Day 3

"Why does it matter who is here with me?" The current zipped, confused by the request.

Kara would've scowled if she were not so busy. "I'm trying to solve a mystery, and I need to know who is watching you."

"Like Detective Laki!?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I didn't know I was talking to a detective! Alright, there's about four of those green-clothed humans here and my trainer; they're talking about boccer I think- wait, they're upset that I'm hurting the circuit. Can I tell them I'm helping a detective or is this supposed to be a secret investigation?"

Kara buzzed slightly in irritation. "Yes, this is secret. I've already asked that you not alert anyone to my presence."

"But they're mad at me!" A pause, "They're not mad anymore. Sorry for whining."

Why did you have to be an erratic spazz? Kara thought to herself, patience already running thin with the electric type. She'd believed that the Heliolisk would've been older or at least more mature, but she had made a grave error trying to understand what the power situation was, and now had a fleshy reptile spitting questions at her a mile a minute. She did not know who Detective Laki was, nor had she ever worked for him, and she would never sign an autograph or divulge sensitive information to an outsider. and once again no, she did not know who Laki was.

"I need silence. I'll talk to you when I need to." Kara interrupted, flowing down into another floor and checking the security feeds there.

"But it's lonely in here!" Kara heard the creature whine through the system, quieting down when she didn't respond. "I know you can hear me still, please don't ignore me."

"Shut up," Kara demanded. She got her wish and nearly rejoiced as she got back to working quietly.

There were small things that Kara had noticed; monumental little details that she didn't know how to decipher, and it presented issues that Kara didn't understand or know how to approach.

The greatest problem that she noticed was the Company grunts that were among the soldiers that had arrived the day before. They wore technology that didn't blend in with the equipment that the military had deployed, breaking the most basic rule of concealment in a way that Kara could consider both egregious and confusing in nature. The grunts had not used any strategy or tact during their short time here, spending their time setting up defenses and taking headcounts- things that the alolan soldiers should have been doing- instead of doing anything that had significance warranting their presence.

She knew that they could not be looking for Alexander or Connor. She had spent little time crawling through data archives when she arrived back at the hospital before she found obvious signs of data tampering and missing recordings. They had erased all video evidence that Connor, Alexander, and another party had been in the building, and she understood that there had been a Company extraction. The team that did it was sloppy; they did not take the time to properly hide the tampered feeds or their presence. The cameras easily picked up hushed civilian chatter talking about the team, and she could not help but wonder what had been going through their heads for them to have been rushing so quickly to not do a decent scrub job. Yes, it was a Code Black Cataclysm, but that didn't excuse being sloppy.

But for more Company grunts to be here, in this brutalized hospital that had no strategic importance or necessity, presented an enigma that Kara could not possibly begin to understand. She firmly believed that the Company was on its way to the grave with all their grievances. That they would have been more focused on keeping their facilities secure and unnoticed, and their personnel and property safe in the face of a Code Black Cataclysm up until they were destroyed.

Maybe their presence in the region was larger than she thought. From what she had gathered the extraction team had contained a large force of the local military. Over a dozen hospital staff had vanished with them, and she wondered if the Company somehow had a larger presence than she had been briefed on. There could be a large base on the island that somehow did not fall or was damaged enough for them to hold back troops.

It still did not change how the Company should not have been here now. At the least, they should have still been busy rooting out threats and containing the collateral damage. She'd expected their demise to have been faster, but she was being presented with this impossible situation that she believed could not be a reality, in which they had not died off. They were not gone. Not yet. Kara didn't want to think about it, but if they had not been destroyed already, then they wouldn't be. Their survival rates were growing exponentially with every passing hour, and something alike to honest terror was creeping into her mind as she scanned through every live feed and radio transmission. Because if they were not gone here, then the same could be said for the other regions they were in.

Kara had been wrong. Completely, unexpectedly wrong. She had told Alexander what she believed and pressured him into accepting what she believed. He was loyal to the end and had refuted her. Once he saw that she was wrong... His trust was fickle, after the things she had done to him. Within one day she managed to destroy everything that she had worked to rebuild, every bridge and wall that she had to erect and dismantle to win him back. Gone.

She tried to make him go rogue. With everything that he believed, every possibility he considered a simulation or some kind of test, he would hate her. He would think this was a mirage and turn her in.

No- he wouldn't. He wouldn't turn me in. He won't, not even if it were a simulation or not. It doesn't matter, he won't trust me ever again. He's going to hate me-

Without reason, the lights in one sector of the hospital grew exceptionally bright and nearly exploded.

He won't stab me in the back. He won't cross that line, even if he hates me.

Kara closed her eyes tightly and tried to control herself. The lights were spared, but they remained brighter than normal. She had to focus, distract herself from what-ifs, and look at what was in front of her. It wasn't immediate. It wasn't like she could flip a one to a zero and turn off her emotions. She struggled and tried to focus on her tasks even as the Heliolisk complained to her that the humans were yelling at him again. The frantic surges began to abate, and while the upper floors of the hospital blamed it on the damaged power grid and generators or the innocent electric type helping to keep the place running, Kara opened her eyes.

She couldn't lose sight of her task. She had to keep Alexander safe.

She had to keep him safe.

She had failed him. She had been a blind fool to overlook the effects of his head trauma. To believe it had minor consequences. She wrote off the signs thinking they were symptoms of his pre-existing conditions. She thought he was fine and didn't see the bigger picture until his seizures started halfway to the hospital. Kara hated feeling helpless. She thought she understood the worst of it. She'd never quite felt as helpless as she had when she saw his CT scan, seeing just how little she could do to save her human. Every other time she had been able to detach herself from the situation or knew enough statistics to feel he was capable of pulling through something. There had always been a way to escape the feeling. Not now. Now when he could be dead tonight.

For a moment, Kara let her attention drag her backward until she could see inside the intensive care sector, to a room that had been built for high-risk patients. Said room, from what the records said, had been build with reinforced materials and could only be entered from a steel door with modern locking mechanisms. It was larger than most and had enough equipment in it to be able to perform a variety of surgeries on the spot. The hospital was paid nicely for it, and whatever political figures at the time had been extremely paranoid.

The lights in the room flickered as a flare of anger at the sight surged from Kara's body. The Joy and Blissey that were working on him flinched and quickly regained their posture. Both were tired, having come from the pokemon center yesterday once the dust had settled to try and save patients. The Center had survived because of the pokemon there had managed to stop the tsunami and earthquake from erasing the building, and they had sent Joy as soon as the water receded.

Kara had been invested in watching the Joy work, recording how they repaired James' shattered bones and got him off the respirator. His parents had broken down upon seeing his recovery, and Kara had been utterly fascinated. Somehow James managed to get Joy to heal some of his pokemon, and a Bayleef promptly joined the duo to cut the volume of patients in half. Their work was recorded and archived; the medical revolution that was occurring because of the power boost could not be ignored. Broken bones were melded back together, horrific burns reduced to new skin in minutes, and patients with no expectations of survival were brought back from the brink.

There were limits, naturally. The Leppa Berries Nurse Joy had couldn't fend off the growing fatigue, and there didn't seem to be any notable changes with the fruit. It was when their supply was running low did Kara act, having gathered enough information she needed.

Joy and her Blissey were so caught up in the work that when their assistance was requested over the loudspeakers, they didn't so much as hesitate to go to Alexander. They didn't so much as suspect anything at all until the steel door was locked behind them.

Convincing them to help Alex was easy. She showed them live feeds of various parts of the hospital and singled out specific humans that she would kill if they didn't save hers. She gave them everything she knew about his condition, made sure more tests were made, and promised to raze the building if they failed to save him.

They'd been working over an hour on her human, with the two nurses using Soft Boiled and Heal Pulse to keep him stable. The berries could only take them so far, and both had slowed considerably despite her threats. The injuries to his brain couldn't be rushed, but she worried. This was the test of their capabilities.

Kara was growing more impatient with time. She had no logical answer for what the grunts were doing. There was odd behavior among the other soldiers that had come in a few hours after Joy to protect the hospital.

They'd been delayed horribly by destroyed roads and stray attacks. That much Kara could understand. It was everything else that bothered her.

The devil was in the details.

It was once the triage units were set up in the parking lot, after the barriers and fences were erected around the perimeter and parts of the hospital were stabilized did things start to change. Supposedly most of their forces were combing the city for survivors, fighting everything that threatened them. No survivors had been brought back. The gunfire was seemingly ceaseless, echoing throughout the city's ruins. It would appear like a responsible military taking care of their people. However, the Company was here and their behavior was off. Humans that noticed the blatant company soldiers were being watched by the military, always within sight so their presence could be felt. It was an intimidation tactic.

Kara kept her profile low, changing locations carefully to different security servers and floors whenever she felt her presence was growing too strong. It was because of the damaged electrical system that the flickering lights drew no attention, and not once did someone appear to become alerted.

Once again, Kara found herself watching grunts in various parts of the building. She could not understand why their chain of command would put them in a civilian cesspool. She watched part of an armored division rolled back into the lot, crates of supplies being transported between floors, and continued to do so far a while until her work was interrupted by an irritatingly familiar presence.

"Have you found any clues?"

A few camera feeds turned to static in Kara's frustration.

"None worth sharing."

"Well, I may have one."

Kara stopped a moment before resuming her constant search for answers. "Unlikely." She responded blandly.

"Hah! I'm a better detective!" The Heliolisk gloated in the current, which stopped for a few moments. "Sorry, sorry. The green guys are saying that they're evacuating people soon."

Kara scowled and paused her search. There was no such talk on the radio waves. "Quit bothering me with garbage."

"It's not garbage!" the electric type nearly spat, "They're telling my trainer to get ready right now!"

Kara ignored the electric type and focused back on trying to understand when the loudspeakers throughout the building crackled. Some areas were delayed, others nearly indecipherable, but the message was the same:

"To the many of you that are scared, fear no more. In over an hour we will begin to evacuate the facility to a more secure location. We want you to remain strong and cooperative with us during this time, and-"

There was no talk about this on the radio.

"-things will be getting better. We have located proper facilities for you all, and you will find yourself far outside the combat area by nightfall tonight. Now, all medical staff is to report to their stations and other designated areas so that we can safely transport the wounded. Our national guard and military are going to start processing everyone; gather your belongings and come to them so we can-"

Kara noted that the members of the national guard looked visibly confused, even as their radios started receiving new orders.

"-properly get everyone relocated."

The announcement repeated, and Kara quickly began to monitor the buzzing activity that spread through the facility.

"I toooold you!" The Heliolisk crooned into the channel, and Kara didn't know how to respond. "Hellooooo? Are you really ignoring me again? Come on, I helped you!"

This doesn't add up. There was no discussion about this. The National Guard doesn't know what to do.

Once again, Kara had no answers. Did she overlook a vital channel somewhere?

"You're not done yet." She said to the Joy and her partner, who'd slowed at the announcement.

"We're doing our best! We're not surgeons!" Joy remarked. Whatever she might've tried to tack on faded, however, when the lights grew harsh. Put back in her place, Kara left the woman to tend to Alex as she watched the mess unfolding.

The National Guard was being swamped with people demanding answers without knowing that they were just as clueless as they were. The medical staff was having similar problems at their stations, and it became obvious that a third of the staff were being relocated to the triage center in the front lot without much direction.

"Have you at least come close to cracking the case?" The Heliolisk chimed in.

Kara buzzed, irritated.

"Don't get mad at me! You said you were a detective!"

"It takes time."

"You don't seem like a good detective!"

"I've yet to-"

"You haven't even asked for my name!"

The lights flickered again in the stalemate that followed. Kara needed silence. She needed this needy lizard to be quiet or useful, neither of which were qualities he possessed.

"Hello?"

"What is your name?" Kara breathed. What she really wanted to say, however, was 'How are you so insufferable?'

"I'm called Thor, after some tough electric type human! He was really powerful, just like me! What's your name?"

Oh Arceus, why?

"It's none of your business."

"Hi, none of your- oh, that's not funny! Come oooon!"

Come on Kara. You've dealt with far denser creatures than Thor. You could handle the morons that ran that fossil program; you can handle this solitary lizard.

"Do you have anything else that can... help me with the investigation?"

"What are you investigating?"

Here we go again.

"There's something strange about the soldiers."

"The green humans?"

"Yes."

Kara could feel the change of tone in the current.

"Um... that's not good. Are they safe?"

A simple question. She wasn't certain if her response was genuine or not:

"Yes. There's just something off. Have you heard anything?"

"This is so cooool." Thor realized that his thought had been projected and Kara could feel his blush. "Sorry! Um, let's see. The ones in here with me are quiet. They're just standing around and playing with fuses, and talking to my trainer. He asks a lot of questions they won't answer and they're getting frustrated with him."

"And?"

"...Their radios are off? I don't know, they seem to be okay humans. They could use some sleep and a breath mint, but they're not doing anything odd."

"Who are you?"

A new current entered the system with a much smaller pitch than Thor's. Both him and Kara paused, surprised by the third-party interrupting an otherwise pointless discussion. Predictably though, Thor was the first to respond.

"Hellooooo! I'm Thor!" A pause. "Are you also a detective like the other lady?"

The new pokemon didn't answer for a moment. "Who is the other one?"

"She won't say." Thor began, "She's sorta a knock off Detective Laki."

"Who are you?" Kara sent, stopping Thor from continuing. There was once again silence.

"What side are you on?" The current asked, ignoring the question. Kara began tracing it, examining the question's nature.

"I love humans. Can't stand the idea of being without my trainer." Thor said. He'd missed the meaning of the question, but it seemed to confirm something for the new presence.

"What of you, detective? Why are you here?"

"I don't follow your line of questioning".

"She's working on a case!"

The lizard's interjection irritated both Kara and the newcomer as they both buzzed at once.

"Are you a soldier's pet, Detective?"

"No." Kara shot back, angered by the word. The newcomer was toying with her, prying for information. The newcomer was at the bottom floor of the parking garage, which should have been flooded still. The structure had fallen apart with the earthquake, and most of the drainage systems had been destroyed well before the water arrived. "I'm an independent investigator wondering why you're in an area the military can't access."

The silence that filled the system was long.

"You're hiding like the detective is?"

I'm going to throttle you. Kara thought. She might not have hands currently, but it wouldn't take much for her to find something that did and wrap them around the stupid lizard's neck.

What felt like a sigh of relief came from the newcomer's position in the wiring, defusing the rapid escalation of words between Kara and her. It turned out that Thor had some use, not that Kara would admit it.

"You're not with the military, then."

A statement that Kara once again dug into. That what she meant by sides? "No."

"Why are you hiding from them?"

"I have my reasons. What are yours?"

"They're not on our side."

There was that word again. She was not talking about the call to action that pitted the wilds against the human race, which would have been easy to understand. She was talking about the Alolan military instead. Who the military was against was apparently Kara and Thor in whatever side that the newcomer was not defining. But, Kara knew more about who was among the military. Was this a Company puppet show? What did it achieve? Was there a target?

"I've not felt anything like you before, Detective. What are you?"

Kara paused a brief moment. "I'm a Rotom."

"You are like Detective Laki. You're like his partner." Thor muttered. "That's how you were investigating, you can access nearly anything!"

"My name is Loch. I need your help, Detective."

Scott's whole body burned. It ached and itched; every move he made forced something inside him to bitch and tell him to rest, to lay down on the floor somewhere in a spot he wouldn't get kicked in. That was easier said than done, for many reasons.

Firstly, he was a lucky bastard, and he knew it. There weren't enough painkillers for everyone. He was not on the list to receive, but that was because he could walk around without screaming agony. He had gotten through the hot zone in one piece without being eaten or crushed or turned into a pincushion. He was at ground zero and still breathing. His friend, who was undeniably dead now, had a shitty aim and failed to blow his head off his shoulders. He just took some of his head.

Instead of being turned to glue, he had some acute fractures in his arm and chest from the earthquake. A couple cracked bones from eating an explosion. Minor burns on his face. Hell, he sounded like Marcus if the man had gotten off easier. The poor bastard went stiff on him, and it turned out his head was what would kill him instead of the titans that shredded the officer's city.

And yet, his luck was still infinite. He would not complain that he had pain, not when parts of the hospital caught fire when the gas lines broke and burned hundreds to death. He would not utter a peep because parts of the hospital collapsed, mangling hundreds more. He could not say a word when the first floor was flooded, and anyone that got stuck in the basement or parking garage either drowned, were crushed, or fried when the electricity got them. The people that survived that; the poor few that lost their entire families, their limbs, and their health, deserved that medicine. They deserved so much more than this.

Secondly, the police were nearly public enemy number one. He found out that the forces that had been deployed to monitor the city to the North and East failed to stop the waves of enraged pokemon that stormed into the city. They were overrun and slaughtered, and the officers further back that witnessed it turned tail and abandoned their duties. Let the people that depended on them fend for themselves. He was guilty himself. He was disgusted that he wasn't in some different group, some noble group of police that held strong in the face of death. He was sickened that it was not only him that abandoned his duties, but dozens of the force. This was not what Hau'oli was promised. They were to protect and serve. Instead, they got a bunch of cowards. The entire system deserved to burn.

And everybody believed it. The officers that didn't- the survivors of the East Precinct that held off countless waves until their station was lost and they could no longer sustain, despite all their honor and deserved respect, were treated like the cowards that abandoned the precinct. They had abandoned their badges, made their own personal ceremony where they threw them away. They would continue to protect the people, but they were no longer police.

The survivors that had wandered in from the hot zones- those ones Scott had to watch out for. Once the image of the police weakened, they would be found waiting for an ex-cop to be alone. They were ready for a fight, for some sense of vengeance, even if it were against the ones that didn't run. It was blind, vicious rage that they didn't wish to control. They wanted to release it on those that burned them.

Third, He couldn't sleep. Not with ragtag groups wanting to mash his head into soup. Not when there was so much crying and screaming. The scent of iron and oil in the air was too strong, the floors too dirty. It was three days in, and barely four hours of restless sleep had been his recharge time. It had been luck that he found an abandoned utility closet that he squatted in. There were no rooms available anymore. There was barely any floor space, and people were finding new places to sleep. He found his spot for the night, at least until he noticed a couple of people looking at his Kevlar. A group visited that closet later, but by then he was long gone, having found a spot on the roof behind some HVAC units.

It turned out that even after Tapu Koko had arrived to end the assault, a few pokemon stayed behind. They had their blood to spill, and they couldn't accept whatever the Guardian had said. He realized that while he was on the roof when another assault happened against the hospital and he was nearly melted by a hail of bullet seeds.

Fourth, He didn't want to stop. He couldn't, not when his nephew and friends were at home. It had been three days, three long days where he wasn't allowed to leave. He felt like a rattata trapped in a cage, with how he'd been stitched up and released, only to not be able to leave because of the waters, then the attacks, and then the military.

With their arrival, Scott knew that he would not be allowed to go. They would force him into staying or relocating someplace that was not home and would promise with all their heart that they would find his family. They would make him wait for days if not weeks without a word and then say they found their bodies in his house, waiting for him to come back.

He remembered what Alola used to do. How their martial law was enacted during the failed revolution post-independence. How they made people vanish, promising their loved ones through venomous lies that they would do their best to find them. Kept people locked up so they wouldn't see what they were doing. He saw what his father did to those people, where they were taken. He knew why they fought so hard for their freedom against the endless cruelty that Alola could contain. His father had been everything that made Alola corrupt, starting back when Kalos first started to hear about how they were losing control of their precious colony.

So, Scott quit asking once they arrived and started looking. With every passing hour, he saw the noose tightening around his nephew's neck. He raided the hospital for tools, opening up more avenues for escape.

He'd had to track down many dopers that escaped the hospital. He knew their routes, learned some creative flaws in the building. It was a shame he was such a good officer because the hospital learned too.

He kept encountering welded plating that used to be old service hatches. Properly secured doors that were in the hospital's blind spots. The windows on the first floor were made of tough glass and barred; the second floor wasn't viable because he'd be seen trying to crawl down. His options were running out when the man got lucky.

The officer forced himself further into the gap, armor scraping against concrete noisily. He took a couple rapid, shallow breaths as the narrow space swayed slightly, pushing his imagination from his mind and squeezing through the obstruction until he slipped free on the other side He took in a deeper breath, catching himself near the edge that would have dropped him two stories had he gone over it and carefully taking a moment to gather himself.

The air was fresher out here, but it was still rank from rotting seaweed and everything else that had been destroyed under the millions of gallons of water. He could smell oil and fires, pungent scents of death and sewage, and the vile beginning of a mass grave a few blocks away. Yet, it was still a fresh breath of air.

Scott looked down over the edge of the collapse, seeing splintered wood and crushed hospital equipment pointing up at odd angles through the piles of concrete. He looked up at the collapsed floor above him where most of a wall had fallen down and nearly blocked off the hallway he had passed through. Beyond that, he could see some rooms that had not completely fallen into the floor and their crumbling ceilings where the roof had been unable to support itself, falling through them, his floor, and the ones below. A tile slid from under his foot and tumbled, breaking on an upturned slab of concrete.

There were a few soldiers down on that floor that he knew of, but none directly below him. It was too hazardous because of falling debris or another collapse, so they were stationed in more stable areas.

The officer slid around a corner and kept an eye on his footing, entering a room and closing the door behind him once he was out of the remnants of the hallway. The soft colors on the walls and the welcoming feel told him it was a quiet room; he carefully walked over shattered glass and scattered magazines as he moved to the far end of the room where he squeezed through a hole in the wall, leaving the ruined sanctuary and entering another crumbling area. The maze of inaccessible areas continued, taking him along ledges and over fallen concrete, past shattered entrances and-

Scott stopped, backing up to look into a patient's room again. He slowly entered it- thankfully there were no bodies here- and let his feet drag him forward until he was at the windowsill. The glass was long gone, curtains blowing inward lightly with the wind, and with it a single cluster of grand Plumeria flowers in an ornate pot.

How the flowers had not fallen off the windowsill and been destroyed in the earthquake and fighting was beyond him. Why it had not been crushed under rubble was a mystery. Somehow, it had endured. It was healthy, alive.

Scott felt the thick stalk, trailing his fingers up its side and through the dark, bushy leaves until his fingers graced one of the yellow petals. He squeezed it gently, enough to feel the tenderness before his eyes trailed beyond it. The remnants of the city greeted him; torn asunder and bleeding thick smoke into the skies alongside the jutting skyscrapers that remained. His city.

An apple was in his throat again. Scott braced his shaking hands on either side of the pot, fingernails scraping along the steel of the sill and cried. He cried for his city. He cried for his capitol, his country. He cried for the ones that never got the chance, for the ones that would never find their loved ones again. He cried for the lost, for what was lost, and for what was going to be lost.

There was no easy recovery. This attack against his country, it would be avenged. Their military was not crippled, and the Monarchs would strike out against their perpetrators and whomever they wanted to. This was war. But it was so much more. Terrorists could not have controlled the Pallosand's actions, all the pokemon that live in the forests and jungles. Whatever had happened, whatever started the riots allowed the slaughter. There could never have been any strategic plan that incorporated that, no way. Who could predict that the wilds would annihilate the city? Whatever had been used to turn pokemon into killing machines, could not be reversed. The damage had been done, the mentality ingrained.

There's going to be another civil war.

Scott's whole body trembled at the revelation. He sucked in a deep breath to calm himself, sweet nectar filling his nose. Slowly, he opened his eyes, focusing on the blurry flowers he had been crying into.

It could not be a coincidence. Plumeria, a flower comprised of hope, surviving in a crumbling hospital filled by death and surrounded by destruction. It shouldn't have, but it had.

It was no coincidence.

Slowly, with help from something that should not have lived, Scott began pulling himself back together. He wiped his face clean and swallowed thickly, looking at the flowers once more.

He was not a religious man; he had quit believing a long time ago in the myths and legends of the world. He could not praise and idolize something that did not care for its followers and hurt them, or something that had never existed at all. The reports the last few years, of the Legendaries beginning to reappear, did not shake his beliefs. He knew their presence was drastically affecting the world, both in religion and everything else. He could not stand the zealots claiming that they were saved, that a great reckoning was approaching, and that the followers of whatever they represented would be protected from some unholy cataclysm.

Those zealots did not have answers for him when he asked how the gods were protecting all the people they had hurt and killed. Their followers. The militarization of Kanto and Orre was supposed to represent some end times, but they were just symptoms of paranoia. He heard reports from Kalos, how their police were suddenly militarizing. He knew things he shouldn't, how the whole world was suddenly becoming tenser with their presence again. The zealots that came knocking on his door refused to admit that it was their gods that were escalating conflict. If their gods had cared about the human race, then there would have been a sign of it. They would have never left them in the first place.

Alola was different. The Tapus, they'd never left. They cared about their followers and the people of Alola, even if it felt like they weren't listening to all the time. They protected us, and Scott had seen it first hand when he joined the army and fought alongside Koko to kill otherworldy beasts. Koko had saved his life and countless more and earned his respect and belief. It was not blind fanaticism, but it was the furthest that Scott had ever gone to pledge himself to a greater being since his father's Arceism teachings.

Another breeze gently pulled at the yellow plumeria, and the officer breathed. The Tapus were doing their best, he knew it. He did not know the whole picture; maybe the wild pokemon had been tricked, or there was an explanation for why they attacked the city. They'd stopped when Koko demanded they stop. They listened. It had to mean something. Whatever war that would happen would not be between the military and the pokemon here. It was preventable.

Scott took in the scent of the flower once more and left it, keeping the image of it in his mind as he worked through the destroyed hospital.

He lept across a ravine and into an unmarked room, shoving aside a fallen shelf to uncover a grate in the wall. The officer removed it with the screwdriver he'd stolen, discarding the screws fastening it down and prying the metal piece free. He began to crawl into the duct, hesitating when it groaned but continued anyway. Dust wafted around him and he turned on his flashlight, having learned from last time as he squeezed down a narrow bend and the natural lighting began to fade.

The duct groaned again and the officer felt it sway; he stopped immediately and waited for the movement to pass. Carefully, he inched forward, wincing as it shifted under his weight. He reached and pressed his palms flat against the steel, dragging himself bit by bit as the metal around him protested. He didn't want to think about what was left to keep the duct where it was. The fasteners and frames were probably stripped or broken, barely withstanding his weight.

Looking farther ahead, Scott made his way to a second vent cover. He looked up and down, seeing steel beams and an empty void before him. He offered himself a mental congratulation for not making a wrong turn before he entwined his fingers into the metal and shoved. The vent around him swayed heavily as the cover came free, and Scott heard a much sharper sound than the prior times. He dropped the metal piece, letting it tumble down into the void as he clamped his hands onto the sides and yanked, dragging himself out as quickly as he could.

He felt the metal at his feet shift until he could no longer feel it, his Kevlar complained as the lip of the vent twisted and began to dig into him. There was a loud crash as the rest of the ducts came crashing down, and Scott grabbed onto a steel rung beside him and pulled himself out the rest of the way as the remaining duct twisted free and fell.

"Holy shit." He breathed, resting his forehead against another steel rung before reaching to find his flashlight, realizing that everything was bright. He looked up the shaft to a large hole in the ceiling, trickling light through and illuminating the rest of the abyss. He could see down nearly a dozen stories, the steel beams, and bars that made up the elevator shaft fine until his area, where they warped and jutted into empty space. Scott adjusted his flashlight and peered down, seeing the remnants of the elevator well below him, smashed scrap rising from a watery surface.

Getting down to it turned out to be easier than he expected. It was only the top floors where he had to worry about loose rungs, which he found when one shifted and nearly sent him down to the bottom of the shaft. He crossed the point of critical damage after four floors when he started hearing voices trickling through the doors on each floor thereafter. He kept going, taking breaks every few floors until he found himself just above the water.

Looking at the set of warped doors on the basement level, he guessed it to be a few feet deep at the most. Carefully, he stepped down on the rungs that were below the surface, then on to the remains of the elevator once he ran out of rungs. He took careful steps, reaching the doors and peering through the gap between them.

He was surprised to find the water was not as deep as he thought, prying his way through the doors and stepping into a knee-deep pool. He couldn't feel any tingling in his legs so he continued, sweeping his flashlight down the dark corridor. The ripples warped the floor and walls with every step he took, and the stains in the walls and ceiling told him the place had been thoroughly flooded earlier. Water dripped from above as his light reflected off the surface, and he slowly made his way down one corridor, then another.

Scott found himself scowling. He planned on escaping through a maintenance tunnel, but if the water was this high here there was little chance that the other tunnels wouldn't be flooded. But, it could also mean that there's nobody even watching the area, and he could try and escape through the parking garage if he needed to.

His thinking is interrupted when Scott notices a ripple coming into his hallway from an intersection. He pauses, sweeping his flashlight again, and listens for anything.

"Hello?" He calls out, taking slow steps forward. There's no response, and slowly his other hand drops to his sidearm and unclasps it. He starts swinging wide of where he knows the ripple came from, the sound of leather scraping against metal audible among the dripping water.

Abruptly, there's a loud splash that's quickly followed by many more heading towards him, and he starts to raise his weapon when he hears an unexpected voice:

"Scotty!"