"We… we… lost…"
In all his eighteen year old glory, he bent beside his Zoroark and tears streamed from his eyes.
I barely noticed. Because in my limp arms was my Mienshao, her lithe body mangled and gushing. The room was spinning from my horror and the smell of blood. She was such a fighter… everything I could ever ask for in a pokemon companion… and she was gone.
Not even the safety of the pokeball could have saved her. The red line of light refused to absorb her back into its secure barriers. And so I collapsed next to her screaming and hiccupping and sobbing like there was no tomorrow. I held her limp in my arms and buried my face into her blood soaked fur. She was already cold, and her flesh was sagging from her broken bones.
I tried to tell myself that she wasn't suffering anymore… that she wasn't going to be in pain or have to fight again. I tried to tell myself she would be happy wherever she may be… but it all just came crashing done on me.
It didn't even matter that she had used her last, dying breath to save all of Unova. She was gone and nothing… not even to stop the liberation was worth it.
Zoroark was sucked back into his pokeball with shaky hands as the boy of my most recent nightmares approached me. His face was wet with sorrow and as he bent at me side I realize I couldn't take my eyes off his. That or I just couldn't look at Mienshao's body any longer.
"Tou—Touko I'm… so—sorry." The grief in his eyes was real as he extended his hand outward tours my pokemons lifeless corpse.
I wretched away from him and let my legs slide out from under me. I curled up into a ball, probably looking more like a wild pokemon gorging on a piece of meat, opposed to a trainer sobbing for her lost companion.
"This… wasn't sup—supposed to hap—happen." He choked, pulling his hat off to reveal the dirty tea green hair that was sticking to his face.
Again he tried to reach out to my pokemon. Some magnetic pull was coming over him and that was it, he just had to touch her.
This time I didn't try to move out of the way. Instead, I unwrapped my blood stained arms from her body and shoved up, fighting to stay on my knees. I gritted my teeth together and looked him in the eyes…
N…
All the energy I could have possibly summoned in my muscles flashed for a second, the anger and adrenalin making me wild. I drew my hand back, making the tightest fist I could have managed. His grief filled eyes grew wide, but no amount of time would have been enough.
I punched him.
I punched him as hard as I could manage and he just took it, more tears flowing from his eyes down his dirty face. I stopped and waited for him to look up at me once more, a thick red blotch on his cheek.
"What's wrong with you!" I rasped and tried to punch him again. It fell short though and I turned my attention back to my pokemon.
"I… I don't… I…"
"N!" Ghetsis' booming voice roared. I didn't move, I couldn't gather myself together. Not even enough to spit in Ghetsis face like I vowed I would the next time I saw him.
"Mienshao…" I whimpered, not looking up.
"YOU LOST?"
N stood up immediately.
"YOU CALL YOURSELF A HERO? YOU DARE USE THE NAME HARMONIA!"
I tried to scramble away from the voice. I tried… without success to drag myself and my pokemon's body to the little bit of flat ground that wasn't covered in crushed bricks and fallen pillars.
"YOU COULDN'T EVEN BEAT AN AVERAGE TRAINER AND YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO BE KING!" he roared.
I had to look up them, to see the worse father on this planet slap his son across the face. I flinched and somehow wondered if this was all really N's fault.
Again… much like when I punched him, he just took it. But getting punched by someone whose pokemon you just murdered in battle… and getting slapped by your father, were two different things.
I didn't know what to think, I was convulsing, my body shaking and trembling and silently begging to get me out of here.
"I'll fight her myself. She is nothing but a little bitch. Watch and see just what it takes to be a king." Ghetsis turned and walked over to me, seeing the fetal position I was in and took advantage of it. He lifted his huge foot and struck me right in the side.
I whimpered and moaned and cried and ached in every way possible. Clutching Mienshao, still, like if I wouldn't let her go I would somehow be able to bring her back.
N was silently rubbing his cheek.
"GET UP AND FIGHT ME!" Ghetsis demanded, raising his leg to kick me again.
"STOP!" Cheren's rage filled voice suddenly filled the area and I caught sight of him dashing over, clutching his pokeball in his hand. He put himself right between me and Ghetsis, holding his arms out and snarling. "Fight me!"
Everything was spinning…
"Cheren… you mustn't do this." Alder's sturdy voice came then, but I couldn't find him anywhere. Everything was turning black. Colored fuzzy spots, tattered my vision and I thought it might make me vomit.
"Why not? We can't let them win!" Cheren argued.
"They already have." Alder's footsteps approached me and I could barely make out his boots two feet in front of me. "It's not worth it…"
"What!"
"Look at that!" Alder snapped. I could feel the stares turn to me and Mienshao's corpse. "This is all that's come of this!"
"I'm not giving up!"
"We surrender, Ghetsis…" Alder spoke anyways. "We will back away quietly now…"
Ghetsis scoffed… it was obvious he didn't believe anything that had just happened.
"NO!" Cheren through his pokeball and out came Servine from the sound of it.
"STOP!" Alder ordered.
Ghetsis's booming laugh shook the walls and my breath was growing shallower.
"Foolish!" He snarled and released a pokemon of his own. I didn't recognize the sound it made… I was losing it.
"I'm not giving up!" Cheren screamed.
"PLEASE!" N begged now. His voice sounded much closer to me than I expected. My eyes flickered open for a split second to see traumatized green eyes looking down at me. Or was he looking at Mienshao?
My stomach churned and my eyes lolled. Before I knew it everything was gone.