Shiloh wasn't quite sure what happened next. There was a bumpy ride up the cliffside, with water showering down around her. She saw the occasional flash of light, thought maybe she heard the roaring blades of the ornithopter—then she was somewhere safe.
Time passed, it was hard to say how much. She was cold, damp, and dreamed miserable dreams. Dreams of Pokémon fighting and dying, of Briar and Mirage dragged away while she was powerless to help.
She dreamed of guilt, wondering if and how the attack on the nursery could be her fault. Or maybe, impossibly, she would wake up and be herself. She would still be on the ride to Orre, planning for the epic battle with Mew. She wouldn't underestimate the little Pokémon this time, or assume she would respect battle rules. This time Shiloh would fight to win.
She dreamed of a solo wishiwashi in a sea of wailord, creatures so vast that they seemed to shift the whole world within which Shiloh swam. They watched with vast eyes, some so large that they could not possibly sense a creature as small as she was.
But some could. She felt their curiosity, and disbelief. "Uncaused loop. Moment of circumstance without origination. Where is your cause?"
She tried to answer, but had no mouth to speak, and no skill with her mind to send it any other way. So she couldn't reply, as a pair of strange green eyes watched her from the sea of stars.
Then she woke up. She wasn't in a sea at all, but a mossy cave floor, with a little trickle of water in the distance and several dense patches of flowers clustered near the entrance.
It was a small space—too short for a human being to stand up, or even lie down. At her size, that was still plenty of space for her, a puddle of collected water, and a few plants growing around it.
She recognized the flowers thanks to her time at the nursery—this was gracidea, the bright red flower responsible for shaymin's ability to transition to their sky forme. Without it, they'd be trapped inside if they accidentally switched back.
Her hope for a miraculous, spontaneous return to herself was dashed. She still had pale fur, and little patches of moss stuck in her ears. She shook them free, then struggled into a standing position.
"Aspen?" Her voice still ached—everything did, really. How much energy had it taken to fly here?
"The other Pokémon is not currently present," said a synthesized voice. "She grew frustrated with the length of your inactive period and determined to return to the 'Nursery'."
She spun, turning towards the sound. The drone was there, resting on metal stilts in the back of the cave. Did even Rotom have a limit on their endurance? She'd never seen it land like that before.
But I've never seen it decide to help me on its own before, either.
"I remember the trip up here," she whispered. "You found us. You could have kept filming, but you helped me." Saying the words felt a little like acid in her throat. She was talking to a Pokémon. Rotom weren't intelligent, they just borrowed the processing power of whatever device they happened to be in.
But the night of agony was still fresh in her mind. "Thank you."
The machine didn't seem to understand her words. A camera tracked her movements, but it said nothing. No wisecrack about how it would film her battle with Mew, either. Just silence.
"When did she leave?" she asked. Shiloh shook the moisture from her coat, but wasn't willing to step much closer to the opening. Water poured outside, obstructing the view. But the sun was high overhead, illuminating a distant, out-of-focus jungle.
"Approximately one hour ago," Rotom said. "She intended to search the Nursery, for her sisters or any sign of where they went. She assured me that she would return before acting on what she discovered."
Would Team Plasma leave people watching the building? "Rotom, do you know where we are? That drone has a GPS for tracing and guidance—what region is this?"
"Guyana," it answered. "This location is approximately thirty miles from the nearest regionally mapped area. A number of villages exist in the jungle, including Cayari. I don't have access to specifics about any of them, unfortunately. That information was stored on your pokédex."
She dropped low beside the pond, sipping at the water there. It was clear and clean, along with an underlying earthy flavor that she hadn't had to worry about in the Nursery.
It's gone. She didn't know exactly what would be waiting for Aspen back in that building, but she didn't think anyone would be living there again. Even if her attack hadn't basically destroyed that first floor, Team Plasma knew exactly where the building was located.
They couldn't rebuild it, or else invite another attack.
Shiloh should be feeling envy for the mad idealogues, not anger. They had a chance to capture legendary Pokémon, exactly like she wanted to do.
Could I drop into the building in the middle of the night and capture Miya and Goh like that? She stared down at her reflection, trying to imagine what that would be like. Descending a rope with her team, ready to capture anything that moved.
Not the kittens, they're not even grown yet. It's not fair.
Were those the thoughts of an ambitious Pokémon champion?
She wasn't kept to her thoughts for long. A shadow passed over the entrance, and seconds later Aspen landed in the moss nearby. Water scattered from around her, including on Shiloh.
She winced, retreating. Steam rose where the water touched her, and made her shiver. "Watch out! You're soaking wet!"
Aspen ignored her words, advancing on her. "They're gone, Shiloh. Everyone's gone. Goh, Miya, even that zorua who came in with you. Akiko. They burned it, Shiloh. My home is... gone."
She dropped to the ground in front of her, then started to sob. This was the daughter of her enemy—the one who had trapped Shiloh in this position in the first place. Her family deserved to feel the same pain she inflicted on others, didn't she?
Shiloh put one paw on her shoulder. She was smaller, and didn't feel like her touch would mean much in terms of comfort. She offered it anyway.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry this happened."
"W-what—" she began, voice quavering. "Who were those people? Why did they attack us like that? We don't bother humans. U-until you, I've never seen Mom kidnap anyone." She opened her eyes, wiping them dry with a paw.
"Part of me wondered—if you were on their side, if maybe they were here to rescue you." She bore her teeth, and the tension in the air between them became something almost physical. Shiloh felt the emotion behind those words, she had wondered if Shiloh was a traitor or not.
"You figured out I wasn't," she whispered, backing away. She didn't fly, just as she hadn't yet. What if she tried her powers, and they didn't work anymore? Then she'd be trapped in an inaccessible waterfall with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. "How?"
"You didn't go with them," Aspen said. "And you helped me escape. You didn't have to. You could've gone to them, you didn't do that either. I know you... I know you tried to capture my mom. But why would you capture your own friend?"
"I didn't." Those teeth were far from comforting—she faced them down anyway, standing as bravely as her little body could. "Those humans came from an organization called Team Plasma. They have a history of hunting rare and valuable Pokémon. And lots of other things that you wouldn't care about or understand. They're dangerous terrorists, and I want nothing to do with them."
She hesitated, balling up one tiny paw into a fist. "Actually, that's not true. They took Briar—and if they got my stuff, then they have the other Pokémon in my team too. I want them back. Mirage too."
Aspen nodded weakly. She extended one paw, splashing into the puddle. "I don't really know what to do about this other than... wait for Mom. She can solve all kinds of problems. She's so brave she goes on adventures to save the whole world."
And I stopped her. Shiloh walked past Aspen, towards the cavern entrance. She would need to try flying again, even if the heights waiting for her outside would probably give her a heart attack.
"I know you trust Lane. When I fought her, she was the most powerful Pokémon I've ever faced. But what you said about her saving the world—that's our problem right now. She has a whole region to save. How long could it be until she comes back from Orre? Days, weeks, months? Nobody on the news has any idea how to stop the spread of the hostile pattern infecting Pokémon."
"Sh-she..." Aspen followed her to the entrance. Her voice still shook, intimidated and afraid. "Lane likes being around the kittens, helping them. But when things go wrong, she can be gone for a long time. Sometimes, until the problem is fixed."
"Unacceptable," she said. "Aspen, I didn't become Pokémon Master by waiting for other people to solve my problems for me. I'm sure Lane could find the kittens and rescue them—" so long as she got to them before Team Plasma did anything terrible, she privately added. "But I don't want to leave my friend trapped with them until that happens. I'm guessing you don't want to leave your sisters in their powers either, do you?"
"No." Aspen sniffed. Her voice cleared, and her tears faded. "I don't want to wait. The kittens need us."
"Exactly." Shiloh started pacing back and forth, scratching her little chin with one paw. "First step of any problem, what do we have? One powerful shaymin, one victini without any powers—and one of the world's best trained rotom, with the most expensive drone money can buy."
That drew the ghost's attention. Motors whirred to life, and it took off, hovering opposite them in the cave. In that instant, she learned why it had been parked—it couldn't hover like that without filling the cave with a whine of motors and the constant wind, pushing her gently towards the exit.
"This debut documentary will be the greatest ever produced about a single Pokémon's capture," Rotom said. "But those mew were not the ones you ordered me to film. Will we set them free?"
You figured out what we're talking about? That was complex reasoning for a lesser Pokémon, even if she hadn't been subtle about the details. "We will," she said. "Now, my combat abilities might be zero, but I've fought evil teams before. Plasma probably work the same as Team Galactic. They probably brought their spoils from the Nursery to a local staging area of some kind. I didn't think they were active in Guyana, so it might be an airship, or something else mobile. Our best shot of finding our friends is to break in before they split them up. Right at the beginning, while they don't know what they've got or how dangerous it is."
Aspen nudged her shoulder with one paw. Shiloh stopped pacing—or rather, stopped flying. She'd been zooming back and forth across the cave, without even realizing it. Aspen kept her from moving, long enough to meet her eyes.
"You think there's any hope, Shiloh? Can the three of us beat those humans?
"Yes. They have some Pokémon stronger than me, maybe even stronger than you. But we're tiny, and we've got powers of our own. If we find just one of our people, they can help us set the others free. If we can get Mirage, Briar's zoroark—she's so good with illusions she might be able to pull off the whole rescue on her own."
"If you think we can do it, then I believe you." Aspen took off, hovering near the edge of the cave. Like a swimmer about to jump off a high-dive. This one was almost a hundred meters down to the rocks below. "Where do we start?"
"The Nursery," Shiloh said. "It might be dangerous—but I know more about investigating the crime-scene. If I miss anything, Rotom won't."
She needed no more invitation.