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Suffocating.
Gloria tries to breathe. Can’t.
Smothering.
Her feet stumble back, her body swaying.
Shock eats at her numbing mind, wiggling its way into her brain to devour at her sanity.
Beside her, Hop quivers with uncertainty, clutching on to Sonia just as the woman clutches on to him. Marnie, always the most stoic of them all, clutches her hands into fists, anger piercing her green-eyed gaze as she glares at the figure that looms before them.
“Champion,” she says, becoming the voice that none of them can use, “why have you betrayed the people of Galar?”
Leon, ever adorned in a cape of blood red, sneers at her. That joyous smile of his, so ripe with optimism and grandeur, has now become twisted with the vision of corruption. The mere sight sickens Gloria, nausea permeating her body. Her legs wobble, clatter, and then collapse. A hand grips her tightly, propping her up before she falls completely. From her left, Bede nods down at her, offering up a reassuring glance before he snarls at the approach of their former friend.
“Betrayed? What a funny word.” Leon bares his teeth and, beside him, his Charizard imitates the action. Coils of smoke ripen from the nostrils on its snout, sparks of fire concealed in the black haze. “If anything, haven’t they betrayed me? They kicked down my apprentice,” his gaze flicks to Gloria, cold and devoid of his normal warm glow, “demeaned my brother,” he looks over at Hop and the boy shrinks with a mix of anger and fear, “and stole away my best friend’s job because they thought her research was wasting their time and money”, here he stares at Sonia as she searches his face for some kind of answer, “and you dare to say that I have betrayed them?”
Marnie rubs at the bridge of her nose, turning to Bede. Gloria turns to the boy beside her, eyebrows raising, when Bede nods.
“But that’s not the true story, is it?” the boy says, blinking once and then unfolding his eyelids to reveal the purple glow hidden underneath. At his side, Ninetales fans out its many tails, lowering its head in a growl as it eyes Charizard. “That’s just your excuse. The excuse you use while you masquerade as a dead body.”
Leon’s gaze darkens at that, and his eyes flick between the two. “It seems I underestimated some of you,” he says. Then, he sends out a hand, grabbing the Pokeballs strapped to the interior of his cape and tossing them out. Charizard moves in response, flying towards Bede and slamming its tail down on his Pokémon. Bede’s Ninetales yips, scrambling away, but its head is quickly slammed down onto the ground by Charizard’s claws.
From beside Gloria, Bede is ripped away by a Sirfetch’d, its leek driving down towards the boy’s neck. The oversized duck leers, mouth parting to reveal a mouth full of tiny teeth ready to bite.
Marnie finds herself similarly pinned by a white bird flecked with blue and red triangles, the Togekiss arching its wings as it places its talons on either side of Marnie’s head. The creature turns its beady eyes upon the girl, gaze full of warning as the girl relents in her struggling.
Sonia and Hop react somewhat quicker, fumbling for their Pokémon in the it takes for Leon’s Pokémon to appear, but they’re too late. A large shadow coils around them, the arms of a Dusknoir freezing them with the icy aura of a ghost type as the two become trapped in its grip.
Meanwhile, the last of Leon’s two Pokémon - a Tyranitar and a Kommo-O - approach Gloria, teeth bared as they approach.
She reaches for her Pokeballs, hand landing on Flygon’s, when she feels heat breathe upon the back of her hand. Gloria twists, gaze looking behind her, and she feels her heart stop when she sees Charizard standing behind her, mouth opened as if to bite at her wrist and snap it in two.
“Let me tell you a story,” Leon says, “a story that I’m quite fond of.”
He puts his hands behind his back, looking over his Pokémon with satisfaction. The creatures - which Gloria has known to always be so happy, so care-free - are now growling with wrath in their throats, craning their heads in the imitation of predators willing to make themselves murderers.
“Once,” Leon continues, “there were three Pokemon. These Pokémon were known as Zacian, Zamizenta, and Eternatus. These Pokémon got along well – like brothers – but one day, something changed.
“Eternatus grew weary of its brother Pokémon, who sought the ideals of chivalry and nobility. It saw them give their lives to protect the poor, the weak, to cut down the strong and to take from the exuberantly rich. And it watched. It watched as the people they helped turned against them, demanding more and giving nothing in return. It watched as those who were targeted by the wolves rose up in rebellion, hunting down its brother Pokémon to drive them into hiding. It watched and it watched and it watched. And you know what it found?”
Leon walks over to Gloria, gaze alight in a strange glow. His white pupils almost seem to expand, erasing the gold of his irises until Gloria is faced with a man of pure, white, unseeing eyes. Leon reaches out a hand to her, cupping her chin. Gloria stiffens, trying to back away, when a low growl from Charizard sends her freezing. She looks back at Leon, trapped, and feels almost sickened by the fond look Leon spares her.
“It found,” he says, softly, as if explaining something to a child, “that humans are naturally corrupt and selfish. It found that humans don’t like chivalry or nobility. They like power, control, vanity. And, if they cannot have power or control or things that increase their vanity, they turn.”
Leon releases Gloria, letting the sting of warmth on her chin gradually dissipate. As he does so, Gloria can see wisps of black peeling off the man’s skin, hovering upwards and flickering like the embers of a flame. A shadow nips at the man’s heels, spiraling outwards, until a shadowy wolf-like being appears, eyes the color of moonstones glittering from its silhouette.
“I’m only doing what’s best for this region,” Leon continues. “I’m bringing it into prosperity, eliminating the inevitable by-products of humanity’s sins by playing Champion. This whole system, the Gym Challenge and the League and everything in-between? My idea, of course. An idea that has taken me a millennia to perfect but a millennia nonetheless.”
“Yeah, and where has that got you?” Bede asks from his spot on the ground. “Corruption is still running rampant within the League. People still are vainly seeking control and power. You’re meddling in human affairs, Eternatus, and only making them worse.”
The man, Leon – Eternatus – gives a cold, harsh laugh. His shadow repeats the action, solidifying by Leon’s side as it bares sharp teeth.
“No, I’m merely weeding out the problems.” Eternatus sneers at Bede as the boy glares at him. Sirfetch’d presses its leek enough into the boy’s neck to draw blood, looking almost apathetic as it does so. Gloria notices with a shudder that the light in the creature’s eyes is gone, vanquished, like a flame in the night snuffed out by wind.
“By exposing the lowlife filth,” Eternatus continues, “by manipulating every event in this region to show the truth of human nature, I’ve weeded out who needs to be eliminated and who is allowed to stay. Incidentally,” Eternatus looks at Marnie, “your peasant fan group is included in the scum this region needs less of.”
Marnie curls her hands into fists, mouth twisted in such a way to suggest she’s biting her tongue. The creature stemming from Leon’s, Eternatus’s, whoever’s feet prowls close to the girl, lolling its tongue as it sneers at her. Togekiss eyes it with coldness in its gaze, unruffled by the shadowy being’s presence.
Gloria, however, can feel the cold emanating off of it. She shivers and, to her horror, the being turns its head towards her. Its movements are slow, purposeful and, as if sensing the sudden spike of fear beating in her heart, it walks towards her.
Tendrils of ink waft off from the beast, rising up into the air like otherworldly tentacles. Black liquid leaks from its mouth, dripping and oozing, and the monster curls its lips upwards, giving a smile. It opens its mouth, revealing white insides and, worst of all, a black tongue that falls from its jaws to taste the air around Gloria.
“Don’t hurt her!”
Bede’s voice pierces the air. He thrashes, throwing away Sirfetchd’s leek and tackling the bird away.
It’s at this moment that Ninetales gains consciousness, eyes latching onto its owner’s reddening throat. It snarls, spreading its nine tails, and psychic power grabs at the spheres latched to Bede’s belt. The spheres click open, revealing a fiasco of Pokémon that are quick to take note of the situation.
Togekiss flares its wings, leaving Marnie behind as it rushes all of Bede’s Pokémon. Charizard follows suit, rushing forward to slam its tail into Bede’s Manectric. The electric Pokémon snarls, joining Ninetales in fending off the dragon.
Marnie, left bereft of her guard, sends out her own Pokémon. A female Meowstic and Gothitelle manifest at her side, using their psychic powers to summon psychic barriers which enshroud Marnie, Hop and Sonia. Gloria, left out of range of the psychic creatures and still unable to grab her own Pokémon, backs away. The entity before her steps forwards, growing a long tail which trails on the ground behind it like a puddle of ever-shifting oil.
Kommo-O and Tyranitar flank either side of her, driving Gloria to hit a wall. The dragons approach closer and closer, their eyes glistening with a horrible white light. Approached by a monster and pinned by dragons, Gloria grips her hands into tight fists. Her eyes look for exits but, in the chaos that her friends are creating, she finds that her friends are too occupied taking on the rest of Leon’s Pokémon to help her.
“I always did like you, you know,” the man who calls himself Leon says, following after the parasite which sits in his shadow. He shuffles forward, running his hands through the shadowy pelt of the being beside him. “You, out of everyone, were the one I liked the most.”
“I don’t want your admiration,” she snaps at him. Her gaze flicks to Sonia and Hop, both of whom are looking upon Leon with eyes lost and mourning. She can’t imagine how they feel. She can’t imagine how it must feel like for them to look at an imposter, at the beast wearing the skin of the man whom they once knew.
“Pity,” Eternatus forces Leon’s face to grin. “Well then, now that you all know who I am, I guess it’s time to end this charade.”
“Leon” prowls closer, holding out a hand. Gloria shrinks away from it, but the cement of the walls and the Pokémon at both of sides keeps her in. Eternatus watches her from behind “Leon”, its white eyes glistening like moonstones. It stares as “Leon’s” fingers touch her forehead, the corpse of a man smiling as he says:
“I so do like using the younger ones as vessels, after all.”