A Dragonite appears above us both, a towering menace about eight feet tall. Unlike my own Pokemon, which are shaking from sustained injury and the weight of the whining signal both, the Dragonite maintains a friendly expression.

"Is it safe?" I ask quietly.
"Bella's safe as there is." Lance runs a hand down the Dragonite's hide and her tail thumps against the ground. Fang bares his teeth slightly and Ten's wings fan up. Lance notices immediately and adds, "Are these your last two Pokemon?"

My face burns bright red with shame but I manage to choke out, "Y-yes."

He reaches into a pocket in his pants and pulls out a satchel, which he throws to me. "There you are. These should help... although it looks like you figured out to save at least one of your Pokemon. Nice touch with the Soothe Bell, by the way. Is Umbreon your ace?"
"My name is Fang." replies 'my Umbreon', staring up at Lance with narrowed eyes. "And yes. I am her ace." The edges of his mouth curl up into a slight smile.

"He's not my ace." I tell Lance. "I gave him a soothe bell to help him evolve faster. It boosts happiness, right? Just another weird facet of the game."

"It's real happiness." he says, looking upset at the notion. "Just so you know, said 'happiness' stat doesn't just evolve Pokemon. It also helps protect you from the signal. Unfortunately, the only alternative for us trainers is strong mental fortitude... and those." he points to my satchel. I open it up to find it full of strange red berries, the likes of which I've never seen before. "They should help your Pokemon too. Split them evenly."

I give Ten and Fang about five each, placing them on the ground before them, and then I take four for myself. I eat voraciously, savoring the sweet flavor, which runs down my throat and makes my whole mouth water.

"Your Pokemon aren't too low on health, right?" Lance asks.

"Just asking. There have been some... small issues in the past." I almost choke on the berries and Lance holds up his hands. "No, they're not poisonous. Just eat."

I continue chewing the berries and swallow. My vision grows sharper almost instantly and something stirs and settles in my chest. I breathe as if I've been underwater for the last few hours and the ringing in my ear fades to a murmur. My Pokemon do the same and I see genuine relief on both their faces.

I touch my hand to my face and slide it down the marks there, my eyes wide.

"Is something the matter?"
"I killed one of my Pokemon..." I turn to him. "I know you."

"Celebi."

"Not Celebi." I tell him, feeling reproachful. "Me. I saw you last time."

"Morty mentioned you might remember me. He seemed definite you would, actually..."

"How many people has Morty told about me?" I snap, feeling some rebellious streak rise to the top of my less panicked state of mind.

"Just us Goldeneyes." Lance says. "Charizard, if you're wondering. I wanted to prove I was a real dragon, so I started seeking them out. I've done well for myself, I must say. Anyways, that's... not the point. Fancy a lift?"

After withdrawing Fang, I hop on alongside Lance and the Dragonite takes off like a jet, lunging forwards and then soaring up into the sky. I cling onto the Dragonite for dear life, peeking only occasionally

"He cares about you. He cares a lot." Lance says when we're steady and airborne.
"Who?" I ask, looking back towards the center of the Dragonite towards my fellow passengers.

"Morty."

"Oh." I say dryly. I try to think of some emotion I should be able to feel but between the signal quietly screaming in the back of my mind and my current migraine I don't want to think of Morty at all.

We careen back towards the ground and Ten lands besides us.

"That was certainly a flight. Feeling a bit tipsy." Ten admits. "Shall we?"

I release Fang. "After you." I tell Lance, keeping my two-Pokemon team by my side. "We're going towards it." I tell them. "Remember. If you feel like you're going to lose it, yell."

"Absolutely." Ten says. "However, that begs the question... if I want to yell right now, may I? It may be some stress relief from you know, the worst day in recorded team history."

I slam my head against my face, which feels like hitting myself while under heavy painkillers- strange and numb. "Team screaming time?"

One loud, aggravated scream and a very confused glance from Lance later, we're inside the gift shop at the hotel I'm staying at and Lance has already knocked over a man with his Dragonite. He doesn't need the Dragonite, however, to slam over the closet over the entrance. The large, golden, and terribly ornate furniture topples to the ground like a rock with a huge crack as it breaks through the wood and forms a nice dent in the floor. Lance and Bella rush down the newly revealed staircase beneath it and I follow.

We arrive in a hallway dimly lit by flickering overhead lights, with little decoration save for Persian statues on the side that I know well. Security here is tight and we'll probably have grunts on us in minutes.

I look straight into the eyes of the nearest statue. "Watch out," I tell it, "because I'm coming."

"No need." Lance tells me, holding me back with one arm. "No one is here. Look, the eyes are dormant."

Shocked and a little ashamed of my ignorance, I suggest, "Maybe it's because they can't control their Pokemon either. Think about it. If I can't, then how could grunts be able to?"

Instead of pointing out my hubris, Lance nods. "Yes, but that's even worse. If they don't have a way to control their Pokemon during the outbreak, that means..."

"There's no cure for this, is there?" I say despondently.
"Even worse. I don't think there are Pokemon down there at all."

"They can't have just left this place defenseless."

"Hence the worse." Lance shakes his head. "We over in Kanto knew Team Rocket as little more than a nuisance, but they were an organized nuisance. They're even responsible for the creation of Mewtwo, the first artificial Pokemon. Who knows what they have down here?"

We're answered by a strangled screeching noise.

"I think we're about to find out." Lance says. Bella snarls and my team members get into position.

The screeching calls out again. Whatever it is, it sounds more injured than dangerous.

"Hello?" I call into the darkness. "Are you... are you okay?"

The ringing is picking up now.

A light flickers on, then off again.

There's a labored breathing echoing off the walls. Slowly a face appears at the edge of the halo of brightness cast by the light two fixtures down from us. It appears human, though its eyes appear to be shut. Suddenly, it drops to its knees and begins rushing forwards, appearing before us in the full light as it does so.

One eye has a blind pupil and the other is welded shut, the flesh of the eyelid worked over the bottom of the eye in a grotesque manner. Neither have eyelashes. One of the legs is shorter than the other, melded to the body by a long web of flesh that carries up the body and extends over towards the right hand, whose fingers are so long that the webbing around them almost resembles a bat wing. It's teeth are a mixture of human teeth with fangs of a Zubat layered over, leading to severe hypodontia and puffed out gums.
The creature before us falls to its knees at our feet, making loud and terrible noise as it tries to convey something. Its screeching picks up, blood running from its disfigured lips, and its bat wing tears my pant legs.

I feel my heart pick up so fast that I think I might suddenly give out and flatline. My mouth falls open and I take a single step back, my leg completely numb. "Oh Arceus."

"Bella." Lance says. His fists are clenched and nothing but his mouth moves as he says it, his eyes fixed straight ahead. "Dragon Rush."

His Dragonite moves forwards at lightspeed and swings at the last moment so its tail hits the creature right in the stomach. Blood flies from the wound immediately and the creature, disfigured even more by the hit, kneels down before us. It whines in pain and then it begins to gurgle, convulsing as blood pours out of its mouth and the stomach wound alike. It tries to press the wound against the floor or perhaps to block it, and it presses its disfigured hands about its head, crying out in panic.

After a full three minutes in which I haven't blinked once, the crying stops altogether. The corpse of the atrocity lies still before us.

"It's so much worse than I thought." Lance mutters. He casts his gaze away from the body and right into my eyes.

I can feel nothing. My whole body is numb and my ears burn with the increased power of the signal. Whatever relief I got from the berries is gone and my Pokemon tremble beside me.

"It can't be real." Ten tells me. "That wasn't... that wasn't a human."

Lance's hand is over his mouth as he stares down at the bloody body before us, which is a hodgepodge of parts melded together by flesh. The skin is pale and almost bluish, as if the grunt had been asphyxiated rather than hacked open.

"No." I say. "No. It has to be some kind of- some kind of-"

"Ashley." Lance says sternly. "If you know anything about this, anything at all, I need to know it before we continue."
I blink back tears. "They've never said anything... but Red has."

"Red has been in contact with you?!"

I blink. Just thinking about Red makes me sick. Where is he right now? Is he just watching? Is he part of this? Deciding not to complicate things further, I simply say, "Yes. He said... he asked me why anyone would need to conquer the gods when they could become one."

"Oh Mew." Lance's voice fluctuates in pitch quickly. "Oh Mew, this is really bad." It sounds like he's holding back tears. He starts walking through the darkened hallway, his cape flying out around him. "Stick behind me. This could get ugly."

"Don't have to tell us twice." Fang whispers. He stays close to my leg.

Ten folds his wings across his back. He moves carefully around the body as I do, practically hopping out of the way of the flayed hand. "Bloody hell. Bloody hell I never asked for this."

I withdraw him almost immediately.

Fang looks up, his tail between his legs, and asks, "Ashley... can you please put me away too? I'm not strong enough for this. I was wrong. I thought this whole time- this was just some crazy game and I was some hero but-" he's nearly sobbing now. "Please. Before you withdraw me... promise me when I wake up, that all of this is going to be okay. Pisces isn't going to die. Rose doesn't hate you! Reginae isn't crazy, this isn't real, and we're just a bunch of friends going on some adventure together to save the world."

I embrace him in the darkness over the corpse and feel his breath against my chest. His wiry fur presses against my shirt as his body rises and falls, his warmth that of a living, pure being. I try to remember the last time I felt this safe in an embrace of a Pokemon. I can barely hear the stinging hiss of pipes and the continuous, hellish chime of the symphony of bells in my ears. My hand trembling, I press the Pokeball to his head and the heat draws away.

Bronze.You felt safe with Bronze.

A glittering shadow of a memory. I can't even imagine Bronze being strong in the face of something like this. As I get up, I notice the puddle of ugly red liquid has reached my shoes. I stare into the open eye of the Zubat atrocity and whisper, "For all of us with hearts of gold."

When I look into the dark of the puddle, I can almost imagine the implosion of this world and feel grateful for it.

No.

My shoes covered in blood, I run towards Lance. My eyes still burn from the afterimage of the body.

"What now?"