Between fifty Pokémon running around like chickens with their heads chopped off, angry ARFBI agents, and a legendary who couldn't fix anything that was wrong, I was more than happy to leave the complex. I rocketed out the doors, the psychic energy powering my flight knocking anything in my way aside. I caught the surprised looks of a few guards, most of whom were listening in on their radios. They were, no doubt, receiving some very odd instructions.
The air outside was just as frigid as it had been when I'd been first taken a few weeks back, but at least it wasn't blowing snow everywhere. Snow kicked back in my wake as I sped through the air, finally able to look back and admire the beauty of Siberia. It wasn't a wasteland. It was a canvas of snow, ice, and trees.
Seeing my tail trailing behind me, though, brought me back to reality. I'd be stuck with the purple appendage forever if I didn't get moving. But how long would it take to fly all the way to New Mexico, even if I pushed myself to my mental limit? After all, the only things holding me back were my own mind and the laws of physics – which it seemed weren't as set in stone as everyone had thought. The fact that I was flying via self-levitation in a body that wasn't supposed to exist here proved it. It seemed my only choice was to try teleporting again.
Getting to Montana had been fairly simple. All I had done was think of the picture on Google Images and go there. The thing with New Mexico, unfortunately, was that I had never been anywhere near there, nor did I know exactly where my brother and friend were being held. What could be done, though? It hadn't occurred to me that I would ever be the one to rescue them. I knew the general area of New Mexico and the locations of a few cities, but from there…
Realizing flying wasn't doing me any good, I stopped behind a tree. I'd need all the energy possible to teleport all the way there and back. I took a deep breath in of the chill air; let it clear my mind. I let my mind wander the map, let it wander the globe; let it stop near the southwestern United States. I pictured the rising buildings and city streets of Albuquerque, resting almost squarely in the middle of the state. The icy landscape of Siberia no longer existed. I was hanging in the air over downtown Albuquerque, sweating in the heat of summer. All I had to do was go there.
This and only this in mind, I gave a mental push towards that picture, and the world around me lost focus. I closed my eyes against the distortion, and sure enough, I could feel myself moving through space and time at a pace that couldn't be calculated. The world around me seemed to be spinning; pushing me through it like a twister and –
- I was falling again. Hot air blew around me, but this time I was ready and caught myself in mid-air. I took in the surrounding, dark city, and thankfully no helicopters or airplanes flew nearby. As far as I could tell, though, this was Albuquerque. Now that I was here, I needed to somehow locate Aaron and Tanner. I flew a little higher, where the air was thinner and then made my way past city limits. Now that I was here, I could track them down. I'd been living with Aaron for fourteen years and could probably single out his mind, his "psychic imprint", fairly easily.
Extending my consciousness proved more distressing than I had expected it to be. It wasn't like back at home, when I had just lightly brushed my brother's thoughts. I moved past the hundreds of thousands of minds in the city and tried to single out something familiar. I captured glimpses of names, faces, memories, dreams of sleeping bodies, random thoughts, but nothing I recognized. It flooded my conscious too quickly to remember anything. I swept the area, singled out the most under populated section, and pushed in. Here, I could focus on my task. I had no clue as to what surrounded it; I could only feel minds. A smile came onto my face when I saw an image of myself, of Mom and Dad, of our house in Omaha. Only Aaron would know those things.
I'd found him.
I focused, teleported, and moments later was standing in a concrete room. I opened my eyes into the pitch black of night. I raised a paw, fed enough energy around it to give off a little light, and spotted my brother and Tanner snoozing on two cots. I gave them each a little nudge and hissed into their minds, Guys, wake up! It's me!
Both bolted awake almost simultaneously. The two teenagers stared at me with mixed expressions of confusion, exhaustion, and – most of all – happiness. They clambered out of bed, each rushing over to me.
"What happened? How'd you get here?" Tanner whispered excitedly. "I thought they took your powers away with the wristband thing."
Aaron didn't say anything, just wrapped me up in a huge hug. I had to suppress a loud giggle and push him away. "We'll have our reunion back in Russia. I can't tell you everything here; we need to go now."
Tanner made a small choking noise. "Wha— Go? How are we going to go anywhere? You're not thinking of-"
"Hang on," I advised, and slung my arm through my friend's, yanking him closer. I grabbed Aaron's hand before he could protest. Just as I saw the night guard coming towards us, I thought of the chill landscape I'd just come from and went back.
We landed at the front entrance in a pile of bodies. Aaron had the misfortune of being squished on the bottom, with myself sandwiched between him and Tanner.
"Get OFF," I mumbled through Aaron's shirt, and tried to push Tanner off with my tail. He rolled off, and when I freed my face from the mouthful of cotton, I saw he looked partially scared; partially lost. My brother was just laughing his head off, even when I'd also rolled onto the tile floor and onto my feet.
"We're not doing that again."
I grinned at Tanner as he stood shakily. "We will if we have to, which we probably will." I helped Aaron to his feet and grasped his hand again. "Come on, we better hurry!" I called and starting running, dragging Aaron along with me and Tanner stumbling behind us.
When we made it to the main hallway in which all the chaos was occurring, both Aaron and Tanner stopped dead in their tracks, jaw-dropped. It hadn't really sunk in yet, but I supposed it was quite a scene. Some fifty-odd creatures were rushing about impatiently, confused, lost, still without their abilities, and all used to be human. Palkia remained at the back, where a gaping hole was still smoking from the room he'd burst from. Aaron's hand still in mine, I shouted, "Let's go! We have to get to Palkia," above the noise, and we dashed through the crowd of Pokémon.
A blur flapped past me, and I recognized it as the Articuno whom had been brought in just that morning. Its restraints were now all gone, and there was just a small mark where its band had been around its ankle. "Hey, hey!" I called, and flagged it down. The bird dropped off a small Pikachu and then hovered just over me – there wasn't even room to set down. What's your name?
"Vincent. I'm from Hong Kong," came a male voice, maybe around Tanner's age. "Christine, I think I might-"
You know what? Hold that thought. I paused, then put my paws together and grimaced. Please. I let my gaze travel back to Tanner and Aaron. Can you just keep an eye on these two? They're very, very important to me. Make sure they don't wander off, get attacked, that sort of thing? Vincent nodded, but some sort of apprehension still lingered in his dark eyes. One more thing: Are all the bands shut off?
"Nearly. I looked in on the control room while getting Bryan. The, uh, Pikachu," he clarified. "That Lucario was working with Agent Williams, I think, and the president."
Awesome. And the other wings?
"Empty. We should all be here."
I looked around, and realized something was wrong. Where did Palkia go?
"He said he was… 'taking care of something'," a new, higher voice interrupted. It came with a very odd clarity I hadn't even heard from Myria. I whirled to face an Abra, who sat on the ground as if nothing were happening. Her mostly-blind eyes looked down the opposite wing. "You might try down that way."
Thanks.
I finally looked to Tanner and Aaron, who still stood there, rooted to the ground with awe and barely-concealed excitement. My brother had his blue eyes trained on the huge bird which had just flown off. I caught a random string of thoughts:
"This can't be real, it can't, none of this is real, it's a dream, it's a dream, I didn't get my coffee this morning, Tanner still owes me for that bet, could really use a Starbucks right now…"
"Aaron."
His head snapped up and the train of thought cut off.
"We'll get through this. Yeah?"
The 17-year-old gave a very tight nod and pretended to be occupied with the ceiling.
"And Tanner, quit gawking!"
"There's a freaking Quilava in front of me!" he exclaimed in a sort of exhilarated frustration.
I laughed, caught somewhere between relief that my boys were back with me and anticipation of what was to come. "I need to find Palkia. You two just… stay out of trouble, okay?" Tanner gave nodded in understanding, but Aaron still stared at the ceiling. At last, I waved it off, rose up, and shot down the hall the Abra had pointed to. Before I could get much closer, though, an unseen force knocked me off-balance and threw me to the ground.
Okay, so no more flying for a few minutes.
I edged along the wall until I finally poked my head around the corner, only to quickly shield my eyes from the blinding light emerging from around the corner. Palkia stood, one foot braced behind the other, claws up as he worked what looked like a huge, bright portal in the center of the hall. Cracks and signs of massive pressure threatened to crumble the area around him, but the sheer power kept it from collapsing. A wind whipped so violently I feared it would destroy the rest of the facility if it got any stronger. The lights had flickered off, but there was really no need for them; the portal seemed as bright as a star.
I heard his voice, agitated, in my mind: "Leave me!"
Are you okay? I asked, rather naively, but genuinely worried. If something went wrong, none of us would be getting home.
He turned a crimson eye on me, almost accusingly. "I will be… fine. The portal is nearly ready. Gather the rest and have them ready for departure," his telepathy wavered in my mind. Figuring that the best way to let him know I understood was simply to do as he asked, I about-faced and dashed off back to the mass of Pokémon.
Just as I returned, I spotted Myria, Carolyn, and the president. I touched down near them. "Did it work? Are all the bands off?" The two humans nodded, Agent Williams with a little more enthusiasm than her colleague. I couldn't quite read President Putin's expression, but he reminded me a bit of a waiter after a very, very long night.
I put my paws together. "Okay, here's what's going on. Palkia's trying to create a portal-"
"Trying?" Putin exclaimed in disbelief. He looked about ten seconds from marching around the corner and giving the Temporal Pokémon a piece of his mind.
"-in order to get us back to his universe. The problem is that this building's going to collapse any minute now; I just know it. The moment that portal vanishes, half the infrastructure crumbles. We'll be fine, but it would probably be a good idea to evacuate everyone."
Carolyn whistled between her teeth. "Should've stayed with the FBI…" She turned to the man beside her. "Mister President, if you would follow me…"
"Gladly," he muttered, and in fact pushed ahead of her.
Just as she walked off, I felt a sudden urge to say something. "Hey! Agent Williams!" She stopped to look back at me quizzically. In a very human moment of obligation, I rushed over and wrapped my arms around her in a tight embrace. I sensed a slight shock roll over her, but after a pause she returned the hug.
"All right, get outta here, you crazy cat. And don't come back 'til you're you again, yeah?"
It was an admonishment, but the joking manner made me smile. "You can count on it." I swallowed an unexpected lump. "Thank you. For everything."
"I'm only glad I was able to help. Tell Myria she owes me, too." The agent winked at me and jogged away, the Russian president just behind her.
"Christine!"
I whirled about, startled from my thoughts of the kind woman who had helped Myria and I so much. The dark-eyed Articuno, Vincent, was hovering over me. What's up?
"Palkia reports he is ready. He says that if the portal gets any larger it'll rip the facility apart. We need to go now."
Got it.
I rose up to join the avian, and together we managed to get everyone in some kind of orderly fashion. With Myria, Aaron, and Tanner's help, we more or less corralled the small mass of Pokémon towards the now violently whipping portal.
The structural integrity of the base was buckling under the immense pressure of the seeming wormhole. A startled shriek caught my attention and in the corner of my eye I saw Vincent flailing in mid-air. I zipped over as best I could, fighting the wind myself, and caught the large bird, effectively crashing into the ground. I groaned loudly and he rolled off, looking a little embarrassed.
"Sorry about that. Thanks."
No problem, I insisted, brushing myself off.
Palkia looked back at us and gave a signal of sorts with his eyes. The dragon's face was contorted even behind the metal mask, no doubt with the strain of creating and holding the portal. I raised my telepathic "voice" as best I could above the chaos and shouted in the only way I could, Everyone, move in now! This is our best and only chance, but we've got to move quickly! Go, go, go!
One by one, and with increasing confidence, the Pokémon approached the portal and leapt through the event horizon. After just a minute or so, the only ones left of the fifty were Myria, Vincent, and I; as well as Tanner and Aaron. For several seconds we all just stood in a sort of paralyzed shock and apprehension.
"Well, I guess we better go now," Myria piped up.
"You guys ready?" I asked my brother and friend. They gave stiff nods but no more. "Then… together!" I placed one paw on the place where the humerus met the vertebrae on Vincent's blue, feathered form, and the other in my brother's hand. He took Tanner by the elbow, and Tanner, after a moment's hesitation, Myria's paw.
"On three. One… two…"
A collective tense went through the group.
"…three!"
We all dashed forward and leapt into the void, no matter what lay beyond…
