Josh was getting more and more used to Raikiri with every ride on the mythical thundercat. The speed still hurt, especially QUICK ATTACK. He wondered if that was something he could truly get used to. The speed difference between Zeraora and Raikou was marginal. Only the move EXTREME SPEED was something Josh's feline couldn't perform that the real Raikou could.

To him, it was just like riding Raikou. All roads had led to Top Champion kyle lopez , but not in the way he expected.

This would be Josh's third trip into the Interdream Zone. The first was alongside alec foster , where he captured Ao, the Roaring Moon that was perhaps the most belligerent out of anything he had ever raised. The paradox dragon was a complete wild card, known to turn on allied Pokémon and even Josh himself.

As he stepped into the Dream Mist, he saw a frenemy--no, friend, that had bailed him out of many a tight jam in his own unique way. "Isaac! Fancy running into you out here!" To Josh, Isaac wasn't a Rocket. He was a friend first. He wasn't going to leave a friend in need.

All of a sudden, a colossal earthquake that Josh and his Pokémon, and only them, could feel, made him lurch back in his Zeraora mount's cocoon. On the other side of the Interdream Zone's wavering bounds was a true nightmare. It was MATIAS SILPH , the Volatile. Or an illusion of him, at least. Facsimiles of Callan Young , Elinor Anderson , FERNANDO SILPH , and even one of commissioner dahlia goode were there. All of them gave him death stares.

Josh let out a scream.

He wanted to turn tail, but the Dream Mist had ensnared him and his Zeraora steed. Neither he nor his Pokémon could escape easily as the "prosecution" presented their case against the Mauville Gym Leader. "Councilwoman!" Josh pleaded in an unusually high pitched voice. "What about our deal?!"

"But I told you! She's a dangerous criminal!" Josh pleaded. "She's got a yellow sheet taller that Lilycove Lighthouse! Does my spotless past until today not mean a thing to you?" Mauville's Gym Leader pleaded aloud. The specter of Callan, stern as ever, retorted in a voice only Josh could understand. Floating behind the desk the hearing was taking place at, he returned with a young child with three gaping holes in her. How she was still alive with those holes in her frame was anyone's guess. Neither physics nor medicine explained how she was standing. What was clear was a face Isaac Merlo would almost instantly recognize.

It was the face of Eris Halla .

She wore the same clothes she did before, the holes still in them from when King Zing triple-stung her. Bloodstains, too. Her face was locked in the expression of unfathomable pain from the day the two met and fought one another over a routine apprehension and escort for questioning. Josh's pain was purely mental and emotional, but it was clearly there, evidenced by his entire face turning red.

Behind the daunting sextet of high League officials was a screen that the apparition of Callan turned on. The display showed his Beedrill strapped to a table. He desperately tried to escape, but with his wings pinned down, any struggle would just put the giant stinging insect in more pain. A League scientist plunged the needle of a syringe filled with vile-looking liquid into King Zing.

Death by lethal injection.

"I thought we agreed you would rehabilitate him! Why?!" Josh cried, falling to his knees as he watched his Beedrill die in the nightmare that he beheld. It was a nightmare he would have a hard time waking up from. "Elinor! THAT'S NOT WHAT WE AGREED TO!!" If Isaac was good at reading lips, he may have been able to make out the phrases:

"It was not my decision to make. It is the will of the Council as a whole."

Murmurs from the council came forward, then the Top Champion stepped forward, his voice also no more than tonal variations of the same noise to those around Josh. "So what you're saying is I can never, ever become a Champion, Elite Four, or Head Ranger? For the rest of my life?!" More noises all those around Josh could not understand. "WHAT?! ANYTHING BUT THAT!!" the Gym Leader wailed, dropping to his knees.

More words only Josh could understand floated toward the Mauville Leader's ears. "After all I've done for you, YOU'RE TAKING MY GYM AWAY FROM ME?! AND MY RANGER BADGE?!" More lip reading would let Isaac understand parts of the other half of the conversation:

"It is the will of the Council. Josh, it pains me to say this, but you are hereby exiled from the League, and are no longer welcome on League premises."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Raikiri's rider screamed at the top of his lungs, head tilted toward the heavens in pure anguish. Next, the scene faded to darkness, a mist and SPOTLIGHT cutting through. The shadow of a Rhyhorn, Wishiwashi, and Crobat got his heart racing far worse than it already had before. He felt the sharp tip of a Doublade at the back of his neck, threatening to run him through and end his life where it stood. "Full speed, boy!" Josh barked. Despite him being able to feel every bit of a high speed gallop, the terrain and phantoms of the Interdream Zone relentlessly chased him.

"Isaac!! Where are you?!"

Josh's heart nearly stopped when he saw what was beneath Blackjack's mask. Even Raikiri flinched upon seeing the illusion of his trainer behind the mask. The fierce look on his face was terrifying. It was the the look on his face when he nearly took the life of, unbeknownst to him, a fellow Gym Leader. It was the look of a berserk warrior, one looking to brute force the answers he sought, no matter the cost... even if the answers weren't within the person directly in front of him.

Haru, Rampage, Shiver, and Sunny all worked together to match, then exceed, the mythical Pokémon's blistering speed. A horn underneath the Zeraora's sensitive chest was enough to destabilize Raikiri's extremely fast running stroke, the electric-type sliding to a stop in the pain of the critical hit. Isaac's last inquiry hurt more than the thrust of any sword. More than the sting of any Pokémon move. It hurt worse the death itself.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!" Josh wept bitterly. Only the League higher-ups were supposed to know. Did Isaac have Eris Halla as a connection? That was the most logical way he knew. The young Gym Leader was a master of physical and mental warfare, Finnegan Yang having trained him into becoming a skilled, medieval knight in modern times. He had Raikiri, one of the fastest steeds in the world, with a muscular sword arm to boot.

None of that would help against the psychological warfare Isaac was engaging in.

For the first time since they had met, Isaac had caught Josh in a moment of true fear. Cyberchase was not fear. Meteno was not fear. Blackjack's attack at Mauville Gym was not fear. Hell, even their brutal battle in Mauville's streets was not fear.

This was fear.

Despite the illusions, this felt all too real. If Eris survived, then how far up the chain of Rocket did this go? With the identity of the girl's assailant known, it would be trivial for Rocket to launch a smear campaign against the Master of Faster. Mauville Gym Leader, war hero, and attempted murderer. Of course, the League would deny it, both to protect their Gym Leader and to deflect blame away from the League as a whole. Perhaps that was how Amor Rose knew so much about what Josh was going through?

He wanted to come clean with Isaac. He really did. It wasn't his decision to make, though. It was PENELOPE LIVY 's as the League head of accountability. He was already serving his time. Even with the two of them alone in a remote corner of the Interdream Zone, he couldn't bring himself to violate their agreement. "...Isaac, NDA is such a bitch, isn't it?" he asked, still in tears over Eris' supposedly shattered morale.

Like he said, it was truly a fate worse than death. "...How far up the chain of command does my identity as Eris Halla 's attacker go?" he managed between heavy breaths, trying to get his racing heart to calm down.

The BITTER MALICE-powered ice crystals swirled around Josh and Raikiri. They moved with such speed that ice began to form on Raikiri's paws, immobilizing the Zeraora. Josh reached for his belt to recall the Pokémon and switch rides, only to find his belt had been frozen, too. The two were trapped, the Gym Leader a prisoner of his own cocoon saddle. His life flashed before his eyes as the ice creeped down his lower body and up that of Raikiri. Even a self-directed POWER-UP PUNCH bounced off the ice.

"You don't understand, Isaac!" Josh pleaded, the entire deck in the young man's hands. "I want to talk about it! I'm just not at liberty to share details!" If Isaac was a witness, he probably already knew all the details he was forbidden from sharing and more. Still, though, he had an agreement and was on thin ice with the League as it was. He didn't want to give up his Gym, and he knew the League couldn't afford to lose a Gym Leader. "I just want to make it right! Whatever I need to do to make this right, I will!" His sobbing continued. "...EVEN IF IT MEANS I HAVE TO FIND A REPLACEMENT GYM LEADER!!!" he screamed in anguish.

Josh could feel his heart thumping. If Isaac was close enough to see, he may have been able to see muscle spasms in sync with his heartbeat. The psychological trauma was adversely affecting the Gym Leader, whether Isaac intended it to or not. An aural recreation of King Zing's wings vibrating at full speed and power. Following it was an illusory facsimile of King Zing and himself, riding him down. It was just as it was that day. And with Josh and Raikiri unable to move, there was nothing to do he could defend himself.

One foreleg sting into his left shoulder. A second, into his right. The rear sting, into his stomach. Each felt like a molten dart in his joint. While it was all just an illusion, it felt like no illusion; the stings put him in just as much pain as the real thing. Next, he heard the sound of his own berserk scream, which was overpowered by the deafening drone of Beedrill wings buzzing at full speed. He shook like a jackhammer as the illusory bug-type mercilessly rocked him with the three stings still inside of him.

Josh couldn't even scream. His voice had left him after his last scream, from how much he had called for help in vain. While the illusion couldn't pump venom into him like a real Beedrill could, the shock it put his body into was just as painful. His eyes rolled in all directions, the Gym Leader fighting to remain conscious.