Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Elesa was out of the bracket by round four. 

Unfortunately, she was still learning how to fully utilize the strength of her new team, and further unfortunately, she had not come prepared for battling a team of bug pokemon. 

The defeat had stung for a moment, but the sting was quickly replaced by a deep stirring of excitement within Elesa. If she got stronger, then she could go further next time!

Next time... Elesa had frozen at the thought. She was sitting in a cheap plastic chair, waiting for the 'Nurse Joys' to finish healing her pokemon. They weren't actually Nurse Joys, or if they were, they weren't wearing the usual uniform. They did, at least, seem to know how to treat pokemon, and they were stocked with more than enough potions and revives, and like a pokecenter, it was a free service. Unlike a pokecenter, you didn't have to show your trainer ID to the nurse to get help, and the stats of Elesa's pokemon weren't carefully recorded.

"Do others know you have these?" 

Elesa looked up at the 'Nurse Joy', a burly man in a green uniform wearing ray bans with an audino next to him. He was holding pokeballs in his hands, Elesa's pokeballs, she realized. 

"Uh, no." She said, a little disjointed after the thought of 'next time', the two words still running around and around her head. 

"Might want to consider Rail balls then, if you wanna become a regular." The 'Nurse Joy' tossed one of Elesa's pokeballs, then the next, and in a second, he was juggling them. His audino clapped his hands in joy over the act. 

"Rail balls?" She repeated. The 'Nurse Joy' stopped his juggling, catching the balls and handing them off to her, and then rummaged around in his apron until he pulled out a pokeball with a strange pattern on top. 

"They come in a couple different colors, you know, for style points." 

Elesa put her pokeballs back on her hip and took the offered pokeball from he man, giving it a closer look. It had a black surface with crisscrossing blue lines on the top - railway lines, she realized. 

"There's style points in the tournament?" She said, and the man laughed, a full-bellied thing, and Elesa couldn’t help but to smile along. 

"No, no, just, you know, customization and all that. Lots of trainers like to go for aesthetic." He held out his hand and Elesa handed his pokeball back. "If you want, I can set your team up with them; they won't sync with a pokecenter." 

"I think I'm good for now." Elesa said, even as she hesitated with the question running around and around inside of her. 

"If you say so. Though let me cut off that band for you; you got kicked out of the battle, right?" Elesa nodded. "But Bugspray didn't even explain anything. The band is to let the bar know you can't have any alcohol - we do follow some rules down here. If you're just gonna try trainin', though, no one's gonna stop you from doing it with a drink in your hand, even if you do get plastered. Just don't do anything stupid, yeah? End of the night, y'can't rely on someone to drag you out of here, unless ya got a friend." The 'Nurse Joy' imparted his sage advice, snipped the white band off Elesa's wrist, and sent her on her way. 

The tournament was already narrowing down now, with the battles getting longer. The initial matches has been all at once, with matches going on down the length of the tunnel, but Elesa imagined it wouldn't be long now until there started to be only one at a time, taking place at what was clearly the 'main arena', the tracks right in front of the abandoned subway station. Nobody was battling there yet, and Elesa looked over at the Subway master, still sitting there, still flanked by his two pokemon. He had a drink next to him, and Elesa wondered if he was allowed to break the rule and drink alcohol, or if he held himself to the same standards that he expected of all the other competitors. 

"That was not bad for your first time." 

Conductor seemed to materialize out of nowhere, one of his joltiks using his beanie as a little nest, tiny eyes closed as if it could somehow sleep despite the music that was till bumping and the sounds of battle. Maybe it was used to it. 

"You were watching?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise. The man nodded, smiling, though it seemed that was something he rarely if ever stopped doing. Elesa certainly hadn't seen the man without the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a fixed kind of way. 

"Yup! You're verrrrry strong! And smart! The good rounds aren't for a while yet. I could give you some pointers." He offered. Elesa considered it. 'Next time'. She wasn't a trainer; she was a Gym Leader. She was supposed to take her job seriously - few were allowed to study pokemon to the degree she did, to interact with them. Not even the trainers in her gym had the privileges she had. By being down here right now, she was putting all of it on the line. This was illegal. If she was caught, she could have her pokemon taken away, her job taken away, her name ruined for all future work.

"Maybe another night," she said, and it was a promise she meant to keep. "I'd like to see how others are battling." 

"Great idea! You can learn a lot about someone by watching how they battle." 

The two of them went from battle to battle for a while, watching. There was a wide selection of pokemon, and Elesa wondered just how far some of these illegal trainers traveled to be here on this night. By morning, everything – the people, the pokemon, the makeshift bar and pokecenter, the music and the dancing - would all be gone. All that was ever left was graffiti on the walls. Would she even know where to find this a second time? Perhaps she’d ask the Conductor, when all was said and done.

Conductor bought Elesa a drink, but just one, and eventually Elesa let her cincinno out to walk with her. Nobody looked twice at the relatively high-leveled pokemon out – which made sense, there were plenty of higher level and scarier pokemon around, but Elesa was still keenly aware of Cincinno at her side, half expecting someone to at lest admonish her.

The semi-finals were all conducted in the place in front of the station, just like Elesa had guessed they’d be. Conductor had managed to secure them a place near the front of the crowd. Some people had already gone home, more there for the atmosphere than the battles, but the majority were still there, and were now watching, a great roaring crowd. Truly, it paled in comparison to the type you’d see in a formal stadium, but there was something so much more real, so much more powerful right here, right now. The joltiks – three and counting – were all excited as well, making Conductor’s hair stand on end. During formal battles, there were usually pauses between turns as the moves were carefully considered, both sides pulling on their knowledge from years of teaching, but here the pokemon and trainers attacked with speed and tenacity like Elesa had never seen before. Well, not never, but not in years.

The Subway master watched it all.

“Does he never take part?” Elesa whispered, or as close to a whisper as she could get while still being heard.

“Depends on how he feels. Sometimes, the Subway Master will enter the bracket. Other days, he is just the reward for the winner – to battle against the Subway Master.”

“And he always wins,” Elesa guessed. Conductor laughed.

“Of course not! The Conductor is an accomplished trainer. He is still human, though. He has lost before. Not often, his title is well earned, but he loses. It wouldn’t be fun if you always won.” Conductor pointed out.

The winner of the bracket was someone going by the name of Garden, a scoliopede seemingly her main pokemon and strutting alongside her as she was showered in whatever pokedollar the gathering crowd had to offer. Elesa reached into her own pockets and threw things out for the winner, but she also knew that it wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about the victory either, exactly. It was about the battling, it was about the freedom.

And then the Subway Master stood up.

His pokemon had kept the crowd around him at a distance, but now people filled the space he’d occupied as the haxorus roared and the chandelure’s flames flared bright and hot. He jumped down to the dead tracks below, and the crowd silenced, just as quickly and hauntingly as when he’d first appeared. A meowth scrambled along the ground, picking up the fallen money, and the winner was going through revives and potions as quickly as she could. The Subway Master’s steps were slow and measured as he walked to where the other finalist trainer had been standing before. His back was turned to the winner. Elesa found herself leaning forward. She glanced over at Conductor - only just briefly - and his grin was honest, his focus on the Subway Master, and maybe it was just the lights, but there was a kind of energetic glint to his eye. 

Garden had revived her pansage and set the pokemon forwards, next to her healed scoliopede, when the Subway Master whipped around, a hand outstretched and pointing. His mouth was still unseen, but it was audible his call of, 

“ALLLLL ABOARD!” 

Chandelure and Haxorus roared, springing forwards, into motion, into battle. Garden pointed forwards and her two pokemon met them. And the crowd erupted into cheers. 

It took Elesa a moment to fully realize what she was seeing. 

“A double battle.” 

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what a double battle was, but, well, many viewed them as a wrong way to battle. It required an entirely different strategy and how to safely regulate that, keeping track of so many pokemon at once, was still being discussed. Anyway, it was just easier to have you only battle one on one. 

And now there were four pokemon, attacking with green vines and purple poison, brilliant flames and the gnashing of teeth. Elesa’s cheers joined the crowd as Pansage fell. The two battling trainers kept on their sides of the make-shift arena, but paced about, just as animated as their pokemon, just as into it if they were right there in the heat of the battle. This sort of passion, Elesa was realizing, was the staple of the Battle Subway Tournament. This desire, and this connection between trainer and pokemon. She knew it well from her own pokemon, from her years of battling, and yet there was something about this that just felt more real, more honest. It was hard to put to words. 

The Subway Master emerged victorious from the battle. Money wasn’t tossed out like it had been before, but there was still an uproar. And Elesa understood now, at least some of it. How he had manged to keep track of his pokemon, the keen relationship between him and them, his quick mind to keep up with the battle and still plan combinated attacks for his two pokemon. And his pokemon, always responding to his calls, quick on their feet. Sometimes, Elesa could swear they attacked before the words were entirely out of the man’s mouth. 

This was what made him the Subway Master. 

The crowd eventually dispersed, and as it did, the Subway Master took to the place on the platform he’d occupied before. His haxorus roared, demanding the crwod become silent, and they did. 

“The green line.” He said, and serious nods were exchanged. He then snapped his hands fingers, like breaking a spell, and the crowd was talking again, moving towards the bar or towards the exits or finding a corder to sit in and continue to talk in. 

“The green line?” Elesa repeated. 

“The Subway Master plans the loctions for each of these. Around the fifteenth of every month, graffiti goes up somewhere with a coded message for the location of the next tournament. That will be found somewhere along the green line.” Conductor was still at Elesa’s side. 

“Huh. Sounds complicated.” She said. Conductor shrugged. 

“He could lose everything if he was caught.” 

They all could. It was what kept the mouths closed when they left, that much Elesa knew. She wouldn’t breath a word of this to anybody, not even the trainers she’d first caught wind of this location from. The secret, newely gained, sunk into her stomach like a rock. With it was the knowledge that she would be doing her best to be here again next month. And that tomorrow she would go into her gym again, and go back to the person she’d always been before this moment. Would it feel so significant in the light of day? Would she battle a gym challenger tomorrow and find the same excitement? 

From the side of the abandoned subway station, Elesa watched as the Subway Master went over to the bar. He didn’t get anything, however, just seemed to be talking to the staff. What a strange man. She didn’t wonder at all about the ‘how’s of him, but more the what's. What made one set up an illegal fighting tournament in the subway? What was the point of all of this? Elesa was more than familiar with the history most regions have with uprising groups who tried to control the regions through force. Was that what this was the beginning of? But it’d been going on for a while now, from what Elesa understood. Surely if there was a nefarious purpose, it would’ve been enacted by now. 

There would be no answers this evening, that much was clear. With a sigh, Elesa pushed off from the wall.

“Alright, I’d better be on my way. I have work in the morning, if you can bayleef it.” She said. Conductor smiled at her. 

“Will we see you next month?” 

Elesa shrugged noncommittally despite knowing she was already making plans. 

“Guess we’ll have to see.” 

“Alright. I must say, it was verrrry fun to see a gym leader in action. We don’t get many down here.” Emmet sipped from his drink, facing towards the bar like he was also watching the Subway Master, but his eyes were clearly looking over at her, at her shocked expression. Elesa took a step back. 

“I-”

“Don’t worry, if you were a problem, Absol would’ve said something. Still, how fun! I do hope you make it up the bracket further next time.”

Chapter Text

“Signing up again, Beauty?” 

“Yeah, well, what can I say?”

What could Elesa say? It’d been five months now since her first initial dive down into the subways, and in those five months she’d only missed one single tournament. She’d yet to make it into anything particularly noteworthy - not finals, semi-finals, or even really semi-semi-semi-finals - but she had had people come up and compliment her, saying they seemed to work well with her pokemon, giver her some tips and pointers, the like. She’d also finally transferred her tournament team into subway balls, though she went for the ‘look mostly like regular pokeballs but won’t sync with pokecenters’ rather than some of the pretty or flashy variants that were offered. 

“Have you seen Conductor around?” Elesa asked as she tossed one of her pokeballs casually, looking around. It was hard to see through the mob of people, but Conductor seemed to essentially have a second sense for all things going on in the underground and usually found her not too long after she arrived. She wasn’t sure why he seemed to usually stay near her - maybe he was suspicious of her, seeing as she was a gym leader and he clearly was aware of that? -  but she enjoyed his company. She’d yet to see him battle, or even with any pokemon at all, and she was unsure what he got out of all this. Maybe he just enjoyed the atmosphere; he certainly wouldn’t be alone in that, there were easily as many, if not more, spectators than there were actual people competing in the actual tournament.

“Can’t say I have, Beauty. I’ve seen Guard, though.” Bugspray wrote Elesa’s stand-in name on the board. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about it - it was a little too spot-on to who she was - but she also had yet to think to change it. If she wanted to, she needed to do it soon, because the name was really starting to stick. 

“Guard?”

“Oh, right, you haven’t been here very long, huh? Yeah, Guard. Never seen him and Conductor in the same place. Last I saw him was by the stairs.” Bugspray nodded in the direction of said stairs. 

Well, Bugspray, in the grouchy woman’s wisdom, had yet to steer Elesa wrong - or at least had no reason to give Elesa bad advice - and so she headed in that direction.

It didn’t take long for Elesa to figure out just who Bugspray was talking about and why Buspray had seemed so convinced that this ‘Guard’ would be in some way connected to the currently-absent Conductor. He lounging on the stairs with a baseball cap on and tugged low, wearing a nondescript jacket. It was a sense of fashion that one saw repeatedly from those who frequented the tournament. Perhaps, for those who didn’t know Condcutor, Guard would appear just as bland or unammusing as any other trainer there. However, Elesa had spent enough time with Conductor over the past few months (admittedly only for a few hours at a time per month) that even with the dark and confusing black lights set up the two men had clear similarities. For one, both had the long sideburns, the same whitish-gray color that glowed in the blacklight. They boht it would seem also had permanent facial expression -r at least, Elesa had to assume this man’s was permanent, though only talking to him would reveal that. Instead of a smile that didn’t always reach his eyes, the man was frowning, though in a ceratin almost disinterested kind of way. Or perhaps that was Elesa giving the expression too much personality without really knowing it. 

“Guard?” She called out as she approached him. The man, who had had a pokeball in his hand and slowly revolving it with his fingers, sat up stranger at his ‘name’, looking around until he spotted her. 

“Hello, ma’am.” Guard stood up, tipping his hat to her and hands going behind his back in a way that was oddly professional looking, especially given his current casual clothes. She wondered briefly what it was the man did outside of the tournament, but shut the thought down quickly. It wasn’t her place to speculate, all of the people here had lives of their own, lives that they put at risk by being here, and even in her own thoughts, she’d tried to give them the privacy they deserved. “To what do I owe the pleasure? And to whom?” 

“I’ve been going by Beauty. BUgspray said you might know where Conductor is.” Or, well, Bugspray hadn’t really said that, but it was close enough to not be a lie in Elesa’s books. 

“Beauty. Yes, I’ve heard, ah, ‘Conductor’ talk about you.” The man put his hand out and shook hers. “As you seem aware, I’m Guard. A pleasure to meet you. Conductor has spoken highly of your skill, as well as your character.” 

“Really? My character?” Elesa tried to recall if she’d done anything particularly noteworthy and was coming up with a solid blank. Yet Guard nodded. 

“Yes. I’m afraid, however, COnductor was unable to make it today, and he likely won’t be around the next few tournaments. However, if you need company, I can provide my own.” He offered. 

Finally, Elesa couldn’t help herself, letting out a laugh and quickly trying to stifle it as best she could. Guard looked at her, tilting his head like a confused lilipup. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She quickly apologized, trying to compose herself again in front of the stranger. Despite the man’s similarities to Conductor - she had to assume they were related. Brothers, maybe? - he was for all intents and purposes a complete stranger, and a stranger that she had just laughed in the face of. “Just, you’re so serious, and formal. And with, you know,” Elesa gestured vaguely the entire underground tournament thing they were the middle of, “It’s just so, uh, unique!” she said as democratically as possible. 

Guard let out a hugg of air, and then, to Elesa’s surprise, it morphed into his own chuckle. 

“Yes, I suppose I don’t exactly, hm, line up with the tracks here very well, do I?” He seemed to find this even funnier as he chuckled more and louder, shaking his head. “Well, if you’re as brilliant a trainer as Conductor has said, I’d like to see it.” He reached into his coat, hesitating for a moment, and then seeming to resolve as he pulled out a pokeball. 

“Oh, are you in the tournament as well?” Elesa asked, but he was shaking her head before she had even finished her question.

“Never, I’m not one for battling. However, I would enjoy seeing your skill for myself, and you know what they say about pokemon battles.” 

What didn’t Elesa know about battling? Well, probably plenty, but she also likely knew much more about the technical nature of battling and what old books and essays from all points of time had to say about the subject than anybody else down here. Unless, of course, other gym leaders were down here, which was clearly not out of the question. 

“If you’re not one for battling, why battle me?” Elesa asked as she followed Guard. He led the way down further into the subway tunnels, away from where other trainers were battling against each other. While the tournament hadn’t started up just yet, plenty were either training and warming up for the coming battles, or simply enjoying the fact that they could battle currently, enjoying that freedom. 

“No better way to get to know someone. You know, they say that battling used to happen between two trainers who locked eyes, no matter the time, place, or ages. If you were outside - especially along routes - you were open to battle. And in this way, people were unified through gaining an understanding of those around them and the pokemon of the area,” Guard said. “I’m not sure how entirely true that is, but I have found that battles do create an understanding not only between you and your pokemon, but with the one you’re battling as well. It's strange that what one might mistake for more frequent fighting could result in clearer understanding.” 

“You seem to have given it some thought.” Elesa pointed out. 

“If you’re down, here, I’m sure you understand why.”

Well, she couldn’t argue with him there. Perhaps he battled when he wasn’t down here. Could he be an officially licensed trainer? Maybe that was why he didn’t usually battle, he was paranoid of it giving him away. Elesa could understand that. It was something she’d considered, after all. Like Guard had said, battling gave you a fell for the person you were battling, and it wasn’t impossible for that to be a way for she herself to have her identity found out by someone who wasn’t Conductor. 

Hm, did Guard know who she was? It felt wrong to outright ask, a fear of so much as whispering her name in the current situation.

They were well away from the others when Guard finally stopped. In fact, they were now beyond the other battlers and at the edge of where lanterns were placed to welcome those who were on their way. As far as Elesa knew, only the patrolling absol ever came this far out regularly. 

“Alright, are you ready?” He asked.

“Always.” Elesa smirked and tossed out her leavanny.

“ALL ABOARD!” He shouted as he tossed out a crustle. 

“Oh! Is that why you come?” Something clicked in Elesa’s brain. Guard blinked, and then slapped a hand over his mouth as if he could take back the battle cry he’d just let out. She couldn’t help the light-hearted laughed that wormed its way out of her again.

“I- ah-” He stuttered in a desperate search for words. 

“You’re a big fan of the Subway Master!” She snapped her fingers the accentuate what she’d figured out. 

“Uh, y-yes, a very big fan.” Guard tugged down on his cap to cover his face as much as possible. 

There was absolutely no way that Guard didn’t battle regularly. 

Guard and his crustle were like a single being in battle. Battles essentially demanded that trainers call out the moves of their pokemon, but Elesa wouldn’t be surprised if Crustle could battle exactly how Guard wanted him to without a single word even passing his lips. It made Elesa feels almost clumsy as she took the time to assess the battlefield and then tell Leavanny what to do, and then the time it look Leavanny to actually do the attack. As much as Elesa’s battling had improved of the previous months, she was till far more used to how battling was done in gyms with calculated thought and plenty of time provided for that. 

Whatever it was Guard did, he was more than familiar with the rhythm of the underground battle style. 

Despite that, he actually lost to Elesa, though it wasn’t exactly what could be called a fair fight. Elesa had three pokemon while Guard only had one. Or, he only used one, if the man was this good at battling, no doubt he had other pokemon up his sleeves that he just for one reason or another, didn’t want to show Elesa, even as far from any other eyes as they were. 

“You’re good.” He said appraisingly and sounded like he meant it. She could now say that he definitely didn’t stop frowning, but he more than made up for the lack of expression with his voice. He sounded distinctly pleased with how the battle had gone even if it had lost. 

“Not as good as you.” She pointed out. Guard looked away, again tugging on his hat to try and hide his face from view. 

Guard and Conductor were certainly an odd pair and more than anything, mysteries. Elesa had never considered herself one who enjoyed solving mysteries before,a nd yet here she was, curious all the same but far too careful to voice any of what she was thinking out loud. Perhaps, though, with time, she’d learn more. 

Gothitelle, Elesa’s current pokemon out, made a sudden movement, and Elesa followed th pokemon’s eyes to movement behind Guard. Guard was quick to realize something was going on and turned around as well. At first, it was too dark to see anything, but as Elesa focused she could see what was lurking in the subway shadows. 

“Gothitelle, it’s okay, it’s just a kid.” Elesa put a hand on Gothitelle’s shoulder and gently pushed the pokemon to be behind her. With slow steps, Elesa stepped closer to the kid. She dind’t get too close, however, and eventually got down on a knee, holding a hand out. “Hey there, are you lost?”

The child’s features were hard to make out in the subway tunnel, but she could see the movement of their head as they looked down at Elesa’s hand and then up at her face. The kid’s head also turned to look over at Guard. Guard had also gotten down on one knee, though he didn’t say anything, just looking. The child, after a moment, seemed to come do a decision, as they ran back down the tunnel. 

“Shoot.” Elesa stood up, ready to chase after the strange kid. Abandoned subway tunnels weren’t exactly a safe place for a child to be playing. However, before she could move forward, Guard stopped her. 

“They were return when they like. I take it you haven’t been told about the little friend we live with down here?” 

“Don’t tell me you guys just let a kid run around here!” Elesa dearly hoped that wasn’t it. She understood that some situations were more nuanced than they appeared and all that, but you would also think that of all the trainers down here, if many knew about a kid who was scavenging around tunnels, something would be done about it. 

“Not so much. They say there’s a ghost that haunts these tunnels, and if I’m not mistaken, we have just seen it.” Guard was still staring off in the direction the child had run.

“A ghost, or a ghost-type pokemon?” Elesa asked. Guard shrugged.

“Who can say for certain. What I do know is that the ghost has been accredited with leading the police astray the times that they have found us, so I respect and thank it.”

“Hm.” Elsa wasn’t sure if she believed that, but she’d also certainly heard of stranger things. 

“Well, we need to debate back to the station if you’d like your pokemon healed in time for the tournament.” 

Guard turned and began to stride back the way they’d come.