I awake inside of a hotel room, late at night, sweating hard and my heart racing.

"What the..."

I lift up my hand in front of my face and find thin, olive twigs instead of the usual reinforced claws. I'm human.

There are a thousand things I could say, but I just whisper "Shit," then flick the lights on. Just the simple action sends a wave of dull pain down my hand, as if it knows that this is wrong too. I feel a strange wave of guilt but don't know quite why.

Two red eyes watch me, luminous in the gold hotel light, and Nephthys jumps up onto the bed, skirting around my legs. "Bronze, it's late." she yawns, though she shows few other signs of fatigue. She's already tensed up. Was she always like this? Ever since the battle where she killed Gaile, I haven't seen her relax, even for a second. It's as if the hell of those last few moments keeps replaying in her head, over and over. I know the feeling all too well.

We stare into each other's demons for a while, and I get the sense we've done this before.

"Nep," I ask, half for my own sake and half for hers, "Are you alright?" Another wave of guilt. I have to be missing something here, but what? I can't even remember my dream.
"Team's treated me well enough." Nephthys yawns.

"You're nervous." I retaliate.

"And you know me too well. Well enough, I'd hope, to remember there's nothing you can do."

"We'll fight through this together, then." I promise.

"I've told you a million times, one of these days you're going to find a problem you can't punch in the face. Somehow you've turned that into a challenge and decided everything can be throttled into submission." Nephthys warns. "I stand by my advice, however."

"I guess I'll have to burn that bridge when I come to it, then." I say, folding my arms with half a sleepy grin on my face.
"Y-you mean cross, right?"
"I don't know, I kind of enjoy burning things. It's my specialty."
"Bronze!" she cries, frustrated, and butts me with her horn.

"We're almost there." I tell the ceiling, feeling the blanket shift beneath me. "Almost back to her."

"What then?" she asks.

"I don't know."
She shakes her head and jumps back off the bed, turning three times and joining the others on the carpet, curled into the edge of the too-long sheets. I turn out the light, and with a jolt realize what's wrong.

I recognize this hotel, this cabin room.

I turn back on the light, but all my Pokemon are gone. My breath shudders in my throat and I feel sick, a poisonous realization shuddering inside of me.

I jump out of bed, falling over myself as my leg is entrapped in the starched sheets, and haul myself up to look out the window.

Outside, thunder rolls in the distance and the sick scent of freshwater greets my nose as I throw the window open. We're at the Lake of Rage, as I expected.

It's where I come in all my dreams.

***

She doesn't want to admit she was awake too, but I can feel her shuffling against me, trying to find the best way to press herself against my fur so she's not cold. It's really a miracle she didn't wake me up earlier.

I feel a hoof against my back and kick her over, and she makes an undignified bleating noise before staggering to her feet, hands, er, hooves on her waist like she means business. "Bronze! Why are you awake?"

Lilly sounds like Nephthys sometimes, ironic given how much both of them would hate the comparison. They're both intent on pushing all their problems back off on me, like I'm the one who needs help in the first place.

"You kicked me." I said. "Okay, well, I was already awake, but the point is I'm not entirely the villain here."

"Nightmares?"

"Nightmares."

"Old team?"

"Oh yeah. Nephthys. You?"

"Chrona." she sighs, wiping the sleep from her eyes. "I was watching her die again. I could sense every second of her fading heartbeat like it was my own. I'd never felt so powerless in my life."

Hers is a lot more dramatic than mine, so I just nod, watching her shiver in the dark. With another swift motion, I have her in my arms, pressed against me so tight I think that we might never have to let go. I don't want to. This is much warmer anyways.

"I never really considered it." she sighs.

"What?"

"You know, staying behind. I felt bad knowing the others hesitated so long before leaving, not because ... but because I had others who cared for me and I didn't think twice about it." she pauses. "Do you think they thought I didn't care about them?"

I think of Nephthys watching the moon on some distant train, Shauna and the team beside her, all of them tired as we are. It feels real as if I'd slipped back into a vivid dream, but as soon as I blink I've lost the mental image altogether. "I hope not," I tell her, "I did the same thing."

She exhales for a long time, pushing away from me. I get the impression I've failed some kind of test. Women, as usual, continue to be confusing and borderline impossible.

"I'm going to sleep." she tells me, lying against the tree again and scuffing up the grass. "Get back down here. You're my blanket."

"Fine," I say, as if I'm not aching for it too, and we lie side by side until the shadows blur together. Thankfully, I fall back into a dreamless sleep, a comforting void that carries me into the morning.

When I do wake up, it's to the bustle of other Pokemon moving about, and I know the team's getting ready without me. I hoist myself to my feet and insert myself in the middle of the pandemonium like I own it.

"How are we doing?" I ask Shika.

"Almost ready to go. We just decided not to wake you up this time." she laughs, knowing full well that she's not funny and nor was anything about the incidents we've had in the past. My sides still hurt from being punched out of a tree.

"Right. Tell everyone to meet me at the cedar. I know they'll want to eat, but I'm sure Morty has food. The faster we get to him, the better."

Shika nods and bounds off, faster than I've seen her go in the past few days. Everyone's movements have become a lot more natural, and I think we've all finally settled back into the sense that we're truly home, even though it still seems impossible.

I'm proud to count fourteen heads in minutes, and as we set off, the foliage is dense and we intercept little human civilization. Shika seems to know the paths by heart, and every now and then she begins laughing at this or that landmark, this fallen tree, that apricorn flavor, all of it. She knows it so well it makes me feel like I've been missing something in my tame, sheltered childhood.

"Yo, is that Ecruteak? Can we go now? I heard there'd be food." whines Ferro, and I realize, with another growl of my stomach, that we have no plan.

"Quick! Who's the most inconspicuous Pokemon in this group?" I ask, looking back towards the town, which is half visible through the trees. "I mean, if you saw any of us bounding through Ecruteak at high speeds, who would you want to catch the least?"

Several of us raise our hands or try to gesture skywards, quickly establishing that a high number of us have terrible self esteem.

"Okay, I'm faster than all of you and I can take an aerial route, so assuming Morty isn't in his gym, I should be able to get to him before anyone in town's noticed a Crobat on his roof. If he isn't home, Miki should be there or at the theatre anyways. Does anyone know the kimono girls hours?"

We all turn to Shika, but she shakes her head. "You think they'd let a wild Stantler in the theatre?"

"Good point." Ferro says.

I can search for them when we get close enough, Shell suggests, I can't probe minds or anything, but I am aware of their conscious stream of thought. I should be able to pull out patterns and detect them... on top of that, I can keep up with Sky the whole way and tell you if anything goes wrong.

"That's very helpful, but did you just say you couldn't read their minds and then describe how you were going to read their minds anyways?" asks Chompers, then adds, twiddling his hands, "Are you reading our minds right now?"

I said I couldn't probe them, as in looking around in their intimate memories for personal details. Reading whatever they're thinking at the time is a different thing altogether. It's like you're all talking out loud. Do you want me to plug my ears? Going to be a little hard, seeing as I don't have hands anymore.

I try not to think of anything, a little more than concerned at the sudden revelation, but of course a thousand embarrassing things come to mind, including but not limited to how good it feels to have Lilly spooning me like a warm marshmallow.

Shell just closes his eyes, brings his wing to his face, and tells us, You all are making it worse.

"I should go." Sky says, nuzzling Khrys and the egg, which Khrys just so happens to be holding. She opens her wings and soars off, leaving the rest of us to wait in the trees.

"I don't suppose we could get an update?" asks Khrys.

She just left. You can still see her, for the love of Arceus. Shell says.

"Oh," Khrys replies, looking forlorn.

The rest of us return to standing stock still in the woods, talking in hushed tones and hoping there aren't any trainers about.

I watch over the group, feeling sort of nostalgic. Lilly stands by my side, the two of us looking for some conversation topic slightly more interesting than the weather but less personal than last night. I make a snap decision and say, "I can't believe they're doing so well after the fiasco that was yesterday. Or the last three days, really. Take your pick."

"It's been three days, hasn't it?" Lilly ponders. "Well, we've seen the end of the world. How could we survive any of this if we couldn't move on after catastrophes?"

"I was the only one who lived to see that end of the world. Half of them were dead before we even got this far." I mutter. "Well, we'll be with Ashley soon. No more nightmares, no more midnight mood swings..."

"Ashley can't tell us how to feel, Bronze." Lilly replies. "If I've learned anything from Kalos, it's that. I know you want this to be some magical cure all. So do I... but it won't be. We were trainers. Weren't we always nervous? Grasping for some kind of answer? Why would a fourteen year old be any better than we were?"

Something about the simple fact of her age shakes me, as if she's become younger than the infinite, glorious freckled figure in my face, a well of tenacious vigor and laughter. Every day with her, every battle, every loss, all of it wells over with gold and warmth, everything made smooth and round as river stones by sound and desperate longing.

The idea of a broken, sobbing fourteen year old half my size trying to be all that is scarier than I want to admit.

For the first time in my life, it occurs to me that we might have to save her instead of the other way around.

There's no time for reflection now. Shell puffs up, startled, and Sky rushes into the woods with a trainer beneath her and a Flareon almost tall as I am almost knocks over a tree in its frenzy to get to us.

"You're back." Morty breathes.

"We... I guess we are back, aren't we?" Lilly says, then she nods. "Yep. That's us."

Morty slaps a hand against his head. "Oh no."

"What?" ask seven of my teammates at once.

"Right, come with me." Morty says, guiding us through the trees and out into the open. Ecruteak is just as big as I remember it, to my surprise, or at least no smaller, but it's far more barren. There are few people besides tourists and a few well-dressed locals in ceremonial attire, wandering the street like the phantoms of the tunnels, looking tired and a little lost.

A few turn our way, but its not surprise but rather respect in their eyes and they're watching Morty, not us. We aren't the trainers anymore, and now that we're not rogue Pokemon, we're hardly anything.

Some of the others notice too- I can feel their discomfort, but I hope it's just from the attention.

None of us want to remember the harsh reality of being tools of war. I guess it's just another thing we overlooked in our scramble to get back here.

Miki slips into her human skin in seconds as she goes through the door, taking her shoes off before going inside, and Morty looks us up and down. Despite the size of his entrance, it looks like some of us, namingly two of us, aren't going to make it.

"What are the chances of any of us throwing a spare Pokeball at us?" asks Toxis meekly.

"I'm not goin' in without my boyfriend." Dill says.

"Never mind, we're not going inside. Miki, can you pull up my Pokedex?"

"At your service," she says, voice teeming with snark and spirit. That's Miki for you. She comes out, hands Morty the Pokedex, and her eyes roam over us, unimpressed until her gaze settles on Dill. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Oh yeah. You came to give me flowers when I almost died." His fins lower, tense on the next word, "You're my big sister...?"

"I don't have any brothers." Miki replies. "My mother died in childbirth. She was killed by Red."

"Maybe not in our timeline." Dill insists. "I, uh... I'm sorry though. I always looked up to you, I thought you were super cool and-"
Miki picks him up with all the force Toxis usually does, holding up what must be well over a hundred pounds of Vaporeon like he's a teddy bear. She holds him for a good minute before setting him down, keeling over from the effort. She has tears in her eyes and her hair is disheveled, though she wastes no time in drawing it back behind her ears in an attempt to regain her poise. She bows again. "Apologies. I don't usually cry. I just- I'm so happy to meet you."

Morty, too, has a strange expression on his face, something like second hand sadness. He sighs, pulling up the Pokedex. "I... well, not to cut that off, but..." he pulls up a an internet article, which has a picture depicting a massive crater in the middle of a Goldenrod city block. The text above it reads, Massive Tunnel Collapse Cause Under Investigation- Ghost Type Conspiracy Potentially A Reality? "Don't tell me that was you guys."

"It was us guys." peeps Ferro from the back.

Morty runs his hand down his face. "Okay. It was a maintenance run, so no one died, but there's also a huge pothole in the middle of town now from a collapsed side tunnel. For one thing, this is really bad for the local Ghost type population, but for another, you've cut off the only way I had left of talking with and potentially getting to Ashley."

"What? Are you kidding?" I exclaim, if only because I can think of ten ways faster off the top of my head.

"No. There's no way we can use the Magnet Train while repairs are going on, and the seas are going to be hell. Do you all know if the game identifies you as caught?" he asks, not stopping to explain a thing.

"Why do you ask?" asks Sky.

"I could fly you there and release you when we're in Kanto." Morty replies. "That might be our only back up plan. It'd be illegal to keep all the Pokeballs on me, sure, but everyone knows the PC system is probably fucked next, at this rate. Oh Arceus."

"Are you sure we couldn't take a boat?" asks Rage. "I could swim you all there, too."

"Why can't you text her?" asks Ferro.

"Obviously there's something bigger going on here. Care to explain?" asks Chompers.
Morty grimly pulls up another article, but this time he skips the headline and goes straight down to the pictures. Before us stands a massive mountain, familiar as ever, but overhead the sky is a desolate black that makes my fur stand on end. It's the cryptic, awful darkness that I saw at the end of the world.
"That's Mount Silver?" cries Lilly, and I know from her face and the others expressions that even though I was the last Pokemon standing, I'm not the only one who sees the end of the world in my dreams.

"Yep. Ashley's getting her sixteenth badge now, and then she's going after Red. He was blocking her progress until she got all the eight Kanto gym badges. It's all part of his game. Last thing she was able to communicate to me was to wait here until I got word from Bella and Lance or until you all finally showed up. He could get me if he finds out I'm off gym duty, too... He's been liberal with tampering with game code lately. Pokegear doesn't work. Basic functions cut in and out, as do stores. People act weirdly. I don't know what he could do to my mind. To be honest, I'm more than a little terrified." Morty exchanges a look with Miki, who grabs hold of his hand.

"Are we in any inherent danger from his alterations?" asks Sky. "If not, we'll go it alone."

The whole team nods. We've enough fire for a hundred regions. If Red wants to take us down, he can bring it on. As for trainers, it's just a risk we'll have to take.

"We could traverse the land from here to Kanto if you need us to."

No need.

Even Shell, usually the culprit behind strange psychic signals, looks up. There's a strange presence in the air, more powerful than any of us.

Morty touches two fingers to his head, trying to trace it, then whispers, "The Burned Tower."
No more explanation is needed this time. We run across the city like I can only assume we planned to had we not decided to send Sky out first. All the while, the sensation grows stronger, and I realize I've seen it before, on our first journey.

We enter the Burned Tower, and there in the cellar, where we first saw it, is Suicune itself. It looks up at us with a strange, mystical sadness in its eyes, and all of us, settled on the floor above, crowd around. My mind switches between panicked excitement and wondering how we're going to get down the ladder interchangeably, but Suicune soars up to us instead, so close that its almost face to face with Morty and I. It looks around the circle, tails billowing and head crest shining, and nods.

I am lucky to have found you all like this. The timelines ahead are strange and extraneous. Already this world has veered too far from the course it was intended to take.

Many of my teammates fall to their knees, and even Rage bows. Only the core six team stays standing. We've seen a lot of legendaries, enough for Lilly and I to know they're rarely helpful, while the other four just seem to be following our lead, holding each other, on either side.

"What's happened here?" asks Sky.

"Is Ashley okay?" Toxis adds.

Suicune's already gruff expression turns dismal, its eyes narrowing to slits. It's a long story, sure, but let's just say we've all decided this has gone too far. One of our number has fallen. The world itself is crumbling apart, left in a strange stasis between what is and is not. Never in all my life has such an event occurred. It is as if Red is not trying to destroy the world, but rather, rend it open... indeed, that is what we fear most.

"Rend it open...?" A murmur goes up from the back.

I have come here to help you all traverse the land. I can get us as far as Pallet Town, where we're needed most, if you so desire.

"Okay, sounds great. How, exactly, though..." Chompers asks, and Suicune barks, a shockwave from its mouth cleaving a large, circular hole of light in the space before us. The glimmering portal stands before us and it steps aside, glowing with radiance. Still, after a performance like that, even Suicune looks winded.

"It can't keep it open long, can it?" Lilly says, looking to all of us. "We're going to have to jump now."

The team looks uneasy, but there's nothing left to do. I step forwards, hand in hoof with Lilly, and then grab Khrys's hand on my right. He reaches out to grab Sky's wing, and she looks to Morty. "Can you take care of an egg for me?"
Miki picks up the egg for her, and Sky's face glazes with a sadness stronger than anything I have a name for.

"Her name's Stratus," Sky tells her. "Please tell her I love her. Tell her I'll be back."

The rest of the team joins limbs best we can, some of us, like Rage and Shika, just standing side by side, staring into the void before us.

Suicune, satisfied with us all, asks, Well? Are we going to save the world or not?