Building an Empire - Chapter 6 - Lorelei and Karen

Someone requested for a glossary of all the pokemon in Alessandro’s possession, so I’ll be posting this before every chapter from now.

Ashford - Arcanine

Bastille - Tyranitar

Damascus - Machamp

Abrams - Slowbro

Melusine - Dragonite

Hrunting - Scizor

Also, this chapter is slightly on the shorter side. I wanted to expand a bit on the mental processes of Lorelei and Karen, considering I dropped them into action last chapter without preamble, unlike Will.

It’s also an easy way to cut out the chaff matches. The matches that really matter (between named characters) will get between half a chapter to multiple chapters, so we’re going to see a LOT of action in the following chapters.

So, this chapter serves as the calm before the storm. I hope y’all like it!

Building an Empire - Chapter 6 - Lorelei and Karen

Lorelei POV

Alex had changed.

Gone was the bravado-filled kid I’d gone to school with. The bright ray of sunshine that I’d harbored a crush for since I was twelve. In his place was someone mature, level headed, and most importantly, someone who no longer had to make up for his lack of confidence with a veneer of false bravery.

That, and he’d really filled out. God, those muscles did things to my heart that I had never felt before.

When Will had first reached out to me and Karen, it was a bit of a surprise. We’d all decided that we’d split up for the last few months leading up to the league, so as to maintain secrecy regarding our training methods. For Will, the person who had proposed we split up, to ask to meet felt weird.

It all became clear once we met, and he explained what had transpired between him and Alex.

Were he anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed it. Karen actually didn’t believe him at all, until he went into detail, and things started making sense. 

I’d been worried about him ever since those losses to Koga. Yet, it was his wish for them to go on. Deep down, I had hoped that he’d give up. His pokemon were not truly his, and he’d never had the skill to either raise or battle at an elite level. Deep inside, I was sure he knew that too.

Yet of all the decisions he could take, he’d decided to brave the most dangerous frontier of Indigo. All alone.

Of course, I felt worried, even though Will repeatedly assured us that Alex was perfectly healthy. That place was not for the faint of heart, or for anyone, for that matter. As someone from Cerulean, someone who’d heard multiple stories about experienced trainers from my own city disappearing around that mountain.

It was contrasting information, but Karen was more skeptical about Alex’s newfound prowess, as well as the might of his pokemon. Will told us that he’d be hard to find, now that he’d left Vermillion, so we decided to retrace his steps.

Best case scenario, we’d find out what caused his terrifying growth. Worst case scenario? We’d find a nice new way of killing time till the Indigo League.

Oh how mistaken we were.

Mt. Silver's wrath was not something we were prepared for. Sure, our Aces were better than even the strongest Pokemon on the mountain, but when said pokemon roamed in packs, attacking everything that threatened their dominance, it became death by a thousand cuts.

That wasn’t even the worst of it. The mountain itself felt alive, hostile. It didn’t want us there. Squalls, snowstorms, and enemy pokemon who were used to it. I hadn’t lied that every evening for the first week was spent doing treks back to the Pokemon Center at base camp. Our pokemon were battered, our wills were broken.

Yet, we persevered. We grew stronger. Our pokemon got visibly stronger, and we learnt how to deal with situations where our backs were against the wall.

In doing so, we came to realize just how absurd it was that Alex had spent a month up there, alone. It also began to make sense how he’d gotten so strong. With his back against the wall, with no thought given to retreat, he’d have grown stronger too.

Yet, a different, more intrusive thought kept assailing my mind. Had Alex figured out the benefits of training there, I’d have expected a call, and so would the rest of us. Yet, he’d gone there all alone. 

Had he gone there to die? To disappear like all those trainers in the news?

It filled me with a primal fear. He’d not reached out once since we’d left him behind at Fuchsia. Even if it was at his own behest, what if I’d misread his intent? What if he’d been hoping against hope that someone would stay behind for him? To be there for him when the world was turning against him?

Would he hate us? Would he hate me?

I got my answer when he chanced by our little training area. In hindsight, I should have expected to find him out in the woods. He was nowhere to be found in the hotel set aside for the competitors. He’d always loved the great outdoors, and he didn’t have any sponsors left. 

He looked good. He looked like a changed man, and once he gave me that smile of his, I knew there wasn’t a single mote of hatred in his heart against me.

Sure, his entire demeanor had changed. For one, that veneer of bravado was gone, replaced by the kind of quiet confidence I’d only ever seen in people who held positions of power. Gym Leaders, Elite Four, and the Champion.

He was soft spoken, but still playful. Chilling around the campfire at his camp was fun. It was a throwback to the days of school, when the four of us were inseparable, each with our own dreams and aspirations, yet each supportive of the other.

He still had that chemistry with Will. Those two had practically grown up together, after all. His dynamic with Karen had changed. He’d emulated her a lot growing up. His bravado, his loudness, it all stemmed from a want to emulate her, considering Karen was always the leader of the group.

That, and the crush he’d had on her for the longest time.

Now? He was playing around with her, trading taunts and even flirting with her. Watching Karen clam up after being on the receiving end of someone with a smooth tongue was funny. I wasn’t even that pissed about the flirting, though the blush on her face and the interest in his gaze did make me a bit uneasy.

What I appreciated most was how much his dynamic had changed with me. I think over the course of the evening, I’d spoken to him the most. It was like talking to someone mature. Intelligent, stimulating conversation between equals. It felt elating, and I couldn’t lie, he’d tried to flirt with me too. 

He’d never tried that before.

There was genuine interest in his eyes. Him, the guy who’d only ever had eyes for Karen. It felt nice to be appreciated, to not be treated as nothing but an accompaniment to the object of his desires.

It brought some hope to me. Sure, watching Karen blush, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Of course, before I could formulate what to do next, Alex dropped the bomb.

The madman wanted to take over the Indigo government.

The mere idea, the mere thought that someone could upend the entire political state of a nation, no matter how powerful they might be, would have seemed laughable to me if not coming from him.

Something about how he presented it. Something about how he simplified it made it seem possible.

Sure, some of it was because of my own newfound capability, forged on the mountain. Some of it, on the other hand, was the revelation that our entire political fulcrum stood on five pillars, each that could be knocked out in quick succession.

How? He hadn’t told us yet. He had a plan, he wanted us to be ready. He had the unshaken faith that we would back him on this, and to his credit, we would.

It was a paradigm shift, thinking of him as the leader of our little group, when Karen had held the de-facto position for the longest time. 

It made me happy, and I couldn’t understand why.

Still, I was getting too far ahead of myself. There was an entire tournament to go through, I couldn’t afford to be distracted…

I thought, as I saw my Cloyster bring down the sixth pokemon in my opponent’s lineup. A Pidgeot. Rough, for the poor kid to run into such a bad matchup so early on. My Cloyster was almost unstoppable after a quick Shell-Smash.

This new way of fighting. We’d pieced it together to survive on the mountain, and against trainers of this caliber, it was almost unnecessary. 

Yet, I still needed to improve, to adapt. Will and Karen were not going to stop iterating, and Alex? By what Will said, and by what I saw from his Dragonite, employed the same tactics, but with much stronger pokemon.

I had to catch up, we all did, and it was exciting.

“Match winner! Lorelei! Perfect sweep!” The referee shouted, bringing me out of my ruminations. “The Ice Queen” was the moniker the audience had given me.

I just had to live up to it.

LB

Karen POV

Alex had changed.

Not just in the ‘oh he has abs I could drool over’ way. Not in the ‘had a tongue so suave I wouldn’t mind wrestling it with my tongue’ way. Not even in the ‘has pokemon so strong he could give the champion a complex’ way.

No, shit was fundamental. He was a whole different person, and mama likey.

I’d always worried about Alex. He was the runt of our group. No talent for pokemon, but enough love to make up for it. He was the soul of the group, but that soul needed protection. I even knew of the crush he had on me. It was hard not to, the way he fought for my attention.

I was even convinced that the only reason he participated in the gym circuit was because I wanted to. 

Okay, maybe that was just my ego talking. Will and Lorelei were also going to participate, Alex just didn’t want to be the odd one out. I would have considered it a miracle if he were to make it to the end, and would have celebrated it for days too.

Make no mistake, Alex was important to me, very important. We’d always been together, and no matter where our lives took us, we’d always be close. It’s why I was okay when we moved ahead from Fuchsia, leaving him behind.

The league was my main goal. Alex didn’t want us to stay. It made perfect sense.

Then the boy had the nerve to go to the most dangerous place within country boundaries! 

The water on Mt. Silver must have been something different for him to have changed that much, at least, if Will was to be believed. So, we'd decided, in our infinite wisdom, to go to the same damn mountain which was best known for turning people into statistics.

Oh boy, it kicked our ass.

That place gave me an appreciation for terra firma that nothing else could instil. It also finally made me believe that, if Alex could survive this, he could survive anything. It made no fucking sense though! My Alex was not a fighter, he was a silver-spoon fed kid who liked the outdoors… of Viridian! Where the strongest pokemon were Nidorans who you could kick into the next post code if they started getting feisty!

It didn’t settle in till he finally showed up.

There was an aura of complete control around him. As a Dark type specialist, I was adept at reading people. Defensive liabilities were the bread and butter of dark types, so understanding and getting into the heads of my opponents is what won me most of my fights.

Alex had no weakness. I couldn’t rile him up. I couldn’t turn him into a stuttering mess with a few throwaway flirts. I couldn’t get him to crack! At all! His control over himself was ridiculous. It made me envious, and also kinda hot.

The worst part of it was that he was not only bold enough to flirt with me, but suave enough to leave ME a blushing mess! That was MY thing! How could he do it better than me?

It wasn’t helped by the fact that he was also flirting with Lorelei, and I swore to Arceus, I couldn’t help but feel jealousy. Of all things! Why was I possessive of my Alex? 

Oh, yeah, because he was my Alex. The same way she was my Lorelei, same went for my Will. Had Alex not been part of my group, I’d have felt threatened.

I’d never been able to make many friends. Too wild, too intimidating, too uncouth. I wasn’t the perfect lady like Lorelei. I wasn’t small and lovable like Will. I wasn’t social and bright like Alex. Yet, they loved me. They were my only friends, them and my Pokemon.

Had Alex not still loved me like I love him, I would have hated him. Yet, he did. For all his fucking changes, he was still my Alex, our Alex.

He was also insanely strong.

I watched as his Scizor ran circles around his opponent’s Golem. I couldn’t find a way to beat it. Every move it made, every change in positioning, closing a vector of attack.

We’d just emulated the way he fought based on Will’s miniscule understanding of it. Watching the actual thing in action was… a revelation. 

It was also ridiculously entertaining. I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. I wanted that, and I’d have that for myself.

It did raise the question though. How did Alex come up with the style? Sure, to conquer Mt. Silver, we had to think out of the box, but the way Alex fought felt too… optimised. No wasted space, no hesitation. His strategies felt like he’d already thought about every possible move his opponent could make. Like there was a compendium of options in his head.

It was too polished to be something created in the wild, and too deep-ingrained to be something he’d come up with recently. It was also impossible for this to be a style he’d kept hidden, considering we’d grown up together. 

Had he discovered his talent? Was it because the rest of us weren’t there for once? 

Had we held him back?

I shook my head. No, if that were to be the case, he would have never trusted us with his plans. He wouldn’t have been so cordial, so loving. Trust was only to be given to those who had proven themselves worthy. As an orphan, I’d always lived by that mantra, and I felt that Alex lived by it too, if only subconsciously.

I’d die before I let that trust be squandered.

If Alex wanted to take down the government, I wanted in. To do so, I’d have to show my quality in this tournament. The semis and finals had to be between us. Nothing less than that would suffice.

Considering my last fixture would be Will, and Alex’s would be Lorelei, we’d meet our promise. Then what? Fuck if I knew. Alex was cryptic about it, and no amount of needling would make him spill the beans.

All I knew was that it would be fun, and I loved fun.

I also knew that I’d meet Alex in the finals. Will had improved considerably, and there was no doubt that he’d found workarounds for facing Dark types. Given time, the little shit could probably work out a way to even beat me outright.

Time was against him, and my type advantage still stood. Had this tournament happened one year down the line, then we’d have a fight worth remembering. For now? Nah, I’d win.

I also knew Alex would beat Lorelei. Lorelei was the second best of our groups. Under certain circumstances, I’d even go as far as to say she could beat me. She’d also taken well to her new fighting style. We hadn’t fought much since returning from the mountain, but I knew she was no slouch.

Comparatively, I only knew three pokemon in Alex’s team. A Scizor, the one I’d seen him use to sweep most of his matches. The Dragonite who I’d seen at his camp, who looked strong enough to take on my ace.

My Tyranitar, who, according to Will, was no match for Alex’s own.

It was likely that we hadn’t seen Alex’s ace. None of his old pokemon were anywhere to be seen either. I’d have a few choice words for him regarding that, but the way he interacted with his team was organic, it was loving. Those pokemon would lay their lives down for him.

He’d never had that level of trust with his old team, not even close.

Even with my incomplete knowledge, I felt it in my bones. Lorelei would put up a good fight. She might even take down a pokemon of two from Alex’s team, but win?

She had no chance, and neither did I.

I couldn’t hide the smirk, as I watched Alex’s opponent forfeit without using his last two pokemon. This had become a common occurrence in his fights. He suffocated his opponents, giving them no chance to claw their way back.

“The Darkest Horse” was the title the public had conferred unto him. It suited him, and it matched my own ‘mistress of the dark’. Corny as it was, I liked it. Plus, it could have been worse. It could have been Psyboy.

Poor Will. He was never going to live that down.

I walked away from the competitor’s section, heading straight back to the hollow we’d cleared out to train in. There were so many facets of that fight I needed to internalise. So many improvements to make. 

Even if I was to lose to Alex, I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I’d learnt how to fight like a cornered animal on that blasted mountain, and there was nothing in the world more dangerous.

Alex would learn, and if he didn’t learn fast, then I’d be the one on top.

LB

I'll use this AN to tell you guys that there will be no upload this weekend. I will be away on business, so that's gonna be a bit of a thing. I'll do a 4-chapter update on Empyrean once I return, and announce the story that will replace Quixotic with a pilot chapter.

As always, join the discord for more shenanigans.

Link is https://discord.com/invite/AP8nG65RmA