The heavy, gilded doors of the Great Hall groaned shut, muffling the roar of the crowd and the oppressive, solar weight of Red's presence. I didn't follow them into the light. Instead, I drifted backward, melting into the velvet darkness of a high-arched stone balcony that overlooked the sprawling, moonlit grounds of A.U.M. Academy.
The scent of Leaf's white blossoms still clung to my collar, a sweet, lingering ghost of our encounter. My heart hammered a rhythm of triumph against my ribs; I had seen the crack in the Grandmaster's armor. Her striking silhouette, usually so poised and untouchable in its curvaceous elegance, had faltered. The memory of her breath hitching and the way her emerald aura had bled into my shadow remained etched in my mind—a captivating beauty that was as dangerous as it was alluring.
But triumph was a fleeting drug. To keep a woman like Leaf interested—and to keep a man like Red at bay—I needed more than just parlor tricks and bold words. I needed to become the storm I had promised.
I sat cross-legged on the cold marble, the night air biting at my skin. Below, the academy grounds were a tapestry of silver and obsidian, the ancient trees swaying like silent sentinels. I closed my eyes, drawing the "Shade" inward.
The Viridian frequency within me wasn't just a tool; it was a living, breathing entity. I felt it coiling in the base of my spine, a dark, viscous energy that sought to expand. I didn't let it. I forced it through the "Resonance" filter, compressing it until it wasn't a pulse, but a singular, dense point of gravity.
Refine. Sharpen. Obscure.
I focused on the AUM field, molding it into a "Shroud of the Void." If Red was the Sun that revealed everything, I would be the eclipse that swallowed it. I practiced the transition—shifting from a state of total aura-suppression, where I was a ghost in the world, to a violent, explosive "Pressure" that could buckle the knees of a lesser trainer.
I envisioned the placement matches. I saw the faces of the elite—the skeptical Misty, the arrogant Blue, the perceptive Serena. They expected a standard show of strength. They expected a flame. I would give them the cold, suffocating embrace of the deep woods. I would show them that the Shade doesn't just hide; it hunts.
As the moon reached its zenith, my AUM field stabilized. It felt different now—heavier, more predatory. I stood up, my movements fluid and predatory. The "Shade" was no longer just a metaphor; it was a skin I wore.
A soft scuff of a boot on stone echoed from the doorway behind me. I didn't turn. The aura entering the balcony wasn't Red's crushing heat or Leaf's floral grace. It was sharp, clinical, and carried the faint, ozone scent of a thunderstorm.
"Meditation before the slaughter?" a voice drawled—cool, mocking, and unmistakably elite. "Or are you just hiding because you realized you poked the wrong Rapidash back there?
The static in the air was palpable, a jagged, electric friction that heralded Blue Oak long before his shadow touched the marble. In the Great Hall below, his aura was a beacon of polished excellence, but up here, away from the prying eyes of the faculty, it was a predatory storm.
I did not move. I remained a statue of obsidian, my breath a slow, rhythmic tide. As Blue stepped further onto the balcony, his presence crackled—a sharp, ozone-heavy pressure that sought to dominate the space. It was the aura of a man who had never known the word 'second.'
I triggered the Shroud.
Instead of pushing back against his lightning, I simply opened the "Void." The Viridian frequency within me didn't flare; it collapsed. The air around me became a vacuum, a dead zone that drank the static from the air. Blue's atmospheric weight didn't just meet resistance—it vanished. The crackle of his electricity died in the hollow silence I had created, leaving him standing in a pocket of air that felt unnervingly thin and unnaturally still.
"You mistake silence for fear, Blue," I said. My voice was a low, resonant chord that didn't travel through the air so much as it vibrated through the stone itself. "A Rapidash runs because it is prey. A shadow waits because it is inevitable."
I stood up slowly, the movement fluid and deliberate. As I turned to face him, I allowed the Shroud to cling to me like a second skin, the moonlight catching the edges of my silhouette. I kept my eyes heavy, my expression one of weary boredom—the exact look of a man watching a child throw a tantrum.
Blue stood a few paces away, his hands tucked into his pockets, his sharp, handsome features tightened in a flicker of genuine surprise. He was used to trainers bowing under his weight, or at least struggling against it. He wasn't used to being ignored by the very physics of the room.
"You came up here to see if I was a threat to Red," I said, stepping into the silver light. "But you should be worrying about yourself. The sun casts a shadow, Blue... but the lightning just vanishes when the thunder stops. And you are very, very loud."
Blue's eyes narrowed, a spark of genuine irritation—and something darker, more competitive—igniting in his gaze. He took a step forward, his own aura surging in a violent, jagged pulse that hissed against the borders of my Void.
"Loud?" Blue repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous, clinical edge. "I'm the standard, Aspirant. Red is the wall, and I'm the storm that breaks it. You? You're just a glitch in the system. A flicker of Viridian luck that thinks it can stand with the Elites."
He glanced toward the Great Hall, where the silhouettes of the other Elites were visible through the high windows. I could see Misty's striking, athletic form and Serena's captivating beauty as they moved with an elegance that spoke of lifelong breeding and power. Blue looked back at me, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth—a predatory, arrogant expression.
"Leaf might be entertained by your 'shade,' and Serena might be curious about your 'resonance,'" Blue sneered, his gaze raking over me with dismissive intensity. "But I don't care about your poetry. In the placement matches, there is no darkness to hide in. There is only the stage. And I'm going to make sure everyone sees exactly how small you are when the lights go up."
He turned on his heel, his cape swirling behind him with a sharp snap. "Don't be late for the ceremony. I want you to have a front-row seat to what a real Master looks like."
The moonlight was a cold, indifferent witness as Blue Oak turned his back, his stride heavy with the assumption of victory. Below us, the Great Hall was a kaleidoscope of elite power. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, I could see the others. Misty stood near the fountain, her striking silhouette projecting a fierce, athletic grace that commanded the room. Beside her, Serena moved with a captivating beauty and an allure that seemed to draw the very light toward her, her elegance masking the sharp intuition of a top-tier performer. Even from this distance, the hourglass figure of Leaf was visible as she leaned against a pillar, her curvaceous form a stark contrast to the rigid discipline of the academy guards.
They were the sun. They were the visible, the celebrated, the bright.
I looked down at the marble floor, where Blue's shadow stretched out long and jagged, a dark reflection of his towering ego. I didn't reach for his mind or his Pokémon. I reached for the anchor.
I condensed the AUM power, narrowing the vastness of the Void into a single, microscopic point of absolute Dissolution—a needle of "Nothing." With a silent, mental strike, I drove that needle through the throat of his shadow, pinning the darkness to the ancient stone.
Blue took a step. His body moved forward, but his shadow stayed.
The world seemed to tilt. For a heartbeat, the fundamental laws of optics and physics fractured. Blue's foot hit the marble, but the psychic feedback was instantaneous. A primal, vestigial jolt of vertigo slammed into his nervous system—the terrifying sensation of being anchored to a spot you have already left. It was a spiritual whiplash, a silent scream from his subconscious that his soul was being left behind.
He froze mid-stride, his body tensing as if caught in a physical snare. He didn't turn—he couldn't. The disconnect was too profound.
"Blue," I whispered, the sound barely a breath, yet it carried the weight of a burial shroud. "You forgot the first rule of the stage. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow."
I felt his heart rate spike, a frantic rhythm against the stillness of my Void. The arrogant 'Storm' of his aura flickered, momentarily grounded by a force he couldn't categorize as a Type or a Move.
"And from now on..." I leaned slightly forward, the shadows of the balcony coiling around my boots like loyal Arbok. "...your shadow answers to me."
I snapped the connection.
The shadow surged forward, rushing across the marble to reunite with his heels like a rubber band breaking. The sudden restoration of physics sent a visible tremor through Blue's shoulders. He stood there for a long, agonizing moment, his hands trembling slightly in his pockets, before he forced them into fists.
He didn't look back. He couldn't afford to let me see his face. He simply walked away, his pace faster now, the rhythmic click of his boots on the stone sounding hollow, stripped of their previous bravado. He had come up here to mark his territory, but he was leaving with the realization that there were depths in the Viridian woods that even the sun couldn't reach.
I remained on the balcony, the silence returning, thicker and more predatory than before. The ceremony was going to start in a few minutes.