Chapter 16: Fallout

Tabby uncovered her face as the rumbling of the earth began to subside. Her friends did the same, mouths hanging wide open just like her at the destruction Floyd's blast left in its wake. By some miracle, the entirety of the Liberated hadn't been completely vaporized. Likely all of the reserve power had been concentrated into a ward or something, because a cone of relatively untouched asphalt remained in the center, though it was empty besides a few groaning wounded that had been left behind. The Liberated had abandoned the fight, and it seemed more than likely that Corinth had lived to fight another day.

As much as she hated to know the cowards had turned to run rather than fight, Tabby certainly understood it.

Besides the protected cone of asphalt, Sanctuary's street had been completely leveled, only the buildings remaining unscathed from the duel. Brick, mortar, and asphalt had been ripped up and shredded so finely, you could use it as the softest of sands. The Magnemite and Magneton swarm had definitely been blown away, along with anything in the air or anything on the ground that hadn't been protected.

Tabby's eyes strayed from the ruined street to the shoulders of her friend, who still stood rooted as calm settled around them. How could one person ever be so powerful? Even Nerevor had never displayed such destructive power…but he wasn't really known for fighting.

Even though she definitely appreciated the effort, Tabby was more than a little scared. She was reasonably certain that Floyd hadn't even really tried. Just a warning and whoosh, vaporization.

What kind of demon would he be if he did try?

Floyd grunted and dropped to his knees, and Tabby snapped out of her trance. "What's wrong?" she asked, kneeling beside him.

Her eyes widened.

Floyd's mask folded back, allowing Tabby to watch him grimace and wince, though he gave a pained chuckle as he did so. "Corinth…definitely wasn't messing around. He redirected some of my attack…used it against me."

The armor was a mess on the outside. The sun, which she had seen flare radiantly with white light, was now a flickering husk of its former self, feebly attempting to flash like a dying thing. Wisps of smoke curled up from the areas where the now-charred armor plates separated to allow Floyd to move, not ceasing even as the carnage ended. The damage spread from his neck down to about his groin, and even as she watched, one of the armor plates clattered to the ground.

"Warning: major concussive damage detected," chirped the suit's mechanical voice into the air. "Seek medical attention."

The sun on Floyd's chest blinked rapidly and then dimmed for a final time just as Floyd fell forwards right on his face.

###

"…where you are…stay where you are…"

Static rushed before his eyes.

"…see you…us?"

Floyd shook his head, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "I…I don't…"

"…hear…find you…"

Something shifted in the static, almost like turning a radio dial just right. It went from black and white grain to something resembling an actual picture of sorts. He could hardly see five feet in front of him, and he couldn't move his body at all. He was in a void of static now rather than it being right before his eyes, the only differences being the blurry, indistinguishable figures before him. There were three in total, and their only differences were in the voices.

"Oh my God," one said, stepping forward. The voice was clearly female, but it was so distorted; loud enough to hear but quiet enough to be a mumble, even though she was right in front of him. It was as if she was talking through a trashed voice synthesizer. "Keep it going for as long as you can, Vi!" Its head turned back towards him. "Can you see me? Can you hear me, Floyd?"

It took everything in him to respond. "Yes."

The first figure knelt down and stayed there for a moment. Floyd wondered what she was doing before he realized she was likely crying. Indeed, her blurry hands wiped at what were probably her eyes as she stood back up. "Okay, okay, oh my God, okay. Do you know who I am? Can you see us?"

"I…can't…"

The void of static rumbled as though there was an earthquake.

"We don't have long," a strained, garbled voice warned in the background.

The first figure nodded. "Okay listen. We've been searching all over the planet for you. Where are you, Floyd? We can't even track your suit, your arms, your legs, or Ren's Pokeball. Do they have you captive somewhere?"

Floyd strained against the forces keeping his tongue from doing what he wanted it to with all of his willpower. "Went through a portal."

"A portal? Okay, a portal. Where did it spawn? Where did it lead to?"

Floyd tried to swallow. "Don't…"

The world tilted on its axis and darkened. The white began to fade from the static until the entire space was nearly inky darkness.

"No!" the figure shouted, beginning to run towards him. Her legs moved as fast as they could carry her, but she never made any progress towards him. "Floyd! We're going to get you! You and Ren stay where you are! We'll find a way to get to you!"

Black threads shot from the closing pool of darkness and wrapped around the figure's neck.

"I promise! We're coming for you!"

The black threads tripled and dragged the woman into the dark.

"Just you wait…wait for me!"

The last two words echoed in Floyd's mind as the threads shot forward around him and dragged him into the void.

"Fall with us," a voice whispered in his ears and thoughts. "Fall with us. Be with us. Feel the call…of the void." It was an alien buzzing, inhuman and barely comprehensible to the limited sphere of his mortal brain. Out of all the things he'd seen, every obstacle he'd ever passed over and defeated, all of the imperfections of what sometimes seemed like a perfect world, this was certainly the strangest.

Because he felt at home.

The presence, though polluted, dark, and scary…it felt familiar. It put the bones beneath his crawling skin at ease, like he knew the power but couldn't quite grasp its origin.

But even though he knew the power, he was still slipping…and then falling.

Falling forever into the shadows.

###

Olivier's eyes opened.

"Ah," she said with an air of satisfaction.

Everything was now going exactly to plan. What a fools he had been to fear this power. She felt so cold, colder than the most virgin of snow that fell in the north…but she was so powerful. She'd never even known what true power was. True power didn't care how you kept the peace; whether through fear or loyalty, above all of them, people and Pokemon respected power.

And she had enough power to do whatever she wanted.

The Psionic was a fool. To give her this strength haphazardly was a gigantic mistake…maybe even one he'd come to regret. She was growing stronger with every passing moment, and when she learned how to properly wield it, to control its more…violent effects.

Well…

She smirked and pointed at one of her dressers in the far corner of the room. She'd have to get up and walk more than a few steps to even open the damned thing. But now, a jet black tendril of pure shadow manifested from whatever hells existed in the next world shot forward at blinding speed and embedded itself into the wood of the dresser with a rattling thunk. Without losing any momentum, the shadow pierced through the other side of the dresser and into the wall before stopping.

When Olivier retracted the shadow, a clean hole with no resistance had been carved through the wood of the dresser and the dry wall.

Oh yes. This was going to do just fine.

And now, with Floyd's pesky self out of the way and the morale of Nerevor's little soldiers shattered…it was time to put her plan into motion.

She stepped out onto her balcony, the freezing air that came with the view meaning nothing to her now. She spread her hands to her sides, took a deep breath and inhaled much more than oxygen.

Souls. Fresh souls, spilled from innocent bodies and ripe for the taking. None of the enemies' souls had been released, but Corinth had left his "friends" that could have been saved for dead, giving Olivier much more to work with. She called upon the power stirring in her soul and issued a request—no, a command to come to her beck and call. Just like with the dresser, a shadowy thread erupted from her, spewing from the shadow her body cast from the light of the moon. It flared all the way up to the cloudless sky, seeming to absorb the blues of the midnight and turning it into a monochrome landscape. The ray of shadow finished its ascent and split into multiple slimmer rays, extending across Snowpoint City in a dome using Central Tower as an apex.

A grin split Olivier's face as she watched her shadows tear into the city. She wanted—needed every last soul she could get her hands on, and she was going to get them.

To the last drop.

Her consciousness split into more pieces than she could possibly imagine, and she watched the events take place. The first to go were the lingering souls of the fallen with the skirmish between Sanctuary and the Liberated. Their souls screamed and plead for mercy as they were absorbed, the shadows stabbing them and sucking them up like a sponge does water. At once, Olivier felt the twisted, freezing cold fill her more, instilling her with even more power with which to fuel the shadows. Her influence spanned recently deceased—the elderly who had passed, perhaps unfortunate miscarriages of humans, a predator Pokemon's most recent meal. All of their soul husks flooded Olivier's body and charged her with power.

The shadow within her demeaned to be set loose on everything, to devour even the living until it could become living itself. Part of her recognized how inhuman it was to even listen to the voice in her head, the whispers of the dead and damned.

The other half forced her head to tilt and smile as she watched the flow of souls increase, the shadows flowing towards her like black rivers of sorrow.

And it listened.

###

The lights were flickering like nothing Tabby had ever seen before. Part of her thought that the wards around Sanctuary were collapsing after the massive magical battle. It was growing colder, and the ground was rattling as well. An ominous feeling crept up her spine, made worse by the feeling that something was watching her.

But that couldn't be right. The wards simply would not fail, especially since Nerevor was definitely still alive. Exhausted and barely conscious, but alive to be sure.

Something was wrong.

Nurse Joy screamed down the hall, and Tabby turned on a dime, hurrying with all speed towards the noise. She, along with a multitude of other patients and Pokemon, were looking out the window towards the ruined street, craning their necks to the sky. A few were comforting the terrified nurse, who sat on the ground shaking.

"What happened?" Tabby asked.

"I-I saw…I thought I saw a man!" Nurse Joy said through her fingers, her eyes brimming with tears. "But he looked…he looked like…"

One of the women comforting her nodded and looked as though she was going to be sick. "He looked like he was alive, but his face was stuck screaming. I think…Arceus…I think he was dead."

"Arceus help us!"

"Look, there's more!"

Tabby ignored the cries of the spectators and ran to the Sanctuary main entrance, where Vanessa and Griffin were wearily standing guard. Their necks too were craned to the sky, a look of incredulousness on Griffin's face that Tabby had never seen.

"What is it?" Vanessa asked slowly.

"Olivier's work," Griffin said. "But this…this is too much."

Tabby stepped past them and watched the streams of shadows zipping across the sky, sucking all the life and color out of their existence. On instinct, she used her magical senses to feel out what she was looking at and nearly threw up.

"Those are…" She covered her mouth. "Are those people I'm sensing?"

Griffin nodded slowly. "But they're…tainted."

"Undead," Vanessa said. "She's absorbing the souls of the dead."

Tabby stepped out into the street and watched the shadows flow towards a black cloud that was amassing far, far in the distance. She was willing to bet her life that it was forming over Central Tower too.

The world was ending, and what was worse, Tabby could think of nothing she could do to stop the hell that was unfolding before her very eyes.

The shuddering of the ground grew worse as the moans of the dead began to fill the night sky.

###

Ren stumbled out of bed, ignoring Sneasel's protests and limped to the door, her horn throbbing with agony as the world fell apart.

Things were getting very, very bad.

She'd heard Tabby and the others bring Floyd into another room. Had he been injured? That wouldn't stop the stubborn man. He'd go into Hell itself with only his right arm if he had to.

She ignored the rush of some of the other patients in the other rooms of the Pokemon Center and pushed open the door to the room with Floyd's scent all over it.

"Boss," Ren groaned, hopping up onto the bed. "Boss, wake up, come on. It's going to shit out there." She glanced at the window, and heard the moaning of an ominous wind. "My horn's never gone off like this—fuck!" She grit her teeth and pressed the horn against the bed as her consciousness was ripped from her body.

She was standing in a tower looking above everything. She was at the top of the world.

She could do anything.

She could win.

Ren snarled and pulled herself back into her own body, placing her paw on Floyd's chest. "Did I stutter? Get the fuck up, Boss."

She blinked and examined him closer. The sun on his chestplate was completely dark. It almost always pulsed the tiniest amount as he breathed if he slept in it, or at the very least radiated some type of power Ren could sense.

She could sense none.

"Hey," Ren said, nudging Floyd's face with her paw. "Seriously, Boss, come on. You're scaring me here."

Floyd stayed motionless.

"Hey. Hey!" She began to shake him furiously with her front paws, her ribs aching with every motion but she didn't care.

She felt like her world was ending.

"Boss! Boss!" Tears pooled in Ren's crimson eyes, her voice rising to a shout and attracting attention. "Floyd! Clarence Floyd, you wake up right this fucking instant! Do NOT leave me! You promised!"

She didn't know how long she sat there yelling at him, but it felt like centuries had passed before Tabby was in the doorframe, her mouth covered as she watched Ren try to revive the Black Sun.

###

The shadowy threads clung to Floyd almost as fast as he could destroy them. In the void he'd been dragged to, he could use the full extent of his power, but it simply wasn't enough. Sheer numbers overwhelmed him, forced him to his knees and struck slight blows as they slipped between microscopic gaps in the armor. He fired off Solar Flare after Solar Flare into the inky darkness, brilliant bursts of white light that would destroy any lesser threat that dared to challenge him. But each time the shadows re-knit themselves, they forced him ever closer to the ground.

He spared a moment and looked up at the sky as he blasted away another cluster of shadow that threatened to swamp him. The light there was as vibrant as the light blazing from the sun on his chest, but it was getting further and further away.

He realized with horrible sense of dread that he wasn't being forced to his knees. He was sinking further and further into an even darker pool of shadows, and his knees were past the surface.

"No!" Floyd snarled, blasting away more of the repulsive energy. "Let me go! I made…I made Ren and Tabby a promise, damn it! Let me go!"

The ancient power that blazed in the sun on Floyd's chest roared with Floyd's struggle as he sank further and further into nothing.

###

Tabby watched horrified as Nurse Joy and her helper Pokemon did everything in their power to try and bring Floyd back to consciousness. Blissey egg, Heal Pulses, even assistance from the most skilled mages with the Normal and Fairy types, types that usually held the most power with healing.

It did nothing. His eyes stayed closed.

The ground rumbled again, and Tabby stepped forward, taking his gloved hand into hers.

"Please, Floyd," she whispered under her breath as the Nurse and Pokemon worked in tandem, letting the magi draw all the power they needed from her. "Please wake up."

She glanced up at Ren, whose eyes were still fixated on the sun on Floyd's chest. She had stopped crying, but she'd stopped talking too.

Nerevor was resting in his quarters, but it was likely he'd exerted himself more today than he had in years. He wouldn't be of any help right now, and Nurse Joy knew things about healing that even Nerevor was barely proficient at. Her friends, even herself…they couldn't do anything.

Floyd had told her that he believed in her, that she was wrong to think that she was worthless in their cause.

Right now, she felt as though her world was being ripped out from under her…and there was absolutely nothing she could do to help.

But wait.

Like always.

###

Corinth stumbled into Central Tower, bloodied and nearly dead. His right arm clutched at the blood staining the left side of his heavy coat, while his left leg dragged almost uselessly behind him. Alongside him, only a handful of the Liberated had survived the attempt to flee from Sanctuary. More had been there initially, but they'd fallen behind a long time ago.

The other ones that hadn't fallen behind had dropped dead when the shadows had torn down from the sky and began pulling on their souls. The healthier ones weren't affected, but the ones that were literally on their last leg choked and screamed to death, then collapsed lifelessly on the snow. Their souls flowed up into the massive stream of negative energy that was amassing over Central Tower.

"Olivier! Olivier! Damn you, Olivier! Where is she?" Corinth stumbled to the help desk, where a terrified secretary watched Corinth and the rest of the Liberated while shaking by her desk. "Get Olivier down here, NOW!"

"No need, Corinth. I am already here." Corinth flinched and turned around as the shadow of some of the lobby's greenery shivered and melted out into the center of the room. The other Liberated all swore or crossed themselves to Arceus, stepping away from the widening pool of shadow. It reformed into the woman he was familiar with but…

But something was wrong.

Her face had been marred by the black discoloration of her veins and the slight gray tinge that her skin had taken on. Her brown hair had become brittle as opposed to its usual lush state, and she wore a horrific grin as she stepped forwards. Her shadow rippled behind her, seeming to fluctuate whenever she stepped closer to one of their bodies.

Their living bodies.

"What the hell happened to you?" Corinth snarled. "I don't even care, actually. Almost all of my men were slaughtered on the streets tonight! We have no stronger foothold on Nerevor than we did before, the outsider is still with them and more powerful than we ever could have imagined, what exactly are you doing to help our cause?"

"Patience, Corinth," Olivier said, beginning to circle him. "Everything is at hand."

Sweat pierced the crusted blood on his forehead. "What do you mean by everything is at hand?"

Olivier let out a quiet laugh as she continued to circle Corinth. "Tell me something, and be honest with me. Can you defeat Nerevor one-on-one? No holds barred…everything on the table…can you defeat him?"

Corinth swallowed, the action causing his wounds to throb. "N-no," he muttered.

"What was that? Repeat that for your followers here."

He felt all of their eyes staring into his soul. "No," he repeated louder.

"And why is that?"

"Because…because he is stronger than me. Stronger than all of us. None of us could defeat him unless the full might of the Liberated and your forces are behind us."

"Meaning that if I were to supply you with a legion of soldiers and you had all of your men behind you…we would stand a chance of invading Sanctuary?"

He didn't dare let her circle behind him without having an eye on her at all times. That terrible power crawled up his skin and made it shudder with revulsion. "Possibly. Wasn't that…wasn't that the plan?"

"Well now that I see you're at least competent enough to survive, it is." An icy cold finger drew a line on the back of his neck that made every hair stand on end. "I think you and I really can be efficient partners. And this…this is what you are going to do for me."

His own shadow boiled up and enveloped him, and he seemed to scream forever as he fell into a void. He felt himself get deconstructed, traveling as singular particles to some other hellish destination…and then it was over. He was on his own two feet, but he had a monstrous headache, and was nearly sick. Corinth summoned a gentle white shell of a spell, a tinkling bell chiming softly as he pressed his hands to his head and healed his headache.

"Where are we?" Corinth asked. It was nearly pitch black save for a singular red light on the ceiling.

"Have you ever been to Snowpeak, Corinth?" Olivier asked, her back to him.

"No," Corinth said. "I've never left the city."

"Oh, it's a wonderful place. Not nearly as cold, which is astounding given it is still situated in the northern region. Much like the people of Snowpoint, the people there are resilient and hard-working. Though I suppose another word you could use could be…stubborn. Regardless, most men aside from Nerevor and a few others fear one thing above all."

Corinth stayed silent as Olivier turned towards him. The movement was unnatural, as though a Pokemon was trying to copy human mannerisms for the first time and couldn't quite get it right. "Death."

"Death, above all other things, can make even the strongest of men quiver in his boots as it approaches him. It withers and steals life, always growing closer and closer with every passing year that we are alive. But what if one found a way to circumvent this process? What if one found a way to become immortal?"

Corinth scoffed. "That's impossible. I've been studying magic for years, and Nerevor for even longer than that. He even admitted himself that one day he'd die too, and that immortality was impossible. The old man is a liar and a fool, but he was certainly right about that."

Olivier shrugged. "To his knowledge." She turned back away from him. "Yes, it is true that no known magic can give the secret of immortality to mortals. But this power I have now…" The shadows took on a ghostly red hue underneath the light. "Regardless, I am now immortal, thanks to the souls of your fallen comrades and other dead beings in Snowpoint. You, however, are not. Nor is the Snowpoint Militia or your men. But the leader of Snowpeak had his curiosity peaked by the notion of immortality as well. And he has generously donated more than enough men towards our cause. Two thousand men total, in fact."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Corinth asked. "Can you make them immortal?"

"Not quite. But close." Olivier snapped her fingers and the light overhead blared to full strength along with others.

Lining the narrow corridor were hundreds and hundreds of niches that each contained a variety of wiring and circuitry, monitoring the health of each person hooked up to the machines.

But then, person was to be used very loosely.

The figures looked humanoid enough, but no human he knew was pushing eight feet tall, and unless Corinth missed his guess, all of the things in the niches were as tall as their brethren. They were clad in gleaming white plate armor that gave off a noticeable glare even in the dim light, their heads wrapped in the same plate with only a horizontal slit at eye level to see through. There wasn't a touch of any other color but that perfect white anywhere else, besides the darker tinge where the plates overlapped.

But the chestpieces…

"That symbol…" Corinth stated, growing angry just looking at it. His wounds even seemed to shudder with distaste.

Olivier shrugged. "I don't know why he wears that symbol on his chest, but it seems that they mean two radically different things, don't they now?" That grin spread further on her face. "It's poetic. Whoever has the brightest light will rule the day. The sun will rise…but which one will it be? Let's find out!"

She hooked her fingers into claws and screamed in ecstasy, or maybe in agony as her power flared once more, tendrils of shadow fragmenting into the suits of armor. They began to quake and vibrate, and as one they all seemed to scream, muffled from the thick metal of their own armor.

They were trapped, Corinth realized. Trapped with no way out.

Olivier groaned, the veins beneath her skin turning blacker still as she absorbed the souls of the dying men. Not even using his power to sense magic, he could still feel the awful presence radiating off of her like heat from a fire. "Rise! Rise and fight for me! Death does not release you from service!"

One by one they stepped from their niches and landed upon the ground knee-first, their weight cracking the concrete below them. Down the hall, further than Corinth could see, he could hear the rest stepping down.

And then as one, they turned towards Corinth.

"These suits are bounded with tiny fragments of their original souls," Olivier said. "They are bound to me, and will crumble when I'm gone only. But I have more pressing matters to attend to now. Someone will need to command them. Someone who can wield that sort of power."

Corinth grinned, wiping some blood from his forehead. "I think I can do that."

"Cleansers," Olivier said, raising her voice. "My first command is to do whatever this man tells you to. Otherwise, you will guard me with your lives."

The Cleansers stood at attention, waiting for Corinth's first order.

"Excellent," Corinth said, clasping his hands together. The pain in his side was inconsequential now.

Victory was so close, almost so guaranteed, he could almost taste it.

"Olivier, you'll have Snowpoint on a silver platter." Corinth said. "This is what I need, Cleansers."

###

Floyd sank further into the shadows. They wrapped around his head and dragged him in further.

The light above was so far away now even though he hadn't sank much.

It was over.

…

…

…

"Boss!"

…

"Boss…you promised!"

"Floyd, wake up. Please wake up!"

Ren.

Tabby.

Floyd opened his eyes.

He'd made a promise, hadn't he? To both of them. He wouldn't leave Ren in a foreign world. And he wouldn't leave Tabby to fight alone.

Floyd's fist punched through the dome of shadows that had covered his head, a ray of light jetting up to touch the light above. His free hand gripped the edge of the dome, which was rapidly re-closing, and heaved himself out, the shadows sticking to his armor like hardened cobwebs. He realized why the power had felt so familiar. It was the feeling of impending doom, of death rushing to meet him. He'd felt it so many times now, he ought to have known it from the start.

The shadows and the things in the shadows were dead. But he was alive.

And he planned to keep it that way.

The veins stood out on Floyd's neck and on his forehead as he flexed every muscle in his body, power coming roaring to his call. He let it loose with one blood-curdling scream, the white light expanding from the sun on his chest and enveloping him in gigantic ball of energy. It rippled outwards, destroying the shadows that repeatedly tried to reattach to him, to fuel their faux lives with his own.

But he had a promise to keep.

His light touched the top of the seemingly infinite black void, and his body was pulled skyward.

###

Floyd opened his eyes and was immediately greeted by a hug that threatened to send him back to wherever it was he was coming from. He managed to lift his hand and place it on Tabby's back, rubbing it soothingly.

"Yeah," he said softly over Tabby's rather vocal words of worry and outrage. "I'm okay."

A/N: Sorry about the hiatus, just returned from visiting family down south I haven't seen in a while. But I'm back, and I have more than enough surprises to make up for it. Chapter 17 is actually already written, just touching it up a bit. Should be up soon. Thanks for reading guys, see you next update.