“Civilization just gives people the luxury of pretending that they’re good people.” Navy agrees with Kouji wholeheartedly. It is an assessment of human nature that only ones such as them, who were and still are forced to live in the dredges where the rules stop mattering, can possibly make. Most people’s lives are simply too comfortable. It is a fanciful fantasy. A first rate fairy tale.[break][break]
A beautiful lie.[break][break]
“And there’s nothing wrong with make believe or wishing on a few stars.” Kouji has seen his heart, just as Navy has seen Kouji’s. Their wishes are fundamentally different. Two sides of the same coin. A past where character was promised further definition. A future where mankind can prosper, free of the mistakes of the past. A truth understood and defied versus an ideal of struggle.[break][break]
While two trainers muse about what once was and what may yet be, a chivalrous knight sways his cape in the wind. He dances again. A mere backup dancer to the magician, letting her put the pressure on their opponent. She is doing fine, and his swords grow sharper yet from the dance.


[break][break]

+ Kouji Matsubara 90 MP

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

A moment’s opening is all he needs. Roland seizes that moment for all it is worth. He advances forward, charging with a roar of triumph. The energy collects along the edge of his arm and he cuts. He tears apart this monster, sending viscera across the battlefield. His blades have grown sharp indeed. Sharp enough to flay. Sharp enough to kill. Roland is not, by nature, a killer, but today he must kill. There is no other recourse. He channels sound and fury into his blade and ends this.[break]
A lesser warrior would allow his strength to go to his head. Roland is no lesser warrior. A knight tempered in ideals. Vortigern is stronger. Tanwyn can soar the skies. Ironsides is a wall. But none have mastered themselves the way that Roland has. This form is one of his own choosing. His life is one informed by his own decisions.[break][break]
And the world breaks away. They are caught once more in a far-flung world of tomorrow. This time, it is Hoenn as a utopia. A perfect world. Orderly citizens pass them by, dressed in suits not dissimilar to those worn by the aliens that invaded the region some years before. They pay the warriors and their Pokemon no mind.[break][break]
“Not everybody can be like us.” Navy says to his partner. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. It takes all kinds.”[break][break]
Outside of a department store stands a robotic version of Delibird. It waves at children passing by. A friendly, jolly robot. That is, until it notices the two talking. Waving at them, it tosses out a present at Roland and Meowscarada. It explodes in a shower of ice.[break][break]
“What’s up with these things? They’re just getting weirder and weirder.”


[break][break]

+ 100 MP Kouji Matsubara

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

This battle can be called anticlimactic. Meowscarada, independent of Roland, seems to finish the job. One decisive blow. Playing rough. The machine short circuits. That’s the end of its short existence.[break][break]
Only now do the citizens of this world notice them. They look at the two strangers like the people of Hoenn must have once looked at the invaders from a foreign star. They scream high pitched screams and start to run. Cogs have been thrown in their well-oiled world. Terror and fear rule the roost. Kouji has shown them his dream and their response is to flee.[break][break]
“I’d rather live in a dream than a nightmare. Let people keep dreaming.” He says as he recalls the great mistake of his life. Navy allowed his little brother to prolong his childhood right up to the moment where he died. It’s tragic.[break][break]
Neither has time to recover. Spotlights rain down on them from high. Navy covers his eyes. A trio of flying moth-like Pokemon look down on him. They hum their strange message, not one of peace, and they sound the alarm. More are coming. More Delibirds advance on them, bearing their strange gifts.[break][break]
“Looks like this one might get bad.” Navy says. Roland is already teleporting up. There is no time to heal. He tears at one of the floating Iron Moths with more of his furious close combat.

[break][break]

+ Kouji Matsubara

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

“…Roland, can you believe this guy?” Navy asks. They’re in the midst of hell. Birds rain down presents upon them. Iron moths douse them in fire, only staved off by Roland throwing out a life-saving glob of life dew to douse the flames?[break][break]
“Dreams are fake?! Where’s a guy get off saying stuff like that? Hell, if we weren’t in the middle of this mess, I’d give you a punch in the face right now, just for that!” There’s fire all around him. Chaos in every direction. A blizzard threatens them from one side of this futuristic street, hellfire from the other.[break][break]
“What’s a human without dreams? What’s the point of living if you can’t think about a better tomorrow?” He punches the air, up at Roland. A signal to attack. A signal to advance.[break][break]
“Something that doesn’t dream, well, you can’t exactly call it human, now can you? Something that just fights to survive, or fights because it has to, that’s not a human! That’s just an animal! Dreams are what separates humans and pokemon from animals! So to hell with being awake! I’d rather dream all day! I’m gonna dream myself a better world! I’m gonna dream my way to a world without Rocket, a world where I’m the Top Champion.”[break][break]
Roland teleports. He’s on the back of the Iron Moths. His psychic blade skirts along their frames as he jumps from monster to monster. His blade is like a streak of rainbow light. A rainbow road meant to be walked by dreamers.[break][break]
“I’m gonna dream us up a future where we kick these guys’ asses! We just have one Pokemon each?! Nice, I like them odds! We’ll fight ‘til we’ve given out! I’m not about to lose out to this sea of dreams! Not when I’ve got my own dreams to fulfill! Roland, I order ya! As your trainer! Give. Them. Hell!”[break][break]
And so the Gallade does. He never stays in one place for too long. His flame burns twice as bright. Neither he nor his trainer consider the possibility that flames that burn this bright burn half as long. The Gallade puts every ounce of his own spirit into this battle. It’s a battle of truth versus ideals.[break][break]
“The truth of humans is that we’re dirty creatures! But that’s why you make. Your. Own. Truth!”


[break][break]

+ Kouji Matsubara 120 MP

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

They’re being overwhelmed. That’s the reality of this predicament. The creatures of this sterilized future are coming for them, line after line. Every monster destroyed is replaced by another living paradox. If these creatures are made by humanity, then Navy has to admit: mankind has gone too far. They’ve delved too deep. The people were all wrong, too, as he saw them scurrying away like rats. It was like, for the first time, the light of recognition had been forced into their eyes. In this false reality, a future that may be, he roused a sleeping desire to live within them.[break][break]
A shame he won’t be around to see what happens next. They’ll be gone. If not now, then later. Roland is back on the ground, surrounded by an army of false Delibirds. They blow icy cold breath on him. They toss presents. They blast him with water. Yet still, he stands. He screams out his defiance against fate.[break][break]
“Guess that proves I’m not some illusion, ‘cause you’ve punched the hell out of me today and I’m still standing.” Navy reaches into his pockets. There’s still a trick left to play. Several, in fact. He pulls out a flashbang and throws it out. Roland sees it coming and teleports out of the circle. The birds are all stunned by this, reeling from the effects of the blast.[break][break]
Not far behind is a sticky glob. It expands and keeps them all in place. The birds protest. They whine. They cry.[break][break]
“Give ‘em heeeeeeell!” Navy yells at his wounded Pokemon. Roland cuts once, twice, again, a hundred cuts. His fury cutter does not stop, tearing through the stunned army of robots. Gears, cogs, circuits, and wires fly like guts across the battlefield. Roland is sprayed in the face by their strange oil, closing his eyes and continuing to cut.[break][break]
Navy looks up, wondering how Meowscarada is handling their side of the battlefield.


[break][break]

+ Kouji Matsubara 130 MP

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Roland is bloody. He is battered. Not beaten. Not broken. While no boxer, he has not heard a bell. He will keep fighting until the evening bell tolls his name. He’ll fight until he dies.[break][break]
No…[break][break]
He’ll fight even after he dies. He resolves to go on, no matter what, for his trainer, as the mist rolls over them again. It’s the four of them for a few moments. Just the four. Two trainers, two Pokemon. Their violent time in this world has ended.[break][break]
And then, they are in a violet world. A primordial place, without the rules of civilization. An open, honest battlefield. People dying for their beliefs, and for their lack thereof.[break][break]
It is not just Roland that has resolved to fight, even after his death. Black smoke rises off of the bodies. Navy and Roland look on as the black mist forms into several specimens of Misdraevus. No, that’s wrong. Their manes are long and fluttering behind them. Like spectral fairies of death.[break][break]
They turn upon Navy and Kouji…[break][break]
They open their mouths…[break][break]
And they fire off massive blasts of moonlight.[break][break]
Navy and Kouji should be dead to rights. It’s the primordial power of nature, coming for them. Taking them to ask. If they want to talk about dreams of a better world, they have to fight to bring that world into reality. If they want to shatter dreams, they have to have the strength to slap them awake.[break][break]
It is Roland who saves them. He jumps in front of them. It’s meant for them, all the fury of that blast. He looks back at Navy as moonlight blasts his body apart. He screams in his own language. He urges his trainer to not forget his way.[break][break]
“FIIIIIIIII-” He is consumed. The blasts fall short of Kouji and Navy, but he is consumed.[break][break]
“Roland!” Navy screams. Once more, he has last something. His heart catches in his throat. Where there were four, now there are three. There is no trace left of his Pokemon. The Fluttermanes are closing in around them. They look upon the two humans and the remaining Pokemon. Soon they, too, will join the dead.[break][break]
In this world, it’s kill or be killed.


[break][break]

+ Kouji Matsubara 140 MP

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

“What is it with you and fighting?” Navy remembers Gabe asking him. They were younger, then. Life was good. Summer was going to last forever. He’d gotten into another scrap, another back-alley fight to raise some money.[break][break]
“I guess it’s just what I’m good at.” He admits with a shrug. “We all got our strengths, kid.”[break][break]
“Use your brain some, Navy! Train that muscle!” And so he did. He trained his brain. Learned to see with his eyes instead of fight with his heart. And where did that get him? What grand prize did his deductions earn Michael Navidson?[break][break]
They placed him here. At the drain leaking out the underside of reality. A place man is not meant to tread. Surrounded on all sides by Pokemon, no, monsters that should not exist. They are surrounded. Just like Gabe was surrounded. Navy has fallen to a knee. Kouji speaks to him. Urges him up…[break][break]
Navy is faced with a choice. Does he stay down? He spends every day telling people about the dreams he has. About how he’s going to make Gabe’s dream come true. How he’s going to defend Hoenn. Yet he drinks. He poisons his body. He cries. He mourns. He stands still. He stagnates. The world passes him by. He’s faced with a simple decision.[break][break]
If he stays down, he dies. There’s no real shame in that. It’s a simple fact. If he can’t take the pressure, he can crumple. That will be the end of Michael Navidson’s story. Someone else will take his place. Lopez will stay champion, or someone else will replace him. Navidson Solutions will be forgotten. He’ll be forgotten. Gabe will be forgotten.[break][break]
Or he can stand. He can blaze. He can be the creature he has been pretending for years that he is not. He can burn the candle of his life down to the wick, until he is spent.[break][break]
Navy digs his shoes into the ground beneath him. He rushes up. He throws out his fist into the air, rushing to hit this creature. A futile effort, he has no Pokemon. Ghosts can not be harmed by a conventional attack. Navy cries a cry from the bottom of his soul.[break][break]
“ORAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”[break]
“ORAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”[break][break]
Navy’s hand glows blue. A second hand punches behind his. Faster. Stronger. A second voice cries out. Navy looks behind him and there is something standing there. A tall warior.[break][break]
Proud. Willing to face this horde. Willing to fight until it dies, just as Navy is. This great beast jumps past Navy and unleashes a flowing flurry of rapid strikes upon the Fluttermanes.[break][break]
“ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!”


[break][break]

+ 150 MP Kouji Matsubara

[attr="class","pokeclass"]