The Path of Destiny

[Scytherwolf]

The Path of Destiny
Chapter 70 – Leap of Faith

“Blazefang, run,” Wildflame hissed to the other houndoom, who was frozen in shock.

“But, Wildflame-”

“Go. Get out of here,” Wildflame whispered, her eyes on the approaching pokémon. She could already see flying types, part of the smaller group ahead of the rest of the army pokémon, soaring above the rocks nearby. “Before they see you.”

Blazefang only hesitated a moment more before he turned and bolted. Snowcrystal wasn’t sure where Wildflame expected him to run. She, Rosie, and Nightshade huddled in the shade of a rock, Wildflame right beside them. It was a pitiful shelter, and they each knew that it was only a matter of moments before they were spotted.

“What do we do?” Rosie whispered. “Do you think the others can see them from the arch, or-”

“I don’t know.” Wildflame’s voice wavered. Her eyes followed the form of a tropius as it shot over their heads, but only for a few seconds before it swerved back around in their direction.

As it did so, the houndoom caught a brief glimpse of a pokémon riding on its back. An espeon that was looking right at them.

-ooo-

Blazefang didn’t chance a look back as he raced between the rocks, keeping to the shaded areas. He knew that Wildflame’s desperate plea was all but pointless; there would be nowhere for him to hide once he reached the open desert again.

Blazefang noticed a shadow pass over him and skidded to a halt, huddling beneath the nearest rock. A pidgeot flew past him, but its attention was on something else – he hoped it was one of the other flying types – and it turned away without noticing him.

The houndoom pressed his body against the dirt, trying to make himself as small as possible. He knew it was futile; what he needed was a place to hide. He began to wish, for the first time, that Thunder was there. He would be safer around her, as weird as he knew that would have sounded to him before.

He tried to calm his rapid breathing as he huddled in the shadows, his tail curled around his body. He knew that the grey bands on his back and his curved horns would stand out easily, as would his red muzzle, and he had no way to hide them. He watched as several more flying types headed closer, and closed his eyes, ready to hear them call out or feel stinging pain from an attack.

But what he heard next was not the cry of a mighty bird. It was a scream, a scream he recognized, and it was coming from Rosie. The houndoom shot upright, hearing the shouts of the others he had abandoned, and the cry of another pokémon, a pokémon with a voice that sent chills down his spine. Solus.

Blazefang had hoped never to hear the espeon’s voice again, but he could only watch as the flying types all stopped what they were doing and turned around, heading back to the spot where Blazefang had left his friends.

His body shook. He hardly dared to believe that his enemies had passed by without seeing him. Yet at such a cost. He wasn’t sure the rest of the group waiting at the arch would be able to hear the flying types from such a distance, and now that he could see some of Solus’s pokémon landing, he knew his friends probably wouldn’t be able to spot them either.

Blazefang wanted to run for help, to find the humans and tell them that Rosie and the others needed help. Yet the thought of running into the open desert alone, and vulnerable, filled him with dread. He was scared...terrified...and he wasn’t sure he could will his legs to move. He knew what he wanted to do, but the thought of what the consequences could be left him rooted to the spot.

‘Coward...’ he thought bitterly, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘I’m a coward. I’m no leader. Just a...’

He felt like howling to the skies in despair. Who knew what Solus and those other pokémon could do to the little group of four, and there he was, completely useless. He knew, in the back of his mind, why Wildflame had sent him away. He couldn’t let them find him, because if he were caught, the Forbidden Attack would fall into the hands of Cyclone’s army. The thought made him feel even more useless. It was as if he was just a weapon, a dangerous weapon that had to be hidden away from evil humans and pokémon, that couldn’t even fight back, because if he did, it was only a disaster waiting to happen.

Blazefang had never felt so helpless in his life.

-ooo-

Damian felt strong winds whipping against himself and Justin as they clung to Fernwing’s back, but this time it was far more bearable, as the air beyond the cliffs was clear of dust. He gripped the pack strapped to the tropius’s back, hearing Justin give an uneasy cry and do the same, as Fernwing suddenly swerved, wheeling around an outcrop of rock that jutted from the cliffs. For a moment, they were turned almost sideways, but before they could start to slip off, the grass type righted herself and shot off, her wings spread wide as she soared over the plains below, the wall of cliffs to one side.

Not far ahead, they could see Katie and her pidgeot, scanning the cliff wall intently. Damian turned his head, seeing several small caves dotting its side. Instead of being up by the arch with Arien and the rest of the pokémon, he and the other trainers had decided to search for clues, flying low and level with the cliff face while the alakazam tried to crack the mystery of the arch.

It had been clear upon first arriving that finding a way to activate the portal – or whatever it was – wasn’t going to be easy, not that any of them were particularly surprised by the fact. Katie had quickly decided that they would look around the cliffs for any sign of something unusual, while the pokémon stayed at the arch site.

He felt a sense of awe as he looked at the cliff face, Fernwing slowing down to give them more time to spot something. It really looked like the desert had ended in a sheer drop off, the fields below them looking quite different from the dull brown wasteland they had grown accustomed to seeing during the past several days. It was strange to think that he was so high above the plains below, yet the spot where the pokémon were waiting by the arch was somewhere far above him.

“You see anything?” Katie called out, and Damian looked to see that his friend and her mount had turned around and circled back to them. It was clear from her expression that she was trying to be patient, but it didn’t seem to be working well.

“I haven’t seen any pokémon in these caves,” Damian called back, bracing himself as Fernwing turned to circle around the pidgeot. “But if we head down to the field...well, maybe Fernwing and Ray could ask some of the pokémon there if they know anything.” He nodded to Katie’s pidgeot, and the bird pokémon dipped his head in agreement.

Katie looked uncertain, so Justin straightened himself as much as he could without losing his grip on the handhold provided by Fernwing’s pack. “We’re not getting anywhere just staring at this cliff. There’s nothing here.”

“What makes you think the pokémon here are even going to tell us anything?” Katie shouted back. “That is, if they know anything. You think the scientists looking for the vibrava colony wouldn’t have tried that with their pokémon?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Justin called back. “Why don’t we try to find a pokémon now, and go back to exploring the cliffs once the pokémon have had a rest?”

“I guess he does have a point,” Damian stated. “We might as well ask around. Arien’s still trying to detect any sort of energy around the arch. We could bring him with us when we search around these caves later.”

Katie didn’t seem impressed with their suggestions. “I’m not too sure I’d trust wild pokémon who might not want us to get to wherever that legendary is,” she shouted back.

“We don’t have to take their word for it,” Justin called. “Let’s just see what they have to say and go from there.”

Katie was silent for a moment, but she relented. “Fine,” was all she said in reply. “Come on, Ray,” she called to her pidgeot, who shot down toward the ground with Fernwing and her riders close behind.

None of them were surprised to see that there were hardly any pokémon about, as the plains very open and exposed. In spite of the fact that the ground was covered in long grass and Damian was sure he’d spotted a stream in the distance, it still felt scorching hot.

“How do you think the pokémon here feel about humans?” Justin asked Damian uneasily, unsure if Fernwing would even be able to get one of them to talk to her while they were around.

“I don’t know,” Damian answered, “but I guess we’re going to find out.”

The two flying types flew lower to the ground, scanning the area for any signs of pokémon life. Suddenly Fernwing called out, and the others turned to see the small form of a pidgey resting on the branch of a stunted tree.

To their surprise, the little bird pokémon only watched them curiously as they approached, and didn’t try to flee. He seemed to ignore the humans completely as the two pokémon – along with their riders – landed in front of him.

“Hello,” the pidgey chirped cheerfully, addressing Ray the pidgeot specifically. “You’re not from the flock. Where did you come from?”

Fernwing and Ray shot each other confused glances. “We’re trainer pokémon,” the tropius said after a moment, nodding toward the two humans on her back, who were remaining quiet and still.

The pidgey cocked his head to the side in confusion. “Those humans are with you,” he said. It was more of a statement, not a question. “We’ve seen some around here before,” he continued. “Did you come from the desert, like they did?”

“Look,” Ray interrupted, realizing that he was likely to gain the small bird’s respect and attention easier than Fernwing could, “we need to ask you some questions. You see that arch up there?” He angled his wing toward the cliffs, which now towered above them, and the distant shape of the arch at the top. “Has anything...strange ever happened around there? Maybe around when the humans came? Do you know of anyone who...vanished?”

The pidgey titled his head. He seemed at a loss for what to say. He glanced first to the pidgeot, then the tropius. Finally, he spoke.

“I’m...not sure what you mean,” he said, sounding genuinely clueless. “Pokémon vanishing? That sounds ridiculous.”

Fernwing and Ray gave each other a worried glance.

-ooo-

Stormblade paced back and forth impatiently as Arien studied the arch. The alakazam was deep in thought, still searching for any traces of energy that might have been left behind. The other pokémon, not seeing what else they could do until the trainers got back, were either lounging near the rock arch or quietly conversing with each other. Stormblade was pretty certain that Arien wasn’t going to find much; from what the trainers had said, the portal didn’t seem to have anything to do with psychic types at all. It was something else.

Arien, however, was convinced he would be able to detect something, whatever it was. Stormblade had left him to it, and resigned himself to waiting for the trainers to return.

Unlike the others, Stormblade didn’t feel tired. Only the heat of the desert bothered him, and even then, he still felt energetic, and he wanted to keep moving. When he thought back to the previous few months, most of it was a hazy blur of pain to him, but everything now felt sharp and crystal clear, and Stormblade still felt as if he could run for miles. He knew, however, that the other members of the group didn’t share his optimism. He thought, with a small bit of amusement, that they probably thought his cheerful attitude was a little over the top. He reminded himself that they weren’t the ones who had been brought back to full health after being doomed to a slow and painful death. After that, Stormblade could believe that just about anything was possible.

The scyther looked up as Arien called him over. The alakazam was motioning for him to fly through the arch again. Happy to oblige, he darted through it, taking to the air once his claws left the cliff. Just as before, he merely ended up in the air high above the plains, rather than whisked away to wherever the portal led. He landed back on the cliff edge, facing Arien. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug.

He watched as the psychic type sighed and went back to whatever he was thinking about. Some of the resting pokémon stirred, disturbed from their dozing when Stormblade had rushed past them.

“Nothing yet?” Spark asked drowsily.

“I’m afraid not,” Stormblade sighed. “But we’ll get there. We’ve still got plenty of time.”

“It should be time to head back,” Dusk muttered. The absol stood and stretched his hind legs. He, along with his teammates Todd the elekid and Inferno the flareon, had been huddled at the arch’s base near Arien. “It’s too hot to be sitting here out in the open.” He shook his head, scattering puffs of dirt from his white fur and leaned down to lick his wounded paw. “What’s taking Damian and the others so long?”

“Oh, he’s probably doing something important,” Inferno replied, standing up and sitting next to his teammate. “Just have a little patience.” He lifted his leg to scratch behind his ear.

“Easy for you to say, fire type,” Todd mumbled at the flareon. He had been leaning against Dusk in his sleep, and now, without his fluffy makeshift pillow, he stood up grumpily and folded his arms. “Maybe I should’ve stayed in my poké ball like Scytheclaw did.”

“Quiet,” Arien whispered urgently, his voice firm and focused.

Todd mumbled something under his breath.

Spark, who had been watching the trainer’s progress from the edge of the cliff, turned his head toward the group of pokémon. “Some help you guys turned out to be. Stormblade and Arien are the only ones doing any work besides me!”

“You guys aren’t doing much of anything,” the elekid protested. “We’re just sitting here waiting! Maybe we should go back and find Snowcrystal and the others, and wait for the trainers there.”

“If you want to go back, then go,” Arien told them. “But I want Stormblade and someone who can keep an eye on the trainers’ position to stay here.”

“Hey! I’ve already got that covered!” Spark shouted back.

“Relax, Arien,” Inferno told the alakazam. “Nothing’s going to happen to them.”

“Well, we’re still in unfamiliar land,” Dusk argued. “He’s right to be careful.”

“I’ll take over for Spark if he wants to go back,” Redclaw offered.

“I never said I needed anyone to take over!” Spark protested. “Come on, guys, have a little faith in me.”

Stormblade was momentarily distracted by the conversation, and didn’t notice that Alex had walked up to him until the floatzel’s paw gripped his upper arm.

“Stormblade,” the water type whispered. Her voice, usually so upbeat and chipper, now sounded worried and confused. “Thunder’s coming back. I think something’s wrong.”

Stormblade turned around, following the floatzel’s gaze as he peered out at the desert. Sure enough, Thunder was racing toward them, and she had already almost reached them. It surprised him that he’d been so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed a figure coming toward them across the desert. And neither had any of the other pokémon, who had all either been slumbering or focused on the arch and the plains beyond it.

“And, uh...I think that might be a problem,” the floatzel mumbled, moving her paw to point at something a ways behind Thunder.

Stormblade narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the shape of a second pokémon in the distance. It was further away, and much harder to see clearly, but he could recognize the species. It looked like a yanmega, but...what would a yanmega be doing in the desert? He turned toward the more familiar figure again. In her race toward the group, Thunder didn’t seem to have noticed the other bug type at all, or if she had, she didn’t care. Stormblade felt a sense of unease grip his mind. “Something’s wrong...” he whispered.

The other pokémon, even Arien, had stopped what they were doing and turned around to see what Stormblade and Alex were looking at. It was then that they noticed that there were more pokémon, the tiny, distant shapes of flying types, and they were circling downward toward a portion of the rocks, near where their friends were resting.

Each member of the group looked frozen in shock, but before anyone could start to formulate a plan of action, Thunder covered the last stretch of desert ground and came to halt right in front of them.

“Where are the trainers?” the scyther gasped between breaths.

“W-why?” Inferno cried, his fur standing on end as heat rose from his body. “What’s happening?”

“I need them!” Thunder shouted.

“Th-they’re down in the plains,” the flareon stuttered, backing away as Thunder shot a glare at him.

“Thunder,” Redclaw said gently as he stood in front of the others, who looked like they were about to start bombarding the scyther with questions, “are the others in danger? Who’s that pokémon following you?”

Thunder’s eyes narrowed, and she whirled around, noticing the shape of another bug type for the first time. It was about halfway from the rocks to where they were standing at the cliff’s edge. She figured that it had left the rocks soon after she had. Like Stormblade, she recognized the species, even at such a distance. She had seen a yanmega once before, though she had never fought one personally. It had been in one of the arenas where many pokémon were forced to fight at once, the last one alive being deemed the winner. She suddenly recalled watching the yanmega in the arena bite chunks out of a blaziken’s head before being dashed against the wall and bludgeoned to death by a steelix. She dug her claws into the dirt. If that thing had hurt Nightshade, she was ready to rip it apart.

‘No,’ she thought, shaking her head. There was no time. The pokémon was headed away from where Nightshade was, so she could ignore it. If she couldn’t reach the humans, she would need to do something else, but either way, she couldn’t leave Nightshade alone. She needed to go back.

“Are they in trouble?” Todd called, trying unsuccessfully to get Thunder’s attention. He turned to Dusk, shoving his claws against the absol’s leg. “I thought you were supposed to sense disasters!” he shouted, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

“Sure, natural disasters!” Dusk cried. “I can’t predict what other pokémon are going to-”

“Quiet, everyone,” Redclaw called out. The arcanine was tensely watching Thunder and Stormblade, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. The other pokémon gathered together, ready to come to their friends’ aid.

Stormblade focused on Thunder, realizing from her expression that they needed to take action as soon as possible. “Thunder...” he asked urgently, wanting to know what they were up against before they charged headlong into any sort of danger, “...what is going on?”

-ooo-

Snowcrystal found herself gripped roughly by the talons of a staraptor and hauled away from the rocks, then dragged back toward the open desert and further away from her friends. From the cries of her companions, she could tell that they were being treated the same way. The hostile pokémon grouped tightly around them, nearly twenty pitiless gazes fixated on her and her three friends.

The espeon, the one she knew was called Solus, was clearly leading the group, and at his orders, she, Nightshade, Rosie and Wildflame were dropped to the hot desert ground. Snowcrystal coughed, shaking gritty dust from her fur. “Nightshade?” she whispered, shakily getting to her feet so she could edge closer to the heracross. “Are you okay?”

Nightshade did nothing but shoot her a worried glance that warned her to stay quiet. For a moment, his gaze darted back toward the rocks, and Snowcrystal glanced in that direction as well.

They were out in the open, but the rocks now lay between them and the rest of the group, blocking the desert’s edge from sight. Snowcrystal didn’t know if that had been done intentionally, but out in the open and away from the boulders, it was easier for Solus’s pokémon to surround them in a tight group. Most of them were standing in front of the rocks, making it impossible for any of them to try to run toward a hiding spot.

Snowcrystal turned her gaze to the larger group of pokémon still out in the desert, headed straight for them. That part of Solus’s small army numbered far more than twenty, and once they arrived, Snowcrystal couldn’t see what hope she and her friends would have.

Her worried thoughts were interrupted as Solus stepped closer. Snowcrystal’s fur stood on end as she looked at him. Even if she hadn’t known of the terrible things he’d done, she would have been able to tell right away that this espeon was twisted. The look in his eyes as he watched them and the grin that stretched across his face when he saw their terrified expressions sent shivers down her spine.

Solus gave a dark chuckle as his paws came to a halt so that he was standing right in front of the cowering pokémon. “Well,” he began, in a voice that would have sounded jovial if the group had not been sure of his intentions, “I can’t believe it. It’s actually them. The white growlithe and her little ‘friends.’ You’re the last pokémon I would have expected to run into out here. And I’m guessing that houndour’s somewhere around here, isn’t he?”

“He’s dead,” Wildflame said before anyone could speak. Solus’s gaze snapped to her, and, without even a pause, she continued, “None of us have the Forbidden Attack. I don’t know who does. It happened in a forest and there were lots of pokémon there. We left before we found out.”

A silence fell on the group after the houndoom finished speaking, and Snowcrystal tensed, watching the faces of the enemy pokémon around her. The ones closest to them gave Wildflame suspicious looks, while some of the others seemed distracted, as if something else was on their minds. Wildflame sat tall and steady, her gaze unwavering as she looked Solus in the eye. Snowcrystal had to admire her acting. She didn’t think she could tell a lie while looking that calm.

Solus merely grinned again, giving a low, cruel sounding chuckle that grew into full laughter. “I don’t need to read your mind to know that’s a lie,” the espeon jeered. “He’s with you. I can see it in your eyes.”

Wildflame wilted under the espeon’s gaze, suddenly looking more scared than Snowcrystal had ever seen her. Though the pokémon standing in front of them didn’t look like much, they were all aware of what he was capable of.

“I don’t tolerate lying,” Solus said coldly, any hint of humor in his voice gone. He nodded toward the staraptor that had dragged Snowcrystal out of the rocks.

Faster than she could blink, the massive bird pokémon lashed out at Wildflame with one clawed foot, raking his talons across her face. Wildflame yelped and scrambled backward as drops of blood splashed across the ground.

“Wildflame?” Nightshade said weakly, turning his head to look at the houndoom. Wildflame turned toward him, showing him that although the scratches were deep, they had missed her eyes.

“Pathetic liar,” the staraptor sneered, and Wildflame closed her eyes, turning her head toward the ground.

“I don’t think I need to be any clearer,” Solus said calmly. “Tell us where Blazefang is.”

It suddenly struck Snowcrystal as odd that the army pokémon didn’t just go out and find him. She glanced to Rosie, who seemed frozen with fear, and then to Nightshade. They had no chance of fighting their way out; their only hope was that their friends had noticed something was amiss. But if help was coming, it could be too late.

Then she noticed that there was a look in Solus’s eyes, beyond the cruelty. The way he stood, tense and angry, the way his eyes flickered to the rocks every few moments as if watching for something, it all made her begin to realize...that Solus was afraid.

He was scared of Blazefang’s Shadowflare. He wanted to wait until the rest of his small army caught up, so that he could have them swarm the houndoom all at once. That gave her and her friends a small amount of time. However, she also knew that the group at the arch was too far away to hear her shouts.

“Don’t think about trying to call out,” Solus jeered. “No one will hear you.”

Snowcrystal jumped. It was as if he had read her mind, and with a chilling thought, she realized she wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t.

“What about Yenn?” a rapidash asked, turning toward Solus. Though he clearly wasn’t in charge, there was an air of authority about the fire type. A few of the other pokémon backed away from him as he stamped his diamond-hard hoof into the cracked earth.

“Look,” a zebstrika began, sounding much less hostile than the other pokémon who had spoken so far, “we were supposed to be the scouts. We can’t just go after him without-”

“That’s enough,” Solus said calmly, and the zebstrika was silenced immediately. “The others will be here soon. We’ll go after Blazefang first, then Yenn. We’re close enough that Yenn won’t reach the plains, and not even Blazefang’s Shadowflare could kill all of the pokémon with us.”

Snowcrystal, Nightshade, and Rosie looked out over the desert at Solus’s fast approaching allies, realizing that they could reach them within minutes.

Suddenly Wildflame spoke again, but this time it was not to try and deceive her captors. “Who’s Yenn?” she asked calmly, straightening up and looking Solus in the eye again. “Is he a...yanmega?”

Solus gave her a wicked grin. “He is...a friend of ours.”

Wildflame kept her gaze locked with Solus’s. “Well...why are you after him? What did he do?”

“We’re getting off topic,” Solus said. The espeon turned away from her, nodding to the pokémon surrounding the group. Several of them stepped closer, looking very ready to attack if any of the prisoners made a move. “We will find out where the houndour is,” Solus said, addressing his followers. “Then we will take them with us.” He shot a smile at Snowcrystal and her friends as his eyes examined them, taking in the details of their dust-covered bodies. “The houndoom would make a good recruit. We might be able to do something with the growlithe and the ninetales as well. As for him...” He turned his gaze to Nightshade, taking in the heracross’s pitiful condition. “I say we kill him and see if any of the carnivorous pokémon are willing to give heracross meat a try.”

“NO!” Snowcrystal shouted. As Solus turned his cold glare on her, she felt her courage wavering, but didn’t back down. “He’s...an incredibly strong pokémon,” she explained, realizing that she had to give Solus a reason to keep Nightshade alive that would be convincing enough for the espeon. “Once he’s healed, he-”

Solus narrowed his eyes, clearly wondering if he should even bother to give the growlithe an answer. After a few moments, he turned his head calmly to the staraptor. “Hold her mouth shut,” Solus instructed the large bird. “I don’t think I even want to let this one scream.” His lithe form started to pace slowly back and forth on the dusty ground. “I’m going to find out where that houndour is, whether or not something funny happens like it did with that scyther. We’ll see if she’s ready to talk after this.”

Snowcrystal felt the staraptor’s talons slam her to the ground, one set of claws wrapping around her face and muzzle and the other holding her to the ground. As much as she knew she should feel terrified, something else had appeared more strongly in her mind. It was a memory...a memory of something Stormblade had managed to tell them at one point in their journey. When the scyther had been tortured by the sadistic espeon, something had stopped Solus from getting to any information about Blazefang’s whereabouts. It had remained locked in Stormblade’s mind, out of the psychic type’s reach.

Snowcrystal didn’t think Stormblade or anyone else had thought much of it in the time that had passed since, and for some strange reason, she started to wonder about it in spite of the predicament she was in.

She was quickly brought back to her current situation when the staraptor slammed her head roughly against the ground. Even from that angle, she could see her three friends staring at her in horror. ‘Don’t be afraid for me,’ she tried to tell them through the look in her eyes. ‘Please, find a way out of here.’ She knew it was useless; she wasn’t sure how long she could stop the fear that was threatening to overwhelm her own mind, and her friends were helplessly trapped. What could they really do?

Solus’s eyes glowed as he approached the motionless growlithe, and Snowcrystal knew in that instant that whether or not he found the truth about Blazefang, he intended to cause her great pain. She could tell that he wanted to take out his frustration on her, and maybe he simply looked for any excuse to torture another pokémon. She wasn’t sure how to feel; she figured she was simply numb with shock, because as Solus approached her, she didn’t start to panic. She just felt angry at the espeon, angry that he was able to get away with the things he did, and that she was powerless to stop it.

But as Solus came closer, the glow in his eyes brightening enough that Snowcrystal knew she was going to feel excruciating pain at any moment, a voice interrupted him.

“Stop.”

It wasn’t a shout, nor was it a plea or a request. It was a demand. For reasons Snowcrystal didn’t understand, Solus turned his head toward the speaker as the glow from his eyes faded.

The speaker was Nightshade.

Solus’s eyes narrowed. “Do you want to take her place?”

Without waiting for an answer, the espeon walked toward the heracross. The rapidash that had spoken earlier slammed his hoof into Nightshade’s back, sending him sprawling forward. Solus stopped just short of the bug type’s quivering body. “Let’s see what we can find,” he began, his eyes taking on the familiar eerie glow. However, he did not unleash his psychic powers immediately, as if he was waiting for the heracross to respond, to beg to be spared.

Yet Nightshade had no reaction other than to slowly stand back on his feet again. He faced Solus with a sort of resolute calmness that Snowcrystal knew, if she were in Solus’s place, would leave her chilled. Due to his injuries, he couldn’t stand fully upright, but he met the espeon’s gaze with fierce eyes. He said nothing, merely waiting for the psychic type to speak.

Solus paused, the glow fading from his eyes. A flicker of unease crossed his face as he spat, “Do you think you’re being funny?”

“No,” Nightshade replied.

Solus laughed, glancing behind him at the distant shapes of the pokémon comprising the remainder of his army, still steadily approaching them. Then he stepped closer to Nightshade. “Feeling brave now, aren’t you? Every pokémon breaks eventually, heracross. I could make you do anything I wanted you to.”

“I was under no illusion that you couldn’t,” Nightshade replied coldly.

“Are you mocking me?” Now it was Solus’s turn to seem eerily calm.

Snowcrystal had realized that Solus was only stalling, taunting them until his allies arrived and they had a better chance of fighting Blazefang. He had only been toying with them for his own amusement, but as he stared down Nightshade, it was clear that his demeanor had changed.

Nightshade watched the espeon, thinking back to the night, months ago, when he had found Stormblade after the scyther had been tortured. At the time, he hadn’t known what had happened to him, but he had thought back to it many times since. Remembering Stormblade’s state, he knew exactly what Solus was capable of. Yet if he begged for mercy or tried to reason with a pokémon like the one standing before him, it would make no difference. He was not going to give Solus the satisfaction of seeing him terrified and pleading until the torture managed to break him. Maybe then, but not before. And if it distracted Solus for a time, maybe something good would come of it. “No,” Nightshade answered simply. “You can see that I can’t defend myself. Why do you think you need to convince me that you have the upper claw?”

For reasons Snowcrystal didn’t fully understand, this seemed to make Solus’s temper snap. Any trace of calm vanished from the espeon’s face, and his body tensed like he wanted to leap forward and claw Nightshade’s eyes out. The growlithe expected to hear her friend’s screams at any second, but when the espeon’s eyes glowed, Nightshade didn’t react with anything other than mild surprise. For one strange moment, a connection between the minds of the unwilling Nightshade and the angry Solus formed, and then Solus broke away, calling loudly enough for his followers to hear.

“Blazefang ran out towards the desert on the other side of the rocks,” the espeon shouted. “Toward the cliff. As if he had anywhere else to go.” It was clear that Solus was tiring of his own game, none of the jeering mockery in his voice. He stared into Nightshade’s eyes again, his own narrowed in anger. After a moment, the anger seemed to vanish and the espeon grinned. “I think I see something interesting here,” he began, his eyes growing wider as he delved deeper into Nightshade’s mind.

Nightshade’s expression suddenly changed from one of defiance to shock.

“Your family was killed because you weren’t there to protect them,” Solus continued, the mocking tone returning to his voice. “Some father you had turned out to be-”

Faster than any of the pokémon watching would have thought a badly injured heracross could move, Nightshade raked his claws across the espeon’s face. Solus let out a scream and stumbled backward, blood trickling down his muzzle to spatter on the ground. Nightshade felt a hoof slam into his back again, and he found himself lying face down on the ground.

Solus turned his face toward the heracross, his eyes blazing through a mask of bloodied fur. The gashes Nightshade had inflicted were deep, and had barely missed his eyes. The espeon strode forward, and it was clear that he was done trying to toy with the bug type. He looked to some of the army pokémon standing near him, who had been looking at Nightshade hesitantly, waiting for orders.

“We’ll take this one back with us,” Solus hissed. “Death out in the desert is too good for him. And maybe some real pain will make him think twice about-”

In an instant, Wildflame seemed to snap out of any fear she’d had. Ignoring her captors, she leaped forward and turned to stand between Nightshade and Solus, her lips drawn back in a snarl as she spat in the espeon’s face. “Don’t you touch him, you piece of filth!” she shouted. “And if you harm Snowcrystal again, I’ll tear you apart. You can’t hurt me with your psychic attacks, and you won’t find it so easy to get into my mind.”

Solus regarded the houndoom with contempt, but he didn’t argue with her. Instead, he turned to two pokémon, a scarred pidgeot and an arcanine with a mean looking expression. “Teach that one a lesson,” he said, giving his head a shake to flick blood out of his eyes.

As the arcanine leaped toward Wildflame, time seemed to stand still for Snowcrystal, still held against the dirt by the staraptor. She watched as Rosie fired a blast of flame at the pidgeot, only to fall to the ground jerking and twitching as a zebstrika sent a blast of electricity into her body. She saw Wildflame jump out of the way, and the arcanine landed just sort of Nightshade. Another pokémon, a talonflame, knocked the houndoom to the ground and the arcanine stopped, standing over her.

Then there was a flash of green, and the arcanine fell to the ground with a high pitched whimper. Blood seeped into the cracks in the parched earth. The talonflame looked up in surprise, but the newcomer, the same scyther who had saved Nightshade’s life in the tunnels beneath Stonedust City, hardly paid attention; Wildflame had already struggled free on her own. Instead, Thunder made a direct dash toward Solus himself.

Solus threw up a protect barrier just in time, but even still, Thunder’s blade broke through it halfway, leaving the tip a fraction from his nose. Solus scrambled backward, his eyes wide as he created another barrier. “Kill her!” he shouted. “Kill the scyther!”

Some of the bolder pokémon didn’t even need the command. A rapidash was already upon Thunder, raising his hooves as the wounded arcanine created a circle of flame around them. Thunder dodged as the hooves came pounding down, slicing the rapidash across his face and chest. He shouted with pain and darted out of the fire circle, but before Thunder could follow him, a zebstrika, the salamence, and the noivern were upon her.

Solus watched the battle as he gasped for breath, letting his protect barrier fall. A haunted look had come over the espeon as he watched the scyther do battle with three of his best pokémon. He recognized that scyther. Anyone would. More importantly, he had battled her before.

It had been at the Stonedust City Pokémon Center, before his Team Rocket masters had blown it to smithereens. The scyther had been weak and injured then, and she had still beaten him. Even as he watched, he could see that she was winning the fight; the noivern had fled with a torn wing and multiple gashes, and it looked like the other two were about to end up the same way, or worse.

Then Solus remembered that back at the pokémon center, the scyther had taken him by surprise, injured him so that he could no longer focus well on his psychic attacks. He was not nearly so foolish now, and he had grown much stronger in Cyclone’s army. He braced himself, waiting for the moment when the scyther would step through the flames and challenge him again. Enough time had passed that he was able to create another protect barrier. He watched as Thunder flew clear over the flames and bolted toward him. Now that she was within range and his mind was clear, he did what he had done to so many pokémon during his time in the army. His eyes took on an eerie glow.

From her position on the ground, where she and her friends were surrounded by Solus’s followers, Snowcrystal could practically feel the pain she knew had exploded in Thunder’s head. The scyther stopped, shrieking, and stumbled forward, thrashing from side to side as the faint glow from Solus’s psychic energy surrounded her.

Even Rosie, for all the anger she held toward Thunder, looked shocked at the sight before her. Nightshade stood up, ignoring the guard who told him to hold still. His weakened body shook, and he seemed frail enough to collapse. One of the pokémon moved closer to him, as if he believed that a wounded heracross, of all the pokémon, actually posed enough of a threat to warrant action. Nightshade ignored him, stepping forward as he shouted out, “Thunder!”

A talonflame darted toward Thunder at incredible speed. Snowcrystal’s eyes widened, expecting Thunder’s blood to be spilled upon the ground. But when the large bird pokémon came close, Thunder whipped her scythe up toward it, ripping into its side and sending it crashing to the ground. Then, slowly, she stood up...and walked toward Solus.

The espeon faltered. In all his time as a torturer, a punisher, he had watched the reactions of every pokémon he’d ever tormented with his psychic powers. Regardless of age, species, or strength, he had watched them scream, cry, plead with him...watched them claw frantically at the ground or at their own heads, or even run madly in circles. Yet he had never seen one stand up and take a step toward him. He looked to the scyther in terror, hardly realizing that most of his pokémon had frozen as well, either as startled as he was or too afraid to attack. Thunder was clearly struggling, but she was nevertheless taking step after step toward him, her eyes no longer showing pain, but anger, as she stared down the espeon. Even as he was doing his worst. ‘What sort of pokémon was this?’

“What are you waiting for?” Solus cried at the pokémon nearest to the scyther. “Kill-”

The pokémon following Solus’s orders had barely started to move before another pokémon leaped over one of the boulders, slashing at a rapidash who was standing close to Thunder. The flaming pokémon reared back in shock, and the newcomer came to a brief halt. It was Stormblade.

Stormblade only stopped a moment before he launched himself at the staraptor holding Snowcrystal captive. In the same instant, a bolt of lighting shot down from the sky, arcing over the rocks to strike a pidgeot who was making his way toward Stormblade. A moment later Spark appeared, racing for the group of enemy pokémon with the blinding speed of a jolteon.

Stormblade and Spark were not alone. Racing around and over the rocks were several more pokémon. Alex and Redclaw charged into the fray, followed by Inferno – Todd the elekid gripping the flareon’s ruff of fur – and the rest of Katie’s pokémon. Overhead, Ray the pidgeot carried Katie herself, with Damian and Justin riding Fernwing right behind her.

Alex slammed into an arcanine with aqua jet, while Redclaw targeted one of the pokémon in the air, blasting it with a flamethrower before it had the chance to swerve out of the way. Todd and Inferno separated, the flareon racing to help Stormblade and the elekid making his way to the captives. Katie’s azumarill knocked out a fire type with her water attacks, while her sylveon targeted the noivern. Scolipede appeared around one of the boulders – already curled tightly into a ball – and bulldozed into a group of Solus’s pokémon.

While chaos began to erupt all around them, Snowcrystal broke free as Stormblade took on the staraptor that had been holding her down. She made a move toward Nightshade and the other captives, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Solus.

The espeon had broken his hold on Thunder, but the scyther had been swarmed by enemies and lost sight of their leader. Solus, however, wasn’t moving. There was not a scratch on the espeon’s body, save for the gashes Nightshade had inflicted, but he was standing in shock, his legs almost faltering as if he had been wounded. It took the growlithe a moment to realize that he was staring at Stormblade.

Looking as if he had seen a ghost.

“Solus!” one of the enemy pokémon shouted, and the espeon snapped his attention to the direction the voice had come from.

He did so just in time, and had the chance to form another protect barrier before Thunder could slash his throat. Solus scrambled backward, finally overcoming his shaken nerves. This time he used his psychic attack to lift Thunder bodily into the air and slam her into the nearest boulder.

Snowcrystal watched as Todd skidded to a halt in front of the small group who had briefly been Solus’s captives. “Nightshade,” the elekid gasped. “Can you walk? We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“I...” the heracross began.

“I’ll help you,” Wildflame offered, standing next to the heracross so that he could lean on her for support.

“Thanks,” Nightshade replied wearily.

Snowcrystal was about to ask what she could do when Rosie suddenly released a blast of flame that rushed straight by her. She heard a staraptor shriek and turned to see the bird pokémon blunder away from Stormblade as the scyther fought head to head with a fearow and Inferno blasted a zebstrika with overheat. Fernwing sent a solar beam into the throng of fighting creatures and one of Solus’s pokémon cried out in pain. Large amounts of dirt had been kicked up in the air, making it hard to discern much else among the chaos.

“Let’s get off the battlefield, all right?” Todd continued, trying to usher Wildflame and Nightshade toward the group of boulders.

“Wildflame!” another voice shouted, and Snowcrystal was shocked to see Blazefang emerge from behind one of the rocks. He bounded toward the other houndoom, ignoring the pain from his wounds. “I’ll take Nightshade,” Blazefang said. “Stay here and help the others.”

Without waiting for a reply, he stood on Nightshade’s other side so that the heracross could walk with his support. They quickly headed toward the boulders, leaving Wildflame standing with Snowcrystal and Rosie.

“Well, then we’re going to cover their retreat,” Wildflame stated. “Rosie, go tell some of the others to go back with Blazefang! We can’t have them laying a claw on him or he might lose control of Shadowflare.”

Wildflame hadn’t even finished her sentence before Rosie bounded off. Snowcrystal stood beside Wildflame, ready to battle if needed, but at the moment, Solus’s pokémon were in such a state of disarray that it wasn’t necessary. Their enemies were being overwhelmed, and she could see that her own group was more than a match for them.

Rosie quickly returned with Katie’s Sylveon and Redclaw, and the three of them bounded toward where Blazefang and Nightshade had gone. Luckily, no one seemed to have thought to follow the wounded pokémon in the confusion.

Solus had been driven back further from the group, still facing down Thunder. Though his protect barriers lasted longer than those of an ordinary psychic type, they were not enough. Solus’s limber body and fast reflexes were the only thing keeping him on even footing with the scyther.

Thunder was fighting through a haze of pain; Solus had regained enough focus to continue wracking her body with pain through his psychic attacks, even as he dodged her slashes. A few of her attacks had left their mark; Solus was sporting a gash on his forehead and another on his back. Yet his eyes blazed with determination, an almost feral look of rage in his eyes.

Thunder did not slow her stride, pushing Solus back with every pace. The espeon wasn’t used to a pokémon that could power through pain like he was inflicting, and his psychic attack was weakening as the battle went on. Thunder could see, in her mind’s eye, that the espeon was trying to pull up painful memories, trying to distract her, and she might have laughed were it not for the pain lancing through her head. This pokémon actually thought he could use that to control her.

She saw a memory flash in her mind, her brutal attack on Nightshade. She paused for a moment, and Solus’s eyes blazed as he realized he’d struck something. And in that moment, the espeon paused for a second, which was exactly what Thunder wanted.

Solus saw the blade coming a split second too late. Though he dodged, he felt the scythe rip into his shoulder, sending him tumbling to the ground. Yet through some sort of determination or instinctual terror – or both – his psychic hold on Thunder was not broken. As the scyther went in for the kill, Solus threw back his head and screeched in agony, sending a psychic wave through the scyther’s body that was more powerful than any before it. It stopped Thunder in her tracks, and she stumbled back to the ground with a yell, frantically rubbing the dull edge of one her scythes against her head.

Snowcrystal heard Solus’s cry, but she couldn’t see the espeon through the swarm of battling pokémon and their attacks. Any time a pokémon came within reach, she and Wildflame fired a jet of flame in its direction. Snowcrystal could tell that the tide of the battle was turning; some of Solus’s pokémon even broke ranks and fled. As she watched a rapidash bolt back into the open desert, her heart suddenly sank.

The rest of Solus’s pokémon, the ones who had been flying after the smaller group from far behind, were now almost upon them. The closest ones seemed like they could reach them in mere moments. The growlithe heard Redclaw shouting from behind one of the rocks, and turned to see a few of her friends breaking away from the battle and running towards him. She noticed that Solus’s group was no longer fighting; they were backing up just enough to be out of attack range, knowing that the rest of Solus’s army was quickly coming to their aid.

“Snowcrystal, we’ve got to run,” Wildflame hissed in a panicked voice, angling her head toward the rocks. “We can’t fight that many. We’re going to be slaughtered if they catch up to us.”

“Run where?” Snowcrystal asked as she followed the houndoom and the rest of her allies as they headed toward the boulders Blazefang had vanished behind. “There’s nowhere to go!”

She cast a glance back at the pokémon bearing down on them. There were far more than she’d realized; Solus’s ‘scouting’ group had been tiny in comparison. ‘What on earth did these pokémon come to do out in the desert, and why?’ she thought. ‘They couldn’t have known Blazefang would be here!’

Back with his followers, Solus staggered to his feet, blood trickling through his lilac fur. The scyther who’d wounded him remained upright, but he could tell that his psychic attacks had weakened her. She had resisted his torture more than any other pokémon he’d met, but she was still a pokémon. She still had limits. And he had begun to reach them.

“Thunder!” a voice shouted from behind.

Solus’s eyes widened. It was the other scyther...that scyther. The one who should have been dead by Shadowflare burns. He watched the female scyther – Thunder – flick her gaze in his direction.

Solus created a shimmering protect barrier in front of him, staring at the scarred scyther through it. He could hear the footsteps and wingbeats of the remaining battlers from his scouting group as they gathered around him. Now that his enemy was weak, and he had numbers on his side, he knew the danger had passed. The scyther would have to be insane to attack him again now. “Run, Thunder,” he said with a mocking grin. “Run back to all your friends.”

“Thunder!”

Thunder turned her head, watching as Stormblade made his way toward her. Without another look at Solus, she turned and followed him. She knew Solus’s pokémon wouldn’t attack while she was fleeing; that would just invite Stormblade and the others to fight back. And it was clear that they were going to get a lot more help from the bloodthirsty army of pokémon that were almost within range of attack.

Thunder and Stormblade were the last to arrive as the rest of the group clustered behind some of the boulders.

“Todd, up here!” Damian called from on Fernwing’s back, reaching down and picking up his elekid while Justin helped Katie lift Nightshade onto the tropius’s back as well. Damian grabbed hold of Blazefang, lifting the houndoom up and holding him over his lap. “You can fly us all back, right?” Damian asked. The tropius gave him a worried nod. “Inferno, return!” he shouted, holding out his poké ball and enveloping his flareon in a beam of light.

“Don’t wait for us,” Katie cried to the pokémon as she returned her sylveon, azumarill and scolipede to their poké balls and mounted her pidgeot. “Run!”

The shaken pokémon needed no further bidding, and they took off through the rocks while the trainers and their mounts lifted off into the air. Redclaw lifted Snowcrystal by the scruff as he ran, following the others as they darted in the opposite direction of Solus’s pokémon, back toward the arch.

-ooo-

Dusk waited tensely near the arch, his paws aching to run. Behind him, Arien was still focused intently on finding a way to activate the portal, but the absol wasn’t convinced it would do them any good; the alakazam had so far found nothing.

Dusk couldn’t see just how many pokémon had attacked Snowcrystal and the others, but from what Thunder had said, they were pokémon from Cyclone’s army.

“Arien, it’s not working,” he cried, shooting a glance back at his teammate. “We need to find a hiding place...or a shelter...somewhere along the cliffs!”

“And just how would we all get there in time?” Arien shouted back furiously. Dusk could tell that the alakazam was stressed, because Arien rarely reacted angrily otherwise. “I need to focus. There has to be some trace of something...”

The absol narrowed his eyes as he turned away, watching the ever nearing line of flying pokémon on the horizon. There had to be at least sixty of them, and the thought filled him with dread.

Movement caught his eye, and he realized that that the lone yanmega, the one he’d first seen approaching them when Thunder had shown up, was not far from the cliff’s edge and was heading straight for them. He cursed himself for not keeping track of it – it wasn’t like it was hard to miss out in the flat expanse of the desert – and tensed his muscles, letting the scythe on his head glow a bright white before he sprung forward and darted across the dry ground, ignoring the dull pain that pulsed from his recent paw injury.

The distance between him and the yanmega closed far faster than he’d expected, determination and fury giving him strength. His red eyes narrowed. This was likely a pokémon that had slipped away from the main group for some reason, possibly to attack anyone waiting at the arch. Dusk had no idea why, but they had not come as far as they had to be slaughtered by pokémon who wanted to use the very Forbidden Attacks they were trying to put a stop to.

He reached the bug type with a startling speed, leaping up to its height in the air and slamming his scythe into its body. To his surprise, the pokémon crashed to the ground with the force of just the one attack, its wings going completely still. Keenly aware of his type disadvantage, Dusk rushed to the pokémon’s head, lowering his blade toward the yanmega’s neck. “Who are you and what are those pokémon trying to-”

He broke off, realizing that the yanmega wasn’t trying to reply, or plead for his life, or make any move to fight back at all. He looked completely limp, and even as Dusk watched him, his head lolled to the side and he weakly struggled for breath, not even seeming to notice the absol’s blade. Dusk’s eyes then looked over the rest of his body, and he realized that this pokémon was battered, emaciated, and barely alive. His scythe fading back to normal, the absol gave the yanmega a horrified gaze as he stepped back.

“...What the-”

“DUSK!”

It was Arien’s shout. The absol whipped his head back in the direction of the alakazam, who was gesturing for him to come back toward the arch. From the look of Arien’s face, however, it wasn’t because he had any good news. As Dusk looked in the opposite direction, he realized why.

In the distance, he could see the rest of his group – his trainer, the other humans, and all the wild pokémon – making a desperate dash back toward the cliffs. In the air above them, the swarm of flying pokémon were gaining with frightening speed.

“Arien!” the absol cried in a panic. “What are we supposed to do? We’re going to be killed!”

Either the alakazam hadn’t heard him, or he couldn’t think of an answer himself. Dusk shot a look at the yanmega, who had stopped moving completely, looking as motionless as if he were dead. With a pang of horror, Dusk realized that he wasn’t quite sure his attack hadn’t killed him. He shook his head as he backed away.

“Dusk!”

The absol looked back at Arien again, and toward his friends and companions, fleeing so desperately toward them. Then he made his decision.

Ignoring the alakazam’s shouts, he darted in the direction of his fleeing friends. If there was anything he could do, maybe he could help buy them time.

-ooo-

Redclaw heard shouts from the pokémon in the air behind him. He could almost feel the pounding of the hooves and paws belonging to the ones running after them. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another arcanine a ways behind him to his left, its eyes fixated on Wildflame and Rosie as they fought to keep enough distance ahead of their pursuers. He could also see a rapidash racing toward Alex and Stormblade. The only thing keeping his friends ahead at all was the fact that Solus’s pokémon were clearly exhausted. Yet even still, the gap between Redclaw’s companions and his enemies was closing.

Redclaw couldn’t try to fight the bloodthirsty pokémon with Snowcrystal’s scruff in his jaws, so he raced toward Stormblade and Alex, keeping just behind them in case any attacks came their way.

Thunder and Spark were in the lead, the trainers’ pokémon flying just overhead. Redclaw knew that their winged pursuers were likely about to outpace them, but the trainers were refusing to fly too far ahead.

Redclaw had no idea where he was running to, where they could possibly go, but he figured that once they reached the cliffs, the humans would try to find a way to get them all down. At least that way, the army pokémon that lacked wings couldn’t follow them.

Redclaw was so lost in thought, and so focused on running that he almost didn’t leap out of the way in time when the ground in front of him exploded, sending a shower of dirt raining onto the ground. Snowcrystal cried out as the arcanine landed awkwardly, almost stumbling before he found his footing again. Redclaw glanced up toward the sky, realizing that a salamence had fired some sort of attack, and it had nearly struck him.

Panic spurred the fleeing group onward, but Solus’s pokémon were closing in. Somewhere to Redclaw’s left, huge chunks of earth were sent flying into the air. Another beam struck the ground not far from Rosie, and he heard the ninetales shriek in fear.

Up ahead, Spark skidded to a halt, shooting a bolt of lighting into the air. Though the flying pokémon were well out of reach, it caused a few of the leading ones to swerve back, giving Redclaw and the others more time. The jolteon bounded forward and kept running, firing bolts of electricity as high as he could, hoping it would at least keep some of Solus’s pokémon back.

Redclaw ran as fast as his paws could carry him without leaving any of the others behind. Panic was lending the group speed; they were closing the distance between themselves and the cliffs fast. Redclaw could now make out Dusk and Arien’s forms clearly in the distance.

Dusk, however, wasn’t staying still. Instead, the absol was charging right toward them, in spite of his limp. The dark type met up with the fleeing group faster than Redclaw expected, charging past them and firing a charged razor wind attack at the front runners of Solus’s group. Redclaw heard cries as at least a few of them tumbled to the ground. Dusk turned and caught up with them, charging another attack in case any came too close. Redclaw was dismayed to see that his limp had suddenly grown worse, aggravated by his frantic dash.

The ground shook with a deafening crash; another hyper beam had slammed the earth right behind them. The shockwaves had not stopped reverberating through Redclaw’s paws before another attack hit, somewhere to his left. They were now within range of most of the flyers, and Redclaw could see a blast of flame that nearly reached Stormblade and Alex.

Dusk skidded a stop with a cry of pain, wrenching his injured paw off the ground. The absol hesitated, then turned toward his enemies.

“No!” Stormblade shouted to him. “Keep going!”

“But Stormblade-” the absol began.

“You can’t fight them! They’ll catch up!” the scyther shouted over his shoulder.

Dusk gritted his teeth and turned back around, following with the others as fast as his injury would allow. Redclaw slowed enough to be running side by side with the absol, knowing he could at least try to block any fire attacks that came his way.

“Spark!” Stormblade cried. The scyther was now almost matched in pace with Spark and Thunder at the head of the group. “Get to Arien! Find a-”

From further behind, Redclaw and Dusk had to leap aside as another attack from above came dangerously close. The pokémon following them would soon be close enough that they wouldn’t miss.

“Go ahead...” Stormblade said through gritted teeth as he glanced at the jolteon. “Find a way for us to get down!”

“Storm, we can’t make it down there. We need to activate the portal.”

“No...” Stormblade replied, fighting to speak while gasping for breath. “Get Arien, the humans...find a way...”

The jolteon shot Stormblade a helpless look before he nodded, then sped up.

Up above, Fernwing and Ray were firing attacks at the flying pokémon behind them whenever they could. Fernwing was trying to use herself as a diversion, skillfully dodging attacks blown her way from afar. It was clear, however, that if her enemies got closer, she wouldn’t find it easy to dodge them. There was nowhere for her to hide out in the open.

The arch loomed closer, and Spark, ahead of the rest, skidded to a stop within earshot of Arien. “Find a way down!” he shouted to the alakazam. “We have to hide!”

“There’s nowhere to hide! Are you mad?” Arien shouted back at him, his voice uncharacteristically panicked. Spark realized that he was hunched over by the arch, a psychic glow surrounding him. He was straining to detect anything that might give him a hint, help him find something he hadn’t noticed before.

Spark glanced over his shoulder. His friends had almost reached them, but Solus’s small army was right on their heels. “Arien, we need to get down! At least the runners won’t follow us there!” As he spoke, his eyes wandered toward the limp form of a stranger. The yanmega, lying ragged and motionless on the ground. If the situation had been less dire, he would have questioned Arien about it, but seeing as the bug type didn’t look to be in any state to attack anyone, he decided to ignore it. Whether it was part of Solus’s group or not, it didn’t matter. “Look, Arien, if we stay on these cliffs, we’re going to get killed!”

The alakazam didn’t move, and Spark gave a cry of both frustration and fear. Behind him, he could hear Dusk’s voice as the absol ran with the rest of the group.

“Arien! Activate the portal!”

“He can’t!” Spark cried back at him. Seeing the wild look in Dusk’s eyes as the absol approached, Spark realized the dark type was becoming panicked, for both himself and all the others. He wasn’t speaking rationally. “The portal won’t work!”

The others were almost upon him now, and Spark realized they were wasting time. He darted to the edge of the cliff himself, peering over for any sign of a way down. He doubted the flying types would be able to carry each member of the group to the bottom fast enough. However, all that he was met with was a sheer drop.

“Arien!” Dusk called from somewhere close by. “Try harder! You’re a psychic!”

“Stop!” Rosie cried, and the panic in her voice made Spark’s heart wrench. “It’s just an arch!” The ninetales sounded close to hysteria. “There’s no portal!”

An attack from the enemy pokémon made the ground beneath Spark’s feet shake, even though he was quite some distance away. Every hair on his body stood on end, sharpening into spines against his will. There was nowhere to go. The trainers might get a head start on their flying pokémon, but how far could they go? They had Blazefang with them; Solus wasn’t going to give up easily.

Somewhere in his haze of fear, Spark could still hear Dusk shouting, and in response, Rosie was shouting back.

“There isn’t a portal! It’s just a bunch of rocks! There is...no...portal!”

Rosie’s words repeated over and over again in the jolteon’s head. Portal...arch...it was all beginning to become background noise to the certain death that was stampeding their way. He closed his eyes, willing himself to think, willing some stroke of brilliance to come to him, some way he could figure out how to save himself and the others.

But it wasn’t a thought that came to him. Instead, a strange sound pierced his ears, and it took him a moment to realize that it was a weak cry coming from the fallen yanmega. Why it had stood out to him amongst the noise and confusion, Spark wasn’t sure. The dragonfly creature wasn’t far in front of Spark’s fleeing friends, but it didn’t even seem to notice them, nor the pokémon in the air.

The yanmega weakly staggered to its six legs. Spark could tell that it was barely able to stand; it was hanging onto life by a thread. Why he had stopped trying to think in order to pay attention to it, the jolteon didn’t know.

But as he watched it, he realized that the yanmega’s head was turned in the direction of the arch. Then, using what must have been the last of its strength, it lifted into the air and headed towards it.

There was no mistaking it; the half-dead yanmega was clearly making the arch its goal, and for no reason that Spark could think of other than that Dusk and Rosie had been shouting about it.

Spark knew the yanmega would have no reason to listen to them, no reason to take anything they said seriously. To an outsider, they probably looked like mad pokémon, shouting about a portal the way they were. But as the jolteon watched the bug type, he realized that something in the yanmega’s ravaged mind must have focused on what they’d said without realizing how absurd it sounded.

Spark watched the winged pokémon – which was now close enough to identify by scent as a male – shakily fly toward the arch, probably not even knowing exactly why he was doing it. Or maybe, Spark thought, he was just desperate for any sort of hope and delirious enough that a magical portal existing in the arch right in front of him seemed plausible.

Spark wasn’t sure why, but he wanted to get the yanmega’s attention. Perhaps he could tell them what was happening, or perhaps he had an idea. Both thoughts were stupid, Spark knew; there was nothing a weak and dying pokémon could do to help them. But he called out anyway, more out of sheer desperation than anything. Not surprisingly, his cries were ignored. He could hear Dusk and the others approaching fast, and right before he turned to look at them, he saw the yanmega reach the arch and fly underneath it.

And then vanish.

At the front of the running group, Dusk skidded to a halt. His eyes were wide with disbelief, and it took a nudge from Rosie for him to keep running to Arien again. As they sped toward him, Spark continued to stare, his mouth agape. He couldn’t help but voice his astonishment.

“Why’d the portal open for that guy?”

“Spark, go through it now!” Stormblade called out.

Spark was about to comply when Arien cried out. The psychic type’s eyes were wide as he turned again to the portal. “It’s stopped.”

“What?” Spark repeated, dread filling his heart at the words. He raced to the alakazam’s side.

“It’s inactive!”

“What do you mean it’s not active? You just saw him go through it!”

“There’s no energy coming from it anymore!”

“Spark!” Stormblade shouted. His voice was close enough that shouting wouldn’t have been necessary were it not from the pokémon attacks pounding the ground, closer and closer to them. “What happened?”

“I don’t know! Arien, what did he do? What did that yanmega do?” Spark turned to the alakazam desperately.

“He didn’t do anything-”

Stormblade, Dusk and Redclaw skidded to a halt in front of them, followed shortly by Wildflame, Rosie, and Alex. Thunder was already on the cliff edge; Spark hadn’t even noticed her stopping.

“Well, look what a mess you’ve gotten us into,” the scarred scyther growled, her comment likely aimed at the group as a whole rather than any one pokémon. She turned and glared at the oncoming army, narrowing her eyes grimly as she raised her scythes.

Spark angled his head toward the pokémon in the air. His trainer, Justin, stared back at him. He heard the boy shout to Damian, telling him to fly down to pick up Spark. The jolteon, lost for words, just shook his head frantically, hoping Justin could see. ‘No...’ he thought. ‘Keep going. You could make it...’

But instead, Fernwing dove toward the ground. He heard Katie shout something, heard Stormblade and Arien arguing as the scyther flew back through the arch, proving that the portal was once again useless. An attack from one of Solus’s pokémon struck close to the arch, sending pieces of rock flying over the cliff edge and into space.

“Spark!” Justin cried, reaching out his hand as Fernwing neared the ground.

Then Spark felt something that sent chills down his spine. It was a feeling like powerful energy...radiating from the arch. The pokémon close enough to feel what Spark had turned their heads and looked at it.

They didn’t need Arien to tell them it was active.

“Katie!” Damian shouted, shooting a glance toward the pidgeot circling uncertainly above them. “We’ve got it to work!”

Katie and her mount shot down toward them as Damian turned to the others. “All together now,” he said, clutching Blazefang closer to him as Todd gripped his shoulder. Fernwing cast a nervous glance at the army that was quickly approaching. As soon as Katie joined them, Damian gave a shout, and they charged toward the arch as one, pokémon with wings at the front. A few at a time, but quickly in succession, each of them passed through it.

Then they began to fall.

On the back of Fernwing, Justin had been clinging tightly to the tropius’s pack, calling out for his jolteon. But now, he couldn’t feel the grass type beneath him, couldn’t hear any of the other pokémon, although he knew they had to be there. He was free-falling in complete darkness, or maybe it was nothingness rather than darkness. For a moment, he wondered if they’d all just foolishly jumped to their deaths.

Then they hit something. The movement jarred him enough that he fell off the tropius’s back, tumbling through some sort of bush and hitting the ground. He lay stunned, though he realized from a distinct lack of injuries that he must have really only fallen a few feet. He coughed as he lay there, feeling too dizzy to get up. After a moment, he realized he could see again.

There wasn’t much to see, however; the bush he had fallen through, which surrounded him on all sides, was thick and blocked everything else from view. He also figured it must be near nighttime in...wherever they were, because it was much darker. At least, he realized, it was cooler.

Justin suddenly remembered the bloodthirsty pokémon that had been chasing them, and he flattened himself to the ground, hoping that if they could follow, they would miss him and just charge on by.

He realized a moment later that such a thing would be impossible; all around him he could hear the others struggling through bushes, calling out to one another, and likely drawing the attention of anything hostile. “Get down!” he hissed at them, although he knew it was pointless. After what seemed like a few minutes of chaos, pokémon crying out and everyone stomping through more bushes like his own, the others quieted down, and he heard his fellow trainers speak.

“Can they come after us?” That was Katie’s voice.

“No,” Damian responded. “Arien says it isn’t active.”

“They can’t activate it, can they?”

“They must be trying right now, and it’s not working...I don’t think they can get in.”

“Yet.”

“I don’t know...Arien says there’s something different this time. I don’t think they’re getting through.”

“Well...why did it work for us then? When it didn’t before?”

Justin pushed himself to his hands and knees, wincing as twigs and branches scraped his skin. “Would you guys stop?” he cried, still reluctant to leave what little shelter he had.

“The portal isn’t opening,” Damian told him. “They would have had time to get in already. I think we’re safe, Justin.”

His words were calm enough to be reassuring, and in spite of his wariness, Justin relaxed a bit.

“And...” Katie added, “you’d better get up and look at this.”

Unsure of what he was going to find, Justin slowly stood up, pushing aside the bush’s branches as he fought his way to his feet. Once he could stand fully, he stepped back from the bush, his eyes growing wide as he stared in awe at what surrounded him.

Trees taller than the tallest skyscrapers in Stonedust City, some nearly as wide. A canopy so thick that it blocked out much of the light, making it seem like they were in a gigantic cave, the trees taking the place of stone pillars. Thick vegetation carpeted the ground where small amounts of light flickered through from the branches seeming as high as the clouds above his head.

The trees seemed to span endlessly in either direction, and Justin took a wobbly step back, finding the sight dizzying. “Where are we?” he managed to gasp.

Katie shot him a glance that looked just as confused as he felt. She shakily held up her pokégear, turning on the map feature. Her eyes lit up in surprise as she waited for the data to load. “Well...it still works. We have to be in Inari...” Though she seemed relieved that they hadn’t landed in a completely different dimension, her eyes narrowed in concern as she watched the screen. “But...I’m not getting a location.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Look, according to every map I’ve ever seen, every book I’ve ever read...according to everything I’ve ever heard about our region...this place doesn’t exist. There are no pictures of it, no mentions of it anywhere-” She held up her pokégear map, which had come up blank. “I haven’t even heard rumors of anything like this!”

“Maybe it’s a protected place?” Justin suggested. “A sanctuary of some sort?”

“Humans couldn’t keep a place like this secret!” Katie retorted. “They-” She paused, her expression changing suddenly to one of realization. “The legendary...of course this couldn’t have been any human’s doing. The legendary must be behind this, and is somewhere in the forest. And we’re going to need to start looking.” She strode forward through the bushes.

“Uh, Katie?” Damian stammered. “We need a plan first. We-”

Katie, however, didn’t seem inclined to listen. She kept walking, not even caring that the other trainers and the pokémon were still waiting back where they’d fallen.

“Wait!” Justin cried, nearly stumbling as he tried to follow her. “W-why did the portal work? Why would it just-”

“I don’t know, okay?” Katie answered, turning around to look at him. “But right now, I don’t care. Let’s go.”

“Hang on a moment! Maybe Damian’s right-”

As the two trainers argued, Snowcrystal narrowed her eyes as she thought back on their recent escape. “Wait a minute...” she whispered. She turned to Spark, who was sitting beside her. “Spark, we saw that yanmega go in the portal first. I don’t know what he was doing out there, but he was being chased. He ran into us right before...before...”

“Before what?” Spark asked.

Snowcrystal gave a small gasp. “Before Solus came! But Spark, that’s not what I-” She turned away from him, rushing to Arien’s side. “Look, I need you to tell Damian something, okay?” she told the alakazam. “It’s important.”

Katie was still marching ahead, willing the stunned pokémon and trainers behind her to follow, when Damian called out to her.

“Wait!”

“What?” she called back to him, aggravated.

“You saw that yanmega go through the portal first, right?” he called.

“Yeah, I did. It was weird. Now can we go?”

“Arien says that...that Snowcrystal and the others told him the yanmega wasn’t with Solus’s group.”

“Clearly not,” Katie retorted. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the yanmega, being so far above it on her pidgeot’s back, but it had been clear to her that it had been weak and flying listlessly.

“They said it was being chased,” Damian added.

Katie paused, turning back to him.

“They say that Solus...wasn’t expecting to find Blazefang, or any of us,” Damian continued. “He and his pokémon were following that yanmega.”

She watched as Justin rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Now why would Cyclone’s army be after one yanmega?”

Immediately after he spoke, the entire group fell silent. As soon as he’d said it, Katie had known the answer, and she could tell from the looks of horror on the others' faces, Justin’s included, that they had realized it as well.

“Because that thing has a Forbidden Attack...” Katie whispered. She turned toward Damian, who looked as shocked as she was. “Then we have to find the yanmega,” she said. “Before it does any damage. And let’s just hope this legendary knows how to sort it out too.”

“But first, we need a plan,” Damian said again. “And some of the pokémon need help.”

Katie sighed, knowing he was right, and trudged through the undergrowth back to the group. “Well,” she sighed, sitting down on one of the bare patches of ground, “all I can say is that...this legendary better be able to tell us what we need to know.”

To be continued...