We strode across wet pavement.
The atmosphere was still thick with electric discharge, and the smell of burnt ozone was nearly overwhelming to my senses— it brought to mind charred apricorns. Here and there, storm clouds lingered in the sky, occasionally lighting up and rumbling, heralding bolts that never came.
The storm's given all it has to give. This is the aftermath.
Everything that comes after is the wake.
She wasn't bothered though. Essentia walked beside me with strange, mechanical efficiency. Like a doll being puppeted, or a wind-up doll going through the motions. Despite the cold evening air brushing her bare shoulders, there wasn't a hint of goosebumps on her skin.
Every sense dulled. Every automatic response to the world smothered in the cradle.
The blades of a helicopter chopped the air, loud enough to drown out the roars and destruction of the twin Zygarde laying waste to the city. As we got close, I realized with a start that I could see each individual blade in rotation.
The hatch opened for us.
Three women and three men in red suits were already sitting on the benches on either side of the compartment. Before they could lower the ramp, Essentia leaped into the cargo bay with casual ease, then kneeled at the lip and stretched out her arm, offering her hand to me.
I took it with only a moment's hesitation. She pulled me up quickly, as though I were weightless, and we settled together side-by side on the left bench, closest to the exit.
If she was going to be my companion for this new journey, then I needed to trust her just like I did everyone who came before.
The hatch closed. We took off.
It took a moment before I noticed how the Team Flare Grunts shifted uneasily in their seats.
I glanced down. Red tongues of Mega Evolution energy flickered from my skin.
I look like a dumpster fire.
Essentia was scary in a far different way, a small, soft-spoken girl who would probably be endearing if she weren't wrapped in a mechanical nightmare.
Together, we might have registered as a more immediate danger than the apocalypse outside.
How many of you didn't see this coming?
How many of you were gang-pressed into this nonsense, how many of you were jumped in, how many of you actually share these ridiculous death cult ideals?
The woman to the left of me was visibly trembling. It was hard to see her eyes through the orange lenses of her sunglasses, but I could see the moisture dripping down her cheeks. The rigid set of her jaw as the joints pressed out against the skin.
I placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped in her seat.
"Hey, calm down." My voice was alien to me, too sly, almost sickly. "There's no need to wo—"
Pain.
Like a Night Slash through the temple.
Our aura flared.
—They'd been in lab coats, last time she'd seen them, but now they arrived garbed in bizarre outfits right off a runway or the pages of a snob's fashion magazine. The lion-man, the leader, was dressed head-to-toe in black leather festooned with white fur trim, likely sourced from a prize Flaaffy, and he looked nothing less than the devil incarnate.
"It's the fleece of a Mega Ampharos, actually," he purred when she summoned up the nerve to ask.
She'd always been a little more perceptive than her childhood friend, so she'd warned him of the man and his almost hilariously blatant evil. He'd laughed her off. Said that this was their way out of the slums and into a better life. A job offer, that was all this was. If the so-called Team Flare- and despite their catchy name she knew that they were little more than a gang of rich thugs- were willing to pay so handsomely for just a little grunt labor, well, that was an amazing opportunity.
"Lysandre's a great man," her childhood friend said without a hint of irony. "He makes those crazy phones, the ones where the people pop outta 'em. Super cool."
A road to a better life. A real one, with pleasures beyond subsistence.
Neither of them had ever received an education beyond the stories their mothers had read to them before bed. They'd lived in the bombed out ruins of this godforsaken city since before she was old enough to even start forming memories.
When her childhood friend took the lion-man's hand, she knew her fate was sealed.
He was an idiot, making a deal with the devil, but she'd happily follow him anywhere he went to keep him safe. He was her priority. There'd never been anything more important in her life than him, and there never would be. His dreams were hers, after all. For her, he was the one and only—
She slapped my hand away, then slid further away from me on the bench, breathing heavily, sweat pouring down her face. The male grunt beside her said in a harsh whisper, "Don't mess with Xerosic's boogeymen. They wanna schmooze, just humor 'em. Never met the lightbulb there, but I've seen the helmet girl pick a grown man up with one hand and toss 'im through a brick wall."
I realized I was glaring.
I raised a hand to my face and tried to smooth the muscles out with my fingers.
It did very little. The aura around me continued burning, tongues of flame like spears detaching from the greater whole, swirling in the air like they'd found a target and were just waiting for the command to fire.
I turned away and settled for directing my anger at the cargo door.
I'd forgotten Essentia was sitting to my right, and flinched as my nose brushed her visor.
"Are you unwell?" she whispered. "I have medication on hand that would soothe your nerves, should you desire it."
"Um, that really doesn't sound like a good idea."
"As you wish."
The uneasy silence continued. Nervous energy filled the air. From the grunts, from me as well. Essentia's quiet presence would have been soothing if I didn't know why she was like that. It was like sitting with a ghost. I felt like tearing my hair out. I'd half a mind to just kick open the cargo ramp and drop into the streets. Hoof it like usual.
The drop's only what, a couple hundred meters? We've survived worse.
I heard Greninja snort within his poke ball. Calm yourself. We'll be back in the fray soon enough, provided you don't decide to evolve into a pancake.
'Soon enough' isn't 'right now,' and that's just terrible.
I blinked. "Essentia."
"Yes?"
"Tell me the thing we're supposed to do again." I chuckled and scratched at my cheek. "Um, I was only paying about half attention while that bald guy in the white suit was blabbering at us. Please?"
"Very well." Essentia tilted her head. She was silent for a moment, then a holographic map of Lumiose City was projected from a marble set into her wrist. Here and there, hotspots were highlighted in red and tagged with fine print. Colored a deeper red, two Zs roamed slowly throughout the inner city, forsaking the streets entirely and running roughshod over landmarks and buildings. "Reports indicate that a minority of the Kalos Gym Leaders are closing in on Lumiose City from all directions- the majority have elected to stay within their territory and protect their own people. Of immediate worry is Regional Champion Diantha. Both a flag for the defenders to rally around, and an inexorable trump card in combat. Their greatest strength- but also their greatest weakness."
Essentia nodded. A rounded capital E flashed across her visor.
"Ash Ketchum, you and I will capture Champion Diantha."
