Spark felt like he'd been walking for an eternity. All he knew was the rhythm of his steps and ragged breaths, nearly lost in the noise of rushing wind all around him. His hands clung to the side of the cart, cold and slick with sweat. Though the wind made it difficult to keep his eyes open, he found it helped to concentrate on the muscled blue back of Brutus, who was steadily hauling the cart uphill, despite its two human passengers, their hypno overseer, and Spark.
He'd thought about calling Flicker out again, but feared the wind would extinguish the already exhausted ponyta's flames. He'd even considered looking through Team Rocket's pokémon for one that could help, but after everything they'd been through, he wasn't sure they'd be willing – or even able – to assist. All that Spark could do was endure.
"Hypno… update?" Spark requested.
Hypno sat toward the front of the cart, facing backwards so he could monitor both Candela and Blanche, who lay together with their heads toward the back, sheltered from the wind. The setup was disquietingly similar to a funerary procession, with Spark walking alongside the theoretical hearse like a bereft mourner.
Hypno signaled Spark with a reassuring thumbs-up. His friends were still alive. Spark couldn't let himself think of a future in which they weren't.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Sparky. There's still the matter of the portal."
The phantom Dr. Dillinger strolled in front of him, perfectly calm and casual. She inspected her nails as she veered dangerously close to the trail's edge. Not that it mattered to a hallucination.
I'm getting bored of you.
Dillinger made an impressed face at him over her shoulder. "Ah, so you finally figured out you can just think at me instead of babbling to yourself like a crazy person?"
Is this all you've got, Zapdos? Is your only act an annoying Dr. Dillinger impression?
Dillinger tsked. "I'm flattered by the accusation, but I'm not Zapdos. I'm you, spiraling into madness, your pathetic little brain failing to cope with the presence of a being so much more powerful than yourself. Honestly, it's astounding you weren't the first to succumb."
Guess I'm tougher than I look.
The imaginary scientist threw her head back in an over-the-top bout of laughter. "Oh, Spark, you're a riot. Do you realize that that's the kindest thing you've technically thought about yourself in, gosh, possibly years?"
That couldn't be true, could it? It was just his own mind playing games with him, like it had done ever since he was a child. The only difference this time was the surreal circumstance.
"Look up, Spark. You're nearly there. Your final resting place. You always want to go out with a bang, didn't you?"
Spark lifted his head, half expecting that Dillinger was just messing with him again. But not too far up the slope, a globe of erratic energy spun above a small stone landing, just as it had in the great hall. The hum of its electricity filled his chest, even from several dozen feet away. He took a step forward, pulled by the momentum of the cart, and struck something slippery. He went down so fast that he didn't even know he was falling until the he hit the ground.
Spark curled inward, wrapping himself around the throbbing hurt in his stomach. The wobbly-wheeled cart squeaked to a stop, followed by the soft thup of small feet hitting the ground nearby. Spark didn't have the strength to resist as Hypno pushed him onto his back. The pokémon pressed his hands onto Spark's wound, and the pain was enough to send a spray of stars across Spark's vision.
When the stars cleared, he saw Dillinger's face hovering above his, but something was off about it. He'd never seen this expression on her real, living face before. It was a flash of true fear and concern. But why? She wasn't even real.
"Hypno… the cart…" Spark sputtered. The impact coupled with the painful pressure on his injury had winded him. "Watch Blanche and Candela. I'm alright. I just tripped on my ankle brace or something."
Hypno abruptly removed his hands from Spark's side, surprising him. The pokémon held his blood-coated hands up to Spark's face and gave them an emphatic shake. Spark understood immediately the message that Hypno was trying to convey. That was way too much blood.
Spark propped himself up on his elbows and saw the dark trail that coursed from his side all the way down his leg to his left shoe. He was struck by the sickening realization that he'd slipped in his own blood. He knew from experience that he was losing too much too fast.
"How pathetic," Dillinger sneered, the temporary look of sympathy gone from her features. "I can't believe you're going to die so close to the door. Pffft, who am I kidding? Of course I believe that. You're the least competent human being I've ever met. It's perfect that you should die in such an anticlimactic way. I just feel sorry for Blanche and Candela. If it had been either of them in this position, maybe you'd all have had a chance. But no. It had to be you."
Something clicked inside of Spark's head. He'd been thinking of his relationship with this Dillinger proxy all wrong. Despite knowing that she was fake, he had been treating their conversation like a rematch of their first encounter. But this was something new, and this Dillinger wasn't the one who had tortured him in that dark maze. That fearful look on her face when he fell had been his fear. He wasn't ready to die like this, not after fighting so hard. There was no way he was leaving his friends behind. He had to stop talking to a ghost and start talking to himself.
"Yes, it did have to be me," Spark snapped, causing Hypno to jump back in alarm.
Dr. Dillinger flinched as well. "What?"
Spark turned to Hypno. "This is going to get very strange very quickly, but I'm about to have an argument with myself, and I promise I know what I'm doing. Can you trust me?"
Hypno hesitated, but reluctantly nodded.
"That's right, Spark. Just give in to the delusion. What a terrific idea," Dillinger snipped sarcastically.
"I'm not giving in," Spark said. "That ancient story, the one with the royals and the birds and the three nations… it said that one of the royals lost his ability to see the truth. But I'm seeing a lot of truth right now."
The vision of Dillinger flickered like a guttering candle. "You call shouting at a hallucination 'seeing truth'? You're worse off than I thought."
Spark laughed, even though it hurt his raw throat. "Why are you doing this? For once in my life, why can't you be on my side?"
Dillinger crossed her arms defensively, suddenly looking a bit translucent. "You're not making any sense. Why would I ever be on your side?"
"Because, as you said yourself, you're not Dr. Dillinger," Spark said. The thrum of energy he felt in his chest expanded, threading electricity through his body, and suddenly, he could stand up on his own. Hypno stepped back to give him room, but kept his bloodied hands raised, prepared to catch him should he fall.
Spark locked eyes with Dillinger. "I know exactly who you are."
The image of Dillinger warped and blurred, like a smoke ring breaking apart and fading into the air. The smoke reconstituted itself into something smaller, lighter. Where the scientist had been, a little boy now stood. His haystack hair stuck out at whimsical angles, and his pale skin was dotted with constellations of freckles. His mouth was open just enough to see the gaps of missing baby teeth. His blue eyes matched Spark's perfectly, and shone brightly with welling tears.
"As I was saying," Spark said to his miniature doppelganger, "it did have to be me. I was the one who was smart and strong enough to survive this long, and I'm sure as hell not quitting now. Blanche and Candela are lucky that I'm the one who's still standing. Do you know why that is?"
The little Spark shook his head. He looked terrified.
"Because Blanche would have analyzed this situation and baulked at the impossible odds. Because Candela would have panicked when faced with her own weakness. But I am intimately familiar with feeling weak and inadequate, and every time I succeed it feels like I'm doing the impossible. In other words, this is my time to shine."
Spark gripped the side of the cart and pushed forward. Brutus, despite looking utterly baffled by what was happening, took Spark's cue and started pulling again. Hypno climbed into the cart and scanned Blanche and Candela for changes. He flashed Spark another thumbs-up, which filled Spark with renewed determination.
"You were right about one thing," Spark continued as he marched forward. The boy scampered ahead, tripping over himself. "You're always going to be with me. Somewhere in my soul, I'll always be the scared little kid who feels everything too intensely and cares so much that it hurts. But I'm so much more than that."
He picked up the pace, and Brutus walked faster to match it. The closer they got to the stone landing, the windier the conditions became, and the louder the hum of the portal sounded.
"I am the leader of Team Instinct, and I'm here to save the fucking day!" Spark shouted.
Hypno covered his mouth, taken aback by his language.
"Pardon the swearing, Hypster," Spark said. "Got a little heated while yelling at my imaginary mini-me, which is apparently the manifestation of my disordered thinking, rampant anxiety, and crippling self-doubt. You know how it is."
Hypno shook his head slowly, indicating that he did not know how it was.
"Sorry, guys. My little psychotic-break-slash-pep-talk left me sorta punchy," Spark admitted.
He could see the fear in the furtive glances that Brutus and Hypno cast his way as he walked. He hadn't meant to scare them. Really, he'd intended to scare himself. That, at least, had been a success. Little Spark was nowhere to be seen.
"Look, we're nearly there. We're almost back in the sunlight," Spark said, smiling, hoping he didn't look too ghoulish. He couldn't quite feel his face. It sat over his skull like a rubber mask.
Hypno waved his bloody hands at Spark again, brows knit in frustration.
"Trust me, Hypno. I haven't forgotten about that," Spark said.
But the truth was, he nearly had forgotten about the weeping puncture wound in his stomach. He barely felt it now. He barely felt anything other than the swell of energy around his heart. Was that caused by the proximity of the portal? Was it Zapdos? Was it the euphoric high of imminent death?
It hardly mattered to Spark. He wasn't going to die. He couldn't do that to Candela and Blanche. It was departure from how he'd felt the last time he'd nearly bled to death, but his perspective had shifted since then. He really needed to cut down on all the nearly dying stuff. It was getting out of hand.
Hypno snapped his fingers next to Spark's ear, jolting him out of his loopy state for a moment. The cart had reached the flat rock shelf without Spark noticing. He gazed up at the spinning, sparking, gale-starting orb hanging 20 feet above him, the closest thing to a sun he'd seen in days.
Spark touched his fingertips to the soaked strip of fabric around his middle. Maybe he didn't feel it, but that didn't mean he was safe from the wound. He was riding some sort of adrenaline high, and he had to make the most of it before his resources ran out. He couldn't let his thoughts wander again.
"Hypno, I need you to keep me on task," Spark instructed, letting go of the cart. "Brutus, can you unload Candela and Blanche?"
Brutus lowered the rickshaw's handles and got to work, gently scooping Candela out of the cart first. She looked small in his hands, like a child who had fallen asleep on the couch and was being carried to bed by her parent.
Hypno followed Spark around the side of the cart, wringing his hands. Spark pulled out the duffel bag and dug through it until he found the shard-like key that had settled to the bottom. As the blue and orange light of the portal glinted off of it, the reality set in. In spite of all his optimism about saving the day, Spark wondered if he was living the last few minutes of his life. He hadn't even given Rutabaga a proper goodbye before he returned her to her ball. She'd been so reluctant to go, but Spark hadn't wanted to overburden the cart so had insisted that she stay in her pokéball instead. What if that was the last time he saw her?
Hypno pulled on Spark's shirt.
"Right, right, I'm here, I'm focused," Spark muttered. There was no time to hesitate.
Brutus placed Blanche next to Candela on the ground and stood aside as Spark approached.
"I don't know what's going to happen when the portal opens," Spark said as he knelt next to Blanche. "But however this goes down, we need to make sure to get everyone out. If I'm not able to help, please remember to take the other pokémon through the portal with you. The ones in their pokéballs. Alright?"
Brutus grunted in somber acknowledgment.
Spark drew a deep breath. This was it. This was what everything had been leading up to. They were either on their way home, or…
He pressed the key into Blanche's limp hand.
Nothing happened.
"This is how it went before, right? The three of us, the birds, Blanche holding the key…"
Spark lifted Blanche's hand and pointed the key at the orb above them, waiting for the telltale snaps of electricity to form between it and the portal. Blanche hadn't been able to resist the portal's pull before, and had opened the door so naturally, despite not wanting to. So what was the problem now?
"Do you think they need to be awake?" Spark asked Brutus and Hypno.
Both pokémon shrugged. They looked so tired, so afraid.
"Let's give it a try. Brutus, can you restrain Candela? She's not going to be herself when she wakes up. It might be scary, but if we play our cards right, she won't be like that for long," Spark said.
Brutus crouched behind his trainer and sat her upright, gently cradling her head. He halfheartedly held her wrists behind her back and waited for further instruction.
"Hypno, you're in charge of waking Blanche. Are you ready?"
The pokémon nodded, their eyes narrowed against the relentless wind.
Spark swallowed. "Here we go."
He withdrew Waik's vial from his jacket and dislodged the cork with his thumb. He maneuvered to Candela's side and held the glass just below her nose. Her lips twitched and her nose wrinkled. Next to him, Hypno had pushed Blanche into a seated position and was trying to rouse them by manually lifting their eyelids.
"Come on, Candy," Spark coaxed. His hand trembled so severely that he worried he'd drop the vial before Candela could wake up.
With a low groan, Candela came to. She glowered groggily at Spark. "…You drugged me."
Spark smiled. "Yeah. A little bit. I'll make it up to you later."
Candela jerked forward, intending to attack again, but was held back by Brutus. She struggled against his hold, her confusion turning swiftly to wrath.
"Let go of me! How dare you interfere?" she growled at Brutus.
"Ignore her, Brutus," Spark said. "How's Blanche coming, Hypno?"
Blanche's eyes were open, but once again unfocused and distant. Spark gestured to Hypno to lift their hand. As he did, a small tendril of electricity jumped from the portal to the key. It was progress, certainly, but not nearly enough. Blanche couldn't keep their head up without Hypno's help.
"Please… I'm safe… inside," Blanche mumbled, as if talking in their sleep.
"You'll be nothing but charcoal when I'm through with you!" Candela roared.
"Can you two broken records keep it together for just a second?" Spark asked, more annoyed than threatened by Candela's claim. He joined Hypno in holding Blanche's hand toward the portal. Another few flickers of energy, and then nothing.
Suddenly, Brutus let go of Candela, shaking his steaming hands. She'd burned him, and was wasting no time in turning her rage toward Spark. Spark dropped Blanche's arm and grabbed Candela's short hair to hold her back before she could really get moving. He thrust the vial into her mouth has she clawed at his shirt. She fought for a moment, then slumped to the ground.
Spark's heart felt like a scrap of paper fluttering in the breeze, thin and rapid and fragile. The empty vial slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. He hurriedly checked himself for burns, but Candela had only struck his clothes, leaving a couple singed handprints but no real damage.
"Brutus, you OK?"
Brutus tucked his hands under his arms but nodded stiffly.
"It wasn't Candela. Remember that. She would never hurt you," Spark said, hoping his words weren't falling on deaf ears.
Hypno tapped his shoulder and pointed at Blanche, who had passed out again, the key dangling from their loose fingers. Spark dragged his hands down his cold, sweat-dampened face. This wasn't going to work. If he woke Candela up again, he'd have to hope Hypno still had it in him to knock her out before she could roast everyone. Blanche posed even more of a problem. How was he supposed to keep them fully awake while dodging an increasingly outraged Candela? Or should he call her Moltres? Moltrela? Candoltres? Maybe Blanche was already past the point of being able to fully awaken anyway.
The birds were to blame. Articuno was dragging Blanche into their own mind, and Moltres had successfully commandeered Candela's body. Did they even know how close they were to escaping? Couldn't they see that they were dooming themselves?
Spark's attention wandered to the duffel bag, sitting open by the cart. The metal circlets glimmered in the fluctuating glow of the portal. An idea took form in Spark's mind as he recalled how tame Moltres had been in Candela's mindscape. It hadn't seemed crazed in there, just tired, hurt. Maybe that Moltres – and similarly, that Articuno – would be able to listen to reason.
"Hypno… do you know how to work a communicator?"
Hypno pointed at himself in surprise, as if to say: who, me?
"Yeah, you, buddy," Spark said. "I have an idea, and like all my ideas, you're probably not going to like it."