I bet you thought I was gone for good, huh?
Well, this ride's almost over, and thanks to some encouragement I was able to sit down and finish off one of the only long-term projects I've ever really cared for. It's been a hell of a ride and I hope you enjoy these last two chapters. No more waiting in vain for ages. I deeply apologize for all of those I left hanging for so long, but know that soon this will be a finished story, I promise.
The burning was absolutely unbearable. The more I moved, the worse the gash in my shoulder became. The Cornucopia turned out to have plenty of water, but it had been picked clean of healing supplies long ago. I managed to find a potion and had flushed out the wound as best I could, but the bald girl's digging fingers had pushed rotting flesh and whatever other horrid filth she was covered in deep into the wound. Deeper than I could stand to dig out. I was now on a timer.
Knowing that, I had pushed the Mamoswine's hollow corpse a fair distance from the Cornucopia and sent the Sceptile after dry wood. Within minutes we had built a giant, stinking bonfire from old weapons, rotting skin, a few old Pokémon corpses and a few armfuls of wood. It wouldn't burn long, but it would burn strong. Thick black clouds of smoke billowed in to the still air. I wasn't sure who was left besides Greens, but they would be able to know exactly where I was. I was sure I stood a chance so long as I could still stand to use both arms, but the pain was growing worse and worse. The fire was a terrible idea if I was being completely honest. I ran the very high and very real risk of being slaughtered outright, but there was no time to be safe anymore.
Gears began turning in the back of my head. I was forgetting something, but what? I checked the sheath at my hip for my hatchet. It was still somewhat slick but none the worse for wear. My knife was likewise fine. Two Pokéballs and two Ultraballs were hanging from my bandolier and I had a bug on each shoulder. Slink's upper left wing had been obliterated by the arrow in the fight. Luckily my shoulder was hit before the wing, otherwise the slowly worsening infection would have been complicated by a slew of various toxins. The Butterfree, however, was very distraught and eerily quiet. I doubt that any technology could even recreate something as delicate as a Butterfree's wing even if I won, but I knew I had to try.
I sucked down another bottle of water. Between the fire and a slowly rising fever, I felt like I was going to melt. Maybe my plan would backfire. Maybe they would know to steer clear of me with the giant pyre. I wandered back in to the Cornucopia's open mouth and went over its contents again. Everything had been thoroughly gone over since our first scrounging so long ago. Suddenly, something clicked in my head: the box! I began to rummage for a small box that had been here that I had left before. I found it right where I had left it, tucked away in a corner, sitting on a large metal crate. I immediately snatched it up and popped open the lid.
Empty. Inside was nothing more than a black velvet-lined interior with an indent where something previously sat, perfectly round. Probably a Master Ball or something equally lucky for whoever had found it. But that apparently wasn't me. I gave one last look around and saw a black speck in one of the Cornucopia's metal support beams. On closer inspection, it looked like a tiny lens. I had almost forgotten that we were being watched by all of Kanto and Unova (and apparently Kalos could get us on pay-per-view). I glared in to it, thinking of what I could do or say. What was there to say? I had a slowly oncoming infection? They wouldn't send me any medicine. I needed to know where the other competitors were? Like they could tell me.
Could they?
"Silver," I addressed my mentor directly through the camera, "I don't think it's really fair for everyone else." How unbelievably cocky was I? "Could you level the playing field a bit?"
At that, I walked back towards the roaring fire and waited.
Not five minutes later did I see a silver parachute descend towards the tree line. I must have passed another competitor as I was coming back in. Either that, or they were luring me back to Greens. The Sceptile and I both took off like a rocket towards where it was falling. I didn't know who I would meet there, as I honestly didn't know who was left, but there was a very high chance it would be my previous partner. I wasn't sure if I was ready to strike her down so soon. Something stirred in my stomach as I tried to picture how it would happen. I would make it quick, like she asked. I knew how to snap a neck now and my hands were clean. Or possibly a knife straight to the heart, maybe not as fast but infinitely easier. How poetic, a knife in the heart.
As we ran the sun began to rapidly set, the Unovan anthem suddenly blaring as we approached the trees. It was hard to hear the 'ping' of the package over the fanfare, but my lizard friend could hear better than I could.
"Kill him!" We had no time to waste. I couldn't relish in this one. The lizard bolted off ahead of me, following his nose and leaping over some sort of sink hole or muddy pond. I followed suit, leaping on to a rock in the water hazard. Then another. Then a much softer rock, possibly just mossy, more likely some unseen monster of the arena who would probably kill me soon as look at me, but there was no time to think about it. My infected shoulder burned as I landed hard on the opposite shoulder on the bank. I was making sloppy decision after sloppy decision. A female face was plastered in the sky, the shorn head of the recently downed competitor. The anthem was drowned out by a monstrous roar. Whatever I had jumped on had woken up.
I chanced a look back at the results of my poor decision making and saw the monstrous, muddy, blue form of a Feraligatr behind me. I had time. They were slow until they got their bearings, or got too close. I scrambled to my feet and took off in to the trees, searching vainly for a good one to climb. No, I couldn't let myself be treed. I felt Slink try to pull me to my left. I obeyed, slipping to one side of a tree. A moment later I heard a splintering crunch. I didn't dare turn around. Slink hissed something in my ears that loosely translated to, "fire." I had no idea what he was talking about. He tugged on my right and guided me around another tree, which met a similar fate as the last one. I chanced a look backwards to see that the Feraligatr had slammed hard in to the tree mouth-first, snapping it like a twig.
With a pang of fear, I understood what the coming darkness would mean for me. Certain death.
"Fire," came the Butterfree again. I still didn't get it, but I didn't stop running. The Feraligatr was too close. The Joltik on my other shoulder scuttled on to my back and snapped off some electricity. I felt the shockwaves of the resulting bellow shake my core. Between the bug guiding me and the bug protecting me I was able to stay just out of the reptile's clutches, but I was tired. Everything ached. My shoulder was on fire.
Soon we plowed through the blackened crater we had passed on our way to the Cornucopia. All of the sudden, "fire" clicked. I tripped over the blackened stump of the tree and felt Slink jump from my shoulder as I landed hard on the open wound. For a split second I blacked out from the pain. When I came to I was screaming, my mind reeling, my back arching in a vain attempt to stop the damage that had already happened. I heard a roar, electric crackling, Slink crying in desperation. I saw a yellow streak leap from me. I finally regained some control and sat up to see the great monster pluck the small yellow tick from his chest. It twitched as electricity coursed through its dirty blue body, but it wasn't enough to stop the beast from throwing the Joltik away from it as hard as it could.
What happened next was absolutely spectacular: as the small yellow bug screamed through the air she was engulfed in a bright aura of energy. She swelled and spun, a much larger spider landing on a tree some fifty feet away, the light fading to reveal one of the large, electric spiders I had seen in the caves. It practically exploded from where it had landed and cleared the distance between herself and my agressor with ease. The Feraligatr was ready however and attempted to swat the bug away, but she clung fast to its arm and unleashed a fresh torrent of electricity through a silky trail as she scuttled on to its back.
I took this as my opportunity to bolt again. I had no idea how long the freshly evolved spider would last, but I knew now where I was going now. I scooped up Slink as I passed and held him tight to my chest, what remained of his wings out in front of me. He really wasn't in great shape at all, especially after his last tumble. I was in a similar state, slower now, still very much scrambled from the fall, but the fading angry noises from behind me were a good sign. I could think now, plan, remember. The tree, the tree filled with the miserably touchy little bagworms. The light was nearly gone but I knew I was very close.
When the Feraligatr found me, I was on the other side of the tree. He held up the assumed carcass of the poor spider, unmoving but faintly glowing, and threw it off in to the woods. Now it was too dark to see anything besides his glowing, orange eyes. The anthem and deceased tributes had long since faded, and the moon was either behind clouds or had been remove by the League Makers for effect. There was no light, and no sound besides my own panicked breathing.
A single canon blast cut the tension
The Feraligatr's eyes widened in the dark before lowering to the ground and accelerating towards me with a bloodcurdling howl of anguish and fury. As it passed the tree it must have lashed out in its rage, because the light was suddenly blinding and the noise absolutely deafening. I turned and tried to run but it was too little too late. I was thrown on to my front as a shockwave washed over me. The collective force of several dozen Pineco had unleashed their wrath on the reptile. The heat was strong and the shockwave was brutal. I was pressed nearly flat to the ground and felt something pop underneath me. With my luck, it was probably a rib.
Suddenly, a tree far to my left exploded as well. And another to my front. All around me the forest was suddenly going up in smoke as more of the Pineco-riddled trees were set off. But why now? Why not when the first one had gone however many days ago? I released Slink to push myself to my feet and he collapsed to the ground, a string of slime stretching between his abdomen and my chest. I saw his mandibles working frantically but the ringing in my ears kept anything from getting through besides the dull thumps of the spreading Pineco trees' destruction. I looked at him thoroughly. His lone antenna was now bent, his remaining wings pressed against the ground and badly torn, and I realized what had popped beneath me earlier: his small, soft body was split and his insides were oozing out.
His antenna twitched as he pointed behind me, one last gesture before he collapsed from his injuries. I pulled the hatchet from my hip and span around, swinging in a large, wild arc and catching something, but only barely. The Feraligatr, badly burned and missing an arm, had caught the biting edge of my axe with its snout. In the slowly growing light of the forest fire I could see he was confused and terrifired.
"Leave him alone!" I could barely hear the words come out of my mouth as I pressed my advantage on the reptile. It gave a weak but furious roar and took another swing, but I caught his remaining hand with my axe and parted a few claws from his hand. It turned to run but was cut off by something I couldn't see from around it. The tip of a glowing green blade erupted squarely from the back of the Feraligatr. My hatchet came down hard on the base of its skull and it finally slumped to the ground, dead. Behind him stood the Sceptile. He drew his damaged arm from the corpse of the great lizard, the green blade having manifested from the stump of his claw. His mouth was bloody but thankfully it wasn't his own. He nodded towards where Slink lay and I turned back to face him.
Over him stood a trainer with his foot on the bug's head. "It's only fair," he called, "you killed mine." He stomped down. Hard.