The Summer of Two Island
…
Chapter 10 – Brianna III
No Locker is perfect.
I do not kid myself when I select humanity's heroes. I followed Brianna for so long, long before she even contemplated hating her family, because she had flaws and I needed to know them. I have yet to choose a hero who could not handle the responsibility. I do not believe I have done so yet.
That is not to say I have not seen heroes fall. Again, no Locker is perfect.
And again, I do not believe this will happen now.
When I tell Brianna about her impending defeat, the rush of emotions passes through us both. This is the magic of the Way Between Worlds: the space unites its inhabitants in a universal field, where we are one in more ways than we are not. Please, do not try to understand it. It does not matter.
What does matter is the raw fear that Brianna, bless her heart, fights to push away.
The white space responds to her memories. We stand on pavement, surrounded by radiant trees in the prime of spring. Before us looms the crimson skyscraper that would change Brianna more than she yet knew: the Indigo Plateau, headquarters of the Kanto Pokemon League and base of its Elite Four.
Brianna shuts her eyes. I pray she keeps them that way. When a very energetic, very formidable Jolteon materializes and rushes between us, I pray she does not see.
This is no ordinary Jolteon. He looks up at me and smiles.
I respond. Of course I remember you, Two-Bit.
I remember the other Pokemon that appear as well. I am immortal, and just as I am aware that these specters are a far cry from restored life, I know that they would cause Brianna only pain. These heroes have been long gone, but when do we ever forget those left behind?
They appear in their familiar order, marching from the belt of a past Brianna and into this plane.
Beside Two-Bit is Niccola, Brianna's Nidoqueen. Proud, olympian Niccola, who held off so many of Lance's Dragonite army before finally succumbing.
Johnny Cade, her Lapras, glides along the impossible area above us. Acquired thanks to a loophole in the Locker rules, it was a gift in Silph Co. This one would hit her the worst: Johnny Cade was no less than her third replacement water-type Pokemon. She had sworn she would never use another water Pokemon.
Cherry, Brianna's Sandslash, rolls before her and spreads its coils. Cherry's defeat was close to last, I remember with heartbreak. We have all heard it before: 'Stall him for one turn'. Cherry did just that.
Finally, mighty Primeape Wilhelmina appears before me. Along with Cherry and Sawyer, the three of them carried Brianna's Challenge from Pewter City all the way into Saffron City. Unbreakable friends to the end.
That Sawyer cannot join his friends in this picture, no matter how false it is, pains me. It would be the reunion all families crave.
These are not the only friends that she has lost, by far. But this was the team. The team.
And the Elite Four had broken them. Broken them and scattered the remains to the winds.
Two-Bit vanishes from us first. I blame myself: due to the Locker conditions, Brianna never had an opportunity to capture a grass-type Pokemon. Sawyer barely came out of the battle with Ice-Mistress Lorelei alive. Two-Bit was not so lucky.
Johnny Cade and Wilhelmina go next. Bruno's fighting Pokemon proved too strong for the former, and Wilhelmina's desperation got the better of her at the subsequent opponent, Elite Four Koga. Neither Pokemon regretted their defeat. Wilhelmina, interestingly enough, only regretted having but one life to give. Not many creatures, human or Pokemon, can boast the sentiment.
...Then it was time for Lance.
The scene changes. I watch as the world warps around myself and my Locker, as well as Cherry and Niccola, into a pale yellow hallway. White beams illuminate our path to a final door.
This was where Brianna steadied herself. For the first time, she prepared for defeat.
At this point, she had lost half of her team. Sawyer had taken on heavy wounds and his fire techniques were almost out of energy; Niccola's speed was never meant to contend with the notorious dragons; Cherry, at full strength, was only a Sandslash in a battle of top-tier Pokemon.
When this happened, I just barely resisted the urge to pull her into this place. To tell her the consequences of her future defeat.
A normal Trainer is allowed to try again. For a Locker, defeat—like everything else in their life—meant much more.
Were Brianna to experience a total party kill—a White-Out—she would be crippled. First, she would be unable to hear and connect to me. Next, her connection to all Pokemon would go. Never again would she hear a Pokemon's name, would she bear that intimacy which she still shares with Sawyer, which she enjoys with Dawson and Gabby.
But due to her accepting me at all, she would be ruined for Pokemon Training without that name-based intimacy. Issuing orders to a Pokemon without that connection would be like screaming at a deaf man in another language.
If Brianna lost here, she would no longer be a Pokemon Trainer. She could never be one again.
And what life waited for her beyond the Nuzlocke Challenge? Return to parents that have long-since written her off as the anomaly of their fastidious lives? Find work when her peers busied themselves in studies?
Integrate into a world that, for Brianna, had never allowed it before?
...Obviously, none of this was encouraging. I held my tongue, and Brianna went into what may have been her final battle.
You would be surprised how theatrical real life can be. In the end, when Lance was left with his mighty Gyarados, and bodies of numerous Dragonite had fallen along those of mighty Locker Pokemon...And like in that harrowing beginning in an alleyway of Celedon City, it had all come down to Brianna and Sawyer.
The room changes again, this time resembling the aftermath of the tragic confrontation. Craters four, five feet deep line the walls and the ground. Rubble everywhere. Lights hanging from the ceiling. Wall foundation singed to a worrying thinness.
Niccola and Cherry vanish from us, reflecting the room's events. Brianna finally opens her eyes.
I have to stop her.
If she speaks, she will go into herself.
She will become what she was after the first death in Veridian Forest, after she left this place with one Pokemon and a title in exchange for five other lives.
Brianna will become unusable. It is cruel, but it is the truth.
I speak.
"I am telling you now so that you can prevent this outcome. I am warning you so that you can continue to serve your civilization as its hero."
"How?" She pleads. "How can I stop it?" She does not notice this room, does not notice as it changes to a final stage. The Two Island Stadium.
The graves of Dawson the Raticate and Gabby the Fearow, if she did not change something.
"Answer me!" Brianna screams. And when she comes back to her soft-spoken self, it is a whisper. "Help me."
I cannot do that.
It would be to intervene. She knows on her own anyway: there is only one option. The one she never intended, but which she prepared for nonetheless. I cannot tell her what she must do; I can only suggest.
"There is only one move left to play," I say.
"I can't use him," she begs. "I made a promise." And now Brianna cracks open, clenching her fists and shouting. "You saw me! I told Sawyer I'd never make him fight again!"
"Brianna, please—"
"Sophie looks at me like I'm a busted-up mess because my Pokemon die. They die, Mew."
"I understand—"
"I know you do, but you don't understand Sawyer. I lost Pokemon, but he's lost brothers. His brothers and sisters died so much, so often...Kanto is a graveyard to him. If anyone deserves to survive this, it's him. Not me. All I do is bark orders and send innocent creatures to die for me...Sawyer is the hero.
"He has to survive this," she says finally.
Without warning, I crash to the ground. There is a ground here. I never knew that, I think with a smile.
"Mew! What happened?!"
"My brother," I say. I realize I have said too much.
"Brianna, I do not have time to console you. We are being pushed from this space." And true to form, the Way Between Worlds blurs. Two Island Stadium returns to its white base state, and from there the color blurs. Brianna steels herself. Our linked wills take hold, our hands held tight in the rapids.
"How am I supposed to beat Mega Blaziken?" She yells. Whatever is screaming in my mind has come to hers. "What is Mega Blaziken?"
"I cannot explain here. It is fueled by the same powers that run through your Charizard, through Sawyer," I hurry.
"Like...Like a Mega Stone?"
"No, Brianna, not like a Mega Stone. He is using something similar to our relationship to simulate the powers of the Blazikenite." My voice strains. My retinas blaze, but I know that if I shut my eyes, I will pull us both from here.
Brianna reaches to hold me. Her hands pass through my body: we have already lost our physical representations. "I don't understand. How would Zack Forest get power like yours to trigger Mega Evo—"
She stops speaking. Seconds later, the Way Between Worlds ejects us entirely and she stands back in Two Island Stadium's green room. No time has passed. Forest marches silently, confidently behind her, and when they meet the adoring audience and the war-torn stage, Brianna and Forest take their positions easily.
No Locker is perfect. But I have always known: Brianna was destined for this. The moment when her head clears and she understands—Zack Forest fights under his own version of a Nuzlocke Challenge contract—confirms her fate.
"Final Round!" That obnoxious announcer drawls. He thanks the sponsors, the multiple half-time performers, and the cable networks for broadcasting to mainland Kanto. He promotes the special-edition snacks, reminds audiences to refrain from riots should their preferred contestant lose...and then the 'ultimate showdown' music plays.
"In this corner! Hailing from far off in the Hoenn region! Age twenty-one—barely legal, ladies!—he's captured his fans' hearts with the same skill seen in his outstanding Hall of Fame conquest. Not even slowing down after becoming Frontier Brain, he seems poised to become Two Island Champion! It's Zack Forest!
"And opposite him...who will stand alone to stop his rise to the championship title?"
Stand alone. He had to say it like that, didn't he?
"At just seventeen years of age, with a Hall of Fame barely two months old, she hails from nearby Kanto. She's the girl who brought down Giovanni of Team Rocket, who prevented the Alpha Incident and saved the world at the Power Plant—"
Zapdos owes me for that, by the way.
"—Can she score her first post-Championship title? Or will Zack Forest send her all the way back home? It's Brianna Rowell!
"Pokemon Trainers—
"No! Pokemon Masters...Win or lose? Let's rock! Battle start!"
Zack Forest has his first Pokeball ready. It's not Gardevoir's Pokeball, and it's not Blaziken's, either. Brianna sees it.
The debate in her head is not to send in Sawyer, and for good cause. For not the first time, she has outmaneuvered me. Forest is planning on beating the Charizard first. No sell, Forest.
When his Pelliper bursts onto the scene, hovering in the white light and only becoming visible as the teal highlights to its feathers glisten, Forest thinks this is done. His smirk disappears when Brianna's Fearow soars opposite his own fowl.
"A Water Pokemon," Brianna says. If there is fear in her voice—the same fear in every battle—it is masked masterfully. "Were you waiting for a Fire Pokemon?"
"I misjudged you," Forest says.
"You mean you thought I was intimidated."
"That I did," Forest laughs. "You're apparently not. It's surprising."
"You'll find I'm full of surprises. Gabby, Drill Peck!"
"Pelliper, follow it. Steel Wing."
Forest's Pokemon are strong, but with my power, Gabby is an invisible blur. Poor Pelliper does the smart thing: it stays in one place, waits for the invisible opponent to make a move, and lines up its Steel Wing strike. It's smart.
It's also too late.
Gabby's long, chipped beak is jackhammering away at its' enemy's back flesh, showing no mercy even as Pelliper nosedives and wails in agony. Gabby glides away—it is no bully—and waits for its mark to fly back up.
Forest is shaken. But only just.
Just enough to forget his strategy—to save his Water Pokemon for Sawyer—and risk losing it over his pride.
"Get up," he barks. Pelliper can only just hear over its own frantic heartbeat. "Hydro Pump."
To its credit, Pelliper does not waver. It attempts to find Gabby in the sky, but again, it is a wash. The bronze feathers vanish just as Pelliper's eyes pass over them.
Brianna sees the hopelessness in Pelliper's eyes. No Pokemon deserves to be hurt any more than necessary.
"Aerial Ace," she commands.
Pelliper is on its side, rolling along the stage and into unconsciousness before it knows what has happened.
"What a start!" The announcer bellows. "Brianna opens with an iron offensive! Let's hope Forest has something else up his sleeve!"
"Of course I do," he says. He returns his fallen fowl to its Pokeball, then removes another. "Brianna," he calls.
"What's wrong? Giving up?" She taunts. I miss this Brianna; the girl who faces conflict head-on. The one who does not need her cousin's backbone, because her own is steel. The girl Casey has brought out in such brief bursts.
"Put your Fearow away," he commands. "My next Pokemon will be Blaziken."
The audience goes into conniptions. The shrieks drown out that inane announcer.
"Let us put on a show," he suggests. "It's cruel to deny the crowd, you know."
Forest is not kidding. He flips the ball repeatedly, proving to her and the crowd—and myself—that he holds Blaziken's Pokeball. The Blaziken amplified by Nuzlocke-esque powers to unnaturally access its Mega stage.
There are so many questions. Will it suffer the same consequence of using Nuzlocke powers that Brianna's Pokemon do? Or is this an entirely different Challenge, a wholly different contract?
Fearow returns to its ball. The next one flies out of Brianna's hands quickly. With mechanoid speed, in fact. Her arm acts on its own. She herself is surprised, almost horrified when Dawson the Raticate takes the stage.
The audience is torn. The half that is not jeering, that is not taking a bathroom break, is applauding further. Brianna's Raticate is a crowd-pleaser.
"Sorry." Forest looks up and into the crowd. "I tried." Then: "Blaziken, go!"
The crimson fighting Pokemon stands on its mighty legs, talon hands stretched. It stares down its short beak into Dawson's small, beady eyes. Dawson twitches his nose, wiggles his whiskers. He knows the threat, knows the stakes...but he is excited. Finally, he thinks. A worthy opponent.
Commands fumble over one another—
"Hyper Fang!" and "Power-Up Punch!"
—And both Pokemon begin their violent tango. Dawson weaves through the blows, jumping with limitless energy at each swipe of the talon fist. He twists at one unexpected jump and dives into Blaziken, deathly-sharp teeth aimed perfectly.
It's a hit!
Dawson lands perfectly beside Blaziken, and seizing the moment when its prey clutches to the deep gash in its chest, he moves again. He doesn't wait for the command, he is more in sync with Brianna than ever before—
The crowd goes wild! Another direct hit! Blaziken stumbles to its knees, and Dawson is back on the starting line. Jumping from paw to paw, ready to end this.
Brianna's gaze wanders, if only for a moment, to the display. Blaziken's health has fallen to less than a fifth of its start. This opponent was far above Kimmie's level, but Dawson's Challenge-aided skill is another story.
She can win. The fleeting thought is the panacea to her wounds that not even Sophie and Casey can heal.
It is a salve on her soul. She can win.
In this reprieve, Brianna gives herself one mistake—
One simple mistake—
She dares to hope.
"Dawson, finish this!" Her every word is laced with adrenaline. "Last one! Hyper Fang!"
Dawson responds in kind. Waits for Blaziken to move, waits for any sign of counterattack, and leaps to close the distance—
Forest snaps his fingers.
"We've had quite enough of this," he says coolly.
If that doesn't make the blood drain from Brianna's face, Blaziken standing unscathed to backhand her Raticate across the stage does just that.
Dawson's health bar falls into the red immediately, all the way from full. And that wasn't even an attack.
When the stars fade from Dawson's vision, Blaziken is marching toward him, slowly. Measuring him.
Brianna is silent. At the absolutely worst possible time. Her jaw hangs slack open, a parody of old cartoons, and her eyes even begin to glaze. There had been no hope. Dawson was not causing damage. He was practice.
The seconds tick away, each one beating longer than the other. What can she do? Whatever Blaziken plans to do with Dawson, it would be no different with Gabby. Her Pokemon were strong, but they were just evolved common Kanto critters. Kimmie had brought her A-game and been thrashed. What did Brianna have?
She burrowed into herself. Exactly what I had tried to prevent, and thanks to the nature of the Challenge, I could not snap her out of it.
Blaziken reaches down, and when Dawson regains feeling and attempts to move, its executioner's arm flashes and grips the brave Raticate by its skull. Blaziken holds it in front of its expressionless face. Examining. Learning. Judging.
The audience roar fails to register. Dawson's limp helplessness, the looming end of Two Island Ranch, Brianna's probably white-out and the end of this independent life...it all crashes. A toxic waterfall, choking the life out of the poor girl.
Blaziken throws Dawson into the sky. And just like with Kimmie's battle, the warrior moves before Forest's commands hit the air.
"Brave Bird." Zack snaps his fingers. And Brianna shuts her eyes.
The impact echoes, and then booms through the stadium speakers. It passes through her like a gentle breeze back home. The graceful putter of Blaziken's feet on the stage goes unnoticed.
One sound reaches her: the soft splatter of Dawson's corpse as it hits the ground.
Forest grins. "One down," he says.
The constant, prodding screams of the on-lookers drops off. Brianna is not pulling her Pokemon back. What's the hold-up? Why is she dallying? Get on with it! None question why that fainted Pokemon isn't twitching, isn't breathing. They want a show.
The human bloodlust should no longer surprise me, but there it is.
With shaking hands, Brianna reaches for Dawson's Pokeball. She fumbles it, and the shining sphere rolls at her feet. She crouches down to take it, but she does not stand. The red light flashes and Dawson returns to the ball.
Brianna folds her legs under her. She does the most difficult thing: she breathes.
In, out.
In, out.
Just breathe, Brianna. Just breathe.
"Don't tell me this is a surrender," the announcer jeers.
Brianna hugs her knees. Don't think about it, child. Don't let the images of Dawson—young Dawson, little level fourteen Rattata Dawson—come to your mind. Push away how you met him after the Elite Four, in the fields outside of that unexplored patch of Pallet Town. Ignore the months spend training, reject the memories of shared late nights, early mornings, poison scares and critical hit surprises.
Forget how Casey flattered him, called him a fearsome warrior.
Beg forgiveness for how she relied on Dawson to see her through.
Plead for forgiveness. Sending him to fight Blaziken was a death sentence, and Brianna knew it. She would rather send one friend to the grave than break a promise to another...but wasn't all life the same? Wasn't the loss of any life the worst consequence on this planet?
Brianna is back on that lonely street in Celedon City. The crowd, Zack Forest, Blaziken are all gone and she is twelve again, she is a twelve-year-old girl standing tall over bloodied little boy bodies, releasing unknown anger. She could not prevent her parents' control and her classmates' cruelty, and after all these years, nothing has changed. The enemy has changed. Her parents are just two other people in this wide, wonderful Pokemon World, and now she hides from death. And once again, she is a powerless little girl, full of worthless rage, unable to change a thing.
The hospitalized boys...did they every recover?
Her Pokemon...her Niccola, Two-Bit, Cherry, Johnny Cade and Dawson and Laci and Link and Miles and Richard, were they dead? Really dead?
Only I hear it. The microphone clipped to her shirt would never be strong enough to pick up the broken child's plea.
"I kill everything I touch."
It wasn't just her Pokemon, either. What kind of relationships did she even have? Had she bothered cultivating any kind of intimacy? These teenage years, when she was supposed to be in her social prime...had she even so much as looked at a boy?
The crippling loneliness during that month spent wandering Viridian Forest, the bleak maze of Mt. Moon and the even much later, staring at the pale waves leading to Cinnabar Island rushes back. She was not born awkward, she did not always have to try so hard. It may have been middle school, but Brianna still spoke to people every day. And people still spoke to her.
If she lost every single Pokemon, if she left Two Island right now...would any living creature on this world ever speak to her?
"I kill everything I touch..."
Forest cups his ear. "What is that? I can't hear you, Bri."
Help the helpless. Become righteous. Achieve glory. These were the promises she took when she accepted the Challenge.
...But had she really accepted it? There was no choice. The option was to have those men in that busted alley do with Brianna what old men are wont to do with defenseless children. Even if she survived, her family would be so mad, so angry, so enraged that if her life wasn't already a living hell, it would certainly become so.
She accepted killing so many innocent Pokemon to save her own skin.
All but one.
Gabby was still alive, but sending her in would make this time just like the others. Where she was left to only one.
Sawyer remained.
Sawyer, her first and her last companion in this scenic journey through hell. When she nearly whited-out against Giovanni in that climactic Silph Co battle, it had been Sawyer who put a stop to the slaughter. Niccola, Cherry and Two-Bit wounded, Dallas the Gyarados killed and only Sawyer stood up to Giovanni's Rhyhorn. Refusing to let this be done to his family.
...Had Brianna been any better to Sawyer's family than Giovanni?
...Yes. Because at the end of the day, one emotion powered Brianna through these defeats. She hates it. Hates it. It fuels her the way a damp log fuels a fire, casting smog and choking the user but keeping it alive just enough to function. You don't have to breathe, Brianna. But you have to live.
She wants revenge. Like revenge on Cassidy and Sally, revenge against those boys and the men in the alley, against Giovanni and the Elite Four and her parents and each and every gym leader and Trainer along the way.
"I can't hear you!" Forest mocks again.
Bad move.
"I said," Brianna says at a low, guttural growl. "I'm going to kill your Blaziken." Then, a smile. That smile. "Try and stop me."
The same panic he instilled in Kimmie Gracie Cole, the same worry that her secret was gone and she had been laid bare to the world, it rushes at him. Forest nearly loses his cool...nearly. He takes pride in his unnatural powers.
So like my brother.
He utters one of the more foul words in your language.
And then the Pokeball is flying into the ring. The crowd, the Two Island employees, the Adelsons and everyone watching from their sofas hold their breath. The ball breaks—
Brianna takes a quick breath: "I'm sorry—"
The proud orange wings extend first. They span the width of the arena in their full breadth, then retract with his heaving lungs. His legs, thick like tree trunks and hard as stone, yet bright as the morning sun dig into the ground. The pointed nails at the end of his juggernaut claws stretch. A steady line of green air leaves his nostrils and he sucks in fresh oxygen, the fresh air of combat.
He curls his body in for a quick moment—
The roar puts the humans' atomic bomb to shame. To their credit, they ignite the air with their lungs right back at him.
Sawyer the Charizard tenses his muscles. And then he turns on Blaziken.
"Finally," Forest grins. "Blaziken! It's time."
He wastes no time, I remark to nobody. The supernatural light surrounds, then engulfs Blaziken just as before. It shatters and flies into nothingness, and Mega Blaziken stands tall. The flame trails that bandage and trail at its wrists burn with the same ferocity as the blaze on Sawyer's tail.
...I worry.
Brianna's Charizard is a Flying Pokemon, weak to the physical blows to which Mega Blaziken excels. And at the same time, Forest's hubris significantly weakened his prize fighter.
Forest expects to take the first move, to get the drop on the little girl across from him. He does not know the old phrase about women scorned, apparently. Too bad for him.
Or rather, too bad for Mega Blaziken.
"Flamethrower, Sawyer!"
The torrent of orange and cobalt flame streams from Sawyer's unhinged jaw. Mega Blaziken is fast; it tears into the sky and readies a strike.
Forest commands: "Brick Break."
Brianna and I recall together the painful, agonizing blow dealt to Kimmie's Blaziken. Brianna shakes her head.
Her yells are hardened, her panic and fear replaced with courage. The strength she herself does not know she has. "Fly! Now!"
It is just as planned: Sawyer folds himself into his wings and bounds upward, meeting Mega Blaziken's fist with the unyielding iron of its hide. Mega Blaziken stumbles in the air and Sawyer requires no order: he dives into the enemy, snapping his jaws and swiping. The limber enemy dodges all but one strike, a singing Fire Fang.
When it lands, it has to stand on both legs. One fist clutches its side.
Forest sees the wound, gauges the danger. Mega Blaziken cannot use all of its lean muscle to strike if it is holding in its innards. But calling back for Gardevoir will buy him nothing, because what could possibly stand against such a beast as Brianna's Charizard?
His eyes dance in his skull. Forest needs time. He must think—
That would qualify as mercy. Brianna has none, not for Dawson's murderer. "Wing Attack!"
Sawyer dives to Earth. Mega Blaziken thinks it knows its enemy's attack, expects the outstretched wings to simply buffer him. Countering with a Sky Uppercut would end the bout—
Brianna's avenger flips its entire body just as it enters Mega Blaziken's space. Wing Attack? More like a Wing Body Slam. Mega Blaziken slams into the ground and grinds against it, the impact pushing its bruised body through the concrete and into the earth underneath.
"No!" Forest cries, his demeanor broken at last. "Mega Blaziken! Stand up!"
"Forest!"
The words reach him, but only just. The desperate heaves of a beaten Blaziken preoccupy him.
Sawyer looms over the exposed, endangered Mega Blaziken. The attack does not come.
"Surrender," Brianna orders. The bloodlust, the appetite for vengeance fades and Brianna, sweet hazel Brianna returns to form. "I need you to surrender, Zack."
Forest chokes a laugh. "...You have to be kidding."
"I'm not. I know what you have riding on this battle, and I don't mean the championship, or some lame cash prize." She sighs. "I know."
"What could you possibly—"
"I know that your mega evolution is...serious." She shows him the courtesy he showed to Kimmie before. Not revealing Kimmie's past, not revealing Mega Blaziken's Challenge contract. The kindness of vague statements.
"So I'm giving you this chance. Surrender...please. Please. Surrender. Don't make Sawyer end this the way it has to end."
How Zack Forest would love to obey. The thought fills him the way water fills a drowning man's lungs, filling them and seeping out through the flesh.
And then it's gone. Psychic energy courses through Forest's veins, a painful flash that sears my senses. And Forest points to Sawyer's unprotected belly. "You're open!"
Mewtwo, what are you doing?
"Sky Uppercut!" Forest howls. A cowardly, fearful howl. "Sky Uppercut, damnit!"
...God bless Mega Blaziken. It stands and, through the pain of being literally dragged through stone, takes its stance. By all means, it should be down for the count.
Brianna wants to be merciful. She does not want to cause it pain, the way Kimmie's Blaziken or the way Dawson had experienced it. But if she is lenient, if she is merciful at the wrong time, Sawyer could—
No.
Mega Blaziken's attack is sloppy. The set-up is broadcast wide, detectable from a mile away. It's a shadow of its former self. A pathetic, slow and staggering shade. Even then, Sawyer narrowly avoids the arcing Sky Uppercut technique. Even on its last limbs, Mega Blaziken could take Sawyer out.
There was only one way to end this.
"Sawyer?" She has to shout the words, shout to the heavens and to her fallen friends, or else she won't go through with it. "Sawyer, Blast Burn!"
Mega Blaziken's Sky Uppercut, for the uninitiated, does have a lag time associated to it. The only Pokemon capable of the technique are normally speedy enough to cancel out the delay, but a dying Mega Blaziken struggles to even hold its head up. When its striking arm hangs limp in the air, Mega Blaziken knows.
I can only hope there was minimal pain...but the eternal inferno of Blast Burn gives me grave doubt.
The stadium explodes into adoration. Bottles fly, fireworks singe the evening sky, music booms and damn confetti sprinkles from above.
"That's a wrap!" The announcer finally calls. "Brianna Rowell is Two Island's Champion!"
Mega Blaziken is not retired to its Pokeball. Mewtwo's brief presence in Zack Forest fades, and the boy—yes, the boy—crawls to his old friend. His open sobs are lost in the commotion.
Lost to everyone but Brianna and Sawyer, who have seen this all before. And she can't help but wonder: how long until she has to see this in herself, for that one last time?
Let me know what you think! These recent chapters have been an absolute thrill ride. All of the set-up in the earlier chapters is coming to that satisfying climax.
As always, if you make it this far, I'm crazy flattered to have captivated you this long.