INTERLUDE - SMILE NO MORE

"Our scouts report that some grunts have been spotted east of Mount Coronet near Celestic, but they were dealt with by Craig Goodwill's Salamence…"

"He's green. You capture them instead so we get the location of where they're currently at. We could have struck them instead of waiting like sitting Ducklett—"

"Enough. What's done is done, we move on. Elite Bertha contacted us before this meeting, and they've run out of hospital beds in Canalave, Pastoria, and Snowpoint, but Snowpoint's in the worst condition."

"We can't put people in field hospitals when it's minus fifteen degrees Celcius outside. Can we send Kadabra to Teleport patients to other cities?"

"The Champion disagreed last time we asked."

"That's because we can't do half-measures. If we send a few, then it looks horrible, they do what, four jumps each, and they're too exhausted to go the rest of the day. We send enough, we weaken ourselves too much. They're working around the clock to protect persons of interest, ship supplies and move people around Coronet already."

"We can have them set up in large buildings. School gymnasiums, Gym and hotel lobbies…"

"Not many of those in Snowpoint."

"Well it'll have to do, won't it? We're at nine-thousand six hundred and fifty-five dead so far and climbing, and more than that wounded. People dying right outside Centers and hospitals because we didn't have the space to take care of them doesn't paint a pretty picture."

"The picture comes second to the actual priority. Making it through the next few days."

"I still think we should send some Kadabra now that we've actually run out of—"

"The decision rests in the Champion's hands. Champion Cynthia, what shall we do?"

Her fingers drummed against the metallic table as she kept her foot from anxiously bouncing on the ground. She sat in a room full of her top League personnel, some military, some not. The people who had helped her run the country most of the year as she had torn away at young institution after young institution she'd put in place. Ten people in total, eleven if she counted Lucian, twelve if you added his Alakazam. They all shared this blood on their hands, and for once, Cynthia was starting to think it was just so heavy.

"We send ten Alakazam. Six to Snowpoint and two each to Canalave and Pastoria," she said, leaning against her fist.

The room fell silent all at once, and she frowned. Had she said something—

"Cynthia," Lucian said. "Sending away ten Alakazam is… almost half of our Alakazam."

The Champion blinked. Alakazam? Had she said—

"I meant Kadabra," she exhaled. "My apologies."

The room relaxed at once, and the conversation moved forward again. A mistake like this? She was growing sloppy, and there was no excuse. She'd grown more prone to those, in the last few hours as exhaustion caught up to her. Cynthia was, after all, still human, and sleep was not something the world could afford, at the moment. Togekiss wouldn't mind keeping the nightmares away, but now just wasn't the time.

"Now, onto the defense of Mount Coronet," an officer said. Joachim Rouzet was the most senior member here, and one of the few who had remained from Radetic's old administration. He was an unassuming man, which was good, given that he was the director of the League Secret Service. He'd only been deputy director before Cynthia had fired his boss, but he'd been too competent to throw away. "We have soldiers, ACEs and members of the LTIP placed at every entrance and inside the mountain."

They were, as it stood, operating from the point of view that Acuity was lost no matter how hard they defended it, just in case it was. The defense of Coronet was, therefore, of the utmost importance. Decisions they made at this moment would affect the fate of the world.

Cynthia's breath trembled, not loudly enough to be seen. Everyone in this room was terrified, but all had grown proficient in showing it.

Her included. It wasn't like her. She'd been scared, anxious of consequences before, but never this much. Never to the point that her smile was faltering. Never to the point that she wanted to bounce her leg under the table and that breathing was like a Golurk's hand was squeezing her like a grape.

"Not too deep, though," Cynthia said.

"Only five miles deep at each entrance," one answered, running a hand over his hair. Fred Dranau.

Any more than that, and they'd get lost in the mountain. That was for if measures got desperate and she'd have to send those children climbing up the mountain, and hopefully their presence would allow people surrounding them to climb as well. It should, if they stayed close enough.

If it didn't…

Well, she'd be there too.

"How is Point Borea faring?" Lillia Beckings asked.

Doctor Fenetry, the leading figure in the experimentation of Legendaries ranging from the Regis, the Unown and Darkrai, answered. "Hunkering down and ready to fight, but if Team Galactic has three Guardians, the odds of them stopping them from awakening Regice is extremely low. And if this lasts another day…"

"That's Wednesday," Joachim muttered. "When Regice will be at its most unstable."

Cynthia's ears rang— a high-pitched tone that cut through any voice and somehow sounded like the loudest thing she had ever and would ever hear. "Their leader, Cyrus, is somehow extremely well-versed in Legendaries. It should come as no surprise, if he knows Regice exists, and the guardians might point him in the right direction. It would be a good distraction."

"A catastrophe," Lucian added. "A distraction is a mild way of putting it."

"Semantics," Cynthia said. She must have let something slip into her tone, because everyone in the room turned her way and stayed silent once more.

She did not apologize no matter how much Alakazam glared at her.

Lucian clapped his hands. "Shall we take a short break? Five minutes, perhaps, before we reconvene."

Cynthia waved a hand, ignoring him. "Flint can lead Aaron to take care of Regice, if that comes to pass," another military officer said. "They can take Craig Goodwill as well. The three of them should be enough, if they have enough support from the League."

"We ought to start setting that up now, then," Andrew Frazier crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. "Teleporting in the mountain is already difficult, given it changes its layout every few days, but it becomes impossible if Regice is awake."

"Mount Coronet's bowels have been even more agitated for the last twelve hours," Dr. Fenetry said.

"If we bait it into the larger caverns, we can Teleport close enough like last time, outside its range," Cynthia said. "I've had teams of Kadabra scouting the layout of the mountain night and day for weeks."

He looked like he wanted to complain about the fact that he had not been informed of that, but stayed silent. Cynthia's heart contracted, squeezed until she could barely breathe at the finality of such a decision.

"But let's put a pin on that for now," Cynthia breathed, hand over her chest. "We'll make the final decision another time."

She could breathe again.

"Cynthia," Lucian pressed.

"Yes?"

"I need to speak to you."

"It can wait after the meeting, can it not?"

"No, it can't."

The Champion exhaled.

Then she waved a hand, and everyone but he cleared the room at once. She took comfort in the empty chairs, still spinning from their momentum, and Lucian recalled Alakazam.

"You're spiraling," Lucian declared.

"I am," she acknowledged with an incline of her head. "So what? Time keeps marching forward."

"Let me take over for a few hours so you can rest."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

The psychic type specialist crossed his legs, purple hair cascading down his head, and tilted his hair as he adjusted his glasses, staring at her with that analytical look of his, finding the exact combination of words and tone that would get her to agree. "Your decision-making is fine right now, but it'll get worse as the day goes on if you don't sleep. You're twitchy, and people are noticing."

Cynthia cradled her own face and massaged her forehead. "The problem isn't that I am tired, Lucian. It is that if we get this wrong, if we mess up, the consequences would be— they would be—"

She could not bring herself to say it.

"I'll take care of things here. Please rest," he said.

Cynthia inhaled through her teeth sharply. "I have a favor to ask of you, Lucian. No one can know about this."

"Ask, and if I can do it, I will."

"Bring me home."

—

Celestic was just as she remembered it being the last time she'd come. It was the middle of the night, with only the stars and half a moon to shine down on her hometown— if she even considered it that, still— yet it bathed everything in a soft, silver light. As she had expected, no one was out, especially not in front of her family's home. Cynthia could not see beyond the small, cobbled path that led to it, but Alakazam would have warned her, if there was. He was already looking mighty displeased.

The stone was worn smooth from many years of footsteps, guiding Cynthia home like an old friend. As she stepped onto the porch, the creak of the wooden floorboards beneath her feet echoed in the stillness of the night, a familiar sound that brought a smile to her lips. She'd forgotten the correct spots not to be heard sneaking out, had she? Their house was bigger than it used to be, with Cynthia sending money each month, but they had only expanded on what used to be here, and Kirsten wasn't one to enjoy renovating something that worked perfectly well. Her grandmother was a woman who easily got attached to old possessions.

Despite hailing from this town, Cynthia had rarely set foot back in Celestic since becoming the Champion. Her early years were filled with the tumultuous internal backstabbing and politics that nearly always came with a change in power in the kind of regime Sinnoh used to be, especially when she'd been so young and three out of four Elite Four members had opposed her. When everything had been stabilized and her predecessor had flown out to Alola, she took it upon herself to reform the country, slowly but surely, and her year spent in Unova hadn't helped with how busy she got. Picking at Alder's mind had been a fascinating task, in the few meetings and summits they'd held with her delegation, and they stayed in contact up until his Volcarona died and he had withered into nothing.

From a fiery storm to… whatever he was now. A homeless man wandering Unova, lost in perpetual grief and rarely caught by any cameras. Back then, she'd thought less of him, for having a weak mind. For simply allowing himself to lose to a then eleven-year-old child just because it was easier that way, because he could not live with the loss, when he had talked to her about how much more work needed to be done. Their circumstances were not at all similar. All of Cynthia's Pokemon were in their prime, whereas Alder had caught Volcarona at the tail end of her unnaturally long life, when she'd been barely held together by the remnants of hushed tales, songs and prayers.

What she never thought, however, was that at some point in time, the weight of the mantle of power might make her own knees buckle and her bones creak. That she might not be enough.

Weakness. Was she not Sinnoh's protector, sworn to serve the people no matter what may come to pass? She did not have a limit, Champions did not have limits. They were paragons. Mistakes were affordable, but not today. Not when the stakes were this high.

Her hand touched the door, smooth and a pale, light green. New. How did Celeste convince Kirsten to do that?

Cynthia whispered, "Thank you, Alakazam. I appreciate it."

The psychic's singular eye twitched. He had never been good at appreciating sudden kindness from anyone other than Lucian. One hour, he said. And do not go out in public.

Cynthia smiled at him, a genuine smirk at how he believed he would have to warn her of all people. As if she did not know the consequences of this could be catastrophic for what came after, if there was going to be an after. The Champion, caught checking up on her family before appearing to the public after nearly ten thousand were dead and thousands more were wounded? Oh, there was always more yarn she could spin, more stories she could weave, but it would cost her.

And yet.

Here she was.

Alakazam disappeared without a trace before he let himself show his mustache twitch nervously at her stare.

One hour.

Her knuckles rasped against the smooth wood of the door, but she hesitated to knock. When was it, did she start feeling less at home here than when she was stuck nose-deep in her office at the League? Her home, it felt so alien, so foreign to her now that she could barely believe this was where she'd grown up. There were trinkets adorning the porch, most religious in nature. Strips of paper warded with charms or Arceus' name, but never his figure. Deigning to know what he looked like was not allowed in Celestic's branch of Originalism.

Just as she was about to knock, the door swung open.

Her twin sister stood there, her hair all over the place and evidently still half asleep, from the strand of drool dripping down her mouth. She was slightly shorter by an inch or so, and a little less gaunt than Cynthia was, these days, given that she didn't spend so long sitting in an office. Other than that, they were nearly identical.

Cynthia's eyes drifted to her stomach for a moment, and then her fingers, thanks to the gleam of a ring under the moonlight, then her eyes.

"Cynthia?" The words were a mix of disbelief and anger. "Cynthia," she said again, now sure of herself. "What in the world are you doing here? Do you have any idea of what's going on?"

"That's my job," she deadpanned. "May I come in? I can stay here for an hour, and I decided to come visit."

Celeste looked around, as if she was searching for who else would be here, but she found no one. "Where's your entourage, Cynth?"

"I came alone, with the help of Lucian's Alakazam."

Granted, Cynthia had afforded them protection from the League, just in case they ever became a target, but it hadn't looked like Celeste had caught on.

Her sister facepalmed as she leaned against the doorframe. "You look older."

"I am."

"You never contact us. You haven't written us in over ten months, let alone called. Do you have any idea of how Gran felt about that?" she asked, her eyes flaring with an intensity rarely ever directed at her. It was somewhat refreshing. "Of how I felt about that."

"I was busy, Celeste."

"Yeah. Too busy to send even a single letter or text," she smirked. "Maybe I'm too busy to let you in."

"Not now. Please."

Celeste bit her lip. "We'll see."

"So," Cynthia hummed. "You're pregnant and married?" It had been easily noticeable, with how much she was showing, the size of her stomach barely contained inside of her shirt. Cynthia estimated… seven months? But she'd never been the best at that, so she might have been wrong. "Who's the father?"

There might have been a snapback coming, but she wouldn't do that. Not for this particular topic. "Neil."

"Neil… Neil Schwartz?" She tried recalling him, though his image was fuzzy. They must have been fourteen the last time they'd even interacted. "Ah, I remember now. His parents work that gift shop close to the crater's edge."

"His gift shop, now," she specified.

"I'm sorry I didn't…" her lips thinned. "I'm sorry I didn't know sooner. This year has just been so…"

"Hectic, yeah," her sister nodded. "You can come in."

Stepping over the threshold, Cynthia entered her old home, feeling a sense of peace settle over her. It wasn't comfortable, not yet, but it was familiarity, at the very least. The sights and sounds of her home she'd nearly forgotten enveloped her. The smell of burned wood from the now extinguished fire in the hearth, the soft, repeated ticking of the grandfather clock, the old books she used to obsess over, settled neatly on an old bookshelf against the walls.

"So, what are you actually here for?" Celeste whispered. It was odd, to see her move so carefully, her hands always over her stomach as if she was cradling her child already.

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?" Cynthia asked.

"What?"

"The gender."

"Oh, sorry, I thought you'd— you know what, never mind," Celeste said with a little grin. All of a sudden, it was like they were ten again. "It's a boy. You know, I feel like he's already raring to get out." She stopped to sigh. "Arceus knows that'll be a relief on my back."

"And this Neil. He's good to you?" Cynthia asked, wandering around home. There were unwashed dishes in the sink, something Kirsten never would have let them get away with in their young age.

She was getting older.

"He's wonderful. You know, he makes a crap ton of money from all the trainers that pass through here near the end of each Circuit, and thank Arceus, because I've had to stop working."

"Ah. The pregnancy?"

The Champion looked at an old picture, framed in wood, and smiled. There she was with Garchomp as a Gible, smiling for the camera. Of course, this had been years after they'd met, given that it took Celestic that long to accept her being a trainer.

"No, Cynthia it was before that— it's Gran. You know… her eyes got really bad, and she can't move much. She needs me to take care of her."

Cynthia blinked, flinching back as if she had been struck.

"It got that bad?"

Why didn't you tell me?! she wanted to yell, but she knew she had no right, absolutely none. It was just so difficult. She wanted to deny it at first, to refuse that her grandmother could ever reach a point where she was unable to care for herself. To reconcile that person Kirsten was in Cynthia's mind with the image Celeste was painting was asking her the impossible, and she despised that feeling, that ache in her heart that made her feel so weak. This was partly why she never visited home, something she struggled to admit to herself. The place did not change, but the people did. They moved on without her. Neighbors got older, had children or died. Most of the people who she used to go to school with had moved out, not that they'd been on friendly terms regardless, and most of all, every time, her family was so…

Different.

It felt so jarring, to see Celeste pregnant and hear that she'd married already. To hear that Kirsten's eyes had gotten so bad that she was basically blind, her body so feeble that she could barely move on her own.

It was her fault, yet it hurt all the same.

"I don't think you should wake her, then," Cynthia said. "She needs rest, doesn't she?"

"I can still—"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I can come back another time," Cynthia said. "Now let's sit. Tell me about your husband and… your life."

They spoke for a while, around twenty minutes or so. Celeste told her of how Neil and she had reconnected when she'd gone out to buy more trinkets for Kirsten, who thought she might be able to just pray the blindness away. No, that was a rude way of putting it, but Cynthia had never been favorable to how they depended on religion for everything here. Had she been less busy, had she known, had she written, then maybe she could have convinced her grandmother to get care in one of those private hospitals. The really good ones, down in Jubilife or Sunyshore. It was too late, now. Time was a cruel mistress, and she marched on no matter what petty living things wanted. Neil did not live with Celeste yet, but he was thinking of selling his parents' home, of hiring help for his shop so he could help with Kirsten, and appeared to be an appropriate man for her sister to be married to. Arceus knew Celeste hadn't always had the best taste in those, especially in their teenage years. While Cynthia had spent those all in the wild, preparing for her fifteenth, Celeste…

Well, it was best not to revisit those memories. They'd all been children, once.

"What about you?" Celeste asked.

"What about me?"

"You know what I'm saying," her sister snorted. "Any office romances? You know, people see you and Lucian hang around all the time…"

Cynthia laughed— genuinely laughed, so loud that Celeste shushed her, and all of a sudden it was like they were little girls again. "With Lucian? Legendaries, no, he and I would sooner die than have that happen." She wiped the corner of her eye. "You know, there just isn't… any time."

And no one could ever meet her standards, regardless. She'd tried, oh, she had, back when she'd first become the Champion. Most had been kept under wraps, lest the tabloids go into a feeding frenzy, but no one could ever hold her attention for long, and she always ended up breaking up with them after a month or two. Cynthia always liked them at first, but then noticed every little flaw until she didn't recognize who she had been infatuated with in the first place and broke it off. Bertha asked her to stop, after a while. She had summoned her to her office one day, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, and asked her if she wanted to change things or just to keep sleeping around.

It had been a hyperbole, which was rare, with Bertha. Cynthia had been more interested in picking their brains and sharing mutual interests than anything else.

She'd been young, back then, and still believed that her life could be normal despite her responsibilities. Voices had been raised, but eventually, years later in her early twenties, Cynthia had realized that Bertha had been correct. Doing both was just… impossible, at least for her. Not when she'd been so much more hands-on with everything than Gabriel Radetic. One needed to be, when steering a nation, and that took a lot of micromanagement.

"I'm just fooling around," Celeste said, pushing her on the shoulder. "You know, I've been sidestepping the topic, but if you can… you know, tell us anything about what's going on with Team Galactic— if it's too much for you—"

"That's confidential," Cynthia said smoothly.

"But you came here for a reason. You're having a tough time, aren't you?"

Sinnoh's Champion drew upon a breath so large it might as well have been endless. "This entire year, Celeste. I have never overseen a decline so steep, failure after failure." Their eyes met. "I have used fear as a tool of the state, imprisoned and sacked political opponents to install loyalists and rule with an iron fist, ceded more and more ground to authoritarianism and I am now being forced to cooperate with despots like Lance Blackthorn. But I suppose I am a despot as well," the Champion spoke with a wry smile. "I have ripped everything I have spent over a decade working on to shreds, and yet it looks like we might fail anyway." Her hand ran over her forehead to wipe off sweat that wasn't there. "I had meticulously altered the face of this nation by the rules to establish a precedent for the Champions who would come after me, to build institutions from the ground up. Restrained myself in this world made of… of cardboard. Worked countless sleepless nights to make a difference," she exhaled. "And yet, look at it."

There was no Television to show the consequences of her failures, and Celestic had not been targeted by Team Galactic, yet Cynthia stared out of their tiny window and imagined her hometown, burning to a crisp, like the entire country had. It enraged her. The fact that so many innocents had died under her watch, under her care. If she got her hands on any Galactic Commander now, there would be…

No. Unleashing Spiritomb on them would be inefficient, and there would be no time to waste. It would be best to simply get Garchomp or another one of her Pokemon to cut them in half before they or their Pokemon could blink. Save for Charon, of course. Deals were malleable, but she couldn't let emotions get the better of her. Mira Compton's cooperation would ensure Sinnoh's security in the future.

"It's that bad, huh?" Celeste muttered, placing a hand on Cynthia's arm. She squeezed. "Arceus, I wish I could help you, but…"

"You cannot. Thank you either way, Celeste. I usually never get overwhelmed like this, but it's been building up and it needed to come out. I have an image to uphold. I'm a beacon."

"Beacon," her sister smiled. "That's what you wanted to be. Always talking about that word and uh… paragon, I think. Oh, and symbol."

Hope, change, movement. Out with the old, in with the new and the streamlined. She'd tell anyone who would listen about it, back then, but most of the time, it ended up being Celeste, Gible, and her grandmother, given her less-than-stellar reputation at the time.

"You never did tell me about your journey." She leaned against the couch and stared at the ceiling. "But by the time the year was over, you were a completely different person. The world had ripped the child out of you. We barely recognized you, but that goal? That need to do good, to help, to be a beacon," Celeste said, her tone full of conviction. "It never changed."

Cynthia laughed. "Sacrifices have to be made, to grow into a person who can be Champion. It is not simply about the power of your Pokemon, your charisma, your connections, or your willingness to do the work. You have to have all of that, but you also need to want something. Want it so bad that you don't mind that parts of yourself will have to be burned and rebuilt, lest the role refuses you. When it does, it swallows you whole, chews you up and spits you out a broken mess."

She had seen it, studied it before. Many times, when a Champion lost to a challenger after having reigned for years or decades, it was not only because their team had not been up to par, but because they had lost their fire. The drive which had gotten them to their position in the first place. Now they just went through the motions, guided by the invisible hand of power while their challenger had that spark in their eye they'd lost long ago.

Many times, even, their Pokemon were individually weaker, yet they won anyway.

In the end, the challenger always represented ideals. A need for change, as she had. In their eyes, the current Champion was often a villain. After all, was it not them, who had let their country get to this point? Who had allowed so much so and so, this and that, and yet they dared to look tired, to look exhausted? She'd thought the same, when looking at Radetic and his Walrein. He'd been corrupt, a creature born of the old guard, and yet she'd often used the same tactics he had to speed up her reforms for the greater good. She had allowed Poketch to grow unchecked like he had, and kept their relationship just because it was convenient and she'd failed a few times to bust their monopoly.

One day, perhaps, she would face someone much like her. Someone who would have grown tired of her destroying their home, in their eyes, and she would just be so, very tired.

Too tired to win.

Contrary to popular belief, Champions often knew, when they'd be facing a contender that year, and they also knew when there was a real risk of losing. Sometimes, it was a challenger with years and years of attempts. A diamond in the rough turned into a fine cut. Few came close to this at present. Craig was the closest, and recent years at the Conference had driven the top competitors to great heights not seen in a long time. She had once said Craig Goodwill would lose to Flint. More recent assessments of him thanks to them working together had her think he might make it to her depending on how he approached the fight against him and Lucian. Of course, he would lose, but he would be the first to make it through since she'd selected her new Elite Four.

Sometimes, it was a prodigy that swooped up badges in just a few months like she had, taking the region by storm. There was no one like that, at the moment.

Those? Those, you could not be warned about years in advance.

Radetic had known she was coming only a few months after she'd begun. He had seen her talk about him, and how he was the source of every problem that ever was and every problem that ever would be. And she had ruined him, so utterly destroyed him and his legacy that he had been run out of the country. Wielded the power of an entire state's apparatus to drive him off so she could more easily replace the people loyal to him swarming every inch of the League like rot.

She would do it again, if given the choice. Every time.

"You talk of it like it has its own will," Celeste said after a while. "Power."

"It does," Cynthia agreed. "The mantle does. In a way, I am more its tool than it is mine. At the beginning, it seems so… limitless. The world is in the palm of your hands, and it looks so much smaller than before. But then you pull one lever, a single lever, and it ripples across an entire nation, and you realize that this will not be as simple as you think it is." Her breath shook, and she also leaned back next to her sister so their shoulders touched. "Your eyes open to how much influence you truly wield, and you suddenly feel so paralyzed. No amount of reading books about political theory or governing prepares you for such terror."

Celeste nodded weakly. "I understand," she said, her voice trembling.

And she did. This was their first proper conversation in years, she did not have a single taste of what sitting atop that throne truly meant, and yet she did. Their bond was still tight, despite everything they'd been through.

"This year… I just keep replaying it in my head, trying to think of how I might have stopped Team Galactic in their tracks with the information I had at hand, and I spot mistake after mistake."

"You aren't omniscient, Cynthia."

"I am not, but that doesn't excuse my failures."

"And now? Have you been broken yet?" a voice rang out from the hallway.

Celeste jumped, and Cynthia grinned despite feeling guilty about having woken up their grandmother. She dragged herself through the darkened hall with a walker, and Celeste quickly jumped at the opportunity to help her after turning on the lights.

"I remain standing still, Kirsten."

Her grandmother was no trainer, yet she was the strongest person she'd ever known, and yet she was fading. Her eyes were a milky white, and she had clearly gone blind. Her arms and legs were like thin, spiny branches, and she couldn't even walk without going out of breath.

It hurt, to see her like this. To witness the last embers of a dying flame. The coming of a long, endless winter.

Celeste panicked, "Gran, your wheelchair—"

"The wheels can go to hell," Kirsten said. "And Kirsten, Cynthia? Really? I raised you better than that, and it's no use trying to distance yourself from me to make my passing easier. In this household, you will refer to me as your grandmother, or you will leave."

"...Gran."

"Good." Celeste guided her to the living room, and she sat to face Cynthia with an exhausted, frustrated groan. It must have been hard, to still have her sharp mind, but for her body to be unable to keep up. White eyes stared directly at her— no, slightly past her. "My ears might not be what they used to be, but if you wanted to sneak around, you shouldn't have spent the past thirty minutes giggling with your sister."

"That was only ten of the thirty, at most," Celeste said.

Gran waved a hand dismissively. "She must have told you about Neil and the baby, I presume. He's a good man, if a little boring. A good fit for her, since she likes wearing the pants in the relationship, personality-wise. He's even kept the name Collins, can you believe it? Back in the day, that was as good as cutting off your balls and putting on a wig."

Her sister sighed. "Arceus give me strength…"

"Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course," her grandmother quickly added, a line well-rehearsed, by the sound of things. "So, Cynthia. Tell me about your troubles," Kirsten said. "Has the throne grown too large for a little girl from Celestic?"

Cynthia stopped herself from scoffing. Deep down, the want to impress her was still there, but she'd grown past it a long time ago. She vented about everything she'd told Celeste, and suddenly wished she'd asked for two hours instead of one. Her grandmother simply listened, not bothering to say anything besides the occasional hum or nod.

"Things must truly be catastrophic if they've got you acting like this," her grandmother calmly said. "I'm sorry, Cynthia. Truly."

"That paralysis I was talking about," the Champion said. "I've grown past it. Used to it. Learned to delegate more, or at least until this year, and learned what actions would affect which sector, but now? It's gripped me again. Every potential action… if I fail…"

The world ends.

That had always been the case. She had learned of this months ago, but the closer this got to being a reality, the more stressed she'd gotten, and if they did not succeed at Acuity, then she struggled to see a path where they'd make it through the next couple of days. Cynthia wasn't sure they even had that. Mount Coronet was, as they understood, not alive, but… it had a way of acting that pushed or pulled people in certain directions. Usually that was away from Spear Pillar, be that using temporal or spacial distortions, but the guardians would render Team Galactic immune to that, or at least the people closest to them.

"If I fail, it will be, as you said, catastrophic," Cynthia finished her sentence.

There was a beat of nervousness on Celeste's face. "More catastrophic than they already are? Should we— should we be going somewhere? Is this place safe, Cynthia?"

Oh, Celeste, Cynthia thought. I would take a ten, a hundred, fifty times the casualties in a heartbeat, if it meant that Sinnoh prevailed. I would watch you, your unborn child and our own grandmother die, if it was what it took, because that is who I am.

"Little hellraiser Cynthia," Kirsten said, hands intertwined. They were veiny and discolored. "Carrying the weight of a country on her back. I told you the role would scrape you until there was nothing left other than bones."

Cynthia frowned. "You told me I wasn't going to make it."

Yes, she had not left town on good terms with her family. In fact, one could say that she had run away, though she had no doubt her grandmother had expected it, given her parting gift. But what did it even matter, what she'd said? Why was she bringing it up now, and why was she rising to the bait?

"Gran…" Celeste hesitantly spoke, eyes drifting between the two. "Now isn't a great time for this. We should be thinking about leaving, shouldn't we?" She paced around the room and looked at their landline. "Arceus, I need to call Neil—"

"You're fine, Celeste," Cynthia said. It did not matter, where you went.

"You would not drag me away from here regardless," Kirsten added, helpful as always. "And that is not what I said, Cynthia. I told you, before you left, that the powers that were would never accept a girl from Celestic, even if she won. I was correct. What I did not expect was for you to clean house and make them accept you." She paused, smacked her lips and they turned to a rather jovial smirk. "I do not mean to say you are not up to the task, Cynthia. Clearly that is what you inferred."

Ah. She had, and it had ruffled her quite a bit. "I misunderstood, then."

"What I did mean to say is that this job will kill you, soon enough," she continued. "It will not have to be because you'll die in some battle, though that might be the case—"

Celeste scoffed. "If she's dying, she's taking everything in a thousand-mile radius down with her, let me tell you."

Cynthia laughed, a short exhale through her nose, but Kirsten continued.

"I mean that it will wring you out like a wet towel until there's nothing left in you," she nonchalantly said. "It'd be a shame to see my granddaughter dead before I passed. Lord Arceus knows you already have half of your body in a grave you dug yourself."

"Retirement is not an option."

"Sure it is," Kirsten smiled. "This year alone has eaten away at more of you than the last ten. The next might as well, and after another, well, you might as well put me in your will."

"Hey, leave some for the rest of us," Celeste joked. "I have a baby on the way."

"You have to promise me to buy that villa in Unova I've always wanted."

They all laughed.

"This year has worn me down, it's true," Cynthia said, more seriously. "I considered taking a break after it. I have a new Pokemon who needs to be trained, and I don't mean that just in the battling sense. A year off would allow me to focus on him," she sighed. "But with the bombs… no, I need to be there. To rebuild. And I wouldn't have the excuse I had last time I took a year off."

Celeste's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Oh, a new Pokemon? That's been a while. What is it?"

"A child who has never been afforded civility, and who therefore only knows how to fight," she said. "You can't meet him, Gran. Not yet."

While Celeste and her incident with that Zangoose when they'd been young and stranded on route 210 had weaned her off Pokemon forever, Kirsten was a curious woman, no doubt wanting to see who had caught her attention this time. Her inroads with Zoroark were… well, they were slow, as she'd expected, but at least he had understood rather quickly that he could not kill her, and they were at least on speaking terms.

"You haven't even let me see that little miscreant and you deny me yet another favor?" her grandmother teased.

"Garchomp is better off not knowing I came here, or she'll worry."

Celeste chimed in, "Plus, I'd be willing to bet you don't want her terrified of what's coming." She nudged her chin in their grandmother's direction.

"Well, she's grown past eating the furniture and stuffing in my pillows, so maybe she wouldn't have to be," Kirsten laughed.

"I'm pretty sure you're the only woman in the region capable of scaring little Garchomp, Gran," her sister said, a smile of her own plastered on her lips.

Cynthia leaned forward. "Do you remember when I came home earlier than usual from our training and we got mud all over the house?"

Celeste nodded. "Hmhm, and I'd told you that it was a bad idea and it had been raining all day, but you said 'Gible's hungry, Celeste, and she won't train until she eats some more'," she mimicked Cynthia's younger voice. It had always been slightly lower-pitched than hers. "Never mind that she'd eaten like three hours ago already. Lo and behold, I get yelled at with you."

"It was a bad day at work," Kirsten shrugged.

"Well, you could have brought me the food and I wouldn't have had to go inside," Cynthia said.

"Oh, don't play that game with me, Cynth. I did bring the food, but you always wanted something specific with exact portions because of some diet you read about in a book or whatnot, and only you knew how to make that stuff. It was funny to watch you pay for it by beating trainers who passed through, though."

"A little eight-year-old, giving teenagers a run for their money, ha!" Kirsten laughed. "Served them right. They had no respect for our town or culture, and they still don't might I add."

"Eh, it's gotten better. You know, Champion clout and all. People don't want to disrespect Cynth's hometown," Celeste said.

Cynthia was lighter, now, and yet she hadn't gotten any answers.

"Gran."

"Ah yes, getting back on topic," the old woman nodded. "You feel paralyzed, unable to act… hold on." She closed her eyes, as if she was searching for something. A few seconds later, she held out her hand. "Hold on." Cynthia frowned. "Don't be daft, hold it."

She clasped her grandmother's hand, her breath shivering as she felt at the skin. She'd been what, eleven the last time she'd done this? The firm grip she remembered was gone, and now there was a delicate fragility to her grandmother's grip. The skin was almost papery to the touch, like she was holding onto some kind of grainy surface. Cynthia could feel the bones beneath the surface, each joint slightly swollen. Calluses adorned the fingertips, remnants of years of physical labor, both around the house and at her old job as a logger.

So small.

"I remember, once," Kirsten said. "It was shortly after you'd befriended Gible… a few months, if I remember correctly. Maybe a year. This was at the beginning of that year's Circuit, and there weren't any trainers around, so you'd go out every day and train out in the wilds, sneaking out while I was at work. I'd get one of the neighbors to babysit, try to get old Richmond and his two pups to keep track of you, but somehow, some way, you always managed to get out after a few hours. Maybe Richmond had gone soft and was letting you through, but he swore he never did."

She worked her jaw and exhaled, a short laugh as she reminisced. There were a few tricks Cynthia had employed, back then, like having Gible create tunnels to get her out of town and masking her own scent by rubbing mud and trash all over her body. It had been a tight fit, but easy for a child to do. Of course, now she knew that back then, Garchomp's tunnels were not at all stable and she could have died, had she been unlucky.

Her grandma continued, "You know people around here didn't like you kids."

"Born out of wedlock, yes," Cynthia said. Years of training and habit had taught her to smoothen out her expression despite wanting to grimace. What good were customs, if they discriminated like this? She could see Celeste shift uncomfortably next to Kirsten. The subject of their mother having been a victim of sexual assault wasn't a comfortable one. "And?"

"Not just that. You couldn't help but yap about how great being a trainer was to anyone who would listen, talk about how you'd make this town a better place. They hated you. Some even thought you were getting possessed by some kind of malevolent ghost and approached me one day when I was praying at the shrine. Thought you'd get into their kids' heads." Kirsten was blind, yet she met her eyes— truly met her eyes for the first time. "I have to admit, I was also growing tired of you. What if one day, you didn't come back? What if you were eaten or killed by some wild Pokemon like that Zangoose? So one night, I tossed and turned in my bed, asking myself, what was it, that made you so different than every other child? Than your own twin sister?"

"Did you find an answer?" Cynthia asked.

The blind woman shook her head, eyes having now wandered away. "Not that night, no. Not the next, either. I don't think I found an answer until the day you left. Remember?"

"How could I not," she said, barely a whisper.

She could still feel the fading summer sun bashing down her skin without a cloud in sight, save for the enormous wall of fog in the distance. The tears at the corner of her eyes when realizing that this was it, after having had the biggest argument with Celeste she'd ever had and it looked like their relationship would never be mended. She'd had Riolu and Gible, back then. Well, them and…

"I came up to you with the egg," Kirsten grinned. "Some trainer had left it in their Pokemon Center room, probably malcontent with what he was getting, and Sandra, the nurse Joy at the time, was my friend, so a little payment was enough for her not to call the Rangers. They would have taken a month to get here anyway, but I digress. Surely, it was a sign of support, was it not? So why did I, then, tell you that 'you wouldn't make it'?"

Ah, she was using her own words against her.

"Because a young girl from Celestic—"

"Because I didn't want you to leave," Kirsten admitted. "Because I would miss you, and I knew after that day, I would basically never see you again. I saw it in your eyes, that day, and I finally understood. Six years old, and you were talking about making a town that hated you better. Asking for books about history, politics, the economy, Pokemon care and training… It's a wonder I didn't figure this out earlier, but I supposed it was easier not to see."

Cynthia opened her mouth, but her grandmother's voice bulldozed over hers.

"You'll roll your eyes at me for this, I know it, but sometimes, people are put on this Earth to be vehicles for change."

The Champion snorted. "Don't take all of my accomplishments away by attributing them to Arceus."

"I am not. I am saying that something laid the seeds and that you grew into your own," she said. "And from the day you were born, you'd always wanted to tend to your own farm as well. To remove the weeds, till the soil and plant seeds of your own."

Cynthia's lips thinned. To equate, compare her ambition to farming was a little too on the nose for her.

"Now as you know, my dear, farming is hard work, especially in a farm as large as this one. Your body does not stay young and springy forever, you joints and bones are worn down over the years and each dawn brings a familiar ache. The bending, lifting, and hauling required to tend to crops take their toll, leaving shoulders stooped and backs bowed." Her grandmother stood up without her walker, legs shaking under her own weight, but neither Celeste or Cynthia dared to move. "Now, no one asked you to be a farmer, let alone the best damn farmer of these lands. You were warned repeatedly, but it couldn't shake you off the path. Why?"

"I thought you had the answer, now," Cynthia whispered.

"Because you must," she said. "Because it is who you are, because you have to do it, or you are incomplete, and taking it out of you might as well be like trying to cut off your oxygen. You'll thrash around, but if you aren't freed, it'll kill you. No matter what combination of words, what methods are used to convince you otherwise, it will not have you stray off your path. The one of a leader."

Kirsten's hands gripped Cynthia's shoulders as hard as they could, and she stood over her, then let a hand rise to her cheek. "A person's life is a war between who they are and who they want to be, and you've been winning that war for as long as I can remember. The stakes are higher than they've ever been, but this is who you are, Cynthia. Your mind is old and worn like the body of a farmer, but you must act, still. You might fail, you might not, but you are special. You are the only one qualified enough to work this land, now. You have learned of its shape, its quirks and what it takes to run it smoothly, and no one else right now would be able to do better than you, it would take too long to catch them up. If you get it wrong… no one would have gotten it right."

Sinnoh's Champion took a deep breath. "That does not help as much as I hoped it would."

"I'm your grandmother, not magic," Kirsten said, patting her on the cheek twice. "You're lucky you don't come here often, or I'd subject you to more of that, but Cel takes the brunt of it."

"Well, at least I didn't get farmer," she said. "I got librarian, last time. But you understand, right?"

"Because I must," Cynthia nodded. "Because I have taken it upon myself to carry this land upon my back, and I would do it all over again if I could."

"Good. Now Celeste, get me to bed, please."

No pleasantries were exchanged, before Gran went back to bed. Cynthia did not promise that she would visit more often when this was all over, nor did she say that she regretted her actions. Her grandmother had been correct, when she'd said that she'd known she would never see her again on that day she'd left. Cynthia spoke to her sister for the remaining fifteen minutes, sitting on their porch until Alakazam came back to pick her up, and she hugged her goodbye.

"Does the baby have a name yet?" she asked, locked in her arms.

"Yes. Cedric."

"Keeping the 'C' thing alive, are you?" Cynthia laughed softly. "I'll miss the birth, you know? I'll have to deal with the fallout from all of this."

"I know. And the months afterward, too, but at least you're talking about the future," she said. "Want to touch him?"

Cynthia blinked as she stood there, not having expected that. "May I?"

"You may."

She put a hand over her sister's stomach, and after ten seconds or so—

She gasped, feeling a kick, and she quickly dropped down to her knees and gasped. "Arceus, wow, that's— that's strong! Isn't that strong?"

"Oh yeah. He's raring to come out already, let me tell you," she smiled. "Did you not expect anything?"

"No, it's just… moving. Both figuratively and literally. Does it hurt? When he does that?"

Celeste shook her head. "It doesn't hurt, it just feels a little weird, but I've gotten used to it. How soft, by the way. Maybe your job didn't kill all of you after all."

Cynthia, Alakazam jeered. I've been patient enough. It's time to go.

"I'll take care of Gran for you," Celeste said. "She's got years left in her. See how sharp she still is?"

"She meanders more than she used to and speaks slower, but yes," Cynthia said. "And her words helped."

"I'm glad. Now you go kick ass and save the world, okay?" Cynthia could feel Alakazam's disapproving stare bear down the back of her head, but she managed to keep her face straight. Celeste saw through it anyway and blinked. "What, it was just a guess."

"A bad one," she lied. "Go back to sleep. Tell your husband I said hello."

"Will do. And don't forget to sleep, you look like shit."

She stood next to Alakazam and reappeared amidst a flurry of reports from League officials.

She yawned extremely loudly, declared that she would sleep for the next four hours and to wake her up if they were attacked and that Lucian would take over while she was out. She settled in the corner of an empty office and rested her back on her Togekiss.