High in the Unovan stratosphere, Zekrom jolted awake from its slumber mid-thunderstorm.
What is this? I just detected the distinct aura of the Hero who awakened me.
Could he have arrived in the Unova region? Or have I slept for so long that my mind is playing tricks on me? Zekrom communed with itself.
No, it's definitely his signature. Has he come to participate in the Dragon Festival? But why hasn't he summoned me?
Zekrom felt a twinge of divine neglect. For its chosen Trainer to arrive in Unova and not call upon its absolute martial payload was somewhat excessive. Driven by this realization, the legendary dragon unfurled its sky-obscuring wings. Its turbine-like tail tail-engine violently ignited with a brilliant, blue-grey plasma glow, and it converted its massive chassis into a bolt of black lightning, rocketing toward the jagged mountain range where the Dragon Clan made its home.
Meanwhile, deep within Unova's Dragon's Den, inside the Dragon Shrine...
Drayden stood with an exceptionally grave expression, staring up at the majestic, ancient statues of Zekrom and Reshiram. Thick plumes of white ceremonial incense smoke unraveled across the stone figures.
Iris stood quietly directly parallel to her grandfather's flank.
"Iris, both Zekrom and Reshiram have unsealed their stasis loops and fully awakened into the active grid," Drayden opened, his voice heavy. "Our Dragon Clan has offered sacred incense and bankrolled sacrifices to honor them for generations. Yet, my ancestral connection verifies that the Trainer who successfully awakened them does not belong to our bloodline."
A highly complicated, bitter smile broke across the old master's rugged features.
"Grandfather, please banish the anxiety," Iris replied firmly, clenching her small fists as she locked her focus onto his visor. "Iris will track down the real-world coordinates of Lord Zekrom and Lord Reshiram ahead of schedule, ensuring they return to their rightful thrones within this shrine."
"Some milestones cannot be passed by sheer force of will alone, my child. Reshiram has already fallen directly into the hands of Team Plasma, while Zekrom's telemetry coordinates remain completely expunged from our tracking arrays. The reigning Champion, Alder, sustained total structural liquidation under N, and the Team Plasma King authorized that deployment explicitly by wielding the power of Reshiram."
Drayden let out a heavy, weathered sigh, his shoulders dropping slightly.
"In truth, our ancestral shrine does not exclusively archive the legacies of Reshiram and Zekrom. Ancient texts verify that the metropolis we govern was once designated as the City of Three Dragons. There exists a definitive third dragon sovereign that our houses have systematically hidden from contemporary historical records—Kyurem."
"Kyurem's baseline behavioral disposition is exceptionally hostile and volatile. Consequently, it was forcefully suppressed and sealed deep within the Giant Chasm by the combined might of Reshiram and Zekrom. The legendary Swords of Justice were programmatically assigned to monitor its every micro-movement."
"The launch window for the Dragon Festival is unhinging, yet my internal parameters are flagging a trace of impending chaos. Zinzolin's lost biological son, Feng Lu, has actually cleared his return vector and reported back to the mainland. This is a variable my predictive algorithms never calculated. Originally, I intended for this festival to function as a simple, low-friction bureaucratic formality—a public platform to officially declare your succession as the next Supreme Patriarch."
"But Feng Lu's sudden re-emergence fractures the data, introducing immense structural variables. I cannot compute if Zinzolin has covertly staged an underworld ambush, meaning your vanguard must maintain maximum vigilance. While Zinzolin abstained from launching catastrophic offensives after joining Team Plasma, his defection thoroughly corrupted the historical honor of our clan."
"For this specific crucible, I intend to throw the gates wide open within the shrine, aggressively encouraging every single passing clansman to brawl for the patriarch's scepter. My supreme expectation is that your console will secure the absolute, uncompromised championship of this Dragon Festival. If your station can consolidate the undivided military and financial backing of the entire Dragon Clan, ascending to claim the absolute highest executive throne of the Unova region will transition into a linear calculation," Drayden briefed with intense, fatherly devotion.
Turning on his heel, the old patriarch strode smoothly out of the stone shrine. Hoisting his gaze toward the endless expanse of the starry night sky, a heavy layer of psychological unease caked his thoughts.
Zinzolin had historically operated as a peerless master-tier traditionalist whose combat indices closely rivaled his own. To be entirely frank, had Feng Lu not staged his sudden self-exile decades ago—forcing Zinzolin to merge his operations with Team Plasma to siphon their genetic tracking arrays to trace his son—Zinzolin would have comfortably inherited the patriarch's scepter, leading the Unovan Dragon Clan to absolute continental supremacy.
"My console has manually cultivated and bankrolled the infrastructure of this clan for decades, Zinzolin. Your station represents nothing more than a historical loser," Drayden vowed softly, his optical sensors burning with unyielding resolve. The old sage remained the ultimate mountain he had to permanently overcome.
"Guards! Escalate the security grid around the festival perimeter to absolute peak tiers. Execute a high-density, rigorous background audit across every single entrant attempting to clear the registration gates. Banish the possibility of an unindexed rogue slipping through our net."
"Every single combatant must pass the baseline validation scan to receive the Dragon God's Blessing before their roster is cleared to compete!" Drayden roared across the courtyard.
By this chronological intersection, Feng Che had already siphoned every itemized detail and structural rule governing the Dragon Festival from the Lumiose black-market data brokers.
Dragon Festival Operational Protocols
1. Full Shroud Mandate
All registered combatants must permanently secure a reinforced mask over their features and sheathe their physical forms within an absolute black traveling cloak.
2. Anonymity Lock
True biological designations are programmatically banned; all communication lines must exclusively utilize custom unindexed codenames to prevent clan identification.
3. The Three Trials Matrix
Trial 1: The Qualifier Crucible
Direct single-slot engagement against official clan proctors to clear baseline combat verification.
Trial 2: The Dragon's Den Expedition
High-risk navigation through the ancient caverns to locate and harvest a specific primordial botanical resource.
Trial 3: The Grand Bracket
A full-torque, uncompromised elimination tournament where the terminal victor officially claims the sovereign title of Future Supreme Patriarch
This entire festival script operates as if it were programmatically engineered to line up with my roster parameters, Feng Che calculated smoothly, a sharp grin playing behind his tracking mask.
The exact millisecond Grandmaster Yuan Ba clears his return vector to report to Sinnoh, the Yuan Clan will comfortably scale its infrastructure to operate as the single most powerful corporate military superpower dominating the region. Combined with my complete control over Team Galactic's remnant black-budget resources, the entire Sinnoh continent is effectively locked within my palm.
The moment my vanguard forcefully unseats Alder to claim the supreme throne of Unova, my command channel can comfortably launch a dual-pronged economic and political infiltration to permanently erode the sovereign boundaries of Kalos and Hoenn.
The Unovan Dragon Festival was officially convened within the historical plazas of Opelucid City.
On the dawn of the launch window, the entire municipality was heavily decorated with vibrant, high-purity ceremonial banners, the cobblestone avenues packed with an immense density of masked clansmen. Every single human entity in the sector had secured a stylized mask over their face, their physical proportions completely swallowed beneath heavy, floor-length traveling cloaks.
For this specific campaign, Feng Che had hard-coded his official registration codename down the channel as: Tyrant Dragon.
Cresting the central high-clearance executive podium, Drayden—his massive beard gleaming bone-white beneath the morning sun—surveyed the silent, cloaked legion waiting below.
"Members of the global Dragon Clan bloodline, receive my greeting," Drayden's deep bass voice boomed across the speakers, instantly locking the arena's focus.
"The annual launch window for the sacred Dragon Festival has officially unhinged. Throughout this cycle, our historical brackets will definitively select and lock the succession track for the next Supreme Patriarch to govern our ancestral house."
"The crucible is strictly partitioned across exactly three independent evolutionary trials. The initial gate requires your stable to engage in immediate combat operations alongside our designated Clan Proctors."
"The validation duel is configured as a standard three-round series. Protocol dictates your console must deploy a completely separate, distinct Dragon-type asset across each individual round."
"Securing a clean victory across exactly two rounds programmatically validates your roster, clearing your station to advance past the initial threshold. Should your partners successfully finalize a flawless three-round sweep over the proctor's slots, my office will instantly bankroll a premium, high-purity Dragon-type elemental resource onto your ledger as an introductory bonus."
"Per our ancestral constitutional bylaws, any asset natively housing a Dragon-type attribute—supplemented by unique, genetically optimized variants that have manually awakened a primary Dragon chromosome, such as an atavistic Charizard configuration—safely clears the entry criteria for a Dragon-type Pokémon."
Drayden paused, his golden eyes scanning the masked crowd with razor-sharp intensity.
"Naturally... my office must strictly verify the biological authenticity of your bloodlines before a single sphere hits the turf."
"Our proctors are programmatically ordered to instruct your consoles to manually project the Dragon Force."
"Any unindexed trainer whose aura channels fail to actively manifest the true draconic wavelength will be forcefully barred from entering the registration gates tonight."
"Proctors, take your designated coordinate blocks. Entrants, advance down the channels in an orderly sequence."
Right on cue, a highly disciplined vanguard of over twenty elite Dragon Clan Proctors strode smoothly onto the field, partitioning the massive stone arena into individual combat rings. Summing the total volume of masked entrants who had cleared the outer security parameters, exactly sixty independent dragon traditionalists were waiting to test their parameters—averaging precisely three cloaked challengers assigned to each proctor node.