Chapter 17: Advance

"Four days?"

Tabby nodded, her hand in Floyd's, her thumb sliding over the smooth, cold metal.

She'd get to that later.

"You wouldn't respond to anything," Tabby explained. "Your body didn't function…you didn't need water or need to eat, you didn't even need to use the bathroom. We thought…I thought…" She shook her head and took a deep breath. "Whatever the case, I'm glad you're back. The whole damned building started shaking so I figured you were finally waking up."

Floyd put his hand on his face, and then seemed to silently realize what was different. A moment of silence passed between them as Tabby sat there. She wasn't going to make him tell her about this. It seemed personal…and she'd already made him do it once. There were still things he didn't know about her, and her him.

"When did this happen?" Floyd asked.

"Ren helped us remove your armor. It's relatively undamaged, just the outside looks like it's been through hell. When we took it off of you though…" She pursed her lips and then continued speaking. "Ren said that the backlash from your attack…I guess the simple way she explained it was that you can't really defend against yourself. So the armor took the brunt of it but some of your energy burned you. When we healed the burns…that's when we noticed. The skin was…peeling away."

A shadow had crossed over Floyd's face, and he rotated in his bed and stood up without any noticeable effort. That made sense, she supposed.

Floyd's arms and legs were metal. Not simple prosthetics that one could leave under the bed, but heavy, near-realistic metal limbs. They bent and moved exactly like a real arm would, and if the artificial skin wouldn't have come off, it was likely she would have never known.

Finally Tabby couldn't take it anymore. "Why didn't you…why didn't you tell me?"

Floyd shrugged as he looked out the window. "It's private. The story I told you a while back, a lot of people know it back on our Earth. Our lives are sort of public, with all the things we've done. But not a lot of people know about…these." He rotated his arm seamlessly. "Who else knows here?"

"Nurse Joy and her Pokemon. That's it. I helped with the burns because I'm good with fire."

Floyd nodded. "You're probably wondering what happened. And I still haven't told you the full story about me yet."

Tabby stood up and joined him at the window. "You can if you'd like."

Floyd looked down at his hands, examining the faint scratches in the metal. "I didn't grow up like a normal person. I was raised by robots until I was old enough to go to middle school. I'm sure that probably explains a lot about why I'm so…"

"Quiet," Tabby said, but she didn't say it as a joke.

"Right. Regardless, the reason I grew up that way was because of the laws the gods set to govern our universe." He concentrated for a moment. An orb of that white light that he used hovered above his palm. "See, my parents…they're not actually human. They're gods. Commander-in-chief of all of the ones we know of, in fact. A long time ago, before humans on our universe had even been little microbes of cells, the gods had a war between themselves, and, to prevent it from happening again and destroying reality, refused to let any more gods be created. But when humans did come around, they seemed to like us. They enjoyed watching us stumble around and try to find our own path, even though to them our lives are over in the blink of an eye. So Light—my father—had an idea. He didn't want to be responsible for protecting humanity and everything else all the time. For gods on our universe, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to even manifest in our world for minutes at a time. So instead, he and my mother Meridia manifested and overshadowed two humans. The baby that was born would have tremendous combat prowess and leadership skills, would be faster and stronger and smarter than average humans even at the peak of their strength and ages."

"The problem was, even though the rest of the gods liked humans as well, they didn't like that Light and Meridia would have a direct line to humanity that they could influence. So in order to balance things, every Lightborn is given a fault of sorts, whether mental or physical. Mine was the latter." His hand closed with an air of finality.

"You were born without arms or legs?" Tabby asked.

"Mm," Floyd said. "But thanks to Mom and Dad, I was guaranteed to have the skills to survive. With the help of my robots, I built my own limbs to stand on and fight with and now," he spread his hands, "here we are."

Tabby looked away, unsure of what to say. It wasn't just his arms and legs. His body…it was covered in old scars or wounds that had healed. He'd seen hell, and plenty of it. The fact that he kept going, even from day one…that took strength you couldn't build.

"We don't have time to sit here and think about what's already done." Stunned, Tabby turned back towards him. There wasn't any self-pity on his face, no fatigue in his form. He was back, and ready to get to work. "I've been gone for four days, right? Fill me in. Tell me everything."

Tabby nodded. "Right. Come on."

###

"Residents of Snowpoint City. As you are all probably aware, last night there was a violent disturbance in the Northern Quarter, and prior to that, a disturbance in Central as well. As you are also probably aware, there have been rumors of a gigantic device or bomb being constructed right here in the heart of the city. These rumors are all false, perpetrated by the same aggressors that were responsible for the upheaval of the city twice in one week. The oldest among you will know the name Nerevor to be familiar. By now it is likely you have seen his followers in the streets protesting, or even seen or felt acts of aggression towards you thanks to his orders. But many of you have still been lead astray by his lies. We urge you here today to stand with us against Nerevor's fanaticisms, and to seek refuge in Central or the Southern Quarter if at all necessary. I will be going over new city-wide rules to keep the general population safe, but first, I have a word to all ho considers themselves personally loyal to Nerevor himself."

Olivier stepped out of frame and Corinth, a burned, bandaged, and bruised Corinth, stepped behind the podium. The most noticeable of his injuries was a large burn that covered almost the entirety of the right side of his face, the eye a milky white.

"My name is Corinth," he said softly, cringing away from the microphone as though it would bite him. "I am…I-I was one of Nerevor's personal attendants for years. When…when it was clear that he was losing his mind some of us protested. We just…we didn't want to see our home taken from us. Last night when we stepped forward in the streets…" He swallowed and paused. "When we came forward, Nerevor banished me and my friends, people I've called family for years and years. When I personally tried to plead with him…he…he…" His lip quivered and he looked down, unable to speak further. Olivier hurried onto the stage, pulling him away from the mic and talking off-record to him, rubbing his arm sympathetically and comforting him. When he had calmed down, he left the stage to some of her attendants, and Olivier once again took the stage.

"Now do you see, followers of Nerevor? This man is not your friend. But he is not our enemy. No…the enemy to Snowpoint, to every man, woman, child, and Pokemon is not a person. It is the oppressors of our freedoms, of our hopes and desires and of our ability to live peacefully alongside one another. I urge any who are having second thoughts not to hesitate to call the number on your screen now. I will personally ensure that you are taken care of, and that you and your loved ones will have a home right here in Central Tower until the threat has been professionally and dutifully neutralized." Olivier straightened up a little. "Now onto our most important bulletins; my security advisor will begin outlying how to keep yourselves safe during these trying times—"

Tabby scoffed and turned off the TV.

"They put on a hell of a performance," Floyd said as his machine began to coat his right arm in a layer of artificial skin. "What did the security advisor have to say?"

"What you'd expect," Tabby said, sitting down on Floyd's bed. "Mandatory curfews, compliance with some new Snowpoint Elite Guards—whatever the hell that means—no big groups meeting, that kind of stuff."

"Did it work?"

"Hell yeah, it did," Ren said. Floyd had noticed she was still wincing a little as she moved, but she seemed to have healed up rather nicely. "First of all, Corinth had a lot more buddies that we thought he had. After you passed out, they were taking a headcount and found out the about half of the people that were actually qualified to use magic to, y'know, fight, deserted. Almost three hundred of Sanctuary's best fighters, gone."

"Right after that, the families closest to Central started leaving too," Tabby said. "Whether it was by force or by their own choice, we don't know. But the lower half of the Northern Quarter is almost completely abandoned. Everyone with a brain here in Sanctuary knows that Nerevor isn't guilty and that Olivier is blatantly lying, so everyone's doing their part. Shops were closed down, work was stopped, supplies were gathered. Vanessa and Griffin set up a big block of apartment buildings and fit as many refugees as possible inside. Right now, we think we got all the civilians out of where the fighting is the strongest."

"There's fighting already?" Floyd asked.

Tabby nodded. "That broadcast was four days ago. Since then, Olivier's goons have been trying every back entrance there is to try and push their way into the Northern Quarter and get a foothold. The magi we have are definitely enough, and we haven't had to use lethal force yet…but both sides are definitely holding back." She ticked off on her fingers. "One, we haven't seen Corinth or any of his buddies that ran off with him since the attack that night. If Olivier has about three hundred magi all at her command that want Nerevor dead, she certainly has the manpower and the firepower to do it. Two, these Elite Guards."

"You haven't seen them?" Floyd asked.

"Not yet," Ren sighed, scratching at her ear with her back paw. "Gotta say though, my horn hasn't stopped flaring since I saw the broadcast, and every time we hear about it on the news, it gets worse. I don't like it one bit."

"If Olivier has these Elite Guards, why not have the Guard start making big pushes while the Elite Guards back them up?" Tabby asked. "It doesn't make any sense."

Floyd considered that for a moment. "Is there a number three?"

Ren and Tabby shared a look. "Two pieces of bad news aren't enough for you?" Tabby asked.

"Where Ren and I are from, I get suspicious if there aren't at least three."

That got Tabby to smile for a moment. "The night you passed out…something big happened. I've literally never seen magic of that magnitude unless Nerevor was behind it." She described in detail how shadows had seemed to fall from the sky, how dead people had seemed to form again in the physical world.

Floyd scratched his chin. "Necromancy."

"But how?" Tabby asked. "I mean, city wide? What does Olivier have that could reach that far?"

"Nerevor doesn't have any ideas?"

Ren shook her head. "Nerevor is out of the picture right now."

Floyd blinked. "What?"

"The old man is putting all his power into working up a ward that can cover the Northern Quarter for the real first attack," Ren explained. "Nobody's seen him except to bring him water and food for…two days now? He can only do things that are…I dunno, autonomous I guess. Can't talk, but he can swallow and eat and stuff."

"So we have nothing," Floyd said. "Fantastic."

Tabby shifted in her seat. "Well…we might not have an ideas. Buuuuut maybe Nerevor's private study does."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Ren said.

"Weeeeell, we're kinda sorta not supposed to go in there. Like at all. Unless the world is ending." She sighed. "Though a few days ago, it felt like the world was ending soooooo…"

"Where is this study?" Floyd asked.

"It's on Nerevor's floor. I can probably magic the lock."

The machine finished placing the flesh on Floyd's arm. The sensors bonded with the flesh, and Floyd felt the skin of his palm against his fingers as he made a fist.

"I'm tired of being on the back foot. Let's get ahead of her for once."

###

Glad that Floyd was up on his feet again, Ren was free to worry about other things like how her side kind of still hurt as they climbed the stairs to Nerevor's private study. Still, the pain confirmed that she was still alive and not getting her soul yanked out of her mouth, so it was better than nothing.

The study was prefaced by a big-ol' black mahogany door that screamed "don't come in here" to anyone who even looked at it. Wasn't even locked…well, physically anyway. Just like underneath the Hub, by almost pressing her horn against the door, she could feel the magical energy radiating from the door like heat from a raging bonfire.

Ren let out a long breath. "You sure you can open this, cinnamon bun? I mean, this thing is starting to fry me and I'm barely close to it."

Tabby stepped forward and placed her fingers a few centimeters from the wood. "I won't lie; there's a good chance it might backlash and blow my ass away. But everyone else is busy, and Floyd's right; I'm tired of being on the back foot. If we know something they don't, we can get the leg up for once." She closed her eyes and placed her hand on the door, pale light pulsing down her arm and flowing into the door.

"How ya doing, Boss?" Ren asked as she did this.

"Better," Floyd said. "I actually have a spot of good news, if you'll believe it." He told her about the dream he had. The part about the shadows was bad; that meant that Olivier could access his unconscious state. But before hand…

"Who do you think it was?" Ren asked.

"It was pretty distorted, but it sounded like Annabeth to me," Floyd said. "If I'm right, then that means Violet can lock onto me somehow. She told me to stay put, and that they were coming to find us."

Ren felt her mouth purse into a thin line as she bit back a smarmy remark. "So I guess we have a decision to make, yeah? Either stay here after we're done…"

"Or move on and risk getting lost," Floyd finished. "Well…I suppose we can't think about it now. We've got more important things to worry about."

"Damn…straight!" Tabby shouted. There was a loud chiming sound, and the door slid backwards, shuddered, and then swung open noiselessly. Lights clicked on immediately after leading the way down a hall and into the study beyond. "I'm just too good." She took a bow to absolutely no one, and to Ren's surprise, Floyd cracked a grin. "Shall we?"

Ren whistled as she walked into the study itself, the noise bouncing around the silence. "I could get lost in here."

"I know we've seen it hundreds of times before, but I'll never get over how magicians can do this," Floyd said.

The study was much bigger than what could have been possible given how the building looked on the outside. Bookcases stretched to the ceiling overhead, filled with books that readjusted themselves or floated off of shelves to find themselves on others later. Elgyem and Beheeyem floated around with books hovering and rotating near their heads, or sorting the various bookcases found in the large room. From time to time, Abra would teleport in and out of the room with a near-inaudible popping noise, depositing books into the study.

"Would be nice if we had a computer," Tabby muttered. "Excuse me, Beheeyem! Down here!"

Beheeyem floated down from a stack of books that perched on the edge of a bookcase. Its weird eyes blinked at random intervals, staring at Tabby.

"Hi," Tabby said. "I was wondering if Nerevor has anything relating to…shadows, I suppose. Or necromancy?"

Beheeyem thought about that for a moment, then floated away so far down the room it disappeared. After a minute or so, it returned with a large mound of books above its head, depositing them on one of the large wooden reading tables.

"Fantastic," Ren said deadpanned. "Where do we even start?"

"By picking up a book," Floyd said. "Those scientists gave you the ability to read; might as well put it to some use."

And read they did. They read for what seemed like hours, turning pages and compiling notes. The Beheeyem brought them notebook paper and pens and pencils as they needed more, and every book that had nothing of value was pushed off the table in favor of texts that offered more information.

The hours turned into half of the day, and then it was night out, the moonlight filtering in from windows unseen to them behind bookshelves. Tabby closed a book dramatically and slumped against the back of her chair, exhausted.

"This reminds me of trying to pass my MPAC exam," Tabby groaned.

"MPAC?" Ren asked.

"Magical Persons and Creatures," Tabby explained. "There was so much work, so much studying to do before that I just…" She flared her hands from her temples. "Floyd, you're being characteristically silent. Find anything?"

"None," Floyd said. He leaned back in his chair, hand under his chin. "The necromancy you described sounds like a version of soul trapping. Basically, the soul of a slain target is taken by force and used as power for something that requires energy like that."

"Souls have power?" Tabby asked.

Ren snorted. "You don't make fire just from breathing hard, hun."

"Hey," Tabby warned.

"Point is, yeah, your soul has power. It's everything you are. You could be braindead while your soul is rattling around in your body. Our Earth figured out a long time ago that the soul can…be your backup guy I guess. When your back is against a wall and you get your second wind back, you're basically drawing on your soul power for one last push."

Floyd nodded. "It's a hard concept to comprehend, and even harder to fully understand. My teacher, Zinnia, she taught us the way of the Draconid people. They know all about souls and their power."

"Whoa, now hold up," Tabby said. "Draconids? As in, the Dragon People? Red eyes? Black hair and darker skin?"

Floyd and Ren blinked at each other and then leaned in. "There are Draconids on this Earth?"

Tabby nodded. "We learn about them when we're in grade school. Before I was born, apparently there was a meteor hurtling in from space that no one could do anything about across the sea in Hoenn. No one knows what happened for sure, but witnesses said that a mysterious red-eyed woman and some kid were responsible for giving Rayquaza the ability to Mega Evolve and saved the whole planet. Devon Corp went nuts afterwards because there was this big scandal about a rocket or something and it was a big mess. But they definitely exist."

Ren locked eyes with Floyd. It was almost scary sometimes how she knew exactly what he was thinking, even though she didn't need to say it.

If the Draconids existed on this Earth as well as the other one, there was a very real chance that this wasn't just another universe they'd landed in. There was a chance that they were in a parallel universe, similar to their own in some aspects, but with many differences.

And Zinnia back on Earth had mentioned something about connecting with a Rayquaza years before she and Floyd had ever met her.

"We'll worry about it later," Floyd said after a moment's silence. "We still have a few mounds of books to get through, so let's…"

BOOM!

"Ah shit," Ren said, getting up from her reading position. "That's not good."

"No, it isn't," Tabby said. "But what could…?"

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the slow uptake of a droning alarm siren. Ren had grown used to hearing it over the week as they tested it for safety's sake, but she and her horn had a feeling this wasn't a drill.

Tabby glanced at Floyd. "I hope you're ready for a fight. Come on. They might be by the main entrance."

"No wait," Floyd said. "I have a better idea."

###

Floyd, Tabby, and Ren climbed to the top of Sanctuary via the roof entrance. Luckily Tabby had been right in saying that the inside of the Black Sun armor hadn't been damaged.

He might need it soon.

There was smoke rising from the south, as though there'd been an explosion of some sort. A few minutes later, some of Sanctuary's marked troops began lugging wounded back who were…

"Arceus," Tabby said. "Are they missing limbs?"

"But they're still alive," Floyd murmured. His attention was mostly focused on that smoke rising south. "Tabby, you said that the lower half of the Quarter is evacuated, right?" She nodded. "I think they managed to breach the defenses."

"That would make sense," Tabby said. "That looks like the guard that Vanessa set up. But those kinds of wounds…" She trailed off as two men hauled two others who were almost definitely clinging to life by a thread, bloodied and dismembered to the point of brutality. "What kind of monster could do that to someone?"

"They're not bleeding." Floyd and Tabby looked down at Ren. "Their limbs are gone, but they're not bleeding. Where's the blood?"

"Bandaged?" Tabby asked.

"No. Humans still bleed after wounds like that." Floyd shook his head. "Magic, maybe."

"We might see Corinth after all," Ren said, nodding to the south. "That or one of his friends." A Dragonite had definitely taken to the skies, a speck in the distance, but he was up there.

"Scouting for survivors," Floyd said. He recalled Ren back to her Pokeball and held out his hand to Tabby.

"A little windy for gliding, right?"

"Yeah," Floyd said. "But we're not gliding."

One arm around her waist, power surged through Floyd's body as they leapt off the roof. To his surprise, Tabby didn't even scream or act remotely surprised. She just tucked her head into his chest to protect against the strong winds as he began to fly. They rocketed over the tops of the buildings in an instant, and as soon as they had started flying, they stopped. He wasn't quite as fast as he remembered. Hopefully he could chalk it up to not flying in a while.

Still, Tabby seemed to have trouble catching her breath. "You can…you can do that? How can you do that?"

"Not easily," Floyd said. "My body has to be in good condition, and it takes a lot of energy in general to even keep going for hours on end. Zoe helped me develop a mechanical flight system in my limbs to give me a boost in speed or just to fly without using power. Both of them are pretty loud, but flying without using my power is better because…"

"Up there!" someone said. "Shoot them down!"

Floyd sighed. "Anytime I use my power, there's a really noticeable white aura I can't hide." He pulled Tabby down off the ledge they'd landed on and into the snow of the rooftop. Minutes later, bullets began peppering the brick of the building, though none slipped through and hit them.

"Don't suppose you could do something about that?" Tabby asked, covering her head from the spray of brick that came with the near-misses.

The mask unfolded around Floyd's face, and he smiled under the mask. "Back in a minute."

He grabbed the ledge and leapt over, the bullets bouncing off of the armor of the Black Sun. Time slowed down as he fell to the ground. A small force of twenty men, all armed, no magicians.

He didn't even need to kill them.

He landed in the snow hard enough to whip up a snow cloud that sent chips of ice and hard-packed snow into the eyes of his enemies. The ones closest yelped and couldn't help firing their weapons as they were blinded, and Floyd moved to capitalize.

Speed.

To his own perception, time was moving incredibly slow, so slow that he could see the path the bullets being fired at him were taking. To the men though, Floyd was moving so fast the only they'd be able to see were a clump of black lines before he activated his power. He zipped forwards and buried his fist in the gut of the first man, then blurred to a cluster of five more. Rapid strikes and jabs followed, striking pressure points and weak spots, and the men were done for. Just before his power timed out, Floyd reached a group of four and went to work, breaking legs, snapping arms, and disabling weapons.

The sun on his chest flashed white and he resumed his normal speed, but he was already running. Behind him, the sounds of fighting that took less than a second real-time echoed out as he reached the last part of the group, who were spreading out in fear. A few of them screamed and threw their weapons down, begging for mercy, while another few tried to release Pokeballs. The first one who tried had his hand crushed by a mechanically-augmented kick, shattering the finger bones and forcing him to drop the Pokeball. He roared in agony, but was silenced as Floyd's boot found his chest and sent him bouncing back into the snow about fifty feet away. Unfortunately, he wasn't quick enough, because the nine others released Pokemon of their own.

Flash.

The enemies behind him were momentarilly stunned and blinded, allowing Floyd to leap back and release his own trump card. "Okay, girl, you know the drill. Make it quick."

Ren exploded from her Pokeball, primed and ready for action. "About damn time." She grinned back at him. "I've been wanting to kick some ass for a while now." She turned back to the enemies who were overcoming their confusion. Among the humans were a lot of Pokemon, and it was likely every man had six each. Judging from the non-diverse color palette, they looked to be mostly…

"Steel types," Ren said. "This isn't looking too good, Boss." She nodded to a few giant things with a single bulging eye. "Those are Magnezone. Pretty damn strong."

"And the rest?"

She shrugged. "Manageable." Her ears twitched underneath her fur. "Seems we've got other problems behind us though."

Floyd glanced behind. More smoke curcled up from the rooftops over there, followed by another explosion that was getting closer.

"Definitely magi," Floyd said. "We can deal with them once we've dealt with these guys. Let's fight!"

"Then fire it up! Now!"

With a war-cry, Floyd and Ren began charging as much power as they could, Ren Mega Evolving with a brilliant multi-colored flash of light. The very air was charged with ozone as they did so, and the morale of the men wavered just as far as it could without breaking entirely. Still, they hid behind their Pokemon and did their best to reload weapons.

Best not to let them get a leg up.

Floyd darted forward, slapping the sun on his chest. It released a flash that wasn't as strong as the one he could produce naturally, but was still enough to stun those close enough. The Pokemon in front shielded their eyes, then found themselves slammed to the ground, as they were blocking the path to their masters. One of the Magnezone was unaffected and surged forwards, tendrils of electricity buzzing between the giant magnets it used for hands. It let loose just as Floyd reached it, forcing him to cross his arms and grit his teeth as the electricity forced him back.

"Warning: risk of electrocution imminent," his suit warned.

Just as he was about to try and redirect the electricity, a hail of fireballs rained from the sky and crashed into the opposing forces. One struck the Magnezone and dented its hard body, nearly melting it and forcing its attack to subside. Vaulting over it, Floyd landed behind it and kicked it into its fellows, who began to whine and cry angrily as the magnets attached themselves to their steel bodies. As the Magnezone struggled to get free, Ren made her move. Taking a deep breath, her Mega-strengthened legs allowed her to leap into the air and let loose a howling gale of a Fire Blast that washed over the Steel-types with intensity that most definitely would have cremated if she hadn't been holding back. As the flames licked over the burning Pokemon, Ren landed on all fours with a shout, a Dark Pulse cascading over the ones who could even remain standing. In a storm of negative energy and dust, the Steel-types went flying, their heavy bodies slamming into some of their own masters.

The five humans remaining panicked and turned to run, but not before the ice and snow beneath their feet leapt up to attack them. Giant hands made of black ice, fists made of the hardest of the snow, all of it leapt up to finish the job, only one of them able to dodge the onslaught.

That was all Floyd needed.

He vaulted over the moving snow and clamped his hand over the neck of the last man standing, lifting him a few feet off the ground.

"Arceus, you beat them all! Yield! I yield, please don't kill me!" he screamed.

"This can be as easy or as painful as you'd like," Floyd warned. "Tell me about Olivier. What is your advance team doing here? How'd you breach through the patrols?"

"I don't know anything! I swear! I'm just…I was forced to sign up with the military! All of Snowpoint's c-citizens are forced to when they register…sign up for possible active service!"

"So you'd willingly play nice with a madwoman who wants to level the entire city?"

He shook his head fervently, trying to loosen Floyd's grip on his neck. "She…she promised that Nerevor…"

"Nerevor had nothing to do with the bomb. You and your men have been duped.

His eyes bugged out in fear. "E-even if I knew…don't know about a bomb. Just an…advance team with magicians…and…Elite Guard."

"Then it sounds like we're done here."

Floyd's elbow blurred to the man's temple and the man went limp in his hand. He'd have a nasty headache rivaling agony when he woke up, but he'd live. Floyd tossed him to the ground as Tabby landed on the ground, the ice reaching up to cushion her fall.

"What did our friend here say?" Tabby asked.

Floyd's mask folded back as he nudged the unconscious man with his foot. "Nothing we didn't know already. Thanks for the assist by the way."

"Can't let you have all the fun," Tabby teased. Then she sobered up as she looked south. "Magi, huh?"

"Sounds like it," Floyd said. "Along with an Elite Guard." She frowned at that, glancing down the street. "Your choice, do we engage?"

"They were strong enough to make it past the patrols, and they weren't pushovers," Tabby said. "The study will still be there when we get back, but right now we need to…"

The side of a building not a block down from them exploded, a plume of smoke billowing from the hole in the side of the building as rising into the sky. The silhouette of a man leapt down amidst the smoke, and began walking towards them. Floyd's mask clicked back into place, Ren leapt to Floyd's side, and Tabby took up a defensive magic pose, ready to cast or block anything sent their way.

"You are the humans known as Floyd and Tabby, correct?" a voice droned as it neared closer. "And the Absol is here as well. Arceus has truly blessed this day."

Ren snorted. "Look buddy, the dramatic entrance is nice, but you really want to trust me when I say you don't know who you're messing with. We just kicked your buddies' asses all the way back to first Ice Age, and you can get it too if you come any closer!"

The man walked out of the dust cloud.

Just when Floyd thought it was impossible to be surprised, he found God or Light or Arceus or whoever continually testing his patience. His eyes roved over the perfect white plate armor, the icy mist swirling around the man's fingers, the faint white aura that shimmered over the entirety of the man's body.

And the sun, the same sun that Floyd wore on his chest, that shone with the same radiant white light that his did.

A/N: As promised, Chapter 17, as I was on a bit of a craze when writing the last two. Also, if you're interested, I've created a deviantArt account, and as we move forward in the story, I'll be posting that concept art I wanted to do. Mind the actual art itself, I'm not too good yet. The link to my profile will be in my bio, take a look if you'd like. Thanks, and see you next update.