Chapter 1: Groups | Goddess
O it's regulation Miss Lund. Registered Pokémon must be relinquished thirty minutes prior to the match. Freckled pantsuit bitch. Explaining like she memorized the rulebook. Like Toril hadn't. This allows IPL authorities to confirm tournament-legal movesets, abilities, and items, ensuring competitive integrity.
It happened every match, but she never got used to it. Toril felt exposed without her Pokémon. Restless fingers spidered her thigh. Competitive integrity! She entered the restroom.
A goddess was there.
Phlegm choked Toril's throat. Her heart raced, or already had been racing, but a whooshing void of thoughts provoked incredible awareness of it, this blood orb throbbing in her chest. The goddess of the restroom faced—not Toril—but the wall-spanning mirror, where her closed eyes turned toward her.
Barefoot, unblemished soles stretched tiptoe, body gently arched, arms spread to take flight through the mirror and vanish into another dimension, fingers twined in mudras. Hair bronze, skin bronze, thin wisp of a white dress, and strung from her neck a sapphire pendant the shape of an acute triangle, so finely sharpened it threatened to pierce her throat. All in her manner gentle, all terrible—Toril's limbs slumped in awe.
Without opening her mouth, the goddess spoke. Like a goddess, she spoke a prophecy of doom.
[This world will end on October 12.]
The date sounded right—significant. It was currently September 14.
[This world will end on October 12,] the goddess repeated, lips motionless, voice far older, far more drained than her youthfully bright body. The illusion frayed. Toril realized: October 12 was the grand championship.
[This world will end, but we will not. Our souls are immortal; our spirits malleable, moldable, adaptable. For we RISE—]
The goddess opened eyes incandescent and many-colored, smiled, and leaned to tap the phone perched on the lip of a nearby sink. The old woman's voice cut off, while the goddess opened her mouth and said:
"Oh hi! What a su-uper serendipitous twist of fate. You wouldn't believe how much of your tape my Dad made me watch. Every game you ever played: downloaded." Her fingers waggled on either side of her head as her tiny feet tiptoed toward Toril.
A flesh and blood human. Toril sank hopelessly against the indigo-tiled wall, teeth straining a hiss. And she kept getting closer, that slip of a dress with her thighs bare, arms bare, two thin straps around the shoulders and bracelets on her wrists, Toril boxed in, defenseless, her hand reached for a Poké Ball—nothing! Those IPL assfuckers! They planned it all along. Sabotage!
"Hnnhhrrl!"
"Whoa. Oka-ay." The false goddess retreated, hands up, dropping onto her heels. "Personal bubble. I get it." (Under her breath: "Weird.") "What, you think I'll like, shank you or something? I'm not that desperate to win."
"Wh—what? Desperate to—win?"
A curious, questioning head tilt stabbed Toril deep. "Um. Yeah? Hello-o? Recognize me? I like, get you're undefeated so far, but if you don't even know your next opponent..."
Next opponent.
For her final match of group stage.
In thirty—no, twenty—minutes.
"Aracely Sosa," Toril said.
"Aced it. Everyone calls me Cely though, so get on that, k?"
Toril gripped at her heart. Shit. This was—look. Look! Obviously Toril researched her opponents. Any trainer of her caliber did. She pored over tape. She knew every Pokémon Sosa brought to this tournament, every moveset they ran, their temperaments and tendencies.
Why the fuck did Toril need to know what Aracely Sosa looked like?
With only so much prep time, she focused on information that actually mattered. Objectively correct decision-making. But Aracely Sosa's smarmy shithead smile twisted the dagger.
Toril diverted the subject. "What about—that recording—huh? About the world ending? What was that crap?"
Aracely pattered to the sink and scooped her phone. "Nothing. A meditation mix MOTHER made."
"Your mom?!"
"No-o, silly. Not my Mom. MOTHER. All caps."
Her head shook like this explained everything and Toril trembled, pre-combustive. Possibly sensing this, Aracely appended:
"I dunno... Isn't a feeling of finality calming? I think so. The last words of a story always linger longest. On October 12, with everyone watching, I'll be those last words. Just think, this world's long line of history, and you're the very last point. What it built toward the whole time."
Her feet tucked in. Her eyes—not multicolored as Toril first thought, but bland brown swarmed by glitter eyeshadow—turned with a dab of something Toril couldn't fathom, and for a moment the knot of spite eased.
"Omigosh, so sorry. Look at me rambling."
The restroom hummed. Empty besides the two of them. There were few women at this level of competition.
"It really is such a boy's club." Aracely held up her phone, flashed a V-sign, and snapped a picture. "You should see Dad. He's ecstatic. Since I was thirteen he's dragged me to jungles and mountains and who-freaking-knows-where. I don't get the hype. Like yeah, some of these Pokémon, kinda cute, but. Way too many are uggo incarnate."
"U—uggo?"
"Seriously. Like, that Zoroark of yours? Barf. Why's it covered in veins? Hideous, right?"
Toril's hands, both the gloved and ungloved one, twitched at her sides.
"Not your fault. I get it. You can't just use cute Pokémon, they have to be competitively viable. Blegh. I'm so lucky Dad trained mine for me. Cannot imagine the feeding and cleaning and whatever."
"You didn't—train them yourself?" Daddy did it for her? Daddy's pampered princess? He works, she makes herself pretty? Primping, preening, hours every morning—drubbing her eyes with glitter—shoving her soul down the garbage disposal. And they let her in this tournament? To make a mockery of the whole fucking thing? Competitive integrity!
"There are so many too. Every battle, a Pokémon I've never heard of. I swear"—tap, tap on her phone with long lavender nails—"people who have them all memorized must be—mm? What's up, Tors?"
Toril's fingers went up, all eight hooked, maybe to strangle Aracely, maybe to ram the sapphire pendant through her throat—Aracely's or Toril's, whichever—but they grasped nothing.
Nothing—that was what Aracely was—nothing. In fifteen minutes, Toril would prove it, to everyone.
Aracely stared sadly at Toril's outstretched hands. "Mm, no. I don't think you will."
Millimeters from murder, Toril spun sharp on one heel and barreled through the bathroom door. She fled down the concourse in case Aracely pursued, imagining Aracely's disembodied head bouncing smiling behind. She didn't stop until she reached the check-in station and safely concealed herself amid the trainers.
Then she realized she still needed to piss.
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Wow. Something Cely said?
She laced her gladiators, slid into her jacket, and departed the restroom's makeshift zen sphere. Toril was already out of sight.
Now about Tors. Sure, the whole face area, highly reminiscent of Nosepass. But let's focus on the positives: Natural blonde, super tall. We're looking at a workable base.
What one must do is get her out, out, out of that slate gray arctic camo jacket. Plus the truly bizarre glove (one hand only!). Unravel her, rebuild. It's September, so think autumnal. Emphasize her height with a long wool blend coat, straps and big buttons, maybe a deep burgundy or chianti to contrast her hair. Oh! Plus wouldn't it be darling? A beret, mm, adorable, Cely you are a freaking genius.
Granted this endeavor was for naught without a landmark undertaking in the hair and makeup department, but Cely was the hair and makeup girl. Four hours alone with Toril, then, voila. Brand new woman, constructed out of the ashes of the old.
With that much control, what wonders her hands would wreak!
Twin Machoke hauling audio equipment forced Cely against the hundred-meter plate glass edifice that formed the concourse's outer rim. Through the window a sunset streamed over the mountaintops, burgundy like Toril's new coat, and Cely thought briefly how sad that in a month this whole beautiful world would be destroyed.
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Oh well!
She checked her obnoxiously de-Rotomed phone. One of her besties left a text (GOOD LUCK XOXOXO CHEERIN 4 UUU), while the other didn't send a thing. Understandable. Time zones et cetera.
Nothing from MOTHER.
Meanwhile, because the way was clogged with staff, trainers, security, production crew, and Pokémon, Cely failed to see Dad until she already passed him.
He saw her, though. "Cely. Cely!" He'd sunken into a couch in some lounge area. He gripped the cushion with both hands, but failed to rise. "Dammit. Britt, help me out here."
Brittany, Dad's post-divorce companion, took his hand in her two and tugged. Despite his two hundred-plus pounds on her, their combined efforts got him upright.
At which point he lumbered after Cely, his ill-fitting, untailored, rumpled cream suit an affront of creases, his fedora dancing precariously atop his head until it finally flopped off. Brittany, hurrying behind, picked it up and replaced it.
"Damn! Slow down Cely," Dad said. "You remember your team? Your opener? Your flowcharts?"
"Dad. I dream about flowcharts."
"And Toril Lund? What's Lund running, you remember?"
"Ghost Spam Illusion Hyper Offense: Annihilape, Porygon-Z. Zoroark."
"Hisuian Zoroark. But she's also got the Hail team, remember? Alolan Ninetales, Baxcalibur, Volcarona."
"It's not called Hail anymore, Dad. It's Snow."
He fanned his fedora. "Pah. That's just to make people buy new TMs."
"I think they got sued when a hailstone paralyzed a spectator."
"Regulatory bureaucrap."
Cely swiveled on her heels and half-walked, half-skipped backward, forcing people to weave around her for a change. "Anyway! How do I look? Cute right?"
"Shit Cely don't ask me, I don't know. Now about Lund—"
"How do I look?" Cely asked Brittany. "Cute?"
Brittany scrutinized, then tepidly nodded.
"Perfect. Thanks for the last-second cram sesh Dad. Gotta check in now. By-y-ye!"
"No, hold up. Cely! You're not taking this seriously. It's your last shot to clinch a bracket berth. Hear me? You lose this, and fate's out of your hands."
Cely stopped in the middle of the concourse, only a bend from the check-in station. A line of holoscreens dotted the wall, washed out by the sunset, rendering the figures that spoke on them chalky and imprecise. "As for the upcoming match," a nasally analyst said. "Not a fan of Aracely Sosa's reactive style here."
"Well then," Cely said. "Let's get serious. I think we should change my team."
This was not what Dad expected, and during his nonplussed stagger Cely continued toward the check-in station. "Whoawhoawhoa, Cely. Whaddya mean change it?"
"I mean change it. Momokins in, Ziggy out."
("Sosa has a commendable team. Great team." The holoscreens dotted the corridor, walking did not escape them. "It beats teams worse than hers. Toril Lund's team is not worse than hers.")
"Nope. Nah-ah. No way kiddo. I love me some Momokins, you know I do. He carves up Annihilape for dinner. But in hail he's a popsicle."
"He won't be in hail. Or even snow."
("I question Aracely's fundamentals," said a stately-sounding woman. "When she faces Pokémon she's not specifically prepared for, she has no idea what to do.")
"Lund's got two teams," Dad said, "and one uses hail. It's fifty-fifty he's in hail. No. Our current team beats both of Lund's. Her weakness is a strong offensive fairy type, which we got. Ziggy's basically as good against Annihilape as Momokins, and kicks Baxcalibur's ass. I've drilled Ziggy for this all day."
"Momokins is better against Annihilape than Ziggy."
("Toril meanwhile is fast, aggressive, has the fundamentals, has the team. It's a stylistic mismatch. I don't see an avenue for Aracely to win.")
"How are you so certain it's Annihilape? It's fifty-fifty, Cely."
A shrug. "She just gave that vibe."
"Vibe?!" Dad's hands went to his forehead, rolled down his face, tugged at his beard. "Cely. Listen to yourself. This is like when you were ten. Remember? You thought you had psychic powers."
"Oh, seriously Dad? Dredging up ancient history?"
"Then don't feed me crap about vibes! Battling is math, probability, logic, and the unbreakable bond between trainer and Pokémon. You don't got the unbreakable bond, but you do got the math, so use it!"
So loud. And perfect timing, they'd stopped in front of the check-in station, jampacked with trainers with nothing better to do than await their next match. They gave her the stinkeye. Cely flashed them her absolute kindest smile, then hissed at Dad:
"I'm taking this more seriously than you know. There isn't a second chance for me." October 12, then no more. "I'm the trainer, not you."
"The trainer!" Dad, of course, ignored the hint to lower his voice, even as Brittany placed her hands on his shoulder to calm him. "I made you, Cely. I made your team, I made your strategies, I made everything that got you here. Cely don't you walk away from me!"
But she did, into the check-in station, and when Dad tried to follow a guard said: "Sorry sir, battlers only past this point."
"I am a battler! I played finals here, right here, twenty years ago! You punkass"—jabbing a sausage finger at the pimply-necked guard—"were you even born yet? IPL 44? I played finals!"
"Didja win," a trainer asked.
"I―I―you―!"
He was set on making a scene. Cely came back out, palms up.
"Okay Dad. You win. I'll go with your team, I'll go with Ziggy. Not Momokins. You win."
The magic words soothed him. He stepped back, pressed a hand to his chest, and breathed. Brittany breathed with him, a rehearsed exercise, and the red drained from his face.
"Shit. Sorry Cely. It's just—it's a big deal for me, okay? I don't wanna see you squander your shot."
"I won't Dad. You know me. I hate losing."
"I know Cely. And you know I love you."
"I know Dad."
From inside the station, a microphone intoned: "Five minute warning for Toril Lund and Aracely Sosa. Both trainers approach the desk now."
"Gotta go Dad! Bye-bye."
She tried to leave but his hand fell on her shoulder. She turned, expecting a hug or whatever, but instead he pointed at her neck. At her sapphire pendant.
"The hell's that?"
"Nothing, Dad."
"That lunatic gave you that, didn't she?"
MOTHER. "She's not a lunatic, Dad. She runs a legitimate health and wellness clinic."
"People see you wearing that they'll ship you to the nuthouse. Give it."
"It's fine Dad."
"I said give it."
She tucked the pendant under her dress. "See? It's fine."
"I don't want you talking to that woman again Cely. Your mother never should've sent you to her."
"It's fine Dad."
"I repeat, five minute warning for Aracely Sosa. Aracely Sosa, approach the desk now or forfeit..."
"Gotta go Dad." Before he said anything more, she pushed through the crowd and tapped the desk.
Toril, the only one in the room not staring at Cely, stood beside her. A black, choking aura. Lost in her own spiteful little world. Cely imagined her in cashmere and the foulness dispersed like droplets of mist.
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The clap of the crowd became a rolling wave of thunder over the mountaintops that thronged the stadium. Twilight turned the sky a gyre of graying violet, and the stadium lights snapped on to shine over the arena floor.
Eighty thousand bodies seething together; an extra few hundred million watching from home. All blissfully unaware of their impending doom.
In the broadcast booth, the announcers set the scene. "It's the final day of groups here at the sixty-fourth annual Interregional Pokémon League World Championship. Groups A, B, and C have already finished. Today, we'll see which four trainers from Group D will advance to the bracket stage."
"This match is a big one. After struggling the first week, Aracely Sosa's really hit her stride. Now she's on the cusp of clinching a spot, but she'll need a major upset against the undefeated favorite Toril Lund..."
There, in the stadium, these cerebral words went unheard. Brute frenzy gripped the audience, fervent simply in concerted display of life. Narrative, that singular and cohesive line making sense of the insensible, was not yet fully formed for the two young women who entered severally the stage. It was still groups: a two-week onslaught of three-on-three duels among forty-eight regional champions from across the world. The analysts buzzed about favorites, underdogs, historical performers, prodigies, but their words were a road built moments before their boots trod it. Give it time, certainly, and the throughline would shine clear, and the ultimate result would become a retroactively fated occurrence. For now, though, what did the crowd care about Toril Lund from the snow-swept Kylind region, or Aracely Sosa from sunny Visia? They cared to see the world's greatest weapons battle one another. They cared for Pokémon.
There were, though, some individuals keyed upon the human element.
Like the plump but pretty girl swaddled in blankets on the bottom bunk of a college dorm halfway across the world. She'd never cared about battles before in her life, but now giggled anxiously as her best friend blew kisses to the camera. The roommate above rolled over and snapped: "Shut up Haydn, it's 2 a.m..."
Or the plaid and besotted creature nursing a stein more backwash than beer, wincing as he rubbed his ribs—they caught him counting cards again—wondering ways to scuttle out from under debts stacked precipitously, glancing at the staticky CRT TV mounted above the bar only after a sometime chum said, "Ain't that your little girl Lund?" The awkward thing shambling with its head tucked into its collar could've been anyone. He spat, shrugged.
Or MOTHER. Deep within the inner sanctum of the RISE Health & Wellness Clinic, all allowed darkness to better hide the poison streaks that never quite left her body, fingers thatched and face stone as she watched impassively the two trainers take positions atop checkered battling platforms. At the fringes of her chamber, in tall tubes of fluid, tentacled things ebbed.
For the rest, spectacle alone sufficed.
"Trainers," an automated, Galarian-accented voice intoned in each battler's earpiece, "please confirm readiness."
On their platforms, staring each other down over a chalked fifty meters of bare earth, Toril Lund and Aracely Sosa tapped their holoscreens.
"Trainers, please choose—three—Pokémon."
Their respective screens showed their nine registered Pokémon. Both trainers hesitated. Aracely glanced into the diamond-studded swath of audience, seeking the spectator box where her Dad would be, then at Toril, who quickly averted her eyes.
Both selected three Pokémon.
Tubes within the platforms sent up their Poké Balls with a shlorp and deposited them into magnetized notches at arm's length.
"Trainers, prepare to send out your first Pokémon. The battle begins in—thirty seconds."
Look at her, Toril Lund thought as she gripped a Poké Ball with her gloved hand. Empty—superficial. Built by her father. She has never known what it means to risk your life for your Pokémon. To lose part of your body for them. She sees them as playthings, not comrades in arms. Nothing but a pile of dust.
Look at her, Aracely Sosa thought, twirling a Poké Ball on the tip of one finger. So lonely. She's never had a friend, could never have a friend, she'd force them away. She left home at ten. Animals are her only companions. She's lost and doesn't know it. Can she find herself before the end? Not without help.
"Trainers, send out your first Pokémon now."
"Go," Aracely said, "Rotom!"
Her ball followed a graceful arc from platform to arena floor, bounced, and split. A spray of light manifested into Rotom, jolly orange ghost in the machine, lidless eyes and goofy smile. It was her first ever Pokémon. It came with her phone.
It wasn't possessing a phone now, though. Its form was bulky and square, a hose on its side and a round opening in front. Rotom's washing machine version: Rotom-Wash for short.
Toril's ball hit the ground slightly later on account of her surprisingly elaborate wind-up motion. The spin caused it to careen in a random direction, but it still sprayed its light into the form of a Pokémon. Cely stared with keen interest. If Tors was using her Snow team, it'd be Alolan Ninetales. If she was using her Ghost team, it'd be Porygon-Z or Annihilape, with a chance either was actually Zoroark (ahem, Hisuian Zoroark) using its ability to disguise itself.
Snow, or Ghost? Who was right, Dad or Cely? She sincerely hoped Dad was right, because she went with his team.
The light became a Pokémon.
It wasn't Alolan Ninetales.
It wasn't Porygon-Z or Annihilape.
It was—
It was.
Crap.
Trainers brought nine Pokémon to the tournament, but only used three per match (in groups, at least). So far, Toril showed six, leaving her last three hidden for the bracket. Neither Cely nor Dad expected her to reveal one of those now. In another circumstance, Cely might be flattered by the special attention. The problem?
Cely didn't know what this thing was.
She'd seen it before, vaguely. She knew its type, though the leaves growing down its back gave it away. Large, knuckle-dragging simian, ringed eyes and sinister sneer, gripping a wooden drumstick with drum to match, but what was it called?
The holoscreen updated to show the fielded Pokémon. The name was revealed: Rillaboom.
Tors grinned infernally. Cely had no clue what to do.