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  "writing": "Forbidden Waters - 24\n\n\n\tVaporeon stared at them in wide-eyed fury.\n\n\tEmil could sense her muscles shaking with unbridled tension around his neck. “Honey?”\n\n\tBonnie and Clemont, waving to the crowd, smiling, dancing, nodding in self satisfied approval as their filthy pet turd flopped around in celebration; the shame and disrespect boiled her guts with rage.\n\n\tHe ran his fingers along her neck, feeling the taught strands and hot, throbbing veins. “{Vaporeon?}”\n\n\tEvery one of their ‘Mon had been sent back with honor; beaten, broken, but shown the deference of a warrior’s due. Emil’s bones shook with the indignant, quaking growl that rumbled deep within her.\n\n\tRichard chewed on his own cheek as he considered his next move, reaching for his belt.\n\n\tVapoeon’s eyes turned to him with one smooth, autonomous motion. \n\t\n\t“{Vaporeon, relax, we’ll get them back.}” Her lover’s voice became the muttering background noise beneath a red hot sea of rage.\n\n\t“Alright…” Richard started, plucking a ball up and raising his arm.\n\n\tAll her eyes could see were the fading silhouettes of bodies needing broken down.\n\t\n\t“I choose-”\n\nRichard was startled into silence as a laser-tight jet of water knocked the ball from his grip.\n\n\tVaporeon launched herself from his chest and Emil was snatched up in Spinel’s ribbons, thrown backwards off his feet. Before anyone had any time to react to anything she was doing, it was too late. She closed the distance in a hazy blue blur, faster than anyone had witnessed her manage without moves before, and in the blink of an eye she was nose to nose with the enemy.\n\n\tStunfisk never saw the shadow of her tail coming down upon them like an executioner’s axe.\n\t\n\tIts floppy, flat body smashed into the cement with all the strength and speed she could muster, holding back the barest pound of force it took to keep them alive in absolute agony. The ground shattered like ice struck with a sledge, and Stunfisk’s trainers turned around just in time to see them twitching at the bottom of a shallow, bloody crater.\n\n\tSpinel’s eyes inflated with horror, pawing his mouth at the gruesome sight.\n\n\tEmil brushed a cloud of pulverized pavement from his shirt as he sat back up from the fall. “{Good thing she likes us, huh?}”\n\n\tThe Sylveon’s head tilted. “{Wait, she does?}”\n\n\tEm smirked. “{Oh yeah, she got pissed seeing you get torched; welcome to the team, Spinel.}”\n\n\tVaporeon shot an angry look at Bonnie and spat between the eyes bulging out of Stunfisk’s skull, then she turned around, scraped debris into the hole with her hind paws, and lifted her nose as she pranced over to the center of the ring where she patiently awaited a more worthy opponent. The crowd was riddled with surprised gasps and unruly murmuring.\n\n\tShe brushed her head fins with her paw as she glanced back at Richard. “Go on, I’m good now.”\n\n\tBonnie’s face twisted with agony and Clemont clenched his jaw, scratching his head with the claw of a snaking, mechanical arm slithering from his backpack. “Stunfisk, Return.”\n\n\t“Faaaaaaint Penalty, Opposition switch?”\n\n\tRich smiled. “Alright, fair enough, your highness. Vaporeon, return.”\n\n\tThe drone flew up into the air, center stage. “Contestants, penalty score match. Simultaneous release. Get ready…”\n\n\n\tClemont folded his arms. “You ready, old boy?” he asked, voice raised above the crowd.\n\n\tCarlisle combed his sterling widows-peak into a neat swoop. “Girded as a naughty garter, young Master.”\n\n\tRichard jogged over and scooped his freshly-washed Pokeball up as he desperately plotted plans J through V.\n\n\tThe Drone turned left and then right. “GO!”\n\n\tBoth of them released at the same time, and Richard smirked as he saw Clemont toss a Pokeball instead of instructing Carlisle hop in. \n\n\tMetagross and Magnezone appeared, eyes laser-locked as they both hovered perfectly still, like game models without animations set. Arcs that tickled the ground beneath Magnezone danced within the rippling field of psychic energy that Metagross had wrapped herself up in.\n\n\tClemont coughed. “Gaaah!”\n\n\tRich pumped his right arm and pointed with his left. “Ha! Get real. I know you’re saving Jeeves there for the grand finale; gotta wake up pretty early ta get me with a hustle like that, kid. Metagross, Gravity!”\n\nMagnezone buzzed following a loud thud, eyes darting around in a panic as they were yanked out of the air and crashed straight into the ground, clattering as they were showered in Stealth-Rock shards.\n\n“Get ready,” Richard began, clenching his fist.\n\nClemont’s frustrated expression suddenly softened and his glasses hid his eyes behind the afternoon glare. “Hehehe, and I knew you’d bite the bait of a second hook. Magnezone, Gravity!”\n\nMetagross also fought to stay in the air, bellyaching like the beams of a wound-up bridge, but eventually they ended up pinned to the ground a few meters away from where Magnezone made purchase, with their legs and claws puncturing the cement.\n\nBonnie shuffled back, realizing two serious strategic experts were sparring in a way she barely understood. “Clemont, careful!”\n\n\t“Well well well, if it isn’t the Stone Family Staple. Go ahead, Richard, use Earthquake!” Clemont chuckled to himself. “Be neat to see a legacy bury itself.””\n\n\tBoth Metagross and Magnezone squinted, barely able to keep their eyes open under the indomitable forces working to press them flat. They kept their moves powered to the max, though, each refusing to let the other have a single millisecond of respite as dueling mobs of screaming fans cheered for their favorite to win the brutal smash-off.\n\t\nRich raised his ball. “Aaaah, you cheeky boi! Metagross, Return!” Metagross’ body glowed red, tried to move away, but then her form snapped back to reality and Richard’s ball beeped a failure code. “What?”\n\nMagnezone cackled like a failing substation, popping and buzzing as their nubby, polarized arms slumped to the ground and their antenna flopped against their dome under its own horribly magnified weight. A faint humming started building in the air, growing louder and louder as Magnezone’s body glowed bright yellows and blues.\n\nBonnie tap-danced on the tips of her toes with rapturous excitement. “Oh yeah, Magnet Pull! Get twisted, Metagross!”\n\nEmil scrambled to his feet as he instantly recognized the physics at work. “Oh my gods, Rich, he’s Exploding!”\n\nBonnies heart sank. “Frère?” she said with a shake in her throat. “Tu fais quoi?”\n\nClemont looked to his right. “No chances.”\n\nSpinel gasped, looking around at his supplies, having not the slightest clue what he’d do for someone blown to smithereens. He spotted a lone bottle of superglue fallen from his bags and panicked. “{Holy shit! Richie baby, do something!}” He blushed and wrapped his mouth shut with all four ribbons, covering his eyes in shame as he realized what his big, stupid mouth just announced like a megaphone.\n\nClemont’s smirk loosened to a grave frown as he raised a finger. “Never forget those little details, it can cost you an ace, Richard.” Finally, his persona was revealed, the identity below the surface every Gym Leader hid from the non-battling public. They’d seen sparks of it before, but now the lightning flared inside.\n\nHe couldn’t pull her back, of all the things to slip his mind! If Metagross changed moves, Magnezone would fly to her blind spot and crush her flat. If she committed, she’d take the Explosion, face first, with their mouth open wide…\n\nThe safe bet was to bury them both with an Earthquake and eke out a couple judge points in the event their match drew out…. Dammit, yeah, I gotta do it.\n\nClemont screamed as Bonnie leapt around his shoulders, smacking him upside the head. “Putain de bordel de merde!”\n\nMetagross grumbled as his thoughts brushed against her mind.\n\n\nSure, Master, I’ll take another one for the team, why not? What’s another notch on good ol’ Metagross? Only a little more steel off my nose. Oh yeah, nothing like a great big bowl of Humble Crunch to start the day off right; the best part of waking up is failures in your cup! \n\n\nRichard spat and shook his head. No, that’s Blitzleshit! I’m not scratching her off now, she didn’t go through all that for this!\n\nShe pried one eye open. What?\n\nRichard’s chest tightened as his face flashed beneath the painfully incandescent flickers and flares, the buzzing grown so loud he wanted to smack his palms over his ears. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes and he balled up both fists, screaming, “Metagross, no! Distortion damn me, I’m so, so sorry!”\n\nShe winced as her body cracked the ground, glowing purple as she mustered every ounce of her immense concentration to counter the gravitational pull with psychic might and keep the pressure on her opponent.\n\nHer master closed his eyes in resignation. “It’s in your hands, Metagross. I won’t send you off like that. FIND A WAY!”\n\nMetagross’ eyes had slammed shut from the weight, but as he called out to her, starting to bawl as he realized he’d messed up… apologizing to her for gambling with her safety… she pried them open again and set a look of determination upon her brow.\n\nAll she’d wanted was for him to show her he cared about all those painful years of insane pressure to succeed, despite the crackbrained miscalculations he commanded her to make and take it on the chin.\n\n\nOk… I’ll try… I can’t, but… I have to…\n\n\n“Groooooooooooo,” she growled as her eyes shone bright as violet stars in a moonless night.\n\nMagnezone’s body flickered white hot at the center of a flashstorm. Bright blue clouds of plasma blasting the air apart around him, turning the open air into a superheated storm of ionized fire. \n\n\nI… if I can’t do this I might die! I’m calling their bluff; they thought Richard would bury me…\n\n\nClemont snapped his fingers. “Do it, Magnezone. Explode!” But something in him was unsure. His body was confident, but his smile came out as wincing, angry teeth.\n\n\n Parameters set… League regulation states that since his move started last,they have lethal culpability. Probability 53% - Plan fail, both survive or enemy expires, fight continues. 25% - Plan fail, I expire, Stone wins. 15% Plan success, opponent expires, fight continues.  5% Plan success, opponent survives, fight continues. Collective 2% insignificantly probable cases. The math is clear - proceed.\n\n\nShe ratcheted up with creaking legs as her grim calculus was complete. “Ma. Me. GROOOOS!”\n\nMetagross tapped into herself, remembering all the training she’d done pushing her psychic might to places she didn’t know she could. She could see on Clemont’s face, as Magnezone was milliseconds from detonating, that he was shaking with surprise at Richard’s insane call. Well, if she was going to find a way out of this predicament, if there was another way forward, she needed to look again. She’d need to push harder, reach into the mindweb further than she’d ever considered, and find a door to the cellar of possibility Arceus put within all ‘Mon…\n\n…and see just how far she could take that fucker down. \n\nThe ground around Magnezone’s body began to crumble and break apart in a massive, shallow bowl that started sinking into itself. The audience shifted with terrified screams as their bodies lurched forward and the motion-sick among the crowd buckled with vertigo as ‘forward’ suddenly became ‘down.’ Stones of all sizes rolled towards Magnezone and both teams leaned back and fell, suddenly left scraping their shoes across the ground to stop from sliding into the battle zone.\n\n\tMagnezone’s blaze was lost in a bubble of warped space and time, accompanied by the muffled noise of bedrock breaking like glass.\n\n\n\tI… Aaagh…  Find it, dig deeper, I know  its… There!... I-I’m sinking? It… hurts… Aaaaaaaaaa!\n\n\n\tShe lifted her head, screaming in agony, and then the lights of her eyes went out.\n\nPebbles were crushed under their own weight, those crumbled bits in turn were ground to sand, and then he collapsed into the earth as it suddenly imploded. At the bottom of a narrow funnel, in a hole only as wide as her foe, the stone and soil was compressed so completely that Magnezone’s starlike flame sank to the bottom of a twenty-foot-deep earthen pipe. Their body crumpled in on itself at the bottom of the hole, blood vaporizing to clouds of ionized gas from gaps opening around their body, his internal bone-alloy supports breaking in ways that were sure to leave the ICU gawking in horror.\n\n\nWhere am I? \n\n\n\t Everyone in the arena stumbled backwards as a buzzing column of plasma fired into the air with an explosion that knocked people’s hearts out of their chests. People all across Lumiose stopped in their tracks to witness the tower of superheated air and flashes of lightning coming from the grand arena. The ground loosened up and bulged like a pie in the oven, then tonnes of earth rippled outward, devastating the pavement of not only their battle zone, but the other two nearby as well.\n\n\nThose faces… That voice… Those eyes, they are beautiful.\n\n\n\tBonnie and Clemont were engulfed in a curtain call of hot dirt and biochemical gas.\n\nEmilio was left totally breathless, having witnessed the fabric of reality visibly warped with nothing but the sheer, bloody will of a Pokemon that he himself had trained. He was one-hundred-percent sure she’d broken records just then, and they’d be standing for a good, long time.\n\nMetagross’ eyes flickered back to life and her legs buckled beneath her as she vomited up fuming, biohazardous slime. She shuddered, locked up, and the vivid glow around her subsided as the color faded from her body.\n\n\nI… I did it…\n\n\nA sooty, smoking mortar was puked skyward as the soil decompressed and Magnezone clattered to the ground in a smoldering, twitching, scrunched up heap.\n\nRichard screamed in surprise, clutching at his skull and threatening to tug his own hair away from its scalp. “That was… Oh my Gods! That was incredib-” he started, but was cut short as a whistle sounded and a siren went off \n\nAll anyone could hear in the air were protests of young children and the babble of upturned strata settling down as two young Joys accompanied by old Bianca de Bel dashing across the field. With an agility the two young clones simply couldn’t match, she danced across tiles of broken concrete alongside a bulky, white Rotom Drone with a bright red circle decorating its hull.\n\nRichard’s head tilted. “Hey, isn’t she?” Then he realized what was happening. “Oh Gods, oh no!”\n\nBonnie’s hands clapped over her mouth as she watched Bianca pull welding gloves from her bag. “Level 4 HTPC, four score!”\n\n“Yes ma’am!” Both Joys shouted in unison and pulled a collection of metal vials from their backpacks.\n\n“Clemont, how could you?” Bonnie wailed, falling to her knees, unable to take her eyes off what she was sure was Magnezone’s final moments. Memories invaded her mind's eye: of the years he’d been there, helping her train Dedenne and Emolga up to gym-challenge tough; every birthday banquet and private, stuffie closet tea party Magneton attended in lieu of training flipped by like projector slides. She remembered floating three storeys high on magnemite’s head as an infant, looking down upon the Prism Tower with excited admiration as her father shouted in distress.\n\nBianca reached into her hat before donning her PPE. “Audino, Musharna, Go!” she shouted, tossing their balls like smoke grenades. Audino stood quietly, in her service uniform, awaiting orders. Musharna, unable to wear a uniform, swirled around Audino’s head like a satellite.\n\nClemont lowered his face in shame as his brain, though cybernetically enhanced, only then managed to catch up with his opponent’s metacomputations. “I… I thought he’d make the smart play.” He realized then that only Metagross had the real value for the single variable he couldn’t possibly have gleaned ahead of time…\n\nShe knew, with precision, just how much of an idiot Richard Stone was.\n\nSpinel coiled his ribbons around himself, unable to find anyone he could drape himself across for comfort, and shuddered as the skin beneath his pastel fur buzzed with numbing television fuzz. It summoned up harrowing memories he thought had left him years ago, and cold tears rolled across his cheeks as he refused to watch.\n\n\t“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you, all grimey as a group spitoon. Let’s clean you up, Maggie-Boy.”\nMagnezone’s eyes were forge-welded shut, stained with the crust of oily tears that had flash fried to sheets of dross. His body crackled and gnashed, shifting and jittering under the touch of her gloves. “Vitals, now!”\n\nThe Rotom’s side doors slid open, and then the Joys assisting her bit the biosteel resistor clamps onto the rim ringing his body. The two jumped back in surprise as an arc of runaway power dove onto the copper teeth of the clamps, melting the rubber handles with hellish bursts of plasma that Bianca beat back with her welder’s apron.\n\nLieutenant Colonel de Bell threw down her welding mask, ready to drag Bonnie's baby back from the brink. \n\nThe Rotom’s eyes spun with little Pokeballs as it projected a holographic readout measuring his vitals in real time, using the resistances alongside knowledge of Magnezone anatomy to assess his alien, metabolic activity. “Neural activity indicates active shock, hemochemical volatility rising.”\n\nBianca clenched her fists. “Audino, buy us time. Joys, administer meds now; his body is cooling too fast.”\n\n\tThey locked the metal canisters they’d selected and mixed into a spray gun that coughed up blobs of medical grade napalm and his body burst into a flambé of haunting flames.\n\nAudino smacked her palms together and her body glowed like a halogen light, outlined in silvery brilliance that was difficult to look upon. She felt Magnezone’s body stop writhing and popping inside as she listened to his hemochemical flow begin to stabilize on the readout and nodded as her master started scanning his body.\n\nOne of her assistants shook her head and drew a red and white Pokeball from her bag as she covered her eyes from the bursts of ultraviolet light searing branching shapes into her vision. “He’s stabilized enough, recall them, Ma’am. ER will take it from here.”\n\nAudino looked back at Joy in wide-eyed shock.\n\n“He’s still under catalytic arrest!” Bianca shouted, gasping up from the rivers of sweat soaking her dress, ignoring the command as she flipped him onto his back and scraped the layers of brittle dross coating his body to see the metal flesh for herself. She chipped a pry bar down to his mouth, and broke his fused jaw open. “Sorry baby…”\n\nJoy, who technically outranked Bianca on that field and was her ‘Volunteer Supervisor,’ for lack of better word, tightened her jaw as she expanded the Pokeball and pointed it towards Magnezone. “Statistically it’s-”\n\nBianca spat back at her. “Statistically? You’ll end up on a table with him.”\n\nThe clone was filled with indignant rage. The nerve on this bitch… on stage! This is my life, it’s what I was born to do, it's the only thing I know! “O-oh yeah? I-Is that a threat?” \n\nBianca glanced back with old, tired eyes, putting herself between the patient and Joy. “Nah, Honey. It’s a promise.”\n\nRotom sounded off a dire warning chime. “I’m sensing neural chatter!” she said, shaking.\n\nMagnezone rattled and bloated up, wafting smoky, blue vapors.\n\nJoy snarled, ball still at the ready, but she shook with indecision. “Apoxia, woman! We don’t know his internal injuries. Get out of the WAY!” She bolted left, trying to get around the old timer, who’d practically thrown herself across a live stovetop protecting the oven.\n\nThe old Red Ring glanced at the readout through the midnight glass of her mask and noticed his core temperature rising rapidly. Her eyebrow rose, and she put her hand over his body, feeling the changes in temperature with her own skin through the glove. Then she caught Joy managing to sneak around while she was distracted. “Flick that switch, Fifty Six, and I will kill you.”\n\nBoth Joys froze at her words. “You wouldn’t. We swo-.”\n\nBianca spat again and shook her head, digging around in her bag. “Oaths’ changed a lot in thirty years, honey; wanna learn how much, or do ya wanna save a life today?” She grabbed her trusty icepick, hammered a dent into his dome, and the area shifted colors from some rapid, localized temperature spike. “I don’t do KIA’s, now PREP a REVIVE!” she barked, gently brushing a gloved hand across Musharna’s cheek.\n\nThe other Joy shook her head, reached into her own bag, and started priming the energy pads. “Sorry…”\n\nEveryone in the arena held their stomachs in horror as Bianca locked a ten pound battery into her trusty impact driver, loaded a menacing, tapered bit, and pressed it against his temple. Parents covered their children’s eyes and less squeamish people started recording the event on their ‘Navs.\n\n“Stay with me baby!” she howled at the center of a storm of sparks and coiled metal shavings, securing the tool against her knee. Boiling red fluid sprayed across her smock and she pushed harder, grunting as she bored down into his ferrometal guts. “You got too much to live for!”\n\nAudino clenched her teeth. She was forcing all the power she could, giving him every ounce of raw, life sustaining fuel her body could sustain. It stitched bodies, eased pain, even soothed the mind with time, but there was only so much you could force before their soul simply needed too much to stay connected to their body. His vitals flatlined, she could feel Magnezone’s life starting to slip away… and then her eyes exploded with deep, amaranthine light.\n\nThe flames around Mangezone’s body burst into sunset shades, she pressed her hands together in prayer, and then fainted into the dirt.\n\nThe lines on the readout skittered around again, erratic, unstable, but very much still alive.\n\nBianca hit a dense clump of ferrobone and her impact suddenly smoked and bound up. “Dammit! Fuck fuck fuck!”\n\nShe yanked the drill out, soaking her legs in a fountain of hemorrhaging ferroblood, and smacked it against an upturned slab of cement. Skilled surgeon reduced to a rummaging thief, she started throwing tools around and turned the bag inside-out over her face, finding nothing of use… \n\nBonnie’s face washed out and she shivered, strangled with shuppet sheets.\n\n\t…then Bianca lifted her dress, drew her service pistol, and carefully aligned its barrel with the patchwork quilt of anatomical diagrams she’d stitched to her heart with shaking, blood soaked hands.\n\n\t“Get’cher ass UP!” she screamed with wild eyes, and pulled the trigger.\n\n\tThe nose of her .45 sloughed away like molten wax, totally obliterated by the jet of white-hot plasma escaping Magnezone’s innards. He creaked and groaned as his bloated body deflated, finally relieved of the monumental intrathoracic reaction cooking him from the inside.\n\nBianca gestured for them to get to work and tossed the smoldering blob aside with a somber nod. “Thanks, old friend.”\n\nJoy-56 crept forward, shielding her face from the heat. “Reactive Chemothorax? The last case was decades ago!”\n\nBianca nodded with a patient smile. “Not my first day pulling steelies from the strawberry fields, sweetie. Saw this all the time when Explosions were part and parcel. Now, go on, wire him up,” she ordered, clapping them both across the shoulder with smoking, rawhide gloves.\n\nClass III revives were intimidating to use, looked like those antique explosive detonators with the pump handle, so anyone with a bit more sense of self-preservation would have backed up as the unimaginably dense energies stored within were forced through along lines of humming, meta-neural cable. Not old Bianca though. She brushed Magnezone’s skull, smiling with tears that rolled down his body in sizzling beads, humming some old, near-forgotten morning song as he jerked about, his joints whizzed in random circles, and then his eyelids broke like hatching shells.\n\n“Rise and shine!” she shouted, popping up to her feet with her hands thrown up in celebration.\n\nHis vitals stabilized, his body started stitching itself together, as expected with center treatment, the runaway voltage died down, and he slowly started exchanging air through his shattered jaw.\n\n“You owe me a new sidearm, soldier.”\n\n\tBonnie’s eyes lit back up like a dying campfire doused in logs and scout water once Magnezone was recalled and sent to the ICU via Rotom Rescue Drone. “Oh, sweet Arceus, thank you!”\n\n\tThe gust of a collective sigh of relief blew the tension out of the air as the Judge Drones blared their all-clear siren, indicating that the match could continue with a brief moment for the trainers to collect themselves.\n\n\tClemont hid behind Carlisle, trying to keep his eyes from running on camera as he wheezed in humiliated relief. His attendant raised a silver brow, rubbed Clemont’s head, and nodded with resolute determination. Master Clemont was completely out of sorts. Downright despondent!\n\nNo, that simply would not do.\n\n\tRichard’s mind went blank, having totally forgotten that Metagross was still laid out on the field. He’d been in arenas where accidental deaths happened, even seen restricted video footage of matches where ‘Mons’ lives were cut short in brutal, painless fractions of a second, most within his own ladder. But it wasn’t just some name that would have been scratched off the registry, it wasn’t even his ‘Mon, and that’s what made his stomach turn. What would that have felt like? Would he have wanted to keep on fighting?\n\n\tHe hoped he never came that close to finding out ever again.\n\nClap. Clap. Clap. Clap.\n\nClemont and Bonnie stood, shaken with raw emotion, quietly watching with heads atilt, unsure what in the hell their butler was up to.\n\nTeam Prism’s final combatant emerged, wading through a swirling brown smog that stained the wind giving a quaint, straight shouldered round of applause. He approached the calamitous scene with a billowing cape draped across his shoulder, then stopped feet from his opponent’s quivering body and the medics who were packing up their things.\n\n“What magnificent force! What, selfless courage! What dogged resolve! ” He swirled his cape around and bellowed to the crowd. “Good people of Kalos, such incredible demonstration of character deserves our respect; nay, our deepest admiration! The heart of this nation beats with the blood, sweat, and tears of heroes such as these. My people, show everyone that Lady Lumiose shines her silver light upon the gallant, chivalrous, and true.”\n\nHe clenched his fist and then spread his fingers out, unveiling rows of brilliant silver coins stuck between his knuckles, then he tossed the coins at their feet, removed his hat, and bowed.\n\nSilence. Then the air chimed with a song of silver raindrops showering them with praise.\n\nMen, women, and children, rich and poor, ran against the railings to spare a dixie or more. They cried in amazement, hurling handfuls of three–petaled flowers stamped in steel. Even as his own children battled like their lives depended on it, Prince Meyer had everyone in the royal balcony round up their coinage to join the people in celebration.\n\nBianca cheered, smiling wide as coins fell around them. She hoisted Audino over her shoulder, hefted her bag, and waved goodbye to the crowd as she was escorted off the field.\n\nRichard finally woke from his daze as Emil shoved his shoulder.\n\n“Get her out of there!” Emil hissed.\n\nBut Richard waited, dumbfounded as he saw Carlisle approach Metagross, kneel, and carefully hoist her against his hip. “Allow me, M’lady.” Then he proceeded to carry thirteen-hundred pounds of angry computer to the arena’s edge like a platter of fancy sandwiches.\n\n\tRich leaned over to Emil. “Is he doing what I think he’s doing?”\n\n\tEmil leaned over with one eye squinting. “Well, he did just teach a whole city to use Payday”\n\n\t“Roll with it, it’s the lightest penalty we could ask for,” he whispered back.\n\nCarlisle approached Richard and Emil at the edge of their box, stared them down for a full ten seconds, nodded, then he stepped around to the side as the audience murmured with anticipation. He stopped near the pink thing tending to their team’s injuries, and hoisted her above his head.\n\n“You there!” He hailed, tossing Metagross across the line. \n\nSpinel shrieked bloody murder as her body shook the ground behind him, then scurried behind Torterra's shell with his hackles armed like daggers and his tail between his legs. “{Aaaaah! I’m sorry! I didn’t do it!}”\n\nCarlisle cleared his throat, donned his stovepipe hat, and gestured politely with his wrist. “Be a chap and see to it Miss Metagross gets the finest soaps and sundry, would you? She’s had a rough day. Courtesy of the Throne, spare no expense!”\n\nSpinel looked left and right with dinner plate eyes, realizing that the insane cyborg wasn’t going to snatch him up and unwrap him like a giftmas present. “{Y-yeah, you got it, boss!}”\n\n“You’re a gentlemon and a scholar,” he said, tipped his hat, and casually strolled around the pits, channels, crags, and piles of rubble to the center of the ring.\n\nThe audience was swept with applause as he flourished his cape, draping it over one shoulder. “It has been our honor, having been brought such a worthy challenge.” His eyes flared bright orange, he rolled his shoulders, and crunched his knuckles in his palms like gravel in a press. “As Knight Master of Ordre Presim, it would be a disgrace to my noble pedigree if I failed to respond in kind.\n\nRichard leaned over to his friend. “The hell is that he just said?”\n\nSpinel overheard and hopped atop Torterra’s back, cupping his mouth with a funnel made of ribbons. “{It’s a royal military order!}”\n\n\tRich glanced between him and Emil. “Ah, I’m still, uh…”\n\n\tEmil rolled his eyes. “He says they’re knights.”\n\n\tRichard bellowed with laughter. “Ha! I played Mysteries and Dungeons once, what’s your level?”\n\n\tAbsolutely nobody in the arena laughed.\n\n\tSpinel smacked his cheeks with his paws, absolutely mortified on behalf of his hand-selected idiot.\n\n\tBack home, Richard’s father slumped forward and buried his face in his hands, groaning at the screen as he downed his fifth gin cocktail. \n\n\tThe old Knightmon lifted his arms, loose in the shoulders, and snapped his fists through the air.\n\n\tSpinel fell from Torterra’s back, feeling a bowl of word salad tossing up in his head and he ran closer. “{No, babe. No! Emil, tell him this is serious! They’re Pokemon hand picked from the special forces; y’know, the guys that kill people because they like it?}”\n\nClemont, suddenly encouraged at the excitement in the crowd, the fact his valued Pokemon didn’t die on live television, depressed a button on his backpack and a ridiculously overengineered communications dish unfurled behind him. “Oh, we are so back! You’re amazing, old boy! You ready to try out our secret weapon?”\n\nCarlisle glared back at the young Prince with stern, amber eyes. “No.”\n\nPeople gasped, particularly in the not-cheap seats.\n\nSpinel started hyperventilating with his ribbons flailing all around. “{I’ve heard so many stories from Val and they’re all really, really bad! The Knights get all the psycho, crazy dangerous missions, get no recognition, and they’re all volunteers!}”\n\nClemont chuckled with weakening breath. “Haha, we wait then, save it for later, yeah?”\n\n\tRichard glanced back and forth between Emil and the frantic, chittering thing he had to deal with later. “Um, yeah… ah…”\n\n\t“We need to take this serious, Rich…” Emil muttered.\n\nCarlisle’s head shook. Slowly. “We will discuss it later, but for now, Master Clemont…”\n\nHe peeled up a patch of skin on the back of his neck and a few people in the audience audibly retched. Beneath was a technological morass of glowing sockets and occupied memory disk slots. He reached for a chrome plug between his shoulder blades and yanked a sparking, insulated-copper root system from his spine. He tossed it to the ground, showered it in a handful of tiny, ejected disks and raised one of his shiny, black loafers.\n\n “I will be the one that brings this Joust to its conclusion.” He brought his foot down with a crunch that left Clemont wincing in pain.\n\nEmil’s spine went numb and cold. “...dead serious.”\n\n\t“Team Stone, Release!” Carlisle and the Judge Drone said in perfect synchronization. \n\nRichard released his Pokemon, face tightening with stress. His grandpa always told him to battle like it’s a game, never forget it so the real world doesn’t ruin it for you, but he was having a hard time holding to Grandad’s truth. After what he’d seen, the level of intensity he felt, knowing just how potent every blow was and how quickly it could go bad.\n\nHe’d played around and now his team was paying the price.\n\n\tIf the League Jock could be given credit for his powers of the mind, it was his ability to shove everything that didn’t matter in the exact moment aside and deal with it later. Assuming he… you know, actually dealt with it later. Regardless of whether he’d actually messed up, he had a robot to rip apart, and you don’t cut steel with regrets. He wasn’t a blowhard, but he had a few hardcore bones in his body.\n\n“Go!”\n\nThe millisecond his energy snapped back into place, Rhydon’s return was heralded by an abyssal, bloodthirsty roar. He spun around, locking onto Carlisle, and he punched his claws into a slab of upturned cement, carrying it like a riot shield as he charged. \n\nRichard felt beads of sweat rolling down his neck as he took the one and only chance he had to get in a cheap shot or two and save his last two fighters even a tiny shred of effort. “Rhydon, get ready, crush that can, don’t stop ‘til he fits in a bucket.”\n\nRhydon bolted forward, leaving trickles of blood running down from the injuries on his head, and grabbed a bit of concrete at the end piece of rebar with his free hand.\n\nCarlisle buckled down, his slick, curled mustache rolling around on his upper lip as he assessed the monster running his way. “Ooohohoho. Ya feelin’ bricky, big guy?” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s tussle.”\n\nThe bloody, horned devil came within feet of Carlisle’s position, having leapt from a pile of rubble and landed with an energy that shook the ground. He swung his scrappy club and it evaporated into gravel as the suave cyborg spun to the right into a surprise backwards kick, his legs glowing with bright orange energy that caught the slab dead on. \n\n“Enjoy your switch,” he growled as one foot passed through the slab, leaving Rhydon reeling from the force, then the old guy threw his body forward, holding onto his hat as he tumbled into a roll that brought his heel down upon Rhydon's makeshift falanx, center mass. “You picked it.”\n\nEmil and Richard both felt the heat of the moment starting to press on their faces as Rhydon’s knees buckled from the force and the slab shattered to powder over his body like cheap china. \n\nRhydon coughed and sputtered gobs of bloody phlegm, then his eyes glistened with malicious intent as Richard quietly whispered commands into his Pokeball from afar. He swept Carlisle’s feet out from under him with his tail, prompting the gentleman to throw his hat up and snatch it out of the air at the end of a cackling, backwards somersault.\n\nThen he fell to all fours, scoring the rubble with his feet, and superheated air spilled from his body as his angered cries exploded the air around his face. He charged, just as Richard commanded him, smashing boulders and toppling stacks of wreckage on a rampage path to a full-tilt Heat Crash.\n\nCarlisle slid to a stop on his heels, preparing to bolt forwards and strike while the iron was hot; however, he failed to recognize which of them was actually on the anvil.\n\nRichard’s Rhydon was, in the wisest words of a Leathery, Alolan Poketrician back home, ‘a brick-ass-bastard.’ He was twice the already immense weight of your average specimen, so the crash would have at least some effect, even considering that thing’s metal body probably weighed half a Metagross at least. Rhydon’s mind was so far gone into the red abyss of berzerk there was no way he could work his energy into a Fire Punch, or anything more elegant than a Body Slam for that matter. But Heat Crash? Heat Crash don’t care.\n\nRhydon snatched Carlisle by an arm and a leg as he tried to flip out of the way. Slammed to the ground, disappearing into a maelstrom of flaming powder, the old man screamed in ways that, if nobody knew he wasn’t actually a human, would have relegated their match to the market of shady, unmarked CD’s sold exclusively where the sun didn’t shine.\n\nThe city cheered their champion on with cries of encouragement and concern, half of the front rows having leapt from their seats to get a better look at the action down below.\n\nRichard clenched his fist, refusing to give the advantage up. “Rhydon, Stomping Tantrum!”\n\nThe glowing torrent burst into a final, fiery flash and the ground shuddered as Rhydon’s voracious hunger for unrestrained violence snapped free from its chains. Clouds cleared and the crowd bore witness to a spectacular show of cruelty through a hazy silver screen of filth.\n\nCarlisle tried to pull himself free between impacts, struck Rhydon’s knee with all his might, even tried to roll him over on a downstroke slam that lashed his skull across the ground tossed his hat aside, but again and again he was left spraying the ground with crackling, orange and blue fountains of sparks.\n\nThe announcer drones flew up in a theatrical circle. “Big talk, but it looks like Rhydon’s rage is bigger. Is it over for our proud paladin, Lumiose?!”\n\nRhydon hung Carlisle from his wrist, inches from his snout, rumbling with laughter. “{YOU’RE PATHETIC!}” he bellowed with words that showered Carlisle’s devastated face in a spray of gorey spittle.\n\n“Yeah?” he coughed through a grinning palisade of shattered teeth. His tux was torn to rows of black banners and half his face was rasped down to sinewy, synthetic strands that clung to his menacing, robotic mockery of a human skull like bits of bloody tissue from a clumsy shave. His eyes shifted to a bright, menacing shade of red as he rubbed a ragged, white thumb across his cheek. “Well…”\n\nThe last thing Rhydon saw was a snappy flash so bright everyone else reared back wincing. A ring of explosive bolts broke his hand free, and he fell into a stealthy crouch. The rampaging beast crushed the robot’s hand to junk in his claws, and his tail whipped down at him, but he couldn’t feel the satisfying crunch of a torso collapsing under its weight. He huffed burning, smoking air from his lungs, eyes flailing around in a blind, feral panic.\n\nCarlisle stood and raised his arm in a coup d'etat. Where a hand once beckoned the crowd for applause now his wrist deployed a three barreled gatling cannon that whined as it spun up with silver light. “You’re not up to one ounce of Dick!”\n\nHe somersaulted sideways, dodging a surprisingly skilfully aimed hailstorm of stone, and then bunched his mouth up into a wicked smile as his eyes fired up again. His hat, abandoned on the other side of the arena, bounced around and Carlisle’s voice echoed from it like a megaphone. “Whaaat, I’m just some washed up wrinkle, right? How does it feel, being the caboose?”\n\nHis hat rolled away as Rhydon flipped around, hefted a boulder, and hurled it out of the arena, barely stopped from careening through the splash-zone seats by a Hariyama in a league service hat body checking the rock. “{Just you wait, old m-AAUUUGH!}\n\nChunks of Rhydon’s back showered the arena in ground up viscera as bolts of concentrated steel energy flashed from Carlisle’s arm, knocking the monster onto his face. “C’mon, fat head, where'd your moxie go?” his hat boomed, rolling around as Carlisle carefully strafed and snuck in for his next strike.\n\n“{MY HEAD IS JUST THE RIGHT SIZE! RAAAAGH!}” he shrieked, lobbing a jagged chunk of concrete that landed ten feet from his team's trainer box.\n\nEmil’s heart jumped as the thing landed and cracked apart. “Rhydon DIG!”\n\nRhydon’s bloodshot eyes bugged out of his skull, barely able to hear anything but the beating pain in his everything and his anger that had been whipped up into a frothy milkshake by Carlisle’s bullshit. But he shoved his paws into the dirt, not knowing what exactly he was going to do after he got down there, but totally confident that it was better than what his brain was brewing up. After all he’d seen that day, he had faith in Emilio's inner sadist.\n\n“Ah-ah-aaah,” Carlisle’s voice echoed across the field as he wagged his finger, and the hat rolled to a stop in front of Rhydon’s nose.\n\n\tRhydon snatched it up and stood with a snarl, ready to rip the thing in two. “{HA! Got your…}”\n\n\tHis gaze passed across the inside of the black, mawile-felt hat for only a fraction of a second, but when it did his eyes were caught up in some ineffable snare. The inner lining was a lush, pink silk, ringed in rows of razor sharp teeth that dropped off into an all-consuming, bottomless pit of darkness.\n\n\tEmil pressed the button on his ball. “Double-Edge! Put it down! Get him!”\n\n\tRhydon’s extremities jittered as he slumped to his ass, his firestorm of emotion unceremoniously snuffed out, strings of drool ran down his chin, and the color faded from his eyes.\n\n\tCarlisle snapped his fingers and the hat rolled back towards him. “Storm in a teacup.”\n\n\tRichard nodded, eyes locked on Carlisle, who was busy tearing the remnants of his suit coat off. “You did good, buddy. You did real good…”\n\n\tThe judge drone spun around, hooting with celebration. “Sir Carlisle prevails, and Rhydon is unable to continue! Hooraaaaay! Faint penalty, Team Prism cannot switch; Team Stone, release!”\n\n\tCarlisle’s devastated, exposed metal face rolled its jaw around. He loosened the buttons on his half-burned club-collar shirt. “Sally forth, Richard Stone. Twas an honor showing Rhydon the door.”\n\n\tIncineroar’s eyes opened for a moment, and then she squeezed them shut. They needed me for this… so badly.\n\n\tBonnie looked over at her brother. “I’ve never seen him fight like this, Clemont.”\n\n\tClemont shook his head. “I haven’t either, but… something seems familiar… I can’t place it, sis.”\n\n\tRichard looked over at Emil. “There’s no easy way out of this one, is there?”\n\n\tEmilo shook his head. “Nah,” he replied, smiling. “And a good thing too, Vaporeons’ bored.\"\n\n\t“Machamp, hold out, buddy!”\n\n\tThe old, four armed wonder punched the air, prepping a defense as he squinted past an eye that was swollen shut from the messy maelstrom they’d just struggled through.\n\nCarlisle huffed as he marched towards Machamp, removing his glove with his teeth. “You, on the other hand… I’d like to have a word, if you’d be so kind.”\n\nMachamp pointed to himself, looking around, and his shoulders slumped as he waited for the strange pokemon-human-appliance-thing to approach.\n\nThe old guy glared at Machamp with the countenance of a world ending, alien, robot soldier. Machamp’s stomach turned a little at the sight of the man’s skin having been torn away, and he stood there gawking as Carlisle stopped with a stomp of his feet, twirled his good palm around and over his shoulder, and then slapped his glove across Machamp’s cheek.\n\nThe audience exploded with irreverent cheering, jeering, and calls for bloodshed. \n\n“You have soiled the nobility of Dedenne of Prism Tower, my beloved kin, hatched eight clutches from my own! Prepare to feel her shame.”\n\nMachamp wiped his cheek, looked down with a confused raise of the brow, then looked back at his trainers in complete bemusement.\n\nRichard punched the air. “Give it to ‘em! Look out, though, he’s got tricks!”\n\nMachamp pursed his lips, raised all four fists with one held up at his chest in defense, ready to trade blows with ye-olde trash can.“{Name of the game, fancy man.}”\n\nCarlisle threw down the gauntlet between them and raised his fist, as if he planned to duke it out with Richard’s Old Reliable.\n\nSpinel had been watching the entire time, having snuck away from taking care of the drooling, braindead coma Rhydon had been reduced to, and hid behind Incineroar’s chest. “{RUN! Don't do it!}”\n\nCarlisle brought his clenched fist down, unfolded it, and slid it into his pocket. “First move is yours, reprobate...”\n\nIncineroar’s eyes pried open again, unable to stand her uselessness any longer, watched, listened, smelled the air past the blood drying in her nose.\n\nMachamp’s triceps rolled like locomotive wheels, knuckles whizzing past Carlisle’s head with snaps that cracked the air in two. His body began glowing orange, building tension in his knees as he shifted backwards, dodging one of the old coot’s return blows with that one good fist of his. He was left reeling from a single, skillfully placed palm strike to the jaw, and finally he felt the Close Combat begin to roll into action. Several backhands, downward chops, and a powerful, straight sternum blow made contact and Machamp gritted his teeth, feeling his bones creak and snap from the impacts, knowing he’d need to ignore his joints stretching apart and reassembling if he was going to put this guy down.\n\nMachamp came down upon his skull with a vicious, meteoric punch, forcing the old Knight to his knees. “Aaahahahaha… What a facer! My compliments to the chef,” he said with a shuddering, glitching voice, grinning up with a mouth of shattered punji stakes for teeth as his hat fell from his skull and rolled away.\n\nIncineroar grabbed Spinel by his baby-blue collar, scoffing at his wimpy squeaks of terror, and pointed a shaking claw at Carlisle. “{Listen.}”\n\nSpinel raised his big, only-good-for-one-thing ears and sure enough, he could hear it; the whine of something not unlike the capacitors and battery arrays spinning up on the Olivine Dawn. Then he spotted a line of electrical sparks playing up and down Carlisle’s legs and he ran to the side of the arena. “{Back off Machamp! Something’s building up. Back off!}”\n\nMachamp, unlike his bigger, hornier compatriot, relied on every brick in the Stonecastle, and without hesitating he leapt back with all his might, skidding to a stop on the balls of his feet.\n\nWith absolutely no time to spare, as Machamp disengaged he felt Carlisle's metal fingers brush against his belt. He’d barely avoided a grapple, the consequences of which he could only begin imagining as House Bourbon’s best slammed his foot down, and the air burst apart. Carlisle brought his fist and his gun up in a boxing posture, then a bubble of power around him exploded into thunder flurrying within an electromagnetic snowglobe of plasma.\n\n“Hahaaaa,” his laughter buzzed in everyone’s ears. “I like you, Sylveon. Hush now!”\n\nCarlisle’s mouth opened, jaw dislocated, and all noise in the arena was drowned out in a mind numbing sawtooth tone. He reached his hand out, and it exploded with a pneumatic hiss that released a long, metallic snake lunging from his arm at ballistic speeds towards Machamp, metal fangs protracting from the ends of his fingers. \n\nMachamp rolled out of the way, carefully scooping up a boulder in his arms, and hurled it back as Carlisle’s claws raked across his shoulder. His muscles shook from even that minuscule contact.\n\nCarlisle allowed the rock to make purchase with his shoulder as his long, metal grappling arm recoiled. Spinel shouted in response, but his voice was drowned out in a droning, transformer’s hum. Rocking the air with malicious waves of sound, his laughter sounded like nothing Emil or Richard had heard before. Even Clemont and Bonnie couldn’t recognize this terrifying behavior.\n\nPrince Meyer, on the other hand, watched with cool intensity as the guardian of House Bourbon finally got to show just how formidable he really was. Decades of guarding his family, stuck in an endless cycle of mundane, domestic tasks, would never be enough to dull this warrior’s edge, it seemed. Several cousins and attendants in the stands with him shook his shoulder, asking what was going on, but he refused to answer them. \n\n\tSince he was Bonnie’s age he’d wondered how deep Carlisle’s well of power went. Ever since the old boy trained him into the martial bird of prey that stalked the nightmares of criminals everywhere, he wanted to know his own attendant’s deepest, darkest secrets. His service, the old ‘Mon always said, belonged to the Imperial Crown, and that he’d never divulge. He’d break his oaths to House Bourbon before he ever let those shadows out of the closet.\n\nThe old boy was ensuring nobody forgot, least of all the other Royal Families vying for power throughout Kalos, just how well protected the throne of Lumiose was. More than that even, Carlisle was bored. For years he’d complained to his Master, longing to stoke the glorious fires of battle flickering within, and then the Masters Qualifier came along, promising to bring Pokemon of a skill and power that would allow his lifelong companion to go all out.\n\nHe could not deny him this honor, and so Prince Meyer called upon his son to take Carlisle’s ball in glorious combat. But Carlisle was a proud ‘Mon, and the caped crusader knew the time would come that his son learned that there were things outside of his control.\n\nThe ragged human half of his face curled into a satisfied smile. This competition did not disappoint, and it was time to raise the amperage once again.\n\nHe aligned his cannon and traced the movements of his new musclebound friend, blue spheres blasted from his arm and splashed messy cobwebs of voltage against the ground, curling roots of arcing flashes around the walls of the Arena, and a number of Smoochum and Jynx shoved their way through the crowd, raising shields protecting the audience from Carlisle’s stray barrage. \n\nMachamp tumbled around the arena at full tilt, using the wreckage to his advantage with parkour gymnastics to dodge the gunfire. He couldn’t touch this guy without suffering the consequences, he felt that in his bones, and none of his ranged techniques were working. He had to come up with something else, and he suddenly felt that rush of inspiration that only came to someone when their leg was in a trap and the hunter was upon them. His body built up fighting energy again, and he raised a slab of cement to eat a few of Carlisle’s blasts as he jumped forward, and landed thirty feet away.\n\n“CHAAAAAMP!” he broke a stone in two with his foot, threw all four palms out, and rings of amber energy sizzled through the air in an expertly aimed arc.\n\nRichard’s eyes popped open, and both he and Emil gawked at each other as Carlisle grappled a rock nearby and yanked himself out of the way. A long cylinder of stone and earth was eradicated by Machamp’s new technique, catching Carlisle’s left leg up in a vibrant bolt of fighting force.\n\nCarlisle spun around, left standing on a crackling stump that oozed with flaming technological ichors. “What a masterfully executed Focus Blast!” he exclaimed with a shaky, corrupted appreciation in his voice. “Delightful, truly.”\n\nMachamp looked at his palms that still smoked and swirled the air with errant energy. “{Is that what it’s called?}”\n\n“You’vvve been fighting thizzz long and…” Carlisle’s palm smacked against his temple with a loud clang. “Haaahahaha. Your simp-p-plicity is so charming. Please, nevvver change.”\n\nMachamp worked to summon up the feeling he got with that move again, rotating his arms in unison as his muscles bulged again. “{Careful what you wish for!}”\n\nEveryone screamed out as Carlisle’s hat rolled around behind Machamp, but it was too late.\n\n“Ta ta.”\n\nCarlisle reached his hand into the space where he’d unbuttoned his shirt, and the grappling hand blasted out from the hat, dragging a massive, black metal ball and chain with it. His claws bit into Machamp’s leg, and wrapped the thing around Machamp's knees, his opponent crying out with thousands of volts lighting his nervous system on fire.\n\nRichard recognized it immediately, the old Iron Ball Switcheroo; an ancient, dirty play from a dastardly old soldier's bag of tricks\n\nMachamp reached for Carlisle’s arm, trying to bust it over his shoulders, but his body shook out of his control, his vision blurred, and his heart skipped several beats as he fought just to stay tanding. Machamp tried to leap to safety, but was held in place by the chains around his ankles as a steel barrage rained down, twice as strong as the first, running his gunbarrel white hot as he refused to let up until Machamp’s flailing turned to worn out writhing.\n\nCarlisle emptied the furnaces within him in a massive gout of hyperthermal air from his mouth, his ears, and out from the plates of his body. He smoked like a sagebrush fire as his shirt was burned away in a storm of cinders. “D-d-d-dedenne’s honor hazzz been avenged, you are relievvved of your guilt,” he declared, retracting his arm, sticking his good hand back into his pocket to check his watch. “In rec-c-c-cord time, too.”\n\nMachamp squinted past sprays of smoking blood and burned skin erupted from his body. He wasn’t about to leave without taking his own pound of flesh, and he had just the target. He channeled the pent up energy he’d gathered, and tossed it aside. \n\nThe hat magically vanished into a cloud of dust, replaced by a smoking, black pit. “Tadaaaa!” Machamp laughed, capping off his own little magic show with a round of jazz-hands.\n\nCarlisle guffawed. “You hooligan!” He raised his cannon, his eyes flared supernova bright, and Machamp was slathered by the dripping licks of Flamethrower. “That-t wazzzz g-g-genuine Nonpareil Mysdibule, I’ll havvvvvve you know!”\n\nMachamp didn’t scream, there was no way he’d show the bastard any satisfaction, but he did give the crowd a last round of peace signs thrown up as his skin melted away, wreathed in sooty, polluted flames. Huge sections of the crowd cried out his name, moved by the absolute, unrelenting grit.\n\nThe Judges slowly turned around. “Our Champion conquers all! Machamp is unable to continue! Team Stone, release your final Pokemon!”\n\nEmil squinted at Carlisle as Machamp was recalled and given to Spinel, who nearly fainted at the the smell of barbecued living flesh. “May I do the honors?”\n\nRichard tossed the ball to Emil, “With pleasure,” he said, resigned to the fact that his fate was now in the hands of his neighbor’s pet fish.\n\n\t“Let’s go Honey, rock his world!”\n\n\tVaporeon appeared at the corner of the arena. Emilio put her there so she’d have some distance from an enemy that had gone to great lengths to make themselves as dangerous as possible, and she wasted no time slipping into a crouch, using every square inch of their upturned arena to her advantage.\n\nShe took one look at her opponent’s torn body, shredded face, and amputated extremities and gagged in disgust. “{You don’t look so good, old timer.}”\n\nCarlisle followed her with a pair of lasers tracing lines from his eyes to his quarry, loosing off a few bursts when he felt confident in his aim. Then he realized she was picking up speed, turning into a blinking, blue blur as she worked her energy into some strange enhancement pattern he didn’t recognize.\n\nRain fell from the sky again, heralding a hazy, glittering fog that hung in the air like cold soup.\n\n“Int-t-teresting bzzzrechnique, M’lady,” he said with clothes billowing in the wind of a foul smelling exhaust his body released from every crack and crevice. \n\n“I’m coming for you…” Vaporeon’s voice echoed throughout the arena from all angles in clean, lustrous intra-regional common, and the crowd’s volume dropped like disturbed icicles, “...ready or not…”\n\nHis eyes suddenly shifted green as he watched, in infrared, the bullet time motions of a blob of heat testing the corners of his defenses. He nodded resolute, ejected his glowing, smoking gun barrel to protract a long, double edged blade, filigreed in gold fleur de lis and silver Roserade dancers. His noodly, serrated arm unfurled, curling around him like a halo in defense as he spilled putrid, heavy emissions that hugged the ground.\n\n “Allez avant!” he barked with beckoning arms and a thunderous shadow roiling in his wake, basking in the great fog of war once more.\n\nWater pooled around his feet as he awaited her first great, lunging strike. He finally saw her body pinball off a rock and launch towards him, and he raised his blade as the silhouette of a fin-cheeked beauty formed in the fog. He swiped, intending to cut her right down the middle, pulling back to keep from killing her, of course, and whooped with celebration as he felt the blade make purchase.\n\nHe gasped as her Substitute sliced clean in two, and an amorphous, predatory blob leapt up to coil around his neck.\n\nVaporeon reformed an instant later with his neck firmly in her tail, and she twisted his head free from his shoulders like a steel bottle cap. “{Nap time,}” she peeped and leapt to the ground, washing herself clean of his nasty schmutz with a Watergun.\n\n\tWhen his body fell his head cackled with delight as it rolled around in the yellow, poisonous fog he’d left behind. “Hehehehe… Bon Adeui, mon ami…”\n\n\tThe serrated claws on his hands retracted, and his body snapped its fingers, sending a shower of sparks down into the pond of volatile vapors.\n\n\tFWOOOSH! BOOOM!\n\n\tThe arena erupted into crackling, electric flames, and the mist rode a great pressure wave on its way out. Carlisle’s head dimmed and darkened on the ground, and slowly his fuzzy, distorted laughter came to a stop as his head fried alive.\n\nEveryone held their breath as the destruction settled, holding their ringing ears in their palms.\n\n\tThe announcers breathed in panicked fashion. “Oh no! Sir Carlisle has given himself up for the good of the nation. Will his sacrifice result in a judge point decision?”\n\n\tRichard looked up at the score counter and realized what that would mean with Team Stone fifteen points down. “Vaporeon! Talk to me, girl! Where are you?! C’mon, please!”\n\t\n\tEmil and Richard peered into the carnage, spotting a swirling gachapon shell of water with Vaporeon inside, curled up, arms out, eyes closed in meditation. She broke her concentration as the flames died down, and calmly walked towards the last, tiny remaining fragment of her foe.\n\n\tCarlisle’s eyes flickered in and out, looking up at her. “{I see you’ve drank from the killing cup too,}” he said in a strange, wailing voice, like the whine of an out of tune radio. “Je déclare forfait. It wazzzz an hon-nor annnnnd a privvvvilege, Team Zzzzztone of Mrcshhhhvville.” His eyes flickered out, and a bulb of orange light zipped free from his ear, zigzagged through the air, and entered a slow, tired orbit around Clemont’s head.\n\n\t“My apologies, Young Master, it appears my skills have rusted deeper than I knew,” his voice squealed from Bonnie’s dexnav. “I fought my hardest, and I’m proud of everyone’s effort, even in defeat.”\n\n\tBoth the Bourbon kids smiled, nodding with tears in their eyes. “That’s the real spirit,” they said together, replaying Carlisle’s own encouraging phrase right back at him. “Viva La Lumiose!”\n\n\tThe crowd was wild with rancor and delight, a riotous mix of fervor at the final result. But their patriotic cry ignited a rolling chant of “Viva La Lumiose!” and the laughter of coins falling around them as the two siblings wrapped around each other in a sobbing embrace.\n\n\tThe Judge Drone sighed with a despondent altitude drop. “Clinging to life from the inferno’s of defeat, Vaporeon stands alone, Team Stone is the winner!”\n\n\tEveryone on Team Stone breathed a sigh of mortal relief as the match was finally called. \n\n\tRichard staggered over to his team, left in a state of shambles he’d never seen them in before, and knelt down. “Damn fine work, you guys. All of ya. I can’t even express how proud I am of all of you. Get yourselves put together at the Center and get some rest; it's another battle like that tomorrow, probably even worse, but I know we can make it through.”\n\n\tVaporeon ran at full tilt for her lover and leapt into his chest. “{That little trick we brewed up came in real handy, Emmi.}”\n\n\tEmil nuzzled her cheek. “{Sad we had to show it off first match, can’t fool someone like that twice.}”\n\n\tShe laid down in his arms, purring as she waited for his sweet, sensual words.“{You’ll cover us with some brilliant backup plan; you always do.}”\n\n\t“{Not without my blue muse glowing in the sky,}” he whispered behind her fin, and stroked her neck.\n\n\tVaporeon practically melted in his arms, bashfully blushing as she smacked his face with her paw.\n\n\tClemont, Bonnie, and Carlisle marched towards their opponent with faces full of proud resolution. “It was our great privilege to cross wires with the likes of you,” Clemont said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “A shame you already earned my badge, I’d love it if you did some training at the tower one day.”\n\n\tHis Sister nodded with a snivel. “Just a darned shame I’ll never taste that amazing Gumbo!”\n\n\tSpinel’s ear turned like a radar dish as he finished helping Incineroar to her feet, and he zoomed over. He hastily scribbled onto a notecard and handed it over with a tired smile.\n\n\n“Make room for one pot of Pika Skrelp Gumbo at your banquet tonight.”\n\n\t\nBonnie scooped him up, spun him around, and tried her damndest to squeeze him into a pitcher of juice. “You’re the best!”\n\n\tEmil walked over to Clemont with a cool, tired smirk. “Later, Feraligatr.”\n\n\tClemont watched Emil power his device back on and felt like seeing what else the ‘Washed up Mechanic’ was going to get himself up to. He accessed the tunnel again, but felt his body lock up the moment his neural link made connection\n\n“Aaaah. Nnnaaaa!” His spine shivered as the circuitry suddenly felt foreign to his flesh, and then the lights went out with a message left for him in his field of view, complementing Emil’s last text…\n\n\n“Š̶̼h̴̖͘ä̸͖m̷̩̒ȅ̷͍ ̴̙̏o̴̟̽n̵̳̈́ ̴͉̂y̵̦͐o̷̯̓ü̵̫.̵̛̹”\n\n\n“Ah.. Aaaah! Bonnie! Help!” he reached for her shoulder as they left the arena.\n\nBonnie giggled. “That silly interface messing with your eyes again?”\n\n“Y-yeah. Hahaha,” all he wanted was to get away and recalibrate, thoroughly deterred from sticking his hands in Emilio Mallison’s private business again without a damned good reason.\n\nRichard noticed a familiar face on his way through the contestant passage. “Miss Diantha, Ma’am!”\n\nEeveeon brushed her tail around old Diantha’s leg, who reached down to scritch her back. “I couldn’t rightly miss my Grandson’s first masters match, could I?”\n\nRichard scratched his neck at that. “When you put it like that it sounds real flattering, Gran… Is Gran ok?”\n\nShe giggled. “Better than ok.” She waved at Spinel, who looked back and forth between them with a smile. \n\n\t“{She’s your Grandma? Nice to meet you, Ma’am,}” Spinel said, not expecting acknowledgement, but knowing his politeness would not go unnoticed by Azelf.\n\n\tDiantha nodded with a bright, wrinkly smile. “A pleasure as well, Spinel.”\n\nThe rest of the team eyed them with concern as Richard’s fluffy companion beamed with delight.\n\n“Who are you talking to, Rich?” Emil asked with an eyebrow raised.\n\nJust as he spun around, he saw Miss Margot and her swarm of cameramen assaulting Richard and he shrugged. Ah, well, I’d call her Grandma too if I wanted her to go away.\n\nEmil’s Dexnav buzzed with a call. He looked, saw Jun’s avatar of Apogee’s Corporate Logo with a big Red Cross over it, and answered without thinking. “Ah, hello?”\n\n“Heeey, Emilio?” Jun said with a great deal of nervousness in her voice. “Is now a bad time?”\n\nEm shook his head. “Nah, we just finished getting our shit pushed in and barely scraped by.”\n\nShe laughed with an uncanny tremble in her voice. “Whoa… I’ll need to watch that later. Hey, um… I’m sorry to ask this, it’s kinda weird. Where do you keep your soldering kit?”\n\nEmil’s brow stiffened with curiosity. “Hung with magnets under the kitchen table. Why?”\n\nShe paused, voice quivering. “Wh-why do you have your soldering kit in the freaking kitchen?!”\n\nEmil shrugged. “It’s where I’m most comfy prepping PCB’s. Why?”\n\n“Wha… I… weirdo. Anyways, it’s for school, they’ve got us, ah, making a little server.”\n\n“Huh, I didn’t know you were still in uni...”\n\n“Thanks a million, I’ll stay out of anything else, promise.”\n\nEmil sighed. “Hey, uh. Since I gotcha on the line. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch sometime when I get back. Sounds like an… alright thing, yeah?”\n\nShe squeaked, and then made nothing but moaning sounds for a time. “Ah… I… Yeah, that does sound nice.”\n\nVaporeon growled, but huffed and rolled her eyes, knowing Emmi was exercising his social strategy. Emil smooched her cheek and hummed a refrain under his breath.\n\n“It’s a date then… sometime, we’ll work it out. Well, good luck, ask me if you need help, that’s kinda my thing you’re doin’ there.” He heard a dial tone, realizing she’d hung up half way through his last sentence. “Weird…”\n\nMargot and her posse of state sanctioned paparazzi flanked Richard in a wedge of camera lenses. “What a hair raising match, unbelievable, truly!” she said with a hip swaying curtsy. “A quick interview of the victor, if we could.”\n\nDiantha folded her arms. “Tell the nosy nonperson to take a hike.”\n\nRichard looked back at her. “Yeah, just a moment, sorry.”\n\nMargot’s smile squirmed awkwardly. “Um, what?”\n\n“Look, I just nearly saw a Pokemon die today and most of my team is crawling out in crutches. You get one question.”\n\nMargot screwed up her face, then smiled like devil she knew she was. “You seem to have made a seriously loving bond with your team, Mr. Stone, I was wondering just how intimate your training gets when the world isn’t looking. Perhaps you’d be willing to let us know what happens behind closed doors, is that the secret to your success?”\n\nBoth Emil and Richard’s hearts skipped a beat.\n\nRichard shook his head and started walking away. “Aaaahahaha. Well, you can’t ask someone to bleed for you if you’re not willing to share the same tent.”\n\nVaporeon’s eyes locked onto Margot and didn’t let go. She growled low and angry, and Emil rubbed her shoulders to unwind the tension building. “I know, I don’t like it either. Just let him finish.”\n\nBut she wouldn’t. Oh no, this was the kind of person who always had a motive, and that question was far, far too coincidental. “{Right… Trust the doofus.}”\n\nShe bowed as her entire entourage slithered around a corner. “Wise words. We hope to see more of your affectionate style of leadership.”\n\nDiantha brushed his shoulder and pushed him along. “Busyboltund bitch. Anyway, where are you two going tonight, hmm?”\n\nRichard shrugged. “Well, I guess since the Royal Family is going to make good on their promise, we’re gonna be staying at the palace now.”\n\nHis Grandmother’s lips tightened with concern on her face, looking both boys up and down with intense focus. “Well, I’d like it if you came by the shop again, I’d like to show you a thing or two. Bring your little friend here as well.” Her face relaxed and she folded her arms. “Have a good night boys, good luck. And loosen up a little, Richie, you’re in Kalos, where magic never left the air. Live a little.”\n\nHe laughed at hearing such a thing from an old Veteran, let alone his own Grandmother. “Yes Ma’am, make bad decisions, got it.”\n\nShe cackled. “That’s my boy.”\n\nSpinel smiled, wrapping his Ribbon around Richard’s palm, relishing in his touch. “{Your Grandma is awesome.}”\n\nRichard didn’t notice Spinel's touch at all; or, more accurately, he noticed, but his brain didn’t mind what was happening. It felt comfortable, natural in a way he still didn’t understand. Whatever the reason, Sylveon held hands with trainers they liked, nothing weird going on at all, right?\n\nBonnie spotted them as an armored, stretch limousine arrived to take them away, and started gushing with excitement again. “Enamorous bless.”\n\nHe approached the lobby and, sure enough, there was the crowd of adoring fans that were held  back by a row of League security, not unlike wave breakers holding back a hurricane flood, as he collected his winnings for the match.\n\n“One Million Pokedollars, would you like that account-credited or in cash, sir?”\n\nSpinel just about shat himself a hot pink brick. “Nyeeeoonnn?!”\n\nRichard also lost his breath for a moment. “I… um wow, I didn’t… I thought it was winner takes all, I didn’t know the preliminaries paid out too!”\n\nThe attendant behind the counter practically glowed with enthusiasm, getting to spend her work day telling someone they’re taking home heaps of moolah instead of asking folks for deposits and scrawling room service orders for the kitchen. “Mhmm! You earned it, and might I say, your match was amazing. I watched it on the screen just now, but I wish I’d been there for the real thing; we could feel your clashes shake the entire building!”\n\n“Credit the money to Team Stone Receivables. Hey, can you book me a taxi to the hotel? I gotta get my things before I take off for the palace.”\n\nShe sighed, letting her little black beret slump into her eyes. “You're so lucky. Gods. Yeah, I’ll get one ASAP.”\n\nSpinel was practically hopping out of his own hide. His face was blazing with anticipation, and his grip around Richard’s arm grew tighter and tighter as they walked towards the transportation roundabout outside. He scribbled a note and slipped it into Richard’s collar, rubbing his furry shoulders against those rock-hard thighs he appreciated so much.\n\n\n“I’ll be your princess tonight, lover. <3”\n\n\n\tRichard’s spine tightened as they stood waiting, sharing a bench with two old men in a competition to see who could taint the air in cigar smoke fastest. “Hey, Spinel. After you make that food and we’re done eating, I was wondering if we could, um…”\n\n\tSpinel laid himself across Richard’s lap, snuggling into his tummy, eyes upward with an expecting look. “Eeeee?”\n\nHe rubbed Spinel’s shoulders as another ribbon slunk its way around his biceps. He had to let him down soft, he couldn’t break a Stone like that! And besides, he’s his bro. They’d be able to still be friends. They just had a… ‘moment’ was all, right?\n\n “Hey bud, I just wanna make things clear… We’re, like, partners, ok? Gotta treat each other like it, and I know it’s gonna be rough and all, but it doesn’t have to be weird. Blipflix and brews, shoot the shit, still wanna do all the good stuff with you too, y’know?”\n\nSpinel’s ribbons played with his man’s fingers as he looked down with a deep, contemplative stare. Then he warmed Richard’s heart by looking into his soul with those beautiful blue eyes he couldn’t get enough of. “Syl Syl!” he said, nodding with a calm, enthusiastic smile.\n\nRichard breathed a sigh of relief. Oh good, he’s taking it well.\n\n\n",
  "writing_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>Forbidden Waters - 24<br /><br /><br />\tVaporeon stared at them in wide-eyed fury.<br /><br />\tEmil could sense her muscles shaking with unbridled tension around his neck. &ldquo;Honey?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBonnie and Clemont, waving to the crowd, smiling, dancing, nodding in self satisfied approval as their filthy pet turd flopped around in celebration; the shame and disrespect boiled her guts with rage.<br /><br />\tHe ran his fingers along her neck, feeling the taught strands and hot, throbbing veins. &ldquo;{Vaporeon?}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEvery one of their &lsquo;Mon had been sent back with honor; beaten, broken, but shown the deference of a warrior&rsquo;s due. Emil&rsquo;s bones shook with the indignant, quaking growl that rumbled deep within her.<br /><br />\tRichard chewed on his own cheek as he considered his next move, reaching for his belt.<br /><br />\tVapoeon&rsquo;s eyes turned to him with one smooth, autonomous motion. <br />\t<br />\t&ldquo;{Vaporeon, relax, we&rsquo;ll get them back.}&rdquo; Her lover&rsquo;s voice became the muttering background noise beneath a red hot sea of rage.<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Alright&hellip;&rdquo; Richard started, plucking a ball up and raising his arm.<br /><br />\tAll her eyes could see were the fading silhouettes of bodies needing broken down.<br />\t<br />\t&ldquo;I choose-&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard was startled into silence as a laser-tight jet of water knocked the ball from his grip.<br /><br />\tVaporeon launched herself from his chest and Emil was snatched up in Spinel&rsquo;s ribbons, thrown backwards off his feet. Before anyone had any time to react to anything she was doing, it was too late. She closed the distance in a hazy blue blur, faster than anyone had witnessed her manage without moves before, and in the blink of an eye she was nose to nose with the enemy.<br /><br />\tStunfisk never saw the shadow of her tail coming down upon them like an executioner&rsquo;s axe.<br />\t<br />\tIts floppy, flat body smashed into the cement with all the strength and speed she could muster, holding back the barest pound of force it took to keep them alive in absolute agony. The ground shattered like ice struck with a sledge, and Stunfisk&rsquo;s trainers turned around just in time to see them twitching at the bottom of a shallow, bloody crater.<br /><br />\tSpinel&rsquo;s eyes inflated with horror, pawing his mouth at the gruesome sight.<br /><br />\tEmil brushed a cloud of pulverized pavement from his shirt as he sat back up from the fall. &ldquo;{Good thing she likes us, huh?}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe Sylveon&rsquo;s head tilted. &ldquo;{Wait, she does?}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEm smirked. &ldquo;{Oh yeah, she got pissed seeing you get torched; welcome to the team, Spinel.}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tVaporeon shot an angry look at Bonnie and spat between the eyes bulging out of Stunfisk&rsquo;s skull, then she turned around, scraped debris into the hole with her hind paws, and lifted her nose as she pranced over to the center of the ring where she patiently awaited a more worthy opponent. The crowd was riddled with surprised gasps and unruly murmuring.<br /><br />\tShe brushed her head fins with her paw as she glanced back at Richard. &ldquo;Go on, I&rsquo;m good now.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBonnie&rsquo;s face twisted with agony and Clemont clenched his jaw, scratching his head with the claw of a snaking, mechanical arm slithering from his backpack. &ldquo;Stunfisk, Return.&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Faaaaaaint Penalty, Opposition switch?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRich smiled. &ldquo;Alright, fair enough, your highness. Vaporeon, return.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe drone flew up into the air, center stage. &ldquo;Contestants, penalty score match. Simultaneous release. Get ready&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br /><br />\tClemont folded his arms. &ldquo;You ready, old boy?&rdquo; he asked, voice raised above the crowd.<br /><br />\tCarlisle combed his sterling widows-peak into a neat swoop. &ldquo;Girded as a naughty garter, young Master.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard jogged over and scooped his freshly-washed Pokeball up as he desperately plotted plans J through V.<br /><br />\tThe Drone turned left and then right. &ldquo;GO!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBoth of them released at the same time, and Richard smirked as he saw Clemont toss a Pokeball instead of instructing Carlisle hop in. <br /><br />\tMetagross and Magnezone appeared, eyes laser-locked as they both hovered perfectly still, like game models without animations set. Arcs that tickled the ground beneath Magnezone danced within the rippling field of psychic energy that Metagross had wrapped herself up in.<br /><br />\tClemont coughed. &ldquo;Gaaah!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRich pumped his right arm and pointed with his left. &ldquo;Ha! Get real. I know you&rsquo;re saving Jeeves there for the grand finale; gotta wake up pretty early ta get me with a hustle like that, kid. Metagross, Gravity!&rdquo;<br /><br />Magnezone buzzed following a loud thud, eyes darting around in a panic as they were yanked out of the air and crashed straight into the ground, clattering as they were showered in Stealth-Rock shards.<br /><br />&ldquo;Get ready,&rdquo; Richard began, clenching his fist.<br /><br />Clemont&rsquo;s frustrated expression suddenly softened and his glasses hid his eyes behind the afternoon glare. &ldquo;Hehehe, and I knew you&rsquo;d bite the bait of a second hook. Magnezone, Gravity!&rdquo;<br /><br />Metagross also fought to stay in the air, bellyaching like the beams of a wound-up bridge, but eventually they ended up pinned to the ground a few meters away from where Magnezone made purchase, with their legs and claws puncturing the cement.<br /><br />Bonnie shuffled back, realizing two serious strategic experts were sparring in a way she barely understood. &ldquo;Clemont, careful!&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Well well well, if it isn&rsquo;t the Stone Family Staple. Go ahead, Richard, use Earthquake!&rdquo; Clemont chuckled to himself. &ldquo;Be neat to see a legacy bury itself.&rdquo;&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBoth Metagross and Magnezone squinted, barely able to keep their eyes open under the indomitable forces working to press them flat. They kept their moves powered to the max, though, each refusing to let the other have a single millisecond of respite as dueling mobs of screaming fans cheered for their favorite to win the brutal smash-off.<br />\t<br />Rich raised his ball. &ldquo;Aaaah, you cheeky boi! Metagross, Return!&rdquo; Metagross&rsquo; body glowed red, tried to move away, but then her form snapped back to reality and Richard&rsquo;s ball beeped a failure code. &ldquo;What?&rdquo;<br /><br />Magnezone cackled like a failing substation, popping and buzzing as their nubby, polarized arms slumped to the ground and their antenna flopped against their dome under its own horribly magnified weight. A faint humming started building in the air, growing louder and louder as Magnezone&rsquo;s body glowed bright yellows and blues.<br /><br />Bonnie tap-danced on the tips of her toes with rapturous excitement. &ldquo;Oh yeah, Magnet Pull! Get twisted, Metagross!&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil scrambled to his feet as he instantly recognized the physics at work. &ldquo;Oh my gods, Rich, he&rsquo;s Exploding!&rdquo;<br /><br />Bonnies heart sank. &ldquo;Fr&egrave;re?&rdquo; she said with a shake in her throat. &ldquo;Tu fais quoi?&rdquo;<br /><br />Clemont looked to his right. &ldquo;No chances.&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel gasped, looking around at his supplies, having not the slightest clue what he&rsquo;d do for someone blown to smithereens. He spotted a lone bottle of superglue fallen from his bags and panicked. &ldquo;{Holy shit! Richie baby, do something!}&rdquo; He blushed and wrapped his mouth shut with all four ribbons, covering his eyes in shame as he realized what his big, stupid mouth just announced like a megaphone.<br /><br />Clemont&rsquo;s smirk loosened to a grave frown as he raised a finger. &ldquo;Never forget those little details, it can cost you an ace, Richard.&rdquo; Finally, his persona was revealed, the identity below the surface every Gym Leader hid from the non-battling public. They&rsquo;d seen sparks of it before, but now the lightning flared inside.<br /><br />He couldn&rsquo;t pull her back, of all the things to slip his mind! If Metagross changed moves, Magnezone would fly to her blind spot and crush her flat. If she committed, she&rsquo;d take the Explosion, face first, with their mouth open wide&hellip;<br /><br />The safe bet was to bury them both with an Earthquake and eke out a couple judge points in the event their match drew out&hellip;. Dammit, yeah, I gotta do it.<br /><br />Clemont screamed as Bonnie leapt around his shoulders, smacking him upside the head. &ldquo;Putain de bordel de merde!&rdquo;<br /><br />Metagross grumbled as his thoughts brushed against her mind.<br /><br /><br />Sure, Master, I&rsquo;ll take another one for the team, why not? What&rsquo;s another notch on good ol&rsquo; Metagross? Only a little more steel off my nose. Oh yeah, nothing like a great big bowl of Humble Crunch to start the day off right; the best part of waking up is failures in your cup! <br /><br /><br />Richard spat and shook his head. No, that&rsquo;s Blitzleshit! I&rsquo;m not scratching her off now, she didn&rsquo;t go through all that for this!<br /><br />She pried one eye open. What?<br /><br />Richard&rsquo;s chest tightened as his face flashed beneath the painfully incandescent flickers and flares, the buzzing grown so loud he wanted to smack his palms over his ears. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes and he balled up both fists, screaming, &ldquo;Metagross, no! Distortion damn me, I&rsquo;m so, so sorry!&rdquo;<br /><br />She winced as her body cracked the ground, glowing purple as she mustered every ounce of her immense concentration to counter the gravitational pull with psychic might and keep the pressure on her opponent.<br /><br />Her master closed his eyes in resignation. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s in your hands, Metagross. I won&rsquo;t send you off like that. FIND A WAY!&rdquo;<br /><br />Metagross&rsquo; eyes had slammed shut from the weight, but as he called out to her, starting to bawl as he realized he&rsquo;d messed up&hellip; apologizing to her for gambling with her safety&hellip; she pried them open again and set a look of determination upon her brow.<br /><br />All she&rsquo;d wanted was for him to show her he cared about all those painful years of insane pressure to succeed, despite the crackbrained miscalculations he commanded her to make and take it on the chin.<br /><br /><br />Ok&hellip; I&rsquo;ll try&hellip; I can&rsquo;t, but&hellip; I have to&hellip;<br /><br /><br />&ldquo;Groooooooooooo,&rdquo; she growled as her eyes shone bright as violet stars in a moonless night.<br /><br />Magnezone&rsquo;s body flickered white hot at the center of a flashstorm. Bright blue clouds of plasma blasting the air apart around him, turning the open air into a superheated storm of ionized fire. <br /><br /><br />I&hellip; if I can&rsquo;t do this I might die! I&rsquo;m calling their bluff; they thought Richard would bury me&hellip;<br /><br /><br />Clemont snapped his fingers. &ldquo;Do it, Magnezone. Explode!&rdquo; But something in him was unsure. His body was confident, but his smile came out as wincing, angry teeth.<br /><br /><br />&nbsp;Parameters set&hellip; League regulation states that since his move started last,they have lethal culpability. Probability 53% - Plan fail, both survive or enemy expires, fight continues. 25% - Plan fail, I expire, Stone wins. 15% Plan success, opponent expires, fight continues.&nbsp;&nbsp;5% Plan success, opponent survives, fight continues. Collective 2% insignificantly probable cases. The math is clear - proceed.<br /><br /><br />She ratcheted up with creaking legs as her grim calculus was complete. &ldquo;Ma. Me. GROOOOS!&rdquo;<br /><br />Metagross tapped into herself, remembering all the training she&rsquo;d done pushing her psychic might to places she didn&rsquo;t know she could. She could see on Clemont&rsquo;s face, as Magnezone was milliseconds from detonating, that he was shaking with surprise at Richard&rsquo;s insane call. Well, if she was going to find a way out of this predicament, if there was another way forward, she needed to look again. She&rsquo;d need to push harder, reach into the mindweb further than she&rsquo;d ever considered, and find a door to the cellar of possibility Arceus put within all &lsquo;Mon&hellip;<br /><br />&hellip;and see just how far she could take that fucker down. <br /><br />The ground around Magnezone&rsquo;s body began to crumble and break apart in a massive, shallow bowl that started sinking into itself. The audience shifted with terrified screams as their bodies lurched forward and the motion-sick among the crowd buckled with vertigo as &lsquo;forward&rsquo; suddenly became &lsquo;down.&rsquo; Stones of all sizes rolled towards Magnezone and both teams leaned back and fell, suddenly left scraping their shoes across the ground to stop from sliding into the battle zone.<br /><br />\tMagnezone&rsquo;s blaze was lost in a bubble of warped space and time, accompanied by the muffled noise of bedrock breaking like glass.<br /><br /><br />\tI&hellip; Aaagh&hellip;&nbsp;&nbsp;Find it, dig deeper, I know&nbsp;&nbsp;its&hellip; There!... I-I&rsquo;m sinking? It&hellip; hurts&hellip; Aaaaaaaaaa!<br /><br /><br />\tShe lifted her head, screaming in agony, and then the lights of her eyes went out.<br /><br />Pebbles were crushed under their own weight, those crumbled bits in turn were ground to sand, and then he collapsed into the earth as it suddenly imploded. At the bottom of a narrow funnel, in a hole only as wide as her foe, the stone and soil was compressed so completely that Magnezone&rsquo;s starlike flame sank to the bottom of a twenty-foot-deep earthen pipe. Their body crumpled in on itself at the bottom of the hole, blood vaporizing to clouds of ionized gas from gaps opening around their body, his internal bone-alloy supports breaking in ways that were sure to leave the ICU gawking in horror.<br /><br /><br />Where am I? <br /><br /><br />\t Everyone in the arena stumbled backwards as a buzzing column of plasma fired into the air with an explosion that knocked people&rsquo;s hearts out of their chests. People all across Lumiose stopped in their tracks to witness the tower of superheated air and flashes of lightning coming from the grand arena. The ground loosened up and bulged like a pie in the oven, then tonnes of earth rippled outward, devastating the pavement of not only their battle zone, but the other two nearby as well.<br /><br /><br />Those faces&hellip; That voice&hellip; Those eyes, they are beautiful.<br /><br /><br />\tBonnie and Clemont were engulfed in a curtain call of hot dirt and biochemical gas.<br /><br />Emilio was left totally breathless, having witnessed the fabric of reality visibly warped with nothing but the sheer, bloody will of a Pokemon that he himself had trained. He was one-hundred-percent sure she&rsquo;d broken records just then, and they&rsquo;d be standing for a good, long time.<br /><br />Metagross&rsquo; eyes flickered back to life and her legs buckled beneath her as she vomited up fuming, biohazardous slime. She shuddered, locked up, and the vivid glow around her subsided as the color faded from her body.<br /><br /><br />I&hellip; I did it&hellip;<br /><br /><br />A sooty, smoking mortar was puked skyward as the soil decompressed and Magnezone clattered to the ground in a smoldering, twitching, scrunched up heap.<br /><br />Richard screamed in surprise, clutching at his skull and threatening to tug his own hair away from its scalp. &ldquo;That was&hellip; Oh my Gods! That was incredib-&rdquo; he started, but was cut short as a whistle sounded and a siren went off <br /><br />All anyone could hear in the air were protests of young children and the babble of upturned strata settling down as two young Joys accompanied by old Bianca de Bel dashing across the field. With an agility the two young clones simply couldn&rsquo;t match, she danced across tiles of broken concrete alongside a bulky, white Rotom Drone with a bright red circle decorating its hull.<br /><br />Richard&rsquo;s head tilted. &ldquo;Hey, isn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo; Then he realized what was happening. &ldquo;Oh Gods, oh no!&rdquo;<br /><br />Bonnie&rsquo;s hands clapped over her mouth as she watched Bianca pull welding gloves from her bag. &ldquo;Level 4 HTPC, four score!&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Yes ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo; Both Joys shouted in unison and pulled a collection of metal vials from their backpacks.<br /><br />&ldquo;Clemont, how could you?&rdquo; Bonnie wailed, falling to her knees, unable to take her eyes off what she was sure was Magnezone&rsquo;s final moments. Memories invaded her mind&#039;s eye: of the years he&rsquo;d been there, helping her train Dedenne and Emolga up to gym-challenge tough; every birthday banquet and private, stuffie closet tea party Magneton attended in lieu of training flipped by like projector slides. She remembered floating three storeys high on magnemite&rsquo;s head as an infant, looking down upon the Prism Tower with excited admiration as her father shouted in distress.<br /><br />Bianca reached into her hat before donning her PPE. &ldquo;Audino, Musharna, Go!&rdquo; she shouted, tossing their balls like smoke grenades. Audino stood quietly, in her service uniform, awaiting orders. Musharna, unable to wear a uniform, swirled around Audino&rsquo;s head like a satellite.<br /><br />Clemont lowered his face in shame as his brain, though cybernetically enhanced, only then managed to catch up with his opponent&rsquo;s metacomputations. &ldquo;I&hellip; I thought he&rsquo;d make the smart play.&rdquo; He realized then that only Metagross had the real value for the single variable he couldn&rsquo;t possibly have gleaned ahead of time&hellip;<br /><br />She knew, with precision, just how much of an idiot Richard Stone was.<br /><br />Spinel coiled his ribbons around himself, unable to find anyone he could drape himself across for comfort, and shuddered as the skin beneath his pastel fur buzzed with numbing television fuzz. It summoned up harrowing memories he thought had left him years ago, and cold tears rolled across his cheeks as he refused to watch.<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you, all grimey as a group spitoon. Let&rsquo;s clean you up, Maggie-Boy.&rdquo;<br />Magnezone&rsquo;s eyes were forge-welded shut, stained with the crust of oily tears that had flash fried to sheets of dross. His body crackled and gnashed, shifting and jittering under the touch of her gloves. &ldquo;Vitals, now!&rdquo;<br /><br />The Rotom&rsquo;s side doors slid open, and then the Joys assisting her bit the biosteel resistor clamps onto the rim ringing his body. The two jumped back in surprise as an arc of runaway power dove onto the copper teeth of the clamps, melting the rubber handles with hellish bursts of plasma that Bianca beat back with her welder&rsquo;s apron.<br /><br />Lieutenant Colonel de Bell threw down her welding mask, ready to drag Bonnie&#039;s baby back from the brink. <br /><br />The Rotom&rsquo;s eyes spun with little Pokeballs as it projected a holographic readout measuring his vitals in real time, using the resistances alongside knowledge of Magnezone anatomy to assess his alien, metabolic activity. &ldquo;Neural activity indicates active shock, hemochemical volatility rising.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bianca clenched her fists. &ldquo;Audino, buy us time. Joys, administer meds now; his body is cooling too fast.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThey locked the metal canisters they&rsquo;d selected and mixed into a spray gun that coughed up blobs of medical grade napalm and his body burst into a flamb&eacute; of haunting flames.<br /><br />Audino smacked her palms together and her body glowed like a halogen light, outlined in silvery brilliance that was difficult to look upon. She felt Magnezone&rsquo;s body stop writhing and popping inside as she listened to his hemochemical flow begin to stabilize on the readout and nodded as her master started scanning his body.<br /><br />One of her assistants shook her head and drew a red and white Pokeball from her bag as she covered her eyes from the bursts of ultraviolet light searing branching shapes into her vision. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s stabilized enough, recall them, Ma&rsquo;am. ER will take it from here.&rdquo;<br /><br />Audino looked back at Joy in wide-eyed shock.<br /><br />&ldquo;He&rsquo;s still under catalytic arrest!&rdquo; Bianca shouted, gasping up from the rivers of sweat soaking her dress, ignoring the command as she flipped him onto his back and scraped the layers of brittle dross coating his body to see the metal flesh for herself. She chipped a pry bar down to his mouth, and broke his fused jaw open. &ldquo;Sorry baby&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />Joy, who technically outranked Bianca on that field and was her &lsquo;Volunteer Supervisor,&rsquo; for lack of better word, tightened her jaw as she expanded the Pokeball and pointed it towards Magnezone. &ldquo;Statistically it&rsquo;s-&rdquo;<br /><br />Bianca spat back at her. &ldquo;Statistically? You&rsquo;ll end up on a table with him.&rdquo;<br /><br />The clone was filled with indignant rage. The nerve on this bitch&hellip; on stage! This is my life, it&rsquo;s what I was born to do, it&#039;s the only thing I know! &ldquo;O-oh yeah? I-Is that a threat?&rdquo; <br /><br />Bianca glanced back with old, tired eyes, putting herself between the patient and Joy. &ldquo;Nah, Honey. It&rsquo;s a promise.&rdquo;<br /><br />Rotom sounded off a dire warning chime. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sensing neural chatter!&rdquo; she said, shaking.<br /><br />Magnezone rattled and bloated up, wafting smoky, blue vapors.<br /><br />Joy snarled, ball still at the ready, but she shook with indecision. &ldquo;Apoxia, woman! We don&rsquo;t know his internal injuries. Get out of the WAY!&rdquo; She bolted left, trying to get around the old timer, who&rsquo;d practically thrown herself across a live stovetop protecting the oven.<br /><br />The old Red Ring glanced at the readout through the midnight glass of her mask and noticed his core temperature rising rapidly. Her eyebrow rose, and she put her hand over his body, feeling the changes in temperature with her own skin through the glove. Then she caught Joy managing to sneak around while she was distracted. &ldquo;Flick that switch, Fifty Six, and I will kill you.&rdquo;<br /><br />Both Joys froze at her words. &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t. We swo-.&rdquo;<br /><br />Bianca spat again and shook her head, digging around in her bag. &ldquo;Oaths&rsquo; changed a lot in thirty years, honey; wanna learn how much, or do ya wanna save a life today?&rdquo; She grabbed her trusty icepick, hammered a dent into his dome, and the area shifted colors from some rapid, localized temperature spike. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t do KIA&rsquo;s, now PREP a REVIVE!&rdquo; she barked, gently brushing a gloved hand across Musharna&rsquo;s cheek.<br /><br />The other Joy shook her head, reached into her own bag, and started priming the energy pads. &ldquo;Sorry&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />Everyone in the arena held their stomachs in horror as Bianca locked a ten pound battery into her trusty impact driver, loaded a menacing, tapered bit, and pressed it against his temple. Parents covered their children&rsquo;s eyes and less squeamish people started recording the event on their &lsquo;Navs.<br /><br />&ldquo;Stay with me baby!&rdquo; she howled at the center of a storm of sparks and coiled metal shavings, securing the tool against her knee. Boiling red fluid sprayed across her smock and she pushed harder, grunting as she bored down into his ferrometal guts. &ldquo;You got too much to live for!&rdquo;<br /><br />Audino clenched her teeth. She was forcing all the power she could, giving him every ounce of raw, life sustaining fuel her body could sustain. It stitched bodies, eased pain, even soothed the mind with time, but there was only so much you could force before their soul simply needed too much to stay connected to their body. His vitals flatlined, she could feel Magnezone&rsquo;s life starting to slip away&hellip; and then her eyes exploded with deep, amaranthine light.<br /><br />The flames around Mangezone&rsquo;s body burst into sunset shades, she pressed her hands together in prayer, and then fainted into the dirt.<br /><br />The lines on the readout skittered around again, erratic, unstable, but very much still alive.<br /><br />Bianca hit a dense clump of ferrobone and her impact suddenly smoked and bound up. &ldquo;Dammit! Fuck fuck fuck!&rdquo;<br /><br />She yanked the drill out, soaking her legs in a fountain of hemorrhaging ferroblood, and smacked it against an upturned slab of cement. Skilled surgeon reduced to a rummaging thief, she started throwing tools around and turned the bag inside-out over her face, finding nothing of use&hellip; <br /><br />Bonnie&rsquo;s face washed out and she shivered, strangled with shuppet sheets.<br /><br />\t&hellip;then Bianca lifted her dress, drew her service pistol, and carefully aligned its barrel with the patchwork quilt of anatomical diagrams she&rsquo;d stitched to her heart with shaking, blood soaked hands.<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Get&rsquo;cher ass UP!&rdquo; she screamed with wild eyes, and pulled the trigger.<br /><br />\tThe nose of her .45 sloughed away like molten wax, totally obliterated by the jet of white-hot plasma escaping Magnezone&rsquo;s innards. He creaked and groaned as his bloated body deflated, finally relieved of the monumental intrathoracic reaction cooking him from the inside.<br /><br />Bianca gestured for them to get to work and tossed the smoldering blob aside with a somber nod. &ldquo;Thanks, old friend.&rdquo;<br /><br />Joy-56 crept forward, shielding her face from the heat. &ldquo;Reactive Chemothorax? The last case was decades ago!&rdquo;<br /><br />Bianca nodded with a patient smile. &ldquo;Not my first day pulling steelies from the strawberry fields, sweetie. Saw this all the time when Explosions were part and parcel. Now, go on, wire him up,&rdquo; she ordered, clapping them both across the shoulder with smoking, rawhide gloves.<br /><br />Class III revives were intimidating to use, looked like those antique explosive detonators with the pump handle, so anyone with a bit more sense of self-preservation would have backed up as the unimaginably dense energies stored within were forced through along lines of humming, meta-neural cable. Not old Bianca though. She brushed Magnezone&rsquo;s skull, smiling with tears that rolled down his body in sizzling beads, humming some old, near-forgotten morning song as he jerked about, his joints whizzed in random circles, and then his eyelids broke like hatching shells.<br /><br />&ldquo;Rise and shine!&rdquo; she shouted, popping up to her feet with her hands thrown up in celebration.<br /><br />His vitals stabilized, his body started stitching itself together, as expected with center treatment, the runaway voltage died down, and he slowly started exchanging air through his shattered jaw.<br /><br />&ldquo;You owe me a new sidearm, soldier.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBonnie&rsquo;s eyes lit back up like a dying campfire doused in logs and scout water once Magnezone was recalled and sent to the ICU via Rotom Rescue Drone. &ldquo;Oh, sweet Arceus, thank you!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe gust of a collective sigh of relief blew the tension out of the air as the Judge Drones blared their all-clear siren, indicating that the match could continue with a brief moment for the trainers to collect themselves.<br /><br />\tClemont hid behind Carlisle, trying to keep his eyes from running on camera as he wheezed in humiliated relief. His attendant raised a silver brow, rubbed Clemont&rsquo;s head, and nodded with resolute determination. Master Clemont was completely out of sorts. Downright despondent!<br /><br />No, that simply would not do.<br /><br />\tRichard&rsquo;s mind went blank, having totally forgotten that Metagross was still laid out on the field. He&rsquo;d been in arenas where accidental deaths happened, even seen restricted video footage of matches where &lsquo;Mons&rsquo; lives were cut short in brutal, painless fractions of a second, most within his own ladder. But it wasn&rsquo;t just some name that would have been scratched off the registry, it wasn&rsquo;t even his &lsquo;Mon, and that&rsquo;s what made his stomach turn. What would that have felt like? Would he have wanted to keep on fighting?<br /><br />\tHe hoped he never came that close to finding out ever again.<br /><br />Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.<br /><br />Clemont and Bonnie stood, shaken with raw emotion, quietly watching with heads atilt, unsure what in the hell their butler was up to.<br /><br />Team Prism&rsquo;s final combatant emerged, wading through a swirling brown smog that stained the wind giving a quaint, straight shouldered round of applause. He approached the calamitous scene with a billowing cape draped across his shoulder, then stopped feet from his opponent&rsquo;s quivering body and the medics who were packing up their things.<br /><br />&ldquo;What magnificent force! What, selfless courage! What dogged resolve! &rdquo; He swirled his cape around and bellowed to the crowd. &ldquo;Good people of Kalos, such incredible demonstration of character deserves our respect; nay, our deepest admiration! The heart of this nation beats with the blood, sweat, and tears of heroes such as these. My people, show everyone that Lady Lumiose shines her silver light upon the gallant, chivalrous, and true.&rdquo;<br /><br />He clenched his fist and then spread his fingers out, unveiling rows of brilliant silver coins stuck between his knuckles, then he tossed the coins at their feet, removed his hat, and bowed.<br /><br />Silence. Then the air chimed with a song of silver raindrops showering them with praise.<br /><br />Men, women, and children, rich and poor, ran against the railings to spare a dixie or more. They cried in amazement, hurling handfuls of three&ndash;petaled flowers stamped in steel. Even as his own children battled like their lives depended on it, Prince Meyer had everyone in the royal balcony round up their coinage to join the people in celebration.<br /><br />Bianca cheered, smiling wide as coins fell around them. She hoisted Audino over her shoulder, hefted her bag, and waved goodbye to the crowd as she was escorted off the field.<br /><br />Richard finally woke from his daze as Emil shoved his shoulder.<br /><br />&ldquo;Get her out of there!&rdquo; Emil hissed.<br /><br />But Richard waited, dumbfounded as he saw Carlisle approach Metagross, kneel, and carefully hoist her against his hip. &ldquo;Allow me, M&rsquo;lady.&rdquo; Then he proceeded to carry thirteen-hundred pounds of angry computer to the arena&rsquo;s edge like a platter of fancy sandwiches.<br /><br />\tRich leaned over to Emil. &ldquo;Is he doing what I think he&rsquo;s doing?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEmil leaned over with one eye squinting. &ldquo;Well, he did just teach a whole city to use Payday&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Roll with it, it&rsquo;s the lightest penalty we could ask for,&rdquo; he whispered back.<br /><br />Carlisle approached Richard and Emil at the edge of their box, stared them down for a full ten seconds, nodded, then he stepped around to the side as the audience murmured with anticipation. He stopped near the pink thing tending to their team&rsquo;s injuries, and hoisted her above his head.<br /><br />&ldquo;You there!&rdquo; He hailed, tossing Metagross across the line. <br /><br />Spinel shrieked bloody murder as her body shook the ground behind him, then scurried behind Torterra&#039;s shell with his hackles armed like daggers and his tail between his legs. &ldquo;{Aaaaah! I&rsquo;m sorry! I didn&rsquo;t do it!}&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle cleared his throat, donned his stovepipe hat, and gestured politely with his wrist. &ldquo;Be a chap and see to it Miss Metagross gets the finest soaps and sundry, would you? She&rsquo;s had a rough day. Courtesy of the Throne, spare no expense!&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel looked left and right with dinner plate eyes, realizing that the insane cyborg wasn&rsquo;t going to snatch him up and unwrap him like a giftmas present. &ldquo;{Y-yeah, you got it, boss!}&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You&rsquo;re a gentlemon and a scholar,&rdquo; he said, tipped his hat, and casually strolled around the pits, channels, crags, and piles of rubble to the center of the ring.<br /><br />The audience was swept with applause as he flourished his cape, draping it over one shoulder. &ldquo;It has been our honor, having been brought such a worthy challenge.&rdquo; His eyes flared bright orange, he rolled his shoulders, and crunched his knuckles in his palms like gravel in a press. &ldquo;As Knight Master of Ordre Presim, it would be a disgrace to my noble pedigree if I failed to respond in kind.<br /><br />Richard leaned over to his friend. &ldquo;The hell is that he just said?&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel overheard and hopped atop Torterra&rsquo;s back, cupping his mouth with a funnel made of ribbons. &ldquo;{It&rsquo;s a royal military order!}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRich glanced between him and Emil. &ldquo;Ah, I&rsquo;m still, uh&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEmil rolled his eyes. &ldquo;He says they&rsquo;re knights.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard bellowed with laughter. &ldquo;Ha! I played Mysteries and Dungeons once, what&rsquo;s your level?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tAbsolutely nobody in the arena laughed.<br /><br />\tSpinel smacked his cheeks with his paws, absolutely mortified on behalf of his hand-selected idiot.<br /><br />\tBack home, Richard&rsquo;s father slumped forward and buried his face in his hands, groaning at the screen as he downed his fifth gin cocktail. <br /><br />\tThe old Knightmon lifted his arms, loose in the shoulders, and snapped his fists through the air.<br /><br />\tSpinel fell from Torterra&rsquo;s back, feeling a bowl of word salad tossing up in his head and he ran closer. &ldquo;{No, babe. No! Emil, tell him this is serious! They&rsquo;re Pokemon hand picked from the special forces; y&rsquo;know, the guys that kill people because they like it?}&rdquo;<br /><br />Clemont, suddenly encouraged at the excitement in the crowd, the fact his valued Pokemon didn&rsquo;t die on live television, depressed a button on his backpack and a ridiculously overengineered communications dish unfurled behind him. &ldquo;Oh, we are so back! You&rsquo;re amazing, old boy! You ready to try out our secret weapon?&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle glared back at the young Prince with stern, amber eyes. &ldquo;No.&rdquo;<br /><br />People gasped, particularly in the not-cheap seats.<br /><br />Spinel started hyperventilating with his ribbons flailing all around. &ldquo;{I&rsquo;ve heard so many stories from Val and they&rsquo;re all really, really bad! The Knights get all the psycho, crazy dangerous missions, get no recognition, and they&rsquo;re all volunteers!}&rdquo;<br /><br />Clemont chuckled with weakening breath. &ldquo;Haha, we wait then, save it for later, yeah?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard glanced back and forth between Emil and the frantic, chittering thing he had to deal with later. &ldquo;Um, yeah&hellip; ah&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;We need to take this serious, Rich&hellip;&rdquo; Emil muttered.<br /><br />Carlisle&rsquo;s head shook. Slowly. &ldquo;We will discuss it later, but for now, Master Clemont&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />He peeled up a patch of skin on the back of his neck and a few people in the audience audibly retched. Beneath was a technological morass of glowing sockets and occupied memory disk slots. He reached for a chrome plug between his shoulder blades and yanked a sparking, insulated-copper root system from his spine. He tossed it to the ground, showered it in a handful of tiny, ejected disks and raised one of his shiny, black loafers.<br /><br />&nbsp;&ldquo;I will be the one that brings this Joust to its conclusion.&rdquo; He brought his foot down with a crunch that left Clemont wincing in pain.<br /><br />Emil&rsquo;s spine went numb and cold. &ldquo;...dead serious.&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Team Stone, Release!&rdquo; Carlisle and the Judge Drone said in perfect synchronization. <br /><br />Richard released his Pokemon, face tightening with stress. His grandpa always told him to battle like it&rsquo;s a game, never forget it so the real world doesn&rsquo;t ruin it for you, but he was having a hard time holding to Grandad&rsquo;s truth. After what he&rsquo;d seen, the level of intensity he felt, knowing just how potent every blow was and how quickly it could go bad.<br /><br />He&rsquo;d played around and now his team was paying the price.<br /><br />\tIf the League Jock could be given credit for his powers of the mind, it was his ability to shove everything that didn&rsquo;t matter in the exact moment aside and deal with it later. Assuming he&hellip; you know, actually dealt with it later. Regardless of whether he&rsquo;d actually messed up, he had a robot to rip apart, and you don&rsquo;t cut steel with regrets. He wasn&rsquo;t a blowhard, but he had a few hardcore bones in his body.<br /><br />&ldquo;Go!&rdquo;<br /><br />The millisecond his energy snapped back into place, Rhydon&rsquo;s return was heralded by an abyssal, bloodthirsty roar. He spun around, locking onto Carlisle, and he punched his claws into a slab of upturned cement, carrying it like a riot shield as he charged. <br /><br />Richard felt beads of sweat rolling down his neck as he took the one and only chance he had to get in a cheap shot or two and save his last two fighters even a tiny shred of effort. &ldquo;Rhydon, get ready, crush that can, don&rsquo;t stop &lsquo;til he fits in a bucket.&rdquo;<br /><br />Rhydon bolted forward, leaving trickles of blood running down from the injuries on his head, and grabbed a bit of concrete at the end piece of rebar with his free hand.<br /><br />Carlisle buckled down, his slick, curled mustache rolling around on his upper lip as he assessed the monster running his way. &ldquo;Ooohohoho. Ya feelin&rsquo; bricky, big guy?&rdquo; he said, rolling up his sleeves. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s tussle.&rdquo;<br /><br />The bloody, horned devil came within feet of Carlisle&rsquo;s position, having leapt from a pile of rubble and landed with an energy that shook the ground. He swung his scrappy club and it evaporated into gravel as the suave cyborg spun to the right into a surprise backwards kick, his legs glowing with bright orange energy that caught the slab dead on. <br /><br />&ldquo;Enjoy your switch,&rdquo; he growled as one foot passed through the slab, leaving Rhydon reeling from the force, then the old guy threw his body forward, holding onto his hat as he tumbled into a roll that brought his heel down upon Rhydon&#039;s makeshift falanx, center mass. &ldquo;You picked it.&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil and Richard both felt the heat of the moment starting to press on their faces as Rhydon&rsquo;s knees buckled from the force and the slab shattered to powder over his body like cheap china. <br /><br />Rhydon coughed and sputtered gobs of bloody phlegm, then his eyes glistened with malicious intent as Richard quietly whispered commands into his Pokeball from afar. He swept Carlisle&rsquo;s feet out from under him with his tail, prompting the gentleman to throw his hat up and snatch it out of the air at the end of a cackling, backwards somersault.<br /><br />Then he fell to all fours, scoring the rubble with his feet, and superheated air spilled from his body as his angered cries exploded the air around his face. He charged, just as Richard commanded him, smashing boulders and toppling stacks of wreckage on a rampage path to a full-tilt Heat Crash.<br /><br />Carlisle slid to a stop on his heels, preparing to bolt forwards and strike while the iron was hot; however, he failed to recognize which of them was actually on the anvil.<br /><br />Richard&rsquo;s Rhydon was, in the wisest words of a Leathery, Alolan Poketrician back home, &lsquo;a brick-ass-bastard.&rsquo; He was twice the already immense weight of your average specimen, so the crash would have at least some effect, even considering that thing&rsquo;s metal body probably weighed half a Metagross at least. Rhydon&rsquo;s mind was so far gone into the red abyss of berzerk there was no way he could work his energy into a Fire Punch, or anything more elegant than a Body Slam for that matter. But Heat Crash? Heat Crash don&rsquo;t care.<br /><br />Rhydon snatched Carlisle by an arm and a leg as he tried to flip out of the way. Slammed to the ground, disappearing into a maelstrom of flaming powder, the old man screamed in ways that, if nobody knew he wasn&rsquo;t actually a human, would have relegated their match to the market of shady, unmarked CD&rsquo;s sold exclusively where the sun didn&rsquo;t shine.<br /><br />The city cheered their champion on with cries of encouragement and concern, half of the front rows having leapt from their seats to get a better look at the action down below.<br /><br />Richard clenched his fist, refusing to give the advantage up. &ldquo;Rhydon, Stomping Tantrum!&rdquo;<br /><br />The glowing torrent burst into a final, fiery flash and the ground shuddered as Rhydon&rsquo;s voracious hunger for unrestrained violence snapped free from its chains. Clouds cleared and the crowd bore witness to a spectacular show of cruelty through a hazy silver screen of filth.<br /><br />Carlisle tried to pull himself free between impacts, struck Rhydon&rsquo;s knee with all his might, even tried to roll him over on a downstroke slam that lashed his skull across the ground tossed his hat aside, but again and again he was left spraying the ground with crackling, orange and blue fountains of sparks.<br /><br />The announcer drones flew up in a theatrical circle. &ldquo;Big talk, but it looks like Rhydon&rsquo;s rage is bigger. Is it over for our proud paladin, Lumiose?!&rdquo;<br /><br />Rhydon hung Carlisle from his wrist, inches from his snout, rumbling with laughter. &ldquo;{YOU&rsquo;RE PATHETIC!}&rdquo; he bellowed with words that showered Carlisle&rsquo;s devastated face in a spray of gorey spittle.<br /><br />&ldquo;Yeah?&rdquo; he coughed through a grinning palisade of shattered teeth. His tux was torn to rows of black banners and half his face was rasped down to sinewy, synthetic strands that clung to his menacing, robotic mockery of a human skull like bits of bloody tissue from a clumsy shave. His eyes shifted to a bright, menacing shade of red as he rubbed a ragged, white thumb across his cheek. &ldquo;Well&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />The last thing Rhydon saw was a snappy flash so bright everyone else reared back wincing. A ring of explosive bolts broke his hand free, and he fell into a stealthy crouch. The rampaging beast crushed the robot&rsquo;s hand to junk in his claws, and his tail whipped down at him, but he couldn&rsquo;t feel the satisfying crunch of a torso collapsing under its weight. He huffed burning, smoking air from his lungs, eyes flailing around in a blind, feral panic.<br /><br />Carlisle stood and raised his arm in a coup d&#039;etat. Where a hand once beckoned the crowd for applause now his wrist deployed a three barreled gatling cannon that whined as it spun up with silver light. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not up to one ounce of Dick!&rdquo;<br /><br />He somersaulted sideways, dodging a surprisingly skilfully aimed hailstorm of stone, and then bunched his mouth up into a wicked smile as his eyes fired up again. His hat, abandoned on the other side of the arena, bounced around and Carlisle&rsquo;s voice echoed from it like a megaphone. &ldquo;Whaaat, I&rsquo;m just some washed up wrinkle, right? How does it feel, being the caboose?&rdquo;<br /><br />His hat rolled away as Rhydon flipped around, hefted a boulder, and hurled it out of the arena, barely stopped from careening through the splash-zone seats by a Hariyama in a league service hat body checking the rock. &ldquo;{Just you wait, old m-AAUUUGH!}<br /><br />Chunks of Rhydon&rsquo;s back showered the arena in ground up viscera as bolts of concentrated steel energy flashed from Carlisle&rsquo;s arm, knocking the monster onto his face. &ldquo;C&rsquo;mon, fat head, where&#039;d your moxie go?&rdquo; his hat boomed, rolling around as Carlisle carefully strafed and snuck in for his next strike.<br /><br />&ldquo;{MY HEAD IS JUST THE RIGHT SIZE! RAAAAGH!}&rdquo; he shrieked, lobbing a jagged chunk of concrete that landed ten feet from his team&#039;s trainer box.<br /><br />Emil&rsquo;s heart jumped as the thing landed and cracked apart. &ldquo;Rhydon DIG!&rdquo;<br /><br />Rhydon&rsquo;s bloodshot eyes bugged out of his skull, barely able to hear anything but the beating pain in his everything and his anger that had been whipped up into a frothy milkshake by Carlisle&rsquo;s bullshit. But he shoved his paws into the dirt, not knowing what exactly he was going to do after he got down there, but totally confident that it was better than what his brain was brewing up. After all he&rsquo;d seen that day, he had faith in Emilio&#039;s inner sadist.<br /><br />&ldquo;Ah-ah-aaah,&rdquo; Carlisle&rsquo;s voice echoed across the field as he wagged his finger, and the hat rolled to a stop in front of Rhydon&rsquo;s nose.<br /><br />\tRhydon snatched it up and stood with a snarl, ready to rip the thing in two. &ldquo;{HA! Got your&hellip;}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tHis gaze passed across the inside of the black, mawile-felt hat for only a fraction of a second, but when it did his eyes were caught up in some ineffable snare. The inner lining was a lush, pink silk, ringed in rows of razor sharp teeth that dropped off into an all-consuming, bottomless pit of darkness.<br /><br />\tEmil pressed the button on his ball. &ldquo;Double-Edge! Put it down! Get him!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRhydon&rsquo;s extremities jittered as he slumped to his ass, his firestorm of emotion unceremoniously snuffed out, strings of drool ran down his chin, and the color faded from his eyes.<br /><br />\tCarlisle snapped his fingers and the hat rolled back towards him. &ldquo;Storm in a teacup.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard nodded, eyes locked on Carlisle, who was busy tearing the remnants of his suit coat off. &ldquo;You did good, buddy. You did real good&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe judge drone spun around, hooting with celebration. &ldquo;Sir Carlisle prevails, and Rhydon is unable to continue! Hooraaaaay! Faint penalty, Team Prism cannot switch; Team Stone, release!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tCarlisle&rsquo;s devastated, exposed metal face rolled its jaw around. He loosened the buttons on his half-burned club-collar shirt. &ldquo;Sally forth, Richard Stone. Twas an honor showing Rhydon the door.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tIncineroar&rsquo;s eyes opened for a moment, and then she squeezed them shut. They needed me for this&hellip; so badly.<br /><br />\tBonnie looked over at her brother. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen him fight like this, Clemont.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tClemont shook his head. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t either, but&hellip; something seems familiar&hellip; I can&rsquo;t place it, sis.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard looked over at Emil. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no easy way out of this one, is there?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEmilo shook his head. &ldquo;Nah,&rdquo; he replied, smiling. &ldquo;And a good thing too, Vaporeons&rsquo; bored.&quot;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Machamp, hold out, buddy!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe old, four armed wonder punched the air, prepping a defense as he squinted past an eye that was swollen shut from the messy maelstrom they&rsquo;d just struggled through.<br /><br />Carlisle huffed as he marched towards Machamp, removing his glove with his teeth. &ldquo;You, on the other hand&hellip; I&rsquo;d like to have a word, if you&rsquo;d be so kind.&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp pointed to himself, looking around, and his shoulders slumped as he waited for the strange pokemon-human-appliance-thing to approach.<br /><br />The old guy glared at Machamp with the countenance of a world ending, alien, robot soldier. Machamp&rsquo;s stomach turned a little at the sight of the man&rsquo;s skin having been torn away, and he stood there gawking as Carlisle stopped with a stomp of his feet, twirled his good palm around and over his shoulder, and then slapped his glove across Machamp&rsquo;s cheek.<br /><br />The audience exploded with irreverent cheering, jeering, and calls for bloodshed. <br /><br />&ldquo;You have soiled the nobility of Dedenne of Prism Tower, my beloved kin, hatched eight clutches from my own! Prepare to feel her shame.&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp wiped his cheek, looked down with a confused raise of the brow, then looked back at his trainers in complete bemusement.<br /><br />Richard punched the air. &ldquo;Give it to &lsquo;em! Look out, though, he&rsquo;s got tricks!&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp pursed his lips, raised all four fists with one held up at his chest in defense, ready to trade blows with ye-olde trash can.&ldquo;{Name of the game, fancy man.}&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle threw down the gauntlet between them and raised his fist, as if he planned to duke it out with Richard&rsquo;s Old Reliable.<br /><br />Spinel had been watching the entire time, having snuck away from taking care of the drooling, braindead coma Rhydon had been reduced to, and hid behind Incineroar&rsquo;s chest. &ldquo;{RUN! Don&#039;t do it!}&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle brought his clenched fist down, unfolded it, and slid it into his pocket. &ldquo;First move is yours, reprobate...&rdquo;<br /><br />Incineroar&rsquo;s eyes pried open again, unable to stand her uselessness any longer, watched, listened, smelled the air past the blood drying in her nose.<br /><br />Machamp&rsquo;s triceps rolled like locomotive wheels, knuckles whizzing past Carlisle&rsquo;s head with snaps that cracked the air in two. His body began glowing orange, building tension in his knees as he shifted backwards, dodging one of the old coot&rsquo;s return blows with that one good fist of his. He was left reeling from a single, skillfully placed palm strike to the jaw, and finally he felt the Close Combat begin to roll into action. Several backhands, downward chops, and a powerful, straight sternum blow made contact and Machamp gritted his teeth, feeling his bones creak and snap from the impacts, knowing he&rsquo;d need to ignore his joints stretching apart and reassembling if he was going to put this guy down.<br /><br />Machamp came down upon his skull with a vicious, meteoric punch, forcing the old Knight to his knees. &ldquo;Aaahahahaha&hellip; What a facer! My compliments to the chef,&rdquo; he said with a shuddering, glitching voice, grinning up with a mouth of shattered punji stakes for teeth as his hat fell from his skull and rolled away.<br /><br />Incineroar grabbed Spinel by his baby-blue collar, scoffing at his wimpy squeaks of terror, and pointed a shaking claw at Carlisle. &ldquo;{Listen.}&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel raised his big, only-good-for-one-thing ears and sure enough, he could hear it; the whine of something not unlike the capacitors and battery arrays spinning up on the Olivine Dawn. Then he spotted a line of electrical sparks playing up and down Carlisle&rsquo;s legs and he ran to the side of the arena. &ldquo;{Back off Machamp! Something&rsquo;s building up. Back off!}&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp, unlike his bigger, hornier compatriot, relied on every brick in the Stonecastle, and without hesitating he leapt back with all his might, skidding to a stop on the balls of his feet.<br /><br />With absolutely no time to spare, as Machamp disengaged he felt Carlisle&#039;s metal fingers brush against his belt. He&rsquo;d barely avoided a grapple, the consequences of which he could only begin imagining as House Bourbon&rsquo;s best slammed his foot down, and the air burst apart. Carlisle brought his fist and his gun up in a boxing posture, then a bubble of power around him exploded into thunder flurrying within an electromagnetic snowglobe of plasma.<br /><br />&ldquo;Hahaaaa,&rdquo; his laughter buzzed in everyone&rsquo;s ears. &ldquo;I like you, Sylveon. Hush now!&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle&rsquo;s mouth opened, jaw dislocated, and all noise in the arena was drowned out in a mind numbing sawtooth tone. He reached his hand out, and it exploded with a pneumatic hiss that released a long, metallic snake lunging from his arm at ballistic speeds towards Machamp, metal fangs protracting from the ends of his fingers. <br /><br />Machamp rolled out of the way, carefully scooping up a boulder in his arms, and hurled it back as Carlisle&rsquo;s claws raked across his shoulder. His muscles shook from even that minuscule contact.<br /><br />Carlisle allowed the rock to make purchase with his shoulder as his long, metal grappling arm recoiled. Spinel shouted in response, but his voice was drowned out in a droning, transformer&rsquo;s hum. Rocking the air with malicious waves of sound, his laughter sounded like nothing Emil or Richard had heard before. Even Clemont and Bonnie couldn&rsquo;t recognize this terrifying behavior.<br /><br />Prince Meyer, on the other hand, watched with cool intensity as the guardian of House Bourbon finally got to show just how formidable he really was. Decades of guarding his family, stuck in an endless cycle of mundane, domestic tasks, would never be enough to dull this warrior&rsquo;s edge, it seemed. Several cousins and attendants in the stands with him shook his shoulder, asking what was going on, but he refused to answer them. <br /><br />\tSince he was Bonnie&rsquo;s age he&rsquo;d wondered how deep Carlisle&rsquo;s well of power went. Ever since the old boy trained him into the martial bird of prey that stalked the nightmares of criminals everywhere, he wanted to know his own attendant&rsquo;s deepest, darkest secrets. His service, the old &lsquo;Mon always said, belonged to the Imperial Crown, and that he&rsquo;d never divulge. He&rsquo;d break his oaths to House Bourbon before he ever let those shadows out of the closet.<br /><br />The old boy was ensuring nobody forgot, least of all the other Royal Families vying for power throughout Kalos, just how well protected the throne of Lumiose was. More than that even, Carlisle was bored. For years he&rsquo;d complained to his Master, longing to stoke the glorious fires of battle flickering within, and then the Masters Qualifier came along, promising to bring Pokemon of a skill and power that would allow his lifelong companion to go all out.<br /><br />He could not deny him this honor, and so Prince Meyer called upon his son to take Carlisle&rsquo;s ball in glorious combat. But Carlisle was a proud &lsquo;Mon, and the caped crusader knew the time would come that his son learned that there were things outside of his control.<br /><br />The ragged human half of his face curled into a satisfied smile. This competition did not disappoint, and it was time to raise the amperage once again.<br /><br />He aligned his cannon and traced the movements of his new musclebound friend, blue spheres blasted from his arm and splashed messy cobwebs of voltage against the ground, curling roots of arcing flashes around the walls of the Arena, and a number of Smoochum and Jynx shoved their way through the crowd, raising shields protecting the audience from Carlisle&rsquo;s stray barrage. <br /><br />Machamp tumbled around the arena at full tilt, using the wreckage to his advantage with parkour gymnastics to dodge the gunfire. He couldn&rsquo;t touch this guy without suffering the consequences, he felt that in his bones, and none of his ranged techniques were working. He had to come up with something else, and he suddenly felt that rush of inspiration that only came to someone when their leg was in a trap and the hunter was upon them. His body built up fighting energy again, and he raised a slab of cement to eat a few of Carlisle&rsquo;s blasts as he jumped forward, and landed thirty feet away.<br /><br />&ldquo;CHAAAAAMP!&rdquo; he broke a stone in two with his foot, threw all four palms out, and rings of amber energy sizzled through the air in an expertly aimed arc.<br /><br />Richard&rsquo;s eyes popped open, and both he and Emil gawked at each other as Carlisle grappled a rock nearby and yanked himself out of the way. A long cylinder of stone and earth was eradicated by Machamp&rsquo;s new technique, catching Carlisle&rsquo;s left leg up in a vibrant bolt of fighting force.<br /><br />Carlisle spun around, left standing on a crackling stump that oozed with flaming technological ichors. &ldquo;What a masterfully executed Focus Blast!&rdquo; he exclaimed with a shaky, corrupted appreciation in his voice. &ldquo;Delightful, truly.&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp looked at his palms that still smoked and swirled the air with errant energy. &ldquo;{Is that what it&rsquo;s called?}&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;You&rsquo;vvve been fighting thizzz long and&hellip;&rdquo; Carlisle&rsquo;s palm smacked against his temple with a loud clang. &ldquo;Haaahahaha. Your simp-p-plicity is so charming. Please, nevvver change.&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp worked to summon up the feeling he got with that move again, rotating his arms in unison as his muscles bulged again. &ldquo;{Careful what you wish for!}&rdquo;<br /><br />Everyone screamed out as Carlisle&rsquo;s hat rolled around behind Machamp, but it was too late.<br /><br />&ldquo;Ta ta.&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle reached his hand into the space where he&rsquo;d unbuttoned his shirt, and the grappling hand blasted out from the hat, dragging a massive, black metal ball and chain with it. His claws bit into Machamp&rsquo;s leg, and wrapped the thing around Machamp&#039;s knees, his opponent crying out with thousands of volts lighting his nervous system on fire.<br /><br />Richard recognized it immediately, the old Iron Ball Switcheroo; an ancient, dirty play from a dastardly old soldier&#039;s bag of tricks<br /><br />Machamp reached for Carlisle&rsquo;s arm, trying to bust it over his shoulders, but his body shook out of his control, his vision blurred, and his heart skipped several beats as he fought just to stay tanding. Machamp tried to leap to safety, but was held in place by the chains around his ankles as a steel barrage rained down, twice as strong as the first, running his gunbarrel white hot as he refused to let up until Machamp&rsquo;s flailing turned to worn out writhing.<br /><br />Carlisle emptied the furnaces within him in a massive gout of hyperthermal air from his mouth, his ears, and out from the plates of his body. He smoked like a sagebrush fire as his shirt was burned away in a storm of cinders. &ldquo;D-d-d-dedenne&rsquo;s honor hazzz been avenged, you are relievvved of your guilt,&rdquo; he declared, retracting his arm, sticking his good hand back into his pocket to check his watch. &ldquo;In rec-c-c-cord time, too.&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp squinted past sprays of smoking blood and burned skin erupted from his body. He wasn&rsquo;t about to leave without taking his own pound of flesh, and he had just the target. He channeled the pent up energy he&rsquo;d gathered, and tossed it aside. <br /><br />The hat magically vanished into a cloud of dust, replaced by a smoking, black pit. &ldquo;Tadaaaa!&rdquo; Machamp laughed, capping off his own little magic show with a round of jazz-hands.<br /><br />Carlisle guffawed. &ldquo;You hooligan!&rdquo; He raised his cannon, his eyes flared supernova bright, and Machamp was slathered by the dripping licks of Flamethrower. &ldquo;That-t wazzzz g-g-genuine Nonpareil Mysdibule, I&rsquo;ll havvvvvve you know!&rdquo;<br /><br />Machamp didn&rsquo;t scream, there was no way he&rsquo;d show the bastard any satisfaction, but he did give the crowd a last round of peace signs thrown up as his skin melted away, wreathed in sooty, polluted flames. Huge sections of the crowd cried out his name, moved by the absolute, unrelenting grit.<br /><br />The Judges slowly turned around. &ldquo;Our Champion conquers all! Machamp is unable to continue! Team Stone, release your final Pokemon!&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil squinted at Carlisle as Machamp was recalled and given to Spinel, who nearly fainted at the the smell of barbecued living flesh. &ldquo;May I do the honors?&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard tossed the ball to Emil, &ldquo;With pleasure,&rdquo; he said, resigned to the fact that his fate was now in the hands of his neighbor&rsquo;s pet fish.<br /><br />\t&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go Honey, rock his world!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tVaporeon appeared at the corner of the arena. Emilio put her there so she&rsquo;d have some distance from an enemy that had gone to great lengths to make themselves as dangerous as possible, and she wasted no time slipping into a crouch, using every square inch of their upturned arena to her advantage.<br /><br />She took one look at her opponent&rsquo;s torn body, shredded face, and amputated extremities and gagged in disgust. &ldquo;{You don&rsquo;t look so good, old timer.}&rdquo;<br /><br />Carlisle followed her with a pair of lasers tracing lines from his eyes to his quarry, loosing off a few bursts when he felt confident in his aim. Then he realized she was picking up speed, turning into a blinking, blue blur as she worked her energy into some strange enhancement pattern he didn&rsquo;t recognize.<br /><br />Rain fell from the sky again, heralding a hazy, glittering fog that hung in the air like cold soup.<br /><br />&ldquo;Int-t-teresting bzzzrechnique, M&rsquo;lady,&rdquo; he said with clothes billowing in the wind of a foul smelling exhaust his body released from every crack and crevice. <br /><br />&ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming for you&hellip;&rdquo; Vaporeon&rsquo;s voice echoed throughout the arena from all angles in clean, lustrous intra-regional common, and the crowd&rsquo;s volume dropped like disturbed icicles, &ldquo;...ready or not&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />His eyes suddenly shifted green as he watched, in infrared, the bullet time motions of a blob of heat testing the corners of his defenses. He nodded resolute, ejected his glowing, smoking gun barrel to protract a long, double edged blade, filigreed in gold fleur de lis and silver Roserade dancers. His noodly, serrated arm unfurled, curling around him like a halo in defense as he spilled putrid, heavy emissions that hugged the ground.<br /><br />&nbsp;&ldquo;Allez avant!&rdquo; he barked with beckoning arms and a thunderous shadow roiling in his wake, basking in the great fog of war once more.<br /><br />Water pooled around his feet as he awaited her first great, lunging strike. He finally saw her body pinball off a rock and launch towards him, and he raised his blade as the silhouette of a fin-cheeked beauty formed in the fog. He swiped, intending to cut her right down the middle, pulling back to keep from killing her, of course, and whooped with celebration as he felt the blade make purchase.<br /><br />He gasped as her Substitute sliced clean in two, and an amorphous, predatory blob leapt up to coil around his neck.<br /><br />Vaporeon reformed an instant later with his neck firmly in her tail, and she twisted his head free from his shoulders like a steel bottle cap. &ldquo;{Nap time,}&rdquo; she peeped and leapt to the ground, washing herself clean of his nasty schmutz with a Watergun.<br /><br />\tWhen his body fell his head cackled with delight as it rolled around in the yellow, poisonous fog he&rsquo;d left behind. &ldquo;Hehehehe&hellip; Bon Adeui, mon ami&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe serrated claws on his hands retracted, and his body snapped its fingers, sending a shower of sparks down into the pond of volatile vapors.<br /><br />\tFWOOOSH! BOOOM!<br /><br />\tThe arena erupted into crackling, electric flames, and the mist rode a great pressure wave on its way out. Carlisle&rsquo;s head dimmed and darkened on the ground, and slowly his fuzzy, distorted laughter came to a stop as his head fried alive.<br /><br />Everyone held their breath as the destruction settled, holding their ringing ears in their palms.<br /><br />\tThe announcers breathed in panicked fashion. &ldquo;Oh no! Sir Carlisle has given himself up for the good of the nation. Will his sacrifice result in a judge point decision?&rdquo;<br /><br />\tRichard looked up at the score counter and realized what that would mean with Team Stone fifteen points down. &ldquo;Vaporeon! Talk to me, girl! Where are you?! C&rsquo;mon, please!&rdquo;<br />\t<br />\tEmil and Richard peered into the carnage, spotting a swirling gachapon shell of water with Vaporeon inside, curled up, arms out, eyes closed in meditation. She broke her concentration as the flames died down, and calmly walked towards the last, tiny remaining fragment of her foe.<br /><br />\tCarlisle&rsquo;s eyes flickered in and out, looking up at her. &ldquo;{I see you&rsquo;ve drank from the killing cup too,}&rdquo; he said in a strange, wailing voice, like the whine of an out of tune radio. &ldquo;Je d&eacute;clare forfait. It wazzzz an hon-nor annnnnd a privvvvilege, Team Zzzzztone of Mrcshhhhvville.&rdquo; His eyes flickered out, and a bulb of orange light zipped free from his ear, zigzagged through the air, and entered a slow, tired orbit around Clemont&rsquo;s head.<br /><br />\t&ldquo;My apologies, Young Master, it appears my skills have rusted deeper than I knew,&rdquo; his voice squealed from Bonnie&rsquo;s dexnav. &ldquo;I fought my hardest, and I&rsquo;m proud of everyone&rsquo;s effort, even in defeat.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tBoth the Bourbon kids smiled, nodding with tears in their eyes. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the real spirit,&rdquo; they said together, replaying Carlisle&rsquo;s own encouraging phrase right back at him. &ldquo;Viva La Lumiose!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tThe crowd was wild with rancor and delight, a riotous mix of fervor at the final result. But their patriotic cry ignited a rolling chant of &ldquo;Viva La Lumiose!&rdquo; and the laughter of coins falling around them as the two siblings wrapped around each other in a sobbing embrace.<br /><br />\tThe Judge Drone sighed with a despondent altitude drop. &ldquo;Clinging to life from the inferno&rsquo;s of defeat, Vaporeon stands alone, Team Stone is the winner!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEveryone on Team Stone breathed a sigh of mortal relief as the match was finally called. <br /><br />\tRichard staggered over to his team, left in a state of shambles he&rsquo;d never seen them in before, and knelt down. &ldquo;Damn fine work, you guys. All of ya. I can&rsquo;t even express how proud I am of all of you. Get yourselves put together at the Center and get some rest; it&#039;s another battle like that tomorrow, probably even worse, but I know we can make it through.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tVaporeon ran at full tilt for her lover and leapt into his chest. &ldquo;{That little trick we brewed up came in real handy, Emmi.}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEmil nuzzled her cheek. &ldquo;{Sad we had to show it off first match, can&rsquo;t fool someone like that twice.}&rdquo;<br /><br />\tShe laid down in his arms, purring as she waited for his sweet, sensual words.&ldquo;{You&rsquo;ll cover us with some brilliant backup plan; you always do.}&rdquo;<br /><br />\t&ldquo;{Not without my blue muse glowing in the sky,}&rdquo; he whispered behind her fin, and stroked her neck.<br /><br />\tVaporeon practically melted in his arms, bashfully blushing as she smacked his face with her paw.<br /><br />\tClemont, Bonnie, and Carlisle marched towards their opponent with faces full of proud resolution. &ldquo;It was our great privilege to cross wires with the likes of you,&rdquo; Clemont said, wiping the tears from his eyes. &ldquo;A shame you already earned my badge, I&rsquo;d love it if you did some training at the tower one day.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tHis Sister nodded with a snivel. &ldquo;Just a darned shame I&rsquo;ll never taste that amazing Gumbo!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tSpinel&rsquo;s ear turned like a radar dish as he finished helping Incineroar to her feet, and he zoomed over. He hastily scribbled onto a notecard and handed it over with a tired smile.<br /><br /><br />&ldquo;Make room for one pot of Pika Skrelp Gumbo at your banquet tonight.&rdquo;<br /><br />\t<br />Bonnie scooped him up, spun him around, and tried her damndest to squeeze him into a pitcher of juice. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the best!&rdquo;<br /><br />\tEmil walked over to Clemont with a cool, tired smirk. &ldquo;Later, Feraligatr.&rdquo;<br /><br />\tClemont watched Emil power his device back on and felt like seeing what else the &lsquo;Washed up Mechanic&rsquo; was going to get himself up to. He accessed the tunnel again, but felt his body lock up the moment his neural link made connection<br /><br />&ldquo;Aaaah. Nnnaaaa!&rdquo; His spine shivered as the circuitry suddenly felt foreign to his flesh, and then the lights went out with a message left for him in his field of view, complementing Emil&rsquo;s last text&hellip;<br /><br /><br />&ldquo;Š̶̼h̴̖͘ä̸͖m̷̩̒ȅ̷͍ ̴̙̏o̴̟̽n̵̳̈́ ̴͉̂y̵̦͐o̷̯̓ü̵̫.̵̛̹&rdquo;<br /><br /><br />&ldquo;Ah.. Aaaah! Bonnie! Help!&rdquo; he reached for her shoulder as they left the arena.<br /><br />Bonnie giggled. &ldquo;That silly interface messing with your eyes again?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Y-yeah. Hahaha,&rdquo; all he wanted was to get away and recalibrate, thoroughly deterred from sticking his hands in Emilio Mallison&rsquo;s private business again without a damned good reason.<br /><br />Richard noticed a familiar face on his way through the contestant passage. &ldquo;Miss Diantha, Ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo;<br /><br />Eeveeon brushed her tail around old Diantha&rsquo;s leg, who reached down to scritch her back. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t rightly miss my Grandson&rsquo;s first masters match, could I?&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard scratched his neck at that. &ldquo;When you put it like that it sounds real flattering, Gran&hellip; Is Gran ok?&rdquo;<br /><br />She giggled. &ldquo;Better than ok.&rdquo; She waved at Spinel, who looked back and forth between them with a smile. <br /><br />\t&ldquo;{She&rsquo;s your Grandma? Nice to meet you, Ma&rsquo;am,}&rdquo; Spinel said, not expecting acknowledgement, but knowing his politeness would not go unnoticed by Azelf.<br /><br />\tDiantha nodded with a bright, wrinkly smile. &ldquo;A pleasure as well, Spinel.&rdquo;<br /><br />The rest of the team eyed them with concern as Richard&rsquo;s fluffy companion beamed with delight.<br /><br />&ldquo;Who are you talking to, Rich?&rdquo; Emil asked with an eyebrow raised.<br /><br />Just as he spun around, he saw Miss Margot and her swarm of cameramen assaulting Richard and he shrugged. Ah, well, I&rsquo;d call her Grandma too if I wanted her to go away.<br /><br />Emil&rsquo;s Dexnav buzzed with a call. He looked, saw Jun&rsquo;s avatar of Apogee&rsquo;s Corporate Logo with a big Red Cross over it, and answered without thinking. &ldquo;Ah, hello?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Heeey, Emilio?&rdquo; Jun said with a great deal of nervousness in her voice. &ldquo;Is now a bad time?&rdquo;<br /><br />Em shook his head. &ldquo;Nah, we just finished getting our shit pushed in and barely scraped by.&rdquo;<br /><br />She laughed with an uncanny tremble in her voice. &ldquo;Whoa&hellip; I&rsquo;ll need to watch that later. Hey, um&hellip; I&rsquo;m sorry to ask this, it&rsquo;s kinda weird. Where do you keep your soldering kit?&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil&rsquo;s brow stiffened with curiosity. &ldquo;Hung with magnets under the kitchen table. Why?&rdquo;<br /><br />She paused, voice quivering. &ldquo;Wh-why do you have your soldering kit in the freaking kitchen?!&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil shrugged. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s where I&rsquo;m most comfy prepping PCB&rsquo;s. Why?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Wha&hellip; I&hellip; weirdo. Anyways, it&rsquo;s for school, they&rsquo;ve got us, ah, making a little server.&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Huh, I didn&rsquo;t know you were still in uni...&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Thanks a million, I&rsquo;ll stay out of anything else, promise.&rdquo;<br /><br />Emil sighed. &ldquo;Hey, uh. Since I gotcha on the line. I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch sometime when I get back. Sounds like an&hellip; alright thing, yeah?&rdquo;<br /><br />She squeaked, and then made nothing but moaning sounds for a time. &ldquo;Ah&hellip; I&hellip; Yeah, that does sound nice.&rdquo;<br /><br />Vaporeon growled, but huffed and rolled her eyes, knowing Emmi was exercising his social strategy. Emil smooched her cheek and hummed a refrain under his breath.<br /><br />&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a date then&hellip; sometime, we&rsquo;ll work it out. Well, good luck, ask me if you need help, that&rsquo;s kinda my thing you&rsquo;re doin&rsquo; there.&rdquo; He heard a dial tone, realizing she&rsquo;d hung up half way through his last sentence. &ldquo;Weird&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />Margot and her posse of state sanctioned paparazzi flanked Richard in a wedge of camera lenses. &ldquo;What a hair raising match, unbelievable, truly!&rdquo; she said with a hip swaying curtsy. &ldquo;A quick interview of the victor, if we could.&rdquo;<br /><br />Diantha folded her arms. &ldquo;Tell the nosy nonperson to take a hike.&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard looked back at her. &ldquo;Yeah, just a moment, sorry.&rdquo;<br /><br />Margot&rsquo;s smile squirmed awkwardly. &ldquo;Um, what?&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Look, I just nearly saw a Pokemon die today and most of my team is crawling out in crutches. You get one question.&rdquo;<br /><br />Margot screwed up her face, then smiled like devil she knew she was. &ldquo;You seem to have made a seriously loving bond with your team, Mr. Stone, I was wondering just how intimate your training gets when the world isn&rsquo;t looking. Perhaps you&rsquo;d be willing to let us know what happens behind closed doors, is that the secret to your success?&rdquo;<br /><br />Both Emil and Richard&rsquo;s hearts skipped a beat.<br /><br />Richard shook his head and started walking away. &ldquo;Aaaahahaha. Well, you can&rsquo;t ask someone to bleed for you if you&rsquo;re not willing to share the same tent.&rdquo;<br /><br />Vaporeon&rsquo;s eyes locked onto Margot and didn&rsquo;t let go. She growled low and angry, and Emil rubbed her shoulders to unwind the tension building. &ldquo;I know, I don&rsquo;t like it either. Just let him finish.&rdquo;<br /><br />But she wouldn&rsquo;t. Oh no, this was the kind of person who always had a motive, and that question was far, far too coincidental. &ldquo;{Right&hellip; Trust the doofus.}&rdquo;<br /><br />She bowed as her entire entourage slithered around a corner. &ldquo;Wise words. We hope to see more of your affectionate style of leadership.&rdquo;<br /><br />Diantha brushed his shoulder and pushed him along. &ldquo;Busyboltund bitch. Anyway, where are you two going tonight, hmm?&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard shrugged. &ldquo;Well, I guess since the Royal Family is going to make good on their promise, we&rsquo;re gonna be staying at the palace now.&rdquo;<br /><br />His Grandmother&rsquo;s lips tightened with concern on her face, looking both boys up and down with intense focus. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;d like it if you came by the shop again, I&rsquo;d like to show you a thing or two. Bring your little friend here as well.&rdquo; Her face relaxed and she folded her arms. &ldquo;Have a good night boys, good luck. And loosen up a little, Richie, you&rsquo;re in Kalos, where magic never left the air. Live a little.&rdquo;<br /><br />He laughed at hearing such a thing from an old Veteran, let alone his own Grandmother. &ldquo;Yes Ma&rsquo;am, make bad decisions, got it.&rdquo;<br /><br />She cackled. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s my boy.&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel smiled, wrapping his Ribbon around Richard&rsquo;s palm, relishing in his touch. &ldquo;{Your Grandma is awesome.}&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard didn&rsquo;t notice Spinel&#039;s touch at all; or, more accurately, he noticed, but his brain didn&rsquo;t mind what was happening. It felt comfortable, natural in a way he still didn&rsquo;t understand. Whatever the reason, Sylveon held hands with trainers they liked, nothing weird going on at all, right?<br /><br />Bonnie spotted them as an armored, stretch limousine arrived to take them away, and started gushing with excitement again. &ldquo;Enamorous bless.&rdquo;<br /><br />He approached the lobby and, sure enough, there was the crowd of adoring fans that were held&nbsp;&nbsp;back by a row of League security, not unlike wave breakers holding back a hurricane flood, as he collected his winnings for the match.<br /><br />&ldquo;One Million Pokedollars, would you like that account-credited or in cash, sir?&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel just about shat himself a hot pink brick. &ldquo;Nyeeeoonnn?!&rdquo;<br /><br />Richard also lost his breath for a moment. &ldquo;I&hellip; um wow, I didn&rsquo;t&hellip; I thought it was winner takes all, I didn&rsquo;t know the preliminaries paid out too!&rdquo;<br /><br />The attendant behind the counter practically glowed with enthusiasm, getting to spend her work day telling someone they&rsquo;re taking home heaps of moolah instead of asking folks for deposits and scrawling room service orders for the kitchen. &ldquo;Mhmm! You earned it, and might I say, your match was amazing. I watched it on the screen just now, but I wish I&rsquo;d been there for the real thing; we could feel your clashes shake the entire building!&rdquo;<br /><br />&ldquo;Credit the money to Team Stone Receivables. Hey, can you book me a taxi to the hotel? I gotta get my things before I take off for the palace.&rdquo;<br /><br />She sighed, letting her little black beret slump into her eyes. &ldquo;You&#039;re so lucky. Gods. Yeah, I&rsquo;ll get one ASAP.&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel was practically hopping out of his own hide. His face was blazing with anticipation, and his grip around Richard&rsquo;s arm grew tighter and tighter as they walked towards the transportation roundabout outside. He scribbled a note and slipped it into Richard&rsquo;s collar, rubbing his furry shoulders against those rock-hard thighs he appreciated so much.<br /><br /><br />&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be your princess tonight, lover. &lt;3&rdquo;<br /><br /><br />\tRichard&rsquo;s spine tightened as they stood waiting, sharing a bench with two old men in a competition to see who could taint the air in cigar smoke fastest. &ldquo;Hey, Spinel. After you make that food and we&rsquo;re done eating, I was wondering if we could, um&hellip;&rdquo;<br /><br />\tSpinel laid himself across Richard&rsquo;s lap, snuggling into his tummy, eyes upward with an expecting look. &ldquo;Eeeee?&rdquo;<br /><br />He rubbed Spinel&rsquo;s shoulders as another ribbon slunk its way around his biceps. He had to let him down soft, he couldn&rsquo;t break a Stone like that! And besides, he&rsquo;s his bro. They&rsquo;d be able to still be friends. They just had a&hellip; &lsquo;moment&rsquo; was all, right?<br /><br />&nbsp;&ldquo;Hey bud, I just wanna make things clear&hellip; We&rsquo;re, like, partners, ok? Gotta treat each other like it, and I know it&rsquo;s gonna be rough and all, but it doesn&rsquo;t have to be weird. Blipflix and brews, shoot the shit, still wanna do all the good stuff with you too, y&rsquo;know?&rdquo;<br /><br />Spinel&rsquo;s ribbons played with his man&rsquo;s fingers as he looked down with a deep, contemplative stare. Then he warmed Richard&rsquo;s heart by looking into his soul with those beautiful blue eyes he couldn&rsquo;t get enough of. &ldquo;Syl Syl!&rdquo; he said, nodding with a calm, enthusiastic smile.<br /><br />Richard breathed a sigh of relief. Oh good, he&rsquo;s taking it well.<br /><br /><br /></span>",
  "pools_count": 1,
  "title": "Forbidden Waters - 24",
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