Despair and hatred washes over me, forcing me to stumble backwards. "N-No..."
Skyana has an expressionless look on her face, until it turns grim. I see small purple veins lacing her wrist, though they're almost undetectable. I hear a growl and look behind me.
"Brandon!" I yell as the Vaporeon lunges at the tube holding Fionna. His eyes glow, and water shoots out around him.
"Lade!" A Gallade shoots out from the other room, leaping at Brandon. A purple vein snakes around its body, pulsing and glowing.
"Por!" Brandon responds, shooting an Aurora Beam at the Pokémon.
The Gallade snarls, pinning Brandon down after dodging the attack. Its fist shoots out, meeting Brandon's jawbone with an imperceptible crack.
I don't know how, but the next thing I know, I'm on top of the Gallade. I bite its neck, growling. It shrieks slightly, sagging unnoticeably.
I smack it across the face, then snap at the vein on its back. Violet liquid begins leaking out.
It collapses immediately. That's useful to know; the veins are a weakness. I drag it away from Brandon.
"BRANDON WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" I scream at him.
He's staring at Fionna.
She has her paws against the glass, her eyes wide. She starts banging on the glass, but it won't crack. Brandon joins her desperate attempt to escape, and so do I.
"It's no use," Serena says, "unless you do this."
She presses a button on a tablet sticking out, types in a code, and then types in some more words--the letters are shaped like Unown.
Fionna falls through on top of Brandon. "Brandon, I'm so happy to see you! I never thought I'd get out!"
"I'm glad you're okay," Brandon responds, "but we need to get that purple vein removed."
"I have a Vein?!" she shrieks.
"Yeah, but it's not as drastic as some of us," Samantha says, as if having a Vein isn't so bad.
"We all get one eventually," Kaewa adds.
"Yep!" Tulip chirps, as if it's good.
"How do we get it off?" Fionna says, jumping up. Her voice is almost a hysterical shriek.
"Sh, they'll hear you," Serena shushes the Lucario.
"I'll go make sure no one is coming," Samantha says quietly, turning into a Victini and stealthily flying off.
"I can't believe this," Brandon says, and I glance at him. His forehead is creased, but not in an unattractive way. He is thinking, I can tell. "I thought that Veins were only for people who got a bad formula."
"Giovanni found a way to speed up the process of the Veins appearing," Serena says helpfully.
"So he could make any of us go insane if he caught us. Is that what the Veins do?" I ask.
"Yeah; they also slowly make your blood a toxin which'll kill you even if you're a Poison-Type," Kaewa says, covering Tulip's ears.
"Heyyyyyy, I wanna know!" the young girl says.
"It's not good for you to know now," Kaewa responds. She's like a mother--an underaged mother--to Tulip. I think it's great...
"So all we need to do is find a cure," I say, unexplained optimism bursting through my body.
"Easier said than done," Serena says with a small sigh. "We've been trying for five years... When that Zoroark boy got his first Vein."
A Liepard streaks in, followed by Samantha, who has a look of determination.
"Alice!" I say. The Dark-Type looks up, nods, and shape-shifts.
"I would appreciate if you stopped chasing me," she said fiercely, then turned into the kind woman we all know and love.
I see a vial in her pocket. "What's that?" I ask curiously.
"Eh? Oh, I don't know. It's called 187O-V15 Cure."
Serena grabs it. "Where did you find this?!" she says.
"I can show you. Why, is it important?" Alice looks like a lost kitten, which is somewhat true.
"This is the cure for the Veins!"