Chapter 14: R4 | Crescent Moon Scars
"This match has really heated up. It's down to the wire!"
Announcers always spouted nonsense like that. Even when anyone smarter than an infant knew the match wasn't at all close.
Play to your outs. Those words, every pro battler lived by. You won a match when your opponent had no more usable Pokémon. No matter what analysts babbled about the "eye test," winning with six Pokémon standing meant the same as winning with one.
Heh. Consider the following scenario: Trainer A jumps to an early lead, knocking out Trainer B's first Pokémon. From this advantageous position, Trainer A proceeds to trade evenly with Trainer B, allowing one Pokémon to be knocked out for every Pokémon they knock out. When the match ends, Trainer A only has one usable Pokémon.
A layman or a hype salesman would say this was a "close match." In actuality, the match was decided on the first turn. The subsequent trading was a formality; simply Trainer A executing a win condition from a winning position.
Likewise, a 6-0 sweep might be an actual close match, in a situation where both trainers jockeyed to set up a single unstoppable sweeper, and after a nail-biting turn of events, one finally did.
These counterintuitive concepts were avoided by broadcasters trying to sell a product to the widest possible audience. Televised analysis was entertainment first, so it focused on shallow interpretations: who's hot, who's cold, et cetera. Narrative mattered more than truth. For everyone except the battlers, the tournament was a story: the story that gave this world clear direction and purpose.
Red and Raj, over the heads of their final Pokémon, stared one another down. The old king versus the new king, so the promos proclaimed. The storytellers must be salivating at this level of theming, superficial as it was. Raj's final Pokémon was his signature Ribombee, a charismatic bug that captured the hearts of audiences ever since Galarian regionals. It jittered hyperactively side-to-side, while Red's Kingambit sat with squatted legs and tired eyes peeping from under its bladed helmet. Youth and energy versus age and experience: the Pokémon mirrored their masters, and in coincidence was crafted ersatz fate.
But another narrative spread from the hunched flesh of these battlers like shadows cast by low sun. In Red, from Kanto, and Raj, from Galar, played a broader geopolitical drama.
Every region claimed its own rich cultural relationship with Pokémon, but introduction into the IPL necessitated adoption of a standardized battling ruleset and gym circuit. Prior to the Last War, this notion was inconceivable. The narrative that defined human life since antiquity was found in those local traditions and beliefs and gods and heroes and histories. The Last War changed everything, or maybe it was the last gasp of ideas outmoded by scientific and social progress attempting to assert themselves. When it ended, the winners—or rather the survivors—could only look upon that old narrative, the one their leaders wielded to spur them to the brink of annihilation, to global attempted suicide, with horror.
Kanto was one of that war's biggest losers, which perhaps pushed it toward a new narrative faster than elsewhere. Or maybe it lost so much blood it needed to draw from a new pool to survive. Regardless, four years after the Last War, it founded the Interregional Pokémon League. At its inception, the IPL spanned only Kanto and its three closest neighbors: Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh. But it planted the seeds for the narrative the world needed. One where Pokémon battlers, the old weapons of war, transformed into entertainers who competed in friendly, rules-based competition.
The IPL ruleset emphasized strategy over bloodsport. Turns with consistent timers, quantified vitality to prevent permanent injury, and a curated list of legal Pokémon and moves. Battle became urbane, chic, and sensible.
An overnight success. It was what people wanted, longed for, the world over. Every region that could afford it adopted IPL standards for internal competition and petitioned inclusion into the IPL itself. The regions that didn't were isolated backwaters, like Alola pre-Aether Foundation, or Orre (which was less a region and more a gap between them). By its seventeenth year the IPL included every major region in the world.
Except one.
Galar.
Perhaps in its insistence on clinging to its insular culture of competitive battling, Galar only acted out its own role in the narrative, antagonist to the new world. Transition to monoculture, though broadly natural, had seen reactionaries the world over, including in Kanto itself. Even today, the gym leaders in Celadon and Fuchsia exhibited the aesthetic, if not the ideology, of Kanto's traditions; a superficial concession. Similarly, Galar's staunch refusal to change gave voice to that minority and meaning to the palimpsest of past culture embedded on the soul—or DNA—of every human on the planet.
In the end, though, Galar bent the knee. It turned out that, beyond better fitting the modern world, the new mode of global mass market competition made more money. Galar kvetched, forced the IPL to make some minor rule changes to accommodate it, and then filled out its paperwork.
(Curiously, it happened in IPL 52, one year after a devastating terrorist attack by an atavistic cult, the true face of the antagonism Galar playacted.)
As if to prove, even in surrender, the validity of its longstanding stubbornness, Galar won its very first IPL. Most regions hadn't sniffed the cup, let alone taken it home, ever. Thinkpieces emerged, discussing "winning culture" and "unique infrastructure," or "beginner's luck." The narrative gained a new chapter. Interest renewed, and for another year society, on the whole, stayed sane.
So that's what we're poised for now, right? With the battle between Red and Raj approaching its finale. The usurpation of the old king by the new king. Galar's rise cemented. Kanto's status as center of the new world shaken.
It all depended on maintaining the illusion this match wasn't already over. One of these trainers was playing to their outs. The other had no outs left, save luck.
"I believe," Raj said. "I believe, I believe, I believe. Come on! Stun Spore!"
Red said nothing.
Ribombee somewhat directed its erratic sputtering to sputter in Kingambit's general direction. Static dust scattered. Kingambit tried to move, but went rigid with paralysis instead.
"It's ours now," Raj said. "Hit it with Moonblast!"
A pink orb, supposedly empowered by "lunar energy," built between Ribombee's twitchy forelegs, launched across the arena, and sent Kingambit staggering.
"A major hit from Raj's Ribombee! Kingambit can't handle many more of those. Red needs to make a move or his hopes of an unprecedented seventh IPL World Championship end here!"
"Ribombee has been a menace all tournament. Usually, it's Raj's opener. Now, we're seeing what it can do as an anchor."
"I believe, I believe, I believe," Raj said.
Kingambit attempted to rise, but once again paralysis kept it deathly still.
"Almost. Almost," Raj said. "I believe! Moonblast!"
The second hit dropped Kingambit into the red. Its face twisted through the pain. The jumbotron and the broadcast displayed it in full, close-up detail. It became the face of Red himself, faded into the background. It became the face of the narrative everyone expected, the old man, the tired man.
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"Could this be the end? Could this be the last turn Red Akahata plays in his competitive career?"
"It seems impossible to think about. Red's been a titan of the IPL for twenty years. But everything comes to an end. How's the saying go? This too shall pass."
"Can Kingambit muster the will to even put up a fight?"
The announcers ignored two important details. One, Red himself had not changed expression the entire battle. Half-hidden under the low-turned brim of his hat, he regarded the field with detached neutrality.
Two, Kingambit gained strength from the fallen.
It shook its slouched body. Dust shone as it moved. Its wise eyes remained riveted to Ribombee no matter what wild lurches the bug pulled. Then, with one swing of its head, Kingambit slammed its iron blade into Ribombee's body.
Ribombee crashed to the ground. As the announcers and crowd screamed, two men who never considered themselves symbols of anything but themselves, who spent their lives in forests and mountains but were somehow inextricably tied to the politically-constructed territory of their birth, finished acting out the drama assigned them, and the first of the tournament's two finalists was decided, though it had been decided many turns before.
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Superstition ill-suited Domino Sosa, but Red's semifinal victory gave him a languid peace. For twenty years, it felt like nothing made sense. He got married, had a child, his wife fell into a coma after a terrorist attack, she woke up, divorced him, and so on: a blundering whirlwind of senseless existence, his own role in it increasingly tangential.
Now, order was restored. A clear line, invisible until this moment, shone through everything. He knew, finally, it had meaning, it had purpose. In the finals of IPL 44, Domino Sosa kickstarted the myth of Red, greatest trainer of all time. Now, in the finals of IPL 64, his daughter, whom he personally coached, would end that myth forever.
Trepidation over the Toril match, which he now understood as simply a stepping stone, vanished. Obviously Cely would win. Nothing made sense if she didn't win.
This peace made him incautious. The day of the match, en route to the booth, he encountered his ex-wife.
"You look awful, Dom."
She stood at the base of the stairs between two rows of escalators. A few steps up was her cameraman panting from the weight. An elaborate sunroof bronzed everything in late Sunday sluggishness.
"You need a new suit. Ditch the hat already. And seriously, lose some weight. At this point it's outright unhealthy, let alone unsightly."
"You don't gotta look." He would've loved to say anything better. But she still had the face and physique of someone expected to be on camera.
Her eye flitted to Brittany, who took cover behind Domino and snarled.
"You know what people say about an old man and a Gardevoir, right?" Fiorella said. "Have you ever stopped to consider how embarrassed your daughter is of you? You've never considered her in your life. That's why you dragged her into this circus."
Though she'd been on her way up the stairs, she stepped down to approach him. She wasn't actually taller than him, but she carried herself like she was.
"You can't imagine what it was like. When she got back from those 'vacations' of yours. She called them the worst experiences of her life. But every time you got a chance, you took her on another, and now look at her." Her arm fanned to indicate a gigantic poster strung from the ceiling, Cely's smiling face larger than life.
"Uh, we gotta go," said the cameraman.
"Soon, Lutz. I've had these things on my mind a long time, but this spineless coward always ducks my calls."
"Maybe if you said anything other than this shit..."
"I'm saying what you deserve, Dom. You live a disgusting life in that filthy condominium, you do god-knows-what with that creature behind you, fine. It's your life. But when you insist on pulling my daughter down with you, I need to step in. You realize the college semester started a month ago, right? She already took a year off, now this? Not to mention her reputation!"
"Reputation? Fi, she's famous. Half the world knows her name, they love her."
"Love her? You haven't seen what they're saying about her online, have you?"
"They say they love her!"
"Not where I looked."
"The crowd chants her name! I've got every battling site and magazine in the world asking for an interview—"
"Magazine. Yes, let's talk magazines." Fiorella maintained her winning smile. Cely was like her that way, always neat and tidy. "Battler's Weekly was about to run an absolutely awful piece on her. I pulled so many strings to shut that down, but it's only a matter of time. I covered this crass, unreal tournament my entire adult life, Dom. No matter who you are, once you lose—and you always lose, sooner or later—they chew you up and spit you out. Suddenly you have millions mocking you, do you realize what that does to a young girl's psyche? Cely's not unbreakable, you'd know if you ever really got to know her. I'm worried. Okay? I'm worried what happens when this tournament ends."
Only at the end did Fiorella's smile crack. Domino felt Brittany loosen her grip.
Fiorella glanced around the area, at the few people passing this corner of the stadium. Her perfect self-control kept her from shouting, so nobody paid her much mind beyond the general interest someone has in D-list celebrities like sports broadcast interviewers and twenty-year retired pros. The cameraman called out again. Suppressing shame, she turned toward the stairs.
Obviously, any smart person would let it go there. Domino, however, smelled blood in the water.
"Wait one second," he said. "I know all about that article in Battler's Weekly. You really thought to pin that on me, Fi?"
"If she wasn't here, now, nobody would ever—"
"Because, the way I remember, I wasn't the one who sent her to that RISE place. I had nothing to do with that. That was all you, Fi. So maybe, if you don't want people thinking our daughter's in a cult, don't send her to a cult."
"It's not a cult."
"Why'd you do it anyway? No, don't walk away from me. Why'd you do it, Fi? Because you hated me taking her places every summer? You'd send her anywhere else to stop her from spending time with me, right?"
"It wasn't a cult. Okay? I know the founder. An interesting woman actually. I thought, since Aracely was seventeen, an internship at a female-led, scientifically-minded startup would—"
"Scientifically-minded!"
"It's work experience, Dom. Real people need it!"
"Work experience at the loony bin. Sure."
"It's a health and wellness clinic."
"The truth is you hated me so much. So much. That you shipped her to the loony bin to spite me. Now you have the audacity to say—"
"She tried to kill herself, Dom."
Fiorella spoke in such a quiet whisper—he'd grabbed her by the shoulder to turn her around, she was only a inch from his face—he thought he heard wrong. Even though he knew what he heard.
"What do you mean, kill herself? What do you mean by that? When? Three years ago? What do you mean?"
"Uh," said the cameraman, "we really, really gotta go."
Fiorella turned and marched up the stairs, arms rigid at her sides. Domino chased.
"What do you mean, kill herself? Like actually try to kill herself or like, like girl try to kill herself? Why—why the fuck did you never tell me? You didn't think I deserved to know? And you say it now, why? A trump card, win any argument? Nah, we're not doing that. Fi. Fi!"
She was so much faster than him, already at the peak of the stairs as he panted and gripped the guardrail for support. Palm to chest, he peered up as she turned and said:
"She needs to be protected, Dom." Then she vanished.
Domino couldn't follow. He gasped for air. Brittany rubbed his back and synchronized their breathing.
It couldn't be true. Someone would have told him. Cely would have told him. For a moment he remembered when Brittany came running into his arms, terrified by something Cely thought or felt. Could that...?
He lifted himself. Brittany was clearly worried, so he tried to smile for her, not that it mattered. "Come on, let's go." As they trudged up the rest of the stairs, he rubbed his left shoulder, which started to hurt. Once again, nothing made sense.
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"Welcome back. We're live at Day 2 of the IPL semifinals, where in just a few minutes Cely Sosa from the Visia region will face Toril Lund from Kylind to see who joins Red in next week's grand championship."
"That's right. For Cely, it's the miracle run of a lifetime. Nobody, and I mean nobody, expected her here. Now, it's time to see if she makes it to midnight or turns back into a pumpkin."
"She's up against stiff competition in Toril, now the only trainer yet to drop a match this tournament."
"Though there have been close shaves. Toril struggled last week against Yui Matsui, and also floundered in her final match of group stage."
"Remind me again. Who was it Toril played in that match?"
"Why, none other than Aracely Sosa."
"It's looking to be a match for the ages, folks. Expect these rivals to put everything out there on the stage today."
"I can't wait. Normally I'd say nothing will top yesterday's nailbiter between Raj and Red, but there's just a kind of energy here today—you can feel it in the air."
"Electric."
"I can barely hear myself. This is the loudest crowd I've ever seen."
"No matter what, we'll witness history today, folks."
"And the trainers are stepping onto the field. Oh! The crowd is losing its mind—"
"Done for tonight, Lund?"
The bartender, midway through wiping a glass, glanced at the crumpled bills carelessly tossed on the counter.
Lund swayed and held up a hand that flopped onto its wrist as he meandered toward the door.
"That's your daughter on TV, right? Sure you don't wanna watch?"
Only a grunt. Maybe a word spat breathless. Inaudible but indelibly a curse.
"You don't look so good Lund. You're fine to make it home?"
"I'm fine dammit. Fucking fine."
He pushed through the door and disappeared into the snowy night. "Look at that," the TV said. "Just what is Toril Lund wearing?"