An all-out attack. The less HP the user has, the more power the move has.
That was how the games in his old life had described Reversal.
None of that mattered right now.
Because the Scyther in front of Gardevoir was blazing with the particular, brilliant light of a Bug-type at the absolute ceiling of what it had left, and every scrap of that was pouring into one strike.
"Gardevoir, Protect again!"
She spread her arms to raise the dome.
It came slower than the first time. Much slower.
But it came up before the blade did.
Scyther's attack broke across the transparent shell—and it did not simply cancel out. It kept pushing, everything it had, right into the barrier.
Crack.
Fractures spidered across the Protect.
In this world, moves like Protect didn't guarantee a clean stop on anything. They were still nearly impossible to break.
Then Scyther screamed and spent its last drop.
Protect shattered. The clear fragments blew apart on the air, and the sunlight coming in through the Gym's high openings caught them and scattered into every color there was.
Gardevoir watched the blade come at her through the sparkle, wide-eyed and frozen.
"Gardevoir, Endure!"
Akiyama's voice broke her out of it. She threw up Endure, white light flickering over her body, braced to eat the whole thing.
But the blade only reached her face and stopped there. It couldn't go one inch further.
"Scy!"
It went down.
Sprawled on the floorboards, sides heaving.
We won.
Akiyama was certain of it. The progress bar had already surfaced in his vision.
52 dropped to 47.
They'd taken a handful of wild battles between the coast and Greenlight, which had shaved a few off along the way.
The surge of strength was what finally shook Gardevoir out of her daze.
"Come back, Scyther. Thank you."
Light gathered him up and drew him into the ball.
"The young really are frightening," Hikaze said, turning the Poké Ball over in his hand. "I lost to your father at the Silver Crown League all those years ago. Now here I am losing to you."
"You didn't lose to me," Akiyama said, shaking his head. "You lost to time."
Hikaze stood there for a long moment before he came back to himself. "I hope Scyther gets to fight your son someday too."
Akiyama couldn't think of anything to say to that.
Scyther's body wasn't in any shape to keep going much longer. This battle had very likely been his last.
His species didn't live that long. Not even with a lifetime of careful raising, not even with the Mother Tree feeding him. He was never going to get a human's years.
He really had lost to time and nothing else.
At his peak, that Scyther would have cut through Gardevoir's Protect like it was a soap bubble.
Then Hikaze held out the Butterfly Badge.
"You earned it."
"Thank you."
"Shame my Butterfree's too old to battle now," Hikaze said, smiling. "I'd love one more crack at your father."
"I've watched footage of that Butterfree. It's hard to believe he was an ordinary one." Akiyama handed the badge to Gardevoir.
The smile didn't move off Hikaze's face. He said it like a settled fact of the universe: "Even the most ordinary bug can find its own light."
Hikaze stayed behind to clean the Gym alone, and Akiyama took Gardevoir out ahead of him.
"Garde?"
She stopped walking and looked at him, clearly asking something.
Ever since she'd evolved, Akiyama had felt an extra layer between them he couldn't put a name to. Sometimes he could hear her heartbeat. Understanding her wasn't hard anymore.
"You're asking if you'll ever get old? Probably not. Your lifespan runs way past a human's."
"Will I get old? Gardevoir, everybody does. Born, old, sick, gone. That's just how it goes for people."
She wouldn't take another step. Her fingers closed hard around the badge in her palm.
She didn't want him to get old. She absolutely did not want him to die.
She wanted him with her. That was all.
Akiyama stopped too, and looked up at her, and made it count.
"Trust me. I'll be with you the whole way. Always."
Thump.
For one beat, their hearts kept the same time.
And he saw it again—the tree on the summit of that silver-white mountain. Inside the hollow trunk there was blue energy now, moving.
Before he could look closer, Gardevoir scooped him into her arms.
"Garde."
Akiyama's the best.
She hooked her arm through his and pressed the Butterfly Badge back into his hand.
Badge number two, secured.
They went back to the Pokémon Center to clean up, and had a simple lunch with Kadabra.
When Kadabra learned the Bug badge was already in hand, something moved behind his eyes that he didn't share.
He decided not to go back into his ball that afternoon. He came along instead, wandering Greenlight City with the two of them.
They passed a mound of piled greenery where a man in whatever he'd rolled out of bed in was working with a pair of small shears, cutting toward some blueprint that existed only in his head. Before long the shape of a Pokémon came out of it.
There were a lot of those hedge sculptures around. Most people who came to Greenlight picked up the skill sooner or later.
The sculptures reverted overnight anyway—came back thicker, if anything—so even if you were terrible at it, you could practice all you liked without making the place look bad.
Free. Absurdly free.
Akiyama could only shake his head at it.
Kadabra watched for a while, then drifted over to a patch of untouched growth, closed his eyes for a moment of Calm Mind, and let Confusion loose.
A pair of invisible hands went to work on the greenery.
Not long after, Akiyama's likeness emerged. Then Gardevoir's. Then Kadabra's own.
He studied the three of them, decided something was missing, and carved one more thing: a single line connecting all three figures.
"That's incredible," Akiyama said, meaning it.
High intelligence plus Confusion equaled a master sculptor. If he'd had that kind of brain, all those forced piano lessons would have hurt a lot less.
"Garde."
Gardevoir loved it.
Akiyama pulled out his phone and had the two of them line up beside him in the same arrangement as the sculpture.
Greenlight City had no signal towers, but the camera still worked.
Click.
In the photo, the three of them stood in front of their green doubles, positioned exactly the same way. The whole thing lined up beautifully.
"That's a good one. I'll get it printed and hang it in the bedroom," Akiyama said, nodding at his own decision.
Gardevoir had been thinking the same thing.
Kadabra had something else on his mind.
They left the sculpture behind and kept wandering.
It didn't take long for Kadabra to discover something important.
He was holding a lollipop made of hardened nectar. He gave it one cautious lick, and his narrow pupils went wide.
This is good.
So this is what sweet is.
Akiyama caught the whole thing and laughed, and kept walking in no particular direction.
By early evening they'd looped back around near the Mother Tree.
Except now the ground around it was full of people.
"Garde!"
Gardevoir stopped dead, staring off in one direction.
Akiyama and Kadabra followed her eyes—and found a familiar face.