THIRTY-ONE
On the third basement floor of the old Lysandre Laboratories, Augustine watched the ceiling nervously. Shauna and Calem were huddled together, and the Professor threw himself protectively over them. The three of them were on their way when they heard an earsplitting boom and decided to duck for cover. What followed was a violent rumble of the earth rolling across where they were, sounding almost like a train passing by.
"What was that?" Shauna squeaked once everything was still.
"The cannon," said Augustine as he peeled himself away from his former students. "It was pointing straight into the sky last I saw –" He stopped suddenly. Teleurac wouldn't try to destroy Lumiose, would he? And Serena – where was she? What had become of her?
"But why would Team Flare . . . ?" Calem's voice trailed off.
Augustine stepped up to the elevator and pressed a button to open the doors. Inside, he found an empty shaft, and when he looked up he saw a mess of wood, metal, wires, and other debris crammed into the top of the shaft.
He took a few steps back and sent out Garchomp. "See what you can do," he said to Garchomp, pointing towards the elevator shaft. Garchomp flew up and into the shaft, and a few seconds later debris came falling down, hitting the walls of the shaft and landing at the bottom with a loud crash.
Garchomp soon returned to where Augustine, Shauna, and Calem were, and he allowed the humans to climb onto his back. Back up the shaft he flew, and he touched down in Magenta Plaza – or what was left of it.
Shauna and Calem both gasped loudly, while Augustine's jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide at the sight before them. The purple obelisk that once stood erect in the center of the plaza now lay on the ground in several pieces, the largest of which was on top of a human body. Dust and smoke filled the air. In the glow of fires around the city, the three of them saw rubble of buildings, debris and glass shrapnel lying in the streets, smoke rising from those fires, and a crater in the place Prism Tower once occupied. The tower itself lay in dirty, blackened, mangled pieces around and inside the crater, as did the cannon once attached to it. More burned, blackened rubble lined the edges of the crater, apparently obscuring the way into Team Flare's underground facility - assuming any of it was left, of course.
Someone shrieked in the distance. Calem slid off Garchomp, pulling Shauna along with him, and the two ran in the direction of that distressed person. Still stunned by the sight around him, Augustine hopped off and recalled Garchomp before standing still, transfixed by a fire burning on top of where several houses used to be. He heard more people shouting, screaming, calling out for help or a loved one, and the cries of some Pokemon. A Trainer, blood running down the side of her head, crawled out from beneath some rubble and sent out her Clawitzer, who shot water at the nearby fire to put it out.
His gaze lingered, absentmindedly, at the ruins of Centrico Plaza and Prism Tower. Augustine was in a daze, thinking only hazily of what could have possibly caused Teleurac to change his mind, or under which pile of rubble he might find Serena's remains. Of course, there was always the chance she made it out in time . . . .
"Professor!" Augustine looked to see Calem and Shauna running back towards him, Holo Casters in their hands.
"Where did you run off to?" he asked them, noting the dirt and sweat smudged on their faces.
"The others are okay," Calem said, out of breath but holding up his Holo Caster. "Tierno, Trevor, Diantha – they're fine."
"Well, Trevor's arm was broken," Shauna added. "They took shelter in a dumpster, and it got turned over during the blast . . . but Tierno and Diantha flew him to the hospital in Shalour City. Lumiose's hospital was destroyed."
Augustine sighed, both in relief and in sorrow. "We should go –"
He was distracted by the sound of a Pokemon roaring, and he turned to look at Centrico Plaza, where he guessed the roar originated. A fan of flames, blue and orange, erupted from the inner edge of the crater, blasting pieces of debris out of the way. A Pokemon emerged: winged, with a black body and blue flames trailing out of the corners of its mouth. It took a few seconds for Augustine to recognize the Pokemon as a Mega Evolved Charizard.
Charizard rose into the air, flying low to the ground at first but rapidly gaining altitude as she flew northwest as fast as she could go. The flames in her mouth and on her tail cast an ethereal blue light around her, enough to show that she was cradling a limp, lifeless figure in her arms as she flew.
Even if Augustine only caught a brief glimpse of it, there was no missing that long blonde hair. His heart instantly dropped into his stomach, and his eyes followed Charizard's flight path until the flame on the end of her tail was as small and distant-looking as the stars in the sky.
"Was that – oh my – SERENA!" Shauna cried out her friend's name, started running after Charizard, but then stopped after she only went a few yards. Calem sent out Altaria and climbed onto his Pokemon's back; the two of them flew to pick up Shauna, and they all took off to follow Charizard.
Augustine fell to his knees and looked up to the northwestern sky. Everything else faded away: the burning remains of Lumiose, the corpse underneath the Magenta Plaza obelisk, the cold evening air on his skin, heat from nearby fires, the smells of organic and synthetic materials burning – none of it existed, and none of it mattered. He hung in a daze for a moment, feeling numb and shocked all at once, but he couldn't quite articulate why, not even to himself. All he knew was that he needed to follow Calem and Shauna, who were in turn following Charizard, who was taking Serena away somewhere. And he needed to know where.
Shalour City's hospital was a sleek ten-story building located behind the city's Gym. Just as Garchomp was landing outside the hospital, so were several other Trainers on the backs of their Pokemon. Augustine joined the newly arrived crowd and went with them to the emergency ward, helping one Trainer carry her injured friend as they went. Once inside, a team of doctors and nurses took the casualties, sat them down on gurneys, wheeled them away, and instructed everyone else to go to the waiting room.
In the crowded waiting room, he found the people he knew. Shauna and Calem were snuggled under a blanket together, with her head leaning on his shoulder. Trevor sat between Calem and Tierno, with his right forearm bound up in a cast. Emma sat next to Tierno, Mimi the Espurr on her lap, while Sedna and Nix of the Lumiose Gang sat in front of her on the floor with their heads together. Diantha was the only one standing, and she paced back and forth a few steps in each direction.
"Augustine?" Diantha recognized him, her tired-looking eyes lighting up slightly. Her clothing, usually so clean and bright, was covered in a layer of dirt and grime, with some blood on the cuffs of her sleeves and the front of her blouse. It was then that he saw what was in her dainty, scratched-up hands: a Pokeball belt, with six Pokeballs attached to it.
He stepped forward and pulled Diantha into his arms, hugging his friend tightly and rocking her from side to side, not caring how she smelled faintly of blood and garbage. After a few seconds, Diantha pushed herself away from him, letting him see how her eyes were starting to glisten with tears.
"What?" he asked softly, dreading her response. That Pokeball belt in her hands looked very familiar.
"Serena . . . She's in surgery right now," said Diantha, choked up and working hard to keep from breaking into a fresh new wave of tears.
He looked down at his feet, curling his lips in and holding his breath. She was still alive – or at least she was when Charizard made it here. Charizard was very smart, he thought fondly, to know to bring Serena here. "How is it going?" he asked apprehensively.
"I don't know anything else," answered Diantha. "But I saw her, Augustine, and there was so much blood," she glanced down at the cuffs of her sleeves, splattered with dark red. "The doctors – they'll let us know when something happens." She shifted Serena's Pokeball belt into one hand and used the other to steer Augustine towards a seat next to Emma. First, he stopped in front of Trevor.
"Have you heard from your sister, Trevor?" he asked.
Trevor nodded, slow and tired. "She's in Laverre, with her boyfriend. They're fine."
With a weak smile, he patted Trevor gently on the shoulder, then Tierno, before sitting down by Emma. Mimi greeted him with a "Mrrrrow!"
"How are you doing, Emma?" Augustine asked her as he absentmindedly patted the top of Mimi's head.
"I'm fine," said Emma, sounding appropriately stunned and exhausted. "Eris is with a doctor right now. Her legs got crushed by a falling beam in the Looker Bureau."
"We jumped into the basement right when we saw it coming. She was the last one in, and she barely made it," commented Nix.
"This is all so weird," said Sedna, her voice even and entranced. "Almost like it's a bad dream or sumthin' like that."
"Professor, you work for Team Flare, dontcha? Why'd they decide to blow up Lumiose, huh?" asked Nix.
Augustine shook his head, then let it drop into his hands. Teleurac had never said anything at all about firing on cities in Kalos, so what in the man's mind could have possibly changed at the last minute? Had he just given up on everything he had envisioned? Did his fingers merely stray?
"Hey, Professor Sycamore," Trevor said next, leaning forward so he could see Augustine. "You okay?"
"As okay as it gets," murmured Augustine.
It felt like the longest night in Augustine's life. As time went by, the waiting room became fuller and more crowded, and the group all gave up their seats to others and sat alongside the wall opposite of the room's lone television. The TV was turned on to a news station, which showed nonstop coverage of what happened in Lumiose. There were shots of Centrico Plaza and the remains of Prism Tower, the lone standing column of Hotel Richissme, the story of Trainers who rescued the stray Skiddo from the rubble of the train station, scenes of people and Pokemon working together to pull survivors and casualties out of rubble and put out fires, and many desperate people looking into the camera with pleading eyes, asking what had happened or where their loved ones were. Every thirty minutes, there was an update on the number of casualties: two hundred, then three hundred and twenty, then three hundred and ninety, the four hundred and fifty. As the number climbed higher and higher – up to sixteen hundred by midnight – Augustine's heart sank lower and lower while it crumbled into pieces.
Shortly after midnight, a doctor came out and asked for people willing and able to donate blood, since their supply was running low. With the exception of Trevor, everyone in their little group volunteered to do so (Trevor stayed behind with Mimi while Emma went). At one in the morning, Augustine was sitting and leaning against their section of wall, bandage wrapped tight around his left arm above the elbow, a bag of pretzels in his hand and a light, woozy feeling in his head. He hated needles. He hated having blood drawn, and apparently so did Tierno; the poor lad had nearly passed out in the process. Emma had let Tierno lean against her until his lightheaded feeling had passed, and she held his bottle of water for him. Meanwhile, Mimi snuggled with Sedna and Nix.
At one-thirty in the morning, two police officers entered the emergency ward and went to speak to the receptionist. The receptionist pointed them to the hall where the patients' and operating rooms were, and they went that way. Augustine watched them curiously for a moment, until Shauna came around and knelt in front of him.
"You've been really quiet, Professor," she said concernedly.
Augustine nodded in agreement. "I still can't believe this happened," he said mournfully. By the receptionist's desk, a doctor was speaking to a middle-aged man, and the man's head soon bowed and his body shook with sobs.
"Me neither," said Shauna. "Almost two thousand people and Pokemon dead . . . just . . . wow. Calem and I are going to find someplace quiet to take a short nap, then the four of us are going to fly to Vaniville. To let our parents know we're all right, and to go get Grace." Her voice wilted at the mention of Serena's mother.
"She ought to know," said Augustine, giving Shauna a faint, feeble smile. She returned the gesture, then left to rejoin Calem's side.
At two in the morning, the newscaster reported the first things uncovered underneath the ruins of Centrico Plaza. Besides broken glass, metal, machinery, and some radioactive material, pieces of a burned human body were found underground, and a quick DNA test proved that the body was Governor Teleurac's. When the news broke, many in the emergency room cheered and clapped. Augustine felt a tremendous weight melt off his chest: he was free. Or was he?
Other bodies found underground belonged to members of Team Flare and their Pokemon, including the scientists Celosia and Bryony. Some other Flare members had been trapped in rubble and were being rescued and held in the custody of Pokemon Trainers led by the Gym Leader Clemont and the two "Masked Heroes of Kalos." Augustine smiled slightly, seeing his trusty lab assistants were doing fine. Police Chief Renshaw had been found dead, her body crushed by an overturned police car. Malva's whereabouts were currently unknown, although a witness claimed to have seen her fly away on the back of her Talonflame.
What followed was a break from serious news reporting, and some analysts discussing and offering ideas on why Teleurac would suddenly change his mind and attack his own people rather than Unova. Augustine cringed when one analyst suggested that Teleurac "graduated from the same school of crazy that Lysandre did." Whatever the reason, they concluded, it had only cost the man his life.
At three in the morning, Eris came into the waiting room in a wheelchair, her legs bound up in bulky casts and braces and boots. Emma, Mimi, Sedna, and Nix sprang to their feet to greet Eris, giving her hugs and kisses on the cheek. The Lumiose Gang then left the hospital, Nix saying something about finding a room at Shalour's hotel for the evening. Others began trickling out of the emergency ward's waiting room, either to completely leave the hospital or to go wait downstairs in the cafeteria so more space could be freed up in the waiting room for some who were still coming in.
On the news, a woman in Anistar City was starting to give an address. Her name was Claire Pontmercy, and she was stepping up to become the Governor of Kalos now that Teleurac had died without appointing a successor. Augustine remembered her as the other candidate in that fateful gubernatorial election; he didn't think she had any precedence or right to do this according to the second or third article of the Constitution of Kalos . . . but politics seemed inconsequential right now. The only thing that mattered to him was that Serena pulled through.
At three forty-five in the morning, Trevor and Tierno left to find Calem and Shauna, while Diantha slept on the floor with one arm folded under her head and the other arm wrapped securely around Serena's Pokeball belt. Augustine, however, stood up for the first time in hours. He walked over to the nearest window and looked out at the city. Usually, there was an eerie feeling of serenity in the air at this hour, but not tonight. There were people and Pokemon crowding around the outside of the hospital and Pokemon Center, using flashlights or the light emitted from a Pokemon using Flash to keep a check on their surroundings and allow emergency crews to go around, passing out food, water, and blankets to those who had arrived from Lumiose. Triage stations had also been set up, manned by nurses and Audino. He saw Calem and Shauna out there, giving away their jackets and blanket before flying south on Altaria's back. Trevor and Tierno followed them: the former on Aerodactyl, and the latter on Talonflame.
How long had it been? Almost seven hours now? Augustine was trying to remember back to when there was life and a time before this, for in a strange way it was starting to feel like this was all that there had ever been. Battling Malva alongside Diantha, Garchomp's Mega Evolution, riding to Geosenge in the truck, the last time he had seen Serena – it all felt like some distant dream. Or maybe this was the dream, and he would wake up in last October with a brilliant new idea about Mega Evolution and call Serena to come in and help him with the experiment – naturally he would treat her to a nice dinner afterwards – and Alexandre Teleurac would just be another pompous politician who didn't live up to his campaign promises, and all would be right in the world.
Yet this wasn't a dream. The scene before him was far too real: people watching the news on TV with looks of horror on their faces and tears in their eyes, hugging and holding onto one another amidst reports of dead children and destroyed homes. He watched as a woman received news from a doctor, and then burst into tears of joy at the news that her son would be all right.
At four thirty in the morning, it all finally settled in. Lumiose City was gone. The city he lived in, the city he loved, everything he had known, his laboratory and life's work, his favorite cafes, the iconic tower in the city's center where he had hoped to one day ask the woman of his dreams to marry him – all lay in ashes and ruin now. Augustine sat back down, bowing his head and holding it in his hands so nobody else would know he was silently crying.
The emergency ward's waiting room was still bustling and crowded at five in the morning. People, disheveled and covered in sweat, dirt, and blood, sat and stood contrasted against the cold and bleak white walls and floors. It was strangely quiet, with many people asleep in their chairs or on the floor; those still awake spoke in whispers and murmurs among each other, creating what felt like an uneasy buzz in the air. Doctors and nurses kept moving in and out as fast as they could, powering through and doing the best they could to hide just how tired and stressed they were by the whole ordeal. One nurse's face was red and blotchy, as if he had just taken a private moment to weep. Augustine had watched them all night, patiently, wondering when any news about Serena was ready to be shared. He kept alternating between expecting good news and expecting bad news.
Never in his life had he wanted good news so badly. Serena was down in Team Flare's facility when the weapon fired – did she know why Teleurac changed his mind? Had she tried to stop him? He should have been down there with her, Augustine thought. He should have flown straight to Lumiose instead of heading for the prison, and perhaps he may have caught up to her in time. He and Garchomp should have tried to dismantle the cannon . . . . He should have never handed her over to Team Flare in the first place. There was no way of telling if that could have saved Lumiose, but at least she would be with him, no matter what happened.
At five thirty in the morning, another doctor emerged and stood by the receptionist's desk. "Is anyone here a family member or friend of Serena Carlyle?" the doctor called out.
Almost instantly after the doctor spoke, Augustine was by her side. This doctor had dark circles under her eyes and a surgical mask hanging limply around her neck, and strands of flyaway hair were poking out from under her cap.
"Professor Sycamore," said the doctor with a tired cordiality, "how are you holding up?"
"I'm fine," said Augustine hastily. "Serena?" Every part of his body felt tense and queasy, apprehension took hold, and he searched the doctor's face for any indication of what the verdict may be.
The doctor sighed. "Serena's out of surgery and in recovery right now –"
All of the tension and uneasiness inside of him instantly vanished, and his mouth curved into a relieved smile. He didn't hear the doctor when she was describing exactly what was wrong medically with Serena that had been fixed. Instead, he existed in this brief trance of happiness, which was only broken by one sentence.
"Since technically she is still a criminal, she has been temporarily put into police custody and she won't be allowed visitors for the time being."
"A-ah," was all Augustine managed to croak out in response to that. "But – thank you, doctor. So much. I actually don't think I can thank you enough for this, ever."
The doctor smiled faintly. "You're welcome, Professor. If anything else changes regarding Serena, I'll let you know." She then turned and went back down the hall.
Augustine walked back to the wall where Diantha slept, where she was starting to stir. She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, rubbed her eyes, and watched as Augustine dropped to his knees beside her.
Diantha looked over his face, seeing his tired smile and the tears welling up in his eyes, and she pulled him into a tight hug. Augustine hugged her back and buried his face in her shoulder, all the while murmuring "She made it" repeatedly. He felt Diantha's fingertips stroke his hair, and he let out a contented sigh.
When Diantha pulled away, Augustine saw that she had started to cry as well. "No visitors yet, I assume?" she asked, reaching out a hand to scoop up Serena's Pokeball belt.
Augustine shook his head, and he looked at the belt. "No, not yet. The police have taken her into custody, so . . . ."
"Ah! Well then." Diantha grabbed her purse, opened it, and stuffed Serena's belt inside. "If anyone asks where her Pokemon are, I don't know . . . . I should give Phoebe a call. Right before you arrived, she had called asking if I was all right, and I told her to stay put in Coumarine. I'm going to call her and let her know I'm still doing all right." She smiled, gave Augustine a light peck on the cheek, then dug through her purse for her Holo Caster.
As Diantha chatted softly with her girlfriend, Augustine let his body sink to the ground until he was laying on his side, knees drawn up to his chest. The floor was hard and cold, he felt cold, but he didn't care. The whole matter of Serena still being a prisoner was something that could be sorted out later. But for now, she was alive, and he would see her soon. At the very least, he wanted to tell her how he felt, and how truly sorry he was.
At six in the morning, Augustine finally drifted off to sleep.