym, the post read iris was the gym leader who “understood the hearts of dragons”. touko wondered if she was like n, albe to communicate with dragon pokemon as he was with all pokemon. checking to make sure the dark stone was secured in her bag, touko opens the doors and enters into her final gym challenge.

after she wins and obtains the badge, iris expresses her joy over such a good battle. she wonders aloud how alder was doing, and if he was taking on n right now. drayden approaches them then, addressing that he too was curious. he tells touko to go after alder, and that he knew the strength of the champion, but not the unknown of n’s power, and that it bothered him. thanking them both, touko receives directions to the league and leaves the city after recovering the health of her team.

before doing so, she’s confronted by professor juniper by the city gates. she tells touko she’d come with news on how to resurrect zekrom, and that she thought it would be better to tell her in person. as for the conclusion . . well, she hadn’t figured it out yet. but she was sure zekrom would awaken when it deemed someone worthy. touko, frustrated by the lack of news, asks if she is truly the chosen one, if zekrom has not yet responded to her? the professor tells her she shouldn’t worry so much, and that she’s changed and grown so so much since leaving nuvema. she tells touko she was so thankful to be able to give her and bianca and cheren their starters, and that in order to show her appreciation, she wanted touko to have a gift. she presents the trainer with a master ball, the most powerful kind of pokeball that could catch any pokemon without fail. surprised, touko genuinely thanks her, and tucks the ball safely away in her bag. juniper tells touko to be true to herself, and no matter what happens, to stay strong and keep going with her pokemon. “although we may not always know all the answers,” she tells her, “it’s important to keep looking ahead, and trust that things will work out in the end.”

she bids gooybye at that, and as touko exits the city, she finds herself oddly restored and comforted. things weren’t 100%, but that was strangely okay now. like the professor had said, things would work out. she just had to trust in herself, and her pokemon.

after passing on a bridge on her way to victory road, touko hears a voice telling her to stop. she turns to see cheren running to catch up, calling out her name. she’s so focused on him that she fails to notice bianca until the both of them stop in front of her. cheren tells her they’d heard from the professor and drayden that she was heading for the pokemon league. “since it’s alder . . since it’s the champion, i think it will be all right,” he tells her. worst-case scenario, she’d be battling against n. he takes a deep breath, then says she needs to know if she could handle it, challenging her to a battle.

she wins, and cheren thanks her, remarking that she was sure something else. he fully heals her team, steps back to join bianca, and shocks her with his next words. “right now,” he says, “there’s no way i can compete with you, touko.” he tells her if there was anything he could do to help in the battle with n, she need only say so. bianca, too, says there wasn’t much she could do to help, but she wanted touko to have something. she hands over some strong medicine, stuff touko had never seen in stores. then, she remarks that it was funny, how everything was so different. cheren reprimands her, because funny? at a time like this? but she tags him back, asking if he could just smile for once. touko, her own hardened mask now in place to safeguard her feelings, can’t retort that. bianca tells him taking everything so seriously all the time wasn’t going to change anything. yet, touko wonders, how many breakdowns has cheren had, over the course of his journey? bianca wasn’t addressing her, but it sort of felt like it. bianca continues, saying they’d each changed a lot, and that they things they wanted to do, as well as the things they could do, all different from each other. but that’s what made all their journeys so worth it. cheren tells them there were as many truths and ideals as there were people and pokemon. the most important thing was that they help each other out. that’s why people and pokemon are always by each other’s sides. that’s what he’s come to think, lately. he tells touko that if anything happens to her or alder, he would do everything he could to help them. that’s why he had to keep training and getting stronger. “just . . don’t be reckless, okay?” he tells her. then he runs off, back in the direction of opelucid.

bianca lingers, commenting that cheren had yet to challenge the opelucid gym, that he had to catch up with touko first. touko asks if she would thank cheren, for her. bianca agrees to do so. then, she tells touko that she too will do her best to help, if she can. she wished she could say something inspiring for her, but touko interrupts her, saying both bianca and cheren had always been so much inspiration by themselves, to her. bianca nods, “right!” she says, and then she too runs off after cheren. touko finds herself thinking she had some pretty great friends.

the pokemon league is a massive, olden structure imbedded to the side of a mountain. the final building is on top of the mountains’ summit, further from the rest of the league buildings. it is where champion alder resides. it is where she needs to be, by the end of the day.

in her battles against the elite four, she gets troubled. the first, caitlin, mentions she keeps getting interrupted in her sleep. was it something else, or, perhaps, had n already appeared?

with the next, she was surprised to hear his name was marshal, the person alder had mentioned way back outside of twist mountain. he says he is alder’s student, and is seeking to obtain power under him. touko sees the same connections immediately that alder made between the elite four member and cheren.

the next, grimsley, also mentions something strange: that challengers kept coming right after the other. she couldn’t be sure, she couldn’t be sure it was n, but it didn’t stop her from questioning the possibility and growing nervous from it.

her final challenge, shauntal, confirms it all. she makes it to the ghost trainer’s room, and shauntal speaks as the illusion of a storm howls outside. “eyes brimming with dark flame,” she says, “this man rejected everything other than himself in order to bring about one singular justice . .” she tells touko it was a piece from a new story she was writing. she’d been inspired by the challenger who was just there, and somehow got a little sad. touko audibly gasps, the sound echoing in the small room. “n,” she proclaims. “that had to have been n! which means . .”

shauntal shakes her head. “excuse me, you’re a challenger, correct? sorry, it was inconsiderate of me to ramble on. maybe this n fellow was the one who passed through. regardless, i am here now, and i accept your challenge.”

touko’s mind is racing,. her heartbeat is wild, because n was here, she’s sure of it, n just barely got there and challenged the elite four before her. upon winning the battle, shauntal tells her the elite four have sworn to be neutral under alder’s orders. because of this, if there was indeed trouble brewing, it was up to touko to stop it. taking these words to heart, touko warps back to the center chamber.

the central statue descends like an elevator when she comes to stand on it, zipping down into the mountain, to a large chamber with an enormous set of stairs, as long as the chamber is wide, and as tall as the descent plus some. there are several gigantic flights and several small landings to separate them. it takes time to ascend the full length. at the top, breaking the crest of the mountain, sits the final building where alder waits. she takes a moment outside to pause, to catch her breath, and then dashes inside. the scene that unfolds is one she will find herself never forgetting for as long as she lived.

her mask cannot crumble, she tells herself, as she sees n before alder. she has to be strong, she repeats, as she begins to hear what n is saying.

it’s over, he tells alder. the title of champion cannot stop me, he tells alder. your soft heart has left you weak, he tells alder. as the one who beat the champion, i shall issue a decree to the trainers of the world, he tells alder, telling them to free their pokemon. alder fixes his broken stature in alarm, shaking his head wildly. anything but that, he asks of n. in response, n tells him they both put their beliefs on the line and fought with all their strength.

and n won.

“do not say another word,” he says to alder.

touko feels her eyes light with trepidation as n catches sight of her, turns to face her. no, no she screams in her mind, working hard to remain neutral, to remain steady and strong. n steps forward, tells her he’s been waiting. the future he’d envisioned where she obtained the stone has come true. and the dark stone . . reshiram was responding to it.

“no, stop!” n calls out, lifting his eyes to the heavens. “this place isn’t suitable for the legendary dragons!” alder and touko are alarmed -who is he speaking to? he raises his arms into the air, lifts his face higher. from the ground, rise, he says. the castle of team plasma, he says, surround the pokemon league!

it was another sight touko would remember until she died.

a tremendous rumbling caught all three off guard, sent them stumbling to remain standing. from around the mountain, walls rose, rising, rising, coming to a peak high above the league building they were all in, surrounding the league literally in a half-moon shape. they castle stretched so far up touko thought it would take two, maybe even three, of the leagues stacked onto each other to reach it. it was monstrous. and with it, the clouds above began to darken. with it, a storm began to take root, pillars of lightning striking down. with it, suddenly and with quite drastic force, staircases erupted from the side of the castle and slammed into the sides of the league, creating pathways to connect both areas. the last one entered right into the building the three were in, slamming through the stone and cement, ages old, toppling pillars, decorating their bodies with chalk and scattering debris all over the area.

touko opens her eyes to discover she’s on the ground, among the wreckage of torn-apart pillars. she sits up slowly, feeling around her head, but can’t find reason to suspect damage there. she catches sight of alder’s hair and moves to stand, only pausing when she sees him stumbling to his feet as well, seemingly uninjured.

n’s voice draws her head towards the staircase that’s destroyed the building, sees his leaning against it, still standing, and looking right at her. he tells her what’s just appeared is team plasma’s castle, and that she must come, for everything will be decided there. “we will see whose belief is stronger,” he tells her, clambering onto the steps. “and our result will change the world.” he steadies himself on the steps, and as his sentence ended, he began to ascend up to the castle. touko almost moves to follow him, to demand he explain himself, to finally get a word in. but alder falters, and she stops and rushes to him, helping him come to a steady standing position. “i’m okay,” he breathes, repeats it to her, to himself, to whoever will listen. touko’s arms are still around him, though, not letting go, never letting go. n could wait.

shouts from the entrance called for a mister alder, and, she realized faintly, for a touko as well. soon, cheren comes through the wreckage, spots them, and clambers over. alder smiles, tells him he did well to get this far. cheren responds, saying that somehow he did beat the pokemon league, but it wasn’t easy. he comes to help touko support him. cheren then tells them he became stronger because he understood what he had to do. his next words were addressed to her.

“tell n this! some people grow stronger by being with pokemon. my pokemon and i are proof. together, we learned and became stronger.”

touko isn’t sure what to say. she thinks she nods, she can’t tell. her ears are still ringing. everything is still muted. the dust is still settling, literally. did n care for strength? did he really care for anyone, after this stunt? or was he only fixated on results?

alder admits to them, with a raspy voice, that he lost. he should’ve been able to demonstrate the bond between him and his pokemon, that it would’ve shown him -that brat- the worthlessness of his outrageous dreams. n’s convictions were the real thing, he tells them. “so . . be careful,” he says. “the ones who change the world are always the ones who pursued their dreams.” he asks touko to let n know, that even if people and pokemon are separated, nothing good will come of it! touko nods a little harder, her vision clearing a bit, her ears working more. she can hear the sounds of her breathing as she leaves alder solely to cheren. within a few moments, she’s scrambling up the stairs, up to the hole in the building.

outside now, she can’t help but looks down, look all around her, and she falls to her knees, still moving upward but at a crawl, at something more stable, though less fast. everything was so far down below, and though the staircase was stable, she didn’t want to risk falling off the side. her head swimming, she clambers up the steps, makes it to where they ascend nicely into the building, and throws herself into it, not caring that it’s the enemy’s base, because at least she would no longer be outside, be in imminent danger.

she comes to a stop on a polished floor of a large chamber. before her, the six sages are all gathered in a line, facing her, waiting for her. one steps forward a single step, lifts his arms, and announces something about fate. she can’t be sure, her hearing is still shot, and his words seem to be gibberish nonetheless. another steps forward, says something, and another, and another, and another, until all have said something, and now stood a little closer, and she’s still breathing deeply, and she didn’t know what this was. an intervention? did n know those under him were planning to stop her from reaching him? or, perhaps, were the sages following the orders of ghetsis?

no, she couldn’t think right now. she had to focus. and indeed, as all of them moved much closer, formed a bit of a half circle, and one speaks, saying that if anything should happen to their king, it would surely be disastrous. it’s the first time she’s heard anyone say just king, instead of king n. another follows, saying it would ruin ghetsis’ perfect plan! that lord n would be disappointed, but that the six of them would stop her here.

she can’t process correctly. everything’s happened so fast. there’s a king -n? or someone else? there’s a lord n. there’s a plan, a plan by ghetsis, what plan? and n would be sad to see the plan go wrong -wasn’t he the one who told her to come face him? what was going on? what was-

two heavy hands fall onto her shoulders, a voice asking if they could actually manage that. she jumps, but clay is already moving away, towards the last sage that had spoken. all of the sages back up, closer together. it was driftveil’s-?!

“ain’t just me,” clay tells them, sporting a dangerous grin.

and they come, one after the other. she’s still facing forward, but they come to stand before her. lenora, burgh, elesa on her other side, skyla and brycen, and iris and drayden, holding up the ends, all in a line similar to the sages, all in front of her, shielding her somewhat. she feels her breath leave her. the gym leaders start their own speech. lenora proclaims they were stronger than the sages, and that there were more of them than the sages as well. elesa follows, saying ignoring team plasma would be a terrible thing for the gym leaders to do. touko feels tears welling in her eyes, so thankful to have met all of them. burgh admits bianca asked them to come, and touko lifts a hand to her mouth, holding back the sounds threatening to escape. “holder of the dark stone,” drayden shouts, still facing a sage, “please proceed.”

she could do this. she was still on her feet. she had the encouragement of eight of unova’s strongest trainers. she had support. she moved, her vision darting around, and as the sages and gym leaders engaged in battle, she darted to the left, over to a slit between the walls, and separates from the chamber to a smaller but longer hall. she has to go all the way to the right, practically sprinting down the sparkling and dark tiles, to a golden staircase. the next floor is another hall, this time with several tall doorways to her left. she looks to the first one, shakes her head, and focuses on the next staircase at the far end once more. the top. n would be at the top, she was sure. she moves forward, but a shudder passes through her entire being and leaves her immobile. from an area she cannot see, a voice tells her to come.

she feels her feet move not of her own accord, until she’s in front of the next doorway, and then a member of the shadow triad is behind her. touko whips around, faces him with a snarl. he tells her it was their lord n’s wish they she be moved to the innermost part of the castle. he tells her her pokemon can be healed by going through the door she was in front of. then, he disappears.

touko removes her bag and presses it against her chest, gripping it so hard her knuckles turn white. she would be fine. this wasn’t a trap. n still wanted to see her. she had to continue. there were people fighting for her, counting on her. she thinks of alder, of the hopelessness on his face, and thinks that she could change that. that it was up to her to restore him to the jovial man they all knew him as. she thinks of cheren, of how hard he’s worked this entire time, to get this far. she thinks of bianca, who had gathered nearly all the gym leaders to back her up. for them too, she decides. for them, she tells herself, and enters the room.

it’s fairly large, with paintings hanging on the far end around a fireplace, and a long table stretching out to all corners. pillars surround the table, and in front of it, two women stood. as she enters, they turn to face her, their faces as neutral as she hoped hers was. the one on the left announces herself as anthea, and tells her she’d heal her pokemon before she went to confront n. at touko’s hesitance, anthea fell to a sitting position, her dress pooling around her form. she beckoned her forward, saying it was alright. something calm washes over touko. she moves forward and hands the woman all her pokeballs. after several moments, anthea hands them back, and touko can feel already that her team is rejuvenated.

anthea tells her trainers battle to gain experience and grow in skill, but never to hurt their pokemon. touko finds it odd, that this was in such opposite correlation with n’s values. then anthea continues, saying n has realized this, deep down, but that he’d spent too much painful time here in the castle to admit it. she smiles, then, tipping her head. “surprised?” she asks touko, who can only nod. it was another piece, filling in, connecting new lines. n knew of trainers’ pure intentions. yet . . he couldn’t admit it, to himself? and because of the time spent here . . what was this place? why did she make it seem so horrid?

the one on the right announces herself as concordia, saying she gave peace and comfort to n. she tells touko n has been separated from people since he was young, that he was brought up with pokemon. touko knew the pokemon part, but being separated. . ? “pokemon that were betrayed, mistreated, and hurt by bad people,” concordia tells her. “ghetsis deliberately brought only those poor pokemon closer to n.” touko feels another shudder run through her. another . . piece . . . n mentioned living with pokemon, but only those that had been abused . . how terrible. how hard, it must’ve been.

concordia tells her n was touched by the pokemon’s hardships, and that he started to pursue his own ideals, thinking only of them. that was another thing, then. why n was convinced all trainers were bad, despite knowing it was untrue. to only meet pokemon that had been hurt by others . . of course he was filled with mistrust. of course he was confused, when met with her and her pokemon. “n’s heart is pure and innocent,” concordia announces. “but there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence.”

touko leaves soon after that, the words bouncing around in her mind, screaming to be noticed. his innocence . . she could agree, but hadn’t n seen the world? through his time in aspertia, his time in nimbasa, in chargestone, up on dragonspiral -time and time again, she’d seen him experiencing the outside world. had he discovered anything, she wondered. had he realized anything, and was withholding it, refusing to believe in it because it went against the truths he’d come to know throughout life? had the truth of the world through an upset into n’s ideals?

she darts down another hallway, skipping the rooms. she didn’t need to see what was inside. her pokemon were back in her bag, along with bianca’s medicine, and the dark stone, and every other important thing she’d gained from her journey. so when another shadow triad member appeared before the next set of stairs, she drew her body around her bag, shielding it from him as he spoke.

he says, a battle between her and lord n would reveal whether lord n was an ideal hero. it would also reveal how she felt about protecting the current world. he disappears, leaving touko to question, when did the shadow triad start referring to n as their lord? were they loyal to him now, instead of solely ghetsis? had they always been?

she ups the next set of stairs, and just at the top, she sees another shadow triad member wink into view a little down the hall. he gestures to the first doorway, saying the room was the world that was provided to lord n. he didn’t feel anything when he went in there, but admits, maybe touko would. he’s gone once more, and she steps further into the hall, looking towards the doorway. once more, down the hall, eyes roving, catching sight of the staircase. but the doorway . .

inside is quite the sight to behold.

she feels the atmosphere change. below, the floor is a pattern of white clouds on a light blue sky. a child’s room, she gathers. then she looks up. the walls are purple checkerboard, everything bright colors. to her left is a basketball hoop and a small court. there’s a traincar stuck in the netting, she notices. back behind that, what looked like colorful tires sat, a skateboard that looked heavily scratched and damaged sat on top. to her right is a train track, a weird loop with a couple pieces of track blocking it, and with a lower section unfinished completely. still, she noticed, the train car moved, went until it bumped into the blockage, back to where the track ended, and back again, stuck on half the loop, stuck because of the obstructions.

a skateboard ramp sat behind all those things. she wandered over to it, hopped on it to cross, and hopped off to enter the final area of the room beyond it, seeing no other way to get there. colorful framed pictures and paintings hung haphazardly off the back walls, some with darts stuck to them, a dartboard also hanging nearby. a few boxes of toys and blocks sat to the left. she couldn’t find a closet, or anywhere for clothes, or a bed, or a sink, or anything of that nature. and the more she examined the toys, the more she noticed how much disarray they were in, torn up and some near ruin, like her room after . . . oh.

it was like her room had been, after her and bianca’s first pokemon battle inside it.

n was only allowed near poor pokemon that had been abused, concordia’s words echo. this was, well, it sure showed, in this room. touko picked herself back over the ramp -there really wasn’t another way to the back of the room- and past the train tracks, settling in the center of the room for a moment. how long . . ? how long had he lived like this? how long could a person take, mentally?

she felt her jaw clench. how could anyone -no, not anyone, she remembered- how could ghetsis do this?

she leaves the room in a hurry, her heart heavy. that . . connected a few more things, for her. anthea’s statement of n’s painful life here, that made sense now. she was learning what she’d been missing, in the castle, but it didn’t make it any less painful to know of.

on the next floor, the doors were placed with floor-to-ceiling tapestries bearing the plasma symbol. the only entryway was larger than those previous, and statues of a pokemon she didn’t recognize stood outside. she gathered herself, came to stand before it. as she moved forward, closer, so close, another figure moved towards her, until they were near on each other, right at the doorway.

it was ghetsis.

he frowned, and she backed up, backed up and tried not to scramble back, but he was still stepping forward, doing so until he was several steps past the doorframe, and she even with the statues.

“welcome, holder of the dark stone,” he announces. he tells her the castle appearing like it had enveloped the pokemon league -that was a symbol. it means unova will change. he tells her the king of this castle is the strongest pokemon trainer in the world, accompanied by the legendary pokemon. she couldn’t surmise what he meant, if n was the strongest and had reshiram, or if he was strong because he had reshiram. it didn’t seem to matter, as ghetsis continued. n had defeated the champion. his heart burned with the desire to improve the world. if that didn’t make someone a hero, then, what did? and now that the stage was set, they cold sieze people’s minds and hearts. they could bring in to being the world that team plasma desired. they, and only they, would use pokemon, and they would rule the powerless populace!

touko mentally backtracks. no, it had the same basis, but it was different from n’s plans. he’d never mentioned wanting to control others. ghetsis continues, he’d waited so long, that he’d kept his silence so no one could learn what he had planned. and now, this is where it ended. go, he urges her, go onward! “discover whether you have what it takes to be a hero!”

he moves to the side, against the wall, to let her part. but touko isn’t stupid, and she’s too ramped up to not catch anything. he was trying to catch her off guard with his last words, trying to get her caught up in it. but she remembered everything of his little speech, not drawn to one thing more than any other. he had a plan to himself, one that would get unveiled today, one he’d kept secret. one that went beyond what n wanted, one where team plasma used pokemon liberation to rule over unova.

“no,” she tells him. “i will not go anywhere, i will not take one step forward, unless you do the same.” she tells him to descend, to go to a lower floor, to leave her presence. ghetsis seems surprised, but touko stands steadfast, telling him once more she wouldn’t budge until he complied.

and, surprisingly, he did. much more easily than she’d imagine. he went forward and down the steps, until as well as no longer being able to see him, she could no longer hear his footsteps.

but, touko’s hearing was still giving her trouble, something she’d no idea of. and as she stepped forward to enter into the final room, she failed to notice ghetsis had only gone down halfway, and was now coming back up, following slowly, so that he would bear witness to the coming battle. whatever she had tried to do to stop him, it hadn’t worked.

the white marble reminds her of dragonspiral tower. the room is filled with the same sparkling and clear water, along with giant pillars all around. she stops not very far to look ahead, past the first bigger marble platform, up the carpet-lined marble pathway, past the next platform, and up to the throne that stood at the far end of the room, raised on heavy stone steps, and flourished with a royal blue carpet at its feet. from it, n stood, looking towards her, addressing her with his words.

“what i desire is a world for pokemon, and pokemon alone,” he says. his voice is still the same steadfast monotone it’d always been, and it’s clear he’s not shouting. maybe it was the room, or the water, something making his voice catch, echo. but it came off as loud, louder so that it reached her clearly.

n tells her he will separate people from pokemon, so that pokemon can regain their original power. he descends down the steps, all the way to the edge of the platform. “it’s time to settle this once and for all!” he calls out.

“my determination is absolute! i will prove the value of my beliefs even if it means my pokemon friends getting hurt!”

no, that seemed wrong. n would never put pokemon second, even to prove a point. were his perceptions twisted yet again? though she’d sent ghetsis away, had he said something previously to send n into this frenzy?

“since you’ve come this far, i believe you are equally determined. prove it to me! show me the depth of your determination!” he demanded.

touko starts towards the last platform between them, down the marble path, and n follows, descending down the carpeted one. they meet in the middle, but then, n moves to the side, unlocking his eyes from hers. he says, she’d come all this way, yet zekrom wasn’t responding to her. “you haven’t been recognized as the hero, have you?” he asks.

and touko can only falter, look down at her bag, because he’s right. the stone still sat, dormant. even though juniper had told her it would work out. even though drayden had beckoned her on, encouraging. even though alder had trusted her to end this.

“how disappointing,” n sighs. she feels her heart clench. “i actually kind of liked you a little,” he admits. through our battles, he says, i got a feeling you might be a trainer who truly cares for pokemon. he moves back in front of her. “but i was kidding myself,” he tells her. then he gives her two options: challenge him to a battle she couldn’t win, or leave and watch the birth of a world were pokemon are free of people. n shakes his head. “reshiram, come to me!” he calls.

“that’s not true,” touko mutters. he doesn’t hear, gaze locked to watch reshiram tear down the wall behind the throne, soaring through the wreckage. “that’s not true,” she mutters again, watching as well, yet still finding the strength to speak in the presence of a legend. reshiram lands and its tail lights up, a spinning vortex, and heat pours off in waves across the room. she finds her courage, finds the strength everyone had left with her, and raises her voice. as reshiram unleashes a fiery attack that makes the entire room, perhaps the entire castle, tremble, and evaporates all the water in an instant, she lets out her own cry. “that’s not true!” she calls out, and though the heat is unbearable and the noise deafening, n turns to face her, his face showing surprise. she doesn’t waste time thinking on how he could’ve possibly heard her, because she’s continuing.

“i care!” she screams. “i care for my team, for my partners, my friends, and they care for me!” she goes on to name each one of them, all six, then all eight, everyone she’d met on her journey, despite not everyone being with her right then. “we love and understand each other, because it’s possible for that to happen! it’s possible for people and pokemon to establish meaningful relationships!” she tells him. “it’s very common, in fact, the thing not common is for pokemon to be hurt in a bond with people. yes, it happens, because everything happens, but it’s not normal, n!” she goes on and on, relentlessly, and the more she continues, the more n finds he can’t look away.

they don’t notice the dark stone trembling in touko’s bag, too caught up in her speech. they don’t notice until it’s in the air, pulsating energy, right before their very eyes, and touko’s words die on her tongue, caught up in the sight. the dark stone seems to suck in the energy, draw in the aura of the surroundings to convert into a powerful force, and for one split second it lies still, and the room is silent, and then-

the ball gyrates, going faster and faster, causing the wind in the room to pick up. then, in a burst of light, a blast of energy shoots out, and out bursts zekrom, wings spreading, energy gathering also on its tail as it releases an electric pulse over the entirety of the room before letting out an ear-splitting howl. it comes to settle right before touko, facing her. it’s all she can do to remain upright.

“zekrom . . and reshiram,” n mumbles, still caught up in the glory of the scene. “they were once one life. one pokemon. complete opposites, yet the same. they appear only before the hero they recognize. ah . .” he breaks, brings back his head. “i see. you really are a hero, touko.” he comes to stand, to face her. “i’ll tell you what that pokemon is saying to you,” he says to her. “’i want to battle with you. try to make me your friend and ally.’ it plans to test you to see if you are really pursuing your ideals.”

n doesn’t say any more than that, and touko doesn’t need him to. she takes a deep breath, in . . and out. she steadies herself, swinging her bag over one shoulder and collecting what she’d need.

then, she turns to face the legend.

but this is where things get curious. because in her hard, touko doesn’t hold the pokeball of her starter, ready for battle. she doesn’t hold any of her pokemon out. instead, in her hands is the masterball professor juniper had gifted her with. she finds her eyes roving until she finds n, and then, with the calmest voice she’s had in a while, she tells him, “if i am the new hero if ideals, then i am already allied with zekrom. just like you, all pokemon are my friends. i don’t need to battle to past zekrom’s test.”

with this, she throws the masterball, and zekrom is sucked in in a beam of light. the ball shakes, one, twice, then lies still. a click echoes throughout the room. touko takes in another breath, picks up the ball, and calls out zekrom, now standing beside her, and facing towards n and reshiram. “now,” she tells him. “we shall put your convictions up to the test.”

but n doesn’t hear her last words. if he does, he doesn’t show it, breathing out silently, still caught off guard by the capture. he blinks, steadies himself, and lets out a slow, long breath. when he opens his eyes, it’s matched with an expression touko has never seen on him.

“now, i will create the future i desire,” n shouts, truly shouts, his voice screwing up, gaining some amount of emotion as he stares her down. “i shall sweep you before me!”

“i’d like to see you try!” touko calls out, and with one last cry, reshiram and zekrom meet once again in battle.

it’s not just the legendary, touko discovers. n has an entire team of pokemon, all of high level. she wonders where they came from. if things held up like thus far, they’d come from the surrounding, so the castle. but touko hadn’t seen any pokemon through her ascension. so . . that begged the question: could this be n’s true team, if he had one?

it takes all her might, just as it takes his. she finds herself too caught up in it all to think, to connect some more of the pieces she’d learned, to try and figure out why n’s views had suddenly twisted. but in the end, she remains victorious, and it’s n who’s left reeling back, lost, forlornly stating that everything was ruined, that the ideals he held, that the dreams pokemon had shared . . . .

he seems to be caught in a defeated frenzy, but then just like that, he returns his last pokemon, touko does the same, and he recollects himself. when he looks up, bearing some sort of smile, his voice is once again calm, the tone she’s used to. he tells her that her ideals, her feelings . . they were stronger than his. reshiram and zekrom . . was it even possible, for them to choose two separate heroes? he questions. two heroes living at the same time -one that pursues truth, and one that pursues ideals. it’s the same statement iris had uttered in exact replica, when she told touko the story of the legendary beings. n blinks, that smile still there, and when he opens his eyes, he doesn’t seem troubled when he asks,

“could . . could they both be right? i don’t know. it’s not by rejecting different ideas, but by accepting different ideas, that the world compounds a chemical reaction. this is truly the formula for changing the world.”

“n . .” touko breathes. she stumbles on her words, trying to get them out. he turns, but he doesn’t say more, and for once, she has a chance, to speak to him, to tell him what she thought.

footsteps echo on the marble flooring behind them. touko sadly smiles, regret pulling up at not getting a chance to speak afterwards, and she turns to see ghetsis heading towards them.

“after all of that,” he says, and touko realizes he is speaking to n. “do you think you’re still worthy of sharing the name harmonia with me?” he takes in a breath, then spits out in fury, “you good-for-nothing boy!!”

touko flinches at the harsh tone, but n doesn’t move, simply turns his head to face his -father?

“to start with, i spurred n into pursuing truth,” ghetsis announces. “the reason we awakened the legendary pokemon was to give MY team plasma MORE power! power to control the fearful masses!” he continues growing closer, until he is at n’s side, the two facing each other. as touko watches this unfold, she’s surprised to see that while ghetsis’s face is a mix of shock and rage, n’s expression only looks slightly discontent, as if he were used to this.

ghetsis berates n for his loss, calling him stupid to lose to an ordinary trainer. he says n is nothing more than a warped, defective boy who knows nothing but pokemon.

ghetsis spins away, addressing touko and saying he’d never thought zekrom would choose someone like her. yet, his goal isn’t going to change, and his plans haven’t been disturbed. he tells her pokemon liberation was never the intention, and instead, he would still use n as the king of team plasma and use reshiram as a fear factor to make people release their pokemon -making him the one solely with any power, so that he could rule over unova. that was that plan, and had been the plan, since the beginning.

touko finds herself disagreeing. not with his words, but his intentions. ghetsis says for that to work now, that she who knew the truth, she had to be eliminated. but touko is not afraid. even as n’s face screws up in distress, finally, at those words, she stands strong, steady. n was his own person, she tells ghetsis. and she wouldn’t allow for him to be controlled any longer, whether he -n- cared or not, whether he stayed compliant or broke free himself. zekrom had chosen her for a reason, but despite what ghetsis had beaten into n, reshiram had also chosen n for a reason, one that no mortal could possibly control.

ghetsis whips out a pokeball, but then alder and cheren are there, on either side of her. rule the world?! cheren exclaims. wasn’t team plasma’s goal to liberate pokemon? ghetsis holds off, telling him it was a lie he created to invent team plasma, to gather the masses. “use your head,” he berates cheren. “what’s to be gained from letting go of useful things like pokemon?”

alder calls him a fool, stating the idea as ridiculous. touko’s eyes are still on n’s form, behind ghetsis, and his eyes are still on hers, alight with panic.

ghetsis shrugs. “you can say whatever you want. but a pokemon, even if it’s revered as a deity, is still just a pokemon. so what if it chose touko! that doesn’t make you a threat, girl!” he roars. “come on! now you’ll face ME in battle! i can’t wait to see the look on your face when you’ve lost all hope!”

and she breaks her gaze from n, as heartbreaking as it is to do so. and somehow, whether through alder or cheren or their combined methods, she finds her entire team healed from her battle with n. and so when ghetsis calls out a cofagrigus, she can send out her own pokemon, and meet him head on in the true final battle.

at the end, though it is grueling and long, touko emerges the victor. the other spectators, n alder and cheren, threaten to burst into action. before they can, ghetsis reels back, spitting and shouting. this couldn’t happen, he yells. i created team plasma with my own hands, he seethes. i am perfection, he states, I AM PERFECTION.

alder buts in, but his words, loud and bold, aren’t for ghetsis. “now n,” he demands, “do you still think pokemon and people should be separated?”

touko finds her gaze drawn to n, as does cheren, and even ghetsis turns to look. but n turns away without an answer, and ghetsis looks back to the three with a laugh. he tells them that since he couldn’t become the hero and obtain reshiram himself, he prepared someone specifically for that -n! “he’s nothing more than a freak without a human heart!” ghetsis spits. “do you think you’re going to get through to such a warped person like that??”

cheren steps forward, exclaiming that it was a waste of time to listen to ghetsis, that he was the one without a heart! alder agrees, saying how pitiful it truly was. ghetsis tries to continue, but suddenly others have gathered, and touko can see iris and drayden eyeing her as the surround ghetsis. alder gathers himself once more and turns towards n. “i’m sure you have much to think about,” alder tells him. “i know you were not pursuing truth because of ghetsis’ manipulation, but because your heart was really inspired. that is why you were able to meet the legendary pokemon.”

“but i have no right to be the hero!” n exclaims, finally turning to face alder as ghetsis is dragged away.

“it’s as touko said: no mortal means can determine the heroes of truth and ideals,” alder tells him. but besides that, it was important for n to figure out what he and reshiram were going to do next.

n shakes his head violently, whipping back and forth, and takes several steps back. “acting as if you understand,” he says venomously, “up til now, we’ve been fighting each other over our beliefs! yet, despite that . . why?!”

“n,” alder begins, and his voice seems to ring out through the entire chamber. “even if we do not understand one another, that’s not a reason to reject each other. there are two sides to any argument. is there one point of view that really holds all the answers? . . . give it some thought.” with that, alder turns, and with cheren’s assistance, they leave after the others.

touko’s looking at them as they depart, taking note of alder’s limp. she doesn’t notice n’s moved until he’s beside her, watching as well. when she watched on, he catches her eye, mentioning he wants to talk. he motions for her to follow, and slowly, they make their way towards the other end of the room. n admits to her that back in accumula town, he was shocked to hear what her pokemon had been saying, was shocked because it admitted it liked her, that it wanted to be with her.

he couldn’t understand it. he couldn’t believe there were pokemon that liked people. because, up until that moment, he’d never known pokemon like that. touko feels her breath catch, recalls the scratches throughout his room, recalls what concordia had said once more.

he tells her the longer his journey continued, the more unsure he’d become. all he kept meeting were pokemon and people who communicated with and helped one another. that was why, n tells her, he had to confirm his beliefs by battling her. he wanted a hero-to-hero confrontation, and more than anything, he needed it.

touko finds herself at the base of the steps, and n on the platform where the throne once stood, knocked off in reshiram’s appearance. “there’s no way a person like me, someone who understands only pokemon- no, actually, i didn’t understand them, either,” he admits. she pulls herself up the steps, closer, and n moves closer towards the hole in the wall, looking out at it.

“the champion has forgiven me, and . . what i should do now is something i’ll have to decide for myself,” he tells her. in a flash, reshiram appears, hovering right outside the hole. n turns back to face her. a well of emotions festers inside touko, and she steps forward more.

“touko,” he says, and she’s there, right before him, nodding that she hears him.

he smiles down at her.

“you said you have a dream . .

“that dream . .

“make it come true! make your wonderful dream a reality, and it will become your truth! if anyone can, it’s you.

“well, then . .

farewell!”

n takes a step back, jumps onto reshiram, still waiting, and finally breaks his gaze with her. with a sleigh of hand, reshiram takes off, leaving touko once again alone, and without any words spoken.

she feels the tears spill off her cheeks, but no noise leaves her mouth. her legs tremble, slip, and she’s on the ground, hands coming up to wipe away the onflow of tears, staring out at the space where n had been.

days later, at home, a man called looker of the international police tells her n had been spotted with a dragon pokemon in another region. after confirming no one from their unit was after n, who technically had done no wrong, everything being discounted as manipulation, she thanks him.

the next day, she sets off along with zekrom, away from unova. she sets off to find n, the one who convinced her it was okay if you weren’t strong all the time, if your mask crumbled a bit. that it was okay to show emotion and strength at the same time.

she’d find him.

and she’d tell him, in turn, all the things he’d been wrong about himself. because he was compassionate, and kind, and truly understood pokemon. that he was all these great things, and that he just needed to realize it for himself.

just like she’d realized for herself, just what sort of person she was.

end.

#c's metas #bw meta #writing #sort of #pkmn #bw #gen v #i listened to so much music to make this and i ended with the emotion theme for bw and i just #its so beautiful??#i shouldnt be crying but i am #all comments and questions and feedback and everything is welcome!!#i'd love to see how people respond to this #more will come but wont be as monstrously long trust me #and theyll be more meta than retelling promise #like i wanna do one on n solely #and one on cheren's quest for strength alongside his ideals #and so much more #and if you think i should write one about a certain thing like send it my way??#im sure i could try #gee so the story behind this is i replayed white a few weeks ago and i loved all the motifs and hidden things in it so much #and this is a way for me to let out how much i love it #also if you didnt catch #the persona==mask of emotions #which i might explore more in theoneshot collection #ah this is so long already and i gotta go off and make that post #um hope you enjoyed!!!!!#let me know if you did actually like make a response post and @ me id appreciate it aha #alright thats the true end thanks for reading again!!!

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