As it turns out, Amsel wasn’t exaggerating about the wait. I almost didn't mind though, since it gave us time to watch some of the other matches that we’re going on.

  Almost.

  Still, best to make the most of it. I released my knights in a less crowded part of the warehouse, and set a rally point by the entrance in case one or more of them got lost. That done, we wandered over to the battlefields, slipping between burly sailors and their often burlier Pokémon to find a place to spectate the battles.

  Fighting and Water-types abounded, and had by far the highest representation amongst the visible competitors, but Pokémon of all varieties were present. Just on our way to the center of the building, we passed some sort of floating, sparking eel-like creature, a trundling Lairon, and a yellow, humanoid, Bug-type, whose crimson eyes seemed to be tracking everything in the room all at once as it flew alongside their partner.

  Of course, it was one thing to note these Pokémon in passing, it was another entirely to watch them on the battlefield.

  I felt my breath catch as a gout of flame splashed against the barrier in front of us, drawing an eruption of cheers from the raucous crowd. The Charmeleon spewing the fire tried to whip its head around to track the Lombre it was facing, but the Jolly Pokémon fired off a Water Pulse in between its evasive dodges, forcing the Fire-type to break off and dive underneath the bundle of compressed water.

  The power of the moves, and the speed at which they came out, was honestly lacking compared to the battles I’d seen on television, but there was something different about being here, right up against the barriers. Ferrum Battles were fast (often too fast to follow properly) displays of raw power and agility, and all that these fights couldn’t hold a candle to those intense bouts, something in me found them compelling.

  “En Avant!” the Lombre's trainer shouted, and the plucky Grass-type ducked under another flamethrower. It came out of its dive staggering up, and threw itself forwards, eyes locked on its opponent.

  “Kyori wo oku! Kaen Hoshya!” came the reply from the Charmeleon’s trainer. The Flame Pokémon froze for a moment, taking the command, and then began backpedaling, breathing fire all the while.

  Those momentary pauses, those half-seconds of interpretation between trainer and partner, changed the entire tempo of these battles. Communication at the speed of sound, not the speed of thought.

  That moment of hesitation cost the Charmeleon, as the Lombre caught up to it, grabbing hold of the lizard without any input from its trainer and popping a Water Pulse right in the Fire-type’s face.

  The Chameleon howled as the supereffective assault depleted their syn, and tried in vain to escape the Jolly Pokémon’s grasp. Encouraging shouts came from the Kantonian sailor, but they were to little avail. The Kalosian (or were they Paldean?) mariner kept their peace, apparently certain that their Lombre knew what to do.

  And sure enough, the Water-type popped another water pulse, and then a third when the Chameleon didn’t go down.

  That last attack did it, and the Lombre let the limp body of their opponent fall to the dusty turf, soaked and out cold.

  Jubilant cheers erupted from one section of the spectators, and commiserating groans from another, probably the sailor’s crews, if I was going off of appearances. The two men recalled their partners, and then met in the middle of the battlefield, shaking hands and exchanging words that I couldn’t hear over the crowd. They stepped away, and another pair walked up to replace them.

  The bouts weren’t just different from the Ferrum Battles I’d see on tv, they were different from the matches I had with my coworkers, as well. When we trained at the ranger station, straight one-on-one battles to knockout were rare. There was always an objective to accomplish. The details varied, maybe we needed to get away from danger, or protect something, or deescalate a situation, but there was almost always an extra something to the hypothetical encounters. For rangers, battles were a tool, a means to an end.

  Here, the battling was the goal, the desire, the end. That hadn’t been the impression that Amsel’s words had given me, but the fights told a wholly different story.

  A bright flash caught my eye, and I turned just in time to watch a sparking beam of light reflect off of a shimmering green barrier. Tracking the scintillating light revealed a floating Seadra, difficult to see through a crashing snowstorm localized inside that barrier. The Pokémon heaved with effort as it recovered from the Hyper Beam. Their opponent, a dopey-looking blue salamander, took the opening without any visible direction from their trainer, coughing up a noxious glob of purple poison at the stunned seahorse.

  The move looked like a clean hit, until the floating Seadra began sloughing away at the attack. I didn’t know what move had been used, but somehow, the Seadra was visibly disintegrating into motes of light, fading away and leaving nothing behind. The dopey blue Pokémon and I shared a moment of solidarity as we both cast about, looking for the seahorse.

  The salamander’s trainer called out a warning that drew my eye, and his partner’s, but it wasn’t in time to stop a green, roaring Dragon Pulse from slamming into the Pokémon’s back. “Estrategia Tres!” I heard, right after the attack petered out.

  The salamander reacted almost instantly, recovering from the blow and diving into the ground. In just a moment, the Pokémon had disappeared underneath the battlefield.

  “Keep your pulse ready, wait for it to emerge!” shouted the Seadra’s trainer in the lull.

  A tense moment passed, both trainer and partner watching the ground, before the woman suddenly let out a blazing curse. “Heroes, they got us! Rest!”

  The Seadra’s eyes closed, and the green energy around its snout disappeared, replaced instead by a purple haze, as the Water-type recovered its syn.

  The other trainer tsked from their side of the battlefield. “Están encima de nosotros!” He shouted to his underground partner. “Despertar!”

  More tense seconds passed. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but both trainers seemed to be on the same page, shouting repeated encouragements at their partners.

  The salamander was quicker on the draw, emerging from the earth before the Seadra could awaken. It poked its head out of the turf, and looked around for a few moments, but as soon as it found its opponent, it erupted fully, leaping out of the ground to slam into the hovering Water-type. The floating seahorse went flying, hitting the ground with a thud that surprisingly failed to awaken it. A shout came from the Kalosian trainer (actually, this one was definitely Paldean, right?) and the dopey-looking Pokémon pursued their still-sleeping opponent with surprising intensity. Another command saw it throwing itself into the air and then landing on top of the Seadra in a brutal Body Press.

  In a Ferrum battle, this sort of opening would have decided the battles victor, but without the influx of a trainer’s energy, the salamander could only get off one more move, coating its fists in misty ice and crashing them into the prone seahorse.

  The move seemed mostly ineffective, so I wasn’t sure why the trainer had called it out, but whatever the reason, the window of opportunity vanished, as the Seadra awoke and immediately began spewing a stream of bubbles at the salamander, without any need for an order.

  Unfortunately for the seahorse, the Salamander fully ignored the attack. If anything, it seemed invigorated by the blow, absorbing the water with a sloppy grin.

  The Galarian woman let out another scathing curse, and shouted for her partner to stop. The Seadra stopped spewing bubbles, but before its trainer could get another order out, the Paldean trainer gave a command to his salamander. The blue Pokémon reared up, dropping its entire body weight on the still-prone Seadra in another savage Body Press.

  That proved too much for the seahorse, and when the salamander rolled off its opponent, the Seadra lay still, obviously knocked out.

  The Seadra had obviously been trained to use a move right out of Rest, probably to buy space if it was being attacked, but it seemed like that effort had been wasted here, against the salamander, or even detrimental, if the Pokémon had an ability like Water Absorb, as I suspected.

  The trainer clearly knew that a Water-type attack would be ineffective, judging by the way they’d been commanding their partner to avoid using them, but the split second where instinct (or training) had taken over had cost the pair.

  The Galarian sailor shook her head ruefully as she recalled her partner, while her opponent lavished his dopey salamander with effusive praise.

  The same or similar scenes played out over and over across the four battlefields, with some variation. Sometimes there were four combatants in a battlefield, sometimes both Pokémon would get knocked out at once, occasionally the referee had to stop a battler that was pushing themselves too hard, but usually the scene remained the same. Two people and their partners entered, commands and moves were traded back and forth, and one walked away the victor, the other team unconscious in their balls.

  I made sure to check the board for my name every ten minutes or so, but before I knew it, an hour had passed without my knights or I getting a chance to battle.

  Frankly, I was getting a bit impatient, but judging by the enthralled looks from my partners, they were doing just fine, so I kept my peace and continued to observe the battles.

  More time passed, and I took to workshopping and commenting on the fights with my knights. Percy and Bers seemed to enjoy the moment-to-moment experience, cheering for the explosive moves and hopping excitedly whenever a battle came down to the wire. Kay and Galad were a bit more restrained, perhaps analyzing their own performance against the attacks getting thrown about inside of the barriers.

  Tristan was getting the most out of it, I think. He followed the action with a keen eye, and unlike his brothers, I didn’t lose him when I discussed the strategies at play. I kept emphasizing the split-second decisions and hesitations, trying to direct his and the brass’ observations to the way that these brief moments could have outsized impacts on the battle as a whole.

  Lance in turn seemed most interested in the breakdowns I’d try to make whenever a Pokémon would take action with little, or no input from their trainers. Identifying what was instinct, what was trained, and what was a command was impossible without greater familiarity with all of the Pokémon and languages on display, but I did my best to theorize for my partner’s benefit, and he would propose things in turn, developing hypotheses of his own and coming up with ways we might be able to smoothen out our shared command structure.

  I could tell that all three of us had gears turning, and I was certain that even if we didn’t get a chance to battle today, the decision to come here had been a good one. Plus, the other four were enjoying the fights in their own way.

  More time passed, and my name was stubbornly refusing to show up on the board. Watching the competition was interesting, and I’d definitely be back, but seeing them also made me want to train like nothing else, and I could tell that my knights felt the same. Just as I was thinking of getting in line to let Amsel or another clerk know I was canceling my battle request for the day, I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

  For a second, I was worried that I might be blocking someone’s view, but that seemed pretty unlikely, considering the height difference between everyone else in the warehouse and myself. I spun around to confront whoever was trying to get my attention, and resisted the urge to sigh as I craned my neck to look up at the grizzled sailor facing me.

  The man was tall, that was certain. Almost two meters, unless I was missing my guess. He was wearing a dressier uniform than most of the other sailors, probably denoting him as some sort of officer, though like many of them he forewent any kind of shirt under his jacket. His face was dominated by an impressive mustache, steel gray with age, and his hair (if he had any) was concealed by a white cap. I could see that the haberdashery had a black visor, but I had a hard time making out any details beyond that, considering the way he towered over me.

  “Serpent’s grace, an actual damn local,” the man spoke in a gravelly voice. His Galarian came out with an accent I didn’t recognize, and his voice was punctuated by the low rasp I’d come to associate with smokers ever since learning about Janine’s bad habit. “Thought Amsel might have been pulling my leg. What brings a little lass like you to these rough waters?”

  I felt myself tense up a bit under the man’s scrutiny. “My partners and I,” I knelt down to scoop up one of my knights, both to show who I meant and for the security of having one of my knights in hand, “are looking for a place to train. A… mentor of mine told me that the docks would be a good place to look.”

  “Hoh? A Falinks, huh? Been a bit since I’ve seen a set of those. Can’t do your fancy battles with a partner like that.”

  I did my best not to bristle at Captain (maybe literally) Obvious’ words. “No, and I can’t do it either, but that doesn’t stop us from doing normal battles.”

  “Hmm. One of the ones that gets dizzy? I thought they’d solved that problem.”

  Whoever this stranger was, they were more knowledgeable about Ferrum than anyone I’d met at the docs so far. “Exceptions to every rule.” I told him. “Ninety-nine point nine-nine isn’t one-hundred.”

  “Well it seems I’m in rare company,” the man laughed, but it was more commiserating, than mocking. I didn’t get the impression he was making fun of me, or looking down on me, or even pitying me. Just acknowledging a fact. “But I’m guessing these are your only partners?” He nodded down at my knights.

  I looked down to them, and was shocked to find them nodding a yes. Then, I realized that I was doing the same. The man had an unconscious authority that reminded me of sergeant Egao. “They are,” I confirmed, “which is pretty normal in Ferrum, as I guess you’d know?” The attempt at prying was clumsy, but it helped get me off the verbal backfoot.

  “Let’s just say that unlike these guppies might think, you’re not the first local to show up around these parts. It’s been a while, sure, but things don’t change all that quickly.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with that assessment, and he hadn’t really answered my question, but I wasn’t about to argue with this man. “What happened to the others?” I asked instead.

  “Oh, they got older, got busy,” the sailor said, remaining vague. “It can be hard to find the time as you get up there, to come all the way down to a place like this. It’s a shame, really. I always liked seeing what the locals thought of our battles. Yours is a rare perspective, these days.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “It’s definitely… different,” I offered after a few moments of awkward silence, finally surmising what he might want. The old sailor nodded encouragingly, so I patted the Falinks in my arms (Bers, at it turned out) for reassurance and kept going. “The fights aren’t as flashy, or as fast-paced, but there’s more to it than that.” I took a few moments, trying to figure out how best to articulate what I wanted to say, and then a few more, grasping at the edges of an idea.

  “Links Links, Falinks!” Tristan spoke up from the ground, and after a few moments of consideration, his brother echoed the sentiment..

  I wasn’t at the point yet where I could understand them perfectly, but the meaning came across clear enough. “Right! The battles are over different things, I think. Er, we think.”

  “Oh, how do you mean?” the old sailor tilted his head. “Both types of battle are to exhaust your opponents' aura, after all.”

  “Sure, yes, that’s true…” I conceded, “the goals are the same in both, but the steps to getting there are different.” I had a firmer hold of the thought, now. “In Ferrum Battles, Pokémon and their partners are competing for pressure, and positioning. You’re always trying to maneuver your opponent into a place where you can initiate a combo, because they’re the most reliable way of doing a lot of damage.”

  “Pressure and positioning are important in standard battles as well,” the old sailor pointed out.

  “Links Fa Fa!” Bers said from his perch in my arms.

  I nodded in agreement. “Yes… but like he said, there’s more room to misstep. The disconnect between trainers and their partners makes it far more difficult to capitalize on small mistakes. And even when you get an opportunity to punish your opponent, you can’t hit them with move after move. You can’t juggle them, or lock them, or pin them. Your partner has the energy for one good attack, maybe two, and then they need to reset safely, without getting hit in turn.”

  The sailor grinned. “Not bad lass, not bad at all. So what are we fighting for in our battles here?” He pointed towards the ongoing fights, all eights arenas bustling with battling Pokémon and their shouting partners.

  I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a satisfactory answer. Nothing jumped to mind. I knew Ferrum Battles. I’d studied them obsessively for years, learned about them in school, pictured them, imagined them, lived and breathed them. And still, compared to a true competitor, my knowledge was a puddle to a swimming pool.

  My understanding of these foreign fights was that same puddle to an ocean. “I’m not sure,” I admitted defeat. It hurt to acknowledge, but it was true. I just didn’t know.

  “Hmm,” the noise was neither approving or disapproving, just evaluating. “Well I’m not the greatest battler to ever sail the seas, nor the fiercest on land, these days, but I have learned a thing or two in my years. Do you want to hear my answer?”

  I nodded cautiously, absently noting my knights doing the same. Getting this old sailor’s perspective sounded good, I’d always heard that there was a lot of value in listening to more experienced trainers, after all, but something made me want to hesitate. Something about the man’s demeanor, about the way he’d asked, reeked of a trap.

  The old sailor leaned in, as if confiding in me some great secret. “For me and mine, battles are about understanding,” his voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “You learn who your opponents are, discover their strengths and their weaknesses, evaluate them against your own capabilities, and once you have understanding,” his tone hardened, “you strike.” The man leaned back, speaking normally again, “And through battle, my team and I come to understand ourselves, our foes, and each other. A famous general once said: ‘Those who know themselves, and know their opponent, need not fear a thousand battles.’” So saying, the old man straightened, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

  The answer was a good one. In large part, it fit the understanding I’d developed over my short time watching these fights. I was almost content with it.

  Almost.

  Something wasn’t right, though. The grin on his face, like someone who knew something I didn’t. For all he’d just given me his answer, and I thought it was sincere, he was holding something back. Something he wanted me to figure out.

  I wracked my brain again, and when I came up empty, I turned to my guiding lights. To my surprise, my knights were nodding along, accepting this wisdom. Mostly. One seemed to have doubts. Tristan sat still, obviously in thought.

  “No, I don’t think that’s quite right,” I told him, hoping that by speaking, I could manifest the niggling sense tickling my brain, and that of my littlest partner.

  My knights, sans Tristan, looked up at me in surprise.

  “Oh? You’d argue my years of battling? My hard-earned experience?” the sailor asked, head turned quizzically.

  “It’s not that I don’t think understanding is important,” I clarified. Something about the man’s demeanor, his presence, made it hard to contradict him directly, but I also got the sense that he was sort of… eager. That he wanted me to offer something beyond just agreement. “But I don’t think… I mean, that can’t…” I was struggling again to articulate the point I wanted to make.

  Fortunately, my knights rode to my rescue once more. “Falinks!” Tristan shouted, and I had it.

  “Right! Things can happen that we didn’t know, that we didn’t see coming. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight. Sometimes, we have to struggle against things we don’t understand, and prevail anyway,” I wasn’t sure I’d phrased what I wanted to say perfectly, but I hoped I’d at least gotten across the idea that Tristan and I had worked out.

  There was a moment of silence, then another, and then, a chuckle. The urge to swell up like a poked Jigglypuff reared in me, but I quickly realized that like before, there was nothing mocking in the old sailors demeanor, just amusement. “Good rebuttal lass,” he said after a moment, “even if you had help,” he nodded down at Tristan. “A better one than I or my partners could have given at your age. I’d argue that by overcoming that which we don’t know, we gain understanding, but then we’d just be discussing semantics.” The man’s mirth petered out, and his mien grew serious again. “And yet still, I tell you that I’ve given you my answer, lass. What makes ye of that?”

  I thought desperately, trying to keep up. “I think….” again, I was at a loss, until a flash of light caught my eye. It was another Hyper Beam, launched by the same Seadra as earlier. The same hazy snowfield characterized their battlefield, the strategy unchanged, in spite of the difference in opponent. Sure enough, when the opposing Machoke slammed into the sagging Seadra, apparently exhausted by the powerful attack, the surprised Fighting-type found its opponent dissolving into motes of light.

  The Machoke looked around for a few moments, confused, before a powerful beam of ice rammed into it, sending it sprawling, but unlike the salamander from earlier, the burly Fighting-type didn’t get back up. The same strategy as before, if more successful this time. The same answer.

  “I think that there are as many answers as there are trainers,” I told the old sailor, “maybe as many as there are combinations between trainer and partner, even.”

  This time I couldn’t describe the laugh as a chuckle. It came out more like a wracking cackle. “There you go, lass. Had to walk you to it, but you got there. Anyone who promises you the end-all, be-all solution to a battle is lying through their teeth. There’s more ways to fight than you or I could ever know. That’s the beauty of battling.”

  It seemed obvious in hindsight, in fact, Donna had already tried to teach me a very similar lesson. And now I felt pretty stupid anyway, both the slow speed at which I got to the solution, and for my earlier, unwarranted surety. “Sorry, you must have been laughing at me in your head when I was going on about Ferrum Battles.”

  I almost didn’t catch it. The old sailor was good at controlling his expression, but his impressive mustache gave it away. It twitched, distinctly, as he hid a grimace.

  I jumped on that weakness. I wouldn’t have normally, but something about this man, about this conversation, it felt like a battle. Like– if I had let that opportunity go, I’d have disappointed my opponent. Maybe he was leading me somewhere again, but I couldn’t resist.

  “Or not?” I tried, offering a light probe.

  “Would never laugh at a lass trying to find her own answers,” he didn’t answer.

  “Sure, but you’d correct her if she was wrong, font of experience that you are,” I plowed through the lousy deflection.

  “Now, I’m hardly an expert on Ferrum Battles.”

  He’d used the correct term. Not your battles, not those battles, Ferrum Battles. He was definitely familiar. He even knew what synergy sickness was. He hadn’t said as much, but the implication was there. “But you know about them,” I pressed, “maybe even competed in some? Way back when?”

  There was a pause, and then a rueful chuckle. “Ok lass, you got me. Maybe I did participate in a few, when I was a younger man. I was trying to figure something out, and here was the only place to do it.”

  A foreigner, competing in Ferrum Battles. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare. I searched the recesses of my mind. Did I recognize this man? I’d watched years of battles, collected cards, read dozens of history books and memoirs. Sure, there were thousands of competitors over the years, maybe millions, but there was something special about this man, about his presence.

  A flash of red and blue. A surging, crescent-moon silhouette behind a grinning smile, plastered on a cardboard placard. The same face, decades younger, but still with that impressive mustache, still wearing that distinctive cap. “You’re Drake!” I got it, snapping my fingers with recognition. “You were deep in a Chroma League run when you disappeared. You and your Salamence! People said you had a real shot of beating the champion after the Chroma League Tournament” There was something else too. He was famous for another reason, I was sure of it, but anything not related to his career in Ferrum Battling had escaped my brain.

  A beat passed, two, three, and then more laughter. Deep, rumbling, but still, gratifyingly, not mocking. “Only in Ferrum, I swear,” he said after he got his mirth under control. “Sure lass, if that’s where you recognize me from.”

  “I had a trading card,” I admitted Mareepishly, “it was a rare one, so I guess it stuck in my mind.”

  “A trading card,” the old sailor shook his head ruefully. “Alright lass, you got me, I know a thing or two about Ferrum Battles.”

  “So why didn’t you correct me when I was making a butt of myself, talking like an expert?” I’d learned about him, gained the understanding I needed, and struck. I still didn’t think Drake’s answer wasn’t the perfect one for me, but I could definitely see the appeal.

  The man looked me up and down, evaluating me in turn. “You sure you want my opinion, lass? I’m a foreigner, and one twenty-odd years removed from my most recent experiences with your style of battle, outside of the occasional broadcast.”

  “I’ve already proven that I can hear your thoughts, and have my own, haven’t I?”

  That earned me a grin, “Fair enough lass, fair enough.” The old sailor took a moment, composing his answer. “I didn’t correct you because I didn’t think you were wrong. Your analysis was spot on. Ferrum Battles are all about positioning, about cornering your opponent, reducing their options until their only choice is to submit.” His eyes took on a far-off look. “Don’t misunderstand me, I have a lot of admiration for the style. Hell, I lost to a cocky kid just this year who fought that way.”

  I gave him a moment, then another, and then burst out, because I couldn’t help myself. “But?”

  Drake sighed, “But for standard battles, it’s one method in a million. Here that’s all there is.” His answer was a crashing hammer. “It’s like chess compared to poker,” he continued. “It’s not a solved game… but you know each move your opponent can make.” The old sailor shook his head. “The sheer strength and speed of the competitors, the miniscule margins you’re operating with, it chokes out options until all you have is the barest of choices. It’s incredible, what your battlers can do when pushed to the limits of their potential– but it’s not interesting. I still catch the occasional broadcast, wondering if something has changed, and I can always guess how the battle is going to go. The same impossible athleticism, the same perfect combinations,” the old sailor shook his head. “Sorry to say it lass, but once we left, my team and I never felt a need to come back.”

  It was an indictment. A staggering one. A few months ago, I would have stumbled under its weight, but I was older now, more jaded. “It’s not all the same. The technology keeps improving. Trainers can give their partners more and more energy, and synergy bursts are available even at lower levels of competition,” it was a weak rebuttal, but it was the best I could come up with on the spot.

  “And the competitors continue to become stronger, and faster, and the choices they can make continue to narrow,” Drake shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong lass, I have nothing against Ferrum Battles, or those who promote them. They’re spectacles and experiences unlike any other, they’re just not for me, personally.”

  And why did that bother me so much? Drake was a foreigner I’d met five minutes ago. Sure he was a famous competitor, and a strong trainer, obviously, but should his opinion, his dismissal of our Battles affect me so much? I couldn’t even participate in those battles. I had no Rapidash in this race.

  Something about his presence. About the man’s syn. Just him standing there talking reminded me of when Donna put a knick in a knife blade with her finger, or when Wilson juggled three different conversations with three brand-new rescues.

  When my coworkers did those things, I thought they were amazing. Just being near Drake, just talking to him for a few minutes, I knew that he was amazing.

  Would it feel the same way if I was in the presence of a League Master? Did I have it in me, to someday make people feel this way?

  I shook my head clear, dredged it free of the gnashing teeth and rending claws of my insecurities and doubts.

  So Drake didn’t like Ferrum Battles. I did. Maybe, if I could participate in them, learn the things he learned, maybe if I was on his level, I would feel differently.

  But I couldn’t. And I wasn’t there. Not yet anyway. I’d reassured Drake that I could form my own opinions, and I wasn’t going to make a liar of myself.

  I looked up at the old sailor, resolved that his views, respect them though I would, weren’t going to sway mine.

  He was grinning at me, and his eyes had a light in them I hadn’t noticed before. A certain glean that reminded me of Icebox when Mark’s equipment was glowing with heat. I went to speak, and I realized, the doubts I’d been feeling, the disappointment, and pressure, had faded.

  They were still there, a minor background ache, but I had to focus on them, to really feel them. As if something had been breathing down my neck, but had decided to pass me by.

  I looked down at my knights, and found their attention fixed on Drake’s grinning mien. Theirs wasn’t the gaze they directed at strange humans or suspicious individuals, rather it was the sharpened glare they reserved for opponents, for threats across the battlefield.

  Suspicion crystallized into certainty. “You were doing something with your syn just now!” I accused, “making me put more stock in your opinion! You were… enhancing yourself, raising your importance in my head.”

  The old sailor’s smile was downright feral, now, underneath that twitching mustache. “A parlor trick,” he said. His tone hadn’t changed, but in just a moment, somehow, that feeling of pressure returned, twice as strong. As if I was in front of not a man, but some sort of beast. “A small bit of aura manipulation,” his voice was low. There was something in it I couldn’t place, “but you Cottoneed on, little Ferrum girl.”

  “Is everything a test to you?” I had to force the exasperation into my voice, as I struggled against the instinctual drive to relent that the man’s syn produced.

  “When you get to my age, you need to find ways to keep yourself entertained. I thought this trip was going to be boring, but as it turns out, I’ve maybe gotten a little lucky. Perhaps we both have, lass.” The old sailor held up an Ultra Ball, tossing it idly into the air and catching it on the way down. “I’ve got a fresh capture, straight from Unova. Haven’t trained with him even once, but I think he could be an elite someday. How about it, lass? Think your little troops are ready to fight dragons?”

  Somehow, the pressure doubled. I don’t think it was anything Drake did consciously, I just understood, in that moment, that I was facing a capital M-master. I’d known it already, in my head. He had been set to compete for the top of the Chroma League after all. Before he’d disappeared. And that was more than two decades ago.

  Understanding, as it turns out, is different from knowing. Even as I fought against the pressure coming off this old monster, his idea of what battling was poked me, prodded me, tried to find ways in, to convince me of its rightness. Was this what happened at the top levels? Fights not just for supremacy on the battlefield, but for the actual ideals those battles were fought with?

  The idea was too much for me. I had a moment of weakness.

  I’d never admit it to anyone, but I almost turned him down. I was thirteen. I didn’t know what battling was, yet. Maybe I’d never know. I was defective, after all. I couldn’t participate in the most important part of Ferrum’s culture. I couldn’t convince myself to follow in my mom’s footsteps. I couldn’t handle Bert and his cronies without Alyssa stepping in. I couldn’t do a ranger mission without screwing up.

  My doubts redoubled, multiplied, tried to blot me out, tied knots in my guts and looped iron weights around my limbs. Maybe some of it was Drake and his gimlet gaze, but those insecurities, those fears, those dragons, they came from within me.

  I wasn’t strong enough.

  Then, I felt it. A little rustling in my arms. Bers, shrugging off Drake’s syn. Galad, shielding his brothers from the old sailor’s gaze. Lance, staring down the ancient monster. Percy, eager to rise to the proposed challenge. Kay, checking on the others, affirming their readiness. And Tristan, littlest Tristan, shaking and shuddering but unbowed.

  My knights were ready to face the dragon.

  How could I do any less?

  “My name isn’t lass, it’s Fe, and these are my knights. We’ll take you on, and any dragon you’ve got.”

  For a moment, I wasn’t in a warehouse, confronting an old sailor. I was in a cave, somewhere ancient and primordial. I wasn’t alone though. My knights were with me, and we steeled ourselves as something stalked us from the darkness. Something avaricious, and immense. “Excellent.”