Penultimate Pokemon Chapter

I thought about the next chapter to be Knight of Order's last, but the opportunity to end it on a pretty stellar cliffhanger was too good to pass up.

If I'da done it that way, I would have made a similar ending to A Kindled Beginning's, where the final chapter would've been double in length to anything before it, with too many critical events happening for that final chapter to have a real focus. With Beginning, my hand was forced due to how I wrote and planned out the chapter names and how the events of the story was moving and also me not wanting to dedicate an entire chapter to small things like the battle of the Ursa vs the Guardian. In this one, I have no such limitations and so I can do as I desire.

And I desired to leave everyone on quite a high note. How will Emile fare? The very object of his deeply rooted regret now come back to haunt him. Not just him, but everyone he has come to care about in the way of his newfound friends.

You know, I gotta thank younger me. He did a pretty good job giving current me avenues to incorporate newer game/lore mechanics into the story. With the story having been written and planned out at the time of Black and White's release, it's hard to imagine it, but if you were there then remember what it was like to be a Pokemon fan at that time. Never in a million years did anyone ever imagine we'd get some crazy, over-the-top game-changing alteration to the base formula after years and years of Gamefreak and Pokemon co' playing it safe. So it's such a blessing for me to have the roads to, although not meaningfully and flawlessly, integrate that into the story moving forward since we're definitely going to have to curve our protagonist & allies power level upwards for the fights in the future.

But talk about edge! Those dex entries are brutal. Overwhelming power and energy pushing Pokemon to the utmost extremes, going past their physical limitations at points and quite literally destroying their bodies on some. All while augmenting their most dangerous qualities and devolving them into their base instincts.

A perfect footnote to end this first book with, as we have one manifestation of that (although not an extreme case like some) to contrast and compliment the themes being spoken about since the beginning of this story.

Sacrifice.

And a perfect launching point for the future as we explore more of that in book 2. Look forward to how this all gets resolved! It'll be very in-line with my writing.