Chương 84: Chapter 68

A half-dozen things happened at once, and my mind fractured into twice as many threads as an electrical apocalypse descended upon us. Mana blasted out a Hydro Pump that tore through the incoming storm, turning the impenetrable fusillade of churning sparks into twenty-or-so still threatening, but far more manageable bolts. My knights leapt in the way of the remaining barrage, green barriers already forming as they used Protect to cover Gretchen and I.

Maushold stood just behind them, eyeing our opponent warily as one, then three, then six additional mauses appeared around them, each of the constructs glowing with barely-restrained energy. Gretchen screamed and threw her hands over her head, turning her back from the assault, and crouching down low, trying to avoid the attack. Her Beedrill landed to stand in front of her, stingers raised defiantly, but the Bug-type didn't use any moves or gather any energy.

One thread of thought instinctively grabbed hold of my body, and I took a deep, deep breath. Power, iron-cold and chokingly hot, welled up in my chest and diaphragm. And as that all occurred, my mind churned. The majority of my attention was spent winnowing down the fastest, most expedient set of commands I could give my partners to improve our odds of surviving the next five seconds. The next largest chunk was observing our enemy, evaluating their condition and plotting the cleanest path to victory.

Another tore through our surroundings, trying to understand this mysterious space we'd been drawn into, and identify whatever advantages we could wrest from it. And the last pieces of my scattered mind tried desperately to suppressive the oppressive flame of fear and dread that'd ignited in my chest" Mana cover. Knights prepare. Maushold secure." One partner to mark the enemy. Another to gather our strength. And the last to improve our environment. That should buy us a few seconds. It would have to.

Because I knew with full certainty that we wouldn't be able to beat the Shadow Pokémon by simply overpowering them, or knocking them unconscious. Mana flew forwards at my command, a deluge of water hurtling towards the Klang at her behest. The attack did little to harm the Shadow Pokémon, but it did distract them, the Steel-type letting loose an explosion of energy to fend off the aquatic assault instead of trying to strike us.

My knights hunkered down, glowing with power as they assumed the distinctive 'No Retreat' formation so they could begin to charge up. It only took them a few seconds, and they launched into an immediate Bulk Up after they were done, and a Focus Energy for good measure as Mana continued to buy us invaluable time. Maushold began chewing through the ground, descending into the otherworldly substrate with gnashing teeth and tearing paws.

They rapidly disappeared from sight as their constructs trundled forwards, more distractions to buy time against the rampaging Klang. As soon as the Normal-types were out-of-sight, I stomped my foot a few times, directing them to form tunnels surrounding the enemy.

"We have to knock the crystals loose from the Klang's body," I informed my team as they worked.

"Until we do, they're just going to keep restoring any syn we manage to deplete." I got an affirmative, "Links" from Lance and Tristan, and the construct Mana had floating by my head to receive commands gave a firm nod. I got no confirmation from Maushold, but with their excellent hearing, I had little doubt that they'd caught my directions. My partners, however, weren't the only audience to my words here.

"Fe, what the fuck is going on?" Gretchen asked, panic laced heavy in her voice.

"Where are we? What's happening?" I didn't have time to answer her questions. Ranger training took over, just like Janine had always assured me it would.

"We're addressing the situation. Stay down, and keep out of harm's way," I warned the other girl, the script to use when dealing with civilians in danger coming to mind, almost unprompted. Somehow, it was the wrong thing to say.

"We can help!" Gretchen insisted, straightening up and gesturing towards her partner.

"Fierce is pretty strong, we're already in the junior league, and Master Raul says we could go for Green next year."

"Beebee!" the Beedrill insisted, wings buzzing as he hovered next to his partner. Whatever reply I'd been about to make was thankfully (it'd been rather unkind in retrospect) interrupted by a teeth-rattling Screech coming from the center of the unearthly space. The Klang's two gear-like bodies clashed against one another, wrenching and warping as they spun to produce an unholy sound that knocked Gretchen to her knees.

I barely remained standing myself, my legs shaking even as the sonic assault was halted by a pillar of water from Mana." Stay down!" I growled at the other girl, putting just a bit of syn in my voice to make it audible over the ringing in our ears." Knights, half-blitz and castle." The Fighting-types sprang into action, the front half of the formation charging forwards while the rear held back near Gretchen and I, ready to defend us from any stray attacks.

My knights arrived at the frontline just as another massive Discharge forced Mana to fall back, constructs flaking away from her form.

She was so reduced that her small school didn't even bother with the illusion of swimming, retreating back to my side in an unnerving slide through the air powered wholly through hydrokinesis.

"Full recovery, Mana," I told my little fish, her exhaustion mirroring a drain in me as well. All of my partners were up and active, pulling on our bond, wringing me out. One hand reached up, catching on the synergy stone dangling from my earring. There was energy there, charged as it was by the gaia spot. A shimmering sphere of water flashed around Mana's reduced shoal, the conjured Aqua Ring taking hold.

It would gradually replenish her lost syn, but the energy expenditure would be intensive, whereas our opponent was parked on a practically boundless source of power. I felt the stone between my fingers start to heat up, as I made the decision to begin drawing power from the shard. We needed every advantage in this fight we could get, no matter the danger.

With that energy came a cavalcade of voices, as my connection to Mana widened and stretched, but I forced the distractions back, narrowing my already straining focus to the vital elements of the battle. I stomped one foot, directing Maushold to emerge from the holes they'd dug. At my behest, three furry heads popped up from three different edges of the otherworldly space. Each of them let out a distracting cry, before turning around and putting their tiny curlicue tails up in the air.

They waggled their behinds, the Follow Me catching the hovering Klang's attention and ire. All three ducked back underground at a shouted warning from me, just in time to avoid another scattershot Discharge that tore up the ground and had me blinking spots out of my eyes. But my knights weren't wasting the time Maushold's distraction bought. They leapt up, crashing into the hovering Klang one after another, lashing out with quick Rock Smashes to try to dislodge the crystals on the Steel-type's body.

They could have gone with Close Combat, but I impressed the import of restraint on them through our bond. The stronger move was too imprecise to effectively target the corrupted synergy stones affixed to the Klang's dual cores, and the weakening effects of the attack would leave my partners far too vulnerable to continue pressuring the wild Pokémon.

Unfortunately, just hitting the shards had little effect on them, causing no visible damage and accomplishing little more than diverting the floating gears' attention once again. With a rending shriek of tearing metal, the two conjoined Pokémon split momentarily, the smaller gear flying out and slamming into Lance, sending him sprawling. The extended part of the Klang's body flew back towards its partner, only for the other to fly out as well, the two orbiting each other like planet and moon.

Percy and Kay barely had time to get a Protect in the way before the larger gear slammed into them, shearing off the shimmering barrier with an unholy screech, before plowing into the unearthly ground, digging a furrow several meters long through the unnatural soil.

A few Bullet Seeds and another Follow Me from Maushold pulled the Steel-type's attention away, and as the two halves crashed back together, one of them launched a glittering Charge Beam at the littlest maus, the speedy attack almost catching them before they could duck back down. The diminutive Normal-type popped up again after a moment, a little singed, but they still chittered defiance at their floating foe, in spite of the sparks of electricity that still lingered around their bunker from the powerful attack.

Something shifted in the Steel-type's movement, and the two gears split once again, the larger one glowing with electricity while the other hovered in place, ceasing in their trademark spinning for just a moment, eyes fixed on the littlest maus. The distraction gave my knights ample time to crash into the pair with more Rock Smashes, but the Steel-type bore the attacks stoically, before retaliating with another Charge Beam, aimed at the same maus.

This time though, when the little Normal-type ducked back below the earth, the attack didn't sail straight over their head. Instead, it curved down, following the retreating Maushold into their earthen bunker in a tightly-controlled arc. I barely had time to shout " Watch out!" before a squeal of surprise pain erupted from the earth and reverberated faintly in the back of my mind. I bit back a curse as the Klang whirled to face another of the mauses, again separating for a brief moment.

One of the gears was using Lock On while the other shot off Charge Beams! I slammed my foot a couple of times, directing Maushold to regroup. They needed to stick together if they were going to defend themselves from the pinpoint accurate Electric attacks. The next Charge Beam struck another of the mauses, but the one after took out only a cleverly constructed Substitute, and the one after that was deflected off a Protect, the barrier shattering just after the beam of crackling power petered out.

My newest partners were spending energy like water, trying to stave off our opponent's moves while keeping their attention, but their efforts were not going unrewarded. My knight continued to score hits on the Shadow Pokémon, depleting their syn, slowly but surely. I felt a thrill run through me as the larger gear began to sag, and I shouted, " Mana, now!" as I pointed at the weakened main gear and flared our bond.

My piscine partner didn't need any additional urging, firing off a Hydro Pump that crashed into the hovering Steel-type, sending it spiraling towards the ground.

"Now, the crystals!" I directed my knights, before devolving into coughs as the effects of shouting so many commands began to catch up with me. My syn was depleting fast, and the damage the infused commands did to my throat was beginning to add up. My knights rushed in, heedless of my difficulties. Both halves of the formation converged, the ones already close, and their brothers who had been defending Gretchen and I.

The former were just about to slam into the downed Pokémon, when a flash of electricity blasted out from the prone Klang, sending the incoming Falinks sprawling. I felt my eyes widen, and stood on my tiptoes to get a better look. One of the Klang's gears was still down, the orange crystal affixed to their core pulsing as it drew in energy from the earth, but the other still hovered in the air, perched protectively over its larger twin, sparks of electricity scattering off its spinning form.

Only one of the two gears had been weakened enough to force them into recovery! This was bad. Our window of opportunity was closing." Hit them now!" I shouted through the taste of copper welling in the back of my throat. The back half of the formation found it inside themselves to speed up, charging headlong into the sparkling maelstrom conjured by the remaining minigear. Bers surged ahead of his brothers, grunting as he took the brunt of the attack for them. His sacrifice let Galad and Tristan get close.

The former was knocked back by the smaller gear as it crashed into him bodily, but Tristan got through, smashing his shield into the glowing crystal once, and then twice. It was tough to tell from a distance, but I thought I heard a cracking sound, and the crystal began glowing brighter." Get in co-" I started to shout, before a coughing fit interrupted me. Luckily, my knights didn't need more warning than that.

Hasty Protects flared up in front of each of them, and Mana descended to cover Gretchen, Fierce and I with a glowing barrier of water. With an almighty crash, an explosive outpouring of energy flew out of the downed Klang, sending shockwaves of energy cascading through our surroundings. The ground around the prone Steel-type scarred and tore, and my knights only weathered the front end of the blast successfully, before the back half sent all six of them sprawling.

After what felt like an eternity but was probably five seconds, the eruption ceased. Our opponent rose back into the air, the crystal affixed to the large gear's core glowing erratically with that sick, orange light. My knights staggered to their feet, visibly tired, but still in the fight, and Maushold popped up from cover, the three of them standing together across the arena from the rest of us.

Mana's bellow of rage signaled the start of the second phase of the battle, as did an explosion of water, the Brine forming below the newly-restored Klang and crashing into it like a waterspout. I sagged momentarily as Mana pulled so heavily on our bond, but energy rushed back through me as my earring heated up even further.

"We need to weaken both gears at the same time," I shouted at my team without any syn, trying my best to preserve my voice.

"And we need to strike fast when they're down! We have a six-second window, maybe! Focus on the bigger one for now!" Six seconds was pessimistic, but better safe than sorry. It was also around half the time it'd taken the last Shadow Pokémon we'd fought to recover between knockouts, but that made sense. Back then, we hadn't been fighting directly above a gaia point. My partners obeyed, if with just a little bit less alacrity than they could muster when they didn't need to waste time actually parsing my command.

Lance hurled Percy at the Klang, the latter eating a Charge Beam for his trouble, but the next projectile-Falinks landed true, and a Helping hand from Tristan turned Bers' Rock Smash into a devastating hit. A smattering of Bullet seeds caught the minigears attention before it could retaliate, and another Follow Me distracted it for just long enough for Mana's school to erupt from beneath the Steel-type, the azure leviathan crashing into the larger gear with an almighty roar.

I started edging forwards, keeping on the periphery of the conflict, but staying close enough that my orders could be heard over the din, even without me further shredding my vocal chords. Another Discharge was blocked by my knights, opening up an opportunity for Mana to land a devastating Aqua Tail. The Klang tried to wind up for that powerful gear-throw attack, only to find their efforts stymied by an Encore on Discharge from Maushold, forcing a misfire.

When they shrugged off the effect and the minigear spent the time to lock onto the evasive Normal-types, my knights punished its distraction with a flurry of supereffective blows. The simple fact of the matter was, we were overwhelming the Klang. Fighting a ten-on-two is difficult, even for the strongest and most cunning battlers, and while our opponent had power to spar, their attention was easily manipulated and misled.

Any time someone was in a pinch, I'd coordinate a timely distraction, buying them enough time to resituate and recover. And my partners could just hit hard by this point, my knights boosted by their earlier efforts and Mana making ample use of her natural strength. Once we had a rhythm going, the only thing keeping the battle from being a true blowout in our favor was that any damage we dealt to our opponent was simply shrugged off and ignored.

As long as those crystals remained attached to our opponents, we weren't going to be able to win this battle. Which is why when I saw an opportunity, I forced an urgent command through bloody phlegm." Knights, now! Strike both of them!" The Klang had weathered a series of blows to guarantee a fully charged Discharge on Mana's school, blowing away the vast majority of her constructs.

The attack tore through the azure shoal, flash-boiling the water comprising it and lighting the entire leviathan up like a summer firework.

My little fish swam free of the convulsing school before she took too much damage, abandoning her constructs as they collapsed into inert water, but already I could feel her pulling more intensely on our bond and see her jaw working on the prismatic crystal carefully balanced within her mouth. Fortunately, her sacrifice hadn't been in vain, and the Steel-type was hovering rather close to the ground, sagging with exhaustion from their all-out attack.

A move like that would necessitate a few moments of recovery, even with the shadow synergy stone providing nigh-unlimited energy. And my knights didn't miss the opportunity, letting loose determined warcries as they descended on the sagging Shadow Pokémon. If you've never seen Close Combat before, you're missing out on something. There's an artistry to that level of unrestrained savagery. It possesses an untamed beauty. Like a waterfall. Or an avalanche. Shields, legs, horns, shells, even one another.

Everything becomes a weapon for the Pokémon using the move, and my knights were no exception. A steady rhythm of blows crashed into the Klang, one after another, beat after beat of unceasing assault. All six of my knights got in on the action, adding to each other's power, even multiplying it. One second became five, and then ten, as my Falinks continued their unending blows. Until, with a creaking groan, both gears fell still, collapsing to the ground with a puff of displaced dust." The crystals!"

I screamed as I scrambled forwards. My knights were too gassed to continue their assault, trying desperately to recover from their ridiculous expenditure of energy, and Mana was still reduced, unable to muster up the majority of her strength. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. But I had three partners, and Maushold had yet to demonstrate their most devastating move. Population Bomb is another breathtaking display of power.

Unlike most attacks, it doesn't draw on standard type-energy, instead pulling from RE, the same pool of power most Pokémon use for forming Substitutes and eggs. Maushold produce this power in spades, to the point where it can overflow and overwhelm them, if they don't have proper ways of disposing of it. Population Bomb is a proper way, but that power doesn't become any less explosive just because it's found an outlet. If anything, it's even more riotous.

One, then three, then six, then a dozen constructs appeared surrounding the downed Klang, swelling with power and energy. The distended proto-mauses leapt at the Shadow Pokémon, grabbing ahold and letting out unholy screams as they erupted with blinding light. The full dozen constructs exploded with a cacophonous bang, discharging their awesome payload into the prone Steel-types before they had time to recover, rocking the Shadow Pokémon in-spite of the type disadvantage.

And sure enough, the crystals attached to their cores cracked and splintered, shards and flakes falling away under the assault. The pustulant orange parasites had loosened their hold on their unfortunate victim, and now we just needed one final push to free the poor gear Pokémon. We all dove towards the splintering synergy stones. My hands closed around the shard sticking out of the smaller gear just as Lance and one of the mauses grabbed hold of the cracked crystal protruding from the larger.

And for a moment, I wasn't just myself. Five clamoring voices intermingled and warped around one another. Responsibility clashed with a deep, abiding sense of fear. Terror of the unknown and the unknowable, of finding control stripped away. A horror brand new and fresh and burning, as two minds conjoined found themselves prisoners within their own steel shell. Kinship burned against privation, the warmth of a hearth lit against the cruel pressures of inevitable entropy and endothermic decay.

Two souls that had long known starvation, had only sustained themselves on their own depleting energy, now found themselves so full that they might explode, and were only hungrier further for it. And love fought against hate. Something foreign, and cruel, and violent. A disdain for the world and everything in it. The impression was instilled on the shards of stone, lingering like a phantom and corrosive like acid, so sharp just feeling it was like being cut. All of that and more I felt as my voice swelled.

Most of my overtaxed mind came together to seek the same resonant chord, one I didn't think I could ever forget. Something in my throat started tearing as my pitifully human voice tried vainly to imitate the flap of a Butterfree's wings. Still, something gave, just for a moment. Just in time for an upwelling of energy to erupt from the earth, the malignant stones guzzling greedily at the gaia spot, absorbing the earth's energy with malicious avarice and shunting it into their unwilling host.

I squeezed tight on the shard of crystal I'd grabbed, and I felt its sharp edges bite into my skin as it splintered under my voice, but before I could try to wrench more of it free, my world became blinding light, cruel velocity, and debilitating pain. It hurts so much, doesn't it? Why fight? You're only causing pain for yourself and others.

I'm not sure how long I was down for, but a thrill of energy originating from the right side of my head startled me into awareness, and I slumped myself up into a seated position. I worked desperately to blink the stars from my eyes as I tried and failed to stagger upright. Why bother getting up? Just lie here and rest a while.

We'd had even less time to attack the crystals than I'd thought, the gaia energy so ambient and strong that it'd only taken the shadow synergy stones a bare few seconds to muster the power to blow us away. So much power. Why not take some of it for yourself? Our efforts weren't wholly unrewarded, however. I unclasped my bleeding fist, staring down at the solid chunk of pustulant orange crystal resting there. So lovely. Join us, and become lovely yourself!

I dropped the malignant stone to the ground, its whispered pleas and promises almost entirely unheeded. It'd taken whatever concentration I had left to run my mind on a fast enough mental wash cycle to limit the cruel minerals influence, but with the hunk of rock no longer in my hand, the voices quieted substantially. Now freed from that mental load, I cast my senses out, reorienting to the new state of the battle.

Mana dove in and out of puddles of water, firing off distracting Water Guns periodically at the erratically floating Klang. The Steel-type wasn't looking all that great, the minigear hanging limply while the larger one spun unevenly, barely keeping the pair's teeth locked together. Only tiny bits of crystal still clung miserly to the small gear's glowing core, and the larger's infestation was similarly reduced, if not to the same degree.

That didn't stop the Shadow Pokémon from blasting out potent Discharges, however, the scattershot attacks trying to find Mana in-between her evasive Dives. My knights were all corralled around one another, the four troops and Tristan surrounding Lance and protecting him from stray attacks. The brass lay still and unmoving, and I felt a thrill of concern run through me.

That feeling only intensified when, moments later, another thread of attention saw that the remaining two mauses had dragged their downed fellow free of the fighting, the duo sheltering near one of their impromptu burrows and fretting over their insensate companion. All of this, I took in after just a few seconds. There were other small things competing for my attention. Gretchen scrambling over towards me, Fierce on her tail.

The cataclysmic damage done to the immediate environment where we'd temporarily downed the Shadow Pokémon. A glowing heat burning through my ear, the ramping pain slowly overcoming my ability to ignore. None of that mattered compared to my partners' wellbeing, and the only way to guarantee that was to see this battle through. I tried once again to regain my feet only to find that my legs wouldn't cooperate. I pushed off the ground with my arm, and had to stifle a scream as a lance of pain shot through it.

I glanced down, and found several pulsating flecks of orange crystal dug into my palm.

"Shit, shit!" I cursed, the whispers redoubling in intensity now that I'd realized they hadn't fully ceased. Push us deeper. Nourish us so we might nourish you in turn. The small crystals weren't as loud as the big hunk of stone I'd just dropped, but they weren't ignorable either. Voices rang in my mind, and threads of thought spooled away to address the sinister whispers borne by the shards of stone embedded in my hand. That wasn't all I could hear though.

I also got hints of Mana's exhausted heaving as she desperately bought the rest of us time to recover. A thousand different voices and concerns ran through the little fish's mind as she desperately dipped and dodged, and she didn't let a single one of them distract her from trying to buy us just a few more precious seconds.

"Fe!" Compared to my partners, Gretchen was a very unwelcome distraction.

"Shit, Fe! I think your ear is burning!" Then again, part of me thought as the sickly smell of something burning reached my nose, maybe it'd be a bad idea to completely ignore the other girl. I reached up, my hand instinctively fumbling with the red-hot earring. Stainless-steel does not conduct heat, so the fact that I could feel my flesh screaming as I tried to remove the Kalosian wire spoke volumes about the sheer amount of energy radiating off of it.

I felt a gentle hand stop mine, before resolutely grabbing the white-hot metal. Gretchen screamed, but she didn't stop. For a moment, I could feel her pain. And mine. The two comingled, similar, but not wholly the same. Guilt suffused the other girl much more intensely than it did me, as did self-loathing and hate. I recognized shades of those sharp emotions, but not to the same degree as her. The burning was the same though, the feeling of skin melting and nerves dying. That we experienced equally.

Until we didn't. Gretchen finished wrenching the earring free, ceasing the strange exchange between us.

"Fuck Fe, what the hell did you do to this synergy stone?" she asked me through gritted teeth while staring down at the melting bits of steel and stone that was currently searing a brand into her palm.

"Gretchen, drop it!" I tried to demand, but my voice wouldn't cooperate, the muscles in my throat spasming. The other girl took a deep breath, and then extended her hand out to Fierce.

"The crystals, right Fe? That's what we need to break?"

"It's too much power Gretchen," I whispered urgently at the other girl, trying to reach out and stop her.

"Then we'll bear it together," she reassured me, somehow hearing my silent warning over the din. Fierce extended one bone-white stinger, gently touching the boiling stone. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then two became one. Gretchen collapsed like a puppet with strings cut, and the only reason I was able to throw myself forward to catch her was because the synergy stone had revitalized me as much as it had burned me.

That same stone was now dull and only vaguely warm in the other girl's palm, all that energy now directed towards a different end. And that end was Fierce. The hovering Beedrill was surrounded by a glowing cocoon of power, a shimmering, glassy sphere from which all colors of the rainbow shone. A prismatic light burst outwards as the gleaming enclosure cracked, and then shattered. The Bug-type emerged to the sounds of glass shattering, his body warped and changed by the energies swirling between him and his partner.

Gone was the classic Beedrill, replaced instead with a new form. All four forelimbs were now tipped with sharpened stingers and his thorax had elongated to a lethal-looking point. He hovered in the air, his wings an invisible blur, and his crimson eyes fixed themselves on the floating Klang, still pursuing Mana some twenty meters away. In the space between seconds, the Bug-type vanished from our side, and arrived at his target. That massive stinger crashed into the Steel-type like a meteor slamming into the earth.

Two pointed limbs clashed with the shadow Pokémon, then four, then a flurry as the hovering Beedrill became a blur of frenetic violence. In my arms, Gretchen squirmed and writhed, her already-pale skin even more pallid than usual. Sweat poured off the girl as if she were running a marathon, and blood started leaking from her ears and nose. Clearly, her body wasn't used to expending so much syn, and the strain was doing her no favors.

"Gretchen," I tried to rouse the other teen, my voice hoarse to the point it was almost inaudible, "pull back, this is killing you."

"Better me than all of us," her voice was quiet, and laced with something I couldn't understand through the lens of our shallow relationship.

"I'll take the pain so no one else has to. I'm used to it." There was so much context to her words. So much I might never know or understand. I'd gone to class Gretchen for years, but had I ever truly met the other girl? I wasn't sure, but I did know that if I didn't act now, I'd never get the chance. I laid the convulsing teenager gently on the hard-packed earth, and forced my shuddering legs to obey, standing up to face the ongoing battle.

Fierce was burning like a star, the synergy burst sending prismatic waves of energy off of his speed-blurred form. But for all of the intensity, for all of the velocity and power, his attacks lacked the impact we truly needed to put this battle to rest. Even strained to his very limit, he was just about as strong as Mana at her baseline, and the latter had already been so-reduced by our opponent.

Stray bolts and metallic screeches wore at the desperate Bug-type, as he and his partner burned themselves to the wick fighting in a battle they just weren't ready for. I forced myself to move. To run! To use the time they were buying us to get back in this fight. I slid to a stop near Maushold, reaching a hand down to check on the insensate maus.

I recognized the unconscious Normal-type as the one I thought of as 'Nidoking,' and I grimly noted the little spots of red seeping into their fur from a bevy of wounds, each of them inflicted by small, glittering shards.

"We need to get those infected stones out," I whispered to my partners, placing a hand on each of their backs.

"They're too tiny for me to get at, you two need to remove them." No sooner had I explained than the pair were off, scything patches of fur down to the skin with pretenaturally sharp incisors and tugging desperately with the tiny, clever digits they hid inside their fuzzy paws. That sick, malignant hate forced its way into our minds, an all-consuming desire that screamed and raged against our efforts to remove the shards of stone.

But for all its anger and malice, the shards were but one voice against our many, and the corrupted crystals were so tiny, so reduced by this stage. Even with the power of the earth flowing through them, they couldn't prevent us from wrenching the miniscule flecks of stone free from the poor, unconscious maus' twitching body.

The work was grim, and bloody, but after a bare twenty seconds we had the shards entirely removed, and my unconscious partner lay still, other than for steady the rise and fall of their now-mostly denuded chest.

"Great work," I breathed, before pulling out their Poké Ball.

"Take a nice long rest, all of you. I'll finish this, I promise." The recall beam went out, scooping up the downed maus, and then extending to the other two Normal-types. Before it could finish absorbing them, however, the crimson light shattered, leaving the remaining two mauses heaving on the hard-packed dirt. I stared at them, surprise in my eyes, but really, I should have known better. When had my newest partners ever hesitated to give their all, everything they possessed, body and soul, for their family?

Before I could work up the words to halt their reckless courage, the pair were off, constructs forming around them as they scurried across the ground. Explosions heralded their arrival in the battle, the massive discharge of energy freeing Fierce from a cruel Vice Grip, separating the Klang's two gears for long enough for the Bug-type to wrench himself out from between them. Another Brine from Mana compounded the damage, before a Discharge sent all the combatants on our side scattering for cover.

All that and more I took in as I staggered towards my knights, slumping at their side and reaching a hand out to Lance. He was doing better than 'Nidoking', his natural armor having deflected most of the shards of the crumbling stone, but one particularly large hunk did stick prominently out from the black space directly below his eye, the armor there softened and corroded by the sickening energy roiling off the malignant crystal.

I didn't hesitate, forcing my blasted vocal chords to strain even further as I struck the stone with a wordless scream. I devolved into a coughing fit after just a second or two of sound, but my cry of defiance was enough to completely compromise the cruel stone's remaining integrity. The orange crystal crumpled, falling to pieces that my knights easily scattered away with their shields, leaving behind a rotting puncture in Lance's armor that was slowly oozing crimson blood.

I found the energy to recall him, and to my shock, the rest of my knights followed the beam, returning to the ball. My surprise was short-lived, however, as after a moment, without any prompting from me, the five remaining Falinks emerged once-more. They looked up at me, for just a moment, and I wasn't sure exactly what they saw, but then, they turned as one, and rocketed into the ongoing battle, their First Impression carrying them across the field in a moment. Everything in my body ached.

Everything screamed for me to sit down and stop moving. I couldn't feel my throat, and a persistent throbbing pain erupted from my right ear at regular intervals. Instead of doing that, I stumbled towards the frantic scrum in the middle of the blasted wasteland. Moves and attacks erupted around me as the combatants threw everything they had into the final moments of this battle. The Klang was flagging, the stones that had been sustaining them shattered and reduced, but they weren't out of it yet.

The minigear hung limply from the larger, no longer moving under its own power, only spinning because its teeth were still linked with its twin. The larger one raged enough for both of them, electricity pouring off the Steel-type in waves as it threw its body around with reckless abandon, weaponizing its speed and weight as much as any actual move. Fierce's stingers dripped with impotent venom, and his perfected form was wavering, uncontrolled energy leaking from his cracked and bruised carapace.

He didn't let any of that stop him though, as he plowed into the hovering Steel-type over and over, forcing them close to the ground. Mana erupted from a pool of water beneath the battle, a spray of Brine carrying her up and imparting enough force into her body that her Aqua Tail staggered the hovering Shadow Pokémon. She followed it up with a Hydro Pump that rammed into a Charge Beam from the Steel-type, the explosion of energy sending both combatants flying away. Mana landed in a heap on the ground.

The Klang landed on a fuzzy heap of mausy bodies. Another eruption of light and sound rocked the arena, the two mauses conducting a symphony of destruction, the finale of which saw them collapsing on their little bums, completely drained of energy. The cataclysmic shockwave almost knocked me off my feet, and it clearly sent the Klang for a loop as well, the Steel-type looking dazed and confused, its teal core blinking erratically around the persistent shards of crystal still affixed to its body.

The shock, awe, and surprise bought enough time for my knights to Falinks-pile atop the Steel-type, pinning it to the ground and slamming glowing shields into the remaining shards of shadow synergy stone. Energy started suffusing the downed gear, even as my knights continued chipping away at the pustulant orange crystal, and the prone body began to spin, scattering my knights away like ninepins.

I could see the incoming explosion in my mind's eye, but my efforts to shout a warning weren't borne out by my collapsed vocal chords. But just before the energy reached its zenith, the Klang halted, their entire body unmoving except for the shuddering creak of restrained power. The smaller gear had regained consciousness at some point, but instead of helping its twin, it'd jammed its teeth in-between the larger's, fixing the pair in place, restraining that malignant energy and pinning its sibling to the ground.

Thunder flashed, and an impossibly bright blast of electricity flew aimlessly into the sky, pouring out of the minigear in a harmless burst that nevertheless shed enough heat that I could feel it on my skin. The small gear sagged, unmoving once again, but it'd bought enough time. My burning legs ate the last few meters in a staggering sprint that culminated in something between a collapse and a dive.

I landed atop the Klang just moments ahead of my knights, as Mana and the two mauses floated up behind me, all three borne on sleds of water. Fierce hovered next to us, twitching and shuddering, as if he was about to come apart at the seams. And underneath me, I felt energy welling up again, mere seconds away from obliterating us all. My hand reached out, and touched the finger-sized crystal still attached to the struggling Steel-type.

Hate and hunger and fear roiled through me, hot and heavy and so much worse for my flagging energy and attention. For a moment, I couldn't muster up the will to resist, until a shield reached out and touched the stone as well, and a paw, and a fin, and a stinger. Our bodies lay piled atop one another, and our minds swirled in an unceasing whirlpool of thought and emotion.

It would have been easy, so very easy to lose myself in the comforting embrace of fifteen and a thousand souls, except for the lingering hint of malaise trying to overwhelm us all. We would never be safe, for as long as that malignant light shone. We would never know peace, or unity, or joy, or any of the other things that made lift worth living. The shadows wanted too much, and too fiercely. An unending greed that the full energy of the world could never satisfy.

A memory rang out, vibrating through the currents of our conjoined mind. A buzzing, a humming, a melody. One well-practiced and expertly adapted. A final gift to prove that a life had been worth living. I opened my mouth to sing, but found my voice faltering, incapable of the tune. And yet still, Butterfree's Song rang out, a chorus taking up the torch where I could not.

Crying fish and quiet mauses and crowing knights and buzzing bee and vibrating gear, all coming together to match the tone and frequency in my mind. My fingers scrabbled and clenched, and with a roar of exertion that couldn't escape my collapsing throat, I tore the remaining shards of crumpling crystal free, hurtling the repugnant stone away even as the last few lingering bits shattered into inert dust under that perfect, resonant song. And then, it was over.

With a roar and a whimper, the unearthly space around us collapsed in on itself, a roiling vortex of non-space consuming the unnatural world, redefining our surroundings as mundane concrete and rebar and steel. In the blinks between moments, we found ourselves back under Mechry Stadium, in the room containing the facility's gaia spot. My head felt oddly empty, suddenly deprived of all those voices.

Really, it was more silent than it'd ever been in recent memory, as my exhausted mind converged into just a few, sluggish threads. With a sigh, Fierce collapsed into a twitching pile of limbs, the synergy burst leaving him as Gretchen reclaimed her mind. The other girl reared up for just a moment, before collapsing to her hands and knees and vomiting a stream of blood and bile. My partners similarly fell to the ground, Mana unable to carry herself and the two remaining mauses anymore.

Blood and mud stained the fur of the two Normal-types, who lay on the ground, insensate, and bioluminescent tears leaked freely from Mana's eyes as she opened her mouth to reveal off-white burns coating the inside of her jaw, where the now-dull synergy stone still sitting in her mouth had pulled too deeply from the earth's power. I recalled all three of them, and got my knights to pick up Fierce so they could bring the unconscious Pokémon over to his partner.

For her part, the teen had finished expelling the contents of her stomach, and she wiped the blood and the bile from her mouth on the back of her yellow-striped sleeve as she recalled her downed Pokémon. I turned from that tableau to the still gears laid out in the center of the room. Both halves of the Klang were completely still, and for a moment, I feared the worst, but a dull, uneven glow from the pair's cores reassured me that they were at least still alive.

I reached into my bag, and groped around until I found a Poké Ball. I wouldn't normally capture a Pokémon without their permission, but the circumstances were extreme in this case, and there was no chance any of us were carrying the Steel-type upstairs for the medical attention they surely needed. I chucked the red and white sphere at the unconscious Klang, and they disappeared in a flash of light, absorbed into the device, which rolled only once before falling still with a distinctive beep.

It took all of the rest of my energy to stoop over and recover the Poké Ball, stowing the tiny sphere on one of the clamps on my belt. I tried to straighten, and found myself overbalancing, as exhaustion threatened to send me tumbling to the concrete. A hand reached out and caught me, just before I could collapse in a heap. Gretchen held onto me with way more strength than I'd have thought the other girl capable of in her current state.

It seemed like all of her muscles were trembling at the same time, an awkward full-body shudder that wracked her in random spasms. One of her eyes had blood red splotches coloring the sclera, places presumably where blood vessels had burst, and she was paler than a ghost under the dim lights of the stadium's underground. And yet for all of that, the other girl still helped to support my weight, while pulling me urgently towards the shattered doorway leading out of the room.

"C'mon Fe," my former classmate said as forced me to walk, her eyes desperate with concern.

"We need doctors. Now." A thought struck me, as Gretchen led us out into the concrete corridors while shouting for help. If the other girl looked that bad off, and she was worried for my sake, then just what kind of shape was I in?