CHAPTER 312 - ASCEND, CHILDREN OF CORONET III

We were lost.

There was a difference between this kind of lost, and the previous one we'd experienced in the mountain. One was walking aimlessly in hopes of finding something with the mountain eventually nudging you in the right direction, and the other was having Coronet be utterly indifferent to your very existence. We were lucky it wasn't actively working to kick us out, but this felt exactly like it had the first time I'd fallen down Coronet's depths. We would walk for twenty minutes and end up in a spot we'd already seen. Flying on Princess' back was the same, and we couldn't do it for long anyway due to the cold hampering us.

It had gotten far, far worse. Me not being able to move my fingers was constant, now, and not just when enough warmth had slipped away from us when recalling Sunshine or Cassianus.

At least this layer was pretty to look at. I was continuously baffled at the sheer difference between each layer. This one was a reflection of the one below, where the spires of stone stretched past the boundaries between the two and extended at their peaks into large, flattened islands. They were too flat to look natural, even, and Maylene kept complaining about how the air around her felt uncomfortably humid. I'd looked at the depths at the edges of these stone 'islands' and saw nothing but a few thin clouds and a pitch blackness. Darkness as void-like as one of Sweetheart's attacks. There were a few shrubs lying about, but all of them grew off the surface— on the pillars themselves, and not the smoothened rock above. Each tower was a different height, too, but most of the ones at a similar level were linked by bridges of stone, which made navigating easy. We'd seen… hundreds of them, at least, and just like the last layer, the cavern was dimly lit with a light that made no sense, only it came from the chasm below instead of above us, this time. I figured the clouds down there were the cause of the rain and the accumulated puddles below.

We'd seen zero wild Pokemon here. There was a wrongness wracking the side of my head that had been growing the entire time we'd been here.

"Y—you should head back, May—Maylene. I don't think thi—s is a good idea." Each word, I struggled to force out of my mouth. It was as if I barely had any control over the muscles in my throat. "It's— you might make it— out."

"And then what?" she sighed. "Does it matter if I make it out and we die anyway… Arceus, I didn't think I could ever say that out loud." She wrung her hands together, clearly cold as well. "You fucked up massively, and I'll scream at you for it later and have a talk about fucking priorities. I didn't know Coronet would respond like it did, but something tells me that you did. You're the one who's been guiding us the entire time, after all."

"If there is a later. Sorry."

Maylene paused and her body froze. Her breath caught in her throat, and she made a choked sound, as if she was resigning to her fate. I wanted to tell her to keep believing, but this was my fault. I'd sold out everything for this, because the truth of the matter was that if everything was going to end, I wanted Sweetheart to be content, when it did. Just in case.

Legendaries, it was difficult not to regret it now that I could barely feel my skin. I wished I could have done more for Honey and his own parents, but Cynthia had told me they were looking into them…

"Uhuh. That's okay." She patted me on the back, or at least I thought so. It was difficult to tell when my entire body was numb, and I believed it was as much to reassure herself as to reassure me. "Do you want me to carry you? Are you still good to walk?"

"I think I'm good for the next few hours—"

I heard a sound— then a split second later, a stone shattered against Cassianus' barrier into a hundred pieces. Maylene flinched, and aura flared to life more than it already was to keep herself warm. My eyes scanned the surroundings. Nothing but flattened islands of stone, floating over a seemingly endless void that led to nothing but darkness. The stone had impacted the shield to our right, but that could have been a bait and direction was meaningless—

Another one. And another. Hitting over and over so rapidly that I could barely hear myself think. More attacks were added to the mix soon enough. Flames, electricity, water that cooled and turned to ice by the time it hit, but those were fine. Easy, even. The problem came when the barrier cracked from two blasts of darkness from twelve o' clock, right in front of us from far above. It was a good thing I'd learned those after it had almost bit me in the ass in Lakhutia. Before a second flurry could hit, Cass raised solid earth into a circular crust around us, but there were only so many attacks they could juggle. Sunshine growled at the sudden ambush, but he stayed put.

"Maylene. My pokeballs."

The cold was making moving my individual fingers impossible. I could have brushed my hands against my belt, but she was here and would be faster. Scarlet light lit up our cocoon for a split second, and my entire team was released just as the earthen shield broke down despite Claydol's best efforts.

All of my Pokemon, including Mimi. Maylene hadn't known which was which. The steel type squealed, liquefying and crawling up my sleeve at the sudden violence and even more when the earthen shell collapsed— Honey raised both of his arms, surrounding as much of the team with a Protect that shimmered green. Angel slowly opened his large, round eyes and shook off the tiredness as his vines snaked across the ground. Panel-like psychic barriers started appearing at a distance as Princess blocked the more telegraphed and slow attacks; a dull shower of red flames, poisoned darts, steaming-hot mud, and more than I could keep track of. Being out of the Protect, Buddy kept low to the ground, turning into a puddle of goo while Sweetheart allowed the attacks to hit her.

They barely tickled her, though Princess or Cass made sure to shield her when they could afford to.

"We're under attack, as you can see," I smoothly said. "I don't know who, but I do have an inkling. Cass?"

Now that their barrier had isolated for sound, we could finally hear ourselves speak. It was a little eerie, to see those explosions, impacts and lights and hear nothing save for the occasional break whenever a dark type move forced Honey to step up with Protect. There was nothing but our voices and the hissing of my oxygen mask.

Scanning… Scanning… their eyes glowed a smidge pinker. Sixty-four entities detected around us. Possibly more are out of range.

I nodded. I wasn't practiced with my empathy enough to know exact numbers, though I could tell their general direction.

They were all around us. Each group hidden on an island, and all of them having the high ground.

This had been planned. Far more planned than any wild Pokemon could do when their home was literally dying and they risked freezing to death in a few hours. Hell, we hadn't come across a group that large since the first layer.

"Could it be Coronet?" Maylene asked. "The wild Pokemon?"

"No. Princess… no, Buddy, go and scout, please. Come back if you can't handle it. We need you in a fighting state."

The ghost silently sank deep into the stone, though he kept a part of himself with me so we could communicate. More attacks kept battering our position, but at this point it was only a matter of cycling Togekiss, Claydol and Electivire for protection. The latter's reaction time was something to admire, with how he managed to catch nearly every single dark and ghost type move before they could make it to us. His tails lashed against the earth with each hit, not because he was struggling yet, but because he was terrified of what was to come.

"Maylene, recall Mimi, if you will."

She blinked at me, but as soon as the steel type heard the word recall, they jumped out of my sleeve and let themselves be beamed back despite their hatred of Pokeballs. The attacks didn't pause, not when they knew they could exhaust us the more they forced us to stay on the defensive, so that was smart. The fact that they were higher than us meant that retaliating would be difficult, and these islands were so large that only someone like Rhyperior could have managed to collapse them.

Okay, then, I thought as a piece of coal exploded in my face. There was no doubt in my mind.

Buddy's goo writhed against the floor, and he quickly confirmed what I was thinking.

Team Galactic.

"Is a Commander with them?" I pushed.

He said he was hearing the word Saturn from whoever was communicating, but his voice was quickly cut off. A Pokemon might have sensed him underground and pushed him away.

Trigger Warning - Fight to the death, gore, etc.

"Grace?" Maylene gulped.

My body felt so warm. Only for a moment.

I was grinning under the mask so hard my cheeks hurt, but I couldn't let glee from this opportunity take over and throw caution to the wind. As it stood, we were in a worse position than ideal. The high ground was the worst of the problems, and when that was fixed, I'd need to endanger ourselves by sending my Pokemon out to kill… or disable these grunts. I could see their Pokemon poking their faces from the edges of their platforms above us, now. A glowing Coalossal battering us with exploding coal, a Gigalith sending sharpened, red hot stones that burst upon contact, a Smeargle using every elemental attack under the sun— too many of them to count.

But the fact that we weren't dead yet meant that they were rather weak compared to us. Princess, Honey and Cassianus were enough to keep them at bay— with much strain.

"Stick close," I told Maylene. "Bud, you snipe off stragglers whenever you can. Cass and Princess?"

Yes, my King?

My daughter couldn't glance at me due to her focus, but she was listening.

"Raise the earth."

The ground beneath my feet began to stir, an almost imperceptible shudder at first, like the softest tremor of an anxious heartbeat. Attacks kept pestering us from all sides, and Honey let me know that he would be tapped out of Protect sooner rather than with a tired grunt if he still wanted energy to actually fight. Then, with little warning, a small pillar beneath our feet rose— ten feet in width. The suddenness of it nearly made my knees buckle, and my stomach sank deep into my gut. The platform rose, rose, and rose higher, still, until we towered over all who would threaten us. The psychic barrier wobbled from the sudden shift in movement, and I could hear once again.

I saw it clearly, now. Uniformed men and women with bright yellow 'G's on their chests, huddled around fire types like we had done the past few hours. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jellicent's maw wrapping around a Sawsbuck while the grass type screamed for help. The ghosts' body turned frozen before he could be blown up by the nearby Coalossal, and while chunks of him did fly outward, they floated around him and were sent into Pokemon with flesh and capable of being stabbed. The majority of them were stopped by a Slowbro's thin shield, but the ones that hit?

A shard of ice— powered by the Hoarfrost— penetrated through a Gurdurr's arm and began freezing the fighting type from the inside while Buddy sent the Sawsbuck careening off the island.

We heard her scream.

All the way down.

Until the sound of crunching bones was regurgitated by the void below. It echoed again and again, and Maylene paled next to me.

"Try not to kill if you can. Injure or knock out," I whispered. I motioned at Claydol to prevent sound from getting in again. The attacks were starting back up now that we'd stopped moving.

He had no time to answer, but I knew how exasperated he was. It was more work for him and more danger for us.

"I said try. If it's too much, well, go ahead. You have no reason to kill the people, though," I said. "They're harmless."

They were cold, miserable, but most of all, they were skittish. That was why Coalossal had sent an exploding piece of coal toward Buddy even though it had burned the skin off Sawsbuck neck and exposed the flesh below. The cold had stripped them bare, and even though they were an impressive, organized force, they were prone to mistakes just like I was. What did surprise me, though, was that they were using no breathing apparatus to survive up here. Had I not taken off my mask to quickly scarf down something to eat earlier, I might have gotten fooled. In a mere minute, I'd grown lightheaded enough for my head to spin.

I had scanned the entire battlefield and kept track of how many Pokemon were on each island, but most importantly, I had found Saturn. Loyalty burning bright, the furthest island away from me as if the universe itself was playing some kind of cosmic joke upon me. He was on the tallest pillar— an overhang against a wall of the cave that was far too large to be called an island. Sixty-four entities had not included the ten dark types present— one on each of the pillars. There was also one psychic on each, but the real problem were the ice types. Their attacks hit the hardest, and Saturn's Glalie would be an issue as soon as he started attacking.

"The base!" Buddy reported the grunt's order to me.

I'd caught wind of it as well, of course. Hitting the base of the pillar was what made the most sense to get us killed. The dilemma here— around half the flurry of attacks started hitting below us instead, like clockwork— was that I needed to deal with a decent amount of dark types before I could send Honey out to do what he did best. His fur bristled ahead of me. I could tell he was eager to get involved, not to hurt, but to protect us.

I tried clenching a fist. I failed. "Sweetie, Sunshine, I'm sending you out to play." Each word was harsh, and I could see my breath ahead of me, slightly fogging up the lenses in my mask. "Maylene? One island to both."

"Gotcha," she whispered.

"Angel, you're below. Keep the base of the pillar going, I'll swap you out when I can. Buddy?" The goo writhed on the ground. "Keep doing what you're doing." A Golbat was being frozen from the inside from the same island he'd been harassing. Night Shades were stalking at their edges and hitting them with Ice Beams. "But if Sunshine or Sweetheart ever need support, you're up. Cass, keep the warmth near us so we don't freeze to death."

And that death would come quickly if we weren't careful.

Angel jumped off the pillar with vines coalescing into knots below himself. He landed three seconds later with a loud crash that I felt vibrate up the pillar, and I knew we were in good hands. He would get hit a decent amount, but I trusted him to handle himself with Ancient Power. I hadn't picked him for no reason. Tangrowth was, for all intents and purposes, very difficult to kill.

Next, Turtonator and Tyranitar fell upon the island closest to us like thunder. One with a Sneasel and Starmie.

It could have gone only one way. Sunshine's fire was a dull red, barely alive due to Regice's influence, and his movements were sluggish due to the cold, but his draconic side was still raring to go. Somehow, the fire type carried his momentum from being released and was already spinning on his shell from the second he was out of the ball. Turquoise draconic flames swirled out of his side, and he crashed into a Quagsire's head on. He snapped out of his shell in an instant, and grabbed onto the ground type's rubbery body, hitting it with Focus Blast as thin as a line that brightened the cavern. The beam cut through the blubber and into the flesh, but an Ice Beam from Sneasel hit the fire type's shell and forced him to let go. What he had to deal with was little compared to how much Team Galactic focused on Sweetheart, however.

A Tyranitar was an imposing force one simply couldn't look away from, and she was fissuring the ground ahead of her. Bright energy emerged from the cracks, hitting swaths of Pokemon at a time while she fired off a Dark Pulse directly at Starmie. A Hariyama slid in front of the darkened beam and clapped his hands.

The impact sounded more like someone had ran a bus through an industrial shredder than a hand clap, but the Dark Pulse dissolved into thin air before it could even reach him. Somehow, we could hear it through our barrier. A quiet, but still rough sound that had me frowning.

Could it still slip through because of a particular technique?

"Target him if you can," I told Buddy.

It'd take a decent amount of time for him to get there, but that was fine. Saturn was content to let the battle go for as long as possible instead of committing his own Pokemon now beyond a few attacks from a distance, because his plan was to tire us out with his grunts and then finish us off when it was only him left. Or him and a few of his worthless grunts.

That was fine by me. He might have been a Commander, but he was still just as cowardly as he'd been in Mount Coronet when he'd killed Kamaile.

Turtonator finished off that pesky Sneasel by cutting across her chest with a Focus Blast and turned his attention to Hariyama, who was the biggest problem on this particular platform. The fighting type could make darkness disappear out of thin air through some kind of clapping technique, and I could tell the sound itself was hurting my Pokemon as well. It wasn't letting Jellicent approach, either, and dissolving the ice he would send from afar before it could even enter the fighting type's body.

"Honey."

Besides me, Electivire stirred.

There were scant openings between the blasts of darkness, but there were openings. Had they been better organized, they would have had one Dark Pulse or similar technique continuously running from each island one by one so their Pokemon could rest a little bit. Implement some kind of cycle.

That wasn't the case. I did not know if it was because they hadn't organized, or because no plan survived contact with the enemy and I had rattled them.

Honey raised a fist and huffed, wrapping his hands around nothing at first. Then, electricity hummed to life around his fingers, focusing into a thin, thin line. My hair stood on end below my gear and mask as I watched my son send a spear of lighting toward Hariyama.

He could have clapped. He really could have.

But he was slower than lightning. In an instant, the spear had stabbed into the fighting type's shoulder and had him frying on the ground. Sweetheart grinned, and a burst of concentrated darkened sand from her vents dissolved Starmie's barrier with what I knew to be a silent, yet hypnotic hiss. A sharp, sibilant sound that tickled the ears. The Pokemon behind it were exposed, now— Torkoal, Flaafy, Watchog, Sudowoodo… they took care of all of them in one fell swoop.

Starmie's gem cracked to a single Dragon Pulse from Sunshine, and the first island fell.

Nine more to go.

We'd tried to keep Torkoal standing so she would heat up the grunts, but the fire type kept attacking no matter how much Sweetheart tried to communicate…

She just kept attacking. She was too wrapped up in her little cult.

The eighth was more or less of the same, with Princess this time serving as the knife in the dark. An endless row of spikes she'd gathered with Angel's help down below rained endless ice onto the grunts and their Pokemon thanks to the work we'd done with Tri-Attack. With Nasty Plot and the power of Regice behind her, the next barrier shattered after enough hits. In the sky, Buddy took down a Staraptor and a Fearow, coating their wings in ice by directing water to coat their plumage and snap freezing it with but a thought. One fell into the void below while the latter crashed into the island, his wings broken.

Again, the grunts refused to be spared, but this time, some of their unconscious Pokemon were at least recalled.

By the seventh, they switched things up and decided to focus all of their fire on Angel instead of half and half, probably in hopes that once he fell, I would be next because they'd be able to collapse the pillar, but it was then that I allowed Princess to spread her wings and let Claydol and Honey work alone. The fairy type could not save Tangrowth from being hurt too much, but she could serve as a new distraction to rattle the grunts.

And Moonblast was among our most powerful of moves, even if it was slow to gather. She danced around almost every attack, every esoteric or elemental beam, every rock, with thin panels appearing in front of her whenever she couldn't dodge. These were not full barriers wrapping around her entire body, but walls small enough to cover only part of her so she wouldn't have to shed as much speed as she had against Byron.

Like a clear moon in the night sky, dim spots and brightness and everything that made it pure, Princess launched her implement toward the seventh island. Maylene quickly recalled Sunshine, who would not be able to resist the cutting, and rereleased him next to us so we would once again regain a fraction of the warmth we'd lost. It took everything I had not to throw myself against his scales and beg for him to make it warmer when he was already doing all he could. Given that this was a kind of fight we could stop and think in, Maylene grabbed potions from my bag and sprayed it on the fire type's wounds. Most of them were shallow, but any help was welcome, even if the potion wouldn't gain him his energy back. The moon cut, cut, and cut until every Pokemon was bled. Not torn to shreds like they could have been, but bled into unconsciousness. Sweetheart growled in annoyance, but given that Princess had been holding back, she just grinned and continued on her rampage, stomping on a Manetric's body to keep her still, and then forcing the earth below her to shake with energy.

It was debilitating, not being able to move my fingers—

The barrier shattered, and Maylene grabbed me in a bear hug, dropping the potion beyond our little pillar. She threw the both of us behind Sunshine, and the darkened ice hit Cass right in the face. I could barely move my body, but my eyes worked fine. It was that motherfucking Glalie, Saturn's own ice type, who had struck us when we least expected it, and I'd almost died because of it.

Your ego is too big. That gets you killed. Rhyperior's words rang in my mind, and the sharpened smile I'd donned this entire fight faltered for a moment.

Focus. Saturn was a coward, yes, but he wasn't dumb. Princess had distracted me just as much as she had his grunts. He'd used a break in Honey's Protect to nearly take me down, and then it had nearly all been over. My heart pumped so strongly that it hurt, and my breaths grew rapid as adrenaline coursed through my veins. Claydol quickly put the barrier back again, and I barked at Maylene to recall and release Princess back here before Honey's Protect had to go down again. She followed my instructions before whatever attack that had been from Glalie could come back, and Princess quickly got back to us.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—

"It's okay, Cass. You have the best barriers of the team, but Regice combined with dark type moves is just too much for you on your own when they're battering us from every side," I said. "Is everyone okay?"

"Hmhm," Maylene said, quiet. She was pale, and a little green, like she was on the verge of throwing up.

Sunshine grunted, though the ice had spread within his chest. He was frustrated with his performance. He'd been calm and collected, just like I'd asked of him in preparation for this day, but I understood him. To be weakened this much against the one who had killed your previous trainer?

That would be enough to make anyone's blood boil.

"Let's have you on break while you warm us up. Maylene, I'm going to need you to keep me centered—"

Maylene threw up next to me and heaved while she clenched at her stomach. "Ha… ha…" she exhaled slowly. Methodically. "I'm… sorry. It's just… we killed so many that I— I released them on there—" she threw up again, belching on the ground until her stomach was empty. It pooled until it touched my boot.

"I did it," I said, rubbing her back as best I could. "Not you. Me and my Pokemon killed them despite trying otherwise. You shouldn't feel guilty."

"I do anyway." She glanced toward the first stone platform we'd won on, and looked at the grunts having frozen to death. Frost clung to the edges of their bodies and slowly crept up their limbs.

I wanted to retort, but now wasn't the time for this.

Well, at least if she felt like she'd killed someone, the first time was always the hardest.

"Buddy, come back," I sighed. "We'll swap you with Honey, he needs a break. Protect duty."

The ghost had been skulking around and defeating any Pokemon he could get his hands on and had been adept had distracting ice and dark types on islands we weren't attacking with shades and more solid clones of himself. Truth be told, without knowing exactly what he felt like with my empathy, I never would have been able to know where he was.

It only took him thirty seconds to get here. On the way, he was hit by a Thunderbolt, a Pin Missile and a stream of ghostly energy. The Pin Missiles had me worried, but he froze over to prevent them from entering his body and messing with his head. He could do it so quickly, now. Regice took, but it also gave.

"Honey, you're up. Maylene, are you well enough to release my Tyranitar on the island Honey jumps to?"

She looked at me like she was exhausted. "Yes. But wait, jump to? Are you sure that's not dangerous—"

Electivire's body hummed as electricity coiled around his legs, and he leaped across the air, arms whirling around as he arced in the sky. He landed on the sixth island by punching the earth with his two fists, and electricity exploded around him, hitting an unsuspecting Sableye who had been hiding in a shadow. Before the dark type could retreat, Honey blurred toward him and grabbed him by the throat in an instant with a 'why are you making me do this' look, and he punched the little Pokemon in the stomach with Thunder Punch twice until he fell unconscious. Just as Sweetheart was released onto the same island, a spray of rocks hit Honey in the shoulder and face strongly enough to coat his fur in blood, but instead of falling to the ground, the rocks spun around him. They were all linked by electricity, all orbiting around his body like they were his, now, and they were.

He sent them back toward that Graveler and her ilk. Thanks to its protector— an Aegisash with a curved blade and a rather large shield— being distracted by Sweetheart's own dark type moves, the barrier strained thanks to the sheer amount of electrified rocks being thrown at it, and they stuck there, too, like they were glued to its surface, constantly shocking the thin layer that the Medicham has claimed as his own impassable barrier, save for the holes he continuously opened and closed to allow his allies to strike back like Graveler had.

The problem was that Honey was simply too fast to hit for most attacks, and Sweetheart was too tough for them to matter. The coup de grâce came in the form of a running Hammer Arm that shattered the shield as if someone had broken a window. His movements after were slower, and a vine from a Sunflora wrapped around his wrist while Graveler prepared another stone spray and a Zebstrika rammed into his chest, but Electivire just pulled just gently enough not to tear the vine and brought Sunflora forward while he grabbed onto the back of Zebstrika's neck and prevented him from escaping. His muscles bulged below his fur.

I didn't hear him, but I could tell he was apologetic when he stole all of Zebstrika's electricity to renew his energy and left her slumping against the ground. Sunflora hadn't made it through the shock, and his own body was fried, almost burned.

Knowing that he had to fight, Medicham's palm glowed white, and the fighting type slammed it into Tyranitar's gut.

She looked down at him and grinned.

Medicham didn't last very long after that. His unconscious form lay against the stone like a dying bug, his arm stretched and contracted against himself.

It was only a matter of time now that I'd found our groove, but it was slower and more exhausting for my Pokemon than I would have liked. Again and again, we won battle after battle, but the closer they got to Saturn, the more the little shit started to intervene, hitting my Pokemon and whittling them down. I would cycle them, making sure that Electivire, Tyranitar, Turtonator and Jellicent saw an equal amount of fighting— though Buddy saw the most, with the way he could turn ice into his own and was among by best in terms of stamina regardless.

They stood ragged and breathless, by the end of it. They had taken out nearly sixty Pokemon by themselves, and no matter how much more powerful they were, they weren't strong enough to beat them without breaking a sweat like I'd heard Cynthia's Pokemon had done.

But we'd survived. The more we knocked unconscious and killed, the fewer attacks had come, and the situation had turned in our favor.

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The pillar Cassianus and Princess had erected for us lowered itself until it melted back into the ground below. I winced when I saw Angel again. I'd checked in on him a few times using Buddy, but by the Legendaries, he was among the worse off. There were few nutrients to make use of in the cave, with the vegetation on this layer mostly consisting of shrub growing in between cracks or on the facades of some pillars. He looked smaller than he should be, with his vines having been frozen or melted by acid. Another ray of ice shot out across the ground until it reached us, freezing everything in its path, but Claydol raised three barriers of earth ahead.

It broke the first two, but dissolved against the third. Saturn was being very… reserved with his moves, only using Glalie and occasionally Grimmsnarl to hit us, but then again, his team seemed to be better at close combat. Cass had stopped blocking sound, opting to salvage any energy they could before the true battle began, so I wordlessly grabbed another one of those incredible potions from the bag on Maylene's back and sprayed it on Angel before moving on to the rest of my Pokemon. Their external wounds closed quickly, but the dried blood on Honey's chest and shoulder remained, as did the missing bits of Princess' fur on her wings, which had been a priority target. She could actually fly no problem, but Honey had problems lifting his right arm correctly. Still, he would do it if all it brought was pain and it meant we'd survive.

The crack on Sunshine's shell slowly closed. It hadn't been there because he'd exploded it too much, but because too many ice type moves had turned it brittle enough to break to a Persian's Slash. He brushed me off in annoyance when I asked if he was okay again, and I let it go rather than push. I knew what the problem was already. No words were needed. Sweetheart was the least hurt of all and needed no potions. Caverns like these were where she excelled, and most Pokemon had been too weak to even break through her. The confidence she'd gained from getting closure had her moving… not faster, but more efficiently. Every movement came easier to her, like she'd shed weight she'd been carrying for far too long. Cass had only taken one hit, and Buddy was Buddy. He was a little tired, but he could take a lot of abuse before he'd be out for the count. Still, I carefully spread my potions across every member of the team…

"He's coming," Maylene said, slightly breathless. "He's coming to fight us."

He was, with the two remaining grunts at his side, walking atop a shining platform created by his Bronzong.

"Dark Pulse."

Darkness coiled and thickened within Tyranitar's mouth, and she let it loose like a whisper. I almost expected a portal to form and to throw the attack back at us, but instead Exploud opened his mouth and—

The air itself seemed to tremble with the force of his cry. It wasn't just a sound; it was a physical force, a sonic onslaught that hit me like a mace striking my chest and head. I covered my ears out of instinct, and some of my Pokemon did, too, but it didn't matter.

They were ringing when it was over, with a constant echo of Exploud's grating voice. The Dark Pulse hadn't dissolved due to the sound, but it had frayed and lost its consistency, allowing Grimmsnarl to extend an arm forward and spread the hair on his body into a thick, solid wall to keep his trainer safe.

"Sound off," I said. Or at least I believed I'd said it. I could barely hear myself talk. "It stays off the entire fight."

Maylene said something, but I could only barely hear her.

She asks if we should try to run past them, Cass said directly in my mind.

"We'll never lose them, not when I screwed with Coronet. We fight here, or we die." My hand went up to run through my hair, but I was wearing a mask and a hood, and my fingers couldn't move.

I figured Cass was relaying what I was saying, because Maylene frowned at me, but then managed to muster a nod. I told the psychic to apologize to her on my behalf and let out a long, satisfied groan while Exploud screamed again, this time with almost no effect. He was so damn loud that some sound still managed to slip through the barrier, and I assumed Saturn's Bronzong was experienced enough with his own teammate to keep him from going deaf.

Toxicroak, Grimmsnarl, Excadrill, Bronzong, Exploud, Glalie. A dead Crobat, according to the League, so maybe I could exploit that weakness at some point. Kill one of them and say they were gone just like Crobat, maybe, if an opportunity came up where it was safe for Claydol to let sound through and Bronzong was out. Sawk, another Persian, Golbat for one of the grunts, Scrafty, Skuntank and Purugly for the other. They looked unsure of themselves. Weak. But I still had to be careful.

Watch your ego.

It was so silent when they landed on the stone and I saw his face up close. Smooth, without any scars, acne or blemishes, yet his movements were the opposite of that. Nervous, frenetic, teeth gnashing. He was not afraid, because what had happened had gone according to his plan, or maybe even better than he'd wanted, but I could see the concoction inside of him now. He was the kind of person to worry about every little detail. They would eat at him until he encompassed the self-doubt that he had tried to keep away. It was interesting, but it was also delicious, almost intoxicating.

I'd bet he was thinking about every little thing that could go wrong in the next few minutes. I was, too. I so dearly wanted to talk to him. To give him a long-winded speech about his wrongs and why he had to die.

Now wasn't the time.

"Cass, you're relaying commands. Focus on the grunts at first, then we hone in on Saturn."

We struck first.

Honey lifted a hand toward the sky and shot out a beam of electricity toward Golbat, but it broke against a panel of light. The attack was constant— a never-ending electric current, so he lowered his hand toward Skuntank instead, having identified him as the slowest Pokemon belonging to the grunts that he could target. Bronzong seemed to be able to track him everywhere, but he moved faster, and eventually he managed to singe the side of Scrafty's leg. Honey flexed his arm, and the limb swung wildly to the left, causing the fighting type to fall, and his lightning fried his brain until he was rendered unconscious.

Ordinarily, pride would have swelled in my chest, but instead, my eyes darted in every direction as fighting erupted all around me. All of my other Pokemon spread out, but I noticed Saturn's kept close save for his Excadrill that buried in the ground. Cold spread across the rock, growing like a cancer as Glalie blew a Frost Breath that spread ten times as far as it should have, hitting his grunts' Purugly and Skuntank in the process.

Below ground came a deep rumble, and then the ice that had just appeared shattered, erupting high into the sky. Instead of falling back, Glalie grinned and the ice fell upon us like rain just as Princess had done before, but better. The shards were pure ice instead of stone coated in it, and they looked transparent as they battered around the barrier. Up high, Togekiss lanced a sharp baton through Golbat's mouth and kept chaining attacks, raining hell on every Pokemon she could hit.

"Angel, Buddy, get that Excadrill."

Sweetheart didn't have the kind of control to stop the ground from shaking. It would be like trying to hammer a screw. Possible, but far less effective than a screwdriver. Plus, she was quite busy. She had used sand to propel herself and had dived into Purugly to crush her under her weight.

Grimmsnarl's hair stopped her. It had snaked around her arms, legs and stomach in an instant, and he threw her back toward us with a single hand.

…how?

I was swept off my feet by Maylene, and she grabbed me in a princess carry. Honey pushed Cass away and she followed the psychic with speed that was inhuman. The barrier followed us as best it could, and Honey disappeared in a flash of electricity behind us, but while I could barely hear, I felt the impact in her back.

Shit.

Sweetheart crashed into the earth, creating a massive crater outlining her body and then some while I saw Tangrowth pull Excadrill out of the ground with solid stone around most of his vines that took ten times as long to cut. They glowed green beneath the cracks as he desperately sucked Excadrill's energy. Buddy ejected a few shards from his head, but they all failed to penetrate past his flesh and the steel type managed to escape. Tougher than he looks. Jellicent's true intention, as was his specialty, was trying to get inside the ground type's mouth and nose, but he froze in an instant and a tight, psychic hold from Bronzong shattered him.

He was still conscious, of course. The pieces of his body were separate, but they were quickly gathering back together while some threw themselves against his enemies. He was tired, by the Legendaries, he was, but he knew what was on the line and he would never rest until every Pokemon trying to kill us was dead. Ice stabbed into Skuntank and exploded his entire shoulder, revealing torn, pale and frozen flesh below.

Ruthless. He was ruthless. The poison type's eyes widened when he slumped to the side after walking didn't work anymore, and he passed out from shock, but more pieces of the ghost shattered like fireworks when Glalie's eyes shone and the ice type shivered until there was little left of Jellicent.

Glalie here was in quite the position. He was by far the most powerful player on the field, but Saturn was keeping him on a tight leash because he couldn't control himself. It was too much power that he wasn't accustomed to, and he bled cold everywhere he went. That was why his attacks kept hitting others when he hadn't meant them to—

"Maylene are you okay?" I stared up at Cass. "Is she okay?"

Her mouth moved. I could barely understand her, but ice had penetrated into her shoulder blade. The spike was the length of my head and had frozen her skin and blood over. She grabbed it by the hand and ripped it out of her shoulder, crushing it within her fist. The fact that the wound was frozen meant that she wouldn't lose blood, at least, because I wasn't sure pulling it out had been a great idea. Or perhaps she feared Glalie would be able to influence it from within the barrier.

She says she's alright, Cass quickly said. They levitated a piece of mud and sprayed Persian in the eyes. The normal type had been circling around us and trying to find an angle to strike, probably with Night Slash, but the impact from the mud threw them back. There was force to it, and each piece was substantial enough for the feline to hiss and dash away toward Sunshine instead, but Honey appeared in front of her in a flash and slammed her head against the cold, hard ground, allowing for another lance from Princess to skewer her from the skies. He was simply faster than anyone on the field, at the moment, and Motor Drive had allowed him to steal electricity from electric types he'd encountered before this fight.

He would grow even quicker before he tired.

Sweetheart was struggling where we'd just been and still struggled to stand back up. Excadrill had turned the ground below her to quicksand and had gone too far to be in range of Angel's vines. Still at Saturn's side, Toxicroark belched out poisonous liquid at her while Sawk patiently waited to strike. I called out to Cass so they could tell Maylene to recall her, but the air in front of us condensed to a clear ice wall whose frost crept so far I could feel it through… through…

I shook myself to alertness. Ice was crawling on my mountaineering gear like a living being.

I understood why Glalie was holding back a little more, now. His frost could go through Cass' barrier, which meant it could go through Saturn's as well, and his control was lacking. It was as if someone had given their Rattata Hyper Beam and endless energy.

Air sliced across stone and then around Sawk, but the fighting type was faster than he looked. He backflipped away from the series of Air Slashes, but at the very least, he wasn't hitting Tyranitar's softened flank. The danger came when Excadrill burst below her, his body twisting so fast he was only a blur. He tried penetrating past her plates, but her back had been spared from Toxicroak's poison and he could only graze her until he continued and flew high into the sky. A pained expression followed when he stopped spinning and an Air Slash and elemental beams of ice from Princess hit him in the stomach, but he dove back down into the earth like it was water before more attacks could hit him. At least she'd kept him away from landing back and perforating through her stomach. That would have killed her.

Turtonator finally reached Sawk in hopes of helping Sweetie, and while he hit him in the chest, the momentum from the previous explosion he'd left was too much to stop when the disparity in strength was so large. The fighting type was quick to pull his hands up to guard, but the Dragon Pulse blew him away and into Angel's grasp, from which he withered as life was sapped from his skin and he was rendered completely dry before he could attempt to break out.

"Behind him!" I screamed.

They were all moving, now. Toxicroak, Grimmsnarl, Exploud and even Glalie. Toxicroak was the fastest, and his claws dripped with green poison. It didn't dissolve the stone it fell on like Cece's, but it made it softer. Almost mushy, the perfect consistency to stab through hard skin or scales. Honey finished dealing with Purugly and looked back, but Exploud had turned to face him and screamed.

This time, I could see it literally take shape in a cone-like blast. The electric type buckled to one knee while frost overtook his legs, then torso, then arms— his fists burst into flames that were immediately smothered by the cold, and Glalie grinned. That was not the only Pokemon he was sending his wicked frost onto. They were all freezing slowly. Angel, Sunshine, Sweetheart—

Shadows bled up from the ground, leaking like a sieve as it reformed into a shade of Jellicent and it exploded next to Glalie. Then came another, and another, and the pain allowed my team to unfreeze themselves through various ways. Sunshine, through the last remaining embers he could muster, though he had taken multiple jabs from Toxicroak in the leg for it and he was struggling to stand. Toxicroak cackled. I could see his head bobbing up and down. He was enjoying this. Grimmsnarl was laughing, too. Circling around Turtonator like a Mandibuzz waiting for its prey to die over the desert, only occasionally whipping him with hair glowering pink.

I hated them.

"Kill that Glalie."

The orders diffused from Cass were swift. Having been spared from the cold, Princess dove down and weaved a plethora of attacks behind her. Rocks, ice, electricity, balls of shadow, dying, smothered flames, sharpened air— the first three hit Glalie before he encased himself in a ball of ice as hard as bedrock, from the way the other attacks just bounced off of him. I was starting to grasp the reason why Saturn had waited so long. He was studying me.

I hadn't given him enough credit. He knew now I had very little control over the earth compared to what his Excadrill was capable of, that Jellicent was the only one who could come close to his Glalie in terms of controlling ice, that Cass' barriers were strong enough to withstand his attacks, so he needed not to waste time on trying to kill me before he dealt with my other Pokemon. His Pokemon were each strong in their own right, and even without Regice, Glalie would have been a force to be reckoned with.

I was slowly realizing he had something else, though.

So as I watched my Pokemon shake off the last flickers of cold and rise to their feet and Saturn barked out an order, I allowed air to fill my lungs to the brim and took a frosty breath.

"Forget that order," I rectified myself. "I need to arrange a fight. Sunshine against Grimmsnarl. Buddy has to go in the ground and contain this fucking Excadrill who keeps making Sand Tombs and tearing us apart. Princess focuses on Glalie and keeps him at bay, Honey fights Toxicroak. I trust him to keep up with his speed. Sweetie and Angel take Exploud."

Cassianus, bless their soul, had been relaying what I'd said to every Pokemon as soon as I'd said it. Electivire was the first to move, his movements still dull from the cold. Glalie spat out a beam of frost— no, it was more accurate to saw that frost formed in-between the two, as if it had snapped into place from the cold in the air, but the electric type blew up with Discharge and leapt even faster across the ground.

Unlike his allies, Toxicroak managed to react, though barely. The toad managed to bring his arms into an 'X' to block the hit coming to his face and his hands soon grabbed onto Electivire's wrists. He jumped over his back and was about to stab into his neck, but Honey's tail wrapped around his ankle and slapped him against the stone—

After which he fell through the ground. Honey would have gone, too, but electricity hummed at his feet and he managed to hover a few inches above ground, though barely. It was a clumsy thing, and he had to keep his hands stretched to keep his balance. Toxicroak was spat out away from him and next to Angel, who'd been cornering Exploud with vines that he could simply scream away.

"Stone him."

Like clockwork, Claydol raised a boulder and smashed it against the fighting type, who just punched through it. That had bought Angel enough time to realize he was being stalked, though, and the grass type had the ground shake with a small, localized Bulldoze before Toxicroak could close the distance. The quake slowed Toxicroak enough for Sweetheart to make it and he decided not to bother fighting her.

"He thinks Exploud can handle himself. Warn them." Excadrill might be more of a battlefield support type. Evac and such.

My attention drifted back to Glalie, who was trading blows with Togekiss. The only way she'd found to keep her wings from freezing at his stare was to keep them perpetually on fire and to keep blowing herself up with Dazzling Gleam once that wasn't enough. It was a losing game, but she was forcing Glalie's attention on her. It was difficult to ignore a Pokemon slinging so many attacks at you when you needed to make wall of ice after wall of ice to stay standing.

Below ground, the earth was continuously shifting and turning back to a solid around where I assumed Excadrill could be. An unseen battle was going on between him and Jellicent.

This one was a story of revenge. Saturn did not know this. Oh, he knew Turtonator was Kamaile's, no doubt, there weren't many to go around in Sinnoh, but to him, we were here to stop Cyrus from enacting his plan, and so his was a game of stalling as long as possible. He believed he was fighting Grace-the-shard and not Grace-the-trainer.

He was wrong. We were here to kill him, specifically, and it would start properly.

Sunshine's legs were barely able to keep him standing, yet he locked arms with Grimmsnarl and roared. I could see it etched on his face. The rage at such a twist of fate, the desire to right his wrongs. To be strong where he once had been weak. Grimmsnarl's tongue swirled around his blade-like teeth, and his hair slowly wrapped around the dragon. Crushing. Crushing. Grinding them to dust with the strength that had lifted a Tyranitar and thrown her like she was nothing. He had no flames to pull on, and the turquoise light swirling around him— his draconic essence that kept him standing against all odds— was nigh useless against Grimmsnarl.

Something snapped within him.

He roared, though I could not hear him, and slammed an Iron Tail against his shell. The last of a few dying embers ignited, pushing Sunshine against Grimmsnarl, and he bit into the fairy's neck as they both fell to the ground. His jagged mouth shimmered slightly as it tore through Grimmsnarl's thick locks and the fairy started writhing against the ground and punching the fire type with pink, glowing fists.

It took me a moment to know what he'd done to make this happen. The shining of his mouth was a localized Iron Defense, the same which had withstood the full weight of a Steelix bearing down on him. Turtonator ravaged at the Pokemon's throat until eventually, he stopped writhing. His legs, first, then his arms went completely limp. Dark and thick blood stained his jaws, dripping in heavy, slow droplets to the ground below. Chunks of flesh clung to his maw, a macabre trophy of his victory. Saturn stood there, his Pokeball raised, but he had hesitated. Or maybe he had fumbled as I had so many times.

It was too late.

The wind would hopefully be in our sails, now, but the victory had come at a cost. Princess crashed to the ground, frozen while Maylene recalled her with my guidance before more ice could take a hold of her and finish her off for good. She had burned all of her fur off and was nothing but skin, now, but she was alive. Something in Saturn broke, and he raised a hand. I knew what he was saying. He was ordering his Pokemon to rush to Sunshine, but that was fine.

Toxicroak had to be the next to die, and he was barely, barely keeping up with Electivire's speed. I grimaced when I noticed a few wounds in his chest and legs. They were shallow thanks to his quick reflexes, but the poison would work through him eventually. It took a few moments for Saturn's orders to be relayed, but he swept a foot at Honey and nearly made the electric type trip before blurring toward Sunshine in one smooth turn. Now free from Princess, Glalie did the same, and I barked out at Honey to follow while telling Cass to have Maylene prepare his Pokeball.

And I recalled him as soon as Toxicroak got close. Saturn gnawed at his nails and his face was twisted in anger and grief. Good.

Back to Exploud, I was realizing that he was actually one of Saturn's fiercest fighters. Angel could barely approach with his vines, and the powder he tried to throw never reached the normal type due to the force of his screams. Tangrowth was actually the best at resisting those, but Tyranitar was another story. Blood was pouring down her earholes and she was gnashing her teeth so hard that she was emanating darkness all over. She was the one Cass had the most difficulty communicating with as well due to her typing, so she was… not doing very well. Sound-based techniques were ones that could bypass her armor, and it showed.

"Tell him to go below ground," I said. "He'll get it."

My teeth clamped down on my bottom lip when Exploud seemingly caught on as soon as the Solar Blades buried themselves in the ground. He'd learned from when we'd pulled his ally Excadrill out, and the normal type would not have it happen to him again. He quickly turned 180 degrees and bellowed, launching himself into the air with a sound wave.

"He's landing—"

He was landing next to us. Had Saturn said something— no, no, I had to focus… damn it. Exploud landed with a dull thud that I felt more than I heard to our left, and I raised a hand while he inhaled in an attempt to make him hesitate with my gift—

My head went—

My ears—

I was—

Something slammed into my head. Sound. Sound. It hurt. Piercing sound in my ears. I rolled on the ground and felt blood drip down the side of my cheek. When had I fallen? Why was the ground so comfortable?

My head spun. I could barely focus on what was going on, but I could still see a trembling barrier around us. The sound hadn't shattered it. If it had, I'd be dead. Claydol was hovering and slinging stones around… Maylene… Maylene! I tried pushing myself, but my hands gave way under me. My body just felt so heavy. Instead, I looked at her by turning my head. She was also on the ground— also with a bleeding ear, but unlike me, she was already getting up to her feet. Her hands pulled my shoulders and sat me upright so I could see the fight again.

Angel's vines were dying from something akin to necrosis due to Toxicroak, slowly fading away into nothingness, and he was… bile built up in my throat. He was missing an eye. I hit my limp hand against my thigh to focus. Byron had taught me this. Keep your head in the fight, or you'll all die. Honey was slowly being whittled down by poison too, but at least he was working on keeping Glalie at bay now. Exploud's mouth had been stuffed with enough rocks to have him choke. The normal type gathered darkness within his mouth and snapped them into pieces, but just then, Sweetheart bodyslammed into him with a burst of speed from Rock Polish. I saw Exploud's arm bend wrong and his jaw shatter open, but she wasn't done. Tyranitar clawed it open wider still, and wider, and wider until—

Saturn recalled him.

"Toxicroak." To speak but not hear what you were saying was a disturbing exercise. All I could hear was ringing. The small amount of hearing that had been returning to me was gone. "Then Glalie. Have Maylene prepare to recall Angel."

A stone burst from the ground, but Toxicroak ducked and stabbed Tangrowth again. Of course, Angel was hitting back with the vines he had left, but his was a losing battle. Behind the two, Electivire fired off a discreet electric shock that had his arm jut to the side before he could hit the grass type's other eye, and the next attack was a tried and true Thunder that illuminated the entire cave brightly. Toxicroak convulsed, and Tangrowth stabbed his shoulder with a vine.

Finally.

The vine was withering, but the few Tangrowth had left also penetrated into the same wound. Light built up around them, and the nascent Solar Blade died in its crib in an explosion that left Toxicroak's body split in two uneven halves. I looked at Saturn again while telling Maylene to recall Tangrowth. It had gone so fast, hadn't it? Death was so… nonchalant. My team was quick to take a Pokemon's life, and Commander or not, I had more experience with murder of this kind. Murder of an equal, not children dying to bombs or killing people with the advantage of numbers. I hoped he felt just like Sunshine had, even through the agony wracking my ear and brain.

Sweetheart spared me a look, and I nodded at her. I'll live. With the friction on her feet now lower, she slid across the ground, pushing herself with sand toward Saturn until his face twisted to one of fear. I slowly raised a hand and focused on Bronzong. Yes. It had taken restraint to wait this long, hadn't it? To find a prime opportunity to fuck him over. Slowly. Carefully.

All I needed was a little doubt. To exploit the thought that Bronzong might not be good enough. It was already there, after all, and only had to be nurtured. Trainers tended to influence the way their Pokemon behaved just as much as the opposite did.

Tiredness took me, and I wondered how I'd even be able to walk after this. The Protect which had come to replace Saturn's barrier was too slow to build up, and Sweetheart rammed into it with darkened sands coiling around her. The blackened dots had peppered the psychic shield still remaining ahead of her, and it broke down with the impact. Metal exploded out of the hole below Bronzong and hit her in the face, knocking the lights out of her, but Saturn had fallen on his ass and was crawling backward. He called out, and Glalie's eyes shone. The air around him swirled, encasing him in a block of hollow ice. At first, I thought he'd freeze, but he didn't.

He was, however, injured. Ice had spread to his arms and legs and he was struggling to keep his eyes open. The other two grunts were left to die. One was swept by Tyranitar's tail as she turned to hit Bronzong with a Dark Pulse that clashed with another Flash Cannon and the other, she crushed under a foot until he became red mist. That one actually had me wince. She was angry I'd come close to dying. Her attack was more powerful than theirs, since they were a defensive Pokemon, but the steel type dashed away with a burst of metal behind them and formed a little ball of light before them. It was a dim glow, and while I could not hear the spirits scream, I had seen the attack enough to understand what it was.

"Confuse Ray," I warned.

But it was weaker than I thought it'd be. A simple blast of darkness, and it was gone, and I realized it had been born of desperation, and not strategy. Like a child swinging a knife in the dark. Everywhere Bronzong went, they were coated with mud that solidified around their form. Heavier and heavier, it weighed and slowed them down. Claydol's eyes flashed, and the ground type forced their element down at full force. This Bronzong was no Rapture. They were a pale, pale version of what Byron's Pokemon could do, and it was only a matter of time until Sweetheart took them down.

Electivire couldn't approach Glalie. He had been dueling the ice type, but slowly losing due to attrition. Everywhere he stepped, Glalie summoned ice to bind him and slow his movements, and the ice type wasn't exactly built to exploit involuntary spasms of muscles. Honey fired off Thunderbolt after Thunderbolt to conserve energy, but the majority of them were blocked by ice walls. A wide smile was etched upon Glalie's face as he pushed, pushed and pushed. I winced when Honey's arm went limp and a Protect was the only thing that kept his blood from freezing within him. The land itself was turning to ice— a snowscape that would have Glalie's power reach its apex. Cass tried slinging mud at him, but it simply froze and they lost control before it could reach him.

It was so, terribly cold.

My body was unfeeling. My thoughts were growing numb, and Claydol had to keep me from falling asleep every few seconds. The barrier seemed to tighten around us to preserve as much heat as possible. It was only a minute later, when I had Maylene prepared to recall Electivire due to fears of him freezing to death, that Jellicent emerged from the floor. The way his form rippled, it was easy to tell the fight had been brutal, or maybe I was just seeing things. I had pegged Exadrill as a support type, but fighting an expert on burrowing underground was bound to have him struggle.

He claimed a portion of the land as his own and slowed Bronzong down enough for a final Dark Pulse to hit them. Sweetheart didn't bother killing the steel type, instead content to leave them unconscious. Glalie eyed his new challenger and turned him to ice with but a glare. Jellicent froze, unfroze, froze, unfroze in a cycle that would seemingly never end, and all while that was happening, Glalie was fighting the others, too. An Ice Beam hit Sweetheart in the chest and she slid back like she'd been hit by an Onix. Electivire tried to fire off electricity whenever he was certain his blood had returned to normal and he could move his body again. Now that Saturn had no Pokemon to care for, he had let Glalie unleash a cold so powerful even Jellicent's Will-O-Wisps froze and retreated before they could make it to him.

Glalie was strong, true, but lacking on the technical side of things, and that was the way to win. Beyond freezing things with focus or firing off icy breaths and beams, he had not done much past the dark ice he occasionally used to try to poke holes into Cass' barrier. The psychic was barely holding on, and I had to call Honey over so his Protect would serve us again, but it was slow, now, almost lethargic. To be honest, Saturn hadn't used that many complicated techniques at all.

We were going to lose if things kept going this way. Ice was as much of an offensive tool as a defensive one, I had figured, and I had little experience fighting with the type beyond my fight with Candice and the occasional bout with Denzel.

Here was our pivot. Our opening.

"Taunt."

Ordinally, this might not have been that effective, but this was anything but ordinary. Glalie was calling upon a power that was not his own, and he was almost drunk on it. Jellicent's eyes darkened, and he isolated the ice type's anger. I saw it happen clear as day, the raging inferno sprouting inside of Glalie and the way the ice type's attacks suddenly grew even stronger.

Jellicent never unfroze, this time.

Sweetheart stomped a foot against the ground, and countless pillars of sharp rock rose below Glalie, hitting the ice type before he could manifest another wall of ice.

One, though.

One rose next to Honey, and the electric type grabbed on, each finger puncturing a hole into the rock. He took off into the sky as electricity coursed through him and down his legs.

He gave everything for that single jump.

The Stone Edge shattered, and in an instant, he was there with his arms glowing white. The Cross Chop was so fast I only saw Glalie float down to the ground. When I blinked, Electivire was already back on the ground, his body half-frozen and limp. Not unconscious, but shivering on the ground. Sweetheart created a fissure with a small Earthquake and finished off Glalie before he could recoup with whatever ice bullshit he might have been working with.

The Snowscape was still there, but it stopped raging. The wind stopped sweeping across the snow, and ice Glalie had been controlling turned lifeless.

It was over.

I asked Maylene to recall my Pokemon save for Claydol. I hadn't noticed, but Claydol was on the verge of unconsciousness. They warned me as much, and I imagined them playing an alarm sound, but I'd need them for just a little while longer to communicate. My hearing was slowly coming back again, or at least I believed so, but I didn't want to think about the fact that it was only doing so on my right.

"Tell her to release Sunshine. We'll heal him up."

Maylene hesitated. She'd seen how much pain he'd been in. How his arms had been utterly crushed, ice had penetrated past his shell and his legs had been poisoned to the point that they wouldn't be able to support his weight. Yet she did so anyway. She didn't know the reason, not yet. Sunshine was in a sorry state, but relief flooded his veins when he saw we were alive. The fact that I wasn't a sobbing mess meant that the rest of them were alive, too. Wounded, but alive. I hoped his Pokeball would be enough to keep Angel from withering completely…

I watched Maylene spray him as best she could, but the amount of potion it took to get him standing meant that I was almost out. I'd saved some for the rest of the team too, but after that, it would be over. If I ran into Mars in this state… I wouldn't even have a chance to avoid her, let alone fight back. The fight had me breathing through a lot of oxygen instead of my usually relaxed state as well, and if we were going to keep being lost as we'd been before, I was going to run out before making it. For good measure, Maylene sprayed Cass as well, though it would be less effective here given that exhaustion from maintaining defenses and working the earth for so long was that they were on the verge of passing out.

That was if we survived Regice. It wasn't looking very good in that regard.

Well, then.

Walking was a laborious affair. Each step felt like I was able to collapse, but I refused any help. Sunshine and I had to do this on our own, or it wouldn't be right. He tried to summon warmth, but I could barely feel it. Like when a trickle of sunlight was on your face in the middle of winter, but the cold enveloped you anyway. My legs felt heavy as if encased in lead, and the frigid air pushed back against my body, but eventually,

Eventually, I made it to Saturn. He was encased in ice, still, the structure sustained by Regice's power and the general cold. He looked at us in disbelief, his mouth trembling at so much death, and the shaking was accentuated by the cold. His grunts, he didn't care about. I assumed they were fodder to him, and since they would be reborn anyway, why bother himself about them dying?

But then why did that same feeling not apply to his Pokemon?

I smiled tiredly beneath my mask. There really was nothing like the feeling one got after winning a fight such as this. It wasn't the elation of a Gym Battle or a fight against a friend or rival— the rush of endorphins that had you feeling that you were on top of a cloud, but a deep satisfaction that was almost physical. You felt your heart pump in your chest, the blood seeping down your face, the hurt all over your body.

You felt alive, and in the moment, that was enough to make you happy.

Of course, I'd be feeling different had I lost or anyone had died, but the point was, I hadn't.

I licked my lips. "Break it open."

It took a while.

But less time than I expected now that Glalie lay unconscious in the snow. A concentrated Focus Blast was all it took for the ice to begin cracking, after which Saturn crawled to the corner of his self-made cage and huddled himself into a ball. When the block of hollow ice collapsed, I'd regained enough of my hearing to at least hear it shatter, but it looked like I was going to have to use Cass to hear him speak.

And he was speaking. Running his mouth faster than I'd ever seen any lips move.

"Translate that for me, will you? To Maylene, as well, unless she asks you to stop. She needs to understand, or she might try to stop me. She's too kind."

"—don't— don't— get away from me!" Oh wow, they were doing what I assumed was his voice, too. It was deeper than I thought it'd be, but somewhat nasal. Smooth. "You get nothing by killing me!" Tears were frozen down his cheeks, and he was dangerously pale.

"It's either you die now or you die later. What's the difference?"

I meant this in many ways. Whether the world survived or ended, whether he froze to death or I killed him, whether he lived through this with the world, and the League executed him, there was simply no scenario where he was going to live, ever. He had no uses, and was the architect of too much death.

"Plus, won't you get to live in your New World?" I continued with a drawl. "Or maybe you're a coward who's scared to die even though you spewed your poison and converted thousands to your cause."

To my frustration, he did not flinch, nor was he rendered speechless. "Of course, I believe in the cause, you wretched little witch!" he yelled. His mood swung with a lot more force than I was used to. "You couldn't even come close to understanding—"

He squealed and brought his hands up to his face when Sunshine took a step forward. The dragon looked at me expectantly, asking for when I'd be done with this entire speech so he could do the deed.

"Sorry," I grunted. "Well, I'll have to cut this short, but first… you know, you could have killed me had you had your Glalie rampage from the start. Your Pokemon would have died in the process, and hell, you might have, too, but I'd be gone." Continuous shivers passed through me, yet my tone was as solid as steel. "You doubt your every action, don't you? You seem like the type to constantly question if what you're doing is right or enough. I could tell when we fought. There were no risks in your techniques."

Saturn said nothing. He was preparing himself to die.

"What did that stem from?" I tilted my head at him. "Cyrus, maybe?"

"Absolutely not! Cyrus is—"

"Friends? Maybe your parents." Ah, I struck a nerve. "I see. I get it." A beat passed. "Well then, he wouldn't have wanted this," I said, looking at Sunshine. "But this is for Kamaile Nalanie, for Drampa, for Mandibuzz, and for Oranguru. You die alone. You die in pain. And in the end, your screams fade like just another echo swallowed whole by Coronet."

"I'll have the last laugh, in the end. I'll be reborn—"

"Cut him off."

I sniffed and walked away, not bothering to turn back toward the Commander.

"You aren't going to look?" Maylene asked through Claydol.

I sighed. "No."

She held onto her wounded shoulder and tension left her. "I thought I was going to have to fight you about that."

I'd failed to save any people too deep in the cult to realize. I'd killed dozens of humans and Pokemon and only managed to spare a few who their trainers recalled in their last moments.

"I'm tired."

Not sad, but tired.

Saturn died away from us.

We did not hear his screams.

A minute later, Sunshine walked up behind us and looked more satisfied than he'd been ever since I'd caught him.

The deed was done.

—

It was two hours later, and we were about to die.

I shivered against Honey's fur. He'd wrapped Maylene and I in a hug to converse warmth, but it was barely doing anything. Every few seconds, Maylene would see my head slump and hit me in the head to keep me awake, but there was only so long that could work for. Sunshine was lethargic, unable to move and coating us with warmth that might as well not have existed.

Were the others in the same position? Huddling for crumbs of warmth, and freezing to death?

Was Cece?

I wished she was here.

I'd risked her. I'd risked everything for Sweetheart. Would they forgive me when I told them?

There were sounds. Voices around me I knew to be nothing but delirium.

I—

I wanted to live.