Kai walked up the steps to the last floor of Bellsprout Tower. He had come a long way, conquering each floor below, overcoming each obstacle he'd encountered.
Now all that was left was to face the elder and claim his prize.
He reached the top step, the muffled sounds of battle drifting down from above — the soft whup of a Poké Ball returning a Pokémon, a voice he didn't recognise, and underneath it, one he did.
"Did someone beat us here?" Kai murmured to Sandshrew, whose ear had pricked up at the same sound.
Sandshrew gave a small, uncertain noise.
Kai climbed the last few steps, the midday sun streaming through the high screen-windows and pooling on the worn wooden boards. The view through the openings was incredible — the whole of Violet City spread out beneath them in slate-grey rooftops and narrow streets.
But what Kai saw in the room itself ruined it.
"No way..." he said quietly. "It's him."
Sandshrew had seen him too, a low growl rising in its throat, its claws digging a little deeper into the shoulder of Kai's jacket.
"Silver..."
"Houndour, finish it with Ember."
The Houndour opened its jaws and unleashed a tight burst of flame that punched through the air and slammed into the elder's Bellsprout. The grass type screamed once before it was blasted backwards across the floor, smoke curling up off its leaves as it skidded to a stop.
The match was over. The elder returned his Bellsprout with a quiet sigh, the red light folding the Pokémon back into its Ball.
"Well done, young man," the elder said. "That was some impressive battling."
"Whatever." Silver returned his Houndour without so much as a glance at it, the Ball already back on his belt before the light had finished fading.
"As promised, here is your reward." The elder said, handing it over to Silver, who snatched it.
Then he turned, and his eyes found Kai.
"You," he said.
The word landed flat in the wooden quiet of the tower. Sandshrew growled again, louder this time.
"Silver," Kai said. He didn't bother trying to sound pleased about it.
The elder stood between them, hands folded into his sleeves as he watched both young men, sensing the tension between the two.
For a long second, no one said anything.
The Silver spoke.
"Whatever, I don't have time for you today." Silver said.
He turned on his heel and walked toward the edge of the tower floor, where the wooden balustrade gave way to open air. Kai watched him pull a coiled length of rope from his pack, knot one end around one of the heavy support beams, and toss the rest over the side. The rope went taut with a quiet thud against the timber.
"Be careful, young man," the elder said, mildly. "It's a long way down from there."
Silver didn't answer him. He set one hand on the rope, paused, and looked back at Kai over his shoulder with a glare.
"Don't think I've forgotten," he said. "I'll take you down. Mark my words."
Then he jumped over the edge.
Kai didn't bother running to the balustrade to watch him go. There was no point — he knew Silver was already most of the way to the ground, and there was no satisfaction in it. He just stood there for a moment, breathing through his nose, until the tightness in his chest had loosened a little.
Sandshrew, however, leaned out over his shoulder toward the place Silver had vanished and stuck its small tongue out.
Kai snorted, then laughed properly, the tension breaking apart in his chest.
"Yeah," he said, patting Sandshrew's back. "You tell him, buddy."
"My..." The elder's voice drew his attention. "I don't know what's going on between the two of you. But allow me to congratulate you on arriving at the top of the tower." He inclined his head a fraction. "You are the second person today to make it."
Kai didn't need to ask who the first had been.
"Still," the elder went on, "never mind that now. I have more Pokémon ready to battle."
He turned and walked unhurriedly to a small wooden shrine at the back of the hall, the kind of slow, settled pace that all of the monks in this place seemed to share. Two Poké Balls rested on top of it. He lifted them both with a kind of reverence and weighed them lightly in his palm.
"I hope you're ready, young man," he said, turning back. A smile creased his old, weathered face. "I won't make this easy."
Kai felt the corner of his mouth pull up. The tightness from a moment ago was gone now, replaced by something warmer, sharper — the same little squeeze of adrenaline behind the ribs that he was starting to recognise before a battle.
"You better believe it," he said.
Silver, for now, was forgotten, with only the battle ahead being the focus.
"You're up, Weepinbell," the elder said as he tossed the Ball with a soft, underarm motion.
The Pokémon emerged in a clean burst of red light and landed lightly on the wooden boards, its bell-head cocked, its leaves already tucked in toward its body. It was bigger than the Bellsprout Kai had faced down below — taller, broader at the shoulders if you could call them that, the deeper, more vivid green of something well past its first growth. Its expression was tough, focused. Not a hint of the swaying nervousness of the wild ones on the lower floors.
Kai wasn't entirely surprised. He'd been half-expecting Bellsprout. But the elder was the elder, and it stood to reason he'd be stronger than the rest of the monks. Of course, he'd evolved his Bellsprout.
A Weepinbell will hit harder than anything I've seen in this tower so far, Kai thought, his hand already moving for his belt. Better start strong.
"Come on out, Zubat!"
He tossed the Ball high. Zubat unfurled in mid-air, wings snapping out wide, and chittered once as it caught the light from the windows on its way back down to its hover.
"I see," the elder said, folding his hands back into his sleeves. "A good choice."
"Alright, Zubat, Wing Attack!" Kai said, wanting to start strong.
"Weepinbell, use Razor Leaf."
"Bell!" The Weepinbell said as it unleashed its Razor Leaf attack.
Two razor-edged leaves snapped through the air, fast and angled. Zubat barrel-rolled to the left to slip the first, then dipped low under the second, the second leaf hissing past close enough that Kai could almost feel the small movement of air on his cheek.
"That's it, Zubat!" Kai shouted.
Zubat didn't need telling. It tucked its wings, dropped, and then beat them hard once — and with the leading edge already starting to glow, it sliced in low and across the Weepinbell's body.
The hit was clean, and Weepinbell went flying back, hitting the floor and skidding a metre before it caught itself.
"It will take more than that to finish us," the elder said. His voice didn't change. "Stun Spore."
Weepinbell got back upright and unloaded a thick yellow cloud of spores into the air between them. The pollen drifted on the still tower air, soft and slow, somehow worse for being soft and slow as it spread.
Kai's stomach tightened. He knew exactly what would happen if it touched Zubat, also knowing Zubat didn't know Gust or Whirlwind.
"Get clear of that cloud and use Supersonic!"
Zubat banked hard out of the cloud's path, the pollen drifting past beneath it like a sickly mist, and opened its mouth.
The note that came out wasn't loud. It was the same thin, hard pulse Kai had seen Zubat use against Brother Anh's Bellsprout — a frequency that made the wooden beams around them hum and the dust in the sunlight quiver in the air.
"Weepinbell, now use Vine Whip."
Somehow, Kai didn't have time to ask himself how — the Weepinbell was unaffected. Its leaves were turned toward the Supersonic without so much as a tremor, and two thin vines snapped out of it almost casually and wrapped around Zubat in mid-air, pinning its wings and stopping its Supersonic attack.
"No—"
"Now use Wrap. Pull it back through the spores, Weepinbell."
The elder's voice was calm. Almost gentle. A double-play, set up and executed in three short commands.
The Weepinbell squeezed hard, and Zubat let out a high pained sound as it was yanked sideways through the air and dragged straight through the yellow cloud. The pollen settled on its wings and shoulders, and Kai saw the change in it — the small juddering wrongness that took its body, the way one wing twitched out of rhythm with the other when Weepinbell let off the pressure for half a second to readjust its grip.
Paralysis...
"No, Zubat!" Kai yelled.
"It doesn't look good for your Zubat," the elder said. His voice was steady, but there was something almost apologetic in the corners of it. "However will you get out of this?"
Kai's mind was racing. There was really only one play left — and he'd already tried it once.
"Zubat — Supersonic, again! As close as you can!"
Zubat was already being slowly crushed by the Wrap, and the paralysis was making its body fight itself. But it opened its mouth anyway, and this time, much closer to its target, it let out the pulse of Supersonic at almost point-blank range.
Weepinbell flinched. Its leaves went slack, and its stem started to weave in a circle, exactly the way Brother Anh's Bellsprout had after a clean Supersonic hit. One of its little black eyes drifted out of sync with the other. The vines went limp and dropped Zubat back into the air, releasing it.
"Oh no — Weepinbell, gather yourself. Use Wrap, again."
Weepinbell tried. It really did. Its vines lashed out — but it was seeing five Zubats now, not one, and they shot wide, missing completely and slapping against the wooden floor.
"This is our chance! Zubat — Wing Attack!"
Zubat beat its wings as hard as it could, fighting through the stutter of the paralysis. For a horrible second, Kai thought it wouldn't make it — there was a small, wrong jerk as one wing locked up halfway through a beat — but then it pushed through, the leading edge of its left wing starting to glow, and it dropped on the swaying Weepinbell like a katana.
The hit connected square across the Weepinbell's body, and Weepinbell crashed to the deck, rolling back across the wooden boards, eyes going crossed before they closed altogether. Unable to battle.
"Yes! We did it!" Kai called, rushing over to Zubat as it half-fluttered, half-fell out of the air. He caught it on his outstretched arm; it was still shaking, its wings opening and closing in the small, uneven rhythm of the Stun Spore. Kai could feel the paralysis in the way its little body trembled against his hands.
"Great job, mate," he said quietly, just for Zubat. "Great job."
Zubat butted its head weakly against his thumb.
"Well done, Weepinbell. Return for now and rest." The elder lifted his Poké Ball, and the red light pulled the Weepinbell back in.
He bowed his head a quarter-inch, more to the Pokémon than to Kai, before looking up.
"That was an impressive display, Kai. However, this battle is far from over."
Kai already knew. He could remember from the game — third-floor sage, two Pokémon, Hoothoot at the end.
He was therefore not at all prepared for what came next.
"Now comes the real challenge," the elder said. "Go, Noctowl."
The Ball arced gently from his hand, and the Owl Pokémon unfurled from the red light with a slow, unhurried beat of its wings. It was big. Easily twice the size of Ethan's Hoothoot, if not three. Broad in the chest, deep amber eyes that turned on Kai with the same disturbing independence that the smaller form had — only this time, with a calm in them that the Hoothoots didn't have. The calm of something stronger and much smarter.
Kai's breath caught a little.
He had his Pokédex out before he'd thought about it.
[Noctowl, the Owl Pokémon. Noctowl can see perfectly even on the darkest of nights. When it is thinking deeply, it can rotate its head a full 180 degrees. This Pokémon is known for its high intelligence and can flap its wings in complete silence when hunting its prey.]
Kai looked at it. Looked at the way it was still, on the wooden floor, in a way Hoothoot had never been — both legs down, both eyes fixed.
"Return, Zubat." The red light pulled Zubat in, and Kai clipped the Ball back to his belt, his hand hovering for a second before it moved to the next one, trying to think of his best play.
Snubbull's got Intimidate, and she's got both ice and thunder fang against a Flying type, he thought.
"Go, Snubbull!"
Snubbull burst out of her Ball in a snap of red light and landed already snarling, fangs bared, ears back, her body low to the boards. The Intimidate ability rolled off her like a pressure drop — but the Noctowl didn't move.
Not a flinch. Not a feather. It simply rotated its head a slow ten degrees and looked at Snubbull with the same calm, considered amber gaze, as if she had said something only mildly interesting.
Kai felt that in his teeth.
Oh, he thought. That can't be good...
"An interesting choice." The elder's voice carried that small, dry smile of his again. "But this won't be as easy as before."
Kai swallowed. The tightness was back behind his ribs, but it was a different shape now. He could feel Sandshrew's weight against his shoulder, claws still set in his jacket, watching with him.
This was going to be the hardest battle he'd faced yet.
He couldn't help the small smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth, all the same.
"Alright," he said. "Let's do this."