Fire.

Mott has never been afraid of fire. The pulses of water that course through him, that connect him intrinsically to the element, always keep him safe in the face of rising flames. He's grown a sense of numbness to the heat, a nonchalant arrogance. He deluded himself into thinking no amount of fire could ever truly hurt him.

But now, as Zekrom's inferno rages around him, Mott feels the flames of fear burn through him. For the first time in his life, he's forced to confront the possibility of burning alive—and it reintroduces him to terror he's long ignored.

Every nerve in his body is alight with near hysteria, screaming at him to run, run, run—but where? The hall that connects the library and museum is blocked off, wooden beams having fallen in the way. The windows aren't big enough for him to fit through. The wall Zekrom blasted down is his only option—and that's not much of an option at all. In the gaping maw of the wall, Zekrom looms. Its red eyes burn into him, watching, waiting. It's waiting for him to make the first move.

But he can't move. His legs are rooted to the floor, his muscles are locked. The intense blaze rages all around him like a cage, trapping him, suffocating him.

The building is on fire, he panics, dumbed by shock, unable to think of anything but the obvious, immediate danger, and we're stuck inside it.

A rough, wheezing cough grates beside him. He turns.

We're stuck inside it.

It's not just Mott who's stuck in here, no. Lenny is.

The room is so hot, unbearably hot, hotter than the smoldering wreckage of Sapphire City. It's so hot he can't even sweat, every fluid in his body is steamed away. It's so hot that he can see Lenny's body drying out, he can see the way flickering flames try to jump to his parched skin.

The fire is all-consuming, swirling around them like a furious storm. Flames shoot up bookshelves like wicks; the smell of burning paper chokes him. Any books they wanted to preserve are long gone, now. It won't be long before Lenny is in the same state.

"We have to get out of here," he rasps, the words tearing at the rawness in his throat. His eyes land on the hall that leads to the museum. If he can put out the flames there for just a second, he might be able to shove his way through the embers. Lenny can slip out through one of these windows; they can regroup.

A stack of books beside Lenny burst into flames. The sparks nearly catch onto Lenny, and the possibility of him being swallowed whole suddenly seems much more real. "Go out the window, now!"

Lenny has a hand over his mouth, his eyes squinting against the sting of the thick smoke. Shaking his head, he protests, "Not without you!"

"I'll escape!" He promises, voice cracking from dehydration. "Just go—"

Zekrom decides it's done waiting. A bolt of lightning strikes the ground between them, blasting his eardrums and charging the air with volatile energy. New flames spark from the struck carpet, ripping across the room and dividing them.

"Mott!" Lenny cries, reaching a hand out just before the wall of flames rushes upward.

"Lenny!" He shouts, hoarse and desperate as the fire conceals them from each other. His heart pounds. His breath comes short; it's impossible to breathe with all this heat and smoke and electricity, and he stumbles to the side when one of his legs nearly gives out. Over the blaze between them, he calls, "Lenny!"

It's too loud. The room is creaking and groaning and snapping around them, things fall, big things, things that could crush either of them in an instant. Roaring flames and the rushing of his own blood in his ears drowns out any other sound.

But distantly, faintly, he hears an afraid, muffled response. A weak call of his name.

"Mott!"

More crackles of electricity shoot from Zekrom. A metallic taste soaks into his tongue, clashing unpleasantly with the smoke. His light-headedness compounds on itself.

"Lenny, hold on!" He yells, summoning water from the deepest parts of himself. "I'm coming!"

He ejects a stream of water at the wall of fire. What would've normally been a powerful propulsion is reduced to a meager sprinkling, and he coughs at the end of it as if he exhausted his supply. The fire doesn't even falter. The heat—it's blistering. Too blistering. His water is dried up and ineffective.

His impulse is to plunge himself into the flames, consequences be damned. But he holds himself back. He's already too weakened by the explosion and the lack of air to do anything reckless. He'll be no use to Lenny dead, so he needs to find another way to reach him. But how?

His eyes rake across the room, fighting against the abrasive smoke and heat; everywhere he looks is lit aflame. Fire, fire, fire—it's not just consuming everything. It is everything.

By pure chance alone, he spots a pocket in the room that hasn't attracted so much flame. If he slips through there, he might be able to find a path to Lenny. Unfortunately, the pocket is right behind Zekrom.

The dragon's tail swishes in agitation, lightning coursing through its body. Red eyes bore into him, razor sharp fangs glint in the firelight. There's no way he can get past that thing. But he has to. Maybe—a distraction?

He doesn't get the chance to think about it. With a deafening roar, Zekrom sparks with jolts of electricity and aims it straight at him. He's not fast enough to dodge, and he suffers a direct hit. Electricity tears through him like a knife, flaying his nerves and blackening his vision. His body pulses with stinging agony, worse than he's ever felt; it's as if a thousand red-hot needles are plunging into his organs. His skin is sizzling and stretched taut like it might split open with one wrong move.

His lungs bear the brunt of it. With all this smoke coming from the room and now from himself, the air isn't enough to quell his need. He's amazed his vision returns to him at all.

On the smoldering carpet, he shakily raises his head to look up at Zekrom. Blood drips from his face to the floor. He doesn't know where it's coming from—every part of his body screams with deep anguish at the invasive nature of his injuries. He tries to rise, to stand and confront Zekrom, but he slips in his own blood. There's no sympathy in the dragon's eyes. Not even a trace of sick satisfaction or bloodthirsty fury. It's just… empty.

Despite the heat in the room, Mott is chilled to the bone.

The dragon raises a claw as big as Mott's body, casting lanky shadows over him. The claws glint in the light of the blaze and crackle with lightning. With a vicious roar, it strikes down at him.

In a surprising burst of speed that Mott didn't think was in him, he rolls aside to narrowly avoid the hit. The claw slams down on the floor, smashing the floorboards beneath the carpet. Unsheathing his jagged shell, Mott stabs into the oily black scales and slashes downward.

Blood spurts from the wound, and an enraged bellow quakes the building. Mott doesn't stick around to marvel his small victory; he yanks the blade from the gushing wound and dashes past the dragon, barely slipping between its legs before the next bolt of lightning strikes. It just misses him.

The thought strikes him, suddenly, of what a good position he's gotten himself in. He's past Zekrom, which was the only thing standing between him and freedom. The damaged wall crumbles before him, open and waiting. He could flee now, recoup and heal his injuries, and take Zekrom on his own terms another day.

But Lenny is still inside. So, without a moment's hesitation, he turns and lunges through the pocket of subdued flames, reaching the other half of the library. Spinning, he faces the library and charges back inside.

Flames dance precariously close to him on all sides, narrowing his path in a flash. Flickers of fire jump to him, singing his fur and blistering inside his open wounds. He grits his teeth and pushes onward, refusing to slow down. Adrenaline pumps through him in place of his dried up aquatic powers. He can only hope that's all he'll need to find Lenny and get them out of here.

Of course, that would be too good to be true. Zekrom towers over the wall of flames that separated him and Lenny, and as if the fire means nothing, it swings a fist down and smashes the ground right in front of Mott. He screeches to a halt to avoid falling straight into its hands and rips out his scallop to stab again. But Zekrom seems to have learned its lesson from that lucky hit, zapping him with electricity before he can even try.

The lightning coursing through him is too much to bear. He falls to a knee, clenching his jaw and remaining conscious by pure force of will alone. Lenny's still stuck inside, there's no time for him to fail.

But that's all you ever do, isn't it, an insidious voice whispers inside him, you fail.

Shut up, Mott thinks, forcing himself to stand.

Zekrom slashes at him with its claws, and Mott barely avoids taking the brunt of the hit. He can't avoid it entirely, in his condition, and one of the claws grazes his shoulder. A simple knick like that is more than enough to send him toppling back down as if his entire arm had been chopped off.

All you ever do is fail, the voice reminds him, sinister and creeping, you failed to beat Florian in your duel, you failed to beat Zekrom the first time, you failed to save Ada's son, you failed to get justice for the curator.

"Shut up," Mott rasps, the words slipping out under his breath.

A loud burst of thunder rumbles in the sky. Relentless rain pounds the rooftop. Outside, a storm is raging. Inside, it's dry, but it isn't much different.

Lightning surrounds Zekrom in a furious barrage. Bolts snap out in all directions, striking with reckless abandon and adding more flames to the growing inferno. One of the bolts strikes Mott dead in the chest, knocking him back and roasting the air out of his lungs.

He hits the ground, hard. The carpet is hot to touch; it burns his skin. He fights to get up. It's getting harder and harder to do that.

Failure, it hisses deep inside him, Failure.

"Shut up," he growls, salt stinging his eyes.

Worthless, useless, no-good waste of time. The words keep coming, one after another. You fail even to earn your own father's approval.

"Shut up," he spits, dragging himself to his feet. Zekrom looms before him, showered in sparks.

You fail Lenny, it accuses, dark and spiteful. His heart stops. He's good and you're not, he's strong and you're weak; you fail him.

"Shut up!" Mott roars, hacking wildly at Zekrom with his shell. Zekrom evades it, red eyes boring into him as he tries again, and again, and again. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

With a powerful rush of its wings, Zekrom takes to the air and looms above him. Casting a menacing shadow over him, Zekrom convulses with a sudden surge of crackling bolts. The sound of lightning snapping in the air makes his skull rattle. Mott crumples to the floor, gritting his teeth in anguish.

Zekrom attacks with a lethal burst of electricity, shooting it straight for Mott. This strike is different from all the others so far. Mott can feel it thrumming in his bones without even touching it, and he knows—he won't make it back from this one. The lightning is blinding, so bright it burns into the darkest corners of the room. It burns, it surges with power and energy, and it's going to kill him.

He's a water-type, fighting a legendary, electric dragon. This was bound to happen sooner or later. This was his destiny.

Don't pretend this could've ended any other way.

The lightning burns into his eyes as it draws closer. Death by electrocution: how will it feel?

You were born to fail.

Mott closes his eyes, and accepts the inevitable.

"Mott, no!"

His eyes open against better judgement, his heart stirs. "Lenny?" He utters.

The blast of electricity still hurtles toward him. But in a flash, the silhouette of a thin bug-type stands in the way.

For a moment, time slows down. Mott remembers the first time he met Lenny. The first conversation they had. The dusty, cramped little room Lenny took care of him in. And he remembers something specific Lenny said to him, about Zekrom.

"One blast of lightning from that guy and I'd probably go up in flames!"

His heart lurches in his chest.

"No, Lenny, don't—!"

The deafening sound of lightning striking its target explodes in his ears. But he doesn't hear it. All he hears is the crackling of a new fire, somehow louder than the rest.

Standing before him, engulfed with flames, holding himself like it's the only thing keeping his body from crumbling to ash, is Lenny.

Lenny screams.

Out of every horrible thing Mott has experienced this past month, this is the one that will haunt him forever.

His body already aches with the lack of water churning inside him, but he forces himself to lose even more. Dousing Lenny with whatever pathetic drops he can muster, he feverishly puts out the fire. Too late. Lenny is blackened with soot, singed and smoldering, his entire body limp and weak and terrifyingly unresponsive.

Mott races over, his legs failing him halfway. He hits the ground, the air is knocked out of his lungs, but he doesn't stop. Like a pitiful worm, he drags himself over to Lenny's charred figure. The stench of burning flesh nearly makes him gag.

Zekrom gazes down at the scene with glossy, impassive eyes. It must decide that they aren't worth his time anymore, because it turns away from them and begins tearing down the library, destroying books and diagrams and every hope of defeating it.

Mott doesn't care. Destroy it, destroy everything, destroy the world—he's already lost.

"Lenny," Mott sobs, clawing himself to his fallen teammate. Gingerly, like he might break into pieces, Mott scoops Lenny into his arms. "Lenny, Lenny, please wake up; Lenny please—"

Lenny doesn't stir. Mott's not even sure he's breathing. His body feels so thin, so small, so weak. How did Mott let this happen? How did he—how could he—?

Failure.

Mott drops his head onto Lenny's motionless chest, weeping as Zekrom tears apart the library.