Shiloh had been in hundreds of Pokémon battles over the course of her career. As she rose through the ranks, that meant seeing more and more powerful attacks, moves that would cause swift and painful death to any human caught in the crossfire. But never in her career had those attacks been aimed at her.
An attack like that meant certain death.
She heard the crash of thunder, felt the air blasting around her—but no pain. She opened one eye, and found the world stained pink. They were in a shield. Energy splashed the wall behind them, melting it. Lane lifted them higher, out of reach from the ground. Their attackers circled them, searching for an opening.
"Mirage isn't really a fighter," she whispered. "Don't think Aspen is either. They shouldn't be able to do too much damage."
The genesect had no such limitations. It tracked them with its cannon, which flashed white a second time. Instead of taking the blow directly, Lane dodged this time, letting the blast cut straight through the hull. It emerged into open air behind them.
When Lane spoke, her voice already sounded drained, tense. "Should've g-gone for their computers first, instead of just following your Pokémon. But my hacker—she's captured too. I've never been good with machines."
Aspen circled them now, screaming senseless cries of rage and frustration. He lashed out with a shower of leaves, rattling against the shield. It held, but for how much longer. "Remember when I said we'd need your expertise?" she asked. "Well here we are. Three on two. How would you win this battle?"
She answered without thinking. Her training knowledge hadn't faded, even if she now saw the practice from the other side. "We're up two advantages. Aspen and that bug—I'm fire-type. Mirage is up on either one of us."
"You can take both of them?" Lane asked. There was no hesitation in her voice, or doubt. She expected Shiloh to answer positively.
She whimpered, curling in on herself again. "I think maybe I could do a little fire... if I wasn't under so much pressure! I'm flying on my own, that's already a big deal!"
Something smashed into the bubble from below, suddenly enough that they rocked to the side. Mirage appeared from nothing, one claw ripping through the shield with a sudden, devastating attack. They went spinning away from each other.
Shiloh screamed, tumbling through the air with terrible speed. She stopped herself a few inches from the stadium floor, spinning into an arc that took her back to eye level.
Lane zipped through the air around her, never losing control. "Alright, Shiloh! He says you need training, so—watch how I do it!"
Her outline fuzzed, rippling around the edges. Lane grew larger, though mostly her head. Victini had some truly gigantic ears.
Her Transform finished moments later, leaving a duplicate victini in the arena beside her. Only this one was older, with a creamy yellow coat instead of white. "You handle Mirage, she's your friend! I'll take the other two!"
She dropped a short distance, then zipped through the air. Heat radiated through the room, burning away the mist in an instant.
She flew straight at the unknown bug Pokémon, leaving a brilliant orange contrail in the air. You don't even know what that Pokémon can do, and you're just going to fly straight at it?
Too bad about not capturing her—Lane had the perfect temperament for a champion's Pokémon. Fearless, just like a champion had to be.
Something tackled her to the ground, smacking into her without restraint. She tumbled along the textured floor, trying to claw them off her. "Let go!"
If it'd been Mirage, she would've stood no chance. But the paws trying to hold her down were far smaller, and green instead of black. Aspen.
Shiloh stopped struggling, letting the shaymin plant his forelegs on her chest. She looked up, defeated. "Guess I'm captured. Now what?"
Instead of answering, he growled, baring flat teeth. That definitely could've been more intimidating, all things considered. Heat rose in Shiloh's face, flickering along her ears. When Lane attacked, her whole body had caught fire—could Shiloh do that?
"If you were gonna ask me out, there are better ways," she continued. Aspen's claws poked into her chest, but that was mostly just a product of holding her down. He'd only been told to capture Shiloh, not kill her. "Like, maybe words? Since when does Aspen do what other people say?"
Another explosion shook the room, which filled with smoke and buffeting wind. Lane wasn't fighting Genesect and Aspen, the way she'd intended. Could she win that fight?
The shaymin's grip loosened on her chest. His eyes remained focused on her, but there was something under all that anger. "I felt it too," Shiloh went on. "When it hit me, it was so angry. Made me think about Lane, the way she stole my life. I could listen to that voice, make her pay for it. But I have a friend on this ship somewhere—Briar, remember him? Zorua? It's my fault he's in this mess."
Aspen shoved into her chest again, putting his teeth up against Shiloh's neck. There were no words, but the message was clear enough. Shut up, or I hurt you. Shiloh had never been good at that part.
"Your little sisters are here too," she went on. "They don't need you to be mad. They need you to be smart."
Aspen bit her. The pain was sharp, sudden, and intense—enough to finally provoke a reaction. Flames encircled her, blasting from her forehead in a wave. Aspen went tumbling from her, squealing in pain. He landed in a crumpled heap a short distance away, steam rising from his scorched body.
Shiloh gasped in shock, and the flames vanished as quickly as they'd appeared. She zipped through the air, landing beside Aspen. The other battle—the impressive one that could've drawn the eyes of onlookers at any gym—barely even registered for her.
Aspen shrunk before her eyes, withdrawing into a Pokémon even smaller than Shiloh herself. She whimpered, scraping away at the layer of ash with her paws. "Did you have to make it hurt so bad?"
She's talking again. "One sec!" Shiloh scanned the room, eyes settling on a refreshment display up in the stands. There was a glass-fronted fridge up there, with plenty of bottles of icy water.
She zipped across the room, flying faster than she'd ever managed on her own power. It was easy to move quickly when she had a purpose. She stopped ahead of it, then yanked on the front with her forelegs. It clicked against a lock, unmoving. The second time she gripped it with something else, tearing the whole fridge up out of the ground and flying back with it towards Aspen.
She tossed it to the ground a safe distance away, letting glass and metal shower in all directions. Once it was crushed, she found a single cold bottle from inside, and carried that over to her friend. "Here. I'll... does this help?" She dumped it all over Aspen. The plant reacted. Her leaves turned green, and expanded back to their full size.
She sighed with relief, glancing up at Shiloh. "Why didn't it work on you?"
She shrugged. "I've never been good at following directions either. Otherwise I'd be an accountant."
A sudden shout of pain drew her attention, and she finally looked up at the other battle.
Genesect was limp on its side, crashed through the stands and unmoving. But while Lane had done well against the enemy with such a clear disadvantage, she was faring worse against Mirage.
She was mostly trying to dodge her attacks, weaving through the air around physical blows. But the fight had taken most of her strength. She was slower than when they began, her body bruised, and feathers disheveled. She didn't even know how to use her new body.
Shiloh could stay with Aspen and hide, waiting for the adult to protect them. But Lane didn't look like she would win that fight on her own. If they lost, Shiloh would either end up another test subject, or else never see Briar again. She didn't know which was worse.
"I do not understand why you make this so difficult," said Colress. Shiloh hadn't even noticed, but she was standing just beside his projection. He seemed to look right at her. "I understand that Pokémon creates more of her kind using the same technique she uses against her enemies. Why invest so much effort to recover two of my test subjects, when she could just create more?"
He didn't seem to notice the defeated Genesect laying there—or he didn't care. "I will find what makes you resistant to conditioning. By the time your stay aboard the Vainglory is complete, I will channel your full strength. There are a number of interesting legends about you, Victini. I wonder how many of them are true."
Something moved overhead—the huge metal device, angling across the room at her. Light flickered down its sides, and the air filled with a static hum of energy. It was going to fire again.
Shiloh's anger required no device this time. Aspen lay injured, her friend was kidnapped—it was all just another experiment to this man.
Shiloh ignited again, wreathed in sudden flame. It burned so hot that her own body singed, but she didn't notice. The target of her ire wasn't the projection, it was his machine.
A meteor of heat and molten metal erupted from ahead of her, drawing the flames away from her body. It impacted in less than a second, smashing into the machine. An explosion rocked the deck, and the gym was plunged into sudden darkness.
Shiloh landed in the shallow water beside the fridge, steam hissing and boiling from where it touched her. I burned myself.
But that knowledge was distant now, secondary. There was nothing left of the device but a molten pile of slag.
Seconds later, deep red lights came on near the ground, and an alarm started blaring. The ship's steady path forward turned into a gentle, downward arc.
For a time, Shiloh felt nothing. Voices spoke around her, but she was too dazed with pain to understand. Shapes blurred—Aspen, something pink, and something black. Her eyes didn't want to focus.
Then something sprayed across her body, along with a familiar scent of antiseptic. Her nose recoiled at it, but the smell was familiar—max potion. Strength returned, and she sat up.
They were no longer in the center of the arena, but in a much smaller, laboratory room. Lane was human again, wearing an ill-fitting Plasma lab coat. Mirage lingered in the doorway, a huge patch of fur missing from her face. Where that weird machine was glued.
Something licked at Shiloh's face—Aspen, sitting beside her on a cold metal desk. "Look who's up."
"It was just a burn," said another familiar voice. Akiko had a little blue vest on over her dress with a Team Plasma glyph across the front, along with missing white fur on her face. They mind-controlled her too.
Now she stood in front of a keyboard, one of several in the cramped space. "Akiko?" Shiloh asked, shaking away stray droplets of potion. "Where are the others? Briar?"
"Working on it..." She bit her lip, three-fingered hands moving rapidly over the keyboard. "There's a Pokémon storage system aboard they use to rapidly transport Pokémon to the arena for testing... I'm trying to pull them out."
A second screen came on behind them, with a face Shiloh recognized by now. A thin layer of sweat now shone from his skin, and his silly hair fell flat to his face. A steady siren blared in the background behind him. "I have... revised my opinion of your offer," he said. "How about a trade? I give you the mew, and you leave my ship without breaking anything else?"
Lane stalked over to the screen, glowering at it. "You think I should leave you here, knowing what you do?"
He shrugged, but there was a thin crack of worry in his nonchalance. He was afraid. "Your Pokémon will not penetrate my security. If you destroy this ship, the storage system holding your offspring will certainly fail with it, and they will die. Neither of us want that. I'm partial to my staff surviving the night as well—we can't prevent a crash and fight you at the same time. I'm willing to trust your word, if you give it to me."
"Shit!" Akiko smashed both hands on the keyboard, defeated. Because she was a Pokémon, the attack shattered plastic, raining down little plastic keys around them. "Locked me out! I can't get them, Lane!"
"Don't forget about Briar!" Shiloh yelled. "We want him back too!"
Lane leaned down to the camera, furious. "The zorua too. The one you captured when you burned my home. Then it's a deal... but if I find out you've rebuilt that device, I'll be back one day. For you, Dr. Colress, not just the ship."
Compressed air hissed, and a poké ball slid up from a nearby console. It settled into an electronic dock, glowed for a moment, then rolled out. A second hiss followed, and a second poké ball.
"The zorua is not aboard. My record shows he was... sold, almost immediately. I'll send the client's address to that drone you stole."