My name is Gloria. I’m the Champion of the Galar League—pride of her region, battler par excellence, and a living legend who emerged from an unassuming young adulthood after coming of age to become the hero who ended the Darkest Day and revealed the truth about the ancient heroes of Galar. I am counted as one of the most talented and respected battlers in the entire world.

And right now I’m stranded on a snowy mountain; alone, well-bred, my belly so packed full of foals I can barely even move.

I didn’t exactly plan this.

It started out so simple—a vacation south of my hometown to the Crown Tundra, a land famed for its desolate snowy beauty. Legends say that a pokemon who ruled the whole region as king kept the tundra as the seat of his power, but I never put much stock in such tales.

Until I met the king, that is.

His name is Calyrex, and quite frankly, he’s a complete oaf. When I did something as simple as put seeds in a bag he acted as if I’d moved the moon. And despite once being powerful enough to keep the whole land bountiful and rich, he now struggles to grow a single bloom.

But I agreed to help him regain his lost stature nonetheless—the first unwitting step I took towards my current state.

He had a steed, once; a horse-like pokemon of immense power which terrorized the ancient tundra and made off with crops until Calyrex brought it to heel. We summoned it back once again, and I’ll admit, even a Champion like me gave pause. The legendary was enormous, almost twice the size of a young woman like me; a coat as white as fresh-fallen snow, hooves and tail clad in icy armor, a mask of the same resting on its brow.

I knew that it was an ancient legend, but I thought my team ready for it.

In fact, I was unprepared.

Glastrier (for that is what the legendary pokemon is called) rolled over my team. I expected it to dash away, make off with my food, or attack the nearby settlement—but it had something else in mind.

The equine charged me before I could even blink, hoisting me onto its back and sending my poke balls scattering into the snow. As I wailed in shock, Calyrex, watching from the sides, sent a telepathic urge to me:

“Ah, do be careful, my young friend! Glastrier wasn’t just feared in ancient times as a pillager of crops—the reason I was ultimately called to tame it was because it would make off with young women and have them bear its young!”

Well, that was news to me. “It would WHAT?!” I screamed, though I don’t know if Calyrex heard my indignation. The moment Glastrier had me, we were off, swallowed by a blinding flurry of snow, and Calyrex and my poke balls were left behind.

Glastrier’s powers immediately shackled me to it in a cuff of ice, making escape impossible. I could only sit along for the ride as it led us a merry dance across the tundra, eventually ascending higher and higher and deeper and deeper into the mountains.

The whole time I was turning over my options in my head. This was decidedly Not Good. Finding my way back would be a problem, given how effective my captor was at twisting and turning to disguise its route; furthermore, hiking back what was looking to be several dozen miles in frigid conditions with neither supplies nor a team would amount to suicide.

To say nothing of the thing’s intentions towards me, if Calyrex was telling true. Damn that little rabbit… deer… thing. It’s one thing to fight a powerful creature expecting to get roughed up a little if you lose—it’s another entirely if you know the stakes are getting knocked up with its offspring! I probably wouldn’t have agreed to help if I’d known that going in.

After climbing even higher and making it through a warren of snaking tunnels, we made it to the high peak. Set into it were gorgeously decaying ruins; even then, I could scarcely appreciate them. I was shuddering from the cold and almost heaving for breath for how thin the air was.

Glastrier stopped and unceremoniously dumped me on a makeshift bed of thick hay, the cuffs crumbling into powder. I curled up against myself to protect from the cold, teeth chattering as I fought for air.

Regarding me for a moment, Glastrier pawed the ground with one heavy icy hoof, and then—

I felt ambient power wash over me, settling deep into my pores and my bones, and suddenly the cold was gone and I could breathe just fine.

Legendaries, huh? Is there anything they can’t do?

I didn’t have much time to reflect on Glastrier’s gesture, however, as the humongous horse tromped over to me. Reaching down with its mask, the unicorn-like protrusion at the end caught my clothes…