Eris' words were piercing. If Balder Schwartz , Laurence Anderson , MATIAS SILPH , and others' Patrons were indicators, the gods truly didn't care whether their Avatars died. As Josh felt the blade's edge about to pierce his neck, the young child asked him a powerful question. What matters to him?

If he was asked that question at the time of their first encounter, his answer would have been Raikou. Since falling to his low point, he had learned much. Much from his Gym Challenge, much from the war... and much from being a Champion. The answer he was about to give Eris was not the answer he would have given then. His reasons for pursuing Raikou were selfish with an alibi of changing Hoenn's future. The future that refused to be changed.

Now, it was about what he could do to change the present. To save lives he could save now.

"Protecting my family, my city, and my region. Keeping them safe from the DRK Triad. Stopping Hoenn's descent toward the Origin Point. I may be a rider, but I'm no fighter. I'm a courier. An Envoy. It's... funny, Eris. I once wanted to be Raikou's Avatar above all else. And now, with Raikou at my side, I...don't want to be an Avatar anymore. I've seen too many lives ruined by the gods. And you know what? I don't need that kind of power. That kind of power is not needed to do what I do best as a Ranger: saving lives."

It was part of why the RAINBOW FEATHER vanished before his eyes. He had done great things without Raikou all this time, and he would continue to do those same great things, with or without Swift's aid.

When Josh and Eris first met, he was selflsh. Ambitious. Desperate for divine companionship. How far he went made him realize that no power was worth scarring the life of a child forever. She asked why Raikou chose Josh. It was a question Josh did not fully understand, either. He understood the very basics, but not the intricacies.

For it was not Raikou that chose Josh, but the Great One and Her Avatar.

"Swift, my Raikou, trusts me because kyle lopez trusts me. Because Kyle and Ho-oh forgave me for the atrocities I committed against you and the people around you. They saw I had repented. Carried my cross. Knowing the hour of his death, Kyle entrusted me with the Raikou. And I swore upon him to use the Beast according to the Great One's image. She is a benevolent god, and reflecting that benevolence is one of my duties as the bearer of the Raikou."

Kyle had seen many candidates for Champion in his waning hours. Among them all, he was the only one where he truly went all-out, fielding his Patron and saddling him with the gargantuan task of doing battle against the very god he worshipped. The goal of the battle was not for Josh to win; defeating the patron deity of Johto in battle was nigh impossible with the Pokémon he had. The goal was to test his character.

"I was rewarded with the Raikou because Kyle trusted me with him. Trusted that I would do the right thing."

Even in the face of Eris' tattered clothes, wet skin, and the overwhelming stench of blood, Josh remained empathetic. As Reiner collapsed in a heap, the Champion asked her one more question in his helplessness.

"Did you trust Kyle?"

Eris didn't know Kyle? How did Eris possibly not know Kyle? He was Hoenn's Top Champion, one of the region's greatest celebrities and Avatars, and had never heard of the benevolent soul? He felt the pain of Eris' knife against his chest, feeling like it would pierce the skin at any moment. As his pain grew, the paralysis continued to crawl up his body. If Eris didn't take his life with a now-merciful cut, then he would suffer an even worse fate: total paralysis with no quality of life whatsoever.

Even now, speaking became more difficult, the Gym Leader rasping as his voice became raspy, breathing heavily between phrases.

"Then what... must... I do... to earn..."

The rest of the sentence remained within Josh's mind, unable to leave his lips. His eyes widened in fear as the power for him to speak had even been taken away from him. He began to sweat profusely. Eris taking his life would be doing him a service now, reuniting him with Kyle in paradise. Without her, he would suffer a slow and painful death of dehydration, with no way to get help.

His life was entirely in her hands.

As the knife threatened to pierce Josh's chest and burst his heart, its blade crumbled to dust, becoming but a handle in the child's hand. "That is exactly how I view Rocket, Eris. The only ones in Rocket that I an truly angry at are the ones so engrossed in their hideous dogma irredeemable. The Elisabeth Fiorelli s of the world. The jayden cross es. Those who are so entrenched that nothing we do will redeem them. Rocket's rank and file that are only there because they're trapped there, or the League forsake them..."

He was an Elite Ranger for a reason. He had volunteered to work with the League's Amnesty program. Though he may not have been able to exfiltrate Isaac Merlo , there were plenty of others that he felt needed to be freed. Asher Baran was the closest. He felt he could get that petty thief out of Rocket. He was a genuinely nice kid trapped within Rocket's clutches. If there was anyone who could get him out, it was Josh.

"Saving lives is part of being a Ranger. It is why I have remained a Ranger despite being one of Hoenn's Gym Leaders. For Gym Leaders are the lieutenants of Hoenn's army. If our superiors tell us to take a life, we do so. But I do not want unnecessary bloodshed. Being both a high-ranking Ranger and a Gym Leader, I am in a unique position to save lives, both in the wilds and on the battlefield."

Eris' last request resonated with Josh perhaps more than any of her other words he had heard. "That's what I'm afraid of, too," the Master of Faster added. "That my wishes and Swift's don't coincide."

For it was at that moment Josh began to understand Swift's true nature... that he was not a true, living Raikou. Only a memory of the Raikou that perished in the Kanto invasion. Though many of the pieces remained elusive, the puzzle had started to come together. The puzzle that would reveal the Beast's identity when it had been fully assembled.

"Family..." Josh exhaled, able to feel the sharpness of the knife shards before they finished crumbling. "In spite of all the horrible things both of those people have done... they're still family to someone, aren't they?"

Had the Champion been so indoctrinated, so brainwashed, that he neglected the reality that behind even the most awful villain was a person? A person whom he had not fully examined the mind and motives of? A villain Josh once thought Eris Halla was, his mind slowly opening to the truth of Rocket?

Though Eris had blinded Josh, the emotion in the air was running high. He had an idea of her disapproval. Perhaps even her regret of not being able to do more for the higher-ups. They were hurting without the League doing more to hurt them. Naomi Sato was right. The key to saving Hoenn was not to be on the winning side. If the region wanted to survive, the League and Rocket had to work together. Resolve their differences and unite against a common foe.

"What I meant by that was... so many of Rocket's rank and file wind up there because the League can't generate enough jobs for the less fortunate. Why do you think so many people not financially well-off end up in Rocket? Because they have no choice but to steal if they want to live. And for too many people, the League doesn't offer them that choice. Isaac Merlo defected and barely escaped with his life. He was strong enough to escape Rocket on his own. Not everyone is. Those are the people trapped within Rocket, and those are the people I want to save. Asking the decision makers within Rocket to defect, to leave, would be like asking me to give up my Gym and take up arms against the League. I've accepted that they're... simply too entrenched to persuade."

Josh thought about Eris' final question more as feeling began to return to his body, from the neck down. Slowly, but steadily. The more he pondered it, the more he realized the League had turned him into a mindless knight, unable to truly think for himself. Everything he had said to Eris up to this point had been a regurgitation of the League's doctrine. This was a conversation he wished he could have with Isaac Merlo . He was so busy as a member of AQUA that they might never be able to have that coffee talk together. They were good friends.

But all he had was the child bearing the incarnation of Emotion.

"...Then I clearly don't have an understanding of how Rocket works," the Gym Leader answered, a rasp in his voice from being dehydrated. "As a Gym Leader, I only ever hear about Rocket's atrocities. The heinous crimes their most wanted commit." It was clear now that the League only told him half the story, their propaganda making him view the war in black and white. The League were the good guys. Rocket were the bad guys. Justice and good will prevail over malice and evil. When he thought about it that way, was the League truly a democracy? Or was it a theocracy?

"In order to understand where the true issue lies... Tell me, Eris. As someone who was on the inside, you might be able to provide some perspective. What goes on behind those closed doors? What happened on the other side of the aisle?"

REMEMBER