The march to a mountaintop was brutal and unforgiving, the cold and dangers of an uneven path enough to claim many lives. There were no straight roads to the top, no paths that didn’t involve pain and discomfort in some ways. If one expected such it was better to not even attempt the climb at all. It was better to remain down upon the ground with everyone else, to have the mountain loom on high and watch as the clouds were scraped by it. For those that attempted the climb there were those that could emerge victorious. And those that could not. 

Four battles before the end. That was what Dawn found herself faced with. Four hard battles before the final fight. Before she could stand atop the mountain and look back at all the sacrifices that got her here. All those lost upon the mountain path that was her road to the Elite Four. Heartbreaking losses, fallen and dead companions that had all given everything they had to see her to this point. When she stood before the doors it was almost as though she could feel the weight of all the lost behind her. 

Her team was by no means perfect. The red and white spheres around her waist held the best she could scrape together in this situation. The best of her remaining pokemon with the best chance of seeing her through the end. Gravely the Dusclops, Answer the Abomasnow, Lucky the Hippowdon, Kicks the Medicham, Mudball the Quagsire, Plane the Togekiss. A team that was by no means planned from the start, one that had come about by pure chance and the whims of fate through her journey. Yet these were the companions that had to see her through the end. 

The first battle went well, not a single loss suffered. Aaron’s bug types were crushed by the party that Dawn had assembled. She had walked with hope in her breast, that perhaps, perhaps she could do this. Perhaps she could emerge from this uphill battle with a win. She had moved on to Bertha and found hope was given reason to pause as Answer was absolutely smashed into the ground. A pit opened up in her stomach. Answer was her only sure plan to deal with the Champion’s trump card. In a single moment it was snatched from her, though the rest of the battle was defeated with ease. 

With a heavy heart, Dawn had continued on from the loss. This was it. There was no turning back now. Once she had entered this gauntlet… it was win or lose. Flint fell with ease to Mudball and Lucky, smashed by earthquakes and crashing waves. Which left Lucian, the only thing between Dawn and a battle against Cynthia herself. Which led her to her current situation. To the current state of affairs. 

“Ah… ha…” 

There was a numb feeling in her head and a wide pit in her stomach as Dawn was on her hands and knees, fingers curled upon the ground. Lucian’s team had fallen… but joining them were four bodies. Lucky, Kicks, Plane, and Mudball. All fallen upon the ground in the room where a fierce battle had taken place. Her hands were shaking as something was sinking in. She was right there, RIGHT there! And now. Her eyes turned to the only remaining sphere at her side. The only member of her companions to come with her this far. Gravely. What a fitting name she had chosen for him really. 

“You’ve bested me, now only the Champion awaits.” Lucian said from across the way, his tone clipped and to the point, slicing through the mourning girl’s thoughts. 

The sound of the doors behind him sliding open could be heard. It was a joke really. To have come this far and now. Now the Champion awaited her. Cynthia. She had worked with the stunning blonde to save the Sinnoh region from Team Galactic. The woman had helped her in places along her journey to the top. Dawn had envisioned a final climactic battle where she pulled out everything she had to defeat Cynthia and unseat her as Champion. Now, as she staggered to her feet and shuffled her way past a silent Lucian, she looked at the bodies of her fallen one last time before walking through the doors. There was no turning back. There was only the march forward. To inevitability. 

She looked terrible. Her hair was frazzled, her hat torn to shred and gone. Her clothes had singe marks upon it and her body bore bruises here or there. Yet the pain was numbed. Every step she could feel like she was simply going through the movements. Like she was a ragdoll stepping toward doom. She stepped upon the platform leading to where Cynthia was, rising up slowly and reflected. Reflected on everyone that had gotten her here. On every loss. On how it was all wasted. How it didn’t matter in the end. Because she wasn’t good enough. It was her and Gravely.

Dawn stepped off the platform and shuffled her way toward the doors ahead of her, watching as they opened up into a vast room. An arena where Champion and Challenger could unleash everything they had. Standing across the way was Cynthia. The tall blonde was dressed in black, like she was attending a funeral. There was a smile on her face but it didn’t match the edge of her eyes as they beheld her. It felt like she was tumbling into those eyes as they stared at her. 

“Have you been keeping well? Thank you for Mt. Coronet. And for the Distortion World. I’m truly grateful.” She started. 

Dawn managed to essay a tired smile. “As well as can be. And it was nothing, anyone would have done the same. I mean, I live in this world too.” The battered training managed a weak chuckle. 

Cynthia offered a wan smile. “Together, you and your pokemon overcame all the challenges you faced, however difficult. It means you triumphed over any personal weakness, too. The power you gained over the journey however… I can feel it is smaller now. Battered. Beaten. A shame. I would have liked to sample it. Fully.” 

The words stabbed at Dawn’s heart. She would have liked for that as well. She would have liked nothing more than that. She could feel the disappointment of the woman across the way. Even having shed all her weaknesses, Dawn couldn’t measure up. It was like a cosmic joke in a way. She opened her mouth to respond but Cynthia cut her off with a sigh, as though preparing herself. 

“But enough about that. Let us move on to why you came here. As the Pokemon League Champion, I accept your challenge!” She said, pulling one of the red and white spheres from her side and tossing it out before her. 

A burst of light saw the emergence of Spiritomb. Dawn would have had an answer to the dark and ghost type before but that was past hoping for now. She took a deep breath and stood up straight. If she was going to lose, it was going to be facing down Cynthia. She came this far. She overcame all those trials. This was at the peak of the mountain. She sent out Gravely, the pokemon of both trainers staring each other down as their masters locked eyes. 

It was over in a single exchange. There was no chance that Gravely could beat Spiritomb. He went down hard and fast from a burst of energy from the eerie Spiritomb. With that, the last pokemon that Dawn had fell. Her knees buckled under her and she collapsed to them. That was the battle. That was all it took. Not even a scratch on Cynthia’s team. Not a hair out of place on her head, while Dawn very much looked the part of a defeated challenger. 

Heels clacked upon the metal floors as Cynthia walked toward Dawn, the blonde carrying some touch of regret in her eyes but also a trace of disappointment. The trainer before her was beaten with an ease that barely warranted thought. Dawn felt the world spinning around her, felt like she was going to be sick. She wanted to sink into the floor. Wanted to just jump off a cliff after all of this effort being effortless ground to paste under Cynthia’s heel. 

Flawless black heels entered her vision as Cynthia stopped before her, the dark clad blonde standing over Dawn with her hand on her hip. “A loss is a loss, unfortunately. I trust you know what that means.” 

Of course she did. When she had stepped through the doors she had known there was no going back unless she won. Dawn looked up at the looming full figure of the blonde. Flawless in every way, her eyes regarding her with a detached emotion now. Because she knew what was about to happen as well as Dawn did. 

“Yeah. Yeah I do. Sorry I wasn’t good enough.” 

“So am I.” Cynthia said with a sigh. 

There was a sensation that clawed at Dawn and started tugging her downward. The girl moaned in pain as she gripped her stomach. She doubled over and felt the world was spinning around her, like everything was becoming a blur. Her head was fuzzy and was having trouble keeping her grip on reality. Between the heartache of her loss and the knowledge of what was coming she found herself in a wave of vertigo mixed with the new sensation assailing her body. She squeezed her eyes shut and just wanted the feeling to end. 

It did. It slowly faded away and Dawn opened her eyes. When she did she found herself on a vast cold metal plane. It was an alien landscape and when she looked before her… she found her mouth went dry from the sight. Vast black monoliths, gleaming ever so in the light, towered far above her pitiful battered form. Flawless and without a fleck of dirt upon them. Her eyes traveled upward along black pants and far up into the heavens. A form that one could only call godlike towered and loomed before her, a shadow cast that swallowed Dawn up in it. 

To call Cynthia massive compared to Dawn at the moment would have been an understatement. Dawn had faced down what many might consider a god and even that monstrosity didn’t come close to one tenth of what Cynthia was at the moment. This was the mountain. Cynthia was the mountain she had tried to scale and now that she was before her, it was clear as day to see the difference between Dawn and Cynthia. 

The blonde ran her fingers through her hair as she gazed down far below at the tiny ant sized form of Dawn before her. Her eyes were cold and detached. Businesslike in a way. She was looking at Dawn unlike the times before. There was no warmth or kindness to be found there, just the resolve to do what she had to do. To give Dawn an ending. For that was what this was, Dawn had lost and this was her end. It was over. All of it. 

“I’ll make it quick.” Words boomed down from on high, their volume striking Dawn physically as they echoed through what felt like her whole body. 

This was the end. This was her end. Not in victory or even after giving it all, just crushed with the ease as one might have destroyed an insect! No! Dawn found that terror rose up and replaced any hope of dying with some dignity. Not like this! Not after everything she had suffered! Not after every trial! It couldn’t just end like this!

“Wait, please! Come on, this is too much! It's too cruel!” Dawn managed to find her legs and tried to run. She really tried. With every ounce of her body she ran as fast and hard as she could but to Cynthia she might as well have been moving in slow motion. 

There was a grand thunderous noise from on high as Cynthia sighed. “Those that aren’t prepared to fall should never attempt to climb in the first place.” She boomed out. 

Dawn ran but she noticed the shadow over her was getting deeper, darker, swallowing her up in the inky darkness. Her heart was pounding as she dared to look back. A mistake. Her feet ended up getting tangled as her breath caught in her throat. She was sent falling to the ground in a heap, staring upward in terror as her body refused to move now. Turned to jelly by the sheer enormity of the sight. 

A single black sole of a flawless heel was lifted up over her. The shadow of it consumed where Dawn was. For Cynthia she didn’t even lift her leg for a stomp. She just shifted a foot forward and idly lifted her shoe. It was more than enough that no matter where Dawn ran now, the ant sized trainer wasn’t escaping. It was the same level of effort it had taken to defeat Dawn in battle really. 

“No! No, no, no! Please, wait stop! Not like this!” Dawn screamed out as loud as she could. 

There was no response from the woman on high. At least not verbal. Dawn managed to get out one final scream that was gruesomely and chillingly cut short by the slightest motion of Cynthia just putting the full weight of her body into a step. Not a stomp, a simple setting of her foot down upon the floor and just from that she could feel the body of the defeated challenger completely crack and pop beneath her shoe. It was nearly instant really, as pitiful as that was to say really. Ended under but a single step. 

Cynthia twisted her foot on its heel, her shoe sliding to the side and leaving a tiny thin red streak upon the floor. That and the stain upon her otherwise flawless black shoe was all that was left of the challenger. Not even recognizable anymore, simply squashed out of existence with ease. The blonde champion let out a weary sigh as she finished her grim duty and stepped away from the stain on her floor. 

“Truly a shame. I had hopes for you but… well. That is that.” 

That was the end of Dawn’s run, the end of her climb. Not a defeat of dignity or a victory hard fought. Instead a humiliating death fitting of an insect. Crushed beneath a woman she had no hope to defeat, she was not alone in that company. If only looked closely at the floors of Cynthia’s chamber one could perhaps make out the faint stains of past defeated challengers. Really, Dawn was just one more mark on her floor and that was her legacy.