Chapter 62.1- Oak

My first sight was Lance, looking much different from the man I had faced a month ago. He was relaxed, leaning back in a chair and nursing a cup of something warm as he spoke with Cynthia, the champion of Sinnoh. As our eyes met, I was forced to join the legion of people who had proclaimed her to be the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She smiled at me before turning back to her conversation with the Champion of Indigo.

I moved on from them and walked deeper into the lounge. Oak had dropped me here to socialize with my new teammates and said he had some things to work through. The only other people in the lounge were Steven and Wallace of Hoenn. The blue-haired former champion conversed in whispers with his green-haired compatriot. I walked forward and hovered at the edge of their awareness, waiting for them to recognize me and invite me in. Of course, that ended up happening in no time as Steven looked up at me and, wearing an obviously faked expression of shock on his face, invited me to join in with them.

"Steven Stone, Steel-type Master, former Champion of Hoenn," he said in introduction, and Wallace followed suit, as if either of these men had a need to introduce themselves to anyone who hadn't been living under a rock for the last two decades. Even before becoming champion, Wallace was a famed trainer who was well on his way to climbing to the pinnacle of both trainer routes in Sinnoh.

"Wallace Mikuri, Water-type Master, Champion of Hoenn," he said, copying Steven's format, eliciting a grunt from the Steel-type Master. I just smiled at them and followed suit.

"Donnell Oak, not yet a Pokémon Master, trainer of Kanto," I said, getting a chuckle from Wallace for the terrible joke and a smile from Steven.

"Not yet a Pokémon Master. From what I've seen of your team, you more than qualify," Steven said, giving me a look, asking a silent question.

"No Conference League, unfortunately. One of the requirements to apply for mastery in Kanto is a first-place finish in the domestic league and a Tier-1 badge from all eight of the major gym leaders," I said, answering the unasked question he had led me towards. The fact that gym badges existed in tiers did not matter to most people. In fact, most people did not even know about it. There were three tiers. Tier-3 badges were the most commonly known, acquired by defeating a gym leader in their chosen challenge. Tier-2 badges were something different. A trainer could only acquire one after spending some time training under the gym leader and satisfying them of their competence and ability. It was more difficult to acquire than the previous tier simply because most gyms were picky about who they accepted as trainers, and beyond that, getting a Tier-2 badge often required years spent at the feet of the gym leader. It was only a common choice among those who either sought to be gym leaders themselves or were content with being gym trainers for the rest of their careers. Few, if any, trainers ever managed to get more than one of those badges. The third tier was the most difficult to acquire and also carried the most prestige of the bunch. It involved full six-on-six combat with the gym leader's personal team. Basically, it was a test of strength, and to get one, you had to prove yourself more powerful than the gym leader in question. Considering gym leaders were stronger than 99% of the population, it was no wonder that the only Pokémon Masters Kanto could boast of were either gym leaders themselves or elite trainers.

"I see. I see indeed. I've heard a lot about you, Donnell Oak," Steven said while pointing to the third seat, and Wallace let out a yawn before reclining further in his own chair. I sprawled myself in mine, just luxuriating in the comfort. I loved the forest, but some things could not be replicated by the best forest tech out there. One of them was the feeling of a soft couch after a stressful day. I concluded that I would definitely be buying one of these for the clearing if my plans to turn it into a permanent residence ended up working out.

"This legendary psychic we are to face. Word is you have faced it before. Tell us about it," Steven asked, leaning in, and Wallace dropped his pretense of comfort and disinterest as he watched me with shark-like eyes. I was reminded of who these two men were and what they sought to accomplish here. We were going to kill a god.

"He is something else. I've never fought the one we are to face, but I have faced off against lesser versions, and what I have to say is simple. They fight like gods. Their psychic power is something else. They have a shield around their bodies that can only be overwhelmed by continuous bombardment from powerful attacks. They can enter your mind with the ease of a finger slipping through a glove. They also possess a strange ability to use moves you'd never expect a psychic to be capable of…"

"All that was true of the lesser gods. Now, multiply that by a hundred, and you'd get the scale at which the one we're sending you to fight works," Giovanni interrupted me as he walked into the room. I scowled at him for the interruption, but I just nodded when the champions gave me questioning glances. It was only when I heard shuffling behind me that I realized Lance and Cynthia had been paying attention to the conversation between me and the Hoenn Champions.

"How did you beat them?" Cynthia asked, and I shook my head to prevent my head from getting fogged up by that smile of hers.

"Not easily. Every shield must be broken through. Their natural telekinesis must be overwhelmed. The most surefire way of doing it is to gang up on it with multiple powerful Pokémon and good teamwork between all the Pokémon," I said, and they all nodded, seemingly hanging on to my every word.

"One thing I've noticed is that the psychics seem to abide by some code of honor. It never really tried to hammer through my psychic shields or even attack me personally, no matter how bad things got," I said, and Giovanni replied to the question I didn't even know I was asking.

"Yes. We coded in some simple directives into their DNA when making the false gods. One of which being an aversion to harming humans," Giovanni said, and Steven interjected.

"This one has laid waste to entire regions," he pointed out, scowling at the terrorist. I almost smiled at seeing someone focus on Giovanni and calling out his bullshit.

"Programming can fail. I suspect there was some error in the consciousness encoded in this one that made it cannibalistic and allowed it to ignore a base directive like the one it's been given," he said, eliciting glares from most of the room.

"Do we even realistically stand any chance?" Wallace asked the question on all our minds, and Oak answered it as he walked in.

"Of course we do. Things might sound overwhelming, but we do have our own advantages. Firstly, our enemy is incomplete. It was created in the earlier days of the experiments and has a more unstable body. It should have already broken down on its own, but we suspect that cannibalizing so many of its own kind has given it some longevity. However, from our models and the data Giovanni has so generously given us access to, it needs to complete the piece of DNA that spawned it to have any chance of a stable form. That's what I suspect it has been doing for so long, searching for the last pieces of DNA from the original legendary Pokémon," Oak said, eliciting looks of confusion from most of the room. Giovanni attempted to explain what he had said in a more digestible format for those who lacked the context to understand.

"We created the false gods from a shard of DNA left behind by the creator of all Pokémon," Cynthia sucked in a sharp breath at that, and the glare she speared Giovanni with had me shifting in my chair, trying to get as far from the terrorist as I could without making it obvious. The Sinnoh Champion looked nothing less than murderous as she stared at him.

"You would tamper with, nay, you would adulterate something so sacred?" she asked in shock and no small degree of offense.

"Yes, we would. The first champion of Indigo, when he completed the circuit, had his entire team of powerful Pokémon barely strong enough to destroy a city by working together. The weakest Pokémon on the main teams of anyone in this room could accomplish such a feat singlehandedly and with ease. Pokémon are growing more powerful as time passes. What happens when they realize themselves to be far superior to us? What happens when the Pokémon decide they no longer need their trainers? We built a weapon of last resort to confirm humanity's place at the top of the food chain," he said, not backing down from the pissed-off champion. I silently applauded the bravery while leaning even further away from him.

Cynthia looked pissed. Not pissed, apoplectic. Lance placed a hand on her shoulder before gesturing for Giovanni to continue his story. I guess even Lance could realize that the debate wasn't what we needed at this point.

"Our first attempts were nothing to write home about. We tried to build humans that could bridge the gap and wield the power of Pokémon themselves. When we saw limited success with that, we decided to take it a few steps further and create a Pokémon strong enough to subdue all the others but genetically predisposed to obey humans. That was the goal of the project, and we first of all saw some limited success. The early versions were powerful and unstable. When we managed to crack stability, we lost some of the power. You fought one of the lesser ones in our gym battle, Donnell," he said, turning to me at the last bit. I just scowled, uncomfortable with the familiarity with which the terrorist addressed me.

"We kept going, and eventually, we succeeded. Or we thought we did. The perfect specimen. With the power, stability, and obedience we needed. Of course, it was as I beheld my crowning achievement that our problem made itself known. It appeared from nowhere. It was only until much later that I found out that one of my partners had kept an earlier specimen for his own private study, and that same specimen had escaped, killing him in the process." He took a deep breath then, and I guessed the partner was Blaine.

"When that specimen appeared before me, I was too shocked to interfere. Our perfect specimen was killed in seconds and consumed in an even shorter time. That was what made me investigate. There were 24 false gods out and about at the beginning of the year. All of them have been consumed by this one in an effort to stabilize itself, but it isn't enough. My partner had theorized attempting to stabilize the one he had with genetic material from later versions, but he concluded he'd need much more DNA than what we had available. Simply put, this false god is done for. This Tournament of Power is nothing more than an attempt to go down with a blaze. I say we put it down ourselves," Giovanni said, and we all looked at each other, understanding the situation.

"Okay, even if it's weaker than it portrays, what stops it from just snapping our necks the moment we confront it?" Steven asked, taking the duty of asking the hard-hitting questions.

A/N: Thoroughly in the endgame. How's the chapter coming along?