Dear Diary: A Pokemon Black Storylocke, Part 55

When autumn comes to Icirrus, it is denoted primarily by the smell. Certainly the leaves change and the winds pick up and the temperature cools a mite—but the true mark of autumn here is not in any of these but in the way the air changes. As leaves transform and wheat turns gold, the shift in the air is almost palpable; it is an earthy, nostalgic scent which smells of loam and cool winds.

It came to us overnight, shortly after our meeting with Bianca. Autumn has not fully arrived yet—there are scattered pockets of green throughout Icirrus and times when the temperature dares to venture back to its summertime warmth—but autumn is pushing out summer and no one really minds.

It was a few days after the season turned that Team Plasma came to Icirrus. Atypically, they did not make a great grandstand or an outright attack. I suppose that to N, securing what he wanted from Dragonspiral Tower was more important than mounting an attack against Unova’s most forgettable city. (I jest, I jest. Anville Town will always be the most pointless place in our region.)

Indeed, if it wasn’t for Cenn’s keen eye, we probably would not have picked up on everything. We were lounging in the same park where we’d initially encountered Bianca; the young woman seemed to have made a point of avoiding it, now. We often used the space for practice battles against one another. I won’t hesitate to admit that I often came up the shortest in these contests. My shoulder…

Well. We were in the park, doing our thing, when Cenn twisted his head, eyes narrowing. The people he looked at were milling on the other side of the park. All young, their clothes weren’t suspicious—thrift store finds, it seemed. But it was their demeanor which caught the eye. The way they huddled together, the serpentine cast to their eyes, their guarded faces—to anyone who cared to look, these all gave them away. You’d think that an organization like Team Plasma would teach its members the art of inconspicuousness, and perhaps it would have, had it remained a normal organization. But N, it seemed, had no need for anything other than zealots.

Cenn didn’t say anything because he didn’t need to. We followed his gaze and noticed the suspicious group. Eventually, Blair caught onto it and took a glance as well, and the slight twitch when he saw them was one of recognition. When the group shuttled off, so did we.

There was no question of their destination: Dragonspiral Tower. The structure looms over the edge of Icirrus City, a relic of a bygone era. Its architecture defies all known categorization. There are no bricks placed together, no mortar. The entire building seems to have been carved out of a singular, massive stone—as breathtaking or awe-inspiring as that might seem. The rock is a dark turquoise color (though not actually turquoise; it is of a material even more robust than granite.)

Icirrans often claim that the Tower was the seat of the Great Serpent—the very place where the knight, in that long-ago time, was said to have found him and engineered Unova.

A pristinely maintained heritage site, Dragonspiral Tower has been completely sanctioned off since the bombing in Driftveil City. Perhaps the League thought gathering too many tourists in one place was too easy a target. Either way, it’s currently devoid of anyone other than security.

The security force was token, of course. Icirrus always got the bad end of the stick, and what little men they had were moved to the city itself in the wake of Terrakion’s attack on Twist Mountain. By the time we’d moved out of the city proper and into the shadow of the tremendous spire, they appeared to have been dealt with. The ‘guards’ stationed at the entryway wore uniforms, but their flinty-eyed expressions belied their true nature long before they nodded in the group we were trailing. We could have taken them, but we didn’t—instead, Blair chose to move off the road into the forest. With her Ground-type powers, Laguna easily carved a path under the fence wide enough even for Cenn. We crept around the perimeter.

The assault on the P2 Laboratory had taught Blair the value of caution. Strong as we were, we weren’t invincible when stacked up against overwhelming numbers—and if Plasma had anything, they had that. The problem was that the Tower reposed in a giant lake. The only way in was to take the bridge. Sure, Laguna and I could have ferried Blair across—but we’d only reach the base of the Tower, which was sheer stone.

Swarms of Plasma members and their pokemon patrolled the bridge. Taking them on was iffy, especially if more reinforcements poured from the Tower. I did wonder at the level of caution N was displaying, however—this type of subterfuge had not, of late, been his style.

The bridge and a straight shot for the entrance, or the water? Those were our choices and Blair picked the latter. He recalled the three pokemon who couldn’t travel over water, and once again it was Dreamtide, Laguna, and me.

“I’ll ride you,” he said, nodding at Laguna. “Opal can hold up the back against attacks. Dreamtide, you watch from above. When we reach the tower, you can float us up to an entryway. There are windows cut into the sides—massive ones.”

He surveyed the tower’s side, looking for the ideal entry point—a low window, far enough from the bridge that we wouldn’t be detected, but not so far that we couldn’t make it from where we were. He finally noticed one. He was correct: the windows were at least three times the size of an adult human.

His plan went off without a hitch. Since the Tower and the lake surrounding it were a government reserve extremely near a town, the pokemon in the lake were placid and made no attempt to harass us. I worried that Plasma goons might spy us during our crossing, but we were far enough out not to attract attention—and what reason did they have to study the lake?

When we reached the Tower, Blair recalled Laguna. Dreamtide levitated the two of us up to the window Blair had scoped out.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting when we arrived—maybe a huge open chamber, perhaps one or two guards on the other side of the room. What we found instead was a veritable platoon of grunts. Perhaps we could have stealthily retreated, but the telltale glow of Dreamtide’s psychic powers drew all eyes to us.

For a moment, just a moment, silence reigned in the hall. And then they surged at us.

A Psychic-type of their own smashed Dreamtide’s hold on us and we plummeted to the floor. Even as I stood, Blair was desperately releasing the other members of our team.

I was piled on by a bunch of weak pokemon—mostly Purrloin, though there was a Patrat or two among them. It was easy to cast them off, but a myriad of them continued throwing themselves at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dreamtide matching blasts with the enemy psychic, a Reuniclus. Dusk was being menaced by a Krookodile; Cenn was backed into a corner by a pair of Bouffalant, and Lillil’s attacks seemed to have very little effect on them. Sap Sipper, perhaps?

In the back of the room, one of the Plasma grunts was screaming into a walkie-talkie. “He’s here! We have him pinned but his team’s too strong, we need help!”

I cursed. This was all going wrong. Flashbacks to the peril we’d endured at the P2 Laboratory sent shivers through my spine. I wasn’t going to let my friends suffer like that again. I wasn’t…!

Summoning all my inner energy, I unleashed a cascade of water. It threw off the horde of weak pokemon piling onto me. Then I directed the surge at the Reuniclus. The surprise attack made the creature falter, and Dreamtide knocked it out of the air. It fainted when it hit the floor. The sight of my attack roused Cenn and Lillil and Dusk to send their foes packing, and nearby Laguna was flooring a Fighting-type.

“We’re outnumbered; we have to retreat!” I said. “Dreamtide, you send Blair down with Laguna and Dusk first. Then come back for Cenn and Lillil. Get me last.”

“Will-not-do. Won’t-leave-Jewel. Jewel-is-friend!”

“Dammit, somebody has to go last!” I snarled at them. “I killed Crown, remember? Cheren’s prize pokemon! They’re going to want to take me down! If it’s anyone else, they might rally and send someone to the tower’s base. My status as Crown’s killer will hold their attention.”

Dreamtide still looked hesitant.

“You once told me you believed in me as a leader,” I said. “Then let me lead and do what I’m saying now!”

“…Dream-will-do.” A violet hue gripped Blair and Laguna and floated them down the window. Dusk followed of her own accord, floating ethereally down before firing a parting shot at the cowering Plasma forces.

“Opal!” she called to me. “You’d better not leave me hanging down there!”

I smirked at her, and then turned my attention to the recuperating Plasma pokemon. A fighter broke from the group—a heavy-looking Escavalier, charging me with his lances aloft.

Normally, I’d meet him blade to blade. But my blades had been stolen by Team Plasma in our abortive raid on the Laboratory—and it’s not like I could grow new ones.

No, this time I’d have to rely on my own power.

Neophytes think that meeting strength with strength is the way to go about doing things. They’ve seen too many action flicks where the hero and villain lock blades and scowl at each other. In real life, that’s a good way to get your ass kicked. No; if a heavy enemy is charging you, use that against him.

At the last second I sidestepped the Escavalier, grabbed hold of its arm, and sent it skidding into the floor on its own momentum. When it rose, woozily weaving back and forth, I grabbed it, heaved it bodily over my head (ignoring the protestations of my screaming shoulder) and smashed it into the ground. Then I grabbed the steel lance in its arm and tore it free.

The creature screamed and then lapsed into unconsciousness. I levied the lance at the wall of Plasma pokemon. “Who else wants some?” I screamed. “Well?”

The entire array of pokemon had to have been at least thirty-five strong, perhaps forty. If they rushed me at once there was no way to win, not even with Cenn and Lillil backing me up. But in the eyes of the pokemon, even the vacant eyes of those who had been brainwashed, gleamed fear.

“…it’s her,” a small voice whispered. “The Blue Blade.”

“Crown’s killer!”

“The bane of Team Plasma!”

“The Blue Blade! Oh, Arceus preserve me, I don’t want to die!”

A Pignite near the forefront took a hesitant step forward. I snarled and blasted a surge of water. He darted back, whimpering, despite the protestations of his trainer. The wall retreated. Even the humans were looking dicey.

I gripped the lance in two paws. It would make a decent surrogate for the blades I’d lost. Then I charged.

They scattered.

A group nearly three dozen strong scattered, many of the pokemon screaming about the Blue Blade. Even those who remained were trembling with fear. I lashed out indiscriminately with the lance. I knew that Cenn was not nearby; I saw his lumbering form harassing stragglers at the edges, supported by bolts of green energy from Lillil.

I interlaced my blows with surges of water and, sometimes, of ice. The attacks sent enemy pokemon flying. Mostly, though, I relied on the lance. Until I’d reunited with a substitute, I never realized just how desperately I’d missed my blades. Now I was whole again. To a Samurott, her blade isn’t just a weapon—it’s an extension of herself. I spun it around, the tip biting into the flesh of adversaries and leaving nasty-looking scratches and punctures on them. When enemies drew too close to use the point, its heavily armored haft served as a decent bludgeoning weapon.

I became cognizant of psychic light filling the room. Behind me, Dreamtide was levitating Cenn and Lillil out. “Jewel-holds-fast!” they called. “Dream-will-come!”

I nodded. We were escaping, this time for sure. One particularly foolhardy pokemon charged me, a young Pawniard. I couldn’t help but laugh. Didn’t he know that Samurott learned Fighting-type moves? I easily settled into the stance to use Revenge—

My shoulder.

It had burned since the Escavalier and had continued burning, but adrenaline had let me power through it. Abruptly, though, a river of pain flashed through my body and I gasped involuntarily. The few seconds cost me.

The Pawniard barreled into me. His blades mostly just raked my fur, but one or two blows managed to meet skin. I recouped myself and beat him off with the lance, but more pokemon were coming. I snarled at them, but when I tried to raise my paw for a Scald attack, the entire limb with the bad shoulder wouldn’t respond. It was nothing but an echo chamber where pain redoubled on itself over and over and over again.

They fell on me.

I fought back, kicking and scratching and even biting, but seeing the Pawniard successfully strike me had banished the fear of the Blue Blade. Reputation alone can be a worthy weapon, but when it fails you…

They hit me with blow after blow. The lance clanged to the floor as my good arm grew too weary to grip it. My body became nothing but aches, and I found myself unable to put up even a token resistance.

Dreamtide… where was Dreamtide…

In the haziness of my vision, a Krookodile loomed. He snorted, turned, and then brought his heavy tail down on my face.

Darkness.

When I woke, I was in restraints. Not that they were needed: my body was so sore that I could barely move. I blinked wearily. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the beating I’d endured the night I’d killed Crown—that was the beating which had taken my shoulder from me. But I still wouldn’t be doing much. As my vision swam, I found myself astonished at the place I was being kept.

It was like an approximation of a king’s quarters, except everything was made from the same lovely turquoise stone as the rest of the tower—and everything was just so big. It was like I was in a world made for goliaths. I’d always heard that Dragonspiral Tower had not been made for humans—that everything from the halls to the daises had been crafted for something far, far larger. I’d heard that but only now could I appreciate the scale.

The pillars in this room were as big around as a sequoia tree and they stretched almost a hundred feet to the vaulted ceiling. Statues lined the wall, none of them of humans; the smallest was at least twenty feet. These, too, had been carved directly out of the stone and were not so much affixed to the ground as growing out of it. Against the sheer scope of this place, humans were as dwarfed as a Joltik was dwarfed by a car.

I took it in for a while before a timid voice met me.

“Looks grand, doesn’t it?”

Trussed up as I was, I had to wriggle around to see the speaker. It was a forlorn-looking Stunfisk in a rubber cage. She smiled wanly at me.

“Hey,” I said stupidly.

She chuckled. “You’re her, aren’t you? The Blue Blade? I’ve been captive for a few days now and it’s all the Plasma pokemon talk about. They’re all terrified the Blue Blade will come and kill them like you killed ‘Lord Crown.’ You’ve bested N himself on multiple occasions and foiled operations singlehanded. I hear you fought a hundred Grass-types and won.”

“…the tale seems to have grown in the telling. Don’t tell anyone, though. I have a reputation to upkeep.” I smiled at her. “I’m Opal.”

“Lufie. Hey, I know you probably haven’t seen a mirror, but… you look like you went ten rounds with a freight train and lost.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, s’pose I do. Fought them good and hard, but I lost.”

“So what’s your story? From how you have your own legend built up around you, I’m guessing you’ve been wrecking Plasma’s plans for a while now.”

“You could say that. My trainer and the leader of Team Plasma aren’t fond of each other. What about you?”

It was a mistake. Lufie’s levity fell, replaced by a deep sadness. “Oh. I… I belonged to a ranger stationed here. Tiller, his name was. He was a good man.”

I noticed her use of past tense. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Plasma showed up a few days ago,” she said. “Killed all the rangers and security and sent their pokemon off for ‘re-programming,’ whatever that is. Kept me around, though. Since all the humans were dead they needed someone to show them around. As a Stunfisk, I was deemed the least threatening. You know that that leader of theirs can talk to pokemon?”

I nodded. “We’ve met.”

She slumped down glumly. “I wish I knew what was going to happen to me. Are they just gonna kill me when they’re done here? Send me to be re-programmed, like all my friends?”

“I can’t say,” I said softly, trying to comfort her. “Lufie, listen. You’ve got at least one friend here. Okay?”

She smiled back. “…okay. I trust you, Blue Blade.”

The door to the room opened. It was a recent addition, a thing of metal and lights, and it clashed with the room. It was clearly made by humans to serve themselves. A familiar young man entered the room and I couldn’t help but snarl at him.

N.

Team Plasma’s illustrious leader seemed to have grown more far gone, more bestial, every time we met. This time, however, was the reverse. He walked with preternatural, inhuman composure, and I couldn’t help but shiver when his eyes swept over me. I could feel another, different presence being them—one that was old and ancient and full of malice.

“We meet again, Opal,” he said. He pulled a knife from his belt.

I struggled as he approached me but he merely bent and cut my bonds. “These are hardly necessary,” he said, standing.

I also stood, shaking off the restraints. I eyed him. “Aren’t you afraid?”

He smiled, and I wanted to shiver. It looked wrong, somehow, like the image of a scarecrow from a horror story. “Do I look afraid?” he asked. The way he asked it was in his own curious fashion—as much a change in bearings and the coldness in his eyes as his words. This was truly a person who knew how to communicate on the level of pokemon. “What about you? Are you afraid?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. He chuckled again.

He walked over to a makeshift desk; it bore the League logo, so I assumed it had been used by the head honcho of this place and then appropriated for N’s personal use. He pulled out something from the desk and held it out to me. “For you,” he said.

It was the lance.

I eyed him. “Couldn’t I use that to hurt you?”

“Could you?” he echoed with mockery. He twisted the lance so that the point hovered directly over his heart, the grip facing me. “Do it, then.”

I approached him and grabbed the lance by its haft. I trembled—the point was there, over his heart. N was here. He was right here. I could end it!

I tried to plunge it in, I really did. But I couldn’t. My muscles wouldn’t move. Whenever I tried to hurt N, it was like I was overtaken by sudden, utter paralysis. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

When I stopped trying to hurt him I got my body back. I backed away. “What is this?” I whispered, more to myself than to him. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Lufie was watching with undisguised fear.

He chuckled and for a moment the sound reverberated like crashing thunder.

“Do you understand yet?” he said. “I am Zekrom’s champion. His envoy. I am destined to make it to the confrontation and nothing is capable of stopping that. Do you doubt me? Watch.”

He pulled out a pistol and aimed it at his head. He smiled and pulled the trigger.

I flinched—the sound was, as always, much louder in person than you expect.

Although the barrel of the gun was a scarce six inches from his skull, the bullet implanted itself into a wall a good forty-five degrees away from him. “Still doubtful?” N taunted. “Let’s try once more.” He fired again, and again—both bullets careened away from him.

He chucked the pistol aside. “Now do you understand? I have been divinely appointed to see to Lord Zekrom’s rise and nothing can stop that. Nothing. You were trying to hurt me? That’s like a pebble trying to bring down the mountain it stands on. Fate itself won’t let you touch me. You are just a toy, Opal. Even less than that. You are nothing more than a speck dancing in the wind between Blair and me.”

He settled back in his chair, savoring the look on my face. “Of course, that’s why I’ve ordered my men to leave your trainer alone. He’ll make it to the confrontation too, of course. Had I been at the Laboratory during his capture, I’d have ordered his immediate release. Cheren is a fool, thinking he could imprison the champion of a god. But since you’re here, you will make a useful hostage. I won’t hurt your trainer, since we are destined to clash at a later point, but your teammates—the Seismitoad and the Sigilpyh. They need to die. Blair needs to lose his own guide, and the frog needs to pay for killing mine.”

He stood and brushed himself off. “The door will be locked behind me and is guarded by a platoon of two dozen Electric-type and Grass-type pokemon, handpicked to counter you. The only other way out is the windows, which lead to a drop of several hundred feet. You are welcome to try your luck. Keep the lance, it’s a gift. Oh, and have this.”

He tossed this diary at me—I hadn’t realized it was missing.

“I took the liberty of browsing through it. Just skimming a few parts. I must say, I like your bits better. The other one, she was more pretentious than anything.”

“This is precious to me,” I hissed, holding it tight. “No one gave you permission to look through it.”

“Haven’t you studied mythology? Divinity doesn’t need permission. Don’t worry, Opal. Once I raise Zekrom, a new world will ascend—one devoid of all but a few trainers, handpicked to serve alongside me and Zekrom, and where pokemon will reclaim their true position; not as servants of humans, but of the gods. The ceremony is tomorrow, Opal, and I’m saving you a front-row seat. I hope we get to see your friends there.”

And then he left, and I knew what true helplessness felt like.