"Earth's gonna set on fire
But still I wait
Rabid with desire
But still I wait"
—"The Next Curse" from Parallel Timelines by Slothrust
Max sat alone, just a bit away from camp, Ash and Ithos still asleep. The sun had just barely crested the horizon, sending a bright orange glow all across what should've been a gorgeous, green terrain. There was about a mile of grass before complete, barren gray. Still nothing. No life had grown since that day on Sheer Mountain Range. The only difference came from the many, many lifeless trees that had fallen to the wind.
She took a bite out of an apple she'd found lying on the ground. It was all right. Perfect, really, at least as perfect as an apple could be. All the fruit in the Water Continent was pretty close to perfect, anymore. Ash and Ithos didn't seem to notice, but for her, they tasted better than flavor alone could explain. The fruit here tasted like the first drag of a cigarette felt.
It tasted like ash in her mouth. She took a deep breath. Nothing. Every day, it got a little bit harder to put on the front. Apparently, her legend spread. People knew that, if she showed up to a town, it was about to get liberated.
It made her sick.
Max could hear Wigglytuff's voice. It tormented her nightmares and apparently failed to notice she'd woken up by now. She almost wished she'd committed to hiding that she used to be a human. People waiting for her to save them couldn't inspire anything meaningful. Since they never stuck around, she didn't even know if any of these uprisings stuck. Especially considering their oppressors were still alive and well.
It was complete idiocy. Even if she knew why Ithos insisted on it, she wished he'd see the bigger picture. Not everyone joined the Expedition Society by choice. Some of them might shift their allegiance, but why risk it? As much as she'd love to hear of a turncoat, with every soldier they encountered, she lost more and more of her ability to hope for it.
If they hadn't inspired any pokémon to rise up themselves, they certainly wouldn't inspire someone to sign their own death warrant. For all the hope she wanted to give people, she didn't know if she had any left.
Her mind drifted to her old life. She missed it. She missed Cori. She missed Neb. She missed Mandy. She missed Eleos. She missed Goon. She missed Oshton. She missed Olive. She missed Amphy. She missed Hana. She missed Jones. She missed that funky looking decidueye that sat outside the store sometimes. She missed. She missed them all.
Cori stuck out the most. She probably should have missed her old partner the most, but that totodile came to her mind more often. Did they ever even care that she was human? She vaguely remembered them saying 'neat' when it came up.
She had Ithos. She had Ash, but there was something different about Cori. It didn't make sense, considering she usually wanted everything to do with Ithos at all hours of the day, but she felt like something was missing. She had comfort, love, friendship, so what was she missing? If it was platonic love, shouldn't Ash fill that void?
She took another bite out of her apple. Nothing she could do about it. Maybe Grovyle would come around and let her swing by her old time. She was probably just homesick. If she believed that, maybe she could swallow the feeling with another chunk of apple.
She couldn't. She'd been trapped in this tale for too long to be so naive.
Maybe it was time for someone else's story.
"Flames gonna kiss my back
I hope I can run faster than that
Earth's gonna set on fire
But still I wait"
Max ate another apple to calm her nerves. She'd had two in the past ten minutes already, but she was still hungry. She didn't even really taste it. It was too delicious to taste. It overloaded her senses to the point she could almost forget where she was. Gentilton was just the next town she had to never be seen in as they went through.
Maybe it would be better if she didn't save this one. Thanks to the locals, the Expedition Society probably had mostly grass types again. Ash and Ithos could handle it. Maybe then, people would realize they didn't need her.
Most of those thoughts ran on in her head automatically. She was too enthralled by the lingering sweetness of the apple core she was sucking on like a sticky pacifier. She wanted to get every little bit of juice out of it she could. Already, she had her script ready in her head. If they were lucky, she wouldn't have to assure them that she wasn't a horrifying monster.
She whimpered. She nibbled into the apple's core, wishing she had a fourth.
Paws padded up behind the tree she sat against. Her ears shot up to listen, and she shook herself out of her stupor, cursing herself. She hadn't kept an eye on the skies—had a scout found her? As it drew closer, she could hear him snapping as he ran and relaxed. A little, at least, but she couldn't relax completely.
It was showtime.
"MAX!" Ithos screamed the instant he ran out from behind the tree. Even knowing it was him didn't stop her from leaping away in fear. "Come on, look!"
"K-Pika?!" Max tried to ask.
Ithos ignored her, snatching her paw up in his. He tugged her once to follow and let her drop to all fours to run. She growled her displeasure, but did as he asked. Maybe Ash bit off more than he could chew, this time, and they needed the backup. She followed Ithos without much trouble, almost wishing she could run ahead.
It felt wrong to keep a steady pace. Part of her felt like, if she needed to run, she needed to run at a full tilt. Even though they were running to danger, she felt something chasing her. Chasing both of them?
It didn't make sense until she realized how distant Ithos looked. All of her surroundings did. It was subtle, but she'd gotten a lot better at catching it early. Her instincts were taking over, or trying to. Maybe they already had, in fact. She'd let Ithos drag her right into a main street! This must have been urgent.
"ITHOS!" Max shouted—still slipping? It didn't matter. It got the point across, though maybe it did that too well.
Ithos stopped on a dime and turned to face her with a wide smile, cheering, "Look!" She was ready to eviscerate him—people were staring! Did he forget she had a massive target on her back? Well, her tail.
Her heart raced as a golurk stepped out from the crowd. The Expedition Society must have let a local run the place. Ithos just led her into a slaughter. She trembled up onto her hindpaws and backed away, but it was hopeless. She was surrounded—the crowd had closed behind her.
"You dumbass," a tyranitar said as she grabbed Golurk by the skirt and yanked him back. Golurk stumbled back a few steps, earth trembling beneath every time. When he got his balance, he stared down at Tyranitar while she stared up at him like he'd broken a tooth showing how many golf balls he could swallow at once. Max flinched when Tyranitar flung a paw to point at her. "She's barely a foot tall! You're almost ten!"
That was blatantly wrong (pikachu were a foot and four inches tall (rounding up), and so she also was), but Max was still too scared to stand up for herself.
Tyranitar slapped her paw to her face as she shook her head, then smiled down at Max. "Sorry, you must be Freedom!" she said. Max blinked. This wasn't really the reaction she'd expect. She was pretty sure the Expedition Society had orders to kill her on sight.
"Wh-who?" Max asked. It became easier to breathe when she felt Ithos wrap an arm around her. "Freedom?" What kind of name was that? She looked up at Ithos for some kind of explanation, but he was just smirking down at her. "What?" He chuckled a bit. She wanted to shock him into explaining why these soldiers weren't killing her.
Then, she realized that neither Golurk or Tyranitar had a badge or a collar.
"Don't you know?" Golurk asked. His whisper boomed through the air and made Max flatten her ears against her head and retreat behind Ithos.
She heard a smack and Tyranitar again insulting Golurk's intelligence. She peeked an eye out to see Golurk vindictively rubbing the side of his arm. It reminded Max of how Ithos rubbed his arm when she hit him. "That's what everyone calls you, at least," Tyranitar said.
Max kept looking blankly up, now a bit more comfortable with an Ithos to hide behind. With that extra illusion of safety, she felt her sense coming back to her, instincts ever so slightly waning. They didn't have collars or badges on. Beyond that, they didn't look like soldiers. Golurk was too horrifying for her to look at thanks to his size, and Tyranitar kinda was too, but she looked… nice?
She didn't see a soldier in sight. Terror started leaving her chest, but her heart continued to race. She looked around the town. The crowd had formed, but there were still plenty of people going about their business.
There were no soldiers.
"I told you," Ithos said. He grabbed her paws and pulled her around to stare into her eyes. She stared up at him with an uncertain, nervous smile. "It was just a matter of time."
It worked. They didn't need to liberate this town.
Max collapsed with relief into his arms. She wanted to stay in his embrace for all of time, and she didn't know if she could stop herself. Her heart didn't stop racing, though. Very quickly, the exhaustion evaporated into ecstasy. She was bouncing in his embrace until she burst free and looked up at Tyranitar.
They did it on their own.
"Are—have you told anyone?! Tell everyone! People need to know!" she half-cheered, half-demanded. "You—if people know they don't need to wait, we can start a revolution!"
"Freedom," Tyranitar said—right, she never shared her name. "Everyone already knows that." Max was so excited she was going to throw up. "After Glitterion's uprising, they've been happening all throughout the continent."
"Glitterion?" Max asked—the town they couldn't make it to. Security had grown too strict for them to even try. As the weight of the world lifted off her shoulders, one shadow of guilt cleared out from over her heart. She hated that they'd had to skip that town. She was grinning from patch to patch. Her lips hurt. "Wh-what happened, do you know?!"
This morning, she'd been closer than ever to giving up. She needed to hear someone else's story.
"Who's gonna swallow the blaze
After the flood
Stuck inside the maze
The moss and mud"
"I hate this," Codi grumbled as she trudged through the dark grey of a dead landscape. "I hate this. I hate this." Her paw sunk into the dry mass of dead grass, the dirt yielding to her weight in both directions. It was already a bit awkward walking with stumpy legs, and sinking into dead dirt with every step made it a lot worse.
She hissed out a breath as she ripped her paw out of the dirt, only for her other to sink as well. It felt like wading through ashes. She was just glad it was all dry, even if that hardly made sense. Based on the smell, she assumed it was some fast acting decay.
Did a human really do this?
Codi looked around at the desiccated landscape around her. This wasn't anything a pokémon could do. Humans had mythical abilities based on the historical documents they'd unearthed. Still, this belied belief. She only knew anything about human's abilities from studying before Fara came to power. After, those books were outlawed completely. It's not like Codi could've read them in service, anyway.
It was a good solution, she had to admit. Lively Town was the hub of the Expedition Society. Trying to take it out would be the perfect way to hit Fara where it hurts. Max must've known about Fara before everyone else.
She probably could've considered how her actions looked to an unknowing populace, though.
Codi squinted her eyes to look at Lively Town in the distance. The sun had just crested the horizon, giving the whole place an idyllic glow. The swaths of orange bathed the beautifully colored town in beauty and light. It beautifully contrasted against the death and decay all around her, the rising sun a new beginning to restore the desolation of the world around her.
Looks can be deceiving, though.
Codi had expected as much from further away, but all but knew for certain now that she was closer. This town was empty. Fara would never admit that, likely because it would make her look too weak, but how could anyone survive a blast that killed dirt?
It at least made Codi's life easier. She had no idea how she'd explain her presence in the main hub of operations. Pokémon's station changed all the time, but Superiors knew who they were getting and when. That way, they could scream at whoever the new underling was for being late, or maybe even just for fun. If you couldn't cross the continent in two days or less like a flying type, you were at fault.
Why did she leave Glitterion? She had nowhere to go. Even if no one there would ever trust her, they'd at least given her a bed to sleep in. That would've been something. Maybe she could've scrounged around, begged for food, something.
Instead, she went after some stupid idiot dumb idiot asshole jackass fucking human.
Every blistering morning and chilly night left her with a sickening regret that ripped her heart to pieces. She had comfort. She had security. Even as a taint-blood, she had some status and authority. She could eat. She could… well, she could have places to sleep. Falling asleep with all of that weighing on her was hard, but never impossible.
Maybe it was too late for her soul.
She got comfort from being the boot. It killed her every second of every day, but it was a living. She had people. No one she could talk to, no one she could be with, but that wasn't any different now, either.
She was a turncoat. A dog of the state that got kicked out for biting her owner's legs. No civilian wants a retired police dog.
After throwing her badge away, she never looked back, but she never even thought of taking off her tags. Her collar. They gave her name to her. Even if she had her slight rebellion etched permanently into the steel, it didn't change what it was. It didn't change what she'd become. Everything she'd done had been to save Mom, and now, Mom was dead. She'd been dead.
That didn't stop Codi yet. She kept doing Fara's bidding regardless. All she knew how to do was follow orders. After disobeying them, she had a void hanging over her head like a guillotine. She hated every second of her job, but it gave her a purpose.
Codi didn't know why she was trying to find Max. It was just something. She still hated that yellow rat for leaving her to this hell of a fate. If Max hadn't given Fara the excuse she did, maybe Mom would've been okay. Maybe Codi never would've had to be Codi at all. She could still be some terrified totodile hiding behind her mother's leg.
It was hard plugging in to networks when neither side would deign to glance her way. She could probably pass as nobody if she took her collar off, but she couldn't do that. She told herself it was to remember who this was all for.
In reality, she didn't want to endanger hapless bystanders. Without the collar, she looked like any other totodile, but she wasn't. She was a weapon. Broken, maybe, but a shattered blade still draws blood.
The sun had risen far above the buildings when she made it to the town. Spring's tail-end heat already flooded the world around her. At least the ocean retained some of the night's chill. She breathed in what she could of its mist, getting a delectable taste of fresh ocean water. Fresh water was kinder to her scales, but she still loved the beach.
Codi trudged her way onto path and breathed a sigh of relief. She'd thought cutting a direct route would be faster. It was not. Her legs ached from the exertion. She'd only stayed in that path because she didn't think of changing course.
A bridge sat as the last barrier between her and the town. With the beauty of the sunset gone, she got a better look at the town itself. It was… underwhelming. Why a Continent needed a Capital, no one really understood, but it was supposed to be a monument to their strength over others. This was dead and empty. The vibrant buildings sat soulless over the dead town like gravestones.
As she walked up to the bridge, Codi hopped onto the steel cables that suspended it. She was small enough that she could walk up them without much difficulty. Maybe important cases like this were why she had to spend entire days walking tightropes.
It gave her a nice vantage point as she scaled the side. The town looked dead from the ground, but from the higher vantage point? Positively decomposing.
There was nothing around. No one. She could see statues piled everywhere, and they served the look pretty well. Empty imitations of life that never had any to begin with. Maybe the town had inhabitants, after all. She didn't know what Fara was planning, but even this seemed odd. Who was sculpting all these. It was hard to tell from so high up, but they looked pretty detailed.
She made it high enough for her purposes. This was it. The first thing to do for herself since joining the Expedition Society. Adjusting the strap of her bag, she only glanced down once before jumping to make sure she didn't lose her nerve.
"CANONBAAAAAAAAAAAAALL!" Codi roared as she fell. She plunged into the stream with an explosive smack before the water reluctantly gave way a second later. The initial shock rattled her head fast enough to nearly make her bite through her tongue. Luckily, she pulled it to safety before her teeth smacked harmlessly into each other.
… ouch.
Her head spun a bit as she floated a bit limply to the surface. What was it her mom told her? Surface tension? Well, she'd remember soon enough. Codi felt off as she started to kick her legs, and she realized she was floating on her back like some kind of mammal.
She effortlessly rolled around (which somehow helped her spinning head) and took a nice, full breath through her nose. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a nice, long soak. Even salt water felt wonderful after so much time. Life was hell, but at least she could soak in massive bodies of water for all of time.
That wouldn't be too bad a lot in life if Max didn't ever show up. Lively Town was a bit of a long shot, but it seemed to map with her trajectory. If not, oh well. Now, Codi had an ocean to live in. If only it wasn't so warm.
As she floated, she picked her muzzle up enough to sing, "Water, why don't you cool down?" Her sore, sore legs stopped kicking to relax in the nice, refreshing water. "A warm swim makes toto frown." Her arms started to relax, too. "Cold water… good for me." Her voice started to trail off as her eyes grew heavier. "Warm water… just feels like…."
An effective lullaby, it put her to sleep before she could finish. After trudging on her hindpaws for so long, her body ached with relief at finally being able to float. No water type was ever meant to spend so long on land. She couldn't remember the last time she had such pleasant sleep.
"Drowning with the plants
I hope I can swim faster than that
Earth's gonna set on fire
But still I wait"
The town was completely empty of life. Reports had said that the survivors of Lively Town had already rebuilt it bigger and better than ever after the devastation. That was about half right at most. Not a single speck of dust sat misplaced on the pavement, while the perfect, unchipped paint of the buildings sat with vibrant, lifeless color. With all the death coughing up from the soil, the saturated colors looked dull.
"Well, infiltration'll be a breeze," Ash said. Max turned to glare at him. "What?" She could tell him exactly what, but she decided to quit while she was behind.
The place still had a population, if desiccated stone statues counted. There were far more than ever lived in the one town, which meant they'd been brought there. Piles of them stacked the entire perimeter of the place in mass graves that scaled heights rivaling some of the buildings. Some looked as fresh as a day, but others were barely recognizable as pokémon.
Had Fara hit the millions, yet?
Ithos took her by the shoulder and held her in place. She couldn't resist even though she wanted to. It was a blessing and a curse that she couldn't hold her emotions back around him anymore.
"They're still alive," Ithos whispered. Max peeked over his shoulder to see the shattered fragments from the head of a kirlia. "They can escape." It baffled her that he really didn't get it. He still didn't get it. She almost wished the rumors of exile had been true.
Dark Matter feeds on suffering. Looking at these piles as graves would've been merciful. Death would be better than hell.
The silence of the town was wrong. It didn't feel like silence at all. It felt like something much, much more sinister. Was it even sound? She flicked her ear up, but didn't get any better chance at hearing it. Closing her eyes, she could feel it the slightest bit more clearly. She pulled out of Ithos' hold. After looking to see her face, he reluctantly let her.
Max looked around, though she already knew she wouldn't see the source. The town was bereft of life. It sat like a photograph in pristine stillness.
Why could she feel movement?
"Do you feel that?" Max asked. She looked around again while Ash and Ithos exchanged glances watching her. She couldn't make anything out, but her paws brought her to the nearest building, one of the many pillars with a pointed parapet on top. Her paw shook as she reached out, but she couldn't tell why. She felt eyes other than her teammates' watching her as she pressed her paw against the stone.
It rumbled, almost giggled in pleasure. Almost imperceptibly, but she felt it. She didn't know if it was with her awareness or her soul, but she could. It reminded her of that torch she carried when she went to confront Jake in Eleos' Voidlands.
It wasn't stone. It was Void Shadows. These buildings were made up of decayed souls.
Max stumbled away, covering her mouth with that paw while the other clutched her stomach. She was going to be sick. 'Survivors of Lively Town have already rebuilt it bigger and better than ever.'
"Max, Max!" Ithos said. He ran up to her and caught her before she realized she was falling. Her head felt so hazy, empty. Moments after she'd connected the dots, she could already feel her instincts clawing for control. This journey was pushing her to the brink. It didn't take much for her to feel herself slipping anymore, and walking over the souls of the damned was quite a lot.
Ithos held her tight. He lightly pet her in his arms while making sure to shake her hindpaws while she sat on his thighs. "You're okay, you're still here," he whispered. Had he seen her eyes, or was he just saying that? "What's wrong?"
"Void Shadows," Max whimpered. She tried to keep her eyes off the desolation. It was all around her. She could either look at the statues of exiled pokémon, or the buildings made of souls that no longer remembered who they were. "They're all void shadows." She shook her head. She couldn't say more. Ithos held her tighter and continued to pet her, but she knew he didn't understand.
"Here, let's leave," Ithos said. He tilted his head to face her. She wondered if he was looking into her eyes, or at them. Was she slipping into pika-speak?
"Shouldn't we check the Expedition Society building?" Ash asked.
"Ash, there's no point," Ithos said. "If Fara was there, she'd have made a move by now." Even while talking to Ash, he had his eyes on Max. He was watching her, protecting her. He didn't care about checking the Expedition Society. He just wanted her out of there.
"It's worth a shot," Max said. Ithos gave her a worried look while she took a deep breath. She wasn't ready to get out of his hold, yet, but she was a bit more together. Maybe a bit hungry, oddly enough, but she was getting there. She really hoped she hadn't developed a stress-eating habit. "I'll just try not to think about it too much."
"Are you sure?" Ithos asked. He squeezed her tighter, still looking down with worry as he scratched behind her ears. As he did, she nodded her head, the last bits of horror fading away when she did.
"We'll make it quick," Ash said.
With one last deep breath (and the help of Ithos' paw), Max pulled herself up. She held tight to his paw even after she steadied. It was a bit for help, but mostly just because she really liked feeling him touch her. She'd gotten so used to feeling his scales on her fur that it felt unnatural without him there.
The world shook beneath their paws. A blast of water whisked Ithos away in a second. One second later, she felt feathered paws crack against her, sending her flying through the air. As she soared, she saw a seismitoad closing in on Ash while Ithos went after the golduck that just tried to teach her to fly the hard way.
Ambush.
Max spun around in the air and looked for the nearest building. Not a hard task, it turns out. She was headed straight for one. That wasn't exactly helpful, but she'd make do.
She let out a controlled blast of electricity to slow her trajectory without rerouting it. To prepare for the worst, she went ahead and spread her limbs wide to take the hit over the most surface area possible (instincts taught her that trick). For flying what looked like a hundred yards, she had a lovely impact. The only pain came lagging from the hit that sent her flying, which hardly damaged her anyway.
She turned to look behind and decided that the point probably wasn't to hurt her. They wanted her out of the way. Expedition Teams had simple, but remarkably effective strategy behind them.
If a single scale on Ithos' head was nicked, she would kill them where they stood.
… if they hurt Ash, also.
She broke into an immediate sprint once her paws hit the bricks. Ash and Ithos weren't helpless against waters, but these were an Expedition Team. They'd be hard opponents without a type advantage. At least she knew they'd be able to hold out until she made it over.
The ground rumbled for a split second, then opened up beneath her. She kicked out of the sudden, yawning fissure right before she lost contact with the ground, but she didn't really give herself a lot of chance to reorient before skidding across the street. After the third roll, she got to her paws and got pelted in the side by mud.
"Kachu," she swore as she spun to face her opponent. He was a black mole about twice her height with shovels for claws and a spike on his forehead. An excadrill, less than a few yards away. The sight alone made her flinch. She used the movement to pull her tail in front of her.
He used it to dive underground.
Max could feel him the instant he left her vision. Her awareness had already pulled itself out of her panic? She didn't have time to fight her instincts, already feeling him barrel towards her. He couldn't have been more than a few feet away—already?! She jumped back in a panic. When her paws hit the ground again, she felt it tearing out from under her.
Excadril ripped the earth out with him as he shot out of his freshly made hole and right into her. He smashed right into her chest, snatching her paw in his own before she could fly away from the blow. He yanked her back and primed his other paw to drill into her stomach.
Max smashed his paw away with an iron tail and wrapped her arms around him. The iron tail didn't do hardly any damage, but it knocked him off balance enough that she got her paws on the ground. She spun halfway around to slam her back into his chest, keeping a firm grip on his shoulder as she threw him into the ground.
Excadril gasped as the bricks cracked underneath his weight. Max whispered a quick prayer for whatever souls the pavement used to be and hoped they forgave her. He dove into the ground like water, and she smacked his ass farewell with an iron tail.
This was a planned ambush. They knew from her time with them that her only answer to a ground type was iron tail, so they sent a half-steel. Since they'd trained her, they knew her weaknesses.
At least, what her weaknesses were. Half a year ago.
The ground beneath Max rumbled. She closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath in wait. He'd taken advantage of her panic last time, and he wanted to do it again. A crack formed right beneath her paws and tore the earth in two, and she rolled forward to dodge the fissure instead of jumping. Since she kept contact with the ground, she could still feel him surfacing right in front of her.
"PIKA!" she screamed, flying into the air to press him into the earth he tried to dive out of. She could hear a gasp and a crack when her back slammed him, face first, into the ground. Crimson lightning crackled out from her with the explosion of fighting-aura.
Flying Press. She still didn't know how she could learn it.
It stunned him long enough that she could roll off of him, focusing all the residual fighting-aura into her fist for a Focus Punch. She reeled back, eyes tuned to every hair on the mole's body while she readied herself for his next move. He spun up onto his shoulder before hopping up to his hindpaws, primed to land a foot in front of her.
Max lunged forward and slammed her paw square into his chest. The impact landed with a resounding crack of crimson lightning. She could only really conceptualize moves in her head as lightning, so aura seemed to conform to her expectations. It didn't really make sense to her, but she wasn't one to complain.
Excadril stumbled back, putting a paw to his chest and looking up at her with a wild-eyed grin. "Thank Groudon," he gasped. "I was worried I'd be bored."
"Can we just fight?" Max grumbled. "I have things to do."
"Don't worry, Taint-blood," Excadril chuckled. Max clenched her teeth, and his smile went even wider when he saw her reaction. "I'm just getting it out of my system early, you understand." Harmless sparks of anger bounced off her cheeks. "Your speech'll be too tainted to understand soon, won't it?" So, he wanted to piss her off. It wasn't a bad strategy.
"If you're going to be a piece of shit about this, could you at least be clever?" Max sighed. She'd roll her eyes, but that wasn't a good idea in a fight.
"What, am I supposed to impress a mindless rat?" Excadril said. Max didn't react beyond continuing to breathe. "You might be better at hiding it, but I can already see it in your eyes." She blinked. "There's a desperation." He looked closer. "Oh, and you're already feeling the hunger, aren't you?" Max's ear flicked up at that before she could stop it, and he cackled, "No hope for you now!"
With his exclamation, Excadril launched another glop of mud out of his mouth. The visual did more to Max than the attack itself, which she dodged effortlessly by dropping to all fours. She dashed to get to him before he could dive underground again, arriving just in time for the ground to close up behind him.
If this was his only strategy, it'd be a breeze for her. She stopped to wait again, feeling the ground's rumble. The subtle draft that barely tickled her fur. The distant clashes of Ash and Ithos fighting their own fight. It all blended together in a slurry that made it that much harder to listen for Excadril's next attack. She knew the attack was coming when his claws burrowed out of the ground behind her.
She spun around, leaving her tail where it was and flashing it into iron to block the attack with it. Excadril slammed right into it, the earth of his attack shattering her tail back to fur and slamming her across the ground. She tried to stop her tumbling and caught her right forepaw in a crevice that twisted her arm the wrong way.
"Kachu," she swore, leaping up to clutch her arm in its twin. When she landed, Excadril stared at her with a wide grin. Without a word, she knew he was ecstatic to hear her slipping already.
Max winced from pain as she shot her arm to the front pocket of her bag and flung a blast seed to the ground between them. It hit upturned earth and gave her the cover of smoke. She shoved her paw inside and ripped out an oran. Excadril was running straight through the smoke as she choked it down.
She could feel him without trying. Her awareness was acting on its own already. She didn't think much of her slip earlier at first, she always did from pain, but this was a worse sign.
She reeled back as she felt his approach, swallowing her worries. She'd just need to take a breath after this exchange, and she'd be fine. The gleam of his claws breached the cloud of smoke, and she threw her left paw into his nose before he made it through. Along with the crackle of the move's typing, she felt a sickening crack as her fist landed.
Excadril didn't flinch. He took the hit and snatched her up in one claw and used the other to burrow down. Her vision blurred before darkness encased them while he slammed her into the earth as he dug it. She tried to grab onto him and he slashed her paws away with a claw before abandoning her in darkness.
The small alcove he'd given her collapsed on top of her before she could get up. It crushed her from all sides in a constant barrage of bone-breaking pain. Every hit that slammed into her disrupted and disabled her charge all throughout her body, sapping her energy while the earthquake ripped the ground apart and slammed it back into her.
Another crack slammed her into and through the earth next to her. She had a brief view of sunlight and sensation of weightlessness that ended as gravity began ripping her down the fissure. She quickly hit the side, sliding and tumbling down it while rocks smacked into her through her descent.
She couldn't tell which way was up. The entire world still shook around her, and she couldn't tune it out. Every grain of dirt sliding off the slightest pebble pelted her awareness with endless minute details. She clutched her eyes shut to drown them out, but it only made them stronger. It cracked her concentration, making it almost impossible to focus.
She felt the world growing more distant. Her paws flew up the side of the fissure. The stinging, constant ache of using injured limbs only made it harder to hold onto consciousness, ceding more ground to her instincts.
The wall she tried to kick off exploded, Excadril bursting out of it to smash her into the air. She saw stars as she flew helplessly through the air. The complete disruption of her charge made it impossible to get her bearings even after she smashed into the ground. She found herself already on all fours to run and shrieked in pain. Her paws could barely support her.
Scarfing another oran down, she swallowed the pain with it and ran. She focused on the pain as it came to keep it growing distant in a desperate attempt to ground herself again. Even as she ran, she felt the slightest shifts around her.
She couldn't wrest her senses back. She could only stop her instincts from gaining more ground, and even then, barely. As the world around her assaulted her with fine details, she could feel it growing so distant.
Her legs leapt away before the ground could swallow her up again. She didn't even need to think about it. They did it for her. Instincts were already fleeing for her. She had no idea where she was running beyond away from Excadril. Her paws, arms, legs, back, chest, tail ached as she did, the oran only barely kicking in yet. All the while, a pit started forming in her stomach.
She couldn't win this. On her own, she had a chance, but not with her instincts already at this point. Her head was so flooded with input that she couldn't think of a single thought more complicated than run. That felt half-baked, too, though she couldn't quite tell why.
Her paws sank into dirt as brick paths gave way to a sandy beach. The spray of salt that she'd been too overwhelmed to notice pelted her nose. A spike of panic shot through her. She cursed herself, feeling the shore growing distant from her with the rest of the world around her. It ripped her out of her retreat and froze her in place.
Excadril smashed her across the face. The force smacked across her cheek and sent her flying into the seawall with a resounding crack. She couldn't tell if it was the bricks, or her back.
The world started getting darker around her. This was too far. She reached for the bracelet Grovyle gave her as Excadril snatched her up by the neck. Her heart beat out of her chest as he held her there, staring up at her with a wide grin. His arm was in the way. She couldn't reach the bracelet.
"Look at you, little rat," Excadril hissed. "Empty black Tar of Taint in your eyes." He unfastened her bag and let it fall. She tried to grab at the claw at her throat, paws barely strong enough to hold themselves up. "That's in fine enough condition for the next recruit." Would Ash or Ithos have any chance to get there in time? "Ever heard of a carotid artery?" He squeezed his claw around the sides of her throat.
Max felt her vision fading faster. He slammed her into the ground and left her there. As her circulation recovered, she could feel the pain in every cell of her body worsen by the second.
"I-Ithos," Max whimpered. It came out as a breathless rasp. She hoped against hope he could save her when she remembered what she'd known all this time.
This was the Ithos that failed. They'd never stood a chance. They'd gotten people to fight back. Was that their purpose? Now that people knew they could defeat their oppressors, they would. Just like Ithos and she had wanted. They didn't need heroes to save them anymore. They called her 'Freedom'. She was a symbol of the rebellion, but the rebellion would go on.
After all, nothing's as good a symbol as a martyr.
Her second chance was coming to its end. Would she return to her own time, or was this it? Her cruel memory let her know that she believed the soul goes to the afterlife upon death.
Excadril rolled her over. One claw held her down while the other traced down her side. Her instincts dulled the sensation, and she let them. Would a rebel take up the mantle? Did they need a successor, or was she thinking to romantically? There was that one totodile from Glitterion.
Totodile. Maybe it was somebody else's story, after all.
Excadril pulled his other claw back. Of everyone she knew, Max wished she could've seen Cori one last time. Before that thought could finish, Exadril's claw shot down, piercing through her scarf and into the ground below her, leaving slick splotches of blood on the scarf meant to save her as it sliced her neck along the way.