"Axey, use Dragon Dance to get behind them!"
A green glow surrounds Axey as it dashes behind the Team Burn front line. Its claws and tusks almost look sharper as it turns back toward their stunned faces.
"Now, use Dragon Claw!"
Axey's claws grow to three times their normal size as they're coated in the same green energy. Axey lashes out, slicing through three Team Burn grunts in a single swipe. Blood pools on the ground as it bounds to the next group, leaving a trail of body parts before they can react. In a few moments, a dozen Team Burn members are lying on the ground. Only a few of them have enough life left in them to even call out in pain. The rest were dead before they hit the floor.
"Wow, it's so much faster than I've ever seen it," Matt says.
"That's the Dragon Dance," Rotom says from Elera's back. "It increases a pokémon's speed and attack power. Axey just learned it the other day, when we were hunting the Stantler."
"Amazing."
"Let's keep pushing," Elera says.
They sprint across the large room littered with overturned desks and discarded electronics. The double doors leading to a long hallway are thrown open as they burst through without concern for a potential ambush. They have to move quickly if they want to maintain the element of surprise and meet up with the other pokémon.
"Which way?" Matt calls as they approach a branch in the hall.
"Left." Elera studied the old maps of the factory using Rotom's screen yesterday, but she has no way of knowing how much things have changed. For some reason, Matt trusts her judgment without question. She just hopes she isn't leading him into an impossible situation.
They push through another set of double doors and emerge into a huge, jumbled space. The room extends at least a hundred yards in every direction. Old equipment that has long fallen into disrepair towers over them, creating small corridors of space. Elera holds up her hand, slowing them to a stop, but she doesn't stop moving completely. She can't.
They go right, deeper into the central building of the old Pokéball Factory complex. She guides Matt and Axey through several turns, all leading toward what she hopes is the center of the room where they can climb onto one of the machines and get a view of the space. Each corridor is void of any resistance, and her shoulders start to relax slightly. Maybe no one knows they're coming yet.
They make a left turn at an intersection, where Elera is forced to push back against Matt, leading him back into cover behind the side of a piece of machinery. The path ahead leads directly to the center of the factory floor, where a portion of the room has been cleared and one of the old machines has been repurposed into a throne of sorts for someone who must be the leader of Team Burn. Elera didn't get a good look, but she is fairly certain she wasn't spotted.
She points down a different corridor, hoping to flank around to the back and attack the leader from behind. They dart across the open space and run as softly as they can across the concrete floor. Elera can see her victory ahead of her. If they can just remain undetected for a few more minutes, she'll be able to take down the Team Burn leadership and end the team in one move. She has to get there.
"Elera, look out!"
Matt barrels into Elera's back, knocking her forward and out of the path of a flurry of sharp leaves coming at her. He winces in pain as several lines of blood appear on his legs and back. The leaves didn't dig too deep, so he forces himself to his feet as Elera scrambles out from beneath him, searching for the source of the attack.
"That was Razor Leaf," Rotom says.
Axey pulls on Elera's pants and points to the sky. Up above them, near the ceiling, a silver, metallic bird pokémon is carrying a pokémon with a leaf coming out of the top of its head and eight more around its neck.
"Bayleef, the Leaf Poké—"
"No time for all that," Elera says. "Just run."
They sprint forward as hunks of metal fall, nearly crushing them after being sliced off by the Razor Leaf. Each piece of debris gets closer and closer, and Elera has to dive and roll to avoid being hit as her energy fades. They turn down another narrow corridor and run as hard as they can manage. A piece of metal barely misses Elera's heel, digging into the ground behind her. Matt doesn't have time to react. He trips and hits the ground hard, knocking the breath from his lungs. Another volley of leaves descends upon him as the floor underneath him starts to rumble.
Just before the leaves slice through him, surely killing him, the floor opens beneath him. The Razor Leaf collides harmlessly with the concrete floor as Matt falls the short distance into an underground tunnel. "Shrew." Sandshrew brushes the dust from Matt's shirt and pushes him to his feet. They emerge from the hole and face Elera, who has turned to fight flying pokémon.
"Shrew!" A line of flying stars emerge from Sandshrew's mouth and fly toward the Bayleef being carried by the unknown pokémon. The bird pokémon flies to the side, but the stars alter their course and connect with their target. The two pokémon cry out and fall from the sky, landing on top of a rusted catwalk with a thump. A loud whine of twisting metal echoes through the cavernous room as the weight of the pokémon threatens to bring the entire metal structure crashing to the floor.
"Let's go!" Elera says. "While we have the chance."
"Hold on," Matt says while grabbing her arm. "Something's happening to Sandshrew."
Sandshrew's body is bathed in a bright light as it morphs and grows. Spikes emerge from the hard shell on its back and the claws on its front and back feet grow longer and sharper. Its eyes narrow and take on an edge they lacked before. "Slash!" the pokémon calls as its transformation is completed.
"Sandshrew has evolved into Sandslash, the Mouse Pokémon. A Ground type," Rotom says. A cry from the enemy Bayleef cuts it off before it can continue. "I'll tell you the rest later. You should run now."
"Follow me," Elera calls. They take off at a sprint once again. Elera continues to lead them toward what she believes to be the center of the room, nearest the leader of this evil group.
They finally emerge into the cleared space surrounding the makeshift throne. The old machine is covered in red cloth stitched with orange and yellow flames. Steps made from smaller machines lead down from the pedestal on four sides. A woman sits atop an ornate chair that appears to have been carved from pure charcoal and coated in some substance to keep the black dust from rubbing off. They can't see her face, but her long red hair hangs in waves over the back of the chair.
Her entire chair rotates as she spins to face them. She's younger than Elera expected, maybe twenty years old. She wears a confident smirk that draws attention to her brightly painted red lips. Yellow makeup shapes her black eyes, matching the colors of fire that mark the Team Burn uniform. She laughs to herself before standing and walking slowly toward them, her confidence oozing with every step.
"Is this all?" she says, her raspy voice rising and falling like music. "The way my team is up in a fuss, I thought there were a hundred of you. Tell me what it is you want so you can get out of here and I can get back to my morning."
"We're here to take you down," Elera says. "To end you and this team."
The woman laughs aloud, now only a few steps away. "That's funny. You think you two and these little pokémon can best me and my army of warriors, both human and pokémon?"
"We got this far, didn't we?" Matt puffs up his chest in an attempt to look intimidating, but Elera can see his hands trembling at his sides.
The leader of Team Burn doesn't even bother to look at him. She never takes her eyes off of Elera. "You did manage to evade my perimeter defenses. However, this is where your little quest ends. You will never make it out of here alive."
"Who says I care what happens to me?" Elera says. "What's stopping me from killing you right now?"
The leader's eyes narrow ever so slightly. "You can try."
Elera lunges forward without warning. She draws her ax from her hip and swings at the red-haired woman. Elera feels one hand on her forearm and another on her ribs. Before she can register what is happening, she is flipping in the air. She lands hard on her back, her battle-ax wrenched from her grip.
"I'm Raize, by the way," the woman says as she casually twirls Elera's ax.
Elera gasps for breath as she tries to figure out what just happened to her. She's never been so easily disarmed before, even when she was young and just learning to fight. Who is this Raize woman, anyway?
The battle-ax clatters on the ground beside Elera, who snatches it up before Raize can change her mind. Elera pushes herself to her feet, struggling to hide the pain shooting through her hip. "Good move."
"I wish I could say the same," Raize says. "But I would be lying. You telegraphed everything you were about to do. Even my Skarmory and Bayleef would have known what you were planning, and they're all the way up there." She points above her head, where the two pokémon are circling down toward them.
Elera raises her ax to defend herself, but the pokémon don't attack. They swoop down in an arc and land behind Raize, who turns her back to Elera and Matt to rub the pokémon on their heads. "Good job, both of you," she says. "You led these creeps right to me. I'll handle it from here."
The pokémon nod and step back in unison. Raize turns back to Elera and smirks again. "So, tell me, why is it you want to take us down."
"You destroyed our villages and killed everyone in them," Matt shouts.
"So?" Raize says, so nonchalant. "We've destroyed hundreds of popup villages through this region. And we clearly didn't kill everyone if two children made it out."
"But, why?" Matt steps forward, only to be halted by Sandslash grabbing his shirt with its claw.
"For the good of the world, of course," Raize says. "The best thing that ever happened to this world was when it burned. When the people were knocked out, or almost knocked out, at least, the world started to heal, to truly grow into the best it could be, with pokémon to rule it all. I have no doubts that if the pokémon of legends and myths hadn't been so brutally destroyed, we would have been eliminated completely. As it stands, though, I have taken it upon myself to finish what our ancestors started, to burn the rest of the human population out of this place so that pokémon can live in peace."
"What about you? Why do you get to live?" Elera says.
"We don't." Raize paces back and forth. "Everyone in Team Burn has taken an oath. When we accomplish our goal, we will also be cleansed in the fire cast down upon us by the pokémon. We will see to it that the human species is eliminated."
"Hold on one moment," Rotom says, whirring up around Elera to get between her and Raize. "I am new to this time, so I am not as familiar with the current relationship between humans and pokémon. However, in my time, humans and pokémon lived and worked together in harmony. The war was awful, yes. And the worst of humanity made decisions that were truly deplorable.
"But I believe we can learn from those mistakes. If you were to use your power and your influence to teach people how to live with pokémon, to exist together and cooperate to make the world better, you could help make this world better than it's ever been. Together, we could show the humans how to atone for the wrongdoings of their ancestors."
"Let us destroy Team Burn," Elera says. "Then, maybe we can build it up into something new, something better."
Raize lowers her head. She nods a couple of times. Relief washes over Elera. She may be at the end of this journey, at last. She will finally eliminate the group that destroyed her whole life. And she won't even have to kill anyone to do it.
But Raize isn't nodding. She's laughing.
"I knew you wouldn't understand."
Raize lunges forward. Steel flashes in the flickering light of the fires. Elera feels the cool metal on her skin before her ribs erupt in fiery pain. She clutches at her side as her gray shirt is soaked in red blood. Raize spins a knife once in her hand and holds it up near her cheek.
"No!" Matt lunges forward with his sword drawn.
Raize steps to the side and extends her leg, tripping him and sending him tumbling harmlessly to the ground. She stands over Elera as her pokémon bar Axey from charging in. "You will be the next in a long line of humans to burn so that the pokémon may thrive."
A blast sounds from the distance. Raize glances in that direction but pays it little attention. Elera can feel herself slipping as the edges of her vision start to darken. Raize holds her knife above Elera and smirks again. She tosses her long hair back over her shoulder and raises her arm. Elera closes her eyes.
"Char!"
A wave of heat washes over Elera. The stab of the knife never comes. Instead, she hears it clang against the ground beside her. She opens her eyes long enough to see Zara and the other pokémon running to her. Her eyes fall closed again. Everything fades away.
#
A splash of water jolts Elera awake. Blopblop stands over her. It's covered in scratches and scrapes, but it stands strong. A burning pain aches in Elera's side. She looks down to see that her shirt has been torn away. The cut made by Raize's knife has been seared shut. There is going to be a nasty scar there, adding to her collection.
"Can you move?" Matt grunts from behind her.
"I think so." She pushes herself up onto her elbows, fighting though the intense pain in her wound. She turns to see Matt holding off a red and yellow pokémon with sharp claws and a long, thin snout. "Matt!"
Elera forces herself to her feet, picking up her fallen battle-ax. She limps forward as Matt is being pushed back. She swings with as much force as she can mange. The ax sticks into the pokémon's hide. It cries out in pain and lunges swings at her, missing by barely an inch. Matt pushes the pokémon back, giving him just enough room to stab forward with his sword, impaling the pokémon. He is already at Elera's side and holding her upright by the time the life drains from the pokémon's eyes.
"Did you do this?" she asks and points to the burn on her side.
"Zara helped," he says with a shrug.
"Thank you." She turns and scans the area to see all of her pokémon friends engaged in intense combat with both humans and pokémon alike. "Where is Raize?"
Matt points to the throne, where Raize sits and surveys the battlefield. "She said something about this being a grand opportunity to watch more humans be removed from this world and then walked up there to watch."
"We have to get to her."
"How? We're barely alive here. We need to find a way to get out of here with our lives."
"That won't change anything," Elera says.
"No," Matt admits. "But, it will let us come back and fight again when we're stronger."
"They'll be expecting it. We have to do this now. We'll never get another chance."
"Elera, come on," Matt pleads. "Let's just go. We'll figure it out."
"You go," she says. "Take the pokémon with you. I'm staying to fight."
She pushes herself up off of Matt and starts to walk away, but he is right by her side. "I'm not leaving you."
"Matt, just go."
"No. I'm staying. I'm seeing it through with you."
She nods and picks up speed. The adrenaline coursing through her veins dulls the pain in her side, though only slightly. She pulls her ax from the corpse of the fallen pokémon and charges toward the battle. She and Matt swing wildly in every direction, aiming for any enemy they can reach, pokémon or human. They manage to carve a path through the melee by targeting those already engaged in battle with one of the pokémon on their side. Within minutes, they have gathered up with their eight pokémon companions and formed into a circle with dozens of enemies surrounding them.
"Well done," Raize calls from above them. "However, you will still fall, as you should."
"How are we going to get to her?" Matt mutters from beside Elera.
"Duck when I tell you to."
Elera nods to Axey, who backs into the center of the circle and spins in a circle as green light surrounds it. At the same time, a yellow light pulses as it uses a move Rotom called Focus Energy. The green light gets stronger as Axey repeats the spin five more times. At last, it looks to Elera and growls.
"Down!"
Matt, Elera, and the pokémon drop to the ground as the circle of enemies closes in on them. "Frax!" Axey spins in a circle as its claws extend into green light. It slices through human and pokémon alike as if they aren't there. It doesn't slow until it has done three complete spins and all of the Team Burn attackers lie on the floor, dead. Reinforcements are running toward them, but they're nearly thirty yards away. This is their only chance.
Raize looks on in shock as Elera and Axey bound up the stairs toward her. "False Swipe!" Elera calls.
Axey lunges forward and slices at Raize with its tusk, impaling her through the midsection but stopping just before delivering a death blow. Raize falls to her knees as blood pours from her wound, in almost the same place she cut Elera.
"It seems our positions have switched rather quickly," Elera says as she stands over Raize. She raises her battle-ax above her head. "There is one difference, though. I won't let you escape."
"No, please," Raize says. "I don't want to die. I only did this because it's what I was born to do. My parents brought me up to be the next in a long line of Team Burn leaders dedicated to ridding the world of humans. I never wanted this. I just want to live."
"What about your pact to be cleansed in fire?" Elera mocks.
"I changed my mind," Raize begs. "I want to live so I can truly help the world. Let's do it. Together."
"I don't need your help to change the world."
Raize's eyes fall to the ground. She laughs once, coughs, and grins at Elera, her blood staining her teeth a sickening shade of red. "It is no matter. We are but one of many Teams dedicated to ridding this world of human interference and destruction. You may have defeated me here, but this is where your misguided quest ends. You will pay for your transgressions against us."
"It's a shame you won't be here to see it."
"Elera," Matt calls. "We don't have to be like them. We can let her live. It only takes one good deed for the world to truly begin to heal. This could be that moment. This could be the decision that leads to real harmony between humans and pokémon."
"I suppose it could be." Elera pauses for one breath before swinging down with all of her strength. Her ax buries into Raises chest, killing her instantly as it connects with her heart. "But she deserves to die."
Elera limps forward as Matt stares up at her in shock. The room falls into silence. Even the Team Burn members look on without speaking.
White light bathes Axey as it grows and evolves into its final form, Haxorus. What emerges is a black pokémon with red, curved tusks, sharp claws, and a tough hide. At over six feet in height, it is a terrifying sight to behold, especially beside the blood-soaked, dead-eyed visage of Elera.
Elera nods to Axey and pats it on the head. She flops into the chair as Axey takes its place beside her. She rotates to face Matt and the other pokémon, who look on in awe.
"Now, let's get started."