Chapter 4: Village of Ruins

A light breeze blew through the exposed alleyways of the desolate town. The earth, charred and barren, had only sparse patches of grass growing in the shadows of the dilapidated structures. The sun, shimmering high above, scorched the arid landscape which had long since relinquished its last precious drops of water. Wispy clouds circulated high overhead, floating like gentle white smoke, but rain not had fallen for months. The wells were dry. Drought had seized the land. And yet a tension remained in the air. A foreboding sense of dread.

"LOOK OUT!" screeched the Gardevoir, launching a burst of psychic energy with a twist of her wrist. The ensuing kinetic kick startled Feyera as he and Sanaria were knocked backwards.

"Whoa!" grunted the young man as he attempted to regain his footing. "What are you doing?!" he asked feeling her frail figure lean defensively beside him.

"Poacher!" she yelled out, "Above us, atop that building!"

"I'm on it!" Reflexive intuition barreling into action, he clutched his belt holster, and charged forward with a burst of speed. His heart pounded as he looked up at the rickety balcony, perched high atop a tattered wooden house. Below the sun-faded awning, stood the shadow of a man holding what appeared to be a rifle.

"WAIT!" called out her voice from behind, realizing he had not taken cover behind her Reflect. However, this was no time for stalling; Feyera had already quickly surveyed the land, and realized both he and his Pokemon had little cover to survive a firefight. There was simply nowhere else to go except towards the shooter Sana had identified in the nick of time. He had seen the threat through her eyes, viewed the menacing steel barrel peering out from behind an iron-guarded platform atop a decrepit residence directly ahead. Bizarre feelings and confusing memories had also transmitted through the shared sensory perception – he felt the terror of being hunted since birth. The twisted horror of countless generations of Ralts and their kin. It was an awful, visceral sensation – one which would have crippled him had he not understood its origin. Yet this foreign fear did not dissuade him from his objective: to take the fort. If he could draw attention towards the base of the house, perhaps then he could duck below the rifle's sight and use psyonics to leap onto the dilapidated roof to finish the job.

He thought he heard a faint voice, but the emotions guiding his body were far too potent – he could barely comprehend the inundating thoughts from his heart. Everything around him was blurring into necessary action as spiritual energy guided him. Perilously rushing across the ground and closing the distance, Feyera heard another voice – this one louder and more urgent. "HALT! I told you to stop, outlander! The property's littered with mines–!"

With frightening quickness, he looked down, and saw the flashing lights riddled across the land, some of them barely even buried beneath the surface. In the blink of an eye, one of the mines had tripped with an audible "beep beep BEEP!"

"Shit!" he said breathlessly as a crackle of thunder from beneath the earth sent him skywards. Unable to manipulate the incredible force, Feyera covered his face with his forearm as the blast below ensued sending explosive debris every which way. From his tumbling vantage, he could barely right himself in time to allow the psyonic impulses to moderate his decent. In a panic of swirling dust, he caught a glimpse of his adversary, who had now exposed himself from behind the shelter.

It was now or never, a focused mental state had overtaken him, and he felt familiar swirling energy streaming out of his palms. "It's gonna take more than that to kill me!" he hollered vengefully, but the air had barely returned to his lungs causing his voice to be hoarse. Another step forward and he felt the ground rumble yet again. Another eruption of force from beneath the surface nearby knocked him to the ground with a thud. It was a graceless stumble followed by a sharp pain in his right leg. The sensation, though muffled by his adrenaline, quickly caused him to look down to find a palm's width of fragmentation in his thigh. Blood had begun to spill out from the injury. Based on the lack of forceful bleeding, no vital arteries had been hit but his leg muscle was completely out of commission. He swore loudly and yelped as his hand ran over the piece in an attempt to dislodge it. However, he immediately felt nauseated from the severe pain and collapsed.

"Thas Feyera!" Sana bellowed, advancing toward his prone body with a reflect shield aloft in front of her.

Then from the balcony came a gritty and old voice, "Order your Pokemon to stand down or I'll detonate the rest of the mines!" ordered the man stationed in the makeshift bunker.

Buckled on his side, Feyera grimaced in the sheer agony from the fall while a deceptively soft-blue light pulsed in steady busts not more than an arm's length away. The dry soil barely covered the mine. "Damn…" he said weakly, "it's no good, I… I can't move. You have to back off, Sana; these things are set off by motion. Don't come any closer!"

Sana abruptly halted in fear, and was now looking down at her feet.

"Last warning outlander!" said the man with a stern order, "Tell your Pokemon to stand down and who knows, I might just let you live to see tomorrow in one piece!"

Rising slowly to his knees, Feyera felt the fresh tearing of skin seize him. More warm blood trickled from a deep gash on his hip. The pain was pulsating, and he tried to minimalize the sensation by focusing all of his energy on assessing the situation.

Above the heavily guarded property a lone gunman stood with his rifle, now pointed skywards. In his other hand the man appeared to be holding the detonator – its short silver antenna glimmered brightly in the harsh sunshine. "Give up already, will you? Taking my stronghold isn't worth your life!" roared the man from afar.

"Please, Please, listen to him! You're badly hurt. There's no other way!" she protested. Without even needing to snap his head around he could sense Sanaria's frightened presence. Though he could no longer see clearly through her eyes, the bond of sensation was just strong enough to reveal her sentiments. "Please, you have to listen to me, thas Feyera! This isn't worth getting blown up over!"

Biting his lip in utter frustration, Feyera called out, "Fine! You win! We'll stand down." Though the thought of backing down from a challenge did not agree with him, there was no rational way to win this fight now that he was knocked down in the middle of the field.

"Smart move kid," said the man with smug laughter, "Now get up on your feet real slow, hands high where I can see them!"

Humiliated, Feyera obliged without a grumble. His tattered clothes had small puddles of blood from the nearly fatal explosion. Had the force not lofted him, he surely would have been gravely wounded from the mine's blast. At this point he was grateful to still be breathing, although the defeat stung at his core. "Urgh…" he could not help but tremble from the pain as the recently aggravated scars on his body leaked precious lifeblood. "I… *cough*" gaging on saliva he tried to talk, but the words felt incredibly distant, their meanings leaving him confused and lost. "Why...why?" he managed to ask whilst extending both his hands skyward to surrender.

"I should ask you the same question!" said the stranger. "You're trespassing on my land after all!"

"Your …land?" he asked feeling rather puzzled by the concept at first. Considering he was from Saffron, it didn't look like much. In fact, the rural area looked unhospitable for farming even without the minefield. Forcing a smirk he said back, "I don't suppose you value your land very much if you're willing to booby-trap it with explosives!"

"Humph." He placed his rifle to his side and crossed his arms with a scowl. "You sure are snarky for a young pup! To be honest, I wish it did not have to come to this. Yet this is the only way I can protect what is my own from those who wish to take it from me by force."

"…!" Oddly enough, those words rang true. Maybe it was from the blood loss, although in spite of the lightheaded feeling, the gunman did appear to have some sense about him. By now Feyera had gotten a clear sight of him. Perched defensively atop the wired roof, he must have stood not much taller than average. He wore a pocketed overcoat, camouflaged in white and grey to match the surrounding dismal environment. Clearly, he sought not to be disturbed – or discovered for that matter.

"So! Now that I have your attention, tell me, what gang of marauders sent you?"

"I'm not a raider!" Feyera shouted. "I don't have any qualms with you!"

"And yet here you are, intruding upon my property – that makes you a liar. I don't take kindly to liars, I'll tell you what."

"What's it to you!?" Feyera snarled, "I won't allow you to hurt my friends." He glanced down at his Pokéball holster. Brucie, Des, and July remained in their stasis chambers, awaiting a quick trigger release by the C-gear. However, Feyera refrained from further aggression; surely, if the gunman was willing to talk to him for this long, he may very well be moved by the young man's request. "My Pokemon are too important to me!"

"Your words are little more than recycled hypocrisy, phrases all trainers are taught to adopt."

"I told you I would stand down!" Feyera exclaimed with fury, placing his Pokéball holster down by the side of his ankle. "Promise me you won't hurt them! They're innocent."

"I wouldn't be entertaining the thought had you not attempted to rush at me."

"You were aiming a rifle at me, what was I supposed to believe?! If not for that, I wouldn't have felt we were in immediate danger," Feyera wittily retorted.

"My eyes aren't the best at my age," the man replied, "I was monitoring your movements, through my scope."

"Oh, so that is how it is?! You just peer through a gunsight and expect me to not suspect hostility?!" Angered beyond measure and facing increasing levels of pain from the recent injury, Feyera's natural intuitiveness still demanded answers. "Hold up. You called me an outlander before, how do you know I'm not from Johto?"

"Hah! Boy, I can count the number of people I trust from this region on one hand. And you're not one of 'em."

"Are you serious?" Feyera asked, looking around at the deserted landscape. "At least tell me what happened here since - as you've correctly deduced - I'm not from around here."

The gunman, stiff in his posture, remained silent. Gradually he lowered his hand holding the threatening detonator. "Why should I?" he asked.

"I-it's not like I can do anything! What happened to this town?" pressured a wounded Feyera. He frowned, unable to make direct eye contact or rely on Sana's powers to boost his own at this distance, leaving much ambiguity as to the circumstances of his situation. At the very least sensing a diminished level of hostility, Feyera lowered his arms and applied pressure on the gash at the side of his leg. Gahh!" he moaned tightening his grasp on the site of the injury. As the arid soil mixed with his blood, the coppery scent became unbearably strong; his heart glimmered a pale red, pulsating with every noxious inhalation. "Please…" he pleaded, feeling his time quickly draining away.

Finally the gunman spoke, "Why have you brought such a creature with you to this place?"

"Creature?!" she snapped in riled anger. "How dare he say such a thing!"

"Sana, ease up!" he said shooting her a look warning her not to advance. "I don't know what you are talking about, I'm a Pokemon trainer and –"

But it was already too late, as their secret was out in the open, as obvious as the heart upon Feyera's chest. "So, you taught a Gardevoir to speak with the voice of a human being?" the man asked with a disgusted expression. "…How could you do such a thing?"

"I–I don't know what you are talking about," he replied nervously, "I'm just a Pokemon trainer and –"

"–Don't play coy; I spotted it with my scope before you even saw my rifle," interrupted the man with an accusing finger, "Your chest and your Gardevoir, there's something unnatural about the two."

"Ah –" Feyera flushed "– yes, well you're very keen to take notice of such things," he responded fretfully.

"Don't mock my observations, kiddo," chided the mysterious gunman. "That was no ordinary jump. I figured your Pokemon had something to do with it, but at that distance that does not make any sense. Unless…" he paused, and then quickly shook his head. "I sensed something off about you and your Pokemon the moment you set foot in Azalea."

"So this is Azalea?" Feyera replied suppressing a tight smirk – thankful for the information regarding their present location. "*Huff…!* I would have expected a quiet little town like this to be more hospitable to travelers. Looks like I was sorely mistaken…"

"True, you know nothing about the Azalea I once knew," he said with a serious tone, the shadows of his bunker concealing an old and cragged face, "as I said already – very few are left who do."

"And yet you'd expect me to know such things? I'm not even from around here as you already pointed out!" Feyera rebuked his wound tearing open further from the agitated stance. "Ah!" he crouched down in pain. "My heart!" he cried out as energy pathways continued to twist and coil through his aching body. "Gugh…it's tearing at my body from within!"

"Thas Feyera!" Sana telepathically conveyed, distraught with anxiety, "You mustn't move!"

"I'll be fine!" he quickly lied; knowing her drive to rescue him was reaching unprecedented levels. It was difficult enough to control his own physical pain, let alone her radiant feelings. "Stay back, the field is riddled with his traps."

"I'll rise above them!" she said quickly trying to formulate a plan, "I'll levitate like before and–"

"No!" Feyera said sternly. "They detect motion, not weight. It's bad enough one of us should have to suffer through our bond. This isn't your fault. Don't jeopardize the situation any further."

"Thas Feyera…I…don't know what to do."

"I shouldn't have rushed ahead without thinking," he admitted embarrassingly. "This is all my fault, that's why we're separated."

"I can't accept that – I won't let you die alone!"

"I can tell it really cares for you," interjected the gunman.

"Of course I do!" Sana cried out in a pitch of fevered emotion. "And I'm not an 'it', you decrepit old basta–"

"-Sana, now isn't the time," Feyera interjected. "Don't you see? Hearing a Pokemon speak with the voice of a human upsets him."

"But I can only speak because of you! You taught me when our hearts kissed! A part of you stayed with me and I can't lose the rest of it!"

"Sanaria, I told you cannot follow me here, it's too dangerous."

"But…!"

"Humph. I don't want another corpse on my hands. Our town's once peaceful fields have been polluted with far too much loss already; I will not stand by and watch you slowly die before my eyes, despite what you've done."

"Y–you're going to let me live?" Feyera asked in confusion. "And my Pokemon too? After all of that?"

"I can see that you're badly hurt. And to be honest, I'm surprised my mine didn't outright kill you. To let you bleed out and die would be cruel and unjust to your friend."

"Thank you…" said Sana.

"Thanks…" Feyera quivered, "Hey, wait a second! What about the mines?"

"I will disable them remotely, after all they're not Voltorb" he said firmly. "But you'll have to trust me. These are devices I built, and they obey my control."

"You build mines?!" Feyera asked in bewilderment.

"Among other things," replied the man as he adjusted a nob on the detonator device. "There. It should be safe to walk over now."

"Should be?" asked Feyera trying not to sound as terrified as he actually was.

"Listen to him," said a voice by his side. "I trust him."

"Sana!" he exclaimed in disbelief upon seeing her standing on one of the devices. It had ceased its ominous blinking. "I – ahh – phew, you're all right."

"Of course I'm all right, the man said I would be! But you're not, and that needs to change."

Feyera shook his head, bemused by how trusting Sanaria was. If it was her nature to be this way, then it was a wonder she had managed to stay alive – especially around him.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Can you still walk?" she asked innocently. Her palm graced his shoulder and the stinging sensation subsided for a moment, giving him clarity.

"I think so." By the time he had gotten to his feet, he noticed the gunman was already downstairs and opening the reinforced door to the residence. In spite of the terrible damage he had taken, and the unknown future ahead, he could not help but give her a smile as she helped him to his feet. Arm in arm they walked over the field of mines and towards the open door.