[attr="class","rubyw"]



[break][break]Great, of all the things to slow her down, it had to be pollen-induced sneezing. Luckily, Shalin Nariya and her Flygon managed to blow it away, freeing Arachne to unleash her Z-Move. Ruby was still too stubborn proud to thank her, though she did spare the stranger a glance that was probably grateful.

[break][break]With the Venusaur felled, Ruby returned to the center of town, where the peasants had erupted into cheers. aaron faust and illeana reyes were crowned as royalty. A familiar child knelt at her mother's side but did a double-take when she spotted Ruby.

[break][break]"Miss!" she called before standing up and running to Ruby. Her mother called after her, but the child paid her no heed. "You were wonderful! I want to be as strong as you when I grow up!"

[break][break]"Uh... Thanks?" was Ruby's elegant, heroic response.

[break][break]The child's mother came to collect her, muttering apologies while barely making eye contact. The child didn't mind at all, waving cheerfully at Ruby as she was pulled away. A sort of awkward pride welled up in Ruby's chest.[break][break]

---

[break]

[break]Calyrex visited, just as it had promised, and dispensed a prophecy that had Ruby sighing. Why couldn't these things ever be straightforward? The Black Knight and the Skeleton were mentioned again; apparently, they'd have to side with one of them? Ruby wondered if this prophecy's meaning would become clear with Calyrex's subsequent visits, but the former High King never returned. Perhaps the poison had taken it, too.

[break][break]The child's name was Mathilda. Despite her mother's obvious wariness, she ran over to greet Ruby whenever she saw her and chattered excitedly about the battles she'd seen.

[break][break]"Will you teach me how to fight?" she asked one day.

[break][break]Ruby scoffed beneath the mask she still wore. "I'm not much of a teacher, kid."

[break][break]The sadness on Mathilda's face was clear even through its dreamlike uncanniness. It tugged at Ruby's heart.[break][break]

---

[break]

[break]Mathilda was persistent, never letting her disappointment or Ruby's increasingly half-hearted rejections dissuade her. She tried everything from asking nicely to Baby-Doll Eyes to attempted bribery (not that she had much to give, but the effort was there). Finally, one day, she marched right up to Ruby, determination screwed onto her indistinct face, and said, "Teach me how to fight."

[break][break]"You're not giving up, are you?"

[break][break]"Nope!"

[break][break]Ruby sighed, but she couldn't stop the edges of her mouth from twitching upward, nor did she have her mask to hide that expression anymore. (As it turned out, trying to hide your identity while spending a year in a town with a bunch of League people was nigh impossible. ... "Nigh impossible"? Sheesh, Ruby had been here a while.)

[break][break]"Fine. But I'm not gonna take it easy on you."

[break][break]Mathilda grinned from ear to ear.

[break][break]As it turned out, not taking it easy on Mathilda meant starting her off with basic self-defense and Pokémon battle commands. Time and age would slowly have them both move on to bigger and better techniques.

[break][break]On some evenings, Ruby could hear the distant, mournful howling of Ettie's pack. The sound weighed heavy on her heart, reminding her of everything she'd lost and left behind in Hoenn. She was glad opal garcia wasn't in this hell with her, but Arceus, she hated not knowing if she was all right. She never thought she'd miss Hoenn so much, either. It was a paradise compared to this hell.[break][break]

---

[break]

[break]In addition to creating the Craftsman Guild, Gwyar Wledig also offered combat training. Ruby was confident in her ability to brawl and command her Pokémon, but she'd never had any proper training. That had already screwed her over on multiple past occasions. Thus, her pride worn down by her time in this poison-corroded dream, she began learning under the knight. (Ruby may not have known his true origins, but at this point, it was safe to say he wasn't playing.)

[break][break]At first, Mathilda was too young to join in proper training, but Ruby passed on what knowledge she could to the child who had become like another little sister to her. Despite her physical similarities to Opal, the two were hardly anything alike. Mathilda was much more fiery and outgoing, and even the constant invasion of her home couldn't wear that down. Ruby didn't like to hold hope too close to her, knowing it could be shattered at any moment, but Mathilda made it seem like maybe, just maybe, it'd be okay to hope just a little bit.

[break][break]Ruby still wasn't the most sociable of the bunch, but being stuck with people for ten years, fighting for your lives together, was bound to create some unintended bonds, even with people she'd normally consider enemies. And being a warrior on the front lines meant seeing a lot of the town's residential healer, Johanna Joy. The visits were awkward at first. Ruby still held resentment for Johanna's betrayal and the life she was allowed to lead after she left, but what the hell was she supposed to do about it? The line between Rocket and League was so blurry here that it might as well have not existed. So Ruby sat there in silence as the former Rocket patched her and her Pokémon up after a particularly rough battle.

[break][break]It was Mathilda who helped pave the road to reconciliation between them. She caught a bad case of the flu, along with several other villagers. Johanna, purported miracle worker she was, helped her get better. For the first time, Ruby thanked Johanna, though in a quiet, begrudging way that clung to the last of her pride. It wasn't enough to heal the wounds on their souls, but it was a start.

[break][break]Time passed, and people aged. Ruby looked more worn and rugged than she ever had in her life, but she still fought on. No matter how long she was stuck here, she wouldn't let this be the end. It was strange, though; sometimes, it felt like the years were dragging on, but at other times, it felt like she was jumping through time with bursts of static to fill in the gaps.

[break][break]Mathilda, meanwhile, grew into a young warrior under Ruby's and, later, Gwyar Wledig's tutelage. The years hardened her, but she never truly lost her spark. She proudly helped defend Ballonlea from attacks and then cheered for the town's victory, no matter how many losses they may have suffered. For some, she was a beacon of hope, a hero in her own right. Ruby had never been more proud.

[break][break]But then Necrozma came, fulfilling the first part of Calyrex's long-forgotten prophecy.

[break][break]Ruby fought hard, commanding her Pokémon and striking with her sword, but the Black Knight was relentless in its pursuit of light. It destroyed buildings in its wake, including the Craftsman Guild and part of the Pokémon Center. When it was finally driven away and the dust of battle had cleared, Ruby realized she'd lost track of Mathilda. She frantically searched the town, only to find her protégé and second sister lying on the ground, unmoving. Her weapon lay nearby, as if it had tumbled out of her hands in her last moments.

[break][break]Ruby screamed to the heavens. It didn't matter if this realm and its people were all a dream; the pain of losing someone so precious to her hurt all the same.

[break][break]"Mathilda!" a familiar voice cried. Mathilda's aged mother, alive by some miracle, ran over and collapsed at her daughter's side. She held Mathilda's body close and wailed.

[break][break]"You..." she managed between sobs. "This is your fault! Mathilda would be alive if she'd been with me! But you... you taught her to fight! And now...!" She was overcome by another sobbing fit before she could finish.

[break][break]Ruby didn't have it in her to argue. Not even Arachne's gentle chittering was comforting.

[break][break]The black metals that Necrozma left behind could be used to forge weapons imbued with Infinity Energy. Ruby went to Gwyar Wledig and what remained of his blacksmiths to have a battle axe forged. It was quite the departure from the sword she'd been using for the past decade, but she needed more power.

[break][break]When it was complete, she immediately went outside to test it on the half-destroyed training dummies. Raging Fury burned away her grief and allowed her to channel fire into her new weapon. Everything felt raw inside and out, but Ruby still found herself grinning at her newfound power. She let herself rage until she was exhausted, leaving smoldering piles of debris in her wake.

[break][break]

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Ruby scoffed at Gerald Kaiser's demand that she and Makoto stay out of his way. "Should be saying that to you." After all, he was the one who'd wanted to just give up before the fight had even started.

[break][break]Cold flakes fell from above. Makoto Kurumi's Ninetales tried to summon an Aurora Veil, only for Rayquaza's Air Lock to carry away the wisps of light on its unnatural winds. Ruby sighed. "It fucks with the weather," she said like that should have been obvious.

[break][break]Above, Rayquaza roared, causing a wall of wind to appear before it. Delphi was going too fast to stop herself from slamming right into it and being knocked back. They'd need some way of getting around those if this was going to work...

[break][break]Before Rayquaza could retaliate, Decidueye fired a Z-Powered arrow at it. Glowing petals descended in its wake, and when they hit the ground, they exploded. Ruby flinched back and covered her face with her arm as one went off way too close for comfort.

[break][break]"Watch where you're aiming that shit!" she shouted.

[break][break]Delphi roared as she, too, was caught in one of the explosions. She turned and growled at the Decidueye who'd caused it, only to double-take when she realized that the destructive arrow had bored a hole in Rayquaza's barrier. Perfect.

[break][break]Ruby and Delphi didn't always see eye to eye, but at that moment, they both wanted to show Rayquaza (and maybe Gerald Kaiser, while they were at it) who was boss. The Key Stone on Ruby's Mega Bracelet began to glow, resonating with the Garchompite that Delphi had around her neck. A cocoon of Infinity Energy surrounded Delphi, and she charged out of it a moment later, transformed. She slipped through the hole in Rayquaza's wall before it could be repaired and slammed into the Legendary with a Mega-powered Dragon Rush. Yet even that barely made the great sky dragon flinch.

[attr="class","rubyw"]

As the child's face disappeared from the window, Ruby realized something: She almost looked like a younger Opal. Something was off about the face, yet it was still familiar enough to give Ruby pause. She shook her head and slapped herself on the cheeks. This wasn't the time to be a sentimental dumbass; she had weird poison hands to fight.

[break][break]Warning bells rang out, and an orange Zapdos rushed the city walls with an army of sludge-controlled Pokémon. Immediately, trainers commanded their Pokémon to attack. A destructive beam of Z-Power fired into the crowd of enemies, and Ruby turned her head to its source.

[break][break]Huh. Not bad, Johanna Joy.

[break][break]To the north, a Venusaur emerged from the unclogged Power Spot and grew to a gargantuan size, the petals of its flower elongating and drooping over its body like a protective cover. Ruby glanced back at all the attacks firing into the oncoming army and decided the gates were well in hand.

[break][break]"C'mon, Delphi," she said to her battle-eager Garchomp. "We're going after that Vensaur."

[break][break]Delphi scraped an impatient clawed foot across the ground as Ruby climbed onto her back, then launched into the air and soared toward her new opponent. Ruby directed her to land nearby, and Delphi crouched into a battle stance, only to be engulfed by the light of her Ultra Ball. She flashed Ruby a betrayed look before she vanished.

[break][break]"You had your turn. Arachne, you're up!"

[break][break]The Araquanid chittered as she was released onto the field. Above, aaron faust flew on his Charizard, spewing down a vortex of fire. The guy playing knight, Gwyar Wledig, was trying to get the Venusaur's attention with a glowing Aegislash. Time for Ruby to do what she did best: kick some ass.

[break][break]"Savage Spin-Out!"

[break][break]Z-Power shone around Arachne like a golden flame. She turned so her spinneret was facing the Venusaur and fired out high-velocity silk. The Gigantamax Venusaur's size meant she wouldn't be able to fully encase it, but she'd take whatever she could get. Once she had a hold on the beast, she let the silk pull her back toward it, spun around in mid-air, and chomped at whatever part of the Venusaur's body she could get at.

[break][break]

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The rush beneath Ruby's feet was sudden and overwhelming, yet it was familiar. Meteno. Ruby had foolishly been there all those months ago for Walsh's megalomania. She still couldn't forget how that damned mission had taken Cerberus from her. Nor could she forget the sight of Rayquaza shattering the crystal within the meteroid into pieces to be scattered across Hoenn. This would be a hell of a fight, but Ruby had experience in this environment and something to prove.

[break][break]Which was why she thought Gerald's plan was fucking stupid.

[break][break]"Hell no," she said. "We're taking that thing down." And even if they couldn't, she wasn't just going to roll over and admit defeat. What would that prove? That she was a coward? As if.

[break][break]She clicked open Delphi's Ultra Ball. The Garchomp looked confused when she emerged on the simulated Meteno, but as soon as she saw their Legendary target, she growled and crouched into a fighting stance.

[break][break]"Makoto, your Kingdra snipes, right? Take some pot shots at Rayquaza." She turned to Gerald. "I still have no idea what your Pokémon are, but whatever you were gonna distract it with, do that. Let's show this overgrown snake what we're made of!"

[break][break]With that rallying cry, Delphi leapt into the air, caught one of the air currents whipping around from Rayquaza's powers, and charged into the most reckless fight of her life.

[attr="class","rubyw"]



[break][break]"Great," Ruby muttered. So she was stuck here until they brought Zacian back with acts of "heroism." "Wait, every month?!

[break][break]"What—Hey!" she shouted as she and Athena were suddenly grasped by a Psychic force and pushed into one of the beams. She managed to avoid falling face-first onto the ruined grounds of Ballonlea. Poisonous sludge coated the ground, turning the city into a garden of decay and ruin. She looked around at the company she'd almost literally fallen in with. It looked mostly like League... including the familiar face of Johanna Joy. She adjusted her bandana mask. Well, this sucked.

[break][break]At least they were more focused on taking care of the city than going after a couple of Rockets. Ruby scoffed to herself as Gwyar Wledig suggested they introduce themselves to the locals. She'd leave that to the ones trying to play knight; she wasn't exactly a friendly face, after all.

[break][break]Johanna Joy made her way to the dilapidated Pokémon Center. Ruby hesitated. Part of her wanted to follow the only familiar face in all this mess, but...

[break][break]Athena let out a roar of warning before what looked like a pronged hand emerged from the sludge. It grabbed at Athena, who roared again and dug her feet into the dirt as the hand tried to drag her into the poison. Oh, hell no. Ruby returned the Bastiodon to her Ball, making the hand close around nothing and swivel back and forth, as if it were looking around despite its lack of face.

[break][break]"Delphi, Bulldoze!"

[break][break]The Garchomp came out swinging, stomping her foot on the ground and causing it to shake. When the shockwaves hit the hand, it retreated back into the sludge. Ruby waited for it to come back up so she could hit it again, but it never did.

[break][break]She whipped her head toward another sound, expecting another fight. Instead, she heard... clapping? A child peered through a gap in a boarded-up window, clapping and smiling right at Ruby. A larger figure, probably their parent, came and pulled them away from the window a few moments later. Ruby adjusted her mask again.

[break][break]"C'mon, Delphi," she said, trying to hide her bashfulness. "Let's go kick some ass."

[break][break]Delphi roared eagerly.

[break][break]

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Hitoshi Inoue didn't answer Ruby before the voting was complete and the voice over the intercom spoke. She couldn't even be upset about that with the chilling visage of Kyurem on-screen again. That goddamned monster...

[break][break]The image changed, revealing the teams of three that everyone had been divided into. Looked like Ruby was on Team G with Makoto Kurumi and Gerald Kaiser, two people she didn't know. Not surprising, but definitely disappointing.

[break][break]She shrugged at Isaac Merlo's grin. Even if he didn't know his teammates, they'd all be buddy-buddy by the end of this. At least neither of them was stuck with Miss Ultramodern Futurist (Xenon Antheil) over there. Goddamn, that team was falling apart fast. Maybe Shred Zeppelin was fucked.

[break][break]Gerald Kaiser wanted to stick with Team G, but Ruby wanted something more than just that. Maybe it was childish, but she wanted something cool. Shame that Hitoshi Inoue's team had already taken Godkiller...

[break][break]"What about Team Gilgamesh?" Ruby asked. "Figure the name of a legendary king makes us sound powerful."

[break][break]Makoto admitted that battling wasn't their niche, something that Ruby vaguely recalled from the on-screen introductions earlier, and introduced their team and its strengths.

[break][break]"Arachne here's mostly defensive, and she's got Spider Web for stopping foes in their tracks. My Garchomp goes for all-out offense, and my Salazzle can distract and weaken the enemy before going in for the kill. Arachne's got Water Tera and Z-Power—" Probably a bit overkill, but nothing was too good for Ruby's ace. "—and Delphi, my Garchomp, can Mega Evolve."

[break][break]With Makoto's specialties lying outside of battling, though, Ruby had to know: "So what do you plan to do besides command your Pokémon?"

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Ruby gritted her teeth in the face of the onslaught of bullets and Gunk Shots. "Show yourself, coward!" she shouted to whoever was firing. Ashley Shepard had apparently found something, but Ruby barely registered it, focused more on deflecting any oncoming attacks.

[break][break]A Grim Neigh reverberated through the air, carrying with it an eerie wind that forced all conflict to a halt. Ruby didn't recognize the Pokémon that rode in on its ghostly steed from either reality or myth. It found four trainers to speak through and gave thanks for the offerings that Ruby hadn't been paying a lick of attention to. Then, it asked for all present to work together to perform feats of heroism, and Ruby couldn't help but let out a sardonic laugh.

[break][break]"You're asking the wrong person," she said. "You're better off just sending me back."

[break][break]Others were saying where they wanted to be sent. Ashley Shepard chose to follow paxton concordas to Hammerlocke. A familiar voice—Johanna Joy, Ruby realized—was going to Ballonlea. Ruby just crossed her arms, not wanting any part in this farce.

[break][break]

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Ruby snickered at the mental image that Isaac conjured. "Yeah."

[break][break]"What, you think Jade Opal is gonna do the knocking?" she asked. "She's kept me grounded for damn sure, but she's too gentle to actually smack me upside the head and tell me I'm being an idiot. So are you, but that's why you're the closest I've got."

[break][break]The conversation took a turn for the somber. Ruby kept looking at that spot on the ceiling as Isaac talked about how it'd take time and how the grief and mourning wouldn't be a smooth process. Ruby sighed.

[break][break]"I know."

[break][break]After all, she'd gone through the same thing with her father just a few years ago. Maybe that was why Cerberus's loss hurt so much: she still wasn't over what had happened during the Ultra Beast War. That tiny sliver of hope she'd found in the midst of this mess had been ripped away yet again, and it was getting harder to want to search for that light in the darkness when it could just get snuffed out.

[break][break]"But thanks."

[break][break]She looked back toward Isaac with something that wasn't quite a smile.

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The vessel atop Ting-Lu's head just kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Attacks against it only made it worse. Part of Ruby wanted to yell at them to stop hitting the damn thing, but how else were they supposed to subdue it? She was reduced to covering her ears to block out the noise, but it didn't do any good. This was a sound that reverberated through her whole body and filled her with utter and complete dread.

[break][break]It finally brought her to her knees. Groaning, she tried to pull herself back to her feet, but the pressure of the infernal creature's fear was too much for even her. Atlas, true to his name, also struggled under its weight, but he still let out a defiant hiss. Was it toward the Lucario or Ting-Lu? Probably both.

[break][break]The earth beneath her began to rumble, and she barely found the strength to get out of the way of the rocks that erupted from it. She was unhurt but trapped, and through her stalagmite prison, she saw Atlas in the same situation. Dammit, dammit, dammit...! She still couldn't get up; it felt like Hell itself was trying to drag her below the earth.

[break][break]She took a deep breath. "Atlas!" At least she still had the strength to shout. "Use—!"

[break][break]The air trembled with the sword's pulse. Ruby's heart throbbed in response. With a dreadful vertigo, she felt herself being pulled toward the shattered sword.[break][break]

---

[break]Ruby woke up coughing and spitting soot and dead grass out of her mouth. Where the hell was she? It looked like some kind of long-abandoned sports stadium, definitely not anywhere in Hoenn or even Orre. Something lighted down on her skin, and she shot her head up to see ash falling from the sky like black snow.

[break][break]Nearby, Atlas hissed and chittered in agitation, looking around with its fur and wings standing on end. Poor bastard just kept getting transported to weird places, huh? Ruby recalled him to his Ball to hopefully cool down. She didn't need her barely trained Paradox Pokémon freaking out right now. What she did need was to regroup with the rest of the Rockets and figure out where the hell she was.

[break][break]She kept to the edge of the stadium, not wanting to attract the League's attention. Someone jumped down from the bleachers nearby, making Ruby instinctively reach for her Poké Ball belt, but she soon realized it was someone on her side; specifically, it was the person who'd been attacked by Eris. She didn't fully recognize Ashley Shepard masked up like this, but she knew he was on her side, and that was enough.

[break][break]"Hey!" Ruby called, approaching him. "You know where the hell we a—?"

[break][break]Bang!

[break][break]"Shit!" Ruby took an instinctive step back from the spray of dirt kicked up right in front of Ashley. "Athena, Protect us!"

[break][break]The Bastiodon emerged from her thrown Poké Ball in front of Ashley and lowered her head, summoning a barrier of interlocking hexagons in front of her. Ruby's breath hitched as she remembered Isaac Merlo's story of how his beloved Aggron had been killed by gunfire, but she forced that fear back down her throat. Athena wasn't going to Mega Evolve or anything like that. She had a faceplate made of solid, ancient steel. She'd be fine.

[break][break]

[attr="class","rubyw"]

"Yeah, and you'll be best friends by the end of it," Ruby whispered back without a hint of irony. Well, except the irony of making "best friends" in Rocket.

[break][break]Isaac was in the middle of suggesting that Ruby try being more social when Amor Rose caught his attention. "That name supposed to mean something to me?" Ruby asked quietly.

[break][break]Before she could get her answer, the screens around the room blinked out, replacing the information on the participants with repeating images of Legendary Pokémon. Quite a few were familiar to Ruby for various reasons, including Kyurem, whose frosty visage made Ruby's blood, appropriately, run cold. Maybe that was why she had joined this in the first place: to get revenge on the monster that had taken one of her best friends from her.

[break][break]A question with three possible answers appeared below these images. To Ruby, the answer was obvious, but others like Hitoshi Inoue and Ashley Shepard had their own opinions. The former rubbed Ruby the wrong way.

[break][break]"Have you even seen any of these Pokémon before?" she asked the yapping dog. "That ice dragon, Kyurem? Its head is probably bigger than all of us combined. The damn thing's gigantic, and it froze damn near everything it looked at. Even Fire-types." The last sentence was said with a particular bitterness that perhaps only Isaac Merlo would understand. "How the hell do you plan on killing that?"

[break][break]As usual, Isaac Merlo had his head on straighter than pretty much everyone else in the room. Rocket didn't have the numbers or the territory that the League did, as he'd mentioned in the Ultra Deep Sea. They needed to play things smart if they wanted any advantage. And as much as Ruby wanted particular revenge against Kyurem, playing smart meant learning about any unknown threats before it was too late.

[break][break]Too bad that meant actually agreeing with Xenon Antheil, even if Ruby wanted to stab her with one of her knives just to show how "primitive" the weapon was. She quickly punched in her answer—C—before that petty anger could change her mind.