Interlude 3.6.5: Sharon Fulan

Sharon Fulan

Mossdeep City, Hoenn Region

Precisely four minutes and sixteen seconds from now, the first elite challenger of the season would arrive. Danielle Penn, a bug type specialist.

I scoffed. Those were common around this time of year. I could expect to see two more in just this week alone.

It wasn't as though I didn't understand. Danielle wanted to start her elite challenge on a strong note and so picked the gym leader she had an advantage against. She weighed my reputation with the practical advantage she had and decided she could win here. If she won here, she would be the talk of the League for at least a week. It'd propel her career, setting her up as a trainer to watch.

If.

The elite challenge was like that. It sometimes seemed that all the negative aspects of being a trainer, the greed and lust for fame and glory, were exacerbated by the elite challenge.

Technically, it wasn't an official challenge. The League did not sponsor it. There were no benefits to winning, though they could request a badge as a memento should they desire. The badge would do nothing, seeing how these challengers already had eight. No, it was called that because it was what people did in order to prepare themselves before levying a formal challenge to the Elite Four. As someone who had been offered a position as an Elite multiple times, my gym was a popular target, never mind that I'd never lost one of these battles.

If anything, that I never lost an unrestrained battle was an even bigger incentive for hot-blooded, young trainers. With the recent boom in technology and the prevalence of the internet, there was real prestige in being the first to "blind the Oracle."

I was of two minds on the subject.

On one hand, it was annoying. Danielle Penn was just the first of this season to think that just because she won a conference, she was near the peak of what a trainer could be. I knew she would not be the last.

There were calls from some League administrators who wanted to formalize the elite challenge, but both Wallace and I vehemently rejected the proposal every time it came up. It was one of the few times we threw around the weight behind the Mikuri and Summers names. We had plenty to do and the last thing we wanted was to incentivize regular challenges like this.

On the other hand, the reason we, Norman, Marcus, and Wattson accepted such challenges at all, was a combination of duty and esteem. We had a duty to nurture future elites, and though most would never progress past one or two conference placements, there were a few true diamonds in the rough. Our duty as mentors did not end with a badge; gym leaders were community leaders, doubly so for storied houses such as my own. Noblesse oblige, plain and simple.

Then there was esteem. Mine and Wallace's status as "unbeatable" helped secure our gyms, not that either of us were at risk of being replaced. These battles, broadcast and recorded for posterity online, also became points of pride for the city, which was at least partially what being a gym leader was about, being a pillar of the community. Further, I also noticed an increase in tourism and decrease in crime around the Mossdeep Archipelago since I began doing this. I knew that I could not claim credit for everything, but regularly showing off my power helped to reassure the people as to their safety.

I extended my mind outward to check on Tate and Liza. They were bickering over the TV remote. Liza wanted to watch a rerun of some movie starring Diantha Carne and Tate was interested in a cartoon produced in Unova. I frowned slightly. Jin spoiled them; they were supposed to be studying the ecology of Shoal Cave, one of the areas under the protection of Mossdeep Gym.

I was going to telekinetically turn off the TV, but Liza finally won and bullied her brother into making popcorn. She flopped onto the couch and claimed the "good pillow," whatever that meant. I could've sworn they were all identical. I really ought to wrangle them back to work, but I couldn't find it in me to do so.

Was I going soft?

A knock at my office door interrupted me. The door swung open to reveal Sarah, my secretary. She was a tall, big-boned woman with navy-blue hair and laugh creases around her eyes. She used to work at the airport in air traffic control but took a minor pay cut to become my secretary in favor of more consistent work hours. "Ma'am, Ms. Penn is here for her challenge."

I knew that, of course. She knew that I knew and I knew that she knew that I knew.

I felt my lips curl into a ghost of a smile. Both Jin and Aaron loved this sort of nonsense.

Schooling my features, I nodded to my secretary. "Thank you, Sarah. I'll be out shortly."

Once, shortly after our marriage, Jin asked me why I bothered with a secretary. I saw the present; there was almost nothing in Hoenn that was hidden from me should I wish to peak. I saw the future; only a handful of people could claim to have ever misled me. Days, weeks in advance, I knew who would visit my gym and why. I knew who would win, and, more importantly, who had the potential to go far in this career path.

So why? Why bother with a secretary?

There was a time when I thought I could do it all. I tried, and developed a reputation for being somewhat spacey and aloof because of it. I quickly found that sight was not equivalent to attention. Just because I could see far and wide did not mean I could retain such an influx of information flawlessly. Not even a metagross could do that. Ever since, I found that being aloof also kept people from bothering me so I kept up the mask even after I hired my first secretary.

That, and it was boring, being all-knowing. Why have a secretary? The question may as well be, why have anything? Why have challengers? Why not just mail my badges to people who would pass instead and save everyone a boat ticket to my island? Why have relationships? Why not just hand people scripts of conversations we'd have each day?

Everyone celebrated the "Oracle of Mossdeep," but I wasn't too thrilled about the title. Forging a balance between being supernaturally informed and still living a life worth living had always been a challenge.

I peaked in on the twins again and smiled. They'd fallen asleep, Tate nestled against his sister's shoulder. This was good. Perhaps, if they held the title as a pair, they wouldn't be as lonely as I was before I met Jin.

X

The room fell silent at my arrival. My public mask was affixed as it ever was, an aloof, expressionless woman with unknowable powers and a demeanor colder than the depths of Shoal Cave. A "stone-cold bitch" as Aaron said, before I telekinetically shoved a bottle of dish soap in his mouth. I almost cracked a smile at the memory.

Almost.

Internally, I wondered not for the first time what was so special about teleportation. People acted like I didn't already teleport everywhere. One would think the citizens of Mossdeep would be accustomed to it by now. It wasn't as though I made a show of it. I just appeared on my side of the field. No lights, no sounds, just my presence. Subtlety was the sign of mastery and I'd worked too hard to hone my powers to indulge in meaningless, flamboyant displays like pretty colors.

I quelled a sigh before it could form as waves of awe, respect, and fear washed over my senses. That didn't matter in the end. Instead, I looked to my challenger, Danielle Penn.

She was as I saw her in my vision, a pretty young woman, eighteen years old, with honey-blonde hair, warm, gold eyes, and pouty lips. She had an attractive figure and a pretty, honey-gold sundress beneath a light, summer jacket that fluttered in the breeze. Looking past her appearance, I could see the small scar just beneath her right ear. She'd gotten it from an ornery kricketune back when she first started out. The near-death experience hadn't discouraged her from pursuing bug types as her specialty.

Good. A trainer should at least have that kind of resolve. Perhaps today would not break her spirit either. I genuinely did not know; I went out of my way in these challenges to crush my opponents just enough to make them question their worth. A coin toss, as Jin would say.

'Begin,' I told Morris, the youngest of the League-licensed referees I employed for the gym. He also doubled as an announcer of sorts.

He flinched a little, still unused to telepathy. "Y-Yes, ma'am," he stammered aloud. He looked out over the crowd, elite challenges tended to garner more interest from the city, and found his stride. He'd always had a flair for dramatics, ever since that acting class he took when he was eight. "Welcome, one and all, to the Mossdeep Gym! We've got a real treat for you today. Today's battle is not just for a badge, no. Today, someone has come to take on the Oracle's elite team! So, from far-flung Sinnoh, let's give it up for the Hive Queen! DANIELLE PENN!"

"I really wish people would stop calling me that. It makes me sound like I have an STI or something," my opponent grumbled. Then she remembered that there was a mic attached to her lapel. "Oh fuck, I said that out loud, didn't I? Shi-I mean, fu-Ugh, can we delete this?"

"No can do, Ms. Penn," Morris said with an easy laugh. Jin said he was a good balance to my stoicness. I didn't see it. "This match is being streamed live."

"Ah, shit…"

"The best thing to do is to move forward. So, without further ado, please put your hands together for the Oracle of Mossdeep! SHARON FULAN!" I said nothing, simply inclining my head in acknowledgement. I did not enjoy the showmanship and pageantry, even if I saw the reason for it. When the applause died down, Morris continued, this time speaking to Danielle directly, "This will be a six on six double battle. Both trainers are allowed three substitutions. A brief intermission of ten minutes will take place after one trainer loses three pokemon. Are these rules clear to you?"

"They are," Danielle nodded firmly. Now that we were back on topic, she had managed to gather herself. She was presented with the rules earlier of course, but courtesy demanded we recite them for the audience anyway.

Morris held out his hands. "Then, with the acknowledgement of the rules of battle, we will begin. Trainers, please ready your first pair. Then, on the count of three, you will release at once."

Danielle clutched a pokeball in either hand while my own floated off my belt. In a normal gym battle, I would release first. I also would get no substitutions while the challenger got three. This was not a gym battle; this was a challenge made to the best of my team. I would offer no handicaps here.

"Three. Two. One. Begin!"

I didn't move a muscle as the two pokeballs by my side released my two oldest companions. Alice and Quinn, my gardevoir and gallade, shield and sword. They did not pose or strut like many powerful pokemon tended to do; they were far too disciplined for that. Instead, theirs was the causal gait that came with absolute confidence in their abilities. They had nothing to prove; the only opinions that mattered were our own.

"Ari! Steele! Kick things off!" Danielle yelled. Her pokeballs bounced once on the ground before unveiling an ariados and a steel-variant wormadam. They looked healthy from what limited knowledge I had of bug types. She caught the returning balls with practiced ease and immediately began to set the field. "Hazards!"

Her two pokemon leapt into action. The ariados spat out enough webbing to supply several tailors and her wormadam raised jagged rocks into the air that started to orbit the perimeter of the field.

It was a good plan, but a predictable translation of Danielle's typical strategy. In the typical singles format, her favored strategy was to set up Sticky Webs and Stealth Rocks in order to control the pace of battle from the start, then use moves like U-Turn, Volt Switch, and Flip Turn to bypass the substitution limitations while maintaining aggressive momentum. Already, I could see that she was falling into a trap of her own making: switching out or micromanaging your pokemon like that was nearly impossible in a doubles format.

'My lady, my love.' I heard Quinn's voice in my mind.

Alice let out an unladylike snort. '"My love?" Really? Could you not talk like a character from a period drama for ten minutes?'

'Manners are timeless, my love.'

'By Arceus' massive dick, Sharon. Please make him shut up.'

I could already feel a burgeoning headache. Quinn was the epitome of a knight, someone who upheld nobility and chivalry to the highest standard possible. Alice on the other hand, was the exact opposite of a dainty princess. Jin once likened her to a "rough 'n' tumble biker chick trapped in a ballerina's body." I couldn't disagree. She was rude, acerbic, and not a little sadistic.

It played into their combat styles. There was no reason for Alice to specialize in support moves otherwise. She was a gardevoir, one of the most telekinetically powerful species in the world. It wasn't as though she was bad at direct combat, far from it; she just enjoyed prolonging her opponents' suffering. Reflect. Light Screen. Will-O-Wisp. Hypnosis. Anything and everything designed to infuriate her opponents. By contrast, Quinn knew how his wife could be and sought to end their suffering swiftly, which was how he got a reputation for brutal, overwhelming force and she, much to her amusement, for gentleness.

Even Artoria, their daughter, thought her mother's combat style was elegant and refined. Alice insisted on a princess-like demeanor before her daughter and everyone else was too scared to say otherwise, though I suspected Aaron knew. Knowing him, he probably thought it was funny.

I was brought back from reminiscing about my son by Alice's melodic voice. 'Hazards ain't bad but those fuckstains are in for a surprise if they think we're weak to bugs here.'

'Must you swear so, my love? You have such an angelic voice; do not taint it with uncouth language.'

'Oh, fuck off, you stiff.'

'Must you two bicker?' I chided with longsuffering amusement echoing through our bond.

'My apologies, my lady. I shall endeavor to emphasize the importance of polite language to my beloved after the battle.'

'Ah, fuck, Sharon. He's not gonna shut up for hours. Do you know how long that is in telepathy?'

'I do. We have a battle to get to,' I reminded them.

'Yeah, fine. You want me to send it back?'

'Please.'

'Fine, one Magic Coat, coming right up~'

Our conversation passed in a fraction of a second, our minds long used to the rigors of multiple mental connections. Alice's body glowed a radiant white as she began to dance. The points of her fingers connected with psychic energy, weaving a sheet of fabric that she dragged behind her. Then, teleporting before her opponents, she swept the sheet of Magic Coat along every hazard and relocated them to Danielle's side of the field.

"Wha- No!" Danielle cried as we foiled her plan from the very beginning. "We need her off the field. Ari, Cross Poison! Steele,start stacking, Quiver Dance!"

'I cannot allow that,' Quinn's voice echoed confidently as his blades extended behind him like a pair of tonfa. He stepped into his shadow and appeared from the spider's, psychic energy shrouding his arms and expanding his blades until they were as long as he was tall.

To their credit, the ariados reacted swiftly, leaping out of the way before sneaking into its own shadow in response.

'Evasive maneuvers,' I instructed Alice. 'Enrage the wormadam.'

Our bond pulsed as Alice's polite smile grew by several molars. 'Yes! You're the best, Shar!'

She teleported to Danielle's half of the field and stood on a platform of psychic energy, high enough in the sky that she cast no shadow for the ariados to ambush from. Then, she yelled out, "Gar! Gardevoir! Garde-voir!"

Or, as Quinn and I heard, 'Oi! You dogshit trashbag! Where'd your bitch-ass shitheel trainer find you? Did she dig you out of the trash 'cause she couldn't afford a real fucking pokemon? Can you even hear anything beneath that sewage-blanket you call armor? Or do you keep it around 'cause the stank reminds you of your family?'

I didn't care to hear what the wormadam said back so I didn't bother extending my senses. Instead, as soon as the steel-clad bug looked up with a Flash Cannon forming in its mouth and murder in its eyes, I ordered, ''Encore. Disable. Confuse Ray.'

'Heh. Fuck, yeah. Struggle-hell it is,' my gardevoir said viciously. An orb of ghostly power formed in her hand. It launched down into the wormadam with a deceptive slowness.

Disable was a curious move. It wasn't fully a psychic type move despite placing a temporary mental block on an opponent. It did so not by directly manipulating the mind, but by causing a quasi-hypnotic effect tied to something of the caster's that the victim hyper-focused on. For many ninetales, it was their tails. For hypno, their pendulum.

I'd taught Alice to use not the crest sprouting from her breast as many gardevoir did, but the orb of Confuse Ray. By using it as a vector, I could subject the opponent to both moves at once, something that made my sadistic gardevoir giddy with joy.

The initial Flash Cannon was dodged with ease as the trio of disabling movies took hold. The wormadam clearly had no training in resisting hypnotic suggestions like this. It swayed back and forth like a drunkard on its silk axis. It tried to condense steel type energy into its mouth but the energy would not form properly. The more it tried, the more it swayed, until it crashed directly into an orb of steel energy and detonated it in surprise, blasting itself back into the psychic barrier surrounding the battlefield.

"No, Steele, get yourself together!" Danielle tried.

"Wow, what a decisive use of Taunt and Confuse Ray," Morris said for the crowd. What other additions we made to Alice's moves were something of a trade secret, no reason to give away more than we had to after all.

On the ground, I watched placidly as Quinn chased the Ariados through shadows. Since neither were ghost types, neither had an affinity for the technique, but I was marginally impressed with the ariados' mobility. It took a truly dedicated practitioner to match Quinn with Shadow Sneak, especially considering the near-obsessive amount of practice he'd put into mastering it.

Once upon a time, when Quinn was a young ralts, he had trouble with Teleport. He became so disappointed in himself that he refused to train altogether, lazing around all day in a depressed funk and doing the bare minimum to be considered a fighting pokemon.

Then he saw it, a historical drama centered around the ninja clans of Fuchsia City in Kanto. He fell in love with the "noble protectors clad in shadows" and worked to master Shadow Sneak so he could emulate them. For months, he used to call me "hime-sama" and appeared at the foot of my bed each morning. He'd answer my questions with "Hai, hime-sama," and begged me to buy him the TM for Swift so he could have his own ninja stars. I obliged, if only because I was happy to see him take training seriously again.

He grew out of the "ninja phase" but that started him on a love for historical dramas and history in general, which led to the history of Mossdeep, Rota, Anistar, and the rise and fall of the gallade knightly orders.

I was grateful to the producers of that drama, but his "ninja phase" was a source of great embarrassment for my gallade.

'Please do not reminisce during battle, my lady,' Quinn chided as he parried a Night Slash on his wrist. He turned the parry into a twisting punch as his fist erupted in flame, nailing the ariados on its mandibles. The spider pokemon flew back with a shriek of pain and instinctive fear. 'Especially about my misspent youth.'

'Heh, remember when Artoria asked why you used Shadow Sneak instead of Teleport?' Alice giggled. 'You didn't have the heart to tell her why so you fed her some shit about facing ghosts and bypassing the protections of other psychics.'

'That's all true!'

'Yeah, but let's be real, sugar, truth had nothing to do with that explanation.'

'Hmph, my own lady wife is bullying me.'

'What did Aaron call it? "Chuuni?" Heh. I should tell them the real reason when we see them next.'

'Please spare my dignity…'

I let out a mental huff of amusement but did not let my outward mask shake. 'Enough. End this.'

'Yes, my lady.'

'With pleasure, Shar.'

Alice teleported by Quinn's side. The two locked hands as psychic power surged between them. It traveled from Alice to Quinn and his blades shone with such bright light that people had to squint to look at them.

"Gallade-gal," he spoke aloud for the first time. Then, a trail of flames erupted from his fists and encapsulated his blades, creating a corona of rippling energy. Aaron was not the first in the clan to develop new techniques.

"There it is, folks! Helping Hand!" Morris cried, somewhat unnecessarily I felt. Wasn't that obvious to people?

The fight ended in an instant as the wormadam, still dazed from the hypnotic episode, took both halves of what we'd taken to calling Crossfire directly. The ariados was kept from interfering by a timely Disable from Alice. With Shadow Sneak locked away, it was a simple matter for Quinn to turn and finish the ariados.

Then, while he did that, a combination of Reflect and Light Screen went up around my half of the field. Alice did love to stack her advantages.

Just like that, the first round was over with screens on my side of the field and all of Danielle's hazards neatly returned to her. Technically, Danielle could have sent out a third pokemon to support her ariados after the wormadam went down, but she was so busy gawking at the sudden violence to react.

I suppressed a sigh. That was the problem with modern trainers. And yes, "modern trainers," even if Aaron insisted me saying so made me a "boomer," whatever that was.

This was why I insisted on double battles. It was one of the biggest failings of the League system, I felt, reducing trainers to competitive showmen. At the end of the day, trainers were protectors, frontiersmen, soldiers, and commanders. There was no such thing as an elite trainer who was a poor commander.

Breaking trainers of the mentality of one-on-one duels was the very first thing that ranger corps instructors had to do. No one in the wild cared if you released your whole team at once. Criminals didn't follow tournament regulations. It wasn't unheard of for people on the wrong side of the law to target trainers when they got desperate.

That was what my gym taught: coordination and small-group tactics, if only just a small taste of it. My gym challenge tested a trainer's ability to engage outside of a tournament format. It tested the pokemons' teamwork and the trainer's ability to adapt.

And, though I would have given Danielle a badge under normal circumstances, she had failed the most important lesson: Her team did not fight as one.

Alice and Quinn were two bodies who shared one mind. They moved seamlessly as one unit under my command. As much as they bickered, empathic pulses flickered beneath the surface in a code we'd mastered long ago to coordinate their actions into a flawless whole. Even when they were seemingly apart, they were always ready to shift tactics on a dime.

It was an advantage afforded only to psychics, true, but I expected a bare minimum of coordination from the team of a supposed "elite." Beyond her initial strategy to set hazards, Danielle came in with nothing and hoped bug types would triumph over psychics.

No. No matter how well-trained her team was individually, she didn't deserve to be called an elite. Not here, not now, and not from me.

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"Challenger, please send out your next two pokemon," Morris said, dragging Danielle from her shellshocked state.

She considered her options for a moment before picking two more. I knew what was coming: She would send out her heracross to try and match Quinn in close combat. Her scizor would use its speed to dance around Alice's disruptions and take her out in a decisive Bullet Punch.

Sure enough, I saw two of Johto's most famous bug types appear. She'd spent a year as a gym trainer in Azalea where she flushed out her team. They were clearly a cut above the rest of their species, their shells gleaming with good health. She stood straighter, more confident now that two of her heavy hitters were on the field.

"Magnum, Agility. Bruce, Earthquake," she called. Her scizor began to vibrate in place as psychic energy reinforced its body. I nodded slightly to acknowledge her; it showed decent mastery of the move. Its wings became a translucent blur as it hovered in the air in anticipation for its partner's attack.

The heracross gathered aura into its feet and stomped the ground, sending violent tremors that threatened to unbalance my pokemon. Though there were no obvious fissures, I knew that the vibrations transmitted through the ground could severely damage the bones of most pokemon.

Neither Alice nor Quinn needed to be told what to do. Alice hopped into the air on a platform of psychic energy just as Quinn teleported by her side.

'Alfonse, do you want to debut this match?' I asked, linking my mind to the alakazam I knew was watching from afar.

'Is this really the stage you want to unveil our mega evolution?' he asked rhetorically.

'No, but I know you've been itching for a fight with a powerful opponent to test what you can really do.'

'Yes, emphasis on the "powerful opponent." This one is rather lacking. If I want a challenge, I'll go a few rounds with Alice and Quinn.'

'Very well. I'll have them finish this up. Let Somber, Pearl, and Isis know that they'll take the next elite challenge.'

'Very well, Sharon.'

Alfonse considered himself something of an artist, a lazy one at that, who disliked fighting unless it was against an opponent he recognized. He'd come if I asked, but I didn't disagree: His mega evolution deserved a worthy stage.

'Alice, Wonderland. Quinn, Sword Aura,' I instructed. Danielle had only just begun giving out orders, the doubles format working against her.

Alice began to drop yet another combination technique, this one designed specifically to handle speedy physical threats like scizor. Her body glowed a pinkish violet as she began to dance in the air to a tune only she could hear.

"Stop her, Magnum! Bullet Punch! " Danielle shouted.

The scizor leapt into action immediately, its claws gleaming with concentrated metallic energy. It became a crimson streak and the sound of a gunshot filled the air as it crashed into the preset Reflect. It reared back its second pincer and struck again, this time with Brick Break, cracking the psychic barriers. It broke through on the third strike but much of its momentum was lost, giving Alice the split second she needed to dance out of the way.

Each of her footsteps left nodes of psychic energy that spread out from her footprints like ripples on a tranquil lake. Pulses of psychic energy reverberated through the air until they completely filled the battlefield.

Quinn and I felt its effects immediately. Our minds melded together in a familiar haze that was intimately comforting to me. The three of us sank into a state of hyper-awareness, both of one another and of the field around us. The world came to a standstill, even the speedy scizor a far more manageable threat now.

This was Psychic Terrain, the psychic variant of the move Aaron favored during his first contest. Or, at least, a heavily modified variant of it. Unlike Aaron's inexperienced mareep, Alice's technique was not limited to the ground. By suffusing the battlefield with psychic energy, it allowed the user, and anyone else attuned to psychic aura, to harness it and achieve an advanced state of pericognition. It also deepened the bond we shared until there was practically no distinction between Alice, Quinn, and myself.

I watched with satisfaction as Danielle's face contorted in triumph, then shock. Alice, a gardevoir, casually stepped out of the way of a scizor's Agility-enhanced Bullet Punch. Then, just to crush her pride further, she did it another four times without resorting to teleportation. Quinn's combat instincts and natural mastery of martial arts, paired with Alice's sadism, was a sight to behold.

She danced and skipped on platforms of psychic aura, every flutter of her dress and taunting wink leading the scizor by the nose. No matter how fast the scizor moved, she seemed just a hair faster, as though she knew what it would do before it moved. More observant trainers in the audience blinked more than once as they tried to reconcile distances that made no sense, that seemed to shift with no input from anyone… because that was exactly what was happening.

The key difference between Wonderland and Psychic Terrain, the reason it merited a different name, was not the deepened connection between us. It was the realization that the psychic energy released into the air was still hers, still a part of Alice. Nothing and no one could change that. And so, she simply moved the scizor as she wanted, subtly so it didn't even notice to resist.

I'd named it after a bedtime story Aaron told to Tate and Liza, about a girl named Alice who chased a rabbit into Wonderland, a land where nothing made sense and laws and logic fell by the wayside. Trick Room. Wonder Room. Magic Room. She could use any of them in conjunction with Psychic Terrain to turn the battlefield into her playground. It was Alice's magnum opus, her ace in the hole that made her the single greatest support pokemon I knew of. The battlefield was hers now, hers to build as she pleased into the perfect stage to let Quinn shine.

Quinn for his part conjured a small armory's worth of swords, each made of fighting type aura compacted tightly into a honed edge. It was our own combination of Swords Dance and Aura Sphere, an offensive variant to make up for Sword Dance's temporary vulnerability.

He became a dervish of blades as he closed on the heracross. Every movement led into the next in a ceaseless river of attacks.

The heracross raised a Protect to handle the bulk of it. Instead of a powerful but short-lasting forcefield around its entire boy, it created a pair of bucklers on its arms to parry with. That alone proved it was exceptionally well-trained. Its own fighting type instincts took hold as it caught an aura sword on one buckler and lowered its horn to deliver a devastating counterattack.

Quinn back-stepped out of the way, two more swords parrying the horn in turn. Every attack made room for the next, creating openings in the heracross' guard. First the briefest scratch, then another and another until the river of blades threatened to overwhelm the sturdy pokemon.

"Bruce! Quake! Then disrupt the swords with Stone Edge!"

Its trainer's shout gave it a second wind. It dug its feet deep into the earth and let out an enraged roar. "HERACROSS!"

A tremor of power erupted from the heracross. Unlike the first Earthquake, this was localized to a single point, meant to buy the distance needed to regroup. Quinn took it with gritted teeth. Even as the earth shattered beneath his feet, he jumped into the air and used his own aura swords as footing, minimizing the vibrations that traveled into him.

The fragments of the field that were launched into the air by the Earthquake became the heracross' projectiles. They pelted Quinn like a hailstorm, forcing him to form a Protect of his own.

Up above, Alice was beginning to struggle. Quinn's martial arts or not, enhanced pericognitive or not, she lacked the stamina to keep up with a scizor in a purely physical contest.

She didn't have to.

'Wisp,' I called.

'Heh, poor bastard. If I fry its claws, will you eat it?'

'Scizor are not considered edible in any culture.'

'Why not, Shar? You humans stick practically anything in your mouths anyway. What's the difference between a fried scizor claw and a clawitzer claw?'

I paused at that. What was the difference? Both were pincers and it wasn't as though one was more sapient than another. Both pokemon were recorded as being self-aware. Was there a way to sustainably harvest scizor claws? Or would that be too cruel? Would scizor taste like lobster? Or more like crawfish? 'I… I don't know.'

'Hah.'

'Either way, this specific scizor is not food.'

'Oh, fine.'

Our conversation passed in a split second, more impressions and feelings than specific words. Alice teleported away, all the way to the other side of the field. There, she formed an orb of ghostly energy in her hand. Then, as the scizor closed the gap with another burst of Agility that sent resounding sonic booms through the arena, she blew it a kiss.

The ghostly orb scattered into dozens of wisps like a fluff of dandelion. The scizor had no chance to evade, especially not with Alice subtly nudging him into their path. Each wisp detonated in a brilliant conflagration of purple flames.

"Scizor!" it cried in shock and agony, losing control of its high-speed flight. Rather than be snuffed out at the speed, the wisps clung stubbornly to the scizor. Alice giggled with a dainty hand over her mouth as we watched it collide headlong into the psychic barriers.

Then, before the scizor could gather its bearings, she spoke, 'Mystical Fire.'

The ghostly flames lost their bluish tint, only to be replaced by psychic violet. She then caused a column of fire to erupt, finishing off the scizor.

Before Morris could interrupt to call for an interruption, Quinn's swords finally found the heracross' chest with twin strikes of Crossfire and it dropped a mere seconds later.

"N-No way… How?" Danielle asked, her voice hollow. She sank to her knees as Alice and Quinn regrouped on my side of the field.

"Heracross and scizor are unable to battle," Morris said officially. His tone was gentler now; he'd cut it out with his announcer schtick, if only to spare Danielle more salt on the wound. "At least three of the challenger's pokemon are down. There will be a ten minute intermission while the field is repaired and psychics on barrier-duty catch a breath."

"N-No. No need," she said morosely. She raised her pokeballs and recalled her team. "I-I yield, ref."

"You've had a strong showing, are you sure?"

She snorted derisively. "I couldn't even touch her. I'm not putting Swift and Vespa through that meat grinder."

Morris nodded and raised his voice. "Very well. Challenger Penn has forfeited the match. Gym Leader Fulan is the victor!"

The crowd applauded politely, well used to seeing similar sights. She was not the first who chose to cut their losses against me.

Both Morris and the crowd looked to me but I had nothing to say. What advice could I give? I wasn't a bug type specialist. Nor did I have any intention of teaching her how to overcome my tactics. No, I'd battled in such a way as to make her own shortcomings evident. All she needed to do now was reflect. Either she would learn from this and rise as an elite, or she'd collapse under the weight of her own shortcomings.

And, if she mustered the resolve to learn from this, there was a slip of paper waiting in her hotel room with my analysis of our short battle.

I offered them a simple nod as all three of us vanished in a joint Teleport, not having spoken a single word aloud.

X

I arrived back in my living room, a separate house attached to the gym proper via an enclosed walkway. My home, the Summers clan home, was a time capsule, practically a museum of different architectural styles. The foundation was done in old Hoenn style, built to emulate the natives by my ancestors who immigrated here. Every clan head who had renovated the estate kept the original style as a nod to our heritage.

That was about the only thing that remained of those times, architecturally speaking. Sometimes, it seemed as though every family head wanted to leave their own imprints on the estate. The third head's armory that doubled as a trophy room, filled with the swords and helms of those she killed, directly and indirectly. The eighth head's rock garden with smooth pebbles made of rounded off psychic gems arranged in soothing ripple patterns where he liked to meditate. The ninth head's vegetable garden that still grew micle berries, extremely rare berries that were said to improve a pokemon's focus and accuracy with a steady diet. Every one of them were meticulously cared for as an homage to my ancestors, each built in slightly different architectural styles reminiscent of the current decade.

Spreading my senses, being made aware of it all, always filled me with a sense of melancholy. The Summers clan did not exist anymore; I, the last to bear the name, was a Fulan now. Times were changing and feudal lords had been replaced by gym leaders, generals and warriors by captains and rangers. I'd tried to instill in my children pride in their legacy, but though they appreciated the psychic power and treasure troves of knowledge in our library, I knew that appreciation was not the same as a shared identity.

Then, before I could sink further into my melancholy, I was swept off my feet by the hyperactive fool I called my husband. He wrapped me in a bearhug before lifting me clear of my feet and spinning me around.

"Congratulations, Shar, another flawless victory." Jin Fulan did not speak. He bellowed like a starving loudred. Happy? Sad? Didn't matter. My husband was not a quiet man.

In virtually every way, he was my polar opposite. I was a slim, short woman; even Aaron was taller than me now. Jin stood a full six feet tall, with toned muscles earned through rigorous training as an astronaut. Though he was a scientist first, he had the build of a professional mountaineer. He was, in many respects, larger than life, with a personality that filled the room. His gray eyes met my violet as he insistently peppered me with kisses.

I bore the pleasing annoyance for precisely three seconds before teleporting out of his grasp. He'd sulk if I didn't let him manhandle me. I pressed my clothes free of wrinkles and replied, "It was hardly a challenge. Danielle Penn is lacking in too many ways. She should have headed to Sootopolis."

He frowned in thought and I was momentarily distracted by the way his eyebrows scrunched up. "Sootopolis? Why there? Wouldn't Wallace beat her just as easily?"

"Not every gym is considered worth facing in an elite challenge. In Hoenn, those with teams capable of giving people a taste of what an Elite Four can do are myself, Wallace, Norman, Marcus, and Wattson, though Wattson and Marcus are getting on in years. The rest of the gym leaders are too new, not much better than the conference winners themselves, or perhaps worse in the case of Roxanne and Brawly. Of the five of us, Wallace's showboating combat style would allow her to test her tactics more thoroughly than against Norman or Wattson."

"And a bug specialist going to a fire type master's gym is just creative suicide."

"Naturally."

"Did you tell her that? It'd be good advice for her to have."

I nodded. As my husband liked to remind me, I sometimes overlooked how little everyone else knew of the future. What I considered the natural course of action, others might simply never consider due to a lack of information. "I remembered this time. There is a notepad waiting for her in her hotel room with a list of where I think she should head next and what she could improve on."

"Shar…" he trailed warningly.

"I know. I gave her advice and objectives, not a step by step breakdown. I know her pride would not allow her to accept more than that."

"Good, you're improving."

"I still think you should quit being an astronaut and be my press secretary. You're better with people than I am," I said, half in jest.

He let out a snort of laughter. "Not a chance. Do you know how cool being an astronaut is? Our kids can brag that their dad's been to space! Who gets to do that?"

"Not as cool as being a gym leader."

"Do you actually know what that word means?"

"No, I'm told it's positive however," I said, smiling softly. It was a long-running joke between us, back when I was pregnant with Aaron and we used to wonder what our son would be like and who he'd take after more.

Of course, there was no question that he would be a trainer. Jin, though no longer much of a battler, was a competent trainer in his own right. He likely could give Roxanne or one of the lesser gym leaders a run for their money.

My senses rippled and I considered dodging away but resigned myself to the incoming assault. Seconds later, Tate and Liza appeared in midair and collapsed on top of me. It was only through strategic use of telekinesis that I remained upright.

"Children," I said, brow quirked in not quite condemnation. "What have I said about teleporting?"

"Not to belly-flop people," Tate said as he hung off my neck.

"But you'll catch us anyway," Liza added stubbornly.

I mimicked the sensation of a snapping rubber band on the tips of their noses.

"Oww!" the twins cried as one.

"Perhaps I should stop catching you then," I chided. "Building good habits is especially important for a psychic."

"Yes, mother," they chorused.

I looked to Jin for approval. He was always warmer than I, the sun to my moon. I let out a mental sigh of relief as he nodded slightly. Children… I wasn't ready. I had no idea how to raise children, not really. Aaron was easy. Aaron was abnormal, even for a Summers. He seldom cried. He rarely needed to be motivated. It was only after I had the twins that I learned how lucky I'd been with my firstborn. But by the same token, I had no idea how to deal with real, normal children, never mind two at once.

I could look ahead and see the outcome, as I did with most things, but that was too clinical, too detached.

Too much like the way I was raised.

My grandfather, the thirteenth head of the clan, was not a kind man. He was so detached that sometimes, I wondered if he felt emotions at all.

Most psychics divided the art into two branches, internal powers such as telepathy and precognition and external powers such as telekinesis and teleportation.

This was an incomplete categorization that held merit for lesser psychics or those in training but did not fully represent the art as a whole. If anything, I felt that rather than the internal-external distinction, the cognitive-empathic divide written of in the sixth clan head's journals was more appropriate.

Some psychics drew inner strength from years of careful, disciplined meditation. Others drew strength from the power of emotions, of relationships. Grandfather was an extreme example of the former, to the point that he believed emotions to be a dangerous disruption to his carefully cultivated mindscape. Anything that sent ripples along the lake, anything that disturbed its tranquility, was to be done away with.

Even me.

And he raised me to be much the same. He taught me to the best of his abilities. Me, the most skilled psychic in generations, only surpassed by my own children. He taught me as he had been taught, as he understood the world, as things worked for him. He saw ahead as far as he was able, simulated different outcomes, and designed a rigorous training regimen that took me to the brink of mental collapse. Again and again until I improved. Until I reached my full potential. Until I surpassed him.

Until I became a worthy heiress.

I soaked it all up like a sponge. It wasn't long before my powers could rival a fully evolved psychic pokemon. I closed myself off, locking away my emotions in a prison of my own making because I believed they would make me lose control.

Until Jin.

I didn't want that for my children. And yet, I wanted to preserve the Mossdeep Gym, the last legacy of the once great Summers clan.

I believed that of all the heads of the clan, few had experienced the clash of generations quite like I had. There were times of great strife and bloodshed, the War of Unification and the Dragon's Lament came to mind, but few felt the changes brought on by the shifting sands of time quite like I had.

So, I promised Jin to never become as clinical, as detached, as my grandfather. I promised not to treat our children like experiments or sculptures to be beaten and carved into shape. I promised to raise them as people, not emotionless embodiments of my clan legacy.

As I held the twins and reminisced, I lamented that I failed so harshly in my wedding vows. The flicker of surprise on the faces of the twins that I'd allowed them to hug me at all was proof enough. Even with all that I learned from Jin, I was far from a nurturing mother.

Quashing my thoughts, I telekinetically flipped them upside down, they were still young enough to find such goofy uses of powers funny, and asked, "Did you finish your homework?"

"Yes, mother," Liza said, echoed by her brother a moment later.

"Tomorrow's?"

"Yup, and the day after, too!"

"Show me."

"Okay, I bet I got more right than Tate."

"Nu-uh! I'm better at math than you, Liz!"

I allowed them to bicker. Scholarly literature from accomplished child psychologists said such competitiveness between siblings was healthy. Jin let out a sigh, half in exasperation and half in bemusement, but said nothing.

This was our compromise after all. When I began teaching them, he felt that I was being too demanding, especially when psychic training was stacked on top of the standard academic curriculum. My response was simple: Turn everything into psychic training.

No, the teacher had yet to assign tomorrow's homework. No, I didn't care. I expected them to divine the future and do the most likely assignments ahead of time. This would double as divination training while giving them more free time outside of school. They were doing the same amount of work as other children, just a day or three ahead.

That was reasonable, whatever my dear husband said to the contrary.

I allowed Liza and Tate to lead me by the hand to their room as Jin looked through a list of delivery menus. Neither of us could cook so we ended up placing orders for takeout daily. With an astronaut and a former noble gym leader who also happened to be a precognitive, money was never going to be a concern. There were entire teams of porygon employed by various politicians, corporate directors, and other important bigwigs dedicated to analyzing my investment portfolios, some I tanked intentionally.

Jin tried to perform acrobatics in a zero gravity chamber while drunk. I made some of the most powerful men in the world cry. I was told hobbies were healthy; it really did wonders for my stress levels.

X

I spent an hour checking their homework and instructing them on what they did wrong. I also made sure that they hadn't simply taken the answers from the teacher's files instead of doing the exercises properly. I could have assigned this task to Alfonse or Somber, but I read that spending time like this, no matter how banal, was a good way to bond with children. Time together was apparently a critical part of showing I cared.

After that, I went about nurturing their individual talents. Despite common misconceptions, Tate and Liza did not in fact have identical powers. They were twins, two halves of the same whole. There was no reason the two haves had to be identical.

Tate, perhaps due to his gentler nature, excelled at empathy, much like his older brother. But unlike my eldest, he also had talent in all forms of divination as well as healing. He was the youngest in clan history to replicate the move Heal Pulse, something I myself had only managed in my teens after studying Alice's aura flow for weeks.

Liza was far more extroverted than her brother. She was the first to learn teleportation and her telekinesis was more pronounced. Better weight capacity, better range, better fine control, even if she mostly used it to prank her brother.

The two had a competition of sorts, Tate trying to see and foil his sister's plots before she could execute them and Liza trying to use her powers creatively to bypass her brother's sight. It was a competition I wholly encouraged, all the better to develop their powers.

The two completed each other. Their twin bond allowed them to share their expertise, giving the illusion that they were both supremely gifted at every aspect of the psychic arts.

More than anything, this was why I disinherited Aaron. No matter what I told him, he was not irredeemably untalented. There were clan heads who started with less than he did. It wasn't impossible for him to become the next Mossdeep Gym Leader. He possessed an emotional maturity that was belied by his age. He worked hard. He could have thrived under my training had I followed through with the same regimen grandfather did for me.

I did not doubt my son's resolve. I was proud of him; he could have excelled, just as Tate and Liza were now.

But he would have been alone. He would have become like me.

Psychic training for a human was much different than for a pokemon. Humans, lacking the natural talent of most pokemon, needed to undergo the kind of strenuous training that grandfather put me through. Humans needed a tighter lid on our emotions, needed an unnatural discipline enforced by hours of meditation.

Jin wasn't wrong to compare it to brainwashing and I didn't want that for Aaron.

So, I gave him what I could. To the natural empath, I gave Artoria, a ralts, and kicked him out. My journey contained some of the happiest memories in my life, the times when I truly discovered the value of relationships.

No, the Summers legacy ought to go to Tate and Liza, the twins with unrivaled talent, and most importantly, each other.

I watched my children coach each other on their respective strengths for a while longer before locating the mirror in my dresser and teleporting it into my hand. "That's enough. We're going to practice long-distance scrying."

Tate broke from their staring contest. "Ooh, can we scry Aaron? He's going south to Oldale, right?"

"He might already be at Oldale actually," Liza hummed. "I read that it only takes four or five days to cross the forest if you hurry."

"Yea, sis, but big bro's not the type to hurry. He probably stopped every few hours to train his team. Maybe he even has a third team member?"

"True. There are a bunch of neat pokemon in Petalburg Woods. I hope it's as cute as Jeanne and Artoria."

"I want him to have a scyther. They're really cool."

Liza rolled her eyes. "Boys."

"Hey, what's wrong with scyther?"

"Nothing, baby brother, nothing~"

"You're only a minute older than me."

"Which, by the numbers, still makes you the baby brother, baby brother," she replied with a sly grin.

"Moommm~"

I sighed and snapped a telekinetic rubber band into both their noses again. "You are the baby brother, Tate."

"Yes!" Liza cheered, only to receive a second snap. "Ow!"

"That doesn't mean you can make fun of your baby brother."

"Sowwy…"

I slid the mirror between them. "Now, focus. Put your minds together and try to find your brother."

"Okay." Liza reached out and took her brother's hand in hers. Soon, there was a palpable current of psychic energy flowing through this connection, forging a feedback loop that reinforced each sibling. Halfway across Hoenn was quite far, and beyond either sibling on their own, but together, together they could do wondrous things.

Then, suddenly, the power died. The twins looked up at me with panic in their eyes. "Mom!" they echoed each other. "Where's Aaron?"

I blinked in surprise. "What?"

"We can't find Aaron," Liza said, voice shaking.

"We tried looking all around Oldale, but we couldn't find him!" Tate wailed.

I frowned. That should not happen. The twins were capable diviners in their own right. Aaron, a brother they loved and were intimately familiar with, should have been well within their abilities to locate. I took the mirror and reached out across Hoenn.

And then, I too came up blank.

I, Sharon Fulan, one of the most powerful psychics alive, could not find my own son.

Preposterous.

I suppressed the building panic. I had an idea. I severed the mental link I shared with Alfonse. Then, with divination alone, I tried to locate him, only to once again come up blank.

The link was forged once more and his rich baritone filled my mind. 'Sharon? What was that?'

'Just verifying something.'

'Oh?'

'It seems my son is turning into quite the treasure hunter.'

'He found another relic?'

'He found another relic.'

'Hah, that boy…'

I nodded to the twins and silenced them with a raised hand. Rather than tell them what was happening, I decided to employ another piece of advice I read and turn this into a lesson. "Scry Alfonse."

"Huh?"

"Scry my alakazam. Find him."

"Why?"

"Do it."

"Yes, mother," Liza said with a whine. Then her eyes widened as she once again came up blank. "I can't find him."

Tate frowned. "What? No way, let me try. I'm better at this anyway." Then he too looked puzzled. "I can't find him either. What's going on, mom?"

I nodded. "Figure it out."

"Another lesson?"

"A riddle. Aaron is likely in no danger."

Liza clapped her hands. "Alfonse knows how to block scrying attempts, right?" I nodded leadingly. "Artoria must have learned how to do it too!"

"No."

"Aww…"

Tate scrunched his nose in concentration. It was the exact same face Jin made when he was thinking and it made me want to ruffle his hair. "Umm… Artoria is probably too young to learn to block scrying attempts, right?"

I shook my head. "No. She could learn if she so desires, but she has Quinn's mentality and is unlikely to invest much time in the esoteric branches of the psychic arts over training her swordsmanship."

"Hehehe, I still think it's awesome. Think she'll become the first female gallade?"

"Unlikely. The gallade evolution requires specific gene sequences only located in the male sexual chromosome. Without the right genes, she will not form the right proteins that catalyze the evolution process in response to a dawn stone." The twins stared at me blankly and I remembered that I was speaking to ten year old children. "You will learn more about biology in the future. Just know that she will not become a gallade. Now, back on topic. Whether she can or cannot learn anti-scrying measures is irrelevant. She would not use them on you if she knew, and she does not have the temperament to begin learning at all."

"So it's not something she's doing… Aaron has a third pokemon and it's a powerful psychic? Or maybe a dark type?"

I nodded. "That is one possibility…"

Liza cut in. "But that would mean that a random wild pokemon learned these techniques on its own. In the middle of Petalburg Woods. That doesn't seem very likely, unless it's a gardevoir from one of the covens."

"Quite. So what is the simplest logical answer?"

I could see the moment the twins reached my conclusion. "He has another mega stone!" they said together.

"Perhaps, or perhaps not. Remember, many relics can disrupt scrying attempts, not just mega stones," I informed them, but they were no longer listening.

"That. Is. AWESOME!" the two yelled as one.

"It's definitely a mega stone, right?" Liza said excitedly.

"Uh-huh. I bet it's for Artoria. The new Kalos Champion has a gardevoirite, right?" Tate added.

"Maybe not? If he's already crossed Petalburg Woods, he'd be at the Oldale Ruins. He could have gotten something for a cave-dwelling pokemon, like an aggron. Ooh, you think his third pokemon is an aggron?"

"No way, Aaron's too nice to raise an aggron. They're super territorial, you know."

"Yeah, but what else could he find in the ruins? A zubat?"

Tate shrugged. "You never know, sis. He might find a mega stone no one's ever heard of."

"Or, maybe mom's right and it's a different relic. It's the ruins so it's possible. Maybe he discovered something related to the Titans. Or even better, the Land and Sea!"

"Yeah! I bet he has tons of stories! Like traps and secret treasure rooms. How else can he get a relic?"

I sighed and shook my head fondly but did not bother to stop them. The Oldale Ruins had been cleared out for longer than I'd been alive, near enough to a century, and it'd be a true miracle should Aaron find anything of worth there.

But that did not matter to my children. Aaron used to tell them tales of a grand adventurer with a heart of gold, a wide-brim hat, and a whip who explored ancient crypts and recovered relics for museums. He told them many tales about many different figures, but that one came to mind for the twins now.

Was it normal for children to think so highly of their older sibling? I had no idea, but it was probably fine, all the books said this was good.

That did leave the question however: Just what did he find?

Author's Note

I'm pretty happy with this. Was the battle stompy? Absolutely. Even so, I feel like with how much I hyped up Sharon and her elite team, it kinda needed to be if I wanted to do her justice.

In other news, Quinn is a dignified swordmaster. Alice is kind of a bitch. Sharon is just as hard on her challengers as she is on Aaron. That said, this was an elite challenge; she's not quite this harsh on normal challengers.

As far as this fic goes, Psychic Terrain doesn't outright stop "priority moves" like in the games. Instead, it provides a sort of pseudo-Ultra Instinct a la Goku, but only for those capable of harnessing psychic energy freely. It's also not limited to "grounded" pokemon, because that distinction is stupid.

Sharon Fulan is a complicated woman. Is she a good mother? Ehh… not really… But she's not evil. I know that she seemed vilified from Aaron's perspective, but that was never my intention. She's got a very skewed understanding of parenting, but she's trying in her own way.

Patrons voted they didn't care about a shoutout so I'm going to stop doing that.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.