The sun began to crest the horizon, reflecting off the glass superstructures of Celadon’s downtown, bathing the city’s streets in overlapping arcs of light even before the star itself became visible from the ground.

When the Pallet and Silver Leagues had joined together in the wake of the Indigo War, a new federal military government, known as the Indigo League, had been created. But as the separate territories of Kanto and Johto remained isolated both geographically and culturally, there came a need for an in-between body, much larger than a city's administration, but smaller than the country as a whole. And so the remnants of those previous leagues became the Provincial Ministration, a bridge between the new and old, responsible for communicating the needs of the various municipal governments upwards, and the demands of the League downwards.

Today, Daniel Jitsu felt that things would be going mostly downwards.

The Minister sipped his absinthe as he watched his city wake up. He had been a member of the Pallet League, once… But today he was simply a Minister of Kanto, one of a great many, rich and poor, male and female, old and young.

Surrounding him were a great gathering of his fellow Ministers, clad in modern suits and traditional robes, drinking anything from water to wine to spirits. An observer may have found it interesting to note how disorganised the collective was; people sat without hierarchy, young women who had joined the organisation mere months ago mingling with elderly statesmen who predated the Pallet League itself. Mixed in were a handful of mayors and governors, elected officials who had tied themselves to the cause.

But though some had climbed up from below, none had descended from on high; the room contained not a single League official. Nor would it ever; this was a place for only the most loyal of the loyal. Those whose sincerity was unquestionable, as verified by esoteric means.

All of them were in a state of anticipation, waiting to erupt into either fury or exaltation. The focus of their attentions was a small, innocuous-seeming object; a black stone, rectangular, just about the perfect size to fit in one’s palm. Three indentations, vaguely shaped like eyes, were sunk into the face of it, and Minister Jitsu knew that three identical marks adorned the other side.

The stone was set upon a pedestal, against the backdrop of the city’s prosperity, the perfect symbol of what the Inner Ministry was striving for. Through the wall-length window of his own personal office, Celadon gleamed, bright and alive.

Placed carefully upright, the black stone's indentations were arranged in a triangle – and the ‘top’ indent glowed white where the other two were only black stone, a pupil for the analogous eye. Every man and woman’s gaze was fixed to those dark bottom indentations, as though they could force the artifact to respond to their will.

Would that it were so, he thought. Would that the world could be moved merely by the wills of men alone.

Ten, twenty, thirty seconds passed since the last transmission. Small sounds propagated through the room, people moving restlessly, consuming their drinks, but none spoke.

And then, the tension was released – the left indent flashed white for a single second, and then both it and the top indent went black, inert, the eyes closing as the psychic connection was cut.

The room erupted. Many growled in frustration, or turned to a nearby Minister to vent their spleens through complaint. One of the most elderly among them, Chancy Unsuki, a man whose life was measured in three digits, dashed his rice wine to the ground in frustration.

For as much as the Inner Ministry valued cold logic, it was also a living, spiteful thing. A creature of two faces, and six eyes.

Daniel did not partake. He simply sat, hand clenching around his glass.

One sign. The Moltres has evaded both us and the Johtonians.

Not the worst possible result, but a failure nonetheless. Today was our best chance. With the legend’s passing across the Cinnabar line, our agents will have a harder time tracking it. Blaine controlled the Seafoam Islands, and his associates were some of the only people who could match Fuchsia’s ninja clans in skill. In a perfect world the Gym Leader’s goals would be in line with theirs… but if the world were perfect, there would be no need for the Ministry in the first place.

Minister Jitsu sipped at his absinthe, anise and wormwood and a dozen other herbs colouring his tongue green as the dazzling show of dawn progressed, the light travelling down each building like a rain of falling stars.

Then he stood. “Ladies, gentlemen,” he projected. “There is no need to unsettle your stomachs. Come, let us drink, and plan for the morrow – for our task is not yet done.”

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Goldenrod was home to innumerable businesses. Offices, restaurants, stores selling clothing and furniture and entertainment; whatever one desired, it could be found in Johto’s City of Golden Waters, often many times over.

But today, Tamara was in search of something that could only be found in a single place.

On the eastern side of said city, far from the water, the woman with dark hair and bright eyes ducked through the early morning fog, swift but light steps taking her towards one of those aforementioned businesses. She passed a few, none of them what she was searching for – until at last she spied it: Extravagant Coffee and Wonderful Pastries, read the sign above the entrance.

She opened the cafe’s door, eliciting a cheerful jingle, and sat near the counter.

Even at such an early hour – or perhaps because of it – the service was swift. “Would you like a menu, ma’am?” came the voice of an approaching waitress, a woman of similar age but nearly opposite appearance. Heavyset, with strawberry red hair and eyes like charcoal.

“No thank you,” Tamara replied. “Give me the usual, with three times the salt.” A brief pause. “The cooks will know what I mean.”

The red-haired woman’s eyebrows pulled together, but her tone remained professionally polite. “Of course.” She began to step away, but a beckoning gesture from her customer caused her to pause.

“And can I get the key to the bathroom?”

The waitress nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Tamara waited. The cafe was relatively empty, only her and four employees; the waitress, a young man on cashier duty who continually snuck peeks at her when he thought she wasn't looking, and the two cooks in the back, whose movements she could track by sound. It was a small business, seemingly no different from the many others that filled Goldenrod’s wide streets and narrow alleys.

In fact, the sign looked almost identical to the donut shop across the street. She frowned at the stray thought. Was that there the last time I was in town?

If it started being too hard to find the shop, the exterior might have to be made slightly more visible.

She continued to wait. The waitress returned less than a minute later, baring the key, and Tamara entered the cafe’s bathroom – and then, she continued to wait. Another minute and a soft click entered her ears, and in response she removed the back of the toilet, reached inside, and after only a moment’s search found the switch hidden on the underside of the submerged pipe.

A section of the tiled floor made a dull sound, raising up a few millimetres, and Tamara bent down to haul the secret door upwards.

She went down. She closed the door behind her. She followed the narrow, short hallway to a room with several lockers. She opened the one with the number 48 engraved on its surface.

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Tamara ceased to exist as she stripped off her wig and coloured contacts, fished the bits of plastic that subtly changed the shape of her mouth out from between her gums and cheeks, and stepped out of her silhouette-altering clothing and shoes

For a moment, the nameless woman stood nude, shivering slightly in the chilly room. Then she donned her ninja robe – a sleek, form-fitting garment that might have looked impractical to anyone who had never needed reasonable protection, near-superhuman range of motion, and low weight all in one – gathered a few of Tamara’s things, and finally slipped on the mask that transformed her into Number Forty-Eight.

Then she continued descending into the complex.

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“Do we have eyes on it yet?”

Those were the first words that Forty-Eight heard when she opened the door to The Basement. The voice that spoke them was slightly raspy, somehow teetering on the knife’s edge between youthful and aged, like a woman in her twenties who had smoked every day since she was a toddler.

Or a woman in her twenties with old poison stiffening her vocal cords.

“Not yet, mistress.” “We’re monitoring, but the radios keep failing…” “The messenger should be here any- ah, there she is.”

The litany of subordinate voices were less damaged, but not a single one was whole. One of her sisters turned – the one who had first noticed Forty-Eight before the others, her mask bearing the digits 6 and 2 in fabric just a half-touch lighter.

She was a small woman, enviably so – Forty-Eight had been forced to scout out larger openings many times over the course of her duties; if her body were like that, she would be able to fit easily through the gap beneath a closed door. “Report, junior sister.”

The young ninja placed her hands in full view, bowing. “I am Forty-Eight. I’m afraid I must be the bearer of bad news.”

The woman in the centre of the room, Matriarch Four, turned away from the wall of screens. “Speak.”

A steadying breath calmed her nerves – though her training prepared her for many things, the events of the previous days had been… difficult. “We were able to harry the Firebird all the way to the island’s edge,” she began, “But at that point we began encountering… problems.”

Four’s eyes narrowed. “Doksu.”

Her bowed head tilted downwards a fraction more. “As you say, Matriarch. The first clue was when Twelve and Twenty-One took ill. Their feet were covered in pustules consistent with natural toxins, so we guessed that they had simply passed below a forretress’ tree without noticing, but…”

“In the act of treating their wounds, you were attacked,” one of the other subordinate ninja finished.

Again, the most subtle of nods. “The two who were poisoned died. Sixteen died. Eighteen was heavily wounded. We killed two, while at least four escaped.”

The room was silent as the Matriarch processed her words. “You are too few to continue the mission?”

“Yes, Matriarch. When I left, there were only three others. We had only a single of the capture tools remaining.”

Four’s face was grave beneath her mask, emotion reaching up to touch her eyes. “Were you able to recover any enemy equipment?” Behind her the screens flashed in and out of static, brief views of a smoking caldera, an icy mountain, an abandoned wreck of charred and melted steel.

Forty-Eight reached behind her back, slowly, pulling free a small package from a concealed location.

“Place it on the floor, then remove your mask.”

The ninja stilled for only a fraction of a second – then she obeyed. She ceased to be Forty-Eight, continuing to bow before the Matriarch, all but non-existent in her namelessness.

Between one second and the next, the mask lying carefully folded on the ground disappeared. Then a different one blurred into existence, similar but distinct. The Matriarch of the Ankoku ninja clan did not appear to move even slightly, despite moving so quickly as to be invisible even to her own sisters.

“Put it on.”

The woman did so.

“You are now Twelve. Wear the name with pride. Follow Sixty-Two for the extended debrief; afterwards, return to your civilian life.”

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Jiei Enoki has never seen himself as a social person. Perhaps that was why he pursued the path of the monk, why he felt more at home in the presence of the dead than the living, why the small conference room filled with his peers made him so very, very uncomfortable.

Or perhaps each of those things sat off in their own corner, unconnected, their roots obscured beneath the soil of his mind. For it is the nature of a spirit to always quest for themselves, searching and searching for that which cannot be answered. If it is true of the dead, then why not the living as well?

The woman called the Dragon Empress slammed her palm down on the conference table, the sound like a clap of thunder, and none of them were moved. They were the Elite Four; a startling noise could never touch them.

Clair must be aware of this, said his thoughts; she was not attempting to intimidate. She was only a rash woman, passionate, expressing herself with restrained violence.

“Enoki, you promised me you’d have them rooted out by summer. It’s the last day of July. What happened?”

Embarrassment burned in his gut, the urge to dip his head under the table as three additional pairs of eyes turned his way.

Or perhaps it is shame. Perhaps it is shyness. Who can say which emotion is which, when they all bleed into each other, plants grown from the same seed?

“I am sorry, Champion. While my ghosts seemed the perfect solution to our puzzle, the pieces have changed their shape while I looked away.” A gastly, unrepentant of its failure, flitted out from one of his sleeves before disappearing down the other, its tongue lolling with joyful malice.

A vein pressed out from the Dragon Empress’s forehead. Quickly, before she could explode, another voice cut in.

“You shouldn’t expect too much of him, Clair. He’s only a child.”

Jiei’s cheeks coloured. The Masked Magician was not wrong, but the man’s words caused his chin to lower nonetheless.

Will Zelcovia was resplendent as always, slim and graceful in his elaborate silk finery. Of all of them, it is the Psychic Elite that Jiei most admired; the Karate Master’s movements are harsh and powerful like a flowing waterfall, the Dark Mistress languid with a persian’s grace, and Clair Blackthorn is the Champion.

But for whatever reason, it is the sight of the mysterious Will that makes Jiei’s head fill to bursting with feelings of inadequacy.

His power was his own, even more than the Champion’s, than the other two Elite’s. And their power was at least earned through deeds.

Jiei Enoki was merely the Heavenly Medium; there is not a shred of power that comes from him. He is conduit – a servant, not a master.

Clair’s voice was harsh and low, rumbling. “No insulting the other members, Will. Don’t think I won’t throw you out.”

The magician replied, soft and airy. “You misunderstand. I am defending him, Champion. Two countries’ worth of ninja, legendary Pokémon, and worst of all, politicians…” He flipped his hand as though performing a card trick – and like magic, one appeared. The seven of clubs. “Not even I could keep track of all that, let alone keep them from killing each other, and I’ve been digging my roots in for over a decade. You place entirely too much weight onto the shoulders of a single person.”

Jiei swore he could feel the Champion’s teeth grinding. “It’s necessary. If either side manages to get a single legend into a ball, then the war’s back on. We won’t be able to stop them – not you, not me, not anyone.” Even though her arm was slender, and her fingers even moreso, the steel of the table deformed under her grip.

“We need to keep things from escalating. And the last tussle with the Articuno put my whole team on their last legs. I need you four to step up.” Even while asking for assistance, her snarl was aggressive. “Please. Just keep them stalled for a month so my dragons can get back into fighting shape.”

The Karate Master huffed. “Don’t ask me to do more than I already am. I’ve had to put my training completely on hold just to keep Saffron from exploding into full-on gang warfare.” Though he was nearing his fifties, the man’s voice was smooth and full of vitality – and under Jiei’s skin, a thousand voices chuckled at the thought of such a supple meal. “Unlike you, I don’t have an entire clan to fall back on. Can’t you deploy some of those famed Dragon Monks of yours?”

Clair’s spirit flared up like a bonfire. Karen spoke for the first time since the meeting’s start to compare her unfavourably to her cousin. Will attempted to act as peacemaker, but failed to resist the sharpness of his own tongue.

They bickered, the four most powerful people in Indigo fraying at the edges under too much responsibility – and he, the Heavenly Medium, could do nothing to help; he had tried to keep the Ankoku and Doksu from each other’s throats, and failed. Had tried to keep them from finding the Three Heavenly Birds, and failed.

Inside Jiei’s chest a sea of darkness roiled, feeding on the conflict.

He hoped, dearly, that he would not need to feed it with souls, before the summer ended.