Chapter 29

After a long morning of training and an early lunch, you and Captain Rubina Roth are the only ones in motion, patrolling the living room for Space Pirates. It's a very important job, but difficult, given that the good captain is your only action figure. The great Nathaniel Morgan hasn't picked up on your comments about how much nicer it would be if there were some Space Pirate toys around for you to play with. You probably need to be less subtle.

None of the pokémon will play with you, either. Mightyena's asleep on the couch, and Raticate's in his nest again, chewing on something. Graveler always just sits around and stares. You flop down in your favorite chair and try to remember all the best Transformozords episodes to reenact, but that can only occupy you for so long. If there's nothing interesting to do around here, you might as well go out and run some errands.

The great Nathaniel Morgan looks up from watching a video on his pokédex when you make for the door. "Where the fuck do you think you're going? Sit your ass back down. We got work to do this afternoon."

"I am bored. There is nothing to do here. And I need to buy things for Leonard Kerrigan anyway."

The great Nathaniel Morgan frowns, and you immediately regret elaborating. "You what?"

"You were the one who thought I was not doing enough to take care of him. Well, now I am. Goodbye."

"No. Hey. You're bored, Freak? C'mre. Siddown. Let's have a little chat." He kicks the chair across from him out from under the table.

"We can talk when I get back," you say. You get the feeling you aren't going to enjoy whatever conversation he has in mind.

The great Nathaniel Morgan groans and rubs his face, dumping the pokédex on the table. "Look, just level with me, here, Freak. What the hell is up with you and Kerrigan? And all those other people you took out?"

"I did not take any--"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first ten fucking times. So what did you do, then?"

"I am tired of talking about this. And I am leaving."

"Look, you don't want to hear about it no more, just spill already and get it over with. And come on. Don't pretend like you ain't itching to talk about all your batshit crazy adventures."

You waver, because of course you don't want to do what he wants. You don't take orders from him. But you don't really want to deal with Leonard Kerrigan, either, and he is right. It's a pretty good story. So you climb up on the chair and tell him what Absol told you, about Fate and how your pokémon would come back to you, and how they did.

"Hold up," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. "So it's the fucking Absol who's been telling you to get your murder on all this time?" He takes a glance around, probably looking for Absol, but of course she's not here. You're honestly kind of surprised she keeps showing up for training sessions.

"It is not like that," you snap. "Weren't you listening to anything?"

"Sure, sure, I heard you. So what's the deal with Kerrigan? How'd he even find out about you? And nobody else knows, do they? Tell me I ain't gonna get tranq'd by some League enforcers who're on to your bullshit and think I'm you."

"Leonard Kerrigan is the only one who knows, and he cannot tell anybody now."

"Okaaaay," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. "And the way he found out in the first place is...?"

You beat your tail against the leg of the chair, not looking the great Nathaniel Morgan in the face. "Because I had to get War back, so I went to see him when I was Matt Kerrigan, and now he thinks I kidnapped him or something."

"Wait. You went to him pretending you were his fucking dead son? Holy fucking shit, that's so fucked up. No wonder he's pissed at you."

Your tail lashes again. "And what are you going to do about it?" you snap. "You of all people cannot possibly have some kind of moral objection. It is not like you really care. Even if I was a murderer, it would not change anything. You would still be in the tournament. Am I not right?"

The great Nathaniel Morgan watches you a minute, silent and expressionless. Then he leans over and pokes at his pokédex, restarting the video he was watching. "Yeah, got me pegged, don't you, Freak?" he says.

You school yourself to calm, running your tail between your fingers until it stops twitching. The great Nathaniel Morgan knows you're right. And if he knows what's good for him, he'll stop bothering you about it, too. You crane your neck and squint until you can see the footage he finds so engrossing, and then you forget all about Leonard Kerrigan.

"Is that a salamence?"

"Yeah. Say hello to our opponent for tomorrow." The great Nathaniel Morgan pushes the pokédex across the table, and you take it between your hands, watching the salamence spiral across the screen in a blur of blue scales and green dragonfire. She's diving for the crouched form of a kabutops. A kabutops that looks very familiar.

"She is fighting Jason Muskowitz's team!"

"Right. She beat Sergeant Pimples, so now we're fighting her." The great Nathaniel Morgan cancels the video, which brings up a screen with a picture of the salamence's trainer, her name and her age and a row of icons indicating the pokémon she has registered on her account. You scroll down, looking at information on win/loss record, gym badges, tournament appearances... You didn't realize the pokédex could tell you all this about people it doesn't even belong to.

For some reason the great Nathaniel Morgan seems very interested in your explorations. "See anything interesting there?" he asks.

You scroll around a bit, find links to more videos of the trainer and her pokémon gleaned from gym and tournament battles. They go right up to the last few days here at Indigo. There's even a little bio thing she must have filled out herself, where it says she loves surfing and her favorite pokémon type is water. Unless the pokédex just knows those things.

"What's Meteor Academy?" you ask.

"Huh?"

"Meteor Academy. It says she started her journey in Hoenn, and her license is from Meteor Academy."

"Are you shitting me? She's an academy brat?" The great Nathaniel Morgan leans forward like he wants a better look but waves you off when you try to hand the pokédex back to him. "That fucking figures, don't it? Goddamn. I guess that explains her age."

"But what does that mean?"

The great Nathaniel Morgan's staring off into space, a queasy frown on his face. "Means we're in for a goddamn rough time," he growls. "Most academy nerds, they can't battle their way out of a fucking paper bag. They sit around and write about how pokémon make fire or whatever, shit nobody cares about. But the ones that're actually into battling, they're usually real fucking scary. Know all kinds of crazy tricks you ain't never seen before. And if she's here, she obviously knows her shit. Probably decided to hop from the Hoenn League because Indigo's where the real action is, it's the best place to get started if you're gonna go pro."

"Who cares? Just because she went to school a lot does not mean she knows how to battle. I never even went to school, and I bet I am still better than her."

"Yeah, sure, Freak," the great Nathaniel Morgan says, but he still looks like he wants to throw up.

"Do not start this already," you snap. "You are good at battling. There is no reason to think you are going to lose."

"Oh, really? Like besides the fact that she beat the guy we fucking lost to? Or that she's been training for at least eight years, probably with some snobby-ass coaches who really know their shit? Or the fucking salamence, maybe you missed that?"

"It does not matter. You lost because you let yourself get distracted. I know you can do better than that. You need to believe in yourself," you say.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"It means if you stop worrying about losing and try to win, you will win." He shakes his head. "Really. I heard what you said to Mightyena, and it is not true. You are not bad at battling."

At least that stops him moping, even if it's only to get angry. "Fuck you, what the hell would you know? You keep your nose out of it, asshole."

"How did you know that cradily had storm drain?" you ask.

"Huh?" He gives you a startled look, then turns away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, I dunno, I guess 'cause you picked it up, right? Like, you ain't supposed to be able to move a cradily nowhere because it sticks like a motherfucker. So because you picked it up it must not have normal suction cups, you know? And there was something fucked up going on, it was way strong, but I didn't see it use no boosters, so I thought maybe the ability..." He trails off with a helpless shrug.

"You see? That is smart. You clearly know what you are doing. You just have to remember it."

The great Nathaniel Morgan hunches his shoulders. "It was just a lucky guess."

"I am not going to argue about this. The point is you need to start believing in yourself if we are going to win. And you will, or else you will regret it. I picked you because I knew you could battle well enough to win the tournament, and you are not going to prove me wrong. Do you understand?"

The great Nathaniel Morgan blinks. "Did you seriously just threaten me with some kids' show bullshit?"

"It is not bullshit. Remember it." You take advantage of his distraction to dump the pokédex in his lap, then pick up Captain Rubina Roth, who's been dutifully guarding your chair. "Now we are going to go shopping for Leonard Kerrigan. If you want to go shopping, too, you could get me a Space Pirate action figure. I like the mutant ones."

The great Nathaniel Morgan stares. "I don't even fucking get you, Freak."

"I know. You are just a human, after all," you say, and it seems he has no good answer to that.

---

You rock back and forth on your feet while you wait for the next match to begin, listening to the building rumble of the crowd overhead. You keep glancing at the great Nathaniel Morgan, trying to judge his mood, praying that he won't go to pieces again and lose this battle, too. You're so anxious about what he's feeling that it's making it hard to get excited about the battle yourself.

The great Nathaniel Morgan catches you looking. "Quit fucking staring at me, goddamn," he snaps, then turns away and scowls out at the field.

At least he actually got up reasonably early for the match this time. The referee isn't here yet, so there's nothing to do except wait around under the stands and try to stay calm.

"Hey!"

You turn and see a face you recognize from the pokédex's screen, open and excited and wearing a dazzling smile. Aanya Singh, here for her match. "Got here kind of early, didn't you?" she asks, stepping up to join the great Nathaniel Morgan at the end of the tunnel. Her electivire tromps up behind.

The great Nathaniel Morgan grunts in response and turns away from her. Aanya Singh spends a couple minutes surveying the arena, humming to herself. She asks, "So, is your infernape from a breeder here in Kanto, or is she--"

"Fuck off."

Aanya Singh's mouth snaps shut, and she stares at the great Nathaniel Morgan's hunched back for a few seconds before turning her eyes to the floor.

"Hey!" her electivire says, electricity sparking around his clenched fist. He takes a step towards the great Nathaniel Morgan, but stops when Aanya Singh puts a hand on his arm.

"No, it's okay, Electivire. Stay here."

The electric-type grinds his teeth and turns to you instead, still sparking. "Your trainer's an asshole," he growls.

"I know."

Electivire's lightning fizzes out, and he stares at you for long seconds before bursting into laughter. "Well, well, and there I was thinking we were gonna have a little disagreement. That's fair, though. That's fair. I know it ain't your fault. Trying to break him of it, I hope?"

"Yeah right. He won't listen to anybody."

"Oh, yeah. Stubborn as anything, aren't they, humans? I mean, take this one." He gives his trainer a fond look. "She wasn't big on manners, either, but the team, we straightened her out. She just had to see, you know, that she couldn't be her best if she kept letting her mouth get her in trouble. She was making it hard for all of us. Took a lot of work, but she's doing much better now. That's our job, right?" You make a noncommittal noise, not really sure what he's talking about. "Oh, not that I'm criticizing. You haven't been doing this very long, by my reckoning. How old are you?"

"It's complicated."

The electivire laughs again. "I like you, kid. I was gonna say I'd plaster you on the battlefield on account of your trainer's mouth, but what do you know? I'm still gonna plaster you, but it'll be friendly-like this time. How's that?"

Now that you can understand. You smile and say, "You wish. If we fight, you better believe I'm gonna win."

"Yeah, that's the spirit," the electivire says, grin just barely showing through his thick whiskers. "You won't, though."

You exchange good-natured threats for a bit, showing off with small bursts of lightning and flame. It's not long before the referee shows up, and after that it's a blur of the handshake, ascending to the trainer's box, the howl of the crowd as the announcer gets them hyped. The great Nathaniel Morgan stands rolling a pokéball between his fingers, face set and grim. At least he doesn't look half-dead like the other day.

You've got to stop worrying about it. You turn back towards the field as the referee's order comes. "Let's go, Raticate!" the great Nathaniel Morgan roars, hurling the pokéball into the arena.

You can smell Aanya Singh's choice before you see her. A wave of raw-sewage stench, leavened by some chemical scents you can't identify, washes over you, and you decide right then and there that you won't need your sense of smell for a while. The great Nathaniel Morgan, who doesn't have the luxury of turning off his olfaction, gags and grabs for the railing. Down on the field, Raticate buries his face in the dirt.

The puddle of sludge disgorged by Aanya Singh's pokéball quivers, grows a gaping hole in the middle, and says, "Oh my God, is it me? I'm up?" The muk gathers herself, heaping up into a lopsided mound with vaguely-defined mouth and eyes. A great pseudopod stretches up from one corner of her body, growing drippy fingers and waving to the crowd. "Look at all of them! They love me!" Her waving hurls hunks of goo in all directions, wilting grass wherever they land. "Yeeeeah!" Muk bellows, hand clenching into a sloppy imitation of a fist. "Let's do this!"

"Oh, this is just fantastic," Raticate says. He raises his head reluctantly as the referee announces the round but keeps a paw over his nose, his eyes watering.

"Double-edge," the great Nathaniel Morgan says, a bit muffled. He's got a hand over his nose and mouth, too.

"Keep him away, Muk! Acid spray!"

"Oh, how did I know he was going to say that," Raticate groans as he takes off across the field, ducking under a wad of noxious toxins. Muk keeps hurling more, snapping her pseudopod forward so the tip flies off at Raticate, then re-growing it and repeating the process. Finally she lands a direct hit, and Raticate skids to a halt, desperately rubbing himself against the ground to neutralize the worst of the acid.

"Okay, faint attack into double-edge, then!"

"Brick break!"

Raticate scrapes the worst of the muck off his body and charges again, vanishing mid-stride and reemerging from Muk's shadow. You think you detect the slightest moment of hesitation, and then he hurls himself headfirst into Muk with a squelching noise that makes you wince in sympathy. Gobbets of slime spray in all directions, and Raticate almost disappears into Muk's body, only his squirming tail poking out.

The mass of the poison-type shifts, and she morphs her face onto the opposite side of her body so her frown sits just above where Raticate went in. She seizes his tail and hauls him out, dripping, then drops him before slamming her palm down over him once, twice, thrice, each blow landing with a horrible sticky "thwap."

Raticate drags himself away, woozy and wobbling and absolutely covered in foul-smelling gunk. "Yup, definitely poisoned now," he slurs, and you can see him shivering under all the goo. The great Nathaniel Morgan reaches for his belt, but it's Aanya Singh who says, "Return."

The great Nathaniel Morgan's jaw tightens, and he reluctantly brings his own pokéball down to rest on the railing, still clutched tight in his hand. "What the fuck?" he wonders under his breath. "She's switching?"

"Aggron, you're next!" Aanya Singh says.

The rock-type settles out of a looming cloud of white energy, snorting and stomping heedless of the toxic slime Muk left behind. Raticate crouches with head hung low, tail worming side to side as he weathers the pain of the poison. He must be used to facing opponents much larger than him, but you wonder if it ever gets to be easy. The aggron looks impressive even to you, his armor polished to mirror sheen, slamming his tail against the ground so dust rises in a cloud around him.

"All right," the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters. "All right, we can wait this one out." He'll have to run down the clock until he gets another opportunity to switch.

"Aggron versus Raticate," the referee says. "Begin!"

"Get in there with crunch!" the great Nathaniel Morgan shouts.

"Brick break, Aggron!"

The pokémon charge at each other, Aggron drawing his arm back for a punch. Raticate leaps and grabs it, and Aggron scrapes to a halt, waving his arm with Raticate flopping from it. The normal-type's teeth are sunk deep in the exposed rock above Aggron's elbow. Aggron growls and slaps at Raticate, but the rat's already scrambled away, scoring a long cut across Aggron's shoulder as he goes.

Aggron's claws clang off his own armor as he tries to catch Raticate, but the normal-type stays just ahead of his attacks, crawling up and down and around Aggron's torso, biting wherever he sees an opening. The poison doesn't seem to have slowed him down at all; if anything he's more energetic than usual, staying in constant motion.

"Okay, Aggron, calm down," Aanya Singh says. The armored monster stops his rat-catching dance, but he's breathing heavily, eyes rolling back and forth to try and keep track of Raticate. The normal-type takes advantage of the quiet moment to bite into Aggron's side just above the hip.

The rock-type's roar nearly drowns out the next command. "Metal sound!"

"Drop!" the great Nathaniel Morgan shouts, and Raticate lets go, falling to the ground beside Aggron's tail. He doesn't make it more than a couple steps before Aggron scrapes his metal armbands against his horns, setting up a shriek that makes your fur stand on end. Raticate gets it even worse, and he doubles up in a cringe, eyes squeezed shut.

"Keep moving! Keep moving!" the great Nathaniel Morgan yells, but you have no idea if Raticate can even hear him over the ugly scraping of metal on metal. Aggron turns and takes his time lining up his shot while Raticate stumbles around drunkenly, whiskers twitching and eyes watering as the metal sound keeps screeching and screaming on.

The noise stops just a second before Aggron brings his foot down, crushing Raticate against the ground.

"Now brick break," Aanya Singh says, a broad smile on her face. You wince as Aggron bends down and starts pummeling, keeping Raticate pinned with a foot on his tail.

"Not good, not good," the great Nathaniel Morgan groans. His eyes flick from the referee to the battlefield and back, and he still has Raticate's pokéball at the ready, turning it nervously between his fingers. "Quick attack, come on! You can do it!"

Raticate sinks his teeth so deep into Aggron's foot you wonder if he bit it through, then slips away when the rock-type instinctively pulls back. He isn't moving all that fast, though, and Aggron's only off balance for a moment. Aanya Singh raps out a command for stone edge, and he swings his arms low, then up like an orchestra conductor, raising a jumble of razor-edged rocks that stretches clear across the battlefield.

Raticate stumbles back, barely avoiding being impaled. Then he squeezes in among the rocks, putting a barrier between himself and his opponent. Aggron comes running up and grabs him before he can get far, hauling him out and tossing him on the ground.

The great Nathaniel Morgan lets out a hiss of air between his teeth as Aggron lays into Raticate with another brick break. "Come on, come on," he mutters. Raticate jumps at Aggron again, only to get slapped aside by the rock-type's tail. "Come on, come on--switch!"

Aggron growls, swiping his claws through the cloud of red energy before it retreats into Raticate's pokéball. The great Nathaniel Morgan's quick on the draw, you'll give him that; he was already calling Raticate back by the time you'd noticed the referee's signal.

Now he stands with his hand hovering near his belt, grimacing down at the aggron. He chooses a pokéball. "Let's go Gravel--wait." He freezes with the ball still down by his hip. "No. Sableye. Sableye, you're up!"

"A narrow save for the red corner, and an interesting choice," the announcer says while Eskar fades into view. "What might The Great Nathaniel Morgan be planning?"

The great Nathaniel Morgan barely waits for the referee to call the round. "Will-o-wisp."

"Mud-slap."

Eskar raises her claws in front of her face, and dancing blue flames swirl into being between them. For a moment the will-o-wisp glitters in the facets of the sableye's gemstones, and then a load of mud and sludge douses it and knocks Eskar to her knees.

Aggron scrapes his tail across the ground, slopping Muk's toxic leavings over Eskar. The sableye's indignant chatters turn to gags, then choking heaves. Small dark wisps of ectoplasm drift up from her body as the acid eats through her ghostly skin.

"Poisoned. Great," the great Nathaniel Morgan says. "Come on, get it together! Will-o-wisp!"

"Rain dance!"

"What the fuck?" the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters. "That ain't gonna do shit. What the hell is she thinking?"

Aggron meticulously wipes his tail on a clean patch of turf, which promptly dissolves. Meanwhile Eskar paws at her eyes, her fingers corroding as she sweeps away chunks of mud and gooey toxins. You wonder, briefly, if her obsession with eyes makes her particularly nervous when her own get attacked, but then you're distracted by Aggron.

The rock-type raises his arms, holding them out to either side as he skips in a loose circle, looking surprisingly light and breezy for all that he must weigh at least half a ton. The rock-type's expression remains solemn while he executes a sedate pirouette, and although a ripple of laughter passes through the stands, clouds gather overhead, a few spitting droplets leaving dark spots on the acid-worn battlefield.

Eskar tosses a will-o-wisp at Aggron, and just as the great Nathaniel Morgan predicted, the drizzle does nothing to diminish it. It's at full strength when it fizzles in the mud near Aggron's feet, the rock-type bounding lightly away. The great Nathaniel Morgan and Eskar both growl to themselves. "Again!" the great Nathaniel Morgan barks.

But the rain's coming down harder now, and Eskar's back to tearing at her face. The poisonous slurry hisses and bubbles around her claws, white wisping steam joining the black cloud of ectoplasm rising from her wounds.

"What the fuck?" The great Nathaniel Morgan leans out over the railing, squinting at the battlefield. It looks like it's boiling, the sludge Muk left behind bubbling and sizzling as raindrops spatter it. "What the fuck? It's just poison," the great Nathaniel Morgan says to no one in particular. "You put water on poison and it, like, heats up or something? What the fuck? How does that make sense?"

Eskar falls to the ground, screeching and rolling side to side. You think she's trying to smother whatever weird reaction is going on, but there's poison all over the ground, too--she's just getting more of it on her.

"Okay. Stone edge, Aggron," Aanya Singh says. The rock-type makes one of his sweeping upwards motions and a second wall of needle-spires springs up, jagged rocks tearing through Eskar's body as they punch up out of the ground.

The great Nathaniel Morgan stares blankly at the arena. "She probably took an entire fucking class just on poison attacks," he says dazedly. "Like 'Poison 101, did you know that sometimes it explodes when you burn it, but also it burns when you dump water on it?' Oh yeah, that makes fucking perfect sense..."

"Snap out of it!" you hiss, shoving him with your elbow so he sways in place. "Pay attention to the battle. You have to do something!"

Eskar's climbing around on the rock spires, scraping the steaming poison off against their bladed edges. Aggron rips up a hunk of earth, which hardens to crusty rock in his hand, and tosses it at Eskar. It knocks her to the ground in a snarling, flailing heap.

"Right," the great Nathaniel Morgan says, squeezing the railing hard. "Right, let's see. Uh, Sableye! Will-o-wisp again, come on!"

Eskar hisses her displeasure, but once she's back on her feet she tosses another will-o-wisp at Aggron--a straight shot, finally.

"Block it, Aggron!" The rock-type swings his tail up, and the ball of blue fire sizzles out against it, and you smile. The pain will distract Aggron no matter where the burn ended up.

"Good," the great Nathaniel Morgan says, sounding weary but relieved. "Now stay back. Get him with a shadow ball."

"Autotomize."

You don't think you've ever seen someone use that attack before. You barely recognize the name. So you watch closely while Aggron straightens up, rolling his shoulders and twisting side to side with a series of sharp cracks and crunching noises. He's powering up, you think, while Eskar climbs a spine of rock and gathers a ball of black swirling energy. Aggron gives a final wrench, a last loud pop echoing across the battlefield... And then his tail falls off and lands with a splat in the hissing mud behind him.

Aggron reaches back to grab it, hefting it like a baseball bat. One powerful swing catches Eskar's shadow ball and explodes it into a cloud of harmless wisps. Aggron smirks at Eskar from beneath his rain-spattered helmet, smacking his new club meaningfully against his open palm.

"Oh my God," the great Nathaniel Morgan says, staring at the scene below with an open-mouthed frown of dismay, "what the fuck is even going on?"

The battle goes downhill from there. Aggron blocks Eskar's attacks with his shed tail and uses it as a weapon in turn, channeling dark energy down its length so it releases rippling waves of black as it cleaves through the air. Graveler has to step in to finish the metal monster off, and she doesn't escape without a couple serious dents in her rocky hide.

Absol comes in to face the alakazam Aanya Singh sends out next, much to the great Nathaniel Morgan's chagrin. "A psychic-type? She brought a fucking psychic-type against a team with three darks? What the fuck was she thinking?"

Apparently she was thinking that her alakazam knows counter, which hurls Absol into one of the razor-stone barriers after the great Nathaniel Morgan calls for night slash. Absol drags herself to her feet, covered in bleeding gashes, while the psychic-type recovers off all the damage she took. The rest of the match is a lesson in how little type advantages matter when you're so adept at teleporting that your opponent can't even hit you.

Absol ekes out a win anyway, and you flush with quiet pride. She even lands a few good hits on Muk when the poison-type reappears for another round. But the great Nathaniel Morgan's stammering and distracted, reacting to the crowd as much as to the battle. It seems like Aanya Singh is filled with clever tricks, while all the great Nathaniel Morgan's have abandoned him.

"You are not believing in yourself," you hiss at him while he swears up a quiet storm. Muk's holding Graveler trapped, her sludgy body hardened around the rock-type's limbs to keep them immobile. "Stop thinking you are going to lose and figure out how to win."

"If you don't stop backseat driving I'm gonna kick your ass right over the edge of this platform," the great Nathaniel Morgan growls. "Graveler, break it! Come on, keep trying!"

"You would really kick your pokémon in front of all these people? I just got you your license back!"

"Try me, Freak."

Graveler lies half-engulfed by Muk, pinioned while the poison-type siphons off her energy with a continuous giga drain. But she doesn't need to move to call stone. It must be hard--motions probably add focus, or are so habitual that performing an attack without them feels strange--but though the rock slide Graveler pulls up is sparser than usual, the pelting stones distract Muk enough for Graveler to get an arm free. She slams it down once, then again as the tremors of the first earthquake rattle Muk's concentration.

A couple minutes of good shaking and Muk's slops over in a featureless puddle of goo. You allow yourself a small sigh of relief as Graveler unsticks her limbs and stomps back towards the great Nathaniel Morgan's end of the field. She's cracked and faintly limping, and though she's expressionless as ever, you doubt she's got another fight in her. The score's tied, then. Raticate's poisoned, and he's taken some damage, but it's not so bad. You haven't even gotten to fight yet.

Aanya Singh sends out her next pokémon.

"What the fuck is that?" the great Nathaniel Morgan gasps, even though it couldn't be more obvious. The cannons would give it away if absolutely nothing else, as wide around as your waist and gleaming dully in the sun.

You've never seen a blastoise so big before. Her shell is at least half a foot thick, draped with moss and tufts of grass, and her steely blue scales grow nearly as broad as your palm. They're crusted with barnacles and clinging symbionts that obscure old dents and battle scars. The blastoise must be at least 700, 800 years old. You almost never see pokémon that old accompanied by a trainer; they're all off in the deepwilds--heaven help any human foolish enough to try and capture one.

Nevertheless, here she is, standing calmly on your opponent's side of the arena. She's completely still, quiet; you imagine any movement under that amount of armor, that incredible shell, must take more strength than most pokémon even have.

"Shit!" the great Nathaniel Morgan hisses. "Return!"

"Looks like the red corner's a little worried," the announcer says as Graveler disappears from the field. "Aanya's blastoise has been in this tournament twice before, and she isn't known for losing. The Great Nathaniel Morgan's going to need to do some serious thinking if he wants to win here!"

It looks like he is, eyes fixed on the blastoise while his hand moves to hover by one of his pokéballs, then the next, then back to the first again. "What the fuck," the great Nathaniel Morgan mutters. "The guy was on her roster, but none of the videos--is it new, how the fuck did...?"

Blastoise waits patiently, eyes half-lidded in the sun, resting with cannons tilted at an oblique angle. The great Nathaniel Morgan's sweating, his fingers still twitching uncertainly over his selection of pokéballs. He doesn't have long to decide; the battle screen counts down up above, and the referee waits below, flags at the ready. And beside you the great Nathaniel Morgan's starting to shake, face frozen in an expression of helpless panic.

Of course he is. Of course it's going to be up to you to fix this. You need to get the great Nathaniel Morgan to stop freaking out and battle already.

You fume silently, tail snapping back and forth. There's not much you can do up here, with everyone watching. Shaking some sense into him is out of the question, which is too bad, because it would definitely relieve some of your own anxiety. But there has to be something you can do to get his head back in the game. It isn't that hard to make him angry, and that would at least be better than freezing up.

Now you're starting to panic. You're staring down at Blastoise same as the great Nathaniel Morgan, just as immobile and dismayed. But as your focus on the water-type properly again, return to the actual question of how to beat her, you finally find an idea. Blastoise is going to be a big problem for you, yes. But she's also given you the perfect solution.

The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't snap out of his stupor until you're halfway over the railing. "What the fuck are you--wait!"

A human would be lucky not to break any bones in the drop onto the battlefield, but you land lightly, knees bent. Blastoise watches you straighten up, hooded eyes expressionless. It's hard not to feel nervous, even as strong as you are, in the face of that kind of unwavering confidence.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the great Nathaniel Morgan screams. "Get the fuck back here now! Now! Get your ass off the fucking field right this fucking second, or--"

"Would you look at that!" the announcer booms. "I guess Infernape decided to take matters into her own paws!"

There's a scattering of laughter and applause in the stands. The great Nathaniel Morgan has one foot up on the lower rung of the challenger's box railing like he's going to hurl himself down next to you. "I said get back here, you fucker! Do you want to fucking die? Because I swear to God if you don't get your ass off the field right the fuck now, if that blastoise doesn't kill you I'm going to rip off your fucking stupid stubby little tail and strangle you to death with it, and then I'm going to take your corpse and--"

"Sir! Sir!" The referee waves his flags furiously, trying to get the great Nathaniel Morgan's attention. "Warning for unsportsmanlike conduct, sir! Any further strikes and you forfeit the match!"

The announcer drowns out the great Nathaniel Morgan's sputtering fury by observing, "This is a tricky situation for The Great Nathaniel Morgan. If Infernape isn't off the field by the time the clock runs down, she'll count as his official switch, and I don't think he wants to see her up against Blastoise."

"You--you--what the fffff--If you don't--I--" the great Nathaniel Morgan hammers on the railing with his palm, face purpling in ugly splotches. Aanya Singh leans away from him in a full-body cringe, not even able to look at him straight on.

A deep rumbling distracts you from the entertainment overhead, and it takes you a moment to realize it's coming from the blastoise. The growl resonates inside the water-type's huge shell and sets your teeth buzzing. When Blastoise catches you looking, she says, "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Your trainer." She turns hostile red eyes upwards, towards the great Nathaniel Morgan. For the first time she looks fully awake. "It's not right."

"Huh?" You follow her gaze. The great Nathaniel Morgan looks like he's on the verge of exploding with the strain of wanting to hurl invective but being too afraid of the referee. "Oh. Oh. No, no, don't worry. He's harmless. He just isn't really ready to battle in a tournament like this."

"Mmm," Blastoise rumbles. She doesn't sound convinced.

"He's worried about losing," you add, feeling somehow self-conscious under Blastoise's red gaze. "So I had to make him mad so he would stop thinking about it so we could win. I didn't expect him to freak out this much."

Blastoise's stony expression doesn't change, and your words freeze unspoken in your throat as you realize the absurdity of defending the great Nathaniel Morgan to her. After all, you know he's bad, don't you? And Blastoise does, too. You already agree with each other.

"Anyway, I guess he's really mad, so maybe he won't give such bad commands. Even if he does, I know I can win. And if I win, then the whole team can win, and we can win the tournament." Your voice grows firmer as you remember what you're here for, what you're dong. You can win.

Blastoise studies you a moment longer, maybe suppresses some comment of her own. She turns slowly to look up at the status screen over the battlefield. "Your team won't win. Aanya has the lead. And once she has the lead, she doesn't lose it. And besides"--she smiles, showing huge yellowed slabs of teeth--"you decided to throw yourself into a battle against me. Audacity is worth a great deal, but there's no way you're going to win."

"Your trainer's good, sure. And I bet you are, too. But you've never fought somebody like me."

Blastoise's grin only widens. "I've been fighting since before your great-grandparents were born, little one. It looks like you need to learn a bit of respect for your elders."

You smile yourself, curling your tail in a "bring it on" gesture. "Whatever you say, Grandma. Don't worry, I'll make this quick so you can go right back to your nap."

"Enough! Enough!" the referee yells, going wild with his flags. "The pokémon are on the field! The next round will be Blastoise versus Infernape! Begin!"

"Blastoise, uh..." Aanya Singh says, but she's still recoiling from the great Nathaniel Morgan and apparently too distracted to think of anything.

"Infernape," he says through gritted teeth, "Use. Grass knot."

That's your most powerful attack against Blastoise, but you're not going to win if you just stand around trading super-effective attacks. If you get in a straight damage race, you're going to lose.

The great Nathaniel Morgan needs a new plan. You blow a flamethrower in Blastoise's face, and she blinks and snorts and shakes her head, then stares at you like you just smacked her on the nose with a newspaper. You might have actually done more damage that way.

"What? What?" the great Nathaniel Morgan shrieks, but you don't have time to pay attention to his tantrum. A click emanates from deep within the blastoise's shell, and she blasts a thick column of water straight at you. You leap aside, and the hydro pump carves a deep furrow in the earth, spattering you with soggy grass and mud as it goes past.

"Ready to get serious?" Blastoise asks.

You hope so. You can't dodge forever. The great Nathaniel Morgan had better come up with something fast.

"Good work, Blastoise! Again!"

"Thunder punch, come on!"

So you'll dodge at least a little longer, then. You run straight at Blastoise and drop under the hydro pump at the last moment, aiming a sliding kick at her legs. One goes out from under her, and she falls with a thud that you feel in the pit of your stomach.

"Ooh, that's a nice low kick," the announcer says as drizzle spatters the ground around you. "The Great Nathaniel Morgan doesn't seem too happy about it, though." Indeed, it sounds like he's having trouble forming coherent words at the moment.

Blastoise looks perfectly content lying on her stomach, her fall amply cushioned by her tough shell. She doesn't even bother standing when Aanya Singh tells her to use earthquake, just smacks her palms against the ground.

The great Nathaniel Morgan probably gives a command, although it would be hard to sieve it from all the outrage, and you hardly care. You jump onto Blastoise's back, stomping down with a rock smash that spiderwebs the water-type's shell with a satisfying crunch. Around you the arena trembles and heaves, but here atop Blastoise's shell you're perfectly safe.

Then the water-type reaches back and grabs your tail, and your world dissolves into a dizzy whirl of earth and sky as she kicks into a rapid spin. Pain sears up your entire spine as Blastoise drags you in a rolling, bouncing circle. And then her great shell skates on top of you and grinds your face into the dirt, tearing the skin from your back while you struggle in sudden panic, inhaling dirt as the whole world goes dark.

When Blastoise's crushing weight finally lifts you're on your feet immediately, clawing the dirt off your face, and coughing up clots of mud. You don't even register Aanya Singh's call of, "Let's finish this quick! Fissure!" until you hear that crack, that impossibly sharp noise like a sharpedo biting a boulder clean in half. It's a noise to rouse the muscles, and it's enough to get you moving, not anywhere in particular but hopefully, very hopefully, away from whatever's coming up through the trembling earth.

The ground under your feet falls away and for one horrible second you're falling with it, and then your arms catch on the edge of solid ground and you're up and over, sprinting across dirt that gives way beneath you, everything tilting as the ground tips up towards the sky.

Only when the rumble of shifting earth fades, when the ground shivers back to stillness, do you dare stop. And then have to paw the rest of the dirt off your face, to make sure your half-blinded eyes aren't playing tricks.

The fissure is enormous, a wedge that starts just in front of Blastoise and slices the arena in half, its far end spread open so wide you could stretch out twice and still not reach all the way across.

You venture a little closer. The great Nathaniel Morgan's yelling something again, and he's right, of course. It's dangerous, this isn't the time, but still... The fissure yawns huge and dark, and you can't see the bottom no matter how you crane your aching neck. But it can't be bottomless. Even if nothing else, far below a fire churns, the fire at the heart of the world burning even hotter than the one in your own chest. You look down and can almost imagine you see a glow.

And then a firehose blast of water hits you in the side and knocks you clear into the energy barrier.

You drop to the ground in an aching sprawl. Your tail feels like it's come disconnected from the rest of your spine, your mouth is foul with grit and the taste of blood, and the raw wounds on your back itch and burn with every move you make.

Okay, so maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

"Move! Move, damn you!"

You hear the click and throw yourself sideways, a clumsy hopping motion that ends with you on the ground again. At least it gets you out of the way of most of the hydro pump, which slams into the barrier with a boom like a baseball bat against an empty garbage can.

You toss a quick look over your shoulder, catching the great Nathaniel Morgan's eye. He's glaring murder at you, but at least his attention is on you rather than the crowd or the announcer's quips. "Finally ready to listen, you asshole?" the great Nathaniel Morgan hisses. "Mach punch! Go! Get in there!"

You have no idea why he wants you to do that, but hopefully that means he's come up with something. You duck under another hydro pump despite the protests of your wrenched spine, then rush forward on all fours, not as fast as you should be, but still much faster than Blastoise. She tries to turn aside from the attack, to block it with her shell, but the punch still grazes the side of her face, and she grunts in pain.

The great Nathaniel Morgan yells, "Sunny day down the cannon! Now!"

You lose whole seconds in confusion over what he means. Blastoise starts turning back to you, a dangerous rumble building in her throat. There's no time to take the great Nathaniel Morgan anything but literally.

A sunny day attack is a glowing film of energy wrapped around a ball of gas, meant to float high into the sky and burn like a tiny sun. You hurl one down Blastoise's cannon just as you hear the click that means water channels are opening to deliver a blast straight to your face. Instead what comes out is a mist of water droplets and a gust of hot air.

Blastoise roars, rearing back and pawing at the air as clouds of steam gush from her cannons. She reaches back, claws scrabbling over her shell like she's trying to dig the sunny day out from under it.

And that, that is exactly the kind of thing you were looking for. As you watch Blastoise stomp in lopsided circles, snorting and growling and ignoring her trainer completely, you realize, too, that what you're seeing here is your moment. This is your time to hit her with every fucking thing you've got.

The crackling thunder punch that catches Blastoise in the jaw feels better than any attack you've ever launched. "Oh hell yes!" the great Nathaniel Morgan yells as the water-type goes down with a stadium-shaking crash. "Encore!"

You clap with genuine feeling, trying to whistle through lips that are just a shade off human. Your enthusiasm doesn't make the attack any more effective, but it doesn't need to--there's no way Blastoise could resist its pull in any case. She rumbles fury and points a water cannon at you, unleashing another hydro pump. Thick steam hisses forth, and you easily sidestep the spatter of liquid that comes with.

"Thunder punch again. Keep it up!"

It's hard punching a pokémon on the ground, but a sparking kick does just fine, and when Blastoise tries to rise, you conjure a grass knot to drag her back down. She fires at you again and again, pathetic sprays of water and coiling mist, and until she comes to her senses she won't even be able to think of trying something else. "Blastoise, come on!" Aanya Singh yells, but it'll take more than that to break the encore.

At last Blastoise stops trying to stand up and fires on you from the ground. Her attacks are getting stronger, more liquid now than steam, but they're still easy to dodge. You jump aside from one and snap another thunder kick into Blastoise's side. She grabs your leg.

You only get a second's glimpse of her expression, a second where your gazes meet and from the faint half-smile on her face you realize her encore, of course, has ended, and you're playing the game on her terms now. Then you're on your back looking at the sky between your knees and the announcer's saying, "Ooh, excellent counter from Blastoise. That had to hurt! She's been having a rough time of it, but with that encore dropped, will she be able to turn the tables?"

Your dazed mind finally picks up on the great Nathaniel Morgan's shouts, but a pained uncurling is all you can manage before Blastoise hits you with a shattering mega punch. The water-type seizes you before you can collapse again and hauls you over her head with a growl of exertion. She's launching some attack, you're dimly aware, and if you didn't hurt so much you might even be able to identify it. For now all you know is that Blastoise throws you and you fall, and fall, and you never hit the ground.