Soren Rivers

I had been so annoyed and ticked off when I saw Jay leave to where Tarot was waiting but that had all fallen away when I ran into the room in time to see Jay fall to the floor with a knife in her chest. Curse was at her side a moment later while Scourge was limping over and dropping his wounded form next to his trainer. Hati and Sköll were engaging in battle with Tarot's venusaur, which wasn't the best matchup for them.

"Drago, go help." I ordered before running to Jay's side with Hoodini and Foxy standing guard, ready to enter the fighting as well if needed. I knelt down at her side and felt sick as I saw the blood covering her face and chest. "Jay... s-say something... please."

She glanced over at me, before shifting in an attempt to sit up. "I'm f-fine... well, I will be... I-it isn't t-that deep."

I yanked her hand away as she tried pulling out the knife, trying not to hurt her more as I panicked. "Don't do that! You'll bleed out faster. Jay, stay here, I'll kill him and get you to the nearest hospital okay?"

"I can still fight... we're going to finish this together." Jay leaned against me, her eyes half closing as she gathered her strength. I could feel her body trembling against me while the blood smeared onto my blue jacket and black shirt- not that I cared. "I-I'm s-sorry... I should've waited."

"Yes, you should've." I forced her hand away from the knife hilt again as I spoke, fighting between my rage and the fear that I was going to lose her. "I'll keep you safe though. You won't die, Jay, not here... J-Jay, promise me you won't die."

She smirked. "Soren... I'm not going to just die and let you become champion. We still have to have a battle so I can beat you and become the champion myself."

"I see." I was about to say something else to her but Hoodini's cry of pain forced me to focus back on Tarot and the battle. "Hoodini, pluck! Foxy, use force palm!"

I glanced back, feeling Jay slowly getting up and pulling out a pokéball. "K-Kirlia... come out here."

The psychic pokémon appeared and looked around in alarm, fear in his eyes. "Kir!"

"It'll be fine..." I hesitantly allowed Jay to continue moving as she dug for something in her bag, eventually pulling out a dawn stone. "This will make you stronger."

"Kirlia?" He moved closer, still nervous, before raising an arm and touching the evolution stone.

The light faded quickly, leaving a gallade standing over us in a stance that said it was ready to fight. I doubted its ability to actually win though. Gallade was one of Jay's weakest pokémon... if the others couldn't do much damage he wouldn't do anything. We had to try though... try to hold Tarot's attention long enough to finish him off. That stupid latios... it had led us to our deaths.

"Jay... are you sure you can join the battle?" I asked, not wanting of offend her but not wanting her to die from overexerting herself.

"Of course I can." She got to her knees, pausing once more to rest, before trembling as she got to her feet. "S-see... I-I'll be fine... it isn't that deep, I won't die as long as I don't push it in deeper."

I stood up and watched her for a moment before looking away; I couldn't bear to see her in pain but I couldn't force her to sit out either. "...Okay..."

Jay leaned back against the wall and unsteadily pulled out her scratched up pokédex to check Gallade's stats out before sliding it away. "Gallade, use slash at the venusaur!"

"Blaze, Heracross, Volt, come out and destroy these pests!" Tarot called out several more of his pokémon.

I recognized his charizard, Blaze, almost immediately and wondered if she liked serving a trainer as cruel as Tarot. I couldn't wonder that long though because she unleashed a flamethrower right at Foxy, barely missing as my lucario dodged.

"Finn, get out here and use rock slide on the charizard and ampharos!" I tossed out my trusted starter before releasing Slash, Schicksal, and Basilisk as well. "Time to fight guys. "Slash, use quick attack then fury cutter on the venusaur. Basilisk, stop trying to kill Slash for one moment and go for Tarot's heracross with poison tail... Schicksal, it's time to mega evolve and then hit ampharos with night slash."

"Siren, help out, use aqua tail on Blaze!" Jay shouted before coughing several times. "H-Hati, help out Schicksal with a rockslide as well! Sköll, fire fang on the venusaur!"

It was chaos. I could barely tell if our attacks landed or were blocked as Tarot continuously gave out strings of commands... he wasn't the champion for nothing. His tactics weren't even dirty, I managed to make out him pausing Volt's attack to allow Schicksal to get up at one point before giving the ampharos another attack. The building was starting to shake as well from the battle inside the now almost cramped feeling room and with the three legendaries outside.

"You shouldn't be stopping me you know!" Tarot shouted out, finally deciding to speak to us directly. "You can't win. Do you really believe I would make a bad King so much that you would die trying to stop me? I want what's best for Drucan! I can make us stronger as a region than those old royals and their blind son ever could!"

"Salem could probably see more than you ever could!" Jay snapped back, looking a sickly pale as she tried to stand up straight... I could tell she wasn't going to last much longer if this battle kept up and looked away in case she saw the tears welling up in my eyes. "He would never have killed for his position or tortured pokémon and people to get stronger!"

"Being strong is all that matters!" Tarot snapped his fingers and the ceiling retracted, two blurred shapes diving inside to sweep a path through the other pokémon fighting inside before landing behind him: his noivern and a mega pidgeot. "Noivern, boomburst, Ace, hurricane!"

"Curse, confuse ray!" Jay coughed again and I glanced back to see her wiping blood on her jacket. "Scourge, you can fight still, I know it... use smog, let the hurricane spread the attack around the field."

Her houndoom got up, keeping his weight to one side as he followed orders while Curse rushed on ahead to attack noivern first. I turned away from the fighting, intending to get Jay out of the room before she used up all her energy trying to command her pokémon, but she glared in my direction hard enough to make me back off for the time being.

"You can't win with attack as weak as yours!" Tarot pulled out his gun again and shot Scourge once more... this time the dog like pokémon didn't get back up. "Tsunami, use hydro pump!"

He brought out his own swampert, who immediately shot out a powerful water attack through the mass of fighting pokémon, knocking out Drago and pinning Hati to the wall until the water stopped. Sköll took one look at his brother before giving a howl of pain and lunging at the water type while Hati stayed slumped on the ground, his eyes clouded over while water pooled around him.

"No, Sköll, return!" Jay returned the remaining lycanroc to his ball before shuddering and slumping to the ground, not even attempting to return Hati or Scourge.

I returned Drago before moving over to her, quickly blocking her view of the battle as Curse took a knife to the shoulder, though it had been meant for one of us. "Jay... come on, l-let's get you out of here."

She stayed silent, the pokéball dropping out of her hand and onto the floor as she looked down at the tarot card designed floor. I wasn't quite sure what to do... two of her pokémon had just died and I wasn't sure how Curse was holding up now that she was injured. I picked up the ball she dropped and put it in her bag before taking the others from her belt, she couldn't fight and if any more of her pokémon died I wasn't sure she'd even pretend to care about the world around her.

"I'll be right back Jay... Everything is going to be okay..." I wish I could know if I could keep that promise but... I would to the best of my abilities.

I left her side and started returning her pokémon, Curse leaving the battlefield first as she looked the most injured, followed by Gallade as he fainted under chandelure's attack, and finished up with Siren as she finished helping Finn take out Blaze and Heracross. I was saddened to see Blaze's flame go out on her tail, she wasn't a bad pokémon, this battle wasn't something that she deserved to die for, but I knew it was better than one of ours dying. Still, there wasn't much of a victory in taking out three pokémon-venusaur had been taken out earlier- considering Tarot was still clearly winning with his remaining pokémon.

I took Jay's pokéballs back to her, putting them in the bag with Sköll's, before making Jay put the bag on as I helped her stand. "Come on, let's get you out of here."

Jay shook her head and sank back to her knees as she coughed again. Her entire body was trembling violently and I held her up as she collapsed to prevent her from landing on the knife. She managed to pull away from me as I tried to get her closer to the door and I gave a frustrated sigh as she sat back down against the wall, though I wasn't able to try making her leave again due to a bullet nearly going through my skull.

"There isn't any running from a battle against another trainer!" Tarot chided as he slipped the gun away again. "Especially not in one against me."

"I see." I crouched down and grabbed the knife Jay had kept from the first time we'd met Valhalla. "Basilisk, trap him for me."

"Seviper, come out and take care of that zangoose over there. Metagross, destroy the boy's pesky serpent will you?" Tarot threw out two more of his pokémon.

I gritted my teeth and began making my way over to him in an attempt to end this, however I only made it a few steps before the building gave a violent tremor as a large pokémon crashed into it from the outside. Cracks began to appear along the walls as the legendaries recovered and flew overhead in their fight, and I turned away from Tarot as the wall Jay was leaning against broke completely when Rayquaza's tail smacked into it. I had been close enough to save her still; I had almost had her hand just by turning around- unlike when the rockslide happened earlier in our journey. But a shadow ball from chandelure knocked me away until I came skidding to a stop too far away to save her as she fell. By the time I had even managed to blink it was too late. All that was left of Jay was a smear of blood from where she had tried to hold on.

I didn't move from where I was half curled up in pain. I didn't want to move either. I didn't care if Tarot killed me now. Jay wasn't strong enough to live through it this time even if the building hadn't been so high up with the possible chance of a legendary's attack striking her on the way down. There was a blur of white and blue as Latios, Aether I think Jay called him once, fell from the sky as well. I hoped that thing died... It killed Jay by bringing her here and giving Tarot the chance to hurt her.

"Swamp!" Finn's shadow fell over me and I looked up to see his weak body defending me from another attack by the chandelure.

"Oh Arceus..." I got up, wincing from the pain in my side. I owed it to my pokémon to at least get them out alive. "I'm sorry... Hold on..."

I returned Foxy and Schicksal to their pokéballs as they were knocked out before moving towards Tarot again while my remaining pokémon worked to keep the enemies away from me. There was a loud shrieking cry from above and a y-shaped shadow flew by overhead before diving down and knocking several of Tarot's pokémon out with oblivion wing before staring at me and flying up again in time to fight Rayquaza again, this time its form changing with glowing blue veins along its body and the claws on its wings lengthening while the fur around its neck stuck up in a y-shape. I don't know what was happening but as Dark Messiah fusion evolved our bond gave me energy as well.

"So, the bond between you and the legendary has become stronger." Tarot mused while pulling out another knife. "Well, it won't matter. I have that ability too... Rayquaza, let-"

I punched him in the jaw before he could finish before being grabbed by the throat and slammed against the wall. Tarot looked furious as he glowered down at me, raising the knife up to strike me down but Basilisk withered out of his metagross' grip and bite down on Tarot with a poison fang. I felt the knife slice into my arm as I moved away so I could round on him and attack at a better angle. He was a fast man however and if Basilisk hadn't come to my aid again my skull would've had a bullet through it; instead, it was my pokémon that fell dead to the ground. I didn't have to think twice as I shoved the knife into Tarot's chest, twisting it as the white cloak turned crimson, before pulling it out and tearing it across his throat. Blood sprayed out and Tarot made a choked gurgling sound before falling back and convulsing as he tried to cover the wounds with his hand in an attempt to slow or stop the blood flow but it would all be in vain.

I dropped the knife and fell to my knees, unable to stop myself from crying from the pain of losing the one person I cared about most, not to mention one of my own pokémon. I looked up as I noticed Rayquaza spiraling down in pain but didn't move as it crashed into the building, breaking it down even more until I was sure I would probably die in the collapse as well... at least I would be buried with Jay under all of this. I shuddered and wiped the tears away before reaching out and petting Basilisk's head head a few times; I would never be able to take care or stop Basilisk and Slash from fighting again...

"Deci?" Hoodini landed nearby and my other pokémon followed behind him, leaving Tarot's wounded pokémon to die or escape.

"Come on guys... we n-need to go." I sniffed and stood up, stopping as I saw Scourge shift and whimper as I limped by. I froze and looked at the houndoom; he was alive still... I could save him! I could still save something Jay had loved. "S-Scourge... I'm so sorry this happened. I-I'll help you..."

Scourge inched closer, squirming and barely lifting his body off the ground, before nuzzling my hand. I started petting him as well, the two of us sharing our grief, before his eyes closed and his breathing slowed. I bent over and cried into his cooling fur. I failed! Why couldn't I even save one thing to remember Jay by? "I-I'm sorry..."

At one point I returned my pokémon to their balls but I couldn't recall when. Then the Elite Four showed up but that was just a blur; I really only remember them saying I had done Drucan a favor and that they had said sorry for my loses but I didn't believe that. Why would they have cared? They didn't know me. They didn't know what happened, all the memories I had... the ones that would never become true... I didn't even go to the funeral with Ivan, Rita, Esme, or Freya- who had been given permission to leave her training for several days. I wasn't sure if Zekiel had come back to mourn as well or not. I hadn't told him and considering he, unfortunately, didn't come to murder me I doubted he even knew.

It wasn't until I finished getting my badges and beat the Elite Four to become the new champion- which took several months due to the chaos and need to relocate until their building was restored- that I even visited Jay's grave. It was a simple headstone with the normal information: Name, birth date, date of death, and the number of badges she'd earned along with her deceased pokémon. It didn't appear to have been visited in a long time, at least compared to other graves in the cemetery. I placed the small item I had brought with me on the ground in front of the head stone before wiping my eyes... Why the hell was I crying? I promised myself I wouldn't this time, that I could handle this.
"I'm sorry Jay..." I placed a flower I had brought on the grave as well before standing up and walking to the clearing at the edge where Dark Messiah was waiting for me.

"Vetal." The legendary got up in preparation to leave as I got closer.

I walked by and climbed onto Dark Messiah's back, pausing for a few more minutes before giving him the signal to fly off. Tarot might be dead now but I was going to destroy the rest of Valhalla before they could regain their strength... for Jay's sake... I would get revenge for her death if it was the last thing I did before I died.  

While this is the end of the actual book I'll be updating some art I created using online sights or created myself of the characters. I hope you enjoyed reading!