“Am I even human?”
Bruno stared at his bloodied Champion with trepidation, his eyes bleary, body weak; his team lay scattered and wounded around the bare-knuckle warrior, and to all that was holy in his world, Bruno prayed that their hearts still beat. Never had they encountered an enemy so powerful - never had they been so utterly devastated in battle.
"I don’t know what you are," the Fighting-type expert growled, his voice filled with gravel and anger. "I wonder if you were ever human, boy. Or what should I call you? If you’re not human, you can certainly be no man. A god, do you think?" he chuckled, but it was dry, hollow. "You are no god. You’re nothing but a demon." And now he laughed, each outburst more maniac and insane than the last. "And I am no angel. I can’t defeat you! One of the longest serving Elite, and I couldn’t win! Amazing!"
His body shook with his words; his muscles were so weak from battle that any lesser man would have collapsed long ago, but Bruno was no normal man. His body, once so perfectly shaped and bound, was bruised and stained red with the blood of his team. He noticed the burns running along his forearms and remembered Hitmonlee throwing himself before his master, his body disintegrating beneath the savage light of Dragonite’s Hyper Beam.
"I couldn’t win," he said to himself, the fresh memory of Hitmonlee’s death sobering his frenzied mind. The gravity of his failure began to sink in. He realised, as he stood in the centre of the ruined battlefield, that there was no chance his Pokémon had survived. Bruno was alone. His strength hadn’t been enough, and he had nobody to blame but himself. Guilt blossomed in his mangled heart.
"Finish your foul work, damn demon. End this, because I promise you - the very second I stop drawing breath, the countdown to your demise will begin. Not all of the remaining Elite are loyal to you. You’re nothing but a mad king, and tell me, you utter fool, can you name a single mad king that lived? Your fate is sealed."