This is a sequel to another one of my stories, A New Life (accessible through my profile). Please read that first.

Chasing a Hero

Wandering awkwardly onto the rocky dock, I kind of just stared at the bright yellow lights that contrasted with the grayish purple of the rocks and buildings of the port city that I had just landed at. This was nothing like Gateon Port, a bright and friendly city; it was dark, half-covered with forests and half-covered with buildings lit only by garish lights.

The ship behind me immediately drove off, leaving me stranded in this shady place. Well, I had braved even Cipher Key Lair; I could certainly get through this mysterious city. Besides, I had a goal: to find the great Hero and Heroine of Orre, the two who first defeated Cipher. As corny as it may sound, I had always looked up to them as a source of strength in my own journey to purify all the Shadow Pokémon.

And Muneshige, the man in front of me with a Staraptor fluttering alongside him, promised to take me to see them. He had suddenly appeared in Orre one day, a traveler from a foreign land. He mentioned something about a man and a woman from Orre having suddenly appeared in the region that he came from about five years ago, and somehow, I immediately knew that they were the hero and heroine of legend. Naturally, I had to follow him back to his home.

"Michael," he presently said, looking down at me. "You ready to meet my wife?"

I blinked in confusion at him. He had never said anything about having a wife.

"I've been away from her for a full year. I think I can deign to see her after so long. Besides, I'm sure she misses me greatly, though she'll deny it."

I said nothing. I wasn't going to intrude on his personal life, especially if it related to an evidently unstable marriage.

"I'll lead the way to the castle," Muneshige declared. Turning back towards the city, he marched off, his Staraptor soaring up above.

As I followed him, I took the time to really look at the creepy violet buildings. Periodically, there would be a bright flash of light followed by a thunderous boom, and I could never tell if it was caused by the thunderclouds above or the electricity crackling along the sides and tops of most of the buildings.

We approached a grove of ominous-looking trees, and suddenly a voice rang out from the shadows underneath it. "Muneshige! Is that you?"

"Yes," Muneshige said. "Hello, Father."

"Oh!" From out of the trees stepped a man dressed in maroon, gold-trimmed armor, with a Flaaffy trailing behind him. "It's been a year since you left! How was your trip?"

"It was as calm as a breeze. I did get to Orre, where those two Warriors in Motonari's army came from. This young man over here, Michael, is also from there, and would like to look for those two Warriors."

Muneshige's father looked me over critically before saying without enthusiasm, "Hello, Michael. I'm Takahashi Shōun, Muneshige's father. Nice to meet you." I frowned in confusion. Wasn't Muneshige's family name Tachibana, not Takahashi? But before I could say anything, Shōun turned back to his son. "Muneshige, you also came home at the perfect time. Motonari's army has sent word that they'll be arriving any day now for a battle. Those two Warriors are really affecting his pacifism. And Ginchiyo refuses to let your spot in the army be taken by another Warrior."

"Indeed? Then I ought to get my stuff settled down quickly to prepare. Come, Michael."

These "warriors" must have been the Hero and Heroine of Orre. And they were coming here very soon! But yet again, before I could voice my excitement, Muneshige was off through the copse of trees, and his father and I—and Staraptor and Flaaffy—had to quickly follow.

We soon came upon an ornate purple-and-yellow castle. Eye-hurtingly bright lights burned in stark contrast to the dark gray clouds above and two enormous rods crackled with bright yellow electricity.

Muneshige didn't pause at the gate, but simply let himself in. He walked purposefully through the castle hallways, passing servants who gasped in surprise at his return. I just followed, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Eventually, we came to a particularly large set of double doors—purple with gold trimming, like everything else in the city—and Muneshige flung them open almost nonchalantly.

"—so you better not let some pair of foreigners take over this land of our ancestors!" a feminine voice floated out from the doors. I flinched at the harsh tone of the voice—was this Muneshige's wife? No wonder he and she didn't get along too well.

Muneshige, though, didn't seem fazed by the voice, and just strode into the room, his Staraptor announcing his presence with a shrill cry. Shōun, his Flaaffy, and I followed them into what appeared to be a throne room.

A woman dressed in armor was standing in front of a throne—a deep blue, contrasting with the purple stone around it—staring at three men in front of her. A Luxray was at her side, and the three men had their respective Pokémon, as well. When Muneshige entered the room, the woman looked up in surprise at him.

"Hello, Ginchiyo," Muneshige said.

"Of course you choose now to show up!" the armored woman replied. "Now, when we're about to fight a crazy foreign couple from some no-good place where they stuff Pokémon into tiny spheres! You're just going to go in there and take all the credit for winning, aren't you?"

"Nice to see you, too," Muneshige replied without missing a beat.

"Hey," one of the men suddenly said, "Muneshige, who's the kid?"

"He's another guy from Orre. He wanted to meet the two whom you seem to be so worried over."

"I'm not worried!" Ginchiyo protested.

Muneshige gave a chuckle and placed an arm around Ginchiyo's shoulders. "Of course not, dear. I was just teasing. But shall we—?"

Before he could finish asking whatever he was going to, a messenger burst into the room. "Lady Ginchiyo, Motonari's army has arrived at Violight Castle!" Suddenly noticing Muneshige, he gave a slight jump. "Lord Muneshige? You've returned…? But we have no time for that now. Motonari's army is already making their way to the battlefield—they may be there already—and it isn't polite to make them wait too long."

Ginchiyo nodded, quickly removing Muneshige's arms from her shoulders. "Very well. Come on, my army. Kid from Orre, I'll deal with you later. Don't make any trouble. Arceus knows your region has caused enough problems already for our region."

"Wait!" I said. "I really want to meet the Hero and Heroine!"

"No offense, kid, but I don't think a battlefield is a great place to meet these people. It's a little dangerous for someone as young as you."

I frowned. "I don't mind. I can handle more than you might think."

"I suppose I can vouch for that," Muneshige said just as Ginchiyo opened her mouth. "He's been more than a little helpful on my journey."

Ginchiyo looked at Muneshige hesitantly before snapping at me, "Fine. I'll accept Muneshige's judgment. You can watch the battle as a spectator."

She turned back towards the door, and her army—and I—filed out.

A few more twists and turns through the castle interior, we found ourselves at an odd battlefield—one that resembled nothing like the battlefields I was used to. It was primarily the same purplish-gray of the rest of the castle, but it sank into what appeared to be an electric trap, with dangerous-looking colored glass tiles floating above and around arcing electricity. Most notably, there was no place for the trainers ("Warriors," were they called?) to stand outside. Apparently, they were expected to follow along with their Pokémon. No wonder they needed all that armor—but hopefully, it didn't conduct electricity.

"You, kid," Ginchiyo said, "get to the side of the battlefield and don't get killed."

As Ginchiyo's army organized themselves on one side of the battlefield, a green-haired man walked into the room, followed by a slew of others, both human and Pokémon.

The last two people were somehow different from the others, though I couldn't say exactly why. They just held themselves differently—the man more confidently and the woman more smoothly. Or it might have been that they had an Espeon and an Umbreon, whereas the rest of the army had all grass-types (not all of which I recognized, but then, Orre wasn't exactly known for its Pokémon diversity). But nevertheless, I immediately knew the two people were the Hero and Heroine of Orre whom I'd spent the better half of a year searching for after I'd purified all the Shadow Pokémon and returned them to their original trainers.

They apparently noticed me, too. The Hero just stared at me with a curious expression, while the Heroine just outright pointed at me.

"Excuse me, Ginchiyo," she said. "Who's the boy over there?" She looked closer at me. "Is that… a Pokéball?"

"We can talk about that later," Ginchiyo said. "Let's just get this battle over with first. Are you all ready?"

"I really can't say otherwise now, can I?" the green-haired man sighed. Then, he looked over at the Hero of Orre.

The Hero was still staring at me, however. When he realized that the green-haired man was looking towards him, though, he spoke. "Ginchiyo, hold on a moment. Young man with the Pokéball, who are you?"

Ginchiyo harrumphed indignantly at being brushed off, but I just felt awkward, being studied by the man whom I'd admired throughout my journey. So little was known about him—even the people who had met him on his journey could not (or would not) say much about who he was as a person. And here I was, being interesting to him.

"Hi," I finally managed to get out. "You're the Hero of Orre, aren't you?"

As soon as I said that, his face scrunched up unreadably. Finally, he turned away, saying, "You're one of those crazy people who think I'm a hero, aren't you? I thought I got away from all that. Besides, isn't there some new hero? Rui, didn't you get a letter from Eagun that said there was some new guy who defeated Cipher recently? Why don't you bother him instead, kid? I'm sure he's much more heroic than I am. There's a reason why I'm not being public about who I am. I'm not a hero."

I frowned. Deciding to ignore the bit about the new hero, I said, "You're the one who saved defended Orre citizens—both human and Pokémon—from being enslaved by Cipher, aren't you? How are you not a hero?"

"Look, kid," he said, walking over to me. "I'm a criminal. I'm a member of Team Snagem, the people who stole the Pokémon that were turned into the Shadow Pokémon. How does that make me a hero?"

"You stopped Cipher."

"And then they came back and it fell to someone else to be the new hero. Again, the new hero is probably much better at being heroic than I am. Just… go find him or something!"

The Heroine—Rui, I think the Hero called her—stopped the Hero with a touch on the shoulder. "Wes, that's a little harsh, don't you think? He's just a kid. And in the end, he came all the way here to Ransei just to meet with us. Don't you think you should at least talk to him politely?"

The Hero—Wes—looked at me for a moment, before turning back to Rui. "…No," he growled firmly. "I don't need to deal with some fanboy. Ginchiyo, sorry for keeping you waiting. Let's start this."

Ginchiyo was still frowning at being treated so poorly, but she managed to nod her head. Turning towards the green-haired man, she said, "Motonari, you guys go first."

I just stood at the sidelines as the battle unfolded. It quickly became apparent that the strength of Motonari's army lay almost entirely in Wes and his Umbreon. The rest of the army—even Rui and her Espeon—were just there to keep the enemy occupied as Wes and Umbreon went from Pokémon to Pokémon in Ginchiyo's army, knocking them out with a well-placed Bite or a speedily executed Assurance. Even though Muneshige's Staraptor managed to knock quite a few of Motonari's primarily grass-type army, not even he or Ginchiyo were able to withstand Wes's skill.

The battle was over in less than five minutes, Ginchiyo's Luxray falling at a Bite from Umbreon.

"It appears that we have won," Motonari stated in an almost resigned voice.

"Yeah, yeah," Ginchiyo said unenthusiastically. "Congratulations. Violight is yours."

"Actually," Wes said, "you can keep the castle. Motonari certainly doesn't want a second castle to worry about running, and I don't think any of us really wanted to have the castle at all. We just wanted to test our strength against yours. So, thanks for the battle. We'll see you later." He turned around and started to walk out the door, his Umbreon—and Rui's Espeon, for some reason—following him.

"Wait a moment," Ginchiyo said. "You can't just do that! Rules state you have to take the castle! Whether you want it or not, you're going to have it!"

Motonari sighed. "Very well, Ginchiyo. I think it's just the appearance of someone from his home region that has gotten Wes a little bit upset. He was utterly ruthless in his battling today."

I looked back towards Wes, but he had already walked out of the battlefield. "Wes, wait!" I yelled, running after him. I had come all this way to meet him, and I even waited through a battle. He wasn't just going to brush me off as some fanboy, and then leave.

I found him walking swiftly through the dark purple hallways of Violight Castle. I called out to him again, and he glanced back at me, but he continued speeding through the hallways.

We came out into the grove in front of Violight Castle. The contrast between the shadows and the glaring electricity of the castle made me stop for a moment so that my eyes would adjust.

When they finally did, I saw Wes standing in front of me, his arms crossed. "Kid, why do you keep following me?" he asked.

I looked at him and saw the fierce annoyance in his eyes. I sighed. He wasn't simply going to accept "hero worship" as an answer, was he? "You know the second hero you keep referring to, the guy who saved Orre when Cipher reformed?"

He nodded with a blank expression on his face.

"I am that guy."

His face contorted into a surprised expression, and he stepped backwards. "You? But you're so young! You're just a kid!"

I shrugged. "If a hero can be a criminal, then a hero can also be a kid. Besides, you called me a 'young man' when you first referred to me, whereas everyone else just called me 'kid.' I think you saw something in me, at least."

He frowned. "Still, if you're the hero, why do you insist on bothering me here?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Criminal or not, you saved Orre when Cipher first appeared. And no matter what, I looked up to what you and the Heroine—Rui, I mean—did. You were the ones I thought of when I was faced with something extremely challenging, even if didn't know much about you. I knew that someone already went through this, so I could do it again. Or at least, I could try to live up to what you did. You're a hero. Just accept it."

Wes was silent for some time, and I was left looking at his face, half in shadow from the trees and half lit up by the garish electricity. "You know, I wasn't wrong earlier when I said that the new hero was more heroic than I am."

I tilted my head to the side. "Really?"

"You went through all that I did—perhaps even more, if Cipher learned from its past mistakes—yet you were alone, whereas I had Rui; you had to go through life being called a kid, whereas I could much more easily hide the fact that I was a criminal; you managed to actually defeat Cipher for good this time—let's hope—whereas they could reform after I defeated them." (I decided not to mention Ardos's creepy note he gave me after I faced him in Orre Colosseum in which he implied that he would try to restart Cipher again.) "And you came halfway across the world to look for someone you admire (even if I don't approve of anyone admiring me), whereas I just came here to hide. You're far more heroic than I am."

"Thank you," I said to him. "That means a lot to me, coming from you. But in the end, I look up to you, whether you like it or not. You and Rui both."

He shook his head. "I really can't convince you, otherwise, can I?" Suddenly, he looked up with an idea in his eyes. "You know, we're in the Ransei Region right now. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the customs of this region, but a common way to settle random disputes is to take a few castles and battle each other and everyone else, as you just saw, until one army manages to unify the whole region (or a predetermined subsection of it). How about you take Violight Castle, and I take Greenleaf Castle, and we have a competition between us two, Ransei-style? We'll prove that you're definitely more heroic than I am."

I blinked. "But I don't even know how to go about being a Warrior or whatever it's called."

A new voice came from behind me. "I can help with that."

Turning around towards the castle, I saw a man silhouetted by the electricity behind him—Muneshige, I realized. "I hope you don't mind the fact that I overheard that last part of the conversation, but I think that a bit of friendly competition between you two would be a great thing. Michael, I can help you with understanding Ransei, if you accept me into your army."

I blinked in surprise before turning back to Wes. He said, "What're you waiting for, kid? Or rather, what're you waiting for, O Great Hero?"

He said the last three words with a smirk on his lips, but I ignored the jab. "All right, Wes," I said. "Let's do this. Muneshige, thank you for your offer; I'll take you up on it." I turned back to Wes, and we locked eyes for a moment. Then, I hugged him, as childish a move as that was. "Thank you, Wes, for this opportunity. As I've said many times, you're my hero, and to be praised by you in this way is a great honor."

A flash of light danced across my vision, and I paid it no mind, thinking it was the electricity from the castle, until Wes pushed me away roughly and stormed towards the castle.

"Rui!" he roared, marching past Muneshige, who had an amused grin on his face.

"What?" the redheaded Heroine asked, fingering a camera innocently. "It was just so cute, you two hugging each other. I had to capture that moment."

He took Rui by the arm and led her roughly through the grove of trees, Espeon and Umbreon bounding after them. "Come on, Rui, we're going back to Greenleaf right now. Motonari can lead the rest of the army back, I'm sure." When he passed me, he said, "I'm sure I'll see you soon, Michael. May the best man win."

Rui gave Wes a curious look, but Wes ignored it. Soon, the Hero and Heroine became fully hidden by the shadows of the grove.

Muneshige tapped me on the shoulder. "Michael, let's get back inside. I'm sure you have a lot to prepare for, if you're about to go up against the hero you've admired for so long."

Author's note: Like A New Life, this is not related to anything in Japanese history, as my other Pokémon Conquest fics are, though of course, there are a few elements. Muneshige is Ginchiyo's husband, of course, but he adopted her clan's name (Tachibana) instead of the other way around because Ginchiyo's father Dōsetsu, who had no sons, adopted Muneshige. Technically, Ginchiyo and Muneshige are stepsiblings as well as spouses. In terms of Ginchiyo's army, I didn't name anyone but Shōun, Muneshige's biological father. However, I assumed that the army consisted of Ginchiyo's army when you fight her in The Legend of Ransei, along with her father Dōsetsu. Namely, that's: Ginchiyo herself; Muneshige, her husband; Shōun, his father; Sōrin, the leader of a cousin clan to the Tachibana; Takatane, who is… someone with little information about him on the internet; and of course Dōsetsu, Ginchiyo's father.

And if you're wondering, Wes gave his Espeon to Rui so that she could act as a Warrior in Motonari's army, but as she's not very adept at commanding Pokémon, she's not a particularly strong Warrior.

I'm not expecting to make a sequel to this story. I won't rule it out completely, but there's not really much story left to tell unless I have a sudden plot idea.

Published September 2, 2013