INTERLUDE - THE LEAGUE

Cynthia calmly drummed her fingers along her old acacia desk as she read over her morning briefing, which was written and sent to her every day by League officials. The goal was to keep her informed of anything of note happening throughout Sinnoh that she might have missed. A dispute between Solaceon and Hearthome over who had water rights on route 209, a collapsed mine in the Iron Islands that had caused nine deaths and twenty-two injured, the Contest Committee’s newest contest hall in Jubilife halting construction because of a strike over poor working conditions… it was just more of the same. Cynthia couldn’t be everywhere at once, and the League helped to keep her up to date, which was especially helpful considering her mind was preoccupied with Team Galactic these days.

Garchomp stood tall behind her, as she usually did. The Champion’s office was large enough to fit her entire team if she so wished. It was located atop of the League building’s tallest spire, and she had a view of the entire southern side of the island from here. Not only did the Lily of the Valley island have the League building on it, but also hundreds of other facilities owned by the government, along with homes for employees and their families and schools for their children. There were stores for them to buy food and other necessities, a port and an airport to facilitate travel and resupply the League with anything it needed. Right now, the island only had League employees and their families— it was closed to any other civilians after all, but during the month of June, it opened, and hundreds of thousands of people would flood in from every region to watch the yearly Conference. Companies were already saber rattling over who would buy the most ad space for the entire event.

Those were thoughts for the future. Cynthia turned the page and let out a satisfied smile. The Bianchi Conglomerate was still practically begging for a bailout, saying that they were an essential company to trainers throughout Sinnoh. Of course, they were telling the truth. Trainers all over the region were having their journeys slowed to a crawl. The price of all supplies had increased, but the real problem was the price of potions, which had more than quadrupled in cost and showed no signs of slowing down. Negotiations with the Directorate were floundering, however. Sophie Richards, the new Prime Minister that had ousted Vernon in a tight vote, was struggling to get her caucus in line and not bringing anything to a vote. Of course, if Directorate members had the numbers, they could force her to bring a bailout package to a vote, but Cynthia had told Vernon to hold back for now. Sophie Richards wanted to give the Bianchis nothing, but Cynthia wasn’t sure if that was because of her innate hate for trainers, or because Team Galactic was telling her not to. Memory extraction was off the table, but spying was not, and after having the LSS tail her for weeks and tap her phone, there was still no sign she was in contact with anyone she shouldn’t have been. Friends, family, colleagues, everything appeared normal.

Unless she had a middleman that Cynthia had somehow completely missed. Something to warn the Secret Service about if they weren’t on top of it already.

Still, most of Sophie Richards’ new party wanted to bail out the company by lowering interest rates and giving them an injection of cash to keep them from having to sell too many shares. The company wasn’t going to go under, but it struggling so much was hampering the trainer side of the economy, which was inadvertently going to have effects on the civilian economy as well soon enough. They were linked too tightly for the crisis to stay isolated from one another. Meanwhile, Vernon, who had been relegated to a simple member of the Directorate, but was still leading the pro-Cynthia camp, was surgically attempting to get people back on his side to try to regain his old position, but to no avail. No one was budging.

Of course, Cynthia could have swooped in, acted like a moderate, and possibly negotiated a bipartisan deal with Vernon’s help. She still had plenty of allies in the Directorate who didn’t hesitate to voice their support. It would have weakened the Prime Minister’s position greatly, made her side look like a reasonable alternative, and shored up her support among new trainers who struggled with money and civilians who were tired of the gridlock.

But why act when her opponents were making mistake after mistake? Sophie Richards was like a fish out of water. She had wanted the position of Prime Minister, and she had expected it to be an easy job. No, it wouldn’t be enough to just weaken her. That would mean that she would keep her job. Cynthia needed to wait for an opportunity to take Sophie Richards down in one fell swoop.

And she already knew how. The day just hadn’t come yet. The economy would have to suffer longer.

Suddenly, Garchomp let out a low, menacing growl. A woman appeared out of thin air in front of Cynthia’s desk and bowed.

She had no psychic types to Teleport with, but she somehow still managed. She was in her twenties, and her eyes were completely white, with no pupils to be seen, and so was her hair. She was sweating and panting heavily. It seemed that her abilities still took a lot out of her after all these years.

The League Secret Service had created her through experiments that most would consider… unnatural. She was unfortunately the only survivor, and she hadn’t been replicated yet, despite Lucian and his psychic types working with the LSS to try to recreate someone like her.

“Good morning, Lou,” Cynthia smiled. “Your report, I presume?”

“Yes, ma’am!” She said. Her voice reverberated through the room as if it was otherworldly. “Another Team Galactic base has been found in Jubilife, and I was instructed to report our findings as soon as possible!”

“Well, go ahead,” Cynthia said, crossing her legs.

“The base was empty, save for a few straggling grunts that knew nothing of importance, and all of their data had been wiped, so nothing new was learned. We did, however, catch another member that had been trying to escape from the city called Gabriel Watkins, and we extracted his memories. It seemed that he knew a lot about Mars.”

The Champion restrained her eyes from widening in surprise. “Did you make sure to interrogate him beforehand?”

There had been multiple incidents reported about League trainers not following guidelines and immediately extracting Team Galactic members’ memories without asking them questions first. Luckily, she had gotten ahead of it before any of it could leak to the media and placed the culprits on unpaid leave. Rules were meant to be followed. They could be bent, but not completely ignored.

“We did, ma’am! He was the one that recruited Mars. According to one of our Kadabras, he found her wandering the streets of Jubilife, and she didn’t remember who she was or what she was doing there. She already owned all of her current Pokemon— including that Dusknoir, but she didn’t seem to know where those came from either. Mars worked with this Gabriel individual for a few days until some higher-ups came and whisked her to ‘Veilstone HQ,’ which confirms our suspicions that there is a base in Veilstone, which appears to be their main base of operations. Gabriel Watkins heard of her promotion as a Commander a few weeks later.”

“Could her amnesia have been an act?” Cynthia asked, leaning against her chair with a heavy sigh.

“That’s impossible to know for sure,” Lou quickly answered. “But it seems that Jubilife has been completely cleared of Team Galactic. End of report.”

“If he knew so much about her, I’m surprised that Dusknoir didn’t intervene to stop us like for that other grunt. What could have been the difference, I wonder? Thank you, Lou. I have another request for you,” Cynthia continued.

She used the word request, but it would be an order. Cynthia couldn’t help but think the LSS had missed something with Richards. A way she was communicating with Team Galactic that was somehow discreet enough to avoid the Secret Service’s perceptive eyes.

“Start spying on every member of the Directorate. I want to know their exact habits, schedule, and if they started deviating from those in any way, shape, or form since Rotom leaked all of our communications. Start with… Joey Rumsfeld, Paula McCarthy, Erika Anri, and Isaac Matthews.”

If what Cynthia suspected was right, then…

“At once,” the woman answered before disappearing.

The LSS never ceased to impress, Cynthia smiled. As her thoughts returned to Team Galactic, her gut was telling her that Mars hadn’t been faking that memory loss, and her gut was almost never wrong, but that raised more questions than answers, and the League was still in the dark about the other Commanders.

“Well, it’s about time,” Cynthia muttered to herself after checking her watch. She rubbed Garchomp’s rough scales and recalled her before stepping out of her office.

The Champion walked down the long, spiral staircase that led out of her office. People asked her again and again if she wanted to install an elevator here, but Cynthia always answered no. She enjoyed the League’s building too much to sully it further than it had already been. So much history lost to modernity for the sake of practicality. She knew it to be the sound choice, but she wanted to preserve the old gothic architecture wherever she could. On the way to her destination, she was greeted by hundreds of League employees, and she always responded with a warm smile and a nod, along with their names. Jonathan, Terry, Sally, Alima, Caleb— it didn’t matter how long ago Cynthia had seen their faces or heard their names, she always remembered and let them know that she did.

Names were important. From names, loyalty could be slowly forged, and each time Cynthia showed that she remembered, that loyalty grew just a little more potent. And Arceus knew that she needed loyalty— the League was the only untainted part of the government Team Galactic hadn’t gotten their hands on, although they had no doubt tried.

Cynthia passed by Bertha’s office and gave her a warm greeting. The Elite Four had done a good job during the raid in Eterna, and she had expected nothing less. She was the one that handpicked them, after all, although Bertha had been there before Cynthia had even been the Champion. Whereas the Champion focused on running the entire Region in cooperation with the Directorate, the Elite Four focused on running the League itself, and were right under Cynthia when it came to authority. The League was one of the paths many trainers chose when they realized that they weren’t good enough to be the Champion, but still too good to just give up Pokemon battling. That meant that they often harbored excellent talents. Talents that would be refined and perfected as they spent more time working for her. Whenever an Elite Four member retired or died, the Champion had the power to pick their successor, although tradition dictated that she would pick someone the Elite Four member wanted. It was the polite thing to do.

Cynthia hadn’t been polite. When she had just become the Champion right before turning sixteen, the Elite Four had been composed of old men entrenched in their position that had hoped to use her as a puppet, even after she had wiped the floor with them in battle. They didn’t know who they had been dealing with. Cynthia allied herself with Bertha and forced them out one by one. They couldn’t exactly be fired— not unless there had been a gross abuse of power, misconduct, or a crime committed, but there were other ways to force them into an early retirement. It had taken years of scheming and hard work, but it was where Cynthia first learned to sharpen her political wits. The first person she chose was Lucian. Years later, she had picked Flint, a close friend of Volkner who had chosen to work for her while the gym leader decided to work for the Sunyshore gym until he was eventually picked as a successor. Finally, the most recent addition was Aaron, who despite being the weakest of the four, showed a lot of promise. Plus, it wasn’t just about how good they were at battling. They had to be good at running things at the League, and Aaron excelled at that.

It was, however, the first time in centuries that Sinnoh’s Elite Four was only composed of type specialists, which was often a fun fact newer trainers liked to tell.

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting?” Cynthia asked as she stepped into the room. It was deep under the League, away from prying eyes.

In front of her, seven gym leaders stood out of respect, but Maylene stayed seated. Candice and Volkner had hesitated, but the peer pressure had made them stand.

Today, the truth would be revealed, but they would also all be tested.

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“Not at all, darling!” Fantina laughed heartily. “It is not often that we all meet, but I’ll take every opportunity to avoid battling by relegating my gym battle to my trainers. It is such a bore compared to contests! I’m at the end of my rope.”

“We agreed. Four more years, Fantina,” Cynthia said. The Kalosian woman was too skilled to be lost just yet. When she retired, nothing would force her to join the fight against Team Galactic if she didn’t wish to do so.

“I know, I know. My successor is nowhere near ready yet anyhow,” she sighed.

“Volkner, how are the Porygon working?” Cynthia asked.

“Doing great,” he answered. “Our digital space should be completely safe from Team Galactic’s Rotom. It cost a very hefty sum though, so I hope Sunyshore sees some money from the League—”

“Can we hurry this up?” Candice groaned. “This place blows, I hate it here. Everyone’s so serious all the time, it ruins my mojo.”

Cynthia stared at the young woman for a split second. She seemed to be happier than usual. Something good must have happened to her recently.

“BAHAHAHAHA,” Wake laughed loudly. “You’re completely right, Candice! Think about how much more they could get done if they took things a little bit more lightly.”

Wake was a character, as always. Thankfully, he had changed from his usual outfit before teleporting here and was wearing normal clothes.

Roark groaned. “Please, have some respect for Cynthia. You two are embarrassing us as gym leaders.”

“Right,” Gardenia nodded. “If she called us here, then it must be important. Important means that it’s serious, so pipe down.”

Roark and Gardenia. The two most loyal of the younger generation of leaders, but something was off about them. For Roark, his father’s presence probably rattled him more than he let on. There was a lot of bad blood between them, and it had taken the young gym leader a long time to work past his inferiority complex. Gardenia, however… ah. Cynthia understood when she shot an apologetic look at Maylene, who ignored her completely. They were fighting, and it was taking a toll on her emotional state.

“It brings a tear to my eye to see all of the younger generation taking this so seriously,” Byron smiled. “With people like you, Sinnoh’s future is bright.”

Roark clicked his tongue in an irritated fashion, but Byron ignored him. He wore his usual ragged clothes— a white shirt and beige pants with holes in them, a habit he had picked up from his time living on the Iron Islands, Sinnoh’s poorest region.

“Can we just get to the point already?” Volkner sighed. “I was in a groove at my gym, and I didn’t have to think about anything, it was great. I’d like to get back to that.”

Cynthia met Volkner’s eyes, and he averted them after a few seconds. He was still angry with her, but less than he had been, which was good news. Only Maylene seemed to be just as furious as she had been when she learned that League had watched as trainers died in Eterna Forest due to Team Galactic’s device and done nothing.

Cynthia smiled. Everyone was here. She had assessed all of them. The pieces were set.

“Very well. We can start,” she said. “Maylene, I know you’re angry with me, but please pay attention.”

“Screw you. You’re all monsters.”

Cynthia had expected that answer, which was why she had spoken to her in the first place. It was meant to be a hidden provocation.

“Maymay, please,” Gardenia pleaded, her eyes tearing up. “I’ve apologized a million times.”

Maylene’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected Gardenia to start crying, and Cynthia noticed a moment of self-doubt, but it was Roark who finished the job.

“Maylene, we’ve all made mistakes. We could have done better, but what’s done is done, and look at the results. Team Galactic is on the backfoot now!”

“I don’t know,” Maylene grumbled. “I still don’t like it.”

“Will you at least talk to me?” Gardenia sniffled. “Please.”

“...Fine.”

“Sheesh, what did I say?” Candice sighed. “Depressing.”

The first step was completed. Cynthia was good with people, and she knew what made them tick. Reconciliation was needed as fast as possible so that every gym leader could work together toward the greater good, which was stopping Team Galactic. It had taken a slight nudge, but it had worked.

The Champion cleared her throat. “I’ve summoned you all here to talk to you about Team Galactic’s true intentions,” she said. Immediately, they all sat at the edge of their seat. “I’ve already told you that they wanted to mess with reality after the attack on the Valley Windworks power plant, but that wasn’t it. We have learned a lot about them in recent weeks.”

“Tell us everything this time,” Volkner said.

“Of course. You’re all ready. But first, we’ll have to go through a small lesson about Sinnoh’s myths.”

Cynthia noticed Candice start to pale.

“Myths?” Roark asked. “Does that truly matter?”

“If Cynthia says it does, then it does,” Byron shrugged.

“I wasn’t asking you—”

“It is important,” Cynthia interrupted. “But it was fine to ask.”

She was toeing the middle line, as she always did when talking to Byron and Roark at once.

“As you know, I fancy myths and history. It is my hobby, even though I’ve had less and less time for it as the years went on,” The Champion continued. “It is said that when Arceus created the universe, it created three guardians that were born from the same egg. Mesprit, who represents emotion, Uxie, who represents knowledge, and Azelf, who represents Willpower. These beings gave humans the capability to learn, the ability to feel, and a will—”

Cynthia observed the gym leaders’ reactions. Maylene was rolling her eyes. Roark did not believe in myths, but he was still listening, and so was Gardenia. Volkner yawned and leaned against a wall, but his attention was hers. Byron and Fantina were staring at her, and Wake was sitting down with his legs splayed out to a ridiculous amount and a huge smile on his face.

Candice was shaking, and Cynthia already knew why. Legends and myths scared her. It reminded her of the ritual.

“—Now, it is also said that these three sleep at the bottom of three separate lakes in Sinnoh. The League took a while to make the connection, but after finding Lake Valor next to Sunnyshore and the reports about the newly found Lake Acuity, we are now sure that those lakes are where these three Pokemon are sleeping. Of course, there’s also Lake Verity, which was apparently kept hidden by the people of Twinleaf for generations until Team Galactic found it on their own, and we still don’t know how they plan on waking them up.”

“Come on!” Maylene yelled. “Those are just stories! Try to take us seriously for once in your life!”

“I am taking you seriously,” Cynthia said, staring right through the young gym leader. She swallowed and settled down. “Now, why would Team Galactic want to know the locations of these Pokemon? Well, it’s said that Mesprit, Azelf, and Uxie are capable of calming Dialga and Palkia down, but they’re also capable of summoning them. For those unfamiliar, those two hold dominion over time and space respectively. That is the only theory we can come up with. Now, we don’t know what the exact purposes of this would be, but I don’t have to tell you that the results would be catastrophic. The world could potentially end.”

Cynthia paused, gauging their reactions. She had dropped that last sentence like it wasn’t a terrifying prospect, but Champions couldn’t appear terrified. She needed to be strong. Confident. And hope that feeling would trickle down to the gym leaders as well.

“The world could… end?” Roark muttered in disbelief. “Are— we should tell everyone! Call— call the other regions for help—”

“And who would believe us?” Cynthia said. “Like Maylene, the vast majority of people don’t believe in myths. The International Police is helping because they think that Team Galactic are just terrorists.”

That wasn’t the entire truth. Team Magma and Team Aqua had been stopped years prior in Hoenn, and Cynthia only heard about it after the fact in a highly classified report that only she and the other Champions knew about. The world would have ended, but only because whole swaths of the planet might have been rendered uninhabitable, either being submerged in water or covered in magma because of Groudon and Kyogre. This situation, meanwhile, could mean the universe could just blip out of existence. The fact that Hoenn had gone through terrorists wanting to summon Legendaries before meant that Wallace could have perhaps give her the benefit of the doubt. The truth was a lot more simple. Regions were simply self-serving. Even though brutal wars were a thing of the past that the younger generation didn’t have to live with— even hers— regions still distrusted and competed with each other, and help wouldn’t come until Team Galactic had already summoned Dialga and Palkia. Needless to say, that would be too late.

“How would they even get these three Lake Guardians under control?” Byron asked calmly. “They need their cooperation to summon Dialga and Palkia, from what you’ve told us.”

“And they need them to potentially control Dialga and Palkia themselves,” Cynthia added. “But the answer is, we don’t know. We don’t even know if they’re catchable with Pokeballs, or if they’ll force them to do so using some other way. We know very little about all Legendaries— a lot less than I’d like— but the LSS and I believe they have a plan and that they aren’t just acting in a rash, unpredictable manner,” Cynthia explained.

“Is that why you’ve been sending all of those League trainers to fortify the lakes?” Gardenia asked.

“That is correct.”

“And are we sure that they’ll hold?” Fantina asked. “If what you say is correct, then an attack will no doubt be coming.”

“We’re doing everything in our power to make sure that the lakes never fall, and we’ve been sending reinforcements in a discreet fashion,” she answered with a slight smile. A reassuring one, this time. “Keep in mind that they need to capture all three guardians. Team Galactic has less manpower than we do.”

“And to think I was a mere four years away from retiring,” Fantina sighed. “Although I suppose retiring is meaningless if there is no world left to enjoy contests.”

Cynthia shot Candice a reassuring look. “Are you alright, Candice?”

“Y—yeah,” she said, her voice trembling. “Uh, who else knows about this other than us?”

You understand better than anyone in this room, don’t you? Cynthia thought to herself.

“The Elite Four, the Secret Service, and a few trusted members of the League,” Cynthia said. “So not that many people. Needless to say, this meeting doesn’t leave this room.”

“Of course,” Wake said, his boastful attitude suddenly gone. “What do you need us to do?”

“I need you to get back home and act like everything is fine,” Cynthia smiled. “Which I know will be a difficult task with the burden you now bear. Be on high alert, especially Candice, Volkner, Wake, and Maylene, since you’re the closest to these lakes. And cooperate with anything the LSS asks of you.”

“We will,” Roark said. “Thank you for trusting us with this.”

Candice nodded, her skin pale. “I understand better why you let what happened in Eterna Forest happen. This can’t get out. The danger Team Galactic poses cannot get out.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Volkner sighed. “I’m back on your side. I guess I should have known there’s a reason for everything you do.”

“Thank you. And sorry for hiding the truth from you for so long.”

“I would have rather not known,” Candice said. “I would have rather stayed in the dark.”

“You cannot. Being a gym leader comes with responsibilities. You know that.”

“I do. I do, but…”

“Can we leave?” Maylene interrupted. “I don’t believe this story. I think you’re taking things out of proportion.”

Her fingers were trembling, and her words were slightly slurred. She was terrified, but a part of her was still in denial. It was understandable. She was still young. Maylene would come around. Today had been a success.

“You may go,” Cynthia nodded. “Have the Kadabra show you out.”

Cynthia had revealed everything now, and the gym leaders were back in her camp. Maylene would come around in a few weeks. Information was often withheld by the League, but it could also be revealed at the right moment to build up trust. And what better moment to pick than when three gym leaders had started to think that Cynthia was the most evil being in the League that was simply abusing her power? She had needed to act now, lest they get any ideas of speaking to the public or the press.

Yes, that just wouldn’t have been right. Cynthia wasn’t an angel by any means. She had done terrible things, and today, that had been manipulating all of the gym leaders by revealing important information at the best possible time. Cynthia liked each and every one of them from the bottom of her heart, but she couldn’t afford to only do what was right. She had to make tough decisions for the greater good. Cynthia was a Sinnoh’s Champion. A leader.

And leaders led.