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chapter xiv. the second coming

As the room erupted into clouds of black smoke, I realized two things.

The good news was that the possessed-by-ghosts-person in Sprout Tower wasn't me.

The bad news, naturally, was that the possessed-by-ghosts-person at the top of Sprout Tower wasn't me, was trying to kill us, and easily outmatched the forces of my metapod and unconscious sentret.

"Take this, quickly." Silver, evidently, had connected the dots a fair while ago, and had already pulled out a spiky, white crystal that I recognized as a—"Revive your sentret. Now."

I didn't have time to question his goodwill or point out that he would be better off constantly using his revives on his abra instead of trying to keep my pokémon conscious, because by that point Silver had crammed the chunk of rock down Iris's throat and she had spluttered back into reality in my arms.

The sentret hissed as she came to, writhing wildly out of my arms and falling to the ground with a thud. She scrambled back to her feet, claws skittering on the vine-covered floors, and she refused to meet my eyes.

"Do you—" I didn't know what I was going to say, but I was cut off anyway.

"Dante, screens!" Silver shouted, pushing me behind him as his abra reared up to intercept a whip of dark energy hurtling toward us. I recognized the shimmering blue glow of a reflect flickering around in a five foot radius from the psychic, but that didn't stop the blast of wind that followed.

I took a staggering half-step back, shielding my face from the buffeting wind that was so strong it threatened to knock me over. "What are we supposed to do?" I shouted to Silver over the tempest's roar. The alarm was beginning to set in, but I couldn't help but notice how devastatingly unfazed Silver and his abra were being in the face of this development. They were acting like they'd seen stuff like this before. His boasts downstairs were definitely true: he outclassed us. By a lot. Whether it was enough to keep us alive was still up in the air.

"I'm not sure. I'm working on it." The blast sent clouds of black smoke everywhere, granting clarity for a moment.

"What is he?" The smog quickly reformed again into the hazy outline of the attic.

"Dante's got a theory that we need to test, but I'm working on it."

I covered my mouth with my sleeve to keep the dust from filling my throat. "Why is he doing this?"

"I'm working on it!" he spat back through gritted teeth, and I realized then that he was feeling about as lost and overwhelmed as I was. Behind him, the abra was frantically weaving a light screen around us, and the wind lessened a little. Silver shouted over the tempest, "Falkner's on-record Gift is manipulation of air currents, but it's being accessed and maybe augmented by whatever's possessing him because there's no way he's naturally this strong. Dante, can you hold him off?" Another cyclone of wind began hurtling toward us, ricocheting off the walls and gathering bits of wooden shrapnel in its wake.

With considerable effort, the abra caught the tornado in a matrix of flickering blue energy and deflected it to one side, where it cratered the paneling opposite us. {Doubtful. Unlike our gym match with him, he is not holding back.}

{You won't be alone,} Gaia said firmly.

Silver straightened his back a little, and I swear I could've seen a touch of pride in his eyes, had the buffeting wind not made it difficult to focus. "I'm not allowing a rookie trainer who doesn't even have a badge to get caught up in this. Take your pokémon and get outside. Find help."

I felt a grim feeling settle in the pit of my stomach. Somehow I knew without truly being certain: if he and the abra stayed here alone, they would never make it down alive. Asshole though he was, he still represented a life. "I've already been caught up in a lot worse than this," I shot back, trying not to think about how outmatched we were now and how possible it was that running from the froslass with Bates or starting the Rockets on my headhunt might actually be less dangerous—

My attention was torn away by the sight of an enormous beam of wood being peeled away from the ceiling supports by the blasts of wind and rocketing toward us. I saw Silver's eyes narrow and his mouth begin to contort as he tried to command his abra, but even at the lightning-fast speed with which they communicated, we were all too slow to do anything but brace for the impact, an impact I surely could not handle even as I turned away so that my ribs would take the brunt of the collision instead of Gaia—

There was an enormous crack. Iris hurtled through the air, her striped tail fully extended and rigid as it impacted the beam, the force of her blow sending her back even as she shattered the wood. Splinters rained down on us as Iris hit the ground hard on all fours, panting.

"Iris?" I asked in disbelief.

{Obviously,} she replied, curt as ever.

"Are you—"

{You'll explain later,} she hissed, arching her back and allowing her fur to inflate to twice its normal size.

"I, uh, okay, yeah." It was hard to hide my confusion, but it's not like that was a big focus at the moment. "We'll talk later, sure."

"Ssssurely," shouted the marionette-like body of Falkner, hands thrown back, "ssssome revelation issss at hand!" Around him, around us, the winds picked up once more, coalescing into another miniature cyclone around him that picked him up and sent him hovering three feet in the air, his legs pointing limply downward. The elaborate paneling, thousands of years of recorded history and legend, shattered around us from the force, and the pieces were sucked into the orbiting vortex around the gym leader.

"Dante, keep those screens up," Silver said tightly, dark eyes narrowing and fists clenching as he watched the situation with barely-contained panic. "Have you found an opening yet?"

{Nothing. His mental defenses are secure.}

"Iris, uh." I didn't know if we could even lay a hit on him, but we had to do something. "Try to do that tail-hitty attack again."

The sentret shot me a disparaging look, but she obediently tucked her tail in and launched herself toward Falkner. She was instantly slammed into the wall with a gust of wind for her efforts. I winced sympathetically, but I honestly hadn't expected her to listen to me at all. Oops.

But as I watched even the central pillar of the Tower caving inward under the force of the buffeting winds, as the roof began peeling off in thick layers and spinning around Falkner like armor, as Silver's abra shook under the sheer effort it took to maintain the flimsy psychic shields that were the only things keeping us from being ripped apart, I came to a chilling conclusion: there was no way we could win this fight in our current state. It was a different level of being outmatched; it was totally unlike Brigid and the froslass. This was no wandering spirit, and Silver was no champ-in-the-making. This was some ancient foe, as old as humanity's fear of the dark, and if we tried to fight it alone, we would surely be destroyed. "We have to get out of here," I said, but I was too quiet, too slow.

I could've sworn I'd heard Icarus's keening cackle as I ducked for cover.

As if to further cement my point, one of Falkner's hands tipped forward and a searing blast of wind cut through the air. The command "—shit, go for a Psychic—!" come a fraction of a second too slow. Silver's abra took the hit head on, its tiny paws crossed over its torso to defend itself, but it wasn't enough. The yellow psychic flew back, brown chestplates denting from the force with which it was thrown into the wall, and then the tempest hit us full force as the screens flickered away.

"Dante!" Silver shouted, his composure slipping in an instant, his voice nearly lost in the wind. He scrambled to his pokémon, already fumbling with the pull-tab of a potion—

There was another sharp crack, and I heard Silver scream again.

I ran over to him, ducking under another blast of wind that cratered the wall behind us, desperately cradling Gaia, Iris swirling around my heels. The abra was up, floating around in alarm even as it desperately tried to renew the screens around us. "We have to get downstairs! We can't win this!" I shouted.

"Got hit. Air Slash," Silver said through gritted teeth, and I looked down to see a thin but growing trickle of blood snaking around my shoes. "Left leg."

For a moment, my mind went blank, and then I was kneeling down, helping him roll the cuff of his pants up to reveal a deep, clean cut that extended from the base of his ankle to the back of his knee, first-aid lessons flashing through my head. There was a vein in the thigh that was important. I had no idea where it was. But we had to disinfect the wound. No, we had to stop the bleeding. No, we had to stop the madman that was trying to kill us. My fingers stumbled against the zipper of my backpack. I had a first-aid kit in there, but I didn't think it was enough for this. I dug around, looking for the canvas sack filled with things I barely knew how to use, but my hands closed in on Gaia's stupid rock instead. This was too slow; by the time I got the bandages out he was probably going to lose too much blood. There was a better way; there had to be. "Gaia, String Shot over it," I rasped, tears slipping into my voice. I didn't know what to do. "That'll slow the bleeding. Um." I didn't know what to do. The silk looked like it would hold the blood in, but I had no idea for how long. "We have to get you out of here. Can you walk? Can your abra lift you?"

Silver opened his mouth to respond, and then we both watched in numb horror as Falkner floated slowly toward us, head tilted to one side, eyes impossibly dark even as the fetid stench of decay filled the air.

"Sssssurely," his lips said in a cold, rasping voice, "sssome Sssecond Coming isss at hand!"

"Dante, Psychic," Silver hissed through gritted teeth.

Slowly, because the effort must have cost him greatly, the abra raised its paw and threw the possessed body of Falkner against the wall. The ceiling collapsed on top of him with a sharp crack, showering him in rubble. The winds died down for a moment.

"I'll be okay. Don't focus on that." Silver turned to me, his eyes wide and frantic, but when he spoke, he was eerily collected, albeit rushed, and he gave no other indication of the bleeding wound in his leg. "There's no time to explain. But, well." His breathing hitched for a moment. "I'm sorry." His hands seemed to move of their own accord as he continued spraying the potion on his abra's chestplates, the pokémon's wound knitting itself together before my eyes, and I saw the focus return into his eyes. "What you saw when we first fought was probably the lowest end of Dante's combat ability. You got a brief snapshot of his upper-level skills just now. He can produce psionic shields and use Psychic to telekinetically manipulate objects weighing up to around my body weight, but overuse will tax him," he recited quickly. "We've been practicing Shock Wave, but it's a little new for him. He can safely use his Teleport with one at most non-psychic passenger, but only if he has direct line-of-sight with the final destination, and it'll exhaust him immensely if he carries anyone but himself. He passively regenerates up to a missing limb if removed from battle; possibly more, but we haven't exactly tested it. He can also—"

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. It was growing hard to catch my breath.

"Because," he said, his voice more serious than I had ever heard it, "if we don't fend that thing off, we won't make it down alive." He squared his jaw and looked at me. "I'm sorry."

Pause.

"Do you understand?" Silver asked, and then took a deep, shuddering breath that surely wasn't only because of the leg. He locked eyes with me and winced before he said, "I know you can hear me in there, and I doubt you like any of us, but if you don't act right now, we are all going to die. You are going to die."

Oh.

Too late, I realized what he was trying to do, and it terrified me. "Wait. You can't—" I began, but that was washed away by a cold sense of calculation as the winds howled around us. My legs were already in motion, and then my body was standing upright, facing a demon.

The situation at hand was easy enough to size up: there was a threat. It needed to be removed. The available pieces made this task difficult, but not impossible, so long as it was properly understood. "Rousseau. Advantages and disadvantages that a ghost would experience when possessing a human corpse."

There was a long pause before he answered, and when the gastly finally glanced up, he looked conflicted. {Ma cherie?} he asked tentatively.

There would be time to explain later. "Advantages and disadvantage of human possession." The memories resurfaced easily. "You mentioned downstairs that it 'wasn't your style'. Explain why."

The gastly blinked several times, and then finally spluttered, {Possessing an object gives the ghost the strengths and weaknesses of whatever we possess. The ghost within Falkner can access his Gift, but it must also compensate for the weakness of Falkner's form. It must become tangible, so it opens itself up for physical attacks.} Rousseau paused, and then began, {Are you okay? I—}

As suspected, there wasn't much unexpected in the actual possession. The rest of his speech was filed away as irrelevant. "Dante. Start laying down a Light Screen, but conserve your strength. You'll need a Teleport soon. Keep your screen in a tight radius: four feet."

The abra flinched at the sound of the command.

I glared at it. "Listen to me, or we all go down."

The psychic looked uncertainly at Silver, who hissed, "We don't have a choice. Trust them."

He was starting to see things our way instead of wasting time on needless arguing. Finally. The abra looked uncertain, but it weaved its paws through the air, leaving a shimmering wall of light in its wake. It wouldn't hold up, but it would be enough. Cushioning off Falkner's ranged attacks was critical for drawing him in closer, where there would be a better chance of making contact. The ghost had chosen a physical form, and all that remained was to exploit it.

The floorboards ahead of us exploded into action as Falkner burst through the rubble that had previously trapped him.

"Iris." The name of her attack sprang to mind. "When he approaches, Slam him out of the way. Gaia. Prep for a String Shot. Dante. On my command, Teleport with Gaia to Falkner and then Shock Wave. Slow him down instead of damaging him."

{I cannot try to Teleport to him,} the abra protested. {I require a line of sight. The path toward him is too clouded, and even if I made it, Falkner will shred me before I have a chance.}

"There will be an opening." The gastly was still an asset, but he also remained largely unknown. "Rousseau." I hesitated for a moment, although it was unclear why. "What attacks do you know?"

A crack of energy rippled through the air, like the undertow of a wave. I felt something strange in the pit of my stomach, and I wanted to reach out to Gaia so I could—

{Ma cherie,} the gastly began, hovering closer. {I don't think it's particularly wise to—}

{She'll get us out of here,} Gaia said confidently. {She's done it before.}

"Listen to me!"

The gastly refused to hear. {But she's not in there.} There was anguish in Rousseau's voice. {I promise. That isn't your trainer. It has no regard for your safety. It probably endangered you the last time this happened, didn't it?}

Gaia faltered.

The central pillar began to glow brighter. This was no time for remorse.

Silver's voice echoed from behind. "So then what is inside of her?"

A blast of wind came at full speed. Wood paneling tumbled through the air, blowing the floor and ceiling back and sending my body tumbling to the foot of the stairs. Rubble scattered away as my torso made contact with the wall.

My right hand grabbed a cratered portion of the wall to pull my body up. Splinters, ignored. Slight pain in in the chest suggested one broken rib, maybe two. That would explain the coughing.

Bloodied fingertips fumbled for the knife in my pocket as another realization settled in: undead or not, Falkner would die for this.

The light of the central pillar was almost blinding, but no one seemed to care.

Silver's voice was louder now, more urgent. "That thing just threw her into a wall and she shrugged it off."

They had to be stopped from discussing this matter any further. There were still assets available, and the elements for distraction had already been set. Iris, for whatever reason, seemed the most loyal at this moment. That was unexpected, but it would have to be addressed later. "Iris. Now."

Falkner wasn't quite within the protective screens, but the sentret launched herself out from behind them, her tail flapping in the wind as she attempted to slam into him again.

"Gaia. String Shot." Cough; blood appeared on my fist. Irrelevant. "Aim to her right. Dante will teleport you shortly. When you reappear, hit Falkner with another String Shot."

The metapod hesitated for a moment, but then Falkner whipped his hand through the air and again sent Iris flying before she'd even gotten within three feet of him, sending her plowing through the smoke and toward the wood paneling. Gaia had no choice but to obey or let Iris fall. The line of silk shot through the air, sticking to Iris and slowing her flight before she crashed. "Dante. Bring Gaia with you." Falkner's blast of air had momentarily cleared the smog and dust cloud around him. "There will be no second opening. Shock Wave. Three seconds, then get out."

{Your metapod will be caught in—}

"Silk is an insulator. She'll be hurt less than he will."

The abra disappeared and reappeared a tenth of a second later, its frail arms latched around Falkner's chest and Gaia latched on to his tail. A bright blue frizz of electricity surrounded all three of them; the pungent smell of singed hair filled the air; a delayed blast of string shot pinned Falkner to the ground; the gym leader sagged, sparking.

{You knew that would happen,} Dante said flatly upon reappearing. {You used your sentret as a distraction. You let your metapod get hit by that. You planned for that to happen.}

There was no point in denying it. Falkner was momentarily paralyzed at best. Time was running out. "Iris. Knock him back. Now is your chance; he's stunned, so you'll be fast enough to hit him now. Gaia. When he hits the central pillar, String Shot him in place. Dante. Prepare for a Psychic. Sever the vines above the pillar and bring them down on top of him. Aim for the points he's already weakened. He'll be buried beneath the rafters of the Tower after you take out the last supports."

The sentret surged forward for a third time, her claws and tail outstretched, and she slammed into the stunned Gym Leader with all the strength she could muster. She connected with his torso with bone-crushing force, and this time he flew backward, colliding with the ground and plowing a furrow through the floorboards until he collapsed at the base of the Tower's pillar.

"Gaia. Dante. Now."

{No.}

I almost dropped Gaia. It wasn't the refusal that surprised me; it was the speaker. "What?"

{No,} Gaia repeated. There was fire in the metapod's voice as she continued, {When you used me to take down Silver, I was convinced that it was a one-time thing. That you would never resort to rashly endangering us in the name of your survival. But you did it just now, and you'll probably do it again. Rousseau's right. That's not you in there, Trainer.}

There wasn't time for this. Couldn't she see that there wasn't any other choice? "Gaia—"

{I cannot allow you to destroy our team,} the metapod replied firmly.

The abra screamed a too-late warning as a blast of air smashed it back into the wall, and undead, too-black eyes turned to me as their next target.

It was too late. Falkner had recovered. The plan had failed, all because—

The swirling vortex propped the Gym Leader to his feet. One hand reached backward, winding up the final blast of air that would doom us all. The scene played out in fast-forward: a blast of wind would throw my body into a support pillar, which would not yield. Instead, my neck would.

Mentally, the pieces connected half a second before Falkner's hand brushed against the central pillar and the room was filled with blinding light.

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