Chapter 25: The Storm
The official time for the operation was in less than three hours, which gave Floyd and Ren less than three hours to get the car completely operational again. As it turned out, there had already been a pile of Magnezone parts that had been, well, piling up in a parking garage that functioned as another watchtower near the ward border. They weren't in great shape, weathered by exposure and by the attacks that had brought them down with enough force to tear them apart, but they were functional enough for Ren's idea.
Floyd's heart swelled with pride as he watched her furry white butt wiggle to and fro as she examined the underside of the car. He'd been sure that she was going to go on a verbal tirade back in the hall. She had, but it seemed her love of hearing herself talk had its advantages.
"Boss are you gonna stand there and think about how great I am or are you gonna help me out?" Ren asked.
"How did you—"
"I can practically hear you being proud of me," she said, cutting him off. "Now where's that other Magnezone magnet?" Floyd smirked and brought it over, sliding underneath the car with her. "Slide that right in there." He did as she asked, and began screwing it in. "Boss."
"Yeah?"
"Look, uh…I know I say it all the time whenever we're, like, play-arguing…but I just want you to know that I, uh, love you, Boss." Floyd heard her swallow. "I don't say it sincerely enough most of the time and we might die for real this time, so…"
"You don't have to," Floyd said as he stopped drilling. "I know you do. And I love you too." He kissed the odd oval in the center of her forehead and the Absol turned a bit red. "Is that everything?"
Ren cleared her throat and tried to regain her tough-girl demeanor. "Yeah! Should be fit as a fiddle." They slid out from underneath the car and examined their handiwork. They'd managed to salvage four complete Magnezone magnets and some other spare parts that allowed the odd Pokemon to levitate in midair. If all went well, they'd really just be levitating, but the thrusters would allow them to shoot forwards and actually gain momentum in the air. Floyd lowered the car to the ground and started the remote ignition. The regular functions on the ground seemed fine, and Floyd set the mode to 'HOVER'.
The car lifted off of the ground, the very air rippling underneath the chassis.
"Yes," Ren said. "Yes, yes, yes!" The Absol squealed and leapt into Floyd's arms, and he couldn't help but do a little dance with her in celebration.
Everything was back to normal…for the most part anyways. They'd actually gotten a little bit lucky over the past few days.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a part of the universe that wanted them to win this fight.
With the way Light and Arceus seemed to be cursing him every other day though, he kept his fingers crossed.
###
Tabby re-read the same passage over and over and over again in one of the spell tomes suited for more powerful users of Fire magic. She'd figured she'd at least have a few days to study them, but now she only had an hour. Her friends in Squad A hadn't even had time to study them with her. She was the only one looking at the advanced material. Maybe that wouldn't be enough. What if someone got hurt or killed because they didn't get the chance to read what she had? Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe they should stay in and wait for a better opportunity. Or maybe…
Biff.
Snow slid down her face and Tabby let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks Blitz. I…I needed that."
"Infernape," Blitz agreed. One of his lanky arms wrapped around her shoulders, and Tabby couldn't help but laugh. "Fernape?"
"Nothing, it's just…can't believe this is actually about to happen," Tabby said. She looked down the street and saw the masses of Vanessa's students and underlings preparing their respective tunnels underground. "Everything we've worked for, everything Mom and Dad worked for…it's either getting undone or growing after whatever happens today." She sighed. "My heart feels like it's about to jump out of my mouth. What about you?"
Blitz puffed out his chest and pounded a fist over where his heart would be. Tabby thought he was acting tough until he burped up a gout of flame and scratched his butt. "Infernape," he said with a shrug.
"Elegant as always," Tabby said, scratching behind his ears. "Whatever happens today, we stick together, alright?"
"Fernape," Blitz confirmed with iron certainty.
Over the next hour, the fighting force of Sanctuary gathered on the street. Final preparations were made, goodbyes were said to those too wounded or who wouldn't be any help in a fight. Tabby saw tearful goodbyes of the worried, the nonchalant goodbyes of the fearless, and the melancholy goodbyes of those uncertain of the future in the next 24 hours.
A lot was about to change.
She saw Squad A almost completely ready, 200 men and women potent with Fire magic gathered in front of her, to say nothing of their Pokemon helpers. Tabby saw a crowd of Torkoal that were encircled by some of the magi, just waiting on releasing their latent power to intensify the sun's rays. There were endless amounts of Simisear and Pansear, a few Heatmor, a lot of Ponyta and Rapidash. Some were even riding their Pokemon into battle, though Tabby didn't know how that was going to fare them. Squad B showed up minutes later, the multitude of Pidgeot and Fearow and Golbat and Staraptor gathered in one place whipping up a wind as they were released from their Pokeballs. She watched Squad C and Squad D form as well, a lot of non-magi or weak magi gathered with a band of Fighting types to support, then E and F at their backs composed of…well, everyone else. She caught Nerevor's eye as he was giving final directions to some of the leaders. He nodded, a message passing between them as easily as it would with words, then turned back to his leaders. Everyone else was either inside, or preparing for the attack.
That left one person she needed to see, and she knew where he would be. Tabby made it to the front of the entire line, slightly taken aback by the tremendous magical power of Sanctuary's army, and scanned until…there he was!
She let out a sigh of relief to see he hadn't gone off to challenge Olivier just yet. "Floyd!"
He turned her way, his helmet folding back. "Hey. I didn't think I'd see you before we started."
She stopped just in front of him and looked him up and down. "You look ready."
He grimaced. "I've been in too many fights not to be. You be sure to keep your guard up when we get into the thick of it."
"Yeah, of course," Tabby said. "Where's Ren?"
"I'm having her stay back with Nerevor until the path is clear," Floyd said. "She knows how to command about as well as I do, so if he has any questions or if there's a call that needs to be made…well, I trust her to make it as much as I trust myself."
Tabby nodded. "And…and you're staying?"
"For the first part. Once I'm sure that you all can handle it, or once Olivier forces our hands, I'll be off." He paused. "But…it's more than likely that I won't see you until after this is all over when the fighting starts."
"Right…after," Tabby repeated. "Floyd…you…you can't die."
"I know."
"Nonono," she rattled off. "You cannot die. I won't have it."
Floyd smiled at that, damn him. "It might not be up to me."
"I know," Tabby said. "I'm freaking out about twelve different things right now, and I want everyone to come home safe but I'm…" She sighed and started over. "Look, I made a pointer promise with you, remember? No dying. Absolutely none, of any kind. You need to live long enough so that I can keep my end of the promise. And…and you have people waiting on you back home, remember? You can't die on them, either."
Floyd considered that for a moment. Tabby wasn't sure what he'd say.
As it turned out, he said nothing.
But suddenly Tabby was in his arms, and the temperature around her shot up by an extra fifty degrees. Against his hard armor, Tabby expected to be uncomfortable, but he hugged her just right that she melded against him, not wanting to let go. Her arms found their way around his waist and his chin rested atop her head.
"I promise I won't die," Floyd said. "I'll come back to you."
Tabby stepped back and stared him in the eye. Something electric seemed to pass between them and shot right down her spine. Did he feel it too? Maybe. With his expression it was hard to tell.
But his word was good enough for now at least. "Right. Come back to me." Her throat seemed a little dry on those last words and she nodded. "Good luck, Black Sun."
Blitz snorted and followed her to Squad A, where she took her place at the very front of the line. "What are you laughing at?" she asked the Infernape as they settled in.
Blitz held his arms out in front of him and mimed (rather poorly) giving a big, wet kiss.
"Oh hush," Tabby said, though she couldn't keep the smile off her face. "You can be funny after the morning festivities."
###
"Prepare to go underground!" Vanessa roared, and the command was repeated across her lines. The Pokemon all readied themselves to dig, and by Arceus, they would dig their fill and then some. Vance was raring to go, whether it was fighting or digging or both.
She spared a look back at the rest of the army. It looked so strong to her. It blazed with magical power to her senses, and to be honest, looking at it for too long made her head hurt a little.
Could they really win it all here?
She hoped so.
Her wedding ring grew heavier on her finger.
By Arceus, she hoped so.
###
"Looks like we're about to get started," Zero said, watching from the window. "Griffin, any tips?"
"Speak clearly and carefully," Griffin said. "Remember, you know these people, and the more that you can convince right now, the more that will come out to the ship that we can help. Mob mentality will kick in if you reach enough people. Be real, follow what you wrote."
On the table in front of him was a list of bullet points he wanted to hit. Floyd said the little device he and Ren had cooked up—seriously, they had a little bit of everything in that car of theirs—would only give him clear, uninterrupted audio access for about five minutes before Olivier would undoubtedly have him ripped from the airwaves.
A lot of damage to either themselves or the enemy could be done in five minutes.
He took a deep breath and pressed the red "LIVE" button in front of him, leaning towards the mic.
###
Olivier took a drink from her water and pointed towards the next reporter who was beckoning with his hand in the air. The conference was going great. If she wasn't being overconfident, it seemed as though the media and public opinion outside of Snowpoint really was on her side.
She might not even have to unveil her present…not yet, anyways.
The reporter began to speak, but right before that, the P.A in the meeting hall came on, broadcasting the…emergency radio? It had to be. Nothing else would have overtaken the audio around them.
"Hello? This thing on? I'm, uh, guessing it is."
###
"People of Snowpoint City…I am Zero, the city Gym Leader." He swallowed. "I will be anyway, once this is all over. Today I'm begging with my allies in the Southern Quarter to talk to you about…"
He stopped. He hadn't even gotten to his first bullet point yet. But he knew how he sounded. He sounded forced, sounded…closed off, like he really was just reading from a sheet of paper.
Zero thought back to just this morning, when Ren had flipped an entire army's morale on its head.
He tried again.
"Alright look, for those of you who know me…you know being formal isn't really my thing, y'know? I'm not a negotiator, I'm not a…a peacekeeper. What I am is a Gym Leader. I like…I like watching the kids in our neighborhoods run up to me with their very first Pokemon they caught out in the forest, begging to take the Gym Challenge. I like watching two kids have their very first Pokemon battle out on the street, a Tackle fight goin' on while a bunch of other kids cheer 'em on. I like it because I used to be one of those kids, man. Snowpoint's my home, and just like everyone listening more or less…it's probably yours too."
He glanced at Griffin, who nodded and gave him a thumbs up.
###
"I'm supposed to tell you how terrible the Southern Quarter is, how terrible the people are there and how we're being oppressed by them and them alone. But I can't. My family lives down there, man. I've got cousins and aunts and uncles that live in the Southern Quarter. They aren't bad people. They don't hate magic."
Olivier, with barely controlled fury, spoke into her radio, "Get him off the air. Right. Now."
"What I can tell you about is Governor Olivier. And how…how terrible she's made our home. Because, whether you like the Northern Quarter or the Southern Quarter or whatever quarter you want…it's still the same place, guys. And Olivier is planning to rip it all apart and share it with all of her friends in high places."
###
"I know that there have to be some of you out there that have seen things or done things that have made you question who you are. Where your loyalties lie. Why they lie there. Trust me, I get it. We all do. Olivier has committed so many crimes against…well, everyone that it's hard to even get a good number on them all. You might think you're the only one who feels this way, but you're not! I know that tons of you that are loyal to Olivier have seen her do something, or gotten an order from her that made you question what you're really fighting for."
Jonas looked around to his fellow guardsmen.
All of them were scowling at the radio…but they were listening.
###
"I know that tons of you have seen her change in this past month, seen her get really shaky and erratic, make some questionable decisions or get involved in some shady business or deals after hours."
Olivier's most trusted assistants, who were all huddled in the Central Tower lobby watching the press conference on the internet, all looked at each other knowingly.
###
"And…and I know that a lot of you are afraid and frustrated with how the world changed so much back when Team Galactic came out swinging in the second round. A lot of you lost someone in that war to magic. A lot of you have families, have people you want to protect. Olivier's made you a promise that they'll be safe, right? Listen to this; it's from one of her advisors."
Zero pressed a button labeled "CLIP 1".
"Olivier will use our magical knowledge and our forces along with her army to remake Snowpoint in our image! First here, then all of the region! Perhaps even the world! It will be a new age for the oppressed, for all magi to live in the light!"
"Or maybe this," Zero said. He pressed "CLIP 2".
"The device, the bomb beneath the Hub…it is almost finished. A few days at most and Olivier will arm it. Only by doing what she instructs will she allow the innocent of Snowpoint to go free."
"Corinth and all of the Liberated you've seen on TV," Zero continued. "That little sob story with the burns and the wounds? It's fake, all of it. The Liberated that share that mentality are our enemies, as are the Elite Guards and Olivier herself. She doesn't care about you. She'd just as easily use you all as leverage to get whatever she wants."
###
Corinth couldn't believe what was happening.
He was watching from behind Olivier as one by one, the stares of reporter and cameraman alike began to become less questioning and more accusatory.
Around him, the regular human guards edged away from Corinth and his most trusted Liberated.
###
"I can sit here and tell you all about it, but I think they're going to knock me off the air soon."
The message echoed throughout the snow-covered streets, on the public radio, in the Southern Quarter shops and restaurants and homes.
Everyone was listening.
###
"So I can't detail all of Olivier's crimes. I can't force you to believe anything, I can't force you to do anything. So unlike Olivier, I'll ask instead." He took a deep breath. "I need you to stand up. I need anyone who has any sort of doubt against Olivier to help us. To the media, ask yourselves if the city has seemed a little too perfect since you got here. Do you really believe a city divided down the middle has this little problems on the other side? And to anyone who believes they can help, we need it now. The S.S. Spiral is currently anchored at the Eastern Docks. For the sake of your children, your families, anything you've ever loved…if you believe that there's even the slightest chance that Olivier is capable of killing you all without remorse, I'm begging you…please get there immediately. Form up with your Pokemon and stand up. Because if we don't, the Snowpoint City I love, all those memories…well…" Zero swallowed. "Then I guess after today…it'll just be wishful thinking."
He didn't use the full five minutes, but he tapped the "LIVE" button.
It went dark.
###
On the last word of Zero's magnificent speech, Nerevor slammed the end of his staff against the frozen asphalt of the street. A pulse of magic rippled from the impact and spread up and down every building in sight.
The ward shivered and began to collapse.
###
The press exploded with questions.
It was like a million punches being thrown at her all at once. Olivier dodged a few, but lost her composure. She stammered, misspoke, she wanted to scream and cry and kill.
One of her advisors didn't bother with subtlety, racing up to the mic with her and whispering in her ear.
"WHAT?" Olivier shrieked.
###
Vanessa let out a shout as she and her students made a twisting motion deep, deep underground. She felt the vibrations from all their digging, felt the vibrations from the collapsing ward Nerevor had brought down.
And most importantly, she felt one of the diodes Floyd had described, sitting deep in the earth.
For something so crucial to her plan, Vanessa found it quite easy to snap under a couple tons of earth.
###
"GO!" Nerevor's augmented voice boomed over the army. "THE SHIELD HAS FALLEN! CHARGE! FOR SNOWPOINT!"
"FOR SNOWPOINT!" the army roared. Pokemon snarled and barked and beat their wings as they took off, hooves pounded against the asphalt, and a sound like an avalanche roared in Tabby's ears.
It was the sound of thousands of feet slapping the pavement, all of them running towards the same destiny. She was running, then sprinting. She felt none of it, felt no fatigue, no fear.
Only adrenaline.
Tabby found herself screaming with the rest of them, a mad grin on her face as she took her fate into her own hands for the first time in years.
###
Floyd reached the front lines first, where a disorganized, frenzied army was struggling to even pull itself together to remotely receive a charge. The left and right wings of the assault rushed into the widening gap as both the mechanical and magical shields fell in the Northern Quarter.
Right after that, people began to get hurt. The front lines had Pokemon out, but they weren't ready for a full-scale assault, not like this.
Floyd unsheathed his lightsaber and crashed into the regular men, maiming or killing if he had to with every blow. A legion of Medicham soared into the air and brought feet wreathed in crimson light crashing into Mightyena or Abomasnow that had put out to watch the border. The humans themselves fared well, some flinging spheres of Fighting energy into the battle while others roared a battlecry and literally fought alongside him.
The first part of the defense completely shattered underneath the furious assault, and Floyd saw the first of a massive charge of Elites just as a howling gale picked up from behind. Seconds later, what looked to be about 50 Flying types zipped overhead, beating their wings much harder and much more than they needed to. The wind was like a physical thing in his path, stopping everyone from moving before rippling further down the street. Only his car, manned by the artificial intelligence alone, was unhindered in the air. Floyd brought up his right arm and pressed down on a button on the remote control. The car shifted from following a flight path to intimidation mode, and a hail of missiles rained from the skies, pushing the regular humans of Olivier's front into abandoned buildings to clear the way for spells.
"Hold!" Floyd boomed to the melee charge, steering his car out of the incoming spells. "HOLD!"
The men heeded his command and took a few cautious steps back as a second sun appeared in the sky above them.
Then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth.
Floyd counted up to nineteen before he was unable to any longer. There were simply too many.
The suns fell from the sky.
###
"NOW, BLOW THEM AWAY!" Tabby screamed to her neighbors. All of the Fire type Pokemon had been given the task of maintaining the Sunny Day so that the magi could bring their magic to bear. Tabby had never seen a summer where it was unbearably hot out, but this had to be what it was like. The heat from all of the Fire types pouring their essence into changing the weather beat against her face, and it was all Tabby could do to keep the stinging sweat out of her eyes.
But she took it, and used that blistering heat to charge the largest fireball that she could.
With roars of their own, the sun-charged fireballs of 200 Fire type experts joined into one and flew in a lazy arc overtop of the massive charge of Elite Guards.
"Down!" Tabby commanded, and to her surprise, they all listened. As one fluid motion, her squadron swung both hands down.
The massive fireball broke apart and a rain of fire fell from the sky.
The explosions were impressive.
The Defog fanned the flames and gave them more oomph, just like Ren had said they would, and their efforts annihilated the charge of Elites. She saw their metal bodies go up in howling columns of flame, saw the earth peel and bubble from the terrible heat of the firestorm they'd created. It lashed and seethed, reclaiming the tethered undead life and burning away its coils to Olivier in Central. A thunderclap and a rush of hot air rolled over the army, but that didn't stop her.
It didn't stop anyone.
"ADVANCE!" Nerevor commanded.
The army of the true Snowpoint City marched forward just as another surge of Liberated and guardsmen ran towards them.
But there was something different about this charge.
When Tabby realized what it was, she nearly cried.
###
They were surrendering.
A young man with the Liberated who was barely old enough to grow hair on his chest threw himself at Floyd's feet, begging him not to kill him and to let him live. He pledged undying loyalty to Nerevor for as long as he lived, and was willing to give up his Pokemon and his magic to prove it.
It was both Liberated and common guardsmen. Floyd felt the overwhelming pressure of the magical army behind him, and it was likely everyone else could too. The regular men came out and surrendered by the hundreds, and Floyd was certain that all but the most fanatic of the Liberated had surrendered as well.
Behind the mass surrender was another wall of Elites, maybe a hundred strong. Olivier was either throwing them at them in droves, or it was enspelled in their dark magic. Whatever the case, Floyd didn't feel the heat that his body interpreted Fire magic as. Likely they needed time to recharge.
"You want to help?" Floyd asked, pulling the boy to his feet. "Get back there and give them some help with their spells. Go!"
The young man nodded frantically and scampered off, many of his followers doing the same.
###
The shield had been breached. It had been up for less than half a day, and it had been breached. The diode system had been flawed, but it should have bought her some time. It failed.
She felt inside her many, many pulses of dark magic suddenly vanish. A great many of her Cleansers had been atomized.
Nerevor was attacking. An ambush that no one had expected in the slightest, timed right after that damned speech.
The press was hounding her.
And to make it worse, her advisors had pulled her off the stage to update her on the civilian situation; Zero's message had worked. It wasn't everyone, but there was a massive spike in foot and Pokemon air traffic, as well as a very long traffic line on the roads to the Eastern Quarter and to the docks.
And because the S.S Spiral wasn't hers to command, they'd heeded Zero's warning as the public began begging and pleading to board.
Snowpoint was beginning to empty, and apparently many of the guardsmen were speeding along the process of getting there, standing at intersections and guiding traffic.
In just five short minutes, everything Olivier had put her own blood, sweat, and tears into for years was completely thrown out the window by one speech.
It was over.
The Psionic, if he wasn't resting, was going to kill her very, very soon.
Perhaps even in the next minute.
No, the shadow screamed. We can win!
All she had to do was let go.
Everything had been undone. She was dead anyways. Even if she managed to rally her army and beat back Nerevor, the damage was already done. The Pokemon League would surely hear about the press conference, and with the majority of the public believing them, it was only a matter of time before the Sinnohian army was knocking on her front door.
They'd find her mangled corpse courtesy of the Psionic and her dreams would be lost.
But she wouldn't go down like this.
She knew exactly who was to blame for all of this. For getting the message on the air, for giving Nerevor and his lackeys the courage to attack, for seeing through the plan and discerning the use of the diodes.
The shadows boiled out from every pore in her body, and she killed almost a hundred people in a heartbeat as she let her rage, fear, and frustration loose in one terrible, blood-curdling scream.
###
Floyd dueled one of the said-fanatics of the Liberated who just wouldn't go down without a fight. He was one of the rare ones who wanted to get up close and personal, wielding two razor-sharp axes of ice that looked like they could cut through his armor. The blades shrieked against his armor and very nearly cut into his flesh after two near-misses. The Liberated was good, but his rage was driving him. He wasn't paying nearly enough attention to his surroundings.
The army marched closer, and by extension, the mass Sunny Day.
The axes literally melted in the Liberated's hands, and what was supposed to be a swing turned into a stumbling punch. Floyd could have cut his throat as easily as he could have taken a breath, but something in him rankled. Once again, his opponent was younger than he ought to have been, another young mind warped by Corinth. He easily sidestepped the punch and backed away.
"Surrender," Floyd said, pointing his lightsaber blade.
The Liberated looked at him, eyes wide with fear. Floyd thought he had him convinced, right up until electricity crackled around his fingers. With a scream of rage or maybe fear, the Liberated lifted his hands to blast him. Before Floyd could even move, the boy's legs collapsed from under him, and he stumbled to the ground with a cry of pain. A flash of claws opened his throat and he fell dead to the ground.
"You're getting soft, dumbass," Ren remarked as she stepped around, not sparing the corpse a second glance. "You alright?"
"Good. Nerevor?"
"Ecstatic," Ren replied. "In fact…I'm thinking this one is about over."
The charge of Elites had been met with such extreme force, Floyd felt…unneeded. True to her word and as reliable as the sunrise, Vanessa and her students had popped up behind the Elites with Ground magic ready. As soon as the Defog took out their warding spells, slabs and spikes of earth ripped from the ground to pierce the undead flesh at their heads, stabbing through the fine armor or crushing them into wobbling plates. Being undead, the Elites didn't even try to surrender, but instead fought to the death. There were more dead than Floyd would have liked from the melee push in Squads C and D, but they'd come out of what should have been a shutout of a battle in tremendously good health. The car also helped in the skies; the Pokemon were vulnerable to magical attack, but a 4-ton behemoth of steel and weaponry wasn't. Some of the Elites teamed up to blast it with icicles, but they shattered against the stronger steel of Floyd's earth, and thanks to the wards being disabled, the car reacted with extreme force and blew them into tiny pieces.
Snowpoint would be burying its dead for sure, but there would be far many more undead to burn.
"Good," Floyd said. "Let's go see—"
"FLOOOOOYD!"
A pillar of shadow so dark it looked like a crack between worlds erupted from Central and leapt up to kiss the sky and its clouds. A second later, a vortex of swirling sorrow and misery flared to life above Central, the shadows billowing out in hundreds of tentacles to absorb the souls of the recent dead.
"It's happening again!" Ren shouted as the world began to shake apart. "This is what happened when you were out!"
"She knows!" Floyd shouted back. "This is it! We need to go now! You ready?"
"If it means we get to leave this place and never come back afterwards, I'm ready for anything!" Ren exclaimed with a manic grin. Floyd recalled her to her Pokeball, making sure he had both on his belt.
He wanted to say goodbye to Tabby. He wanted to make sure she was still alive. But they were out of time, and things were getting worse.
He heard the army cheer behind him as light came at his call, cutting a bright path through the storm of shadows as he mentally prepared to face the tyrant once and for all.
###
Tabby watched as the army dispersed and began to divide the camp into sections. There were already some of Olivier's patrols coming from the east and west, and they'd likely try to flank them if they got the chance. Sanctuary would be safe, but if they caught unawares, they'd take casualties.
Especially because the fight wasn't over.
"Corinth," Tabby muttered, glancing towards the pillar of shadow to the south.
Floyd was flying right towards it, now barely a speck in the distance. Corinth hadn't been among the Liberated that had either fought to the death or surrendered, and Tabby was sure that he was in Central alongside Olivier, given his status as leader among the Liberated.
Corinth hated Floyd almost as much he hated Nerevor, but for what reasons, Tabby couldn't say. Regardless, if Floyd had to fight both him and Olivier at the same time, especially with how powerful her shadow powers seemed to be…
No.
No, that wouldn't happen.
She grabbed one of the Abra that was hurrying back and forth delivering messages. "Tell Nerevor that I went to help Floyd. Tell him I went to distract Corinth. Don't wait, just tell him! Go!"
The Abra teleported away and Tabby found her ride. Beneath the terror and seriousness of the situation, her inner child squealed. She'd always wanted to ride one of these.
She managed to start it without killing herself, and after putting Blitz in his Pokeball, she rode the speeder bike at breakneck speeds down the road, letting the fire inside her rise high into the sky as she did.
###
Corinth flinched from within the wreckage of the press center. Something that was no longer human was standing in Olivier's place, wearing her skin, her clothes…
The flesh webbed with black veins and a deathly chill turned towards him, the eyes like pits into a bottomless void.
Yes, it was most definitely not human. Not even a Pokemon.
Something else.
His mind was briefly taken off of that though as a flicker of magic pulsed to his senses. He knew it well enough by now. No one wielded the magic of fire that hot besides Nerevor, and his presence was much further north than the one approaching.
"Tabby," he growled.
"Deal with the bitch," Olivier commanded, a buzzing voice overlaying with her regular one. "I will fight Floyd."
"I can handle an outlander," Corinth said. "You—"
Olivier's shadow split into six, all of them pointing at him through the floor. "Can you handle me? Do as I say…I will make it worth your while if you can deliver her to me alive. I want to see Floyd's expression when I make her suffer in front of him."
The shadows wrapped around her and seemed to devour her, and when it was over, she was gone.
Corinth looked down to his left. He hadn't even realized it, but Lydia had been here today. Her dark eyes stared at nothing, her skin as pallid as Olivier's. She hadn't been strong enough to resist the sudden pulse of magic, hadn't been strong enough to maintain a ward. Her soul had quite literally been sucked from her skin.
Maybe he hadn't either. Olivier had likely chosen to keep him alive.
He grew even colder inside, grief gnawing at his heart. Hale and Lydia were dead. So many of the Liberated who had followed him…all dead.
He had nothing more to live for. They'd taken everything.
Well.
He'd just have to take everything from them!
Corinth strolled from the wreckage and stood outside of the press center, letting his power flare and settling down to wait.