Shiloh advanced through the destroyed laboratory, eyes on the fallen ultra ball. It lay atop a pile of women's clothes, that the clever Pokémon had tried to use to hide itself.
Mew was easily the smartest Pokémon he had ever encountered—it kept Pokémon around it like a trainer, it could even speak his language. But in the end, it wasn't smart enough to fool a simple ultra ball. I told Professor Oak we didn't need to bother with a master ball. Save that expense for if I ever find Arceus.
With a faint flash of light, Briar appeared against the far wall, with Zoroark standing just behind him. The drone-camera reappeared as well, filming this moment with intense interest. Even the rotom could tell that this was worth capturing. Maybe he would get usable footage from today after all.
"Guess you didn't need illusions," Briar said. "It was that easy?"
The ultra ball exploded in a shower of sparks and broken plastic, scattering the clothes and twisted metal all around it. A glowing figure appeared in the air where it had been—one that no longer attempted to seem human.
She was smaller than Shiloh expected from the stories. Smaller than an eevee, with a long tail trailing several times her body-length. Chill vapor rose from around her, the condensation of a failed capture. Her eyes spun on him, a pair of brilliant blue sparks in the fading fog.
Good. His smile widened. It just wouldn't feel like he deserved this if he captured his first legendary without a fight.
Another two figures appeared beside her, stepping out of the smoke. First came the gardevoir, lifting both of its hands with glowing psychic focus, as though it were protecting its trainer. The second was another shock to him.
"Shaymin!" The only mythical Pokémon so common that most people knew it existed, and could easily search videos of their herds migrating through the sky during the winter months. Unfortunately that also meant that at least one other trainer he knew of had a shaymin of her own, which was why he'd never thought to catch one. "You might not be rare, but I'll take you too. Tyranitar—"
He froze, words stalled on his tongue. Sudden, irresistible pressure crushed down on him from all sides, stilling his movements and silencing his speech.
Mew appeared in front of him in a faint flash of light, close enough to see the soft pink fur along her body. Close enough to feel the anger radiating from her. "Is that what you think this is?" She didn't speak out loud, yet her voice was a deafening shout in his mind, making his head ring with it. "You capture a pair of rare Pokémon to sate your ambition?"
"Boss, you okay?" Briar asked, turning towards him. "It doesn't look that scary to me. I've seen litten bigger than she is."
He strained against the force pressing him down, face twisting in pain. Moving any part of his body was like fighting through sleep paralysis—his muscles screamed, but didn't want to obey. Nothing did. But maybe he could still get Tyranitar's attention?
The Pokémon was already watching him. It was trained for perfect obedience, rather than the sloppy way lesser trainers worked, expecting their Pokémon to make some of their own decisions. But an animal in the heat of battle was far less likely to make strategically useful choices.
Right now, that meant the towering stone monster did absolutely nothing, other than watching him.
Suddenly, a breakthrough. The force holding his mouth closed released, and he could speak. "You... can't. Pokémon don't get to attack humans. You fight our Pokémon. Then if we win, we can... capture you."
The Pokémon laughed. She drifted, floating upside-down past him, suspended by nothing. Only her laughter wasn't the playful, mischievous attitude he had heard attributed to this mythical feline. Just as he heard her words in his mind, he felt the spite.
"If you found me out in the wilderness somewhere," she said. "If I was training in the mountains. I would've played along. I would've indulged you. I might've even let you catch me, if you impressed me."
That same mental force that had gripped him moments ago transformed to a physical one. Powerful hands yanked on his shoulders, dragging him up into the air by his jacket. "Thousands of Pokémon are infected with that Cognito-virus, Shiloh Lehman. Before I could treat them, you destroyed the only source of information I had."
For the first time since he was very young, Shiloh felt fear. His breath caught, and he had no words to reply. He twitched, arms struggling to free himself from his jacket.
Finally he managed, dropping painfully to the ground. His Pokémon were still in there, along with the spare ultra balls. But this wasn't about a simple battle anymore. This was survival. "Tyranitar, Foul Play, now!"
With those words, the battle exploded all around him. His own Pokémon lunged out at Mew, only inches away from him. He'd trained that move specifically for this battle, some way to turn the mythical Pokémon's vast power against it. In months of training, he had never seen it fail.
Its jaws closed briefly around the mew, or got close anyway. A green barrier appeared around her, so fast his eyes barely registered what he was seeing. Protect?
A second later, the rock-type slid away from her, trailing a few wisps of green energy from its mouth. Shiloh caught a glimpse of Shaymin launching itself at Briar's zoroark, which promptly vanished in its own illusion, but he couldn't follow that fight anymore. He had his own battle to worry about.
It's too small and mobile to hit with a physical attack, not from a Pokémon as slow as Tyranitar. We need something better.
"Dark Pulse again! Stop that Pokémon!" he ordered, gesturing at the little psychic-type. At least the battle had done one thing: with the Pokémon distracted, it couldn't keep up its attack on him. He was able to retreat towards the doorway, fumbling for his coat.
A terrible blast of energy crackled through the room, powerful enough to tear layers of stone from the wall. He saw something appear from the shadows—Zoroark, dropping to its knees with a grunt of pain. Oops. We'll get you a hyper-potion later.
The attack hit Mew dead on this time, a blast of dark power. Its own type-weakness, without resistance. She broke, her body splitting in half. Both halves still twitched and squirmed for a few seconds before melting away, the most convincing Substitute he had ever seen.
But if it isn't there...
He felt something yank on his throat—a tiny paw, much smaller than a human hand. Even so, it crushed him to the ground with irresistible force, driving the air from his lungs. The little Pokémon looked worn and ragged, dripping sweat from her face. She hovered over him, furious.
The battle was still raging behind him. With Zoroark wounded, the shaymin had Briar wrapped in constricting vines, and was battering his Pokémon down too. Rotom floated dutifully over the melee, filming every second. You plan on helping us?
But it didn't help. Without a new command, the tyranitar hadn't even noticed the fight was still raging. It stomped forward to where the substitute had vanished, inspecting the shreds of pink fur on the ground, and looking pleased.
"You could have walked away if you didn't attack me," Mew said. "But after all this... not anymore." It wrenched up on his neck, painfully. Not enough to break him, but enough to force him to look the way it wanted. Right at the pile of broken metal refuse, still glowing red. "See the mess you caused? You are going to help me fix it."
"I'm going to—" but then his breath caught in his throat. Blue light expanded from the Pokémon floating over him, then crashed down in a wave. It could've killed him—he wouldn't be the first one to be killed by a Pokémon as powerful as this.
But that wasn't what happened. Instead of snapping into pieces, he felt sudden heat, flowing up from his chest, reaching his skin like the worst fever of his life. He was suddenly struggling to breathe, overwhelmed by the heat.
It rose rapidly through his body, spreading like liquid. He no longer saw the battle anymore. Nothing existed at all, except the overwhelming, agonizing heat. "Y-you're... killing me..." She was doing it slowly, too. She was trying to cause as much pain as possible.
"You wish." She appeared beside him, and there was something different about her. It must be the pain disorienting him, because she seemed so big. It wasn't just her—he was sprawled in something bigger too. His yellow and orange jacket, but the size was wrong.
"I'm not a murderer, not like you. Because of you, more Pokémon will die. Humans too. Did you see the bodies when you came down here? I did."
It wasn't just heat anymore, but pressure too. It built around his head first, crushing against his skin, stretching along his forehead, and near the small of his back. His vision fuzzed, lost focus. Even his eyes were in pain.
He screamed, and his voice came out high and shrill. Too high to belong to him, or anyone else he knew for that matter.
That scream was soon joined by a deep, horrifying roar, one that shook through the rock, made him try to cover his ears. It didn't help. His hands wouldn't reach, just scratched along his head without finding anything. Why was it so soft?
"Lane, something's wrong with that Pokémon," said another voice, one he hadn't heard before. Male, confident, and less angry than the mew.
"What, the color? I know she's supposed to be more yellow than white. The only one I ever met looked like this. I think the old drawings are just wrong."
Shiloh's vision cleared, enough to see what was going on behind them. He was right up against the floor, making everything look huge. Including Tyranitar, who had gone from standing proudly over the fake corpse to rampaging madly through the ruins, crushing everything in its path.
Including Briar. He was trapped in entangling vines, and the huge lizard saw him. "Mew, look!"
The Pokémon obeyed. Just as she had been in battle, her reactions were near-instant. She gestured with both paws, and Briar vanished. Something landed behind Shiloh, with a strange grunt of pain.
The gardevoir dodged past Tyranitar, towering over them all like the only human left in the room. Which she obviously wasn't—Shiloh and Briar were still here. But then she spoke. "I think the debris is still making things crazy!" she yelled. "That Pokémon was in there tearing it all apart, and now it's—"
Shiloh screamed again, higher and shriller than before. Something tore through his back, breaking the skin in a single, painful burst. But he barely had the time to notice, because Tyranitar was watching them.
It even took a swipe at Zoroark as she hobbled over. Its massive claw passed through empty air, and another moment later the real one appeared crouching nearby. Not attacking Mew, or trying to get them free. It just stared over Shiloh's fallen body, expression completely unreadable.
"Yeah it's trying to kill us," said the other voice. With the water gone from his eyes, Shiloh could see them too—a bright green and white fox, taller than he was, with a bright red flower on his breast. Speaking, like he was a human being. "Somewhere safe, Lane? Please?"
The mew took off, with obvious difficulty. Her body sagged in the air, tail dragging. "Do you have any idea how hard—"
Dark energy lanced overhead, cracking the stone walls, and sending whole sections tumbling down towards them. Shiloh screamed again, in a voice as high and squeaky as a child. It would still be the last sound he ever made.
If it wasn't for Mew, anyway. Light poured out from around her, filling his vision. It flooded over Shiloh, and the several other Pokémon lingering nearby. Then it yanked, pulling him along a higher dimensional axis. Teleport.
The light faded, taking them with it.