To War!

Eric wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been expecting when he applied to the University of Lumiose, but this almost certainly wasn’t it.

“Uh.  What?”

“How have you managed to go a whole semester here without hearing about War?”  His friend Neil was completely flabbergasted.  “Okay, we’re fixing this right now.  It’s the first week of spring semester and classes don’t really pick up for at least a few more weeks, right?  So we’ve got a month of not having to worry too hard about stuff to play the best game ever.”

Kyle took pity on his continued bewilderment, flopping over the back of his couch with a sigh.  “I don’t know if you’ve taken any history electives, but you’ve probably heard that Kalos has a long track record of wars and stuff up until a few hundred years back.  So of course we’ve got a tradition too, with less dying.  War’s pretty much what it says on the box - campus-wide, but you can opt not to play if you don’t want to waste time.  Basically each human or Pokemon gets a tag that they try to hang onto.  You can take someone’s tag by beating them in battle or stealing it, and you can take humans out by getting them with food coloring without them noticing.”

“So basically like Assassin?  We played that once, but we used sticky notes and it was humans only.”

“Oh hey, they do have cool things in Johto!”  Neil’s grin was back.  “Yeah, like Assassin, but instead of everyone for themselves with assigned targets all the dorms go against each other.  So each dorm gets a banner you can take, and you win by being the last dorm with a banner.  But you’ve gotta be careful, since if you don’t take the people out they can still play and make your life hell.  Guess that actually puts it halfway between Assassin and Capture the Flag.  Winners get eternal glory and some kind of prize from the student council - last year it was store vouchers and extra dorm funds.”

“What Neil is forgetting to mention is that other than a lot of restrictions keeping the battles low-key, the fact that there aren’t so many other rules means War gets really complicated.  Vertress Hall has a lot of people focused on battling so we usually do well, but the dorms with less firepower tend to do things like ally with others for a split of the winnings or have the survivors join up with someone after their banner gets taken.  Dorms and individuals can opt out so it’s not really the whole campus, but enough people play that it gets incredibly messy.  He’s also wrong when he says it takes a month - usually it’s over within two weeks, so it wraps up by the time non-elective classes start.”

“…And you guys just do this every year?”

“Yep! Bienvenue a Kalos, everyone’s crazy.  You in?”

“What the actual fuck.”

——

“…and all the rules from previous years still apply, so if anyone sets the quad on fire again we will disqualify your asses!”

In the packed lecture hall the chorus of laughter and booing was deafening.  Eric faintly hears someone in the back yelling about firedogs, to which the announcer responds with a one-finger salute.

“New rules are posted, but for the lazy bastards the big ones are no wide-range electric attacks near lab buildings and a blanket ban on confusion!  Someone made a really expensive machine reset itself last year, and people keep finding ways around specific rules against strats or moves so we’re just not going to do it in the interest of avoiding accidental property damage.”  She takes a moment to let the commotion die down before continuing in a more serious tone.  “I shouldn’t have to say this after what happened last year, but no messing with the Holocasters.  I know the vulnerabilities haven’t all been patched yet, but just don’t do it.  That’s an automatic DQ for your whole house and real people trouble waiting to happen.

Now that we’ve cleared up the rules, all dorms competing send a representative up to collect your banner!  Tag distribution will be in the quad from 3 to 9 today, and War starts tomorrow at noon.  Have fun!”

Chaos descended.  Eric did his best not to get trampled while Neil climbed onto a chair to keep his Holocaster’s camera trained on the front of the room.  Once Benji had the Vertress banner they waded out into the hall and hightailed it back to the dorm in a yelling pack.

By dinnertime the atmosphere had gone deadly serious.  Tags had been collected, the deep-green Vertress banner had been hung in a common area and its location reported on the game site, and a hall-wide strategy meeting had dissolved into groups carrying out various tasks in preparation.  Kyle, Neil and Eric were poring over the recording of the kickoff with several others from their floor while the rest ran about checking windows and back entrances or attempting to negotiate with other dorms.

“Okay, so there are the twins for Starf - makes sense, one of them is president and they’ve got a few other members of the dorm government there to back them up.  Luke and his luke grabbing the banner for Indigo, no surprises there…”

“What are we looking for, again?”

“Benji’s trying to work out what’s going on with a few of the dorms.  You already know we and Indigo tend to be the strongest - the War page lists Orange and Stave as not competing, but our fearless leader is confused because Lansat apparently is.  That hasn’t happened in, what, five years?”

“Wait, but isn’t Lansat the nerd house?  Why-“

“There!”  Kyle dived for the terminal the video was playing on, punching the pause button.  Sure enough, someone was taking the red and gold Lansat banner.

“Okay, so that’s their vice president, but does anyone recognize the two with him?”

“Oh hell no, that’s one of the pointy bastards!”  Apparently Neil did.  Half the group seemed similarly upset, while the other half (the half that doesn’t regularly hang out with the battling club, Eric noticed) was similarly confused.

“Okay, okay, see these guys?  This -“ he indicated a mousy-looking boy with ridiculous round glasses “-is Connor, and this-“ a short girl with brown hair “-is Lynn.  Not only did they practice with the club for a year or so, they’re also /fucking insane./  If they’re in on this… well, we can beat them but they’re not exactly pushovers.”

“I can tell Benji but I really don’t think it’s a problem - there are only a few of them who practiced with you guys.”  Kyle stood, stretched and headed for the door.

“Yeah, probably!”  Neil slumped back into the couch with a huff.  “Eric, you were asking why we’re interested in the nerd house.  You probably saw last year’s doomsday plot on the news, right?  Did you hear about the Lumiose U. students who got mixed up in it?  Well, a bunch of them were actually from Lansat.  Someone figured there might be trouble and a bunch of them started practicing with us beforehand, so these are, like, combat nerds.  But like Kyle said, just a few of them isn’t going to stop us from winning - the people who usually play individually do more scouting stuff than fighting.  It means we can’t just pick one up to help us with info like we usually do, but we’re gonna be fine.”

—

On Benji’s advice the majority of Vertress avoided direct conflict for that first afternoon.  With a tentative alliance with Denier against Scimitar already in place the smart thing to do was to sit back and wait for other alliances to make themselves known, while scouting the situation as much as possible and keeping themselves secure.  Picking off stragglers was of course another strategy that Eric got to see firsthand on his way back from class: a group of five with tags strung on cords of Vertress green wasn’t in danger, but the lone student from Starf was another story.  Being jumped while rounding a corner is never a good start, and her Vivillon barely managed to turn to face its attacker before the Fletchinder pummeled it to the ground in a blur of orange feathers.  As the group picked up the pace and walked past Kyle edged closer.

“Another thing we might’ve forgotten to mention, see that?”  The girl was handing both her tag and her Pokemon’s to the other student, while the bird propped up the butterfly as it straightened its wings.  Neither Pokemon looked significantly worse for the scuffle.  “Fights aren’t too serious, and if you don’t think you can win just hand over the tags.  There are all these rules about battling, but War fights almost never turn into knock-down-drag-out messes.  Leave that stuff to the League - Neil’s going to say otherwise but unless it’s something huge just don’t bother.”

“…Okay.”  Eric pondered this new information and decided he’d probably be alright - while he wasn’t as much of a battling enthusiast as some of his dorm mates, he knew a thing or two and both of his Pokemon were trained.  Between Growlithe’s power and Furret’s speed he’d likely be able to hold his own against most of the contestants.  “So if you yield when you don’t think you can win, what about things like that Lucario at the opening?”

Kyle grimaced.  “Yeah, the people who have stronger species or fully evolved Pokemon tend to be a bit OP, both because of the Pokemon itself and the amount of training it usually takes to get there.  But here’s the thing: this isn’t the League, so official format doesn’t apply.  Get three Psychic-types, even weak ones, and a bit of cover and you’d win that matchup.  Also if you can get the trainer their Pokemon are automatically out, so there’s always that trick as well.”

The main doors of Vertress Hall swung smoothly open to admit them, the pair of Watchog stationed behind the desk popping up to chirp a welcome as the group headed for the elevator.  By the time they arrived at the main common area on the second floor it had already begun to fill up as people returned from classes and wandered in.  Someone had rigged the main television screen to cycle through the stats on the War web page, and the bulletin board had a few notes tacked to it - by the look of it not much had happened yet but a sprinkling of early casualties that Kyle assures him is normal.

-

Almost exactly two days later Neil barreled into the floor lounge, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Guys, it’s happening!  Scimitar just took out Starf, get your asses to the second floor now!”  There was a split-second pause before everyone dropped whatever they were doing and bolted for the door.  Eric took a moment to glance out the window - there did seem to be some kind of commotion across the quad where Scimitar, Denier, Stave and Chalice were clustered.  By the time he reached the entryway there was quite a crowd pushing towards the elevator, so he joined Kyle in hammering down the stairs instead.  They actually managed to beat the elevator crowd to the already crowded common area.  As the last stragglers from the sixth floor squeezed in Benji broke from conferring with several other seniors over a Holocaster to leap onto one of the tables at the front of the room.

“Hey, everyone!”  The hubbub quieted almost instantly.  “You’ve probably heard by now, but Scimitar House just took Starf’s banner!  As best as we can figure from our scouting and from what Denier is telling us, they pulled a sneak attack with some of their best people and got out with the banner before Starf could stop them.  However!  It looks like this wasn’t planned too well because it was a huge mess going off, and according to the site updates just coming in they lost a few of their heavy hitters doing it - probably got trapped inside after they got the banner out.  So since it’s still chaos over there, we’re going to move in with Denier backing us up and see if we can get them while they’re disorganized.  Battling club upperclassmen and floor chairs, get over here; third, fifth and sixth floors organize to hold the fort and everyone else to Dan to organize scouts and backup.  Move!”

They moved.  After some yelling Dan managed to sort his crowd into some passable groups - some to keep an eye on the situation and keep the raid leaders informed via Holocaster, and others (Eric and Neil included) stationed around in pairs or trios to prevent escapes or interference.  Eric waved to Kyle and his scouting group as they unlocked a side entrance to slip out, aiming to loop around to the back of the dorm area.  His group, on the other hand, made for the back exit and took a meandering route that ended with them loitering on the grass in front of Stave Hall.  With the bulk of two buildings between them and Scimitar there was no real way to tell what was going on, but twenty minutes into their watch a muffled hubbub went up.  Neil’s grin stretched from ear to ear, and even Eric’s Furret paused in his romping to prick his ears towards the commotion.  An abrupt decrease in volume signaled that the action had likely moved indoors.

Nearly half an hour passed uneventfully, with several people or small groups moving by on what seemed to be normal business before trouble finally reared its head.

“Ah shit, get ready get ready get ready-“

Neil’s mumble signaled the approach of three students, one accompanied by a Litleo and the other two with balls at the ready.  Judging by the direction they came from these were from Chalice, exactly the possibility their little group had been stationed to prevent.  Eric’s Growlithe and Neil’s Furfrou were already putting up an intimidating front, and as Furret bounced to join them Eric saw the third member of their group fall back and discretely start messaging.  All according to plan, then.  He swallowed his nerves and joined Neil behind the Pokemon.

Evidently their would-be adversaries weren’t expecting resistance, because the sight of the Vertress cadre was enough to give them pause.  For a few tense moments both groups settled for glowering at each other over the patch of grass, but before the situation could escalate the staredown was interrupted by screams and yells from the direction of Scimitar.  Everyone craned their necks in an attempt to see the source of the noise, an effort soon rewarded by the sight of a victorious mob breaking around the corner and streaming across the quad with Scimitar House’s banner held high.  The Chalice group conferred briefly before making an about-face and jogging back the way they came, and right on cue their Holocasters pinged a message to return.  Neil whooped and bolted off towards home with the other two at his heels.

-

With Scimitar out the alliance with Denier was quick to fall apart, so the next three days or so were whiled away with a series of skirmishes.  The fall of two dorms in quick succession made the survivors cautious: other than a low rate of attrition little happened until a commotion late at night drew most of the population to the windows.  By the light of the lamps and Pokemon attacks a rapidly escalating scrum could be made out from the windows of Vertress - none of Eric’s friends were foolish enough to add themselves to the fray, and it wasn’t until midmorning the day after that they learned it had started with Chalice somehow managing to ambush a scouting party from Indigo and ended in utter chaos.  One of Neil’s friends from Indigo, whom they had found tag-less and disgruntled, was more than willing to gripe about the mess.

“-wait, they sent how many people?”

“Heck if I know, it was too dark, but definitely at least twenty.  I mean, the guys who got caught almost managed to hold out until we could get over and save them, but then it just turned into a disaster ‘cause we had no idea there were so many.”

“Did anyone actually win that or was it just casualties all around?”

“Pretty much that, but since when does Chalice have their shit together enough to attack anyone?  Like sure, anyone would go for jumping a small raid if you catch them out, but /how the fuck did they know?/“

Maybe Chalice had gotten lucky, or maybe they had managed a rare display of initiative and competence.  Either way the shambles had left them in disarray and Indigo substantially weakened.  Suddenly the game had changed: as the other stereotypically battle-oriented dorm Indigo were usually the strongest challenge to a Vertress victory, but losing so many fighters early in the game meant that the strongest opposition appeared to be Denier.  At a meeting that night, pooling information and hearsay from everyone revealed that Denier and their neighbors Chalice seemed likely to scrap it out in the near future.  Indigo was disadvantaged but far from out, and other than repelling several incursions Lansat had made no visible moves whatsoever.  Benji concluded that Vertress was solidly in the lead and suggested everyone play the caution game and not be caught out while tensions across the quad boiled over.

-

This assessment was proved disastrously wrong roughly thirty hours later.

“I’m going to kill Benji, he said they’d off each other.  DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THEM OFFING EACH OTHER TO YOU, THEY’RE ALL IN HERE.”

Perhaps all was a bit of an overstatement, but it certainly felt like it.  The entire back courtyard of Vertress was a massive brawl, with the attacking forces wearing tags on ribbons of both Chalice purple and Denier gold.  The huge attack had resulted in the few guards still on duty losing control of at least two of the courtyard doors, and by the yelling echoing up the stairwell as Eric and Neil hammered downwards as fast as their feet would carry them at least some of the invaders had taken full advantage of that fact.

“At least most of the upperclassmen are near the banner ‘cause they’ve been plotting-“ Eric huffed, doing his best not to fall headlong down the stairs.  He would have liked to take the elevator, but Neil had pointed out that the elevator lobby was too close to one of the open doors and would likely just get them ganked.  Sometimes living on the fifth floor sucked.

“Yeah, but we’re gonna lose a lot of people if we don’t get organi- AAUGH!”

Opening the hall door was apparently a bad idea, as it had caused something to come launching at them like a purple-furred cannonball.  Neil peeled himself off the wall and hurled himself into the hallway Pokeballs first before anything else could come through.  Eric managed to fumble out his Furret’s ball despite being sprawled over the bottom few steps, but his Growlithe extricated himself from the tangle first and leapt baying up the stairs at the marauding Purrloin.  He scrambled through the door after Neil as much to avoid the hissing, barking ball of fur rapidly rolling towards him down the stairwell as to provide backup.

“-get out, get out, they just came in behind us!”

The Purrloin’s owner (a scout, Eric realized as he caught the barest glimpse of more figures fleeing around a corner) was already backpedalling down the hall with Neil and Furfrou in hot pursuit.  He tossed the ball he was clutching and his Furret took off like a fluffy rocket as he scrambled to catch up.  Rounding the corner he nearly ran headlong into Neil: both parties had apparently realized that there were only two defenders against an invading party of five, and even the sight of a tousled Purrloin and a Growlithe dangling a tag from its mouth making their way to the standoff did little to change the interlopers’ growing confidence.

Just as it seemed the tables would be reversed once again, a stairwell door further down the hall banged open and a brightly-colored something exploded into the middle of the opposition with an enraged squawk to slam the apparent leader’s Graveler into the floor.  More Pokemon followed to leap into the brawl, and Neil yelled in glee: a Mienshao, a Manectric and an extremely irate Hawlucha could only mean that the cavalry had arrived in the form of the upperclassmen.  Sure enough, once the fray died down a bit they could see that Benji, Dan and Mark had moved to block the hall while most of the remaining Vertress fighters poured out of the stairwell behind them and beelined for the courtyard.

The hallway invaders, soon confirmed to be the last of those trying to fight their way inside, surrendered quickly and handed over a mix of Denier and Chalice tags.  With the failure to take the banner and the arrival of the rest of Vertress’ forces the attacking alliance was beaten back without too much in the way of casualties, though with the loss of most of those on guard at the time they would have to play more conservatively than was usual.

On the bright side, the original prediction did in fact come true roughly a day later as Chalice took advantage of the heavy losses incurred attacking Vertress to backstab their way to Denier’s banner in short order.

“Oh, now they off each other!”  Neil scoffed.  “They couldn’t have done this before like would have made sense?  It’s not like they really had a chance at getting us anyways!”

“Pretty sure not doing what we want them to is the point.”

“…Fuckers.”

—

“As funny as it would be to watch everyone else fight it out, we need to start making moves.  If we keep eating attacks like what happened last night, it’s not going to help us win and is going to get us worn down eventually.”

The smaller group clustered around a table in the second floor lounge mumbled agreement.  If they wanted to win they needed to take the initiative and start attacking again, but doing so blindly would be worse than staying put.  To Eric at least the path forward seemed obvious: Indigo was wounded but still formidable, while Chalice was weak but far enough away that a large attack would leave their banner exposed.  The only target that made sense was Lansat, so he said as much.

“Well yeah, but if they’re so easy then how are they still alive?”  The junior whose name he didn’t know turned to Benji.  “We know that both Scimitar and Chalice attacked them trying to pick up a kill after Starf went down but that apparently didn’t work.”

Benji huffed, scrubbing at his eyes in annoyance.  “That may actually be part of the problem.  Starf went down very early to a sneak attack, meaning most of them never even got involved in that fight.  They still have their tags, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they went next door to help out.  I know they’re mostly contest coordination majors and the like but they’re good enough with Pokemon that that would give Lansat an almost useable fighting force.”

“I don’t know about that, but we’re going to have another issue.  I was talking to a buddy of mine from Scimitar about what actually happened when they went in.”  Eric was no longer surprised by Neil’s apparent ability to have friends in every possible place.  “They tried the whole surprise attack with a lot of people thing, and got partly hung up on how twisty Lansat is on the inside.  So a bunch of them make it up to the lounge where they have the banner, but if you’ve ever been there you know it’s just this one long narrowish room with a few couches and tables and that one huge chair.  You could hold that place against a mob with one person if you had the right Pokemon.  Long story short, unless we take out her majesty the king we’re not getting that flag.”

“…Urgh.  Of course.”

“I think I’m missing something?”

Kyle glanced up from where he’d flopped forwards onto the table.  “Right, you weren’t here last year.  Remember how I said that people with stronger species tend to be kind of overpowered in War?  Specifically anything hard to take down even with numbers on your side.”

“Yeah.  What’s he got then?”

“/She/ is apparently the one defending the lounge, and the joke is that she’s the king because she’s got an Aegislash.”

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Yup.”

“Granted it’s not that powerful as far as Aegislash go because she doesn’t really battle competitively, but that still means that as far as War goes it’s a broken piece of shit.”

“Well, there’s only one Kyra and she can’t be in that lounge all the time, so our options are to either sneak in when she’s not there or try and draw her away.”  Dan drummed his fingers against the tabletop.  “They’re not dumb enough to send their last line of defense out to deal with anything short of everyone coming after them at once, which is the kind of overextending we can’t afford.  But we’ve got birds, and Laure from the third floor has a Meowstic-“

“-and with that window directly across the hall from the lounge, the flyers see in and the Psychic relays the information.  Good idea!”  Benji’s grin was slowly returning.  “We get everyone we can spare to stir up some trouble a few buildings down to get some of their people out of the way, sneak in with a small force and get the banner.  I’ll call a meeting tonight.”

—

Their lucky break came a scant day later, when the relay team found the only guard in the banner lounge dozing off late at night and glimpsed the Aegislash roaming a second-floor hallway overlooking the back entrances.  Upon closer inspection, the sleeper was explained by Kyra’s apparent effort to actually be there all the time.  (Neil informed them that for Lansat in general and Kyra in particular, screwed up sleep schedules and locations were entirely normal.)  A chance to try taking the banner was tempting enough on its own, but possibly catching Kyra and thus taking the sword out of play was entirely too good to pass up.  The group that scrambled out the door as fast as their legs would carry them called back to report a perfect success a few minutes later: approaching the front door in plain sight had resulted in a skirmish that was steadily drawing out Lansat residents as they slowly retreated.  When Benji led Neil, two juniors, two other sophomores and Eric to the back door they easily muscled past the lone Chatot guard and slipped inside.

“Well.  That’s one theory confirmed.”  Eric held up the Chatot’s tag for examination: the ribbon it was strung on was Starf’s pale green.

“Good to know.  Let’s keep moving; we’ve got to get all the way up.”

Other than a few close calls with roaming residents and getting turned around in the bowels of the old building twice they made it to the fourth floor with little incident.  They found the hall was deserted, moonlight from the large window cutting a silvery swathe across their path directly into the silent room.  Peering in, Eric saw that the only other light came from a lamp by the incongruously huge, cushioned chair at the head of the room where a single shape slumped, evidently sound asleep.  The red-and-gold Lansat banner was dimly visible on the wall behind the chair.  He signaled the rest of the group forwards.

As they edged into the room Neil’s Furfrou moved ahead, snuffling at the air and turning a wary eye over the dark forms of old couches and tables, but the area remained strangely devoid of any kind of life.  Soon enough they reached the great chair.  The juniors whose names Eric still didn’t know took up a position further up the long room to keep watch between them and the other two out in the hallway.  Benji’s Hawlucha hopped onto one of the armrests as its master and Neil approached, Eric trailing uncertainly at a slight distance.  Neil scooped up the book the sleeping girl had dropped and reached out to shake her shoulder.

“Hey.  Hey, Kyra, jig’s up.”

There was an almost comical gap of several seconds between being nominally awake and managing to process the situation.  Kyra made an abortive grab for the plain ball on the table next to her, realized that the move would have to go through a posturing Hawlucha and pulled back to glance around her.  Eric could almost see the gears turning in her head as she counted off five enemies before standing up with a sigh, one hand scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes while the other fished a tag on a red ribbon from a pocket and held it out.  He let out the breath he’d been holding in a silent huff - they’d apparently managed to get the drop on one of the strongest fighters in Lansat, and were likely about to make off with the banner to boot.  Sure, they’d been lucky, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Neil, however, was.  As he moved to take the proffered tag something must have caught his eye, because he abruptly changed tack to grab the girl’s wrist and push up the sleeve of her light jacket.  To Eric her bare forearm looked completely normal - no bracelet, hidden tag, holocaster or other device.

“Neil, what-“

“What are you, and where’s Kyra?” Neil gritted out, doing his level best to glare a hole through the girl.

She blinked for a moment, then sleepy confusion twisted into a smirk that was just a little too sharp.

“Sorry, but ya fucked up!”

Something was definitely wrong with that voice, but the shocked Vertress squad didn’t get to ponder it as the skinny dark-haired girl blurred around the edges before collapsing into something much smaller.  The Zorua darted, still cackling, between their legs and zipped out into the hallway.  Benji swore and scooped up the Lansat tag it had left behind  as the darkness around them came alive with the sounds of encroaching Pokemon.  They began edging back towards the entrance, but any hope of escaping unscathed was shattered when a rasping noise issued from the blackness beyond the lamp’s little puddle of light and something opened a blazing eye off to the side of the now-vacant armchair.  There had been no way to secure all the entrances and comb the entire place with only five people in the room, and now they were going to pay for it.

“Shit.  All of you get out, now!”

Benji shoved his way back towards the head of the room, his Gabite erupting from its ball as Hawlucha sprang to the ready.  Eric spared one final glance to see several Pokemon (a Sentret, a sparking Dedenne, maybe a Glaceon?) emerging from behind the couches as they raced out of the room.

The hallway was little better.  They had time to glimpse more Pokemon and two trainers emerging from doors at the ends of the hall before the lights abruptly cut out.  Neil whipped out his Holocaster and pulled up a screen at maximum brightness, grabbed Eric’s arm and bolted down the hall.  Somehow they managed to duck through the dark shapes barreling forwards, though yelling behind them indicated that at least one of their allies had not been so lucky.  Neil nearly overshot the staircase in the dark but one of the others with them caught the mistake and they all scrambled through.  They’re on the fourth floor; the exit has to be down.  Down they go.

They made it all of one floor before they found the stairwell barricaded with a pile of furniture.  Eric took a moment to shove at the table nearest to them, but it wasn’t budging and the cacophony of screeching and howling pursuing them seemed to be drawing ever closer.  The last straw was something (probably a spider Pokemon, though all they saw with their makeshift lights was a flicker of many-jointed legs) began spraying strands of sticky webbing from a gap in the furniture.  The group, now reduced to four, turned and fled the stairwell.

From there on it was a mad dash through winding hallways from staircase to staircase.  They hit dead ends twice and it seemed more Pokemon were waiting to ambush them and raise the alarm at every turn.  Strangely enough they barely saw any trainers, and while everything they encountered would be easily dispatched in a straight fight the constant threat of more defenders converging proved enough to keep them on the move - down, always down, trying to find a way out around the barricades and locked doors that had suddenly sprung up everywhere.

-

“I think… I think we might have lost them.”

The older student appeared to be right: Eric could barely hear the racket of their pursuers.  There was still one problem, though.  “Does anyone know where we are?”

“Hang on, the floor’s concrete.  Are we in the basement?”  Neil was taking pains to keep his voice low, but it echoed slightly.  A quick glance around revealed no windows in the hallway they were sneaking along.  The girl leading the party tapped at a pipe jutting from the wall where another hallway joined theirs from the side.

“Yeah, definitely basement- oooooohh shit.”

Eric joined her in turning his Holocaster light down the side hallway and immediately wished he hadn’t.  Several sets of eyes reflected the weak glow back from shapes crouched low to the ground.  Neil and and the second junior caught up and added their lights, revealing the shapes to be a Skitty and two Linoone.  What might have been more small Pokemon were faintly visible further down the hall, but in contrast to the instant alarm cries they had been met with on the upper floors these were all content to stare in silence at the four invaders lurking at the intersection.  Silent, that was, until another sound interrupted: a rhythmic clicking tap, as of something hard striking cement.  Footsteps.  Neil’s Furfrou bristled and backed up until it was pressed against the wall, teeth bared.

The older girl chose this moment to finally figure out the Holocaster’s flashlight function, flinging a tiny bubble of light outwards.  The flash caught yet more pairs of eyes, in both directions along the main hallway.  Their owners were quick to fall back to the dark before they could be clearly identified with the scurrying movements of yet more small, weak Pokemon, but a few panicky glances revealed they had more problems: the source of the weird clicking footsteps was coming into view, pacing forwards with a deliberately measured step.  It almost looked like a human in cartoonish armor until it drew close enough to enter their little circle of visibility with a tapping of cloven metal hooves, revealing itself to be a ‘mon Eric had only ever seen in televised League matches.

“Uuuh.  Hi Notch, how about… don’t tell Connor we were here?  We’re just on our way out, no trouble or anything-“

Even with feeble digital light catching ominously on the wicked curves of far too many blades, the Bisharp’s look of pure exasperation at this fresh bit of inanity was enough to send Eric into slightly hysterical snickering.  It stopped just out of striking range and made a questioning noise, wrist blades sliding smoothly out of their slots.  With the Pokemon behind it edging forwards and more coming into view behind, the message was clear:  surrender?

“Heh, okay, guess that was a bit of a reach- RUN”

Neil broke left with his Furfrou and Eric followed, Furret pouncing from his shoulders to help bowl through the few Pokemon blocking their way as they sprinted for all they were worth.  The two juniors sprang off in the opposite direction and rapidly vanished back the way they had come.

“-hah- been here before once, should be -hah- a side exit somewhere around here- Got it!”

Eric skidded to a halt as Neil doubled back abruptly to grab at an almost invisible door set in a shallow alcove.  Tearing it open revealed a narrow staircase, which they raced up as fast as their aching legs would allow to burst out into the cool night air through what looked to be an unused side door and beeline for the safety of Vertress without a single glance back.

The full extent of the damage didn’t become apparent until the rest of the ill-fated expedition trickled back in.  The two they had lost on the fourth floor had been cornered by a Gengar and those who had tried to flee with them had been outmaneuvered and cornered by the Bisharp in the basement, but the worst shock was Benji returning sans tag (“I met the sword, it went pretty badly.”)

-

“But do you have /any idea/ how fucking upsetting it is to be hunted down in the dark by a pack of perfectly coordinated shitmons?!”

“Neil, you don’t need to yell.”

“He’s right though, it was goddamn impossible in there.  Pokemon all over the place in twos and threes, couldn’t stay still without getting piled by all of them at once, barricades in the stairwells and halls and they must have thrown the breakers because the light switches stopped working.”  Eric huffed.  “I don’t know about nerds, but those guys should run a haunted house.”

“Well it’s a pretty good strategy if you think about it, no?”  Kyle was taking an academic interest in last night’s train wreck, much to Neil’s annoyance.  “What you’re describing is pretty much a Bisharp’s normal hunting strategy, but with other allied Pokemon instead of a set of Pawniard.  Plus, leaving the trainers out of it means they get to pay attention to other things /and/ an attacker can’t take out the Pokemon by targeting them.  Neil, come on, this is interesting and we could learn a thing or three from it.”

But Neil wasn’t listening anymore, his gaze fixed on something over Eric’s shoulder.  “Guys, did anyone let their bird out alone?”

Kyle and Eric turned to join him in staring out the window.  In the skies above the quad two shapes were darting back and forth, a long-winged bird trying to angle towards Vertress while another sporting the unmistakeable four thrashing wings of a Crobat did its best to cut it off.

“One way to find out.”  Fumbling the latch open took a few moments, but Eric soon succeeded in flinging the window open and leaning out to wave.  “Hey!  Over here!”

“Whoa, what’re you doing?”

“It looks like it’s trying to come here, right?  Maybe it’s one of ours or from someone friendly.  If not, there’s three of us and one of it and we get a free tag.”

“Neil, he’s got a point- here it comes!”

High above the bird feinted, then jinked around the lunging Crobat to fold its wings and plummet into a dive that would have done a Talonflame proud.  Try as the bat might to catch up there was no arguing with that kind of momentum, and as Eric leaped back from the window to clear a path it seemed certain that the unfamiliar bird would crash.  Feathers clipped his arm as it whipped past, flaring its wings abruptly to spin to a perfect landing that sent papers blowing across the room.  Kyle scrambled to slam the window shut in the pursuing Crobat’s face.  It snarled for a moment, four wings churning the air, before breaking away to head for a nearby rooftop.  They watched it go, then turned as one to examine their visitor.

The bird was unfamiliar to Eric, sleek and blue-black with a crested head and a red V on its white breast that nearly swallowed the red ribbon with its gleaming tag.  The long pointed wings were folded neatly over its back, tips crossed over a deeply forked tail as it twittered a greeting.

“What is it?”

“A Swellow.  They’re really common in Hoenn, but we have some of them here.  Muraille Coast, right?”

Neil, however, was eyeing the bird with a look of dawning comprehension.  “…Guys, I think I know how everyone’s been getting the drop on everyone else this year.”  He gestured at a piece of folded paper taped to one scaly red leg, which the Swellow obligingly held out to him.  Once relieved of its burden the bird fluttered to a nearby chair back and settled down to preen its feathers.  Neil smoothed the sheet of lined notebook paper flat on the table and began to read.

“‘Indigo will be attacking Chalice early tomorrow evening.  They’ve lost enough people that there will barely be any home guard.  The side door facing Orange Hall is the one that their scouts come and go through, so be careful with that one.’

Son of a bitch!”

“If this is true we can get Indigo tomorrow!”

“Yeah-“

“No!”  Now it was Kyle’s turn to look horrified.  “Neil- you said this is how everyone’s been getting information they wouldn’t normally have.  And it makes sense, right?  The Lansat people who usually play deal in scouting and information because most of them just aren’t set up to battle.  So when did we start seeing things like that?  Chalice.  Strong individually but they can’t organize worth a damn, so they usually go out early, but this time they manage to jump an Indigo scouting party when Indigo usually has all the cards-“

“Which just means that /if/ it was Lansat, they’re backing someone else like they always do, just as a group instead of individually!  You’re making a huge deal out of nothing; they picked a side - they even helped set up that joint attack on us, isn’t it obvious?”

“Yes, but just step back and think!  All of those fights, and what happens?  Chalice goes in against Indigo but does it when there are reinforcements close enough to come out and stomp them, /after/ both sides lose a lot of people in a messy chaotic fight.  Chalice allies with Denier to catch us off guard, and not only do they get us and themselves shredded in an engagement they realistically had /no chance of winning/, they’re so mad at each other that they go at it among themselves afterwards.  Don’t you see?  Nobody wins!”

“Whoa, wait up.”  Eric held up a hand.  “You’re saying that we know almost for sure that Lansat’s been feeding everyone information, but you think they’ve purposely been setting people up to fail.  And you guys told me that they’re mostly bad at fighting, and normally don’t compete as a dorm… so that makes sense, right?  If they’re trying to win by doing nothing but defend that would be stupid, and they can’t outright fight for it so… they’re trying to let everyone else do the fighting for them?”

“-shit.  Shit!  You guys are right, between that crazy deathtrap inside Lansat and all the murder that’s been going on outside, they might just pull this off.  I don’t think they’ve been in a single fight other than pushing back invasions.”

“And that’s why we can’t just take their word on the Indigo thing!  If they’re trying to force a large scale fight between the two strongest contenders, the best way to do that would be to play both sides.  I will bet you everything I own that another bird went or is going to go to Indigo telling them we plan to attack while they’re out killing Chalice.”

“So what the fuck do we do?”

“/We/ don’t do anything, we take this to Dan, tell him what we just figured out and see if the upperclassmen have any bright ideas before anyone makes a move.”

“Thank you, Eric, for having a brain.”

-

After nearly an hour of heated debate the conclusion was that going all in for another sneak attack while Indigo was (in theory) distracted would likely be a terrible idea, as would allying with Chalice temporarily.  As they currently outnumbered their enemies (52 to 43 for Indigo and 19 for Chalice as of the last site update), the plan was to attempt to force Indigo to split their forces by harassing both the dorm and possibly the attack party while leaving just under half of their number to guard Vertress.  The worst case scenario would see them turtling until Chalice fell and counting on superior numbers to deal with Indigo in a head-on fight.  If it came to that victory would be ugly but certain, as Lansat couldn’t hope to hold out against a sustained attack.  Eric decided that he would much rather stay with the home team and keep watch with Kyle, though Neil had evidently not had enough excitement and went with the raiding party.

It turned out that coordinating the operation from afar via Holocaster gave a much clearer picture of the situation as it developed: rather than try to organize solely by calling each other on the fly the various groups would call one person in Vertress, who acted as mission control and called the info out to whoever needed it.  As one of few computer science majors in Vertress, Kyle was a natural choice.

<-there it is, they’re going in, we picked off two people but most of them are bunched too close together.>

“Okay, fall back but stay in the area to keep an eye on them.  Let us know if they start coming back out.”

Eric peered at the map his friend had rigged, a scrolling message window and beacons representing registered Holocasters overlaid on the campus.  “We don’t seem to have anyone near the side door by Orange, do we want to fix that?”

“Dan, want anyone on the door Lansat mentioned?”

<I don’t think so; anything from that note is suspect but I’ll have the people on that side of the building keep an eye on it.  There are people trying to bait us into the lobby so we’re at a standstill here.>

“Okay.  Laure says they got two off the attack party and Chalice is getting wrecked hard, so…”

<Got it, we’ll try and get a few here but unless they manage to take huge losses I don’t think we’re going to get them.>

“Ugh, this is stu-“

<Hold that, back of the building just called.  There were four of them and they just got in a brawl with some defenders, lost but they took five plus a few Pokemon with them.>

“Okay, that might be good, I’ll keep you posted.”

<Laure here - Kyle and Dan, shit’s fucked, they’re coming out of Chalice! We’re bugging out.>

A few tense minutes later, a text message scrolled up on the projection:
[Len] my teams still in bushes, not every1 heading back
[Len] looks like u scared them, less than 1/2 of what went in running back towards home
[Len] still fighting inside

“Oh boy, this is it-“  Kyle scrabbled in the clutter on the table for his Holocaster and mashed the broadcast button.  “Dan!  What’s headed back isn’t the whole raid, Len says it’s just part of them probably trying to defend!”

<Good job, it worked!  They probably think we’re out back since we haven’t been pushing front too hard - everybody head over to the side.  If they go in the Orange door jump them as they open it, if not just get them as they go by.>

As it turned out the relief party was only ten strong, and did in fact make for the Orange side door.  An 8-versus-10 ambush went in their favor, by which time Dan had ordered the home team to send some reinforcements of their own to take advantage of the open door.  The defenders camping the main lobby abandoned their positions and rushed to the fray, resulting in a messy engagement with surprisingly few Vertress casualties.  By the time the remaining Indigo students made it back with the Chalice banner Kyle and Eric were leaning out of the window to watch the Vertress crew tearing across the quad with a deep blue flag.

-

This, of course, left Lansat as the Donphan in the room.  Dan had messaged the defeated dorms to share their suspicions about the tips, which had resulted in much cursing and some of those who still had their tags offering to pitch in.  As a result of the many large, messy battles this number was depressingly low.  Still, Vertress and miscellaneous survivors against Lansat and Starf in an actual fight was a battle they could win.  Equally certain was the fact that simply piling in would be ugly and pointless, given that Lansat’s defenses had held up against three attacks by battle-oriented dorms.

For four days they focused on picking off people who left the dorm for any reason, managing to bring the number of defenders even lower.  On the fifth day one of the Indigo survivors messaged Dan with the news that several of the Lansat upperclassmen had headed to the academic buildings, Kyra and Connor among them.

“This is perfect, he even said they had their Pokemon, while they’re away we can go in and-“

“NO.  We’ve learned our lesson about invading Lansat when we think they aren’t ready.  If they left the dorm they have to go back to it; we get them in the open with superior numbers on their way back and /then/ we try for the banner while they can’t help.”

“Awesome, time for some regicide.”

“Neil, shut up.”

-

By the time their targets were seen leaving a lab building late in the afternoon several small groups were loitering inconspicuously on the snowy grass or on the steps of their respective dorms.  Eric fidgeted nervously; he had been placed directly between main campus and Lansat, on the principle that one group heavy on smallish, sturdy Pokemon could stall and look like a winnable fight long enough for the real heavy hitters (those who remained, at any rate) to close distance.  The Lansat contingent seemed oblivious, bantering as they moved along the main path at a brisk walk.

“-it’s all because he got hooked on League of Legendaries!  Our wireless is crap, so he’s gone and rigged himself a wired connection.”

“Yeah, and I know the sockets are toast, but did he really need to rip it off the wall and throw the cables everywhere?  He’s got one running from the mess in the lounge all the way to his room!  I’m a bio major and I can do better than that!”

The real Kyra did in fact look exactly like the Zorua’s impression, albeit much more awake.  Even at this distance he could make out something huge and metallic strapped diagonally across her back, the viciously serrated point of it nearly scraping the ground as she walked.  Between that, the Bisharp trotting alongside Connor and the ragtag crew of six ‘mons roaming around the group it looked like a good portion of Lansat’s heavy defense was about to be caught flat-footed.  He glanced at his Holocaster, where a group message from Dan had blinked onto the screen.

[Dan] watch out for the floatzel and the flaafy, and whatever you do don’t let them get their backs to the fountain
[Dan] Good luck

“Yeah, but bio major in the Sycamore lab means you get told to do everything he can think of so you’re probably like half an electrical engineer anyways.”

“Lies, I can’t fix the translator to save my life.”

“Speaking of which, is that thing on the fritz again?  Ben should look at it but he’s been too busy being mission control.”

“Eh, I’m thinking we need to replace the processor before we even try-  Uh.”

The group ground to a halt, warily eyeing the Vertress party suddenly blocking their path.  Mark stepped forwards, his Mienshao bristling beside him.

“You’re surrounded and outnumbered; we’re going to win if there’s a fight but if you surrender it doesn’t have to happen.”

Kyra glanced back at where the last few of her friends had turned to face the second group approaching from the rear.

“How about no.”

Before the words had even left her mouth the Floatzel waddling beside a blonde boy jetted forwards as though propelled from a cannon, all spraying water and snapping teeth.  Eric managed to snatch his Growlithe out of its path and dashed left, trying to get some space to maneuver as it lunged into the Krokorok behind him.  Both sides of what was rapidly becoming an uncontrolled melee were spreading out as best they could, the Lansat crew doing their best to stay within striking distance of each other while their attackers closed an (extremely loose, misshapen) circle around them.  Casting about, Eric saw that a Scimitar student had beaten him to Kyra - Dan had said that between Furret’s agility and Growlithe’s fire he should be able to at least keep her busy for a few moments until backup could arrive.

The Scimitar Lairon pawed at the ground and bellowed.  Kyra tensed to dodge, and what he had taken for some sort of straps or harness around her torso unravelled into black and purple.  The Aegislash swung itself free, a great gleaming blade the size of a man with a hilt like a crown trailing an ornate round shield, and as the Lairon lowered its head to charge the long late afternoon shadows streaking the quad blurred to life in a blindingly fast strike that left the iron-armored lizard pinned to the ground.  A blue-furred blur nearly grazed him and Eric backpedalled furiously to let the Indigo contingent sprint by, Luke yelling furiously.  His Lucario beelined for the Bisharp, who managed to land one solid blow before getting bowled head-over-hooves.

Eric scrambled to try and get eyes on his intended target again, finding them just as the trapped Lairon snorted and went limp.  His Furret zigzagged forwards, scrambling up the Lairon and springing off the its back plates to attack as it heaved itself to its feet and turned to leave.  Kyra danced to the side just in time to avoid quick paws grabbing for the tag looped onto her coat, the Aegislash cutting off its attack on yet another incoming trainer to smack the offending furry noodle away with the flat of its blade.  It rolled a few times, blinked up at the point of the blade hovering a foot from its nose, and flopped over backwards with a dramatic squeal.

“Okay, now!”

Eric and his Growlithe had finally gotten within range, and a gout of flame splashed out to score a direct hit on the hovering blade.  It screamed, a high singing note that seemed to be felt rather than heard, and swung its shield forwards in time for the second blast to wash harmlessly off patterned bronze.  He took an involuntary half-step back as it turned that uncanny pale gaze on him with shadows seething around it, feeling the cold beginnings of panic and /this was a bad fucking idea/ welling up.  Reading facts out of a book did little to prepare one for just how huge and intimidating nearly six feet of towering, malevolent greatsword was in person.
Before anything could happen a howl echoed behind him and a snarling Mightyena rushed forwards to hurl itself against the shield, snapping at the blade slotted behind.  The ghost spun to fling off this fresh threat and Eric drew in a sudden breath as a crushing weight seemed to lift from his chest.  His Growlithe whimpered, tail untucking itself from between its legs, and a quick glance around revealed that as the furthest of the waiting groups arrived the tide of battle was turning.  His Furret squeaked cheerfully as it passed him, squirming off the battlefield on its back like an extremely odd, fat snake.  He rolled his eyes and rushed forwards once more - the Aegislash had moved out of view but maybe he could help someone else?

“Eric, look out-!”

If the insanity that was War had taught him anything, it was that when someone sounded that upset it was best to get out of the way.  He skidded to the side just in time to miss a weak bolt of electricity crackling through the air - judging by the bleating rising above the cacophony of yelling and other Pokemon cries the Flaafy Dan had mentioned was somewhere nearby.  Sure enough a few seconds of searching revealed a fluffy pink blob flinging electric shocks, the number of disgruntled and incapacitated Pokemon laid out around it proof of the warning’s relevance.

“Bolt, get ‘em!”

Speaking of Dan, he had rushed up just behind his Manectric as it bounded to engage the Zangoose defending the electric sheep.  As it closed distance the arcs of electricity flying off the Flaafy began arcing to the wolf’s bristling coat rather than their intended targets, setting it crackling with excess charge.  With the coast cleared momentarily Eric dashed in to cut the Flaafy off from its defenders, Growlithe barking and huffing flame at his side.  The beleaguered sheep glanced around it at three trainers with Pokemon moving in and bleated nervously.

“All right the- WATCH IT!”

The Breloom that had just crashed through and nearly bowled over both the Flaafy and one of the attackers continued its charge, making one final bounding leap to smash into its quarry.  Unfortunately for it Sneasel were hellishly fast, and the sudden lack of target meant it kept going and skidded into the middle of a particularly messy-looking cluster of fighting.  A panicky squawk and the telltale /paff/ of a tail pod emptying itself, and people and Pokemon running around instantly became people and Pokemon running away from the rapidly growing cloud of spores.  Some made it to clear air, coughing or covering their faces.  Some didn’t - a Breloom’s spores, while wholly nonlethal, are one of the most potent soporifics known.  Through the clearing haze something caught the watery winter sunlight.  The Aegislash darted back into view, but rather than attacking again turned back to where Kyra was emerging from the dusty cloud.  For a moment it seemed that she’d made it out and they were in for yet more insanity, but then she missed her footing and stumbled, managing two more staggering steps before tripping into the snow.  She didn’t get back up.

The Aegislash spun to hover over its fallen human, blade turning this way and that to menace the enemies slowly approaching as the last of the spore cloud dissipated.  It drew the flat of its blade across its shield with a hair-raising rasp of metal on metal.  Eric’s Growlithe huffed flame and snarled.  Someone yelled; a Dodrio jeered somewhere to the left.  That seemed to give it pause - it pulled back slightly, raising itself up a bit higher and spinning slowly to take in yet more foes closing in and the last of the Lansat students either down or looking for a way out.  The single glowing eye blinked, then slowly the blade lowered itself out of an attack stance to lay down its shield and settle to the ground in a clear admission of defeat.  One sash snaked around to unloop the tag from the prongs on its hilt and toss it lightly outwards.

The explosion of whooping and cheering was cut short by a window on the third floor of Vertress being flung open.  At only a block or so’s worth of distance the commotion inside was faintly audible, and any confusion as to what exactly was going on was quickly eliminated when a student, glasses hanging from one ear, appeared and heaved something long and deep green out before being yanked back inside.  The banner’s slow flutter to the ground was arrested by a screeching blur, the Swellow snagging it with both sets of talons as it leveled out from its plunge.  As it pumped its wings and clawed for altitude a Swoobat and a Noctowl swooped out of the trees between the buildings, taking up a loose formation around it to guard against the students from the battle on the quad already racing desperately back.

“…No way.  No way, the rest of us should be getting their banner!  How are they attacking us?!”

“Doesn’t matter, just run!”

Eric had never been much of an athlete, but even as his faster classmates outpaced him he could tell with a growing sense of horror that they weren’t going to make it.  Few of the attacking party had flyers or something that could strike at an aerial target reliably, and none of those or any help from further in field were going to close distance in time.  But once again (and really, how many times was this going to happen?) something feathered plummeted from the heavens - this time from high above rather than from a rooftop hiding place.  Under normal conditions a Swellow would have flown circles around a Braviary, even  in an attack dive.  Hauling a banner that probably weighed almost as much as it did was not normal circumstances, and it was a testament to its agility that the huge raptor’s first grab missed entirely.  The second didn’t.  The warrior of Unova’s skies had the bulk and power to simply bull through both defenders and slam Swellow and banner both to the ground, screaming all the while.

Just as it seemed things couldn’t possibly get any crazier, yet more shouting erupted as the front door of Lansat House slammed open.  The raiding Vertress party streamed out with red-and-gold banner trailing behind them, only to stop dead in uncomprehending shock at the scene that greeted them.  Those who had been in the fighting on the quad were strung out between the path where it had all started and Lansat, a pile of green banner and Swellow adorned the lawn just outside with a Braviary perched atop shrieking abuse at an owl and a bat, several students were chasing a hysterical Breloom across the quad and further back people were helping or carrying the many casualties towards Medical.  Almost every window on the adjacent dorms had at least one person hanging out of it.  They probably couldn’t have made it look worse if they’d tried.

-

Later it came out that the group aiming for Lansat’s banner had made their move a little after all of the lurkers had made it to the quad battle for a bit of a late start, but had moved very quickly once inside.  Their main difficulty had actually come from the fact that Lansat, as one of the oldest dorms, was a veritable maze at the best of times rather than from any kind of defense.  The wrap up (“-and that’s it for stats; they’re all online anyways.  Long story short almost everyone ended up dead, Lansat are conniving bastards, Hoenn derps and Unova saves the day!  Good job, everyone go home!”)  was nearly as chaotic as the fighting had been, as at the time that Lansat’s banner was taken the Vertress banner had actually been outside the dorm.  While technically a banner had to be brought inside another dorm for elimination, the unprecedented near-double knockout and the fact that almost everyone on both sides had been knocked out by the end of it led to the outcome being listed as a Vertress win solely on the grounds of both the Lansat and Vertress banners eventually making it inside a full four hours after the quad battle and Vertress having eleven survivors to Lansat’s five.

It took Neil and some of his battling club friends chasing down the Lansat group afterwards to finally get to the bottom of things.

“So, uh.  Yeah.  We did kind of set everyone on everyone else.”

“Except for Starf, we had nothing to do with that.  Probably the only reason they were willing to help us - well, that and they don’t really like any of the jock dorms.  Probably thought it was hilarious.”

“That was pretty much it, yeah.”  The Dedenne perched on the speaker’s shoulder meant this was probably the Ben Kyle had mentioned.  “I heard them laughing about it a lot over the radios.”

“Wait, radios?”

“Well… it’s been less of a problem this year since everyone’s still walking on eggshells, but it’s not a Holocaster.  Not like they were where we were getting information anyways.”

“Aw, c’mon guys, even with a load of small fast ‘mons you can’t have-“

“Not happening, the rest is magic.  You want to hear about how we knew things, for starters try being more careful about leaving all those screens in your HQ on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Neil huffed.

Connor snorted.  Ben sighed, pulled up the overall War roster and scrolled through it for a moment before turning it to show a particular entry, a Lansat House freshman from Kanto.   A deft flick brought up his two registered Pokemon - a pair of Porygon.

“Aw hell no.”

“Homework; do it.  Anyways, you were asking about the whole mess out there?  Basically we tried to base race you.”

“But you were down to like thirty people tops!”

“You’re right, of course.  The raid probably thought they were all hiding, but actually there was almost nobody in Lansat when your people showed up.”  Ben was smirking ever so slightly.  “We weren’t really expecting you to get lost that badly, but it given how it went that’s just as well.  Turns out that those big bulletin boards are large enough to make an entire doorway just vanish.”

“It had gotten to the point where you were picking off too many people to let it go on - the longer we waited the weaker we’d get and eventually you’d just storm in and take the place, so we had to force a fight as soon as possible and guarantee that most of your guys would go for it.”  Kyra shrugged.  “Put all the big flashy threats out in the open, and there you go.  Half to get us, half for the banner and almost nothing at home.  Only six of us actually out there getting mauled, so with everyone else going on the offensive the numbers in Vertress would actually favor us.”  A slightly pained grimace.  “Almost worked, too.  If we’d been a little more active trying to wear you down early we might have gotten away with it.”

“…You guys are evil.”

Connor’s grin threatened to split his face in two.  “Hey, we set a new record for highest body count in a game of War-“

“Is that really something we should be proud of.”

“Shut up, your majesty, it was your idea.”

“-and when’s the last time Lansat - hell, anyone but Vertress, Indigo or Scimitar - came that close to winning?  Not in enrolled memory, for sure.  Maybe it’s not gonna happen again for a while but you can bet people’ll be on their toes the next few years.  Kind of wish I could be around to see it.”

“Yeah, after what we pulled next year’s going to be ugly for Lansat, but I’m betting that people are going to get a bit more creative.  See you guys around?”

“Yup!  You guys should start coming to battle club again!”

“Heh, maybe, if that bouncing mushroom’s there I have a bird ready for it!”

Neil waved after the retreating Lansat crew, then turned to Eric.

“So.  Next year?”

“Let’s do it.”