Interlude - New Connections

INTERLUDE - NEW CONNECTIONS

Madeline Thune sprawled across her desk, her silver hair an unbrushed mess as the video of Grace’s spar played on her laptop. The sound of the overheating fan buzzed in her numb mind, poking and prodding and making her thoughts slower than a Slugma. The sensational video had blown up on multiple social media platforms for reasons she was not ‘trainer enough’ to fully grasp, but she couldn’t deny that even she could tell the display of power here was impressive and rather difficult to look at.

Pokemon of the same team training together in such a brutal way was a first for her, as it evidently was for all of these newer trainers that had coalesced around the many threads talking about her. Nothing to break past the near-veneration some trainers atop Unova’s social ladder enjoyed, of course. Those who the Big Five had chosen to represent them, especially at the top, lived like kings and queens and were untouchable. It was, however, a decent amount of organic attention.

No. Grace was a blip, but sometimes that was all that was needed to squeeze water out of stone.

“Dragons above,” Madeline sighed, sagging in her chair.

For the last hour, she’d been thinking about how to leverage this for the benefit of the Representation League without stepping on Grace Pastel’s toes. Keep my involvement a secret, she’d told her, and no matter how tempting it was to revisit that promise, Madeline knew that the short-term gain would in no way outweigh the long-term loss of fumbling such a talent for her organization.

The question was: how did she turn the Representation League from an organization of the few to one encompassing hundreds, or even thousands, without betraying the Sinnohan’s trust, and yet;

Nothing quite fit. 

She could "accidentally" let it slip that Grace Pastel had joined. Not announce it outright—just mention that she'd met someone interesting from Sinnoh, let the rumor mill do the rest. 

Madeline grimaced.

No.

What if Catherine happened to upload photographs from volunteer work where Grace was standing in the background? Nothing identifying. Just enough for people online to begin asking questions. Grace's face was recognizable enough, with those burn scars they were all so curious about.

That one was easier to stomach, but still would break her trust and make her quit.

Maybe she could quietly shift the organization's work toward wherever Grace happened to be traveling. If Grace kept stumbling into Representation League successes, people would begin associating the two without anyone ever saying a word.

...that felt even worse.

With her head now in her hands and her nails gently scraping against her forehead, Madeline’s mind sifted through possibility after possibility, discarding each almost as quickly as it appeared. 

Her apartment never felt as empty as it was now. Her sister was out desperately trying to recruit someone, anyone who would join, but had no luck thus far. Who other than the crazed and the bored would give a chance to a small organization like theirs?

The Representation League was her brainchild, one she’d poured hours of work and plans into for years with Erick Moravec since they’d met in school. In a way, this was as much his as it was hers…

She paused for a moment. There was no ‘this’, no monumental achievement. Just a twenty-one-year-old girl chasing a dream that might as well have been smoke and mirrors, having forgone a job and a stable income for nothing.

Her throat tightened. At times like these, Cat kept her positive, but when it got really quiet and no one else was with her, it was difficult not to spiral, even in spite of a trainer of Grace Pastel’s calibre having joined them. Better than Aurelian at battling, better than Hayate at communicating with wild Pokemon, she was, truly, their hope at salvation.

Which made it all the more frustrating they could not use her to widen their reach. 

“Erick would have known what to do,” she muttered. He’d had a way with people better than even Cat, of figuring out what they wanted with a single look.

Not only that, but he’d been the greatest trainer she’d even met, even if the Circuit had never interested him. “I’m not going to take part in bread and circuses,” he used to say, and yet he would easily run circles around Aurelian. Madeline didn’t know it

He’d been her sister’s best friend, yet with her, they were business partners. He’d also been smarter, wiser, better than her to run an organization such as this one despite being two years her junior. 

Yet in the past few months, he’d gotten more extreme, and Plasma had whisked him away just like that. The last thing she’d heard, he was on his way to Accumula town for a rally Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius was going to hold. The congressman—past congressman, she corrected—had resigned in fury when the Plasma Organization had been banned from parliament and was now apparently leading the extremist group, who had now foregone any moderation.

The betrayal burned hot in her heart even if it had been a long time coming by the end, but she only let the tears out when no one looked. A leader needed to be strong; a leader needed to be looked toward for guidance; a leader needed to solve issues.

The idea did not come instantly. There was no sudden spark of inspiration brought after the drought plaguing her mind. This was, admittedly, making the best out of a not-so-ideal situation, but she’d figure it out.

Madeline would make the Representation League a success, even if it consumed her life whole.

She needed to call Hayate.

——

“Yes, dad; I won’t squander this opportunity—”

“Your mother and I worked very hard and twisted a lot of arms to get you into X-Tech’s good graces.”

Hayate Hoshino stopped his teeth from grinding together, and instead the surging annoyance within winked out of existence, fizzling out as if it had never been there at all. He’d needed to teach himself the trick, or his parents would have driven him crazy long ago—especially his father. Kaga Hoshino was, for all intents and purposes, a hard ass, and he made that Hayate’s problem every, single, day.

By twisting a lot of arms, his father meant begging like a pathetic piece of shit. Hayate had seen it in his eyes, how the fight went out of him the moment he spoke to someone he considered superior. You could take the man out of traditional Johto, but you could not take traditional Johto out of the man.

“And keep away from those friends of yours. They’re a bad influence,” his ever-so-annoying father said with his usual accent, which had never left him. “You need to be focused on your future. You’ll thank me when you’re grown, trust me.”

“I know,” he lied, voice as calm as a summer breeze. “I’ll work harder this year than ever and make mom and you proud.”

The man on the other end of the line went quiet for a moment, and Hayate heard him take a deep, drawn out breath. “This is your last chance, son. If you squander this, no company will look at you ever again. You’re seventeen.”

The implication of that sentence was obvious. You’re getting old, he was saying. From the first step taken in a trainer’s journey, pressure to find a company under which you could obtain the resources to grow and thrive—vitamins, TMs, coaches, battle analysts, private training grounds, private nurses, et cetera—increased. Unova was the most competitive region in the world, and with it came the most amount of benefits any other country offered should you find a home within them.

Nowhere else were these benefits better than the Big Five. A nobody like him was pretty much guaranteed to be catapulted to national fame should he be chosen, and he would certainly see the Conference within the next year or two. 

There was, fortunately or unfortunately depending on who you asked, no way he was ever going to be better than what was out there.

“I’ll do my best,” he said flatly.

That one was no lie, for beneath the allure of Hayate’s apathy lay a quiet determination that had survived every disappointed glance his parents had thrown at him. 

Once his father hung up, the teen leaned against his Pokemon Center window, happy with the peace and quiet settling inside the room. He stared up at the moon, at every little crevice and ridge he could make out from here as the minutes passed, but another phone call interrupted him.

He’d almost expected it to be his father again, but the irritation born from that thought had already been smothered within when he realized it was Madeline calling him.

“Hi. Is this about tomorrow’s job?” Hayate had always preferred getting straight to the point of things.

“Have you checked Beacon recently?” she asked, her voice slightly hoarse. “Our new member’s been blowing up.”

Ah, yes, the sparring incident. Hayate had obviously seen it—he did not live under a rock, even if he was nowhere as obsessed with these things as Aurelian could be. Blowing up was admittedly a bit of an exaggeration, but it was certainly more traction than anyone he knew had ever gotten.

“No, tell me about it,” he lied for fun.

“Are you kidding—okay, let me explain. She had her Electivire, her Turtonator, and her Tyranitar train…”

The reason the video had gained such traction was, first and foremost, because trainers of Grace’s level simply did not train in the public eye at all. They did in private facilities afforded to them by their sponsor, keeping their techniques hidden at all times. They were competing with others, and giving such valuable intel outside a match or tournament would have been considered a mistake to be used against you.

Second was the rarity of the Pokemon on display here. Turtonator, a species only found high up in Alolan volcanos. Electivire, whose evolution method was obscure at best and viciously guarded by governments and corporations. Tyranitar, which were apex predators of their environment and incredibly dangerous to capture even as Larvitar because they guarded their children until they buried deep underground in their cocooned form—and of course, rare as well.

There were other reasons, like the location being so absurd for a trainer of her calibre to be in, or the violence on display, but everything else, Hayate believed, was secondary to those two.

“...a way to use it to benefit the Representation League while keeping Grace’s involvement a secret, still, and I found one.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me all about it,” he deadpanned.

“I was being too fucking stupid to see it because I always miss the forest for the trees, but it’s really quite simple,” she said, “we just have to highlight being friends with her. Just friends.”

“I wouldn’t call us that; we’ve only known each other a few days,” he said, finger tapping on his window.

“You’re traveling with her, so people are going to see. Use it as an opportunity to shill for us.”

“Yay. I love shilling.”

“I’m being serious! I’m sure we’ll start seeing a trickle of contacts, and those will make their way back to Castelia by word of mouth,” Madeline said. “Do I have your word, Hayate?” 

“Yes you do, oh dear supreme leader.” 

“Don’t just say yes and then put it off.”

He heard her smile through her tone. “You caught me. Okay, I’ll do it for real, even if I hate groveling.”

“It’s not groveling, it’s advertising. You do that, and I’ll make sure we start setting stuff up like a website.”

The call winded down after that, and Madeline returned to working on her own soon enough. Hayate was glad she was having such a great time running the Representation League with Erick’s departure still fresh. He’d truly only been there in name; with the shit he was saying, Hayate was certain he’d leave for Plasma eventually, and lo and behold, he had.

Grace was a decent chance at becoming mainstream, at the very least. Hayate didn’t quite know what to make of the curious girl a year his junior. Some times, she could be a teen like any other, but others she would ramble about things that made him do a double take. Maybe it was a clash of cultures, but he suspected there was more to it than that. 

Like how she’d fought for Sinnoh’s League against Team Galactic, not that he had actually brought it up. That would have been rude. Still, he suspected that was how she got the scars—the burns and the pale one on her other arm.

“Oh well. That’s for tomorrow morning me to figure out.” Hayate was certain he’d learn more about the girl in the forest.

For now, he could finally relax and—

Dragons take it all, he thought. Another phone call?

——

Aurelian Poindexter did not call his friend very often, nor anyone, for that matter, always having preferred the noncommittal aspects of texting letting him focus on something else at any given point. The cool night air brushed against his face as the call rang to voicemail. Hayate's recorded "Hello" was convincing enough that, if he hadn't known him better, he'd have thought the call had been answered before the silence gave it away. 

Instead of a call, he got a text notification.

Hayate: Sry my guy busy day kinda tired yadda yadda

Hayate: Check again in another 30 mins unless urgent

You: Np bro i’ll just text you later.

During nights like these, Aurelian often found himself staring at cities from their outskirts. Sitting on top of the hill north of Nimbasa, he couldn’t make out much from up there, but he could see the broad strokes of it. The skyline shimmered beneath the night sky, washed in a haze of neon that drowned out the stars above it. Giant billboards flashed changing advertisements, Ferris wheel lights traced slow circles against the darkness, and the distant glow of stadium floodlights painted pale columns into the clouds. 

If Castelia was Unova’s brain, Nimbasa was the country’s beating heart where trainers and non-trainers alike flocked to have fun in its numerous theme parks, concerts, sports games, theatres, casinos, galas. Every night, its streets buzzed with tourists chasing the next attraction, companies unveiling their latest products, and trainers hoping to make a name for themselves beneath the brightest lights in the region. In Nimbasa, someone was always watching. 

There was always something happening beneath its neon lights. Some championship match. Some world-famous musician. Some festival or grand opening promising to be bigger than the last. 

It was, Aurelian thought, the perfect representation for Unova as a whole. Pretty from afar—hell, pretty from up close too, he thought with a mirthless smile. You thought it was all you ever wanted until you were too deep in it and you realized it was poison.

But such succulent poison it was.

His Flygon crooned to his left, wings flapping in the night. The dragon gently bent down to headbutt his arm, and his smile turned genuine, if only for a moment, as he scratched her chin. The scales felt rough against his nails, nearly impregnable, yet Drayden had bludgeoned her all the same.

His hand stopped, and Aurelian’s throat tightened.

“You know it’s the usual,” he said. “Start of the season, so I’ve been getting anxious.”

He was sponsorless, not that he cared for it any longer. Anything beneath the Big Five was a waste of time in his mind, and unlike Hayate’s dad, his own parents had no connections. It was too late for him—at nineteen, he was at the age where he was supposed to be peaking and at his prime in the eyes of these companies. It would have been his golden age, and Legendaries would he have drunk from the poisoned chalice if it meant he got to experience such bliss.

Even if they would have chewed him up and spit him out like they always did when the glory days were over.

Flygon growled in disapproval, but Aurelian paid her no mind, instead opting to drag a thick blanket out of his backpack. He wrapped himself within the warmth of the fabric until he could see the outside world no longer and opened up Beacon.

This was his nightly ritual:

He followed accounts by the hundreds, each trainer sitting atop the social ladder. Younger than he was, yet more successful. More talented. More charismatic. More confident. More attractive. More connected. More respect. More opportunities. More. More. More.

Proud to announce I’ve finally joined the Avalon family! Thank you for this opportunity, I’ll make y’all proud! The post was followed by a selfie of a trainer still wet behind the ears with a Goomy by her side next to a bunch of other famous trainers.

She’d gotten a shortcut to be allowed to have a dragon type without a badge and had enough clout for one of the Big Five to sponsor her. Rich parents. Possibly someone who worked at the company itself in an important position—which a few minutes of research confirmed. Goomy were notoriously useless and difficult to train, but with the massive amount of resources behind her, she was bound for success regardless.

Next.

Dreams really do come true. I'll be representing X Technologies at the upcoming Big Five Invitational in December alongside some of the best trainers in Unova. Thank you to everyone who's supported me :3!

Nothing but smokes and mirrors and people circle-jerking how amazing they were while the entire thing was televised in some sort of pseudo reality T.V. show and livestream. Part of Aurelian believed the winner had probably been decided the moment the companies picked who'd be on stage for the round robin.

Next.

@Nat_xoxo1 and I are… dating! We’ll be traveling together this year. Wish us luck!

Natasha McMahon and Douglas Schalenbourg were two famous trainers, each sponsored by one of the Big Five. Aurelian wondered if they were together for real, or if it was to advance their position by widening their reach. He hoped it was the latter and that they were miserable.

The bitter teen did not comment, even on an alt. He never did, no matter how much temptation whispered to him. This was not his world to step in. He was condemned to forever be on the outside of such a blessed life.

Instead, he lived vicariously through each, tasting the forbidden fruit he would never obtain within this lifetime.

Next. Next. Next. Next—

In his rancorous trance, he nearly scrolled past a video of Grace Pastel. He hadn’t realized he’d been nearly hyperventilating, or that Flygon had pulled the blanket off of him, tearing it with her sharp claws out of fear for her trainer.

Aurelian felt sweat drip down the side of his head, onto his chin.

“Sorry.” His voice felt like a stranger’s. Usually, he’d be doing this without his Pokemon present. 

The dragon type bowed her head apologetically, pointing at the town fabric next to him.

“I’ll buy a new blanket,” he said.

Refocusing on his phone, he read the caption for the post. Anyone know who this girl is? I’d love to meet her, she seems fun lol.

This one.

This one came from Arlo Gillespie, his old friend. Their paths had diverged years ago when the Opelucid Group had offered him the hand of providence and left him out to die in the desert despite the fact that they’d been nearly—just nearly—at the same level. What they’d seen in Arlo they hadn’t seen in him, Aurelian would never know.

But it had haunted him every single day since.

Not even a month in a new country, and Grace Pastel was already more successful than he ever could hope to be, noticed by people who had long forgotten him. Arlo, after all, no longer followed him at all.

With someone as good as her, did Madeline and Cat even need him?

It was, Aurelian thought, a bitter pill to swallow.

“Let’s head back to the city,” he told Flygon.

——

Natural Harmonia Gropius marched along the estate's winding stone paths, passing between austere buildings tucked beneath the forest canopy. The compound had been built where no satellite could peer through the dense leaves and no wandering ranger would ever think to look, this far out in the wild.

Only Plasma’s best and trusted, his most loyal subjects were allowed within these grounds. Everywhere N walked, Pokemon gathered around him, each one bearing a more sorrowful story than the last.

To his left, a towering Skarmory croaked, wings flapping wildly. “Ser N, you mustn’t go off on your own! With me by your side, you’d be able to sweep through these human ‘Gyms’!”

“I’ve no doubt of that,” N quickly said, “but you’ve been through too much violence already, and I will have no problem enlisting the help of Pokemon more willing to take the fight to Mark Obel directly, when the time comes.”

Yes, N thought as his grey eyes met Skarmory’s. Old scars traced silver lines beneath weathered steel that had never properly healed from his trainer’s wicked abuse. Still the poor bird had been N’s method of travel during his secret trips out of the Plasma compound his entire life, including his most recent one to Castelia.

A Seismitoad patted Skarmory on the wing. “No worries, chap!” he said, voice deep and gravelly. “We’ll all miss N, in the end, but he’s going out there to forge a better world for us. These people have no idea what’s coming!”

He had lived with Pokemon his entire life, each more abused than the last. N knew the truth; the outside world was a place full of cruelty and greed, where every bond between a human and a Pokemon was ultimately measured by what humanity could take from them.

He was not pleased to be participating in such bloodsport, yet his father demanded it of him, and thus his will would be carried out without question for a better world to be achieved. Holding onto the cube hanging from his pants, he quickened his step toward his father’s office. He had summoned him today, and they would be leaving for Accumula soon so he could spread his gospel and N could begin his journey across Unova.

“Is something the matter, Lord N?” Seismitoad asked worryingly. “You have that look in your eye.”

The teenager let go of his cube, a puzzle that had been with him since childhood. “I met someone recently in Castelia.” The scarred girl Sage Rood had told him about had been as disappointing as he thought she’d be, even if N hoped he could have turned her. “She wasn’t what I hoped she could become in time. I saw her, and her future. Never would she join us.”

She was lacking, and severely. How could one understand these precious creatures, N thought as he glanced at the Pokemon around him, and not fight for what was right? In this, Grace Pastel was the worst kind of person, not ignorant, but negligent.

“But there’s no use crying over spilled milk,” he said with a gentle smile.

On the way to his father’s office, he saw numerous members of Plasma, each bowing his head to him and whispering king beneath their breaths. They looked to him for salvation; they looked to him for guidance; they looked to him as if he would scour Unova clean of its rot and bring about something pure.

They were correct.

As always, the teenager approached his father’s office with a certain tenseness within. Yet certainty steadied his steps. His path was no longer obscured. It shone before him as a golden thread, vivid enough to linger behind his eyelids whenever he closed them. 

He needn’t knock. Ghetsis knew the moment he stepped in front of the door.

N met his father’s hardened, crimson, one-eyed gaze with deference, bowing his head slightly at the sight of the pale, green-haired man. His face was austere, with high cheekbones, a pointed chin, and lips permanently settled into the faintest hint of disapproval. 

“Child,” he spoke quietly, yet his voice filled the room as he knocked a ringed finger on his desk. “It has come to my attention that you went gallivanting in the streets of Castelia this week.”

N froze—how had he known? He’d taken utmost precautions, asking Rood to cover for him and having Beheeyem to come find him to Teleport him back should one of the sages—most likely Zinzolin—or his father needed to see him.

Still seated, Ghetsis casually lifted a hand. “I am not angry at you, N, though I am severely disappointed,” he said. “Plasma is doomed should harm befall you, and you went to meet such a violent girl, did you not?”

“She can speak to—”

“I know,” he interrupted him. “And ignoring the obvious that she could have harmed you like her Jellicent threatened, she could have used this to plant doubt into your mind. To steer you away from your path.”

That, N wanted to shake his head at. His Truth was ironclad, unbreakable by anything or anyone. 

“You will refrain from making any further contact with this Sinnohan,” he ordered, and N agreed. “Good. Third?”

N felt a shiver run up his spine, one he hadn’t felt when he’d been inches from death at the hands of Grace Pastel’s Jellicent. A sliver of movement caught the corner of his eye. From the office's darkest recess, a masked, white-haired figure stepped forward with impossible silence. 

Had he always been there?

“You will keep an eye on this girl for me starting today,” Ghetsis calmly spoke. “First is to protect N from a distance during the Circuit, and Second will remain assigned to me.”

The third member of the Shadow Triad did not speak. Instead, he simply… vanished as if he had never been there.

“Now,” his father said, “Let us prepare to leave for Accumula Town.”